A/N: Hullo. Not dead! Just, chugging along. I got more 'sponsibilities now, in volunteer work and regular life. Very good, very fulfilling, but time-consuming. Also, I may have started a new Dr. Who fanfiction which will probably never be published, but I am at the whim of my hyperfixations. Anywho, welcome to today, again.

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle shot up from her seat. "Alexa! Record all conditions on the Enterprise immediately! From the last fifty seconds if you can. Every sensor reading, every output, every camera, all of it, and send it to my personal terminal. Start looking for aberrations or never-before-seen conditions, and compile all the results, please."

Geordi gaped at her, open-mouthed.

"Compiling," Alexa chirped.

"Elle, what-" Geordi started.

Elle grimaced at him. "We never got a ping back from the starbase, you know. It's a localized time loop."

"Localized time loop, what?"

"Sorry about your headache," Elle said, patting him on the back. "In unrelated news, this day's happened four times already." She tapped her comm badge. "Elle to Picard."

"Picard here."

"Code Mobius, sir."

"Understood," Picard said crisply. "I'm assuming that's why the computer's processing power has stalled?"

"She's taking a screenshot," Elle said. "Sorry."

"And is this just you?" Picard asked.

"Yes, sir. No one else remembers them."

"Ah. How many..."

"Four, sir."

"Ah. Do you have a plan yet?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. Use whatever resources you need."

"Thank you, sir." Elle closed the comm channel and looked at Geordi. "Let me get you up to speed."

-/\-

It took the entire loop for Elle to memorize initial conditions with enough specificity to use in the database search.

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle shot up from her seat. "Alexa! Record all conditions on the Enterprise immediately! From the last fifty seconds if you can. Every sensor reading, every output, every camera, all of it, and send it to my personal terminal. I'm going to write down the initial conditions, and you're going to compare them. Okay?"

"Affirmative," Alexa said, managing to sound confused.

"Elle, what-" Geordi said.

"Time loop," Elle said, and booked it out of Ten-Forward. "Elle to Picard. Code Mobius, sir, fifth loop. Sorry, gotta write something down. Elle out." She made it to her quarters and started typing furiously, entering the information she'd memorized in the last loop.

She finished it. "Alexa, how does this compare to your readings?"

"They are the same," Alexa replied. "No deviations. We're in a time loop?"

"Yup. Sorry." Elle grimaced. "Now that I know what I memorized was correct, we need to figure out the algorithm. I need Data."

Data, upon being informed they were in a time loop, merely said, "How can I help?"

"You can help me write an algorithm to scan the database for time travel scenarios and compare them to the conditions on the Enterprise at the beginning of the time loop."

To his credit, he didn't even blink. "Usually, these time loops are more straightforward."

"Right?"

"You realize you're going to have to memorize this as well," Data said.

Elle sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"And you're going to have to remember everything the search turns up."

She sighed again, deeply and from the bottom of her soul. "I know."

It took another six hours to write the algorithm and for Elle to memorize it. "Why couldn't it be anyone else that got stuck in this loop?" Elle asked. "An engineer, a scientist, Chief O'Brien? This feels like something he'd be good at."

"You are just as capable, Elle," Data said. "However, those two lines are transposed."

Elle groaned and erased them.

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle groaned loudly and faceplanted into the table. "Oh, come on, I almost had it!"

"Elle?" Geordi asked, concerned.

"I had one more section left," Elle said, face smooshed into the table. She screwed her eyes shut. "I can't remember it. We're going to have to do it again." She bonked her forehead on the table a little. "At the rate I'm going, this is gonna take forever. And I don't want to hear any jokes about it."

"Uh, Elle?" Geordi said. "What are you talking about?"

Elle flapped a hand. "Time loop. It's been six days."

"Time loop?" Geordi echoed. "What?"

"Don't worry," Elle said, lifting her head from the table. "We have a plan."

Finally, they got the algorithm running, and all the AIs searched for similarities. As different scenarios pinged, Elle would compare them. So far, nothing.

"How's it going?" Counselor Troi asked, coming over to the corner of Engineering that Elle had appropriated.

Elle wrinkled her nose. "Too much imagination."

"I meant with you," Troi said.

Elle grimaced. "Not great. It's been six days already, and I have a feeling it's gonna be a lot more."

"Pace yourself," Troi advised. "There's nothing to be gained by doing things in a rush. Unless we're in danger?"

"No," Elle said. "No blowing up as far as I can tell."

"Hm."

Elle frowned. "Of course, that does beg the question, why is the loop 8.1 hours long?" Elle frowned. "We didn't think about that. Alexa, can you add that to the calculations?"

"Added," Alexa said. "Remember this line, please."

Elle turned to look at the screen. "Initial conditions... okay. Cool."

"Got it?" Alexa asked.

"Got it," Elle confirmed. "Thank you."

Troi was smiling at her.

"What?" Elle asked, starting to blush.

"I have supreme confidence in your abilities," Troi said.

Elle blushed hotly. "Thanks?"

"I do have a suggestion, however," Troi said.

"What? What did I miss?"

"Dinner." The counselor smiled persuasively. "I'm pretty sure the database isn't going anywhere."

Elle grinned. "Good point."

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle took a deep breath. Held it. Exhaled slowly. "No, you didn't," she told Geordi. "Excuse me, we're in a time loop, and I gotta go do the thing."

She was almost done inputting the search algorithm into the computer when the captain stopped by her room. "Elle, Commander La Forge just told me you said we were in a-"

"Time loop, yes, sir," Elle said. "Code Mobius. You told me to tell you that on day two."

"What day is it now?"

"Day seven. Eight? One of those. We can't figure out what it is, so we're running a database search and comparing them to computer simulations to try and find a match. I say we. It's just me." Elle finished typing, entered where they had left off, and looked up from the computer. "Hi."

"Have you slept at all?" was his next question.

"No?" Elle said. "The time loop starts at like two in the afternoon."

"You should think about sleeping one of these loops," Picard said. "Time loops are mentally and emotionally taxing."

"Have you been in a time loop?" Elle asked, curious.

"No," he said. "But that's what the research says. And it's a paper written by Dr. McCoy, so I think it's medically sound."

Elle sighed. "After this loop, once everything is running smoothly, I will take a nap."

"Whatever you need from us, you have it."

"Just Data and engineering right now, captain. Thank you." She hugged him tightly.

He patted her on the back. "Don't worry," he said. "If we're out of commission long enough, Q will get annoyed and rescue us himself."

Elle laughed. "You know, you told me that already. I think he'd be touched to know that you have faith in him."

Picard scowled. "Do not tell him I said that."

Elle laughed harder. "Yes, sir."

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle stared at him blankly, her ears ringing. "Oh, it's catching up to me," she realized. "What's nine times eight point one?"

"Seventy-two point nine," Geordi replied. "Why?"

"Because I've been awake for seventy-three hours," she said. "Bones was right." She put her head down on the table. "I need to read that paper."

"What?"

"I'm taking this loop off," Elle decided. She stood up. "Good night." She wandered out of Ten-Forward. Halfway to her quarters, she remembered and tapped her commbadge. "Elle to Captain Picard. Code Mobius. I've been awake for three days, I'mma sleep this one through." She closed the channel.

Simba met her with a trill and excited squeals as the tribble realized they were going to sleep.

Elle fell asleep rather quickly, her mind still running the calculations over and over.

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle gasped. "Talk about rude awakenings!" she exclaimed, putting a hand to her chest. "That was a perfectly lovely dream about egg nog... I'm not sleepy anymore. Good. Still looping. Bad."

Geordi stared at her. "What?" he asked, bewildered.

Elle sighed. "Yeah. That's how I feel. Come on." She walked up to the bridge. "Captain, we're in a Code Mobius," she announced. "It's been ten loops of eight hours. I have a general plan, but I need Data and the computer core to assist."

"You're the only one experiencing this?" Picard asked.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"I see." He fixed her with a look. "How are we doing?"

"Not in any mortal danger."

"And how are you doing?" he inquired.

"I got some sleep last loop, so better," Elle said. "I just need breakfast. Relatively."

"Well then. Let's get you some breakfast." He put his arm around her shoulders and ushered her towards the lift.

Elle had a nutritionally-balanced breakfast, was convinced to play a game of chess, and she and the captain shared a cup of tea before she got back to it.

Six and a half hours left. There were three possible solutions waiting on the computer. One, use a cosmic string to pull yourself along the string of time. No thanks, Elle did not feel up to harnessing elemental forces. "If we have to we'll circle back," she said, making a mental note. Two, wait. Sometimes they resolve on their own. "Not useful. And if it is gonna resolve on its own, we'll be here." Three, someone on board is having some sort of Groundhog-Day bargaining scenario with a higher being trying to get a certain result, and we're all caught up in it. "The only one caught in it is me," Elle said. "Am I bargaining for something?"

"Not that I'm aware," Alexa said. "Have you been talking to obscure entities again?"

"Noooo," Elle said slowly. "The only obscure entity I talk to is what's-his-letter, and he's not really obscure." She frowned. "Nobody's died. Nobody's in danger. It's not like I'm trying to redo a terrible decision or something. The most important thing happening today is party planning." She scrolled through the initial conditions on the Enterprise. "I could always check. There could be something going on. Someone making a plea bargain. A terrible medical diagnosis. News from another ship, or another world."

"There's over three thousand people on this ship," Alexa said.

"Yeah," Elle said, mentally bracing herself. "I'm gonna know them really well by the end of this."

She started with the Yeomen department. If anyone was gonna know if a crewmember was making deals with the (insert-planetary-devil-figure-here), they would know.

"Nobody that I can think of, sorry Elle," said Yeoman Harcomb, shaking her head. "Have we really been living this day over again?"

"Yes, we have," Elle said. "I was hoping someone else would know what was going on, but I'm the only one so far."

"Mm. If we hear anything, we'll let you know."

"Thanks."

Elle went to Sickbay next.

"Elle," Dr. Crusher said, waving her over. "Here to see baby Juarez?"

"No," Elle said, immediately getting distracted by the chubby baby. "Are you in for your checkup?" she cooed, tickling his belly.

He shrieked happily and grabbed her free hand to gnaw on it.

"He's in for teething troubles," Dr. Crusher said.

"I can see that," Elle said, rescuing her slobbery hand. "I had a question."

Baby Juarez grabbed her other hand and stuffed it in his mouth.

Elle allowed it. "Has anyone been in for anything serious?" she asked. "Anybody on the ship dying or anything?"

"No," Dr. Crusher said slowly. "Nothing like that."

Elle blew out a breath. "Okay. Fine. Has Deanna's grief-o-meter gone off recently?"

"No," Dr. Crusher said, covering a smile. "And you know you can't ask about that, it's patient confidentiality."

"I wouldn't ask, except it's a crisis," Elle said. "I'm trying to see if anyone's gods are acting up."

Dr. Crusher leaned over and kissed the top of Elle's head. "No," she said. "Sorry."

"Ah, well. Worth a try." Elle wiped her hands on her pants. "Bye, bebe!"

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle sighed. "I think today I'm just gonna watch the computer do its thing," she said. "I talked to a lot of people today and no one is crazy."

Geordi stared at her like she was crazy, which, rude. "You okay, Elle?" he asked.

"It's gettin' me down," she said. "But we'll persevere."

"If it's too much stress to plan the party, you don't have to," Geordi started.

Elle blinked at him. "What party. Oh! The party! No, not that. The time loop. The party's fine. I gotta go type up stuff, Geordi, I'll see you later."

She informed Captain Picard, she set the algorithm to running where it'd left off in the previous loop, and stared blankly at the screen as it pulled up results and discarded them. There was an art to zoning out, but Elle was always thinking of something... easier to meditate.

She sat criss-cross on the table and ordered her thoughts. Spock wasn't here now to help guide her, so it took a while, but eventually, she got there. Time loops. Time loops. What had she seen in Star Trek that had to do with time loops?

"Dekyon particles," she said aloud, her eyes snapping open. "Dekyon particles can travel through time loops." She jumped off the table. "Data! Alexa, where's Data?"

"He's in Main Engineering," Alexa replied. "You have a plan?"

"I think so!" Elle went to find him. "Data! Can you help me?"

"Of course." He put down whatever he was working on. "How can I help?"

"In the time loop episode you haven't had yet, the Enterprise used dekyon particles to send a message to your neural net in the next loop, giving you the answer to the problem. I need to know if we can send a message. That would help a lot."

"That could work," Data said. "Excellent work, Elle."

Between the two of them and Geordi, they set it up and sent the test message. "If you get this, go talk to Elle, the Enterprise is in a time loop and we've used dekyon particles to communicate with the next loop."

"Straightforward enough," Elle said. "And if it works, in the next iteration, we can send the algorithm we've been using to test scenarios."

"Have you tried sending other stuff through?" Geordi asked.

"Objects don't come through," Elle said. "Neither does ink on my skin. Whatever I'm holding stays behind. Having someone else remember would really help." She bounced on her toes anxiously.

"How much time do we have?" Geordi asked. "I wanna test generated neutr-"

Time reset.

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle groaned. "Geordi, do you think generated neutrinos would travel backward in time?"

He blinked at her. "I, don't see why not?"

"Cool. We'll try that next." She stood up. "Sorry, but I gotta go find Data."

She found Data, informed him and Captain Picard of the time loop, and asked, "Have you gotten any messages? Anything in my voice?"

"Not as yet," Data said.

"Maybe it'll come through later," Elle said, trying not to be pessimistic. "It's eight hours long, after all."

The wait was excruciating. In the meantime, Elle prepared some other messages. She shot neutrinos at the neutrino-catching wall in one of the Enterprise's labs. She used gamma radiation to write a 'hello' in Ten-Forward, facing Geordi when time reset. She inked a section of the algorithm on her arm, just to test it again. And then she sat and watched Doctor Who.

"Is this research?" Riker asked, sitting next to her.

"Nope," Elle said. "But yes. But no. This is me being bad at waiting. Eight hours has never been so long."

Riker kissed the top of her head.

Eight hours and nine minutes, and nothing. "Dekyon particles didn't work," Elle said, stressed beyond belief. "But they worked in the show! And by all accounts they should've worked!"

"Maybe we aimed them in the wrong direction," Geordi suggested.

"We're moving in a circle!" Elle shot back.

"Or did I imagine it?" Geordi asked.

Elle stared at him, her heart hammering, her fists clenched into the edge of the table. "Are you, by any chance, seeing any gamma radiation on the wall behind me?" she asked.

"No?" Geordi said, confused. "Why?"

Elle closed her eyes as hot tears of frustration began to pool. She looked down at her arm. It was blurry but unblemished by ink. "I bet the neutrinos didn't work either." She wiped her eyes, but the tears wouldn't stop flowing. "It's fine. It's fine. We'll think of something else. I just need a minute."

"Okay," Geordi said, now beginning to look alarmed. "You wanna tell me what's going on?"

"The longest eight hours of my life," Elle said, and put her head down and cried.