2012
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Rebecca came up to Desmond during lunch, his only break from the animus. She held a sheaf of papers in both hands, and shook so violently that they rustled against each other, making a noise like fallen leaves blowing against the ground. "Look," she said, and dumped the whole pile into his arms.
"What's all this?" he asked, leafing through them.
"Just read," Rebecca said, and so he did. At first, the papers didn't make much sense. They were terse, to the point and almost in code. They were filled with references to events and people and places Desmond knew nothing about, so that they didn't make much sense to him.
Gradually, he managed to figure out a few details.
The papers were hard copies of e-mails that had been sent through the e-mail server that had been set up in the hideout. Desmond hadn't used it much- he didn't have anyone on the outside he much wanted to keep in contact with, and there wasn't much point in sending an e-mail to people he saw every day.
Unless he was feeling really lazy. Which sometimes happened.
And so he recognized that was where the e-mails had come from. He even recognized one of the addresses as Lucy's. But the other one he didn't know, and at first he assumed it must be a member of one of the other assassin cells.
Except that didn't quite ring true.
Every move the four of them had made since Desmond and Lucy had left Abstergo was detailed in these e-mails. There were also plans for what they would do and where they would go if the templars found them again, and a huge amount of details about their everyday lives. Huge amounts of information, right down to what they ate at mealtimes and how many trips they made to the bathroom. It was ridiculous, really, and not right.
"She's been spying on us," Rebecca said. "All this time, she's been reporting everything we do to Abstergo." She pulled the last sheet of paper from the pile and moved it to the top. "Read this one."
It's not working.
I thought I was making some progress with Desmond before we left the labs, but ever since then he's more or less ignored me. I can't get him to like me, much less trust me. I don't think we're going to get much more information out of him like this. I'm calling it- send in your men the first chance we get, we need to bring him back in.
"She's going to-"
"Betray all of us," Rebecca said. "Lucky for us the e-mail's been down for the last couple of days. That one's been sitting in her outbox just waiting to send, but I found it first."
"Lucky us," Desmond said, and then looked up as Lucy came into the room. "Where's Shaun?"
"Out," Rebecca said. "Running errands. Why?"
"Lucy and I are going for a walk," Desmond said. "Let him know if he gets back first."
He didn't answer the questions Rebecca hissed at him as he led Lucy away, and he didn't answer Lucy's confused ones, either. In fact, he didn't say a single word as he led her to the villa's roof, just watched her carefully. She made the climb without any sign of strain, and the two of them stood side by side.
Desmond leaned back against a half fallen wall and stared at the sky. "It's a beautiful day," he observed.
"What?" Lucy shot him an exasperated glare. "Is that why we're out here? To enjoy the weather?"
"Of course not," Desmond said. "That would be ridiculous."
"Then why-"
"How long have you been working with the templars?"
Lucy let out a sigh, so long and loud that she seemed to deflate. "I guess there's no point denying it," she said. "Honestly the whole thing's been pretty awful. I'm not an assassin anymore. I don't want to be here."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before," Desmond said.
"I did," Lucy said. "I decided it would all be worth it in the end. I guess you're going to kill me now?"
Desmond shook his head. "It would be easy," he said. "But I don't do that."
She snorted. "An assassin who doesn't kill? That'll be the day."
"Like your lot's any better," Desmond said. "Anyway, it's really none of your business."
"So you won't kill me," Lucy said. "And I'm not going to stay. What happens next?"
"You leave," Desmond said. "I don't care where you go or what you do, just so long as you don't come back." He turned abruptly and leaped off the roof, landing safely at the bottom before Lucy could say a single word.
Shaun was back by the time he got inside, pacing anxiously as Rebecca watched.
"So?" he demanded. "What happened?"
"She's leaving," Desmond said. "We should move on, too."
"You didn't kill her," Shaun said. "Why?"
"Because…" Desmond bit his lip. "Well, I guess we had to get there at some point. Come on- let's start packing, and I'll explain."
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1726
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The funeral ended with a gunshot.
Well, it didn't really end- there was still a body to bury, after all, and the minister stayed behind with some of the family while most of the crowd-a half dozen of the man's associates- went running after the source of the noise. They ran through streets and up the sides of buildings, angry and determined to catch the man or woman who had fired the shots.
Assassin funerals, Desmond decided, were much more interesting than the normal kind. He'd come out of a sort of duty- the dead man was one of the assassins he'd been sent to for training, before Jenny found out and forced Edward to take over the task. He hadn't been the nicest old man, but he'd known his stuff and now he was dead.
And the templars had come to ruin his funeral, sent a gunman to fire into the crowd. Luckily, no one had been injured, and there was no way the man could escape, not with half the assassins of England on his tail. Only… Desmond stopped suddenly where he was, halfway up the side of a building, and bit his lip.
The templars, whatever else they might be, were not stupid. Why would they send one man to fire a gun into a crowd of assassins? They should have sent more, if they wanted to actually kill anyone. One man wasn't a threat. He was…
He was a distraction.
Desmond jumped without looking, falling a terrifying three stories in a true leap of faith. He'd done them before, of course- from higher places than this, even. But always under the supervision of somebody else, and never… quite like this. A true leap of faith was to jump without really knowing what waited at the end. Desmond had never quite believed it- the whole thing sounded a little dramatic to him- but here he was now, jumping because he sort of had an idea that there should be something below him to break his fall. He'd watched the streets as he ran, earlier. Maybe he'd seen something there, and maybe he hadn't. Either way, he hadn't really noticed it, and when he felt the familiar, scratchy softness of the haystack below him, Desmond almost cried out in shock.
But he didn't- he bolted out of the cart and made a dash for it down the street, back toward the churchyard where the funeral had been. He went as fast as he could, running like he had an eagle's wings on his feet. A horse pulling a large cart pulled out of nowhere and he vaulted over it, ignoring the driver's oaths.
Two blocks past that was the churchyard, looking much the same as it had been before the shooter.
Not exactly the same, though. The yard was nearly empty, since all the assassins were gone, out on a wild goose chase after a lone gunman who had only ever been a distraction. The only ones who remained were the dead man's relatives, a half dozen or so men and women with no connection at all to the assassins, and a young man Desmond had never seen before. Desmond knew without even checking in eagle vision that this man was an enemy. It didn't take much effort to figure out- men pointing weapons at innocents were rarely nice people.
"Hey!" Desmond shouted, running toward the little group. It was stupid and pointless and wouldn't do anything but get him killed along with the others, but he didn't know what else to do. "Stop it!"
The man looked up and laughed as Desmond slid to a halt in front of him, panting and staring at the gun that was now pointed at him. "Well then," he said. "Not all of you assassins are as stupid as you look. I have to tell you- watching you lot run after our scapegoat like a flock of startled chickens- it was the funniest thing I've seen in months."
"Why are you doing this?" Desmond asked.
"Because," the man said. He moved his arm, quick as lightning, and squeezed off two shots. Bang! Bang! Two bodies fell to the ground. Desmond shouted, a wordless, angry noise, but before he could say a word the man had dropped his empty gun and pulled another from his coat. "This man you've come to bury? He was a monster."
"He wasn't," said Desmond, and winced as the man fired off two more shots. (Bang! Bang!) He was shaking now, terrified and barely keeping himself together. There had been seven people still alive in the graveyard when he came running in. Now the only ones left were an elderly couple (the parents of the murdered man, maybe?), holding each other tightly in a kind of terrified silence. And the man with the gun, of course. The templar.
"He was an assassin," the man said, and fired again. Bang. Bang. Desmond yelled and jumped at him before the stranger could pull another gun. He'd come prepared, that much was obvious, but Desmond was angry now, angry and terrified because this wasn't fair, it really wasn't. Six innocents dead, all because of one man with a grudge.
He never quite knew how he killed the templar. After all, he didn't have a weapon on him, and he was at least a foot shorter and ten years younger than the other man. He could sort of remember wrestling something sharp away from the man, and he could remember staggering away, horrified to find his hands covered in blood. But he couldn't remember the bit in the middle, no matter how hard he tried.
And he was glad. The man would have killed him, the way he'd killed those six innocents, but still, to kill a man himself, it seemed… horrific. Monstrous. He'd known it was something he'd have to do as an assassin, someday, but he thought he'd be ready for it, somehow.
Now he knew he never would be.
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1738
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"But that's-" Haytham stopped abruptly, twisting a pencil around and around in his hands.
"That's what?"
"Crazy," Haytham said.
"A lot of people would say we're the crazy ones," Jenny said. "We kill people."
"It's a war," Haytham muttered, more like he was trying to convince himself more than convince her. For a second, in the way he looked at her across the table, Jenny could swear they were enemies again. Just an assassin and a baby templar in training. Then he sighed and blinked and looked away- the moment ended, and they were just two people eating breakfast and having a conversation.
"It's-" Jenny shrugged. "Well, it was the choice Desmond made anyway. I wouldn't have made it, but… well, the world would be a boring place if we were all the same."
"How does that even work, though?" Haytham asked.
"He just didn't kill people," Jenny said, and launched back into her story.
-/-
1726
-/-
Jenny went to see Desmond in his room sometime around midnight. Edward had told her not to. He'd said Desmond needed to be alone, after the massacre at the funeral. But Jenny didn't want to leave him alone. She wanted to be with him, because he was her best friend, and she'd seen him when he came home with his hands covered in blood and an awful, dead look in his eyes.
He looked up when Jenny came in, but didn't say anything. Jenny didn't say anything either, just sat down next to him on his bed. The silence stretched on for a very long time, but after a while, Desmond took her hand and squeezed, tightly.
"I never want to do that again," he said. "I'm not a killer. I can't- I feel sick."
"He deserved it," Jenny said softly. "I heard dad talking about it downstairs. The man was crazy, but a lot of templars were listening to him. A lot of other assassins would have died if he'd lived. And a lot of innocents."
"It doesn't matter," Desmond said. "I don't care if he was standing in the middle of a crowd of babies with a machine gun."
"A what?"
Desmond went right on, ignoring her. "I shouldn't have killed him. I just feel... This isn't right. Okay? There's a man dead tonight who was alive this morning, and he's dead because of me. I can't stand that."
"So you... What, you want to leave the assassins?" Jenny asked, and she felt something cold rush through her at the thought. She didn't want Desmond to leave.
"No," Desmond said. "I see what we're supposed to be fighting for, you know? Freedom, the right for people to make their own choices. And I guess... I mean maybe Templars have to die for that to happen. I don't know."
Jenny squeezed his hand more tightly. He suddenly sounded very grown up and very sad all at once, and she didn't know what to say to make it better.
"But I know I can't do that again," Desmond said. "I can't kill anyone else. There has to be another way to fight."
"I'm sure there is," Jenny said, tone doubtful and only half convinced.
And neither of them spoke again for the rest of the night.
