Connor did not drink large amounts of alcohol. He had seen what it has done to others, and he knew he cannot hold it well himself- he disliked the way it makes everything blur at the edges. He was an assassin. The world needs to be clear and sharp. There was no room for error in his line of work.

But today, he realized he could use a drink. The world made less sense than it ever did before; at this time a year ago, he never would have believed that other worlds existed. He never would have believed in the pain that could come from visiting them. The lines between reality and dreams were more blurred than ever they had been, and he had a hard time believing that anything he could do would make it worse.

"Worse" had come and gone long ago. He had watched his mother die as a child. Killed first his best friend and then his father with his own hands. And all for what? The empty promises of a voice whose lies had seemed so welcome when he was young. He felt his mouth quirk into a grim smile at the memory- leaving his village for the first time, young and naïve, so blissfully unaware of all the hurt still left for the world to heap upon him.

Well, he had learned.

He considered stopping in at The Mile's End as he passed the inn, but decided against it. The trip in the Aquilla to dispose of the Apple had not been a long one, but it had left him emotionally drained and not in a mood for crowds. Instead, he turned his steps toward the large white house on the hill, the place he still thought of as Achilles's, even though the old man had been dead for years now.

He paused in the doorway, listening to the silence of the building. The house was too large for one person, especially as his duties often took him away from it for long times. Dust clung to every surface, and some of parts had started to fall into disrepair. The house had begun to look much as it had when Connor had first come to live with Achilles. The thought made him even more tired, and slowly he climbed the stairs to his room. A good night's sleep was probably what he needed more than anything else at the moment, even if he knew his dreams would be far from comforting.

-/-

In the middle of the night, he woke. This time, however, it was not the dreams that jolted him from sleep, but a soft sound somewhere below him in the house. It could not be one of the homesteaders- few of them knew exactly what Connor did, but all of them knew better than to enter unannounced in the middle of the night. It could have been one of the assassin recruits- one of them might have come in if they had news they believed warranted it, but none of them were nearby; templars were causing mayhem in the Carolinas, and Connor had sent his men (and Dobby) to deal with it. Unless something had gone horribly wrong on the way and they had been forced to turn around early, they could not have possibly returned already.

That left only strangers; thieves or outlaws who thought they could take what they wanted. Connor swung out of bed on silent feet, grabbed the nearest weapon to hand (his tomahawk), and slipped from the room. Unfortunately for whoever the intruder might be, he was not in a forgiving mood.

A quick examination of the upper floor showed no unwelcome visitors, so Connor hurried down to the ground floor, where he stood in a crouch at the base of the stairs, waiting for the noise to repeat itself before he made his move, but he heard nothing. The thieves might have left already, he thought with a twinge of annoyance. Either that or they had somehow heard him coming and hidden themselves.

Nothing for it; still tense, he slid forward out of his crouch and began a careful examination of the rooms on the ground floor. The first three he checked were empty, and he had nearly resigned himself to the fact that the thieves had gotten away (although he had noticed nothing missing, so if they had noticed him and been scared off, at least they would not profit out of the night), when he came at last to the kitchen and saw the body spread out on the floor there.

He froze, staring at the man; he was in bad shape, breathing shallowly and clearly unconscious. He lay among the ruins of the large table in the middle of the room, as though he had been thrown into it with some violence (but by who? Or what?). That had been the sound that had woken Connor.

Cautiously, and without lowering his weapon, Connor edged closer to examine the man. He was younger than Connor, probably no older than his late twenties, and wore strange clothes, along with a hidden blade strapped to one arm. His hands were both badly burned, and he had more than a few scratches and bruises from his collision with Connor's table, but otherwise he seemed completely unharmed. There was no reason, as far as Connor could see, for him to not be awake.

Instead, he seemed moments away from dying.

All thoughts of violence now abandoned, Connor slid his tomahawk into his belt and knelt to lift the injured man from the floor. Clearly, he had not come to the house to steal, and Connor wanted to know how he had come to be there.

There were only two beds in the house at this point; his own, and the one that had belonged to Achilles. Connor had not been able to bring himself to touch any of the old man's belongings, and he still used his when he was home. He hesitated before bringing the stranger to Achilles's room and laying him out on the long untouched bed.

He hesitated just a moment before leaving the room; the man had been curled up on his side when Connor saw him in the kitchen, as if in feeble protection against some unseen threat. This was the first time Connor had been able to get a good look at his face, and he found that he recognized it.

Amid the many strange things he had seen in the world the apple had created, Connor had been subjected to a series of incredibly lucid memories, mostly moments of his own life he had thought long forgotten. All but one, which had not been a memory of his own, but an image of a man, hands clasped around a glowing sphere, clearly in an incredible amount of pain.

It was this same man who now lay before Connor on Achilles's bed.

The man moaned, a weak sound, and Connor stepped back. Doctor White would need to be called- there was nothing Connor could do for the man. He was a killer, not a healer.

-/-

Desmond woke slowly, slipping in and out of consciousness like a radio trying to tune in on a bad station. More often than not he dreamed. Sometimes he dreamed of Juno, of dying, and of the people he had been tried to save. Sometimes he dreamed of his ancestors. Once, he thought he woke, but found himself looking at a taciturn Connor, leaning against a wall, arms crossed, staring straight at him. Just another dream.

Or so he thought until one day he woke completely. It was as though a switch had been flipped inside his head, and one morning he woke to the sound of birds singing outside.

He hesitated, trying to figure out where he was. A hospital of some kind? Certainly no room he had ever been in before. He sat up, opened his eyes, and nearly fell out of bed. He had been in this room, but never as himself- only in the animus. It was more dirty than it had ever looked in his ancestor's memories, less cared for, older. But still clearly the same place.

"Oh you're awake, are you?" A middle aged woman with a kind face had just come into the room. She smiled at him and Desmond realized he was staring. He'd never seen her before in his life, but he recognized her- again, thanks to the animus. Diana, if he was remembering right.

He felt like puking, and no sooner had he realized it then he was bent over, spewing out he didn't even know what, as he didn't know how long he'd been unconscious. His brain (which seemed to be throwing up the stupidest thoughts possible, possibly in an attempt to avoid facing what was going on around him) pointed out that since the last thing he remembered eating had been in 2012, he'd probably just thrown up something that he hadn't even eaten yet.

Which didn't make it any less gross.

"That's it." Diana carefully maneuvered around the puddle of sick on the floor and started to clean it. "I know it's not a lot of fun but you'll feel better after."

"What year is it?" Desmond asked. "I-" he couldn't keep the panic off his face or out of his voice. Diana, who had looked like she was about to laugh at his question, suddenly seemed concerned.

"1783," she said.

1783. Over two hundred years before he had even been born. He'd known it, obviously- as soon as he'd opened his eyes he'd known when he must be, because he'd been here in 2012, and the house wasn't even standing. It hadn't been there for a very long time. But hearing it was something else.

"I should get the doctor," Diana said, and fled the room before Desmond could say anything else crazy.

-/-

Dr. White came in a few minutes laterr, and Desmond managed to get through the visit without coming off as insane, and also without throwing up again, which was a major plus. There were no questions, which surprised Desmond. No 'where did you come from's or 'what are you doing here's. Nothing more difficult than "What did you do with your hands?"

"Um." Desmond looked down at his hands where they rested on top of the bedsheets. "I burned them," he said.

"Well yes," said the doctor. "But I've never seen burns of that type before."

Desmond only shrugged- he didn't want to talk about it, and wasn't sure he could have explained it even if he wanted to. Dr. White didn't seem satisfied with the answer, but for whatever reason, didn't press it any farther.

"You should be alright," he said after he'd finished looking Desmond over. "Your hands were burned pretty badly, but those should heal as long as you're careful not to move them too much or too soon. To be honest I couldn't have even said what was wrong with you when Connor found you. Now that you're awake, you should be fully recovered in a couple of weeks."

Desmond nodded mutely. And what was he supposed to do then, stuck in a time that was not his own? Somewhere far in the future, whatever assassins remained would be trying to come up with a way to stop Juno before she enslaved the entirety of the human race, and here he was, stuck in 1783.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn't realize Dr. White had left the room until Connor came in. The assassin moved silently, but Desmond had spent weeks in the animus, learning his ancestor inside and out. He stared at Connor, who seemed to be studying Desmond intently. They stayed like that for several tense, silent minutes, neither of them moving or speaking.

Finally, Connor broke the silence. "I have seen you before," he said.

"You have?" How had that even happened? Unless there was some kind of inverse bleeding effect that let a person see their descendants instead of the other way around, Desmond had no explanation. Either that or he really was dead, as Juno had promised, and this was some sort of incredibly twisted afterlife.

Or possibly he had finally snapped and actually gone crazy.

Connor nodded but said no more, clearly waiting for Desmond to offer an explanation. He wished he had one to give. He would have loved to know what was going on. But Connor's relentless stare was starting to unnerve Desmond, and before he knew it he had launched into a long winded explanation- everything that had happened to him since he had first been kidnapped by Abstergo, up to the point when he had released Juno from her prison.

Connor kept his stare steadily on Desmond until he had finished with his story. Then he pulled a chair out from behind a nearby desk and dropped into it, sitting backwards so that his arms were resting on the back. He still said nothing, and finally it got to the point where Desmond couldn't take it anymore. "Well?" he snapped. "Aren't you going to tell me I'm crazy or something?" Part of him almost wished it were true. It would almost be easier if everything he'd said was an elaborate dream he'd had.

"No," said Connor.

"Oh."

"I have seen stranger."

-/-

Connor had no idea what to make of Desmond's story. He would have said it was impossible, except that Desmond's clothes were like nothing he had ever seen, his accent was strange, and he just seemed to believe in it so completely. Then there was Connor's own experience in that other world. It seemed just as crazy as anything Desmond had said.

He related his own story in short sentences, as quickly as he could. He wasn't quite convinced he could trust Desmond, but couldn't deny that telling the story out loud felt like shedding a huge weight. The burden of everything he had seen and done in that other world had been pulling him slowly down, as had the thought that he might be losing his mind.

He finished his story in much less time than Desmond had taken to tell his, and for a very long time they just sat there, two assassins who had seen too much and done too much in exchange for too little. "This place looks... dusty," Desmond said finally. Connor thought he might be looking for something safe to change the subject to.

"I haven't been looking after it much," said Connor. He was more than happy to leave talk of other worlds and impossible futures behind for the moment. "There is too much house here for one person."

Desmond nodded. "It seems too empty." He hesitated, then added, "I was here once. In the future, I mean. The house was gone, but there was a town here. Probably whatever grew out of the homestead here."

Connor wasn't surprised to hear Achilles's house had fallen sometime in the two hundred years between his time and Desmond's; time had a way of doing that. But he liked the thought of the homestead growing and changing and surviving. And of the two, he would rather see the homestead survive than the house. The people of the homestead had families, and children, and maybe someday the children of those children's children would still be in the same place, still forming a community. Connor liked the thought of it.

"What are you going to do now?" Desmond asked.

"Me?" If Connor had been in Desmond's shoes, he would have been more worried about what he was going to do while stuck in a different century.

"I've never really done much with my life," said Desmond. "I thought maybe I'd found something I could do when I got caught up with the assassins again, but-" he shrugged. "Guess that's gone now. I'm used to sort of just wasting my time with not doing very much."

"There are still people out there that will use the people for their own ends if they are allowed to," said Connor. "Templars and people like them." He hadn't given much thought to where he would go next until he said it out loud. But really, he had been an assassin since he was in his teens. What other life could he turn to?

"So you'll protect them." Desmond smiled. "Sort of an eighteenth century Batman."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"And you?"

"Maybe I'll stay," said Desmond. "There's got to be enough assholes out there for both of us." Connor nodded, and Desmond added, "Just as long as this doesn't make me Robin."

"What."

-/-

So... this was going to be a five hundred word drabble. And then I wrote more, and it was going to be ~4k, and then Desmond went and made that Batman and Robin comparison and whoops I had to end it there before this turned into Assassin's Justice Leauge. Assassin's Leauge? I don't know. But come on, can't you just picture Connor walking around in a Batman outfit? He's got the glower down already.