I love this. I love love LOVE this one. Enjoy! :D

The Doctor's words accompanied Giovanni late into the night and made it impossible to sleep. Stretched out on his back, he looked up at the ceiling and listened quietly to what the night had in store. So far, he'd learnt that no one was sleeping: in the bunk underneath him, Gabriele constantly turned, obviously restless. Vitorio was silent for once, and the absence of his constant energetic rustle disturbed Giovanni himself. But if he listened quietly, and very intently, from the next room over he could hear the gentle scrape of a knife on wood. Severino was awake. And since no one here in the bunks wanted to talk, or had no courage to admit their fears, he climbed gently out of his bunk and walked out of the room, ignoring the feel of every pair of eyes on his back from the dark.

It was the kind of night where a man was entitled to keep his thoughts to himself. And Giovanni respected that.

'Come in, Giovanni.'

Giovanni himself hadn't even knocked. Lowering his hand, he opened the door very quietly, and before looking at the older man he shut the door gently behind him, making sure the click wasn't so loud to wake those who had managed to sleep. And then he turned around.

Severino was whittling away at his desk. It was a hobby of his, a passion that he fit in around his duties as one of Ezio's almost second-in-command like figures. Lit by the moonlight coming through the window, Giovanni could instantly see that it was the Doctor's box he was carving, its edges and lines taking shape under Severino's careful eye. He smiled at Giovanni, and held it out to him.

'What do you think so far?'

Severino stepped forward, and took the carving gently from him. Up closer, Giovanni was impressed all the more with the workmanship. 'Very true to life.' He said, and handed it back. Severino nodded seriously, and then after turning it in his hands, put it back on his desk.

'Indeed. But what is true to life? It is something I have struggled with this past month.' He said quietly, and motioned towards a few cups he'd carved for himself. Giovanni, suddenly thirsty, nodded. Severino reached for the jug of water to his right as Giovanni took a seat opposite him.

'I think we all have struggled.' Giovanni said.

'Hmm.' Severino agreed vaguely, passing Giovanni a full cup, which he drank slowly. 'What do you think of this, Giovanni?'

'Of what?'

'Of all of this,' Severino replied, motioning again to the little carved TARDIS on his desk. 'Why he is here, with us, of all places.'

Giovanni knew exactly who he meant, but did not know why Severino was asking him, of all people. He was an intelligent enough, he supposed, to get by better than most. But this sort of conversation was beyond him. Surely, there was someone better Severino could ask –

'Come now.' Severino said gently, and Giovanni started guiltily. 'You underestimate yourself. I am done with Machiavelli and our talks of space and time. The man is too clever. I am too clever for my own good. I would like to hear an opinion from an honest young man. From you. Please.' He sat back in his chair, holding his cup, and Giovanni felt like all of Roma had turned to stare at him. Like a light had been thrown on him, and squinting into it he could see a thousand people waiting for him to speak. And though it was only Severino, Giovanni wondered if his opinion would actually be right.

After a moment to compose himself, he began.

'From what the Doctor and the Maestro have told us, him being here is no accident. The meddling of the Templars bought him here, when they did not mean to,' he said slowly, and Severino nodded. Not knowing whether or not that meant he was right or Severino was just giving a sign that he was still listening, Giovanni ploughed on. 'But there have been many clues left by himself, and signs from things beyond us that this meeting was always planned. That this war tomorrow must always happen. But I feel that beyond that, it will not be complete. Something else must happen, to mend the circle that time was running smoothly around…' a horrible thought occurred to him. 'And that it is not our place to do that… we're nothing but pawns.' He reached out for the cluster of little figures Severino had been carving – it was a piece from the chess set he had been working on for Machiavelli, his skill earning enough admiration for the man to pay a great deal for it. He turned the tiny pawn in his hand, running his hand along the ridges. It wasn't shaped like a usual piece, and with a slight start he recognised his own family's coat of arms carved on its side. With a glance towards the figures in their entirety, he understood: Machiavelli had commissioned a chessboard that featured the Assassins and the Templars. He looked up: Severino was watching him carefully, judging his reaction. To see his place in all of this made real, Giovanni had to struggle with himself to carry on. Wordlessly, he picked up a second and a third chess piece and scanned them quickly. Two kings. In the moonlight, he recognised the Auditore emblem, and on the other, the Borgia's. He placed them on the table in front of him, facing opposite each other. An opposition, as it were. He placed his own pawn just behind Ezio's, and without asking permission, reached over and placed the TARDIS carving in between the two kings.

'Pawns,' he said again. 'Players in this game that have little sway over what goes on, to do only as they are bidden.' Holding his own little pawn again, he tapped it on Severino's desk. 'I would wish to know the true meaning of what we will do tomorrow, and what it will mean for eternity. But I know I never will. It is not my place to understand. Just to fight for whoever I choose.' He stopped tapping the pawn, and set it down on the table again. There was a moment of complete and utter silence that almost rang in its intensity, and then Giovanni said, very slowly:

'And I'm sure that tomorrow one of us will pay the price for it.'

He knocked the pawn onto its side. Severino remained silent for a while.

'What did you come to me to speak about?' He said quietly. Relived that what he'd just said wasn't going any further, Giovanni swallowed.

'About – about Zita. I was wondering, perhaps, if you would think it appropriate – '

'It is not up to me to deem whether or not what you do with your life is appropriate or not,' Severino interrupted him smoothly. 'But I will tell you she is on the roof, looking over her choice of weaponry for tomorrow. And I am not sure about her, but I know that this night I would like some company.'

Giovanni shut his mouth, stunned. He got out of his seat. Severino reached behind him and opened his window.

'Grazie,' Giovanni murmured uselessly, and bowed in his direction. Severino just nodded and smiled, and closed the window after the boy as he climbed out of it. Sitting back in his seat, he looked at the pieces how Giovanni had laid them out, and was deeply troubled.

Giovanni scaled the wall in no time at all, and scrambled up onto the roof. The moonlight fell upon him, and from here it was almost as bright as the sun. Squinting a little, he made out the curved lines of someone sitting away from him, her back turned, and her hair almost silver flames. His heart was in his mouth. Taking measured steps as to not appear too eager, he made his way across the roof. Zita was sat with her crossbow in her lap, her back almost as straight as a poker. She ran a cloth over its workings, testing joints and springs. As Giovanni sat down and brought a knee close to his chest to hug awkwardly, he saw that her sword and dagger had already been seen to: they lay straight at her feet, gleaming in the moonlight. She didn't look around at him, and he perhaps that someone who did not know her as well as he did would think they were not welcome, but he knew better. Her presence seemed to greet him, and something about her eased when he shifted closer.

'You could not sleep?' He asked, looking out over the city.

'I didn't try,' she replied, holding up the crossbow and turning it in her hands. 'Too much to be done.'

'Too much to be thought about.' Giovanni replied.

'That too.'

A silence filled with endless possibilities fell between them, spiralling off into the abyss where wasted time will go. Giovanni knew Zita wasn't a woman of many words, she just observed. Took heed of everything around her, became a face in a crowd, and blended into the background. Her way was not of words, and Giovanni liked spending time in her silent company. Everything seemed to make sense when his own thoughts were all he could hear.

Giovanni also knew that she wasn't a woman looking for grand gestures, or proclamations. So, battling with himself and gathering the courage, he spoke.

'The Doctor advised us all to spend our nights with those who mattered most to us. And if you are willing, I would like to spend mine with you. And perhaps after tomorrow, if we are both alive and willing, I would like to do the same with all the nights that come afterward.'

It was a tense, long moment that Zita spent setting her crossbow at her feet and staring out at the night, her hands clasped in her lap. Everything came to a halt, though, when she turned to look at him.

'I accept.'

Giovanni smiled shakily. 'Good. I am glad.'

'As am I.' Zita looked away from him, and pointed up. 'Were you ever taught about the stars?'

Giovanni shook his head. 'I never had the pleasure of growing up underneath them.'

But then as Zita began to explain the constellations they could see, and Giovanni listened attentively, he realised that all the time he had spent as a child in schoolrooms under the influence of those who taught him would be worth it to spend the rest of his life in her bright light.

Wee bit of OC shipping, I guess. Technically? The names were the ones I grabbed from my save file of Bro'hood, I invented their personalities and all sorts purely for this fic. I'm tempted to write a little bit more about them, but I think I'll leave them inside this fic. Maybe it would ruin them otherwise? I'm waffling :L Anyway, one more update on the way! :D