Shrug. "I don't really know. I think I get pretty bad at those things once I've been up long enough to copy about this much text by hand without any coffee or sleep or breaks." He gestures to indicate the height of the stacked pages that would constitute the said amount of text. "I don't know what that is in days, I only did that in a cave where the light never changed."

"Ah. I don't have a good guess. - there is a magic song that can put people to sleep. Would you like me to find it for you? It won't help with nightmares but even sleep with nightmares can be restful."

Shrug. "I guess. Okay."

"I'll find it and you can press play if you decide you want to, once I've gone. Probably while on the bed or at least the sofa." She looks it up on the tablet, points out the button that would make it go.

"...Okay."

"I'll come back tomorrow if I don't hear from you, but that tablet - it's yours, I give one to all my social work clients - has my contact on the home screen, the pink icon."

"Thank you. How do I know if the Yeerks have said anything?"

"I'll let you know tomorrow if I've heard back then, and so on for successive days."

"Thank you. Do you... never mind. Thank you. You're... really kind." Or at least he's not really evaluating the likelihood that she's secretly plotting anything because obviously he's going to end up doing and believing whatever these people want him to.

She smiles warmly. "I do my best. I hope you get some good rest."

And she lets herself out.

He doesn't really, though since it's so easy and convenient and fast to press the have-horrible-nightmares button he does it three times. He wakes up each time terrified and not sure where he is and eventually gives up and goes to the commissary for yet more coffee and figures out how to use the internet for music and games. It's kind of amazing how many hours can pass almost unnoticed with browser games.

So many! Browser games are super good at eating many hours!

Nocawe is back the next morning, local time. Knock knock.

He answers the door promptly, smiling, and stretches while he’s up.

"Hi! You're looking better," says Nocawe.

He smiles more. He shrugs. "I guess."

"Two bits of news. One, they've finally got a stable route to your Earth pinned down."

"Have they ended Hell yet?"

"Apparently there are several different Hells and they are trying to get oriented before they go in spells blazing - there isn't a single lynchpin entity they can annihilate - but a lot of spare capacity is being diverted there, half my coworkers are on standby to supplement people from someplace called New Jerusalem with evacuees and there was an item in the news about reduced precog access as they figure out a way to navigate it safely."

Stare. Slightly hysterical quiet little giggle. "Several."

"Nasty shock, yes. It's a whole interconnected pile of worlds, I don't have a complete picture from the public announcements, but it sounded like a mess. They are absolutely on it though."

He nods slowly. "Several," he says again. "Um. Is there anything I should be doing?"

"- I don't think so, or at least no one told me if they need you for anything. Do you have some reason to think you have an exceptional perspective on the situation anyone else from the same Hell wouldn't?"

Shrug. "Not really."

"Then no, I don't think there's anything you should be doing. The second bit of news is that Tide has matched you with a Yeerk."

"...Really?"