Chapter Text
In Another Time
Decemeber 2019
Elijah knew something was happening. His father’s were both in and out of meetings or traveling more than normal. Even Aunt Becca was coming and going more than usual for her. He knew better than to ask, knowing they would tell him what it was time for him to know. So he focused on his junior year of high school, looking after Hope when the adults were busy, and helping with the animals on the farm. His friends thought it was neat that he lived on a historical farm, often wanting to hang there instead of someone else’s house. When the first of them got their licenses his dad instituted a new rule: car keys were left with them. If his dad’s noticed some beer missing from the fridge, they never mentioned. But then when both your dad’s were trained assassins it was just known they knew what was going on and would step in when the situation needed it.
When Hope handed him her favorite stuffed animal, he grinned and scooped both of them up. “You notice that Uncle Bear has seemed a bit more stressed out?” Elijah asked her.
Hope jabbered back as she played with her stuff bear. “You make a very good point,” Elijah informed her as he walked with her to her chair at the table. “Apples or banana?”
Hope pointed to the apple. Grabbing a knife, Elijah sliced up the fruit while Hope talked, half her words were actual words, he grinned at whatever story she was telling him. He heard her excited yell when the back door opened which meant one of the dad’s were home.
“Apples, again?” Shaun asked as he walked to where Elijah was finishing up. “I’ll give it to her. Your dad wants to talk to you.”
Elijah studied his father, for Shaun had adopted him two year prior. “Am I in trouble?”
“Did you run ten miles this morning?” Shaun asked as he handed Hope her snack. “How’s my sweet girl?”
“No,” Elijah answered.
“There’s your answer,” Shaun replied. “Now go so I can enjoy some time with Hope while both you and Des are out of the house. Baby hogs are what your dad and brother are.”
The last part of Shaun’s conversation directed at Hope. Elijah shook his head and headed out of the house. Their house sat toward the edge of the Davenport Estate, allowing them privacy from the working part of the farm. He spotted his dad leaning against the railing of the deck.
“Pop said you wanted to see me,” Elijah said as he pulled his hoodie on. A trait that had Shaun wondering if it was hereditary as both Des and Elijah only wore hoodies in the winters.
“I do,” Desmond said. “Follow me.”
Desmond Miles, head of the Assassin order, father of two, headed off the deck and over to the four wheeler that was waiting for them.
“We going to visit the tribe?” Elijah asked as he took the helmet from his dad.
“No,” Desmond replied. “We’ll be on tribal land.”
Elijah looked at his dad not sure what to think. He didn’t ask any questions as he climbed on behind his dad. Elijah realized that his dad was wearing one of his custom hoodies that Aunt Rebecca got for him. He usually only wore them when he was carrying an artifact with him.
“Where we going?” Elijah asked into the bluetooth headset built into the helmet.
“You’ll see,” Desmond answered.
Elijah knew he wasn’t going to get more out of him. Desmond could be a man of few words. It was pointless to try and dig into where they were going. Instead he decided to pay attention to where they headed. They were on one of the main trails to where most of the tribe lived, he grabbed onto his dad when Desmond took a hard right onto a different trail. Elijah didn’t know this path, he knew it was one that Bear’s guys patrolled often. He had a vague idea of where it headed but had never really asked.
They rode in silence with Desmond following the path. As they went deeper into the forest, Elijah saw the train getting a bit more rocky, there were truck tracks in the trail, and some cabins in the distance. Understanding began to fill him as Desmond navigated them past the cabins. It was only when Desmond was parking the four wheeler that Elijah noticed Bear was there.
“Perimeter is secure,” Bear told Desmond. “Everyone is on alert.”
“You coming in?” Desmond asked him as he took a radio from Bear.
“I’m good,” Bear replied. He had been in enough times to know what the ruins looked like.
Desmond nodded and head toward the smooth section of rock that looked unnatural in the hill formation. Elijah studied it, knowing this was not made by any modern machines.
“I promised you once that I would bring you here,” Desmond stated. Elijah turned and looked at him. “It’s time you see where it really all began.”
“Okay,” Elijah said not sure what to say at all.
Desmond unzipped the hidden compartment in his pocket and pulled out the Apple. He placed it in the notch then stepped back as the doors opened. Over the past years they had done some work on the temple, adding stairs was one of the changes. Instead of navigating the sides of where once a grand stair case had been, metal stairs now brought one down into the temple. Elijah just stared in awe as he followed his dad into one of the Precursor temples. He had only ever been in the one in Masyaf and in Monteriggioni. This was nothing like that. There was an electrical hum that seemed to fill the enormous cavern. Advance structures with blue light running through it stood everywhere.
“This is insane,” Elijah said as he finally stood in the center of the main chamber.
“That was my thought the first time as well,” Desmond admitted. “Becca was in love with the place.”
“And Pop?”
“Was more focused on me not vanishing before his eyes,” Desmond replied. “I don’t think he fully believed I was alive.”
“Because he would voluntarily spend time with Gramps if you weren’t involved,” Elijah joked.
Desmond chuckled at the comment. Bill might have been more family focused but he was still an asshole.
Elijah walked around, running his hands over the pillars and large blocks that had once been used for something. “She was here?”
“Yes,” Desmond said. “We knew she was around, she had been in a few visions. But this is where she really made herself known to all of us.”
“Aunt Becca said she had a thing for you?”
“In a very creepy way,” Desmond said with a shudder. “She would send emails to Shaun telling him that he was not mine. Which needless to say, freaked us all out that this phantom could access our tech.”
“Did you know what Juno would become?” Elijah asked. He saw his dad wince at the name.
“In some sense we did,” Desmond answered. “We knew she was powerful, that she could use technology to move through. Did we know she could possess people, corrupt them like she did? No. We didn’t realize that until Canada and Abstergo Entertainment.”
“She caused the divide,” Elijah said.
“And is still causing it despite being erased from existence.” Desmond agreed. He looked at his son. “Did you know what she was?”
“She creeped me out,” Elijah admitted. He still had nightmares from his time with the Templars, with Juno. “A female that appeared in computer coding was kind of freaky.”
Desmond nodded in agreement. “Yea, I think Shaun had some nightmares for awhile about her haunting him through his laptop.”
“Has he ever been back here?”
“He has,” Desmond said in a neutral tone. The two of them had come back here once Shaun had returned from Canada. Both wanting to come to terms with everything that had happened and with what could have happened. It reaffirmed everything they were to each other when they had come back.
“Just how huge is this place?”
“From what we’ve managed to explore, pretty much the whole mountain with underground tunnels that lead toward the tribe’s village,” Desmond answered. “The tribe has always protected the mountain.”
Desmond headed toward the back of the chamber and waited for Elijah to follow him. He waited for for Elijah to be next to him before Desmond took off the necklace he was wearing. Elijah recognized it and realized where they were going.
Elijah froze for a moment as he watched the door open to reveal the long hallway. He had often wondered about what the place looked like, what it must have been like for his dad to essentially walk to his death. For his family to walk alongside of him not knowing if Trion could keep his promise. The strength it took all of them to walk through the doors and into the unknown.
“You ready?” Desmond asked his son. He saw the fear in his son’s eyes. “It’s going to be okay. I promise you, neither of us are walking to our death.”
“You would know since you’ve done it enough times,” Elijah joked to ease the tension. “Alright, let’s go.”
Desmond went first with Elijah right behind him. Desmond still hated walking down the hallway. It wasn’t so much his own trauma that made this unnerving but knowing what the Templar’s were willing to do to get his DNA for them to dissect that unnerved him. He had long come to terms with his injuries and loss of arm from choosing to activate the artifact. But it was the inhumane action of Abstergo that always brought a wave of unease as Desmond walked down the hallway as if they were going to show up again.
When they entered the room where it all happened he heard Elijah take a deep breath. Desmond gave his son time to take it all in. It was not everyday one came face to face with the place that in a way killed your father. Desmond walked over to the pedestal that still stood from the fateful day.
“This is insane,” Elijah said as he joined his dad.
“It is,” Desmond agreed. He looked at his son. “I brought you here for a few reasons. I wanted you to have the answers to your questions. This is really where it all began, the rebirth of our cause, me finding my path.”
“I’ve seen it in photos, in the images that Juno showed me,” Elijah admitted. “But it’s so surreal to be here. You can still see the charred marks from when you activated the device. I…and you had to do it because she would have found a way no matter what. I think it’s what she never understood about human emotion.”
“What’s that?”
“Well to her emotions were things she could use to twist to fit her needs,” Elijah explained. “You willing to sacrifice yourself, you and Pop loving each other, she would never understand how you would give it up to save others. For her, there was always a way out for her. Writing herself into code, using people to possess, using her obsession with her dead husband, it was all means to an end. An end where she had total control. She couldn’t control you, and she could never understand why.”
“Shaun would say that was my stubbornness,” Desmond replied. “A trait us Miles men have tons of.”
“Is what ever is going on right now coming back to here?” Elijah asked.
Desmond looked at his son then at the contraption that had saved the world, or so they thought. “We are learning that while I saved the world from a catastrophic event, it did not completely keep us out of harms way.”
Desmond walked over to a partially collapsed column and leaned against it. “Isu sites across the world are starting to send out weird pulses,” Desmond began. “There is a whisper being heard from within the animus that Becca and I can’t make out. Bishop has been running everything she can and we can’t make sense of it.”
“What about the virus that is causing parts of Asia to shut down?”
“We don’t know, one theory is the fanatical Templar branch might have unleashed it whether knowingly or unknowingly,” Desmond told him. ‘There are a lot of things that aren’t adding up.”
“Is that why Layla has been in and out lately?”
“She is going to be heading to Canada to take a look at a archaeological dig there that deals with a viking settlement,” Desmond answered. “We think we might get some answers there as there was a similar event around that time from what we learned in Altair’s archives. With a rumor that one of the earlier Assassins, before they were called that, made contact with a Viking colony.”
“Is Pop and Aunt Becca going with her?”
“Not at the start,” Desmond replied. “Bishop will meet up with her. Becca and Shaun want to locate a safe house and get more information on the leads we have before joining her.”
“You won’t be going?”
“No,” Desmond told him. “I’m staying here.”