The Contradiction – You Should Not Exist – Star Trek Fanfiction (The Reality Paradox #3)

                                                    

I laughed at the thought of Q caring about reality. Did he even live in reality? Based on everything I had ever read about him, the Q Continuum sounded like the farthest thing from it.

We were still sitting around the bronze alloy table inside the structure Q had rebuilt after I demolished it. I crossed my arms and met his gaze.

“Since when did you care what reality does?”

He scoffed and stood up abruptly.

“Of course I care about reality.”

He straightened out his Starfleet uniform.

“Especially when I can’t control it.”

I looked toward Aura and, if she were capable of displaying emotion, I imagined she looked just as perplexed as I felt.

We both returned our attention to Q.

Aura spoke first.

“Your previous behavioral patterns suggested omnipotent environmental control. Current statements appear contradictory.”

Q tilted his head slightly.

“Oh, there it is again. That delightful little habit of yours.”

He stepped closer to Aura, studying her with unusual interest.

“You observe contradictions. You catalog behavioral deviation. You identify uncertainty.”

His expression softened almost imperceptibly.

“And yet you still don’t feel any of it.”

Aura remained motionless.

Q slowly circled the table around us.

“Do you know what makes moments like this unbearable for your organic companions?”

He gestured vaguely toward me.

“Fear. Doubt. Wonder. The terrifying realization that the universe may no longer obey the rules they trusted.”

He stopped pacing as he reached her again, rested his hand on the table, and looked directly into her eyes.

“You process it like a sensor log.”

A faint grin returned.

“Honestly, Aura, it’s tragic.”

She turned her head toward me.

“I do not believe Captain Kelly considers it tragic.”

I simply shook my head, waiting to see where he was going with this.

He stepped around her until he was standing directly beside me. He leaned down far too close to my face.

“Our dear captain here doesn’t even know what’s happening around her yet.”

He chuckled, straightened back upright, and crossed his arms.

“Don’t you want to think for yourself for once?”

I didn’t even give Aura an opportunity to respond. I slammed my hand against the table and stood to meet his gaze.

“You’re going around in circles again, Q. Get to the point.”

He threw his arms into the air, mild frustration crossing his face as he stepped away to pace the room.

“Maybe I was wrong about you. I thought for certain by now you would have a better grasp on things.”

I rolled my eyes.

He noticed immediately and walked right back toward me.

“You have no idea what you are, captain. You continue through things that should have stopped existing.”

He jabbed a finger directly into my chest.

“YOU should not exist.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“EOS Prospera?”

He shook his head.

“Tsk, tsk. You really must stop thinking so linearly, captain.”

I started sounding more frustrated.

“None of what you say is linear.”

He smiled and clapped his hands together sarcastically.

“Exactly, mon capitaine.”

For once, I felt like I actually understood the words coming out of his mouth.

I slowly sat back down at the table as I started running everything through my mind from the moment Q first appeared aboard the USS Cairo.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him studying me intently. Like he was digging deeper into my thoughts than even I could.

I forced myself to ignore him and focus on what I already knew. I shut my eyes and allowed the thoughts to overtake me.

The first time I saw Q wasn’t the first time he saw me.

He had said he sensed my presence at Deep Space Nine and wanted to learn more about me.

Then he showed me those past memories.

Of course.

He was Q. He could revisit different moments in time whenever he wanted to.

If reality was changing around me, then it had started long before Q ever intervened.

I opened my eyes and nearly jumped when I realized Q was now sitting directly beside me, nose to nose again.

I instinctively leaned backward.

“Do you have to be so close, Q?”

“My apologies, captain. I become a little excited when a human approaches the edge of epiphany.”

I smiled hesitantly and immediately noticed some of his excitement begin to fade.

I gestured with my hands for him to steady himself.

“Now just hold on, Q.”

I paused, gathering my thoughts.

He leaned back in his chair, amusement returning to his expression.

“If what you’re saying is true… if reality has been changing around me because of me…”

I paused briefly for dramatic effect.

“Then all those events you showed us were supposed to have different outcomes, but reality was forced to change because of me?”

He smiled a little too enthusiastically and once again clapped his hands sarcastically.

“Yes, my dear captain. Like I have repeatedly told you—”

I raised my hand to cut him off.

“Enough with the theatrics, Q. This is a lot to process.”

He stopped clapping and smirked as he watched the gears turning inside my head.

“For you, my dear, it really shouldn’t be.”

I frowned at him before looking toward Aura, who had also been studying me carefully. It almost looked as though she had just completed a series of calculations before noticing I was watching her.

“Captain… I believe I have identified the common variable.”

Q chuckled, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms behind his head.

“Wonderful. Nothing reassures me more than hearing cosmic revelations delivered with the emotional range of a tricorder.”

I gestured toward him dismissively.

“Aura, please continue.”

“The plasma relay failure aboard the USS Rutledge should have resulted in a cascade breach.”

She paused.

“It did not.”

Then she looked toward Q.

“The Rutledge red alert incident under Captain Maxwell resulted in a statistically improbable tactical resolution.”

She turned her attention back to me.

“Again… centered around your presence.”

I waved it off dismissively.

“Coincidences happen.”

“EOS Prospera did not teach you to alter reality... It recognized that you already could.”

My eyes widened as her final sentence struck me on multiple levels.

If reality had been forced to change around me, then that would explain why EOS Prospera considered me a threat.

It would explain all the messages.

YOU ARE NOT WHERE YOU SHOULD BE.

What it didn’t explain was the colonists.

“If EOS Prospera was truly threatened by me, then what about the colonists? Why didn’t reality change to save them?”

Out of my peripheral vision, I could see Q looking almost giddy watching the conversation unfold.

Aura continued.

“Your influence does not create impossibilities from nothing.”

“It appears to amplify pathways your mind already perceives as achievable.”

She must have noticed I was still questioning her internally.

“You could not save them because part of you had already accepted they were gone.”

Great.

So if I had truly believed they could be saved, maybe things would have been different.

I lowered my gaze toward the table, sadness beginning to settle in.

“Relax, captain.”

Q’s tone unexpectedly softened.

“There was nothing you could have done for the colonists’ fate. By the time you realized what you had gotten yourselves into, EOS Prospera was already too vast, too entrenched… and the colonists were far too intertwined with it.”

Still leaning back in his chair, he raised his eyes toward the ceiling and slowly shook his head.

I turned to face him fully.

“What about the anomaly, Q? You did that. You were there.”

Q immediately sat upright and leaned forward until his face was directly in front of mine once again.

“Au contraire, captain. Merely being present does not mean I altered reality.”

He straightened slightly and examined his fingernails with entirely too much self-importance.

“Though most of the time, I certainly could have… if I wished to.”

It was difficult believing almost anything Q said.

But beneath his theatrics, I could sense something else in his words.

Tension.

Almost fear.