Only Human by Alara Rogers  
  
Part III: Yamato  
  
With minor revisions to the parts posted before, here is all of  
Only Human Chapter III. 
  
Paramount owns Q and the universe; I own the original characters. 
No copyright infringement is intended.  Not to be sold for profit.   
 
ONLY HUMAN (for those who haven't caught the story thus far) is an  
alternate universe, based on the premise that Q lost his powers for  
good in "Deja Q."  In exchange for protection, he offered the  
Federation the benefit of his advanced knowledge, and was transferred  
to Starbase 56.  Three years later, miserable beyond endurance, Q  
attempted to kill himself.  
  
Dr. T'Laren, Vulcan xenopsychologist and former Starfleet counselor,  
turned up at this point, claiming that Starfleet had hired her as Q's  
therapist.  In fact, it turned out that she was really hired by the Q  
Continuum, in the person of the Q who got Q thrown out, whom T'Laren  
refers to as Lhoviri.  T'Laren persuaded Q to accept her help and  
allow her to counsel him through his depression.  To that end, they  
left Starbase 56 on T'Laren's ship Ketaya-- a gift from Lhoviri, with  
some surprising capabilities-- and headed for the starship Yamato,  
which was currently hosting a physics conference.  
  
Over the course of the past weeks of travel, Q has come to trust  
T'Laren, more or less, though they've had some knock-down-drag-out  
fights in the process.  At the end of Part II, Q decided that he no  
longer wanted to die.  Part III details 's adventures at the scientific  
conference aboard the Yamato, T'Laren's problems as her  
somewhat shady past comes back to haunt her in the forms of her  
young sister-in-law and her former lover, and the ups and downs  
of Q and T'Laren's relations with one another.  Section 14 also  
deals explicitly with sexual themes, though I consider it suitable  
for teens and mature Congresspersons (like Patrick Leahy, who  
opposed the CDA.)  
  
Note that elements of this chapter and previous ones contradict 
the Voyager episode "The Q and the Grey."  I remain convinced 
that my version of the Continuum is more interesting than the 
vision we were presented with in that episode, and so I have not 
revised to fit that episode, as it's too stupid to be canon. :-) 
 
Parts I - III are all available at the following sites: 
 
FTP: 
 
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/al/aleph/startrek 
ftp://ftp.europa.com/outgoing/mercutio/alt.fan.q 
ftp://aviary.share.net/pub/startrek/tng 
 
Web: 
 
http://www.europa.com/~mercutio/Q.html 
http://aviary.share.net/~alara 
http://www1.mhv.net/~alara/ohtree.html 
 
Send comments to aleph@netcom.com. 
             *                   *                    *   

	After the conference ended for the day, Q did not even reach the 
door before he was mobbed by people wanting to know more about his 
Anomaly.  He was dangerously close to shouting at all of them to go 
away and leave him alone when Harry Roth swooped in and rescued him.  
"Q!  Sorry to interrupt, folks, but we have dinner plans."
	*We do?  *He managed not to say it, perceiving that Harry was 
rescuing him.  "So sorry, but a higher duty calls," he said mockingly 
to the mob, and pushed his way through them.  "Lovely.  Where did you 
make reservations?"
	Roth grinned.  "This is a starship, Q," he said.  "Not a lot of 
variety in places to eat."  He led Q over to where a small party of 
folks, including Elejani Baii and Sovaz, were waiting.  Q's heart sank.  
	"Harry, you didn't tell me this was a *group* invitation."
	"We've made a collective decision to take you out to dinner.  You 
have been assimilated.  Resistance is futile; dinner is inevitable."
	"There hardly seems a point, given the paucity of restaurants on a 
starship."
	"I could always cook," Elejani Baii suggested, amused.
	Q shuddered.  "*No* thank you.  You people are sufficiently 
stagnant that I suspect your cuisine hasn't changed in 3,000 years, and 
I have no desire to experience it again."
	Sovaz looked puzzled.  "I thought that you did not eat when you 
were still omnipotent."
	"Didn't anyone ever tell you that Vulcans should be seen and not 
heard?"
	Sovaz' puzzled look deepened into bewilderment.  "No..."
	"So where shall we go?"  Roth asked.  "Ten-Forward, Ten-Forward or 
Ten-Forward?"
	"There are other places to dine on the Yamato," Sovaz pointed out.  
"Most other locations are cafeteria-style, however."
	Q had a brilliantly cruel idea.  He was not happy with being 
dragged into a business dinner with a group of five people, two of 
whose names he'd forgotten; eating in public was a humiliating 
experience for him, a reminder of how far he'd fallen, that he was 
mortal clay and needed to eat just like the rest of these.  But there 
was a way to pass on the pain.  "Harry, you forgot to invite someone," 
he pointed out.  He located Markow, who was sensibly waiting until the 
crowds of people knotting up and chatting by the door cleared, and 
strode over to him.  "Daedalus!  I'm being suborned for dinner 
purposes; any interest in coming along?"
	"We would be delighted to have you," Sovaz said earnestly, 
probably completely unaware of how humiliating Markow found the process 
of eating in public.  
	"Is this business or idle gossip?"  Markow asked.
	"Do I look like the sort that would indulge in idle gossip?"  Q 
asked lazily.  It was not often he could get Markow's goat; it would 
infuriate the man to miss a discussion like this, but Q was sure he 
would be unwilling to accept a dinner invitation.
	Markow studied him with his usual inscrutable, damaged expression, 
unable to make his face convey the subtlety of whatever he was feeling, 
which was annoying.  It was hard for Q to perceive when he was really 
getting to Markow, because the man's voder produced a fair degree of 
monotone and his face could convey only extremely crude, broad 
expressions.  "In that case, I accept," Markow said, surprising Q.
	"Really!  How delightful."  He wanted to ask why Markow had 
changed his mind, but it would be bad form to admit that he had 
remembered how uncomfortable Markow was eating in public.
			*				*				*
	Q spent the next three hours holding court, picking at food while 
grandiloquently holding forth on the nature of the universe.  This was 
actually a lot of fun.  The six people here with him all respected and 
liked him to some degree or another-- the two he hadn't known, a Vulcan 
named Stamor and a human named Eva Velasquez, turned out to be people 
who had never met him in person but had been on the list to see him, 
and who had both been reasonably impressed by his work here.  It was 
almost like the work against the Borg, when Roth and some of the other 
scientists had started dragging him off to lunch every day so that he 
wouldn't pass out from forgetting to eat.  He might have feared that 
they would be slavishly worshipful-- he hated that-- but Markow saved 
him from that, treating him with just enough disrespect that the others 
didn't grovel.  Millennia of experience had made Q sufficiently sick of 
being worshipped that even now, after having been hated and despised 
and treated as an object for three years, he couldn't quite get into 
that.  
	He didn't get much to eat, though; he'd been too busy talking to 
actually stop and eat anything.  This wouldn't have been a problem in 
the old days, but Q had found himself with a lot more desire for food 
since leaving Starbase 56... perhaps part of it was that he was now 
allowed to have knives, and cut his own food, without the suicide 
restrictions he'd been operating under for two years.  Eating was a lot 
more pleasurable when it didn't remind him of the minor little freedoms 
that had been stripped away from him.  How could he have ever lived 
that way?  Why hadn't he protested more loudly, why hadn't he struggled 
harder?  The emptiness of the past two years was unbelievable when he 
contrasted it with how he felt now-- he had merely changed location, 
nothing more dramatic than that, and yet the way people treated him in 
comparison was nothing short of marvelous.  
	Rather drained, he made his way back to his quarters.  T'Laren 
stepped out of her bedroom into the main room as soon as he came in.  
"I suppose you're too tired to demonstrate the incident with Dr. LeBeau 
to me," she said.  
	"However did you guess?"  Q slumped in the nearest chair.  He 
really had to get these restrictive clothes off.  And get something to 
eat.  But he was so tired...
	"We should do it tomorrow.  The hearing has been set for tomorrow 
at 1500 hours; I took the message for you."
	"What, are you my secretary now?"
	"I doubt you'd want that; I lose files on a fairly frequent 
basis."
	Q grinned at that image.  "I take it LeBeau would not be persuaded 
to drop the charges."
	"You take it correctly.  Q, I wanted to talk to you about this."  
T'Laren walked over in front of him.  "Strategy is going to be very 
important tomorrow.  We should discuss how to handle the hearings."
	"I was right and she was wrong.  What's to discuss?"  He really 
didn't feel like dealing with this right now.  
	"Don't be foolish.  This is too important."  She sat down on the 
couch, turned toward him.  "Why don't you get changed and relax a bit, 
and we'll discuss what we need to do tomorrow?"
	He glared at T'Laren, more than a bit resentful that she was 
making him do this now... but he *was* uncomfortable.  "If you insist," 
he said with a long-suffering sigh.
	After he'd changed clothes and washed up, he felt a bit more 
capable of handling whatever inanity T'Laren was planning to spout.  He 
grabbed a danish from the replicator and devoured it so that he 
wouldn't have to admit in front of her that he was actually hungry, and 
left the room when he was done, wandering out into the common room and 
setting himself down on the couch, where he proceeded to lounge across 
the entire length of it.  The danish hadn't helped much; he was still 
hungry.
	"How did your dinner expedition go?"  T'Laren asked him.
	"Entertainingly," Q said, sitting up.  This gave him an excuse.  
"I didn't get to eat much, though; people kept asking me questions."  
	"But you enjoyed yourself?"
	"As I said, it was entertaining.  And I don't get much of that 
nowadays."  He walked to the replicator.  "Shrimp omelette on toast, 
and fizzy chocolate."  Feeling some obscure need to justify himself, to 
point out that he wasn't simply being a pig, he added, "I can't exactly 
eat and lecture at the same time.  It looks exceedingly stupid."
	"You don't need to explain yourself, Q," T'Laren said.  "You have 
every right to eat what you want, whenever you want."
	He turned back to her, holding the plate with the omelette and the 
drink.  "Unless I'm not eating enough for your tastes."
	"Exactly," T'Laren said solemnly.
	Q arranged himself in a lounging position on the couch again.  "Or 
unless I'm eating meat in front of Sovaz?"  he asked pointedly.
	"I was wrong," she said simply, setting a plate of crackers, 
cheese and fruit bits on the table near the couch and then sitting on 
the chair diagonal from him.  "I was discomfited by Sovaz' presence, 
and reacted poorly."
	"Discomfited.  I love that word.  I suppose that's Vulcan for 
'angry'?"
	"Very well, I was angry."  She shrugged.  "Nothing comes without 
price.  The price I have paid for my greater empathy with the needs of 
humans is a less effective emotional discipline than most Vulcans; 
occasionally I will get angry, to my shame.  I was wrong to behave that 
way."  She picked up one of the crackers.  "However, we are not here to 
discuss my personal failings.  We need to develop a strategy for the 
meeting tomorrow."
	"I don't see why this is an issue," Q said.  "I'll tell the truth, 
they'll see it was an accident, and the subject will be dropped.  This 
is hardly Starbase 56."  On Starbase 56, Q had been blamed for 
everything-- not that he'd ever had to go through a hearing of any 
sort, but if anyone got hurt in the attacks on the base, if anyone's 
feelings were injured when Q treated them with the contempt they 
deserved, if anyone felt slighted because Q had tromped all over their 
foolish little theories, Q had been blamed for it.  That wouldn't 
happen here.  On Yamato, people respected him and looked up to him and 
took him out to dinner.  He hadn't had this kind of respect since 
working against the Borg, and it warmed his soul.  Sure, there were 
some morons, like Dhawan and Yalit and Morakh and LeBeau herself, that 
didn't appreciate his superiority, but he had supporters, almost even 
friends.  He wouldn't be railroaded and punished as Anderson would have 
done, not here.  There was nothing for him to worry about.  The 
business with him being put in the brig had just been a slight 
misunderstanding.
	"No, it's not," T'Laren agreed.  "But that is not necessarily to 
your advantage."  She folded cheese and fruit into a little pyramid 
with a cracker.  How disgusting.  "On Starbase 56, you were a resource, 
not a person.  You could be punished, and frequently were, for failing 
to meet your obligations as a resource.  But it is very doubtful you 
would have been subject to the responsibilities of a person.  If you 
had broken someone's arm there, I suspect Anderson would have covered 
it up, or talked the person out of pressing charges, because you were 
too valuable to lose time in rehab or doing community service.  Here, 
though, you are merely another respected scientific luminary.  They 
will not give you any sort of special treatment, for better or worse, 
because of your status.  And given your track record of winning people 
to your cause... I would say this warrants a serious planning session."
	Q's eyes narrowed.  "I can take care of myself, T'Laren."
	"Indeed.  You did remarkably well with Dr. LeBeau."
	"Sarcasm does not become you."
	T'Laren leaned forward.  "If you go in there and behave as you 
usually do, if you pretend you feel no guilt or remorse for what you 
did, place all the blame on Dr. LeBeau, call your judges morons, and 
act as if an accusation is tantamount to a judgment, they will throw 
the book at you.  You may face time in the brig, or time on a rehab 
colony; you may be forced to perform some community service that you'd 
undoubtedly find demeaning, on some colony world where there's a 
shortage of manpower; and even if you're merely fined, there would be a 
black mark on your record that would for the next several years 
influence those you most need, people in security and law enforcement, 
to think the worst of you.  You cannot afford to have any of those 
things happen."
	Despite himself, her words evoked a chill in him.  "It would never 
come to that," Q protested.
	"Wouldn't it?  Q, your less than stellar handling of humans once 
led you to be beaten near to death for having the temerity to need 
protection, and forced into a hunger strike to protest your own total 
dehumanization after you'd been driven to suicide.  It may be a very 
comforting fantasy to believe everything's changed now and that could 
never happen again... but it isn't true.  If you mishandle these 
people, you will suffer for it all out of proportion to the offense.  
Your human life shows that pattern over and over again."
	The notion she believed that he, of all people, would prefer to 
live in a comforting fantasy infuriated him.  "I keep my fantasy life 
well away from my assessment of reality, *thank* you very much.  And 
the fact is that I am not in as much danger as I was on the starbase.  
Here they respect me."
	"That won't prevent them from sentencing you to a rehab colony if 
they think you're uncontrollably violent," T'Laren retorted.  
"Starfleet tries very, very hard not to play favorites.  You have a lot 
more status than Dr. LeBeau.  Therefore in the interests of fairness 
they will be biased *toward* her in an attempt to avoid bias.  If you 
then antagonize them, your fate would be sealed."  
	She was starting to scare him.  Q knew well how that opposite-bias 
conundrum worked; he'd often used it himself, being deliberately harsh 
with the people he thought most promising, back when he'd had his 
powers.  He could easily see this working against him now.  "Very well.  
Since you're such an *expert* on humans, what do you suggest?"  he 
sneered, trying to hide his growing apprehension and belief in her 
words.
	"I've noticed something interesting but puzzling about you.  When 
you are in a situation where you're accused of something, your reaction 
seems to be fury that you weren't trusted-- you come across as if 
you're saying, 'Why should I bother to defend myself when you've 
already judged me guilty?'  Yet when someone suggests that you might 
have performed a positive act, you try to minimize it-- as when Elejani 
Baii revealed that you'd saved her planet, and you tried to make Markow 
and Roth believe that you'd tricked her into thinking so."
	"What makes you think I actually *did* do it?  The Q are closely 
mentally linked; I have a lot of vivid emotional memories of things 
that other people did."
	"None as vivid as your own memory, Q.  You're too egotistical for 
that," she said dryly.  "No, I'm quite sure Elejani Baii was right-- it 
seems entirely in character for you to rescue a species under the guise 
of tormenting them.  But why didn't you want to admit so to Roth and 
Markow?"
	Q sighed, caught out.  He heard the utter conviction in T'Laren's 
voice; no amount of lying, however sincere, would convince her 
otherwise.  "Do you know how tedious it is to be thought benevolent?"  
he asked.  "People are constantly worshipping you, supplicating you for 
this thing or that thing, make my crops grow, make my husband love me 
again, it's enough to make you ill.  And then if you don't do it, 
they're disillusioned, and they whine.  I much prefer to set up no 
illusions ahead of time; if you don't think I'm benevolent, you're not 
going to waste my time begging me for favors.  And then if I *do* 
choose to do someone a favor, they're properly grateful, instead of 
taking it for granted."
	"I can understand that,"  T'Laren said.  "It seems a sensible 
strategy for a god.  But what ever does it have to do with your human 
life?"
	"Habit?"  Q shrugged.
	"Your habits are deadly, Q.  They apply to an existence so 
different from the one you have now that they are actively dangerous to 
you.  Were I you, I'd set about cultivating new ones."
	"Well, what was I supposed to do, say yes?  Then it would have 
looked as if I'm even more egotistical than I am.  I don't want people 
to think I'm the sort of person who goes about spreading peace and love 
throughout the galaxy."
	"I could hardly see how they could be mistaken on that point."
	"Ha ha ha," Q said sourly.  "Keep it up, you'll develop a sense of 
humor yet."
	"Right now the issue is not your desire to make your friends 
believe you a heartless villain.  We'll deal with that some other time.  
The important issue is that you must appear innocent to the court 
tomorrow.  It is not enough merely to *be* innocent-- you must appear 
it as well.  And that means that you *cannot* behave as if the very 
accusation wounds you; you *cannot* be sarcastic, flippant or cruel.  
Any time you think of something astonishingly witty and cutting to say, 
make yourself remember your time in the brig the other night, and hold 
your tongue.  You cannot pretend that you don't feel guilt--"
	"I don't."
	"That's arguable.  But for the sake of argument, in that case you 
must pretend that you *do* feel guilt.  This has all been a horrible 
accident, and you feel remorse for it--"
	"But I don't."
	"What kind of trickster god are you supposed to be?"  T'Laren 
asked, visibly exasperated.  "Even I, a Vulcan, am apparently better at 
lying than you are."
	Q laughed, having successfully managed to get her goat.  "Oh, 
that's precious, T'Laren.  Remind me you said that the next time I'm 
depressed."  He leaned forward, taking one of the crackers so he could 
wave it for emphasis.  "I'm perfectly aware I'll need to put on an act, 
but I want it to be on *my* terms.  And I want it to be clear that the 
accident was LeBeau's fault.  She started it; she paid the 
consequences."
	"If you demonstrate remorse for what you've done, that is exactly 
what everyone will think," T'Laren pointed out.  "LeBeau will be a 
cruel witch raking an innocent man over the coals over a simple 
accident that she herself precipitated.  You may, when you're called on 
to describe the incident, tell how she came over and began harassing 
you, completely unprovoked.  You may describe how she hit you.  But 
describe these things without vindictiveness in your tone, and the 
judge will be impressed by how big-hearted you seem in comparison to 
LeBeau's pettiness."
	"How often have *you* had to manipulate courtrooms?"
	"School boards, actually," T'Laren said.  "I was in this very same 
situation when I was twelve."
	"You broke a drunk woman's arm?"  Q asked incredulously.
	"No, I broke a teenage boy's.  He was tormenting some younger 
students, and I politely asked him to stop.  When he wouldn't, I 
interposed myself.  He started pushing me-- he was careful not to hit 
me; in some places the human taboo against males striking females is 
particularly strong, and Texas is one of those places, but he might 
have injured me by shoving, since my greater physical strength doesn't 
provide me much protection against that-- I'm not as massive as a human 
of equivalent strength, and never have been.  So I used a self-defense 
move to flip him, but applied a bit too much downward force, and 
snapped his arm.  They nearly threw me out of the school for it-- a 
number of bigots had been trying to get me forbidden to go to school 
with human children in any case, and this provided ammunition.  Even 
though it was clearly an accident, the claim was that a Vulcan child's 
greater strength makes her a threat to other students."
	"So what did you do," Q asked, intrigued despite himself.
	"At the hearing, I went into 'respectful obedient Vulcan child 
mode'-- I was polite, I was logical but not cold, I demonstrated 
remorse, but I used the cold dry facts to make my case for me, without 
any apparent attempt at emotional manipulation.  People don't expect to 
be manipulated by a Vulcan anyway.  So when I explained that he had 
been tormenting smaller children and I had stepped in to protect them, 
I won points for being the noble protector of those smaller than me.  
And when I explained how he had pushed me repeatedly, I painted him as 
a complete bully.  Then my act of self-defense, for which I was so 
evidently remorseful, seemed fully justified.  I was not penalized, but 
I did take it on myself to send my attacker flowers."  She smiled 
slightly.
	"With poisonous aphids inside or something?"  Q asked, waiting for 
the punchline.
	"No, no.  Nothing like that was necessary.  I was demonstrating my 
grace and class in a society that prized both, that I would send 
flowers to the boy I'd injured.  People gossiped about how the little 
Vulcan girl had such *charming* manners-- forgetting, I suppose, that 
the little Vulcan girl had far better hearing than their own children, 
since I overheard them with some frequency.  There was nothing 
whatsoever he could do to retaliate, because I had stolen all the pity 
he thought he was owed in painting him as a bully who deserved what he 
got.  And I let the facts do it for me."
	Q raised his eyebrows, impressed despite himself.  "Quite the 
little manipulator, weren't you?"
	"I have developed a talent for being what people need me to be," 
T'Laren said.  "In my profession, I use that talent to aid others, 
being what they need me to be to help them heal.  But in my childhood, 
I freely confess I used it to get what I wanted.  It wasn't entirely 
manipulation-- I couldn't have pulled a stunt like that if I hadn't 
been in the right.  But if you try to be morally impeccable, and you 
try to give people what they need from you, it is very hard for them to 
betray you.  The armor of the righteous really is quite sturdy."
	"But chafing, I must imagine."
	"It depends.  I personally do not do things that I find chafing.  
If I were in a society whose moral strictures were far tighter than my 
own, perhaps I would, in order to fit in.  But the level of moral 
behavior I feel comfortable with is an acceptable one for my society."
	"So your society is perfectly blasé about you cheating on your 
husband?"
	For a moment, he almost saw raw anger in her eyes.  Then the mask 
slid down, hooding it, and he regretted his words.  He'd gotten her 
good, no doubt about it, but it had been pleasant to have her being so 
open with him, sharing her trade secrets.  Not likely to continue now.  
"What my husband and I chose to do in our marital life was not 
society's business," T'Laren said coolly.  "Soram did not disapprove of 
my sexual escapades to any greater extent than he disapproved of my 
inability to control my emotions, my interest in humans, my illogical 
child-sitting practices, or my willingness to use my telepathy in the 
pursuit of my duty, rather than exclusively with family and friends.  
You've absorbed far more human social values than you know if you truly 
think my dalliances with other men were the real way in which I 
betrayed my husband."
	"I have not," Q retorted.  "*I* don't care what you did.  On the 
planet Prakta Velo, sex is completely casual, performed in public 
between any individuals who strike one another's fancy.  But they won't 
eat together, or in public, and eating is shrouded in taboo and ritual 
as your species shrouds sex.  If I wanted to get a Prakta Veloshian's 
goat, I might accuse him of eating *meat* or eating in front of 
*children*.  It doesn't mean *I* care what or where he eats."
	"Is it that important to you to try to hurt my feelings and anger 
me?"  she asked.  "I've been trying to figure out whether you do this 
as a defense mechanism, or if it's actually a way you show affection, 
or if in fact you simply harass everyone, regardless of their 
relationship to you and your opinion of them, for the pleasure of it."
	"Oh, I do it for pleasure.  Definitely."
	"Perhaps you should pursue safer pleasures.  For example, eating 
fugu or spacewalking without a tether."
	"You must stop trying to be funny.  It's just entirely too 
pathetic to watch."
	"There is also the issue of gender and size," T'Laren continued, 
ignoring him.  "It's unfortunate that you look and sound so human... 
The fact that you are male, and much bigger than Dr. LeBeau, would be 
of little significance if you were understood to be alien.  Humans have 
a curious double standard; they will tolerate nearly any behavior from 
aliens, but reject certain behaviors in their own kind most strongly."
	"Tell me all about it."
	T'Laren appeared to be lost in thought.  She focused on him 
slowly, as if an idea was dawning on her.  "A costume..."
	Q perked up.  "What about a costume?"
	"You dress like a human-- a well-dressed human, to be sure, but as 
if you do belong to human culture.  If you could wear something that 
subtly reinforces your alien nature, that culturally you are *not* 
human and should not be treated as one... something that doesn't look 
like human fashion."
	"Any specific fashion tradition in mind?"
	"Definitely not.  You don't want to look as if you're imitating an 
established species, Q; you should dress as if whatever you're wearing 
is the native costume of your people... yes, yes, your people *have* no 
native costume, I'm well aware of that."
	He hadn't been going to say it-- far too obvious for him.  But now 
that she'd mentioned it... "I *could* simply not show up and claim I'm 
dressed noncorporeally."
	"You can't do old Earth traditions either," T'Laren said, 
continuing to ignore him.  "They'd be perceived as mockery, *as* a 
costume.  What you wear has to look like clothes... Do you think you 
can do it?"
	"Of *course* I can do it," Q said loftily, as if embarrassed to be 
in the presence of someone so stupid that she might doubt it.  "There's 
nothing I can't do with clothing if I so decide."
	"Excellent.  I think we should go to the holodeck tomorrow 
morning, so you can try on costumes before we choose one to replicate."
	Q stared.  "I thought the pattern needed to be in the computer."
	"Holodecks can alter patterns based on voice commands-- and 
occasionally keyboard input; some people do it that way-- and then you 
can download the pattern to a replicator.  How did you think people 
made costumes?"
	"In my experience people *don't* make costumes.  They walk around 
in the same stuffy Starfleet outfits all day."
	"That's right; you don't use the holodeck.  People will dress up 
for that."
	"You're telling me that I could all along have used a holodeck to 
get the patterns I wanted?  That I didn't have to program them into the 
replicators by hand?"
	T'Laren raised an eyebrow.  "If you did that, you have far more 
patience than I ever imagined.  I did wonder why you felt the need to 
bring over all your clothes when you left Starbase 56, and why you 
brought half of them to *Yamato.*"
	"Well."  Q studied the tray of crackers intently, mortified.  "I 
suppose the technology *does* have its uses."
	"What you're going to have to do is appear completely innocent of 
the human taboo on hitting women.  You transcend gender; you don't even 
notice it.  And given how often you've been attacked by people smaller 
than you, the size differential means nothing.  You can't mention it, 
though, or take great umbrage at being maltreated because you're a man; 
that part will have to come from me.  Will you do that?"
	Q was not paying attention, lost in planning his costume.  "Q?"  
T'Laren repeated.
	"What?  Oh, yes.  Listen, you said not flamboyant, right?  But do 
you think red would be too flamboyant?  I'm quite fond of red."
	"Would you like to go to the holodeck and pick out your costume 
now?"  T'Laren asked patiently.  
	He was tired, but there was no way he could sleep before he did 
this.  "That sounds delightful."  Q glanced down at himself.  "But I 
can hardly go out in public dressed like this; I'm going to have to get 
dressed first."
	"You're only going to the holodeck; must you put on an entire 
costume to do so?"
	"Of course."  Q stood up and headed for his room.  "Actually, why 
don't I check to see if I have anything suitable already?"
	"I'll come with you."
	They sorted through all of Q's clothing, with T'Laren commenting 
on what she considered to be completely unsuitable for the purposes, 
too flamboyant, or otherwise flawed.  Q protested at her complaints, of 
course, but secretly agreed with her on most of it; T'Laren's taste 
might be entirely too subdued for his taste, but she could tell 
fashions apart.  Eventually they'd selected six outfits that *might* be 
suitable, though Q had to try them all on to see.  He kicked T'Laren 
out of the room.
	"How exactly are we supposed to discuss strategy if you spend the 
next several hours getting dressed?"  she asked dryly.  "Do you expect 
me to sit by the com unit and talk through it?"
	"What, would you rather stay in my room and stare at me while I'm 
getting dressed?"  he retorted.
	"Don't do the entire costume," she said with something very close 
to a sigh.  "Just put on the clothes, Q; none of the elaborate makeup 
until we've decided whether it's appropriate, all right?"
	Graciously he made that concession.
	Foe the next two hours he tried on various items of clothing, and 
occasionally makeup jobs, while a bemused T'Laren provided moral 
support and fashion advice.  None of the outfits were suitable, though 
T'Laren thought a few of them would do.  There was no help for it but 
to go to the holodeck, wearing one of the outfits he had rejected-- 
they were fine outfits, just not suitable for what he wanted.
	Three hours after that, he had something both he and T'Laren 
agreed was suitable, though he had wondered if T'Laren was still paying 
attention; she was sitting on the floor, legs drawn up against her 
chest, answering his questions with monosyllables.  But then, the great 
T'Laren would hardly admit to something as *human* as exhaustion, now 
would she?, Q thought gleefully, not tired at all.  He'd caught his 
second wind, and would have gone on all night if he hadn't found 
something absolutely perfect.  
	It was vaguely like reptilian leather, a single-piece suit like a 
jumpsuit, but with interior support in all the right places.  Soft and 
supple, black in its basic color but composed of beautiful iridescent 
scales, with a low-cut V-neck in front and a half-head high flaring 
ribbed collar in back, and real gold edging the collar and cuffs-- he 
had to wear a black turtleneck underneath it, of course, he couldn't 
very well expose his chest, or more precisely the padding he had to 
wear on his chest, but he thought that produced an interesting 
contrast.  The interior of the high ribbed collar was also black, and 
velvety like the material of the turtleneck, swallowing light.  He 
thought he looked rather regal when he leaned his head back against it.  
The boots and gloves he chose were made of the same material, but with 
even tinier scales and with a base color of gold rather than black.  
They were narrow, pointed and flaring, making his long, slender fingers 
even longer and his feet appear to be longer, narrower and more 
delicate than they were.  With subtle alterations to the padding he 
usually wore to make him a bit closer to his natural weight, slender 
instead of painfully skinny, and a careful makeup job in green and 
gold, together with a single gold stud... Q studied his costume with 
delight.  It was not something he might have chosen to wear under 
ordinary circumstances, as it made him appear slimmer than he usually 
liked-- if he had to err on one side or the other, Q would prefer to be 
thin, but his preference was to look intimidating if he could, and that 
called for a bit more weight.  But it was definitely *not* something 
your typical human would wear.  Humans didn't wear leather, and human 
men didn't wear gold and green makeup.  Not that Q's makeup job was 
particularly effeminate-- it just didn't look like something a human 
would wear.
	T'Laren demonstrated how one downloaded holographic patterns into 
the replicator-- totally unnecessary, given that Q *did* know his way 
around computer systems, but then he supposed the poor dear just wanted 
to prove she wasn't helpless around a computer.  And then she insisted 
that he get some sleep.  Quite ridiculous of her; at this hour, all Q 
needed were a few stimulants to keep going through tomorrow, whereas if 
he tried to sleep now, he would be mindless with exhaustion tomorrow.  
Since she wouldn't let him have the stimulants, though, he had little 
choice.
			*				*				*