This is an alternate story based on "Only Human" by Alara
Rogers (aleph@netcom.com), although it isn't in her continuity. 
I got sufficiently obsessed by the story "Only Human" that I
wrote an alternate set in this universe.  Alara's permission has
been secured for this.

Also, this story contains sex, so if that sort of thing bothers
you, you might want to skip out now.


PropinQuity by Mercutio (mercutio@europa.com); based on
"Only Human" by Alara Rogers


Q woke late, and slowly, emerging from a hazy dream whose
details escaped him even as he tried to remember him.  He
stretched slowly.  There was something he needed to remember,
something important that had happened and that he needed to
do.  

His muscles hurt in odd places.  His hips ached slightly, but his
neck and shoulders felt better than they had in years.  It seemed
he hadn't woken up without a headache in forever, but today he
had.  Life was good.  Or at least momentarily bearable.

And then he remembered.  Last night.  Last night he had
dreamed about Naomi, about doing those disgusting human
reproductive rituals with her.  And then he had woken up,
crying, and she had come to him, had seen him weak and
humiliated.

Naomi had comforted him, even as he folded his head into her
lap and let her.  What had he been thinking?  But it got worse. 
He groaned.  Much worse.  The dream still lingered, and his
body had wanted her.  And when she kissed him, and touched
him, he had let her.  And she had done the most wonderful...
he censored himself quickly, the most repulsive things
imaginable to him.  

She had gotten the both of them naked.  For a brief moment, he
savored what she had said to him.  She had said he was
beautiful.  She was lying, of course.  His body had been good
looking once, when he had first chosen it, and even still
immediately after he had become human.  But multiple
assasination attempts, beatings and tries at suicide as well as the
day-to-day dangers of being human had left this body a
shambling wreck.  She was lying, had to be lying.  But for a
moment, the smallest instant, he remembered her words, and
they warmed him.  She looked as though she meant them, too.

But then she had done something so revolting that it made him
want to spew his guts into the toilet.  She had put her mouth on
him -- there!  And... and that treacherous piece of flesh was
growing harder even now just thinking about it.  

Quickly he turned his thoughts elsewhere, fast forwarding
through the events of the night.  They had done it.  He had
finally engaged in the one act humans were so fond of, and
found it... found it good.  He screwed his eyes tightly shut with
despair.  Where were his principles going?  Where was his
distance?  This was the one thing that had kept him different
from that whole scurrying race, and he had fallen into it, as
deeply enmeshed in its deceit and mockery of intimacy as any
human.  The worst part, the truly sadistically ironic part, was
that, unlike them, he could not reproduce.  His body did not
produce the essential ingredients, although it seemed to do well
enough producing something to fake the reproductive act with.

His swollen member was throbbing insistently now.  These
thoughts were giving it ideas.  And if he didn't stop having
these thoughts, he'd be as easily controlled as any human male,
with nothing to distinguish him from one of them.

A thought struck him.  She had gone to sleep with him.  He had
slept with another being in his bed.  And she could still be
there.  

He flipped over, looking for any sign of her.  She was gone. 
Not in his bed, and nowhere in sight.  Perversely, he felt
abandoned.  She had left him, leaving him alone.  She never
really wanted him.  Despite the fact he would have rejected her,
he wanted to have been the one to do it.  He wanted to be the
one in control.  But she had stolen that option from him.

He sat up, swivelling to put his feet on the floor, and ran a tired
hand through his hair.  He had gotten so old, so quickly.  How
had it happened?  Even humans didn't age this rapidly.  He
should have had many years of productive maturity.  

Then he smelled food.  Naomi came through the door to her
room, and smiled widely at him.  Her smile was neither sexual
or knowing, just welcoming, as if to say, 'Oh, there you are.'  

He froze on the bed, waiting for her to skewer him with some
choice comment about his humanity showing through at last, or
to lash out at him for doing the selfsame act he had declared
was repulsive and beneath him.  In a way, it hadn't been.  He
had been beneath her.

She stopped a few feet away, nowhere near enough to violate
his space.  "Ready for some breakfast?  I'm hungry, even if you
aren't."

"Of course, I'm hungry.  I'm human now, aren't I?"  With that
withering retort, he stalked into the bathroom, clutching the
tattered remnants of his dignity about him, along with a sheet
from the bed.  His pajamas had apparently been misplaced
somewhere during the acrobatics of the night before.

Naomi smiled and let him go.  Q, lovable, horrible, Q.  If he
had been any other man, and he had been this grumpy after
making love, she'd have written the whole encounter, and the
man, off as worthless.  But with Q, this grumpiness meant
something else entirely.  Meant he still was willing to have her
around him, and that he might just want to repeat the
experience.

"Well, what's for breakfast?" Q asked, coming finally into her
room.

She looked up at him, drinking in his appearance.  He had
changed into full formal clothing, shirt *and* jacket, pants,
shoes, everything he'd need if he were going outside his
quarters.  Armor against her.  She wondered briefly if it had
been a conscious choice on his part, and then pushed it aside. 
He was such a clotheshorse, it was impossible to say.

"Take a look for yourself.  Eggs, bacon, sausage, croissants,
hashbrowns, the whole works."

He seated himself at the small table, with an expression of
distaste.  "You know, of all the human pastimes I dislike, eating
is one I dislike most."

Naomi buttered a croissant and handed it to him, since he didn't
seem interested in feeding himself.  "Why is that?"

He took a bite out of it, without seeming to realize what he was
doing.  "Because it's so pointless.  You eat it, and an hour
later, it comes back out again.  A complete waste of time."

"Good point.  But it tastes good, doesn't it?"

"Irrelevant," he said, waving the croissant in the air, before
finishing it off.  "The taste is merely a function of an
unnecessary sense."

She filled a plate for him, since he seemed unlikely to do it
himself, and set it in front of him.  "But it's there.  Seems a
shame not to take advantage of it."

"A design flaw," he said grandly.  

She shook her head, picking at her bacon.  The replicator could
never get it done quite right, no matter how much detail she
specified.  "Nope.  I like eating."

"A perversion."

Naomi smiled at him.  "Call me a pervert and report me to
Security, then."

He looked down his long nose at her, and then picked up his
fork, eating as though it were simply a learned habit to eat when
food was placed before him, but with no real relish for it.

She wondered if he genuinely disliked food, but didn't want to
ask while he was eating.  He might just stop to prove his point. 
And he was too thin for gestures like that.  She didn't
understand why hunger didn't claw at him constantly.  Or
maybe it did.  How did she know?

In that moment of reflection, he struck.  "So was it Counsellor
Medellin or Commodore Anderson who sent you here with
orders to fuck the poor deprived cripple and make his day a
little brighter?"

Naomi choked on her croissant, and had to concentrate in order
to continue breathing.  "What did you say?"

He lolled back in his chair, triumphant at finally having scored a
point against her.  "You heard me.  Which one of them was it? 
Or perhaps it was your own idea, and now you can trot back to
the counsellor and let her know that my physical drives are
indeed normal?"

She patted her lips with a napkin, trying to keep from howling
with laughter.  Only Q could come up with something this
ridiculous.  She couldn't keep the smile off her lips no matter
how she tried.  "Why, Commodore Anderson, of course.  You
know that Counsellor Medellin is far too obsessed about the
subject to let someone else go first.  She'd have my head.  But
Anderson..."  Her eyes danced, as her voice dropped teasingly. 
"She's delicious."

"Are you implying that you and dear Eleanor have..."

"Done the wild thing?  The horizontal hop?  Oh, countless
times.  And would you know?  She has Starfleet insignia
embroidered on her undergarments."

Q began to suspect he was being teased.  "Really?  I wouldn't
know."

"Too bad," Naomi said, shaking her head.  "A sight to behold,
believe me."

"And how do we compare?" he asked, pretending to buff his
fingernails, pretending he wasn't desperately interested in her
answer.

"If I'd actually slept with her, and was the kind of person who
talked about things like that, which I'm not, I'd say that the
commodore was a selfish cow," Naomi said cheerfully, enjoying
herself.  

Q looked up sharply at that.  "If?"  

"And then there's you."  Her expression softened into a tender
smile.  "If I told you that I found you enticingly open, eager to
please, and a passionate lover, you'd flee into deep space,
wishing that it was the Borg after you instead of me."

Her words hit him like a blow to the stomach.  And he knew
exactly what that felt like.  Lies.  They had to be.  Didn't they? 
He wished he knew.  He wished he had the power to read her
mind, to know what she was thinking, to know the truth.  But if
he had his powers, this situation would never have come up. 
His heart was thumping wildly, and he was unaware that his
eyes had gone from cold and unyielding to pleading.

She nodded, then picked up her croissant and started eating
again.  She'd shocked him.  He needed time to recover.  

"Do I... do you really mean that?" he asked, then damned
himself for being such a weak fool.  What was he doing?  He
had to find a way to save face, to make it look like it had all
been a game on his part, to make it seem that he'd only been
testing her...

"Yes," she said simply, breaking into his thoughts.  "I meant it. 
I even meant the part about you fleeing into deep space to get
away from me."

"I can hardly leave the starbase, no matter how much I might
want to."

"Good point.  Maybe you should be sleeping with the
commodore.  It might make her more pliable to what you
want."

"The way you want me pliable for you?"  His voice was harsh.

"I think of myself as the pliable one, actually."  She stared at
him consideringly and decided a melodramatic gesture was in
order.  She slid from her chair and knelt next to him, head
down.  "Whatever you want.  I'm yours."

"And I'm supposed to like this?"

She looked up at him them, amused.  Despite his insults,
posturing and prickly behavior, she had never enjoyed herself
more than during the time she'd been with him.  He kept her
off-guard, and stimulated her, both physically and mentally
more than anyone she'd ever known.  "Most men would
consider it the fulfillment of a fantasy to have a woman at their
feet, offering to do whatever they wanted."

Some small part of him agreed with that.  A part of him that
was rapidly growing larger.  The rest of him did not.  "So when
are you leaving?"

"Anything but that."

"Then you won't do whatever I want, and I'm not interested." 
He stood up and stalked out.

Naomi let him go, knowing that he needed privacy, and to put a
distance back between them that had been demolished the night
before, and stood seriously in danger of being abolished entirely
this morning.  He needed the distance though, needed it for his
own sanity.

She cleaned up after breakfast, then got ready for their day. 
She followed him almost everywhere, an indispensable shadow. 
Although she wasn't a physicist, she was learning.  And she was
more capable of understanding Q than anyone on this Starbase,
and possibly anyone outside of the Q Continuum.  Which
occasionally put her in the position of translator and interpreter
for him, as he either deliberately or accidentally failed to
understand or make understandable what he had to say.

Q was gone from their quarters by the time she was ready to
go, so she went to the conference room designated for that day's
fun and games on her own.  Most of the attendees were already
present, but Q was not.  Hardly unusual.  Waiting to make a
dramatic entrance, no doubt.  She secured two seats together for
herself and Q, displacing a disgruntled technician.  

Q entered late as always.  He expected her to be laughing and
joking with the other humans, telling them about her latest
romantic endeavor as humans were wont to do.  He had
interrupted those conversations before, cutting people off as they
tried to go on and on about their tedious sexual lives.  Now he
found himself suddenly very interested indeed in what Naomi
might choose to say.  Probably something about how inadequate
the former god was in bed.

She wasn't talking to anyone, just concentrating on her own
preparations for the meeting.  She wasn't talking about him. 
Well, why not?  When she saw him, she looked up and smiled,
gesturing to the seat next to her.  

Another attendee, Professor Merwin, misinterpreted the gesture
and was about to take the chair when Naomi cut the man off
with one cold look.

She was saving a place just for him.  How sickeningly romantic. 
Nevertheless, he swept grandly into it, smiling sweetly at the
professor who murmured something insulting about people not
having any respect for age and rank anymore.

****

"Good night, Q."

He looked up at her.  "You aren't going to get any disgusting
ideas about crawling into bed with me and having your way
with my helpless body, are you?"

"No *disgusting* ideas."

"By whose definition?"

"Mine, of course."

Which meant she would.  "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Just don't."  And he retreated to his own room.

That night, he couldn't sleep at all.  Sedatives were entirely out
of the question.  She could come in at any time and take
advantage of him if he were drugged.  But after having fulfilled
the consistently repulsive desires his body wanted, the need was
even greater than before.  He had thoughts, depraved thoughts,
all the time.  And his dreams... He couldn't think about his
dreams.

He got up to prowl their quarters restlessly.  They each had
their separate sleeping chambers, but there was a rather large
common area with a nice, if limited, view of surrounding space. 
He went to the window, and stared out of it.

"Can't sleep?" a voice asked from behind him.  Her voice.

"No.  A rather obvious observation, don't you think?"

"A polite inquiry on my part."  She came up behind him.  "Too
stressed out?"

He ignored the question.  "Why are you always awake when I
get up?  Are you spying on me?"

She shook her head.  "I don't sleep particularly well myself. 
And with the danger of assassination looming over you, it's
worse.  I feel compelled to check the suite several times a
night."

Q could understand that.  "Well, everything's safe and sound
now.  Go away."

She sat down on the couch facing the window, then tugged him
down on the floor in front of her.

Reluctantly, he sat.  "What bizarre ritual is this part of?"

She sat behind him, legs around his body.  The image was not
one he wished to think about. Then her hands were on his neck,
soothing the knotted muscles there.  He'd gotten very angry
during the meeting today.  Professor Merwin had chosen the
day as a chance to make trouble, perhaps in response to being
denied Q's seat.  Q did not suffer fools gladly.

The muscles under her fingers felt completely rigid.  She didn't
think she'd ever gone through life this tense.  And he seemed to
do it every day.  Her hands rubbed him, as she tried not to turn
it into a caress.  If she did, she was sure he'd bolt.  

"This feels so good," he said softly, admitting in the half-
darkness, with her behind him and not visible, something he
found difficult to think, even to himself.

She responded with a light caress on the back of his neck,
moving back into a massage before he could protest.  The
feeling of her hand against his skin sent shivers of pleasure
down his spine, down to... well, he knew very well what part of
him liked this the most.  He had to stop letting her do this to
him.  It couldn't be right to feel this good.

She pulled his head back against her, and he resisted, fearing a
trick.

"It's all right.  I just want to rub your head."

"That's it?"

"Absolutely."

He let her pull him back then, leaning his head on something
soft.  Her hands moved to his scalp, running through his hair,
then digging in, rubbing away the strain that had concentrated
there.

He moaned.  She hadn't done that before.  He wished she'd
never stop.  "Ah, that feels so wonderful," he said.  Something
else felt wonderful too.  Whatever soft thing it was he was
resting his head on.  Had she gotten a pillow?  He didn't think
she had.  But what else could it be?

"Is it wrong for it to feel good?" she asked softly, never
stopping, hands coming around to his temples now, easing the
pressure on his forehead.  "Q, I assure you that if you told
everybody on this starbase that I had done this to you, the only
thing any of them would find remarkable is that you let me get
this close to you without shredding my ego into little pieces."

"Since I find it remarkable as well, that's hardly unusual."

"Some of them would even envy you."

He swiveled to look up at her, to search her face for the truth. 
"Envy me?  Why?"

She pushed his head back to the proper position.  "Turning
around like that is going to make your neck stiffen up.  Now
stop it."

"Tell me."  There was no pillow back there.  So what was the
soft thing?  His mind puzzled it out while his body relaxed into
her skilled hands.  The only thing it could be was her... her
breasts.  Suddenly he couldn't breathe.  His heart slammed into
overdrive and once again, he was uncomfortably reminded of
why he shouldn't have chosen to be male.

"They'd envy you because they didn't have someone to do this
for them.  Not everybody does, you know, although almost
everyone would admit quite openly that they'd like to."

"They'd say the same thing about sex."  Sex.  The only thing
his body could think about right now.

Naomi shook her head emphatically.  "Nope.  Most people are a
little embarrassed about sex, and some people are a lot
embarrassed.  I don't know anybody's who's embarrassed about
backrubs."

"Are you saying this is something you want me to do to you?" 
The idea of having his hands on her body, of having her below
him, at his mercy, suddenly washed over him, and it sounded so
good.  He was going mad.  

Her voice was very carefully guarded.  "I'd like it if you would,
but it's the kind of thing you have to want to do for someone. 
It's not something I'd expect from you or be disappointed not to
receive."

Her hands did not stop, but continued relaxing and soothing the
other aches in his face, tracing around his eyes, and down
across his cheekbones.

He sighed with pleasure as the tension went out of his face.  His
muscles slackened, and his expression eased.  He was so
comfortable.  

Naomi worked him over for a good fifteen minutes without him
saying a word to her, his body completely pliant under her
hands.  She wondered if he'd go to sleep right there.  She
couldn't let him do that.  He'd wake up knotted and in pain, if
her legs didn't go dead first.  She had to get him back to his
bed.

"C'mon, Q.  It's time to go beddy-bye."

He stiffened again, and her hands went automatically to his
shoulders to massage that tension out.  "You're going to assault
me again."  

"I'm just going to make sure you get to bed, Q.  I promise I
won't do anything you don't want to do."

"That's what I'm worried about."  

While she wondered about that one, he turned himself
completely around, kneeling in front of her, and looked her in
the face.  His long-fingered hands were resting on her thighs,
and she was uncomfortably aware of just how close he was to
her.  She wanted him, and that was something she couldn't do. 
She had to be very, very careful, or she'd scare him away
permanently.  What she'd done last night had come very close
to it.

His face was mere inches away.  If he'd been anyone else,
she'd've thought he was going to kiss her.  

"If... if you want to..." He wanted her, needed her.  In another
lifetime, if he'd wanted something, he would have taken it. 
Would never have even thought of the consequences.  That
wasn't the case now.  Everything he did had far reaching
consequences.  He couldn't just erase her memories if he felt
he'd embarrassed himself in front of her.  Couldn't even
threaten to snuff out the lives of her puny race.  No, if he
embarrassed himself here, he'd be living with the consequences
quite possibly for the rest of his short mortal life.  Q broke his
tentative offer off, and a horrible grimace twisted his face. 
"What am I doing?  I'm so pitiful.  What kind of weak fool
have I become?"

"A highly attractive one," Naomi said truthfully.  

"That's a good laugh.  Hah hah.  Keep practicing and you'll be
able to tell jokes to Klingons."

She put her hand on his chest, bare under the flimsy pajama top. 
He stiffened, and she could feel him tremble slightly.  Was he
scared of her?

"I find you very attractive, Q.  That's not a joke or a lie, but
the truth."  What was it she found so appealing about him?  His
razor wit?  His body?  He was large and rangy, with a
handsome face.  But his body was thin and scarred and his face
usually pulled into a thin-lipped look of disdain.  She knew from
some of the gossip people delighted to bestow upon her that Q
was seen as completely revolting, and not at all an object of
sexual desire.  Some people just had no taste.  The
vulnerability, the fear of being hurt that lay just under the
surface of his usually formidable defenses drew her like a
Cardassian to wounded prey, although she hardly intended to
hurt him.  His needs were so great that something in her felt
instinctively desirous to respond, despite his inability to
reciprocate, his possible inability to ever reciprocate.

In that instant, Q knew he had a choice.  To reestablish his
defenses, to be the kind of bastard he was infinitely practiced at
being; or to put himself at her mercy and at the mercy of the
biological drives racking his body.  

Her other hand came up to join its mate on his chest, and he
shuddered, the tension within him terribly great.  To choose to
be what he had been, to maintain his show of force and control,
or to surrender to this...

Her hand stroked his skin lightly, and he gave up, quivering like
a high-strung racehorse.  He could always get rid of her, go
back to being what he had been.  *If he wanted to.*  He flung
that little voice a long distance away.  He wouldn't want to
continue doing this, it was just temporary.  Just something you
did to satisfy a need, but hardly essential.  Something inside
said he was lying to himself, but it was a lie he needed, and so
he clutched onto it.  Any rationale would have been good
enough for him.  

"Please, would you... come to bed with me?"

His eyes were downcast, unable to look at her, and his tone
unbearably pathetic.  Naomi had never heard him beg for
anything before, although she knew from the gossip she'd heard
that he did it, although gossip said it was largely to stop people
from beating up on him.  That kind of talk, along with her own
impressions of Q, was what had brought her to him.  Although
other people saw the incidents as funny, as evidence that the
former god was not so godlike after all, she saw them as proof
that there was a very scared, vulnerable person hiding inside the
sarcastic shell.  And now he was begging her for something he
wanted very much, and didn't know how to ask for without
exposing himself totally to rejection.

Her heart tore in half, unable to support the weight of that guilt. 
She had driven him to this point, had forced him so far out of
himself that he felt it necessary to beg, to plead for something
that she would have given him without even asking.

"Yes, of course I will," she said, one hand going to his face,
settling on his cheek.

He didn't look up at her.  Humiliation and jubilation were
rushing through him all at once, confusing him.  

She melded her body against his, bringing her lips to his mouth,
and kissing him.  He flinched slightly, then responded, hands
hesitantly coming up to rest on her sides.  She savored the
feeling of his lips on hers.  He apparently had decided to like
this since yesterday, because he was responding now, giving
something of himself to her, instead of passively allowing
himself to be handled.

Naomi broke it off, and pushed slightly against his chest. 
"C'mon."

He looked blankly at her.  "Are you leaving?"

She smiled at him.  "I just think this would be more comfortable
in bed, and you're too big for me to drag there."

The concept intrigued him, although from the other side.  A
sudden image of him dragging her to his bed flashed through his
mind, and was immediately suppressed.  He stood up, standing
next to the couch.

She got up, and then took his hand, tugging him toward the
bedroom.  

He followed her reluctantly.

"What are you so scared of?" she asked gently, finding him
almost a dead weight.  "You know what's going to happen."

He swallowed deeply, his insides turning to water.  He couldn't
tell her.  But if he didn't tell her, she'd think he was afraid to
tell her.   

Before he could say anything, she had them standing next to the
bed, and was running her hands down his arms soothingly. 
"I'm not going to hurt you.  I'm not going to tell anybody else
about this, or embarrass you in any way.  I'm not going to
make fun of you or make comparisons."  She smiled suddenly,
a little off-kilter.  "I may tell you I love you, but I wouldn't
expect you to believe that, so you can feel free to ignore that
last statement."

His throat was choked.  She was so beautiful, standing in front
of him in the dim light of the bedroom.  Her shoulder length
red hair was down around her shoulders, and she was wearing a
thin nightgown, which clung sensuously to the curves of her
body.  

"I can't live up to your expectations," he said harshly, trying
not to imagine her naked.  "I'm not fool enough to fall into any
romantic delusions about love, and I know you couldn't be
attracted to my body in its current wretched state."

"So you're waiting for me to tell you this has all been some sort
of cruel joke and then run out of here broadcasting the details of
what went on to the whole Starbase?"

Exactly.  He shrugged, as if he didn't care.  "What other
motives could you have?"

She blew the hair out of her eyes, momentarily exasperated with
him.  "First of all, I'm not that kind of person.  I accept that
you don't know me well enough yet to make that judgement and
that you're not a trusting kind of person, but *I* am not the
kind of person who would do something that heartless.  Second,
I've repeatedly said I care about you..."

He shrugged again.  "Charity.  I don't want it."

She glared up at him, more than a little irked by his repeated
misinterpretation of her words.  "Q, people don't do this out of
charity.  Believe me, this is not my good deed for the month.  I
wanted to go to bed with you last night, and I want to go to bed
with you again tonight."

"I can't see why."  He sat down on the bed, arranging himself
with as much dignity as his current state of undress and arousal
would allow.  Outwardly, he was calm and in control, but inside
he was desperately scared.  Scared that she would leave because
of what he'd said, scared that she really was the things he'd
called her, but most of all scared that she wouldn't leave
tonight, and that when she finally did, sometime in the future,
for most assuredly she wouldn't be able to stand him for very
long, he wouldn't be able to survive it.

"Do you want a demonstration?"

"Of what?" he asked warily, his interest piqued.

She smiled mischieviously.  "Of this."  She was still wearing
nothing but that diaphanous nightgown.  She moved to the side
of the bed nearest him, and he stared at her, unaware of the
hunger in his eyes.  

She slowly unbuttoned the tiny pearl buttons on the front of the
nightgown, surreptiously watching Q as she went, leaving only
the negligible weight of the fabric holding the garment to her
body.

He was breathing deeply, totally absorbed in her.

She turned around then, and pulled the nightgown slowly from
her body, leaving first her shoulders, then the expanse of
creamy skin below it bare.  She turned back around, and he
held his breath, eyes flying to her neck, her breasts.  She was
achingly beautiful to him, and he should not have her.

She let go of the nightgown and it fell back off of her hips,
landing in a rustle of silk on the floor.  She was completely
naked now.  She raised her hands and ran them through her
thick hair, raising her breasts and tautening her stomach.

Then she looked him in the eyes.  Her level, honest gaze met
him, and he tried to look away, tried to force some semblance
of control onto his body.  It was impossible.

She got onto the bed, kneeling next to him.  "Do you want me
to go?"

"Yes," he said harshly, hating himself.  "I do... and I don't." 
He closed his eyes against the weakness inside him, condemning
himself for having told her that.

Then suddenly she was stretched out beside him, taking his head
in her arms, and laying it across her bosom, comforting him.

He let himself be pulled closer to her, rubbing his head against
her, accepting the comfort she offered.  But his body didn't
think of it as comfort.  All it could think of was how close she
was and how naked.  

One of his hands came hesitantly up, and touched her, just
below her breast, and stroked downward, caressing her soft
skin.

She shivered, and touched his face.  "That feels lovely."  Being
in bed with him was a revelation.  In part, she had felt sorry for
him, but she was highly attracted to him.  Despite that, she had
known that he would probably not even consider that she might
have needs as well or ever attempt to fulfill them.  Naomi had
accepted that.  But he was touching her now, and it made her
want to cry.  She wanted him so much, but there was no way
she could ever expect him to be whole enough to give to her.

Her praise warmed him.  He heard so little of it from anyone. 
Did they care that his ideas and knowledge were millions of
years more advanced than anything their puny little civilization
had ever come up with?  Did they care that he'd forgotten more
than all of them together would ever know?  No, and no again. 
They just criticized him and disparaged him for what he
couldn't remember or wouldn't tell.  

She kissed his forehead, and then slid down so he was looking
down at her face.  She kissed him again, this time on the lips,
and placed her hand lightly on his chest, stroking the exposed
skin.

"Would you like to try something different tonight?" she asked
softly.

"Different?" he was startled.  Human erotic literature was
scarcely something he'd bothered to explore, but a basic
knowledge of anatomy was enough to tell him that there were
only so many ways to do this.

"Could be a little tiring for you," she teased him lightly, while
unbuttoning his top.  "You're not in top shape."

He stiffened.  "No.  I'm not.  It must be quite a comedown for
you, associating with an inept weakling like myself."

Naomi kissed the hollow of his throat, apologetically.  "I didn't
mean it as an insult, Q.  However, it could be something of a
work-out for you.  You might actually sweat."

"Sweat?" he asked dubiously.  "Does this *sound* like
something I'd want to do?"

"I promise, you'll like it."  She smiled into his chest, and then
tugged the last button free, exposing his broad chest.  She ran
her hand across it delightedly, lips going to his nipple, making
him groan and jerk his hips yearningly.

Knowing what was going to happen only made the desire worse. 
Last night, it had been horrible, lying here, not knowing
whether what she was doing to him would be good or bad, only
knowing that he wanted.  Tonight, he knew exactly what it was
that he wanted, and it made it so much worse, to know and not
have.  He hated himself for being so vulnerable, and hated her
for helping him get that way.  

"I hate it," he muttered, the straining of his chest to meet her
lips giving the lie to his words.

"Of course you do," she said agreeably.  "You're just lying
there."

He stiffened.  "Is there something wrong with my technique?"

"Nope.  But wouldn't you prefer to be in control?  To be doing
something?"

He didn't have a clue what to do.  But control sounded good. 
He clutched at it.  "Yes.  Who wouldn't?"

She eyed him seductively, running her hand down across his
stomach to his thigh.  "Then why don't you get out of these hot
clothes and take charge?"

The idea scared him half to death, not that he would have
admitted it, and excited him at the same time.  He sat up and
stripped his pajamas off, then looked back at her, to find she'd
rearranged herself.  He was now looming over her, as she laid
stretched out on the bed like some sort of sacrifice.

"Remember what we did last night?" Naomi asked cajolingly. 
"Wouldn't you like to do that again?  Only be in control this
time?"

He nodded, not trusting his voice.  He remembered quite vividly
what they'd done last night.  His body was aching for it.  He
felt like he'd just jogged down to the physics lab and back, his
skin hot and flushed.

She touched him, and he trembled, needing that touch more than
anything else in the universe, and dreading it at the same time.

"Come here," she said, repositioning him with tiny touches.  

He followed her, unable to stop himself.  He half-knelt, half-
laid between her legs, trying desperately to pretend that he knew
what he was supposed to do now, and dismally aware that he
was failing even at that.  He hated himself for not knowing, and
hated her most of all for putting him into this position.

Naomi watched him.  It was so difficult to tell with him which
was the pretense, and which was the reality.  He seemed very in
control of himself, but there was something wrong with the set
of his mouth.  

He was about to go hide in the bathroom for the rest of the
evening, when she reached up to him, grabbing his shoulders
and pulling him down on top of her.  It felt very strange, lying
on her like that.

"This can't be right," he said, completely frustrated.  "I can't be
supposed to be doing this.  I'm lying on *top* of you."

Naomi valiantly resisted the urge to giggle.  That would be a
very bad thing to do to him right now, no matter how funny he
sounded whining in bed.  He was totally serious about it, and
she should be too. 

She opened her legs a little wider, letting him ease down
between her thighs, and then reached down and put the part of
him that most wanted to be there inside her.

He resisted slightly at first, but then his eyes glazed over with
pleasure as he was finally where he wanted to be.  "Oh, yes. 
That's right."

Naomi tugged at his hips, repositioning him a little, and then
began to rock under him, trying to give him the idea of what he
was supposed to be doing.

Q was in heaven.  This was absolutely perfect.  It felt so good. 
If only she'd stop moving.  That made him feel all tense and
needing again.  But she was doing it, and the yearning spilled
over him again, even worse now, the slick heat of her exciting
him much more.

He started to move along with her, but was entirely too
conscious that he was lying outstretched on a naked female. 
Her breasts were immediately under his chest, and he was
pressed intimately into her from knee to neck.  He couldn't do
this.  

Q raised his head slightly and looked at her.  "How am I
supposed to concentrate with you lying there?"

She really wasn't going to laugh.  Nope.  She wouldn't. 
"Believe it or not, Q, this is how most people have sex."

"But I'm *lying* on you," he wailed, unconscious of the
impression he was making.

"I know," Naomi said patiently, spreading her legs further
apart, and wrapping her feet around his legs.  He paid no
attention to this, having no idea what she was doing.  Then she
began to move again, and his body was compelled to move
along with hers.

"Oh, that's good," he said, the words slipping out of him.

"Exactly.  Put your arms on either side of me, and take a little
of your weight on them.  You can put your hands under my
shoulders if you want.  If you do that, you'll have more
leverage."

He followed the instructions, and discovered, much to his
delight, that he could now control the movement.  Naomi
followed him, letting him set his own pace.

The feeling was intense, and much better than last time.  It had
just happened to him last night.  He had had no control over
what was happening to him at all.  This... this was entirely
under his control.  And it felt good that way.  He strove
towards some imaginary goal, unaware of his physical
limitations, his desire to reach that place far greater than any
other complaints or demands his body might choose to make. 
He ignored the laboring of his lungs for air, the complaining of
his disused muscles.  The small pains were nothing compared to
the pleasure of being inside her, and the greater pleasure he was
striving towards.

And then, with a rush, he was there, all of him exploding into
fire and light, seemingly going on forever.  It was just as good
as he remembered, the best part of a dismal human existence. 
He groaned, and collapsed onto Naomi, his strained muscles
relaxing, completely drained of energy.

She kissed him then, stroking the sweat from his forehead.  "I
told you you'd sweat."

He smiled ever so slightly.  "I might have considered exercise if
they'd told me this was one of the alternatives."

She smiled back, then gently moved away from him, squirming
out from under.

He felt cold and alone again, deserted by her.  He didn't want
her to go, couldn't imagine why the warmth had to go away. 
"Are you leaving now?"

"No."  Naomi snuggled down in beside him, head going to rest
on his shoulder, legs tangling in his, arm around his waist.  "I
won't leave you."

He sighed with contentment, too happy to care that he was
handing her a weapon against him.  His free arm wrapped
around her, doubly ensuring that she couldn't go.  He sighed
softly and gave himself up to sleep.  Maybe this teamwork stuff
wasn't as difficult as he'd imagined.

Naomi laid there in his embrace, quite content with Q's
contentment.  She'd made him happy and that was worth,
almost, any sacrifice.  She shifted a little uncomfortably, but
only fractionally, not wanting to disturb him.  

When was she going to tell him that she had needs?  

Probably when she could figure out a way of doing it without
hurting his feelings or sending him running.  If she did it now,
he'd most likely take it as an insinuation that he was doing
something wrong.  She'd put up with unresolved lust for a long
time before doing that to him.  He didn't need that kind of
problem tossed on top of the weight he was already carrying. 
Something like that might just convince him to abandon sex for
good, after she'd just gotten him convinced to try it.

After all, just being here was the fulfillment of a fantasy.  She
rubbed her head against his bare chest, hardly able to believe
she had done it.  Naomi had been fascinated by him, by the
stories about him before she'd ever met him.  He was
alternately a devil, or a devil trying to masquerade as an angel,
depending on who you talked to.  She wasn't sure what to
believe herself, at the time.  

But then she'd met him.  Cool, aloof, cutting.  Also utterly
oblivious to anything but what he wanted, his superior
intelligence exciting her in a way she'd never been able to
explain to anybody.  She had never talked to anyone about her
feelings for Q, but she had had this problem before, and no one
had understood then either.  It was too embarrassing to admit
she'd been turned on by something as mundane as reading a
scientific paper on programming string corruption, and the times
she'd attempted to explain it to someone -- even in the vaguest
of terms -- she'd been laughed out of the room.  Q had that
quality in spades.  

Then there was everything else about him.  The vulnerable layer
right under all the glitz and gloss.  The part of him he didn't
want anybody to see.  That vulnerability moved her in ways she
couldn't explain either, made her want to cry, to mother him --
something he would have been mortified by if she'd ever done it
or ever tried to do it.  But that wasn't all.  Despite his
insecurities, she adored the way that he looked, even while
wishing he wasn't nearly so pale and drawn for his own sake. 
His masterful attempts at making himself appear to be imposing
and strong moved her; he did it well, and she saluted the
gallantry of his attempt to change the impossible.

She kissed his chest lightly.  Yes, this was what she wanted. 
Now if she could just stop being turned on by him, it'd be a lot
easier to sleep.

****

Q woke to find her still there, snuggled beside him, him holding
her in his arms.  For a moment he savored the sensation. 
Somebody wanted him, wanted to be near him, and actually
enjoyed his presence.  He both needed that and feared that. 
He'd been told many times to cultivate other people, to make
friends, that contact with other people would give him
something he was missing in his life.  He had dismissed them
every time, and rightly so.  Other people despised him, and he
despised them.  Most of them were too stupid to bear talking to,
and the remainder...

He looked down at Naomi, still sleeping peacefully in his arms. 
What had he done?  Was it something he wanted to have done? 
Could he have avoided it?  Did it even matter?  

All of the old fears came rushing over him with renewed force. 
The rational part of him was aware that it was silly to be so
scared, especially since the last two nights there had proven
little or nothing to be scared of.  But he couldn't stop thinking
about his fears.  What if he, and the thought was nauseating,
fell in love with her?  What if he was in love with her and
didn't know it?  Love was another one of their disgusting human
emotional drives, wasn't it?  He was as vulnerable to it as he
was to fear, or crying, or even... sex.  

He regarded the woman sleeping in his arms as if she'd
suddenly turned into a Gorn.  He could never live with himself. 
It was bad enough having to look like a mating toad, without
having to completely humiliate himself that way.  

He pictured himself, finely dressed as he always was, tall and
strong, impressive Q -- with an sickening expression of love on
his face.  No!  Never!  He wouldn't do it.  No matter how she
seduced him.  He absolutely and categorically refused to make a
fool out of himself that way.

Of course, that's what he'd said about the sex thing as well.

Damn.  He was in trouble.

He had to do something.  But what?  

With Q in that finely tuned state of panic, Naomi awoke and
stretched, smiling when she saw him.  "Good morning."

He jumped, and tried to levitate backwards off the bed.  It
didn't work.  His body didn't work.  He hurt all over, like
she'd beaten him last night, instead of just... well, whatever.

Naomi looked at him quizzically.  "Are you all right?"

"Yes!  No!  Oh, I don't know."  He put his hand over his eyes,
and laid there, groaning.  He had just made a fool out of
himself again.  Maybe if he laid there long enough, she'd go
away.  Anything.  Just as long as she didn't use some sort of
hormonal power and make him fall in love with her.

The groaning worried her a little.  Q was not precisely an
exercise freak.  And he had done himself quite proud the night
before.

"Turn over."

"Why?" Q asked cautiously.

"I just want to see how badly you're in pain."

"I'm dying," he said soberly.  "Leave me alone and call
Sickbay."

"Let me take a look at you first, okay?"

He reluctantly turned over, his muscles screaming in agony as
he went.  What had she done to him?

Naomi felt his muscles.  His neck was as tight as ever, as were
his shoulders.  Her hands moved down, touching his buttocks.

He stiffened immediately.  "What are you doing?"

"Just checking to see how tense you are.  Now stop it."  She
thumped him solidly, but not particularly hard.

"There's no need to get brutal," he said, stiffening even further,
his back quivering with tension.  "I don't care how much you
have Security on your side, don't hit me."

She kissed the spot she'd thumped.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean
to hurt you."

Actually it hadn't hurt particularly.  He just couldn't stand being
hit.  Even now, with her fingers digging into his lower back and
buttocks -- and that felt so very good -- he couldn't completely
relax.  He wanted to push her away, but he couldn't.  The
outraged part of him, the scared part of him, was being
drowned out by his gradually easing muscles, all of which
seemed to welcome her hands.

Naomi was oblivious to his fears.  She'd known he'd been
beaten, but it didn't even occur to her that a small thump like
that would frighten him.  He presented such an air of
confidence, which he largely managed to pull off, that it was
unthinkable that he could be physically scared of her hurting
him.  He was a good foot taller than her, after all, and despite
his poor physical condition, was more than capable of stopping
her from hurting him.  If putting up a defense was something
which Q would have thought of, which it was not.

She worked her way down his legs, the stiff musculature
everywhere concerning her.  "Is it always this bad?"

"What?"

"Your muscles.  Are you always this tense?"

"Oh.  Those.  No.  They hurt worse today than usual."  His
voice was hopeful.  "Do you think I could get a painkiller for
them?"

"No."  She worked her way down to his feet.  "But I do have
another idea about that.  What did you think I meant before?"

The quick conversational change caught him off guard.  "I..." 
He knew exactly what she was asking, even if she didn't. 
"Should I like getting beaten up on?"

By now, she was seated at the end of the bed, working on his
feet.  She tapped him on the side of the leg.  "You can turn
over now."

He turned over slowly, studying her face carefully.  

Naomi held his right foot on her lap.  Carefully, she asked,
"Did you think I was going to beat up on you?"

Her fingers dug into the sole of his foot, and he moaned.  The
agony was exquisite, white shards of relief shooting out
everywhere.  This wasn't a massage; it was an interrogation. 
"No.  I *like* getting hit," he said sarcastically.  

That was a yes.  He'd thought she was trying to hurt him.  She
continued working on his foot, going over the sensitive arch,
rubbing out the huge, apparently permanent knot there with
extreme caution.  It probably hurt a lot.  

"I didn't mean to hurt you or frighten you," Naomi said
reasonably, as she worked his foot over.  "It didn't even occur
to me that you'd be scared of that."

"So, go ahead, tell the world.  The big bad Q's scared of being
hit."

She shook her head.  "If you were big and bad, you'd hit me. 
You could hurt me a whole lot worse than I could ever hurt
you."

He looked at her disbelievingly.  He couldn't understand why
anyone would want to hit *him*, much less her.  They did seem
to hit him with alarming regularity though.  If it wasn't Security
guards, it was assassins, and if it wasn't them, then it was bar
patrons.  Q, the punching bag of Starbase 56.  "I could not."

"You could so."  She gave his right foot a final pat and started
in on his left foot.  The right one felt cold and abandoned, and
all the pains were starting up again in it, as it was reminded of
them by her work on the other one.  "Would you like to?"

"Would I *like* to?" he asked, completely aghast.  "What *are*
you talking about?  I'd never hit anybody.  Besides, hitting
people is so... so..."

"Human?"

"I was thinking Klingon, but that, too."

She calmly massaged his foot, seemingly unaware that she'd
managed to shock Q, who thought he knew and understood just
about everything there was.  "Would you like to hit me?"

"Why would I want to do something like that?"

"Because apparently you haven't.  And it hasn't occurred to you
that you can defend yourself if you feel threatened."  She
glanced up at him.  "I doubt you would actually hit me, or that,
if you could bring yourself to do it, it'd be even as hard as I
thumped you a minute ago."

His pride was aroused now.  "I could hit you if I wanted."

"Uh huh."

"I just don't want to.  Solving conflicts by physical violence is
entirely uncivilized and barbaric."

"Uh huh."

"Stop that!"

She let go of his foot at once, and just sat there, staring at him.

"Well, there's certainly no danger of my ever falling in love
with *you*," Q said acidly.  "You are beyond a doubt the most
exasperating woman of my acquaintance."

"Thank you."  She had no idea where his last comment had
come from.  Q?  Thinking of falling in love with her? 
Inconceivable.

He sat up, then got off the bed, hiding how much it hurt him to
do so.  He dragged a sheet with him, draping it around himself,
unwilling to expose his naked body to her, despite the fact that
she'd seen him naked several times now without making any
negative comments.

She stood next to him.  "Go ahead.  Hit me."

One part of her was saying this wasn't a bright idea.  She'd
seen men do this to each other all the time, and had even played
this particular "game" with her brother when she was younger. 
She could get hurt if he really hit her.  On the other hand, he
had some sort of complex about hitting people, and it wasn't
like she was worried about him becoming physically abusive of
her.  Quite the other way around.  She'd rather he hit her and
then know for a fact that she wasn't going to hit him back and
also know, deep down, that he was capable of it, than to have
him live in mortal fear of her.

Lost in her thoughts, she was unprepared for his punch.  He hit
her squarely in the jaw, and, unbraced, she went down on her
butt.  

Naomi's hand went to her cheek, and she worked her mouth. 
Nothing seemed to be broken.  Her spine hurt worse where
she'd hit the ground than her face did.

"That was a nice one, Q."

He looked completely stunned by what he'd done.  That was the
first time he could remember hitting anyone with any force. 
He'd tried to protect himself when the Security team beat up on
him, but had been completely ineffectual.  This was... very
different.

"I... I'll call Sickbay," he said quickly, darting out of the
bedroom.

Naomi sat on the floor, smiling.  That had gone quite well
actually.  What had Q just said?  Something about Sickbay?  

"Q!  Wait!"

It was too late.  She ended up in Sickbay, with a Security team
around the bed she was sitting on, and an ashen Q under guard.

"Really," she said.  "It was a complete accident."

"He said he hit you," one of them, a Lieutenant Braun said. 
"How do you explain that?"

Naomi shrugged.  "I just remember walking past him, and then
ending up on the floor.  He must have held his arm up just as I
went by and I walked into it, or something."

The lieutenant studied her face.  "Are you sure about that?"

"Absolutely."  Her face was a study in earnest sincerity.

"Why did Q say he hit you, then?"

Naomi shrugged again.  "I suppose you could say he did, in a
way.  But it was entirely accidental.  He really shouldn't feel so
guilty about it."

The security team looked less than satisfied with this
explanation.  Q?  Feel guilty about anything?  But with their key
witness denying that anything had occurred, there wasn't much
they could do about it, despite the fact that any or all of them
would be delighted to lock Q up in the brig for a couple of
hours or a couple of days.

"One last question," Braun said.

"Yes?"

"Why were the two of you naked?"

Naomi flushed.  There was no way to answer that, so she
didn't.

Lieutenant Braun smirked and left with the security team,
leaving a mortified Q behind them.

"Do you get the point?" Naomi asked Q.

"Yes.  Never ever do anything you tell me to do."

She grinned.  "Besides that."

He frowned at her, and then looked around.  The few people
there in Sickbay with them were very carefully not paying any
attention to them.  "You mean that I'm bigger than you and
stronger than you.  I know that.  How could I not know that? 
I'm not stupid."

"Yes, but do you know it down here?" she pointed to her
stomach.  "In your gut."

"I don't see how my intestines have any relevance."

She stared up at him, more than a little frustrated.  "If I hit you,
would you be scared of me?  Or would you hit me back?"

"If I hit you, those thugs would put me into the brig for the next
six months."

"You have a point.  But which would it be?"

Q thought about it for a long moment, reliving the horrified
moment when, seemingly frozen in place, he watched her fall to
the ground, and knowing he'd done it.  Knowing he *could* do
it.  It had been surprisingly easy.  He'd just reached out, and
she'd gone down.  He'd almost have suspected her of trying to
trick him, if it wasn't for the large bruise already beginning to
form along her jawline.  "I'd call Security."

She rolled her eyes.  "You're hopeless."

"I've heard that before."

She hopped down off the bed.  "Well, this gives us a great
excuse to call in sick today."

"Call in sick?"

"Yep.  I'm injured and you're mentally distraught at having hurt
another living creature.  We're obviously in no condition to go
to work today."

****

The issue got to the commodore before being resolved. 
Anderson didn't really believe a bruised jaw was worth taking a
day off for, much less wounded feelings, if Q even knew what
such things were, but by the time the issue came across her
desk, the two had already taken most of the day off.  It wasn't
worth wasting her time with.  As long as they were both back
on the job the next day, she could care less.  She had much
more important matters to consider.  Including something which
would no doubt upset Q far worse than supposedly hitting
someone in the jaw.

Commodore Anderson considered the orders lying in front of
her, direct from Admiral Pelz.  They were a politely worded
insult, both of her own handling of Q and to Q himself.  The
admiral wanted to know why Starfleet, and specifically, her own
staff, was not making maximal use of Q's capabilities.  The
admiral suggested, very delicately, of course, that Q could be a
technological treasure trove, but that, due to "understandable
concerns about the direction of Federation policy", Q had only
allowed them to use him to make minor improvements to their
weaponry, speed, and other such trivial matters.  

While it was true that Q was concerned with the direction of
Federation policy, in that he didn't care for the Federation
terribly much one way or the other, and was unwilling to break
the Q Continuum's version of the Prime Directive for anything
other than something as threatening as the Borg, the orders on
her desk implied that these were mere excuses, much as a
nervous virgin might make on her wedding night.  The admiral
made it quite clear that he expected more than refusals based on
ethical delicacy.  

But that wasn't the worst.  Anderson had fielded demands
before, insisting that Q must be persuaded to give more
information and better information.  No.  This was very
different.  Admiral Pelz had somehow gotten it into his head
that Q could enable the Federation to develop transwarp.  And
he was putting pressure on her to accomplish it.  

Anderson rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on. 
Transwarp was something Q was guaranteed to fight her on. 
And she sympathized with him.  But there was nothing she
could do at the moment.  Admiral Pelz's orders made it quite
clear what he would do to Q if Q refused to comply.  She read
the key paragraph again.  It didn't sound any better this time.
 
     This information is vitally important to the
     security of the Federation.  Q is under contract to
     provide us with the information we request; he
     *will* give us this information, or we will
     consider it a breach of contract and withdraw our
     protection.

Anderson knew Q would morally object to this, as much as he
could be said to *have* morals, and given that he had some
equivalent of the Prime Directive that he was bound by, she
could understand why.  

She had already written her protest, spelling out her objections
in detail.  Once the protest went through channels and got to
somebody with some moral sense, Q was sure to be released
from this request.  However, that could be a while.

And if Q didn't cooperate right now, before the protest went
through, Admiral Pelz would revoke Q's protection, and she
wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.  Q would be killed
by aliens before the protest she'd filed ever got anywhere.  As
much as he was a royal pain in the ass, she couldn't let that
happen.  Even under Starfleet orders to do so.  She had to keep
Q here under protection until the protest went through channels,
and the only way to do that was to get him to cooperate, at least
temporarily, to play for time.

Anderson considered her options.  She could try talking to Q,
and would, but she was certain of failure there.  The chances of
him agreeing to work on transwarp were nil.  No, she needed a
backup plan.  Something to use to persuade him to work on the
project voluntarily.

Her eyes fell on the Security report on her desk on the incident
this morning between Q and Dr. Allen.  It made very interesting
reading indeed.  Counsellor Medellin's assessment of it was
attached, despite the fact that the counsellor had been unable to
get either of the principals to say anything more to her than they
had to Security.  Anderson had just dismissed it as another
nuisance engendered by having Q on the starbase.  

But her eye fell again on the last line of the report.  "Subjects
declined to state why they were naked when the Sickbay team
arrived."

Counsellor Medellin's assessment of the situation was attached
to the report.  Her opinion was that while the injury to Dr.
Allen was inconsequential and most likely accidental, Q and Dr.
Allen were physically intimate and probably emotionally
intimate as well.  

Which opened up a whole line of interesting possibilities.  If Q
and Dr. Allen were emotionally involved, perhaps the
commodore could wave a big enough stick this time to force
him to cooperate.  It was certainly worth a try.

****

Q was livid.  He had just spent an entire morning soaking in a
hot tub with Naomi, getting pleasantly relaxed, and already all
the benefit of it was gone.  

"Q, you must work on transwarp.  I have orders directly from
Starfleet."

"Absolutely not. This is non-negotiable.  I will not give this
information to a lesser species such as the Federation, I don't
trust them with it.  I will not violate *my* principles that way."

"Q, you have no choice," the commodore said, calmly,
appearing not one whit upset about being yelled at.

"I won't do it.  I don't care what you do to me.  Transwarp is
not something the Federation is ready for."

The commodore shook her head slightly.  "I thought you might
say that."

"And?  There's nothing you can pressure me with.  This is
more important that losing my computer privileges or even
putting in a security monitor.  And we both know how well that
worked."  He smirked at her.

Her headache was growing steadily worse, despite her apparent
serenity.  "Is it more important than losing Dr. Allen?"

****

Naomi stood over the desk, oblivious to the security team
watching her with narrowed eyes.  "You can't do this!"

"I just did.  I believe it will be highly effective as well."

"You're wrong," Naomi said harshly.  "You don't understand
him very well."

"How's that?" Commodore Anderson asked.  "I thought this
was a rather clever plan myself."

"If you convince him to give in, he will never take me back. 
He'll refuse to see me again, and put a wall so high around
himself you won't be able to get him to trust anyone ever
again."

The commodore studied Naomi without changing her
expression.  "Really?"

"If I were you, I'd worry more about someone kidnapping me to
get to him.  If something does happen to me, I can't predict
what he'd do."

The commodore shook her head.  "I don't see the point of this
conversation.  Lieutenant?"

Naomi refused to look at the security guard.  "You won't be
able to make this work, because he won't give in!  And you'll
regret wasting your one hole card that you know he cares about
on an issue this trivial!"

That was an argument the commodore could understand.  But it
still didn't move her.  This was not a trivial issue.  It was for
Q's own good.  "Get her out of here."

For three days, the security team watched over her, keeping her
closely monitored, making sure she had no contact whatsoever
with Q.  They were with her everywhere, and she began to
understand a little of what Q felt every day.  She herself felt
like a panther pacing in a cage, wanting to reach out and tear to
pieces anyone who came too near.  What was happening to Q? 
How was he?  Did he hate her by now?  Would he even agree
to see her again?  Was he all right?

On the fourth morning, the security team escorted her to
sickbay.  Q was there, on a bed, medical equipment covering
his upper body.  Naomi's eyes filled with tears looking at him. 
He was pitifully thin, having lost most of the bulk she'd helped
put back on him.  So fast.  So horribly fast.  His eyes were
dark circled, and his face...

She walked over to the bed, and stood where she knew he could
see her.  His face was a hardened mask, no life in it anywhere,
cheeks gaunt and sunken.  He hardly looked alive.  Tears ran
down her face.  What had they done to him?

She put her hand on his arm, and he focussed on her.  He had
been someplace very far away.  

"I didn't give in.  What are you doing here?"  He didn't
understand.

She stroked his arm.  "I don't know.  Laurel and Hardy over
there brought me.  I don't want to leave you."

Q didn't respond to her.  He hardly seemed to recognize her,
except as something in his own private hallucination.

Li came up to her, and she turned on him.  "What have you
done to him?  A week ago he was in better condition than I've
ever seen him!  And now, look at him!  What have you people
done?!"

She was dimly aware of Li backing away, scared, and of
Laurel, the taller one, coming to stand next to the doctor
protectively.

"I've kept him alive, Doctor," Li answered from a safe
distance.  "He did this all to himself."

She looked at Li suspiciously.  "How?"

"He stopped eating.  Stopped doing everything, even sleeping as
far as we can tell.  And last night..." his voice trailed off.

"What?"  Naomi's voice was high edged and hysterical to her
own ears.  "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything.  I didn't know anything about it until last
night."  Li's voice was tired, and his face old.  "Last night, he
tried to take his own life.  He came very close to being
successful at it."

Naomi's face went white with rage.  "Where is the
commodore?"

"Right here, Doctor," a voice came from behind her.

Naomi spun on the commodore, filled with an unreasoning
anger the likes of which she'd never known.  Laurel and Hardy
sensed it too, moving to stand behind her, ready to stop any
violent action she might make.

"Your actions, commodore, have been everything I was afraid
of and more.  You've done your best to kill him, and I intend to
press charges against you for this."

Surprising Naomi, the commodore made no attempt to defend
herself.  Her shoulders sagged defeatedly.  "I admit your cause
has justice.  I... had my doubts about the rightness of my course
of action, but I never intended this to happen.  You must believe
me."

"You made it happen.  I may believe you, but I can never
forgive you for that."  Naomi pointed at Q, lying still and
oblivious on what could easily have been his deathbed.  "I
warned you.  I warned you and still you persisted.  What you
have done is an abomination so great that it sickens my
stomach.  You deserve to be lying there in his place."

That was too close to a death threat for Laurel's liking, and he
stepped forward, about to restrain Naomi.  The commodore
waved him off.  "Doctor, I apologize.  It will never happen
again."

Naomi stared at the commodore, adrenaline coursing through
her, making her tremble with suppressed fury.  She wanted to
tear the woman to pieces, wanted to threaten her with trouble so
large she'd wish she never heard of the letter Q, much less the
being.  But Naomi could also see a pained honesty in
Commodore Anderson's eyes, a recognition that this particular
tactic had never been meant to go this far.  

"I want your promise, commodore, *in writing* and logged,
that you will *never* in any way permit interference between
myself and Q for any reason less than someone's life."

"This was for Q's good and the good of the Federa..."

"No!" Naomi cut her off.  "If one of us is going to kill the
other, then interfere.  But anything, *anything* else and you
don't do a single goddamn thing, or I swear I will use this
incident to do my utmost best to have you removed from this
project, this Starbase, and this Starfleet."

The commodore swallowed.  Dr. Allen did not have any more
power than any typical scientist.  All she had was a single
damning incident -- and a vengeance in her eyes more powerful
than anything the commodore ever wanted to see again.  The air
around this woman crackled, and even the security team had
their phasers out rather than try hand-to-hand combat with her
even though there were two of them and either one of them
outmassed her.  Allen also had the guilt the commodore felt for
virtually torturing Q to death working with her, although the
doctor couldn't know that.

"You have my word, doctor.  I will get you the proof you
require before the day is out."

"Good."  Naomi turned away, the anger still thrumming through
her.  She went to stand by Q's bed again, her touch gentle on
his hand, and her expression protective.  Everyone made a wide
circle around them, no one willing to get close to her, or worse,
to him with her standing there like that.

The commodore watched her, then said softly to herself, too
low for anyone to hear.  "I'll be damned."

It had never occurred to Anderson that Q had feelings per se. 
In the three years he'd been on Starbase 56, she'd come to view
him more as a natural disaster, like a black hole, than as a real
person with emotions and needs.  She had taken Dr. Allen away
much as she would have taken computer privileges away, and
had expected Q to see the situation in much the same light. 
After all, he seemed incapable of dealing with people only as
objects.  Why should this one woman be different?  

But she was, and had been different enough to drive him into
taking his own life.  Anderson understood, watching Naomi
Allen stand over Q like a protective demon, that the two had a
relationship, and that the relationship was something very close
to love.  The commodore would have found it difficult to
believe that Q could be capable of such a thing a week ago, but
in the face of it, she could not deny that it was true.  She and
the rest of the starbase had seriously misjudged him.

She also understood, just by looking at the pair of them that, if
she had wanted to convince Q to work on the transwarp, she
should have enlisted Dr. Allen's aid in the first place.  The
doctor was unlikely to want to coerce Q into any action against
his will, but was probably the only person who could have
explained the situation to him in terms he would have listened
to.  Even that would have been a vast improvement over what
actually happened.

As to the transwarp project itself, and Admiral Pelz, the
commodore knew she'd have to do everything in her power to
keep it from happening.  Although -- she remembered the scene
with Dr. Allen only moments before -- just unleashing Allen on
Admiral Pelz could probably force any sane man to back down.  

There was no way the transwarp project could happen.  What
they had done here was the equivalent of torture, and she knew
it.  Driving Q to suicide was not the way to make best use of
one of the Federation's assets, and she intended to make sure
that Admiral Pelz became aware of that.  Along with some other
people whose strings she could pull to keep Pelz out of this, if
he couldn't be brought to understand reason on his own.  What
she had done was wrong, and although there was nothing she
could do to change that decision now, she would do her best to
rectify the error.  For everyone's sake.

****

Naomi sat by Q's bedside in Sickbay, holding vigil, despite the
fact that he refused to acknowledge her.  What had they done to
him?  In her worst imagination, she couldn't conceive of
anything happening to him which would cause him to retreat
like this.

Q lay there, as if in a dream.  It was not a pleasant dream. 
Naomi was there, and that was the purest torture, to see her and
know he couldn't have her, that she was just bait for the
cruellest of possible traps.  But there was no question that it was
a dream.  He had killed himself right and proper this time.  

After the security team had taken Naomi away, he had been
shaken.  Commodore Anderson had gone through on her threat. 
He hadn't thought Naomi could mean so much to him, but she
did.  And he didn't like it.  She was an emotional hostage for
them to use against him; something he would have sworn could
never happen.  Not to him.  Not to Q.

The day had passed slowly, and he had been unable to sleep,
and unwilling to take a sedative to do so.  It had seemed too
much like giving in, when what he wanted to do most was howl
his defiance at the world.

And he had.  He had.  The second morning, after pacing
relentlessly all night, he went to the physics lab and made life a
merry hell for the technicians and assistants there.  Not by
working on transwarp, of course.  No, he just tore their projects
apart, pointed out errors that weren't there, congratulated them
on the strength of their work when he did find an error, and
generally caused havoc.

That had been a great deal of fun, almost making up for the
sorry situation he was in, until Security came and escorted him
back to his quarters.  His empty quarters.  Locked inside there,
with nothing to do but listen to the silence, he had nearly gone
insane.  Everything hurt.  His back gnawed at him constantly,
his head raged and his stomach churned with enough force to
keep him from wanting to put anything more into it.  He had
considered asking for painkillers at that point, but the pain he
was feeling was outweighed by the humilation of asking for
them.  Anderson would know about it, would know how weak
he was, and he couldn't let them happen.  She couldn't think
he'd give in, not on this.

He clung grimly to consciousness all that long night.  Anderson
wanted to break him, wanted him to work on transwarp.  He
would never do it, could never do it.  No matter what.  

The only thing he refused to think about was Naomi.  Whatever
he did, he mustn't think of her.  She was the stick they were
using against him, as he had always known they would, and he
couldn't let himself be swayed.  Couldn't let himself be moved
by some biological imperative.  He *was* his will, not his
body.  

So why did he feel like crying?

By the third day, he had admitted to himself that he couldn't go
on.  He couldn't hold out any longer.  He knew with some
rational part of him that he was a weak person.  By the next
morning, he would have given in to them... or he'd be dead.  

The one person he had thought genuinely liked him was nothing
more than a pawn, someone for Anderson to move around and
manipulate him with.  Q was repelled, and ashamed of himself
for ever believing differently.  Naomi had never actually cared
for him.  He had been a pitiful fool to ever think something like
that.  

Waves of depression washed over him, and in his current
weakened physical condition, he was helpless to resist.  What
had he been thinking?  

Q went to the bathroom, doing something he never did, and
looked at himself in the mirror there.  Pathetic.  He compared
his image with his mental image of himself when he had first
become human and shuddered, repulsed.

No one could ever like him as he looked now, much less be
physically attracted to him.  Naomi had to have been lying
about finding him beautiful.  He knew *he* could never be
physically attracted to this haggard skeleton standing there,
dismally gazing slack-mouthed into the mirror.  Q wanted to
puke. 

None of this was really happening, was it?  

He sat down on the bed, taking a pillow and hugging it tightly. 
Silently, tears leaked from his eyes.  He wished Naomi was in
the other room, wished she'd hear him crying and would come
to comfort him.  But she wasn't there, would never be there
again.  He couldn't let them use his own weak needs against
him on this issue.  No matter how much he needed, it was too
important that he refuse.

He curled up on the bed and cried huge, heartbroken sobs.  Was
this all being human was being about?  Being torn and shattered,
and then hoping again, believing things could be better, only to
be torn down and tossed to the ground again?

If it was, he wanted no part of it.

Q could see no future for himself.  Starfleet only wanted him
for technological advances he refused to provide.  The dribs and
drabs he could give them weren't good enough for them.  They
had to have secrets that would ensure he never got back into the
Q Continuum.  Even if he didn't feel morally pressured not to
give them dangerous toys like transwarp, they could surely see
he wasn't going to give up his chance at becoming truly Q again
for something as meaningless to him as transwarp.

But if he didn't give them transwarp, they were going to toss
him out and let the other beings, races and entities who wanted
him dead use him for hunting practice.  He'd be dead.

And if he did give them transwarp, which he never would, he'd
lose all chances of ever being part of the Q again.  There'd be
no reason to continue this farce of being human then.  He'd
rather be dead then, if he knew for certain there was no chance
of ever regaining his powers.

He cried hopelessly, the choices too stark for him to bear.  Why
did this always happen to him?  Why was he always getting
picked on?  What had he ever *done* to them that was so bad?  

He cried himself out until he had no more tears inside himself,
and then laid there, still and unmoving on the bed, tired and on
the edge of falling into that dizzying pool of blackness that sleep
had become over days of denying it.

Then a small part of him thought with quiet bleakness into the
silence, *Naomi never loved you either,* and suddenly the
silence was unbearable.  

Q looked around the room.  Very little there for him to work
with.  But he was still more intelligent than any of them could
ever hope to be.  Unless they tied him down and straitjacketed
him, they couldn't stop him.  And even then, he'd find a way.

He pulled the sheet from the bed, and knotted it into a rope. 
Not much to hang himself from.  But he'd find a way.  If he
couldn't do it quickly, by breaking his neck, he'd do it slowly
by asphyxiation.  It didn't matter now.  He'd be dead no matter
what he did.

He knotted it as tightly as he could around his neck, and waited,
as the room slowly went gray on him.  This time, it would
work.  He choked, involuntarily trying to breathe, but there was
no air, and he passed out.

Q was already unconscious when Commodore Anderson entered
the room, on her way there to try her best to explain the
situation to him again.  

Horrified, she pulled the sheet from around Q's neck, trying to
breathe air into him, to force it into his lungs, while calling
frantically for help, afraid it was already too late.

For Q, waking up in Sickbay, a small part of him knowing he'd
failed, was the most horrible nightmare there was.

****

Li reluctantly released Q from Sickbay later that day.  There
was nothing fixable wrong with Q, but his reluctance stemmed
from the fact that he didn't want Dr. Allen after him when Q
inevitably did collapse.  On the other hand, he didn't want her
haunting his Sickbay either.  She was starting to scare people.

Li's attitude towards Q had undergone a sea change after this
morning.  The idea that Q could care about anyone was
shocking; the idea that Q could care enough about a person to
kill himself, was cause for Li to re-evaluate all of his previously
held beliefs about the man.

"He should be sleeping," Li said to Naomi, giving her a run-
down on Q's condition before allowing him to leave.  "The fact
that he isn't bothers me.  He should be, and he isn't."

Naomi looked at Q, who was staring at the ceiling with an
empty expression on his face.  "Have you given him a
sedative?"

"Don't you think I would have tried that?  He's apparently
shaken off the effect of the first one, how I don't know, and I
don't dare give him another.  We've been pumping fluids and
nutrients into his system, but he's still extremely weak.  It'd be
best if sleep just happened naturally."  Li wiped his forehead. 
Caring about this patient was going to drive him to drink.  "I
don't know why he won't, but eventually, he has to."

Naomi nodded.  "Do you think that being in Sickbay is why he
won't go to sleep?"

Li shrugged, frustrated.  "Could be.  I don't see why, though. 
He's been here often enough."

Naomi could think of a few reasons.  But that was beside the
point.  "Anything else?"

Li shrugged again.  "Try to keep him from killing himself. 
That'd be good."

Naomi smiled wryly.  "I got that part."

"If he doesn't start eating and sleeping normally, he's going to
end up in here full time.  But there's nothing I can really do for
him.  He didn't do any permanent damage to his windpipe, and
his physical state is poor, but I can't do more for him there than
I already have."  Li looked earnestly at Naomi.  "You do know
that if there were anything I could do, I'd be doing it."

She looked at him, unable to doubt the sincerity in his eyes. 
"Yes.  I know."

****

Q lay as still on his own bed as he had in Sickbay.  Naomi had
no idea what was wrong with him.  If she were to believe Li
and Anderson, this was all something that had happened to him
within his own mind.  They had done nothing to him. 
Something he thought had him trapped inside himself, unable or
unwilling to reach out.

She could understand that.  As often as he'd reached out and
had his fingers burned for his trouble, she was surprised he
hadn't given up completely a long time ago.  Of course, he
hadn't quite gotten the knack of not swatting the thing he was
reaching out for, but at least he was still trying.

Or had been still trying.

Naomi sat beside the bed, searching her mind, trying to find
anything she could think of that would help.  

Q laid there, utterly miserable, beyond misery, somewhere in
hell.  This *was* hell, he was sure of it.  To be human could be
nothing else, and to know, to be absolutely certain that everyone
in this universe hated him... that was worse.  To know all of
that and know he still lived, still breathed, that he was incapable
even of ending his own life, that was unbearable.

Yet he had no choice but to bear it.  Q knew Naomi was
watching him, and the knowledge embittered him.  Why was
she sitting there gloating over his ruin?  She didn't care, and he
couldn't think about that or he'd care too, and then he'd be
utterly lost.

And then she was on the bed next to him, holding him to her,
his head pillowed on her breasts.  Soft arms went around him,
hands stroking his head and his back soothingly, and he was
held close.

"I love you," Naomi said quietly.  "I love you, Q."

And Q began to cry, helplessly weeping into her comforting
embrace.

She sat there with him, murmuring reassurances to him while he
sobbed out his despair at the choice he'd been forced to make,
and relived the whole sordid incident again.  Only this time she
was there.  It shouldn't have made a difference, but it did.  It
did.

Naomi stroked his hair and held him, appalled at how hurt he
was.  It wasn't that he was crying; she had no particular
objection to men crying, or anyone else, for that matter.  It was
how hard he cried and how badly he seemed to need it, how
desperately he clutched onto her and refused to let go.  

But everything would be all right now.  It had to be.

-the end-