What We Leave Behind
Rip didn't like it.
In fact he hated it.
Sure, it had been his idea. Well, Gideon's idea, really. Or his idea based on Gideon's information. Whatever way you looked at it, it was down to him that they were there.
And he really despised that.
After losing Mick during the 'Attack of the Space Pirates' debacle, he had checked Gideon's timeline data for any significant changes. None. Then he had asked the AI interface to suggest the best place to find a replacement for their proverbial lost sheep. The computer had taken its time responding, but had eventually produced a suggestion that would increase their chances of taking down Vandal Savage by seventy percent.
It had been too good for Rip to ignore.
So here they were. All seven of them. Doing exactly what the experienced and usually overly-cautious Time Master had told them they should never do. Granted: nobody was quite so eager to rush off the ship as they had been in Star City, once they knew where they were and had finished hiding from Oliver Queen's replacement. They all now appreciated the dangers of knowing too much about your own future. More importantly: none of them wanted to know the futures of their loved ones should they not, as they had seen in Star City, return to their own time.
Nevertheless, venturing out into the brave new world before them was what Rip needed them to do. Some of them anyway. Sara had been the first to volunteer. The city beyond the boundary of The Waverider this time was Central City, not Star City, and, with the exception of her mother, she knew very few people here, and fewer still knew her. At least on sight.
Unsurprisingly, Ray had waved a cheerful hand in the air, reminding the world and all his companions for the hundred-and-somethingth time that he had invented a suit capable of shrinking him to a size that could easily scout around unseen. Rip had sighed and acknowledged the veracity of this point, waving him away with Sara to go change into whatever they thought most suitable for their mission. The inventor had hurried off. The warrior had lingered, her eyes focussed on a point beyond Rip's shoulder. Then she turned and walked away. Rip didn't need to look behind him to know what, or whom, she had been watching.
"They'll need someone to show them round," drawled Snart, unfolding himself from his chair with catlike precision. "And I can't exactly imagine this town would suffer much by losing me. I ain't gonna see anything to give me nightmares."
Rip didn't turn round. He could feel the thief's presence behind him, almost as though the team's most unruly maverick was actually awaiting his permission. He nodded. "Fine. Just..."
"Yeah, I got it," murmured Snart, walking past him to follow his shipmates. "Don't kill anyone, that I don't absolutely have to anyway. Don't disrupt the timeline. Don't go looking for friends and relatives. Don't try to find out what happened to me. You know, my father always said I'd be late for my own funeral. Guess he got one thing right."
It was twilight when they left the confines of the time ship. Rip had looked at the data Gideon had provided and decided that might be the best time to find a budding vigilante, out and about on the streets of Central City.
"I still don't see why I couldn't have worn the White Canary outfit," Sara grumbled under her breath. "Even if we did bump into Cisco, it's two decades since he's seen the thing. Who's to say he'd recognise it?"
"Believe me, he'd recognise it," purred Snart. "Hell, make it two centuries, I'd still recognise it."
"Yeah, but you've seen it in action," smirked Sara, pausing to let Rip and a miniaturised Ray Palmer precede them out of the roofless abandoned warehouse they had parked The Waverider in. Rip wasn't risking just one layer of camouflage on this trip.
"Ain't that the truth," he concurred, his lips curling at one side. It was the closest thing to a smile Sara had seen on his face since before the ordeal with Mick.
"Are you two joining us?" Rip called back to them, the weariness and impatience that usually took at least one catastrophe to show up already present in his voice.
Leonard held the door for Sara, waving her through with a slight bow. When he followed his eyes were drawn immediately to the triple towers of Star Labs. "I bet I know one place we're headed."
"As likely as it is that our young hero is operating out of Star Labs, Mr Snart, it would be highly inadvisable for you to actually go there," Rip pointed out. Unnecessarily, judging by the ironic glare he received from the thief. "I realise this may prove itself a difficult task, considering we are headed for anywhere our vigilante may be likely to be at work, but do try to keep away from your previous haunts."
The grin that flashed across the thief's features this time was not a friendly one. Just another part of the usual mask. "Did Gideon get any updates on our recent crime wave, Captain?" Snart enquired, enunciating the last word of his query so sharply it could cut ice.
Rip shifted uncomfortable. It was a hit. A palpable hit. "No," he admitted, fixing his gaze on the street beyond. "No new reports have come in."
"Then there's no way out of this," the reformed rogue informed him. "If this kid is as good as you seem to think he is, he'll be staking out the Central City Museum of Modern Art. The villain of the piece likes shiny things, and the shiniest of them all is that sculpture the museum added to its collection this morning. The hero will be waiting to catch him, or her, in the act."
"Or her?" Sara raised an eyebrow. "Worried little sis might be behind all this chaos?"
"Lisa's into gold, not gems," he shrugged, leading the way down the road towards the city centre. "I'm just an equal opportunities kind of guy."
"Ain't we all," grinned Sara.
A five minute walk, or, in Palmer's case, flight, took them to the back of the Museum of Modern Art, straddling the very edge of the bustling city centre and the nocturnally quietened industrial quarter. Artists always did like being on the edge of things. Especially the modern ones. The museum lights burned brightly, and a quick glance down the alley leading to the main entrance confirmed that Central City's phalanx of untiring paparazzi were waiting to snap a money shot of the great and the glamorous. The museum's official unveiling of the sculpture was due in one hour and the party was already in full swing, with only the kings and queens of fashion now arriving, fashionably late as always.
"There's definitely no way we can risk the main entrance," Rip sighed. "As small as he is, even Mr Palmer risks detection in that cannonry of cameras."
"Just as well you brought someone who's never had to," smirked Snart. "So. We go with my plan. Raymond, you see that window two floors up and three from the end? That will take you through to the back stairwell. It's only used for moving items from storage to the transport bay right next to us. There won't be anyone using it during this event. Besides you, that is. Follow it down to this level and you'll see a corridor. Go right and it will take you to the archive records, left and you'll reach the garage area. Take the left. When you hit the big room with the armoured trucks, you'll know you've got here. The fire doors are all alarmed, but I'm sure a smart guy like yourself can figure a way to rewire at least the one two feet away from the rest of your team. You get that open and I can get us up to the main floor from there. Clear?"
"Crystal," quipped the ebullient scientist. Small as he was right now, the other three could hear the cheesy grin in his voice. Rip rolled his eyes, Snart narrowed his and Sara repressed a chuckle as the animated action figure ascended.
The fire door swung open on obligatorily well-oiled hinges. A benefit of Snart's knowledge of the city's health and safety by-lays, filed under 'quiet ways into expensive places'. Together, they slipped inside and closed the door.
Ray had returned to full size to deal with the door. Once it closed behind them he shrunk back down to insect size. Neither he nor Rip had any intention of Ray Palmer becoming America's answer to Lord Lucan. Rip, Sara and Snart, on the other hand, were decked out in clothes befitting the prestigious event going on upstairs. Sara might have been put out by Rip's insistence that they blend in with the partygoers, rather than the vigilantes, Leonard thought, idly leading the way through the catacomb of corridors, but at least she only had to give up her usual costume. His hands itched for a weapon, and he wondered just how many the former assassin had managed to hide in this dress. If Mick had been here they would have been placing bets.
He shook his head, banishing the distracting nemesis of guilt and focussing on the task in hand. A short flight of stairs led up to the exhibition floor, or the administrative rooms behind them anyway, and he paused. Turning to his companions, he held a finger up to his lips in the universal sign for silence. They nodded. He stepped forward, but a hand on his arm held him back. It was Sara. He caught her eye with a question in his own. She raised an eyebrow, giving him a look that suggested he was being an idiot. He probably was. He was a known face, she wasn't. He was good in a fight, even unarmed, but nowhere near her level. Anything she couldn't charm or seduce her way out of, and she could charm or seduce just about anyone, she could definitely fight her way out of. He stepped back and let her do the honours.
Less than a minute later, the door at the top of the steps opened and Sara waved them through. There was a glass of champagne in her hand and an empty corridor before them.
"How...?" Rip began, but trailed off with a shake of his head. He didn't want to know. Perhaps the nearest tray of glasses was just that close.
The route to the event was, well, uneventful. They emerged from the half light of the corridors into the blazing brightness of the main exhibition hall. A banner proclaiming the arrival of museum's newest acquisition discretely hid the door. Between it and the press of people around the edge of the hall, nobody noticed their entrance.
On a plinth in the centre of the hall, standing tall on a raised dais, was the veiled sculpture they expected Central City's latest master thief to try and steal. Snart cast a practised eye around the room. It was ostentatious. Flamboyant. Pretentious. Arrogant. To try and steal that item out from under the noses of so many. His mind already had five ideas on how it might be done. He lifted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, ignoring Rip's failed attempt to do the same. Beside him Sara sipped from her glass and scanned the crowd. A string quartet played from somewhere high above and couples circled the dais in the familiar rise and fall of a waltz.
"Care to join me?" Rip asked, holding out his hand to the woman on his left before she say the same to man on hers. "It worked last time."
"Go ahead," Snart intoned, drawing a smirk of remembrance from the woman on his right. "Try not to start any bar fights this time."
"I can't promise anything," she rejoined, batting her eyelids like butter wouldn't melt.
He watched Hunter lead Sara into the midst of the watchers, then out onto the dance floor, leading her round in a fluid motion, one hand holding hers, the other on her back. Typical, Leonard grimaced. Of course the Englishman could dance. And formal ballroom at that. Leonard Snart was under no illusions about the physical grace and control he possessed, but funnily enough he hadn't had much time to learn the myriad rules and skills involved in ballroom dancing. It hadn't exactly been a priority.
Moving through the gathered crowd like a panther on the prowl, he soon found himself at the inner edge of the circle. Couples spun past him in gracile arcs, rising and falling with the music. Hunter and Sara spiralled past him, the former whispering something in his partner's ear. They'd turned their comms off. Her hand had slipped further up his shoulder and around his neck. Was his hand lower on her back too? Snart shook his head and turned his attention back to the room. He wasn't here to analyse his team-mate's dancing skills. He wasn't here to wonder about his fearless leader's motives. He was here to catch a crook, and hopefully recruit another future legend. Personally, he was looking forward to meeting the former: the resume Gideon had provided for them was impressive to say the least. Had he still been in the business, he knew whom he would have chosen to fill the vacant seat on the ship. Hell, even out of the business, they could use someone with those skills. Whoever they were, they making solid inroads on beating his own hard-won records, and they were doing it single handed.
It couldn't actually be Lisa, could it?
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he found himself searching the crowd for his sister's face. What would she look like now? Twenty years had passed. He tried to add the years mentally, but instead the same image kept coming up. Not Lisa, but his mother. People had always said she was her mother's double. She would be older now than their mother ever was, but life, cold and brutal in all its exigencies, wouldn't have aged her daughter as fast as it had her. Not with their father gone for good.
A susurration rippled through the crowd. Snart turned to see the source. The tide of murmuring voices followed the progress of an obvious starlet or celebrity, all expert hair and makeup, couture dress and shoes, and six-figure minimum jewellery. The light caught the encrusted diamonds in her three inch wide bracelet and he winced, turning his head from the sudden glare.
In the same instant there was darkness.
He froze. His sense of sight may be useless, but no self-respecting thief relied on one sense alone. He listened. The panicked murmurs of the respectable citizens around him told him they were in the same boat. He looked around. Even if all the lights in the building went out, his night vision was good enough that it should have kicked in by now. There should be enough light filtering in from the street outside to make out at least basic shapes. There was nothing. Of course, why cut the power to one building when you can take out the whole local grid, he surmised, but even still, the moon was full and high in the cloudless sky. He should be able to see something.
A meta, he groaned inwardly. Oh joy! His admiration for the thief dropped to irritation. Using powers was just plain cheating. It's one thing fighting a homicidal maniac you can't kill. It's another tracking down a kleptomaniac you can't see. Of course, he could still hear.
He focussed on his hearing. The plinth had been where? On his right side and a little forward. Say maybe two o'clock? And Sara was where? With Hunter still, but he'd lost track of them in the twisting maelstrom of bodies. They must be on the other side of the dais by now. Would they come to same conclusions as he had? Sara knew the score in Central City, at least, and Hunter probably did too. They'd work it out. The Englishman might not be his favourite person right now, or ever, but he was no fool.
The lights came back on.
Fifty four seconds. He was sure of it. Nobody got to be as good a thief as he was without being able to pinpoint the length of a second. In his life, his past life, anyway, timing was everything.
And this heist had been timed to precision.
He didn't even bother looking round at the plinth. He knew the sculpture wasn't there. The milling panic of the crowd around him. The shocked inactivity of the dancers. The hurrying onslaught of guards and police, eager to lock the proverbial stable door. All of it told him the sculpture was already long gone. Instead, his eyes searched out Sara and Hunter, and found them doing likewise.
"Any suggestions, Crook?" Sara's voice sounded clearly through his comms.
"Talking to me now, are we?" Snart retorted, raising an eyebrow and sipping his champagne.
"Can't a girl have a private conversation every now and then?" Sara asked in response. He could hear her smirking.
"This is your idea of private?" Snart waved a hand at the mass of people. Apparently answering a question with a question was today's game.
"Yes, yes, all well and good," Rip interrupted impatiently. "Suggestions please, people. Mr Snart, you're our resident expert in this field. Where to from here?"
Snart's lip curled. He was going to enjoy this. "How badly do you want to avoid paying a visit to Star Labs?"
Even if he hadn't heard the Englishman's groan over the comms, the view from where he stood now made Rip's sudden slump of head and stance almost palpable. He notice Sara look up and off to one side, pressing her lips together as if trying to hold in a laugh.
"I really want to visit Star Labs," piped up what looked like an odd colour of firefly hovering in front of a banner.
"You just want to play with all their cool new toys, though, don't you Raymond," drawled Snart, back in his element. "Wouldn't mind taking a look at that myself."
"Mr Snart, I expressly forbid you to steal anything from Star Labs," hissed Rip, glaring across the dance floor at the ex-thief.
"Would I?" Snart asked ingenuously.
Sara cut in before Rip could answer. "If we're going, let's go. The number of people leaving through the front doors right now will hide us and, if we don't get out of here before the rest of the cops arrive, they'll have this place on lock down so tight not even Ray will be able to get out."
"Star Labs it is," sighed Rip, waving a hand at the doors as Snart joined them. "Lead on MacDuff."
Snart and Sara both looked at him oddly.
"It's a saying!" Rip floundered. "Honestly, does nobody read Shakespeare in this era?"
"I do," offered a small voice hovering over Sara's shoulder. Both Sara and Snart turned to glare at the miniaturised man between them. Ray held up his hands in surrender. "What? The man asked a question!"
The group let themselves become part of the mass of people hurrying to evacuate the building. Aware that anyone who had watched them dance might assume them to be a couple, Rip reached out to put an arm protectively around Sara's waist. He pulled his arm back when he realised someone else had got there first.
Out of the crush, and safely out of reach of the paparazzi, they turned towards the beacon of hope that was, for this city, Star Labs.
The car park was deserted, but that was nothing unusual. Even in 2016, the space had only ever really been used by Cisco and Caitlin. By now, they had probably switched to transport by speedster as being the most eco-conscious way to travel, Snart mused, leading the way through the doors and corridors of the facility. As they approached, a familiar voice was holding court. Snart held up a hand to stop the others and sidled closer alone.
"At least we know her power only affects one part of the electromagnetic spectrum," Caitlin Snow was saying, trying to point out the silver lining in a way that told Snart the future Team Flash were having just as much difficulty with this thief as they had.
"And everything went completely black?" Cisco could be heard asking, that familiar tone in his voice that warned Captain Cold the over-enthusiastic nerd was about to come out with another of his famous monikers. He was wincing even before Cisco came out with it. "Blackout! That's perfect for her!"
"Really?" Caitlin sighed, but Snart could hear the affection there and knew she was smiling as she said it. "Mark three?"
"Aw, come on," laughed a much younger voice now. "I like it."
"You would, 'Galahad'!" Snow replied, emphasising the young man's code name with indulgent amusement in her voice. "Body armour like yours I'd count yourself lucky you didn't get 'Storm Trooper'!"
"Nah, I'm way more accurate than that," grinned the kid. "All nine films and they never managed to hit a thing!"
"Still dishing out names to all and sundry, Ramone," called Snart, moving out from his spot just behind the edge of the doorway. "I would have thought you'd have run out of them after twenty years."
Everyone in the room was frozen. The kid alone had moved, hopping up off a counter to stand at bay, ready to fight. Slowly, Cisco and Caitlin turned. He could almost hear the wheels in their heads turning, feel their eyes taking in everything about his appearance.
For the first time in a long while he smiled. "Miss me?"
"You're Captain Cold," blurted out Cisco, pointing a shaking finger at the crook. "You disappeared two decades ago on The Waverider."
"So you know about that?" Snart mused, stepping into the room. He noticed Caitlin take a step back. "Relax, I'm one of the good guys now. Seems time really can change a man, if he travels through enough of it."
"What are you doing here?" Caitlin asked, her voice barely betraying the nervousness she was still obviously feeling. "Are you alone? Where's... Where's your partner?"
"He and I... parted company," shrugged Snart, stepping further into the room. "I stayed with The Waverider. He... didn't. But no, I'm not alone. The rest of the gang are still on the ship, but three of them are here, including our very own pet Time Master. He wants to talk to someone here about replacing Mick." Snart's eyes slid over to the boy opposite him. "And I think he means you."
Ramone and Snow shared a glance that Snart did not miss, but instead of reacting to it he kept his eyes on the boy. He was tall, but not as tall as Leonard. Maybe eighteen. Not bulky, but he looked like he could hold his own in a fight. Blue eyes and a tousled mop of light brown hair. He was wearing white leather body armour and, propped up on the counter near where he had been sitting, Snart spotted the white disc of a shield. Lines of red spread out from the central domed boss to the four compass points of the circle. English code name, thought Snart, St George's cross on his shield, the hair, the eyes. Had they somehow saved Rip's son and brought him back here to grow up in relative safety? But the white armour, and something about the set of the boy's face, was worryingly familiar.
A thought crossed his mind, and his eyes narrowed. The guy was married. That was the whole point of this mission wasn't it? To save his wife, and child, along with everyone else. No, a treacherous little voice reminded him, he's grieving. And grief passes, eventually. And if she was there to pick up the pieces when the denial finally passed...
"Is there anyone I should not be asking to join us right now?" Snart snarled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Caitlin take another step backwards.
"Galahad," began Cisco, carefully keeping to code names. "Why don't you go shower and change. I don't think we'll be needing you again tonight."
Taking this command as the 'stand down' that it was, the teenager finally took his eyes off their visitor and stalked out of the room.
"They can come in now," said Caitlin, visibly relaxing. "He takes at least a half hour when we tell him he can clock off."
"When he's not got some hot da... Ow!" Cisco frowned at Caitlin and rubbed at the spot on his arm where she'd hit him. His frown disappeared when the other three visitors walked in. "Hey Ray!"
"Was that the young man we've just come all this way to see that I heard you send away there?" Rip demanded in exasperation, pointing a finger at Cisco.
"Oh he's not coming with you," replied Ramone, standing straighter than Snart had ever seen him in his younger years. Age had given him some backbone at least.
"And why, pray tell, is that?" Hunter interrogated, folding his arms and fixing a glare on the physicist. "And who exactly are you to decide for him? According to my data, that young man just turned eighteen two weeks ago and he is perfectly capable of making his own decisions, thank you!"
"Maybe, but he doesn't have all the information," Cisco countered. "And his father didn't just give me permission to make that decision for him, he made me promise I would! You can't take him. It would turn the timeline in on itself. Yeah, I know about the timeline. News flash: we started out with our own time-travelling super hero before you kids made it cool, I can see the future, and I'm a physicist. If anyone in the slow lane is gonna understand the timeline, and all the dangers of messing with it, that guy would be me!"
Rip blinked. This he had not expected. "If Galahad joins the crew of The Waverider," he summarised slowly, "the timeline would collapse. He'd cause a paradox? How?"
"If Galahad joins you," Cisco explained, his tone back to the usual scientific lecture one, "he will significantly decrease the chances that he is ever born."
Rip narrowed his eyes at Cisco. "Are you saying..."
"Yeah," Cisco nodded.
"Who?" Rip asked.
"If I tell you that," the physicist shrugged, "it may have the same effect."
"Huh," Rip frowned and mulled over this information.
"Somebody care to tell me what's going on?" Sara wondered aloud, now the shouting had died down. It was clear from the expressions on the faces of the three men she had arrived with that she was the only person in the dark about this.
"Not really," Rip answered honestly.
Over by the wall, Ray Palmer was looking thoughtful. "I think, maybe, Kendra and I have a kid," he said slowly. "This Galahad is him. If he travels with us, maybe his presence stops us from having him. Something like that."
Snart didn't miss the glance in his direction. So Raymond had seen the kid too. Damn that shrinking super suit of his. He nodded at the boy-scout. "Something like that."
When they reached the warehouse and stepped inside, Snart held back to walk with the re-miniaturised, and now de-miniaturised, Ray Palmer. "Tell me, Raymond," he murmured after switching off his comms and letting the man fall into step beside him. "You don't actually believe that story you spun in there about our newest non-recruit being you and Kendra's love child do you? You were there before the others came in. You saw him."
"Are you kidding?" Ray scoffed. "This suit has facial recognition built in. No way I'm mistaking who that kid's parents are! Um..."
A strange look had passed over the taller man's face. Snart stopped walking. Parents. Plural. The boy-scout had never met Rip's wife, or child for that matter. Did that mean his fears were confirmed. He waited until Ray stopped and turned towards him. "What?
"It's nothing," blustered Ray. "Forget I mentioned it. Don't wanna risk the timeline any more than we already have, do we?"
Later that evening, while the crew of The Waverider slept, enjoying, for once, the absence of constant movement they had become inured to during sleeping hours in the temporal zone, one member of the crew slipped out into the cool Central City night. He had asked Gideon to locate the boy, thinking he'd be at home, maybe even surrounded by lots of family photographs to answer the burning questions in his mind. Instead, it turned out, he was out at a club. Well, Snart thought, picking his way along the lonely streets in silent contemplation, by all accounts his mother had been quite the partier in her youth. If his mother was who he thought she was. And he was absolutely sure now about that. The look on Ray's face had been enough to confirm it, even if his jumping in with an explanation that stopped her asking any more questions hadn't. He just had to know if he was right about the boy's father. Some random guy they had yet to meet: that he could take. Maybe then he wouldn't have to go through watching her with someone else. Maybe he could even steer her in the right direction. The kid seemed to have turned out okay. Maybe she would be happy. She deserved that.
The club was right in front of him now and, as he approached, he spotted the tousled head of his quarry. There was a girl on his arm and that made Snart hold back. Apparently the kid had inherited his mother's charm too. The young man hailed a cab and, for a moment, the older one thought the two would leave together. Instead, he saw 'Galahad' gallantly help the young woman into the cab, kiss her hand before closing the door, then lean down and give the driver some instructions. While the cab pulled away, Snart stepped up to meet the young vigilante as he turned. For an instant, the same battle-readiness flashed into the younger man's stance. It faded as recognition dawned.
"Can I help you?" Galahad enquired politely.
"I need to know a few things about your parents," Snart began, cutting straight to the point. "Were they happy, for starters."
The boy tightened his jaw at that, and Snart feared the worst. When Galahad spoke again, though, it was not the answer he had expected.
"She always said they were," he replied, choosing his words carefully. "She wouldn't have traded her years with him for anything."
"He left you?" Snart growled.
"Died," the kid corrected, bristling at the older man's derisive tone. "He died saving her. Didn't even get to know I existed, she told me. He was a hero. He saved the whole world. But he was her hero too. He saved her. They saved each other. That's the way she tells it. Not just in fights either. She saved him from his demons, and he saved her from herself. If he hadn't, I would not be here today, so you do not get to roll up here with your questions, your snide remarks and your sneering and talk like you're better than my old man. I didn't meet him, but I'm prouder of him than any other son in this city and if you think you're gonna talk him down around me you're gonna find out just how well my mother taught me the family business."
"Yo! Lance," called a voice from the club door, interrupting the tirade. "You coming back in here tonight or what."
Snart's eyes flicked from the club door to Galahad's face. "Lance," he mused. "Is that a first name or a last one?"
"Last one," growled the teenager, turning back from waving a reply to his friend. "And no, before you ask, it ain't my father's. He never got the chance. That's why my Mom named me after him. She said I should at least have part of his name."
"Which is?" Snart prompted. He had to know.
"Which is why Professor Ramone decided I should be called Galahad," snapped Lance, not rising to the bait.
"Fine, don't tell me," drawled Snart, but before he could come up with another barb to prod the information out of the kid with, fate intervened.
Lance was turning away, back to the club, when his friend at the door decided to chip in again.
"Hey, Leo, come on, man: they're playing your song!"
The kid halted in his progress, his head turning slightly as if debating whether or not to turn back. In the end, Leonard was glad he didn't. Whatever mask he'd managed to hold in place before was surely gone now. Instead, his son just said three simple words. "Don't tell her."
As he watched him walk away, finally recognising that ease of movement and its source, Leonard murmured the first and the last words he would ever say to his son.
"I promise."
~Finis~
A/N: I have been reliably informed by a friend that not everyone knows Galahad, the "Most Perfect Knight" of King Arthur's court, who was one of only three to succeed in the Grail Quest, was actually named after his father's early first name. It was his father who later had his name changed, by the Lady of the Lake when she took him in, to Lancelot. Galahad was also, by his shield at least, if not his armour, or even his very nature, the original "white knight".