It wasn't right. None of it was right. Not what happened to her, and not what happened to him.

Wren sat on Cayde's desk, her back to the door and fidgeted with the pendant she'd found in the Clovis Bray facility. On the way home she'd had some time to sort through a couple of boxes and while she didn't think she'd find much, she was unpleasantly surprised at what the old crates held. Of course she was in hot water with the Vanguard again with Zavala finding her and Ana trying to get to Rasputin, so Cayde had been up to his horn getting her out of that mess, as well as dealing with the falling Warsats that were thoroughly rearranging the surface of Mars.

While it was disappointing that she hadn't gotten to see him since she'd been home, she was relieved to be able to look through the boxes in the comfort of her own home and away from him. Especially with what she'd found, the most important of which sat in a box at her side.

Looking at it made her stomach sour. It could change everything, and not for the better. But he deserved to know. Tears pricked her eyes but she took a deep breath and quickly dotted them away as the office door opened. Her heart nearly stopped.

"Sugarbird? Wasn't expectin' to see you here. It's been a long night. You know, you're quite a little troublemaker, even without my help," he chuckled.

She couldn't see what he was doing but she could hear him shuffling around, dropping things, moving stuff. He came to stand at the corner of the desk, plopping down a hefty stack of paperwork.

"You are gonna help me get through this since it's partially your fault I have it," he smirked. "Maybe while we work, we could play a little too. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was a big set up by ol' Blue anyway. How else could he have beat you there? I swear that—"

Cayde noticed her downcast stare and he moved to stand between her knees, guiding her chin so she'd look at him but locking eyes with him only made her lip quiver.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"I don't know how to tell you." She clutched the pendant so hard it bit into her palm. Her stomach knotted and tears burned in her throat. How could she tell him? And more, how could she hope that her identity would erase the dark things she'd found out about Dovie Russo.

"What is it? You can tell me anything, kid, you know that." He tried to hold her gaze but the worry etched on his face made her even more anxious.

Wren glanced at the box at her side, then to the pendant in her palm, realizing how bad her hands were shaking. It was only fair. He deserved to know, even if the thought of him resenting her made her sick with anxiety.

"I'm her," she whispered.

"Her? Her who? You're not makin' much sense."

"Dovie Russo. From the journal."

Cayde froze, his hands still on her shoulders. "I don't… I don't think I understand."

"You remember that journal I found that talked about your Queen? And how you found her name in it? Well, when we were at the Clovis Bray facility, Kiran was poking around a door and I guess I got too close to a retinal scanner. It said 'Welcome Doctor Dovie Russo' and inside was this." She handed him the ID card with the woman that looked oddly like her, but as a human.

Cayde drew his thumb lightly over the image, which matched those that were sketched in the journal. Bright blue eyes stared back at him from under the slightly yellowed lamination and long, curly dark hair fell below her shoulders. Wren had studied the face so much and yet, she couldn't accept that it was her.

"And this," she held up the pendant and his optics shifted in recognition. He turned to look at the bookshelf where an identical pendant sat. "Look." Her thumb crossed the surface and the other pendant glowed. Cayde's shoulders went slack. "I'm her and I… I did this to you."

There was no holding back the tears as she pushed the box toward the edge of the desk. She watched in silence, tears streaking her cheeks as he thumbed through what she'd brought him.

Files full of notes on an Exo frame called V-77. His frame.

"I, or Dovie or whoever, made this frame as a starter project for Clovis Bray. These notes outline everything. Absolutely every aspect of creating it. Him? You? I don't know. She seemed obsessed and then… it mentions that she was put on watch by Braytech when she got involved with—"

"Me," he muttered, reading faster than she could explain. "I knew I'd caused trouble for Clovis but I didn't know about all this. Says they hunted me down and used Dovie as bait." He scoffed bitterly. "Sounds like Clovis alright. Real piece of work."

"You remember it?"

"No, not really."

"This is too much. I'm so sorry Cayde. When I saw this stuff I couldn't believe it. That I might be her. Your Queen. It's surreal but the more I read, the worse it got. Clovis used the frame to trap you. I or Dovie… I made the frame he put you in and if I hadn't done it then—" her words tumbled from her mouth at an increasing pace as she struggled to get them all out before she broke down but he cut her off.

"Shh, hey now. You didn't do this to me, Sugarbird. I fucked up with Clovis Bray. It wouldn't have mattered to him if there was a V-77 or not, he'd have put me in a frame one way or another." He put the files down and sat on his chair, rolling it up to slide between her knees. His arms wrapped around her waist and she folded over on him, enveloping him. "C'mon, don't cry. This wasn't your fault. I was a stupid man when I was human. The worst thing you did back then was get involved with a guy like me. Those papers said I hunted you myself. They would have made you an Exo too."

"Why didn't they?" she asked, clinging to him. "I don't understand."

"I don't either but don't you see?" He pulled away and cupped her face in his hands. "We found each other. My Queen. After all this time, I actually found her. Found you."

"You don't resent me? For doing this?" She could hardly see him for the tears which he wiped away with his thumbs.

"Resent you? No. I didn't think I could love you more and here you are, my Queen too?"

Wren's brow twitched. "You… love me?"

He seemed taken aback to have blurted it out, but the shock melted away to a warm smile. "More than anything."

"I love you, too. I've tried to tell you a few times, but something always went wrong."

Cayde stood up and hugged her tight against his chest. A chuckle rumbled in his throat. "Kid, you have no idea."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothin'. Don't you worry about it. What you need to be doin' right now is getting some sleep. I have to get back to Zavala and Ikora, I just came down here to grab some paperwork and a memory drive."

"Sorry to get you caught up in all this."

"Don't be. This is the best thing I've heard in… well, longer than I care to remember. All this crap with Mars and Rasputin's really had me up to my horn in stress, this was the best news."

Wren frowned at hearing him talk about Rasputin. She looked up at him. "Am I in a lot of trouble?"

"Hm, yes and no," Cayde sighed. "I mean, he's more pissed off at Ana than anything. She knew the risks and what you two were getting into. She claims she talked you into it. Trying to take all the blame for herself."

"I didn't know Zavala was going to react that way. Hell, I didn't know Zavala was going to be there at all. I still don't get how he beat us there. The complex was locked down and everything."

Cayde kissed her forehead and she let him go so he could gather his items.

"Ikora and I were surprised too," he said, shuffling through a desk drawer. "I'm not sure how he got in there, but I'm not gonna lay and say it doesn't feel like a setup. Which might be why he's not pressing me too hard to punish you."

A slight smirk twitched at the corner of Wren's mouth and Cayde glared up at her.

"Oh, you little pervert," he grinned. "Anyway, he's been reluctant to answer questions about it. Bein' real cagey if you ask me. Right now he has us focused on how to get control of the falling warsats and a whole crew of Warlocks are looking over that video you sent of the snake thing. Frankly, that is a bigger fish to fry than the warsats."

"Sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah," he said, putting his fists on the desk on either side of her thighs and leaning close. "You can give me a kiss and go home. Get some sleep. I'll be there as soon as I can."

Wren kissed him, tears welling up again but this time not from anxiety, but from happiness. She might not remember loving him as a human, but she knew how complete she felt now, in this very moment. Believing in fate and destiny was easy to claim, but when it smacked you in the face, it was harder to deal with and in this case, there was nothing more convincing of their bond. Everything that had happened teetered on the edge of a blade. Centuries of experiences had gone a very specific way to bring them together again and Wren was almost afraid to grab the moment for fear that the fragile balance would be thrown off.

Cayde took the old pendant and put it around Wren's neck where it clattered together with the little bird and the glittering shard from what he had told her was from the Awoken homeland.

"I'll keep this one with me too," he said, grabbing the matching pendant from his shelf. He drew his thumb over it and Wren's glowed. "This way you'll know I'm thinkin' about ya," he smirked.

"Same," she replied. "Now go on. The faster you get this Vanguard stuff handled, the faster you can come home to me."

"Well, when you say it like that," he laughed and kissed her deeply once more. "I can't believe it. My Queen. Alive and in the flesh. I won't lose you again. I swear it."

Music was playing from the apartment when Cayde approached, a little after midnight. At first he thought it was the neighbors, a few of whom were having a little get together on their landing. The smell of cooking food hit him and his stomach, or what should have been his stomach, growled. He locked the door and let himself in.

Sundance appeared and zoomed toward the bedroom where Kiran met her at the door. They spun rapidly around one another, then she led a chase through the apartment with Kiran hot on her fins. Through the bedroom door he caught a glimpse of Wren dancing while making the bed and he grinned. She didn't seem to notice him as he leaned against the doorframe.

It reminded him of the time he started to realize he had feelings for her. He'd gone to the den to get her and she was dancing in the rain, wet hair plastered to her face. He could almost feel the intensity of her dance, hear her bare feet stomping against cracked tile, see the halo of water as she spun.

When she caught sight of him she stopped dead in her tracks and clutched a pillow to her chest.

"You almost gave me a heart attack." She let out a breathy laugh and tossed the pillow to the bed.

"Good to see you're in a better mood," he smirked as she came to him and slipped her arms around his waist but she was too low so he picked her up. Her legs dangled and she propped her elbows on his shoulders.

"Nice weather up here," she said.

"Oh yeah?" he walked toward the bed. "Ya know, the bad thing about being up so high…"

"What's that?"

"Falling," he laughed and threw her onto the bed.

Wren laughed. "Yeah, I don't like the falling part as much."

Cayde went to crawl across the bed toward her but she scooted down and stopped him.

"Not on my nice clean bed, sir," she tutted, shooing him away. "Go get a shower and I'll heat up dinner."

He tried to not grimace but didn't do a good job at it.

"Don't give me that look. The neighbors brought it over to make up for being so loud with their party. It's died down a lot since earlier."

Cayde breathed a sigh of relief and Wren slugged his shoulder. She gave him a quick kiss and turned off the music before going to the kitchen. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of her banging around in the other room, humming to herself while she got dinner ready. Kiran and Sundance were laughing amongst themselves and he felt his shoulders relax.

This was it. This was how it was supposed to be. All the other crap they'd struggled through was over. After all this time, he found her and frankly, it choked him up a bit. Their history as humans was still shaky, since all they really had to go off of were detailed professional reports. Nothing about their personal emotional states was mentioned, but none of that mattered. She was real. And Ace…

Cayde gently placed the Ace of Spades on the dresser in its stand, right beside the Better Devils. A gentle smile crossed his features as he ran his fingertips over the smaller handcannon. Seemed like a million years ago he'd gifted her the weapon. Man, he caused her so much trouble back then. Hard to believe they were here. Especially considering how they started.

He hung up his armor and folded the favor to set it on the bedside table before getting a quick shower. When he was finished she was sitting on the floor of the living room, her legs under the coffee table.

"We have a couch for a reason," he said, tilting his head.

"I know," she replied, motioning for him to sit beside her, which he did.

Dinner was a heaping dish of something similar to enchiladas that he wasn't familiar with, but they were delicious anyway. While he ate he watched Kiran and Sun as they discussed some of the things Kiran and Wren had seen in the Clovis Bray facility.

"There was a lot more than what I showed you," Wren said. "I only took the most relevant stuff to your office earlier."

"Is that why you're still awake?"

"Sort of," she shrugged. "I would say I read through it all before I met up with you, but I really only skimmed. This time I was a bit more thorough."

"Oh yeah? What did ya find out?"

"For one thing I found very detailed files on your frame. Everything, down to the wiring. When I said there was a level of obsession here, I meant it."

"I wonder why you were so fixated."

Wren looked away, picking at her food with her fork. "I don't know if I should say she or me. It's so strange. I look at everything I found and I know it makes sense. Everything fits. But I just don't…"

"I get it. I've had a few resets, ya know. I get glimpses, little hints of memory here and there of who I was before, and I get it, it's the same body same mind but it doesn't feel like the same person."

"I never really thought about who I was before and being faced with what was in those boxes? It's been hard. Ana is so proud of who she is and where she came from, but after all this? How am I supposed to take her pride? Clovis Bray did horrible things. To you especially."

Cayde pushed his plate away. "None of that was her fault. Ana's got her intentions in the right place. Clovis Bray coulda done amazing things, and hell, I guess in a way he did. But he also did some shitty things too. Don't fault Ana on that one."

"That's not really what I meant. I guess it just rubs me the wrong way." She let out a bitter huff. "Then again, it feels hypocritical considering I was part of it all."

"What else did you find out?"

"For starters, an answer to the question you asked a minute ago. What caused the obsession. Apparently when I was human I progressed up the ladder pretty fast and that caught Clovis' attention. The V-77 frame was a test under very strict time limitations. I don't think he actually thought she could complete it in the time allotted, but she had good motivation."

"Being?"

"The child you call Ace. Dovie had a little brother that she was trying to get custody of. Not much is mentioned about him in the files, at least not until Dovie was targeted after the theft. I guess they tried to go after her brother and mother but they were already gone."

"So Ace wasn't our son?" he thought it an odd thing to say. That they might have had a child together as humans, and she must have thought the same because she leaned back against the couch and sighed, a soft smile on her lips.

"Not so much as I can tell. At least not in a biological sense. It never said if she was able to get custody so I'm guessing things went sour before that happened."

Cayde's stomach rebelled against his meal. If Dovie had tried to get her brother, and it never happened, then it only made sense to link it to what he'd done. Clovis couldn't find the kid or Dovie's mother, which meant they had to have escaped, slipped off the radar before Clovis was any wiser. When he'd said before that the worst thing she'd done back then was get involved with him, he wasn't ready for how true that statement was. She'd lost everything. Her family, her career. And for what?

"Any word on if she found them again?" he asked quietly.

Wren met his gaze, then slowly shook her head. "No. It says that once you were placed in the frame she panicked and ran. A research partner helped her escape off world, which is when she disappeared."

"Wait, in any of that stuff, does it talk about where the facility was? Where did all this go down?"

"Some things were redacted and that's one of them. Her family's names were too, I just had to take from context clues. It doesn't even mention her running to Venus until later when you were sent to hunt her down and bring her back to the facility."

"Damn," Cayde sighed. "Can't believe they tricked me into hunting you."

"Apparently we worked together too. Under Maya Sunderesh."

"Holy shit, really?"

Wren reached into a box by the couch and pulled out a personnel file. "Yep. Someone from Clovis Bray must have stolen this from the Ishtar Collective because here it has a file on Dovie under a different name, working as a janitor of sorts and Cayde-1 as being hired for research assistance."

"That had to be hard…"

"Why's that?"

"Well, think about it. Exo's don't really remember their human lives." He flipped through the files, checking dates. "And if Clovis sent me to capture you after we worked together, then that means I likely didn't remember you at all. We coulda been standin' eye to eye and it never would have registered to me who you were."

Wren wilted a little. "I hadn't thought about that. I wonder what triggered him to realize and have me hunted down?"

"Beats me. There's gonna be a lot of stuff we don't know. Like what happened after I took you in. What was the last thing you found on all that?"

"Just the logs of your admittance to the facility. Apparently the Collapse was in full swing in their neck of the woods and the last I see is a message stating a facility wide evacuation. Looked like the system tried to fight it, but then everything is blank. I have no idea what happened."

"But something had to, cuz you're not an Exo. You escaped somehow."

"Or you got me out."

Cayde sighed. "I dunno kid, looks like I was a piece of work back then."

"I like to think you came to your senses."

"Maybe," he muttered, though he wasn't so sure. "Either way, there is one thing I can say about you and your past that I can claim as fact."

"Oh? What's that?"

"You were one of the first Awoken. If you were human before the Collapse, but you're Awoken now, that means you were on the Exodus Green. Somehow."

"Wow." She muttered and Cayde pulled her in under his arm. "You know, when I met with Mara and Uldren, I thought he was a little bitter having never met me."

"Maybe he remembered you," Cayde offered. "Maybe you two were enemies back in the day or he was pissed you abandoned his sister or something. You were found in the Cosmodrone, so you obviously died there. Uldren was always weird about Mara… who knows?"

"Petra maybe?"

Cayde laid his head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. She was right. Petra would know, though whether or not she'd be willing to say was a different story.

"That's possible. I can ask her after we get this whole 'Warsats-rearranging-Mar's-surface-so-bad-the-cartographers-are-gonna-need-to-be-paid-overtime' situation under control."

"I don't guess there's anything else you can tell me about that, is there?"

"Nope."

"I guess it doesn't matter. I know I'll likely have to go back, even if Zavala is angry with me. Cerulean has made itself indispensable."

Cayde chuckled. "You have made yourself indispensable."

In the little space between Wren and the coffee table, Cayde swung his leg over her and hovered over her lap like he was going to sit on her. She laughed and rested her hands on his hips while leaning her head back to look him in the eye. Her head tilted a little and she seemed to be taking in every hard plane of his face before he kissed her.

She took a deep breath, sliding her hands up his chest and around the back of his neck, pulling him in. Cayde wrapped an arm around her back, wanting her closer than she ever really could be. He couldn't believe it. Having all day to process still wasn't enough, and how could it ever be enough? He couldn't have dreamt this stuff up.

The back of his throat burned with tears that would never come but that excess energy had to come out somehow. He pushed the table back and lifted her to the couch. She clung to him, kissed him, clenched her knees against his sides. He let her strip off his shirt but he was too impatient for anything else.

Her skirt slipped down around her thighs and hung off the couch. One hand kneaded her bare hip and he groaned into her throat when he realized she didn't have anything on under it.

"Why do I feel like that was by design?" he growled, nipping at her earlobe. Wren cringed as his hot breath tickled the hair behind her ear.

"Are you complaining?" she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Cayde stared into her eyes and he got the overwhelming urge to crush her against his chest. "Sugarbird, I'd never complain about that. I don't think you get how I'm feelin' right now."

"Well, you could tell me."

He shook his head, unsure of where to start. "It's like a dream. My Queen has kept me straight for longer than I can remember. I clung to her and everything she stood for to me. You can't imagine how… overwhelming this is."

Wren's brows knit together.

"Not in a bad way," he said. "I don't mean it like that. This ain't easy for me," he chuckled, feeling a tightness in his throat and chest. "Imagine feelin' so much love for someone you didn't know was even real, and then findin' out that not only are they real, but they're yours."

Wren pulled him in and kissed him, tightening her thighs against him. He gave himself over to her, propping on one elbow while the other was free to roam up her side. She was so soft, warm, supple. There was no part of him that wanted to wait any longer. He pushed her skirt up and she watched with a longing stare as he pulled his grey sweats down and arched her back against him when he entered her.

He didn't want to be far from her. One arm wrapped around her, the other hand clenched the back of the couch as he began to thrust, relishing every inch over her body wrapping around him, inside and out. Her arms pulled him close, her legs wrapped around his hips, and she peppered his cheek and neck with kisses between soft moans.

There was a moment he thought she saw a tear slide down her cheek but she refused to let him get more than a few inches away. There were things he took in about her that usually went unchecked when they were intimate together. Her heart rate, breathing, the sharp moans, the specific way she said his name. There was a sense of desperation in her voice that not only pushed him to pick up his pace, but also wish he could be closer. Deeper. Pull her into his own body and be one with her and there was something about the inability to do so that made him frustrated.

The hand the gripped the back of the couch shook with the force that he was exerting and the wood beneath the soft cushion groaning. It would hurt her if he let out all of this frustration and intense, suffocating emotions around the love that grew in his chest. She cried out, her fingertips curling into his plating, body tightening around him, pulsing. His release followed, and with it went every ounce of frustration, leaving only this strange feeling of vulnerability.

Wren held him close as she caught her breath but Cayde was in no hurry to let her go. He put both arms around her until her heartbeat slowed, returning to normal, and his overwhelming emotions eased into peace and exhaustion.

"I should get cleaned up," she muttered sleepily.

Cayde picked her up and carried her into the bathroom to get a hot shower with him. They didn't spend much time there. Wren tucked her arms into her chest and rested against his chest and he was careful not to get her hair wet while he bathed her. They remained quiet while they dried and got into fresh sleep clothes and made their way to the bedroom.

"I've never seen you like that before," Wren said when she finally slipped into bed. Cayde covered her with their blankets and stroked her hair from her cheek.

"It's like havin' a lover back from the dead," he said. "There was a time I was so sure my Queen was real, but I guess as the memories faded and the journals got too old to read, I lost that confidence. Guess I can't get over how this has gone down. Still seems too good to be true."

She hummed and their Ghosts cuddled on the pillow by her head. "I love you."

Cayde smiled softly and kissed her forehead. "I love you too, Sugarbird. Get some sleep."

"Where are you going?"

"I gotta make sure the Hunters aren't burnin' the City down. I'll be right back."

"Hurry back."

"I'm hurryin'," he assured before leaving the room.

Out on the porch he used his datapad to call Sisre who answered him with an annoyed huff. Her white hair was a tousled mess and behind her Cayde caught a glimpse of Rorick, fast asleep. She rubbed her eyes and squinted from the glow of the datapad on her face.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" she grumbled.

"I know and I promise it's for good reason."

Sisre sat up. "What's wrong? Is it Wren?" Rorick stirred behind her.

"Wren?" he muttered.

"Nothin's wrong, I didn't mean it like that. Look, I've been sayin' for a long time that I want to return her favor and I'm tired of waiting. Somethin' always goes wrong. But she… well I'll let her tell you, but I don't want to wait any more."

"Okay, what's the plan?"

"I have a place I wanna take her that I think she'll love. But I want to make it fun. So I'll take a clue with me that'll start her out on a scavenger hunt that'll take her to some places we had fun in the past. At the end, I want her to find the ring," he explained, the excitement that welled up in his chest causing him to pace the walkway in front of the apartment.

"Aww, that's sweet. What do we need to do?"

"With all this crap goin' on with Mars, I don't think I'll be able to set it up." He rubbed his mouth, feeling slightly annoyed at the situation at hand. It would have to be handled as soon as possible so he could get his plans underway.

"You tell us where to hide the clues and we'll get it done, one way or another."

"I have a friend who would help," Rorick muttered. "I trust her to do this even if we get called away on a mission or something."

"Good," Cayde replied. "I just want this to be perfect."

"Alright lover boy, it's late and I'm exhausted," Sisre yawned. "From now on, if you call me and it's not life or death, I will hunt you down and beat you to death with your own arm."

Cayde laughed nervously. "Yeah, I'll uh… let you go."

The screen went black and Cayde let out a long sigh, his shoulders dropping. He closed his eyes and smiled, titling his head to face the moon. This was it. They'd be together at last.

Returning to bed with her made him feel that nothing else existed. She shuffled in close to him tangling into his limbs, muttering and whining softly. He stroked her hair and closed his eyes, falling asleep to the gentle sounds of her breathing. This would be what he'd sleep to for the rest of his days and he couldn't help the joy that welled up at the thought of it. He had her. Always.