Title: Only Human Part IV Author: Alara Rogers Series: TNG Rating: NC-17 Codes: Q/f, AU Part: 6/12+1 Summary: Q and T'Laren are taken captive aboard their own ship by the Ferengi. *You are so stupid.* The voice in his head mocked him, as if, not having the Continuum around to tell him what a loser he was, he had to create a model of them in his head to do it for them. *She says she could take the pain away. She _wants_ to do it. And here you are trembling in terror because some Romulan telepath tried to assassinate you. What an idiot.* He almost opened his mouth to tell T'Laren he'd changed his mind, he wanted her to help him, if only to make the mocking voice go away. It was one thing to deal with that little voice when he was alone, or when no one he cared about was in his environs, which had been most of the time before he'd met T'Laren. It was something else entirely to feel as if someone whose opinion actually mattered might be agreeing with his own self-mockery. He already knew that there was an element of his own mind that thought he was an idiot, a pathetic excuse for a Q and an even more pathetic excuse for a human being, but believing that someone he cared about might think so too was almost unbearable. And then, of course, there was the fact that the pain was so horrible he would do almost anything to make it go away. *Almost* anything. When he started to speak, he remembered tr'Sahlassiu's attack, remembered the feeling of an alien mind inside his own, and his complete inability to keep the invader out. And yes, T'Laren was right -- a Vulcanoid telepath couldn't absorb a human mind and devour it the way the Q could do to one another. But that had never been the point. "You must think I'm an idiot." He said it almost without thinking, and was embarrassed to hear it come out of his mouth -- it was such a naked plea for validation, it would have completely humiliated him to have said it if he hadn't been so badly humiliated already today. As it was, though... it was embarrassing, but he really *did* need her to know he had good reasons for what he had chosen. And that he hadn't meant to screw up nearly this badly, and how sorry he was for what was happening to her, but mainly he needed to know that she didn't think he was a total moron. "Why would I think such a thing?" "I know... what you're offering... I *know* it's the only real way to stop this pain that we've got. I'm not stupid. I just..." "I understand, Q. You don't need to explain yourself." "But I do. Because you don't understand. So you probably think I'm an idiot." She sighed. She was actually very emotional lately; Q would be surprised, except that they were prisoners and he was pretty sure the stress of the situation would get to a normal Vulcan, let alone one who was self-admittedly bad at maintaining her control. "I don't think less of you for refusing my offer. You explained your feelings regarding mindmelds a month ago. I hadn't forgotten." "You quoted my own words back at me like you thought I was an idiot for turning you down." "You've been attacked telepathically since you said those words." "Yes. That." He took a deep breath. "Do you know what he wanted to do to me?" "My understanding was that he planned to kill you." "Because he couldn't actually do what he really wanted. I fought back." "Oh. Yes. He told me he wanted information on how to break you. He thought I would know your emotional weaknesses, and that he could use my knowledge to make you submissive, so he wouldn't have to kill you. When I refused he said he would need to kill you if he couldn't break you, and I told him I was sure you'd rather die." "You were right." Her hand ran through his hair. "I would never do such a thing to you, Q. If you consented to a mindmeld, I would never violate your trust in such a way." "Yeah, I know that. I don't... If I trusted anyone it'd be you, T'Laren." "But you don't trust anyone." "About fifty thousand years ago or something, I really have a hard time keeping track of how long ago things happened in mortal time when I was a Q, when I was still basically a kid, five older Q jumped me and tried to rewrite my personality by force." The hand in his hair went still. "The Q do such things to one another?... But you've already said children devour each other, so I suppose that would be no different..." "Wrong, actually. Children devour each other, but when you're almost an adult, you know better. Because when one Q absorbs another, what survives is the strongest traits. The strongest ego is the one that comes out on top, and I have a stronger ego than most other Q." For a moment he grinned, before the pain made the fleeting moment of amusement impossible to hold onto. "No one wanted to eat me, and I didn't want to absorb anyone else, because we all knew I'd win but I didn't want to change. I didn't want to absorb any part of anyone else. The Q let kids do that to each other because it weeds out weaknesses... mostly. What survives is always stronger than the individual parts were. Rewriting someone's personality... is different." He lifted his head to look at her, although that hurt, too. "It's sort of like raping someone, murdering them, mutilating the corpse and raising it as an undead zombie, who you then try to pass off as your roommate Fred. It's one of the worst things we can do to one another, and it's considered an extremely serious crime. But, well... I was winning friends and influencing people even back then, and these guys hated me enough that they thought that if they just went ahead and did it, it would be a fait accompli, and so many people would be grateful to them for making me less of an asshole that they'd be given a slap on the wrist." "I take it it didn't work?" "It would have worked." He let his head down onto the pillow again, staring at the wall. "They had my defenses down -- I was tough, I could have fought off any other one Q, maybe even two. Against five I didn't have a chance. They lured me into a pocket dimension that wasn't a direct part of the Continuum proper, and then they opened me up, blocked me off so I couldn't call for help and started doing major surgery on my mind." He took a deep breath. "There's a Q who used to like to follow me around to keep me out of trouble -- my older sister, kind of. She was one of the caretaker Q and I was always getting in trouble so she was always taking care of me. Usually that meant making me clean up my messes and giving me a lecture, but on a few rare occasions she actually had to save me from some sort of danger. So she found me before they could actually finalize their changes -- it's not like actual surgery or the way humans manipulate things in the real world, you plot out every step of what you do and then when you have the plan in your mind you just *do* it, like you throw a switch and the thing that's in your mind becomes real, and since they were plotting a change on *me* using Q powers and I was as Q as they were, I could see everything they wanted to do, every plan they were making. I could *feel* it like it was real, although it wasn't yet." "She stopped them?" "She called in the rest of the Continuum. Maybe if they *had* managed a fait accompli they would have gotten a slap on the wrist, but since they didn't actually succeed and I was still the same brat I always had been, they were stripped of their powers and thrown out of the Continuum." "Were they considered children too, or were they adults?" "The line was really blurry at that point. Probably not as adult as I am right now, but definitely older than I was then. But we'd have done the same to actual children. There are things the Q don't tolerate doing to one another. Otherwise they'd have rewritten *my* mind and I'd still be with them, except I wouldn't be me anymore." "You told me that you feared mindmelds because the Q all fear mental intimacy, because you can be absorbed into each other." "Oh, we do, and we can, and I did think that was the main reason. That, and when other Q can read behind your shields they generally go out of their way to mock you for it, so the idea that other people can read my mind and I can't read theirs is something I have about a million years of being humiliated with, so it's not like I'm ever going to be happy about it." He tried to shrug, but it hurt, so he aborted the movement. "This thing was fifty thousand years ago. It wasn't exactly at the top of my mind; I never thought about it. I barely even remembered it until tr'Sahlassiu tried to do the exact same damn thing." "I'm sorry," she said. Her voice sounded oddly hoarse, almost as if *she* was about to cry. He looked back up at her again, but her face was as still and calm as it always was. He was hearing things, reading too much into it. She wasn't *that* bad at emotional control... well, except that the Ferengi had been drugging her, but the idea that she might *cry* over something that had happened to him fifty thousand years ago was ridiculous. "It's not -- I'm not -- you know, I haven't been going around moaning about how traumatized I am because someone tried to make me someone else, when I was younger. It's just... I fought back this time. He was only going to kill me, because he couldn't get my defenses down far enough that he could rewrite me. I would have died cleanly... because you're right, being changed like that is a fate worse than death. So, you know, I shouldn't be so upset about it. But... I didn't *trust* them. They used brute force. And I didn't trust him, so he couldn't do it." "Are you trying to say that you trust me too much to trust me? I find that paradoxic even for you." It would have hurt to laugh, so he grinned instead. "Oh, I can get far more paradoxic than that. Believe me. But... yes. If I did let you in... I know you wouldn't *try* to turn me into someone else, but, you know, you've spent the entire time we've known each other trying to turn me into less of an asshole, and you once threatened to throw me out an airlock because you thought it would teach me a lesson, and that's what the Q do... and I'd never voluntarily let one of *them* in that deeply either, not so deep I couldn't throw them back out again, and you're more powerful than me. In terms of telepathy. I couldn't stop you. I'm not even sure I'd know you were doing it." "I see." "I don't... I'm not trying to insult you. I don't think you'd ever deliberately hurt me, but... you want me to change my behavior so I'll be a better person, or happier, or whatever. Most of our entire relationship is built on that. And even though I fired you, I don't know. If you had the opportunity to just make a little tweak here or there, would you take it?" "It would be very, very difficult. As you say, your ego is very strong. And our relative power levels mean little in a mindmeld; I could start it, and I doubt you could break it against my will, but your ego could probably override mine more easily than the other way around." She pulled her hand away. "But I will not violate your trust. If you don't wish me to meld with you to try to help you with the pain... I'm not offended. It's better this way. Because Caesar's wife must be above reproach. If there's even the chance that you would believe I had mentally raped you, I would rather not expose either of us to that. I would much rather..." Her voice did break then. "I would much rather keep your trust, and your friendship, than to solve any fleeting medical problem in a way that ruins what bond we do have." Q sat up into a kneeling position on the bed, gasping at the sudden agony in his back. "T'Laren? Are you all right?" There were *tears* in her eyes. Oh, if he ever did get his powers back, the entire Continuum would be unable to prevent him from de-evolving Yalit and her goons into lizards. Or fruit flies. "It's the drugs," she said. "My control -- my control-" She took a deep breath. He could *see* her forcing her emotions down, shoving them in a box. The process took longer and was more visible than he'd ever seen it on her. Or any other Vulcan. "Is there something you need? A drink of water?" A trick he had learned fairly early in his sentence to humanity -- when one was on the verge of tears, drinking something, anything, could keep your breathing regulated, stop the sobs before they started. "No." She breathed deeply again. "I am in control. For the moment." "Okay, good." He didn't want to lay back down. He was exhausted, but sitting up had been excruciating, and laying down the first time had been as well, and he didn't want to deal with the pain just yet. It was easier to deal with the exhaustion. Q carefully got off the bed and stood up, taking care not to let any pressure land on the back of his legs. "You said this will feel better in the morning?" "It should. The reason for the pain is neural overstimulation -- the same reason why, if you look at a bright light too long, you see blobs of light in your vision when you look away. Eventually the nerves will calm down and the pain will recede." "Then I'm going to eat all your grapes and hopefully get drunk enough to pass out. Since you shouldn't be eating them, with the drug in them." A thought occurred to him. "That dicydrenaline stuff is safe for humans, though, right?" "I doubt the drug in the grapes will affect you in any way." "Good." He grabbed a handful of the remaining grapes and stuffed them into his mouth. The bitter aftertaste was tolerable if he kept putting new grapes, with their overpowering sweetness, into his mouth and biting them open before the bitterness of the last grapes had a chance to settle in. He didn't much like the taste of real alcohol in the first place, and the sweetness would have been cloyingly overpowering if not for the terrible bitter taste of the drug and the somewhat less bitter taste of the liquor, but it was medicine, so he took it. T'Laren brought him a glass of water. "If your goal is to consume enough alcohol that it will dull the pain or help you sleep, you should make sure to drink plenty of water. This is real alcohol, not synthehol. You'll have a hangover in the morning if you don't stay hydrated." "I've tried real alcohol before. I'm aware of the issue of hangovers." The alcohol burned the back of his throat, making the bad taste less and less of an issue. He was actually starting to feel a little woozy. Good. With the pain he felt right now, total unconsciousness would have been ideal; if a bit of wooziness was the best he could get, he was all for it. "When they bring dinner, should I let you know?" "No." The pain nauseated him, the alcohol numbed his throat, the stress killed his appetite -- there was no way he was eating anything tonight. "I have no intention of diluting any medicinal effect I might be able to get out of these things by filling my stomach with food instead. You can have mine, whatever it is. Just pick the meat out of it." "I find I'm not particularly hungry either." "Yeah, but *you* should be diluting your drugs, and if you store up water like chipmunks store nuts in their cheeks, the only way you're going to do it is by eating more food." "It no longer matters. Now that I understand what's happening, I don't think diluting the drug will have much effect one way or another." "Do what you want, then. I'm not your dad." The role reversal in him telling T'Laren she should eat made him chortle, which made him remember how much pain his back was in, which made him stop laughing after he'd barely started. Well, at least he wouldn't be a giggly drunk. He'd eaten almost nothing today -- breakfast however many hours ago, and the grapes now, and that was it -- so the alcohol was hitting him hard and fast. Good. If he threw up at least it would be dry heaves. And if his goal was to quickly achieve unconsciousness, he thought he might actually get there before he ran out of grapes. He was feeling distinctly dizzy now, and his body felt sluggish, unresponsive. "I'm planning to pass out shortly. If I throw up while I'm asleep, and it looks like I might choke to death on my own vomit, let me." "It doesn't matter how many times you ask me, Q. I'm not going to kill you, or let you die." She took his hand. "I promised you I wouldn't let harm come to you, when I took you off the starbase. I may not be able to prevent Yalit from hurting you, but I won't do you harm myself, or let you come to any harm I can prevent." In a feat of unconscious irony, she was squeezing his hand hard enough that it hurt. "Then watch the hand, Superwoman. I'm a fragile human, remember?" She let go instantly. "I -- I'm sorry. I didn't mean -- " " -- To hurt me, yes, I know. I got that. I know you've got yourself barely under control and it's not your fault but can you watch the getting physical? You don't seem to know your own strength anymore." His speech sounded slurred to him. That was actually funny. He seemed to recall from the brief time he'd spent frequenting bars on the starbase before he'd gotten beaten up in one that drunk people frequently felt the need to point out that they were drunk, and he'd always wondered why they did that. Perhaps it was because, being drunk, they didn't realize how incredibly obvious it was from their speech. Of course, he was much, much smarter than the average drunk human, so he could clearly tell that other people would be able to hear the alcohol in his speech, which meant that he was of course not going to mention it, because it was obvious. He started to laugh again. This time the pain in his back was a lot less. "Are you all right?" T'Laren asked. "Am I all *right?* I'm *drunk.*" He laughed again. "You see, I knew I would say it. Even though I just said to myself, of course I'm not going to say it, because it's obvious, so it goes without saying. But it's something about the human brain chemistry. You can't *prevent* yourself from telling other people that you're drunk. Even though they know you're drunk, because your voice is slurred and you sound completely drunk. They should rename it the Stating the Obvious Drug. Although humans are pretty good at that even without getting drunk. For instance, why do human men insist on telling beautiful women that they're beautiful? Don't they already know? But maybe the men are drunk too. That sort of thing does seem to go on a lot in bars. And lounges. Which are not the same thing. You knew that, though, right? That they're not the same thing? So I'm stating the obvious again?" "I'm going to let you sleep. Perhaps you should save the rest of those grapes." "What, all two of them? What would I save them for? To get *you* drunk? Because didn't the Ferengi already do that?" "There's actually eleven left, and I doubt they could get you drunk, but if Yalit uses a neurowhip on you again they're all we have to help you with. I don't think you need more tonight." "Oh, but they're so tasty." He snickered. "That's a joke. They taste horrible. I know you like them, but that's because you're a Vulcan and you have no taste. Literally. Although actually to be literally I'd have to bite you or lick you or something and discover you don't taste like anything." She shuddered slightly, her eyes widening. Q was surprised. "That was a joke, too, T'Laren. I'm not going to bite you. You're being ri... ricu... I can't believe I'm so drunk I forgot how to say ricudilous. Ridiculous. Right, that's it. See, it's rid... that thing I forgot how to say." "I'm not afraid of you biting me, Q." "You're a liar. And you're not a very good one. I saw you... tremble, or something. I know your emotional control isn't good but it's really ri... I keep saying that word and it doesn't work because I can't say that word. Ridiculous. Which sums up this whole situation. But anyway I was saying that it's ricu... ridiculous for you to be trembling because I joked about tasting you. I mean, I admit it was a bad joke, but I *am* drunk. Oh, hey, is that why they do it? Maybe they keep saying how they're drunk because they want people to forgive them for really bad jokes and the fact that they can't say ridiculous." "I did not *tremble*. And if I had it wouldn't have been because I was afraid." She took a deep breath. "You'll be all right. I'm going to let you sleep now. Because I will *not* do anything to harm you." And then she left, carrying the rest of the grapes. Q tried to sit up, annoyed that she'd suddenly abandoned him and planning to follow her out of the room, but firstly, the pain in his back, while much muted by the alcohol, was far from gone, and the sudden motion made it spring back to life like a wild animal leaping on him, and secondly, the entire room swayed wildly and he realized that if he felt dizzy and sluggish while lying down, sitting wasn't going to improve matters and standing or walking were probably out of the question. He took another sip of his water, since his mouth felt dry, and then laid back down, remembering at the last second not to flop because that would probably hurt a lot. Maybe he was drunk enough that if he closed his eyes he'd fall asleep. &&& Predictably, Q felt awful in the morning. His mouth was furry and his head was pounding. At least his back was significantly improved; the fiery awful pain everywhere from yesterday had dulled to three distinct lines of terrible soreness where the whip had actually hit him. He was more queasy than actually nauseous, and probably could eat breakfast if he forced himself to, but the idea wasn't very appealing. What really made him feel horrible, though, was the memory of what had happened yesterday. He was beaten completely. If he didn't do every little thing Yalit wanted, she had demonstrated she had no qualms about torturing him, and the fact that he hadn't killed himself in response more or less called his bluff. What very little power he'd had in this situation was gone. He wished desperately that he really did have the power to kill himself. Or that T'Laren had been willing to snap his neck for him. There were no fixtures on the ceiling he could use to hang himself, and the one time he'd experimented with strangling himself to death with his own clothes, he'd come to the conclusion that he simply couldn't do it; no matter how badly he wanted to die at the time, the sensation of choking to death would inevitably lead to him scrabbling to pull the tourniquet off his neck. He didn't have enough freedom of motion to space himself out the airlock, and he didn't have any weapons or poisons. There was no choice but to obey... and the worst of it was it was quite plausible that Yalit might decide to punish him for something intangible, like a bad attitude or being surly or sarcastic. He would actually have to *be* subservient, not just obey grudgingly. But if he went too far she'd probably decide he was being sarcastic and torture him. Or let her flunkies rape T'Laren to get to him; one could argue that he was obviously and unavoidably impaired in his work if *he* was tortured, but they could do anything they wanted to her without causing him a physical impairment. He couldn't face the kind of pain Yalit had proved herself willing to cause him for any reason, and he couldn't face the thought that T'Laren would suffer any more than she already had for what he had done. "Are you sure you won't snap my neck?" he asked T'Laren as he left his bedroom. She was already awake, or possibly had never gone to sleep, and was practicing martial arts. "Positive." She kicked the wall with sufficient speed and force to snap *someone's* neck, although from the angle it was more likely to be a Ferengi than him. His escort arrived. "Human. It's time to go earn your keep," the Ferengi guard said. "Hey, I don't get breakfast first?" "You can eat grubworms on the job like the rest of us," the guard said, snickering. "Come on." So they didn't intend to feed him decent food anymore now that they'd proven they didn't have to. Fine. Q had gone five days without food to make Eleanor take the monitors out of his room, after his second suicide attempt; he didn't have to eat the grubworms. He would just starve, and when he collapsed they would realize they needed to feed him something he could actually eat. "As long as there's coffee," he said. "And what if there isn't?" "Then I'll be significantly stupider and slower than usual. Not that you could tell the difference, but if your grandma wants my brain at peak performance, I need coffee. Beating me up won't help me think better." "Fine. You can have coffee. And share our meal." The Ferengi snickered again. Q looked over at T'Laren. She wasn't looking at him or the Ferengi; she was still exercising violently, her entire concentration on the imaginary foe she seemed to be fighting. "T'Laren? Are you going to be all right?" If they weren't feeding him, they probably weren't feeding her, either. "Fine," she said shortly. Clearly she didn't want to talk to him. She was within her rights -- he had gotten them into this situation and couldn't get them out, and every bad thing that happened to her now was his fault. Still, it was very upsetting to him that she was ignoring him. The burden of despair and guilt and fear on him intensified. To all intents and purposes, he was alone in the worst situation he'd ever been in, in his human life. But then, he'd been alone for all the other bad situations, too. He was just going to have to deal with it. Swallowing hard and looking away so he could pretend he didn't care, Q turned back to the Ferengi. "Fine. Let's go get that coffee and get to work." He wasn't going to able to pretend to be enthusiastic about this job, but if he pretended he was at least working as voluntarily as he had with Starfleet, maybe Yalit wouldn't complain about his attitude or something. &&& *Control.* Q was gone. The maddening delicious scent of male human still lay over absolutely everything in the room, but at least the source of it was gone. And the sight of him, and the sound of his voice. She could get her control back. Maybe. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It had never been like this before. Before it had always been triggered by Soram, by his need, so there was never any holding back. Perhaps there was some frustration, some anticipation, before they could be alone together, because of course proper Vulcans wouldn't carry on in public even if they were dying, but they had served together in Starfleet -- years ago Vulcans had pressured Starfleet, otherwise an organization openly hostile to families, into establishing that married Vulcan partners both serving in Starfleet could *not* be transferred to separate ships under any circumstances. She had never *had* to control the pon farr before; it had always been a wonderful excuse for letting go, for no longer having to maintain the rigid control that chafed at her so badly. The fact that theoretically it could be life-threatening if unfulfilled was hardly a consideration, because it would be fulfilled, no question. She could die of this. It was quite possible. Vulcans rarely died anymore; interacting with so many other species had taken the edge off some of the stupider cultural traditions. Nowadays Vulcan men who went into pon farr without their wives were allowed by custom and culture to fulfill their need with a willing alien, a fellow Vulcan who was unmarried if they could find one, or a prostitute as long as the prostitute was not a slave or coerced into their work in any way. Vulcan women who were not choosers were allowed the same, and choosers as well, provided that they were certain that the substitute man was both willing and was their own free choice, so they didn't risk unleashing bloodlust against him. But in the past, when it was considered too shameful to talk about and all Vulcans of the right age were married and a Vulcan couldn't even admit to a non-Vulcan what the problem was, men had died, and sometimes women as well. It was usually less powerful, less deadly for a woman because it was triggered by her telepathic bond with her husband, and women who were weaker telepaths were less affected -- or women who, whatever their level of power, had chosen to hold themselves aloof from their men. A woman who was a strong telepath, or a chooser who had made her choice, though -- they could die of it, and they had. And T'Laren's telepathy was irrelevant in this case. *Farr t'gahn* was a Romulan aphrodisiac, a sophisticated pharmaceutical that triggered the remnant Romulans had of *pon farr*. Vulcans weren't sure, but believed that Romulans had either practiced selective breeding or genetic manipulation to get rid of the weakness of *pon farr*, and probably only then discovered that it was tied to telepathy. The period the Romulans called *pafaren* was a time of heightened sexual arousal, and magnification of whatever tiny telepathic ability Romulans had, channeled into intimate relations. It occurred at random in both sexes and was considered a highly entertaining nuisance, rather like getting drunk would be if you could get drunk against your will off your own biochemistry. *Farr t'gahn* had been created by the Romulans to trigger their own much milder Time, for pleasure, but since Vulcans and Romulans were still biologically almost identical, it could also be used to push Vulcans into *pon farr.* The Romulans had discovered at some point that administering it to male Vulcan captives made it possible to rape them, force them to breed against their will with Romulan women, who would then raise the half-Vulcan, telepathic children to join the Romulan secret police. Of course it had always been possible for Romulan men to rape Vulcan women, but the *farr t'gahn* was used to break the victims' will, making it less likely that they could use biocontrol to prevent pregnancy. Melor had explained all of this to T'Laren after he'd discovered she was a spy, when he'd felt betrayed and enraged and had wanted to terrorize her with the knowledge of her fate. Perhaps if she'd simply thought she would be killed, she wouldn't have violated every ethical principle Vulcans had regarding telepathy to seduce Melor, force a mindlink on him, and save herself by rewriting his memories. The drug essentially caused *pon farr* in any adult Vulcan, male or female. It didn't matter that she was a woman, and her telepathy was only relevant in that she would need to mindlink with any man she had sex with or it wouldn't satisfy her. Not that that would stop her. The utter humiliation of what she faced if she lost control burned through her. She would need sex, crave it from any man however repulsive, would be driven to beg for it or try to force men into it... and if the men who gave it to her were the Ferengi, it wouldn't *work*, and she would still die. Humiliated beyond measure, broken, begging, dignity shattered, and she would still die. If it was Q, she would live. Because if she was broken by her need, she would force a mindlink on him. But he had made it very clear last night that, like Vulcans, he considered that rape, and she would rather die than harm him. She had to get this under control. She *had* to. The restless energy burning through her hadn't let her sleep last night, and she'd lost interest in food, which was just as well as it didn't seem the Ferengi were interested in feeding her. The only thing that controlled the need even slightly was hard physical activity... but when she grew physically tired and couldn't keep doing calisthenics or katas or any other workout, the need was still there. Q's presence hadn't helped. All night she had wanted so badly to go to him, to kiss him and nibble on his cool human skin and open him up, sink herself into his mind and lose herself in him. Impale herself on him, pound and grind, use his body and mind, be inside him and around him and hold him inside her. He would have been horrified if he knew. He had never *had* sex as a mortal. There was no way she could do this to him, no way she could take him the way she wanted to take him. She'd almost lost it last night when he'd gotten drunk on the grapes and made a stupid pun about tasting her, and she'd imagined his tongue on her skin and came dangerously close to jumping him. She'd almost even rationalized it to herself -- he was drunk, his inhibitions were lowered, she *knew* he was physically attracted to her, if she was ever going to get him to agree and not be traumatized by the whole thing wouldn't that have been the right time? But she knew better -- getting someone drunk so they'd agree to sex with you when they wouldn't agree if sober was still rape. The door opened. Four of the Ferengi entered the room. She looked over at them, felt a pulse of rage that they had done this to her, and turned away deliberately so they wouldn't see the fury in her eyes. "Is there something I can do for you?" she asked, punching the air repeatedly, watching her form. Strike, strike, strike. That one was bad; if she'd actually hit someone with it she might have hurt her thumb. "I think maybe there's something we can do for *you*," one of them said, giggling. He stroked his ears. There was no logic, no reason to the rage that filled her. But she was still Vulcan. She could control it long enough. "Really? What is it you think you can do for me?" They all laughed, a sound that grated horribly on her ears. One of them stepped forward. "I hear you might be having a little problem? A little frustration?" They all laughed again. "Something your human no-lobe eunuch can't do for you?" "And what would that be?" He came closer, one hand on his crotch. "Maybe a little bit of -- " She didn't let him finish the sentence. Her fist slammed into his neck. Ferengi faces were tougher, denser than most humanoid skulls, but their necks were as vulnerable as any other humanoid. Before he had even fallen she was moving, leaping past him. She grabbed the next closest one by his ears and swung him violently, using his own thrashing legs as weapons against the other two, and finished by yanking on the lobes hard enough to rip them. Then she flung him aside and went for the two she had hit with their fellow. One had his phaser out. She hit his hand hard enough that the phaser went flying across the room, then punched him full force in the solar plexus with her other hand. The fourth man screamed and ran out the door. "You want me? You want to fuck me?" T'Laren screamed after him. "You can fuck my fist up your ass, you sons of a diseased whore! Come on! You wanted fun, let's have -- " She stomped brutally hard on the man she'd just dropped. "FUN!" Her whole body tingled. She felt numb, sluggish, but still alive, still mobile and enraged. She spun around and almost fell over, dizzy and disassociated from her body, and saw the first man she'd attacked, the one she'd hit in the throat, holding a phaser on her. He was trembling and shaking. "Fuck it's on *stun* she's not stunned she's not *stunned* -- " "I tell you what," T'Laren said, almost conversationally. "You can try to reset that phaser to kill, and I can snap your fucking little monster neck before you can get it reset and fired. Or you can run for your life. Right now." He ran. He ran, and the one whose lobes she'd torn ran, and the one whose ribs she'd just stomped on and broken rolled, moaned, and got to his feet and ran. It took all the control she had left to let them, not to follow them and tear their heads off. And then they were gone, and she started to shake violently. No. She hadn't just tried to kill four men with her bare hands and no plan, she hadn't just taken a stun as if it were almost nothing. She hadn't just screamed obscenities at a fleeing man. This wasn't her, this wasn't who she was. She was now, again, the woman who had murdered Soram. She knew why she'd done that now. She knew what was wrong with her. She was a chooser. T'Laren started to laugh hysterically, because she finally knew why her biological father had died. It all made sense. Why had a human man and his wife adopted a Vulcan child? Oh, T'Lal had been best friends with Roger and Helene Dorset. Oh, of course. And that explained why she hadn't let her own family, far-flung across starships as it was, take in her daughter? Why her dead husband's family hadn't been able to track the baby girl down until she was 16? T'Lal had murdered T'Laren's biological father in the throes of *pon farr* because she was a chooser, and she'd chosen Roger Dorset. Had T'Laren's adoptive mother Helene even known her husband had been cheating on her with her supposed friend? Had T'Lal known she would inevitably be driven to kill her husband when she agreed to marry him? Why did she let herself choose a human man if she was already bonded? Why had she let herself go through with an act that would result in an innocent man's death? And what of T'Laren's own situation now? Who had she chosen? Would she kill Q if he *did* offer himself, the way she had just tried to kill the Ferengi? Did she need Soram, or Tris? Would she try to kill the wrong one if he approached her? But it didn't make sense, because she'd always been told choosers picked one man and would kill any other who had or tried to have sex with them during *pon farr*, so long as their chosen one was alive. Ordinary Vulcans during *pon farr* preferred their mate but would, if separated from a bondmate or especially if unbonded, willingly have sex with anything that moved, if it offered and sometimes if it didn't. The Ferengi had offered her sex and she'd wanted to kill them. Wanted to break every bone in their body, rip their lobes off all the way with her teeth, smash them and tear them and rip them asunder. Last night she'd wanted to jump on Q and fuck him senseless, not kill him or break his bones. Logically that made sense, because Q was as psi-sensitive as any human and Ferengi were psi-null, but everything she'd read said that logic had absolutely nothing to do with one's reactions during *pon farr.* She wanted Q. Still wanted him, badly -- even more so now that she was part-stunned and shaking in reaction to her own violence and the inadequate phaser stun. Wanted to kiss him, touch him, feel him, wrap her fingers around his cock and feel it harden, watch his face when he lost himself in pleasure. Make him writhe and cry out, make him shove it into her and hammer her until she melted. She hadn't wanted the Ferengi, at all, and in fact had wanted to kill them for wanting *her.* If she was a chooser, then she'd chosen Q. Which was horribly wrong, and stupid, illogical, every nonsensical thing ever. He was a former patient, and even if he'd fired her he was still very vulnerable to her. He was a virgin. He had enormous hang-ups about sex. He had even more enormous hang-ups, and outright phobias, of telepathic intrusion. He had *been* telepathically raped, by his own kind when he'd been supposed to be invulnerable and by tr'Sahlassiu recently. He was, despite brief moments of being wonderfully heroic in his own way, a self-centered asshole who would be a very poor choice for a boyfriend. He was the last person she should have chosen. Except that, as nearly as she could tell, she had chosen him, against all logic because *pon farr* didn't operate on logic, and now she was stuck. Even if they were rescued tomorrow she would still want him. Was it possible for a chooser to want more than one man? She imagined Tris here, offering himself, and felt no urge to violence. She imagined Soram. No, him she still wanted to kill, again. Soram had betrayed her; Tris never had. She still loved him. He would be safe to turn to, if they were rescued tomorrow, which they probably wouldn't be because if *Yamato* had had the slightest inclination they were in trouble then *Ketaya* would never have been allowed to launch. But Tris wasn't here, and Q was, and oh how she wanted to please him, caress him, feel him inside and *fuck* him -- No. No. She was too far gone; she couldn't be thinking this way. She couldn't *want* this. She *had* to overcome it, had to get her self control back. Or lock herself away where she couldn't hurt Q. She would not rape him. She wasn't an animal, she was Vulcan. She would get control, or die. Quite possibly die. But better that than to harm an innocent man who considered her his only friend in the universe.