A/N: End of 2021. What a year. I don't remember any of it. But we have 52 chapters of Ex Astris Scientia, so I guess I did write a lot :D I am very tired so please enjoy this chapter with far too many meme references.

"Elle?"

She looked up from underneath the pile of toddlers. Maybe teaching them how to play American football wasn't the best of plans. "Hi, Keiko! What's up?"

Keiko grinned down at her. "Need some help there?"

Elle removed a toddler's elbow from her throat. "Starting positions!" she hollered, and all the toddlers got off of her to line up in two raggedy rows. "I'm good," she wheezed, standing up. The toddlers started to charge and she held out a hand. "Hold on there," she warned. "Not yet."

They giggled and went off to play something else.

"What can I do you for?" Elle asked.

Keiko smiled. "You know we're planning our wedding. It'll be small, but I'd like you to be one of my bridesmaids."

Elle smiled. "Really? I would love to!" They'd bonded over taking care of the kiddos and the vaguely-carnivorous plant-life on the Enterprise, but she'd never thought that she'd be asked to be a bridesmaid. Elle felt herself blushing. "Um, what do I have to do?"

"Well, I had some ideas about the dress..."

One of the toddlers ran up to Elle and tugged on her shirt. "Elle! Elle! Mar spilled the juice!"

Elle grimaced. "Okay, I'm coming." She looked at Keiko despairingly. "I've got three different types of snacks on my clothes. This'll make number four."

Keiko grinned at her. "Have fun. We'll have dinner later and talk about it."

"Cool." Elle went to go deal with the mess. Everything was sticky, oh Great Bird.

-/\-

"Ogus Two," Picard said. "A virtual paradise."

Elle eyed him suspiciously. "Like, virtual like the holodeck or virtual like everything but the snakes?"

Picard grinned. "Everything but the snakes. Actually, I believe they do have snakes but they are, on the whole, harmless."

"Are we going there?" Elle asked, interested.

"We are, we have a brief two-day stopover before we go on to Starbase Six."

"Ooh, is there hiking?"

"Yes there is."

"Nice. I need to practice carrying my backpack." Elle contemplated asking him if he wanted to go riding, but the smile on his face said he'd already made plans with Dr. Crusher. No third-wheeling for me, thanks! "I wonder if the twins have plans..."

Picard smiled. "You should ask them. Ogus Two has many camping spots."

The twins did not have plans. Their mom volunteered to take them down to Ogus Two to hike up to a lake and spend the night under the stars. Mina would go with her father to Ogus Two's zoo and a fireworks display, in consolation for not being invited on the big-girl trip.

-/\-

"You got sunscreen? Bug spray?"

"Yes, and yes."

"Emergency kit? Extra socks and underwear?"

"Yup."

"Phaser?"

"Uh-huh."

Yeoman Harcomb (leader of Picard's yeomen and queen of paperwork) nodded approvingly. "All righty, let's go then."

"Wait, who's got the camera?" Nicole asked.

Elle raised her hand.

"Oh, okay, good."

They beamed down and headed off on a hike, talking and laughing and stopping every five minutes to look at things and poke at rocks. "A budding geologist, that one," Yeoman Harcomb said dryly, watching her oldest daughter inspect a cracked geode off the trail.

"I'm not looking for rocks I'm looking for snails!" Jetta called back.

"Not to hinder your scientific curiosity but please don't pick anything up!"

-/\-

After a dinner of hot dogs, grilled veggies, and copious amounts of smores, the four of them eventually fell asleep, lulled by the crackling of the fire and the beauty of the night sky. Elle lay in her sleeping bag and studied the single fast-moving dot that was the Enterprise in orbit. She fell asleep before she could even quote Shakespeare at it.

Beep. Beep. Beep. "Enterprise to Yeoman Harcomb, come in."

Elle woke up to see Yeoman Harcomb rifle through the sleeping bag. The yeoman pounced on the comm. "Harcomb here," she said, stifling a yawn.

"All shore leave parties are being recalled to the ship. Medical emergency."

Harcomb's eyes widened. "Understood. Standby for beam-out." She reached over and patted Nicole on the shoulder. "Hey. Hey, wake up. We gotta go."

"Whuh?"

Elle poked Jetta in the kidneys. "Hey, wake up, we gotta beam back up to the ship."

Jetta squealed and kicked Nicole in the side on reflex. "What? Hey! What?"

"Pack up, we're being recalled," their mom said, in her Chief tone.

"Awwww."

Everyone shoved everything in their bags, whatever they could get their hands on, and Elle ended up with Jetta's socks. "What kind of maniac sleeps in the wild without socks?" she demanded.

"What kind of maniac sleeps with socks on?" Jetta asked.

"The kind that knows how to run away from bears!"

They got beamed up in the middle of their sock argument.

"Clear the pad, next group is coming up," Chief O'Brien ordered.

Nicole grabbed Elle and Jetta by their shirt collars and pushed them forward. "C'mon ya weirdos."

"Wait, how do you sleep?" Elle asked.

"Left sock on, right sock off."

Elle gaped at her. "What kinda monster are you?"

"It's logical! Foot outside the covers has the sock, foot inside the covers doesn't need the sock!"

Chief O'Brien and Yeoman Harcomb exchanged an amused glance.

Elle hiked her sleeping bag over her other shoulder. "Since we're back on the ship do you wanna sleepover in my quarters?" she offered.

"Sure! Night mom!"

They spent the night watching Old Westerns from Beta Aurigae II, and eating the rest of the marshmallows. Not as scenic, but arguably more comfortable.

-/\-

Turns out the medical emergency was a prank gone wrong between Will and Jake Potts, two boys left on the Enterprise while their parents were on sabbatical. Riker was fussing about it the entire time and on a whim, enrolled all children under twelve in a safety course. "Don't eat things you don't know what they are and don't stick your hands where they shouldn't go."

"I think we need to work on the title," Elle observed, peering over his shoulder.

"Keep talking and you're gonna end up teaching it," Riker warned her. He was Not to Be Trifled With Today.

Elle wisely retreated to the company of Captain Picard and a tray of lemon wafer cookies.

-/\-

Turns out, unlike in the episode, Dr. Soong's surprise homing beacon does not override Data's sense of free will. It does, however, cause him to shriek like a little girl out of sheer surprise. Elle learned this the hard way, standing right next to him as he received the signal.

Data shrieked and clapped his hands over his ears.

Elle yelped in surprise and tripped over the edge of the chair, tumbling to the floor. "Data?!"

Everyone else on the bridge stared as Data contorted his face into the most extreme grimace anyone had ever seen.

"Data what's wrong?" Picard asked urgently, sidestepping Riker as the commander hauled Elle to her feet.

Data shut his eyes. "I believe, I am receiving a signal, from a homing beacon, previously unidentified in my positronic net."

"Can you tell the origin point?" Riker asked.

"No, sir, only that, I must go to..." he rattled off a string of coordinates. "I must go there," he repeated, a desperate look coming into his eyes.

Elle's jaw dropped as she realized, "Wait, this is an episode."

"Elle?" Picard prompted.

"Dr. Noonien Soong is still alive," she said. "But he's dying. He's recalling you to say goodbye. In the episode he wants to give you the emotion chip, but you've got it already." She frowned. "But Lore's coming too."

Data's eyebrow went up in spite of his android-migraine. "Lore is dissassembled, floating in space," he said.

"No he's not. Somebody put him back together. He's also on his way."

Data frowned. "I have to go. Stop Lore. See, my creator."

Picard frowned. "We cannot deviate away from Starbase 416. Will Potts' life depends on it."

"Yes, sir," Data replied, and winced. "But, the homing beacon, is overriding, my-" He froze.

"Data?" Elle said warily.

"Mr. Worf, Mr. La Forge, beam yourselves and Mr. Data to the shuttlebay. Take the runabout capable of warp 5, follow the beacon," Picard said crisply. "We will continue to Starbase 416 and rendezvous with you afterwards."

"Aye, sir." The three beings disappeared in a swirl of light.

"Can I go with?" Elle asked.

"No," Riker and Picard chorused at the same time.

Elle sighed.

Picard gestured to the conn. "Since our ops officer has disappeared, you may take the station till his replacement arrives," he said.

Elle stifled a grin and slid into the seat. "Yes, sir."

It was only five minutes, but it was an awesome five minutes.

The Enterprise arrived at Starbase 416 in a splash of decelerated photons, and beamed little Mister Eat-Cove-Palm-Parasites directly to the starbase's medical facilities.

Everyone else was invited to make use of the starbase facilities. There was a bookstore. Elle grabbed Satel (respectfully inquired if he wanted to go to the starbase and did not actually grab him, thank you) and they went over to the station. The bookstore was amazing. It had fifteen hundred different languages' on its shelves, from two hundred planets. Satel found a copy of Andorian Eddas he wanted to read.

Elle found a leatherbound version of The Count of Monte Cristo in English. She grinned. "I love this story. If I was going to get revenge on somebody, it would be like this."

Satel eyed her. "I believe you. Do you have any plans of revenge at this time?"

"Nope," Elle said cheerfully. She tucked it in her bag. "I'm getting this. I don't have a paper copy." She kept browsing, and found a book with the collected works and writings of Tristan Tzara. "Oh, hey, look."

Satel looked over. "An important author in Terran literature?" he asked.

"He helped establish the Dada movement in the early 1900's," Elle said.

"The movement which rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society," Satel said.

Elle nodded. "The precursors to modern 21st-century art and humor, once again rejecting capitalist extremism with absurdism and deliberate confusion and nonsense. Also called Neo-Dadaism. Because of World War III, a lot of that information, and humor, was lost when the internet went down." She grinned. "I should get this book and make the captain read it. He'd understand me so much better."

"I want to read it," Satel said.

Elle contemplated making a Vulcan read absurdist and nonsense humor. "Can I make you a psychological case study?" she asked.

"No."

"Fine."

Satel got distracted by what looked like Vulcan meditation poems, and Elle went off to wander the other shelves. She stopped in front of a book titled 'I could pee on this'. She eyed it warily. With a title like that, did she dare? She pulled out the book. Nothing was worse than 21st-century tumblr and she'd already become inured to that. "I Could Pee On This, and Other Poems By Cats," was the full title, to Elle's relief. She grinned. This would be a perfect book for Data. She stuck it in her bag.

-/\-

The Enterprise stayed at the starbase long enough for medical treatment and nominal resupply, and then they were off to find "the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!"

"That's Data's favorite movie."

"I know." Elle wiggled in her chair. "I hope he's okay."

"Well as long as we follow the yellow brick road, we should be able to ask him in about six hours," Riker said. He patted her on the back. "Go be somewhere else, you're making the junior officers antsy."

"Okay."

-/\-

Data, Worf, and La Forge returned to the ship, sans Lore. Picard started to ask, but La Forge shook his head. "I am glad you're back safe," Picard said solemnly, and gave Data a pat on the back. "Welcome home."

"Thank you, sir. It was good to have closure," Data said simply, and walked out.

Elle, Picard, and Riker turned to look at Geordi and Worf. "What happened?" Riker asked.

Worf scowled. "Lore did arrive as Elle predicted. He attempted to kill us both. I shot him at full strength."

"Dr. Soong died of age and grief a few hours later," La Forge added. "We helped Data bury them both."

Elle winced. "Not that I'm glad that Data had to experience that personally, but Lore being actually dead is, uh, helpful for the future. Is Data, okay? How's he taking it?"

La Forge made a so-so motion with his hand. "I think it would really help if you spoke to him, captain."

"Of course," Picard said instantly.

Elle held out the wrapped book. "Could you give this to him for me? I don't wanna visit right now, I'd say something stupid."

Picard took the book. "In times of grief and loss, it is the presence of the ones we love, not their words, that console us," he said quietly, and then left the room.

"You okay?" Elle asked Worf.

"Lore was a psychopath, and can no longer hurt Data," Worf said. "I am satisfied in that."

"Okay. Cool."

-/\-

Elle waited a day and then went to go see Data. When she got permission to enter his quarters, he was sitting on the sofa, petting Spot, the other hand holding the book she'd given him. "Do you like it?" she asked awkwardly.

"These poems are entertaining," Data said. "Spot likes them, also. Thank you."

"You're welcome." Elle sat down, and held very still as Spot placed a single paw on her thigh. Movement meant instant scars. "How, uh, how are you doing?"

Data let out a very human sigh. "I am conflicted," he said. "I believed Dr. Soong was already gone. To lose him again, this time with full access to my emotions... I do not appreciate this experience. And Lore..." he hesitated. "I do not think I am a good person."

"What? Why?"

"I am relieved that he is gone," Data said.

Elle smiled slightly. "Data, that makes you a living being with troublesome family members. When my uncle's wife's sister died, they had a funeral and then they had a party. She was a terrible person, stuffed with wasps and cruelty just like Lore, unfortunately. We can be sorry that they're dead, but happy that they can cause us no further pain."

Data gave a slight smile. "That is what the captain said as well."

"See? You should listen to the captain. But in your own time, Data. Don't rush the grieving process, trust me."

He nodded. He petted Spot. "I told him about Lal," he said.

"Oh, really? What'd he say about that?"

"He said he was proud of me." Data's expression fractured and then smoothed over. "I was, relieved."

She leaned into his side slightly. "Read me a poem? I only skimmed it."

He flipped through the book. "This one is especially funny."