"I think we're beyond hypothetical."

CW: There are still some mentions of the earthquakes that happened at the beginning of the story. Unfortunately I'd written all of this out prior to the tragedy in Turkey and Syria and so in order to continue with the story in a way that makes sense, I left them in. Please take care of yourselves when reading this if you think it may affect you.

See end of chapter for additional (spoilery) content/ trigger warnings.

Desmond had barely fallen asleep when bright sunlight coming in through the airplane window pierced through his eyelids. He opened them slowly, blinking away the sleep, but as his eyes began to focus on his surroundings, he realized it wasn't sunlight blinding him at all. He wasn't even in the airplane anymore. Instead he found himself standing in a vast open room with no walls and no ceiling and a pristine white floor that extended forever in every direction. The roaring of the engines and Shaun's grating snores were gone, leaving only the soft sound of Desmond's breathing in their wake.

"Hello!?" he called into the abyss, the only response his voice echoing back. It dawned on him. Fuck, I'm in the Animus again? "Shaun! Rebecca! Get me out of here!"

He nearly jumped out of his skin when another voice spoke behind him.

"I applied my heart to know wisdom…"

Desmond whirled around to see Altaïr, his face shrouded beneath a hood, standing twenty feet away from him. But it wasn't Altaïr's voice that echoed in the distance, it was Al Mualim's, sounding as though it was digitized like the very first time he'd been inside an Animus.

"This isn't funny, guys!" As Desmond shouted into the void, Altaïr vanished, reappearing only a short distance away. He spun and faced him as Altaïr spoke with Al Mualim's voice once more.

"...and to know madness and folly…"

While he spoke, the bare white floor beneath their feet morphed into geometric tiles and a grassy landscape. It extended outward and molded itself into the terraced garden behind Masyaf castle, whose towering walls had begun to materialize overhead and cast them both into shadow.

Altaïr disappeared again, this time reappearing on the balcony overlooking the garden.

"...I perceive that this too was a chasing of the wind…"

With each phrase, Altaïr vanished, only to reappear somewhere else. It was dizzying trying to keep up with him and it gave Desmond flashbacks to Altaïr's final confrontation with his former Mentor.

"...For in much wisdom is much grief…"

Desmond jumped when the latest apparition appeared directly behind him, close enough that he swore he felt Altaïr's breath on the back of his neck. He turned and took a few steps back just as he disappeared once more.

"...And he that increaseth knowledge…"

This time, Altaïr reappeared directly in front of him. Fear took hold in Desmond as the Master Assassin took a step towards him, a small and all-too-familiar shink coming from his left wrist. He drew his blade hand back.

"...increaseth sorrow."

With those final words, Altaïr's own voice replaced Al Mualim's, making him sound—if possible—more menacing than before. The final illusion lingered, rooting Desmond in place and haunting him like some specter, until like the others it, too, faded away without a sound, leaving him standing alone in the garden.

He paced around the terrace, waiting and listening for Altaïr to reappear. When he didn't return, Desmond marched up the steps, through the castle door, and into a pitch-black room, where the sound of a gentle breeze was replaced by a familiar droning sound of a machine. "That's weird," Desmond muttered to himself, stepping closer.

As he did so, his stomach plummeted as the overhead lights turned on, revealing the Animus Room at Abstergo. He spun on his heels to run back out, but the door slammed shut before he could reach it, locking him inside. He pulled at the door handle, trying his best to wrench it open, but it refused to budge.

Defeated for the moment, he wandered over to the windows where he used to watch the bustling streets of the business district of Rome below. Now, however, there were no buildings, no roads, no people; It was all just a blank nothingness, like the entire outside world had disappeared.

"Fuck!" He threw the nearest chair towards the windows, hoping it might give him a way out. Instead, it bounced off and landed harmlessly on the floor below.

He leaned against what had once been Warren Vidic's desk and closed his eyes. The hum of the Animus did little to help clear his mind as he tried to think of a solution. But no sooner had he started formulating an escape plan when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, his eyes snapping back open when he heard the faint sound of ominous laughter behind him. He spun around, but the room was still empty apart from himself. The laughter got louder and he realized it was coming from the bedroom on the other side.

Desmond inched his way across the room, wishing he'd had his hidden blade.

As he walked past the Animus his foot slipped beneath him. He looked down, his breath catching in his throat when he saw that he'd stepped in a thick puddle of blood. He tried to step out of it but everywhere he moved, more blood seeped out of the floor, forming dozens of glyphs around the room. He'd seen those before…

The markings… that laugh…

He ran into the bedroom, stopping dead in his tracks when he reached the doorway and saw the gruesome scene in front of him.

Clay Kaczmarek knelt on the bed, propping himself up against a wall with one hand while the other rhythmically traced a butterfly-shaped symbol just above the headboard. His arm fell to his side as he turned to face Desmond, revealing the cuts along his wrist that oozed the blood he'd used to leave macabre messages.

"If you want a happy ending, it all depends on where you stop telling your story. Right, Desmond?"

Clay's eyes were wild and his mouth was set in a maniacal grin as the blood ran down his arms and dripped onto the bed.

"It's not as bad as it seems," said a soft voice behind Desmond. He spun around to see Lucy standing next to the Animus. "Just try to have a little faith."

Desmond looked back to Clay—who'd vanished as quickly and quietly as Altaïr had done—and back to Lucy again. She stood closer now, almost close enough to touch. A red stain slowly spread across her white shirt, but she hadn't seemed to notice. She stared past him with empty, hollow eyes, but the same coy smile she used to give him, as though letting him in on a secret.

While her shirt turned more red than white, the Animus Room fell away around them, revealing a dark, cavernous room: the Apple Chamber.

They stood on the center platform, just the two of them, the pedestal with the Apple in between.

"I can't do this forever." Her voice was calm, serene. As though she didn't have a care in the world, even as she bled out in front of him.

"Lucy, I—"

When he tried to step forward, the ground gave out beneath him, sending him tumbling down until he crashed onto a patch of grass. He slowly pushed himself to his hands and knees.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice cracked and hoarse. "I'm so sorry, Lucy."

"Focus, Desmond! Focus!"

He'd barely registered the gruff voice behind him when he was violently shoved back to the ground. Reflexes took over as he rolled out of reach and scrambled to his feet to face his father. They were in the yard outside his childhood home on The Farm, where he'd spent most of his afternoons training as a boy. The farmhouse stood tall among the trees that swayed as heavy gusts of wind dragged rolling thunder clouds overhead, the thick smell of petrichor lingering in the air as the first drops of rain fell from the sky.

Still reeling from his encounters with Clay and Lucy, Desmond struggled to get his fists up in time as William swung at him, hitting him across the face and splitting his lip open. He staggered backwards and cupped his hand to his mouth, feeling the hot blood trickling between his fingers.

"You need to get it together, kid! We're running out of time!"

Desmond put his bloody hands up in surrender. "Dad, stop! I need to talk—"

Another fist flew in his direction. He ducked out of the way of this one and, realizing arguing with his father was futile, turned on his heels and sprinted into the trees behind him, the same trees he escaped through when he'd last left The Farm.

"You can't escape who you are, Desmond!" William shouted, his words almost drowned out by a crack of thunder overhead. His mother's pleas for him to return echoed behind him, but he ignored them and kept running.

He ran for what felt like miles, until he came across a tall wooden fence, nearly ten feet high, at the bottom of one of the hills. He stopped to catch his breath, hoping he'd put enough distance between him and his father. He pressed his hand to his bleeding lip again. It'd hurt a lot more the first time, long before he was accustomed to taking a hit during a fight, but it still stung.

"What the hell is going on?" he whispered to himself as he walked along the familiar-looking wall, searching for the opening he knew existed on the far side. He stepped through the gap to find himself on the outskirts of Kanatahséton. It was just as he remembered it, with longhouses standing tall and animal skins hanging on drying racks throughout. Only as he meandered through the village he saw that it was completely deserted.

No, not completely deserted. He wandered into the largest of the longhouses and stumbled upon a young Ratohnhaké:ton sitting cross-legged in front of a small fire. He stared into a crystal ball cupped in his hands that reflected the dancing flames across his face. Even as Desmond stepped forward the boy didn't move, continuing to gaze into it as though trying to divine the future.

"Did you think that we were going to live to see the end of the road? Did you think it would all be worth it in the end?"

Grief from a lifetime of tragedies yet to happen swam in the boy's eyes when he glanced up. Desmond struggled to find the words to make it all better, because he knew there were none.

He took another step forward and the crystal ball began to glow brighter in Ratohnhaké:ton's hands, illuminating a small circular amulet that hung around his neck.

"The key," Desmond whispered, instinctively reaching for it. But as he drew closer the orb glowed brighter still, until it was so bright it became impossible to look at. He shielded his eyes and turned away.

When he opened them again, he stood in complete darkness apart from two small pools of light in front of him. Out of the shadows, two familiar figures stepped into view.

"Did you think we were getting out of this alive?" Shaun asked, his eyes hollow and full of sadness, like Lucy's had been, as though they were looking through Desmond and not at him.

Rebecca tilted her head to one side. "Did you think you could save us?"

Their voices had an ethereal quality about them, echoing from all directions as if neither were truly there. Desmond had only heard voices like that before: when the Isu spoke to him through time.

"I did! I did save you!" An invisible weight pressed down on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees. He held his face in his hands. "You're the only two I could save…"

"You must live with your consequences, Desmond…"

He lifted his head to find himself in the Sanctuary beneath the Auditore Villa, the familiar voice echoing throughout the domed chamber. Shaun and Rebecca were gone now, replaced by Ezio who stood in front of him with arms crossed and disappointment in his eyes. Above him, two visions appeared like movie screens on either side.

"...whether glorious…"

Desmond looked to the one on the left, where he saw himself marching out of Abstergo after rescuing his father, Apple of Eden held high in his hand.

"...or tragic."

He looked to the one on the right and his heart skipped a beat as he watched himself walk the length of the Grand Temple, knowing what was coming next but powerless to stop it. He tried to look away but couldn't. The vision above him grew closer and larger until it engulfed him and, no longer tethered to the ground, he floated weightlessly high above the scene below.

His heart raced and he watched helplessly as Minerva and Juno argued over the future of the world and the future of humanity. Their words were garbled, as though underwater, but Desmond didn't need to hear it all again to know what they were saying. His past self just stood there, caught in the middle of an impossible choice and coming to realize how this was going to end.

Desmond startled as Minerva's angry voice, clear as can be, reverberated through the chamber.

"Then the consequences of this mistake are yours to live—and die—with."

Below, Shaun, Rebecca, and his father turned to leave the Grand Temple. He tried to say goodbye this time around, the way he wished he had before, but his voice got lost along the way. His former self walked towards the pedestal, where the Eye glowed softly, enticing him forward like a moth to the moon—

"This is the end, Desmond! Scheduled for deletion!" Clay's manic warning cut through the silence and resonated in his head just before he appeared next to him. The excitement, the pure jubilation in his voice at what was about to transpire made Desmond sick to his stomach. Clay had a frenzied look in his eyes as they hovered over the scene together, watching Desmond's last moments as his past self walked to his demise.

His arm felt like it'd caught fire from the inside out as the end drew near, his breathing now heavy and labored as he tried and failed to look away. He blinked once, and when he opened his eyes he found to his horror that he was now in his old body, his feet shuffling forward as if possessed. Every fiber of his being protested, his heart pounding with each involuntary step towards the pedestal, where the blue light of the Eye glowed brighter as it waited to be activated by his touch.

Step by step his heart raced faster than ever, as though trying to get as many beats out before it stopped. A foot away, the ground beneath his feet began to shake.

"This is the end!" Clay's voice resonated inside his own head.

Static tingled between his fingers and the pedestal, which seemed to hum with anticipation. A woman's sinister, triumphant laugh echoed from the darkness.

He tried one last desperate attempt to pull himself away but failed.

He reached out…

Desmond's eyes shot open, temporarily blinded by a bright light coming from his left. The roar of airplane engines outside grounded him back into reality and he blinked a few times as his eyes slowly adjusted to the sunlight flooding through the plane's window. His breathing came in short, rapid bursts and his heart still pounded heavily in his chest. He swallowed and forced himself to take a long, deep breath. His scarred arm still felt warm to the touch, though not scorching, as if it'd been sitting in the sunlight rather than in the heat of a fire. He probed the scar across his lip. No blood. He took another deep breath and willed his body to relax.

Shaun and Rebecca sat across from him quietly, both studying him with apprehensive looks while he woke up.

"Bad dream?" Shaun tried to sound nonchalant, but the increased pitch of his voice and incessant tapping of his interlocked fingers betrayed his otherwise calm demeanor.

"Yeah," Desmond croaked, his voice hoarse and rough.

Rebecca handed him a water bottle. "Anything you want to talk about?" Her voice was more even than Shaun's but Desmond knew better than to believe she wasn't as worried, if not more.

He took a long drink, draining half the bottle in one go. "Not really." He swallowed hard, his mouth dry and lips cracked and he took another few sips of water to push away the nausea that bubbled beneath the surface.

"Alright, well if you change your mind—"

"I'll tell you," he said, sounding a little harsher than he'd meant to. Still on edge, he leaned back in his seat and took another drink of water, hoping it would stave off the headache that was rapidly developing. "Sorry." He forced a half-smile, hoping it would alleviate any animosity between them. He felt guilty for snapping at her. He usually appreciated their concern—particularly Rebecca's as she was the one person who always prioritized his well-being over anything else—but talking about his dream was the last thing he wanted to do.

"It's alright, we get it," she said. "We just want to make sure you're okay."

"I am. Thanks."

"Maybe these will cheer you up," Rebecca said excitedly, putting her tablet in her bag and pulling out two boxes wrapped in simple brown paper. She handed the larger of the two to Desmond. "I know it's not quite Christmas and I was going to wait, but I figure you might need this sooner. Plus, you were supposed to get this last Christmas and, well, that didn't happen."

"You didn't have to get me anything," he said, tearing at the wrapping paper anyways.

"I know, but I wanted to."

Desmond opened the first box, his face lighting up with excitement when he saw a new hidden blade inside. He delicately turned it over in his hands, admiring the craftsmanship of the sleek, metal casing. It was thinner than his previous one, and far lighter. He triggered the mechanism and the blade shot out with deadly force. It was far quieter, too, he noticed.

Sunlight shining on it revealed intricate designs etched into the sides, not entirely unlike the ones in his tattoo. Desmond lightly tapped his finger against the freshly sharpened edges and drew a drop of blood.

"Since your old one was broken, I figured you might want this new one now," Rebecca said.

He turned it over in his hands one more time then pulled his jacket sleeve up and fastened it to his arm. He flicked the blade in and out a couple times, getting the timing and feel of it down.

"Bex, it's gorgeous. This… this is incredible. Thank you." He retracted the blade one last time and pulled his jacket sleeve back down.

"You're welcome. This one," Rebecca said as she handed him the second, much smaller box, "is from Shaun."

"It's not as useful as Rebecca's," Shaun added, "but I saw this when we were in Brazil last year and thought it was very 'you.'"

Desmond opened it. Inside was a black eagle talon pendant on a leather cord. He took the pendant in his hands. Like the blade, it was lighter than it looked, and sharper, too, drawing a small drop of blood when he poked his finger with the tip of the talon.

"If the blade doesn't get the job done, this just might," Desmond said with a small laugh. He admired it for a few more seconds before pulling it over his head and tightening the cord.

"You like it?" Shaun asked.

"It's awesome. Thanks, both of you. I'm sorry, I don't have anything for you guys."

"It's alright," Rebecca said. "Don't worry about it."

Desmond gave them an appreciative smile and leaned against the window, watching the clouds pass by as they descended lower and lower.

"Alright, friends, we're here. Welcome to Paris," Jim said over the intercom when they touched down a few minutes later. "Customs should be coming out here in a minute to check on everything and then you'll be all set."

Desmond panicked as Shaun and Rebecca dug through in their bags. "Customs!? Rebecca, I don't have my—"

He relaxed when she pulled out his old passport in addition to her own.

"I couldn't get rid of it. Too sentimental," she said. "Plus I worked way too hard on it to just trash it."

They taxied to a gate where a customs agent was waiting, who spent only a few minutes on the plane and barely even glanced at their paperwork.

"Thanks, Jim. We owe you one." Shaun shook Jim's hand as he exited the cockpit to have his passport checked.

"Nah, it's always a pleasure to fly you guys. Whenever you need another lift, let me know," he said with a wink before disappearing back inside.

The three Assassins gathered their things and waved goodbye as they followed the agent into the airport. They flagged a taxi once outside and within a few minutes, they were heading into the city to drop their things off at a hotel only a few blocks away from the site of the destroyed laboratory.

At Desmond's request, they stopped for breakfast at a small cafe on a side street a few city blocks from the lab, sitting at one of the tables outside where it was quiet and almost completely empty. They ordered their food almost immediately and Shaun and Rebecca had just finished setting up their laptops when the waitress brought them their coffees a minute later.

Shaun held his mug up to make a toast. "When I suggested to Rebecca yesterday morning that we go to a French cafe to cheer ourselves up, this wasn't what I had in mind, but cheers. I know I've said it before but, glad to have you back, buddy."

They clinked mugs and each took a sip of coffee.

"Thanks," Desmond said. "So did you two find out anything new this morning?"

"Sadly, not much. Here's what I've got so far." Rebecca turned her screen around, showing them a timeline of events that she'd generated, complete with links to news articles and data that she'd collected on the plane. "If this is right, the explosion was almost an hour after the earthquake here."

"So what does that mean?" he asked, studying it closely. "Do you think the two events here are unrelated?"

"I don't know what to think," she replied. "This doesn't follow any of the patterns I'm seeing for the rest of the earthquakes. Why would the building explode over an hour later?"

"Faulty wiring or something?"

"Maybe. But without getting a closer look we can't tell for sure."

"I find it hard to believe that faulty wiring played a role," Shaun added over a sip of his coffee. "That laboratory was only built twenty years ago. We're talking about Abstergo here. The best that money can buy. No way does that building explode without some help. And I mean more than just an earthquake."

"Well what if they just didn't plan for it?" Rebecca asked. "You said earthquakes in this area don't happen very often. Could it have just been a freak accident?"

"I doubt it, unless they had absolutely zero safety measures in place."

"So let me get this straight. You think that all the other earthquakes in the world were somehow my fault," Desmond pointed at his own chest, "but that this earthquake and subsequent explosion weren't related to me at all, but were instead something entirely different despite happening on the same night?"

"And therein lies the problem, the timing of it is just weird. Like everything points to it all being related but also not. And I never said it was your fault," Shaun added, "just that it all connected to you."

"Well one thing's for sure," Rebecca said, "we're not going to figure anything else out by just speculating with each other. I think we need to go have a look for ourselves."

Shaun nodded. "Agreed."

At that moment, the waitress brought out their breakfasts: a simple breakfast scramble for Shaun, a veggie omelet and fruit cup for Rebecca, and two full breakfast platters for Desmond. The waitress side-eyed him as she set down the second one in front of him.

"More coffee," she said with a thick, French accent, placing a fresh cup in front of each of them.

"Thank you."

"See, Shaun? This is what coffee's supposed to taste like." Rebecca turned to Desmond. "Whatever you do, don't drink his coffee. It's awful."

"Rebecca," Shaun grumbled through gritted teeth. "It's a learning process, alright?"

Desmond's mouth was already too full of food to respond and the three of them ate in silence until the waitress brought out a basket of croissants. "Oh, that explosion was terrible," she said, glancing at Rebecca's screen as she set them down in the middle of the table. "It happened just that way."

"We're trying to look into what happened," Rebecca said. "Do you know anything about it?"

"Not much more than I see on television. My friend's sister was there when it happened. Barely got out with her life. Almost the whole building is gone now. They are still trying to put out fires."

"I hope she'll be alright," Rebecca said.

"She did not tell me much, but the doctors say she will be okay." She gave them a tired smile and went back inside.

"Think maybe we should go talk to her?" Desmond asked the others.

Rebecca nodded. "Definitely. Maybe she knows something we don't."

"Or maybe she's a Templar who won't talk to us because we're obviously not one of them."

"Only one way to find out," Desmond said, an excited twinkle in his eye.

Shaun rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll get the check. Rebecca, can you find—"

"What hospital she's in?" she finished, flashing a triumphant smile. She turned her computer around to show her screen. "Already done. She's at Hôtel-Dieu next to Cathédrale Notre-Dame."

"I still can't believe the waitress tried to slip you her phone number," Shaun complained as they stood in the plaza across from the cathedral a half hour later.

"I can," Rebecca said.

Both of the others raised their eyebrows.

"What? It's not like she knows Desmond's a zombie."

"I'm not a zombie," he grumbled.

"Sounds exactly like something a zombie would say," Shaun said.

Desmond just rolled his eyes and looked for a way into the hospital. As it happened, an employee had just exited from a side door, his keycard swinging off the waistband of his scrubs.

"Wait here," he instructed before snaking his way through a dense crowd of tourists. The employee was oblivious, too focused on his phone to see anyone coming towards him.

Desmond muttered a small "sorry" as he bumped into his target and deftly lifted the keycard clip from the waistband at the same time. He slid the card into his own pocket and raised both his hands in an apologetic manner. The employee, annoyed at being run into, chastised Desmond in rapid French as he walked off to rejoin Shaun and Rebecca.

"Impressive," Shaun commended.

"Come on, let's get inside before he notices his card is missing." Desmond led them back across the plaza and to the same side door the nurse had exited from. He tapped the card on the scanner and, with a soft beep-click, the door unlocked.

They entered an empty hallway and shut the door behind them.

"Alright, let's go," Desmond said.

Shaun grabbed him by the hood of his jacket. "Not so fast. Visiting hours don't start for another—" Shaun checked his watch— "two hours. And we're almost certainly not on the approved guest list. We're going to need disguises."

"I have an idea," Rebecca said, pointing to a sign on the nearest door that read "buanderie."

Desmond shrugged and used the keycard to unlock it, revealing an industrial laundry room within.

"Bex, this is not what I had in mind," Shaun complained when she and Desmond started pulling clothes out of a hamper. "These are all going to be covered in shit. Possibly quite literally."

"Shh!" Desmond hissed as he heard a pair of hospital employees talking just outside the room. They waited, listening until the voices disappeared through the hospital door. "Just wear the cleanest scrubs you can find that fit. Hopefully we won't be in them long."

"Bloody hell hope not."

Once they were in their disguises, they snuck up to the woman's room. Desmond lifted two more badges when they passed by a group of doctors chatting in the hallway and a clipboard from one of the nurse's stations. Hopefully it would be enough to fool anyone who didn't look too closely.

It worked, and soon they were at the other end of the hall from the woman's room. Two burly men in bulletproof vests stood watch outside, their eyes scanning down all three hallways that intersected at that end, looking for any sign of trouble.

"Definitely Abstergo," Desmond whispered to Shaun and Rebecca. "Time to see how closely they're checking badges." He adjusted his wrist, feeling his hidden blade resting against it. "Come on," he said, leading them forward as a nurse left the room. "Now's our chance."

As he'd predicted, the guards barely glanced at any of their badges before allowing them inside, and all three took a collective breath of relief once the door was closed behind them.

An exhausted-looking woman wrapped in countless bandages from head-to-toe laid in the bed. Several tubes connected her to various machines quietly beeping around the room and her leg was in a thick cast that stuck out from under the covers at an awkward angle. The opposite arm was in a sling draped across her chest and bruising on her head, though wrapped up, was still partially visible.

She craned her neck and eyed them up and down wearily.

"Okay, we need to be delicate. She's probably quite traumatized as is. Rebecca has the best French so she should lead."

"Yeah, I get that. Talking to you can be pretty traumatizing," Desmond muttered under his breath just loud enough for him to hear.

Shaun threw him a nasty look.

"You're not doctors," the woman said in fluent English, almost no trace of an accent on her voice. Her eyes narrowed as she studied them closely, her gaze shifting between each of them.

"You're American?" Desmond asked.

"Canadian. I moved here last year."

"Ah, well, Miss…?"

"Renaud. Émilie Renaud." Her gaze moved from them to the door, where the two guards were still waiting on the other side.

"You're right, Miss Renaud, we're not doctors," Rebecca quickly admitted. "We're… private investigators. We want to help you by trying to find out what happened to your lab two nights ago."

Émilie studied them another moment. Something about Rebecca's fervor must've eased her suspicions because when she spoke next, her demeanor was far more relaxed: "What do you want to know?"

"Anything you can tell us about what happened. The more we know, the more we can help."

She hesitated, then nodded and closed her eyes. "I don't remember most of it. I was working late that night, trying to finish a test before flying back to Canada for Christmas. Everything seemed normal, and then out of nowhere, the building started to shake. I, um…" She trailed off, wincing as she raised her arm to rub her temple while she thought about what happened next. "I remember hiding in my office underneath a desk until it was over. When I went back in, the lab was a mess. Almost everything had fallen off the shelves."

"Do you remember what happened next?" Rebecca gently prompted.

Émilie nodded. "I stopped my test and started cleaning. That took a little over an hour I think, and then I heard loud booms coming from another part of the building, felt it shake again, and ran out as fast as I could. Next thing I know, I'm waking up here."

"Forgive me for prying, but what is it that you do for Abstergo? You said you were working on a test?" Shaun asked.

"I'm a pharmaceutical researcher working on designing a new chemical test to run on one of their clinical drug samples that's supposed to go to market next year."

"And you're sure that you'd been cleaning for an hour when the explosions started? Not just for a few minutes?" he pressed.

"I'm positive. It's a big lab to clean and our protocols are… extensive."

"You said that you're a pharmaceutical researcher. What kind of pharmaceuticals?" Rebecca asked, a little too eagerly.

Émilie hesitated for a moment. "I'm not sure if I can say…"

"It's alright," she reassured her. "We promise all of this will remain completely confidential. We just need to know as much as possible to figure out why this happened."

"You think it was sabotage?"

"It's possible," Desmond answered. "Though we can't tell you for sure if we don't know more."

Émilie sighed. "It's a food supplement, an alternative to energy drinks that would revolutionize the industry." She took a deep breath and began to cough roughly. Rebecca jumped to her aid, handing her a cup of water sitting on the bedside table. "Thank you," she said, slowly taking a sip.

"Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything odd or out of the ordinary that happened that night?" Shaun asked.

"Not that I remember. Oh wait! There were those two men that walked past the lab—"

"What men?" Desmond asked sharply as the three Assassins shared a look.

Rebecca smacked him on the arm and Émilie gave her a small, appreciative smile.

"I don't know. I didn't recognize them, which was strange because I know everyone that would be there that time of night."

"Did you talk to them at all?" Rebecca asked.

"No, I didn't have a chance to. I was in the middle of my experiment when I saw them and by the time I could step away, they were gone."

"Is there anything you can tell us about the men? Anything at all?" he pressed.

"Um… one of them looked and sounded German, and the other one American. The German was carrying a tablet and speaking to a woman through it."

"Anything about the woman's voice sound familiar?"

Émilie shook her head. "No, though it did stick out to me at the time that all three were speaking English. And the woman, I think she was their boss. She was giving them orders to use a… a… shroud… to do something? I don't know, maybe I'm misremembering or maybe I misheard them."

The alarmed look that passed between Desmond, Shaun, and Rebecca as the pieces started to fall into place didn't go unnoticed by Émilie.

"Is that important?"

"It's… something of interest to our investigation, yes," Shaun said.

She nodded and took another sip of her water. "I wish I could help you more but that's all I remember."

"No, this is plenty to go on. Thank you for all your help."

"Sorry this happened," Desmond said. Guilt that he was somehow responsible for her misfortune formed a knot in his stomach.

Émilie gave him a small smile. "It's not your fault."

The knot tightened and he tried to force a smile back.

"If you remember anything else, or if you just want to talk, here's our contact information." Rebecca handed her a card with her email address.

Émilie took the card and clutched it tightly in her hand. "I will."

The three of them exited the room and hurried down the hall to discuss what they'd learned.

"So you were right about the fake leak," Rebecca said when they were out of earshot of the guards that still stood watch over Emilie's door. "The Shroud wasn't stolen from the Templars."

"That's good news, right? It means Gavin wasn't lying to us?" Desmond asked.

Shaun shook his head. "I'm not so sure. If the Templars still had it, why would they let it leak that it'd been stolen from them? We had no clue they even had a Shroud until then. Why risk us even attempting to steal it? And for another thing, why on earth would they blow up their own building? It just doesn't make sense."

They paused the conversation as a doctor brushed past them, bumping into Desmond as he did so. He and the doctor locked eyes, and an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach when confusion on the latter's face turned into a knowing smirk. It set Desmond on edge, and despite never having seen this man before, he couldn't help but feel like the man knew him somehow.

He watched closely as the doctor turned away and entered Émilie's room.

"You alright, mate?" Shaun's question pulled his attention back to the conversation at hand.

"Yeah, I just…" Desmond turned to look back down the hall at the room one more time. "I thought someone recognized me."

"Who?" Rebecca asked. She and Shaun both looked down the hall in the same direction.

"Another doctor. The one that just passed us."

"Probably Émilie's. You know, her real doctor."

"Yeah, probably. I guess I'm still a bit on edge from… everything. I'm good, though," he added. "So what are we thinking? That someone else actually did steal the Shroud and blew up an Abstergo Lab with it?"

"And according to Gavin, it wasn't us," Rebecca reminded them.

"Someone else who we know nothing about not only having access to a Shroud but being able to use it? That's a horrifying thought," Shaun said.

Rebecca shook her head. "But it doesn't destroy things though, at least as far as we know. It's supposed to heal and—" she paused, looking first at Shaun then at Desmond— "hypothetically, resurrect…"

"Hypothetically?" Shaun asked.

"I think we're beyond hypothetical, Rebecca. And why was it here if I was back in Canada? Wouldn't it make more sense if the Shroud had been there?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Hang on a minute." Shaun put his hand up. "The Paris earthquake was before yours. That was the first one! It must've triggered all the other earthquakes, one of which brought you back."

"So who triggered that first one? And why?"

"I'm guessing the German and the American were trying to resurrect someone else," Rebecca answered.

"And the woman they were talking to," Shaun reminded her. "She was instructing them, according to Émilie."

"Do we have any idea who the German and the American are? Or who they were trying to resurrect?"

Both Rebecca and Shaun shrugged at the same time as an alarm started blaring at the other end of the hall. A light above Émilie's door was flashing and a team of doctors and nurses swarmed the room, pushing past the two flustered security guards without hesitation.

Desmond rushed down the hall, taking advantage of the controlled chaos to get a closer look. Inside the packed room, doctors and nurses scrambled to save Émilie, trying everything from CPR and defibrillation to loading her IV with medications, but nothing seemed to work. The harder they tried, the worse she seemed to get, and after a few long minutes the monitor across the room showed her heart had stopped completely. They tried to bring her back, but each attempt was unsuccessful. It was over just as quickly as it had started.

He turned to face the others, catching sight of the same doctor that had bumped into him at the far end of one of the adjoining hallways, now with a triumphant grin on his face that only widened when he saw Desmond.

"Shit!" Desmond spat when the doctor spun on his heels and disappeared around a far corner.

"What's going on?"

"Where are we going!?"

Desmond ignored Shaun and Rebecca's questions as he dodged hospital staff and equipment cluttering the halls to close in on his target before he disappeared for good, but by the time he rounded the corner where the doctor had been standing, he'd vanished.

CW/TW: Brief graphic mention of Clay's suicide.