September 22, 1212

Five years later

-/-

Desmond and Sef are in Altair's office when everything finally comes to a head. They've been fighting on and off for years now, competing during training and at home, and bickering at every chance they get. It hasn't really been the same, ever since Desmond got his voice back, and sometimes Desmond wishes it could all go back to the way things used to be. When they were younger, and still friends. Mostly, though, he just wishes his brother would stop being such a stubborn, competitive jerk.

Neither of them is supposed to be in the office, technically, but they're fifteen and stupid and being forbidden something seems like a perfectly good reason to do it. The argument is nothing new- a familiar fight they've had a million times before, only quieter, just in case someone comes by and catches them.

Then Sef says something stupid, calls Desmond some name, and laughs at him. And Desmond throws the first punch. He'll remember that later, when it's too late to change anything, and too late to put things back the way they were. But if Desmond lashes out first, Sef doesn't hesitate to fight back, and in a few seconds they're trading blows without any thought of finesse or skill. It's just pure emotion, anger and frustration. They're both shouting, not caring any longer if they're found.

Maybe, if this fight had taken place somewhere else, it would have been good for them. It could have been enough to clear the air and maybe even get them talking again instead of arguing. Instead, Sef pushes Desmond back into the table where Altair keeps the apple, and the artifact goes flying. Time seems to slow as it falls, and then-

"Shit!"

The world goes black again, and even when Desmond switches to eagle vision he can't see anything around him. He breathes in sharply, tensing as the old familiar shadows with their terrifying whispers come crowding in around him. After several moments of pure panic, something finally happens. There's a flash of golden light, and the apple falls out of the murky darkness, landing in Desmond's outstretched hand. He stares at it, trying to understand how it came to be here- and then the shadow world around him seems to explode.

Desmond staggers back, one hand still clutching the apple, the other one thrown up uselessly against the light, and against the shadows as they suddenly swarm at him. They're coming at him from every direction, long dark fingers reaching for him. This is the moment he's been afraid of his whole life- when the shadows that have taunted him as long as he can remember get tired of waiting and actually attack. Desmond gasps again and screams, stumbling blindly away as the shapes jump at him, intohim, into his mind.

And then abruptly he stops screaming, because it doesn't hurt. Because he's remembering. He just stands completely still, limp and panting, as twenty five years' worth of memories come pouring back in. He remembers. Everything. Even dying- or almost dying- and being saved by Altair at the last possible second. All this time, years and years of fighting off the shadows in his head, of being afraid of them, and they turn out to be nothing more than his own memories tormenting him (and Juno, of course, because she couldn't possibly leave him alone, even now).

But just as he's catching his breath and convincing himself that the worst he has to deal with are a few bad memories, the pain he'd expected earlier finally starts. The apple isn't done yet. Desmond's body starts to stretch, growing faster than humans were ever meant to. He can hear yelling, and some of it is his but some of it probably isn't, but Desmond doesn't have any brain space to spare on figuring out who's doing the yelling as his body accelerates from fifteen to twenty five in about five minutes flat.

Then- finally- the pain fades and the world returns to normal. Desmond finds himself on the floor of Altair's office, lying prone and naked on a pile of clothes far too small for him. He feels his fingers relax their death grip on the apple, and watches as it rolls away a few inches.

And then stop abruptly when it hits someone lying only a few inches away. Someone that looks a lot like Sef, if Sef had been an adult instead of a teenager. "Shit," Desmond hisses, barely audibly. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened. The apple brought him here, as a child with no memories, in the first place. Now the apple's brought him back to the way he used to be, and Sef was unlucky enough to be caught up in it.

"I am so, so sorry," Desmond says. It's a real effort to force the words out, because he's panting for breath.

"What just happened?" Sef demands. He sits up on shaking limbs, panting as well and also naked.

"It's... a long story," Desmond mutters, pulling himself into a sitting position as well, and taking care not to come too close to Sef.

"Tell me," Sef says. "I need to know." He looks at Desmond, and his eyes are... different. They're sad, and not the eyes of a child anymore.

So Desmond tells him everything. When he's done, Sef sits in absolute silence, studying his hands with a kind of detached interest that tells Desmond his mind is a million miles away. Finally, Desmond forces himself to break the silence. "How do you feel?" he asks. He's not sure if Sef is still the same as he was a few minutes ago, a teenager suddenly in an adult's body, or if the apple has somehow managed to even change his mind.

He has to ask it twice before Sef hears him, and answers. "Not like myself," he says.

"Who do you feel like, then?"

"Me," Sef mutters. Then he grins a little sheepishly. "And yea, I know that doesn't make sense. But I guess I feel like this is who I would have been in ten years, if… if that makes any sense. I just feel older, I guess. But there's also all this knowledge I shouldn't have yet, too. Like someone just sucked my brain out of the future and gave it to me early. Physically, mentally- I just feel older." He sounds older, too, more mature.

"I'm sorry," Desmond says again.

"It's not your fault," Sef says. "I mean, not too much. You did hit me first."

"Yea, and you knocked the apple over," Desmond says. For a second, the two of them tip right on the edge of descending back into another fight. Then they seem to come to the same conclusion at the same time- it's not worth the effort, and they have bigger problems for now. All their earlier arguments seem stupid and petty in the face of... whatever this is.

"So what do we do?" Sef asks.

"I don't know," Desmond says. He's still reeling from remembering that he's in the wrong time, the wrong part of the world, the wrong body, sort of. He can't deal with the future right now, not when he's still trying to sort out his past. Especially when most of his past technically is the future.

"We're going to have to tell dad," Sef says glumly.

"Oh." Desmond winces. Not because Altar won't understand- after his own misadventures with time travel, of course he'll understand. But he cares for his family, a lot, and learning that he's just missed out on ten years of Sef's life is going to absolutely crush him. "Yea- that's going to be fun. Do you know when Altair's getting back?"

"Sometime tomorrow," Sef says. "He's still out of town."

Desmond nods absently and doesn't say anything else. Neither does Sef, and the room falls gradually into silence. It's not an uncomfortable quiet, though. Even with everything that's gone wrong here today, there's still a few bright spots. Desmond's memories are not all nice, but they're his and at least he has them now. And after five years of fighting with Sef, the two of them are finally getting along again. Sort of, anyway, and the silence between them now is comfortable, rather than angry.

Brotherly, even.

-/-

September 23, 1212

-/-

Everything is a little too quiet when Altair finally gets home, tired and dusty from two long days on horseback. Maria he already knows is working with Malik in another part of the keep, catching up on the paperwork that's always starts to pile up while Altair travels. And it's early evening, so Darim is still probably at training, but Sef and Desmond should have been home.

He mumbles a curse, thinking without any real hope that maybe they're out somewhere doing something completely innocent. They won't be, of course. They'll be out somewhere, fighting and causing trouble as usual, but at least he can pretend for a little while.

Altair checks the boys' room first, but other than some dirtied robes thrown on the floor, there's no sign that they've even been there recently. There's no clue of them in his and Maria's room either, so Altair sighs and checks his office. He's told them a million times not to go in there, without effect. For some reason, all three of his kids seem to take it as a challenge, and spend as much time there as physically possible. Altair can't help grumbling to himself as he opens the door, because one of these days, something is going to go seriously wrong, and-

He stops short.

And that day is today.

"What happened?" he asks, and to his own surprise his voice is completely calm. He shouldn't be calm right now. He reallyshould not be calm right now, because Sef and Desmond are sitting against the far wall, both totally naked, at least ten years older than they had been when Altair left Masyaf a week ago.

"The apple," Sef volunteers, after a very long pause.

"I sort of guessed that," Altair snaps. "I meant what were the two of you doing before that?" Only it's not that hard to guess, because they look like they've just been in a fight, and the apple is on the floor like it's just been knocked off his desk. "How many times have I told you-"

Words fail him as the enormity of what he's seeing here starts to process through Altair's mind. Desmond… he's probably going to be fine. If he remembers everything (and would he really be so calm if he didn't?), then what the apple did today is probably good for him. Sef, on the other hand, has just been forced to skip past ten years of his life. He's not getting anything back. He's losing something, something important.

"It's fine, dad," Sef says.

"This isn't fine."

"I feel fine." Sef insists.

He doesn't look fine- he looks like a man that's just been in a fight, sitting naked on a stone floor. But he sounds fine, calm even, and Altair forces himself to step back a little, mentally, and look at the situation more logically. As if logic can be applied at all here.

"Alright," he says at last. "Here's what's going to happen. Both of you are going to get clothes, and then we are going to sit down and figure out where to go from here. And then… somehow, we are going to explain all this to Maria."

Neither Desmond nor Sef has any problem with putting on clothes, and fifteen minutes later the three of them are gathered back in the main room, sitting in a tense silence that Altair finally manages to break. "How are the two of you doing?"

Desmond answers first, and Altair isn't surprised to hear that the apple has brought his memories back. He also isn't surprised that Desmond seems a little awkward when he talks, even a little unsure how to act. After all, Altair's spent nearly thirteen years raising Desmond as a son, and before that (in the future) Desmond had helped to raise Altair. It had taken Altair years to get over the weirdness, and Desmond's only had a few hours.

It's still a problem for later, though, because at least Desmond seems relatively stable. Mostly he just seems resigned and a little annoyed, like this is a hassle instead of a major problem.

Then Sef has his turn to speak. "Alright," he says slowly. "So, this probably sounds weird, but I don't feel like I just missed ten years of my life. It's more like I had them all in one afternoon."

Altair considers this, studying Sef with an intensity that his son doesn't flinch away or back down from. Honestly, he can picture Sef growing into the man sitting across the table from him. If the circumstances had been right. If he'd outgrown his competitiveness, or learned not to let it control him. Altair would have been proud to see Sef grow up like this, if he had gotten to see him grow up at all. Instead he just feels a soul emptying sense of loss, one that he quickly tries to hide away.

"Well then," he says, doing his utmost to keep his voice calm. "We know where we stand. I'm going to go track down your mother and Darim. Maybe it will go over a little better if I explain before they see the two of you."