Disclaimer: This is an Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood fanfiction. Written for personal use only. Characters do not belong to me. No copyright infringement intended. No profit made.

Author's Note: So I've been addicted to Assassin's Creed, and while everyone is binging and ogling over the latest installment, Revelations, I'm still at Brotherhood, and pretty early in the story at that too. Boo, slow me. This is a filler inserted after Claudia decides to run the Rosa in Fiore, much to Ezio's dissatisfication. Of course, I have no idea what happens between the both of them further on in the story so I'm just pulling ribbons from my throat. Ahaa! Read on, then!

-x-x-x-

"Claudia!"

She could tell he was angry. Anyone could tell that he was angry—hood drawn over his face or otherwise. But she set her jaw and balled her fists. He wasn't going to get rid of her so easily.

"You do this, Claudia," he warned, "and you are on your own."

"I've been on my own for twenty years!" she spat, her eyes aflame. Pah! As though it was that easy to threaten her and send her running home to Florence. Home. What home? Their home had been destroyed twenty years ago. Everything they had had been confiscated; sold perhaps, or burned. They were betrayed by Uberto Alberti; their father and two other brothers hanged to death. They'd found a temporary home in Monterigionni with uncle Mario and she had been put in charge of the town's finances. Under her, and under Ezio's income, the town prospered. And then the Borgia attacked. And once again, they fled. Now look where they were: the Rosa in Fiore, Rome.

She could see Ezio's eyes burning from beneath his white hood but she couldn't be bothered to care. He'd been too busy the last twenty or so years to return home much. Hell, he didn't even bother to write, as though his skills with the pen died the moment their father and brothers were murdered. Every once in a very long time, he would return to Monterigionni, collect his income (he was the town's benefactor after all), walk the streets and survey the town and speak to the local architect about further renovations. He would visit their mother, who still would not speak, shop hastily for supplies, and then leave again.

It was as though he'd forgotten her existence. His face, always shrouded behind that damned hood, was invisible to her. Once upon a time, they walked through Florence laughing about sweet nothings. He used to run errands for their father, which earned him some income, and whenever he could, he spent his money on her. When that brat of a fiance cheated on her, Ezio had taught the guy a lesson and sent him running with tail between his legs. Those were the days when she still remembered his face and he was still the Ezio Auditore that she grew up with.

But after their father and brothers' death, he became invisible. To her as well as the rest of the world. It was as though he mysteriously fell off the face of the earth. But she refused to give up hope. She had friends and friends of friends and distant cousins scattered all over Italy. She wrote to them often, trying to gather as much news as she could about his whereabouts. When uncle Mario was home, they'd spend dinner together and she'd try to probe him about Ezio's wellbeing. But uncle Mario did not say much aside from vague answers like "he's fine" or "he is working on a project".

Claudia spent many nights staring at the ceiling, wondering where Ezio was and what he could be so hellbent on. She knew, of course, that he had hunted down their family's traitor, Uberto Alberti. But that was not comforting. Most people would stop at that, but not Ezio. He was going all out, now on the hunt for the Spaniard. And he would not speak to her of it. News from her friends and distant relatives gave away little of Ezio's doings. "I thought I saw him a few days ago, but when I looked again, he was gone," or "There's been rumours of a hooded man who roams the roofs of the city, it's unnerving," or "There's been strange deaths recently...guards falling from the sky!"

She felt naked. At that time, uncle Mario had his own business to attend to and Ezio was...everywhere and nowhere. It was her and their mother, alone in the Villa. The townspeople were nice and she made friends with them, but they weren't capable of keeping her safe. And every night, she would dream of the Villa being breached and unknown hostiles besetting them and trapping them in. She was afraid. She was tired of being afraid. So when finally, Monterigionni was attacked and Ezio ordered her and their mother to return to Florence, Claudia decided to do the unthinkable. She, and their mother, followed Ezio to Rome.

Ezio turned and left the brothel, closing the door harder than usual, his footsteps still ringing in her head. Claudia turned to their mother, who sighed and shook her head. A volcano brewed within Claudia and she bit her lip to keep from losing her temper. She let out a breath and turned to the courtesans who spoke quietly to each other.

"Will you really be our Madonna?" A girl asked, voice quivering.

Claudia flashed them her most convincing smile. "I will."

And the work began. Day in and day out, she had her girls wandering the streets of Rome, always keeping an eye and ear out for latest developments of the city and the doings of the higher-ups. The brothel generated income quicker than she had expected, the visitors always ready to throw in their money for a beautiful girl, or hell, two beautiful girls. Claudia ran the brothel like a natural, unafraid to throw out misbehaving men and always too stern to allow any man near her. She was the Madonna, but she was not a whore.

Ezio hadn't visited the brothel in what, three weeks? Claudia was increasingly annoyed at his no-show. But her girls kept her informed. He'd used them many times as easy distraction, always tossing them a healthy paycheck for their compliance. Rumours was also going around that Borgia influence in Rome was on a decline. A phantom was taking out the oppressive soldiers and burning down their towers. Heralds were hinting at freedom being returned to the people. Deep inside, Claudia knew that Ezio must have something to do with these. And she wanted to know why.

She stood in the whipping night breeze, arms wrapped around herself. Under her feet, under the tiles of the brothel's roof, she could hear the sounds of laughter and music. She'd left her post for a little while, to the hands of a capable apprentice. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Rome smelt different from Monterigionni, from Florence. She couldn't describe how it smelt like—a mix of sweetness with sweat and dust.

She heard a sound at the edge of the roof. Her hand found the handle of a hidden knife instinctively as she turned, ready for a...whatever. Her chest tightened. In the dim night, she could barely make out the shape of fingers, clutching at the edge and she heard an intake of breath. Who..? A white hood. A face shrouded in darkness. Shoulders and the rest of the body. White garb. Assassin's garb.

"Ezio," she breathed.

"Sister," he replied. "What are you holding?"

She hastily shoved the knife back into hiding and revealed her empty hands. "Nothing," she answered. "What are you doing up here?"

"That is my question. What are you doing up here?"

"I uh... Just getting some fresh air."

"On the roof?" Ezio pressed, advancing towards her.

"Yes, brother. On the roof," she snapped. "How did you find me?"

"Your apprentice," he answered. "You should teach her not to give out information so carelessly."

"You're my brother. What's the worse you can do? Kill me?"

"You know I don't meant that," Ezio defended himself, pulling back his hood.

Claudia crossed her arms. "Why are you here?" she asked.

"Thought I would drop by to say hello," he answered promptly.

"After three weeks?" Claudia pressed.

"Yes..." Ezio trailed off.

Claudia watched as the moonlight cast half of her brother's face into shadows. She missed him terribly. But here he was, standing right in front of her, hood cast back, for a moment visible again. His black hair bound at the back of his head and his neatly trimmed beard that exuded manliness. Her brother, of course, had not let up on his flirting techniques even after all these years. Once upon a time, it was Christina Vespucci. Once upon a time, he was attainable.

"Claudia," Ezio started, pulling Claudia out of her daydream. "I'm sorry."

Claudia blinked, although trying her very best to hold a straight face. She wasn't going to break down in front of him. She wasn't going to confess about how much she missed him. She wasn't going to—

"I don't visit often enough," Ezio was saying. "I haven't written to you either."

That did it. Claudia barely heard the rest of his words, or even if she did, she forgot them the moment they left his lips. Her loneliness and her anger and her angst somersaulted in her stomach, stirring up emotions that she had tried so hard to suppress. They were both stubborn, too stubborn for their own good. Ezio was always a man of "let me handle it" words. And she, she was too hot-tempered to think with a clear head.

"You're sorry?" Claudia hissed, tempted to throw a punch. "Who paid you to say that?"

"No one!" Ezio said, his brows creasing.

"Did you speak to mother? Did she ask you to come and apologise?" Claudia pressed.

"No, I did not speak to mother about this."

"Then how are you suddenly so apologetic?"

Ezio threw up his hands in frustration. "Is it very strange that I'm apologising?" he said.

"Have you apologised for anything before?" Claudia said.

"I don't understand why it's so hard for you to accept this," Ezio answered, pacing the roof, keeping his trained eyes on his sister.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Claudia huffed.

"I'm just waiting for you to explain yourself."

Claudia flicked her eyes towards the night sky and let out a deep sigh.

"I just came to say that I'm sorry that I haven't been around much and suddenly you're snapping at me," Ezio said, evidently unable to wait for an explanation.

Claudia let out another breath, (she'd been breathing very heavily, she realised that now) and turned to him slowly. Ezio was her dearest brother, now with their father and Frederico and Petruccio gone.

"You're always gone too long," she said quietly. "After what happened at Monterigionni, what do I have left? Who do I have left?"

Ezio took a step towards her, and another, until she could smell his scent. He lifted her chin so that she looked into the eyes of her brother, and not an assassin, for the moment at least.

"There's still mother—" he tried.

"It's different," Claudia answered, resting her head against his chest.

"I know," Ezio gave in, letting her rest against him.

Claudia pulled away, instantly regretting it. "Don't you have something to do?" she said, watching as he pulled the hood over his face, once again assuming the assassin's role that he had become so accustomed to.

"I'll visit more often," he said, stepping away. "You have my word."

"Ezio!" Claudia called. "How about dinner? Tomorrow night? I will cook."

For a brief instant, she thought she caught a smile beneath his hood. "I wouldn't miss it for the world," he replied. And then he leapt away into the embrace of darkness, leaving her to the ghosts of the night.

"Buona fortuna, mio fratello," she whispered.

-x-x-x-

*Good luck, my brother.