She cried herself out and lay there, silently contemplating her life. If someone had asked her a week ago where she wanted to go, Elle would've said Star Trek, no hesitation. But now she was here, actually, properly here, with no way back... another traitorous tear fell onto her pillow. I miss my mom.
Turns out she did have more tears. A lot more tears.
"Stop it," Elle told herself angrily, a good half hour later. She sniffed, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "You could've actually died, cut it out. At least you're alive, here, with Kirk and Spock and McCoy and-" Her voice broke and she buried her face in the pillow, desperately trying not to start sobbing again.
No. Think of something else. Think of, strategy. Yeah. Yeah. Captain Kirk said that she had three months before they got close to civilization again. What would happen to her then? Elle frowned. She couldn't even imagine living on 23rd century Earth, in, what, foster care? A boarding school? Heck to the no. If she was gonna be in this universe, she wanted to stay on the Enterprise, with people that she knew. How was she gonna do that?
"Three months," Elle whispered to herself, sitting up. She had three months to figure it out.
She flopped down to stare at the ceiling and was instantly asleep.
When she woke up she felt like her whole body was comprised of eye-booger. She felt crusty and just plain gross. She got up and found a new set of clothes on the chair. Oh yeah. Christine was still here, right? "I'mma shower," she called, and went into the tiny bathroom.
The sonic shower was not comforting. At all. There was a setting for water shower, but it was locked out. The sonic shower did wake her up, though, and Elle felt less like crying by the time she got dressed and went to the living room.
It was not Christine Chapel sitting there. It was Lt. Uhura, wearing pants and a t-shirt and sipping tea from a mug.
"Lt," Elle said awkwardly, taking a step back.
"Hello," she said gently. "I'm sorry if I startled you. Christine had to go on-duty for a patient and asked me to stay in case you needed anything."
"Oh. Thank you. I know you're really busy, I'm fine," Elle told her.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't have the time," Uhura said simply.
"Oh." Face to face with this completely amazing woman, Elle was more awkward and uncertain than she'd ever been in her entire life. Talking to Ambassador Sarek had been less awkward than this moment. Of course, she didn't want to be Sarek when she grew up.
"Hungry?" Uhura asked.
Elle nodded even though she wasn't really.
"Do you feel like going to the mess hall or do you want to eat here?"
Elle didn't want to stay here. It was too quiet, and- "Mess hall," she said, hoping for a distraction.
"All right. You do have to wear shoes, though."
"Oh yeah." Elle tugged on the soft sneakers and they walked through the halls. She was gonna have to actually memorize the ship's layout or she'd be lost forever.
"I'm Nyota, by the way," Uhura offered.
"Elle," she replied. "It's really, really nice to meet you. You're so cool." She blushed. Don't be such a fangirl, she scolded herself. They're not gonna keep you if you're gonna hero-worship them.
Uhura just smiled. "Are you interested in communications?" she asked.
Elle didn't even really know what the whole job entailed. She dropped her gaze to the carpeted deck. "Kinda." She didn't know how much Chapel had told the lieutenant about her situation (don't cry!) so she stayed silent. She didn't even know the first thing about communications besides that her new Samsung Galaxy S8 was in a whole other universe and she had no way to communicate with her parents. She pinched herself fiercely to get rid of the stinging tears behind her eyes.
Uhura reached down and held her hand, squeezing it gently. "I think today calls for some soup," was all she said.
They entered the mess hall. It was quiet, a small respite between shift changes. Uhura went over to the food slots and punched in a few things. "We're going to have to get you your own food card," Uhura said, giving her a smile. "Or Dr. McCoy's going to start wondering why I'm eating so much."
Elle couldn't help grinning.
Chicken soup and spiced chai materialized a moment later. Elle took a brief sip as they walked over to their table. It was good, for being made by a computer program. "Cmdr Spock programmed that himself," Uhura said. "The first month aboard, Dr. McCoy got worried and cut off the captain's coffee intake to no more than two cups a day."
Elle stiffled a giggle. "Uh-oh," she said, and took a spoonful of soup absently.
Uhura winked at her. "I think you can guess how difficult it was for our fearless captain. So our dear Mr. Spock, after three days of 'decaf-tastes-nothing-like-regular-coffee-Bones!', stayed up late to program that chai into the synthesizer. You should've seen the captain's face the next day. And McCoy's when he found out."
Elle laughed aloud. She could just imagine. "Did Bones give the captain his coffee back?" she asked.
"After a while," Uhura said, smiling.
They ate, Uhura telling her some lighthearted anecdotes, and Elle finished the last of her chai with a satisfied sigh. "I guess I was hungry," she said ruefully.
After they put their plates in the recycler, Uhura commed Medical to authorize a new food card for Elle.
"I'm sorry, lieutenant, but we don't have any medical records for this individual," the nurse said over the comm.
Uhura blinked in surprise. "Of course, I should have realized. Thank you, nurse. Uhura out." She looked at Elle. "We're gonna have to do some paperwork."
"Sorry," Elle said awkwardly.
"You're fine," Uhura assured her. "Come with me."
They went back to Sickbay. McCoy met them in the main ward. "Lt. Uhura, you have impeccable timing. I was just about to comm you." He looked at Elle. "Ambassador Sarek rushed the paperwork through for you, since you saved his life. You've got full citizenship in the Federation, now."
Elle gulped. "Oh," she said faintly. That was, really permanent.
McCoy gave her a sympathetic smile. "It's a lot, I know, but the hard part is done. We don't have to wait on molasses-coated bureaucrats for the rest of it." He patted the nearest bio-bed. "Let's get your full medical workup so I can add it to your file, and we can issue you a food card and the necessary security authorizations."
Elle glanced at Uhura.
The older woman smiled at her. "I can stay," she assured her, and pulled up a chair next to the bio-bed.
"Thanks," Elle said, blushing.
Full medical workup meant mostly laying still while the bio-bed ran endless scans. And then Nurse Kim drew blood, and went to analyze that. And then McCoy had her do some stretches to make sure her injuries were healing. And then she had to answer some questions on a PADD about her medical history.
"What do you mean, four members of your mom's family died of diabetes?" McCoy demanded, looking startled.
"Yup."
"That's ridiculous," McCoy said. "The twenty-first century was fairly civilized, but this sounds like the Dark Ages!"
Elle bit her lip but she couldn't help laughing at him.
"Medical savagery is not funny," he said, frowning at her.
"Sorry," Elle said weakly, wiping her eyes as she stifled another giggle. "It's just, you say that a lot."
He frowned. "How do you mean?"
"All your time traveling," she said. "And you'll be saying it a lot in the future."
McCoy's frown sharpened. "What do you know about time travel?" he asked.
"The-" Elle suddenly remembered that everything was probably classified to high heaven and lowered her voice. "-black hole. And the Guardian of Forever," she whispered.
McCoy blanched. "How. Do you know. That?"
"I told you," Elle said, getting nervous. "I saw it on the episodes."
McCoy pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay. But don't mention any of that to anyone, all right? In your universe it might be common knowledge but here it's highly classified."
Elle nodded. "I understand."
"Good girl." He consulted his PADD. "Okay. Physical's done. But you have no immunizations common to this century, so... sorry. You're gonna need a lot of shots."
Elle sighed. "Do I get ice cream afterwards?" she asked.
"If you'd like," McCoy said agreeably. "When you eat dinner later, you'll be able to access your own account. For your diet, you can have anything a normal human can eat, including the selections of alien cuisine that are keyed for human consumption." He squinted at her. "I'm limiting your caffeine and your sugar intake to a standard portion though. So no meals of just candy."
"I wouldn't do that," Elle said, scowling, and added, "a lot."
Uhura snickered.
'A lot of shots' meant ten hyposprays in a row. And in two days she had to come back and get seven more. Elle was not a happy camper.
"Has anyone been a happy camper?" she inquired randomly, to Nurse Chapel, who had taken over again from Lt. Uhura. "Anytime someone says 'that guy's not a happy camper', who's the happy camper they're talking about?"
"Aren't people who usually go camping happy about it?" Chapel asked after a second.
Elle frowned. "Every time we went camping it was raining. I was never a happy camper. Just soggy."
Christine laughed. "You'll have to go camping with Captain Kirk and his group next time we get shore leave, then. He has the best timing - it never rains when he takes people camping."
Elle bit her lip. "Next shore leave?" she asked. "When's that?"
"About four months from now."
Four months. Elle prayed fiercely that she would still be here on the Enterprise in four months. "Are there other civilians here, too?" she asked.
"Only a few, in the science departments," Christine said.
Elle deflated. "Oh." She bit her lip. "Is there, there's no kids, right?"
"No," Christine said gently. "There's not."
"Oh." Elle slumped further into the couch. "Okay." Somehow, she was gonna have to convince Star Fleet to make the Enterprise a ship for civilians. Or at least make an exception for her. Yeah right, her skeptical inner voice declared. This is real life now, not an episode.
Christine gave her a hug. "It's all going to work out, sweetheart," she said. "I promise."
Elle just sighed.