Of Family And Q

by Anime-Ronin

What If' Challenge Answer: What if Q had another son ... Xander Harris?

3. Chapter 4

Of Family And Q 2: Back To School

4?

AN: Yes, later on in this chapter, I am blatantly ignoring the fact that the UPN show, Enterprise, ever existed outside of a passing reference – they screwed with the timeline too much with the Temporal Cold War crap and the Xindi thing, so I'm forgetting it ever happened, mostly.

AN2: Now, we get to see a little of the hell that Alexander Q. Harris went through on Demons 6 – some of it may be a bit hairy, and you may ask the question of 'What in the hell does the Federation want with these jerks', but all of that will eventually be explained. Be warned, there is some heavy angst in some parts of this – what can I say, some people should learn to not ask the questions of you don't want the answers.

(Starfleet Medical – Psychiatric Ward – January 4)

Admiral Janeway looked at the containment field that held the cadet and sighed at the sight – her 'nephew', Alexander Harris, was crouched into the corner of his cell, looking haggard, his eyes closed, and his hands methodically signing, in battlefield signals, out old commands even as his mental readings went back and forth across the chart; she wasn't sure just what in the hell had happened while he was away on his 'learning trip' that B'elana had set up for him, but apparently there had been one hell of a fire fight and his mind had, for want of a better term, snapped. The doctors at Starfleet Medical had said that it was a case of Post Traumatic Stress merged with a serious case of shell shock, all of which had been masked by his rather easy-going and personable attitude – basically, he had been a ticking time bomb that had gone off somewhat quietly once but this time had gone off and taken most of an attacking ship's crew with it.

"Admiral." She turned and saw her old protégé, Seven of Nine … Lt. Anika Hensen … and her paramour, Lt. Harry Kim, and for her part, Seven didn't look like she had slept very well.

"Lieutenants. What brings you here?"

Anika looked at her and smiled sadly, "He is not only my personal assistant, but he is also my friend, Admiral. Do the doctors know what caused this … break?"

Katharine sighed and massaged her temples, "Too much combat as a child, not enough time to allow his mind to recover from the stress and then he's thrust into another combat situation – it was bound to happen, it was just a matter of when."

Seven winced and looked at Xander, her brow creasing, "'Flank left quadrant, cover fire diversion left battlement tower, keep fire, mask explosive placement.'"

Harry looked at his girlfriend – the mere thought of that made Katharine smile slightly, as she and Neelix had split the pool on just who was going to get together with Seven, eventually, "You understand that?"

"Yes – Xander once told me that, apparently, there are a great many similarities within the old Earth militaries and those of Demons 6, more importantly they adopted more than a little of old Earth military protocol to their own. Admiral, is he re-living one of his old missions?"

"Apparently he is – how long he will be like this is anyone's guess. Did either of you see him … weaken, if that's the term, at any time this past semester that would have suggested this?"

Seven frowned but Harry spoke up first, "Only after that 'trick' Wendy and B'eth played on him, the whole pregnancy thing."

Katharine frowned even as Seven walked up to the security field, "Seven, what are you doing?"

Seven didn't respond to her, only assuming a stern expression, "Soldier, report!"

The effects, as they say, were instantaneous – Xander shot to his feet, assuming a smart, crisp salute, a hybrid between a modern hold of attention and an old Legionnaire salute, where the fist was banged against the heart, his face set into a flat mask, his eyes a mystery, "Lieutenant – our mission was a success and all enemy combatants have been eliminated, save the scientists, at your request."

Seven narrowed her eyes slightly and, briefly, Katharine wondered if any of the Doctor's drama lessons were coming into play at this time, "Tell me, soldier, how do you feel?"

"I feel nothing that I am not ordered to feel, Lieutenant." The cold, dead tone with which those words were delivered sent shivers down Katharine's spine even as she saw Seven's hand clench behind her back, a sure sign that she, too, was agitated.

"Good – stand down and take a few hours of time for yourself." Seven stepped back and walked away, her mask of chilled indifference falling away even as Xander went to his bunk and promptly fell into it, passing out, "To answer your question, Admiral, I did some research on Demons 6 and found that their military hand signals not all that different from the ones once used on Earth some three to four centuries ago, hence how I was able to translate what he was 'saying'. Needless to say … this is troubling."

"Indeed it is." Katharine, Harry and Seven all jerked and turned as one to see Q standing in front of the security field, his face a mystery, "This … was never supposed to happen."

"Q, what are you doing here? Is this your doing?"

He turned and glared at her slightly, "I am here because I wish to be here, and yes, this is my doing, but only in part."

"And what did you do to him?"

Q gave Harry a look before sighing, "Very well, if you must know, I altered Xander's memories for him to more fit into his role here at the Academy and in Starfleet – he's a warrior, a solider, and quite frankly he's always been too cheerful for that role, hence his … inner darkness."

Katharine arched an eyebrow, "'Inner darkness', Q?"

"Yes – don't get me wrong, he is a very nice person, for a human being, but if riled … let's just say that not only is he capable of complete sadism on levels your puny minds aren't capable of comprehending, but also he's capable of just not caring." Katharine was about to say something to Q, but he went on, "But regardless, he was always doing what was best for his friends, whether they knew it or not."

This gave her pause for a few moments as she began to picture what Q was saying and to whom he was placing it to – she knew Xander was from another dimension all together, he had told her that much himself, but the fact that Q had begun to 'edit' his memories to fit this world … did that mean that he was turning Xander into who he claimed to be - a soldier from the hell hole known as Demons 6? As she thought, though, Seven spoke up.

"Why is it that you are taking such an interest in this human, Q? Aren't you supposed to be annoying Captain Picard?"

Q shot her a dark look, "If you must know, little Borg … he is my son." This shocked Seven and Harry into silence, but Q went on, "It was decided upon in the Continuum that Alexander's memories be augmented somewhat for him to fit more easily into his role in this world, as I stated before, but it goes far beyond that – his entire makeup, who he is, has been changed … and this is the result. In reality, though, I should not be surprised – he is, after all, only human."

"But," Harry interrupted, "you said he is your son. How does that make him 'only human'?"

"Because I have blocked him his access to his Q powers – for all intents and purposes, he is nothing more than a lowly little monkey with a hellish past." Q stepped back from the field and ran his hands through his hair with a sigh, "I know that he will survive this, as he's survived everything else in his life … but I can't explain this gnawing feeling I have right here," he pointed at his stomach, "that I can't seem to shake. I … I'm worried."

"He's your son – it is your duty to be worried." Seven stepped up to the security field once again and let her fingers grave the surface of it, "How could you do this to him, your own progeny?"

Q shot her another irritated look and, briefly, Katharine wandered if Seven was suicidal, "I am doing this to not only build his character, but to expand his mind, to broaden his horizons – a Q with a one-track mind is predictable, but a many-tracked Q's mind … that is a work of art." With that, Q flashed away and left the three of them alone in the room, a sudden beep making them realize that time had been stopped in Q's presence.

"Admiral, you don't appear to be surprised by this." Harry's tone was level, serious, and exactly what she expected of him, "Did you know about Xander?"

"Only in part, Harry – I knew he was Q's son, and he was here to learn about the universe from our point of view, but … I never guessed this would happen." Katharine looked on with the other two officers as Xander's body began to twitch as he began to dream … a dream that was more than likely a terror.

(Xander's Mind)

He looked around his mind, not for the first time, and noticed the numerous, but subtle, changes that had been made over the past few weeks – he had first seen them when 'the bad joke', as he liked to call it, went off and he figured that it was some kind of personality integration from his father, Q, to make him more at ease in the universe, but what it was in reality wasn't figured out until the dreams started. It was like Soldier Boy, all over again – places he had never been, combat he had never fought, people he had never killed, all assaulting his mind at one time and, had he been human, it would have overwhelmed him this time as it almost had last time.

Only he wasn't human – he was Q, and these trifling nightmares didn't have a hoot in hell of ever taking over his mind, "Well, this … is annoying."

"That is an understatement." He turned and saw his father's wife, his very-pregnant step-mother, standing there in Starfleet Command colors and wearing a somewhat pensive frown, "Tell me, Q … Alexander, exactly what is it that you gather from all of this is?"

"That the human mind is a fragile thing, even if said mind is that of a Q trapped in a human body?"

She smiled at his smart-assed remark, but said nothing, merely arching an eyebrow.

"That I need to be careful – you and the rest of the Q have seemingly altered my mind in a way that makes my cover story more believable. I can feel it now that I don't have my body's limited feelings in place – I am both Xander Harris of Sunnydale and Alexander Q. Harris of Demons 6, and apparently I'm now a few sandwiches shy of a picnic basket."

QF (Q-female) merely rolled her eyes, "Hardly – all of your 'sandwiches', as you so crudely put it, are still there, son, but all you have to do is not only find them, but keep them all in your 'basket'. Yes, we did this to you in order to make your cover story more believable as far too many are starting to suspect that you are a plant, outside of that mortal, Katherine, and the occasional psychotic break will keep you on the level."

"And out of the Marines, right?" He grinned at her blink of shock, "Oh, come on – it's transparent; sure, some of the best Marines that ever existed had a few screws loose upstairs, and those who did not were too damned stubborn to take 'no' or 'it cannot be done' as an acceptable answer, so if I'm seen as mentally unstable, I'm out of the Marines, permanently."

A slow grin crossed QF's face as she looked at him, seemingly, in a new light, "I see that there is some hope for you yet, son – obviously your life as a mortal hasn't completely eradicated your ability to think outside of the box." She looked around and frowned, "Now, we need to speak about several other things, mostly concerning how unorganized this place is – believe it or not, we Q are notoriously tidy beings."

Xander looked at her and blinked, "Are you telling me … to clean up my room?"

"Organize it would be more precise, but yes, I am – before we do that, though, you need to go back to your conscious self and take care of your 'mundane' problems, and when you go to 'sleep' tonight, we shall work on organizing your mind to something more of Q standards."

Before Xander could say anything, there was a flash of light and he was snapping upright in the bunk he had been in, behind a level ten security field, and groaned too quietly for anyone to hear, "I hate acting." With a grunt, he shoved off of the bunk he had been laying on and stretched out, groaning as he did, and yawning hugely before he stopped and looked at the assembled party of Katherine, Wendy, B'eth, and Commander Deana Troi-Riker, who happened to now run the psych department of Starfleet Medical, "Hi. What happened?"

Admiral Janeway walked up to the field, "Xander … what do you remember last?"

"Waking up on a very uncomfortable bunk behind a level 10 security field, again, in Starfleet Medical, again, and asking 'what happened', but if you mean before that, Admiral, not much right now." He shivered, though, "Really wish I could forget some of the things that're running though my head right now, too, but as that has a small chance of happening, I'm going to guess … psychotic episode?"

Commander Troi-Riker walked up to the field and frowned, "Alexander, you were brought here six days ago by the crew of the 'Lucky Dog' after an intense battle between your ship and pirates who managed to board the ship. From all accounts you apparently suffered some kind of regression …"

Xander nodded, "Let me guess – I killed everyone?"

Admiral Janeway shook her head, "No, just the pirates, Xander – can you remember anything that could help us with your treatments? What it was that set you off?"

Xander thought back to everything that had happened, "I remember the initial explosion of the breeching charges from the pirate ship – they came through, firing weapons of several types, old slug throwers and the odd energy weapon, mostly, and …" he shuddered as the memories assaulted him.

"Xander, I need you to tell me what happened."

When he opened his eyes, he wasn't sure what Katherine saw, but it made her almost shrink back, "The smells and sounds hit me, Admiral – I'm not sure what it was about them, but the smell of the brunt metal, the propellant used on the slug throwers and the smell coming from the dead bodies … I think that's what triggered it."

Commander Troi-Riker stepped up a little closer, "Alexander … you don't sound surprised."

He looked into her chocolate brown eyes and made sure that he had her undivided attention, "Commander, have you ever been in a war, smelled week-old dead bodies that have been exposed to the elements? Have you ever been covered in blood that wasn't yours and been able to smell nothing else? I have – I'm not sure that it is ever going to change, but certain smells … they trigger something in me."

"Could that be it, Commander?" Katherine turned to the empathic woman even as the memories assaulted him even more, speaking softly, "Could it just be sense-memory that triggered this episode?"

"It's possible," Troi-Riker conceded grudgingly, "but I will not allow this one to slide this time, Admiral. Cadet Harris will be in therapy this time, and undergoing a chemical therapy, if necessary – we'll work out the schedule, but it will happen, Admiral, and no amount of pressure from you or the Marine Commanders will make it otherwise."

"No drugs, Commander – I have enough problems, so remember when to take some meds would only compound them." Troi-Riker looked up at him as if to say 'you are giving me orders for what reason?', and he went on, "Please? I'd rather try and work through this without medications, if at all possible, Commander."

She narrowed her eyes slightly and then nodded, "Very well – therapy for now, but if I see the need for it, you will start a chemical regimen if I see fit."

"Thank you, Commander," Admiral Janeway said with a slight smile even as Wendy and B'eth both approached the force field. "Now, can we turn this shield off?"

"Not a chance, Admiral – we need to see just how far his problems go."

Wendy snorted at this, "Which problems, Commander? He has so many of them."

B'eth joined that snort as well, "And while most of them can be because he's a male, some of them cannot."

Commander Troi-Riker arched an eyebrow at the pair and grinned slightly as she looked at him, "And these are your friends, Cadet?"

Xander just shrugged, having heard those particular comments before from them, though in the respect of him being 'typically male', "Hey, with friends like this, I don't need to worry about getting a swelled head – they puncture and deflate my ego when I need it … and even when I don't." He caught the looks from both the Admiral and the Commander and he grinned, "Of course, I do the same to them all the time … though unlike me, their bodies and egos generally keep themselves in check."

Wendy, of course, snorted at this, "Prove it."

Xander smiled as he thought back to the previous semester, "Last semester, leaving our building, you proved that, through slipping on the top step, Vulcans can fly, but their landings are a bit rough."

"Especially when they land on their backsides," B'eth chipped in helpfully, gaining a glare from Wendy. Xander grinned at that memory, knowing that he, nor any member of his race, had not a thing to do with that particular event, hence why it was so funny – of course, Wendy had admitted to them that she was also a bit of a klutz, so it couldn't be laughed at too much.

Said Vulcan stuck her slightly-green tongue out at B'eth, "Oh, really? And let's see, who was it that took out one of Boothby's petunia beds with her rather skilled lack of grace while trying to merely walk down the sidewalk?" Xander winced at that particular memory, knowing that, once again, he nor any of the Q had a hand in that particular disaster – Boothby had been absolutely livid about it and had made B'eth replant all of the petunias in said bed, an act that B'eth had hated because she was allergic to the petunia pollen.

Even as the half-Vulcan and the half-Klingon women bickered back and forth, Commander Troi-Riker looked at him and then at the Admiral, "Perhaps a group session could be arranged as well, Admiral – they're all quite mad."

"Welcome to my world, Commander," Katherine bemoaned playfully as he stuck his tongue out at her.

(End of Week 17 of school year - Saturday)

Xander groaned out slightly as he pushed out yet another weight-assisted pushup for his morning physical workout even as the weight he had borrowed yawned her own slight protest at having been woken up for such a menial task – B'eth, Xander had found, weighed more than Wendy did, so he merely used her by having her sitting on his back while he did reps, working not only his human muscles, but also his miniscule Q-power allotments in that he was having to ration out every erg of energy precisely to do the tasks that he wanted to do; he'd found out quite by accident that he now had access to a very tiny portion of what he was capable of when he had, in a fit of rage while trying to get a holographic plasma stream conduit to align properly, inadvertently not only made the alignment quite perfect, but also the hologram. He'd felt absolutely drained after that and had, once his little brother had explained it to him (and replaced the real plasma unit with another holographic one and altered the sensor logs of the training holodeck), taken to learning how to properly ration out his allotment of power so that not a 'drop' was wasted, hence his doing B'eth-weighted pushups. So far, he was able to do fifty with her on his back, seventy with Wendy, and ten with the both of them … and those totals were going up every day as he learned how to squeeze out that much more action out of every bit of his energy.

His door soon opened and Wendy walked in, tired from pulling an all-nighter in studying, regardless of the fact that it was Saturday and there was fun to be had, before taking her position next to B'eth and yawning, yet again, "Morning."

"Mor'ring," he grunted out as she settled into place. "How was studying?"

He felt her shrug even as he tried to redistribute his power to his protesting muscles, balancing himself again, "Not bad – Xenobiology is a pain in my tuckus."

B'eth snorted slightly above him as he pressed out one double-weighted pushup, "Use words that make sense, Wendy – 'tuckus' is not a word, even my spell-checker says so."

Xander shook his head as he felt the strain start to get to him, "No arguing this early, please? I've got a shrink-session this afternoon and I'm not looking forwards to it."

Both women were silent even as he pushed out five, ten and then fifteen more pushups without too much trouble, but he fought for every one after that point – the revelations that had been made about his past over the past week from their digging and his answers (though however reluctant) had placed a large strain on their friendship, namely because they realized just how much of his fictional past he was really hiding from them and how it had truly effected him. B'eth had started to look at him rather oddly, as if she was sizing him up to either take a swing at or to jump his bones (he was never sure which), while Wendy was always a little apprehensive around him, especially when he ghosted up behind them and spooked the both of them – she made this adorable little squeaking noise that was so very un-Vulcan that he couldn't help but laugh even as he and B'eth were scolded for said actions. There was one rule, though – when he told them 'no', that he would not answer a question or a probing comment, then that was it, no more begging, whining, wheedling or griping about his holding back answers, namely because there were several incidents where those memories sickened even him, regardless of some of the hellish things he had seen on the Hellmouth.

Five minutes later he reached his new personal best of twenty-one dual-weighted pushups and both girls got off of his back while he took a quick sonic shower and dressed down for the day – they had breakfast to get to, and then a cram session for their mutually-shared Federation History class, something that often bored him to tears. Often, it was he who complained why they needed to know who Christopher Pike was, or what race that James T. Kirk and his Enterprise met on this planet or that – none of it really mattered in his mind, regardless of the fact that it was a core class that ALL students had to take, regardless of how boring and dry the first 75 years of the Federation really was (though there were some tantalizingly juicy bits here and there that were never really expounded on, like the NX-01 'Enterprise', the first Warp 5-capable ship, captained by Jonathan Archer).

After breakfast and a quick jaunt to the library to download things of importance from the Academy Archives, the trio found themselves sitting out in a small patch of grass that was drenched in the sunny light that often found its way down on the area, despite the fact that it was January. They quietly studied together for nearly twenty minutes before Wendy sighed and put her PADD down, "Xander, we need to talk." He looked up at her, remembering the last time she said those words and she growled, "No, I'm not pregnant. It's … this thing you didn't tell us about – why?"

He arched an eyebrow at her, "Why what? About what, actually, would be a more appropriate question."

"About your past," B'eth groused slightly, not looking up from her PADD. "If it was bothering you that much, you could have told us."

Xander snorted at this, "And tell you what, precisely? That what you and Wendy and everyone who has access to my file are reading a sanitized version of what I've done in my life? That the numbers are probably low-balled for the sake of people not shooting me on sight? Oh or should I have told you about that my memory won't let me forget the faces of the non-combatants that got killed as well?" THOSE memories had kept him up at night several times, regardless of the fact that he didn't need sleep – he actually hadn't eaten for an entire day because his stomach couldn't hold anything down with those memories in his mind all of the time, that is, until he realized that none of it had ever happened, much as it had been with Soldier Boy. "Would have telling you that made any of what I'm going through potentially not happen? Or would it have hastened it's happening? Tell me that, if you please – I'm dying for the answer, here."

Wendy and B'eth were silent for a while, as if thinking everything he had said over, and when they finally snapped out of whatever trance they were in, neither of them looked happy as Wendy spoke, "You're right, Xander – it would have changed a few things."

"We may not even be friends, had you told us this," B'eth chipped in seriously, "but the fact remains that you didn't trust us with your secrets."

He narrowed his eyes, "B'eth, Wendy … I don't trust anyone with ALL of my secrets – it's too dangerous."

Wendy nodded stiffly, "Alright, I can accept that – why not?"

Xander didn't miss a beat, "There is an old Earth saying, Wendy, 'The truth can set you free,' but it's a lie – the Truth can and will get you killed … or me and you. I've done a lot of things, girls, a lot of things I'll never forget even if I wanted to, but if you two got hurt because of something I did back then …" Xander didn't … couldn't… finish the sentence as images of their mangled and mutilated corpses filled his mind, their bodies defiled in ways that made him want to throw up immediately.

B'eth sat forwards, her dark eyes shining slightly as the wind stirred her long hair and the sun made her ridged forehead more pronounced, "Xander, isn't that our decision to make, whether or not to risk knowing?"

"They have a point, you know," his father chipped in, fazed out of time and standing directly behind Wendy. "Much as your own Buffy and Willow did in your past, you cannot make their decisions for them – we Q are a great many things, but we try not to be hypocrites."

Xander did not answer his father, but rather answered B'eth, "Yes, it is, but it's also my decision whether or not to tell you the truth you want so much to hear … and right now I choose to not make that decision. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a session with the shrink and then I'm going to go get properly sick." Without waiting for them say anything, Xander got up and walked away at a brisk clip towards the psychiatrist's office.

Of course, his father didn't let him get away that easily, nor without the final word, "Son, I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, but as Q, you can never tell everyone everything – the minds of these poor primates simply cannot comprehend the forces or the intricacies of what it is to be Q, let alone most of what your background REALLY entails. Remember this, that a Q with a moral code is a good thing, but a Q with too strict of a moral code is often found inside of some scientist's lab, trapped by their own foolish pride and those very same morals." With that, his father went away in a flash of light and Xander sighed – it was at times like this he was half tempted to tell the psychiatrist everything and let the poor bastard try and analyze that (or be sent into a padded cell himself), but he knew it would never be that easy, so he merely sucked it up and soldiered on … just like he always had.

(Later that evening)

He studied his PADDs while she watched him with the intensity that a bird of prey watched it's next meal, waiting for him to make the one mistake that she knew that all cadets in the engineering program made (namely because she made them herself) – EPS conduits could only do so much in a normal lifespan, so there were times that they had to be overhauled and replaced, so they were currently running a simulation where Xander was having to blindly shut the system off, check it over and then replace the unit without getting himself 'killed', and he was about two seconds away from doing it, "Careful, Cadet – are you sure you want to pull that?"

Xander ignored her pointedly as he had done so often that day, reaching in and pulling several isolinear chips from their ports and sliding them into others that would shut the system and flow of power off, but not bleed the system. B'elana said nothing as he failed to notice his mistake and began to dismantle the unit, causing an eruption of holographic gasses, fire and shrapnel, which was quickly followed by a vast array of his own rather vast array of curse words.

As the program reset itself, B'elana smiled tightly, "Xander, you need to loosen up – everyone gets this wrong, even I did, and I'm sure that last one isn't possible for anyone but the Sulaban."

He shot her a rather heated glare, "I never said the person would live, Lt. Commander Torres."

This made B'elana arch an eyebrow, "Alright, Xander, what's eating you? You've been acting like Admiral Janeway without her morning pot of coffee all session and it's starting to get on my nerves."

He was quiet for a moment, but he then spoke rather disgustedly, "B'eth and Wendy wanted to know why I never told them about what I was going through, and they seem to think that they're entitled to my deepest, darkest secrets just because they happen to be my friends."

She arched an eyebrow at this, "Oh, really? My, how absurd of them, wanting to know about a friend who is hurting and won't tell them. The NERVE!" Her not-so-gentle chiding and sarcasm didn't go unnoticed by her charge even as he looked up at her and arched his own eyebrow at her, "Xander, they want to help you."

He just snorted, "Ma'am, you can't help someone who can't be helped – I can get through this, it just takes time … just like last time."

She recognized the tactics he was using to get her to leave him alone, but what he didn't know was that she had helped perfect those same tactics a long time ago, "Really? Alright, we won' talk about it anymore." He shot her a look that clearly asked 'what are you up to' and she went on with a serious look, "What happened, then? On the ship, when you lost it?"

He looked at the covered EPS conduit in front of him, the program waiting for him to start, "You read the report."

"Yes, I did, but I want to hear it from you – what was it that set you off?"

He was quiet, again, for several minutes as he took the panel off and began to work back through the program, until he broke his silence, his voice thick with emotion as his hands flew through the process, "The pirates breeched the loading hatch with a set of charges that not only blew everything to hell and back, but it melted the deuterium lining of the doors. The smell … the explosion, the sounds of the fighting, I guess it all hit me at once and … I was there, all over again. The fighting, the dying, all of it … and I went back to that place I always went when I was on a mission." He went quiet again as he switched out the chips and depressurized the plasma conduit before going on, his voice now hollow, a shell of it's former self, "I don't remember anything when I go there, not immediately, but over time … it comes back."

"How bad was it?"

"Have you ever seen someone bleed to death from having their arms physically ripped off of their bodies? Trust me, it isn't pretty, ma'am." He pulled the conduit off of the 'wall' and put it aside, piercing her with a haunted look, "They gave us this stuff that made us feel invincible, made us stronger, faster, more aggressive and we took it like good little soldiers because we were ordered to – the first time I used it against someone, he stood there like a statue as the blood gushed out of his shoulders … until I shut him up by hitting him with one of his arms so hard it snapped his neck." B'elana blanched at the mental image that her mind provided for her as the sequence of events played out, Xander not stopping as he began to run tests and scans on the conduit, "The cocktail of drugs and endorphins didn't hurt us permanently, it and the after-battle drugs they gave everyone just put us into a … controllable state for a few days as they weaned us off of it, but it didn't stop the memories from coming back."

"How did you deal with this in the past?"

"We learned to repress it until we needed a little bit of extra energy, so we let that anger, that emotion just sit there and fester for a while until we were in a fight. It worked fine, actually … until the war ended. All of a sudden, peace reigned to the point that the nominal militias didn't need us anymore, and our little unit was … lost – most of us, we'd served with distinction for nearly 3 years, and all of a sudden we weren't needed anymore, so we were packed away into little places. Me, being the youngest, I was 'encouraged' to forget what I knew with some kind of hypnotherapy that blocked out most of my memories and training until a few weeks after I started here at Starfleet, and now that it's all coming undone, I'm starting to crack, show signs of use."

"Which is why you were dropped from the Marine Candidate list, right?" B'elana remembered just how relieved Admiral Janeway had looked at that particular bit of news, and how relaxed Seven … Anika… had been when she found that Xander was still going to be an engineer, just not a combat engineer. The Marine commandant, though, was filing an appeal to the Administration of Starfleet to 'give him his boy back', but things did not look too good for the commandant.

Xander snorted at this as he reached into his tool kit and began to repair micro-fractures in the conduit, "One of the reasons, actually – Marines all have a few screws loose, but I only have a few tight. That's a problem, apparently."

Silence reigned for the rest of the session as Xander finished his repairs to the EPS conduit and actually rated a whole 91 percent completion ratio – he was more than a little hacked off about the computer's grading of his 'insufficient response time', as he had been talking with her instead of focusing on the problem, which, B'elana had to admit, was a potentially fatal error in that someone could miss something if they weren't paying attention, but Xander still griped about it all the same as they left the holodeck and went towards her and Tom's home. Her husband had promised her a quiet night without Miral and, apparently, had bribed Xander into watching her daughter with an advanced copy of his newest holonovel. Surprisingly enough, Miral loved Xander almost as much as she loved Harry and Anika, often calling him 'X'nder' – he was good with her daughter, keeping an eye on her and making sure she never got into too much trouble, but often she wondered just how much he was rubbing off on her daughter after, one day, she had caught her baby arguing with the replicator for something called a 'Twinkie'. She had asked Xander about this and he had given her the most innocent 'who, me?' look she had seen since Tom and Harry had both pulled a prank on her on Voyager, making her sonic shower spit out Neelix's Leeola root soup, a smell that had stayed in her hair and skin for DAYS.

"Now, Miral, are you going to be good for Xander?" She watched Tom fit her daughter's knit hat over her curly dark hair even as Miral did her best to divest herself of the same hat.

"'Course will," Miral responded in broken speech. She was picking up words left, right and center these days, so B'elana was often checking her language at the door when she got home, especially after Miral had uttered several Klingon phrases that could make grown warriors blush. With that done, though, Miral hugged Tom, scampered over and hugged her legs and then made a mad dash for Xander, who's mood had completely reverse as he reached down and pulled the hat off of her head, handing it to her.

"Ready, squirt?" Miral smiled happily at him as he picked her up and turned towards them, "Have fun, you two – Tom, don't make her mad, B'elana, don't gut Tom because blood's still a pain to get out of carpet." She shot him a glare as Tom choked on something, to which Xander looked at her innocently, "What?"

"I would NOT gut my husband, Xander – shoot him, yes, space him out of an airlock, probably, but never gut him." Xander grinned at her even as Tom gave her a sick look and Miral giggled, "Now, Miral, are you going to be good for Xander?"

"Yup, pwomice!" She smiled at her daughter again, who at only 20 months old was showing signs of being a genius, "You n' daddy no naughty, k?"

Xander coughed slightly even as Tom blushed as red as his Command tunic had once been, "Uh, yeah, what she said … and now I'm going to go gouge my eyes out at that mental image. See you two later." With that, Xander led their daughter out of their quarters and left them alone, at which point she turned to Tom and growled playfully.

Tom gulped and began to back away as she walked towards him.

(Xander's Room – Later)

She watched him as he poured over his PADD, muttering the odd colorful word that her ears were not sharp enough to pick up fully, bus after being around her mother for so long, Miral knew that it was a naughty word and she wasn't supposed to repeat it. Still, aside form the occasional swear word and his uncanny ability to keep her from getting into trouble, Miral thought that Xander was a good guy, even though she couldn't pronounce his name yet – stupid verbal skills.

She reached for the PADD that was just out of reach above her on the lower bunk of Xander's shared bed and just as she was about to grab ahold of it, she heard the voice she was hoping not to hear, "Don't even think about it, Miral." She was amazed that he wasn't even looking at her and, somehow, he knew what she was doing … just like her mother did.

She sat on the floor, playing with the Flautter that her Uncle Harry and Aunt Seven had given her a few months before and she scrunched her nose up at it even a she waved the arms back and forth – it was as ugly as a targ and not as cuddly, but her two favorite people outside of her mom and dad had given it to her, so she kept playing with it. After a few minutes, though, she put the stuffed doll down and tottled over to Xander and tugged on his pant's leg, indicating that she wanted up, and he obliged, sitting her on his lap as he did, allowing her to snuggle into his chest – both Wendy and B'eth were doo-doo heads for not taking Xander while they could, so that meant that he was still open for her, eventually.

"Don't even think it, Miral," Xander said from above her, causing her to look up and see him smile. Had he been reading her thoughts? "Yes, I was, Miral – I'm good at that."

She blinked at that, but then looked into his eyes, "X'nder smart."

He grinned at her, "Maybe."

"St'wrong."

"Possible."

She frowned, "Hu-urt."

He looked down at her, arching an eyebrow, "Yeah, I do."

She scrunched up her nose and sneezed, "Q."

He jerked at that, looking around, "Where? How did you know …?" She looked at him oddly as he did the same to her, "Bless you, then."

She smiled at him and went about her business of getting off of his lap and going back to play with Flauter.

Xander, for his part, looked at Miral as if she had just accused him of being the second gunman on the grassy knoll – he knew she was a lot smarter than he was by general rites of knowing the era better than he did and parentage, but he was also sure that her little sneezed word wasn't a coincidence. Idly, he wondered if his family had done something about it, but he hadn't sensed any of them …

His door buzzed, "Come in." He smiled both Harry and Seven walked into the room, Miral squealing and dashing over to Harry and putting a strangle hold on his leg for several moments before doing the same to Seven, "Hi, Lieutenants – how ya doin'?"

Seven looked at him oddly as Miral let her go and went to go play with Harry, who was nudging Flauter with his foot, "We are well, Xander – how are you?"

He could read as far into her question as he wanted, more so, actually, and he shrugged, "I'm dealing, Lt. Hensen – no more, no less."

She arched an eyebrow at him, "What have I told you about calling me that?"

He sighed, "Never use your rank or your real names when superior officers are not present, right, Seven?" She smiled and nodded, so he went on, "So, what brings you here?"

"B'elana wants us to keep Miral for the rest of the night while you go over some things she left you in your files," Harry chipped in as he was 'tackled' by Miral and Flauter, "but as we're already here, Seven thought she could help you out with some of it."

He nodded to the blonde woman, who nodded back, and accessed his file account, pulling out the things that B'elana had put there, "So, how's the job?"

Seven just shrugged over his shoulder, she and Harry both still dressed in their uniforms, "Not bad at all, Xander, and we need to talk."

He sighed, "That's not the first time I've heard that today." He saved the files to his PADD and got up, looking at Miral, "Miral, are you going to mind Harry?"

"Pwomice!" He was almost ready to believe her until he saw a slightly mischievous glint in her eyes – he didn't feel sorry for Harry for a second as he and Seven walked out of his room and went to a common area, choosing a secluded area to speak in.

Once they were seated, Seven started, "Wendy and B'eth are both very worried about you, Xander, and most upset with you for lying to them." He arched an eyebrow at her but said nothing, so she went on, "Apparently you have not told them of your past, any of it."

"Incorrect – I told them what I thought they needed to know, which wasn't much at all."

She nodded at this and, after looking around and seeing that nobody was around to eavesdrop, she leaned in, "And you most certainly have not told them that you are Q's son."

If she was looking to surprise him, she was going to have to live without it as he didn't even blink at it, "Who told you? Admiral Janeway?"

"Your father, actually."

"Well, I'm not in a lab somewhere, so obviously you haven't told anybody – why not? It'd make your career, easily."

She narrowed her eyes at him, "I would never … rat out, as you would say, a friend. Believe it or not, Xander, I do not care if you are what you are – aside from it being a learning experience for us, how exactly would we … test you? You could easily escape, after all."

"Most likely I could. So, what now?"

Obviously not in the mood for small talk, she sighed, "I'm not sure. I could easily tell Wendy and B'eth this, but in doing so I would invalidate your trust in me, and this leaves me in a peculiar position in that all three of you … have become my friends. I do not wish to violate that friendship, as I have so few."

Xander found himself sitting back at that – she had professed her friendship to him several times before, but it wasn't until this moment that he realized just how seriously she took that claim, and just how jaded he was in thinking that she would betray him at any point to anyone. He took a breath and sighed out, "I thank you for your candor, Seven – as you already know some of my story, you might as well know the other highlights, so ask away."

"How long have you really been Q? Your father … was less than clear on that point."

Xander smirked at that, "A little less than seven months, actually – I'm 23 years old and spent the first 22 and a half of it as a mortal on Earth, another Earth, actually, in another dimension, without any powers whatsoever."

She blinked at this, several times, in fact, until she narrowed her eyes, "So … you are older?"

He nodded, "Yup, dad regressed me a few years to fit in around here, and my step-mother gave me my eye back."

Seven's eyebrow shot up at this point, as if to demand more on that last point.

He sighed and went about telling her about Sunnydale, his past life as a Scooby and what they hunted, which had gotten the question of what a 'demon' was and thus he went off on Giles' spiel of 'the world is older than you know it', only modified slightly to where it was meant for the other Earth, not the Earth they were on. Slayers, Potentials, Witches, magic, all of it was touched on and while none of it was actually viable in their current dimension, Seven asked for some more detailed descriptions from him at a later date.

"Fine, but be warned, I'm a carpenter, not a word-smith." He stopped and thought back at that last line, smiling slightly at the innate humor in it from his point of view.

"What is so funny?"

"Remind me to tell you about some of the television shows from my world, one time, Seven. So, anything else?"

She nodded, "Will you tell Wendy and B'eth this?"

He nodded slowly, "Yes, eventually – first, though, they need to learn that not everyone is what they appear to be, and in my case, that's a lot to take in."

"You lied to them, Xander, on several small points and one enormous point."

Xander shook his head sadly, "No, Seven, I didn't lie to them, I just didn't tell them the entire truth – there's a difference."

"Not from where I am sitting," she fired back with only a little heat.

"True, but you are not the same as my son and myself, little Borg," his father chipped in as he flashed into the empty common room. Q turned and smiled at him, "Very good on your explanations, son, and even better at stopping time – quite masterful."

Xander blinked at this and looked around for several seconds before he saw what his father was talking about – outside of the common room window bank was a large hedge that was in mid-sway from a stiff breeze, and was not moving at all in the opposite direction, "Wow."

"Indeed, son. When I leave, though, I'll set time back into motion, appropriately." With that, Q left and Xander felt time, which had been slowed to a stop, pick up again normally.

Neither he nor Seven said anything for several minutes until she managed, "That … was odd."

"You're telling me – I didn't even realize that I'd done that." He scrubbed his hands over his face slightly and groaned, "And this is why I'm here, Seven, to learn."

She nodded, "I see – when are you leaving?"

He shrugged, "Not sure – I may have to go from time to time, but I intend to have at least a full career out of Star Fleet before getting down to the hard stuff of my training. After all, I can't learn everything there is to know about this universe in only four years, right?"

She nodded at this slightly, her mind obviously on other things, "Xander … I may have an idea that will help you in your studies, if you are willing to partake in it. I fear, however, I do not have the details worked out completely, yet."

He shrugged and got up, "Cool – I'm willing to listen." He stretched out slightly, "So, I'll start on that history you wanted and you get on that idea, okay?"

She nodded and stood up, "Very well." They walked back to his room and, when the door was opened, were greeted with the sight of Harry, on his back, with Miral standing on his chest, his saxophone pointed at his chest as he 'twitched' in 'death'.

"I sway dwagon!"

Seven snorted slightly, "No, Miral – you slew an acting ham."

Miral smiled, Harry snorted and Xander grinned.

(Week 23 – Monday night, Gym)

It had been six weeks since his 'minor' blow up with Wendy and B'eth and while neither of them were exactly casting lots to see who would get to gut him, they were not exactly being overly friendly with him, not that he expected them to – he had basically destroyed the entire foundation that their friendship had been built on and, though it had taken a month for them to even talk to him again, now that base was being slowly rebuilt.

His classes were going well, Seven was cooking up some kind of idea that she refused to tell him about, regardless of how much he and Miral used the 'Puppy dog eyes' on her, his refinement of his powers were slightly stalled in that he had stopped growing more powerful and could not think of other ways to get more than fifty pounds of horse crap into a 2 pound bag, and on this night, he couldn't sleep. He'd taken up going to the gym in order to supplement his patrolling and his combat training, but he could still feel a little restlessness that came from the lack of a real fight for his life, regardless of what the holodecks could simulate, hence he was taking his aggressions out on punching bags and running, which he was currently doing at a 6-minute pace.

In the past six weeks he'd gone from simple repairs to more complex things in his engineering courses, like modifying and upgrading old systems, replacing damaged ones and learning to diagnose things from an educated standpoint, but was also branching out from power-delivery systems to more mundane systems, like gravity generators and environmental systems, both of which were far more twitchy than other things. At first he had somewhat scoffed at the idea, but when, in a simulation, he had lost gravity control and spent nearly ten minutes spinning end-for-end, not to mention seven minutes before and after of losing his lunch, his tune quickly changed and he took it very seriously as well. B'elana wasn't letting things slip any, in fact she had almost doubled his workload in some areas and, while not quite human anymore, Xander was starting to feel the pressure … and he liked it – his father, brother and step-mother all dropped in on occasion and checked in on him, but he'd gotten from his brother that Q often liked solving problems not only because they could, but because they wanted to see the end results.

Admiral Janeway had also helped him lay out a class schedule for the next year, one in which he would not only take his Aikido classes, but start his requirements for the now-mandatory piloting skills (on a scale of one to five, five being a starship pilot and one being able to not get himself killed in a shuttlecraft, Xander had to have at least a level two proficiency) and his also-mandatory cross-training. During the Dominion and Borg wars, there had been several instances where there had been adequate personnel to perform certain necessary functions on a starship or a space station, but none had been properly cross-trained, hence the new rules in Starfleet Academy that a certain number of crewmen and women had to be able to act as nurses or field medics, and others to know how to operate command consoles, hence his series of training courses, though what they were going to be was still a mystery to him.

He was starting to feel a touch winded as he hit his third mile but said nothing as he zoned everything and everyone out and focuses on the display in front of him – he wanted to make it to four miles before he stopped, a respectable distance as far as running went, when he felt a presence not a few feet off to his side. He looked over and saw a group of about a dozen people, men, women, human and alien, standing there, dressed in Marine Cadet-issue grey, and all of them were staring at him in facial expressions ranging from faintly amused, to curious, to pure contempt as the lead guy, who wore the pips of a Senior, looked down his long, angular nose at Xander. This went on for about ten seconds before Xander puffed out, "Yes?"

"You're Harris, right?" The tall, fit male, with right red hair and jade green eyes, almost spat out, something that several of the others winced at for some reason or another.

Xander didn't even spare him a look, "If I am?"

"Heard that you were dropped from the Marine cadet program and I wanted to know if that was true." The reply was prompt, crisp and completely lacking in anything close to true curiosity, but in the place of said curiosity was nothing more than simple annoyance.

Xander just shrugged as his approached the half-mile mark of his current, and final, mile, "And if it is?" He REALLY wanted to finish his run without any interruptions, he really did, but this guy gave off the same vibes that he got off of his roommate, Richard, ones that said 'I am better than you' and 'you are not worthy to be in my presence', both of which, as a mortal, had pissed Xander off and, as Q, infuriated him even more. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Call me David, and I wanted to know why you were dropped. Not good enough?"

Xander shot him an irritated glare that made two or three of his cadre back up slightly, "Too good, huff in some minds. Mentally huff unstable, huff in others – happy?"

David's hand flashed out and tripped the 'Stop' command on the treadmill console, bringing the machine to a stop; once it did he glanced up, "Thank you – your meager performance was beginning to annoy me."

Xander took a few deep breaths and slowed his racing heart, doing his best to keep his temper in check, as he was already in enough trouble with the Brass, not wanting to get into more, "And you are beginning to annoy me with your attitude, David – in case you didn't notice it, I was running and now I have to start all over again."

"Awww, poor widdle savage," David mock-crooned as several more of the survival-minded cadets backed up. He then snorted, "Personally, you don't look like much – our Drill Instructor and his Commanding Officer both seem to think that you're the second coming of something, but all I see is some pathetic little boy who is out of shape."

Xander gritted his teeth together, valiantly trying to keep his temper in check but he could feel that fight was a losing one, "Look, I don't want to start a fight here, David, but you're about two seconds away from getting an ass-beating – don't push it."

David smirked at him again and lashed out with a left kick that was easily blocked, and then a right knee that was meant to end his own reproductive abilities. Xander deflected this strike and pushed the Cadet back into the now-empty space that had once been inhabited by the other Marine cadets, shaking his head, "Don't do this, man. It's not going to end well."

David growled and he started to lash out with an eye-gouging left thumb that invoked all sorts of memories for Xander – Caleb, the First, General Disaster, Anya's death, the loss of his own eye, and the near-destruction of Sunnydale. All of this happened in a split second and it opened up an entire wellspring of anger as the gouge was launched at a speed that, for a normal human, was fast, but to someone who had been fighting both vampires and wars for the past three and a half to seven years, depending on which life you went by, it was a lazy punch that was both easily dodged and caught. David tried to pull his fist back but found that it wasn't going anywhere until Xander let go of his rather tense grip, "What …? Let me go."

Xander wasn't sure what happened next, but in the space of about four seconds he rushed forwards and then proceeded to hear a wet, meaty SMACK, quickly followed by a muffled CRACK, and then the sounds of Rice Crispies, SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP, before the room blurred and the sound of a body being forcibly driven into the padded floor of the gym, not to mention a muffled and agonized howl of pain. When his vision cleared, David was on the ground, face first, his arm twisted back and around in a position that was not physically possible without dislocating several joints, and was now out cold while his wrist, which didn't feel that solid at that point, was still gripped in Xander's hand.

The room was dead silent as he let the unconscious cadet's arm go and turned to a tall, for an Andorian, male, who had a somewhat proud smile on his blue lips, and Xander snapped out, "When he wakes up, tell him that he's alive only because I don't like being in the brig any more than I have to. Got it?"

"I'll tell him that myself, son." Xander turned around and saw, after looking down about a head or so, a balding man built like a fireplug and about a thick as a dwarf from those D&D books he'd lifted from Andrew a while back. He was dressed in the same grey outfit that the other cadets were in, but on his collar he wore three marks and had several other badges and ribbons here and there, and he was now looking from Xander to David's form on the ground, "Nice takedown."

"No, it wasn't," Xander automatically replied, his mind catching up to him slowly.

The man looked at him oddly, "Why's that?"

Xander sighed, feeling more than a little unhappy about himself at that point, "He's still breathing."

The man shrugged, "True, but that means that you may get out of the brig sometime soon, if you started it. You're Alexander Harris."

"And you are?"

The man drew up slightly, and if he was taller than Buffy, Xander would eat his PADD, "Drill Instructor Reyes, of the Marine cadet school."

"For the record," Xander stated as several Security personnel stormed into the room, "he started it."

DI Reyes nodded, somewhat disgustedly, "Yeah, David always had been a bit of a troublemaker – if he learns how to control his ego, he'll be a great Marine one day."

"And make sure he knows that if he pulls some shit like this on the field of battle, he's going to be lucky to just get his entire squad killed – if he lives, he's going to wish he didn't." As the Security personnel came over, Xander turned and assumed the position, hands in the air, ankles apart, "Hi guys, long time no see, eh?"

"Harris," one of them growled, "I thought Commander Troi-Riker asked you to stay out of trouble?"

Xander shrugged as one hand was put into restraints, and then the other, "I did stay out of trouble, but it follows me around like a wee lost lamb. So," he went on as the other restraint was fastened, "am I off to the Brig?"

"No," the first guard, Edward, if Xander remembered correctly, said. "We're off to the doc to make sure that you haven't lost any of your cookies – after that, it's up to her."

Xander nodded in agreement as they turned away and the Marine cadets were rounded up by the DI, each of them grabbing a piece of the fallen asshole, "So, Edward, how's your wife? You said she was going to be mad at you for something the last time you had me in handcuffs…"

(Later)

Deanna sighed for not the first time – she had been on her way out of the door of her office when the call had come through not half an hour ago that Xander had been in a somewhat minor altercation with one of the Marine cadets, one whom had started the altercation, and it was a clear-cut case of self-defense in her eyes, but there was something else in the security sensor logs that worried her. When the Marine cadet had made for an eye-gouge to Xander's left eye, something flittered across his face and then the destruction of David McCallum's entire right arm, from shoulder to wrist there were twelve broken bones and twice as many torn muscles, ligaments and tendons that, thanks to the marvel of Starfleet technology, was imminently reparable. She had then looked back into his files and saw that Xander had, thanks to the cloning of a human eye by his military, been the recipient of an eye injury that had been so bad that it required the total replacement of his eye.

"Commander?" She looked up and saw the security personnel walking Xander into the room, still dressed in his running shorts and the loose shirt he had been wearing, "Do you want us to stay here?"

She shook her head, "No, Lt. McCallum, that won't be necessary – release him so that he and I can talk, please." She searched Xander's face and emotions as the restraints were taken off and was more than a little shocked when she didn't feel anything of any interest, like this was not the first time he had been physically restrained, which it was not since his arrival at Starfleet Academy. When the Security officers left, Deanna sighed, "Xander, are you okay?"

He shrugged slightly, rubbing his wrists, "Not bad, Commander, though, for the record, B&D isn't exactly my thing." He gave her a light grin as she refused to blush, merely arching a dark eyebrow, "So, do I get doped up and live the rest of my life as a zombie, Commander?"

"That is certainly an option, given how destructive you are capable of being, Xander," Deanna said and nodded with a tone of unhappiness; she hated having to medicate people – it only masked the symptoms of the problem, not solve them, "but we do have a problem here – you are a hair's width away from being booted out of the Academy as a risk to both the students and the faculty, and that will not change until you talk to me about your problems."

Xander, for his part, just snorted, "Excuse my language, Commander, how in the hell am I supposed to talk to someone about what I've been through who doesn't know where I'm coming from? All those head jockeys back on D6 used to tell us were that 'it's natural to be afraid' or 'you can't let your aggression get the better of you', and that's bull!" Deanna felt more than a little frustration vent from his mind as he ran his hands through his hair, gripping it slightly and growling, "They never saw the things we saw, did the things we were ordered to do, and yet they think that a few mealy-mouthed little words are going to get us to be all better? Am I the only one who sees the flawed logic in that 'I wasn't there, but I can sympathize with you'? I think that unless you've been there, you can't help someone!"

"Is that it, Xander? Is that what is …bugging you? That you cannot talk to anyone about what you've been through … because nobody has?" Honestly, it was a very real problem in the Federation, given the way that they often made war at a distance, not in the brutal way that was recorded on Demons 6, and yet before her was a survivor of that war, a soldier in it, and now he was coming apart at the mental seams because there was nobody for him to talk to.

"Well, that and everyone wants me to talk about it! I don't WANT to talk about it! I just want to forget that it all," he shot out of his chair and began to rant before going off into some language that the Universal Translators could not translate, or would not translate. After a few minutes of ranting, though, he finally stopped, sighed, and sat down again, his face flushed, "Sorry about that, Commander – no woman should ever hear that kind of language."

"And what language was it, precisely? Not many cannot or will not be translated by the Universal Translators we have."

Xander nodded at this, "It was an Earth language, from many centuries ago – my people, my Clan, are something of historians, we always were, Commander, and long ago we visited a few cultures on this world known as the Egyptians and the Sumerians. In exchange for some of their culture and their knowledge, we … helped them out." She shot him a surprised look and he gave her a surprisingly impish grin, "What, do you think that they made those first pyramids all by themselves?"

She narrowed her eyes at him slightly, "Your people did not have a Prime Directive, then? There was no law against non-interference with another culture that was not ready to undergo First Contact?"

Xander just shrugged, "Back then? No, but a few centuries later we did, after a minor problem on Earth … kinda vaporized an island."

Deanna felt a faint gnawing in her stomach as several pieces of a much-larger puzzle began to slip together, "And did that island have a name, Xander?"

Xander nodded, "Yes, I think it was called … Atlantis."

She repressed a grimace, in that this was one instance that she didn't want to be right, "I thought all of your records were destroyed in the war, though? How could you know all of this?"

He shrugged at her, an easy gesture that apparently came from years of long practice, "My Clan was generally considered to be neutral in all wars, Commander – this latest war had gone on for nearly a decade before we were brought into it, so I was already born when that happened. All children in our Clan received what would equate to a Doctorate in History and Anthropology in Starfleet by the time we reached the age of majority, Commander, as we were drilled and made to study all of the archives to the point that we were specialized in at least four languages not native to our world and could find seven systems with developing or developed world in the stars, if necessary." The gentle smile he wore during his small history lesson, a smile that Deanna actually felt good about, slowly withered away as his face darkened and his eyes grew colder, "And then it happened."

"What happened, Xander?"

"Something I'd rather not talk about, Commander," he bit out slightly, obviously angry as she felt waves of sorrow, anger, hate and more than a little self-loathing flow out of him.

She conceded that point, for now, and sat back in her chair as he silently simmered for a few minutes; once she decided that he had sufficiently calmed down, "Xander … is this why you have had so many problems here? That there are so many things that you cannot talk about?"

He sat silently in his chair for a few moments, but when he looked up, his eyes were haunted, more so than she had ever seen them before, "I have so many problems, Commander, because in the end, this is all one big test – the cosmos is testing me, testing us all … and I'm not sure if I'm going to pass."

Deanna shook her head slightly, "That's all I need to hear, for now – Xander, I want you to go back to your dorm room and to get some sleep and, tomorrow, you are excuse from classes. I want you here at 0900, and we're going to talk some more, okay?"

He nodded at her and she dismissed him, leaving her office not long after he did, going back to her home and curling up into the side of her couch, wishing that her husband were there – Will always knew what to do in times like this, but he was busy with his new Captain's commission, shaking down his new Defiant-class ship, the Gladiator.

(Next Day, 0800)

He was already awake when Richard left the room, he hadn't technically gone to sleep, nor did he actually need sleep anymore, but Xander felt … different on that day; by no means was he over what had happened the previous evening, the attack, the reaction … none of it, but for some odd reason, he felt as if he were at peace with himself over something. He'd long since memorized his past on Demons 6, his planet's past and their past with Earth, and while some of it he was sure was his father's way of messing with the humans, other parts of it … well, it made too much sense.

"Is that so, son?" Ah, yes, enter the father… "Would you have preferred a dragon of some kind?"

Xander looked over and at his father, who was wearing his natural superior smirk to a T, and groaned, "That was bad, dad, even for you."

"You have no sense of taste in humor, son," Q fired back at him even as he sat up. "So, how do you feel today, son?"

"Oddly enough, I feel better – why?" He went through his motions of cleaning up and getting changed, but his father didn't seem to realize it even as his voice followed him.

"Xander, you are far too emotional of a person to keep things bottled up inside – things happen and, every once in a while, you are forced to tell people what they want to know in order to get things off of your chest. Your time as a human should have told you that."

He pulled on his uniform and groaned as he did as his muscles protested slightly, "I don't want to give anyone nightmares, dad – that place … it was hell."

Q arched his eyebrow at his son, "Are you sure? In case you have forgotten, son, before your arrival in this universe, it never existed, YOU, Alexander Q. Harris, never existed, so how could it have been 'hell', as you put it?" Q snapped his fingers and instantly Xander found himself in a place filled with the stench of brimstone, burning flesh, the screams of the damned and the wails of agony of the unlucky, "THIS, son, is Hell, and let me assure you that it has nothing to do with what happened on Demons 6."

Xander snapped his fingers and found both himself and his father back in his dorm room, a rather shocked look on Q's face, "You're right, dad, Demons 6 isn't anything like that place, but consider it from a mortal's point of view."

Q shuddered, "Son, don't ask me to give myself nightmares, but alright, as long as you consider Demons 6 from a Q's point of view – it's the perfect testing ground for a young Q! It will show us and you what you are made of, what you are capable of…"

"And if this grand little experiment of yours has a hope in hell of ever working?"

Q shot him a smile, "Son, how cynical of you, I'm so proud!"

Xander just rolled his eyes, "Are you ever going to grow up?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it, though your step-mother and Kathie wish otherwise."

Xander sighed and walked towards his door, "Speaking of whom, don't you have a captain, an Emissary or an admiral to be bugging, or something? After all, they're only human."

Q smiled at him, "You know, it has been a while since I checked in on dear Jean-Luc – I bet that he's quite bored and he'd love to have me around. Have fun, son!" With that, Xander's father flashed away in a blink of light and Xander felt time start up again – his feeling and control of his power was now a level that he could feel any changes to the 'norm' around him, though honestly it was so muddled with the other energies that it was nigh impossible for him to feel the smaller things that had been altered, rather than the big thing. Of course, that amounted to a big pile of crap when he wasn't able to even go by the old one-liner, 'next mood swing, 6 minutes', because unlike the Swiss watch, he wasn't that regular … and that brought up bad images, so eww.

"Xander?" He stopped and turned to see Wendy standing not seven feet off to his side, a look of worry on her dusky features, her uniform slightly rumpled, as if she had slept in it, and her eyes tired, "Is it true?"

He blinked, thinking about how much of a loaded question that was, "Is what true?"

She stepped forwards, "That you killed a Marine cadet last night and put four others in sickbay?"

He blinked, "Uh, Wendy, if I HAD done that, do you think I'd be out, walking to get breakfast right now? I'd be locked down so tight that I couldn't take a piss without an Admiral's permission."

She blushed a light green at this, "But … the rumor's that you did it have even reached me! I'm the lowest of the low when it comes to gossip!"

He rolled his eyes slightly, remember when Willow had done basically the same thing back in high school, "Wendy, there is one key word in those two sentences that you just said – gossip. I hurt one Marine and had a few words with Commander Troi-Riker, nothing else."

She nodded at him, slightly dazed for a few minutes before she stopped and blushed lightly, "Oh, um, how … are you doing? Really, I mean?"

He shrugged, "Aside from being a little hungry, not bad – hell, to tell you the truth, I haven't felt this good in a long time." With that, he turned and started walking to the Commissary, "If you want to join me, I won't stop you." He wasn't too surprised when, at first, he heard nothing behind him, but was rather pleasantly amused when he heard her squeak slightly and then scamper to catch up with him.

"Slow down! My legs aren't as long as yours," Wendy groused slightly as she caught up. As they walked, though, she looked both around them and then at him, "Xander, why is nobody getting close to you?"

"Because they've undoubtedly heard the same rumors you heard, Wendy," he replied blandly. "Though, actually, it's not a bad thing in that they're probably thinking either you're really brave to get this close to me or really stupid."

He felt her bristle at that slightly but said nothing in return as they went to the Commissary and went through the line quickly, Xander loading up on his normal fare of fruits, meats and grains while Wendy went for some of the more traditional human fare of eggs, meats, toast and, oddly enough, coffee. He had noticed that, in Sunnydale, Willow didn't react too easily to coffee, which most times it was like Hyper Willow to the nth power, but for Wendy it appeared to have the opposite effect, a calming one. Honestly, he wasn't sure which one he would rather have, Hyper Willow or Sedated Wendy, "So, how are you?"

She sipped her coffee, black and with two sugars, gulped, sighed and looked at him with slightly hooded eyes, "Huh? Oh, I'm fine, now."

"Long night?" He selected some melon and made the motion of looking around, knowing that there wasn't anyone around them for a good ten feet, generally in that they had gotten the hell out of dodge once he and Wendy had taken a seat in the middle of the cafeteria-like tables.

She nodded tiredly, "Xenobiology test this afternoon, and then I have a cross-training course in Ops training later on. B'eth has a flight test scheduled for today, so that she can get her first level qualifications out of the way," she went on, ending her sentence with a light scoff.

Xander blinked, "What is it?"

"Nothing, it's just that I think B'eth is an adrenaline junkie – she's always pushing the envelope on her flight training, in the holodeck, and in her regular exercises!" Wendy then gave off a slightly Klingon-esque growl and ran her hands through her dark hair, "I swear, she's trying to drive me insane with always trying to get me to come with her in flight simulators."

Xander didn't even bother to comment about it – both knew that B'eth loved the rush, the thrill, and would do just about anything that didn't compromise her honor to get said rush, including dragging them along to go off on some insane ride she'd found in the holodecks. A few more minutes went by and their breakfasts were consumed at a normal pace for the pair of the, Wendy having barely touched hers while he had gone through it with the mentality of 'eat now, taste it later', but at the end, they both stood up in unison and deposited their utensils and trays into the receptacles before walking out and into the student quad.

"So," Wendy said suddenly, "where does this put us?"

He looked back at the building, "About fifteen meters from the Commissary?" She shot him an irritated grin and he shot back at her a rather amused half-grin, "Oh, come on, Wendy, you should have seen that one coming a mile away."

She sniffed at him in a semi-playful way, "You haven't said an entire page of words to me in almost two months and the first thing out of your mouth is a joke – this tells me how much you like your half-blooded Vulcans."

He rolled his eyes, "Wendy, we needed time apart, all three of us – I'm not sure how you and B'eth took it, but for me … it was enlightening."

She looked over at him and arched a dark eyebrow perfectly, "Really? How so?"

"Nice elevation, Wendy," he said somewhat dryly. "Has Seven been giving you lessons?"

Wendy shook her head, "No, I think the eyebrow thing is instinctual in all Vulcans. So, again, I ask, how so?"

He shrugged as they continued to walk slowly, both of them rather pointedly ignoring the crowds that were off to the side, pointing and staring, "Well, I've learned just how much I really don't know about this place without you and B'eth to point things out and, when necessary, kick me in the ass to get me moving. Not to mention, I've learned just how much energy Miral has to her name when she's off on a tear."

Wendy smiled slightly at this, "Yeah, she is a little fusion generator, isn't she? Is she still trying to learn piano?"

Xander nodded, remembering the day that she had blind-sided Harry into trying to teach her, "Yeah, and she's not doing too badly. She's learned Chopsticks, and Mary Had A Little Lamb, already, but her crossover needs work."

Wendy shot him a look, "Xander, she's not even two yet – it's a miracle she's even able to reach the pedals."

Xander snorted, "Not after Commander Torres hacked the holographic legs off of one and gave her a booster seat. Add to that Miral having her mother's tenacity and her father's touch of artistic genius and you have the recipe for a child prodigy who can't even tie her shoes yet."

Wendy nodded at this and said nothing else as they walked to the main building of the Academy over the next few minutes, both of them using a leisurely pace to eat up the distance. Eventually, though, they reached their mutual destination and she turned to him, "Are you going to be okay?"

He looked at her oddly, "Why shouldn't I be? It's on a trip to the head doctor – it's her you should be worried about."

She shot him a slightly irritated look, "Xander, stop joking! She's trying to help you and … if she can't …"

He nodded, "Yeah, I know, I read the rules too – I'm out of Starfleet, permanently." That had been a real shot in the arm when he had read those regulations pertaining to mental instability in students and in crewmembers – if you had already graduated, you had more rope to hang yourself with, but as a student, he was already on the edge of that platform and the executioner had an itchy trigger finger on the pull lever.

"Just, be careful, okay? I mean, just think about what you say, and how you act," she advised. "I mean, do you want to be stuck here alone with B'eth? I'll go grey from the fear of her trying to talk me into a shuttlecraft before I graduate."

He snorted at that, "And you need to get over your fear of heights, especially before you have to take your MANDITORY three weeks of space walking in EV suits."

Wendy pouted cutely at that, "I still think that's a bad idea. What possible reason would I have to ever get outside of my ship in an EV suit and walk around in? It's not like I'm going to infiltrate a starship in order to save it from hostile aliens or anything."

He shot her an odd look, "Where do you come up with these things? I mean, that's right out of science fiction and fantasy, or one of those cheesy romance holonovels that you think I don't know you and B'eth devour like kids do candy." He repressed a smile at her look of pure shock and then pulled her into a friendly hug, "Look, I'll try and be good – that's all I can promise, okay?"

She nodded into his chest and hugged him back, making him wince a little, "Talk to you later?"

"Of course – I haven't been glared at by you and B'eth in tandem in a long time, so I think it's high time we did that." She shot him a slightly fond glare of pure irritation and turned away, going off to do whatever it was that she was going to do, so he went off the other way and did the same.

The halls cleared, which amused him slightly, as he came down them, many of the students and faculty trying to look somewhat casual about it, but others were quite comical about it, especially one fairly high-strung Bolean who dove over a chest-high barrier into an office woman's lap. He didn't say anything about it, though, as he approached Commander Troi-Riker's office and pressed the call button, which was promptly answered by the door opening.

"Hello, Xander."

He smiled and entered the room, "Commander Troi-Riker. So, what's up, Doc?" It was, naturally, at that point that he noticed that the pair of them were not alone, "Oh, uh … hi, Admirals."

(Deanna's POV)

Deanna smiled as Xander walked into the room and made an unconscious reference to an old Earth animated character and his mode of addressing someone, but he then noticed that they had company. "Come in and have a seat, Xander – we have much to discuss."

He walked in and she watched his eyes scan the room, each of the officers there, only two of which, other than herself, were not Admirals, and she could see him draw up into a nearly-perfect salute, which was returned, and he then took a seat – it worried Deanna a little that she could feel so little from Xander, especially since he was looking at nearly 100 years of combined Command experience in the same room. His face was a stone mask, his shoulders were perfectly square, and she felt nothing more than cold professionalism out of him even as Admiral Janeway spoke up, "Xand … Cadet Harris, we have gathered here this morning to ask you several questions pertaining to the altercation last night between yourself and Marine Cadet David McCallum – your answers will determine if you are to stay both in the Starfleet Academy and out of the Brig, is that understood?"

His tone was perfectly crisp as he spoke, "Perfectly, Admiral Janeway."

Deanna looked over at Admiral Chekov, the youngest daughter of the original Chekov, of the Enterprise NCC-1701, and she looked exactly like her father except for the fact that she was taller and, of course, female, as she spoke up with a voice totally devoid of any Russian accent, "Cadet Harris, witnesses say that you were merely running when Marine Cadet McCallum approached you – did you in any way provoke this altercation?"

"Not to the best of my knowledge, Admiral. I was running because I could not sleep, Marine Cadet McCallum approached me and I tried to be civil."

Admiral Davis, a short, stocky man whom had once been a Marine before coming to Starfleet Command, and eventually becoming an Admiral, narrowed his eyes, "Tell me, son, did you intend to kill him?"

Deanna shivered as Xander looked at the Admiral and coldly put, "If I had, Admiral, I would be up on murder charges – he attacked me, I defended myself and … then, sir, he went for an eye gouge. I'm not sure what happened next, but the next thing I know he's on the ground, face first, unconscious, and he's injured."

Doctor Beverly Crusher, head of Starfleet Medical and one of Deanna's closest friends spoke up at that point as she read off from a PADD, "Ten fractured bones, seven torn ligaments and tendons, a dislocated shoulder, a torn rotator cuff, a dislocated elbow, numerous strained and pulled muscles and a shattered wrist, Cadet – I'd say that was more than a simple injury."

"I never said it was a 'simple' injury, Doctor, I merely said he was injured." Deanna could feel a little heat behind Xander's words as he reigned in his temper, "I do have a question, though – does his brother hold a grudge? He delivered me here last night."

Deanna shook her head, "No, Xander, he does not – Michael has not lodge any complaints against you and, in fact, had lodged several against his brother."

He nodded at her, "Thank you, Commander."

Captain Rhade of he Judge Advocate's corps then spoke up, his Asian features granted to him by the same heritage strictly contrasted with his fair skin and light brown hair, "Cadet Harris, this is not the first time you have been in trouble – tell me, why is it that we should continue to endanger the cadets and faculty of this Academy with your continued enrollment?"

Deanna again felt nothing out of Xander as he spoke again, though after a few moments of thought, "Sir, with all due respect, if you didn't want me here in the first place, why was I ever accepted? You knew my past, all of it before it and my file were sanitized by my government and Starfleet, and now after a single Marine cadet who had too much ego and not enough brains starts a fight with me, you seek to blame me?"

"We are the ones asking the questions, Cadet," Admiral Janeway, Xander's staunchest supporter, reminded him somewhat coolly. "Captain Rhade's question still stands, though – why should you be allowed to stay, given your past actions and last night's altercation?"

Again, it was several moments before Xander spoke, but this time it wasn't the professional tone they got, it was a tone that clearly stated that he was about to say something that would more than likely get him in trouble, but it needed to be said, "Admiral Janeway, to be perfectly blunt about it, I'm a token, nothing more, nothing less; a 'savage' from a new Federation planet who is to be schooled and molded into an officer of Starfleet so others of my planet can follow. Unfortunately for you, for Starfleet in general, is that while you are willing to force us to change, you're forgetting that this Cadet and many future cadets were soldiers who fought war on terms that very few in Starfleet could understand, under conditions that, quite frankly, were inhumane. I've been subjected to chemical therapy to enhance my performance in the field, I've undergone hypnotic therapy to both alter my memories and my abilities to cope, and now when the very same instincts that were drilled into me as a boy have been used without thought or malice it is my neck on the chopping block." He stopped and took a breath, calming the heat in his voice, which had been building slightly as he spoke, "Admirals, Captains, Commander, Doctor, I'm sorry about what I did, I really am, but I warned Admiral Janeway what would happen if I was attacked. I have a lot of rough edges that will take time to wear down, and I've made progress in my treatments and in my classes. If you want to get rid of me, fine, I'm gone by sundown, but think very hard before you ask another of my people to come here, to learn your way and to become like you – I am the first, but I won't be the last to sit in this chair."

They were all silent for several minutes as Deanna felt their emotions range from proud, to curious, to amused and even to a bit annoyed, but it was Captain Chakotay who spoke up next, Admiral Janeway's former XO, "Nice speech, son, but it won't save you – you're not being very diplomatic."

Xander snorted at this, "All due respect, Captain, I was a soldier and I am currently an engineer in training, not a diplomat – I build and destroy things, not mince words or paint pretty pictures to get a vote or two."

"You'd made one hell of a Marine with that attitude," Admiral Davis smirked slightly as Deanna felt a little amusement enter the room, "but that brings up another problem we need to discuss. It has been submitted to us that you be allowed to enter a retrofit and upgrade project on the Sovereign-class that is being spear-headed by both Lt. Commander Torres and Lt. Hensen – in fact, they asked for you by name. We know that you are being mentored by Lt. Commander Torres until Commander LaForge is back from duty on the Enterprise-E, but why would Lt. Hensen ask for you?"

Xander arched on eyebrow, slightly, "Unofficially, sir, officers are allowed to use cadets as their PA's and, earlier last semester, I lost a bet between myself, Cadets Michaels and De'lan that had been made with Lt. Hensen, regarding a test grade, so I am her unofficial PA. We've become friends, something that has been kept completely within regulations, and in the process she has taught me a great deal about the computer systems of Starfleet, and many other organizations."

Deanna arched her own eyebrow at this, "She is not only your 'boss' and your superior officer, but you claim her as your friend?"

"Not at first, Commander – she made the claim of friendship, not I, and she knows that I take friendship very seriously."

"You also have been documented to have being a babysitter for Lt. Commander Torres and her husband for their daughter," Captain Chakotay said with more than a little humor in his voice. "How'd you get dragged into that?"

Xander just shrugged, "I drew the short straw, Captain, and both Miral and I get along rather well."

"She's driven four people to the brink, Cadet," Deanna chipped in, remembering the horror stories of the 'Tiny Terror Torres-Paris' from several of her former patients. "Consider yourself lucky."

"Thank you for your time, Cadet," Admiral Chekov said suddenly. "You are dismissed – our judgment will be rendered by noon." Xander stood, saluted and then walked out of the room in a crisp walk. As soon as the doors closed, though, Admiral Miranda Chekov smiled slightly and spoke with only a little of her accent showing through, "He is blunt, yes?"

"Very," Admiral Davis said with a grunt. "But that doesn't make him any less right – we can expect several blowups from the people of Demons 6 for the next few decades, easily … and who in the hell named that place? Demons don't exist."

"They do within our own minds, Admiral," Deanna stated somewhat primly to her superior officer, "and that young man is proof of it. Personally, I didn't feel anything wrong with him, and I think that he's coming along well with his treatments." Deanna lowered her gaze, slightly, and frowned, "Though I cannot say the same for Cadet McCallum – I stopped by Medical this morning and … I must say I am disturbed." Admiral Janeway and Beverly both nodded, as both were there for the rather spectacular mental meltdown that had happened to the senior-level Cadet, whom had sworn vengeance on Xander for all time due to his 'cheating in combat'.

"I'll have one of my people look at him, Doctor," Admiral Davis said somewhat frostily, as if he didn't trust her opinion at all. That, of course, wasn't anything new as the Admiral and former Marine didn't trust anyone except the man in the mirror. Davis' face then became somewhat petulant, "Are you sure I can't talk you into letting him run as a Marine?"

Admiral Janeway sighed in disgust at this, "Oh, be quiet, Davis – nobody likes a whiny Marine." Before Davis could fire back at her, Admiral Janeway turned to Admiral Chekov, "Admiral, what do you recommend as Alexander's punishment?"

"I'm leaning towards revoking his recreational holodeck privileges for the rest of the semester and the first semester of next year, Admiral, and having him continue his psychiatric sessions for at least that long, at which another evaluation will be preformed and we can go from there."

Deanna nodded at this, "That is fair, Admiral, but I would also ask that you also recommend to Captain Rhade that Alexander's weapons training take a more traditional course, as well as the Self-Defense courses that are requisite for graduation from the Academy."

Both Admirals Janeway and Davis snorted at this, the latter speaking, "Commander, he's a trained soldier, so having him take the Aikido course is a waste of time, in my opinion."

Janeway spoke up then, "I agree, but as a martial arts course is necessary, I would recommend that he tries a more … esoteric one, one that could possibly help him with his mental well-being."

"How about the Vulcan form of Tai Chi?" Deanna looked over at Captain Rhade, who had a light grin on his face, "Well, it's rather meditative, and it's good for the body."

Admiral Chekov smiled, suddenly, "And that is where you met your wife, yes?"

Deanna smiled as Beverly chuckled, "I'd say that makes you biased, but it is a good idea." The CMO of Starfleet then looked over at her, "So, Deanna, will you tell him?"

She nodded, "After lunch – let him sweat a little."

Admiral Janeway chuckled a little, "I see your husband is rubbing off on you, Commander."

"Not necessarily a bad thing, Admiral."

(Academy Grounds – later)

Xander sat and contemplated one of Boothby's prized Azaleas, thinking of ways that he could both create and destroy one in the snap of a finger, and the list was starting to scare him, really, ranging from simple crushing to something more exotic, like a localized black hole the size of an atomic particle within the plant's central stalk. It was at that point that the wind picked up ever so slightly and brought a familiar scent to his nostrils – leather, musk, spice and just a hint of something else that he was not able to place at present, but that particular scent only belonged to one person, "Hello, B'eth."

"Xander," she greeted him from behind, but he didn't turn to greet her. "Rumor has it that you are awaiting your judgment."

He grinned slightly, "We all await judgment, B'eth, at one point or another."

She was silent for a few moments before she spoke, "True – such wise words from such a foolish human." He heard her step around the tree he'd been sitting against and she sat next to him, but did not look at him, "So, how have you been?"

"Tolerable – except for the fight last night, if you want to call it that, I haven't had a problem in the past month or so. Yourself? Other than trying to make Wendy go grey before her time, that is."

B'eth snorted and looked down at the ground between her knees, as she sat with her feet planted and knees bent, "Wendy needs to be less timid – no male worth his salt will ever consider her for a mate if she does not assert herself."

Xander looked over at her and arched an eyebrow at her, "She's afraid you're going to kill her with your flying skills, B'eth – it's not fear, its survival instincts."

B'eth shot him an irritated look, "I'm not that bad of a pilot! I only crashed the simulator four times before I figured out how to restart the engines cold in freefall, and twice on my landings."

"Yeah, I'm sure telling her that made her feel that much better," he said somewhat blandly, earning him a sharp elbow in the ribs that doubled him over. "Ow."

B'eth bent down and looked him in the eyes for the first time and, with a saccharine sweet smile, she asked, "Did that hurt?"

Xander looked into her eyes, smiled and sat back up, "No, not really, but you get an A for effort, B'eth." He watched her sit back up and glare at him lightly for a few minutes, not saying a word, until she broke contact and sat back a little, "So, what's wrong?"

She looked at him again, "What?"

He gave her a level look, "B'eth, you are a passionate person who doesn't hide her emotions very well – what is wrong?"

She was quiet for a moment before she sighed, "You didn't trust me."

He nodded, half-expecting that to be the answer, "And?"

"And I was under the impression that you did trust me."

Xander nodded more to himself than to anyone, but he also sighed, "B'eth, do you know how I stayed alive?" She looked over and shook her head, "Simply put, I didn't trust anyone – no ifs, ands or buts about it, trust got a whole bunch of people killed on my planet … and more importantly, it got my clan killed." Memories of places he'd never been swelled to the forefront of his mind again and he closed his eyes, blocking them out, "It became second nature to me to only trust people as much as I had to … and it carried over into our friendship."

"Are we friends, Xander?" He looked over at her and saw a shimmer on her eyes, "Or are Wendy and I … acquaintances?"

Now it was his turn to be quiet for a few moments, a slight breeze stirring the air around them even a classes let out and the students stirred around them, "Alright, I'll make you a deal, then – I'll tell you whatever you want to know, every gory detail and bloody death, and if you can even stand to look at me after it, we'll be friends. Deal?"

She nodded, "Deal."

Of course, it was at that time that his commbadge buzzed, "Yes?"

"Cadet Harris, report to Commander Troi-Riker's office, immediately."

(Week 26 – Cadet Dorm rooftop)

It had been three weeks since he had told both B'eth and Wendy every little detail of his life, well, as far as Alexander Q. Harris was concerned, and both of them still needed time to digest what he had told them, time that he freely gave them as he had no time to spend with them anyway. He'd been allowed to stay in Starfleet, but with some seriously harsh restrictions for the rest of the semester, like no holodeck time, which really sucked because he was getting really close to finishing his monument to the Sunnydale fallen, and he had to go to the shrink now four days out of every seven to talk about his past and his feelings, which was a crock in his mind, but at least the shrink he got had been one of the survivors of the DS9 attack by the Dominion, so she didn't get sick all of the time. His classes were intensifying as both Seven and B'elana prepared him for some sort of long-term job, and he was starting to feel the pressure, even as Q … but there was something else there, or rather, what wasn't there.

When he spoke to the doctor about his home on Demons 6, he was completely emotionless about it simply because he could not fathom what it was like to lose such a place – sure, he'd come close in Sunnydale on several occasions, but never like what his memories showed, hence his being on top of the dorm building, sitting on the edge, staring out over the Academy grounds and pondering the cosmos … which is where she found him.

"Hi, mom," he said somewhat listlessly even as she flashed into being behind him – he could now tell the subtle differences between the energy signatures between his father, brother and step-mother, and he could even start to tell the differences between he human energy patters he was exposed to all of the time, so he was rarely surprised (Seven was the sole exception as of yet – her Borg makeup made her difficult to track even at the best of times).

"Son." She didn't say anything else as she came over and slowed time down, sitting on the edge of the building with him.

Xander didn't even look at her, "What brings you here?"

"I came to see how you were doing, son. I could feel your … distress."

This made him look over at him, "Really?"

She nodded, "Yes – it was … disturbing."

Xander snorted and shook his head, "You should feel it on my end."

She let the silence loom for several minutes, not caring that he could feel she had stopped time, until it became slightly oppressive, "You have a problem connecting with your fictional past, yes?" He nodded, not trust himself to speak, so she went on, "And if I could show you what you want to see?"

"It's not what I want to see, it's what I need to see, mom," he half-snapped at her, feeling bad about it instantly as she flinched back. "Sorry – you didn't deserve that, but it's … damn, I wish I could explain this." He got to his feet and she watched him then began to pace the area like a caged animal.

"It's alright – from what I've learned about humans, they often say things they do not mean when they are irritated for no good reason." She stood and walked next to him, placing her right hand on his shoulder and raising her left, "Let us change that, shall we?" With that, Q-F smiled at him and snapped her fingers.

(Demons 6 – Unknown time)

Xander felt his stomach lurch slightly as he and his step-mother landed on vibrant green grass-filled patch of lawn, and he stuck his head between his knees for a few seconds, doing his best to keep his lunch in his stomach. He took deep breaths and settled his stomach even as he heard Q-F chuckling next to him.

"Yes, your first trip as a passenger is a touch … unsettling, especially for the younger humans," she admitted. He took several more deep breaths before slowly coming to an upright position and looking around as Q-F went on, "Welcome to Demons 6, approximately 20 years ago."

He looked around and was surprised to see that, while not picturesque given the blood-red stone buildings around him, it was actually very nice to see – there were kids running around and playing, wives hanging things up to dry in the sun, men and older teens were walking around with tablets in hand, debating back and forth over points of logic and science, not to mention bits of history, in tongues that were instantly recognizable by his brain as a smattering of Human languages long-since dead, and there was a smell in the air that triggered something in his brain and brought a smile to his face. The general dress of the people there was a loose shirt and pants for men, dresses for women and a smattering of things for the kids, and the skin tones and physical features ran the gamut as far as he could see.

"This is the Southern Province, the center of knowledge on the planet of Demons 6, and these are the caretakers of the knowledge," Q-F said to him with a slight smile on her face. "For eons they have collected and guarded the knowledge of hundreds of planets and thousands of cultures, all of which were stored in massive underground vaults on what you could term as CD's – millions of units of information that spanned the galaxy were kept there, open to all who sought knowledge, and it was commonly known amongst the other people of Demons 6 that these people were peaceful, knowledgeable and neutral to the world's strife." She waved her hand and time passed, day became night, night became day, and so on until one night there was a shrill cry of a baby and they walked into a house, where a woman had just given birth. Xander felt his throat go dry as the baby was raised up and a shock of dark brown hair could be seen atop it's head, and chocolate eyes opened before squeezing shut and the baby wailed, "Yes, son, that is you … so to speak. As far as the universe is concerned, you were born at the tolling of midnight upon the first day of their year, an omen of great things amongst your clan."

Q-F sped up time slightly for a few 'hours' and then stopped it as the mother, his mother, held his newborn body, and Xander's heart stopped in his chest when he recognized her, even as Q-F began to speak again, "Your father, Q, looked into your mind, son, and has sprinkled this galaxy with familiar faces from your past, some of which you have met, others of which you may not meet, but this is my gift to you, son – your mother's name … is Joyce." He'd seen pictures of Joyce when she was at the appropriate age to give birth to him, and she was a dead ringer for those pictures as he felt his heart start beating again and Q-F went on, "Your mother's choice of your father is dead, but he was a life-long friend of hers, not her husband, as she never married for some reason or another, and she is the local art expert."

Xander looked at Joyce for several more minutes even as she breastfed her new baby, and he was surprised that he felt a touch of warmth in his heart even as the midwives bustled around, fluffing this and checking that even as he watched the baby boy finish his meal, Joyce put herself away and the newborn belch slightly before falling off into a slumber. He'd always wanted Joyce for his mother, ever since meeting her she had given off that 'Mother' vibe that he'd felt so very little over his life, which is why, after all of his training was over, he was going to start up plans for –

"Don't even think about it, son," Q-F said somewhat sadly. He looked over at her and she went on, "There are more powers at work there than you would believe, and not even Q can bring back someone who has been embraced by Him."

Well, so much for that plan, "Alright, but like father says, 'there is always a way around everything and everyone – you just have to find it'." He looked around for a few seconds and then back at his step-mother, "This place is nice – what happened?"

Q-F held up a hand and time sped forwards, the baby boy in front of him growing up to the age of three, and then to nearly ten when she stopped time, "The first ten years of your life were nice, quaint, even, and that is the day that it happened." She teleported them outside and Xander looked around, seeing nothing wrong … and that's when he heard it – the soft whine, the classic sound of a bomb falling, and he looked up in time to see four large egg-shaped masses fall from the sky and detonate, blowing away almost everything that was standing within ten square miles, "It was leaked to both sides from their more insidious and war-minded that the Southern region was gearing up for war in favor of the other side, so both sides launched a long-ranged attack simultaneously at the larger population centers of this region. The effects, as you can see, were catastrophic." She held up her hand as he made to dash into the house they had just left, which had been all but leveled.

"NO! LET ME GO!" He drew in every erg of energy he could muster and steal from the area and bent his mind to freeing himself, but he was still young and untrained, and she was fully Q – he didn't have a prayer of getting loose even as time began to move along more quickly.

"Fear not, son, this story has an almost-happy ending," Q-F said even as his mind raged and his body struggled, words that calmed him only slightly as the scene changed again. It was now in an underground area, a large, cavernous place that had large alcoves and tunnels leading away, presumably to other areas, "Your people weren't caught by complete surprise, son – they had been expecting this for the past few years, so in secret they had been building underground, bomb-proof areas where they could hide. Your mother had you and herself in those caves by the time the first bombs went off.

"Your people, though, took a stance that was rather alien to them at this point – many were decidedly unhappy that they had been attacked with little or no provocation, at least REAL provocation, so they began to silently ready themselves to attack not only the East, but the West as well in hopes of getting both sides to leave them alone. It worked," Q-F went on, a slightly bitter tone in her voice, "but only to a point – raids went on and on for nearly a year, taking supplies and intelligence from both sides, at which point your people in the South annoyed both of them enough to have them work together. For the next seven years your people were alone, outnumbered and outgunned, but not out-classed – when it became clear that they were starting to lose, the Clan elders all decided to try using their knowledge and concocted a plan that would eventually turn the tide of the war in their favor, but at a heavy cost."

"The drugs." Xander shivered at the memory of what that cocktail of stuff had 'done' to 'him', and couldn't begin to think how much sleep was lost over that particular decision.

Q-F nodded, a being flashing into existence in front of them, "That is correct, Alexander – this is the doctor who was the one who managed to create and, later, perfect the drug that was given to you and so many others – Doctor Margaret-"

"Walsh," Xander ground out, his temper flaring as Maggie Walsh's body took form. Even after everything he had seen and done, the mere mention of her name, let alone her image, angered him more than he cared to admit.

Q-F nodded, "Yes, though her last name here is Torpor, not Walsh – you did, incidentally, kill her," she chipped in almost absently. "She was just a hair too slow on an injection meant to calm you down and you not only ripped her arms off of her body, but you proceeded to beat her to death with them." Xander repressed a savage grin, remembering all the times he had dreamed of doing that to several people who REALLY irritated him, though it was often a toss-up between Snyder and Walsh who got the top billing, and Q-F went on, "Now, as I was saying, you killed her precisely two years after the implementation of the somewhat controversial plan of the elders."

"To use the kids as soldiers." Even as he said it, the words tasted sour in his mouth and Xander wondered if he would ever meet those self-same elders.

"Yes – you were 11 when your military training started, and you were 13 when you went on your first mission; the effectiveness of the younger troops was not immediately ascertainable, as none of you had any field experience, but within a year you and the teams were … well, the only way to put it in terms you can understand is that all of you were committing mass murder on levels that rival your Nazi death camps." Xander felt his stomach clench, HARD, as Q-F went on as if she were delivering the punch line of a bad joke, "Your chemical enhancements went well, outside of your beating Dr. Torpor to death, and it turned the tide for the war – within four years, it was over, and peace treaties were signed under the cause of not wanting your or your chemically-enhanced compatriots to be unleashed ever again on anybody."

"Are they still alive?"

She shook her head, "No, Alexander – many of them developed quick-growing cancers that eventually consumed them, and the few who did not were eventually institutionalized for not only their safety, but the general safety of others, but they either all committed suicide or … were assisted in those attempts."

Xander looked down at floor of the grotto, squatting as he did and picking up a small rock, "So, I'm the last … the One." She gave him an odd look as he chuckled at his own joke, but he shook his head, "Never mind – it's a simple primate joke from my world."

"Ah."

"So why did I survive? Why didn't I crack?"

"But you did, only in your own way, Alexander." She waved her hand again and they were back on top of the dorm, "But it is how you go on from this that will determine if the experiment from your world was a success or a failure."

"Was it ever tried again by the other sides?"

"No," Q-F shook her head, "and it never will be. Not only did Dr. Torpor develop the chemical enhancers, but she never wrote it down or told anyone how to make it – once the war was over, the elders agreed that the little remaining chemical was to be eradicated and any mention of it ever archived was to be destroyed, in hopes that nobody would ever try to duplicate their research and decision ever again."

He looked over at her, still thinking, "Are they still alive? Is JOYCE still alive?"

Q-F gave him a curious half-smile as he felt time begin to speed up again from its dead stop, "Now, son, that would be telling, wouldn't it?" With that, she snapped her fingers and left him alone on the roof, with many questions answered, but now with more questions than before … questions he wasn't sure he wanted to have answered.

(Week 28 – Saturday Evening)

Xander stared up at the ceiling of his shared room and growled out, not for the first in time the past few weeks, his displeasure at his revocation of his holodeck privileges – there wasn't much to do at the Academy, now that he was up with his classes, and the holodeck was one of the few ways that he could work out his inner frustrations and not have to worry about hurting someone.

"Achoo!" He looked over and smiled at the terror of so many babysitters before him, Miral Torres-Parris, as she cuddled her Flauter and sniffled yet again – she had picked up a bug some time during the past few days and wasn't at the top of her game, so both B'elana and Tom had both told him to make sure that she stayed down all night, and that she got plenty of rest. Miral, of course, did not like this and had let loose with a string of her mother's more colorful ways of expressing her displeasure – honestly, he knew she was genius with the way she could flow one Klingon curse word in with a human one as easily as she could breath.

"Bless you, Miral," he said somewhat absently. She'd been sneezing her little head off all evening, even after a trip to Medical for a shot to speed up her body's fighting of the bug, but it was a good sign.

"T'ank 'ou," she mumbled back, her nose stuffed slightly as she squeezed her Flauter a little more.

It was at this point his door chimed and he sighed, not bothering to get out of bed, "Yes?"

"Xander, it is Seven – may I speak come in?"

"Enter," he called out, long-since having gotten over his old Sunnydale instincts involving vampires and such.

Miral smiled as her Aunt Seven walked into the room she had been cooped up in with Xander for almost an hour, but frowned as she noticed the rather agitated way that her Aunt Seven walked into the room with and the same expression, and this puzzled her – very few things ever made Aunt Seven mad, and fewer still annoyed her, but Miral could tell with her keen sense of toddler logic that something was amiss even as the tall blonde woman began to pace back and forth, muttering about 'Starfleet', 'Regulations' and 'Harry'. This made her perk up even more, as the topic included her second-favorite male, Uncle Harry.

"Seven," she heard Xander call to her from the top of his bunk, a place the big poopyhead hadn't taken her when he'd gone up there, stopping the blonde in her tracks, "what are you talking about?"

Aunt Seven sighed and walked over to the bunk, looking over at her slightly and Miral frowned as her Aunt leaned forwards and whispered something that she couldn't hear – how could she tell her mommy anything if she couldn't hear what was going on? Whatever Aunt Seven said, though, got an immediate reaction out of Xander as he sat up in his bunk and looked at her strangely, "He asked you WHAT?"

"Yes, Xander, he asked me THAT question!" Miral watched as her Aunt Seven let he hair down and ran her hands through the long blonde locks, something that Miral wished she could do, but her daddy kept her hair cut short for some reason or another. "He is fully aware of what Starfleet regulations say about THAT particular subject, and yet he has the unmitigated GALL to ask me if I'm … that."

Miral scrunched up her nose as she heard Xander sigh and watched him roll out of his bunk, dropping to the ground in a crouch before rolling over on his back and sighing again – not wanting to miss the chance, Miral got up and tottled over to him, landing heavily on his stomach before curling up and resting her head on his ribs as he grunted, "Hi, Miral. Seven, don't worry about it – he's just feeling … insecure."

Miral felt her ears perk up as Aunt Seven growled and began pacing again, "About what? I hacked the Voyager medical files long ago – there's nothing about any of them that I do not know."

Miral looked up at her Aunt Seven, who had stopped and was blushing a light red even as Xander-pillow also looked up, "Seven … never mind – my mind must have been playing tricks on me. So," Xander went on and Miral laid her head back down on her Xander-pillow, "that issue aside, can I ask you a question about this project you've recommended me for?"

Seven looked at him and then at Miral, her eyes narrowing slightly, "What about it?"

Xander looked first down at Miral and then up at Seven, who he noticed was still blushing a little, "What is it?"

Seven never moved her eyes from Miral, who was starting to snore softly, "I think she's telling B'elana everything she hears – B'elana knows far too much of what Harry and I do when we watch Miral for anything else to be true."

Xander rolled his eyes, "Not that – the project?"

Seven now looked at him, but said nothing as she came over and picked Miral up, placing her on the upper bunk and allowing him to get off of the ground before motioning him outside – she had often done this in order to talk to him plainly, where he was Xander Harris, Q, not Alexander Q. Harris, and he knew that this was going to be interesting as they came to the common area and took a seat on a bench, "You are aware of the Sovereign-class starship, yes?"

"That is the replacement for the Galaxy-class, like the Enterprise-D, right? What about it?"

"What many do not know is that while it is a good ship overall, it has numerous minor flaws that, quietly, have begun to worry many of the engineers of Starfleet. Furthermore, while they are more war-like in nature, the science facilities of the ships are limited, which is something else that Starfleet Commands wants to be changed."

Xander nodded slowly, "So … they want a Sovereign-Lite, or a Galaxy-Deluxe?"

Seven was quiet for a few seconds as she thought about the words and their meanings, but then nodded, "Mostly – several of these ships have been brought into dry-dock for extensive overhauls and such while Commander LaForge on the Enterprise-E continues to shake down the ship, which may take a year or two more."

"And as he finds problems, we fix them?"

"Precisely – the problem is that while the Borg Offensive, not to mention the Dominion War, forced the ship builders to use parts meant for the Galaxy-class ships that were to be built, and while they are serviceable, they cause many of the problems within the Sovereign-class ships." Seven then sighed and shook her head, making her loose locks sway slightly as she looked down into her hands, "I have looked through many of the students and, by your merits alone, your name was brought up by the computer as a possible candidate for Engineering cadets who would retrofit and repair these ships over the next few years, thus learning what they can do and teaching them with hands-on skills."

Xander arched an eyebrow as several students took that precise moment to pass by, not sparing them a look, "So you nominated me?"

Seven nodded, also eyeing the students, "Yes – there will be over three hundred two-person teams upon these ships, working on various degrees of things while they continue to take their classes and continue their training. As they progress with their studies, they will be moved to other areas to work on the ships, and thus the retrofits will be done."

"Free labor, then?" Xander grinned slightly, a chuckle escaping his lips, "Why pay someone when you have all the cadets you need as free labor?"

Seven smiled slightly, "That is correct – as each team completes a project, their work will be gone over by two separate crewmen and evaluated, and this will ensure that the repairs, upgrades and retrofitting will be done correctly."

Xander nodded, "Smart – if I accept this, when do I start?"

"Next semester – it will be strictly extra-curricular, dependant upon your grades, Xander, and on your own time, so be sure that you want to do this." Seven leveled him with a look and he could clearly see in her eyes that she was being serious, "If you think that Lt. Commander Torres and I have been hard on you with your training so far, as the saying goes, you have not seen anything yet."

Xander fired back with his own patented look, his lop-sided smirk that, according to both Wendy and B'eth, was capable of stopping anyone at a dozen paces – Seven's own lips twitched upwards slightly as he spoke, "Trust me, Seven, I like the pressure – I eat it and the main fare for breakfast, lunch and occasionally dinner. I've recently learned that I do well under pressure, and with less time on my hands to be in the holodeck, which is off-limits to me anyway, I need to fill my time somehow."

She nodded, standing, "Then I shall make the proper documentation to get you to a training bas for the summer – there is much for you to learn that we cannot cover even this amount of time, so at the base you are sent to an Engineer will bring you up to par on the tools, equipment and possible things you will be working on. I want you to learn it, Xander, because when we move, it will be moving very quickly."

He stood up and drew to a sharp attention pose, "Aye, Aye, Lieutenant!" She gave him a tolerant smile and they walked back to his room, "So, Seven, can I ask you about these bio-neural gel packs? Something about this is … weird."

(Later)

She watched as Aunt Seven and Xander went over the intricate details of Bio-neural gel packs, whatever they were, and from her position on Xander's upper bunk, Miral was able to plan just where she was going to jump on his shoulders … if her tummy would ever stop flipping and flopping on her.

"So, this is the future of circuitry, then?" Xander's voice sounded slightly skeptical at best as he snorted, "Personally, I'd say it's a problem waiting to happen – what if someone can get some sort of a contaminate into a batch that doesn't manifest until much later?"

"That happened with Voyager's gel packs, Xander, and it was readily correctible," Aunt Seven pointed out even as Miral felt her stomach flip some more, causing her to whimper and Seven to look up, "Miral? What is wrong?"

"Her stomach's qualifying for the mat set in the Olympics," she heard Xander say blandly as she heard him stand up and walk over. Miral felt Xander pick her up and cradle her even as he walked over to the bathroom, setting her down near the toilet, "Now, Miral, I know this isn't going to be fun, but the quicker you get this done, the quicker you'll start feeling better."

She looked up at him somewhat pitifully, but she knew he was right even as he stepped back and closed the door, allowing her to retch in peace.

Xander grimaced at the sounds coming through the door – he knew that Miral hated doing this and didn't like anyone watching her (he still had the scratches from earlier that evening when he'd tried to help), but what else was he supposed to do with a very independent almost-2 year old?

"I take it you've learned about trying to help her," Seven said in a somewhat amused voice as he turned around again. "If it does make you feel better, she almost blacked Harry's eye one time he tried to help her stand on her own."

Xander winced, "It disturbs me that she's not even two and she's already this violent."

Seven just shrugged, "From what B'elana tells me, Klingon children are very independent from any but their mothers until they are about 4, and then they accept no help from anyone – I fear for Tom at times like this."

"But she's only one-quarter Klingon, Seven; shouldn't this independent streak be somewhat … less pronounced?"

Seven just shrugged at him as the toilet flushed and Xander opened the door to pick Miral up to the sink, "You would think so, yes, but it is not."

He washed Miral's mouth out and then carried the little girl to his bed, tucking her under the covers and giving her that god-awful Flauter before kissing her on the forehead, "Go to sleep, munchkin." She nodded at him and he stepped away towards Seven, who had a mysterious look on her face, "What?"

"You are surprisingly good with children, Xander, and that bodes well for you as a father, one day."

He rolled his eyes, "In the old days of Earth, there was a saying – may your children be as bad as you were. If that's the case, I'm never having kids, ever, Seven – I was an unholy terror."

Seven looked at Miral and then stepped in closer, speaking very softly, "Do you mean as yourself, or as a pre-Q human?"

He gave her a look but said nothing – ever since that Seven had pinned him about his pre-Q days, from when he wasn't exactly himself a few months before, she had been curious about who he had been, what he had done and just how much he had changed. He'd left out the majority of what he had done in respect to demons, replacing them instead with 'criminals the law couldn't touch', but the regular stuff he'd told her and she always had a few questions for him about this, that or the other as far as his Earth was concerned and it's past. Finally, though, he nodded, "Both, actually."

She just arched an eyebrow at him, "Both? Surely you were not that bad as a child."

He grinned slightly, "Well, not at first – when dad started to drink, though …" His mind went back to when he was a teen and the beatings he took from his father in order to save his mother, and then the night those beatings stopped, "It went on for nearly four years, until one night I got tired of putting up with him."

Seven's face closed up almost instantly, "You … were abused? And what do you mean … you got tired of putting up with him?"

He shook his head, "I didn't kill him, Seven, if that's what you're worried about – trust me, if I wanted to do that, he generally made it easier than it needed to be with as often as he drank himself under the table. No, I just made sure he understood that I wasn't going to let him hit me or mom ever again … without consequences." He remembered that night, when he'd introduced Tony to just how well he was capable of using a knife, and how good his aim was when throwing it, and he grinned a death's head grin at the way Tony had sobered up VERY quickly, "He never laid a hand on me or mom ever again."

Seven looked at him and then up at Miral, but then looked back at him, "You are scared to have children, then. You … do not wish to continue your own father's mistakes."

Xander blinked at her several times before shaking his head, "Seven, you're too smart and insightful for any mere mortal."

She cocked an eyebrow at him before stepping back and going to the bathroom, where she began to put her hair back up, "Alexander, there is nothing MERE about me."

He nodded, "You're right, and Harry knows that, too – he was just worried about losing you, hence the question." He walked over to the door and saw that Seven was frozen in mid-pin of her hair, her eyes blinking rapidly as tears began to well in them, so he stepped in and did what he did best with females who were about to cry – comfort, "Seven, take it from a guy who is currently a Q, 24, was almost married and has seen more shit in his life than anyone needs to see in four of them – he loves you and he wants to make sure that he's not going to lose you."

She leaned back into his hug slightly and then nodded, pulling away and wiping her face, "I understand now, Xander, thank you."

He nodded and stepped out of the bathroom, going back into the room proper and noticing that Miral as stirring slightly and looking at him sleepily, her Flauter doll on the ground, so he picked it up and gave it to her, "Here ya go, Miral."

Miral looked at him and frowned, saying one word that chilled him to the core, "Q."

Naturally, it was that point that his door chimed and B'elana's voice came in, "Xander? I'm here to pick up Miral."

(Week 32 – post finals)

It had been one very long month since Miral had spoke that one word, that one syllable, that one simple name that had scared him to no end, and since then Xander had felt as if he were on pins and needles whenever she was in the same room as him – she didn't treat him any different than she did before, never looked at him any different, hell, half of the time it was like it had never happened, but the point of fact was that she had heard what he had said, and Xander, for the first time, was scared … and that fear was well-founded. He wasn't going to be a lab rat for anyone, he wasn't going to be tested, poked, prodded and examined, let alone put under lock and key, and if needs be, he had told his father that he would raze Starfleet Academy to the GROUND, but he'd never be a lab rat.

His father, with a roll of his eyes, had promptly told him to stop taking tips from Buffy Summers on how to be overly dramatic, that the Q Continuum would never allow it to happen.

Since then, Xander had been on over-drive to get his classes in order and to get ready for finals, as he was going to be going off to some deep space station to learn all sorts of the tricks of the trade from one of the best in the business, by B'elana's own admission, and for the first time in a few weeks, he wasn't alone – B'eth and Wendy were both talking to him again and things were actually working out now. Neither of them were happy about his secrets being secret, but all three had come to the agreement to start over, fresh, and to let the chips fall where they might, and so far it was working – Wendy was well on her way to being an accomplished doctor of medicine, B'eth's piloting skills, while still rough, were starting to shape up (though she still insisted on taking Wendy on holodeck rides, rides that Wendy flatly refused to go on), and he was out of power distribution and simple repair and going on to installation and replacement of the small fusion generators that were scattered through out the ship in emergency shelter areas, ones that could keep, in an old Galaxy-class starship, alive for up to 36 hours without support, for when main power was lost and they were in an Emergency situation. It wasn't easy, but that was the point – B'elana and Seven were both pushing him to a point that was meant to break a normal human, but even before his parentage was made apparent to him, he wasn't normal, and now he was thriving on the pressure he felt to succeed, and every time he failed, he came back at it twice as hard and didn't fail again.

Now, though, he was packing his things and getting ready to his shuttle transport, and that's when he felt his family flash into the room, "Hey, guys – what're ya here fer?"

Q2 snorted at him, "Brother, do you really think we are going to let you languish in this plane of mediocrity to learn what these humans call … technology?"

"Certainly not," his father went on even as Q-F went about zapping his clothes and such into his duffle, "we're here to make sure you get the full benefit of this time off. You see, son, you are going to defy logic and a physical rule of thumb – you are going to be in two places at once."

He blinked even as Q-F finished his packing and smiled at him, "You see, Alexander, while your human half is off learning at this deep space station, your Q half is going to be with us, learning what you could term as the more … esoteric ways to use warp field theory and transporter technology, and SO much more. First, though, you need to hold still," she told him even as all three raised their fingers and snapped as one, the flash blinding him slightly.

When his vision cleared, though, he was more than a little shocked to see his double, dressed the same way as he was, standing next to him – they both sighed and spoke as one, "Oh, gods, not again."

"He is you, son," his father went on even s Q2 snickered, "and he has all of your knowledge … and human limitations. You have been granted your Q powers on a temporary basis, and when your vacation is over, you will be merged together and all that he's experienced and learned, so shall you and visa versa."

His double looked at him, "Well, at least Ahn's not here – remember what she said last time?"

Xander shuddered, "Please, I've been trying to repress the memories of her descriptions of a threesome with two of me and one of her."

His double nodded, "At least she would have died happy, though … well, as happy as she could be that doesn't involve a pile of money and a bunch of dead rabbits."

Before they could go much further, though, Q-F coughed even as Q2 gagged slightly, "Sons? A moment, please? You," she said to his double, "have a flight to catch, and we," she said to him, taking his hand, "have much to catch up on – you are WOEFULLY behind on your studies."

His double looked at him and then nodded, "Have fun, bro."

Xander nodded, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, bro."

His double snorted, "Oh, yeah, that's really limiting, isn't it!" With that, he grabbed his duffle and walked out of the door, leaving him alone with his family as Q2 collapsed to the ground.

"Great Creator, there's TWO of them!" He was promptly ignored as his father came over and draped his arm over his shoulder.

"Son, now, let's start off with a rather charming race that once were quite interesting, before their interactions with humans – they were spawned by the Xel' Naga, and were known as the Protoss …" his father said as they all flashed away into the depths of the multiverse, with much to learn and even more to visit. Time, after all, wasn't limitless, only … stretchable.

AN: Alright, here's the last of this chapter, boys and girls – I don't plan on letting it slip as long as it did last time, but it may be a while before I get back to it (only reason it took me this long was because I re-wrote this chapter five times before I decided to go with it). Please, review and tell me what you think, AR.