There are reasons for everything that happens.

After years of being tossed from one timeline to another without any control, after a lifetime of dealing with wings and impossible coincidences, Altair believes that everything happens for a reason. Even if he doesn't know what that reason is, he's always sure there must be one. There's no other way to explain the mess that his life has become. Constantly running into new people with wings, sometimes in the most random and unexpected situations, isn't something that can be explained by pure chance. There has to be a reason, and that's something he believes.

Believed.

Because returning to the first civilization temple and seeing Desmond's dead body has utterly destroyed any faith he had in the universe making sense. He'd thought- up until the moment he saw Desmond's body lying cold and stiff on the ground where it had fallen- he'd thought something would happen. Some last minute miracle that would save both him and the rest of the world. But that hasn't happened, and now Desmond is dead.

(Dead, dead, dead, never coming back)

Altair has insisted on coming back alone because he wants to be the first one to know what happened to Desmond. William had put up a feeble argument, but in the end he is the mentor of the assassins first and a father second. But for Altair, all that is the same thing. His sense of self, his life as an assassin, his duties toward Desmond, they're all so tied up together that he can't bring himself to just be one. And now that Desmond is gone, Altair doesn't know what he's going to do.

He hadn't realized it would be like this. All those years ago, when he'd first found Desmond and brought him home, he hadn't realized that losing him would hurt this much. He's lost people before, even people close to him. And those losses had been bad, but none of them had felt like he'd died a little along with them.

It's been years since Desmond had been the scared, lost boy Altair remembers from those early days. Back then, Altair hadn't known a lot about what exactly he'd gotten himself into. Hadn't realized what it meant to bring a kid into his life, someone that would rely on him for literally everything, who couldn't protect himself and really, truly needed him. Altair can remember, with vivid clarity, the sight of Desmond as he had been then, smaller than any eight year old should be, dwarfed by his new grown wings, his arms and legs like sticks.

This is the first time in a long time that Altair has given any thought to those early days but now, looking at the corpse Desmond had left behind, Altair can't help thinking how helpless and small the- the body is. All Altair wants to do is protect him, the way he'd been able to do years ago when Desmond was still small. But it's too late. Desmond is cold and dead and (so horribly) broken on the ground, wings broken beneath him on the stony ground. Altair reaches forward and closes Desmond's eyes, then stands and turns his back on the corpse that had been his son. It almost kills him to leave Desmond's body behind, but there's no other choice. He has no time for a burial, not with where he's going and what he has to do.

Juno had manipulated Desmond into giving his own life, and freeing her in the process. For that, Juno has to die.

-/-

"Is he-"

"Dead," Altair snaps, without looking at Ezio. The other man winces at Altair's tone, and Altair forces himself to remember that he's not the only one here that had cared for Desmond. In fact, judging by the long faces and grim silence of the temporary place the assassins have taken shelter in, all of them are mourning to some extent.

"It doesn't seem right," Rebecca whispers, her expressive face crumpled in misery. "Just leaving him there."

"We don't have a choice," William says, and Altair amends his earlier opinion- alone out of all of them, William looks almost wholly unaffected by Desmond's death. A viscous, petty corner of Altair's mind wants to assume there's no feelings there, that William really is the asshole he looks like. But by now, he knows William well enough by now to realize the man does actually have feelings. He just acts like he doesn't, and to Altair that is far more despicable.

Unfortunately, Altair happens to agree with William in this case- but the callous tone in his voice makes Altair want to fight, just on principal. Instead, he makes his way over to where Rebecca sits, a little apart from the others and seeming oddly incomplete without the computers Altair has gotten used to seeing her with. He's known her for more than ten years, ever since Desmond's freshman year of high school. And suddenly- without wanting it at all- the memory of the first time he'd met Rebecca comes rushing over him, hitting Altair like a physical blow.

One day.

One day into the ninth grade, and already Desmond had managed to earn himself a detention. Altair has no idea what for, only that he really doesn't have time for this today. He'd gotten a call earlier, a prerecorded message that began 'Sir or Madam, please be informed that your child has received disciplinary measures…' and had told him nothing helpful except that Desmond would be missing the bus home and need to be picked up after the detention.

So Altair finds himself sitting in the parking lot, waiting impatiently for Desmond to come out. But when someone finally approaches, it's a stranger. Altair looks her over carefully in both normal and eagle vision, but both show that she's no threat so he relaxes. A little. She's a solid inch or two shorter than he is, with bright green hair (badly died and faded to brown at the roots), wearing a pair of ridiculously large headphones around her neck. She's got an impressive black eye over one side of her face, and Altair notices that she limps slightly as she jogs over to him.

"Hey," she says. "Are you Desmond's dad?"

Altair nods, still a little wary and waiting for some kind of explanation. "Who are you?"

"Rebecca," she says. "Rebecca Crane. Anyway, Desmond's on his way out but I just wanted to tell you that the detention really wasn't his fault. I mean, he only climbed up the mobile because Mrs. Collins- she's pretty much the nicest teacher here, I swear everyone loves her- she brought her cat into class because the AC at her place is busted but it got out during fifth period, and I thought that since cats climb trees that's where she might be-"

She stops for breath and Altair starts to interrupt, but Rebecca barrels on again before he has a chance. "And I was right about that, actually, but it's easier to get up the side of the mobile than the tree so I went up there and then Desmond saw me and thought I was stuck so he went up after me and that's when someone saw us and we both got detention." She gives Altair a completely serious look. "We did get the cat, though. I kind of fell out of the tree-" She gestures to her black eye- "But it's fine, really. And Desmond was only trying to help, so I just thought you should know it wasn't really his fault, and he shouldn't get in any more trouble than he already has."

"I don't-"

But someone calls for Rebecca, and she manages a wave before limping toward a woman that looks like her mother, who looks very unhappy at the moment. Altair can hear her shouting as Rebecca climbs into the passenger seat and the two of them drive off. A minute or two later, Desmond comes slinking out of the school, clearly expecting a lecture. Instead, Altair waits until Desmond is settled in the passenger seat, and bursts out laughing.

"Are you okay?" Desmond asks when he's finally stopped. He looks sideways at Altair like he wants to ask if the man has just gone insane, but doesn't.

"I heard you're rescuing cats out of trees now," Altair says. "Or did it have more to do with the girl than the cat?"

Desmond turns bright red, and his refusal to answer is answer enough.

"What are you smiling about?" Rebecca asks. She kicks at the wall next to her chair and frowns at him like he's betraying Desmond by being happy so soon after his death. "I could be wrong, but I don't think there's any good news to be smiling about right now."

"That's not exactly true," Altair says. "Desmond did save the world."

"But he died doing it," Rebecca says. "That's not how it's supposed to work."

"I know," Altair says. "It's not fair, but…" he can't think of a way to finish the sentence, because from his point of view no amount of good could make up for Desmond being dead. So he changes the subject instead. "Do you remember when you and Desmond met?"

"The day Mrs. Collins left her cat in a tree," Rebecca says, managing a small smile of her own. "Yea, I haven't thought about that in ages, but- yea. Good day." She shakes her head. "I still can't believe that was you," she says. "You were just like everyone else's dad when we were in high school, and then you turn out to be… you. Famous assassin from the twelfth century, time traveler, half bird… thing."

"Not the most complimentary description I've ever heard," Altair says. "But accurate. More or less."

"So that's what you were smiling about?" Rebecca asks.

Altair nods. "I think Desmond used to have a crush on you for a while in school."

"Well, yea," Rebecca says. "That's how we ended up dating my last semester." She glances at Altair, then does a double take at the look on his face. "Which you apparently knew nothing about. But I mean, it wasn't a big deal. Just a couple of months and then we decided it wasn't working out and we'd be better off as friends."

Altair very briefly considers being upset about this, and then realizes there's no point. Desmond is gone, and Altair has always known there must be some parts of his life that were secrets. So apparently Rebecca had been one of them. There are so many worse secrets Desmond could have kept that this one actually comes as a relief.

Shaun ambles over to the two of them and sits in a chair next to Rebecca. "What are you two talking about?" he asks.

"Ex-boyfriends," Rebecca answers promptly.

"Yours or his?"

"Look at you, trying to be funny."

Altair interrupts before the flirting can really get serious, because he is absolutely not in the mood to listen to any more of that. He'd heard enough of it back in the temple. "I need to ask you something," he says. "Both of you, actually."

"What?"

"I'm going after Juno," Altair says. He's been thinking about how to say this, all kinds of explanations and preambles that could have helped this make some sense, but in the end opts for the direct approach. "She needs to die, and I… need help to make that happen as soon as possible."

"Yes," Shaun says, surprising Altair by speaking up first. He'd expected Rebecca to volunteer before Shaun.

"Rebecca?"

"Of course," she says. "Sorry, I thought it was obvious. So what do we do?"

"A good question," William says, and Altair abruptly realizes the rest of the room has gone quiet to listen to them. "Killing Juno isn't going to be easy. She's been planning this for thousands of years, and I highly doubt she'll allow anyone to kill her after all that."

Altair makes a frustrated noise and turns to look at William. "I'm finding it very hard to care about what Juno wants right now," he says. "And I am willing to spend as much time and effort as necessary figuring out how to kill her."

William considers this for a while, and Altair can see his own dislike mirrored on William's face as he looks at him. Clearly the feelings are mutual. But finally he nods. "It's not that I won't," he says. "I can't."

"I understand," Altair says, although he doesn't. "You have responsibilities besides revenge. I don't."

"Then go," William says. "Take care of Juno. Keep Shaun and Rebecca with you as long as you need them."

"I'm a little hurt you didn't ask any of us," Ezio says, gesturing at himself, Haytham, and Connor.

"You're family," Altair says dismissively. "You don't have a choice."

"Good," Ezio says. "Let's kill Juno."

-/-

So... after much hesitation because I'm not 100% sure where this is going, here is the first chapter of Free Falling. I had originally planned to wait until I got more written but someone told me today they wanted to know what happened after the end of Learning to Soar. Please bear with me, I swear it gets less depressing after a couple chapters.