It took Connor several weeks to notice that Desmond had changed. He was more withdrawn, pensive almost, and he seemed to be constantly lost in thought. Connor might not have noticed at once in any case- he'd never been too aware of other peoples' emotions, but the sudden arrival of a newborn into his life had driven all other thoughts out of his head.

For nearly two months, every waking moment was spent thinking of feedings and soiled clothes, of sleepless nights broken by the child's wailings, and irrational fears of every conceivable danger that could come to a tiny, helpless, person. It was an exhausting life, worse than anything Connor had experienced in his time as an assassin, and Connor had little time to worry about his own needs, much less anyone else's. It wasn't until he walked into his kitchen to find Desmond studying the room with a kind of fierce attention it definitely did not deserve, that Connor realized something serious must have happened.

"There's something wrong with you," he said, without preamble.

"I was just thinking." Desmond didn't turn around, or relax at all from his pensive stance. "Why here?"

Connor sighed. "I can't remember the last time I slept more than four hours in one night," he said. "If you have something to say, please just say it."

Desmond did turn around then, eyeing Connor critically. "You look awful," he said.

"I-"

Upstairs, the baby began to announce his unhappiness with the world in general by wailing loudly, and the next several minutes were taken up with trying to figure out what he needed. Finally he calmed down again, drifting off to sleep in Connor's arms. "So," Connor said, turning back to Desmond. "What was so interesting in the kitchen?"

"Nothing," Desmond said. "It's just… I keep wondering why I came here, of all places. I should be dead, but I ended up in the middle of your kitchen in the dead of night. It's not natural, and… I've kind of been wondering if there's a way back home. I thought if there was a clue anywhere it would be there, but no luck." He shrugged, a careless gesture betrayed by the hopeless expression on his face.

"I thought you were happy here," Connor said. "Why do you want to leave all of a sudden?"

"I saw something," Desmond said. "A month or two back, I saw…" he gave a scornful laugh. "I guess I'd almost say they were ghosts, but that doesn't really fit. Ghosts are people from the past, not the future, and the people I saw were my friends from the twenty first century. Sort of not all the way there, kind of see through and ghostlike, but not really ghosts."

"You didn't tell me that," Connor said. "Why didn't you tell me that?"

"You've been busy," Desmond said, gesturing at the child. "And they told me about what things have been like since I came here. The templars are ready for all-out war, and if I were there, I might be able to help somehow. Only I'm not sure I want to, so…" he laughed self-consciously and made his face. "Well, they're my problems, I guess. I don't want to bother you when you have other things to worry about."

Connor sighed. "You should have told me," he said.

"I told you," Desmond said. "It's my problem, not yours."

"I meant that I could have just told you there's no way for you to get back anyway," Connor said. "So there's no reason to waste so much time worrying about it."

"But there might be something," Desmond said. "If I look hard enough, or-"

"No," Connor said shortly. "Even if there were a way back, it would be something to do with precursor technology, and that would do more harm than good."

Desmond looked like he was about to argue, then shrugged and gave up. "I guess that's true," he said. "That stuff never helps as much as it seems like it should."

Connor nodded and let the conversation lapse into silence. Desmond leaned against the wall and stared out the window, obviously lost in his own thoughts. After quite a while, he seemed to come to some kind of answer. He nodded a few times to himself, and stood up a little straighter. Connor didn't ask what he'd decided, and Desmond didn't elaborate. Whatever it was, it was definitely private, and none of his business.

Desmond changed the subject. "So why haven't you named him yet?" he asked, gesturing at the child. "It's been months."

"I can't decide on one," Connor said.

"Anything would be better than nothing," Desmond said. "You can't have him go through life without a name. He'll just get saddled with some nickname he hates."

Connor nodded. "A few years ago, I would have given him a name from my culture," he said. "I still want to. I want him to know where he came from, and to be proud of it. But-" and he couldn't keep a hint of bitterness out of his voice. "I'm not a fool. I've spent years trying to protect my homelands, and when I look around now, I barely recognize where I am. You're the only person that even knows my real name, Desmond. I want him to have a name he doesn't have to hide."

"Well-" Desmond hesitated, then went on. "Do you want advice?"

"Only if it's good," Connor said.

Desmond actually smiled at that. "Well," he said. "It's technically yours, so I guess you'll like it."

"What-"

"You just pointed out that I don't really have a choice between staying here and going home. I just have to make the best of life here."

"And?" Connor said, a little more angrily than he'd meant it to sound. "What does that have to do with names?"

"You can't decide between this culture and the culture you were born in," Desmond said. "But this is the world you live in, and this is the world he's going to grow up in. If I know you at all, there's no way you'll ever let him forget his heritage, whatever his name is."

Connor considered this for nearly half an hour before saying anything, and Desmond waited in silence until finally Connor admitted, "You have a point."

"Well, I try," Desmond said.

Connor nodded, absently. "I do want him to know where he came from, though," he said. "On both sides. I'm not naming him for my father-"

"I don't blame you," Desmond said.

"But his father's name was Edward," Connor went on. "It's a good enough name."

"I like it," Desmond said, and the newly named Edward squirmed slightly in his father's arms, settling into a new position with a contented noise, like a kitten's mewling. "I think he does, too."

Technically the baby- Edward- was much too young to understand anything that was going on around him, but Connor didn't bother to argue. In some weird way, it almost seemed like he was giving his approval of the name. Connor could even swear there was something like the ghost of a smile on his face. "Thank you," he said to Desmond.

"I literally just gave you your own advice," Desmond said. "And- speaking of that, there's actually something I need to take care of."

Connor nodded, and Desmond turned round to leaving, waving over his shoulder at father and son as he vanished from the room.

-/-

There was something about hiding from templars in the town that had grown up from Davenport Homestead, something Shaun really liked. It appealed to him as a historian, probably- the place had once been a haven for assassins, and now had become so again. They had nowhere really to go- no safe places left, and few if any allies. There were other assassins out there, of course, other than Shaun and Rebecca, but they were few, and scattered, each cell doing its best just to stay alive. None of them would appreciate having to take responsibility for two near strangers.

So the two of them waited, doing their best to live quietly while they planned their next move, and waited to hear from Desmond again. Since the day they'd first arrived in the area and seen the ghost, or apparition, or whatever Desmond had been, the place had gotten stranger and stranger with each passing day. Desmond hadn't appeared again, but there were others. Ghosts of the settlers that had lived there centuries ago, going about their daily lives with apparently no way of seeing the twenty first century around them. Sometimes they were only fleeting images, there one minute and gone the next. Other times, they would stay for hours or even days, conversing with invisible people and taking care of whatever business they happened to have.

It was an absolutely fascinating phenomenon, and at first the people of the area had reacted predictably, thinking the visions were ghosts or worse. Shaun held to Rebecca's theory that whatever precursor technology had brought Desmond to his ancestor's time, it had also opened some kind of link between the two centuries. It usually paid to listen to what Rebecca had to say, Shaun had learned.

Besides, it didn't matter much why the apparitions had started to appear- the fact was, they were there, and the people of the area (those that hadn't left in the first few days) had simply adjusted to the reality of living on the edge between the two times. Shaun was actually having kind of a blast with it, because he couldn't remember a single other time in his life when people had been so interested to hear him lecture on history.

"I could see us settling down here," he told Rebecca one morning over breakfast, several months after first arriving.

"Sure." Rebecca snatched her toast from the toaster with more force than was really necessary. "If the templars weren't still after us, and trying to take over the world. Oh, and we can't forget that Juno's still out there somewhere. There's hardly any of us left. We can't afford to give up."

"I didn't mean-" Shaun scowled at her across the table, although he was more upset with himself than he is at Rebecca. "Obviously we can't, but if things were different, I think it would be a good place."

Rebecca sat down, her face softening slightly. "You're the only man I've ever met who thinks ghosts are a reason to move into a neighborhood instead of away."

"They're not ghosts," Shaun said.

"No." Rebecca shrugged. "But we don't have a word for what they are. Ghosts are close enough."

"And anyway," Shaun went on. "Why not? It's an interesting place, and it's out of the way. This is the longest we've been able to stay in one place without the templars finding us since- well, since I don't know when."

Rebecca sighed. "It would be nice," she admits. "But we're needed other places and you know that as well as I do. We've probably been here too long already."

Shaun nodded, more than a little glumly, and says nothing. Silence fell across the tiny room, the uncomfortable silence of two people that are both avoiding something that neither of them wants to admit is true.

Then something exploded a little way away.

Both of them were on their feet and running before they even had time to say a word to one another. Not that there was much need- where most peoples' first reaction to an explosion would be to get as far away as possible, that wasn't not an option for the two assassins. Odds were, whatever had caused the explosion was linked to them somehow (because really, why else would there be an explosion in a sleepy little town like this one?), and that meant there could be templars in the area. If they were quick on their feet, they might be able to get a glimpse of whoever caused the explosion, and have some idea of the kind of force that had finally tracked them down.

The epicenter of the explosion seemed to be directly in the center of the small town, but Shaun could tell straight away that the blast wasn't caused by a bomb, as he'd assumed at first. Instead, there was a tiny, smoking crater in the middle of the town's main intersection, a sort of glimmering, golden shimmer hanging in midair over it. Shaun couldn't see any sign of shrapnel, and (happily) there were no strangers in the small but growing crowd, which meant no templars in the area.

Actually- there were no modern strangers in the area. There were, however, nearly a dozen strange men and women in dress from the eighteenth century standing around the crater, looking around in apparent curiosity and panic. Shaun couldn't blame them- although the cause of the explosion was still a mystery, its effects were obvious. Everywhere Shaun looked, there was evidence of the two centuries having been… squished together. It wasn't a great description, but it was the best he could come up with from the top of his head.

Modern buildings suddenly stood side by side with the log cabins of two hundred years ago, and the carefully paved and maintained roads gave way in places to dirt tracks disfigured by wagon tracks. In the distance, Shaun could see the tall masts of sailing ships bobbing up and down in the water, even as a passenger jet screamed by overhead. The ghosts that had haunted the area for months were suddenly as solid as the modern residents of the area, although they did seem significantly more confused.

"What is going on here?" Rebecca demanded, staring at the scene with eyes as wide as Shaun has ever seen them. "It's like the past and the present are both here at the same time… Shaun-"

"Don't look at me," he said. "I have no idea." But she was still gazing at him with a sort of confused expectation, and Shaun found himself looking around, like he expected someone to jump out from behind a bush and explain the impossible scene playing out around them. Predictably, no one did, but Shaun spied something else, something that gives him an idea. "Come on," he said, grabbing Rebecca's forearm and pulling her along.

"What? Where are we going?"

"There," Shaun said, and pointed with his free hand toward the manor house on the top of the hill. He knew it well from endless hours spent poring over footage from the animus, but the house that had once been Connor's home was long gone before Shaun and Rebecca came to town. It was there now, though, and it's the only place Shaun can think of to go to for answers.

-/-

I swear, I start every chapter of this story thinking 'this will be the last one for sure!' and then I end up making everything more complicated instead.