Hey guys! Sorry, this one took so long! My beta was overseas and really busy, and I couldn't find anyone to fill in for them. But I'm back with another chapter! Hope you enjoy~

After years in the Hidden, Skylar had thought she'd understood the basics of what it meant to keep secrets. Everyone had them, no matter who they were. Some things just weren't meant to be seen or heard or found. Everyone on her team, all of her friends, they had their secrets too, Cayde had certainly had his, and Skylar was no exception. Some secrets were never meant to be found – but sometimes they were more freely given then one could ever imagine. Standing there, in front of a long-dead legend, in the tomb that his father had made, she realized she still had quite a lot to learn about secrets.

"I can't believe this shit," Z grumbled, looking around the geometric room at the red and black of it all, the sterile feel that was so very void of life. But there had been a life, she'd seen and heard the life as they'd walked down here, told by the parent of that life. Felwinter. An Iron Lord, one of the first. Sometimes Skylar forgot the man had been an Exo, the lack of a number made it easy to forget when you'd never seen the person themselves. Then again, she'd never really looked too far into his story, and now she knew most of it, though the view was heavily one-sided.

"No kidding," Noble agreed, "I had no idea an AI could get so jealous that it would be willing to set something into motion that could have killed everything on this planet."

"Doesn't surprise me," Corvan said flatly, standing near Skylar as she looked over the body in the… coffin for a lack of a better term. His words didn't surprise her either, Corvan had made it pretty clear he didn't like Rasputin when they'd fought Xol together on Mars, and Skylar had never trusted it very much, but she'd trusted Ana. The Gunslinger on the other side of the open line had gone silent a few minutes before, maybe trying to let everything they'd all learned sink in. Skylar wondered how much the woman had already known.

Makes you wonder if you can trust it at all, the voice of the long dead Vanguard leader commented from off to the side. Andal, or Xol, had seemed far too interested in seeing all of this to miss out and Skylar had almost been spiteful enough to have Sterling get rid of the rifle. Like always though, she hadn't and now tugged at the strap holding the gun in place at the thought of it. The Warmind has access to weapons of mass destruction that he could decide to use on humanity at any point if he ever has another mood swing. Reminds me of Tevis when he ran out of smokes one time on a long mission. He got a touch moody the last week or so.

There he went again with information he couldn't possibly know. He could be making it up, she supposed, but it was elaborate and honestly unnecessary for him to do so. Once again, Skylar wonder who she was really talking to. Not that she could talk to him now, not with everyone in the room with her. Even if two of them knew about him. For now, she had to ignore the spirit's words, ask about it later maybe.

"Sky?" Z's voice ripped her from her thoughts and she blinked, looking away from the spirit to her friend which was giving her a slightly worried look that he quickly covered up. He knew about Xol now, and he seemed to realize as his eyes flicked to where her hand was wrapped around her rifle strap, what had happened. Telling him had not gone well — it wasn't often he lost his shit, and it was always a bit terrifying if she was honest. In the last month or so though, he'd seemed to have accepted it.

"Sorry, what?"

"Was just wondering what you thought of all of this. I mean the Vanguard has been helping Rasputin build a near doomsday weapon. Think we can trust it not to turn around and use it on us?"

Skylar almost commented that he was agreeing with a worm god but thought better of it quickly. She looked back towards the coffin and closed her eyes.

"I think it's sad," she said finally. "All of this is… Such a waste." Opening her eyes again she reached out and touched the broken Exo, the metal cold, the eyes unlit, it made her remember a different exo and she quickly pulled her hand away as if to shut the door on that memory. There was a long pause in the room, every single one of her teammates going quiet at her rather unexpected answer. Then, Z finally spoke up once more.

"Okay…Why?"

Why indeed. There were a lot of reasons she could say. The loss of a hero due to unexpected circumstances that lead to the downfall of the only real defense humans had before The City being a major one. That wasn't what Skylar found truly disheartening though.

"Because this proves how far we came as a race, to program and make something from nothing that would do this. It makes me sad to see how much we have lost."

Another pause.

"I… I don't understand," her friend admitted, and Skylar knew everyone was looking at her, but it wasn't her words that reached her friend first. It was Corvan, of all people, who still stood next to her.

"Rasputin has emotions," he stated. "It was overwhelmed by jealousy and felt betrayed."

"Okay…"

Corvan made an annoyed sound, but Skylar put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from doing something to her best friend.

"Humanity created an AI capable of feeling emotions, Z. Not just calculated responses or slowly malfunctioning systems like Failsafe. Real emotions that evolved from the events around them. That's what I'm talking about." When she looked at her friend, she found him thinking that over, eyes trained to the floor as he frowns. Truly thinking about how far humanity had been beaten down, and now struggled to climb back up. Skylar wondered if they'd ever achieve such a thing again. Could they even hope to do so without the Traveler helping them?

"Yeah okay… I guess I can get behind that." Z looked back up to her after a moment. "That's not really what I was asking about though. I get what this means for humanity but…"

"This shit scares me," she said quickly at his pause, looking around the room again at the twitches and tensing of posture and expressions from her family. "It reminds me of the stuff I saw down in that bunker in the Plaguelands. Enough to turn my stomach." She was the only one left of the clan that had gone into that hellhole and put down dead Iron Lords. Winter and Tristan were gone. It had been a horrible experience. This tomb in itself was horrible with the fact that it echoed the same design, if lacking the red wires of SIVA. Didn't make it much better. "But we don't have much of a choice," she admitted finally.

"… she's right," Haar said before Z could protest, the Exo having been silent through most of this. "We need his help, nothing else we can do. Not unless we want the Almighty to squish us all like bugs. Doesn't matter how fucked up this is, he's the only chance we have."

"Plus," Noble added. "We now have a timeline for those ships too. Z got us a starting point, sure, but now we have their movements on the radar, that's very valuable information." He scratched his neck frowning. "I don't think he'll do anything to us, I think he probably learned from all of this, and this is his way of telling us that."

Regret. Yet another emotion the AI had somehow learned to the smallest and largest degree, just like a human could. It was terribly sad, and yet amazing all at once. A beautiful mess. That seemed to sum up humanity, Skylar though. Humanity, and all its creations.

Sometimes, the best payoffs come from the priciest bets, Phantom, Andal told her. Just have to let it happen. Like how she'd willingly made a pact with a worm god, giving her power that kept all of them alive. It had been at a cost though, and she wondered what the cost for this choice would be.

"I agree with Noble," she said finally, "There's nothing we can do, and even if that weren't the case, it wouldn't be wise to do so. It's possible we'll need the Warmind in the coming battle against the pyramid ships. We don't have a whole lot of allies in this war, best not to hamstring the ones we do."

"We'll just keep a close eye on it," Corvan grumbled, to which Z snorted.

"Weren't you already doing that?"

"Knock it off guys," Skylar cut in before the two Hunters could start puffing their egos up like plumes on an angry set of birds. Crovan looked at her, his expression flat, but after a few moments, he relaxed his stance again and crossed his arms. Sighing, she shook her head. "Corvan has a point. We'll keep helping, but I think it's important we be watchful from now on."

All four of her friends, her team, her family, nodded without hesitation. When it came down to the important stuff, they always found they had the same answer in the end. Looking back at the dead Exo of legend, she scanned his robotic features one last time before turning away.

"I don't know about you guys, but I could use a drink."

Another chorus of grumbled agreement and she couldn't help but smile as they headed out the metal tomb and back into the fading sunlight.

-Cayde-

Flashes. Flashes of color. They skidder like thrall across his dreams, jumbled and bright and it hurts – hurts so much and yet-!

Cayde didn't recognize his own scream at first, never having heard the human variant of it before, but the way his throat prickled with pain told him it was his. Fists clenching into the sheets of his bed, his head still ringing, he blinked away sleep as he stared at the wall of his room. He'd sat up without even realizing it, his breath coming out hard and fast, his heart pounding in his ears.

What…what was that?

He didn't know, none of it made any sense at all, just flashes. So why had it hurt and felt wonderful all at once? Taking in a deep breath, he shook his head and almost on some kind of old retained habit, he turned to his left to look at the spot next to him.

It was empty.

Empty and cold and unused, the covers only ruffled from his own movement. Something seized in his chest at the sight and whatever calm he'd started to get back from his nightmare was shattered into a million pieces. He couldn't breathe. His throat clenched, a hand moving to grasp at it as he wheezed.

It was empty. Why? WHY?

Of course, it was empty, it's always been empty.

No. It's wrong, very, VERY wrong.

Panic flooded every cell in his body, his mind grappling for control — for something, anything that made sense for this sudden onslaught of emotion that reached for something he couldn't even name. Something pawed and scraped and tickled at that black spot in his head where those memories and thoughts had gone and Cayde kicked the blankets right off the bed as if doing so would make him realize nothing was ever there.

WRONG. It was wrong.

"Shit." His breath was so tight, his ribcage living up to its name, caging him — caging his lungs. Trapping air, preventing from being used. Something slick was sliding down his neck, his arms, a buzzing sound echoing in his ears just above the pounding in his head.

He was going crazy.

He needed help.

Scrambling, he turned, stumbling out of bed to his dresser and almost falling on the damn thing. His hand – shaking so hard it's embarrassing – struggled for a moment to pick up the comm given to him month ago. Shiro. He'll call Shiro. Maybe his friend would know what the hell was going on. His fingers twitched over the channel buttons as he leaned against the dresser, listening to it dial and ring.

The world was spinning. He couldn't get enough air in his lungs — what if he passed out?

"Cayde?" The female – and most certainly not Shiro – voice came out of the comm, startling him enough that he almost dropped it. "Are you alright?"

Could she hear him breathing? He could hear it, rasping out like he'd run for miles and miles before finally stopping. He clenched the device harder in his hand.

"Skylar? I-sorry. I mean-t to call Shiro." He sucked in a breath. "Sorry, I'll just-"

"Wait," Skylar snapped out and he flinched, pausing. "Shiro is in a silent run mission right now Cayde, you won't get through. Now, what's wrong?"

Great. Just fucking great.

"I…" he swallowed. "Aren't you on a mission too?"

"Yes," she answered and he almost hung up. "But I'm just in my ship right now, taking a break."

Well, hell, it was the middle of the night, wasn't it?

"I… I woke you up? I'm S-orry." He can't breathe. Why was it empty – of course it was empty, dammit.

"Cayde, what's wrong?" Her voice was steady, something completely different from his own. "Something is wrong… I can hear you nearly panting over there. Take a breath and tell me what's wrong."

"I can't!" he gets up, leaning harder into the furniture. "I can't breathe – everything is spinning and I can't…"

Silence. Just the gentle buzz of com interference for the longest few seconds of his life.

"You're having a panic attack," she said finally, and Cayde blinked, trying to remember what that was, his mind warping and twisting and wrong.

"Ho-w do I make it stop?" It needed to stop – it NEEDED to stop.

"I need you to concentrate on my voice," she answered him, her voice still even, calm, but nearly an order. He could follow orders. "Can you focus on my voice, Cayde?"

"Yeah…"

"Okay… Are you standing?"

"Not really. Leaning…"

"Sit down. If you're in your room, go sit on your bed, plant your feet flat on the ground." It sounded so silly, but his throat was starting to hurt from the clenching and the gasping air and his head was spinning so he did as he was told, pushing up and wobbling over to his bed. It creaked like always under the weight on the edge of it, but he focused on his feet, planting them firmly.

"Okay… got it."

"I want you to follow my lead, okay? Take in some deep breaths: in through your nose, out through your mouth. Slowly." She demonstrates it, the sound of her breath flow in and then out.

"But I can't I c-can't breathe."

"You can," she assured him, "It might feel like you can't, but I promise you can. Now try with me."

He listened. It was the only thing he could do because if he didn't focus on her his mind jumped back to the empty bedside. He breathed in – and he could breathe, he found – slowly, keeping up with her pace and then blowing it back out. After five sets, his mind cleared slightly, though his hands still shook, his chest still clenched.

"Keep doing that, okay?" she murmured, "I want you to just… listen, okay?"

"Okay…" Closing his eyes, Cayde went back to controlling his breathing, wondering if the silent empty room would cave in on him with his long breaths. After a few more, something came over the mic, but it wasn't talking.

The sound was soft and methodic and… pretty. It's musical, the tune drawing his attention away from underlying thoughts aside from his breathing. Humming. Skylar was humming. He didn't recognize the song, but it's…nice. She has a nice voice. His fingers tightened on the device again, wishing she was there so he could hear it clearer, but she wasn't.

So, he just listened, like she asked, the sound filling his mind and slowly but surely his chest stopped hurting and the buzzing in his head dwindled to nothing. It helped, more than he could have hoped for. Taking in another deep breath, he blew it out.

"What's the song from?" he asked quietly, and after a moment, the sound stopped and part of him regretted it, but she couldn't hum and answer his question at the same time.

"I don't know." There's a sound, like the groaning of his bed but sharper, more pronounced. She was probably sitting on a cot. "I've just always had it in my head, ever since I first woke up. No one I've ever asked seems to know what it is either."

"It's nice," he commented, "It sounded nice."

Another long beat of silence and then she sighed quietly.

"Are you feeling better?" Her deflection was noted, but Cayde let it happen for the moment, really thinking about her question.

"A bit, yeah," he assured her, "I think I'm grounded back in reality at least… shit. I can't remember the last time that happened." Even his nightmares of the Deep Stone Crypt had never left him in such a state. They were awful, yes — he'd often wake up in twisted bedding, gasping for air — but it went away quickly… most times. "Sorry I woke you up."

"No one should be alone during something like that," she soothed, "I'm a Hunter, losing some sleep will hardly do me in. This is more important." You're more important. She didn't say the words, but Cayde heard them between the lines. "Do you want to talk about it? It's fine if you don't, but I always thought it helped, even if it was hard."

"You've… had these?" That was hard to believe. Skylar was always so levelheaded, so confident when he spoke to her. Then again, he liked to think he was good at making people believe he was a certain way too. A memory of them on their roof, her clinging to his back came to mind. Maybe she wasn't quiet as unbreakable as she wanted people to believe either.

"Yeah," she answered without pause, "There was a period of time where I had them constantly. They were terrible, but for the most part I always had someone there to help me back to reality. To talk to, or just be there."

"You'll think I'm crazy."

"No, I won't. I won't ever think you're crazy, Cayde."

"It's so… I don't know. Weird." He ran his free hand through his hair, combing it backward. His hand was so slick with sweat the strands didn't move back instantly when he let go. "I had this dream… something. All I remember are colors: the orange color of Solar Light and this dark blue. I…" He moved to glance over his shoulder, but stopped, unwilling to risk it. "I woke up screaming and that's… I don't know why I was. Then I glanced to the other side of the bed, and it was like I'd lost the ground, like everything had gone wrong. The bed was empty and for some reason it felt horribly wrong that it was, but it always had been, every night since I came back… Even before that in most occasions." He pressed his hand over his eyes and took in a long breath. "I don't know why I started freaking out."

"I see…" Her words came out in a whisper, and she shifted again, another sharp squeak. "I'm sorry that happened, but I'm glad you reached out, even if you didn't mean to reach me."

"Honestly, you probably did better than Shiro would have," He'd expected to be in knots for a while as his friend tried to get his mind off of things but Skylar – the humming tune – he couldn't believe how fast it had worked. Glancing behind him at the bed, he felt a twinge in his chest and looked away again.

Damn it. What was wrong with him?

"How did you know to try humming?" he asked, distracting himself. He heard the sound of ruffling cloth, like she was fidgeting. He supposed she was bit uneasy about all this, and Cayde wondered if he should take his question back, she'd done enough.

"There was a… person I was with before he died, he used to have nightmares," she said finally, her voice so quiet he could hardly hear it. Cayde winced, so it was a sore subject – Tevis. "Sometimes it would be bad and at first I didn't know what to do. He'd always helped me but…" She sighed. "One time I just decided to try it, he'd always liked the tune before, and it helped, so it just became something I did while keeping him close. I wasn't sure it would help you, but I'm glad it did. Maybe the song is magic or something?" She tried to joke, to brush it off, but her voice didn't match it very well. He frowned, looking down at the comm unit and wishing he could see her face.

Cayde couldn't even begin to imagine Tevis having nightmares like that. He'd hardly ever seen the guy sleep, though, so that might have been the reason. He remembered once on a mission, the Nightstalker had jolted awake from a dream and he'd been bother for a while afterwards, but Cayde never asked about it.

Maybe he should have.

"I doubt it's the song," he said offhand, smiling slightly, "You have a nice voice."

Her reaction wasn't what he expected. A soft laugh came through the feed, nothing exuberant but he could tell it was real — maybe a reaction to the complement. He smiled, his hand finally relaxing around the device, a thumb running over it idly.

"Thanks…you think you can get some sleep?" Her quick change of topics confirmed her embarrassment.

"Trying to get rid of me?" he joked.

"No! I'm just… You sound exhausted." So did she. He kept that to himself, though, and Cayde took a moment to assess himself, the edges of panic lingered but it was better. He told her as much.

"That sounds about right," she murmured, understand completely and Cayde had to stop from asking. If she didn't want to share that, he couldn't fault her. "You should still rest. I can keep you company for a while if you want?" Surprise ran though him and once again Cayde was reminded that she was tired too, but she was still…

"Aren't you busy?"

"Hidden missions aren't always that urgent, this one isn't. It's fine."

"Can you tell me what you're doing?" he couldn't help himself. She laughed again, louder, stronger this time and he swallow hard. Why couldn't he have a holo-communicator?

"Only if you promise to lay down, then yes, I'll tell you a story," she teased and he let out a short laugh himself but couldn't disagree. Avoiding the other side of the bed, he did just that, laying down.

"Ready." He shifted slightly.

She snorted. "Alright."

Cayde wasn't sure when he drifted off, the sound of her voice soothing as she spoke of a city near the coast on Earth, but he did. When he woke up the next morning, looking to the other side of the bed caused no pain, no anxiety, and he sighed, relieved down into his bones. As sun filtered in through the blinds, all he could think about was how much of a dumbass Tevis was for getting himself killed when he had someone like Skylar waiting for him to come home.

Sorry, not sorry Cayde.

Thanks for reading!