The relief that she was free was short lived, as the reality of losing a crew member sank in. Especially when she had to write up a report on what happened whilst she and Pixie were guests on Tihud's ship. That she had to write up a report that a friend of her father's was a megalomaniac.

Especially when she had to inform her crew what had happened. Especially when she got to the bridge, straight from the shuttle, and clearly looking worse for wear.

She had sent Rila up ahead of her, with one order, get Ed into her ready room and away from the bridge.

Even so, when the lift doors slid open and she stepped onto the bridge to see her bridge crew turn to her in happy if not confused relief, what she was about to say hit her all over again. The memory slammed into her gut all over again.

"Captain?" Olkant asked when it became clear she wasn't about to take the next step.

Ali took a deliberate breath as she slowly closed the distance between the lift and her chair, finally gripping the back of it with a hand as if it could steady her. "I…" She swallowed, trying to remember the words she was supposed to say when they'd lost someone. "I'm so sorry," she finally managed to get out. "Pixie didn't make it."

There were a collection of stunned and horrified gasps and whispered to that announcement.

"What happened?"

Ali turned to the young crewman who asked with a sympathetic expression. "Until there's been an official debrief I can't say anything more than they shot her." A chorus of muttered whispering sprang up from around the room. "I know you all have questions, and I promise I will answer them when I can. For now…" She trailed off with a sigh. "I have no words to make this better, she was one of ours, she was our friend and there aren't words to explain how much we'll miss her. I'll make a formal announcement shortly, so please try and refrain from gossiping about this until then."

"Aye, captain," Olkant said firmly. Ali nodded a thanks, before heading to her ready room.

She wasn't surprised to find an utterly confused Ed and Rila stood in the doorway. The two women shared a look, and Rila's tentacles bobbed before she returned to the bridge and the door slid shut behind Ali.

"Skipper, what's going on? Rila didn't tell me a thing."

"Ed, please sit down," Ali suggested, indicating to one of the seats.

"Why?" He asked rather more shrewdly than a lot of people would expect from him.

Ali sighed. "I'm sorry, Ed, but…"

"Where's Pixie?" He interrupted, but Ali heard the tremor in his voice. As if he had interrupted her to put off a revelation he didn't want to be real.

"She's dead," Ali whispered.

Ed's eyes bored into her as if she should follow it up with some sort of take back, that she was only joking, before something in him crumpled as he tried to think of some way to deny it. "No…" He finally said. "No, that isn't -"

"Ed," Ali said, trying to interrupt him.

"She can't be dead! You were supposed to protect her!"

"I am - was - but… I couldn't."

"How? How did this happen?"

"You know I can't tell you that yet," Ali reminded him as he paced around the small room. "How long?"

That made him stop dead. "What?"

"Ed, it's my ship, there's not much I don't know about," Ali reminded him. "I knew you got together, I just don't know how long ago."

Ed sighed as he slumped into the nearest seat, rubbing a hand over his face. "Not long," he admitted. "Once S-Core started issuing arrest warrants for you it seemed like we had bigger things to worry about than rejection." Ali's lips twitched at that. "I just… I can't believe that's all the time I got. That that's it."

"I know," she promised. "Looking back there's so much you wouldn't leave unsaid. More packed in, less time wasted. It all looks different."

"Yeah…" Ed admitted.

"I'm not gonna tell you how you should feel, but I've lost too, if you need time -"

"No," he interrupted. "No, I want to keep busy."

Ali nodded. "Okay."

~-x-~

"We don't have to do this now," Grey reminded her as she rubbed her face after handing him a tablet with her report on it.

"Yeah, we do," Ali replied unhappily, dropping unceremoniously and tiredly into the nearest chair. Beyond grateful that Rila had crafted a near perfect 'it is with sincerest regrets that' announcement about Pixie and distributed it to take at least one task away from her. She still needed to decide on a permanent replacement. "Besides, short of drinking the whole supply of booze, I'm not sure waiting's gonna make me feel any better."

Grey glanced at her over the top of the data-pad, realising they'd done this too often. He wasn't her direct superior any more, but they both knew why debriefs were important and until they had some faith in HQ they were in this alone, and he was the highest ranking member. Once he'd skimmed over the report he put the device on his desk and turned to her. "All right, in your own words," he prompted.

Ali let out a long breath as she gathered herself, then started to recount what happened since they lost contact in the base they had tried to raid for evidence. She faltered when she came to the end of Tihud's first conversation with her. "I… He didn't say anything overt, but it felt… wrong," her breath was shaky now and Grey could see the flex in her jaw and the way she rocked slightly in her seat.

"Ali, it's not your fault."

"With respect, sir, it damn well is," she snapped. She practically curled up into a ball in her seat as she tried to fight the feeling of wanting to crawl out of her own skin or just burst into tears. "I was the senior officer, and I should've had something more to go on than a gut feeling if we stayed to talk it out we'd have been mistreated."

"And if you'd told Tihud what you knew?" Grey asked as calmly as he could when he wanted to call an end to the debrief and send Ali somewhere where she could work it out of her system. But survivor's guilt and grief were a powerful combination, and they didn't have the time she'd need.

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He saw the slow exhale as her back expanded before she straightened to face him again with a broken expression. "Whatever slim edge we have would've gone, I know."

"So you made the call," Grey prompted, with an encouraging, soft tone to his voice to suggest that he agreed with it.

Ali's eyes glanced at him before darting back to the arm of her chair, that seemed to have become her lifeline. "Yeah, we decided we were going to bust out. Though I'm not sure what I'd have done if Pixie hadn't agreed." She rubbed at her eyes before continuing on. Explaining how they'd broken out of their cell and fought their way to the shuttles. Her realisation that Tihud had set up a trap for them once they'd got to an elevator. "They killed her to scare me, I think. Make me cooperate."

"Odd tactic," Grey admitted.

"Yes and no," Ali shrugged. "Yeah, it meant they couldn't use her to try and control me, but equally it demonstrated just how ruthless they were willing to be to make me talk. I'm pretty certain Tihud believed Pixie was just a grunt and I had the info. Also reduces the threat of escape, and loneliness can be used against a prisoner, if you keep them long enough."

"So after that?"

"Had another talk with Tihud, didn't learn all that much more though, then just waited. What could I do? They were already wise to a bunch of my tricks and I was one person. That and they added some guards to my cell."

Grey's eyes flicked back to her report, as expected they'd tallied up, more or less. He'd have his own notes to add about what came out of the verbal debrief but that was standard. "Your report mentions Barker."

It surprised him but Ali actually let out a wry, sardonic chuckle at that. "Yeah, turns out we were right about Tuthu," she admitted wryly. "Tihud was convinced the reason I was poking around in his business was because of something Bert told me about years ago."

Grey shared her confusion. "Why would you wait so long to act upon it, if it was that big that you'd carry on his work?"

"I have absolutely no idea, he was annoyingly difficult to read."

"Yet your report says you knew him before, and you usually deduce something, even if it's just a hunch."

Ali bit her lip as she thought, replaying the conversation in her mind. "I don't know, normally I'd be able to figure something based on what bits of my record someone knows about. But he knew my father, and that he was my father, he didn't need the records for that. I don't know what else my father told him, sure he's not gonna have given out any state secrets, but it makes it harder."

Grey had to admit she had a point there. "Okay, then we work with what we do have."

Ali nodded. "Then I guess we better see what the data Olkant grabbed says."

"Tomorrow," Grey said firmly.

~-x-~

"Well, you two look cozy," Ben greeted with a chuckle.

Ali and Spud turned to him where they were totally flaked out on a sofa in the lounge. Ali raised her glass in a very haphazard motion that served to both amuse and worry him. Ali was practically draped over Spud with her head on the engineer's shoulder and Spud's arm around her shoulders. If anything Spud was sat up a little straighter, but that was possibly only due to the fact that she had her feet on the nearby table. "Want in on this cuddle?" Spud joked.

"Fair warning, I ain't moving freely," Ali added, pausing only to sip on her drink. "I am very comfy."

"And very drunk based on your slurring."

"I am not slurring!"

"You're totally slurring," Spud corrected, and Ali humphed at them both. "On that note, table service?"

That made Ali move as she lifted herself far enough up to scrutinise Spud's face. "You never inconvenience others!"

Neither Ben nor Spud could hold in their laughter at the way Ali took three whole attempts at the word inconvenience, and Ali could barely hold her frown instead of joining in with their laughter. Spud just pulled her back down. "Yes, but making you move would not only inconvenience you, but probably everyone else trying to achieve it."

Ali considered that acceptable and settled back down as Spud quickly relayed what they were drinking. Not long after Ben returned with a fresh batch of drinks and pulled up his own chair. "You didn't think it pertinent to escape?" Spud teased.

Ben offered her a knowing smile, and Spud's lips twitched into a half smirk. "I know what you're both doing," Ali interrupted.

"And you're not even going to feign ignorance as we join forces to cheer you up?"

"Nope," Ali grinned far too brightly.

"Anyway, it's definitely your turn to try and convince her that it's not her fault," Spud added firmly, looking pointedly at Ben.

"You do realise that telling me isn't going to make me magically better," Ali questioned. "Deep down, I know it's not my fault, but that doesn't stop it feeling like it is."

"Yeah, well, it's all we got."

"Actually," Ben interrupted, "what we've got are a whole bunch of happier memories that would serve Pixie better than Ali being grouchy. Especially Ali."

"Along with everyone else we've lost," Ali added, raising her glass again and Spud squirmed as some of it spilt onto her. Ben hid his laugh in his own drink. They really were as close as sisters.

"Yeah… It still makes me giggle to think of that time Flosi reprogrammed the voice algorithms of the main computer," Spud admitted, and soon enough both her and Ali were shaking her barely contained giggles.

"I've never seen Grey blush so hard," Ali agreed. She felt the spike of curiosity from Ben as much as his inquisitive eyebrow. "Flosi was our comms officer back before Bert went… crazy. He'd never fess up if it was intentional or not, but one day after he'd been doing 'routine maintenance' on the comm and translator systems Endeavour's regular computer assistant voice was replaced with… how to put this?"

"An incredibly delicious lady who's enunciations invoked euphemism upon euphemism," Spud finished.

"And you guys accused me of being drunk," Ali giggled. "You know, I was in the med bay at one point that day, and Narla was giving her a good run for her money."

"Really?" Spud's eyes practically lit up. "Why'd you wait four damn years to share that? I could've had so much fun!"

"Yeah, and they both still outrank you," Ali reminded her.

"It's not like I'm looking for promotion," Spud groused.

"Yeah, but you're also not looking to be kicked off the ship."

"Isn't drunk Ali supposed to be helping me get into trouble rather than talking me out of it?"

Ali considered that as she took another hefty swig of her drink. "Okay, then once we've rooted out whatever krekt is going on, we'll take a sabbatical and raise as much hell as you want."

"Deal."

Ben shook his head at the pair of them. "Let me know where you're heading, so I can hot foot it to the other end of the sector."

Ali and Spud giggled. "Probably a good thing, I'd only get spaced again if not."

"Why'd you think Rila insisted on leading the mission?" Spud added as Ben pretended to look affronted.

"Still alive, aren't you?"

"Somehow," Ali said as if she couldn't believe it either.

"Besides, when I first told Grey about the plan to free you from Barker his exact words were 'that's right out of her playbook'," Ben recalled.

Ali scrunched up her face in mock annoyance. "It's not fair when he ruins my fun."

"Like that's your only line of attack," Spud giggled.

"I don't have as much dirt on him as the rest of you."

"Any dirt you have on me incriminates you as well," Spud retorted.

"That is probably true," Ali admitted with a far away expression. "Ah well, what can they do? They already threw me out of USEP again."

"You do seem to be gunning for some kind of record."

"Well, I won't get anyone else killed if they do," Ali mumbled into her drink as guilt and shame crept back to the fore again.

"Oh no, I'm not letting that stand," Spud warned. "You're a damn good leader."

Ali was curling up in on herself where she still half lay on Spud on the sofa as her expression clouded. "Ali, why did you run away from S-Core on the Forum?" Ben suddenly asked, though he sounded like he already knew the answer.

Ali's head snapped up to face him, swallowing a couple of times to make her voice work. "Because I wasn't going to let a stitch up get in the way of working out what the hell was going on."

"And you think it was any different for your crew?" He followed up, hating himself slightly as he saw the way Ali's eyes sparkled with unshed tears, but she needed to hear this.

"I'm their captain, I'm supposed to keep them safe."

"You ran away to protect them, so I bet every single one of them knows you'd throw yourself in harms way to achieve the same end. It's why they follow you, why they trust you, and why it hurts like hell when you can't keep them safe. But that doesn't mean you failed them."

And what about the guilt that follows the relief that it wasn't someone else? Ali's unspoken question reverberated through his mind as he took in her broken expression. He knew that didn't mean she was happy it was Pixie, she was still her crew member, her friend, and she still felt the loss, but he knew what she meant. If they'd have waited a couple of days longer it would likely have been him with her on the original infiltration mission, and following that through to it's logical conclusion meant that he'd now be lying dead in Tihud's morgue, not Pixie. It was the similar to how he'd hated himself for thanking whatever lucky stars either of them possessed that it was Ali Rila returned with and that it was her they'd chosen to keep alive.

You still haven't failed. It just means you're human, complex, nuanced and not infallible. That's not a failing. Reassurance was all he could offer. They all knew she didn't have to feel this way, but knowing the facts wasn't a magic cure.