Chapter Text
The doctor, a Vulcan woman, looks down at her PADD and then back at you. “I need you to say it again.”
“What? Why? Didn’t you hear what I just told you?” you snap back.
“Lieutenant, I need to repeatedly go over this with you. What you say is illogical.”
You sit up in bed and glare at her. Every part of your body hurts. You aren’t sure why. They scanned you and told you that you are totally fine.
“I had a Q inside of my brain. For ten years,” you say slowly. At the end of your rope, honestly.
“A Q. By this you are referring to the entity known as Q?”
You groan and close your eyes. “No, by Q I mean a Q. A member of the species Q. Not the Q that interacted with Captain Picard.”
The doctor, eyebrows now arched in the Vulcan way, meets your eyes. “And where is it now? That Q?”
“Alright,” you chuckle and look around. “Why are you asking me this? What kind of doctor are you?”
“I just want to know where this Q, that supposedly lived inside your brain for ten years, is now. You can also say that you don’t know or that you have made it up.”
You press your lips together. “Why would I make that up? I had headaches for the last seven years. Every day I had to take medication. When I got mad or very, very sad, something that looked like a spider web came out of me and more often than not destroyed either parts of the ship or hurt a member of Voyager’s crew.”
The doctor glances down at her PADD and writes something.
You scoff. “A psychiatrist. You think I was hallucinating.”
“I think that you were in shock. It is logical for the human mind to hang on to irrational ideas. Like the idea of an entity taking over and guiding a ship through a wormhole.”
“Again: why would I make that shit up? Why? Wouldn’t it be easier to say: hey, I’m a hero because at the hour of Voyager’s need I suddenly developed super speed, found it within myself to just hammer into the keyboard some numbers that turned out to be the right coordinates for the right universe and quadrant? Wouldn’t it be much easier for me to take the glory for myself?”
The doctor listens intently. Her eyes blink, her lips are parted a little. She nods. “I have read your file, Lieutenant. I know that you aren’t a person who takes on more than necessary.”
“Are you saying I am lazy?” you glare.
“No, I say that you are someone who doesn’t accept it when something worked out. Or much more precisely: when you did something well.”
The thin paper under your legs scrunches up and crinkles as you move to sit up and scoot to the edge of the bed. “Why would I make up a Q in my head then?”
“Lieutenant,” the doctor says quietly, “I don’t think you are mentally ill and you don’t need to react this emotionally to my questions. Yes, I am a psychiatrist, but I am mainly here as someone from Starfleet. I need to make sure that what you say is the truth. Q sightings are rare and it is even rarer that one… stays inside one’s head. If what you say is true, we need to add this information to the Federation database.”
“Write it down: Qs are born like this: First two species, like for example a human and a plant, bond or connect or whatever. Then a third species, like the Caretaker, needs to emit a strong energy pulse, moving said Q in said person across the fucking universe. A Q then learns and develops their powers. After this, when the Q is ready to be born, you need to get into an unstable wormhole. And through it. After this the Q will detach itself from the vessel or host or whatever you want to call it and then it’s just a Q. A normal Q. An annoying piece of—”
“Lieutenant, I hope I didn’t hear you curse right now,” a voice behind you says.
As you turn you see a woman, still wearing her normal captain uniform. But looking way more rested than the last time you saw her.
“I wasn’t, of course,” you tell her with a smile.
She chuckles lowly and walks over.
“Captain Janeway, we are talking about classified information at the moment,” the doctor looks over to your captain.
Or is she your captain now?
Janeway leans against the biobed, right next to where you sit. “That is what I am here for. To tell you to stop questioning my lieutenant and the person who brought Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant. This Q destroyed half of my ship. Nobody is making anything up.”
Then Janeway looks over with a smile on her lips. “I wrote everything down. A very detailed report.”
You frown at that.
“You can expect some important messages soon, Lieutenant.” She smirks.
“So you say that all what your lieutenant said about the Q and the process of Q life is true.”
Captain Janeway sighs quietly and then nods, her hair moving slightly. “Oh yes. Q visited us… way too often on Voyager. And this whole thing with the ‘baby Q’ finally explains why he did that.”
“He was a midwife,” you snort and can’t help but laugh.
Janeway, her brow raised, smiles at you. “In some way, I guess so.”
“Never saw him in that role,” you chuckle and begin to fumble around with your hospital gown.
The Vulcan doctor clears her throat. “Is there anything else you would like to report about your state of mental health, Lieutenant?”
You look over. “I need a vacation. When can I finally leave?”
“That’s what I told him. But you know Q. He is stubborn.” Farewell giggles softly and looks down at the picture again.
The picture that shows them exactly like you saw Q once in the vent. When he stopped time to tell you some ominous message about the number 2.57. And back then that was all you heard. The number.
Now you know that the number was just a test.
Because the real information lay in the person giving it to you.
You still stare at Farewell. They hum gently, going through more pictures.
“What do you want?” you whisper.
They look up. “Oh, I think overall I really want to do the command track. But first I really want to learn more about AI,” they tell you like the last minutes didn’t just happen.
But did they? Or did you just imagine everything?
“You are in Starfleet. You know what I have to do now… Ensign,” you say quietly.
They look up, eyebrows raised. “I do? What do you need to do?”
“You know what I need to do now,” you say again. “You know what must happen now.”
You close your eyes briefly.
They furrow their brow and tilt their head to the side. “But like… do you really have to? This could just be a secret between us.”
You chuckle grimly. “Are you crazy? Of course it can’t.”
Your body slowly moves further away from them. Yet you can’t stand up.
First you think they did something to you. Put a Q spell on you or something. But then you notice how strongly your legs are trembling. And that they feel like jelly.
Farewell sighs and closes their eyes. “I really don’t want you to, though. I don’t want people to know. I am good at hiding it.”
You scoff. “Are you serious? You are always right there. You don’t sleep and for an ensign you are way too competent.”
They glare at you. “There are people like that in Starfleet. Like Data, for example. He was also always competent. Even back in the Academy. He didn’t get why people didn’t want to talk with him but he did ace all of his courses.”
“Captain Soong to you,” you say harshly.
Then you tap your comm badge.
“Please don’t,” Farewell now says and puts away the pictures. They crawl towards you, wanting to snatch away your comm badge.
But before they can, the jelly in your legs hardens again. Making it easier to stand up and push the panel behind you to open up the door to the quarters.
“Commander Soong to Captain Soong,” you say loudly.
“Yes, Commander?” Data’s voice reaches you.
“Code Farpoint. I repeat: Code Farpoint. I am sure. Code Farpoint.”
“Please give your authorization code,” he says.
“Beta Omega Four Fifteen. Code Farpoint.”
“I acknowledge. Is emergency transport needed?”
Your eyes watch Farewell closely. They just sit there, on the floor, looking up.
“No.”
“Current location is correct?” Data asks.
“Yes.”
“The usual?”
“No. It’s not the one we know,” you say. Your eyes are still staring down at the ensign who now starts organizing their clothes.
“Further information?”
“Ensign Farewell,” you say hoarsely. Your lips tremble.
“Acknowledged, Commander Soong.”
Then the comm channel closes.
“You know that this isn’t how it works, right?” Farewell glances up and then sniffs at socks they just found under their bed. Quickly throwing them to the other corner of the room.
“Why?” you ask, already knowing the answer.
“Code Farpoint is an absolutely unnecessary drill. It never works.”
“We can still try,” you say and tap the panel again. Why hasn’t the door opened yet?
“Because I locked it.”
Your eyes widen.
Farewell blinks up. “I really don’t mean you any harm. But I fear that if you leave you leave forever and I can’t let that happen.”
“What do you want?”
They exhale loudly and take something from under their bed. For a second you think it’s something that explains all of this. All of this madness.
But it’s just another pile of stuff they sort through.
“I am fascinated by all of this. That is why. I also liked the way Data’s quarters looked on the Enterprise. All the things he had.” Their eyes widen as they meet yours. “We don’t have that in the continuum. Stuff. Things. Clutter. I love it. I keep as much as I can, actually.”
They cross their legs and start to hum again, now looking through more things. A few of them look like comm badges and parts of the Helix.
“You stole them,” you say.
“What?” Farewell glances up. “Of course not. I borrow them or I just take them. But stealing implies that those things actually belong to someone and you know as well as I do that we don’t live in that kind of society anymore.”
“Please let me leave at least,” you find yourself whispering. “I could help you.”
“What? How would you help me?” they snort. “You just broke my trust. I asked you not to tell and you did. You know that this probably means that I will have to leave. And I really don’t want to. I love the Helix and I love being close to my parents. Even if they don’t see themselves as my parents yet.” They smile fondly at you.
“What?” you ask.
Outside you hear Kelly’s voice.
“Commander Soong, are you in there?”
“Yes,” you try to say it as loud as you can but it comes out a whisper anyway. It feels like the air is draining from your lungs.
“Are you harmed?”
“No,” you say.
“Is it in there?”
“Are they in there,” Farewell corrects. “I thought we respect pronouns.”
“Ensign Farewell is with me, yes,” you answer in the direction of the closed door.
“Alright,” Kelly’s voice sounds like she is uncertain what to do right now.
“Exactly that is what I meant,” Farewell chuckles then. “What do they want to do? Forbid me to leave my quarters?”
“They might throw you out of Starfleet,” you point out hesitantly.
The ensign snorts. “What? Because I am a Q? The Federation isn’t that discriminatory.”
“Not because you are a Q,” you frown, “but because you just locked in an officer. I would only have to tell them and you would be gone.”
Why you are saying this you don’t know yourself. Maybe it is the situation. Maybe it is the air or the sheer impossibility of all of this.
Farewell takes a comm badge into their hand and activates, then deactivates the comm signal. They just seem to listen to the screeching beep of the device.
“I love Starfleet, by the way. And I am not saying this because I basically grew up in Starfleet.” They smile fondly at you. “I love how Starfleet is about tolerance, giving people a home that didn’t really fit in anywhere before and connecting with new forms of life.”
“Commander Soong?” Kelly calls from outside.
You don’t answer. Your eyes are on Farewell who now seems to sort through some pips they “acquired.”
“I will try to help you. If you let me go out of this room, I will help you. Really.”
Ensign Farewell frowns at that and then huffs. “See, no. This isn’t working for me. I need more than a lame promise of protection. You give these out willy-nilly these days.”
They purse their lips and put down the badge.
“Then what would be better?”
Farewell thinks. “I mean it would be better if you liked me.”
“I do. I do like you. Even before I knew you are who… you are, I liked you so much that Lieutenant Zan told me not to get attached.”
“I’m your favorite then?” Their eyes grow big at that.
You nod frantically.
“Commander Soong, I am prepared to come in,” Kelly tells you.
“No, she is not. She just told one of her officers that she can’t open the door. That is because I changed the dimensional spacetime on that.”
“Do you want me to prove anything to you? Or do you want me to beg?” you snap then.
Farewell slowly stands up and combs their wild hair behind their ears. “No. I came here to get to know you. I wanted to do it my own way. In secret. Without the press. Without people telling me I can’t be in Starfleet. I just wanted to get to know you, is all.”
“So? Now you know me and you will leave?”
They grin and shake their head. “No, because I realized something very odd.” They squint their eyes.
You frown back.
“It seems I don’t just want to watch you. I want to be with you.”
“With me?” you ask.
“Yes,” they nod. “I want to interact with you. Be important to you. I want to have something that Lal had. Even if it was short-lived.” They shrug.
“What is that?”
Farewell steps closer. They blink innocently as they say:
“A family. I want a family.”
You press back into the door.
Farewell steps forward.
“I really don’t want to harm you, Commander Soong. I want to have what no Q ever had. Is this so hard to believe?”
In an act of desperation you push the panel behind your back again. Just to give it the old Academy try.
And finally it opens up.
You stumble backward into the corridor. Expecting Kelly or another officer, maybe even your husband to catch you.
But instead you land on the floor. Hearing your back crack.
“Shit!” you hiss.
Your eyes closed in pain, you roll onto your side.
Then you hoist yourself up and tap your badge. “Kelly, where are you?”
“Ensign,” you hear a voice above you.
Your eyes widen and slowly you glance up at the huge Klingon.
“Aren’t you one of the new officers who came aboard today? I need you to report to your department head or find your orientation officer,” Worf says.
“Huh?” you croak up.
The Klingon grunts and reaches out for your hand. In an absolute daze you give it to him and let him help you up.
“Name?”
“What?” you breathe and look around.
Shock written all over your face, you see that the hallway you landed in isn’t the one outside Ensign Farewell’s door.
It is the hallway of the Enterprise-D.
“Where am I?” you ask and start to walk in one direction.
“Deck 17. And I still need your name to look you up. I could help you find your orientation officer,” he tells you and tries to catch up.
“No, thank you, Worf. I will just go to my post again.”
The words come out of your mouth before you have even thought through them.
And then you run like hell.