BOOM!

Ezio was hurled across the room, startled from his fitful sleep as the deafening sound of an explosion rang in his ears. Dust showered down from the cracked ceiling of the cell, and enveloped the room in a pale cloud.

Fireworks? At this time of the day? He wondered, sneezing and then clutching the sides of his throbbing head.

As the fine particles cleared, light slowly poured into the cell like golden honey; oozing through a large hole in the thick wall. Through the hole stepped-

"Leonardo!" he cried, struggling to get up and greet his friend. Tiny pieces of rubble tumbled off his shoulders and out of his matted hair. He began to stumble towards the inventor, but was jerked back by the chains bolted to the wall. Ezio scowled, and shook the heavy links in frustration.

"Ezio! Mio amico! It grieves me to see you in such a sorry state. But then again, it's nothing new, is it?" Leonardo touched his friend's bandaged shoulder lightly with an expression of sorrow. "Come, let us get away from this place. It won't take long for us to be discovered; in fact, I'm rather surprised we haven't been already. "

The assassin nodded, but jangled his bonds again. "But what about these?"

"Aha! I can deal with that the same way I got in."

Ezio raised an eyebrow. "And how did you get in, exactly?"

"Ahh, well, you see I was experimenting with some very interesting acids in my workshop, and discovered that the addition of a little common soap made a powerful explosive."

"Whoa, whoa. Stop! You mean you're going to use the same thing that made that -" he pointed at the six foot smoking crater in the midst of the solid stone wall. "- near me?" He waved his wrists, which looked strangely frail without their customary hidden blade and bracer clothing them.

Leonardo paused, and shrugged. "Si."

A look of horror plastered itself across Ezio's face.

"Would it hurt you to send me a file once in a while, like everyone else does in gaol breaks?"

The inventor tried to reassure him, unsuccessfully, as usual. "But if I get the quantities right, the metal will simply snap. Probably snap. Though it might explode too… There is a very small chance of that occurring."

T he assassin sighed, and rubbed his tired eyes. "Just do it, Leo. I won't blame you if I lose an arm or something."

He nodded slowly, and began to measure out different liquids from inside his belt pouch, which he then poured into something that appeared to be a piece of a bath sponge inside a pewter thimble, which he wedged into the end of the chain. The inventor caught his alarmed glance and said sheepishly, "Si, I know. You life rests on a humble piece of sewing kit. Mi dispiaci, I had run out of test tubes."

The assassin laughed shortly and swallowed as Leonardo began to strike sparks onto the short length of twine serving as a fuse. He was sweating badly; his palms were wet. He hated always being the test subject for Leonardo's new "toys". First the "repaired" hidden blade which had sprung open wildly in his face when he had tried to use it; then the disastrous attempt at flying which nearly drowned him, and now brand-new, untried explosives.

"Ora, I want you to get as far away from it as possible. Rapidamente!" He said, running back to the gap in the wall holding his hat tight over his ears. Ezio screwed up his eyes and strained the chain as taut as he could pull it to get away from the explosive. After a few seconds with nothing happening, he peeked under his lashes at the smoking capsule.

At that moment, the cell door crashed open, and the female doctor burst in, surrounded by her associates. They were all armed to the teeth with an amazing assortment of weapons, from broad cutlasses to elegant stilettos, and Ezio mentally calculated how long it would take the women to kill the pair of them. The answer was depressing.

"You!" she said, staring at Leonardo in surprise.

"Me?" he replied, worriedly peering at his fizzling invention around the wall.

Which is when the little device exploded.

For the second time in the space of a few minutes, the assassin found himself thrown through the air. However, this time he flew a lot further, narrowly scraping past the crumbled sides of Leonardo's previous experiment. Luckily for him, his cell had been built on the outside of the building he had been imprisoned in, and so his landing was cushioned by thick green grass. That's not to say it didn't hurt.

Ezio lay stunned on his back, staring up at the black smoke billowing from the small building.

His ears were ringing again, and he could feel something trickling down his face, but he was definitely alive. And most certainly free, though his hands were still tied together.

The assassin staggered to his feet yet again, and located a charred Leonardo sprawled in a shrub.

"Come on!" He shouted, over-compensating for his temporary hearing loss. After rolling out of the bush, the inventor led him to a slender tree where two horses were whinnying and pulling frantically at their tethers, frightened by the explosion. As Ezio made to climb on his horse, he was suddenly overcome with fatigue, and swayed on his feet. He panicked, grabbing the bridle.

"Leo…" he rasped, attracting his friend's attention as he slid down the horse's smooth white flank.

The inventor immediately took in how exhausted and ill-looking the assassin was, and gave him a boost up so that Ezio could easily swing himself around without bending too much.

He gasped, and slumped over the neck of the animal. His vision was swimming, purple spots dancing behind his retinas; he'd pushed his body to its limit over the last week and now he was paying for it.

Leonardo clicked his teeth and rode off, Ezio's horse following dutifully, to his relief. It seemed the assassin was in bad physical shape, and was now operating on his last reserves of strength. With this in mind, the inventor rummaged in the bouncing saddlebags and pulled out a crusty ciabatta; fresh baked that very morning, but sadly bashed about and misshapen.

"Catch!" He tore it in two, and tossed one at Ezio, whose manacled hands managed to reflexively catch it. The assassin blearily looked around for a second, wondering where the thing had come from. Then his eyes settled on the bread, and he began to eat ravenously; tearing great chunks out of it and wolfing them down without even chewing.

Leonardo eyed his friend's sunken cheeks, and decided to forgo his own meal; instead, wordlessly passing it over once the first half was finished.

They rode for a while and made good progress, travelling at a fast pace as Leonardo feared they were being pursued. Soon huge purple mountains loomed in the distance, through the haze of heat and spiralling cyprus trees as the horses crested a hill, and Leonardo saw the terracotta smudge of Florence at the bottom.

"Ezio, I can see bella Firenze! We are almost there" he called over the clatter of hooves on the dry gravel. He spurred his horse on a little, excited by the prospect of shade and wine, but there was no answer from Ezio. He appeared to have fallen behind, and was out of earshot.

Leonardo was forced to wheel his horse around and canter back, and he came across his friend throwing up noisily into a ditch. Leonardo winced, biting his lip. He saw a sheen of sweat across the man's forehead, and resolved to slacken the punishing pace slightly when he had finished.

The assassin wiped his mouth, cringing at the acidic taste coating his tongue, and staggered over to a large crooked olive tree nearby. He sat down against its grey bark and closed his eyes.

"Ezio, you can't sleep now! We need to keep moving. Come on." Leonardo said urgently. He walked his horse a little closer, and jumped off athletically.

"But Leonardo, I need to rest. I am tired." he replied, frowning with his eyes shut.

The inventor sighed in exasperation. "I came to all this trouble to rescue you, but now you're hindering us both. So, per l'amore del dio, get up!"

Ezio groaned and rubbed his eyes, but complied grudgingly; walking his hands backwards up the tree.

"Mi dispiaci, I wasn't thinking straight. My… head hurts."

"Do you think you can ride?"

"I'll try, but I can't promise anything."

Leonardo helped him to get back in the blistering saddle of the mare, where he rigidly held himself upright. A bead of perspiration rolled down his skin, and quickly evaporated in the hot sun. Ezio gritted his teeth as they began to move again, trying to control his stomach as the swaying of the moving animal repeatedly unbalanced him. After enduring this discomfort for a while, he asked Leonardo for something to drink.

The inventor scowled at him, but drew out an engraved flask from his innermost saddlebag and passed it grudgingly over. He unscrewed the silver top and drank deeply from the proffered bottle, and soon the nausea vanished. Whether this was because the fortified wine had miraculous healing properties, or because it made him light-headed and giggly, no one will ever know.

But eventually, the two exhausted horses and the equally tired men found themselves at the city entrance, and it was with great relief that they collapsed into the welcoming embrace of a warmly glowing inn.

A.N

Sorry I took so long to post this. You know, exams and whatnot ;)

Hope you like it!