Lucy is sitting on a fallen tree, perfectly still, because she's been told to, and when Juno tells her to do something she doesn't have any option but to obey. She's been sitting here for what feels like hours now—Juno had left a little while ago, leaving Lucy the useless, frozen statue behind.
It's dawn now, and Lucy can finally hear Juno's footsteps coming back. On the one hand, by this point Lucy is desperate to be allowed to move again, but on the other hand, she can only imagine what Juno's going to do with her now.
She's half expecting it when Juno comes close, reaches out, and touches her. For whatever reason, her mind control doesn't seem to work unless she can make physical contact with Lucy. It adds an oddly… personal feeling to the already horrible ordeal.
Time stretches out, and Lucy's skin crawls with the anticipation of something terrible happening. Then Juno begins to speak, a slow, quiet mantra. Her tone is perfectly flat, and barely loud enough for Lucy to hear.
"You are mine," Juno says, and Lucy knows it's all over. Whatever's going to happen next, it's going to destroy her. "You are my creature, and you will serve me. You will serve me willingly. You will serve me gladly, because you will desire nothing other than my satisfaction."
She pulls her fingers away, and Lucy's forehead feels suddenly cold without them there. It feels like things are shifting inside her head, the building blocks of her personality rearranging into what Juno wants her to be. She knows that she's only changing because Juno told her to change, but that shifts from being horrifying to being only right so quickly that Lucy barely notices.
It's odd, really. She still doesn't like Juno—in fact, she's still terrified of her. It's just that it's suddenly inconceivable to put her own wants or needs above what Juno wants from her.
With a gesture from Juno, Lucy finds herself suddenly able to move again. So of course, she does the only thing that feels natural at the moment, sliding off the fallen tree and going down on her knees in front of Juno.
"Excellent," Juno says. "Now listen closely. I'll be leaving this century soon, and I have plans for you."
And so Lucy listens.
-/-
"Sir," Shay says. "I think she's back."
Haytham is in his unofficial office over the Green Dragon Tavern when Shay comes looking for him. He doesn't have to question who Shay's talking about, because there's only one possible answer. They've been hunting Juno for months by now, and over the past week or so the near constant reports of people being corrupted by her have dried up completely.
"She's controlling people again?" Haytham asks, putting down the book he's been poring over.
Shay nods. "And what does your…" He gestures to his own head, in a motion that Haytham recognizes by now as meaning Desmond (and only Desmond—so far, Haytham has been too vaguely embarrassed to admit to the other Assassins he's been saddled with). "What does what's his name think of that?"
Probably she was busy causing trouble somewhere else, Desmond says. He sounds exhausted. But now she's back, so at least that's something.
"He sounds discouraged," Haytham relays.
"Okay," Shay says. "Sure." And then he moves the conversation on, because as far as Haytham can tell, he doesn't entirely believe that a man from the future is giving Haytham advice. Never mind that, according to Desmond, Shay has an observer of his own. Desmond has tried to explain how Altair had connected them all, but Haytham is still trying to wrap his head around the whole process. He doesn't know why it applies to him but not to Shay and his eventual descendant.
"So where is she now?" Haytham asks, changing the subject.
"Close," Shay says. "New York."
Their best chance to get to her so far. "Alright," Haytham says. "Then we travel to New York."
"And once we're there?" Shay asks. "Sir?"
I can ward this time against her, Altair says. I did it for Ezio. But it will be much easier if she's physically nearby.
Much more satisfying too, I imagine, Haytham says drily. Despite never having seen Juno before himself, his dreams are more and more often full of a laughing woman, larger than life, who he can only assume is Juno. Desmond's memories bleeding into his sleeping hours. He would very much like to see that smirk rubbed off her face.
Mmm, Altair says, and there's a brief pause as both men realize that they've accidentally agreed with one another.
"I'll explain while we travel," Haytham says, to cover the awkward pause.
-/-
The rest of the day in the animus is spent following Haytham and Shay as they travel, and they're just getting to New York when Lucy pulls him out of the animus.
"What?" Javier complains from the other animus. "Now?"
"It's been six hours," Lucy says, but her eyes are oddly distant as she doesn't quite meet his gaze. "You don't want to be in there all night, do you?"
"Guess not," Javier mutters, as he stretches and swings his legs over the side of the animus. He heads off, but Desmond stays where he is.
"You okay, Lucy?" he asks. "You seemed off this morning." And she still seems off now, come to think of it, but he doesn't mention that. This has to be a pretty big adjustment for her, and maybe this just isn't a situation she's comfortable in.
"Fine," she says, and doesn't look it at all. Doesn't look at him at all, either.
"Lucy." He does stand up now, and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Seriously. I know I've kind of been ignoring you…" Although to be fair, they hadn't exactly been on friendly terms before coming here. He just feels bad, looking at her now. Like she's not even really there, like her mind is just somewhere else. "Do you want to talk about it, or anything?"
"No," Lucy says.
She's much less talkative than usual, and Desmond is… worried. For the moment, all thoughts of Haytham and Juno are driven straight out of his head—he frowns at Lucy and wracks he memory, trying to figure out what could be wrong. "You went out somewhere last night, right?" he asks. He'd noticed her coming back in, but doesn't remember seeing her leave.
"Desmond." She looks tired, almost exasperated. "This really isn't important right now, okay?"
"Then what is?" Desmond asks, totally confused.
"Later," Lucy says. "It's not time yet." And she starts walking away from him, like that's a perfectly normal way to end a conversation.
"Not time for what?" Desmond asks.
"I guess it's my turn for secrets," Lucy says. "You had some pretty big ones, I think you can let me have one now."
And then she's gone, and Desmond is left alone by his animus station watching her retreating back. "Yea I guess," he mutters. But he doesn't feel very good about it.
-/-
They find Juno eventually. To Desmond and Javier, watching through the lens of the animi, it's only a few hours after they log on the next morning—to Haytham and Shay, stuck living through their own lives in real time, it takes half a month of following increasingly strange rumors through the streets of eighteenth century New York City.
A particularly persistent set of rumors places her in a rundown old church on the edge of the city, and eventually they go to check it out. They go at night, armed to the teeth, expecting a fight.
Instead, they find Juno waiting for them, lounged carelessly across a high backed chair, gaze distant and thoughtful as she stares out the window. "Desmond," she says, without looking away from the window. "Correct?"
Oh, no, Ezio says.
I mean… Desmond sighs, a heavy, resigned breath back in the real world that makes someone—Rebecca, probably, or maybe one of the other techs—give him a little smack on the arm. It's not like she didn't know my name before. And she can travel through time, it wouldn't exactly be hard for her to figure out that you guys are all my ancestors.
Can I have a little more focus and a little less complaining, maybe? Haytham snaps.
Well, Altair says. Answer her.
What? Desmond asks.
She wants to talk. And she hasn't even reached for her apple yet. Something's changed.
"Desmond," Juno prompts, and Desmond can't deny the small shiver that runs down his spine to hear her say his name.
Haytham does an admirable job of giving her a cool glare. "In a matter of speaking," he says. "But if you want to deal, you're going to have to deal with me."
"No," Juno says, still not looking at him. "This is not the time for deals. There never was a time for deals. Would you make a deal with a dog? With a slug?"
Rude, Ezio says, but it's obvious his heart's not really in it. He's watching Juno as closely as the rest of them are. There's an air of unspoken danger in the room, like the sky just before a thunderstorm.
"Then what is this?" Haytham asks impatiently.
"This is a chance for you—and your descendant, and anyone else you're working with—to surrender. You've fought well, for humans, and I can respect that. But it's over now. Whatever victories you think you've won, they won't matter in the long run. In a few days, this will all be over. I'm giving you the chance to surrender now, to serve me as generals."
Disgusting, Altair says.
Haytham stares at him for almost a full minute. Several times, Shay looks like he's about to say something, but each time he pulls himself back, clearly trusting Haytham to take point.
And maybe that's a good thing, maybe not, but either way, what Haytham says next certainly makes an impact. "I don't believe that for a moment," he says. Stiff, cold, hands clasped behind his back, glaring at her like she's an impudent Templar recruit instead of a powerful member of a long dead species. "You have no respect for anything or anyone, and even if you did, your respect would be worth nothing. You think you're greater than human when in fact I would trust any infant more than I would ever trust you."
"Then die," Juno says, and reaches for her apple.
Wards! Haytham snaps, and Altair—far away and long ago in Masyaf—reaches for his apple. Haytham doesn't have an apple so the ward doesn't quite come out right, but there's a crackling outburst of power that takes all of them (including, apparently, Juno) by surprise. She jerks to her feet, apple momentarily forgotten as she throws a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sudden surge of light.
The light, and the power that comes with it, are so strong they seem to be physically present, in the room with the rest of them. Desmond almost desyncs but grits his teeth and mentally hangs on tight, and just when he thinks he's not going to be able to stand it for another second, it's over.
The light fades. The room is empty, apart from Haytham and Shay.
"Well," Haytham says aloud. His voice seems oddly loud in the stunned quiet. "I suppose that's warded her off, at least."
I… yes, Altair says. I could have been more careful in how I did it though.
Haytham shakes his head, his whole body slumping as he relaxes. "Thank God," he says, with more emotion than Desmond is used to hearing from him. "That's over."
Shay walks to the other side of the room, to where Juno had been sitting before the apple's explosion. "No sign of her," he says, after a cursory examination. "She didn't leave anything behind."
"Good," Haytham says. "That's exactly how much of her I want to have to deal with."
Her people, the one she had under her control, should come back to themselves soon enough too, Altair says. The people she took in Masyaf recovered. It took a while, but they did come back to themselves.
It's fairly obvious that they aren't Haytham's first concern, but he does a respectable enough job of feigning interest, and the rest of them let it pass. Then we're done, he says. It's over.
-/-
But it's not, of course. Oh, maybe it is for Haytham, and for Shay. Now that Juno's out of their time, they don't have anything to worry about. Desmond and Javier are pulled out of the animus and met with cheers and enthusiastic slaps on the back.
Lucy's nowhere to be seen, Desmond can't help but notice.
The best part, to him, is when Javier beckons him over, after everyone else's attention has drifted away from him a little bit. "I think I can hear him now," he tells Desmond. "Shay? When that light, whatever it was—"
"The apple?"
"Sure, yea. When that lit up, and forced Juno out, I think it must have connected me to Shay, too. I could hear him, and he heard me."
"And that's good?" Desmond asks. He thinks it is, he likes being able to hear his ancestors, and know they're on the same side. But he can also see how that might creep some other people out, and he's not sure right off the bat if Javier is one of them.
"It is," Javier says. "I—thank you."
So yes. That's probably the best part.
His dad and a couple other people have gone to get the amulet they'll need to get into the inner part of the temple. Compared to Juno and her plans, saving the world from the impending solar flare has become something almost like an afterthought. It's still something that needs to be taken care of, though, and with Juno driven off to some new time period (they'll have to start all over, again, tracking her down) at least they have a little bit of down time.
Desmond sits down and sends Elijah an email—it's a long process, the way writing an email to someone he doesn't know well is always a long process. But he's going to try, and right now, with the end of the world… as much as he'd like to do more, this is all he can manage.
About half an hour after hitting send, Desmond heads to bed, feeling pretty good about the way things have gone today. They've driven Juno away from another era, Javier's been connected with his ancestor, and hopefully he'll be able to wake up to an email from Elijah tomorrow.
-/-
But back in the warehouse, Elijah is sleeping badly. Finally, a little past one in the morning, he wakes up from his fitful sleep, shooting bolt upright and breathing heavily as he tries to process what he's just woken up knowing.
His dad's in danger. A lot of danger, because Juno's coming for him, she's already there, she's hidden and Elijah is the only one that even knows it. And he knows that he's going to have to do something about it, because no one else will. He's spent his entire childhood telling people things he's not supposed to know, and watching them react with confusion at best or hatred at worst, and he doesn't really believe this is going to be any different.
He throws food and a change of clothes into a backpack, then walks off. Just leaves. He has no idea how he's going to get to his dad—last time, they'd driven there, and Elijah isn't too excited about the idea of walking across highways all night. But he has this sudden, bone deep knowledge that if he doesn't go now, if he doesn't help his dad, he's never going to see him again.
If he doesn't figure out what he's supposed to do, his dad is going to die.
-/-
Getting pretty close to the end now! I have one more chapter that's all the way planned out, and then just chapters 33 and 34, where all the planning I have is "Chapter 33: Stuff happens?" and "Chapter 34: Ending"
... Endings are not my favorite part to write, please have patience with me :)