Star Trek: Primeval Civility

'Ooo...' Ivan cooed mentally, his barely lucid conscious recognizing the stimulation, '... someone lickin' my toes?' It was odd, bordering on ticklish, but undoubtedly pleasant.

This sensation steadily climbed up from his toes to his calfs, knees, and almost laughed when it got to his groin.

Then it reached his intestines, and the pleasantness was replaced by immediate discomfort, and the feeling to vomit forced the cognitive desire to get out of his bunk and find a toilet.

As he reached to his side, he buckled down as his hand met a solid surface. Forcing his eyes open had never been harder, even before being recruited by the Militia. His lids could have been replaced by lead cans for all he knew, as his pupils only began to realize; he was surrounded. Enclosed, cocooned. He could only see enough through the light that barely filtered through the material that encompassed him, with barely enough room to move his hands to his chest.

Ivan ran his palms, god his arms were heavy, along the eggshell looking material, noting its fleshy, uneven surface like the skin of a peach that was stretched out of the outlines of a rib cage. He wasn't sure why he hasn't gone into a claustrophobic shock, this shit would probably have kicked his ass into a panic driven overdrive.

Ivan beat a palm against its surface, despite how little he knew he probably would do. Whoever left him in here certainly wasn't concered over his well being.

Ivan slept. In and out for what felt like days, waking only briefly due to the uncomfortable cold, being naked and all, and the occasional drop of whatever was in his body that was putting him into a diet-coma.

He was thirsty, hungry, but tired, dear god, so damn tired. Eventually, he needed to urinate whatever waste was still in his body, and when he let loose, the 'pod' stunk horribly of piss and his own unbathed body.

Ivan, once, felt like he was being lifted or thrown around, but concluded it was in his dreams.

'Fuck.' He felt like weeping just at the sheer hopelessness of all this, but lacked the physical energy to do so. 'Just let me die in my sleep...' He felt... unusually clear headed, the stings of hunger pains and dragging needs of thirst no longer plaguing him after a point. Was this how it was to starve? Or die of dehydration? Ivan wasn't sure.

And he wouldn't know for certain.

The burning, orange line of light cut into the pod, near his top left shoulder, and he followed its path as it carved into the fleshy material of what was to be his tomb; down... past down his feet where he couldn't see, then up again on his right then above his head.

Ivan didn't even think it was real at first when a pair of hands ripped the carved case from the rest of the pod, held only by stretchy sinew that remained even after the laser cut.

The light was so bright... For a moment, Ivan thought his heart just gave out, sending him to the 'Heaven Tunnel' so crudely and repeatedly explained in so many books and movies, but then he heard voices as he felt hands slide under his neck and thighs, lifting him up and began carrying him... somewhere. He couldn't see, couldn't recall seeing surroundings before his interment... but he could listen, and what he heard fully impaled the idea he was dreaming into his mind.

Ivan heard a gruff, booming voice declare after a short chime, "Enterprise! Emergency beam up to Sick Bay!"

'Great, now I'm being rescued by fuckin' Spock, Worf and Chief Scotty...' Ivan chuckled internally from that, forming a phantom smile with bone dry, chapped lips.

The commotion that followed was a blur of voices, yells and the occasional pricking against arms, necks and the uncomfortably enjoyable sensation of being bent at the hip, sitting more upright. It felt like how a squeaky hinge creeks, but with the added sensation of breaking eggshells ripping through the inside of his body.

When Ivan regained his awareness, not even a thimble of what he had even in comparison to the pod, he tried reaching forward limply with a hand, expecting to encounter a surface a short distance away.

Instead, he felt soft digits wrap around his hand, gently forcing his hand back down, making him notice the plump cushion that held him. "It's alright, your alright..." A soothing, clearly female voice spoke calmly, "just rest."

"W..." Ivan tried to ask, but immediately started a coughing fit. "W..."

"Water?"

"W... whiskey..." Ivan's voice crackled through his cough, "Whiskey... all the whiskey in Kentucky." He near whispered.

He swore he heard the woman expel a breath that was tinted with humor. Not a chuckle, not a laugh, but a smile that could somehow be heard rather than seen. "Water for now. Doctor's orders." The hand moved from his own and lifted his head up, mouth more than welcoming to the cool, refreshing water that when it touched his tongue made him moan lowly as if he had tasted the very ambrosia of the gods themselves.

After finishing the glass, Ivan was set back down, and he forced himself to open his eyes. One more time. To make sure it wasn't a dream.

What he saw was red hair, pale skin and the long trimmings of a blue coat with a black uniform, amidst a face that seemed eerily familiar to one he's seen before. Before the State Stand, even before the Wars of oh-Ten. Back to a time of peace, innocence, hope... and entertainment. "Crush..." Ivan croaked before coughing another fit. "Crusher."

The woman didn't respond, forcing a tense moment of silence within the man. "Am I... dead? You can't be. You are... you ain't real."

"You're not dead, but you are in bad shape. Please, just rest for now, the answers will come when you are ready." Definitely Doctor Beverly Crusher's voice rationalized to her patient.

Unable to confront her plan of recovery first, ask questions later, Ivan sighed contentedly, feeling the cushion beneath him absorb his awareness like heat to a cold pillow.

[][[[

When next he opened his eyes, Ivan's mind was clearer than a summer's day. Eyes opening wide to a covered darkness, something covering his face but was open enough to show light at the opening towards his neck.

As he tried to reach up, he felt his hands immediately constrained to the table he was laying on, jerking both pairs of limbs to feel any kind of gain. Either he was so weak as to not budge the binds, or 'I'm dealing with some major voodoo I don't know how to doodoo.' Ivan sighed mentally.

"Hello?" He asked out, voice feeling so much better. "Anyone out there? Anyone there?" Ivan chuckled at the unintentional reference, "Does anybody wonder?" He sung lowly and without any real rhythm. As boredom starting snowballing out of control, he began humming to speaking then finally to just yelling out lyrics to what songs Ivan could remember.

"WON'T... YOU... COME... AND... SAVE ME!" Singing, if the word could be used, to a little tidy by Alice in pains. Or rains. Alice in something, he couldn't remember, and as he finally began his crude crescendo, JEESSUS CHR-!"

"Ahem!"

Ivan immediately shut up, feeling a rush of embarrassment that he allowed himself to get so distracted as to not hear anyone come. That, and he exposed someone to his crappy singing. "Um, hello."

"Greetings," A man with a moderately deep voice said politely, "...sorry for interrupting you, but I didn't want you to panic before I took down your bed's cover."

Ivan, now focused, clearly heard another set of feet walk toward's his side even while the man talked. "And the restraints?"

"Yes, we'll get right to those after a couple of questions."

A heard beeps, not clicking or typing, to his left, and then the solid bar that had covered his face retracted back into its resting place.

As Ivan began to adjust to the new levels of light, the bed moved his upper body to a sitting position. Blinking away disorientation, he peered ahead, seeing two standing figures, no more than five paces away.

The dreamy state he had before returned as he stared at the man and woman in utter shock. He thought he dreamt getting hospitalized by a Star Trek character due to his brain firing one to many neurons that reached all the way back when he watched the stuff. Now, he is in the presence of two more.

A bearded and damn near a giant from where Ivan sat, William Riker.

To his left, stood an alluring, long haired and black of eye Deanna Troi.

Riker smiled, "I'm commander Riker of the Starship Enterprise. With me, Councilor Trio. Mind telling us your name?"

Ivan didn't answer. Hell, he didn't even hear the man speak, only seeing him move his lips. Paralyzed. Shocked... terrified. 'This... this can't be real. This can't be real!' Ivan was visibly sweating and after several moments of trying to process, and failing miserably, at how these two people could be in front of him, began to give short, panicked breaths.

"You... you're not real." Ivan gasped. "You're not-!"

[][[[

Riker had sprinted out of the isolation ward and into the wider isolation bay, "He's having convulsion!" To anyone but looking for Crusher in particular. An ensign quickly rushed past the commander, getting any information from Trio, having tried to get a reading on the patient since he started seizing with a nearby tricorder, the nurse quickly yelled out that the man was having an intense 'psychogenic seizure', rushing to a hypodispenser, loading a spray with clonazepam and injecting him in the neck.

After several seconds, he slowed down and then just stopped, his head turning to one side, bubbles of vomit pouring out of his mouth.

"Oozim to Crusher." The ensign clicked her combadge. "The isolation patient had a seizure."

Riker sighed and looked Deanna, rubbing his face, "What the hell was that?"

Deanna looked even more disturbed than the man, never taking her eyes off him. "That... he... I felt that he..." she shook her head, "...he recognized us. Were you on the away team?"

Riker shook his head, "No. Worf, Data and a small security team."

"Perhaps... he was connected to the planetary drone while in the pod? It did open communications after the first attempt to get into the cavern." Trio tried rationalize.

"Unless the race used some technology we have no idea how to detect; no." Riker looked as the Starfleet officer wiped the bed and the man's mouth clean with a sanitization block. Fit neatly on the hand but was clumsy getting around the smooth edges of the head rest.

"Will, when he saw us it nearly scared him to death. There must be some explanation, there has to be." Wrapping her arms around herself, still having aftershocks from the intensity of the patient's emotions.

Crusher later forwarded a report to Riker that while the patient's attack was mild due to the timing it was caught, and that it really only happened due to his weakened state, but she recommended not doing something like it again for sometime. Riker sent back his and Trio's own experiences with the encounter. Despite the professionalism in the report, he tried several times trying to convey the utter disbelief, the panic, but would have undoubtedly expanded into superfluous information and kept it as simple as possible, questioning how they can gain information without having this or something like it happening again.

[][]

Ivan yawned widely, bringing a hand to his mouth. The sunlight covered him like the finest quilt, the wind smelt of salt water, a tone of gasoline, fish and finally, the sound of the waves washing up was the finest tune of calm he has heard in nearly a decade.

His eyes snapped open and he put himself into a crouch, quickly scanning his environment.

'Forty-seven NCs, twenty men, nineteen women, eight children. Wind direction going north north east. Between fourteen and sixteen-hundred, unknown day.' Ivan's eyes didn't even blink as he quickly scanned his surroundings, looking for areas of elevation, possible cover, possible combatants. And the only thing he really turned up was that he was on a beach, surrounded by a bunch of scantily clad civvies, there were two small outlets, five tents, and that the parking lot filled with vans, cars and trucks was less than a half a kilometer away.

As Ivan stood up fully, he looked down, saw not only was he standing on a red beach towel, he was clothed in swim trunks and a wife-beater. 'From one crazy figment of sanity to another…' He started pacing towards one of the blocky buildings up the beach, smelt like a restaurant. A fair portion of the local denizens had gathered in front of it, notably to stare at the television, the reception was grainier than the sand.

Ivan found a stool at the bar, looking along it's patrons and what was on for appearances sake, but he was stewing on what he could most recently remember. 'Okay, pod, dunno for how long… wake up, getting interviewed by a couple of people that look like characters from Star Trek, that was beyond trippy, and now… on a beach… and unless this is for the retro-addicts and the war suddenly blew away like a wet fart in a summer breeze-'

"Hey there!" A man declared as he sat on the stool next to Ivan, "Beautiful day we're having, can I buy you a drink?"

Ivan looked him up and down, noting he was very well built and fed. Caucasian. Stubble. Balding head. So instead of responding verbally to the man, Ivan swiveled on his stool and just started glaring at him.

"Uh, I'll take that as a no?" He ushered a waiter, whom took his order and left. "I'm Tobias. You from around here?"

"What year is it?" Ivan asked out of the blue.

"Uh… nineteen-ninety-two."

"Ohh. Wow, I'm negative three years old? Ah, my grandpappy was right, men shouldn't have split the atom. Too many confusing complications"

"Uh did I say 'ninety-two? I meant-"

"Lie to me again and I break your neck." Ivan threatened lowly.

The stranger's face turned from flamboyant, maybe a little awkward, straight to rigid and plain, "Friend, I really don't like threats."

"Listen, 'friend', I've been pounded by fifty kilo's of crazy ass bullshit for what feels like a hundred years… I am confused, out of my element, and pissed." The waiter set down a tall tiki glass in front of Ivan's query. "So, I will use the simplest and oldest form of human communication for your convivence: give me what I want, or else I'll get particularly upset and will try to inflict bodily harm." He then gestured to the beach, "And get rid of this crap."

The man stared back at Ivan for several moments before he looked away and nodded, "Please stand up. Computer…" Watching Ivan leave his stool, "…end program."

The restaurant, the beach and the very sky faded into a blocky, black and plain empty room.

Ivan looked around the room, then closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'So I wasn't dreaming.'

"The year is twenty-three sixty-five, February the twentieth, morning." Tobias remarked, feeling awkward not speaking the star date, going back to the history classes of pre-warp Earth.

Ivan felt like he was having an out of body experience. 'This shit is real.' He rubbed his neck, 'Considering before, I know where, now I know the when, now what next?' Trying to focus, he came to conclusion, something that he wasn't sure he could keep up considering the environment and his own prior joy of the setting… "Where are we?"

"We're on a starship; the USS Enterprise. This room is one of the ship's holodecks."

Ivan hated playing dumb, but he knew he needed to get his bearings on just what in the livid hell has happened not only to cause him to be thrown into Gene Roddenberry's wet dream, but for the fact that he has only two reasons onto how he got into the pod in the first place. Those points happen to be jack and shit. 'A little light on the jack if you ask me.' He concluded. "Who are you?"

He smiled, "I'm Lieutenant Tobias Efdran, I serve on this vessel and volunteered to help you with you rehabilitation."

The man out of time nodded slowly and reached his hand out, "Ivan Murphy."

Tobias took the hand and shook it once. "You seem to be taking this very well."

"Looks are deceiving, my man. But I gotta know; how long was on my back while ya'll fixed me up?"

Tobias grimaced painfully, "Nearly two weeks."

"Oh, well that just pales in comparison to the better part of four-hundred years I missed. What's a week here or there?" Ivan spoke without a tone of humor, forcing a joke out of the situation purely out of habit, looking down at the blocks of holodeck under his feet.

Tobias began to pace around Ivan as he said, "We are curious to any kind of information you may have to where we found you."

"'We', we who? And are you asking about the pod I was packed like a sardine into or… what?" Ivan demanded impatiently.

"I work for an organization called Starfleet, we serve as the Federation's exploratory, diplomatic and peacekeeping forces. We found you not only in that pod, but nearly four-thousand lightyears from the Sol system. The Enterprise has been exploring a system and we detected the world you were on, a barren rock even devoid of atmosphere, but had a small cavern under its surface that held the pods you were in, alongside some kind of automated defense drone."

"Pods?" Ivan asked aloud, "There are others? Trapped in them pods like me?"

Tobias stopped in his walk, "Yes, however, no one inside the pods, save you, were alive."

"Were they all like me? Maybe I can ID 'em?" Ivan's gut tangled as he imagined his buddies dying in those damn coffins, alone and hopeless like he damn near did.

"No, the others were different species, many of which we cannot identify."

"Well, that's good I guess, no one else I- wait, 'species'?" Ivan had to catch himself, pretend that he was shocked by the idea of aliens. "You mean by frogs, dogs and other lifeforms from Earth right?"

Tobias blinked at Ivan, but looked away and hissed lowly, Ivan heard a low mumble to himself like what one does when they do something royally stupid. "I was hoping to introduce you slowly to our things like this."

"You're terrible at your job, pal." Ivan forced a smile.

Tobias briefly appeared offended but saw the joke after a moment, shrugging, "Well, you're not wrong." After a pause, "We've uh, us humans I mean," gesturing between the two, "have been a founding member of an interspecies alliance for three-hundred years, there's more than one-hundred and fifty active interstellar governments in the Federation, and nearly as many species other than our own."

Ivan stared at him for several seconds, not out of contemplative difficulty over alien species, he was in the Trek universe for Christ's sake. No, this was him trying to go in for the lowest common denominator, something that can hit home that Ivan was a borderline simpleton: "Any of 'em hot?"

Tobias had to process the answer for a moment before laughing, "Oh there's definitely a couple out there."

Ivan sighed, "Sooo, what now pal? Ya wipe my memory Men in Black style and stick my ass back into some kinda Buck Rogers time-freeze 'til ya'll know what to do with me?"

Tobias quickly replied, "No no! We won't wipe your memory or put you into stasis, if that's what you mean." Looking earnest to ease Ivan's worries, "We're uh I mean, I am trying to start your integration. While our facilities and personnel here are limited, we'd like to at least begin before we transfer you over to Starbase Four-oh-Three."

Ivan visibly relaxed, a smile forming as he released a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Well, ain't that swell? What next with acclimatizin' the fish out of the bag and into the bowl?"

Tobias briefly looked confused at the metaphor, "Yes, we get you to sick bay, give you some scans, answer some questions, schedule your physical therapy appointments and we will get you some temporary quarters for your stay."

Ivan then gestured between himself and his compatriot, "Know where we can get a change of clothes?"

After taking Ivan to a nearby replomat, Tobias was given a hideous looking adult sized onesie, something he intends to immediately replace as soon as he can. After, he was escorted to sickbay, Ivan's chest momentarily felt like it was under an elephant's heel as he saw Beverly Crusher behind a desk.

She looked up and smiled politely, "Please, come in. Take a seat. Feeling well?"

"Feeling… flabby. Like I've gained eighteen kilos." Ivan explained, gesturing to his far more deteriorated mushiness around his core. Sitting in front of the chief medical officer's desk, he continued, "Oh and I think it's finally happened. I've gone insane." Gesturing to the sick bay with both arms, "I mean, we're in a spaceship, God knows how far from Earth, there's aliens, and the guy out their pulled a damn sunny beach out of his ass." He wasn't exactly overshooting his feelings, still feeling that familiar 'out of body' lack of sense since the moment he woke until now.

Crusher nodded, "That's understandable from your perspective. Tobias?" She asked behind Ivan, where said Starfleet man walked near the desk.

"Doctor Crusher, this is Ivan Murphy. Ivan, this is our most senior medical officer on the Enterprise, and will be able to cure anything from a headache to Ankaran Flu."

The doctor scoffed at him but smiled broadly, "Thank you lieutenant, I think that's quite enough."

The man left, Ivan quickly asked, "Alrighty hun, where do we start first?"

"I insist you call me doctor." She looked perturbed at this man's choice of words for her, "But to answer your question; where were you born?" Taking out a pad and began tapping her fingers against its surface.

"Jackson, Mississippi."

"When?"

"January twelfth, nineteen-ninety-five."

Beverly looked up at Ivan a moment to see any detection of humor or sarcasm. "You were born in the Eugenics war?"

Ivan frowned, recalling Khan, his little gang of megalomaniacal superhumans, before he scoffed, "Worse. Clinton administration."

"Clinton? Who's that?"

"President? United States? Boinked anything that resembled a woman?"

She blinked in surprise, "Do you have any recollection of the war at all? Parents? Schools? Anything like that? What about the Third World War?"

"Now that I have a freight full of information, babe. Chinese invading the US, EU invading the Russians and Middle East, India… nuked someone while they also nuked India, can't remember who though."

Ivan literally counted the conflicts off his fingers, which reminded Beverly as she saw the stubby pinky, cut off almost to the base of his knuckle on his right hand. "Is that how you lost your little finger?"

Ivan nodded, "In so many words; yup. Lost a lot more stuff than that. Safety, security, free refills at sit-down restaurants, the list goes on."

Beverly quickly began writing all this down, knowing for certain that it conflicted with her own knowledge of time. Nodding, she asked, "How's your appetite? Are you feeling thirsty?"

"Dunno." He shrugged, "Don't even know how I got this tubby doin' nothin'." Gesturing to his gut.

"Our nutritional feed may have been overly generous to your metabolism. We'll be able to sort out your weight and muscle mass in physical therapy." Beverly bit a lip, asking, "Any known instances of psychological issues in your family? Depression, degenerative diseases, mental illness?"

Ivan smiled and huffed as he replied, "I had an uncle that did yoga."

Beverly didn't get the reference nor the joke, deciding to continue with, "In our initial scans, we noticed an… issue with your lungs. Did you smoke any recreational substances?"

"Just like… what? Twenty cigarettes a day since I was seventeen. The occasional whiff of gunpowder, teargas… oh! There was the burning building or fifty."

Doctor Crusher professionally ignored his comments and wrote down, 'Tabaco?' "Now, what's the last thing you remember before being in the pod?"

Ivan paused, his sarcastic jive stopping suddenly as if it had hit a brick wall. "A mission. It was accomplished. I was… under a tree…" Ivan's brow furrowed, trying to remember it all, the smaller bits he wanted to tell, to recall, "I… it started snowing… then…" he looked back up, "just… blue…"

"The color?"

"Yeah, spotty with black… what the hell was I lookin' at?"

"We'll try to figure it out." Beverly smiled. "Other than the… lung problem, you look to be good health. Just some dieting, some exercise, and you'll be the picture of health."

Ivan forced his thoughts from remembering and nodded, "Good, good, uh… thank you doc."

Beverly stood, gesturing to the door, "A member of security will escort you to our councilor. Have a good day."

Ivan meekly nodded and a smiled as he left out the door, only to see directly across it a man standing dressed in a yellow uniform, the item held at his hip clearly a weapon, a hand phaser. The man smiled at Ivan, pointing with his whole arm down the hall. "This way, sir."

Ivan wordlessly followed his instructions, following his escort's instruction to a turbolift, where said crewman ordered the futuristic elevator, "Deck Eight."

Ivan looked over his non-salaried compatriot, notably the phaser. Of course, there was that nagging, long drilled instinct telling him not to stare at a fucking weapon and make the guy who has it twitchy, but Ivan was going through, what can be surmised at least commonly, a 'fangasm', his mind running through all the crazy stuff that he can remember on television with phasers, disruptors, crazy aliens and now he was going to meet Dianna Trio!

The security personnel looked on and saw this stranger, stuck in time for centuries, staring at his hip with what Ivan himself can describe as a 'shit-eating-grin', feeling particularly uncomfortable, he asked, "Sir? Are you alright?"

Ivan looked up at him and nodded, "Fine, quite fine." Turning back to the front of the tube, still smiling.

[][][]

Councilor Troi was quickly reviewing the notes that Beverly had sent, their guest being guided the long way around to afford her some time to gather her bearings. While her empathic abilities are important to her duties, knowledge of the people in question was key.

'Possible alternate timeline?' Deanna blinked at that. They introduced every test to this man for any kind of anomaly, including quantum, so how can this be? Regardless, she read the details and was definitely going to be asking about them, and not too soon as the security officer that escorted the newcomer came in, made the introductions between the herself and Ivan.

It was hard to focus on the ensign, Ivan's emotional torrent beat her empathic senses like a drum. Admiration, arousal, and that all too fatal sensation of familiarity. Ivan was swarthy, with green eyes but whether he was completely bald due to being in the pod or was naturally like this, was devoid of hair on his head or face.

Quickly sitting down, Dianna asked, "How are you today?"

"All over the place would be a good phrase. Was told that there were aliens, we're on a spaceship, holographic beaches… not the usual Tuesday."

Ivan recognized that the next five minutes of conversation as the atypical 'small-talk' used to relax a given patron. Pets, favorite foods, shit along those lines, plus the irregular addition of the 'how do you like the ship' or 'how do you feel with the aliens/space/holograms'.

Ivan gave his answers, but not in too much detail or much thought on the subject, recalling that the Starfleet officer before him doesn't so much talk as she does feel, keeping as emotionally bland and unprovocative as Ivan possibly could.

Dianna Trio noticed this but decided not to verbally confirm or deny if it was intentional from the man, noting that Ivan could very well be this emotionally withdrawn with everyone else, but that maybe switching to something a little closer to home would give at least something to read.

"So, I understand that you fought in world war three?"

'There it is…' Trio felt a distinct flutter of emotions, at first the usual symptoms of high-stress encounters; fear, anger, sadness, shame, many of the typical sensations, but then there was something else, something profoundly deeper and more intimate, a resounding melancholy that bordered on depression. Then, those barriers of emotive protection were back up and he smiled, "Oh, so that's what all that yellin' was." He then nodded, "Yes, though… I dunno if we won or… well…" Ivan sighed, "It doesn't really matter now, does it?"

"You had family." The councilor lamented.

Ivan suddenly looked ashamed, "Yeah. A sister. Last time I saw her was on a European Union boat to Spain. She… uh…" He scoffed lightly, "What's the point in holding back? I made her get on that damn ship and well, a few words were said that I didn't really mind and the fact that evening was the last time I was with her is a bit… upsetting."

"I understand." He's not exactly amiss about the war being over, it's his sibling, long lost to time which is really eating at him. "What was her name?"

"Tina." Ivan's false smile was long gone, he was looking down, between two odd points on the floor away from the councilor, focusing on keeping his emotions from coming to the surface.

"You sent her to this 'Union' to be safe?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'm sure she was. Take comfort in the fact that you did anything and everything to protect your family. Regardless of how she may have felt towards you, you loved her." Trio smiled at him.

Ivan sat still for a moment, before he looked back up, "Yeah…" Trio felt that he wasn't yet capable of mourning so soon after this realization. "Yes, you're right."

Dianna moved along with her questions, "So, this war…?"

Ivan sat up much straighter as he explained: "Well, I was only fifteen when it began, so sue me if I ain't a meister, but from what I can remember, President Florez surrendered a shit ton of the west coast to the Chinese. Something was annexed, lots of the states didn't agree with the government, Europeans were going nuts and started running amok, I get recruited by the Southern Militia right about when Brazil was going screwy for South and Latin America when I turned sixteen… everyone was fightin' everyone what it felt like. Ten years later, now, I'm here." He sat back lazily in his chair, "Fuckin' paradise."

"I know you feel as if circumstances are very overwhelming for you, but understand that we must all do the best with what is given to us."

"I can make a shit ton of best with this," He gestured to the room, "That's the problem. I'm out of the frying pan and into metaphorical Eden. What's next on this game of Twenty-Q?"

Dianna grimaced slightly, "I'm sorry if I'm agitating you emotionally with these questions, but we really do need their answers."

Ivan shrugged, "Hun, we all got a job, I can't blame you for needing some decent info on my part. Say, you wouldn't mind if I asked some questions would ya? Just a couple, please."

"Of course."

"Well, I heard a bit of a thing from the doctor? Red head? Can't remember her name…" 'Ah, now there's a lie.' Trio thought. "terrible with names." Ivan continued, "Anyways, she mentioned something called the 'Eugenics Wars'? And how I was born in it? Mind giving me the run down?"

The woman explained what Ivan generally knew. Trek really didn't go into much detail about the actual war other then anything rhyming with Khan. Unless there was an episode he missed, he was a kid when he saw what felt like the entire franchise to his parents, so may have missed something important here or there. "Nope, nothing like that was happening with me, though the frenchies were rumored to be growing super humans for their soldiers, maybe our times are close, but somehow different?"

"Anything else you would like to know before we continue?"

"Uh yes, but this is a bit personal; wouldn't happen to know where I can get a smoke?"

-]

'My final report of Ivan Murphy: recommend intensive psychological reconditioning. Possible high degree of post traumatic stress will cause integration in society very difficult. Otherwise, he seems cooperative, but I cannot shake the feeling he has been withholding something from me. Perhaps it is merely the shock of the situation and will come forward when he feels he's safe and comfortable.'

Dianna clicked the padd off and rubbed her forehead. The last month ever since the Enterprise surveyed that world, she's been having a foreboding feeling of… being watched, observed… something agitating the very edge of her senses. It wasn't from their new guest, at least not directly, but it feels too oddly close together to be a coincidence.

[][][]

"Replicator." Ivan spoke to the console in his quarters, hearing a small beep in response. "Uhhh, I dunno. Chicken curry? Spicy?"

The machine quickly responded with, "There are currently five hundred and seventy three available kinds of curry and fifty levels of seasonings that are safely digestible for human physiology. Shall I give you the list?"

"Uh, no. I'm bored, not that bored. Let me think… narrow down the list to the top three most commonly ordered stuff?" It did as it was commanded, and he selected 'traditional Indian curry', steamed chicken and a 'red alert' spiciness. He took the plate and sniffed at its contents, the smile on his face couldn't get any wider. Taking his new bounty, sat in front of the computer screen and access the historical archive, searching for 'post-world war three' material. Turns out, a lot of the stuff Ivan went through in the span of a decade was somehow extended to when Cochrane's first warp test, nearly thirty damn years.

'It attracted the attention of the Vulcans blah blah blah who then occupied a swathe of Montana for nearly five weeks blah blah… wait a cotton pickin' minute…' Ivan set down his nearly finished plate of curry and stared at the words, 'a Vulcan expeditionary force occupied a swathe of Montana for nearly five weeks searching for the presence of Allied forces, believing Cochrane's warp ship was the signature of an enemy vessel…'

…

"WHAT?!" Ivan yelled so loud that he started violently coughing. After his fit was through, "Computer! Confirm whether or not this piece of literature is historically confirmed fact and not some crazy bit of fiction."

"Verified as historically accurate." The machine replied.

Ivan sighed quietly, 'Guess this universe isn't actually the one I thought I was in.' Quickly taking up the pad and starting his reeducation in earnest.

'…having been searching for the Vulcan expedition in the area for some time, an Allied armada consisting mostly of elements of the Andorian Imperial Navy, Tellar Defense Force, and the Xyrillian Third Battle-Flotilla. Allied forces repelled the ill-equipped occupation force and quickly set up communications with human governments, the Andorians quickly becoming a patron of mankind's uplift to the interstellar community after the truce between the Vulcan Sovereignty and the Free States, establishing the Neutral Zone that would last for near a hundred years.'

"Woof, this is trippy." 'The United Earth Government launched its first foray into what was loosely considered the Commonwealth, a deteriorating husk of what remained of the Alliance that rose to oppose Vulcan aggression. Captain Archer taking upon the mission of establishing contact with the unknown with Earth's first Warp-Five ship.'

"At least something is the same." He scoffed, recalling that particular show, its heinous earlier seasons and glorious last.

However, as an advent master of what can be considered an alternate reality; he searched 'Romulan' and 'Star Empire' with no results. The Romulan people, having been of Vulcan origin, never fled their homeworld, instead, the 'Raptors' conquered Vulcan, sending Surak's teachings underground, not wiping them out but definitely not letting the philosophy find fertile enough ground to grow.

"Shit, what did that change with Spock?"

"Restate question."

"Uhhh, Starfleet record of one Vulcan named Spock."

'A Vulcan of Martian descent, Ambassador Spock was-' "Whoa honey! Martians?! Seriously?!"

'Vulcans that follow the philosophy of Surak migrated from the Vulcan Sovereignty to the Martian colony after the Vulcan agreed to become a protectorate of the Coalition of Worlds, thus earning them the prevalent though inaccurate nomenclature of Martians.'

"Oh… cool. Badass actually. They differ yet? The Vulcans and Martians?"

'Martians seem to have had a notable decrease in muscle mass due to the differing gravitational pull of their adopted homeworld in recent generations.'

"Ah, that's 'cause the Romulans departed Vulcan thousands of years before sliced bread was even a thing. Sorry hun, continue with the readin'."

This odd session of education kept on for nearly nine hours, until the door to his quarters unlocked and in strode in a security officer while he was in the middle of studying the far more recent Cardassian War.

"Sir? I am here to escort you to the cargo bay."

Ivan blearily blinked his eyes, "Shit, what time is it?"

"Ten-hundred hours." Spotting a collection of whiskey glasses on the counter in front of the couch, stacked up in a triangle, he continued with, "You should recycle those in the replicator when we get back. Please, this way sir."

Ivan stood up and followed the man out, "Shit, I pulled an all nighter and wasn't even studying for a test… by the way, I'm not sure I was exposed to radioactive waste while sleeping or something, but none of the stuff I ordered I could get drunk from. Tasted like the stuff I wanted without any of the benefits."

"Yes sir, the replicators on board cannot produce true alcohol. It uses something called synthahol, a substitute that manages to reproduce the taste and only mild effects."

"Wait, we're on a boat, right? You guys gotta have a still somewhere that makes the real thing! That's fucking naval tradition for Christ's sake!" Suddenly Ivan looked exceptionally worried, "How the hell am I gunna get any sleep past a couple hours?!"

"We can always take you to sick bay if you're having trouble sleeping."

"Later. We got a job to… by the way, what do you need me to do in the cargo bay? Pull my weight?"

The man smiled, "No sir, I believe it has to do with an object we found with you."

Ivan was silent. Nervousness shrunk his guts to a knot. It was a simple thing to explain what he knew before they pulled him out of the pod, but he doesn't even know how he got in the damn thing to begin with. Taking a turbo lift down… or up, he couldn't tell, to another deck, escorted to another, far larger room and taken down a ladder.

He saw a trio of figures looming over a fleshy, man sized pod, looking as if it was browning from rot, certainly smelled like it; Deanna Troi, Jordi La Forge and Data, the latter two were holding tricorders.

"Hello Ivan, does this look recognizable at all?" Councilor Troi asked.

The thing looked like a pea-pod in its general shape, but larger at its core, and the surface, while from a distance looked soft and fleshly, had a certain rigidness that seemed like plastic rather than meat. Pressing his palm into it and seeing the carved open capsule where he once resided drove an icy pike through his soul. "Only the inside really. Imagined it was smaller."

Trio picked up on his distress, "If you want, we can send you back to your quarters and forward images-"

"Hell no, I'd rather be stuck in a room talking about the world's smelliest coffin rather than come down with cabin fever in that guest room." Ivan smiled.

Geordi looked over Ivan, as if expecting some kind of bizarre and normality, "Do you remember being linked to this thing at all? Some intravenous link, an ambilocal connection of some kind, anything at all?"

"I had a dream someone stuck me with a catheter, wouldn't happen to have any idea if it was before or after you picked me up?" Ivan laughed, trying to make some light about the situation.

"What's a catheter?" Geordi asked.

"A medical device, placed in into a bodily cavity often to relieve the body of waste fluids in the early twenty-first century." Data informed almost as encyclopedically as the ship's computer.

"Uhhh, no, we don't have anything to do with… that. What about bodily sensations that seemed odd? We can't find any clue how this machine's life support kept you alive longer than your air supply that was sealed in with you."

"No, nothing… wait, some ticklish stuff around my feet, but got painful when it crawled up to my gut." Ivan's face scrunched in a confused scowl. "How long do ya'll think I was in it?"

Data quickly answered with, "Unknown, though we do believe that it was possibly in excess of three months at least."

"Wait… how the hell can I be from the twenty-first century, but only be in that pod for a few months?" Ivan glared at said pod.

"That is only what forensics of ground disturbance and possible gravimetric disruption can tell." Data finished with, "Considering the environment's lack of atmosphere and stable orbit; it may be possible-"

Ivan's initially passive expression turned furious and he yelled out, "FUCK!"

Data looked confused, "I apologize if I offended-"

"Even with the science fiction's most competently incompetent crew of explorers, I ain't got no answers?!" His yells directed at the pod, "You…! I'm gunna find who stuck me in you, and then! Oh boy! Their screams are gunna echo from here to kingdom come!" He kicked the pod.

The trinity was completely astonished by the naked display of aggression from a human. Troi responded quickly after the surprise, "Ivan, please! Control yourself!"

"Control will do exactly didly! To hell with this damn thing! I'll send its makers screaming to old scratch when I get my hands on them! I'll…" Ivan's fury quieted in an eyeblink, seeing him reach for a nearby cargo container to steady himself, "Sorry, sorry… gunna take a breather… what about ships or aliens dropping me off? Like space tracks? Any sign of them?"

Data then confirmed his theory with "We have detected the degradation of a subspace corridor several light seconds out of the star-system, and due to the unique gravitational eddies from the nearby sun, it was likely to have been constructed artificially."

"Okay… i'm just gunna nod my head and pretend I understood what half of that meant… by the way, you an alien or something?" Ivan asked.

Data shook his head, "I am an android, a machine meant to-"

"You had me at android man, I read enough Isaac Asimov to know the general gist of a synthetic lifeform. It ain't nothin' but a thing compared to the recent happenin's." Ivan shrugged, managing to regain a bit of balance. "Sorry I don't have any more information for ya, but man, I was only trapped in the damn thing, I didn't build it."

"'It is not nothin' but a thing'." Data repeated robotically.

Ivan nodded and smiled, and looked to the councilor, "Please, unless ya need me for somethin' else, I'd rather walk around some then get locked back in my room for timeout."

Deanna smiled, "Actually, I'm going to escort you to meet with our ship's captain."

Ivan's stomach momentarily fluttered in excitement but controlled it. Forcing a sense of frustration that he wasn't too sure was convincing to the empath in the room, "If I had a nickel for every time I was escorted in this boat, I'd have a quarter by now…" Ivan sighed.

[][[[]

"Come!" Jean-Luc Picard ordered, hearing his ready-room's door chime. Looking up from his padd as a security officer escorted in the mystery of the last month.

The captain stood and walked to the pair, "Good day, Ivan. I was hoping to have a small chat with you."

Ivan couldn't help but smile. This was the Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise-D! How can he not be elated? "Good, conversation is one of my favorite hobbies, where shall we begin?" He clapped his hands together.

"Thank you, Ensign." Dismissing the officer behind Ivan, and after seeing him leave, gestured to the chair in front of the desk, "I am Captain Picard of the Enterprise. Please."

Taking a seat, Ivan asked, "So what's on the agenda? I answered what I could with the organic canister I was found in."

Picard mentioned, "Nothing related to where we found you, but where you maybe going." He walked over to the nearby replicator, "Tea, Earl-Grey, hot." The machine hummed with life as it conjured the beverage, "Would you like anything?"

"Water, thank you."

Giving Ivan the glass, Picard sat behind the desk and asked, "We noticed that you were utilizing our ship's library database."

Ivan blinked, concerned he may have unintentionally stepped on someone's toes, "Yes, I apologize if it was-"

Picard shook his head, "I approve. Our attempt to slowly reintegrate you to the current to standard protocols were insufficient and, apparently, unneeded. You have reacted very well to the new times."

"How is Lieutenant Tobias, by the way? Hope he still has his day job."

Picard gave a small smile, "Yes. We don't have any reintegration personnel on this vessel and did the best studying he could when he volunteered to try on you."

"How did he choose his time, for the holo-beach thing?"

"From what I can remember, it was due to both an incident in sickbay and our best estimates of its reference."

'The singing of Alice in Chains…' Ivan concluded, "Well, I didn't exactly have my birth certificate on me."

"I am, however, slightly concerned on a number of searches with the database." He typed up something with the desk's computer and turned it around to face Ivan. The words 'Romulan. Star Empire. Spock. Martians', then there was his overall timeline coverage.

Ivan felt like a retard. Of course, they would still continue to watch him and know what he did with their shit. "Oh… yes… ya know it's against twenty-first century etiquette to look up another man's browser history. It just ain't kosher."

"Please, explain these." Picard seemed more irritated then humored.

"Uhhh Romulans… a basketball team from back home. Rowlet Romulans. They were trying to spell Romans but made a spelling error and it stuck." Ivan sipped at his water nervously. "The Star Empire thing was just me trying to figure out if there was any crazy evil space aliens or something, someone to keep an eye out for in space."

Picard didn't look convinced, "I see. How did you know of Ambassador Spock?"

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…' "Uh, I dunno. I think I might have come across it as a suggested topic of 'S's after 'Star' Empire came up with diddly." Ivan honestly wasn't sure if suggestions for searches was a thing with the computer. "I thought it was a futuristic curse word or something. The Martians came after I read about Spock. Good man."

Picard nodded and turned the computer around, "Thank you. Now… I've received a message from the Daystrom Institute to cover over pre-Eugenics War history subjects they haven't managed to uncover."

"But I didn't think our times were the same." Ivan spoke aloud.

"They'll be able to find out exactly how different they are. A small ship is being sent to Starbase Four-oh-Three which will then be arranged to take you back to Earth, you'll have-"

Ivan instantly sat up, fear alight in his eyes, "I'm not going back to Earth."

Picard, in turn, looked astonished at the declaration, "Earth is no longer the place you knew, it's paradise, there is no longer any war, hunger or-"

"I don't care, I ain't going back." Ivan seemed betwixt panic and rage, "I'd rather choke on the moon's vacuum before setting a single foot on that fuckin' planet!"

Picard was half tempted to recall an officer from the bridge but withheld. He instead lifted a hand, "Please, stay calm, I have little doubt your preference for staying away from Earth can be appeased. I will send word to the Institute."

Ivan relaxed into the chair, sighing "Good. I'm sorry, I… don't think I'm strong enough to stomach Earth."

"Why? What made you afraid of returning home?"

Ivan sat silently, staring at his lap. "Captain, it's… difficult to explain… I did a lot of things on that ball of mud I'm not proud of. I just learned that I was in the future, it was all pointless. Not a lot of the folks I cared for lived until the end, and no one I know from then is alive now and it seemingly never happened in the first damn place." He looked back up, "I just… don't think I can go back. It'd be an insult to my friends, my family, and lastly myself. I cannot go home."

Picard kept a passive face, "I see. Would you like to see the councilor after this?"

"No." Ivan shook his head, "I'm really sorry, captain. This came out of nowhere."

Picard gave a firm nod, "I understand. However, this may make what I must say easier for you. We've done a search for your family. Genetically, you have relatives living on Mars." Picking up the padd and reading: "Great, great, great, great, grandnephew. Haffer Murphy."

"Really? Dear God…" 'So sis had a family in this timeline?' "Wait, aren't Vulc- I mean Martians living there?"

"Yes, turns out you may have an extended family of Martians."

Ivan smiled radiantly, "Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit!"

[][][]

"Yes, we will forward your shuttle from the Starbase to Olympia. Our offices on Mars are more than capable of finishing your program and applying you not only for the Daystrom Institute, but possibly for Federation citizenship!" A bubbly office woman smiled happily to Ivan, "We will look forward to your visit and hope you have an excellent day, goodbye!" The message ended.

Ivan clicked a button bellow the screen and smiled. While it would take a week to get another message to the Federation and receive a response in turn, he was already thinking of sending one to his grandnephew, if anything, to at least talk to some family and possibly let him know he may visit him, briefly in time.

Before he could begin writing, a chime rung at his door. "Who is it?"

"It's Tobias. You wanna head over to Ten-Forward?"

Ivan blinked, "Hell yes! That the bar with the real booze?" Picking up a shirt and nearly tripping as he awkwardly sprinted while getting dressed.

Leaving his quarters and following his acquaintance's lead, said blue-uniformed lieutenant nodded, "Absolutely. You alright? You look… I dunno, bedazzled?"

"Ya caught me after I got a video from them Daystrom fellas. I got some information about my family from 'em and will send him a message as soon as I get back. You wouldn't happen to know if my request to be let out of confinement without escort has been looked at or not?"

"No, but if I find any command staff on duty, I'll ask them." Tobias smiled.

"Been meanin' to ask; got any family? Siblin's? Wife? Kids?"

"C'mon man! I'm only twenty-five, got plenty of time to worry about family later. I have an older brother, Vincent, he's still living on Earth. Has a job working with setting up fusion reactors."

"Really? Cold-fusion? Room-temperature stuff?"

"No, just plain old hot as hell fusion. You've been to Ten-Forward yet?"

"Negative sir, only been to the gym and sick bay. Why you guys so paranoid about me?"

"Well, we're nervous about any long-term contaminants or programming that may have been planted by your captors. The technology we found you with was beyond bizarre and anything we have encountered."

"Still, how long has my dumbass been here? How long will I have to be here without an incident to leave my room without a chaperone?"

"Please, be patient, if it isn't soon, you will definitely be able to have your way about when-"

"I'm at the station, yeah yeah…" Ivan sighed.

As the two passed the doors of the shipboard bar, Ivan stopped briefly as he spotted a certain Klingon Starfleet officer sitting at a table looming over a padd.

"My man, what the hell is that?" Ivan tried to sound perturbed, but he sounded more interested.

Tobias grimaced, "That is our chief tactical officer. He's a Klingon, he can rip you in half down the middle if you ask that any louder."

"Oh sorry. So that's a Klingon? The species of Viking-Samurai IN SPACE…" He added dramatically flaring his hands open, "Mind if I get a whiskey and I just say hi?"

"Actually, he really likes his privacy and might not appreciate it if we intrude."

"C'mon, don't look so nervous. If the dragon must be met, bring a gift. Bar tender?"

A dark-skinned woman in robes and a weird hat came over where the two lounged. "Evening, boys." She smiled, "What can I get you?"

"Whiskey. Cheap. If it doesn't make me blind in one eye, I won't give a tip." Ivan smiled eagerly. "Also, something a cup of… let's say prune juice."

"I'll have just a raktajino please, I'll be on duty in an hour."

"Shit pal, why you spending your time to take a man out ya barely know before work?" Ivan grimaced quizzically.

Tobias smiled, "I'd like to know you. Plus, I owe you due to me fracking up my beach mission."

Ivan gave a half smile, "Yeah… sorry for threatnin' ya."

Tobias chuckled, "Don't worry about it. If I was wearing a yellow-shirt, I may have been a bit worried."

As Guinan placed her tray of beverages in front of the pair, she asked, "Haven't see you around here, you that man they pulled out of the pod?"

Ivan nodded, "Yeeeup. That's me. I'm Ivan, to what goddess are you to deliver such sweet Ambrose to these lips?" He winked after he brought his glass of whiskey to his nose and breathed in, long and deep.

"I'm Guinan, just a bartender. But you look at me like you already knew that."

"A bartender behind the bar? Nooo, you caught me on that one." Shooting down his double of whiskey, pointing down, "Oh lordy. That's perfect…" Coughing into his fist.

Tobias bug eyed his drinking companion, "Wow, you have a problem…"

"Eh, don't we all. I needed that to do this." Taking the glass of juice and leaving the bar for Worf's table.

Approaching the sitting Klingon, Ivan said aloud when he was several paces away, "Heard you were one of the folk that got me out of the pod before I starved to death."

Worf looked towards the newcomer eyeing him up and down, before looking back to his padd. "I was indeed."

"As is tradition, at least in the twenty-first century, I've got you a drink." Ivan placed the glass on the table.

Worf eyed it wearily over the padd, "What is it?"

"An old human beverage meant for the bravest of souls." Ivan smiled.

The Earth-raised Klingon was suddenly very curious, setting the padd aside and sipping from the glass. His eyes twinkled briefly in joy, before he looked back the human.

"Prune juice." Ivan tittered, knowing what he'd ask.

"A warrior's drink." He smiled.

"Glad you liked it. Thanks again uh…?" Ivan began to move his hand forward to shake his but then moved it from side to side in faux confusion.

"Lieutenant Worf." He gripped Ivan's hand so firmly, the human thought he'd pissed him.

"Ivan Murphy. I was told you were a Klingon, read about them a bit. Positivly interestin', particularly in how they've kept traditions for over a thousand years since ya'll founded your empire."

As Worf began to explain how it all began with Kahless the Unforgettable, Guinan was surprised at the Klingon's openness. Tobias, however, was dumbfounded. "H-how?" The man asked aloud.

Guinan herself wasn't certain, she shrugged, "Maybe he's just good with Klingons."

Tobias scoffed, "A barbaric human and an Earth-raised Klingon. A match made in heaven." Grimacing, slightly regretting what he said.

The alien barkeep smiled, "Maybe not heaven, but they're more compatible then you might think." Taking up the tray, "Better drink that coffee before it gets cold."

[][][]

"Yes, while I may be busy at your estimated arrival time, it would be most agreeable for you to visit." A blue-eyed, thin-haired, pointy eared hybrid spoke plainly, "If you goto my neighbor's, I am confident he will prove an able host until I return. I look forward to your coming, goodbye."

'Another week to go…' Ivan shook his head. 'Then another week to get to the fucking space station… then Christ know how long to get to Mars… goddamn... They might as well have froze me… it would have at least spared me the chance of going full on Shining in this ship.' Standing up from the bed, he moved over to the computer, harshly pushing in a key. "Let it be logged; I am making my way down to Ten-Forward. I had the sudden urge to start writing a book with the words 'All work and no play make Ivan go bananas'."

He left his quarters, proceeded to a turbo lift and ordered, "Deck Ten." As he waited, he rubbed his temples, "Maybe some exercise will get rid of this headache… And I'm talking to myself again… it's finally happened; I've gone insan-"

Suddenly kissing the other side of the turbolift at five miles per hour, Ivan began to hastily yell, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" Even after the event stopped, he still quietly cursed as he sat up from the ground, "Fuck… fuck… fuck… these assholes consider this shit their job? Nope. Ain't a chance in hell with joinin' Starfleet unless they pay me in blonde Playboy bimbos every week." Standing back up, he tried to open the 'Lift doors by hand, only to have them partially opened, just enough to possibly slip through. Despite his recent regime of weighted pushups, he knew he wasn't back to one-hundred percent and hissed at the amount of effort he exerted only for so little. "Okay, okay… gunna just slip on through this thing… countless single, desperate female organisms on the… ooooffff… hah, other side." Managing to slip on through before he fell out of the crevice, walking down the passageway "Speaking of single organisms… Guinan? Help?"

What he saw was a collection of bridge crew consisting of Picard, Riker and Worf, flanking another pair, that being Guinan, hands out like claws against a Starfleet uniformed Q, standing on high with the bar's rafters, hand extended out towards the bartender.

"Murphy?" Riker turned when he heard the opposing doors of Ten-Forward open.

Ivan's gaze was focused on the omnipotent being, however. Inattentive of his fellow mortals as he walked into the arena, "You!" He declared and pointed at Q as he marched. "Send me back you scum-sucking son of a bitch!"

Q looked curiously at the stomping primate, "And who might you be?" Turning back towards Picard as he asked, "Oh dear captain, what cave did you pick this-?"

Ivan was on him faster then even he expected, smashing a fist across the manifested demigod's jaw, trying to reach for the creature's throat as he yelled, "SEND ME BACK YOU BASTARD!" He nearly foamed at mouth.

Q merely glimpsed at the time-lost human and in a tiny flash of light, what was launched back into one of Ten-Forward's tables wasn't the man the dare assault a superior being. Riker and Worf rushed to the commotion, expecting a charred corpse, a twisted and maligned blight of flesh as the only remains. What came out of the smoking clothes, slowly and with no small amount of effort, was a chimpanzee, short, long armed, short legged and hairy from head to toe, hooting and cooing in dazed pain.

"Such an impudent wretch. For what purpose did you bring it, captain?" Q spat as he caressed his cheek. "Enough of these creatures. They are not the reason for my being here…"

[][]

It's a damn thing; pre-sapience. Ivan was confident he was more of a drinker rather than a thinker, but this was…

'What was I thinking about?'

'A pun involving drinking and thinking.'

'Ah yes! Ah… wait… I'm startin' to think better now… who… wait, where in the fuck am I?'

'There's no word for it in your mind. A time so small and fast, that one can't even measure it in the billionionth decimal of a second.'

'… you are starting to damage my calm.'

'Firefly reference. Cute.'

'Wait, you know Firefly? You from my… wait, you a Q?'

'No. Q don't exist where you're from.'

Ivan thought a moment… something that seemed clearer by the minute. The place he existed in was without sight, sound, touch or taste… yet existing without a brain seemed to make thinking… powerful… critical to how he… breathed? No… no lungs, no blood for oxygen… not breath… it's more important then that. 'Am I dead?'

'Were you ever alive?'

'Don't do this shit with me man, I like my weird ass revelations minus the existential crisis…'

'Yes, you are alive. You are, however, a monkey. Ape, technically.'

'Yes, well, we do the best with what we can, but I-'

'No, I mean you are literally a chimpanzee.'

'I know. I can't make some damn light around here? To what stick in the mud am I talking to?'

'You already know my name.'

'Sure, sure… hey God? Yeah, its me Margaret, and I've had something weird to me happen in the middle of the night…'

'Seriously?'

'C'mon Hoss, don't give me the run around.'

Ivan felt the presence's mood… face palm? 'Look, I don't know what I'm doing here. I hope it'll end differently, but… Ivy, I wasn't programmed for this kind of guano. I did my shit, something exploded and now I'm here. Play ball with me, alright?'

'Okay hun, I don't know why I'm here, what got me in that pod, what you want or who you are. Cry me a river or give me some answers.'

Ivan was afraid he pissed the presence off and it left him for several moments, before it replied, 'Q won't give you anymore trouble. Neither he, nor the Continuum, but don't go out of your way to piss him off. He can still frak with what your standing on, the air you breathe and other stuff. This, and I'll give you another set of gifts. But there is a price to pay.'

[][][]

"Holy fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck… what?" Ivan sprang up out of the biobed like his ass was on fire. Stumbling through the sick-bay in panic and tripped over a hover-tray filled with vials and hyposprays.

As one of the medical staff ran over to him, yelling out, "Calm down! Sir! It's alright?"

Ivan stared at her with eyes the size of dinner plates, "What the fu-fucking shit covered diaphoretic, nun munching scrotum licking…" he suddenly felt very dizzy, putting a hand on his forehead to grasp at near non-existent hair to try and focus, closing his eyes, "Oh god… what… what happened?"

"Mister Murphy, please, let's get you over to the bed… that's right, nice and easy…" She soothed as she guided him over to the medical berth. "Now, lay down. I'll get a blanket to cover you."

God, he was tired… doing as he was told, Ivan must've passed out again when he his head hit the pillow.

"Mister Murphy?"

Ivan sprung back up, far tamer however, and stood near his bed and as saw Riker and Tobias several paces away. "Ah… alright. Good. Uh, what happened?"

Riker looked to the side slightly, "We're not sure. After our confrontation with Q, the Enterprise was transported seven thousand light-years away. That was after you were turned into monkey. We don't know when he turned you back, but Q had transformed you back into a human near sick-bay, you were having a stroke."

Ivan peered downwards, "Dear God…" 'It's the Borg episode…'

"You mind wrapping yourself with the blanket?"

Not thinking twice about the suggestion, Ivan wrapped his bare lower half in the fabric, "How long has it been?"

"Nearly twelve hours." Riker said. "Do you think after you get some clothes that you can see the captain?"

Ivan looked startled, "What? Why?"

"Answering a few questions." Riker replied coldly. "Get dressed. Tobias will escort you up."

The executive officer left quickly and without another word, leaving on him and Tobias in the Sick Bay. "So, am I going back to my quarters? Get some clothing?"

"No. Until your talk with the captain, I am to escort you. We'll get your clothes here, then head on up. Then, you're confined to the brig."

Ivan stared down his compatriot, "Why?"

Tobias shrugged. "C'mon. We got to get a move on."

Ivan clenched his teeth nervously.

[][][][]

"Please, sit down." Picard gestured to the chair nearest to the ready-room's table.

"Captain, I'm afraid to goto sleep if I sit. Respectfully, I'd greatly prefer standing." Ivan tried to stand as straight and speak as clearly as he could.

Picard nodded, beginning to walk around the other end of the table when he planted both hands on its surface and stated, "You knew about Q. Knew him."

Ivan nodded, unable to look him in the eye as he replied, "Yes."

"How?"

Ivan wasn't sure what he should say, what he shouldn't. This was already an altered timeline wasn't it? How much more different could it be made? How many lives can he save with sharing this knowledge, and how many will it condemn? "I… sir… I don't know what to say."

"How did you first meet him?"

"I never met him before today." Ivan saw Picard's hands press into fists, leaning into the table.

"Then how? Hmm? Is he at all responsible of the state we found you in?"

Ivan scrunched his eyebrows, "No… he didn't know who the hell I was."

"But you knew him, what he was, what he could do?"

Ivan nodded, "Yes."

"How?"

Ivan sighed, running a head over his scalp. "Captain, I don't think it would be wise for me to give that information."

Picard was glaring daggers at Ivan now, "I have over a thousand men, women and children on board this vessel that may now be in danger. I need to know everything."

Ivan shook his head, "Picard, I won't be able to help in that way. Everything I knew about this place was different when I learned about it! I do know that what may, may be teetering around in this spot of space Q wanted you to confront will be beyond anything the Federation or any Alpha nor Beta Quadrant power has encountered. If you want to safeguard your crew, call Guinan up here and I'm sure I'll be able to tell what I can and cannot help with."

"Guinan? She only has a loose, second hand knowledge of this area due to her people exploring the centuries ago."

"That is my condition." Ivan pressed.

Picard was too desperate to argue. He sent for her, the El-Aurian quickly arriving in the ready room.

While Guinan was beyond the point of terrified, she couldn't help but smile as she looked at Ivan. "You look better."

Ivan huffed a chuckle, "Couldn't get much worse."

"Ivan." Picard implored.

Ivan relented, "The word 'Borg' mean anything to you?" Looking at the bartender.

Her smile dropped, "You know about them?"

"This and that. Hive mind? Drone soldiers? Adaptive technology? Cyborgs? Uncomfortably geometric starships that are damn near unstoppable? Am I hitting a mark or two?"

Picard merely observed the exchange, but already had so many questions.

Guinan scoffed, "You knew who I was before you even saw me didn't you? Knew him, knew this ship and knew Q."

Ivan sighed, "Yeeup."

Picard quickly spoke up, "How?"

"Cable."

[-

Ivan went through the long, uncomfortable journey of explaining television in his universe. How the entire Star Trek universe was a matter of fiction, but how certain things were different. How the Vulcans separated into Romulans, how Q and Picard first met, then, to top it all off, how Guinan and Picard met in a paradoxical folding of time travel.

"You have a brother. Has a vineyard. Hates replicators, won't let them on the property. Has a son called Rene', who ya care for closely and call each other uncle and nephew. Just… not in the traditional sense." Ivan was scouring his mind, looking for every scrap of information he could find. "Uh… Data's maker, Noonian Soong, descendent of the Augment sympathizer, Arik Soong, made two androids, Data himself and another, more advanced but unpredictable twin, called-"

"Enough!" Picard exhaled, mentally exhausted. "I'm convinced. Please, don't share anymore. It may harm the timeline."

Ivan bent his own head, "Woof, good, my mouth has more cotton in it than a plantation."

Neither Picard nor Guinan were in a mood for jokes. "Well… I believe him too. What next?" The El-Aurian grimaced.

Picard was running a hand over his head, thinking.

Ivan was the next to speak. "We get ready."

He proceeded to explain not only the Borg's vastly superior technological capabilities in terms of arms, speed and defensive measure, but the adaptive techniques, that while re-modulation of phasers into the EM band could postpone effects, adaptation is inevitable. "…at least, to my knowledge, to energy weapons."

Picard squinted at Ivan, "What do you suggest then?"

"Kinetics." Ivan shrugged, "They may damn well adapt to that too, but I haven't seen, heard or read of a species that used 'em in a prolonged engagement. Their personal shields may adapt to them, in time, but they will remain vulnerable to close combat, they wouldn't be able to attack and assimilate otherwise."

"Ooo, clever monkey!" Q declared from the other side of the table. "And when you're finally out of energy to replicate your bullets, will you rely on throwing your dung at them?"

Ivan lowered an eyebrow, "For someone who turned me into an ape, you sure do like the monkey jokes." Q disappeared before he could finish the sentence. "Did he just Batman us? Eh, anyways…" Withholding information to actually telling Picard that admitting he was in over his head, may spite Q, he continued with, "we are fully and completely unable to survive the encounter to my understanding of the situation. We will lose people."

Picard ran his hands over each other, "… do you have any recollection who-"

"I don't. I'm sorry." Ivan bowed his head regretfully. "It starts with you surveying a nearby star, finding a life bearing world that once had civilization that was seemingly all scooped up as if simply plucking all industry from the land like weeds, but even if you avoid going there, I doubt that it will deny the possibility that the Borg have detected your presence already."

Guinan bit her lip, "Contact with the Borg may have been inevitable, but the Federation might not be ready technologica-"

Ivan suddenly gasped sharply as he grabbed his head, "Sorry, I might need to see the doctor again. Unless you'd like her or some other crewman to visit me in the brig?"

Picard rolled his jaw around, uncertain on what to do. "Swear… that you won't tell another living soul about any of this again. It stops here, between the three of us."

Ivan blinked, "Captain, there's a lot I can help prevent if what I know is relevant. If I can-"

Picard stared him down, "Swear."

Ivan sighed, surrendering, "I swear. Now… Guinan, I'll escort you back down to Ten-Forward."

Picard nodded, "Dismissed."

The two left the ready room, followed the security officer to the turbolift, on the decent down, Guinan ordered, "Lift-Pause." Turning over to the young human, she asked, "If you knew what and who Q was, why did you act like that? What he did to you was the luckiest incident I've heard a sentient experiencing that ticked him off. Besides, you know that a physical attack would have been pointless."

Ivan didn't face her, staring right ahead. "I… honestly thought he was involved in my being here initially… didn't know what else to do. I've been doing everything I can here, absolutely everything, but I couldn't and still can't stop thing about home… is there anything you wouldn't do to return? No matter how desperate."

He might have struck a deeper cord then expected. The subject of the Borg so fresh made her think of the homeworld enough, but this… "Resume." She ordered.

They continued their trip in silence. Even after they arrived at the bar and the human went behind the bar and took up a decanter of whiskey under the counter, not a word was said. Finally, after filling a glass and choking down its retched wonder, he looked to Guinan, who sat in a chair looking into the stars.

Ivan found another glass, filling it after he filled his own and took it over to the woman. "Here. It doesn't help but it feels good." Putting the generous helping of liquor in front of her.

Guinan nearly hissed at it, before shaking her head, "My body's a temple."

"Now it's a Risian Flesh Palace."

"Look, I appreciate-"

"Zoinks, you really gunna make me drink alone?" Ivan threw up a hand in frustration.

Guinan eyed the glass, slowly wrapping a hand around it. As she lifted it, Ivan swiftly tinked his own vessel against hers, drinking it.

She mimicked him, as best she could, but nearly gagged from the horrid taste and acidic, burning bite as it travelled over her tongue. Coughing into her fist harshly as Ivan stared into the void himself.

After her git subsided, they sat in silence, the warmth of the whiskey warming them from the inside out and numbed their thoughts just enough that their worries seemed like something to confront in an hour, that there wasn't a care as of that moment.

"They will destroy him, you know." Ivan refilled his glass.

Guinan looked over at the man, horrified.

"Not today, no. But after. They'll take him, make him one of them. Depending on Riker, he may or may not live, but even if he is rescued… he'll never be whole." Drinking his glass deeply, the whiskey so thick it was nearly like syrup, "Assimilation is more then physical augmentation or psychologically scaring due to the sheer will of the Hive, no… it scars further… deep into the soul… Picard will carry the actions of what the Borg visit upon him, in this realm and possibly beyond." Ivan was just talking, looking at the stars in fascination as the Enterprise took to warp.

Feeling the buzz turn into a deep inebriation, Murphy scoffed, "I should tell him. Picard is a good man… he… his family…this ship… I don't hold it against him he's French and shit, just… goddamn it… even if things go as planned and we live, I won't be here to help."

He heard Guinan refill her drink. After a minute, she asked, "Will you make it to Sick-Bay?" Almost a whisper.

"Ah, shoot…" Ivan smiled, "Yeah… sorry… I remember how El-Aurians were also called 'Listeners'… if humans had a simple title like that, I'm sure it would be 'Talkers'." He struggled getting out of the chair, but managed to laugh as he started to wander through the doors mumbling to himself. "What… did you say about 'Zero-Point-Energy'?" He slurred slightly.

Guinan shook her head, "Head out, Murphy. You're drunk."

[][]

"I'm detecting some… odd flurries of agitation in the Cerebral Cortex that bellies typical activity." A crewman spoke as he looked at the monitor, "If only you came in sober…"

"Sheesh, you sound like my ma…" Ivan waved an arm at the man. "Sure it's… I need some aspirin is all… or a smoke."

"One vice at a time, mister." The medic chuckled.

Ivan hissed once more as the searing pain seethed between his temples then the back of his head.

Genetic Recollection of Synthetic organs based upon-

"Ah!" He started fanning himself, "Christ on sale, this is getting bad!"

"That… what was that?" Looking at the monitoring device. "There was a spike of brain activity… your heart skipped a more then a beat, you feel dizzy at all?"

"I'm drunk off my ass, the dizzy is a given!" Ivan laughed even as he grasped his head harder.

The crewman's eyes nearly bulged as the anomaly occurred again, "I'm going to give you a sedative, we'll be putting you in medical stasis until- wait, where did that neuron come from?" He focused in om the event, "Computer, freeze frame at point-seven-nine-nine-two… okay… nothing between these two ganglions… Computer, crawl forward by frame points… there! Suddenly neural clusters coming out of nowhere and interfering with ganglionic … they came out of nowhere… Computer, repeat imaging… yes, this makes absolutely no sense. Even if you had dormant or damaged neurons, the brain would have compensated and would have at least some residual activity to compensate for a diverted function."

Ivan was staring at the man, messaging the sides of his scalp, headache growing ever stronger and not just from recent medical issues.

"That must've sounded very… alien to someone like you."

"By 'someone like me', you mean someone with barely enough computing power in my noggin to run a digital toaster? Yeah."

The crewman coughed into his fist, but continued with, "This… phenomena might be harmful. I'm still recommending stasis until we can get more complicated equipment to analyze this information."

Ivan's gut wrangled in fear. The possibility that he might get yanked out of the ship and torn apart by the Borg while he was on his back? Uh-uh. This, plus the idea of going back into stasis was as appealing as getting skinned with a razor covered in lemon juice. "Okay, no. I'd rather bite through the pain then get stuck in another damn tube. Aspirin, not the freezer." He explained before he hissed sharply.

"This is a bit above common pain killers. I'm applying an opioid, tetrahamizadane, you'll get woozy, maybe a little nauseous," Loading a hypospray with a blue tube, "but your system should adapt to its-"

"Adapt…" Ivan mumbled as he held the hypospray away from his neck firmly, looking particularly cathartic as he turned to the man, "… my god… kinetics aren't the answer! Shit!" He quickly snatched the man's combadge and pressed on it, "Ivan to Picard!"

[][]

Picard stared at the cybernetic humanoid with a mix between curiosity and just a sliver of fear, seeing it visually observing Main Engineering. "I want every sensor on this being while we still have it aboard. From internals to tricorders, give me everything you've got. Mister Worf, use any means necessary to neutralize the invader, avoid close proximity."

Worf progressed from stun then to kill, seeing the creature fall to the floor dead. After it's replacement arrived as Picard was told, Worf tried to stop the newcomer from effecting the ship like its predecessor, only for a small forcefield to appeared in front of its path.

'It's true…' The revelation of it all, not only the Borg, but of Ivan's words overwhelmed him like a child being overcome by a hightide. All the while, the crew around him were gathering valuable information from these… Borg. The components that were harvested from the cadaver and the phantom, alien signal between the individual 'drone' and the ship both before and after its death.

After the drone returned to its vessel, its duty of not only gathering intelligence but disrupting the deflector grid a success, Picard focused every asset on his ship to restore the shields before the Borg Cube was able to apply its own ship-board means of examination. In the mean time, he gathered his senior staff plus Guinan and Ivan.

The two odd additions to the table explained the situation between them to the rest, and with their final suggestions: the El-Aurians, run as far and as fast as they could. The human's, while investigating the ship, they should place transporter inhibitors on several torpedoes before they leave and detonate them in their escape.

"That… would be an inexcusable act of violence." Crusher was barely able to declare.

"Killin' someone before they kill you… and the families aboard? An… inexcusable bit of violence is the only real answer, doc." Ivan was forcing the words out of clenched teeth as the pain only increased moment by moment.

Geordi spoke next, "If we backtrack the signal and manage to communicate with them, we don't have to blow anyone up. I recommend that we-"

"We won't be able to say anythin' of interest to him. It'd be as if someone's chicken sprung up from your dinner plate and started talkin'. Sure, it'd be confusin', but these guys have a certain lack of curiosity of such an event. And if you do manage to crack their hivemind-communication, they'll know and put up somekind of safeguard or outright kill us. They are smarter then you, more teched out, and they know it. 'All war is deception'." Ivan explained with no shortness of breath or lost patience, he barely remembered to quote Sun Tzu.

"We are not at war," Councilor Troi calmly stated, "we only just encountered this species and-"

"Tell that to the thousands of other races, trillions of people they have forced their will upon!" Ivan stood from his chair and slammed his fists into the table. "I will not have this ship and its dull-witted denizens die from a lack of healthy paranoia!" The man sighed, "I'm sorry, I've been neglecting my medication. Please, forgive my outburst, I'll be leavin'." Ivan departed the bridge, leaving for sickbay, then taking the 'suggestion' of taking shelter with the other civilians at Ten-Forward. Finding a comfortable cot, he decided to just take the medication, pass out and hope for the best. What else could he do? He didn't have the technological means of fashioning weapons to defend against bordering actions, nor how to calibrate ship-weapons or defenses. Shit, he didn't even have the physical ability to defend himself.

The only thing he had was knowledge, possibly faulty knowledge and he was never too smart to begin with, so using it wisely wasn't exactly worth putting the chips on the table. The sinking feeling in his gut that telling Picard anything at all probably not only fucked himself but this ship and its crew. Past the typical nerdy sense of wonder, he did in fact owe them a lot for saving his hide.

He took the hypospray and applied it to the right side of his neck. Felt a lot, or entirely unfeeling, different then he would have imagined, thinking it would have been fuzzy, only lightly stimulating the region of its application. There was nothing to feel. Or maybe that was just the painkiller.

[END]

Howdy folks! Making a hybrid between an OC and a Self-Insert. I also had this planned for a Game of Thrones fic calledLiving Saint, but this is unlike the former, as the 'OCs' in Saint effectively possessed the bodies of an already established character. This is far simpler and more difficult all at the same time due to how Ivan is himself from an Alternate Reality, knowing of our Star Trek, all the while being in an Alternate Reality of Star Trek.

I'm making Ivan's journey as difficult as it is unpredictable. I've been kinda disappointed with a lot of the OC stories, so I decided to make my own. These were a combination of many of the promising ones stopping, or the stories I found were unsatisfactory.

I was originally planning of making the Enterprise era to start off my Star Trek AU called Odium, but felt this might be an easier way of segwaying into the fic, alongside this one's different 'eras'.

Review at thy leisure. Don't worry, I can take it ;)