Desmond slips away quietly while the others talk and shout and tease one another. It's good to see everyone together again, but there's still something- someone- missing, and Desmond knows nothing will be quite right until Ezio is back with them. If they really are a family- and somehow that is exactly what they've become- then Ezio is an important piece of that.

But the others seem perfectly happy catching up, and Desmond knows that sooner or later, whatever strange technology drives the pieces of Eden will send them back to their respective times. So at least that's one thing he doesn't have to worry about. He's still smiling faintly with the memory of the reunion when he logs out of Connor's memories the animus and selects the last remaining file on the computer in front of him.

By now, the process of resynching with an ancestor is perfectly familiar to Desmond. He breathes in, deeply, as Ezio's memories rush into and over and through him, filling him up and making him something more than just himself.

Except this time, something is wrong. And Desmond doesn't know exactly what that something is.

When he finally lands inside Ezio's mind, it doesn't feel the way it should. His mind is disjointed and his thoughts scattered like a cloud on the wind. Desmond feels a sharp spike of panic jolt through him, and he gets frantically to work, gathering the drifting pieces of Ezio's mind back together.

After a few moments of effort (moments that feel like they take an eternity), Ezio takes a wheezing, shuddering breath. Desmond can feel a sickness there, and it hits him for the first time just how old Ezio has grown. He knows Ezio is old, of course, older than the rest of them, but he's always been so cheerful and upbeat, in all but the very worst of situations. Somehow he's never actually realized how many years the man has already put behind him.

"…Desmond," Ezio says, seeming to notice his presence at last.

"Yea," Desmond says. "Ezio, what's wrong? What-" He can feel his ancestor starting to drift away again, and scrambles to keep his mind together. But it's like trying to hold fog in his bare hands, and no matter what he does or how hard he tries, he can't stop bits and pieces of Ezio's mind from floating away.

"You came just in time," Ezio says, and even within his own mind, his voice sounds weak and quiet. Far away.

"Just in time for what?" Desmond demands. "Ezio, seriously, you're scaring me."

"I am dying," Ezio says simply, and even though he half knows it already, the words still hit Desmond so hard he feels like he's been punched in the face.

"No," he says. All trace of his earlier happiness from reuniting with Edward and Connor is gone as he finds himself unexpectedly pleading for Ezio's life. "No! Ezio, please. You can't, not right now. Everyone else is waiting for you. There's this new guy, Shay. You'll like him, I think, a lot. The two of you can drive everyone else crazy."

He can feel Ezio's regret, something deep and thorough, a sadness that goes beyond Desmond's ability to describe in words. "Don't do this," Ezio says. "Desmond, please. It's my time, and this is not such a bad way to go. I want to pass on peacefully, and I cannot do that with you crying and clutching at my mind like an infant."

Desmond is not crying, but if he'd had his own body at that moment he knows he would have been. He'd come here to bring Ezio home, to bring him back to see the others again. And instead, he finds Ezio on death's door, and he is faced suddenly with the horrifying prospect of saying goodbye to one of his ancestors. For good, this time- he himself had come back when everyone thought him dead, but he senses instinctively that this is different. Ezio is truly dying, and he is enough at peace with himself to do so with no regrets The only thing keeping him from going peacefully is Desmond's panic.

"I'm not a child," he tells Ezio. "But you can't just leave! We still need you. I still need you."

"No," Ezio says. "You are strong, Desmond. You can get through your life without me." Desmond feels tears start to form on Ezio's face, and thinks they might be his. As he struggles to get himself under control, Ezio continues speaking. "You have been here in my mind since the moment I was born," he says. "And I would not have lived past that hour had you not been there. You have saved me more times than I can count. You were there when I thought there was no point to going on, and you showed me the world is so much bigger and wider than I ever thought. You and Altair are the two closest friends I have ever had, and the Kenways- they weren't all bad, either. So I want to say thank you, Desmond."

"Ezio-"

"But I need you to do one more thing," Ezio says. "I need you to let me go."

"I can't!" Desmond says, and the only reason he can speak at all is that he has no body at the moment. Otherwise, he knows he would have been choking on his own tears. "Please, I can't-"

"Desmond-" Ezio sounds fond and exasperated, but also distant. It is a real effort to hear his voice now, and there is so little of him left in his own mind that Desmond can't even try to keep it all together. It floats, untethered and almost free. "We have been in one another's minds. We have been one another, on occasion. There's no way I can ever be gone for good, not while you and the others remember me the way I know you will. But you really have no choice in the matter."

"Why not?" Desmond demands. "I'm sure I can think of something, just hold on a little bit longer-"

"No," Ezio says. "You have no choice because it's already too late."

And that's when Desmond realizes he can't remember the last time he felt Ezio take a breath, that his heart is still inside a chest that is rapidly growing cold. For a split second, he has a horrible kind of déjà vu, remembering his first time in Ezio's mind. He remembers pleading with silent, desperate words to an infant he doesn't even know to breathe, just breathe!

It had worked then, but this time he knows it will do no good. The last of Ezio drifts away, nothing but a memory in the wind and a corpse in the sun. Desmond (who has never been a religious man, but if not now then when?) mentally closes his eyes in concentration and sends a silent prayer after him. He has no eyes of his own to close, and Ezio's are wide and staring at nothing, but he needs to do this right.

"Please, God," he prays. "I don't know if you're out there, or what comes next, but if there is a heaven, then this man deserves to see it."

And then he is going as well. With nothing left in Ezio's mind, there is nothing to keep Desmond where in his empty shell of a body. He barely has time for a mental "requiescat in pace" before he is back in his own body and his own time.

Now the tears that go streaming down his face are undoubtedly his own. Heedless of his cover or the Abstergo security cameras that no doubt watch his every move, Desmond buries his face in his arms and sobs.

-/-

I don't want to say too much because I want the chapter to speak for itself, but if I get a lot of upset reviews on it I may talk about this a little when the next one goes up.