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There are a hundred versions of reality where he romances Jean-Luc.
Q knows all the pathways; he's viewed the varying timelines and the way small changes can influence the whole.
A single smart move by a Captain of the Enterprise can bring prosperity to his little monkey race. A single tiny choice by someone insignificant can fly the whole of them into war and chaos—can change the course of Starfleet itself.
The tapestry of the universe is complex and the influence of individual lives uncountable.
And Q has managed to win Jean-Luc in one hundred and twenty-six of them.
He's pushed his way into the captain's life, gained his regard, his trust and his love. And it is beautiful, it is priceless for the years that it lasts. But there is always, always a catch, and inevitably, his heroic Jean-Luc is the one to pay the price for their relationship.
Loss of Starfleet.
Loss of his little Enterprise family.
Loss of life.
In more universes than he wants to count, Q subverts that outcome by stealing the memories from his lover and those around him. He makes him forget, allows him to have his career and his future love with a romulan woman, then reunite with his son and the good doctor—and for all of this, he gets one hug from the man he loves and briefly remembers what it was like to hold him.
(Then he mentors and watches out for le petit picard even long after his Jean-Luc is gone. In a few universes, he even tells the young man about how much his father meant to him. In every universe, he introduces him to Junior.)
In this universe, in his universe, Q is still debating whether it is worth the trying, whether he can stop the outcomes that leave them broken apart, regardless of whatever he attempts. If he actually wants to warp the lives of so many people, just for his own selfish benefit.
(Of course he does, but it’s still a lot to consider.)
And outside of those considerations, there is one universe he eyes the most curiously. The one where he remained mortal and didn’t grow bitter or suicidal. Where he wasn’t killed off by one of his many enemies. It's the one where he grows old with Jean-Luc on his little vineyard. But it’s a one in a billion universe, and he's hardly the right version of himself to have made it possible.
(But a multitudes of Q are sentimental about that universe, which is probably why they don't mind looking old when they meet Jean-Luc again, when they give him that chance at a love that they took away, even if it is with someone else.)
Oh, but what is an entity to do?
Well, the simple and easy answer is to ask the one it pertains to—which is why he disappears from where he had been lazing on the rings of a planet and appears in his captain’s ready room on his couch.
"Do you believe in it, Jean-Luc?"
The captain spills some of his earl grey, Q vanishes it with a wave of his hand.
"Damn it, Q!" he curses.
Jean-Luc then tries to use his little badge but Q’s already disabled it.
"It's a simple question, Jean-Luc."
"Nothing is simple when it comes to you, Q,” he snaps. “Now why are you on my ship?"
"I only want an answer, mon capitaine,” he answers, sprawling upon the man’s furniture. “It should be simple, even for a brain as small as yours."
"Q," Jean-Luc growls, looking so thoroughly (handsomely!) annoyed.
"Do you?" Q persists.
"Do I what, Q?"
"'Is it better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?'" Q quotes. "Do you believe your silly little human concept?"
Jean-Luc blinks, looking honestly surprised. "You are here to ask my opinion on the subject of love?"
Q blows the air out loudly from between his lips. It makes a funny sound. He does it again, briefly distracted until he remembers the point and gives his attention to the still confused, but less agitated mortal in front of him.
"I find myself needing your answer most of all mon capitaine.”
“What the devil for?”
“Jean-Luc,” Q says, scandalised. “You don’t believe one should consider these questions seriously and from all angles?” He waggles his finger at him. “Shame on you.”
The captain is back to looking confused, but there are also thoughts whirring behind his eyes, plain in the pinch to his brow, the downturn to his mouth.
“Q,” he sounds distinctly uncomfortable. “If this is about Vash—”
Q laughs. “Oh, no, no, Jean-Luc. Not her. Really. What do you take me for?”
“A mercurial entity who is wasting my time with ludicrous questions,” Jean-Luc snaps. He walks to the door, seeming annoyed but not very surprised when it doesn’t open. He turns back to face him, glaring. “Let me out of here, Q, and begone from my ship!”
“Not until you answer my question, Jean-Luc. An entity has a right to know.”
“Know what, Q?”
“Really, mon capitaine, have you not been listening?”
Jean-Luc looks like he is trying to draw on quickly waning patience. “You expect me to believe that you’ve come all the way onto my ship to ask me about love?”
Q tilts his head, regarding the mortal in front of him. The very one whom inspires his question and fosters his deepening affection—but also, a man more likely to rear back in offense at being the centre of said desires.
“Why shouldn’t I ask you, Jean-Luc?” It seems to throw the captain for a moment and he frowns, so Q continues, “It’s really not very comfortable you know.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “These emotions are so inconvenient.”
For the first time, Jean-Luc seems to be taking him seriously, but the look in his gaze is one of shock and confusion.
“Q… are you meaning to tell me that you are actually—”
“The Q have loved before.” He waves his hand dismissively. “We normally just don’t find it very worthwhile. We get bored.” He frowns. “And I suppose there is only so much interest you can develop for another Q. The Continuum doesn’t breed excitement, let me tell you that!”
“Q,” the captain says, beginning to look more and more concerned. “Do you… are you… are you saying you have feelings towards someone who isn’t a Q?”
Q narrows his eyes, his tone getting sharp, “Don’t start mocking me. That really will be a new low, Jean-Luc.”
The man shakes his head, disbelief still apparent. He also takes a seat in one of the chairs opposite his desk, seemingly needing to get off his feet. However, as is common with the man, it does not take him long to regroup from his surprise. Jean-Luc turns to better face him.
“Q,” his voice is still gruff, but a little more tentative. “Am I to believe… if you are here…”
Q doesn’t tense or otherwise react in his mortal form, but deep inside, in the parts that make him Q, he quivers with something not unlike panic, the urge to snap and flee.
“Q,” Jean-Luc continues, “are you saying you have interest in a mortal?”
Q almost laughs—half with relief that his oblivious captain has missed it, and half with despair that the man cannot even contemplate that the only mortal in this or any universe that he could desire is anyone but the man in front of him.
Vash indeed, he scoffs internally.
“Oh, you make it sound so improbable,” he grouses aloud. “Even gods are allowed favourites, Jean-Luc.”
The captain stares at him. He’s not normally one to feel uncomfortable under the gaze of another (well, apart from other Q), but this intense evaluation makes him want to squirm. Instead, he adopts what he hopes is an innocent, trustworthy look. Jean-Luc stares for forty-eight mortal seconds only to shake his head and lean back in the chair. He rubs his mouth.
“If this is true, Q. Then I wonder why you come to me with the question?”
“Who else am I supposed to come to? Your Klingon pet? The annoying and overly simplistic counsellor? Ugh.” He pulls a face. “I’d rather become a yakosan blood flea.”
Jean-Luc, as is customary, ignores the parts he doesn’t like to focus on the heart of it: “Then you truly came here for my opinion?”
“Oh, he has a brain!”
He flicks his fingers, letting streamers erupt from the ceiling. Jean-Luc glares and stiffly brushes the few that landed on his uniform to the floor.
“You’re hardly making me want to help you, Q,” he grumbles.
In response, Q quickly snaps the disarray of the man’s ready room away. He also juts out his lower lip in a pout. “Oh, don’t be like that Jean-Luc. I can be good! I can listen!”
He appears a pen and notepad and leans forward, preparing to take notes. Jean-Luc rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t immediately start shouting at him. Instead, he levels a thoughtful frown at him, clearly puzzling over everything.
“This mortal,” Jean-Luc begins, sounding hesitant. “Do they feel the same way for you?”
Q laughs, it’s not a very nice sound. He also slumps back against the couch. “Really, mon capitaine, do you think I’d be having this debate if they wished to fling themselves at my corporal body?”
“I don’t understand,” Jean-Luc murmurs. “Why the debate if they do not feel the same for you?”
“Oh, I can undoubtedly provide something to encourage them, but should I, mon capitaine? Should I?”
Jean-Luc still frowns. “I did not think you would ever need someone to tell you what you should and should not do.”
“Ah, but it is not just me, is it? No, no, Jean-Luc. It’s just as difficult for the mortal to love the god as the god to love the mortal.”
Jean-Luc makes a face at his use of ‘god’ but doesn’t outright dispute him. He leans back in the seat, his arms crossed. “There is certainly an unnatural balance of power.”
“And consequences, Jean-Luc, so many horrible consequences.”
“So, is it better to have loved and lost, loved and suffered,” Jean-Luc muses, “then never have loved at all.”
“That is the question, mon capitaine,” he says quietly.
“But it’s not the question, is it, Q?” Jean-Luc remarks, sharp gaze pinning him in place. “This mortal, by your own admission, doesn’t feel the same for you. They do not, in essence, want a relationship with you.”
It… hurts, somewhere in the deep centre of his being, the place that the mortals would call the heart, but is really the depths of what makes him Q. Jean-Luc, of course, doesn’t see the painful precision of his words. And why should he? Q might be in love with him, but he’s hardly about to show it. Especially not now.
And Q abruptly has to wonder: “Did dear Riker tell you of his experience with young Amanda?”
“Experience?” the captain looks puzzled. “What experience?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Q smiles sardonically. “A hollow one, for all involved, I assure you.”
“Q,” he says sharply.
Q sighs and throws himself to lay lengthwise along the couch. “Oh, it’s hardly my story to tell.”
“But apparently a pertinent one to the subject at hand.”
Q glances over, and the concerned furrow to the man’s brow is enough to make him acquiesce and quietly admit, “It takes very little effort for a Q to get what they want, Jean-Luc, even if that being does not want them back.”
Shock, disgust and something almost wary crosses the captain’s face. Q tries not to feel hurt by it. He waves his hand absently, not even attempting to tease or joke. “If that was something I was considering, I’d have already done it. I would also not be asking questions about love like a common counsel-requiring mortal.”
“But you are asking for counsel, Q.”
Q blows out air between his lips again. He also abruptly leaps to his feet. It startles the captain who flinches.
“Oh, forget it, Jean-Luc. I should have gone to that yakosan blood flea after all. I should have—”
“Damn it, Q,” the captain snaps, getting to his feet as well. “You cannot simply appear in my ready room and expect the answers that you want immediately and without confusion.” Q stays silent, just watching him. Jean-Luc sighs, straightens his uniform and softens his voice, “I am trying to help you, Q.”
“Very little will help me, Jean-Luc,” he says softly, looking over his beautiful, compassionate captain. “There are only one hundred and twenty-six universes where it does work.”
“One hundred and twenty-six,” Jean-Luc murmurs, surprised.
“I know,” he says glumly. “Very few, when you think about it. One of the smallest outcomes.” He puts his thumb and finger together. “This likely.”
Jean-Luc’s frown deepens. “But you are still considering it?”
“Of course.”
“Then isn’t that your answer?” Jean-Luc asks. Q hesitates and clarity fills the captain’s expression. “Your question,” Jean-Luc whispers, “is not about yourself, but about them. ‘Is it better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all’,” he repeats. “You are referring to their pain, not your own.”
Q feels abruptly too seen, too understood, and his hand rises on instinct, wanting to snap far away from the captain and this conversation—but when Jean-Luc meets his gaze, for the first time in perhaps their entire association, the captain doesn’t look at him with open or barely hidden disdain. He looks at him as if he has done something the man approves of—and it is a heady enough feeling to keep him in place.
It makes him speak, honest and quiet words, “It is dangerous to love a Q, Jean-Luc. I’ve watched them happy, and I’ve watched them suffer, all for daring to love me.”
“They made that choice, Q. They made it one hundred and twenty-six times.”
Q almost smiles. “Oh, you are a romantic, aren’t you?”
Jean-Luc almost smiles back, but instead he shakes his head and gruffly states, “This really isn’t any of my business, Q.”
Yes, it is, he thinks, you are the only one that matters.
Instead of that, Q stretches an obnoxious smile across his lips. “Oh, but don’t you want to play a role in the greatest love story in this universes' existence?”
The captain scoffs, back to looking at him as if he is merely an irritant that is interrupting the man’s day. And yet, a beat after it, the expression changes, clouding over for something thoughtful—something that leaves Q squirming deep inside his essence.
And he doesn’t know if the mortal has worked it out (doesn’t think he has, is absolutely certain that disgust would be the predominant emotion if that were the case) Q very much wants to be away rather than see whatever else lingering might prompt in his favourite mortal’s gaze.
“Fine,” he says petulantly, placing hands on his hips. “I will leave you to your boring day, mon capitaine.”
He lifts his hand to snap away but Jean-Luc holds out a hand, obviously beseeching.
“Q,” he says quickly, and Q pauses. The captain’s face is back to looking uncertain, as if he is debating within himself, but after a few moments he lowers his hand, sighs softly, but says, “While I don’t believe your courtship of a mortal is the most… advisable action, I do not have the right to stand between you and the person you love.”
Q smiles wryly, a little bitterly too.
“And if you…” Jean-Luc looks like he regrets it even before he says it, “if you continue to wish for the opinion of a mortal, I will try to aid you.”
It’s a surprise, genuinely. Q stares at him, unmoving and face blank because he cannot pluck the emotions from his true form to project them onto his mortal shell. It’s… not what he’d expected. It’s also positive, more positive than he might have reasonably predicted. But Jean-Luc is caring and compassionate and Q is a little terrified that the one hundred and twenty-seventh universe might be this one.
Because, is it better to have loved and lost?
He doesn’t know, but standing in Jean-Luc Picard’s ready room, every molecule of Q’s being wants it to be: for him, and for the mortal who still has not realised that he is the centre of Q’s affections.
But those are things he cannot say, so instead, he snaps his fingers and flings himself far away. He has a great many new things to think about and a question still to ponder, but one thing Q knows for certain, he will be back to talk to his captain.
However, could he stay away?