It was a quiet week that followed. Spock continued teaching Elle and Lt. Uhura the basics of Vulcan meditation. He had her take an epser rating.

"Interesting," Spock said. "You are, in fact, the second highest rating for the humans on this ship." He gave a tiny frown. "I will have to teach you basic shielding techniques as well, in case of psychic attacks on the ship."

Elle nodded. "Cool. So what does that mean? Can I do cool stuff with it?"

"If by 'cool stuff' you mean be able to pick up and read others emotional states and with practice their intentions, then yes, you can do 'cool stuff'," Spock said, his tone amused.

Elle grinned.

The next day in Federation History, they graduated to the 22nd century. "2117," Cmdr. Samir said. "The year Zephram Cochrane disappeared."

They read the information packet and watched a news interview with Zephram's friend Lilly Sloane about the loss.

"Nobody knows what happened to him," Samir said.

"But, you just saw him," Elle pointed out.

Samir looked at her blankly.

"You did though," Elle said. "Before the delegates and stuff, Captain Kirk encountered him and the gas cloud lady."

Samir frowned at her. "I don't remember that."

"They were on that shuttle trip," Elle said.

Samir's eyebrows went up. "That shuttle trip was classified," she said. "Nobody knows what happened on that trip besides Commissioner Hedford dying."

"Oops." Elle bit her lip. "Sorry. Never mind. I know nothing."

"Hm." Samir clearly didn't believe her but they moved on.

Early 22nd century history was actually really interesting, as humanity carefully moved out into space, building colonies (successful or not) and generally sticking their noses into things. The first warp 4 ship, the Enterprise NX-01, featured heavily.

"We're not going to go into the technological advances," Samir told her. "I'm leaving that for Mr. Scott, who will be happy to cover it in detail. Instead we'll be focusing on the socio-politcal changes and discoveries that Archer and his crew made."

Elle nodded, excited.

They were okay until they got to the Xindi. "Where's the bit about the war?" Elle asked, flipping through the pages in the PADD.

"What war?"

"The Temporal War," Elle said absently. "They were being recruited, and then being killed off so they couldn't be recruited. Is there additional reading?"

Samir stared at her steadily. "The history books don't say anything about that."

"Oh." Elle picked at a hangnail. "Okay."

They moved on.

"Archer was instrumental in establishing semi-peaceful relations with the Klingons," Samir continued, and put up a picture of Archer and the Klingons. They had ridged foreheads. "Captain Archer was also instrumental in making the Klingons retreat behind their own borders and stop their expansion efforts."

"Because of the virus," Elle said brightly. "They lost their forehead ridges and went off to sulk."

Samir looked at her. "What?"

"The Augments," Elle said.

"The who?"

Elle sighed. "These textbooks have holes in them," she complained.

Samir raised an eyebrow. "Considering they're the actual textbooks put out by the Federation, I don't think so."

"But they don't have any good stuff," Elle said.

Samir huffed a laugh. "They are kind of dry, aren't they?"

Not what she meant, but okay. "Yeah," she said.

"Next time we'll go over the Romulan War," Samir informed her.

"Sounds good," Elle said, standing up. "Thanks."

The rest of the day flew by, and after dinner Elle went to Minecraft Club. It was made up of dorks from Engineering and Ops that liked to build things. The club captain was a Rigelian lieutenant that liked to make things out of marble just so she could release swarms of monsters on them. She called it 'post-modern' dystopic art.

Elle was steadily working on building a treehouse-world. She finished making a spiral staircase up a tree trunk and called it a day. "See you guys," she said, standing up.

"Night," came the general chorus.

Elle went through her routine and settled in bed to sleep. She slept for a solid eight hours.

-/\-

The next evening, Elle had Literature discussion with Captain Kirk. She met him in their usual spot in the Observation Deck, and frowned. He was waiting for her, a distant look in his eyes. "Elle," he said.

"Captain." She curled up in her chair and toed her shoes off. "What's up?"

"Your history teacher has some concerns," he started.

An uneasy feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. "What?"

He handed her a PADD. It was a list of things from the class that Elle had said, from the very beginning, written down with little question marks.

"Yeah?" Elle asked, handing it back. "I said that stuff, but it's just facts. I don't, sorry, I don't get it. What'd I do?" She winced. "Oh. Is this about the Cochrane thing? Was that classified?" That was written on there, too.

"Partly, yes," Kirk said. "The thing is, there is no way for you to know any of these things. The bit about the Temporal War, nobody should know. The only reason I know is because Archer left logs for the captains of the Enterprise in case we got more visitors to the flagship. And the Augments and this Klingon virus, nobody knows why the Klingons lost their ridges."

"Somebody at Star Fleet does," Elle pointed out.

"And the time travel incident with Cochrane?"

"That hasn't happened yet."

"And your insight into Spock's family history?"

Elle sighed. "I told you. I've seen all the episodes, read a lot of the books, and a lot of the stories. This stuff, and what's going to happen, is common knowledge where I come from."

Kirk sighed. "So you don't know what's classified and what's not."

"Um, no?"

Kirk scrubbed his face with his hands. "Okay. We'll have to take that into consideration."

Elle gulped. "What consideration?"

"Star Fleet is attempting to figure out what to do with you," Kirk said plainly. "There's never been someone from another universe. Your paperwork went through because Ambassador Sarek leaned on the Council, but once you get back to Earth..."

Elle huddled into the chair, fear gnawing at her gut. "What's gonna happen to me?" she whispered.

"Frankly, you were going to go into foster care," Kirk said. "I was lobbying for you to go to my parents, because you have some passing familiarity with them, don't you?"

Elle nodded.

"But, I don't think that's going to work," he continued. "How much do you know about the future?"

"A lot," Elle said. "The rest of your five-year mission, the next fifteen years. Eighty years from now, the Enterprise-D's adventures. Deep Space Nine. Stuff from the Delta quadrant."

Kirk sighed. "Of course you do. How much of it is time travel? Don't tell me specifics."

Elle grimaced. "A lot."

"Klingon and Romulan cultures?"

Elle bit her lip. "A lot more than time travel."

"And things about taking over ships? Or bad decisions that superior officers make?"

Elle nodded.

Kirk sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Sorry," Elle told him.

"It's not your fault," Kirk said. He sighed again. "I was resisting the admirals on this because you're only thirteen years old, but we're going to have to debrief you for what you know of this universe up to this date."

Elle frowned. "Why?"

He paused and shook his head. "There is some, concern," he started delicately, "that you might be too classified to exist outside a Star Fleet environment. If anyone ever got a hold of what you know..."

"What?" Elle could just see it, a lifetime of living on a drab Starbase, or a Star Fleet safehouse, or something. "Like, I'd be on house arrest or something?"

"Nothing so drastic," Kirk said. "Security, of course, and-" he sighed. "Yeah. House arrest, basically. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Elle said. "Well, it's a little bit your fault. If you weren't so interesting there wouldn't be a TV show, so..." She was rambling. Shut up. She took a deep breath., the wheels in her mind turning at a thousand rev per minute. "Can I, what if, would it be okay if I stayed on the Enterprise?"

Kirk's jaw dropped and he started to shake his head. "It's not safe," he started.

"I know, I've already been stabbed," Elle said dryly. "But that's not the point. You said it yourself, I'm too classified to live outside of a Star Fleet environment, and there's no way I'm going to stay with people I don't know. And, the only things I really know center around your ship and your crew and your adventures." She took a deep breath, excitement rising as her plan started to take shape. "Look, in eighty years they'll authorize families, civilians, on Star Fleet ships. The Enterprise-D will have a thousand people on it, half of them spouses and kids. What if we tell the admiralty that, and have me be the guinea pig? I'm a prototype. Does the morale of the crew go up when there's civilians around? Does it go down? is it safe? Is it not?"

"That's a completely crazy idea. You're not related to anyone here."

"That's not the point," Elle said, "duh. It just has to keep me on the ship." She paused. "That is, if you want to keep me here. Sir." She twisted her fingers together nervously.

"You wouldn't be around kids your age," Kirk said.

"I was already not around kids my age," Elle reminded him.

"Enterprise very rarely makes it to safe shore leave locations, you couldn't leave the ship," Kirk warned.

"You have the proto-holodeck bits and I'm a nerd anyway," Elle retorted.

"It's dangerous," he said.

Elle raised an eyebrow at him, Spock-style. "So is sitting in a safehouse, waiting to be kidnapped. At least out here I'm on the move and if anyone wants to get at me they'd have to go through a lot of trouble first."

Kirk let a smile quirk his lips. "You have a point," he said, but he didn't give anything else away.

"Please?" Elle asked, giving him her best puppy-eyes.

"I don't want to sacrifice your safety or your mental health just to make things easier on us out here," he said, very solemn.

Elle bit her lip thoughtfully and looked up at him, meeting his gaze. "If I knew what you were going through out here and I couldn't help, I'd feel awful," she told him.

"I will take it under consideration with the senior officers," he replied. "If everyone agrees, we will propose it to the admiralty."

Elle hugged him impulsively. "Thank you, captain!"

He patted her back. "Don't thank me yet, kiddo. Nothing's been decided." But he looked pleased. Then he sobered. "I do still have to debrief you, though."

Elle nodded. "Is that our literature lesson then?"

"Sure."

Being debriefed was a huge process. First, Elle couldn't really remember the names of episodes or anything concrete unless she was reminded of it, given that Star Trek: Enterprise wasn't her most favorite series. So, debriefing consisted mostly of scrolling through the NX-01's mission files and stopping when one caught her eye, and then expanding on the details. Everything she said was being recorded by the ship's computer on an encrpyed data disk.

It took hours, and Elle was half-asleep by the time they got through the five years of the show. "And we haven't even started on this Enterprise yet," Elle said, stifling a yawn.

Kirk yawned in reply. "Let's call it a day and pick it up in the morning," he said.

"Okay. Night, captain."

"Good night, Elle."

She barely made it to her quarters before passing out.

-/\-

Elle woke up late the next morning. It was fine. There was a message on her computer from the captain, letting her know that school was cancelled for the day on account of debriefing, and to meet him in the conference room once she was awake and done with breakfast.

Ele hurried through her shower and practically ran to the mess hall. She replicated a couple of pieces of peanut butter toast and ate them on the way to the conference room.

Kirk was there, reviewing transcripts, and he looked like he hadn't slept a wink. "They're confirming the data," he said, and cracked his neck. "There are a couple admirals who want to house you at HQ."

Elle made a face. "I'd rather be stabbed again than live in politics central."

Kirk laughed but he didn't disagree. "Shall we?" he asked, taking a sip of coffee.

Elle glanced at the recorder and frowned, thinking about what she knew was the Enterprise's first mission out of spacedock. "Captain?"

"Yes?"

"Was your dad a security officer on a starbase for a while?"

Kirk's eyes narrowed. "Yes..."

"And he got you a sailboat for your tenth birthday?"

"Yes..."

Elle bit her lip. "And he's an advisor for some Star Fleet ambassador botanist?"

"Yes... what is this about?"

"The Enterprise, this Enterprise's, first adventure." She reached out and patted the table.

"My father's never been on the Enterprise."

Elle shrugged. "Not exactly."

Kirk sighed. "I'm gonna need more coffee."

By the time they got to Journey to Babel, the whole day was over and Elle's voice was practically gone, her throat sore from speaking so much.

"I have half a mind to delete this whole tape," Kirk said, after a long moment of contemplative silence. He stared into his coffee cup. "I wasn't going to let you stay," he said. "But I've changed my mind. You know us too well to go anywhere else."

Elle suppressed the urge to do a victory-dance. "Thank you, captain," she said formally, and ruined the effect by yawning.

He reached over and ruffled her hair. "Now to convince the senior officers and HQ."

"I trust you," she said simply.

He flashed her a smile. "Thank you, Elle. Now, go rest. Bones'll kill me if you lose your voice."

She gave him a smile and headed to the mess hall. She replicated herself a big mug of chamomile with honey and lemon to soothe her throat. There was nothing to do but wait.

The page came a moment later. "Senior officers to the briefing room."

Chekov, in the corner of the mess hall talking (flirting?) with a girl from astrometrics, got up and headed out the door.

Elle went to bed, trying to be patient.