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.

This particular chapter does not contain anything you could call
erotica, but I'm including it on that group for those people who are
following the story.

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


Naomi poked her head into the bedroom, wisely keeping most of herself out
of the room, even if it did tend to annoy the door, which preferred to be
closed.  "It's time to go."

Q didn't even look up at her.  He appeared to be completely absorbed in his
work, sitting at the desk, reading his messages from people too unimportant
to get into see him but whose comments were too important to just delete or
reroute to someone else.

As a pretense, it was a bad one.  Naomi knew that Q never worked unless
he was forced to, really bored -- or was trying to get out of doing
something.  Like now.

"C'mon, Q, we're going to be late."

"Good," Q said, still apparently engrossed in the screen.  "Have fun without
me."

"I'm afraid that's not an option.  You have to come with me."

Q looked up at her.  He knew perfectly well what she was talking about. 
The parenting classes mandated by Medellin and Anderson, which he had
done everything and anything to avoid, and which were finally taking
place.  He'd managed to stall them for almost four months, but it looked
like he was out of options.

But not out of objections.

"I don't want to go."

"Oh, it'll be fun," Naomi said, coming into the room with him, having
decided he wasn't going to get really upset with her.  While Q wouldn't
actually throw things at her, she didn't think it wise to be in the same room
with him if it would just provoke him.

"Fun?" Q asked dubiously.  "Is this some new definition of the word that I
was previously unaware of?"

"Well, it'll be fun for me," Naomi said, grinning at him.

"That settles it," Q said, looking back down at the terminal screen.  "I'm not
going."

"You don't want me to have fun?"

"Not particularly."

"Well, fine," Naomi said, coming over to him and wrapping her arms
around his neck from behind, kissing the back of his neck where his collar
dipped down low enough for her to reach bare skin.  "We'll just have to find
other things to do until Security comes to drag us there."

"They wouldn't dare," Q said, trying to ignore what she was doing to him,
what it felt like to have her pressed up against his back.  "*You* wouldn't
dare."

Naomi smiled, aware that he couldn't see her.  "Sure they would.  This
*was* the commodore's idea, after all.  Of course, I don't quite understand
*why* you want to do things that way, since people would inevitably see
you being marched off, and wonder why it is that Q's so scared of a little
class on how to be a parent."  She put an arm around him, stroking his
chest.  "But I don't mind the alternatives at all."  Especially since Ariadne
was on Earth with her grandmother and they could have all the
uninterrupted time they needed to do whatever they liked.

"I am not scared," Q snapped, then pivoted around, forcing Naomi to let go
of him.  "And stop touching me!"

Naomi held up her hands in a sign of surrender.  "Whatever you say."

Q looked at her grumpily for a long moment.  He really didn't want to go to
this, but reluctantly acknowledged her point, that dear Eleanor was hardly
likely to let him out of it.  Even if it were wildly improbable that she would
send Security after him, Q had no guarantees that she *wouldn't* either.

"Oh, very well.  But this is all your fault."

"Of course, it's my fault," Naomi agreed.  "Everything's my fault.  Global
warming, food shortages, rioting, everything."

Q glared at her, standing up and shaking out his tunic, which was every bit
formal enough for the occasion.  He didn't *want* to go, but that hadn't
prevented him from being *ready* to go.  Once upon a time, he might have
considered *not* being ready, and using that as an excuse why he couldn't
go.  Getting ready could easily take an hour or two, by which time the class
might very well have been called off.  However, Q knew Naomi, and knew
that, as unconscious of fashion as she was, she was quite capable of
insisting that he go, no matter unsuitably garbed he was.

"Certainly the food shortages were your fault.  If you didn't eat everything
you saw..."

"...I'd fall over dead from hunger," Naomi replied imperturbably.

****

The classes were being held in the holodeck.  Q didn't balk at that part of it
at all, which surprised Naomi just a bit.  In the past, she'd been unable to
get him to participate in *any* holodeck scenarios with her, no matter how
enticing she made them sound.  Apparently it was all right to use the
holodeck as long as you weren't having fun.

Medellin greeted them as they entered.  "Q, Naomi.  We were just waiting
for you."

Naomi looked around them.  There was another couple there who she
vaguely recognized.  Sarrasi and Max; a pair of scientists, one a Bajoran
refugee, the other from Deneva.  She didn't quite know why they'd be
required to take a class like this, but then, perhaps they'd elected to do it,
rather than being forced.

The counsellor was speaking, "...and now that you all know each other,
we'll start off by telling why you're in this class."

"Pure coercion?" Q suggested, having taken up an entire couch in the
pseudo-lounge they were in.  It was vaguely antique, with pretensions of
being English Regency, which bothered Q a little, since what he was
wearing didn't match the busy style of the era.  He needed to be wearing
something simpler and solid, and he felt disgruntled that something so
important had been neglected to be communicated to him.

Medellin ignored him.  "The purpose behind this class is to give people who
weren't raised in a Terran-centric culture an opportunity to learn how to
parent a child who will be.  She looked from Sarrasi to Q.  "While the
intent is not to impose arbitrary standards of right and wrong on any family,
I do believe that there's some valuable information to be learned, especially
when someone has not had a 'normal' childhood."

Sarrasi made a small sound in the back of her throat, almost a chuckle. 
"Unless you consider learning how to kill Cardassians instead of going to
school a normal childhood, no."

Q looked at her contemptuously.  "A hired killer.  How vile."

The Bajoran woman kept her composure.  "We weren't paid.  We didn't
need to be."  Her smile would have been enough to shut anyone up, but
then, Q wasn't anyone.

Before an all out free-for-all could start, Medellin interrupted, "And you
didn't have a childhood.  Is that correct, Q?"

Q was diverted from his first target.  "Not as you would understand it, no."

"So," Medellin concluded triumphantly, "that's the purpose for this class. 
I'd like to thank Naomi and Max for coming; while their presence was not
mandatory, I think that parenting is something best done by the couple as a
whole."

Naomi hid a smile.  The day Q voluntarily did anything resembling
parenting, she was going to check herself into a mental hospital.

"This will be a learn by example class," Medellin said.  "While I have and
will assign readings outside of class, the main focus here will be interacting
with children to achieve specific objectives and then discussing what did
and did not work."

"Interacting with *children*?" Q asked, trying not to show how the idea
both frightened and disturbed him.  How dare Nian pull something like this
on him?

"Yes, children," Medellin said, nodding.  "That is the main advantage of
being in the holodeck.  You can practice on the real thing, or something
which looks and feels like the real thing, but unlike with genuine children,
you can erase your mistakes."

There was a small ripple of laughter, shared by Max and Naomi.  Neither
Sarrasi nor Q joined in.

"I assume everyone has done the pre-reading I suggested," Medellin said,
continuing.  "Our first exercise will be in setting limits.  Now, I recognize
that since it's the first, it will probably be the hardest, so don't be afraid to
make mistakes.  Parenting is something you get better at, not something
you're born knowing.  Q, if you'd like to go first?"

"Not particularly," Q said with a grumble.

Medellin kept her smile pasted firmly on her face.  It was one thing to lose
patience with him in a session; it was another thing to do it in front of other
people.  "I'm afraid I must insist..."

He didn't move.

Medellin was about to move onto Sarrasi, when Naomi piped in.  "We'd be
happy to go first.  This should be fun."

Q glared at Naomi.  There was definitely something wrong with her
attitude.

The counsellor beamed at Naomi.  "That's very good.  However, I'd like to
ask that the partners stay out of these first few exercises.  Later, we'll have
ones that both members of the couple can be involved with, but it's
important that Q and Sarrasi have a chance to work these through on their
own."

Naomi could see Sarrasi squeezing Max's hand, and wished she could
similarly reassure Q.  However, he was closed off tightly, and she couldn't
even get near enough to him to touch him at all.  "What *is* the exercise?"

Medellin stood up, and beckoned to Q.  "Your daughter, Jane, is six years
old and wants to stay up later.  You have to tell her no."

"No," Q said.  "There, I'm done.  You don't need me."

Naomi resisted the urge to giggle, and Medellin looked less than happy
with him.  "This exercise is very important, Q."

Q didn't move from the couch.  "Why?  I don't care how late she stays up."

"If she stays up too late, it would be bad for her.  Children have difficulty
thinking beyond the present.  She doesn't know that staying up too late
tonight will make her tired the following morning.  It's your job as her
parent to make sure that she gets enough sleep."

Q shrugged.  "She'll figure it out eventually."

"No, she won't, Q," Medellin said determinedly.  He was being difficult, but
she was reacting to him more because he was Q than because of his
objections.  The whole reason for this class existing was to explain such
things, especially culturally related things, to people who didn't have the
background to understand them.  But she *knew* that Q was objecting
simply for the sake of objecting, and not because he didn't understand. 
"Children don't figure things like that out.  They don't think ahead like
that."

"If I had not thought ahead, I would be dead by now," Sarrasi murmured.

Q decided he liked the Bajoran woman after all, even if she was a violent
savage.  *Everyone* he met here was a violent savage, so that by itself
wasn't damning.  But she was supporting him; however indirectly, and he
liked that.

Medellin turned to face Sarrasi.  "Hopefully, your own children will lead
more sheltered lives.  While you might have acquired that trait as a survival
skill, many of your acquaintances of the same age probably died from the
lack of such a trait."

Sarrasi nodded.  "Any who could not think ahead were quickly weeded out,
captured or left dead either by the Cardassians or through starvation."

"That won't happen here," Medellin said.  "You'll be dealing with children,
not miniature adults."

Sarrasi looked doubtful.  While she understood what Medellin was saying,
she had a hard time believing that her children would grow up so stupidly. 
The emotional understanding of it was simply not there.

Medellin turned to Q.  "Are you ready?"

Q sighed deeply.  He didn't understand the purpose behind this, other than
satisfying some requirement of Anderson's, since he would never actually
*be* a parent.  Whatever legal fiction had been constructed about himself
and Naomi's child, it was still *her* child, and no force in the universe
could make him into that thing's father.  "It's still a ridiculous idea."

The counsellor ignored him, and then, all of a sudden, in the middle of the
room was a small girl, looking at Q.

"I don't want to go to bed," Jane said adamantly.

Q looked up at Medellin, feeling a little more frightened now that he was
confronted with the real thing.  "Do I have to do this?"

"Yes," Medellin said firmly.

Q tried not to flinch or show how scared he really was as he turned back to
the little girl.  "You have to go to bed," Q said, with an air of being much
put upon.

"Why?"

Q pointed at Medellin.  "Because she said so."

The girl looked, and Medellin said hastily, "She can't see or hear anyone
but you, Q."

Naomi looked interested.  She was fairly certain she could create a program
that would do that, but was intrigued nonetheless by the complexity of this
one.  There were a lot of factors that went into something like that,
especially when you considered that the program was undoubtedly capable
of selectively choosing who it could see and not see.  Medellin would have
to set it next to only see Sarrasi, and then possibly to see both Sarrasi and
her partner, and so forth.  A very flexible design, and she wondered who
had created it.

"Oh, very well, then," Q muttered, and looked at the girl.  "You can't
because *I* say so."

The little girl stomped her foot and looked about ready to throw a temper
tantrum, then changed her mind and shifted tactics mid-stream, putting on a
winsome smile.  "*Please*?"

"No," Q said firmly.  "If you don't go to bed, I'll be stuck here talking to
you forever, and I dislike you enough as it is."

Naomi tried not to giggle.  "Q, you're not supposed to tell kids you hate
them."

"Why not?  I loathe children, and I particularly detest this one."

The little girl started crying, and Q looked back at her, alarmed.  "What is
your *problem*?"

"You don't like me!"

"Of course I don't like you.  Why would I like something as useless, idiotic
and imaginary as you?"

Medellin aborted the scenario, causing the girl to disappear.  "That's far
enough, Q.  You've gotten yourself into a different problem and one which I
don't think we're ready to cover yet."  She looked at him steadily, trying to
deal with him as she would anyone else, and not as someone who she
*knew* was deliberately trying to fail at this.  "You were doing well
enough until you mentioned disliking her.  It's important to be firm with
children, but loving at the same time."

The notion that he might be doing something *right* temporarily distracted
Q from his failure, and the L-word which Medellin had inadvertently
mentioned.  He didn't *want* to be doing this, but it didn't seem to make
any difference about how he felt about failing, especially in a verbal
confrontation with a six-year-old.

Medellin looked at the other couple.  "Are you ready, Sarrasi?"

The Bajoran woman nodded.  Jane shimmered into existence in front of her.

"I don't want to go to bed," Jane said adamantly.

"You have to go to bed," Sarrasi said, determined to do better at this than Q
had.  "You don't have a choice."

"But I don't *want* to go to bed."

"That doesn't matter," Sarrasi said.  "You have to go to bed."

"Why?"

"Because you don't want to be tired in the morning."

"I won't be tired in the morning," Jane said stubbornly.

"Yes, you will."

"No, I won't."

Sarrasi looked perplexed at the little girl's obstinance, but didn't give up. 
"You have to go to bed."

"No."

"Yes."

"No," Jane said, giggling as though this had become a game for her.

"Just go to bed."

"No."

Sarrasi looked up at Medellin.  "This is impossible."

The counsellor shook her head slightly, but terminated the simulation
nonetheless.  "It's not impossible, but it is difficult.  The first few will be the
hardest for you.  What you needed to do was..."

"I want to see Naomi try it," Q said suddenly, interrupting the counsellor.

Medellin looked a little exasperated.  "That isn't the point of this exercise..."

"I don't mind," Naomi said.  "It could be interesting."

The others were nodding as well, and Medellin gave in to the pressure of
the group.  It wouldn't hurt anything, would only put them a little over on
time.  If Allen got it wrong, no harm would be done, and if she got it right,
then the group would have a good example to follow.  "All right."

Jane reappeared in front of Naomi, still as opposed to going to bed as ever. 

"I don't want to go to bed."

"Why not?" Naomi asked.

The child looked a little puzzled at being asked a question instead of being
told what to do.  "Because."

Naomi didn't turn a hair.  "Well, my because is better than your because,
and I say you're going to bed."

"I don't want to."

"Why not?"

"Because."

Q smiled sardonically.  "It looks like you're not any better at this than the
rest of us, Naomi.  What a fine parent you make."

Naomi shot one glance at him, but didn't say anything, then looked back at
Jane.  "How about this, I'll take you upstairs, tuck you in, and then you'll
go to bed?"

"I don't want to go to sleep."

Naomi slipped down out of her chair and unselfconsciously picked the
hologram child up, holding her close.  "Well, I didn't say you had to go to
sleep.  Just that you had to go to bed."

"Oh."  Jane put her arms around Naomi's neck and closed her eyes. 
"Okay."

And with that, the child disappeared, leaving Naomi kneeling alone in the
center of the room, her arms around empty air.

Medellin cleared her throat.  "While Naomi's tactics were somewhat
unconventional, the principles remain the same.  You need to use firmness
*and* affection."

Q looked daggers at Naomi.  "You cheated."

"Did not."  Naomi came back and sat down next to him, taking over the
space that he wouldn't give her earlier.

"Did too."

"Fine.  I cheated.  But I won, didn't I?"

Medellin spoke up, interrupting the incipient battle.  "Are there any
questions?"

Sarrasi nodded.  "Why wouldn't the girl give in when I said she had to go to
bed?  I told her the same thing that she did."  Sarrasi nodded at Naomi.

The counsellor took her seat again.  "There are a few reasons for that in this
scenario.  The most important of those is that you were lured into making a
game out of refusing for the child.  Once it became a game, you couldn't
win."

"Except by changing tactics," Naomi said.  "If you'd made it a game where
she *won* by getting to go to bed, then it might have worked."

Medellin glanced at Naomi, wishing she could do this without the
interruptions.  "While that *is* one tactic, it isn't one I would recommend. 
We're going to focus on the most common methods of handling conflicts. 
Naturally, when you're dealing with your own children, 'whatever works'
will be what you use, but what we're going to cover some strategies here
that will hopefully help you with that so that you don't have to make up
things as you do."

Sarrasi nodded, looking a little relieved that she wouldn't be required to
learn to act like Naomi.

"That's all for today.  I've sent you all more things to read, and I expect you
to have looked through them, as they cover the reasons *behind* what we're
doing here, and without that, you won't know *why* you're doing this."

Q considered telling her that the only reason he was doing this was because
he was being forced, but decided not to on the grounds that it would only
make him look more silly.  He'd already humiliated himself more than
enough for one day.

****

Naomi and Q walked back to their quarters together, Q grumbling all the
way.

"This is all your fault, you know."

"I thought we already established that.  Food shortages, rioting, everything
is my fault.  If I weren't such a wonderful, lovable person, I might be
depressed by the burden of guilt resting on me."

Q spared a glance down in order to glare properly at her.  "You can't escape
responsibility that easily."

"Who's trying to escape?" Naomi asked innocently.  "I'm completely
willing to admit to it and everything else.  It's all my fault."

Q knew that wasn't true, knew that she wasn't admitting anything of the
sort, but didn't see any way of arguing with her about it without being stuck
in the position of arguing that certain things *weren't* her fault, which he
didn't want to do, which would only make him look ridiculous.  Instead, he
changed the subject.

"You had to have cheated.  No one could win that ridiculous scenario
without cheating."

Naomi shrugged.  "I *did* do the reading beforehand, if that's what you
mean.  And I *do* have a lot of experience with getting reluctant people
into bed."  She grinned at him lasciviously.

He shook his head slightly, overlooking her usual deplorable slip into
sensuality.  "You're perfectly aware what I'm talking about.  You
reprogrammed it or found out what the solution was ahead of time."

"What a compliment to my parenting skills," Naomi said drily.  "You don't
think I know enough all on my own to pass it?"

"Aha!" Q said triumphantly.  "You *don't* deny it!"

"Of course I deny it!  That wasn't what I meant at all!" Naomi said, wishing
they were back in their quarters so she didn't have trot along at his side and
try to carry on a halfway intelligible conversation at the same time.

"Too late!" Q said, quite happy now that he'd found something to torment
Naomi with.  "You admitted it.  You cheated."

"Did not!"

"Yes, you did."

Naomi let out a deep sigh.  "I did not cheat.  I had about as much chance of
failing as you did.  It's just that the scenarios are easier for people who think
like, well, who think like humans."

"Exactly.  You cheated."

"I cheated by being born and raised on Earth?" Naomi asked quizzically. 
"Are you trying to say that you would have preferred being born human? 
This is a first."

They got to their door just in time for Q to look superciliously down at her
and say, "I?  Prefer being human?  Really, Naomi", before sweeping inside
and leaving her giggling behind him.

****

It was easier to get Q to go to the second session that it had been the first,
but it was still harder than getting him to do anything else, with the possible
exception of changing one of Ariadne's diapers.

And it would have been next to impossible if she hadn't hit on the bright
idea of changing tactics on him.  Naomi had considered simply not trying to
get him to go and letting him suffer the consequences of his actions in the
form of Commodore Anderson, but then decided that Anderson didn't need
that kind of headache.

"I'm off to the class," Naomi said brightly.

"I hope you're not going to try to force me to go," Q said, not moving from
his position on the couch, where he lay sprawled out, looking to Naomi like
an exotic delicacy.

"Oh, not at all," Naomi said, trying to seem sincere.  "I gave up on that a
long time ago.  I'm just going because I want to and because it's fun.  You
have a good time here without me."

"What?" Q sat up, startled.  Naomi?  Going without him?  "You can't do
that."

"I can't?"  Naomi glanced around her.  "I was under the impression that I
*was* doing that.  Is there some invisible force I didn't know about that's
stopping me?"

Q disregarded most of what she was saying as irrelevant nonsense.  "You
can't be seriously meaning to actually attend that jumped up attempt at
indoctrinating people with outmoded ideas about childrearing."

"Actually, yes, I am," Naomi said seriously.  "I *could* follow your ideas
about it, but I'm afraid I'm just not advanced enough yet to comprehend
how drowning a child could be good for them."

"Obviously," Q agreed, then looked discomfited.  There really wasn't
anything he could do to stop her, other than straight out telling her not to
go, which she probably wouldn't pay any attention to anyway, being
Naomi.  But he didn't want her to go, most especially didn't want her to be
off having fun without him.  Assuming of course that you could identify
any afternoon spent with Nian Medellin as fun, which he would not. 
"Presuming that I wanted to go with you, which I don't, it would have to be
understood that I was only doing it for amusement value and *not* because
I have any desire to learn to be a parent."

"Of course," Naomi agreed solemnly.  "I would never think something like
that about you.  You are definitely merely a shallow, pleasure-seeking
creature with no more important interests than satisfying your own desires."

Q looked at her suspiciously.  Somehow, that didn't come out right when
she said it.  "Have you been overdosing on caffeine again?  You sound like
you're running for office."

"Well, I need *something* to keep me awake through the rest of the
afternoon."

Q considered that and decided that was a reasonable excuse.  "It'd take
more than coffee to keep me awake."

"How about the threat of being ravished in your sleep if you doze off?"

"In front of three other people?  How disgusting."

"Oh, I'd ask them to leave first," Naomi said, eyes sparkling.  "I know how
embarrassed you get in front of an audience."

"I do not get embarrassed.  I merely have some small sense of the
proprieties which you obviously lack."

"Well, see, then you have something to teach me."  Naomi stood by him as
he elegantly removed himself from the couch and walked out the door with
her.

****

"This is a harder exercise," Medellin said, by way of introduction.  "What
you have to do is easier, but some people do find this one to be difficult.  In
this example, you have a two year boy named Justin who is rambunctious. 
You want to put his coat on."

"That's it?" Naomi asked.  "Seems pretty easy to me."

Medellin nodded.  "That's all there is to it.  Q?"

"Why do I always have to go first?"

"So everyone can laugh at your mistakes, of course," Naomi said, grinning
at him.

"Then I'm definitely not going first."

Max looked at Naomi.  "Has anyone ever suggested that what the two of
you need is relationship counseling, not parenting classes?"

Q scowled, taking that as an insult rather than humor.  "Has anyone ever
told you that what you need is a long vacation inside a spatial anomaly?"

Medellin stepped in, averting a near disaster.  "Q?"

"What?"

"Are you willing to go first?"

Naomi stifled a giggle.  For someone trying to teach them how to deal with
children, Medellin certainly had little idea of how to handle her own group
of kindergartners.  She definitely wasn't going to get Q to say yes that way. 
Naomi would have just told Q he was going first at that point.  He might
still balk, but *asking* him definitely wasn't going to do the trick.

"No," Q said flatly.  "I don't want anything to do with *any* of your little
charade."

Medellin gave up.  "Sarrasi?"

The Bajoran scientist nodded.

Without any further warning or instructions, Medellin started the program. 
Justin appeared, sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, with his coat
lying next to him.

Sarrasi, looking somewhat uncomfortable at doing so, got down from her
seat on the couch and knelt next to the boy.  She picked up the coat and
held it out.

"Here, let's get this on you."

"No!" Justin said firmly, backing away from her.

"It's all right.  I won't hurt you."

"No!"

Sarrasi obviously recollected the conversations on showing affection as
well as firmness, because what she tried next was to hold him, setting the
coat down and reaching out for him.

Justin was having none of it.  He immediately started screaming, much to
Q's great delight; Q was finding the best part of these classes to be watching
the other couple be humiliated and embarrassed by their failures to solve
the situations.  That he would inevitably fail himself didn't occur to him, or
if it did, it didn't matter.  He had a very good excuse for knowing nothing
about children and an even better one for never wanting to learn.

Sarrasi tried to calm the boy down, but every time she tried to touch him,
Justin kicked her or hit her, and no matter what she did, he kept screaming. 
Finally, apparently recollecting something she'd read or heard, she sat back
and waited.

After a moment, Justin calmed down until all the sound he was emitting
was a low pitching whining noise, hardly qualifying as a sound at all in
comparison to his earlier fit.

Naomi winced and closed her eyes.  She had a sudden intuition that Sarrasi
was going to make the mistake of trying to put Justin's coat on him now
while he was calm.  And she also knew that it wasn't going to work.  She
wasn't sure what *would* work, but knew instinctively that this wasn't
going to.  She'd had enough experience with people throwing temper
tantrums, including Q, various programmers and other highstrung types, to
realize that right afterwards, when they looked calm again, was not
necessarily when they were over it.  Sometimes, they were just resting up
for another tantrum.

As if on cue, Justin started howling again.  Naomi opened her eyes.  Sarrasi
was holding the coat.  Whatever she'd done hadn't worked, had apparently
backfired, because he was now clinging to the Bajoran woman's legs, face
down on the floor, kicking and screaming for all he was worth.

If Ariadne decided to act like that, Naomi considered, she was definitely
going to have to invest in earplugs and a set of protective gear.

And then, with no notice whatsoever, Sarrasi, goaded beyond all endurance,
struck the child.

All movement and sound in the room stopped, as everyone was shocked
into silence.  Justin let out one more wail, then disappeared, the program's
safeties causing it to automatically terminate.

In that stillness, Sarrasi broke down into tears.  Max quickly slid down next
to her, putting his arm around her, but she barely leaned against him, too
isolated by her shame.  She knew that hitting the boy was wrong, would
have known it even if the program hadn't given a clear signal of that by
terminating.  However, knowing it intellectually and putting that
knowledge into practice were two different things.

Naomi put her hand over Q's to keep him silent.  She could see his outrage
clearly in his posture and facial expression.  No matter how provoked, Q
would never hit a child.  He might accidentally hurt one, might injure one's
feelings, but actually committing an act of violence would be beneath him. 
She'd only seen or heard of him striking someone on two occasions, once of
which had been her own self, when she'd practically dared him to do it. 
And he had indeed hit her, but it hadn't been because he was angry or
goaded into it.  He'd merely reached out, as though he didn't have any idea
what might happen if he punched someone.

That incident had been a little difficult to explain away to Security and to
Sickbay, but it had convinced Naomi that he wasn't going to do anything
like it.

And she'd heard that he'd attacked Azoth when he thought that Azoth had
killed her.  But that was understandable.  She wouldn't have settled for just
hitting Azoth if she thought he had killed Q.

Q looked at Naomi, just looked at her, his thoughts written all over his
face.  He clearly wanted to denounce Sarrasi as a brute, and probably more
than that as well.  But he held quiet anyway, for which Naomi was
everlastingly grateful.

Medellin waited until Sarrasi had calmed down somewhat before speaking. 
"This is one of the reasons why we use the holodeck and not real children."

"You aren't going to let her get away with that?" Q asked, unable to keep
from saying anything at all.  He could see that Naomi wanted him to, for
some unknown reason, but he couldn't.  Not with this sort of issue at stake. 
People were always hitting *him* for no apparent reason, and he couldn't
let this incident just slide by.

Sarrasi didn't look up, even though she'd heard the interchange, but Max's
expression was poisonous.  He didn't like anyone criticizing Sarrasi,
especially for a mistake she felt bad about.

Medellin shook her head.  "That's not the point of this exercise, Q."

"Then what is the point?  Training people to inflict violence on helpless
creatures?"

"You didn't do the reading, did you?"

"And?  What's your point?"  As a point of fact, Q had never done any of the
reading and never intended to.  They could make him come to these classes,
but they couldn't make him interested in them.

"If you had, you would have realized that today's exercise is not about
punishing parents for their mistakes anymore than it's about learning how
to dress small children."

"If it were, I would have certainly have picked a more tasteful jacket for the
child to wear.  Any intelligent creature would throw a fit over having to
wear *that* one."

Medellin pretended to ignore that.  "Today's exercise is about anger, and
controlling it.  Children possess a great capability to make someone angry,
even when they don't mean to do it.  And choosing the appropriate response
is something many people never learn."

Q looked at Sarrasi, who had been coaxed back up into her seat. 
"Obviously."

"If you think it's so easy, why don't you try it?" Max asked sharply.

"I'd certainly have trouble doing any worse," Q retorted.  "But I *knew*
you couldn't do any better.  What else can you expect from someone barely
evolved out of primordial slime?"

Naomi shut her eyes for a long moment, hoping this would all go away,
would never have happened.  However, when she reopened them, it hadn't. 
She was still here, still on the holodeck, in this parody of an English
drawing room, with yet another person ready to kill Q.

"I think that means Q's ready to go," Naomi said to Medellin, trying to
divert attention away from the impending struggle.

The counsellor looked dubious, but restarted the scenario anyway.

As Justin reappeared, accompanied by his coat, Q looked at Naomi,
betrayal in his eyes.

Naomi shrugged, then said in a low voice, "What else could I do?  Go
ahead, have fun."

"Fun?" Q asked, before giving into the inevitable and moving to pick up
Justin's coat.  He really didn't want to do this, but he didn't have any other
choice.  With everyone looking at him like this, he would only seem foolish
if he backed down or for some other reason, failed to complete the scenario. 
Of course, he was also well aware that participating could make him look
equally foolish if he failed.

Which meant that he would just have to succeed.  Somehow.

Q made a sacrifice and knelt down next to the child, thrusting the coat at
him.  "Here, put this on."

Justin took one look at Q and said, "No!"

"Well, why not?"

"No!"

Q looked up at Medellin.  "This is hopeless!  How am I supposed to reason
with someone who only knows one word?"

Anyone else might have laughed, and indeed, Naomi was hard-pressed not
to, but Medellin wasn't a counsellor for nothing.  With a straight face, she
said, "You're not supposed to reason with a child of that age.  He doesn't
understand most of what you're saying.  You have to think on his level."

"Having to think on *your* level is enough of a stretch for me.  Thinking
on *his* level would probably make me pull something," Q said, glaring at
Medellin, then looked back at Justin, the original immovable object.  "I
really should have let them make me into a fish or something," he muttered
under his breath.  "Anything would have to be better than this."

Grimly, he tried to get the jacket on Justin, but the boy just squirmed away
from every attempt, his "No!"s getting louder each time.

Finally, Q resorted to threats, saying in a very dark, sinister voice, "If you
don't hold still, I'll feed you to a large demon beast with huge fangs."

Justin did hold still for that, and Q put one of his arms in the coat.  But the
boy wasn't actually cooperating.  Instead, he immediately burst into tears as
soon as Q touched him.

"Stop that," Q said, annoyed.  "You can't cry."

The boy didn't listen, wailing in a shrieking howl that had Naomi covering
her ears, trying to block out the sound.  Did Medellin have to make it so
loud?

"I'm going to give you to the gypsies," Q said, utterly exasperated and
trying to deal with the squirming, shrieking bundle of arms and legs he had
somehow been saddled with.  "And *then* I'm going to find the
programmer who wrote this, and sell them to a Ferengi organ harvester."

The boy didn't appear to find that reassuring, flailing his arms and hitting
Q, who flinched automatically from being struck.

"Stop that!"

The coat fell off as the boy threw himself on the floor next to Q, kicking
and screaming, exactly as he'd done with Sarrasi.  Q stared at him, then
looked up at Naomi, totally at a loss as to what to do next.

Q didn't ask for help; Naomi was quite aware that he couldn't do that, not
here, not without losing face.  And while she had some ideas of what to do
about the situation, she didn't want to just step in and solve it for him.  But
she could give him a hint.  Sarrasi had made the mistake of first trying to
hold Justin when he was being uncooperative and then trying to force him
to do something when he was just recovering from a fit, Naomi rather
thought that right *now* would be the perfect time to do both.  Get him
while his resistance was down and he wanted someone to hold him the
most.

She mimed picking the boy up for him, and Q looked at her in disbelief.  "I
can't do that!"

Naomi shrugged.  "He'll keep screaming otherwise."

Q sighed deeply, as only the greatly put upon can, and gingerly picked the
boy up.  Anything would be worth stopping that horrible noise.  Q got
kicked a few times for his efforts, then Justin quieted, sucking his thumb
and hiding his face against Q's chest.

The look on Q's face was so surprised, so precious, that Naomi just wanted
to burst out laughing.  But she couldn't.  "Better get the coat on him now --
I don't think he's going to be quiet very long."

Q shot her an exasperated glare.  "I think I can handle this from here."

The sound appeared to shake Justin out of his daze, and he started fussing,
little whimpers coming out of his throat.

That spurred Q into action, and he put the coat on the boy, who
immediately disappeared, leaving Q sitting on the floor, all his fine clothes
in disarray.

"Very good, Q," Medellin said approvingly.  She didn't say anything about
Naomi's assistance; while the class was mainly to work on the skills of the
non-human parents, child-rearing was ideally a cooperative venture, and
she thought Naomi's assistance was a good development.

Q stood up, entirely disgruntled, and stalked out of the room without a
backward look.

"Q!  You can't go yet!" Medellin started in, then realized she was talking to
a wall of portraits, Q having left as soon as the arch opened up for him.

Naomi bit her lip.  The only way Medellin would be able to keep Q here
against his will would be to restrict the ability to call for an arch or an exit
to herself alone.  And while the counsellor could probably do that, it would
be a bad thing, because at that point, Q would never agree to participate. 
That kind of coercion would alienate him entirely.  But as it was, there was
no way to prevent him from doing what he'd just done.  She had to go after
him.

The counsellor looked at Naomi, inadvertently sharing her exasperation
with Q.  "He did that correctly..."

"I'll talk with him about it," Naomi said, standing up.  "If that was all for
today...?"

Medellin waved her hand vaguely in the air.  "Yes, that's fine.  I'd like to
talk with the Rossmans further alone anyway."

Naomi nodded and left.

****

She found Q in their quarters, meticulously removing his makeup, no doubt
in preparation for putting on yet another layer.  Since she didn't see the
point of putting cosmetics on in the first place, particularly on someone as
attractive as he was, it seemed like a particularly senseless activity to her.

"I don't think you should have done that," Naomi said, drawing up a stool
and sitting sideways to him.

"Since I never should have begun the whole humiliating business in the first
place, that's hardly a surprise," Q said, not looking at her.  Naomi knew he
could see her perfectly well in the mirror, but Q didn't seem to care,
completely absorbed in his own reflection.  "I never wanted to have
anything to do with children, and I still don't."

"I mean, you shouldn't have run out.  You just give Medellin more
ammunition when you do that."

"Then I suppose if I do it twenty or thirty more times, Nian might finally
have enough to make it a rout instead of a complete massacre on my part."

Naomi looked fondly at him.  "You don't have to be so scared, you know. 
Sarrasi came off far worse than you did today.  You only had to get hugged
by a two-year-old.  She actually hit him."

Q finally looked at her.  "Do you think I don't know that?  Do you think all
I care about are my clothes and my makeup?"

Naomi looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded, deciding that the
truth would serve better in this instance.  "Actually, yes, that was what I
was thinking."

Q stared at her for a long moment, then broke it off, looking back at himself
in the mirror, as if he couldn't handle seeing Naomi right now.  When he
finally spoke, his voice was shaking with rage and pent-up frustration. 
"You don't know me at all.  You could hardly be expected to understand
how I felt when that little brat put his arms around my neck and all of a
sudden I *understood*..."

He broke off, and didn't say anything more, pretending to concentrate on his
task again, wiping off his makeup with a trembling hand.  He couldn't bear
to think about it, to think about how he'd felt right then.  It had been a little
like he had felt while holding Ariadne, when he had thought Naomi was
dead, and for a moment it had mattered that he had a daughter, had Naomi's
daughter.  Only it had been more intense, because the boy had been
hugging *him*, and Q couldn't think, didn't want to think about what that
meant, about the possibility that he might really want to be a parent.

Naomi stood up, and came around behind him, her arms going around him
gently, just enough for him to feel her touching him, but not enough that he
might feel restrained.

"It's all right," she said soothingly, "I understand."

Q didn't believe her, but right then it didn't matter.  He didn't want to
explain himself anyway.  Having the thoughts in his head were bad enough
without speaking them out loud and making them that much more real. 
Just having her there, touching him, caring about him was enough, and he
turned around, swiveling on the stool until his head was resting against her
chest, and she was holding him close, consoling him as he tried not to cry.

"I'm not going to *be* a parent," Q said suddenly, face still hidden.  "I don't
care what Eleanor says.  I am *not* anyone's parent."

"Of course you're not," Naomi said, stroking his hair.  She would have
promised him anything right then, no matter what it was.  She would even
have promised to leave him if that was what he needed to hear.  Of course,
there then came the question of whether she would actually do any of the
things she promised.  She only hoped Q didn't ask about that.

Q nodded.  "You can't make me do it either."

"Who's trying?"

He didn't say anything to that, and Naomi held him, hoping that would be
enough.


-the end-