So I'm still trying to decide how the showdown between Layla and Altair and Juno is going to go, but I didn't want to just not write anything... so have a self indulgent Khemu chapter instead. Layla and Juno next chapter, I promise. :)

Khemu wakes up in the middle of the night, alone on the pile of blankets he'd fallen asleep on last night. Only when he fell asleep, his papo had been there with him, holding him tight, like when Khemu was little.

He grins a little as he stands up, pulling a sheet up and over his shoulders—it gets cold here at night, and he's shivering a little. Then after a second, Khemu pulls the sheet over his head too, so it falls just above his eyes. The people here, some of them anyway, walk around in white hoods like this all the time. Khemu's sure it means something, even if no one will explain it to him.

It's kind of fun, tiptoeing around the dark room with the sheet over his head. Everyone's asleep up here, and after a little bit of sneaking around, Khemu heads downstairs to see if his dad's there. He edges down the steps one at a time, testing for the edge with his toes before he puts his full weight down. It's dark, and he can't quite see where he's going, and he doesn't want to trip and fall over his sheet.

Eventually he makes it downstairs, which is mostly empty except for all the computers and—all the way on the other end—Khemu's dad talking to someone. He grins in relief, and trots across the room, past the rows of animi (he doesn't know what that means, he just knows the word because everyone keeps saying it).

"Khemu," his dad says, holding an arm out. He's sitting down, so when Khemu leans up against him, and lets his dad wrap a strong arm around his shoulders, Khemu's head only comes up to about his dad's shoulder. It's nice though. It makes him feel safe, which is why he'd come down here in the first place. "What are you doing down here?"

"You left," Khemu accuses. "I didn't want to be by myself. Can I stay here with you?"

There's a short pause, as his dad and the other man—his name is Berg, but Khemu doesn't know much more than his name—look at each other. Berg says something, and apparently it boils down to yes, because Khemu isn't sent away. "You have to stay quiet though," his dad tells him, and Khemu nods seriously. "We need to figure something out."

"I'll be good," Khemu promises, and settles in.

He can only understand one half of the conversation—his dad's half. Berg doesn't speak Egyptian, but somehow the two adults seem like they're understanding each other perfectly.

"There's really nothing else in the email?" his dad asked.

Berg answers.

"I know, I just—I'm worried that she won't be able to face Juno, and without Senu and the apple we won't be able to get her help."

Berg snaps something, sharp and loud, and Khemu jumps a little. Then, half a second later, like an echo, he hears a second voice say, "I know," from apparently nowhere. Interested now, Khemu spends a while trying to figure out where the voice is coming from, before he finally finds the little… it looks like a piece of metal, stuck up in his dad's ear. Every time Berg says something, the ear speaker repeats it, but in Egyptian.

Pleased with himself for figuring this out, Khemu yawns and makes a show of squirming closer to his dad, so that now he's actually close enough to hear the translations.

"You should have gone instead of Layla," Berg is saying.

"You know why I didn't," Khemu's dad says. "You have your child to think of too. What would have done the same thing if Elina was the one that—" He cuts off, glancing down at Khemu. Khemu quickly looks away, pretending not to be paying attention. But this is that thing, isn't it? That big, bad thing that his dad won't tell him about, even though Khemu's pretty sure it's all about him. And then there's the way his dad never lets him out of his sight, and hugs him all the time, and…

Khemu's pretty sure he's done something wrong, to make his dad worry about him so much. Maybe, if they don't realize he can hear what Berg is saying, he'll learn something about it.

"Layla's never had to do something like this before," Berg says. "She's a tech, who just happened to stumble into the Assassins. I won't deny that she seems to care about your Brotherhood, but the only experience she has is through you, in the animus. She might know what you know, but she's never done what you do. Now her first fight is going to be against Juno?"

"She can handle it."

"We can't possibly know that for sure," Berg snaps. "For all we know, she'll break at the first sign of trouble."

"She won't," Khemu's dad says, and his tone is so stern that Khemu is almost scared of him for a second.

"You never know what someone will do under pressure until they're tested," Berg says. "This is Layla's test."

"She's not going to let us down."

By now, Khemu is straining so hard to hear that he can't believe they haven't noticed yet. But they're so intent on their conversation, they don't seem to be noticing much of anything else.

"Next time," Berg says sternly. "You go."

Khemu doesn't have to see his dad to know he's smiling a little. It's right there in his voice. "I didn't realize you had that much faith in me."

"That's not it," Berg says, scowling a little. "You've proved yourself a capable fighter, even if you are an Assassin."

"Hidden one."

"Same difference. My point is that you can fight and kill, when it comes to it. If we could defeat Juno by being extremely sarcastic and leaving rude cross stitch patterns for her to find, it would only make sense to give that job to Layla."

"What does she do with… cross stitch?"

Berg sighs. "Never mind. Just promise me that—assuming Layla gets through this fight with Juno—you'll go to the next one."

Khemu feels his dad's grip on his shoulders tighten for a second. "I have responsibilities here now."

"Your son is not more important than all of the people in the world that Juno puts in danger. Thousands—millions or billions of people are at risk if Juno gets her way, and you can't sit back and let her take the artifacts just to protect your son. He's just not that important."

"He is to me."

Khemu straightens up a little, smiling under his sheet-hood.

Berg pauses a little before answering, obviously thinking over the best thing to say. Finally, more slowly, he speaks. "I can't begin to imagine what it's like to watch your child die."

Khemu's smile slips a little. There's something about the way Berg says that, all serious and slow, that makes him worry.

"You cut a path through Egypt after your boy died," Berg says. "And I can't say I wouldn't do something similar if I lost Elina. But that's all undone now, and you aren't just a killer anymore, and if you're going to do this, you need to really step up and lead. You're better suited for this and you know it."

"Berg."

"Your son was dead," Berg says harshly, and although his voice is quiet, the words ring in Khemu's ears. "And losing him changed your life. Getting him back doesn't mean you go back to what you were, so man up and fight with us."

"That's enough," Khemu's dad says. "Enough talk about… death."

"He can't understand me anyway," Berg says dismissively. "Bayek—"

There's more after that, but Khemu isn't listening anymore. He slips out of his dad's grasp, mumbling that he's tired, even though he isn't. He feels cold all over as he drags himself back upstairs, into the bathroom. It's his favorite room in the building, mostly because he thinks it's funny that people here do that kind of stuff inside. But right now, he's here for the mirror over the sink, bigger and clearer than any mirror he's ever seen before.

He has to stand on his toes to get a really good look at his reflection, leaning over the sink and pressing hard enough for the edges to leave dents on his forearms. But no matter how hard he stares at the wide eyed boy in the mirror, he still looks alive.

Khemu rocks back onto his heels, and presses his palms to his chest so he can feel his pounding heart. He doesn't look dead or feel dead, but Berg had said so, and his dad hadn't even argued. So is there something wrong with him? Why doesn't he remember dying? He doesn't want to remember dying, but it feels like something he should know about, if it happened to him.

Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and Khemu slowly slides down to the ground, and pulls the sheet over his head. He doesn't want to be dead.

-/-

When Bayek finally finishes his talk with Berg, he goes upstairs to bed, only to find Khemu missing. There's a heart stopping moment of fear, before it occurs to Bayek to go check the other rooms. Khemu won't have just vanished—Bayek's just been overprotective since he got his son back.

It takes him a little while to find Khemu huddled on the floor of the bathroom, hiding, and after a moment of confusion, Bayek feels something soft inside him break. He closes the door to give the two of them privacy, then squats in front of his son and slowly pulls the sheet down. The sight of Khemu's tear streaked face, starkly illuminated by the overhead lightbulbs, burns itself into Bayek's mind.

He's doing this wrong. Getting Khemu back is beyond a dream come true, but Bayek is still failing him.

It's the only thought going through his mind as he eases forward and puts his arm around Khemu. It's a little reassuring when his son presses up against him, but since he still won't stop crying, it doesn't make Bayek feel all that much better.

"Tell me what's wrong," he says. "Khemu, tell me."

It takes a while, and a lot more cajoling, as Bayek rubs Khemu's back and tries to soothe him. But eventually it's enough, and Khemu chokes out, "Am I dead, Papo?"

"No," Bayek says. "No, Khemu, why would you say that?"

"That's what he said downstairs," Khemu says. "I heard it." He reaches up with one arm, and at first Bayek can't figure out what he's pointing to, and then he realizes it's his ear piece. Slowly, he pulls it out, looks at it, and then slips it into his pocket. He's going to have to get someone to show him how to lower the sound.

"You shouldn't have heard that," Bayek says. "And Berg shouldn't have been talking about it."

"I don't want to be dead!" Khemu wails, and Bayek holds him closer.

"You're not," he says, then pauses. He'd been hoping he wouldn't have to have this conversation with Khemu, or at least that he could wait to have it until his son is much older. It looks like it's going to happen now, on the floor of this bathroom, with Khemu hidden like a ghost in the folds of his sheet.

So he tells the story as gently as he can. That in another time, Khemu had been killed, but that timeline doesn't exist anymore—Layla had gone back to the moments before Khemu died, and brought him here to a time where he could be healed. "You are not dead," he says. "Look at me—I'm not lying to you. I never will."

It seems to ease Khemu at last, and he almost crawls onto Bayek's lap as his eyes start to close. Bayek lifts him up, carrying him back to where they sleep.

"What did he want you to do?" Khemu asks.

"You remember I told you Layla had to go back in time on a mission?"

Khemu nods.

"I was going to go," Bayek says. "But I'd rather be here, with you."

He eases Khemu into bed, and lies down next to him.

"No," Khemu says. "Papo, you need to save people too, like Layla saved me. Isn't that what medjay are supposed to do?"

"I wouldn't be here with you," Bayek says quietly. "I might get hurt, or stuck in the past. And then I wouldn't ever be here for you again."

Khemu looks at him, then closes his eyes. "You'll come back," he says, like it's a fact. "You should do what your friend says. I want you to help people."

Bayek watches as Khemu finally falls asleep, and sighs to himself. Honestly, he'd like to have been the one that went back to Desmond's ancestor. He still believes Layla can handle herself, whatever Berg says, but sitting around and doing nothing makes Bayek feel restless and uncomfortable. "I'll go next time," he promises Khemu, curling protectively around his sleeping form. "As soon as Layla comes back."

Soon, hopefully.

Safe, hopefully.

-/-

I am going on vacation starting tomorrow, and I'll be gone for a week. I will have my computer with me, so it's possible I'll be able to post, but I'll be busier than usual and no promises. Sorry in advance!