This fic is dedicated to NeoArgos, the one who catches me when I fall.
Malik did not really put any care in his movements or his balance.
He was standing at the roof ridge of the assassins bureau, stretching his remaining arm sideways. Though his eyes were closed, he felt the faint rays of the rising morning sun touching him. For him, this was the signal to start the morning routine he had established since he was ordered to Jerusalem. The former assassin exhaled calmly and began to move. He put one foot in front of the other, again and again. Malik balanced across the roof slowly and carelessly, eyes still closed. What was the point in taking care of your life when all you lived and fought for was already gone?
When Malik had been awake the first time after the incident, realizing his left arm was gone, along with the brother he loved, he had howled and screamed for hours,tears streaming down his face for the first time in many years. He had cried and cried until there were no more tears left, until there was nothing left but a strange emptiness, dulling his senses and making him feel small and weak. And he had been weak indeed. In addition to the loss of blood, an infection ravaged from the stomp of his arm trough the whole body,causing fever and nightmarish dreams of his brother dying a slow and agonizing death while looking at Malik and screaming for help. For Malik, these repeating images of Kadar suffering were the worst of all.
The unimaginably painful surgery, the fever, the weakness, it was all nothing compared to the loss of Kadar and the guilt he felt for not being able to protect him.
When he had recovered enough to stand on his own again, they had sent him to the city. He was the rafiq now, the bureau leader of Jerusalem. It was an honorable position connected with influence and respect. Malik was told he was the youngest bureau leader ever since the foundation of the order, and in fact most of the other rafiqs were twice as old as he was. But Malik didn´t take this as a compliment. He was a smart one, and he had already recognized all the rafiqs were former assassins that were too old, or in his case, too crippled to serve in active duty any more. Malik felt useless, drawing shaky lines on parchment with a quill in a hand that was more familiar with gripping a sword. He was doing his deeds mechanically, because keeping himself busy helped to keep his demons at bay. At night, his past came to haunt him. He tried to stay awake as long as possible because when he fell asleep, Kadar would scream and beg, blood oozing from him. Malik felt like he hadn´t slept for years.
Malik did not know why he was still alive. Perhaps god did not want him to die yet, or, more likely, this was just a cruel mistake. The former assassin would have liked to talk to god about the purpose of still suffering here instead of being reunited with his beloved brother in death. But Malik was not the one to believe he would get an answer if he just prayed loud enough. So he had decided to make up a challenge to find an answer to this question. He had decided to give god the possibility to kill him, and he did it every morning before breakfast, walking over the roof with his eyes closed,waiting for the loss of balance, the fall that hadn´t come yet.
Today he managed to reach the edge of the roof again without even stumbling. He opened his eyes, sighed with disappointment and walked his way back to the other side of the roof, shoulders slumped. A shadow casting on the roof was leading his view towards the sky where an eagle circled, with elegance and ease. Malik shielded his eyes against the sun as he watched. How much he liked to be an eagle right now. A ruler of the sky without the burdens of human life, Malik mused while stepping forward. Looking at the eagle distracted him, and so this time he stumbled, lost his balance, felt himself falling in slow motion. What a beautiful moment to die , he thought while his instinct of self- preservation still fought to find something to hold on as he skittered down the roof. Malik ignored the screaming in the back of his head and closed his eyes.
He felt a sudden, hard yank at his robes, knocking all air out of his lungs, and opened his eyes again. Malik was dangling in mid-air, halfway between the roof and the ground. He looked at the ground -still very far below- and then back above. Shit. Above him was -of all people- Altair, clutching the collar of Malik´s black rafiq´s robes with one hand and the edge of a windowsill with the other.
"I will lift you closer to the window now," he said in his flat and unemotional voice. He did.
"What the hell are you doing here, novice?" Malik hissed, frowning at the other man.
"You can thank me later. Just hold on to the windowsill for now," the assassin responded with his usual arrogance. Malik glanced at him with a look that intended to kill, but suddenly saw sweat dropping down Altair´s temples and recognized how much strength was needed to lift a grown man one-handed, especially without having a proper hold himself. He wondered why Altair was doing this instead of simply dropping him. He was nothing but an annoyance to this novice. Altair was better off without Malik, wasn´t he?
"Malik... just grab your hold or the both of us will fall," Altair growled between clenched teeth.
Malik stretched his arm to grab the windowsill, glaring daggers into the other man. He thought about just letting go, completing the faith the novice had interrupted, but this would have been suicide, and suicide was out of the question for an assassin. Assassins died during missions or falling from great height by accident, but not by suicide.
So he tightened his grip as Altair told him to hold on. He watched Altair using both of his hands to pull himself up. The Eagle of Masyaf disappeared into the window, just to grip Malik by his robe and arm, dragging him into the room.
The former master assassin stand still, leaning against Malik, so close he could feel Altair´s rapid heartbeat. Altair forced Malik to sit down and lean his back against the wall. After that, he collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily. Malik sat there, dizzy, his own heartbeat loud in his ears. He gasped for air as much as the novice on the floor. The novice who had taken everything from him. The novice who had rescued his life just now when he desperately wished to die. What irony.
When Altair had steadied his breath, he sat up and looked at Malik, his golden eyes unreadable.
"Stop it," the assassin said. "Whatever you do up there every morning, just stop it."
"It´s none of your business," Malik snapped. He got up hastily, trying to hide how much he was shaking right now.
"So I have to watch you up there again tomorrow," the assassin responded matter-of-factly.
Malik was startled. Wait a moment... again... every morning... He eyed the other man suspiciously. "Just how long have you been watching me?"
Altair stood up gracefully, dusting his robes. "The morning after you arrived in Jerusalem. During training, the shadow of an eagle cast on the ground took my attention. I looked up and saw a silhouette on the roof." He would have recognized the familiar silhouette of Malik everywhere.
Malik was wavering between embarrassment and anger by now. "So you were watching me from the beginning?"
"Yes," Altair said calmly. "I thought it would be better to be there to prevent injury."
Malik just gaped. "Why?"
If Altair would have been able to form his thoughts into coherent words, he maybe would have said, I left you for dead one time, and I won´t make that mistake again. But Altair was not good at words, so he simply grabbed the front of Malik´s robes, pulling him close enough to prevent the reluctant man from avoiding his gaze. "Malik... I don´t want you to die," he said.
Silence. The assassin suddenly released his grip, forcing Malik to regain his balance.
Altair turned away abruptly, moving swiftly towards the window. Within the blink of an eye he was gone, leaving Malik speechless for the first time in his whole life.
Malik slowly went down the stairs, musing over the things said and those left unsaid. He definitely had gotten a very clear answer from god. When he reached the entrance, he shielded his eyes and looked at the sky again, thinking that god must have a very odd sense of humor to use a bird to alert the Eagle of Masyaf as his guardian angel.