Daniel Cross had never been a religious man, save for that one confused month in high school when he'd started lusting after a Catholic girl in his class, but when he opened his eyes blearily and saw nothing but white above him, just for a very short moment he thought to himself, Well, this is a surprise.

He pressed his chin down to his chest and saw that he was also wearing some kind of white robe. Then he looked up, to check for a halo, but there was nothing save for his usual scrappy blond hair.

At this point, Daniel's body seemed to twig to the fact that he was conscious, and it promptly presented its list of complaints to him in the manner of an indignant landlord. He groaned quietly as pain spiked in his torso, in his muscles, in his head and in his dry, cracked lips, and the tiny sting of an IV in the crook of his elbow.

He rolled his head to one side and saw the metal bar of his IV stand. Behind it, out of focus, he saw a shape in the infirmary bed next to his own. He blinked a few times and squinted, until he realised with alarm who it was.

Desmond was dressed in a plain white T-shirt and jeans, sleeping in his clothes on top of the blankets. One hand was resting protectively over his stomach, over a barely-visible padding of bandages that covered the hole in his body where the bullet had entered. His dark hair was mussed from tossing and turning on the pillow but his face was relaxed and peaceful.

After a moment of contemplation, Daniel clumsily swung his right arm over to the small table by his bed, picked up the first thing he found (a plastic beaker), took aim and then threw it at Desmond's head.

It bounced off the young Assassin's left temple and dropped out of sight onto the floor, but it did the trick. Desmond wake with a start, slapping a hand to his head, and looking around for the source of his distress.

Daniel made to wave, and instead found his left hand stopped short with a clatter. He looked down and found with a scowl that he was handcuffed to the rail of his bed.

'You're finally awake,' Desmond said, his voice a little rough. He had swung his legs over the side of his bed, and was observing Daniel with his arms folded a little defensively. Daniel looked back at him and noticed the shadows under his eyes that were picked out by the harsh fluorescent lights.

'And alive,' Daniel shot back, wanting to get to the heart of the matter as soon as possible.

Desmond took his time before responding. He stood up, and Daniel saw a small grimace of pain as he did so, and the way he moved gingerly. Internal damage? Had he lost an organ, or had the wound merely been superficial?

How fast would he go down if kicked in the right spot?

'You passed out before I could cut your throat,' Desmond replied at last. 'There was no hurry to kill you, so I stopped to use the Apple, to call for help.' He stepped closer to Daniel's bed, staying out of arm's reach as he looked down with his mild brown eyes. 'By the time I'd turned my attention back to you, I'd lost my enthusiasm for killing.

'I figured it could wait. An ambulance arrived, and took us to a hospital along with the survivors. I used the Apple to keep them from asking questions. I thought about using it to convince a nurse to put an air bubble in your veins, kill you nice and quiet. But I was tired, and so I waited a little longer.'

Despite the pain he was in and the humiliation of being shackled, Daniel smirked. 'Told you that you'd never be able to kill me.'

'I thought about doing it earlier as well,' Desmond continued calmly, his gaze flicking over Daniel's face and body. 'Smothering you with a pillow. Shooting you up with something. No one would question me. Then I realised why I hadn't killed you yet. Why I stopped before killing you all those times before.'

'Because I'm too pretty to die?'

The shadow of a smirk teased the edges of Desmond's mouth. 'Not every problem can be solved by killing someone.'

Daniel turned this over in his mind a few times and decided that it was in his best interests not to argue with the sentiment. Instead he asked, keeping his voice steady, 'So how do you intend to solve me, Desmond?'

Desmond looked down at the bands of metal tying Daniel down to the bed. After an interminable pause he slipped a hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small key. He then picked up Daniel's wrist and held it still as he pushed the key into the lock of the handcuffs and turned it with a satisfying click. It sprang open, and Daniel quickly pulled his hand free before Desmond could change his mind. He looked up uncertainly, feeling out of his depth.

'Can I leave?'

'If you like,' Desmond replied cryptically.

'What's the alternative?'

'Well, you could stay.'

Daniel laughed. He couldn't help himself. 'How many times have I double-crossed the Assassins now? I've betrayed you, personally. I've killed your fellow Assassins. I've tried to kill you. I would have killed your friends. Rebecca, Shaun...'

'You didn't,' Desmond interrupted calmly, and Daniel realised that they must have made it out of Abstergo alive. Perhaps that was why Desmond hadn't killed him yet.

'I tried to,' Daniel pressed on, eyeing Desmond scornfully. 'You'd take me back, as an Assassin, after all that?'

Desmond retreated, went back to sit on the other bed in the Assassin Den's infirmary. From a distance he looked at Daniel appraisingly before finally saying, 'I assume you've heard the old fable about the scorpion and the frog.'

'You think I'm going to sting you and sink us both?'

'No. That's not the lesson of that fable, not really. I trust you to act according to your nature, and your nature is to act in your own best interests, always. Right now, it would be in your best interests to work with us, to make us even stronger than we already are.' Desmond smiled, with the bitterest of humour. 'You and I... We'll keep each other afloat. You'll be the most useful Assassin in the brotherhood, at least right up until the point you see me show weakness.'

'You think that's a good thing?'

'I think it will keep me from becoming weak.'

'Wouldn't you prefer to have someone a bit nicer watching your back?'

'I don't need nice. I need you.'

Desmond's grin was vaguely wolfish. Daniel hesitated, then sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side, mirroring Desmond, staring at him as an equal before returning the smile.

'You're the biggest bully in the playground now.'

Desmond simply nodded. 'It won't be an easy life,' he warned. 'We've got a big mess to clean up.'

Daniel pressed a hand to his side, feeling the bandages over the curving smile that Desmond had cut into his flesh.

'We'd better get started then,' he said.