Desmond slowly sat up in the Animus chair, blinking a few times to clear away Ezio's world and to focus on his own. He inhaled deeply, getting to his feet.

"Hey there, Mommy," Rebecca teased, "don't move too fast."

"I'm alright," he replied, "did she behave?" He looked around the workroom to find Lyric, seeing her snuggled up to her bear in Shaun's lap.

"We'll talk about what happened at dinner," Lucy supplied, "Shaun's still flustered about it."

"Flustered is one word for it," the Brit snapped at her. "I suppose you wouldn't understand, seeing as you aren't a parent."

"Calm yourself, limey." Rebecca warned lightly.

The American made his way over to them and lifted Lyric into his arms when she reached for him, placing a light kiss on her forehead. She smiled happily at him, her small hand going to play with his hair as she wormed closer.

"I guess we'll talk at dinner," he said, looking at Shaun's computer screen. "Why don't we play hide and seek in the warehouse?" Lyric responded excitedly, wriggling to get out of his arms.

"Wanna play," she asserted quickly, "play!"

"Would either of you care to join?" Shaun offered the two women at their desks, eliciting a five-man-hide-and-seek-match and then a three-man-nerf-war after Desmond sat out to gather drinks for everyone(initially for Lyric).

A shadow came over Lyric and she looked up, her honey-colored eyes meeting a sharp silver. She smiled as Altair knelt down beside her.

"You are but an infant," he said, "why would your mother leave you alone?" He sat down beside the little girl.

"Alty," she said with a smile, toddling over to him and begining to play with the familiar sash.

"Sameera," Altair smiled at her, invisioning his own little girl and not the one before him, "I cannot believe Maria has left you here."

A haze spread over the little girl, "MalMal?" she asked, snuggling up to Altair. Sameera's memories began leaking into her. She wanted to pester her uncle Malik now.

"He is not here," he answered, "I sent him to Acre to check on our brothers."

"Isssss?" She could not sound out her older brother's name.

"Ishmael," he paused, "I do not know where he is. Perhaps your mother does."

Altair's figure vanished. Lyric/Sameera began to sob almost instantly when he'd left her sight. She sat down on the warehouse floor and began to have a tantrum about him leaving her.

All adults came racing over to the screaming toddler, Shaun was the first to lift her up.

"Lyric, darling, what ever is the matter?" He cooed as he bounced her in his arms. She stopped her crying only minutes after being picked up and looked up at Shaun with her warm amber eyes.

"Alty," she replied, snuggling into her father, "gone."

The British man witheld his anger and brought her into the kitchen to eat. The four adults sat and ate quietly for the first portion of their meal. Desmond had prepared tunafish sandwiches and was currently helping Lyric eat little bits of her own sandwich.

She was rather picky about it, the prickling taste of Miracle Whip on her tongue was not something she typically agreed with. The toddler ate anyways, then went for her chex mix that Desmond placed on the tray. She would only eat the original brand and hated the pretzels and those little white cracker things. Lyric ate what she hated first to enjoy the corn and wheat chex after.

She'd picked that up from Shaun.

"So, what happened while I was in the Animus?" Desmond asked, taking a bite of his own dinner while his daughter was busy with her food.

"Well, I was right," Shaun started, "she's dealing with the Bleeding Effect, Desmond. She's been seeing Altair Ibn La-bloody-Ahad."

"How many times has this happened?"

"This would be the third time we've caught it happening," Lucy said, going to slice up some cheese for Lyric to eat as well. She preferred to eat only cheddar cheese - another thing she'd inherited from Shaun.

The little girl smiled at Lucy, reaching up to be given a small slice, her chex mix long forgotton. The group leader only smiled in return and continued to feed her the strips of orange dairy.

"Is he hurting her?"

"No, I don't think so," Shaun replied, "but she still cries about something. I'll do some more research on him. Maybe you could hop into the Animus and we'll upload Altair's file for you to study."

"What about Ezio?"

"That bloody horndog isn't interfering with her, is he?" Shaun snapped at the engineer, "I'm only focusing on what's bothering her now. If Ezio comes into play, I'll do something about that."

They all gave a collective sigh, deciding to end dinner and start their relaxing period.

"Look at you," Desmond cooed as Lyric tried to run at him, shrieking the way all small children did. He caught her and tossed her up into the air, making her scream with happiness. Once she was safely in his arms, she snuggled into him, her small hands instantly going to play with Desmond's hair.

"She's getting so big," Shaun commented, "she'll be two in a few months, you know."

"We'll have to do something for her birthday," Desmond replied, "it'd be nice to give her a party, where she'll open some presents and do some fun stuff."

"We'll see what we can do." Shaun said earnestly, smiling as Lyric came up to him and crawled into his lap with her bear.

"Stowy," she ordered with a smile, settling happily with those puppy-dog eyes she'd learned directly from Desmond. The historian gave a laugh and got up to venture over to his shelf.

"Jack and the Beanstalk," he offered, "or your mum can tell you the one about Rumpelstilkskin."

"Rummo!" She answered and was again taken into Desmond's hold. The American kissed her cheek.

"I'll tell you the story of Rumpelstiltskin after you take a bath," he compromised, gaining a frown from her. He was sure it bled over from Altair, but she completely despised water in any way, shape, or form unless it was presented in her yellow sippy-cup.

"Bath or no story," Shaun said as he took the book from it's place on the shelf. "And let's not repeat the episode with Bear like last week, alright, dear?"

"What happened last week?"

"She decided to bring Bear into the bath with her and it got destroyed in the dryer and I had to fix the damned thing." Shaun groaned, "she would not have any other bear."

"It's because this one was her first one," Desmond defended, "it was familiar before she was even born, don't try to take it away."

"She'll stop wanting it when she turns nine or ten, possibly eleven."

"Yeah, but we'll keep it anyway."

"Bear," Lyric said, understanding that her most-treasured item was being talked about, "mine."

"We know, dear," Shaun said, "I'll put him in mum and dad's room and you can play with him after bath time and story time, alright?"

Lyric reluctantly handed over the furry brown animal, wrapping her arms around Desmond's neck as she was carried to that tub she hated oh-so-much.