#also 'thistle & weeds' by mumford and sons; very good s2 song.

[landfilloftrash]

It was much like the human task of sewing. Stitching and mending a mangled piece of abused time like a threadbare blanket only to be dissatisfied and start it all anew.

The tear of reality is not quite a sound that can be heard or felt when you’re inside of it’s life giving touch, but to those cursed, blessed, or born into a existence outside of reality’s all encompassing reach, it echoed against your essence. Rippling and panic inducing, if you’re unprepared for it.

Just like fabric.

Figures then that most mortals call it something along those lines; clothes worn by life, the sash that binds, etc.-- or in human vernacular, as he’d been woefully using all too frequently as of late; the fabric of reality.

When it resounded through the Continuum, everyone had paused. New things always drew attention and curiosity, and the fact none of them had done this brought its own wave of questions. Who did that? Was there a Q that cut themselves off? A mortal species, or even just one of their kind, ascending without Their knowledge and had just tried to change something but caused a wound instead?

But no. It was a mortal. Just a mortal. And the curiosity wore off. Oh it’s just one of them.

He hadn’t exactly, well, hidden the burst of bright and loud anger that had ricocheted violently through his dismay before he suddenly was gone-- the rapid undercurrent of panic hastening his movements through the flurry of breaking time.

Because none of them checked which mortal it had been, and how prone he was to causing changes that would ripple across the entire tapestry and timelines.

And this one had been a huge one. A paradox that had crunched reality into a fine paste, unraveling it until it would be a ball of unusable string, locking him in with the rest of the mortals until it was fixed-- as the future that came after it could not be told, and everything that came before suggested nothing that would lead to this.

The very strings of fabric falling apart at their seams, melting and fracturing in equal hearing-splitting measure, and they dismissed it because it was a mortal.

Sure, it would all be rewritten. All start again. The cosmos would be born again and everything that ever was and ever will be will be stitched into a beautiful masterpiece that They would admire— for as long as it was new and different. Reality would fix itself as it always did when confronted with things that didn’t fit it’s intricate embroidery.

But it would do it in a way that removes the things causing it problems. A method the Continuum adopted from the quilt they could interact with, but never truly be apart of, he could only presume. ‘Get rid of it so it was never wanted.’

Aghck-! Damn. Watch your focus, you forsaken fool.

It was almost funny, the irony of showing this one mortal how the tapestry of life was made, connected through intricate threads that could not be severed without changing the whole picture, and yet he did so, uncaring of the consequences until he got there.

And got there he did.

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

The initial tear had been by his renowned mortal Jean-Luc Picard, but every tear after that was by Q himself, trying to fix what he’d helped set in motion.

Ticking clocks mocked him.

Every time the clock’s timer ran out, Renée not talked back into doing the mission, or dying in a multitude of ways gone wrong, the Borg assimilated them all-- conquering the human race for the first time, (as they would have been without his warning over centuries later) the 21st century ICE detained Rios out of the mortals reach, Raffi and Seven arrested and detained, Soong gaining too much ground, Picard dying-- every time they failed, he tore out the lining in the tapestry and started again, cursing it all the while.

They always changed slightly. No two tries were exactly the same, so he’d always have to be ready for the minutiae to shift, for different events, but many things stayed firm. Multiple of these rehashes, he’d told Picard exactly what was happening-- no tricks, no playful words, not even a smidgen. But he refused to listen, claiming him to play tricks and this was just that. A trick.

A trick he says! Like the stars weren’t melting outside of this stitch he was making, sealing it every time they got closer to what they needed, and tore it out to start again when the wrong path started to manifest.

Three days. Over, and over, and over again.

Insanity at the very heart of its definition.

But his game was no longer broad strokes of a brush on a canvas— a trial for all of humanity— but the needlepoint accuracy for one being alone. Someone who’s lining touched so many, would need to continue to intertwine carefully with the loved ones of the future past, and would continue to influence the tapestry if he had any damn say in it; and, oh, look at that-! He did. 

He was almost 100% sure that had he been forced to be a mortal again, (not that he’d ever wish that— not even for—- becoming less than and suddenly so, so hindered was…) right this second, right the very nanosecond he was existing in, that he would have become a semi-decent embroiderer.

Just-- get it right, would you? Then we can all call it a day. I’m bleeding all over this from how much I’ve pricked myself on this darn thing.

Occasionally he did have to drop in so things would stay on course, but that was any good director’s job. Let them play this out. Let them play it out over and over until the final cut, until Jean-Luc learned he was worthy. Someone who was not his father, understanding be damned, and worthy— so so worthy— of love. Most of the time, he didn’t— well— have the time to play the dramatic ‘villain’ of their little escapade; his efforts and energy focused on the tear.  Drama was the heart of how he did things, but saying he was ‘a suture in the wound’ wasn’t... quite the exaggeration he could play it off as. His anger had revealed a shade too close to how invested he was. He was running out of threads to pull from his own pattern, his ‘life-blood’, his very own being to stitch into the gaping wound. In addition, all the repeating the exact same times over and over was almost like a motion sickness, a nausea gripping him as the same seconds ticked by— making him ill. A madness creeping into the very essence of his being and his fervor. He could feel it. His chaos no longer just playful— a very real and diseased part of him, now clawing it’s way into his actions and movements. At this point he should just throw in the towel, accept that reality would rewrite all the offending parties out, destroy the Borg, destroy-- but, what did humans call it? Sunk-cost fallacy? He had put too much effort into it. It was tiring. Too much time into it. They were running out of time. He was running out time.

One more time. I’ll be fine. We’ll get it right this time. Heed the stars, Jean-Luc, mon capitaine, this time, they will lead you home.