Downing

A Picard / Vash Fan Fiction

A story written for my sisters, but one in particular, after her huge disappointment with the ending of "Bloodlines" and, later, the deaths of the Picards on Earth. It was either devote myself to a story rectifying that situation or listen to her crab out about it every time I saw her - and since she lives next door that would be a lot. ;)

DOWNING

Chapter 1

The desk comscreen darkened and shut itself off and Jean Luc Picard leaned back in his chair and swung it around to face the narrow window of his ready room. He thumped his fist impatiently on the arm of the chair. He stared at, but did not see, the motionless star field below a tiny arc of blue white planetary atmosphere visible in the top right corner of the window. Somewhere out of sight was Starbase 147, an enormous spoked wheel construct in permanent orbit of the M class planet below. A popular stop over among starship crews for rest and recreation, 147 had been playing host to the crew of the Enterprise for the past ten days while the ship itself had been in drydock for minor repairs and equipment updates. Today the work on the ship had been completed and Captain Picard had been looking forward to at last getting back to work and taking his ship into space were it belonged. Now it seemed he was going to have to hang around the star base for another day or so while awaiting a passenger ship from Earth to arrive with a very important person aboard whom the Enterprise was ordered to ferry to the shipyards of Starbase 202.
...Picard did not begrudge his crew an extended rec time, and he knew in fact, they would welcome another three days, but he had gotten bored with the facilities the starbase offered and with the limited activities available on the surface of the planet days ago. He was not looking forward to another day of being coerced into visiting the place with Beverly Crusher, as pleasant as her company was, or Will Riker, as taxing as his company sometimes was. There was so much to do yet aboard the ship getting it ready to resume their exploration of deep space.
...When the flash of anger, the feeling of annoyance, the frustration diffused, and he felt his muscles relax, Picard got to his feet, and straightened his uniform, and walked around his desk to the door. As he walked briskly onto the bridge to tell his crew the good news, he wistfully wished something unexpected would happen to ease the monotony.

Ten hours away from Starbase 147, a crowded tourist class shuttle filled with noisy, excited passengers and one very agitated archaeologist, was making its weekly run to the starbase and innocently bringing with it the answer to Jean Luc's wish.
...Sitting at the back of the shuttle and seething with a painful combination of anger, fear, and utter helplessness, a haggard and uncharacteristically hostile Vash signaled the single flight attendant to refill her empty brandy glass. A minute later the glass was empty again, but instead of calling for another refill Vash leaned her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes and willed herself to relax and try to sleep. She had had little sleep in the last five days and she knew she would need all her strength to face Jean Luc Picard with the news she was taking to him. She had not seen him in more than nine years – not since she had surprised him by agreeing to travel the galaxy in partnership with Q, Picard's most unusual nemesis. Though the partnership had ended far from amicably in the Gamma Quadrant, she still saw and spoke with the irascible entity from time to time in relation to a small favor he magnanimously granted her soon after they became partners. Five days ago she had asked for an end to the favor and there began a turn of events that had sent her reeling with fear and rage. Q had refused to give up the responsibility the favor asked of him.
...Powerless against the omnipotent entity, Vash had nonetheless ranted and raged at the maddeningly amused and smirking Q for an hour to no avail. When the fear began to overcome her anger, she had fled the ruins of Tetaris V for the nearest starbase and access to information on the most recent location of major starships. If anyone could make Q see reason it would be Picard, who though he wasn't aware of it, held an interest in the outcome of the favor. Within 48 hours Vash had located the Enterprise at Starbase 147, and booked passage aboard this overcrowded tourist shuttle. Jean Luc was the only person in the known galaxy who could help her now, for both their sakes, and he was now less than 10 hours away. She should have been to see him long ago, she knew, but there had been so many other things to do, and besides, she had foolishly trusted Q to carry out his promise honorably.

Walking alongside Beverly Crusher down a sun-speckled gravel path lined with exotic plants and flowers, and protected overhead by towering tree-like plants with long willowy fronds, Jean Luc Picard was feeling something very close to contentment. It was quite a change from a morning spent making work for himself in front of a computer screen. How Beverly had come to find such a perfectly beautiful and peaceful place on a planet teeming with tourists and vacationing Starfleet personnel, he didn't ask. It was enough to feel relaxed for the first time in days and Picard was savoring the feeling. Taking a deep breath of delicately scented air, he felt a playful punch on his arm and glanced aside at his companion.
..."I haven't heard you voice a complaint about Starfleet turning the Enterprise into a taxi for quite a while. In fact, you've hardly spoken word in the last half-hour, Jean Luc. May I interpret it to mean this planet isn't worthless after all, in your estimation?"
..."Did I call it worthless?" he asked with a small smile coloring his words with amusement. "It must have been my frozen blood speaking if I did. Ice sailing across a polar icecap and getting caught in a snowstorm lasting fourteen hours can put one into a bad frame of mind."
..."Oh, I didn't know. Will thought it was wonderfully exciting," Dr. Crusher pointed out. "He's talked about it for days, and in the most superlative of terms."
Picard, hmmphed a dismissal. "Commander Riker was born in Alaska. He was reliving his fondest childhood memories. I, on the other hand, find nothing exciting about slowly freezing to death in zero visibility."
..."Hindsight is an underrated part of adventure. Someday soon you'll hear Will recounting the story to someone, and you'll begin to think it was as much fun and exciting as he remembers it."
..."Perhaps. Far down the line." Picard reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "This, I'm happy to admit, is just what I needed. I was not looking forward to having another day added onto our stay, but I am enjoying this afternoon in your company immensely. I hope I have properly thanked you for dragging me here, and I apologize for the arguments I tried to start to get out of coming with you."
...Stepping closer to his side, Beverly wrapped arm around his. "You might not have said it in so many words until now, but trust me, I got the message. Your gratitude has been clearly expressed."
..."And accepted?" Picard stopped walking and turned slightly towards her, raising her hand to brush against his lips.
..."And accepted," she assured him, and raised her free hand toward his face.
...Midway through the gesture to captain's communicator warbled and both froze, eyes locked in disbelief. A few seconds later the warble sounded again, and this time they both let out their breaths and looked skyward in reluctant acknowledgment of the interruption.
...Jean Luc tapped the offending gizmo harder than was necessary. "Picard," he announced more loudly than necessary. "What is it?"
..."I'm sorry to interrupt, Captain," Commander William Riker's voice answered promptly. "We have a situation aboard ship that requires your immediate and personal attention. I think Dr. Crusher should be here, too."
..."Does it concern our other VIP arrival, Commander?"
..."No, sir, it does not. Our passenger from Earth is still expected to arrive on time, five hours from now." He audibly took a deep breath and plunged on, his voice clearly apologetic. "Captain, twenty minutes ago an old friend of yours, Vash, beamed aboard the Enterprise without permission and demanded to see you immediately."
"Vash?" Picard repeated with surprise.
...A sudden blast of cold water could not have destroyed the mood he and Beverly shared as quickly as the sound of that particular name did. He felt the grip of her hand go slack along with his own.
..."Yes, sir, Vash, and she was in an exhausted state, near physical collapse. I had her taken to sick bay where she said something about Q and, again, asked to see you before she passed out." A brief pause. "I asked our other passenger to help out on the bridge in light of that revelation." He quickly continued. "Vash is in terrible physical shape and highly agitated about something, Captain. She obviously went through hell to reach the Enterprise."
Picard looked at Dr. Crusher with raised eyebrows, and she nodded firmly. He said, "Two to beam up from this location, Number One."
...They unlinked their hands and watched one another disappear into the transporter beam.

An hour later, dressed in a fresh uniform and feeling all business again, Picard strolled briskly along the corridor toward sick bay and nodded a greeting to Counselor Deanna Troi who was waiting for him just outside the door. He stopped next to her and rubbed his hands together, clearly impatient to enter.
..."What can you tell me, Counselor?"
..."Not much more than Commander Riker was able to tell you." She turned and led him into the lobby area of sick bay. "Vash was in a highly emotional state of turmoil when she arrived. I sensed a great feeling of rage, possibly directed at Q, though for a moment I thought it might have been directed at herself. I couldn't tell for certain, because underneath the anger is a deep and almost painful feeling of fear for someone, or something, other than herself. I don't think it is on your behalf, Captain. I sensed only a strong desire to see you when she first appeared on the bridge. It was followed by a wave of disappointment and helplessness when she was told you were on the surface of the planet."
...The two of them slowed their pace as they reached the entry to the intensive care room where inside, Beverly Crusher and Dr. Selar, a member of her staff, hovered around a tubular shaped bed outfitted with an array of diagnostic equipment encircling the bed at the edges. The unconscious form of Vash, draped with a thermal blanket, lay within the circle of instruments. The normally energetic and charming archaeologist was as pale as a ghost, and even in sleep the emotions she was experiencing showed on her face. Picard hardly recognized her.
...Dr. Crusher noticed them in the doorway and raised one hand with index finger extended to indicate, "one moment, please," and carefully matched the readings on her tricorder with the display above the head of the bed. Satisfied with what she was seeing, she pocketed the rricorder and turned briskly to join Picard and Troi just outside the door.
..."It is Vash, Captain," she said, correctly interpreting his puzzled frown. "I got here a few minutes before the sedative Dr. Selar administered to her took effect. She was able to tell me she hadn't slept nor eaten much in five days, and the medical scans confirm this, but they also indicate she's in surprisingly good health, except for being physically exhausted, of course. She has spent the last five days in a headlong flight from the Tetaris V, juggling connections along the way, in an attempt to reach you before Q could stop her. She'll sleep for three to five hours. You'll have to wait until then to find out what is so important."
...Jean Luc met her gaze and drew in a deep breath. "She said nothing else? Nothing about the matter she mentioned to Commander Riker when she arrived?"
..."Not to me," she said with a shake of her head. She looked back through the door to the patient on the diagnostic bed. "I'll let you know, of course, when she's able to speak to you. Until then there is nothing you can do here but watch her sleep."
...The captain nodded slowly, though his impatience clearly showed in his frown and clenched jaw. He looked at both women in turn. "In the meantime, I suppose we should prepare for a visit from Q. I find it difficult to believe he doesn't know where she is. I shall be waiting for your call in my quarters. Counselor, you may relieve Commander Riker on the bridge, and send him to my quarters. We must discuss the imminent arrival of our passenger from Earth."
...He turned and marched smartly toward the outer door with Counselor Troi trailing after him.

The passenger from Earth, his arrival at Starbase 147 imminent, paced the floor of his quarters aboard the VIP yacht, the Monaghan, and nervously rubbed his hands together. There was barely room to pace far or fast enough to work off his nervous energy, but he kept it up anyway. He didn't want the Monaghan's captain or crew to see how nervous and edgy he was. They were giving him too many critical and appraising looks as it was, and he didn't like it. He stopped in front of the dressing table mirror for, perhaps, the twentieth time and stared at his reflection. For the twentieth time he saw himself dressed in a black and red bridge officers uniform - the same as always, his longish brown hair neatly swept back away from his face - the same as always, and just inside Starfleet regulations. His posture was straight and square shouldered, also same as always. His face was the same too, though it carried an odd look of uneasiness and astonishment that hadn't been there since he was a child and still learning about life outside his parents' home.
...It was said he resembled his mother, his birth mother, and from the few holos he had of her, he agreed, but having never seen his father nor heard him described, he had to admit it was probably easier to see the resemblance to his mother.
...The only thing about him that was different, truly different, was the number of pips on his uniform collar. One had been added within the last week bringing the total to four. He now held the rank of captain.

When Vash awoke from sedation she stared at the soothing blue ceiling above her for some time before remembering where she was.
...Quick glances to left and right showed her only continuous banks of medical sensors around the edges of the bed, all winking and blinking and reading her life signs so thoroughly and efficiently a doctor needn't be present in the room. She tried to sit up, but found she could lift her head no more than an inch from the surface of the bed. Dr. Selar, the Vulcan doctor who had examined and sedated her upon her arrival, appeared at the side of the bed, and without a word passed a hand-held tricorder through the air above her.
..."Muscle relaxants?" Vash muttered a guess.
..."You have awakened thirty three minutes early. The effect of the relaxants would have dissipated by then if you had continued to sleep. However, your condition has much improved with the rest you have had."
..."How wonderful to hear. I have to speak with Captain Picard as soon as possible. Now if you can arrange it. It is more important than my health is at this moment. Please, please let me see him."
...Selar pressed a cool metallic object against her neck and Vash heard a hypospray hiss something into her artery.
..."I shall tell Dr. Crusher to summon the captain," the doctor told her as she raised the bed to a sitting position. "He will be here shortly. I have given you a mild stimulant which will allow you to stay alert for approximately 60 minutes, after which time you must get into bed again. You are still on the verge of physical collapse and you still need rest and a meal of solid food."
...Vash waved her comment aside. "That can wait until I've spoken with Jean Luc." She waited for the doctor to lower the bank of instruments from the side of the bed, then she swung her legs over the edge.
..."So you shall in good time. Perhaps you would like to freshen out? I believe that is the correct expression. I can bring the portable facilities to the bedside."
..."How bad do I look?" Vash asked, suddenly appalled by the simple, kind offer. "Don't answer that. I can walk under my own power. Where do I go, and where is my pack?"

Knowing it was simple vanity and probably unnecessary, Picard checked his appearance in a mirror and found he was looking at his reflection but not seeing it. He was thinking about Vash and the last time she had been aboard the Enterprise. It was eight, no, nearly nine and a half years ago and it was during that visit that she had met Q and ended up going away with the powerful entity to see parts of the galaxy yet unexplored by the Federation. There had been rumors a year or two later that their partnership had come to an and, but Picard paid scant attention to them. ...He had spent the last several hours conducting ship's business while trying to rest in his quarters. But aside from a shower and a change of clothes, he had been too keyed up to relax completely. He'd been unable to imagine what Q might have done to frighten Vash so badly he'd sent her racing across Federation space to find the Enterprise and what she hoped would be safety.
...One part of him could hardly wait to find out what was going on, but another part wanted to get as far away from Vash as possible. When Q was responsible for the problem at hand there was no telling what turn events would take, but they were almost always for the worst. Somewhat reluctantly, Picard tapped his communicator.
..."Commander Riker, Counselor Troi, and Mr. Worf, time to earn your ride, meet me in sick bay immediately." He made a final adjustment to his uniform and left his personal suite.
This wasn't the meeting Vash had imagined, nor the greeting she would have wished to share with Jean Luc Picard regarding a matter so personal. However, since the trouble making Q played so prominent a part in her problem she wasn't surprised to see Picard arrive at sick bay with all of his senior bridge officers trailing behind him. They knew as well as she did that the irksome entity, Q, would make an appearance among them soon, if he wasn't already lurking about somewhere on the ship.
...From the point of view of the others, the woman pacing the floor and wringing her hands nervously was much improved in appearance since each had last seen her. While she still looked tired and frightened, the spark was back in her eyes, and her charismatic charm was present in her smile of greeting which included all of them, but still managed to convey something special to Picard. This was the Vash they all remembered.
...The captain began to speak, to explain his entourage, but Vash waved him into silence and found a table edge to lean on and stop pacing for time.
..."I know. I understand," she assured him. "I'll do the talking, if you don't mind. What I have to tell you will come as a surprise, but it will explain why, Jean Luc, you are the only person who can possibly help me."
...She pushed away from the desk and began to pace a few steps back and forth in front of it like a caged tiger.
..."I never planned to tell you, nor your friends," she began, and waved her hand to include them all, "about this, so I hardly know where to begin. I've always been able to take care of myself and I would have continued to live my life as usual, in spite of the changes that have taken place in the last few years. If Q had kept his half of the bargain you wouldn't be hearing this news now."
...Vash stopped walking and slammed a fist on the desktop. "I can't believe I actually trusted that clown with something so important!" She turned an anguished face in the captain's direction and angrily blurted out, "Jean Luc, Q has my son, and he won't give him back!"

Chapter 2

The arrival of the Monaghan at Starbase 147 marked the end of Evan Downing's twelve-month medical leave, and the beginning of his return to active duty - a return which brought with it a promotion to starship captain. He and his small entourage would transfer to the Enterprise within the hour and begin the last leg of the trip to his ship, his first command, waiting at the shipyards of Tellemont 61 Cigni, or Starbase 202 as it was commonly known.
...In his state room, young Captain Downing packed his kit carefully, trying to stretch the minutes in order to arrive at the transporter room with little time to spare for chitchat with the yacht's captain and his first officer. Downing was anxious to finish his journey to Tellemont and see with his own eyes the newly refurbished and updated USS Montana. Perhaps seeing it for real and not in a hologram presentation would convince him the last few days had truly happened and he was not having the most outrageous dream of his professional life. He was on his way to begin a new phase in his career, and he was absolutely terrified. He was a thirty-one year old veteran of a mere nine years of service as a bridge officer in Starfleet. He was a good officer, he knew he was a good officer, but he also knew his success was a result of luck more than ability.
...As a full commander he served aboard the USS Cochise-C until it was nearly destroyed by a freak accident during its last mission. Severely injured, Downing managed to save the lives of sixty percent of the crew at great suffering to himself, and bring the ship back to settled Federation territory where it was discovered by a Vulcan science ship and the crew was rescued. He had requested and received a twelve-month medical leave after spending six weeks in a Starfleet hospital. He spent the last twelve months recuperating with his family on Earth. Now, a scant one year after the Cochise-C disaster, he was on his way to take the lives of over one thousand men, women and children into his hands as the captain of the ship they were all assigned to serve. What in the world did he think he was doing?

The silence in the intensive care ward couldn't have been more deafening. Picard felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, and he lifted his hands to try to smooth the sensation away. He glanced at his first officer, but Riker's attention was fully on Vash, his face displaying his familiar one eyed squint and firmly set lips indicating intense concentration.
...This can't be happening again, Picard thought. Good god, once was enough!
...With a quick glance at Troi, Riker took the initiative and broke the silence, and Picard didn't know whether to be thankful or annoyed. Do he really want this to go on?
..."Are you saying Q has kidnaped your son?" His disbelief was evident in his voice as well as in his manner.
...Vash shook her head, never taking her eyes away from the captain. "No, I didn't say that. Q has had him hidden in safety away from certain people, but now that the danger is over he won't bring him back to me."
..."I was unaware you had a child," Picard said with elaborate casualness as he nervously shifted position in an effort to get rid of an eerie feeling of deja vu.
..."You weren't supposed to know. I never intended to tell you," she said, with only the slightest look of apology.
"Why was he endangered?" he asked.
...Vash lowered her head and laughed. "You know why. My son, our son, was born nine years ago on Starbase 97 where Dr. Katherine Pulaski was the attending physician. I went to her because the two of you know one another professionally, and she would be able to verify the genetic link between you and my son, should that information ever be needed. Also, at the time I was surprised, to say the least, and not entirely certain. Dr. Pulaski has served at least six missions on each active duty ship in the Federation Registry. Her hospital on Starbase 97 houses the medical records and every man, woman, and child with whom she has ever been ship mates. She can find a tissue match, for any medical reason one might have, within minutes of initiating a search through her computers. She collects medical files of possible medical donors like children collect toys."
...Pushing herself away from the desk, Vash began to pace nervously again, but without the hand wringing she displayed previously.
..."I told no one but Pulaski who the father of my son was and she promised she would never break our doctor-patient confidentiality unless I specifically gave her permission to do so. She didn't think it was right, but she respected my wishes. Of course, I couldn't forbid her to enter the information in her files, but I did ask her to seal the files, and again she agreed, against her better judgment. She kept her word in both cases."
...As the archaeologist was speaking, Picard cast a questioning look in Deanna Troi's direction. She turned to him and silently mouthed the word ‘truthful.' The captain lowered his head and pressed his fingertips against his temples. This couldn't be happening again!
...Vash stopped at the end of the desk and sat down across the corner. She continued her story. "I stayed aboard the starbase for four months, until my son was old enough to travel with me on my excursions with Q. Dr. Pulaski was against it, but there was nothing she could do to stop me from leaving, so she helped me prepare to go exploring with a baby in tow."
..."You took an infant into the Gamma Quadrant with you?" Worf asked incredulously, clearly shocked by the dangers unexplored territory held for adult humans. The dangerous games Q enjoyed playing with other life forms had been thrust into the life of a small child. He couldn't comprehend the notion.
..."At the time I trusted Q," she answered ruefully. "In the beginning I had no reason not to trust him. I promised Dr. Pulaski I would bring my son back to the starbase at regular intervals for medical examinations. When he was eight months old, we returned and discovered for the first time that his life was in danger." She shifted her position on the desk and crossed her arms in front of her to keep from wringing her hands. "During the time we were planet hopping someone on Dr. Pulaski's staff became curious about the her-eyes-only tag she had put on my file, and this someone, we still don't know who was, broke the computer seal and read what was inside. According to the doctor, she first began hearing rumors about a large sum of money being offered for verification that my child was also the son of Jean Luc Picard six weeks after I left. She immediately took the file out of the public records and put it into her personal files, but the word had gotten around and there seemed to be no stopping it. By the time I returned with my son for his next physical check-up, a price had been put on my head – in addition to the other rewards offered for it– which was to be paid in gold pressed latinum. I was very nearly kidnaped by the crew of a Ferengi freighter. Q was kind enough to stop them dead their tracks and sent them away to who knows where. I discovered later they have never been seen or heard from since. It wasn't until much later that Q finally told me it was a Ferengi named Bok behind the reward offers. At the time of the attempt, Q and I were still partners so he immediately took us away from the starbase. Even he realized the seriousness of the danger to my son, and that he might not be able to be in all places at all times to protect the baby. Being omnipotent isn't quite the same as being omnipresent." Her comment brought a brief look of amusement to Riker's face.

Vash seem to appreciate his amusement. "Believe it or not, during our first year of travel with Q, he got to be quite fond of the baby. He was fascinated by him, by his physical and mental development, by his developing personality, and even by his learning to walk and talk. Matters got to the point where I had to make Q stop testing the boy. He was teaching him too many things too fast."
...After a brief pause to let everyone think and wonder over that revelation, Vash continued.
..."It was after the attempt to kidnap me that I made the arrangements with Q to take my son to a safe place where no bounty hunter would be able to find him no matter what resources they had behind them. The arrangements stipulated I would be able to visit him at any time I chose without argument. Q decided Earth would be the safest place to hide him. One human child among millions would be lost in the sheer numbers, he assured me. It seemed logical, so I agreed. But that was all I wanted to know. Q found people to take the baby, but I knew no names nor locations, and he told them even less about me. Only that the baby's life was in danger by enemies of his father who was with Starfleet, and his mother, who was a scientist who traveled from system to system." Vash got to her feet again but seemed to tired to pace. She crossed to the bed and sat down on the side.
..."I saw my son regularly until Q and I had our falling out. It seems odd to realize it now, but I got tired of the planet hopping after sending the baby away, and Q seemed to get bored too. It was almost as if my son was what held us together as partners for so long. Without him, we probably would have gotten tired of one another much sooner. Even so, Q didn't like the idea that I thought of going our own ways first, and he made things very hard for me to leave. After our partnership dissolved, I had to settle for the bits and pieces Q would give me. I would wake up some mornings and a holocube would be on my pillow showing an event in the baby's life. I didn't like it, but I lived with it because I knew he was safe. It was all that mattered, and as long as Q kept his part of the bargain he would always be safe."
...Beverly Crusher, seeing the exhaustion overtaking the fading stimulants in Vash's system, went to the side of the bed and sat beside her. "When did Q change the rules and frighten you so badly?" she asked as she examined her.
...Vash watched the tricorder in the doctor's hand and silently admired the woman's professionalism. She took a deep breath and went on. "In the end it was Dr. Pulaski who convinced Bok's agents the stories of me having a child were false. How she did it, I don't know, but it caused Bok to do something desperate, as you know. Tampering with the genetic makeup of a stranger to pass him off as Picard's long-lost son – can you imagine what he would have done had he been successful in getting his hands on my son? It scared the hell out of me. I decided the safest thing to do was to leave my son where he was until Dr. Pulaski's sources confirmed Bok was no longer a threat. A few days ago, the doctor contacted me on Tetaris V with the news that Bok has died in prison. His family still lives in disgrace for what he did and it will be many years before they can re-accumulate the wealth he squandered. It took me two weeks to get an answer from Q, and when he deigned to show himself, I told him the bargain was finished, the danger to my son was over, and I wanted him returned to me. He refused! He said he wouldn't do it because I no longer had the right to make the decisions for my own child!"
..."I protest! This is not what I told her!"

Q's petulant voice was heard a full two seconds before he materialized in a casual sitting position on the corner of the desk Vash had recently vacated. As usual he was outrageously attired, this time in a costume of vaguely 18th-century Earth nobleman's garb.
...Vash had jumped to her feet at the sound his voice, a burst of righteous anger fueling her failing energy. She grabbed an instrument from the bed in hurled it squarely at him. The projectile harmlessly detoured around him and settled on the desktop behind him.
...Reading the heightened emotions Vash was now feeling, Counselor Troi walked behind the captain and Riker and approached Dr. Crusher at the bedside.
...Picard was immediately on the defensive in the face of his adversary. The nervousness, the uneasiness, the disbelief and finally, the concern he felt throughout Vash's story were pushed to the background, and he straightened his stance to present Q with the formidable ship's captain who could not be completely cowed by the entity's powerful presence. True story or not, the well being of a child was at stake, and he was bound to help his friend in her time of trouble.
..."Suppose you tell us what you did say," Picard suggested and crossed his arms to wait for the reply.
...Surprisingly, Q was in a cooperative mood. He hesitated long enough to change his costume into one of a bridge officer. "I refused nothing. I merely stated I didn't have to return him to Vash, or take her to him, because he was already on his way to her." He looked at her. "Even as I speak, your precious son draws near."
...Vash's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Her former partner was up to something and fear for her child's safety washed over her in a flood of cold chills. She was almost afraid to find out what it was, but there was no stopping now. She wanted her son back.
..."He is a little boy, Q! How can he be coming? The people he is with don't know who I am. How can they possibly know where to find me?"
...Q stood and imitated the captain stance and smiled benevolently. "Stop making such as scene, Mommy dearest. The little captain is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. The young ingrate! He won't allow me to assist him anymore – and after all I've done for him! I'll have you know he hurt my feelings. Do you know that was why I gave up my freedom and settled down in wedded bliss to have a child of my own? Yes, that's right! Because that ungrateful brat of yours told me to get lost!"
..."What are you talking about?" she demanded. "He isn't supposed to know you. You promised to stay out of his life!"
..."My dear, Vash, how quickly you do forget!" He lowered his voice and his tone changed to one of great patience. "How do you think I got the holocubes I brought to you? Hmm? Think about it."
..."Q!" Picard said forcefully. "I have heard one side to this story. I wish to hear yours. Now! "
...The entity turned slowly to face him. "Do you indeed, Jean Luc? And by the way, I'm very happy to see you again, too, thank you. Now, which part of Vash's story did you not understand? Stop me what I get to it. A child is born, said child's life is found to be endangered, I am asked to take him to safety and watch over him until the danger is passed. I, of course, am happy to oblige because of my undying respect for the tot's dear old dad. Hidden safely away on Earth the child prospers. End of story."
..."It is not the end of the story, Q!" countered Vash. "The danger is over and I want him back with me."
..."How often must I repeat myself, woman? I'm beginning to feel human and I don't like it! I can't return him to you because he is already on his way. He's saving me the trouble."
..."Let's not start another round of this nonsense," Picard ordered angrily. "I do not understand what you are saying, Q. I suggest you elaborate."
..."Or what, Jean Luc? You'll thrash me to within an inch of my life?" He flung his arms widely and exclaimed, "Be patient! Captain Junior is on his way to this starbase at this very moment! As I speak! Imminently! Pretty darn soon! "
...Vash countered his statement again. "He is only nine years old! It isn't possible."
Before the entity could elaborate and before Vash could rail at him to make sense, the tension in the room was broken by the warbling of the captain's communicator.
..."Silence!" Picard demanded of everyone in the room."Picard. What is it?"
... The voice of Lt. Cmdr. Data answered. "Captain, the space yacht, Monaghan, has arrived at the starbase. Captain Porter has uniformed me that his passenger, Captain Evan Downing, and his party are awaiting your permission to transfer aboard the Enterprise."
..."Please see to the transfer personally, Mr. Data, and offer my regrets to Captain Downing. Something has come up which requires my attention. I shall greet him personally in my ready room after he has had a chance to settle into his quarters."
..."Aye, sir. Bridge out."
..."Now," Picard began - and said no more when he saw the look on Vash's face. Her complexion was as white as snow and she was staring at Q with a look of stunned disbelief. It was all the incentive he needed to turn on Q.
..."I have had enough of games!" he announced angrily. "What have you done with the child?"
..."Oh, very well. I admit it. I seem to have made a tiny, little, minuscule mistake, which for me is a momentous admission to make in the company of humans. Now that I think of it, it appears I have neglected to mention one itty, bitty thing pertaining to the tot."
...Slowly Vash began to shake her head. "You promised not to interfere with his life, to let him develop naturally, normally. Q, what if you done to my little boy ?"
..."Oh, I didn't torture him, my dear Vash. I did exactly what you asked of me. I took him to the safest place I knew to hide him, I found decent people – dare I call humans decent? And I let him grow up as a normal child would, however long and boring that turned out to be. My own boy is already a young man."
..."Q," Vash said as calmly as she could manage. "I hope this is one big joke you're playing on me. Tell me the man named Evan Downing waiting to board this ship is not my son. My Evan in nine years old!"
..."But a mature nine!" Q told her with a smile.
"What are you saying?"Picard demanded. "Explain this to me!"
..."My little mistake," the entity told them with an elaborate shrug of his shoulders. "It seems I forgot to tell Vash that the little captain is a grown-up young man of 32 years and quite capable of taking care of himself – something he takes great pleasure in pointing out to me. Especially now that he is a real captain." He sniffed. "As if that was a remarkable accomplishment. You see, the safest place to hide the tyke from danger was on Earth thirty years before he was born, five years before the Federation even knew the Ferengi existed."
...Vash didn't hear him finish his answer. Dr. Crusher and the counselor caught her as she fainted, and they eased her onto the bed.
...Something extraordinary was happening and Deanna Troi marveled at the play of emotions among her companions. It was difficult to concentrate on Vash when Riker's annoyance and unabashed curiosity, and the doctor's compassion and twinges of jealousy, and the captain's disbelief, joy and protective rage all but drowned one another out. Riker's and Dr. Crusher's emotional reactions were just a she expected from them after so many years of working closely together, but Picard's reactions came as a revelation to her. She had thought she knew him, too, but apparently it wasn't so. He had experienced a brief feeling of intense loneliness, quickly suppressed, which had taken her by surprise. As the story alleging the child was his became more believable and provable he had experienced a burst of joyous hope and happiness that had been perfectly hidden behind a grim and unreadable facial expression. The captain had become much better than she suspected at masking his emotions from her since his near tragic encounter with the Ferengi, Bok, and the son who never was.

Chapter 3

Dr. Michael Downing looked to his left as soon as he materialized on the transporter pad of the Enterprise. This was it, and he wondered if his brother was feeling the same mixture of excitement and nervousness that he was experiencing. Evan looked back at him and one corner of his lip twitched before he looked forward again. Apparently so! Michael did the same and saw their welcoming party stepping forward from a position by the doors: a straight backed young ensign, arms held behind his back, and a striking figure the young doctor had only seen in classroom images or newnet holos.
..."Welcome to the Enterprise, Captain Downing. I am Commander Data and this is Ensign Blake. I hope you had an enjoyable flight from Earth." Stopping at the bottom step of the transporter, he extended his hand upward.
...Evan Downing walked forward and accepted the offered handshake, after which he turned slightly to look back at his traveling companions. "Thank you, Commander. May I present four members of my crew. Dr. Michael Downing, Chief Engineer Sturgis, and Lieutenants King and Mitchell."
..."Welcome all," Data said politely. "Ensign Blake will escort you to your quarters. Sir, Captain Picard has asked me to tell you he will meet with you later. There is an unexpected personal matter to which he is attending at the moment. Ensign Blake will accompany you to the captain's ready room when the proper time comes."
...Captain Downing nodded. "I'll leave that to the captain's discretion, of course."
...Michael Downing joined his brother and left the transporter room with Data. Ensign Blake and the others trailed behind. They had gone only a short way along the corridor when Commander Data spoke.
..."I understand from your records that the two of you are brothers. May I ask how that came to be when one of you is of Asian ancestry?"
..."I'm Chinese," Michael said. "Our adoptive parents were musicians who traveled all over Earth and throughout the Federation performing. They couldn't have children together so they chose to adopt from as many races on Earth as they could and raise us all to understand the cultures each of us was from. I think they were hoping we would all be musicians, too. We would be prepared to meet other species and appreciate their cultures as we traveled to other Federation worlds as they once did."
..."Yet, you did not become musicians?"
..."Some of us did," Evan replied. "but appreciating other cultures and encountering new species are two of the things that attract many people to careers in Starfleet. It happened to us."
..."Concert halls or spaceships," the doctor added. "We thought spaceships would be more exciting." And less nerve-wracking.
..."Now, you will serve aboard the same vessel. Siblings have been known to request such duties often in the past," Data concluded. "Thank you for sharing your story with me. I am intrigued by the many kinds of relationships shared by siblings. My own has been atypical."
...His own? Michael thought and opened his mouth to ask a question, but the commander stopped before a turbolift and excused himself to return to the bridge. Ensign Blake stepped forward and ushered them along the corridor to another turbolift which would take them to their rooms in the guest quarters on an upper deck. Their luggage had already been beamed directly into their rooms.

In the infirmary, Drs. Crusher and Selar had returned Vash to the tending of the medical bed. With the sides up and monitoring her health, she would be inaccessible until Beverly decided she was strong enough to return to the shocking reality in which she found herself.
..."And that will be a long time from now," Dr. Crusher said sternly, her manner leaving no doubt that Vash's return to full health was now her prime objective. "I never should have let her out of sedation in the first place and I won't make that mistake again. You can stand there and watch her sleep or you can go about your business until I'm sure she is ready to receive visitors. As for you," she looked at Q, "I'd just as soon you stayed away from her all together. In the state she was in, this collapse could have been serious."
...Oddly, Q actually looked uncomfortable at her comments. "I had no idea she was in such poor health. If you'd like, I can just ..." He raised his hand as if to snap his fingers.
..."No!" Crusher said. "Get out of here!"
...Looking affronted, Q moved back a step. "I want it on record I offered." And with no further comment, he vanished.
...As quietly as possible, acting security chief Worf issued a shipwide intruder alert specific to Q.
...Her expression of surprise turning quickly to relief, Beverly Crusher looked at the others. "What do you suppose that was about?"
..."I don't know," Counselor Troi answered with a puzzled frown. "For a moment I felt the slightest instance of fear, discomfort, but it wasn't from any of us. I've never felt emotion from Q before. I don't understand it."
...Glad of something other than Vash's story to talk about, Picard remembered the odd look on the entity's face as Dr. Crusher addressed him. "He did look uncomfortable that he might have been responsible for her collapse. Perhaps he feared he was."
...Riker looked at him. "If he was, this is a far different Q than we've ever dealt with before. A kinder, gentler Q? I don't believe it. He's up to something more than just admitting what he's done to Vash's . . . the child.
..."That's just it," Deanna continued. "I think he's afraid of our passenger from Earth. He doesn't," and she smiled at the absurdity, "want this young man to think badly of him."
...Beverly shook her head. "I'm with Will. I'll believe it when I see it."
...The counselor gave a small laugh. "All I know is what I felt. It's what I sometimes feel when a lot of time has passed between visits with my mother. I sometimes find myself feeling nervous and apprehensive when seeing my little brother and hoping he still remembers me fondly from my last visit."
...After a moment of silence, Picard and Crusher spoke one another's names at the same time:
..."Jean Luc,"
..."Beverly,"
...Then Picard nodded. "Do what you must to verify this story. I shall be waiting to hear the results."
..."It might take a while," she cautioned him. "I have to think of a viable excuse to get DNA samples from someone who has no reason to say yes to any such request."
..."Tell him the truth," Troi said. "Or part of it, anyway. Vash said he was nine years old? Presumably, the last time she saw him he was. That could mean Captain Downing has not seen his mother in over twenty years. I'm sure he wonders what happened to her."

Evan Downing had, indeed, wondered that very thing in the past, but at the moment, he was getting used to the idea of leading a Galaxy class ship in exploration throughout the galaxy. The Dominion War was over, and Starfleet was going through a change. The Galaxy class ships were being phased back, not exactly out, but away from the forefront of the fleet. Though he would have liked to have been given command of a front line vessel; he'd served until now aboard the smaller vessels in war and quiet times and managed to excel; it never occurred to him to turn down his promotion. Nervousness was one thing, rank stupidity was another, and besides, a Galaxy class ship had one major point in it's favor. He would be able to have his family aboard with him. That, more than anything, was helping him settle his nerves.
...Awaiting the arrival of his parents, he'd stopped thinking of them as foster parents decades ago, in the next 24 hours was giving him the time to view the larger picture. He was still young and had many years of service to the Fleet ahead of him. Who knew? He might come to like being the captain of one of a retiring class of ships. Or it might lead directly to a newer ships as they became available.
...He took a bag from the luggage neatly centered on the floor of his small sitting room and carried it to the smaller bedroom. He was a guest aboard this ship and he decided to play the part for a few hours. It might be a while before he had the opportunity to wear civilian clothes again.
...Removing the pips from his collar, he held them in his hand and counted them, rolling them around with his fingertip, and carefully put them into the small velvet lined box in which they came.
...Answering the door a few minutes later, Evan Downing expected to find his brother there with a big grin on his face. If Evan was losing his nervousness, so would be Michael. As the eldest sons of parents who were renowned musicians, it was an embarrassment of sorts to both Evan and Michael not only that they experienced acute stage fright as young musicians, a condition that earned them more than their share of teasing from friends and classmates, but also that they still felt jittery before going into a new situation. Any new situation. The only good thing about it was they were almost always able to go through it together and help one another.
...Michael was there, but so was a tall, beautiful redhead wearing the same medical blue as his brother. Evan wished he could look at her as appraisingly as she seemed to be studying him. He knew who this woman was and her frank and curious assessment made him shift uneasily.
..."Something unexpected has come up and there's been a change in plans," Michael said. "Evan, this is Dr. Beverly Crusher. Doctor, may I introduce my brother, Captain Evan Downing."
...Evan took her outstretched hand. "It's an honor to meet you, Doctor," he said and was rewarded with a bright smile.
..."Thank you, Captain. I've been quite interested in meeting you." She shook his hand several times as she spoke and let go abruptly. She watched as he stood aside and gestured the two of them into his quarters.
..."Please, be seated," he said, and took a seat himself. "What is this about?"
...The two doctors looked at one another, and Beverly Crusher gave him another of her appraising looks. Evan sat back in his chair as if pushed there by that look.
..."We need to talk about a woman called Vash," she said, "who claims to be your birth mother."

Leaving Riker on the bridge, Picard went into his ready room and seated himself behind his desk. He and Commander Riker had briefly discussed the young man, Evan Downing, a short time ago, but then Picard had hardly paid attention to the information on his comscreen. Hearing Will relate the significant details and make a few personal observations had been all that interested him about the youthful captain. He'd planned to welcome him aboard, make a few minutes of small talk and give him the run of the Enterprise and hope he had the sense to stay out of the way.
...Matters were different now.
...A picture of Captain Evan Downing appeared in one corner of the comscreen with written information taking up the remaining space. He hadn't even looked at it before, but now all Picard saw was the face of the young man.
..."Rene," he whispered. The sober, unsmiling face looking out from the screen was very much like that of Picard's late nephew, but after the initial surprise had worn off, he could see that the wide set, clear blue eyes and even the shape of the face were of a more familiar appearance and shape. The resemblance to Rene was there, yes, but the resemblance to Vash was more pronounced. He saw none of the words on the screen, only the face of the "boy" about whom Vash had been so worried and upset.
...Q had done this. He had played with the life of Vash's son and taken his childhood away from her. Taken his childhood away from me.
...The sobering effect of the last thought was so unexpected, Picard put his face in hands and felt his whole body begin to shake. It was then he knew why he had come here, to the ready room, instead of seeking out the young man immediately.

Evan stood by the side of the bed in silence for a long time. His expression was impassive as he looked at the face of the woman sleeping peacefully amid the soft beeping and whirring of the diagnostic equipment connected to the bed. At last, he reached out one hand and brushed his fingertips against her forehead and across her hair. He let out a deep breath and looked up at Dr. Crusher.
..."It's her, but I don't see how she could remain unchanged over twenty years. At my ninth birthday party she burned her wrist on a table decoration. I could swear it was in exactly the same spot where she has a burn now. As if it happened six days ago instead of decades past."
...Looking at him sharply, Michael Downing said, "I remember that," and leaned over the bed and examined Vash's wrist and made a disbelieving noise. "Coincidence," he said. "It looks the same, she looks the same. . . It has to be coincidence, Ev. Her appearance could be surgically created."
..."Michael, I know her face, the texture of her skin, the shapes of her features. Memories of the last time we spent time together are all I've had since then."
..."I didn't say you were wrong! I'm just saying there is more to this than what we can see. Something isn't right."
..."As if I needed you to tell me that!"
..."Gentlemen," Dr. Crusher's voice interrupted. "Please keep your voices down. I have other patients who can hear you."
...Embarrassed, Michael Downing nodded. "I'm sorry, Dr. Crusher. It won't happen again."
...Before turning her attention to Evan, she gave the doctor a look assuring him she was going to hold him to his word. "Captain Downing, I'm sure you can understand why I have to ask you for DNA samples to compare against those of Vash. While I have no doubt the two of you are who you say you are, my records of this incident must be thorough."
..."Is that really necessary?" he asked, frowning. "I've spent the past year giving up DNA samples. Surely there must be some way you can access my medical files for what you need."
..."I assume all the materials you mention are safely filed away on Earth? Why wait for them to be delivered to me when I can work with genetic material you have given me today?"
..."As you say, if you have no doubts . . ."
..."Captain Downing!" Beverly interrupted. "I assure you I won't hurt you in any way."
..."I'm sure you won't, it's just that . . ."
..."I can ask Dr. Downing to make this an order, Captain."
...Evan raised his hands in surrender. "No. No, let's not give him that power over me before we even get to our ship. Take what you will."
...Dr. Crusher leaned her head to one side. "Thank you. I plan to do just that."

"Well, that couldn't have gone worse," Michael said as he and Evan walked along the corridor to return to their quarters. "She's probably thinking, ‘What kind of doctors is Starfleet turning out these days? They don't even know proper decorum in a sickroom.'" He frowned at his brother. "And what was all that about not giving a DNA sample for analysis? You ought to be used to it by now. Were you afraid you'd give away your thing for redheads? She thinks you're an idiot."
...Evan smiled. "I doubt that. She thinks we're both idiots."
...Michael shook his head, over the years he'd forgotten how much of a resemblance there had been between biological mother and son. "No, no, come to think of it, just me. She thinks I'm the idiot. From the way she was looking at you, she thinks you're either Vash's tampered with clone or the best thing since sliced replicator bread." Looking down and still shaking his head, he missed his brother's odd look in his direction.
..."I don't think so," Evan mumbled.
...Dr. Downing grinned. You never do, you moron. That's your problem.
...The two men reached the turbolift to their deck and stopped beside it, waiting for the doors to open. There was no one else in the corridor but them, the young captain ascertained from a quick glance around the area.
..."All that aside," Evan said in a low voice, " I think you know as well as I do what we're going to find behind it all. I don't feel him yet, but I'll bet you anything the Cucumber is lurking nearby and has a lot to do with why my mother . . . why Vash is the way she is."
...His brother looked aghast and ran a hand through his hair. "No way! That's all we need now. A visit from that trouble making piece of leftover Big Bang energy. You don't really think so, do you? He hasn't bothered you in four years, since you told him to stay out of your life."
...Evan shrugged. "He might not have made an appearance, but he's been around. I've felt him."

Chapter 4

Deanna Troi waited what she felt was a suitable length of time before getting up from her chair on the bridge and approaching the doors of the captain’s ready room. She had purposely refrained from intruding on Captain Picard’s emotions since leaving sickbay, but even through her mental barriers, she could sense the turmoil that was loosed once he was behind the closed door of his private cabin. She was concerned, but not overly so. If Vash was telling the truth, the existence of her son might put to rest a good many feelings of loss, and regrets for opportunities gone, the captain had been experiencing lately, some of which he had reluctantly, and with much prodding, discussed with her.
...What really concerned her, and Riker, was the role Q had played in the life of Vash’s child, but the one good thing she could see was Q’s comment that Evan Downing had ordered him to get out of his life.
...Like Will, Deanna had met Downing years before, though she did not get to know him as well as Riker had. She’d met him and Dr. Downing once, when they and their younger brother, Samuel Downing, attended a lecture she’d given at the academy. She remembered being briefly introduced to the brothers only after seeing a picture of him and the doctor. Aside from the brothers being of different races, she could recall nothing else memorable about them.
...Until now.
...The captain was seated at his desk, the glow from a comscreen lighting his face and torso. He turned it off as she entered the room and the door closed behind her.
...“Before you ask,” he said, “I’m fine, and I haven’t heard from Dr. Crusher yet. I’ve just been sitting here wondering how to proceed. I know as captain of the Enterprise I must speak with Evan Downing. He is a guest aboard my ship, but I hesitate to do so without Vash’s knowledge.”
...Troi stopped in front of the desk and crossed her arms. “I don’t know why you should hesitate. You said yourself it’s your duty. Why not invite him to dinner? You can , at least, meet as colleagues before Beverly finishes her tests, and let him bring up the subject of Vash if he so wishes. She can’t object to that. You will not have met him as a possible son without her.” She sat down in the chair across the desk from him. “Or is there some other way you would rather proceed?”
...“I would like to introduce myself and begin asking this ‘possible son’ a million questions. However, since we’ve never met before, that would be an interrogation, wouldn’t it?”
...“Dinner conversations have been known to ramble. Perhaps it might be an informal meal? ”
...He thought for just a moment. “I would like you and Commander Riker to be there, as you have both met Downing before,” he said thoughtfully. “I would like to avoid the awkwardness that both Jason Vigo and I felt at our first meeting.”
...Deanna shifted position in the chair. He believes Vash, she thought. Aloud, she answered, “I have no other plans, and I’m sure Will doesn’t either.” She felt comfortable making the claim in light of Riker’s expressed interest in meeting the young man again after learning of his possible relationship with the Enterprise’s captain.
...Picard tapped his combadge. “Computer, where is Captain Evan Downing presently?”
...“Captain Downing is on deck five in the corridor outside the guest quarters. He has been walking through the ship for the last ten minutes.”
...“Put me in contact with Captain Downing.”
...A few seconds later, a brisk, young sounding voice, slightly winded, answered: “Downing here.”
...“Captain, this is Jean Luc Picard. I’m afraid I’ve been remiss in my duties as captain and as your host. I was wondering if you would care to join two of my senior officers and me for dinner this evening?”
...There was no hesitation on the younger man’s part. “Yes, sir. I’d be honored.”
...“Very well. I shall send Ensign Blake to accompany you to my quarters in one hour.” Picard looked at Troi for a second and added, “I hope you don’t mind if we have an informal repast. I’m sure you must be tired after your long flight from Earth.”
...A smile was evident in Downing’s voice. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

Feeling restless since having seen his birth mother, Evan Downing had hoped he might be able to walk off some of his turbulent feelings by roaming through the corridors of the ship. He couldn’t stop thinking, What was happening here? Why had Vash turned up aboard the Enterprise on the very day he was scheduled to do the same thing? After a thirteen year absence during which time he’d heard nothing from her, it was too unlikely to be a coincidence that they were both suddenly in the same place at the same time at a major point in his life.
...Q had something to do with this; and Downing wondered how badly his acquaintance with that interfering entity from hell was going to affect his career as a Starfleet officer. He did his best to put his future aspirations out of his mind, but he couldn’t help wondering if he was making a mistake by not saying anything about Q until he had no choice.
...He was looking forward to meeting Jean Luc Picard and had been for a long time. He knew of the past relationship between Vash and Picard, but until now he hadn’t been entirely sure the woman Picard knew and his mother were one and the same. Michael had hit the nail on the head. Something wasn’t right.
...After speaking with the captain of the Enterprise, Evan meant to return to his quarters, but he was not surprised to discover himself stepping out of a turbolift in the vicinity of sickbay. He entered the outer room slowly and as the doors closed behind him, Beverly Crusher looked up from her desk and immediately rose and walked toward him.
...“Captain Downing,” she greeted him. “Is there something I can do for you?”
...“I just wanted to know how my mother was.”
...“The rest is doing her a lot of good.”
...“She’s getting better then?”
...“Definitely. You’ll be able to talk to her when she wakes up tomorrow, and not a moment sooner.”
...He nodded, looking into the larger ward area, toward the diagnostic bed in which Vash lay sleeping. He hoped he would be able to sleep, too, but he knew the events of the day were going to keep him awake long into the night. Besides, there was something else that bothered him.
...He looked away from Vash and at the doctor. “You know what’s going on here, don’t you?” he asked, stated, with conviction. “You know why she turned up here all of a sudden in the state she’s in.”
...“Do I? Tell me, what makes you think I’m a mind reader?”
...“You keep looking at me as if you want to throw me head first onto a Petrie dish! I just spent a year under the care of Starfleet doctors. I know that ‘I just need another specimen’ look. Something more than just the two of us turning up at the same time is happening here.”
...Crusher smiled. “Believe me, Captain Downing, I don’t need anymore specimen samples from you. I have all the information I need.”
...“Am I to know what the information is?”
...“In time. I think Vash would like that time to be when she is awake and able to help you understand what has been going on in her life, and in yours.” She gestured toward her office. “In the meantime would you like to sit down and talk about your mother’s condition?”
...He looked regretful. “At any other time I would. Captain Picard has asked me to have dinner with him. I should get back to my quarters and wait for Ensign Blake to come for me.”
...“All right then,” the doctor said. “Let’s make it after dinner. There is quite a bit you must understand about Vash’s current health and state of mind before you talk to her tomorrow.”
...Downing nodded. “Alright,” he agreed.
...“Fine. I’ll see you at . . . oh, let’s say nineteen hundred hours then?”
...“Fine.”
...Later, in his suite, Downing wondered how long he would have stood there awkwardly looking at Dr. Crusher, and unable to turn away, if the doors hadn’t whooshed open behind him and forced him to finally take his leave of sickbay. He never saw who came in as he was leaving.
...As he readied himself for dinner, he cringed in embarrassment at the thought of what the very attractive Dr. Crusher must think of him. He couldn’t be certain, of course, but he had a feeling she must think he was dismal captain material by the way he’d acted since they’d been introduced. The thing was, he had reason to be wary of her, even if he couldn’t explain how he knew it.

If nothing else, Evan Downing was a punctual person.
...The door to Picard’s suite chimed at precisely 1700 hours. Jean Luc had been counting the seconds and Deanna felt every one of them tick away as she was assailed by his emotions. To him this was clearly not a meeting of colleagues, but a meeting with a man who could very well be his son. In fact, despite all that could still go wrong, Troi knew he was already thinking of the man as his son. He believes Vash and trusts her, she told herself, but, my god, he’s nervous!
...“Come.”
...The doors opened and the young man from the data padd profile who looked so much like Vash and, yet, the late Rene Picard, too, entered the room and smiled when he recognized Will Riker. He quickly turned his attention to Picard, who was standing beside a table elegantly set for four, and looking at Evan as if he was in the presence of a strange alien being.
...Downing, suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands, straightened his pullover sweater by tugging at the hem. With a start, Picard stepped forward and extended his hand.
...“Welcome to the Enterprise, Captain Downing. I am Jean Luc Picard, and I apologize for not meeting you earlier. I was delayed by an urgent personal matter.”
...Downing shook his hand firmly. “I understand. I’ve been on the receiving end of unexpected news myself recently.” He would have liked to have said more, but realized this might not be the appropriate time.
...Picard was speaking and gesturing toward the others. “Indeed. We shall have a long talk about that later, but in the meantime, do join us. I believe you’ve met both of my officers.”
...It seemed the easy thing to do was to let Riker and Downing renew their past acquaintance. As they sat down to the meal, the two began to talk and Picard had only to follow the conversation and make a comment now and then while Will and Deanna drew out facts about the younger man’s life while trying not to be too obtrusive. All he had to do was watch and listen and see the little things about Downing that told him he was right to believe Vash even before Dr. Crusher verified her claim.
...He certainly had Vash’s charm in many ways, easily deflecting some questions away from himself without anyone realizing it until they were far along another topic; and he had the habit of idly twirling a wine glass with his fingertips that Jean Luc had often seen his late brother doing as his attention focused on something interesting. As far as he was concerned, indisputable scientific proof was present before his eyes.

The scientific evidence mounting in front of Beverly Crusher’s eyes was becoming indisputable as test after lengthy, meticulous test was returning results to support Vash’s contention that Jean Luc Picard was the father of her son, Evan Downing. There could be no doubt about that. The man who’d come aboard the Enterprise just hours ago, and reluctantly given up DNA samples, was without question the child of both individuals. Now, whether this had something to do with a clever manipulation on Q’s part was something she wasn’t going to be able to determine through scientific means. All she knew for certain was that about ten years ago Vash had last visited the Enterprise, had last seen Picard before departing with Q for a grand tour of the Gamma Quadrant. And nine years ago, Evan Downing was born with no one less than Dr. Katherine Pulaski to verify it.
...That Q had disrupted the man’s life immeasurably was true by his own confession. What else could it have been but a typically cruel, Q-type of joke to play on Vash? Protecting and hiding her son from unknown enemies, while also hiding him, and protecting the way he’d done it, from her until it was too late for her to do anything about it. Having past experience with Q’s manipulations, Dr. Crusher wondered if that wasn’t part of the joke: making Vash and Evan - and now Jean Luc - choose which life the young man should be leading.
...Beverly felt sympathy for Vash. Her own son was away, out of contact with her, being trained to become some sort of trans-dimensional being. When she saw Wesley again, he might be just as changed an individual as the grown up Evan Downing was from the nine year old he’d been when he and Vash last saw one another.
...She looked up as Dr. Selar entered her office with a data padd on which was the results of another test. As she was looking over the information therein, it occurred to her that Dr. Pulaski might be interested in the dilemma Vash and her child were in, but Beverly wasn’t sure if telling her everything might not also be alerting Starfleet to the matter. After a few moments’ thought, she turned to her computer screen and sent a coded message to Pulaski’s clinic with a simple query about Vash and the child she bore nine years ago. Pulaski would have to wait for further details.

It was the first hint Picard had heard explaining why the Enterprise was still waiting at the starbase even though Downing and his party had arrived and were ready to be transported to their final destination. A second shuttle was on the way and it was bringing Downing’s parents to rendezvous with him. It was also a surprise to discover his parents, adoptive parents, were the well known classical musicians, Victor and Lauren McCord Downing.
...As children, Evan and his siblings had toured with the elder Downings and often performed on stage with them. He ruefully admitted he’d acquired the nickname “Mr. Stagefright” early on because of his extreme nervousness before a performance. Picard was amused even though he thought Evan must have been mortified to get the moniker when his respected adoptive father was known as “Mr. Professional” throughout the music world.
...“Your family is very important to you,” Troi observed. “Is this why you accepted a captaincy commanding a Galaxy Class ship in post-wartime?”
...“Yes, in fact, I’m looking forward to having my family with me,” he said.
...Picard raised an eyebrow. “Your family? I knew your brother would be serving as chief medical officer, but I was unaware any other of your siblings were to serve with you.”
...“Well, Michael will be part of my crew, yes, but I was referring to my children who will be able to live aboard the ship while I serve as captain. In the end it was the main reason I accepted the captaincy. I won’t miss any more of their childhood than I already have.”
...Out of the corner of her eye, Troi saw Picard’s hand stop in mid motion as he raised a glass of wine from the table. She spared him a glance and saw he stared at Downing with a startled look on his face. Riker, busy pouring more wine into his glass noticed nothing.
...Deanna plunged into the silence following Evan’s remarks. “I saw in your file that you have two young children, a girl and a boy. I can imagine how pleased you must be to be able to keep them with you. How old are they, if you don’t mind my asking?”
...“Are you kidding? They’re my favorite subject. You’re going to be sorry you got me started on them!” He set aside his fork and knife and reached into a jacket pocket.
...As the other three talked, Picard brought his drink to his lips and gulped the wine without tasting it. Of course, he hadn’t read the files on Captain Downing either time that he had the chance. First, he’d been too preoccupied with Vash’s sudden appearance that he’d barely scanned the career profile of the young man he was to ferry to his first command, relying on his executive officer to fill in the relevant details. And, just hours ago . . . Well, just hours ago, he had been so mesmerized by the picture of Evan, he hadn’t seen the biographical information beside it. He’d turned it off to keep Deanna from realizing how long he’d been staring at it.
...The clink of the wine bottle against his glass caught his attention and he saw the counselor was refilling it for him. She handed him a holoslider showing changing images of a little girl with sunstreaked hair and a dark haired boy, both of whom had Evan’s bright smile and wide set blue eyes.
...Troi leaned closer to Picard. “You didn’t read his biography, did you?” she whispered, and then said aloud. “Katie and Kyle. She’s seven and he’s five.”
...He spared her one quick glance before going back to watching the slide show in his hand.
...Downing had children.

Chapter 5

The meal had ended but Picard and his guests lingered at the table, still talking and, incidentally, finishing the bottle of wine served with the main course. As Deanna had predicted, the topics of conversation had been wide ranging, but always returned to a discussion of music - which was the common interest shared by Riker and Downing and the reason they were long time acquaintances.
...When he was hailed by Dr. Crusher, Picard was able to quietly excuse himself and walk away a short distance with only the counselor noticing. She watched him stop before the main room’s large porthole. The planet around which the Enterprise orbited was darkening as the ship approached the night side. The view was splendid, but Troi doubted the captain was even noticing it. This was the call he’d been waiting for, after all.
...Deanna had spent the meal with her mental barriers in place, choosing to enjoy the company and leave her job on the wayside for an hour or two. When Picard returned to the table a few minutes later, she needed only to see the pleased expression on his face to know the doctor’s report had been what he was waiting to hear. Thinking back, she realized that for not a single instant had he ever doubted Vash’s word.
...Noticing movement across the table, Riker glanced up and saw Picard returning to his seat. From the look on his face, the conversation with Beverly contained good news supporting Vash’s claims about her son. He turned his attention back to that same young man and was again struck by his likeness to his mother. The thought was fleeting. He was talking to Evan about something more important.
...“As I was saying, I have a holodeck program you won’t believe until you see it. It’s a little New Orleans nightclub that features the greatest jazz performers ever to pick up an instrument or sing. Get this . . . all of them in their prime.”
...Downing felt his jaw drop and turned it into an opportunity to swallow the last ounce of wine in his glass. “Wow. When do you want me to be there?”
...A huge smile spread across Riker’s face. “Tomorrow evening, about nineteen hundred hours?”
...“Chasin’ it.”
...“Great.”
...“Can I bring Michael?”
...Will finished his own glass of wine and nodded as he swallowed. “Does he still play the drums?”
...“Better than ever.”
...“Then, bring him along!”
...Deanna gave the two a stern look. “That invitation includes me, of course. I’ve always wanted to see a real New Orleans nightclub.” Her imitation of Riker’s pronunciation of the city name was just slightly off the mark- more Nah Ahlins than the smoothly flowing way he’d said it.
...It made him smile. “Not bad.”
...Picard spread his hands. “Personally, I would prefer to see the elder Downings in concert with a full orchestra. Their concert for Bajor was one of the finest performances I’ve ever seen by classical musicians.”
...Downing nodded. “As much as I respect my parents as performers . . . well, there is classical music and there is classic music. I’ve had more than enough of one, and not enough of the other.”
...Riker laughed shortly. “I’ve never quite thought of it that way, but you’re right.”
...Picard shook his head. “Young people.”
...Nonetheless, he remained silent as they finalized plans to meet in the holodeck. Watching the two interact with such enthusiasm over a shared interest provided an insight into the young man he might not be able to instigate himself.
...All in all, Picard was pleased with the way the evening went. Both of his officers understood they were present to help him and young Downing get to know one another - whether Evan realized it or not, and they had done the job. Of course, there was no predicting how Downing would react to the revelation of who his father was. Hopefully, these few hours would help him come to accept the news more easily. When the gathering broke up, he wished he could detain Downing for a few minutes longer to talk about Vash. The side of her each had known would be a revelation to the other in many ways. He was sorry he couldn’t have more time with Evan before his life was turned inside out.
...On the other hand, Jean Luc knew he was going to have quite enough time to spend with Vash when her life was likewise turned inside out. She was going to awaken to discover she’d not only been robbed of a nine year old son, she was given in his place, a grown man with children.
...Picard had yet to think the term grandchildren to himself, and if he was having trouble with the word, he didn’t want to think of how Vash would handle it. Ah, reality did have an untempered bite.

Michael Downing was relaxing in his quarters and composing a few letters home. When the door chimed, he called out, “Enter,” and kept speaking. He didn’t have to look up to know who it was.
...Evan came in and flung himself down in the nearest chair, waiting for Michael to pause his padd and ask what was wrong. He didn’t wait long. He couldn’t. He leaned forward in the chair and clasped his hands between his knees. “No one said a word to me about my mother,” he said. “It was a nice evening, a good time, but Vash was never mentioned. Not once!” He threw himself against the back of the chair again. “They know about Q. He has something to do with this. My career might have just come to a screeching halt and I don’t know it. No one wants to tell me. I think I just had a doomed man's last meal.”
...Michael swiveled his chair so he could face his brother. “You’re guessing, Ev. I don’t know how you do it and I don’t care, but you said you’d know if he was around. Is he?”
...Evan let out a breath and shook his head.
...“Then don’t let it bother you. There may be something else entirely happening here. Relax. The kids will arrive tomorrow and we’ll be on our way to the ship. Your ship. Don’t give it away before you have to.”
...“I might not have a choice.”
...“If that turns out to be the case, then . . . Well, we got here together, we’ll both keep going.” He got up and walked toward the replicator where his bags were still waiting to be put away.

Dr. Crusher found Evan in the small senior officer’s lounge, alone and nursing a drink, and she entered the room to sit across the table from him. He didn’t look up.
...“Captain Downing,” she said, placing her hands on the table and clasping them together. She gave him her hardest look. “Ever since our first meeting, I’ve sensed there is something about yourself that you don’t want me to know. You were hesitant about letting me take DNA samples to compare with those of your mother. I thought, perhaps, you had a medical condition that your brother might be trying to help you hide. You are, however, one of the healthiest individuals aboard this ship. If you were hiding anything, believe me, I would have found it.”
...She paused for the briefest of moments and Evan, who was listening while looking into his drink, raised his eyes and looked into hers.
...“You had an appointment to see me twenty minutes ago to talk about your mother’s health. I am not used to being stood up for any reason, and I’m definitely not used to having my communicator’s hails blocked and ignored.”
...Evan made a sour looking face and rubbed at his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
...“Really?” Her voice dropped to a tone matching her mood. “ I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
...In truth, he was, but there was no way to explain why. Instead of answering, he leaned his head back and drained the rest of his drink in one gulp. When he finished only his hand holding the glass came down to settle on the table. He remained looking at the ceiling. Maybe she would go away if he ignored her long enough.
...Beverly was staring at him now. My god, looks aren’t everything, are they? This man’s a jerk! After a few moments of silence, she said, “That isn’t synthahol, is it?”
...“As a matter of fact, it was. The real stuff is in my brother’s quarters.” He finally lowered his head and looked at her. “I’ll go get it if you’d like.”
...Her expression hardened and she looked as she ready to slap him across the face. “No thank you, and I think you’ve had enough yourself. We still need to talk about Vash’s health.”
...He made a wincing face and looked at his empty glass. She wasn’t going to go away no matter what he did. It must be a thing they taught in medical school, he thought. When Michael was in doctor mode he was just as tenacious about sticking to a subject as she was. “Can we make it tomorrow? I promise I’ll show up.”
...“No. Tomorrow we’ll be leaving for the Tellerant shipyards, as you know very well, and we probably won’t have time. I would like you to understand her limitations before I release her from sickbay.” She got to her feet and went around the table to take the glass. “Come with me, Captain. My quarters are just around the corner. I have alcohol suppressants in my medical bag. You need a good, healthy dose before we talk.”
...After a moment’s hesitation, Evan got to his feet. Ah, why not? I feel sober already just knowing how sober they’ll make me.

Spending time in the company of Dr. Crusher was not the ordeal Downing was expecting it to be, and with the buzz from the alcohol gone, he was in no mood to ponder the matter anyway. He wanted to put the whole thing behind him and never think of it again. It had been stupidity, rank stupidity, to let his Q gained knowledge of her color his impressions of the doctor in the first place. My god, she must think I’m a jerk!
...“I understand what you’re saying, Doctor,” Evan said as she finished spelling out Vash’s limits until she’d regained her strength, “but from what I recall of her, Vash lives her life as she sees fit with no regard for such restrictions.”
...“I think you’ll have a much broader influence over her than you realize now. When she gets . . . somewhat accustomed to having a grown son and not a young boy, she ‘s going to start relating to you as a young man. I’m sure you can make her listen to reason.”
...Downing rose from his chair and began to pace. “I’ll do what I can, of course. You’ll have to excuse me if it seems I don’t care what happens to Vash. I do. It’s just that I’ve assumed her to be . . . to be dead . . . for a long time. It’s taking a while to accustom myself to having her back in my life. I was on my way to my first command and suddenly that event has been overshadowed by everything that has happened in the last few hours. One minute I can’t wait to reach my ship and move in with my family and the next minute that’s the farthest thought from my mind.” He stopped pacing, standing next to his chair, and slipped his hands into his pockets. “And now I’m babbling like a fool and I don’t think I can stop.”
...“Perhaps I can do it for you, Captain Downing,” Beverly said and got to her feet to face him. Irritation was evident in her voice and stance. “For the next three days, you and I are going to be working for the common goal of helping your mother recover. I don’t know what she plans to do once we reach the shipyards and you transfer to your ship, but you and I will play a role in making certain she is fit to do it. If it makes you uncomfortable to work with me, I suggest you learn to deal with it quickly.”
...To her surprise, Downing was looking at her with a puzzled expression.
...“Have I been giving you that impression?” he asked, frowning a little. Well, it wasn’t going to hurt to mend the fence a tiny bit! It might help later, when he tried to explain himself, if he ever got the chance. He shook his head minutely. “I’m sorry if it was, because that’s not what I’ve been thinking at all.”
...It was Beverly’s turn to look puzzled, and then it occurred to her she might have been misreading the situation. She opened her mouth to say something, but Downing, amazing himself, stepped forward and planted a firm kiss on her lips. She quickly raised her hands to push him away, but her intent changed in mid-gesture. Instead, she did something she’d thought of doing since the two of them were introduced. She ran her fingers through his hair and let him slide his arms around her waist.
...She was nowhere nearly as surprised by what was happening as Evan. This was not what he had meant to do at all. Oh, this should not be happening! They were thinking the same thing. Even so, when the doctor managed to pull away from him and take in a deep breath of air, she said, “Computer, dim the lights to point one.”
...Oh, my god . . .
...Definitely thinking about the same things.

Morning:
Picard was at her bedside within minutes after Vash awoke, and she was glad he was taking the time away from his duties to help her. Her first thought on waking had been Evan is gone. While it might not be literally true, it was a thought she was having trouble ignoring because for her it was real. It was comforting to have Jean Luc nearby.
...After refreshing herself and getting dressed, she had eaten breakfast under subtle threat of intravenous feeding if she did not. That would delay her meeting with her son and she wanted to get this over with. She had to know what Q had done to her and to the boy she’d so foolishly let into his care. Surprisingly, the meal was delicious and she was ravenous and when the last of it was gone only the thought of her son kept her from saying it wasn’t enough.
...When she was finished, Picard approached the bed. He’d been hovering just inside the door of the sickbay ward with Dr. Crusher, both of them far enough away to give her privacy, close enough to be at her side in a split second if she needed them.
...The doctor wheeled away the cart on which the food had been served, leaving Vash and the captain alone.
...Vash looked up at him with a rueful smile. “The doctor knows her business. I feel better; so much better I’ll be able to kill Q if he dares to show up today.”
...Picard drew in a deep breath. “Captain Downing is on his way. He was in to see you yesterday while you slept. He knows circumstances are not what they should be, but he doesn’t know why.”
...She nodded and waited in silence. Shortly she heard the murmur of voices in the outer room and Picard looked expectantly toward the doorway.
...Vash followed his gaze and stared at the young man walking toward her. My god , he looks like my father, she thought. If I had raised him, no one would have ever guessed about Jean Luc! No one would even guess now.
...Following orders she stayed seated on the side of the bed, and the young man saw a chair near the doorway and picked it up to bring to her bedside. She got to her feet as he approached closer and he immediately put down the chair. Neither had taken their eyes from one another.
...“Evan?” Vash said softly. “Ohhh . . . it is you.”
...He smiled. “Of course it is. And you owe me a trip to the Maxion-El Museum.”
...As impossible as it was, as terrible a it was, this was Evan. Grown up and now taller than she was, he still had the same smile, the same sparkle in his eye and the arch to his eyebrow when he was teasing her about something. She rushed forward to embrace her son.
...The museum trip; she’d given him the passes as a ninth birthday gift, just days ago for her, but a lifetime ago for him.
...At last she pulled away and brushed the front of his uniform with her hands, smoothing away imaginary wrinkles, sweeping away invisible lint. “Just my luck you would remember that after all this time,” she said.
...He reached up to take her hands in his, to stop her fussing with his uniform.
...It was at that moment a familiar voice, to all in the ward, hailed the coming of trouble.
...“There now. What did I tell you?” Q said from somewhere behind Evan. “Here’s the little captain all safe and sound.”

Evan let go his mother’s hands and turned slowly to face the entity. “I knew it, “ he said, keeping his anger under control. “ I knew you had something to do with this.”
...“Of course, I did. I saved your life.”
...Vash made no attempt to stay calm. She reached for Q’s shirt front and pulled him to face Evan. “Tell him what you did to him, Q! Tell him what you did to him, to me and to his father.”
...Evan’s face swung toward her, a curious look upon it, but her attention was fully on Q, and she was livid. He looked at the entity, too. “Yes. Suppose you do that.”
...Q crossed his arms and raised his chin before speaking. “What more is there to say, my young ingrate? I saved your life. I took you so far away from your father’s enemies is was assured they would never find you even if they learned of your existence. They. Never. Did. Wahla! Captain Junior returns safely to the fold.” He turned an accusing eye to Vash. “Is mommie dearest grateful? No! She wanted your safety to be less than guaranteed.”
...Vash gave his shirt a sharp pull. “Don’t try to lay the blame on me! Tell him how you did it!”
...“Oh, all right!” Q conceded with an elaborate gesture of resignation. He looked into Evan’s eyes and smiled. “It was ingenious, if I do say so myself. But, then, what else should I expect from moi?”

From his vantage point to the side of the three others, Picard ignored to the fanciful recounting of the story Vash had told him the previous day. He watched Evan listen to Q’s explanation with mounting horror showing in the young man’s face, and he wished there was something he could do to curb the shock. Should he have been the one to tell Evan the truth in spite of Vash’s absence? Perhaps it might have been easier to hear . . . ?
...“Wait! Wait just a . . .” Downing interrupted Q. “Are you . . . Are you telling me I’m not supposed to be here? Are you telling me this isn’t my time?!”
...“Oh, don’t take it that way,” Q replied almost angrily. “Of course, this is your time! You just got here,” he waved his hands in a fluttering motion, “a little earlier than you should have. Or is that later? With time travel one can’t truly tell.”
...“You did it deliberately!” Evan said and took a step toward Q, who began to back away slowly. “You used me to make a ripple in the Continuum – a deliberate change in the flow of time to benefit the Q!”
...The horror on the young man’s face had turned to anger and he suddenly launched himself at the retreating Q. The two connected with Downing’s hands grabbing the collar of the being’s costume, and they began to fall to the floor.
...“You used me for foo—!”
...The pair abruptly vanished.
...Picard had never seen such a look of sheer surprise on Q’s face before, but that hardly registered in the wake of Evan’s accusation. He took two steps toward Vash, and she turned to him. They spoke in unison:
...“Did he say food?”

Chapter 6

Michael Downing wasn’t certain if he should be worried or not. Evan left for his suite the previous evening still worried about his future. Once word of his lifelong association with the notorious Q, involuntary to be sure, was made known there was no telling what would happen. He tried to cheer up his brother, but even a couple of drinks of real alcohol hadn’t been able to change his downcast mood. Michael suggested they meet for breakfast and Evan agreed and that was the last he’d heard from him. A quick stop at his quarters early in the morning revealed he wasn’t there, nor was he waiting in the officer’s mess. He finally asked the ship’s computer to locate his brother and discovered he was already with Vash in sickbay.
...Something just wasn’t right.
...At the moment whatever was unfolding in Evan’s life was going to continue doing so without Michael’s participation. That would come later. For now, it looked like it was up to him to prepare for the arrival of the shuttle on which his parents were bringing his niece and nephew to join their father. As usually happened when Q was involved, Dr. Downing got the easy job. Over the years he’d gotten very adept at steering his father and mother away from the subject of Evan’s absences at certain times. He hoped his brother would be able to get away and meet the children with him, but if he couldn’t, Michael would be ready to cover for him.

Picard’s reaction was quick. He guided Vash to the side of the bed before he tapped his badge and requested a security team to sickbay,. Then he called the bridge and informed Commander Data of the disappearance of Evan Downing while in the company of Q, and ordered a sensor sweep of the area. It was unlikely, but a sweep might pick up his communicator’s transponder signal if he was anywhere nearby. Picard was not surprised when the security team came through the door seconds later - Commander Riker must have been monitoring sickbay closely.
...Dr. Crusher entered ahead of the security team, walking to the chair near the bed. She looked around the near empty ward, and then turned a puzzled expression to Picard. “What happened? Where is Captain Downing?”
...“I wish I knew,” Jean Luc answered. “Q explained how he had hidden Evan when he was a child, they exchanged words . . . then the two of them disappeared.”
...“They disappeared? Both of them? Just like that?”
...“I’m afraid so.”
...Beverly looked from him to Vash. “Q didn’t waste time disrupting things, did he?” she observed. “Are you alright? Both of you?”
...Vash nodded. “I’m more worried about Evan.”
...Picard turned to her. “From the look on Q’s face, I’d be more worried about him.”
...“Never.” Vash shook her head adamantly and sat on the side of the bed. “Not after what he’s done, and there’s no telling what he might do to Evan.”
...The doctor eyed her closely, crossing her arms at the waist. “Do you really thing Q would harm him, after agreeing to protect him for so many years?”
...“I honestly don’t know, but look what he’s done to me.”
...Picard barely heard Vash’s answer. He couldn’t understand why he had the impression that Downing seemed to be in charge of the situation when he and Q vanished. In fact, he was positive Q had blinked out of existence thinking he would be leaving Evan behind when he did.
...In that instant, Q and Evan Downing reappeared near the foot of the bed. The security personnel moved into a ready stance on either side of the door.
...A shaken Q made the disarray to his costume disappear and glared at Evan. “How do you do that ?” he demanded.
...In control of himself once more, Downing, too, straightened his uniform in a conventional manner. He smiled thinly. “You’re omnipotent. You tell me.”
...Q glared at him a moment longer and shifted his gaze to Vash. “How does he do that?”
...“How am I supposed to know?” she answered hotly, jumping to her feet.. “I haven’t seen him since he was nine years old.”
...Listening to the exchange, Picard felt at a loss, even more so than he had before. It was clear Q had played a large role in Downing’s young life and not as an anonymous protector. Evan knew him, or appeared to know him well enough to have little or no fear of him. Attacking Q, any Q!, was something he’d never seen anyone do.
...Realizing he’d placed himself squarely back in the trap, Q fell silent and decided to act as if he was bored with the entire subject. “So tell me, Jean Luc, how do we proceed with your end of the story? Do you need my help breaking the happy news to Captain Junior? Or am I free to leave?”
...“You were never invited in the first place,” Vash answered. “You’re free to leave at any time. Now would be good.”
...Q smiled as only he could, and spread his arms widely. “And miss the meeting between father and son? Are you mad, or seriously impaired in some way? You know I’ve been waiting for this moment all of your little man’s life.” He turned that smile on Picard. “So, Jean Luc. Did I raise the little captain to your standards?”
...At first the turn of conversation went right over Downing’s head, but when he looked at Vash and saw the sympathetic look on her face as she regarded him, the words Q was speaking clicked into place. Q wasn’t finished with him yet.
...Picard, also watching Downing’s reactions, turned to Q. “Leave my ship, now! You have done enough damage to everyone involved. This is not the time to gloat.”
...“Do as he says!” Evan added angrily, turning abruptly to face Q. “Or this time I won’t stop.”
...Q’s expression darkened and he narrowed his eyes to look from Picard to Downing, and then to Vash. “I’m beginning to regret my ingenious solution to your little problem. I see now I should have let him spend more time with you. He’s turned out waaay too forthright and boring!”
...With a withering look to encompass them all, Q surprised Picard and vanished.
...To Beverly Crusher’s practiced eye, Downing looked as if his knees were about to buckle. She took his arm with one hand and with the other indicated the chair near the bed. As he sank into the chair, she went to the replicator and asked for a glass of cold water. He was sitting with his head in his hands and she touched his shoulder gently and held the glass before him. He took it, but instead of drinking of it, he held the cold, dewy condensation against his forehead. She pressed her fingers lightly against his shoulder and left the ward, beckoning the guards to stand outside the doorway as she passed them.
...After a moment, Evan felt another hand touch him tentatively, and he turned to see his mother was standing beside the chair. He lowered the glass of water and leaned against the back, raising his eyes first to Vash and then to Picard.
...“You? Is it true?” he asked.
...Picard stepped closer, clasping his hands before him and gesturing slightly with them. “This was not the talk I was planning to have with you, but, yes. It is true.”
...“This isn’t the talk either of us wanted to have with you,” Vash added. “This isn’t even the way I was planning to tell Jean Luc! I apologize to both of you for bringing Q into it, but at the time I never expected such cruelty from him.”
...Downing gulped the glass of water and stared into it’s empty depths. Oh, how stupid can I be? The gas bubble has been hinting the truth to me for years and I never caught it! Little captain? Captain, Jr? When it pertains to a woman named Vash?!
...He leaned forward and held his head in his hands. “Why didn’t I see this coming?” he moaned.
...At that moment a communicator warbled and Evan looked up, seeking the source of the sound, at Picard. Both had been startled by the interruption.
...“Picard here.”
...“Captain,” the voice of Commander Riker said. “The second shuttle with Captain Downing’s family aboard has just reached the space station. They shall be coming aboard shortly. Also, the commander of the starbase would like to talk to you before we leave port.”
...Picard hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Very well. I shall be on the bridge shortly.”
...Evan smiled ruefully and straightened in the chair. He reached for Vash’s hand and got to his feet to face her. “This is a day for forced confessions. I have something to tell you, and, believe it or not, this isn’t the way I was planning to do it, either.” He turned his head to look at Picard, thinking about dinner conversation the previous evening and wondered how much Picard had known about him from his files. Had he been surprised? He couldn’t tell from his present expression.
...“Do you mean the Downings? Are they coming to see you off?” she asked. “You know, Evan, after twenty odd years, I understand if they have become more than foster parents to you.”
...“Don’t worry about that. I never forgot you.” He held her hand on both of his. “There is another pair of Downings I’d like you to meet.” He nodded toward the ward’s doorway. “Mom and Dad – my parents are here for just a short while. They’ve brought my daughter and my son to join me. I’ll be taking my children to live with me on my ship.”
...Vash narrowed her eyes. “Children ?” she repeated, very aware of the disbelief raising the pitch of her voice, and probably changing her facial expression, too. “You have children ?”
...Standing a step away, Jean Luc Picard knew exactly what was going through her mind.

With the ETA schedules from the starbase computer piped into his compadd, Michael Downing knew to the second when his parents would be arriving for their brief stopover. He hadn’t seen them in months, though they corresponded regularly, and he was looking forward to their visit however short it would be. He wanted to assure himself they were doing well and be certain they knew the same of him. He knew they still worried, as parents will, about Evan’s physical well being after his extended medical leave, and he hoped his brother could get away from his personal business long enough to greet them and his children.
...The young doctor left his guest suite and walked along the corridor to the turbolift that would take him to the transporter room. He was planning to stop along the way in the senior officer’s lounge where he and Evan had agreed to meet if he was able to conclude his business with Vash before the shuttle arrived. He was hesitant to call Evan and interrupt his reunion with Vash. He imagined their initial meeting would be emotional and supposed they’d want it to remain private.
...A thought struck him suddenly and he stopped walking. He raised a hand to smooth his hair back and opened his mouth to bark a short laugh. “Grandchildren!” he said aloud to himself, his voice just above a whisper. “He has to tell Vash she’s a grandmother!”
...The woman Michael remembered, a charming and beautiful woman well aware of her effect on men of all ages, might not welcome the news kindly.
...“I wish I was a fly on the wall,” he muttered, smiling, and resumed his walk to the lift.

Evan knew he wasn’t helping his mother cope with the news by laughing, but he couldn’t help it. The look on her face was exactly the look his daughter exhibited when she was being obstinate in the wake of a reprimand - especially when she felt it was undeserved.
...Well, like it or not, he had been married once and he had children. That look from anyone wasn’t going to change things. It didn’t work for his daughter and it wouldn’t work for his mother.
...“I’m sorry if it’s not a welcome announcement,” Downing said and brushed his hair back from his face, as much to be doing something other than looking into her eyes and the mortified surprise there. “I’m aware this entire reunion shouldn’t be happening at all, but it is, and I can’t change the facts any more than you could, than either of you could. The fact of the matter is I have two children and I want them with me. My parents wanted to spend time with them before I took command of my ship. We all know it might be a while before they see one another in person again.”
...Vash seemed to come to grips with herself. “Of course,” she said, pulling away and looking around for the bed. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I don’t know why I’m so . . .”
...Picard stepped forward instantly and took her arm and helped her reach the side of it, where she sank down onto the soft surface and gave his hand a grateful squeeze and continued to grip it tightly.
...She looked at both of them as they hovered above her. “Listen. You both have business needing your attention. Go ahead and do what you must. I’ll be alright. I need time to think. I need time to let all of what we’ve talked about work itself out in my mind. You have to understand, just a few of days ago I was making plans to bring my nine year old son to live with me and now . . . out of nowhere . . .it’s all changed! I really need time to absorb all of this.”
...Not wanting to walk away in a time when he could see Vash was struggling for composure, Picard knew if he didn’t honor her request she was more than capable of making him leave her alone. Not wanting such a scene in front of Evan, he reluctantly let go of her hand and straightened. “I’m not at all certain you should be left alone,” he said. “However, we are, unfortunately, on board my starship and I have duties to which I must pay heed. I shall return as soon as I can. Dr. Crusher can reach me instantly if you need me for anything.”
...She managed a smile and a look of affection for him. “I know.”
...As he turned to leave, Evan held out his hand and Picard grasped it. “Thank you,” Downing said. “You must have had a difficult day yesterday. I’m grateful you let me speak to her before . . . well, before Q stole the thunder from the both of you.”
...Picard nodded once and turned to leave as his communicator sounded again. He talked quietly as he left the room.

“Are you alright?” Dr. Crusher asked quietly as Captain Downing appeared in the doorway of her office. She had seen Picard leave, striding with purpose as he talked to someone via communicator. He knew where he was going and what he was going to do, but Downing looked as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.
...He stopped, turning to look through the doorway and crossed his arms loosely in front of him. “No, I’m not. Q has been dropping broad hints about my life as long as I have known him, and I never understood them. Not for a minute. I feel like the most stupid person on this end of the galaxy.”
...She got up and walked around her desk to the doorway. “You’re hardly that, Evan. You wouldn’t be where you are if that was true.”
...“Then why do I keep walking into loaded situations when I should know better?”
...“If you’re talking about your biological parents, there is no way you could have suspected what you’ve learned today. Q has been waiting to spring this particular trap on the three of you for a long time.”
...He smiled and reached out to touch her arm. “Maybe so, but I can’t blame everything on him. Remind me sometime to tell you about the Beverly Howard-Crusher I once met who tried to kill me three times.” Still smiling, he left her to mull that thought over and wonder what it meant.

Evan stopped just outside the door of Dr. Crusher’s office and said something. Vash could hear his voice but not what he was saying. He was too far away. A moment or two later, the doctor came out to talk to him. As he was turning to leave, he reached out his hand and touched Beverly’s arm. It was just a brief touch, lingering just the right amount of time, but it spoke volumes.
...Vash watched the two of them. A sadness stronger than she had ever felt began to creep through her body and she put a hand to the side of the doorway to steady herself. She turned away and went back to the biobed, climbing onto its surface before letting the tears fall from her eyes. Evan, the boy she knew, was gone, and in his place was a grown man, a stranger with a life, interests, and a family of his own.
...She closed her eyes and grieved for her lost son, seeing in her mind’s eye the nine year old who’d complained of having to take music lessons, but whose eyes lit up when she’d told him she would be coming for him soon, because the danger to him was passed and he could live with her again.
...She didn’t notice when Dr. Crusher came to the bedside and put a light blanket over her before lowering the lighting above it and silently walking away.

“Is this where we live now?” Katelyn Downing asked, standing in the middle of the guest suite and spinning on one foot to take in the view all at once. It didn’t look very big to her, and she wondered where everyone was going to sleep. Maybe she would get to do some adventure sleeping in this new home.
...“No,” Evan answered. “We haven’t reached our new home, yet. This ship is going to take us to another ship on which we’ll be living.” He placed the two small packs of very important things his children took with them everywhere on the low table on from of the sitting room’s low sofa.
...Kyle Downing, squirming to get out of Michael’s arms and join his sister, hit the floor running and started spinning around in the middle of the room, too. “How long until we get there?” he asked, arms flung wide and feet moving fast as he twirled.
...“Three days,” he answered. “That’s enough spinning. You’re making me dizzy just looking at you.”
...Kate stopped, staggered a little and stood as straight as she could. “Where’s my room?”
...“It’s waiting on the other ship,” her father said. “For now, you and Kyle will sleep on the big bed in there, while I sleep out here.”
...The girl looked disappointed. “Why do you get the adventure sleeping?”
...Kyle, who’d been amusing himself by trying to walk while feeling dizzy, sobered instantly and cast his father an affronted look.
...“Don’t start. Because I said so, that’s why.” Evan looked from one to the other. “Well, we’ll see what we can do. Maybe we can build a tent over the bed. Okay?” He indicated their packs. “Why don’t you take these in there and look at the bed, figure out how we’re going to do it.”
...The two shuffled over and got their things and wandered off in the direction of the suite’s only bedroom. Soon their voices were heard as they talked and explored.
...Hearing a sigh from the doorway, Evan looked at his mother and smiled. “I know, I know. You think I gave in too easily, right?”
...Lauren McCord Downing came farther into the room, answering his question obliquely. “We should have insisted their nurse travel with us instead of meeting you at the shipyards.”
...“They’ll be alright, Mom. I’m not the pushover you think I am. Besides, Oakley was right to visit her family before we leave on our first mission. It might turn out to be a long one.” He gestured for both of his parents and Michael to come in and sit. “Come in, please. We don’t have much time and there is something we need to talk about while the kids are busy.”
...Victor Downing guided his wife to the sofa and sat beside her. “Is this the surprise Michael mentioned in his letter yesterday? If it is, I might say he neglected to say how big the surprise was going to be.”
...Sinking into a chair, the young doctor remained silent and waited.
...Still standing, Evan looked at them all in turn and repeated his words. “I wish we had more time to talk about this, and I’m sincerely sorry for springing it on you so unexpectedly, but I have no choice. I’m still reeling a little from it all, myself.” He tried to make his stance as casual as possible. “When Michael and I came aboard the Enterprise yesterday, the first thing we discovered, the first thing we were told was that Vash, my birth mother, had come aboard the day before we did.”

True to his word, Jean Luc Picard returned to sickbay as soon as he could get away from business on the bridge. If he was having trouble coming to terms with all that had taken place since her arrival, he suspected Vash was going to be reacting to matters with more difficulty.
...Beverly Crusher was expecting him and stopped him outside her office. The area around the biobed was dimly lt and the covered form of Vash on its surface indicated she was probably sleeping.
...“Let her sleep, Jean Luc. This has been hard for her to comprehend. She needs the time to say good-bye to her son, if not actually feel grief over his loss.” At his puzzled look, she smiled a little and looked toward the bed. “Think about it. She’s lost her nine year old boy as surely as if he had died. When she’s ready, I’m sure she’ll ask for you. I’ll tell you as soon as she does.”

Evan Downing watched his parents shimmer out of sight as the transporter beam returned them to their shuttle. The concerned looks on their faces had hardly changed even as they bid the children a final good-bye, and spoke to Michael and him in turn. He’d done his best to reassure them, but he knew they would be relying on his brother to relay the latest news to them whenever anything happened. He needed to have a word with Michael about how much to reveal. He wasn’t sure how much they knew or suspected about Q, whom they knew as the ridiculously flamboyant photographer who turned up to take pictures at all of Evan’s birthday parties. There was unfinished business to tend to with Q before Downing could tell his parents the truth about him.

Chapter 7

As soon as he could, Captain Picard retreated to the quiet solitude of his ready room to consider what had happened in sickbay. Getting the ship underway helped him settle back into his routine and for a few short hours his concerns were for his crew and his ship and the assignment they were to pursue after dropping their passengers at an enroute destination. Dealing with starbase protocol had never seemed so time consuming and unnecessary as it had today. Normal ship’s business had long ago become mundane, but today, he was aware of every minute spent getting it out of the way. By the time the ship entered warp speed, the reports had begun to reach him as the upgrades and repairs were tested and evaluated, and somewhere within that activity time passed.
...By the time he’d settled behind his desk with a cup of hot tea, it was midday. Picard pulled something to eat from the replicator. It was evident his crew was aware of what was happening in his private life - or what little he had of one aboard a ship - and he’d been through the surreptitious watching and whispered comments in other situations. It was predictable behavior and he wanted to avoid it as much as possible. Too much was at stake to be distracted by the crew’s speculations.
...As much as he hated to admit it, the presence of Q in the situation made the current turmoil of his private life a matter to be reported to Starfleet.
...That would come later. He pushed the intrusive thought out of his mind. There was more to learn and so little time to attain it. He would worry about writing reports later and use as much remaining time as possible to know Evan Downing better. Picard wanted to know his son and he wanted his son to know him. It was important they both come to understand one another as officers and as men before they were forced to make difficult choices.
...Was it only days ago when he was chafing at the bit to get underway? Wishing something exciting would happen to enliven being stuck at the starbase longer than he’d planned? If he wished for more time to spend with Evan and Vash, would it come true, too?

Vash awoke in what was turning into her own private section of sickbay. The area around her was dimly lit, but farther into the ward the room curved away following the shape of the ship. She could see medical personnel tending to other patients. Outside the doorway across from her bed most of the doctors’ cubicles were dimmed or unlit from within. She looked at the time unit on the table next to the bed and saw it was early evening. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and went to find her pack. It was the only non-medical object in a built-in cabinet not far from the bed. She was feeling better than she had in days. Better than she had that morning.
...Going into the small lavatory, she thought it might be time to contact Jean Luc and request a room in the guest quarters, preferably near Evan, but it didn’t have to be in the guest quarters, come to think of it.
...Needing to talk to Picard, Vash took care to look her best. Thinking about Evan all day as she drifted in and out of sleep, had made her remember her reluctance to tell Jean Luc they’d had a child. The fact of the matter was, she’d seen it all before - children growing up to follow their Starfleet parent(s) into a career that separated them for months or years at a time. She hadn’t wanted that for her little boy, but she knew if he met his father he would be influenced by the allure and polished image of Starfleet officers. She’d wanted Evan to stay with her, accessible, visible, on hand when she needed him or wanted to see him.
...She knew from following Picard around the galaxy to pursue their relationship, when it was strong, that it was not how she wanted to relate to her son.
...“Computer, where is Captain Picard?” Vash said aloud.
...“Captain Picard is presently in his quarters.”
...“Where is that exactly, please?”

The jazz club was almost deafening with sound and patron activity as a band played on stage and dozens of holographic customers crowded the dance floor. Sitting at the end of a long bar with Will Riker and Deanna Troi, Evan Downing was impressed by the detail of the program. He looked at the stage and reminded himself his brother was the only living being making the music. Seated behind an elaborate set of drums, Michael seemed to be having the time of his life.
...“I want to meet whoever wrote this program,” Evan said. “It’s amazing.”
...“You can, but he won’t give you a copy. This one is mine - only,” Riker told him with a small smile.
...He shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve been looking for someone to do an early aviation program. You know, single engine airplanes, bi-planes, from the barnstorming era of flight on Earth.”
...Riker looked impressed. “This might be your guy. Remind me later. I’ll introduce you. He likes to drop by when I have the program running to see if anything needs to be tweaked.”
...“He’s here on the ship?”
...“I expect him along any minute,” Riker said.
...“Great.” He lifted his glass of amber liquid and rolled it around before taking a drink. “So, uh, what’s with all this secret eye contact and nudging between you two? Do you want me to get lost for a while?”
...Deanna smiled. “No, I’m sorry about that. It seems to have become my job to let Will know when he’s taking things too far. This program brings out a very wild side to him that I’m not sure I really like.”
...Evan laughed. “It’s easy to get into the flow of things. You’ve got winners here, Riker.”
...“What about you?“ Riker asked, accepting the compliment with a nod of his head. “Whatever happened with that Bajoran woman you were with in San Francisco? We toasted her all night in the effort to, I think . . . What was it? Make her leave you alone?” He looked at Deanna. “I’m just teasing. If I remember correctly his son was about to be born.”
...Evan laughed shortly. “It didn’t last, unfortunately. I shipped out and three months later the ship was in a battle and we were reported missing, so I didn’t know my son was born until after we were rescued and brought back to Earth. She took him to my parents in Oregon when she decided to return to duty aboard her ship. She couldn’t take him into a battle situation and my parents were glad to have him. Turned out to be a good thing, because she ended up deserting Starfleet and fighting the war as a member of a Maquis cell. Nothing has been heard from her since.”
...“I’m sorry.”
...He shook his head and waved off the sympathy. “ It’s not your fault. My son is safe. That’s what matters.”
...“Mmm, so that’s it,” Troi said. “He has a very strong presence about him, your little boy. I’ve met people, beings, before who have presence so strong they shine when you contact their minds and emotions. Your son is one of them. I’ve felt his presence since he beamed over this morning. It’s very nice. Kind of like your daughter’s and your own, really, but his is much stronger.”
...Evan nodded. “I know. We’ve met Bajorans who see it in him quite easily. I’ve been told he has an exceptionally strong pagh. Whatever that is. Whatever that means. They all seem to want to touch him. Scares the hell out of him, but it makes them feel better.”
...“Well, there must be something about Downing men, big and small, that is terribly irresistible to Bajoran women,” Riker teased.
...Evan sobered suddenly as a thought occurred to him, but he covered his discomfort by signaling the bartender.
...“In the meantime, ready for another set?” the other man continued. “Your brother is having way to much fun without us.”
...It was the most welcome thing anyone could have said to Evan.

“What am I going to do, Jean Luc? Tell me how you would handle this,” Vash implored, pacing the floor in front of the chair where he sat. “Just last week I was making plans to bring my son home. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him. I’d been planning for it a long time, working for it, getting my life in order for it. What do I do now?”
...When she had appeared at his door earlier, Picard had been pleased to see she was much better physically and emotionally. Something was still bothering her, but she looked so much like her usual self, he’d been glad she was improving so noticeably. As she began to talk about what was foremost on her mind, he felt himself shrinking away from her. He hoped she would talk herself out before he had to disappoint her. It wasn’t meant to be.
...“I don’t know where to go from here. I want my boy back, but how do I give up the one I’ve come to know in the last few hours?”
...He got to his feet and grabbed her arm to stop her movement. “I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong person, Vash. By your own admission you never meant to tell me about Evan. So, you are asking me if I am willing to counsel you in an action that might mean losing the man who exists now. I can tell you without a doubt, I do not want to lose my son.”
...Vash took a deep breath and felt her emotional furor drain out of her. Of course not. Of course, he wouldn’t. “When I turned to the only friend I thought could completely protect my little boy from harm . . . I gave Q more ammunition than he should ever have at his disposal, didn’t I?”
...Picard remained silent, lowering his eyes to look at his hand on her arm.
...She sighed. “I suppose I should go talk to Evan. Will you come with me?”
...“Of course.”
...All of a sudden, she seemed to lose her resolve and her face took on a bewildered expression. She collapsed against him and pressed her face against his shoulder. “Jean Luc, I have a son almost as old as I am! People will think I was a wild teenager,” her muffled voice exclaimed. “Have you seen the way the doctors and nurses look at him? God help me, I think he’s even prettier than me!”
...Picard put his arms around her. “My dear, I assure you, you have nothing to worry about on that score.”

...“Well!” Troi said suddenly, indicating the nightclub entry. “I was wondering if they were going to show up. I was expecting them earlier, one or the other, anyway.”
...Riker, pouring drinks from a bottle, stopped to look. “Wow,” an understated syllable was all he said.
...Downing turned and his eyes widened in surprise.
...Jean Luc Picard had just come into the club, accompanied by an attractive younger woman.
She was Vash.
...She was Vash - but not the exhausted, frightened woman from sickbay, this was a Vash who was only several years older than Evan was now and quite stunning. He turned sharply to the table. “Oh, my god!” he told the bud vase in the center of the surface.
...“Looks like Dix, doesn’t it? And a very pretty dame,” Riker commented, sipping at the drink in his hand, not taking his eyes off the couple. “Vash has always been quite a dish.”
...Dix? Dish? What . . . ? Downing saw the expression on Will’s face. Oh, god, that’s my mother he’s talking about. He lifted his drink and swallowed it, wishing it was the real thing when another thought came to mind. My mother and my father!
...Deanna leaned toward Riker and nudged him with her elbow. “Will, take it easy.”
...He turned to her, a teasing look in his eye. “Are you j- . . .?” She was motioning with her head toward Evan. Oh, this was even better! Riker held back a laugh, barely. “. . . j-uust about ready for another set, Evan?” he asked.
...“God , yes!” Downing said and jumped up from his bar stool. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Picard and Vash making their way between tables. He looked at Will and suddenly they both laughed.
...Evan shook his head. “Don’t ask me why, but I want to go over there and ask him what his intentions are concerning my mother; I want to tell you to take a hike before I knock that smile off your face; and I really want to go on stage and tell my brother to get his chin off the floor because that’s my mother you’re all leering at!”
...“Ah, she’s a looker alright. A peach with a tree worth shaking, I tell you.”
...“Will! Be quiet,” Troi cautioned
...“No, really! Deanna, remember the first time she visited the Enterprise? We all did double takes. She was the woman archaeologist, that lady scientist the captain met on Risa? We were all stunned and a little envious.”
...“Risa?” Downing repeated incredulously before remembering that fact from the Starfleet files he’d read years ago when he’d first started searching for his mother. “I truly don’t need to be hearing this, Riker!” He pushed past him and headed for the piano. He could hear Riker chuckling behind him all the way.

Downing slipped out of the holodeck as soon as he could, feeling chagrined by his own behavior. The trouble was, he had never really believed the Vash he’d learned about at Starfleet briefings was the same woman who was his mother. They looked alike but the ages weren’t right. He had all but convinced himself there were two women named Vash, related in some way, and the older of the two was his mother. He’d been so wrong he felt like an even bigger idiot than he already thought he was. That woman on Picard’s arm - his father’s arm, on the dance floor, at the bar . . . Oh, boy.
...The turbolift stopped down the corridor from sickbay and the doors whooshed opened.
...“Captain Downing. Fancy meeting you here.” Beverly Crusher was waiting to enter. “You’re mother isn’t here. She left a few hours ago.”
...With his suit unbuttoned, his tie loosened and his hands in his pockets, he looked up as she stepped into the lift and the doors closed. “I know. I just left her on the holodeck. I was coming to see you.”
...“Lucky me. It’s convenient I’m off duty.” She instructed to lift to go to the deck where her quarters were.
...“Have you released Vash from sickbay, then?”
...“No. She got up, got dressed and left. She might be coming back. She left her pack on the biobed. My unobservant staff just noticed her missing and called me.” She spread her hands, indicating his outfit. “So what are you doing wandering away from a holodeck program that looks like fun?”
...“I was going to go back to my cabin and rescue Ensign Blake from watching my kids - he’s probably dreaming of relief by now. Then I was going to spend the rest of the evening feeling sorry for myself while my kids fight over toys.”
...“But you came to see me instead.” Beverly straightened the lapels of his suit and then his tie. ...“Has anyone ever told you that you look very dapper in civilian clothing, period and otherwise?”
...“You’re the first.”
...“Am I? I don’t believe it for a moment, but how nice. Before you rescue Ensign Blake from your children, how would you like to take a hungry doctor to dinner?”
...“It’s the best idea I’ve heard today. I can feel sorry for myself anywhere.”
...“I can fix that.”
...“I’ll bet you can.”
...The doors opened and he offered the doctor his arm before they left the turbolift. Beverly hooked her arm around his. “Should I even ask what put that forlorn expression on your face?”
...He grimaced. “Please, don’t!”

After a while it became apparent Downing wasn’t returning to the holodeck, and if he’d already been the object of Riker’s and Dr. Downing’s merciless teasing, Picard really couldn’t blame him. Funny as they were, he knew from a similar past experience involving Vash how it could get old quickly.
...It might not be the time, but Picard, at least, wanted to let Evan know the three of them needed to discuss Vash’s feelings, and the choices with which Q had left them to contend. As much fun as the holo evening was, they had a very short time to spend with Evan. Certainly, when Starfleet was made aware of the situation involving the young captain, he might be unavailable for a time if an inquiry was deemed necessary.
...Walking along the corridor through the guest quarters, Vash glanced sideways at Picard. “Jean Luc, I am sorry I never told you about Evan. It was selfishness, as simple as that. I knew if you were a part of his life, he would choose a career in Starfleet and follow after you across the galaxy. Nothing about archaeology can ever seem as romantic as being in Starfleet. I had shared you with a starship, and eventually the starship won. I just didn’t want to lose the same battle with Evan.”
...They continued in silence for a short time.
...“Jean Luc,” Vash said thoughtfully. “Did you ever acknowledge your feelings for Beverly Crusher and have a relationship with her? Have an affair, perhaps? A little fling?”
...Picard turned his head and stared at her, raising his eyebrows. “I fail to see how that can have any bearing on what we have been discussing.”
...“In other words, no. So . . . That might explain her apparent interest in my son.”
...Picard frowned. “I . . . beg your pardon?”
...“Your doctor and my son,” she inclined her head to one side and made a shrugging gesture, “our son, have taken an interest in one another. They think they’re being discreet, but I can see it. There is definitely something going on between them.”
...“Dr. Crusher?”
...“Don’t sound so surprised, Jean Luc. She’s a lovely woman and Evan is a young man who apparently hasn’t got your reservations or emotional baggage about Beverly as a potential lover.”
...“Are you certain you know what you’re talking about?”
...“She has a spotless reputation as a physician, she serves on the Federation flagship, everyone predicts she’ll end her career as the head of Starfleet Medical, and she’s damn good at her job. She might be a good friend of yours, Jean Luc, but let me tell you this: She’s not good enough for him.”

...The chime sounded at Evan’s suite and a voice beckoned Picard and Vash to enter. The door moved aside and they walked into the living room area and looked around. It appeared to be empty though a male voice was reading aloud somewhere. After a few seconds, a fair haired head appeared over the back of the sofa and a little girl who strikingly resembled Evan and Vash, looked inquisitively at the newcomers for a few intense seconds. She looked down at the floor.
...“It’s not daddy.” The head disappeared.
...“Hello?” Picard said loudly. “Ensign Blake? Is that you?”
...The ensign sprang to his feet, a reading padd in his hands. “Sir! Captain Downing isn’t here, sir. He said he wouldn’t be back until late.” He hurried around the sofa, and two children followed him, both dressed for bed but neither looking the least bit tired or sleepy. “We were just doing some, uh . . . adventure reading, sir.”
...“Adventure reading, sir,” echoed a dark haired boy, nodding in agreement with Ensign Blake. A few inches shorter than his sister, he had the same eyes. His young voice already had an ring of future deepness and resonance familiar enough to make Vash raise a hand to her mouth to physically hold back a laugh.

Dinner was served late and spread out on the low table in front of the sitting area chairs.
...“It wasn’t you personally, Beverly. I’ll admit up front, my preconceptions of you were absolutely stupid, but I couldn’t ignore them.” Downing leaned forward to push more fried rice into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. “I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to Vash or . . . the captain, but I know I’ll have to tell them everything eventually. I guess it doesn’t matter if you hear it first. The truth is, Q has taken me to the Continuum many times. My brother doesn’t even know how many.”
...“Oh? Alright. And this has to do with me, in what way?” It was Evan’s idea to replicate Chinese food, and the variety of dishes he’d selected made Beverly’s choices difficult. It was all good.
...“He has taken me into alternate time lines. In a few of them . . .” He took another bite and chewed and swallowed. “There was a time rift not too long ago. It was started by a young Q who was called Trelaine.”
...“I remember it. Some of it., though much of what I know is what Jean Luc told me or put into his report.”
...“Later, Q attempted to fix some of the damaged time lines and he took me along. I saw many alternate paths my life could have taken and in quite a few . . . Well . . .” He shrugged, waving his chopsticks in her general direction. “Your counterparts have tried to kill me. I’ve been shot by a Dr. Crusher, nearly hypo sprayed to death by a Dr. Crusher, hit over the head by a Dr. Howard, nearly stabbed by another Dr. Crusher, been throttled with the bare hands of a Dr. Howard-Crusher, and after that I learned to avoid Drs. Crusher whenever we went into another time line!”
...He ate another mouthful.
...A spurt of laughter from Beverly made him smile.
...“I think my counterparts should re-evaluate their opinions of you. I wonder what you did to provoke such behavior?” She leaned her head to one side and looked at him critically.
...“I don’t know. We never stayed in the individual time lines long enough for me to learn anything. Of course, now, I suspect Q took me along simply to experience those actions and influence my behavior when I met you in this time line.”
...“So when your brother and I came to your door minutes after you arrived on the Enterprise . . .”
...He nodded his head and took up the thread. “When you and Michael showed up at my door wanting to take DNA samples minutes after I beamed aboard, I didn’t know whether to duck and dive for cover or just let you pull a phaser out of your pocket and kill me!”
...Beverly smiled. “That wasn’t even close to what I was thinking.” She helped herself to another bowl of rice. “No offense meant, but Q once told Jean Luc no living being had ever been to the Continuum, It was too overwhelming for non-Q to understand, but you just said you’ve been there many times?”
...After a long silence in which he seemed to be concentrating intensely on something, Downing answered. “He took me to the Continuum the first time when I was nine. I goaded him into it. During the war we learned the Founders call their natural state of being the Great Link. I think that must be what I felt among the Q. I was in constant communication with an uncountable number of individuals and I knew who each and every one of them was apart from all the others and yet we never exchanged names or any kind of identification. I just knew this Q was not that Q and that one was different from all others... I can’t describe it better than that. That’s all there is to it, and yet it was so much more. Another Q took an interest in me, helped my mind grasp what I was experiencing. I was taking music lessons at the time and it filled my mind. She used it to help me understand.”
...He took a deep breath. “Imagine floating above a continuous grid of piano strings extending in all directions. Each string a separate time line in which we and alternate versions of ourselves exist. To the left and right, time lines going on forever one string after another.” He held his hand, palm toward him and bounced it along as he extended his arm. “To the front and back of you each string is a continuous, never ending line, all parallel and never touching. In the center, kind of like Middle C on a piano, is this time line, the one true time line from which all of the others are born. The Q we know, and others like him, are like musical prodigies among humans, or artists or inventors among any species. They are born with a talent, an ability to create far beyond the rest of their race.”
...Evan put his utensils down and lowered his head, rubbing his fingers across his forehead as if he suddenly had a headache. “Q’s talent is his ability to skim the time lines and find the focal points where choices are made that affect all future events. He seems to have a fascination with the past, but he doesn’t really. Changing an event, no matter how small, can reverberate throughout time. The energy released is what the Q in their natural form need to exist. As each changed event causes ripples to begin to flow, they absorb the energy released, just as we eat and drink to live. They exist outside of time, but they depend on it to keep them alive. It’s their source of nourishment.”
...Downing was quiet for a while. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say ? I have to explain all of this to Starfleet, not to mention my parents - all of my parents - and I don’t know if I can describe it more clearly than that. When Q hid me in the past to escape Picard’s enemies, he was putting me in the position to disrupt time. He was saving my life and feeding the Continuum at the same time.”

Chapter 8

Time was growing short.
...Q hovered around the Enterprise as the starship raced for the Tellerant shipyards. He badly wanted to know what was going on inside the craft, but somehow or other, Evan Downing had the ability to know when he was nearby in a form other than his natural state. How he was able to know this was something Q had never been able to discover and this damned ability did more to hamper his plans than anything else could have. He had to settle for what could be seen by peering through the starship’s windows - not an easy thing to do in his natural form. Staying inside the warp field surrounding the ship was uncomfortable but necessary, and he was angry. He wanted to be inside, manipulating, pushing, hinting, taunting - anything but being out of the loop, as the saying went!
...From his portal peeping, Q knew Picard and Vash were as seriously involved with one another as they were in the matter of young Downing’s appearance, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying! He wasn’t worried - he could break it all up in a heartbeat, if he could only get to them undetected. No problem there. It was avoiding Evan’s mysterious radar he couldn’t do.
...And young Evan? What about him? Even after all he’d seen and learned traveling through the parallel time lines with Q, what did the young idiot do? He leaped headfirst into a romance with that straight arrow, unimaginative DR. CRUSHER WOMAN - all capital letters, she’s that insufferably important all over the parallel time universe, thank you very much. What was it about this woman that the very fabric of time itself seemed to insist upon putting her in Evan’s path time after time? And why did the boy let time lead him around by the nose when he knew the other side of the coin? Why did he insist on taking chances when it came to that Crusher woman?
...How typically human of the little captain!
...How disappointing!
...Somehow he had gone very wrong with that boy. He’d done the best that he could and Evan had still turned out . . . human. Ah, how Q missed the days of Evan’s youth. His inquisitiveness, his willingness to experience new things, go on new adventures, his wide eyed wonder at all the things and places Q could show him with the snap of his fingers.
...Evan was grown man now, a Starfleet officer devoid of his former sense of fun. He’d banished Q from his life and those of his young children. The worst part was he had the means to be certain Q obeyed.
..All he could do was keep watching, interpreting what he saw and hope he was getting it right. He wanted to be there when the three of them made their final decisions. He had to be there. He was the only one who could make their choices happen.

Picard was awake much earlier than usual. There was so little time left to spend with Evan Downing. When they reached the shipyards the following day, he would be leaving the Enterprise and taking his own ship and crew to explore the galaxy just as Jean Luc had been doing his entire career. Picard had devoted himself to his career to the exclusion of all else, and it wasn’t until these later years that he had cause to regret his single-mindedness. He thought he’d been given a chance at some of the things for which he’d never had the time when he learned of Jason Vigo. Discovering later, it had been a particularly cruel ruse by an enemy trying to hurt him, and that Vigo was not his son, left Picard feeling empty for the first time in his life. When his brother and young nephew died unexpectedly, the emptiness deepened and taught him the meaning of despair, true despair. He had no one. Until now.
...He got up and dressed quietly, not wanting to disturb Vash. He left the bedroom and immediately on entering the living room saw a blinking light on his desk com padd. Messages to start the day already. He went to the replicator for his customary cup of hot tea and stood before the desk and skimmed through the list of messages. One in particular caught his attention. It was from Evan.
...“Good morning, Captain. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk last evening. Ensign Blake told me you’d stopped by. I’m sure you’re as anxious as Vash is to talk about what has happened and learn more about Q’s involvement in matters. I think it’s a discussion we can have in an official capacity, and later, perhaps the three of us could have a more personal talk. Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there. The time and location of the meeting I will leave up to you, as well as who will be present. For now, my brother and I are planning to spend time this morning using one of the holodecks to entertain the children with a program they particularly enjoy. You’re welcome to join us if you wish when your duties permit. If you would pass the invitation to Vash, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.”
...He froze the message before going to the next one and studied Evan’s image. Funny thing about faces, he thought. Who’d have predicted all those years ago on Risa, that these particular features, in so many variations, would permeate his life to the extent that they had? He thought of the little girl who’d looked him over and found him uninteresting, and the little boy who had called him “sir” throughout their brief encounter. Amazing.

Arriving at Evan’s door right on time and ready to go, Michael Downing was looking as bright as could be in spite of his late night on the holodeck, and Evan knew damn well what was causing it. His brother and Riker had been in high form the previous evening.
...Evan never took his eyes off him as he came into the room and headed for the table where the kids were beginning breakfast. Something was going on with him.
...Michael sat in an empty chair and began to help himself. “You know,” he said over his shoulder, “you should have stuck around a little while longer last night. Things really picked up after Riker told this funny story about a guy who went to Risa not knowing what the planet was known for, and then carried around a horgon for days without knowing what it was!” He laughed. “It was hilarious. Um . . . right after that Picard and Vash left to look for you”
...“They stopped here and talked to Ensign Blake and the kids for a while. I wasn’t back yet.”
...“You mean Sir?” Kyle Downing asked around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.
...“Don’t talk with your mouth full. Sir? I guess so.” Evan sat across the table from his brother and watched him as he went back to his own meal. He was bursting with news of some kind and Evan got the distinct feeling he shouldn’t ask what it was.
...The boy swallowed.“Uncle Michael will save me.”
...“You hope.”
...“Of course, I will!”
...“But it’s better to be safe, right Doctor? Don’t do it again.”
...“Your dad’s right. Don’t do it again.” He paused a beat. “I would have saved you, though.”
...Katie looked at her father, reminded of something. “When do we get to our ship? Uncle Michael said he’s going to be the doctor there and be in charge of everybody.”
...Evan chuckled. “Uncle Michael only wishes that was true. I’m going to be in charge of everybody. That’s what being the captain means. We’ll get to the shipyards tomorrow, sweetie.”
...He looked at his brother again and sighed. “Okay, Mike, what is it you’re not going to tell me until I ask, even though you’re dying to let it out?”

The holodeck program was a far cry from the jazz club of the previous evening. This bright and early morning it held a park with playgrounds and wide expanses of green grass for running and playing. The near playground was teeming with children. Just beyond the swings and slides and jungle gyms, Evan and Michael Downing were tossing an oval shaped object back and forth to one another.
...Vash and Jean Luc Picard walked through an open, arched gate and along a gravel path around the playground. Downing saw them and waved as if he’d been expecting them at just that moment.
...As she came closer to where he waited, Vash told him, “We missed you last night, but we had a nice visit with Ensign Blake and the children.”
...Evan glanced toward his offspring playing not far away. “I heard about it this morning.” He looked at Picard soberly. “Sir.”
...The youngsters noticed their visitors from the day before and stopped what they were doing to race over and see what was going on.
...“Captain! Ma’am!”
...“Sir! Ma’am!
...“When we get to my dad’s ship, we’re going to have lots of other kids to play with.”
...“We’re going to school on Daddy’s ship, too.”
...“Uncle Michael will be the doctor and my dad is the captain. That means he’s in charge of everybody, not Uncle Michael.”
...Evan laid a hand on the head of each child and they stopped chattering and looked up at him. “Be still. I want you to meet our guests properly.”

How much time had passed? Would the Enterprise be arriving at the shipyards soon? When that happened the principle players in this little melodrama would be splitting up, heading their separate ways, and whatever good Q could do them would be moot. He needed to get to them before they had a chance to make up their minds about the situation. They might make a decision Q didn’t want them to make.
...This was intolerable! He needed to know how much time he had left, and most importantly, he needed to know what was happening on board the ship. Picard would be infuriated with him, but Q was used to that. Picard always felt that way toward Q. Predictable.
...Evan would be the same, furious, but in possession of a power over Q that Picard lacked. Unpredictable, in a way. Thank the Continuum for that. Somewhere along the way that cute, ingratiating, adventurous little boy, who looked so much like his mother, had turned into Jean Luc and all evidence of Vash and Q in his life vanished without a trace.
...It was Vash Q needed to see, to talk to, to discover how she was handling the situation with young Evan - or should he say not-so-young Evan?
...Vash was the main figure in the mix. It was she who had entrusted her son into his care, his safekeeping, and it was she who could change events in a way that reverberated throughout the time line for centuries. She was a strong woman. She could easily influence Picard and her son to agree with any choice she made, good or bad, beneficial or not.
...She was at the center of a major focal point spanning the lifetime of her son.
...The three of them needed Q to help them make the right choice.
...Steeling his resolve, Q made plans to crash the party.

In the holodeck program, children ran and laughed and shouted noisily on the playground, but Kyle Downing frowned at his father, his eyes very serious. “But, you called him ‘sir,’ too, Dad.”
...Evan looked down at his hands. The formal introductions were not going well with his boy, and he was losing this battle. “I called him ‘sir’ because he has been a captain longer than I have. It’s a sign of respect between two captains.”
...His son continued to look at him without comprehension.. When he frowned like that he almost seemed to have a Bajoran wrinkle on the bridge of his little nose. Almost.
...“Go on. Go play. Don’t worry about it.” Evan let out a breath and leaned against the back the bench on which he, Vash and Picard sat and watched the boy run across the yard to his sister. “He’s going to call you Sir no matter what I tell him. Ensign Blake left a lasting impression on him.”
...Picard laughed. “I can settle for that.” He didn’t say “considering the alternative,” but the words hung in the air. He knew he was being grudging about it, but there was just so much newness one could take. Give it time. Give it time.
...Downing nodded. “Yeah, I’d settle for that myself. From anyone.”
...Picard looked at him questioningly. “What do you mean?”
...Downing shrugged. “Michael told me this morning that I’ve gone from being called ‘Mr. Stagefright’ to ‘The Little Captain’ virtually overnight. Your security people are asking for it.”
...After a moment, he leaned forward and clasped his hands together and set his elbows on his knees. “Have you decided when and where to hold a debriefing, Captain?”
...Picard drew in a deep breath. “As soon as possible. We’ve only the rest of the day and the night before we arrive at the shipyards. Early tomorrow morning, ship’s time.”
...He didn’t have to elaborate.
...His son nodded, still looking at his hands, and Picard suddenly felt a kinship to Evan stronger than any he’d ever felt to anyone else in his life. They were captains and they were fathers, and they shared deep feelings for the woman who had created this reality. He missed him already, just thinking of his impending departure.
...Picard placed a hand on Evan’s shoulder, and seated on Downing’s right, Vash did the same.
...She had been silent, enjoying the interchange between Evan and his children, and remained silent as he and Jean Luc had spoken. So she had seen it as it happened, something she knew would make her options more difficult to face. She had seen the moment when Jean Luc had fallen in love with their son.
...Though she knew this fine young man was her boy, Evan, it was still difficult to accept that so much of his life had passed and she had been excluded from seeing it happen.
...Like it or not, she had an adult son and two grandchildren . . . but, did she truly want to accept that?

Choosing to have only his senior officers present for Captain Downing’s debriefing, if the word even applied, Picard still found it difficult to arrange for a visual record to made of the meeting. He was in his ready room, wishing he could be elsewhere doing anything but planning this event. Questioning his son about his associations with Q and the Continuum made him uncomfortable in many ways. He didn’t want to be the reason a negative mark of any kind was placed in Evan’s records. The young man had done good so far in his career - and it had to be Q who had the means by which to cast a shadow over Evan’s accomplishments.
...Picard had no doubts that Downing’s career had happened without the aid or interference of Q - though he didn’t know him as well as he would like, he could see the young man had character and natural abilities. His former commanding officers noted this, too, so Picard knew it wasn’t just him seeing things he wanted to be there. Downing was capable. Quite capable.
...Surely, no one would doubt the validity of Downing’s career simply because Q had been his guardian?
...Of course, this must be what Q had been planning all along.
...Picard remembered the last time he had seen Vash, before this visit, and the test Q had subjected them to, the result of which being the end of the relationship he’d had with her. She had chosen a partnership with Q, travels to places unexplored by denizens of the Alpha Quadrant.
...Had Q known?
...The thought suddenly came to mind and Jean Luc felt a coldness sweep over him. Had Q known Vash had conceived a child? Was that why he’d taken her away with promises of adventure and riches beyond anything anyone could imagine?
...He had certainly stolen the greatest gift, the richest moments life could have given to her, and to Picard, too. He’d taken twenty-three years of their child’s life away from them.
...His next thought was unnerving. Had Q known, and is he now expecting us to demand he give it back? Is that why he has done this? Am I to lose another son?

Michael Downing stood at the large port in the living area of the his brother’s guest suite and watched the stars streak past. He could hear Evan in the next room, talking to the children as they changed clothes.
...Despite his amusement at his brother’s difficulty dealing with certain facets of knowing who his biological parents were, the doctor was worried about the nature of Evan’s existence being revealed to Starfleet. He didn’t want to expect the worst, but that time traveling monstrosity called a Q was involved and where Q meddled, dire consequences often followed.
...It was a shock to him to hear Evan’s matter-of-fact telling of the details to their parents. Was it just the day before? Perhaps it was, but it didn’t really matter. What mattered were their careers. Since they were children, the brothers planned to join Starfleet - attend the Academy together, graduate, take their first assignments and, by hook or by crook, end up serving on the same ship. Evan would be the captain - even as children his leadership abilities dictated that - and Michael would be his chief medical officer. They had done it, but through no fault of their own, the Downings stood on the brink of having their accomplishments, their hard work and planning made moot by a transdimensional fry cook.
...In the end, no matter what happened, Q would come out the winner, and Evan would spend the rest of his days in service to Starfleet with a cloud hanging over him.
...Unless some kind of miracle happened. Huh! Like that had a chance in hell of happening.
...It was useless to wish and hope when the entity from hell was involved. After all they had been through together, Michael could only stay with the kids and watch their father leave to deal with what Q had done to him.

Dr. Crusher listened to Captain Downing tell his story for the second time, more detailed than when he’d told her, but essentially as she heard it the evening before. Knowing what he was going to reveal gave her the opportunity to watch the reactions of her fellow officers. Not that anyone was going to give anything away, but she knew the signs, she knew her shipmates. She knew herself as well, and that meant evaluating anything Evan said with the professionalism of a Starfleet CMO.
...Lastly, she watched Evan as he spoke.
...Downing was answering a question from Counselor Troi. “There was something you said in the holodeck last evening that brought a thought to mind. You said my children and I, most notably my son, had a presence about us when you sensed us empathically. You mentioned you’ve encountered many people whose presence glows when you sense them in that way. It occurred to me, maybe they’re people like my children and me. Maybe we each have a strong presence because we aren’t supposed to be here. I’m living out of sync with my time and my children aren’t supposed to be here at all. Whose to say Q, and the other Q with his ability, haven’t been doing this, using individuals to disrupt the flow of time, before me? I might not be the only person, or being, who has been transported through time for the benefit of the Continuum. I might be just the first one we’ve discovered.”
...“The focal points you mentioned,” Commander Data said. “There would be thousands upon thousands, perhaps millions upon millions, of them per time line. Q cannot cover all of them himself. Therefore he cannot be the only Q who has thought of using time travel of individuals as a way to influence the events of focal points. The laws of probability would dictate what worked for one Q would be imitated by the others.”
...Picard leaned forward, resting his arms on the table and clasping his hands in front of him. “In sickbay, when you realized what Q had done to you, you attacked him and you both disappeared. I had the impression Q thought he was going to vanish while you stayed where you were. He seemed quite surprised by your actions.” He took a deep breath and asked as casually as he could, ...“How did you do it?”
...“The Q female in the Continuum, the one who took an interest in me . . . She thought Q was too reckless, more so than the others with his ability. She felt he was a show-off, always the gourmet when simple was just as filling and nourishing. Too often, he made changes to the time line that were wasted. She told me energy created by chaos is corrupted and it isn’t nourishing to the Q. Empty calories, so to speak.” He paused for an instant. “She gave me something, I don’t know what it is, a sensory ability of some kind. When Q is around, I know it, I sense him, I feel him. I’m like a mirror, I can use his abilities against him, reflect them, send them back at him, but only when I’m in his immediate presence, and only with him. There might be fifteen other Q just out of sight listening to us right now and I’d never know it. Yet if Q we know were to join their group I would know it immediately. I don’t have Q powers, or any kind of Q abilities myself. Frankly, I don’t really care how I’m able to do it, I just hope it never goes away.”
...“Why do you think she did this for you, or should I bother to ask at all?” Riker asked, amusement evident in his tone and expression.
...“Who knows why they do anything?” Downing answered with a shrug. “Personally, I think the Q are one of God’s little jokes on the universe. He created a race of omnipotent beings, but left them not quite knowing what that means. They just don’t seem to grasp the full significance of what omnipotence actually is. However, in recent times, that is during the last few years as we measure time, the Continuum has been in upheaval. What they termed a civil war took place and probably spanned millennia, but Q reported it’s beginning and ending to me, and to one other person, in just the last few years so it only seems to have lasted a short time. Opposing sides fought for and against the right to die. It was finally settled in a unique way. Maybe the Q are finally getting a clue?”
...Picard looked startled. “May heaven help us if they are.”
...“If that’s the case,” Data said, “perhaps it is a good thing you were given the ability to interact with Q the way you have. There may be others who have the same ability to influence the powers of the Q when they are in this dimension of time and space. Even a handful of Q who fully understand their potential would be an invincible threat to the galaxy. If you are right about the length of the civil war, however, it could be millennia before we have to worry about it.”
...“By which time, I, and the others, will be long dead.”
...“Unfortunately.” A pause. “In the present, however, you have a unique ability, a weapon, if you will, that can be used against the Q.” Data looked thoughtfully at Downing. “I predict Admiral Janeway will take a deep interest in your story, Captain.”

Chapter 9

Walking toward the turbolift together, Dr. Crusher glanced at Troi and Riker. The debriefing lasted quite a while, and even though Picard had kept the discussion on track, questioning had been sharp and wide ranging. The record sent to Starfleet after everyone present had added personal observations would catch the eyes and ears of sections of Starfleet they might have never been aware existed. Downing had been forthcoming, to his credit, but Beverly knew any debriefing the powers that be conducted would make this one look like a ten year old had drawn up the questions. He hadn’t told her about his ‘gift’ from the Q female to counter Q’s powers, but she had the impression Evan had held nothing back today. He wanted all of this over and done so he could get on with his career. And he did have a career ahead of him. She had learned nothing to make her question his ability to command a starship, nor to uphold the ideals with which the Federation explored the galaxy.
...Reaching the turbolift, they stopped walking and waited.
...“Well,” Dr. Crusher said, breaking the silence, “aside from learning more about the Q and the Continuum in the past two hours than we ever did in the past fifteen years, I don’t think Captain Downing has to worry about Starfleet reevaluating his commission any time soon.”
...“No more than they did us after our initial encounters with Q,” Deanna agreed. “They might find it too interesting that the biological son of Captain Picard has taken his place, and surpassed Admiral Janeway, as the foremost authority on the Q. That part of it will be sensational. Especially when Vash’s role is revealed.”
...“Yes, that’s unavoidable,” Beverly agreed, “but our encounters with Q took place over a matter of days each time. Captain Downing’s have lasted his entire lifetime.”
...“Even considering that, which is a twelve, thirteen year difference in length, the questions shouldn’t be any worse than for us,” Riker said. “Most of what Downing told us we already knew from the history of Voyager’s crew, and nothing has happened to him that didn’t happen to us, one or another of us. The only new element is his personal ability to fend off Q’s powers. I have a feeling the mysterious Section 31 will be paying him a visit in the future. No matter what we say in our summaries, Data’s use of the term ‘weapon against the Q’ will catch their attention. The few hours when I had his abilities certainly did. They’ll question him but, just as with me, there isn’t anything they can do. The ability is specific to Downing. Lucky cuss.”
...The turbolift arrived and they stepped inside, each giving it instructions.
...“You almost sound as though you envy him,” Troi said.
...Riker smiled. “I wish I had the ability to reflect Q’s powers back at him for just a few minutes. What I wouldn’t do to him in that time!”

Vash had never been good at waiting. She knew the Enterprise crew would do their jobs and pick Evan’s story apart, word by word. It was how Starfleet operated and Picard and his people were nothing if not Starfleet officers to the core. That it was Evan’s idea to have a formal questioning session, didn’t calm her nerves. She didn’t like the thought of him facing so many people alone. No matter that Jean Luc was in charge, if she could be there with him, she would be.
...She paced the length of Picard’s living room several times before she couldn’t stand it any longer and decided to drop by Evan’s guest quarters and see if she could find companionship to distract her.
...Being introduced to the adult version of Michael Downing in the holodeck program the night before had been an unreal experience. Though she’d kept reminding herself he was at his proper age and it was she and Evan who were the time travelers, she couldn’t help but see him as a little boy, too. Evan’s brother and best friend all through their lives. The boy who’d so seriously tended to the slight burn she’d gotten on her arm from a lighted table decoration. He was a doctor now.
...All of the Downing children would be adults with careers now.
...If the door hadn’t whooshed open at that moment, Vash was sure she would have turned and left. ...Dr. Downing greeted her and immediately waved her inside. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said. “I doubt if we will for a while. I’m trying not to let the kids know anything is amiss.”
...The children were not present, but she could hear their voices in another part of the suite.
...Vash stopped near the middle of the room and looked toward the porthole and the stars beyond it.
...“When you think about it,” she said, “how bad can it be? Jean Luc was assimilated by the Borg and he still commands the flagship of the fleet.”
...Michael said nothing, knowing what she wasn’t going to say. Knowing she didn’t want to think of the distrust Starfleet had displayed toward Picard after his experience anymore than Michael did.
...They are both extreme situations, he told himself. Picard was able to deal with the consequences. Luckily, my brother turns out to be made of the same stuff.

Leaving the small conference room through the turbolift, Picard and Downing didn’t bother to hide the uncertainty they felt from one another.
...“I guess I should be expecting a visit from the people who don’t exist.”
...“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
...“I don’t understand how I’m able to do it. I can only keep Q from using his powers on me, or to safeguard someone else if I’m close by. I wouldn’t be able to use it as a weapon. ”
...Picard smiled. “You explained it quite well. I had a harder time convincing Medical I hadn’t been physically altered in any way by Q. Since you’ve just ended a year long medical leave, I would expect them to review your history and give you another round of tests sometime in the future to be certain they missed nothing. Dr. Crusher, I suspect, has already alerted Katherine Pulaski to your presence on Enterprise. One, the other, or both have the standing in their field to confirm your ability is not physical in nature. Starfleet will respect whatever they have to say.”
...“Dr. Pulaski,” Evan said. “She was the doctor who gave me my yearly check-ups until my ninth birthday. By the time I started looking for my mother, when I was sixteen, I’d forgotten about Dr. Pulaski.” He shook his head slowly. “She saw me just weeks ago as a boy about to turn nine.” Evan took a deep breath. “Oh, well, Q didn’t take me far enough back in time to be my own grandfather, so I should be grateful I don’t have to worry about that, at least.”
...Picard laughed, and for the first time, began to feel everything was going to be alright.
...The turbolift stopped and opened onto a busy corridor.
...The two stepped out of the lift and Picard said, “Would you join me for lunch in my quarters? Commander Riker can handle the bridge for the next hour.”
...Evan nodded. “Yes, sir, of course. I’d like that.”
...Picard arched an eyebrow and lowered his chin slightly. “I am Jean Luc, if you will. There will be a time and a place for ‘sir.’ When we are off duty, I hope, need not be it.”

Q kept his distance from the ship, watching as well as he could, and guessing what might be happening. He wanted to just pop inside, blink them all into his presence and settle himself into the thick of things. Evan was blocking him, though, had been since he’d first shown himself to the ingrate. How ever in darkest space he was able to do that, he gave Q no choice but to wait for the three of them, Picard, Vash and the little captain, to be in the same place at the same time, just them, before he forced his way inside the ship. And he knew he would have to force his way in. The little captain was a formidable opponent in many ways, but even he wouldn’t be able to keep both Q and Vash from changing the course of events if they chose to stand together. Q was counting on it.
...He focused his attention on the ship again, concentrating hard, and located each person of interest to him. If he was in humanoid form, he would be frowning. He found Vash, and was puzzled to see she was in close proximity to the two shining spirits who were Evan’s children.
...What was she doing there? It couldn’t be good, whatever it was.
...Picard and junior de capitaine were two decks up and halfway around the saucer. Pulling himself together, Q concentrated his energy over the part of the ship where the guest quarters were. It was time to take a chance.

Picard and Downing sat at a small table in the captain’s suite. Soft music played in the background. Evan recognized it as a recording of the “Concert for Bajor” his adoptive parents performed several years ago. The conversation was not about music.
...“Ah. . .” Evan said, cutting a piece of chicken on his plate. “If the Galaxy class ships are on the way out, and there’s some question about that, I’ll stay with the Montana as long as I can. I want my children to have a home with me. They’ll have a stable base to go to with my parents on Earth, a place to visit, a place that will be there as long as my parents are there. They’ve raised their family, they don’t need to raise mine.”
...Picard nodded as he listened. The Downings taught him the value of family. How different this man might be if he had been raised by Vash, or by Vash and me.
...Downing reached for his glass and looked at Picard. “Do you mind if I ask you what you did after the loss of your ship? The Stargazer. There is a gap of a lot of years between ships.”
...“You’ve done your homework, I see.” He took a deep breath. “Oh, my life was up in the air after I lost the Stargazer. It had been my home for so long, I was reluctant to take another captaincy when it was offered. In the end the choice was made for me. An old friend had been promoted to admiral and he understood my emotional dilemma. He offered me a job that included a ship. I would be the captain, but because of the nature of the job, that wouldn’t be readily apparent. It turned out to be a good transitional position for me.”
...“What kind of job was it?”
...Picard smiled and looked away. “I was assigned various diplomatic missions, I did quite a bit of traveling on assignment for Starfleet.”
...“You had another ship, though? Which was it?”
...“That is classified information and I’m afraid a mere captain hasn’t the clearance rating needed to know. In fact, I probably shouldn’t even be thinking about it!”
...“What? You had a ghost ship?!”
...Picard smiled, but didn’t answer.
...“Ah. You were one of the people who don’t exist, and therefore, those nine years between the Stargazer and the Enterprise don’t exist.” He laughed a little. “Talk about time manipulation. This seems to be something I was born to do.”

“I can’t stand this,” Vash announced and got up from the chair she was occupying. “I wish I knew what was happening. I can’t be still until I know something.”
...Dr. Downing leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his face with his hands. The wait was getting long and he badly wanted to know something, anything, too.
...She walked to the port and looked outside. The stars streaked past and the slight distortion of the warp field around the ship was so plain to see, it made her dizzy. She turned and walked across the room, stopping only when she neared the doorway and the door panels whooshed open as the sensors assumed she was going to leave. Looking a bit annoyed, Vash swung around and stopped in her tracks after only two steps. The doors closed behind her.
...“What are you doing here?!” she demanded.
...Startled, Michael looked up and leaped to his feet.
...Q had materialized in the room.
...Michael’s communicator warbled and a voice issued from it immediately. “Downing to Dr. Downing. Are they there?”
..He managed to slap his badge and say, “Yes . . .” before the device disappeared.
...“How does he do that?” Q uttered in almost a hiss.
...“Who cares!” Vash answered angrily. “Leave us alone! You’ve done enough damage!”
...Michael was moving toward her, trying to place himself between the two. “Evan is on his way. I suggest you leave.”
...Q glared at him. “I have no intention of staying. I merely dropped in for Vash.” He turned his eyes to her. He held out a hand. “Come, my dear. We have much to discuss, and time is growing short.”
...“If you think-“
...Dr. Downing had his hand extended about to grab her arm when Vash and Q disappeared.

Picard sipped from a glass of white wine and watched as Evan poured a small amount into his glass. “When this report makes the rounds of Starfleet and becomes news throughout the Federation - and it will, I’m afraid, your life is going to change, as is mine and that of your mother.”
...Evan smiled with one side of his mouth. “Uh, no offense, but same old, same old. To some people, god help me, ‘the Little Captain’ will catch on, I suppose, but to others, to the fans of Mom and Dad, I’ll always be ‘Mr. Stagefright.’ The nervous little boy they had drag on stage because my legs wouldn’t move on their own, and who played the piano with all the enthusiasm of a stick on the ground!”
...“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
...“Yes, it was! I was terrified of making a big mistake and embarrassing all of us. I was fourteen before I thought, what the hell, and learned to relax and not worry. I’m surprised I didn’t become ‘Mr. Show-off’ after that.”
...“You’re exaggerating, I’m sure. The Downings were proud of you and your siblings, and felt you were all good enough to share the stage with them on occasion.”
...“Maybe, but I could swear they looked relieved when I said I wanted to go to Starfleet Academy.”
...One moment Evan was raising his glass, and in the next he was on his feet, a look of intense concentration on his face and the glass was on its side on the tabletop, the contents pooled around it’s top. He slapped his combadge. “Downing to Dr. Downing. Are they there?”
...“Yes-“ came a short reply.
...Evan looked at Picard, and started for the door. “Q is on the ship, evidently in my quarters.”
...“Wait,” Picard said sternly. “Computer, on my authority, two to beam directly to the guest quarters of Captain Downing.”

The shimmer of two forms coalescing in the room startled Michael Downing a step or two back. He put his hand on his forehead and smoothed his hair back, letting out a breath as he did.
...“They’re gone,” he told Evan and Captain Picard. “He said he came for Vash and he took her when he left.”
...“They didn’t go far,” Evan said, looking at Picard. “He’s been following the ship since we left the starbase. He’s been observing, so I haven’t let on that I know. He waited for the moment, certain I would know he materialized, but not where, that I would have to guess where he’d be.”
...“You guessed they would both be here?”
...“I didn’t think Vash would wait alone.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have been able. Besides, she made the deal with Q. She would be the focus of his interest.”
...Michael looked at his shirt front. “He made my con badge disappear. I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t do the same to me.”
...Evan clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You were that.”
...Q had tried and Evan had stopped him, despite the distance between them, but he said nothing of it. There were some things that needed to remain secret for a while longer.
...Picard spoke. “How far would you say they have gone?”
...Evan concentrated for a moment. “A sensor sweep of the outer hull of the ship will turn up an interesting anomaly.”
...Picard frowned. “The question then becomes, will he let us retrieve Vash?”
...Downing smiled without humor. “I’m Q’s mirror. Just show me where they are and I’ll retrieve both of them.”

“- I’d go anywhere with . . !” Vash’s anger abated and her voice seemed to vanish with it. She realized where she was and reached forward to grab the front of Q’s uniform. “What do you think you’re doing?! Take us back inside now!”
...Inside a shimmering bubble of some kind, tightly against the hull of the ship with the warp field pulsing around the moving Enterprise, she held onto Q and became aware that she’d been shouting to be heard over a sound coming from the warp field. Somehow or other the warp field made a sound. In spite of her fear of where she was, she looked around with wary interest.
...Q was looking around quizzically. “This isn’t –“ he began and looked up at the stars streaking by outside the ship’s warp field. “How does he do it?!” He looked at Vash. “I didn’t bring us here! I was taking us somewhere safe. Somewhere we could discuss that ungrateful nestling you call a son! He brought us here!”
...“This is no time for jokes! Take us back inside!” She took a quick glance around. At any moment she expected to be torn from the hull and cast adrift for eternity.
...“He won’t let me!” Q insisted.
...Astonished, Vash glared into his eyes. “Do you expect me to believe that, after all you’ve done to me?” Clutching his shirt more tightly, she gave him a hard shake. “Take me inside the ship!”
...“How many times do I have to say this?” He waved his arms in a helpless gesture as he spoke. “Your little captain won’t let me!”
...As if on cue, Evan was there beside them. Vash looked at each of them in surprise and Q glared at Evan, as furious as either had ever seen him. Evan took her arm and pulled her toward him. He jabbed a finger in front of Q’s face.
...“If you ever do anything to my brother, I’ll find a way to put you in your natural state and keep you there! He was looking after my children!”
...For an instant Q was taken aback, then his glare returned. “Oh, calm down. I wasn’t going to harm the little doctor.” He waved his hand in a dismissing gesture. “Just move him out of the way.” Then his eyes narrowed. “How do you know I was– Never mind.” He shook his head. “You’d never be able to do it. It isn’t possible.”
...“We’ll never know ‘til I try, will we?” Evan smiled coldly. “Just open the door, Q. Just give me a reason.”
...“Don’t try to scare me, boy. You don’t have it in you, you’re Captain, Jr!”
...“Flattery will get you nowhere. Let’s go inside.”

In his ready room just off the bridge, Jean Luc Picard waited for whatever was going to happen next. A sensor sweep of the immediate area around the ship had located two lifeforms barely readable on the hull of the ship directly above the ready room. Picard and Downing beamed themselves into the room and as the captain of the Enterprise watched, his remarkable son took a few steps forward and disappeared.
...An eternity seemed to pass, though Picard knew it was merely minutes. He spoke to his first officer, a few brief words to let him know what was happening, and then he was no longer alone. Evan, Vash and a very agitated Q were suddenly in the ready room, too.
...Evan let go his mother’s arm and placed himself between her and Q.
...Vash moved to a chair beside the large desk in the room and lowered herself into it. Picard stepped closer to speak in a low voice.
...Q paced one way, then another and spun around, hands clenched at his sides, to face Downing. “How do you do that?!”
...Evan scoffed. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, you never will. Besides, we want to hear your explanations, not mine.”
...“You agree with your mother I should have been less painstaking in my promise to hide you and keep you safe?” He spread his arms wide and took a few steps to the right so he could see what Vash and Picard were doing. He made a contemptuous noise. “I merely did as I was asked, jeune capitaine. I saved your life and this is how you repay me! Do I hear a word of gratitude from any of you? A simple ‘thank you, Q,’ for saving junior de capitaine?”
...Evan walked away, and Picard took a step away from Vash’s side. “You have used my son to feed the Continuum. You’ve put him at odds with his own lifetime! You might have cost him a long career with Starfleet. You might have saved his life by hiding him from Bok, but the method you chose to do so severs any grateful feeling I might have ever had for you.”
...Q was undaunted, putting humans on the defensive was so easy to do, and the results were so predictable. Any moment Picard would order him off “my ship” and become further angered when Q chose to ignore him. Should I yawn now or later?
...“Oh, Starfleet!” he said. “The whole Federation is overrated, anyway. Do you think Starfleet is the only way to explore the galaxy? Dismissed!” He blinked out of sight and reappeared next to Vash, leaning down, one hand on the back of the chair, the other on the arm. “You and I, my dear Vash, old traveling companion, have unfinished business and it needs to be settled. Why don’t we do it now and save the little captain time and effort trying to keep me away from you? He won’t be able to do it forever. Sooner or later you’ll get tired of each other’s company and you’ll wander off in search of adventure. I’ll find you then.” He lowered his voice. “The longer you wait the harder it will be.”
...Downing, standing at the port, turned slowly and looked at the others. Picard thought he saw just the hint of amusement in his expression.
...Vash waved him away and got up from the chair. “Jean Luc, Evan, please. I need you to trust me. Q and I have to talk, because he’s right. We have unfinished business to settle.” She looked at Evan. “I don’t know what Q is talking about, but if you have been doing something to him, stop. I want this over and done so I never have to see him again. By my choice, anyway. Please, Evan. I know what I have to do.”
... “Vash. . .” Picard began, but she stopped him by putting a hand on his arm and smiling.
... “I know what I have to do, Jean Luc.”
...Picard and Downing looked at one another for a long moment, and then Evan nodded and turned away to look out the window again.
...Q and Vash were gone instantly.
...“If I disappear,” Evan said, “at least neither of us will know it.”
...Picard went around his desk and sat in the chair behind it, his back to Evan. Good idea. He knew he’d never know if it happened, but he didn’t want to be looking at his son if it did.

Vash found herself among the ruins of Tetaris IV, where she had been just a few short days ago. The same spot where she had told Q she was going after Evan, she was bringing him home to live with her.
...She quickly put the thought out of her mind and marched up to Q, jabbing him in the chest with her fingers repeatedly and hard, as she said, “Get that smirk off your face. Let’s make this quick. I want you to do a couple of things for me, Q. A couple of last favors, and when we’re done, I don’t ever want to see you again as long as I live. You will leave Evan and me alone. Consider our deal settled.”

Chapter 10

After Vash and Q disappeared, Beverly Crusher sat in one of the chairs in the captain’s ready room and watched Picard and Downing in silence for as long as she could stand it. About a full minute. She got up and walked around the desk to stand beside Evan at the window.
...“Alright,” she said in a slightly exasperated tone, “if you think you’re going to disappear, and that seems unlikely since I’m standing here talking to you, the least you can do is answer one question for me before you go.”
...He shrugged. “If I can.”
...“I think you can.” She folded her arms across her waist and waited.
...He took his time, but turned to face her. He shrugged his shoulders and looked at her with a “well, what?” expression.
...“I think you know, but won’t tell me, why my counterparts in the other time lines tried to kill you when you met them, and it just occurred to me what the reason might be.” She reached across and took his hands in hers. “It’s this situation, isn’t it? All those Beverlys met all those Evans and fell in love and then, poof! One day he was gone, without warning, without a word of any kind. No amount of searching turned up a trace of him. He didn’t exist. All those Beverlys never knew what happened, because it wasn’t as if you, he never existed for them. He did because Q made sure they had their memories. It’s what he has planned for me, isn’t it? Everyone else will forget you as they’ve known you the last few days. But I’ll be left, or would have been left, as the case may be, to wonder why you abandoned me without a word after four years. Am I right?”
..Evan frowned and gripped her hands firmly. “I’m still here, Beverly. They’ve been gone five minutes and I’m still here.” He grinned. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere, except to my ship, where you’ll always know where to find me.”
...“Am I right?”
...Again he took his time. “I think so.”
...Feeling a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, Captain Picard, maneuvered his chair around until he faced them. Perhaps Evan was right. If Vash chose to have Q give her back the boy, Evan, time would have changed events almost immediately and none of them would be aware of a change taking place. He would not be sitting here feeling awkward in the presence of his son and Beverly Crusher. Perhaps it meant it was time to put this awkwardness to rest and accept the fact that Beverly’s longtime love, Commander, and now, Captain Downing, turned out to be the son he never knew he had.
...They looked at him quizzically.
...“Has Beverly told how many times in the past four years you and I have come this close-” He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger barely touching. “-to meeting one another, but never quite closing the distance?”
...Knowing of Jean Luc’s discomfort at her romance with Evan, Dr Crusher gave him an exaggerated look. “Maybe now you’ll listen when I tell you I know you’re going to like someone.”

Vash opened her eyes. She was on the gravel road outside the gate of the Downing house, and her son, Evan, was walking slowly away, toward the house to rejoin his foster family and friends at his ninth birthday party.
...“Evan!” she called, going through the open gate.
...The boy turned and looked. “What, Mom?”
...She smiled. “There is something I forget to tell you. Sweetie, you know, you don’t have to be so nervous when you go on stage with the Downings.” She approached him as she spoke, and when she was beside him, she gathered him in her arms and hugged him close to her. He squirmed a little. She kissed the top of his head and held him tightly for a long time.
...“Mom!” his muffled voice said. Sheesh! She was acting like she’d been gone more than half a minute.
...“I’m sorry. I’m embarrassing you, but don’t worry, no one is looking. It’s hard for me to say goodbye whenever I have to leave.” She let him step back.
...“That’s okay, Mom. You’re coming back.”
...“Yes, I am. As soon as I can. Until I do, remember something for me. When you go out on stage in your adorable black tie and tails-“
...He looked up sharply, eyes wide. Adorable?! She had to be kidding! “How do you know that?” he asked, his voice high with surprise.
...“I made our photographer friend take me to one of your concerts at the Vulcan Embassy on Anjellia III. He owes me a couple of favors and that was one of them. I didn’t know until . . . recently that you and Michael were good enough to play on stage with the Downings. I wanted to see one of your concerts.”
...“Oh.” His face took on a rueful expression and he ducked his head. “That was a bad one, Mom. People thought I was funny” (Adorable?!!) “being so nervous and everything.”
...“The next time you perform with your foster parents, remember this: You look fantastic in that tux, but everyone in the audience is wearing a big, red clown nose!”
...After a moment, he smiled and looked up at her.
...Vash winked. “When I had to give presentations at the university, it worked for me.” She draped her arm across his shoulders and started walking back toward the house with him. “I just thought of something I think we should do while we have the time.”
...“What?” he asked, looking up and squinting his eyes against the afternoon sun beyond her head.
...“I want to take you to meet my father. I named you for him. Did I ever tell you that? He’s a teacher at a university, and I want you to meet him.”
...“Really? Can Michael come along?”
...She laughed. “Of course, if your foster parents say yes.”
...“Is it a long trip?” he asked excitedly.
...“In a way.” She looked over her shoulder with a meaningful expression
...Behind them, Q, in his guise of bored photographer, trailed after them. Actually, it was hard to keep from swaggering and chortling with triumphant glee. He knew it! He would have wagered heavily on it, if the concept had meant anything to the Continuum. Just as he always knew she would, and as he could have predicted: Vash was taking her son back where he belonged.

Picard thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I find that hard to believe. Vash? Taking you and the other foster children to museums? To the theater?”
...“What do you mean? Hard to believe? Each time she came to visit she took us somewhere. Zero-g ballet in Tycho City, to see the Great Wall from Earth orbit. You name it.”
...Downing was sitting on one corner of the captain’s desk, Crusher on the opposite side, and Picard, in his chair between them, leaned back and looked unconvinced.
...“Why not?” Dr Crusher asked. “I took Wesley to do the same things when we lived on Earth. Many parents do.”
...Downing grinned. “Did you take him to the revolving restaurant atop Mount Everest?”
...Picard stared. “What restaurant where?” he asked.
...“Evan!” Beverly waved a hand. “He’s joking, Jean Luc. There’s no restaurant there!”
...“Well, thank god for that,” he said and raised one hand to rest his chin on it. “I’m sorry but I’m just having a very hard time seeing Vash, the woman who willingly became Q’s partner - the woman I knew, taking children to a museum.”
...Evan shrugged and shook his head. “Why? She was my mom. Like Beverly said, moms do that.”
...“When last I saw your . . . mom she was more likely to be smuggling something out of a museum than merely visiting one for no reason.”
...Downing crossed his arms and made a rueful face. “Yeah, well, I’ve read the reports on the archaeologist, adventurer Vash, but that’s not the mother I knew. I think that’s why I never came close to putting the facts together on my own. I never believed the two were the same. Related to one another somehow, but . . . I never came up with a good answer how . That, and I couldn’t make the ages fit.”
...“Oh, for pete’s sake, you two! Obviously, Vash changed after Evan was born. Having a child does that to you. Things that were important to you one day seem trivial once you discover there is a new life you’re going to bring into the world. Maybe that’s why Q did what he did. He had no idea how much pregnancy could change a woman’s outlook on life. How suddenly the ideal partner can turn into someone else.”
...“Yes,” Picard said. “I’ve been remembering the last time I saw the two of them in the ready room of the D. The last thing I told Q was I would hold him personally responsible for Vash’s safety. With a very earnest look he assured me she never would be harmed.” He took a deep breath. “He knew.”
...With that, a smiling Q appeared before the desk, alone.
...“Of course, I knew. I know everything! The surprising thing was, I thought I’d have a harder time liking Vash. When I found a kindred spirit in the woman you loved, Jean Luc, you have no idea how surprised I was. I thought the mother of your child would be more . . .” He gestured disdainfully at Beverly. “More like her or that Troi woman. Someone as sober and unexciting as you.”
...“Where is Vash?” Picard asked quietly, rising from his chair. Evan, to his left, reached out and put his hand on his arm.
...“Never fear, Jean Luc, Vash has just concluded a little visit to her father, and is all safe and sound after proudly showing off junior de capitaine.” He drew back as if in surprise. “Will you look at you? You’re practically moving in unison! How sweet that they’ve found one another, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?” Q walked to the desk and leaned forward, hands on the edge. “I just dropped in to give you the chance to say good-bye to one another, Jean Luc. After Vash breaks the big news to the fiddlers two and their brood, we’ll be bringing this--” He motioned with his head toward Evan. “--ungrateful brat back to his proper time. You didn’t really think our disputatious Maid Marian wanted another generation of little captains running around underfoot, do you? I’ll bet even you don’t.”
...He was gone as quickly as he appeared.
...But Downing and Picard were gone, too.
...Dr. Crusher threw her hands in the air. “Fine! Don’t tell me anything. Just . . . disappear . . . ” She tapped her combadge to alert Commander Riker.

The men found themselves on a wide gravel path alongside a stone wall to their left and a long wide, grassy, tree-lined area to the right. Beyond it was another gravel path and more walls behind which stood houses, large and small. Picard looked around and recognized the features as those used in most cities and towns on Earth where ground transportation was no longer used. They were in a residential area of homes on large tracts of land.
...Downing was looking around, too. “This is where I grew up,” he said. “This is the Downing home in Oregon.”
...Picard nodded curtly. “How did we get here?”
...“I called it cuke surfing. I used to drive him crazy doing it.”
...“Kook surfing? How appropriate.”
...He looked at Picard. “When he’s pushing me away as hard as he’s been doing lately, it can have the opposite effect. He can pull me along instead. The mirror effect. You and I tagged along when he left the Enterprise. From what Q was saying, I think Vash has just returned Michael and me after taking me to meet my grandfather.”
...For an instant he frowned. Wait now, he thought. When did that happen? Did that. . ? And then he shook his head. The thought was gone.
...The house on the other side of the wall was large, two storeys with a gabled attic, and surrounded by greenery. The front door was opening and Vash and Q, both dressed in civilian clothing were coming outside.
...Vash paused and turned to talk with others in the doorway. Q, agitated by something, waited a few steps beyond the entryway. Fuming silently, his facial expression and posture denoted impatience with the conversation behind him. He swung around to look at the group of people in the doorway and then, just as quickly swung back around to look away.
...After a few minutes, Vash turned and came down the two steps from the entry and the door closed behind her. She marched around Q, heading for the gate. “Let’s go,” she said. “Take me back to the Enterprise.”
...He hesitated for a moment and stormed after her. “The joke is over! Pardon me for not laughing, but let’s get the boy and take him back where he belongs.”
...“No,” she told him emphatically, continuing toward the gate in the rock wall. “He stays where he is. Leave him be. He has a family that loves and cares for him and they will all of his life. They made him into that good man I met three days ago.”
...“Oh, be serious!” He jumped ahead of her, bringing her up short with his sudden appearance on the path, blocking her way. “You’re not going to leave him with those . . . those fiddle players, are you? Not after all the plans you’ve made! What about traveling the galaxy with him, showing him the magic and enigma of ancient, vanished civilizations? You’re not going to give up your plans for the boy, are you?”
...“What are you talking about? Those were your plans for us!”
...They looked at one another for a few seconds.
...“This has been too much for you,” Q surmised. “It’s obvious you’re not capable of making a rational decision in this matter.” He looked at her as if the final clue fell into place. “You don’t know what you’re doing! I’ll get him and we’ll all go visit that self aggrandizing medico, Pulaski. She’ll help you deal with this properly.”
...“There’s nothing wrong with me, you idiot, but I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with you!” Vash cut around him again. “Leave my son alone and take me back to the Enterprise.”
...“You’re angry with me and you’re trying to get even, is that it? Aren’t you being a little bit childish, Vash?” He turned and started after her. “Aren’t we both a tad too old for such games? Get the boy and let’s go!”
...“My son stays where he is, Q. You’ve already taken his proper lifetime away from him and I am not going to let you take anything else he has. I’ve had three days to get to know him and to watch him and to see his life and how much he enjoys it. He’s happy with his family! I won’t be the one to destroy it.”
...Q grabbed her by the arm and turned her to face him. “You can’t mean that! You don’t realize what you’re doing! I can feel the time line changing already! You can’t do this! You have to take Evan back to his proper time!”
...“I don’t have to do any such thing! You brought him here - not me!” She pulled her arm away. “Take me back to the Enterprise.”
“Listen to me, Vash. Get the boy!”
...“I’ve made my choice, Q. He stays here with his family. Take me home.”
...“You don’t understand. You can’t leave him here. He doesn’t belong in this era!”
...“This is the life you gave him. Evan is home. Now I want to go home.”
...“Evan doesn’t belong here! You have to take him back! Get him out of that Starfleet uniform you despise so much! You said you were going to keep him away from Picard’s meddling influence!” His expression hardened. “If you don’t get him, I will. You cannot let the changes you’re causing stand! You’re ruining everything! You’re making things worse!”
...Vash leaned her head to one side. “Well, it isn’t my fault, is it? You did this, Q. Don’t try to blame it on me! All I ever asked of you was to protect my son from the danger the Ferengi, Bok, posed. It was your idea to bring him into the past. The consequences have always been yours!”
...He shook his head slowly. “No. I did as I was asked and now the danger is past. He can come home with us.”
..She folded her arms in front of her and smiled. “Evan’s life has been disrupted enough, and I am not going to do it again. I don’t know why you brought him here in the first place, but you’re pushing it too hard, Q! It makes me suspicious. Are you in trouble with the Continuum for what you did?”
...Q’s eyes narrowed. “Of course not.”
..“Alright, then! He can stay with the Downings and become the man Jean Luc and I will meet together in the future.”
...“No!” he said emphatically and waved his hands around. “The future is changing! I feel it! You don’t understand time! If you leave him here, you’re helping time create his relationship with that walking Hippocratic Oath Crusher! They’ll meet earlier! They’ll be together longer!” He seemed to search for words before blurting, “She’s not good enough for him!”
...“She’s–?” Vash stared at him in complete surprise. “Well, what’s wrong with that?” she said, even though she’d spoken the same words recently herself. “Time must be pushing them together for a reason.” She paused for a moment to consider. “I mean, she never remarried after the death of her husband. She threw herself into her career instead. It’s the one area in Evan’s life where he was drifting, too. He had no woman in his life. Maybe time is putting them in each other’s path because they were meant to be together. Hiding Evan thirty years before he was born might have been exactly what time itself wanted you to do. What time made you do”
...Q looked offended. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Time doesn’t control the Q! We exist outside of time. The Q control it!”
...“Or so you think!”
...“So we know.”
...“Believe what you will. It doesn’t sound that way to me. Anyway, I’m not dooming my son to spend his life alone, never quite finding what he’s looking for, always wondering why it isn’t there. If what he’s found with Dr. Crusher is what time wants for him, for both of them, I’m letting him experience it. And you will, too!”
...She swung away and marched toward the gate with Q rushing after her.

Just beyond the gate, Downing leaned his head toward Picard. “I like the way she talks.”
...“I’ve had reason to feel the same on many occasions,” he answered. “Your mother seems to be fearless at times.”
...Downing laughed. “Maybe one of us should rescue Q before she pushes him too far into that corner?”
...The arguing duo had barely stepped onto the gravel path when they were interrupted.
...“You’ve made a mistake, Q!” Jean Luc said, the amusement he was feeling evident in his voice. He stood on the gravel lane close to the rock wall, near the open gate. “He’s made a great blunder, my dear, and he’s trying to get you to correct it for him!” He turned his head to look at Evan, who was standing behind him and leaning against the wall. “What was it you said in the briefing? The energies released by Chaos are unnourishing to the Q? If there is any word to describe your presence in time starting thirty years before you were born, I would imagine chaotic would be it.”
...Vash was astonished. “Jean Luc! Evan! What are you doing here?” She approached them slowly.
...Q glared from where he was standing. “How did you get here?!” he demanded, and looked past him to give Evan a powerful glare. “How do you do that?!”
...“Never mind,” Picard said. “Get us all out of here, Q, before the Downings decide to some outside and see why the two of you are shouting. If you think the changes happening presently are not to your liking, imagine the chaos the Downings could create.”
...He pointed toward the house. “We have to take the boy!”
...“You heard my mother,” Downing said. “I’m the only boy you need to worry about. Take all of us back to the Enterprise.”
...For several long seconds Q was undecided, and then all four of them were in the captain’s ready room aboard the Enterprise.

Beverly Crusher, pacing behind the captain’s desk, stopped in mid stride, looking relieved to see them reappear. She hit her combadge. “They’re back, Commander.”
...Riker’s voice answered shortly, “We noticed.”
...Vash stared at Dr. Crusher. When did she get here? “How long have we been gone?” she asked instead.
...“You’ve been gone half an hour,” Beverly told her, and then looked at Evan. “The captains have been gone about fifteen minutes.”
...“Oh, who cares!” Q said, throwing his hands in the air and walking in a frustrated circle. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve changed everything!”
...Vash threw herself onto the settee and slumped against the backrest. “What do you mean? What are you yelling about?”
...“You changed him,” Q said, indicating Downing. “Something you just did or said changed him. He’s a different Evan, events in the time line have changed. The boy with stagefright, the man who had attacks of nervousness - he’s gone!”
...Beverly gave Evan a surprised look. “You? Nervous about anything? Don’t I wish! You need to think more before you act.”
..Downing waved his hand at her and looked at Q. “Stagefright? I haven’t had stagefright since I was a kid.”
...“Because Vash changed the events in this time line!” He stopped talking, hands spread wide. Then he dropped them to his side and his shoulders slumped. “Time has caught up with you already. You have the new memories and not the ones you had three days ago.”
...He threw himself onto the small settee beside Vash and turned his head to give her a look as accusatory as he could muster. He said nothing.
...“Time has healed itself? Is that what you mean?” Picard asked, standing in front of them, drawing Q’s attention to himself. “Taking Evan backwards in time was a mistake, wasn’t it? You damaged the time line somehow when you did it. Knowing you, you’ve probably been taking advantage of it ever since.”
...Downing hooked one leg over the corner of the desk and sat down. “So, bringing me back to this point in time as a nine year old would have undone everything that has already gone before, but it wouldn’t have healed the time line, would it, Q? It would have furthered the damage by disrupting events all over again.”
...Picard turned his head toward him. “And leaving you there helped time to heal itself, to perhaps break off an alternate line at a point of it’s own choosing and not where our friend here tried to force it to separate.”
...“Interesting suppositions on your parts, but pure fiction,” Q said sarcastically. “You have no idea of the relationship between the Continuum and time.”
...Soft laughter from beside him made Q turn to look. Vash was regarding him with a look of amusement and victory on her face.
...“Oh, but I get it!” she said. “I never would have thought of it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
...“Whatever are you talking about?”
...“You!” She laughed. “You love Evan. He’s as much a son to you as your own is! But now that he and Jean Luc know of one another they’re going to start spending time together and you’re jealous!”
...Surprised, Downing looked down and raised a hand to cup over his eyes. “Oh, my god,” he muttered.
...“Don’t be absurd. I am Q. We don’t feel human emotions.”
...“Maybe not as a whole, but you do. The counselor said she believed she sensed emotions from you, but I dismissed that as unlikely. You? The monster you are, feeling emotions?” She laughed again. “Well, she was right and I was wrong.”
...“I don’t know what you’re trying to say. Make sense or I’m leaving.” He sprang to his feet.
...“All the time you spent playing with him as a baby, trying to teach him new things - you fell in love with my son! And when his life was threatened, you panicked!” She sat up straighter. “I believed it, you know, your brilliant plan and all. I thought you took him backwards through time as some horrible joke you were planning to play on me and Jean Luc, to one day force us to choose between a grown up Evan and a child Evan. That wasn’t it at all, was it, Q? There was no ingenious idea, no brilliant plan! Hiding him in a time before the Ferengi and humans met - that was panic! You took him and ran as far and as fast as you could from the danger. Because you loved him and feared for him as much as I did.” She let that statement hang in the air for a second. “Jean Luc got it right, didn’t he? Afterward you realized you’d done something to affect time in a major way and you were trying to get me to help you do it again.”
...Q swung around to face her, leaning forward slightly. “Don’t . . . be . . . absurd!” In the next instance he was gone.
...Vash laughed again. “Don’t you even want to hear me say ‘thank you?’I’ve changed my mind, too, by the way!”
..There was no sign of him returning.
...Evan raised his head, sensing Q was nowhere nearby . “I hope you were just goading him.”
..Picard relaxed and walked toward his desk. “I’m going to need some time to fully comprehend what just happened - if I ever will.”
...“He said time caught up with us. We don’t have the same memories we had three days ago.” Evan spoke to no one in particular.
...Vash got up and walked across the floor to put her arms around her son and embrace him tightly. “We’ll talk about it, later. Why don’t you let your brother know we’ve settled things? I want to talk to your father.”
...“I’m being sent out of the room?!”
...“Damn right. Get going.”

After Downing and Dr. Crusher left, Vash and Picard regarded one another in silence for a long time. Picard broke the silence.
...“What are your plans?” he asked, stepping forward and holding out his hands for hers. “I have a feeling it’s going to be some time before I see you again.”
...Vash smiled and shook her head, placing her hands in his. “On the contrary, Captain. I’m going after my ship,” she said. “For a lot of years I was planning for the day it would be safe for my son to come home to me. Even when he was nine, I knew how close he’d grown to his adopted brothers and sisters. He didn’t think of them as adopted, then, anymore than he does now. I knew he would want them to visit us as often as I took him to visit them, and not knowing of the temporal distance we would have to deal with, I bought a ship for us. It’s a small passenger liner built for the tourist trade. I’ve had it refitted. It was going to be our home among the stars. Well, until Q revealed what he’d done to us, anyway. It will still be my home.” She smiled at Picard. “And, of course, you know that means I can now freely travel throughout the quadrants to anywhere a Starfleet ship can go. Starship itineraries are practically public knowledge. It took me less than a minute to find the Enterprise last week. It was getting to her that took time. I can give your old girl a good run for the money from now on, Captain.”
...“What an interesting combination . . . Vash and a ship of her own.”
...She laughed “I had plans, Jean Luc, and I can still make them happen - with a few changes. Katherine Pulaski’s hospital has so successfully overwhelmed Starbase 97 with it’s growing reputation, she could rule it like a dictator if it was in her nature. She arranged for Evan and me to have private quarters, much like her own, available for our use whenever I took him for his yearly check-ups. Large guest suite, private docking facility - it was going to be our home base. I’m going to keep it. Maybe Evan’s children will stay with me now and then as we get to know one another better. You’d be welcome to join us at any time, Grandfather.”
...He nodded. “That would be enjoyable . . . The word is on the tip of my tongue, but I just can’t say it to you!”
...Again, they looked at one another in silence for a while.
...“You know, Jean Luc. . . Starbase 97 isn’t far from Tetaris IV, just a tiny hop, skip and a jump, galactically speaking. That planet was such a rich archaeological find. Do you realize that because the two largest continents have so many excavation sites being worked, two of the remaining six continents haven’t been explored yet?”
...“As a matter of fact I was reading about the progress on the planet just last month in one of the magazines about Tetaris IV. It was said someone found anomalies on the three moons that might indicate the vanished population had developed limited space travel.”
...“That’s right. I’ve been thinking. If I play my cards right, Evan might have to wait for his grandchildren to be born before another Starfleet officer comes from this family!”

Picard left the bridge of his ship, destination the guest quarters, aware that his crew was probably puzzled by his swift departure. Instead of lingering as if reluctant to let anyone else take over his center seat, he had rushed out, turning the conn over to Mr. Data as soon as time permitted.
...There was something he wanted to do before time grew any shorter. A quick check with the ship’s computer told him Evan was with his children in their suite.
...“Have you explained to the children who I am?” he asked Downing, after entering their quarters. ..Evan shook his head. “I was planning to later this evening.”
..“Perhaps we should do so now before our time together grows too short.”
...He was greeted enthusiastically by the children who were anxious to tell him what they’d been doing while staying with Uncle Michael most of the day.
...After they finished telling and acting out their day, Downing asked them to sit on the floor in front of him and Sir for a serious talk.
...Picard looked at the tiny faces looking up from the floor in front of him. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together as he rested his arms on his thighs. “I believe I know something better, something easier you two may call me. Just call me ‘grandfather.’ Will you do that for me?” He saw the puzzlement in their eyes. “You know that your father was adopted by his mother and father to be their own son?” They nodded. “Well, it was because . . .”

Captain Downing watched the figures of his children and his brother disappear from the transporter pad. He paused for a few seconds before turning to Beverly Crusher and walking out of the room with her.
...There was tradition to uphold.
...A few minutes later, Evan and Beverly entered the Enterprise’s shuttle bay and both were only a little surprised to see Jean Luc Picard standing next to the shuttle from the Montana. The young officer who’d flown it over was nowhere around.
...“I’ve taken the liberty of altering tradition for this occasion,” Picard said as the two of them walked near. “I’ve sent your security officer back to the Montana. I hope you don’t mind if I pilot the shuttle that takes you to your first command.”
...Evan smiled. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
...“Excellent. Maybe we’ll start a new variation on an old tradition.” Picard turned and climbed into the shuttle as his son and Dr. Crusher said a last good-bye.

In other areas of the shuttle bay crew members hustled to safety as the shuttle prepared to depart and the force field across the open bay doors was lowered to let it pass. In a uniform bearing the colors of an engineering crewman, Q stood in a booth behind the technicians who would drop the force field and reactivate it after the shuttle departed.
...He watched the shuttle lift a few feet from the deck and ease itself out of the bay. It took only seconds and then it was out of sight. He disappeared, too, and no one was aware he had even been there.

The End

Footnote: Except for Crusher replacing Ro, that is the original ending to the story as I wrote it for my sisters several years ago. As I’ve prepared it for my web page, I promised not to change it in any way other than that. Something about Q caring for Evan just appeals to them. They used to read the chapters as I wrote them and somewhere along the way one of them made the comment that Q was acting like a doting stepfather to Evan and that gave me the idea for Q’s behavior.

Over the years since then, though, a lot of “what if. . . ?” thoughts have occurred to me. Something would happen or someone would say something and a brief vignette or a scene would pop into my head about the characters in this story. I wrote them down and saved them, and I spent the last couple of weeks going through old floppies and CDR disks to find all of them. I put them in order, or as close to it as possible to form a loose alternate ending. At this point I’m not going to try to make it a full story extension. I think you can see what it would be like from the various scenes without making it a traditional story form.

Thank you for visiting my page at Angelfire. Please come back and visit again!

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