"Connor, he's still your father. You're lucky he hasn't been killed."
He's quiet, but his silence is something Washington is good at reading.
"Your father is British. You cannot escape this fact."
"I do not deny this fact."
"Your pride in the Mohawk Indians is misplaced. Your people affiliated with the Redcoats."
He says nothing, staring at the general as if he were sizing up an enemy.
"While you feel as if you betrayed your family, and they betrayed you, you are one of the few who are still lucky enough to have an entire family here."
"Then I am to support the enemy?"
"No, Connor. Listen closely," Washington says with a sigh. "You are to support your family."
"You are my family."
"Connor," the good general snaps, and Ratohnhaké:ton knows better than to speak now. "You delude yourself. You claim pride in your Native American heritage, yet you refuse to affiliate with your British ancestry. You are a hypocrite—for they both fought for the same side, and what possesses you to support one when both of them are for same reason?"
He rises and faces the good general when he walks over. The man places his hands on his arms.
"Connor, we fight for our freedom, but you cannot fight with these chains on you. Resolve them, and you will be free to fight for the truth. You are an assassin. You must first be able to see the truth to fight properly for it."
He blinks, and he realizes that he has been in error. He cannot say he supports his mother's side when his mother's side fought for the British.
"You are a good man, Connor. Better than we, for certain. Do not lose sight of what we fight for. Liberty, yes, and the pursuit of happiness, yes, but also for life—and where does life begin but with our families? I am not saying to desert the colonists, but simply to be at peace, so that there are no loose ends when we win the Revolutionary War. Those of us here are all on the same side, if not, then we have no contact or have been disowned. As far as I have heard, as far as the spies have whispered, your father has yet to deny you entrance into his house."
He lowers his eyes from the good general's. Why General Washington did this to him was beyond him. He always managed to make him realize his errors, and even though to him there was a definite right and wrong, there wasn't to General Washington. He nods, out of respect, and knows he will go and visit his father.
"Is the hospital even open at this hour?"
"I don't know, but I will walk you there."
He looks at him skeptically, because the Redcoats are dying to kill Washington.
"You believe in the power of family, then."
A wry smile pulls at the good general's lips.
"Indeed. To a fault, some would say."
"You are quite verbose tonight, General."
"I may have had some drink with the others at the tavern, but your predicament has been bothering me for a while now."
"You are not what I expected from a general."
"What did you think? I would be like the ones from overseas? They are trained to lead, my boy. I am a simple man, and I will die a simple man."
Ratohnhaké:ton smiles softly.
"Very well."
He nods to the door, and General Washington nods, following him out. And as it turns out, the hospital is still open, and he is still permitted to see his father, and the look the good general sends him lets him know he knew it was still open. The frown he gives him earns him a laugh. He paces into the room, and the reaction is immediate. His father's eyes open; Washington leaves him, and he's left standing there, fighting the bubbling rage inside him.
"Desmond?"
His father looks horrible, he thinks, as he pulls a chair over and sits beside him, stubbornly staring at his father's feet as he clasps his hands together between his legs.
"I'm surprised you came."
"I'm surprised, too, but I couldn't ignore what General Washington told me to do. He's a good man."
"General… Washington?"
He nods, still refusing to look at his father.
"Yeah, he's a good friend of mine."
"But…"
He laughs, harshly, and looks at his father. There's something satisfying about seeing his father stricken to a hospital bed like this. He must have done more damage than he realized.
"You're a real jackass, you know that? You have no idea what the fuck happened when I came back to the assassins, do you? I bet you kept up-to-date with what happen to Clay, didn't you?"
There's silence, and he thinks he sees something akin to regret on his father's face. It's probably just the drugs in his system fucking with the man. Desmond will believe it when he sees it outside of the hospital. He leans back in the chair, watching as his father stares at the far wall. Silence reigns for a long time before he hears his father sigh.
"I've really messed this up."
"Yeah, I'll say."
"Do you really feel as if Clay—"
"Just leave Clay out of this right now. The last thing he needs is an invite to take over."
He sees Ratohnhaké:ton sitting across the bed from him with Altair, and Ezio is at the foot of his father's bed.
"What do you mean, 'take over'?"
"I've been having problems with the Bleeding Effect, and Clay is trying to drive me crazy."
"Why?"
"Why? I don't know. Malice at the fact that he was just a sacrificial lamb? Outrage at going batshit psycho?"
His father is silent for a moment before his face screws up and he hears in a harsh whisper, "I'm sorry."
"Of course you are," he says as he snorts.
"I don't believe him," Altair murmurs.
"I would," Ratohnhaké:ton says. "General Washington wouldn't have brought us here otherwise."
"Tell me…" he hears his father say, then pauses before he meets his gaze. "Let me hear from your lips what happened."
He's more than happy to dish out the truth of what happened to him, and as he speaks, he can see his father waking up slowly, that regret dissolving into that emotionless mask again. He gets slightly more infuriated as he speaks that his father is showing even less emotion than before but he spares him no detail, telling him about everything. Altair takes his turn talking, and Ezio speaks for a long time, and even Ratohnhaké:ton speaks. When Ratohnhaké:ton talks, he finds it interesting to know he introduces himself as Connor, and the internal peace he feels is stronger than ever.
Then, then things get bad.
He feels a chill seep into his skin, and he can see the other three look around, alarmed. He switches on the Eagle Vision. The room is slowly turning purple, glowing eerily as the puzzles he once solved on Abstergo's walls creep through. It's slowly encroaching. It's coming out of the corners quickly, seeping and spreading and coming toward them like a virus spreading.
"Desmond, is he coming?" he hears Ezio saying.
"Yeah," he growls, "yeah. He's coming."
He's on defensive as the purple comes racing closer to him, surrounding his feet. He jerks when he hears a strangled snarl from Ratohnhaké:ton, and the man is being strangled by the purple. He dies, crushed by the purple waves, and Desmond jumps when he sees the purple jump at him. Ezio goes with a screech and a struggle. He hisses, and the purple got a hold of him when he looked at his ancestor. When he sees Altair being destroyed, he blacks out.
When he comes back, he's sitting on the bed, leaning across his father's legs, and he can feel the last of Clay disappearing as that smirk on his face vanishes. His father looks mildly surprised, watching him carefully. He frowns and moves back to his seat.
"What did he say to you?"
His father meets his gaze. "Nothing of any concern for you."
He scowls, rising. "This is why I've given up on ever getting closer with you. You're always cold and secretive, even though I do your work for you, even though I pull this Goddamn Order forward, and all you do is play, 'Desmond's-Not-Good-Enough!' Are you seriously gonna keep this game up? Just fucking—you know what? Never mind. I don't care enough about this. I'm just gonna check myself into a loony bin and let the once-dead ancestors fucking take over my brain. It'd certainly be a better life than this one."
He walks to the door, and then his father speaks.
"What about your child?"
He pauses, thinking. He can't just let Rebecca raise the child. He's the father. He frowns, lowering his head.
"I'll tell her to get it aborted. There's no way you're coming near it, and if I'm not even supported by anyone other than the men in my head, there's no way I'm letting—"
"What about the children you teach, or the lives you've touched?"
He swallows. That makes him pause. He knows the kids love him, and he knows that they would be severely upset if he was taken away. They even came to fetch him when he was late, instead of goofing off. That would be entirely selfish on his part. He really has no reason to turn himself in. He needs to keep fighting, he supposes, if not for himself, then for the children he's started fighting for, for the Order that keeps coming back into his life no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it. He's gotta keep fighting for the same reasons his ancestors kept fighting. He does have his family, right under his nose, and he's just going to have to accept that he will never have his father's appreciation, that he will never be completely and wholly accepted by the one man he's always wanted in his life, but he's got enough stuff otherwise that he can make his own family now.
He jerks when he feels Ezio appear in front of him, and he starts to look, only to feel him kissing his forehead.
"The Order has always been our family," Altair says from his right.
"The Order will always be our family," Ezio murmurs, placing his hand on his shoulder.
"And we will always be the instigators of change," Ratohnhaké:ton says from his other side.
Desmond sighs, running a hand through his hair. "All right. I won't. I'll keep fighting."
"It sounds like you've resolved your problems," his father rasps.
He looks over his shoulder, meeting his father's gaze. "Not yet. I still have to figure out something with Sixteen. And I still have to come to terms about you not giving a shit."
The man is silent for a moment, and Desmond takes the opportunity to let his shoulders sag. He's so tired of fighting, and all he wants is for something to go right, for something to be okay, and he's just done.
"Could you use the Animus to get rid of Clay?"
He feels the other three vanish, and he looks at the ceiling. "Not really."
"Damn skippy," he hears purred, and he looks to see Clay smirked at him, leaning against the table by his father's bedside. "I'm like that Pablo Escobar—you're gonna have to riddle me with bullets until I decide to kill myself."
"Besides," Desmond murmurs, glancing Clay, "I don't think those drugs they pumped me with before would kill him."
His father frowns. "Then keep constant vigilance, Desmond. He's dangerous."
Desmond snorts. "Now you decide to tell me?"
His father stares at him, and Clay laughs. Desmond rolls his eyes.
"Whatever. I'm going back. I've got a shit ton of paperwork tomorrow and training the kids, and I only have three hours of sleep left."
He steps out, and as the door swings shut, he hears his father calling for him. He doesn't know why he does it, but he opens the door once more to look in. His father's brow is furrowed, and he swears the man looks more than slightly worried, perhaps even upset. He raises an eyebrow.
"Desmond, my last advice may have been horrible, but take this to heart, something I learned the hard way: sometimes, the best way to kill something is to ignore its growth."
He frowns, confused, and he gives his father a look that he hopes conveys the feeling he thinks his father is stupid. He says thanks regardless and walks back to the Order, thinking about his father's words. Ezio was walking in front of him, walking backward, and Ratohnhaké:ton and Altair walk on either side. He paces back into his room, stripping as he climbs into bed after Lucy stirs at his entrance to the room. He crawls in beside her before he feels—more than sees—Rebecca coming over and lying beside him. When Shaun moves in on Lucy to share warmth, he's slings an arm over Rebecca's side and smiles as he spreads a hand over her stomach. He can hear her chuckle.
"Altair warned me of this."
"Huh?"
She places her hand over his. "That you might get touchy."
"You talked to him?"
"He was the one who fucked me. You think I didn't know?"
He is quiet, but he can't keep his hand from rubbing her belly gently.
"He told me he thought that you would be more like him after everything you've been through, and that you would get really excited about having a kid, and that you might get really touchy—not that I mind."
He can hear the grin in her voice. Still, he keeps rubbing her belly as she falls silent, and he thinks about how there's a life growing inside of her. It was him that helped create it, and soon enough, her stomach is going to start growing. There's a life that's growing inside her, a baby that he'll eventually hold, that he'll eventually spoil rotten. He inhales deeply, feeling his blood stir. He needs to get a hold of himself.
"He was right, you know. He said that you would be even more excited than him, 'cause you aren't gonna be afraid to show how excited you are."
"What happened, exactly, during that time?"
"Well, it wasn't until after we were done that he actually told me, and I was more than a little mad 'cause I had thought that it was you—but then he started talking about you."
"Why?"
"He was worried. He talked about some sort of 'cold wind' that seemed to block your mind, and how he wanted to warn me of what was going on and asked me just to be patient, but I already knew all that from when we went into hiding."
She doesn't know, at least, he muses, she doesn't know everything.
"So we talked for a bit, and then he went 'poof,' and you came back."
Interesting way to put it, but he supposes that all's well that ends well. He pulls her close and inhales deeply. He's going to be a father. He's going to have his own child to love and adore, to train as an assassin or support as an astronaut, and he'll be able to spoil it with toys and affection.
"Thanks, Rebecca."
He can feel Altair smile in his mind, and Ezio chuckle softly.
"It's no problem, Des. Just don't go skippin' town without me," she says cheekily.
And in that moment, everything becomes clear for him. He's going to fight. He'll fight until his dying breath to keep himself from going crazy, and he won't let Clay control him. He's going to fight so that he can watch his kid have grand-children because everything is going to turn out okay.
Everything.
No matter how hard the fight, things will be okay because he's an assassin, and the assassins always win, no matter how long it takes or how hard the war is.
He's going to win.
And everything will be okay.
That night, he has the most infuriating dreams, none of which he remembers as he wakes and shoots into a sitting position with a gasping realization that his father meant the way to kill Clay is to ignore him. And when he hears that laugh he loves so much, he grits his teeth. He'll have to do this—no matter how hard it gets.
Of course, it helps that Rebecca woke with his movement.