AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was supposed to only be the "third time" mentioned in "Little Boy Lost." But the Muse demanded much more than that.

And can I brag about guessing the identity of the baby in black before the airing of LoT 1x12? That bit of prescience is all I can lay claim to; Legends of Tomorrow and Arrow are both the property of DC Entertainment.

Prologue Part 1 – Returning Baby Leo

Sara kissed the infant's forehead before laying him back into his bassinet.

"Gee, our first kiss, and I'm not even able to appreciate it," Snart quipped.

Prologue Part 2 – That Evening

He kissed her forehead, just as she had done before with his infant self. "There. Our second kiss. Hope you were able to appreciate it."

She grinned and made a waggling so-so motion with her hand. He smirked and put an arm around her shoulders so she could snuggle against his side once again. "I'd ask you if you want to see whether the third time really is the charm," he said, "but…"

"I'm not going to take advantage of you when you're all emotionally vulnerable," she said with a smile. "Captain Cold is getting all slushy."

Chapter 1 – Later That Same Night

Sara found him poking around in the galley in the middle of the Waverider's "night" (all things being relative on a ship traveling through time and space). "Couldn't sleep?"

"Mom's lullaby always works like a charm, unless you're the one singing it," Len replied while inspecting a cabinet. Not finding what he wanted, he closed it and moved on to the next one. "I thought a little hot cocoa would help me drop off. But I can't find the mini marshmallows."

"I think Jax finished them off."

He closed the cabinet with an exasperated sigh. "Can't have hot cocoa without the mini marshmallows."

She gave him a little push over to the table and re-opened the cabinet, pulling out a box of peppermint tea and several bottles of spices. "Give me a minute. I can do something better than hot cocoa that won't rot your teeth."

"I don't do tea."

That was true; when Rip's mother served them tea at the Refuge, he'd set it down without a sip and left it to grow cold. Something for a sweet tooth, then. She grabbed another bottle from the cabinet. "Trust me," she said as she started some water boiling. Then she began mixing the ingredients for two cups of chai.

"Taking care of me again, Sara?" he asked, settling into one of the chairs. "That sort of thing is getting to be a habit with you. Won't that damage your reputation as an assassin?"

She smiled and stirred the mix into the water. "I trust you not to blow my cover."

"As long as you promise to give Jax a threatening glare the next time he touches the mini marshmallows," he said. "I think he's more scared of you than of me."

That got a chuckle from her. "Deal," she said, pulling some almond milk out of the refrigerator. "So, the last thing I remember is sitting with you in the lower hold. Did you actually carry me back to my room?"

"Tucked you in, too. You were pretty out of it."

"Nice of you. Won't that damage your reputation as an ice man?"

He just snorted at that. She poured the tea into a pair of mugs, and added a bit of the almond milk. "Why didn't you stay?" she asked quietly.

"Wasn't invited," he shrugged.

She had to laugh at that. "You used to make your living through breaking and entering. Since when have you ever worried about being invited anywhere?"

"Generally I avoid breaking and entering wherever someone could kill me very slowly," he answered, accepting the mug from her. He gave it a tentative sniff, then took a sip. His eyes widened in pleased surprise.

"Told you to trust me," she said, taking the chair next to him. "Aside from insomnia, how are you feeling?"

She knew how roiled his normally cool composure had become after learning he'd been abandoned as an infant and then kidnapped by the woman he thought of as his mother. Not that he'd let anyone else on the ship see his reaction but her. Not even Mick knew just how rattled he'd been.

He took another sip of the chai before answering. "I'm not sure where to start, Sara," he said. "I could say I'm relieved that I don't share anything with Lewis Snart except a first initial and an atrocious last name. Or I could say I'm perplexed about how to explain this to Lisa, or whether I even should explain it to her." He put his mug down and leaned toward her, taking her mug to set it on the table as well. "But I can tell you that right now, I'm not feeling 'all emotionally vulnerable.' Or one bit 'slushy.'"

She shared a smile with him at that. Then his voice dropped lower as he went on, "And I'm still curious about whether the third time is the charm."

She leaned toward him as he laid a hand on the side of her face. "I am, too," she whispered.

Before their lips could meet, Gideon spoke up. "Miss Lance, Captain Hunter is asking to see you on the bridge right away."

Len growled and leaned his forehead against hers. "Thank you, Gideon. We'll be there in a moment." He rubbed his thumb gently on her cheek. "Let's see what the mighty ex-Time Master has to say. Then maybe we can pick up where we left off."

His inflection put it as a question. For an answer, she brought his hand to her lips and brushed them gently across his knuckles. "That doesn't count," she told him. "But consider yourself invited."

He smiled and bowed slightly, motioning for her to precede him out of the galley on the way to the bridge.

Len didn't know what to do. Sara's face had crumpled when Rip and Gideon told her about her sister's death. She let out a piercing cry and fell to her knees on the deck. Len was kneeling next to her, his hand on her back, but besides providing some kind of physical anchor as she sobbed her heart out, he had no idea how he could help her. He had seen death plenty of times, but he was a stranger to this kind of grief.

The cry woke the other members of the team, bringing them to the bridge in a variety of sleepwear. They stared in shock, both at the weeping Sara, and at the projection of the news headline from Star City, declaring the death of Laurel Lance in a prison riot. Kendra began to cry herself, leaning against Ray, who also had tears in his eyes. Len remembered that both of them had known Laurel Lance as more than just a name; that they had fought beside the Black Canary.

"Captain, is there any chance we change this?" Stein asked in a hushed tone. "Go back and prevent it?"

Rip shook his head. In a rough voice, he said, "Laurel Lance's death is a fixed point in time. It cannot be changed."

"Fixed point? What the hell are you talking about?" Jax demanded angrily. "You've had us traveling around time and space to stop Savage so your family doesn't die. Why can't you save hers?"

"Because of what it could do to the future," came the answer, not from Rip, but from Mick. Or was he Chronos now, as he drew on his lessons from the Time Masters? "Fixed points are like anchors in the timeline. They don't just want to happen, they have to happen, or worse things will follow. The Time Masters learned it the hard way."

"What does that mean?" Stein again, looking between Mick and Rip.

Rip rubbed his hand over his face. "An example would be the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. They were a result of meddling with a fixed point in time. Osama bin Laden was supposed to have been killed whilst fighting with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in 1982, but a Time Master who was supposed to be observing the battle somehow got between bin Laden and the bullet."

"So bin Laden survived to create al Qaeda, and thousands died," Mick finished.

"What happened to my family is not a fixed point," Rip said. He knelt down in front of Sara, who lifted her tear-stained face to look at him. "Sara," he said softly, "I am so sorry. We can't go back to save her. But I can take you back to say goodbye."

She wiped under her eyes with the back of one hand, and reached to grip Len's hand tightly with the other. "I understand, Rip," she whispered. "Please, just take me home."