Eyes Up, Guardian

Chapter 13

The next three hours passed in a hazy blur. Damian could hardly think straight, his fear for Tessa eating him up on the inside, making him feel sick to his stomach. Because he'd come in with Cayde and Ikora, he'd been able to go into the observation room with them, watching as the doctors operated on Tessa. As they watched, the doctors began to reach the stage in the operating room where they frantically demanded tools from each other in order to keep Tessa alive. The stress proved to be too much for him, and he had to stumble off to the bathroom before he lost the contents of his stomach. They didn't allow him back in after that.

Ikora had called in a few warlocks that specialized in the medical field, and then had left soon after. Cayde had been in and out, as a vanguard leader, he didn't have time to stand around and wait for Tessa, especially not with the brand new Taken threats. But, he was clearly still worried, and had made sure he was kept up to date on any changes. It was more than Damian got as he sat in the waiting room.

Currently, Cayde was somewhere in the hospital, taking a break from monitoring his scouts on Phobos to look after Tessa. Damian was sitting in the waiting room, leaning back with his head against the wall, listening to Kylie's possible explanation as to how Tessa might have managed to look natural and alright before she'd passed out. Unfortunately the explanation was not comforting. Exhaustion pulled at him, but Damian doubted he'd ever be able to get a decent nights sleep again, and he surely wasn't going to get a wink until he knew Tessa was going to be alright.

Footsteps sounded down the hall, a slow, unhurried gait heading towards him. He raised his head as Cayde stopped, leaning on the wall just before the hallway opened up into the waiting room, looking around the corner at him. Their eyes met for a moment, and Cayde looked as tired as he felt, his movements almost sluggish as he pushed himself off the wall and took a seat on a chair in the row of chairs just across from him.

"She's been out of surgery for a while now. I won't say she's comfortable, but she'll be alright. The main issues were punctured lungs, internal bleeding, things like that. She's resting now, she probably won't wake up for a while. If her light levels stay where they're at, she could be out for a few days at least." His voice was almost husky. Tired, soft, fitting the quiet room around them.

"You saw her?" Damian asked, Cayde nodded. He hadn't thought it was worth it to ask. Since Guardians didn't really have families, there was a different system for who could see them in times of emergency like this. Either the ghost served as the advocate, or the guardian themselves had to give permission for anyone to see them.

"I had to pull rank for them to let me in. She's one of my scouts, so her well being is my responsibility." He explained.

"Where's Echo?" Damian asked, as far as he knew, the ghost was likely still offline. It would take a while for Tessa to get enough light back into her system for the ghost to wake up. Keeping them close to the traveler was all they could really do.

"He's with Ikora. She and a few of her scouts are running experiments to see if light can be transferred into him." At the warlock's worried look, he added, "Don't worry, they're being careful."

     Damian nodded, though he couldn't exactly say that he was all to jazzed about that addition to the situation. "How do you think she was able to stay alive without any light? I thought that sort of thing killed guardians."

     "It does. I was wondering about that too, so I asked Ikora about it. Before Tessa was a guardian she didn't have any kind of blessing of the light, everything came from her mother. That's why she has trouble with it sometimes. It's like trying to communicate with someone who's dead, an endless one sided conversation. Ikora thinks that maybe because she didn't have a blessing, Tessa's body is used to functioning with little to no light." Cayde explained, "But that's just the hunch. It sounds solid to me, but then again, I don't study this stuff like you do."