They pull the van over at the first gas station they get to. Shaun gets out, muttering something about filling the tank up, and Rebecca very quickly follows him. Altair and Ezio wait in complete silence, while Desmond's father climbs out of the driver's seat and climbs around to the back. Altair suddenly realizes that he doesn't even know what the man's name is, much less what to do here.

But while he's worried, Ezio is practically losing it. It's his first time in the future, his first time, in Desmond's body, and he has no idea how to act, either. Altair feels his mind practically buzzing from the overload of information, and he can't help but admire him for not jumping to his feet and pacing around the back of the van, as he so clearly wants to do.

Desmond's father sits down across from them, and for a few minutes there's nothing but awkward silence. "So," he says at last. "I'm going to be honest, Desmond. When you left the Farm, I didn't think our next conversation would be nine years later in the back of a van. This isn't really how I expected this conversation to go."

"Uh, yea," Ezio says, "Me neither." He rubs his hands together nervously, and asks Altair, "What's he talking about?"

"I don't know," Altair says. "I know Desmond didn't like anyone looking at his earlier memories, so I never did." It hadn't always been easy, because when they shared a mind, it was as easy to see Desmond's memories as his own. He'd done his best to stay out, though, because he knew there were parts of his own life he still liked to pretend were private."

"Neither did I," Ezio says.

"I never thought you actually meant to leave for good," the man continues. "You never really did think things through. I thought you'd come crawling back before the end of the month. But you never did. I think your mother gave up on you, you know." His voice is a little angry now, and it gets louder as he goes on. "You could have at least thought of her before you decided to waste your life making drinks in New York."

He's looking at them, and while there's definitely anger there, Altair can see something else in his expression- he's waiting for an explanation, and neither of them have one to give.

Finally, Ezio says, "I didn't think it would bother you that much."

"Where did that come from?" Altair asks.

"I don't know! I had to say something."

"Until I heard you were at Abstergo, I didn't know if you were alive or dead," Desmond's father snaps. "Great job with that, by the way."

Ezio gets up, trips over Desmond's feet, and says, "I don't want to talk about this," he says, and Altair can't blame him for wanting to put the conversation off until they can figure out what they're actually talking about.

"Well you're going to talk about it," the man says- yells, really. "Because I've been waiting nine years to find out what was so bad that you had to run away in the middle of the night!" He gets to his feet as well, and jabs a finger so close to their face that Altair feels Ezio go cross eyed looking at it. "Are you really just that selfish, that you didn't think you would hurt anyone by leaving? And now you just 'don't want to talk about it'? You don't get to not talk about it. You don't have that right."

Altair probably would have said something. He's been in Desmond's head enough by now to decide that he's actually not that bad of a person. Probably even a friend, and Altair doesn't make friends easily. So if he'd been in control of Desmond's body at that moment, the fight might have gotten a lot worse right then. Ezio doesn't say a word, though, just looks at the man with sad eyes.

"You know what?" Desmond's father says. "Forget it. If you're just going to be stubborn, you can at least be helpful. I'm sure there's something left in the animus you can dig up."

"But-" Altair can feel Ezio about to start arguing, and jumps in as quickly as he can.

"Ezio, shut up," he says. "The animus is the only thing that's always been a guaranteed way out of this time."

Ezio shuts up, and nods instead. "Fine," he says.

Shaun sticks his head back in the van at that point, and calls, "Rebecca's gone in for food, do you need anything? Desmond? Bill?" His cheerful tone sounds more than a little forced, and Altair wonders how much of the argument he and Rebecca were able to hear from outside the van.

"At least we know his name now," he says to Ezio, who doesn't answer.

"No," Bill says curtly. "Desmond's going back in the animus. Go and get Rebecca back in here."

Shaun doesn't argue- Altair's pretty sure it's the first time he's seen him follow an order so quickly, but Bill does seem angry. Less than five minutes later they're back on the animus, going through the same start up routine as usual.

The animus comes online with a burst of static, pushing Altair and Ezio out of Desmond with near painful abruptness. And for just a second, as his consciousness goes hurtling through time and space, back to Masyaf, Altair can swear he feels someone else in the mind. Way down in the back, small and quiet and weak, he feels- someone. It's too faint to recognize, but he still feels a sudden jolt of excitement, because it's not him, and it's not Ezio, so it can't be anyone else but Desmond.

And then he hears Rebecca say, in a voice tinged with panic- "He's going under again!" before he's back in his own body, safely at Masyaf.

He sighs, and stretches, taking stock of his own body and mind, reminding himself what he's doing and where he is. It's sort of become a habit lately, because he can never be quite sure that no one else has been in there when he goes out. He's outside the keep, just where he was before being pulled into he back of a van in the twenty first century. A new group of novices trip over themselves in the training ring under the eyes of an exasperated assassin tasked with training them. Several older assassins are gathered around to watch, pointing out the novices' mistakes and pretending they hadn't made the exact same ones when they were younger. Entertainment is difficult to come by for assassins.

"How long were you gone?" Malik asks quietly from next to Altair. He knows the signs, knows what it means when Altair has to take a second to put his mind and body back in order.

"Not long," Altair says. Ever since the day Malik and Ezio 'met', Malik's been a lot more open with him. Altair's known for a while that Malik had never quite believed his stories of time travel and living inside a stranger's body. And while he doesn't quite understand how a conversation with a man he could neither see nor hear managed to convince Malik of the truth, he's still grateful for it. The apple is easier to work with when he has someone to talk to about it.

Not that he's really gotten any better at controlling it.

"You sound... different," Malik says. "Something happened while you were gone."

"It's not something I want to talk about here," Altair says. "But I think Desmond is alive."

Malik turns to look at him, then nods. "Ah," he says. "I see."

"See what?" Altair asks.

"Why you sound different," Malik says. "You're smiling."

-/-

*hides in a corner because uggh this chapter is awful*