"...to rip my head in two," Ezio hears himself say, as his mind settles back into his own body. "Why? Is that not normal?" It's his voice, he can feel his mouth moving, but he's not the one pulling the strings, and it's not anyone he knows, either. He's sitting on his bed, and an unusually tired looking Altair stands in the doorway.

"Not at all," Altair says, and his voice is pensive.

It's been a while since Ezio rode shotgun in anyone's body, but he hasn't exactly forgotten the rules of the game. Unfortunately, he doesn't have time for that right now. Whoever's inside his head doesn't know his way around yet, and Ezio has decades of experience and the apple (and oh God, the apple) to help him. He wrests control back without even bothering to check who it was in there, throwing them into the back of his head where he can figure them out later. "Altair-"

"Ezio," Altair says. "Edward said you weren't in there."

"I wasn't," Ezio says. "I went inside the apple."

Altair raises an eyebrow, and Ezio feels an abrupt surge of frustration- half his, because Altair doesn't understand the gravity of what's going on, and half Edward's, because he just doesn't know what's going on (and what is Edward doing in his head, anyway?). "You went inside an apple that's inside you?" he asks.

"Yes," Ezio says. "Look, I told you. I heard the apple screaming, and when I couldn't get it to talk to me, I thought- well, I'll go to it."

"That shouldn't be possible," Altair says.

"I didn't think it would be either," Ezio says. "But then I remembered something Juno said, back in the temple, when she was going on and on about all those crazy things the first civilization tried to save themselves. They had the technology to preserve their minds for as long as they needed to. I mean, that's how Juno was still around when we got there."

"And you tried it on the apple?" Altair asks.

"Yes," says Ezio. "And it worked. I went inside the apple."

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Altair doesn't sound skeptical anymore. He sounds worried.

"It's Desmond," Ezio says, and he watches Altair's face suddenly freeze into a cold mask. Ezio's spent enough time inside his head to recognize that he doesn't want anyone to know what he's thinking right now. "When he died- when we thought he died- it must have only been his body that was killed. He's inside the apple."

"That's why it's been so unmanageable," Altair guesses.

"I think so," Ezio agrees. "He's been in the apple for months, and that whole time he's been trying to escape. I can't control it because it's not just the apple anymore. It's Desmond. They're the same thing."

"Alright," Altair takes a deep breath. "Can you… do you think you can get him out?"

"I don't know," Ezio admits. He'd tried to- he'd pulled Desmond as far as that imaginary field. But the memory of Desmond sitting there, weak and shaking and naked as a newborn, won't leave him. His face when he looked up at Ezio, so full of… wonder, like he's never seen another human before- just remembering it hits him like a punch to the stomach. "I really don't know. He's- broken."

"Broken?" Altair repeats, and for the first time he does sound worried.

"He's not dead," Ezio says. "But I don't think he remembers anything. Whatever he's been living through inside the apple, it's nothing good."

Altair nods. Just once. "It doesn't matter," he says. "We'll bring him back."

When Altair's left the room- probably to fill Connor and Haytham in, Edward asks, "Does this sort of thing happen a lot?"

"Yes. No." Ezio sighs. "Kind of. It's always weird, but this is new."

"I'm starting to pick up on that."

Ezio doesn't want to think about Desmond anymore, so he turns to Edward as a distraction. "Are you alright with this?" he asks. "It's your first time in someone else's head, right?"

"I'd rather be in mine," Edward says. "But…"

"But?"

"I don't know yet," Edward admits. "I'm still working it out." He doesn't say anything else, but Ezio doesn't push. They sit there together, sharing a head, lost in their own private thoughts, until Connor pokes his head around the door. "We need to steal a body," he says. "Want to help?"