With Altair spending all his days at Abstergo and Ezio locked inside, trying to get the apple to speak to him again, the really awful jobs fall to Haytham and Connor. And, after putting them off for several days, the two of them finally decide they can't delay any longer.
So they go out for groceries.
It's not that the food itself is a problem, Haytham decides. Someone needs to get the food, after all. It's just that the four of them in the apartment have very different tastes- a product of growing up in very different times and places. That's one of the problems, anyway. The other problem is that food in 2013 is nothing but processed garbage. That much at least, all of them agree on.
Still. They have to eat something.
At the grocery store, Haytham and Connor split off to get the shopping done faster. When he's done with his part, Haytham waits near the check out for Connor, who shows up a few minutes later looking harried. After dumping his load in the cart, Connor shakes his head and asks, "Do you ever think about what our lives would have been like if this was actually our time?"
"No," Haytham lies. He's thought about it a lot, honestly. He wonders how much of their lives is inevitable and how much is a product of where and when they were. It's hard to imagine meeting Connor away from the backdrop of war. Maybe in another timeline, they would never have been enemies. He might have raised Connor himself.
"Yea," Connor mutters. "Me neither."
They look away from each other, heading into the checkout line, and Haytham coughs a little. Then, because he's not sure what else to do, he says, "We'd probably be doing this."
"What, buying food?" Connor shrugs. "Probably." He smiles slightly. "Maybe we'd even like it."
"I can't believe that," Haytham scoffs. "I've seen pigs fed better than this."
"That's an exaggeration," Connor says.
"Only slightly." They get to the front of the line and a bored teenager goes through their food, scanning every item and throwing them halfheartedly into bags. Behind them, a woman with a baby and a screaming toddler digs loudly through her purse for something. Haytham watches her long enough to see what she pulls out of the oversized bag, and relaxes when it's just a cell phone. Years of seeing weapons in every hiding place and killers in every shadow have not left him with much trust to spare.
"Hey, 'scuze me, sir," the clerk pipes up. "You sure you want this much bread?"
"Yes," Haytham says. The clerk starts at his tone and starts moving faster.
"I think you're scaring him," someone says from the next line over.
"Rebecca," Connor says, and Haytham looks up to see the assassin grinning at them. She seems a lot more comfortable seeing them in person than the last time they met- when she and Shaun came by the apartment, they'd both been nervous and tense. Rebecca at least seems to have gotten over it.
"I didn't expect to see you here," she says.
"Everyone needs to eat," Connor says.
The clerk finishes, and Haytham pays him. For once, they're actually acquired legally- Altair's getting a paycheck after all, and it's not like there's any reason not to use the money. It's probably better for Altair's cover if some of it gets spent, anyway.
"So what are the two of you up to?" Rebecca asks, walking out beside them. "Besides buying microwave dinners."
"Nothing," Connor grumbles. "Altair's busy with his new job and Ezio's locked up in his room with-" he stops himself and glances at the people around him. "With… research," he finishes.
"But we're at loose ends," Haytham adds. "Hence the groceries."
"Well, if you're up to it," Rebecca says. "I think I have a job for the two of you."
"I don't work with assassins," Haytham says.
"Yea," Rebecca says, looking pointedly between him and Connor. "I can tell. But hear me out, alright? We're looking for the observatory."
"Altair's mentioned that a few times," Haytham says.
"Abstergo wants to find it too," Rebecca goes on. "Edward knows where it is, and at some point they're going to find the location from his memories. They think that's going to be enough to get inside, but I'm not so sure. Every time the observatory has shown up throughout history, a sage comes into the picture."
"He's the one who knows how to find it," Haytham says.
"Yea," Rebecca agrees. "But I think there's more. He's always there, whenever people start looking for this place. And here we are, assassins and templars and everyone all looking for the place, and he's nowhere around. I think he's dangerous, and I think he's here somewhere."
"Alright," Connor says. "We'll find out what's going on."
"Really?" Haytham demands. "You're volunteering us? Just like that? Does nobody remember that I'm still a templar?"
Connor makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a scoff. "Come on, dad."
Dad. The word sounds unnatural coming from Connor. It's too modern for him, but they've all been picking up language like that, and there's another reason it sounds strange. Connor's never called him dad before.
Rebecca smiles, and Haytham knows she's noticed. Connor doesn't seem to realize what he's just said, and goes on. "If you didn't want to work with assassins you wouldn't still be here. There are templars in the city. If you wanted to you could have gone over to them at any time."
Haytham looks between his son and Rebecca, then sighs. "Alright," he says. "We'll find him."
-/-
Hey, remember last chapter when I said I've been taking cold meds? I blame them for the Connor/Haytham shopping trip.