'Ships Happen

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Seema scrawled furiously in her notebook. It was a pink spiral-bound notebook, and inside were pages of various gibberish and unspeakable crimes inflicted on various fictional characters. She looked up only when her poolboy, Robbie, approached her with a margarita - strawberry and frozen, perfect.

"Had a hard time getting the Ferengi to deliver," Robbie said, "but then I grabbed him by his ears and he calmed right down. Come to think of it, he seemed really eager to be of service."

"Thank you." Seema surveyed the mess in front of her. There was still that group of people that Jemima had sent over and one - the blond chick - was especially loud and verbose. Something about being a real demon slayer and knowing karate better than anyone else. The two skinny chicks with the enormous chests seemed to be in distress; the one with the bad haircut had apparently exhaled too violently, causing her unitard to split a seam or two or three.

The young man with the southern accent had discovered the replicator codes and seemed to be fiddling with different variations of pecan pie. The man with the leaves in his hair kept insisting, "My people have a story... they do! Why won't anyone listen to the story my people have?"

Seema sighed. With all this noise, how could anyone expect a writer to work? This was serious stuff, this was war!

She noticed that Kira was sitting in the middle of the chaos, rocking back and forth, holding her head in her hands. Seema decided that it was time to take action; after all, once Jemima entered with her soapbox, things would never, ever quiet down again.

"Everyone, be quiet!" Seema bellowed. "Now, you're all upset for a variety of reasons and I don't blame you. If the writers did to me what they did to you, well, then I'd have ever reason to riot as well-"

"It's not just the powers that be," Buffy moaned. She was holding her stomach, obviously still in pain. "We don't get any respect from you either. You all insist on writing about us and making us do stuff!"

"Hey!" Crusher got to her feet. "In fanfic, that's the only place I get to do stuff!"

Riker scowled. "Actually, Dr. Beverly, I beg to differ-"

Crusher's eyes widened. "Dr. Beverly? Will, how dare you?"

"It is a term of endearment. Don't you recognize me, I'm Odan." Will held out his arms. "Don't you want me, Beverly? You can have me, warm, wonderful me. Jean-Luc is old, stuffy and he likes that archeologist chick." Riker's eyes twinkled and Crusher's cheeks flamed red. "Beverly, don't throw away our one chance at happiness. Please. Don't make a terrible mistake and turn me down."

"I can't listen to this dribble," Kira said. She waved her arms. "I think I'm going to be sick."

But her comment, like all the others, went unheard; Beverly had flung herself into Will's arms and was scratching at his beard. Meanwhile, the man with the leaves in his hair had attracted the attention of Willow and they were exchanging notes.

"You are Willow?" Chakotay asked with interest. "I think we have something in coffee, I mean, in common. I found a random name generator on the Internet-"

"A random name generator? What's that?" Willow asked in interest.

"It's a tool from the twentieth century for those who did not like their given name for some reason or preferred to be called by a name from a particular fictional universe, such as the Smurfs-"

"Smurfs?"

"Smurfs," Chakotay nodded sagely, "little, blue, different. My Smurf name is simply smurfy - I'm Chesty."

"Ooh," Willow sighed in rapture. "So this random name generator, how does it work?"

"You type in your name and click 'submit' and you get a name back. My tree name is Sequoia."

"Oak," Willow whispered dreamily. She reached up to ruffle the leaves in Chakotay's hair. "It fits you. Strong, silent, serene, sincere, simple, stubborn, stately, stable, steady..."

At that moment, Chakotay magically produced a rose and handed it to Willow, whose eyes glazed over in joy. They kissed passionately, just as the blond Borg noticed them.

"It is not prudent to form a long-term attachment with someone from the past," Seven of Nine pronounced. "It is of no matter. The writers will forget this incident almost immediately. It is unfortunate that we also cannot forget the unforgettable."

T'Pol, her suit held together with little pins similar to the ones Elizabeth Hurley had used to hold together her credit card dress, tipped her head to the side in agreement.

"Humans are shortsighted and without vision. They are like unruly children who do not know what is best for them. They must be kept at heel," T'Pol said. "And kept away from random name generators and fanfiction writers."

At that moment, Tucker started chasing T'Pol around the room again with the pecan pie and surprisingly, T'Pol started to giggle.

Seema sighed and looked at Lori.

"Lori, I'm not sure we can write ourselves out of this one," Seema said mournfully. "It looks like everyone is pairing up for some reason or another. It's so... shippy."

Lori nodded. "You're right. It's going to take a lot to get us out of this. Who would have thought that-"

Lori cut off as the two fanfic writers watched in fascination as Kira hurled herself at none other than Chekov. Seema grabbed Lori's arm.

"Do you understand that the timeline has been disrupted?" Seema asked urgently. "We have gone completely AU! There's no recovering. We're going to have to summon Lucsly and Dulmur to fix this mess. Pretty soon, Sequoia and Willow will have little saplings of their own and Buffy-" Seema's eyes widened. "Buffy and Worf?"

"I can take you, Klingon!" Buffy roared as Worf picked her up and flung her over his shoulder as lightly as a sack of potatoes.

Hey! That's my man you're talking about!" Ezri roared, pulling herself to her full height of 3 feet. She lifted the stake and brandished it in her hand, until Xander swept her off her feet. Ezri went fluid in Xander's arms, falling victim to his tender kisses.

"If we go AU, you know there is only one thing that can happen now," Lori said. "I wanted to put this off as long as possible, but..."

And you know, there is another problem." Seema said softly. Lori looked, in a word, bummed. In the background, Earl carried on a one-sided conversation.

"NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?" the parrot said. "AND SOMETHING IS BURNING! PUT OUT THE FLAMES ALREADY!"

Seema sniffed the air and turned just in time to see Seven slinking towards McCoy.

"Another problem? What will be a problem is if these people-" Lori jabbed her thumb in the direction of Seven who was looking at McCoy with undisguised lust -"are going to procreate."

"That would be a problem as well," Seema admitted. "But you know what Jemima's cardinal rule of storytelling is, don't you?"

Lori looked dismayed. "That a story isn't a story without a wedding?"

Seema nodded and thankfully, Robbie was on hand for a much-needed massage.

"We're running out of options," Lori said. "We're going to have to go with the Omega Plan."

"Make it so," Seema said wearily. "I see no other choice at this point."