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


"Excuse me?" Q asked, mortally offended.  "What's this?"

Naomi looked up from her feeding of Ariadne, a little surprised
to see him entering the same room with her during this particular
task.  Whatever it was must have him quite upset if he were
willing to do that.  "What's what?"

"This!"

He wasn't holding anything, just standing there in front of her
with an outraged look on his face, and Naomi didn't have a clue
what he was talking about.  "Could I have a hint?  Is it bigger
than a breadbox?"

He glared at her for a long moment.  "No.  And I don't even
want to know what a breadbox is."

"It's a box for keeping bread in, of course."

"Didn't I just say I *didn't* want to know?  Really, Naomi.  The
child's sucking out your brain along with the milk."

She made a face at him.  "Are you going to tell me what's got
you so upset, or are you just going to insult me all morning?"

"I am not upset.  You've completely misinterpreted the situation. 
There is nothing for me to be upset about, other than the usual
human idiocy and love for bureaucracy."

"So you're going to insult me," Naomi said matter-of-factly.

Q didn't like that conclusion at all, and drew himself up to his
full height.  "I wasn't insulting *you*.  I don't have enough time
for that."

"So?" Naomi asked, looking up from Ariadne.  "Who or what are
you insulting?"

"Dear Eleanor.  Do you know what she wants to do now?" Q
said, still agitated over the message he'd read on his terminal. 
He had just known it would be a bad idea to look at his
messages.  It was always a bad idea to do anything even remotely
resembling work.

Naomi leaned back, cradling Ariadne close, and looking up at Q. 
"No.  Why don't you tell me?"

"She expects me to attend some sort of *parenting* class!" Q
said, still indignant.  "And there's all sorts of legal nonsense
mixed in there about formal adoption in case of accident or
misadventure and equally trite garbage.  Can you believe it?"

Naomi's brows arched.  "I take it she thinks you're Ari's father?"

"I don't know where she would have gotten a ridiculous idea like
that," Q said grumpily.

Naomi had a few ideas, and would have introduced them into the
conversation, but they were interrupted by a comm for Naomi. 
She set Ariadne down in her crib to take it, and was startled by
the message.

"I have a visitor?" Naomi asked, a little surprised.  While people
came to see her all the time, they were from the starbase.  She
didn't get the kind of traffic Q did, and none of the formal
notification he did.  "Who is it?"

"A Dorcas Allen," the lieutenant told her.

Naomi turned pale.  She knew the name, knew exactly who was
here, although the knowledge didn't make her any happier. 
"Thank you.  When will my mother be here?"

"She's already arrived."

Naomi nodded and terminated the comm.  Without thinking about
it, she stumbled over to the couch and sank down into the
cushions.  If she'd been holding Ariadne, she might very well
have let her fall; Naomi had no attention to spare for anything
physical.  All she could think about was her mother, and her
mother having come here.

Q saw Naomi disappear into the couch, and smiled smugly. 
There was something very satisfying about seeing Naomi be pole-
axed by out-of-the-way events.

He strolled over to her to rub it in.  "I didn't realize your mother
was so important to you.  How remiss of you not to let me
know."

Naomi wasn't paying attention to him, didn't hear a thing he'd
said.  Her mother had, for unfathomable reasons, decided to
come here.  The birth announcement wasn't the reason, couldn't
be the reason after the months that had passed since Naomi had
sent it.  Was she planning to berate her daughter for her choices
in life?  Naomi shivered.  That was entirely too likely.  Even the
toned down holodeck simulation she'd created had brought up the
issue of how unlike Naomi was to what her mother thought she
should be.

A sudden chill gripped Naomi's heart as she knew with a horrible
finality that this not only wouldn't be pleasant but could very well
shatter her.  She could only be grateful it was coming now, and
not a month earlier when she'd been really unhappy, and no
doubt would have agreed that her life was ruined.

She looked up and saw Q standing there, still waiting for her to
acknowledge him.  Right then he was the most welcome sight in
the world.  She reached for him, grabbing his hand and tugging
him down to a seat on the couch.

Q went unwillingly, still not knowing what was going on.  He
wasn't some puppet to be meekly pushed around and he intended
to tell Naomi so as soon as...

She burrowed into his arms like a hurt child seeking comfort, and
Q lost track of what he'd been thinking, unable to do anything but
hold her close to him.

From the safety of that embrace, Naomi spoke, voice muffled
against his chest.  "My mother's here."

"I know," Q said in exasperated tones.  "Have you seen these
things on either side of my head?  They're called ears.  They
enable me to hear.  An amazing tool for picking up conversations
in the same room."

Naomi didn't notice the sarcasm, hardly noticed him speaking at
all.  "She's going to hate me, I know she is."

Q felt a surge of fierce protectiveness for the red-haired waif in
his arms.  "We'll have to feed her to Security then.  I think
they'll chomp her up in an instant.  One mouthful, maybe two."

Naomi looked up at him, and with a shock Q realized that her
face was wet with tears.  "You don't understand.  I *want* her to
like me.  I can't help it.  I *shouldn't* want that, because I know
she's going to hate me, but I do."

He brushed at her face with her fingertips.  "Why wouldn't she
like you?  Did you steal a pastry out from under her nose?"

She made a face at him, but didn't offer to move away from his
touch.  "Not everything in my life revolves around food."

Q couldn't stand how heartbroken she looked, and made the
ultimate sacrifice, blotting at her face with the corner of his
sleeve.  It was very soft cloth, and would undoubtedly stain
permanently from the salt in her tears.

She leaned into him, letting him take care of her, obscurely
reassured by his actions, even despite the tinge of panic she was
feeling underneath it all.  "She wanted me to get married, you
know.  Instead of going off to the university, she wanted me to
settle down and raise a family."

Q raised an alarmed eyebrow.  "If she thinks she's going to have
you marry *me*..."

Despite herself, Naomi giggled through her tear-choked throat. 
"I thought you told Diana you wanted to marry me, and I was the
one standing in your way."

"I never said that, and even if you could prove it, I burned the
tapes."

Naomi started laughing, which sent her into a fit of the hiccups. 
By the time she'd gotten up, managed to croak out a request to
the computer for a glass of water, and cured her hiccups, the
door was chiming.

She froze in the middle of the room, glass in hand, and looked
over at Q.  "What do I do?"

Q sighed heavily.  "You could hide and I could pretend I've
never heard of you."

"Do you think anyone would believe that?" Naomi asked
earnestly.

"No."

Naomi looked at him, a betrayed expression crossing her face. 
"You're no help."

"Come in," Q called, not moving from where he was.  There was
no use catering to Naomi's overblown fears.  In any case, he
could deal better with a known enemy than one who existed only
in Naomi's mind.  He didn't seem to have time to change, and
aside from the stain on one sleeve, was impeccably dressed for
any occasion, even one as inauspicious as this.

The door opened, and an older woman stepped through, looking
tentatively about until her gaze lighted on Naomi.  Then her face
brightened for one moment before falling.  She looked like an
older version of Naomi, thin and attenuated, almost skeletal, but
not frail.  She was taller, and resembled Dharvi's wife, Helen,
not at all.

Naomi held her ground, trying not to panic and run for the safety
of Q's side.

Dorcas looked at her, lined face dissolving with emotion, stepped
forward and hugged her daughter, tears coming to her eyes. 
"Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

Naomi's glass slipped from her nerveless fingers and,
shatterproof, bounced on the carpeted floor before coming to rest
under the couch.

She burst back into tears, hugging her mother tightly.  "I didn't
think you cared."

Q groaned as he watched the two women.  He was going to need
a gross of handkerchiefs.

****

After an incoherent while, Q ended up being deposed from the
couch while Naomi sat on it, watching her mother hold Ariadne
and coo over her.

"She's such a beautiful baby."

Naomi smiled.  "I think so."

"What did you name her again, Airy something?"

"Ariadne," Naomi said carefully.

Her mother nodded, letting Ariadne play with her finger.  "Not a
traditional name.  I always thought Hadassah had a rather nice
sound to it."

"Did you?" Naomi asked softly, feeling a slight tremor of tension
run through her.  She knew it couldn't go well, had mistrusted
that first open greeting despite how much she'd wanted it and
needed it.

Dorcas nodded, then looked up at Q.  "And you're the father?"

Q flipped his sleeves haughtily.  "Hardly."

Dorcas looked back at Naomi, a question on her face.  "I don't
suppose I have any right to pry, but I have been left out of your
life for a number of years now, and I really don't know who he is
or who else might be the father.  And I would like to know."

Q drew himself up to his full height, offended.  "I am Q."

"Yes, yes," Dorcas said.  "I understood that."

Naomi felt a mischievous grin twitching at the corners of your
mouth.  "It's more of a title than a name, mother.  He used to..."
she floundered, looking for the right words to explain to her
mother, who was fanatically religious or had been, that Q was a
former god.

Q stepped confidently into the breach.  "I am, or was, a member
of the Q Continuum, someone so far above your mortal
understanding that all you would be able to perceive me as would
be a god."

Dorcas' mouth narrowed.  "If you didn't want to tell me, you
should have just said so."  She turned back to Naomi, feathers
visibly ruffled.  "I wasn't trying to snoop into your life..."

Naomi shot a warning glance at Q before reaching out a
comforting hand to her mother.  "It's all right.  I didn't think you
were snooping.  Q is... a consultant for the Federation in the area
of physics."

"A scientist?" her mother said, interested.  "With your
background, that should make you a good match."

Naomi blushed, feeling somehow embarrassed by that remark,
even though it was perfectly true and she and Q were a couple. 
She didn't know how to tell her mother *that* though, and hoped
it was simply obvious and therefore not needing to be said.

Q sniffed visibly.  "As good as any other member of your
depraved species."

Naomi cleared her throat, sensing impending doom, even though
her mother had been there less than twenty minutes, and trying to
head it off.  "Why did you come?  I never expected you would. 
I..." she looked down for a second, "I didn't even think you
wanted to speak to me."

Dorcas' eyes softened, and her voice dropped to a near whisper. 
"When you left, I never thought it would be for good.  Many's
the time I've cursed myself for being so proud and stiff-necked
that day, for both of us being made from the same stubborn
fabric.  And I told myself that if you ever gave me any chance at
all, that I'd take it."

Naomi held her breath, feeling unbearably touched by her
mother's admission, and at fault for having held the gap between
them open so long.

Q cleared his throat, still feeling protective of Naomi.  "I hardly
call it caring for you to have put off seeing your daughter this
long.  It was too difficult for you to place a simple call?"

Naomi glared at him.  "You stay out of this."

Q recoiled, for a moment simply entirely unable to believe that
Naomi had actually attacked *him*.  Her voice had been
completely sincere, and although he might have been able to
accept a joking reprimand, this one wasn't.  She really wanted
him to shut up.

Which of course was unthinkable.  "Suddenly you seem to be
defending this woman.  And I was under the impression that you
hated and feared her.  How bizarre."

Dorcas looked between the two of them.  "Naomi, do you want
to explain this?"  He tone was quiet, and Naomi read it as a
threat.

"Individually, if you don't mind," Naomi said, her mouth a grim
line.

She let her mother hold onto Ariadne, and stood up, dragging an
unwilling Q out of the room with her.  While she could talk in
quiet enough tones to ensure some privacy, he would feel no such
constraints, and it was better to be in their bedroom, which was
effectively soundproof.

She turned on Q as soon as the door closed behind them.  "Don't
do that."

"Don't do what?" Q asked in an innocent voice.  "I have no idea
what you're talking about?"

"Don't you?" Naomi asked dangerously.  She almost could have
accepted capitulation or an apology on this subject, lies though
they would have been coming from Q, but denial that there was a
problem she could not accept.  "I'm warning you, Q, leave my
mother alone."

Q felt a surge of anger.  How dare she issue a highhanded
reprimand like that?  Who did she think she was?  "I have no
idea what you're talking about.  I should think you'd be happy
that I'm calling her little lapses in behavior to attention,
considering you're the one who was suffering from them."

Naomi shook her head.  "You know perfectly well what I'm
talking about."  She looked up at him defiantly.  "I don't care
what she's done.  She's my mother, and I love her, and I can't
stand anyone tearing her apart.  So leave her alone."

"I hardly think that I qualify as just anyone," Q said in his most
haughty tones, utterly indignant at the way he was being casually
dismissed as a nobody simply because he had no blood ties to
Naomi.  What a silly, and utterly meaningless qualification to use
to demand loyalty and love from someone.  Yet it seemed to be
working on Naomi, deluded soul that she was.

"Of course you aren't.  But that just makes it harder.  I love the
both of you, and to see you sniping at each other tears me apart
inside.  I can't help but want to protect the people I love, and
when those people happen to loathe each other, well..." Naomi
grinned suddenly, "Let's just say that I think, of the two of you,
my mother needs protecting more."

Q couldn't deny that.  As much as there was something which
tugged at his heart at the thought of Naomi protecting him,
offering to protect him, he certainly didn't want to think that he
was as weak as to actually *need* such protection.  *That* he
would have repudiated most strenuously.

"I suppose this means you expect me to play nice," Q said
sulkily.

"It wouldn't be a bad thought, no."

"I can't think of anything more nauseating."

Q swept out of the room before Naomi could list alternatives.

She came back out and sat down next to her mother, who was
looking at her curiously.  "What's going on here?"

Naomi heaved a deep sigh.  "It's difficult to explain.  I'm sorry if
Q said anything to upset you.  He tends to take insult easily, and
when you combine that with wanting to defend me, well... things
happen."

Dorcas looked confused.  "Insult?  Insulted by what?"

"Never mind," Naomi said, but her mother would not be
dissuaded.

"I don't see what *he* has to take insult about.  I didn't *have*
to come; I wasn't even sure I would come."

Her voice sounded wounded, and Naomi responded to that.  "I'm
*happy* that you came.  I didn't know if you would, and I've
been going through the worst kind of agony thinking you
wouldn't."  Her sincerity was evident.  It was hard for Naomi to
talk about how on edge she'd felt, how much she'd resented and
regretted that her mother wouldn't breach the silence between
them even for the birth of her baby.

Her mother's eyes filled with tears.  "I couldn't do anything else. 
When I got the announcement you sent... I spent three days just
looking at it, turning it over in my hands, trying to believe it was
real, that you did want to talk to me after all these years."

Naomi held very still.  "I thought it was you who didn't want to
talk to me.  You seemed so sure you never wanted to see me gain
when you told me to give up college or never come back."

"I never thought you'd actually *go*," Dorcas said, cuddling
Ariadne close, as if it were all right to show affection to a baby
who didn't know any better, even if she had a hard time reaching
out at all to her adult daughter.

"Well, what did you expect me to do?" Naomi asked in
exasperation.  "Give in and admit you were right?"

"Actually... Yes."

Q snorted derisively, listening to the conversation.  "And you
claim to have raised Naomi?  I find that hard to believe."

Naomi grinned up at him.  "I used to be more tractable back
then."

"That I would have liked to have seen."  Folding his long legs, Q
took a chair next to the couch and addressed Dorcas.  "Are there
any truly embarrassing stories about Naomi's childhood? 
Something she swore you to secrecy on and would hide under a
rock if anyone else ever found out?"

Dorcas looked at him consideringly.  She didn't much like him,
but he seemed to belong to Naomi, and he was in a respectable
profession.  Her daughter could do a lot worse.  And while she
wasn't going to insist that Naomi get married, she *did* think it
would be a good thing for Naomi to do, especially since she had
a baby now.

"Naomi was always getting into trouble."

"Mother!" Naomi said, looking from Q to her mother.

Q looked at Naomi triumphantly.  "I suspected as much.  This
fabricated goody two shoes childhood of yours is failing to live
up under close investigation."

"I *was* a good kid!" Naomi insisted, then looked back at her
mother.  "Wasn't I?"

Dorcas shook her head.  "The more I tried to keep you under
control, the more you would rebel.  You'd be supposed to be
studying for school, and I'd find you up in a tree somewhere." 
She looked at Q.  "In fact, I think Naomi spent most of her
childhood six feet off the ground."

Naomi stared blankly at her.  She remembered what her mother
was talking about, but somehow the punishments for those
incidents had always stood out more in her memory than the
incidents themselves.

"And I'm sure she was chasing after boys at an early age, too,"
Q said conspiratorially, enjoying himself.  Queria had seen fit to
embarrass him in front of Naomi, giving her all kinds of
background on himself.  It was only a fit exchange that he find
out the same about her.

"Actually no."  Dorcas frowned at the memory.  "Naomi never
was much for dating.  That always worried me."

"Worried you?" Naomi asked disbelievingly.  "You were out and
out pressuring me."

"Well, I didn't want you to have to try running a farm all by
yourself, dear," her mother said, turning to her.  "It's a lot of
work for one person, and I didn't see that you had any other
future ahead of you then."

"I was going to be a programmer!  I *told* you that!"

Dorcas shrugged.  "At the time, it sounded like you'd made that
up just to spite me."  She looked at Q and said apologetically,
"Her grades never were very good."

"Naomi?" Q asked, a wicked twinkle in his eyes.  "I find that
hard to believe."

"It's true.  She never did well in school, and then one day
announces that she's going to go off to college and become a
programmer.  I couldn't believe it."  Dorcas shook her head
sadly.  "I tried to persuade her that she'd never make it, that it
was the wrong career for someone like her, and that what she
should do was to find a husband and settle down and do what she
knew how to do, namely farming, but Naomi would have none of
it.  The more I opposed her and tried to show her how impossible
her goal was, the more she had to do it.  Eventually, we both
said some harsh things, and she left and I never saw her again."

Naomi sat there in stunned shock.  That wasn't the way she
remembered it at all.  She'd done poorly in school, yes, or at
least, inconsistently.  Most of it had been boring, and she'd done
well at it only when she bothered to put in the effort, which
hadn't been very often.  One of the few things she'd liked had
been computer classes, although even they hadn't been very
challenging.  In any case, it was far more likely that she would
have chosen computers over farming.  She just wasn't that kind
of person.  And Naomi had thought her mother understood that.

"That's so sad," Q said in his warmest, most sympathetic tone. 
Naomi glared at him, but Q ignored it.  "I'm simply shocked that
Naomi would have so little regard for her own mother."

"It didn't seem that way to me," Naomi said sullenly, unable to
come up with any better defense than that.  There really was
nothing to be said.  Any explanation would be pointless now,
even if Q would have paid attention or her mother been open-
minded enough to hear a different interpretation of events.

Q clucked reprovingly.  "Now, now, Naomi.  Is that any way to
behave?  I'm sure you were raised better than that.  Why, judging
from the example of your mother's lovely manners, I'm sure she
must have at least *tried* to teach you how to behave."

Naomi's look promised death for him if she ever caught him
alone, but she smiled sweetly enough and looked at her mother. 
"It was a horrible misunderstanding."

Her mother nodded.  This was an uncomfortable subject for the
both of them, and Dorcas looked around for something, anything
to change the subject to.  "I adore the furnishings.  You seem to
have acquired some taste."

That wasn't it, unfortunately.  "Thank you, but this is all Q's. 
My major contribution was to convince him to get rid of the
really tacky stuff."

Q drew in his breath sharply.  "Tacky?  You uncultured
barbarian.  Obviously you never learned anything about gracious
living.  Unlike your mother."  He turned the full force of his
charm on Dorcas, for the moment in complete harmony with her;
she liked his things, obviously she was a woman with some
distinction.

Dorcas blushed, taken off guard by the sudden extravagant
compliment.

Naomi stuck out her tongue at Q where her mother couldn't see
her doing it.  "I know plenty about gracious living.  I just don't
need to do it in a museum."

"A museum?" Q asked, puffing up, beginning to be offended.

"Or did I mean 'mausoleum'?" Naomi asked consideringly,
beginning to enjoy herself.  Taunting Q was an entertaining,
although dangerous sport.  Of course, without the risks, where
was the glory?  And he deserved it for what he'd done or tried to
do to her a few minutes before.

Dorcas broke into their byplay.  "However, I don't think I
consider those," she pointed to a grouping of statuettes on a low
table across the room, "to be quite appropriate, especially
considering my granddaughter's tender years."

Naomi looked over, didn't see anything but yet another example
of Q's wildly overdone taste in decor, and shrugged.  "I don't
know what you mean.  They seem all right to me."

Dorcas stiffened visibly.  "You don't know what they are?  I've
never seen such a blatant example of pagan sexuality."

Naomi looked at Q, who was slowly turning bright red.  "Really? 
How interesting."

"They're nothing of the sort," Q said weakly, more than a little
embarrassed by the implication that he would ever want to keep
anything sexual around on display.  "I don't know what you're
talking about.  I assure you, I'm aware of the provenance of
every item here, and none of them has anything to do with
reproductive rituals."

"The symbolism is unmistakable."

Naomi looked at the grouping again, trying to see what her
mother was getting at, then grinned.  "She may have a point, Q. 
There is something... phallic... about that."

Q held himself aloof, addressing Dorcas stiffly.  "The only
reason you are seeing anything sexual in what is a purely abstract
arrangement, madam, is your own elevated hormone levels. 
Perhaps if you were acting on your urges instead of subliminating
them, you would be able to appreciate art for what it was, and
not have to 'see' something in it."

Naomi choked, and started coughing.  She couldn't find her voice
to step in between what she knew was about to be a battle of the
titans.

"Excuse me?" Dorcas said quietly.  "What did you say?"

Q didn't recognize that as what it was, a chance to claim he
hadn't actually insulted her, that he'd been misheard, or didn't
care.  "What else could be the reason for your unnatural interest
in such things?  However, reading such base motives into the
placement of a few stone figures is only what I would have
expected of someone who failed to instill proper moral values into
their own child."

Naomi glared at him, still with her hand on her throat, trying to
regain control.  That remark had been totally uncalled for, and
she was going to get him for it.

Dorcas looked at Naomi, then back at Q.  "Moral values?  I find
it hard to believe that someone who is living in sin with my
daughter and allowing her to have his out of wedlock child would
dare to preach to *me* about moral values."

"That's enough!" Naomi said, holding up her hands.  She most
definitely did *not* want to know what reply Q had been
readying to that.  She was sure he had one, and that it would
have been devastating, but she didn't want to know.

Neither of the combatants looked at her, both intent on each
other.  But neither spoke.

"I don't want you fighting," Naomi said, feeling pulled in all
directions.

"She started it," Q said sulkily, backing down.

"Does that really matter?" Naomi asked.  "If you're right, then
why do you need to prove it?"

He stared at her, feeling balky and abused.  Naomi was taking
somebody else's side, and he hated it.  She was supposed to be
his and his alone, and while he would never have put it that way
before, he did now.  Seeing her defending someone else made
him feel betrayed.

"And you," Naomi said, turning on Dorcas.  "Don't be so quick
to judge.  Q has some very fine artwork here, all of which is
important for its historic as well as artistic value, and shouldn't
be criticized by anyone who hasn't spent their life studying the
subject."

Dorcas set her chin.  "Don't be rude, Naomi."

"I'm not and I wasn't.  And even if I had been, it'd be justified." 
She looked between the two of them, and an impish thought
crossed her mind.  "There's no need for the two of you to be
jealous of each other.  I love you both very much, and that's not
going to change."

"Jealous?" Q started to ask, about to insert something truly
withering into the conversation when Dorcas interrupted him.

"Artistic value is no excuse for tolerating smut."  With that, the
subject was closed for her.  Her emphatic tone and the expression
on her face indicated that she didn't expect to hear anything else
on this topic.

Q looked as though he would have liked to say something more,
but Naomi silenced him with a quick shake of her head, the same
kind he was used to seeing from her in the scientific meetings
they attended together.  Q might like a good argument, but she
didn't, and if they wanted to keep it up, she was going to take
something for her headache and go lie down.

"Do you want me to take Ari back now?" Naomi asked, trying to
change the subject.

Dorcas accepted the deflection with a slight nod of her head. 
"She's no bother for me.  I'm used to babies.  Both you and
Zachariah were a handful, and I'm sure you could use the rest."

Naomi smiled wryly.  "I think I need the conditioning more.  I'm
still not used to it."

"By the time you have your second or third you will be."

"Third?!" Q asked in alarmed tones.  "I *don't* think so."

Naomi restrained a giggle.  "I'm not planning on having any
more children.  Ariadne's it."

The door sounded again, and this time Naomi answered.  "I
wonder who that could be now.  Come in."

Medellin entered, a slightly nervous smile pasted on her face. 
This was an occasion she couldn't miss.  While Naomi's mother
wasn't nearly the prize that relatives of Q would have been,
talking to a relative would be a psychological treasure trove.  And
she had no doubt that, if left to themselves, Q and Naomi would
never invite her to meet any of those people.  So it was up to her
to make the first move.

Q stiffened even further into almost a papier mache statue of
himself.  "What are you doing here?"

Medellin let that roll off of her with practised ease.  If dealing
with Q had given her anything, it was a tough hide.  She
advanced on them, holding her hand out to the older woman on
the couch.  "I'm Nian Medellin, the starbase counsellor.  You
must be Naomi's mother."

Dorcas looked up at her, not having a hand to spare for Medellin. 
"It's good to meet you.  Dorcas Allen."

No one moved, and Dorcas looked at Naomi.  "You're not going
offer her a seat?"

Grudgingly, Naomi made room for Medellin on the couch.  She
thought she'd made her feelings about the counsellor clear to
Medellin, and she deeply resented the intrusion.

"Did you want something in particular, or were you just
snooping?" Q asked acidly.

Medellin cleared her throat and thought just maybe she wasn't
ready for Q after all.  She wasn't used to that kind of unprovoked
attack on her -- at least not from anyone else.  And not having
any sessions with him of late had caused her to forget or want to
forget, exactly how bad they, and he, had been.

"Can't a person just stop by to admire the baby?"

"You've done that once already," Q said with blunt rudeness. 
"And it looks exactly the same as it did then, only with more
hair.  Now shoo, before I get really annoyed and start passing
around holos of you from last year's Christmas party."

Naomi choked on a laugh.  She didn't believe Q had any such
thing, especially not of straight-laced Medellin.  But then... he
*was* on good terms with Jinn, who would have such a thing if
anyone did...  She bit her lip to keep from bursting out into
highly inappropriate and ill-timed laughter.

Medellin, however, was not dissuaded.  She turned to Dorcas. 
"So, what brings you here?  I don't believe we've ever met
before."

Dorcas didn't spare so much as a glance for Naomi and Q, who
were both regarding her with identically shocked expressions,
waiting to see what and how much she might give away to
Medellin.

"No, we haven't," Dorcas said, inclining her head gracefully to
Medellin.

That wasn't very much help as an opening, and Medellin plunged
on, trying to find some place to start.  "You must be very proud
of your daughter."

"Why?" Dorcas inquired in a sincere sort of way.

"She's even better at that than you are," Q said, whispering to
Naomi, who had moved closer to him, as much as allowed by the
arrangement of the furniture.

"At what?"

"Evading a question.  Not that you're particularly good at it," Q
tacked on, realizing he might have paid her an out-of-character
compliment.  However, it was true.  He'd seen Naomi avoid
talking to people about him, and been impressed with her
uncharacteristically smooth way of handling them.

"Where do you think I learned it from?"  Naomi grinned at him,
then feel silent as the counsellor finally came up with a response.

Medellin had been taken aback by Dorcas' question.  "'Why?' 
Umm... don't you feel proud of her?"

Dorcas smiled, a sort of social smile which reached her lips, but
was not reflected in the steeliness of her eyes.  "It's been a
number of years since I saw Naomi, and I'm unfamiliar with her
accomplishments.  However, she's always been a very good
daughter."

That was a lie, and Naomi was glad Medellin was turned in the
opposite direction, or the counsellor would have seen the total
look of disbelief that crossed her face.  A good daughter?  Not
even a little.  Prodigal, stubborn, rebellious, yes; but not good.

"That's good to hear," Medellin replied with her own,
professional smile.  "You can be very proud of her though. 
She's a very important member of our programming department,
and as an assistant to Q, performs a very valuable function in
expediting the chief business of the station."

"And what might that be?" Dorcas inquired politely.

It was Medellin's turn to not understand.  "Weren't you aware? 
The mission of this particular starbase is largely to collect and
interpret Q's scientific wisdom."

Dorcas looked at Q consideringly.  "He must be one of the top
physicists in the Federation then."

Medellin looked at her, a little surprised.  "I suppose that's one
way to put it."

Behind her back, Naomi was making a face at Q.  "'Interpret
your scientific wisdom.'  Bestow a gem on me, oh wise one."

"Interrupt not thy elders," Q said sternly, "lest they smite thee."

"Oh, I'm so scared," Naomi said, pretending to shake in fear.

Dorcas glanced at Q and Naomi, mouth compressed into a thin
line, then looked back at Medellin.  "How would you put it?"

With a shock, Medellin realized that it had happened again.  Like
Naomi, her mother had managed to turn the conversation around
so that Medellin was answering her questions rather than being
the one to ask them.  This was something that had never
previously happened to Medellin.  Previously to accepting Q as a
patient and not immediately applying for transfer someplace quiet,
like say, the Klingon homeworld, that was.  Klingons were
actually easier patients, those infrequent few who she did treat. 
Their problems, what little there were, were usually
straightforward, and solvable.  Unlike those she faced with Q and
Naomi, and soon enough, Ariadne as well.

"Well, of course, you know that Q used to be a member of a
super-race known as the Continuum.  He claims to have been
omniscient and  omnipotent, and probably omnipresent as well,
which gives him a fair background in physics."

"Actually," Q said, interrupting dryly, with a fine irony he was
sure would be lost on his audience, "when you've made a few
dozen galaxies, it does tend to leave you with a small idea of how
the process works.  Nothing I'm sure anyone would be interested
in, since of course, I'm merely talking about a hands-on
grounding in how the universe *really* works, but a mildly
amusing way nonetheless to spend those long dull years before I
was honored with being incarnated as a mortal."

Naomi covered her face with her hands as she tried to decide
what the best way to make a strategic retreat would be.  That was
exactly the confession she had been hoping to avoid having Q
make, and that Medellin had triggered it only made Naomi hate
Medellin the more.

Dorcas' face registered nothing, a polite mask over her disbelief. 
"'Made a few galaxies'?  'Omnipresent, omniscient'?  Are you
bringing up that nonsense again about you being some sort of
god?"

"Former god," Q added helpfully.  "Please, don't feel obligated
to go down on your knees and worship me.  That gets to be *so*
tedious after a while."

Dorcas looked at Naomi.  "This is a rather tasteless joke to play,
don't you think, Naomi?"

Her mother had that tight look about her that Naomi had come to
dread over the course of her childhood.  This was the one thing
that Naomi had hoped they could avoid discussing.  Her mother's
concept of the world did not involve multiple capricious gods who
did whatever they pleased, and had far different ideas about what
would be good for the welfare of humanity than she could ever
conceive.

But she grasped onto the straw her mother was holding out. 
"Yes, it's a tasteless joke.  Q has never been known for his
tactfulness, and the counsellor is just encouraging him in his evil
ways."

Q looked taken aback, and Medellin rather surprised at being so
blithely sacrificed to necessity that way.

Dorcas looked at her daughter for a long moment, face not
changing expression in the slightest.  Then she turned back to
Medellin.  "It was nice meeting you.  I hope to have the pleasure
again sometime."

Medellin recognized a dismissal when she heard one, and she had
no choice under that hard gaze but to leave.  "It was nice meeting
you, too.  Good bye."

There was a tense silence in the room, not broken by Medellin's
departure.  Only Ariadne seemed unaffected, lying quietly in her
grandmother's arms, napping, a beatific smile on her face.

Only the irrepressible Q could find anything to say.  "How nice
to see that Nian's opinion of me has changed.  I never thought
she approved of me."

His tone was mocking, almost comical, but Naomi couldn't bring
herself to see any humor in his statement.  She was waiting for
her mother to say something, anything, about what Medellin had
said, about the complete and utter blasphemy of naming Q as a
god.

But her mother said nothing at all about it.  Dorcas contented
herself with one sharp glance at Q, then turned to Naomi.

"I suppose I should be going as well."

"Going?" Naomi asked in shocked tones.  "But you just got here! 
I thought you'd stay at least for a couple of days."

Dorcas shook her head, handing Ariadne back to Naomi.  "The
work doesn't stop just because you stop doing it."  She looked at
Naomi for a long moment, and unspoken was the thought that this
was probably all of each other they could endure.

"Ta ta, so long, feel free to forget to write," Q said airily, happy
that she was leaving.  He had no use for the evil old witch.  She
wasn't even any good as entertainment.

Naomi glared at Q, then stood up as her mother did, following
her to the door.  She made a quick detour to set Ariadne down in
her crib, feeling a need to have her hands free for this goodbye.

"You will come again?" Naomi asked, feeling tears sting her
eyes.  "I mean, you are a grandmother now and all.  You have to
want to see Ariadne, at least."

Dorcas studied Naomi very carefully.  "If you'll come and visit
from time to time.  You never know, Ariadne might turn out to
be a farmgirl."

"Over my dead body," Q said from behind them.  "Now, do
whatever it is you have to do and get out of here.  I'm sick and
tired of all this sweetness and light and melodrama.  Hug each
other, make up, and get it over with."

Naomi laughed, then looked back at her mother.  "He can be
rather unsentimental at times."

"Just like your father."  Before Naomi could say anything about
that offhand reference to the man her mother never mentioned,
Dorcas had leaned forward, putting her arms around her
daughter.  "Thank you for inviting me.  I... I wish we hadn't
waited so long."

"Me too."

And then her mother was gone.

"How many more strange visitors am I going to have to put up
with?" Q asked from the safety of the couch, where he had
retreated during all the emotionality.  Fortunately no one had
offered to include him in that misguided display of nostalgia. 
However he still hadn't been willing to take the risk.

"Hey, Queria was yours, not mine.  I take no responsibility for
her."  Naomi went over to the replicator and ordered some
cookies.  She needed the reinforcement after that scene, or she
was going to cry all over Q for the second time that day.  She
couldn't believe her mother had come here, couldn't believe she
was letting her go so easily.  She wanted to run after her and beg
her not to leave.

"She would never have come if it weren't for Ariadne."

"Oh, and Queria makes it a habit of attending every birth that
happens within a light year of her," Naomi said sarcastically,
sitting down next to him, plate of cookies in hand.  "I don't think
so.  She came because of you.  Ariadne was just the excuse."

She offered him a cookie, and Q refused with an uplifted hand. 
"Why do you keep trying to feed me?"

"Maternal instincts?" Naomi asked, setting the plate down
between them.

He picked it up before any of the cookies could slide off onto the
couch, and moved it to the table.  "What a terrifying thought."

Naomi grinned at him, taking a nibble of her butter cookie.  "Are
you worried that you might find yourself developing paternal
instincts?"

Q looked disdainfully down his nose at her.  "My dear, I don't
*have* instincts."

"You don't?" Naomi asked, finishing off the cookie, and taking a
swallow of the drink she was holding.  "Then when do you call
those impulses to do things that you have but don't remember
learning?"

"Mental aberrations caused by mortality."

"Instincts," Naomi said, grinning at him.

Q glowered at her.  "Really, Naomi.  Your illogic increases by
leaps and bounds."

"Who wants to be logical?  If I wanted to be logical, I'd get
myself a pair of pointed ears and move someplace hot."

"At least then you wouldn't be here," Q said grumpily, taking a
cookie from the plate.  He looked at it mournfully.  "I just know
this is going to get crumbs all over."

Naomi looked down at herself, then sat up and shook her tunic
off.  "So?"

"It's just very untidy.  Can't you eat anything without getting
your food all over you?  How much more animal-like can you
be?"

Naomi's face lit up, and Q shook his head.  "No, don't tell me. 
I don't want to know.  In the area of depravity, your invention
knows no limitations."

"That almost sounded like a compliment," Naomi said, pretending
to be stunned.  The bantering was making her feeling better,
pushing the urge to cry aside.  "I don't know if I can handle the
pressure of this.  A compliment?  From the all mighty Q?  I think
I'll faint."

Q swallowed the rest of his cookie and then looked down.  Yes,
there were definitely crumbs.  He glanced up at Naomi and said
dryly, "I'm enamored."

She grinned at him.  "A confession of affection and a compliment
all in the same day?  Be still my heart."

"Take notes.  It won't happen again," Q said sourly, still upset
that she'd forced him into eating a cookie and that he'd gotten
crumbs on himself.

"Oh, I am.  Believe me, I am."


-the end-