ROLLERCOASTER

-x-

Blue Fairy Godmothers Don't Wear Sombreros

-x-

Such curious, enthralling, admirable beings, these humans. So utterly inconsistent and bewildering – so transient and all-consuming their desires and needs. So complicated.

Even the new ones.

Especially the new ones.

He had seen human infants in the first few weeks of life before, and marvelled at them, but never before had he seen somebody thrown suddenly into that tumult of Id and Ego that was mortal, biological sentience fully grown and articulate as was the man next to him now. He had gone from professing extreme hunger to suddenly claiming a loss of appetite, without touching a morsel of food, only to change his mind once more after less than a minute's sullen introspection, and was now quite cheerfully, it seemed, making short work of the second of ten large desserts in front of him. Data understood human adults to often be erratic and governed by mood, but could not recall any one making such an unrestrained show of capriciousness before. He wondered, recalling that the time had once been when the man digging his spoon deep into the bottom of the second glass was not only able to change Data's form to human in the blink of an eye, but had freely offered to do so; whether, had he accepted, Data too would have found his impulses as wildly fluctuating and impossible to fetter as this new human did.

Or, perhaps that was just Q's way. He had never been a particularly restrained being.

So engrossed was he in Q's merry gluttony that he barely noticed a chair being pulled up at their table.

'You're not going to eat all of that, are you?'

Data looked across at the speaker by his side. Evidently, Commander Yar had come off duty, although why she had chosen to drink her coffee at the same table as Q was beyond him. Apparently, Q had been most uncharitable towards her when she had followed the Captain's orders to take the former immortal to the Brig.

'Oh!' Q gave a smile that Data was certain was not meant kindly. 'The Guard Dog's back! Don't tell me that eating is another imprison-able offence?'

'Commander Yar is not a dog,' Data reminded Q, quietly.

'It's OK, Data. I'll handle this…'

'Nor does she particularly like canines of any description. She is not fond of the way that they smell.'

'Data. Seriously. Let it go.'

'I am merely informing Q that, while some individuals would find that the received idea of a "guard dog" being a loyal and courageous companion would lead to a favourable comparison, you, with your lower opinion of canines, would in fact, find the allusion to be rather insulting.'

Q retained his chocolate-smeared smile. 'He gets there in the end, doesn't he?'

'The insult was intentional?' Data asked. 'Perhaps you should refrain from antagonising others. You will find interaction much easier that way.'

Tasha turned to Data. 'Why are you being nice to this little weasel, Data?'

'You hear that?' Q pointed accusatorially at Tasha, while appealing to the android. '"Weasel", she calls me!'

'Yes. I heard.'

'Well, why is she allowed to insult me, but not the other way round?'

'You did insult her first,' Data reminded Q, as Tasha gave him a smug smile and stole a cherry from the top of one of the eight remaining sundaes.

Q, the last spoonful of sundae number two lodged in his mouth, leaned back in his chair, regarding them both with narrowed eyes.

'Oh,' he muttered, his mouth full of spoon, 'I think I understand what this is all about.'

'What what is all about?' Tasha demanded. 'What are you drivelling about?'

Q pulled the spoon free and began to dig into a third dessert. 'The reason why the two of you are in cahoots.'

'We're not in cahoots. Why should we be in cahoots?'

Q waved the spoon vaguely between Data and Tasha. 'You're dancing partners for the Ugly Tango, you filthy monkeys.'

'What?!' Tasha hissed, seemingly offended.

'What?' echoed Data, genuinely confused.

'Sailing the Milky Way,' added Q, as if somehow clarifying matters, 'White-water Spelunking; Performing The Forbidden Heimlich Manoeuvre; Bed Wrestling…'

'I assume that you are speaking in euphemisms for something,' Data frowned. 'What that is, however, I cannot ascertain.'

'…Building The Beast With The Binary Back…'

'He's talking about sex, Data,' Tasha muttered through gritted teeth.

'Really?' Data raised his eyebrows. 'I have never heard any of those idioms used to describe the sexual act before. They must be very specific…'

'He's making them up,' Tasha retorted, before adding, deliberately to Q; 'he's making it all up.'

Q scoffed. 'Please. He's slipping you the old Vanilla Lollipop, all right. Don't try to deny it.'

'Commander Yar and I are not in a sexual relationship,' Data told the increasingly chocolaty human. 'We are friends.'

'Liar. You're planting your scarecrow in her secret barley field.'

'I must request that you desist with these accusations,' Data added. 'Not only are they untrue, but any rumour ensuing from them could prove harmful to Tasha's relationship with Nurse DiMaggio.'

'Now there's a Nurse involved?' Q beamed. 'This is getting more deliciously sordid by the second.'

'Well, this Nurse happens to be a six foot three Jujitsu enthusiast,' Tasha informed Q archly, 'who'd kick your sorry behind from here to Betelgeuse if he caught you talking about me that way.'

Q looked about the bar, craning his neck around behind himself. 'Is this Nurse here, then?'

'If he was, I'd be sitting with him.'

'Excellent,' grinned Q. 'Then there's no reason for you not to confess that you're Worshipping at the Velvet Temple with Laughing Boy here.'

Tasha put her fingers to her forehead. 'Will you please just stop it?'

'Not until you admit that you two are Riding the Midnight Meat Train to Semolina Central…'

'That's disgusting!'

Q leaned in to them both. 'Oh, it is disgusting. It's foul and depraved…'

'Hey,' Tasha hissed, 'I'm not depraved…'

'I wasn't talking about you,' Q replied with a dismissive wave of his spoon. 'It's completely understandable with you. You're human. You can't help yourself. You see,' he added to Data with a conspiratorial air, 'if there's one thing I've learned about these pathetic apes from these last few miserable hours residing in this sack of meat, it's that they think about sex literally all the time. Constantly! They're obsessed! I'm thinking about it right now, as a matter of fact. So's our Little Ray Of Sunshine here, I'd wager. In fact, I'm fairly certain that in this whole room… actually, no – this entire ship, the only member of this gallery of the great and the good of mortal existence who is not thinking about that tediously basic act of inserting part A into part B that you people laughably refer to as "making love" at this very moment in time, Data, is you.'

'I find that hard to believe.'

'It's the truth! And, while twanging elastic with a man made of plastic won't fulfil the original biological need that has programmed all these walking DNA Conduits to concern themselves with rutting away at one another every moment of their adult lives, it scratches that constant, nagging itch at least, isn't that right, Natasha?' Q turned his attention back to Tasha, who was staring furiously down at her coffee cup. 'And, I mean, look at him!' He reached over the table and pinched Data's cheek. 'Look at his little Chuchy-face! Why, in the half-light of a candlelit boudoir you could almost believe it was the real thing. I bet he doesn't even have to come up for air, does he?'

Tasha buried her forehead in her hand as Data batted Q's pinching fingers away from his face.

'So,' Q continued, blithely, 'I'm not blaming you, Commander Yar. It's in your nature – you're only human.' He turned again to Data. 'You, on the other hand… does your perversion know no bounds?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You don't get the urge, you don't get the itch… and yet, you still scratch. Why?'

'My programming…' began Data, before coming to an abrupt stop. He took a moment to consider what he was saying, and to whom. At Data's side, Tasha - still cradling her forehead - had turned a little pink. Whether it was outrage or humiliation that flushed her skin, Data could not determine, but he could tell that Q's inquisition was causing her considerable emotional discomfort. While Data normally had no qualms over speaking candidly about his sexuality programming, he concluded that, since Q was convinced that he and Tasha were having an affair, to make comment about his own sexuality during this particular conversation would surely implicate her involvement to Q. Indeed, since Tasha had been the only person with whom he had been sexually active for some years now, and since his relationship with her was far more complex than any of his previous sexual encounters, it would be impossible for him to refer to his sexuality as it stood now without taking their indiscretions into account. Even if he did not have Tasha's embarrassment to consider, he believed that it would be unwise for Q to find out about… no… it was less reasoned than that. He did not want Q to know about what had happened between him and Tasha. That was what it was. Strange. He did not wish to tell Q anything about his sexual functions, or the motivations that drove him to accept offers of sexual intimacy. He had no issues with helping the new human to adapt to his own life, or to share with him what observations he had made about human society, but to discuss sex with Q…? For some reason, the concept did not appeal in the slightest. If he had to ascribe a feeling to it, he would have to say that it made him… Uncomfortable.

'I do not believe that that is any of your concern,' he replied after his brief silence.

'Boring!' Q proclaimed, loudly. 'And the both of you still haven't owned up to grinding gears on the hairy highway…'

Tasha got to her feet, suddenly. 'That's it, I'm leaving.'

'So soon?'

'At least make sure he eats those ice creams a little faster, Data,' Tasha continued. 'They'll melt at this rate.'

'Can't I eat them melted?' Q asked, picking at his third sundae.

'No,' Tasha replied quickly. 'It'll make you real sick, and I'll be damned if we're clearing up that mess.'

Data opened his mouth to state that he had never before heard of a human becoming ill in that way, but Tasha stopped him with a pat on the shoulder and a quick wink.

'Trust me,' she added to Q, before shooting Data another meaningful glance and turning to walk away.

Data closed his mouth again and watched Q, who had already stuffed half of his third dessert into his mouth and had the glass to his lips, trying to scrape in more.

'Well, why didn't anybody say so before?' he mumbled, with his mouth full. He swallowed deeply, took a few more large spoonfuls from the fourth sundae and then stopped abruptly.

'Q?' Data frowned as Q's face creased with agony. 'Are you all right?'

'Ow!' Q cried, spitting chocolate and whipped cream. He clutched at his head in pain. 'Ow owetty-ow with a side order of for-the-love-of-mercy-I'm-dying-here!'

Data got to his feet. 'Are you hurt?'

'Of course I'm hurt, you motorised moron! I'm turning to ice! All the blood in my skull is turning to a frozen jelly…'

'He's got Brainfreeze,' called Guinan from her vantage point at the bar.

'Brainfreeze?' panicked Q. 'Is it treatable?'

Guinan shook her head with a smile.

'But it hurts!'

'Doesn't it, though?' added Tasha, still watching from the door. 'Extremes of temperature'll do that to a human.'

'You did this!' Q pointed furiously at Tasha. 'This is all because I turned you into a Guard-Dog-Popsicle all those years ago, isn't it? What have you done to me?'

'You have a temporary headache,' explained Data, 'brought about from consuming a large quantity of cold food too fast. Try to relax. The pain will pass.'

Q took a deep breath, rubbing his temples and continuing to glare at Tasha as she turned and left. 'Touché, Commander Yar,' he growled. 'Tou-ché.'

-x-

Tasha breathed a sigh of relief as she and Data stepped into the Turbolift together.

'I think we got away with that pretty lightly.'

'Intercepting the Calamarain's attack did considerable damage to my systems,' replied Data with a slight frown. 'It took several hours to correct – the android equivalent of a serious, life-threatening injury. I would not describe that as "getting away lightly".'

'I'm not talking about the Calamarain,' Tasha responded, 'I'm talking about Q.'

'You believe that he would take revenge on you for tricking him in Ten-Forward?'

'No, I think he'd bestow rewards on you for saving his life. At least, he would if he wasn't such an ungrateful ass.'

'I was not anticipating a reward,' Data told her. 'Are you implying that I should be offended that he has overlooked my helping him now that he has been returned to the Continuum?'

'I think you should thank your lucky stars,' Tasha replied. 'The last thing you want to live with is Q showering his tokens of gratitude upon you.' She paused. 'I mean, you know what he'd be most likely to do, don't you?'

'Make me human with a snap of his fingers,' concluded Data, flatly. 'I should not appreciate that.'

'Don't blame you. I don't think anybody in their right minds have appreciated Q's little "presents" as yet…'

The Turbolift came to an abrupt halt, cutting Tasha off mid-sentence. She swapped a concerned glance with Data, tapping her Comms badge as the android attempted to open the lift doors. Her badge failed to make any contact with the Bridge. More troubling yet was that the doors, which Data would normally have easily opened, remained shut fast. She tried her Comms badge once again, and still heard nothing.

That was it… she heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. Although the hushed, steady hum of the ship was only ever a barely noticeable white noise to her, she was always vaguely aware of its comforting whisper… but not now. It was gone. It was as though the entire ship had just stopped. As if… as if time had stopped.

Data glanced at her again, his expression echoing her own thoughts.

'Oh dear.'

'Ha-HA!' Timespace stretched ever so slightly to allow Q and a pair of maracas to materialise in the lift with them. 'Nobody expects the Ninja Mariachi!' He struck a victorious pose, shaking his maracas gleefully as he burst into tuneless song. 'Say, have you seen a Carioca? It's not a Foxtrot or a Polka…'

'Why are you here, Q?'

Q smiled coquettishly at Data. 'Now, is that really any question to ask your brand spanking new Blue Fairy Godmother?'

'Blue Fairy Godmothers,' stated Tasha, archly, 'don't wear Sombreros.'

'If I wanted style advice from somebody who wears a mustard jumpsuit day in, day out,' replied Q, happily, 'I would ask for it.' And then, before either Data or Tasha could get another word in edgeways, he began to sing again. 'It has a little bit of new rhythm, a blue rhythm that sighs…'

'If you were planning on awarding me any sort of gift,' interrupted Data, 'I must ask that you refrain…'

'Oh, relax. I'm not going to change you into anything. I know you're concerned because surely the most logical reward for a human life would be a human life returned, but you've already made your position on that matter very plain, and I'm not going to go to all that trouble of turning those marvellous metal insides of yours into squishy meat just for you to get all uppity with me about it. No, I was thinking something small… something temporary… just a token of my appreciation, nothing more.'

'It is not necessary.'

'Would you really,' asked Q, leaning in to the android, 'want me to be forever indebted to you?'

Tasha was sure that she saw Data gulp a little. 'Forever…?'

Q shrugged. 'Or until I got bored. Whichever would come first.'

'No,' replied Data, 'I would not want that.'

'Then it's settled,' beamed Q, and with a sotto voce 'Cha-cha-cha,' began singing once more. 'It has a meter that is tricky… a little wicked wacky-wicky…'

Tasha tried putting her fingers over her ears as a sign of her displeasure at Q's deliberate, she suspected, tunelessness. 'Do we really need to be stuck in here with you for all of this?'

'Oh absolutely, my little icicle,' responded Q. 'Be grateful that I didn't decide to put my gesture of goodwill into action when I thought of it up on the Bridge. No, I decided that this was the sort of present that would be best for you shameful little creatures to enjoy in relative privacy.'

Tasha frowned. This sounded ominous. She shot a worried glance at Data, who was already trying the doors again.

'Your dogged emulation of these people's grotesque little habits,' announced Q to Data, 'no matter how ridiculous or degrading, has always been a source of much intrigue and, I have to admit, amusement, to me. You don't even understand the urges that drive them to the behaviour that you ape. You can't even give me a solid, sensible reason why you do it, can you? And I think that's pretty sad. So, here's my gift to you; I'm going to show you what all the fuss is about.'

'What?' Tasha could feel her palms growing sweaty. She really, really hoped that Q didn't mean what she thought he did.

'And when you dance it with a new love,' warbled Q, 'there's a true love in her eye…'

'Why have you involved Commander Yar? This has nothing to do with her.'

'She's your partner in crime, isn't she?' shrugged Q. 'I can't very much have you acting out such impulses alone now, can I?'

'I have a boyfriend…' managed Tasha.

'She has no wish to engage any more in sexual intercourse with me…'

'"Any more"!' Q crowed, victoriously. 'So I was right about you two!'

'You have no right…'

'And she had no right to Brainfreeze me,' Q retorted. 'What goes around…'

'If you are suggesting that you will somehow manipulate me into forcing her…'

'No one's forcing,' soothed Q, 'no one's manipulating. You'll still be in control. Nevertheless…' he slid a smirk from Data to Tasha. 'I think it may be best if I turn my back for a while anyway. Because there's something here…' he gestured between the pair, 'and I'm certain that it's not just a similar taste in ghastly uniforms and ship's-issue haircuts. Hell's Bells, I'll even serenade you.'

'Please don't…' began Tasha, but Q had already turned his back on them, and quickly resumed in his singing.

'You dreeeeeam! Of a new Caaaariocaaaa! Its theeeeeme! Is a kiss… and a siiiiiigh! You dreeeeeam! Of a new Carrrrrrio-ho-ho-ca…' He glanced back over his shoulder briefly to address the android. 'Has it kicked in yet? That urge? That ache? Dreadful, isn't it?' He turned away again and went back once more to his strangulated song. 'When music and lights are gone, and we say goodbyeeeeeee!'

Tasha watched Data as he stood aloof and silent, but with what appeared to be a growing discomfort. He rubbed his face, then his palms, then his face again as though hot and agitated. He turned his head to make eye contact with her momentarily, but looked away again swiftly, stuffing the crook of his thumb between his teeth.

'Stop it, Q,' she ordered, but the mischievous immortal paid no heed.

'Two heads together, they say are better than one…'

'Data…?'

Data made a little noise that was half cough, half grunt of struggling restraint.

'You're gonna bite your thumb off at the knuckle at this rate.

Data mumbled a couple of unintelligible syllables.

'Hey,' she said, softly, laying a hand on his shoulder.

'Two heads together, that's how the dance is begun…'

He looked back again, wearing an expression she had never so much as imagined she'd ever see on his features. It was desire - a very particular expression of desire with which she wasn't familiar. There was no predatory dominance in his demeanour, no warm, sensual confidence, either. She could only remember one person ever looking at her like that before; a boy, long ago – a drunken, desperate, anxious virgin, practically fit to burst, his eyes full of hunger and fear... That was what Data looked like as he nervously flitted oddly dilated pupils over her body and tried to pretend it was just a slow blink, breathing shallow sips of air, his fingertips worrying over one another.

She thought back to the last time her libido had overridden her senses of reason and decorum, that evening he had showed up after his trial. In spite of everything, she actually found herself smiling wistfully at the memory. That overriding impulse, when it came… perhaps it did cause you to do immeasurably stupid things, but Hell – it made you feel so alive, didn't it? And now he was feeling it too, for the first time… for, she presumed, the only time. And it was for her. He was feeling it for her.

'Two arms around you and lips…'

It wasn't that she didn't consider Rocco. She did. She thought about sweet, strong, generous, faithful Rocco DiMaggio, and his broad chest, and his large, warm hands, and how very much he cared for her, and how very immoral it was to abuse his trust in her… but Q was right. Man, she hated it when Q was right. There was something there between her and Data. Q had cast no spell over her, but he may as well have. The concept of that pillar of alabaster indifference being overcome with such a desperate want; and a want specifically for her, at that… it was thrilling. It made her feel special - as if his need for her was part of something far grander and more important than her relationship with DiMaggio. After all, she told herself, they were outside of the normal constrains of time and space now – it couldn't be infidelity if they weren't properly cemented in reality now, could it…?

'That's why I'm yours and you are mine…'

'It's OK,' she murmured, leaning closer into him. 'It's OK…'

'And you are miiiiiiinnnne!'

She placed a hand on the side of his face, just as he had done on the Ferris Wheel. Evidently, that was the signal he had needed that he indeed had Tasha's consent to indulge the magically produced sensations of desire. Either that, or that physical contact, reminding him of their tantalising kisses on the holodeck, had simply overcome his self- restraint. Whatever the reason, she found herself suddenly, literally swept off her feet as with one hand he pulled her head hard in to his, meeting her lips in a ferocious kiss, and with the other hand, hoisted her up off the ground – an unnecessary action, since she was tall enough to easily reach his mouth with hers. Not that she stopped to think about that at the time. Automatically, she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders, and returned the devouring kiss.

Still Q sang dissonantly, his back steadfastly turned, although a certain air of a greater-than-usual smugness exuding from him gave Tasha no doubt that he was thoroughly aware of what was going on behind him. She was pretty sure that she should have been bothered by that. Only, she wasn't.

'Now that you've done the Carioca,'

With a force much greater than that she was used to him using on her, but still carefully calculated so as not to hurt her, Data slammed Tasha, unprotesting, against the wall of the Turbolift.

'You'll never care to do the Polka,'

With her wedged between his body and the wall, and with her legs tightly encircling his hips, Data pulled her hands away from his hair and pinned them against the wall as his hard, biting kisses journeyed from her lips to the side of her neck.

'And then you'll realise the Blue Hula and Bamboola are through…'

Finding herself beginning to slip down the wall, she was forced to untwine her legs from around him and put her feet back on the floor. They pressed close together now, groin to groin, and she could feel through their uniforms the extent to which the sudden gift of desire had already affected the android as he ran teeth and tongue over the goose-bumped skin beneath her ear.

'Tomorrow morning you'll discover,'

She turned her head to try to reciprocate with a kiss on his temple, but he tugged her hair back, forcing her to face straight upward. He stopped kissing for a moment and looked at her, that overwhelmed, anxious expression still his eye, one hand still grasping at her short hair, the other making a brief attempt to explore her body before making a happy base camp at her left breast.

'You're just a Carioca lover,'

She watched him as he closed his eyes and curled a tongue tip gently over her unmoving, parted lips. She knew what that was an allusion to. She closed her own eyes, remembering, anticipating… she felt him repeat the action on her chin, the valley of her throat…

'And when you dance it with each new love, there'll be a true love just for you…'

His hand left her hair and she felt his weight shift as his head moved down the front of her body. Suddenly, he stopped, his forehead pushed against the bottom of her ribcage, his fists bunched tight at her sides, just above her hips.

'You dream! Of the new Carrriocaaaaa!'

'That is sufficient,' Data murmured through gritted teeth, still half-crouched in front of her.

'Its theeeeeeeeme! Is a kiss…'

'That is sufficient,' the android repeated, louder.

'What?' Q turned round to face the pair, peevishly. 'Already? You haven't even started yet!'

'I do not wish for this,' Data replied, still, it seemed, unable to move from his awkward position. 'Commander Yar does not wish for this.'

'How are you so sure?' snapped Q. 'Have you asked her? She seemed to be enjoying it to me.'

Q offered Tasha a quick smirk. It was like a bucket of cold water to her. She cast down her eyes, staring intently at an empty spot of floor a few feet away. What had she been thinking…? Data? Again?! As if that hadn't caused enough problems already. And to so much as consider doing what they'd been doing… what they'd been about to do… in the presence of Q? And what about Rocco…? It was all wrong.

Data managed to push himself free of Tasha's body and stood awkwardly upright to address Q. 'It is not right. It is… unnatural.'

'You are unnatural, my dear little domestic appliance.'

'I regret,' continued Data, with difficulty, 'that I must refuse your gift.'

Q cocked his head. 'Oh come now, Data. Don't be like that. Your first sensations of schoolboy lust? Alone with the object of those desires, and discovering that she's only too willing to let you act on them with her? That's too good an opportunity to pass up.'

'Your interference in our private affairs is unacceptable. Please remove these sensations.'

'You're never going to feel this way ever again,' reminded Q, 'you realise that, don't you?'

'I am aware of that. I have made my decision.'

Q opened his mouth to reply.

'Put him back the way he was,' ordered Tasha, quietly, 'and then leave us alone.'

Q huffed with a grimace. 'Wretched ingrates.'

In the blink of an eye, he was gone. The Turbolift - or, as Tasha presumed was the more accurate description, the Universe all around the Turbolift - began to thrum back into life again. Data didn't even so much as sigh with relief. He merely straightened out, and steadied his expression into one that was once again devoid of emotion; once again steadfastly inscrutable, once again familiarly, comfortingly, yet infuriatingly blank.

There was an uncomfortable, pregnant pause.

'I cannot apologise enough for my conduct,' he announced, at length.

'We were both out of control,' Tasha replied, keeping her eye on the spot on the floor she'd been concentrating on earlier.

Data shrugged his head slightly in agreement. 'However, it was I who initiated the proceedings on this occasion.'

'Q initiated it,' answered Tasha, flatly.

'Be that as it may,' Data retorted, 'I am prepared to take full responsibility for what has just taken place, if you were considering informing Nurse DiMaggio of…'

'We're not going to tell Rocco anything,' Tasha told him. 'We're not…'

'…going to tell anybody,' Data completed for her.

She nodded, stiffly. 'You know the drill by now.'

She paused, and wondered whether to explain to Data that she wasn't referring to an actual "drill", but instead of casting Tasha a bewildered look, the android nodded to himself in apparent comprehension.

'Indeed I do.' He briefly paused, and took a deep breath in and out – an action that could almost be interpreted as a resigned sigh. 'This is a conversation which we have had several times before. We do seem to be finding ourselves in this situation with a considerable regularity, do we not?'

She folded her arms, shooting him a sideways glance. Was that a dig? 'Hey. You started it this time.'

'Did we not just conclude that it was Q who "started it this time"?'

'Quite,' replied Tasha.

The Turbolift slid to a stop, allowing a young family to get in. It was not the deck that Tasha needed, but she felt compelled to get out anyway.

'I'll see you later,' she muttered curtly to the android as she hurried away from the Turbolift.

'Please give my best wishes to Nurse DiMaggio,' she heard him call after her.

'Oh, sure I will, Data,' she added sarcastically under her breath as she wiped the last of the cold sweat from her brow. 'Sure I will.'

-x-

A/N - The song that Q sings is 'Carioca', by Vincent Youmans, Edward Eliscu and Gus Kahn, from 'Flying Down To Rio' and 'The Kentucky Fried Movie'

Many thanks to Realmlife for her help Beta reading, and to various friends for help inventing the many ridiculous and disgusting sexual euphamisms.