AUTHOR'S NOTE: So, the working title of this was "To Be Dad Coda," and it follows "To Be Dad Again" in "The Waiting Room." The genesis of it was that bottle of bourbon Cisco mentioned in "Not A Silent Night," and I had to continue it when Rip said something at Ray's expense. And there were several questions about why Joy Lisa Lance isn't Lisa Joy Lance.
Then somebody posted this prompt on Tumblr: "Imagine your OTP reacting to their child(ren)s first crush/relationship!"
Obviously I had to run with this one! Many thanks to Jael who risked her dental health to beta this!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Every year, Leonard and Sara would ask Rip to join them for Thanksgiving. And every year, he would decline politely, feeling he didn't quite fit into the home, or the life, that they'd built for themselves in Central City.
Besides, Thanksgiving wasn't a British holiday.
And on a purely selfish level, he'd never felt he had much to be thankful for.
At least, not until this year. But now, things weren't what they were. Nine days ago, Leonard had asked him, "Are you ready to be Dad again?"
And today, on this Thanksgiving Day, he was Dad again. Father, husband, lover… a man with a future he'd thought lost forever.
He was drawn from his reverie by a roar, followed by the high-pitched laughter and squeals of excited children. Mickey Lance had reintroduced Jonas to the concept of "make believe," a game rarely played in the London of 2166.
Indeed, games themselves were rare at that time. Except the game of survival.
The boys were pretending to be dinosaur hunters. They were armed with something Leonard called "Nerf guns," which fired small foam rubber darts. Mick was their target, chasing after them with his fingers curved like claws. He let out another roar. "I'm a hungry T. rex! Rrrraaaahhrrrr! I'm gonna eat you!"
"Eat this instead!" Mickey shouted, firing a barrage of blue darts. Jonas gave what Rip imagined was supposed to be a battle cry and started firing orange darts.
And the most fearsome bounty hunter the Time Masters had ever trained went down, laughing through howls of pretended pain. He just laughed harder as the two boys piled onto him.
The scene was ridiculous, but Rip still felt his eyes get a little misty. This kind of play was something Jonas had never gotten in London.
"They get along better than you and I did when we first met. Think the universe will implode?" Leonard asked as he settled next to Rip on the porch step with two bottles of beer.
"We managed not to break history with that daft rescue plan of yours," Rip answered as he accepted one of the bottles. "I think the universe will survive our sons being friends."
"Hmmm. The universe may, but I'm not so sure about Mick," Leonard replied, watching the tussle under way on the lawn. "Fellas! Let the man breathe!"
"Jonas, come swing me!" Laurel demanded from the swing set.
Mickey got to his feet first. "I'll push you, Laur."
Laurel shook her blond head. "I want Jonas to do it!" she insisted.
Jonas dusted himself off. "Certainly," he answered, and trotted over to the swing set to start pushing Laurel. She giggled as she went higher and higher.
Rip looked at Leonard with a raised eyebrow. "Does your daughter have a crush on my son?"
Leonard choked a little on a swallow of his beer. He cleared his throat and said, "That does it. I'm taking Quentin's advice and locking my girls up till they're thirty," he said in a stern voice belied by the humor dancing in his eyes.
Mick was still chuckling as he joined them, leaning against the railing. "That kid of yours is a tiger, Rip," he said.
"He didn't aggravate your injuries from the rescue mission, did he?"
Mick waved off Rip's question, flexing the arm that had been dislocated when he fought Savage's troops in that last trip to 2166. "The Professor and Haircut made sure I was all fixed up."
"Speaking of our teammates… they're not joining us today?"
"The Steins are spending the day with Jax's family, and Raymond trades off holidays between us and the Queens. It's their turn," Leonard said. "Oliver and I figure small doses of Ray keep our kids from asking for a dog. Which is good since I have allergies."
"To dogs or to Raymond?" Rip asked dryly before taking a sip of his beer.
The two former criminals gaped at him for a moment, then began to laugh. Leonard's laugh turned into a groan after a moment, and he put a hand to the spot where he'd taken a rather vicious blow during the rescue. Gideon had repaired the broken ribs, but Rip knew the residual bruising had to heal naturally.
Leonard waved off Rip's look of concern, shaking his head and saying, "You've suddenly got a sense of humor, our boys are friends and my daughter has a crush on your son. Mick, you'd better check to see if Barry's been messing with the timeline again."
"Yeah, sure, Boss. After I'm done raiding your liquor cabinet," Mick answered with a grin, heading up the stairs toward the back door.
"Just don't touch the Glenlivet," Leonard called after him. "Sara's saving that for New Year's Eve."
"Sure. Don't want to piss off your boss, Boss," Mick chuckled as he disappeared into the house. Leonard rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the children.
Laurel was off the swing now. The three children put their heads together for a moment. Then Mickey leaned against the swing set, covered his eyes and began counting. Jonas looked bewildered until Laurel grabbed his hand and pulled him behind a hedge.
Rip felt a pang as he realized his son had never even learnt any simple childhood games like hide and seek. There had been little for his family but fear and war in London.
He could feel Leonard's eyes on him. He turned to his host with a slight smile. "You know, this is the first time Jonas has really been able to run and play with other children."
"Not surprising," Leonard said, stretching his legs out and leaning back as Mickey finished counting and began seeking. "You were living in a war zone."
"Granted," Rip said. "But I could have… I should have moved them out of that era, to a more peaceful time. I could have taken them anywhere in history, but I didn't."
Leonard considered that for a moment, then said, "Not with the Time Bastards around. You know they set you up from the beginning."
Rip sighed. "I do know that. So why doesn't it make me feel any better?"
"It's hard to escape the demons of the past and the things you didn't do," Leonard said. "Believe me, I get that."
"You've got more demons than most of us," Rip agreed. "So what do you do?"
Leonard smiled, watching Mickey flush the other children out from behind the hedge. "I focus on the future," he said.
Rip thought about that. "Hmmm. It's been so long since I've had a future worth focusing on that I'm not quite sure what to do with it."
Leonard chuckled. "Just do what the rest of us do, Rip. Make it up as you go along." He took another drink. "I just try to give my kids the things I missed out on."
Rip pondered that for the rest of the afternoon. He watched the children at play for a while, and then wandered into the house, to see Sara carefully handing little Joy to Miranda. His wife gazed at the newborn and then looked up at him with an expression that made his heart turn over.
It must have shown on his face, judging by the smile Sara gave him as she stood and motioned for him to take her place on the sofa. "Call me if she starts crying," she said before disappearing into the kitchen.
Miranda cuddled against him, still watching the baby in fascination. "Rip, these friends of yours… I'm glad you had them all this time."
"I couldn't have gotten you and Jonas back without them," he said, kissing her temple.
"Maybe not," she said, shifting to look him in the eye. "But it's more than that. They've been good for you. You've changed, Rip."
He raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"You smile more than you ever did before," she said. "And I hear from Mr. Rory that you're making jokes. The Rip Hunter I married never joked about anything."
He chuckled. "The Rip Hunter you married had a stick up his arse."
She slapped at him playfully. "Such language in front of a baby!"
"In this house? This baby has probably already heard worse!" he scoffed, then held up his hands in an appeasing motion at her stern look.
"But seriously, Rip, it feels like you belong with these people, in a way I've never seen before," she said, "Mother tried to give us some sense of home at the Refuge, but she couldn't ever let us really feel like family."
He nodded. "That was against the Time Council's rules," he agreed. "Everything was a competition."
"And then, even after Jonas was born… I had no one in London, and you had to be away from us so much that we didn't have time to figure out how to be a family. It was lonely, Rip." She paused for a moment. "I sometimes thought the Time Council was trying to tear us apart. Of course, now I know they were."
He pulled her back against his side. "Yes, but they didn't succeed in the long run."
They stayed nestled together like that until Sara's stepmother called them to join the group for dinner.
"We didn't have time to figure out how to be a family. It was lonely." Those words echoed in Rip's mind as he watched the easy affection shared around the table: fond smiles, good-natured teasing and just a bit of bickering sparked by Cisco's penchant for nicknames.
"You are NOT calling my daughter 'Jellybean!'" Leonard mock-growled at his brother-in-law.
"Bro, you named her Joy Lisa Lance. J-L-L," Cisco countered. "It's gotta be Jellybean!"
"It would've been L-J-L if Lisa hadn't complained about being 'Big Lisa,'" Leonard grumbled. His sister just glared at him.
"Now, I'm with Lisa on that one," Donna interjected. "No woman wants to be called 'big' anything!"
"Word!" Sara agreed, clinking her glass of club soda against Donna's wine glass, while Lisa nodded.
Leonard frowned at his wife. "You're supposed to be on my side!"
Sara snorted. "Not on this one, Len!"
"I'll be on your side, Daddy!" Laurel announced.
"Thank you, Bright Eyes," Leonard said seriously while the other adults chuckled.
Still chortling, Cisco said, "Listen, bro, you can pick the nickname when your niece or nephew gets here next year."
Leonard froze. "My what?"
"I'm due in July," Lisa said, with a smile that faltered when her brother didn't smile back.
Everyone fell silent as Leonard slowly rose from his seat and stalked down the length of the table to where Cisco was putting up his hands and saying, "Yo, bro, the kids are watching - mrph!"
Leonard pulled both of them out of their chairs for a long hug. The happy chatter resumed as Sara followed her husband's example.
"This calls for a drink!" Mick declared, giving Cisco a congratulatory slap on the back that nearly knocked the father-to-be off his feet.
Cisco coughed a little and said, "Yeah, hang on a second. Uh, where's the bottle I brought?"
"Here," Quentin said, holding up a bottle of amber liquid. "This is good bourbon, Cisco. Almost makes me sorry I quit drinking."
He passed the bottle over to Leonard, who looked at the label and gave a low whistle. "Mick, even you need to go easy on this stuff."
"I think I'm jealous," Sara said while Leonard poured the bourbon into shot glasses Donna produced from the kitchen. "You're going to have to save some of that for New Year's Eve."
"That mean I can have the Glenlivet?" Mick asked eagerly.
"No!" Sara and Len chorused while passing the glasses around. Leonard held his glass up. "To my baby sister and her baby! Cisco, it'll serve you right if your kid turns out just like we did."
Cisco grinned. "Aw, I don't think it'll be all that bad," he responded, kissing his wife.
Leonard made a face. "I don't need to see that!"
Sara snickered and put her arms around his neck. "Stop complaining," she ordered, pulling his head down for a long kiss.
"Now, do we need to see that?" Quentin complained.
Mick scoffed. "You act like you've never been in this house before, Q-ball," he said, pouring another round as the kiss ended and laughter swept the table again.
Rip cleared his throat. "If I may?" When Leonard gave him a nod, he said, "I don't know if I can ever thank all of you enough for what you did to save my family."
"You don't have to," Leonard told him, and Sara added, "This family wouldn't be here if not for you."
Rip shrugged a little, and said, "A little while ago I told Leonard that I wasn't sure what to do with our future. I'm still not quite sure what we'll do, but I am sure of this… I want all of you to be part of that future."
"Does that mean we're staying here, Daddy?" Jonas asked.
Rip looked down at Miranda as she wrapped an arm around his waist. "If that's all right with you?" he asked her softly.
She nodded. "We've been alone too long," she said. "Now we can start learning to be a normal family."
"From this bunch? Normal must mean something different in England," Mick observed dryly.
Rip chuckled at that. "Perhaps. But I want my son to have the things I never had, and I think this family is as close as we can get," he said, looking over at Leonard, who smiled and nodded slowly.
Rip still wasn't sure what the future might hold, but knowing "when" and "where" they'd meet that future was a start.
For the rest?
He'd make it up as he went along.