Dawn was worse than he expected. The sky lightened but it would take much longer for the sun to make itself known. Probably a good thing. He hated when the sun blinded him in the mornings but the way the apartment was situated in the courtyard, it made the sunlight less glaring.

Cayde woke to Sundance shifting by his head where she and Kiran had bedded down in the pillow. Wren still slept on beside him, nestled close to his side. Her mouth was open slightly, glisten of saliva on her lower lip and he gave a groggy chuckle before wiping it away with his thumb. She groaned and pulled away.

"Stop," she muttered.

"We gotta get up," he said. "We'll be late."

"Why does it have to be dawn?"

Wren grumbled something else but he missed it as she was busy burying her face under his arm. How she was managing to wedge herself under him he wasn't sure but it made him smirk anyway. Who would have thought they'd ever be here? He remembered one of their first encounters where she overheard him make a joke in bad taste and told him that he was a joke. Man had she looked at him with such hurt and hatred. Seemed a lifetime ago and frankly, he never would have thought he'd be two steps to offering her forever.

Sundance and Kiran circled one another, chattering as they floated between the rooms, discussing who knows what. Cayde kissed Wren and forced himself to sit up. Reluctantly she followed.

"C'mon, maybe we can play on our Sparrows on the way," he nudged.

That helped some but she still dragged her feet getting ready and he was prepared long before she was and had a moment to take in the changing color across the branches of the trees in the courtyard. He turned to see her as she attached her cloak and the two of them left together, him walking slightly ahead but not from choice. She was not ready to be awake and took his cloak to let him guide her.

He remembered that night too. Man was she wasted. He peered over his shoulder and surely enough, she followed with her eyes closed, curls a tousled mess. One step ahead for helmet hair.

Wren remained dead silent as he wound them through the City toward the North gate where they were most certainly late.

"Cayde," Sundance said when Cerulean came into view. "Zavala is trying to contact you."

"I'm not havin' him ruin this," Cayde replied. "I'm getting' out of this City if it kills me."

"Don't say that."

Wren's tone caught him off guard but when he turned to look at her, she was yawning sleepily. It was almost as if she'd said nothing at all. He pulled her to walk beside him and she whacked her head against his chest.

"I didn't think you were this bad about mornings," he laughed.

"I'm not always. I slept too well and I wasn't ready to get up."

"There's Cerulean."

They entered the last corridor and the only clear street leading toward the North gate. The fireteam was walking ahead of them about a block or so, talking amongst themselves. Wren perked up a bit but the expression on her face darkened. She must feel cut off from them. Isolated.

Cayde gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze and he kissed the top of her head.

"It'll be fine," he said and released her so they could continue side by side.

At the gate the fireteam began searching for them and as soon as they saw Wren and Cayde approaching, Franz spun on his heel and left, disappearing behind the tall metal door. Cayde could almost hear Wren tense but there wasn't anything that could be done about it now. He had to hope that the mission itself would cause a shift. Maybe Franz would come around. Let his guard down and forget his grief and anger for a moment and it would break the ice between them.

Sisre and Rorick greeted them and they exited the gate and hopped on their Sparrows. It'd be a long ride to the location Sun was telling him about, and deep into a Darkness Zone. That didn't sit well with Cayde. Those places were horrible for Guardians and Wren didn't have a great track record with them. There were still nights when the unearthly sound she made as her arm was wrenched from her body kept him up. He'd been right there and couldn't save her.

Cayde let Rorick lead the way, choosing to keep pace with Wren instead. The fireteam worked as a

well-oiled machine, even with the issues between Franz and Wren. On their Sparrows all of those things fell away. Comms were silent and the only thing they had was the wind whipping around them and the sun cresting over the mountains, bathing the valley in a pink gold glow.

Rorick led them farther into the mountains, into higher elevations where they had to ride in a single file line over narrow cliffs. Once they reached the mountain pass, piled high with snow, it became apparent that avalanches might be a problem if they remained in the area long enough for a gunfight.

Slowly they eased through the pass, Cayde holding his breath with every gust of wind, cutting his eyes to Wren whose helmet gave no indication of her mental state with the towering cliffs of ice and snow on either side. She kept her Sparrow close and seemed aware enough, but perhaps not concerned.

Once they were clear of the pass entirely Rorick sped up again and Cayde was glad to be away from the danger which frankly, he hated. Danger used to be his middle name! Then again, he wasn't worried for himself.

Midday they stopped for some food, which he declined, choosing to stay on alert. Snow in the upper part of the mountain was long behind them but he felt they were being watched. Lunch itself was a dismal affair. Franz kept to himself, away from the others and Wren barely ate anything at all as a result. Sisre spoke to her in hushed tones, likely trying to reassure her but Cayde was beginning to wonder if Franz would ever come around. He didn't look at Wren with so much hate anymore, but it was almost worse. He refused to look at her at all and to him, indifference was worse than hate.

They mounted their Sparrows once more and sped through the valley, toward the Darkness Zone. It should have looked different. He always felt they should have. The name and implications for Guardians made him assume the area should be shrouded in shadows and they rarely were.

That didn't mean he couldn't feel it.

The oppression that came with crossing the invisible border spread through all of them as they passed, and the group slowed. Trees began to press in on both sides and though the forest was getting thicker, Cayde could tell it was because the valley was narrowing. What the hell were the Cabal doing all the way out here?

A group of Hunters stopped them on foot, rifles at the ready. Rorick glanced back at Cayde who quickly put himself at the front of the group.

"The hell are you doin' out here?" the Hunter leader said with a tilt of her helmet.

"Just checkin' things out…"

"Commander know you're gone?" another joked.

"Hardy har har. So funny. What's the status?"

"Got a Cabal battleship in the narrowest part of the pass and what looks like a base entrance on the other side. There's a Fallen camp just outside of that but I think they've taken over the base itself and likely have a whole damn house in there," the leader said.

"I'd like to get a look myself."

"Whatever you want," she shrugged. "Don't recommend taking Sparrows any farther though. Got some issues with rockslides in the pass leading up to the base. And the woods are pretty thick. We set up our own camp half mile west of here if you need anything."

"Nah, this is a quick mission. Why don't you show us the way?" Cayde trailed off, waiting for her name.

"Jorga. And this is Sven. You wanna loan us one of yours we can split into two teams and flank the path the Fallen have been using for supplies. Don't wanna get pinned down in one spot if something goes wrong."

"I'll go," Franz volunteered. He dismounted his Sparrow, which his Ghost took care of, and joined the pair of Hunters.

Cayde and the others followed suit, taking a hidden path on the right side of the main one indicated as used by Fallen. He could tell the path was well walked by the Hunter party as the tall grass had been tramped down just wide enough for him to pass and branches and vines had been cut away. Still, he was too tall for sections and had to brush aside overgrowth. Should have let Rorick go first.

Halfway to the pass they had to cross over rubble from a recent rockslide and Cayde's attention drifted toward the sheer cliff face to their right. Wouldn't take much to send the boulders thundering to earth.

Rorick kept close at his back and he knew Wren was trailing in the back. Too far away but the safest place for her to be.. He tried to get them through was fast as possible without triggering a rockslide, only realizing he'd been holding his breath once they were on a clear path once more. Not that he needed to breath but damn his nerves!

"Shh," Sisre hissed from the back of the line and the group stopped and knelt, watching toward the main path in the distance.

Cayde heard them before he saw them; a whole caravan of Fallen traders with banners he couldn't quite make out through the foliage. They moved as shadows between the trees, the sound of metal clanking, Fallen speaking to one another, and footsteps on dirt drifted through the trunks but not clearly enough for Cayde to make out what they were saying.

He kept his hand on the Ace but didn't unholster it. The caravan passed without incident and Cayde stood to continue onward, the rest of Cerulean following suit. Two steps forward and a gunshot echoed through the valley.

Cayde whipped his head around, trying to determine the origin of the shot but it must have been from the other Hunter team because the Fallen had begun to scramble and soon the forest was alive with gunfire. Instead of trying to charge through thick brush, Cayde sprinted down the path, looking for a better way to cross.

"Jorga, come in!" Cayde demanded.

"Jorga's dead," a pained voice replied.

"Franz?"

"No, Sven. I don't know what happened they… the Fallen, they killed her Ghost!"

Cayde stopped dead and Rorick ploughed into his back.

"What?" he snapped. "How?"

"I don't know! Their weapons… how is this possible?"

"Fall back," Cayde said.

"We're already running for camp," Sven said between gasping breaths.

"Are the Fallen following you?"

"No, they're still shooting where we were but they'll back track soon enough, we gotta evacuate."

Cayde turned to his team and motioned for them to move back up the path, Wren in the lead now and damn was she fast! He could see her sprinting ahead of Sisre, distance between her and the Titan growing. He could probably run faster but with Rorick and Sisre in front of him he had to be careful of his pacing.

Gunfire became louder and he could tell the Fallen had taken to shooting into the trees as they worked their way back down the path, pushing the Guardians out. Without knowing what kind of weapons they had and how many were capable of killing Ghosts, Cayde wasn't willing to take a chance in hanging around.

They neared the rockslide zone and an explosion from behind rocked the earth. Before he could utter a word of warning the cliff collapsed, boulders tearing through trees and brush to the path below. He was jolted to his knees and Rorick on his, the pair of them shielding their heads from debris as rocks and branches bounced off the ground all around them.

Dust blinded them and the sound was deafening. Trees split and fell, laying across the path over the ground that had crumbled but Cayde and Rorick didn't wait for silence to move. They scrambled over boulders and debris, frantically searching for Sisre and Wren.

"Sisre!" Rorick called, charging ahead in the dust, beyond what Cayde could see.

"I'm here," Sisre called, coughing and sounding as if she were somewhere above.

Cayde caught up with Rorick who struggled to location the source of Sisre's voice until slowly the dust began to settle and Sisre landed beside them, limping on her left leg and clutching her ribs.

"I saw it coming and jumped into a tree but it collapsed and I think I broke a rib. Where's Wren?"

"I don't know," Rorick said, supporting his wife's weight.

"Wren?!" Sisre called but Cayde passed her, trying to gage how far she might have run ahead before the rockslide caught up with her.

"Can you hear me?" Cayde called. "Kiran? Sun, locate Kiran."

"He's over there!" Sundance replied, zooming away from Cayde who gave up on running across the boulders and jumped over them instead, clearing the distance to where Kiran's light glowed like a beacon between two large trees.

"The hell do you think you're doing!" he snapped at Sundance, snatching her out of the air and clutching her to his chest. "Get outta here."

She vanished from his palm as Cayde dropped to the area just below the trees where he could see Wren, half crushed under rubble. His stomach lurched.

"Sugarbird?" he tested and her helmet gently rolled to the side. He knelt beside her and pulled off her helmet. She was in shock and incredibly disoriented. "Dammit… listen, you hang in there," he said but the words were meaningless even to his own ears. Hold in there for what?

Rorick set Sisre down on one of the trees and jumped into the pit to help Cayde.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted. "We might be able to move the rubble away without injuring her further but that'll take a long time and I don't think we have that. I could hear the Fallen getting closer."

Cayde pressed his hand to the top of Wren's head and she whimpered, but fully conscious. His thoughts were in chaos. Logically he knew they didn't have time and leaving her for the Fallen to possibly find would be—

He stopped himself. They had to take her with them, but how? She'd die from the injuries, that was obvious, but it could take a long time, again, they didn't have that to spare.

"Cayde," Sundance said, hovering over his shoulder again. She kept close to his head. "If she's dead you can get her out way faster without prolonging her suffering…but you know you have to move. Fast."

Rorick caught on to what Sun was saying and his helmet lifted slightly. "She's part of my fireteam. She's my responsibility," he said. "I… I'll do it."

Cayde stroked Wren's hair. She tried to open her eyes but dirt and blood prevented it. Crimson trickled from her lips and she tried to speak his name.

"No," he replied, his tone hollow. "She's my Hunter."

Rorick's fists tightened in the dirt, pressing into the earth.

Cayde holstered the Ace and took up the Better Devils.

"Cayde?" Wren whimpered.

"Shhh," he eased. "Close your eyes and sleep. Thata girl. Keep em closed." He stroked her hair and she cried and struggled to catch breath. "There ya go… sleep. It's all a bad dream."