Katherine & Q Ch. 06
“How the hell did this happen?” Katherine demanded.
“I have no clue, Ambassador, but if we don’t get someone in there NOW, they’re going to start ripping large chunks out of each other’s planets. You’re the closest person with enough rank and knowledge of the Reguls, so we’re sending the “Enterprise” there immediately. Meet with the heads of both factions and get them to renew the peace treaty before the end of next week.” The Director looked puzzled and frustrated. The Reguls had gone through a bloody and crippling (both in terms of lives lost and economic consequences) Civil War 50 years ago, but had renewed their peace treaty every ten years since. There had been no signs from anyone that things were anything other than normal, and the renewing of the peace treaty had been largely an excuse for parties and pomp for the last 30 years. Suddenly the two planets were claiming that the other had conspired against them, that there had been covert spying on technology, that people had been executed at the other’s hands, and on and on.
“I thought we had an embassy there,” Katherine muttered more to herself than to the director.
“That’s the thing Katherine. We do. And everything was just fine until a week ago when the ambassador missed his weekly report. I tried contacting him, his deputy, hell even his administrative assistant and no one was reporting in. I finally got ahold of a,” he cleared his throat “friend in the government, and they went over to see what was going on. And the place was deserted. No one has taken credit, but all the employees are just…gone.”
“And you think they’ll just let me waltz in and handle negotiations?”
“Well, both sides are…embarrassed…neither has taken claim and they seem to be doing it as a gesture of guilt or goodwill…or fear that we’ll blow both of them up if they don’t.” The Director raised an eyebrow at her.
“Great. I’m taking a bodyguard with me, and I’m staying on the ship.” Her tone said ‘”don’t even try to tell me no.’”
“Of course. No one would expect otherwise Ambassador,” the Director replied.
“Fine. I’ll report back daily. Picard out.” Katherine said.
Katherine paced her office, muttering to herself and recalling everything she knew about the Reguls. The war, the terrain, the conditions of the peace treaty. She researched the layout of all the possible locations and decided where she would demand the negotiations be held…one of the possibilities would be easy to escape from should things get dangerous. She shook her head and tried to figure out just who would benefit from all out Civil War. The problem was, no one really would. The two planets relied on one another to make the components of their primary export…an alloy that was becoming popular in the building of warp nacelles. War might allow one planet to control both of them but not without the cost of years worth of war and who knew how much destruction of property. In the meantime, the money they’d lose out on was worth far more to their overall prosperity than a war would be worth. It just didn’t add up.
Q watched her pace, every so often stopping to consult a PADD for information. She kept muttering how it didn’t make sense. Of course, the fact that he had whipped this little diplomatic crisis into existence would account for that. He was, however, annoyed that she had demanded to be housed on the ship. He’d have to find a way to trap her on the planet. Hmm, maybe allow her bodyguard to be killed…maybe even allow her to be taken and roughed up a little before riding in on his proverbial white horse to rescue her. That would certainly put him in her good graces.
“When there is no logical answer….look for an illogical answer. Who benefits from the “Enterprise” going to Regul? Who benefits from my handling this incident? Who would want to disrupt the Regul’s peace? Who…..” she paused, looked out at the stars and then spun around “Q!”
Q debated whether or not to respond.
“I know you’re there, Q. Show yourself!” She put her hands on her hips, which only served, in Q’s opinion, to accent her lovely breasts as they strained against her uniform.
“I’m really not amused Q”
That did it. “What “is” it with you, your father, and being amused? All I ever hear from either of you is ‘I’m not amused.’ Just what, pray tell, does it take to AMUSE you???” He glared at her. “What gives you a belly laugh? Clowns, do you like clowns?” Q snapped his fingers and a clown appeared in the room and began to juggle.
No reaction.
“Okay, not clowns.” He snapped his fingers again and a monkey took the clowns place, and began jumping up and down. “Monkeys?”
Katherine crossed her arms under her breasts. Q found it hard not to stare at them.
“WHAT??? What does it take to amuse you, woman???” he yelled.
Katherine walked up to him, and looked him dead in the eye. She said with dangerous calm, “You want to know what I find amusing? I find it amusing that you manufactured a diplomatic crisis just so that I would ask you to show up. I find it amusing that you’re doing everything in your omnipotent power to get my attention. I find it “amusing” that you’re acting like a spoiled brat who’s been told ‘no’ for the first time in their life. What I don’t find amusing is that you’re playing with thousands of lives for attention.”
Q would later wonder just what possessed him to do what he did in that moment. He told her the truth.
He said “You’re right. I wanted your attention.”
“Well you have it. Is that the price of peace on Regul? That I pay attention to you?” Katherine shook her head. “Christ, Q, all you had to do was stop being such an asshole and approach me with some respect and I would’ve talked to you. Especially after the book on the Borg. Didn’t you think that might raise a few questions that I would need to ask you?” She rubbed her temples, and sat on the couch.
Looking down at her, Q felt another new emotion rising in him. Shame, guilt, sadness. He wasn’t sure what to call it, since he’d never actually experienced any of them. He snapped his fingers, and then said quietly, “It’s over.”
“The Federation officers stationed there?”
“Back where they belong.”
“The treaty?”
“Will be signed after both parties meet tomorrow with the Federation ambassador stationed there.”
“Q, I don’t know what to say or where to begin….”
He said it so quietly, she wasn’t even sure she’d heard him right. “I’m sorry.”
And he was gone.
Katherine spent the next few days looking over her shoulder, sure that Q would appear just as cocky and egomaniacal as ever. She told herself it was because she was worried about what idiotic stunt he’d pull next. She told herself it was because she was sick of him making her a social pariah. She told herself that she was relieved at the end of each day. She refused to admit to herself that maybe, just maybe, what she really was feeling was loss. That she missed him.
She found herself sitting cross legged on her bed, contemplating the bracelet and the book. Obviously the book was valuable and she’d be an idiot not to take it and to report every damned word in it to her superiors. But the bracelet. Why had she kept it? Sure it was pretty, but she had prettier ones. No, she’d never seen that particular blue stone before, but that was hardly a reason to hide it away like some kind of relic from a crush.
She put both away and massaged her throbbing temples. Every time she tried to work her way through this, she just ended up with a migraine. Katherine wasn’t even sure, at this point that she really did want answers.
“I need to focus on something else.”
Katherine remembered her conversation with Wesley about their parents…it seemed like ages ago. But interfering in Beverly and her father’s love life just might take her mind off of worrying about her own. Resolutely, she decided to take the coward’s way out of dealing with her own problems…
“Ah won’t think about it today…Ah’ll think about it tomorrow,” she murmured, recalling the words of an ancient Earth movie she’d seen when she was younger. At the time she’d had nothing for scorn for a woman who wouldn’t take control of her destiny, but at the moment, she was feeling rather sympathetic to that character.
“Captain!” Katherine called out as she quickened her pace.
Jean-Luc turned around and smiled at his daughter. “Ambassador, how are you? Any….visitors?”
“No, happily.” A lie. “I never got to share the new vintage I brought back from Helena with you. Would you care to join me tonight for dinner?” She knew her quarries weaknesses, and a good vintage was high on the list.
“Of course. It would also be nice to catch up with one another.”
“Great. A bientot, pere” She turned down a side corridor, and hummed happily to herself.
That night, they shared dinner, the promised wine, and talked for several hours. Carefully watching her father’s demeanor, Katherine waited to spring her trap until she felt that Jean-Luc was relaxed enough to answer her question honestly.
“So, Pere….you and Beverly have such a long history…have you ever thought of her as more than a friend?” Katherine glanced at him through her long lashes, waiting for his reaction.
Interesting. Her father actually blushed! He looked away from her, a sure body language hint that he was about to lie or evade. “What prompted that question?”
“Just curiosity. I’ve gotten to know her pretty well, all things considered. Oddly, she’s become rather like a surrogate mother figure for me.” Too far?
Jean-Luc stood and walked to her windows. He stared out at the stars, but Katherine got the feeling that he was seeing something else entirely. Someone? Then, he shocked her with his candor. He spoke of knowing Jack Crusher, and Beverly before Wesley was born. He spoke of being the one to tell Beverly that Jack was gone, and that he’d felt responsible for it. He spoke of his admiration for Beverly. His admiration for her brains, her drive, her dedication both to her work and to her son. He admired her sense of humor, her compassion.
Katherine wondered how he had ever managed to deny to himself or anyone else for that matter, that he was in love with Beverly. All you had to do was look at him when he talked about her.
“And because you feel responsible for the death of her husband years ago, you’re going to deny yourself the one woman you want now? I’m sorry, father. I feel compassion for everyone involved in the Stargazer incident, but it’s been more than ten years. How long are you going to punish yourself for it?” Katherine decided bluntness earned bluntness in return.
“How could she ever forgive me? Maybe for a moment, but never in the long run, no matter what she might say,” his voice was calm, but underneath she heard the pain.
Katherine did something out of character for her and her father. She walked up behind him, put her arms around him and hugged him. “Poor father.” Stepping back she looked into his eyes, so like her own. “Why must you always carry the weight of the world on your shoulders alone?”
He shook his head and silently went back to looking out the window. Sensing it, Katherine decided that there’d been enough pushing on this end, and on this very sensitive topic with her father tonight. She had a lot to mull over; details about things no one had told her, and things to think about before she went any further in her plans.
Did Wesley blame her father for his biological father’s death? They had what seemed like a genial almost father/son relationship. But Wes had never really brought up his biological father at all, which upon reflection about all their “family” discussions seemed odd.
She walked down the corridor to the lift, noticing that the crew wasn’t giving her such a wide berth as rumors and “I swear it” sightings of Q had slowing come to a trickle. At least those outside their private encounters.
Q was acting like her first “almost-boyfriend”. She remembered, with a sigh of annoyance, how Rinan had pulled her hair and tried to scare her with spiders to get her attention. In the way of children, he’d tried to annoy her into attention instead of getting to know her. Q was trying to court her-the book, the jewelry were signs of that. But interfering in her job-that had been just like the pulling her hair-only infinitely more dangerous.
She wasn’t interested in Q. Not like that. He was, she granted, a fascinating person. They had so little true information about the Continuum, how could she not find him fascinating. Regardless of how many years he’d been a fly in their proverbial ointment, how much did anyone really know about them? What did a Q actually look like? Did he have a name beyond “Q”? Was his fascination with humans anything comparative to another Q’s fascination with, say, black holes or tears in the time/space continuum? Was there a Q obsessed with the Romulans, for example?
A dangerous thought crossed her mind. If she pretended interest in him, how much concrete information could she get out of him? She had this history of the Borg, which was expansive, detailed, and was essentially a history of all the races that had been assimilated into extinction by the Borg as well. If she pretended a romantic interest, how far could it take her? How far was she willing to go? What would happen when he wanted to take things physical? What would happen if he wanted things public?
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Way too many things could go wrong with it. It was, she pondered, almost regrettable that she was in a relationship. If she were single she would have had little issue or moral conflict about stringing Q along or bedding him. He did present a rather handsome human, she reflected. But there was Wes to think about. And after tonight’s conversation with her father, she realized that she needed to talk to him about more things than one.
In some ways, their relationship was still delicate.
Some feelings, like his jealousy were danced around.
Some moments, like her tangled emotions over Q’s bracelet were still secrets.
And some questions, she thought, were almost too hard to ask. They had to be, though, for both their own sake and the potential future happiness of their parents. But how did you ask your lover if he held your father responsible for his father’s death?
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