Just watched the last season again… what a great show, and such wonderful characters in it. I like the way the finale brings a little closure at least to the main characters' state of mind, but… it's not enough. I want to know what the writers had in store for them in the next season, I want to know what the originally planned epic finale was going to be.
But anyway – thank you very much for reading this story, especially to coolCbeargrandma – thank you so much for encouraging me. I hope I did Micheletto justice.
And now I really hope you all enjoy the last chapter ;)

Micheletto walked through the camp, past tents and guards, into the darkness. Some men turned to look at him, greeted him even, but he ignored them as they had ignored him for years, ever since he had been cast out into the streets, a rat scramming off the sinking ship only to find itself in the midst of a cruel ocean. Boys had thrown stones at him before their mothers had pulled them away with wrinkled noses. Soldiers had kicked at him when they were drunk, cursed him when he robbed them… screamed and begged when he killed them.
Now many of them would live because of what he had just told their master. Forlì would fall, not in three months but in two days. It seemed fit that Cesare, after having broken Micheletto's heart and smothered whatever future he could have hoped for, now should also destroy his past. Soon there would be nothing left of the house of Corella. They all would vanish from the earth and its memory, as if none of them had ever existed.
At least in this, he would be close to Pascal.

When the night's blackness had drowned the campfires Micheletto fell to his knees, breathing heavily through tears yet unshed. Cesare's hand still seemed to lay heavily on his chest, right where Micheletto had asked him to feel for his heart. What a useless, cruel thing it was, a better instrument for torture than any chains or whips. It would not cease beating despite the ache in every cell, every moment. It was an ache Micheletto had known before, a hollowness that crowded the mind and poisoned the soul until nothing else could remain, until the universe was filled with emptiness. There was no place left for god, nor for anyone else. Not anymore.
And yet, when he leant against a tree, Micheletto could not help seeing faces emerge from the darkness inside him.
They had claimed him, used him, broken him… could he really have expected them to ever leave him?

Lucrezia who had played with him, just as she had been played with. Who would forever be torn between her ambitions as a Borgia – not to be satisfied with any place she was given but to always strive for more, whether it was power or the right to claim her brother as her lover – and the instinct of a mother to protect her child against every harm, to build a home for him to be safe. She needed both Giovanni and Cesare to be happy, and there was only one way she could have that: claiming her brother as her lover, making him a father to her son, making Giovanni someone Cesare would love, not feel threatened by.
Because despite the fact that Cesare Borgia was the most audacious man Micheletto had ever seen, he was also one of the most vulnerable. And his weakness was clear to see, to all the world if they'd only take the time to look past his army: his family. The people who loved and hated Cesare, as much as he loved and hated each of them, even Lucrezia. He might not know it himself – Micheletto had not consciously known it until Pascal had read him the lines – but no feeling was pure. Where there was joy, there was the fear of losing it. Where there was love, there was the fear of not being worthy of it, and the jealousy that accompanied that thought.
Where there was an angel, there was the fear he was not real.

As Pascal had turned out to be – not an angel but real, so real… his scent, his voice, his picture so deeply carved into Micheletto's memory it was impossible to ever return to his old life. The boy who had played with him, who had lost himself inside him, who had gouged him until nothing was left. Nothing except the dream Micheletto had allowed himself to dream – that the pretty boy could love him. And that he himself could fuck him without loving him back.

Leaving Cesare. The man who had given him a home, who had trusted him with the things most important to him. Who had made him destroy himself, but wasn't that what he had promised to do? To kill and die for his master.
Of course, a blade or even cantarella was far less painful than having to break your heart with your own hands. Because no matter how wounded and dead he felt inside, his reflection in a puddle had shown him that he looked the same as three weeks before. Better than he had for most of his life, though he had never felt as hollow.
Still…

Micheletto's hands fell to his sides, he slumped against the ground in the dark as had become a habit in the previous days. Every day he walked, aimlessly, and at night he tried to disappear where he stood, to become part of the nature surrounding him and never wake up again. Pascal kept haunting his dreams, making Micheletto dread and long for them.
Tonight, however, sleep wouldn't find him. The other face proved stronger tonight, the face that didn't allow him to give in and wait for death.

When the morning broke, Micheletto finally accepted the truth. He hadn't crossed the papal army accidentally. And he hadn't helped Cesare to pay off his debts to him.
He had searched for the Borgia, as a dog always searched for his master, no matter how hard he'd struck him down. He had not run away to die because he was not ready to die. He wished he was, he wished he could finally give in to the pain of being lonely and damned, but he couldn't. Not as long as there were pieces of his heart still intact, still in need of him.
Giovanni. Lucrezia would do whatever it took but in the end she was a woman. While she surely didn't lack skill or audacity, she might lack means. And the boy was a Borgia… he would not stay as innocent as he was now. Something so pure couldn't endure long in this world, it either died or putrefied. Like Pascal.

Unlike Cesare, who had not once claimed to be pure, not even before he himself had realized his desire for his sister. He was an angel of death and war, a demon older than the Roman church. And obviously, he was still in need of Micheletto, he would always be in need of him – because there were some sides in him not even Lucrezia would understand, some plans the world would never forgive.
Cesare had crossed the border from bastard to heir, from a man of the church to a man of steel already – and mostly on his own. But he would not become Italy's greatest lord without help. Micheletto halted as he heard the first cannon fly, then the second. This was his doing as much as Cesare's. This time the brain part was his while the Borgia was providing the arm, absolutely trusting the assassin to lead him to success.
For a moment Micheletto felt senseless rage surging through his body, a rage he hadn't felt since his last time in Forlì. How could, how dared Cesare trusting him like that? How could he expect Micheletto to help him, to win his battles, to not slaughter him in the middle of the night after all he'd made him do?
Every now and then, these questions had wound themselves into Micheletto's mind, as if challenging him to betray his master – and when Cesare had ordered him to kill Pascal, he had thought about it. For one moment.
But he couldn't. He wouldn't betray the Borgia for a spy who had abused him in more ways than Micheletto cared to count. He wouldn't betray him for his own life. The world would remember Cesare Borgia as a cruel, ambitious man, a godless man, maybe as the devil himself – and for all the assassin knew, the world would be right. But there was something else, something nobody would remember but him: that Cesare Borgia was the only person on earth who had never lied to him. Not when it came to his own darkest desires, not when it came to the most difficult task he needed Micheletto to do. He had hit him, threatened him, yelled at him, ordered him to risk torture and death… but he had never betrayed his servant.

And Micheletto would never betray his master.

A day's march away from Rome, he blended in with the whores and fools trailing behind the soldiers. Only an old woman seemed to notice him but when he caught her glance she backed away, hiding in a crowd of others like her – old, poor, lonely. Most of them looked as if they had already given up on themselves; they were not spying or fighting for anyone. They had no home, no hope, no future – except, it seemed, to see Rome and die. After all, it still was the city where Peter had chosen to found the church. Or at least some clever lord had claimed this was the place, nobody would ever know. As nobody would know the fate of the hundreds that disappeared in the narrow streets, sinking into the stone, swimming beneath the Tiber. Dust was the future waiting for the people around Micheletto, one way or the other: dust and ashes, hunger and pain.
And he had wanted to become the same.

He returned to his old rooms, not a secret refuge anymore but still safe enough; from all they knew, only Cesare's men knew the place and they would not come there to look for him again. They'd search him in the lands and woods around Forlì, if they searched at all… he didn't think they would. Not only because of the defeated, pained voice with which Cesare had bid him goodbye – a voice that showed everything Micheletto had felt in this moment – but also because of one of the prisoners. A man clothed in black, with pale skin and quick eyes, and, most disturbingly, a smile on his thin lips as he was dragged through the streets.
Rufio.
Micheletto had heard of the man, a stranger to this country, come from the north. Rumor about him had traveled even faster than the assassin himself, and through the various fantasies and legends some things reappeared unchanged, some things that most certainly were true: that Rufio loved killing, that he was living only to take lives. An artist, some said, with his own vision of how the world should be. It was that vision that frightened Micheletto as he saw the man being brought to the cells underneath the papal district – assassins were not supposed to have their own mind. Their thoughts, yes. Their own secrets to kill, their own ways to foresee what their victim might do to escape… but not their own mind to think about who the victim should be.
Maybe he was a demon, too, or another angel of death… maybe they all were.
But what did that say about him, who was only a dog, had always been, and would always be?

Like that dog, Micheletto strode through the city at night, unheard and unseen as he had done often in the previous years. Rome was a powerful city, a greedy city, not a watchful one. The papal army had just won a war, they did not look for another one inside the walls. In the streets, people were celebrating the great and quick victory. In their houses, quietly, they were praising the strength and pride of Caterina Sforza.
No, it was not over. Maybe it had only just begun, and as Micheletto thought of Giovanni living inside a city that was brooding with hate while his uncle and even his mother saw nothing but the glory of bringing down Forlì he felt his heart being smothered again, held by an iron fist that wouldn't let him breathe. He had felt the same way when he'd realized Pascal was a spy. He had known, deep inside, that Cesare would – needed to – order him to kill the boy when he brought the first letter.
But Pascal, what reasons he might have had for it, had been a traitor. A spy. An enemy to the Borgias.
Giovanni was not. He was a child, innocent as can be, and yet he would be shown even less mercy than Micheletto had shown Pascal.
It was not over.

Twelve nights after his return to Rome, it happened. Micheletto could barely step back into the shadows when suddenly Rufio emerged, unguarded and smiling. Micheletto followed him for a while, then fell back and chose a different route, knowing where he would find the other assassin.

"Finally. I was starting to think you've lost me." Rufio's smile shone through his voice, mocking and rejoicing at the same time.
Micheletto straightened up as he checked the other for weapons. Rufio was taller than him, but more delicately built – like Pascal, a soft voice inside him whispered, heavy with longing, but he pushed it back – a true artist, needing his audience. Good.
"Are you in a hurry, mylord?" His voice was hoarse, he hadn't talked since Forlì.
Rufio's smile grew. "Mylord? I have to admit, Micheletto, you do surprise me. I wasn't expecting such courtesy from a Borgia dog. But then", he walked backwards, gesturing to Cesare's palace, "I wasn't expecting to become one, either. And there I am." He shook his head in mock surprise. "How the world can change in one night. Isn't that… funny? One night you're safe in your lover's arms, and the next day…"
Micheletto froze, fists up. Rufio seized the opportunity to slide through the door but before he could close it, the other man was behind him, grabbing his collar, obviously still unable to speak. Rufio held his glance, still smiling. "Oh yes. I was there. I saw the two of you… an interesting pairing indeed."
Micheletto gave a grunt and pulled him closer, deeper into the shadows where the guards – surely Cesare had some walking around – would not see them. He would kill Rufio. He would kill him.
Silently the two assassins started to fight, each reaching for the other's throat with one hand and pulling out their daggers with the other.
"I've been waiting for this", Rufio hissed, the smile finally gone, "to kill you when you were standing. I could've done it more than once when you slept."
"You should have done it then", Micheletto spit back, blinded with hate. Rufio was fast and seemed not nearly as tired as he felt himself but it didn't matter. He would kill him. For Pascal. For himself.
"Why?" Rufio backed away panting. "I've become you all the same. I am you as you once were me. Now you're nothing. Your time was over when you fucked that boy for the second time. I don't think he liked it half as much as you, by the way. He called it…" Micheletto's knife slid up but Rufio stopped it while slowly retreating to the garden, "being in bed with the devil. Where I come from that's not exactly a compliment, you know. But then I saw he'd fallen for you. I offered him the chance to kill you, and he refused. Probably just the moment of weakness that caused his death…"
Micheletto flung himself at the other man, stabbing at whatever he found.
Cloth. Metal crashing against metal. The artist wore an armour.

He saw the knife too late to ward it off. His heart felt smashed for good as he collapsed in front of Rufio, his sight blurry with tears of both pain and a strange kind of exhilaration. Now it was over.
Rufio knelt down next to the fallen man, his knee on Micheletto's arm so the knife in his hand dropped open, searching though his trousers and boots while his victim lay dying.
"I'm disappointed, Micheletto", he said, spitting blood and saliva through a long gash in his cheek. "I'd thought you were my double. But you're not… Cesare trust me now. He will no longer need you. I will serve this world better than you did. I…" He shook his head and stood up, looking down at Micheletto one last time. "It's not love that made you weak. Weakness has always been in you. There is no excuse for it. If you're strong, your love also is, and you will not let it be taken away. You should've known that, both of you."
Spitting at Micheletto, he disappeared.

Micheletto felt his thoughts trailing away with the warm liquid on his cheek, all sinking into the earth, cold and tired and begging for eternal peace… but once again, sleep wouldn't find him. It's not love that made you weak… there is no excuse for it… it sounded like something Cesare would say. But then, Cesare had to believe there was a way to bed his sister officially. He had to believe he could win anything, or he would lose everything.
Lucrezia… Giovanni… Pascal… Cesare. Giovanni.
Whom did Rufio carry in his heart?
I am you…

The iron fist clenched his whole body as Micheletto bolted upright, shivering. Rufio was right, he was Micheletto, at least in this: loyalty. He could have left Forlì, he could have joined the Borgias, or the Spains, the Turks... people like him, like Micheletto, had erased every inherited loyalty, they chose their masters themselves. There was no rational reason for someone like Rufio to serve the duchess of Forlì when he could also serve the sultan or the pope.
But reason didn't make the world go round. Greed did, and loyalty.
I will serve this world better than you did… It was not hard to guess what the assassin of Caterina Sforza meant with that.
He was not in Cesare's palace to serve him, but to kill him. And then, very likely… the pope. Lucrezia. And, as Cesare had killed Caterina's son, she would have Rufio kill Giovanni. No mercy for children.

It was that thought, that and the faces of dead babies in his mind that somehow made Micheletto drag himself on, through the garden to the stables and the stairs hidden there. He had to kill Rufio, but not to avenge Pascal or himself… neither of them counted.
If you do exist help me save them. A part of Micheletto wondered why, after all this time, he started praying again – as if there could be a benevolent god with all that happened – but the other part just kept begging fervently. Make me your weapon and let me kill him, help me stop him before he can hurt the child and its mother. The child. And Cesare. Take whatever you want from me but make me save them.

Both hands pressed against the wound he reached the corridor that led to Cesare's chambers. Two guards were slumped against the wall next to a slightly opened door. Micheletto grunted approvingly at their sacrifice – he had advised Cesare to put up this masquerade; he had often wondered how some lords – targets – made it for their enemies to find them at night. Still, Rufio would look under the sheets after he'd killed the decoy (a smith who was well paid for sleeping in silk, if not really well enough to die), and two rooms later he would find the one he really wanted. Whom he needed dead, just like Micheletto needed Rufio dead before he could hope to find peace. The other assassin was right. They were the same. Rufio and Micheletto, Micheletto and Cesare – perhaps even Cesare and Caterina, only that she was a woman. Like Lucrezia. Deadly like her.

Let me kill him. Let me save them. Shaking and hardly able to breathe, Micheletto hurried to his master's room. I've given you my soul long ago. Was he praying to god or the devil? And did it matter? Let me kill him. Let me save them!

"Who…" Cesare's eyes widened when he recognized the bloody man rushing into his chambers. "Micheletto!" The sword, pointed at the intruder's head, fell onto the cushions as he saw the origin of the blood. "Great god" he whispered and, without a moment's hesitation, pulled his friend onto the bed. "Help! I need some help!" The roar of the Borgia brought on more men, and lights. In a few moments, the whole palace would be awake. "Stay with me, Micheletto." Cesare pressed his hands tightly around the dagger that still was stuck in Micheletto's chest. "I will not let you leave me again!"
You can't hinder me. Micheletto didn't dare to give up his last ounce of power to speak but Cesare knew enough about battle wounds to realize his own lie. Suddenly there were tears in the Borgia's eyes. "What happened? Why did you come back?" Not even now Cesare seemed to realize that his life was in danger.
The door opened.
Gripping his master's sword with both hands, Micheletto threw himself between him and Rufio, groaning with pain as he thrust the blade right into the other's throat. Rufio collapsed, surprise and fear on his face, right into the arms of a guard opening the door.
Dead.

Micheletto fell, too, leaving the sword in the other man's body. Strong arms held him before his head could hit the cold floor, and then there was it again, one last time, the face that had haunted his waking hours and would not let him die.
Until now.
"Micheletto." Cesare shook his head, his hands shivering as he stroked the broken man's hair. "You should never have come back."
Somewhere inside, he found a smile. "You shouldn't have trusted this man."
"I didn't", Cesare said, "not like I trusted you. There can never be anyone like you." He leant forward until their foreheads touched. "Forgive me, Micheletto. Please."
"I already have." Unable to hold on, Micheletto slumped deeper into Cesare's embrace, his eyes closed.
Cesare started to sob. "Micheletto!"
"Take care of… all of you, my lord."

Cesare bit his lips. "I will. I swear by god I will."
So they had found god, after all. And he had listened.
They were safe. He had saved them.

For a moment, Micheletto felt light, filled with endless relief.
Then it was over.