A/N: Greetings, it has been a month, let me tell you. If this chapter is rather lackluster, sorry. My whole project file for this volume was corrupted and I lost most of my notes for future chapters, plus family health problems, etc, etc. I've had this chapter ready to go for like a week and a half but I haven't had the energy to spellcheck it or post it. Anyway, here you go, and hopefully, I'll find my backups and be able to get the next chapter out in a couple of weeks.

"Spot, if you kill me, your father will be sad," Elle stated firmly. "You don't like to make Data sad."

Spot maintained eye contact.

"Dude," Elle said. "I'm trying to feed you, here. Don't bite the hand that feeds you!"

Spot swiped at her with an angry hiss and began to grow tentacles and alligator-sized teeth.

Elle put a hand over her eyes and waved a hand. "No, no, no, no hallucinations. Bad." She opened her eyes. Spot had returned to normal. She set the food down and retreated before Spot took issue with it. "Brat. Next time Data's in charge of the ship no one's gonna volunteer to feed you."

She went back to her quarters. The lack of REM sleep was really starting to get to her. Even her skin felt itchy. "Next time we go looking for a ship that disappeared under mysterious circumstances, let's just not."

A ghostly voice spoke. "You would just leave us there to rot?" Frozen, stiff figures began to melt out of the walls, zombie-style. They were dressed in Star Fleet uniforms, the deceased crew of the USS Brittain shuffling forwards.

Elle pressed her fingers over her eyes. "No, no, no, you're not real, leave me alone."

"If you had remembered you would have saved us," they said, speaking in unison. "You can't remember anything right."

"Be quiet," Elle whispered, as they shuffled closer. "Be quiet, that's not fair."

"Life's not fair," they intoned.

"ELLE!" Alexa's shout made her jump. Elle looked up. The corpses were gone.

"Thanks," Elle said shakily.

"Perhaps you should try to meditate again," Alexa said.

Elle felt like crying. "I've tried. I can't remember this episode."

The ultimate irony. This episode was scary to a small Elle, and her parents had never let her watch it. When she got older, she'd skipped this episode out of habit. Now, they were trapped in a Tyken energy rift and haunted by hallucinations, and Elle had no idea what to do. Teenage brains were especially sensitive to disruption of REM sleep, and it had been three days. This morning, Picard had handed over command to Data, who was the only one not affected. Well, he and Counselor Troi. Something about Betazoids. They were the only ones getting real sleep.

Elle threw herself on the couch to sulk. "Alexa. Can you just knock me out?" she asked.

"Unfortunately, no. Sorry, Elle."

"Ugh." Elle let Simba snuggle into her arms and sighed. She fell asleep against her will. When she woke up, her fatigue was worse than before. "UGH."

"Elle..."

She perked up. "Mom?"

"Elle, where are you?"

She sat up and looked around. "Mom?" Even if it was a hallucination, even if it wasn't real, to see her mom...

"Elle..." Just a voice, a whisper.

"Where are you?" Elle asked. It's not fair, I want to see them.

"Eyes in the dark. One moon circles." Something began to loom from the corner of the room. A stretched-out form, face wobbling back and forth. "Eyes in the dark. One moon circles."

Elle shook her head, trying to see past the hallucination. "Mom?" she asked again.

"Eyes in the dark. One moon circles." The chasm in the corner of her cabin began to recede.

Elle was left in the dim empty quarters, heart hammering and homesick.

"Are you awake now?" Alexa asked patiently.

"What?"

"Never mind. Maybe you should visit sickbay."

Elle went to sickbay. Counselor Troi was there, watching over the only surviving member of the Brittain crew. He was a Betazoid, too.

Troi gave her a hug. "How are you doing?"

"Okay." Elle gave a shaky grin. "I heard my mom's voice."

Troi hugged her again.

"She said something weird," Elle said. "Something about eyes and moons." She rubbed at her gritty eyes. "I'd think if it was a hallucination she'd say something a little more personal."

Beside her, Counselor Troi went stiff. "Eyes and moons? Two eyes, one moon circles?"

Elle stared at her. "Yeah..."

"I've had the same dream," Troi said. "Every time I go to sleep it's the same dream. Did you sleep?"

"I was awake. I thought I was awake." Elle rubbed at her eyes again and stifled a yawn. "I, don't know?"

Troi flagged a passing nurse. "Can we get a brain scan, please?"

The nurse paged Dr. Crusher, they got Elle into a dedicated scanner, and Dr. Crusher gaped at the results. "You did, you had a REM cycle. It only lasted for, what, a minute?"

"That's the dream," Elle said. "I heard my mom, she said that eye moon thing, she disappeared into a black hole in the wall."

"Go back to sleep," Dr. Crusher ordered.

Elle was jittery, wired, and about to cry. "I can't," she said miserably. "I'm too tired."

"Okay." Dr. Crusher smoothed Elle's hair back from her face. "Okay. Relax, sweetheart. It's okay."

Elle sat up, and Dr. Crusher gave her another hug. "Why me, though?" Elle asked, taking a deep breath. "I'm not Betazoid, only Betazoids have been affected."

"Well, if it's the part of the brain that humans and Betazoids share in relation to empathy or telepathy, then maybe yours is developed enough to catch it," Dr. Crusher said. "You were able to hear the Tin Man at the same time as Tam Elbrun."

"Yeah, when it was shouting," Elle said, and frowned. "Do you think, maybe, is something shouting at us? Attempting to communicate, maybe?"

"Someone else in the rift?" Troi asked. "Someone besides us?"

"But what do they want?" Dr. Crusher asked. "Two eyes? One moon circles where?"

"We need to tell the captain," Troi said. "Elle, come on."

They went to tell the captain, and Data, who was actually in charge.

"If this was an episode, what would it be?" Elle asked, flopping down in her bridge chair and swiveling back and forth aimlessly. The bridge lights were on low, conserving energy, and it made her sleepy. She stifled a yawn. "If this was an episode..."

"This is not an episode," Picard said. "This is real life."

"And yet," Elle said. "We have just had two different sets of space whales in the last month. Who knows what's out there?"

He conceded the point with a very tired sigh.

"If this was an episode," Elle said for the third time, "it'd be some sort of signal. If we're both caught in the rift. Captain, what's the name of that thought problem, where the two people are in jail and they have to escape?"

"The Prisoner's Dilemma?"

"Yeah, that. We can't communicate, except for this weird dream, but we gotta cooperate, to get us both out." Elle stared up at the low bridge lights, creating afterimages in her retinas. She shook her head. Focus. "Data, what've we tried so far?"

"We've tried an energy blast from our main deflector dish to try and close the rift, moving us out with the shockwave. We didn't have enough power to do so."

Hence the power conservation. "But it would work," Elle mused, "if we had enough ka-boom."

"Yes," Data said.

"Ka-boom," Elle repeated, pleased by the idea. "Great special effects. Alexa, what've we got on board that will explode?"

"Please narrow the parameters," Alexa said.

True. Anything could explode with this crew. Even the air could catch on fire, which is why the hulls could separate in the first place... "Assuming we need to blow something up... When they said two eyeballs, one moon circling," Elle said slowly. "I don't think it's a place. Right? It's not a place?"

Data searched through the database. "There is no single-moon planet in the vicinity," he confirmed. "You think the phrase is symbolic?"

"Hydrogen," Alexa said. "One electron."

"Hydrogen is certainly explodable," Elle said. "Thanks, Alexa."

Data gave the ceiling a Look, the kind of look Spock would give an ensign who'd overshared a personal experience.

Elle decided she'd think about that later. "Hydrogen," she said again. "Do we have hydrogen?"

Picard loomed over her. "I think you should go to bed," he said.

"No," Elle said firmly. "There are monsters in my quarters."

Picard sighed. "Perhaps a sleepover is in order?"

"No. Wesley's on earth and the twins don't need my nightmares."

"Satel?" Picard suggested.

"Vulcans are extremely irritable when they can't meditate," Elle said. "No thank."

"Can you go take a nap in my office?" Picard asked.

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Elle demanded, insulted.

Picard pinched the bridge of his nose. "Considering that I'm having horrible hallucinations of you dying, yes, I am trying to get rid of you," he snapped.

"Oh." She sat up. "Okay. Fine."

"Thank you." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Please leave."

She took herself off to the ready room and flopped on the sofa. The lionfish looked undisturbed by the turmoil. "Wish I was a fish," Elle muttered, wriggling around to find a comfy spot. "No brain, no concept of symbolic dreams."

"That's what you think," said the lionfish, and broke the glass.

"No!" Elle slammed her hands over her eyes, waited for a second, and then peeked out. No broken glass. Whew. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

"Elle. Elle, the tribbles are in the storage compartments." It was Captain Kirk's voice.

"No," Elle said stubbornly and put on her headphones. "No, you're not real, you're in the Nexus, go away." She put on a guided relaxation audio file and tried to relax.

"Elle." Her mother, stirring something on the stove.

"Mom?" Elle asked, coming over to hug her.

"Elle, darling, you shouldn't be here." Outside the windows was a dense void instead of Oregon green.

Elle pressed her face to her mom's shoulder. "I know, mom. We're trapped here."

"You need to help me." Her mom tasted the dish and added more salt. It smelled like chile and garlic.

"Help you how?" Elle asked.

"Two eyes in the dark. One moon circles."

"I know." Elle took a deep breath, wished her mom would look at her. "I know, I understand. Hydrogen, right? It's hydrogen. That's what we call it. Two eyes, one moon. We're working on it. Will you help us?"

"Two eyes. One moon circles." She tasted the stew again and put in some more garlic.

"I get it."

Her mom smiled. "You were always so smart, baby."

Elle woke up, tears streaming down her face. "Alexa," she rasped, "tell Captain Picard they know we're gonna dump the hydrogen."

"Message relayed," Alexa said. "He wants to know if you're all right. I also want to know if you're all right."

Elle wiped her face with her sleeve. "Yeah, I'm, I'm good." She took a deep breath and put her shoes on. "I want to help."

Geordi put her to work watching the collection of hydrogen in the ramscoops. "Tell me when it gets to that level."

"Okay."

He patted her on the back and went to go holler at some ensigns.

Elle ignored the dinosaur sounds emanating from the warp core.

-/\-

"Hydrogen is ready, captain."

"Release it."

Elle watched as the Enterprise farted into the void.

Nothing happened.

"Do you think they got the message?" Worf asked.

Elle shrugged expressively. The two Shadow-men in her peripheral vision did the boogie. She ignored them. "How long can we wait?"

"Sixty-seven minutes before main power runs out," Data said.

"Can we spare anything to blow up the hydrogen ourselves?" Riker asked.

"Not unless-"

The void exploded in a burst of color, rocking the Enterprise. "Go, go, go," Elle chanted, as Data hit the impulse engines. The Enterprise rode the wave of the explosion all the way out of the rift. Behind them, angled in a different direction, a group of lights shot out of the rift.

"Oh hey, there they go."

"Hail them," Picard ordered.

"No response," Worf said.

"I don't think they're capable of transmissions," Troi said.

"Purely telepathic?" Picard asked.

Troi shrugged.

Data spoke up. "Setting a course for Starbase 220. Sir, as my final duty as Acting Captain, I order you to bed. I shall do the same for all personnel."

Picard patted Data on the back. "Very well. Thank you, Mr. Data." He put his arm around Elle. "Come along, bedtime."

"Yes, sir."

Elle went to her quarters and fell into bed. Thank you, she thought out into the universe and conked out before she could even think another thought.

-/\-

The worst part about extended sleep deprivation in moments of high stress is the sleep hangover. Elle woke up exhausted, sore, thirsty, hungry, and with a pounding headache. "Alexa, what time is it?" she groaned, rolling over to hug her pillow.

"It is 1021 hours," Alexa said. "You have been asleep for seventeen hours."

"Ugh."

"Medical guidelines for this situation state that your priority should be rehydration to combat lactic acid and sluggish circulation."

Elle pulled herself out of bed, made it to her water bottle, and drank the entire thing in one go. She felt marginally more alive. She replicated a piece of toast with peanut butter and stared at her black TV. "How's energy resources?" she asked.

"Still critical. At this point, you should take a water shower."

"Yes." A quick water shower revived her further, and by the time Elle was braiding her hair, she felt almost human.

"Guidelines suggest that you eat a breakfast with proteins and complex carbohydrates," Alexa said. "Easy on the sugar."

"Didn't Bones write these guidelines, Alexa?" Elle asked, heading out through the corridors. "These sound like Bones' lectures."

"The guidelines were indeed written by Dr. Leonard H. McCoy."

"Nice." Elle entered the mess hall and had to stifle a laugh. Everyone in there looked like zombies, methodically shoving food into their mouths. She got a breakfast burrito and a bowl of fruit salad with yogurt. This looked balanced enough to satisfy a medical professional. She went over to Geordi and sat down across from him. "Morning."

"Mggh."

She finished her breakfast and went to find Counselor Troi.

"You look as rough as I feel," Troi said sympathetically, gesturing for Elle to join her on the couch. She put an arm around Elle's shoulders. "How are you doing?"

"Still sleepy," Elle said. "I think I might go back to bed."

"Sounds like a plan."

Elle watched the steam curl up from Troi's cup of hot chocolate. "How do you distinguish dreams from reality?" she asked. "The first time the other ship reached out, I thought I was awake, but I was sleeping, and then I woke up for reals. How do I make my brain tell the difference?"

"That's a good question. Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming?"

Elle nodded. "Yeah. It's used with meditation and stuff, and therapy for nightmares and PTSD, stuff like that."

"Exactly. Have you ever done it?"

"A couple of times," Elle said. "I always knew I was in the dream though, because there were always funky landscapes and I could make myself fly."

"Most people have lucid dreams at one point in their lives," Troi agreed. "And most of the time you'll be aware that it's a dream, because of things like that. You can also consciously check reality. For example, you can try reading something, checking a mirror, looking at a clock, trying to put your hand through a table, that sort of thing."

"Spinning a top," Elle said, the memory coming back to her. "In a dream, it won't fall over. Like in Inception."

"Things like that, yes."

Elle sat up. "Or like that one episode with Chakotay, where the aliens were attacking in dream states. He could see the Moon and he knew he was dreaming."

"Who?" Troi asked.

"Commander Chakotay," Elle said absently.

"Isn't he an academy professor?" Troi asked. "Tactics?"

Elle grimaced. "Yes?" That's right, before the border worlds debacle, Chakotay was a professor at the academy.

Troi gave her a look but left it alone. "Perhaps you should craft your own reality check," she suggested. "Next time you're lucid dreaming, try to do those checks."

"Okay." Elle grinned wryly. "If we ever get stuck in another anentropic universe, though, I'm gonna have to come up with something else."

"Our lives are rather ridiculous," Troi agreed. "Get some rest."

Elle went to the rec deck and found an unoccupied beanbag. She put on a cooking competition show on her PADD and settled in to vegetate. She woke up a few hours later, a crick in her neck from the beanbag. On her PADD, the judges criticized the consistency of the cake frosting. "-too crumbly."

"She's alive," Nicole said, from her side.

Elle glanced over, where the twins were crocheting idly. "Whuh?"

"Here, drink this," Jetta said, passing over a smoothie.

Elle drank the smoothie and watched Jetta and Nicole add stitches to what looked like a scarf. "What are you making?"

"Blanket for baby Juarez," Nicole said. "Fiber arts extra credit."

"Nice."