Something wasn't right. Elle put down her fork and surveyed the Mess Hall. It was too quiet. Instead of the cheerful bustle and chatter of crewmen going on or off shift, the crew spoke in subdued whispers or were silent.

Elle picked up her tray and plopped down with a group of yeomen-they knew everything. "What's going on?" she asked.

The two yeomen shared a glance. "There was a Code Gold this morning," Yeoman Maas said.

Elle's eyes widened. "What?" Code Gold was 'the captain in danger'. "What happened?"

"He's in Sickbay," Maas replied.

This wasn't an episode. They were in clear Federation space, in between assignments, nothing should've happened. Elle picked up her tray and dumped it in the recycler. She had to know what was going on.

Sickbay's main ward was ghostly silent. Nurse Chapel came in response to the door sensor and frowned. "Health and Bio classes are canceled until further notice, Elle."

"What's wrong with the captain?" Elle asked bluntly.

Chapel studied Elle's face for a long moment before replying, "A relapse of Vegan choriomeningitis. He's in critical condition."

Elle's mouth went dry. "Is, what are, he's going to be okay, right?"

"If we can synthesize the cure in time. We don't carry it because it's so rare, but it will take time to make."

"But why'd he get sick?" Elle asked. "Is it just like shingles, or something?"

Chapel sighed. "After these last few missions, the kironide, the acceleration, and being infected by the Elasian tears-"

Elle hadn't known that. That crazy princess had got him? Whatever. Focus.

"-his immune system was severely depressed, and that's what gave it the opening to come back."

Elle nodded slowly. "Is it contagious? Can I see him? Can he have visitors?"

"It's not contagious, no, and let me ask Dr. McCoy."

Elle fidgeted anxiously till Chapel returned. "Yeah. Come on."

McCoy met them at the doorway of the captain's private room. "He's really out of it," he warned Elle. "You can see him for a couple of minutes."

"Okay."

He stepped aside to let her in. "Jim? You've got a visitor."

Kirk looked terrible, sweating and glassy-eyed from fever, but he still managed a smile. "Hey, kiddo."

"Hi." She moved forward and touched his shoulder. It radiated heat through the thin scrubs.

He blinked a long blink and frowned. "Aurelan? What're you doin' here? Where's Sam?"

Elle glanced at McCoy, worried.

He moved forward and put an arm around her shoulder. "She'll go look for him. Get some rest." He steered Elle out of the room. "Go on," he said kindly, though his eyes were worried. "Get to class. The captain will be fine."

"Okay." Elle gave him a hug and left Sickbay, a heavy weight in her gut.

By lunchtime, the captain's condition worsened. He'd slipped into a coma.

Life on the Enterprise seemed to slow even further with the news. She couldn't concentrate on anything and neither could her teachers. So classes were canceled indefinitely.

Elle puttered around the Rec Decks, challenging off-duty crewmen to random games of ping pong or space-age Mario Kart.

She glanced at the clock and froze. It was time for her literature class with the captain. But- she swallowed the lump in her throat. Cmdr. Samir was always available, or Sulu had offered... Then she got an idea and tucked her PADD under arm. Time to go back to Sickbay.

McCoy was in the main ward, consulting with M'Benga and another nurse. "-see if we can't up the dosage-" they broke off as Elle entered. "What's up?" he asked her.

She held up her PADD. "Would it help? If I read to him?"

McCoy smiled. "Actually that just might help. He's been awfully restless. What are you reading?"

"Treasure Island."

"Perfect." He ushered her into the room and gestured to the chair by the bedside. "You sit there and start reading."

Elle glanced at Kirk's twitching hands and cleared her throat. "Chapter Two, where we left off..." She focused on reading the best she could.

A few minutes later, McCoy patted her on the shoulder. "He's relaxing," he said quietly, "heading towards sleep. You just keep reading, darlin'."

Elle nodded and kept reading.

She read until she was hoarse and Kirk's brainwaves were staying firmly in the delta range. McCoy had disappeared (probably sedated into taking a nap thanks to Chapel), and it was late. Elle closed her eyes for a second, unwilling to leave him by himself.

The next think she knew, alarms were going off left and right and medical personnel were swarming. Elle could only watch in bleary-eyed horror as Kirk's body convulsed in the bed.

"-he's crashing, get me twenty cc's-"

"Toni, get her out-"

Nurse Lopez kindly but firmly propelled Elle out the door. "Stay."

Elle leaned against the opposite wall, hands shaking.

Finally, after hours (read as: forty minutes), the crisis was mostly over. McCoy came out, looking shattered. He raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" he rasped.

Elle shook her head, scared to ask.

He patted her shoulder. "He's stable now, and conscious. Do you feel like reading some more?"

"Yeah."

"Go on, then. I'll be in my office. Toni'll keep an eye on you both."

Elle slipped into the room. Coma-conscious was mostly unconscious, but he was awake-ish. "Hey, captain," she said, sitting down. "Chapter eleven..."

The next thing Elle knew, someone was shaking her shoulder. "Whuh?" She shot upright, startled. "Wh's wrong?"

Nurse Kim smiled at her. "It's morning, sweetie. 0900."

"Oh." Elle looked over at Kirk. He looked the same, white as paper except for the fever flush on his cheeks. She stifled a yawn and stood, cracking her neck. "Ow." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "We're gonna make it," she promised. "I'll see you later, cap." She shuffled out of Sickbay. If it was 0900, that meant they were eight hours closer to synthesizing a cure, and with all replicators going, including the ones meant for food-grade matter, that meant... that meant she was not good at math or advanced chemistry. Never mind.

She turned the corner and crashed into a wall of Science blue. Firm hands propped her up. "Elle?"

She glanced up at Spock sheepishly. "Sorry. I'm sleepy." She hastened to assure him, "Don't worry though, he's okay. No change since last night."

He blinked. "Are you experiencing thought transference?" he asked.

She frowned. "No... aren't you going to sickbay?"

"Yes."

"Well then," Elle said simply. "Night, er, morning, cmdr." She stepped around him. The biggest rule in the Star Trek universe is never get in between a Vulcan and his goal. He will definitely run you over.

-/\-

Classes were still canceled, all non-essential tasks were on pause to minimize the risk of injuries or taking away medical personnel from the captain's care, and non-essential replicators were shut down to reroute power to give priority to medical replicators.

It was a very quiet rec deck.

Lt. Athende, one of Uhura's comm officers, waved Elle over with one of its tentacles. "Come watch cartoons with us, Elle," xe said.

Elle sat on the couch next to them, and promptly sank into their squishy side. "What are we watching?"

"Captain Proton Goes to the Tenth Dimension," Athende replied. "The Tenth Dimension is animation."

"Ah." Elle reached over the lieutenant to take a handful of popcorn. "I thought you couldn't eat plasticky kernels like this."

"I can't. It's bad for my internal lining," Athende replied, and lifted xer other arm on the other side. "Ensign Manard can, though she fell asleep two episodes ago."

"Nice." Elle took the bowl for herself. Ya snooze ya lose, you know.

Another lieutenant on gamma shift came and flopped on Elle's other side. "Ooh, Tenth Dimension. This one's a classic." She appropriated the popcorn.

Elle sighed. Ya snooze, ya lose.

-/\-

::Enterprise Common Forums:: Priority Announcement::

Sickbay reports the treatement for Vegan choriomeningitis has been successfully replicated, and will continue to be produced at the needed rate. Moping is now officially banned from common areas, you're depressing the newbies. Non-urgent tasks are still being deferred until the nurses have each gotten a full night's sleep.

::End Priority Announcement::

::Enterprise Common Forums:: New Post::

From the Desk of Head Nurse Chapel:

If any of you are fool enough to break a bone while we are still on Code Gold (looking at you, Engineering wingnuts), I will personally hypo you into next week.

::End Post::

Elle heaved a sigh of relief on seeing the updates. It was going to be okay.

-/\-

"Hey, kiddo." The captain smiled at her.

"You look better," Elle said, giving him a smile.

He huffed a laugh and sunk his head into the squashy pillow. "You mean less like I got run over by a shuttle?"

"More like you got knocked down by a hoverbike," she agreed. She sat down in the chair next to his bed and cracked open her pilfered copy of Treasure Island.

He eyed the book, his eyes still glassy with fever.

"Spock borrowed it from your room," Elle said.

He huffed again. "Is it naptime?"

"Sir?"

He rubbed at his stubbly jaw with the hand not hooked up to an IV. "I remember, you were reading to me."

She shifted in her chair. "Well, if you want to take a nap, I can get out of here," she said. "I just thought you might be bored."

"Stay," Kirk said. "I'm terribly bored. No one will give me a PADD."

"Because you need sleep!" McCoy hollered, from the open door.

"It's a private room, go away!" Kirk hollered back, and immediately fell into a coughing fit.

"Okay, Captain Grumpypants," Bones said, coming in and adjusting his pillows to let the captain hack up a lung in a supported fashion. "Hush up and let Elle read to you about pirates, won't you?"

"Yes, sir," Kirk replied, his scathing tone completely ineffectual.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "If he gets too cranky on ya, Elle, you just hit that button. Captains make the worst patients."

She saluted. "Besides doctors," she added innocently.

McCoy tweaked the end of her braid. "Brat." He left.

The captain scowled and pulled his blanket up to his nose. "I'm tired of being sick."

"It's only been four days," Elle pointed out. "And this is the first time you've been awake enough to hold a conversation."

He shot her a sharp glance. "What chapter are we on?"

She held up the book. "Chapter twenty-seven."

He frowned. "We were barely on chapter two!"

"You've been sleeping a lot," Elle replied. "And it seemed to help you sleep."

His gaze caught on the dark circles under her eyes. "Elle..."

"Yes, captain?"

"Thank you," he said simply. He waved a hand. "So what's going on by chapter twenty-seven?"

She summarized the last few events and started reading.

Two chapters in, the captain fell into a doze. By the end of the next chapter, he was completely asleep.

Bones stuck his head in. "Nice," he whispered. "You get a lifetime supply of free candy for this. I'm putting a commendation in your file."

"I'm a civilian," she whispered back.

"Don't care." He patted her on the head and slipped back out.

Elle pulled out her datapad and started building the new wing of her Minecraft castle.

The captain stirred.

She picked up the book and kept reading aloud.

He subsided back into full sleep.

-/\-

It was a long two weeks before the captain was cleared for full duty. Elle had read him Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Treasure Island again during his many, varied, naps.

When he made his first appearance in the Rec Deck after shift, the crew threw an impromptu party. Elle presented him with the clay tribble she'd made, and he was forced to graciously accept it.

Elle took Dr. McCoy up on his offer of endless candy.

Life was good.

-/\-

Star Fleet magnaminously extended an easy mission to the Enterprise: deliver this and that to so and so asylum.

"Seriously? They named this colony Elba Two, and then sent people here, who think they're next great Napoleon?" Elle asked. "Isn't that literally asking for trouble?"

"Somebody in the Justice Department thinks they're funny," Kirk said dryly. "But Captain Garth of Izar, before his breakdown, was a truly inspired individual. His tactics and negotiation strategies are still required reading at the Academy, and they were the inspiration for what won us the peace at Axanar."

Elle frowned. "Isn't that one of your medals? Weren't you the one that negotiated the peace treaty?"

The tops of his ears went pink. "Yes."

"Nice. Your mission's required reading, by the way."

He tugged at his collar, his cheeks reddening. "You're kidding."

"Nope." She scrolled down the orders. "So this treatment will cure mental illness?"

"We hope."

Elle nodded slowly. "How does it work?"

The captain grimaced. "I'm afraid it went over my head. You'll have to ask Bones."

"Hm." She zoomed in on Captain Garth. "Wait a second... Elba... does it have a super-concentrated shield over it?"

He eyed her warily. "Yes... don't tell me this is an episode."

"I think it's an episode." Elle made a face. "It's just, these episodes were really weird, and I didn't watch too many of the ones from season three more than once, but it does kind of sound familiar."

"All right," Kirk said, "what are we dealing with?"

Elle dropped her face into her hands, trying to remember. Think, think, think, an asylum... "Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad," she said aloud.

"Sophocles, isn't that?" Kirk asked.

"The name of the episode," Elle told him.

"Ah. Apt."

"Yeah." She concentrated. "All I got... is that at some point he gets out and he shapeshifts?" Elle shrugged helplessly.

Kirk sighed. "All right. It's safe to assume he's already escaped then." He stood up. "Security chief to the briefing room."

"If I think of anything else I'll comm," Elle told him.

He pressed a hand to her hair. "Thank you, Elle."

-/\-

They entered planetary orbit above Elba Two, sent down three teams of security to sweep and secure the facility, and found the inmates out and about, Dr. Cory and his staff unconscious in one of the storerooms, and the shields an hour away from vaporizing the entire facility.

Wide-beam phasers set on high stun solved most of the problems.

By the time Elle heard all this, Dr. McCoy was already beaming down the cases of medicine.

"Well that was anti-climactic," Elle decided.

"Thanks to Chief Giotto's men," Kirk said.

"True. You're not going down, captain?"

"No. I think it's best that you don't meet your heroes."

Elle leaned against his arm. "Well, I met my heroes and they're better than I thought, so..."

Kirk smiled and pressed a kiss to her hair. "Flatterer."

He did end up going down to Elba Two to have dinner with the governor and his staff, who were desperate for human interaction.