If Dee were alive, and here, and seeing this, she'd be shouting at Layla about the bleeding effect and the animus and how things have clearly gone too far, because Bayek of Siwa is standing an arm's length away and that clearly isn't possible.

"But you are here," Layla says, as much to herself as to Bayek, as much to make sense of this to herself as to communicate. "So it must be possible, and things are still completely under control."

She can almost hear Dee telling her off for being arrogant enough to think this is real, and that she's not just bleeding. But Layla knows this is real—there's no way a hallucination could possibly look as real as Bayek does, and Layla touches him once just to see.

"You time traveled here on purpose," she accuses, and can barely believe that those words just came out of her mouth. She pauses like she's just been slapped, and reels back as she tries to wrap her mind around it all.

"Yes," Bayek agrees. He's looking at her thoughtfully, almost considering, and it's weirdly disorienting not to know exactly what he's thinking.

"To here," Layla says.

"Well," Bayek says. "Yes."

Layla wants to ask if it's because of her—she wants it to be because of her, because he somehow knew she'd know him, but the question dies at the last minute, before she can ask it, and instead she says, "Because your mummy is here?"

That's the only thing so far that's managed to surprise him so far. Bayek's eyes go wide for a second, and Layla can almost see the dots connecting in his mind as he turns to the stone tomb that Layla had cracked open to get at his DNA. But if he didn't know that this is his tomb, why is he here?

Is it her?

"Layla!"

"Shit," she mutters. William had been outside, packing the last of their stuff into the car while Layla wipes the computer of anything that's too dangerous to risk taking with them. He must have gotten concerned (or annoyed) by how long she's taking to finish. "Just a minute!" she yells back at him.

"We don't have too many to spare," he says pointedly, but the man that founded the Assassins is standing three feet away from her, and she's still too busy gaping at him to actually ask why. She shakes her head and takes a step toward Bayek, who is now justifiably distracted by the sight of his own corpse.

"Hey," she says. "Listen, can we have this conversation now? You seem like you meant to come here but maybe you didn't know where here is?" It was just a guess, but Bayek nodded so Layla hurtled on. "We're actually just about to leave, so there's not much time—"

"We?" Bayek echoes. "Who else is here? And who exactly are you, Layla?"

Layla gives him a tight smile, because there are so many layers to that answer, honestly, and I'm the person in your head is going to take way too much time to explain right now. "I'm one of the good ones," she assures him, and for the first time in her life she knows it's absolutely true. "Now come on. There's Templars after us, and we don't have that much time before they show up."

"Templars." His voice is somewhere between pleasantly amused and flat out confused. Layla could have slapped herself, because of course the Templars as an idea or a word until a literal millennium after Bayek's life, and they don't have time for that right now.

"They will try and kill us," she says, going for the explanation that's as simple as possible. "There are a lot of them, and before you showed up, we were trying to get out of here."

Bayek's mouth twitches into a kind of smile. "So I guess somethings don't change?"

It takes Layla by surprise, but after a second she grins back. "Nope."

"Layla!" William shouts again from outside the cave, exactly on cue. "What are you doing down there? We're on a time limit here, remember?"

"Come on," Layla says, prodding at Bayek. "We might as well get this over with." And to be honest, she would sort of appreciate some help figuring out what exactly is going on here."

Bayek gives his tomb one last, unreadable look, then obligingly follows Layla out to the front of the cave. They emerge into the silence side by side, both blinking against the sudden light. Senu flies off with a shriek, circling Bayek for a few seconds before flying off. Layla is only vaguely aware of the eagle, more focused on William.

"Well," she says, carefully controlling her tone. "Here we are."

His expression speaks volumes on the sheer, dumbfounded shock he must be feeling right now, and as a nice side effect, removes any possible doubt about Bayek possibly being a figment of the bleeding effect from Layla's mind.

"I think we need to have a serious conversation," he says, after a pause.

-/-

They spend the rest of the day and the following night driving to a small town nearby, and then holing up in a rundown hotel. Bayek is visibly curious about everything, which Layla can understand, but Senu is clearly disgusted by the town and the highways around it. Poor bird really doesn't deserve all this urban blight.

Bayek tells them about the Sages and his badly defined mission to save the world from a solar flare. William—in a terse, clipped tone—spells out what his son Desmond had done to stop the sun from burning the world up, and how that same decision had killed him, and loosed Juno on the world.

Layla, for her part, spends most of the day translating back and forth between Egyptian and English. Both men have a fairly impressive range of languages, but there's no overlap at all between them. Layla isn't exactly a linguistic expert, but she feels pretty safe assuming that even the languages that still exist today from Bayek's time—Greek, for example—are going to be a lot different than what he might recognize.

So for now, thanks to the animus, Layla serves as translator. Maybe the only possible translator, because who else is going to learn any of those old languages?

"So what do we do now?" Layla asks. Her question is in Egyptian because she inherently trusts Bayek more than William.

The ancient Assassin is standing by the window, watching cars speed past on the road outside. He's turned away, so Layla can't see his face, and she wonders what he's thinking right now. Is he regretting coming here? She wouldn't blame him—this is a far cry from his Egypt.

But then, after a few seconds, Bayek straightens up and turns to look at him. There's an intensity to his expression that reassures her. "It sounds like the problem is that Desmond had to make a choice," he says. "Between letting the world burn, or letting this Juno run free."

"That's about it," Layla says, crossing her arms and adopting a serious expression. She's trying to make it sound like she knew about this all along, but the truth is most of it's new to her, too. She's never heard of Juno until just now, but the way William talks about her makes Layla definitely nervous.

"So we need a third option," Bayek says. "A way to stop the world from burning without letting Juno get free." He nods, apparently decided, and ready to charge into action. "We need more information."

"Layla," William interrupts.

"What?" She tears her gaze away from Bayek to look back at the older man.

"What's he saying?"

She sighs, and pushes down the urge to tell him to just learn Ancient Egyptian, because it's not like that's realistic. This is going to get really old, isn't it? She summarizes as quickly as she can, then turns back to Bayek to continue their conversation. Before she can even get a single word out, William says, "You should see him."

"Sorry," Layla says, annoyance mounting at the second interruption. "What?"

"He's right," William says. "He needs more information, and whatever happens, the two of you are going to have to see what happened that day. That's the moment that needs to change, isn't it? I can tell you everything there is to know about the day the world almost burned and Juno escaped the Temple, but if you don't see it for yourself, you're never going to really understand."

Layla hesitates. Half because it's a good idea, and she's trying to wrap her head around the possible implications, and half because William seems to be suggesting that Bayek take her with him while he travels back in time. And sure, it'd only be about five years, but if they can do that, why couldn't they do more?

They absolutely have to give this a shot.

Layla turns back to Bayek and gives him a summary of what William had just said. She can't help putting a little bit of emphasis on the suggestion that she should go with him, if she can. He follows her, nodding, then reaches into a pouch at his waist and pulls out the apple. "Alright," he says, as calmly as if they'd been talking about walking down the street for groceries. "I don't know if I can bring you with me, but I don't see why we shouldn't try." He frowns suddenly. "And I want to see if I can get a look at this Juno for myself."

"Alright," Layla says.

"Alright," Bayek echoes.

Layla glances at William. "We're going to give it a try," she says. "Do you want to—"

"No," William says, cutting her off almost at once. "I don't want to see that happen again."

That's fair enough. Layla gives him an awkward nod, and takes a deep breath as she turns to Bayek. For a second the two of them just stand there in silence, considering each other. Then Bayek reaches out with the arm that isn't holding the apple, and Senu flies in through the open window to perch there. Layla steps closer as well, following a vague instinct as the apple starts to glow. Then it sweeps them all up, her and Bayek and Senu, and the three of them are suddenly flying through time.

-/-

Big thank you to everyone that fave'd/followed/reviewed. Thank you for sticking with me while I poke around with Bayek and Layla. :)

Next chapter: Probably Desmond, probably Juno, probably problems