Epilogue: What the hell was that?
Picard slowly opened his eyes. His head was throbbing painfully. From the blackness behind his eyelids he transitioned to a blinding white. He quickly shut his eyes again. It was very bright out, and he wasn't entirely sure he was ready to face it. The Captain's memory was slightly fuzzy on where he was and how he had gotten there. He thought for a moment. He'd been on the Enterprise. That at least was a safe bet. He did spend most of his time there. Something had been happening. Something unpleasant. Once again, a safe bet, although not the most enlightening conclusion. He began to open his eyes again. If he was still on his ship someone had done some redecorating. The ground was white.
He looked around cautiously. Everything was white. No, wait, something appeared to be black┘ or at the very least not white. It took his eyes a moment to adjust. There was something lying on the ground several feet away. It was the shape of another person. Picard began to stand, but the sudden pain in every part of his body convinced him that maybe that was a little too much just then. Instead he crawled over to the other figure. He rolled the body over. It wasn't a uniform he recognized, but the face┘
Suddenly it all came flooding back, the ordeal he'd just been through, the people he'd met, oh, God, his ship. He recognized the face. It was Colonel Jack O'Neill of Stargate Command. The Colonel appeared to be breathing. Picard shook him. "Colonel wake up."
Jack moaned. He opened his eyes a bit, but shut them again quickly just as Picard had. "Why do I feel like I just got run over by a death glider?"
Picard didn't recognize the reference, but he decided to let it pass. "It will pass, Colonel." Probably, Picard didn't add. He was gradually feeling better, but it had by no means passed yet. "What do you remember?"
"Remember?" Jack asked, more to himself than Picard. He opened his eyes again, just enough to see who he was talking to. "Captain Picard?" Suddenly the memories seem to come flooding back, just as they had with Picard. It was a powerful enough experience to make Jack close his eyes again.
After a moment he asked a question of his own, "Where are we?"
"I don't know." Picard admitted. "I just awoke myself, in much the same condition as you."
Jack opened his eyes again. "It's white." He said.
"Yes, Colonel, it is."
"My team?" Jack asked.
"I don't know, Colonel." Picard looked all around. "As far as I can tell we're the only ones here." He glanced around again. "Where ever here is."
"I'm disappointed, Jean-Luc." A voice said.
Picard spun around. A familiar being had appeared sitting on a large throne.
Jack sat up to see past Picard. The pain in his head made him regret it almost immediately, but the sight of a smirking man on a golden throne with flowing black and red robes made up for it.
"Q!" Picard declared jumping to his feet. Suddenly all the strange events and coincidences made a lot of sense.
Jack looked more closely. "Simmons?"
"You remember me, Colonel? I'm flattered."
Picard ignored the exchange. "Q!" He said again. "You're responsible for all of this!"
"I will admit," Q said with a grin, "that I had a hand in directing events."
"Why?!" Picard demanded. "Torturing us for your own sick pleasure?" Picard realized that he really shouldn't be surprised, but enraged was a perfectly acceptable response.
"You should be thanking me, Jean-Luc."
"Thanking? For what? Killing my entire crew? Not to mention countless innocents?"
"For adding some excitement to your pathetic existence!" Q spat, his grin replaced in an instant by a sneer. "You and your crew, zipping around the galaxy, encountering alien race after alien race and problem after problem, and every time you win. Every challenger bested, every obstacle overcome, I've never seen a life so mind-numbingly boring!" He turned to Jack. "The same goes for you, Colonel! The four of you, as pathetic as you may seem overcome every obstacle. You're victorious at every turn. Your world is what gave me the idea, why I became Simmons, to test you. You share much in common with our heroic Captain here. So I found a universe with a problem that they could never be victorious against, and I nudged the both of you and your enemies to the same universe. Then I enjoyed the show. For once you both lost. So unexpected. So interesting!"
"That is enough, Q!" Picard said, the authority of a Captain in every syllable. "You've had your fun. It's over. Put things back to the way they were!"
"Over, my dear Jean-Luc? On the contrary, this is just beginning." With an ostentatious movement of his hand Picard and O'Neill vanished in a white flash of light.
Written, edited, directed, produced, and anything else you can name by Data laughing. It's all about me, baby!
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So, sequal? I'm taking suggestions for other sci-fi franchises to cross over.