The rest of the day happened, I'm sure, (after we came back in), but I was too drained to be conscious of it. Ax-never really thanked you for that.

>For what?>

Oh, you know. Explaining…

>I could see you were not equipped for it.>

Putting it lightly.

That night, however, I do remember. I'm not sure if I actually woke up in the middle of it or dreamed it, but it wasn't even relevant.

The Ellimist was there. Standing next to my bed, or dream-bed, or wherever I was. He nodded and might even have winked at me.

I'd forgotten about him, but memory came rushing back. "You can do it!" I blurted. "You can bring him back?"

"Who?" he smirked, knowing perfectly well.

If I hadn't been so tired I would have rolled my eyes. "Tobias."

"Oh." He tilted his head, as if in consideration. "This Tobias?"

I saw him in some twist only the Ellimist could have come up with: fully human and smiling. Choking up, I was about to say something when I saw where he was.

It was the voluntary hosts' area of the Yeerk pool.

"That's not him!" I was indignant.

"It might have been." And all of a sudden we had left the Yeerk pool and were on the deck of a Yeerk ship-the Ellimist and I, not Tobias. And when I say we, I mean he was standing next to me, and we were looking at…ourselves. Sure, I was a little older, but it was definitely us.

"Uh, care to explain what game you're playing now?"

"Listen."

I heard a weak version of my own voice. "Um, am I, like, dying here?"

"Very much like."

The images came like a slide show: Marco shielding his father from a Dracon beam, Sara kicking and screaming as she was dragged off the infestation pier…so many horrors. And finally Jake, in tiger morph, leaping towards the pier. Cassie, in wolf morph, had been surrounded by a dozen Hork-Bajir and dragged to the pool.

"Jake," I rolled my eyes, even though "he" couldn't hear me, "you're great and all that, but you cannot take down twelve Hork-Bajir at once."

And then I saw he wasn't aiming for the Hork-Bajir…

"Stop it!" If the Ellimist wanted me to break, he'd get it. "Make it stop!"

"But of course."

The slideshow began again, but different pictures this time. Marco and his dad, standing with a woman I didn't recognize. Alloran grazing. A gym, empty except for a boy in a basketball uniform. A uniform that bore Jake's last name, the name he can finally say.

I blinked, and realized it was Tom. "Is this real?"

The Ellimist shrugged, that annoying cryptic shrug. On second thought, anything he does is annoying and cryptic. "Congratulations."

Back in my bed. No Ellimist. Surprisingly, I was able to fall back asleep, and like so many other people, dreamed of a trip flying.

And like so many others, my dream couldn't come true.