Author's Note: This is the second to last chapter, I think. I should be able to tie things up and complete the story with this and just one more. It's been an interesting long-weekend of revising and I'm really feeling nostalgic for these characters. I think I missed writing Duncan.

She'd been gone for three weeks before Duncan could finally admit to himself she'd left on purpose.

He'd been sitting in the back of the bar with Ash and Kellin when he'd finally been willing to accept the painful, biting truth which had been laid before him. The trio had just returned from a day out on patrol, which for Ash had been another adventure in learning how to Gunsling. Kellin and Duncan were searching for any sign of where Bailey might have ended up. The trio was waiting for Amri to join them and the Exo, surprise, surprise, was running late.

Admitting she was really gone and that it had been done on purpose, even though it had only been to himself, had struck like a blow. But it wasn't his ego taking the brunt of the hit; he was worried for her, obsessed with finding her to make sure she was alright. He loved her. Duncan had never thought to picture how empty his life would be without Bailey. He'd never even had the thought put into his head until the night she'd tried to leave him.

And she was gone too soon afterwards that very next morning for him to really believe he might need to imagine what it would be like without her.

"Chin up, Duncan," Ash said, sliding a glass of scotch onto the table in front of him. She pushed some whiskey towards Kellin before taking the chair across from the Titan, opting for the seat beside her mentor. When neither man made to respond, Ash took a long drink of her pale ale and added, "She's still out there. And you'll find her. I believe in you."

Duncan nodded, feeling numb. He looked at Ash, reading the conviction behind her confidence he would be successful in his venture. This young woman, a Nightstalker turned Gunslinger, had hardly known Bailey before she'd gone missing. Any affection his charge felt towards the missing Warlock was, he knew, all to the credit of her admiration for him; a Hunter who had made himself her friend as much as her mentor.

"Why such long faces?" Amri asked, sliding a stack of four worn leather grimoires onto the table beside Ash before he took the final open chair.

"We're gonna have to go further," Kellin admitted. It might have seemed he was ignoring the newest addition to their table had it not been for the way he lowered his chin to greet the Warlock. The Titan leaned backwards in the rickety wooden chair so the legs creaked under the added strain. Duncan watched him turn to Ash and then look over to him, wondering, "What do you think, old man? Is Ash ready to come with us?"

"Far as she wan's," the male Hunter nodded, running a hand through his bangs before he looked down at the scotch in front of him. Try as he might, Duncan could think of nothing but finding Bailey.

"I was talkin' to Amri," Kellin smirked.

But Duncan ignored the banter he knew well enough to expect to follow.

He couldn't understand why Bailey would leave after, well… She'd promised to marry him for Traveler's sake! He just couldn't bring himself to believe she'd gone off on her own. Not after everything they'd promised to start together. He'd promised to look after her. To be right beside her every step of the way. But he'd drug Ash and Kellin through every cavern, alcove, and underground hiding place he knew on the moon. There wasn't any trace of her.

Reyka, in between the occasional blights of morning sickness and her increasingly frequent naps, had spent the weeks since her best friend had gone missing going through the Warlock's possessions for any sign or clue of what she'd been thinking by up and running away. Bailey had destroyed her notes. She'd left him with nothing; no leads and no hope.

Well, unless you considered Eyasluna. She had been so kind as to leave him that...

She'd promised that they would be together, the entire way, for as long as it took to destroy Thorn. How could she have changed her mind overnight? Unless she'd never intended to marry him at all. And there was a thought it hurt far too much to even consider.

"We will find her," Ash said, laying her hand on Duncan's shoulder. Her amber eyes shined with determination and perhaps a bit of defiance, like she dared him to doubt her or say otherwise. The older Hunter had seen progress in leaps and bounds where her self-confidence we're concerned.

"Yeah," Amri said, already opening the cover of one of the books he'd brought with him. "Chin up, mate. The solar system is a big place but we've just started searching."

Nodding his agreement with them, the Hunter bit back a smile. Duncan raised his glass, clinking the rim of it against Ash's, before he took a drink.

But his good mood didn't last. After seven more weeks of searching everywhere he knew on Venus turned up no trace of the Warlock, the Hunter was discouraged.

He spent the next two weeks that followed being angry with her, taking out the more physical manifestation of all his negative emotions on younger Guardians in the Crucible. If his ranking in Lord Shaxx's Crucible games hadn't compared to Bailey's when they'd first met, he'd sure done his part to give her something to work towards if she ever thought to return.

If that gun didn't kill her first.

It was after a particularly successful afternoon and evening in the Iron Banner Amri found the Hunter to set him straight. Duncan's jumpship had just pulled into the Hangar. Amri had been at his workbench, making some modifications to a scout rifle which belonged to Ash to hide the fact it was really Duncan he sought. When the young man hopped down from the cockpit, the Exo called out, "You quite finished embarrassing the children, mate?"

"Wha'?" Duncan asked, dropping a helmet and sniper rifle on the end of the table opposite Amri.

"You heard me," the Exo challenged, lowering his chin so his eyes met the Hunter's.

Duncan understood Amri was calling his behavior childish. He also knew, in no uncertain terms, the Warlock was chastising him for whatever misguided emotion had sent him trekking through the Crucible for an excuse to ignore the true root of his problem like it might go away on its own. But having made the realization didn't help it sit in any a more welcome way with the Hunter.

How did the Exo expect him to behave?

Bailey had been the one to leave him. It might have been a wound well on its way to healing had it not been for the constant, persistent reminders he ought to know where the Warlock was. Like the meeting he'd been made to suffer with her Vanguard or the quiet looks cast his way when he went, alone, to all those places he was so often seen with her. He wasn't her keeper; her leaving had made the point painful in the purest of ways.

She'd left him with nothing with which to find her.

Not even a goodbye. Just her hastily scribbled 'Forgive me'.

Had it been because she'd never found in him all of the wonderful, beautiful things he'd fallen head over heels in love with about her? Hadn't he been enough of a reason she'd fight for whatever kind of future two Guardians might be able to find together? Because, to him, she'd been everything. All of what would ever matter and any reason to keep himself alive.

Without her, what was left?

And the line of thought he would entertain while at his lowest which suggested he might not be worth anything without the person who meant everything to him, perhaps more than any of the others, was what hurt the most. Or it might have been the part about waking up to find her side of the bed empty, every fucking morning. He was still bitter about it…

"'Scuse me fer findin' somethin' better to do with my time than waitin' around on some girl," the Hunter muttered, running a gloved hand through his bangs, which had matted against his forehead from the helmet he'd worn for thw better part of the evening. He'd be mad at her to mask the hurt, he decided.

"I know you don't mean that," Amri grumbled, slamming the gun down with more force than he'd probably intended. As the sound echoed around the Hangar, Duncan felt like it was rattling through his empty chest, around and about all the pieces of his heart he was still too proud to admit were broken. Amri scolded, "She's more to you than 'some girl'. Stop pretending; at least tell me the truth."

Brown eyes traveled to the ground where the Hunter was left to study his boots; stained in red clay that mixed with the fine white dirt from the moon. His shoulders hunched for the shame he felt that the Warlock, one of his best friends, could see through whatever bravado he chose to lean back on. He was hurt and upset and lonely, not angry with her like he was choosing to pretend.

Duncan didn't mean it, what he'd said, and Amri had called his bluff.

When the Warlock didn't say anything and, instead, returned his attention to the scout rifle still on the table in front of him, Duncan sighed, "Wha' would you have me do? Drag my friends to every place I know from here to Saturn?"

"If that's what it takes," Amri said, his tone hard and leaving no room for argument.

Duncan looked up, studying the Exo with a careful gaze. He was trying to understand where the other man was coming from and what reaction he was trying to coerce from the Hunter. These interventions from the Warlock were rarer now that he'd been a Guardian for as long as he had. But, the Hunter supposed, there would always be a reason for Amri to keep him from getting too far off track. Frowning, the Hunter shook his head to indicate he didn't understand.

"You don't think she'd do the same?"

Those words, more than any the Warlock had said before them, stung the Hunter like Arc Magic. Drawing a shaky breath, Duncan looked away, back towards the direction of his jumpship. He knew the answer. Or, at least, he wanted to believe that he did. But the way she'd left it between them… Duncan wasn't sure that he knew anything anymore.

After a prolonged silence, the Exo challenged, "Well, haven't you got anything to say?"

Scratching the back of his head to relieve the strain of his apprehension, the Hunter wondered aloud, "You seem sure of yourself. Fer someone tha' didn' know she was leavin'."

Watching the way the Exo's shoulders tensed and the other man returned his attention to the scout rifle so he didn't have to look at his friend told Duncan what he'd been secretly suspecting. Amri knew more than he was sharing.

"Anythin' you wan' to tell me?"

The Warlock didn't reply.

"If someone was lookin' ta drag my girl through half the places in this solar system he knows," Duncan paused, watching the way Amri's hands froze over the scout rifle like he was afraid to touch it, like he was afraid to move for fear of giving himself away. The Hunter continued, "I'd maybe se' him on the righ' track firs'."

"I've got my ideas on where she might have gone," Amri offered, meeting Duncan's gaze with confidence. The Hunter knew the Warlock knew understood the subtle mention of his protege. The Exo hadn't denied he was in love with Ash, but the Hunter was still not satisfied. Was Amri keeping secrets for Bailey?

"Wha'd she say to you the mornin' she lef'?"

"She told me she loved you," Amri shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The Hunter could tell his friend was uncomfortable. And maybe he needed to be. Remaining silent, Duncan ran a hand through his bright hair and waited for the Exo to continue. Amri shook his head, "And she was leaving to destroy Thorn."

"And you let her go?" the young man accused, annunciating each syllable in his disdain.

"Of course," the Exo replied. "Do you doubt that she is capable of success?"

The Hunter squirmed.

He didn't doubt Bailey but Thorn was an evil he couldn't begin to comprehend. There was no way to know what the gun might be able to change in her.

"Tell me what you know," Duncan demanded with a hard tone. His eyes were narrowed and his arms had found their way, crossed, over his chest.

"She made me promise I'd look after you," Amri confessed, lowering his gaze back to the scout rifle. He pushed the gun forward an inch or so as he shook his head. "I think she knew what leaving would do to you."

It was evident the Exo regretted his actions, but the anger was coursing through Duncan at an alarming rate. The Hunter knew nothing else. He couldn't find it in his heart to feel sympathy for his friend but he wasn't convinced the anger wasn't directed towards Bailey, either. It was too hard to determine the difference when the other man had been keeping secrets and the woman had known what a terrible toll her leaving might have.

Duncan clenched both of his hands to fists and bit his tongue until he tasted blood. He wouldn't lose his temper until he was certain of where this anger should be directed.

"When Bailey told me what she intended, well, I thought it was a good idea," the Warlock whispered. "I, for one, never doubted that she would be successful. She is a remarkable Warlock."

"You said yourself tha' gun was more powerful than we realized," Duncan growled, clenching his hands to fists. "And here I find ou' ya le' her leave on her own."

"I'm sorry, Duncan."

Turning around so the Warlock couldn't see how much pain hearing an apology had caused the Hunter, Duncan tried to concentrate on breathing to calm his temper. Sorry didn't bring Bailey home. Sorry didn't tell him where to go looking for her.

"It was the right thing," the Exo whispered. "To let her go."

He'd never been more angry at Amri. That the Warlock had let Bailey leave? That he'd known all along how worried the Hunter had been about her and hadn't said a word? How could he keep a secret like this one from someone who considered him family?

"I understand you are upset, and you have every reason in the world to feel that way, but Bailey was of sound mind and absolute determination the morning she left," Amri confessed. His shoulders tensed and he shook his head, "If it had been Ash…"

As the Exo's voice trailed off, Duncan turned around to face him again. His dark brown eyes burned his anger over at the other man, leaving no questions about how he'd taken such a comparison. The Hunter's voice was a low scowl, "Don' think for a minute tha' you understand or could ever know how it feels."

Amri looked down at the ground.

Duncan couldn't find words.

He couldn't think straight.

He felt betrayed.

Confused.

A hundred thousand things all at once until a sudden and unexpected calm washed over him. If Amri had looked Bailey in the eyes and believed her when she'd told him she was going to destroy Thorn, wasn't there some merit in that? Was Duncan the one betraying her if he didn't believe she would be successful?

Amri was the wisest, most level-headed Warlock he knew. If he'd let her leave, he must have believed she would do what she was setting out to do. And there had to be a reason she'd wanted to go on her own. Regardless, there was very little good which could possibly come from being angry with Amri now. What was done was done…

"She's ou' there alone, Amri," Duncan sighed, running a frustrated hand through his bangs. Shaking his head, the man began to pace the length of the workbench separating the two of them. His words came faster after he started walking, "All this time. And we coulda been helpin' her. Wha' tha' gun migh'ta done to her in the time she's been away… if anythin' happens to her, I'll never forgive myself."

"I've read every text she ever took from the archives on the subject of that gun," the Exo confessed in a quiet tone. He had come around the workbench to put a hand on Duncan's shoulder, holding him in place. When their eyes met, Amri said, "I can't explain it, but I have a feeling she might have gone to Mars."

"Bailey hates Mars," the Hunter dismissed with an edge of disbelief in his tone.

"What better place to hide than the last place you'd think to look for her?"

Duncan sighed, leaning backwards so he was sitting on the edge of the table next to his sniper rifle. Shaking his head, the Hunter wondered, "What makes you so sure?"

"This," the Exo replied, taking a worn old hand cannon from its place on his belt and handing it to Duncan. When the Hunter was still unconvinced, Amri added, "And the story behind how it was made."

"The Las' Word?" Duncan wondered aloud, reaching out to run his hand over the gun he held. The metal was warm to the touch, even through the thick gloves he wore. There was magic he couldn't understand in the weapon. He wondered if whatever sort of magic it was might be stronger than the dark sorcery haunting Bailey. His voice was low when he asked, "Amri, how did you ge' this?"

"I had to call in some favors," the Warlock confessed. "But most things can be had out in the City for the right price."

Duncan had only ever heard stories about this gun; myths and legends whispered about in the darkest corners of the Tower's bars. He'd never seen it with his own eyes. And, until a few moments ago, he would have been willing to believe it had never really existed at all outside of the fantasies of jaded Guardians who were well past their prime.

Disbelief still etched across his handsome features; the Hunter confessed, "So it mus' be true then, wha' they say abou' this gun."

Amri nodded, "I think so."

A long moment of silence passed between the two Guardians as Duncan continued to inspect the gun. It was in remarkable condition, considering how weathered everything about its exterior appeared. Whatever Guardian had owned this gun last had taken good care of it…

"I can't tell you exactly where she is. But this gun might be the start of the answer you're looking for," Amri ventured, adjusting his left sleeve so it was tucked into his glove in perfect order. He straightened his shoulders.

"How do you mean?" the Hunter asked.

Duncan's mind was racing a thousand light years a second as he tried to remember anything he'd ever overheard about that gun. But there was nothing that stood out; all he could remember were the boasting, prideful stories of Guardians who had won and lost this gun. Tales of the Crucible and legends who had long before lost their Light.

"Do you know the story of how this gun was made?" Amri asked, sitting down on the table beside Duncan. When the Hunter offered to return the hand cannon, the Warlock took it without a word.

Watching expert hands turn the weapon over and upon itself, inspecting the details, the Hunter replied, "Mos'ly, I think. Something abou' a rogue wanderer in the deserts. The fallen hero of humanity's failed attempt to colonize Mars."

"That's not entirely correct," Amri confessed. Laying a hand on his friend's shoulder, the Exo shook his head, "It was forged by the true hero of this tale. Created in the fires of rage that his mentor, your rogue wanderer, should have forsaken his Light for the dark sorcery of Thorn; the man who first wielded this hand cannon became the first of the Gunslingers. He drew out the true power of this gun from the common thing it was when it was first given to him. He killed the monster Thorn had created in the shell of one of the Traveler's first Guardians."

"You mean Dregen Yor?" Duncan asked. Then he added to clarify he wasn't talking about Amri's hero, "The Wanderer."

"Yor, Jaren," Amri dismissed. "Call him whatever you like. The Last Word destroyed not only Thorn but also the Guardian who wielded it. The Last Word's master made it home but Thorn's never did."

"This won' help Bailey," Duncan recoiled from the Warlock and the gun, turning his back on both of them as he hopped off of the table to look out at the last traces of sunlight fading behind mountains barely visible from his vantage in the Hangar.

If hurting her, extinguishing her Light, was the only way… Well, it would be someone else's hand to pull the trigger. Duncan couldn't destroy the person he loved most in the world. Even if the need would arise. Even if she asked it if him.

He could never be strong enough.

"I think you should take it with you, mate," Amri said. His voice had been soft, almost soothing, but Duncan didn't want to listen. "You can't know what to expect. She's been gone long enough Ikora has taken her name off of the list of missing Guardians. And the only thing we know for sure about that gun is it's unpredictable."

Duncan turned around to find the Warlock was offering him the gun. Shaking his head when the Warlock pressed the smooth handle into his palm, the Hunter sighed, "Amri, I can' take this-"

"Under the influence of Thorn, there's no telling what she might do," Amri cut him off.

Duncan looked at Amri and wrapped his hand around the gun, taking it from the Warlock. He nodded but found his throat was too dry to form any sort of reply. Whether or not he liked what his friend had to say, the Hunter trusted him. If Amri thought he should take the gun, he'd take it.

Having it didn't mean he'd have to use it…

It was seven weeks later, when the Hunter found himself trudging through a rather terrible sandstorm in a particularly unfamiliar portion of backcountry on Mars, he found his first real lead. He'd become separated from Ash and Amri following a short firefight with a small scouting regiment of Cabal.

It had been before the winds had picked up.

When it became evident the storm was severe enough Albert wasn't going to get a message out to the pair of them until it passed, Duncan decided to seek shelter. He happened upon what he'd thought to be an abandoned bunker by accident; a lucky chance.

Once inside, he'd found evidence a Guardian had claimed this shelter. Whether such claim was temporary or permanent remained to be seen.

As Duncan wandered across the threshold, his eyes focused on a table that had seen better days. There were a few old notebooks stacked up on the far corner and some broken pencils. Opening the cover of the top book revealed the volume was empty.

A few shreds of paper revealed the owner of the notebooks had taken with them whatever they had written. Biting his lower lip from behind the shelter of his helmet, Duncan picked up one of the broken pencils and pulled the top notebook forward. He pulled off his right glove and ran his fingertips over the smooth paper.

The faintest smile formed over his lips as he felt the invisible depressions another writer's pen had left in the page. He'd learned this science from Reyka; the Hunter had tried everything to find a clue about where her best friend had gone. The notebooks Bailey had left in the Tower had been empty of clues, but this one…

Brown eyes focused on the way the smooth graphite spread across the page, leaving behind the light lines the previous owner had unintentionally pressed into this page from the one previous. Duncan felt his heart racing in his chest and the Hunter tried to suppress the hope he felt.

Bailey had a strong, bold hand when she wrote. Heavy letters which would, often, press into the page behind them. Duncan tried to tell himself there were probably lots of Warlocks who pressed their own writing into the page too hard.

But there was something about finding these notebooks here on Mars that made the Hunter hopeful. Zavala wasn't interested in leading a research project on Mars. He was fighting a war. Ikora's scholars were not often stationed here; not the ones who might have carried pink notebooks, at least.

It was impossible to say what had been written on the page before but Duncan hadn't given up. Tearing it away from the metal spiral holding it in place, the Hunter folded it up and put it into one of the pouches at his waist like he'd just found the most precious treasure on all of Mars. Amri would know, once the winds died down, if there was a way to find out what had been written there.

"I'm close, Al," the Hunter muttered to his Ghost. "I jus' need her to make a mistake. Leave me a clue."

"You are the one to blame for teaching her how to sneak around undetected in the wilds," the Ghost reminded, flashing his light on a metal chair like he intended to suggest his Guardian sit down. And were he paying more attention to the weather, the Hunter would have understood.

Outside, the winds raged against the cliff walls which towered over the underground bunker where Duncan had made his camp. Smirking, the young man tried to bite back his smile, "Don' remind me, Al."

Duncan thought about all the time they'd spent in the Cosmodrome; him teaching her how to hide her tracks, how to exist without leaving a trace. He remembered chasing her through the hollowed out bodies of airplanes, letting her laughter and the sounds her robe made as it brushed against her surroundings remind him often of where she'd gone.

Remembering the way she'd gasp when he'd sneak up behind her to throw his arms around her waist brought an unwelcome tug of loneliness at his heart.

He had let her remain, always, one step ahead of him but he'd wanted to know she would be safe every time he wasn't there to watch out for her. The Hunter had taught the Warlock how to fire a sniper rifle; Traveler forbid she ever found herself in a situation where she'd need to practice the lesson. He'd taught her how scavenge for reserve ammo. How to hide when she was outnumbered. How to use the resources around her in ways she might not have considered.

And in return, she'd helped him find the simple joys in what might have otherwise been monotonous about his time alone in the field. Like the way it felt to have her back pressed against his chest in front of a campfire. Or what the stars looked like right before the sun would rise to snuff them out. Those memories only further convinced the Hunter he'd have to succeed in bringing her home.

If this bunker was, or ever had been, hers, she'd broken the first rule he'd ever taught her. Never leave behind a trace of anything someone might use to track you. But if it was hers, well, Duncan would be content just to find her and would happily spare her the lecture.

"I think she wants you to find her," Albert ventured, hovering to rest on the table beside his Guardian.

Pulling the glove back over his hand, Duncan laughed, "Whether she wan's it or no', I'm gonna find her, Al. I'm gonna find her and bring her home and buy her a new gun so we can leave tha' old one ou' here and forge' this whole thing ever happened."

"Yes, Guardian," Albert replied. "I have no doubt you will."