Desmond takes another few minutes to pull himself together before leaving the bedroom, and looking for the others. It's not a difficult search- there's a large(ish) open room on the other side of the door, crammed with desks and computers and- he recognizes it, even though it's vastly different from the one at Abstergo- an animus.
"Desmond?"
He's expecting Lucy to be the only one he recognizes, but to his surprise it's Rebecca that's beaming at him from the other side of the animus. "Rebecca?" He grins back at her. "What are you doing here?"
"Hang on-" and this time it is Lucy speaking. "You two know each other?"
"We were in high school together," Rebecca says, and turns back to Desmond. "I didn't know you were- I mean, Lucy didn't tell us your name."
"So you guys were friends?" Lucy asks, and Rebecca nods.
"How did you not realize who he was?" the third person in the room asks, and Desmond glances over at him for the first time. He looks much less happy than the two women. "Seriously, Bill's been looking for him nonstop for years."
Rebecca shrugs and shoots Desmond a conspiratorial smile, which he returns. "This is Shaun, by the way," she says. "Don't let his personality scare you away, he's not totally awful once you get used to him."
Shaun scowls, and disappears into another room as Lucy starts in on interrogating Desmond. "You look better than before."
"I feel better," Desmond says.
"I mean way better," Lucy says. "That doesn't seem possible."
"Your brain was pretty much falling out of your ears," Shaun says, reappearing with a stack of papers in his arms.
"I understand what you meant about the personality," Desmond says to Rebecca. "But um… yea. My brain's back where it's supposed to be, I feel fine, thanks for caring."
She cracks a smile, but it doesn't last long. "In that case… there's something I need to ask you."
Only she doesn't actually ask, just stares at the animus between them. Desmond stares too, trying to ignore the growing pit of revulsion in his stomach. Just because he's starting to figure out the way around the bleeding effect, it doesn't mean he's completely convinced that it's going to work, especially if he spends any more time in the demon machine.
"You want me to go through more of Altair's memories," he says. "Because we need to find the pieces of Eden before Abstergo gets ahold of them."
"Sort of," Lucy says. "Only not Altair." She tilts her head sideways and looks at him through narrowed eyes. "Why aren't you more upset about this?"
"Is being upset going to change anything?" Desmond asks. "What do you mean, 'not Altair'?"
"You have a lot of influential assassins in your family tree," Lucy says. "Not just the one. And like you said, we need to find the POEs before the templars get their hands on them. They already have the same information as we do on Altair, so we need to look for something new if we're going to get the advantage over them."
"So?" Desmond asks. "Whose memories am I looking at?"
"Ezio Auditore da Firenze," Lucy says, stumbling a little over the pronounciation, and Desmond can't stop himself from laughing out loud. Because of course it's Ezio. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if Haytham and Connor are his ancestors as well.
"Something funny?" Shaun snaps.
"Um-" Easier to lie than to explain. "Just the name."
"You're so mature," Shaun says, rolling his eyes.
"Right," Lucy says, giving Desmond a look that says 'well you're probably crazy but we already knew that so I'm just going to roll with it'. "So anyway, Ezio-"
The computer in front of Rebecca dings loudly, and she makes an apologetic noise. "Sorry," she says. "Just an e-mail."
"So what am I supposed to find in Ezio's memories?" Desmond asks, emphasizing the name just a little, because hearing it said wrong is like nails on a chalkboard.
"If we knew that, you wouldn't have to go in at all," Shaun says.
"But you have to have some idea," Desmond insists. "Or else there's no reason to pick him over any other ancestor."
"Oh!" Rebecca says suddenly, looking up from her computer. "So apparently we're getting another assassin in here," she says, and Desmond raises an eyebrow. Clearly, Altair had wasted no time in guilting Connor into coming.
"What for? Lucy asks, and she looks surprisingly upset by the news. "This is a delicate operation, and the more people we have here, the more likely it is that Abstergo will be able to track us down."
"It sounds like he just heard we were in the country, and since he's here too he's offering to come over if we need any help."
"We don't," Lucy says.
"We… probably could, actually," Shaun says. "I mean, there's only four of us here, and we all have our jobs to do."
Rebecca pipes up as well. "And we could use another fighter, just in case Abstergo does find us. Connor's one of the best, anyway."
Desmond stays quiet, because he's pretty sure he's not supposed to know Connor. Already he's starting to get a headache from keeping track of which secrets everyone knows already. Luckily, because Connor was hardly ever around when Desmond was in high school, Rebecca apparently doesn't remember him from then. He knows she's met Altair, but he doubts she knows any of the others.
Shaun makes an approving noise and nods. Lucy, on the other hand, frowns. "I've never heard of him," she says.
"He joined after you went undercover," Rebecca says. "We couldn't-"
"Communicate with me," Lucy snaps. "At all. Yea, I'd actually noticed that." She turns and storms off, face twisted into a look like thunder. As she passes him, Desmond takes an involuntary step back and flips to eagle vision just long enough to see Lucy's blue aura flash suddenly and startlingly red. It only lasts a second, but it leaves Desmond decidedly uneasy. He's never seen anyone change between ally and enemy so quickly, and he's not sure what to think.
Until then, Desmond had been a little resentful of Altair sending Connor to, essentially, babysit him. But now he's suddenly uncertain, and what he really wants is someone to talk to about what he's seen. Lucy had gotten angry when she was reminded of the time she'd been forced to spend apart from the assassins. Maybe it was just a moment of bitterness that had turned her aura red. After all, from what Desmond understood she had been on her own for a very long time.
Or maybe…
She had been on her own for a long time. It's possible that she could have changed sides. The normal blue color of her aura can be explained as their goals temporarily aligning, or Desmond's natural inclination to trust the woman that had gotten him out of Abstergo. Everything is suddenly a mess, and Desmond is frowning as he turns back to Rebecca and Shaun.
"Well," he says. "That went well."
-/-
Desmond is spared the horrors of the animus for the rest of the day, mostly because Lucy is stewing or moping or scheming or something, and the rest of them aren't quite sure what to do next. Connor shows up while Desmond is in the shower, and it's jarring to come out and see him sitting there, having an entirely normal (by assassin standards) conversations.
For some reason, Desmond has never been able to picture Connor with friends. The closest he has is probably Haytham, although in anyone else their relationship would barely qualify as friendly. They're weird people, though, and Desmond has more or less come to accept that he's never going to see either of them with regular friends.
But here's Connor, sat on a desk with his back to Desmond, in the middle of a quiet but animated conversation that Desmond's too far away to overhear. It's weird to remember that he must have gotten to know some of the assassins over the past couple of years, but Desmond should have seen this coming after seeing Rebecca and Shaun's reactions. Clearly, they knew him. Soft footsteps behind him make him turn, and the look on Lucy's face right then makes him worried all over again. She's looking at the group with an expression of stone cold anger that Desmond had never expected to see on her face.
When she sees Desmond looking on her, she wipes the anger off her face and pastes on a smile. "That must be Connor," she says. "He got here quickly."
Desmond doesn't bother answering. "What happened to you at Abstergo?" he asks.
"What?"
"You…" he flails for something to say, and can't think of anything. "Don't look happy," he finishes instead.
"Assassins aren't supposed to be happy," Lucy says, and the smile starts to slide off her face.
"I don't think that's true," Desmond says. He knows it's not, because even though he'd seen the side of the assassins she's talking about while living on the Farm, he'd also lived a relatively happy life after growing wings and being rescued by Altair. "I know it's not."
Lucy snorts. "You left, didn't you?" she asks. "When you were young."
"And now I'm back," Desmond says. "And I don't plan to leave again."
"Hey!" Rebecca calls, apparently noticing the two of them for the first time. "Connor, this is Desmond and Lucy. Lucy, Desmond- this is Connor."
"Hey," Desmond says, and Lucy throws that damn false smile back on her face. Connor glances at Desmond, then quickly away. Desmond winces and hopes bringing him in will turn out to be the right choice- Connor's never liked this kind of complicated charade- but in the end he only nods.
"So you'll be here for a while?" Lucy says, and if not for what Desmond's seen from her already, he wouldn't have heard the slightest hint of disapproval in her voice.
"Yes," Connor says. "Unless you don't need someone else that knows how to fight around here."
"We could always use another warm body," Lucy says, and it looks for all the world like she's happy to have him. But now that he knows what to look for, Desmond can see the tension in her posture and the brittle fragility of her smile. More than that, now that he's looking at her without the expectation that she's an ally, all Desmond can see is the burning red of the aura.
This time, the red does not fade back to blue, and Desmond is relieved when he finally has a chance to talk to Connor alone. The other three are busy with the animus, setting up for Desmond to start trawling through Ezio's memories.
"Lucy's a double agent," Desmond says, the second they're alone. "A templar."
"I saw," Connor says.
"Rebecca and Shaun have no idea," Desmond says. "We have to tell them before-"
"We can't," Connor says. "What evidence could convince them?"
Desmond stares at him. "Well, eagle vision-"
"Sounds insane when you try and explain it," Connor says.
"So we just do nothing?" Desmond demands. "That's stupid."
Connor shakes his head. "We still need to find the pieces of Eden," he says. "Before the templars. We still need the animus for that."
"What's the point if Lucy's just going to learn everything we do?"
"It doesn't do her any good if she can't carry any information back to her superiors," Connor says.
Desmond nods. "So we get what we need without letting Lucy get in contact with anyone." He sighs- even overlooking how difficult that sounds, it feels underhanded to go on like they don't know anything's wrong. But suddenly there are footsteps coming toward them, and they're out of time to come up with a better plan. Desmond takes a hasty couple of steps away from Connor so it looks like they'd been having nothing more than a casual conversation.
"Hey," Lucy calls. "The animus is ready, if you're okay to get started."
"Sure," Desmond calls back, trying to ignore the sudden nervous flipping in his stomach. It has nothing to do with the animus, and everything to do with the uncertain future suddenly facing him. He hadn't exactly expected this to be simple, but now it seems utterly impossible.
But he pastes on a fake smile that rivals Lucy's, and follows her anyway. After all, the only choice he has is to try.