As soon as the group is finished eating, Rebecca directs Desmond back into the animus. Altair, still riding along inside Desmond's head, can only wait to see what will happen this time- the group's first try at getting the animus to sync with both of them inside ended with both of them knocked out. The second try Altair had managed to miss by accidentally fleeing the century, and he isn't looking forward to try number three.
"It'll be fine," Desmond tells him.
"You can't possibly know that," Altair points out.
"It worked okay last time."
"I wasn't here last time," Altair says, which shuts Desmond up.
The animus powers up, and Desmond shuts his eyes. They both wait for a beat, and then abruptly, with no transition, Altair is back at Masyaf, exactly as though he has never left. Malik still stands in front of him, wearing the same expression of badly concealed disbelief. "That's quite a story," he says.
Altair nods, still trying to adjust to the abrupt transitions. Back and forth across time and space, twice in less than an hour, is exhausting. He sways a little, but manages to catch himself. Malik notices, of course- the way he narrows his eyes and gives Altair a searching glare gives it away- but he says nothing.
"What do we do about this?" Malik asks. "This can't keep happening. If you were to disappear again-"
"It wouldn't matter," Altair interrupts. "No one would even be able to tell."
He can almost see Malik putting the pieces together in his head, before the other man asks, "It happened just now, didn't it? While we were talking?"
"Yes."
"Damn it, Altair!" Malik cries, and the sudden outburst startles Altair. "This is- how can you stand there and be so calm about all this?"
"Because being angry isn't going to help," Altair says. "And if I am to figure a way out of this, I can't afford to rush in, either."
Malik looks at him for a long moment before he says, "The man I knew a month ago would never be able to see the truth of that." He sighs, and studies Altair again. This time, Altair has the uncomfortable feeling that Malik is seeing him as an object more than a person. At last, he says, "I think it's obvious that the apple has somehow caused this."
"Probably," Altair agrees. "But we don't know anything about how it works."
"Then you'll have to find out," says Malik. "If it's a part of you now, you may be able to control it."
Altair scowls, and looks down at his hands again. The memory of the way they suddenly lit up earlier is still fresh in his mind. "That won't be easy," he says.
"Definitely not," Malik says. "It will probably take many days of patience and study." And then he smiles. "Two things you have always done well in."
Altair glares back at him without any real anger. He knows that if he starts taking Malik's sarcasm seriously, he will never have time for anything else.
-/-
I'm just going to go ahead and apologize right now for anyone that's got this story on alerts. (I'm also going to question your taste, because obviously this story is awful), because this is the fifteenth chapter in like four days, and I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon. Slowing down, maybe, because at some point all the homework I'm not doing is going to catch up with me, but hopefully stopping is not in the agenda here.