Untold Love:

Back with a new story. I hope you all like this one. I recently picked up a copy of Assassins Creed: Rogue not to long back, and besides the short length of the actual campaign, I loved it. The story of course being something I latched onto. Ubisoft, ya did a good job there. But what really caught my eye was the interactions between Shay, the protagonist, and a character named Hope Jensen. I dunno bout anyone else, but I felt there definitely a level of attraction between the pair. Their relationship seeming friendly, but just that little bit flirty.

So I thought, lets write a story. Fair warning, there be some rather major spoilers ahead for AC: Rogue. So if ya ain't played the game, ya may wanna skip this till you caught up. You have been warned. Ya played the game now. Great. Hope you enjoy the story.

See what I did there. I am so sorry about that joke.

FYI, the story is mostly made up, as I seriously doubt a scene like this legitimately happened. But Hope's fate in the game itself is real.

Shay was about to walk away. He had already turned his back on the body behind him. The body of the woman he loved. His head was buzzing, and his body itself seemed to be on auto-pilot. What had he just done?

Hope lay there on the ground dead. A cut in her stomach from where his blade struck.

Shay was having a hard time believing himself. The further he delved into Templar affairs, the more he questioned things. He hadn't abandoned the Assassins to fight them. No. He had abandoned them in an attempt to save lives. To prevent the Lisbon disaster from ever happening again.

But this was not what he wanted. To turn his blade against his former brothers. To strike them down. He questioned his past choices. Perhaps if he had been more reasonable and level headed when confronting Achilles, things could have been difficult. He wouldn't be here now, in New York, having just finished the life of Hope Jensen.

She was many things to him. She had taught him some of the skills assassins used on a daily basis. How to fight and strike down opponents. How to assassinate in multiple ways.

But a teacher was not what he saw her as. He saw her as beautiful woman. He had never quite realised it until now just what his feelings were for her. He always knew his feelings were a bit more than platonic. But he knew now.

Love was what he felt for her.

He thought about things in his head for a while. Questioned whether it would be safe to do what he was thinking.

A look of steely determination donned the Irishman's face. He turned round and scooped up Hope's body, and carried her bridal style back towards her New York mansion. For most he just slung them over his shoulder and just meandered on to wherever he might take them. But not this time. This time he would show more respect.

Thankfully it was night time, so most ordinary citizens were asleep, making it easy to cross New York without anyone running or crying for the guards. However as he neared the mansion Hope resided in, he knew caution would be necessary. Assassins would no doubt be patrolling the perimeter. Some likely waiting for their boss' return.

Shay snuck round the outer walls, and utilised his Eagle Vision to scan for Assassins. Some were hidden in the bushes. He approached the back gate, and carefully lowered Hope's body to the ground, before removing his air rifle from the holster on his back. He recalled where the Assassins were hidden and took aim with the silent gun. He fired off several sleeping darts.

No more needed to die tonight, he thought to himself. Returning the weapon to his back, he picked up Hope again and pressed on. He walked round the back and carefully snuck around the mansion, silently dispatching more assassins as necessary.

He made it to the door of the mansion. He searched Hope's pockets and found some key's. He picked a random one and inserted it into the lock and twisted. The door made a satisfying click and he pushed it open. He peeked round the corner, having picked Hope back up, and checked for any assassins, once again using his Eagle Vision.

Nothing.

He entered the mansion and the door slowly swung shut behind him. Shay had visited the place very rarely, 3 times at most before now. So he had an idea as to where everything was. But he still found the place somewhat imposing, despite it looking homely enough. Shay approached Hope's room and pushed the door open with his foot. He took the woman and laid her down on her bed. Her final rest.

A small tear escaped Shay's eye. He looked down at Hope and repeated the words he said when he first ended her life.

"Hope, I didn't want to do this."

Another tear.

He knew weeping would do little now. What was done was done. And there was no way he could change things. However much he might try.

Hope's room was well furnished. Running the gangs clearly paid off. The bed itself was made of the finest oak, polished to a shine. The mattress springy yet comfortable. Silk sheets with fine blankets sat above the mattress. Feather pillows lay at the end. Hope's head rested on these pillows, her dark auburn hair spread across it slightly. Shay had to admit she looked just a bit peaceful. If someone didn't pay enough attention they might have thought she was sleeping.

If only that were the case.

The rest of the room was of course well furnished. A desk sat against the wall opposite the door. A window in front of it. A bookshelf beside it. There were a few scattered papers on the desks. They contained a few symbols and numbers. Financial documents.

Hope was always a well organised woman. She liked things neat and tidy and kept a close watch over every aspect of her work, to maintain efficiency. Whilst some might have thought of her as a bit of a bossy woman, or uptight and to strict, in reality she was good humoured. She even made jokes saying they should add organisation as a fourth tenet to The Creed. Likely due to how scattered some of her gang members were.

Shay crossed the short distance between the bed. The desk had two drawers. Both locked. Shay looked behind him, checked to ensure none of Hope's thugs had come looking. He then used the same trick as back at the Homestead to prise open the drawer. He pulled it out slightly, before forcing his blade between the slither of a crack and wrenching the thing open. Perhaps just using the keys would have been better. But it mattered little now to the Templar.

He found a book detailing all of the gangs past financial records, and a few letters of correspondence between Hope and a few of the other Assassins. Shay checked the second drawer and once again used his blade to crack it open. What he found this time was not in the slightest what he expected.

He found an average sized book. Bound in fine leather, with intricate designs sprawling the spine of the book. Said intricate designs also appeared on the front, and both did more than add a fine finish of Gold in the otherwise somewhat plain style of the book. Both spelt a single word.

Diary.

Shay had to admit, Hope never struck him as the kind to keep a diary. He opened it to the first page, and read in his head "Diary of Hope Alice Jensen."

Alice. The name felt foreign on his tongue. He never knew of what he presumed to be her middle name. He pocketed the journal, deciding now was not the time to read. He questioned whether he should even take the thing. It was Hope's. Whilst he never kept a diary or journal himself, seeing it as an unnecessary endeavour, the Irishman recognised how important keeping one could be to others. Even his friend Liam kept on at some point.

Former… friend, he reminded himself. So he respected others privacy. Well, except Liam's. Whilst he had actually managed to read it and found nothing particularly embarrassing to his friend in there, he and Liam had had their little arguments with each other over about Shay's attempts at reading it. Shay had questioned why he tried stopping him from reading it. He was curious as there didn't seem to be any sensitive topics in there, and they were the best of friends. Shay's mind thought back to the day he tried reading the diary in its entirety.

As it transpires, what was in there was not embarrassing to Liam, but to Shay. Whilst most entrances were generic things, detailing some of the tasks Liam completed throughout the day, some were stories of incidents that happened to Shay. One log was off when Shay had been wandering through the town square with Liam in the late evening, having just gotten out of a scrape with some thugs. Unfortunately, the boy had used his belt to defend himself and in the process the thing was stolen. He thought he'd be okay walking without it, but his trousers and gravity disagreed and feel down during the walk home. Thankfully nobody was around to notice except Liam, but the boy was still embarrassed, his face flushing red.

Shay had fled with the diary attempting to destroy it. And only returned it to Liam when he threatening to tell the other Assassins about some of the times Shay had accidentally embarrassed himself.

Shay's mind returned to the present. He looked back at the diary in his hand. His curiosity overpowered him, and he stowed the thing in his Templar uniform. He then went toward the door and into the hall, and made his way out the mansion and left the grounds.

Later that night

Shay returned to his base in New York. Since driving out the gang that operated there previously, he had been residing in the large house. He had made a few small changes to the place too better suit him. Such as removing the gallows at the front of the place and adding a large pair of metal gates to help keep out unwanted visitors a tad better. He had also added a small swing set by the large wall. He had to admit he found it a tad comforting, and even had sat out there and read a book whenever he was able to relax. He approached the swing set and sat down. He pulled out Hope's journal that he had inside his uniform. His finger traced the words diary, stitched into it in fine gold silk.

He then opened the book, and without much preamble, began to read. And the more he read, the worse he began to feel.

Whilst some were just generic entries about this and that, some surprised or even outright shocked him. Some were of her thoughts after he left. Making reference to how she had apparently missed him. She spoke of his wit, and his jokes. How awful she felt when she watched him fall off that cliff. One of her mentions was even of how she couldn't help but feel a slight amount of joy at learning of his survival, which was promptly squashed by pain at learning he had joined the Templar ranks.

Her final entry was dated the day before now. It was brief and short, and read:

"So I've heard Shay is coming to New York. No doubt he is coming for me. I had prayed it wouldn't be this way. Should I try convince him? Is it worth is, or is he a lost cause? I truly pray to the skies and back that things won't go the way I expect them to. I don't want to have too fight him. Not Shay. Any other Templar and I would welcome him.

But Shay. No. Not him. I love him too much to want to have things come to this. I surprise myself to find myself writing these words. But it feels right. Perhaps, maybe, things could salvaged. Shay could redeem himself and just maybe, maybe, return to the Brotherhood. Or abandon the Templars. That would be better than this. Things might be able to become right again. Maybe even me and Shay could have been together."

The entry ended there. Another tear fell from Shay's eye. He wasn't sure if he felt happy or sad. She returned his feelings, but it was far too late for anything in her journal to happen. Could he return to the Brotherhood. No. He had already eliminated both Le Chasseur, and Adéwalé. So return to the brotherhood? Scratch that plan.

Abandon the Templars. Shay had considered this many times. But he knew oif he wanted to prevent the Assassins from finding the Precursor Sites, he needed the Templars. For all his skills, he couldn't face an entire brotherhood alone.

Redeem himself. Since his betrayal, and the aforementioned executions of Le Chasseur and Adéwalé, that was by default a no go.

Him and Hope. He almost wanted to laugh. That was the most impossible thing of all. No.

Shay, walked toward the door of his house, unlocked it and went inside. He couldn't quite think what else to do except put the diary he recovered inside his chest. He dragged the thing out from beneath his bed. He didn't know why he kept it. He just found it there, empty beneath the bed, and opted to keep personal belongings in there. There were a few purses of money, in case it was necessary. The Templar Ring from Monro, some spare keys to his house. And now Hope's journal lay among the assortment of items.

He locked the chest back up and slid it back under the bed. With an exhausted resolve, the Templar changed into the clothes he wore for sleep, a plain pare of slightly torn trousers. He may have to ask Mrs Finnegan to repair them. The kindly woman and her husband were like a second set of parents to him and despite all his business, as he called it, when she asked about his recent work, he still made an effort to visit the Finnegan household.

The Templar breathed in deeply, and before he could think much more, he drifted off into the realm of sleep. But even then, he couldn't help but dream of what might have been.

Hope.

Well, I Hope (not tryin to make a joke there this time) you all like the story. I know it was kinda dark again. I have another one featuring the pairing of Shay and Hope out soon as well. It's more light hearted and humorous. And I think if this wasn't quite to your tastes, perhaps because of this stories tone, that one will be instead. Drop a review of what you all thought in the meantime.

And to you, my lovely reader, I bit thee adieu until next time.

Stay awesome!