Lucy doesn't think she likes Desmond, very much.
Or maybe that's not true—maybe she's just wary of him, because he's so different from what she'd been told to expect. Desmond Miles is not a runaway ex-Assassin, he's not a down on his luck bartender from a crap part of New York City.
Desmond Miles, she firmly believes, is dangerous.
His ancestors are teaching him to fight and kill through the bleeding effect, but Lucy has the impression that Desmond already knows a lot of it—he's just picking it up too fast for all this to be truly new to him. And then there are his secrets, whatever they are. Desmond just doesn't act like a man with nothing to hide, and Lucy should know. She's spent long enough as a spy herself to recognize when someone else is sending secrets somewhere they shouldn't.
The only problem is, Lucy has no idea who Desmond might be reporting to. She knows it's not the Templar, because it'd be pretty stupid for them to send both her and Desmond to spy on each other. The Templars are more organized than that, especially on something so important. But who else does that leave? Someone from the outside, someone not involved in the conflict between the Templars and Assassins? Who?
She keeps a close watch on him, searching for so much as the slightest clue. Occasionally, she finds them. When she first takes him to the Assassin's hideout, he addresses Rebecca by name, before he's even introduced to her. Well—technically, he calls her Becca, familiar and too friendly. Then there's the computer. Desmond is always on it, typing away, not even trying to be subtle about sending out emails. They'd only set up an account for him so they could leave messages about things that happen while he's in the animus, and he shouldn't even have anyone's emails other than the three of them, but he's over there so often he must be writing to someone else.
But today, when Lucy sits at her desk, watching Desmond from across the room, she sees something she hadn't expected. Desmond comes out of the animus—another wasted session, where they hadn't been able to see any of Ezio's memories—visibly upset. He crosses to the computer he uses to check his email, taps out his password, and for a second it looks like he's going to start typing something out.
And then… he pauses. Lucy catches herself leaning forward slightly, across her desk, caught up in the sight of Desmond sitting there, reading his emails. To anyone else, it might have seemed a completely normal activity. To Lucy, who catches the almost frantic way his eyes flick from side to side as he reads, the tension in his posture, and then—shockingly—the steady, silent tears, this is a sign. Whatever news Desmond has just gotten, it's obviously bad for his secret mission. This is her opportunity to pounce, preferably before Shaun or Rebecca notice something's wrong.
"Desmond," she says, slipping easily into a cheerful persona. "I think we should go down to the obstacle course I set up on the ground floor. It'll give me a chance to see how much of Ezio's skills you're picking up."
"I really don't feel like it right now," Desmond says, and although he does a good job of keeping the tears out of his voice, he's still too quiet, and visibly shaken.
"Oh go on, Desmond," Shaun calls from his work station. "All you do is lie around on the animus all day, you could do with getting up once in a while."
Looking at him now, Lucy's pretty sure that the only reason Desmond doesn't argue is that he doesn't know what to say. He has the look of a man struggling just to remember how to breathe. "Great," she says. "So it's decided, right?" She stands and walks over to Desmond. "Come on. Let's get downstairs."
Desmond follows numbly behind Lucy, and by the time they get downstairs, she actually feels a little bad for him. When she stops at the bottom of the stairs, and turns around to face Desmond, she feels like she's seeing the real Desmond, possibly for the first time. He's not hiding anything right now, that's just exactly how he feels, plastered all across his face.
"Lucy," he says. "I really can't do this right now."
She debates the best way to handle this. On the one hand, he's hiding something, and she's hiding something, and if she's just a little bit honest with him, he might be a lot more honest with her. Especially with how raw he looks right now. On the other hand, Lucy's gotten a lot of information out of men in the past by being kind and listening well when they need it most.
She decides to go with honesty. Even with Desmond off balance like he is now, she doesn't really think he's going to be flattered into telling her anything important. "That's fine," she says, crossing her arms. "Because I didn't call you down here to see what you're learning. I think it's time we had a conversation."
"About what?" Desmond asks, dropping down to sit on a low crate. Lucy picks one a few feet away and sits there with her legs crossed, studying him.
"We've never been honest with each other," Lucy says. "And I think it's time we were."
Desmond looks at her, then seems to pull himself up from deep inside his mind. He straightens, and the look he gives her tells Lucy that he knows this is going to be a battle. Whatever he's going through, he pushes it aside and focuses on her.
"Really," he says. "We're going to be honest?"
"Yes. I—"
"Okay," Desmond says. "You start. Tell me what it's like, being a Templar."
She gapes at him. How long has he known? How did he found out, and why hasn't he said anything? With no other option, Lucy turns to flat denial. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she says.
Desmond snorts. "So much for honesty."
"I'm being honest with you," Lucy snaps. "I don't know what you're talking about."
The look he gives her then makes Lucy pause. It's flatly unimpressed, like he's seeing right through her, like he already knows. Lucy slumps, giving in. Maybe this is going to take a little bit more honesty on her part than she'd been ready to give him.
"Alright," she says quietly. "Hypothetically, maybe it's possible that… what you just said is true."
"I know."
"How?"
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, and Lucy feels a little surge of triumph. Yes, he knows what she is, but apparently he can't tell her how he knows, without giving up some of his own secrets. That's good, because it keeps her safe for at least a little while.
"Why were you crying upstairs?" Lucy asks, pressing her small advantage.
"I wasn't."
"Why were you upset?"
He doesn't meet her eyes. "It was just the bleeding effect."
"You bounced back pretty quickly," Lucy says. "If that really was the bleeding effect." True, he does still look pretty upset, but not in the way she thinks he would if he was bleeding. He's aware, he's present in the current moment, he knows who and where he is. If he'd been bleeding in front of the computer, he'd still show some signs of it now.
She feels a little thrill of seeing him close to breaking. He'd been hit by something upstairs, and it had really upset him. If he's anything like most people, he'll by desperate to talk about it to someone, and Lucy's his only option right now.
"Why were you so upset?" she asks again.
There's a tense moment where Desmond seems to teeter on the edge of telling her something, and then just on the edge of pulling back—and then finally he says, "I got some bad news."
"What kind—"
"Or maybe it's good news. I don't know." He buries his head in his hands and mumbles something that Lucy can't hear.
"That's pretty unspecific, Desmond," Lucy says.
Desmond looks up at her, eyes red from where he's been rubbing them. "Well I don't exactly trust you."
She gives him a sarcastic smirk. "What," she says. "Just because I'm a Templar?"
His expression turns surprisingly serious. "I don't think all Templars are bad. It's not so bad working with some of them. But you're lying to Shaun and Rebecca, you're pretending to be something you're not, and you're using us." He stands up, clearly done with her, clearly ready to walk off.
"So where do we go from here?" Lucy asks.
He frowns. "I need to keep going with Ezio's memories," he says. "And you want to see them too, don't you?"
"Yes," she agrees.
"So let's… just keep going," Desmond sighs. "I won't tell if you don't."
Lucy can't help herself. "Lying to Shaun and Rebecca?" she asks. "I thought you hated that."
Desmond gives her a look of absolute disgust, and then walks away. Lucy stays where she is, breathing deeply, considering what he'd just said—and one part in particular.
I don't think all Templars are bad. It's not so bad working with some of them.
That doesn't sound like a hypothetical, it sounds like he's had actual experience, working with actual Templars. That's a huge hint, and Lucy doesn't think Desmond had meant to reveal that much to her. She sits where she is for a while, smiling softly to herself. Then she pulls out her phone, the one the Assassins don't know about, the one Vidic had encrypted himself.
I think Desmond's working with Templars, she texts him. Did you ever manage to decrypt any of the emails he sent while he was in your animus?
There's a long pause, and Lucy rolls her eyes as she pictures Vidic painstakingly tapping out his answer. For a man that was smart enough to invent the animus, he has a weird amount of trouble with texting. Finally, his answer comes through.
Not yet. Close. He got sloppy his last day, didn't erase everything. Should have that message soon. Then we'll know.
Lucy nods to herself as she slips her phone away. Between Vidic pouring over everything Desmond had done in Abstergo's computers, and Lucy working on him here, soon enough they'll know all of Desmond's secrets.
-/-
Back upstairs, Desmond finds Rebecca waiting with a cup of what he thinks at first is coffee, but turns out to be hot chocolate.
"You looked pretty upset when you rushed out of here," she says. "I keep a stash of this stuff lying around for when I really need cheering up."
Desmond murmurs a thank you, then when she starts to walk away, he says, "Rebecca?"
"Yea, Desmond?"
He cups his hand around the mug, and says, "I'm keeping a secret from you."
"What?"
"I…" He shouldn't be saying any of this, but he's feeling fragile and scared after everything that's happened. His dad's a prisoner. He has a son. And Lucy is far too close to finding out everything. He doesn't want to make an enemy out of Rebecca, or Shaun for that matter. "It's just something I can't talk about yet. But when the time comes, I'll tell you everything. I promise."
She studies him for a second, then nods, giving him one of her trademark Rebecca-Crane-grins. "I believe you."
With one last nod she turns back to her work, leaving Desmond to walk slowly over to the computer and sit down. He opens up his email and reads it over and over again, trying to process Layla's news.
From: Temp Account
To: Desmond Miles
Date: September 11, 2012, 7:22 AM
Subject: Big News
Desmond, I have something to tell you, and there's no easy way to say it, especially through email. So I'm sorry, okay? I wish things could have been different, or I could have told you in person, or something.
Bayek wanted to find a Sage, to see if we could get more information about Juno or time travel or anything that would help, and Berg remembered hearing about two. The first one… doesn't really matter right now, I guess he's pretty much an asshole. But the other one is this little boy, and he's your son.
See? There's no good way to say that. Berg saw the genetics report once, and I honestly don't think he'd lie about something like that. So they went, Berg and Bayek, and as far as I know they were just going to ask him some question, but he insisted on coming back with them.
He's not like any kid I've ever seen. He doesn't really think like a kid or act like a kid, and he just sits around and watches us all the time like he's storing everything away to use against us later. I don't know. I guess that doesn't sound fair to him, but I don't know how to explain what he's like. Sometimes I wonder if he's even human, inside. He just gives me the creeps, and I'm not the only one.
I just want you to be prepared, because he's made it pretty clear that he's not going anywhere.
Layla
He reads it, trying not to feel too much. This isn't the time. He needs to be able to think, but that's hard when he's just been told that he has a son, and that his son is… is… he doesn't even know what to think. Layla's description is frustrating in that he trusts her not to just make stuff up about a kid, but he's just having a hard time picturing a boy like the one she's talking about.
Even if you trust her, you do not forfeit the right to decide what you think of him for yourself.
Altair?
He feels something like a nod, and relaxes very slightly.
Maybe there is something wrong for him. Wait to see for yourself.
The feeling of another presence in his head ebbs and mostly fades away, and Desmond turns back to the computer with fresh determination.
From: Desmond Miles
To: Temp Account
Date: September 11, 2012, 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: Big News
I found Juno again. She came looking for Ezio, and showed me a picture of some captives she's holding in 2017. My dad and Berg's daughter. December 1, in the Temple in New York. You and Berg have to go, she specifically said she wouldn't let them out unless both of you went. I know you're not Juno's biggest fan, but don't worry, she won't be there. She'll be in Ezio's time, taking the apple of Eden. I've been kind of talking to Ezio, sort of, the way I was sort of talking to Altair. We're going to do what we can to stop Juno in his time, and you guys need to focus on rescuing dad and Berg's daughter. Okay? I know the apple is important, but we have this. I promise.
Also, I think Lucy might be getting a little suspicious. She admitted she's a Templar, and she's definitely convinced I'm hiding something, too. I couldn't do anything to change her mind. Obviously it's not the worst thing going on right now, but we might have to worry about it later.
Desmond
He sends the email, then stares at the blank screen for a long time. He'd intentionally left out anything about his son, because he's trying to follow Altair's advice and wait until he can meet the kid for himself, but it's hard.
Very slowly, he types out a second email.
From: Desmond Miles
To: Temp Account
Date: September 11, 2012, 9:45 Am
Subject: Re: Big News
What's my son's name?
"Desmond," Rebecca calls. "You ready to get back in the animus?"
"Yea," Desmond shouts back, although he doesn't feel ready at all. As he heads for the animus, he tries to reach out for Altair.
I hope you've been studying the apple, he tells his ancestor. Because I have no idea what Ezio and I are about to walk into.
Don't worry about that, Altair says, with a cool satisfaction. I think I've picked up a few tricks.
-/-
I can't believe this is up to chapter 20 already, whoops. xD Lots of thanks to everyone that's reviewed and encouraged me to keep writing.