Just because this Legacy is set in the way distant future doesn't mean there won't be more Legacies from more contemporary times. I was just listening to some good music that made me wanna clean this up and post it lols. It's been sitting in my project since Feb of 2016 it's probably about time lols

Also, as the New Year comes along, I'm posting the link to the FM database on my writing blog shotgunsandstars over on tumblr. You CAN make comments on things anonymously without logging in so... fucking have at it I guess.


September 473 E.o.J., Atlantis, Atlantis | April 579 E.o.J., Badrid, Saad province, Hera

They had no home anymore. Well, it was still there, but it didn't feel like home anymore. Desmond often felt like an intruder in his own bedroom and at meals he and Lucy barely talked, or when they did it was about work. They hadn't even had sex in a decade. Four hundred and sixteen years was a long time to be married and still look and feel and sound like they were in their mid-twenties.

Lucy was sitting in bed, feet over the side, braiding her long hair before bed. It was long now and natural colored, a soft sort of dirty blonde that turned into the color of corn silk at the ends, or starlight. He could remember when she used to dye it every color of the rainbow. She wore a silk night gown but it did nothing to hide the shape of her back and shoulders. The lamp on his side of the bed cast her in a soft shadow that made her seem faded and shadowed, a ghost of herself. They'd barely talked all day, just at dinner and in passing at work. Desmond sat up and reached over, touching her back. She didn't respond.

"Hey," he said in English, an English no one knew anymore. Just them and the other immortals knew how to really speak it anymore except for the historians who went digging in the old ruins of what had once been the United States or parts of western Europe. It was comforting speaking it, intimate even. It was very private, which was nice when their entire lives revolved around the public and speaking and working with huge groups of people. "Talk to me."

She looked over her shoulder at him, "There's nothing to talk about," she said, also in English.

Desmond frowned and moved over to her so he sat next to her, one leg up under him. "That is something to talk about," he said. God not even a century ago they'd been so in love, with a kid even. But in the past thirty or so years, after Adren had finally passed away, it was like their entire relationship had just wilted. "You can talk to me," he moved till he was nearly next to her. He was in front of the light from the bedside lamp and her face was shadowed.

"Do you still love me?" she asked him.

Desmond was so caught off guard by the question he took a moment to respond. "Yes. Yes of course. Why wouldn't I?"

She looked away from him a bit. "I dunno."

"Do you still love me?" he asked her.

Her eyes darted up to his face, afraid of the question, afraid he'd think badly of her, afraid of her own answer. She steadied herself. "Yes," she said earnestly. "I do I just—

"You can talk to me," Desmond encouraged. "We're all grown up now and everything, you don't have to be scared of talking to me," he took her hand, his thumb stroking her fingers, finding comfort in the smooth metal band on her ring finger. An old tradition from when they'd been mortal. Rings had fallen out of favor, proeathans didn't use rings and this new world they'd made four hundred years ago was a mix of proeathans and humans. They'd remarried like sixteen times since then, mainly for the party, but also to actually make their marriage legal again, and also because they sometimes got so wrapped up in each other. Sometimes it'd be like the end of the world all over again and the older folks would sigh and roll their eyes while watching Desmond and Lucy make lovely dovey faces at each other. Jake still claimed he was traumatized from a particularly heated meeting about the Fair where he swore they'd been about to rip each other's clothes off and angry fuck right there in front of him and everyone else at the meeting.

She sighed and looked away. "Exactly," she said. "You just… do that."

"Do what?"

"Just accept it."

"Well is it something?" She shrugged. "That wasn't really an answer, dear," he chided her.

"I'm bored," she said and looked at him. "Of this life."

"Of me?" he ventured. Her pained face was enough. Yes. Of him. He looked away and took a deep breath. Well, that certainly wasn't something anyone liked to hear. "You're bored of me," he said.

"I love you, Desmond," Lucy said. "I really really do. But I just… I don't know. We've been together so long now. Aren't you tired of the same things over and over again?"

"I don't think of it like that I guess," Desmond said. "Do you want a divorce?"

Lucy looked stricken, "No," she said, horrified.

"Okay. Then what do you want?"

Lucy shrugged and turned her hand to cradle his a bit. "Maybe we should take a break? I never really did get to have a life when I was a mortal, and that's just a memory of a dream now," she ended in nearly a whisper. "I guess, I want to go have a life. Away from you."

"But you don't want a divorce?" Desmond clarified.

Lucy looked at him and kissed him with a passion that surprised him. She pushed him back some so he had to hold himself up so he didn't fall right onto the bed. He kissed her back. It was the best kiss they'd had in probably twenty years and reminded Desmond of when they'd been younger, more wild and reckless and hopeless about one another. "I don't want another husband," she said softly once they stopped kissing, their mouths just barely separate.

"You just want a break," he said. She nodded. He sat back up all the way. "How long?"

"I don't know," Lucy said. "A few decades. Long enough for me to miss you. Right now we're always together and sometimes its suffocating. Sometimes I just can't take it anymore. Sometimes I want to ask you to make me mortal again."

"We've talked about this," Desmond said. The only way he'd make Lucy mortal was if he was made mortal first. It was the only selfish thing he really asked for in their relationship, that he not have to live the rest of his life alone when Lucy died a synth's death. If Lucy wanted to pass away it'd take sixty years until Desmond was old enough to do so around the same time. They'd talked about it in depth and Lucy was in agreement about it. She wasn't nearly so cruel as to leave him like that.

"I know," she said. "I know you've thought about it too. I just, need space, need time."

"Okay," Desmond said and rested his head on her shoulder. "What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. Probably leave Atlantis."

"Will you meet other men?"

"Will you be mad if I do?"

"I… would be a hypocrite if I told you not to. You've never been with anyone else. You deserve that."

"You're always so understanding about this stuff," she teased him slightly.

"Don't get me wrong, I won't like it knowing my beautiful wife might be out banging guys a sixth my age but I will deal with it."

"And you should go bang sexy ladies a sixth my age," she said.

"I don't do them that young," he said sarcastically. That made her laugh and Desmond smiled. Half a millennia and he still adored her laugh, and making her laugh. "Alright," he said once she'd stopped laughing. "We'll take a break. I might be good for both of us," he allowed.

All Desmond did now was plan for the next Fair and it had become a world event on the scale of the winter and summer solstices which were some of the biggest, wildest parties in the major cities. But it was his life now and he worked nearly every day, sitting down with his people and planning what would happen. Centuries ago he didn't have to spend all year planning, he could get it together in about seven months from start to finish. It was just so big now. If he didn't spend the majority of his days on it they'd fall behind schedule.

The other immortals didn't help as much anymore either. They'd all moved on to other things but did stop by every few years to check in, to lend a hand and insight. So it was mainly Desmond, making sure his baby didn't get turned into a commercial consumer monster. He didn't begrudge the others for doing other things. Sometimes Desmond felt like it was his penance for what he'd done. He'd nearly gotten his entire species destroyed and they'd come back from the brink of real extinction. So now he put the Union Fair on every year so no one could forget, so everyone would remember they were better united than separate.

Desmond could use a break too. He only eased up when there were kids around but otherwise was an absolute work-o-holic. Wasn't too bad when your wife was one too. But he still felt beat down sometimes. "I want to go home," he said.

"The way station?" she asked.

"No," he said softly and took her hand again. "I think I want to go to old South Dakota." He hadn't been there in two centuries, not even just scrying it. "See my family." The monument he'd made for his brother was still there as were the statues for his parents, for the family he'd never known. Historians had no idea why there were seemingly random grand grave markers in the middle of the Black Hills nor did they know who the people were that were so significant to history to get such grave markers.

"Don't stay too long," she said.

Desmond sat up, "And maybe I'll take a break from the Fair. Make Altair and Cain run it for a few years."

"And run it into the ground," Lucy said.

"Altair might, but not with Cain around, and if nothing else Jake's around to control them both," Desmond said thoughtfully. "Huh… the more I think about it, the more I like your idea," he smiled at her. "A break would be good for the both of us."

"I think so too."

"Do you want to leave? Or should I leave?"

"I think we should both leave," she said seriously.

"Alright, fair enough," he nodded. "Any stipulations for this?"

"Please don't look for me," his heart broke a little at that. "If you love me trust I'll come back. I just want to be myself."

"Okay," he said slowly, doing his best to not let it show how much that affected him. "But you cannot die, at all, or put yourself in any sort of reckless situations. I assume you'll still talk to Jake?"

"Like I could get away without calling him once a month," she smiled.

"I won't look for you," Desmond promised. "But please, tell Jake if you're in trouble. Just so I know someone can come help you."

"I'm a big girl, Desmond," she said.

"I know, but you're also my wife and I worry," Desmond said. "I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you. I don't want to rescue you. One because you can do it yourself, and two because you know its bad for my health," that amused her.

"Then you can't do anything stupid either," she said smartly. "I don't feel like rescuing you."

"Promise," Desmond said and sealed it with a kiss. It wasn't tasteless like they had been lately and Lucy actually kissed him back. "When do you want to leave?"

"End of the week?" he nodded. That'd give him time to track Altair and Cain down and drag them in by their ears. If nothing else he could go visit Duncan and find them. Duncan would be happy to see him, the AI always was. He was nervous but also excited.

"How long?" he asked.

"I don't know," she admitted. "A few decades. Oh, don't look like that. They'll go by fast," she said and cupped his face in one hand. "I'll find you," she promised.

"You better or I'm coming to find you," it was a threat as much as a promise and made her giggle. "I'll survive," Desmond said.

"I know you will," she said. "And so will I."

"Yeah. It's getting late now. Should we go to bed? We can deal with this more in the morning?" She nodded and finally tied off the end of her braid and joined Desmond when he crawled under the covers. For the first time in a decade they slept facing one another and Desmond got to go to sleep to the sight of Lucy's peaceful face.

Desmond was in the city of Badrid. He'd never been. It was a small city, but thriving, getting bigger every year. There were only a few dozen cities in the world still, even after all this time. The world was still recovering from losing seven billion people back before the Great Darkness and proeathans didn't breed very quickly, coupled with the fact that after the cryo sickness had killed all the pre-hibernation proeathans the ones left were still young and many weren't ready for children. So the world's population was still growing and there was plenty of room to expand.

Some of the ancient cities had just been torn down and rebuilt upon, others were being renovated from the ground up. Many were unlivable still. Too much radiation from the short initial panic wars that had occurred in the five years Desmond had been captive of the proeathans and those with nukes had fired some. Places like London, Paris, New York City, Boston, Tokyo, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and even more. They were still recovering from the nuclear fallout. And the ones that weren't riddled by radiation were uninhabitable because of the ice age and were under meters and miles of ice. The proeathans had kickstarted the current ice age back then and the Earth was hanging onto it. Helped that people didn't burn fossil fuel anymore. Proeathans had pure, clean, energy, and brought it to the humans who'd done things with it that had shocked, disgusted, and awed the proeathans.

Badrid was new. It was in a place there had never been a city on the coast of Spain. Lovely seafaring city that reminded him of images of Paris funnily enough. Barely enough people to be a city but the people of Badrid were fiercely proud of their city. It had the highest population of clairaudient angels anywhere too, which Desmond found cool and also weird. He was just happy that now that humans weren't fighting for their lives and to survive they could actually start using their psychic abilities like the proeathans did, which was to say; for just everyday use. Of course since Badrid was full of clairaudients it meant everyone was both super nosy and super secretive since your neighbors could, quite literally, hear everything.

Desmond had been in Badrid about eight months. He liked it. It was fairly warm, the people were friendly, the streets clean, and the food delicious. That was what Desmond had decided to do on his break. After he'd visited his family in South Dakota he'd started doing a tour of the world, to remind himself how beautiful it was, and how great the people were in it. He'd left Altair and Cain in charge of the Fair and he checked on it via holo-deck when the event went live and never saw it go off the rails. Good idea leaving it with Altair and Cain. Had he left it with Altair and Micheal or Ezio the entire thing would have gone tits up for sure. And of course, he'd been traveling to try all the sorts of food there was out there. Desmond had always loved food but it was limited in Atlantis because only certain styles really got recognition and could prosper there. But leave Atlantis and you could find all sorts of weird good food. Needless to say Desmond had basically eaten his way from city to city, staying until he'd decided he'd had his fill and moved on to the next.

As usual for him, Desmond was at a restaurant. It was mid-morning and he was having coffee and breakfast at a place he'd never been to but apparently made amazing crepes. He had a very strong latte and was waiting for his breakfast crepe filled with stewed strawberries and topped with handmade whipped cream and hazelnut syrup. Thinking about it made him smile contently. He was so ready for food. He was sitting outside to enjoy the nice weather, the fence laden with aromatic flower boxes, watching people walk by and sipping his coffee.

A feeling nudged his mind a second before a pair of hands covered his eyes. He went very still. "Who's there?" he asked, doing his best not to threaten them. He was a peacekeeper now but he'd never lost his sharp edge, his ability to fight and kill. That would stay with him forever.

"Guess," said a female's voice he didn't really recognize. Fuck was it one of Cain's brood? He hated when they snuck up on him and despite the generations of separation from the immortal and his son they were still powerful angels and proeathans. It was sort of creepy actually. Then again most people said the same thing about his and Lucy's kids. There was something slightly off about them most people couldn't place. They were too much.

"Uh—" Desmond was too old to play guessing games with strangers. He just opened himself to his fully expanded Driver sense. It was easier to think of it as a Driver thing than as proeathan or angel since he could do them at once now. Duncan said that was what Drivers had been able to do. His eyes were freaky when he did this but it allowed him full use of all his psychic abilities. Including the one that literally allowed him to see directly around him in the visible light spectrum.

He tore away from the hands on his face and turned around. "Hey," he said, suddenly breathless and unsteady. Lucy was standing on the other side of the fence and she looked so beautiful. She'd dyed her hair a perfect shade of warm brown with the barest hint of red streaks in it that made her blue eyes just pop. And she was tan. God was she tan, her freckles coming out all over and his chest suddenly felt too small as his heart went to fill his entire rib cage.

"You look like you've seen a star," Lucy said.

"No," Desmond said, "an Angel."

She giggled. "You're funny," and like they hadn't been apart a hundred and six years she leaned down and kissed him. He'd been with other girls, and guys, while they'd been separated, and had plenty of good boyfriends and girlfriends who all kissed good but Lucy's kiss was the best thing he'd ever had. Still, after all this time. It felt like home.

"I missed you," he said softly when they parted.

"I missed you too," she said, cupping his face. "More than I thought I would," she admitted. "I thought I'd barely miss you at all. Stupid mistake really."

"And I missed you less," she rose her brows at him. "Well I thought I was going to be a complete wreck of a human being without you to keep me from doing stupid shit like twenty-four seven," he added. She smiled. "Come over, have breakfast with me," he urged. She nodded and went around the fence to come sit across from Desmond. She set a large backpack down behind her chair before sitting. Once she was there she reached across the table and took Desmond's hand. It was soft and small in his and while she was tan she was still several shades lighter than him. He just smiled at her, as stupid and madly in love with her as he had been when they'd been young and trying to bring life back to their dead world. They didn't say anything for a while.

"Ready to come home?" he asked her.

"I'm already home," she said and squeezed his hand. He leaned across the table and kissed her again. It was cut a bit shorter than he'd have liked when his breakfast came. Desmond ordered more food, knowing exactly the sort of crepe Lucy would like, and they shared the strawberry one. Funny, this was exactly the one Lucy would have wanted to try. The realization came to him as he was taking a bite and it showed on his face because she smiled smugly.

"That is a terrible use of your powers," he said.

"I wanted to make sure you had my favorite with me when we met again," she said. She got a surprise when Desmond got up and went to sit next to her instead of across. "What?" she asked.

"I love you," he told her. "And I want to be able to kiss you easily whenever I want."

She laughed, "You're silly."

"And that's why you love me," Desmond said proudly.

She kissed him on the cheek, "Yes, it is," she beamed at him and they finished their crepe, thighs touching under the table.


If you like the story or excited about the update you should leave a comment. Even if to just say 'I love this story!' I appreciate all of them and let me know you appreciate me too. Please don't feel intimated by the long reviews on this story. I assure you I love them all.