"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help."
― Bill Watterson
The morning saw Jessica, dressed in a loose white shirt and brown pants, reclining in the armchair by the large window in Elmo's study, one leg flung over the arm and the other tucked beneath her. Her long thick hair flowed in inky black waves across her shoulders and down her back as she gazed through the dewy glass at the people in the square below, huddling together and clutching their capes and cloaks as the winds blew the winter ever closer to the city. She felt this cold seep through the window, like an icy breath on her skin, but it could not settle in the warm room.
Elmo loved winter, but hated the cold and thus much preferred to admire the cool months from within the heated confines of his study. In the fireplace, the flames burned hot and bright, filling the room with a ruddy golden light and a smoky heat.
Jessica yawned and stretched, still tired though she had slept like the dead. She craned her neck to watch her friend's expressive eyebrows dance upon his face as he tended to one of the many small potted plants he kept in a locked terrarium on a table by the window. Each of these plants, she had been told, were quite rare and unique in this part of the world and he had apparently had gone to great lengths to acquire them. Venice being one of the largest trading ports in the world was no doubt nothing but an advantage to any who wished to collect foreign or vaguely illegal items from afar, fortunately for Elmo.
He had tried to explain the important aspects of these separate species and their practical uses to her several times before giving up altogether, realising Jessica's interest in learning about even the most useful flora was practically nonexistent. All she needed to know was that depending on which part of the plant was used, you could either effectively heal or kill a man, and that under no circumstances should she ever touch them. She had little temptation to do so, for she was far more content to admire their healthy green leaves and the care Elmo took in pruning and treating them as she absentmindedly played with one of the many trinkets which decorated his desk or was found elsewhere around the room.
Some of these were interesting or dangerous-looking tools, smooth, round stones, colourful crystals or glimmering gems, which he had gathered over the years. But when he brought out his chest of vials she could be counted on to drop whatever shiny thing she had been fiddling with in favour of exploring its seemingly endless depths. Dozens of thin glass vials sealed with a cork were neatly labelled and stored within several wooden vial racks which were layered on top of each other within the dark wooden chest, with a good deal of hay packed in the spaces in between.
In these vials were colourful liquids of various consistencies, salts and sands, grains and seeds, leaves and roots and flakes of various metals and stones, all of which were either more rare or more expensive than those sitting in larger pots and jars in the bookshelf on the left wall, beside thick books with dusty and beaten covers and torn and yellowed pages.
When this chest was not in use, it sat beneath his long workbench on the right wall of the room, next to several other dark wooden boxes which held various jars, papers, instruments and things. Bundles of herbs hung from the roof near the fire, and some of these she could actually recognise; lavender, parsley, rosemary, sage and thyme, but only because there were similar bundles of each hanging downstairs in the kitchen, and because they gave off a most delightfully delicious odour.
In this room Jessica felt like she was in a different world; it was a warm, quiet and comforting atmosphere, both as a result of the content of the room, and of the man who worked within. She watched this man's large, slender fingered hands carefully stroke the dark green leaves, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing the freckled, tight skin of his muscular forearms, which were, in places, stained with ink. His thick eyebrows were furrowed in concentration; his eyes analysing every inch of the leaf within his gentle grasp before he deemed it acceptable and moved onto the next and then the next, until finally the plant was concluded to be as healthy as possible and was thus placed back within the terrarium. When the lock had been fastened, his shoulders relaxed and he smiled to himself as he turned away, wiping his hands on his pants and nodding in satisfaction that the first chore of the day had gone smoothly.
"So, what are ye goin' to do?"
She sighed heavily at his question, returning her gaze to the window and slumping against the armchair in despair. "I've no idea."
"Well," he said, and she heard him move behind her and shuffle some of the papers on his desk, "ye can't handle it the way ye did before. And that is to say, how ye didn't handle it. Which is why yer in this entire mess to begin with."
Jessica groaned at the truth in her friend's words, overcome with shame and frustration. "Well, what would you do about it? If you were in my shoes."
"What would I do if I were you?" he thought a moment and then chuckled sardonically. "Well, considerin' the lad is livin' in a palace, swimmin' in more gold than he knows what to do with, is of a good family and has proven that he is both able and willin' to provide for and protect ye, and on top of which, is completely mad about ye... I'd say to hell with it: marry the lad."
Elmo's conclusion had her nearly falling off the chair to face him, and she ended up on her knees on the seat, glaring over the back of the chair. "You'd marry him?" she demanded.
Her friend was seated at his desk, his back to her as he dipped his quill in ink and began scratching at the parchment, speaking casually. "Aye, I would, if I were ye. Any respectable young woman in her right mind would."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that an Auditore is a better match than any painter's assistant could ever dream of," he said, still sounding infuriatingly passive about the entire topic.
She knew better than to take his words personally, as they were obviously not meant as a judgement of her mental health or character, but it was early and she was tired, and so she found that she couldn't help but do just that.
"And so, what? Just because he happens to be rich, and thus apparently better than I, I should thank my luck, swoon into his arms and let him carry me off into the sunset?" she snapped, her fingers digging into the material of the chair.
"That is the general idea, aye. It'd be a marriage to yer great advantage. Many girls would kill to be in yer place; with a man like Federico Auditore pining after them, even after a rejected proposal and years apart. It's th' perfect romance."
"Except I'm not in love with him."
She continued to burn holes in his head, even as he turned to send her a wry grin, his eyes glittering with humour. "For most, that would no' make the slightest difference. The important thing is that he is rich, and that he loves ye."
Her heart skipped a beat as her stomach dropped in the most unpleasant of ways as Elmo said the words out loud. Jessica's arms crossed over the back of the chair and she dropped her head onto them in utter desolation.
"I wish he didn't. I truly, truly wish that he had, well, at least fallen out of...of love, after everything that happened. I just don't understand how it happened in the first place. I mean, I sure as hell don't recall doing anything to make him do it, and it's not like there's much to me that would encourage it on its own. I mean, you know me. What is there about me that could have possibly made a Florentine nobleman care about me?"
Elmo stilled, turning stiffly to stare at her with wide eyes. "Is... this a trick question?" he asked, clearly worried that this was one of those womanly traps where nothing he could say would be the right answer.
Jessica sighed in frustration and rolled her eyes. "I just need to understand. I need to find a way to fix this," she finished in a despondent mumble.
She watched as Elmo put down his quill and adjusted himself in his chair so he was facing her, his expression deeply thoughtful all the while, and she was suddenly very grateful that he was taking this as seriously as he was, instead of laughing it off as a silly woman's problem. Meeting his steady gaze, she stared into his blue eyes as they slowly roamed across her face, taking in inch by inch, and she suddenly knew what it felt to be the leaf of one of his precious plants, fixed under his intense, analytical stare as he approached the issue in the best way he knew possible; with science, and words.
"Well, yer face is certainly a place to start; full lips, high forehead, small chin, narrow jaw, high cheekbones, smooth skin, big eyes. In all an attractively symmetrical face, indicating good breeding." Vaguely uncomfortable with this dispassionate conclusion, Jessica could only listen as Elmo's eyes continued to roam. "Yer hair is long, thick and lustrous, indicating good health and nutrition. And as for the rest of ye... well, that's as far as I'll go as to not make this conversation too inappropriate," he chuckled. "But really, lass, ye have a mirror; ye surely know how beautiful a woman ye are. That alone would draw any man to ye. But true, it's no' enough to warrant years of pining, so perhaps it has somethin' to do with yer shining personality," he finished with a roll of his eyes.
Blushing faintly, Jessica scoffed and waved a hand to silence him, uninterested in hearing any more comments concerning her appearance or light-hearted insults to her character. He laughed, humour dancing in his eyes.
"Well, thank you for that thorough evaluation, but it doesn't really help my situation does it?" she grumbled.
Elmo shook his head. "Listen, if ye did nothing to cause the lad to fall in love with ye, then there's nothin' ye can do to make him not love ye, as it means that he fell in love with ye purely because ye are ye. Which he wouldn't have done had he known the language that comes out of yer mouth whenever something doesn't go yer way, or how ye like to eat the pips of an orange, which is disgusting by the way, or had he heard some of the noises ye make in yer sleep," he finished with a mischievous look.
"Oh, that is rich coming from you." Jessica's face scrunched up in displeasure, and her chin fell onto her arms as she stared hopelessly at her friend. "So you're saying that there's absolutely nothing I can do to fix this?"
Elmo's eyebrows rose as he drew in a long breath, his lips tightening and his shoulders rising in a helpless shrug. "Short of marryin' the man... No, I truly canno' see anything to be done." He sent a remorseful smile her way, his eyebrows curling and twisting and moving halfway up his forehead as he did.
Jessica didn't reciprocate the gesture, but instead sank into the chair, turning and pulling her knees to her chin as her arms wrapped around her legs and held them there as she buried her face in the brown material of her pants, taking deep breaths and absolutely dreading the thought of visiting the Auditore's house later that day. Curled up in Elmo's study she felt safe and in control but knew that the moment she stepped out the door that would all vanish and she would be left to face the tragedy that was Federico Auditore's unreciprocated feelings. She heard Elmo return to his writing but didn't move a muscle until Leonardo came looking for her some hours later. It was time to go.
Several hours later, Jessica found herself in Elmo's study, which had descended into chaos in the short time they had been parted. The room was filled with a thick white smoke that reeked of rotten eggs, originating from a small fire which had caught on his workbench, which Claudia, in a fine yellow silk dress, dripping with jewels and looking every bit the gorgeous noblewoman she was, was beating at with a rag. Petruccio, his long hair loose and hanging in a shaggy mane around his head, struggled with the latch on the window before flinging it wide open and picking up his own rag which he waved around, trying to relieve the room of smoke. Their eyes stung and they each covered their mouths with their sleeves, coughing as they worked to return the room to normality.
Jessica, meanwhile, knelt beside Elmo who sat in the chair she had reclined in only this morning, which was now marked and stained by the soot which covered the man. His face was streaked with the black dirt, and his blonde hair and eyebrows were almost completely darkened by it. What was left of his eyebrows, that is. It would have been an entirely humourous situation if not for the burns on his hands and arms which Jessica now treated with the utmost care. His arm was tense beneath her hands and he hissed quietly through his teeth, trying very hard to keep control of the pain.
As the air began to clear, and the fire was extinguished, it became easier to breathe and also to see that Elmo was now not the only one covered in the black dust. Jessica was mortified, both for herself and on Elmo's behalf, as she glanced at her friends and saw that their fine clothes were ruined, tainted with streaks and blotches of black. They walked in a circle about the room, waving their rags in the air and coughing every now and then, Petruccio surprisingly no more frequently than his sister.
She swore under her breath, glaring at the injuries on Elmo's hand and resisting the strong urge to throw him out the window. He said nothing to her, still stung from the severe reprimands she had inflicted upon him only moments before and which now hung as a tense, roiling curtain of wounded pride, embarrassment, fear, concern and anger between them. So Jessica worked in silence, gently applying cool compresses to the already blistering burns until he quietly commented that the pain had begun to fade, and she proceeded to delicately clean his hands, trying not to gag as small pieces of burned flesh came away with the rag. His arms cleaned as well, she patted them dry, applied some salve Elmo had created himself, and then loosely bandaged both appendages.
Satisfied that the job was well done, Jessica stood without another glance at the man who had nearly scared the life out of her. He stared after her with a face like a kicked puppy.
The afternoon had started out well. Jessica had been instructed to wear the one dress she owned that was appropriate for lunching with nobility, and Elmo had helped her wrangle her mess of hair into a caul and pin it there. They had arrived at the Auditore's home, and had been greeted by a servant, which was a shock in itself, who led them through the swept and dusted hall, past the furniture which had been covered by sheets and was now revealed to be red velvet chairs and couches, and beneath the set of what had to be the three most exquisite chandeliers she had ever seen. Enormous mirrors hung on the walls, reflecting the sunlight streaming through the window, and fire licked the insides of the enormous fireplace in the centre of the hall, the large marble mantelpiece engraved with vines, laurel leaves, roses and what looked almost like a dragon, though it might have been some sort of bird. An eagle, perhaps?
She and Leo had greeted the family, minus Ezio who apparently had more important things to do than lunch with his family, they had sat down and Jessica had been quite shocked to find that she had been directed to the seat to the right of Federico. She then spent the duration of the lunch alternatively laughing with her friends, eating more food than she knew was appropriate in such company, and forcing herself not to wither and crumble into a red ball of mortification each time Federico even so much as glanced her way. By the time the lunch was at an end they had directly spoken to each other exactly six times, and Jessica was bewildered at the fact that the world hadn't come to an end as a result.
The group had left the house and gone for a walk through the city, and somewhere along the way Jessica had been grabbed by a bored Petruccio and Claudia and the three had absconded, with less subtlety than they gave themselves credit. They cut through the markets, spent some time window shopping, and finally ended up at her house. They had barely stepped over the threshold when she had heard a shout from upstairs, followed by a small explosion. And then silence.
Ignoring Claudia's girly squeak, she had taken the stairs two at a time and burst through the door to his study only to be met by a thick, foul-smelling wall of white smoke. Eyes watering, she covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve and entered the room, determined to find her friend. It would have been easier had he been stumbling about, cursing or coughing, but as it was, he was silent. Which made her chest tighten and her blood fill with ice.
Her free arm waved wildly in front of her, both to dispel the smoke and to keep from crashing into any furniture she knew was lying about in the usually messy room. Her eyes stung as water streamed down her cheeks, and she could see a small fire on the bench to her left, the red flames licking eerily in the thick air. But by this strange light she could see the outline of a large man sitting at the desk at the far end of the room, and she moved toward him, only tripping once over the curled corner of the rug, until at last her hand landed on a warm, familiar shoulder and held tight. He was warm and trembling, and as she leaned close, peering through the smoke and the tears, she saw he was hunched over, his hands held close to his body. Still conscious. Still breathing. Still alive.
"Elmo?" she coughed. "Elmo. What the hell did you do?" She heard her voice but it was higher than she remembered it; it was unbalanced and thick with the fear which coursed through her veins.
"Marietta?!" she heard Petruccio's voice from somewhere in the smoke. "Where are you? What's happened?"
"Are you alright?" Claudia called, the question cut off by a cough.
"I'm fine. But Elmo's hurt." She gently reached down and peeled his hands away from his shirt, hissing as she saw the damage he had done. Her fingers shook. "Oh my god. What the hell."
"Who is Elmo?" she heard Petruccio ask his sister, the sound far away. Jessica's heart thundered in her ears.
"Help me with this window," Claudia commanded, ignoring his question in favour of her quest for fresh air.
"How the hell did you manage this? Look at your hands! Ah, and your arms too. Jesus Christ. Were you trying to kill yourself? Ah, yuck!" Jessica recoiled as she touched his hand and a sliver of burnt skin caught on her finger and peeled away. Gagging and coughing, she shook his shoulder and looked into his dazed and soot-covered face. "Elmo. We need to clean this. Do you hear me, you great blundering oaf? Elmo? Hell. Blink once for yes."
His bloodshot eyes looked neon, a shocking blue against red. They were glassy and wet but they managed to settle upon her face and close and open in a sluggish but deliberate way. She sighed when she saw this, pulling away and wiping her hands on her nice dress, noticing that the smoke was settling on her skin and turning it black. She felt it on her face and in her nose and in her eyes and coughed again as it tried to fill her lungs. Then she hurried to find the medical supplies.
And so, after some swearing and snapping and yelling, and a lot of rag waving on the Auditore siblings' part, Elmo's study was cleared of smoke and vacated in favour of the downstairs area of the house. And of course, as soon as they had descended the staircase, Leonardo, Maria and Federico walked through the front door.
"Mio Dio! You all look a mess! What happened?" Leonardo demanded, eyes filled with concern.
"Claudia, your dress!" Maria cried, visibly dismayed.
"I know, Mamma, I'm sorry."
"Please. It was my fault, m'lady. I should have been more careful." Elmo said, presenting his bandaged hands with a wince, still looking rather shell-shocked.
A chorus of sympathetic sounds began and were ended by Jessica's bitter scoff. She glared off into the distance, her jaw tight and her mouth full of the foul aftertaste of smoke, adrenaline and panic. She picked at the soot beneath her fingernails.
She had panicked. She had thoroughly and completely lost her cool and now she couldn't decide whether she wanted to throw the mother of all temper tantrums or burst into tears. And what made her angrier now was that she had finally placed the smell of that smoke: gunpowder. But why Elmo would be messing around with explosives was beyond her.
And now it was covering her and her friends, ruining their clothes and blackening their skin. They looked like chimneysweeps. The faint memory of a scene in an old musical she could no longer remember the name of filled her mind and she grimaced, praying that Claudia's dress and Petruccio's fine jacket could be saved, because she sure as hell didn't have the money to replace them.
But the Auditores didn't look too concerned for anything but Elmo's welfare. But he assured them, with his usual Scottish charm, that all he needed was a good wash. As Leonardo properly introduced her injured friend and some small talk began, Claudia and Petruccio quickly took the time to snoop around.
With a sinking feeling, she watched as the two nobles cautiously explored the workshop, their hands clasped and their eyebrows high in what appeared to be both curiousity and mild disparagement.
"It has... character, I suppose," Claudia finally declared, her upper lip curling at a rather explicit anatomical drawing of a certain male appendage.
"It's definitely the home of an artist," Petruccio reasoned.
"But not of a noblewoman." Claudia looked at her with an expression of pity and guilt. "I never thought... When you saved my brothers and fled Florence, I never considered the possibility that you would be forced to cut off all ties to your family and your fortune. Have you not written to your aunt at all?"
Jessica shook her head shortly, and Claudia grasped her arm tightly, looking distraught. "Oh but you must! It has been years, Marietta. You shouldn't have to live like this."
"I like living like this. This is my home, Claudia."
"But how can you possibly be content to live in such a place? You were born into the highest of nobility. You were raised in a palazzo thrice the size of our own. Your family owns a vineyard in the countryside and a villa by the sea. And now you live in this tiny place, working as a painter's assistant."
Jessica shrugged her off, glaring in anger and in mild discomfort at the talk of a life, property and family that wasn't her own. "I like living here. I like working here. I'm happy here."
Claudia gave her a look which showed that she didn't quite believe her, but in the end she sighed resignedly.
"The years have changed you, Marietta. More, I think, than the rest of us. And it pains me that you have truly given up everything for the sake of my family. But what of your inheritance? And what of your aunt? You must know that they have searched for you."
Jessica's stomach did a front flip. "What? Who has?"
"Your family's men. Your aunt sent out search parties across Italia months ago. It's a miracle they haven't found you here."
"She's looking for me?"
"Of course. The heir to the Sanfilippo fortune cannot simply vanish without consequence," she laughed.
Jessica didn't find it funny. "I'm not that person anymore."
Claudia nodded understandingly. "I know you're not. But there are some things you cannot run from. Sometimes the past does not stay in the past."
Jessica had the sudden urge to laugh, and then cry, and then curl into a ball and laugh some more. She could not think of a single sentence which had ever rung so true. It was truly the motto of her life. She shook her head and had nothing else to say.
Jessica was glad when the smell of rotten eggs wafted down the staircase and began filling the room. Maria's nose wrinkled in disgust and Federico politely coughed behind his hand and they decided the best thing to do was go home. And just to make sure that this day was a thoroughly awful one; Claudia stopped before they left, pulling Jessica aside and lowering her voice with a smirk.
"My brother has not stopped staring at you all day. He seems to be quite taken with you still. Perhaps now there is a chance—?"
"It was nice to see you, Claudia."
Her smirk fell at Jessica's quick interruption and she poked her in the side. "You must realise that he can give you all you deserve, and it would be wonderful to have you as a sister at last—"
"Goodbye, Claudia," she growled, and the younger girl shut up.
"Fine, fine!" With an exasperated sigh, she pulled the tense Jessica into a hug, rolling her eyes at the older girl's sour face and chuckling as she finally followed Petruccio out of the door, waving as they went.
Jessica sat with Elmo and Leonardo in front of the fire that night. The men chatted. She brooded.
She knew that her mind should be occupied by the shocking and disturbing news that some rich aunt had sent men throughout the country searching for her, or for the person whose identity she had stolen, but she was more bothered by the fact that she didn't even know the details of that identity. And she couldn't ask Leonardo now because Elmo – stupid, reckless Elmo who had played with explosives and nearly killed himself today – was sitting right there.
Jessica then felt guilty for not wanting Elmo to know that she wasn't who she said she was. And then she felt guilty because though Leonardo knew that she wasn't who she said she was, she had never told him who she actually was. And then she felt absolutely awful because at this point, she could hardly remember herself. Her identity was half-lie, half-mostly-forgotten-memories. And in a couple of years, she had no doubt that if someone were to ask who she was; she would not be able to honestly tell them a goddamn thing.
Maybe it would be easier if she couldn't remember anything at all; if she just wiped her memory clean, moved to another country and started all over again. Having no past was surely better than what she had: a mess of blurry, vague memories of places, faces and events mixed in with television shows and movies and stories from books which her mind intertwined with the real memories just to thoroughly screw with her, so she couldn't honestly say what was real and what was something she had read in a book one time. And throughout the mess was a lovely spattering of gaps and holes. She couldn't remember the name of her first cat, or if she had a cat at all. She could remember the name of her school, and her hometown, but none of the people in it. She remembered her family's names, but not their faces, or the colour of their hair.
Her one reprieve to the maddening memory loss was the journals she had kept when she had first arrived here. In them, she had written down random memories, drawn places or faces, and listed songs or books or movies. And reading the names helped. Reading her name helped. Jessica Raso. The person she used to be. But it was a double ended sword. Because reading the journals hurt. It made her thoroughly depressed to read about things that she could remember loving but not being able to remember why, or even what they were in the first place. She remembered the big things: TV, movies, school, the things she had learned and the stories she had heard. It was the little things that vanished.
She was jolted out of her brooding by a sentence from Elmo which she simply could not have heard correctly. Blinking, she turned to see Leonardo looking vaguely surprised and Elmo gazing at her with cautious expectancy.
"You what?"
"I've decided to join the Venetian Thieves' Guild."
"...What?"
"This wouldn't be due to a certain dark haired lady-thief, would it?" Leonardo commented, one eyebrow raised knowingly.
Elmo blushed, and they all saw it. "No, I—"
"Lady thief? What lady thief?!" Jessica spluttered, completely confused and horrified. She had heard about the Venetian Thieves Guild. They were the most vocal protestors against Barbarigo's tyranny, and also the most violent. "You hate thieves! 'Scum o' th' earth', you said!"
He screwed up his nose at her attempt at mimicking his accent. "See, tha' is the kind o' prejudiced thinking yer always warning me about. I'll have no more of it. I think this will be good for me. I'd thank ye to be a bit more supportive o' me life choices."
"Your life choices—" Flabbergasted, Jessica couldn't continue. She looked about for someone to come leaping out and say it was all a big joke but the only other person was Leo, who didn't seem all that concerned either way.
"What have you to say about this?" she asked the artist, who only shrugged with wide eyes in response. She scoffed at him. "That is so typical of you. You know, if it were a little thing, like a new screwdriver or a particularly nice colour of paint, well then stop all the clocks because there can be no greater moment in your entire life than this! But big things, like say, Elmo wanting to join a band of thieves, well, what's all the fuss about? Ignore the fact that they're criminals that do criminal things which guards didn't particularly like people to do and thus could get him killed or arrested. But no, nothing to worry about!" She threw her hands up, leaping to her feet and walking away from them before she could give in to her urge to throttle the both of them.
"I take it ye don't approve," Elmo drawled sardonically after her.
"You're damn right, I don't!" she called viciously back down the stairs. "But go ahead and ruin your life, what do I care?" And with that final awful addition to her terrible day, she slammed her bedroom door and didn't come out for the rest of the night.