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It occurs to Ghost, the third time he flinches mid-fight, that this might be turning into a problem.
Nova-2 hasn't died because he's frozen, yet. But that's sort of the root of the issue, isn't it—he hears the shuddering crack of cosmic ice tearing through the world and through the Wrathborn, and part of him can only think of Eramis, laughing as he fell, locked in the dark, helpless—Eramis, and Nova, stalking towards her with killing cold at its fingertips, a stranger wearing his Guardian's armor.
He knows what this is, intellectually. What happened on Europa was ... awful, and he's not handling it all that well, and with the way things sort of exploded between them afterwards it's not surprising that he's got some extra-unpleasant associations to deal with, but ...
Stasis was all that Nova had, while it was off on its own. Of course it reaches for Stasis when things get tense, now.
But there's still that moment of blind panic, every time.
Ghost waits until they're back in the jumpship, en route to the Tangled Shore to check in with Crow and Glint, before he speaks up. "Hey. Um. Can we talk?" he says.
Nova's in the pilot's seat, the swirling light through the window casting strange, multicolored shadows over its blank faceplate. It looks over at him, craning its neck a little. "Of course—what's up?"
He clicks a few times, thinking. "Earlier. When you were fighting that Wrathborn Knight. You used Stasis."
"... Yes," Nova says slowly.
"It—reminded me. Of Eramis." He clicks again, shell whirring, then makes a frustrated noise. "I hesitated and you were doing fine but if something had gone wrong ... it could've been bad. For both of us. It keeps happening, too. And I want it to stop."
And now the hard part.
"This is sort of a weird question," Ghost says, "but—could you, uh, freeze me?"
"What?"
"I keep remembering what Eramis did, at the end, and it scares me. It scares me so much that I can't think, sometimes. But if it's you ... I trust you." He does, he does, he has to believe that it's still itself and the only thing that's really changed is how much of itself it's letting him see. "And—and maybe if I can do this, it'll stop scaring me as badly."
Nova stares at him. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I'm sure." He's not, but he wants to be. Wishes he could be.
Nova doesn't respond for a minute. Then it cups its hands, and frost spiders over them and up its arms, sheathing them in dark rime. "We'll ... take it slow, then. I guess," it says haltingly.
"Works for me," Ghost says, with far more levity and bravery than he actually feels. He drifts closer, until he's hovering just above its hands. He can feel the chill of Stasis ice beneath him.
He locks his gaze on Nova's face, and lowers himself down until it's taking most of his weight.
The ice doesn't engulf him. It's just—a little crunchy, exactly what he'd expect from an exo covered in frost. He makes an uncertain noise, but holds position.
Nova watches him, jaw tense. "All good?"
"All good," he says.
"Okay. I'm going to start, um, icing you over now."
And it does. Ghost shudders as the ice crawls across the surface of his shell—cold licks over his tactile sensors, fluttering and light at first. Then the ice worms deeper, into the nooks and crannies between segments, enveloping his core. His vision goes blurry as ice blooms over the glass of his eye.
It's so cold. It's cold, and wrong, and so, so dark, not just the absence of Light but the antithesis of it, certainty and sunlight doused and drowned, and he can't move and he can't think and—
"Easy," Nova says, as gently as it can, the inhuman distortion of its wrecked voice as familiar as the Traveler's shadow. "It's okay. I've got you. It's just me. It's okay."
He focuses on its voice. On the way its fingers curl around him. The way its ice curls around him. If he thinks of the Stasis ice as a sort of ... extension of Nova-2, rather than a hostile external force that wants to hurt him ...
It's just holding him. Carefully. It's still his Guardian. It's held him like this a million times. He's safe.
"I'm okay," he says, and it comes out wavering and small, a light underwater.
For a few minutes, they just sit there. Before Europa, he would've had the assurance of their neurosymbiotic bond, echoing affection and steadiness—or even distress and uncertainty—between them. Ghost misses that soul-deep connection, misses knowing what his Guardian was feeling.
But then, knowing what it was feeling didn't help him understand it, did it. Otherwise none of this would have happened.
Nova runs a thumb across the edge of a shell segment. The textured material of its fingertip rasps over the ice, sending a shiver of vibration through Ghost. "I was terrified, at first," Nova says, quiet, thoughtful through the distortion. "That first Crux ... it felt like a riptide. Like I was being dragged away from—from you, and the sky, and—everything. Like I was drowning."
"What changed?" Ghost asks.
"... I remembered that I don't need to breathe."
It's still tracing his shell, thin points to broader segments, clean angles softened by clinging ice. He shuts off his eye and leans into its touch as much as he can. It feels—nice. Being held like this, inside and out. Cold and heavy and strange, but—not alone.
Maybe that's the real difference between them. Not faith in the Traveler or Light or Darkness—solitude. Ghost can't stand it, and Nova ... needs it, the way it doesn't need oxygen. The way it doesn't need him.
"I love you," Ghost says, and he's not sure whether it's a plea or a promise. Centuries of hopeless searching and fear and loneliness, three years of Ghost-and-Guardian slowly crumbling and breaking and falling apart, and now—this. Whatever this is, whatever they are now.
The cold deepens; the ice tightens around his core. Ghost doesn't usually feel small, when he's around humans, even though they are objectively much, much bigger than him. He feels very small right now. Small and protected. He strains against the ice, whimpers when he can't.
Helpless. But not afraid. Not of Nova-2.
"I'm here," it says. "I'm here."
In him, around him, his whole self cradled in its hands, and maybe he doesn't have a physical heart but he thinks that, after the past few months—years—lifetimes—he might understand heartache.
"Please don't go," Ghost whispers.
"I'm right where I want to be," says Nova.
Want. Not need.
It doesn't need the Light. It doesn't need him—but it's here anyway. Does that make him more or less important than solitude, than Stasis? Does it matter?
Does he need it, or just ... want it to need him?
The ice recedes, slowly. Ghost shivers, rattling against his shell, as it sublimates away, leaving only a lingering chill deep in his core. He floats up to head height, and Nova twists at the fabric of its coat, and they look at each other in silence for a minute or more.
"You okay?" Nova says softly.
Ghost shakes himself a little. The chill is fading. "I—yeah," he says. "Yeah. I think I am."
"That wasn't—too much?"
"... Is that what it's like for you? The ice?"
Its head tilts back, thoughtful. "I don't know. What was it like for you?"
He hunches into his shell, gaze skewing sideways. "I was—safe. Because it was just—it was you. Yours."
All the breath leaves it at once. The lights at the back of its throat flare and flicker a few times before it manages to speak. "No," it rasps. "No, it's—it's not like that for me. Ghost ..."
"I missed you so much," he says, barely audible. "I still miss you, even though you're right in front of me, but I feel like I barely know you. I want to know you."
It faced Eramis alone and he saw a stranger. It walked away, left him in the Last City while it returned to Europa, and he saw all the thousands of deaths he'd undone, and the one death, the last death, the only death that mattered, it carried with it.
He thought he'd never see it again. Or worse—he would, and it'd be something unrecognizable.
But it came home, in the end.
"Okay," it says. "What do you want to know?"