Chapter Text
The control room was surprisingly silent for the number of trolls gathered in it.
Though originally only Karkat and Cardea had been there (Karkat finding himself, after lunch, unable to sit and wait in his office any longer despite knowing that there was no way there would be any kind of word back so soon), as the hours crept by others had joined them.
First those with a right to be in the room (Marrok and Birtie, trained on the communications equipment even if they weren't using it; and Ariona, who, as head medic, would reasonably want information on Eridan's status as soon as possible); then others particularly worried about others on the mission (Waylen's moirail Levern; Aletta's moirail Tareka; Zollie's matesprit Einion); then still more - Brinda, Laniel, Burley - until the room was crowded with people and Karkat started chasing off newcomers with a snarl and a glare and sent them to wait for news somewhere else.
The time for the earliest possible contact from the mission - the length of time it took to get to the capital and then immediately back into range - passed, and Karkat stopped his pacing to sit in the chair by the radio station; Cardea, at the main communications array, gave him a nod before focusing back on her screen, her headphones on as she flipped through the channels they monitored for anything useful.
Another hour went by as slowly as though time was crawling through molasses; the people waiting in the control room paced, stood, or sat as their anxieties dictated, but no one spoke more than briefly, and that only in whispers, as though to ensure they didn't miss anything. Karkat fought the urge to take over Cardea's place just so that he had something to occupy himself with and directed his attention to the radar near his seat, squinting to try to make out anything on it despite knowing there wouldn't be.
Then, finally, after seemingly sweeps had passed in the silence and tension of the control room, the speaker in front of Karkat crackled to life.
"Hail, Sanctuary, this is the Ark reporting, come in."
Everyone converged on his station when they heard it, eager to hear what news the Ark - the appropriately-named flitter that had been sent on the rescue mission - had to report.
Karkat shot a glare around that had them backing off at least a few feet, before leaning in to activate his microphone. "Come in, Ark, we read you," he answered, and was irrationally proud of himself for managing to keep his voice from shaking. Waylen hadn't sounded upset or anything, but... it was hard to really tell, with the low quality of the radio - especially at this range, when they couldn't even see the Ark on their radar yet. Waylen must have tried to radio as soon as he thought he possibly could.
The wait while the radio signal went out and a reply came back was interminable; the room was so silent you could hear a pin drop, and Karkat was pretty sure no one was even breathing. Seconds passed like sweeps, the anxiety building up like a wave-
Then the wave crested, and broke.
“Ark reporting; our mission was successful!"
There was a beat longer of silence as people gasped and the words were processed - and then Karkat could hardly hear himself think over the cheering.
“Shut the fuck up, you assholes, or take it somewhere else, I have to respond!” he shouted over the noise; but he wasn't even able to pretend to be angry, not with his own urge to cheer - or break down into tears, he wasn't really sure which - bubbling up in his throat.
But a leader had to maintain appearances, so he allowed himself to do neither. (And if a few tears escaped, well, no one commented on it, so it didn't count.)
“Out! Out!” He made shooing motions at the loudest of the cheerers; laughing and cying in pure joy, they obeyed his directions, running off to spread the word to the rest of Sanctuary who waited just as anxiously as they all had for news.
Karkat turned back to the microphone. “Copy that, Ark,” he replied into it, well aware that the cheering from the hallway would be making it into the broadcast and really not caring. Waylen wouldn't mind. “Estimated TOA?”
The wait seemed much shorter this time; Karkat knew it was simply because the anxiety had been released, but he almost half-imagined it being because the flitter was barrelling towards them far faster than it was physically able to.
“We're half an hour out, approximately,” came the response. “Making all due haste. No pursuit.”
“Then come as fast as you can, Ark. What...” Karkat had to pause and swallow around a lump forming in his throat, “what, um, is the situation with... with Eridan?"
“He's in bad shape, Sanctuary, but conscious, and Zollie says he's stable, at least for the moment. But he'll need proper medical attention ASAP; he's got a lot of broken and cracked bones and significant external injuries, though nothing is actively bleeding or worsening.”
“We'll have it ready,” Karkat promised, breathing a sigh of relief. If Zollie proclaimed him stable, he trusted her judgement. “Everyone's going to want to see him - I'll try to organize it, so no one interferes with getting him to treatment as fast as possible, but... warn him? I know attention isn't his favorite thing in the world so it's probably a good idea if he has a chance to prepare.”
“Understood, Sanctuary.” There was a pause - presumably Waylen was relaying his words - and then he came back on. “All right, warning passed on.”
“Anything else to report, Ark?”
“Negative, Sanctuary. Clear to land in landing field when we arrive?”
Karkat hesitated, briefly debating asking Waylen to try to land in the clear area immediately outside Sanctuary so as to get Eridan to the medbay faster, but decided against it. Waylen was a good pilot, but the Ark was a larger flitter, and while it would probably fit, it would be tricky to get down there. Besides, it would be a lot easier for the corridors of Sanctuary to get clogged up with people wanting to see Eridan than the larger space of the landing field, and better for everyone's ears if any loud cheering occurred outside.
(He could still hear the occasional burst of it echoing up the stairs and into the control room as new groups were informed of the good news; and if it was kind of bothering him, it would surely bother Eridan.)
“Affirmative, Ark,” he finally answered. “Use the normal landing area, so we have room for people to gather before the stairs - and if anyone blocks your landing area just land on top of them.”
Though Waylen didn't transmit any laughter, it was pretty clear in his voice even over the crackly radio. “Copy that, Sanctuary. ETA twenty-five minutes, landing direction is usual landing field location with permission to squash obstacles. Do you want a contact when we're closer?”
“Not necessary, Ark, only worry about it if you're somehow delayed.” Though frankly, Karkat wasn't sure who he could convince to stay in the control room for such a contact anyway; and they wouldn't be able to get any information out to the gathered crowd in the landing field without going out themselves, either.
They really ought to get some sort of internal radio system, he decided, or maybe some kind of mobile devices like phones, linked to Sanctuary's network. He'd have to set the techs on figuring something like that out, once everything settled down a bit; it seemed like a very useful thing to have, especially as Sanctuary got larger - and after all of this, he had a feeling they would be getting larger, and probably pretty quickly.
“Acknowledged. We'll see you soon, Sanctuary.”
“Copy that, Ark.”
Karkat released the microphone and sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling and allowing himself a few moments to process everything.
The mission had been successful - Eridan was safe, and coming home.
There would be a lot of consequences from all of this, he knew; for Eridan, for him, for Sanctuary as a whole... frankly, for the world as a whole. Because he wasn't about to keep the rescue a secret - at least, not once Eridan started to heal. It was strategically important for people to know that the troll who killed the Condesce was not dead, that he was aligned with Sanctuary (and the Sufferists) and hadn't been some sort of fluke working on his own, and that they didn't intend to go quietly back into hiding and never do anything again.
The time when they could pretend not to exist was over. And while they might not be ready for a full rebellion just yet...
It was on the horizon.
He had a lot of work ahead of him.
But first...
He had a ceremony to prepare.
----
It took most of the next twenty minutes to organize said ceremony... or at least, some vague, cobbled together attempt at a ceremony.
As he'd suspected, everyone wanted to be present; he'd only barely managed to bribe Birtie into staying in the control room in case of emergency contact with the promise of a personal report on Eridan's status immediately afterward and her favorite food for dinner. (Sverre would be an ass about having to make something on such short notice - the dinner bell would normally be rung in about half an hour, if not for all this excitement - but he was sure she'd manage somehow.)
Only Ariona and Jaycie stayed behind of their own volition; they had to prepare the medbay for Eridan's arrival. A lot of it had been prepped since the rescue mission had gone out this evening, true, but now that they had confirmation of his injuries, there were other things to organize - or so he was told. Karkat didn't inquire too closely into it; it was their profession, not his, and he had other things to worry about.
Namely, keeping everyone from absolutely losing their collective shit about all of this.
Trying to get almost the entire population of Sanctuary organized even in the vaguest possible sense was like herding cats; he had to repeat himself entirely too many times in telling people that no, they couldn't go and hug Eridan, or give him a pat on the back, or anything.
Finally, he lost his temper and shouted, loud enough to be heard across the landing field. “For fuck's sake, you all are going to stand the fuck back and not get closer than six fucking feet to him or anyone coming from the flitter!” he ordered, staring them all down with his very best glare, the one he'd never used for anything here.
It was enough to cow even the most excited, which gratified him.
“You may stand on either side and watch. He needs fucking medical attention and if anyone interferes with him getting that as soon as fucking possible I will have your goddamned hides for a rug, do I make myself clear?!”
No one responded, which Karkat took for agreement. “Stay away from the landing area until after the flitter has docked, Waylen has blanket permission to squash anyone in the way and I would not recommend testing his willingness to do so. Do not try to 'help' by opening the door or anything, stay out of the way.”
A bit more glaring (and some additional direction from Marrok and Levern, who walked out the lines of where people could stand) finally got everyone mostly organized by the time the flitter came into view.
Waylen's landing - setting down precisely in the center of the marked landing circle - was perhaps a touch more showy than usual, but Karkat couldn't fault him for playing to a crowd after the impossible rescue their group had just pulled off.
No one had organized any kind of actual ceremony proceedings - no one had had time to - but by some unspoken collective decision, the gathered trolls all fell silent as the door opened.
Aletta and Zollie were the first out, Aletta's green psionics sparking around her horns - presumably to move anyone in the way forcibly out of it - but as she saw everyone was quiet and organized, she allowed the sparking to die out and simply stepped to one side to allow the next to exit, Zollie mirroring her on the other side.
Karkat, standing just in front of the stairs, could tell who that next person was before even being able to see him, simply from the glowing blue-and-red of his psionics surrounding the form in his arms.
Sollux exited the flitter sideways, to prevent the edges of the door from touching his burden; in his arms Eridan lay still, head supported by the yellowblood's psionics against Sollux's shoulder. Karkat did his best to prevent a wince as he took in the seadweller's condition.
Though someone had wrapped him up in a light blanket, hiding what Karkat suspected were the worst of his injuries, he was still as pale as a ghost, visibly trembling, and his right leg visible under the blanket was bent at an angle that looked very wrong. In addition, his missing horns made him almost unrecognizable. Karkat had to swallow down nausea as he saw, in person, that lack; and though the beds weren't visible - presumably due to hair and scabbing covering them - it was still jarring at best to see flat darkness where orange and yellow should be.
They hadn't left him much at all. By his best judgement of what he could see, Eridan must have less than an inch of the horn base remaining, maybe even as little as half an inch. Far less than any troll had had, ever. No horn had ever broken that near the base, where the horn was strongest; and Karkat had never even heard of any troll (or even older wriggler) with horns smaller than his own, at three inches; much less an inch or less.
Stomping down on the rage that boiled up in him at the thought of the absolute fucking scumbags who would do such a thing, Karkat forced his attention to the approach of Sollux and Eridan - and noticed the gathered trolls had taken the ceremonial feel one step further.
Every troll present was saluting the pair with their hands over their hearts... but then, as the whisper came passing through the group of 'he can't see, without glasses', an even more surprising collective decision was made.
One by one, in a rippling effect following the whisper as Sollux carefully stepped forward, each and every troll gathered there dropped to one knee.
The effect was enough to make the hairs on the back of Karkat's neck stand on end with the pure emotion in the gesture; and as the psionic troll noticed, Karkat saw Sollux whisper into Eridan's ear. He couldn't tell what was said, but it did end up with the violetblood - who had previously had his eyes shut and his face tucked against Sollux's chest - looking up and out.
It was hard to read his expression behind the bruising and swelling that covered most of his face, but his fins were unobstructed; drawing on memories of Sollux explaining the emotions the various movements evinced, Karkat could read confusion in the downturned flicking, followed by a slow change into embarrassment, then added pleasure, as the upper tines rose and fluttered.
Sollux came to a stop close to Karkat; the mutantblood suspected he'd gotten so close so that Eridan could see him, and didn't step back. He forced himself not to look at the seadweller's injuries, and instead focused on his eyes - wide, emotional, almost disbelieving, as they caught Karkat's.
He'd had a speech of sorts planned - nothing long, nothing that would delay everything too much - but found the words deserting him as he looked into those wide, yellow eyes.
The eyes of his childhood friend; the eyes of the one he'd hurt for so long...
The eyes of the troll who'd gone through hell at his school and still come back out; the eyes of the violetblood who'd dealt with all the hatred Sanctuary's residents had to offer and the shame of being forced to wear a collar and still come through; the eyes of the seadweller who'd won his place among them...
The eyes of the highblood who'd been willing to risk everything to use the position his blood gave him to do the one thing no one else could, to dare to defy a system that hurt the people he called friends, and to bring it down even at the cost of his own life...
The eyes of a hero.
A hero who, though broken and damaged, was still somehow living.
At the memorial they had held for him, thinking him gone, they had recognized him with a title to honor him: to honor his deeds, his courage, his very heart.
And now, it would be Karkat's honor to truly bestow it upon Eridan.
Karkat blinked away tears and raised his hand to his heart in a salute he meant with his whole being.
"Welcome home... Champion."
----