Chapter Text
She looked around the small cell, examining everything from the panels on the walls, to the dull walls, before nudging the pathetic creature asleep on the small bed with her knee.
He, and she used the term 'he' very hesitantly, rolled and mumbled, before sitting up in alarm. His suspicious new-old eyes stared at her, before roaming at the force fields still in place, and the security guard standing motionless at his post. His nature, his inherit paranoia, was to be expected. Once he had toyed with stars and galaxies and planets as a child, and had played in the multiverse that was his crib. But everything needed to grow at some point, even the immortals that named themselves Q in a jaunty fashion.
"What happened?" The creature had wide eyes, as if confused that such a simple question was now so difficult to answer. She considered answering him, even though his words were mumbled to himself about diseases and such.
"You fell asleep."
Q looked up at her, and almost laughed.The corner of his mouth twitched, like he was yet again the butt of a joke, as if the very words from her mouth were just too ridiculous to consider. He rubbed his eyes and stood, the effort of standing obviously taking a toll on him. He had never needed to walk, had he?
"Ah, it was horrible, I felt like I was slipping away into final unconsciousness," His theatrics suddenly burst vividly into being, but his eyes betrayed his carelessness as he studied her, "And who are you? More Humans? Oh! Picard must have stared visiting hours at the zoo already! Want to see a Q in a cage? tell me, what's the going rate? come to poke me with a stick?!"
She smiled gently, and remembered all too long ago a grumpy time lord. The formerly-omnipotent creature, already suffering from the loss of his vital senses. Inhumane to say the least; the Q, oh so high and mighty, who fall oh, too quickly.
"Whoever said I was human?"
Suddenly the Q stood a little straighter, and made a curious sound. His eyebrows furrowed, his brain flickered in vain to match a face from all the creatures he had ever seen, of all the creatures that existed.
Of all the creatures that he had ever tormented.
He never would.
"Who are you then?"
Q looked outside the holding cell, then stared at his grey clothing in distaste. A creature that survived by jumping from place to place, with a sense of adventure vital to their very existence- now locked up in a cell. It was a familiar story, that she knew all too well.
"Should I call the guards? Or are you here to settle a score?" He mused, settling back onto the bed like a petulant child, "Have you come here before any one else, because now I'm weak, stuck in this feeble human body I'm a prime target- Have you come for my heart? Oh, I'll enjoy watching you try to rip it out of my chest because frankly-"
Her eyes flashed gold, as deep inside tendrils of Bad Wolf flared. the former-Q looked away, obviously not yet stupid enough to get mesmerized by a creature with such a show of power.
"Call me Rose." The single line left him speechless, but frustrated by the speed at which the conversation was progressing, "You could have been anything. A Vashta Nerada, One of the Silence, Hath- even the abominable snowman himself! Why human?"
The Former-Q stared at her silently, and slowly hugged his knees to his body. His eyes never once left her, not even to blink. he was certainly knowledgeable about the universe, enough to know that no stranger was a welcome friend, when you were Q.
"Those are some creatures I haven't heard of in a long time," He rocks back on his feet with an annoyingly child-like smile, suddenly back into his cheerful theatrics, "Tell me, how do you know of them?"
"But human, Why human? They have such short lives, why not become one of the crystalline beings of Midnight, or.." Rose paused and took on a sad smile, reminiscing in her words, "A Time Lord, you could have been a child of Gallifrey."
She turned to the Former-Q and looked at him sharply, demanding the answer "Why Human?"
"Why not?"
Q looked at her, curious at the woman who had awoken him. Whoever she was, whatever she was, it was possible that her species was a blind spot, or just unimportant freeloaders of the universe, but her eyes held too much...
"But there must have been a single seed of reason. WHY HUMAN?"
Q snorted; She was persistent, and strange, and much too curious for her own good, "What about you then? What are you? Why are you?"
The blonde ignored his voice and continued in her speech, "There must have been a single subconscious thought behind your answer, An answer always has a truth."
Then, she stopped. Her breathe ceased, and she spun on the balls on her feet, with a triumphant grin.
"I know. You like humans" Q rolled his eyes, but she leapt forward towards him with growing glee, "Because even though, with all their flaws, they could be as powerful as you. You chose Human because you admire them. Homo sapiens, they've only just crawled out of the mud and started walking, surviving famine, war and plague, you admire them, because they've accomplished much, and they will survive. I'm right aren't I?"
"I've underestimated you, Now, will you answer my questions? What are you?" Q countered, with a steely look. in that second, both understood the reasons behind their actions, in only the way that a Teacher, a Mentor, and a Protector could.
"Q. You know me, my name is written in every star, every gas cluster, every single atom of matter. My name is spread across Time and Space, through everything, the only constant."
The door that led into the room buzzed, as the Balding Captain, that commanded the ship drew closer. Blind fury on his face, with eyes that couldn't detect the entity of Time that was born from the raw heart of a TARDIS.
"You see Q, don't you?, I am not a who or what, I am me."
The captain lowered the shield to Q's cell.
"I am Bad Wolf."