I listened to my guards as I faked sleep. About every fifteen minutes the door would open, and someone would poke their head in, see that I was still asleep and the door would shut. I was waiting until I heard the door once more, then I was making my move.

Altair had taken my equipment from the room, but I was not worried about that. There was a Glock in the truck of the GTO and a knife. If they did not take that, I was would be fine, but don't think they would that far. Sure, I was a bit off my rocker at this point in time. My head felt like it weighted a few tons, but I had to get to Abstergo. Something called me to there, something I could not explain.

I heard the door open, then close once more. This was my chance! I threw the covers off of my body and walked quietly to the window. Sliding it up, I stuck my head out it and looked down. Quickly, I jumped to the ground, rolled and sprinted around the house. The GTO in sight and I slid to a stop at the edge of the garage. Shaun was at the front door getting some takeout food.

Once I heard the front door shut, I slid down the icy driveway, and got in the car. Pulling the keys from my pocket, I jammed them into the ignition, stepped on the clutch and let the car roll onto the street. I wanted to be ready to take off when the car started, because the beast was loud and would alert them I was leaving.

The car was in position. Good and I turned the key. The motor fired up and I took off like the hounds of Hell were chasing me. I mentally thanked Conner for destroying Shaun's car. They could not give chase now.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

The guard dropped as I walked into the room. Vidic just looked up from his computer screen and sighed. "I thought you would have been back by now."

Leveling the gun to his head, I glared at him. "What did you do to me? I want the truth!" My head was killing me, and I wanted it to end. I growled at him, feeling my lip curl into a feral grin. My finger itching to pull the trigger and rid the world of this Templar trash once and for all. But the man had the answers I needed.

He shook his head. "Do you really want the truth? I don't think you are ready to hear it." He smiled and laid his hands on the desk in front of him. "We took every precaution to ensure that nothing would be wasted. The same scars, the same eyes. Everything was perfect, until the memories were too much, and you began to think you were her."

I blinked at him. What the hell was he saying? I heard the door open, and two sets of shoes on the tiled floor. "Clarify what you just said, Vidic." I knew that voice and turned my head just enough to see Altair and Ezio walk into the room. His gun trained on me, and Ezio's was on Vidic.

The older man chuckled. "You believe this… this creation is the real Alanna? She is nothing more than a doppelgänger. A complete copy to mimic the real one. Her real name is Samantha Lowe." He looked right at me. "Oh, it was a challenge to find someone who sounded just like Ms. Dowd, but in the end, you see the result. A perfect copy, but the sad thing is, we could not recreate one thing, and that was the immortality you gentlemen possess."

"I heal. I have been shot!" I yelled at him. "I am just like them."

Again, he shook his head. "How do you think our men take so much from you assassins? Many years ago we created a concoction to give our men in the field that would increase their body's own ability to heal. It is a one-time thing. You must take more to stay that way."

I had enough. "You lie!" I screamed at him. "What did you do to me?"

Vidic gave me his famous viper smile. "Created you anew, Samantha. Gave you Alanna's memories, personality, while the whole time she has been safely here in this building, kept under our watchful observation. You, Ms. Lowe, are nothing more than her very expensive knockoff."

Hitting a few keystrokes, he turned the moniter to show us. My eyes widened. There I was, laid out on a bed, tubes in my arms. "This…this can't be real! I am Alanna. I am the real one!" The gun shook in my hand. I wanted to end his lies and kill him now, but Altair reached over and took it from me.

Vidic shook his head and tsked. "I am sorry to say, but you are not. You may sound like her, act like her, have her memories, but you are not her."

Altair stepped closer to the man, until he was right in front of the desk. "Take us to her. I want to see her in person and not through a computer monitor."

My hands shook, and I looked down at them. Was he really telling the truth? Was I really someone else with her memories in my head?

Standing, the Templar looked at us. "Very well, but don't think you are getting out of here alive. Back up is on its way and you will not get past them." He started for the door.

I was rooted to the place I was. My mind would not work, and in turn, neither would my body. I did not want to believe this. I could not believe this. A hand rested on my shoulder. "We will get to the bottom of this. I assure you." Ezio gave a small smile, and lead me out of the room.

Vidic led us down the gray corridors of Abstergo to a bank of elevators. After swiping his badge and hitting the button for the nineteenth floor, I felt the car ascend. As I heard the chiming for every floor we past, my nerves jumped. He had to be lying, because that was all they ever did. They lied to get their way. They lied to the people, and they would lie to cover this up.

I shook as the elevator made its final climb to the floor we needed to be on. The last ding startled me and I moved sideways into Altair, whose face was blank when he looked down at me. I was not his Alanna, and I felt my heart break.

We followed Vidic down the hall and finally coming to a door labeled restricted. His swiped his badge once more and the door opened with a hiss. I stood there, not ready to face whatever was in the room. I knew that once I saw it, there would be no turning back.

"Oh don't be shy, Ms. Lowe. She is a fine specimen, but looking at you now, I believe you hold the prize for the finest by far." I could hear his words, but I chose to ignore him. He was not helping my nerves at this time.

Taking a few tentative steps into the muted light, I looked down at the woman in the bed. It was like looking into a mirror, only she was the real one, and I was merely the reflection. I was the freak they created to be her, and act like her. To become her to destroy the men that I now called brothers, family, and husband.

Looking back at Altair, he still had not moved from the spot at the door. His face unreadable. This was his Alanna. This was his wife. My heart completely broke there. Shattering in my chest, and I did not know if I would ever fix it once more.

Ezio came up to my right, a gentle arm wrapped around me. Tears began to fall from my eyes, her eyes, or were they mine? I was not sure about anything anymore. "It's all been a lie. Everything that I have come to know. Everything that I have become, remembered. It was all her memories. I don't even know who I am."

I felt him pull me a little closer. "We will get through this. We have a start. Vidic said you name was Samantha Lowe. I'm sure Rebecca can work with that."

My tears became sobs, and my world spiraled out of control. Vidic was right. I was not ready for this. I would never have been ready for this.

Ezio

And so, everything that set out to do had been done. Abstergo completely under our control and the Templars disposed. Desmond took the honors of getting rid of Vidic. The man owed the boy far more than any of us. As for Samantha/Alanna, that remains to be seen. She had completely shut down before we left, not talking to anyone. The shock to learn that she was not who she thought she was had taken a toll on her already fragile mind.

Altair avoided her when we got back to Shaun's, preferring to stay in the bedroom waiting for the real Alanna to awaken from her twelve year slumber. Kate stayed with Samantha and helped her cope. My heart went out to her. I wish I could rewrite the wrongs that had been dealt to her.

Standing in the den with Desmond, Conner, Shaun, Rebecca, Kim, and Dawson, I shook my head. "Where do we go from here? I mean, there is a girl in there that is completely and utterly broken, and one of us upstairs who is still in a coma. This is something I have never had to deal with."

Rebecca grabbed a folder from the desk. "This is what I could find on Samantha. Her resemblance to Alanna is undeniable. They are related though. Her line is from Alanna's father's side. Her great aunt. She was a secretary for Abstergo's office in Savannah, Georgia. That is where her family still lives. They believe she died in an accident ten years ago."

"A year after they found Alanna." Shaun sat down at his desk. "I don't know how to fix this. We could put her back into the Animus; find out how much of Samantha still exists."

Shaking her head, Rebecca countered. "That won't work. There is too many of Alanna's memories in her head as it is. If we try and put her back in there, all that is going to happen is we scrabble her mind up more. Cause her bleed more into Alanna."

"What about the sync nexus that I used to get past my bleeds of Ezio and Altair? Do you think that would work?" Desmond looked to the two of them. "I mean, I stopped being them."

"You had Clay there to guide you. That would not work for her either. I mean, they did a hell of a job on her. Basically, they stripped her of everything she was, threw her into an Animus and let it all happen." Rebecca sighed.

I listened to them the whole time, trying to make sense of everything, but I was not. "So what you are saying is she really has become Alanna. But what started her to go nuts like she did?" That was the part I was trying to figure out.

"Yes and no. She is Alanna, but at the same time, Samantha is still there. I mean, you all have said it; she has a softer side than Alanna ever did. I think that is where we see the real one. Their personalities have blended to make one." The dark haired woman turned her blue eyes on me. "As for the flip out, I can only think that was the Bleeding Effect. Too many memories are coming up. Some are hers and some are Alanna's. They are trying to blend where they can't."

Now I was very confused. I wish they had a manual on Animus speak because I was not really catching a bit of it. I think Conner was catching on to the confused expressions that were crossing my face, because he spoke up next. "I think what we are all trying to get at is. Is there any way to fix her?"

Rebecca and Shaun looked from each other, then to him and the rest of us. "Don't know. There have been cases in the past that the subject has stopped bleeding and regained their own personality, but it is very rare, and they did not go through what she went through. They did not live nearly ten years as their ancestor." Shaun looked around the room. "We will keep working on it, but as of right now, have her look at the file. Maybe it might jog something in her."

I took it from Rebecca and we left the room. Walking into the living room, I found Samantha sitting on the couch, knees in her chest. "Samantha?" I called out to her, letting her know I was in the room.

Slowly she turned and looked at me, her gray eyes red and puffy. "Hey Ezio." She answered softly.

Joining her on the couch, I looked at her. "I think you might enjoy this." I handed her the file and she sat her bare feet on the floor. "It's who you were before they got ahold of you."

She told it gently and sat it on her lap. "Why was I chosen?" She met my eyes and sighed.

"You and Alanna are related, although distant. As you can tell, you look just like her, and that was why they chose you. It was enough to fool everyone that has known her for years." I was not going to lie to her. She has had enough of that.

Samantha's head dropped and I heard a soft sigh escape her lips. "Even fooled Altair and he is hard to fool sometimes." That was Alanna's knowledge of the Arab coming out.

I felt bad for her. "Even Altair." Reaching for her hand, I gave it a light squeeze. "Give it time, Samantha. He is still processing all of this, just as we all are. In one day he has found out that the woman he was in love with was not the woman he thought she was, and he found that woman in a medically induced coma. That is a bit to take in at once."

Her head shot up, tears coming from her eyes. "I didn't ask for this! I didn't want to be used like some experiment. I just want to be normal again. To be who I used to be. Will that even happen?"

"I am not going to sugar coat it. None of us know. You have been Alanna for so long that we don't know if you will ever go back to being Samantha." I wiped the tears from her face with my thumbs. "You must take it easy. It will be a long road, but all of us will be here to help you. We are not going to walk away now."

Her eyes widened at what I just said. "You are not going to just throw me away?" I shook my head. "I…I thought that since you guys had the real Alanna back, you would just throw me to the wolves."

I had to laugh at that. "No, we would never do that. You are as much a victim in Abstergo's schemes as Alanna was. You may not be her, but you are now part of this family. We never abandon our own."

Her smile said it all. "Thank you Ezio. That means a lot."

I returned the smile. "But, you cannot tell anyone about us. Not your family, friends, anyone."

"I know. I have been living as Alanna for the past nine years. I think I know how to keep my mouth shut." Samantha gave me a lopsided smile. "Now, will you sit here with me while I go through this? I am terrified at what I am going to find."

"Of course."

Alanna

The fog lifted from my mind. I was alive? How? Abstergo had found me, shot me, did things to me, and then nothing. I felt nothing, remembered nothing. It was as if I had been asleep. A peaceful slumber. Now, I felt myself drifting out of that sleep.

I heard my name being called. I knew that voice. A voice I had last heard say my name at the exit of the building I thought would have been my grave. Altair was there, and he was calling my name.

I struggled to get my eyes to open, but they would not respond. My hands, feet, and limps were all the same. Did they do something to me? I tried again, and again, and every time I failed. I wanted to scream, but I knew, that too, would not work. And so, I gave it some time. Just floating right inside of my mind, thinking about what I would do next.

A long vacation. Somewhere warm and sunny. A beach with a drink with one of those little cocktail umbrellas, or a walk down Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I had not been there in ages. It sounded like a great plan. Wake up, get caught up on everything I have missed in the few years I have been gone, and then hell, I could do both. I wanted to do both. Go back, get the Mustang and go for a cross country cruise while I was at it. I was immortal. I could do it all.

"Alanna, come back to me, please."

It was Altair again, and it sounded closer. So I tried to move again, and it worked. My eyes slowly opened, and shut once more. The light was so bright! Oh dear Lord, it was like looking to the sun! I tried again, and this time, it wasn't as bad, but was still brighter than I would prefer.

"Hey there."

I turned my head to see the most beautiful set of amber eyes I had missed so much. "Hey yourself." It sounded like I had been gargling glass for several hours. I cleared my dry throat. "You have anything to drink?"

Grabbing a bottle of water from the nightstand, he opened it and helped me to sitting position. I took a sip and began to feel a lot better. "You look worried." I reached for his hand after he sat the water back on the stand.

"I was. I thought you would never wake up. They had you sedated pretty heavily." He gave me a small smile.

"I guess trying to escape is kind of why they did that to me. Killed three guards just getting out of the room they held me in one time. The second time they just shot me and dragged me back. I am guessing that was when they started to drug me." I shrugged. "Anyway, where am I?"

I looked around the room, not recognizing anything that I saw. "You are at Shaun and Kim's house in New Jersey." He answered.

That threw me for a loop. "Who the hell is Kim? And have I met her before?"

He shook his head. "No, you have not met her. She is Shaun's wife. Been married a few years now."

I was getting the feeling there was a lot of things that I had missed. "How long have I been gone?" I needed to know that right away.

"Going on thirteen years. You have been with Abstergo for almost eleven years.' He took my hand. "If I had known, I would have beaten down the doors myself, and killed everyone in the way. We just found you last night when we did the final raid on the company."

He was not telling me everything. The man may be able to hide things from other people, but not from me. "Spill it, Altair. Don't beat around the bush and try to hide shit from me. It annoys me more than you walking away or calling me 'woman'." I gave him a half-hearted glare.

That made him laugh. "That is definitely you." Then the smile faded and I knew something was about to come out that I was not going to like. "Where should I start? I know. It started two and a half years ago in Colorado…"

Bet none of you guys out there in cyberland saw that one coming! Yes, Alanna is really Samantha and the real Alanna has been in a medically induced coma for years. Everything will be completely explained in the next chapter. I am almost finished. A few more things to clear up and tie a ribbon around, then I will be done. See you next chapter.

*SassierSphinx*