Data led them to engineering. Nobody was happy to see Q and everybody but Geordi promptly ignored him. "All right, here's our latest plan. Q, over here. Elle, don't touch anything."

Elle put her hands in her pockets. "Yes, sir." She peered over Data's elbow at the readouts on the island console.

"The moon will hit its perigee in ten hours. Now, we match its trajectory, increase emitter coolant rate so we can apply continuous warp-equivalent power nine to the tractor beam. We can push it for nearly seven hours and I think that just might do it. But, there's a problem."

"The Enterprise will be dangerously close to the atmosphere," Data concluded.

"That's the problem," Geordi agreed.

Elle raised her hand. "Wouldn't that just crumble the moon?"

"This is incredible," Q declared a moment later.

"You see something here, Q?" Geordi asked.

Q gave Elle a frantic glance. "I think I just hurt my back. I'm feeling pain. I don't like it. What's the right thing to say? Ow?"

"Ow," Elle, Geordi, and Data agreed.

"Ow! I can't straighten up!"

Geordi huffed. "Q, there are millions of people who are going to die-"

"Yes, yes, your marvellous plan will not only tear the moon to pieces but your precious ship as well."

"Toldcha," Elle muttered, pointing at the power curve.

"How'd you know that?" Geordi asked.

"I saw the episode. And, I learned engineering from Montgomery Scott."

Geordi sighed. "You got a better idea?"

Elle put her hands back in her pockets. "I'm not that smart."

"I would certainly begin by examining the cause and not the symptom," Q said. "This is obviously the result of a large celestial object passing through at near right angles to the plane of the star system. Probably a black hole."

"Can you recommend a way to counter the effect?" Data asked.

"Simple. Change the gravitational constant of the universe."

"We can't do that," Elle pointed out. "Yet."

All three of them looked at her.

"Yet," Elle repeated.

Geordi frowned. "Hm... You know..."

Doctor Crusher came into engineering, summoned by an ever-patient Data. "What seems to be the trouble?" she asked, giving Elle a smile.

"Q hurt his back," Elle said.

"Huh. Well, if I didn't see it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. According to this, he has classic back trauma. Muscle spasms."

"I've been under a lot of pressure lately," Q muttered. "Family problems."

Elle snorted. "You don't even have a kid yet, Q, get used to it."

"What?"

"Nothing," Elle said, biting her lip. So he couldn't see his own future? Interesting... Either that or he couldn't cram that potential timeline into his tiny human brain.

Geordi smacked the console in delight. "You know, this might work. We can't change the gravitational constant of the universe, but if we wrap a low level warp field around that moon, we could reduce its gravitational constant. Make it lighter so we can push it."

"Glad to help," Q smirked, and then frowned. "Ow. I think."

Dr. Crusher sighed. "Now what?"

"My stomach is making noises."

Elle snorted. "You're hungry."

Q blanched. "What do I do?"

"You eat."

He turned another shade of pale. "But that starts the digestive system."

"...yeah? That's the point. It's how your body gets nutrients."

He started to turn green. "But then you defecate. I don't want to poop!"

Elle pressed her fist to her mouth, trying to keep a professional facade. And then she saw Geordi's little smirk and she cracked. "Ha!" Elle leaned against the console, laughing hysterically. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's a valid point, but-" She curled her arms around her stomach, hooting like a demented owl into the console. "That never occurred to me!"

Dr. Crusher snorted. "Data, I think you're the most objective out of us all. You can explain it to him." She left. The turbolift doors barely managed to contain her laughter.

Geordi managed to control himself and got back to work. "Elle, c'mon, we've got work to do."

Elle wiped her eyes and let out a couple of little giggles. "Okay, okay, sorry, I'm done." She saw Q's disgruntled face and started snickering again. "No, no, I'm good, I'm good," she promised, taking a deep breath. Think Spock. She sobered. "Okay. Let's go get you something to eat."

-/\-

Q pouted all the way to Ten-Forward. "I've never eaten before. What do I ask for?"

Elle gestured to the server. "Can we get two chocolate sundaes, please? Thanks."

"Why that?" Q asked.

"Uh, hold on. Stay there." Elle got distracted by one of her friends from Mechanical Engineering class and went over to talk to him. "Hey, so, I didn't hear the teacher. For our project, are we really going to build a perpetual motion machine or just models of our ideas?"

"Just ideas," Finn replied, "we still don't have the physics for an actual workable model."

"Oh, okay, cool, thanks-" Elle saw Guinan's hat out of the corner of her eye and remembered too late what was going to happen.

"Argh!"

Elle dashed back to the bar. "Hey! No fighting, no biting!" she scolded, shoving forks out of reach.

"She started it!" Q retorted, pointing at Guinan. "She stabbed me! This is a dangerous creature. You have no idea. Why Picard would make her a member of the crew and not me-"

"Stop goading her," Elle told him.

"It must be terribly frightening for you, to be totally defenceless after all of those centuries being omnipotent," Guinan sneered.

"Stop baiting him," Elle told her.

Neither of them listened. Elle threw up her hands and dug into her chocolate sundae to watch two powerful beings snipe at each other for a good ten minutes. It was almost as good as watching Spock and Bones, except neither Spock nor Bones were this scary.

Finally Guinan stormed away to the other side of Ten-Forward.

Elle handed Q his chocolate sundae. "Trust me, it'll help."

"I'm not hungry," he said.

"Eat it anyway."

He took a bite. "Oh... this is, yummy? Is that the word?"

Elle nodded.

"Yummy," Q decided.

La Forge commed Elle a few minutes later. "Keep him out of engineering. Take him on a tour, throw him in a pool, but keep him out of my department until we're done."

"Copy that," Elle said. "Hey Q, after we finish eating, you want a tour of the arboretum?"

He sniffed. "You don't even have anything interesting."

"Well have you ever smelled anything with a human nose?" Elle asked.

He pouted.

"C'mon man," Elle said. "Work with me here."

"Fine," he said. "You can show me your idea of a garden."

"Cool. I-" she broke off, staring out the windows at a white glob of energy. "What is that."

Q glanced over and his eyes widened. "Calamarain." He bolted for the exit.

A white glob plopped through the hull of the Enterprise and enveloped him in an electrical field.

"Stand clear!" Elle hollered, before one of the security officers could get too close. "Guinan what do we do?"

"Nothing," Guinan said. "Let him stew a little."

"Guinan!"

"You can't touch him," Guinan warned, grabbing Elle's arm.

The Calamarain energy swirl flickered, seized, and retreated back through the window. Q fell down, stiff and motionless on the ground. "Ow," he said.

Elle choked back a laugh. "Oh, this is not good."

"Medical team to Ten-Forward," Guinan requested.

Q was fine. A little tense, but fine.

"Guinan, can I get a sandwich?" Elle asked.

"How can you eat at a time like this?" Q snapped.

"It's not for me, it's for you." Elle shoved the plate into his hands. "Eat. You can't do anything with just ice cream in your stomach."

"I'm not hungry."

"Do I look like I care."

He ate the sandwich.

"Elle and Q to the observation lounge," Picard said over comms.

Elle sighed. "On our way."

They walked slowly, letting Q finish his sandwich.

Elle side-eyed her companion. "I have a question."

"Ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies," he retorted.

"When you exposed the Enterprise to the Borg the first time around, you were warning them, weren't you?"

Q stilled. "Warning them of their arrogance and incompetence," he said, but it didn't sound like his heart was in it. He took another bite of sandwich.

"Right," Elle said. "So you weren't doing your duty as one of the guardians of the cosmos?"

He huffed and gave her a sideways glare. "Elle, you have to understand-"

"You only poke species in need of assistance," Elle finished.

He gaped at her. "That is not what I was going to say!"

"It's what you were going to mean, though."

"How do you know that?"

"I've thought about it. Humans are a force for change in this galaxy, and we are both the solution and the problem to a lot of things. That means we have to keep ahead of the changes, or we will be destroyed. That's where you come in. What I can't figure though, is if you're supposed to do this, or if you're meddling so that we can do it."

"You've spent far too much time with philosophers," he said.

"So you are meddling."

"Humans are like cockroaches," Q said. "They have survived since the beginning of time and they will survive till the end of time. If I am meddling, it's to keep other insects from stamping you out."

"And all the other species you poke at?" Elle asked. "Like the Calamarain?"

He grinned at her. "Oh, please, Elle. You think my petty encounters with the Enterprise constitute as 'poking'? I only really torment the species that have no importance in the grand scheme of things."

"Good to know," Elle said dryly. "How's that entropy workin' out for you?"

"Terribly," he said. "I may have to rethink my technique."

She snorted. "You do that."

"You know, I can really see Spock's influence on you. All that dry humor. He has the worst jokes."

Elle stopped in her tracks. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh please, like you don't know. You listened to that audiobook every time you had to fold laundry."

Elle resisted a fangirl squeal. "Are you saying Spock Versus Q was a thing?"

"Unfortunately," Q sniffed.

Elle laughed hysterically. "He tricked you! Into saving the Earth!"

"All right all right, no need to dwell on past tragedies," Q said hastily, walking away from her down the corridor.

She trotted after him. "But what about the bodyswap thing? Did that happen? Did you meet," she lowered her voice, "Petunia?"

Q's eyes widened and he looked at her. "You shouldn't know about that."

"It was the sequel."

"Of course it was." They got in the turbolift. "Don't go spreading that knowledge around."

"I won't." Elle bit her lip. "I have another question."

"What."

"If you guys, the Q, are supposed to be in charge, nominally, then how come you let me run around and change the timeline all over the place?"

"If I tell you, you won't believe me."

"Please?"

Q sighed. "You, Elle Wilcott, are not our division! You do not come under our bailiwick."

"Why not?"

"We're in charge of this universe. Not the multiverse, not the universe before this one, or the universe after this one. Just this universe and its closely associated bubble universes and parallel timelines. Any further out, and that's for some other set of omnipotent beings to deal with." He tapped her on the nose. "You, are a living loophole. Exploit it. Have fun with it." He grinned at her. "With a little practice you could be an excellent harbinger of chaos."

Elle stared at him. "But I live in this universe now?"

"Yeah but you're not from here. Like I said. Loophole. Embrace it."

They entered the observation lounge. Riker looked ticked.

"You may go, Elle," Picard said, with a look that clearly read, you're a terrible liar and if I'm going to goad him you need to leave.

Elle went to hang out in the small observation lounge next to the big observation lounge. Usually it was where the yeomen did their organizing, but at the moment, it was empty. She leaned against one of the window frames and looked out at the planet below. "Q," she said firmly. "I know you're there."

"You didn't know I was there," he said, melting through the wall instead of appearing in a flash of light like his more flashy colleague. "You guessed."

"You came when I called," Elle replied. "You were there."

Q, henceforth mentally labeled as Q2 for sanity's sake, leaned on the opposite window frame and looked at her. "For a human, you've been very good at letting him go through this test. You've even got the captain participating."

"For a human," Elle echoed. "What does that mean?"

"It means I'm surprised you didn't tell him this is a test," Q2 replied. "You're really balancing the lives of the Enterprise and the Bre'el on whether or not that idiot has even a hint of selfless action?"

Elle snorted. "Oh it's in there. Buried deep, but it's in there." She folded her arms. "Besides, if I told him, he'd probably fake it."

"I would know if he was faking," Q2 said primly.

"Which is why I didn't tell him." She eyed this omnipotent being. "Is Q right? About me?"

"Unfortunately yes. You'd be a very good harbinger of chaos."

"Not that part," Elle protested.

"Oh. Also unfortunately yes. You don't fall under our jurisdiction." He eyed her curiously. "And very few things are outside the continuum's jurisdiction. Do you know what that means?"

Elle fidgeted under the pressure of his gaze. "No?"

"It means that if you mess up, it's not our job to fix it. That's all on you." He tapped her forehead. "Use your powers wisely."

She gulped. "But, the timeline? Fixed points?"

"Like I said," Q2 said gravely. "Use your powers wisely."

"So if I got Riker and Deanna to get married right now, what would happen?"

Q2 sighed. "You have no vision, child."

"What if I vaporized the Borg transwarp hub in the Delta Quadrant?"

Q2 blinked. "Too much vision, take it down a notch."

Elle giggled. "I thought so." She sobered. "I'm trying my best here."

"Oh, I know. That's why we're happy to leave you alone." He tapped her forehead. "Don't get cocky." He disappeared.

"Wait!" Elle called. "If Q doesn't get his act together you're gonna save the Bre'el right?!"

No answer.

"Ugh."

Q and Data went down to engineering to assist with changing the gravitational constant of the moon, and Elle went to the bridge with Picard and Riker. It killed her not to go down to engineering, to not interfere with Data potentially getting fried to a crisp, but ultimately this was a test, it wasn't going to be permanent.

Just keep telling yourself that, she chided herself, and sighed.

She managed to keep herself together through the slow tuning of the warp engines to push the moon, through the increasing efforts of the Calamarain to get to Q. She practically dug her fingernails into her palms and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood when she heard La Forge call for medical.

Picard raised an eyebrow at her. "My ready room," he said.

She followed him numbly.

"By testing Q, you mean endangering this ship, my crew?" Picard asked dangerously.

Elle nodded. "Yes, sir."

"And Data?"

"He'll be fine, I promise," Elle replied. "I promise."

Picard gazed at her for a long moment. "You would stake all our lives on the chance that Q does in fact have some fellow-feeling?"

She met his gaze. "Yes, sir. Unfortunately, I would."

Picard sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "All right. Fine. Unfortunately I agree with you." He took her hands, squeezed gently. "Stay on the bridge. If I'm going to play this, I don't want your wounded-puppy eyes giving the game away when you look at Data or Q."

Elle sniffed. "I have an excellent poker face."

"You're too sincere," he said, smiling at her fondly. "Ask Commander Riker for poker lessons after this." He ushered her out of the ready room.

Elle flopped onto the seat next to Troi and sighed. "Q this had better be worth it," she whispered under her breath.

Q2's voice floated into the air around her. "Oh trust me, it is."

Troi startled. "What was that?"

Elle waved a tired hand. "Nothing."

She played a desultory game of Minecraft on her PADD as she waited for the captain and Riker to come back. Picard and Q had a tense conversation in the ready room. Picard stalked onto the bridge, and Q stalked to the turbolift.

Elle, against her better judgement, followed him. "What are you doing?" she asked, hurrying to catch up with him as he bolted out of the lift.

"I, my dear Elle, am done with being mortal."

"What? What does that mean?"

"It means," he huffed and turned to face her, his gaze softening slightly. "It means, you'll be fine. You have a better chance of keeping the universe of line than I ever have." He spun around again and kept walking.

Elle followed him down to the main shuttlebay. "Now, Q, wait, you don't need to do this, we can figure something out-"

He placed his hand on her forehead, stopped her from walking into him. "Don't let these do-gooders squish all the creativity out of you," he said. He pushed her back into the corridor, and the main shuttlebay doors closed behind him. They locked.

Elle stared at the locked doors for a long second and booked it for the bridge. By the time she got there, the shuttle was away and Picard was trying to talk him down.

Q scoffed. "Please, don't fall back on your tired cliché of charging to the rescue just in the nick of time. I don't want to be rescued. My life as a human being has been a dismal failure. Perhaps my death will have a little dignity."

"Q, there is no dignity in this suicide."

"Yes, I suppose you're right. Death of a coward, then. So be it. But as a human, I would have died of boredom." He turned off the video channel.

Picard looked at Elle. "Now what?"

Elle lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. "Now we wait for Q. The other Q."

"There's more?" Riker blanched.

"There's an entire continuum of them," Elle pointed out. "They've been watching us this whole time. Welcome to the Truman Show."

Riker sighed.

"Captain, the aliens have disappeared," Data said. "As has the shuttle."

Picard and Riker exchanged a glance. "That's that, I suppose," Picard said.

"Au contraire, mon capitaine," Q blared, appearing in a flash of- mariachi bands?

Elle couldn't suppress a giggle. "You seem, restored."

Q banished the mariachi band and embraced her in a hug. "I'm forgiven. My brothers and sisters of the Continuum have taken me back. I'm immortal again. Omnipotent again."

"Swell," Riker said dryly.

"Now, at the risk of being rude," Picard started.

"Yes, once again I've overstayed my welcome. As a human, I was ill-equipped to thank you, but as myself you have my everlasting gratitude. Until next time. Ah, but before I go, there's a debt I wish to repay to my professor of the humanities. Data, I've decided to give you something very, very special."

"If your intention is to make me human, Q."

Q grimaced. "No, no, no, no, no, no. I would never curse you by making you human. Think of it as a going away present." He snapped.

"Is something supposed to happen?" Riker asked dryly.

"In a minute, in a minute, I'm not going yet," Q said, and turned to Elle, bowing elaborately. "My sincerest thanks, Master Elle. I owe you one."

Elle raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm not Batman, Alfred, but you're welcome." Then it clicked. "Wait. If you owe me one, can you send me home?"

"Nope," he said, popping the 'p' like a bad mic.

"What? Why not?"

"You are not Dorothy my dear, and I am not a pair of sparkly flats."

Elle put her hands on her hips, uncomfortably aware that everyone on the bridge was watching with rapt interest. "I thought Q were omnipotent though."

"Oh, we are."

"Then send me home," she pleaded.

"I can't."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Can't or won't?"

"Both." He waved a hand impatiently. "I can't take you out of this timeline and I won't send you back to your miserable planet."

Elle blinked. "What?"

"Think like an intelligent being, my dear. Your homeworld is dying, rotting from corruption and stupidity. Do you really want to go back there? You'd waste away with your advanced understanding stifled inside your brain and die of cancer at 45 if the blights and diseases of the 21st century didn't get you first."

She stared at him, shocked into silence. "But my parents..."

"Would be glad to know their offspring lived a full life of adventure and good role models," Q replied firmly.

"Could you send me back to the 23rd century?" Elle tried, feeling guilty about asking in front of the others.

"Heavens no, you'd skew everything horribly. No, you just follow your little thread of destiny wherever it takes you." He patted her on the head with a patronizing smile. "You know what they say. You can never go home again. Until next time, my dears." He gave a final farewell smirk and vanished in a burst of light.

Elle wrapped her arms around herself, overwhelmed. "Well that's that, I guess." She turned to the senior officers who were watching her with a mixture of concern and sympathy.

"Anyways," Riker said loudly, breaking the awkward moment. "Data, what did Q do to you?"

"Nothing, commander, I do not know what he was referring to. All of my systems are at-" Data stopped. Made a weird face. And promptly burst into laughter.

Everyone stared at him, gaping, for fifteen seconds. "Data?" La Forge asked. "How are you- doing that?"

"I do not know," Data said, bewildered. "But it was a wonderful feeling."

"Really?" Elle asked the universe. "You're just going to give him fifteen seconds and that's it? Why don't you give him the emotion chip Lore stole? Actually do your Q-thing and right a wrong?"

"I suppose," said Q's voice, from thin air.

A chip fell into Elle's palm. She gaped at it.

Picard stared. "Is that-"

They were interrupted by the Bre'el, who congratulated them on a job well done. "I don't know how you did it but well done! You have saved us all!"

Picard accepted their thanks with befuddled grace, and ordered the Enterprise out of orbit.

Everyone else was staring at the chip in Elle's palm. She took Data's hand and dropped the chip in it. "That's yours," she said.

"Engineering," Riker ordered.

La Forge and Data hurried off the bridge.

Elle looked at Picard. "Well, uh, if that's all, captain?"

"That's all," he said. "Thank you for your assistance today, Elle, it has been invaluable."

"Captain."

Elle went to her quarters, walking slowly. She curled up on the sofa with Simba the Third in her arms. "Today has been very long and very strange," she told the tribble.

Simba trilled in agreement.