Hard Won

Trelles-5 was an L Class planet on the edge of the Delta Quadrant. It was frozen, as L Class planets were wont to be, and tiny, desolate. More importantly, though, it was as far from the Enterprise as Q could fling himself without being completely out of earshot, as it were. He couldn't bear the full force of the man's pain, could hardly bear his own, but his obsession disallowed him from completely abandoning surveillance. Something bad might happen. The man might need him.



Even the atmosphere was frozen, and Q had to generate a constant, low stream of energy to warm his human body. He could have warmed it further, kept himself entirely comfortable in a physical, human sense, but he let himself shiver and ache instead. Most Q were not at all accustomed to physical discomfort, to say nothing of physical pain, having always the power to spare themselves and no compelling reason not to. Q, though, knowing that his coupling with the man, if fully realized, would entail some amount of human physical pain, had practiced at it. He had become the Continuum's foremost expert on the subject.



Which was regrettable, now, since it meant that, in order to feel the pain of freezing, he had to allow more of the damaging cold to penetrate his squishy human shell. He could patch the body up as he went, but the effort was tiresome in a number of ways, and it meant that his Q energy would deteriorate more quickly. Not that it mattered; now or later, no Q was going to agree to join with him. He would dissipate completely if one of the cowering sheep didn't spring from the herd. Yes, and it would be entirely the Bitch's fault.



Q's flat human teeth chattered as he growled, hunched in the corner of a natural ice cave formed in the early days of Trelles-5's existence, when its core had still generated enough heat to allow some water to flow. It was tempting to think that he deserved this exile, this freezing pain, this loneliness so contrary to the nature of his species. How neatly would he have to play into the Bitch's cunning machinations, though, before he realized that he was doing it? He had already crushed the man as she had demanded. Was he now going to waste away, taking full responsibility and allowing his guilt to overwhelm his massive Q survival instinct? Of course, his carrying that particular impulse to fruition was not part of her plan. Q knew that she was entirely sure that he would slink back eventually, weak and gasping, begging for forgiveness. Wouldn't he love to be there when she felt him puff out of existence inside his human body, huddled in a cave on Trelles-5! That would serve her right! It wouldn't do much for him, but it would almost be worth it.



But, no. As tempting as the idea of her mortification made the prospect of giving up and dying, Q couldn't suppress a shudder at the reality of the thought. Empty nothingness. An energyless, identityless void. The End. Shudder. Even after he had made a firm decision against suicide by neglect, his Q energy continued to tremble with the trauma of having contemplated it. That wouldn't do. He tried to calm himself, to suppress the tiny bursts that wanted to break free and endanger his human form, but the use of more energy made him more nervous. It was foolish and counterproductive to insist on remaining inside the limited mortal shell under these circumstances, but he stubbornly refused to abandon it before he had to. If nothing else, it reminded him of what he had lost. Remembering the man and the Bitch's pitifully veiled jealousy fueled his indignation and made wallowing in self-pity seem less attractive. Wallowing in self-pity wasn't going to return the man to him, after all, and it certainly wasn't going to fix what was wrong in the Continuum.



"I knew I'd find you here." Sky blue Q energy swirled around the inside of the cave and a tendril reached out to lick Q's red-tinged human cheek, warming it and infusing him with a taste of fresh strength. As he watched, the energy expanded into a cloud and then contracted tightly, shimmering into the form of a broad-shouldered human woman with close-cropped blonde hair.



"Q," Q snickered, letting the disdainful once-over of his human eyes make all the comment he considered necessary on the subject of the form's blue flannel shirt and dark dungarees. "What do you want?" He shifted slightly in his crouch, crinkling his mobile human brows and adding as an afterthought, "And why are you a woman?"



"I came to crash your pity party... and it was a whim. I didn't think it would make much difference."



"It makes an enormous difference to humans." Q sniffed and eased himself up and over toward the mouth of the cave, offering Q his best pointed disinterest as he hugged himself and gazed out over the cracked, frozen plane. He could see it in his mind's eye, clearly, without using his human ones, but doing it that way lacked the dramatic poignancy he was going for.



"Like I said - not much difference. Are you almost finished here? This body itches." The other Q approached him and followed his gaze with equal disinterest.



"So leave. I didn't invite you. I could have used your help back there, but now I think I can do without it." Q glared at his companion with a theatrical sideways glance that raised his chin and wrinkled his nose. Unconsciously, he increased the vibrancy of the environmental barrier around his human body so that he could concentrate more fully on the guilt trip he meant to lay on Q. The extra effort cost him, and he swayed where he stood, grains of used, dead energy sloughing off and gathering at their feet.



"I don't think so, actually. You look like shit, Q, and you're only going to get worse if you insist on maintaining that greedy incarnation." Q's companion allowed a tinge of concern to penetrate his husky female voice, but Q stubbornly ignored it.



"You came all the way to Trelles-5 to tell me that my adopted humanity is going to kill me. Well, that's just peachy. Did Q send you?" Rolling dry, gem-like blue eyes that revealed an incomplete understanding of human physiology, the other Q folded his arms and frowned. Q watched him, his full lips twitching uncertainly as he waited for a bitchy rejoinder that didn't come. Somewhat satisfied with having had the last word, Q gave up waiting and looked back out at the craggy, white-blue landscape outside the cave. The planet had been interesting six hundred years ago; it hadn't exactly teemed with life even then, but it had been home to several uniquely constructed species of insect and a number of plants that had seemed to be headed in the evolutionary direction of sentience. Now he and Q were the only lifeforms on Trelles-5. Everything else was long dead, frozen, cracked into pieces. It had seemed appropriate, somehow, when he had been alone here in this dead, lonely place, but the other Q's presence highlighted the absurdity of his sentimental self-exile. They had to ruin that for him, too.



"All right. I know you're still angry that I didn't, I don't know, leap valiantly to your rescue or something, Q, but you were right when you said that the things we love are all in danger," Q's companion said finally, taking a step toward the mouth of the cave and into Q's peripheral vision. "My saying something would have distracted them just long enough to order a cancellation of my genetic experiments on Vrishnak, and then they would have gone right back to eating you alive." Q's dark human eyes flashed and he whirled around.



"I can't believe you're comparing your genetic experiments to my relationship with Picard!" Balling his fists, Q glared crossly into those ridiculous blue doll's eyes, but his companion only crinkled his brows and looked perplexed.



"Why not?"



"Why not?" Q sputtered. It was preposterous. Obviously. He was just too taken aback to articulate why or how.



"Yes, why not? Picard interests you, my experiments interest me. Playing with Picard allows you to express yourself and create something that belongs to you without having to share it with the whole fucking Continuum, and my experiments do that for me.



Do you have any idea what the Vrishi fruit spider would have evolved into if I hadn't gotten involved? Do you have any idea how many attempts it took for me to find the exact combination of mobility and adaptability required for a gumbat to be transferred from its native jungle habitat to the dust plains on the southern continent without disrupting the ecosystem catastrophically?" The other Q paced as he spoke, gesturing passionately and seeming to relegate his consciousness of Q's presence to the back of his Q-mind. That his experiments stirred him deeply was undeniable, but it wasn't the same. He simply couldn't understand Q's relationship with the man.



"Fine," Q said, with a wearily dismissive gesture. "You didn't want them to take your experiments away. But it doesn't begin to compare to my loss." Stopping in his stride, Q's companion cocked his blonde human head and smirked ironically.



"Doesn't it? Which aspect have I failed to include?" Swaying again and catching himself against a wide stalagmite, Q rolled his eyes. It was so obvious that a reply was practically beneath him, which was good, because he couldn't actually think of one. The other Q raised his brows and then seemed to lose interest, letting his gaze wander curiously. "This is interesting," he murmured as he looked around with his human eyes. "You know, sometimes I get inside one of the fruit spiders and just go along with the crowd, scrabbling up the sides of stemplants and nibbling on dirty, half-eaten hunks of stemfruit with all the others. Certainly lends a different perspective to --"



"Picard loves me," Q said quietly, hooking his shoulder against the stalagmite to hold his human body up as he stared blankly into the middle distance. Human feet shuffled behind him; the other Q was approaching again. A thin-fingered female hand settled on the shoulder of his tattered Starfleet captain's uniform but it imparted no warmth. It wasn't a real human hand, not even as real as his own human hands were. It was a fabrication.



"Even now?"



"Yes, even now."



"You know, Q... he's just a human." At this Q turned slightly, incriminating frost forming at the corners of his human eyes. His nostrils flared agitatedly, but there was no guile in his companion's soft smile. "And my Vrishi fruit spiders are just fruit spiders. I understand better than you think." Thriftlessly Q let concession wash off of him and into the mix of their energies, otherwise saying nothing as he turned his head back to the mouth of the cave. Fine.



The hand withdrew and human feet crunched the hard ground behind him. In his mind's eye he saw his companion pace away and bestow bemused, experimental touches on another stalagmite a few feet away. The other Q frowned thoughtfully as he poked at the frozen spike, hissing and yanking his fingertips away quickly.



"When you're feeling up to it, I have a plan," Q's companion said, wincing sheepishly and shaking his frost-covered human finger. Suddenly frightened by the rate at which his body's maintenance weakened him, Q slid down against the stalagmite and dropped some of his physical defenses. Immediately he began to shiver and hurt.



"You'll... have to join with me first." The other Q didn't turn, but Q could feel his Q-attention on him, warming him.



"I know. I'm not looking forward to feeling all of those disgusting things you've gotten up to with Picard, but never let it be said that I wasn't willing to take one for the team." Folding his human body into a comfortable sitting position, Q's companion reached out to him mentally, twining his energy with the ragged edges of what made Q Q.



"You're a bastard, Q," Q breathed, closing his human eyes as he shivered and tried to concentrate.



"I'm here, aren't I?"



It hadn't been spoken aloud, but he felt it all around him. At first there was only warmth and light, the brilliance and complexity of another Q's consciousness. It was always so easy to wander off alone into the Universe, sniffing along this interesting trail or that one, to become so engrossed in himself that he forgot what it meant to be a part of the Continuum. The barest touch of another Q's mind, though, whether he adored or despised its owner, made him want to weep with the joy of sameness. It was a delicate state, that first light contact, and it never lasted long enough.



Gradually the individual eclipsed the connection, and Q's mind was filled with the Maverick's longings, his terrors, his passions and his humiliations. There was fear but little anger, disapproval but little hatred, and so many relationships that Q could hardly keep track of them all. They were deep bonds but somehow primitive and difficult to puzzle out. For whom did his companion feel such admiration? Whose rejection throbbed and ached no less acutely for all the time that had passed? Animals. Almost every bright, intimate chain was an animal of some kind and Q was still working to fully comprehend that when he arrived at the Maverick's relationship with him. On the surface there was frustration, jagged and yellow, seething and reproachful. It hurt Q to see it, sparked a sense of remorse in him that wanted to become resentment, but underneath the frustration lay such a wealth of affection that he could only let go and allow it to be. He had known, really, how his companion considered him, but the vitality of experience faded quickly and without that vitality even the most beautiful things could be forgotten. Something was always lost in translation; time and emotion corrupted his memory.



Although he was strong now, infused with new vigor that was theirs and would become his when the link was broken, Q shuddered and winced to feel the Maverick in his own desires, in his own devotions, in his own dreads. Had his partner been an adversary he might have stood tall and strong, daring him to find fault or lay down judgment, knowing that he had nothing to lose and only respect to gain. It was difficult not to desire the approval of this merciful friend, though, and there was so much that seemed unworthy of it. The Maverick saw his fear, smiled and ate it. He saw Q's itchy fury with the Bitch and his dread that her schemes would pervert the Continuum unforgivably, and he gave his subtle approval. When he arrived at Q's obsession with the man he blessed it wincingly and moved along. Q's embarrassment and his deep shame over that embarrassment, his scalding awareness of the Continuum's disapproval and his disgust with his own instinct to cower from it were accepted without judgment.



Finally Q was ready to be himself again, wholly and solely himself, and they came apart inchingly, reacclimating themselves to their human bodies and to their cold craggy cave on Trelles-5.



"It wasn't as horrific as I thought it would be," the Maverick said, his female voice cracking and grating until he retuned his environmental barriers. With a patronizing smirk that was all for show, Q took hold of the stalagmite and dragged his human body into a standing position. His companion had recovered enough to speak first, but he wasn't going to be entirely outdone.



"Or as dull as I thought it would be." Q dusted himself off and flexed his human fingers, blinked his human eyes and generally made certain that everything was in proper working order. Once the initial disorientation of breaking the link had passed, he felt invigorated and, for the first time since he had left the man on his ship, genuinely hopeful.



"If by that you mean 'thank you', then you're welcome, Q," the Maverick grunted, having a bit more trouble standing than Q had, and requiring the aid of a large, firm hand around his forearm. Surprising himself, Q assisted without thinking less of his companion for the time it took him to readjust to the unfamiliar body.



"We both know they wouldn't have let me rot away out here indefinitely, but I suppose I do have you to thank for this plan you mentioned." Q's grin was amused but not unkind, and the Maverick's glare only lasted a moment before he was smiling, too.



"Are you sure you want to thank me before you've heard what it is?"



"Oh, that's ominous."



"The best kind of plan, I always say."



"No, you don't."



"Well, I would if I had occasion to. It's not as though I go around formulating coups to overthrow other coups all the time, you know. Look, do you want to hear it or not?"



"Of course," Q murmured, tugging on the bottom of his fabricated Starfleet uniform. "But first let's get out of this hole."



In a flash they were gone, rematerializing on a grassy mudbank in the shade of a tall, fibrous stemplant. Its wide leaves beckoned, dangling bulbous purple stemfruits enticingly and bouncing them in the light breeze. Q looked around. So this was Vrishnak. Squinting, he turned his human face up to the pale green sun and let it warm him, relaxing away his environmental shields and becoming more a part of his delicate human body. A low titter from over his shoulder made Q turn to see a spindly brown fruit spider skittering up the length of the Maverick's human arm.



"Whenever you're finished," Q murmured wryly, settling his hands on his hips. His companion looked sheepish for a second before a nod made the spider disappear in a tiny flash. Still smiling faintly, the Maverick leaned lightly against one narrow, green trunk of the stemplant. He tried to cross his arms over his chest but found his human body's breasts to be an obstacle, and so settled for crossing them awkwardly around his middle. When he glanced up again Q tried not to look overly smug. "Well?"



"Well, I've already spoken to Q," Q's companion began, envisioning the willowy pink innocence that was the Q formerly known as Amanda Rogers. "As you can imagine, she's upset about what they did to you."



"So upset she watched them do it," Q grumbled, squinting into the sun again and feeling his hopeful mood waver. If even his most emphatic supporters refused to endanger themselves on his behalf -- and it was really their own behalf -- what hope was there, really? Even if he could manage to organize them, what good was an organized bunch of cowards? He scowled at the sun, at the dirt, and again at his companion. The Maverick was glaring exasperatedly at him.



"We've been through this, Q. If you want to think you're better than the rest of us because you threw yourself in front of the anti-matter explosion, fine. Superiority is what you do best, after all. I'm offering my help... we're offering OUR help. Take it or leave it." Pretending to ignore the reprimand but filing it away for later consideration, Q raised a brow.



"Q offered to help?"



"She practically begged."



"Was she gooshy? Schmaltzy? Desperately, melodramatically sincere? Did she grovel?" Q drew nearer to his companion and smiled with sly hopefulness. Shifting back against the stalk that supported him, the Maverick rolled glassy human eyes.



"She said, 'I'd really like to help.'"



"Oh," Q said, frowning. He was a little let down, but under the circumstances he supposed he could forgive her. "Well, that will have to do." Reluctantly mollified, the other Q nodded.



"Yes, it will, and you're lucky. She hasn't had time to make nearly the number of enemies we have." Q told himself to let the little things go, but his self didn't listen.



"I'm not the only one who's lucky. You act like you'd all be rejoicing under their bitchy martial law if it weren't for your sore obligation to your ne'er-do-well chum."



"I'm beginning to think it would be preferable to dealing with my ne'er-do-well chum," the Maverick snapped, snatching a flowery bud from the stemplant and flicking it into the mud. Sighing, he pursed his lips grimly. "We're all lucky, all right? But you'd better get that martyr complex under control and you'd better do it fast. Keep in mind, Q, that your situation was several times as inflammatory as anyone else's and there are plenty of Q who still think their little obsessions are going to slip in under the radar. Not everyone's as forward-thinking as Q and I are."



Q made a face and wanted to argue but, as wronged as he felt, he knew that what hope he had left lay with the Maverick's plan and his willingness to help. Crossing his arms over his chest, he decided that for once the details didn't matter.



"All right," he muttered, pretending to be vaguely interested in a six-legged equine creature's tear across the muddy plane across the way so that he wouldn't have to meet his companion's gaze. When he was satisfied that he had relaxed the indignation and petulance out of his expression he looked back at the Maverick and said, "So tell me about this plan." The other Q gave a slight nod to indicate his acceptance of what he chose to take as Q's unspoken apology.



"You know as well as I do that almost no one is in genuine agreement with Q," he said, projecting an image of the Bitch in her swirling, red insidiousness. "They're afraid."



"Apparently they should be," Q growled with an irritation that was directed at his own mental image of the Bitch and of the way the rest of the Continuum had cowered and shivered as she had passed judgment on his private life.



"Of course they should, but I don't trust them to make the connection between what happened to you and what might happen to them on their own."



"Don't you? Did you all de-evolve intellectually while I was away?"



"If this is going to work at all, Q, you're going to have to try to understand the general feeling about your interest in Picard at least a little bit," Q's companion said evenly, both his human eyes and his puffy blue Q-attention trained steadily on the entity. Q was secretly relieved when the Maverick didn't responded to his baiting; he didn't want to argue, he didn't even know why he was being difficult, except that he was just so *angry*. Shifting his weight and working the scowl off of his human face, he nodded.



"I know what the general feeling is. They think they're safe because they'd never do something as perverse as mate with a human, but give Q a little time and everything anybody does is going to be considered a perversion."



"Exactly. That's where Q comes in." Q raised a brow and settled his human back against a stemplant stalk as his companion continued. "Beyond the fact that she hasn't spent the last five billion years making enemies the way you have, it turns out she's made quite a few of friends over the course of her studies."



"She found someone who wasn't annoyed by all of that youthful exuberance?"



"The Q responsible for her training think she's cute, and so do you." The Maverick was smirking and Q tried to scowl, but the downward curve of his full human lips wouldn't stick. He settled for a patronizing grimace. Gesturing awkwardly, his companion went on. "She thinks she can talk some sense into some of them, especially considering that when she's released into the wild their studiousness won't seem so directly beneficial to the Continuum anymore." Q frowned thoughtfully and pinched at his bottom lip.



"That won't exactly give us a majority, but it's a start, and believe it or not, as many feathers as I've ruffled, I'm owed one or two favors as well."



"I was counting on it," Q's companion said, nodding, with a hopeful smile that was infectious. Maybe this was going to work after all. "Aside from the favor you now owe me --" Q's eyes narrowed but the Maverick ignored him, " -- I'm pretty poor in that area, but I know one or two things that one or two Q might prefer I didn't tell anyone, Q in particular."



"You sly dog. If we've got Q's babysitters in our pockets, together with the unfortunates who owe me favors and you blackmail, we might really have the beginnings of something. Imagine all the friends and debtors they must have." Q was smiling finally, a genuine smile of interest and hope and not a little bit of smugness. His companion chewed the inside of his lip in a half-successful attempt to keep from mirroring that expression.



"That is the idea." The Maverick came away from his stemplant stalk and, glancing over his shoulder at Q, seemed to consider the briefing over. Of course. They ought to get started right away; there were a lot of Q to approach and he didn't want the man to have to wait any longer than was absolutely necessary. The man...



"Q," Q said, squishing a few steps through the mud as his companion looked ready to wish himself away and into the first phase of his plan. "There's one more thing." The Maverick turned, waiting, and Q felt suddenly shy. "I can't go and tell Picard what happened."



"But that doesn't mean I can't?" Q nodded, sober with delicate hope and determined not to be ashamed of either his feelings for the man or his entrenchment in them. With an awkward, tender half-smile, the other Q nodded and flashed out.