The next morning after The Great Foam Incident, as people were calling it with great fondness, Elle wandered into the mess hall for breakfast, and paused. There was a planet in the window. She got her eggs and toast and sat next to Yeoman Barrows. "Where are we? What planet is this?"

"This is Capella."

Elle frowned into her eggs, picking at the flecks of pepper. Too much pepper. "Capella, with the fighting people?" she asked.

"I think so. I haven't read the brief yet."

"I need to talk to the captain," Elle decided. "I think this is Friday's Child."

Barrows nodded. "I can walk you to the bridge once we're done, I need to get some signatures."

"Thanks."

She walked with Barrows up to the bridge and in accordance with Giotto's safety classes she clasped her hands behind her back to remove the temptation of touching something.

Kirk gave her a smile and said, "Welcome to the bridge. What do you think?"

Elle looked around at the bridge, the blinking consoles and the big screens and the levers and dials and smiled. "I love it," she said.

"So what brings you up here?" he asked, signing off on the stack of PADDs.

"Is this Capella?" Elle asked, gesturing to the viewscreen.

"Yes it is." He gave her an odd look. "What do you know about it?"

"The Klingons are here," Elle said.

Kirk gave her his full attention. "And?"

"So when you go down, you and Spock and Bones make off with the queen and she has a baby and you stop the Klingons from getting the treaty with... makeshift arrows."

Kirk blinked. "And why do we make off with the queen?"

"Oh yeah. Cuz the wannabe kills the king and he's going to kill her, too. Except in the end you're more honorable than the Klingons."

"Good to know," Kirk said. "Thank you for telling us."

Elle nodded. "Of course, captain." She shifted uneasily. Now that she'd fulfilled her purpose, she didn't quite know... did she have to leave? Or could she stay...?

Sulu turned slightly and waved her over. "I don't have much to do, so we can chat. Can you guess what kind of orbit we're in?"

Elle looked at the readouts, something about 'thrusters' and looked at the planet on the viewscreen. It didn't look like it was spinning, so that meant the Enterprise was going as fast as the planet, so, "Geo-synchronous?" she guessed.

Sulu gave her a high-five. "Good job. So over here..."

He and Chekov took turns explaining how they actually maneuver the ship and plot courses, Kirk chiming in once in a while with side notes or anecdotes.

The comm console beeped briefly. Uhura spoke up. "Teer Akaar has acknowledged our presence, captain, and invites you to beam down for negotiations."

Captain Kirk nodded. "Acknowledge his invitation and inform him we'll be there shortly. Spock, you're with me. McCoy to transporter room two." He touched the arm of the chair. "Mr. Scott, to the bridge, you have the conn."

"Aye, cap'n."

Scott came up in a jiffy, and Kirk turned over command. "If there are Klingons out there, let's not give them a reason to pick a fight."

"Aye, aye, sir. Godspeed."

Elle shuffled uneasily. "I'll get out of your hair," she said.

"Thanks, lass. See you tomorrow?"

"Yup." She got in the lift. "Deck Six."

-/\-

It was really hard to wait. Elle knew the episode was playing out in real life below her feet on the planet, but to just sit here? Ugh.

She read two days worth of history material in a burst of anxious energy and then headed to the gym. Her regular session with Giotto was canceled. Security was on high alert since the captain was off ship with only one seucrity officer and they were literally waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Elle ran a mile on the treadmill and did some stretches on her own anyway.

Since everyone else was busy, interactive classes were cancelled and Elle made her way to the Yeoman's Offices as ordered.

"Hey, Elle," Barrows said, giving her a smile. "Pull up a chair."

The department was laid out like an open floor plan at any large computer-based office. There were two walls of file cabinets, extensively labelled. The other two walls were covered in planners, calendars, schedules, reminders, sticky notes, and drawings. There were free range desks scattered about with various chairs, pods, beanbags, and sofas. This was the administrative heart of the Enterprise.

So Elle grabbed a beanbag and tugged it over to the corner of the room. With a PADD and a cup of hot chcolate she was all set to do her assigned reading for the day.

It was more fun to people-watch though. This was a busy department, with people bustling in and out and discussing schedules and meetings. Whoever wasn't actively working was sprawled in a seat, complaining their feet hurt, and one guy looked like he was sleeping with his eyes open. There were an equal amount of men and women and quite a few other species.

Elle poked at Barrow's ankle with her stylus. "Hey, I have a question. How do you get to be a yeoman anyway?"

"We're all NCO's, or non-commissioned officers. So we went to Star Fleet Academy for training but we don't have a commission. We're on a yearly basis, since it's a high-stress job. But if we stick it out we can get all the way up to Chief Petty Officer."

"So you get paid less?" Elle asked, frowning.

"Nobody gets paid, Elle."

"Oh yeah."

Barrows took pity on her. "But basically, we're yeomen because we're good at it. Without smooth paperwork, everything stalls. And we take care of all the details so that the person in charge can see the whole picture and make the big decisions."

"How much would the captain sleep if you didn't help him?" Elle asked.

"About ten seconds every five days," Barrows said, after a moment. "Less during quarterly reviews."

"So you're really good at organizing."

"Not to brag, but yes. Our whole team for the senior officers are the best of the best."

"Cool." Elle absorbed the information into her world view, and noticed something else. sitting on the floor, it was kind of hard not to, but- "pants," she said. More than half the female yeomen were wearing uniform pants.

"Huh?"

"They're all wearing pants. You're wearing pants."

Barrows laughed. "You were expecting everyone to wear the miniskirts all the time?"

"Kinda..."

"Yeah, I suppose coming from the 21st century, gender roles are a little more, uh, structured."

Elle snorted. "Oh, the irony." She went back to her textbook.

Finally, they got word that the treaty had been secured and Kirk and co were beaming up.

Elle waved a cheerful goodbye to the yeomen and went back to her quarters. Worrying was exhausting. She met up with Kirk on the way to his quarters. "So, how'd it go?" she asked.

He grinned briefly. "There were Klingons. Lots of shouting. We stole the teer and his consort. They named the baby Leonard James Akaar."

She grinned. "Nice. I guess some things have to stay the same."

"I guess so."

"G'night, captain. Welcome back." She pressed a kiss to his cheek and went into her quarters.