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There is one last place where Leonardo might be. This is Ezio's one last chance, and it's what might save him. Ezio leaves Firenze barely an hour after he'd arrived, doesn't see anything he passes. Leonardo might be at the villa – all Ezio can see is that room, the way it had looked the day he'd walked in and seen Leonardo painting in the corner. It had been like glimpsing something of a perfect world, walking in and seeing Leonardo, smiling and waiting for him, like discovering there was a star in the sky that was just his.

The journey to the villa is tediously long, and the time forces him to realize all the points at which everything started to go wrong, the things that may have led him here, here on a desperate search he doesn't quite understand, filled with a panic he hasn't ever felt. Ezio slides off a stolen horse when he reaches the first town and steals another to ride to the next; he's never let himself get attached to even a horse, never wanted to be attached to anything ever again, and maybe that's the first thing that went wrong. Ezio hadn't wanted to be close to anyone, never, because losing his father and brothers had torn the world apart. He'd become attached to Leonardo, entirely without meaning to or intending to, and if he didn't care, he wouldn't be here now, on a panicked search for his friend. But maybe that is wrong as well, because a life without Leonardo wouldn't be living at all. Leonardo has always been more perceptive than him, and after years, it's finally started to rub off on Ezio; he can tell that without Leonardo, nothing would mean anything.

He can't have lost Leonardo. It's more than denial, it's fact, because if he has, the whole world will be wrong. Somehow, the day his mother brought him to Leonardo's workshop to carry a box changed everything. Somehow, this is what has brought him to his knees.

It's absurd, that he can trace all that matters to him back to a box, the contents of which he can't remember. This is why I lived through their deaths, he's able to say, there was a box, and that brought me to Leonardo, and he's why. It would be terribly ironic, for Leonardo to be the one to destroy him. After Ezio had lost his father and brothers, it had been Leonardo who kept him from falling to pieces. Because Leonardo was brilliant, he'd said for Claudia, for your mother, he'd said in the beginning, to keep Ezio strong, they're depending on you, because he knew Ezio wouldn't try to survive for himself. And then, because Leonardo was more brilliant than Ezio has words for, he'd said because it's what they would have wanted for you, and you have to do this, for yourself, for yourself. Ezio had never truly understood Leonardo, but he'd long since learned to trust him completely, absolutely, and so deeply, it was like handing over his heart to someone else.

It felt almost dangerous. The entire time, it felt entirely too much like setting himself up for the same, like ensuring he would have someone to lose, someone to mourn over, someone to grieve for. He should have known- and some part of him surely did, denied it so well, this feels like a surprise.

And then, of course, Federico had known. He'd said they say art helps you find yourself, and then, some time later, he'd said maybe if you spend enough time at his workshop, you'll understand something about your life. Federico always had endless advice for him, things Ezio has clung to all his life. You don't need it, you want it, he once said, when Ezio had said he'd needed to borrow Federico's finest shirt, years ago, and Ezio had said what's the difference. There's a big difference, Federico had said, needing is basic and material, wanting's when something means more than that, you want my shirt because you like it, not because you need just a shirt. Ezio still doesn't understand everything, but he understands enough to realize that Federico knew Leonardo would come to mean a lot to Ezio.

He realized it only to further torment himself, just like always. If Federico were still here, Ezio could ask him what it was that he knew, but he's never going to be able to ask, never again, not anything. This is what it is, to be the younger brother of no one at all- questions that will never have answers, answers he will never understand, wanting to be like someone who's gone and instead having to be like he thinks Federico would have been.

Ezio arrives at the villa as the last vestiges of the golden sky turn dark. The memory of the last time he was here is so vibrant in his mind that, as he enters the villa, he swears it's real, that the sound of Leonardo's absent-minded humming and the strokes of a brush against canvas, and the clink of brushes in a jar of water, is all real. He runs into the room and stands, completely motionless, staring at the easel Leonardo left behind.

This is it, this was the last place, and suddenly, it all crushes down on Ezio, and he wants to break down, give up on everything in the world because he's lost his.

"Ezio?" Claudia says tentatively, rising from the desk and taking a few steps towards him. "You… looking for something?"

"No," Ezio says, and it's hard to hide that he's broken, but it's just like Leonardo said, be strong for Claudia. "I- I was just-"

"Ezio," Claudia says, and she sounds like their mother used to, before she lost her husband and her two sons and her voice because of it; she's barely spoken since then, and it's like she was lost as well. Yet, here she is, her words in Claudia's voice. "I've never truly understood you," she says, "but there are some things I do understand about you that even you don't understand." Ezio can't say anything, nothing at all, because maybe, there's something he doesn't know that everyone else does, something that could have saved him. "Leonardo left," she says, "I don't know why, and I thought you might, but you don't, do you?" Ezio just shakes his head no, staring at the blank easel. "Don't you get why you're looking for him?" she says, pleadingly. "A long time ago, Federico told me you didn't know, but Ezio, don't you understand why?"

I need him, he thinks he means to say, but what he says is "I want him."

This is how he discovers that he's in love with Leonardo- too late, because Leonardo has already left him, because without him, they've already had a spectrum of chances and he's missed every one, and he won't ever know what it would have been like, to truly belong to Leonardo.

This is how the tragedy does not end, but continues, this never-ending tragedy that has become all he is, missed chances and boats that have already sailed away, past the sunset and into the night, starless, hopeless, and tragic.

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