When Altair had disappeared, Desmond checked the time and was surprised at how little time the entire adventure had taken. School hadn't even let out yet. Much as he hated the idea of going back to school, he was ready to burst with the need to tell Connor and Lucy what had happened.
He entered the school and made his way to his seventh hour class, physics, which was nearly halfway over. He tried to be as unobtrusive as possible as he came into he classroom, then realized there was no point. The class's teacher, Dealney, was lying dead in the tunnels below the school. Either he hadn't been reported missing yet, or no one cared enough to find a replacement sub. The class was in an uproar- second to last period, on a Friday, which happened to be Halloween, it probably would have been crazy anyway. But without any kind of adult supervision, anarchy truly reigned.
Lucy sat in a corner of the room, staring idly out the window and tapping a pencil against the side of her desk. Desmond hurried across the room, ducked a paper airplane thrown by someone that apparently had nothing better to do, and slid into the empty seat next to her.
She shot him a look that was half annoyed, half amused. "I don't know what's worse," she said. "That you skipped half the school day, or that for some reason you decided to come back." She glanced around wryly. "Even Delaney didn't bother coming in today." She checked to see no one was listening, then lowered her voice. "You don't think he's... you know. He hasn't found whatever is is the templars are looking for, has he?"
"Well actually-"
"Of course not." Lucy shook her head. "He probably just decided not to come, or got stuck in a staff meeting. That's the problem with doing- ah- what we do. You start to see conspiracies everywhere."
"He found an apple in a first civilization sanctuary under the school but Altair killed him. But he passed the apple off to some other templars so we chased them down on a motorcycle and stole it back."
"Or, you know," said Lucy. "Maybe I wasn't thinking crazy enough."
Desmond gave her the full story, pausing only occasionally to make sure no one else was listening. When he was done, Lucy shook her head. "This is getting ridiculous," she said. "We need to find out what the templars are up to. And the sooner the better, because you're running out of ancestors. I fully expect Ezio to show up next and he is not the most subtle person in your family tree."
"Not exactly," Desmond agreed. "But I mean- we already knew we had to find out what the templars are up to. That doesn't help us figure it out."
"We need to get inside," said Lucy.
"You want to break into Abstergo?" Desmond demanded.
"We're not going to get any information from out here," she pointed out.
"You're crazy."
"Says the guy that just went on a high speed motorcycle chase with his centuries old ancestor," Lucy shot back.
Desmond had no reply to that.
-/-
Connor, when he heard the story during eighth period study hall, agreed with Lucy that they needed to take the fight to Abstergo if they ever wanted to find out what the templars' plan was. Desmond knew Connor was frustrated to be doing nothing, and to be left out of the only interesting thing to happen in months.
It worried Desmond more than a little. He wouldn't put it past Connor to run off and try something on his own, maybe getting himself hurt in the process. It wasn't that he didn't think Connor could handle himself. It was mostly just that Connor, like the rest of them, had no idea what they were looking for, and whatever risks he took would be for nothing.
That night, Desmond sat down with his father and repeated the story for the third time. He left a lot of the details out, trying to make it seem like he didn't know anything about the first civilization. He also left Altair out of the story completely.
When he was done, Desmond got up to leave, but his father stopped him by a hand on his shoulder. "You did a god job," he said.
Surprised, Desmond could only mutter a "Thank you". He hesitated, then asked, "Do you know what the templars are trying to build?"
His father seemed to hesitate, peering at Desmond as though sizing him up. Then he seemed to come to a decision. "Yes. We've had people trying to hack into their systems for months now, and just recently they've managed to access some of their more secure files."
"So what is it?" Desmond asked.
"A time machine."
"Isn't time travel impossible?" Desmond did his best to sound casual. Honestly, his heart was in his mouth. He didn't know if he was worried about being discovered as a time traveler, or concerned that the templars were after the secret (or apparently close, if they'd figured out that the apples were somehow important).
"Of course it's impossible," his father snorted. "But say what you will about the templars, they do have a knack for the impossible. Take the animus, for an example. You don't come up with something like that without a great deal of intelligence, and not much concern for what's possible."
"You also have to be batshit crazy," Desmond pointed out. A heavy note of bitterness found itss way into his voice, but luckily his father took no notice.
"Obviously," was his only response.
"Are we doing anything about the time machine?" Desmond asked.
"That depends who you mean by 'we'," said his father. "I will be. You won't."
Desmond bit his lib- there were all kinds of reasons he needed to know how close the templars were to an actual, working time machine. The problem was, he couldn't actually mention any of them. So instead, he said, "Lucy and Connor and I have been working on this for weeks. We got Delaney."
"Delaney was tangentially related at best."
"No," said Desmond.
"I'm sorry?" said his father, in a tone that suggested Desmond was about to be, unless he had a very good explanation.
"I heard Delaney talking about some big project the apple was going to be used for," Desmond lied. "It has to be the time machine, right?"
"It could be." Desmond waited. It seemed that there was probably more coming and, sure enough, after a few seconds- "Desmond, over the past few months, you've changed in ways that have made me very proud. You're well on your way to becoming a full assassin, but you're certainly not there yet."
Desmond took a deep breath. It was entirely possible that what he was bout to do would mess everything up. But what other choice did he have?
"I think I'm ready," he said.
"To become an assassin?" His father actually smiled, as if Desmond had made a joke. "I don't-"
"Trust me," said Desmond. "Give me a test. Whatever you want. I'm ready, and I'll prove it to you."
The several moments it took Desmond's father to consider the idea seemed to stretch out much longer.
"Fine," he said at last. "When you fail, at least it will be a valuable lesson."
-/-
"Some people," Desmond complained bitterly, "Should never be allowed to become parents." Immediately after leaving his father, Desmond had sought out Connor in their shared bedroom to complain.
Connor, who was sitting on the floor near his bed, gave Desmond an incredulous look, which Desmond chose to ignore. Connor might have had a worse relationship with his own father- much worse, really- but that didn't mean he had a monopoly on father complaints.
"It's like he wants me to fail," Desmond continued. "He actually came right out and said so! I mean-"
"Do you think we will still be here next year?" Connor interrupted suddenly.
Derailed, Desmond blinked. "What?"
"In school," Connor clarified. He held up the sheaf of papers he'd been looking at while Desmond complained. "I do not want to bother signing up for classes if we have no plans to be here next year."
"Oh..." Desmond shrugged. "I guess, unless something goes horribly and unexpectedly wrong."
Connor sighed. "I really do not like that school," he said. "Still, it is better than doing nothing."
Desmond recognized that this was an attempt to change the subject, and let it happen. "Then what's the problem?" he asked.
"These classes are moronic," Connor answered bluntly. "I have to take English, economics, US government-"
"That one's going to be fun for you," Desmond said dryly. "I heard the teacher idolizes the founding fathers. You get an entire semester of hearing how great George Washington was."
Connor frowned and, apparently without realizing, touched the place where Washington's killing blows had left scars.
"Sorry." Desmond tried to pull his foot back out of his mouth. "I didn't mean-"
"And then I would have to take a maths class," Connor spoke right over Desmond. Clearly, he didn't want to talk about it. "But I still have four free periods. All these elective classes are pointless."
"Aren't you taking Spanish next year? And there's still gym and lunch."
"I was told that I am not allowed to take gym next year," Connor admitted.
"Well maybe if you didn't keep showing everyone up," Desmond suggested.
"Maybe if people were not asking for it."
"Maybe if you didn't punch that one kid in the face."
"He was asking for it."
Desmond shrugged; the kid in question was kind of a jerk. "Alright," he said. "So you add in Spanish and a lunch hour... not gym... that's six periods, since government and econ are only one semester each. So you only need to find two more classes to fill out your schedule."
"What about accounting?" Lucy rapped the door prefunctorily, then came in anyway. "I've heard it's fascinating. Anyway, I couldn't help overhearing. Mostly because I was listening. Oh and Desmond, I heard about what you told your dad."
"Already?"
"Everyone's heard. Darren's pissed."
Desmond had known Darren Greenfield since they were children. Darren was five years older, and a lot of Desmond's earliest memories were of being bit sat on, and punched by Darren. Things got worse as the pair grew older, until suddenly, when Desmond was about twelve, Darren abruptly grew bored with tormenting Desmond. Since then, they'd mostly ignored each other. Desmond didn't think they'd had a single conversation since he'd come back in time. Still, he knew Darren had become something of a poster boy for the local assassins. He trained hard, fought well, and gave everything he had to the assignments he was given.
And now Desmond was going to become a full assassin first.
"He is going to make things fun," Desmond muttered.
"He is not the problem," Lucy corrected. "The problem is that you're either going to take this test and fail, which is going to be bad for everyone, or you'll succeed and completely blow everything."
"I need to do this," Desmond said.
"Is this about pride?" Lucy demanded.
"No! This is about getting into Abstergo." He looked her straight in the eye. "You know how important that is, and Lucy- they're building a time machine."
He could tell from her expression that this was a piece of news she hadn't known. "And they were after the apple..."
"So yea," Desmond said. "They're close."
"Wait," Connor interrupted. "You just found out the templars are building a time machine. And you spent the last half hour complaining about your father?"
-/-
Kind of an abrupt ending, but I couldn't think of anywhere to go from there except a six week time jump, which seemed like a good place to start the next chapter.