Dr. Crusher came to check on her patients and assigned Elle to escort them to their guest quarters and give them a tour of the ship. "You're in charge of them," she said.

Elle nodded. "Thank you, doctor." She gestured to the doors. "Shall we, gentlemen?"

She ushered them through the halls to guest quarters. "Scotty, I cheated and put you as close to my quarters as possible so we can be neighbors. Lt. Franklin I'm afraid you're a few decks down on 12, but we'll walk you down first."

"Twelve?"

"It's not an engineering deck," Elle assured him. "Those are on eighteen through thirty-six. Ish."

"What's the crew complement on this behemoth?" Scotty asked.

"Currently a thousand, though it's capable of up to six thousand for things like colony evacuation and stuff." Elle led them into the lift. "Alexa, deck 12, guest quarters, please."

"Acknowledged."

Scotty gave her a sharp look. "Alexa?"

Elle gave him a knowing smile in return. "Good name for a computer, don't you think?"

"Hm."

They stepped into Lt. Franklin's room and both men gaped. "Is this, this is a stateroom, surely?" Franklin asked.

Elle grinned. "Nope, regular old unimportant guest quarters. The staterooms are like twice the size."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. I told you, this ship's ginormous."

"Is that a technical term?" Franklin asked, amused.

"Yes." Elle gestured around. "Bathroom in there, sonic and water, uhhh, let me show you how the replicator works. You can get a new uniform or civvies, and any food you want."

"Replicator?"

"What they call synthesizers now." Elle showed them the voice-activated controls and produced a pair of pajamas in Franklin's approximate size. "Eh?"

"Thank you." The younger man looked overwhelmed.

Scotty gave him a bracing pat on the shoulder. "Wrap your head around it, get some sleep, and we'll get you in the morning for breakfast."

"Yes, sir."

"0900," Elle said. "You can sleep in." She and Scotty left Franklin to his mental breakdown and headed back up to Deck 9.

"How have you been, Elle?" Scotty asked, as they walked through the endless halls. It was quiet at this time of evening, almost ghostly with no one in the halls.

Elle leaned into Scotty's side. "I've been good. This Enterprise crew has been really good to me. And I have actual friends my age on this ship, so Bones is pleased with my social development."

Scotty stopped walking. "Bones?"

She winced. "Yes. Bones and Spock are both still around."

"Spock I figured, but Leonard? He must be..."

Elle grinned. "Older'n'everybody but God? So he says."

Scotty grinned back at her. His grin fell slightly. "And, the captain? Jim? Is he..."

She grinned sheepishly. "Er, well, if I told you that he actually is alive but trapped in a pocket dimension called the Nexus where time doesn't pass?"

Scotty gave a long, slow blink. "Well, it's no stranger than bein' trapped in a transporter buffer. When are we going to go get him?"

"Uh. Not for a few years yet."

"Ah." He deflated. "Ah well, I should probably get acclimated to this century before I go off looking for pocket dimensions."

"Yes, please," Elle said. "You just got here, give it some time."

"And how long have you been here?"

"Almost a year." She stopped in front of a door. "These are your quarters." She let him step inside first.

"Too much space," Scotty grumbled under his breath.

"You want to borrow one of the ship's cats?" Elle teased.

He looked out at the stars through the window and sighed. "No, this old man wants to go to bed."

"You're only a hundred and thirty ish," Elle teased.

"And feelin' every year of it." He kissed the top of her head. "Good night, Elle."

She hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek. "Good night, Scotty. Love you."

"Love you too, lass."

She let herself out and went to her own quarters. She took her shoes off and flopped onto the couch. "Alexa?"

"Yes, Elle?"

"Can you alert me if either of them seem to be having difficulties?"

Alexa sniffed. "That would constitute a breach of privacy protocols."

"Can you do it anyway?"

"I will alert you," Alexa conceded.

"Thanks."

Elle woke up that morning with equal parts excitement and trepidation. Neither of the newcomers to the 24th century had majorly freaked out in the night, so maybe hopeful was the order of the day? She got dressed, chugged a shot of espresso, and submitted her report to her history class with the note, "On assigment, sorry, will be absent." She gave Simba the Third a kiss on the head and went to go get Scotty.

He was sitting there, nose tucked into a cup of coffee, gazing at the Dyson sphere. "We haven't gotten too close to that thing."

"Can't," Elle said. "It's got auto tractor beam protocols. Definitely don't want to go in there."

"Why not?"

"Uhhh, radiation, I think. We shot in a boatload of probes so Data will have more details for us."

"Data?" They started walking towards the turbolift.

"The only android in Star Fleet," Elle replied. "You haven't met him yet."

"An android?" Scotty said, pleased. "One of Mudd's androids finally decide to join us?"

Elle stifled a grin. "No, he was created by a Federation scientist. He's a good guy. Good sense of humor." She pressed the door chime to Franklin's quarters.

The door opened, and he came out, clutching a large mug of coffee in a death grip.

"Venti four-shot espresso?" Elle asked.

"How'd you know?" Franklin asked, startled.

"You have that look about you," Elle said. "Someone who's discovered the antiquated Starbucks menu system."

Scotty hugged her suddenly. "Oh, I've missed you," he said.

She smiled at him. "Breakfast?"

Ten-Forward met with approval, and they ate breakfast next to one of the windows.

Tyler ran up to Elle. "Class in five," he reminded her.

She grinned at him apologetically. "I'm out today."

"Oh. Happy mission-ing." He nodded to Scotty and Franklin, and rushed away.

Elle snickered. "He's going to realize who you are in the middle of class and he's gonna freak out." She cackled to herself. She stuffed another bite of pancake in her mouth, and out of the corner of her eye, watched Guinan dither and bob behind the counter. Guinan finally made it around the bar and headed towards them. "Hey Scotty?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember your first encounter with the Nexus?"

"Och, aye."

"Cool." Elle smiled at Guinan. "Good morning."

Guinan gave them a smile. "Good morning. Nice to see you again, Captain Scott."

Scotty looked up from his toast, met her eyes, and his jaw dropped. "You haven't aged a day," he said, stunned. "What was your name again?"

"Guinan," she said. "I run Ten-Forward."

"Do you now? Excellent." He glanced from Guinan to Elle and back again. "All these years later, back on the Enterprise." He shook his head. "The universe is a funny thing, isn't it?"

"Very," Guinan agreed. She smiled at the two time-travelers. "Anything you need, let me know."

"Thank you ma'am," Scotty said, and Franklin echoed him behind his coffee mug.

Guinan gave one last smile and glided away.

"Quite a cryptic woman, isn't she?" Scotty asked. "She was not that mysterious last time we met."

"I think she's just grown into it," Elle replied.

They finished breakfast and Scotty asked, "Now can we have a tour?"

Elle grinned and looped her arm through Scotty's. "Certainly. And our last stop will be engineering so you can meet the crazies."

"Excellent."

She gave them the standard tour, and then took them to the Cetacean Ops lab.

"Cetacean Ops, what's that?" Franklin asked.

Elle grinned and led them around the corner.

Scotty's jaw dropped. "There be whales," he breathed, just as Elle had known he would.

"Yeah, yeah," said Johnny Carson, just as Elle had known he would.

Elle's grin widened as Scotty's eyes nearly fell out of his head. "Elle," he said weakly.

"Yes?"

"Did the whale just speak?"

"Yes he did," she confirmed, delighted by his reaction. "Johnny, Carol, this is Scotty and Lt. Franklin, our 23rd century guests."

"How?" Scotty asked.

Elle sat on the bench and watched the dolphins fight over a water balloon full of snacks while the whales lectured on the vocoders and the neural transmission systems for the whales and the dolphins. One of the dolphins (honorary lt) was triumphant, and took his bits of seal blubber to his own corner.

She stood up a few minutes later. "Sorry to interrupt, Carol, but we've still got to do the entire secondary hull and I want time for Scotty to get lost in there."

Carol hummed knowingly. "Might need to put him on a backpack leash."

Scotty grinned. "Just depends on how impressive it really is."

Elle and Carol shared a glance. "Backpack leash," Elle confirmed, and Carol hummed a laugh.

They left Cetacean Ops and Elle led them to Main Engineering. "Scotty, this is Geordi La Forge, Chief Engineer, Data, our Ops Officer and my favorite android."

Geordi shook hands with them. "Good to meet you, gentlemen."

Elle let Geordi let Data take over for the tour, so that Data could ramble to his heart's content, and watched Geordi watch Scotty. "Well?" she asked.

"I'd love to sit down and pick his brain. You were not kidding about his accent, though," Geordi said.

"No I wasn't. Could you do me a favor and ask him later why he has such a strong accent?"

Geordi looked at her suspiciously. "That feels like a trap."

"Not for you," Elle told him. "I'm formulating a conspiracy theory."

Geordi sighed. "Of course you are." He wandered off to interject something about plasma manifolds.

Wesley bounced into engineering a few moments later. "I heard they were here, can you introduce me?" he asked.

"Yeah, come on." Elle led him over to where Scotty and Data were discussing advances in data storage. "Scotty? This is Ensign Wesley Crusher, helmsman."

"It's an honor to meet you," Wesley said enthusiastically. "Elle's told me so much about you, and I had a few questions..."

"You did, did you?" Scotty asked, glancing suspiciously from Elle to Wesley and back again.

Elle rolled her eyes at the implication. "He's also Dr. Crusher's son, which makes us sorta-siblings."

"Nuh-uh," Wesley said, very maturely. "That privilege was revoked."

"Wes, your mom has a picture of you in a little tiny cowboy costume on her wall in front of the universe and everybody, you think Captain Picard having pictures of his favorite family are any different?" Elle asked, repeating their argument for the fifth time.

Wesley rolled his eyes, like he always did. "Whatever."

"I'm still the captain's favorite," Elle added, just to get under his skin.

"You are not-"

Scotty laughed. "Are they always like this?" he asked Data.

Data hid a smile. "Not always," he said. "Their relationship is usually more amicable."

"Anyways," Elle said, since she'd accomplished her goal of irritating the hero-worship right out of him, "Wes, do you want to come with us on the rest of the tour?"

"Sure!"

Elle took Scotty and Franklin to the Main Rec Deck for dinner. Franklin got absorbed by other lieutenants in his general age range for a game of cards, and Elle handed Scotty a PADD with the last seventy years of technical journals. "A little light reading for you," she joked.

"Ah, thank you lass." He took a sip of his coffee and sighed contentedly. "The future... it's good to know that you're happy here."

"You'll be happy here too," Elle promised. "Speaking of which, it's almost time to go call Bones and Spock. I scheduled us a conference call while you were talking to Data."

"Lead the way."

"I thought you said season six," were Bones' first words to Elle, when he saw both Elle and Scotty on the screen. "By your calculations he's almost three years early."

"Apparently that's not a fixed point," Elle replied.

Spock appeared on the other empty screen and didn't even look surprised. "Mr. Scott. You've returned."

"You two got old," Scotty said, eyes twinkling.

"You didn't," Bones griped, though his eyes were fond.

By the end of explanations, "a Dyson sphere, really?" and "Oh no, not a poor lieutenant"- "Hey, time travel is character building-", it was decided that Scotty would return to Earth and work on catching up to this century. It wasn't explicitly stated, because this wasn't a completely secure line, that he would also be working on things like defense against the Borg and transwarp transportation equations (and the Nexus).

"How's your negotiations with the Romulans?" Elle asked Spock.

Spock shrugged. "As well as they can be," he said, which was Spock-speak for, "They're the stubbornest people besides Vulcans themselves."

"Whatever happened to Ael?" Scotty asked.

"She's still on the throne," Elle said, pleased. "I've talked to her."

"Ah'm not surprised," Scotty said.

They chatted some more, Scotty promised to keep them all apprised of his travel plans, and McCoy did all his Southern mother-henning goodbyes before they closed the channel.

Scotty sighed. "It's been a long time for them," he said.

Elle hugged him. "Don't worry, Scotty. They're fine. Bones is healthy as a horse, can go up and down the flights of stairs at his home like nobody's business."

"So you did go and stay on Earth for a while?" Scotty asked.

Elle grimaced. "If you count a no-longer-existant time loop, yes."

Scotty's eyebrows went up. "And when was this?"