Chapter 3: Earth, San Francisco, Torres-Paris Family Residence, 2400
L'Naan Paris pulled her pajamas on and crawled onto her bed. Before she got under the covers, however, she sighed and called, "Junior? Can I talk to you?"
Q2 materialized immediately. "You called?"
"You know the weird part? I'm getting used to that," she said, snapping in imitation of him. "Listen, we need to give you a better name. I can't keep calling you 'Q Junior.'"
He sat down next to her. "A name?"
"Yes, 'Junior' is a little…"
"It's not very adult. Or sexy."
"Right," L'Naan said, appreciating his understanding of human values. "You know, you're not really anything like what I've learned about the Q."
Junior shrugged. "So what name do you think suits me?"
L'Naan studied him carefully. "Are you sure you want me to name you? A name is…special. It's your identity."
"Who named you?"
"My parents."
"Why did they choose 'L'Naan'?"
"It was my great-grandmother's name," she explained. "And Miral is named after our grandmother. One of our traditions is to name children after their ancestors."
Charlie slid onto the bed, and L'Naan shifted over to make room for him. "What do you like so much about being human and Klingon?" he asked, and she recognized that his tone was for once not condescending but sincere. "Your people die, get sick, fight wars –"
"Yes, that's true," she agreed. "And we judge each other based on stereotypes, and we sometimes treat each other terribly."
"That's how you describe your precious Federation?"
"The Federation isn't perfect, but then neither are we. But it's a testament to who we aspire to be and to how far we've come. It's a really beautiful concept, even if we haven't fully mastered it yet."
To his credit, Q Junior did not mock her but listened earnestly. "I wish I believed in the Continuum as much as you believe in the Federation."
L'Naan looked at him for a moment, trying to absorb everything she'd learned about him over the course of several hours. He was, she realized, more emotionally complex than her parents gave him credit for. "Where did you come from just now? Were you at Admiral Janeway's house?"
Q shook his head. "I haven't gone there yet."
"Q, it's three in the morning. She and Chakotay probably gave up waiting for you and went to sleep already."
He frowned slightly. "So what should I do?"
L'Naan smiled slightly. "You can stay with me," she offered. But only if you tell me why you can't go back to the Continuum tonight. "Now that I've taught you how to drink coffee after dinner, I can teach you how eat breakfast in the morning."
"Thank you," he said sincerely. "You can teach me everything you like about being Klingon and human."
"Well, it all starts with a name. So, I was named for my ancestors. My friend Lenaris was named after her mother's favorite literary character. And my friend Rona was named that because no one in her family has ever had that name before."
Q Junior thought for a second. "All the Q are called Q."
"How do you tell each other apart?" she wanted to know. When he didn't answer, she realized the stupidity of her question. They're omniscient, petaQ.
"You might as well choose my name."
"In that case, I think you'd make a good Charlie."
"Charlie?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said with a nod and a satisfied smile. "Charlie."
"All right, what did you call me to talk about?"
L'Naan took a deep breath, and her eyes dropped to her bedspread. "Charlie, are we friends?"
"I guess so."
"And you'll be honest with me?"
"Yes."
"Is this a trick?" she asked, daring to look him in the eye. "A test of some sort? Because if it is, I'd like to know right now before I get my feelings hurt."
Junior – Charlie – smiled. "You already know the answer to that question."
"That's what I thought," L'Naan said with a knowing nod.
"Q will probably test you in some way before he presents you to the Continuum," Charlie warned. "The Continuum like tests. But joining us – that's real."
"And you – your hunger, your pain. Your need to spend the night with us. Is that real?"
Charlie nodded again. "It's real, all right. The Continuum sent me here. They said that until I could save them like I'm supposed to, I'm no better than a human."
Ah, so that's why you're staying here for the night.
He yawned. "What was that?"
"Apparently, they made you require sleep," she explained, hopping off the bed. She went to the closet and retrieved an additional pillow and blanket. "Why didn't they take away the rest of your powers? I mean, can't you just snap and stop being tired?" Charlie snapped in her direction, and L'Naan answered her own question. "It's not a punishment. It's a disease."
"You have to promise you won't say anything to anyone – especially Aunt Kathy." He crossed his arms defiantly and tried to glower at her. "If you do, I'll turn you into a targ."
"No, you won't," she rightly predicted as she spread the blanket on the floor and placed the pillow at one end. "You need me, or you wouldn't be telling me all this." She pointed to the makeshift bed. "You sleep there."
As she stood up again, Charlie grabbed onto her shoulders firmly. "L'Naan," he began seriously, "it's not easy for the Q to need anyone – especially an overgrown primate."
"I'm part Klingon, too," she reminded him defiantly.
"That's even worse," he told her. "Look, this is scary. The Q – we don't handle uncertainly well. We don't even know what uncertainty is. We're supposed to be omnipotent, after all."
"All right," she assured him, shrugging out of his grasp. "Just stay calm. I'm not going to tell anyone. How many have started losing their immortality?"
"Only a few so far. I saw a Q get old. It was frightening."
L'Naan peered at him. "What do you look like in your native forms?"
"L'Naan, focus."
"Right. How long has the disease been affecting you?"
Charlie knelt down on the blanket on the floor as he explained, "It's been about four millennia, or twenty years in your terms, but it started slowly. Now it's getting worse really fast." He regarded the pillow curiously, as if trying to figure out how to position himself around it.
"Uh, Charlie," she asked as she watched him with amusement, "how old are you?"
"Much older than you," he answered simply, trying to place his head comfortably on the fluffy pillow.
L'Naan crawled back into her bed and underneath the covers. "Then why'd you pick the form of a twenty-year-old?"
Finally finding a comfortable position, Charlie stretched out and smirked. "Because you're attracted to men who aren't that much taller than you and who have brown hair."
L'Naan flipped onto her side to look down at him, surprised by his answer. "You wanted me to find you attractive?" she asked for clarification. "Charlie, are you attracted to me?"
"The Q –"
"Don't tell me the Q don't experience attraction," she interrupted. "Q appeared in Admiral Janeway's quarters way too many times for that not to be true."
"Yes, I suppose in your limited terms I'm attracted to you," he admitted. "But don't expect any Klingon mating rituals. I've seen what goes on in the caves of No'Mat."
L'Naan resisted the urge to smile. "For all our exploration and philosophy, our development and evolution, our understanding of the universe just comes down to sexuality?"
"I'm not here just because of sexuality," he reminded her, and she nodded, already understanding that there was some deeper reason for why he'd picked her that was waiting to be revealed. "Let me show you something."
Charlie flashed them into a gray and dimly lit room, with minimal décor and functional furniture. On a far wall was a bat'leth, mounted for display rather than use. If L'Naan had any doubts as to their whereabouts, they were cast aside when her eyes fell upon the antique television set in the corner.
"Are we on the Enterprise? In my family's quarters?"
"Yes."
L'Naan walked around, taking it all in. Though she'd been on the Enterprise as a passenger since her family had moved back to Earth, she hadn't been in these quarters – her first home – in years. "Why?"
"I thought you'd like to see when it all began."
"The day you sent Harry back in time? Why aren't we on Earth then?"
She quieted as the doors opened, admitting her parents. L'Naan ducked behind a bulkhead and pulled Charlie with her. Her eyes widened: her mother was very pregnant.
"Can you even imagine, Tom? Sometimes you are so inconsiderate!"
"B'Elanna, I was just trying to have fun. In case you haven't noticed, you're going to give birth any day now, and 'fun' will be a concept completely lost on us for a while."
"I don't even know where to start! Yes, I do! Don't call me out of engineering ever again!"
"I checked with Powell! You weren't doing anything important."
"Powell does not make my schedule! And I do not appreciate you talking to him before me! Who are you married to, anyway?"
They continued arguing, but L'Naan wasn't listening. She turned to Charlie with confusion in her eyes. If her mother was pregnant on the Enterprise, it was with her. Three years after Andrew and Miral were born. Why had he taken them to this day then? Be patient, his eyes seemed to be telling her. She turned back to her much younger parents, feeling slightly guilty at violating their privacy.
"Sickbay to Torres and Paris."
B'Elanna stopped mid-sentence. "Torres here. Go ahead."
"Commander, you'd better report to sickbay. It's Miral."
Before Charlie flashed them out of the quarters, L'Naan caught sight of the instant reconciliation her parents made as their eyes locked, concern for their daughter immediately ending any argument they might have been in the midst of.
In sickbay L'Naan and Charlie stood on one side of a biobed that held an unconscious toddler. Miral's hair was a surprise to L'Naan, who'd only known her sister to have long, lustrous slightly wavy human hair that she worked tirelessly to maintain. Apparently, in her younger days, she wore it chin-length, as their mother used to. Miral's clothing, too, was a mild source of amusement. She was wearing a crimson dress and leggings, but adult Miral loathed anything red, finding the color too Klingon and flamboyant, and she prided herself on being fashion-forward.
I wonder what she was like when she was little. And when did she stop being a miniature version of Mom?
L'Naan shook herself back into focus. After all, they were here for some greater purpose, and pondering fashion trends over the last twenty years was not likely to be it. She watched as the Enterprise's Dr. Enin scanned Miral and explained the situation to her parents. Tom wrapped his arms around B'Elanna from behind, holding onto her as much for his own strength as for hers.
L'Naan turned to Charlie. She wanted to ask what was going on, why she had never heard a story about Miral being seriously injured when she was little, and why he had taken her to this particular moment in the past.
Can they hear us or see us? she wondered.
"No, they can't," Charlie answered aloud. "You want to know why this moment is important?" He nodded back to Tom and B'Elanna.
Tom leaned his chin on B'Elanna's shoulder as he said quietly in her ear, "She's going to be fine. They'll treat her, and she'll regain consciousness."
B'Elanna was staring down at the immobile child as she rubbed her swollen belly. "I hope this one is invincible. Immortal."
L'Naan watched as a Q appeared – Q Senior – and snapped in front of Miral's face. The beeping of the biosigns monitor became slower and more even, and Miral's eyes slowly opened. Q, unnoticed by the Enterprise crew, disappeared.
Charlie turned back to L'Naan with a satisfied look on his face. Then he snapped his fingers again.
Space
"So my mom made a stray comment while my sister was unconscious, and that means I'm supposed to save the universe?" L'Naan questioned dubiously. "Come on, Charlie, your explanations keep getting more and more unbelievable."
"I didn't say that was the reason," he pointed out. He let his right hand drift slowly upward in the vacuum of space and watched its lazy moment. "I just wanted you to know that she once approved of the idea."
"I wasn't even born yet!" L'Naan watched as a comet moved past them, leaving a trail of space dust behind it. "Is that on a collision course?"
"Yes, but the planet it's going to collide with is uninhabited," he assured her. "Do you want to stay and watch?"
"How long until it hits?" she asked, feeling her curiosity get the better of her.
"Five hundred years."
"I think I'll pass." She flipped in a somersault, enjoying the freedom of the unencumbered space walk. "I like it out here. It's so peaceful."
"Just one of the advantages of being a Q. You can come here whenever you want."
"Charlie, did your dad save Miral so she'd live to marry Andrew? In exchange for my immortality?"
"L'Naan, you're going to make Q and the others in the Continuum think you're not worthy of joining if you keep asking for clarifications."
"If I'm destined to save the Continuum, how can I be unworthy, clarifications or not?" Charlie didn't have an answer, and L'Naan turned away from him, a smug smile across her lips. "Do you like taking human form?"
"It's limiting and a little disgusting – the breathing, the secretions – but it can be fun," he admitted. "I don't think you'd spend as much time talking to me if I looked like a Terellian seapod."
"Probably not," she let herself drift closer to him and caught his forearms, bracing herself not far from his body. "And I definitely wouldn't do this." She leaned forward and kissed him very softly on the lips.
As she pulled her head slightly back, they looked at each other, uncertain whose understanding of reality had changed more – hers or his.
Earth, San Francisco, Starfleet Academy, Dormitory Room of Ensign Andrew Kim
With only a few days until he was due to report to his first assignment, Andrew was still sleeping in his dorm room. His personal items were half-packed in storage containers, cluttering the usually immaculate space. He tried not to think about the chaos while he washed his face, preparing for bed. As he stepped out of the bathroom, L'Naan Paris
appeared in the middle of the room. He jumped in surprise when he saw her.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, vaguely relieved he was fully covered in his pajamas.
"Where's Miral?"
"She went to her room to get her hairbrush. Did Q send you here? We wondered what happened to you." L'Naan nodded. "Where is he? Don't tell me he's really going to sleep at the admiral's house?"
L'Naan shook her head. "He's sleeping in my room. It was too late for him to go to the admiral and Chakotay's." She bit her lip slightly, and Andrew realized her ordinarily calm demeanor had been shattered. She looked young – a lot younger than him suddenly, and a lot more fragile.
"Sit down," he said with concern, leading her to his bed. "What's going on? Where did you and Q go?"
"Space," she answered. She looked at him intently. "Drew, I'm sure you're disconcerted by what you found out tonight. Are you going to be okay?"
Sweet of you to worry about me, kid. He nodded. "I still don't understand, but I'm just trying to focus on the positives. I just graduated, I have a great post working under my dad, and I'm getting married." He couldn't help but smile as he enumerated. "So what if my existence is a quirk of temporal mechanics? It doesn't sound as though I have much to complain about, does it?"
L'Naan shook her head, sharing his smile. "No, it doesn't."
"And you?" he asked more seriously, taking one of her hands in his own. "You look pretty upset."
"I found out why you and Miral have to get married."
"The kuvah'magh and the child who isn't supposed to exist?"
"It was so I could meet Q," she said quietly.
"What does he want from you?"
Big brown eyes looked up at him. "He wants me to help him save his race."
Andrew chuckled slightly. "Another savior? First Miral, now you?"
"Actually," L'Naan explained, "he was supposed to be the savior of the Q himself – that's why he was born. Do you know he's the only Q ever born? The others have just always…been."
"So why does he need you if he's supposed to save them?"
"He's not doing very well at it," she admitted. "The Q are losing their omnipotence." When she saw him raise his eyebrows, she quickly added, "You can't tell anyone."
"L'Naan –"
"Andrew, promise me. I told him he could trust me. I'm telling you as my friend, not as a Starfleet officer, because I need your help making sense of it."
"But this is a huge tactical advantage, not to mention worthy of research," he said. "This could change everything we understand about the universe."
"That's why Charlie needs my help."
"Who's Charlie?"
"Q," she explained. "He needs to me to infuse new life into the Continuum."
"He wants you to mate with him?" Andrew let out a breath. "L'Naan, I don't know. I mean, maybe the Q are supposed to go extinct? Or maybe you should take the problem to the Federation Council or at least Starfleet Command? No offense, kid, but this sounds way out of your league."
Her voice was a mere whisper. "Charlie says it's the reason I was born."
"And you liked hearing that, didn't you?" L'Naan bit her lip and nodded, her eyes lowered. Andrew knew she was embarrassed to have her immodesty exposed, but he decided to press further. "You like him, don't you?"
L'Naan's bite on her bottom lip increased. "I guess that's the part that scares me the most. I kissed him."
"You're kidding me! L'Naan, you have the worst taste!"
"I do not!" she protested, yanking her hand away from his.
"Jeremy Powell? What's his name from your school? That Vulcan? And a Q?" He shook his head. "None of them is even remotely attractive. Or good enough for you."
"Stop being protective of me, Andrew."
"Somebody has to," he replied.
"Why is that your job?" she challenged, looking him directly in the eye.
"Because," he told her, returning the gaze, "I love you."
L'Naan's eyes widened. "You do?"
"Of course I do," he reiterated, taking her hand again. "You're like my little sister. And I consider you one of my closest friends."
"Really?"
"Really."
L'Naan threw her arms around his neck, embracing him tightly. After a moment, Andrew put his arms around her. They sat like that for a moment, hugging, until Miral walked into the room and raised her eyebrows at them.
"Little sister, hands off," she declared, tapping her hairbrush threateningly against her palm. "Besides, it looked to me like you nabbed your own boyfriend tonight."
Andrew looked up at his fiancée, smiling at her over L'Naan's shoulder. Miral's eyes narrowed even further. Jealous? Really? The thought was so absurd it made him fall in love with her all over again. He meant what he'd said to L'Naan. He adored her, respected her, liked her – not just because she was Miral's sister or because they'd grown up together (at least, as he remembered it). He liked her because she was fun and smart and great to talk to. But she was a kid. Nothing remotely sexual about her, in his mind. The woman currently staring them down, on the other hand – she was all heat. Gorgeous body, gorgeous temperament. Damn, I still can't believe she wants me.
"Sit down, Miral," he urged, pulling away from L'Naan but keeping hold of one of her hands to show her his emotional support. "You need to hear what L'Naan found out tonight."
