A/N: Welcome to Another Point of View! This is where I'm going to put all the scenes that Elle's not in, that I wanted to write anyway, but didn't fit with the story. Each chapter will call back to a specific volume and chapter in no particular order. Spoilers will abound, depending on how far you've read in the Decoherence volumes. I'll try to remember to warn. I'll be posting them as they come up, or if you guys want to see specific prompts for things I didn't cover.

We start with Captain Kirk's view of Elle's existence.

Having Spock's parents onboard was a surreal experience. Spock's mother was everything lovely and Spock's father was everything the ambassador to Vulcan should be (except, apparently, accepting of his own son, and that was something Kirk Would Not forgive him for). Anyways. The novelty of having diplomats with such personal connections gave spice to what was otherwise a mission full of rubber-chicken dinners and endless speeches.

"-and then of course, the ambassador said-"

Kirk lost the punchline as the doors to the reception room opened and a child walked in. Alarm bells began ringing in his head. There were no children among the delegates, not even anyone who looked like a child or a young teenager. He headed towards the newcomer (stowaway? intruder?) and vaguely saw Spock and McCoy also move to intercept. Don't let this be another Charlie X, we can't take another one.

The girl, meanwhile, was staring with eyes wide enough to classify as saucer sections.

"Who are you?" Kirk asked, modulating his tone to stay mildly stern.

"Uh, I think I'm lost." She glanced around again and took a step back, real terror in her eyes. "I'm definitely lost. Where, what kind of, no, where is this?"

Oh, dear. Kirk put a hand on her shoulder. "Let's take this elsewhere," he suggested, as his two command officers followed him.

"Who's this?" McCoy asked, all his fatherly instincts activating on seeing the young girl's confusion.

The uneasy feeling in Kirk's gut intensified as the girl explained how she arrived. Bed, cargo bays, time travel, television shows-

The strange girl dropped in a dead faint and only Spock's reflexes kept her from hitting the ground. He scooped her up smoothly and McCoy harried him to Sickbay.

Kirk called a, "Keep me informed!" and went back to reassure the delegates that they weren't being invaded. Hopefully.

-/\-

Future encounters with the girl, Elle, did not reveal any more enlightenment, only more questions. She knew who they were, she knew Ambassador Sarek had a heart problem before Amanda did, she knew there was a spy, she knew enough quantum mechanics to mention quantum signatures, and she trusted them right off the bat, as if they were old friends instead of strangers.

...And then their tiny new civilian from another universe got stabbed by the Orion spy. Some days Kirk didn't like his job at all.

Spock came to see him after a visit to sickbay. "I have just had a most interesting conversation with Miss Wilcott," he said.

Kirk raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"She was under the influence of painkillers, which may have contributed to her volubility, but she inferred that she knew of my family's, previous conflicts, and that you were the one who was supposed to have been injured in the original timeline."

Kirk's other eyebrow went up. "Well."

"Indeed."

"What do you think, Spock?"

"It is not out of the realm of possibility that our missions are indeed fictionalized in her universe, if there are indeed infinite universes."

"What about getting her back to her own universe?" Kirk asked.

Spock grimaced openly. "The probability of returning her to her universe when we have no record of it and no idea of the method of transport... it may be impossible, sir."

Kirk huffed out a laugh. "We just keep getting stuck with impossiblities, don't we?"

"I believe you should speak to her," Spock said. "She says she knows us well, and she would benefit from human comfort."

"We'll see. We still have to deal with the Orions."

-/\-

"Are you sure, Spock?"

"Positive, captain."

Kirk heaved a sigh. "So we now have an orphan."

"Yes, sir." Spock's eyes darkened with sympathy. "I can inform her, if you would like."

"No," Kirk said, standing. "It's my responsibility." He huffed. "This couldn't come at the worst timing. We're three months from any safe port."

-/\-

The oddities continued to stack up until Kirk could ignore them no longer. "Time travel, alternate realities, mentions of Klingon and Romulan state secrets, first contact... we're going to have to have a proper debrief."

McCoy took a sip of his mint julep. "And if we end up having to keep her, Jim?"

Kirk leaned back in his chair. "I wouldn't mind. She's an odd kid, and it would be nice to have an ace up our sleeve, but could I in good conscience keep a child on an active-duty starship? What do you think, Bones?"

"I think that our greenhorns and our shiny new noncoms are only a few years older than her, and she's got them all beat in traumatic life experiences," McCoy said, matter-of-factly. "And it looks like she's got most of them beat in knowing what an active starship looks like." He snorted. "You should've seen Spock's face when she was telling off Sarek for being 'too strict'. Coulda knocked him over with a feather."

Kirk snorted. "She knows what books I read. It's weird."

"Well, debrief her, see what all she knows, and Star Fleet will take it from there. I'm sure one stuffed shirt or another will know what to do."

Kirk snorted again. "Probably."

-/\-

"Bones." Kirk burst through the door, wild-eyed and crazy-haired. "Bones, she's too classified to exist, they're gonna put her in a guarded vault and she's never going to see sunshine again." He flopped into the nearest chair with a groan.

McCoy looked at his frazzled captain and got out the medicinal bourbon. "So it's that bad?" he asked.

"Spies, and state secrets, and future time travel incursions and high-level conspiracies-" Kirk took a sip of bourbon. "Some of that stuff I shouldn't even have heard."

"So somebody was saying they heard her say that first contact with the Vulcans was-" McCoy started.

Kirk held up a hand. "Don't even ask."

"Is it really that bad?" McCoy asked.

"She has information about the twenty-ninth century, Bones. Twenty-ninth."

McCoy grinned and leaned back into his chair. "So are we filling out adoption papers?"

Kirk groaned. "Can we really handle a teenager?"

"There's four-hundred of us, Jim, and we handle the eighteen-year-old newbies. I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out."

Kirk sighed. "Spock's not gonna like this."

-/\-

He was wrong.

Spock was thrilled. In a completely logical way, of course. "To teach the next generation is the greatest honor a Vulcan can have," he said severely. "And of course it is only logical that as the Chief Science Officer I am in charge of her education-"

"Except for health and biology," McCoy interjected. "Those are mine."

Spock rolled his eyes but did not disagree.

Kirk grinned. This was going to be great.