Shaun has a bad habit of keeping his phone on too loud, so Desmond hears it when Altair calls and announces, "She's dead."
"Who?" Shaun asks, balancing the phone between one ear and his shoulder as he struggles with an unwieldy map. An old fashioned paper kind, because this is the nasty part of town where carrying any kind of technology means a person is likely to get mugged.
"Juno," Altair says, and Desmond watches as Shaun nearly drops the phone in surprise. He recovers, and listens in absolutely silence as Altair tells what sounds like a long story that Desmond doesn't bother listening to. He's almost drowning in the thrill of knowing Juno is dead. It's weird how satisfying to know he's outlived the person that killed him.
"Wow," Shaun says, when he finally hangs up the phone. Then he looks over at Desmond (an eagle at the moment) and Edward (human and insubstantial). "She's-"
"Dead!" Desmond laughs, surging up and back to human form so quickly that Shaun almost drops his phone.
"Do you really have to do that?" Shaun demands. "It's childish and annoying."
"Not for much longer," Desmond says, and then adds a cautious, "I hope." Because even though they're less than a mile from the precursor site that's supposed to stabilize the two of them, he won't believe in it completely until he sees the effects for himself.
"So do I," Shaun says emphatically. "The bird thing is getting really old."
"I'm sorry my being a bird instead of being dead inconveniences you," he says, without any ill will. Today is too good a day to ruin by arguing- they're only minutes away from maybe finding a cure, and apparently Juno is dead-
"Yea, well… apology accepted," Shaun grumbles. He still sounds upset, and Desmond can't really blame him. He's the one that's had to deal with all the difficulties of international travel. Although to be fair, he had insisted on shipping Desmond and Edward, as flying with two large birds of prey would attract unwanted attention.
Never again.
"So where's this place supposed to be?" Edward asks, shifting nervously on the balls of his feet. He's got a cautiously optimistic look on his face, and Desmond frowns. If this doesn't pan out, it's going to hit Edward way harder than him. He's been a bird only a few months, but for Edward it's been years. Desmond offered him a small smile, which Edward didn't bother to return. His normally cheerful face was drawn and worried today.
"That way, somewhere," Shaun said, waving a hand vaguely. "Although this is the middle of the countryside. I'm not sure how there could be something here and no one would have… noticed…" He trails off, and it's immediately clear why- a giant hole, perfectly rectangular, about the size of a football field, and maybe three stories deep, is sitting in the middle of the open field in front of them.
"So we go in now, right?" Desmond asks.
"Luckily we all have wings," Edward says, and shifts easily back into eagle form to soar down to the bottom of the hole. Desmond hesitates a little to make sure Shaun will be okay. He's still not used to him having wings- having Ezio's wings- but they haven't had the time to talk about it yet. Desmond isn't even sure Shaun wants to talk.
Shaun sighs, and grimaces as his wings break through the skin of his back. Then he catches Desmond's impatient look, and snorts. "Come on," he says. "Let's get going already." Desmond still hesitates a little, watching Shaun fly. He looks a little unsteady, but he's still doing remarkably well for someone that has only had his wings a couple months. Then Desmond sighs, and lets himself relax into the more natural form of the eagle for what he hopes is the last time.
There's nothing at the bottom of the hole, just a plain dirt floor and smooth dirt walls. Desmond forces himself to go back to human again (and nearly passes out with the effort of doing so for the second time in less than ten minutes), and realizes that he's wrong- there is something here, hidden behind Shaun and Ezio. Desmond crosses the space quickly, and joins them in looking silently down at the low stone basin in the center of the hole.
It's full of water, clear and clean and utterly unremarkable. "I don't get it," Desmond says. "What are we supposed to do with this?"
Shaun starts to open his mouth, but Edward interrupts.
"Fuck it all," he says, and plunges his hand into the water.
"Edward, no-" but Desmond doesn't get the protest out fast enough, and when he tries to grab Edward to stop him, he ends up with his hand drowned in the water as well.
The whole world seems to freeze, and Desmond opens his mouth to scream- he's not even surprised when he hears an eagle screech instead.
-/-
It feels like he's standing there, trapped in his own little world, for ages. Eons. This hurts as badly as dying had, but in a different way. Little by little, the pain fades away and Desmond becomes aware of the unsettling feeling of being in two bodies of once, of being both human and eagle at the exact same time. And one more thing- of the wetness on his hand, still submerged in the water. Gradually the water seems to harden and change shape around his skin, and then all at once Desmond is back in the real world, panting for breath and clutching something hard and metallic between his fingers.
He looks down, and sees a pendant hanging on a thin black chain. The pendant itself is cut from a single piece of metal, although Desmond doesn't recognize the material. It's black, so dark it seems to suck in some of the light from the surrounding air. It's shaped like an eagle, wings spread in flight, talons outstretched, and when Desmond looks closely he can see indentations of incredible detail all over the bird, marking feathers and the general shape of muscles. The bird's eyes glow with an eerie golden light.
Desmond pulls the chain over his head and lets it settle against his skin as though it belongs there. For a second, nothing happens and then the metal eagle pulses with warmth. Just once, but Desmond feels the heat spread across his chest and then through the rest of his body in an intense wave. He shudders, and looks down to see real, solid skin there, just the same as it had been before he died- he is human and alive and whole again, at least for as long as he keeps wearing the pendant. Because he can still feel the eagle, somewhere inside his mind, waiting to be let loose. And Desmond is glad to realize (without knowing exactly how he knows) that he won't have to give up the complete freedom of flying as an eagle, that the pendant merely gives him the ability to choose between forms. He can take it off anytime he wants, and replace it just as easily. It really is the best possible outcome.
"Well, that worked out well," Edward says, unconsciously echoing Desmond's train of thought. Desmond looks up to see the older man, solid as well but almost choking on tears. There's an identical carved eagle on a chain around his neck, and he looks like he's about to fall over with the shock of being himself again.
Desmond grins at him- any other expression would just be impossible right now- and then looks over at Shaun, who if anything looks a little bored with the entire scene. When he realizes Desmond is looking at him, Shaun forces a halfhearted smile onto his face. "Awesome," he says. "That's great. Sure. Really great."
"What's wrong?" Desmond asks, and Shaun drops the fake smile at once.
"Sorry," he says. "It's just… all this precursor rubbish is starting to get pretty pedestrian." He waves a hand vaguely. "Go to some out of the way place, find some hole in the ground, see something impossible… I'm getting seriously sick of it all."
"Well, it's all over now," Desmond says, a thrill of excitement coursing through him at the words as he remembers that he is human (as he's ever been) again, and Juno is dead. "We saved the world, killed the bad guy, and everyone's alive. Our work here is done."
"It's never over," Shaun argues. "There will always be templars to fight. And now we have John to worry about- Altair didn't say anything about him being dead." An unexpected, unrecognizable expression creeps its way across his face, there and gone too quickly for Desmond to give it a name. "And we still don't know what happened to Minerva…"
"We'll find her," Edward says, waving one hand dismissively. "And we'll figure out what to do about John. As for the templars… like you said, they'll always be around. We have time to figure their plans out."
Shaun shrugs, and although he says nothing, his scowl speaks volumes on his opinion of Edward's attitude.
"Let's go get a drink somewhere," Edward goes on, ignoring the scowl. "It's been two hundred years since I last had one, and I would bloody well appreciate changing that as quickly as possible."
"Yes," Desmond agrees, emphatically.
"Or we could catch a plane back out of the country tonight," Shaun insists. "There's a lot of work we need to do."
"Shaun," Desmond says, with as much patience as he can muster. "You're arguing with the retired pirate and the ex-bartender. Do you really think you're winning this one?"
"You can drink on the plane if you're that set on sousing your brains in alcohol the second you get a new body," Shaun says. "And driving me up the wall in the process."
"In flight drinks cost about five times as much as drinks anywhere else," Desmond argues. "And they taste like crap-"
"Desmond!" Shaun cries, voice pitched higher than normal in obvious frustration. "Will you grow up and act like the adult you claim to be for half a second? I realize that you two got what you wanted, but it's not all about you. So yes, congratulations, something good just happened to you, and you're allowed to be happy about that. But you do not get to act like you're the only ones with problems. The rest of us do too, and we're… I don't know what we are, but we're together in an impossible situation and we need to be able to rely on each other."
"Fine," Desmond says after a long pause. "Shaun, I'm sorry, you're right. It's just been a weird few months, and the two of us have been about as isolated as it's possible to be. I… forgot that there are bigger problems for a second."
Shaun nods, but doesn't look at all mollified. There's a strange light in his eyes that, weirdly enough, reminds Desmond of Altair. It's the look of a parent ready and willing to do whatever it takes to keep his child safe. Something clicks in Desmond's head. "Minerva?" he asks. "Is that what this is about?"
"Possibly."
"But… Shaun, she's not even yours. I just don't get it."
"I do," Edward says quietly. Desmond knows he'll never actually apologize for being insensitive earlier, but his face and tone speak volumes. "I had the same problem with Haytham, when we first met. Because there's just this kid, right? And you've never seen them before in your life, but you look at them, and there's something familiar in their face and they're looking at you with those goddamn eyes, like you're supposed to be someone important."
"I don't-" Shaun sighs. "She was never even conscious before Juno took her, so I don't know about that last part. But yea. It's not like I wanted to get attached to her, I know she's about a million years older than me, not some kid. But it's like the harder I try not to think about it, the worse it gets."
Edward suddenly spins around to look at Desmond, glaring at him with mock anger. "And you wanted to spend tonight getting drunk?"
"It was your idea!"
"Shush," Edward says. "We're leaving tonight, to find her."
And Desmond can't possibly argue, not when he sees Shaun struggling to keep the look of relief off his face.