Introductory note: Warning! This chapter contains sexual themes from the start. And by that I of course mean rampant shaggery. In a field.

There were still aftershocks going through Desmond's body, but they began to get farther and farther apart and Clay could feel the tension in the calves that gripped his hips draining away to leave behind boneless relaxation. In an echo of their old sleeping position, Desmond had one hand splayed across the middle of Clay's chest, and was using that arm to keep his body upright from where he was seated at Clay's groin. Finally, with a grateful groan, the last shudder left him and he dropped forward gracefully so that his forehead rested on the back of his hand. Clay shifted enough to unlock them but kept his knees bent so that the tops of his thighs stayed pressed against the highs of Desmond's buttocks. He stroked a hand idly through Desmond's sweat-drenched hair and stared up at the small clouds drifting through the blue sky overhead, interrupted at one point by a flock of Syrian military planes flying overhead in a V formation. After a while, he started to laugh.

Desmond kept his head resting on his hand, but angled it so that he was looking up at Clay. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Just ... If you'd asked me when I was 22, where I thought I would be in ten years..."

He didn't need to finish. Desmond was already grinning at the joke. "Beats a desk job as a programmer, right?"

"At least I can tick 'sex in a field' off my bucket list." He was suddenly reminded of something important. "Fuck. We didn't use a condom."

"We didn't have a condom."

"I got carried away, I didn't think..."

"Jesus Christ, Kaczmarek." Desmond rolled off of him at last and lay beside him in the grass, one arm slung under his head for support, waving the other hand in Clay's line of sight as he ticked off items with his fingers. "About twelve hours ago we both got hit by a bomb, fell down a cliff, and got washed about ten miles downstream. Now you're fretting because you think the sex was unsafe?"

He had a point, but Clay wasn't willing to concede it. Instead he rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow and smiling down fondly at Desmond. Then he slapped him smartly on the forehead and scooted quickly out of range, leaving Desmond groaning in outrage and clutching the affected area with both hands.

"Ow! You fucker!"

Clay climbed shakily to his feet, smirking a little at Desmond's sulky expression, then watching it fade away as the man decided he hadn't the energy to sustain a grudge. "You gonna get up?" Clay asked.

"In a bit, I don't think my legs are working just yet." Desmond stretched out on the grass and closed his eyes. He had a tendency, at least as far as Clay's experience could testify, towards shatteringly intense orgasms that generally left him weak as a kitten afterwards. Desmond somehow managed to come with his entire body: his toes would curl, his neck would arch, his fingers would bite down fiercely, and the noises he made were almost akin to someone begging for mercy. Before he'd joined the Assassins, Clay had attended quite a few rock concerts, and watching Desmond climax was not unlike the moment where the band would reach the final, screaming chorus that the song had been building up to, right down the intense urge to shout encouragement throughout it. More often that not, the whole experience would forcibly tear Clay's own release out of him in a blinding rush that left him nearly as helpless as Desmond.

Of course, they used to have the luxury of a nearby shower.

Clay looked down at the mess on his chest and stomach, then directed a scowl at Desmond. "Great, now I gotta go back in that goddamn river for a wash."

Desmond didn't open his eyes. "That's nice. If you see any fish, bring them back up here. I could do with some breakfast."

The words brought the reality of their situation back as Clay walked down to the river, not bothering to stop for his clothes. He was beginning to regret his refusal to eat what the Assassins had brought him, and was becoming light-headed from hunger. His Assassin reflexes were good enough that he could no doubt catch a few fish without too much trouble, but that would not keep them going for long. They needed to find the nearest settlement and obtain some currency, preferably by simple theft rather than murder. Then they needed to get out of Syria and away from this war.

Clay couldn't be entirely sure of their current location, but the river flowed to the north-west, towards the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond that coast lay Cyprus: land of the gullible tourist, where they could either find someone to forge passports or, as a last resort, go to the American embassy and beg for transportation back home. Their best bet would be to continue north-west until they reached the port city of Latakia, find someone with a boat, and throw enough money or threats at them to gain passage to Cyprus.

Hell, it wasn't much of a plan, but at least he would return to Desmond with something.

He reached the river bank and walked in up to his ankles, relaxing a little when he realised the water had already been warmed a little by the midday sun. Clay stooped down and cupped his hand, dipping it into the river and bringing a small pool of slightly murky water to his lips, sucking it down gratefully. He repeated this a dozen times, wishing he had some kind of receptacle with which to bring water back for Desmond. When his thirst was slaked he rubbed water over his front and sluiced the pearly fluid away, rubbing it from the sparse hair on his chest, rinsing his hand when it was done. Finally he turned over his right hand to look at his wrist, pressing at the flesh gently with the fingers of his left hand.

Clay didn't know what he expected to see. Glowing lines in his skin, perhaps, or a warm spot where the Piece of Eden was buried. His skin was the same as ever though, save for the fact that it was a lot more tanned than it had ever been. He looked down at his reflection in the water, filling in gaps where the water blurred it. Same old blond hair and blue eyes, skin dark where it'd had prolonged exposure to the sun and very fair everywhere else.

"Look at you," he said to himself with a wry grin. "Kaczmarek of Arabia."

He allowed his gaze to travel over the water, until he found an incongruous dark shape in the water. No, not in the water, but reflected upon its surface. Clay followed it upwards to its source, and froze.

"Hello again, John Turner."

Fadel was standing on the opposite bank, surveying Clay coolly, apparently unfazed by his nudity. Determined not to be the self-conscious one here, Clay straightened up, allowing the river water to swirl around his lower legs.

"Fadel."

"Would you prefer it if I called you Kaczmarek?"

Clay didn't reply. He was turning the facts over and over in his brain, old engineering and programming instincts slotting things into the only places where they fitted. Finally he allowed himself a wry smile, and spoke in English.

"I thought I was so clever, figuring out that you weren't really a defector. I never worked out why you were so dedicated to the Syrian army, though. I thought that maybe you had a family back home, a wife and kids or something, and you wanted to make sure they had the protection of the state."

The Kurd lifted his chin a little. The stubble he'd grown had been removed now that the pretence was no longer required, and his moustache stood proudly on his upper lip. "I do have a wife, Kaczmarek. Children as well."

"That's not the reason, though." Clay shook his head and laughed, helplessly, without humour. "I should have known. How coincidental was it that I'd been in this country five minutes before I ran into a group of people who just happened to be going to Masyaf as well? Practically an escort. You're a fucking Templar, aren't you, Fadel?"

The man glanced over his shoulder, presumably at where Desmond was still lying in the grass, then back into Clay's face. "We were given the mission to retrieve Desmond Miles from Masyaf by posing as defectors. At the time, we were not even sure that he was even at the castle, and no guarantee that he and his father weren't being kept hidden even from the Syrian Free Army. Then we got a call from America to say that they were sending an old friend of the target, someone who would be able to draw him out. They fed you some vague story about finding a mysterious lost artefact, one that probably doesn't even exist, and then they sent you to me."

Fadel's tone was not gloating or mocking. He spoke as though he had simply decided it was time for Clay to be given full disclosure. He spoke to him as though they were colleagues.

"I want to thank you," he continued. "For keeping Desmond Miles alive. I do not know how you managed it, but I would have been in a great deal of trouble, had I reported his death."

"You think I saved him for you?" Clay asked in a low, dangerous voice. "You think I'm going to let you within fifty feet of him?"

Fadel didn't smile. "I believe I already am. I did not come here to kill or kidnap either one of you, Kaczmarek. I wish to reason with you, to offer you our help." He paused, as though giving Clay a moment to try and shout him down, then continued.

"The Assassins are being systematically wiped out and disbanded, even as we speak. The leaders are being removed, the strongholds destroyed, and those Assassins who survive are being recruited by Abstergo. Their skills are extremely valuable to us, and we do not wish to waste them."

Clay laughed in disbelief at the stupidity of this plan. "You think you can kill their leaders, destroy their homes, and then try to convince the Assassins to switch sides in a rivalry as old as the human race? You people are insane. The Assassins are cultists, they'll die before they betray their creed."

"No creed is strong enough to truly encompass a human heart. Every person on this planet has something that they desire, and everyone has a loved one for whom they fear. It is not so difficult, really - we are merely putting the old practice of carrot-and-stick motivation into practice. Perhaps the Assassins who have joined us tell themselves that their hearts are not in it, that they are merely waiting for an opportunity to betray the Templars, to shake us from our foundations. We will let them believe that, but years will go by, the Brotherhood of Assassins will crumble to ashes, and its old members will forget why they were ever so loyal to a dead cause. Their propaganda has them believing that they are the 'good guys' in this war, but the fight between the Templars and Assassin has never been anything except a power feud based on differences of belief. The only right side is that which emerges victorious."

Clay stared at him, mainly shocked at having heard the usually reserved Fadel speak at such length. "You don't think you're fighting on the good side, then?"

Fadel shrugged. "I am a soldier. I stopped believing in the notion of good and evil sides long ago. I have ordered bombs to be dropped on children for the sake of my government, and I have seen what is left behind when the rebels have finished torturing people. It has ... sharpened my understanding."

"If you don't believe in anything, then why do you follow the Templar's orders like a little sheepdog?"

"I never claimed to believe in nothing. I believe in God. And I believe in power." Fadel looked him up and down, very carefully. "Consider yourself, Clay. You are naked. You have no identification. You have no means of transport. You are in the middle of a war zone. Come with me and both you and your friend will be back in America by the end of the day."

"Sure, in an Abstergo holding cell."

"You would not be taken prisoner. Rather ... The Templars will offer you shelter, food, and work. Yours to take or leave as you wish. As I've explained, we now prefer to entice new members with safety, security, and luxury, rather than simply beat them into submission."

Clay considered it. He'd repeatedly claimed indifference to both Templar and Assassin aims, but there was still an old instinctive curl of distaste in his gut at the thought of Abstergo and what they had turned him into. Yet this could be their only chance to escape Syria and return to safety. But even if Clay agreed to it, how would he convince...

"Clay?"

Desmond must have spotted the encounter taking place, for he'd paused only long enough to throw on some underwear before he came running over. Clay glanced over at him, but his mind was elsewhere. Fadel was here, but where were Khoury and Al Mahainy?

Desmond's eyes widened in recognition. "You..."

If Fadel was smart, and he was, he would have instructed them to keep out of sight, with guns trained on both the men. Right now, Clay and Desmond were probably being observed down the scope of a rifle. Clay drew in a sharp breath.

He and Desmond yelled and moved at the same time.

"You son of a bitch!"

"Desmond, no!"