I put myself under some serious pressure, trying to get this done before Thursday, and wound up finishing early. This is set between 'Leviathan' and 'River of Time', and during the latter. It was pretty hard to write, to capture that moment where Len finally figures out that he has feelings for Sara. It's been building for a while, but this is where he finally figures it out.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Legends of Tomorrow.

WORD COUNT: 3209


Wednesday, March 26th, 2166

"Thanks for the help, Gareth."

Leonard looked up at the sound of Sara's voice, seeing her waving at one of the rebels. The tall, blonde man had wandered over and offered his assistance clearing away some debris covering an exterior panel so that Jax could get at the wiring behind it. The rebels had been coming and going in and out of the ship, since Gideon could create more food in half an hour than they'd had in the past week, and the Med Bay seemed to be constantly occupied by those who needed it.

But this guy, Gareth Something-Or-Other, had been coming by with increasing frequency, and didn't seem to do much besides help Sara, and talk to Sara, and flirt with Sara. It was driving Leonard crazy. What was worse was that Sara seemed to be flirting back. She laughed when he told his lame jokes, and let him lift the heavy things when she was perfectly capable of doing it herself (something that would normally result in her smacking whoever it was and muscling her way into doing her own work).

And thanks to Mick, Leonard seemed to always find himself being forced to watch it. His partner had been constantly finding excuses to pair the two of them up for repairs, and when the pyro wasn't doing it, it was Kendra, whenever she wasn't trying and failing to talk sense into a still-very-much-brainwashed Carter. And Leonard couldn't seem to come up with an excuse to leave whenever Gareth showed up, following Sara like a big, dumb, dog.

Leonard scowled at the splintered half of a tree trunk that he was trying to move, one of the oaks that had fallen onto the ship when they'd crashed into them. He didn't understand why the hell it was bothering him so much. Sara's love life was none of his damn business. Gareth's assistance was making their work move faster. So why was this man's presence making him grind his teeth and burn a hole into whatever he was working on with his glare?

Beside him, he heard Jax make an amused-sounding huff, and turned his glare to the kid. "What?"

Jax straightened up, all traces of amusement gone from his face. "Nothing," he said quickly.

"You were laughing about something. What is it?"

"It's not… It's just…" the kid stammered, before seeming to gather up his courage, "I wouldn't call it funny, exactly, but… it's just watching you and Sara. I don't get why either of you two haven't done anything about it, yet."

That brought an aggrieved sigh from Leonard. "First Mick, and now you," he muttered, "Why are you people so insistent on believing that there's anything going on between me and Sara?"

"It's not just me and Rory," Jax insisted, "Stein and Kendra have noticed it, too."

"Okay, Kendra's not much of a surprise, but what does the physics professor know about 'relationship' crap, anyway?"

"Dude… He's been happily married for thirty-eight years."

Oh. Right. "Well, we're just friends," Leonard growled, "Why don't you people get that?"

"I'd believe that if you weren't burning holes into that guy's back every time he's hanging with Sara."

Leonard thought about that statement for a second. "Are you accusing me of being jealous of that big, blonde moron?"

"Yes." Leonard pinned him with an annoyed glare, but the kid just shrugged it off. The whole team had been hanging around the two thieves for way too long if Leonard's glares were starting to lose effect.


"Hey, is Sara around?" Leonard looked up from his lunch to see Mr. Tall, Blonde, and British standing in the doorway. He smiled at Leonard with impossibly-white teeth (weren't these people supposed to be in the middle of a war?), exuding that boyish charm that reminded Leonard of the puffed-up, airheaded movie stars that were cast for their looks rather than their acting abilities.

Leonard was distinctly unimpressed. "Haven't seen her lately. What do you need?"

"Oh, I was just seeing if I could help her with anything. This ship of yours took quite a beating, didn't it?"

"Yes, it did. And Sara's not the only one who could use a hand, you know. She's a lot more capable than she looks." He then spotted Ray walking past the galley with a depressed look on his face. He'd probably just come back from talking to Kendra and watching his fiancée try to reach her soulmate's memories. "Raymond!" he called.

Ray doubled back, looking at Leonard curiously. "Yeah?"

"Anything you need help with?"

The scientist brightened considerably. "Yeah, actually, there's this-"

"Gareth here needs something to do. Take him."

Ray's grin dimmed a bit – he probably thought Leonard was offering to help him himself – but it stayed on his face as he turned to Gareth. "Okay, great! Follow me, buddy!" He started to lead a disappointed-looking Gareth down the hall, but stopped suddenly. "Oh, hey Sara!"

"Hi, Ray. Gareth, there you are! I could use a hand with unloading the latest batch of medical supplies."

"Sure!" Gareth immediately agreed, before turning to Ray, "I'm sure the guy in there can help you with whatever you need." And he practically bounced out of the room. In the direction opposite to the one Ray had been about to lead him in. Sara followed, waving to Leonard as she did so.

Leonard scowled at his plate, frustrated. He just couldn't win, could he?

"Gee, do you have that much of a problem with working with me?" Ray asked, clearly misreading the situation.

Leonard huffed and dumped the almost-empty plate in the sink. "Not everything's about you, Raymond. Now what's that thing you needed help with?" He strode out of the galley, forcing Raymond to jog to catch up.

"What's going on with you?"

"Well, how about the fact that we've got the guy we were supposed to kill on board while the only person who can kill him refuses to do it?"

"We don't know if we can get Carter back without his help," Ray defended his girlfriend's decision, although he didn't seem too happy about it, himself.

"And what about the fact that we're stuck here until we can pull this bucket of bolts back together? I'm already sick of Future London."

"Well, at least with help from Sharon and Gareth and the other rebels, we can get out of here sooner."

Leonard felt a new surge of irritation rise up within him. It was bad enough that Sara was hanging around the airhead; he didn't need to hear Raymond singing his praises, too.

"Do you have a problem with Gareth?" Ray suddenly asked.

That elicited a snort from the master thief. "What makes you think that?"

"The fact that you looked pretty pissed off when I mentioned his name, and the fact that you tried to pawn off working with him onto me."

Okay, so Raymond wasn't a complete moron. Leonard hadn't even been aware that his displeasure had shown on his face; he was usually better at controlling his expressions. "He just rubs me the wrong way," he growled, "It's a personality thing. Like how you annoy the hell out of me without even trying." He wasn't looking at the scientist, but he could imagine the pout on Ray's face. "I don't know what the hell Sara sees in him, why she lets him play white knight for her when she normally hates that."

There was silence from Ray, then: "Oh. My. God. You're jealous of Gareth!"

Leonard whipped around and glared at him. Ray shrunk back a bit (at least it still worked on someone). "I am not jealous of that big, blonde airhead! Why the hell do you people keep insisting that?!" And he stormed off, hoping to find something else to do, or at least the company of someone who wasn't of the ridiculous opinion that he had a crush on Sara.


Thursday, March 27th, 2166

"All aboard to the Vanishing Point," Sara intoned sarcastically. They just had a few more things to square away and secure before taking off to the edge of time.

"This is a stupid idea," Leonard growled as he tightened the straps holding a stack of crates against the wall.

"You don't have to tell me that." She sat down on one of the shorter stacks, finishing off the last of that scotch Mick had snagged from Rip's stash. "Everything almost ready?"

"Just about. Why, is there anyone you want to say goodbye to before we lift off? Like that Gareth guy?"

"Nah, we said goodbye before he went to help coordinate with Gamma Camp this morning. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing. You two just seemed to be getting pretty close, is all."

There was a pause as she eyed him questioningly. "…Define 'close'."

Leonard sighed and leaned against the crates he'd just secured, his arms folded in front of him. "If any other man were to try and do any heavy lifting for you when you could do it yourself, you'd shove him out of the way and go back to what you were doing, at the very least. But with Gareth, you smile and thank him."

Sara stared at him for a second. Two seconds. Then she started laughing. "Oh, you saw that? Yeah, Gareth wanted my help making his ex-girlfriend jealous, so I told him he'd have to help with repairs or I wouldn't play along." She rolled her eyes. "The world is falling apart, and a guy can still be thinking of something as silly as making a girl jealous."

"So you two weren't really flirting with each other." Leonard didn't understand why he felt so relieved by that, but it felt like a huge knot in his stomach had finally been untied.

"Nope. What, you think I was going to try and start something with someone from another time?"

"I did hear something about a… nurse in 1958?"

"…Point."


"Sara coming with us?" Mick asked as he exited his room, having packed everything he needed in his pockets. Leonard was surprised the pyro wasn't carrying his fireman's jacket, but then again, he was leaving his blue parka behind, too.

"No. She doesn't want to run away from a fight."

Mick frowned. "Might not be much of a fight."

Leonard frowned back. He wished he didn't have to leave the rest of the team to their doom. It was too dangerous to take Carter, brainwashed as he was, and Kendra wouldn't leave without him, and Ray wouldn't leave without her. He hadn't asked Stein yet, as the professor was off desperately looking for some sort of cure for his partner's condition, but Jax had insisted on staying on board, and Leonard knew Stein wouldn't leave the kid behind. It was even less fair to them – Stein would never see his wife again, and Jax's mom deserved to see her son one last time before the temporal radiation killed him.

But Sara… he wanted to bring her with them most of all. She deserved so much better than this. He could feel it in his gut, just like Alexa. This trip to the Vanishing Point was going to end badly, and she deserved better than to die for a pointless cause. Because it had started to become pointless the moment Kendra had decided to not kill Savage, and had solidified as such when Rip had set them on a course to the Vanishing Point. Everything they'd all gone through would be for nothing.

Of course, with their younger selves still missing from the timeline, they'd be returning to a very different world, one in which they had no place. His own sister's words came back to him: "Who the hell are you?" But they could still stick together, and carve out a new place in the world for themselves. It was probably better than whatever awaited them at the Vanishing Point.

But that prospect seemed so much better when it included Sara. Leonard found himself picturing what they might do together, where they might go. He shook his head. She wasn't coming. He had to focus on getting off this ship and getting home, not daydream about what wasn't going to happen.

"There's nothing we can do if they're so set on going to the Vanishing Point," Leonard sighed as they approached the doors leading to the Jump Ship's hanger, "Now let's get out of here."


Leonard was furious. Furious with Stein, furious with Rip, furious with himself… furious with the whole situation, really. He was stuck on what he was sure would be a one-way trip to the Vanishing Point.

"Snart?" Mick's voice caught his attention. His partner was looking at him with a touch of concern.

"What?" he snapped, "What do you want me to say? We're stuck, Mick. You know the Time Masters better than I do, what do you they're gonna do when we get there?!"

Mick stared at him. "They're not gonna see reason. They should've figured out that Savage had future tech, but they did nothing about it. Rip's admitted they'll turn a blind eye to the horrors of history, but he had no clue they would do anything like what they did to me." It was true; Rip had seemed shocked and almost betrayed by the fact the body he'd sworn his life to had tortured and brainwashed a man to become one of their best operatives. "There's gotta be a reason why they're letting Savage do what he's doing, and why they keep trying to stop us – it's not just 'maintaining the timeline'. They'll try to make me into Chronos again, and they'll either do the same to the rest of you or just kill you."

Leonard growled and kicked the wall in frustration. "It wasn't supposed to end like this." They were supposed to kill Savage and go back home. Not end up dead or brainwashed minions. None of them deserved this. Ray and Kendra, from what he knew, didn't have family to worry about them (Raymond's still thought he'd died eight months before they boarded the Waverider), but Teams Flash and Arrow would be there to miss them. Hell, they'd never bring their younger selves home; Jax's mom might not recognise him when he arrived home, and Lisa would barely even know he existed, save their one interaction after the Pilgrim kidnapped her. Stein's wife also wouldn't remember him, and Mick… well, Mick didn't have anyone to forget him, besides Lisa. Sara would have been lost to the Lance family even before the Queen's Gambit set sail. Ray, Kendra, and Carter were the only team members who would be missed by anyone in 2016.

He wondered which of them would be considered candidates for brainwashing. Himself, probably, unless they thought he would be too difficult to control. Stein was useless to them without Jax to complete their Firestorm partnership. Raymond and Kendra had potential, and this new Carter was already fucked up in the head and vulnerable. Rip… Leonard didn't know if they'd take their chances with him or not. And Sara…

Well, they'd need a new assassin after the team reduced the last one to ash. Just the thought of someone taking Sara, breaking her down and rebuilding her into the thing she'd been fighting so hard not to be… picturing her in the Pilgrim's black outfit with the same dead, soulless look on her face… it made Leonard sick to his stomach. He knew she'd rather die than go through that hell. Two stints in the League of Assassins was enough already.

He wondered how long it would take. Would the damage already done make it easier for the Time Masters to break her? Or would she hold out longer, be forced to endure more pain? He didn't know which one to hope for. Panic filled him, wondering how he could possibly protect her from this fate. Never mind that she could of course protect herself; against the sheer number of enemies they'd probably be up against, she'd need all the help she could get.

Wait. Why he was so worried about Sara? Compared to himself and the others, anyway? He didn't understand it, why the thought of anything happening to her scared him at a level he hadn't felt since his father had informed him of the bomb the bastard had put in Lisa's neck. He'd felt it when Grant Wilson had put a bounty on Sara's head, when the Waverider had been hijacked, and when Savage had held her hostage at knifepoint. All he remembered of that moment in Kasnia was desperately trying to think of ways out of that situation, and the horror when, for once, he couldn't come up with anything. All he knew was that he couldn't stand the thought of losing her, of losing one of the few people he could trust with his feelings, his reasons for why he did what he did. She was important to him.

That was when it hit him, like a bolt from the blue. Sara was important to him. That was why he was so worried for her safety. That was why seeing her with Gareth had driven him crazy.

He, Leonard Snart, liked Sara Lance.

"Shit," he breathed, thumping his head against the wall.

"Now what?" Mick groaned, obviously thinking Leonard had come to a realisation about the clusterfuck they were still stuck in. It was funny, how their situation hadn't changed while his whole world felt like it had been turned upside-down.

"You…" It took some effort to spit it out. "You were right."

"About?"

"Sara."

Mick was quiet for a second, then let out a short bark of laughter. "You sure took you time figuring that out. Just try and make a move before this mission's over, or else I'll owe Jax twenty bucks." An uncomfortable silence hung in the air as they remembered what they'd been discussing just minutes before, that the mission would probably be ending very soon, and in a way that would make it impossible for Jax to get that money. Mick broke it by patting him on the shoulder. "I'm gonna see if Rip's made any progress with fixing the Time Drive. Think it over." And then he turned and walked off, leaving Leonard still in shock.

THE END


Okay, so the plot wound up deviating a bit from Jealous!Len, but at least he finally figured out his own feelings.