Claire's mind spun as she emerged from the Animus, her senses slowly reorienting to the dim, cool light of the underground safe house. The familiar hum of the machine faded, but echoes of Amelia's world lingered in her thoughts, like the distant murmur of a fading dream. Her body ached with phantom pains—ghostly echoes of the wounds Amelia had suffered—and Claire winced as a sharp twinge shot through her side, where Amelia's injury had been. She took a shaky breath, trying to ground herself in the present.
Desmond's voice pulled her back. He sounded tired, strained, but there was an undercurrent of genuine concern in his tone that made her chest tighten.
"Everything alright?" Desmond asked, his voice soft, as if he was afraid to shatter whatever fragile balance she was clinging to.
Claire glanced over at him, managing a weak smile, though the fatigue and lingering emotions made it difficult to fully mask her discomfort. "Better than alright. You're making amazing progress," Lucy chimed in, but the clinical efficiency of her words barely registered through the haze of Claire's thoughts.
"Amazing's quite a strong word," Shaun muttered, his sarcasm cutting through the room like a sharp edge.
Claire couldn't help but let out a breathy chuckle, but her amusement quickly gave way to something darker. As the Animus session had drawn to a close, she'd found herself haunted by Amelia's last moments with Ezio—the tenderness in their unspoken bond, the way their connection had deepened with every shared trial. It made her painfully aware of the distance she wanted to kerp from Desmond, and the barriers she had put up to protect herself. She stole a glance at him, noting the lines of exhaustion under his eyes, the way he rubbed the back of his neck—a habit she'd seen in Ezio more than once.
Desmond's expression tightened. "Then why are we stopping?"
Rebecca, always the voice of caution, replied, "Prolonged exposure to the Animus can have... side effects."
Claire shifted uneasily in her seat, memories of Subject Sixteen flashing through her mind—cryptic drawings smeared across the walls, the haunted look in his eyes. The idea that she might follow a similar path sent a chill down her spine. She pressed a hand against her side, half-expecting to find blood beneath her fingertips. Amelia's pain had been so real, too real.
Desmond's attempt at humor did little to lift the heavy mood. "Ha, awesome."
Lucy leaned forward, her expression softening. "It's nothing to worry about. You haven't shown any of the symptoms."
Claire tried to keep her breathing steady, but the edges of reality still felt frayed, as if Amelia's voice might break through at any moment. The memory of Amelia's determination to protect Ezio, her fierce loyalty, lingered, making Claire's own vulnerability feel more pronounced. She wanted to reach out, to find some kind of anchor in the chaos, but the fear of being hurt, of losing someone else, kept her hands firmly at her sides.
"What symptoms?" Desmond asked, his brow furrowed, clearly sensing the tension in the air.
Rebecca, ever the pragmatist, listed off the side effects with a casual tone that belied the seriousness of her words. "Degradation of cognition, temporal hallucinations, multiple-awareness issues, overlapping realities... you know."
Claire swallowed hard, glancing at Desmond out of the corner of her eye. She wondered if he had noticed the way her hands trembled when she thought no one was looking, or the way she flinched when shadows moved in the corners of her vision. Did he understand how close she felt to slipping into that in-between space, where Amelia's memories bled into her own?
"So what you're saying is..." Desmond began, but before he could finish, Shaun cut in with his usual bluntness.
"What we're saying, Desmond, is if you're not careful, you may not need the Animus to visit with your ancestors. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, assuming you could control it. Up until now, though... no one has."
A chill crept up Claire's spine at the mention of control. She felt a flicker of something—Amelia's presence, a whisper in her mind that didn't belong there. It wasn't just about the skills or the memories anymore. It was like a part of Amelia was still with her, hovering at the edges of her awareness, a shadow that refused to be dismissed. Claire's heart thudded in her chest, and she pressed a hand against her temple, willing the sensation to fade.
Desmond's voice, tinged with unease, broke through her thoughts. "Subject Sixteen..."
Lucy, always quick to reassure, tried to soothe their worries. "We have safeguards, Desmond. And they kept him in the Animus for way too long—sometimes days at a time. We're being careful with you."
Claire wished she could believe her. But as she caught Desmond's gaze—those dark, searching eyes that seemed to hold a thousand unspoken questions—she felt a connection that scared her. It was different than what she had shared with Amelia, but just as powerful. The thought of losing him, of not having a chance to explore what might be between them, twisted painfully in her chest. And yet, she couldn't quite bring herself to close the distance between them.
As Lucy guided Desmond toward the training session, Claire lingered in the shadows of the room, watching him go. She rubbed absently at her side, where the ache of Amelia's wound still seemed to pulse. She didn't know what scared her more—the lingering traces of Amelia that refused to leave her, or the way Desmond's presence seemed to ease those fears, even if only for a moment.
When Desmond caught her eye just before disappearing through the doorway, he flashed her a tired smile, a hint of that familiar warmth breaking through the weariness. Claire's heart lurched in response, and she found herself smiling back despite the uncertainty gnawing at her.
Claire sat in the Animus chair, her breath coming in shallow gasps as she stared at her hands. They were shaking, trembling uncontrollably, as if they no longer belonged to her. She clenched her fists, trying to force the tremor to still, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw flickers of a world that wasn't hers. Amelia's world. The blood-stained streets of Florence, the roar of battle, the face of a dying man as her blade slid between his ribs. The memory lingered, like the taste of iron on her tongue.
She pressed her palms against her knees, trying to ground herself, to remind herself of where she was—whoshe was. But the lines were blurring, Amelia's emotions clinging to her own like shadows. Her chest felt tight, as if she could still feel the pain of Amelia's wound, the sharp, searing ache that had bled through time and left her gasping. For a moment, she thought she might break apart under the weight of it all.
"Claire?"
Shaun's voice cut through the haze, but she barely registered it. She could feel Amelia's anger, her desperation, coursing through her like a pulse that wouldn't quiet.Stay strong. We have to survive this.The words echoed in her mind, and she couldn't tell anymore if they were Amelia's thoughts or her own.
She finally looked up, her vision wavering as she focused on Shaun standing in the doorway of the Animus chamber. His expression shifted from irritation to concern as he took in her pale face, her tightly clenched fists.
"Bloody hell, Claire, you look like you've seen a ghost," he said, but there was no sarcasm in his voice this time, only worry. He took a step closer, glancing back toward the doorway where Rebecca hovered, a frown creasing her forehead.
"I'm... I'm fine," Claire lied, but her voice sounded weak even to her own ears. Her hands still shook, and she tried to hide them in the folds of her hoodie, but Shaun had already noticed.
Rebecca moved into the room, her eyes scanning over Claire's face with that same analytical sharpness she used when checking the Animus monitors. She exchanged a look with Shaun, and Claire could see the unspoken concern between them.
"Claire, you've been out of the Animus for nearly an hour, but you're still... not yourself," Rebecca said, her voice gentle but firm. She knelt beside Claire's chair, her brows knitting together as she searched Claire's eyes. "You're not just dealing with a rough memory dump, are you?"
Claire bit her lip, trying to ignore the way her hands kept trembling, the ghostly sensation of blood on her fingers. She wanted to brush them off, to tell them that it was nothing. But the truth clawed its way out of her, jagged and raw. "It's more than that," she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "I can... I can feel her. Amelia. Like she's still with me, even now."
Shaun's frown deepened, and he crossed his arms, looking troubled. "That's not normal, Claire. We've seen cases of the Bleeding Effect, sure, but this..."
"It's not just the memories," Claire continued, her voice shaking. "It's like... she's trying to reach through, like I'm not just remembering her, but...feelingher thoughts, her emotions. I don't know how to explain it."
Rebecca reached out, gently touching Claire's arm, but the contact made Claire flinch. It wasn't Rebecca's hand she felt—it was Amelia's, guiding Ezio's blade, the cool grip of the hidden weapon pressing against her palm. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push the sensation away.
"It's the same as before, isn't it?" Rebecca asked, her voice low and cautious. "Like when Abstergo kept you under for those experiments, when they were trying to figure out what happened to Subject Sixteen. It's happening again, isn't it?"
The mention of Subject Sixteen sent a pang through Claire's chest, a fresh ache on top of everything else. She'd been friends with Sixteen—or at least, as close as two prisoners of Abstergo could be. They had clung to each other in those days, trying to hold onto their sanity as the Templars pried into their minds. But in the end, he had slipped away, lost to the shadows of a mind fractured beyond repair.
"I... I don't want to end up like him," Claire whispered, the fear she'd been keeping buried finally spilling out. "I don't want to lose myself, not when... not when we're so close to stopping them."
Shaun's expression softened, and he rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. "You won't end up like him, Claire. We're not going to let that happen, alright?"
But Claire could see the doubt in his eyes, the flicker of unease that he tried to hide. She knew they all remembered the way Subject Sixteen's mind had unraveled, the way he'd scrawled desperate messages in his own blood. They were afraid for her—afraid that she might be slipping down the same path.
Rebecca's grip on Claire's arm tightened, and she offered a small, strained smile. "We'll figure this out, Claire. We're not Abstergo. We won't push you past your limits."
Claire wanted to believe them, but all she could think of was Amelia's voice in her head, urging her to fight, to keep going even when everything felt like it was falling apart. She felt like she was balancing on a knife's edge, one slip away from losing herself completely.
She took a shaky breath, trying to hold onto the present, to remind herself of where she was. But even as she looked at Shaun and Rebecca's concerned faces, she couldn't shake the lingering shadows of Florence and the feeling that, somewhere deep inside, Amelia was still watching through her eyes.