General Hux was finished with his duties on the bridge, but he waited until the next shift of workers had settled into their places before leaving. It didn't raise anyone's suspicions, some days he stayed all the way thorough the next shift as well as his own. When he was sure that the halls would be clear of all but the last few stragglers, he took a winding route to his destination.

He realized the risks that visiting Lori in her quarters carried, but his request was too urgent for a message.

There was something else he needed to say in person, besides.

It wasn't lost on the general that a confession of his affections immediately followed by a request for help in torturing a man was an upsetting combination. After last night, however, he was sure that he understood Lori enough to be right in his assumption that she would be okay with what he had to say.

With both things he had to say.

Nervousness didn't sit well with the general. Pushing it down, he wondered if he should knock. Deciding that it was better if he didn't delay, the general pulled a code cylinder from his pocket. It was his ship, and he could unlock every door.

Coming to the suite, Hux steadied himself.

One deep breath later, he stepped into the living room. When he did, he found someone sitting on the couch. From his place by the door he could only see that they had the same dusty brown hair as Lori.

From her place on the couch, Vanya assumed the new arrival was Sydney or Quin getting back home from their shift.

Damnable nerves getting the best of him, Hux spoke quickly and without waiting for a reply.

"Lori, I know I should have… I mean. I'm sorry for just walking into your living room, but there's something I should have told you last night, and I'm sorry I didn't have the chance. Or that I didn't say it this morning. It's probably a bit late, and I have something else to ask of you. But… I just…"

Recognizing the voice, Vanya froze.

"I love you, Lori. I should have said it last night, you told me so much about yourself, and we were so close. I love you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. And… I…"

The general's words drifted to a lame stop when the person on the couch turned around.

Hux knew how to handle anger. Fear was no stranger to him. Hatred and resentment were old hat. He was even learning to deal with vulnerability. Joy was new, but he found that he liked it.

Embarrassment was a foreign concept and Hux had no idea what to do with it.

Vanya didn't even know what she didn't know. Rather than daring say anything to the absolute last person she expected to see in her quarters, the lieutenant slowly stood and backed across the room. She wondered if there was some protocol for greeting the general after he had barged into her house, but if it existed it was buried in her mind below thick blankets of confusion and a rising tide of panic.

Both were looking at each other in a shocked silence when Vanya knocked on Lori's door. Slowly at first, and then increasingly panicked when it didn't immediately open. Hux felt his face going hot with a blush that he would never acknowledge. Vanya's knocks eventually grew to shake the door in its frame.

After what felt like an eternity the door slid open.

"What are you-" Lori was cut off by Vanya shoving her way into the room and pushing Lori in with her.

Before the captain had time to recover, Vanya ordered the door shut and locked it behind her.

"What the fuck is General Hux doing in our living room!?" she knew exactly why he was there, but her mind was in too panicked a state to admit it.

"What?"

"You heard me. Tall. Red hair. Hard-ass from hell. Terror of the bridge. The guy that talks to Supreme Leader Snoke like it's no big deal. He's yelled at Kylo Ren, and Ren didn't chop him in half for it."

Lori had only just seen the general's outline before Vanya shoved her into the room. She certainly didn't know what had possessed him to show up to her suite, unannounced of all things. He had to know that was going to be a huge risk to her cover story.

"Vanya, look I don't-"

The lieutenant cut her off again, "Are you fucking the general?"

"What! No, we're just-"

"Do you want to?"

"Vanya!"

"Oh my god, I can't believe that's who you've been seeing. You do you, but you have to know he's like, mostly evil. Right?"

"No he's not. Look, it's complicated." Lori was trying, in vain, to figure out how to defuse the situation

"Complicated? I bet. He just came in here like a love sick puppy. He thought I was you, and I love you was the third thing out of his mouth."

"He… what?" just as Lori thought she was reigning Vanya in, she was taken off guard again.

"Yeah. He started apologizing for… last night? What did you two do? And then he just started dropping I love you's all over the place. Or… at least twice."

Lori's mind took a moment to catch up to the reality of Vanya's words.

Before the younger woman had the chance to speak again, a knock came from the door. Both of them looked to the side with a sudden jerk of their heads. Vanya was the first to say something.

"You're not going to answer that. Right?"

"Of course I am."

"But it's General Hux!" She put a nearly comedic amount of emphasis on the last two words.

"Yeah, it is. We established that." Lori unlocked the door.

Vanya hadn't the chance to say another word before the door slid open.

.***.***.***.***.

Hux hadn't the chance to say another word before the door slammed shut.

Muffled shouts came from beyond the wall. He couldn't make out the words, and was thankful for that fact. He could only imagine what that lieutenant was asking of Lori. Or even worse, what she was telling her.

Hux clenched his hands shut and then let them open again. He didn't realize he was shaking. Even worse was that he didn't know if it was from past nervousness, the shock of adrenaline he had gotten the second he realized he wasn't speaking to Lori, or the fact that he knew he would have to confront her after this mess.

The situation somehow made itself worse with the opening of the front door.

Shoulders stiffening to the point that they made the general jump, he didn't dare turn around.

Quin had just stepped into the room, only to stop mere inches short of running into the generals back. For a split second she was about to blurt out an apology.

Then she recognized who it was.

Several things ran through the skittish lieutenant's mind. None of them were positive.

"G-general Hux?" She managed to stagger out, still standing inches behind the man.

He didn't know how to reply. The procedure for greeting a higher ranking officers in ones personnel dwelling rattled around the back of his mind, but he was distracted by a thousand other -more pressing- thoughts.

Quin wasn't sure if he had heard her, but she was even less sure if she should repeat herself. Hoping that she was taking the least terrible of her options, she slowly edged against the wall. The kitchen blocked her path to her room, so she slid towards Vanya's.

Half way there and still not confronted by the general, she thought she was about to leave without further incident. A nervous glance to the room found the general red faced and –as far as Quin thought- shaking with anger.

In reality Hux was still fighting a losing battle with nerves and was blushing wildly. Only getting more annoyed that he couldn't keep himself from feeling too much, the general finally managed to make himself walk across the room.

Quin jumped at the movement and rushed the rest of the way to Vanya's room. She had already shut it tight by the time Hux came to Lori's door and began to knock.

Hux only waited for a second, but it felt like years before the door slid open. Confronted by Lori's confused expression and Vanya's wide eyes, he wasn't sure what to say.

Lori was the first to try and salvage the situation, "Vanya, why don't you leave us alone for a minute?"

It may have been a question, but all of them knew it was closer to an order.

Her curiosity eating at her almost as much as her desire not to earn the generals wrath, Vanya slowly slunk out of Lori's room.

When the space was open, Hux made his way into the back room. When the door slid shut he still had no idea what he was going to say.

Lori, however, was at no loss for words.

"What were you thinking? Did you… I know you thought Vanya was me from behind. But she said that you said… What's going on?"

Just managing to get over the surprise that had stunned him, Hux muttered out a few words.

"I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." He picked himself up in volume and tone, relying on old instincts to pretend that nothing was wrong, "I have something to ask of you. It's about work and it's urgent."

Lori wasn't about to drop the topic.

"No, work can wait for a minute. I…" Lori took a step closer to the general, she could lie and twist words all she wanted. But to be genuine, to even confront a true piece of herself, and then to be vulnerable enough to show it was something she had only managed once.

With Armitage.

And she decided he was worth doing it a second time.

"Armitage, I love you."

Hearing his name on Lori's lips set Hux weak in the knees, and the rest of the message threatened to take him down the rest of the way.

Nervous energy breaking over him like a thunder wave, Hux dropped tension in his shoulders that he hadn't even realize he had been holding onto. Only distantly noticing that he had been holding his breath, the general found himself leaning forward.

"Armie, are you oka-"

Before Lori could finish her words the general wrapped his arms around her and leaned in for a long, fervent, kiss.

Ready to accept it, Lori threaded her arms into the comfortable position they had found around the generals shoulders in that one moment that seemed so long ago.

Slow and deep with the passion, this kiss felt different than the last. Nervous, but with the knowledge that it would be accepted, that both of them were accepted by the other. It was a kiss heavy with the understanding that more would come.

More would come.

Soon, but not now.

Captured by a new unfamiliar mix of emotions, they kept to each other's arms. Hux leaning his head against Lori's, he meant to say his next words with a certain boldness and strength.

Instead, they came out soft and tender and vulnerable.

"I love you too."

In the heavy silence left behind Hux's words, a tiny set of whispers came from beyond the door that lead to the fresher. Lori and Hux both took the sounds for exactly what they really were.

Suddenly back in one piece, the general was ready to put the fear of god into the two lieutenants. Deciding she would like for her roommates to live, Lori stopped the general with hand on his chest.

Taking the gesture in stride, Hux stopped mid step while Lori went to the door.

It opened with a whoosh to reveal Vanya and Quin listening at the door.

"Really?" she looked down at the two, offering nothing besides a single word and a look thick with disappointment.

Quin was the first to move, squeaking out and apology and rushing back into Vanya's room, abandoning Vanya in the process. The brown haired lieutenant was slower to move, but after deciding that she had nothing to say in her own defense, and after seeing a furious Hux in the background, she slowly backed away.

After both were gone, Lori shut the door. Satisfied that neither were coming back, she looked to Hux.

"We're going to need to do something about them," he said.

"They're harmless enough. Besides, no one on this ship would believe them if they said anything."

He still wasn't convinced, "rumors lead to dangerous consequences."

"Don't worry about it," The mischievous glint that made Hux weak sat in Lori's eye, "If they do say anything, I already have a plan for how I'm going to handle it."

He would have questioned anyone else's idea but that look almost made him want to see the lieutenants try and tell someone.

As much as he would have loved to make the moment last, Hux did have one other thing he came to Lori's suite for.

"Lori? I did mean it when I also came to talk about work."

"Why am I not surprised?" To the generals relief, she didn't sound disappointed.

Already raw from the moment they had just shared, he hopped he wasn't making too big of a request too fast.

"As we speak, I'm trying to get information about the conspiracy's plans out of our prisoner. He's proved a difficult case, but I have an idea on how to break him."

Out of everyone she had to work with to embed herself in the resistance cell, Hank had certainly been the nicest. If they had met under different circumstances, she may have even worked a job with him.

But she wouldn't call him a friend.

And she definitely knew better than to have formed real attachments to a target.

"I'm listening," her own strategic wheels were also turning, "tell me your idea first, but I think I have one that'll work."

Hux considered whether or not he was going to sugar coat his plan, decided that Lori deserved an unedited version, and then began.

"Vaylor will die before we can force the information out of him. But if I can convince him that someone else is going to suffer because of his stubbornness, then I think-"

"You think that he'll start talking if he sees his friends getting tortured." She came to Hux's point before he said it.

"Yes." Despite knowing they were passed it, he felt his guard going up.

"And who better to 'catch' than Vaylor's direct superior and trusted co-conspirator," she smiled with something wicked hidden just below the surface, "You beat me to my own idea, Armie."

The cruel little corner of Hux's heart melted just like the rest of him, "You'll have to put on quite the performance."

"Please, what else could I be besides the perfect damsel in distress?"

Hux wasn't sure if they were talking about the job anymore, "I could imagine a few things."

"Before you do, we should get to work." She took a quick step to the bedroom door, trying to leave the suite before Vanya and Quin got brave enough to venture into the living room

"I had the interrogation ward emptied for the next few hours. Feel free to say whatever you need to sell the act." Hux followed closely behind.

Lori gave a final comment before stepping into the hall.

"Don't worry, I already have an idea."