InseQurity

Naomi came down the corridor, trying not to puff. It had been a tiring walk, even for her and she still wasn't sure why she hadn't just put off her evening exercise when she'd discovered the holodeck was booked by someone with a higher priority than her own. But she was stubborn, and that was the way it was.

As she came around the corner, she heard an eerie, spine-tingling sound, like a dying animal or something in pain. Instinctively, she flinched, then kept going at a slower pace, not one to back away from danger even when that might be the bright thing to do.

Huddled on the floor was a broken shape... reaching out for something? She couldn't tell for certain. Whatever it was, the person was hurt. Without even thinking about it, she knelt down.

"Hello? Are you..."

Before she could say anything else, Q broke away from her, cowering, moving as far away from her as his injured state would allow. Naomi could see how much it hurt him to move, but he was still scrabbling for purchase on the floor, trying desperately to put distance between them. His voice came out in a broken litany of terror. "Don't hurt me don't kill me please don't kill me please please don't hurt me."

Naomi backed away from him. It was Q, she knew him now, although she wouldn't have recognized him if he hadn't spoke. He was nothing like the proud peacock she remembered, and she couldn't imagine what kind of monsters would do something like this to him.

They had to get out of there. She bent down further, making herself as small as possible. "I won't hurt you."

Q focused on the tiny redheaded woman kneeling in front of him. She was much too close to him and he couldn't stand it and she was going to hurt him and nothing would stop the hurting.

He whimpered and shrank away. She got up to go to call for help, and spotted his comm badge, lying on the floor a meter or two away. She wasn't wearing one of her own, because she didn't need it for anything and rather preferred no one being able to find her. Naomi went to it, picked it up and tapped it. "Dr. Allen to Sickbay."

"This is Dr. Li."

"I've got Q here. He appears to be very badly hurt. I don't think you want to try to move him; he's terrified of someone hurting him more. Can you beam him directly there?"

"I can arrange for it. Where are you?"

Naomi told him, and within a few minutes, the shimmering descended over them and then they were in Sickbay. Naomi didn't realize how scared she'd been until the bright lights were all around her again. Having people there and noise and motion was an intense relief after the darkness of that lonely corridor. She didn't even consider that a few moments before that she'd been walking through there on her own; finding Q there, brutalized, had colored her impressions completely.

"Noooo!!" Q howled, and without even thinking about it, Naomi went to him.

"What are you doing to him?" Naomi asked fiercely, putting herself between Q and the doctor.

Li looked at her as though she were the stupidest person in the world. "I'm trying to help him."

"That's not what it sounds like."

"It's Q. He... he can be somewhat irrational."

Naomi glared at the doctor. "Well, be more careful with him. Someone just tried to kill him."

Li muttered under his breath, too low for her to hear, "So what's new?"

In the grey recesses of his mind, Q had tried to fight off the man who had tried to hurt him again, and failed, and then the red-haired woman had protected him. He didn't know how he knew that, how he knew what had happened; he wasn't listening to anything they were saying, too wrapped up in his own pains to be aware of words, but he could hear it in her tone, feel it in the way she stood between him and his attacker.

Then the pain came again as they moved him to one of the beds and started cutting his clothes off of him to get at his injuries. Q saw it all as dark shapes moving in on him, hurting him, trying to kill him, and he began pleading again, tears coming to his eyes, "Please no no please don't kill me please..."

And then she was there, and there was a soothing voice in his ear, murmuring comforting words to him, stroking his head, and he turned into her. The people who were hurting him didn't go away, and he wanted to protest, wanted to be terrified of them, but as long as the comforting presence was there, he felt safer.

Li looked up at Naomi, cradling Q's head against her, and crooning to him. "Good, keep him quiet, this will be easier."

Naomi shot a glare at the doctor, but didn't stop. She didn't even really know Q, but he was broken and he seemed to need her, and for the moment, that was enough.

Taking care of his wounds seemed to take forever. Long before it was done, Q had lapsed into unconsciousness brought on by the painkiller and sedatives they had given him.

Still, Naomi didn't leave. She didn't know why she was staying. She hardly knew Q and didn't think he remembered her at all. They'd met precisely once, during the drive to find anything to stave off the Borg threat. He'd been brilliant, egotistical and entirely unreachable. The interchange of insults at that time had been a brief moment of forgetfulness and sparring in the midst of tension and the numbness that could only come from too many hours spent going over the same failed solutions to the same impossible problems. He wouldn't remember that; it could hardly have been as significant to him as it was to her.

But she couldn't leave him. Not given the way he'd clung to her. Q had been frightened of everyone there, of even the doctors. She was the only one he seemed to trust, and it went against her grain to abandon him.

Q woke up to a world of pain and soreness, coming out of nightmares he couldn't remember but loathed himself for being weak enough to have. It wasn't enough that he was frightened of everything, that he had make up more things to be frightened of while he was asleep?

He looked around. He was in Sickbay. He knew the bland decor here better than he knew his own rooms; no wonder, since he was here more often.

Curled up on a chair next to his bed was a small, red-headed woman. Q didn't recognize her, but something in the back of his head did. Flashes of unimaginable terror went through him, distorted, mask-like faces, people hurting him, interspersed with images of a comforting presence, of someone who looked just like the woman in the chair.

Horror went through Q in a shock as all of the experiences of the night before flooded back into him. He'd been coming back from the physics lab, and then two men had stopped him. He'd known as soon as he saw them that they were going to kill him. The masks they were wearing made that blatantly obvious. Beating up on him was one thing; he had been beaten up on by any number of people, including the occupants of one of the starbase's bars for transients, and there had been no reaction at all from the people supposedly protecting him. Beating up on Q was an enjoyable hobby around here. But the masks meant something different.

He'd tried to beg, had begged, but it had been no use. With the ease of long practice they had hit him, punched him, kicked him, left him bruised and beaten on the floor.

And then she had arrived. He had only dim memories of that, of being terrified of her as well as everything else, of trying to get away from her, and then, after she had apparently had them transported to Sickbay, seeking comfort from her.

That was an even worse humiliation. He had cried on her like a helpless child, and everyone had seen it.

And now he was here in Sickbay, and Security, for Q knew that Security had been the ones to do this to him, was trying to kill him.

Hopelessness and rage went through him.

"You're awake?"

The voice penetrated his thoughts and Q looked up to see the woman who had taken care of him the night before. "What a brilliant deduction."

"Thank you," she said gravely. "Are you all right? Are you in any pain?"

"What are you, some kind of nurse? Of course I'm in pain."

"I'll go get the doctor."

When she came back, Q was sitting up. "I'm leaving."

"Really?" Li asked. "I thought you were in pain."

Q glared at him for a moment. "Does it matter? I'm sure you'd rather have me squirming in agony than give me anything which will help."

Naomi glanced at Li. "You will give him something, won't you?"

Li looked at her, annoyed. "That was the general idea, yes."

Q didn't have time to protest as Li injected him with another painkiller. "You can go back to your quarters, Q, as long as you promise not to exert yourself. You need rest more than anything else right now."

"Yes, Mommy."

Li shook his head, and turned to speak to someone outside the room. "He's ready to go back now."

Two Security guards entered the room, and Q cringed before he could stop himself. Naomi saw the movement and stepped protectively closer to him, looking between Q and the guards.

Faking a wellness he didn't feel, Q got down from the bed and strode out.

Naomi tagged along behind him, still curious as to exactly what was going on here. However, neither Q nor the guards spoke.

At the door to his quarters, Q turned on her. "What are you doing here?"

Naomi flinched slightly. "May I come in?"

"No," Q said harshly, then went inside.

Naomi shrugged, watched him go, then left, not noticing the Security guards, who followed Q inside.

Once inside, Q realized someone had followed him. He swiveled, ready to lambast the foolish woman for disobeying him. But the words died on his lips as he realized who had followed him. Security. He didn't know if these were the two who had come after him. With masks on and in the dim light of the corridor it had been impossible to tell who they were. That only made this more frightening.

"What are you doing here?"

The taller one shrugged slightly. "Orders. We're here to protect you."

His smile seemed to Q more like the smile of a predator. "I don't want you and I don't need you. Leave!"

The guard shook his head. "We'll be staying. Watching you."

That was what he was afraid of. Q fled into his room, locking the door behind him, and then realized that wasn't going to do any good. They were Security. They could override the computer lock. If they wanted to kill him and finish off the job, he was dead. A howl of fear and anger stuck in his throat. He didn't know what to do.

Q commed Anderson. She put him through a brief explanation of his attack before she would hear any complaints from him. Q fussed and fumed through that, before he was finally able to tell her why he'd called. "You have to get these goons out of my quarters."

"The Security guards are there to protect you, Q."

"Security tried to kill me!"

"Q, we've been over this. You have no way of knowing who tried to kill you. You said your attackers were wearing masks. Until we can find out who did try to kill you, having Security protection there with you makes the most sense."

She closed the connection and Q jumped up, pacing. He was going to die. He had no doubt in his mind that they were going to kill him. The only question was how much they were going to make him suffer first.

Suddenly he wished he hadn't sent that woman away. It was a foolish thought; he didn't need her and there wasn't anything she could do. Of course, they'd be less likely to want to kill him in front of witnesses...

And he didn't know her name. He had no idea who she was. She was just one more in the string of faceless people roaming around the starbase. He didn't care to learn their names. For the most part, they weren't worth getting to know. And they all hated him, even the ones who were almost worth talking to.

Before he could stop himself or think better of it, Q queried the computer. "I need the name of a woman, most likely human, about 1.5 meters in height, red hair."

"There are six persons matching that description."

"Display a picture of each of these." Dr. Naomi Allen was the third of these. Q felt a tremor of relief go through him at just seeing her face. That was as contemptible as everything else he was feeling right now. Why should he want anyone else? Why should he be so affected by the sight of this person, when he knew that nothing and no one could or would help him?

Now that he had her name, he could contact her. It would be simplicity itself. But the very thought of it frightened him. To call her would be to admit to his fears, to expose himself to the worst kind of rejection.

But the alternative was sitting outside his door. Security. Waiting to kill him.

With a strangled sob, Q placed the call. Her face appeared on the screen. "Yes?" She recognized Q, saw the strain in his expression. "Is something wrong?"

"No!" Q said automatically, then wished he hadn't. He meant yes, but he couldn't say yes, and now that she was there, right in front of him, he didn't know how he was ever going to admit that he needed her. He couldn't. It was impossible.

Naomi cocked her head. "Nothing's wrong at all? You haven't magically reconsidered my offer and decided to invite me over?"

He felt relieved. Something he could answer. "It would be an enormous concession on my part, yes."

"Of course it would. That's why I'm so grateful for it. I'll be right there."

And she'd terminated the call before he could say another word. Q felt better. But what a pushy woman! She'd decided to intrude her way into his life on a bare word. How dare she?

"He said he didn't want to see you."

"Well, I just talked to him, and he'd changed his mind. Can you go ask him?"

After a brief wrangle at the door, Security let her in.

Naomi stood in the middle of the room, waiting as Security got Q to come out of his room and confirm that he had indeed called her there.

At that point, they just stood there, Q staring awkwardly at Naomi. She knew he had to want to talk to her about something, and yet, how could they talk with the guards there? They could go into his room, but apparently, that wasn't an option.

The silence extended between them until Naomi felt it was becoming ridiculous.

She turned to the guard who had let her in. "You can go now."

He stifled a laugh. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Our orders specify that we are to remain with Q..."

"Then remain outside."

He looked significantly at her. "We can't leave a threat to Security with him alone under the circumstances."

Naomi stared at him for a moment before realizing he was classifying her as a threat. "I was next to him all night in Sickbay. I found him when he'd been attacked. If I were a threat, I had a lot of better chances to kill him than this."

"Nonetheless..."

Naomi stared at him. "Leave."

"Ma'am, if you can't refrain from attacking duly appointed members of Starfleet Security, I'm going to have to arrest you."

Naomi's expression was fixed and disbelievingly. "I want to talk to your commanding officer."

"With Ohmura's death," and Naomi thought she caught a glance past her at Q, who had slumped into a chair in a posture of extreme defeat. "I'm the highest ranking officer left until the commodore assigns a new Security Chief."

"Then I want to talk to the commodore. Now."

Anderson was not pleased to be hustled down to Q's quarters in the middle of what was a busy morning. She was in the middle of her investigation into the fracas surrounding the attempt on Q's life. The official version of events hadn't been taken from him yet, but given the computer records, and the accounts from Drs. Allen and Li, there wasn't much he could have told them. The little Q had added during his call earlier only made it that much more her problem than anything else, at least until a new Security Chief could be located. The current members of the Security department were competent enough, but not of the rank or quality she wanted to promote.

"What seems to be the problem?" Anderson asked in a deceptively mild tone.

"They won't leave," Naomi said.

"We need to take Q's deposition," the guard said. "Dr. Allen was interfering with our duties."

Naomi looked at him, mouth falling open. "You liar!"

Anderson held up her hands before it could turn into a free-for-all. "Let me understand this." She looked at Braun. "You're refusing to leave because you need to take Q's deposition."

"Yes," he said sulkily. There was more to it than that, but he couldn't very well admit to wanting to keep Naomi out just for the sheer pleasure of inconveniencing Q. Security had numerous reasons to want to discommode Q as much as possible, not the least of which was his culpability in Ohmura's death.

Anderson turned to Naomi. "And you'd like them to leave so that you could have privacy with Q?"

Naomi flushed. That didn't sound right at all. "Essentially, yes."

"Then take the deposition and get out," Anderson said to Braun. Her back was hurting and she didn't want to be there at all. The wisdom of her decision not to promote him to Chief was confirmed by this little incident. If Braun couldn't settle a kindergarten dispute like this, he didn't belong in charge of one of the most vital departments on the starbase.

Anderson stalked out, leaving the Security guards looking at Naomi with hatred.

Braun cleared his throat. "I'll take the deposition now. Unless of course, Q refuses."

Q sat in the chair, fright overwhelming him as the two guards approached him. One of them stood next to the chair, while the other one loomed over him, effectively blocking any possibility he had of getting away. Only Naomi's presence in the room reassured him. They wouldn't kill him while she was there. At the very least, she would call for help before they could hurt him. He was ashamed of himself for being so afraid, but he couldn't help it. He knew in his recently fractured bones what they were going to do to him, what they wanted to do to him.

The deposition went quickly, despite Q's insults and Braun's desire to stretch this out as long as possible. Q just didn't know enough to be of much use.

When the guards had departed, Q still didn't move from his chair.

Naomi looked at him, really looked at him, seeing the drawn lines of his face and his haggard expression. She'd had to restrain herself from attacking Braun when Q had revealed that Security had been the ones who had almost killed him. How could Braun be so cruel to Q when he'd undergone such an experience? How dare they?

She retreated inside Q's room, coming back out with a blanket. She tucked it around Q, who still seemed unnaturally restrained.

Naomi got a mug of cocoa from the replicator and came back with it, placing it in his hands, and sitting near his feet. He didn't drink it, but he held the cup, almost as if he was drawing warmth from it.

"I don't need your mothering," Q said finally, after a very long time.

"Of course you don't," Naomi said, leaning up against his legs. "I just like to do it."

"How typically human." He set the cup down, and then felt even emptier without something to hold, something to do with his hands. He couldn't even begin to describe how terrible, how soul-destroying it was to be torn apart by people and then be forced to describe it all back to those very same people while they pretended not to remember it. They'd taken it like he'd been praising their fine handiwork.

And, from their point of view, he probably had been.

Q shuddered again uncontrollably.

"Are you still cold?" Naomi knelt up, then moved to the edge of the chair. She didn't know whether this was a good thing to do or not, but he'd needed her last night in Sickbay and she moved ahead in the courage of that conviction, tugging his head to her and pressing herself against him so that she could hold him.

With a strangled sob, Q's arms went around her. He didn't want her, didn't need this, but he couldn't refuse it either. He was going to hate himself later, as much as he hated her now, but he had to accept. The need was too great, and at the moment, it didn't matter that she would only turn on him and hate him like everyone else he ever knew always had.

Q woke up feeling pained and uncomfortable. He could barely stand, and the only thing he wanted were painkillers. Of course, he couldn't get enough of them to do any good, he never could, but anything was better than this.

After the drug had taken effect and he had been able to complete his toilet, Q felt better. Almost dead rather than just wishing he was.

He stopped at the door to the main room as a quick thought flashed through his head. The last thing he remembered was Naomi guiding him into bed. He hadn't had any energy to resist her; he had needed her too much then, as horrifying a thought as it was. That was all in the past.

But what if she were still there?

Steeling himself, Q stepped through. Curled up on the couch, fast asleep, lay a small woman. Q walked over, studying her, relief and panic moving through him. She'd stayed here. No one had come in during the night, she had protected him. But Security knew where she was and that'd she'd been there. Everyone would think that he'd invited this person here in order to engage in the deepest, most depraved acts he could imagine.

While Q was torn between the two possibilities, Naomi opened her eyes, awakened by his presence near her. "Good morning."

"What are you doing here?" Q asked, surly.

Naomi looked slightly confused. "You asked me over. The guards. Remember?" She sat up and stretched. She was wearing a light dress, and the action caused the material to tighten across her body.

Q swallowed hard, and turned away, trying not to limp.

"Are you all right?"

"Why would I be all right?" Q snapped. "People want to kill me, every bone in my body has been broken and reset, and now I wake up to this!" Q stood there trembling, the force of his outburst shaking through him. He was far weaker than he knew, and his raw emotions lay too close to the surface.

Naomi cocked her head. He was in pain, that much she understood. And he was frightened of Sickbay and the doctor, or she'd suggest that he go there. She certainly wouldn't put up with that much pain. She'd be begging someone for a backrub...

She stood up and came over to him. Instinctively, Q backed away, then fought the urge. He couldn't show that he was scared.

"Would you like me to rub your back?" The offer wasn't entirely as selfless as it sounded. Although she'd hardly take advantage of anyone as vulnerable as he was at the moment, there was something to be said for getting to put her hands all over him.

"Do you always proposition men first thing in the morning?" Q asked, trying not to say yes or no.

"Sometimes I wait until later in the day." She reached out to him, not quite touching him. "It'd help if you'd lay down."

Q found himself being led back into his bedroom and placed face down on the bed. He didn't know how that had been accomplished, and was starting to feel uncomfortably exposed when her hands ran over his back to settle lightly on his shoulders. The feeling was exquisite and he couldn't stop himself from moaning as a bubble of pain welled up, burst, and a feeling very close to relaxation took its place.

Almost immediately, the rest of his body started to hurt more, and Q imagined what it would feel like to have her hands on the rest of him this way, remembering how Harry Roth used to do this to him and how good it had felt.

Thinking of the physicist reminded him of something very unpleasant, of what backrubs were for. This was all a part of sordid human sexuality. He'd been tricked! How could he have forgotten? The pleasure he was feeling was only a lure to get him into bed and once he had sufficiently let down his guard, she was going to seduce him, derange his mind and common sense in order to use him for her own depraved purposes. And then she'd hurt him, humiliate him, make him a laughingstock or tear his heart to shreds.

She was just like all the rest of them.

Q didn't know why that thought filled him with such grim despair. In any case, he had to get rid of her now, before her touch destroyed what was left of his good sense.

He surged up out of her hands, and turned over.

"What's wrong?" Naomi asked, concern on her face.

Q used the pause to muster his self-control and put his facade in place. "Your services will not be required after all. I find that they don't meet my needs after all."

Naomi stared at him for a long moment before accepting that as the truth. She couldn't find any other truth in his eyes. She'd moved too fast here, and that was her own fault, not his. He was being polite, and in truth, probably wanted to rest in peace and quiet after the experience he'd had.

"All right." She got up, but turned at the door. "If you need me..."

"I'll be very surprised."

It was more than an hour after he'd been supposed to be at work before Q could muster up the nerve to leave the room.

The guards fell in behind him as he did. There were two different ones this morning, a man and a woman. Not that it mattered. They were both human. Q could be reasonably sure that the woman, at least, had not been one of the ones to beat him up, but that didn't mean she hadn't been in on it. All the humans on this starbase wanted him dead.

Except for Naomi. She wanted something far more sordid.

His mind skittered away from the thought of Naomi, concentrating on a much closer topic -- getting to work alive. There were scientists waiting to talk to him. Surely Security wouldn't choose now to kill him.

After all, since the attack, they'd been assigned to his "protection." They could get at him any time they wanted. They didn't need to do it now.

Q did not find that thought even slightly reassuring.

There were several people in front of the meeting room, milling in front of the door. Blocking his route in.

"Murderer!" a woman shouted. "How many starships full of people did you murder? How many planets did you destroy?"

Q didn't understand it. Aliens had attacked him countless times before, and had often claimed some story of woe and death as justification for their actions. They'd even killed well-liked people on the starbase before. Why was this different? One alien woman -- one alien woman whose machinations had caused Ohmura's death -- had told a sob story, and now everyone on the starbase hated him.

For the first few days after Ohmura's death, Q had ignored these outbursts. Humans were stupid, irrational, primitive creatures, and he could go mad trying to understand them. Besides, he'd figured they wouldn't hurt him -- that was what he had Security for.

He wasn't quite so unconcerned after the night before last.

Trying desperately to hide his fear, Q glanced surreptitiously back at his guards, to see if perhaps there was a chance they were likely to do their jobs. Their arms were folded, and the woman was snickering. Q turned back to the protestors in front of him. Security looked more likely to sell tickets than protect him if these people attacked him.

If he didn't go in, they'd know he was afraid. Right now he could make it seem that he was just being fashionably late. He showed up to these meetings late all the time, a small exercise of the only power he had. But if he stood here, waiting, frozen, everyone would know what a coward he was.

Besides, if Q screamed loudly enough, the scientists in the room would probably come to his rescue. They couldn't let him die yet; they hadn't yet had their chance to inflict their idiotic theories on him.

He swallowed and stepped forward.

"There were kids on that starship," the woman who'd called him a murderer hissed. "You're a despicable waste of life."

She was in his way. Q gazed down at her with his best mask of disdain, trying desperately to keep from trembling with terror. "And you, madame, are an underevolved primate with virtually no understanding of the universe. You would hardly recognize truth if it bit you on the nose. Now kindly move out of my way."

"Why? So the Federation can profit from sheltering a murderer?" she snarled.

Her cohorts moved in on him menacingly. Q's knees started to go weak. Involuntarily he glanced back at Security, who showed absolutely no signs of planning to intervene.

"An eye for an eye?" he asked harshly. Through the fear, he felt a small modicum of pride that his voice hadn't shaken at all. "You don't approve of me, so you're going to attack me now. Oh, how very enlightened of you. I cannot imagine why I ever thought you a primitive, backward species, such moral sensibilities you show."

The woman backed down, stepping out of his way. "We'll get you," she snapped.

"Stand in line," Q retorted, and stepped forward into the safety of the meeting room.

He couldn't let this keep happening. Living in terror of Security was bad enough. Living in terror of everyone else on the starbase was sheer hell.

Briefly, longingly, he thought of Naomi. These people hated him, but she was their fellow human. She could make Security do what she wanted. She'd even talked Anderson into actually being helpful for a change. Would it be so dangerous to call her?

Harshly he squashed that thought. Of course it would. She wanted only one thing from him, and when she didn't get it, she'd turn vicious, like Amy Frasier had. Or if something impossible occurred and she did get it, which she never would, she would think he was terrible, and repulsive, and then she'd turn on him, like Harry had. And he would never know the point where lust turned to hate until it was too late. At least he knew where he stood with Security.

On the other hand, where he stood was with one foot in the grave. And he desperately didn't want to put the other foot in.

There had to be something. He racked his brains, barely concentrating on the idiots talking to him. Someone he could trust...

And then he had it. Remembering the incident with Amy Frasier had triggered another memory. The Security people who'd rescued him from Amy had been Ohmura, and a Vulcan female. Sekal's wife, what's-her-name, right. T'Meth. He couldn't believe he remembered that. Vulcans were among the most boring species the universe had ever seen fit to bring into existence, but they were not likely to be swayed by a mob mentality. It was Security's job to protect Q, and a Vulcan would remember that, even if everyone else forgot it.

Contacting T'Meth directly did not work.

Like all unimaginative, hidebound people around the universe, she would not leave her post without orders. Never mind that her post consisted of sitting around in the Security offices all day waiting for someone to have a problem. Or pacing up and down some useless stretch of corridor. He was clearly more in need of Security's services than anyone else on the starbase, but she had her orders. When he asked who could grant his request, he learned that her immediate superior was Braun -- the man who'd tormented him last night, the man who might very well have been one of the two that tried to kill him.

Oh joy.

From experience, he knew better than to comm Anderson. She would come when he called, if she felt like it, if no other pressing problems like a shortage of grease in the replicator hoppers or diplomats with hangnails turned up. If he tried to argue her into anything important over the commlink, she would simply disconnect rather than listen to him. Anderson seemed to be willing to do almost anything to avoid listening to him.

No, he had to go to her office. Which was halfway across the starbase from here, through territory that Q had learned was hostile, to his pain. And all the way, he would be flanked by a pair of goons who wanted him dead.

The other alternative was to hide under his bed all night , and all day the next day, until she finally showed up -- and hope that no one dragged him out from under the bed in the middle of the night and finished off what they'd started. This was even less appealing.

He was a nervous wreck by the time he reached Anderson's office, and was not in the mood to wait. He walked in on her while she was in the middle of talking to someone.

"...not very diplomatic, no, I'm afraid. But then, that isn't what he's here for -- Just a second, Professor. I have an emergency on my hands." She froze the comlink and turned to him angrily. "I thought you'd grasped the concept of 'doorbells' two years ago."

"And I thought you'd grasped the concept of 'security.' As in 'protection.' As in 'giving the people who tried to murder Q free access to his room is a bad idea.' It's too bad you don't seem to be that bright."

Anderson sighed heavily. "We've been over this, Q. We don't know who tried to kill you yet."

"I do. But of course why would you listen to me? I'm only the victim."

"Do you have names? Faces? Anything substantial to go on?"

"They were wearing masks!"

"Exactly my point. We can't leave you without protection because you have an irrational hunch that Security attacked you."

An irrational hunch? Q was outraged. He knew the way Starfleet Security moved, knew the way they talked. They might have been wearing masks, so he didn't know which ones they were, but he knew what they were beyond question. "And what if I'm right? Did it ever cross your mind that I might be right, dear Eleanor? You seem to consider it a nuisance I personally have inflicted on you that you have to explain to my visitors that I'm hurt and can't see them. Exactly how do you propose to explain it to them when your incompetence kills me?"

"And suppose you're not right. If I don't leave Security guarding you, whoever tried to kill you could ambush you again, or break into your room while you're sleeping. Do you want to run that risk, Q? I don't."

"Better that than letting the murderers in!" His voice cracked, sending a wave of humiliation through him. He couldn't break down, not now. "Besides, I'm not asking to be left without protection. I just want protection worthy of the name."

"I'm in the middle of a call, Q. I haven't got time for your games. Either spit out what you want, or leave."

"I want T'Meth."

"Who?"

"Surely you remember her, Eleanor. Vulcan security officer? Cold, humorless, unimaginative? I want her guarding me."

Anderson was starting to go from annoyed to genuinely angry. He dared make sweeping demands at a time like this? Who did he think he was?

"She's one of our best investigators, and I currently have her assigned to your case," Anderson snapped, Q's clarification having narrowed the context enough for her to remember the person he meant. "If I demoted her to babysitting you, we'll lose days on the investigation, and the people who attacked you will be running around free. I don't think you want that."

Q had the worst sense of timing in the universe, to be making demands now, Anderson thought. At the moment she didn't even want to see him, to be reminded he existed. It was not exactly that she blamed him for Ohmura's death. Ohmura had been a good man, a good security chief, and a friend, but he was, after all, a member of security, trained and expected to protect civilians at the cost of his own life, if necessary. And no, it wouldn't have been necessary if Q had obeyed her and ducked when she shouted, but Q was a civilian, and civilians did stupid things under pressure. She couldn't blame him for freezing.

What she blamed him for was not being worth it. Jihana Melex's story had been heartwrenching; Anderson had encountered enough deadly weirdnesses out in the universe, during her days on starships as crew and then captain, to know exactly how she'd feel if an omnipotent being showed up and forced her crewmates to undergo a test they could not possibly pass, or survive, and only she had lived to tell the tale. How many alien would-be assassins had Anderson allowed to be killed to protect Q? How many of those attempts had been justified? She'd heard about him doing things like -- well, like introducing humanity to the Borg, causing 18 deaths but helping humanity to prepare for an inevitable conflict. Some of his attackers had charged him with destroying their religious beliefs or their cultural taboos, but she'd never believed he deserved to die for that. And if he'd caused deaths that in the long run helped save far more of that species, she couldn't believe he deserved to die for that either. But he hadn't given any better reason for killing Jihana Melex's crewmates in his test than that he'd been in a bad mood at the time, and that changed everything. Now she knew that the creature she'd spent two years protecting and coddling was a cold-blooded murderer who deserved to die.

He would never be tried for his crimes. Picard had talked the Federation Council into issuing Q a blanket pardon under Federation law for crimes he committed as an omnipotent entity. The terms of the pardon -- it wasn't even a pardon, really -- recognized Q the human as a different legal being from Q the omnipotent, and therefore, not only could the Federation never try Q for his crimes, it could not allow him to be extradited by other governments for them, no matter how heinous they might be, any more than the Federation would let a child be extradited for the crimes of its father. A legalistic fiction had been created that absolved Q of all responsibility for his past life, because it was expedient. Q was useful.

And so good men and women would die to protect a monster, out of political expediency, and it was Anderson's responsibility to ensure that this was done. She was not a creature of politics, though she'd had to engage in it in her days as a starship captain and now. Justice was not being done, and her duty was to ensure that it could not be done, and the conflict between her ethics and her sense of duty was ripping her up inside.

And now the cause of the injury had brazenly turned up on her doorstep, demanding she do more to protect him from the fate he richly deserved, belittling the actions of men and women who put their lives on the line for him every day, with no reward, by claiming they were out to kill him.

She had to protect him. She had sworn an oath to Starfleet to obey; she couldn't throw that out of ethical delicacy. Moreover, she had taken on the assignment to protect Q, and would perform that to the best of her ability. Anything else would be a betrayal of her oath to Starfleet and a betrayal of her self. And she knew how valuable Q was; she had been there the day the Borg were defeated. But the Federation was obtaining that value by making her sacrifice lives to expediency, and that hurt.

"What I don't want is to be murdered by those self-same free assassins because you authorized them to come in my room anytime they like," Q retorted.

"Fine. According to your deposition, your attackers were males of medium build. I'll assign female guards and male guards with odd builds. Will that shut you up?"

Inwardly Q flinched, assaulted by a sudden flashback. The last time someone had told him to shut up, he had been on the floor, begging them to let him live. And then they'd kicked him in the head to silence him. Outwardly he maintained a pose of controlled fury, no fear in his demeanor. He hoped. "You're missing the point, dear Elly. The two people who attacked me were members of Security, yes, but they just happened to be the ones who acted. All of them want me dead. All the humans, anyway. If you assign anyone other than a Vulcan to guard me, you're signing my death warrant!" His voice sounded too loud, too shrill in his ears.

"You're being paranoid. As well as ridiculous. Even if -- and this is a big if -- some few members of Starfleet hated you enough to violate their oaths, that doesn't mean they all want to kill you."

"But you haven't seen how they look at me," Q pleaded, growing more and more desperate. "It's written all over them."

"Has anyone made any direct threats?"

"They don't need to. Their body language does it for them."

"I don't have time for this," Anderson snapped. "I'm not going to feed your paranoid fantasies, Q. Security did not and will not try to kill you. The arrangements stand."

But what he wanted was such a simple thing, so easy for her to order. Rage welled throughout him as he realized why Anderson was balking. She wanted him dead too. Her oath actually meant something to her, so she couldn't act directly to kill him, but she could refuse to believe in a clear and present danger to his life. "Then I suggest you figure out a way to explain to my guests why I'm refusing to see them," he snapped, "because I refuse to continue to run a gauntlet to get to work in the mornings, and if you refuse to give me a Vulcan bodyguard, I will have to protect myself as best I can by staying in my room. At least that way if Security kills me it'll be obvious who did it." His voice was poisonous, laden with fury and sarcasm in a desperate attempt to mask the fear.

Anderson scowled at him. "Don't push me, Q. Two can play at that game."

"Going to cut my computer access off again?" Q asked mockingly. "What do I care? I've been entirely too preoccupied with not being killed to notice my computer lately. If I'm going to die, the loss of computer access seems a rather trivial issue, don't you think? And you can't confine me to quarters if I'm refusing to leave them anyway."

"I could always confine you to the brig," Anderson suggested.

All the blood drained from Q's face. To be locked up in Security's territory, at the mercy of whatever they might choose to do to him, was the most terrifying thing he could imagine. "Do that," he said softly, with venom, "and you may as well simply shoot me, because I will never work for you again." Which was certainly true. Even if he wanted to, he would be unable to, for the simple reason that he would be dead.

Anderson studied him. It was a painfully tempting thought. Q wouldn't carry out his threat, and if he did, there would be no more obligation to protect him. On the other hand, it had been hard enough explaining to the waiting scientific dignitaries that they had to wait because Q had been injured and needed a day to recover. If Q simply refused to go to work, the vultures would descend on Anderson en masse, and she didn't relish that thought. And she was sure that Q would stop working for at least a week or two just to make her life unpleasant in revenge, if she put him in the brig now. If anything could make him put up with boredom, it was spite.

"I'll assign T'Meth to you until the perpetrators have been caught," she said finally. "I don't for a moment believe you'd quit and risk losing all protection over something like this, but I don't feel like putting up with the hassle. Once we've identified your attackers and ensured that they can't hurt you again, Security will go back to a regular guard rotation schedule. Satisfied?"

No, he wasn't, but it was better than ending up in the brig. Besides, if T'Meth guarded him until his attackers were caught, surely she'd see what the rest of Security was doing to him, and realize how he needed someone like her. "For now," he said.

He waited in the lobby in Anderson's office for T'Meth to show up. The security goons that had brought him here glared at him, but for once he didn't care. They wouldn't dare kill him in Anderson's office, and he didn't need to go back with them.

T'Meth arrived, ramrod straight and expressionless as she relieved the guards already there. Q inspected her with a vast sense of relief. "You know, whoever designed Security uniforms obviously never imagined that Vulcans would go into security. That yellow color goes beyond repulsive against your skin."

She ignored that. "Do you still have business here?"

"Why?"

"Your quarters are more secure."

Now that she was here, perhaps she was right. Q got up., the unbearable pressure of the last few days' terror easing ever so slightly. "This is beyond a doubt one of the most boring locales I've been forced to spend time in," he said grandly. "Shall we return to my quarters for an infusion of good taste?"

She still didn't respond. Damn. Sekal would have made a dryly sarcastic retort to that. He was a lot more fun than his wife, it would seem.

T'Meth made him wait in his bedroom while she systematically inspected every inch of the living room, carefully removing the bric-a-brac and various antiques, moving them to the other side of the room, and then pulling apart every inch, searching under the sofa pillows, under the furniture, pulling open the drawers... even to him, it seemed she was being paranoid. When she repeated the process with his bathroom, and then made him wait in the living room while she continued in his bedroom, he was almost sure of it. He stood at the door and made rude comments throughout. A large part of him resented the intrusion, the fact that everything he owned was being closely inspected, but T'Meth pointed out that if security truly wanted him dead, the smart thing to do would be to plant an explosive or something in his room while he was out. And another part of him appreciated that. She was being enormously paranoid, but that meant she was taking him seriously. And she was thinking of things that he himself would never have imagined. Whether they were things that were even remotely probable or not wasn't the point; Q felt annoyed but considerable more secure after she was done.

She set up a logging program to record all entrances and exits into Q's room, and established a lockout code such that only she, Q and the medical department could override the door if it was locked. "The arrangement is less secure than I prefer," she said. "If you and I are attacked by assassins and neither of us has a chance to release the door, Security will either need a doctor to release the lock or will need to be beamed in. Precious time will be lost. However, since it is likely that Security itself presents a threat to you, we must compromise."

Something taut in his chest loosened then, something that had been tense so long he hadn't felt it until now. "You believe me?" he asked, hardly daring to hope.

"The evidence would seem to point in that direction. Someone sabotaged the hall monitoring system. The evidence I've been gathering makes it clear that that person had access to the system. Therefore, logically, either a member of security, who would have legitimate access, or someone with programming or engineering skills, who could obtain illicit access, was involved. Obviously, most of the people with the necessary skills are concentrated in the programming and engineering departments. The programmers have little motive; you rarely interact with them. Engineers are a less likely possibility than programmers, because their specific skill set lends itself to mechanical chicanery, and there is no evidence of mechanical tampering. In addition, they have more motive than anyone else here to wish you safety, as your work has enabled their department to produce enormous breakthroughs, but they themselves deal with the science department and rarely with you directly. They derive benefit from your presence and are not often inconvenienced by you, as people who deal with you directly often are. The number of people outside those departments with the requisite skill sets are very few; and Security does, in fact, have motive to wish you harm. Also, for an engineer or programmer to sabotage the monitors would require extensive planning; a Security officer could simply shut them down on a momentary impulse. Logically, it follows that Security are the most likely culprits."

Someone believed him. He swallowed hard against an inexplicable desire to cry. "Why didn't you tell Anderson that?" he asked harshly.

"At the moment, I have no hard evidence, merely conjecture. I did not wish to make a report until I had something more."

Shortsighted stupidity, and he told her so. If she had reported her findings to Anderson the moment she had them, Q wouldn't have had to browbeat Anderson into giving him adequate protection. T'Meth ignored him.

He spent a significant portion of the evening mindlessly, rearranging the knickknacks that T'Meth had put into disarray. She claimed to have put them all back exactly as she found them, but he didn't believe her; he distinctly remembered the arrangement being completely different. He expected T'Meth to try the old chestnut about Vulcan eidetic memory, but she said nothing; she sat in the main room, impassively staring into nothing. It was unnerving.

One of the objects was broken. A small and very delicate crystal, it had been on the table next to the chair where he'd given his deposition last night. He remembered a large meaty hand on the table, forming a barricade to keep Q from escaping, and remembering thinking at the time that it was like having a bull in a china closet. But he'd been more concerned with survival than breakage, then.

Q picked up the shattered crystal, dismayed. A vicious comment rose to his lips, and died. He knew T'Meth hadn't broken it, had seen the meticulous care with which she had handled his things. It had been them, last night.

They wouldn't be happy until they broke everything he owned, would they?

Such a small thing, such an inconsequential thing... its breakage was nothing next to the wreckage of his life, and yet to his horror Q felt tears welling up. It was as if the little crystal symbolized his life right now, and the image was the final straw. An anguished sob forced its way past the tightness in his chest. He had to get to his room, had to hide himself -- he couldn't let anyone see him like this. But his legs buckled under him and refused to take him anyplace, as the sobs came harder, faster. He felt like the crystal, something so terribly fragile that the slightest carelessness had shattered him, and now there were broken shards of him all over the floor, crying hysterically for no particular reason. Why was he crying? He had T'Meth guarding him. He was safe now, or as safe as a mortal could get, anyway. Why was he crying?

Through humiliation and tears, he glanced up at his protector. She had gone to stand by the door, and was facing it, away from him, as if his emotionality disgusted her so much she couldn't bear to look. The humiliation intensified, and mingled with a totally irrational desire to beg forgiveness, to seek comfort. He wanted someone to hold him, like Naomi had held him last night.

A moment later he had dismissed the desire as the most unbelievably stupid thing that had ever crossed his mind. T'Meth was honoring his privacy to the extent that she could, since she couldn't very well stop guarding him and leave. And that was what he wanted. He didn't need someone to hold him, to entangle him further in the weak emotions he was feeling. He was Q, and he didn't need anybody.

Slowly, with hiccups, he managed to stop crying. He got to his feet and staggered to bed without looking at T'Meth or acknowledging her presence in any way. She wouldn't pry or gossip like a human, he knew; she would pretend it had never happened. And he would do his best to do the same.

The protestors were in front of the meeting room again the next day. Q hesitated instinctively. T'Meth, one pace behind and to the side of him, moved forward, stepping into his path, and strode forward. Encouraged, Q followed.

"Clear the area," she said.

The woman who had accosted Q yesterday shook her head. "We're a peaceful protest group. We have a right to be here."

T'Meth's eyes narrowed very slightly. "By order of Commodore Anderson, during periods of threat to Q's safety, Security is authorized to take whatever measures are deemed necessary to protect him. You will clear the area now."

"Or what?" someone sneered.

There was suddenly a phaser in T'Meth's hand. "Or I will stun you all and have you dragged to the brig, pending deportation off this starbase."

"You're protecting a cold-blooded murderer, did you know that? So much for Vulcan pacifism and Vulcan justice!"

"Move away from the door, ma'am, or I will be forced to stun you."

Q watched all this in uncharacteristic silence, feeling marginally safe in public for the first time since Ohmura's death. The protestors backed off slowly, milling away. If Q hadn't been in public, he would have sagged with relief. A few months ago, he'd have been disgusted if he'd heard that a member of Security threatened to stun a crowd of innocent protestors. Now that they were protesting him, however, he found himself understanding the move a lot better.

T'Meth stepped forward to the door to the conference room, so that it opened, and peered inside, phaser at the ready. Q saw scientists inside with startled expressions on their faces. Ivory tower morons probably had no idea of the threat to him, or else didn't care. "It's clear," she said. "Go in now."

In a better mood than he'd been in in days, Q made his usual dramatic entrance.

Today, T'Meth was using the console in Q's living room. Q had been trying to relax in his room, but it was impossible with a voice out there, disturbing his privacy. Why couldn't she use keyboard input? Q stalked from his room.

T'Meth looked up as he came in. "Q. I was about to request your presence. There's something I would like to discuss with you."

"Such as the fact that your chatter out here is keeping me awake?" It wasn't actually, since he hadn't been trying to sleep. But it was the principle of the thing.

"I have been investigating the whereabouts of Security officers at the time you were attacked, and I've identified three officers who I believe can be trusted to assist with the investigation." She touched a key and three images appeared on the screen -- two humans and an Andorian.

"Security officers? You can't be serious. None of them can be trusted."

"Unlikely. There are sufficient circumstances in the case of these three that I believe they can. All three have substantially different builds from what you described of your attackers, and for various reasons I doubt any of them were involved in a coverup." She touched the Andorian's picture. "Ensign Sev was on guard duty in the brig all night, as there had been a bar fight approximately two hours before your attack. Sev subscribes to a warrior ethic, and believes that committing violence against a non-combatant is the act of a cowardly, worthless being. He is highly unlikely to have willingly participated in the plan or assisted in covering for those involved in the attack."

"Yes, well, he's not human. It's the humans I'm worried about."

"Lieutenant Veloz was on the holodeck, playing poker with six other people. In addition, Veloz rarely socializes within the department, and is highly conscientious about following regulations and avoiding impropriety. It is extremely unlikely that Veloz would have been recruited to assist in a cover-up. And Ensign Koratagere was at the bedside of his wife, who was giving birth. He has been on paternal leave for the days since, and most likely had priorities above harassing you. In addition, Koratagere is an unlikely suspect in any case, as his crewmates speak of him as easy-going, friendly and slow to anger."

"They're still humans in Security."

"Q, I require backup. Today if the protestors had rushed you, my protection might not have been adequate. There were several points where you were exposed to them, for the simple reason that there is only one of me. I am not asking your permission, merely informing you that I have chosen these three to back me up, and why. Have you ever experienced unpleasant behavior at their hands?"

"No," Q said reluctantly. "I don't think so. It's so hard to tell; I can't keep all those faces straight."

"Sev is the only Andorian in Security and Veloz and Koratagere are both distinctive in appearance. I suspect you would recognize them."

"I suppose." He did recognize Koratagere from the picture, a cheerfully grinning Indian man who Q remembered as startlingly short and slight for a Security officer, and who had generally been polite to him. Perhaps T'Meth was right.

"Then they will be assisting me. I may on occasion call on them to serve as my relief, and one of them will accompany us to your duties in the daytime."

"How do I know they won't harass me?"

"If they harass you, which is unlikely, they will be relieved of duty."

That was only mildly reassuring, but still better than the assurances he'd gotten from anyone else. "Are we quite done here?"

"I have additional questions to ask you." She swiveled in the chair. "According to your deposition, your attackers were masked, and you claimed to be unable to distinguish members of Security from one another by body language or build."

He had a hard enough time distinguishing them by faces. "I remember what I said, thanks."

"Would you be able to distinguish their voices? You said they spoke to you."

"Can't you figure out whose whereabouts are unaccounted for?"

"To the extent they ever are, everyone's whereabouts are accounted for," she said dryly. "Members of Security work in pairs when we are not on alert status, and often patrol areas of the starbase where there may be no other crew at the time. As a result, few members of Security ever have an alibi stronger than their partner's word. Since most of the Security teams consisted of two male humans or near-humanoids of average height and build, and most of those have only their partner's word for an alibi, we need something more substantial to narrow the choices."

The voices echoed in his mind, hate-filled voices twisted with rage, screaming at him. "Maybe," he said.

"Good." She turned back to the computer. "Tomorrow we will go to the Security office and you'll listen to recordings of the suspects being questioned."

"Can't we do that here? Why do we have to go to the Security office?"

"Because the system that allows you to access suspect files is protected, by privacy regulations, and can only be accessed from Security consoles."

The idea of going to the Security offices, the heart of enemy territory, terrified him. But he had a trusted bodyguard with him. T'Meth wouldn't let him get hurt.

There were no visitors scheduled tomorrow. Under most circumstances, Q would have spent the day in the physics lab instead, as it was entirely too boring to stay at home and do nothing. T'Meth had a project for him, though, so the physics lab would have to do without. Which was just as well. There was a particular person there who Q would rather not see in anything resembling a vulnerable state.

He hadn't been in the Security offices since Ohmura's death. They had always seemed cold and impersonal; now they were downright terrifying. The people in them stared at him coldly, every line of their bodies eloquently expressing what they'd do to him if T'Meth weren't there. Q swallowed and forced himself forward, having to literally concentrate in order to put one foot in front of another.

They were met at the console by Lt. Veloz. "All the suspects have been questioned and recorded, sir."

T'Meth nodded in acknowledgement and gestured Q to a chair. "We will play back recordings of the suspects being questioned. The suspects include all the males in Security, Engineering, and Systems. Once you've identified your assailants' voices, we will try to obtain a confession."

The voices started to play. For the most part they were calm and controlled, maybe a little tense. Occasionally annoyance or genuine anger crept into the voices, but none of them were the shouting, twisted, rage-filled demon-voices that still haunted Q's nightmares. These were sentient beings he heard speaking, but the voices he remembered belonged to monsters.

Some people he latched onto in brief hope because of what they said -- the people who said, "I didn't do it, but I can't say I'm sorry it happened -- Q deserved it" or words to that effect. But he couldn't make their voices fit the pattern in his head. And eventually it occurred to him that the guilty parties probably wouldn't dare to say such a thing anyway. So then he concentrated on the people who expressed sympathy for him, or the people who protested with outraged innocent. But none of those fit either.

After several hours of this, Q looked up, defeated. "I can't tell," he muttered, all too conscious of his failure.

"None of these voices clearly belong to your assailants?"

How to make her understand? "The people who attacked me were complete barbaric savages. These... recordings you have are of people behaving rationally. How am I supposed to relate the two? People sound completely different when they're snarling like wild beasts."

"You cannot distinguish your assailants' voices because they spoke to you in anger?"

"They didn't speak. They shouted, or snarled, or slavered. Their voices were completely distorted by their savagery."

"Well, that doesn't sound hard to get," Veloz said.

"What do you mean?" T'Meth asked.

"Getting recordings of people snarling at Q. All we'd need to do is make a short list of likelies and have Q himself interrogate them. I'm sure he'd have no problems getting them to snarl at him."

"Very funny," Q growled. "I expect you think you're a wit."

"I'm serious. You won't recognize the voices unless they're furious. But you're probably more talented at making people that furious than anyone else on the starbase. If you question the suspects and deliberately make them angry, you'll probably recognize the ones that did it."

"What if Q cannot make them angry?"

"Then chances are they didn't attack him. People who can keep control of themselves don't go beating up civilians they're charged to protect."

T'Meth considered. "The plan has merit."

"Now wait a minute! Don't I get a say?" Terror coiled through Q's guts, tightening. To face off against the people who wanted him dead and deliberately try to enrage them against him was unbearably frightening. He couldn't do it. There was no way.

"Q, we need to narrow down the suspects. Without input from you, the task will be very nearly impossible."

"That's your problem. All of Security wants me dead anyway, so it's not like finding the perpetrators is actually going to make me any safer."

"You're being foolish and shortsighted," T'Meth said severely.

"Not to mention they'll be free. People who violated their oath to Starfleet and very nearly killed you will be free, gloating about how they escaped punishment. Everyone will start to believe that if they beat you up, too, nothing will happen to them. And sooner or later, those two will be on call when you end up in trouble. I just thought I'd point that out."

Veloz had a point, unfortunately. Maybe the fact that only two people actually had attacked him, out of all the people that wanted to, meant that they were the only two who thought they could get away with it. And if they did get away with it, it would be open season on Q. Q swallowed hard. "I want two people protecting me the whole time I'm with suspects," he announced.

"Logical," T'Meth said. "We will both be with you."

The interviews were conducted in a meeting room, far from the security offices, to minimize the chance that officers who hadn't been questioned would overhear the interrogation and figure out what was going on. All of Security would be questioned first, as T'Meth considered them more likely suspects than Engineering or Systems personnel.

In one sense the plan worked well. T'Meth and Veloz sat at either end of the room, silent and mostly unmoving, not drawing attention to themselves, while Q paced in the center, presenting an image of total control as he made vicious accusations against each suspect. He impugned their intelligence, belittled their skill and cast aspersions on their loyalty to Starfleet. The object was to get them angry enough to shout at him, and that he did. Through judicious use of body language, intrusions into personal space, and a bit of shouting on his part, he managed to make most of them defensive and angry, and could then tell from the voices whether they should be on the short short list or not. As far as doing what it was intended to do, it worked beautifully.

In other senses, it was a bad idea. Q's stomach had turned to a lump of knotted wood, more tense than animal tissue could bear, and between suspects he kept having to down anti-nausea agents. Standing up in front of people who might have tried to kill him and deliberately provoking them to anger took more courage than he'd thought he had. It was easier when he was actually doing it -- he could take the fear and the tension and focus them outward, against the suspect he was questioning. He was sick with fear but also high on adrenaline, momentum carrying him through. In between suspects, however, he came dangerously close to collapsing, closer and closer each time. He couldn't do this. It was impossible. He couldn't face one more angry Security officer. And then the next one came in, and the need to act took over, his lifelong performance skills controlling him, making his mouth and body move as if his physical form were a puppet he was manipulating, a small homunculus cowering in terror up in the top corner of his brain as he pulled the strings that made the body dance.

The fourteenth man he interrogated was a Lt. Blevins, who seemed to be on the verge of breaking, but had so far successfully repressed his rage. Repressed rage was not the goal. Q needed Blevins to express it. So after calling Blevins a monkey didn't work, and accusing him of conspiring against the interests of the Federation didn't work, and various and sundry other insults that had gotten the others to snap at him didn't work, Q felt stymied. Blevins was staring at him in silence, fists clenched and jaw clamped shut, a muscular tic twitching in his face. He just needed a little push. Something truly evil.

"I don't understand what you all were so upset for anyway," Q said with flippant coldness, watching Blevins carefully. "You must be aware that it's Security's job to be expendable. Your lives are basically debased coinage -- just warm bodies to throw into the line of fire, no minds of value to speak of. After all, there's plenty more where you came from, right? Stupidity does tend to breed in droves. No doubt somewhere there's an entire litter of people like you, the next generation of cannon fodder." That sort of comment usually got them. But Blevins was still clenched, silent. "Ohmura was only a Security officer after all -- it's not as if an important person died. Probably the most valuable contribution he made to the universe was in dying to save my li--"

Blevins snapped. He lunged at Q so quickly that even though Q had been watching, gauging his response, he hadn't seen it coming. Q screamed as Blevins knocked him to the floor, hands on Q's throat, squeezing. "You fucking bastard, we should have killed you!" Blevins snarled, slamming Q's head against the floor.

And then Veloz and T'Meth were on Blevins, dragging him off. "Let me go! He deserves to die, the fucking bastard, you heard what he said about the Commander..."

"You have the right to remain silent," T'Meth said. "You have the right to legal counsel..." It was actually taking an effort for her and Veloz to wrestle Blevins back, despite Vulcan strength.

"We should have finished it! Goddamn him, he killed Commander Ohmura and he's not even fucking sorry! He deserves to die!"

T'Meth nerve-pinched Blevins, and he fell in a heap.

"I'll get him to the brig. Veloz, stay with Q."

Q got to his knees slowly, sick and dizzy. His whole body hurt, most especially his throat and the back of his head, and he was shaking, light-headed and nauseous from terror. If the attack itself hadn't triggered flashbacks, the man's voice would have. It was unmistakably one of the two that had brutalized him. And even though Blevins had been dragged off, Q couldn't make himself believe he was safe.

"You... didn't mean any of that, did you?" Veloz asked hesitantly. "About Security, and Commander Ohmura. You were just trying to make him mad."

Q looked up at Veloz with an expression of pure contempt on his face. What an unutterably stupid question. He was going to say something cruel and witty in response, but his body betrayed him. The nausea overwhelmed him, and Q doubled over, fighting it, but it was too long denied. With a sick sense of humiliation, Q found himself vomiting, emptying his guts on the floor despite all the medication he'd taken.

"Hey! Are you all right? Do you need me to call Sickbay?"

Li would assume it was just a normal human thing that Q was whining about to get attention. "No Sickbay," Q said thickly. "I'm fine. I just need -- need to --"

He threw up again, dry retching, his body unconvinced that it had finished purging itself. Q felt the guard's hand on his shoulder, felt Veloz kneeling next to him, and stiffened in fear. But the touch was gentle, unthreatening.

"Let me help you get to the bathroom. You need help."

"No Sickbay," Q gasped through dry heaves.

"No Sickbay," Veloz promised. "We'll just get you cleaned up. Okay?"

And as if the humiliation of vomiting in front of a stranger wasn't enough, Q found the small kindness more than he could bear, and began to sob as the heaves left him, all defenses crumbling in the aftermath of such fear. He had to get up, get cleaned up, stop crying, but he couldn't, none of it.

"Oh, hey, hey, it's all right. You're safe. We got him." Awkwardly Veloz patted Q's shoulder, as if having no idea how to give any more comfort than that, though even that was too much. "I guess you didn't mean it, did you. Saying those horrible things must have made you sick."

Too far gone to hear the facetious tone, Q decided that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, and he wanted to point out that Veloz was totally wrong, that saying horrible things was Q's stock in trade and he was certainly not weak enough to vomit, let along cry, because he'd had to say something offensive. But he was crying too hard to speak. Too weak to move, too weak to stop, too racked with sobs to protest, Q could only kneel there in a puddle of his own vomit and sob brokenly as Veloz gave what awkward comfort it was possible for a member of Security to give.

Veloz helped him up before the sobs had abated. "Let's get you cleaned up. T'Meth doesn't need to see this."

The comment perversely reassured Q. It meant Veloz thought that his crying was disgusting and humiliating, of course, but then Q had already known that, and didn't care so much if someone else knew it too. But the statement that T'Meth didn't need to see this meant that Veloz wouldn't tell anyone, that this would be kept a secret. It was not that Q feared T'Meth seeing him like this, not much anyway; he knew from the incident with Amy Frasier that she would keep her mouth shut. She and Ohmura had both proven that, that day... At that thought an unexpected wave of grief hit him. He had never asked Ohmura to die for him. He had never wanted that.

"Do you need any help?"

Q pulled away angrily. How helpless did Veloz think he was? "Spare me your worthless pity," he snapped through the last of the sobs, and was gratified to see the shocked look on Veloz' face. Maybe now the guard would stop trying to play kindly babysitter. He stalked into the bathroom to get cleaned up.

Several glasses of water stopped the sobbing and quieted his stomach slightly, though they couldn't quite wash the awful taste out of his mouth. He couldn't get cleaned up enough to meet his own standards, was incapable of doing so with the resources he had here. His own clothes were a total loss; the vomit stains would never come out, and he was sure that the smell of fear would linger in the cloth forever. But the best clothes the replicator had to offer would still be completely unacceptable if he had a choice, inferior to anything he owned in color, style and fit. He could get his cosmetics out of the replicator without difficulty, since that was how he generally got them in the first place, but his hands trembled and kept smearing the makeup, and he couldn't seem to get rid of the red in his eyes, or the helpless, shocked look. Despite the makeover, he imagined he could still smell the sour tang of vomit about him, could still see his trembling hands, his tearstained face.

But this wouldn't do at all. He had to pretend nothing was wrong. If he focused on the legion of imperfections in his appearance, he would break down again, and that was totally unacceptable. So he took a deep breath and drank another glass of water. When he emerged, he was still weak and shaky, but in much better control of himself.

Veloz was waiting for him as he emerged from the bathroom. The guard was wearing an odd expression. There was no reason to dislike Q, indeed Veloz felt a certain amount of pity for Q, despite the evil things he'd said and the kind of person he was. Enough pity to want to help him, and enough lingering anger and doubt over the ring of truth in Q's voice when he'd condemned Security and dismissed Ohmura's death as meaningless to want to twist the knife. "Do you know why everyone hates you?"

And he had almost begun to trust this creature. Fear built up in him, fear that Veloz would turn on him too despite T'Meth's assurances and the seeming kindness displayed earlier. "As I understand it, the general consensus is that I murdered poor dear Commander Ohmura by having the temerity to have assassins come after me."

"That's not it. Everyone hated you before the Commander died, or they wouldn't be blaming you now."

This was not entirely news. "Then it's undoubtedly my charming personality and winning ways," he said bitterly.

"No, we've dealt with obnoxious people too. The problem is that you treat us like dirt. When we're risking our lives to save yours, you act like we're scum and we're wasting your time." This was said in a calm, reasonable voice, not the vicious animalistic snarling of his tormentors, but the content of the words made Q tremble inside nonetheless. "It would be different if you were some sheltered diplomat who has no idea he could get hurt. But we've saved your life over a dozen times. At least four of those times, you were in immediate danger of dying when we rescued you, and you knew it. So you know how important we are to you, you know how much you owe us, and you still treat us like dirt. Which means you're either the most ungrateful being in the universe, or you would really rather be dead."

Q swallowed, backing away from the security guard, finding a wall behind him and not feeling reassured by that. "How enlightening. I'll keep it in mind."

"I'm not going to hurt you," Veloz said disgustedly. "You can stop trying to run away."

The comment shocked Q. Had he been that transparent? He stiffened with affronted dignity. "I'm not frightened of you, I assure you. Merely bored."

"You should listen to me anyway," Veloz said. "People are just people, and if they think they're risking their lives for someone who thinks they're dirt, they won't do nearly as good a job. You should try being nice to Security for a change; if you hadn't treated us all like we were out to get you from day one, no one probably would be now."

"I'll send thank-you cards to the entire department," Q said sarcastically. "Now, I really do have some important work to do."

He turned away, trying to make a dignified exit, an expression of regal disdain on his face that collapsed as soon as his back was to the guard. Perhaps Veloz wouldn't hurt him; some few humans were capable of transcending the limitations of the species and overcoming their dislike for someone to behave professionally toward him. But Veloz had basically just admitted to hating Q, because Q had apparently not groveled sufficiently with gratitude. There would be no more moments of gentleness, of comfort, not that Q wanted that. And Veloz had a point. The rest of Security probably felt the same way, and were far less capable of being professional about it. The incident with Ohmura had merely catalyzed what they'd all been feeling anyway.

He wasn't safe. He would never be safe as long as he was on this starbase -- as long as he had to deal with humans at all. And as long as he himself was human, he would have to. Despair welled up. Could he really live this way for the rest of his life?

Stupid question. Of course he could. Because the only alternative was death, and if he took that way out, well then he still would have been putting up with this for what remained of his life, wouldn't he?

Shaking, Q led the way out of the room, followed by Veloz. For a tiny moment, he felt relief, that in leaving the room he had left its terrors behind. And then a horrible realization struck him. There was still one of them on the loose, and T'Meth was inexorable and merciless. Despite being the perfect guard, she didn't seem to particularly care about his mental health, only that he stayed alive. He could very well imagine T'Meth making him do this again.

He couldn't. He couldn't go through that interrogation process again. His mind and body rebelled at the thought, nausea rising up to choke him. And yet, he didn't have a choice, wouldn't have a choice.

Q savagely suppressed a sob. He wouldn't cry here, not now. He wasn't so weak he'd just break down in public.

Not yet.

With a feeling of suspension and terror, Q remembered Blevins' face changing as the guard attacked him. It wasn't reassuring at all to have a face to put with that twisted voice. Instead, the new stimuli only combined with the old. He could hear the voices, hear both of them screaming at him, feel himself going down, like he had only moments before, and even with T'Meth and Veloz there, Q had felt no more hope that he would be safe, that he would survive.

Even Veloz, the supposedly safe Security guard T'Meth had picked for him doubted and despised him. They all did. None of them believed him, any of them would be delighted to kill him for what had happened to Ohmura, even though it hadn't been his fault. Even Veloz.

Q shied away from his escort, dark, momentary flashbacks of another horrible night combining with the events of a few minutes past. They all wanted to kill him, and there was no safety anywhere, would never be safety.

"Q!"

The voice caught him by surprise, and Q nearly backed into the wall trying to get away before he realized who it belonged to and that Veloz was regarding him with suppressed disdain.

Naomi came over to him, ignoring Veloz entirely. Q's eyes were haunted, and he looked horrible, worse than she'd seen him since almost literally picking him off the floor, several days ago now. He'd needed her then, but afterwards almost thrown her out, and she didn't know how he felt about her at all. "Are you all right?"

Q wanted to run, wanted to not be there, to not be alive at all. There was only one person on the starbase he wanted to run into less than Naomi. And yet, something in him responded to her presence, felt oddly comforted that she was there. She was only a tiny slip of a woman, she couldn't protect him, and yet he felt like throwing himself on her mercy and begging her to keep him safe. A thoroughly ridiculous impulse.

And yet... "You can stop pretending you care," Q said acidly, having run through and discarded a dozen possible responses in those brief seconds. "I don't need your pity."

"Who said anything about that?" Naomi asked lightly, eyes worried. He looked very unhappy. "Mind if I walk you back to your quarters?"

He couldn't think of anything better. A wave of relief washed through him. He didn't want to be left alone with anyone from Security right now, no matter how confident with them T'Meth might be. After all, she was also from Security, and to Q's tired, terrified mind, it was all the same.

"I can't stop you," he said, striving for a grand tone.

Naomi tucked her hand under his arm, not waiting for permission. He looked like he needed all the support he could get, as if he might very well fall over without someone holding him up.

Q accepted it, a warm rush of comfort he didn't want to think about too much coming from her touch. Everything would be all right now.

Veloz escorted them back to Q's quarters, not quite sure what else to do. T'Meth hadn't left specific instructions on the subject of guests, and given that Dr. Allen wasn't a member of Security and had what amounted to a pre-existing relationship with Q, it seemed safe to say that she wasn't a suspect in the current case. Under the circumstances, it seemed that the best thing to do was to allow it, and notify T'Meth immediately.

When they reached his quarters, Naomi came inside with Q without being asked. He was too helpless for her to leave him, and although she didn't know what was going on, she couldn't abandon him like this. It just wasn't in her nature.

Veloz took a post inside the room, going immediately to comm T'Meth and inform her of their current location and Dr. Allen's presence.

Q didn't seem to notice, although he was aware of both of them. He didn't think Veloz would leave them alone; T'Meth certainly wouldn't have, and although he deplored the loss of privacy, Q couldn't say that was a bad thing. Their paranoid behavior outstripped his own, and gave him back a tiny feeling of safety, a feeling which had been entirely taken away today.

A sob escaped his throat then, and Q looked at Naomi, eyes horrified. What was he doing? Didn't he have any control at all?

Naomi pushed gently on his arm, steering him to the couch. She wasn't paying any attention to Veloz. Q didn't seem any more threatened by the guard's presence than he was by everything else, and right now all she was concerned about was Q and what was making him feel this way.

Q sat down, and she came to settle by his side, holding onto one of his hands with both of hers, expression concerned and sympathetic.

Q glanced at her, and that was all it took to set off the storm of tears again. She was entirely too caring for him to be able to deal with, and although he didn't want to cry, didn't want to show any kind of weakness, he couldn't help himself.

Naomi reached for him, drawing him close to her, and Q didn't resist, letting her hold his head against her. "It's all right," she said soothingly. "It'll be all right."

That was wrong, and Q knew it, but he couldn't form the words, couldn't speak at all. The only thing he could do was cry, cry and cling to her as if she represented the only form of security in the universe. And she did. There was safety with her, protection from all the gibbering evils that pursued him, solace for the unhappiness and discomfort he felt. The door had been unlocked, the homunculus unleashed and now he could vent all the terror and violent disturbance he felt.

Veloz let them have their privacy, keeping well away from them. There was obviously no threat from Dr. Allen to Q, much the opposite. The opinion of Q which had begun to form back in the interrogation room died in the face of that, and now Veloz was completely confused. One moment Q was being a sarcastic peacock, strutting about arrogantly as if he owned this starbase, or being brittle and touchy, rude to those who tried to help him, and it was hard not to hate him when he was like that. But just as he began to seem like a total loss, he would do something that showed his humanity, his vulnerability, like throwing up in the conference room or crying in Dr. Allen's arms, here, and it was impossible to keep hating him.

He was behaving as though Dr. Allen actually meant something to him. Veloz considered that in light of all the other facts. Dr. Allen's identity was well-known to all of Security. Even if she hadn't managed to call the commodore down on Braun -- not a bad thing in and of itself -- Allen's probable relationship to Q was somewhat of a running joke. Something to laugh about and deride. Only there was nothing to laugh about now. Veloz felt embarrassed to even be in the same room with them, to be intruding on what was obviously a very emotional moment for the both of them.

Q didn't even notice the guard. It didn't seem to matter right then. The only thing that mattered was having Naomi there, and knowing that she believed in him, that she would protect him, would keep him safe. It was a stupid thought, and in another frame of mind, Q would have never accepted it as being even remotely true. But in the depths of his pain and humiliation, it seemed like the only truth there was, and he clung to it.

Except she didn't know, couldn't know how horrible he really was. She would turn on him as they all had, if she heard about the incident with Ohmura. Q couldn't keep that thought from slipping out, and it frightened him. He needed this little island of safety, needed the haven she'd been providing him since the first moment he'd met her, bending over him in a dark hall. The wretched, eternal loneliness he had been feeling for so long had come to a head for him back in that interrogation room and, in the spasms and the sickness, all the boiling, horrible pain he felt had been exposed.

He couldn't go on being so alone, couldn't bear it if she hated him as they did, couldn't bear to be alive if this last person who believed in him turned away.

It was a pathetic thought, and Q clutched onto Naomi's tunic even tighter, unwilling to let go.

Soothingly, Naomi ran one hand through his hair, stroking it softly, her other arm around him, holding him close. She didn't know what he needed or what was wrong, but the question of not providing him with it never came to her mind. He was hurting, and that was all that mattered.

Q looked up through his tears, as if seeing her for the first time. "I didn't mean to do it."

"Of course you didn't," Naomi said, reassuring him, tone absolutely serious.

That didn't sound particularly convincing to Q's ears. He knew she'd hate him if she heard all the facts. She wouldn't believe him, no one ever had, or even cared.

But he had to tell her nonetheless. It was suddenly very important to Q that someone, anyone, that just one person believe in him. He couldn't survive without that. And if anyone would, she would.

"I wasn't frozen. I never freeze."

Veloz's ears pricked up, listening. The security guard had a very good idea of what this conversation was about; anyone in Security would. There was only one occasion of note where Q had frozen and done it in a dramatically damaging way. The issue of what had gone through his mind then had been debated repeatedly, with the conclusion coming down to the obvious: Q was too arrogant to follow the basic guidelines Security had laid down for him for his own safety. There was no question in Veloz's mind that this was the truth. Q had never even bothered to learn basic self defense; why should he care about anything else that they'd try to teach him, when, in his own words, there was so much expendable cannon fodder to stand in the way of any attack?

But it was interesting, nonetheless, that Q would bring it up at all, much less now.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Naomi asked gently, in a very soft voice.

Q didn't pull away from her, his head still resting in the curve of her shoulder, pillowed against her chest. He held onto her tightly, and stared at nothing in particular, taking comfort from the sound of her heartbeat.

Haltingly, he began. "He said... he was going to kill me." He remembered that with painful clarity, as if it had been burnt into his brain; remembered standing there, facing the gun. But how could he explain how he'd felt, when he didn't understand it himself? "He had a primitive Terran weapon in his hand, an antique firearm, and..." Q trailed off, unable to continue. This wasn't working. She would never believe him.

"And you were frightened," Naomi prompted. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"No! You don't understand..." There was no help for it but to plunge onward, muddling through. "I wasn't frightened, I was... I don't understand why. It doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't make any sense?" Naomi asked patiently.

"How I felt. I should have been frightened. But I wasn't. It was as if... he said it, and it was true. As if it were my... destiny." Q was aware of how melodramatic he sounded, but there was no other way to phrase it, no other way to understand it. "I didn't.. I didn't think to move, because it seemed like there was no way to avoid it, and I didn't even want to. It was... as if... I was fulfilling something by standing there. As if I were in a play, and this had been in the script from the beginning. I wasn't afraid... if I had been, I would have ducked. I'm not stupid."

"Of course you're not," Naomi said soothingly, still stroking his hair.

A wave of self-hatred washed over him, and he clung to her more tightly, hardly aware of doing so. "But I was. Why would I have stood there, like a complete fool, if I wasn't? Why wouldn't I have realized I was in danger until -- until Ohmura--" Another flashback assailed him -- lying on the floor in a pool of blood and gray matter with a broken human body on top of him, an empty shell hollowed out by a single shot from a primitive weapon, knowing that if the person who had been this empty thing hadn't interposed his body between Q and the bullet, it would be Q himself who would be gone, nothing remaining but a bleeding husk, like Ohmura was now... The horror, the guilt of that, was almost more than he could bear. He choked back a sob. "Ohmura was a fool," he strangled out.

"Why?" Naomi knew part of the story, knew that Ohmura had been killed trying to save Q. It was obvious that Q felt very guilty about it, and she couldn't bear to let him hold all this inside where it was tearing at him.

"He shouldn't have tried to save me. A phenomenal act of stupidity on his part. What sort of moron would get himself killed for my sake?"

The sympathy Veloz had begun to feel fled in a moment of rage. How dare Q? Had it never occurred to him that it was Security's job to get killed for his sake? That regardless of whether or not Q thought it was a smart idea, it had been Ohmura's duty? Ohmura had made the supreme sacrifice for Q, and all Q could say was that Ohmura was a moron.

Naomi fought a smile, Q's statement seeming inadvertently humorous to her, then lost the feeling entirely in a rush of protective anger as she realized how thoroughly Q meant it. "You don't think you deserved to live?"

"What does it matter what I think?" Q retorted hotly. "Every goon on this Starbase has already tried and convicted me. Nobody else thinks I deserved to live instead of Ohmura; why should I?"

She held him fiercely close to her, unable to think of anything to say to that, wanting only to keep him from that horrible self-loathing.

Her fervent embrace made Q feel a strange sense of security and comfort that perversely brought the worst of the despairing, roiling emotions to the surface.

"I didn't mean for him to get killed!" The words burst forth in a sudden torrent of pain. "People keep getting killed for me -- n'Vala, Ohmura -- I didn't want that! They all think I wanted him to die, I didn't care, they've all decided I'm a monster who goes about snickering and twirling my mustache as people drop like flies around me, but I didn't want it! I didn't mean for it to happen! I didn't..." He sobbed hysterically, brokenly, the pain raging through him too great to be borne. Everyone hated him and thought him a monster because people died for his sake, and maybe he was. Why did they keep throwing away their lives for him? What good was he to anyone? He was completely incapable of being a proper human, of fitting in with their pathetic little species, and that made him even more pathetic, the former god who couldn't even figure out how to act like a human, who couldn't keep himself from being hated and despised by everyone. If he hadn't been a worthless Q, the Continuum wouldn't have rejected him, and he certainly made a worthless human. Why did people die for his sake? What was wrong with them?

Veloz turned away again, trying to pretend not to hear that, not to hear any of that. It was impossible to hate Q in the face of that pain. He had been a short-sighted fool who had gotten someone Veloz respected killed, he had called Ohmura a fool for dying for him, he had never shown any gratitude whatsoever to Security for repeatedly saving his life... and yet he couldn't be entirely despicable, even with that. The pain and guilt in his voice were unmistakable, and Veloz believed him. He hadn't wanted Ohmura to die, hadn't enjoyed it, was wracked with guilt over it. It didn't change the fact that he had been stupid enough to cause it to happen, and for that Veloz could be angry at him, but couldn't hate him.

Naomi held Q tightly, stroking him, murmuring soft reassurances as he wept. He was hurting so badly over this, not the cold-blooded monster people portrayed him as at all. Not that she had ever thought such a thing of him, but now it was even harder for her to understand how anyone else could. She wanted to attack the Security guards who had tormented him, to make them hurt as badly as he was hurting, to make them see how much pain they were causing to someone who didn't deserve any of it. But she couldn't do that. All she could do was give Q comfort, interpose herself into his private nightmare and reassure him that one person, at least, thought he deserved to live.

It was a long time later before Q looked up and realized where he was and what he was doing. He was sprawled out along the couch, lying against Naomi, who was propped up against an arm of the couch, and stroking his hair. He was holding onto her fiercely, and as soon as he noticed that, Q released her, embarrassed to be found so weak.

"You all right?" Naomi asked, letting him pull away from her.

"Fine," Q said gruffly. "I'm perfectly fine."

"If you're sure," Naomi said. She followed him with her eyes as he sat up. When he made no move to leave the couch, she scooted closer to him, holding onto his hand.

Q didn't resist, couldn't resist. He knew he should get up, should throw her out and then go and restore his battered appearance, but he couldn't. There was something intensely comforting about having her here, and he was afraid if he moved, she'd be gone and then he'd be left with all the fears and terrors of the afternoon's experience. The emotional storm had left its afterimages on him like a blast wave and he'd be horribly depressed even right now if her presence wasn't holding the worst effects at bay.

He'd throw her out eventually, of course. But just for now it didn't seem so wrong to hold on to her, to try to keep what little consolation he had.

T'Meth returned, coming to Q's quarters shortly after Q had regained his composure but before he'd actually gotten up the resolve to throw Naomi out. She looked at Naomi. "If Dr. Allen would care to leave, we can resume."

Naomi looked between them. "Am I interrupting something?"

Q paid no attention to Naomi, staring instead at T'Meth. "Resume what?"

"There is still another suspect to locate," T'Meth pointed out. "Blevins confessed to the assault but refused to name his accomplice."

He couldn't do this. There was no question. Numb horror at the thought of facing one more enraged guard, of pretending to be in control while waiting for another murderous attack, froze Q where he was. He couldn't even make himself speak, to protest. He had a sudden urge to curl up against Naomi for comfort and suppressed it savagely. He couldn't do that. But oh, god, he wanted to.

"There's no way," Veloz said. "We'll have to make Blevins confess, if necessary. Or check out his alibi to see who it implicates. Q can't do any more of this."

Naomi nodded, hard-faced. She didn't know what they were talking about, but if it meant subjecting Q to more of whatever had made him like this, she was against it.

Q stared at Veloz, startled. It was true, he couldn't, but what gave Veloz the right to interfere in Q's business? He was capable of defending himself. Wasn't he? And why should the guard even care? Given what had been said earlier, Q would have expected Veloz to want to put him through more of it, to get some pleasure out of seeing him go through hell.

"Why do you say that?' T'Meth asked.

Suddenly Q knew that Veloz would describe the entire humiliating scene in the interrogation room, or worse, the way he'd broken down and cried in Naomi's arms just now. He had to speak, to head that off. "I'm fine," he said harshly, even though it wasn't true at all. "I can do it."

Naomi opened her mouth to object to that, but before she could say anything, Veloz was speaking.

"You think you can," Veloz said. "But how objective are you?" The junior officer turned to T'Meth. "When people suffer a trauma like that attack, they lose their objectivity. Q's going to think everyone's the man who did it now. Or if he tries to compensate for that, he might miss the real guy. Besides, now that we have Blevins we've got a better lead. I don't know that we should really be encouraging everyone to hate Q's guts more than they already do if there's any other way to do it."

"Perhaps we can use the knowledge of Blevins' identity to narrow down the suspect field, at least," T'Meth agreed. "And if there is only one person thus implicated, we'll have our man; if there are two or three, Q might be able to identify his attacker by normal voice from such a small pool." She nodded once. "Logical. Very well, then, Lieutenant. If you would continue at this post, I'll begin cross-checking."

T'Meth left. Q looked hard at Veloz, disturbed. He was glad he wouldn't have to go through that again, of course, but the fact that Veloz had defended him troubled him. Veloz had seen him crack completely, had seen him break down in the interrogation room and again here in Naomi's arms, and was undoubtedly thinking of Q as someone weak and pitiful, someone to be despised and treated like a child who couldn't protect himself emotionally. It was an entirely unacceptable picture.

He had to get changed, put his armor back on. He disappeared into the bathroom to reconstruct his appearance, and emerged twenty minutes later, his face transformed into a mask of control and invulnerability.

Naomi had felt somewhat uncomfortable. sitting around in the room with Q gone and the guard studiously ignoring her. She didn't want to simply leave without telling Q she was doing so, but she didn't know what he was doing or why it was taking him so long. And when he came back out immaculately groomed, no evidence of pain or fear or anything but disdainful boredom on his face, she decided she had probably overstayed her welcome. Q didn't need her anymore. She stood up.

"Thank you for having me over," Naomi said. "But I'd probably better get going, unless you'd rather I stayed?"

"That's quite all right," Q said grandly, glad that she had given him an opening to get rid of her. He had shown entirely too many vulnerabilities to her for his taste. "You can go on and scurry back to whatever tedious little things you do with your life."

Veloz shot him a look. But Naomi wasn't offended in the slightest, feeling instead reassured by his manner and the restored good humor of his words. Q really was all right. Naomi grinned. "I'll try to bear up under the boredom."

As she left, Veloz caught a momentary look of loss on Q's face, as if he were not nearly so unconcerned about Dr. Allen's departure as he pretended to be. Wasn't anything about this man's reactions straightforward?

Veloz shrugged, finally deciding that there was no point trying to figure Q out. Whether he was a total bastard, a tortured soul, or both, ought to be irrelevant to Security.

Q was still awake, in his room reading, when the shift change occurred, and Koratagere and Sev came to replace Veloz. In his room he could hear the conversation. "And what was up with those interrogations today?" Koratagere asked. "The entire department's talking about how you and T'Meth stood there and let Q shred people to pieces."

"T'Meth didn't say anything?" Veloz asked, sounding startled.

"T'Meth cannot be bothered with anything so tedious as the opinions of her co-workers," Sev said dryly.

The other two laughed. Then Veloz said, "It was part of a plan, actually. Q couldn't identify his attackers' voices when they were speaking calmly, so I figured if he got them mad, he'd recognize them."

"Well, someone should have debriefed the department," Koratagere said. "Even the people who thought Q didn't deserve to get beaten up think he's a complete jerk now. There's a lot of sympathy for Blevins."

Veloz was disbelieving. "How, exactly, can anyone sympathize with Blevins? The man's an idiot and he broke his Starfleet oath. Just because Q is a complete jerk is no excuse to beat him up."

"Hey, I didn't say I agreed with them. Just telling you what I hear. The general feeling is that Q could provoke anyone into attacking him."

Veloz sighed. "I guess I'd better try to debrief people before I go off-shift, then. I can't believe T'Meth didn't do it."

"It's not logical that people should be angry," Sev said. "Therefore they're not angry. We all know that logic is the perfect way to examine the universe, after all."

"How long has she been in Starfleet? Thirty years?"

"You know Vulcans," Koratagere said.

"I don't think your attempts to debrief people will help much," Sev added,. "People are not very fond of you or T'Meth at the moment, either."

"This just gets better. Are you two on the shit list for working with us?"

"Not yet," Koratagere said.

"Give it time," Sev said.

Veloz sighed. "There are days when I wonder why I ever went into Security."

"Everyone wonders that," Koratagere said.

"Really? It seems like most people are pretty confident that they belong--"

"No, I mean everyone wonders why you went into it, Veloz." There was a grin in the man's voice.

"Ha ha ha. I'm going to try some damage control, at least. Try not to keep Himself awake; you'll never hear the end of it."

"That would probably require that Kort keep his mouth shut," Sev said. "I doubt that's biologically possible."

Q turned on music so he wouldn't have to hear the rest of the conversation, and so that the chatting guards couldn't hear him. He didn't want to know any more. The fact that Security itself had turned on those of its own who had allied with him didn't surprise him, nor that Veloz's brilliant plan today had made matters even worse for him, but it scared him nonetheless. Humans had a distressing habit of changing alliances to win their friends' approval. T'Meth might have certified Koratagere and Sev as safe earlier, but if the rest of Security started making their lives hell, how long before they, and Veloz, switched sides again?

He thought of calling Naomi back, but dismissed the notion. It was far too humiliating that he had sobbed in her arms, that he had said stupid, idiotic things about Ohmura deserving to live more than him, as if he'd actually come to believe the morons tormenting him. He couldn't leave himself open to that kind of humiliation again. Besides, he hadn't forgotten what Naomi really wanted, the sordid motives that drove her. He remembered Harry, and Amy, and knew what would happen if he let himself be entangled with a human that way -- nothing but pain and humiliation. No, he would bear this himself.

At least until he knew for sure if they'd switched sides or not.

T'Meth came to get him the next morning, before he'd gotten fully dressed and ready to run the gauntlet yet. "We've identified three high-likelihood suspects for Blevins' accomplice."

"Wonderful. I'm happy for you." He turned back to adjusting his collar.

"You misunderstand. Your assistance is required to identify which of the three we should charge."

Q stiffened, the fear from yesterday welling up again. He could not go through that again. Not for three men, not for anyone. "Do you really need me to hold your hand every step of the way?" he drawled. "Really, T'Meth. I thought you were competent."

"None of the suspects has an alibi of his own, and all have corroborated Lt. Blevins' alibi. Ensign Michaelmas originally claimed that he was with Blevins; he has now reneged on that alibi, and confessed to lying, claiming that he was with his roommate, Ensign Guy. Guy originally stated that he encountered Blevins and Michaelmas on patrol during the time period that you were injured; he now claims that he and Michaelmas were playing poker with Guy's partner, Ensign Kimmelman. Kimmelman's story has also changed to match Guy's. All of them will be charged with lying to a superior officer, disobedience, absence from their posts, and obstructing justice. One of them, however, should also be charged with assault and battery."

"What about attempt to murder?"

"It is unclear whether they in fact intended to murder you."

He turned on T'Meth. "What, are you deaf? Did you completely miss what Blevins said yesterday while he was strangling me? Didn't you hear him ranting about how he should have finished it? What exactly do you suppose that means?"

"If they had intended your death, you would be dead," T'Meth said severely. "It has not yet been decided whether or not to charge them with attempted murder, as any serious attempt on their part would certainly have been successful."

"They wanted me to die slowly, in agony," Q snapped. "Do you honestly think I would have survived if Naomi hadn't found me?"

"Your com badge was still in the area, where you could theoretically have reached it and called for help before losing consciousness. If they had wished to ensure that you were not rescued, they'd have removed the com badge. Speculation is fruitless in any case, as it has not been decided what to charge them with."

"I want them charged with attempted murder!" The idea that Blevins might get a lesser sentence than that, that he might escape punishment, twisted Q's stomach with rage. "They tried to kill me and I will see them charged for it!"

"Then you run the risk of letting them go free," T'Meth said. "Blevins has already confessed to assaulting you. His conviction is assured. If you charge him with attempted murder, though, he can claim that he did not intend to or attempt to cause your death, and he may be found innocent of that charge."

"He's not innocent," Q said tightly. "He wanted me dead. I was there."

"I am not disputing your testimony. But if you cannot prove your allegations, Blevins might receive a comparatively light sentence. Think about it. In the meantime, we still need to identify Blevins' accomplice."

"No. I'm not doing what I did yesterday over again. It's your job to find who did it, not--"

"You would not be required to do what you did yesterday," T'Meth interrupted. "Given that our suspect pool has been narrowed to three, you might be able to identify the perpetrator's voice directly."

"Oh." Q considered. He was willing to do that. "Well, if you're planning on being reasonable about it, I suppose I could do that." A frightening thought struck him. "Do I have to go to the Security offices today?"

"Today I have received permission from Commodore Anderson to play the recordings from here." She led him out to his living room, where she had linked a tricorder into his console. "Watch and listen."

Halfway through the second suspect's interrogation, he knew it. "It's him."

"Ensign Michaelmas. Blevins' partner." T'Meth studied the readouts. "Are you entirely certain?"

"Yes." The voice was nervous, trying to remain calm, nothing like the voice that had shouted at him. But the man was lying. Q could see it all over him. He had spent far too many centuries as a god of mistruths and trickery not to know a lie when he saw one. And that itself wouldn't prove it -- the first suspect was lying, too, claiming an alibi for Michaelmas where none existed -- but it was the wrong kind of lie. The first man was covering to protect someone else, and no longer had anything to lose himself, having already been caught in one lie. The second suspect was nervous, and guilty, and terrified. And with those things as clues, Q was able to transform the man's voice in his head, to hear the connections between Michaelmas' nervous lies and the voice that had snarled at him to shut up when he'd begged for mercy. They were the same.

"Listen to the third in any case," T'Meth said. "It would be wise to be certain."

So he listened to the third, but the man's voice was all wrong, a deep bass grumbling that could never have turned into the high-pitched snarl Q remembered. "No. It's Michaelmas. The other two are all wrong."

"Michaelmas was the most likely suspect in any case," T'Meth said, nodding. She touched her com badge. "T'Meth to Lt. Braun."

"Braun here."

"Q has pointed to Michaelmas as his second assailant, sir. He is quite certain. Please coordinate with Commodore Anderson as to the charges."

"I'll do that, Lieutenant." Braun did not sound remotely interested. But then, why would he be? He would probably have been just as glad if the culprits were never found.

"He certainly seems enthusiastic," Q grumbled.

T'Meth turned back to him. "I believe you have a meeting today. Are you prepared?"

"As much so as I ever am," Q sighed. Even with T'Meth, he didn't want to face the protestors again.

Sev met them on route, to provide T'Meth with backup in case the protestors got unpleasant again. But they were relatively subdued. Perhaps T'Meth's performance two days ago had scared them into shutting up; they were there, but they made no attempt to accost Q or speak to him, and for that he was enormously relieved. Perhaps finally everything was coming back to normal and he would be safe.

The court-martial was three days later.

Q had looked forward to it greatly, expecting it to be a kind of catharsis, as well as the only revenge he'd get. The charges were, in fact, set at attempted murder; while Anderson wasn't fond of Q, the notion that Starfleet officers could betray their trust in this fashion disgusted her, and she intended to throw the book at them. And Q was vindictive enough to plan to take great glee in seeing his attackers go down.

But it wasn't what he expected, what he'd hoped for. It wasn't enough. For one thing, he himself was allowed to give testimony only briefly. The proceedings were kept cold and businesslike, and the men themselves looked detached, as if they barely cared what was happening. He had wanted to see fear, shock, pain on their faces. Instead he saw emptiness, masking them as effectively as they'd been that night.

Blevins pleaded guilty to assault and battery but not guilty to attempted murder, as T'Meth had warned. Both Li and Naomi were asked to take the stand for the prosecution, confirming that Q would have died without medical treatment, and that his injuries were such that he probably could not have reached his combadge in time. Q dreaded hearing what Naomi would say about his condition and the humiliating way he had cowered away from her, but she stuck strictly to the pertinent facts. Before and after she took the stand, she flashed him a few comforting smiles, which were a little bit of reassurance, if for no better reason than he knew that at least one person in the courtroom was rooting for him. But her seat in the courtroom was far behind his, and he would not embarrass himself by turning around to look for her.

Q himself desperately wanted to take the stand. He couldn't make himself speak of the way Blevins had slammed his fist into him as Michaelmas held him up, battering Q over and over until he was too weak even to beg anymore, could only moan with pain and terror, knowing he was dying. But he could have spoken of the way Blevins attacked him in the interrogation room, of some of the things Blevins had said that night. He could have made them see what a monster this creature was. But the prosecution had apparently decided there was enough evidence presented, and they moved on to Michaelmas without letting Q testify at all.

Michaelmas' plea was not guilty, claiming that he hadn't been involved in the attack at all. This time Q was called on to testify. But he wasn't allowed to be theatrical, he wasn't allowed to embellish; he was ordered to answer the questions and nothing but the questions and every time he tried to add in a useful piece of information, he was told to be quiet or risk being found in contempt of court. And all they asked him was how he had identified Michaelmas, what made him think this particular man had attacked him.

The court-martials were short, sharp and to the point. Within three hours, both Blevins and Michaelmas were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and a host of other lesser crimes. They were drummed out of Starfleet and sentenced to twenty years in a penal colony. Q was outraged -- they had tried to kill him. They should be locked up for life! But his protest to the prosecuting attorney was futile.

He didn't feel catharsis. He didn't feel vindicated. The whole experience left him frustrated, angry and drained, as if he'd been wrestling with an insoluble problem for days and was now told it could not be solved just as he'd been on the verge of a breakthrough. And then came the final straw.

As he left the courtroom, two guards he didn't know came up to him. Q flinched. "What are you doing here? Where's T'Meth?"

"We've been assigned to guard you," the first guard said.

"No, you're not. T'Meth's supposed to guard me. Or one of her handpicked lackeys. Where is she?" He scanned the departing crowd, looking for her.

"Signing off on the papers for Blevins and Michaelmas. She's been relieved of the case."

"I want to talk to her. Now."

Down in the Security offices, T'Meth was sharp with him. "The danger to you from Security is ended. There is no need for specific people to remain assigned to you."

"What do you mean, the danger is ended?"

"The perpetrators have been caught--"

"And you seriously think they're the only ones that wanted me dead?" There was an edge of hysteria in his voice. He had just barely started feeling safe again. She couldn't take that away from him. "This entire department wants me dead, T'Meth!"

"I have seen no evidence that that is the case."

"Then you're not looking! Haven't you seen the way people stare at me?" Part of his mind remained aware that he was making a scene, in the Security offices, revealing his weaknesses and fears to the people who would most want to use them against him, and was horrified. But the rest of him didn't care, too caught up in his fear and outrage to pay attention to that tiny little voice of reason. "The way they talk about me? They want me dead!"

"They dislike you. This is true. But it is a far, far gap from disliking you to actually plotting to kill you. Blevins and Michaelmas were obviously unstable; no one else is likely to violate their Starfleet oath in such a fashion."

"How do you know? Blevins and Michaelmas were willing, why not other people?"

"Blevins and Michaelmas were an aberration. Q, you are being illogical." From a Vulcan, that was the ultimate put-down. "I will not act as your personal bodyguard without direct orders to do so from Commodore Anderson, now that the threat to you is past."

"I'm not being illogical. You're being short-sighted and stupid."

"This discussion is over. I have work to do."

"I'm going to Commodore Anderson with this."

"Do so. I would be interested to hear what she would have to say."

Anderson was even more blunt. "T'Meth is not going to feed your paranoid fantasies anymore, Q," she said sharply. "She's been on maximum rotation for several days, with very little sleep; I wouldn't have asked it of her if she weren't Vulcan, but even Vulcans need to sleep sometime. T'Meth deserves a vacation. Now, we haven't ruled out the possibility that someone might be inspired to commit a copycat crime, as unlikely as it seems. That's why the Security protection will continue. But Security itself is not going to attack you, and I can't keep treating the entire department like it might."

"And then what?" Q asked harshly, knowing he couldn't save this one, that he was doomed, but desperately trying anyway. "What happens when they show their true colors, and I end up dead?"

"You're not going to end up dead. Security is working in pairs with you. If you ended up dead, it would be a sure thing that the team working with you had killed you, and they'd be drummed out of Starfleet and sent to a penal colony like Blevins and Michaelmas were. No one wants that. And no one would be stupid enough to risk it."

"You're betting my life that Security wouldn't be stupid?" he asked her incredulously. "While you're at it, why don't you just bet my life that you can find a Ferengi who gives to charity, too?"

"Get out of my office, Q. You've had your say, and the answer is 'no.'"

Q swallowed. "And what if I stop working for you?"

"I throw you in the brig. You haven't got a leg to stand on anymore."

She might be right; Security might not be shortsighted enough to kill him when it would obviously point to them. If he ended up in the brig, though... an "accident" might happen, he thought, fear and helpless rage souring his stomach. He had to give in on this one, and desperately hope that Anderson had assessed Security's self-interest correctly.

Even though he was sure she was wrong.

In his quarters, he stripped off his fancy courtroom suit and showered, trying to get rid of the smell of fear. The guards had tailed him very closely back to his room, and he'd been half-convinced they would jump him the whole way.

He dressed in a pair of elegant pajamas, trying to console himself with the pleasure of attractive clothes. Not that it was likely to work, but he'd try anything. As he left the bathroom and entered his bedroom, exhausted and longing for sleep, he saw a slip of paper lying on his pillow.

"It should have been you."

The neat printing did nothing to conceal the venom behind the words. They were going to kill him! This was their warning to him, their opening shot. They were playing with him, like a cat with a mouse, batting him around before finally getting to the point of finishing him off.

Or maybe they were hoping he'd do it himself.

He crumpled up the paper in his hand, the only thought in his mind how to keep them from killing him right then.

But there was no way. They had access to his room. The note made that painfully clear. Q threw it away, then broke down into hysterical tears. No one believed him. No one cared. Not even T'Meth, not even Anderson, to whom he was supposedly a valuable Federation resource.

Security was going to kill him and he couldn't stop them.

Q stayed awake for a long time after the tears finally stopped, curled up in a ball in his bed, listening for the faintest of sounds, for the first sign that they were coming after him. Finally, exhaustion overwhelmed even his own hyperactive mind.

Lights came on, and Q came awake in a heart-pounding rush. Surrounding his bed were more of the faceless Security guards, and Q instinctively cowered away, convinced that they were here to kill him at last. This was it. They were going to do, in the one place he had hoped was safe, that he had foolishly believed to be his own.

"Is everything all right?" the bigger of the two security guards asked.

Q's heart slammed. Of course everything wasn't all right. "Nothing's wrong," he snapped, harshly, his voice on the edge of cracking. "Now get out!"

"Are you sure? We heard you yell."

The other one grabbed the covers and yanked them back unceremoniously, exposing Q completely. He was trembling, and wearing only a pair of light pajamas, and the humiliation of being seen this way almost overpowered the fear. "What are you doing?"

"Just checking. You might be a shapechanger, hiding the real Q."

Since this had, in fact, happened once, it was a plausible story. Q didn't believe it for a second. The big one got on his hands and knees and peered under the bed. "All clear here."

"This is absurd! I didn't call you!"

"Hey, we heard you scream. Are you calling us liars?" The other one loomed over him.

He wanted to make a retort to that one, something cutting, and cruel, and richly deserved. But he couldn't. His mouth was frozen with terror. If he said something, anything they didn't like, they might kill him. They might anyway.

The larger security guard returned from inspecting the closets. "Nothing so far." He was grinning broadly. If Q had actually needed proof that they were doing this to torment him, that would have served.

"Guess it was a false alarm, then." He looked at Q with a smarmy expression of mock-concern. "Poor baby have bad dreams?"

Q swallowed. "You've done your job. Get out."

"Not so fast," the smaller one said, leaning over the bed. Q flattened back against the bed, terrified, hands moving instinctively to protect stomach and face. "You know, you have some nerve," the man hissed. "Everyone in the galaxy wants to kill you, and here we are, standing in the line of fire, throwing our lives away for you. And you treat us like crap."

The menace in the man's voice was unmistakable. Q cowered back further, but there was nowhere he could go.

"He does. He thinks everyone's beneath him. He doesn't care how many pitiful little human lives get thrown away for him, just so long as his precious, superior skin is safe."

The big one walked around the bed, and the second one made as if to leave, and Q felt a tiny second of relief. But then the smaller one turned back, lingering by the bed for a moment.

"Don't scream unless there's really something wrong. You know what happened to the boy who cried 'Wolf'."

They snickered and left the room.

The lights were all still on, and Q was still lying there, pressed flat against the bed. He didn't realize for a long moment that he was subvocalizing, repeating over and over under his breath, "Don't kill me, please don't kill me."

With a horrible sense of falling and destruction, Q savagely tore his mind off of the litany. It didn't do him any good before and it wouldn't do him any good now.

But it didn't matter. They'd accomplished their purpose. No amount of exhaustion could force him into trusting sleep now. Not when they could come back in at any moment, and this time, not stop at a warning.

Q stalked back to his quarters. He'd torn apart everyone who'd come to see him today, reducing one woman to tears. He didn't care. He'd even taken a certain savage satisfaction in the sight. If he were suffering, then everyone else deserved to suffer as well.

The guards who'd been shadowing him stopped him as he was about to go through the door. "Aren't you going to invite us in?"

Q looked at them. "No."

The taller guard leaned over, his very posture menacing. "That's not very gracious of you. We put our lives on the line for you every day, good people have died for you, and you can't even be courteous enough to invite us in."

Q held very still. This was it then. They were going to kill him now. For a brief moment he was in that dark corridor again, lying on the floor, hearing his tormentors screaming at him, "Ohmura died for you, you worthless sack of shit!" as they punched and kicked at him over and over again. Part of him wanted to beg for mercy now, while a small voice just wanted this over with, and him dead if that was the end.

But he couldn't. With all the dignity he had left, Q said, "Do what you want. I can't stop you."

He entered his quarters, feeling them following him. Maintaining an easy stride, trying not to show how terrified he was, Q fled into his own room, hoping to put this off for as long as he could.

They didn't follow him into the bedroom, and Q almost cried with relief then. But that didn't mean he was safe. He had to do something about this. However, what were the alternatives? Neith