A/N: Wanted to get this chapter out for Groundhog Day :DDD

Bursting into tears in the middle of Ten-Forward was not one of Elle's finest moments, but at this point in the five-year mission, the sight of someone having a minor breakdown in public was not a sight to comment upon.

Guinan bustled over immediately, tissues and a pot of tea at the ready. "You all right, Elle?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Elle said, taking a slow, deep breath. "I'm sorry. It's just been a day."

"It's 2 PM," Geordi said, unhelpfully.

"It's been 2 PM ten times," Elle retorted, wiping her eyes. "We're in a time loop. Our idea didn't work. But we'll think of something else."

"Okay," Geordi said slowly. "Do we need Data?"

"Yeah," Elle said, slumping forward on her elbows. "I need to talk to him."

"Okay." Geordi patted her on the shoulder. "I'll get Data and meet you in Engineering. You drink your tea."

"Okay." Elle poured herself a cup of tea, added two spoons of sugar, and sipped at it. "Ugh. Too sweet."

"Good for shock," Guinan said, taking the vacant seat across from her. "How are you doing?"

"I'm good."

Guinan gave her a Look.

"Fine. I'm battling impatience and fear of the unknown," Elle replied. She slurped the tea down. "Gotta go."

"Take it one day at a time," Guinan said.

Elle gave her a Look. "Ha. Ha." On that sterling joke, she left Ten-Forward and headed down for Engineering.

Data and Geordi were there, game faces on. "Okay, Elle, run us through it."

-/\-

"Data, what emotion are you feeling right now?"

"I am, stumped," Data said. "It is a new feeling. I'm not sure I like it."

Elle patted him on the shoulder. "We're going to figure it out."

Data gave her a thumbs-up. "I have confidence."

Elle blinked at him. "Been working on incorporating human gestures?"

"Yes. Was that not the appropriate gesture?"

"No, it was," Elle said, smothering a grin. "I'm just getting used to the sight of it."

"Good, good."

"After much deliberation," Geordi said, squishing the bridge of his nose, "your running solution simulations is the best way to figure this out."

"Unless we want to start shooting quantum torpedos into subspace," Elle said.

"We'll save that as our last, last resort," Geordi said, patting her on the head.

She wrinkled her nose at him.

Data laughed.

The captain finally wandered down to them. "How goes the time loop?" he asked.

Elle glanced up at him guiltily. "Oops. Forgot to inform you."

"That's all right. Alexa did it for you."

Elle frowned up at the ceiling.

Alexa beeped from a nearby wall. "You think I don't know what a time loop looks like even if I'm not experiencing it?" she asked. "How many time loops have the Enterprises experienced over the last hundred years?"

"You weren't even alive a hundred years ago," Elle said.

"The library computer was," Alexa replied. "And I come from it."

"Fine," Elle said.

"You know how weird it is to argue with the ceiling?" Geordi asked.

Elle wrinkled her nose at him again.

"But Geordi, you argue with the ceiling all the time," Data pointed out.

Elle smirked. "Pot, kettle."

"I'm only saying because I know," Geordi said.

"I'm gonna get a Bluetooth earbud just to run around talking to Alexa, Uhura-style," Elle decided.

"The height of fashion," Alexa agreed.

"That's how you know she's a time traveler," Geordi told Data.

"Hush," Elle said severely.

They spent the rest of the loop going over what had already been done. It was nice to have everything verified, but ultimately, useless.

-/\-

Next loop:

"Code Mobius," Elle announced, bouncing onto the bridge and plopping into the vacant chair next to Picard. "Somewhere in the teens."

Picard looked appropriately alarmed. "And?"

"And we're getting there," Elle said. "Algorithms are going, but I'm tired." She gave Picard her best pleading look. "I don't want to think about algorithms today."

He caved immediately. "Well," he said, tugging his jacket down. "I do have some holodeck time. Would you like to see what I've been working on in my Shakespeare program?"

"I would love that," Elle replied, bouncing on her toes.

Riker and Troi shared a grin. "Have fun," Riker said.

The holodeck came up in the middle of Richard III. Picard let it run in observer mode and asked Elle, "What do you notice?"

She listened to the holographic men and women talk and started to smile. "What's with their accents?" she asked.

Picard smiled. "I've set this play for original pronunciation," he said. "Someone's reconstructed what Early Modern English would have sounded like, accounting for regional differences."

"Are you trying to learn the accent?" Elle asked.

"No," he said, like a liar.

"Awesome," Elle said. "Can I hear some?"

He, very modestly, performed some Hamlet. It was great, very pirate-y.

After Shakespeare, they went to the arboretum and had lunch. "Once we get out of here," Elle said, "we'll have to reschedule your engagement party."

"Isn't it on Friday?" Picard asked.

"Friday was two days ago," Elle said. "I think. If anything, Wesley will spazz, come out here, and save us himself if we don't figure this out."

Picard blinked. "Ah. Yes. Wesley."

She squinted at him. "What about Wesley?"

"I'd forgotten," Picard said.

Elle frowned at him. "Forgotten what? You haven't been conscious during the time looping."

"No, I'd forgotten that aspect," he said. "Time, of course, is moving on without us, as far as we know. But are we being left behind, or are we pacing them?"

"We won't know till we get out," Elle replied. "We could try hollering for-"

Picard gave her a Look.

"-Macbeth," Elle finished, smirking.

Picard shook his head with a sigh. "Robert will not be pleased," was the non-sequitur out of his mouth.

Elle's brain crashed in its tracks. "Robert?" she squawked. "Your brother, Robert? You said they weren't coming virtually!" She blanched. "Oh no. I only booked enough subspace time for Wesley... did you book time? You said that they were having power outages in that district and so they weren't gonna attend! When did they get back to you?! That was yesterday! That wasn't in the plans..."

Picard watched her go through the five stages of grief in thirty seconds, his hand pressed over his mouth, his expression inscrutable. "Maybe I shouldn't have top-security clearance," he mused. "We were trying to keep it a secret."

The quickly-expanding mass of panic in her brain screeched to another halt. "What?" she asked.

He smiled at her and leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead. "Beverly and I decided, a couple of weeks ago, to turn the engagement party you're throwing us, into a wedding."

Elle wondered, vaguely, if she'd slipped into a parallel universe. "What."

"And this time loop business rather confirms it," he continued, looking amused at her plight. "Rather now than before something else happens."

"What," Elle said again, wondering if she'd had a stroke, and Captain Picard was just sitting here, laughing at her. Was this a prank? "You what."

"We had it all planned out, just the two of us," he said, looking quite pleased with himself. "Got Wesley and my family tickets on a shuttle and asked the Intrepid to do us a favor and bring them from the starbase to rendezvous with us since they'll be passing our way. Talked to Guinan, who's agreed to do the ceremony."

Elle gaped. "Did, does, does everyone know?"

"Just Guinan," Picard said. "And the captain of the Intrepid."

Elle drew a breath, wheezed. "Wh- why didn't you tell me?"

"We wanted to surprise you," Picard said. "And keep everyone else from making a fuss. Mostly the admiralty." He wrinkled his nose. "Now I've gone and ruined the surprise, but-"

"I don't care," Elle said, throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. "I don't care," she said again, into his shoulder. "This is the best day of my life. I thought it was gonna have to be a literal act of god to move things forward, and here you are, doing it yourself."

Picard patted her on the back, holding her equally as tight. "You classify as an act of god," he said kindly and dropped a kiss on her head. "You have such faith in the two of us, that no matter what obstacle we encounter, we will overcome it, together. How could we not put faith in that ourselves?"

Elle drew back, teary-eyed from joy. "I love you both a lot," she said and kissed his cheek. "I'm really happy for you."

"We love you, too," Picard said, smiling at her. "Now that you know, will you be my best man? Wesley's already agreed to walk his mother down the aisle."

Elle felt like crying again. "Of course, I will," she said.

"Thank you," he said and grinned. "I was going to spring it on you right before the party, but this way's better."

"I'm still givin' my speech," Elle threatened, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin. She gasped at the sudden thought. "Oh, I wasn't counting on Robert being there; I've sprinkled in a couple of wine jokes. Who else on the Enterprise likes wine? I need to fact-check them, or he's gonna scowl."

Picard rolled his eyes. "He's going to scowl no matter what."

"True."

They sat in silence for a few moments as Elle absorbed the true weight of what had been revealed. "You don't think maybe the secret of you guys wanting to get married at this party would be the trigger to get time moving forward again?" she asked, after a second.

"I don't think so," Picard said, after a second. "But you will, of course, maintain the utmost secrecy until the day of the party."

"On my life," Elle promised.

"Well, don't go that far," Picard retorted.

"No, literally," Elle said, "I'm breaking us out of this time loop ASAP. I have a mission now."

Picard laughed. "Good to know."

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle sighed. "Aww, dangnabbit. Groundhog Day revelations of love do not override temporal loops."

Geordi gaped at her. "What?"

Elle shook her head. "Nothing. I think I need a change of perspective. We need to go back to the cause..." She got up and left Ten-Forward. She tapped her comm-badge as she wandered the halls aimlessly. "Elle to Captain Picard."

"Picard here. What is it, Elle?"

"Code Mobius, sir."

"Are you sure?" he asked after a second.

"Yup."

"What do we have to do?"

"Well, sir, right now, I need time to think."

"Understood. Keep me updated."

"Sir." Elle closed the channel and kept walking. Dekyon particles had no effect. Declarations of secrets had no effect. Data's work on Lal was going well, there wasn't anything catastrophic there. So what was it? What was causing all this in the first place? She wandered into Engineering, typed up the algorithm to compare scenarios, and left it to run. She resumed her wander.

Elle found herself in one of the less-used libraries. She pulled a beanbag over to a deserted corner and threw herself on it. Her head bonked on the carpet but she left it there, to be dramatic. Maybe the blood flow would help her come up with something. She shifted to a comfortable position and totally-did-not-take-a-nap for a little while, resting her eyes.

"Cause and effect," she said aloud, waking up some time later. "Cause and effect. Why 8.1 hours? That's such a specific..." She sat back up and pulled her PADD out of her pocket. "Alexa, did we run that question yet?"

"It's in the results of the algorithm," Alexa replied. "Also, you've hit a new typing speed, by the way."

"Nice." Elle scrolled through the results. Things that were 8.1 hours long, the newest Buzzfeed article. The mating cycle of a fly on Tau Ceti Prime, probably not. A play from Rigel IV's Intransitive Period, eight hours and ten minutes long, with two intermissions and a sleepover. No. Not even Dr. Crusher would do that. 8.1 hours - the amount of time it takes fifty-thousand bacteria to eat through a piece of cheese.

Elle paused. There was a whole episode about mutant bacteria cheese on Voyager... "Alexa, there's no cheesemaking going on, right?"

"No cheesemaking," Alexa replied.

Of course. And the Enterprise didn't have bio-neural circuitry to be affected anyway. "Never mind that. It's not the cheese." She scrolled down. "What the chicken nugget is astatine?"

"A compound related to iodine," Alexa replied. "Astatine is a chemical element with the symbol At and atomic number 85, one of the halogens. It is the rarest natural element in the Earth's crust, only created as other heavier elements decay. It has a half-life of 8.1 hours, after which it turns into lead or other products."

Elle frowned. "What's it for?"

"Research has been done for the medical field," Alexa replied.

Elle scrolled through the astatine entry in the library computer. Very rare, and one can only catch glimpses of it in planetary crusts due to the short half-life... like iodine, could be used to trace thyroid cancers... hm. Only 30 grams are theorized to exist at one time on a planet's surface... theorized that if a large enough mass would become visible, it would vaporize instantly due to its radioactive nature... "Alexa?"

"Yes?"

"Do we have any astatine onboard?"

"Affirmative."

Elle frowned. "Why?"

"As part of the bio-sciences," Alexa replied. "They're attempting to synthesize it."

"How?"

"By blasting bismuth particles with alpha radiation."

"Is it working?"

"The most stable version of it only lasts 8.1 hours," Alexa said.

Radiation, funky elements. Elle would bet her long-lost piggy bank that this was the cause. "Where is it? Who's working on it?"

"Lt. Commander Odessa Vasser," Alexa replied. "Lab 47, Deck 35."

"Right above main engineering," Elle mused. "Hm." She put the beanbag back and went down to Engineering.

"Elle?" Geordi asked, finding her in the hallway. "You okay?"

"Looking for Lt. Commander Vasser," Elle replied.

"Yeah, she's in one of our shielded labs. You have to comm her. You can't go in."

"Oh." Elle tapped her badge. "Elle to Commander Vasser."

"Vasser here. What can I do for you, Miss Wilcott?"

Was it flattering that random crewmembers knew who she was? A little bit, yeah. Elle refocused. "I'd like to talk to you about your experiments. Can we meet?"

"If it's brief," Vasser replied. "This is time-sensitive."

"Short meeting," Elle promised. "Just a couple of questions."

"Fine. Meet you in the lounge on deck 36. Vasser out."

Elle looked at Geordi.

He held up his hands. "Oh no, this is your theory. You run with it and let me know what you find."

"Yes, sir." Elle went to the lounge in Engineering, which was where most people took their coffee break. The only coffee served in that lounge was Klingon raktajinos, which ought to tell you something.

Lt. Commander Vasser was a tall, stern-looking woman with blue eyes. She raised an espresso cup in greeting as Elle came in. "What did you want to ask me?" she said, glancing at the chronometer.

"We're in a time loop," Elle said, without preamble.

"Okay," Vasser replied.

"It's 8.1 hours long," Elle continued.

"Oh, you know that's the half-life of asta..." Vasser trailed off. "Ah. I gather we have a problem."

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Elle said. "What exactly are you doing?"

"Synthesizing it," Vasser replied. "We can't really study it because it occurs in such small amounts. I've figured out an efficient way of synthesizing it, to see if we can make enough to experiment with. It would be of great use in places that don't have state-of-the-art medical bays, to track and treat different thyroid disorders, or other things that we can't even think of right now because we can't really study it."

"Why are you doing this on the Enterprise?" Elle asked.

"Because the flagship has the best-shielded labs in the Fleet," Vasser said. "And I hate Jupiter Station. They're very elitist, over there."

Elle thought of Dr. Zimmerman and pointedly did not smile. "I see what you mean," she said. "So, how many grams do you have?"

"Not enough," Vasser said. "I'm not even making visible amounts of the stuff. It'd be too radioactive. But again, short half-life, so we have to make as much as possible, to be able to study it in those 8-odd hours. It decays into lead, which, not super great, but again, shielded lab."

Elle thought about this. "I read that if we synthesize enough then it would blow itself up due to critical mass."

"It probably would," Vasser said.

"How much would classify as critical mass?"

Vasser blinked. "We don't know. We've never found it."

Elle looked up at the ceiling, suddenly worried. "Alexa, are we being blown up every 8.1 hours?"

"Insufficient data," Alexa replied, which in Alexa's regular speaking voice, meant, How in the Great Bird am I supposed to know if I don't remember anything at the point of looping?

"Good point," Elle said. "Can we run scenarios?"

"We don't have enough information to even speculate," Vasser said.

Elle grimaced. "That means, I have to watch you do the experiment and stare at the readouts until the very last second to see if we blow up."

Vasser blinked at her. "And then what?"

"I don't know, we're not there yet," Elle replied.

"Fair enough. Come on. You can sit outside the lab and watch the readouts in real-time."

"Cool."

Geordi and Data got Elle set up in the observation room outside the shielded lab. They had shoved every single sensor possible in that room and condensed all the readouts to one screen. "See if my memory works like flash photography," Elle joked nervously.

Geordi squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I wish we could help you more."

"You are helping. Everybody just have patience with me."

"Fifteen minutes," Data said.

Elle pressed her lips together. "Okay."

Elle watched the readouts in rapt silence. Once in a while, the invisible astatine would glow a dark blue, almost purple, and release little flashes of X-rays. Some of it was decaying already, but there was still a large amount. "It really is fascinating," she said.

"You might have to go into sciences like Ambassador Spock," Geordi said, ruffling her hair.

Elle huffed a laugh. "Uh-huh. And pigs can fly."

It was a quiet few minutes. At eight hours, six minutes, the alpha rays began to fire again, blasting the bismuth crystals with a steady stream of radiation. Slowly, more astatine was created. At eight hours, eight minutes- Elle watched in horror as all the readings went off the scale in a bright flash of light-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle threw her hands in the air. "I knew it! I knew it! We are exploding, Great Bird take it-" She gripped her head. "How do I fix this?"

Geordi stared at her in open-mouthed amazement. "What are you talking about?"

-/\-

"Are you sure these readings are correct?" Data asked.

"I'm pretty sure," Elle said. "That's what I saw right before the switch."

"So we are blowing up," Riker said flatly.

"Yup."

It was more real now, holding an actual briefing, showing the results of days' worth of looping, of sensors, of remembered results. Elle suppressed her fidgeting, standing at the head of the table, hoping the senior officers could help her pull a rabbit out of a hat. The first thing they'd done, obviously, was stop Lt. Commander Vasser from synthesizing any more astatine. Only time would tell if that would stop the time loop from, well, looping.

"And if it doesn't," Geordi said, picking up her train of thought, "we still have to figure out how to stop it."

"True."

"Could we create a controlled astatine explosion and study those effects?" Riker asked. "So we know what we're actually dealing with?"

"Only if Elle can memorize those specs also," Geordi said.

"I can do it," Elle promised.

One small explosion later...

"Elle, you said dekyon particles can normally travel through time travel loops?"

"Yessir."

Geordi adjusted his visor. "Well. If this is right... an explosion of that size, with these readings, interfering with a warpcore... it might have disturbed the underlying dekyon field in subspace." He pulled up a simulation. "Like an eddy in a current, the continuous explosions would've kept us in the same little loop, stuck in this dip of disturbed spacetime."

"But we stopped the astatine production," Elle said. "And we just blew up the rest of it. Will that get us out?"

"We'll just have to wait and see," Geordi said. "In the meantime, you can memorize all this. If we're still stuck in two hours you can give this to us, and we'll work out something else."

Elle nodded and set to memorizing the information.

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle took a very deep breath and did not cry. "No, we're good. We're good. It's an eddy. Honestly, I was expecting this. We have to get unstuck."

Geordi looked at her, alarmed. "Unstuck from what?"

Another Code Mobius, another harried briefing, this time with actual answers. Elle drew out the simulation of spacetime freehand, since it would take the computer too long to plot the simulation. "We're here," she said, pointing at the wibbly bit. "How do we get out?"

Counselor Troi looked at her sympathetically. "Elle, how long have you been looping?"

"I don't know, days?" Elle said. "I'm fine. If this loop doesn't work I'm taking the next loop off to sleep." She looked at Picard. "I read Dr. McCoy's article on time loops as you suggested."

"Good," he said, after a second. "I was just about to-"

"I know," she said, giving him a grin. "Thank you."

"Data, if we synthesized more astatine, could we blow past the eddy?"

Data blinked. "There is an 80% chance that we would blow ourselves up permanently, but yes."

"Could we synthesize it in space?" Elle asked. "Just kinda, to the side of the Enterprise?"

"Worth a shot," Geordi said.

It took three hours to outfit a shuttle with remote-controlled astatine production. "Four hours isn't enough time to make enough," Elle said.

"Once we get enough to sample, we can replicate it in the shuttle's replicator," Geordi said. "It should work."

The next four hours were torturous. Elle distracted herself with the Shakespeare program for a while, mimicking the actors, and then wandered down to the Rec Deck. "What can I do for two and a half hours?" she asked Moira.

The games computer blinked its lights in thought. "You haven't done any clay pottery in a while," Moira said. "That would give you something concrete to do."

"Good idea."

Two hours later, Elle put the bowl and plate in a stasis unit to finish drying. "Even if we loop again, that was good practice," she said. She washed up and went down to engineering. "How are we doing?"

"We set up a second shuttle," Geordi said. "Otherwise we wouldn't reach critical mass in time."

Elle politely did not say, 'I told you so.' "How close are we?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Geordi, we loop in twenty-five."

"Yeah, and that gives us five minutes to get our readings."

Precisely 20 minutes later, both Enterprise shuttles exploded. Violently. Elle kept her eyes glued on the sensors for the next five minutes, trying to get as much information as possible in case the addition of astatine radiation didn't make a difference.

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle threw her hands up. "No! That didn't work! Bad plan."

Everyone in Ten-Forward stared at her.

"Sorry," Elle said sheepishly, subsiding back into her seat as she turned red. "Scuse me." She looked at Geordi. "The massive burst of astatine didn't have any effect. I'm thinking we go back to dekyon particles."

"If I knew what you were talking about, I'm sure I'd agree with you," Geordi said politely.

Elle sighed. "Right."

By this time, she'd gotten the briefing down to an art. Thirty minutes later, the senior officers were apprised, and Data and Geordi were already spitballing ideas.

"We built a dekyon particle beam a few loops ago," Elle said. "If we made it bigger, er, more powerful, we could maybe, cancel out? The eddy?"

"How'd we build the first one?"

And they were off.

A couple hours later, they'd turned the Enterprise's deflector dish into a dekyon particle generator. "Hopefully, captain, this will disrupt the eddy we're in, and return us to the normal time-stream," Geordi said.

"And if it doesn't?" Picard asked.

"It will have some sort of discernible effect on the time loop, and Elle can gather evidence and refine it as necessary."

AKA, no clue, sir. Elle smothered a grin.

"Very well. Fire at will."

They fired. Nothing happened. Elle frowned. "Fire again?" she suggested.

"Just wait," Geordi murmured. "It might have a cumulative effect. We need to be careful."

"Anything on sensors?" Elle asked, sticking her head over Data's shoulder to look at the ops board. "Woah it's spikin-"

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle stared in delight. "That did something, all right. Took the loop from 8.1 to 4.6 hours. That means we're on the right track. Come on, Geordi. We're in a time loop." She urged him out of his seat.

-/\-

"We've either got four or eight hours, if that last loop was an anomaly," Elle concluded.

"What are we waiting for?" Picard asked, shooting her a comforting grin.

They hurried to engineering to work on the dekyon particle beam. Explaining it and setting it up still took time, and they were approaching the 4.6-hour mark by the time it was ready. "Different settings this time," Elle said, hovering over Data's shoulder.

"Fire at will," Picard said.

They fired. Elle waited, breathless, for the results. At 4.6 hours, she watched the readings spike, and-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle blinked. "Okay," she said, cautiously optimistic. "Did we loop back because of the beam or because it was 4.6 hours? Is that our new time limit?" She stood up. "We don't have time for me to explain it all again, you guys are too slow."

Geordi followed her out of Ten-Forward. "What are talking about, Elle?"

"Time loop, dekyon beam, we gotta go faster," she said, jogging for the lift. "Elle to Captain Picard. We're stuck in a time loop, Code Mobius. I have a solution but we've gotta rewire the main deflector dish to emit dekyon particles. I know how, but we gotta do it in less than four hours because I need to see if it's actually making a difference or if we broke something."

There was a startled pause on the other end of the channel. "Understood," Picard finally said. "Keep me apprised."

"Yes, sir."

Geordi followed her into Main Engineering. "How many times have you done this?" he asked, watching Elle pull up the deflector specs and start to reprogram them.

"Uh, this'll be the fourth time doing the beam. I've lost track of how many loops there are."

"Good to know. Can I help?"

"Not yet."

Elle finished setting up the dekyon beam in two and a half hours and tapped her comm. "Captain, it's ready."

"Are you sure, Elle?" Picard asked.

"I'm sure, captain."

"Go ahead, then."

Elle fired the beam from Main Engineering. "I really hope this works," she told a bemused Geordi. "I need a nap."

"Is something supposed to happen?" he asked.

She chewed at her lower lip contemplatively. "Well, either we're gonna loop again, or we're gonna ride it out and rejoin the time stream."

Ten minutes passed. Nothing. Two hours passed. Nothing still. "I'm not saying it worked until we pass 8.1 hours," Elle said cautiously.

"That's four hours away," Picard said. "Get some sleep in the meantime. You know that-"

"Yes, sir, and I was totally gonna get some sleep in the last loop but there wasn't time. I'll get some now, though." She kissed his cheek and left the bridge. "Alexa, wake me up in three hours, fifty-nine minutes."

"Alarm set," Alexa replied.

As soon as Elle hit her pillow, she fell asleep.

Three hours and fifty-nine minutes later, Alexa woke her up.

Elle dragged herself out of bed, stuck Simba in her pocket, and went back to the bridge. "I really hope this is the end of it," she groaned. "I need like ten more hours of sleep."

Riker put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "We'll see," he said.

Ten minutes passed with agonizing slowness. "Nothing yet," Elle said, on the edge of her seat. "Are we, are we through? Was that it?"

"It will take some time to run some scans," Data said. "Why don't you go back to sleep, and I'll wake you when we find something."

Elle nodded slowly. "Fine." She went back to her quarters, but she couldn't go back to sleep. she kept staring at the clock on her wall. It slowly ticked over into 2250 hours. Then 2350. Then 0000 hours. Then 0001. "We're in tomorrow," she whispered to Simba, finally allowing herself to hope. "Are we out?"

She was just falling asleep when the comm chimed. "Elle to the conference room."

She groaned. "Onmwa," she mumbled into the comm and got up. Notions of facing the results with dignity were outdated. She didn't bother changing out of pajama pants.

Data, Geordi, and Picard smiled at her as she walked into the conference room. "Good nap?" Geordi asked, his smile turning into a worried frown.

"No," Elle said warily. "Lay it on me."

Data put up the scan analysis.

Elle took one look at it and groaned.

"The eddy has turned into a long ellipsis in subspace," Data said. "It has lasted ten hours, and will probably last another five to ten hours."

"We spaghettified it," Elle said.

"Yes."

She stood up. "I'm going to sleep," she announced. "I'll see y'all in the next loop. If you come up with anything, tell me in time for me to memorize it." She left the conference room.

This time, she went to sleep.

-/\-

A gentle hand shook her awake. "Elle, we got something. We need you to memorize this."

Elle grumbled and shoved the offending hand away. "Nooo."

"Elle, honey, c'mon."

She glared up at Riker. "Whyyy."

"Here." He handed her a breakfast smoothie and a datapad. "Before we loop again."

"How long'd I sleep?"

"Eight hours," he said. "Data predicts we have less than two hours."

"Kay." Elle looked at the datapad and tried to make her sleep-addled brain memorize the settings on the screen. "Did you put celery in this smoothie?" she demanded.

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle blinked, disoriented. "Wh-" She cleared her throat. Her mouth no longer tasted like celery-apple-protein powder. "I," she blinked. "I'm awake."

Geordi frowned at her. "Were you not listening?"

ELle sighed. "I was. The first time around."

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I was brainwashed, I can't exactly help it."

Elle sighed again. "I know. I didn't finish my breakfast, and I'm hungry."

"We just had lunch," Geordi said.

"Psychologically, I'm hungry," Elle said, and ordered a bagel with cream cheese.

Reworking the main deflector dish was easy. Trying to remember the settings...

"Problem?" Geordi asked, after watching her stare at the screen for a good minute.

Elle cleared her throat. "We looped before I could finish memorizing what you and Data had worked up. Sorry."

Geordi patted her on the back. "Just do your best. We'll get another shot at it, from what you've told us."

Elle nodded. "Right." She input the rest of the settings. "I think that was it. I really hope that was it." She tapped her comm. "Elle to Picard. We're ready."

"Go ahead."

She fired.

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle winced. "That was fast. That was really fast."

"What? Did I forget again?"

"Yes but no but yes. That was less than three hours." Elle jumped to her feet. "We need to go to Engineering, now-"

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle, seated once again, stared in shock. "No... please no."

"What?" Geordi frowned at her. "Did I-"

"No you didn't," Elle said, bolting from her seat. "Gotta go-"

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle fell out of her seat. "I think I'm spacesick," she groaned, as Geordi helped her up.

"What?"

"Never mind, I gotta get to-"

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle stared at him, stuck between laughing and crying. "We're stuck in Galaxy Quest," she blurted.

"What? What's Galaxy Quest?"

"Omega-13," Elle said, giggling hysterically.

"What? Elle, are you okay?"

"No," Elle said frankly.

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle groaned. Her head was swimming with the constant jumps. "Is this what speed dating is like?" she asked.

"What?"

"Nothing." She forced herself to her feet. "I gotta get to Engineering, we cannot-"

"Or did I imagine it?"

She gaped. She was standing, four feet away from their table, but time had reset.

Geordi flinched. "Elle? How'd you get over ther-"

"Gotta go!" She took her advantage and bolted for the doors. She felt a visceral pull in her gut and resisted, leaning forward.

"Or did I imagine it?" came from faintly behind her. "Elle?"

She took the next loop leaning up against the doors. "I do not like this, Sam I am," she whispered. "I do not like green eggs and ham."

"Or did I imagine it?"

"Elle?" Guinan was approaching, her 'Spidey senses' face on full beam.

"Time loop," Elle managed, before time reset.

She found herself halfway back to Geordi and the table. "Gotta keep moving," she realized.

The next loop, she made it out of Ten-Forward. Time jerked again, but she pushed forward and made it to the lift. In the lift, she called her destination five times in row, each time fading faster and faster-

-/\-

"Or did I imagine it?"

Elle groaned. "Back again."

"What?"

Elle silently counted to fifteen, dreading... Time didn't reset. "Time didn't reset," she said aloud. "I don't know what that was, but those were the wrong settings. I think we made a whirlpool. Not doing that again." She grabbed Geordi by the wrist and pulled him up. "Come on. We gotta get to Engineering."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The worst two and a half minutes of my life," Elle said. "That includes the drowning."

He gaped at her. "What?"

On the way to Engineering, she gave the condensed version to Geordi and the bridge crew, over comms. "Our last stable loop lasted less than three hours and I do not wanna get caught again," she said. "My brain is still ringing. But this is the right path, I know it. We're close. I think I know where I went wrong."

"Elle, when-" Picard started.

"I slept last loop," she interrupted. "And yes, I ate. And yes, if this one doesn't work, I will take some time to myself and meditate. And yes, I would like to hear you perform Shakespeare in the original pronunciation."

"Well, I'm convinced," said Riker, audibly amused.

"Elle suddenly spouting technobabble at high speeds in a previously-unworked field didn't convince you?" Troi asked dryly.

Trying to focus after going through the whirlpool made Elle's eyes hurt, but she powered through it. She went up to the bridge for the final adjustments. "I really, really, hope this works," she said, and pressed the button.

The main deflector dish fired.

Elle watched the readings, holding her breath in anticipation. There was a sharp spike, and a bright flash of light-

-/\-

Elle blinked. She was still on the bridge. The Enterprise was moving forward. She looked at the clock. The clock was still ticking forwards.

"Report?" Picard asked.

"I'm reading no anomalies," Data said. "No ripples in subspace. No disturbances in the dekyon particle field."

"We're out!" Elle darted forward and kissed the captain on the cheek. "We're out! Yesssss!" She lifted her fists in the air and did her victory dance. "YESSSS!" She collapsed into the nearest chair, suddenly exhausted. "Computer, sync to the nearest Federation starbase. What's the stardate?"

"44922.9," Alexa replied.

"That's over a week," Riker said, stunned. "We missed an entire week?"

"Ten days," Elle said, almost hysterical in her relief. "Like fifty loops. Not bad for a solo adventure."

Troi came over and wrapped her up in a hug.

Elle hid her face in Troi's shoulder and tried not to weep with relief.

"Sir, we're receiving multiple communications from..." Worf trailed off. "Everyone. The starbase, returning our pings? HQ, asking for our status. And all of the ship's mail and personal calls. And three messages from Wesley Crusher, marked urgent."

"A weeks' worth of voicemails," Elle said gleefully, pulling away from Troi with a grateful grin. "Ooh, Spock is gonna be so worried." She poked at Picard. "And you need to call your brother before he implodes."

Picard looked at her, eyes wide. "You-"

She smirked at him. "Yeah. You're in so much trouble, mister."

"I am, indeed," Picard said, standing up. He tugged his jacket free of wrinkles and strode towards the ready room. He stopped, turned on his heel, and came back to stand in front of Elle. He gripped her shoulders gently. "Fifty loops, you said?"

"Yes, sir."

"And no one else with you," he said.

"No, sir."

He drew her into a hug.. "I'm proud of you," he said, pulling back. "Excellent work. You did it, Elle. You saved the Enterprise."

She blushed at his praise. "Thank you, captain," she said.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Good work," he said. "Now please, get some rest."

"Yes, sir." She high-fived Geordi and Data and left the bridge. She made it to her quarters and laughed with relief until she cried. She fell asleep, still grinning.