1738
-/-
"Alright," Haytham said one morning. There was a heavy drizzle outside, the kind that could almost be a mist but wasn't, and anyone foolish enough to venture outside would find themselves soaked through in minutes. "So you've told me everything about what happened when Desmond was here, except how he left."
"Didn't I?" Jenny asked, vaguely. She was distracted, staring out the window and rubbing the fingers of her right hand over the palm of the left. Something about this kind of weather tended to make her mind wander, and today was no different.
"You didn't," Haytham said.
"Oh," Jenny said, still without looking away from the window. She'd been telling her brother about her childhood in little bits and pieces, jumping all over the place as individual memories came back to her. "I thought I did."
Haytham only shook his head, and, when she said nothing else, asked- "Don't you trust me?"
"What?" Jenny asked.
"Is it because I'm a templar?" Haytham asked. "Is that why you won't tell me?"
Jenny rolled her eyes. "You're thirteen years old and my little brother," she said. "I don't give half a flying fuck what side of this war you think you're on now. I wouldn't care if you grew up to be grandmaster of the templars, we're still family and I would trust you with anything."
"Then why won't you tell me?" Haytham asked.
"It's not you," Jenny said. "It's just- that day, it… I don't like to think about it. But if you want me to tell you…" She took a deep breath, and finally looked straight at him. "I will."
-/-
1729
-/-
"Eleven years to the day," Jenny said, with a certain amount of drama. "And this is the only time since then that I've seen it rain so badly."
"Eleven years since what?" Edward asked, but Jenny didn't answer. She only glanced at Desmond, who nodded because of course he knew exactly what she meant. It had been eleven years since Jenny first walked into her grandmother's barn and found Desmond shivering and shaking in a corner, miserable and afraid. In some ways, Jenny thought that might have been the day she fell in love with him. Not the way she loved him now, of course- she'd only been five years old at the time, and that kind of love had been too big for her to understand.
That love had come more slowly, creeping over her until she couldn't keep it inside any longer. Finding out Desmond felt the same, it was like- like she'd been living half asleep her whole life, and now she was awake. It was wonderful, but it was terrible too, because Jenny was very aware that they were both sixteen years old. Right now, she could believe that love would last, but she was old enough to know that she was young. How many people found the person they believed was their soul mate, only to realize months or years or decades later that it had only been a silly infatuation all at once? Her own father had left her mother before Jenny was even born, and while she loved both of them, she wasn't sure she could ever quite forgive him for that.
"Jenny?" Desmond said. "You still with us?"
"Sorry." She shook her head. "Lost in thought."
They were all gathered in the dining room- Jenny, Desmond, Edward, Tessa, and Haytham. The weather that morning had been beautiful and warm, and they'd planned to go out to the park, enjoy the weather and their time together while they still could. Then the weather had turned stormy out of nowhere, and now they were stuck inside.
"What are you looking at, dad?" Jenny asked, more to change the subject than anything. He was poring over a letter he'd gotten earlier, an unusually serious expression on his face.
"Nothing," Edward said, but he glanced at Haytham as he said it, and Jenny knew it must have something to do with the assassins. Everyone else in the room knew about the order, even Tessa, who wasn't part of it herself. But Edward had been very clear on the idea that Haytham wasn't to be told until he was older. Ten, he'd said, although that seemed like an entirely arbitrary number to Jenny. Still, she hadn't said anything, and neither had anyone else.
He was playing with a set of toy soldiers on the floor, but when the conversation turned in another direction, he abandoned the toys and came to sit next to Jenny. "Is he leaving again?" he whispered, pointing at Edward.
"No," Jenny said. "I don't think so." Her brother smiled, apparently reassured- he hated when any of them left, but especially Edward. It was only natural, for a kid his age. Someday he'd understand, when he was older and knew the truth. For now, Jenny was more interested in letting him have a childhood. They all were, for that matter. He was only a child. An innocent.
"I think the storm's letting up," Desmond said suddenly, glancing out the window.
"It doesn't look like it," said Tessa.
"Oh." Desmond frowned. "I hadn't heard any thunder for a while, so I thought…" he trailed off, suddenly very pale. "Jenny?"
"What?"
"Can we- I need to talk to you upstairs."
She nodded and got up at once- he sounded too panicked for her to do anything else, and when they were safely alone he turned to her. His voice was rapid and afraid, like he was trying to say everything he needed to before- before what?
"It's happening again," he said. "I'm leaving."
"You're-" and she thought of the storm outside, and her own words from earlier, that she hadn't seen it's like since the day Desmond first came to this century. "You're going back," she said.
"It feels just like the first time," he said. "Sort of- I don't know. But it's terrible, and I don't want to go."
"Don't," she said. "Desmond, don't-" her throat seized up a little, so that the words came out choked and rough. "Eleven years isn't enough time, it's not fair-"
He interrupted her with a kiss, slow and careful like he was trying to memorize every moment of it. She leaned into him, felt his arms around herself. He was still shorter than she was, and she suddenly thought of how vulnerable he was, really, and she was afraid to think of him being alone, in his own time, without her. Or maybe she was just afraid to think of herself alone, here, without him.
Then suddenly he felt less… solid. Like he was sliding away from her, and then- he was gone. Completely, as though he had never been. Jenny half fell forward, off balance now that he wasn't there to lean against. She put out a hand to stop her fall and scraped it badly on a loose nail there. It immediately started to bleed, but she barely even noticed. She was crying, sobbing really, in absolute silence as she mourned. This morning, she had imagined a happy life stretching out before her, and now she had no idea what the future held.
But she would certainly be alone for whatever it might be.
-/-
2012
-/-
"Do you want to stop?" Rebecca asked, quietly.
"No," Desmond said. He felt stupid (and angry over feeling stupid), mostly because he'd started crying at some point during his story, and he didn't think he'd be able to stop anytime soon. They weren't big, messy tears, but they were very present and very visible, even in the dim lights of the temple. The three of them were closeted in one of the many little crannies in the place, safely hidden from Desmond's father and the ghost-hologram-thing that was Juno.
The tears were pointless, but there didn't seem to be much point in hiding them. Everything was going wrong all of a sudden- his dad was still there, still as angry and impossible to please as ever, only now with an added layer of awkwardness that Desmond didn't remember from when he was a child. After all, they hadn't seen each other in two decades, and Desmond still refused to talk about where he had been for most of that time.
Then there was the end of the world, an ever present countdown to December 21, hanging like a naked sword over their heads. And- well, in the animus there were the Kenways. Connor wasn't bad. He was just another ancestor that Desmond knew nothing about, a stranger in every way possible. Haytham, on the other hand, was someone Desmond knew. He'd changed his diapers, played with him, lied to him for years and years about the war between the templars and assassins (and, if that lie had never been told, would Haytham have grown up on the other side of that war?). Only now- in the animus-
"What happened next?" Shaun asked. He leaned forward, apparently unaware of Desmond's feelings. Strangely enough, that made Desmond feel slightly better. He didn't want to be pitied or looked down at, and Shaun very clearly did not care.
"Nothing," he said. "I mean- you know the rest."
"I don't," Rebecca said, and she looked nearly as interested in Shaun. "I mean, you came back to this century, right? But what happened then?"
"I met Shaun," Desmond said, and the man snorted.
"He looked like a complete nutter," he said to Rebecca. "Or at least drunk."
"Nope," Desmond said. "Just three hundred years out of time."
-/-
2003
-/-
Desmond fell.
Through time and empty space he fell, with the ghost of Jenny all over him. In his arms, on his lips, and all over his heart. He felt heavy, weighed down by a sadness greater than any loss than he had ever known. And then he landed, hard, splatting against the ground like a bird flying into a window. His mouth was bleeding, and when he reached up to feel it there was a cut there over his lips, just where Jenny's mouth had been seconds ago. He thought it might scar. He hoped it would. Then he would never forget.
"Hey…"
Desmond opened his eyes and saw, for the first time since he had been a child, the twenty first century. He was on the side of a crowded street somewhere, possibly London if the accents around him were anything to judge by. But everything looked different, and sounded different- it even smelled different. Cleaner, without the ever present stench of sewage that Desmond had come to know very well in the eighteenth century.
"Are you drunk or something?"
There was a man standing over him, maybe five years older than Desmond, maybe a little more, looking at him like he was something mildly repulsive that had gotten stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
"I'm not- I'm fine," Desmond said, and scrambled to his feet.
"Yea, you look it," said the man, and Desmond realized that he probably did look ridiculous- he was dressed in clothes three centuries out of date, his face was bleeding, and he could feel that he eyes were red and puffed from crying. The man sighed and made a face like he already regretted what he was about to say. "Come on. I know a guy who can sew you up." He gestured at his own mouth and Desmond realized his was still bleeding. "He won't ask questions, either."
Desmond considered saying no. He didn't want some stranger's help- he didn't want anyone's help. But then… he glanced around, at the unfamiliar streets and the strange people pushing past them. This was the time he had been born into, but he had lived much longer in the eighteenth century than the twenty first. This place was strange to him, and he had absolutely no idea where to go next, or what to do.
"Alright," he said instead. "Um… thanks.
"Yea." The man nodded and turned around, gesturing at Desmond to follow. "I'm Shaun, by the way. Shaun Hastings."
"Desmond…" and he hesitated, not quite sure what to say. He'd always gone by his real name, but now he was worried. Somehow it felt more dangerous, like just using his name could be enough to connect him to the Farm, and bring his parents looking for him. It was stupid, but still. "Kenway," he finished, and Shaun nodded. Either he hadn't noticed, or he just didn't care.
"Come on then," he said, and they didn't say anything else as they walked.