Star Trek: TNG: Q's Day Out

Chapter Seven

Q folded his arms. He huffed loudly and tried desperately to make sense of the events that had recently transpired. What were you thinking? he yelled at himself subconsciously. She is human! Q continued to curse himself about this matter. I am a god to her! Why did I act how I did? However, despite the basically endless amount of interrogation which he had subjected himself to, he could not seem to come up with a valid answer to his questions.

Roxana walked over to him gingerly. She sat herself down beside him. She had noticed his odd actions. He was sitting on a chair, simply staring out at the night sky. It had been a whole day since their kiss on her balcony, but ever since then, Q had been more or less silent. It was almost as though he was a life-long alcoholic struggling from the symptoms of withdrawal. Feeling a little uncomfortable with his prolonged silent state, she asked him quietly, "Q, are you going to stay silent forever?"

The seemingly omnipotent being had been in some sort of dream-like state. Therefore, it took him quite a few moments to register her question and then formulate some sort of valid reply. He regarded her, almost quizzically, for one moment and then he snarkily replied, "I never said I would, did I?"

Roxana sighed and her mouth showed a brief, yet visible, sarcastic smile. "No, I suppose you didn't," she said.

Q smiled a little.

Roxana had never felt more awkward in her entire life. "So, you're an alien, right?" She finally put a question to him.

Q managed to break his ever-lasting gaze at the stars and looked at her directly. "That is true," he responded, rather matter-of-fact about it.

She nodded slowly, once again, trying to take that revelation in. "So, if you are an alien, do you love?" She asked him. Almost as soon as those words had left her mouth, she instantly began to feel embarrassed about it. She felt her cheeks get a little bit hotter and her lips got slightly dry. She tried not to look at him

"Love is such a primitive emotion," Q answered her blandly. "My species had not really had a need for it for millennia," he then added.

Roxana finally picked up the courage to look at him and that is what she did. "Oh," she said, sounding small about it.

"Why do you ask?" He asked her curiously.

She shrugged quickly and deeply. "I don't know, really. I just asked," she lied.

Q felt his brows beginning to knit together and he said, "You 'just asked'?"

She nodded, "Uh huh, I guess so."

He still wasn't very convinced. And then, for some reason, which he couldn't quite work out, he added, "However, that does not mean my species cannot love."

Her ears seemed to almost actually prick up at the sound of that. She said to him finally, "I like you, Q."

Once again, the omnipotent one frowned, but this time, it was not really a particularly heavy frown. "I should imagine you like quite a few people," he said nonchalantly.

She laughed slightly. It was a short giggle. "No, that's not what I mean," she clarified for him.

"What else could you mean?" Q asked her, obviously feeling quite puzzled. Then, he realised what it was that she had meant, so he quickly added, "Oh."

Roxana nodded shyly. She didn't, however, speak. Instead, she moved and shuffled up beside him so that they were a little closer. She placed her hand on his cheek. It was cold and he flinched slightly. She leant forward slightly and closed her eyes and, to her surprise as well as to his, he did the same. Their lips touched and Q felt a slight smile begin to creep across his face. She reached up, trailing her slender fingers through his dark hair. Roxana rested her head on his shoulder and Q suddenly felt both pleased with himself and also angry with himself at the same time.