Note- the stuff about ancient religions is accurate as far as I know. I actually read something about this for a class last semester, and suddenly got interested when the name Juno popped up in my textbook. So if I'm misunderstanding things, whoops, my bad. This is an alternate universe anyway.
Shay watches through Desmond's eyes as he pages through the file. Most of it is written in a dry, academic tone that Shay has issues reading- it's very dissimilar from what he's used to from his own time- and Desmond seems to be struggling a little as well. He does finally get through the whole thing, though, and Shay can feel black edges of despair creeping into his mind.
"What is it?" Rebecca asks as soon as she sees his face. "How bad?"
"There's… okay, so it's kind of confusing," Desmond admits. "I wish Shaun was here, actually, because it starts with a kind of history lesson." He and Rebecca move deeper into the safehouse, settling next to each other at a sturdy wooden table. Desmond spreads the file out and starts pointing to things as he speaks. "We know that Juno was the name of a goddess in ancient Roman times."
"That's pretty much common knowledge," Rebecca agrees. "And?"
"Well whoever put this file together points out that it's likely the Romans knew about- you know, our Juno."
"The one you guys killed last year," Rebecca says.
"Right," Desmond says. "So she was a namesake for this Roman goddess. Which kind of makes sense, when you think about it. I mean, if she ever interacted with anyone in that time, they would have seen a giant glowing lady and assumed she was a goddess."
"And? What does that have to do with anything?" Rebecca rapped the knuckles of one fist on the table impatiently. "This is all ancient history, right? It's so old it doesn't matter to us."
Shay starts to stir angrily- being born in an earlier century doesn't make him useless- but Desmond gets there first. "There's a two hundred year old man in my head that objects to that comment," he says, and Rebecca seems to soften a little.
"Fine," she says. "So what's the relevance here?"
"Whoever wrote this went a little deeper," Desmond explains. "The gods in some ancient civilizations- mostly Greek, but occasionally Roman- were unique in every city where they were worshipped. So if two different cities worshipped a goddess Juno, they believed they were worshipping two different versions of the same goddess. If one city conquered the other, they would capture all the gods sacred in that city and claim them as sacred to their city. That includes gods and goddesses with the same name as the deities they already worshipped."
"And…?"
"There could have been a goddess called Juno in every city," Desmond says.
"But there's only one actual Juno," Rebecca says.
"That's what we thought," Desmond says, hesitantly. "But the thing is… these people knew her well enough to know her name. They named a goddess- they named the queen of their gods after her. That's a big deal. What if they had a point about this 'multiple Juno' thing?"
"That's kind of a…" Rebecca trails off, staring down at the table as Desmond flips over a piece of paper. "Stretch."
"I don't get it," Shay says. The paper is full of photographs of women- dark, fair, old, young, tall, and short. The oldest seems to be at least ninety, bowed by age and covered in wrinkles, while the youngest looks barely ten, beaming at the camera from behind a wide, toothy smile. They seem to come from all walks of life, all over the world, and at first Shay sees no similarities between the half dozen or so pictures on the table.
Then he sees their eyes. They are dark, and empty, and dead. Curious, he goes digging through Desmond's memories, until he finds one of the Juno he and Rebecca keep talking about. He knows who she is, of course. Vaguely. He's heard the others mention her once or twice, and he knows she's (supposed to be) dead. But it's not until he unearths Desmond's memory of her that he recognizes the dead eyes from the pictures as hers.
"They're all Juno," Desmond says, in answer to both Shay's question and Rebecca's horrified look. "Becca, you remember the sage Altair met at Abstergo last year, right? He figured out that he had so much precursor DNA he basically was one of them?"
"John," Rebecca says. "Yea, I remember him."
"Same thing with them," Desmond says, gesturing again to the photographs on the table. "There are half a dozen copies of Juno in the world, and they are the instruments of the first will."
"Well…" Rebecca sucks in a breath, then laughs in a way that makes it sound like she wants to cry instead. "Well shit."
"Pretty much," Desmond says.
"At least that explains how they were able to drain the apples," Rebecca says. "I mean, if they have any of Juno's knowledge, then that sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing for them to be able to do."
"I agree," Desmond says. "Probably they needed it for power, or something…" he trails off, staring blankly at nothing.
"Desmond?"
"What's wrong?" Rebecca asks.
"I'm so stupid," Desmond says, and a second later he's out of his chair and on his feet. "The apples need power, and we- Rebecca, did you bring the dead apples with you when you moved up here?"
"Of course," she says, gesturing toward a corner of the room obviously used for storage. "Dead or not, they didn't seem safe to leave behind."
"Perfect," Desmond says. "Shay, get out of my head."
Shay follows the order without question, more out of confusion than anything else. He doesn't hesitate to follow Desmond as he hurries toward the place Rebecca had indicated, though.
"What's going on?"
"Remember, when we first found that artifact in Lisbon?"
"I do," Shay says coldly. He hates when anyone brings up Lisbon, and Desmond knows that. "So?"
"The artifact dissolved."
"And caused an earthquake," Shay says. "Trust me, I remember. But-"
"We both got some of the energy inside us," Desmond says. "Just pure, first civilization energy. That means…" he stops, bends over, and picks up a dull silver sphere lying on the ground. "That energy can be used to recharge the apples."
Shay watches cautiously as Desmond suddenly seems to light up, glowing with a soft golden light that moves quickly from him to the apple. The air has an electric quality that makes the hairs on the back of Shay's neck stand on end, and it smells like the air just before a storm. Then, in almost no time at all, the light has moved from Desmond to the sphere, and faded to a more manageable glow.
"This," Desmond says. "Is an apple."
"How is that better than having the energy inside you?" Shay asks.
"It's easier to control like this," Desmond says. "With the apple, I can choose when I time travel, and which century I go to."
"Really?"
"Trust me," Desmond says, suddenly grim. "I've spent a lot of time with these things. I know how they work."
"Oh," Shay says. He picks up a second apple, and under Desmond's expectant gaze, imagines himself pushing the energy inside him into the apple. It goes easily enough, and before long Shay is holding a glowing sphere that seems to pulse softly in his hand.
He looks up at Desmond, expecting approval, but instead finds Desmond focusing on the apple as it sort of… gets absorbed into his skin. It flickers, half visible, and then is suddenly gone. Complex lines of pure light flash on Desmond's skin, and then vanish. He makes a fist and grins at Shay. "Yea," he says, and somehow he sounds more real now than he ever has before. "That will do nicely."
"Do I have to do that?" Shay asks. "The whole… apple disappearing trick?"
"No," Desmond says. "I'd actually prefer if you didn't. The apple in me is my apple- the one you have is Altair's. He's fairly good with it."
"And the third?" Shay asks, gesturing to the still empty sphere on the ground between them.
"That was Ezio's," Desmond says quietly.
"Oh."
"Yea. We don't… it's better if we don't recharge it anyway," Desmond mutters.
"We'll need every advantage we can get, if these Juno duplicates are as bad as you say they are," Shay points out.
"Don't worry about it," Desmond says. He seems much more confident than he had mere minutes ago. "We have the apples back, now. And we've already destroyed one Juno- how much trouble can the others be?"
-/-
Hopefully this makes some sense. *fingers crossed *