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Picard could sense they were close to the end of their journey, Q and him. Picard had worked hard to change the past, to keep the future and present intact, and to save humanity. As he stood across from his greatest enemy, the biggest threat to his and his crews' life he couldn’t help but think about him as also the person who helped him time and time again. His methods were unorthodox this was true, and it at times caused lives to be lost and unforgivable crimes to happen that Picard would never fully recover from, but he believed Q when he said that he thought of him as a friend and he believed him when he stood across from him and did as close to an exclamation of pride as Q had ever gotten as he said that he believed in the human race, in Picard, even if the other Q didn’t. Picard reflected how bittersweet it was, all the times he demanded Q get off his ship and nowhere Q was, willing to walk out just like that, with a promise or a warning he was unsure which that he would see him out there. Picard saw him go to do his classic snap, saw the hesitance in Q’s body and Picard stepped forward and said: “don’t go.” Q didn’t go, he turned around and answered the unspoken question “you are an anomaly in and of yourself mon Capitan. You beseech me to leave your presence when I don’t want to and now you are telling me not to go. I wish I could bring myself to read your mind because you do the impossible, you make me nervous, and not like the oh you can hurt me, I know you don’t have the power to do that physically or mentally, but the type of nervousness I have seen your engineer express around women. I don’t want to be the one to say it, I think my actions prove better than words.”Picard closed his eyes as he said “you are dangerous Q, I keep fighting with myself, going back and forth between want and desire and practicality. I never even liked men before you, I still don’t.’ He opened his eyes and look at Q as he continued, “What I do like is you, for all the problems and issues you have, all the complaints and insults you have thrown at me, I like that you have a code. That you are dedicated to your people, that you are dedicated to me and the human race, I just can’t shake the analogy that Data had proposed, that to you we are nothing but pets but I want to believe that after everything we have been through that has changed. I can’t tell you how I feel because it isn’t one emotion.”Q was face to face with Picard in an instant, pushing him up against the wall with his mouth so close to him that just moving caused their lips to brush and Q looked into Picard's eyes with an exciting and dangerous fire in them as he said “trust me you are not a pet to me, that is definitely not what I feel for you, especially right now.” Picard's breath caught, stuck between desire and terror as he wondered if it would always be like this if he continued down this path if he would ever find peace. Q pulled away and paced as he said: “I know you are worried, about my powers, your ship, your crew your mortality, I wish I could answer your questions but I think we are both tired of time travel?” Picard had to smile at that as he nodded and Q continued. “What I do know is that I will let you do whatever you want, I find myself unable to let you die but if you asked me that I would restrain myself, as long as afterward, I could have you. I don’t know if this is love, it’s not normal for Q to have feelings like this so I have no one to ask or fall back on. All I know is you do things that we Q never thought you could and it astounds me, you are able to surprise an omnipotent entity, a god and you don’t even know how special or rare that is, especially in your um limited species. I want to promise you the universe but I know you won’t take it, what I will promise is forever, however long that is be it tomorrow or the next day or eternity, I will care for you, Jean Luc Picard. There I have said it, I hope you can feel the same despite our past.”Picard thought for a moment, caught off guard by this honest and frank Q, openly sharing his feelings with him and Picard struggled to return the favor, unused to raw emotion, to used to being guarded and thinking about what he said. He struggled but tried valiantly as he said “you have done some truly horrible things Q, almost killed me on many an occasion and succeeded in killing a lot of my crew over the years. I can’t reconcile that yet, but I am willing to forgive if you can promise me to not interfere with the natural order of things ever again. Eternity will have to be a discussion for another day, after seeing my future and the past I am not ready to think about my death, I want to just live in the present, exploring and finding new civilizations. I must confess you are present in my dreams of the future, I know since I have changed some things not everything in the future could happen but I know for a fact I want you there. I won’t tell you what you are feeling, it sounds like love but our mutual attraction could just be that an attraction, nothing deeper than that. I astound you with my will to fight you at every turn and you fascinate the scholar in me with your knowledge that I could spend hours listening to. What I will tell you though is that I believe that we love each other, and I am game if you are to take a chance and see what happens, together.”
Q came back to Picard, and that was the only thing Picard needed to take that final chance, to kiss Q and give himself to the wonderment and magic that is love. He couldn’t trust Q yet, wasn’t even sure that he loved him for sure but it was his duty to explore and it was in his nature to find out where this journey leads.