Hi everyone! So, just for everyone to know, I'm actually not a Trekkie. My knowledge on Star Trek is very limited as I've just recently gotten into it. This story is based more on the 2009 film than the original series as it seemed to fit better in the alternative universe. Although this deals with the generation after Jim and Spock, we will see the two and some of the others throughout the story. As I'm no expert on Star Trek, if any of you readers see any mistakes, please let me know and I'll correct them. Reviews are always appreciated. Thanks so much. I hope you enjoy.

PS: The prologue has a more somber feel, but the rest of the story has a lighter tone, don't worry.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or anything affiliated with Star Trek. If I did, I wouldn't have to worry if I have my facts straight or not.

Stardate: 2274.144

Children's laughter and squeals of delight rang through the park. Little kids, no older than nine, ran through the playground as they chased after one another. Far in the corner of the area, directly across from the school, an eight-year-old girl sat on the swing with her favorite book, a classic being reproduced, in her lap. Through her short, dark hair, her tapered ears and up-swept eyebrows were just barely visible. As two boys chased after each other, the girl looked up to watch them but didn't move from her spot.

She watched the human children with silent longing, but she knew better than to attempt speaking with them. They had made it all too clear of what they thought of her. She was unwelcome to them, foreign and strange. In their eyes, she was a Vulcan and should be with her own people. They didn't know about her true heritage, but it was better that way. She preferred the taunts created for an outcast Vulcan than for a child of two worlds. Besides, it was the final day of school before the summer holiday and she wouldn't have to endure their teases for much longer.

When she returned to her book, it was snatched from her hands by a large boy from the grade above her: Tyler Whitlock. He was, as per usual, flanked by his two friends as he grinned at her. She kept her face indifferent, refusing to allow him any satisfaction with a response on her part. She knew what he wanted, and she wasn't willing to give it to him.

"Elle," he said in his usual greeting. "What're you reading? Vulcan trash?"

"On the contrary," she answered, voice devoid of all emotion. "It's an age-old classic of yours. Though I doubt you've paid enough attention during English to recognize Rowling's works."

He looked down at the book dangling awkwardly from his hand, "Are you calling me stupid?"

She shrugged, "If you intend to believe yourself incompetent, I cannot stop you. Would you please return my book?"

He held it in front of her but as she reached for it, he pulled it back and tore a few pages out.

"Stop it!" she yelled, jumping from the swing as he pulled more and more of the print-covered pages out.

One of his friends pushed her away as she tried to reach Tyler. He tossed the empty binding at her feet, smiling as the pages were scattered by the light breeze. She dropped to her knees, attempting to gather all of the pages in hopes to fix the book.

"Go back to the Vulcan colony where you belong," he sneered, turning away.

"Green-blooded freak," one of them muttered.

Her grip on the book's blue binding tightened, her knuckles turning white. She leapt to her feet, hurling the broken book at the back at Tyler's head. It struck him with a dull thud as he yelled in surprise. He turned just in time to see her leap at him, anger clear in her eyes. He fell under the impact, causing the two to tumble as they landed their blows.

Surprised at the turn of events, his two comrades ran for the teachers. Elle yelled wordlessly at the boy, a year of bottled rage causing her mind to go blank. She was aware of the trickle of blood running from a cut on her lip, but she ignored it.

"Elle!" a familiar voice cried it shock.

She looked up, shaken from her actions by her mother's voice. As she looked down at the bruises forming on Tyler's face, it occurred to her what she had been doing. She leapt to her feet, looking to her mother for forgiveness.

"I did not mean for this to happen," she pleaded as her mother pulled her away.

"What were you thinking?" her mother asked in exasperation.

"I-"

"You're half human?" Tyler asked, wiping the blood from a scratch with the back of his hand. "You're more of a freak than I thought."

Elle nearly threw herself at the boy once more, but her mother's arms kept her from moving. Tyler's mother, a short, skinny blonde with far too much make-up, ran up to her son.

"Tyler! Are you hurt?" she asked in her high-pitched voice.

"Elle hit me!" he exclaimed, pointing his finger at her.

Tyler's mother looked up contemptibly at Elle and her mother, "You keep that – that creature – away from my son."

"Maybe if you taught your son some manners, you wouldn't have to worry about my daughter," Elle's mother snapped in reply. "Come on, Elle. Let's go home."

Elle followed her mother back to their hover-car, not looking back at the children and parents she knew were staring at her. When she hopped into her seat, buckling the seatbelt, her mother glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

"Elle, why did you hit that boy?"

"He ripped the pages out of my book and called me a freak," she answered, not meeting her mother's eyes.

"Is this the first time this has happened?"

"His name-calling: no, my retaliating: yes."

She heard her mother sigh, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I assumed it would be best to simply ignore him. I was incorrect."

"You should have told me if the kids were bothering you."

She kept silent, knowing her mother was uncertain about how to respond. After a few minutes of silence, she took a chance.

"Mother?"

"Yes?"

"Must I return here next year?"

"This is the third school you've had in three years. Do you really think it's good for you to switch schools so often?"

"We could move," she suggested. "Far away from here, somewhere they won't know anything about us."

"Will that really help the situation?"

"I could grow out my hair so no one would know I'm Vulcan."

"I don't want you hiding who you are, Elle. You should be proud of your heritage."

"It will help me," she pleaded.

"You are proud of your heritage, aren't you?"

Elle didn't answer, knowing her mother would be shocked at the answer. She was, in reality, ashamed of being part Vulcan. It kept her separated from the others and she didn't know what to think of her father, the man who had never once been there for them.

"Why does Father never come home?"

It was a question she asked many times and she knew the answer by heart, but she always wanted to ask. She wanted to hear her father's answer. But that, she knew, was impossible.

"It's better if he doesn't," her mother answered. "He has people who would do anything to hurt him, including hurt us. So he-"

"Must stay away from us to keep us protected," she finished. "Will you tell me his full name?"

"I can't pronounce any more than I've already told you. You're not planning to write another letter, are you?"

Elle had made a habit of writing letters to Starfleet, where her father worked, but she only knew his first name and the title he had when he knew her mother. She had never, in three years, received a reply.

"I think they are being given to the wrong person," she explained. "Many people share the same names. But if I knew his full name, he might receive them."

"Perhaps you should stop writing."

"Why? Is he dead? Is that why he never comes home? Why he never replies?"

Her mother looked away from the mirror, "Enough of that. We shouldn't talk about things like that."

She gazed out the window, unsure whether to attempt to continue the discussion or not. As the trees flew by, she couldn't help but wonder if her father truly was dead.

Stardate: 2276.338

Two years later, Elle ran through the white halls of a hospital, ignoring the glares of nurses and doctors as she did. Perhaps she was being a bit disruptive, almost knocking over nurses in her haste, but she paid them no mind. She was supposed to be in school, taking a math exam, but she couldn't miss this. Her Arithmetic teacher could rant all he wanted when she returned, her mother's condition was much more important to her than a test.

Three months after her tenth birthday, her mother's health had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. She had known her mother was sick, but she didn't know it would end up landing her in the hospital and, eventually, the grave. And the call she had received from Dr. Sannavel was enough to send her racing towards the hospital.

In two years, Elle had taken careful measures to appear fully human. She grew out her hair and bangs, reached out more often, and studied the other children's behaviors until she could mimic them perfectly. She had become an excellent actress and, much to her dismay, a skilled liar. Luckily, she usually only had to dodge prying questions rather than create a lie as an answer. Her mother wasn't particularly pleased with her choice in lifestyle, but she was happy that her daughter wasn't so much of an outcast anymore.

Her mother's illness, a rare disease Elle could never remember the name of, had caused her to lose her ability to walk and speak. Within weeks of her hospitalization, she had gone into a coma and was put on life support. When Dr. Sannavel called Elle, it was to tell her that her mother would not make it through the day.

And so, when she burst through the doors, she was greeted by pitying gazes. Dr. Sannavel herded the nurses out of the room, knowing she would want to be alone in her mother's last minutes. Sitting down in the chair beside her mother's bed, Elle took her mother's hand and inhaled sharply as the fuzzy thoughts made their way into her mind. Tactile telepathy, in her opinion, was nothing more than a burden.

"You're going to kill me when you hear this, but I skipped the midterm math exam," she said softly, half-hearted smile on her face. "I wouldn't have been able to concentrate, anyway.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this. Dr. Sannavel says you can hear me, but you haven't responded yet. He also says that some patients have lived simply by fighting for their life. I hope that's true because I know you would never just give up. Are you fighting in there?"

She paused, knowing she would receive no response but still waiting. With a sigh, she continued.

"I think I'm going to enroll in Starfleet, when I get older, that is. Maybe I'll actually see Father for once. I never told you this, but I used to think the reason he never came around was because he was ashamed. I thought maybe he was just as ashamed of having a half-human daughter as I was of having a Vulcan father. Perhaps if I become a captain or a medic, perhaps he would be proud of me.

"I wrote him another letter yesterday. I don't know why I do this to myself. Why do I build myself up just for his silence to break me down every time? I just can't stop. I should feel that he's given up on me but I only feel as if I'm the one who gave up on him if I don't write to him. I asked him to come here. If he reads it, he'll be here tomorrow at noon. I don't know what I'll do if he's not here.

"Dr. Sannavel says you won't live much longer, but I won't know what to do without you. I need you here, helping me, nagging at me for whatever little thing I've done wrong. If you leave, I'll only have Father, and I don't even know him."

The EKG's beeping began to decelerate, causing Elle grip her mother's hand tighter.

"Please hold on a little longer," she pleaded, tears streaking down her face. "Father's already left us, you can't leave me, too. Please don't leave me."

She hung her head in defeat as the monitor's peaks became almost inexistent. In the silence, she whispered one last plea to no one.

"Don't leave me here alone…"

Stardate: 2279.077

Elle sat on one of the branches in a tree. She knew she should be returning to the orphanage, but she wanted some time to herself. It had been three years since her mother's death and her father had never come. She had sent him a letter after her mother's death, begging him to come to her, but she received no reply. When the authorities asked her if she had any living family left, she replied that she did not. She never wrote another letter after that. Her father was dead to her.

San Francisco was her new home, if it could be called that. No one knew her, as she had allowed no one to get close to her. She had distanced herself from everyone, only speaking when it was absolutely necessary. Her life consisted of going to school, getting her homework done, and staying away from the other children of the orphanage. Though they knew nothing about her heritage, they treated her as she treated them: distant.

"Hey!"

Elle was shaken from her thoughts by the voice. Looking around, she spotted a boy about her age looking up at her. His sandy-blonde hair was tousled as if he'd been running, his blue eyes stared up at her in curiosity.

"What do you want?" she called back.

"I want to know how you aced Pauly's test," he replied. "And telling me how you got all the way up there would be nice."

"I climbed," she answered. "And as for Mr. Pauly's test, I studied."

"No one's ever been able to get more than a 'B' on his tests," he said, attempting to pull himself onto the lowest branch, which still stood about a foot over his head. "How did you manage a perfect hundred?"

He managed to pull himself onto the branch, but he wasn't satisfied. The boy eyed the next branch as if trying to decide if he could make it by jumping. She knew he wouldn't make it, as humans couldn't jump as far as she could.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she warned.

"Why? You must have gotten up there the same way."

"I'm good at calculating my capabilities," she answered.

"You sound like a friend of my dad's. Anyway, I can make it."

"Don't do it."

But the boy ignored her warning, jumping towards the branch which was too far away for him to reach. His fingertips just barely brushed against the rough bark before a look of surprise crossed his face and he plummeted back to the ground. Elle winced as he hit the grass, his groan reaching her ears. Slipping down from branch to branch, she landed on the floor easily.

"Wow," he breathed with a grin, looking up at her as he rubbed the back of his head.

She extended her hand to him, "I told you not to do that."

He took it and allowed her to pull him up, "It got your attention, though."

"You had my attention already. You didn't have to do something stupid to ensure that I was listening."

He laughed, "It was fun, though."

"Alex!"

Elle and the boy, Alex, looked over to see a tall man with the same blonde hair running over. He took Alex by the shoulders, his face worried.

"What were you doing?"

"He attempted to climb the tree," Elle answered.

"Alex, you know that no one's ever been able to climb that tree. Don't you remember what happened to Leo when he tried?"

"She managed it," he said, pointing to Elle.

She shrugged noncommittally, "I've been climbing that tree since I moved here. It's easy for me, now."

"She also aced Pauly's test," Alex said.

Alex's father raised his eyebrows, "Eli Pauly?"

"The same."

He whistled in reply, "I've never known anyone to ace Pauly's tests, even when I was in his class."

"Can she come over for dinner?" Alex asked.

"She'll have to get permission from her parents."

"Don't worry about that," Elle answered. "I don't have parents."

Both stared at her for a second, identical blue eyes full of surprise.

"Please, Dad?" Alex asked, turning to his father.

"Well, I see no reason why she can't."

Alex threw an arm around Elle's shoulders, surprising her with the gesture, "Great. You'll tell me how you aced that test, right?"

"I suppose," she answered as he dragged her after his father.

"By the way, my name's Alexander Kirk, but everyone calls me Alex."

She smiled, something she hadn't done since before her mother died, "Elena Mayer. You can call me Elle."