A groaning and near silent gasp was the first thing that Armitage was aware of as he drifted back to consciousness. A painfully bright light came from somewhere above him. He wasn't sure what the source of it might be, the bridge was usually kept dark so that it was easy to see out of the viewport.

The glaring thing didn't seem to be dampened by the fact that his eyes were only half open.

A dull and distant pain came from the inside of Armitage's chest. Only after he had felt his torso throbbing in time with his weak pulse, did Armitage remember what happened.

Ah. Right. I've been shot. He sluggishly realized. The faded pain from the wound and the nonresponsive weight of his limbs left him with one quiet thought, So, this is how it ends. I expected this to hurt more.

A ragged breath barely traced its way down his throat. He stifled a weak cough as the air hit his aching lungs. Along with it, he heard a garbled sound.

Somewhere beneath it all, a slight pressure came from his shoulder. It left him, only to reappear as a warm touch along his jaw. The unfocused shape that was the room around him blurred for a moment, leaving him disorientated and unable to realize that the sensation had been someone moving his head to the side.

The strange sound returned, this time twisting into a recognizable voice.

"Armie. Armie? Wake up, I'm here. We're here."

Lori.

Armitage's eyes creaked open ever so slightly. Still unbearable, the light slowed his progress. As he began to see more clearly, Armitage was just able to make out a figure leaning over him. Silhouetted by the artificial lights, their features were cast in deep shadows.

The figure said something else. Armitage didn't catch their words, eyes beginning to adjust.

When they finally did, he was greeted with a hazy but recognizable face.

What a fine dying thought.

Reality hadn't sunken in for Armitage. Still believing himself to be on the floor of the Finalizer's bridge, he couldn't imagine that Lori was anything other than a final pleasant vision created as a desperate comfort by a failing body for a broken man.

He would have drifted back into an uneasy unconsciousness with that assumption, if something strange and persistent hadn't begun batting at his face.

Ardis hadn't left Lori's side. With the stretcher deactivated and fallen to the ground, she was more than tall enough lean over its side and reach for the unfamiliar man laying at its center.

So focused on Armitage, Lori hadn't noticed that the infant had been peering into the bed as well. Taken off guard by Ardis' sudden tapping at her father, Lori had a second of indecision where she was unsure of whether or not to let Armitage's head limply roll back to where it had been.

Curious and not at all understanding the situation, Ardis persistently reached forward.

Her little hand drew close to Armitage's eyes. Reacting off of pure instinct, he clamped them shut. Only to open them after he heard a surprised squeak that was Ardis rearing back at the sudden movement.

Lori put a hand down to catch the ready-to-topple infant.

Armitage found a small wave of energy from the sudden movements.

Still aching and unable to move or breath deeply, his vision drifted fully into focus.

Lori?

She leaned over him, one hand firmly held against the side of his face, the other propping up a small child with bright red hair.

Ardis?

Confused beyond belief, relieved and at once afraid that his pleasant dying hallucination was about to twist away in a cruel final moment, Armitage tried to gasp out a quickened and desperate comment.

"Yo-" he opened his mouth and only managed half a word before a fiery hot pain came from the fresh wound across his chest.

"Hey, hey. Calm down." Lori did her best to stabilize Ardis before leaning forward and trying to hold Armitage steady, "It's okay. You're okay."

She sounded breathless. In some way as wounded as he was and at the same time as real as anything.

"Just breathe. Slowly," she spoke in carefully measured words, "You got hit in the chest. The plasma missed your heart, but not by much."

He didn't care what state he was in. As far as Armitage was concerned, Lori and Ardis had come back from the dead.

Only because he was sure that speaking would leave him unable to focus, Armitage bit down a series of frantic comments. Instead, he desperately looked back and forth between Lori and Ardis, not wanting to look away from Lori out of fear that she might not be there when he looked back, but needing to look at Ardis and how much she had changed.

The infant was nearly a toddler now. Well over two feet tall, the child had shirked back from the side of the stretcher and was now firmly clinging to her mother's side.

Something pained and relieved coated Lori's voice as she spoke to Ardis, "Come on, it's ok. Say hi to dad now."

Ardis curled her hands into tight fists as she gripped Lori. The silence had been confusing to the little girl. Though no one was shouting, she could sense a strange tension in the air. Unsure of whether her mom was on the verge of tears from fear or relief, and even more disturbed by the unfamiliar and wounded man that lay before her, the child pulled closer to her mother.

Ripped apart by the unsurprising realization that Ardis did not recognize Armitage, Lori struggled to keep her voice level as she turned back to Armitage, "I'm so sorry we couldn't get back to you sooner. We've been stuck with the rebels since Crait. I tried to contact you… I tried…"

Lori debated how much to tell Armitage about where they were right now. She would have liked to have someone to lean on, especially now that she was sure that it was only a matter of time before Brixie did something to make her displeasure known. But Armitage was barely conscious and gravely wounded, and Lori couldn't let herself give him a reason to be stressed.

"We're here now," she didn't give voice to her swirling thoughts, "That's all that matters. You're okay, and we're okay."

As much as she wanted to be calm and level, Lori's words waivered as she reassured Armitage. She couldn't help but let her sight linger on the bright white bandage that stood out against Armitage's pale chest.

Brixie had cut away his undershirt to get at the wound. It was deep thing that had burned all the way through to his back, Lori wasn't sure if Brixie had put any medicines on the exit wound. Whatever the medic had done, it had saved Armitage's life. It had only done that, in fact. Unable to see through the single clean patch that sat over the hole in Armitage's chest, Lori was sure that Brixie had only done what was required to keep Armitage alive.

Mind abuzz in a way that was too fast for his tired body to keep up with, Armitage had trouble settling on a single coherent thought. Groaning, he tried lifting a heavy hand and reaching towards Lori and Ardis. Just as he began to move, a sharp jolt of pain crossed his chest and ended at his shoulder.

Reflexively tensing and dropping his arm so that it lay across his stomach, Armitage tried not to feel guilty over the sudden worry that coated Lori's features.

Lori winced at seeing Armitage in pain, "Shh… shh… You can rest easy. We're not leaving your side."

"You're…" He croaked out a single word at a time, barely able to speak above a whisper from the lack of breath and pain that came with a deep inhale, "You're both…"

Sure that Ardis was stable, Lori curled her hand against the side of Armitage's face once more, "We're alive."

Armitage let himself unwind against the reassuring warmth of Lori's hand. He'd been wishing for something like this for months. Slowly crumbling, losing his mind piece by piece, he'd lost all hope of a reunion.

He'd thought that life was over. Suddenly finding his family unharmed felt like escaping the clutches of death itself.

"H-how?" speaking small words sent fire like bursts of pain through his body, but Armitage clung to them as another sign that he was still alive. That this moment was real. That Lori and Ardis were real.

Lori saw poorly concealed tenses and shivers cut through Armitage's body whenever he spoke. Knowing that he would try to talk in spite of them, she made her answer long, and tried not to say anything that would raise more questions that it would answer, "Those mercenaries that stayed with me on Bastion were on Crait. I told them that I escaped the Supremacy, and they took me in again. The rebels went into hiding, and I couldn't get away. I tried, I'm so sorry. I tried, but I couldn't get away. Not until just the other day. I knew you would be on Kijimi, and I got the chance to steal this ship.

"Long story short, I snuck back onto the Finalizer. We can talk more details later, but I walked onto the bridge right after Pryde…"

Right after the old bastard shot me? Armitage thought the end to what Lori was saying. The details of the day and how he gotten here were slowly coming back to him. The initial shock of finding his whole life suddenly worth living again hadn't worn off, but some of the initial confusion from waking up after what he thought should have been his death was.

"Lori…" Speaking was still painful beyond belief, but Armitage had too many questions, too many pressing thoughts that couldn't be ignored.

How did you know where to find me? How did you steal this ship? Are the rebels hunting us? Who's piloting? How has Ardis faired during all of this? Are you hurt? How did we escape the Finalizer?

Lori saw him brace before speaking, but cut him off, "We can tell each other everything later. But first, I want you back in one piece."

But-

Armitage's quick thought was dashed as he noticed a small movement from Lori's side.

Ardis turned her head and body so that she faced the downed stretcher once again. The tension had lifted slightly, and her curiosity got the better of her.

Seeing Armitage quickly shift his gaze so that he looked at her, Ardis jumped slightly at the fact that she had been noticed.

Feeling the infant tense more than anything, Lori looked down at Ardis.

"Go on now, it's okay," she tried to be reassuring at her daughter's second approach towards Armitage.

Less concerned with her mother's reassurance, and more compelled by her own insatiable curiosity, Ardis teetered forward. As a moment passed where nothing strange or new happened, the little girl grew more bold and once again reached out towards the unfamiliar man.

Both Lori and Armitage watched the little girl stumble a step before catching herself on the edge of the stretcher. Barely keeping herself upright, Ardis tentatively reached out for Armitage once again.

Lori and Armitage watched the child. Lori worried that Ardis might accidently poke Armitage in the eye again, but she couldn't bring herself to do anything that might interrupt the moment. Armitage watched as the infant slowly came closer.

He had dreamed about how his daughter might look. When Lori had been hidden away on Bastion, he'd spent long hours wondering how the little girl might act and how quickly she would grow. After he'd resigned himself to the mercifully incorrect belief that they had died, those ideas and questions had turned into painful what-ifs. They'd become thoughts that only served to punish him for imagining that he could ever have something to be happy about.

But now, Ardis was here, standing beside him with Lori watching over the both of them.

It still hurt to speak, but the pain of the moment was nothing compared to what he had suffered over the past year.

Armitage tried not to groan as he spoke, "Hello."

"Low?" Ardis parroted back half the word with a few confused blinks and a small tilt of the head.

Taking that as close to a greeting that he would get from the infant, Armitage let himself relax a fraction. As much as he wanted to know where they were, as much as he wanted to speak to Lori about everything that had happened in their year apart, as much as he wanted to hold his daughter and to hug Lori, as much as he wanted to live in a moment where he was finally at peace, he was still teetering on the edge of consciousness. He had still been shot through the chest, and he was left barely alive for it.

Lori watched a deep fatigue cross over Armitage's features, and it was no secret to her that he was desperately trying to stay awake.

The sight of him alive and speaking with their child was one to behold, and Lori would have loved for it never to end. But, she wanted more moments like this one, and she knew that to get them Armitage needed to rest.

Telling him as much was painful, but she leaned forward, shifting her weight so that she could still cradle Armitage's head with one hand.

"She's a chatter box," Lori tried to give a light joke before going on, "But you should rest up now, I can see you fighting it. We'll be here when you wake up, I promise."

Ardis patted the side of the bed as Lori spoke. Not out of an understanding, but because it was strangely firm compared to the makeshift beds she was used to.

Armitage wanted nothing more than to stay in the moment, but the adrenaline from waking had already faded.

Lori saw him struggling, and leaned down to put a gently kiss on Armitage's forehead, "Go on now, it's okay. We're here."

She had barely back away before he drifted back into a restful sleep.