Bayek can only take one person at a time back to 2012 with him, and everyone agrees he should start with Elina. For an eight year old girl that's been held hostage for—according to her—like, probably forever (William says closer to two weeks), she's holding up well. But she's visibly tired, and Bayek is worried there might be injuries he can't see, and in some ways she reminds him of Khemu.
He takes her back first, after Layla has carefully explained to her that Bayek isn't the same as Juno, and when he uses the apple it's not going to hurt anyone. She still looks suspicious when she steps up and lets him hold her hand, but then again maybe that's a good thing. With the father she has, this probably won't be the last time someone ever comes after her.
Elina perks up a little when they actually do the time travelling, but doesn't actually seem to come alive until they're back in the warehouse. She lets go of Bayek's hand, swaying just a little from tiredness, and he sees her scan the room, trying to orient herself.
Then she sees Berg, and her face lights up.
Bayek crosses his arms and leans back against a nearby table (one of the techs tsks and shoos him away from a computer she'd been dismantling on top of it), watching Elina call out to her dad and run across the room to him. She seems a little off balance, but she makes it okay and Berg looks happier than Bayek's ever seen him.
"We're going to have to start a daycare program here soon with all these kids running around," mutters the tech that had shooed Bayek away from her computer. Daycare, whatever it means,isn't a word that had existed in Bayek's time, so it comes through his translator still in English. But if it has something to do with the kids, it has something to do with Khemu, so he files it away to ask Layla about later. Then he pulls out the apple and goes back to get the other two.
He takes William back next, then goes back for Layla.
"Ready?" he asks, holding up the apple. "Or do you want to do it?"
"No," Layla says, waving a dismissive hand. "I think you're still better at it than I am. But—hang on, can we stop and talk for a minute first?"
He frowns. "We can talk when we get back."
"I know," Layla says. "It's just… I'd rather not risk William or Elina overhearing this."
"Alright," Bayek says. "But let's get a little farther away from the Temple. I don't want to get distracted talking and not notice if Juno planted extra guards or something nearby."
"Not to mention this place is just creepy," Layla mutters, and the two of them start walking. It's a good five minutes before she actually gets around to what she wants to talk about, though.
"I think something just happened," Layla says. "In the past."
"What kind of something?"
"I…" He glances sideways at her, just in time to see her face twist up in frustration for a second before she smoothes it away. "I'm not sure. I think it might be something in my past, that's why I wanted to talk to you. When I went back in time and rescued Khemu, that changed things for you, right?"
"A little," Bayek says. "I assume. I don't remember any differences, only what happened to me originally."
"Okay," Layla says. "Sure, but… sorry if this is painful, but you remember finding his… his body, right?"
"Yes," Bayek says, voice tight. Even though he knows Khemu is safe and sound in 2012, with an informal army of Assassins and Templars around him, the memory of his son's body is still a painful one. "We found him, he was taken to be mummified, and he was entombed in Siwa."
Layla winces. "Sorry," she says. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. But my point is, I tried to cut things as close as possible, so your timeline would mostly stay the same. You would still have seen Khemu get captured and then hurt, and then you would have assumed he was dead, and done… exactly what you would have done if he was really dead. So the only thing that would have actually changed is that you wouldn't have had a body to bury."
"Layla…" He takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry, but is this getting to a point any time soon? Because I don't really want to talk about it."
"Sorry," Layla says quickly. "But when that changed, did you… I don't know, feel anything? Could you tell?"
Bayek thinks back on it. There's been so much going on ever since he first came to the future, and of course when Layla went and saved Khemu there had been Khemu to worry about, and his injuries, and so there was never really time to think about that… feeling.
"Possibly," he admits.
"Right!" Layla says. She looks almost relieved to have Bayek agree with her. "Yea, exactly, it's just like—this feeling."
She seems so excited about it that Bayek starts to feel suspicious. "Layla, did you… feel something?"
"Yea." She stops and so Bayek stops too, and they look at each other.
There were times, especially after they first met, when Bayek sometimes felt like Layla could tell what he was thinking just by a look. But after what they've been through together, Bayek is starting to feel like it goes both ways. He doesn't have to have been Layla in the animus to figure out what she's getting at.
"You think something changed in your past," he says.
"Yes," Layla says. "I just… I don't know. I have this feeling like I'm… disconnected from things, I guess? Like—I can't describe it."
"No," Bayek says. "I know what you mean, I think. It's like you said, after you saved Khemu, there was this…" He trails off, thinking. "Like a small part of my past didn't belong to me anymore. I still remembered the way things had always been, but I… knew that if I went back, they wouldn't be the same."
"That's how I feel," Layla says. "Only… I don't think it was something small. I think someone's just something pretty big in my past. I don't know what it is, but it's just… gnawing at me."
Bayek sighs. "Every time we start to understand what's going on here, something new comes along to complicate everything."
"I'm not trying to complicate things," Layla says. "I'm just…"
"I know," Bayek says. "And we'll figure it out. The important thing is that you won't be affected by whatever it was, just like I never forgot what happened to Khemu before you changed my past. Something… I don't know, maybe the fact that we've already time traveled, is protecting us. You're not going to change."
"But I want to know what happened to me!" Layla protests. "What if it's something awful, Bayek?"
"Then we'll figure out what it is, and we'll fix it."
"What if it's Juno? And she found me in the past, and she's doing God knows what?"
Bayek pauses. Honestly, the whole idea of Juno interfering with their pasts is confusing to him—but to Layla, who's always been afraid of Juno, it must be terrifying. He steps forward, and wraps her in a hug. Layla stands frozen for a second, too confused to react. "Layla," Bayek says quietly. "Trust me. It's going to be alright."
"But, Bayek…"
"Layla, do you trust me?"
She sighs, and hugs him back for a quick second. "Yes, Bayek, I trust you."
"Good. Then whatever it is that's changed in your past, we'll figure it out and we'll fix it." Bayek reaches for the apple, and holds it up. "Ready to go home?"
-/-
When they get back, the warehouse is louder and more… excited than Bayek is used to seeing it. He scans the room instinctively, looking for Khemu, expecting to find him right in the thick of things, as usual. Before he can find him, though, Layla says, "Oh," and points.
"Look," she says. "I've never seen Berg like that."
He follows her pointing finger, then grins broadly when he sees what she sees. Berg has his daughter in his arms and he's looking at her, beaming, half laughing as she says something to him. "Well look at that," he says. Berg looks up at them then, and Bayek nods at him.
"He's coming over," Layla says, and sure enough in a few more seconds Berg has pushed his way through the group of people between them.
"Thank you," Berg says. "You don't know how much this means to me."
"I think I do," Bayek says, because of course he does.
"Well," Berg admits. "Maybe." He glances down at his daughter. "Elina, did you thank them?"
"Thank you," Elina says, still clinging to her father. Berg knows, because Bayek has told him, that Elina is close to the same age as Elijah and Khemu, but she looks much smaller.
Bayek says you're welcome, knowing she won't understand him, then glances pointedly at Layla to translate for him. She does, then excuses herself. Bayek lets her go—maybe she needs to work through what they'd talked about back at the Temple on her own for a while.
"I'm going to take her upstairs," Berg says. "I think Khemu's up there, and I thought—well, it wouldn't be a bad idea for the two of them to make friends."
"Well, he doesn't need my permission," Bayek says. "And I think... I would feel better about Khemu spending time with her than with Elijah."
Berg nods. "I was thinking the exact same thing."
Bayek nods. Elina, from the very little he's seen of her so far, seems like a perfectly normal girl. Elijah is different. He doesn't act like a child, or speak like a child—he still says he's here for some purpose, that he just knows he's supposed to be here, and there's just something… off about that.
"Why don't we take her up now?" he suggests. "If everyone's down here, you might be able to let her have some quiet. And I assume Khemu's up there?" He hasn't seen his son around since coming back, which means he's probably upstairs, probably with Elijah.
Berg agrees, so the two of them leave the crowd—which is more or less starting to settle down and get back to work, as people lose interest in Elina's arrival—and head upstairs. Berg talks quietly to Elina as they go, explaining that there's another kid here for her to be friends with. Elina perks up and listens raptly to him, and when they find Khemu (and, sure enough, Elijah), she squirms her way to the floor and heads toward the two boys.
"Hi," Elina says, stopping a few feet away. She rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, hands clasped in front of her.
"Hi," Khemu says, grinning at her. He glances up, looking not at all nervous—Bayek remembers how many kids Khemu had made friends with back in Siwa, and isn't surprised to see him reaching out now. "Wanna… you wanna come play?"
He says the words—in English—very slowly, with obvious effort. Then he glances at Elijah, as if to double check he's said it right. Elijah nods solemnly, and Khemu flushes with satisfaction. Then he looks back at Elina.
She shrugs and says, "Okay," and for about thirty seconds Bayek thinks this plan is going to work. With Elina here, Khemu will have a new friend to spend time with, and Bayek won't have to worry about what Elijah's doing to his son. Elina sits down next to Khemu, and he leans in close to say something—
And then Khemu waves Elijah over, and Elina shifts sideways to make room for him, and all three of them end up sitting in the middle of the floor, whispering to each other with their backs to the two men. Elijah looks a little uncomfortable, like he doesn't know what to do with suddenly having two other kids to talk to, but he's still obviously a part of the group, and it doesn't look like either of them is planning to forget him anytime soon.
"I don't know why we didn't see that coming, really," Berg mutters, crossing his arms. "Although I suppose there's still a chance that Elina and Khemu will start to rethink their friendship with Elijah once they see what it's like to have normal friends around."
He says this with flat disdain, but Bayek is looking at Elijah. From this angle he can't see the boy's face, just the back of his head, and he looks so… normal. For the first time, Bayek feels a fluttering of doubt. This boy is Khemu's best friend, like it or not—maybe he deserves a little bit of Bayek's trust.
"Bayek?" Berg prods.
"Yes," Bayek murmurs. "Maybe… maybe Khemu and Elina will be good for each other."
Then he heads back downstairs without another word. There are some things he wants to think about. Between what to do with Elijah and who's been messing with Layla's past, Bayek thinks he has enough things to worry over for a good long time.
-/-
A little bit of a slow moving chapter, but hopefully it'll work as a little bit of a breather-feels like there's been a lot of action-y chapters lately, so this was a nice break, to sit down and write something like this. :)