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“Okay… let's just cut the crap. How would we even have a child together?” Kathryn demanded. She’d gone to the mess to get coffee when Q started working her last nerve. She was only being this polite because he’d made the unusually good decision to keep refilling her coffee cup. It saved her quite a large chunk of her rations in short order.
They had a lot of absurdity to get through so it was best to start with the most fundamental one. Q, whatever he was, didn’t even technically have a corporeal form. He could take one apparently, but that didn’t explain how or what they’d combine to make a child. Not that Kathryn was going to agree to his outrageous request, but she would admit a frustrated kind of curiosity.
“Oh! Its quite simple actually. You see, I've already done most of the work. All I need is your input-” Q raised his hand. It was a gesture that looked like two things to a human, either the start of the Vulcan T’al or a high five. The former camp were officer material, the later were usually on first contact watchlists if they made it onboard a ship at all.
Kathryn didn’t even feel a twinge of an urge to smack Q’s hand. At least not as a friendly gesture. Crewmen Daren however apparently had no idea what was going on or who Q was. She just went for it with a smile as she passed by.
“Up high!” Daren said. She was a Starfleet reject who’d enlisted and was barely an apprentice crewman when they’d gotten stranded. It was probably why she was making such a basic protocol error. One did not simply assume what a gesture meant, even when someone who looked human made it.
There was a blinding flash of light and a yelp that reached up past the normal male register into a falsetto shriek. When it subsided Daren was smiling with a kind of hazy, nearly drugged kind of look. Her priorly stick straight short hair was curled to the point that it looked like lambs wool. Q conversely was clutching at his abdomen with a look of absolute horror plastered across his face.
Daren looked faintly amused for a moment but then seemed to shake some of it off.
“Wow, I think I know what a star's corona tastes like now,” Daren said. Q did not take that well.
“How… How dare you! Taking me roughly in public like some kind of degenerate broodmare!” Q shouted.
“Do what now?” Daren asked.
“Q, you don’t expect me to believe that's all you require for reproduction,” Katheryn said. She really wasn’t in the mood for theatrics.
“No! Normally there's dinner and a movie first! Maybe some foreplay rather than just going in hard and dry! Do you even know what moisturizer is!?” Q demanded, directing the last part at Daren. The young woman had engineers hands, which could politely be described as a bit battered.
“Wait, reproduction? Oh… oh no … I’m so sorry Sir!” Daren said, looking at Q as horror dawned across her features as well. She went to put a hand on his shoulder then seemed to think better of it and crossed both arms over her chest and just kind of hovered ineffectually.
“Sorry doesn’t unmake the hybrid!” Q snarled but there was an edge of desperation to it. At that Daren grabbed her stomach and Kathryn officially downgraded her from middle of the pack to not terribly bright. This had to be a put on by Q, it was too absurd to be anything else. That Daren was taking it all so terribly seriously beggared belief.
“I’m pregnant!?” Daren asked in alarm.
“ No! As if your pathetic carbon meat shell could contain even a fraction of an immature Q’s raw power! I’m pregnant, thank you ,” Q said.
“Oh wow… Okay, so… Uhm… I’ll sign off on the assault charge if you want to file one and any custody termination papers. I mean, I didn’t mean to, but I really am sorry and I’ll accept any legal recourse you want,” Daren said quickly.
“Oh! By all means. Hit it and quit it!” Q snarled. Kathryn was losing the fight not to laugh at what was happening. She had no idea how long Q planned to draw this out but honestly had hit “fuck it, lets see what happens” in terms of caring. This was the most interesting non-lethal thing that had happened in a month and her coffee cup was still refilling itself. She half hoped that Q would get sufficiently distracted by this new passion play of his that he forgot to turn it off.
Daren looked stricken for a moment but then determined. Kathryn wondered if she’d wised up to the fact that it had to be a joke. She knew the younger woman hadn’t when she suddenly knelt.
“I’m Crewman Lorelei Daren, at your service as a helpmate or whatever else you might need Sir. I’ll do anything I can to look after you both and make this right,” Daren said with an earnestness that was nearly charming. It was likely entirely wasted on Q.
“How?” Q asked suspiciously.
“Uhm… Whatever needs doin? Foot rubs, chores, I can't cook but my replicator rations are at your disposal… I mean, I won’t pretend I’m particularly useful, but ask me for something and I’ll do my best,” Daren said, looking a bit desperate.
“I want to make it clear you aren't even on the list, let alone my last choice… but fine. You are my… partner in this. I’ll allow you to make amends as best you can, mortal,” Q said, looking put out but resigned.
Kathryn watched Daren and Q leave the mess, lost in their own little world. Her mug kept refilling so she called it a win. When the female Q turned up several hours later and fell over laughing after doing a double take between the male Q’s stomach and face Kathryn questioned her assessment of the legitimacy of Q’s claim a little.
When Daren filed for partner's maternity leave and family quarters a few hours later Kathryn signed off on it and wished the younger woman well. Farce or not, apparently Q was committed to the bit this time.