Tapestry

Badly wounded on an away mission, Picard finds himself in a white void with Q, who explains that his artificial heart has failed and he is dead. Picard needed the artificial heart after a brawl in his youth, when a Nausicaan stabbed him through the heart. Q offers him a chance to change that. Picard returns to his youth, days before the fight, with his friends Marta Batanides and Cortin Zweller. This time he plays it safe, avoids the confrontation and keeps out of trouble. Back in the present, he finds he is now an unremarkable lieutenant in the science department, a man who never took a risk and never earned command. Realising that his youthful recklessness made him who he is, Picard begs Q for another chance. He relives the fight as it first happened, is stabbed once more, and wakes in sickbay as captain, unsure whether any of it was real.