'If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, 'the world would go round a deal faster than it does.'

'Which would not be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. 'Just think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—'

'Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, 'chop off her head!'

"Woah," Desmond said with a start. "I forgot this story gets a little violent at times." He chewed his tongue for a moment, contemplating. "Well, I guess reading you acts of literary violence is a bit more palatable than having you see acts of visual violence. An' I'll give you a little spoiler here, kiddo." He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. "Alice doesn't get her head chopped off."

"Are you two all right?" came William's voice softly from the bedroom door.

Desmond turned to face him. "Yeah, we're good. He's asleep. Or nearly asleep. I mean, it's a little hard to tell, but either way, he's all calm and quiet."

"You left rather abruptly."

"Well sorry, but I thought babies shouldn't see people getting killed," Desmond said, a little snidely. "Might give him nightmares or something."

"Ah, all right." William rubbed his neck stiffly.

Desmond marked where he'd stopped in the book and then set it back on the shelf. "Did the new code work? Was Colin able to get into my ancestor's memories?"

"Miss Crane said the, ah, neural refresh rate is a little slower than usual, but other than that, yes, it's working properly."

Desmond cracked a slight smile. "You don't know what the neural refresh rate even is, do you?"

"Not really, nor do I need to," was the brusque reply.

"It's the rate of how fast the system is tracking the user's brain activity. A faster NR rate makes the memory seem more real," Desmond explained.

"Hm," William said, sounding impressed. "I didn't know you were so knowledgeable about the technical aspects of the Animus."

"I know some of the basics, at least. Rebecca was teaching me, remember? Earlier this year, before... y'know." Desmond's posture sagged a little. "Before I got sidetracked with poking around Andrew's DNA to find out his other dad." He turned his head and looked back at the sleeping child. "An' after that, I was too busy getting all prepared for..." he paused heavily before saying the momentous word, "fatherhood."

William took his shoulder gently. "Let's talk in the hall, so we don't wake him."

Desmond nodded and they left the room. "I dunno why I was so obsessed with finding out whose he is. Now that I know... It's like..." He rubbed a hand over his forehead, at a loss for words.

William went ahead and stated the obvious. "You're not thrilled about it being Kaczmarek."

Desmond pursed his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Well, it's not like I'm mad that it turned out to be Clay, it's just... I never expected it. I always was thinking it was gonna be Lucy, Becca, or Shaun, 'cause they were actually there. Honestly, I was hoping for one of the girls. It'd be, I dunno... less gay that way." He chuckled ruefully. "Yeah, how's that for irony? The man with a vagina, worried about things being gay."

William had no ready response to this, other than to tap his fingers uneasily against his pant leg.

Desmond sighed. "But really, I think I'm actually okay with Clay being his dad. As long as that's all he is." He paused a few beats. "I mean, there are worse alternatives. Until that test Stacey did proved he was human, I seriously thought I had Juno's baby inside'a me. And that, I would have been really mad about."

"We're all glad it didn't turn out that way, Desmond."

"Yeah." He snapped his fingers. "Oh, I got some more diapers outside soaking in the wash. You promised you'd help me wash 'em. Come on."


"Where do you think she is right now?"

William looked up from the diaper he was fretting across the scrub board, giving Desmond a perplexed look.

"Juno, I mean," he clarified. "You heard any chatter on where she might be hiding out?"

William shook his head. "We haven't a clue. Not a peep from her- or any other Precursors, for that matter- since last year. Mr. Vermaak and I visited the Grand Temple in July and she didn't seem to be there anymore." He held out a sopping wet diaper.

Desmond took it and wrung it out, then hung it on the line. "Hm. My saving the planet was supposed to let her loose into the world, and she sounded like she was planning to fuck humanity's shit over the second she got out... But then again, saving the planet was supposed to kill me, too."

William frowned at the icky wash water and scrubbed harder on a particularly set-in stain.

"And that obviously didn't happen either. It just burned the shit outta my skin." Desmond held up his right arm to illustrate the point. "One scarred up arm. Billions of lives saved. And, apparently, zero ancient evils unleashed. It feels... not right, y'know? I'm kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Mm. Perhaps Andrew has something to do with it," William said. "He could be another wrinkle in the prophecy."

Desmond pulled another wet diaper from the tub and hung it up. "Well, maybe. I hope not. But then again... That encoded file from Clay..."

"Hm?"

"He said a lot of bizarre things in there. Things that only made sense in hindsight. Like, 'She is not who you think she is'. Turns out that meant Lucy was a Templar. And 'Find me in the darkness' was about him planning to help me outta my coma."

"Hm."

"Another thing he said was, 'The sun. Your son.' So... the sun in the sky, that almost killed the planet," Desmond pointed upwards unnecessarily, "and my son," here he pointed to his abdomen, "the kid I was days away from being knocked up with."

"You think there's some connection."

"That what it sounds like to me. But fuck if I know the details of it. I woulda liked to ask him what all that shit meant, but the stupid Animus deleted him before I had the chance." Desmond shrugged. "Guess it doesn't matter now. There's not gonna be another solar flare like that for another majillion years, right?"

"It was no mere 'solar flare', Desmond," William said. "Solar flares happen on a daily basis with no ill effects to the planet. The event was something of far greater magnitude than-"

"Whatever!" Desmond spat. "What was it then?"

"...I'm not sure there's actually a defined term."

"Well then I'm gonna say 'solar flare', 'cause that's hella lot easier than saying 'big explodey space thing that could kill 98% of the human race.'"

There was silence for a long while after that, save for the soft splashing of water in the washtub and the intermittent sounds of ambient nature.

"Tell me something, Desmond... Is it true that you forget about the labor pain when you, ah, meet your child?"

"Ba-ha-hahaa!" Desmond cackled, not even caring that his hand was still wet as he slapped his knee in amusement. "Where the hell'd you get that idea?"

"A doctor at the School. She's delivered children, and she's had children of her own, so I went to her for a little advice while I was there."

"Well, either she's lying through her teeth, or I'm an exception to the rule, because I definitely remember that shit."