There's no time for questions when Desmond, now carrying his tiny, child sized father wrapped in his arms, gets to the van where Rebecca and Shaun wait for them. That doesn't keep them from asking them anyway, frantic, panicked questions spilling from them as they stare at the impossibility that is William Miles. Eventually, Desmond has to raise his voice just to be heard over the two of them, shouting that they need to get going because Abstergo is going to come after them soon.

Shaun puts the van in gear and hits the gas with so much enthusiasm that the others are thrown around like shifting cargo. Desmond puts one hand out to brace himself, and William takes the opportunity to squirm away from his loosened grip and escape. He stumbles to the other side of the van, presses himself into a corner and slides down until he forms the smallest possible target. Rebecca watches him move, then turns her wide eyes on Desmond. "What happened in there?" she asks. "How did he get… like that?"

There's a split second when Desmond considers telling her the truth. Then he imagines trying to explain how badly he'd wanted to see his father suffer for what he'd done, and cowers away from the mental image. She would be angry- she wouldn't understand. "I don't know," he lies. "I used the apple while I was in there, to take care of Vidic and the men he had with him. Then I passed out, and when I woke up he was like that."

"You used the apple?" Shaun demands. "Why?" When Desmond doesn't answer, he scoffs and turns his attention back to the road, mumbling something under his breath that sounds definitely rude.

"No wonder he's so scared," Rebecca says. "I would be too, that thing is terrifying." She studies William thoughtfully for a minute. "Do you think he remembers anything? He looks… I don't know. Small."

"Dunno," Desmond mumbles. "You should ask him."

"Maybe it would be better if you-"

"I can't talk to him," Desmond says.

"Can't, or won't?"

"Won't, I guess," Desmond says. Rebecca opens her mouth to argue, but changes her mind. Instead, she turns her back on him and bends over William, Desmond can just barely hear them over the metallic sounds of the van clattering over potholes, For a while, he focuses on ignoring them (he doesn't want to deal with this, not now and not ever), but eventually the shame of what he's done gets bad enough to overwhelm his reluctance. He wants to know exactly how much harm his actions have done.

"...feeling okay?" Rebecca is saying quietly.

"'m okay," William says. He's opened up a little, unfolded so that he's sitting cross legged in front of Rebecca instead of pressed against the wall. He glances over at Desmond, catches him looking, and scoots closer to Rebecca. "Who's that guy?" he whispers.

"That's Desmond," Rebecca says, after a nervous look over her shoulder at Desmond, who says nothing. "You don't remember him?"

"I don't…" William barely manages to force the words out, and his voice is wet and choked with tears. "I don't remember..."

"Becca," Desmond calls, and William flinches at the sound as Rebecca gets up and crosses the van toward Desmond.

"What did you do to him?" Rebecca demands before Desmond can say a word.

Desmond doesn't answer this question. Instead, he points out the (comically overlarge) clothes William is wearing. "You need to take his clothes off."

"Sure," Rebecca says, startled out of her anger. "Eventually we'll need to find something that fits better, but-"

"No," Desmond interrupts. "You need to get his clothes off now, and look for injuries. Probably it'll be mostly bruises, but there might be some fractured and broken bones, too. Maybe something else."

"From Abstergo?" Rebecca asks, and Desmond lets her make the assumption. She gives him a weird look, but walks over to William and slowly coaxes him out of his shirt. After several long minutes, he's standing there mostly naked with every injury exposed for the rest of them to see.

And there are a lot. Rebecca gasps as she takes it all in, but Desmond stays quiet. He's seen worse than this, seen the marks on his own body. So he surveys William with a more critical eye, looking for injuries that need immediate attention. There's one on his ribs that looks really bad, and now that Desmond's really looking he sees that William is holding one hand awkwardly. Most likely, that means broken fingers.

"What the fuck, Desmond?" Rebecca demands. "What happened to him?"

Desmond looks at William, at his too thin body, and the bruises of various stages of healing that cover him, at his broken fingers, and at the haunted look on his face. "That," he says quietly, "Is what happens when someone much bigger than you makes you their punching bag for a very long time."

"But-" Rebecca puts her head in her hands, gripping tightly like that will somehow force the world to make sense again. "That's not possible!"

"Why not?"

She looks up at him. 'Because he's been a child for- what, an hour?"

"Thanks to the apple," Desmond says. "That thing's not even allowed to make sense."

Rebecca looks back at William- the boy sits where she'd left him, eyes pointed at the ground. The fingers of his uninjured hand run over the knuckles of the other, a nervous gesture that Desmond knows from experience will do lasting harm. He rubs absentmindedly at the bump on his right ring finger, where an old break had never quite healed right.

"He looks so… pitiful," Rebecca says quietly.

"Don't," Desmond snaps, more forcefully than he'd meant. "Don't pity him, he doesn't deserve it."

William flinches, but otherwise moves not at all in response to Desmond's voice, like the words themselves don't surprise him at all. Rebecca doesn't restrain herself, though, putting her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes to glare at him. "Keep your voice down," she says. "No wonder he's scared of you, if you keep yelling like that."

"You don't understand," Desmond says, but he does drop his voice.

"I understand enough to know that you and your father can't get along," Rebecca says. "But listen, Desmond- this isn't the time to fight. He needs you right now, don't you see? Whatever happened between the two of you, there's no one else here. You're family."

Desmond shakes his head and turns away. This goes so far beyond her simplistic view of events that it's not even funny. His father had beaten him as long and enthusiastically as Desmond had been able to stand- and now he's somehow cursed his father to that same fate. He's not exactly sure which of them is the worse man after all this, but he's also not exactly sure he cares. It doesn't really matter, either. What does matter is what he's supposed to do now. He can't ignore this, because everything he's suddenly changed forever. But he can't figure out how to deal with the change.

He doesn't want to hate his father, but he does. He doesn't want to fear him, but he does. And he doesn't want to feel like his father has finally gotten the punishment he's always deserved…

But he does.

They drive for hours, aiming for a country with less templar influence, so they can get a flight back to the states. No one speaks much, but finally they stop in what looks like a quiet town in the middle of nowhere. Desmond has no idea which country they're in- they've driven for hours, and he hasn't paid much attention.

"You two stay here," Shaun says, gesturing between Desmond and William. "Rebecca and I will go buy clothes."

"Clothes?" Desmond demands. "You're leaving me-" alone, with him- "To go clothes shopping?"

"Yes," Shaun says. "Because yours are bloody and his won't fit him for at least another ten years."

"Oh."

"So stay here and try not to break physics any further, yea?" Shaun hops out of the van, followed several moments later by Rebecca.

A few minutes pass in absolute silence- Desmond watches without moving as William presses himself farther into his corner, like he's afraid Desmond will start hitting now that they're alone. He accidentally leans on his broken fingers and recoils in shock and pain, hissing out a sharp breath between his teeth and clutching his hand close to his chest. Desmond frowns and stands, reluctantly. William looks down as Desmond comes close. His whole body goes still, apart from an occasional shuddering spasm he doesn't seem able to control.

"Hey,' Desmond says. The word drops between them like a heavy stone- William says nothing. "Um…" this is hard, and Desmond hates having to do this, because on some level it means taking responsibility for what's happened. He wants to ignore the problem and just let it go away, but that's not going to happen. "Do you want to talk?"

A stupid question. William shakes his head.

"Let me look at your hand, at least," Desmond insists, and William- with obvious reluctance- holds it out. Desmond rests it on his left palm, and for a second he can't move, can't breathe, can barely even think. William's hand is so tiny compared to his own, fragile and small and twisted by his broken digits. It makes him angry to know that anyone could hurt a child like this. And once the anger has passed, a swirl of other emotions go swirling through is numb brain- guild, because technically he'd done this to William- sadness, because he'd suffered through injuries like this and worse when he was a kid- and anger, because neither of them deserves this.

But most of all he feels confused, because he doesn't know what to think anymore.

William shifts uneasily, snapping Desmond out of his fog. "Sorry," he mutters, and gingerly starts applying pressure to William's fingers. "Does this hurt?"

"Yea," William says, softly. Then he winces and shakes his head. "I mean- no. Not too much. Sorry."

"You don't need to apologize, Desmond says. "You're not in trouble. I just want to know where the break is so I can put on a splint."

He works as gently as possible, but he can tell it's still hurting William. In an effort to distract him, and because he's genuinely curious, Desmond starts asking questions. "How did you hurt your hand?" he starts.

"I-" William closes his eyes, brow furrowing in obvious effort. "It's hard to remember. Um… it was ark. Something about a door, I think." His eyes open, darting upward to meet Desmond's, then drop down. "Sorry, sir," he whispers. "I didn't mean to be so stupid."

"Don't call me sir," Desmond says, and absently reaches for the first aid kit that's always kept at the back of the van. He remembers (more clearly than William, apparently) how his fingers had been broken when he was fifteen. He'd been learning to pick locks, and in a fit of truly regrettable clumsiness, he'd actually broken both the pick and lock itself. It had been the middle of the night, pitch black because his father had insisted he would rarely work in daylight as an assassin. When the lock broke, he'd (very calmly) stood up, examined the door Desmond had been trying to unlock, and frowned. Then he'd kicked the door open, and stared straight at Desmond.

"A mistake like this would kill you in the field," he'd said.

It had been too dark to see his face, and maybe that was how Desmond had found the courage to argue. "It's only a broken lock," he'd said.

His father had gestured for Desmond to put his hand on the doorframe, and he had. Disobeying would only make things worse. The door slamming shut on his fingers had been more surprising than it should have been, but the pain was an old, familiar friend. Desmond remembers falling to his knees, cradling his broken fingers, apologies falling from numb lips. "I'm sorry!" he'd sobbed. "Sir, I shouldn't have been so stupid."

"And maybe next time, you won't be," his father had said, turning his back on Desmond. "Although I admit, my hopes are not high."

He shakes himself away from memories, and finishes wrapping William's hand before sitting back on the balls of his feet. "There," he says. "Try not to move them too much, alright?"

There's a beat, a silent pause when maybe Desmond should have backed away, but doesn't. Then it's too late to stop the words from coming, and Desmond says, "You really don't know me?"

Again, he watches William's eyes flick up and then quickly down again, like looking Desmond directly in the face is an assault too offensive to be contemplated. "No," he says at last.

"Then why are you afraid?"

William doesn't answer for a long time. He wraps his arms around himself in a tight hug and stares at his knees. "You hurt me," he says, and Desmond lets out a sigh because he knows it's true. "I don't remember…" William trails off, and chokes down tears as he struggles to speak again. "Whatever I did, I promise I won't do it again! I can be good, I swear! Just don't hurt me…"

Desmond stands and crosses to the other side of the van- when he reaches the place where the apple rests, he kicks at it viciously enough to make his toe ache. "Damn you," he curses, but the golden ball only lies there, silent and unresponsive.

"Geeze, Desmond-" he turns abruptly, only to see Shaun climbing back into the van with Rebecca. "We leave you two alone for half an hour, and when we get back he's crying and you're trying to destroy the van."

"Shut up," Desmond snarls.

Rebecca rejoins them in the back and kneels in front of William, speaking softly until the boy starts to calm. His sobs quiet to tears, and then to a kind of wet hiccuping. He seems to trust Rebecca more than he does Desmond, allowing her close without flinching away. And why shouldn't he? The apple hadn't painted her as the villain of this charade.

It's ridiculous and he hates it. Somehow, he's made himself the bad guy, despite technically being the victim. And it's not that Desmond wants any kind of pity or attention from this, because he'd run and left this part of his life behind for a reason. He just wants it in the past, where he can lock it away and never think about it again.

None of this is fair- Desmond can barely believe it's real- and yet every time he looks across the length of the van, there's William to remind him that somehow, yes, it is actually happening. I can't believe this is real," he mumbles.

"You can't?" rebecca looks up from William. "Imagine how he feels."

"I don't have to," Desmond says, too quietly for her to hear.

-/-

Note- I already have the entire fic written, so unless I just completely space there should be daily updates. It's a short fic, six chapters and a tiny epilogue, so... yea. Temper expectations, I guess.