It felt like Desmond's everything hurt. His head was screaming, his limbs wouldn't move and somewhere, in the back of his mind, he vaguely registered that there was a rock digging into his back. Where was he? All he could remember was Lucy, Rebecca, and Shaun telling him that they would be back, that they had to check on something and that he should just stay in the animus and not do anything. Simple enough, but – of course – Desmond went and messed that up too.

He – no, Ezio had been speaking with Leonardo when it happened. The two of them were pouring over the Apple just as they had been for the past three hours, and then it all got painful. The light from the Piece of Eden became too bright, Desmond vaguely registered the sound of an explosion, and then everything went dark... He could tell his heart was still beating, he could still smell the sanctuary and hear his own voice but...

No, that voice wasn't his own. It was Ezio's. The damn bleeding had started again, and this time it was making his head hurt. He knew it wasn't himself that was talking though. It was Ezio's voice – accompanied by another familiar voice that Desmond couldn't quite place – he was saying something about the villa... no... the sanctuary. How it shouldn't have been that broken. Broken? The Sanctuary was in perfect condition... unless...

"Leonardo da Vinci is the least of our problems, Shaun..." Lucy's voice confirmed it. Desmond was out of the animus, but he didn't quite understand why, Or why he could hear Ezio while he was disconnected. Something was wrong, and Desmond knew he would have to sit up to be able to clear it up, but the pain in his back and in his head and all over his body made him want to lay there and keep his eyes closed forever.

With a little more effort than he would have normally needed to get himself out of the animus, Desmond sat up with a groan. He put one of his hands against the back of his head, pressing down to relieve himself of the oncoming pressure headache. He let his eyes flutter open, then looked up to search for Lucy, Shaun, and Rebecca, only to find – instead – the two people he never would have thought he would see outside of a reflection in the mirror.

"Uh..." He tilted his head toward his three friends, though kept his eyes on the ancestors that seemed too real to be true. It was a horrible bleed. They were there – real colors, real voices, the fabric of their clothes moved with them and the lighting hadn't gone dark and similar to Eagle Vision each time he opened his eyes. This was a terribly real bleed that frightened and sickened him and he wanted it to be over. No matter how hard he blinked his eyes though, or for how long he kept them closed, Ezio and Altair would not disappear. A frightened shudder wracked through his whole body, making his muscles cringe and everything hurt all over again. "Are you guys seeing this too?" Desmond didn't like to admit it, but his voice cracked with fear and confusion. "Or is this... just... a really bad bleed?"

"No, Desmond..." For once, Shaun didn't sound like an asshole. If anything, he was a little bit consoling. Desmond almost wished he was recording the moment. Maybe the camera on the computer was. "They are quite real..."

"Real?" Ezio broke in after a moment, his eyebrows furrowing together, looking from Desmond to Shaun. "Of course we are real, why wouldn't we be?" His concentration was broken, however, when there was another clamoring from the steps. He looked over, and relief filled his eyes. "Leonardo!"

Desmond followed his ancestor's gaze to the stairway. His jaw dropped open, eyes popped wide, and his hands fell to the ground. As if seeing his two ancestors wasn't enough, Leonardo da Vinci was stumbling down the steps into the sanctuary.

"Ezio!" The painted cried, landing himself just a little bit in front of Shaun, who – Desmond noted with a smirk – was nearly hyperventilating at the sight of the blond man. "What's happened? Why is the villa like this? Where's the Apple?"

Ezio didn't bother caring about the other people in the room – he went over and put his arms around his friend's shoulders in a hug that he had been meaning to give back for a long time. "I don't know what's happened, but I am glad you are here. Do you remember what I told you, about the image of Minerva I saw in the vault? What I told you about Desmond?" The Italian gestured over at the descendent he didn't even know he had. "It is him, Leonardo. Him."

The painter's eyes widened when they fell on Desmond. "Is that why-?" He started to ask his friend though he was cut off short by Lucy.

"The Apple doesn't explain anything," She stated, smiling apologetically at Leonardo. "And it certainly doesn't explain to us why the animus... exploded." She gestured to the smoking animus that Desmond realized he had probably been thrown out of.

"Why us, though?" Altair finally spoke up, after having watched the conversation continue from his place slightly away from the crowd. "Why do we have anything to do with this?"

Rebecca looked over to him, speaking as humbly as Desmond had ever seen her speak before. "You see, Desmond here," She gestured to Desmond, who still sat pathetically on the floor of the sanctuary. "Is your descendent. I know it seems hard to grasp, but you've been thrown... a couple hundred odd years into the future, into a time where we've made it so that Desmond can look back into the memories of his ancestors – through his DNA – and get the training and information that we need to stop the Templar order from taking over the world. Again."

Altair, Ezio, and Leonardo shared a look that said neither of them understood.

"So... you two were looking at the Apple when this all happened, right?" Shaun cut in, trying to get down to business more than anything. He looked toward Ezio and Leonardo, managing to finally get over the shock of all of it. "What were you doing?" He looked, now, to Altair, hoping that his information could pull together and string up all of the reasons that they needed.

"I was with Malik." Altair stated, with a shrug. "We were training the novices and looking over the Apple, as well..."

"Wait, wait, wait," Desmond cut in, finally managing to stand up and drop his hands from his head. "If Leonardo showed up with Ezio... does that mean...?" He looked to the stairs, looking for the familiar form of the Jerusalem rafiq to come storming down into the sanctuary, yelling about something or another.

There was no stomping down the steps, but – as if on cue – there was the familiar voice of the angry bureau leader from the floor above them. Altair made a move toward the steps, but Lucy was there in a second, her hands held up in front of him pleadingly.

"Please," She said, looking between him and the stairs. "You have to stay down here. We have to be able to see what brought you here, and if you have radiation from the Apple left on you..." She smiled tentatively at him. "Please, if you could just stay down here. There are plenty of Templars out there that have probably already noticed the explosion and are waiting for something or someone to come out. They know your face. They know all of our faces, and they're waiting to strike. Just stay down here, Altair. Please. Desmond will go and get Malik for you."

The Syrian looked down at her, examining the pleading expression on her face before he looked over to Desmond. "Be careful." He muttered to his descendent. "Malik gets angry when anyone else would feel frightened."

Desmond groaned, aggravated that he had been volunteered for something that he didn't want to do. The other times that he had met Malik – even though he was technically seeing through Altair's eyes – he had felt incredibly intimidated. There was no way that he would be able to kick it off well with the one-armed Assassin, especially in times like this. No part of him was looking forward to meeting Malik outside of the safety of the animus. There was no telling what the Syrian would do to him.

With a sigh, Desmond cast his glance over to Shaun and Rebecca for help, but even they stepped away from the stairs, giving him a path to walk and thus throwing him into the lion's den.

"Whatever..." He mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and starting up the steps. "At least I look like Altair..."