The Time Traveller And Her Father, Chapter 1

Posted on Jan 05, 2020 @ 3:13am by Ambassador Xana Bonviva
Edited on on Jan 05, 2020 @ 3:14am

Mission: Last Days of Empire

"THE TIME TRAVELER AND HER FATHER"


PROLOGUE
-------------
Location: Space Bubble in the Cosmos
Time: Q is ?


Q sat in a bubble in time, encased in a nebula, surrounded various scrolls, wooden etchings, stone tablets, books, PADDs, and bubbles with thoughts. Twirling his index finger up in the air he muttered, “Yes, yes, I know. It all has to be done. But what if I don’t want it to be done?”

Randomly selecting a book, he opened it up to a page in the middle, read it and flung it off to the other end of the cosmos. “I don’t feel like going to Pisa today.” He selected a stone tablet as if it were no heavier than a macaroon and shoved it to another end of the cosmos. “Kahless the Unforgettable can also be Kahless the Bore.” Picking up items in no particular order he read and dismissed each out of hand. “Boring. Trite. Overdone. And I promised myself I would not be a slug again anytime soon; way too hard to get the pounds off.”

Finally a PADD caught his eye and Q read it. “This just happened,” he mused. “And yet it’s time to go back. I don’t want to go back. But a promise is a promise, even if made to King Solomon.”

Standing up, Q dusted off invisible bits of nebula and smiled. “Well at least she won’t expect me in that stuffy Starfleet uniform.” Then he lifted his fingers and snapped them, leaving his accouterments floating away.

*************************


Location: VULCAN
Time: Dahlia is 12; Xana is 41


The day before Dahlia’s twelfth birthday things went sideways faster than usual and never quite came back..

First, her mother picked her up from school; that alone was *weird*. Her mother, was a fairly successful politician and Ambassador and always busy, and almost never picked her up from school unless she was sick. And Dahlia wasn’t sick.

But there her mother was waiting for her after school, standing in the lobby, in her immaculate red “power” suit, her white hair pulled into a sleek twist.

“Mom?!” Dahlia hissed as she left her friends and went speed walking to her mother, who was nonchalantly reading a PADD in the lobby of the school. When her mother looked up, the teen girl gave her mother a look but clearly that wasn’t enough. “What are you doing here?”

Xana Bonviva smiled as she looked at her daughter. “I thought I’d pick you up?”

Dahlia curled her lip up in horror. “Why?”

Motioning for her to follow her, Dahlia waved off her friends and slunk off behind her mother, her large black books making “clomp-clomp” sounds on the dark stone tiles of the Vulcan school she currently attended. Walking slightly off to the side of her mother, Dahlia stole occasional glances at her mother who, from time to time, stole glances back.

So weird.

Finally Dahlia followed her mother into the sandcruiser, and the young woman watched as her mother piloted them away from the school towards the beach. Finally her mother landed the sandcruiser on a secluded part of the beach and motioned for Dahlia to get out. Sighing at the inevitable sand that was about to get everywhere, the girl in black got out of the sand cruiser and followed her mother close to the water’s edge.

They stood at the shore, mother and daughter, gazing out over the water, so close they could touch hands, but not. Her mother, having left her heels in the cruiser stepped into the gentle surf. Dahlia did not follow her. She still wore her black boots, coated with sand … disgustingly so. Abruptly, her mother said, “You know, I told your father I was pregnant on a beach similar to this one.”

Dahlia looked over at her mother; at 12 she was close to her mother’s height. “A holoprogram?”

“No,” Xana smiled as she thought back. “There’s a planet that the GATE orbits. We went there for a picnic.”

A little nugget that she had never known, or perhaps had known and had forgotten. The rest she did know. Dahlia sighed. That was her life; to look like a blue Gene McInnis but to only have nuggets of memory parceled out. “He was so happy you and he were going to have a baby he started to yell,” she supplied, theatrically bored. She was a devastating mimic. When her mother looked at her, the young girl shrugged. “I know the rest of the story.”

Dahlia watched her mother, who was staring at her before turning back out to the ocean for a long time, and the young Bolian/Bajoran/Human woman sighed looking around as well. Just as she was about to ask something she heard her mother say, “There’s another story from when I was pregnant that I haven’t told you. One about a decision that your father and I made for you.”

The young girl rolled her eyes. She knew all the stories about her father, and even if she wanted them, she couldn’t *feel* them. They were no more than just that -- stories. Still her mother had to be wrong; she knew everything at this point about her father. “Really? You just remembered something now about Dad that you never told me?”

Xana Bonviva looked over. “No, I never said that. I’ve always known this, I chose not to tell you until now.”

“Oh,” Dahlia said quietly. “Well then why wait? What did you and Dad decide?”

“The decision wasn’t completely in our hands,” Xana explained as she turned to her daughter. Holding up her hands in a bid for patience she said, “You have to understand that there's someone else you need to be aware of.”

“Who? Jake?” Dahlia asked.

“No,” Xana said shaking her head. “Q.”

=/\=

Location: VULCAN
Scene: Vulcan Academy of Science Library
Time: Dahila is 13, Q is ?


A year and a day later, on her thirteenth birthday, Dahlia Alix Bonviva-McInnis glared out a window in the Vulcan Academy of Science Library ostensibly doing homework. And she was. Kinda. Mostly. Within reason.

Her uncle, on her mother’s side, was an adjunct professor here, which is why as a 13 year old Bolian/Bajoran/Human she was able to use the library; she was relatively quiet and respectful which is why the librarians kept letting her come back. Even if she did get quite a few stares with her buzz cut hair and chains rattling around her waist as she moved around the library, eventually the teen girl became a fixture. But not quite invisible.

Settling down at a table in an alcove, she pulled up the terminal to check her messages. She saw plenty from all of her grandparents. Multiple marriages by her mother meant multiple grandparents. Sighing, she scrolled through them and figured she’d get back to them. Nothing from her stepfather, which was typical. Despite the whole “the divorce changes nothing,” she still didn’t hear from him, even though her mother made *her* send a message every week.

Then again, it’s not like Jake had ever sent messages a ton before, so maybe this was not a change. Dahlia frowned at the terminal; maybe she did want a change.

SNAP

“A change? Did someone want a change? Just so happens I specialize in changes.”

Dahlia looked up to see a tall Human man sitting at the edge of the table next to her terminal. His dark hair was pushed back from his forehead, and he had a twinkle in his green eyes. Dressed in a relaxed cargo pants, white shirt and fashionable brown bomber jacket he said, “Where are we going? One must always dress the part. I just got back from the Renaissance, did a little painting with Leo but say the word and we could go fighting with Kahless, but really he is quite boring despite the PR campaign--”

“Who are you?” Dahlia hissed; all the while looking at him while darting her golden eyes around trying to figure out why there wasn’t a librarian ready to shush them. In fact, she noticed, nobody seemed to be moving at all.

The man looked simultaneously annoyed and surprised at that. “My impudent child--”

“I’m 13!”

“You are nothing more than a twinkle in the universe,” the man pointed out. “And I am Q.”

Dahlia exhaled at that, remembering the conversation the beach from a year ago. Suddenly phrases likejoint custody and annoying omnipotent beingcame rushing back to her. “Oh. My mom was right.”

“Even someone who talks as much as your mother is bound to be right every so often,” Q agreed sadly. “Not often, but occasionally. Anyway then I take it that you don’t need to go over the terms and conditions as set forth by your parental units 13 years ago?”

Dahlia thought about what her mother had told her months ago wading in the surf. Q would show up when he wanted; they could not control that. Up until Dahlia was 18, Q could pop in and out of Dahlia’s life, but Dahlia would have a say in where they were going; at 18 then Dahlia would have more of a say if she wanted this to continue. But Q did have to be responsible for her; he could not act capriciously. He had to look out for her physical and emotional well-being. It was a true joint-custody.

And there was one more thing: Xana knew one of the places Dahlia was going to go, but she wouldn’t tell Dahlia where that was.

The only advice her mother had given her was: keep it simple and specific.

“I know the terms and conditions. I’m not a child,” Dahlia insisted.

Q smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. Now onto important things. I shall be kind and benevolent: where do you want to go? I shall even acquiesce. Means, I agree.”

Dahlia thought about it, ignoring Q’s condescension for the moment. Her mother knew where she was going. Knew without doubt. She didn’t want to see her mother; she saw her every day. Quite honestly, her mother got on her nerves. She’d say she’d want to see her stepfather but secretly she feared he didn’t want her anymore.

“I want to see my father. For real,” Dahlia said, realizing what her mother had worked so hard not to say. Looking Q in the eye, she clarified, “Like the way I’m seeing you. Not a holoprogram, not his grave, but the way you and I are right now.”

Q studied her for a moment. “Gene McInnis will never be like *me* so get those thoughts out of your head, for I am Q.” Sighing he stood up and said, “But very well I believe I understand well enough your request. You want to see Gene McInnis when he was alive.”

Dahlia nodded.

The omnipotent, omniscient being held up a hand. “I hate boilerplate mumbo jumbo--”

“Is that even a technical term?” the teenager asked.

“Yes, and so is ‘be careful what you wish for.’ Now stop interrupting,” Q pouted. “But it has to be done. Going into the past is not a holoprogram. It’sreal. That means there are rules for you silly liquid beings. You do not get to change the past. It’s there for a reason. Even the smallest things matter. You won't be there forever, when I say we’re leaving we’re leaving. And this one is important: You’re not saving anyone.”

Dahlia was quiet for a long time. “I know my father is dead. He might have always been dead, he died right before I was 2. I just...I don’t even know what his voice sounded like, you know?”

Q sighed and winced. “Sadly, having met your father, I do know what his voice sounded like.” Opening up his eyes he said, “Are you agreed on the rules?”

“I agree on the rules--”

By the time she finished saying the word “rules” Dahlia was no longer sitting in the Vulcan Academy of Sciences Library, but was sitting in the middle of a field on BAJOR.

And there was no Q to be found.

“Shit,” she muttered.

********************************
********************************