"Imagine, if you will," the enigmatic entity said as he rose from his seat and shed his cloak. "A universe entirely unlike your own. One not filled with the void of space and time, but with energy, an energy field that endlessly and infinitely renews itself. A universe without limit, but at the same time existing in a single singularity. A universe where an instant lasts an eternity, but an eternity passes in an instant. Now imagine what would happen if suddenly, in the chaos, a pattern emerged in the energy."
"Is- is that how the Q evolved?" The young lieutenant asked, blushing as his uninvited guest snorted with laughter.
" 'Evolution,' " Q chuckled. "Such a pedestrian term. The Q didn't evolve, we became. Evolution is a process. It takes time. When time has no meaning, a process that would normally take an eternity…"
"…Takes an instant," the lieutenant completed, his composure slowly returning to normal.
"In the 'instant' that the pattern formed," Q continued, "the Q became, well, the Q. An infinity of us, all in one glorious continuum. All we would ever know, we knew. And all we would ever be, we were. And yet… what were we to do with this newfound consciousness?"
"You- you explored?" The lieutenant asked.
"Indeed we did," Q replied with a smile. "With limitless energy at our- to use the human term- fingertips, we reached out from the continuum to see if there were other universes. And there were! Universes constrained by physical and temporal dimensions, where cause proceeded effect, where processes happened that fascinated us. We explored trillions upon trillions of different universes, always watching, sometimes interfering. When the universe interested us enough, at least."
"And yet… you still died?" The lieutenant asked.
" 'Death,' " Q snorted, before a faraway look spread over his face. "A concept truly alien to a people with no beginning and no end. Tell me, young human, how old do you think I am? I've already told you the answer…."
"Umm… sev- several billion-" The young lieutenant hesitantly replied.
"Buzz! Wrong! Try again," Q admonished.
"…An instant," the lieutenant said quietly. "And an eternity."
"Age is a meaningless concept to one with no beginning and no end," Q clarified. "As is number. What use have we for number when we control infinity itself? But for one as limited, as mortal, as finite as a human, I can understand their appeal. To put into a perspective that you understand, for a human to experience everything that I have experienced, outside of the Continuum, of course, one would have to live for over 2 million billion years."
"…Two quadrillion years!?" The lieutenant gasped.
"Far older than your universe currently is," Q said with a smirk. "And far longer than your universe will remain… interesting. Even when travelling between realities, Q maintain a link, a tether if you will, to the Q continuum. An umbilical cord to infinity itself."
"And yet… you died?" The lieutenant asked.
"In all of our exploration," Q said, "we always saw ourselves as above all of those we observed. They were mortal, finite- we were not. But yet, the question remained: if we are above all those we observe, who is above us? Who watches the watchers? Even our omnipotence has its limits when we're outside the continuum, when that 'tether' is broken. What, or who, set those limits? But to answer your question, yes, I died. Did die, will die, maybe am dying or dead right now. Even for me, it's hard to tell. Only when I know the unknowable, will I truly know."
"And… why are you telling me all of this?" The young lieutenant asked.
"Because you, Bradward Boimler, have seen the black mountain," Q replied. "I of course know what it looks like, and I am perfectly aware of what it is. And yet I do not know what it feels like. You do."
"Umm, uhh…" Boimler stammered, flinching and sweating as he felt the omnipotent being's gaze drill into his head.
"Yo, Boims!" Mariner called from the doorway, momentarily distracting the young lieutenant. When Boimler looked back, Q was gone, and he was alone in his quarters. "What's up? You look like you've seen ghost! Are we being invaded by anaphasic beings again?"
"I- it was Q!" Boimler replied, blushing as his newly arrived friends reacted with scorn.
"Pfft, yeah, right!" Mariner snorted. "What would Q want with you?"
"It does seem unlikely that an omnipotent being would choose you to converse with," the lieutenants' Vulcan friend observed.
"Thanks for the pep talk, T'Lyn," Boimler sighed. "What are you guys doing here, anyway?"
"Oh, Bingston and Migleemo are putting on a two-man play about the 'flavours of the galaxy,' " Mariner replied. "We want to get as far away from that as it's possible to get! So we're going to stare at the warp core for the next couple hours. Wanna come with?" Boimler paused as he stared at where Q had been standing just moments earlier, his words ringing in his ears.
"…Sure," Boimler replied, rising from his seat to follow his friends. "Did you know Qs can die?"
"Well- sure, didn't Voyager kill a load once in the nineteenth century or something?" Mariner asked.
"It would be illogical to interpret those events as literal, considering the way they were presented and who presented them," T'Lyn argued.
"Well- yeah, Q lies, we all know THAT," Boimler replied. "But he- I just knew when he showed up and started ranting about the Continuum that he was dead, you know? I know it hasn't been reported anywhere, I just- I just knew."
"Yeah, right," Mariner scoffed. "Come on, a good long warp core bliss out session sounds exactly what you need right now."
"Sounds great!" Boimler replied, before glancing back nervously at his quarters- he hadn't answered Q's question, after all, and the omnipotent being was not known for his patience….