I was writing the next in what I'm calling the "SlowFreeze" series (trilogy ... ha! I laugh) when I got to thinking about Sara's role as a protector of women, and her words: "No woman should ever have to suffer at the hands of men."
Next thing I knew, I'd written this. I like to torture these characters just a little too much, sometimes.
I own nothing.
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"In the Silence"
It is 1968.
They are in Central City, running, running back to the WaveRider after a successful mission to steal some important documents from a safe-deposit box in the First Central City Bank.
Snart had called it child's play and it had, for once, actually gone off without a hitch. He'd passed the papers off to Ray to get them back to the WaveRider as fast as possible, while he and Sara split off and taken a different route to divert any attention. Later, he'd muse that the route he'd picked, through the areas he'd once known best, had probably not been the greatest idea.
They were moving at a fast jog, watching each other's backs, through the ... not best ... areas of '60s Central City, when they hear the screams.
She's off immediately. He sighs, and follows.
When he emerges from the alleyway in front of the dive bar, he knows it immediately, even through the distance of years. There's a woman cowering to the left of the door, her hands cupping her face, an enormous, spreading bruise already visible on her cheek. And there's a man Sara has already knocked back into the garbage cans on the other side, spitting, cursing, struggling to get up.
He takes all this in in a heartbeat. Notes the fury on Sara's face, the bloodlust just below the surface. This is a trigger point for her, he knows, violence against women.
And he throws himself in front of her, hands up, hating himself as he does it.
"Get out of the way," she tells him in a furious undertone, staff in hand, staring at the floundering, belligerent drunk behind him.
"Trust me," he hisses, "in another time and place, nothing would please me more than to see you bash his skull in. But I can't let you do it, Sara. I can't."
"Why the hell not?"
Moment of truth, then. He takes a deep breath.
"Because that's my father."
He sees it register on her face. She stands down, just a tad, glancing at the man over his shoulder and then at him.
"And you're not born yet."
"Not even on the way."
What that means registers, too. She takes a swift look over her shoulder at the weeping woman.
"Is that ..."
"Yes."
He lost his mother young. It's a measure of the cruelty of this situation that he cannot even go to check on her now. He's all too aware that it could completely push him over the edge, drive him to that ultimate time paradox: killing his own father before he can even be conceived.
He sees Sara register it, too. That she can't so much as speak to the woman behind her, encourage her to leave this abusive jerk who's smashed his fist into her face when she desperately came looking for the rent money before he drank it away.
She registers it, then turns and runs back into the night. He follows, with only one last glance at his mother.
His father doesn't deserve it.
xxx
In the general euphoria of an actual successful mission, no one notices his utter silence, or the way he vanishes as soon as possible.
No one except Sara.
He finds him, later, in the cargo bay, where he tends to go when he doesn't want anyone to find him. (Although, he reflects, given that she knows about that now, it sort of defeats the purpose.)
"How are you doing?"
He dodges what she's really asking. "You know. Just sitting here, waiting to see if I fade out of existence or something."
She hesitates, then drops to the floor nearby. "I asked Gideon. She said there was no change to the timeline."
His mouth twists. It's good news, of course, but how can he be pleased when ..
She reaches over, puts her hand on his.
"Are you OK?"
He considers a snarky comment, discovers he can't quite manage it.
"No."
And they sit, in the dark, in silence.