The first time Ezio noticed, he too accepted the lie. I grazed my arm.

It was just her luck that he had been awake when she had gone down in her nightdress to get some water. The half-light hid the extent. She didn't have the heart to tell him. How could she when it was his absence that cut her more deeply than any knife could?

For months, even years, he would he away. Somewhere. Fighting... getting hurt.. risking his life... She didn't pretend to not notice the scars that now littered his body from his years as an assassin. Cold white lines crossing his skin, dark from time spent out in the Italian sun.

But he would be angry with her if he knew that she was driven to despair. The fear of never seeing him, the isolation she felt in this small town, they all drove her to take up the knife.

She'd tried less obvious places. The hip, the leg, even the foot. The foot hurt and it hurt for days when she walked. Mario's Captain of the Guard asked her about the walk. He'd also question her arms once. Claudia had to be careful. The hip and leg, they were fair enough but it wasn't the same. She loved looking at the line slowly welling up blood. The red dots that sprung forth from her and merged in that perfect line. The raised scabs that she could run her fingers down, feeling alive as she felt the raised texture.

Sometimes Claudia liked to imagine that she could cut away the problems that kept Ezio from her. Cut away what kept her mother silent and in need of full time help. Cut away whatever had happened to Mario that meant that at least once a week she'd hear shouting, smashing and crying before she had to meekly come down and guide her Uncle to bed.

The time Mario noticed, she was invited to her study.

"Why do you do it, Claudia?" She pretended to not know what he spoke of. Her heart was in her throat.

"Your arms, you silly girl! Why?" Claudia wondered whether he had drunken something. She wished she could lose all sense of herself and become like Mama. She pointed out Mario's love of alcohol.

"It's not the same."

It really was.

Mario's Captain of the guard came in to stop the shouting. He lead Claudia away. Later that night, Mario offered a bottle to her and tried the knife on himself. Claudia watched, knowing it wouldn't be the same for him She drank the bottle anyway. And felt better for it.

Ezio came home soon. Mario had sent a letter. She found him in her room. He had looked through all her things. She could see her knife out of it's hiding place. See the disarray. He was baffled by her shouting at him. She punched him but he didn't seem to notice.

"Claudia, we'll talk later. I can see now isn't a good time, piccina." He told her softly, departing with her knife. It hurt that he called her piccina. He had abandoned her. He had no right to still care. To go through her room. Mario had no right to tell him. Alone in her room with no outlet, Claudia tore at her arms with her nails. It was better than nothing. It hurt more and gave horrid ragged cuts instead of the nice straight ones. She had always been careful to not cut deeply. Now all she wanted was to saw into her own skin to see how deep, how much pain. But the knife was gone.

"Claudia," It was past dinner time and she hadn't come down. Ezio was worried but told Mario she needed time. They shouldn't force her to go down to dinner. So after they ate, Ezio brought up the choice bits that he had saved for her. He didn't understand why she had done that to herself but he knew his little sister needed someone.

"Go away!" Claudia said through the closed door. Her voice was raw.

"I brought you dinner," Ezio said.

"Not hungry."

"Come on, Sorellina, I got you all the best bits. You don't want it to go to the dogs?"

There was a pause and then the door slowly opened. He looked at his sister. Red eyed, wearing her night dress, arms covered in lines and irregular and fresh rips. Eyes flickered to her nails but he said nothing as he put the tray of food down on the table. Claudia moved cautiously towards it, eyes not leaving him.

"I won't do anything, sorellina." He promised.

"You searched my room."

"I wanted to make sure you'd be safe."

"How can I not be safe, locked away here?"

He sighed. Claudia was infuriating at times. Once something entered her mind, she nurtured it like a child at her breast.

"Haven't found a husband?" Perhaps gentle conversation would be better.

"In this small place? You think that's possible? You've probably killed more eligible men than I'll meet for the rest of my life!"

"Claudia,"

"Don't Claudia me! You left me here for years! Do you even know what it's like for me? I don't know when you'll return! I spend almost all my days working on that book or checking the designs that architect makes, then checking on how much money that would take and whether we can afford it or need it to be fancier! I have to make sure Mama eats! I have to make sure she goes to the toilet because she forgets she needs to!"

Ezio realised that he hadn't questioned their mother not being there at dinner. He'd bring food up for her. And toilet… maybe he could find a maid to take that off of Claudia's mind.

"I have to do this. I have to serve the assassins as father did."

"By abandoning your family?"

"Is this about me?"

"No."

"Then what is it, piccina? I want to help you. Don't block me out!" He begged.

"You've cut yourself out of my life, Ezio."

"I can't help it."

"You could come back. Father did. He was rarely away."

"They killed him and our brothers, I have to avenge them."

"By abandoning me."

The next day her knife was back. Ezio decided it was better that way. She'd harm herself anyway. No matter how strange it was. But he asked Mario to give her lessons with the Captain of the Guard on how to fight. Perhaps he could divert her attention to something more productive. He knew Father had taught her how to throw a good punch. Years later, he was rewarded with finding out Claudia had married the Captain.

And when he returned to Monteriggioni, he was greeted by the sight of two children. A young auburn haired four year old and a babe still suckling with caramel brown hair. As for his sister, she still had a couple of scabs but nowhere as bad as it had been.

"I'm coping, Ezio." She said as she nursed her child, brother staring decidedly out across the town as they sat on the ring of the training arena, abandoned for the day.

"I'm glad, sorella." He told her. She wasn't little any longer.

"Will you be back long?"

"I need to get the apple back."

"I know."

"The… fresh scars…?"

"You're still gone. It hurts, fratello mio. But I manage."

"Mama is back."

"It won't change things. This is a part of who I am now. Just like how being an assassin is part of who you are."

"I don't harm myself."

"You have no wife, no children. Your body bears deeper scars than me. You risk death. And all by choice. It is the same."

"What does Gustav think?"

"He accepts that life is not easy. And that sometimes I need this."

"I don't like it."

"You don't have to."

They sat in silence for a while as Claudia suckled her tiny bundle before giving the child to Ezio once they had had their fill. He held the little thing tenderly, worried. He was an assassin and this was such a small and fragile life. Claudia readjusted her dress to something more respectable.

"We hurt ourselves to keep ourselves sane, fratello mio. That is what we do." She decided as the sun began to set.

A/N: Obviously I don't own Assassin's Creed or the characters. This is an idea that came to me because it can't have been easy for Claudia being left alone for so long. The bit about getting married in inspired by the book of the game. Ezio doesn't return at all in that but Ezio's rare visits are mentioned in one of those information segments in the game. I think for Claudia in Brotherhood. Obviously there is no mention of self-harm in game but this is my interpretation of how Claudia might deal with her new situation.

As for Mario and drinking, he was called a Drunk in ACII and although it was from the Templars and likely as an insult, I don't think it would be unfounded.