Warnings: N/A

Pairing/Character: Altair/Nameless woman

Author's Note: N/A

Altair relaxed in the saddle, easing the horse down the path to Masyaf. He let his feet slide out of the stirrups as he neared the posts for the horses, he was home once more. He saw part of the brotherhood standing at the city gates and cheering at him. He chuckled, those young boys were easily riled up. He stopped the horse near the watering barrel and dismounted off, holding onto the horse's hair so he would not bolt from under him. The stirrups were barely tied when he heard the men get louder and shook his head, he would have to teach them what it meant to be backed away from the horse a few steps before turning around.

Altair was unprepared to have someone racing at him and leap onto legs were knocked out from under him and he landed in the pile of hay. He spat out a stray piece of hay as his attacker pushed back his hood. He tried to glare but the smile that was stretched on the woman's features was hard to resist. She didn't do as many as the other women did when re-meeting their husband; She never waited for the brotherhood to let her by, nor did she greet him by just bowing and following behind him, and she never was going to obey the unspoken rule of not touching the men in public.

A quick kiss was all that was needed to tell Altair that she did miss him and was most likely going to keep him under her watchful eye until his next mission. And as she dragged him back through the city later that day for shopping with her hand pulling him to wherever she was headed, it confirmed the old woman's saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," except he never would have dared to think it would be him growing fonder of her.