"Elle."

"Mm?"

"Are you asleep?"

Elle moved her arm off her face to squint up at an entirely-too-amused Captain Kirk. "Just dozing," she mumbled.

"In the middle of the rec deck?"

Elle waved a lazy hand. "Good ambiance."

He eyed the wannabe jazz band starting up in the corner of the room. "I see." Something else caught his eye. "I'll let you get on with your nap, then."

"Carry on," she mumbled, putting her arm back over her eyes. She dozed off again to the lovely background chatter of assorted beings and the mournful toot-toot of a trombone.

The simulated basketball game woke her up and she joined in cheering for Ops V. Req.

The next day in Biology class McCoy asked, "So how do you feel?"

Elle blinked at him. "Fine?"

"What'd you do yesterday?"

"Uh, I don't know. Played a game, took a nap, watched Requisitions beat Ops at basketball. Oh, I had Twizzlers, do I have a pimple or something?" She squinted at her reflection in the computer screen, looking for a blemish. Nothing there, though there was a suspicious red spot on her chin.

"Are you lonely?" McCoy asked her.

Elle turned to face him. "No? Why? Do I look sad? That's just my thinking face."

He chuckled. "No, you don't look sad. Jim was just worried you were sleeping on the rec deck."

Elle 'pshaw'ed'. "I'm a teenager, Bones. I like to nap anywhere and everywhere. Like a cat. Or a tribble. You know that."

"Okay." He watched her for a moment longer. "Are you sure you're not upset about anything?"

Elle catalogued her mental and emotional state. "No?"

"You're not lonely? You don't want people your own age?"

"People my age are terrifying," Elle said bluntly. "Literally, terrifying. And every kid you've had on this ship besides me has been, like, possessed by evil energy beings."

"Good point," Bones said, trying not to laugh. "You're not intersted in a pen pal or something?"

Elle paused. "I, don't know?" She bit her lip as she contemplated it. A girl her age born in this century? Elle compared to that girl would be like comparing a country mouse to a neurosurgeon... "I don't know," she said again.

The soft smile he gave her made her suspect he knew what she was thinking. "Okay," was all he said, and the lesson moved on.

If Elle noticed a suspicious amount of younger crewpeople trying to befriend her afterwards, she didn't say anything. It was nice to have more allies in The Great Paint War.

-/\-

"All right, kiddo, what do you think?"

"Seven-dimensional oogies," Elle replied.

Ensign Bacara laughed. "Valid observation," he said. "Anything else?"

She contemplated the piece of abstract art. "Can I go back to learning fencing with Sulu?" she asked.

"No," Bacara said. "Your education has to have at least one art credit."

Elle plopped her head into her hand. "Why does it have to be abstract art?"

"Because it's less stuffy than hundreds of years of portraits and religious iconography," Bacara said.

"I like paintings of the Great Bird," Elle said, just to be contrary.

"Elle, c'mon."

Elle sighed. "Abstract art. Okay." She tilted her head, squinted at the painting. "Whale eating krill in the ocean."

"Why do you get that feeling?"

"Because I watched Finding Nemo last night."

Bacara groaned. "Elle."

"What! Art is subjective! Subjectively this is flow acrylic with orange and blue paint and it looks like a whale eating krill because that's what's closest in my brain!"

The ensign grinned at her. "There you go." He switched the painting. "Here. Try and find symbolism in this stuffy portrait, I have to check my labs."

Elle, very maturely, stuck her tongue out at him as he left the room. She turned her attention to the painting. "Well the skull is obviously about mortality," she said. "And the cat means something's sketchy. This is obviously an embezzler."

Commander Samir snorted. "If you'll read the label you'll see it's actually a French courtesan."

Elle blinked. "And that's not an embezzler?"

Samir huffed a laugh. "Are you and the captain reading Les Miserables together?"

"Nope," Elle said, beaming. "I got him to watch the musical with me. We cried the whole three hours."

Samir blinked. "I don't think that's healthy."

Elle shrugged. "Meh."

-/\-

"I don't like Picasso. He's overrated."

Bacara stared at her, betrayed.

"I like Vulcan space-age impressionists," Elle said. "And that one woman from Earth Renaissance who painted pictures of women cutting off their abusers' heads."

Bacara sighed. "Is this what it's like having siblings?" he asked the universe at large.

Elle shrugged blithely. "I don't know, I'm an only child."

He started to pontificate about cubism.

The Enterprise jerked sharply to the right and then swung around in the other direction. Elle tumbled out of her chair and rolled into Bacara's desk. She braced herself against the bolted-down furniture and grabbed it tight. "What's going on?" she hollered, over the whooping of alerts.

"I don't know!" Bacara replied, barely bracing himself in his seat as the Enterprise did its best imitation of a sideways rocking chair. He grabbed her by the back of her shirt, hauled her into a chair, and tagged the auto-harness.

It clipped around Elle and kept her from falling out again. "Thanks," she gasped, as the ship jolted again. "Is this an ion storm?"

"We're orbiting a planet, it can't be," Bacara said.

Under their feet the deck plates shuddered, and Elle could hear a mournful 'whooooooo' as the inertial dampeners and grav-stabilizers exerted themselves to the max. "There's no space Six Flags, right?"

"I don't know what that is."

"Never mind."

It was another two minutes of rollercoaster motions until the Enterprise stilled. The whine of stabilizers cut off abruptly and the alerts went silent.

"Okay," Elle said. "That was weird." She waited for her stomach to stop rolling. "I think I'm going to go to the bridge. This feels episode-y."

Bacara waved her away. "Go, take your little classical heathen art brain with you."

Elle made a face at him and headed to the bridge. Scotty was there. "Where's everybody?" she asked.

"The medical team and Mr. Spock headed down to the surface of the planet," Scotty said, visibly stressed, "and the leader requested to speak to Captain Kirk. He went down as well, and a few minutes later, this happened. We've been ordered to get out of orbit and wait but our orbit is locked tight and everything but short-range comms is unresponsive."

Elle bit her lip. "This feels familiar. Did the captain say who was on the planet?"

"Apparently they're some students of Greek philosophy. Socrates?"

Elle paled. "Plato? Plato's stepchildren?"

"Aye, lass. Do you know what's going on?"

"We need to get them out of there," Elle said urgently. "Those people are telekinetic and mean. We need to beam them back."

"Transporters are out," Scotty said grimly. "How do we get out of this one, lass? Think quick."

Elle tapped her forehead with her palm. "Think, think, think... it's in their food, whatever gives them the ability. It's a power source. Kirk and Spock ingest it and they break the Platonians hold."

"Lt. Uhura, get the captain on the line," Scotty ordered.

"Kirk here," came his voice. "We're slightly busy at the moment, Enterprise, what is it?"

"The Platonians, captain," Elle said, leaning into the mic. "They get their powers from the power source on the planet, it's in their food."

"The kironide?" Kirk asked.

"Yes, that! Anyone who eats enough will have the ability," Elle said urgently. "All they want from us is entertainment, you have to come ba-" The line went dead. "Captain?"

"Get them back," Scotty said.

Uhura shook her head. "It's dead, just like everything else."

"Oh no."

Scotty patted her arm. "Don't worry, lass, you gave 'em the key, and between the captain and Spock they'll figure it out." He frowned at the planet onscreen. "You'd better get back to class, Elle."

She went, reluctantly.

-/\-

"Elle to Officers' Mess. Elle to Officers' Mess."

The quiet hail startled her out of her haze of Doctor Who and popcorn. She popped out of her blanket cocoon and tapped the comm. "On my way." She booked it to the Officers' Mess Hall. Was Captain Kirk back?

She entered and found the senior officers milling about the largest table, along with- "Alexander of Platonius, this is Elle Wilcott," Kirk said, waving her over. "Alexander helped us escape the Platonians, and he has asked for asylum from the Federation."

Elle smiled at the little person and shook his hand. "A pleasure to meet you, sir."

"You as well," he said.

"Late supper?" Kirk offered, eyeing the crumbs of popcorn on her shirt with a grin.

Elle brushed off her shirt hastily and returned the grin. "I'm always up for food, captain." She took a seat between Uhura and Sulu at the table and looked across the table at Spock. "How'd it go?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "The kironide was indeed the key to the Platonians' telekinesis," was all he said.

Elle shifted uneasily. You okay? she mouthed at him.

His head tilt indicated they were all fine.

She relaxed and focused on eating her vegetarian lasagna as the others talked about the Platonian culture.

"It is fascinating to see what unlimited power and philosophical stagnation do to a culture," Spock said. "If the Platonians one day truly decide to reinvent themselves and move forward as a society, they could do many great things."

"They won't," Alexander said. "They're too addicted to their petty joys."

"Like the Q," Elle said.

"The who?" Kirk asked.

Elle stuffed lasagna in her mouth and waved her hand vaguely. Abort, abort, too early. She sat there, tense, waiting for a flash of light that would herald the omnipotent being. Nothing happened and slowly she relaxed.

A decorative vase fell over across the room.

Elle stiffened, as did everyone at the table.

"Wasn't me," Kirk and McCoy said at the same time, and everyone turned to look at Spock.

"It was not I," Spock said firmly.

"Hmph," was McCoy's reply.

Elle stifled a desparate giggle into her soda, but nothing else happened that night, and dinner with their Platonian guest was considered a success.

-/\-

They dropped Alexander off at the nearest starbase. From there he'd hitch a ride with Excelsior and go back to Earth to see how humans had grown over the last two thousand years. He was quite relieved to be done with telekinetic jerkbenders.

Elle missed his presence. With their guest gone, she had to go back to studying art with Ensign Bacara. It wasn't terrible, he was just annoying in his dedication to cubism.

"I like cubes, man," Elle said, pointing to her own Minecraft shirt, "but in 3D. 3D, Ensign."

Bacara sighed. "Fine. What if we use the interactive holographic files of cubism to explore color usage?"

Elle scowled suspciously. "No Picasso."

"No Picasso."