Chapter Two.

She woke up in sickbay. At least what she thought was sickbay. It was different than what she'd seen in the episodes, larger, with more bio-beds and more staff and more wards and labs branching off from the main room. The orange blanket was a comfort though, something immediately recognizable from the episodes. She pulled it up to her chin.

A soft chime sounded above her head, and she craned her neck to look at the biobed readouts. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature, brainwaves...It wasn't just a bunch of squiggly lines and colors. There were actual numbers and readouts. That, more than anything, convinced Elle this was not a dream. You can't read in dreams.

Dr. McCoy came over to her, from another room. "You're awake," he said, tilting the bed up a little so she wouldn't strain her neck. He picked up her wrist and took her pulse. "How do you feel?" he asked, his blue eyes piercing.

Elle frowned. "Fine, I guess. A little hungry..." Her stomach growled and she blushed. "A lot hungry."

"I'm not surprised." He let go of her wrist and checked the readings over her head. "Did you know, young lady, you have all the signs of recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning?"

Elle blinked up at him. "Okay..."

He patted her shoulder and helped her sit up. "Do you also know that you are carrying thirteen dormant diseases that were eradicated on Earth a hundred years ago?"

"Um."

He brandished a hypospray and gave her a shot. "General immune system booster," he said.

Elle scowled at him. "Ow," she said, even though it didn't really hurt.

McCoy gave her a cup of water. "How old are you?"

"Thirteen and a half."

"Thought so." He waved a familiar nurse over. "Elle, this is my head nurse, Christine Chapel. She'll help you get showered and changed."

"Okay." Elle slid off the biobed. "Do you know how far along Spock is in finding a way back home for me?"

McCoy gave her a strange look. "Uh, no, I don't."

"Okay," Elle said cheerfully.

McCoy frowned at her, his blue eyes piercing. "You're taking this all very well."

Elle shrugged. "Well, it's either a coma hallucination or I really am here and if so, Spock's like totally awesome and he'll figure it out, so..." she shrugged again. "I don't know."

McCoy shooed her and Christine out of sickbay. "Go on, go on. Christine, no junk food."

"Yes, Doctor." Christine gave Elle a smile. "No junk food, within reason." They both ignored Dr. McCoy's expressive, 'wait a second...'

Elle followed her down the spacious corridors, giving cautious smiles to the passing crewmembers. "So, where are we going?"

"Visitor's quarters," Christine replied. "Deck six."

"Cool."

The guest quarters were just like in the show, with the desk in the corner and the glittery orange duvet on the bed and the sonic shower in the bathroom. Christine showed her how to use it and synthesized a set of clothes for her. "Here you go."

Elle took a shower and put on the thick, stretchy leggings and the long, flowy tunic. She felt like she was wearing pajamas. It was nice. She came out of the bathroom, and Christine braided her hair. It was nice and long for a braid, a deep black just like her mom's. The braid swung over Elle's shoulders as she leaned forward to pull on a new pair of shoes. They were like pull-on sneakers, but with no logos. Maybe Nike didn't exist in the future.

"Where are you from?" Christine asked, handing her a deep green sweater.

"Oregon." Elle touched her braid. "My grandma's from Mexico. That's where I get the hair." She scowled. "I don't speak Spanish though. My mom barely spoke it growing up and she didn't teach me either. So I'm gonna have to, like, learn it in high school or something. But I wanna take German. German's cool."

Christine touched Elle's neck, where there was a fading sunburn. "You burn, though?"

"Everybody from that area is super white," Elle said frankly. "And my dad's side's from, like, England or something, so that's double white." She sighed. "I wanted to get like my uncle Roberto because he gets like, super tanned, but, my grandma doesn't like him cuz he's too dark."

Christine smiled briefly. "I see. Shall we go eat?"

"That sounds great." Elle followed her down the corridors. "This ship is huge."

"Yes it is."

"How long does it take to walk the whole thing?"

"Oh, a while. I've never done it myself but it usually takes Captain Kirk about three or four hours to make the rounds."

Elle nodded slowly. "But he stops and talks to everyone on the way, so it takes him a while longer."

"How do you know that?" Christine asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Because he's Captain Kirk," Elle said simply. "Doesn't he?"

Christine frowned at her. "Yes, he does."

They went into what Elle recognized as the Recreation Deck, and stopped by the food slots. Christine slid the card in and punched a couple of buttons. "What would you like?" she asked.

Elle bit her lip. "Can I have pizza? It has vegetables on it."

Christine smiled. "Sure. And to drink? Don't say soda."

"Lemonade please."

A piece of pizza and a cup of lemonade appeared in the slot.

"That's so cool," Elle said, bouncing on her toes. She calmed down as she picked up the tray, and followed Christine to a table. There were a lot of people in here and she didn't want to spill anything. That would be so embarassing.

The pizza tasted like, well, pizza. Not great and not terrible. The lemonade was good, not too sour.

They were still eating when two people stopped by. Elle stood, her mother's 'stand for older people!' ringing in her ears. "Ambassador," she said nervously. It was Sarek and Amanda, Spock's parents.

"Young one," Sarek said, nodding.

"We saw you earlier in the reception hall," Amanda added. "You seemed, disturbed. Are you well?"

Elle blushed, embarrassed that they'd noticed and they wanted to check on her. "I'm fine, thank you," she said, fidgeting. "How are you?"

"We are well."

Elle frowned. "What about your heart problem?"

Sarek's eyebrow went up. "How do you know this information?" he asked severely.

Elle's blush grew. "Um, lucky guess?" she asked weakly.

Christine spoke up. "Ambassador, if you have a current medical condition-"

"It is of no concern," Sarek said dismissively.

"Sarek?" his wife asked, frowning.

Elle bit her lip and tried not to fidget. Should she tell them? Should she not? She remembered this episode pretty well, it was one of her favorites, and- "It's his heart valve," she said abruptly. "He needs surgery before he collapses again."

"Again?"

"Heart valve?"

The two women shared a glance, and stood. "Sickbay," Christine said. "Elle, can you stay here?"

"Wait," Amanda said. "How did you know?"

All three adults looked at her, curious.

"Uh... there's a television show. This is the episode Journey to Babel," Elle said nervously. "Your medical condition is a big part. Besides, the whole uh, spy thing."

"Spy thing?" Sarek echoed, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh... I should probably save that information for the captain."

"Okay." Christine pinched her nose. "Ambassador, Mrs. Sarek, if you'd come with me to sickbay? And Elle, you can stay..." She looked around the mess hall. "You'll stay with Lt. Sulu, all right?" She gave Sulu a look, and he nodded. "Okay."

They left and Sulu slid into the seat across from Elle. "My name's Hikaru," he said.

"I'm Elle." She eyed the other ambassadors mingling with the oficers. Or rather, the officers were trying to run away from them, and the diplomats just kept going on and on and on... her eyes locked on one of the Andorians and she couldn't help staring.

"What's wrong?" Sulu asked, when she didn't move.

She broke her gaze away from the Andorian, took a bite of her pizza, and chewed it thoughtfully. "Lt. Sulu, if you knew something was gonna happen, like, if something big, like, say a spy or something, or like a murder, or something, but you don't have any proof, would you say something?"

Sulu put down his spork and frowned. "If it saves someone's life, then yes."

Elle nodded slowly. "Then I need to talk to the captain. One of the diplomat people's is a spy."

Sulu's eyes widened and he hushed her. "That is a serious charge," he whispered.

"I know," Elle whispered back. "But if I'm right about Ambassador Sarek I'm right about the other stuff."

"Okay then. Let's go talk to Dr. McCoy and get confirmation, and then we'll talk to Captain Kirk." Sulu stood up. "C'mon."

She followed him to the recycler and watched in fascination as the tray and food remnants dissolved into their respective components. "That's so cool," she gushed.

Sulu grinned at her. "No synthesizers where you're from?"

"No, just regular dishes. And I was the dishwasher," Elle said mournfully. "Well. Mom does the pots and the delicate stuff. I do..." she trailed off as she realized something. "I hope they don't think I ran away! Oh man, my parents are going to be so worried..."

Sulu patted her on the shoulder. "Mr. Spock is the finest scientist in the Fleet, Elle. He'll get you back. First things first, let's go see McCoy."

She followed him out of the mess hall.

When they entered, Kirk and Spock were already there speaking to McCoy, Amanda, and Sarek. All eyes went to Elle.

She gulped and edged behind Sulu.

"Captain, Elle has something she needs to speak to you about," Sulu said, and at Kirk's nod, he left, giving Elle a pat on the shoulder.

Elle glared at his retreating back and turned to McCoy. "Was I right?" she asked, twisting her hands together uneasily.

"I don't know how you knew, but yes, Ambassador Sarek has a defective heart valve."

Elle nodded. "That means this universe is more or less like the episodes right? You're gonna do the surgery?"

"That's what we're discussing now, yes." McCoy turned to Sarek and his family. "As I was saying, we'll do a copper-based hemodilution and use a one percent fraction of of Spock's platelets to perform the surgery. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, as this is a serious operation, but you should recover in time for the conference."

Elle frowned. "No blood transfusion?" she asked. "In the episode that was like, a huge part of it."

McCoy shook his head. "That may have been an acceptable method in the 21st century, Elle, but surgery has come a long way. Patients actually recuperate better without foreign substances floatin' around in them, imagine that," he drawled, giving her a smile.

She giggled at his exaggerated wink. "Awesome. I'm glad." She looked at Kirk. "I really need to talk to you, captain."

"All right." He ushered her to the other side of the ward, out of earshot. "What can I do for you?"

"One of the Andorian aides is a, um, he's green. Orion, yeah. An Orion spy. The ship that's tailing us or whatever, that's them."

"We haven't seen any ships," Kirk said.

"They're there. Hiding."

"All right. Are you sure, Elle?" he asked, giving her serious look.

"I'm sure."

"Do you know which one?"

Elle shook her head. "I don't remember the name. But it's not the ambassador himself."

Kirk frowned. "All right. Thank you, Elle. Keep this information to yourself for now."

"Okay."

"You feel like going to the Rec Deck?"

"Sure?" she said.

"We'll take you." He grabbed Spock and the three of them left sickbay.

Elle glanced up at Spock. He looked worried-but-not. She couldn't blame him.

He noticed her sideways glance. "Yes, young one?"

"Nothing. I was just going to ask if you had anything on how I got here, or how to get me back, but, there's diplomats and spies and your parents, so I won't ask. That's more important."

"I have determined that there was no discernible spatio-temporal anomaly at the time of your appearance," Spock replied. "Further than that I have not been able to analyze."

Elle nodded. "What about, um, quantum signatures? Have you checked that yet?"

Spock's eyebrow went up. "Quantum signature?"

"Yeah. You know, wait, you don't know. It's from The Next Generation." Elle huffed. "It's the, uh, the frequency that everything resonates at. Like, mine'll be different cuz I'm not from here. Like Worf's in that one episode where he was switching all over the place."

"Do you know how to read this quantum signature?" Spock asked.

Elle's eyes widened as she tried to remember it. "Uhhhhhhmmmmm... Data did something. Data scanned his DNA? Or something? It's a really, really tiny flux."

"I see."

"But you'll totally find it," Elle added. "After the surgery maybe." She got distracted by a crewmember who looked like a crystal in a forcefield. "I really don't mind," she said, dragging her feet to catch another glimpse of him/her/it. "Cool..."

They arrived at the Rec Room and went inside. People shifted when they noticed the captain and first officer, but otherwise stayed relaxed.

Captain Kirk waved over a young woman in civilian clothes. "Lt, can I put you in charge of our guest?" he asked.

"Of course, captain." She held out a hand. "Lt. Martine."

"Elle," Elle said, recognizing her from an episode. "Nice to meet you."

The lieutenant showed Elle how to use the game console. Lo and behold, there was a Pac-man game in the list, one of the few she recognized. There was Minecraft, too, but Elle didn't want to invest that much time.