I want to emphasize that this is a work of fiction.  I have no idea
how these people really behave; the whole idea behind writing this
came from a conversation between myself and Alara where we agreed
that one of the better crew-cast crossovers would be during a Q
episode where the crew, spotting John de Lancie on set, would
immediately assume that he was Q and playing his usual games with
them.  And the recent episode, "Death Wish", only made it that much
funnier and more up-to-date.

You can find this document on my FTP site at ftp.europa.com, in the
directory /outgoing/mercutio/alt.fan.q, or through the WWW, at
http://www.europa.com/~mercutio/Q.html


Visit to the Weirdest Planet -- Earth by Mercutio
(mercutio@europa.com)


John de Lancie sat in the chair, one long leg crossed over the
other in as relaxed position as he could get into, running his
lines.  He wasn't due on for another hour yet, but there was
nothing else to do, short of wandering off the set and getting a
drink.  Which unfortunately, was not going to be terribly feasible
with him decked out as a Starfleet captain.  Someone was bound to
notice.

"Admiral," a deep voice said, almost in his ear.

He looked up, a little annoyed.  "What?"

"You're supposed to be dressed as an admiral," the floor manager
said, a scowl on his face.  He consulted the inch-thick shooting
schedule.  "Somebody get wardrobe out here!"

De Lancie sighed and looked back down at the script.  Another two
hours in costuming.  And for what?  And extra little button on his
throat that no one would ever notice.

"What?"  Wardrobe appeared, in the person of a brown-haired,
harried-looking elf.

"Why is he wearing a captain's uniform?  The schedule clearly calls
for an admiral's uniform!"  The floor manager's face was turning
red, and he towered over the much shorter costumer.

She didn't appear to be intimidated.  "I've got the same info you
do, Charley, and it says captain's."

"Admiral."

"Captain."

"Admiral!"

"Captain!"  The wardrober stalked off, following by the still
gesticulating floor manager.

De Lancie sighed, but didn't look up.  They'd be back.  And by
then, shooting would have been pushed back *another* hour.  He was
never going to get home tonight.

"Q!"

If the voice hadn't been so familiar, he wouldn't have reacted,
just on principle.  But he and Kate Mulgrew were good friends,
which unfortunately gave her something of a right to tweak him on
being in character.

"Kate!" he replied in the same tone of voice, looking up.  She was
in costume, and followed by Robert Beltran and the other fellow
whose name he could never remember.  Another Robert, or Andrew or
something.

She walked up to him.  "What's all this about, Q?"  Janeway,
Chakotay and Paris had been beaming back to Voyager.  They'd
stepped off of the transporter pad into a confusing barrage of
lights and people, something completely unexpected.  Her first
instinct had been to move, to get out of there, and that choice had
led them past jumbled pieces of something which looked like, but
wasn't, a disassembled starship.  But as soon as she saw Q, she
knew exactly what was going on.

De Lancie was sure that he knew what was going on.  Kate was
twitting him again, improvising in character, twitting him on his
best known and least favorite role.  But he could give as good as
he got.  "My dear Kate, *whatever* do you mean?"

Her expression didn't change at all.  "You have something to do
with this.  Is this what you meant by becoming a dissident?  To
harass people who've never done anything to you?  I'm disappointed
in you, Q."

It took him a moment to fit that in with who Q was supposed to be
and what the character was doing.

"You're disappointed?  You're not the one who was spurned and
rejected," he said lightly, hoping to get a rise of her.

It didn't seem to work, and for a moment, De Lancie wondered if
Kate had been replaced by some sort of doppelganger.

****

"Let's take this scene again.  Kate, try not to laugh this time,
all right?" the director said in long-suffering tones.

Mulgrew nodded, and bit her lip.  She'd already spoiled two takes,
and she was quite sorry about that even though she couldn't help
herself.  She just couldn't *not* laugh, no matter how much time it
was wasting or how much money it was costing.

She could feel the Roberts' disapproval strongly from behind her,
even though they weren't saying anything.  Neither of them really
shared the joke, although Roxana was also struggling not to laugh.

They all assumed the position, and waited.

Mulgrew felt the lights get hotter and resisted the urge to wipe
her forehead.  She wasn't going to ruin this take.

Then she felt a brief moment of dizzying disorientation and the
lights went out.

She stood there in the blackness, hoping Rich wouldn't hold this
one against her.  It was hardly her fault the power had gone out. 
It wasn't particularly funny either.

Then her eyes adjusted to the relative gloom of the room.  She was
standing in the exact same position she had been before the lights
had gone out.

But the lights hadn't gone out.  It was just darker here than it
had been there.  Here?  There?  Mulgrew blinked, but couldn't deny
what she was seeing.  There were no lights shining hotly down on
her, no forest of cameramen and cables, no blinking red "Exit"
sign.

She wasn't on the set anymore.  She was on the starship Voyager.

Mulgrew went over her lines from a previous episode in a low voice. 
They seemed to fit right about now.  And very certainly no one was
going to yell at her for spoiling the take.  "Imagine for a moment
that you could travel forward in time, and that you're on a
starship, 14,000 light years from Earth."  They didn't seem any
more believable now than when she'd spoken them in that episode. 
Of course, she hadn't been required to *believe* them then.  She
went to her next line.  "This is a very vivid dream you're having."

Unfortunately that didn't sound any more believable.  Because this
was definitely *not* a dream.

"Captain?" a female voice asked from in front of her.

"Yes, what is it?" she answered automatically.  This all went
easier if she *didn't* imagine it were really happening.  If she
pretended it were an actual episode which she'd lost the script
for, she could almost handle it.

If you didn't count the lack of bright lights shining down on her,
no cameras anywhere and the fact that no one had yet dropped a line
or broken character.

"Are you all right, captain?"

It was Roxana Biggs-Dawson speaking to her from the other side of
the mock transporter console.  Only, if her suspicions were correct
and she hadn't just completely lost all grip on sanity, that was
actually B'Elanna Torres, and a very real transporter console.

Mulgrew resisted the urge to demand that she be beamed back to
wherever they had gotten her from.  Torres -- that was how she
*had* to think of the woman -- had called her captain; the engineer
had no idea that she'd beamed aboard an actor instead of the real
thing.  They really were here.  And there was nothing that could be
done about it.  If the Voyager had that kind of technology, they
wouldn't be wandering around the Delta Quadrant in the first place. 
She bit her lip, resisting the urge to break into hysterical
laughter.  She was treating this as if it were *real*.

"Everything's fine."  She stepped down, and then turned around,
shocked that she'd forgotten, even under the stress.  The Roberts
had been with her on the set.  Where were they now?

Beltran looked more than a little staggered.

Before he could say anything and possibly give the whole situation
away, Mulgrew interrupted, "There's some things I need to discuss
with the commander.  If you'll excuse us?"

"Of course, captain," Torres said, puzzled.

"Commander?" Mulgrew said, praying Beltran would respond and that
McNeil would follow him.  This was not a good time for them to
exercise their formidable egos and tell her off.

"Yes, captain," Beltran almost choked over the phrase, not sounding
at all like the smooth character he usually projected on the set.

She turned and walked out of the room, the Roberts on her heels. 
Outside in the corridor, she stopped and looked at them.  "Am I
crazy or is this for real?"

McNeil looked pale, like he might throw up, but Beltran answered
her, "We're *all* crazy then, because I'm seeing the same thing. 
This isn't a set."

Mulgrew nodded.  "What happened?  We were standing there..."

"And you were about to ruin another take."

She ignored him.  "And then we were *here*.  This is just
incredible."

Beltran nodded, then grinned suddenly.  "Wonder what the Trekkies
would give for souvenirs from this place?"

"Less than they would for autographed pictures of all of us naked,"
Mulgrew replied dryly.  "I could make a fortune."

McNeil cleared his throat.  "Should we really be talking about this
*here*?  What if someone comes by and hears us?  Or worse --
expects us to *do* something?"

"He has a point," Beltran agreed.

"We *could* just turn ourselves in," Mulgrew said.

The Roberts looked at each other, shook their heads, then turned
away as one.  "I think one of those layout thingies should be over
here," Beltran said.

McNeil nodded, following him.  "I guess that's better than grabbing
somebody and saying 'Take me to your leader'."

Mulgrew watched them go, shaking her head.  "Nobody ever listens to
me."

****

With assistance from the computer, and a lot of dumb luck, they
found their way to Janeway's quarters.  Mulgrew had to resist
giggling when they all walked, very official-like, past Kes and
Neelix, who they encountered on the way.  She had resist the urge
to take their arms and skip down the corridor, singing "we're off
to see the wizard".  It would have been appropriate, but difficult
to explain if anyone had seen them, definitely.

"So now what do we do?" Mulgrew asked, sitting down on a very
familiar looking couch.  The interior matched the stage set
perfectly, although the room felt somewhat smaller.

"Do?" McNeil asked.  He grinned suddenly.  "I could always try to
find out if Paris lives up to his reputation.  A little in-
character research."

Mulgrew rolled her eyes.  The one time she tried to be serious, and
everyone was a comedian.  "I mean, what do we do about being here? 
And getting back?"

"Pretend to be who we say we are?" Beltran asked, shrugging.  "What
else can we do?"

McNeil looked a little alarmed.  "I can't pilot this thing.  All
I'm supposed to do is stare intently at things, not actually fly
it."

"Exactly," Mulgrew said triumphantly.  "We need a plan."

"And what did you have in mind, oh great captain?" Beltran asked
sarcastically.  "I think some people's roles are going to their
heads."

"Simple.  You go sweet talk Rox... Torres, I mean, and find out
exactly what happened.  Maybe they can reverse the tachyon flow
whatchamacallit or whatever it is that they do and make it
unhappen."

"Why me?"

*Because you opened your big mouth*, Mulgrew thought.  "Because
she's Maquis and Chakotay's Maquis, so she'll tell you."

"And if that doesn't work?" McNeil asked.

Mulgrew sighed and felt suddenly very old and very afraid.  They
were a long way from anything they knew, possibly a long way from
sanity itself, and only the total improbability of it kept her from
really believing that this was happening.  If she did really
believed in it, she'd be crying or throwing things or something
equally pointless.  "Then we'll have to tell them who we are.  In
the meantime, we can pretend to be who they think we are."

McNeil shook his head.  "I'll never be able to get away with it. 
The moment I step on that bridge, I'm doomed."

"Well, catch some sort of fatal illness then, or something,"
Mulgrew snapped.  "Don't these people ever call in sick?"

He looked bemused.  "I don't know."

She shrugged.  "Very well then.  I'll start working on what to tell
them, and you can find out what it is that's actually going on
around here."  She looked at Beltran, an evil glint coming into her
eye.  "You all ready to go sweet talk a Klingon?"

"Klingons," he muttered.  "I still can't believe this is
happening."

"Neither can I."

The Roberts left her alone, and Mulgrew looked around the room
again.  She could almost imagine that they were on the set and that
she could just walk off-stage, and go back to her dressing room and
everything would be all right.

But there was no "off-stage" here.  This was the real thing.

She resisted the urge to laugh hysterically again, and started
mentally composing what she was going to say to whoever was in
charge around here under the circumstances.  Probably Tuvok. 
Whatever happened, it wouldn't be that bad.  The Voyager, assuming
everything was happening the same way it was on the show, couldn't
very well dump them somewhere.  They were lost in the Delta
Quadrant, and they needed all of their resources working to their
full potential.

Of course, none of them had any idea what to do with 24th century
technology.  So they'd end up doing the most menial tasks
available.  It would be less than fun going from being celebrated
and feted actors to being... she didn't know what.  Cooks'
assistants?  Something even worse?

And Voyager needed its captain back.  Tuvok couldn't run it.  For
one, he didn't have the star value to carry the show.

That time she did break down into laughter, half-laughing, half-
crying.

After a few minutes, she recovered herself.  She was standing
there, trying to figure out what to do next, when Q appeared, lying
on the bed.  "Kate, how good to see you."

Mulgrew spun around.  The voice caught her off guard, and when she
saw her visitor, she felt even more dazed.  Her first reaction was
to think that John de Lancie was sprawled across the bed.  Then she
realized who and what this must be in context, and paled.  "Q..."
her voice trailed off, and she backed up a step.

"You're not *nearly* as brave as your counterpart," Q said in a
faintly disappointed tone.  "She's already demanded an explanation
from that actor fellow."

"From John?"  He'd been on the set; they were doing the second Q-
on-Voyager episode, or "Q Visits Gilligan's Island" as he liked to
refer to it.

Q appeared to consider the ceiling.  "An attractive fellow. 
Although that purple lipstick does *nothing* for him."

"He'd agree with you.  He hates that color," Mulgrew said, bemused
at talking to this figment of her imagination as if he were real. 
It was almost easier to believe that it was John, playing some sort
of prank on her, as impossible as that was, than to think that this
could really be *Q*.

He dissolved in a flash, then reappeared behind her, bending over
her, lips brushing her ear.  "Obviously a man of taste."  His hand
came up, finger trailing down her cheek.  "You know, we might be
able to reach an agreement on sending you back.  If you were
*cooperative*."

Mulgrew resisted the urge to giggle.  Despite the fact that she
knew this was happening, that this was Q, something in her head
told her that this really was John, which made the situation
entirely too ludicrous.

The door chimed, and she stood there for a moment, with Q standing
over her lecherously, without realizing what the sound was.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" he asked.

"Answer what?"

Q sighed in a long-suffering manner.  "Actors.  Never very swift on
the uptake.  Come in."

The door opened, and Beltran walked in.  He stopped dead at the
tableau before him.  "Am I interrupting anything?" he asked dryly.

Mulgrew blushed furiously, realizing how it must look with Q
virtually hanging over her.  She just knew Robert was going to
spread this all around when they got back, *if* they ever got back. 
John would twit her on it forever if he found out -- not that
anyone could ever believe this.  "No.  You're not.  Our guest was
just explaining how we got here and how we get back."

"He was?  That's great."

"I was not," Q said in deeply offended tones.  "I had nothing to do
with it."

"Then how *did* we get here?" Mulgrew asked, stepped away from Q,
glad to finally be on a topic she could handle.

"You mean I'm not just dreaming?" Beltran asked.

Mulgrew glared at him for being light-hearted in a serious
situation, then looked back at Q.  If you assumed that he really
was Q, and nearly omnipotent, then you also had to assume that he
could get them home.  "Aren't you going to do something about
this?"

"Why should I?" Q asked.  "I think it's *much* more amusing this
way.  Just think of dear Kathryn Janeway on the convention circuit. 
And she has another advantage over you -- she wouldn't have to
act."

Mulgrew glared at him.  He might not be John, but he was every bit
as infuriating when he wanted to be.  Only with Q, she couldn't
threaten to tell his wife on him or give embarrassing tidbits to TV
Guide when he irritated her.  "So will you send us back or won't
you?"

"What do I get out of this?"

"What do you want?"

Q grinned evilly.  "Oh, I have a few ideas."

****

"Kate!  What are you doing?  Why did you leave the set?  You've
still got a scene to go before you change costume again!" the floor
manager descended on the grouping around De Lancie's chair, taking
charge of his errant cast members.

"Captain?" Chakotay asked, putting all his doubt about this into
that one word.

Janeway shook her head minutely.  She didn't know what was going
on, but something was very wrong here.  For the moment, it would be
best to play along and do what was asked of them.  They were
apparently known here, and although she had no idea what was going
on or why everyone insisted on addressing her by a diminutive of
her name that she didn't even *like*, she didn't want to reveal
their ignorance without a tactical advantage on their part.  She
went with the floor manager, who was still flushed and not
particularly happy looking.

De Lancie watched for a moment as the trio were ushered off,
puzzling over Beltran's use of the word "captain" and Kate's dead
on impersonation of her character.  It wasn't like her to be so
into the character, even in fun.  For a moment, he wondered if it
all hadn't been a bizarre prank on Kate's part, if it were possible
that he could have just had an encounter with the "real" crew, and
if, in a logical progression, his character, Q, were as real as he
himself was.

Nahh.

He went back to running his lines, oblivious to the scene from the
set as the transporter effect went hideously right again.

Mulgrew came storming off the set, the Roberts following behind
her, looking a little shell-shocked to be home.

She stopped in front of De Lancie.  "This is all your fault, you
know.  The dancing girls, the basket of fruit on my head, the long
nights in Hawaii...  It's all your fault," then, without another
word or giving him any chance to reply, stalked off.

He stared at her for a moment.  What did he do?  "Women," De Lancie
said, and shook his head.  What with the temper tantrums and
impending costume problems, he really was never going to get out of
here tonight.


-the end-