Chapter 1: The Q Continuum

Kathryn Janeway and Q had taken shelter behind an old-fashioned sofa in the grand drawing room from Q's colourful representation of the Continuum in the middle of its bloody war. Some sort of Q bullets were destroying the main window with ease, allowing rubble to shower over the pair of them like dust.

Q had taken a hit to the shoulder and was bleeding heavily. Knelt next to him, her head pounding, Kathryn was doing her best to ease the blood loss by using her dress lining as crude bandaging. The fact that he was bleeding worried her immensely. That weapon had seriously wounded a supposedly immortal being. She had no desire to find out what it could do to her.

She ripped another part of the lining from her dress and applied it to the wound on Q's shoulder. He moaned, sounding uncharacteristically weak. Not surprising really, he was in pain. She was no doctor but she knew that much was true.

"Ow." he took a breath, "That hurts!"

"Be still." she instructed.

He lay helplessly looking towards the ceiling. In all his years of existence, he'd never felt something so intense. He'd never felt pain before, not like that. Now he understood why mortal beings found it so unpleasant.

"I never thought a Q could be injured!"

He sighed after she spoke. "As I said, this is only a perception of what is happening."

Kathryn instinctively ducked as a nearby vase shattered.

"I can assure you, those are not mere cannonballs and lead charges being fired at us."

She was rightly horrified. "So, they're some sort of… Q Weapons?!"

He chuckled roughly. That's exactly what they were, brutal weapons created all because one immortal being was so determined to kill another.

As he lay there, it didn't take long for his weakened body to feel something else he was unaccustomed to. Guilt, he felt guilty. He had caused this war. He had been the one who helped Quinn end his life. It was his action which had led to all the killing.

He still stood by that act. He still believed it had been the right thing to do, he just hadn't expected the consequences to be so deadly. Too many Q had been lost and far too many innocent beings had been dragged into the equation.

It had to end. Soon. Of that, he was more than sure.

=/\=

Kathryn had to admit it, she was tired. No, not tired, shattered. She'd just lugged Q's unconscious body to a war camp to get him to safety, if you could call it safety, and only now was she able to take a moment to breathe. It had been an awfully long day.

Taking a deep breath, her mind wandered back to the last time she'd been in the Continuum. It had been a simple, dusty road in the middle of a dessert. Nothing more. No one talked, no one moved, there was no fighting and certainly no death. She wished more than anything it could still be like that.

The other things on her mind was her ship and crew. They were somewhere in space, likely millions of light years away, possibly in another level of reality, trying to evade massive supernovas which were slowly destroying them. She longed to be back there, back with her colleagues, back with her friends, back with Chakotay.

Her eyes fluttered closed for a long moment.

Chakotay.

He'd been her First Officer for the past three years, her friend and closest advisor for the majority of that time too. However, only four short months before, he became far much more than that.

She'd been worried at first, worried to allow herself to succumb to her feelings. Firstly, there was Mark. She didn't really expect him to wait for her – for all he knew, she was dead. However, part of her was worried that she was still breaking the vow she made to him the day she said yes to his proposal. Then there was actually allowing herself to become involved with a member of her crew. In her eyes, it had been a breach of protocol, simply unacceptable given her position. It had taken her a long time to realise they were in a rather unique situation. After all, she wasn't allowing their relationship to affect her command of the ship. The Command Team were stronger than ever and she had no intentions of letting that change.

She just wanted to go back to Voyager, back to Chakotay, back home. It was certainly a hell of a lot safer than where she currently was.

The fighting had stopped for the moment, giving Kathryn time to try and relax, ironic given the situation. She wasn't sure it was possible to relax in the middle of a warzone.

With a soft sigh, she rolled back her shoulders before glancing towards Q. He was her main concern. Without a second thought, she made her way over to the small campfire and collected some water from the pot. Back at his side, she then dabbed it across his feverish skin.

Q awoke suddenly as the feeling. "Where are we?"

"One of your faction's encampments." she answered.

He was shocked to say the least. The last thing he remembered was being in the house under intense fire after refusing to stand down.

"How?" he asked.

"I pulled you out of the mansion and managed to hide you from the enemy patrols. Then I spotted some of your people retreating from the battle."

Kathryn slowly glanced around the forest. Dozens lay on the dusty floor, something sporting injuries far more severe than others.

"From the look of them, I'd say you're not on the winning side."

Q looked up at her and gripped her hand. "You saved my life." he met her eye, "Thank-you."

=/\=

An unknown amount of time had passed when Q awoke. His head turned slowly and he saw Kathryn sleeping soundly not too far away. He was unaccustomed to sleeping; it was something completely alien. He would be glad to return to his natural form in order to avoid the need to do so, preferably sooner rather than later.

Q couldn't understand her refusal to mate with him. It would be a chance of a lifetime, to have a child with a Q. Why she didn't agree with that, he really didn't know.

He slowly crawled over to her, smiling softly at how peaceful she looked. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to thank her enough for what she'd done. He knew he wouldn't be alive if it weren't for her. He had to find a way to thank her for that, he just had to.

Without thinking, he picked up her hand and sandwiched it in between his. It took a moment before he saw her flinch as a glow from his powers ran from his hands and up her arm. Once it had dissipated, he looked over her body.

Nothing happened.

He shrugged his shoulders, flinching at the pain the movement caused.

"Maybe we just aren't compatible."

With a sigh, he lay back down and leant his head on the rock. In the silence of the cease fire, he took the chance to look up at the stars above. It was serene. For a moment, just a single moment, he could see why so many species valued the time they could look up at the stars. It was a moment of pure peace, simply divine.

Q decided he liked the peace. He liked the serenity. Maybe it was time to end the war after all.