This is in answer to Alara's challenge to write either a believable
story where Q travels back in time and impregnates a Mary Sue -- or
a parody of the same plot.  Naturally, I felt a bounden duty to
answer this challenge.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make up my mind
what particular story I wanted to write.  So I chose them all.  :)


Mary Que's Baby, by Mercutio (mercutio@europa.com)



The writer sat at her desk, staring at her computer.  How to write
her current story.  That was her dilemma.  Should it be funny? 
Serious?  Outrageously funny?

She had the plot -- that was simple enough.  Q travels back through
time and has a child with -- ahem -- a character who might be
mistaken for the writer herself if the reader were unperceptive
enough to imagine that she would ever be guilty of such an obvious
and juvenile mistake.

Of course not.

The writer turned back to her screen.  How about this as a start
for the story?

     The musty smell of old books filled the air in what was,
     after all, a reasonably modern bookstore.

     Jenny sipped her latte, then set the paper cup down on a
     book shelf as she reached for a particularly interesting
     red binding.  It didn't really matter what the book
     itself was -- she was more interesting in the
     craftmanship that had gone into making the book.  You
     didn't see that kind of care much anymore.

     Just as she opened the book, she heard a discreet cough
     behind her.  The aisles of the bookstore were too narrow
     to permit both browsing and walking -- she must be in the
     way.

     Automatically, she said, "Excuse me," turning to smile
     apologetically at whoever was trying to get past her.

     And was transfixed by the tall, handsome man who stood
     there smiling back at her.


No, no, no.  That was all wrong.  The writer deleted the half-page. 
Way too serious and dull.  The story would go on for pages and
nothing would happen, and then finally they'd have sex, and it'd
take forever to write.  Not worth it.

No, the story needed to be funny -- amusing.  What if...?

     Q was bored.

     What had happened to his rakehell playboy days?  When he
     had slept his way through Starfleet, seducing captains
     right and left?  When he had been the terror of millions
     and loathed by all?

     What had happened to those good old days?

     His partner plopped the baby down on his lap.  "Here, you
     play with the little demon child.  I have a life of my
     own, you know.  I'd like to go out and rearrange the
     galaxy once in a while, too."

     While she screamed, nagged and otherwise harassed him about
     sticking her with all the childcare and not letting her have
     a life, Q let his mind wander.  What if he could disappear for
     a while?  Take a trip someplace -- perhaps 20th century Earth
     -- have a little fun with the natives.

     He glanced down at the baby, who was even now attempting to
     reduce the protoplasm of his hand into its component atoms.

     Anything.  Anything but this.


Well, that was a potential storyline, the writer admitted
grudgingly.  It had the right tone, lots of potential conflict --
but she didn't much care for the notion of Q committing adultery
and running out on his son.  It was silly -- after all, the Q could
hardly be said to have morals in the same sense that humans did --
but it was nonetheless a problem.  However attractive it might be
to do something that actually took "The Q and the Grey" into
account.

So, what else was there?

     Q skipped merrily through the cosmos, wearing a red velvet
     lounging robe -- with nothing on underneath it -- and singing
     a cheery tune.

     "Oh, he's making a list, he's checking it twice -- gonna find
     out who's naughty and nice, Santa Q's coming to Earth.  He
     screws you when you're sleeping, he leaves when you're awake. 
     He knows if you've been bad or good, so be bad for badness'
     sake."


She deleted that one before she'd even started on the third
paragraph.  As attractive as a "Plot? What plot?" kind of story
might seem, she had the feeling that her audience would flee
screaming before she even got to the part about the horny reindeer.

No, there had to be some sort of middle ground between serious and
utterly silly.

     Mercana (note the cute, non-Mary Sue form of the name) looked
     down at her eight-month-old son, Zacharias, then back up at
     the so-called omnipotent entity standing before her.

     "You expect me to believe that he's really *your* son?" she
     asked, clasping her child to her protectively.  "Look, I may
     have just moved to New York just a year and a half ago, and
     maybe the apartment building wasn't the nicest, but you can't
     really believe everything you hear about witchcraft and
     cannibalism -- I mean, don't you think that kind of
     superstition is extremely insulting to Wiccans, not to mention
     the gastronomically challenged?"

     "Don't you remember," he asked mysteriously, "that evening,
     last February, when little Zacharias was conceived?  Didn't
     anything seem perhaps a little *unusual* about it?"

     "I resent the tone of your remark.  My husband's no Clarence
     Thomas, but just because he's usually passive in bed doesn't
     mean that a little beast-like behavior on his part is anything
     out of the ordinary."

     "Oh, come now, Mercut-- I mean, Mercana.  Didn't you notice
     the scratches on your body the next morning?  Didn't you
     suspect a supernatural presence?"

     "So maybe the sex was a little better than normal.  So what?"

     "You mean, you never realized that your son's real name was--"
     he paused dramatically, "*Adrian*?"


Or maybe there didn't have to be a middle ground.  Besides, it was
most likely that no one had seen "Rosemary's Baby" anyway.  She
deleted that approach too, even though she'd rather liked the
heroine.  A bit too obvious on the Mary Sue aspect there, but hey
-- if she'd written that one it would have been a parody anyway. 
And the world needed more smart, sassy heroines to befuddle its
heroes.

What if she could combine a smart, sassy heroine with some sort of
hurt/comfort thing?  Maybe throw in some sort of caveat about Q
having lost his powers and being stuck on Earth working for the
U.S. government as a physicist... Naturally there would need to be
a Mary Sue... er, a sassy smart woman there to take charge of him
and run his life for him.  Hmm...

     Q stared at the wall of his spartan government-issued
     apartment.  Life was so dull here.  The FBI agents guarding
     him, led by Assistant Director Ohmura, were so boring and
     stodgy -- when they weren't trying to kill him, naturally. 
     And no one here had half enough brain to understand any of the
     many brilliant concepts from theoretical physics that he was
     so ready and willing to bestow upon them.

     There was a knock on the door.  Q waved his hand at it.  "Come
     in."

     "I can't," said a muffled voice from the other side.  "It's
     locked."

     He got up and went to the door, opening it.  "Oh, yes.  I'd
     forgotten about manual locks.  How menial."

     The person on the other side was a small, red-headed pixie. 
     "I've come to make your life wonderful."

     "Really?" Q asked in a bored tone of voice.  "How are you with
     installing cable?"


Nah.  She'd already done that storyline two or three times. 
Borrr-ing.  Maybe she should go with her previous instinct and just
abandon the idea of plot altogether -- she was good at silly.

     "Brr-inggg.  Brr-inggg.  Brr-inggg."

     The doorbell continued to ring incessantly.  Someone must be
     really leaning on it.

     She hurried to the door and opened it to a tall dark stranger
     holding a clipboard.  "Yes?"

     He tipped his hat to her.  "Ma'am, I'm here to impregnate
     every female on Earth between the ages of 18 and 37, and
     you're number 10,062.  Can I come in?"

     "Well, I do have a Tupperware party going on right now...
     could you come back later?"

     He consulted his clipboard.  "Alara Rogers, Jeanita Danzik and
     Ruth Gifford?"

     "Why, yes.  How did you know?"

     "They're numbers 21,575, 32,888 and 15,774 on my list
     respectively.  If you don't mind, I'd like to come in now --
     it'd save a lot of time if I could do all four of you at
     once."

     "Well, I suppose.  But you're going to have to at least buy a
     bowl."


No, no, scratch that.  Delete!

She sighed heavily and put her head in her hands.  This was going
nowhere.  She was never going to be able to think of a good plot
that she could stand to turn into a full-length story.  She was
doomed.  If she didn't come up with a good, funny story to meet the
story challenge, she wasn't going to be able to hold up her head in
front of the other writers.  She'd get teased on the playground. 
It'd be horrible.  What was she going to do?

A hand came down to rest on her shoulder, and a man bent down over
her, holding her from behind.  "Why don't you leave it for tonight,
darling?" he urged.  "You've put enough thought into it.  Come to
bed; it'll look better in the morning."

"Yes, I suppose you're right," she said, turning the computer off
and standing up before following Q to bed.


-the end-