"No, no, no, no!" Jax all but screamed whilst Jackie simply cackled in victory.
"First place!" She cheered gloatingly while her friend fell back onto his bed with a groan; he was clearly regretting his decision of teaching her how to play Mario Kart.
"Man, how is a girl from 1986 so good at twenty-first century video games?" He questioned, of course that only made her laugh.
"Oh calm down, it's took me almost a month to beat you. Besides, you're a pretty good teacher." She said but it hardly helped, just then there was a knock from his door.
"Come in," Jax called and so the door opened, allowing Ray to come in.
"I heard someone shouting about first place, are you guys playing Mario Kart again?" The man-child asked eagerly and Jax laughed as he passed his friend a remote and a steering wheel.
Ray was happy to take the equipment and joined them in front of the TV as Jax began to reset the game as so to configure it to three people, but before he did Ray noticed something.
"Dude, you were Bowser and she beat you with baby Peach?" He questioned and while Jax frowned in embarrassment Jackie simply laughed.
"Hey, she is addicted to this game and whenever I won't play with her you will, so to be fair she's had a lot of practice time." The younger man said in defense. It was true, the future video game had become one of Jackie's favorite pastimes and while she wasn't opposed to playing by herself she usually went and scoped out an opponent, and usually either Jax or Ray was willing to play.
"Captain Hunter is requesting that you all report to the bridge, he has found a location on Vandal Savage." Gideon interrupted before the three of them could start another round, much to Ray's displeasure considering he had just gotten here.
"We're coming," Jackie called to the AI, grumbling as she tossed her steering wheel aside and followed the boys out of the room.
When the three of them arrived on the bridge they found most members of the team already there. Stein and Rip were hunched over the main control table as usual. Snart was sitting in one of the chairs with Sara in his lap as he ran his hand up and down her leg absentmindedly. Kendra was the last to enter the deck, coming from the direction opposite her fiancé and the two youngest members of the team.
"What's going on?" She asked,
"Gideon has found a lead on Savage in 1998 New York City," Rip replied before taking one last look at his notes and then heading over to his chair.
The rest of the team followed his example and strapped themselves into their own seats.
Upon landing everyone let our their usual chorus of groans and whines due to the mix of headaches and other side effects that they were all experiencing. Also as usual Rip, being so used to time travel, suffered none of this and sprung up from his seat immediately only to find himself patiently waiting for his crew to recover.
"According to Gideon's data, Savage is here to meet with a very powerful business man-"
"Please don't say its Donald Trump," Sara interrupted as she reclaimed her seat on her boyfriend's lap and Rip sighed,
"Unfortunately Miss Lance, it is." He muttered, well aware of the presidential election currently taking place in 2016 and how attitudes are typically one extreme or the other when it comes to the controversial candidate. "Now, the Trump Tower has a small café on the ground floor that is open to the public and Savage will be there before his meeting at one o'clock. We need to know what is happening in that meeting," he announced,
"So what, we're going to bug him?" Len sarcastically asked but the look on Rip's face told him that he had hit the nail on the head.
"Miss Durand will go into the café and place the bug on Savage, after that we'll be able to monitor the meeting from the Waverider." He explained,
"Wait what?" Jackie questioned, so far the team hadn't had any luck locating Savage since they left February 1987 and so the only mission they had gone on was a recon mission because they did find somebody who had information on him back in 1876.
"Before you joined us Jackie, there was an incident in 1975, during which Savage saw all of our faces. Over the course of this mission we have all been exposed to Savage on at least one other occasion, so by 1998 he knows all of us, except you. He'll never see you coming," Rip explained, he could understand Jackie's nervousness considering this would only be her second mission, and the first to depend heavily on her. But she stood the best chance at success, and it's not like he was going to send her in without backup nearby.
Jackie nodded in understanding, although it was obvious she was a little apprehensive about the whole idea. Still she accepted the mission, hoping that all would go well.
An hour later found Jackie sitting at a little corner table in the café of Trump Tower with Jax standing down the street as a lookout and Sara doing the same from the fire escape of a nearby building.
"I've got eyes on Savage, he's about to walk in." Sara's voice came over the comm.
"Ok, I'm going." Jackie confirmed, she then proceeded to put the rest of the plan in motion by getting up and walking towards the door.
She made it to the exit just as Savage was entering and so just as she reached the small step of the doorway she tripped over it and sent herself crashing towards Savage, and of course being the gentleman that he is Savage automatically reached out to stop her fall.
"Are you ok?" He asked as he steadied the young woman who had tripped, letting go of her as she smiled and blushed with embarrassment.
"Thank you, yes I'm fine. I am so sorry, I'm such a klutz," She apologized and so he smiled back at her.
"Don't be sorry, as long as you are alright." He said,
"I am, thank you." She said one last time and so he continued on his way, having no clue that the young woman was actually his newest enemy.
Meanwhile, on the street outside, Jackie was making her way down the street to Jax and Sara so that the three of them could head back to the Waverider. But she didn't get very far before she bumped into someone else.
This person she had bumped into was a woman, probably in her early thirties, and was wearing business attire; she also looked as though she had seen a ghost.
"I am so sorry, I didn't see you." Jackie apologized but the woman was just staring at her, and now that she looked at her more closely Jackie realized why.
Back in 1986, before Jax and his makeshift family of misfits showed up, Jackie had a friend named Rose. Upon graduating high school Rose was accepted into NYU as a politics major, and clearly she never went back home.
"Jackie?" Rose asked, even after twelve years she was easily able to recognize her old friend, in fact it was a little too easy.
"Um… sorry, who?" Jackie asked but playing dumb was no use, her old friend saw right through it.
"How? How are you? What happened? How, how do you still look like you're nineteen?" She finally settled on probably the worst question she could've asked, and considering she's not a very good actress there was no way for Jackie talk her way out of it.
"Well actually I'm twenty," she admitted, her birthday had been in September after Rose left, not that Rose seemed to care at the moment.
"But how? You died," she said, that seemed to surprise Jackie.
"What?" She asked; it truly came as news to her. The plan was for her to return to 1987 at the end of the mission, so up until this point she thought that there was a thirty-one year old version of herself currently living back in New Hampshire right now.
"When you disappeared after your parents died, we all thought you were murdered or…" Jackie's eyes went wide as she trailed off.
"No!" She confirmed immediately, "Dear God, no." Se continued,
"But I don't understand, how… how?" That seemed to be all Rose was capable of asking.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Jackie replied, in the midst of all this she had forgotten Jax and Sara were waiting for her just down the street until she was reminded by the comm flicking to life in her ear.
"Jackie, what's going on?" It was Jax's voice,
"Nothing, I'll be there in a sec." She said, this seemed to only confuse Rose even more but Jackie ignored it. "I got to go," she said apologetically, and with that went on her way down the street.
"Who was that?" Jax asked when Jackie finally reached him and Sara, looking much more rattled than he would've expected.
"No one," Jackie replied curtly.
"Didn't look like no one to me," Sara mused but Jackie simply rolled her eyes, letting her concerned teammates know that she did not want to talk about it just yet.
"I'm gonna die?" Jackie demanded as she marched into Jax's room later that day. It had been about two hours since the mission and Jax was just watching TV in his room when his best friend opened his door and let herself in, looking royally pissed.
"What?" He asked, pausing his show only for her to drop a folder in his lap; she had found and printed out Gideon's electronic file for her. "According to these articles I got on this time ship and never made it home!" She exclaimed as he looked through the files.
They were the same articles Gideon had shown Sara and Rip upon their initial investigation into Jackie's importance to the timeline.
"You weren't supposed to see these," he mumbled in a defeated voice after a long minute of scanning.
"You knew!?" She demanded incredulously, apparently up until right now she hadn't truly believed he was aware of this information. Before Jax could defend himself there was a swift smack across his face, "You KNEW I was going to die and you brought me on this ship anyway?!" She demanded and so while she paced around the room furiously with her hands on her hips, Jax rubbed his cheek and stood up.
"No I didn't know you were going to die! You don't even know you're going to die, all these say is that you disappeared!" He told her, trying to calm her down.
"Well why else would I never go back?!" She asked and Jax didn't have an answer, and she didn't have another accusation. They both know that their close, they each think that maybe there could be a chance that closeness could develop into something more, but neither of them was willing to say such a thing and so obviously neither of them is willing to admit that there could be one reason she wouldn't ever go back to 1987.
"What got you started on this?" Jax finally questioned her and she sighed, not an angry sigh like he had expected, but one of frustration and maybe even sadness.
"That woman you saw me with earlier, I knew her." She admitted before taking a brief second to collect her thoughts. "We were friends all through high school, and then our lives went in different directions." She admitted, tears starting to prick at the corners of her eyes and so she crossed the room and took a seat on Jax's bed. Once she was there she let out a forced laugh before wiping at her eyes. "We used to talk, about what we would be like when we grew up. No matter how that conversation ended, we were always friends. But… she thinks I died." She confessed, looking up at Jax and showing him the fearful tears that were starting to cloud her eyes. When he saw that he immediately sat down next to her and put a hand on her back, rubbing it up and down as she leaned forward onto her elbows and let a few tears fall.
"When I got on this ship," she started, "I was only thinking of myself. I didn't know how to survive in the real world without my parents help, so I ran away on this mission to buy myself some time to figure it out. But I have friends back home, I have grandparents down in Florida, my parents have friends, and I didn't think about what any of them would go through if I don't make it back." She confessed before her tears broke into full on sobs with the realization that she really might never go home again.
Jax didn't really know what to do in this situation. He'd only seen Jackie cry twice before and both times there had been something he could think to do to help. The first time had been easy; get her off the side of the rode. The second was a little harder, because he couldn't do anything about her parents' deaths but he could at least get her out of that hospital. This time was harder, but even so, he knew what he had to do.
"You don't have to disappear," he finally told her. "We can go to Rip right now and ask him to bring you home." He suggested but he was surprised when Jackie shook her head vigorously.
"No," She sobbed out, "No, I want to finish this mission." She cried before pulling her head out of her hands, wiping her eyes, and looking up at him. "But can you promise me something?" She asked,
"Of course," Jax replied readily,
"If something happens to me, will you convince Rip to go back to 1987 and tell Ben?" She requested, knowing that her former boss would get word of her fate down to her grandparents and out to her friends. If she were going to die on this mission, then she there would be no stopping it, time wants to happen. But she'd be damned if she let everyone she's ever known live out there lives never knowing what happened to her. They don't need to know how; they just need to know if.
"Nothing's going to happen to you," Jax assured her as he pulled her more fully into his arms, letting her cry into his shoulder before he released her from the hug.
"I promise," he swore, and he meant it.
"Jax!" Ben greeted when the young man from the future came into his shop one night nearly six months after he had last seen him.
"Hey Ben, how are you?" Jax asked with a friendly smile as he shook the old man's hand. The mission had just ended only a few hours ago, and honestly he still couldn't believe they had really defeated Savage.
"Not too bad, how are you?" He asked politely.
"I'm good," Jax replied and Ben nodded,
"Good, you catch your immortal, sociopathic, warlord?" He asked and with a bright and beaming smile Jax nodded.
"Yeah, we're all going back to 2016 but we had to make a stop here first." He said and just as he did Jackie came entering the shop from behind him, unable to wait anymore.
"Hey kid," Ben said with a smile as the daughter of his old friend tried to walk in but soon let her joy overpower her and instead ran for a hug.
Jax watched the reunion between the two with a smile. He was glad that Jackie still had someone to come home to, especially since she'd spent the past six months more or less afraid that she wasn't going to make it back.
"Good to see you Jackie," Ben said as he let her go, "You staying?" He asked and it was at that question that her face began to go from elated to guilty, but the old man just smirked. "Good," he said, beaming down at her. "You've got so much more ahead of you than helping this old geezer change oil, I just hope I'm still around when you get there." He told her with a smile and that actually made her laugh.
"You will be," She assured him and so he raised an eyebrow at her. "No I didn't check, but you're not that old." She mocked and he smirked. "Can you do me a favor Ben? Let everyone know I'm alright?" She requested,
"Sure kid," he agreed before pulling her in for one last hug and then doing the same to Jax. "Now get out of here, and give me a call when you get home." He ordered them and so they obeyed and walked hand and hand out of the shop to head back to 2016.