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.

All chapters of PropinQuity are available by FTP at
ftp.europa.com, in the directory /outgoing/mercutio/PropinQuity/. 
The index is also available by FTP at ftp.europa.com, as
/outgoing/mercutio/IndexToPropinQuity.txt.  They can also be
downloaded through the WWW.  The WWW address is: 
http://www.europa.com/~mercutio/PropinQuity.html.


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


The morning's meeting was over, and it was time to get out of
there.  Naomi felt protective of Q in situations like this, with
people crowding around him.  Everyone wanted something from
him, everyone thought of him as a source of wisdom and
knowledge.  And he did have experience far beyond anything
anyone here would ever know.  But the contacts he made here
were shallow and the people grasping.  They might have
something to give to him, but he'd never be able to take it; Q was
too emotionally isolated for that, even if he would have admitted
to the concept, which he wouldn't have.

However, nonetheless, they swarmed over him after each session,
his greater approachability of late only making the problem
worse.

She stood there for a moment, then couldn't take it anymore. 
"Excuse me."

The professor talking with Q turned to look at her, an irritated
expression on his face at having his little tete-a-tete interrupted
fading as soon as he recognized her.  "I beg your pardon."

"Of course you do," Naomi said solemnly.  She held out her
hand to Q.  "Time to go, don't you think?"

Q looked over the small clump of people idly chit-chatting while
waiting to ambush him over some theory of theirs they either
hadn't brought up before because it was too strange, or over
something they wanted to try to convince him of yet again despite
the fact that he had already dismissed them as being utterly and
hopelessly stupid.

"In light of the lack of learning displayed here, I suppose my
presence is no longer needed."  He tucked her hand under the
crook of his arm.

"How gracious of you," Naomi said.  They walked out together,
Q reluctantly slowly his strides to accommodate Naomi.

"Under the circumstances, yes."

Naomi grinned up at him.  "Oh, yes.  I'd almost forgotten about
that."

He scowled at her.  "Would it be too much to ask that they taught
these people some basic facts about the universe and their own
civilization before they sent them to me?"

Naomi giggled.  "You mean the Earth *isn't* flat?"

He glowered at her.  "Very funny.  I'm sure you're a riot back
where you come from."

"You mean that flat place?"  Naomi asked innocently, then went
into another fit of giggles.

Q sighed deeply, an exasperated intake of air.  "I don't know
why I bother with you," he said, almost fondly.

Naomi looked up with him, getting her face under control again,
despite the urge for her mouth to curl up at the corners.  "Well,
you don't have much choice."

"I don't?"  Q puffed up, feeling a little offended at the thought of
having been coerced into this relationship.

"Nope," Naomi said, shaking her head, a wicked twinkle in her
eye.  "It's not like you can send me back where I came from. 
After all, the Earth *is* flat.  I'd go right off the edge."

She started giggling again.  Q did his best to maintain his dignity,
but it was difficult under the circumstances, with this tiny redhead
dangling from his arm and making snorting noises.

"Humans," he said, shaking his head.  "We definitely should
have created you with some intelligence along with your low
sense of humor."

"Oh, definitely," Naomi said, still grinning.  "I'd say that was a
major design flaw on your part."

"On *my* part?  And when did you get the impression *I* had
anything to do with the creation of humanity?"

Naomi shrugged slightly.  "Why else would you be so upset over
our failings?  Obviously, the interest of a parent in his children."

The provocation was enormous and Q reacted to it.  He didn't
want children, didn't like at all that she was about to have a
child, and being compared to a parent didn't help his temper at
all.  "I'll have you know I had nothing to do with humanity.  If
I'd had my way, you'd've been nothing more than a footnote in
the pages of history.  Under 'Species, Dull and Deadly Boring'."

"A whole footnote?" Naomi's eyes were wide.  "How important
we are."

"Only part of a footnote," Q informed her.  "On the page
describing why not to create a species and qualities to avoid when
doing so."

"And what are the ideal qualities of a species?"

"Intelligence, wit, non-violence, and of course, fashion sense."

"Of course."

They stopped at the programming lab, but as soon as they were in
the door, Jinn rushed up to them and pulled them to one side,
exuding an aura of subterfuge and secret plots.

"Do I want to know what's going on?" Naomi asked, before Jinn
shushed her.

"Ssh, quiet," Jinn said, trying to look normal and failing
miserably, his tense, anticipatory posture betraying him.

Naomi exchanged a speaking glance with Q.  "You know, these
people *used* to be my friends."

"What wonderful taste you have," Q said dryly.

Jinn looked at them, exasperated.  "Can't you two stop arguing
just for a minute?  She's about to come in."

"Who?" Naomi asked, exasperated with all the intrigue, but Jinn
didn't respond.

The door opened again and D'oritt entered.

Naomi looked over at Jinn to see if this was who he was waiting
for.  Obviously, it was.  His face had tightened into a mask, and
his hands were clenched into fists, waiting for *something*.

D'oritt walked unsuspectingly to her terminal and sat down.  The
action triggered a loud burst of music, coming from the center of
the room.

She turned to look, along with everyone else there.  In the center
of the room, a holographic display appeared.

Naomi covered her mouth to avoid making any sound and ruining
Jinn's prank.  Because there was no question that it was a prank. 
The images appearing proved that beyond all doubt.

She didn't know how he'd done it, but the images were of D'oritt
in various suggestive and embarrassing poses.  The images started
relatively innocuously: D'oritt squinting into the mirror with a
fish-eyed look on her face; D'oritt sauntering down a corridor in
high heels, then taking a humiliating tumble; and other
embarrassing moments from her life.

D'oritt was turning a deep shade of red that had Jinn almost
cackling with glee.

"You're not a very nice person," Naomi said softly to Jinn.

He looked back at her, an evil look of mischief on his face. 
"You haven't even seen the best part yet."

Naomi sighed.  "You know, Jinn, sometimes I wonder why I like
you so much."

"To stay on my good side, why else?"

Naomi glanced up at Q, who was oblivious to her, attention on
the light show.  She hoped he wasn't getting any ideas about new
and improved ways to embarrass other people.

When she looked back at the room in general, Naomi noticed the
images had changed.  Now they were of D'oritt doing other
*things*.  Naomi flushed herself as she realized what she was
seeing.  An image of D'oritt naked gave way to one even more
provocative, where she was wearing a very skimpy leather outfit
and carrying a whip.

She didn't want to see any more of this.  Naomi caught Jinn's
arm and started shaking it.  "You stop this right now."

"Aw, but Naomi, it's just getting to the *good* part.  You have
to see the one where she's..."

"I don't *want* to see it.  Just stop it, Jinn."

D'oritt had noticed the commotion by now, and to Naomi's eye,
had correctly identified Jinn as the perpetrator.  D'oritt stalked
over to their little group.

"Congratulations," she said in a tight voice, looking between the
three of them.  "You've managed to embarrass me."

"I'd say you did that all by yourself," Q said in a mocking voice. 
The woman in question was quite attractive, and seeing her naked
like that caused all manner of thoughts he didn't want to have to
course through him.  It was bad enough to be attracted to perfect
strangers, but to be sexually assaulted with a blatant waves of
images like that was unforgivable.

D'oritt's face got even redder and she glanced at Naomi. 
"Funny.  I thought you didn't do things like this."

"I don't."

Jinn raised his hands, "Ladies, ladies.  I..."

"Just turn it off, Jinn," Naomi repeated.  "Or else."

He matched glances with her for a moment, then sighed.  "I
suppose it's lost its shock value now, anyway."

Jinn moved away from them to shut the display down, leaving
Naomi standing there uneasily, facing a very upset D'oritt.

Q couldn't help himself.  "That was an... *interesting* display of
the more debauched side of humanity.  A pity it couldn't
continue.  I think I was *learning* something."

Naomi shot him a warning glance, but he ignored her.

D'oritt looked between the two of them, posture stiff.  "I'm glad
to see my private life is so amusing to you."  With those curt
words, she stalked off.

Naomi watched D'oritt go, debating whether to follow her and
apologize.  But D'oritt had already been humiliated enough for
one day.  It would be overload to apologize right now.  Later,
when she had cooled down a bit perhaps.  After D'oritt had had
time to plot a suitable revenge against Jinn.  In fact, Naomi might
even be able to help with that, which would be a nice apology in
and of itself.  D'oritt would probably enjoy something like that,
given her cool and vindictive nature.

"Perverse, but polite," Q said, summing D'oritt up.

Naomi looked up at Q.  "Do you *try* to be that rude, or does it
just come naturally?"

He got an offended look on his face.  "Rude?  The simple,
unvarnished truth is *rude*?"

Naomi shook her head in defeat.  This was going to be a difficult
one to explain.  But before she could start, Jinn came back over.

"What did she say?  Was she really upset?"  He was excited, like
an artist wanting praise on his work.

"I'd say she was a little peeved, yes," Naomi said with great
understatement.

"Only a little?"  His face fell.  "I *knew* I should have started
with the really embarrassing stuff first.  Damn!"

Naomi rolled her eyes.  "And then she'd have gone after you to
strangle you with her own two hands."

He grinned.  "I know.  Wouldn't it have been cool?"

She shook her head, abandoning that line of discussion.  He was
almost as bad as Q.  Probably worse.  "How did you do that?"

"What?"

"Yet another brilliant human rejoinder," Q commented
sarcastically.

Naomi ignored him.  "How did you get a hologram to appear like
that in *here*?  I couldn't even begin to figure out how you'd
make this room holodeck-ready in such a short period of time."

Jinn shook his head.  "You're thinking too big.  Farish figured
that part out for me.  We used the older technology.  It doesn't
give as real an image, but it was more than enough, don't you
think?"

Naomi nodded slowly as she realized what he was talking about. 
"Of course.  I've *heard* of that, I just never thought of it."

"Right.  Why would you?  If you want holograms, you go to the
holodeck.  It's just the way things are done nowadays.  And you
get better graphic quality that way."  He looked wistful for a
moment.  "It would have been nice to use full holographic
images.  You can actually reach out and touch her then."

"She would probably have liked that," Naomi said dryly.

"Huh?"

"She *did* have a whip."

Jinn scowled at her.  "You take all the fun out of it."

"Some people would say that it still was fun."

Q glanced down at Naomi, expression beginning to be alarmed. 
If Naomi was getting any ideas...

Jinn smirked at her.  "You're just jealous because I did it before
you could think of it."

He had a point.  Unusual pranks were a status symbol.  But she
wouldn't have done something quite *that* embarrassing.  "I'm
above that sort of thing."

"Uh huh.  Surrre."  He ducked away to celebrate his success with
some of the other programmers.

Naomi sighed, before turning back to Q.  "Some people."

Q looked at her.  "I may take back what I said about humanity
being dull.  It appears some of your race actually possess a sense
of humor."

"Oh, no," Naomi said, shaking her head.  "Don't *you* start in
on this."

Before he could argue further, she ducked away to get what she'd
come here for, a present from Saba Nitac that Saba hadn't wanted
to bring over.  Naomi wasn't sure why that was, unless Saba was
scared of Q, in which case, Naomi probably should have come on
her own.  But it was too late for second thoughts now.

"Interesting display," Naomi said.

Saba looked up, focussing on Naomi.  "Display?  Oh, the D'oritt
thing.  I thought it was a fascinating use of the technology."

"Yes, a rather different way to exploit holographic images."

Saba tilted her head.  "I was talking about the whip."

They both laughed.  Q's expression was seriously concerned by
now, but neither of the women noticed.

"Anyway, here's your present."

Naomi clapped her hands together, excited.  She took the small,
wrapped box from Saba, then set it down to open.  She pulled the
ribbon to pieces, then carefully undid the wrapping paper.  The
lid of the box came off easily, revealing the object inside.  "Oh,
it's lovely.  You shouldn't have."

Saba smiled at her.  "You're welcome."

Naomi held the small, ornate object up to Q.  "Isn't it adorable?"

"Considering your taste level, it's perfect."

Naomi frowned at him, then grinned, unable to be even the tiniest
bit upset at the moment.  "It's a baby's rattle."  She shook it for
him.  "Don't you just love it?"

"Does love include an intense desire to smash something to bits?"

"Frequently," Naomi said, clutching the rattle close to her.  "But
you better not with this."

"Pity."

Naomi turned back to Saba.  "Thank you.  I... well, thank you."

"You're very welcome," Saba said, smiling at her.  "I had a lot
of fun picking it out.  It's the closest I'll come to having children,
at least for a while."

"I can see why," Q muttered, unhappy at the renewed reality of
what was about to happen to Naomi.  Having other people
acknowledge and welcome this change only made him more
miserable, because *he* wasn't grateful and he had no intention
of being that way.  The pregnancy was a completely unwarranted,
unexpected and unauthorized intrusion into his ordered life and he
resented the fact that everyone else seemed to accept it as a
perfectly natural thing for Naomi to do.

Saba visibly flinched at the offhand comment.

Naomi saw this, and reacted immediately.  Unlike D'oritt, Saba
was very sensitive, especially when it came to personal insults. 
"Thanks again, Saba.  I..."  Naomi wavered between actually
apologizing and not.  Q would no doubt take it as a personal
insult if she apologized for him, but Saba did look upset.  Naomi
settled for touching her hand briefly in an expression of
sympathy.  "We're going to get going now."

Saba nodded, but didn't say anything.  Naomi was very afraid
that she was keeping silent to avoid crying.

Naomi sailed out, trusting that Q would follow her and not hurt
anyone else's feelings.  Normally, she didn't care quite so much,
but these were the people she worked with day in and day out. 
They were almost like family to her.  Naomi smiled suddenly at
the thought, amused despite herself.  And she had just brought
home her boyfriend to meet her parents.  Naomi looked up at Q,
still smiling secretively.  She'd always been drawn to the rebel
type.

"You know, most people think insults are rude."

"Insults?"  Q glanced down at her, saw her still holding the rattle,
and had to stop himself from shuddering.  "An insult would be a
personal mark of honor coming from me.  None of those people
are worthy to be insulted."

She cocked her head.  "Ever heard the expression, 'If you can't
say something nice, don't talk at all is my advice'?"

"People would think I'd caught laryngitis."

Naomi was startled into a laugh by the whining tone of his voice
and the unexpectedness of his statement.  "At least then they'd be
flocking over you with sympathy."

"And this is supposed to be a good thing?"

"I guess it all depends on your point of view."

****

Dr. Queria Lang arrived back at the Daystrom Institute to find
that the topic of the day, or the month rather, was her own little
brother.  He'd come to call and she had missed him entirely.  He
wasn't aware that she taught anthropology and archaeology at the
Institute, although he had visited her briefly when he still had his
powers and she was only just beginning to be aware of who and
what she really was.

Among her own kind, the Q Continuum, Queria was something
of a misfit.  Her role was to guide the younger generation, in this
case, Q's generation.  And after they had grown up, there was
nothing left for her to do.  Oh, she'd been goddess and mother-
figure to a number of child-races, but nothing matched the
excitement and challenge of tackling someone of her own kind
and bending them into the proper course.  Quite frankly, she was
bored.  The solution had been to make herself human.  Queria
being Queria, she'd done it in the most comprehensive way
possible.  She'd removed her powers, storing them in a safe place
until such time as she died as a human; at which time she would
be restored to her full self.  Queria wanted to experience
humanity fully, from birth to death.  She'd been born, had grown
up thinking she was human, had even started on a career in
Starfleet.

When Queria was 21, she had been attending Starfleet Academy
for two years.  She met an older couple during the summer,
people that she somehow felt that she'd known all her life, and
for reasons she couldn't quite explain at the time, went to live
with them for the summer at their Kansas home.  The woman
was pregnant, late term.  Odd things happened around them, but
Queria didn't realize what was going on until Q showed up to
visit, had a vicious argument with the couple in which he claimed
that the woman's pregnancy was effectively suicide, and then
forced Queria to remember who and what she was.  

Queria had realized then that these people were all her younger
siblings, and that the woman's pregnancy was forbidden by the
Continuum.  Q's intention had been to get her to persuade the
other two Q to give up their plan of having a child.  Which
wasn't a bad plan.  Part of her function was to advise, and
theoretically, they should have listened to her.

Unfortunately, this didn't work.  The couple had their child, but
when they could not keep to the terms of the bargain they made
with the Continuum, they were killed.  Although Queria wanted
to track down the child and raise it, she was ordered not to.  

That was the last time she had seen Q.  She didn't go back to
Starfleet Academy, recognizing that it was an inappropriate place
for someone as naturally resistant to authority as a Q, even if the
conflict between the Continuum's goals and the Federation's goals
weren't enough to shove her out of it.

Eventually, she'd gone into teaching.  It was what she was best
at, what she'd spent her life doing, and it had turned out to be
just as rewarding now as it had been then.

When Q had lost his powers, she had found out about it within
weeks.  She had heard about his exile even as isolated from the
Continuum as she currently was; the news had rocketed through
the scientific world.  His status as resource was a source of great
competition among her colleagues, many of whom had visited Q
in the past, those who had not still jockeying for position.  She'd
known when he came to Starbase 56, couldn't have helped
knowing about it, given the number of her colleagues flocking to
fawn at his feet, but she hadn't wanted to see him.  It would be
too painful for the both of them.  Q was like her younger brother
in a way.  She'd been responsible for him for a long time,
keeping track of him, helping him out.  Of course, as he had
gotten older, he had resented that more, and liked her less, but
she still couldn't help feeling a little guilty for his current plight. 
If she'd been there, she might have been able to stop him from
whatever it was he had done to get thrown out of the Continuum,
and if not that, might have been able to argue them into leaving
him alone.

But he was human now, and he had most likely richly deserved
it.  Queria only hoped he'd learn something from it.  Probably
not, though.  The Q were a hard-headed race, and Q one of the
worst among them.  He'd be stubbornly willful to the end.

She pitied him and wanted to see him all at the same time.  It
was a shame she'd been away from the Institute during his visit. 
It would have been a nice chance to catch up on things.  Q had
undoubtably learned a few things while being human, even as she
had.  

Queria decided to go visit the person who had guided Q during
his stay at the Institute.  Dr. Owen-Martinez would have been the
closest to him and would undoubtably be the best source of
information about him.  She found herself suddenly curious,
looking forward to this.  It had been a long while, in human
terms, since she'd seen Q.  

****

"Yes, I guided Q," Judith said with a bare minimum of words.

Queria tilted her head, centuries of raising stubborn willful brats
as well as more recent experience with graduate students making
her sensitive to nuances of conversation.  "And did he... do
something wrong?  Behave badly?"

"Q was very... well-behaved in public," Judith said.  "He gave a
number of lectures.  I'm sure they've been recorded.  If you
check the computer..."

Queria interrupted her.  "I don't need to see those.  I'm familiar
with Q's background and research.  I was more curious about
him personally."

A shuttered look came over Judith's face.  "I don't have anything
to say about him personally."

"You don't?  That's odd.  My..." Queria stopped herself,
unconscious habits having almost led her into revealing her
relationship with Q, something which wouldn't have gone over
well.  "From what I've heard, Q is rather memorable."

Judith nodded.  "Memorable.  I suppose that's one way to put it."

Her tone was bitter, and Queria took on a sympathetic cast.  "Do
you want to talk about it?"

Judith looked over at Queria, assessing her.  She knew Dr.
Lang's reputation, knew that Queria was well-thought of by her
students, an oddity in the sometimes cutthroat world of science. 
Where other professors would frequently co-opt a promising
student's work to get a paper out of it for themselves, Queria
took the other route, giving her students credit for everything and
using her own name to advance their budding careers.  If she was
going to talk to anyone, Queria was not a bad choice.

"I... got to know him more personally," Judith said, choosing her
words carefully.

There was a wealth of understatement in those words.  "Did
you... have a relationship?"

Judith nodded tightly.  "I suppose you could call it that."

"What would you call it?"

"A disaster."  Judith's hands twisted together, and she was trying
very hard to keep from crying.  This was a very difficult topic
for her, and she didn't really even know why she was talking
about it, exposing her inner vulnerabilities, to a perfect stranger.

Queria reached over and took one of Judith's hands, soothing her. 
"It's all right.  I doubt it was your fault."

"He said it was my fault!"  The words burst out of Judith, and
then she did start crying, the subject painful beyond bearing.

"Said *what* was your fault?"

Judith shook her head.  *That* she had no intention of talking
about.  What had actually happened between her and Q was
entirely too painful.

Queria sat back a little, trying to make an informed guess.  "You
had a relationship with Q, and it fell through.  Knowing Q... or
his reputation... it was most likely his fault."

Judith shook her head slightly.  "He has a... companion, Naomi
Allen.  He's apparently quite attached to her, can't bear being
without her.  She didn't come with him, and I think he went back
to be with her.  He wanted her more than me.  Or..." her voice
faltered, "or I just wasn't good enough."

"I'm sure that wasn't it," Queria said compassionately.  "Don't
blame yourself like that."

"What else could it be?"  Judith turned her tear-stricken face up
to Queria, who shrugged.

"The kind of man who will make a commitment to one person
and then go off and start a relationship with someone else isn't
the kind of person you need to be worrying over.  Believe me." 
Queria wasn't sure she believed it herself.  She knew her dear
brother had the potential to be that kind of heartless bastard, but
that he would take a companion at all was unusual in the extreme.

Judith looked up at Queria, beginning to be convinced, but still
harboring doubts.  "Do you know what the worst part of it is? 
Something I only found out recently?"

Queria indicated Judith should continue, leaning forward.

"She's pregnant.  They're going to have a child.  And he slept
with *me*."  Judith's tone was broken.

"Oh, my dear, you mustn't beat yourself up like this.  Q isn't the
kind of person you can count on for emotional support, or even
rational behavior of any kind when it comes to relationships."

"But I know he's not bad.  He *cried* on me."

Queria lifted a brow.  Q crying?  How bizarre.  She didn't doubt
Judith; the woman had no reason to lie.  But that didn't fit the Q
she remembered at all.  Proud, arrogant, selfish to a fault, but
crying?  "Men cry for many reasons.  You have to accept what
happened and move on.  He was unnecessarily cruel, and it
probably had more to do with how he was feeling about
something else than about you."

"You really think so?  You don't think he meant those nasty
things he said about me?"

"Not at all," Queria said reassuringly.  "Probably lies made up on
the spot to get you to leave as quickly as possible."

Judith nodded unwillingly.  "Thank you."  She stood up,
scrubbing at her eyes, and feeling very foolish now.  "I have to
go now, but thank you."

Queria sat there, watching her leave.  That had all been very
interesting.  Q had a mortal lover?  And would have a child?  She
hoped he knew what risks he was running with that.  The
Continuum was not known for its leniency in the area of
unauthorized reproduction.  But then, he'd been exiled.  He was
as punished as he could get.  There wasn't much more that they
would do to him.  Unless he was being watched for possible re-
entry later, he was the same as dead to them.

She wished suddenly that she did have her powers.  She couldn't
help feeling responsible for Q, couldn't help wanting to do
something for him.  She wanted to know what the Continuum's
feelings were about him, what was going to happen to him.  But
she didn't have her powers, and couldn't interfere in that way.

Perhaps she would go pay her little brother a visit.  Especially
since he was having a child.  Children were something Queria
could never have, might never have unless she was someday
allowed to by the Continuum.  There was a chance, however
faint, and she longed for it.  She couldn't have children here and
now.  Even in human form, it would be forbidden.  And as the
one thing she couldn't have, couldn't experience, it was the one
she most wanted.  Her entire existence, her entire reason for
being was to nurture a younger generation of Q.  And once they
no longer needed her, she had lost a good deal of her purpose. 
Other, still younger generations were being tended by others,
from the generation immediately before.  That was the way it
went.  And she was out of a job.  If she could have, she would
have had children.  But she couldn't.  But somehow Q had found
a way around that prohibition.  And although she couldn't
understand why Ashke would *want* children, given his self-
absorption, that didn't stop her from envying him, and
understanding why he might want a child.

She definitely had to go see him.  And Naomi Allen.  Queria
took a dim view of women who allowed themselves to be used
the way Q was evidently using her.  A glorified sex toy.  And
yet, there was a great deal of intrigue in the idea of Ashke having
taken a lover.  Q had always ridiculed her romantic
misadventures with mortals, had completely misunderstood why
she continued to fall in love with them even when they broke her
heart, and had had numerous cutting things to say to her when
they'd last met about her perverted desire to be incarnated in
human form.

And now Q was human and involved with a human.  Queria
clapped her hands together, standing up, suddenly excited.  This
was going to be fun.

She couldn't claim familial relations as an excuse to see him,
since no one there knew Q had relatives, and she had no desire
that the Federation or anyone else know who and what she really
was.  The easiest way would be to get on one of the much-
vaunted waiting lists.

And she could probably speed that up considerably if she could
somehow tip Q off as to who she was.  He wouldn't be expecting
to see her, even if he remembered the name she'd taken as a
human, which he probably wouldn't.

Queria smiled suddenly as the perfect reason occurred to her. 
She could state her chosen topic as the family structure of the
T'Ke'Tya.  While this was a very real species, it also happened
to be the equivalent of the Vulcan term for the Q Continuum. 
When Q read this, he would figure out who she had to be.  That
was almost too easy, since she did want to surprise him, but then
again, since he knew she was human, the only real surprise would
be that she wanted to see him.

****

"You're lucky."

"I am?  How?"

"The anthro list is a lot shorter than the physics list," the other
scientist said enviously.  "Not as many people on it.  Of course, I
hear that's because he savages the anthro people who come to see
him."

"And he doesn't savage the physics people?"

"Not to the same extent.  The stories I've heard from some of the
returning anthro types are gruesome."

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Queria said confidently.

The speaker disregarded her comment.  "Plus you've got the
qualifications.  You do get a higher number if you've got a better
background.  I'm two places behind Norman because he had one
more publication that I did at the time of application.  It's
tremendously humiliating, you know, to get all this background
and training and then be forced to stand in line like so many
sheep, to be told that your accumulated learning isn't good
enough.  Why with a number as low as yours, I'll bet you'll get
to see him in a couple of months."

Queria nodded.  She could wait.  Besides, she needed to pick out
a baby present.

****

Naomi got up from her seat on the couch and stretched, little
popping sounds coming from her back.  With a sigh, she went to
get ready for bed.  When she came back, Q was still right where
he had been before, leaning over the terminal, doing some sort of
arcane work.

She came up silently behind him, "C'mon, Q, it's time to put
your toys away."  Her hands went to his shoulders and she kissed
the hollow of his neck.

Q shivered, held in place by that touch.  He couldn't see her
without turning around, and the sensation felt good, although if
he imagined what she really looked like, he still got nauseated.

"Do I *have* to?" Q asked plaintively.

Naomi kissed him on the other side of his neck, fingers brushing
right inside the collar line of his shirt.  "Of course not.  You can
keep playing for the rest of the night if you want."

He shivered again, and shut off the terminal.  It was useless
garbage, make-work, anyway.  He didn't want to do it, but then,
he didn't want to do a lot of the things he inevitably ended up
being dragged into.  It was work, and it served to pass the time,
and that was about all he could say for it.

Q swiveled in the chair to look at her.  As he came around to
face her, Naomi moved with him, gracefully stepping between his
knees, keeping herself close to him.  Entirely too close to him. 
His eyes flickered involuntarily to the swelling around her
midsection.  It was already grotesque; he could imagine the
*thing* growing in there and it disgusted him.  But her arms
were going around his neck, and without even thinking about it,
he reached out to her, holding her and giving her the support she
needed to stay balanced.

Her face was very close to his, and it was simple for her to take
the initiative and kiss him.

The feeling of her lips on his silenced any protest he might have
made, and Q allowed the familiarity, accepting the kiss.

She leaned in closer to him, body pressing close to his, reveling
in the feel of his arms around her, his scent and the way he'd
taken control of the kiss, mouth moving hotly over hers.

Naomi broke away, placing a kiss on his cheek by way of
apology for that tiny abandonment.  "So?  You going to come to
bed, or are you going to stay up and play?"

"The options are so tempting," Q said, voice heavily layered with
sarcasm.

Naomi tugged on the front of his shirt, and he stood up, taking
care not to knock her over.  "Well, your toys will be still be
there in the morning."

"Oh, joy."

She didn't let go of him, leading him by the hand into the
bedroom.  Q trailed after her, unable to resist that pull and not
really sure that he wanted to.

She led him to the bed, and he let himself be maneuvered into
sitting down there, into laying down with her next to him.  She
curled up into his side, and Q felt a strange sense of contentment,
of rightness in her presence.  The thought flashed across his
mind, *Someone loves me*, and was as quickly gone, banished
by a well-trained consciousness that didn't believe in love or
needing anything.

She reached up to him, hand running down his jawline, stroking
his warm skin.

A small shiver of anticipatory pleasure went through his body. 
Despite himself, he was starting to enjoy this, giving into needing
it, to wanting to be touched and to feel the sensual gratification
that came from satisfying this basest of bodily instincts.

His eyes were dark and hooded, but Naomi wasn't afraid.  It was
more a look of desire than disdain, although he used a similar
expression for both.  She levered herself up until she could reach
his mouth and then kissed him again, this time delighting in the
way they were both lying there, body to body.

His head came down to cover hers, and she felt a small nibble of
excitement as his hand moved down, under her robe, to find her
breast.  She was exquisitely sensitive there and she shivered
under his touch, fighting the urge to bite his lip.  Q wouldn't like
that at all, she was sure.

Her hands went under his shirt, seeking out his warm skin.  He'd
been planning on staying in tonight and wasn't wearing anything
more than that flimsy covering.  She stroked his chest, moving
her hand around to his back and down his side.

Q reacted more strongly to that than she was to what he was
doing to her breast.  Which only proved why teasing him was
much more fun than letting him tease her.

And then he leaned over her, mouth moving down the line of her
throat to fasten on one swollen nipple, and she forgot all about
teasing and those kind of thoughts and clung to him, sharp pangs
of sensation shooting through her.

Q found he enjoyed the way she was holding onto him as if
nothing else in the universe mattered.  It was an illusion, of
course, but a enticing one, and for a moment, he let himself
believe it, believe that she really did want *him* that much.

Naomi pulled away from him.  "Enough."

"What?"  Q looked at her, suddenly afraid and remembering
another occasion where he had done something to her and then
things had gone very badly indeed.  "Did I do something wrong?"

The damning words slipped easily from his lips and as soon as he
heard himself saying them, he tried to get away, but Naomi was
too entangled with him and he was trapped, held helpless for
whatever torments she might visit upon him.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Of course I didn't," Q said, trying to recover lost ground.  "I
don't know why I said that."

She cocked her head, but decided not to get involved in what
could be a lengthy exploration of Q's ego when there were more
important issues at stake.  Like getting Q naked.

"That was perfectly fine," Naomi said, unconsciously caressing
him as she spoke.  "It was too much, actually.  Too intense for
me to handle."

That didn't sound very reassuring to Q, but what she was doing
with her hands was entirely distracting.  He didn't resist when
she unfastened his shirt, and the look of desire in her eyes when
she was finished more than made up for any brief thoughts of
inadequacy.

He moaned as she did the same thing to him that he'd just been
doing to her.  But she didn't stop there.  Even as her teasing
tongue was flicking at his nipple, her hand was running down to
his hip, and not stopping there.  With a sense of fear, or perhaps
relief, he felt the light pressure of her graze the inside of his
thigh, and then settle over the center of his wanting for the
briefest, exquisitely painful instant before moving up to settle on
the waistband of his trousers.

Naomi broke off the kiss to look at him.  Q had his eyes closed,
and he was entirely focused on what she was doing to his body,
to what he needed and had to have.  As she watched him, his
eyes flickered open, expectant and slightly anxious.

She sat up, shrugging her robe from her shoulders, letting it fall
off.  The nightgown underneath came off easily, that being an
important criterion in a piece of clothing she was likely to be
wearing only for a few minutes at a time.

All the building excitement Q had been feeling died then, as he
saw her naked.  His eyes went to her stomach, couldn't help but
go there, and the growth disgusted him.  He couldn't even
imagine doing anything sexual with her, not with that
*protrusion* coming out, that parasite evident within her.

Naomi saw him go still and looked at him.  "What's wrong?"

His first impulse was to hide what he felt.  "Wrong?  I assure
you, anything wrong is in your imagination."

That meant something was very, very wrong.  Naomi curled her
feet under her, resting against Q's legs without even thinking
about it.  "Of course it is.  It would have to be something I'm
doing wrong."

Her tone contained no sarcasm, so level and matter-of-fact that Q
accepted the flimsy excuse at once.  And, in any case, it was
true.  It was her fault.  Everything was her fault.  And even if it
hadn't been her fault, she was the only one who could fix it,
seemed to be the only one who could fix most of his problems. 
Not that he had problems.  But he couldn't concentrate.  The
feeling of her leaning against him was all at once revolting and
sensual and the revolting was winning out.  He couldn't stand the
pressure.

"You've done so many things wrong, I hardly know where to
begin," Q said in a silky tone, sounding more in control than he
felt.  "But assuming that I would find sex with a un-disciplined,
jumbo size cow anything other than repulsive is undoubtedly the
mistake that comes first to my mind."

Naomi's eyes narrowed.  She understood that Q didn't always
mean his insults, but she didn't know whether that was meant to
be an insult.  Under the circumstances, with her naked and him
about to be, an insult was hardly called for unless he felt
threatened.  Q preferred to keep their conflicts out of the
bedroom, having too large of an ego to pick a fight somewhere
he was this vulnerable.  So there was something going on,
although she didn't know what.

"I'm going to get really large," Naomi said.  "This is nothing."

"Nothing?!" Q asked with horror.  "What else are you planning
to do?  Swallow a tank so that the child will have something to
play with while it's in there?"

"If necessary," Naomi said.  "Did you happen to have one handy,
or were you going to make up other objections so that you can
avoid discussing why you don't want to go to bed with me?"  Her
tone was more hurt than she wanted it to be.

If Q caught that, he gave no sign.  "Sex is inherently repulsive. 
That I wish to abstain from it is an indication of excellent taste on
my part, rather than a lack, as you're implying."

"Implying?"  Naomi cocked her head and looked at him.  "I
thought I was out right stating a fact."

He stared at her, assessing her with a critical eye.  "You really
should try to find some new hobbies.  I find your current ones to
be somewhat... tedious."

"Sex?  Boring?"  Naomi cocked her head.  "When did this start?"

Q's eyes involuntarily went to her stomach.  The idea of having
sex with her at all in her current condition was repulsive.  That
she didn't realize it only made things worse.  How she could even
stand self with a parasite living inside her didn't make sense,
except as a function of overactive biology.  And he certainly
understood how biology could force someone into an action they
didn't want.  Although Naomi appeared entirely too happy about
the whole child thing.  She continually forgot that he'd wanted no
part of this, and that he was making an enormous concession in
just allowing her to remain with him.

Naomi flushed at his stare.  Without meaning to, the words she
was thinking slipped out.  "I'm not attractive to you anymore."

"Since you never were attractive to me, that's not much of an
accomplishment."

That was too much to swallow.  "Are you trying to say you don't
get turned on by me?" Naomi asked mildly.

Q looked down at her, realizing too late that he'd been trapped. 
To admit the truth was humiliating, since at the moment he didn't
feel any attraction to her.  But he couldn't lie.  The lie was far
more damning than the truth.

"You seemed to want me quite a lot a minute ago."

"You have no idea what I want or need," Q said, relieved that
she'd changed the subject.

Naomi stared levelly at him.  "I could *feel* how much you
wanted me."

With a sudden shock, he remembered her hand travelling down to
touch him.  Defensively, Q said, "No, you couldn't, and even if
you could, it doesn't matter."

Before he could divine her intentions, her hand passed lightly
over his hip, and down between his legs and then she *knew* and
Q felt the worst sort of sinking shame he had ever felt.

"You had no right to do that," Q lashed out.  "What sort of
pervert are you?"

"Calm down.  This is something that happens to a lot of men." 
Naomi felt she had a good idea what was upsetting him now.

"I'm *not* a lot of men."

"Of course you're not," Naomi said soothingly.  "But it really
isn't that unusual a problem, and it's not something you have to
feel bad about."

"I don't have a problem."

She tilted her head.  "Oh, yes.  What was I thinking?"

"I have no idea," Q said sullenly.  He felt guilty and unhappy and
frustrated all at once.  The need was backlashing through him,
knotting up into painful centers of frustrated desire, and that
wasn't the least of it.  He couldn't stand how his body constantly
rebelled against him, how it never did what he wanted, and now
there was this, the final humiliation.  He never wanted to have
sex again.  It was a ridiculous activity for him anyway.  He
didn't need to reproduce himself, he *couldn't* reproduce
himself, despite what Naomi might be planning.

Naomi looked at Q, temporarily balked.  She didn't know what to
say to him, but she wanted to comfort him, wanted to make him
feel better.  On the other hand, Q wanted to pretend there wasn't
a problem at all.  Which made everything very complicated
indeed, given the look on his face and the way he was sitting
there, tense and poised, as if waiting for someone to hit him. 
Well, she wasn't going to hurt him.

"Are you just going to sit there and stare at me all night?" Q
snapped.  "It's very rude to stare."

Naomi nodded.  "How could I ever have forgotten my manners
that way?"  She got off the bed.  "I think I'll get a snack.  Do
you want something?"

"Eat?  At this hour of the night?"  Q felt a little relieved that she
wasn't going to pressure him about the latest of his failures, and
upset as well.  She hadn't offered him any comfort, and he still
felt miserable.  Naomi was ignoring his problems, and that could
only mean they were truly horrible.  Of course, they were her
fault in the first place.  He was perfectly happy before Naomi,
when he wasn't constantly being forced into this depraved
physical act.  Right.

"Is there ever a bad time to eat?"  Naomi shrugged back into her
nightgown and robe, then left the room.

Q watched her go, feeling strangely troubled despite his victory in
having gotten rid of her.  He didn't want her, and it was a relief
to not be pressured into wanting her.  For all her seeming
docility, Naomi had a way of getting what she wanted.  But this
time it wouldn't work, because he couldn't, *didn't* want her.

But just telling Naomi how disgusted he really was, which was an
enormous concession considering that it was the unvarnished
truth, wouldn't, hadn't solved the problem.  Q remembered what
had happened with Om very well.  His body had forced him into
acts he had no wish to perform, had caused him to humiliate
himself in an utterly depraved way.  What if that were to happen
again?

Panic overwhelmed Q.  He couldn't go through that again.  He'd
rather deliberately approach Naomi in her current repellent
condition than make himself vulnerable to someone else.

Except that it wouldn't do any good.  He simply was not attracted
to Naomi, proven by his reaction only minutes before; and he
couldn't imagine being attracted to her, except in the most
dissolute depths of his dreaming mind.  That he had wanted it,
had wanted her for a brief time before she'd taken off her
clothes, was a thought Q banished to the far recesses of his mind.

Q didn't know what he was going to do, didn't know what he
could do.  In any case, Naomi was here, and so no matter what it
couldn't get nearly as bad as it had at the Daystrom Institute. 
Naomi understood sexuality, she would help him if he ever got to
the point of needing help, which of course, he wouldn't.

If anyone had pointed out to Q that he was clutching the thought
to himself like a security blanket, he would have eviscerated their
ego until there was nothing left of them but a hollow shell.

****

Q stalked into the other room, noting Naomi's presence on the
couch, but ignoring it with great theatricality.  He went to the
replicator.

"Cyomil capsule.  One."

Naomi glanced over at him, noting with fatalistic humor that Q
was once again immaculately clothed and groomed.  She had a
mug of cocoa sitting on the table next to her, and had been trying
to put a little distance between them, to give Q whatever space he
needed.  "Is your back bothering you?"

Q got a glass of water as well, and swallowed the drug.  "Are
you offering to torture me if I say yes?"

"Of course."  Naomi felt a tremor of relief that he sounded
almost normal.  A wounded ego over impotence just wasn't
something she knew how to handle, even if her natural instincts
said that something needed to be done in order to help him.

"Then I'll have to say no."  He didn't want her at all, but he did,
and he wouldn't even have bothered to come into the common
room at all if he weren't trying to get her attention.

"Then I'll have to torture you into saying yes," Naomi said
placidly, a twinkle coming into her eyes.

Q looked down his nose at her.  On the other hand, why was he
resisting so hard?  It was only a backrub, after all, not something
sexual.  Not that he wanted anything sexual from her, not that he
was thinking about her naked body... with an effort, Q tore his
mind from those thoughts.  "Do you have no ego at all, woman?"

"Probably not," Naomi said, standing up and ushering him into
the bedroom.  If he had taken Cyomil, his back must really be
hurting him.  She'd taken it once, and only once, after she'd
wrenched her own back while rock climbing.  It had been a
stupid accident, easily preventable, but unfortunately she was just
as capable of being stupid as the next person.  She'd wrenched it,
then smacked right into the rock face, almost knocking herself out
and then, when she canceled the program since she didn't want to
try to get down from there on her own after that, she'd fallen to
the floor, unable to maintain any sort of balance.  Medical
assistance had arrived with obliging haste, and Li had taken care
of it, afterward prescribing Cyomil for the pain.  Naomi had
taken the drug, then wished she hadn't.  It was quite strong, and
had left her feeling boneless as well as muscleless.  If Q were
taking it, he must hurt badly indeed.

They were both standing near the bed, Naomi waiting for Q to lie
down, and Q doing nothing of the sort.  She didn't know why
unless he was still apprehensive that she might do something
sexual to him.

"Lay down," Naomi said patiently.  "And take off your shirt."

Q reluctantly sat down on the edge of the bed.  "You're going to
take advantage of me."

"Of course.  Why else would I be here?  My entire life is about
taking advantage of you."

He glanced up at her from his seat on the edge of the bed, feeling
oddly comforted by the sarcasm.  "Oh, yes.  What a *noble*
purpose to commit yourself to."

"I thought so," Naomi said blandly.  She stepped over to him,
hands going to his chest, unfastening his shirt, since he didn't
seem to be able to.  While her hands slipped the edges apart,
brushing his skin lightly, she tried to reassure him.  "You don't
have anything to worry about.  You don't have to be afraid of me
doing anything to you that you don't want."  As she slipped the
shirt over his shoulders and let him pull his own arms out of it, a
sudden thought struck her and she said, with humor coloring her
voice, "And, under the circumstances, it's not like I could force
you anyway."

Q inhaled deeply, but held himself perfectly still under her touch. 
If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that everything was
all right, that there were no obstacles between them.  He could
smell the delicate rose scent that announced her presence, could
feel her warmth and enjoy her closeness.  But as it was, there
was something quite large in between them, something he
regarded as being entirely grotesque.

"There's nothing wrong," Q said, looking at her with a defiant
stare.

She cocked her head at him.  "Wrong?  Who said anything about
there being something wrong?  You don't *really* want a
backrub, do you?"

"Of course not.  Why would I want someone who looks as though
they swallowed a small horse to touch me?"  Naomi pushed him
back, and Q allowed her to do it, turning to sink face down into
the softness of the mattress with a sigh of relief.

"You have kinky tastes?" Naomi proffered, moving to sit next to
him on the bed.  It was an awkward position, but kneeling
wouldn't work.  Her own back liked to protest such dramatic
changes in position.  Maybe she should have gotten him to sit on
the floor at her feet.  She wouldn't have been able to reach his
lower back, which was always what had the worst knots, but she
wouldn't have to crane around like this.

The feel of her hands on his naked skin sent a shiver of sensation
through Q.  It had been days since she touched him like this,
although it seemed like months.  Not that he was looking forward
to this, mind you.  Far from it.  He could already feel the Cyomil
working, spreading a lazy warmth through his body.  That would
have been more than enough, although he was a little surprised
he'd been able to get the drug.  He supposed they'd changed his
limitations, since he obviously was no longer suicidal.  He could
be trusted again, was trusted.  The thought made him feel a little
lighter in spirit.  At one time, the best he'd been able to get were
the equivalent of cough drops for his back.  Like popping a
lollipop in a baby's mouth to keep it from crying without
bothering to deal with the *real* problems.

Thinking about children forced his attention back to Naomi, who
was soothing him with slow, rhythmic motions of her hands.  It
felt very good, and Q was tempted to simply close his eyes, and
let the combination of medication and that blissful, essential touch
carry him into sleep.  But that would be too easy.

"You do realize that it's not too late."

"Not too late for what?" Naomi asked, continuing to ease out the
tension.

"You can be so dense.  Why do I ever put up with you?"

"For the gross physical reasons, of course."

"Gross is certainly the correct term for it," Q retorted, with as
much dignity and venom as he could muster, lying face down
with his head buried in a pillow.

"Don't tell me *you* have inhibitions.  Why, I'm *shocked*."
Naomi said with faked dismay.

"They're not inhibitions," Q said with great solemnity.  "They're
indications of taste."

"Taste?  You mean, you think it's tasteful to..." Naomi's voice
trailed off suggestively.  "Umm... never mind."

Q twisted around.  "Am I to understand that you're accusing me
of something?"

"Never," Naomi said solemnly.  "You're like a god to me."

"Good.  That's as it should be."  Q returned to his previous
position, allowing her to continue with that wonderful touch.  He
didn't know how he'd survived without it.  *Badly*, his mind
commented.

Naomi didn't tell him that he'd been completely distracted form
his first topic of conversation, the opening insult, as it were. 
That particular one was something she had no wish to reply to,
although she was sure he'd bring it up again.  He continued to
show her no support for the enormous task she was embarking
on, that of having a child.  Q seemed to think of it as an
annoying hobby she'd chosen to take up, and assumed she could
lay it aside as easily, like a toy she'd gotten tired of or which
he'd broken.  That wasn't the case.

Her hands dug deeply into the small of his back, where the
muscles felt more like natural parts of his bone structure.  Q
groaned slightly, but not very much, and Naomi knew he could
hardly even feel what she was doing.  If she had done this to any
other part of his back, had dug in anywhere near as deeply as
this, he'd be screaming with pain.  It was quite the opposite here. 
She was working them over with all her might and he was barely
reacting, due to the overstressed tension in his back.

"What did you do to yourself?" Naomi asked.  "Actually try to
exercise?"

"Why would I want to do something like that?" Q asked
peevishly.

"Sheer stubbornness?" Naomi asked.  "It certainly wasn't good
for you."

"I *didn't* exercise," Q said, frustrated by her slowness.  "I... 
being human is hard on the body."

"Of course it is," Naomi said soothingly, then her face changed,
and her tone went to peevish.  "Of course, you *could* try being
pregnant if you want to know what real pain is all about."

"Did I *ask* you to get pregnant?"

"Did I *ask* you to run around and injure your back?" Naomi
countered.

"How does that relate?" Q asked, with some fight left in his tone,
despite the fact that the world was gradually dissolving into a
half-lit shadowy place, bounded by the feel of her hands on him,
the sound of her voice, and the hazy drifting that was bearing him
away.

"It relates because I *say* it relates," Naomi said.  She couldn't
very well say he was a wimp about pain.  Even if it might happen
to be true.

"Oh, *that's* a good excuse," Q said, eyes closed, tension ebbing
from his body, all thoughts of sexuality dismissed in favor of this
spreading looseness in his muscles and in his head.  Despite his
vulnerable position, he didn't feel afraid that she might take
advantage of him, didn't really even care at this moment.  He
could feel the drug taking effect, and it, combined with what
Naomi was doing to him was sending him into a state of drowsy
bliss.

"I thought so."  Using her fingertips only, she stroked him slowly
from the base of his spine, up through the small of his back and
up to his neck.  He shuddered under her touch, shivering in
pleasure against her hands.

Q murmured sleepily, but Naomi couldn't understand what he
was saying.  It any case, she had her justification for helping
him.  He was obviously greatly affected by it and quite in need. 
Q hated going to sleep at all, and that he did it now was a sign of
how much her backrub, or the Cyomil, or both had affected him.

She patted his back again, then tugged his shoes off and pulled
the blanket over him.  She was about to leave him there when she
reconsidered.

It wasn't all that late, and she could stay up even later and work
for a while, but she tired often these days, and it wouldn't do her
harm at all to take a nap.  Her lower back ached and she felt, as
she seemed to do a lot these days, that she was struggling to deal
with life while fighting with the tiredness deep inside her.

Naomi got back on the bed, and snuggled down next to Q, not so
close that she'd wake him up by being there, but close enough
that she could feel she was with him, that they were connected
someone, even if it was only in her imagination.  She laid her
head on the pillow and closed her eyes.  A kind of swooping
dizziness faded in, then out again, and Naomi gave herself over
to that sensation, feeling a sense of security in being there, with
Q.

Sleepily, he rolled to his side, in a movement more subconscious
than anything else, letting her nuzzle in closer against him.  He
didn't say anything, and neither did she.  This was almost better
than sex would have been.  She wanted to be close to him,
without all the barriers he kept up so high, and this was almost
the same, enough certainly to leave her feeling safe and wanted,
despite whatever he might have said before.

Without saying another word, they fell asleep like that, bundled
together under the comforter.

****

They didn't speak of the incident in the morning when they woke,
only got up and went their separate ways to prepare for the day;
Naomi suspected Q was too embarrassed to talk about what had
happened.  And, in any case, it was a temporary kind of
problem.  Even if he were serious about not liking the way she
looked, that would take care of itself eventually.  But if he hated
the whole idea of her having a baby so much that her just being
pregnant disgusted him, what was he going to do when there was
an actual baby, crying and needing things?

Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.  Naomi bit her
bottom lip.  She didn't want to lose Q, couldn't bear the thought,
but she wasn't going to give up on this child either.  For a brief
moment, the horrifying idea of having to choose between the two
flashed into her head, but Naomi shut off that line of thought
immediately.  This had to work out.  It just had to.

She straightened the line of her dress so that it draped properly
over her shoulders and didn't bunch up, then took a deep breath
and went out in the common room to meet Q.

He wasn't there yet, and Naomi went ahead and ordered
breakfast.  She could stand it now, as long as there weren't any
eggs.  Everything about eggs, the way they looked, the way they
smelled, everything made her nauseous.

So it was best to order breakfast before Q, who would inevitably
get eggs.

She'd just poured cream over her strawberries when he came out. 
He was gorgeously attired in a blue and grey something.  Q
would have been disappointed to know how much of the effect
was lost on her.  She liked the way he looked no matter what he
was wearing, although this tunic and trouser set seemed
particularly stylish for no reason she could pin down.

"You know, you look good enough to eat," Naomi said, spooning
up a strawberry and taking a bite.

"I'm not edible," Q snapped.

She swallowed and grinned at him.  "Are you sure?"

He ignored that, looking over the table at the food laid out, more
than enough for two people, since Naomi had anticipated both of
them eating.  "What, no eggs?"

Naomi rolled her eyes.  "No eggs."

He stood there, halfway between the table and the replicator, and
Naomi could have sworn he was teasing her.  "I don't think you
can call it breakfast if there aren't any eggs."

"If there *are* eggs, I won't be calling it breakfast."  She
spooned up another strawberry and looked challengingly at him.

"How typical."

"Naturally."  She ate the strawberry, while Q settled into his seat. 
She didn't say a word while he helped himself to the food. 
During the time where she didn't want to eat breakfast and he
was tormenting her by eating it when he knew she wouldn't, Q
seemed to have acquired the habit of eating in the morning, and
she wasn't going to ruin it by commenting on it and making him
self-conscious.  Especially after he'd just made the major
concession of not ordering any eggs.

The silence hung heavy between them.  Naomi wasn't about to
bring up the events of the night before.  She had slightly more
sensitivity than that, and given Q's reaction, he didn't want to
talk about it.  Besides, what was there to say?

"I suppose you're planning to eat all of this," Q said, indicating
what was on the table.

"Oh, I'll share," Naomi said, happy that they were talking. 
"There's enough that I don't think I'll be stealing food off your
plate."

Q looked up at her sharply.  "Is this a new technique to try to get
me to eat faster?"

Naomi giggled, then stopped herself, observing soberly.  "That
wouldn't be very good for your digestion."

"How kind of you to think of me," Q said sarcastically.

****

The morning went slowly after that, Naomi trying to get caught
up on what seemed to be an ever increasing amount of
paperwork, and Q doing whatever tasks he found so engrossing. 
She wished she could ask him to help her with getting baby
things; he'd be very good at it and might even like it if he
weren't so against the entire idea.

Harry arrived sometime just before lunch, popping in for no
particular reason, which was just as well to Naomi since she had
a fairly important appointment in Sickbay which she didn't want
to miss.  Although there was nothing else she needed to do today,
if Q were to find out that she had an appointment before time, he
was quite capable of staging a scene just to stop her from going. 
And she didn't want to miss this one at all, since today they were
going to tell her exactly what she was having, a boy or a girl. 
Naomi wished there was someone she could share her excitement
over this with, but there wasn't, and that was that.

However, it looked like there wouldn't be any problem, since it
was getting very close to the time she needed to leave and Harry
was still there, showing no signs of being in imminent need of
fleeing.

Harry looked over at Q.  "Want to get something to eat?"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, yes.  Who am I talking to?" Harry said in mock-tones of
disbelief.  "You?  Eat?  Would you like to watch me eat while we
ridicule other people and gossip about Naomi?"

Naomi looked over at him.  "Paybacks are hell, Harry."

"Ah, but how are you going to find out what we said?" Harry
asked.

"I have my ways."  She smiled secretively at him.  "But right
now, I do have that appointment with Li, so I suppose you will
be able to get away with it for a little while at least."

"See?"

Naomi stuck out her tongue at Harry, then left them alone,
causing Harry to rub his hands together with glee.  "Now that I
have you to myself, I can have my way with you."

Q looked at him.  "Of the available choices, I'd rather eat."

Harry's expression fell.  "Ranking below lunch.  This is a new
experience for me."

"Why?  Do you normally rank below breakfast?"  Q didn't wait
for the barb to hit home, but walked over to the replicator and
ordered something to eat.  He'd had breakfast that morning, and
yet he felt curiously hungry.  It must be something Naomi was
doing to him, since he could remember a time when he only ate
once a day, and mostly out of habit, without any appetite at all.

Harry waited until Q was out of the way, and then got his own
lunch.  "Not according to my adoring fans."

Q dismissed that as irrelevant, sitting down at the table, plates
placed out in front of him.  "If your ego requires an extra chair,
you can get one from the bedroom."

Harry sat down, then put a hand over his heart, feigning injury. 
"Wounded!  A shot through the heart!  I'll never be the same
again."

"Good.  Perhaps the new version will be less silly."  Q picked up
his sandwich and took a bite out of it.  He didn't particularly like
eating in front of anyone, even Harry.  He felt very self-
conscious about it.  Suppose something were to happen and he
spilled something on himself?  How humiliating.  It was all right
with Naomi, since she'd never notice anything other than what
she was eating anyway.  But Harry kept looking up at him, and Q
hated that.

On the other hand, he *was* hungry, and it really wasn't a
tremendous concession.  It could be worse.  He could be in front
of an entire crowd of people.

Harry let them eat in silence for a moment before speaking again. 
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you didn't like me."  His
tone was flirtatious.

Q looked back at him with supercilious expression.  "That I
consent to put up with you at all is an enormous concession. 
Treasure it."

"Oh, I do, I do."

Q finished off the sandwich, then drank the tea he'd ordered.  It
had caffeine in it, which was good, but it eased his stomach,
which was also helpful.  Naomi had probably corrupted him there
as well, he thought ironically.  "How nice for you."

"I thought so."

As they finished off lunch, Q began to wish he hadn't drank the
tea.  Obviously Naomi had exaggerated its calming properties
because his stomach was beginning to hurt horribly, and he
couldn't seem to get in enough air.  He wished Harry weren't
there, because then he'd be able to escape to his bedroom to
moan in peace and quiet.

The pain increased, and he couldn't take it anymore.  If he stayed
there any longer, he'd moan in front of Harry or do something
even more humiliating.  He remembered when he'd been very
sick, just after Naomi had barged into his life.  That had been
utterly mortifying; he had vomited everything up that he'd eaten
and disgraced himself completely.  The pain now was just as bad
or worse, and he had to get out of there.  Q stood up, took one
wavering step, and then the world went grey, and finally, dark.

Harry had just had time to dispose of the plates and stand up
from the table when Q turned blue and collapsed on the floor in
an undignified heap.

"Oh, God.  Sickbay, this is Lieutenant Roth, I've got a medical
emergency in Q's quarters.  He went down, and he doesn't seem
to be breathing."  Even as he was speaking, Harry was kneeling
next to Q, trying desperately to remember anything he ever knew
about life saving techniques.  Q definitely wasn't breathing, and it
was with great relief that Harry greeted the transporter beam
shimmering over the both of them.

****

Naomi had barely been finished with her exam, and was sitting
on a table in Sickbay, when the call came in.  She went entirely
white as soon as she heard Harry's frantic words, her heart
almost stopping in her chest.  All thought of what the exam had
revealed, all the excitement she'd been feeling turned into worry
and starkest fear.

Q and Harry materialized moments later, and the medical team
went to work on Q without delay.  She wanted to see what was
going on, wanted to know what was wrong, but she didn't want
to get in the way.  

She grabbed hold of Harry and pulled him back out of the mess. 
"What's going on?  What happened?"

"I don't know," Harry said weakly, looking lost and frightened. 
"We were having lunch, and he just got up and fell over.  I don't
know why.  I just..."  He broke off, looking over at the knot of
activity surrounding Q.

"It's all right," Naomi said, trying to sound soothing when all she
wanted to do was hunt down Li and shake him until he told her Q
was going to be all right.  "Don't get upset, just take your time
and tell me about it."

Sanaharrar came through the entrance to Sickbay like an avenging
Fury.  She oriented herself on their corner of the room
immediately, then looked between Q and Naomi, head cocked. 
Her tail drooped as she realized what had happened and that there
was nothing left for her to do.  She had failed in her duty to
protect Q.  Sanaharrar slunk over to Naomi, sitting at her feet,
looking up at Naomi with flattened ears.

Naomi *felt* the wave of guilt coming from Sanaharrar, a feeling
so overwhelming that Sanaharrar couldn't block it completely out.

Naomi abandoned Harry to kneel down next to the large cat. 
"Yeah, well it wasn't your fault."

Sanaharrar looked back at Naomi with great dark eyes,
unblinking.  The sorrow there was immistakable, and Naomi
buried her face in Sanaharrar's ruff for a long moment, tears
coming to her eyes.  For a moment, they shared a sense of grief
and anguish, before Naomi broke away, sitting back on her heels.

"He'll be all right," Naomi said, blotting her disobedient eyes. 
"He has to be."  She didn't want to break down and cry here, but
she was very close to it.

Harry helped her up, and they all waited for what seemed like
forever until the commotion finally calmed down and Li separated
himself out from the crowd to come over and talk to them.

"He'll live," Li said, without a trace of compassion.  Or perhaps
it was compassion of a rougher sort, because Naomi immediately
sagged against Harry in relief.  "He won't be up for a while; the
substance caused an allergic reaction which shut down his heart." 
Li looked at Harry.  "If you hadn't been there, he would have
died."

Harry had an arm around Naomi, supporting her.  "What was it? 
How did it happen?"

Li shrugged.  "He had nearly 400 milligrams of Nausimal in his
system."

"And that is?" Naomi asked.

"A strong purgative."

Naomi's eyes narrowed.  Purgative?  "But you said his heart
stopped."

"Yes.  Q had an allergic reaction to the drug; a very intense
allergic reaction."

"Then it was an attempt to murder him."

Li looked at her straight on.  "Or another suicide attempt."  His
gaze fell to her bulging midsection.  "From what I've heard, Q is
not overly happy about the baby.  He could have been trying to
kill himself again.  He very nearly succeeded, if that were his
aim."

"It wasn't."  Naomi's tone was absolutely certain.  "Someone
tried to do this to him."

Li shrugged again.  "Be that as it may, he'll be under suicide
watch once he regains consciousness."

Naomi glared at Li.  "He will not.  You can't do that to Q."

"I can and will do whatever is necessary to keep my patient
alive."  Li's tone was unflinching.

Naomi didn't look away, didn't flinch.  Q's current contract
didn't *quite* cover this situation.  She might be able to argue it
with Anderson, she might not.  In any case, she didn't want Q to
wake up and find himself strapped down with Security on every
side on him, and a computer monitor recording his every breath. 
If he weren't already suicidal, that would do it to him.

She took a deep breath.  "I'll stay here with him, and so will
Sanaharrar.  Just leave him alone."

Li shook his head.  "I'm sorry, Naomi.  Q is my patient, and I
have to do what I think is best for him."  He turned and left
before Naomi could argue with him further.  The effort of saving
Q had left him on the ragged edge of exhaustion.  How many
times would he have to do this?  How many emergencies would
there be?

Naomi stared after him, eyes cold.

"For what it's worth, Naomi, I don't think Q was trying to kill
himself," Harry said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

She tried to smile at him, but failed.  "I don't either.  But how
did it happen if it wasn't deliberate?  I was with him all morning,
and when I left, you were there."  There was no accusation in her
tone.  Naomi didn't believe Harry had anything to do with this.

Harry nodded.  "We had lunch and then he just fell over.  Unless
whatever it was that did this was in the food, I don't know how
else it could have happened.  And the food came straight out of
the replicator.  I wasn't watching closely; I suppose Q *could*
have put something in, but I don't think he did."

Naomi stared at Harry, a thought coming to her.  "No, you can't
tamper with a replicator, can you?"

"Exactly.  So now what?" Harry's tone was depressed.

"But that's it, Harry!"

"That's what?" Harry was completely confused.

Naomi pulled away and looked up at him, eyes intense.  "That's
it!  You *can* tamper with a replicator.  And if you assume Q
wasn't trying to kill himself, that's the only possible answer. 
Someone sabotaged the replicator!"

"Are you sure?" Harry asked dubiously.

"No, but I will be," Naomi said, an expression of determination
on her face.  "But I do know it can be done.  This *is* my area
of expertise, after all.  And I *have* to find out.  I have to prove
to Li that this was deliberate.  There's someone out there right
now who's gloating about this, and I want them punished, and
preferably dead."

Her expression was vicious, and Harry backed away from it.  "I
believe you.  What are you going to do?"

Naomi's face calmed as his question registered and she began to
think about what she needed to do.  "I need a terminal... then I
need to look for whatever it was that was done to put this drug
into Q's food..."

Harry nodded.  She had already forgotten he was even in the
room.  "I... I think I'll... go find Azoth and make a report of
this.  I can't be any help here."

Naomi nodded, eyes vague and distant.  "Goodbye.  Thank you,
Harry."

****

The answer came quickly, although it wasn't a definitive answer. 
However, in Naomi's eyes, it was all the proof she needed.  She
called Anderson immediately.

"Yes?" Anderson asked irritably.

"I think I know how someone attempted to murder Q."

Anderson resisted the urge to sigh deeply.  "I was informed that
the latest... incident... was a suicide attempt."

"Well, that was wrong," Naomi said curtly, impatient with
Anderson for having believed such a patent untruth.  "Someone
has changed Q's replicator access, and also introduced the poison
into his food."

"How do you know that this same person wasn't Q?" the
commodore asked.

Naomi recoiled.  "Excuse me?"  The insistence of everyone, Li
and now Anderson, on believing this to be a attempt on Q's part
to win attention was baffling to her, and enraging as well.  He
was not suicidal, not like this, not out of nowhere.  She'd been
with him this morning, she *knew* what he had been feeling, and
he had been relatively content, for Q.  "This required
programming skill far beyond what Q has.  It's extremely clever,
as a matter of fact.  The person had to beat two separate
programs to do this, one to insert the poison into Q's food, and
the other to keep the system from automatically notifying Sickbay
and Security about it.  Q could never have done it; he doesn't
have the knowledge.  I could have done it, but I've got a
doctorate in the field.  It would have taken someone with that
kind of knowledge and experience to do this."

Anderson nodded, convinced by Dr. Allen's level tone more than
anything else.  "In that case, you should notify Security of this.  I
don't want a killer roaming around loose on my starbase."

"Me neither."  Naomi closed the connection and went through the
same routine with Azoth, who seemed less surprised than
Anderson at her news.

"You're best equipped to handle this," Azoth said.  "For now,
don't tell anyone your suspicions.  Forward your conclusions to
me, and I'll have them checked out.  This is being seen as a
suicide; we'll be able to work more easily if our quarry believes
themself unsuspected."

Naomi nodded.  That seemed perfectly reasonable to her.  "What
about guards, though?  What if this person tries to finish off the
job they botched?"

Azoth nodded.  "This isn't the kind of person who commits direct
violence.  Q is not at risk for a repeat attack in my judgment."

Naomi's eyes narrowed.  "But what if he is?  He's just lying
there defenseless in the middle of Sickbay.  People come through
here all the time."

"We'll keep an eye on him," Azoth said gruffly.  "But I don't
want a guard standing next to him; no one should think that
there's any suspicion on our part that this was deliberate."

"You'd have a guard on him anyway, to make sure he doesn't
commit suicide," Naomi said, recalling Li's earlier words.

"No," Azoth said, shaking his head.  "For a suicide attempt,
Sanaharrar is more than adequate.  The arrangements stand."

This time, he closed the connection, leaving her staring at her
terminal, feeling outmaneuvered.  She had gotten exactly what
she wanted.  So why did she feel curiously unhappy, as though
there was something more she should have asked for, should have
objected to?

Naomi shook her head, and went back to her work.  She felt safe
enough with Sanaharrar there, and she had a lot of work to go. 
She'd discovered *what* had happened, now was the time to
uncover why, and hope it led her to who.

****

"You have to sleep, Naomi."

"No, I don't," Naomi said, hardly glancing up from her screen. 
"Don't you have real work to do?"

Li looked at the small woman hunched over the terminal while
running a hand through his thinning hair in frustration.  He was
sure he'd had hair before Q had shown up.  Although now that
Naomi had been added to the picture, he was losing it at a
surprising rate.  It was late night now, and Naomi had been here,
awake, ever since Q had collapsed, nearly ten hours before. 
"You can't stay up around the clock.  It's not good for you, and
it's certainly not good for your baby."

Naomi's fingers tapped furiously as she left a note for Jinn.  He
wasn't answering her calls, and she hated that.  How dare he
sleep when someone had tried to kill Q?  But he was the best
resource she had right now.  She couldn't do everything at once,
and he could look up some of the minor facts she needed to break
this.

She spared Li a look as she tapped the keys to send her message
to Jinn.  "I don't really care right now.  And since I'm sure the
kid will keep me up all night after she's born, I'm merely
returning the favor."

Li visibly considered a sedative, but the bristling presence of
Sanaharrar on the floor separating Q and Naomi from the rest of
the world kept him at a distance.  He threw up his hands.  "Why
do I even bother?"

He stalked out, but Naomi had already dismissed the doctor from
her mind, flashing back from her message to Jinn to the hunt at
hand.  Whoever had sabotaged the replicators had possessed a
high degree of programming skill, and either legitimate or stolen
access to the system.  The replicator was, or rather *had* been,
specifically programmed *not* to give anything harmful to Q; he
couldn't even get a knife from it, which had would have made
breakfast somewhat awkward for him before she showed up,
unless he ordered everything pre-sliced and pre-buttered.  The
kind of humiliation implicit there was shocking to Naomi.  To not
even be able to cut up his food?  No wonder he'd survived on
chocolate, ice cream and linguini for so long.  Very simple foods,
and no special precautions needed to remind Q of what he
couldn't have and couldn't do.

But that meant that this couldn't have been an accident, and it
couldn't have been an ordinary prank turned deadly.  To do this
to anyone else *might* have been a prank; certainly trying to
reprogram a replicator was one of the most common tricks tried
by computer people out for a lark.  Jinn had even done it to
Farish, when he was trying to get Farish's goat.  But causing a
replicator to malfunction was considerably easier than causing it
to reproduce deadly substances, and far, far easier than breaking
the block placed on Q's limits.  No one would go through that
much trouble for a childish prank.

Naomi had been over that several times now, and had kicked
herself repeatedly for not noticing the block before this ever came
up.  Q might not be lying here in Sickbay half-dead if she'd been
paying attention.  Whoever had done this to him had sheared the
block clean away, replacing it with their own work.  Q would
have been able to get anything he wanted from the replicator
during this time, *had* gotten at least one thing from the
replicator that she knew of that should have been impossible for
him to get.  But she hadn't ever investigated the programming
done on the replicator that closely, and she hadn't noticed until
now.  However, Q should never have been able to get that
capsule of Cyomil.

She felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for having allowed this to
happen, for not having realized there was something wrong
earlier.  Naomi didn't look at the still figure lying on the bed next
to her station.  She couldn't help but see him out of the corner of
her eye, and even that was condemnation enough.  She was
responsible, she should have known better.

All she could do now was to track down the person who had done
this and make them pay.  There were only so many suspects,
despite the multiplicity of people on the starbase at any time. 
Whoever it was had considerable programming skills at the very
least, and since a complete dossier was compiled on each of Q's
visitors, it was a simple matter to flag those outsiders who might
have the skill to accomplish this.  But Naomi wasn't overly
concerned about them, although she flagged the names and left a
copy of the list in Security's mail.

The perpetrator had almost certainly been someone who knew the
system inside and out, who was aware of the special additives in
Q's food.  Because, despite the mistake they'd made in disabling
the restrictions to allow anything through, this had been a very
clever plan indeed, hiding the deadly poison inside the additives
which went into food ordered by Q.  The additives were a part of
his program and hers, a protective measure mandated by Li to
keep Q from succumbing to various nutritional deficiencies.  The
additives were also in Naomi's food because Q generally ate
whatever Naomi ordered for him.

However, the poison itself had only been added to his program. 
Hers was untampered with.  It was clear that if he ordered the
food, the poison would be there, but that if she ordered, it would
not.

If she had been eating with him, she would have succumbed also
since their food was generally ordered all at once and then eaten
communally, but luckily, Q had been with Harry, and the highly
selective nature of the programming had kept Harry from being
poisoned.  

Thank whatever gods had been watching over Q that the two men
had ordered separately, Naomi thought with some relief.  If Q
had ordered for Harry, they'd both be dead now, or Q would be
dead, and Harry would have been too concerned with the
mishmash that the Nausimal was making out of his innards to be
able call Sickbay for help fast enough.  Which made the program
sophisticated, and moreover, something only someone who knew
Q very well would ever have thought of.  Someone who had
gotten inside the programming might have conceived the idea
after looking at it, but it was more likely that someone clever
enough to devise this plan was trying to be selective, trying to get
only Q, and therefore, had intended to use this method, would not
have used this method unless they knew only Q would be
affected.

With a quick thought, Naomi flipped over to check her own
replicator access.  She had a similar block to Q's, but hers was
untampered with.  Which was very interesting.  She could, and
had always been able to, get things which would be restricted to
Q, but the same additives were being put in her food as in Q's,
since she did, after all, eat with him most of the time and order
for him.  But the assassin had not gone after her, only Q, because
the poison had only been added to his file and therefore would
only be in food that Q ordered from the replicator.  Very
interesting indeed.  Naomi made a note of that, and went on.

She already had a separate program tracing the original
workstation the programming had been done on.  Naomi didn't
expect to find anything with that.  Even if it didn't lead back to
nothing at all, someone with any skill at all would have messed
with the answers, and have it point back to her or something
equally in the nature of a red herring.  But it was worth a try,
just in case whoever this was hadn't been completely thorough in
covering their tracks.

To be truly thorough, she needed to search the off-line backups
and see what, if anything, they told her about this.  It was
possible that the logs there would show a definitive trail, since
they couldn't be tampered with, being in read-only form. 
However, she didn't have time for that right now, and she wasn't
going to leave Q alone under any circumstances.  The logs would
probably not show anything, in any case, since the murderer
would undoubtedly be thorough enough to recognize the
possibility inherent there.  Naomi made a note to herself to check
into that at a later time, but left it as unworkable for now.  This
late at night she wouldn't be able to get anyone to work with her
on it in any case.

What Naomi was doing instead was sorting through the regular
personnel files, culling out people with computer ratings even
marginally high enough to have done this.  Unsurprisingly, she
knew most of them, worked with most of them.  Which might or
might not explain why her own privileges had been untampered
with.  Either the person didn't want to kill her and only wanted to
kill Q, or they knew enough to realize she'd be more likely to
notice a discrepancy in her own files than with something to do
with Q.  She was strongly protective towards Q, but the prankster
mentality in her department left all of them paranoid towards
anything which might be open to this kind of joke, and while
additional security was probably unnecessary, any of them would
have hunted down any sort of discrepancy immediately.  Farish
was the exception which proved the rule, but on the whole,
anyone from her department might very well have left her alone
to keep from being noticed.  Except that would have been a
mistake as well, since she had been left alive and was feeling
very vengeful.

As Naomi continued to add data to her conclusions, Sanaharrar
laid on the floor in front of them, posture alert.  Sanaharrar
wouldn't sleep as long as Q and Naomi were at risk, and right
now, they were.  The tip of her tail flicked angrily, the only
moving spot on her body.  She couldn't tell who had done this to
Q; she wasn't that strong of a telepath.  However, if the person
were in the room with her, she would almost certainly know
them.  And she was waiting for that, anticipating that moment in
a feline way.

****

Li returned early in the morning to find Naomi still hunched over
her screen, bleary-eyed, but working with almost feverish
excitement.

"That's it," Li pronounced.  "You're going to sleep."

"Am not," Naomi mumbled.  "Besides, I couldn't sleep."

"Oh, yes I can."

Naomi spared him a glance.  "You can't give me a sedative.  I'm
not supposed to take medication, remember?  Any kind of drug
might be harmful.  I'm pregnant."

"I'm a doctor.  I can prescribe one."  Li stepped over Sanaharrar
warily, half-expecting her to take his foot off, but she let him
pass, evidently agreeing on the subject of Naomi's mental
condition.  "In any case, although generally avoiding medication
is good, staying up 48 hours straight is bad."

Naomi registered his presence then, entirely too close to her for
her to be able to get away, and realized she didn't have a choice
but to let Li do whatever he wanted to her.  She looked over at
Sanaharrar.  "Traitor."

Sanaharrar yawned placidly, showing her teeth.

The hypo hissed against her arm.  "Now will you lay down?" Li
asked, impatient with this worst of patients.

"Just let me save this."  Naomi turned to her screen, tapping on
the keys, but sagged to the side, and would have fallen to the
floor if Li hadn't caught her.

"Programmers," Li muttered under his breath.

****

It seemed like she had only been asleep for a moment when
Naomi opened her eyes.  But her body was sore and cramped,
and she absolutely had to use the bathroom right *now*.  Which
were clear signs that she'd been out for a while, at least an hour
or so.  And probably longer.  Naomi spared a moment to curse
Li for that.  She might be better able to think after that rest, but
every minute counted right now.  There was too much of a
chance that the perpetrator might even now be erasing their tracks
from the system, making it impossible to ever find them.  If they
hadn't already done so.  Naomi tried to ignore the bleak thought
as she left the room.

When she returned, she went to check on Q, who still hadn't
opened his eyes.  He would soon enough, Li had said.  What Li
hadn't said was as clear to Naomi as if he had said it out loud. 
He'd be happier if Q didn't wake up, at least as long as Q was a
patient in his Sickbay.  Naomi understood that.  After the
Dilkinen incident, both she and Q had suffered through a
prolonged convalescence.  Q had not been a good patient, to say
the least.  She'd wanted to strangle him before he got sprung
from here, and that was saying quite a lot, since ordinarily she
enjoyed his company, especially when he was in the mood for
witty putdowns.  Unfortunately, when Q was confined and feeling
cranky, he was always in the mood for witty put-downs.  Of her
as well as everything else.  She didn't take them seriously, Naomi
knew better than that, but it didn't stop some of them for hitting
home, and she did resent that.

The ideal situation for everyone would be if Q woke up on his
way back to his own quarters.  Ideal for Q as well, since he hated
being here almost as much as Li hated having him.

Naomi checked Q over again, this time more carefully.  He was
still alive, and seemed to be merely asleep rather than in any sort
of danger, rather than having been close to dying less a full day
before.  Her eyes rested on his drawn face for a long moment,
tracing its lines, cherishing the sight.  She loved him and he was
hurt and she would make sure that whoever did it regretted it for
the rest of what would be a very short life.  She felt even more
viciously about this since the attack had almost certainly come
from someone she knew.  Somehow that made it even more
offensive, a unforgivable breach of trust.

Naomi sat back down in her chair, groaning as the position
reminded her sore muscles of why they were sore.  But as soon
as she had pulled up the results of her automated searches, left
running the night before, she stopped caring.  The first one had
pulled up the workstation at which the programming had been
committed -- Naomi's own terminal in the programming lab. 
This was all at once innocuous and damning.  Innocuous because
anyone with enough skill to break these blocks could also fix it to
look like the work came from any of the terminals anywhere on
the starbase.  If the person had truly been a prankster, the
originating workstation would have been someplace even more
improbable -- a study carrel on Vulcan, for instance.  So the
tracer coming back to point at her was meaningless.  And yet it
wasn't.  There was no special reason to believe that this
conclusion her part had any validity at all.  She couldn't prove it,
and yet she was sure that her terminal had indeed been the one
used.  It was so simple that Naomi could hardly believe it, and
yet it made sense.  If the person doing this was from her own
department, they would have had the access.  And better yet, the
motivation and opportunity.  

To use Naomi's terminal for this plot was a major coup for the
person in question; Naomi wasn't overly possessive about her
station, but the move showed style.  And Naomi didn't spend
much time there anymore.  She was at Q's side so often that her
immediate superior, T'Vai, had suggested in that utterly logical
Vulcan way, that Naomi resign her position altogether.  Naomi
had boiled, had refused, and rejected the offer, but it *did* make
sense in a way, since she really wasn't working there anymore,
except on more of a consultant basis.  Oh, she wasn't going to
give in; her life's work was more important to her than some
idealized vision of motherhood and companionship, but
nonetheless, it had opened a large gap for someone else to
exploit.

The second search was the more interesting one.  It was a list of
names, nothing more, but everyone on it was a potential killer,
someone who might have done this to Q.

Naomi called that up, sent a copy to Azoth, then went over it,
annotating it carefully, ranking people first by degree of
programming skills, then by motivation.

When she was done, she had a much shorter list, five names on
it, all people well-known to her, all people she had worked with
for years.

Grimly, Naomi looked down the list.  Jinn, Farish, Nitac,
Estevan and D'oritt.  All human.  That wasn't a coincidence. 
Aside from Klingons, of which there were none in her
department, Q tended to concentrate most of his venom on the
humans.  And, in her opinion, her non-human colleagues were
more used to rank prejudice and bad treatment.  It made them
harder to upset.  Certainly, Q had taunted Sekal and T'Vai a few
times, but neither of them had ever shown any sign of
discomfort, at least not in Naomi's presence.

Two of the five suspects were women, and three of them very
close to her.  Naomi didn't want to believe it could be any of
them, but barring an unknown variable in her work, these were
the most likely suspects.

Jinn had the ability.  There was no doubt about it; he'd played
similar pranks before, and his skills were enough to pull this off. 
As to his motives, Naomi was unsure.  Q had never singled him
out for any special abuse that she knew of.  But Jinn bore mean
grudges, although she wouldn't have called him a killer.  She
wouldn't have asked him to help her with this if she believed he
were guilty.

Farish had the motivation and the ability, but Naomi couldn't
believe that he would want to kill anyone.  If he hadn't retaliated
for any of Jinn's pranks, he wasn't going to start in on Q now,
even though Q had gone after him at least once that Naomi knew
of.

Nitac had the motivation; Q had been extremely rude to her on a
couple of occasions, and probably the ability as well.  Naomi
didn't think Nitac would have covered her tracks this well,
though.  If Saba had been responsible, Naomi would have been
able to isolate the perpetrator inside of a few hours.  Her work
was immistakable.

Estevan was a puzzle.  Naomi didn't know him well enough to
say whether he had a motivation to kill Q, but he did have the
ability.  Then again, just about everyone in her department had
the ability.  They had, after all, managed to devise programming
to defeat the Borg, when the basic assumptions of their
technology were entirely different.  That was no mean feat, and it
made tampering with a replicator look like a first year CIS
project.

D'oritt had as much motivation as Saba, and her work was more
subtle, but again, Naomi couldn't imagine her actually trying to
*kill* anyone.  She'd play pranks, and she had a way of cutting
you into pieces when displeased that rivalled Jinn's or Naomi's
own bad temper, but she wasn't the kind of person who killed
someone else for revenge.  And if she *were* going to kill
someone, it would certainly be Jinn, given what he'd done to her
with the holographic projections of her sex life.  Naomi knew
she'd have extracted a very painful revenge for that kind of
intrusion into her own life.

The other suspects, the ones who hadn't made the short list, were
even more unlikely.  Naomi sent her notes off to Azoth, then shut
down the terminal and sat back in her chair.  She didn't know
what else she could do.

Except wait for Q to wake up.

****

"What do you mean, you can't do anything?" Naomi asked.  She
was dealing with one of Azoth's underlings rather than the
commander, and it was beginning to frustrate her.  She had half a
mind to contact Azoth even though she was fairly sure he was off
shift, and badger him into doing what she wanted.  But if Azoth'd
left this bozo in charge and given him the information, then
Azoth trusted the bozo, and there wasn't much she could do.

"This information is entirely inconclusive," Webber said
patronizingly.  "We can't rush out and interrogate a bunch of
scientists on your guesses."

"They're informed guesses," Naomi said.  "And I know more
about this than anyone else."

"Exactly," the man said, smirking.  "Your name seems
conspicuously absent from this list."

"My name?" Naomi asked incredulously.  "You can't be
seriously accusing *me* of having done this?"

"Just raising the possibility, ma'am.  Given the *evidence*," and
his voice made it clear that he thought her evidence was shaky at
best, "you're a prime candidate.  And the way you've excluded
yourself could be a deliberate attempt to lead us off track."

"I would hardly have helped you to find the criminal if I were the
criminal," Naomi said, beginning to feel a slow outrage burning
inside her.

"Would you?"  Webber looked down at something, Naomi didn't
know what, then back up.  "In any case, if we feel this was the
cause, we'll act on it."

"If you *feel* that was the *cause*?" Naomi asked, almost
sputtering.  "The tampering was, *is* impossible to mistake. 
Someone had to have done it deliberately, and it's obvious that
the poison was intended to be administered through the replicator. 
How stupid are you?"

The man's face turned red.  "You don't have any call to be
insulting *me*.  Not when you're as much as suspect as anyone
else."

"I'm going to talk to Azoth," Naomi said flatly.  He had more
sense than this bozo, than all of these people put together.  Surely
he wouldn't believe anything as ridiculous as this.

"I'm sorry," Webber said, with a gleeful tone underlying his
otherwise polite words.  "Commander Azoth is currently
unavailable.  And he has placed me in charge of this case."

Naomi didn't know what to say, since killing him was out of the
question when he was on the other side of a viewscreen.  "Fine. 
Whatever.  Get back to me when you've deduced the killer on
your own, Sherlock."

She terminated the call, rage still pounding through her.  How
stupid were these people?  

Even though her instincts were telling her that Azoth wasn't this
dumb, that when he took a look at the information, *if* he took a
look at the information, he'd make a better decision, Naomi
couldn't believe it.  The stupidity she'd just seen demonstrated to
her was just too overwhelming.  Did these people just not know
computers at all?  Could she just break in and waltz away with
everything of theirs, and they'd just smile and pretend it never
happened?

Or was it that this had happened to Q and that no one in Security
cared what happened to Q?

Naomi knew that wasn't true, Azoth at least had seemed
concerned.  But right now, she was so angry that it might as well
be the truth.  Someone had hurt Q, and although she didn't quite
know who yet, she was going to get that person and make them
pay.  And if Security wouldn't do it for her, she'd do it herself. 
Whatever it took.  Whoever it hurt.

****

Webber looked at his blank viewscreen, a throbbing outrage
beginning to swell up inside him.  She certainly was snippy under
the circumstances, wasn't she?  And so insistent on her
innocence.  Almost as though she had something to hide.

That started a thought process in his head, stimulated by the
information he had in front of him.  Allen had been very helpful
in forwarding her research to him.  Webber didn't know enough
about the subject to have tracked this down on his own;
replicators to him were magic boxes you got food and other items
from and nothing more.  They were entirely too complicated for
him to even try to understand how they worked or how this
murder attempt might have been carried out.  That was where
Allen's information came in handy.  Although he ignored her
conclusions in favor of forming his own, the raw data was
intriguing.  

Webber agreed that the culprit was someone from Allen's own
department.  Computer security was too tight, and the method of
carrying out the murder too specific, for it to be anyone other
than a resident of the starbase with access.

Which left a search for motives to pinpoint the killer.  From a
criminal standpoint, there were only two motives to kill Q.  

First, revenge.  Since none of the current staff had any known
past history with Q, having been carefully weeded through to
eliminate just that possibility, the only way this could have
occurred would be if someone outside the starbase had offered
one of the programmers a sizable sum to carry out this plot.  And
Webber had spent most of the morning searching for any sign that
one of these people had accepted such a bribe.  In his experience,
people were careless about covering up such things.  However,
Webber had found none of the traces that usually accompanied
this kind of payment.  No suspicious inheritances, unusual
spending patterns, or even sudden desires to take long vacations
on Risa.  Only one more department amid many, going about its
usual routine.  While the pay-off could have been scheduled for
after Q actually died, Webber thought of that as a lower
possibility.

Second, and most likely, a crime of passion.  Someone had been
so angered by something Q had done that they had felt it
necessary to kill him.  Since this had happened before, several
times before, Webber had no trouble believing this to be the case. 
And as a crime of passion, there was only one suspect who stood
out.  Q had little or no contact with the programming department. 
This was an easy thing for Webber to verify; the level of
complaints about Q coming from that department fell into the
lower tenth percentile.  Although Q had been better about not
antagonizing people of late, he was still the universally most
resented and hated person on the starbase, and just answering the
various protests lodged against him would be a full-time job.

Only one person stood out as having the motive, opportunity and
skill.  A person who had conveniently made herself absent from
Q's side at the time of the actual murder attempt.  And that
person was also right now sitting next to Q in Sickbay, working
on the computer, with every chance in the world to scope out
Security's defenses and likely responses and use that to set up a
second, less fault-ridden attack against Q.

Webber paled slightly as he realized where this train of thought
was leading him.  Left in charge while Azoth was on leave, he
was about to let the most important personage on the starbase be
assassinated.  That would look just wonderful on his record.  He
had to do something about it.  If he turned out to be wrong, then
he was wrong, but Webber didn't think he was, and the major
issue here was protecting Q.

He set down the padd and placed another call.  No one was going
to die.  Not on his watch.

****

Fifteen minutes later, while Naomi was in the middle of another
search attempt, Security arrived.  She had already tried, and
failed, to track the original person who had done the damage to
the programming, but she hadn't had much sleep at the time, and
there could have been a clue she missed.  There *had* to be a
clue she missed, since she didn't know what else she could do. 
So she'd started over again, so far with the same lack of results,
although she had one promising lead.

Suddenly, Naomi was rudely knocked away from the terminal. 
Before she could react, Sanaharrar was between Naomi and the
Security team, snarling, having gone from fully asleep to fully
awake in the brief space of Naomi's terror.

Naomi looked up, recognizing the pair.  Veloz was standing by
the door, while Parkinson was the one Sanaharrar was warning
off.

"Doctor Allen, you're under arrest."

The words chilled her soul.  "For what?"

"We've been ordered to escort you to the brig, doctor.  The
charge is attempted murder."

Naomi looked at Veloz.  "Excuse me?  You want to do what?"

"We've been ordered to escort you to the brig, doctor," Veloz
repeated, not very patiently.

"I don't *think* so," Naomi said.  "I'm not leaving here, and
that's final."

Parkinson's eyes gleamed.  After the way Naomi had humiliated
him several weeks before, he was looking forward to this.  He'd
been assigned to get Q to stop making trouble in one of the base's
lounges, and had failed miserably.  It had been one of the few
times where he was put in charge of anything, and it had been
made clear to him that he wasn't going to get put in charge of
anything else for a long while.  Even now, with only the two of
them, Veloz had been specifically given command of their
assignment.

But he couldn't resist the opportunity to get some of his own
back.  "You are."  He looked significantly at Sanaharrar, who
was already bristling in reaction to the defensiveness Naomi was
feeling.  "You should know better, cat.  I'll stun you if you try to
stop us."

"You *bastard*," Naomi said with great feeling.

Veloz ignored Parkinson's comments.  He was being a pig again,
but whatever worked under the situation was best.  And their
assignment was to get Dr. Allen away from Q.  She was under
suspicion for murder, and that made her someone not to be
trusted or treated with respect.

"I want to talk to the commodore," Naomi said firmly.  "You
don't have any right to separate me from Q."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Veloz said.  "You'll
have plenty of opportunity to plead your case later."

Naomi looked at them, measuring them.  Both of them were
bigger and meaner than she was.  Which wasn't much of a feat,
since she was one of the smallest humans roaming around here. 
She could make a fuss; she was five months pregnant after all,
and they wouldn't dare hurt her.  No one would; the fuss would
be enormous.  On the other hand, they might.  Parkinson looked
stupid enough to stun her, and then where would she be?  She
couldn't take that kind of risk, not when she was pregnant, not
when a few minutes with Anderson or Azoth would straighten this
out.

"I just need to save this..." Naomi said, turning towards her
terminal.

Parkinson stepped forward again.  "Don't touch that."

"Excuse me?" Naomi said, utterly offended.

"Our orders are to make sure that no further evidence is tampered
with," Veloz said flatly.

Naomi shook her head.  "What kind of boneheaded morons..." 
She trailed off as she realized that her speculation wasn't doing
her temper any good nor her standing with the Security guards.

Naomi looked down at Sanaharrar, still poised between the guards
and Naomi.  "Take care of him.  Don't let them... don't let
*anyone* hurt him."

Sanaharrar stared at Naomi for a long moment before finally
acquiescing, retreating to sit at the end of the bed Q was lying
on, posture erect and jade eyes promising evil to Veloz or
Parkinson if they should think to come near Q.

Naomi marched out between Veloz and Parkinson, posture erect. 
They took her to the brig, put her in a holding cell and left her.

"Have a nice weekend," Parkinson said mockingly, as he walked
out the door.

Against all procedures and practices, no one stayed to keep an
eye on her.  She was left completely alone, without any ability to
contact the computer, without anyone to convince of the truth of
what had occurred.

Naomi stared in silent fury at the shimmering wall of energy
keeping her in here, now wishing she'd fought harder, wishing
she'd done something, anything.  Q would be all alone now,
except for Sanaharrar, and he'd be at risk from anyone and
everything.  He didn't know that she'd discovered this was a plot
working through the computers, didn't know not to get anything
else from the replicators.  And as long as no one else believed
her, who would tell him?  He'd be released from Sickbay, and
would inevitably order something to eat, and this time he might
not be so lucky.  The drug would stop his heart, and there would
be no one to call Sickbay in time, and he would die.  And it
would be her fault for not properly taking care of him.

Naomi wasted a few more moments in glaring at the empty room,
then sat down.  There was nothing she could do now, but when
she got out of here... someone was going to pay.


-the end-