And He Died Before Me:Pre Idea

She never forgot a face, most definitely his. It was he, she had concluded, that had brought her here to this unforeseen time that was not her own.

"Really," he spoke to interrupt her glare, "You should be thanking me." He began to slowly walk aimlessly. "You feel more at home here, isn't that right? Don't leave that thought out while you bitterly stare."

Hailey didn't speak. Her mind only kept returning back to the face of her old, long-lost friend. 'Max,' she thought, 'He…' "He could've been saved." She murmured.

"Au contraire, Mon Cheri." Hailey scowled at his choice of words. "He was dead long before you even raised your hands to slaughter those men."

Confusion flashed across the faces of everyone except Data as well as Hailey who wished so badly he would, for once, shut his damned omnipotent mouth.

Picard's eyes flew over to where she stood and stared down more intensely when there wasn't a protest.

Hailey didn't flinch, "You don't know…"

"But I do! I can show you, if you would like." Q declared more than he tried to tempt.

Hailey's thoughts ran through that unfaithful day all those years ago. No, she never wanted any of her fellow shipmates to see that side of her. The side of her she struggled to control and tried so hard to suppress and forget the memories it had given her. "No!" she started.

But the scene had already changed. Q had brought Picard, Doctor Crusher, Data and Hailey away from the dry and dreary planet to stand in that damned alleyway—where there, frozen in place before them in the darkness, lay a bleeding girl, two Nazi's and a Jewish boy who sat on the ground, backed against the wall.

Hailey stared at Max; she hadn't forgotten his panic stricken face even years later. Emotions flooded through her but were quickly suppressed so deeply it was all she focused on, fixating her eyes on her old friend. "This can't be real." She breathed in the near-silence. Tears threatened to show true weakness.

"Oh, but it is."

Picard stepped up next to the Lieutenant, "Q, what is all this?"

Q held up a hand towards the damp and dark alleyway, "Just watch the girl."

Picard, along with everyone else, did so. In exception of Hailey, who still watched the dying boy she once knew.

_{And the scene slowly began to play…}