Disclaimer: I don't own these baes, but they might own me. Also, this is my first fic, so . I have no idea what I'm doing.
The hallways of the waverider were quiet and dark except for the runner lights emitting a steady cool light among the corridors. The inhabitants, the would-be legends, were all asleep.
Except for Sara. Sara Lance had spent hours tossing in her bed, but he memories were going to be her outdoing.
In those quiet moments most people set their heads down and slept, content with their days or pondering over to-do lists, Sara Lance remembered.
It felt like another life now. She remembered running from her happy home towards danger, but that wasn't her anymore.
She was darker. A killer. The girl who had boarded the Queen's Gambit so far from her that it was like remembering a photograph you had once seen. A portrait beautiful but entirely removed from your current identity.
She stared at the industrial metal ceiling of her room, frustration leaving creases over her brow. Her body was exhausted, but her mind couldn't submit.
Admitting defeat, she tossed the sheets away, and stood from her bed. There wasn't any getting back to sleep right now. The visions weren't going to allow it.
Barefoot, she padded silently from what served as her bedroom in the Waverider. She sleepily stalked corridors until she reached the kitchen, expecting it to be empty.
But it wasn't.
Leonard was draped over the counter next to the counter. He hovered over a book, entirely engrossed.
Sara paused in the doorway, watching him carefully.
Time seemed to stretch and Sara, conflicted, wavered in the doorway.
"Are you coming or going, Assassin?" Leonard didn't look up. Long fingers flipping the page of his book.
Sara smiled, and strode into the room. She moved past him, selecting a mug— the shape of an owl— and continued, moving with practiced hands through the action of making cocoa.
A comfortable silence settled between them as he read and she maneuvered the kitchen. And when she pulled herself onto the counter behind him, blowing on the steaming liquid, Sara questioned, "So what kind of book could keep a crook up this late?"
"Oh, plenty." He said, eyes still engrossed in the pages before him.
"I wouldn't have pinned you for a bookworm." She blew on the cocoa, still much too hot to drink.
He didn't respond, taking his time to eye over the page, "Bookworm?" He flipped the page.
Sara tried to affect disinterest, looking at the appliances, the scattered belongings, but she couldn't help but glancing back at Leonard habitually. "Isn't that what you call someone who can't get their head out of a book?"
Leonard folded the corner of the page down. Some sort of defeat was admitted at her words. "What should I get my head into if not a book?" He turned to face her, leaning against the counter behind him.
Sara didn't have an immediate answer, sipping her cocoa to buy time.
"Our mission tonight, it had me thinking…" Leonard supplied breezily. "So I couldn't sleep."
Sara nodded. "Me either."
After everything that had happened in Russia, Sara had started to feel an acute camaraderie with the crook leaning opposite her.
"Thank you, Leonard, for today." Sara said looking at the cabinet near their feet.
Due to Sara's current gaze, she missed the awkward shift Leonard gave at her words. But when she looked back up at him, he was half-turned from her and back to his book.
Silence saturated the space between them, until finally his voice broke the gap, "You're welcome."
A long silence saturated the speech, but it was pleasant for the time of night. Finally, Sara gave into a smile, setting her coca down. "So, what are you reading?"
Leonard shrugged, "Transcendentalist blubber."
"It must be more than blubber if you're captivated this late at night." Sara retorted easily.
Long fingers slipped the book from the counter, "Captivated?" He crossed the space between them until he was leaning against the counter Sara was sitting upon him.
He placed the book next to her, an offering. Sara couldn't help but following his fluid motions with her eyes.
The spine read— "Leaves of Grass— Walt Whitman"
"Poetry, Leonard?" Sara couldn't help the teasing smile. He was close, only a few inches separated them, and — of course — "Leaves of Grass."
He pinned her icily, "Is there something wrong with poetry?"
The intensity of the look made Sara shift her gaze to the mode. "Just… unexpected."
"You wound me." Leonard's gesticulations amplified his words, hovering over his heart. "You really find me so two-dimensional, Lance?" His flare for theatrics was in no way affected by the clock ready to chime 3 o'clock in the morning. His held hers in a cryptic, unsettling way, despite the joking tone.
Sara paused, as if considering his question. Surveying him carefully, before offering just as cooly, Sara quipped, "More like one-dimensional, Snart."
"Oh." He made a minute shift closer to her.
Sara glanced down at his teasing eyes, his smirk, his confident posture. Whatever quip had been resting on her tongue seemed lame, and Sara didn't open her mouth in retort. She picked up the discarded mug beside him and sipped it.
Leonard watched her movements, cool and analytical. "And what kept a canary up this late?" His lips stretched in a smirk, eyes even more intent, "Cat in your cage?"
Sara chuckled as she rolled her eyes at the weak metaphor. It would have been an easy deflection, but she offered honestly, "Memories." Her gaze fell to her hands, wringing themselves like they were wash— nervous wash.
Leonard watched her carefully, prying with a deep and steady tone. "Memories?"
She wanted to tell him the faces that plagued her dreams and the things she had done to deserve so much worse. "I make you look like a saint. Leonard." Sara felt suddenly very exposed. Crossing her arms across her chest, she consciously leaned away from him.
Leonard's hand had been reaching out for hers, a weak attempt at comfort, but then the blast doors had phased open.
Rip had his typical somber countenance. "Good, you're both here." Rip hit a few buttons on the screen on the wall of the kitchen. Sara watched the display as it revealed the mission before them. They were going back to the 1920s.