Q/Picard ficlet

[icarus_chained]

Because merfilly  has put me in the mood for cosmic trekfic. Thank you, hon, by the way! Also, this is Christmas-fic. So sue me!

Title:  Snowglobe
Rating:  PG
Characters/Pairing:  Q/Picard, though only from a distance, as yet.
Wordcount:  421
Summary:  It was pure whimsy.
Notes:  Partly inspired by the crystal-ball scene from Labyrinth. Opening line is from that song.
Disclaimer:  It's Paramount's, yes?

Snowglobe

But I'll be there for you, as the world falls down ...

It was pure whimsy, of course. Though if you asked any of the others, they would tell you that everything he did was pure whimsy, and nothing more. And that ... Well. It wasn't completely true. And at the same time, it was. Because while almost everything he did had a purpose, a place in a plan far greater and more far-reaching than even his fellow Q could imagine (not that he put much stock in their collective imagination), that plan itself was inacted purely because he wanted to. Purely by his whimsy.

The universe was his plaything. One he cherished beyond words, one he had such great and beautiful plans for ... but still his plaything. His whimsy was its fundament, though none but he thought so. Idiots.

But this, here and now ... this was a much gentler whimsy. A passing thought, a fleeting smile across the face of the universe. He raised his hands, clothed in human form because he wanted it so, because it was a form that actually meant something to him, and turned the globe gently upsidedown, and back.

Inside, drifting serene and unknowing, the Enterprise hung in black void, bright against the stars. Somewhere inside her, and Q could see him if he put his mind to it, Jean-Luc stood at his window alone while a Christmas party went on oblivious in Ten-Forward, alone and staring out at nothing, deep in melancholy thought. The stubborn man that he was. But not as alone as he thought.

He watched with distant eyes, with eyes that traced the infinite paths of possibility in this universe, eyes that had seen the birth and death of it a thousand times and more, eyes aeons old and ever-young, eyes that could name the atoms of every star and predict every event that could happen. Eyes that had drawn the strands of possibility together, that had mapped the course of this one life through every possible trial, eyes that had guided hands of such power as to shatter the universe while they shaped a path to guide this man alive through them all. He watched with those eyes as the starfall he had gifted them through his 'snowglobe' wrapped the Enterprise in shattered, scintillant light, as the golden cloud burst around the ship, and Jean-Luc's stunned face was bathed in its glow. He watched as the man smiled.

No. Never as alone as you think, Jean-Luc.

Because I am always by your side.