"Hopefully the retraining won't take too long," Iris commented. "I think I'd like to travel to other places when we're done here. While I still can, at least."

"We can still travel with the baby," Altair said with a little shrug. "It will simply require more planning." He'd seen women do it before. Hell, he'd seen a female Assassin take her baby with her to whatever town she had an assignment in and leave the child with the branch of the Brotherhood there while she worked. It was quite impressive, to say the least.

"I'm not worried about after the baby is born," Iris said. In the modern world, it wasn't a problem. "It'll probably start getting tricky in a few months, though." Although, granted, as long as they didn't have to take a plane anywhere, it probably wasn't going to be too big an issue.

Altair just nodded. He wasn't sure what she was expecting, but he'd seen lots of things in his travels. Including very obviously pregnant women traveling. But he didn't point that out to her, since he figured that might not be a good subject to bring up.

Instead, he pushed a menu across to her with one finger, giving her a meaningful look.

"Fine, fine," Iris replied as he pushed the menu at her. She could take a hint. She grinned a bit. "You realize most of it is in Italian, right?" Of course, now she was just teasing him. It was fun, when they were alone together.

"I would assume you've picked up enough by now to get by," Altair said, his voice dry, though his lips twitched a little. Really, he couldn't help it.

Besides, it made Iris happy, and if anyone ever found out that was such a big motivator for him he'd be so screwed.

"You wouldn't say that if you had been with us last night," Iris replied with a bit of a smile. "It was bad. I don't do so well with foreign languages."

Altair snorted but didn't say any more as the waiter came over. Instead, he stayed quiet and just pointed to what he wanted on the menu. Because he'd really mangle Italian, and he was pretty sure the natives wouldn't like it.

Not that he cared much, but it would be a little harder to sneak in and out to train the Assassins that way.

Iris did the same, even though she had a fair idea of how to at least pronounce the Italian on the menu. She knew she'd still butcher the language, though. She shook her head and waved a hand a bit when the waiter offered the wine selection.

Altair watched the waiter retreat before he smiled faintly at Iris, glancing down at her belly. She wasn't showing yet, but he didn't expect her to be. Not yet, anyway. And so far he'd done a very good job (at least he thought so) of keeping his hands to himself and coming up with good reasons to keep her out of combat.

Iris caught the look, and smiled at him a bit, one hand going to touch her belly gently.

"I'll see about doing a bit more research," she said softly. "I'm sure there's still a lot of information I need to find about having a baby."

Altair snorted. "Women have survived childbirth without your means of research for hundreds of years," he said quietly. "However, if you want to research, I certainly will not stop you."

"Just because they have doesn't mean I know the first thing about it," Iris pointed out. She shrugged a bit. "I just want to feel a bit more prepared, that's all. I like having information."

That he could understand. Information was good. So he nodded, settling back in his chair just a little.

"Though I can't say I'm looking forward to outgrowing all of my clothes," Iris added dryly, though she grinned a bit. "I have a pair of jeans I'm really kind of fond of."

Altair snorted. Only a woman would be so concerned with her clothing. "I'm sure after the baby is born you will return to your regular sizes," he said, his voice dry.

"I'm sure you'll get me right back into shape," Iris teased back. She stretched a bit and settled back into her chair, grinning at him a bit.

"Of course I will." Not that he was going to specify how exactly he was going to do such a thing, but he was going to. And if his thoughts weren't exactly fit for public, well, he wasn't sharing them.

They ended up being in Italy for the next few months. It had taken more than three weeks just to break the bad habits that the modern Italians had formed, much to Ezio's annoyance. He couldn't imagine allowing trainees to form such sloppy habits, and had taken quite a bit of pleasure in letting Anna run circles around them.

Iris was annoyed as well, but for a different reason. She'd started to show while they were in Italy, and couldn't justify arguing anymore when Altair made her sit out of active re-training. That didn't mean she liked sitting out the training, however.

By the time Ezio finally declared the trainees satisfactory, Anna was more than happy to find somewhere to just sort of flop over. She'd been doing more running around than Ezio had, since she was in charge of running the trainees all over as well as running messages between Ezio and Altair and the leader of the Italians, so she was glad things were calming down.

Altair was extremely pleased when Iris started to show, and had to make a physical effort to keep his hands to himself when it was the two of them alone. And while he still wouldn't call the Assassins as good as the ones he'd been in charge of, they were much better than they had been.

Ezio was more than ready to settle in when he called an end to retraining for the day. The trainees were just about up to par, so he knew there wasn't much more he could do for them. Thankfully, they had taken to his training well once they'd broken their bad habits. He sighed as he settled into the room he shared with Anna, and stretched out to relax on the bed.

Iris sat off to the side as she watched Altair work his trainees. She could still keep an eye on things, if nothing else, and she still knew how to throw a knife if she had to. She refused to step away from the training entirely, and this was the best compromise they could come to where she would be out of the line of fire but still be 'participating.'

Altair called a halt to training not long after that, declaring that was enough for the day and they'd resume tomorrow. The Assassins had been harder to break of their bad habits, since some of them had simply done what was easiest for the past few years, but he'd managed well enough. And now that was one less thing for him to worry about. He glanced over at Iris, making his way to her.

Anna groaned from where she was already stretched out on the large bed. "I declare it naptime," she mumbled, moving her arms to pillow her head, wiggling around a little to get comfortable, laying on her stomach. "For the next week or so."

"You have been running around quite a bit, la mia dolce," Ezio commented, glancing over at her. "You deserve a bit of a rest." He moved over next to her and pulled her close.

"Done for the day?" Iris asked as Altair came over to her.

"I can agree with that." Anna opened one eye to peer at him. "Although you don't look like you have rest in mind." She grinned briefly, teasingly.

Altair nodded. "That's all for today," he agreed quietly. "Have you eaten?"

"Well, if you insist," Ezio teased back, giving her a chaste kiss on the cheek. He pulled her closer, but just snuggled with her.

"Not yet," Iris replied as she got up from where she was sitting. "I was waiting for you."