Ratonhnhaké:ton arrives in the room where his father is, and for a moment he stops in the doorway, hurt and confused. His father is standing in front of the bed, looking at him with a cold dismissal that Ratonhnhaké:ton hasn't seen from him before. He stumbles over his own feet in surprise, and something in him breaks when Haytham sneers in disapproving disgust.
Connor presses through the door behind him, and takes in the room in one quick look. Then he puts his hand on Ratonhnhaké:ton's shoulder, an awkward gesture of comfort. "Don't worry," he says. "That's not your father. It's mine."
Only then does Ratonhnhaké:ton look around the rest of the room and see that there are in fact two Haytham Kenways in the room. There's the angry one glaring at Ratonhnhaké:ton (or—at Connor, mostly, now that he's entered the room as well), and then there's the other one…
Ratonhnhaké:ton crosses the room so quickly that he thinks he must have done it on four legs rather than two. Funny, how easy it is to lose track. "Beast," Haytham spits at him.
"Father!" Connor protests.
Ratonhnhaké:ton ignores them both, even as they start shouting and arguing. They deserve each other, honestly, but Ratonhnhaké:ton has a father that he actually cares for, and that father is shivering on the room's narrow bed, eyes unfocused in what looks like pain. Ratonhnhaké:ton hesitates only the barest moment before kneeling down at his father's bedside and reaching a hand out toward him. The man's skin is cold and slick with sweat, and Ratonhnhaké:ton whimpers at the feel of it, the instincts of the wolf breaking through for the moment.
"Father," he says softly. "Are you…?"
His father doesn't answer, but reaches one hand out weakly toward his son. Ratonhnhaké:ton takes it in his own and holds on tight.
"A doctor came in earlier," says the man that had told them about Haytham's arrival in the first place, the one with the accent that Connor had seemed to know. "He says he has no idea what he's done to himself to be able to turn into a giant fish, but he thinks he'll recover."
"Good," Ratonhnhaké:ton says firmly, and perhaps more loudly than he needs to. But he wants to make sure his father can hear him over the sound of their other selves trading threats on the other side of the room. He doesn't want them to become like that.
"I suppose," Shay says quietly, and Ratonhnhaké:ton turns on him at once.
"You're supposed to be his friend!" he protests, and Shay looks at him in surprise.
"Well not a friend, exactly," he says. "Just… just someone I work with. Look, he used to be a good man, all the templars that worked with him agreed that. But since he drank the tea, he's been…"
"Been what?" Ratonhnhaké:ton demands.
"Different," Shay finishes, quietly. "He's not entirely human."
"He's more human than he would have been if he never drank the tea," Ratonhnhaké:ton tells Shay. He's absolutely certain of that, because he can still hear Connor's father shouting cruel, terrible things. And he is supposed to be the more human version of himself? No.
"But he—"
"He's my father," Ratonhnhaké:ton says, in the best impersonation of his father's stern, matter of fact voice that he can manage. He doesn't want to be doubted, he wants to be listened to. "And he's as human as anyone else in this room."
"Of course you would say that," the other Haytham says. "You're as bad as he is, just as inhuman."
Ratonhnhaké:ton could have killed him in that moment, except that Connor looks almost ready to do the deed himself. There's no real advantage to getting in the middle of that.
The entire room seems about to boil over into a fight, but before anyone has a chance to draw their blades or say something truly unforgivable, a new man comes running in. He looks young, and gives Shay a sort of quick, respectful gesture. "Sorry," he says breathlessly. "Sorry, but I have really important news." He pauses, just a second, to suck in a deep breath, and then says—"Washington is coming. He's headed right here. He's coming for us."
-/-
"You don't have to stay," Haytham tells Ratonhnhaké:ton when everyone but their alter egos has cleared the room, running to make whatever preparations they can for Washington's arrival. The words are barely audible as they pass through his lips, and Haytham is not entirely sure that he's speaking clearly enough for his son to understand.
"I have nowhere else to be," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. "They do not want our help to fight Washington." Haytham looks over at him, and he's not entirely sure if he's imagining the hurt in his son's eyes. Or at least, not until Ratonhnhaké:ton adds, "They only want humans in their fight."
Ah—so he is beginning to feel it. That same sense of solitude and otherness that has haunted Haytham for so many years now. "Ratonhnhaké:ton," Haytham says quietly. "Why did you drink the tea?"
Something flashes in Ratonhnhaké:ton's eyes, and he straightens a bit. "To protect my people," he says. "And the land where we live—to protect all the people that he puts in danger."
"Then don't let anyone tell you that your choice was wrong," Haytham says, in as strong a voice as he can manage. He sits up in bed, struggling a bit against the weakness that still lingers in his arms and legs. "As long as you believe in what you are fighting for and the rightness of your methods, then the opinions of others cannot sway you."
"Do you regret taking the tea?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asks doubtfully.
"I…" he considers lying, saying that he has no regrets. But he does. "I have nothing left to fight for," he says instead. "The sacrifices I made were in vain."
"Then—then I will fight for both of us," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. "Father, I still have another dose of the tea left. I can drink it, I can meet another spirit animal and become stronger. I can—"
"No!" Connor interrupts. "Do you hear yourself?"
"Do either of you hear yourselves?" the other Haytham asks coldly. "What you've done to yourself is wrong. It is an embarrassment. You have made yourselves inhuman, which is nothing to be proud of—"
"Be quiet!" Ratonhnhaké:ton shouts suddenly. He turns quickly to face them, hands clenched into fists at his side. "Both of you, just be quiet! This is not your world, even if you are stuck here with us. You do not have a stake in this as we do, you cannot know for sure what decisions you would make in our shoes."
"I can," the other Haytham says firmly.
"No," Ratonhnhaké:ton says. "And if you think so, you're a fool."
"You ignorant little beast," the other Haytham snarls at Ratonhnhaké:ton, and Haytham is out of bed in an instant, shrieking angrily as his arms become wings and he is an eagle as he lunges across the room. He lands on his other self, knocking him to the ground and sinking his talon's into the man's chest. It takes a moment for him to blink and shake his head, clearing it enough to shift back into human form. He is weaker and smaller than the man he would have been in that other world, but he is also angrier.
"Do not," he snaps. "Speak to my son that way."
Connor takes a half step toward them, but then hesitates and stops just short of helping his father.
"Father!" Ratonhnhaké:ton cries out. "Don't—"
Haytham allows Ratonhnhaké:ton to pull him away, and for a moment the four of them stand in frozen tableau, each pair a sort of twisted reflection of the other. Haytham and Ratonhnhaké:ton stand shoulder to shoulder, strong only because they have each other to lean on one another. Connor and the other Haytham, in contrast, are stiff, standing with some space between them.
Silence. For a long time, there is nothing but silence.
"I am going to drink the tea again," Ratonhnhaké:ton says at last.
"And I am not going to let you stop him," Haytham adds. "This is not your world, or your fight."
"I don't care what either of you thinks," Ratonhnhaké:ton adds, as Connor opens his mouth to say something. "I don't care what anyone thinks."
"Beast," the other Haytham says again.
"But I still think I have more humanity in me than either of you," Ratonhnhaké:ton says quietly. He turns his back on the both of them, and reaches for a flask he has hidden among his things. Haytham waits until he has emptied it, then carefully helps his son into bed before settling himself down to keep watch.
-/-
Desmond and Lucy are transported to one of the thick walled outposts where the King conducts his business. It is a sad place, cold and unwelcoming, and when they arrived they are processed—fingerprinted and photographed and them immediately separated. Desmond is brought downstairs and shoved into a cell with three other men and a terrified little boy, while Lucy is taken upstairs. Probably that's where the women are being held.
"Freak," the biggest of the men spits at Desmond at seeing his ears, and after that they leave him alone. Desmond ignores them as well, huddling in a corner of their cell (he's trying so hard not to think cage) and breathing through his mouth. He can't stomach the smells in here just now, fear and piss and horrible things he can't name.
The little boy tugs at one of the men, hand shaking as he grabs his sleeve. "Daddy?" he whispers. "Daddy, what's going to happen to us?"
"I don't know," his father says. He pulls his son onto his lap, hugging him tight—Desmond watches, and sees the same horror on the man's face as the boy's. They are both so, so scared. As well they should be. They're all dead.
"Are we going to be okay?" the son asks.
The father hesitates, clearly considering a lie, then shakes his head. "No son," he says.
"Are we going to die?"
A long, slow breath. "Yes."
"Oh." The boy chews on his lip, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. "Is it going to hurt?"
"Probably," his father tells him, and the boy buries his face in his hands and sobs.
"He's a child," the big man grunts, the one that had mocked Desmond a moment ago. "They might not kill him."
"Won't they?" The third man asks doubtfully.
"They'll just make him a thing," the big man says, jerking a disdainful thumb at Desmond. "Brainwash him, make him a part of the army."
The father wraps his arms protectively around his son. "Listen," he tells the boy. "If they give you a choice, you tell them to kill you instead."
"But I don't want to die!" the little boy wails.
"Better to die free than as one of them," his father says.
They are all looking quite disdainfully at Desmond, which is what suddenly makes him feel the need to defend himself. "I'm not one of them," he says.
"You're not human," the third man says.
"Because my ancestors weren't," Desmond tells him. "I've never worked with the king in my life. I hate the man as much as anyone else. Why do you think I'm here?"
"I suppose… that's sensible," the big man says reluctantly. "You're really not working with them?"
"I swear."
"Do they hurt?" the little boy asks, sniffling and pointing at Desmond's ears. They twitch uncomfortably under his sudden attention, and Desmond glances up at the father's face. He understands by the stern expression there what he is supposed to say—the boy's father would genuinely prefer his son be killed than that he live as something like Desmond. He wants Desmond to say that they're awful, that he hates his ears and everything about his life as a subhuman thing.
But… he cannot tell a little boy to choose death over life. Not when there is any chance at all that life might get better—so does Desmond believe there is a chance of life getting better? Can he tell this boy to hold onto life and to hope, when every lesson of the last couple centuries of history is that life never gets any better?
"No," Desmond says softly. "They don't hurt."
The father gives him a disgusted look, and shifts his body to put himself between his son and Desmond.
No one tries talking to him again after that.
After another few hours, a set of guards comes to take all five of them away. They are quickly separated, and Desmond never sees any of them again.
-/-
Thanks to everyone that reviewed and said they're still reading. I will of course finish this, since people are still interested.