la belle dame sans regrets

[lucre]

Who: Lucrezia and Ezio (and Cassandra)
What: misery and heartbreak after this tragedy
When: Feb. 25
Where: Castle hallway
Rating: PG-13

Regret feels like a heavy hook latched to her chest with an oppressive burden bearing down against her heart, making it hard to breathe or think of anything other than how heavy it feels.

Lucrezia thinks she hasn't moved a muscle for hours and hours, so much so that her tears have dried and that her legs have probably forgotten how to even stand. Her friend resting on her lap is heavier than she ever was in life, but her limbs still feel warm in her arms. Maybe she can just stay here for those entire two weeks, a month, a year if need be. But this is no respect worthy of Cass, lying in a pool of her own blood with her neck torn open. She must be dressed, honored, taken care of by those more worthy than herself.

She takes great effort to reach for the journal dropped some ways from them, unwilling to move her friend's body more than she needs to. There is little to be said anyway, once the book is open. Just a familiar name (Ezio, for now there is another Auditore) and an invitation (Come to my room. In the castle). Her door is only a few steps ahead from where she sits now. They could have reached sanctuary. They could have.

Comments

[assassino]

Ezio has been busy, this past week –– fielding new arrivals to their numbers, adjusting to his father's presence, getting re-acquainted with his father, easing into a new relationship with Cassandra. It's all kept him on the move, and he's always been the sort to feel best when he's surrounded by people.

In a spare moment between conversations with his kith and kin, he flips through the journal for any new notices, and of course, he spies the filter.

Picking the book up, he replies verbally:

"That's not an invitation I've heard in a while, but I will gladly entertain it."

[lucre]

Even time seems to move strangely to her. His reply seems to come immediately or maybe hours after, she can't quite decide, but his voice brings her comfort. It's like hearing the voice of another human being after being trapped so long in a place where dark thoughts are her only company. Her voice is level and calm, though hoarse around the edges.

"Meet me now." It doesn't matter to her if he's entertaining his father now (or if he's having audience with the Pope himself). She needs him now, now.

[assassino]

Ezio frowns. There's something in her tone that puts him on edge, lights up the sense in him that is always looking for signs of trouble. While he always wears his wrist blades, he pauses to slip a knife into his belt just in case.

"I will be down in a moment, then." He has to stifle a yawn, and then he continues: "What brought you up the hill? I do not often see you here."

He walks towards the door as he talks. He'll set the journal down when he gets an answer.

[lucre]

If Lucrezia had ever wanted to set a trap for him, an invitation to her bed would probably work too well for a bait. The thought has her feeling a pang of guilt. It's improper, poorly timed, though it still has her guessing. Was it really him then? He would be among the last on the list of people she would call for help, but she doesn't dare face Stephanie, let alone Tim, and her state of mind would only harm Joshua. She has no other to trust. Auditore, strangely enough, occupies a place she can't name and no other can replace.

"The Lady Death." She has always had a terrible sense of humor.

[assassino]

He pauses, thumbing the edge of the page.

He and Lucrezia have a strange relationship these days, though it was certainly never normal. Ezio imagines he should stop to think about this, to puzzle out what she means or ask more questions, but he just doesn't see a point. She could be Lady Death and he still wouldn't feel threatened by her, a little girl with an unfortunate bloodline who thinks herself a lot tougher than she is.

Time with Caterina has told him a lot about the Borgias, things a courtier would know.

"Of course," he replies, closing the journal and setting it down. He lets himself out of his apartment and heads for the stairs, taking them at a brisk pace.

And then he rounds the corner out the stairwell and sees Lucrezia slumped over a body.

[lucre]

She is Lady Death. It doesn't matter really that it wasn't her hand that pulled the trigger or stabbed her neck. She thinks the reaper probably had to do none of the dirty work either. It doesn't absolve her of any of this.

But Lucrezia is the very picture of serenity even amid all the mess; the shotgun on the floor between them and Ezio, Joel's blood and Cassandra's smudged and splattered about the place. Her dress may have been emerald green once. Ezio is only met with a vacant look once he is close enough for her to notice his footsteps. For a moment she forgets why she called him here, aside from company. Someone with whom to share the load.

"You knew her." With an unspoken do you?

[assassino]

Ezio approaches without much fear or falter –– after all, bodies are nothing new to him. Nor is treading through blood, nor are the vacant looks of those who have seen death.

It's the identity of the dead which gives him pause, and as soon as he sees Cassandra's face, he feels numbed: his mind runs over the last time her saw her alive (the way the corners of her mouth look when she smiles and how he'd placed a kiss right there) and the disembodied feeling of the moment not being real and the high of the banter they'd shared just that morning vanishing in a way that leaves him feeling cold, missing something. Who is this body, who could not be the woman he'd woken up by nudging her cheek with his nose? It couldn't be her, not when she moved and laughed and chatted with him about little things so effortlessly, not when Cassandra isn't (wasn't?) a still body soaked with blood, neck "popped" and chest oozing...

God, to be so calm in the face of this. There was a reason he never saw Molotov's body, a reason he did not involve himself in such things.

"I did," Ezio replies, a little slow. He lowers himself to kneel by Lucrezia's side, and forces himself to take stock like a good Assassin, noting injuries, the discarded weapons, the blood on Lucrezia. And then, with only a touch more emotion, thinly veiled sense of injustice: "What happened?"

[lucre]

Lucrezia notes how her hand shakes once she braves herself to let go of Cassandra's arm. It feels like tearing off her own limb. She sits up straighter, leaning away from the body to let Ezio examine her better, less out of any hope that he can fix anything and more due to utter defeat.

There's no use in resisting when she feels so tired that the very act of drawing air into her lungs feels like a chore. It's familiar. Once she thought one could only feel grief so many times before one is numbed to it.

Joel, she thinks. His name was Joel, who said he would join her for dinner just so she wouldn't be alone. The man pointing a gun at them for no reason. Nothing makes sense. She couldn't grieve alone before, when there was only keeping Cassandra warm as her purpose, but it's only with him here that she starts weeping. Heaving sobs and tears barely washing away the blood stains on her cheeks. There's nothing pretty about it. She only says I am to blame and She said she would not die, even if Joel, Joel, would have been much easier to utter.

[assassino]

It feels strange to see Lucrezia so choked up over Cassandra, but then again, Ezio dully figures that he'd never seen them together before. Bizarre. He's so out of touch, it seems. It feels stranger, too, to offer comfort to someone he's had such terrible tension with, but Ezio is nothing if not sympathetic to those in grief. It's the terrible irony of being a bringer of death, a political agent from the shadows –– you bring grief to prevent grief, and that's the tragedy of it all.

Still, he reaches to put an arm around Lucrezia, to pull her closer to him.

"Bambina," he says, quietly. He feels exhausted. "Shh. Come here."

[lucre]

Ezio knew her from when she was just a child, when she was less afraid of seeming weak or breaking down in tears. It's strange how easily she finds herself falling back into it, desperately grabbing for his shirt and burying her face in his shoulder to stifle her own sobs. To think, it is in front of the one she calls her enemy that she can find herself letting down her guard. If he had been someone else, if she was no Borgia, how different everything would have been.

Lucrezia takes a deep breath so she can finish an entire sentence without hiccuping. "I cannot carry her."

[assassino]

He lets her sob, lets her have her hysterics while he stares blankly ahead of himself and tries to think. He should go after whoever did this, he should make things right, he should do a lot of things, but he cannot leave Cassandra no more than Lucrezia apparently could.

He'll call James and Edward, he thinks. Connor is too emotional to deal with the death of a friend right now, he thinks, so Connor will have to wait. And while they tend to finding the perpetrator, he'll deal with Cassandra's body, do what Lucrezia cannot.

He'll face Stephanie and Tim.

"I will take her," he says, absently. He shifts to cup her cheek, to run the pad of his thumb just below her eye and brush away a stray tear. She looks like such a mess. "Go to your room and fetch a blanket. Can you do that?"

[lucre]

It's company she needs, and guidance. Someone to tell her what she must do now that she has caused her friend's death and what should be done with the body. There was always someone else taking care of the details for her while she, yes, launches into the hysterics that she does so well.

His request keeps her grounded. If she can simply keep herself breathing between her choked sobs and fetch that blanket, she can fix this. Somehow. She nods a few times, reaching to hold the hand resting on her cheek for a moment to draw strength from him. He is strong, isn't he? Always has been. Then she drops her gaze to Cass, her face paler than it had ever been. She doesn't even look like her anymore. She's uneager to let go but wishes Ezio would take the body from her, so she doesn't have to be the one to give it up.

"Only a blanket?"

[assassino]

"Yes, darling, just a blanket," he replies.

It's to wrap Cassandra in, of course, because he won't be seen walking through the halls with a body, lest everyone else around him fall to hysterics. He doesn't have the energy to explain it, doesn't have the energy to be anchor to the public, not when he has to press his own grief down so he can be there for Stephanie.

He lets his hand slide from her face, and he momentarily clasps her hand between his. She needs thicker skin.

[secondchances]

Stephanie's spent the last however long dozing on the sofa. She has no idea where Cass is, no idea where Tim is, and that's fine because all she wants to do is enjoy her quality time with her pillows and said sofa, and now Ace has his big head resting on her lap and it's pretty cozy. She's about to drift off when she hears a knock at the door.

They don't get many visitors, so she guesses that maybe it's Ezio, or maybe it's Cass. Or Cass and Ezio, who knows.

Yawning, Steph gently nudges Ace aside and opens the door.

It sucks to be right, sometimes.

Stephanie stares at Ezio, and at the covered figure in his arms.

"What..."

[assassino]

For an instant, Ezio feels like all the breath has been knocked out of him, but then the mindset of the Assassin kicks in. He's done this before, bringing bodies to loved ones, because it's what he would want for himself if there was another time where he had heard of his father and brothers' deaths and almost lost the opportunity to see them off to the next world.

But still, it's personal this time. His heart aches a little for her, and for himself.

"Stephanie," he says, perhaps a little too formally, too stiffly. "There was a fight at the castle."

A pause.

"Cassandra is dead."

[secondchances]

She's moving back until her thigh bumps into the end table by the sofa, sending a few pens clattering to the floor. She stares at Ezio, and at the wrapped body in his arms. Cass is dead. There was a fight in the castle. Cassandra is dead. She wasn't there.

Cass is dead.

"Oh. "

She feels like there's no air in the room. How? Who? Where was--

"Ezio--" She motions him inside, staying where she is. The body. Cass. It has to be placed somewhere. Where is she going to place her best friend's body? She has to tell Tim. Cass is dead.

Stephanie goes white as a sheet and has to sit on the table she knocked into.

[assassino]

Ezio holds Stephanie's gaze for a moment, and then he looks ahead of him to move past her. He keeps going right to Cassandra's room, to lay her down on her bed –– it's the only place that really makes sense. He sets her body down with care, and then turns back to look at Steph.

Care must be given to the living more than the dead.

"Stephanie," he repeats, quieter.

He's not sure what to say.

[secondchances]

She takes a few steps after him, looking like a lost child unsure of where to go. Does she look at the body? Does she want to? She feels sick, sweaty.

"What happened?"

Why was Cass dead?

[assassino]

Ezio extends a hand to her, unsure if she wants to be held.

"A man with a gun attacked her and Lucrezia. He intended to kill them both, but Cassandra did not allow it. She drove him off."

[secondchances]

God. Fuck this place. Of course, while Steph was snoozing and trying to not think about how awkward things were with Cass, she gets killed.

Steph can't remember ever crying in front of Ezio. Misty eyes, sure, but nothing like the quiet tears that wet her cheeks as she presses herself into his chest. Cass is dead and she feels a lot of ugly things but one of them sticks out amongst the anger, guilt, and sadness.

Fear.

What if she doesn't come back?

[assassino]

He wraps his arms around her tightly. What a miserable circumstance. One hand goes to the back of her head, almost cradling her, and he buries his nose in her hair.

"Shh," he whispers, just to be soothing.

[secondchances]

"Ezio," she cries, arms around him just as tightly. She can't even begin to explain, so she just lets herself cry until she can manage some more words.

"What if--"

[assassino]

Ezio waits, patient as ever; she's comforted him enough that it's the least he can do.

"That will not happen," he says, before she can finish. "Cassandra will return."

[secondchances]

She doesn't want to think about how much more terrible this would be without Ezio. And, as if it's just occurred to her, she pushes herself back, keeping her hands on his forearms.

"Are you okay? Were you hurt?"

Steph doesn't know his involvement, but some sick part of her wishes there were injuries to fix up. Something else to focus on.

[assassino]

Without a word, Ezio shakes his head. He wonders what might have happened if Lucrezia had not summoned him, how Stephanie might have found out, how Lucrezia might have let her known. And if Lucrezia had been killed too, who would have happened across them?

What at terrible thought.

Save the small spots blood on his sleeves that had seeped through Lucrezia's red blankets from Cassandra's body, where her weight had rested against him, he is completely unmarked. The black of his doublet hides the rest.

"I was called to collect her. I intend to find the man who did this, so that justice may be served."