Mon Capitaine
"An old bald man was standing, alone, in a white void. He's been here before, he remembered. He turned around on himself, looking if there was anything else than that bright white light coming from everywhere. He frowned as anger and impatience slowly come to fill his normally imperturbable face. He..."
"Q! Show yourself and stop narrating!"
A flash briefly appeared in front of the man and a second one stood in front of him. The new one was wearing a black and red suit decorated with gold piping, announcing him as a fleet admiral. The bald man was wearing a suit of similar design, but instead of red shoulders, they were dark grey with only the neck piece displaying the red of commandment.
"As always, mon capitaine, you're not fun," the new comer said while raising an eyebrow.
"I don't have time for this Q!"
"Oh, do say, what time you don't have, Jean-Luc?"
Jean-Luc's face was now only displaying anger. "For this, your riddle, your test."
Q clapped his hands. "How lucky you are then, no riddle and no test from me today!"
"Then what?" he countered, suspicious of his motive.
"I'm here to cheer you up!" Q said with a huge smile.
"Then truly, I don't have time for this," the captain snapped back.
Q sighed. "Jean-Luc, I never took a single second off your pathetic life. Every time I visited, I put you back exactly the same age you were before. Just the old you... with a bit more knowledge to brighten your days."
"I don't need cheering up," he countered.
"Oh but you do!" Q took a pause. "You should be celebrating and yet you're there, in your corner, looking so sad."
"Celebrating!" Picard snapped while pointing a finger a Q's nose. "Celebrating what? The death of sixty three billion people? Deaths that are your fault!"
Q stepped back and took a deep breath. "Sixty three billion one hundred twelve million four hundred fifty nine and ninety two people. Do you want me to list the number of all living beings killed when those worlds were vitrified? Or their names?"
"I..."
"I saw them all, each and every one of them die. All of them and the two trillion four hundred twenty three billion other that the Borg killed or assimilated." His smile was gone as Picard's anger.
"Why did you do nothing?"
"Did nothing? I did plenty. The Borg are gone!"
Jean-Luc crossed his arms. "What are you talking about?"
"You were talking of what's my fault? Then yes, it's my fault the Borg are truly gone," Q claimed while taking a step forward.
"You could have snapped your fingers and prevented them from existing in the first place! You could have saved all those lives!" Picard screamed.
"What is the law that you uphold, no matter the cost, even if it means taking your own life?"
Jean-Luc took a step back. "You... You mean the prime directive? Why would the Q continuum have anything like that?"
Q shook his head. "Why are you so surprised that other species could have something similar?"
"You mean..."
"That I couldn't just snap my fingers. The lower species created the Borg, they had to get rid of them by themselves." Q looked away. "I had to walk a fine line. I could not help your directly nor change your own evolution. However, it was 'permitted' that I put the right people in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Like me?" The captain asked surprised.
"Like you and dozen others that were unaware of their roles. I'm terribly sorry that you had to be assimilated, but even you should understand that the knowledge you brought back was crucial in the Borg’s defeat." Q stared at Jean-Luc. "I had to make you face them half a century before it should have happened by itself. By meeting them while they were still far away from you, you had decades to prepare yourself, something thousands other species cannot claim."
The captain took a few deep breaths while thinking about Q's claims.
"Thanks."
A huge smile showed up on Q's face.
"What?" Picard asked.
"What what? Are you expecting me to rub it in and waste your precious appreciation of my tremendous efforts?"
The corners of the captain's mouth went down. "You are doing it right now."
"Did I tell you you're no fun?"
"I stopped counting."
"Maybe you should take this advice and consider it?" Picard pouted. Q shrugged. "Who am I kidding? Now back to cheering you up!"
"What?"
"Watching every death and assimilation from the Borg were my burden. Your, mon capitaine, is to be a beacon of hope for numerous species. And I must say, you're not doing a very good job."
Jean-Luc looked skeptical. "And how cheering me up is supposed to help with that task?"
Q put a finger to his mouth. "When was the last time you made a friend? How many do you have onboard your precious ship right now?"
"I got many!" the captain replied without thinking. "I got... I got Wo..."
"Worf?" Q rolled his eyes. "The hull of a torpedo is probably friendlier. But let's say it is a friend. Now, how many are new? Like less than a few years."
Jean-Luc went in his mind and passed the list of all the people assigned onboard his ship. He could see in his head the picture, profile and resume of each of them. While he could claim some were close colleagues, none were close enough for him to call a friend. Since the death of Data, since Riker got his own ship and left with his wife Dianna, since his own wife Beverly went back on Earth to raise his child, he was left with only Worf and Geordi. Since them, he never got close to anybody else.
He was afraid to admit it, but with time he grew cold. Friendship was something that required time and lot of personal investments. He felt he was running out of the first and was never really good at the second. Why make so much effort for something that often ends in tears?
"Friendship isn't always easy. But there's no doubt it's worth fighting for," Q said with weird look on his face. "And you, mon capitaine, are in an impressive deprivation of it."
"Now what? You're reading minds?"
"I should feel insulted that you always underestimate me like that. I can see the past, the future, alternative universe and somehow your tiny mind would be out of my reach?"
"Stay out of it," Picard snapped.
Q rolled his eyes. "Trust me, there's nothing in there worthy writing about."
"What?" He asked confused.
Q shrugged. "Don't bother, he understands." He pointed a finger toward Jean-Luc. "As for you, I know what's wrong with you, why the long face. You keep saying you're an explorer. When was the last time you explored anything?"
"I'm not afraid of my duty. Right now, the alliance of Romulan, Breen and Gorn are testing out defenses. With the lost of so many ships against the Borg, mine can't afford being in deep space exploration."
"You're cute when you do that," Q said with pity.
"Do what?" Picard asked, losing patience once again.
Q sighed. "Acting all grown up and responsible. You can't loosen up and do something unexpected, even if you tried. Do something... Childish." He snapped his fingers and a pink cupcake appeared in his hand. He offered it to the captain. "Take it."
Jean-Luc took the small cake and carefully examined it. "Then what?"
"Do something unexpected. Throw it! Step on it! Smash it between your hands! Or put it on top of your head."
"Q, I don't have t..."
"Time for this. Seriously, you sound like a broken record. I told you, time has no grasp here," Q explained as if the captain was a child. "I will be direct then, since you can't take hints anymore, like you used to." The cupcake disappeared in a flash. "Your mind is getting near the breaking point. Yours is relatively strong for a human, but everyone's mind has a limit. Soon you will become insane, wacko, spider in the roof, gone," Q said while grabbing his own head.
"I..."
"You will try to deny it. Think you're so strong that it cannot happen to you. I've personally known a million times more people who became insane than you've met in your whole life. You've been assimilated, you fought wars and survived the death of billions. Dear captain, trust me, you're losing it. Your mind is breaking apart and you're at the point where you can't even notice it."
"So?"
Q opened his arms. "I'm giving you an opportunity. You fancy yourself an explorer? You will be able to do just that in a place where your ship, could never reach. In a place where rules are different, where magic is science. Where some could teach you to loosen up and keep your mind healthy."
Jean-Luc thought about it for a moment. "Why do you care so much?"
"The big picture, mon capitaine, the big picture. What you will do in a year or a decade from now can have effects in the lives of hundreds of billions in a thousand years."
"And why do you care about them?"
Q smiled. "How do you see humanity in a million years from now?"
"What?"
Q shook his head. "Tss... I promised no riddle! Just forget I said anything."
Picard sighed, giving up. "So, where is that special place that my ship can't reach?"
"Jean-Luc, I think you once said you like horses?"