Subject: Still More Q...
From: [email-masked] (JoAnne Soper-Cook)
Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 14:39:32 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative

Another Turn of the Q

     Anna Mithrais watched the console scrolling its display by
in front of her, seeing nothing.  She was unaware that she was
frowning slightly, her dark brows clenched in a habitual
expression of distaste, her hazel-green eyes crinkled very
slightly at the corners. After four straight hours of going
through the files on the inhabitants of Menos Two, she could find
absolutely nothing that would explain Devrae Vil-kolait-Homra
having the Aldeberan night sickness.  
     She swore fluently under her breath, a long, colorful stream
of profanity that issued cheerfully from her full, curved mouth.  
     "Hey, Mithrais--not bad for a beginner!"  A smiling voice
erupted in laughter from behind her and she swung around to see
Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge, padd in hand.  "You take the
Academy course?"  He referred to the Starfleet Academy course,
"Creative Cursing 2380" which had at first been instituted as
something of a joke, but quickly grew into a serious course,
especially among deep-space candidates who understood the
importance of letting off steam.  Mithrais had netted one of the
best grades in the history of the Academy, and used this
knowledge to her advantage.
     "Beginner?"  Mithrais raised an eyebrow, although the blind
LaForge obviously couldn't see the gesture.  "Saddle up, LaForge-
-there's competition riding over your hills."  She laughed,
heartened by his presence.  Mithrais truly appreciated LaForge. 
He ran Engineering with the skill of a top-flight organiser, but
he had a deep vein of humanity and fairness that Mithrais really
admired.  And, he was a great fan of Ancient Earth jazz music,
which Mithrais absolutely adored.
     "Trouble here?"  LaForge leaned over her and gazed at the
screen--or did the equivalent of gazing, she supposed.  His
Visor, which allowed him to see all of the normal spectrum and
then some, replaced his sightless eyes.  Without it, LaForge
would never have made it onto any ship, let alone the Enterprise.
     "I've been going over these records, but I can't seem to
find any reason for that woman having an isolated outbreak of
Aldebaran night sickness--it's unheard of in this sector!  And
she swears she's never been to Aldebaran.  I'm stymied."
     "Does she have an Aldebaran boyfriend?"  LaForge chuckled,
flashing incredibly even, white teeth.  He was quite handsome,
Mithrais mused.  Even with that visor....
     Mithrais sat back, pushed her hair out of her eyes,
readjusting her hair-band.  "She claims to be observing a period
of ritual celibacy.... "  Mithrais blew air up into her bangs, a
frustrated gesture.  "I'm just not sure I believe her."
     LaForge thought for a moment. "Perhaps you might want to run
a contact-contamination series on her--see if she's lying about
those Aldebaran boyfriends!"
     "You sure you don't mind me using these terminals?" 
Mithrais indicated the computer screen in front of her.  "I could
use the ones in SIckbay, but Data's routing some diagnostics
through there, and it takes ages to get anything up on the
screens."
     "I don't mind a bit," LaForge assented.  "Things have been
so quiet lately I might just relax for a change!"
     Mithrais grinned. "Now that would be a first!"
     She watched him disappear around the corner, doubtless on
his way to something important.  She scrolled another series of
medical files, watched them dispassionately disappearing down the
edges of the screen, and rubbed her tired eyes.  God, how late
was it?
     "Computer--what is the time?"
     "The current time is 0100 hours."
     One o'clock in the morning! God!  Had it been that long? 
Mithrais could imagine Dr. Crusher's response: "Anna, I asked
that you be thorough--but not that you kill yourself in the
attempt!" The doctor would want to know how she thought sleep
deprivation would benefit their relief mission on Menos. Wait a
minute--
     What the hell...?
     As Mithrais watched, the information that was scrolling past
on her monitor began sliding off the edge of the screen, the
letters becoming strangely liquid and pooling on the console
buttons in front of her.  She stared in amazement as the medical
records continued drooling off the screen and dripping,
liquified, onto the console. How was this happening? This was
impossible--
     "LaForge!"
     It was still happening--she tried to stop the scrolling but
the data continued melting down from the screen, pooling in front
of her like water.  And even more oddly, some of the letters that
she had seen melting were now floating on the console,
configuring themselves into...
     ...some kind of message!
     She leaned closer, peered at it.
     A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS!!!
     Huh?
     "Oh, well, if you're going to be as dull as that..." There
was a sudden flash and a man was standing--leaning--against the
console.  With a gesture, he swept the melted words off the
console and onto the floor. He appraised Mithrais, his gaze
raking up and down her body until a sly smile pulled at the
corners of his mouth.  He was wearing a Starfleet uniform,
Mithrais noticed, silently congratulating herself on retaining
her faculties--a Starfleet Captain's uniform.
     "Sir!"  She leapt to her feet, stood immediately to
attention. "I was not aware of any visitors, sir--please excuse
my oversight."
     He burst into laughter.  His dark, intense eyes crinkled at
the corners, as he laughed long and heartily, punctuating it with
a resounding slap on his knees. Mithrais' stiff posture faded--
something was definitely amiss here.
     "I may be risking the Federation Stockade, but who the hell
are you?" She faced him, hands on hips.
     "Oh, a defiant one!"  The man leaned in close to her, fixing
her with his magnetic gaze. "You know, I like them defiant...it
whets the appetite!"
     Mithrais struck him across the face.
     And watched the grin slide off, just as her medical data had
slid off the monitor and onto the console.  His face flushed with
anger, the dark, finely-etched brows drawing together.  He seemed
astonished, though, and was having a difficult time hiding it.
"You struck me?!"
     Mithrais glared at him.  "You listen here, you disgusting
bag of flesh--if you ever leer at me like that again, you will be
carrying your own head in a bag!"
     He laughed, his cheeks dimpling.  His teeth were perfect,
and very, very white. "I've never seen you around here before--
who are you?  New to the ship?"  He walked around her, surveying
her with genuine intellectual interest. "What's your position?"
     "I'm a psychiatric nurse. Now you answer me something--who
are you, and how did you get on the ship?"
     "Oh, you needn't question me, my dear--I come and go as I
please.  Jean-Luc and I go way back...."  His interest in her
seemed to fall away as he examined his fingernails.
     That hit her with a thud. "Jean-Luc?"  She sounded stunned,
even to her own ears, even though it was one o'clock in the
morning. "Jean-Luc Picard?"
     "Yes, of course--old Johnny and I are good buddies!"
     Mithrais peered at him, her eyes narrowing.  She scanned his
aspect with all the instincts of a trained psychiatric nurse, and
deduced that he was either a pathological liar, a flagrant
narcissist, or telling the truth. "Who are you?"
     The man took her hand and, bending over it kissed it
gallantly in a perfect show of ancient-Earth manners. The brief
touch of his lips sent a jolt of energy up her arm that burst in
her chest with a faint tingle and a pop.  It wasn't altogether
unpleasant, either. "Enchantee, my dear--I am known as Q."
     LaForge burst into Engineering, arms akimbo. "Q!"
     With a gesture, the man known as Q froze LaForge in his
tracks. He then turned back to Mithrais as if absolutely nothing
had happened. "Now then, my dear--as I was saying before I was so
rudely interrupted--"
     MIthrais gasped. "What have you done to him?"
     Q glanced at LaForge, frozen in a weirdly comic pose, one
arm out in front of him, his mouth open to say something. "Oh
nothing that he'll suffer from--or remember."  He smiled.  "Tell
me about yourself."
     "Not until you change him back--and then you had better tell
me the whole truth--"
     "And nothing but the truth, so help me God--"  Q rolled his
eyes, and with a flick of his wrist, re-animated LaForge, who
came barging right on over--
     --and walked through the place where Mithrais and Q had been
standing.

     Mithrais was outside. Outside of the ship, that is.  And
floating gently in place beside the man called Q. Except that he
couldn't be any kind of normal humanoid man, or he--and she as
well--would be deader than dead right now.
     "Now then, let's have a little discussion--" He gestured,
and she was clasped in his arms, face-to-face with him.  She had
to admit, it wasn't exactly horrible, but it was a bit sudden.
     "Could you let go of me--I just met you!" She pushed against
his arms, found she could not move him. "Are you going to rape me
now?"
     His arms fell away, and the expression on his face changed
so abruptly it was like a cold weather front building in over
land. His eyes were dangerous. "I--"  He was speaking slowly, but
enunciating every word very clearly so that there could be no
mistaking his meaning, "Have never, in all my vast existence--"
     "You froze poor Geordi!"  Mithrais pushed against his chest
with her palms.
     "Oh, I froze poor Geordi!"  He pushed her away from him with
an expression of distaste. "Poor Geordi doesn't even know that
anything happened to him.  He is safe inside your precious ship,
and no more enlightened about anything than he was five minutes
ago!  Do you think I roam about doing harm to members of
your...admittedly, underdeveloped...species?" He folded his arms
and regarded her, floating in space.
     "Do you?" She couldn't get a handle on him at all!  It was
beginning to frustrate her--that, and not being able to figure
out how she was hanging suspended in space and not dead yet.
     "I most certainly do not."  His gaze slid away from hers,
and the corners of his mouth quirked in the smile that never
seemed to be very far away. "I have been entertained by your
species, on occasion--and ask your captain if I haven't
intervened the odd time to save his mangy hide!"  He pouted.
"Truly, you wound me!"  He snapped his fingers.
     And he and Mithrais were in Picard's ready room.  Picard, it
must be said, had no forewarning of their impending arrival, and
was caught at the desk with Doctor Beverly Crusher sitting facing
him on his lap.
     "Hello, Jean-Luc!"  Q crooned. He affected a pose of shock.
"Doctor Crusher--I had no idea!"
     Mithrais, standing in the presence of her Captain and her
boss, one sitting in the lap of the other, wanted to melt into
the floor.  She could seriously see a future for herself doling
out anti-psychotic drugs on Menos Two....
     "Q!"  Picard leapt to his feet, unmindful of Doctor Crusher,
who went spilling to the floor, landing on her backside with a
small cry of alarm.  She caught sight of Mithrais on the way down
and popped back up with cheeks that were colored bright scarlet. 
Picard was livid. "What is the meaning of this?!"
     Q draped himself over Picard's vacated chair, his feet on
the desk.  "Meaning?  Why does everything have to have a meaning? 
Some things, Johnny boy, have no meaning!"  His eyes slid
sideways to where Beverly Crusher was trying to regain some
dignity while zipping up the front of her uniform. "Correct,
Doctor?"  His grin widened. "Oh, pretty lingerie, by the way...."
     Crusher leapt for him.
     "Doctor!"  Picard gave her a look. "Please, return to your
quarters."
     "Jean-Luc, I can--"
     "Doctor, not now!"  Picard was pleading with her. "Please."
     Q waved as Crusher left. "Bye-bye Doctor!" He turned to
Picard--"You know, Jean-Luc, I knew James Kirk when he commanded
the Enterprise."  He paused, looking thoughtful. "And I would
have to say that his relationship with his Chief Medical Officer
took a rather different form than does yours.  Of course, I
always said that I could never picture Kirk and Bones together--
no, Spock always struck me as more Jim's type, you know?"
     "Get out of my chair! Get off my ship! Get out of my life!" 
Picard thundered to Q.  And to the replicator, "Tea! Earl Grey--
hot, dammit!"
     "Have I embarrassed you, Jean-Luc?"  Q tutted
sympathetically.  "Now I feel simply awful about it--let me make
it up to you!"
     Picard looked alarmed. "No!"  He seemed to see Mithrais for
the first time. "Commander, would you like to explain your
presence here at this hour?  I would think you had gone off-duty
long ago."
     Mithrais colored under Q's scrutiny.  "Ah, no, sir--I'm
doing some extra research for Doctor Crusher--for our relief
mission down on Menos.  I was down in Engineering, making use of
the consoles down there--"
     Picard rubbed his forehead, sighed. "Commander, the
condensed version, if you please--"  He peered over the top of
his hand. "Have you been hanging around Data or something?"
     Q guffawed.
     Mithrais related the pertinent events. 
     Picard sipped tea.
     Q lay on the sofa, contemplating the ceiling and eating an
apple that he seemed to have conjured from somewhere.
     "Commander--you are free to go.  I suggest you go to your
quarters and go to sleep."
     Mithrais nodded. "Aye, sir--thank you!"
     "Seeya later," Q caroled, as she left.

     What an odd dream, Mithrais thought, turning over onto her
right side.  She felt the delicious tug of sleep and was just
about to surrender and slide down into it, when...
     "Hello, my dear--did you miss me?" A hand lifted the covers
on the opposite side of the bed, althought Mithrais could see
nothing.  The voice, she knew, was Q's, but he must have been
making himself invisible, because she just couldn't see him. 
     She watched as a bump grew under the covers, slid closer to
the wall. The bump took the shape of a body and coalesced into Q,
complete with what looked like silk pajamas.
     "Get out!"  Mithrais slammed herself back against the wall,
her heart pounding in her throat. She willed herself to stay
conscious, but it was coming back, it was creeping up on her....
     ...four Cardassians, and that stinking little room on
Caltinos Seven, and the heat, and the flies, and they kept at
her, and at her, even when she begged them to stop. 
     Opposite her, the dark eyes of the man named Q widened, then
clamped down into angry ovals. He'd read her mind. His face was
taking on the contours of disbelief, then shock and anger, then
empathy as he felt her pain... She thought dimly, still clenched
against the wall, that he must be a very powerful telepath--for
it was obvious that he had gotten all of it, every nuance. 
     "My God."  Or at least it sounded like that.  Mithrais had
trouble hearing him through the roaring in her ears, and his
voice had been little more than a whisper. And then his gaze
changed, and something was happening inside Anna Mithrais's mind. 
She felt the nightmare memory fading, felt a deep and peaceful
calm coming over her.  It wasn't the narcotic, false calm of
someone who was trying to take over her mind, bend her to his
will--it was genuine, soothing, comforting.  She bent her head
and sobbed, feeling the horrible memory recede into the mists of
nothingness as the warm, safe calm of the Q washed over her.  
     She lay back down on her side, her cheek against the pillow
like a child.  She was being passed a cup of cold, delicious
water and told to drink it, and then she was wrapped in her
blankets and gently, mysteriously, lulled to sleep.
     She slept until the computer woke her.  Q was gone.  But the
table in her quarters had been set for her breakfast, and there
was a padd lying beside the plate. She picked it up and read what
was on it.
     I'M SORRY.
     Hmmm...Curiouser and curiouser.  Mithrais padded across the
carpeted floor to the replicator.  "Computer, has a breakfast
selection been programmed for Commander Anna Mithrais?"
     "A selection of Thelosian spring fruit, Andorian wafer bars,
and fresh grape juice," the Computer intoned.  
     All of her favorite things...how on Earth did he know?
     "But you see, my dear, I merely anticipated your needs."  Q
flashed into existence at the breakfast table, wearing his
Starfleet uniform and a grin.  Mithrais jumped when he appeared,
quickly recovered. 
     "I'm never going to get used to that," she murmured.  She
recived her food and carried it to the table. "Computer--"
     "A pot of mocha java, hot and strong, a basin of sugar and a
pitcher of half-and-half cream."  Q finished for her.  His long,
elegant fingers toyed with a napkin as Mithrais took her seat
opposite him. "Are you feeling better this morning?"  His dark,
intense gaze seemed to bore into her.
     "I'm really sorry about that--"
     Q waved a hand airily. "Don't bother being embarrassed. 
Really, I shouldn't have crept up on you like that--I assure you,
I had no idea you had been..."  The corners of his mouth tucked,
a quick gesture that betrayed some strong emotion. "...mishandled
by those Cardassians...."  He gave her a solemn look.  "I truly
am sorry if I caused you any untoward distress."  Q watched as
Mithrais daintily broke off a corner of a wafer bar, brought it
to her mouth, watched as her ripe lips closed around it.  She was
so elegant, so...sensuous.... It gave him substantial pleasure
just watching her....
     "You staring at me?"  Her mouth full of wafer bar, Mithrais
glared at Q.  
     "Of course not!"  He tucked his bottom lip in.  Caught!
     "You were!"
     "Nonsense--you humans are all so self-centred!  Why would I
be staring at you?" Q had a desperate need to get immediately off
the subject, and leaned forward to pour himself a cup of coffee.
     "Can you do that?"  Mithrais asked, watching him with
interest.  He deftly dropped two cubes of sugar into his cup and
poured off half the jug of cream.
     "Can I do what?"  He peered at her over the rim of the cup.
     "I didn't realise you could drink coffee--"
     Q took a long sip of the hot drink, laid the cup down
carefully.  "When I am in this form, young lady, I can do
anything one of your lumpen humanoid males can."  He seemed a bit
miffed.
     Mithrais gave him a long, speculative glance. "Perhaps you'd
better tell me a little about yourself, Mr. Q."
     Q's eyebrows popped up. "Anything...."

     Anna Mithrais and Q were walking at a vigorous pace along
the corridors of Deck Twelve, heading towards Sickbay.  "I cannot
believe that a supposedly omnipotent being such as you would feel
the need to hang around and torment the humans aboard this ship!" 
Mithrais had a med-kit in one hand and a medical tricorder in the
other.  She stepped neatly around a male nurse as the Sickbay
doors slid open and continued talking. "I mean, don't you have
anything better to do?"
     "You don't like me very much, do you?"  Q was keeping pace
with her easily.  "Ah, the redoubtable Doctor Crusher!"  He
greeted Mithrais's boss as she stepped away from a biobed. 
"Feeling chipper and rested this morning?"
     "I really don't have time, Q!"  Crusher's voice held a
dangerous warning note, and her lustrous red hair was disheveled. 
And with good reason:  Mithrais had been summoned from her
breakfast with the news that one Menosian woman had somehow
during the night managed to start a city-wide outbreak of
Aldebaran night sickness, and seemingly without leaving the
comfort of her sickbed.  Crusher was at wits end, and desperately
needed every available hand.
     "Mithrais, I want you to take an escort and go down to Menos
and see what relief efforts you can mount.  We'll need to get--"
     "Doctor--"  Mithrais touched Crusher's arm. "There's not a
whole lot we can do--you know that."  She watched as the other
woman struggled against this indictment for a brief moment, then
subsided with a look of resignation.  Crusher's bright blue eyes
dimmed for a moment with unshed tears, and she brushed a hand
across her eyes angrily. "I'm talking damage control, Mithrais--
containment, for God's sake!"  She pressed a hand to her
forehead. "We've got seventeen hundred people in Menos City going
very rapidly insane and infecting the others."  Crusher noticed Q
still standing there, raked him with a contemptuous gaze. "I'd
think that you, with all your omnipotent powers would make some
gesture of assistence!" 
     Q blanched, his mouth opening on nothing.  He stared at
Crusher for a long moment, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "I
might."
     Crusher turned slowly from the diagnostic panel she was
encoding. "What did you say?"
     Q stepped forward until they were standing eyeball-to-
eyeball.  "I said:  I might be able to help."  
     "I'm listening."
     "You have a population of seventeen hundred that is already
infected with Aldebaran night sickness.  I can help them."
     Crusher's temper matched her red hair. "Well then, why don't
you, dammit?!"
     Q folded his arms across his chest and regarded her blandly.
"I'm waiting for you to say please."
     Mithrais gaped at him. "PLEASE!"
     "Done." 

     When Mithrais was able to see, she realised that Q had
deposited himself and her on Menos Two.  And right in the middle
of the worst devastation, by the looks of things. She stepped out
of the way as two women and a man went barrelling past her,
obviously in the last stages of the disease, and convinced that
something was chasing them.
     "What kind of a disease is this, anyway?"  Q was peering
about him with distaste, his pristine uniform and unblemished
mien strangely at odds with the scene around them.  
     Mithrais had her medical tricorder out and was busy scanning
the surrounding area for evidence of the virus. "I thought you
were omnipotent," she snarled.  
     "You forget whom you're talking to."
     Mithrais straightened, shoved a wayward lock of dark hair
out of her eyes. She stared at Q for a long moment, trying to
decide if he was sincere. "It's a viral form of mental illness--
it starts when the virus enters the bloodstream through any small
cut or break in either the mucous membranes or the skin..."
     Q made a face. "Yuk."
     Mithrais laughed mirthlessly, a hollow sound. "'Yuk' doesn't
even cover it, Q.  From there it implants in the neuro-ganglion
cells of the brain and begins manufacturing its viral DNA, which
is injected into the host cells and replicated from there."  She
kicked aside an overturned cart of some kind, probably used to
haul produce or market wares. "The individual who is initially
infected usually comes by the virus in one of two ways:
deliberate injection, and sexual contact.  In the initial stages
of the disease, the patient usually presents with nausea,
tiredness, general malaise.  This lasts about forty-eight hours. 
From there, if not arrested immediately, the condition develops
into low-level hallucinations and delusions, usually persecution
fantasies and nightmares.  It can often be arrested with
antibiotics." Mithrais spoke without emotion, as if reading from
a diagnostic report. "Without treatment, however, the patient's
condition progresses to full-blown dementia, violent delusions,
degrading from there into grand mal epileptic seizures.  Death
follows in three to six hours."
     Q was silent. When he finally spoke, it was with effort.
"Truly, I didn't realise--please forgive me.  I spoke hastily." 
His dark eyes were contrite.  "I'll do whatever I can to help." 
He gazed around him at the devastation.  "I just don't know if it
will be enough."

     With Q's help, Mithrais and a team from the Enterprise
managed to inoculate the infected citizens, although four people
were in the final stages of the disease and could not be helped. 
Mithrais contacted Dr. Crusher and arranged for them to be placed
in palliative care aboard the ship, so that they would at least
have a comfortable and dignified death. Q not only used his
considerable powers to help those who were ill, but also effected
successful containment of the virus, eradicating it from the face
of Menos Two.  To Anna Mithrais's surprise, he worked alongside
the Enterprise team, helping with the inoculations and
restraining those who, caught in the disease's clutches, had
become violent.  Six hours after beam-down, the outbreak of
Aldebaran night sickness had been arrested on Menos Two.

     The doors of Holodeck Three slid open with a pneumatic
hissing sound, to admit Anna Mithrais.  She had showered and
changed into her favorite off-duty outfit of loose pants and top,
and her short hair was pulled off her face in a band.  
     She sighed in contentment, breathing deeply in the simulated
landscape that so reminded her of her home on Earth.  The low,
rolling hills carpeted with spruce and tamarack, the dusky
granite cliffs stretching eagerly out into the crashing surf. 
The simulation was so real, that she could almost smell sea-salt
in the air. She climbed her favorite granite outcropping, from
where she could sit and watch the sea.  She took the hill in easy
stages, pacing herself, and when she reached the top she wasn't
winded, but rather refreshed.
     "Hello, my dear." 
     Mithrais turned as Q stepped out of a stand of tamarack
trees.  He was, amazingly, wearing rugged denim pants, hiking
boots, and a fisherman-knit sweater.  It suited him, Mithrais
thought--he looked like a young fisherman from home, pulling into
the harbour at nightfall.
     "Q! I wondered where you had gone."  Mithrais indicated the
space beside her. "Please--won't you join me?"
     There was silence as Q sat beside her, gazing out over the
pastoral scene. "This is a reproduction of your home."  He turned
sideways to look at her.  The manufactured sea-breeze caught his
dark hair and ruffled it like a playful hand. "Newfoundland--on
Earth, correct?"
     Mithrais nodded. "Yeah.  I haven't been home in a long, long
time."
     Q drew his knees up, hugged them thoughtfully. "I could
remedy that, you know."  His dark eyes scrutinized her with a
dawning respect.  "That was some job you did on Menos."
     Mithrais felt suddenly foolish, and took to picking at a
ragged fingernail. "I couldn't have managed without your help."
She paused her picking to look up at him suddenly. "Why are you
sometimes so infuriating, and at other times so...incredible?" 
She laid a hand on his sweater-covered shoulder. "I mean, we
really got off on the wrong foot, and I had you pegged as a
troublemaker--until you stepped in on Menos when I needed you." 
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek gently, lingering near
him to breathe in his subtle, pleasant scent. She felt his hands
on her arms. 
     "How did you know so much about Aldebaran night sickness?" 
he asked, drawing back to fix her with a look. "That wasn't from
any medical journal."
     Mithrais looked away, out to sea.  The sun was just setting
behind the light-house, spilling golden light on the ocean. "I
was kidnapped about eight years ago by a squad of Cardassian
renegades off Aldebaran Three.  It was my first mission out of
the Academy."  She continued staring into the brilliant, sun-lit
sea, not looking at him. "They were intent on retaliation for
what they called, 'Federation Crimes Against the Cardassian
People'."  Mithrais bit her lip, hesitating. "The shuttle pilot
and I were the only two not killed in the phaser barrage they
pelted us with.  We were taken to an empty munitions warehouse on
the edge of some Cardassian city.  They beat Thoros to death when
he refused to talk."  Her voice faltered.
     "It's all right." Q took her hands in his. "I'm listening."
     Mithrais sighed. "Oh, it's been eight years--long time ago,
now."  She squeezed his hands and released them. "Since they
couldn't get any information out of Thoros, they decided to have
some fun with me. One of them had Aldebaran night sickness, and
he gave the virus to me."
     Q's face was darkening with an ill-concealed rage--not
directed at her, Mithrais knew, but at her nameless tormentors.
"How long were you held?"  His voice held an edge that Mithrais
hadn't heard before. 
     "Seventeen days--then the U.S.S. Hood was dispatched to find
us.  Captain Kender sent out a team and they brought me home."  
     "My God."
     "Yeah!  I was well into the third and final stage when they
sent for this new doctor, this doctor that they said would give
me the best chance of all."  Mithrais smiled. "Her name was
Beverly Crusher, and she was the closest thing to an angel that
I'd ever seen!"  She laughed, turning to Q. "You must think this
is really stupid."
     In answer, Q tilted her face in his hand and kissed her, his
warm, open mouth caressing her with a world of gentleness. 
Mithrais shifted in his arms and responded, wrapping herself in
his embrace and returning his kiss enthusiastically.  She felt
his body as he recieved her caress, felt the crackle of alien,
omnipotent power just under his skin.  And for the first time,
she realised that he was just about the most desirable thing
she'd found in a long time. She drew away from him, tracing the
contours of his face with her fingers. 
     "I would never hurt you," he said quietly, the phrase a
promise. "But I can show you pleasure beyond your wildest dreams,
and gift you with my deepest affections."  His hand smoothed her
face.
     Mithrais giggled. She suddenly felt light and joyful. "Can
you do that?"  She asked.
     Q grinned, and his dimples appeared.  "Can I drink coffee?"

                                   THE END!!! 
          
--
JoAnne
("Oh night that was my guide, oh night! more loving than
	the rising sun..."
	St. John of the Cross)