Author's Note: I normally don't like to start a chapter with an apology, but I owe it to everyone. The last three months have dealt some serious health issues to one of my daughters and to me as well. Things are doing well for both of us at this point, but she in particular still has some recovery ahead. I'm just glad that she's going to recover and that things are looking up at this point.

This should be the penultimate chapter for this story. I still have plans to continue my entire series, but no time frame at the moment. I did take advantage of the last three months to come up with a most interesting subplot for either the sixth or seventh story, and it's got me eager to write it. Right now, though, I'm going to focus on this chapter, a shorter final chapter to wrap up this story, than a small surprise if I can get it written before long.

Here are my standard disclaimers: I make no claims on any of Disney's, Miley Cyrus', Emily Osment's or Hannah Montana's trademarks or copyrights, and no infringement is intended on them or those of any other artist or publication mentioned. Be forewarned that this story most certainly will contain femslash. If love and affection between two consenting young adults of the same sex bothers you, I suggest you turn right around and find something else to read. Keep any flames to yourself and remember that what our world needs now is more love and acceptance, not more hate. Reviews are always welcomed and appreciated!

We Got Nerve

by Jo K.

Chapter 31: Sisters in Arms

Now the sun's gone to hell and the moon's riding high

Let me bid you farewell, every man has to die

But it's written in the starlight and every line on your palm

We're fools to make war on our brothers in arms

-Dire Straits, "Brothers in Arms"

Mikayla turned off the engine of her Aston Martin Vanquish once it was in its proper place in her massive garage. She switched off the lights and simply sat in the dark for a few minutes, content to listen to the pleasant tinkles of the huge engine block cooling echoing inside the otherwise still space. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, even though she knew it was a futile gesture.

No way could I relax now, not after that shit with Dyseni. She shuddered as a thought came surging out of the depths of her subconscious, forcing its way into her thoughts with a suddenness that was both insistent and frightening.

I could make those bad thoughts go away, it called out to her, its eerie yet familiar voice sending shivers of terror across her skin.

Mikayla opened the door and jumped out of her car, nearly slamming into the Bentley Mulsanne next to the Vanquish in her haste to get away. She grabbed the Vanquish's door and swung it closed, then she stumbled through the dim garage to the interior door leading into her house. The silence of the garage was no longer comforting.

Several miles away in Malibu, the ringing of a telephone broke slumber's hold over two young women, snuggled together in their bed. A hand slowly emerged from beneath the covers, fumbling for the cell phone on the nightstand. Right before the call went to voice mail, a slender thumb pressed the Send button. "H'lo?" mumbled a voice thick with sleep. "Hello?" the redhead said, bringing the phone to her ear.

"Cass?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so," Cassie Hughes groggily replied. She looked over at the clock, blinking her eyes until the blurry red numbers coalesced into just three digits. "It's three a.m.! What in God's name-"

"Cass, it's Miley!"

"Miley?" Cassie sat up, her thoughts beginning to order themselves. "Is everything okay? Did something happen to Lilly or Brooke?"

"Who is it, baby?" yawned Sarah Sweet, sliding an arm across her girlfriend's lap as she scooted closer to Cassie's warm body.

"The three of us are all okay, Cassie, don't worry. But we've had some... Well, I guess it's sort of an emergency that only two of our mutual friends can deal with."

"What?" Cassie asked, her face scrunching in confusion. "I'm sorry, I'm still half asleep, Miley."

"You know! Our 'mutual friends'? A certain singer and her amazingly gorgeous actress wife, who you met in D.C. that time?"

"OH!" Cassie blurted out, nearly jumping out of bed in her surprise, an action that wasn't exactly appreciated by the once-again sleeping woman whose head briefly bounced up and then fell down onto the bed with a muffled thump.

"Hey!" Sarah shouted, her voice mostly muffled by the covers.

"Shit, sorry, pookie!" Cassie cooed, leaning down to kiss Sarah's head through her shock of curly honey-auburn hair. "You go back to sleep, it's okay. Just Miley and Lilly." She slid a bathrobe onto her body and hurried out of the bedroom, not bothering to turn on a light as she made her way down the hall. "Okay, I'm where I can talk now," Cassie said as she reached the living room of their modest house.

"We need to go take care of some business that can't wait," Miley said, picking up smoothly. "Do you think you could watch Brooke for an hour or two? She's still asleep and'll probably snooze away the whole time we're gone."

"Sure, sure, I can do that for you," Cassie said, reflexively nodding assent despite the gesture being lost on a phone conversation.

"Good, 'cause we're pullin' into your driveway right now."

Cassie peeked out the front window, shifting the curtains to the side to reveal the opalescent Tesla Sedan silently turning into the short driveway. "I'm unlocking the door," Cassie said before hitting the End button on her phone to close the call.

Just moments later the door opened, with Lola Montana carrying a very sleepy baby and Hannah Montana carrying her diaper bag and blanket. They quickly came inside, Lilly carefully handing a rather limp Brooke to Cassie while Miley closed the door. "This must be a big deal if you're not taking time to change on the way," Cassie said to her friends.

"It is," Lilly said with a nod. "She's got two bottles in her diaper bag, plus we put extra clothes and diapers in here just in case."

"Okay, just toss it on the couch over there," Cassie said with a nod. "And get your butts out of here before Sarah wakes up and you two have some serious explaining to do!"

"What do they need to explain?" said Sarah, clad in a large Sucker Punch t-shirt and rubbing sleep out of her eyes as she slowly padded into the living room. She blinked her eyes open and nearly jumped into the air in shock at what she saw in her living room. "SHIT!"

Miley and Lilly looked at each other, silently understanding that there really was no time to fast-talk their way out of this one.

"Cassie, what are Hannah and Lola Montana doing in our freaking living room?" Sarah said, the pitch of her voice rising into an altogether uncomfortable register as she spoke. "I thought it was Miley who called us just a minute ago!"

"Um, it was," Cassie said with a rather subdued voice. "It's..."

"Oh, for Pete's sake," Miley said, tugging off her blonde wig. "Sarah, I'm Hannah."

Lilly followed her partner's lead, slipping Lola's purple wig off her own head and shaking out her long blonde hair. "And I'm Lola. And Brooke is really Megan. But she doesn't wear a wig. She, uh, sorta needs to grow some hair first before we have to start covering it up."

Seeing confusion writ across Sarah's dumbstruck face, Miley slid Hannah's long, straight blonde wig back on as she said, "Look, we promise we'll catch you up on everything tom—well, later today." She tucked away all of her natural hair that she could feel; she started to turn around but then she felt Lilly's strong, skilled fingers sliding beneath the blonde hair, deftly making sure all of Miley's chestnut curls were safely tucked away. "Thanks, Lilly Bear."

"You're welcome," Lilly replied with a final caress of her fingers across the back of Miley's neck. "Lola's wig goes on much faster than Hannah's, after all."

"We'll be back as fast as we can, I promise," Miley said, giving Cassie and Sarah a quick wave before she and Lilly turned and nearly ran out the front door.

It took several seconds after the door closed for either Sarah or Cassie to move. Finally Sarah slowly walked to the couch and fell into it wearily. "Am I dreaming?" she asked her girlfriend, apprehension obvious in her facial expression. "Or was that real?"

Cassie just grinned in response, lightly patting the snoozing baby in her arms as she rocked her.

Now that they could focus on the upcoming trial, both Miley and Lilly grew silent as they sped toward Beverly Hills. Lilly was driving since she had been to Mikayla's once already, and she kept her eyes on the road as she felt Miley's hand settle on her thigh, bare below the hem of her olive leather shorts.

"You remember how to get there?"

Lilly nodded. "Yeah, it's not that hard to remember. Beverly Hills, if you ever could have guessed it."

"Wow, who'd have thought?" Miley said, snickering once. She looked down at the small flash drive held between the fingers of her right hand, eying it as carefully as she would have a glittering diamond... or a vial of poison. She looked over at her best friend, getting a quick glance back in reply. What Miley saw in her wife's face was a reflection of what she felt in her own at that moment: Confusion. Uncertainty. Apprehension.

Could they use the damning information they had examined just hours ago to force Mikayla into silence without ruining her career, or worse? Or did they want things to go farther, to truly punish her for all the hatred and fury Mikayla had managed to stir up not just at the two of them, but at their families, their friends, their fans, even the entire gay community that Hannah and Lola Montana had become the unofficial spokeswomen for?

Miley sighed. Were they capable of being so cruel, when justice demanded it? Was she capable of being so cold, of utterly ruining another person's life and exposing dark secrets that could never be fully explained away, when defending Lilly demanded it?

Yes. She sure as hell was.

Miley felt a reassuring squeeze on her left hand, causing her smile lovingly at her best friend, the one person Miley could always count on to stand beside her no matter what life or smart-mouthed bitches threw at them. Nothing needed to be said, not with words anyway; their communication had evolved beyond that long ago. So Miley closed her eyes and leaned her head back, letting the late night breeze lazily ruffle Hannah's blonde locks while she drew strength from her wife's loving support. No matter what the next few hours brought, Hannah and Lola would face it together and kick its ass.

As they turned onto Mikayla's street, Miley noticed that there was a level of traffic quite unusual for this time of night in Beverly Hills. "Let me guess," she said, unable to tear her eyes away from the cars parked on the street just outside a large gated driveway. "That would be Mikayla's house," she finished, pointing ahead to the cluster of vehicles down the road from them.

"Right on the first guess," Lilly replied grimly. "I guess it's a good thing that there's not an ambulance or police car here, right?" She smiled wanly as she brought their car to halt.

Miley looked into her wife's brilliant blue eyes, her own expression steely in its focus. "Well, not yet, at least," she said, returning her gaze to the cars ahead of them. "'The night's still young,' Daddy always used to say."

Lilly tried not to laugh. She really did. But the seriousness of Miley's expression coupled with the late hour proved too much for her giggle box to withstand, and she abruptly erupted into a sputtering fit of laughter.

"What the devil is so dang funny?" Miley asked, but by then her own laughter was beginning to bubble forth. The two young women leaned into each other inside the car, hugging tightly as they continued to shiver with laughter born of too much anxiety and too little sleep. It took several seconds before either of them could draw breath without at least a giggle, but they did finally manage to regain their composure.

Lilly ran her fingers through the blonde hair framing Miley's cute face, smiling at how different Hannah's beauty could be from Miley's natural appeal yet still register so powerfully in her very soul. They were two halves of Miley's personality, with understanding both a requirement to truly knowing who Miley Truscott was; just the same, it now took both Lola and Lilly to wholly describe the dynamic woman Lilly Truscott had become. Two halves to make one whole, just like mine and Miley's souls, Lilly thought, her mind full of awe and wonder at how the two of them had grown over their twenty-four years. Would a younger Lilly recognize her today, should the two of them ever meet? Maybe not, she mused, but she'd sure as heck recognize Miley. The leaping sensation in her young heart would make sure of that.

"You're thinkin' romantic thoughts again, aren't you?" Miley said with a slow, deep voice.

Lilly brought her thoughts back to a reality beyond that of the sapphire blue eyes that encompassed her heart, her very soul, in their shimmering depths. "And how do you know that?" she asked with a knowing smile.

Miley leaned in close, bringing their lips within millimeters of contact before she whispered, "'Cause I get all wet when you do." She blindly fumbled for Lilly's free hand, tugging it down the front of her shorts and between her thighs as she added, "See?"

"Mmmm," Lilly moaned as her fingertips brushed against the silky fabric of Miley's panties. She wanted nothing more than to take her wife right then and there, no matter who might be watching, but she limited herself to just a few light, loving strokes of her middle finger. Lilly heard her voice waver as she whispered, "I will totally fuck your brains out when we get some privacy, Hannah Montana, but right now we've got some very important business to finish."

Miley frowned as she felt Lilly's hand retreat from the very warm embrace of her thighs. "But I'm a rock star," she muttered, the pout in her voice not entirely fake at this point. "And rock stars have needs!"

Lilly opened her eyes, meeting Miley's own yearning stare and matching its intensity. "And I promise that I will fulfill each—and—every—one of those needs," she replied, punctuating each pause with a quick kiss on Miley's soft lips, "as soon as we get home, but we can't do it right now, baby."

Miley chanced a quick look at the cars down the street, frowning as she saw heads now turned their way. "Looks like they're talkin' about us now," she said, waving her hand in the direction of the four or five people standing around the assorted cars blocking the driveway's gate.

Lilly eased the accelerator down, sending their electric car silently forward at a creeping pace. As they approached the small group of people standing in front of them, Lilly was surprised that she actually recognized one of the middle-aged women peering intently at them. "That's Mikayla's cook," she said to Miley, her voice quiet but surprise plainly obvious in her inflection. "I met her when I had lunch over here that time."

Lilly rolled the window down and brought the car to a stop just short of the small gathering of people. "Excuse me," she called out to the half-dozen older men and women watching them. "My name's Lola. We, uh, really need to talk to Mikayla tonight."

Lilly wasn't really sure what response she had been expecting, but a pressured jabber of Spanish definitely wasn't it. Mikayla's cook—what was her name?—was excited about something, but Lilly's Spanish was terrible. "I'm sorry, but my Spanish sucks," she finally said with a worried expression. "Um... muy mal? Sucks?"

"She is very worried about Senorita Mikayla," said a thin older man, stepping forward to put a gentle arm around the cook.

Alejandra, Lilly thought, the name finally swimming into her consciousness. "Well, our friend Lilly sent us over here to talk to her."

At the sound of her real name, Lilly noticed that Alejandra's demeanor lit up, sparking another torrent of Spanish words, this time directed to the man. After several seconds, he turned back to Lilly. "Alejandra liked Miss Lilly very much when she came to visit with Senorita Mikayla. She tried to tell the senorita that she needed more friends like Miss Lilly, but such things never last. Not with the others Senorita associates herself with. They always tell Senorita that they only want to help her, but in truth they only want to help themselves. They care nothing for the young senorita. We have all tried to tell her that for several months now."

"So all of you work for Mikayla here?" Lilly asked, beginning to see what was going on.

"Si," the man replied with a nod. "Or at least we did. Tonight Senorita Mikayla told us that we would be paid for the next year, but that we no longer needed to report for work, starting tomorrow."

"Why would she do that?" Lilly asked, confused.

"We... are not sure. But Ale' thinks the reason is not good."

Alejandra stepped forward and mimed putting a bottle up to her lips and drinking. "Liquor," she said with a heavily-accented voice. "I have seen her take a bottle out of her safe and just look at it, when she thinks no one is watching. She never drinks, she just looks at it for long time, and only when she is very sad. But tonight, there was something in her eyes. More sad than I have ever seen before."

"I've heard enough," Miley said abruptly. She opened the car door and got out, drawing a buzz of whispering and fingers quickly pointing to her. The name Hannah Montana was whispered loud enough for Miley to hear it even at a distance, and she wondered briefly if her celebrity would prove to be a boon or a burden tonight. "We have to talk to her," she said to the man and Alejandra. "I'm not plannin' on hurtin' her, but I don't know exactly what's gonna happen once we get in there. I'm just bein' honest."

A sad smile crossed the olden man's thin, lined face. "Anything would be better than watching Senorita Mikayla throw her future away," he said with a sigh. "She never speaks of it, but the weight of a hard life follows her around, haunting her like el espectro. Perhaps you can get through to her, Hannah Montana." He turned to Lilly and added, "And Lola Montana, of course. Senorita Mikayla is not the cruel woman she wants the world to believe, but she is very stubborn and will not listen to any of us. However, I believe the two of you might be just as stubborn as her," he added with a smile and a softness in his eyes that colored his words as anything but insulting.

Lilly smiled back. "Nobody's as stubborn as my wife," she said with a wink in Miley's direction. "So you think you could open that gate and let us in?"

Once the gate had swung open, it just took a few seconds for Lilly to send their electric blue Roadster scooting up Mikayla's long driveway, coming to a halt directly in front of the slate steps leading up to the main entrance. "I'm glad we stopped and got your car, baby," Lilly said to Miley as they got out. "Too many people down there who would've seen us driving Miley's and Lilly's sedan if we'd been driving it."

Miley nodded. She had been thinking much the same thing, when she could take her mind off the pictures and files she and Lilly had spent almost all of the last few hours poring over. The sheer volume of scandals that Mikayla had been involved in over the years was staggering. Miley figured it would take several more hours, possibly days, before she could wrap her head around the trouble that followed Mikayla like a shadow. She took Lilly's hand as they met at the front of the Roadster, and together they turned toward the front door and ascended the steps. Miley reached out and rang the doorbell, with the distant sound of chimes sounding beyond the large, ornately carved wooden door. When no response was forthcoming, Miley rang the doorbell again, then she began pounding on the door with her fist. "Mikayla! Open up! It's Hannah and Lola Montana!"

"You think that's a good idea, hon, to tell her who it is?" Lilly whispered, just a hint of nervousness in her voice. "I mean, she might not ever let us in then."

"Then I'll just kick the damn door down," Miley said, not taking her eyes off of the imposing wooden door.

Lilly was calculating just how that particular contest would go when Miley reached forward and depressed the door latch. "Worth a shot, right?" Miley said, turning her head to look at Lilly hovering at her right shoulder. Before Lilly could reply, Miley pushed inward and was rewarded with the door silently swinging open. "Mikayla?" Miley called out loudly as she carefully stepped inside. Her other foot had just touched the foyer's marble floor when she saw Lilly step up beside her.

If I ever needed proof that Lilly Truscott loved me, it'd be in just how many of these crazy ideas of mine she's gone along with over the years, Miley thought with a mixture of love and awe. Lilly didn't even argue much with her about them at this point. She was just there, always eager to do anything Miley needed.

Miley reached out and took Lilly's hand, finding it exactly where she expected it to be. With a long squeeze, Miley felt strength flow from her partner's hand into her own, traveling up her arm like a electrical current. It surged up her arm, pure strength and support; Miley eagerly drew confidence from Lilly's belief in her, in them, to augment her own. She reached behind her and quietly closed the door.

Carefully they crept forward, hanging onto each other's arm as they went. "Mikayla?" Miley called out again, with the same lack of a reply as the first time.

"What's that smell?" whispered Lilly, reflexively wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Smells like wine, or whiskey, or something like that."

Now Miley could smell it, too. "Yeah, I think you're right," she said, her voice just a bit louder than Lilly's whisper. "Maybe she's gettin' good and drunk."

They made their way to the large living room, where they saw a fire crackling in the fireplace but no sign of Mikayla. Lilly steered Miley to the left as they made their way around the room's perimeter, finally entering the kitchen. As their eyes went to the sink, they both gasped before hurrying over the large jumble of bottles scattered both in the sink and in large plastic boxes on the counter. "Wow," was all Miley could get out as they surveyed the assortment of various liquors and spirits. A conservative estimate would have been thirty bottles, all empty.

"Do you think... Do you think she drank all these, hon?" Lilly said, her voice just below the volume of normal conversation.

"I sure as hell hope not," spat a voice from just outside the kitchen. Just a second later Mikayla stalked into the kitchen, four more bottles of liquor in her arms. "If I had drunk all these, I'd be pretty shitfaced by now. And probably on my way to being dead." She set all four bottles on the counter beside the sink, then she opened the smallest one, filled with a brilliant blue liquid, before turning it upside down and placing it directly on the sink's drain. It began to belch forth its contents, the gin gurgling its displeasure at so indignant a demise. Mikayla gathered up two of the other bottles in the sink, both now empty, before she placed them into a partially filled tub of equally empty bottles in the corner of the room and picking up two more full ones. She then turned to regard her two houseguests, looking them up and down coolly before adding, "Of course, you both might want me dead. Sorry to disappoint you if that's the case."

Instead of voicing a reply, Miley and Lilly simply stared coolly at Mikayla, their faces as impassive as cold granite as they held her glare. If Mikayla thought she could intimidate them at this point, she was in for a bitter surprise.

Mikayla kept her gaze trained on the two young women she had conditioned herself to hate over the years. Even now, having worked through so much of her own miserable past, she still found herself disliking them as a default. She glared for a few more moments before sighing loudly. "I kept all this shit downstairs in my big safe for several reasons. First was to remind myself that if I slipped back into drinking or drugs, I was as good as dead. Second, to punish myself. Any time I wanted to I could walk down the steps into the basement, open the safe and take a good look at all the alcohol I could ever drink. And then, after thinking about how each one would taste, I'd have to close the door and lock the safe on them."

She took the last bottles, now empty, out of the deep sink, placing them into the now-full plastic bin on the floor. "But the last reason was that if I ever decided that life sucked more than it was worth living, I'd just fucking drink myself to death."

"Well, that's stupid." The words spilled out of Miley's mouth so naturally that it took her a few seconds before she realized it had been her voice speaking. She turned to meet Mikayla's glare, which was once again seething. To hell with it. We've danced around long enough. Lilly and I came here tonight to end this, and there's no need for me to play nice anymore. "I mean, how do you know you wouldn't pass out before you drank enough to kill yourself? You've got a pretty inflated idea of how good you are, you know. In pretty much everything."

Long seconds passed as the three women stood as still as statues. It felt like not even the air dared to move as each of them kept her gaze fixed, Mikayla locked in on Miley, Miley and Lilly returning the glare with interest.

"Yeah, well, I never said they were smart reasons," Mikayla finally said as she visibly relaxed before turning around and walking across the kitchen. As she reached the living room, she turned and looked back at Miley and Lilly. "Well? Are you two bitches coming in here or not?" she asked smartly, but it was the hint of a smirk on her lips that threw Miley and Lilly both off-guard. They looked into each other's eyes, each seeing matching curiosity brimming in the brilliant blue eyes that gazed back, then Lilly took Miley's hand as they followed Mikayla into her living room.

They settled onto a large black leather love seat near the crackling fireplace. For a moment Miley tried to consider why someone living in Southern California would have any need for a fireplace, but it was nearly winter, and the nights had been significantly cooler. Not as cold as the mountains of East Tennessee, certainly, but for someone who had probably grown up in the west coast warmth it was likely cold enough to be uncomfortable.

A few feet away, Mikayla sat sideways in a matching leather chair, staring into the dancing flames as she sat quietly. No one said anything for five minutes, then ten. Finally Mikayla turned to look at Miley and Lilly.

If the hint of a smirk or smile had been disarming back in the kitchen, the reflection of the flames off the trails of tears decorating Mikayla's cheeks was positively shocking to the two partners.

"You know what's really fucking sad?" Mikayla asked the two of them, not waiting for an answer. "What's sad is that in this whole fucking town, with everybody I've ever met or worked with, the two of you are the closest things to friends that I have, and you both hate my guts. Is that fucking pitiful or not?" She turned away again, unwilling to meet the spite she expected to see in the pairs of blue eyes staring at her. Even worse was the possibility that it wouldn't be spite she'd see looking back at her. She was sure she couldn't handle pity, not right now.

The crackling flames carried their own conversation as the three women sat quite still. Miley felt Lilly's arm slip around her back, hugging Miley even more tightly. Without even thinking, Miley shifted her position, letting her body lean over until she was draped across Lilly's lap. Lilly smoothly shifted her arms to hold Miley's long, lean torso loosely, dragging the fingers of her right hand across the stretch of bare skin on Miley's belly that her change in position had allowed to show between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her pants. Miley's eyes fluttered closed in sweet delight at her lover's gentle touch, brushing across her tingling skin, lulling her immediately into a sense of peace until Lilly spoke.

"So why are you such a nasty, hateful, spiteful fucking bitch, Mikayla?"

It was the cold, even tone of her wife's normally bubbly voice that made the hairs stand up on the back of Miley's neck. Mikayla could certainly draw out the venom in Lilly like no one else, and Miley began to tense up in the event her nemesis and her best friend might suddenly come to blows. But she made no effort to try and soften the sting of Lilly's scathing words, no attempt to try and sugarcoat the situation.

Surprisingly, Mikayla sobbed once, the sound escaping her throat in a way most unexpected, judging from her expression. She waved her right hand through the air, fingers splayed apart. "I'll tell you why," she said weakly, looking at Lilly with a gaze no longer angry as much as beaten. And she told them.

She told them about her mother dying after her father had thrown her against a dresser in one of his frequent rages. She told them about the beatings she had suffered as far back as she could remember, and of how much she wished she could have had the beatings back when he began abusing her in ways far more terrible. She told them how her older brother tried to protect her whenever he could, and how she felt she owed him a debt she could never entirely repay. She told them how she ran away from home for the final time when Kasey and her mother took Mikayla with them to California, and how she had never heard from her father ever again. Lastly, she told them of losing her one constant in life, her best friend Kasey, and about her new-found revelations about just how she and Kasey had felt about each other.

After nearly an hour, Miley and Lilly were both shivering despite the warmth of the fire. "So... you actually saw her get killed?" Lilly asked, wiping tears from her eyes as she spoke.

Mikayla nodded. Her own eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and she had run out of tears several minutes ago. "I remember running to what was left of her and our car," she said numbly. "That was..." She sighed, closing her stinging eyes and focusing on being in the present as memories threatened to drown her. "That was the last time I ever really prayed and meant it. And then when I got to her and saw her, saw what was left of her, any faith I had in God—any faith I had in life, just went away."

Miley tried not to think about what anguish Mikayla must have felt, to have her best friend, her own Lilly cruelly torn away in such a brutal manner. The times Miley had dreamed about losing Lilly, it had taken waking up and wrapping Lilly in her arms to make the cold terror of those nightmares fade away, and even then the remnants of the nightmares would haunt her for days to come. But Mikayla hadn't just dreamed about that devastating loss, she had lived it. And it had consumed any part of her that was still good, still caring, for years. She looked beside her at Lilly, and she saw the same pain she was feeling for Mikayla reflected in her wife's bright blue eyes, brimming with tears. Miley gave Lilly a soft kiss on the lips, using the contact between them to bring a smile to her face. "I know what we need to do," she whispered to Lilly. Lilly nodded in affirmation, as Miley had already known she would.

Miley reached into her pants pocket and withdrew the small black flash drive, holding it up for Mikayla's inspection.

"What's that?" Mikayla asked, her voice raw and yet still apprehensive.

She knows, flashed across Miley's thoughts. Or at least she suspects. "What do you think it is?" Miley asked, keeping her voice as nonthreatening as possible.

Mikayla thought for long seconds. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she considered different possibilities, the fact that Hannah and Lola Montana felt this was important enough to drive out here from wherever they lived at 3 a.m., and all the turmoil she had put the two of them through over the last year. She realized that among the legion of possible things the slim black object Hannah held, they all had one thing in common. "I think that whatever it is, it's something that I'm not going to like very much," she finally said, more nervous than she had been in years, although she'd die before she let the two of them know that simple fact.

"You're right," Miley said matter-of-factly, and now the compassion and empathy that had been held in her gaze for the last hour had been replaced by a cold ruthlessness. It was not a reassuring development for Mikayla.

Lilly released Miley from her embrace and shifted on the love seat, leaning back against the leather while crossing her toned legs, pointing her knees toward Mikayla. "What my wife's holding is proof. Pictures, scanned documents, receipts, transcripts of text messages, audio recordings of phone conversations, and lots and lots of videos of you doing drugs, getting drunk, completely destroying some restaurant while you're messed up on some kind of pills, spitting and swearing at some kids who try to talk to you, fucking at least two dozen guys and making out with two girls, getting arrested but never actually being charged..." Lilly uncrossed her legs and suddenly leaned forward, her butt barely perched on the edge of the love seat's cushion. "In short, enough shit to blow your career all the way back to Hell."

"It's all on here, Mikayla," Miley smoothly picked up after a pregnant pause. "The parties, the fights, the alcohol, the drugs, the sex."

"Even the abortion."

When those three words spilled off Lola Montana's lips, Mikayla felt as though all the air in the room had been sucked away.

They were right. She was well and truly fucked.

Her career wasn't a concern anymore; she had seen to that herself just hours ago with her pyrrhic resignation from Dyseni. But that wasn't the real danger this information posed. No, the real danger was what this knowledge going public would do to the one person whose opinion of her truly did matter to Mikayla. And so even after sacrificing her music career, her recording contract, her Hollywood lifestyle and her pride, Mikayla still found herself in a no-win situation.

It was funny, really, in a very dark, bleak way. All the precautions she had taken to protect Esmerelda, all the effort she had gone to just to keep Esme's very existence secret from Margot, even the fact that Margot and the two Montana bitches still hadn't connected the last few dots... all of that still couldn't protect Esme from the truth. Not only had her real mother abandoned her at birth, lied to her all of her life and left it to Esme's aunt and uncle to raise her, but Mikayla had killed her first baby, Esme's older sister, because she was too young, too immature, too irresponsible and too fucked-up to be a mother.

And as much as it made Mikayla want to vomit, she had considered doing the same to Esmerelda when she had learned she was pregnant again less than a year later.

Kasey's death right after the abortion had devastated Mikayla, and when she learned she was pregnant again she was in no better shape to be a mother than she had been the first time. But she had hated herself for months over aborting her first pregnancy, and even her bitter heart couldn't go through with that again. So she had run away from Margot, vanishing into the Virgin Islands and not returning until Esmerelda had been born. By that time her brother Peter and his wife Mona had joined her in St. Barts, and it hadn't taken too much money to have Esmerelda officially listed as abandoned by her birth mother (whose name somehow was never officially recorded) and then legally adopted by Petey and Mona. Ever since then, Mikayla had taken absurd precautions to keep Margot from discovering Petey, Mona or Esmerelda. She would rather die than allow Margot's poison to corrupt her daughter, even if the cost of that protection was missing most of Esme's life. At least Esme would have a life worth living, even if she would most likely hate Mikayla once she learned the truth.

And now that bitter truth was being waved in her face. By the two women whom Mikayla had counted as her arch enemies for years. Well, besides Margot, of course, who most likely had given all these lurid secrets to the Montanas. Pretty good final stab in the back, when you think about it.

Mikayla sighed. She was tired. Tired of the preening, tired of the partying, tired of the lies, tired of bickering and drama and temper tantums. When was it ever going to end? Probably never at this point.

Part of her was tempted to tell the Montanas to go fuck themselves, to let them drop this bomb on the press and just somehow deal with whatever fallout ensued. But then she thought of looking into Esmerelda's dark eyes, bloodshot and full of tears, and seeing a face that used to beam with love shift into an expression much colder, much darker, as one of Esme's childhood heroes was torn down and revealed as something altogether less heroic. That was something that Mikayla could never allow to happen; no one could ever hurt her daughter like that, not while she still drew breath.

"So," Mikayla finally said, unable to make eye contact with either Hannah or Lola. "Sounds like you've got me pants down and bent over."

"Uh, not a very appealing analogy," Miley said quickly, shaking her head.

"Really?" asked Mikayla, genuinely surprised. "I thought you two were all into lesbian action. Am I not slutty enough for you?"

"You know, Mikayla, just stop it," said Lilly sharply. "Trust us, you're plenty slutty for all three of us, but Hannah and I aren't interested in anyone but each other. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl, we could care less."

"Right on, sister," Miley said with a grin.

"Okay, ignoring the kink in the whole sister-slash-lover vibe," muttered Mikayla. "Getting back to you two blackmailing me, which really isn't that different from how my life has been for too damn long. What are you wanting me to do? Disappear? Make a really humiliating public apology? Donate a bunch of money to your little charity?"

"Really, we'd settle for you just shuttin' your damn mouth," Miley said coldly. "So we can tell you exactly what we're going to do with this."

As Hannah and Lola slowly stood, Mikayla felt her chin tremble. Oh fuck, oh God, no, not now! Don't make me cry NOW, of all the times! But her face refused to heed her pleas, as evidenced by the streams of tears that immediately began to flow from her eyes. She sobbed, her chest burning as she futilely tried to hold everything inside. But she couldn't tear her eyes away from the two women slowly approaching her, their faces equally stoic and reserved, equally beautiful and terrible.

Mikayla's jaw fell open as her sobs intensified. She saw Hannah extend her arm, holding the flash drive up just a foot from Mikayla's face, to make sure she got a long, lingering look at the unraveling of what little she had left in her life.

And then Hannah Montana threw the flash drive into the fire burning beside them.

Mikayla was already unable to speak, but she was so shocked at what she had just seen that she forgot to breathe. She stared at Hannah and Lola, watching Lola reach forward and take Hannah's now-empty right hand, lacing their fingers together as Lola gave her wife a smile that was both warm and proud. Mikayla shifted her gaze to the fire, watching for nearly a minute as the heat and the flames melted and blackened the mass of plastic and metal, twisting it into a useless lump.

"Yes, you've been a total fucking bitch to us, and to our friends, and to our family," Miley said slowly. "But Lola and I understand exactly what livin' in the spotlight can do to someone. We know how it can twist and turn you, and we know how it can break people, too."

"We've never broken, Mikalya," Lola smoothly said, "because we've got each other. We've got our families. But you never had that kind of support."

Miley looked down at Mikayla, the young brunette's face streaked with tears and lines of mascara. "I asked myself somethin' yesterday, Mikayla, somethin' I had never really thought about. I asked myself what would have happened to me if I had lost my best friend when I was really young. And the more I thought about it, the more I could see myself looking like you do today. Angry. Bitter. Pissed off at the world and resentful of anybody's bein' happy, 'cause I'd never let myself be happy ever again."

"Sounds about right," Mikayla said softly.

"Well, now you've got your chance. Margot's got nothin' on you anymore. She can't ever threaten you with any of that ever again, because we took all of it from her. That was it, Mikayla. All of it was on that flash drive." She smiled. "Now you're free."

Mikayla shot up out of the chair so fast that she had her arms around Miley and Lilly before either of them could react. She hugged them both tightly, crying into someone's shoulder for over a minute before she could pull back enough to whisper, "Thank you."

"We don't need to fight each other, Mikayla," Miley said quietly. "We really don't. I don't want your career to flame out. I never did. I think the songs you've released the last few months have been the best of your career, and I think that's because you're singin' them from your heart."

"Yeah, it finally seems like it's good for something," Mikayla said, allowing a smile to cross her face. "Other than keeping me alive, I guess."

Lilly smiled herself. "There's that," she said calmly.

"How do you ask someone to forgive you for all the terrible things you've done to them?" Mikayla asked, looking back and forth between Hannah and Lola. "How can I even ask for that forgiveness?"

Miley's smile never wavered. "The way you just did," she said. "Mikayla, we should never have been fightin'. The three of us know what kind of hell bein' this big of a celebrity can be, and that's somethin' most people are never gonna know. And really, they're better off for it. It's like a battle every day to keep from goin' crazy, to keep enough of yourself safely tucked away somewhere where the cameras and gossip magazines can never find it." She held Mikayla's searching gaze for a few seconds, then she added, "We're sisters-in-arms, Mikayla. We need to be fightin' that fight together instead of fightin' each other."

"Amen," Lilly added, her face shining with pride in her best friend's forgiving heart.

"You got anything you want to add, honey?" Miley said, turning to look at Lilly with a quirky grin on her face.

"Nope, you said it all okay." Lilly rested her head on Miley's shoulder, trying to conceal the grin on her own face.

Mikayla snickered a bit at the easy humor between Hannah and Lola. Maybe one day she could learn to relax and be as forgiving as the two of them, but first she had to learn how to forgive herself. "Thank you both, again," she said, relaxing her grip on the two of them enough to lean back and look them both in the face. "Even after all the shit I did to you both, you—"

Lilly put her hand up, nearly covering Mikayla's mouth. "You're welcome," she said, "but don't make us regret it." Lilly's face was still smiling, but she made no attempt to conceal the fire smoldering in her gaze. "I will protect my wife and our daughter. "

Mikayla nodded. "I know. I still have ribs that remind me of that when a cold front moves in."

"I'm not apologizing for protecting the people I love," Lilly said. "And I never will."

Mikayla nodded. "And you never should," she said. "That's a lesson that I should have learned a very long time ago. I just hope it's not too late to start now."

Author's Afterword: Okay, one final chapter to go, where we can wrap up the last few plot threads. It's significantly shorter, and I'm hoping to have it up by tomorrow night. Well, tonight at this point. Thanks for hanging in there and not giving up on me. I love all of you!