Beams of sunlight streaked from the surface of the ocean, shrouding the underwater city in an ethereal light. Forests of brightly coloured kelp swayed in the currents of the clear, blue ocean. Schools of happy fish laughed and chased each other across the sand. A crab serenaded an eel as a clownfish snuggled up tight in the arms of his anemone, reading the morning paper. Bubbles shining like glass trickled out from beneath rocks and from the lips of the city-dwelling sea creatures, who were all incredibly happy. All was right in the world. Everyone was joyful and loved. The smell of freshly cooked seaweed was in the air and there wasn't an angry face in sight.

Jessica grinned and swam through the golden streets of her city, her long hair flowing behind her as her smooth, green tail propelled her along, its scales glistening like emeralds. Her arms were long and thin, and her body small and toned. She was a creature of grace and beauty. She smiled regally as a lobster greeted her politely with a tip of his hat, and a jellyfish screamed in delight. She was their queen and she was loved.

She laughed gaily, and watched as bubbles bounced from her mouth and drifted up toward the surface which seemed a million miles away. A crowd began to form around her, and she smiled and greeted them delicately, overjoyed by their happiness and by how light and perfect her life was. It was like a dream.

A voice called out to her from the crowd, a voice she knew well. A head of golden hair and an orange speckled face popped out from behind an octopus, who huffed pompously. She reached out to him and he took her hand, grinning at her with brown eyes as he pulled her close. She blinked. An icy stone settled within her as she gazed up at the face of her friend which held the eyes of another. The arms around her began to tighten and she immediately struggled against him. She tried to scream to the adoring, cheering crowds around her, but only bubbles escaped her throat.

Weak and helpless, her wide eyes stared in horror as the brown of his eyes turned white and the eye began to shrivel and vanish within the sockets. The rot spread, his skin becoming slick and pale as the meat of his cheeks fell away and his tongue rotted within his mouth. His entire form began to deteriorate; his skin turned green, brown and white and began to blister and bloat before falling from the bone in chunks, his hair peeled from the skull and fell, scalp still attached. His clothes became rags, hanging loosely from the skeleton which clung to her with the strength of a man. She tried to scream, to look away from the skull's empty eyes and its grinning teeth but she could do nothing but stare as it pulled her closer and closer, its bony hands poking and squeezing, groping her.

Her tail split into two and she was human once more. Her lungs filled with water and her eyes burned in the salt. Her vision blurred. Her brain felt like it was imploding. She screamed and screamed until her lungs were empty and she gaped, her mouth opening and closing uselessly, as the skull halted a breath away from her face, filling her bleary sight, filling her mind, filling her world.

"Hello, sweetheart."

A sound like ringing thunder cracked the silence of the early morning. She forced her eyes wide and wiggled her hands and feet, her mind whirring from the fright of the sudden noise and the terror of the nightmare she had just endured. The enormous, slow clanging continued, a mere beat separating each dong. She cursed under her breath, rubbing her eyes and sitting up, determined not to go back to sleep and back into the arms of the man she had killed.

She stopped herself, standing unsteadily on sleepy legs and forced herself to walk to the other side of the room. The bells of the Duomo continued to ring, no doubt calling the devout to Mass to celebrate Easter Sunday. It was a warm Spring morning, and she couldn't imagine what those finely dressed worshippers were thinking wanting to be out in that heat.

It was a serious effort trying to keep any thought of her nightmare from her mind. She consoled herself firmly, thinking that there was no way that man could have died from a little dunk in the river. Of course he could swim. The very thought that a man could have lost his life as a direct result of her actions was ridiculous. She didn't kill. She knocked her head back against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut, cursing again. She pushed the topic from her mind, but it simply ebbed back, like water in a bath.

She tried to remember why she had pushed him but couldn't. It seemed so long ago now, though in truth it had only been mere days since the incident. Chewing on her cheek, she tried to convince herself that the man had swam to a jetty and climbed out, wet and cold, but otherwise fine. She imagined he had returned to his boss, La Volpe, who would have punished him and then sent him on his way, back to his family and friends and life. She was worried for no reason, she was sure of it. The man, her would-be rapist, Adolfo, was not dead.

He couldn't be.

A heavy weight had settled in her chest, and a dark cloud settled over her, niggling at her every thought and continuously bringing to her mind visions of her dream. She made her bed and swept her room, doing her best to repress it all. Now hot and sweaty, she moved to the small washstand by the door to wash her face when the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end. A far off rumble steadily grew closer and closer until it was a terrible roar, reverberating through her skull.

It sounded as though Judgement Day was upon them, and God had set his army of angels upon the world. The air crackled as her ears began to pick out individual sounds and she suddenly realised, as she jumped to the window and flung it open wide, that it was in fact the cacophony of ten thousand Florentines fleeing in terror from the direction of the Duomo.

As the stampede grew nearer, Jessica pulled the window quickly shut and turned on her heel, still in her pyjamas with her hair in complete disarray, flying down the stairs intending to lock and bar the front door. So distracted by her fright was she, that she didn't notice the man trembling at the bottom of the stairs until she had quite literally run into him. He gave a shout, jumping away from her and tripping down the stairs onto the floor of the workshop as she squealed and fell back onto the same stairs she had just descended.

Wincing at the pain in her leg and back where she had hit the corner of the stair, she recovered before he did, and stood to stare down at him where he lay like a beetle on his back, his dark blonde hair sticking in every direction and his light blue eyes wide in surprise and pain. He groaned as he stared up at the roof, apparently too confused at what had just transpired to move.

She cursed as she recognised him, hurrying down to kneel at his side and check him for injuries. "Oh my god, Leo, I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"

He blinked at her dazedly and then shot up like a light. "Where the hell have you been?!" he demanded of her, before holding his head in his hands and groaning. She gingerly felt the back of his head for any wounds, but was hardly comforted when she found none.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him serious in her concern and feeling even sicker than she previously had. She manually turned his head toward her and checked his pupils, covering his eyes with a hand and then exposing them to the light to ensure all was in order.

"I don't understand why you insist on doing this to me. I'm not a young man, you know."

"You're 26."

"Do you like upsetting me? How do you think it makes me feel when you just storm out and disappear for two days? I had no idea where you were! You could have been dead in the Arno for all I knew!"

Jessica winced, again working to repress her nightmare. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three. You couldn't have left a note? You couldn't have told me where you were going?"

"How many days have passed since your birthday?"

"Eleven."

"What did I get you?"

"A flat cake. You used the wrong flour."

She rolled her eyes. "Other than that."

"A very fine hat. Thank you, again."

"You're welcome." She sighed in relief, "Your memory is fine. I think you'll be alright."

"Jessica," he suddenly grasped her hand and fixed her eyes with an intense stare, "Promise me that you will stop running off by yourself and getting into dangerous situations." Letting out an impatient breath she tried to pull away but he held fast. "You are my friend. I care about you very much. I know you believe you are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself but you must know that you do not need to. Let me help you. There is no need to keep so many things to yourself. You are not alone, Jessica."

She deflated, "I know that. I'm sorry."

He let out a long breath and suddenly she was in his arms, tucked beneath his chin as he hugged her tightly. "You are an enigma, mia carissima. There are days when I believe there is nothing I do not know about you. You are like a part of my mind which has escaped my head and stepped out into the world to live beside me. During those times we complement each other so well, in both mind and spirit. It is a beautiful and humbling thing.

"But then there are days you are closed off from me. You seem so sad and lost and no matter what I do I cannot get through to you. I cannot show you how deeply you are loved and cared for. You sit in your chair and stare into the fire for hours at a time, barely speaking, or you leave with little warning and do not return until dark. You build such great walls around yourself and hide within them, suffering in silence."

Jessica remained silent, listening to Leonardo da Vinci, her greatest and most trusted friend in her life, take in a shaky breath. She had no idea he noticed so much. She had no idea she had been so obvious in her weakest moments.

"You are so busy filling your mind with lonely and depressing thoughts that you forget that I am here for you. You can talk to me at any time, you know this. Stop thinking that you are so alone. Stop thinking that this world is against you. You are an intelligent young woman, Jessica Raso. You deserve to be happy, but first you must allow yourself happiness."

An eclipse of moths ate away at her insides, fluttering through her stomach and nibbling at her intestines, she sighed into his shoulder and smiled sadly, her arms wrapped around his middle. "You're an amazing man, Leonardo. And a fantastic friend. But you have no idea what you're talking about."

She expected him to argue. As he pulled back from her, she steeled her heart and readied herself for a heated discussion, but instead he took her face gently between her hands and stared at her with his beautiful, deep blue eyes. "Then explain."

Blinking at him, she tried to speak but didn't know what to say. At that moment there was a frightening pounding upon the front door and the two friends jumped and clung to each other, their wide eyes gazing at the dark wood in trepidation. Seemingly frozen in fright, Jessica found she could not move even as the pounding continued. The terrible roar continued, the thin glass windows barring no sound from the streets. There was then a noise above it all which tore her from the safety of Leonardo's arms and sent her running to open the door to the chaos which the city had descended into.

"Marietta! It's Elmo! Please, open the door!"

He was still knocking when she released the lock and swung the heavy door inward, and their eyes met at once. One arm was raised, his fist closed and his knuckles red from hitting the unrelenting wood, while the other was tightly wrapped around his midsection. And it was red with his own blood.

"Oh my god!" she gasped, catching him as he stumbled forward into her. "Leo!"

Elmo's breaths were pained and his body was hot and heavy upon her own. As she steadied him, she felt her hand slide across his skin, slick with sweat and blood. The hot liquid soaked immediately into the material of her nightdress, sticking unpleasantly to the flesh of her torso beneath. His weight was eased from her as Leonardo took his arm and threw it over his shoulders, supporting Elmo's weak body entirely.

"I have him. Clear one of the benches and fetch some rags and water. Then stoke the fire and fetch something to cauterise the wound."

"Cauterise it?"

"He is losing blood. Quickly!"

She frowned as she hurried over to the workbench closest to the fireplace and swept an arm across it, uncaringly pushing everything upon it to the ground. In the kitchen, she retrieved all that he asked for with the exception of the cauterisation instruments, instead hunting down a long, curved needle and a length of thread, along with some alcohol to sterilise it with. Trying to ignore the red on her hands, she returned to the workshop and found Leo had placed the groaning Elmo onto the table, resting his head on a folded blanket from her chair. She presented the rags and water to him as he finished cutting Elmo's bloodied shirt from his body, revealing his broad shoulders and chest, and the fresh purple and black bruises which decorated them.

She took it from him, wiping her hands to clean them of blood and turning to throw it aside. As she did, she realised they had left the door open and so ran to close, lock and after a thought, bar it. From the quick glimpse she had had of the street, she knew they wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Returning to the wounded Elmo, she took a clean wet rag and wiped it across his heated brow, pushing back his golden curls and inspecting the bruises across his jaw and cheek, and cleaning away the blood which trickled slowly from his left nostril. At her gentle ministrations, his tightly closed eyes opened and after a moment, focussed upon her in recognition.

"Marietta," he croaked and then coughed, his face contorting in pain, his expressive eyebrows twisted low over his blue eyes.

"It's alright. You're safe here. Leonardo will take care of you."

"The Pazzi... at High Mass... they killed Giuliano Medici."

"Mio dio," Leo gasped, wide blue eyes meeting her own for a moment. She saw fear there, and uncertainty. His long fingers shook unsteadily, coated in shining red. She knew he was no doctor, but if there was anyone she trusted to do this right, it was Leonardo da Vinci.

Fixing his gaze, she gave him a short, steady nod and watched him draw strength from her composed assuredness in his ability to save her new friend's life. With much of the blood cleared around the wound which was situated just to the left of his bellybutton, Jessica saw it was rather small but obviously deep, and a thick, dark red stream oozed from the corner and down the side of his body onto the table.

"The people panicked and fled... The Medici and the Pazzi slaughtered each other in th' streets... I got caught by a Pazzi sword... I was no' quick enough." He descended into a coughing fit, which encouraged the flow of blood from his wound and brought upon a fresh bout of agony.

Elmo's right hand rose from the table and hung in the air, and she took it without a thought, glad to bring him any kind of comfort. His hand squeezed hers and he shot her a grateful smile before Leonardo did something which made his eyes roll back in pain.

The roar had quietened but was now replaced by the sounds of battle; the shouts of men and the clanging of metal. Jessica, despite her calm appearance and her steady gaze, felt her knees weaken and her stomach tighten in fear. Adrenaline thrummed through her body as she explained to the aggravated Leonardo that cauterising the wound was not, in fact, a better option to simply stitching it up and wrapping it tight.

When Elmo spoke up in support of her plan not to shove a burning hot poker into the depths of his stomach to seal the blood vessels, giving him second to third degree burns in the process and undoubtedly increasing the chance of infection dramatically, Leo could only grumble and get to work. Watching carefully that he properly sterilise the needle, Jessica thanked her years of TV shows, movies and books which provided information to her that she never believed in a million years she would ever need.

As Leonardo stitched up her friend's flesh, Jessica moved through their home, barring the backdoor as tightly as the front, and covering each window with material to hide their presence within. Though it had been such a short amount of time, already the streets outside looked anything but familiar to her. Hundreds of people clamoured across the cobblestones, holding one another and screaming as they fought to make their way to the safety of their homes while men in shining uniforms splattered with blood stormed through them in packs, hunting down similar packs of men who belonged to the opposite family.

By the time she was done, Elmo was sleeping peacefully on the table, the hole in his side closed for good. Leonardo stoked the fire, now their only source of light in the unusually dark room. She fetched a clean bucket of water, washing her hands of her friend's blood and then suggested the clearly shaken Leonardo do the same. Instructing him firmly to change out of his bloodied nightclothes, she gathered the mass of bloodied rags and deposited them in the backroom which was now thankfully free of fresh corpses.

Using the remaining rags, she cleaned the table around Elmo, and then went to work washing the grazes and bruises which were scattered across his torso, no doubt from being thrashed about in the stampede fleeing the Duomo.

When Leonardo returned she had covered Elmo with a blanket. She changed, choosing to simply throw her nightdress into a corner in disgust, intending to throw it out or even burn it later. And then she sat beside Leonardo in front of the fire, in their respective armchairs, and she couldn't speak the horror she felt at the deaths of so many, right outside their front door. She felt like a hypocrite even thinking the words. So they sat silently and listened as Florence burned.

Days passed with little change. Elmo awoke and was well enough to sit in her chair and talk quietly with them for ever lengthening periods of time. She formally introduced her two male friends and they got along very well, which she was glad to find. Both of intelligent, quick minds, they shared easy, light-hearted conversations as they slowly got to know one another. Elmo spent much of the time reading any book which caught his interest, while the impatient and restless Leonardo insisted that he continued his work. However, with his assistants unavailable to assist him, for obvious reasons, that left only Jessica to pick up the slack.

And so she was put to work mixing paints, preparing clay, making new canvases, sorting notes, researching whatever it was he needed to know at any particular moment and after everything, cleaning up at the end of the day. She supposed he made up for it with his ability to create decent meals with the limited amount of rations she had allocated for him each meal, but as each hour passed that she was left hammering another nail or scrubbing another palette, she felt her patience grow thinner and thinner as she grew increasingly stressed and exhausted.

She was paranoid that their building would be the next to be pillaged and burned, and that they would all be murdered in their sleep, and it was absolutely infuriating to her to find that Leo shared none of her concerns, and instead he actually encouraged her to remove the covers over the windows and move the furniture she had pushed against the door, away from it. By the end of the week, he had worn her down; the room was filled with light once more, and the front door remained barred but barricaded no longer.

In the early afternoon, Jessica stood at the bookshelf, re-organising the books yet again as she listened to Elmo read to her from a book she had found at the back of a particularly disorganised shelf. He suddenly stopped. "Huh. I just remembered where I'd heard Leonardo's name before. It was around th' same time last year. Da Vinci and several others were arrested," he said thoughtfully, his accent as thick as ever.

Losing immediate interest in her task, she turned on him in disbelief, "What? What for?"

He looked about cautiously for Leonardo, wincing slightly as he overextended his still tender side, and then leaned toward her and spoke with a low voice, "Sodomy."

"What?"

"Apparently there was a prostitute involved," he chuckled slyly.

Jessica stared in astonishment, trying to imagine the young-hearted and childishly spirited Leo engaging in such adult activities and found she could not, until said man suddenly stepped into the workshop and stared at them with sparkling eyes and a cheeky smile.

"His name was Jacopo Saltarelli," he said, staring at the two who shrivelled in shame for being caught gossiping. "And they could not prove a thing."

Her jaw dropped and she almost fell over as he sent her a conspicuous wink and then disappeared upstairs, back to the study from whence he came. She looked to Elmo for comfort in the wake of this earth-shattering revelation which revealed an entirely new side of her friend, but the injured man was coughing with laughter, holding his side as he stared at her gobsmacked expression.

Closing her mouth, she glared at him before shaking her head and returning to her work. Sometime later, she and Leonardo leant over early sketches and notes concerning a commission he had received some time before all the chaos had begun; a painting depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds.

Having recently finished a portrait of the noblewoman Genevra de Benci, which sat complete in a corner by the door, covered with a white sheet, finally dry and ready to deliver to the lady, by Jessica, no doubt, as Leonardo had had several rather unpleasant conversations with the sixteen year old about how long it was taking to complete. Jessica was rather impressed he had finished it at all, as she had learned quickly that though her friend was very talented – of course, he being Leonardo da Vinci this was no surprise – he wasn't incredibly motivated to finish a product when it came to the laborious task of producing that which he had planned on paper.

His motivation appeared to be running on exactly zero at the thought of having to plan and complete any work for a religious group, religion being one of the areas he was least interested in. With bags under her scratchy, tired eyes, Jessica stood shoulder to shoulder with her friend, who had asked for help in planning what the painting would actually consist of, but who was now being anything but cooperative, shooting down her every suggestion while not having offering of his own.

Dangerously close to losing it; a scathing comment on the tip of her tongue and her fingers close to snapping the quill in her hand, there was an unexpected knock upon the front door. Her muscles tightened and she placed the quill silently upon the table, worried that their luck was up and the soldiers were coming for them at last. Leonardo, however, rolled her eyes at her, "Answer the door, please."

Narrowing her eyes at his order, done with hearing that particular tone directed at her and done with the cabin fever which plagued her, she glanced at Elmo, still in her chair with a book in his hand, and then moved to the door.

"Who is it?" she inquired.

"Ezio Auditore," came the short reply.

Her stomach sank as she let out a quiet groan, leaning her forehead against the door which was all that separated her from her worst nightmare. The man her heart wouldn't let her hate. She didn't want to let him in.

"Who is it?" Leonardo asked her, still engrossed in the predicament of his difficult commission.

"It's Ezio." She sighed, "...of course."

"Well, let him in!"

Reluctantly, she removed the heavy wood which barred the door, and then unlocked it, swinging it open just enough to meet the eyes of the White Hood, the gold darkened by the shadow of his hood. His lips were tight as he met her narrowed and suspicious gaze. The memory of their conversation a week past weighed heavily above them. She didn't move to let him pass.

"Marietta, let him through!" Leonardo called, exasperated.

With a petulant breath, she stepped back, holding the door as the tense-shouldered man swept past her in a gust of man-sweat. His robes looked strangely white considering the week he must have had. She had no doubt in her mind that he had been centrally involved in the efforts against the Pazzi. What exactly those efforts entailed, she hardly wanted to know.

Closing the door firmly behind him, she stood on the landing and watched Ezio lower his hood and greet Leonardo, before catching sight of Elmo sitting nonchalantly in her chair, the chair Ezio usually liked to occupy. A fact which infuriated her. She descended slowly, a scowl upon her face, as the two men stared at each other with obvious hostility.

Leonardo, missing nothing, nervously wrung his hands, "Ah, Ezio, this is Elmo. He—"

"We've met," was Ezio's short reply. The atmosphere in the room grew heavy and she could almost taste the testosterone in the air. Elmo's frame tensed as he took the armrests and began to ease himself to his feet, no doubt intending to confront the hostile man before him, but the action only served to rile Jessica, her tired mind suddenly filling with anger at their childishness.

"Don't you dare get up, Elmo," she snapped, arriving on their level and storming over to them. "And Ezio," she turned on him and poking him hard in the chest, "you leave him alone. He has more right to be here than you do."

Her sharp tone halted Elmo, who relaxed back into her chair and smiled with a roll of his eyes, used to her by now, while Ezio, her finger still embedded in the many folds of his shirt, raised his eyebrows in surprise. Before he could react, Leo jumped forward and swatted her hand away, gathering her up and moving her away from the man, very much wanting to avoid a confrontation between his two closest friends. She shrugged him off and glowered as he threw up his hands and shooed her away, "Donna irritabile!"

He took Ezio's shoulder apologetically, leading the younger man away. Mumbling underneath her breath, Jessica fell into Leonardo's armchair beside Elmo.

"So I was right in thinkin' ye two aren't exactly friends?"

She sighed, rubbing her eyes, "I've got nothing to say, Elmo. I'm too tired to deal with him right now."

"Da Vinci's been working ye to th' bone. I could help—"

"You've got a hole in your side."

"I've had worse," he lied.

She stared hard at him for a long moment, eyebrows raised in disbelief before shaking her head and gazing into the fire, feeling her sore muscles and her raw fingertips.

"I am leaving Firenze," she heard as she watched the flames dance in the hearth.

"So soon? I see. Thank you for coming to say goodbye."

"Here, I have another Codex page for you."

"Oh, how exciting! May I see it?"

"Of course."

Jessica winced and massaged her left palm, which had flared at the mention of another page. She had no interest in seeing another, not after what she had seen last time. It was too weird.

"Hmm, this may take some time. Stay for lunch, Ezio, won't you? Marietta, please fetch some wine and cakes for our guest."

"There isn't any cake left. Elmo ate it all."

"I did no'," came the mumble.

She ignored the lie, leaning around the chair to speak to Leo, "We've got pasta, cheese and onions, but that's all that's left of the rations."

"I see. Well, make yourself at home, my friend. I will not be long."

As Leonardo, the only cook in the house moved toward the kitchen to whip up a quick meal, Ezio spluttered, "You? Is Marietta not your assistant? And a woman?"

Before she could snap at confused eighteen-year-old, Elmo laughed out loud. "Marietta canno' cook," he informed him with great amusement.

Ezio blinked at her as she reached over and punched Elmo's arm as hard as she could. He swatted her away, chuckling as she crossed her arms and pointedly ignored them both.

Hours later, Ezio had taken his leave and Leonardo was hard at work on a new murder weapon for the Assassin, grateful to work on something other than his commission. Jessica had made the decision to finally unbar and unlock the front door, peeking outside as Ezio left and finding the street clear of bodies, fire and blood. The citizens of Firenze were hard at work rebuilding their battered city and burying their dead.

In the days which followed, Leonardo's assistants slowly trickled in, returning to their duties and freeing Jessica at last. As she spent time relaxing, Elmo had recovered well, but now she and Leonardo had found that the man was remarkably difficult to get rid of. They allowed him to spend his days in the workshop on the condition that he assisted wherever he could, and both were surprised to find that he took to it well. He certainly didn't look the type to spend his days inside working with paints and old books, but considering the stories he had told her of his childhood, she supposed that this was where he felt most comfortable; where he belonged.

The warm spring days were a welcome reprieve from the biting winter months, and Jessica was determined to spend as many as possible outside, so she took it upon herself to personally overlook the re-stocking of food, wine, paints, wood, clay, and anything else Leonardo required at any time of the day. Though the city bloomed, it was also scarred, and she frequently overheard disturbing tales of what exactly had transpired only the week prior.

The Pazzi's plot to overthrow the Medici had failed, badly. The mobs they had apparently been counting on to rise against the Medici alongside them, instead hunted and killed every Pazzi sympathiser they could find. Francesco, Jacopo and Renato Pazzi, as well as Archbishop Salviati had been hanged, and the remaining members of the Pazzi family had been either killed or exiled; their goods confiscated, their coats-of-arms demolished and their names banished from all official documents. She also heard that the Pope had actually declared war on the city as a result of all the chaos. Jessica was no politician, but she thought that if she was the mayor, or Magnifico, or whatever it was they called the guy who ran Florence, she would be on her knees grovelling to the Pope, who was no doubt more influential and powerful in this time than he would ever be in her own.

It was a dark time for the city; the people mourned their friends, their families, and for Giuliano de' Medici, the Magnifico's brother who had been killed on Easter Sunday, at the Duomo. Many wore black, others wept openly in the streets and the rest went on with their lives as if a week of soldiers fighting, and mobs of bloodthirsty people lynching, torturing, and otherwise killing people in the street was an unremarkable occurrence. Though she was eager to get out of the house, it was hardly worth the gut-wrenching grief and horror she felt as she walked the battle-scarred streets.

The guilt she suffered only worsened as the days passed, and became irrational as she began to wonder if she could have done something to save some of those who had lost their lives, or to calm the mobs before they could do too much damage. Her remorse was like a sickness in her; the taste of bile would not pass, her hands trembled, she experienced terrible migraines and she lost the ability to sleep almost altogether. These were easier to hide from the incredibly observant Leonardo when she was out, so she spent more and more time away from the workshop, sometimes keeping herself busy doing the most trivial tasks, and other times wandering through the city's streets, searching blindly for the bench she had slept upon that night she had been attacked.

The search became a task in itself, though in truth she believed she knew exactly where the bench was. However, she always looked in an opposite direction, never letting herself wander close. She didn't know why she was fake-searching. She wanted answers and yet she didn't want to know. She was simply wasting time. Convincing herself that she was keeping herself occupied. She wondered if she was finally going mad from the guilt.

She spent a lot of time thinking about what her life had become, writing these thoughts down in her rather full journal, and wondering what the reason could possibly be that she was still here. Whenever she thought the action picked up; whenever the adventure pushed onward, it suddenly stopped and she found herself doing the same thing for months, simply waiting for the next time something would change, seemingly at random and without warning. Was she happy? Was she depressed? Was she merely content? Was she prepared to spend the rest of her life this way?

The Voice had told her she was meant to do something; something which involved the Auditore family, and specifically, Ezio. But now she only saw the man fleetingly. She was terrified of the things he did, and what he was capable of. She didn't want anything to do with him. But was she making a mistake? Is this what she was supposed to be doing –spending her days as assistant to Leonardo da Vinci, cleaning and supplying and helping out? Perhaps she was supposed to be doing something else, something important. Or maybe something selfish – was she supposed to be searching all over for a way home? Was this a waiting game, or was it all truly pointless?

Jessica sat in her chair, the workshop empty and the house quiet at the midnight hour. She was too exhausted to think anymore. Two years and she still lacked even the simplest answers to the questions she had. Would she live the rest of her life in ignorance in regards to her purpose here? Closing her now completely full journal, she stared for a while at its cover before she threw it into the flames and watched it burn. Like always, all she could do was wait.

/

Jessica Raso strolled the streets of Florence on a warm, spring day in May, humming to herself and in uncommonly high spirits. She was returning from the home of Ginevra de' Benci who had welcomed her like the oldest of friends when she saw she came to deliver her portrait at last, clearly choosing to forget the memory of their last meeting, which had ended with de' Benci upending a table in the workshop, shouting a colourful array of vulgar adjectives which resulted in Jessica comforting a trembling Leonardo, who hid in the backroom while Elmo respectfully but quite firmly threw the lady out. With a bag heavy with coins hidden well within her skirts, and with the rest of her day free, Jessica decided she wanted something special for dinner that night, and so she made her way through the city to the marketplace, closing her eyes and humming as the sun shone upon her skin, relaxing her every muscle with its warmth.

Her nose was soon filled with the overwhelming scents of perfume, leather, flowers and fruits, and of course the all-encompassing stench of sweat. Taking her shopping list from her skirts, she took up her basket and flowed with the crowds, chatting happily with flushed shop keepers and laughing jovially with other customers as they were jostled rudely about. The city was in good spirits, Leonardo and Elmo were hard at work and she finally had some time to herself. So with a smile at the corner of her mouth as she carried a basket filled with food, paints, various knick-knacks and two rather expensive bottles of wine, Jessica wandered slowly along the path which stretched alongside the river Arno, breathing in the city and admiring the sunny view.

So relaxed was she that she found herself hardly bothered when a white form appeared just further ahead, and she slowed to almost a halt, the Mark burning, as she watched as the large man leant heavily upon the wall which separated the path from the water, his head hung low on his shoulders, looking incredibly unhappy. Wondering how good her chances were of avoiding a confrontation and managing to sneak successfully past him, she sighed deeply at the sparks of guilt which arose within her demanding that she did something to comfort the pitiful young murderer. She rolled her eyes at her own ridiculous way of thinking and took something from her basket, clearing her throat to make herself known.

"Cheese, Ezio?"

She had surprised him, she knew, but he didn't show it as he turned to face her. With his hood down, she watched as his golden eyes stared steadily into her own and then fell to the small offering she held out to him. When he didn't react, she grew uncomfortable and shifted warily on her feet, wondering if this was as bad of an idea as she thought, but at last, with a raised eyebrow, he slowly reached out and took the cut of yellow cheese from her hand.

She couldn't help but chuckle as he looked at the cheese he now held carefully in his grasp with a small measure of suspicion, and she felt his eyes upon her face as she stepped forward to rest the basket on the wall beside him. She took a deep breath of the ripe stench of the Arno and watched the gentle waves travel across the dark surface of the water. She clung to the warmth of the day and the peace which so rarely settled there in her mind, and though she knew the day would not pass as pleasantly as she had hoped, she knew this was something she needed to do.

After a moment, Ezio turned to face the river but stared down at the cheese, playing with it in long, strong fingers. She licked her dry lips, knowing he was waiting for her to say something.

"How is Petruccio?"

She wondered if he would reply to her softly spoken words, and when at last he did, she couldn't decide whether ignorance would have been kinder.

"Bedridden, the last I saw of him. The illness took to him days after you left. At first he complained of being tired, and then his body was sore. We hoped it would pass." He shrugged, silent for a long moment. Jessica's jaw clenched as her face fell and she frowned at the rippling waves.

"With Mother still unresponsive, Federico locking himself away in the workshop and myself and Mario too busy to care for him, Claudia has had to take responsibility. I know she thinks it unfair but even in her moods she doesn't complain."

"...I am sorry, Ezio."

He sighed loudly, keeping his gaze fixed on the cheese in his hands. "He misses you. They all do." She remained silent and he suddenly stood straight, shaking his head as his voice hardened. "I'm sorry that what I am disgusts you. It's my fault that you left, I know that now. But my father and my family deserve vengeance for the wrongs done to them. I thought you would understand." Her heart skipped a beat as he turned to her, and she took an involuntary step back, holding her basket tightly in front of her with wide eyes as he stared at her with a hard look. "It makes no difference now. As quickly as you put my family back together so did you rip it apart. I will not forget your actions, Marietta. Nor will I forgive you for them."

And with that, Ezio Auditore dropped the cheese she had given him back into her basket, the quick movement making her flinch, and in that moment, he was gone.

Blinking around, she found no trace of the man, and so she shook herself, realising that she really shouldn't have expected anything else. Looking down at the cheese he had held so thoughtfully, Jessica glowered and gingerly reached out to take it between the very tips of her thumb and forefinger, holding it for the barest of moments before flinging it over the wall and watching it plop loudly into the water, sinking quickly below the dark surface.

With a huff of contempt, and taking satisfaction in knowing at last where she stood with Ezio Auditore, the White Hood, Jessica squared her shoulders and held her chin high as she continued on her way.