AN: Hello & welcome back. Sorry that this chapter is kind of short, but I've been pretty distracted lately. I should be able to keep to my regular update schedule though. As always, please enjoy:

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Lori had slumped down in the hall just outside of the cargo bay. She'd been sitting against the wall for the better part of an hour without sight of Brixie or word from Mitaka. For most of that hour Lori had been drifting between listening for any changes in the cargo bay, and trying to calm Ardis.

Speaking to the infant was mostly for Lori's benefit, as Ardis had quickly moved on from her confused crying.

Now the little girl was standing next to Lori, her hands planted firmly on her mother's shoulder for support.

"Ma?" Ardis looked to Lori with wide eyes. More confused by the day than anything, the infant had no understanding of what was happening just a room away from where she stood. The world was still a new thing, and seeing her mother tense and on the verge of tears left Ardis as agitated as a one-year-old could be.

Limbs feeling heavy, Lori had to force herself to move as she twisted to the side and reached out to pull the infant closer to her.

"It's alright. It's all going to be alright." Lori pulled Ardis into a hug, half way pulling the child into her lap in the process.

Lori's words were for herself, and she wasn't sure if she believed them.

Armie could be dead in that room, she sourly thought to herself before holding Ardis tighter and looking away from the door to the cargo bay, Stop that. Stop thinking like that! Brixie might hate him, but she'll save him.

The bitter reality that Brixie had walked into wasn't lost on Lori. She knew very well that if she were betrayed in the same way and put into the same situation as the medic, she would probably let Armitage die.

But Brixie isn't you, Lori tried telling herself, she'll help. She'll-

Ardis began to wiggle and try and shake out from under her mother's grasp, pulling Lori away from her thoughts.

Lori didn't catch Ardis' next almost-word as the door to the cargo bay suddenly whooshed open. Jumping at the motion, Lori stood and scooped Ardis from her place on the floor just as Brixie stepped out of the other room.

The medic stopped in the doorway, wordlessly looking between Ardis and Lori. Any trace of tears that had been on Ardis' features were gone, with the infant being bright eyed and perfectly unaware of anything that had just happened. Lori, on the other hand, had a red tenge to her features that Brixie knew she would never acknowledge.

Though she'd had an hour, Lori didn't have a word say in her own defense. There were too many unknowns to plan around, and she had been busy fearing for the worst besides. Brixie's silence only served to set Lori more on edge. As much as she searched for some hint as to what happened to Armitage on the medic's features, Lori only found the face of an increasingly betrayed friend.

Brixie thought she knew Lori. They'd been in hiding together for over a year. Lori had sheltered her crew, and she'd saved Lori's life more than once. Brixie had been one of the only people that Lori had spoken to about Ardis' father. As impossible as it seemed, as sickening as the very idea of it was, Brixie had just spent an hour in the same room as General Hux, and he had begun to look very familiar.

"Explain." The medic uttered a single word, trying all the while to tell herself that Lori wasn't worried for the reason she suspected.

"Brix, I-I know this is weird." Lori sputtered for a moment, knowing that Brixie knew, "This looks bad. And I'll tell you everything, but is he…"

Lori tried shuffling through her own thoughts, looking for some way to spin this scenario. No matter where her mind went in search of a way out from under Brixie's suspicions, Lori was still distracted by the need to know if Armitage was still alive.

Teetering on the edge of being enraged, Brixie still felt a small part of herself feel absolutely terrible for her obviously upset friend. She wished that she didn't feel so upset at her good news, "He's alive."

Lori suddenly felt fifty pounds lighter. The relief didn't last long as she looked back to Brixie, "Thank you. You don't know what this means to me."

"I think I do," Brixie couldn't contain her suspicions any more, and the closest thing to a harsh edge that she was capable of coated her words, "Lori, you've been lying to me. A lot. I have some pretty bad ideas about what all of this means, and I don't want any of them to be true, but…"

"Brixie," Lori tried to calm the medic. Mostly to buy time while she figured out what to say.

"No! Tell me right now what's going on! You just kidnapped or rescued General Hux, why?! Why is he shot? Why does Ardis look exactly like him?! How many lies have you been telling me?"

It had been a long time since any of Lori's carefully crafted stories had come crumbling down so thoroughly.

"Whoa, slow down! Hey! I'm sorry, okay?" she searched for a way out of the conversation, but couldn't find one that wouldn't just make her look worse, "It wasn't supposed to end like this. I'm sorry I ever got involved with y'all on Bastion. I'm sorry I lied, but what else was I supposed to do? Dak showed up to my house with a bunch of mercenaries working with the Resistance, what would they have done if they knew from the very start?"

Brixie took Lori's words as the closest thing to an admission that Ardis was hers and Hux's as she was going to get, "Nothing? We're not murderers."

"Lex had a blaster to my back the first time I met him." Lori was quick to point out, "and there's a lot of terrible things besides death."

"But… but you acted like you wanted to help! You made me start sending you updates on our activity. What were you planning?!"

As bad as the situation had gotten, Lori wasn't about to admit that she had personally been responsible for ferreting out and revealing Resistance sympathizers within the First Order.

"I was worried that you might come back to Bastion." She lied, "You treated me as well as you could, you really did, but I couldn't risk running into you again."

Despite being angry and on guard, Brixie didn't catch Lori's small deception. Instead, she was focused on the large lies of the past, "but you told me… you told me that Ardis' father was dead! You told me that he had been a good person! You can't believe any of that. Right? Right?!"

Lori had never believed in Hux's vision of a galaxy reigned in beneath the First Order, but he had certainly thought he was doing what was best. Lori thought that the twisted optimism had been one of his more endearing features, and she hadn't necessarily been lying when she told Brixie the things she thought about Armitage.

But all that nuance seemed inappropriate for the moment, "It's complicated."

"He destroyed a planet!" Brixie shouted in rebuttal.

"I know!" Lori shouted back, causing a small whimper and nearly starting a fresh bout of crying from Ardis in the process. Deeply aware of the infant, Lori patted the little girl on the back before going on more quietly, "I know."

"Why? How?" Brixie was half way between being stuck on her last question, and desperately wanting to ask others, "He's evil, and you know it. How did this even happen?"

As the conversation groaned on, Lori slowly regained control over her thoughts. Years of practice in deception left her with a few ideas of what to say. Though her potential lies might save the relationship she had built with Brixie, none of them could redeem Armitage.

Brixie misread Lori's lack of a reply. Head spinning with too many horrible realizations to process, she was still searching for some way to believe that her friend hadn't been her enemy all along, "He forced you into this, didn't he?"

"Brixie."

"He did."

Lori bit her tongue; I could just say yes. It would end this conversation.

The moment grew long while Lori considered her options. As she did, she was left to watch Brixie grow more convinced that she was right.

Lori had walked in and out of dozens of rebel cells. Each time, she had happily betrayed or turned her back on them the instant it became convenient. She had lied mercilessly to get her way, never once hesitating to tell the rebels whatever it was that they needed to hear. Letting Brixie believe her own lie would have been the easiest and most convenient thing in the galaxy.

But Lori was tired.

Profoundly tired. Worn down by the past year of persistent deception, torn apart from the inside out by the constant stress of being found out. She'd nearly retreated into a sense of self-loathing that cut her off from everyone around her. She'd wanted nothing more than the life she had gotten so close to having.

And now it was within her grasp.

Lying to Brixie now might preserve her own reputation, but Lori couldn't bare the idea of how she might have to act towards Armitage to maintain the illusion. She wouldn't leave his side while he lay at the edge of death, and she wouldn't turn her back on him when he woke up.

Exhausted, Lori didn't have the energy left to curse her luck. She'd been forced into the truth. Reality was a bitter thing, and it wasn't lost on Lori that her final betrayal to the rebels hurt her as well.

"No, Brixie." Lori had to fight to keep her voice level, at once almost shouting and hardly managing to speak above a whisper, "No. I chose this."

Brixie looked to Lori, the red tinge at the edge of her eyes threatening to spill over and coat the rest of her features.

Lori went on, "He didn't force me into anything. I know what I did. I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

A sudden and poorly hidden jolt shook through Brixie as she bit down a sob. Just a second after it passed, she began to shake her head. Slowly at first, and the with a persistent fervor. As if it would make everything disappear, she clamped her eyes shut before opening them to look squarely at the ground.

Lori let Brixie have her moment, knowing that there was no truth she could bring that wouldn't make the situation worse.

Meaning but failing to mutter a refusal of what Lori said, Brixie took a staggered step past her former friend.

Ardis stirred slightly, silence being a sudden distraction from what had been a shouted conversation. Lori didn't follow the infant's gaze as Ardis watched Brixie stiffly walk and then run down the hall.

What felt like a long time passed between the medic's footsteps disappearing behind a shutting door and Lori shifting her hold on Ardis so that she could look the infant in the eyes.

Swallowing down a mess of emotion and thought that she didn't even begin to try and name, Lori suppressed a shutter as she spoke to her daughter, "Let's go see how dad's doing."