Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Star Trek TNG—no copyright infringement intended with this post.
A/n I am rewriting the ending of Nemesis with this story. It is AU and will incorporate Tasha Yar from Yesterday's Enterprise and Q.
A/n2 I am not a fan of ST Picard! The story will deal with the original TNG timeline, including the movies and the split-off Enterprise-C timeline.
The Choice
Tasha thought she'd planned everything down to the last detail. However, she forgot to factor in Sela's resistance to leaving her home and father. She should have realized that her daughter would cry out. Despite his constant absences, Sela had been close to her father since birth.
Now, Tasha stood alone in the courtyard outside the General's home with his guards surrounding her. She held her head high and forced back tears as one of them tore Sela from her grasp. She couldn't fight back and risk accidental disruptor fire killing her daughter.
General Meldat strode into the circle of his guards and jerked Tasha into his embrace. He kissed her roughly and whispered. "I gave you everything, your life, the lives of the survivors, a child, and my love."
"I –"
"Silence," he roared and thrust her away from him. Tasha stumbled and nearly fell into one of the guards.
"I know you, Natasha. You want to die standing with your eyes wide open. I'll give you that privilege as proof of my goodwill."
Tasha didn't speak. She kept her eyes on Sela, who now resided in her father's arms. It would do no good to demand they take her away instead of forcing her to witness their barbarity.
The General gave the order to his bodyguard, who'd loathed Tasha from the beginning and did everything to make her life a worse hell. She smiled at her daughter, and the tears she'd fought to withhold spilled down her cheeks. Her heart beat so hard she began to feel dizzy and weak. The guard cursed at her in Romulan and squeezed the trigger. She watched the stream erupt from the disruptor, and then everything seemed to slow down, and the red pulse stopped as if it hit an invisible forcefield.
Then, the scene changed, and a brilliant white light surrounded her. Her body revolved in place, or the setting turned around her. She wasn't sure. A figure confronted her in a red Starfleet uniform of the type she'd never seen. Tasha tried to move but found her limbs wouldn't cooperate. Somehow paralysis had stopped her cold.
"Who the hell are you, and what am I doing here," she said.
The man held up a finger and wagged it back and forth. His dark eyes twinkled with mischief, and what Tasha felt - was anxiety. His dark hair appeared ruffled, and he stood so stiffly she thought he might break in two if he attempted to move.
"Temper, Temper, Lieutenant. I thought you'd be happy I saved you from an excruciating death."
Tasha realized that she could move when she shook her head. "You didn't answer my question. Who are you and how –"
"I don't have time for your pedantic questions." He snapped his fingers.
Tasha was on the bridge of the Enterprise, but not the Enterprise D she'd served on during the war. The lighting had changed, and her uniform was unfamiliar. She looked up to see familiar faces, Captain Picard and Data, who was at the control console. Data was talking to the Captain about spying at Farpoint. An unfamiliar woman with dark hair interrupted them about sensing a powerful mind, and then the Red Alert klaxon began to blare. On-screen, a forcefield appeared that they determined was solid in form.
The ship glided to a complete stop, and they waited for a few seconds until the same man she'd just met appeared on the bridge after a brilliant flash of light.
"Would you mind identifying what you are?" Picard asked.
"We call ourselves the Q, or thou mayest call me that."
The being displayed incredible powers, including freezing Lt Torres. When she hurried down to the frozen man, she noticed in the corner of her eye a Klingon!
It was then that she realized she had new memories of another life. The Klingon was Worf, and the dark-haired woman, Deanna Troi, was a half-human, half-Betazoid counselor. They were two of her best friends, although, at the time, she barely knew either of them.
Q again ordered them to turn back, or they would surely die. She couldn't believe her ears and saw Captain Picard was not amused. However, he was also a prudent man, and after Q left the bridge, he ordered an emergency saucer separation to let the families continue to Farpoint and safety.
She jerked out of the – memory and saw Q staring at her. "Do you understand?"
Tasha shrugged. " The memories are hers, the Tasha from the other timeline. I never lived that life, but I understand who you are. The question is, why am I here, and where am I?"
"You humans are so pedestrian and boring."
Tasha lifted her eyebrows and stared at him until he sighed and said. "Fine. I brought you here because I need your help."
She laughed and shook her head. "You need my help? It looked to me like you're omnipotent."
Q waved his hand. "Normally, asking a puny human for help would make me vomit. However, if I intervene alone, Jean-Luc will figure out what I did, and I'll never hear the end of it."
"Oh, I see. You're a coward."
Q's lips pursed together, and she saw the rage in his eyes, but he clenched his hands into fists and said through his teeth. "I'd watch your mouth. I can easily put you back in front of that disruptor." Q snapped his fingers again.
Tasha was in a courtroom. She was on a stand with Data and the Captain, and Troi. The counselor told Captain Picard that their surroundings were real. The judge glided in on a raised throne-like chair, and it was, of course, Q.
Q put them on trial for their crimes as a savage child race. She couldn't bare to hear it. Starfleet had saved her life. She lost her temper and confronted Q. She demanded that Q get on his knees to what Starfleet represented. Q rose out of his chair, blowing cold air into her face with one look. She felt like she's stepped onto a holodeck program for winter sports without her extreme winter gear. No – it was one hundred times worse, and then she was gone into darkness.
Once again, Tasha opened her eyes to bright, white light and Q. "Well. You're a bully. I figured as much. I know how to deal with beings like you."
Q studied her, and then he smiled. "Do you know why I unthawed you?"
Tasha now had the memory of coming back to herself in the courtroom. She hadn't had lasting effects or felt cold afterward.
"Well?" Q continued impatiently.
"Because Captain Picard accused you of unfairness. You claimed no harm would come to us until the verdict."
"Yes, but I liked you because no other species dared to challenge me. You made me curious. Till that moment, precious little piqued my interest."
"I don't feel sorry for you," Tasha said. "if that's what you're hoping for."
"Of course not," Q scoffed. "I don't need your sympathy. I do require your assistance."
Tasha regarded him for a minute. He did save her life in the trial but for selfish reasons. He'd saved her life during her execution. Also, for selfish reasons, it seemed.
"What do I get out of it," she asked.
"I don't send you back to die."
"What else," she pressed. "Will you save my daughter?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because the Q doesn't interfere in lesser beings' mortal little lives."
Tasha put her hands on her hips. "Really? I remember you telling me you need me to "interfere" for you."
Q scowled and looked at his hands as if inspecting an insect. "If I wave my magic wand and save a – life, I'll go in front of my brothers and sisters of the Continuum again."
"Oh! I'm not surprised. So, you've done this before," Tasha chided him.
"Once or twice."
Tasha rolled her eyes and said. "You expect me to believe that?"
"Alright, it was more than twice. I didn't want to tell you this so soon in our acquaintance, but the life you could save is Data."
"Data?"
"Yes, the golden-skinned mechanical man that wants to be human."
A memory she'd long buried under her grief at losing all her friends and the one man she truly loved rose to the surface.
His hands, pale and gold, reached up and cupped her face. They were warm and soft, which always surprised her. Their gentleness cut to her core and forced tears to the surface. "Shh – please do not cry, Tasha. I can not bare it."
"I'm not crying in sadness but for joy, Data. I love you so much, Data."
"I am glad. I wish I could love you, Tasha."
She laughed through her tears. "When will you understand that your emotions are real? They are different from mine, but they are real, Data!"
"Yes. You remember Data?" Q said, shoving her out of the memory as if she'd fallen from a great height.
"I do. Stay out of my head!"
"I can't. I'm all-knowing."
"If you're all-powerful, why can't you stop reading my thoughts and projecting memories onto me."
"I didn't project that memory. It's yours, my dear. The night before the Battle of –"
"Stop it. I remember. It's mine, do you hear me? I won't let you taint it."
"There, there, Natasha. I do not wish to sully your little love affair. I only want to show you why you should agree to help me."
"Fine. What are you trying to change or fix, or whatever?"
"I knew you'd see reason. To be succinct, Commander Data will face destruction unless I can stop it."
Data! Destroyed. Tasha felt a chill go down her spine. She'd endured the last five years by not thinking of the Enterprise and its crew and all the friends she'd made, especially Data.
After Lieutenant Castillo and the others escaped execution due to her agreeing to become General Meldet's concubine, she held on to a tenuous hope that she'd see the Enterprise crew again. Tasha knew Castillo was dead or in a prison camp when he disappeared weeks later. Had she loved him, or had it been something born from the war? She didn't know.
"Then stop it," Tasha said as she squared her shoulders and stared into his eyes. "You don't need me."
"I told you I do. Are you not capable of understanding me? Did the Romulans damage your brain with their torture?"
"Shut up!"
"What a witty comeback, Lieutenant! Are you going to assist me or not?"
Tasha thought about the Temporal Prime Directive but hadn't she already violated it by going back to the past with Lt. Castillo and his crew? Did it matter if she helped Q save Data?
"If you need more incentive," Q said and, a third time, snapped his fingers.
Tasha gasped as new memories assaulted her. A tingle ran up her spine. She stood on the bridge and watched Data's fingers move over his console and wondered what it would feel like if he touched her.
She was sitting in Ten-forward with a glass of synthehol instead of the beer she wanted and complaining about it to Data, who informed her that alcohol consumption caused many side effects, including what humans termed a hang-over. She needed to be clear-headed for their mission.
Standing late at night on the walkway above the warp core with Data and looking at the engine as it pulsed bright blue. "Do you not think the sound of the warp core is like your heartbeat?" Data asked.
She'd looked surprised because she'd been thinking about the rhythmic pulsing, which reminded her of a heartbeat. "How did you know I was thinking about that?"
"I did not. I – " Data looked at the railing. "I am sorry. I was thinking something inappropriate. I must go."
The memory shifted again. "You want company," Tasha asked. She carried a plate of food from the canteen replicator and a glass of milk, which puzzled Data.
He shifted over a seat and held his arm to indicate his willingness to sit with her. "I wish I could taste that. It looks delicious."
"Have you tried?"
'I have, and it is – well, challenging to explain. I occasionally ingest a silicon compound to lubricate my bio functions. The mixture has no taste I can detect."
"So you never tried because you think you'll get the same results."
"No, I did consume Scot's Bonnet peppers once on a dare, as you humans say. I found them palatable and utterly bland. The Starfleet cadets that dared me were very disappointed in my reaction. They were not – friendly afterward."
"Data, they were trying to see your reaction to one of the hottest peppers you can find on Earth. I think they were hoping you freak out or something."
"I can not - freak out, as you say, Tasha."
"Anyway. Why don't you try a bite of the pasta Aglio e Olio? It's fabulous."
Tasha twined some spaghetti around her fork and held it out to Data. He looked at the pasta. "As your friend, I won't laugh or become angry with your reaction." She assured him.
Data took the bite and chewed thoughtfully. Then his eyes opened wide, his head tilted to the right, the left, and he stood up.
"I believe I can taste it. I – I find it most pleasant, but –"
"Data."
"Something is wrong, Tasha. I must go."
The memory ended, and she flashed through more small moments, climbing on the holodeck. She was kissing Data in an alcove that looked out over Starbase 212—reading together in her quarters, walking together in the lower decks after midnight when she couldn't sleep and wanted exercise.
"Tasha. I have spoken with Geordi, and he believes that I can taste, that it is not a malfunction."
"That's wonderful, Data. Let's go to ten-forward and have something yummy."
The polywater infection was going to her head. "And now, I want gentleness and joy and love from you, Data. You are fully functional?"
"Yes."
"How fully?"
"In every way, of course. I am programmed in multiple techniques and a wide variety of pleasuring.
"You jewel, that's exactly what I hoped."
She'd told him on the bridge that it never happened, but six weeks later, she woke up with Data stroking her back after a lengthy and vigorous bout of lovemaking.
"Good morning," he said quietly. "How are you, my love?"
"I'm feeling wonderful."
The memory changed again, but they began to flip so fast that Tasha could barely put them in context.
"Do you love him?"
"Of course not, Data."
Q's return. His offer for Riker to join the continuum. Q's penalty box and the aftermath.
"Could you continue with the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing."
Seeing Data change when Lore re-entered his life. Data testing out perfume on Angel one and seeing the guilt in his eyes that he claimed not to feel when the Bynars stole the Enterprise with Captain Picard and Commander Riker on board.
Faster and faster did the memories pour into her mind. Until the day arrived when they beamed down to Vagra II, she remembered thinking how stupid it was to be stopped by a flow of black sludge.
"We won't hurt you but must get to our people."
A step forward and then stinging pain along her spine to her head, agony in her brain, all went black.
"Stop," she said and blinked her eyes. "None of those memories are mine. They're hers."
"You're quite correct, but I need you to understand why you must assist me. If you don't, then the man she loved – that you love - will be destroyed. Not injured or shut off, but destroyed beyond all hope of repair."
"I hate you," Tasha said and wiped her eyes. "For making me feel everything she did. I don't want those memories and emotions."
Q nodded and said. "You never did, but somehow the Tin Man made you love him."
"Tin Man."
"You've never seen the Wizard of Oz?"
"What's that?"
"I'll show it to you later. For now, what is your decision, Natasha Yar."
"I'll help you."
"Splendid," Q clapped his hands and leaped into the air. "A wise decision from a plodding human."
"I have a caveat," Tasha said.
"Of course you do," Q said, and his smile broadened.
"If I help you, then you leave us alone, all of us, for the rest of our lives."
"Done," said Q.
"Just like that," Tasha said, and suspicion clouded her words.
"Just like that," Q said. "Hand on my heart," he put a hand on his chest.
"You don't have a heart," Tasha said.
"Au contraire, Natasha. I have one, and you have broken it with your words."
"Oh, stop!"
"Come on. There are plans to make." Q said, and the whiteness vanished from her view.