A/N: This was made for pure enjoyment. The author does not own AC.

Keep the home fires burning
Chapter 1

It was admittedly, a stupid mistake on their part.

He should have been tipped off by the near convenient timing of it all. What were the odds of the Animus blueprints they had been searching for the last two months ending up in the local police precinct? The opportunity had been too good to pass up, especially when the aforementioned plans were scheduled for transit elsewhere for further investigation. As they all knew, the best time for retrieval was in transit. Less security, more external variables. It was easy pickings. It was supposed to be a walk in the park.

That was their first mistake and it had spiraled downhill from there.

All William could remember now was the sharp crack of the glass of his passenger seat window rupturing and the nasty crunch of another vehicle rear-ending him. Everything else had become a blur of colored smoke and pain as the door he'd been in the process of escaping through crushed his leg from the force of a second nondescript van.

William was only absently aware of his team's panicked yells through his earpiece before the fumes building inside his lungs took hold and he fell unconscious with the Abstergo inscribed blueprints scattered on his dashboard laughing at him.

The first thing William became aware of after jolting awake was of the subdued throbbing of his leg. He hissed when he moved the offending limb, hearing the rush of blood in his ears when he straightened up gingerly from his sagging position against the cement wall. It was somewhat difficult to do without the use of his hands, which were handcuffed in front of him. Grimacing, William shifted his arms awkwardly to alleviate the chafing of skin from his bindings.

By his internal clock, it couldn't have been much later than 1 or 2 am. That meant that he must have been unconscious for perhaps six or seven hours. It certainly reflected the extent of swelling of his leg. He took a moment to scan his surroundings, noting the bars lining his cell and from the dim fluorescent lights humming from above, he could make out other cells like his along either wall. The observation that they were vacant made him breath a sigh of relief, glad that his team did not share his fate. Whatever was to come, he doubted it would be good. With the intense swelling of his leg, he knew it to be either broken or fractured, both possibilities making any chance of escape a far off dream. He doubted his captors would kill him (immediately, at least). His only option now was to wait for what the Templars planned for him and bide his time until an opportunity to contact his team presented itself.

He leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes and counting the waves of pain ebbing from his leg to pass the time. His breathing evened though he kept his senses sharp, keeping an open ear for the inevitable footsteps that would signify the arrival of his captors for whatever—

"You look like shit."

William jerked upright, biting off the tail end of a curse when the action jarred his leg. He hadn't heard a thing. The assassin pushed away the pain to glance straight towards his cell door, expecting either his gloating captor or higher clearance Abstergo personnel, but to his surprise, it was neither.

Instead, it was a man in nondescript clothing, standing tall with a hood pulled over his head and obscuring the upper part of his face from William's sight. The man didn't look much more than his late twenties, and though stubble dusted the visible part of his face, the hollowness of his cheeks gave his outward appearance a gaunt and drowsy look. It certainly didn't help that he looked rather unkempt. His hoodie was more gray than white, splotched with what William could only assume was dirt and ash. The black shirt underneath seemed to fair much better at least and if he squinted, he thought he could make out a tribal animal pattern emblazoned on it.

While his clothing aided William's certainty that he wasn't affiliated with Abstergo, (the lack of a triangular logo stitched on the fabric was a dead giveaway) the matter of him being a friend or foe was still left unknown along with his intentions.

He watched, wary and unblinking, as the man unlocked his cell with one swipe of a cardkey before stepping cautiously into his cell. 'Good,' William thought viciously. The man wasn't without some self-preservation. The cell door remained wide open behind him—a fool's mistake— and William idly wondered if he could reach it without passing out from pain.

"I wouldn't try it." The man divulged, drawing William's attention from the cell door to the man as he lowered himself to his haunches. The words sounded more like an admonishment than an actual threat. He gestured at William's leg with a sweep of one gloved hand. "You've fractured it pretty bad."

"Attempted vehicular manslaughter will do that." William said blithely which startled an utterly amused laugh from the other. He caught sight of a pale scar across the man's lip, stretching in time with his chortles.

"A sense of humor? Damn, that's unbelievable." The man chuckled, making William pause oh so slightly at the familiarity coloring the edge of his voice.

"Do I know you?" He asked warily, studying the other shrewdly.

His visitor's humor went wry. "No. I'm just a fellow prisoner here."

A 'fellow prisoner' whom also happened to bypass a master assassin's detection. William tensed slightly when the man's hands disappeared into the pockets of his hoodie, before letting out a small, approving sound when he fished out what looked like a hooked wire. The man gestured at William's bindings, hand outstretched expectantly. "Let's get you out of those."

"How did you escape your cell?" William asked once his savior was studiously working on unlocking the handcuffs.

"Mostly got you to thank for that." His visitor admitted. "They were too busy fussing over what to do with you to pay much attention to me. I nicked their cardkey and here we are."

Lock picking and pick pocketing. What a peculiar skillset. He connected the dots in a heartbeat and asked curiously, "You're a thief?"

The man gave a huff of laughter. "It's hardly something I do for a living."

"Which would be?"

"Mixing cocktails." William wasn't quite sure if he was joking or not when the man cracked a grin.

"Bartenders don't typically end up in places like this." William commented offhandedly. Few landed in holding cells he'd only seen in non-extradition countries.

The man glanced up from his work to cock his head good-humoredly. "Neither do car crash victims."

Well, I'll be. "What's your name?"

His savior smiled grimly, the corner of his scarred lips quirking up as if sharing a sardonic joke and familiar in a way that William couldn't understand. "My name is Seventeen."

William swallowed the instinctive urge to press. Instead, he hummed noncommittally, eyeing 'Seventeen' critically. It was hardly a conventional name, but something told him that perhaps it wasn't far off from Seventeen's identity as it sounded.

Sometimes, that was enough.

The yell of alarm, faint, but audible nonetheless, caused them both to snap their head to attention.

Seventeen cursed. "Well, they've noticed I'm gone." His ministrations to William's handcuffs renewed and a couple seconds later, the satisfying click of freedom filled the cell. William breathed a sigh of relief, rubbing at the chaffed skin.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Seventeen grinned. "But now the hard part." He moved to crouch at William's side. The assassin, understanding what Seventeen meant to do, wordlessly accepted the offered arm, gritting his teeth as excruciatingly, he was brought up to his feet. Seventeen was surprisingly gentle, careful to rise at a slow, steady pace to which William was silently grateful for. The assassin made the mistake of jostling his fractured leg in an attempt to secure his hold around Seventeen's neck, and Seventeen's arm, which had been curled around his waist, held strong until William recovered. As they hobbled out the cell, William gave a guarded look at his new, tentative ally.

Trust wasn't something that William made a habit to give out freely, but strangely enough, there was something unsettlingly familiar about the man that William couldn't instinctually label as 'threat'. He took in the Seventeen's attire again, eyes lingering on the chosen color of his hoodie. Traditional Assassin's white and it wasn't unheard of for assassins to hide in the civilian sector, but it could be coincidence. There was the possibility of Seventeen being merely a civilian, but William was hard pressed to even consider it. The way Seventeen held himself wasn't unpracticed and even as they shuffled along, there was an inherent grace in his careful, measured movements that were unprecedented for a simple bartender.

Not a civilian, William decided. Far from it. What else then, did that leave?

Seventeen made a small noise in the back of his throat and stopped suddenly. William swallowed his question when, following Seventeen's gaze, he saw his possessions, all (save for his handgun which was missing) strewn on the metal table attached to the wall adjacent to his prison room door. Thankfully, they all seemed intact. Even his hidden blade showed no sign of tampering.

He glanced at Seventeen, gauging his reaction to seeing the blade, but was mildly disappointed to see nothing in his countenance that reflected recognition or anything elsewise. He looked rather indifferent, as if seeing a wearable device with a 3-inch retractable blade was no cause of real alarm—or normal.

'Curiouser and curiouser.' He stowed his wallet in the inside of his coat and deftly slipped his blade up his sleeve when Seventeen looked away to glance down the hallway.

"Why are you helping me?" The assassin asked once they were moving and Seventeen once again steadied him from another stumble. "You would have a better chance of fleeing on your own without me slowing you down." It was a legitimate question, and he felt Seventeen stiffen, steps faltering just slightly.

"I couldn't just leave you there." Seventeen answered lamely after a long moment, frustration and something else warring in his voice that the assassin couldn't quite put his finger on. "Blame it on my good conscious, I guess. It wouldn't be the first time I've had to rescue hapless old guys, anyways," he tacked on with an amused snort.

"Playing hero's in your job description?" William raised an eyebrow.

"It's a work in progress. Always wanted to be a hero. Maybe I'll be a bartending superhero that shakes martinis to save the world." Seventeen quipped and it forced an involuntary bark of laughter from William's throat. Once again, Seventeen shot him a startled look, looking rather taken aback before quickly focusing on the task at hand of navigating the halls.

Supported by Seventeen, there was nothing William could do but follow his lead as they made their way through the building, which gradually transitioned from plain cement structures to a more industrialized setting. The area itself, with various messy tables and scrap metal covered daises reminded him of a cross between an office building and a lab.

Now and again, he would hear yelling accompanied by the clamor of heavy feet but by some miracle, they hadn't encountered any resistance despite their slow pace. (Night guards, William could expect in their apparent pseudo prison, but this was well into the area of negligence.) He glanced at Seventeen again when the man paused minutely. It was strange how often Seventeen lingered between forks of corridors, considering each direction with the smallest of frowns before choosing a path of no particular pattern that William could foresee.

"You seem to know your way around pretty well." William observed. A bead of sweat rolled down is temple. Though their pacing was moderate and accommodating to his incapacity, it did not escape the incurred fresh wave of agony up his body for every couple feet traveled.

"It's not as hard as you think." Seventeen replied absently and this time when he raised his head to survey the next fork, William thought he could make out the briefest of glimpses of hazel of Seventeen's eyes. "Reminds me of a less fancy version of Ab—my last apartment."

"Really." William said neutrally, noting the change in word before what Seventeen said fully sunk in. "Wait, what? How does this remind you of an old apartment?"

"Rent was cheap." Seventeen said easily and something akin to bitter amusement crossed his face. "Very cheap. They practically kidnapped me and told me to live there from now on."

William blinked, opening his mouth before closing it just as abruptly. "I see."

Seventeen grinned, but William got the feeling that he was laughing at an inside joke.

"How long have you been here anyways?" The question had been egging him for some time.

"What makes you think I've been here longer than you?" Seventeen queried.

"Your hoodie." William grunted, catching Seventeen's undivided attention. "Friction against the cement would wear down the fabric. Your hoodie is grayed more in the back and is frayed. So, either you make it a habit of wearing the same thing day in day out without wash, or you've been frequenting the ground long enough for it show."

"Wow. That was like something out of Sherlock."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing." Seventeen amended good-naturedly. "But you're right. I've been here a little less than a week."

A sharp intake of breath from Seventeen had William tensing as Seventeen cursed and threw them both around a corner, murmuring apologies under his breath as William hissed.

"Keep quiet." Seventeen warned, and the assassin hardly had a moment to question why when he heard it; the faintest of voices coming down the direction they had been traveling in. William shot a probing look at Seventeen, to which the man ignored pointedly, flattening himself against the wall as much as he could with a wounded assassin draped along his frame.

From footsteps alone, William counted three people in all. The jingling of keys and the slapping of firearm holsters in their sprint marked them as security. One of them had a particularly loud radio that he and Seventeen didn't have to strain to hear. They weren't looking for him and Seventeen, that much was clear. The crackled word of 'intruders' seized William's immediate attention and each subsequent phrase made William want to give an honest laugh of entertainment as Seventeen's eyebrows climbed higher and higher towards his hairline.

"…Friends of yours?" Seventeen questioned, once the three had passed them harmlessly and the radio chatter had become nothing more than a faint echo. He looked more than a little astonished, but then again, William could assume that it was a normal reaction to finding out that some two people had not only disabled the building security system, but also devastated the central data server room worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in patents and data files.

"The best." William attested, grinning viciously. You didn't take one of the Black Hills Assassins' own without receiving retaliation tenfold.

"Let's not keep them waiting then." Seventeen replied and something like nostalgia dusted his tone. "Exit's close."

William breathed easier. Seventeen hadn't been leading him blind then.

However, as all things tended to go, the universe decided to go throw a wrench in the works.

No sooner had they moved more than a couple feet did the very ground rock beneath them, making them both stagger for support. Seventeen took the brunt of their stumble, cushioning William from the wall as the fire alarm screeched above them.

"The hell." Seventeen grunted while William cursed under his breath. He doubted his team was behind whatever that was, but there was no time to think of who or why. With this much ruckus at what William could only assume now was a high profile building, it wouldn't be long before law enforcement arrived with even more unneeded attention. They needed to go, now.

"How far are we from the exit?"

Seventeen clicked his tongue, sweeping his head in that odd surveying manner of his again before jerking his chin forward. "Not far. Next right down that hall in the stairway. It's an emergency exit."

"Perfect, let's go."

With their pace significantly quickened, William caught sight of the emergency exit sign somewhere between the fourth and fifth pulse of pain shooting up his body. He gave an uneven sigh of relief, one part of him glad for escape being within their grasp but another greater part of him agitated and restless about the status of his team. While he and Seventeen had been lucky enough to avoid the bulk of security personnel, he doubted that his team was as fortunate with all the chaos they had caused.

Abruptly, Seventeen stopped and somehow knowing that it was for good reason, William let him tug him a step back just as the door that they had been about to pass by burstopen unexpectedly. The assassin reflexively fingered the releasing mechanism of his hidden blade until he identified exactly whom the person skidding out the door in an angry flourish was.

"—ammit, dammit, dammit, Bill. Of all the goddamn places, where the hell could—" The man's gaze, having first glanced from the direction of the emergency exit whipped at the opposing direction and his angry mutterings died in his throat when his sight settled on the two.

"Hey Gavin." William waved, managing a weak, but utterly relieved grin to which Gavin returned with a wide one of his own.

"Bill!" The lines around Gavin's eyes relaxed. There was the briefest of looks where he took in Seventeen before he gave his attention to William. "Christ, we've been looking all over for you!"

William frowned, a harrowing anxiety returning to him when he realized that there wasn't a second person behind Gavin. "Where's—?!"

"Mama Bear's a floor above us. Hold on." Gavin activated the Plantronic headset in his ear. "Hey—yeah. I found him. We're heading to the stairway now." He bid a quick goodbye before his eyes drifted over to William, wincing sympathetically. "Jesus, they did a number on you." He went to William's free side, hefting the complacent assassin's other arm around his neck.

"Could have been worse." William rebuked. He was lucky not to receive a compound fracture in the ambush. Gavin, of course, took the deflection with a huff of mild irritation.

"Either way,I was expecting to do a lot more rescuing, but I guess we were beat to it." Gavin turned to regard Seventeen, the action much too smooth and his gaze a little too even for it to be casual. "Is it you I have to thank for that?"

Seventeen, whom had been watching the display of camaraderie with a quiet sort of attentiveness, gave a small grin. "Anyone would have done it."

It wasn't the answer Gavin was looking for, but he still smiled cordially, eyes assessing. "You have my thanks, kid."

'Not a Templar.' William signed against Gavin's shoulder. A little tension left his best friend's body at that, but the caution did not leave his face.

It didn't take long to get to the stairwell. Though it had an electronic lock, Seventeen's keycard easily bypassed it and in no time at all, they were met with the footsteps of their final party member.

"Bill! Thank god!" Leaning over the stairway railings, Helena Miles stood in all her harried glory. Her hair was messy, loose from her usual neat braid and there were stress lines down her face, but at the sight of her husband, her expression smoothed.

"Helena." William smiled, glad at seeing her uninjured. She sprinted down the flight of stairs to meet them, eyes scanning them as she did so. It lingered over Seventeen warily before her face pinched at seeing William's state.

"Meet any trouble on your side?" Gavin asked before Helena could fuss over his best friend.

"None. Most were too busy escaping the fire from the higher levels, but I found papers—documents of a project they were working on here." Their attention went to her hand that was patting her satchel where they could see the corners of several shabby manila folders sticking out. "They seem to relate to…our other project." The pause came with a level of propriety that made William suddenly aware that Seventeen had become a rather large elephant in the room, something that he knew his wife would remedy immediately.

He was proven correct when Helena's demeanor shifted effortlessly and she smiled disarmingly at Seventeen, voice adapting a touch of saccharine in the way that she did when on reconnaissance missions for marks. "But enough about that…who is this young man?"

As much as he also wanted to press, they didn't have time for this. William opened his mouth, intent of firmly requesting haste now when he belatedly realized how very still Seventeen's had gone the moment of his wife's arrival. Curiously, and with some amount of trepidation, William turned his head and promptly frowned.

Seventeen was frighteningly pale, mouth parted in a silent gasp that made the hollow of his high cheeks all the more defined. He looked like he was seeing a ghost and his eyes reflected it. They were blown wide, the pupils dilated that let William see that the younger man's eyes weren't really a hazel color after all. They were brighter than that, nearly gold from beneath his hood as Seventeen stared at his wife with a mixture of horrified disbelief and desperate hope.

And then, something about Seventeen suddenly looked so very familiar, like he'd seen those exact eyes among the novices in the training corral or over the dinner table. They reminded him of…of…

"…Desmond?"

The quiet call, inaudible to all but Seventeen brought the man's attention to him for one stunned moment before Seventeen jerked, head shooting up the stairway sharply and before anyone could react, Seventeen moved. He retracted himself from William and struck, his arm extended in a fast motion that all assassins associated with that of a hidden blade kill.

And William cursed him, ashamed at the worry that had churned in his chest and throat thick with betrayal as Gavin gasped in horror too little too late as they helplessly watched Seventeen's hand seize Helena's neck—

William's ears rang.

—and abruptly change its trajectory to Helena's shoulder, shoving her fully bodily right out of the way of a bullet.

"OUT!" Gavin yelled instantly and a short yell of obscenity from above was all the warning they got before the guard fired again.

William was all but carried by Gavin as they ran the last couple meters to the emergency exit. He could hear their pursuer yelling behind them, calling out their location into a radio between successive shots.

When the red door of the emergency exit was finally in sight, Gavin didn't hesitate to slam his free side bodily into it, giving way to the rush of cooled, smoke tainted summer air. Helena and Seventeen followed right behind them, vibrating from adrenaline. He distantly noticed that Seventeen seemed to sag heavily against the door but whether it was due to fear or shock, William couldn't tell. Their getaway van, one that William recognized as the counterpart to the one that had become scrap metal in his capture, was visible and not parked far from their location.

But, as they say: Out of the frying pan and into the fire. In a span of a couple minutes, several things happened at once.

The van failed to start.

The emergency exit door exploded with bodies.

Someone was holding them off to buy them some time.

Through the haze of pain that was rapidly overtaking his vision, William couldn't pinpoint exactly what happened in what order. He could hear coarse Spanish from the driver's seat as the van sputtered frustratingly but his attention was mostly caught by the figure between them and Templar security, counterattacking strikes with a stolen tactical baton while simultaneously disarming and knocking his adversaries out.

For one bleary moment, William thought that it was Gavin out there, but then he realized that it was Gavin's hands trying to haul him into the back of the van and not at the solar plexus of a security guard.

"Helluva fighter, you found, Bill." Gavin grumbled in an attempt of good humor as a body hit the ground. His hand went to his holster. "'Lena, get it running!"

"I'm trying, but the damned thing's—ah!"

The van rumbled to life just as a hole buried itself into the car door. Gavin retaliated with shots of his own, catching one Abstergo guard in the leg and scattering the others.

"Seventeen!" William barked, "Let's go!"

Seventeen dodged out of the way of a tactical baton and if the situation hadn't been so arduous, William would have laughed when Seventeen bent down to collect dirt and throw it into a guard's face.

"I'm pulling the van around!"

"Kid, come on!" Gavin yelled, side door wide open as Helena brought the car parallel to the building. "Kid!"

"Gavin!" Ignoring the protesting of his leg, William shot up and yanked the assassin back, just in the time for a spark to flash where a bullet ricocheted off the edge of the car door and where Gavin's head had been very close to being. William felt for the spare hidden against the van's interior and fired at a guard that was leveling his own firearm towards Seventeen.

"Kid!" "Seventeen!"

"I swear to god, niño, get in the—!"

Something slammed into the van and William had the brief irrational thought of, 'not again' before he saw that it was due to Seventeen.

"Drive." Seventeen grunted, heaving himself inside the van. Gavin barely had time to slide the door close before Helena slammed on the pedal and the source of the car door window's newly acquired hole made itself a new home in the crevice of the van's interior lining.

There was a good moment, only filled by the car engine and the vague sounds of far off sirens, before all three assassins collectively sagged in relief, smiling with varying intensities as they did. Even Seventeen, who was breathless in the corner, shared a weak grin.

Gavin, as expected, was the first to break the ice with an easy laugh. "Jesus kid, where did you learn to fight like that?"

From his vantage point, William saw Seventeen's arms convulse around his middle in what he could only assume was perhaps a defensive gesture. He hoped they weren't spooking the kid.

Seventeen, however, answered easily enough. "Kind of also in my job description." He glanced pointedly at William. "Broke m-my fair share of bar fights."

"Seventeen here is a bartender." William stated as a way of introduction. He stretched his leg out obligingly when prompted and flinched when Gavin made quick work to splint it.

"Some bartender." Gavin acknowledged, eyeing Seventeen appraisingly and up front, Helena gave a nearly inaudible, but tellingly approving hum.

It was no question between the three assassins now that they owed Seventeen. The strange man had not only a direct hand in saving William's neck, but also Helena's. Not to mention that he had essentially held off a pack of guards by himself for their sake—people he didn't even know or even had allegiance too.

At the very least, they owed him a ride home.

But, on the other hand…

Seventeen had nearly all the makings of a good Assassin. He was an ideal candidate.

From the rearview mirror, William saw the same calculating gleam in his eyes reflected in Helena's. From the eager look on Gavin's face, it was obvious that he was all too for it as well.

Well then.

"I recall you saying something about wanting to be a hero." William began and for one odd moment, there was a feeling like pieces coming together. "You… happen to be looking for a job change?"

Background checks would certainly have to be done. There was also the matter of interrogating why Seventeen was even in a Templar den in the first place to settle out, but from there, getting the man into their ranks was no true obstacle.

Assuming, he agreed, at least.

"It's a one-time offer." Gavin added when Seventeen took a tad too long to answer. "Otherwise, if you're not interested, we can drop you off wherever you want to be and…" Gavin trailed off, wondering why Seventeen still wasn't looking at him. Mild annoyance turned into concern when he realized something wasn't quite right. "…Kid, you alright?"

The touch of alarm in Gavin's voice sent warning bells in William's head. He saw Gavin's hand move and barely touch the younger man's shoulder before Seventeen had his wrist in a bruising grip, his head jerking up and body taut like a bowstring to fire.

"Seventeen!" William barked instantly and the reaction was immediate. The vacant look left Seventeen's eyes and he let go of Gavin as if burnt, muttering a shuddering string of apologies in a mismatch of English and…was that Italian?

Seventeen curled into himself. His hand was pressed tightly underneath the fold of his hoodie against his middle and only when William peered closer did he see something leak from the black leather of Seventeen's glove.

Blood.

"Foolish boy!" William hissed angrily and grew angrier by the second when Seventeen merely gave him a semi-sheepish grin at being caught. "Let me see!"

Obediently, Seventeen opened his hand slowly. Through Gavin's cursing, William saw the puddle of blood cupped like a dark pool between his abdomen and hand.

William was past infuriated. Seventeen had been shot and had said nothing?! Did the kid have no self preservation?!

"Why didn't you say something?!" The assassin covered Seventeen's hand and pressed hard against the wound, ignoring the way he grunted at the added pressure.

"I-I didn't think it was that serious." Seventeen mumbled, speech already slurring as Gavin cussed him out and rifled through a med kit. He blinked slowly, eyes wide and stunned as if what was happening fully registered to him. "What a trip…"

"Clinic in four miles." Helena informed them tersely from the frontand William braced himself as they ran over a speed bump more than a little too fast.

Seventeen had the makings of an Assassin, yes, but definitely not the self-preservation of one. What was he, a martyr?

He must have said that out loud because Seventeen shook with mirth, grinning widely at William like he had made the greatest joke in the world.

"Like you wouldn't believe." Seventeen laughed, and even when he passed out minutes later, the sound permeated the entire van until they reached the clinic.

A/N: Reviews/comments are appreciated~

nikaris