Iris blinked, and face-palmed.

"Why do Americans have to suck so bad?" she asked rhetorically. "They give us all bad names."

Anna groaned her agreement of that. She was actually kind of glad Ezio was from the past; that way he couldn't have started judging her from the beginning.

At least, not about being American.

Iris reached over and patted Anna on the shoulder sympathetically.

"It'll get better," she said. "They can't stay so horrifically inept for long."

"Gods I hope not. Or else I might really get angry and start knocking heads together. Or kick them off buildings."

Suddenly she giggled. "I can Sparta-kick them off!"

Iris snorted.

"You're just full of the cheesy jokes today," she teased her friend. She squirmed in her seat a bit when the baby started kicking in earnest. "And is it bad I'm starting to count the days until this one is born?"

"No. I've heard it's not very comfortable the last week or two." Anna shrugged. "Besides, it's been nine months, almost. It's about bloody time."

"I'm looking forward to not carrying around all this extra weight," Iris admitted. "The baby is heavy. And I've got sharp little elbows jabbing me everywhere, it seems like." She was quiet for a moment. "So what about you and Ezio? Made any sort of plans for after this whole voyage of lunacy?"

"Nah." Anna shrugged. "He hasn't really said anything yet. I think he's thinking about kids, but I dunno. I mean, he comes from a family of four kids himself."

"And what do you think?" Iris asked. "I mean, I know I'm not one to talk, since this one was unplanned," she patted her belly a bit, "but generally it should be a two-person decision, right?"

"It generally works out better if there was talking and planning beforehand, yeah," Anna agreed slowly. "You got lucky with Altair, but yeah. There is generally some planning involved."

"I got really lucky," Iris agreed. And she knew it, too. "Maybe see what Ezio thinks? Just so you're on the same page."

Anna nodded, though she looked uncomfortable. She and Ezio didn't really discuss things like that very often. Sometimes, yes, it was unavoidable. But most of the time they were quite happy just sort of playing around, rather than talking about serious stuff.

Iris noticed how uncomfortable Anna looked.

"I just think it might be a good idea," she said. "But it's not like I can make you do anything." With that, she let the subject drop.

Anna nodded and resettled herself. It was a good idea, now she just had to make herself talk to Ezio.

Shaking her head, she got up again. "Alright, I need to get back to beating sense into the Americans. Yell if you want company again."

Iris grinned and nodded.

"I will," she promised. "Give them a good beatdown. I'd help drop them off towers for you, if I could."

Anna snickered. "Soon enough," she said, nodding to her before she left to go help Ezio so he didn't throttle someone. Fortunately they were already a little over half-way through the day.

Indeed, Ezio was ready to start knocking heads together.

"They are by far the worst I've ever trained," he said to Anna when she arrived. "And I've trained adults from scratch before. I just..." He sighed. "I don't understand how this could have been allowed to happen."

"People got lazy. Times changed. Technology changed." Anna shrugged. "It's not excusable, by any means, but I do understand how it happened. It just makes our lives harder."

Ezio just sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose.

"This is going to take much longer than we thought," he said.

"Probably," Anna agreed. She hesitated for a few moments before she continued. "But then Iris will have her kid here, which is good."

Ezio noticed the slight hesitation.

"We will definitely be here longer than a couple of weeks," he agreed carefully. "However, so long as she has appropriate care, I suspect she could give birth anywhere. How is it different here?"

"It's home." Anna shrugged. "We both grew up near here, we've been living here in this house for a while. Apart from our stay with you, that is." She smiled briefly. "It's just more comfortable, I guess."

"I see," Ezio replied. He studied her for a moment. "And would it be safe to assume you would, hypothetically, prefer to raise a family here yourself, rather than elsewhere?"

"I know I'm most comfortable here," Anna said slowly. "But I would be open to looking at other places, if we decided we wanted to start a family."

"I see," Ezio replied, mulling that over. They were both dancing around the real question, so he decided to man up and speak. "And... have you thought about such a thing at all?"