AOS118: This is dedicated to Anon canon (where ever ya are!) to giving me the inspiration on continuing this! The review is on my profile if you wish to see why it inspired me so much! This one is might not be as long as I thought it'd be! I've got my heart in this one I swear So read it and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN AC

Tears of the Rain

Chapter 3

Ru'yah felt as though she were floating. Drifting in a never ending expanse of cool to the touch of space. In reality she was more than likely lying somewhere unconscious, but was she going to argue the fact that she didn't need to do anything? No! Thankfully her subconscious had been merciful and decided she deserved a break from everything in her life. Especially her memories lately. Boy did those tend to kick her ass! Speaking of her life, what had caused her to be here? Where ever 'here' was.

All she could think of was her climbing the Stronghold... She got to the top and Altair was there. Their new Master needed to see them, being why Altair had been there... She and Altair had argued, and then... Nothing. That was odd... Oh well... No need to dwell on it and ruin her 'break.'

Her 'break', as she was calling it, did not last long. Sadly. What felt like seconds were gone, and before she knew it, Ru'yah was awaking in a bed to the sound of voices. One could easily tell there were multiple voices, due to the different pitches, and genders. But she couldn't yet get a count of how many voices, how sad. Right? Right...

She tried once to pry her eyes open without moving too much of her body. She couldn't, they felt like they were glued together. She tried again, and still she received nothing from her efforts. She just wanted to relieve them of their pain. They felt crusty and disgusting. Like there were bits of sand between her actual eyeball and the lid that kept the light out. Blegh! At least the sand would help keep some light out!

Ru'yah tried a third time and voila! She peeked open her left eye (which was like HEAVEN once she pried that sucker open with sheer eyelid powered muscles!), she was going to try to look around, but was met with bright, blinding lights that came from every angle. And she meant EVERY angle. That brightness she was experiencing was angering and irritating so she quickly shut her eye again; and then, bracing herself for the brightness, she peeked open both of her eyes (WHOOO EYE RELIEF FUNDS PLEASE!). She let them adjust and then began to look around. Even though her adjustment time, was quiet long, she was happy to finally be able to see right again.

Instead of rushing blurs and bright spots, like she expected, she could make out actual body shapes. And she could tell that it was probably around midday, with all that light seeping in through the gaping windows.

Ru'yah figured she'd been out a fairly long time since it took so much for her eyes to adjust.

There were people in white robes rushing around, some began to move to her as if they were going to talk to her or interact period with her, before they moved off to somewhere else. They were going back and forth. Back and forth. Most of the people wore white robes, a hospital? Probably since some of the robes had small to big stains of red blotted around on their clothes.

Maybe… Maybe she was in the Brotherhood's personal little medical bay… But there were so many people, she couldn't possibly be in that small space. There was a drawn back curtain, which was meant for a patient's privacy, but was not in use for her. Was she injured that badly? Did they need to keep a constant watch on her? Was she not doing well? What was going on?

The stone walls weren't very comforting either, but she did recognize where she was slightly. Her guess had to be right! (Despite the size of the room.) She had to be here, but… Still something was too off about the whole situation.

As the many different voices passed her, she began to pick them out better. But none of them clicked with her memory. Not a single voice was familiar. Where was she? Was she really where she believed herself to be? As more bodies rushed by her, there were two voices that stuck out at her the most.

She closed her eyes as she continued to listen intently since she couldn't seem to move her neck and head as much as she'd like. She could turn her head just barely to the left and not at all to the right besides from the position it was already in. She focused in on the two voices she recognized the most and felt a small tremor of shock roll through her when she registered what they were saying.

"… major head trauma to both." A man's voice, he sounded unnaturally calm, yet angered. Why would he be angered? It's not the patients fault they had head trauma. Under the anger and tranquility, there was that I-Know-Exactly-What-I'm-Doing persona.

Ru'yah sighed quietly, there was obviously stuff from this conversation that she had missed. A sigh from the man followed before he continued. "What had they been doing?!" It sounded as if he was even more outraged than he had been a moment ago. Ru'yah couldn't tell if he was talking to someone or if he was just mumbling to himself. Granted why would he be talking to himself like that?

"I had need of her." This voice was calm and collected, obviously they knew what they were talking about and clearly defending whoever the "her" was. "She was not with me, and I did not know where she could be, and he was willing to go out and find her, I suspect he knew where to find her. Why else would he be willing to go find her, the two aren't exactly the best of friends." There was a pause, and a light chuckle, before the same voice continued in a more suspecting manor. "Why would their actions matter in this situation? Are you saying they are to blame for what happened? That it couldn't be just an accident?" That was… Aamir? Why was he here? If he was here, and he were talking to someone in the building, surely someone had been injured! Wait... It was her and... He must be injured. She mentally smacked herself, of course!

How could it take her this long to figure out just the, who, what, when, where and why of these things the people had been talking about. So much for being an Assassin!

"Because," It was that man from before, "they caused quite the uproar in the streets of Masyaf! People spreading rumors, asking if it was true. Speculating whether it was true that one of them tried to kill the other!" There was a pause in the conversation. "Are you not concerned?"

There was a slight lull in the conversation as Aamir chuckled lightly, "Of course not. They may not like each other, but they don't dislike each other that much. They would never dream of taking it that far!" He sounded so sure of himself... Granted Ru'yah knew as well as anyone should that Altair had no intentions of killing her. It was an accident.

Ru'yah, deciding that she was tired of being talked about like she wasn't lying right there; opened her eyes again and then began trying to sit up, moaning and groaning as she tried. When she'd decided to sit up and talk to the other rooms occupants, she hadn't decided to moan and groan and wake the whole of Masyaf up. It was then that she regretted her decision to sit up. She heard a few gasps, and outspoken thoughts, as nurses had paused momentarily in their tasks at seeing her sit up. They seemed to contemplate going and helping her or bringing her something, but a stern look from the doctor sent them on their way. Ru'yah looked to the two men sitting opposite of her and smiled sheepishly. "I got tired of hearing both of you talk about me…" She sat quietly staring at the doctor. The other voice, that she had been pretty sure belonged to Aamir, was nowhere to be found in the room... Odd. She hadn't finished her thought and the way the doctor looked at her, she didn't want to.

"She is awake!" The sudden outburst from a random nurse scared Ru'yah from her thoughts and she jumped, shaking the bed. Consequently she fell back onto the pillows and groaned. She had JUST sat up. Now she'd have to exert extra energy to sit back up again! She stopped and thought for a moment that maybe, she did not really need to get up, she could just continue to lay there... She did enjoy the soft sheets under her and the light sheet covering her, probably to help quell the night's chill. Nah, it'd be better for her to get up and get moving! The sooner the better right?

"Indeed this is... Very good!" There was a clap following the voice, and Ru'yah sat there trying to figure out the voice. It was male, as far as she knew. And it was pretty familiar. She figured she should probably know it, and this was a ridiculous amount of time it was taking for her to remember. She felt like she'd just been listening to it, but for some reason it was as unfamiliar as ever!

Ru'yah, struggling to sit back up, looked at the speaker. She froze. It was Aamir, the Brotherhood's new Master. He moved, with lethal grace, over to the 21 year olds side and smiled. "How good to see you awake, Miss Ru'yah. I trust you feel alright?" 'My dumb self couldn't figure out someone's voice who has been speaking to the doctor for quite a bit of time now?' She sighed mentally at herself.

Ru'yah was too shocked to say anything, instead, for the moment; she just smiled and nodded her head. She finally pushed herself up into a sitting position, it was about bloody time. Gathering her voice she began to speak, trying not to stutter uncertainly in her words, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I feel quiet great at the moment, actually. My head hurts a little bit, but that is beside the point." She gave Aamir another reassuring smile as he looked at her with uncertainty.

The doctor narrowed his keen, cat like eyes, and mumbled as he stood and promptly turned away. It had sounded as if he had been saying something about 'Needing a coffee break.' She smiled lightly at him in thanks as he exited. Granted, she didn't get anything in return, but it didn't really bother her. She was being polite, and that was good enough for her, besides she figured he had other things to attend to. He probably didn't have time to waste on smiling back at patients.

Instead, Ru'yah looked over to Aamir, "Who was he?"

"That was Abu al Khayr, he's the head doctor of this particular infirmary. He's been gracious enough not to turn you away." Aamir responded turning to face her.

"Oh." After a couple moments of silence, Ru'yah gathered her courage and asked what was on her mind. "Were the two of you... talking about Altair and I?"

"You heard that huh?" He looked down at his intertwined hands. "Yes. But. That is not important at the moment." He cut Ru'yah off as she tried to protest, but when he waved his hand in her direction, she quieted. A heavy sigh escaped both the Assassin's as they sat in the comfortable silence.

Aamir gently placed his hand on Ru'yah's forearm; he gave her a gentle smile as he spoke, "Just give me a shout if you need anything, Ru'yah." She smiled back and nodded. "Okay." He turned, still with the soft smile gracing his lips and stepped around the curtain, pulling it closed for Ru'yah to have some privacy.

After the curtain closed, and Ru'yah was positive Aamir had moved a good distance from her, she reached an attentive hand to her head and lightly touched the bandages. She quickly pulled her hand away, for her head began to pound with a fierce pain. At the pain, Ru'yah realized; she must have hit her head. But… how? She laid back thinking, despite her earlier struggles with sitting up. The last things she remembered was that Altair had come to get her because Aamir had need of her. She had been climbing to the highest keep of the Brotherhood… Altair must have climbed faster than she had, he had already been at the top and awaiting her. Or he could have already been there because... that was where she normally sat. He had caught her hood when she almost fell back in surprise. They had begun talking, more like arguing… when they both had said horrible things, and in his anger at her… he pushed her off the side… she fell, with nothing to save her…

'How could I possibly be so mean? Why did I say any of that?…' There was a pain in her heart at the realization at what she had said to Altair. When he jumped off to save her… She had landed on him, but the force of the fall pushed her back up and she slammed back to the Earth again… After that, it's all a blur. She remembered the pitch black, nothingness. Just floating, with nothing to do. Was… was that. Death? She had always imagined it to be peaceful, but was that it?

'Better yet,' she bolted up regardless of the pain, 'what had happened to Altair?'

Had that not even hit her?! Why didn't it cross her mind? She should have realized that Altair was missing!

She shifted on the bed as quietly as she could to dangle her legs off the side. She stood; on shaky legs, and once she was positive she had her balance, she moved off to the curtains. She moved slowly, in fear that a too fast motion would throw her off balance. Or any loud noises would alert Aamir or possibly Abu al Khayr, she couldn't tell which of the two men would cause her more trouble. Pulling the curtains back, very slightly, she peeked out. Her eyes swept the room like a hawks, searching solely for Aamir. She never spotted him.

She switched gears and swept the room for Abu al Khayr. If neither Aamir nor Abu al Khayr were in the room, it could be seriously dangerous for her to sneak out.

If they were in the room, she'd know their position and how to get by them. If they were outside of the current room, she'd have to find their position and then sneak past them.

Where had the two men gone? Did they just up and leave? But Aamir had told her to get him, well yell for him if she needed anything. And now, neither were there and worst of all; she needed something. But she couldn't just be sitting there, doing nothing. Therefore she was going to be doing something in the case of her needing something.

"I thought I had told you to yell for me?" She jumped, turning around to see Aamir sitting in a chair next to her bed. She stood there, still as a stone, staring at him. When had he gotten there? Better yet, how in the world had he moved there? There was no other entry points to her little space. He had made no noise what-so-ever and even worse; she had never even thought, for one moment, that he would be in there; watching her every move.

He smiled, "One good, yet bad, thing about you Ru'yah. Your inability to listen to others." He mumbled something at the end that sounded a lot like, "Just like Altair." He kept smiling as she shook her shock off and moved back to the bed. Her bare feet barely made a sound and she couldn't bring herself to even begin thinking of how he'd managed to sneak into the little enclosed space unnoticed. She sat down; Aamir beginning to speak as she pulled the sheets up to cover her legs, "What is it you wished to talk to me about that you had to get up to do?" A smile was present on his lips as he studied her.

She looked down at her hands as she fidgeted. "Well.. I'm a little concerned about Altair, is all."

As she spoke Altair's name; Aamir's smile faltered, but Ru'yah did not notice so he continued to smile when she looked up to him. "And why is that?" The way Aamir phrased the question, Ru'yah could tell she was treading rough grounds by asking it. But she just had to know! As she contemplated how she wanted to respond to him, Ru'yah remembered clearly the very first question she was asked by Al Mualim after she had been initiated into the Brotherhood. So sighing lightly she told him the truth.

"It's just, I said some horrible things that I should not have said and he saved me in the end. I am not sure how that worked, but it happened." She paused when she heard Aamir muttering something about a miracle, but shook her head and continued. "So I've got a nagging in my head that says he isn't alive. Because a fall like that… That would kill anyone, no matter who you are."

It hit her then, that Altair's name translated beautifully into 'the flying eagle'. His name was such an irony in the fact that he'd leapt off that roof and saved her... Almost flying like an eagle.

Aamir sighed. He sat up straight and looked Ru'yah in the eye. "I will be honest with you since you seem to be beating yourself senseless about this ordeal. He's not in the best condition. And they're doing everything they can, but he's got sever injuries. Internal bleeding, head trauma… Worse than yours. We're doing our best but-" Ru'yah cut him off.

"I don't care. I wanna see him. I'm the whole reason that he's in that condition!" She saw the protest come to his lips but again cut him off. "No. I wanna see him. And you said yourself, I'm beating myself senseless with guilt because he's hurt." Aamir sighed and stood. Ru'yah watched his slow movements, he obviously had strong feelings against letting her see him.

"Follow me."

AOS118: I'mma cut it off there Review, fav and chiz along those lines! Sorry for the cliff hanger, but I feel the next part needs to come in a different chapter

Edit: 10/31/17

Didn't change much, minor fixes.

Edited 11/29/14