A few minutes later, Ferral entered the command room, flanked by two guards. His ghost flew stolidly at his shoulder. Zavala motioned for the guards to stand back. They obeyed, but held their rifles ready.
"Hey, Ferral," Cayde said, holding out a fist.
Ferral bumped fists stiffly. "Hey, Cayde. I guess Lethia's told you what happened?"
"Yep," Cayde said. "This is just to clear up a few details. Show the Commander how you use shadow blades."
His blue skin gone pale, Ferral summoned three transparent, purple knives, which fanned out above his palm. "Three is as many as I can create. I can throw them, usually one at a time. But I can throw all three at once, if I concentrate."
"I do that with solar knives," Cayde said, summoning a handful of fiery blades like Ferral's. He dismissed them, and Ferral let his own disappear.
"So," Cayde said, folding his arms, "how do you hit a ghost with one of those?"
"Well. Like this." Ferral pointed to the Vanguard commanders with three fingers. "Imagine you were my targets. I'm focused on you. Now - summon your ghost."
Cayde did, his ghost popping into existence in a swirl of bright particles.
"Distracting, right?" Ferral said. "It was just enough to throw off my focus. I didn't mean to hit Niki, but I'd already thrown the knives and it was too late."
Zavala said, "Both your reports state that you had not gotten along. This was not some attempt to destroy your teammate?"
"No!" Ferral exclaimed. "I was trying to save her."
"It's true, Commander," Lethia exclaimed. Ikora shushed her.
Zavala looked at Ferral's ghost. "Banner. Do you have anything to add?"
Banner flew forward, spinning his new green shell. "It was an accident, sir. My Guardian was devastated. And I just want to say - if you execute him for this, you'll have to kill me, too, because I won't leave him."
"No!" Ferral exclaimed. "No, please, don't hurt him - he's innocent - he's never hurt anyone -"
His eyes clouded and he shielded his face with both hands, seeming to see enemies the others did not. "Not my ghost ... please, not him!"
Banner spun to look at him. "Uh oh."
Lethia rushed forward and grabbed Ferral's hands. "Ferral, it's all right. You're safe. This is the Tower."
Ferral struggled to pull away, trying to grab the sidearm he wasn't carrying. "Rem! No, they're killing him! They'll be after me next, and - let me go! They can't take Banner!"
Lethia closed her eyes and focused on Ferral's spark, which had gone into spastic flickers and bursts. A golden aura of healing Light glowed around her hands and arms.
"What on Earth is happening?" Zavala demanded.
"He's having a flashback," Banner said. "He was on the Dreadnaught. Only survivor of the team who died."
Zavala, Ikora, and Cayde exchanged glances.
"Banner," Lethia said, releasing Ferral's hands.
Banner flew to Ferral. Ferral grabbed his ghost in both hands and crouched, holding him against his chest, staring wide-eyed at nothing. Sweat beaded on his skin.
"I'm here," Banner whispered. "Guardian, I'm still here. Light, make it stop, the Darkness is so deep ..."
Lethia knelt beside Ferral, rubbing his back with healing Light trailing from her fingertips. Gradually, Ferral calmed. His eyes focused again and he fixated on Lethia's face. After a few minutes, Ferral crumpled to the floor, where he sat with his head between his knees, still clutching his ghost. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I'm sorry."
When Lethia had a second to look up, she caught Zavala and Cayde looking extremely uncomfortable, even ashamed.
She stood and faced them, summoning her courage. "Commanders, I've been treating Ferral for PTSD for the last four months. Please don't punish him. Not after what he's been through. And-" her voice broke. "Don't hurt his ghost."
Zavala sighed heavily. "I never intended to harm either of them, Guardian Lethia. But I had to be harsh, just in case." He turned to Cayde. "Dismiss Ferral from active duty until such time as he is deemed recovered."
Cayde lifted his tablet. "Medical leave, coming up."
Lethia felt Ferral's cold hand clasp her own. She stood there, holding his hand, her heart pounding and aching at the same time. He slowly climbed to his feet and stood beside her, shadows gathering beneath his eyes. He had to try twice before he made himself let go of Banner.
Ikora stepped forward. "We have a very good treatment program for our battered Guardians. Report to the medical ward, I'll send them your file."
Ferral saluted shakily. "Thank you, Commander."
"Dismissed," Zavala said.
As Lethia helped Ferral out of the command room, she glanced back to see Cayde shaking his head sadly, and Zavala massaging his forehead, as if developing a headache.
Lethia sat in the medical ward's waiting room for two hours. Ferral was escorted to a private room at once for therapy, attended by a doctor used to treating damaged Guardians.
"At least the inquiry went well," Niki told her, floating beside her.
"There is that," Lethia said. "It helps that Cayde-6 is so sympathetic to his hunters. But ... Niki ... what happens now?"
The ghost considered. "Well ... I guess he'll go back to the Reef and take over the Dasa business. And we'll keep on doing Guardian things."
"That's the problem," Lethia said quietly. "I don't want to lose him like that. I hoped to stay with him ... help him get well. And build a life together. But it looks like we're being pulled in opposite directions."
Niki gazed at her, his eye somehow sad. "You love him, don't you?"
Lethia nodded. There was no point trying to hide it from her ghost. He knew her too well. "I don't know how it happened, Niki. But ... yes, I've poured my heart into this relationship, and losing Ferral will mean breaking it. I'm Reefborn. I could help him with the politics he's going to be dealing with. But ... I'm a Guardian." She bowed her head, defeated by the enormity of the duty she couldn't escape.
Niki felt terrible. She was his Guardian, and he had saved her from the Darkness in the only way he could. But otherwise, being a Guardian had wrecked her life. And it continued to wreck her in ways a ghost never could have foreseen.
"This is my fault," he whispered.
Lethia looked up. "What?"
"This whole situation is my fault," Niki whispered. "I made you a Guardian. I introduced you to Ferral and got you off the Reef. I got myself stabbed by being an idiot. I've ruined everything."
"Oh, Niki." Lethia stroked his shell. "It's not you. I'm an idiot, too. I let myself fall for a man who I just ... can't have. Who could have guessed he'd get roped into the Dasa business? He's a Guardian and they despise Guardians." She trailed off, thinking of the many social pitfalls Ferral would encounter. If only she could be there to guide him. If only she could stay at his side, no matter what. If only she hadn't been so cruel to him in the beginning.
Ferral emerged from the hospital room a little later, moving in a slow, tired way, his yellow eyes more dim than usual. He still had a smile for Lethia, though. "You didn't have to wait for me."
"Yes, I did," she said, rising and taking his hand. His Light was steady and calm. "Did they help you?"
He shrugged. "It was the same therapy techniques you've been using. But I'd rather talk to you than the doctor, honestly. At least I know you." He sighed. "I just want to crawl into bed."
"Come on, then," Lethia said. "You look spent. Are you hungry?"
She started to head for the door, but Ferral didn't move. When she gave him a questioning look, he laid a hand on her shoulder. "Lethia. When did you last eat? Or sleep?"
She looked away.
Ferral gave Niki a look.
The ghost said, "Well ... not since we got here. Yesterday."
"Yesterday?" Ferral said incredulously. "Lethia, you can't do this to yourself. You get some food in you, right now."
They left the medical ward, Lethia feeling somehow chastened and happier at the same time. "I was so worried about you, I was too sick to eat anything. And I did sleep. Just ... not very well."
"Half an hour," Niki said. "And the rest of the night, you were on your tablet, reading Vanguard case files."
"Look," Ferral said, "I'm grateful for everything you've done for me, Leth. But you have to take care of yourself, too. You'll have a mental breakdown at the rate you're going."
"I thought they'd execute you," she replied. "Nothing else mattered. I can't lose you like that."
Ferral gave her a warm smile, his eyes brightening. "I know how you feel. So let me turn it around. I don't want to lose you, either. That includes watching you run yourself into the ground over me. We're going to grab dinner. Then you're going to sleep. Niki, make sure she does."
"You'd better rest, too," Lethia shot back. "You look like death on two legs."
He waved a hand. "I've been dealing with this for a while. I'll live. Now, where do you want to eat?"
They went down into the Last City and had dinner in a tiny restaurant. Lethia hadn't ventured out into the City before, content to gaze at it from the Tower. She was amazed at the number of humans, Awoken, and Exos all living and working side by side. At the same time, it made her homesick for Reefedge.
Ferral noticed. "Missing the Reef?"
She jerked her eyes away from the window and the traffic outside. "What? Oh. Yes, I suppose, a little."
"I've been reading their news networks," Ferral said. "Banner found a relay that lets him log in. The Awoken are determined to pick up the pieces after losing so much to Oryx. They're actually looking at building new, hidden towns deeper in the Reef. Our enemies will only keep coming as long as the Traveler is here. And ... the Dasa clan is who they're asking to build those towns."
Lethia gazed at him. "That's what you're going to do, aren't you?"
He looked down a moment, tilting a water glass back and forth. "Leth, I may be a Guardian. But I'm also Awoken. I may have been born in the Reef and not the Distributary, but that doesn't change what I am. You're Awoken, too. And our people have suffered a horrible disaster. I want to help them. And I've been presented with the means to do that. Isn't that what being a Guardian means? Helping? Protecting?"
Lethia nodded. Her heart swelled with both pride and tears. "I never expected to hear you talk like this. Our people need someone like you to show them that Guardians aren't all killing machines. It's wonderful just hearing you talk about it."
He opened a hand and slid it across the table to her. "Come with me. Help me create safe places for our people."
She gazed at his hand, the bluish skin so similar to her own, a hint of Light rippling beneath it.
"I want to," she said, making no move to take it. "I want to so badly. But I'm still under the Vanguard. They ..." Her voice dropped to a murmur. "They already have me assigned to a fireteam on Venus next week."
Ferral gazed at her, stricken.
Lethia finally took his hand, but apologetically. "I should never have told you my feelings for you. It's only making this so much harder."
Ferral looked down and bit his lip, the way he had when applying tape to Banner's bleeding core. When he looked up again, his eyes gleamed with tears. "Do you mean you don't want to be together anymore?"
It was so much like Niki's cry of I need you to like me, that it hit her heart like an arc bolt.
"I don't mean that," she exclaimed, suddenly finding her own tears choking her. "I mean that we can't be together, and it's killing me."
They sat there for a long time, holding hands across the table, gazing at each other, each occupying separate worlds that were spinning them apart with the irresistible force of gravity, itself.
"All right," Ferral said quietly. "Duty calls. But one day, we will be together. Consider this a standing marriage proposal. When you can get out to the Reef again, feel free to accept. Or ... refuse, I suppose, if time changes your mind."
Lethia kissed his hand and pressed her cheek against it. "I will. And we'll stay in touch."
He stroked her face. "Definitely."