Ratonhnhaké:ton's earliest memories are dim, shadowed and dark from the years between then and now. But he remembers… something. An old man—but then, everyone had seemed old, when he was that small—he would come by only once in a while, to visit the village. He remembers the way the man had spoken to him, awkward and stilted, like he didn't quite know how to talk to a child. Ratonhnhaké:ton had thought he was funny and different, and he'd been sad when the man stopped coming.
It wasn't until many years later, when he was old enough to recognize the way his mother and that man had looked at each other, that Ratonhnhaké:ton began to think that maybe the man had been his father. But by then, too many years had passed, and his mother clearly wasn't planning to tell him anything. Without any way to find him, Ratonhnhaké:ton allowed himself to forget about his father.
Now, he remembers. "Mother said she was dead," he says, confused. "Why would she lie?"
"I don't know." Connor's voice is stiff and unhappy.
"Maybe you're wrong," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. "Maybe the man you saw here isn't—"
"I know what our father looks like," Connor interrupts. His voice rises, loud enough that they would have been caught, if there was anyone else around that could hear him. "I know that's him."
"You know him?" They stare at each other from across the bars in the cell, and then Connor grunts and turns away.
"Unfortunately."
"Unfortunately?" Ratonhnhaké:ton reaches out and grabs the nearest bar in front of him. He needs it, just to keep himself from falling over because this is their father they're talking about, and Connor is throwing all that away for no apparent reason. There's something in Ratonhnhaké:ton's throat, tight and hard, making it almost impossible to speak. He's just lost his mother, and that's awful, but suddenly there's this chance right in front of him to actually get to know the parent he's long assumed was dead. "This is our father, Connor! We have to break him out when we leave."
Connor's face twists up for a second, before smoothing back into something unreadable. "I suppose we could," he says reluctantly.
Some of Connor's attitude finally manages to break through the burst of excitement Ratonhnhaké:ton had felt on first hearing their father is here. "What's the problem?" he asks. "What is so bad about the man?"
"He's… it's complicated."
"Tell me."
Connor looks like he's not planning to say anything, but Ratonhnhaké:ton is desperate. Maybe Connor can see some of that on his face, because he rubs a hand across his eyes and nods. "In my world, I killed him."
"Why?"
"It's complicated."
"I'm not a child!" Ratonhnhaké:ton bursts out, and his shout is loud enough to attract the attention of the bluecoat that's supposed to be guarding him. He comes over, mumbling incoherently (some disturbing mantra about the king that Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn't like), and bangs on the bars.
Ratonhnhaké:ton looks at him, and growls somewhere deep in his chest. He's angry about being caught and caged, angry at Connor for keeping secrets, angry at this guard for just being here right now. And in his anger, it is so easy to reach out in his mind for the wolf, to slip away from being human and become wolf.
He crouches on his haunches against the floor, waiting as the man swears and fumbles with his keys, as if he thinks Ratonhnhaké:ton is just somewhere out of sight, and he'll be able to see him if he steps inside.
The moment he's inside the cell, Ratonhnhaké:ton leaps onto him, and he's still angry, and then his teeth are in the man's throat and he can taste blood, and then the man isn't moving anymore. He doesn't know how long he would have kept biting and clawing, except that suddenly Connor is there, throwing Ratonhnhaké:ton back and onto the floor.
"Stop!" he says, and Ratonhnhaké:ton thinks he almost sounds afraid. Connor crouches down in front of him, and for a moment Ratonhnhaké:ton can't understand why the other man is so tall. Then he blinks, and refocuses, and realizes he's on all fours. And there is blood all over him, down his face and on his hands.
"What happened?" he asks.
"You were a wolf," Connor says quietly. "I think. You looked like one. I don't know…" he trails off, shaking his head. "Even Desmond never did that, and I thought he was the least human person I'd ever met."
He stands, and Ratonhnhaké:ton copies the movement uncertainly. It feels wrong to be back on two feet, and now that he's thinking about it, he can't stop feeling the dead man's blood all over him. Ratonhnhaké:ton half turns to look over his shoulder at the body, but Connor blocks his way.
"No," he says. "You don't want to see that."
But Ratonhnhaké:ton still gets a glimpse of what's left of the man's face, mauled into an unrecognizable mess. He staggers, feels like vomiting, and Connor catches him. "I didn't mean to—"
"I know," Connor says. "Come on. We need to move if you want to take both father and Kanen'tó:kon with us when we leave."
"Which one are we going for first?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asks.
"Father," Connor says. He still sounds unhappy with the idea, but not as much as he had before. Maybe it seems like a less dangerous conversation topic than what Ratonhnhaké:ton had just done to that bluecoat. "We'll have to backtrack to get Kanen'tó:kon, but from there it's a straight shot out of here."
Ratonhnhaké:ton nods, and lets Connor lead the way. He knows they are going down, but he isn't paying any closer attention than that. Still, he's pretty sure they've been walking a while when he hears a sharp intake of breath, and someone calling his name.
When he looks up, there he is. Their father. And Ratonhnhaké:ton recognizes him instantly, knows him as the man from his oldest memories. He is pale as a ghost, wasted and emancipated from months or years in this cell. But still, Ratonhnhaké:ton knows him. "Father," he says, and pushes away from Connor to stumble toward the man.
"You're a mess," his father says, and Ratonhnhaké:ton nods.
"It was hard to get here," he says, and that doesn't even begin to cover it but his father nods like that's enough of an explanation. "I—"
"Here," Connor says quietly, pressing a ring of keys into Ratonhnhaké:ton's hand. Going by the tacky feel of blood on the metal, he must have taken it off the dead bluecoat. "Get him out of there." Ratonhnhaké:ton almost answers him, but then stops to consider what his father would think of him talking to himself. He nods instead.
When the cage door opens, Ratonhnhaké:ton finds himself pressed up against his father, supporting him as the older man stumbles.
"There are others here," Connor points out softly, gesturing to the hunched figures in the other cages around the walls. "They deserve their freedom as well."
"Leave them, Connor," their father says without looking. He is already struggling to move onward, so that Ratonhnhaké:ton has no choice but to move with him, with Connor walking behind with an expression of absolute confusion on his face. "They've already given up hope; they're as good as dead already."
-/-
The world outside the building where Desmond has been held for the past few days is cold. He flips up the hood on his borrowed hoodie, grateful for the excuse. If it had been a little bit warmer, he would have looked like a creep with the hood pulled up, especially in the middle of the day, but as it is…
"So where are we going?" he asks Lucy.
"Somewhere safe," she says. They're walking close together, close enough to whisper. The smell of Lucy right up against him is… distracting. She doesn't wear any perfumes or lotions, so Desmond can smell every individual scent on her. The sterility of Vidic's lab still clings to her, but there's a sweetness to her as well, something natural that Desmond very much likes.
"Where is safe, exactly?"
"I'm not sure I should tell you."
"Stop," Desmond says suddenly. There's a new smell coming, one he recognizes immediately. He reaches out to grab her elbow, pulling her back.
"Listen," Lucy says. "I know you don't have any reason to trust me right now, but I promise. I'm taking you to good people."
"It's not that—" but the smell is too close now for them to avoid, and Desmond only points down the street in silent explanation.
"Oh," Lucy whispers, and they go down together. Down onto their knees, heads bowed. Desmond squeezes Lucy's hand and she squeezes back, hard. Her breath comes in rattling gasps, and Desmond is not in much better shape.
But at least they are not alone. All the way down the street, everyone else is kneeling. A few press their heads to the ground, and a woman almost directly across the street from Desmond is trembling so hard she nearly falls over.
And then the riders come down the street. Three men in full military dress, high ranking by the decorations on their uniforms, riding on horseback, with a full squad of lower ranking shoulders behind them. No one in their right mind would dare look at a high ranking member of the king's army, they all know the rules. Knees on the ground, eyes on your knees, and you don't lose your head. Even the children on the street are quiet and still.
But there's no rule against looking at foot soldiers. Desmond looks up, still squeezing Lucy's hand like she's a lifeline, and studies them. It's funny, almost, but also scary, because they haven't changed at all since Ratonhnhaké:ton's time. Different people, obviously, but the same uniforms, the same formations, the same expressions of dull obedience stamped on their faces.
And behind them are the prisoners. People kidnapped off the streets and taken to the king for… whatever it was he used them for. No one knew, because no one ever made it back alive. Desmond had seen hundreds, maybe thousands of them in the years since he'd left home, but not like this.
Before the animus, his only reaction had been along the lines of thank god it's not me. Today, everything is different. When the soldiers and their captives have passed them farther up the street and the people around them start to stand, Desmond stays on his knees. "This has to stop," he says.
Lucy, who had been about to stand, comes back down to kneel in front of him. "Maybe this isn't the right place to talk about this," she suggests.
"No," Desmond says, but at least he still has enough sense to keep his voice down. "I need to talk or I don't think I'll be able to keep going. I need—"
"Okay." She smiles, and Desmond realizes she's still holding his hand. "So talk."
"Maybe… I don't know if leaving was the right thing to do," he admits.
"Vidic would have killed you."
"But how many people has… how many people will the king kill?" Desmond asks. "Vidic wants to stop him."
"That doesn't mean you have to sacrifice yourself for them to live," Lucy says. "And trust me, the templars would not be any better than… well, alright. I guess they would be better than the king, but they would still be bad."
"But—"
"I'm taking you to the assassins," Lucy says, dropping her voice still further and speaking all in a rush. "Alright? If you need to be a hero, I'm sure they will be more than happy to let you do it there. They have an animus, better than what Vidic's been able to do, by all accounts. But we need to keep moving."
He nods, and lets her haul him to his feet. "I don't need to be a hero," he says. "Just for the record. I just want to help."
"Sounds like a hero to me," Lucy says, and she's probably teasing but her voice gets inside Desmond and it's like something warm inside him. Nobody has ever called him a hero before.
They start walking again.
-/-
Haytham refuses to say anything until they've rescued Kanen'tó:kon and left the prison, which Connor thinks is just absolutely typical of the man. He very much wants to throttle his father (or stab him in the neck. Again) but for Ratonhnhaké:ton's sake, he restrains himself. Besides, he supposes there are some questions that need answering.
Such as how their father knows Connor's name. In this world, Ratonhnhaké:ton never became an assassin, never went to Achilles, never changed his name. Haytham shouldn't have known to call Connor by it even if—and this is a problem as well, of course—he is somehow able to see him.
By the time Kanen'tó:kon has gone to meet up with allies, Connor is absolutely done with his father's smug superiority. "You," he says sharply, crossing his arms and glaring. "You need to explain how you can see me right now."
"Connor," Ratonhnhaké:ton objects. "Can't this wait?"
"No," Connor says. "It's a reasonable question."
"It is," Haytham agrees. His voice has the sound of a man that hasn't had to talk much lately, and Connor notices that Haytham won't actually look at him.
"Do you have an answer?"
Haytham pulls at his filthy shirt, until he wraps his hand around an amulet hanging against his chest. Connor recognizes it at once, as the thing he'd taken from Lee's dead body and then buried on the homestead. "Oh," he says tiredly. "Another piece of Eden." He narrows his eyes, thinking hard. "So I suppose there's two of you in that head? My father and Ratonhnhaké:ton's?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Haytham says. He sounds entirely too calm, for a man that has just been broken out of prison by his son he's never met and the invisible, alternate universe version of said son. "I had already been in that cell for—"
A long pause.
"Quite some time. Then I woke with another world's worth of memories in my head. Is that a satisfactory explanation?"
"Not really."
Haytham almost smiles. "Well then, you understand how I've been feeling since I got these memories. They're there, they're not mine, but they are. That's all I know, so now—" And Ratonhnhaké:ton is the one that reaches out and catches him as he starts to sway. "If it's not too much trouble, I would appreciate a meal and some real sleep."
"Of course," Ratonhnhaké:ton says quickly, and it's hard for Connor to argue that the shaking shell of a man in front of them doesn't need food or a bed.
"Alright," he agrees grudgingly.
"Thank you, Connor," Haytham says vaguely, and Connor can't quite decide how he feels about that approval.
Between himself and Ratonhnhaké:ton, they manage to support Haytham until they find an abandoned house with the walls and roof still mostly intact. It's good enough for the moment, and Haytham is certainly in no mood to complain. Ratonhnhaké:ton spends a few minutes fussing around the house, hunting down anything edible, while Connor chooses to check for other entrances and make sure they won't be surprised later.
The two of them finish at nearly the same time, and meet back in the hallway, outside the room where Haytham is sleeping. "Is it alright?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asks, with more hesitation than Connor is used to hearing from him.
"Is what alright?"
"You don't like father," Ratonhnhaké:ton says dejectedly. "I can tell."
"Yes, well. People don't usually kill those they like."
Connor means it as a joke, but he doesn't joke often and he's obviously not very good at it. Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn't show so much as a hint of a smile. "Connor."
"Sorry, continue."
"I really want to know him," Ratonhnhaké:ton continues. "Is that going to be a problem?"
Connor sighs and shakes his head. "No," he says softly. "If you can figure out a way to make this work… that's all the better for you. I admire that. Father and I never got along, and it's too late for that now. I hope you can do better." But he shakes his head, and does not quite look at Ratonhnhaké:ton while he finishes his thought. "Just… don't be surprised if it doesn't work out."
Silence descends between them for a while. Then Ratonhnhaké:ton says, "I think father drank the tea."
Connor thinks on this. "That would explain what mother said," he admits. "When she told you not to do so. 'You are the son of a man of violence,' do you remember?"
Ratonhnhaké:ton nods. "And he smells a little less than human. Or different, maybe. Like me, or Desmond."
"You think he's part wolf?"
"Or part something else," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. And after that the conversation dies completely, as the two of them go quiet and still, and stare at the door that blocks their father from their view.