Archive of Our Own ^beta

They drive until dawn, crossing the border into Germany and continuing on. Desmond sees a road sign for Leer, but Gold pulls down a side road then up a driveway before they reach the town.

He doesn't bother to wait around and see what the go is. As soon as the car stops, Desmond slides out of the back, jogs over to the water tank by the side of the house and hauls himself up the ladder.

Nobody stops him, and Desmond takes a second to just breathe. The height settles him back into his skin, cements his mind into the here and now. Gives him the space and perspective to think.

The farmhouse is blessedly white; Andromache, the Lovers and Nile are all gold points inside; and there's no red as far as his eyes can see. Fuck. He still doesn't know what he's doing.

None of his problems have gone away: they've only gotten bigger. Altaïr never told anyone about Gold or about the Lovers for a damn good reason, and it's that same reason which has Desmond so uncertain.

If Abstergo or the Assassin's put him back in the Animus he won't be able to hide this from them. Not for long. The Immortals don't deserve the fallout from that.

He's immortal now, too. Is he more an Immortal than he is an Assassin?

Well. Considering he's here, with them, and not in Monteriggioni with the people Bill had waiting for him, that question answers itself. Fuck.

Desmond's just trying to figure out if that's something he can deal with, if he's ready to accept it or if he's going to ask Gold for a decade to screw his head on when Nile climbs the ladder to join him.

She doesn't say anything for a long while, just stares out at the horizon with him, watching the morning sun. Eventually though, she does speak, voice soft as though the very air is something fragile she's trying not to break.

"I know it's hard, and Andy's terrifying at first," she says, "but it's gonna be okay. You're not alone; we're here with you, for you. You're one of us now."

Desmond says nothing, just breathing. Is he an Immortal or an Assassin; would this team be any better than the last, with the Animus and the Isu and the fucking Eye. He doesn't regret his decision to use it, but he can’t deny being bitter they hadn't looked harder for alternatives.

"Hey Joe, Nicky," Nile murmurs softly as the pair climb the ladder. They don't say anything in response, just settle in on either side of her. Desmond sees her lean into them, accepting what comfort they offer. It's... Good; even he can see that. The easy affection, offered and accepted without thought.

Desmond doesn't think he's ever had that. Maybe Ezio did, once, with Federico.

Gold eventually joins them as well, sitting herself beside Desmond and sharing in his silence.

"Dhahabi," he greets quietly, automatically, and doesn't realise his mistake until Nile speaks. Sue him, he’s been awake for a very stressful 48 hours.

"Dhahabi?" she asks, tone curious even as Desmond goes still. He glances down but no, there's no convenient bale of hay for him to escape into.

"It means gold in Arabic," Joe says and his voice is soft too. Nobody wants to break the delicate quiet, it seems, or maybe it’s obvious just how close Desmond is to bolting. Beside him, Gold hums.

"It's been eight hundred years since I've been called that," she says, "I'd really like to know where you heard it."

It isn't a question, and Desmond can't put off answering any longer.

"There is a device," he starts, measuring his words, "called the animus. It allows the user to- to recall their ancestors memories." Desmond breathes, slow and calm, and fixes his gaze to the horizon. "I've used it to remember some of the things my ancestors saw and did."

"You're descended from Altaïr," Gold says, easily drawing the correct conclusion. "He's the only person who's ever called me Dhahabi."

"Yeah," Desmond agrees, and chooses not to elaborate.

"Why Dhahabi?" Nile asks, accent twisting the Arabic word strangely. "Why Gold?"

"I- He met her when he was- 15? 16? And didn't learn her name until nearly 30," Desmond shrugs, "he had to call her something, and after so long it stuck."

"When was this?" Nicky asks, frowning and clearly trying to place things.

"During the Third Crusade, when you and Joe were still hacking at each other," Gold answers, then turns back to Desmond. "How much do you know?"

"Not everything, and only up to Sef's conception, since any memories after that couldn’t be passed down." Desmond doesn't mention the handful he has from later in Altaïr's life, viewed through Ezio and the memory disks. That would lead into a discussion about the Isu, and the Apple and all their tech. Desmond isn't ready to trust them with all those secrets. Not yet.

"That's pretty cool," Nile says, "getting to experience history like that. Any chance you still have access to this device?"

"No," Desmond says, still staring out at the horizon. He's not lying, technically; he doesn’t have an Animus. However he knows it wouldn't be that hard to steal enough of Abstergo's research to make one, and even easier to go to the Assassins. Still. If Desmond has anything to say about it, nobody else will ever use an animus. It's not worth the side effects.

Nile slumps back with a disappointed sigh, and Desmond can feel the other three looking at him. He gets the feeling they're hearing at least some of what he's not saying. Thankfully, they don't say anything about it.

Desmond stays on top of the water tank for hours, long after everyone else has gone inside. The world feels far away and too close, buried under the exhaustion of the two days he's been awake. It's fucking with his head, he can tell. His eyes won't bring the world into colour, stubbornly staying shadowed grey with only smears of gold down below.

No red. No red.

Desmond needs to keep reassuring himself of that. Needs to keep checking. Hypervigilance feels as though it's engraved into his bones. It can't last forever, he knows, he knows, and eventually he forces himself to climb down and head inside.

"Congratulations," Andromache says, almost as soon as he's through the door, "you made the news."

Desmond pauses, then glances around until he spots the TV playing quietly in the next room. The report is in German - not one of the languages he's managed to learn - but the video playing is self explanatory. And satisfying.

What was once the Abstergo Server Farm appears to have been reduced to piles of twisted metal. Whatever fire there may have been has died out, which gives the camera a nice, clear view of the destruction. It's not perfect - it's not a crater in the ground - but it's obvious that the damage is extensive and unrecoverable.

The reporter is talking in that crisp tone of news anchors everywhere, gesturing to a photo of him in what is obviously a request for information. A 'has anyone seen this man.'

"Do they have any proof it was me?" Desmond asks, staring at his own face on the TV. He recognises the background of the image as his cell in Rome, way back in September. Ha. Good to know he's avoided cameras well enough for that to be their best photo of him.

"The news report is-" Gold makes a seesaw motion with her hand. "-a bit vague. They're claiming it was you with certainty, but if they have actual evidence they haven't shown it."

"Figures," Desmond says, rubbing at the grit in his eyes. He's not really surprised, but can't deny how tired he is of this endless chase.

"Get some sleep, kid. Second door on your right."

"... Thanks," he murmurs, barely hesitating before going. The bed feels like a god damned luxury when he lays down, even if he can feel half the springs.

"They've made him into a potential scapegoat," he hears Nile say, voice carrying through the house; or Desmond tapping into Connor's hearing, maybe. "If they can pin this on him, they can blame him for anything."

"Yes, they can," Nicky agrees serenely. "Judging by Desmond's behaviour, they're going to; especially if it helps them capture him."

"There is more to this than he has told us, and I do not think it is pleasant," Joe adds, tone as grim as his words. "Perhaps this grudge does not go one way."

"What are we going to do?" Nile again. There's no uncertainty in her voice, no fear, only a demand for action.

"We're gonna do what we always do," Gold now, "we're gonna help."

Desmond lets that sentiment carry him under.

The door opening pulls him abruptly from sleep and Desmond tenses automatically; one enemy, daylight through a window, blade on his arm but no other weapons, small room-limited space-

"Desmond?" Nile asks, and her voice snaps him back from the edge. Desmond goes limp on the bed, breathing deeply and heart pounding with useless adrenaline. "You awake, man?"

"Yeah," Desmond rasps out, rolling over to sit up. He'd honestly rather keep sleeping, but there's no chance of that now. He's buzzing and on edge.

"Nicky's making dinner if you want to come get something to eat," Nile says, "you gotta be starving. All I've seen you have in almost three days is that burger."

"Yeah," he agrees, 'cause it's not like she's wrong; hunger just hasn't been his priority. "Can you point me in the direction of the shower first?"

Nile does so gladly, offering to get Joe to grab him a change of clothes as well. Desmond accepts, and then proceeds to scrub the last two days of stress from his skin. The hot water is another luxury, and he lets himself enjoy it for an extra five minutes before he gets out.

Joe had, indeed, left a change of clothes on the counter for him, all similar enough to what he's been wearing. The tags are still on.

Desmond has no idea what to make of that.

Being freshly showered and dressed in clean clothes makes him feel marginally more human. He'd've liked to shave, too, but with all images of him being clean shaven it's probably for the best he lets his beard grow out instead.

Nicky is dishing out pasta into bowls when he enters the living room, passing it along to Joe to add the sauce. Their hands brush and linger every time in a show of casual intimacy that has a part of Desmond incredibly relieved. He has to remind himself it's been 800 years, even though it doesn't feel like it.

"Dinner is ready," Joe calls out, handing bowls and cutlery over to Andy and Nile first, then pressing a set into Desmond's hands before taking some for himself. "Thank you, my love," Joe says, pressing a kiss to Nicky's cheek before eating. Well, 800 years is a lot of time, Desmond supposes.

After dinner Desmond heads back outside, climbing the water tank and watching the sunset. The urge to leave, to hotwire the car and get moving bubbles under his skin. There's nothing stopping him - not really - but the house below him is white, Andromache, Nicky, Joe, and Nile are all gold, and there's no red as far as he can see.

The guaranteed safety is- fuck. It's something.

"You really do like being up high, don't you?" Andy asks, climbing up to join him. "I always wondered if it was an Assassin thing or an Altaïr thing."

"Yeah," Desmond agrees, shifting to make room for her. "Honestly, it's a bit of both. The Assassins climbed a lot, but hanging out up here was more an Altaïr thing."

Gold hums low in her throat, thinking but not asking further. Familiar, comfortable silence falls between them.

It's clear enough she knows he's an Assassin - current, not past - and Desmond finds it's almost a relief. He wouldn't- couldn't have told her if she didn't already know; could never have betrayed his Brothers like that, even if he's something of a rogue element now.

The thought still makes him anxious and uncomfortable. He's been betrayed too many times and used by everyone else. Trust isn't in his vocabulary anymore.

"What's the deal with Abstergo?" Gold asks, and while Desmond can see she's staring at the horizon, he can feel her attention like a weight between his shoulder blades.

"They're a front for the modern day Templars," Desmond says, willing to share that much, and Gold hums again in acknowledgement. Desmond blinks and the world goes greyscale.

Beside him, Andromache is the same bright gold of importance he first learned to recognise her by. Not something he can trust - not ally blue - but at least he knows she hasn't changed in the last 800 years.

In the house, he can see the golden forms of Nicky and Joe moving around, no longer tainted the red of enemies. It had never been a strong colour, only enough to shade them copper or bronze rather than pure gold.

Nile is almost as bright as Gold, young and driven, not yet worn down by life. There is a crispness in her movements, an efficiency, that reminds him she was a Marine. Hmm.

"Nile's new?" Desmond asks, breaking the silence.

"She is. Died the first time about a year before you did, almost 18 months ago now," Andy says, leaning forward and obviously searching for the other woman. "Saved all our asses within three days of meeting us, though there were extenuating circumstances."

"Huh," Desmond says, mildly surprised; though he has to admit, that's more at the idea of Gold needing saving and less about Nile. She seems the type.

Desmond's dreams are fractured things, scattered across lifetimes, across centuries. He's face down in the dust of the training ring, and it's too familiar. He could be Altaïr or Ezio or Connor; he could be himself on the Farm. This moment has happened a hundred times, a thousand.

It all blends together in his head, shattering apart into disjointed pieces. Was his name Connor when he climbed the Santa Maria? Did Altaïr make his home on a boat, climb the crows nest and fire the cannons? Has Desmond ever hidden amongst the scholars of Jerusalem? The parachute was invented for Ezio, so surely it was he who climbed to the top of a crane and let himself fall into the city lights.

Desmond dreams the taste of bitter coffee, brewed over an open fire and spiked with whiskey. He murmurs the words 'C’est quoi ce bordel?' into the chill morning air, French rolling from his tongue.

Breakfast is bagels and hot coffee, and Desmond watches the others take bites between doing other things. Nicky is going through the kitchen, making a list of what they have and what they need if Desmond were to guess. Joe looks to be poking at all the windows and doors - inspecting the security maybe?

Andromache has a duffle of weapons in front of her, stripped down for maintenance. Desmond only recognises half of them, at most.

The old TV is on again, running another news report on Abstergo and his bombing; it's on mute, but even if the volume was on Desmond wouldn't understand what was being said.

"What's the plan, boss?" Joe asks just as Nile walks inside, and Gold looks up from her task.

"We lay low; keep an eye on the situation but wait for the heat to die down. Train; the kids will need to learn how to work with the team," Gold says. "Eventually we'll need to deal with Abstergo and fake Desmond's death, but that won't be possible right now. There are too many eyes on the situation."

"We can continue with Nile's language lessons, and start teaching Desmond as well," Nicky pipes up from where he's leaning against the kitchen counter.

Nile peers around the kitchen doorway, frowning at them. "Did I hear my name?" she asks in English, which is about when it clicks that Nicky had been speaking Italian. Shit. Desmond hadn't even noticed.

Desmond is immortal. Desmond is immortal. Probably. Maybe. He remembers dying, sure, but he remembers the Eye and Minerva and Clay and Juno and- and. Desmond doesn't remember dying. He remembers knowing he was going to die, and the flash of white hot fire, and waking up to black.

So Desmond is probably immortal. Well, it's not as though he doesn't know how it works.

Desmond drags his hidden blade across the palm of his hand and watches as it heals, numb.

They leave the TV on all through the day, sometimes muted sometimes not, but it isn't until after the next morning that it becomes relevant again. As Desmond watches, the image cycles from the reporter to pictures of the Amsterdam Facility, Madrid and then through various other sites which are entirely unfamiliar to him. The unifying factor is, of course, the Abstergo logo kept in the corner of the screen.

"Are they still talking about Amsterdam?" Nile asks, dropping bonelessly onto the couch, bagel in hand.

"Several Abstergo facilities were hit in the last 24hrs," Andy replies with far too much ease. Then she turns to Desmond, currently savouring the last of his coffee. "Friends of yours?"

"Probably," Desmond admits, but- Rebecca and Shaun are the only two he might've tentatively called friends. The rest of the Assassins are, well; anyone killing Templars scores a free point in his book. "Enemy of my enemy," he amends, "do you want me to see what I can find?"

Gold frowns at him, glancing over to Nile on the couch in a clear attempt to communicate something to him. "I've got our guy looking into it," she says, "but if you have an inside source that isn't going to lead Abstergo or any authorities right to us, please do."

"Last I knew, the Hephaestus Network isn't set up for tracking, but I'll be careful," Desmond says, ducking out of the lounge room to grab his laptop. It's a older model he bought for cheap and while he would've liked something faster, the disk drive was a necessity.

Powering it up, Desmond begins the boot process just a Nile drops back onto the couch, looking over to him with a frown. "How secure is your computer?" she asks.

"As secure as I can make it," Desmond answers, trying to focus past the flickers of code in the periphery of his brain. Yes, thank you Clay; he really wanted every line of programming fed directly into his Eagle Vision. Truly his favourite kind of existential horror.

Admittedly, Desmond doesn't really succeed. The knowledge is just there, demanding that he watch every subroutine and system check for flaws or errors or- or. Clay's voice, begging to be out, to be free echo's in Desmond's ears, desperate and pleading-

"How secure is that?" Andy asks, cutting through Desmond's spiralling thoughts like a whip. His eyes snap away from his screen to her, and he blinks the colour back into the world with a dry swallow.

"It's new," Desmond says, voice surprisingly level, "got it while running from you lot. I scrubbed all the connection drivers from the Windows OS and set it up to prioritise boot from the disk drive. Happy?"

"Are you using an open source OS right now?" Gold asks, and he'd be more pissed off at her tone if it wasn't the only thing grounding him.

Still, the code feeds into his mind in a constant, distracting stream of information. Blinking hard, Desmond forces himself to focus, to answer Gold's question. Right, OS.

"We use a custom OS," he tells her. "The Hephaestus Network runs on it's own coding language; publicly available systems can't read it and a lot of it's spaghetti code and redundancies."

Gold looks to be satisfied with that, and the laptop is finally ready to go so Desmond turns his attention to getting into the recent Assassin logs and seeing what the deal is. His access isn't actually high enough to have the required permissions but- well. Clay's existential horror does come with a couple of benefits.

"Found the files," he says eventually, "looks like Bill used me as a distraction to launch co-ordinated attacks against known Abstergo facilities. They have more planned, but I don't really want to be logged into the network longer than I have to be." For the sake of his god-damned sanity.

"Who's Bill?" Nile asks.

"My Dad," Desmond tells her, without too much thought. After a moment's consideration he turns to Gold, adding, "Al Mualim."

Gold's eyebrows raise in a visible show of surprise. Telling her the Mentors name is perhaps not his wisest move, but 'Bill' is about as common as common gets, and his Dad doesn't have any real records to find.

"You telling me your father is the leader of the Assassins?" Gold asks, though it's clearly rhetorical.

"Yes," Desmond says anyway, watching as Nile frowns at them before stalking from the room. He's not entirely sure what to make of that, if he's honest. Is it the mention of family or Assassins which put her in such a mood?

"Just tell me if it's going to cause us any immediate problems, or are we good for now?" Gold asks, then levels him with a hard look. "And don't you dare lie to me, Desmond. I'm choosing to trust you right now, and there will be a long time for me to make you regret it."

Desmond meets her eyes for a moment - long enough for Gold to know that it's message received - before he turns back to the computer.

"Nothing," he tells her after a couple of minutes searching. "Dad's got no idea where I am, or that I'm no longer alone."

"Let's keep it that way."

Desmond nods, blinks the fucking code out of his eyes and finally, finally, shuts down his laptop.

Training starts off with Desmond sitting down to dismantle and reassemble every gun in Andy's collection. He's less familiar with modern weapons so takes it slow, making sure he gets the motions right and knowing that it will be the foundations of his muscle memory.

On the flip side, Desmond's ease with all things bladed he's handed to maintain - a truly impressive collection of knives - is enough to even the scale. He's pretty sure Gold noticed him testing the weight and balance for throwing, too; they'd do in a pinch.

His aim with the guns isn't the worst, but has definite room for improvement. Between Ezio, Connor and his own early years on the Farm, he can reliably hit his target, although accuracy drops dramatically at more than 15 feet. Well, it's not as though he doesn't have time to learn.

Sparring is a whole other story. Desmond watches The Lovers dance, ducking and weaving, striking and blocking with such fluidity he'd swear it was choreographed.

Andy and Nile square up next, and he spends the round analysing them both, watching as Gold pokes at the holes in Nile's guard until she starts to compensate. Nile's good, and Gold is making sure to stay just above her skill level to force improvement. He's... Pretty sure she didn't do that for him.

"Did Gold learn how to teach since I last sparred with her?" Desmond asks, head tilted in the Lovers direction. There is a long stretch of silence, and he glances over to find the pair of them giving him a matching set of raised eyebrows.

"Your Arabic is very old," Joe says, "we'll need to work on modernising it. Nobody speaks the language of my home anymore."

Desmond crooks a half grin at him, tossing out a flippant, "yeah, well that's what happens when you learn from your ancestor." Very, very carefully, he keeps down the panicked thought of having not noticed he'd switched languages.

"Desmond! You're up, kid," Gold calls, gently shoving Nile in his direction. "Let's see if you can beat me."

Desmond snorts. "You can kick my ass six ways to Sunday, Dhahabi, let's not pretend otherwise." Still, he steps into the metaphorical ring with her, lowering his stance and loosening his shoulders. He's dizzy, or lightheaded or disconnected; even as he steps forward to launch into the first attack he feels half out of his own skin.

There is a flurry of blows, a dodge a twist a leg sweep- Altaïr is on his back in the dirt, staring up at Gold's crooked smirk.

"C'mon, kid, you can do better than that."

Altaïr rolls back to his feet, checks- both unarmed- and gets ready for the second round. Gold has never called him kid before.

Her foot shifts on the dirt, circling slowly, and knowing there will never be a better opportunity Altaïr launches his attack. Gold is, as always, faster and more prepared than him. Within 3 minutes Altaïr finds himself being unceremoniously pulled-rolled-twisted off his feet, unable to keep his head from impacting-

Desmond blinks the spots from his eyes, head fucking throbbing, as Gold reaches out to help him back to his feet.

"Very good," she says, tone so damned familiar Desmond's head spins again, before he's shoving Altaïr back from the forefront of his mind.

This time, he drops into one of Ezio's brawling stances, and prays to god it's enough.

Desmond dreams of riding, sitting astride a young mare as they amble across the plains. The familiarity is a balm, and she takes deep breaths of the crisp morning air just because she can. Freedom has never tasted so sweet.

Conner finds solace in the highest branches of the tallest tree, sharp eyes scanning the ground for tracks. Desmond- Desmond would find solace in a bottle of shitty spirits and a night to be the only one in his god-damned head.

Only one of those is actually an option.

He climbs. He doesn't have a panic attack, though could admit to a minor freakout if pushed. He watches the horizon until his eyes burn and head pounds to the beat of his heart.

Desmond's sanity is hanging on by a fucking thread, and it's been getting noticeably frayed.

Eventually, he falls asleep.

By the fifth day, Desmond's starting to get an idea of just how badly he's falling apart; whatever Clay had helped him do in the Black Room is wearing off. If he's not switching languages without noticing he's forgetting who he is, when he is, or where he is - or some combination of all three.

So far there's only been a couple of hallucinations, and those were easy enough to ignore. Mostly, though, Desmond remembers. When he's not dreaming of Quynh - a name he thinks he knows from Altaïr - or the French man, he's dreaming of his ancestors.

... He isn't always dreaming.

Desmond steps back into the house with some vague plans for lunch, takes note of Nile on the couch and- those voices are far too familiar. Deja vu is the closest approximation he can get to what it feels like to remember. Desmond chases the sensation, staring at Nicky and Joe, and only half in the present.

"Didn't I kill you and leave your bodies to sink in the Venice canals?" he hears himself ask, tongue rolling over the syllables in a way that lets him know he's speaking Florentine-Tuscan.

Nicky and Joe share a look that Desmond registers only distantly, still half stuck in Ezio's baffled confusion.

"I think I remember that happening two or three times, sure. Lots of bodies found their way into those waters," Joe says, and it takes him a moment to parse the words. The language change - Turkish - rattles loose another degree of familiarity.

"Maybe it was Constantinople," Desmond says, thinking of bombs and prison breaks and the fucking politics he never should have gotten involved in.

Fuck. It all seems to come crashing in on him like a wave, then. Overwhelming and indiscernible. Desmond forces it aside, buys himself enough time to drop into the nearest couch, rubbing at his temples and trying to separate the memories into something that makes fucking sense.

"Desmond, are you alright?" Nile asks, and Desmond can't even hear the tone over the mess in his head.

"Yeah," he says anyway, since the alternative is to tell the truth. Ha, no. Not when the truth is that he's trying to put 50 years worth of someone else's memories in some kind of order - without the dubious benefit of an animus.

"Did you guys ever meet Leonardo da Vinci?" Nile's voice breaks his concentration, knocking over the first domino in Desmond house of cards.

"He was a genius of a man," Joe answers, voice hitting all those too familiar notes. "We heard about his exploits and decided we must see for ourselves. So, we made the trip to Venice and tracked him down."

"What was he like?" Nile asks, as Desmond lets his head fall back against the couch, eyes closed. Da Vinci; of course it was Leonardo da Vinci. The details still escape him.

"We do not know," Nicky starts, "when we found him, he told us he was expecting company and to return another time. To our shame, we insisted and his company took exception." The final piece falls into place.

"What did he do?" Nile again, and Desmond's just teetering enough on the edge of Ezio that he forgets himself and answers.

"I stabbed them and left their bodies in the canals," he says, with every bit of Ezio's casual ease.

"What's going on?" Gold asks, which is all it takes for Desmond to drop back into his own fucking head. Fuck.

The other three look over to her, and Desmond takes the opportunity presented to flee to his room, immediately dropping onto the bed like a dead weight.

"I'm worried about Desmond," he hears Nile say and Desmond damn near laughs.

Yeah. Desmond's pretty worried about Desmond too.

Desmond doesn't sleep that night, not willing to risk the dreams; if anyone else tries to cram something new into his head now he's going to go the way of Clay.

Instead, he borrows a notebook from Joe, probably looking a little wild around the edges. Then he finds himself a sturdy feather to sharpen into a makeshift quill, and gathers a handful of items from the kitchen. Alone on top of the water tower, he grinds some spinach into a shot of vodka and pours it through a coffee filter, dipping his feather in the first puddle of liquid while the rest drips through.

Desmond has no idea if it's actually functional as invisible ink, or if it's only his intent to leave a message. Whatever, it worked for Altaïr 800 years ago, it'll work for him now. Eagle Vision lets him see what he's writing well enough, and having it active calms his strung out nerves some.

Then, Desmond begins the task of committing everything he remembers to paper, a new page every decade and written in the language of the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka. Not his wisest move, perhaps, but Connor has been relatively unobtrusive and Desmond would rather the extra layer of secrecy. Hopefully the language use doesn't bring anything new to the fore.

It takes the whole damn night, but by the end of it Desmond feels less out of place in his own skin, less a patchwork quilt made of disparate parts.

Gold announces that it's time to move on at breakfast that day, and then the whole household launches into the process of packing, cleaning and securing the property.

Desmond helps as much as he can, trying not to get in the way of what is clearly a well rehearsed routine. He packs his shit, collects the loose items that have been scattered around and puts them on the dining room table for whoever to grab, and takes over lunch to free up Nicky's time.

After that he feels a bit at loose ends, unsure what to do with himself and feeling like an intruder, a wrench in the well oiled machine. It reminds him of coming into the safehouse in Rome or the rush to escape to Monteriggioni, where he'd always been an outsider to Rebecca and Shaun's well established unit.

Lingering only long enough to clean up the dishes, Desmond retreats to the roof and the clear air with his thoughts.

They're leaving.

Desmond has an opportunity here, and a decision to make. There are Assassin cells crawling across the globe, and twice again as many Templars; Juno is still out there, and the PoE's and he needs to speak with Minerva. It'd be easy enough for him to ditch the Immortals and either go back to the Brotherhood or strike out on his own. He's at a crossroads here, now.

He's spent the last week avoiding thinking about it, just enjoying the limited safety of Gold's safehouse while his head cracked open like an egg. Desmond isn't convinced there's no relation there, either, considering he'd been mostly fine until Madrid. When he first remembered Gold he opened the box on something new from Altaïr, it'd all spiralled out from there.

Gold climbs up to join him after perhaps an hour, sitting down beside him with the same companionable silence as always.

"Assassin," she greets.

"Dhahabi," Desmond answers on automatic, only realising after that it's the first time she's called him that in this lifetime.

"How're you coping?" Gold asks, not quite managing soft but definitely genuine.

"About as well as can be expected, considering the circumstances," Desmond answers with a shrug. The look Gold gives him makes it abundantly clear just how full of shit she thinks he is; Desmond laughs. "No really, all things considered I'm doing pretty damn good; not about to do something suicidally stupid."

"Right, well you let us know if you ever need to talk."

Yeah, Desmond hadn't really expected that to work. Still, he wasn't lying. On a scale of batshit fucking crazy to dead, Desmond's managing to remember who he is, where he is and when he is about 95% of the time. He'll call that a win.

Gold lets the silence settle for a while, let's him think.

"I tried to keep an eye on the Assassins after Altaïr died," she eventually says, "but I lost track of them a few centuries back."

Desmond hums, considering that. "And you what, just gave up?"

"The witch hunts weren't a good time for me. I couldn't be sure the brotherhood survived, and I didn't want to risk getting involved if they did." Fair. The Assassin's make their living by being as difficult to find as possible, and it was nearly not enough as it was. "Do you dream about these two?"

The paper Gold hands over is clearly torn from one of Joe's sketch books, dark pencil lines pressed into the off white page.

His dreams are a fucking mess but yeah, Desmond can pretty conclusively say he recognises them. Quynh he already knows, and he's become familiar enough with the other guy to know he's French and a cynic.

"After the Solar Flare," Desmond says, trying not to lapse into French as his thoughts blend into memory and trying to consider what he's willing to say. "I started dreaming about the six of you. Thought it was just a side effect of everything else and kept running."

"The dreams help us find each other. Immortality can be lonely, otherwise. The man is Booker," Gold explains. "He's exiled for a hundred years. The woman is Quynh. We were found guilty of witchcraft and they dropped her onto the bottom of the sea. Until Nile came along and told us she was still drowning, I thought she'd died down there, after Booker stopped talking about her."

Interesting, but also rather pointless information. When he'd stopped dreaming of Nile after Lisbon and Andy, Nicky and Joe after Madrid he'd figured out the dreams. The information about the witch-hunts and Quynh certainly explains the way she feels in his head, and it's not as though he'd ever actually expected Gold to keep up with the Assassins.

"Why are you telling me this?" Desmond asks, deciding to be blunt about it. If Gold doesn't want to answer, she won't.

"I wanted to explain," she replies, "why I didn't keep up with the Assassins. But I also wanted to say, you're one of us, now, we'll always be here for you."

Okay, sure. Desmond had figured there was a degree of- of team or squad or- or family amongst the Immortals. They hadn't been subtle about it.

Desmond's never managed to be a part of that; not as himself.

"The Assassins were a family, your family. They're still alive, know how to keep a secret, and are already dealing with this Abstergo-Templar business. We can wait for you, if you'd rather be with them."

Desmond lets that sit for a minute, giving it some serious thought, remembering his consideration to ask for a decade to get his head on straight when they first arrived here. He considers the last 6 months he's spent running from everything he's ever known.

"Thanks, Dhahabi," Desmond says eventually, "but... I don't really want anything to do with them." He shrugs. "You still getting into the same kinds of fights as I remember?"

"Yeah," Gold answers, grin suddenly sharp, "got one lined up too."

Desmond snorts. "I hope your plan is a little more in depth than 'walk up and start killing people.'"

"Sometimes I like to blow them up first."

"You haven't changed a god damn bit," Desmond says, shaking his head and trying not to laugh. "Sure, count me in. Not like I've got anything better to do for a while."