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Icy, filthy water flooded his nostrils and Etahn Frye sat up sputtering, trying too late and in vain to hat the liquid deluge.
“Wh-whaaatchaa doing!?!”
“Getting you up,” a familiar voice drawled.
Ethan squinted against the blazing light. “George?”
“Who else?” his friend replied, tossing the worn bucket aside. As the metal hit the stone floor, Ethan was abruptly reminded of the rest of his senses. His head cracked open in pain, and he lurched only for the sudden movement to trigger his stomach. The man only had the a split second before he released the contents of his gut all over his best friend’s shoes.
“Sorry about that.” His head was still feeling like he smashed it repeatedly into a wall, but he was coherent enough to feel the guilt of actions.
“It’s fine, Ethan,” George sighed, shifting his friend’s arm over his shoulder as he guided the hungover man down a side-ally. They both reeked of liquor and vomit and were such a sight that George knew tongues would wag despite his best efforts to keep them from the sight of early morning crowd.
Ethan closed his eyes, partly because his own movement was likely to make him sick again, but mostly out of shame and guilt. George’s sigh was one he heard far too often, and conveyed all the things the quiet, cautious man was loathe to say aloud: disappointment, frustration, sadness, pity.
They’d once been colleagues, now he was just a liability.
“I am. Sorry.”
“Ethan, it’s—”
“Not for the, umph, shoe. Shoes.”
George stayed quiet, and Ethan tried to fill the silence, tried to explain.
“It was their day, George.”
They stopped, and Ethan was leaned against a wall. He felt George patting at his pockets before a jingle of keys announced a successful find. A lock rattled and clicked and Ethan was gently pulled up again and guided up a step. The familiar coolness of shadow washed over his face, and he dared crack open his eyes to see the familiar, bare settings of his home.
George practically carried him up the stairs, as his sore, aching head and body continued to fail to implement it’s previous decades of ingrained agility. After what seemed an age, he was laid upon soft bedding, and he started to sink into the beckoning oblivion when he felt tugging at his clothing. He groaned, but clumsily tried to help remove his soiled clothing.
An eternity of effort eventually freed him of his cloth prison, and he settled back, exhausted. He felt George slip off his shoes, then the weight as the blanket was settled over him. Footsteps faded then returned and a cold clothe settled on his head, providing an icy, soothing alleviation to the burning, spiking pain in his skull. The cool ceramic of a mug was pressed against his chapped lips, and he greedily slurped down a few gulps of water, before his energy faltered again.
He heard George start to walk away, and he couldn’t help repeating himself.
“’Was their day, George.”
The footsteps paused. Then, that sigh.
“I know Ethan.”
The door closed with a quiet click, and Ethan let himself be reunited with Morpheus.
The thunder as church bells struck four roused him, and he was pleased to be able to sit up without too much pain or nausea. A full mug sat on his bedside table, and he gratefully chugged the lukewarm water.
Downstairs, he heard bustling in the kitchen, and his suspicions were confirmed when he discovered George stirring a pot at the stove. The scent of porridge made his stomach purr, and George looked over with a smirk, respectfully ignoring (in the manner of Assassins) that he’d heard Ethan the moment he got out of bed. “Hungry, I hear.”
“Aye.” Ethan wobbled outside, relived himself, and returned to collapse at the table just as his friend slid a bowl of steaming food in front of him. “My thanks.”
“Of course.” The tension was back in George’s voice, but Ethan chose to ignore it in favor of devouring his meal.
As he shoveled his food, his eyes picked up several details. The dishes were washed and gleaming, the pantries and floor scrubbed clean of dust, thrown food and liquor and other nasty stains. The windows had been thrown open and he caught the glimpse of several garments, no doubt freshly laundered, fluttering on the line outside.
George had always been a bit of a housewife. And like any good housewife, he was gearing up to tear Ethan a new one.
He tried to draw out his meal, hoping fruitlessly to stave off the coming conversation. George knew him too well, though. “You know what I’m going to say Ethan.”
“Indeed,” he grunted in response. “So there’s no need to say it again.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You were never one to beg.”
“You can’t keep doing this–“
“You’ll have to be more specific–“
“The Council–“
“Has no say in what I do–“
“Damn it, Ethan!” George roared, slamming his palm upon the table. “Do you want to die?”
Ethan snarled. “Don’t ask obvious questions, George.”
The kitchen descended into silence as Ethan swallowed the last of his meal and stood to dump it in the sink. He leaned against the edge, staring unseeingly into the murky water.
After a moment, George spoke up. “It wasn’t your–“
“Spare me.”
“It wasn’t!”
“It was!” Ethan whirled to glare at his old friend. “I abandoned my children, George! I ran off because I was too weak to be a father. I traipsed off to another damn continent, George. I practically raised another man’s boy while my own children were orphaned .”
Ethan collapsed back into his seat, head in his hands, his outburst flaring up his headache. “I fear the afterlife as much as I find myself craving it, George.” He looked up at his silent friend and blinked, confused at the blurriness of his vision. Oh. He was crying.
Damned liquor.
“How can I face her, George, in the end? My children are dead . Her children are dead.”
“You don’t know that, Ethan…”
Ethan barked a broken laugh, the humor completely devoid from it’s tones. “Oh, yes. Perhaps they were sold off on the street or shipped off to the Indies. Truly a better fate.”
George could see his friend was sliding back into his constant pit of depression and wisely switched tracks. “You got a letter.”
“ I don’t care about the Council –“
“It’s from the Ghost.”
Ethan jerked, staring at George in astonishment. “Jayadeep?” he croaked after a moment. “He sent–How? He’s not allowed…”
“I have not read the contents.” George removed the letter from his coat and slid it across the cracked table. “But if he’s taking the risk…”
Ethan caught the letter and sliced it open with knife that hadn’t seen nearly the action it should have at his age and technical profession. George stood to heat the kettle as Ethan poured over the message, deciphering what was and wasn’t said in his former protégé’s code and doublespeak.
“I’ll assume it’s not good news, then?” Gorge set two steaming cups on the table and helped himself to an apple from the fruit bowl.
Ethan slid the letter over, his face set in a heavy frown. “He calls for aid in defense of London.”
“Defense?” George began to scan the parchment. “We don’t have a defense.”
“Precisely the problem.”
“The Templars have always held the city,” is George’s grim response.
And it’s true. There’s a part of Ethan, the part of him that still holds true to the burden and honor of the Creed, that snarls at that bitter truth. The sky is blue and the heart of Britain is held by their ancient enemy. A fact simple and undeniable.
George folded the letter and set it aside. “We may need to petition to have young Jayadeep removed from the city, for his own safety. If what he says is true, the Grandmaster’s hold may grow too tight fo him to escape from unscathed.”
Ethan was aghast. “We need to retain eyes in the city!”
“We?”
Ethan scowled, and George’s voice gentled. “London is soon to be a lost cause, unless the Council’s silence hides a Hail Mary. And if they’ve truly neglected to respond in any way to Jayadeep’s pleas, then we have to assume they intend to write the city off.”
Ethan stood and began to pace. “If London truly falls then everything we’ve worked for, everything we’ve done, every life we’ve extinguished in the name of liberty…it’ll all be for naught. Whoso ever controls London, controls the world.”
George shook his head. “There’s nothing to be done.”
And in that moment, Ethan was struck with an idea. It was stupid and suicidal and just may be the most brilliant plan he’d ever had. “I will go.”
“Wh–Go? Go where?”
“To London, of course,” Ethan strode up the stair, barging into his room, and searching for his long-neglected knapsack.
George hurried after him. “You can’t go to the city. The Council expressly forbade–“
“–what the Council doesn’t know wont’s hurt them–“
“–any operations within the city–“
“–and what I do is hardly their concern anymore–“
“This will kill you Ethan!” George erupted for the second time that day.
Ethan looks at him, and George is struck by the clear, calm determination shining in his old friend’s eyes. Such clarity he hasn’t seen in over a decade.
“You said it yourself George,” he retorts, low and intense. “I’m one foot in the grave as I am now. This is my chance for redemption. For honor.”
He threw some weapons in his pack and several changes of clothes, his shaving kit, his money pouch.
“I need to do this, George. I’ve smeared every name and title I’ve ever held: Master Assassin, husband, father. This is my chance to do one thing right .”
The last train to London from Crawley departed an hour or so later. Despite his physical inactivity, Ethan found it easy to hop onto an empty and open train car. He settled as the train began to pick up speed, looking at the train station he’d known for the last decade began to slide by.
This was what he had to do. He knew that now. He would see London freed or die trying. And if he had to do it alone, then so–
A dark blur jumped through the open door, moments before the station disappeared completely, and Ethan scrambled to his feet as the blur revealed itself to one scowling George.
“This is ridiculous,” the man declared, tossing his own satchel to the car floor and throwing himself after it, arms crossed petulantly.
Ethan, for the first time in a decade, laughed, loud and clear and free. “Onward, old boy! To London!”