Chapter Text
When Desmond woke up, he thought he was in hell.
He wasn't sure how he'd gotten there, but that was the only explanation. The ocean, was dark, and looked as though it should be cold, but it felt like nothing at all, pulling at his feet, the sand gritty and hard under his cheek. When he rolled over, his hands sunk in like nothing he'd ever experienced.
“I'm in hell.” he said, staring at the sky, which was shot with a web of white light. “I'm in hell, and it looks like the animus.”
“Correction. You wish you were in hell.” That voice sounded familiar. “If you were in hell, that would mean you were dead, and you could rest.” He didn't see whose hands were helping him to his feet sand filling his wet sneakers, digging into his socks, but they sounded familiar. Felt familiar, somehow. Between him and the stark island covered in shimmering spires was … a fairly ordinary looking guy. Someone he could have served shots and beers to. Someone he could have passed on any street in America.
“Sixteen?”
“Seventeen?” he said back with a distinctly mocking tone. “We're more than numbers here- unless... you never knew my name.”
“It didn't... come up.”
“Right then, Desmond Miles, the name is Clay Kaczmarek.” He put out his hand. “We're acquainted I think.” Desmond shook his hand anyway, somehow distressed that wherever he was, he was unarmed. How could he have gotten used to the weight of the hidden blade so fast? And more importantly
“But you're dead.”
“No? Really? However will I survive? Oh right the same way you are right now.” He gestured to the island. “By hiding in the heart of the animus. You've lived a lifetime inside anyway. Longer than you've spent in your own skin.”
“So am I dead or aren't I? Because if I'm dead, I want to have less of a headache.” Desmond rubbed his temple. “And not to feel like I was just run through the dryer with a bunch of rocks.”
“Not dead. Because someone up there.” he pointed at the sky. “Likes you, and they got you plugged into the physical animus, which is keeping your body functioning enough that even though your brain has gone walk about, if you get back to it, you'll be golden. And hey, what a coincidence;” he spread his hands and wiggled the fingers in a little dance. “That machine is exactly where your brain has gone.”
Desmond worked his jaw for a moment.
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“More of an Ezio than an Altaïr then.”
“No, you're just really obscure and confusing. Though not insane, which is nice.”
“What a ringing endorsement.”
“Well I can take back that last part.”
“Follow me.” He turned and walked down the beach towards the rocky center and the strange spires. Desmond followed, because it beat staring into the ocean.
“Something went wrong.” Clay said, stating the obvious. “When you fought back against the Apple's grip. You burned out part of your brain- probably not a part you use a lot, but its complex machinery. Your body went into shock, then a coma. When the Assassins arrived, they plugged you back into the animus, because it's designed to keep the body functioning while the brain is on walkabout, more or less. Little electronic pulses always coursing through your body, stimulating muscles.”
“What?”
“You didn't know?” He rolled his eyes, and his entire form flickered, like it was loading and reloading. “What am I saying of course you didn't. You never asked, did you? It was just a magic machine that put you into memories. Let me ask you- if that was all it was, how did I manage to hide memories in it?”
“But Lucy took a hardrive with her-” Clay spoke over him like he wasn't even talking.
“And since each of us has our own unique link to out ancestors, I could hardly be writing them in the memories themselves. This is what's beneath the memories. The core of the animus, what connects it to the Akashic memory- what scientists call the DNA memory. I don't know, they both sound pretty stupid.”
Desmond had to agree, but he didn't say anything, waiting to see where this was going. Where they were going was a door that blazed white.
“And that is the core. Through it, you can get out. Get back into your body. Live your life again, while there's life in your body to do it. You have to; or your mind will break. You'll fragment.”
“Like yours?”
“I shattered under pressure.” He frowned. “I'm not like you. You managed to keep yourself seprate. Me... all the memories, scraps and bits, just kept impressing themselves over my mind, like drawing something and erasing it, over and over and over. Then I shattered, and broke myself on the way out. The first time-”
“the first time?”
“I had a seizure. They plugged me back in, and I clawed my way out sorting the broken pieces into piles- Clay and not Clay. Women, men, assassins, civilians. Rapists, victims.” he glitched breaking up into static and reappearing a few feet away. “I came out, and they put me back in, and all the piles started to fuse into a mass I couldn’t' sort any more, no matter how many notes I took. I took myself out.” He shook his head, and pointed again. “So you go in there, you finish living the life you've made part of yourself, and then you can move on, and go back to yourself. But you've only got so long before the animus can't keep you alive any more.”
“Finish the- go back to Ezio? I can find him again?”
“The memories are still there, this is still the animus.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“No one deserves to be stuck here. This is a crappy afterlife.” He frowned. “... and it's a thank you.”
“What?”
“You were holding steady. You probably could have come out the other end okay; what broke you was fighting the trap in the Apple. Not killing Lucy.”
“I couldn't... she...” Desmond frowned. “She was special. I wanted to...”
“It's not just a bra you know. Her breasts are fabulous.” He grinned “It would be a pity to ruin one of the sets of perfect breasts in the world.”
“How?” he was trying not to picture it now.
“She's an assassin. She was under cover a long time, but she was.”
“and?”
“So was I.”
Before he could respond to that he heard echoes- Lucy's voice. Shaun's. Rebecca's. And Another- almost as familiar that made his spine stiffen, but he couldn't quite place.
“You'd better hurry up.” Clay nodded to the door. “They won't unplug you, but it'll only keep you alive so long.”
Desmond turned to go then looked back around, Clay was gone.
“Did you?” he asked thin air, since he'd gotten used to talking outloud. “Did you see them? Did you know them?”
“No.” He didn't jerk in surprise at the figure suddenly in his personal space. Except for the occasional ripple in his skin, it was like Altaïr and Ezio had appeared. “You're special, Desmond. You may not realize it, or deserve it, but you are. Don't waste it.” And he was gone again.
Desmond turned and walked into the light.
It hurt to see Ezio. That surprised him. This wasn't the Ezio he'd gotten to know, this one was old, and tired, and accepting that he was slowing down. But on the other hand, he knew that Ezio would find that woman; his wife. That small glimpse that Ezio had given him gave him hope, and let him keep pushing, trying to find his way out of this maze of memories to a place where he could escape from the animus- from his own mind. But that was nothing compared to the pain and shock of the memories of Altaïr. He lost everything. His best friend, his son, his wife, his order and brothers. Betrayal by someone he should trust. After the first memory, Desmond tore himself away, and fled back to the stark abandoned island that was the core.
Desmond sat on the cold beach and listened to the echoes of voices outside his head. The ghosts of memories seemed more real. He wondered about the core of red that had flicked in the middle of Lucy's soothing blue. She'd never been red before; not even when his Eagle Vision had first come out of the animus with him. And for all he'd known she had been his enemy, his warden, his torturer's assistant. But something in him wanted to trust her; and he had, following her and letting her rescue him, when he'd been unable to do anything to rescue himself.
Then in the weeks that followed, she'd been slightly distant, but his mentor, helping him to understand the lessons his ancestors taught him, teaching him. She was, frankly, the face of modern assassins to him. The kind that he'd like to know. His eyes closed, and he found himself wandering the paths of his own memories, scraps of childhood thrown up like pictures from a projector at the wall. None of it was worth living the first time, let alone reliving.
At the Farm, it was more like 'Nothing is explained, and even less is permitted.' rules and fear and none of it made sense to a kid. The Templars were boogymen to get children to behave; 'if you aren’t' good then the Templars won't just get you, they'll get the world' He hadn't even heard the central tenet until he was grown and had already tried to escape. If he'd heard it, if he'd understood it, not just paranoia and preparation, would he have been so eager to flee? If he hadn't fled; who would have gone into the animus instead of him? Would they have found him anyway, or would he have been a good enough assassin to avoid being captured? He shook off the maze of his own memories and was back on the cliff above the beach. Turning, Desmond looked back at the wreckage, and sat down.
He'd burned himself out- his ancestors and looking at it from this side, he was sure they were real, though he had no idea how- had burned themselves out to help him- to save Lucy, and the last thing he'd said to her- was an accusation. God. How could he have done that? Becca had said that a lot of them were concerned after her long stint undercover. So why why for that instant had he been so sure?
“Was it her?”
“Who her?” He looked over at Clay who'd reappeared beside him on the virtual driftwood.
“Juno. I thought I saw... that Lucy was a threat, but I still couldn't kill her. What if it was Juno the one who came before- what if she was manipulating me?”
“Well that's not really that surprising. Because they come across as so trustworthy.”
“But what about the disaster, the solar flare?”
“Well, it doesn't matter too much to me, given that I'm dead already.” Clay pointed out. “but you can either trust her, and follow what she tells you; in which case Lucy should be dead. Or learn more and make your own choice.”
“... 'where other men blindly follow...'”
“what?”
Desmond stood up and brushed himself off.
“You're right. I'm not going to learn anything out here- and not getting any closer to getting out. Thanks.”
“Don't mention it.” the voice glitched out, and he heard echoes of a conversation as he ran back into the core. They were heading back to America. Clearly, the Assassins were better of than Vidic had thought, even if they were on the defensive.
After all, if Ezio taught him nothing else; it was that Assassins always were.
“C'mon Ezio...” He muttered as he plunged back into Constantinople. “Show me what you've got.”
He wrapped himself in the form of the old, weary Ezio. It didn't feel natural, but it didn't need to as long as he could synch himself. When he took the time to get flowers for Sofia, Desmond shifted the memory enough to take the time to pick an enormous bouquet- a thanks for the knowledge that remembering her would still make Ezio warm hundreds of years later- that she would bring him happiness, and some of them were for Ezio, like putting flowers on a grave.
He didn't want to mourn people who had been dead hundreds of years. He didn't want to be there any more.
“Are you crying, seriously crying?” Clay sounded boggled. “Over memories?”
“I'm not asking you to understand.” He was trying to stop at any rate. These tears were his, not anyone elses', but it was hardly the time.
“Well good because I don't. If you sit around crying over this you won't have a future. I should try and force my way out, and take your body.”
“You could do that?”
“Sure why not!?” Clay flung his hands up. “I'm a mind without a body, and right now your body doesn't have a mind because you're here, crying over dead men you never really met. And yet you live, and get another chance to go on, conditioning to waste your potential, and I died.” Clay looked- angry, and frustrated, and tired, the emotions kept flickering across his face.
Perhaps it was wrong, but Desmond thought back to his ancestors- what would they do. Ezio flashed to mind, and he put his arm around Clay's shoulder, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Whoa.” Clay glitched and reappeared several feet away hands up “No Homo, kiddo.”
“Actually a little bit of homo, yeah” Desmond frowned. “but not the point. Anyhow you just said you wanted my body.”
“Not what I meant. I thought we had a kind of bonding moment over Lucy's boobs.”
“They are pretty fabulous.” Desmond admitted. “But not really what attracted me to her.”
“It's a good place to start though.”
Desmond shrugged. Breasts had gotten in him in more trouble than dick ever had. Well, except for his dick. And Ezio's. If he averaged it across the three lifetimes, it was probably about even.
Suddenly the ground started to shake, like an earthquake.
“What's going on?”
“It's reached critical mass- you must have unlocked all the memories. The Animus is rebooting- you have to go now.” The light in the portal was different, more inviting somehow.
“what will happen to you?”
“I'm leftover data. maybe I'll finally be dead all the way. Who knows.” He gave Desmond a shove towards the nexus.
“Clay... come with me.”
“What?” Desmond locked his arms around the figment and walked backwards, towards the gate. “I can't leave you here.”
“This is a really bad id-”
The light blazed, and it hut Desmond's eyes as they opened.
“Desmond.”
“Ugh.” he turned away- of all the faces he wanted to see when he woke up that was not one of them.
“Son-”
“No.” His arms felt heavy, but he held a hand up. “Just no Dad. Not now.” a decade was not enough time to make him want to see his father. Desmond sat up, and was relived to see Shaun and Rebecca, both looking ecstatic to see him awake, and Lucy- behind the partition and driving, looking tired as he felt. The van stopped.
“The apple?”
“Here.” William Miles didn't touch it with his bare skin, but he offered it to Desmond, who picked it up without thinking. It stung against his palm, and moving it from one hand to the other, he saw that his palm had a burn in the shape of the seams. He fit it back in place, and light shimmered in the cracks.
“I know where we need to go.”
“I hope you do.” Glancing up, he saw Clay sitting beside Lucy in the seat of the truck. “Or I won't let you forget it.”
Desmond smiled a killer's grin.