The rest of the week was uneventful, and for some reason, Desmond found that to be incredibly frustrating. In the mornings, they woke up and ate breakfast, talking about some of the things they'd been doing since they'd last seen each other. During the afternoons, Desmond would work out and sometimes Lucy would watch, or even follow along. By the end of the week, they both were in a pretty solid routine.

William came to visit them once over the weekend and was pleased to see Lucy had made it in one piece. Apparently, though, Rebecca had also been to see him, and she'd made it clear she wasn't happy with what was going on. Initially, Desmond's thought was to just give Rebecca up for lost, but that night, Lucy had come to sleep with him (or next to him) because of how worried she was about the situation.

If there was one thing Desmond had to say still irritated him about Lucy – and there were many, if he was honest – it had to be how much she worried. When he'd been at Abstergo, he'd appreciated it. When he'd rejoined the Assassins officially, he'd thought it was cute. By the time they'd arrived at Monteriggioni, it was seriously starting to grate on him. When they'd thought she was dead and gone forever, he'd really missed it, but in the time since then, there'd been more than enough of it to drive him nuts again.

And this thing with Rebecca was really starting to test the limits of his temper. He always groaned inwardly whenever he thought about how little time it had been. Only a week since his reunion with Lucy, and Rebecca was already raising hell because of it. This wasn't how he'd imagined it would be like if Lucy ever came back to him.

But Rebecca was getting part of her wish: he and Lucy hadn't had anymore sex. This was beginning to bother Desmond for more than just a few reasons. He wondered if Lucy was just reacting to Rebecca, or was it something more serious? Was she dissatisfied with their encounter... with his performance... from last time? Was she not quite as happy to see him now that she was with him as she thought she would be? Or was there something even worse that he'd yet to think of?

The amount of time he spent thinking about it was getting to be insane. At first he figured it was just because he'd been used to a fairly-frequent number of decent sexual encounters back at the bar, and even after the war had ended and Lucy had left, he'd never quite gotten back into that groove. Part of him wanted to chalk it up to his attachment to Lucy. In fact, one night after attending a formal play with his parents, he'd actually moaned Lucy's name to the woman he'd ended up taking home. That certainly didn't go over well... But eventually, he'd had to admit to himself it was because his life was irreversibly changed by the things he'd been through. And though Lucy was most likely the biggest part of that, it still wasn't the funnest of revelations to experience and accept. But it also wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be when the thought first occurred to him. All he cared about now, though... was that it didn't help to solve his current problem with Lucy.

Why was she staying? How long was she staying for? What did she think of him...? Of them...? She certainly couldn't be considering them as a couple if she wasn't willing to even have sex with him. The greatest of his fears was that she'd been reconsidering. After all, it seemed a rather sudden decision, the way she'd made it seem like when she described it. She'd just, what, decided to up and leave her boyfriend? They hadn't talked about it any further since she'd first gotten there, and Desmond didn't want to push the subject, in case it made her possible-second thoughts worse. He wasn't going to ask her about the sex, either. At least not yet...

In the meanwhile, a while after leaving the Assassins, he'd decided to go out and get a job. Even though his parents had made it clear he wouldn't need to for at least ten years, Desmond had been bored and lonely. Two things that never mixed well... And so, without fail, he hunted down something, anything to do. Success had come in the form of a spa and fitness resort near him that two recently-acquainted friends of his had been employed by. And as a result, he was called in from time to time to cover for the regular night watchman, who had been there for six years, and was truthfully quite sick of it. So Desmond got plenty of work, because this man took frequent vacations. As it happened, he was soon to become a grandfather again, and had taken a whopping two weeks off to go visit with his wife and extended family. Normally Desmond would've been happy for the distraction, but now that the primary reason for getting the job in the first place had been resolved (more or less), he wasn't exactly excited.

And when he told Lucy about it, she wasn't exactly excited, either. "You're going to be gone all night?"

"Uh... yeah," was all he could say.

She was standing at the stove, making breakfast for dinner. "But... what about us?"

"What about us?" His voice had a hint of irritation behind it, and part of him hated that he half-hoped it showed. "I'm sorry, Lucy, but I can't call this off. I really do want to work, to a certain extent, and this is a good deal."

She sighed and flipped the pancake on the pan in front of her. "How long will it last?"

"Two weeks, and then whenever else they might need a cover after his vacation ends," he answered, taking a swig from his water bottle. "It doesn't happen that often... and even this time, I won't have to be gone every night for the whole two weeks. They've got a few other people to cover for him, too. I don't think they trust me too much there. The owner's a major control freak."

At this, Lucy didn't seem to be able to stop herself from looking up curiously. "What kind of 'major control freak'?"

Desmond took another swig. "I don't know what's wrong with him. He's got the entire place bugged, for starters. As if tapping the phones weren't enough, he's now openly admitted to his employees that he's got cameras all over the resort. Basically, nothing you do is safe unless you're in the bathroom or a guest's room... And who knows, even then he might be watching and just not telling anybody."

He fell silent for a moment, but then an idea came to him... "I'd never have sex there, I'll tell you that much."

Lucy kept flipping her pancakes. "Mm."

Draining the last of his water bottle down his throat, Desmond stood up and tossed it across the room to the garbage can. Such was his frustration that he didn't look to see if it landed inside or not. But he thought he knew what might help to take his mind off it.

He stepped into what was supposed to be his bedroom and dug around in his dresser for a moment, looking for something he'd kept with him since the war ended... He found it at last, in an old envelope in his top drawer: Mrs. Stillman's contact information. A plan had formed in his mind a long time ago... One of the painful things caused by the war that Lucy had once expressed to Desmond was how much she missed her family...

So Desmond wanted to reunite them.

The inspiration for this plan had come from a conversation he'd had with Lucy shortly after meeting Gary. After the meeting, Desmond could only avoid Lucy and Gary for so long. Eventually, he'd had to talk to her about the lukewarm nature of his reaction to the introduction. That time had come when she approached him for lunch the Friday of the same week. That was around the time Desmond's loneliness had begun in earnest. It had really only been Lucy who'd paid a whole lot of attention to him, because his father had had so much to do (although, in William's defense, he did try more frequently) and neither Shaun nor Rebecca were exactly his closest of friends. So when Lucy had grown so close to Gary, it had pretty much left Desmond alone.

But even with Gary around, Lucy had still made time for Desmond that day... And though he was sure the predominant part of her choice to approach him was to find out why he'd reacted so coldly to Gary, he somehow didn't think that was all there was to it, given the nature their discussion eventually turned to...

When Friday came, Desmond was rarely upset. Even working with the Assassins, he still got his weekends off. Not that he'd barely ever worked them at the bar, but still...

Unfortunately, to get to Saturday, he'd first have to get through Friday... and it was with that thought in mind that he trudged across the lunch room of the headquarters to the table he usually sat at. It was the coldest, loneliest place in the entire building, and it struck Desmond as ironic that, even after how much Lucy and William had made him out to be the savior of the world... and even though he had miraculously lived up to that... nobody seemed to care who he was or what was going on with him anymore. There some positives to this... such as the much-improved relationship with his parents or how easy it was to get laid with the abilities he now possessed... but then again, he somehow hadn't seen himself ending up so... alone... again... when the war had ended...

As he reached the table and turned to sit down, his eyes inadvertently fell on the table his so-called "friends" usually sat at. It looked like Lucy was skipping today, though... because only Shaun, Rebecca, and Gary were there. Seeing Gary never put Desmond in a good mood. Mostly because he couldn't even begin to understand how Gary's existence was fair. In the last few days, his information gathering skills had taught him that Lucy had actually known Gary for quite a while. She'd even trained with him before going into Abstergo. According to Rebecca (although she'd been talking to Shaun at the time, so Desmond didn't know if it was true or not), Lucy and Gary had even been close back then, to the point that they'd emailed when she was at Abstergo. The thought of it made Desmond grind his teeth.

"Hey."

At the sound of that voice, he snapped back into the cafeteria. There stood Lucy with a tray of food, looking back at him.

"Oh... Hi, Lucy."

"Is it alright if I sit here?"

Desmond nodded. "Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Here..." He reached down and adjusted the chair for her. "I hadn't sat down yet, either, so..."

"Yeah, I noticed," she said as she began to organize her lunch. "What're you thinking so hard about?"

"Oh... I was... just... remembering good times at the bar."

They both sat down. Desmond had a lunch meat sandwich and a can of insta-soup, with a bottle of water to drink. Lucy had what looked like an egg salad and a bag of pretzels, with an Arizona tea to drink.

"What kind of times?" asked Lucy, "I mean, if... you don't mind me asking."

"No, of course not," said Desmond. "Why would I mind?"

Lucy shrugged and ate a pretzel. "I don't know. Some people do, though, so I thought it best to... ask."

"You know me, Lucy. I have no problem with it."

She looked down at her tray. "I guess so..."

An awkward moment of silence fell between them. It was easily the most uncomfortable experience of Desmond's life. Since he'd first left his parents, Lucy was the only person who'd ever felt like a real friend to him. She was the only one whose care and affection he trusted. Not because he didn't believe that other people... loved him, for lack of a better word, but because she'd been the most consistent for the longest period of time. At the very least, she'd had a profound effect on him, and he didn't want it to go away.

So, he broke the silence first. "I was remembering the first knife fight I witnessed there."

Immediately, she looked up, eyes wide. "What?"

"It was these two guys who came in at around two o'clock that morning. I'd taken a double-shift to try to catch up on some bills. I couldn't afford to fall behind, because that would put me on the grid again. This, of course, was when I thought the only people who might be looking for me were my parents."

He chuckled, and took a drink. "Anyway... these two guys came in and I asked 'em what they wanted to drink. So they ordered, and everything seemed like it was going fine, at first. But I remember they stayed way longer than most of the other customers had since I'd been working there. They came in at two, and I don't think they moved from their seats till four. They kept leaning in to each other and whispering. It looked like it wasn't a nice conversation, either. They were starting to get red in the face. I walked past them as often as I thought I could without catching their attention to try to hear what the hell they were saying. About a half hour after that, I finally overheard one of them say something interesting. Apparently, they were both having marital issues, but only one of them was keeping his dick busy... by fucking the other one's wife."

Lucy blinked prominently.

"Yeah. This was also the first time I realized how bad a bar patron can be, just as a whole. Their mindsets, their lifestyles... everything about them, just fucked. So anyhow, I paid much closer attention after that. It was only fifteen minutes after I'd figured out what was going on that the cheated kicked his buddy's stool out from under him and drew a knife. Nobody said anything after that. The cook went to call the cops, 'cause that was Bad Weather's policy. As soon as you see a weapon, it's cop time.

"Two more minutes later, and the buddy was stabbed and lying on his ass with a bit of blood coming out. That's about when the police got there, and fortunately, they brought the paramedics, too. But the guy was pretty drunk... Or just really stupid... He had to have known he was already in some serious trouble, but I think he actually meant to kill his friend. He stormed towards him and raised the knife, anyway...

"The police started trying to reason with him. Now, technically, I was supposed to help out security, too, when the need came up. So I climbed over the bar and grabbed his wrist before he could stab down. He spun around, punched me, and slashed me across the chest."

Lucy turned a ghostly-white.

Desmond held up a reassuring hand. "Don't worry, it all worked out. The guy was so drunk, he only got me with the tip of the blade. Literally. One of the policemen zapped him and that was the end of that. The cops took him away, the paramedics loaded up the ex-friend, and one of the nurses took care of me right there. It was fine."

Desmond lifted his shirt so Lucy could see a portion of the scar there. She reached out and brushed a shaky finger along it.

"Dear God..." she whispered.

Desmond let his shirt drop and shrugged. "That's the way it is in a bar, sometimes."

"You're not... thinking of going back to that, are you?"

She sounded slightly panicked. Selfish though it sounded, after watching her walking around the headquarters holding hands with Gary for three days, he was slightly encouraged by it...

He jutted his lower lip out thoughtfully. "I don't know. It was good money, and I did enjoy most of it..."

"God, I'd have quit right there," said Lucy, rubbing her eyes with her hands and taking a deep breath. "That was... very brave of you, Desmond. I guess you had a bit more Assassin in you than you realized."

"Guess so..." said Desmond.

They smiled at each other in contented quiet for a moment.

But again, it was Desmond who broke it. "What brought you over here?"

"I saw you standing here, and I hadn't talked to you much for a few days, so I thought... why not?"

"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you, what have you been doing?"

"Nothing much, truthfully," she replied, taking a bite of her salad. "I went to dinner and a movie with Gary. That's about it."

"Ah," was all he could think to say.

Another break in the flow. Search though he might through his mind for something to say... perhaps another story to tell that painted him in an impressive light... Desmond couldn't think of anything.

Finally Lucy asked, "What?"

"What?" repeated Desmond?

"You know what I mean. Why don't you like Gary?"

"Who says I don't?"

"Just going by your general behavior towards him, I'd say you made it pretty clear. You were extremely rude to him on Tuesday, anyway, and he was perfectly nice to you."

This caught Desmond by surprise. "Rude, was I?"

Maybe she had noticed a bit more, after all...

"Yes, you know you were," said Lucy. "And hey, I'm not trying to tell you who to like, but could you at least tell me why?"

"I could, but why does it matter? It's not really anything personal, Luce. I don't know the guy that well. I'm sure he is perfectly nice. He just grates on me."

But she wasn't buying. "Why so?"

"Because..." began Desmond, "...because he just does. His voice, his mannerisms... He's pretentious as fuck. I'm glad you're having a nice time with a good friend that you haven't seen or talked to in a long while, but still... He makes me nuts. He just does."

Lucy didn't answer. Her eyes flitted to the side and she ate another pretzel.

Minutes passed.

"Well, could you try again?" she eventually asked. "I... don't have a whole lot of friends, I guess you could say. And yeah, Gary's a really good friend, but so are you. I'd really like it if you could both get along. And he likes you, so..." her eyes grew a little wider, this time not with fear, "...please?"

He'd never known her to be the type of woman to manipulate men the way some people might say she was trying to manipulate him at that moment.

So he nodded. "Sure. Sure, Lucy... I can work on that."

With a warm smile, she reached out and took his hand. "Thank you."

He put his other hand over hers and smiled back.

More minutes passed before they let go of each other and went back to their lunches.

Then something occurred to Desmond mid-way through a sip of his soup. "Lucy, what about your family?"

"What about them?" she answered nonchalantly.

"You never told me anything about them... or what your plans are for meeting back up with them."

The smile faded from her face. "I'd rather not talk about that."

"Oh, come on," said Desmond. "I answered your question. Both of them..."

He cocked his head to the side, slightly.

She considered this for a moment. "Yes... Yes, you did. Alright..." She adjusted in her chair and leaned forward on her elbows. "Here's the deal with my family: they think I've completely abandoned them."

It was Desmond's turn to be surprised. "I'm sorry?"

She sighed. "When I joined the Assassins, it was because my father was killed by Templars. He was on a team-based mission in Egypt, under the premise to the rest of my family of taking a business trip to San Diego. My Mother was not involved. Dad said he didn't want to risk everyone else. For some reason, he requested that I'd be trained alone, and if anything happened to him, I'd be entrusted to protect the family. I guess he thought he'd live a little longer. Or, at least, that's what I've been trying to convince myself..."

Desmond took her hand again.

Lucy smiled formally, but ducked her head. "It happened when I was ten. Obviously, the family doesn't know the truth. They think he fell out of a fifth story window in the building he was in. He was really shot through the head by a Templar agent when it turned out the lead on a Piece of Eden they were chasing was falsely planted. Dad and his team knew they were being tracked. They were supposed to lead the Templars there, then turn on them and thin the ranks."

Tears were running down her cheeks as she looked back up, although she was not openly crying or sobbing at all. "It didn't turn out that way."

She sniffled once, so Desmond offered her a napkin to dry her eyes and nose with.

"Thank you," she said, and began to wipe the tears that had fallen off her arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to have a breakdown."

"It's all right," Desmond answered softly. "You need time to let it all out, too."

"Maybe, but you've got enough to worry about right now, Desmond. You don't need this."

"Are you kidding? I've got nothing going on anymore. I feel like Ezio, after his first visit to the Vatican. 'My battles have already been won.' I got all the time in the world, Lucy. So don't worry about me. I'm fine."

Lucy smiled again. "You know, I wish more than anything that we hadn't met under such harsh circumstances."

"Why so?" asked Desmond, rubbing her hand with his thumb.

"Because maybe things would have turned out differently."

"I don't know," said Desmond thoughtfully. "I don't think we could have asked for a better outcome... Given how harsh the circumstances were..."

Lucy seemed satisfied with this. "And then there's that."