A/N: Hello! Welcome to Volume 2. I'm still awake so technically it's still Monday for me *shrug induced by Covid-time* Posting will be Mondays and Thursdays, same as usual. Hope you enjoy!

She startled awake, hacking up seawater, gulping in air with greedy starved lungs. "Wha-" She spit up more water and couldn't stop coughing. Seaweed draped around her head and she tore it away- couldn't catch her breath- her right leg felt like it was on fire-

There were shouts, noises, the kind of noises that meant "Medical emergency!" There were hands, questions, a firm whack between her shoulder-blades which led to more seawater coughed up-

She saw the brim of a purple hat just before her eyes rolled back in her head.

-/\-

Elle opened her eyes. Bland ceiling, harsh lighting on sensitive eyeballs. Sickbay. She closed her eyes again, feeling distinctly crusty. Like, bathed in saltwater and dried out, kind of crusty around the edges.

She groaned, attracting the attention of someone in blue. "Bones, Bones you were right, I'm sorry, I'm never leaving the ship ever again unless its Earth and a mud puddle," she said, throwing her arm over her eyes.

"Doctor she's awake," the nurse said.

Elle struggled to sit up. "Wait, where's everyone else? Are they okay? Where's the captain?" Had anyone else fallen in the water after the creature surfaced? "Where's Bones?"

A woman with red hair bustled into the private room, blue lab coat flapping. She broke into a relieved smile. "Oh good, you're awake. How's your leg feel?"

Elle stared at the concerned face of Dr. Beverly Crusher and felt the distinct urge to repeat the Russian phrase Chekov had inadvertently taught her. Not again, not again, not again- She swallowed down the panic and the colorful metaphor and settled for, "Um."

"Your leg," Dr. Crusher prompted gently. "How does it feel?"

Elle stared down at her right leg which was wrapped in bandages around the thigh. She poked at it curiously. "Fine?"

"You had a pretty big gash in it," Dr. Crusher said, brow wrinkling in concern. "With traces of a neurotoxin produced by a creature on Zerus III."

Elle gaped. "The whale?"

"Yes... can you tell me how you got it?"

"I was just drowning on Zerus III," Elle said, rubbing her sore throat. She sat up, shrugging off the nurse's help, and coughed into her elbow. "Ugh. Can I, juice?"

"Small sips," Dr. Crusher cautioned, helping Elle's shaky hands hold the juice. "You'll be shaky for a while, as your system flushes the neurotoxins out. Take it easy."

Elle focused on sipping the juice. One sip at a time. She took a deep breath and winced. "I drowned," she said again. She looked up. "Where am I?"

"You're on the Enterprise, sweetheart."

Elle winced. "Enterprise-D?"

"Yes." Dr. Crusher squeezed her arm gently. "The captain wants to talk to you if you feel up for it."

Elle nodded and licked at her dry lips.

The door slid open and two people came in. "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and Counselor Deanna Troi," Dr. Crusher said.

Captain Picard was bald and full of aplomb in person. He had a sense of gravitas fit for a Greek orator. "What's your name?" he asked, not unkindly.

Elle straightened at the tone of authority. "Eleanor Wilcott, sir. You can call me Elle."

"You're from Zerus III?" Counselor Troi asked curiously.

"Um, no. I, uh, sorry, how did I get here?" There was definitely still water in her ears. Elle resisted the urge to shake her head.

"You appeared in our forward lounge, half-dead, covered in seaweed and coughing up seawater. We beamed you directly to Sickbay and you've been out for a couple of hours while we fixed your leg and aspirated the seawater."

Elle nodded slowly, rubbing at her sore chest. "But I'm okay now, right?"

"I prescribe a shower and a hot meal and you'll be all set," Dr. Crusher said, giving her a motherly smile.

"Thank you, Doctor Crusher," Elle said, and ignored the glance the two women shared.

"Do you know how you got here?" Picard asked. "It's quite a leap from Zerus III to halfway across the quadrant."

Elle bit her lip as she stared at the trio of Star Fleet officers. Their uniforms were so different. Not as bright. The doctor's lab coat was the same, though, as Bones'. Did it also have candies tucked in the right-hand pocket? Was that a doctor thing that spanned all time?

"Elle?" Counselor Troi prompted.

"I died," Elle said, suddenly tired. "That's why I'm here."

The three of them exchanged a concerned glance.

"I have an unstable quantum signature," Elle said, pulling herself into 'report' mode. "Originally I'm from the year 2018 in a different universe, and two, almost three, years ago I died of carbon monoxide poisoning in my home and transferred to the 23rd century, your past, during the first five-year mission of the original Enterprise. I know this because you and your crew and this ship are the main subjects of a television show from my home universe. Anyway, I lived there, on the Enterprise, as a civilian mission consultant. On the latest survey mission, Commander Spock let me go on the marine biology sample team once the initial and secondary teams had landed. We were on a boat, and got caught in a whale feeding. Our boat got smashed, and I got tangled in the seaweed. The whale got me the third time it came around for the krill." She clasped her shaking hands. "I was drowning, I was, Spock was twenty feet away... I must've started dying and my quantum signature must've shifted. You can probably check the transporter logs and compare that signature to the one I have now. It will have stabilized and changed to match."

The three of them stared at her in blatant shock.

"I'm telling the truth," Elle said.

Captain Picard looked at the Betazoid counselor.

"I'm sensing no deception, captain," Counselor Troi said softly. "She truly believes what she's saying."

"Because it's true," Elle said, scrubbing at her face. Salt crunched in her hair and she shuddered.

"I've studied the original Enterprise's mission logs extensively and I've never seen your name," Picard said.

Elle frowned. "My presence was highly classified, so they registered me under civilian mission consultant. I don't think my name went into many of the reports, just my presence."

"Why?"

Elle shifted wearily. "I told you, it's classified. I would need permission from either Star Fleet or my guardians to share the specifics." She took a deep breath and forced herself to think it through. "My ID should be in the Federation database. For specifics, if you can't find someone in Star Fleet with high enough security clearance, I have Vulcan citizenship in the House of Surak. You can contact the Vulcan embassy and get in from there."

Picard nodded slowly. "You've had a long day. Counselor Troi will escort you to guest quarters and I will inform you once we have some sort of confirmation about your identity. Understood?"

Elle nodded. "Understood, sir."

"This way," Troi said softly.

Elle slid of the bed and wobbled on shaky legs. "I'm good," she assured them, standing up. She followed Deanna out of sickbay. "This ship sounds a lot bigger," she commented after an awkward silence. "Different vibrations. Deeper."

"It is bigger than a Constitution-class ship. We're 1,061 crew," Troi said. "Half civilians."

"Nice." Elle silently wondered if they'd gone ahead with civilians on ships because of her or in spite of her experiences. She blanched at the memory of Spock's outstretched hand. "At least they know I'm not really dead," she murmured, her chest aching. "Spock must've seen me disappear right in front of his eyes."

Counselor Troi stopped in front of a door. "Here we are, your quarters for the foreseeable future."

They were a similar layout to her old quarters, if larger, and the color palette was more muted. None of her things were on the shelves. A blank canvas. Again. Elle choked down a swell of emotion. "Thank you, Counselor," she said past the lump in her throat. "Are the showers still the same?"

"Voice-controlled, if that's what you mean."

"Sure. And the synthesizers?"

"They're called replicators now."

Elle blinked at the unfamiliar LCARS display in front of the replicator slot in the wall, dumbfounded. "Right. Uh..."

Counselor Troi smiled gently. "Why don't you replicate a robe, hop in the shower, and I'll get you some clothes and leave them in the bedroom for you."

"Okay." Elle poked at the initialize button. "Computer, one plush terrycloth bathrobe, youth size 15 small, dark blue with pale pink pinstripe." Hopefully it still worked like that.

"Acknowledged." The replicator spit out a bathrobe of those specs a moment later.

Elle took the robe and fled into the bathroom. She took off her clothes and tossed them into the refresher and almost fell into the shower cubicle. "Computer, sonic shower, forty percent."

The thing about crying in a sonic shower that's breaking down foreign matter on your body is that it also breaks down tears and vibrates them right off your face. Not a super satisfactory cry-in-the-shower experience but Elle was getting memories of inhaling water and she Did. Not. Want. water over her head at the moment.

She focused on her right leg. There was a six-inch scar across her thigh. "Nice," Elle breathed, poking at it. It still hurt. She stopped poking at it.

She finished showering and shrugged on her bathrobe, identical to her own. Except it had a sterile replicator smell instead of Enterprise laundry smell. It didn't have the grease stain from when Cmdr Stabby had leaked oil, or the ink stain from when she and Uhura had practiced calligraphy.

"No," Elle told her reflection fiercely. "You can cry later. Survival first, then freak out. You know the drill." She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, regaining her mental equilibrium as Spock had shown her. "You're freaked out, but you're okay. This is still Star Trek. You're okay. This is the Enterprise. You know these people, they're not going to hurt you. They're here to help." She nodded firmly. "Okay."

There was a pile of clothes sitting at the foot of the bed. Elle pulled on the standard issue underclothes, leggings, the silvery blue tunic, and the thick-soled sneakers. She swept her hair into a ponytail and surveyed herself in the mirror. Ready, she confirmed.

She went into the common area of the quarters. Counselor Troi was waiting for her. "Feel better?" Troi asked.

"Yes ma'am," Elle replied, giving her a game face.

Another odd look. "You know, Elle, you have just been through a frightening experience," Troi said gently. "It's all right to be scared."

Elle shook her head. "I know, but, not now. Survival first. I want to get my situation settled first and then I'll process it." She bit her lip. "Can we go?"

Troi gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze and nodded. "Let's go."