[Author's Note: Here's Chapter 2, finally! This one's bloody long, to make up for the long delay in posting. Chapter 3 is currently done, but I'm trying to get up kind of a safety net of finished chapters in case life or writer's block happens, so expect another long gap before that one and then shorter times between updates.
A Warning About My Warning System For This Work
I believe that it is polite to warn readers if content that not everyone may like is forthcoming. Normally, for short things like I Know You Know, I try my very best to list everything in the warnings section, and add things if people point out something I've missed. However, Rebirth isn't a short work that can be easily broken down into subjects/themes. So I will be putting chapter-specific warnings up when something in particular might be upsetting to people (e.g. a character having suicidal thoughts), but otherwise the warning is in the rating: FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY. That doesn't mean 18 and over, that means YOU ARE A MATURE PERSON WHO CAN HANDLE READING ABOUT BAD THINGS HAPPENING TO GOOD PEOPLE. I think we can agree that's fair, yes?
Also
Just a reminder, this is a CANON DIVERGENT AU, meaning I will be sticking to AC canon through Brotherhood, then picking and choosing canon elements from Revelations, the peripheral games, and the encyclopedia.
Andiamo!]
Chapter 2: Shaun
Awareness came trickling back in a thin, cold stream.
There was a woman…
Pain, confusion. His heartbeat, unnaturally fast, throbbed in his temples like a hammer.
She looked right through me.
Disorientation made the room spin wildly and he clutched at the smooth stone of the floor, scrabbled for purchase reflexively without realizing what he was doing.
It was like she was trying to push me out of my own head!
His eyes opened but the room was devoid of light. With no visual reference point, the spinning sensation increased. His breath was starting to come short and fast, panic setting in.
Nothing is true.
The Creed flashed across his thoughts. Seizing hold of it, he forced himself to be still, to freeze in place.
Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
Teeth clenched, he rolled onto his back. The motion didn't do his inner ears any favors, but he made his brain ignore what his balance was telling him, taking his spatial cues only from the cold, solid presence of the floor. Squeezing his eyes shut, he took one deep, controlled breath. Freezing air burned in his lungs, but he counted three seconds in, three out, four in, four out, five in…
Nothing is true, everything is permitted. We work in the darkness to serve the light.
The thunder of his own pulse in his ears faded, leaving behind a high-pitched ringing. A faint scraping to his left made his heart rate shoot back up before he heard a groan and recognized Miles' voice. "Miles, what the almighty hell just happened? Who was that… was there a woman in here? Can you see anything?" There was no answer, just more scraping.
Shaun reached into his pocket, pulled out the penlight he used for reading after the others had gone to sleep. He clicked it on. The cold and adrenaline were making him shake like one of those ridiculous little fashionable dogs, and the spot of light veered crazily around the room. Sitting up to point it at where he thought Miles must be nearly made him drop the damn thing. It was like something was interfering with the connection between his brain and his body. He tightened his fingers around the flashlight, grabbed his wrist with his other hand and got it as steady as he could.
Miles lay facedown on the floor a few feet away, jerking and twitching in a horribly unnatural motion. Next to him, on her side, was Lucy, lying still in a way that was just as disturbing as Miles' spasms.
"Son of a bitch," Shaun tried to get to his feet, but just trying made him feel like he was going to be sick, so he crawled over on all fours instead. His foot knocked against one of their lanterns as he knelt beside Miles and he turned it on. One of the bulbs was broken and the remaining one buzzed and flickered, but it was better than nothing. In the light, he saw the dark pool spreading across the floor, the stains on Miles' hand and sleeve. Already knowing what he'd find, he pressed two fingers under Lucy's jawbone. Her skin was cool to the touch. No flutter of movement was there to give him reason for hope. Heat rose behind his eyes, and his throat tightened, but they were still in the field. He dug his fingernails into his palms. Nothing is true.
He turned his attention to Miles. Struggling against his own persisting weakness and the erratic motion of the bigger man's limbs, it took him almost a full minute to get his fellow assassin turned over. There was a dark, wet streak down the front of that ubiquitous white hoodie. Shaun tried not to fixate on it as he wedged the penlight between Miles' teeth and took his own jacket off, using it to cushion the man's head. He put his hands on Miles' shoulders and held him down as best he could, waiting for the convulsions to subside.
A glint of gold caught his eye. The Apple lay where it had fallen from Miles' hand. Its mirror-bright surface was spattered with red. As he stared, the sphere seemed to ripple from inside. The red stains shrank, and a puff of steam rose into the air above the artifact. He looked quickly away.
Miles' seizure finally stopped. Shaun sat back, wiped sweat from his forehead. He hunched over and wrapped his arms around his ribcage, watching his breath rise in puffs – just like the one from the Apple, was it breathing? No, can't be – in the lantern light, trying to get a handle on the dizziness, the nausea, the pain that was radiating from behind his eyes down the back of his neck. Trying to think of what to do next. With Lucy…well, without Lucy, he was the next-highest-ranked assassin present, meaning it was down to him to take command.
From behind him, he heard a hoarse whisper. "Ow. Fucking…ow."
"Rebecca. You need to get up."
"Shaun? 'Zatchu? Where? The room won't…my fucking head!"
"Use the Creed, Rebecca. I need you, and not in a few minutes. Right now. Come on."
He heard her shifting around, taking a deep breath. Then she shouted, "Lu! Oh shit, no!" On her hands and knees, still dizzy, Rebecca crawled to her friend. Cradling Lucy's head, she searched for a pulse. Finding none, she shifted to start CPR.
"Don't, 'Becca," barked Shaun, more harshly than he'd intended. He shook himself. "You can't. It's been too long."
"Too long my ass, what even happened? Two seconds ago we were all talking about what to do with the Apple!"
"Rebecca, look at the blood on her shirt, on Miles. Look at the color. It's going brown. We've been out for at least half an hour. She's gone."
Rebecca looked up at him, eyes wide. One hand rested on Lucy's shoulder, the other clenched into a fist. She searched his face. "But – no, we can't just…" her voice broke, and a tear spilled down one cheek.
Miles made a noise like someone was pressing on his trachea, a wheezy gurgle, and his eyes snapped open. For a split second Shaun saw recognition, then a shudder went through Miles' body, and another, and his eyes rolled back until only white was showing and he was seizing again. "Motherfucker," Shaun growled, resuming his position of holding the man down. "Rebecca, get his feet."
Eyes fixed on Miles' blood-soaked right hand, Rebecca sat as if frozen in place.
"Don't make me bloody order you, 'Becca! Get his feet before he hurts himself!"
Moving mechanically, Rebecca put her weight on Miles' legs to pin them down. They hung on to him in grim silence until the seizure passed. Rebecca moved back to Lucy's side. She glanced up at Shaun, frowned, reached across their comrades to put a hand on his shoulder. "Jesus, Shaun, you're cold as ice! Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Briefly, he considered denying it, but the tremors in his hands told the truth for him. "I feel…off. Wrong. But at least I'm conscious. We need to get Miles to a safehouse, preferably a Station. If he keeps seizing like this, his brain could get damaged. He needs meds."
Rebecca shot Miles a look darker than the blackness outside the circle of lantern light, but she replied in an even tone, "Nearest medically equipped Station is almost a kilometer away."
Shaun slid two fingers under Miles' jaw, monitoring his pulse. His heart rate was all over the place, swinging from too fast to nearly comatose. He gave up trying to interpret the rhythm of beats in any way that made sense. "I'll go. I'm a faster runner than you."
"Not in this condition, you're not. Listen, I can do a six-minute mile just like everyone else in the Order. I'll grab some meds for you two. Twelve minutes at most, there and back."
"All right. And bring a stretcher. We need to get out to the truck, get out of town and signal for extraction, and find-" Something made him stop. Had he heard a noise from the Temple entrance?
"What-" Rebecca began, but Shaun held a finger up and hissed sssh!, pointing at the door.
The sounds were definitely there, and getting closer. Footsteps, and murmurs of conversation. Shaun counted three distinct rhythms of walking. Two were confident, striding down the hall. One was slightly more hesitant, a little uneven.
We've got company, he mouthed to Rebecca. He tried to get to his feet and the ringing in his ears turned into a rush of sound and light. When it cleared he was back on the floor on all fours, Rebecca kneeling in front of him. "What the hell was that?" she hissed.
"I don't bloody know, I feel like someone's been at my skull with a sledgehammer!" He shoved at her. "Get up, get up! Whoever that is, we can't let them get the Apple!"
Rebecca got to her feet and stepped in front of him. Cautiously, Shaun shifted so he was on one knee. He glanced back at their fallen comrades. Load of good I am if I can't even stand up and defend my friends. Rebecca drew three throwing knives, holding them between the fingers of her right hand like claws. Shaun reached for his belt and swore under his breath. He'd been so excited about getting into the Temple that he'd left his knife in the van. Rebecca rolled her eyes and pulled a fighting knife with a serrated edge from her boot, handed it to him.
Shaun switched off the lantern and they waited in the dark, watching for lights at the door. The footsteps drew closer. They would need to wait until the last possible second to start a fight. Neither of them were totally inexperienced in combat, but they were both in non-combatant positions within the Order and weren't at the same level as the members who took wetwork missions. And that was when they didn't have a splitting headache and the strange sensation that the room was rocking slightly back and forth.
The footsteps stopped. Shaun waited. He could hear the rasp of Miles' breathing. No light shone through the door, and he realized whoever was there had put their lanterns out as well. Somebody was going to have to make the first move without being able to see.
Then a voice called out, "Walden, are you in there?"
Will. Shaun nearly started crying, he was so relieved to hear his Mentor's voice. "Yes! Yes, we're here!" He reached back, feeling behind him for the lantern.
As soon as the light clicked on they heard running footsteps, and Will came jogging out of the darkness. He stopped in front of Rebecca and laid a hand on her shoulder, then came to kneel in front of Shaun, blue eyes full of concern. "Are you injured? Update me on the situation. Do we have the Apple?"
"Mentor," Rebecca interrupted, "We retrieved the Apple, but Lucy's…that is, Walden is…" her voice broke and she shook her head.
Will looked at Lucy lying so still and pale, the dark stain already starting to soak into the stone floor. His eyes widened for a moment, then closed. A blank expression flitted across his face and Shaun could almost hear him reciting the Creed in his head. "I'm so sorry. I should have ordered you all to stay out of the Temple, to only send Townshend in, but by the time I learned of the danger you'd already left the Sanctuary."
Retorts and arguments flashed through Shaun's thoughts, and a bright red line of anger, but over it all was one concern. "Miles." Shaun glanced back at the prone form. "Something's wrong with him. Seizures."
In a flash, Will was at Miles' side, leaning over him. "Desmond? Son, can you hear me?" He slung his backpack off and pulled out a stethoscope, unzipped the bloodstained hoodie. As he listened to Miles' breathing and heartbeat, his brow drew into a confused frown. "What happened?"
Shaun shrugged. "He was in the middle of a seizure when I woke up, and had another immediately after that one. I don't know how many he might've had while we were out. But he needs some meds, and fast."
"No, I mean what happened before that? Do you know what might've caused this?" Will hung the stethoscope around his neck and went back into the pack, came out with a syringe and bottle of clear serum. He was the only Medic in the history of the Order to become Mentor. In fact, he was the only non-field-operative to become Mentor as far as anyone knew, despite the thousands of Medics and Historians, and more recently Technicians, the Order had seen over the centuries. Of course, by the time he took over there hadn't been many other choices.
The dizziness from before was back with a vengeance. Shaun moved carefully, shifted to face Will and sat cross-legged, one hand pressing into the floor to stay upright. "We found some kind of hidden code back at the villa. Ezio somehow knew to leave clues for Mi – er, for Townshend. When we got in here, the Apple was on a pedestal on this…altar, I suppose you'd call it. Looked like there was no way to get to it, but Miles said some woman was talking to him, saying stuff about Those Who Came Before, showing him the way to activate the bridge across. But we didn't see anybody. Or, not then, but…Rebecca, did you see a woman, right before you passed out?"
Rebecca had returned to Lucy's side, was brushing strands of hair that had come undone from her friend's usual tight bun out of her face. She shook her head, wiped the back of her arm across her eyes. "No. All I saw was Des picking up the Apple, then boom, I was on the floor."
Shaun frowned. "But there was a woman. She was standing behind Miles. Right close behind him, in his personal space. And she was…odd, to look at. I couldn't place her ethnicity, or her style of clothing, and you know that's unusual for me."
Will, concentrating on injecting the serum into Miles' arm, glanced up at Shaun. "That is odd. Did she do anything?"
The ringing in his ears was getting louder again, making it hard to concentrate. "Not really. I didn't see her for very long. It looked like she was talking, but I couldn't hear anything. She raised her arm like she was going to grab Miles' shoulder, but just before she touched him she…looked at me. Will, her face, there was something wrong about it. Her expression was like the look you or I'd give a bug on the wall. And the most incredible pressure started building up in my head, and I would swear to you it was coming from her. Then I saw…" he trailed off. It was too weird. It couldn't possibly have been real.
The Mentor had gone back to listening to Miles' heart. "Saw what?"
"Me. Like I was standing next to Townshend and looking at myself. That was when I passed out."
That got Will's full attention. He studied Shaun's face with narrowed eyes, and reached across to take his pulse. After a few seconds he asked, "How's your head?"
"Like someone's doing construction in it. And my ears won't stop ringing."
"Mother-" Will cut himself off, but he was grinding his teeth as he pulled out a penlight and shone it in Shaun's eyes. "Well I don't know how we missed this back at the Farm, but congratulations, you've got a little genetic material from Those Who Came Before. Your prize is a mild seizure." He pulled a clean syringe from his bag and filled it with serum, less than half the amount he'd used for Miles. "This is going to make you feel groggy in about ten minutes. We should get out of here and on our way to the Station now," he said.
"What are we going to do with Lucy's…with Walden?" Rebecca asked.
"We'll get her cremated," said the Mentor. "You can have charge of scattering the ashes if you want, but things are getting strained out there, and we'll be lucky if we get the Animus out of the country with Miles in it. We can't risk faking the paperwork for human remains, too."
"So leave the fucking thing!" Rebecca exploded, tears finally spilling from her eyes. "Destroy it! It's brought us nothing but misery! Whatever happened to us in here made Des kill her! And he would never have hurt anyone before. All due respect, Mentor, he ran away from you to avoid the life! Sure, part of that was because he thought all of us on the Farm were nuts, but he was a teenager. He could've reported you to the authorities, could've accidentally tipped off the Templars by talking about you to people. But he didn't tell anyone about you, about the Farm, because he didn't want you to get hurt. And I'm pretty sure he cares more about Lucy than about you."
Will took in the Technician's rant calmly, giving Shaun his injection, checking Miles' pulse again. When she stopped for breath, panting, he said, "Are you finished?"
She nodded.
The Mentor put the vial of serum carefully back in its place in his bag, pulled out a plastic bag with a biohazard symbol on it and dropped in the two used syringes. "I would love to wash my hands of this war and live in peace, in hiding somewhere." His hand drifted down to rest on Desmond's shoulder. "But I tried that. Do you know what happened? My son ran away from home and was captured and experimented on by my enemies. And now we have to put him back in the Animus, because it's the only way to fix this! And I'm not about to lose anybody else to this fight if I don't have to. So you'll excuse me if I don't feel like negotiating with you over our next move."
Red-faced, Rebecca took a breath like she was going to argue anyway.
"No." Will cut her off with a glare. "We can't waste any more time, and there is nothing you can say to sway me. I'm giving you more time than I can spare delaying by even a day, but I recruited you. All of you. Do you think I don't feel this loss? I want to hold a public funeral, to build her a tomb more beautiful than Michelangelo himself could have constructed and dye it red in Vidic's blood, but I can't."
Pale-faced, Rebecca closed her mouth.
Will visibly shook himself. "Gentlemen!" he called toward the entrance. "Your warnings were correct, but we've arrived too late. I'll need your help over here."
In the relief he'd felt at one of the sets of footsteps being Will's, Shaun had forgotten about the other two. He looked up as Will's companions approached.
A pair of beautiful handmade men's shoes stepped into the light, surmounted by an impeccably tailored pair of slacks, a casually expensive shirt, and a face right off Shaun's computer screen. The man's combed-back hair was slightly grayer, but there was no mistaking that scar, the one that seemed almost genetically passed down from man to man. "Figlio di puttana, che peccato," he said, spotting Lucy.
And Shaun passed out again.