Layla can't get over how weird it is to sit here talking to Altair, carefully explaining everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks. He looks so much like Desmond—like, unnervingly like Desmond, at least until Layla looks up at his expression. It's caught somewhere just below complete disbelief, which is just… it's… weird. It's fine if Altair doesn't believe her, because why should he? She's a stranger to him, and she's trying to convince him that time travel is real. But he has Desmond's face, and he's looking at her like she's crazy, and by the time Layla gets to the end of her story she's just relieved to be done. She sits back nervously, waiting for him to respond.
At some point during her story, both Layla and Altair had ended up on the ground, sitting on the side of the road a few feet a way from each other. When Layla finishes, Altair stands and starts pacing. "You sound insane," he informs her. "Everything you just told me sounds… impossible."
"I… well yea, I guess," Layla admits. "But—"
"But it's true," Altair says, and finally the pacing stops. He turns back to her, face awash in confusion. "There's no reason to believe you, but I know that it's true. I—" He cuts himself off abruptly, turning his wrist to look down at the fresh mark there. Layla can't even begin to figure out what's going through his mind, so she just sits and waits, holding her breath.
She's not going to make it to Juno alone. That hadn't really sunk in until she was actually here, alone on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where she is or where Juno is or where the apple is. Bayek probably could have done it—he's done more than that in the past—but Layla is ashamed to admit to herself that she's feeling overwhelmed.
He turns back to Layla, and demands, "Who is he?"
Layla is still sitting on the ground as she watches him pace, and the abrupt about face to look down at her makes her feel slightly put off. "Who is who?" she asks. "What?"
Not the most intelligent reaction, but what else is she supposed to say to him? The question hadn't made any sense.
"There's something—" Altair pauses, turning his head slowly as if he's thinking, then says, "No. Definitely someone. Not something, someone—and he's sort of here too. And he believes you, and trusts you, and so now I'm… feeling that too." He looks utterly confused, now. And for the first time his mask drops from his expressions, and Layla gets a really good look at the real Altair—open and raw and as confused by all this as she expects him to be. "Who is he?" he asks again, quietly.
Layla takes a breath. What he's describing sounds a little like… he's not feeling Desmond, is he? It's the only thing she can think of, strange as it sounds. It shouldn't be possible, but it fits the facts and Layla is giving up on calling things impossible. "His name is Desmond," she says cautiously.
The name is barely out of her mouth when Altair is nodding—but his face has a slightly puckered, confused expression. Layla can see it plain as day on his face—he already knows that, but he doesn't know how he knows it.
And neither does Layla, actually. Some kind of reverse bleeding effect? Desmond bleeding into Altair? Hopefully that doesn't mean Altair is going to start losing his mind the way some animus subjects have, because that's absolutely the last thing they need right now.
"So," she says, trying to make it sound like there's absolutely nothing weird about any of this. Maybe he'll just think this is normal in the future, if she's lucky, and just go with it. "So, we need to get to Juno, or—" She shakes her head. No, that's not the smartest idea. She knows how to fight because of her time spent as Bayek in the animus, but Bayek is definitely stronger than she is. He can follow Juno wherever she goes next, and take her on. "Never mind," she says aloud, for Altair's benefit. "Maybe not… we'll leave Juno for right now. But we need to take the apple away from him, into someplace that it'll be safe."
"Where?" Altair presses her, and Layla shrugs with one shoulder. She's been so focused on just finding Juno and getting the apple away before it's too late, she hasn't really considered what happens after that. Maybe, if she's going to time travel more from ow on (and is she? No idea yet), it might help if they both have an apple on their own.
Senu screeches from overhead, and Layla makes a face. They still need Senu to travel through time, because her eagle vision is what lets them navigate to the right year. Even if they get a second apple here, it's not going to do them much good.
"That's reassuring," Altair says, and his voice is so calm as he says it that Layla has to do a double take—she almost believes him, before she sees his expression of flat disbelief. How does Bayek do this? Just convince people that he's trustworthy and they should help him? For a second, a feeling of burning inadequacy threatens to overwhelm her, but Layla squashes it down. She's never been good with people, and it's never been important before now.
"It'll be fine," she assures Altair, doing her best to mimic Bayek's quietly confident air. Why couldn't she have gotten that from the animus? She can speak ancient Egyptian and shoot an arrow, almost as well as Bayek can, but she can't get people to like her the same way. "We'll just get to the apple and take it before Juno tracks it down, and figure out what happens next after that."
For half a second, she doesn't think it's going to be enough to convince Altair. She can see him turning it over and over in his mind before, finally, he nods. "You are strange," he tells Layla, and she nods quickly. "But… Desmond—" Altair's face is unreadable as he stumbles a little over the English name. "Desmond trusts in you completely."
"I'm…"
"Tell me more," Altair says, whistling to his horse. "I'm not going to pretend I understand this completely, but if we're going to do this, I want to be well informed."
Layla nods, then hesitates as he mounts his horse and looks pointedly at her. She's never actually ridden a horse before, but Bayek has, and she's just going to have to hope this is one of his skills that she picked up through the bleeding effect.
The horses never look this big in the animus. And she's almost positive they didn't have this many teeth. She tries to reassure herself that of course the horses look bigger in real life—she's a solid six inches shorter than Bayek, and in the animus she's looking at everything through his eyes. This horse isn't bigger than Layla's used to—she's just smaller herself.
In the end Layla gets herself onto the horse easily enough, and Altair spurs the animal on. Overhead, Senu flies lazy circles through the night sky. They travel in silence for a while, until Layla decides to strike up a conversation. She'd rather talk about Juno than worry about the horse. "You've seen her," Layla says, as the horse walks on.
"Juno?" Altair asks.
"Yea," Layla says. "You said she was there in that city you just came from—"
"Acre."
Layla nods, although she's sitting behind Altair and there's no way he can see her. "What has she been doing since she got here?" she asks.
"Asking a lot of the same kinds of questions as you, actually," Altair says. He seems a little more at ease, talking like this. Maybe it's because they don't actually have to look at each other. Or maybe he's just happy being on the move. "About the apple, and anyone else that might be coming to look for it."
"Did she get answers?" Layla asks.
Altair shakes his head, and Layla grins. That has to be a good sign, right? "Most people don't care much about that thing from Solomon's Temple," he said. "Even if Kadar… even if he was killed over it, it's still just gossip, and that particular piece of gossip hasn't travelled from Masyaf to Acre yet."
"Good," Layla says, letting out a little breath of relief. "Good." So they have a little bit of time before Juno figures out where the apple is and how to stop her from getting to it.
After a little more riding, Altair says, "We're here. Masyaf. We should…"
But then Altair goes utterly silent. Layla looks up at last—she's been concentrating on the horse, trying to fight down the stupid, irrational oh my god why are horses so huge feelings that still haven't gone away. And when she looks up, what she sees is Masyaf's front gates, rising up in front of them. On the other side, lie a collection of low buildings. Homes, and what looks like a market, scattered around the keep itself.
A few people are still out on the streets even at this hour, most of them obviously Assassins. They're dressed in the same white robes as Altair, and Layla isn't entirely surprised to see that Assassin business in Masyaf doesn't stop just because it's the dead of night. It's actually a little reassuring to see them there—they make Layla feel safer, oddly enough.
The problem isn't the Assassins. The problem is the other people on the streets. Layla can see a woman standing in the middle of a small square, gesturing as she speaks to the four or five people gathered in front of her.
"That's her, isn't it?" Altair asks. "The woman you're looking for. Juno."
"Yes," Layla says, and her stomach does a flip. "Listen… Desmond—"
"What about him?" Altair interrupts. He dismounts, and once Layla has followed his example, he ties the horse up at a stable just inside the gates without once taking his eyes off Juno and her little crowd in the distance.
"He's reliving your memories," Layla reminds him. "So he sees whatever you see, he hears what you hear—" This is weird. "And Desmond, you need to send an email out to Bayek. Berg's checking my messages while I'm back here, he'll make sure it gets to Bayek, so that's fine. Tell them what's going on and that…"
It's a little bit like seeing Altair's horse for the first time, and being surprised by how big he is, and by her own fear. Layla is surprised, again, by how badly she does not want to have this confrontation with Juno. "Tell them," she says, in a voice that shakes. "That we have everything under control."
-/-
Desmond forces himself to desynch from the animus then, hoping as he does so that Altair won't feel the sharp spike of pain that lances through his head. He turns his head until he can get a glimpse at Lucy's computer, and is relieved to see it's after six. Vidic and Lucy will be leaving soon, and he'll have his chance to send Lucy's email out.
It seems to take them forever to leave. They keep fiddling with the settings on the animus, trying to get the memories to show more clearly. Desmond knows it's not going to work, but he's not going to tell them he's intentionally keeping himself a little separate from the memories. He doesn't want them to know all the things Layla's been telling Altair.
Eventually they go, admitting defeat on trying to fix the animus. Desmond waits barely five minutes to make sure they're not coming back, and then hurries out to the computer to send his email.
From: censored
To: censored
Date: September 5, 7:09 PM
Subject: Layla
Bayek—
I just got out of one of Altair's memories. He's with Layla (and Senu), and they just found Juno at Masyaf. She says everything's under control, but I don't know. Altair has no idea what the apple is capable of, and I think Layla's more nervous than she wants me and Altair to think.
I'm worried. I know we can't do anything, because they're in the past and we're stuck in 2012, but… she wanted you to know what was going on. And I want you to know that I'm worried. I'll let you know more when I've seen the next few memories.
—Desmond
When the email is sent, Desmond just sits there for a long time. He worries about Layla and Altair, in the past with Juno. He worries about Bayek, who was supposed to be the one in the past, before Layla ended up going in his place.
Finally, feeling no less worried than he was when he sat down, Desmond shuts the computer down and goes to bed. He can't imagine he'll get much sleep, but it's better than sitting up worrying.
There's no windows in Desmond's cell, and when the lights go out for him to sleep, it gets pitch black in there. For a while he just lies there, staring at the darkness, until he realizes the feather that's been burned into his hand is still glowing. It's dim light in a dark place, but it makes Desmond feel a little better. Altair's still there in the past, fighting. He and Layla have that in common, they're too stubborn for their own good. There's no way they're going to let Juno have what she wants.
-/-
There are some chapters that just come out so easy, and then some chapters are just a hot mess all the way through. I ended up rewriting this about three times and I'm still not totally happy with it, but I think this is as good as it's going to get. Feel free to let me know if you like this, if you didn't like it, whatever. :)