Nobody mentioned that the pieces wouldn't fit
You can rearrange them all you want, but the puzzle it was rigged

We swore we'd never stray
Right before we went our separate ways
And now we're looking back
We're second guessing all the choices that we made

Any Sort of Certainty – Streetlight Manifesto

April 3, 2961, 18:58; The Last City, Earth

Cayde took in the room. It was far neater than it had been in several days- bed made, sink cleaned, clutter… well, there was still clutter everywhere, but now it was in organized stacks instead of just strewn about.

Azra always kept her spaces more tidy than Cayde did. He wondered what she'd done with this room after he'd died. Had she left it as it was? Had she moved out? Packed up all the junk and tried to live with the ghosts?

She was packing now, shoving books and power cells into a drawstring bag. It had only been a second since Cayde had opened the door, and she apparently was too wrapped up in what she was doing to notice the squeak of the hinges.

"All ready to head out?" Cayde asked casually. (He could have added some bitterness to his voice, but he didn't.)

Azra spun to face him, and there as guilt all over her. Like when you walked in on someone slacking off at work. (Cayde was usually the one getting caught, these days.) "I was about to come find you," she said.

It was the truth. She'd relaxed too quickly, spoke too calmly, for her to be lying. She was a terrible liar- it was something Cayde loved about her. You always knew where you stood with her. When she was happy, you could trust it. When she was mad, she couldn't hide it from you.

When she felt guilty, like she did now, it was in every line of her- her eyes downturned, her shoulders hunched.

"You thought I wouldn't notice?" Cayde asked gently.

"No," Azra said. "I was about to go talk to you."

But she still looked guilty. In all honesty, she hadn't stopped looking guilty in three weeks.

Cayde didn't know how to fix that. He didn't know how to fix anything, these days. The sun shone, the Earth spun, the City stood, and yet it still felt like everything was falling apart. He wished there was some enemy to fight- some big baddie to pump lead into, or some idiot he could wheedle and trick into helping him- but that just wasn't the case. He couldn't charm the trauma away any more than he could shoot Andal back into existence. He had to play the hand he'd been dealt.

"Got time for dinner?" Cayde asked.

April 4, 2961, 02:46 (local time); Crew's Camp, near Mount Olympos, Cyprus

It was a dinner in the old style of things. Cayde, Shiro, and Azra got takeout and went back to Camp. It was dead nighttime in Cyprus, but Shiro had stoked the campfire into high flames and set out a few lanterns in anticipation. They'd gotten ramen. Cayde had suggested it in a joking-but-not-really-joking way, like he'd expected the usual argument, but neither Azra nor Shiro had put up resistance. It seemed both of them had bigger things on their minds.

So the three of them ended up sitting around the fire, slurping noodles out of whatever bowls and pots had been sitting around. The past few years, Cayde wouldn't have been able to join them. He hadn't been allowed to leave the City- family dinners were held at restaurants or crammed into Cayde's room. But this time he'd just stared down Ikora and said, "I'll be back in a few hours." Ikora hadn't even looked surprised about it.

Even with him in attendance, even safe at Camp with the cool night air, the atmosphere was gloomy. Shiro was obviously frustrated about something, stabbing at his noodles with violence, his focus turned inwards. Cayde was trying to play it cool, but he was worried.

And Azra? She knew what she was doing. She'd found a path to follow and she'd stuck to it- but she was fraying from both ends. She was burned out. She didn't have the space anymore to handle the awkwardness.

Cayde very quickly ran out of conversation topics. Shiro was wrapped around himself about some trouble and Azra wasn't picking up a side of the friendly debate like she usually did. Cayde figured he could start a more serious argument if he wanted to- it might clear the air- but with everything going on, he didn't dare stoke any more fires.

He burned through all of the relevant Tower gossip (there wasn't much; half of it was about Azra right now anyway), the newest foundry releases, and the Vanguard's upcoming strike projects, and then he realized he had nothing insubstantial left to talk about. Shiro and Azra seemed to be okay with letting some silence rule, but Cayde never had been good with the quiet. He told himself it was because he got bored easy, but in all reality, his mind didn't tend to go to good places if left to its own devices.

"Zavala apologized to me this morning," Cayde offered. "Like, actually apologized."

That got Shiro and Azra at least looking at him instead of staring into their soup. "Did you forgive him?" Shiro asked.

"…No," Cayde replied. He'd been tempted, sure, but he couldn't tell right now how much of that urge was real forgiveness and how much was him just wanting the mess to go away.

The three of them considered the situation for a moment. Cayde slurped up another mouthful of noodles and started mentally rifling through his pocketbook for something else to talk about. (Honestly, Zavala? There weren't many worse topics to bring up right now.)

Azra saved him, blurting out a question. "Can you tell me what happened? After the Prison of Elders?"

Cayde choked on his noodles. Shiro straightened in his seat, startled, seeming to finally sense the tension in the air. "Spark didn't tell you?" he asked.

"I want to hear it from you," was all Azra said.

Cayde wiped his mouth and looked at her. She was tense, but she was tired, too. "Y'ain't gonna pass out again on me, are ya?" he asked.

That made her hesitate. "I don't know," she said. Mindfully, she set her half-eaten noodles on the ground behind her log, where they wouldn't get knocked into if there was a scuffle. "I'll try, but-"

"You should know," Shiro agreed. "You have a right, out of everyone. It's been three weeks and you still haven't gotten the whole story?"

Cayde set aside his bowl, too. "Let's start with what you know." It would give him time to organize his thoughts.

Azra breathed deep. Her hands were clenched tight in her lap. "After… after the fight in the Prison, I left you and Spark behind and left with Uldren. You went back to the City to report, and when the rest of the Vanguard decided to not send a rescue party, you left yourself. They tried to stop you, and you… you told them to fuck off, in essence."

"In my defense, I had basically every Hunter in the Tower on my side," Cayde said.

Azra looked at him, nonplussed. "I'm not judging. I made that exact same decision myself, back when it was me. Or worse, even, because I was just after revenge. I couldn't get you back. You at least could do something."

The guilt was so obvious. Honestly, it reminded Cayde of Andal. Both he and Azra had this nasty habit of claiming the responsibility for all the bad decisions for themselves. "I never wanted to get you involved in all of this Vanguard stuff," he told her. "Me and Andal… yeah, we were dumb. But it shouldn't affect you, too. That's why I wrote you out of my will."

Azra was wry. "I'm your sister," she said. "Of course I'm involved in it. I can't not be."

That made Cayde's throat close up in guilt (and not an inconsiderate amount of grief). He looked up at Shiro, but the expression on his face was too… too something. He should be angry- angry at Cayde for letting this happen, angry at Azra for just blindly following through with it- but he wasn't. He was understanding. Like this entire thing wasn't one enormous fuck-up.

Azra kept talking. "You went to Spider, cut a deal with him, then went to fight the Barons. They all escaped, except when they were getting away, you… uh, ran… into me?"

Her face had gone pale, her eyes a bit wild. Cayde let her catch her breath a bit before clarifying. "We knew there was something up," he said. "Figured you wouldn't trade Spark for about anything in the System. So it wasn't a surprise, exactly…" Azra looked positively sick. "It wasn't like no horror movie, you know, body snatchers or zombies all shambling around. Just like… you were there, but the lights weren't on."

Azra rubbed a hand over her face. "That's about as far as we got," she said. "I don't know what happened after that."

Cayde picked up the line. "It was just me and Petra, at first. We decided to hunt the Barons individually. Methodical-like. After a few days, your Veera came to join us."

Azra frowned at that one. "I wasn't sure if she had. She did last time. This time… I guess it's not a shock, but she didn't tell me."

"It wasn't a secret," Shiro said. "She probably assumed you knew?"

"Shiro here came to join the party, too," Cayde said easily. "Wasn't much of a struggle after that. Wrapped all of them up all nice and neat and dead, chased Uldren and the Fanatic down to the Watchtower."

"Me and Veera locked down the outside," Shiro said. "Killed the Fanatic. Cayde went ahead to run down Uldren."

"Did you kill him?" Azra asked.

June 16, 2960; The Watchtower, Tangled Shore

Cayde had no time to watch the dying Taken-Servitor-Monster-Thing. It screeched dramatically as it got sucked back to whatever fucked-up spaghetti plane it came from, but Cayde only had eyes for what fell out of its stomach when it went.

Prince Uldren hit the ground with a dull thud and a wheeze. He was still alive.

Good.

Cayde walked right up to him and pointed the Ace at his head. He hadn't reloaded since killing the Meatball, but there were still two rounds in the chamber. Plenty for his purposes. Everything else in the room was dead.

Uldren looked up at him and chuckled. It made the fire in Cayde's core ignite. Uldren didn't get to be smug and charming. Not after everything he'd done.

"Congratulations," the Awoken Prince rasped. "You have my undivided attention." He sat up a little straighter, trembling with the exertion. His face morphed from wry acceptance to hatred. "Now. Where's. My. Sister?"

Cayde pulled back the hammer on the Ace (she was semi-automatic, so it was really just for emphasis). "Where's mine?" he hissed back.

Uldren just tilted his head towards the glowing portal on the other side of the room. "She went on ahead," he said. Too cool. Too casual.

"Call her back," Cayde ordered.

Uldren just grinned and gestured with an empty hand. "I don't have a radio," he said. "Neither does she."

Cayde could have shot him right there. Cayde would have shot him right there, but Petra had finally made her way over to them. She pointed her own gun at Uldren.

"Where's Mara," Uldren insisted again.

"She's not here," Petra said. "If she was… this would be a whole lot easier." Her eye was hard, her aim unwavering.

Uldren watched her warily for a second before seeming to give up. He leaned back with a sigh. "So. This is to be a reckoning."

Cayde's finger tightened on the trigger. But-

But Cayde asked himself the question. The one he'd been asking himself constantly over the past weeks- through Baron Hunts and negotiations with Spider, as he was led from place to place, tossed between the Planes, struggling to keep his head up and his feet down and his eyes on the next target-

What would Azra do?

Azra would ask more questions. Questions like, what's the most important thing here? What do we need? How do we get it? She was always good at keeping them all on track.

Cayde eased back the hammer and holstered his gun. "Do what you want with Uldren," he said to Petra. "I'm not here for him."

"Cayde," Petra called in warning.

"I got my own family squabbles to sort out without getting involved in yours," Cayde said, walking over to the portal Uldren had pointed out. "Kill 'im if you want to, I don't give two shits. Hell, I don't even give one! Maybe… a third of a shit. Call it two fifths."

He'd rambled long enough that Petra couldn't get a word in to protest- he was already at the threshold by the time she'd opened her mouth. Cayde just gave a cheeky salute and stepped through. His last image of Uldren was him staring at Cayde, exhausted and surprised and angry and-

It didn't matter. Uldren didn't matter.

April 4, 2961, 03:17 (local time); Crew's Camp, near Mount Olympos, Cyprus

"No," Cayde said. "I didn't kill him."

That made Azra's eyebrows arch high in surprise. "Really?"

"I… I guess I was just trying to do what you'd do," Cayde mumbled.

Azra let out a harsh bark of laughter. "I killed him." The humor quickly passed from her face. "Though, I guess things were different for you."

"If you'd died, I wouldn't hesitate," Cayde said. "But he'd said you'd gone ahead through the portal, and I guess I was just more worried about you than I was angry at him. Plus, Petra had it handled."

Azra's face went white with a sudden realization. "He's dead, right? She did kill him?"

"Yeah, yeah," Cayde grumbled.

Azra relaxed somewhat. "Good."

"You'd go kill him if she hadn't yet?" Cayde guessed.

Azra nodded, fidgeting with her cloak. "So the portal was open and you went through. Did you find me?"

Cayde grimaced. "No. You were long gone, and the Dreaming City is a big place. Then Petra got all twisted up in a knot about this Ahamkara situation- we got a raid team together and decided to tackle that first."

"Once the cat… er, dragon, was out of the bag, it was a bit clearer exactly what had happened," Shiro explained. "You were Cursed, somehow. Hoped if we killed Riven it would fix things."

"Kind of did the opposite," Cayde grumbled.

Azra nodded. "What next? Uldren dies, you come back from the Dreaming City-"

"He didn't go back to the Tower," Shiro explained. "Fireteam Dauntless was chomping at the bit to get a piece of the action. I ran ops. Cayde went with them."

Cayde shrugged, nonchalant. "We'd cleared out the Tech Witches and the Ogre and then there you were. Prize at the center of the Vault."

Azra didn't speak, still pale, still frowning. "We tried to just catch you," Cayde said, "But you were too quick. And the planar boundaries were real thin, there- half of us ended up flipside in the Ascendant Plane. Got a bit scattered, and a bit desperate-"

Shiro interjected. "Veera killed you."

Azra's mouth began to move in the shape of a word, but then it happened- her eyes unfocused, her shoulders slacked, then she crumpled like a piece of spinfoil. Shiro lunged and caught her before she could get a concussion. "Back up," Cayde warned. "She can get feisty when she wakes up."

Shiro did, laying her flat on the ground by her log and taking several measured steps backwards. There was a moment of quiet. Azra didn't appear to be breathing.

"Hey, Spark?" Cayde thought to ask. "You there?" He hadn't asked before- if her Ghost wasn't caught up in this memory, he might be useful in keeping things calm once it was over.

"He dropped off the radar when Azra spaced out," Sundance said.

Cayde swore in disappointment. There wasn't time to say anything else. Azra jerked, then took a gasp that turned into a cough as she choked on her own breath. She rolled over, cat-quick, hacking. Her shoulders shook.

"Easy," Cayde soothed. "Everything's alright. You know where you are, sweetheart?"

Azra finally cleared her airway. She looked up at Cayde, then over to Shiro, then back at Cayde again, still confused.

"It's April third, two-nine-six-one," Shiro said. "Or I guess it's past midnight here, April fourth. We were having dinner and telling the story of what happened after the Prison."

The confusion cleared from Azra's face in an instant. It was replaced with weariness. "Oh," she said. She got up and brushed herself off, taking time to re-settle her cloak. Something about the tired acceptance of it all made Cayde's stomach roil. There were tears in Azra's eyes he knew weren't just from the coughing.

"What did you remember?" Shiro asked.

"Fighting Veera," Azra replied shortly.

"I've been meaning to ask," Shiro said. "You used these crazy-looking Void blades. I've never seen them before."

Azra took a breath and flexed her forearms. Two wicked knives made from Void Light appeared in her grasp with a crack like brittle metal snapping.

Shiro held out a hand. "Can I see?"

Azra passed one to him. "They're not new," she said. "I'd picked this up a few months into my exile. I'd seen someone else use them."

"What's it called?" Shiro asked.

Azra just shrugged. "I didn't talk to them," she said. "Too risky. And I didn't bother name them for myself."

Shiro hummed thoughtfully and twirled the blade in his hand. "Why these to fight Veera? Why not your Staff?"

Azra considered the Void fire crawling up her arm. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times as she searched for words. "…I would have beaten Veera if I'd used my Staff," she finally said.

"You lost on purpose?" Shiro asked.

"Not… I didn't… I didn't have any purpose left," Azra said.

"But you were fighting back," Cayde supplied. (He could hope, right?)

Azra shook her head again. "It wasn't… me, trapped in a box, banging on the lid, or me with strings I could pull against. It's just… I could have killed Petra. She tracked us… somewhere. I don't know where, I can't remember, but I remember I almost killed her. I would have. But she was mid-range and I drew the Bow, and it… let me not care as much? And I missed."

"Huh," was all Shiro said. He was still inspecting the knife. "Why no Bow this time?"

"…I don't know," Azra said. "Veera'd close the distance too fast. That Dawnblade. Uldren told me to kill anyone that followed me and I couldn't not try."

Everything was too much, all of the sudden. Cayde interrupted. "I'm gonna go for a walk."

The two younger Hunters looked at him. It was clear by their faces they weren't buying his nonchalance.

Too bad. Cayde needed a minute. He left them sitting there holding their blades and stalked off in a random direction.

It was real dark outside of Camp. It was the dead of night, after all, and the foliage was thick in the forest. The crescent moon would barely have risen yet. Cayde could have asked Sundance for a flashlight or turned up his own shiny parts, but he left it dark.

He found a rock by his foot and threw it, hard. It whiffed through the underbrush before cracking loudly against a tree. He picked up another one and threw it. It got caught in a bush or something and thudded to the ground before it could hit anything. Unsatisfying.

At this rate, Cayde would be here for hours. It was going to take a lot of rocks to dim the rage burning in his ribcage. Fuck. Everything was so fucked.

"Cayde?" a voice asked from behind him.

It was Azra, but he'd already whirled around, his newest rock cocked back and ready to throw. Azra's face could barely be made out in the dimness. It was blue-cast (the only light here was from Cayde's optics), only being distinguishable by the contrast of her skin against the dark trees.

Cayde sighed and dropped his rock. As he vocalized, the orange of his throat lights washed out the pale blue, providing enough light to see the wary expression on her face.

"I'll leave if you want," Azra said, concerned-like. "It's just... what's wrong?" The concern was warranted, Cayde admitted to himself. It wasn't like him to abandon conversation to go throw rocks around in the woods.

"I'm angry," Cayde said. "It's just… I get sloppy once, one time, run ahead, and either I die and you get pushed into the Vanguard seat and Cursed and exiled and murdered… or you save my ass and get Cursed anyways and fucking mind controlled and traumatized and the Dreaming City gets screwed over. This is all my fault."

Azra crossed her arms. "Did you know?"

"Did I know what," Cayde snapped back. He needed another rock.

"Did you know all that before running ahead? Psychic, are you?"

"I should have been more careful!" Cayde yelled. "It's not like I knew the Dreaming City was at stake, but it's fucking combat! I was an idiot. One toe dipped back into the deep end and I'm as reckless as a fucking Kinderguardian. I thought I was better than that."

"Alaia Ruse wasn't better than that," Azra pointed out. "Kauko Swiftriver wasn't. Andal wasn't. I wasn't, in the end." She shook her head. "You get locked up so long, when you do finally get out, you're rusty, or just trying to… get back to business the way you're used to it. To do something useful for once. And you're alone, 'cause you're not supposed to be out, and you die. It's happened to most of the Vanguards."

"Maybe I shouldn't have been on that mission at all," Cayde lamented.

"Maybe they shouldn't stake so much on one person and then put them in a position practically tailor-made to drive them stir crazy," Azra said. "Maybe they're wrong, not you." There was real anger in her voice. She didn't even sound surprised at the rebellious conclusion she'd drawn.

Cayde double-took. Azra was mischievous, pushing boundaries and ignoring practically every warning thrown her way- but at the end of the day, she was just as much a sucker for the rules as Andal had been. At the end of the day, she'd die to protect the established order of things. Hell, in her own timeline, hadn't she basically told the Vanguard to exile her, just for their own reputations?

But right now, the look in her eye- If Cayde said 'screw the Vanguard, I'm running away,', she'd cheer for it. If he proposed some devious plan to destroy the command structure from within, she'd burn the Tower to the ground right alongside him.

Cayde wasn't ready for that. Not yet.

"You're angry at me," he guessed instead. "For taking that Dare, all those years ago."

"Yes, I'm angry at you for taking the Dare!" Azra exclaimed. "I'm angry at Andal for proposing it in the first place! I'm angry at Kauko for getting himself killed and leaving us all high and dry without a Vanguard! I'm angry at Tallulah, for setting up this damn system. The Iron Lords, all haring off on their doomed, idiot mission and dying and forcing the rest of us to step up and fill their shoes. I'm angry at the Speaker for twisting our collective arms about it for two and a half hundred years. I'm angry at Zavala and Ikora, for just letting it happen. Saint and Osiris, too. Deciding it isn't their place. I'm angry at all the people who decided it wasn't their place, every damn Hunter who kept their head down or removed themselves from the system instead of doing the work to try to fix it."

She took a deep breath, pulling back from her tirade. "That's… that's a lot of people to be angry at. What do you even do with that, but decide to burn the whole world down?"

Cayde put a hand on her head and ruffled her hair. Normally, she would grumble and pull away, but this time, she stood there and took it. Even leaned into it a bit, maybe.

Cayde gave up on the charade of toughness and just hugged her. She held on tight.

"Mind if I join you two?" Shiro interrupted from the darkness.

"Got bored with your new toy already?" Cayde teased.

"Got worried you'd gotten lost and fallen in a hole," Shiro snarked right back. He stepped closer, brushing Cayde's shoulder, putting a hand on Azra's back.

"I'm sorry," Azra said, pulling away to wipe tears from her face.

Cayde shushed her. "I'm the one supposed to be out here getting all moody. You're stealing my thunder. Man can't even get himself worked up into a proper righteous fury these days."

Azra laughed at that- weakly, but it was a laugh. Cayde took it as a win.

"Azra, this mission you're planning... you are coming back, aren't you?" Shiro asked. When Cayde and Azra gave him surprised looks, he just shrugged. "Whatever you've been cooking up, you haven't exactly been subtle about it," he said defensively.

Azra shook off her shock and nodded fiercely. "I'm not even leaving," she said. A knot of worry Cayde didn't even know he was carrying loosened. Azra still looked guilty, scrambling to explain herself. "There's something I have to take care of, and it's just… It's complicated-"

Shiro cut her off before she could start rambling. "You're the time travel expert. We trust you."

Cayde grabbed her shoulder. "Just… you're sure you want to do this alone?" he asked. "I'll go. Zavala can take his concern and shove it up his own ass-"

"I cleared my schedule for the next two weeks," Shiro interrupted. "I can do more if it'll take longer."

"And you know, Veera-"

Azra put her hands up. "It'll take like, six hours. And I'm not expecting any fights."

"Just know we'll be ready," Shiro said. "Call, we'll come. I promise."

Some of the tension went out of Azra. Not all of it, but Cayde looked her over and decided it would have to be enough. "I'm not makin' judgements on what you do or don't have to do," he said, "but please… please look after yourself? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?"

Azra snickered and shoved Cayde in his chest. "Bribe me with fruit?"

"Pleeeeeaaaaaaase?" Cayde drawled like a City toddler begging for a new toy.

"Fine, fine!" Azra exclaimed. "I will look after myself. Water. Food. Eight hours of sleep. Emotional consideration. The whole works."

"That goes for you too, Spark," Cayde warned. "I know you've been running all over the system looking for answers these past months. Slow down. Watch each other's backs."

"Wouldn't do it any other way," Spark said.

Sundance appeared in realspace alongside him. "Not to interrupt, but all that ramen you guys left just sitting back there in the clearing? I'm pretty sure there's a fox getting into it right now."

The three Hunters swore in unison.