Disclaimer: Still don't own it, just borrowing excessively

Arrow spoilers, if you care

Brute force was not usually preferable but it was sometimes the only way to get things done. At least that's what Sara told herself as she made her way to bridge, with a knife poised on the throat of Captain Hunter.

She had tried once already to convince Gideon to change their route in time, but the conversation had ended with a "No changes can be made to our flight plan without the captain's approval," and a fist shattering the interface. She had marched her way to the captain-in-question's personal quarters and made short work of the door's security. Not even a moment later, never give your prey the chance to protect themselves, she had pressed the cool and dangerously sharp steel to the flesh under his chin and had a fist wrapped in his hair, hauling him to his feet.

He had yet to say anything as she pressed him parallel to the console's shattered screen. He was being smart, for once.

"Tell the machine that there has been a regime change, Rip." She accented the command with a twist of her knife wielding hand, but it wasn't the weapon that worried him; if he hadn't been held firmly in position, he would have physically flinched at her tone. He thought he had seen her as an assassin- in battle, in Nanda Parbat, throughout their mission- but this was different. She was stone.

He cleared his throat before answering, taking the sleep out of his voice.

"Sara, I can't do that-" he felt her go taunt, every muscle more than prepared the to do what needed to be done.

"And why not?" No, not stone. Steel. Tempered by fire. Like that which was pressing slowly further into his throat. He had yet to see her face, but he was certain it would mirror her tone.

"Gideon's protocol won't allow for a hostile takeover, Sara. She has several dozen contingencies in place to prevent it and I would rather not be suffocated or evacuated into the temporal zone by my own ship." He waited a beat, taking a breath before trying to appeal to her. "And why, Sara? Why do you need the ship?"

She used her grip on his scalp as leverage and backed him away from the table a few feet before separating his feet with one of her own and forced him to kneel with the wrist of her knife hand weighing on his shoulder. Once he was down, she called for the monitor in her quarters to be mirrored and projected in front of them. Rip made it out as a Star City newspaper with bold, black letters running across the page's head: "Black Canary Killed in Iron Heights Riot".

"Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think I wouldn't check on my city, on my family? I thought you would have realized by now that I don't trust that easily."

Rip didn't respond immediately, his eyes moving swiftly across that text, processing the article as best he could under the circumstances.

"Sara, I didn't know. I swear to you. She-"

"Is dead, and here I am on a time ship. Time to make a few changes."

She turned and was on her way towards the captain's chair, with Rip left crouched on the ground, when she a metal-on-metal clank and the tell tale sound of gas dispersal. A small, cylinder grenade rolled into her line of sight right as she processed the sickly-sweet scent that wafted around her. She felt more than saw Rip crumple behind her, and even with her breath held and her shirt collar pulled up to cover as much skin as possible, she dropped just seconds later.

Sara came out of the haze slowly. She could feel that she had been moved and had been restrained thanks to the unfamiliar pressure on her wrists and back, but when she moved to test them, her body couldn't coordinate enough to complete the movement. She was groggy, her senses muddled and clashing like they were when she looked back at the time shortly after her resurrection, only now she had enough of a mind about her for the feeling to make her more uneasy than homicidal.

Across the room, Leonard Snart glared down at her from where he leaned in the doorway. Taking her to the cargo hold had not been his first choice, but with most of the crew still asleep, it was the safest bet at them not being disturbed or disturbing the others. He himself had been out and about by chance, having decided that the book he had started the evening and left in the study before would be the perfect way to bide his time until morning, when he heard Rip deny Sara's request. After catching the tone of the conversation through some heist-worthy stealth, he had detoured to the weapons room and selected the gas grenade before returning to catch the holographic display of the article. Once Sara was incapacitated, he had cuffed her (sure to use a set similar in strength to those that had locked him to a railing earlier in their little adventure, knowing that anything less would be a non-issue for the assassin) and put Rip back in his room, dressing the scene as though the Englishman had rolled out of bed with a strange dream, not been dragged out by a disgruntled shipmate.

When Sara finally managed to pry her eyes open, they found Snart's in record time. She made a show of testing the manacles and scanning the room before settling him with a sultry smile, "You know, Leonard, if you wanted me alone and in cuffs, all you had to do was ask." Translation: What the hell do you think you're doing? It always was a double language between the two of them.

He rolled his eyes and adopted her pseudo-flirtatious tone, "Well, Lance, I like good mutiny as much as the next crook, but it's really not the way to woo me. Especially when I'm not around to watch." You were being stupid. Without me. So you get a timeout.

"You missed quite a show, though I feel like I should tell you that it was for our dear Captain." She batted her lashes at him, licking her lips lightly before moving to stand up. "Wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea about me." That had nothing to do with you. Just me and just Rip. You shouldn't have interfered.

When her weight started shifting, he moved with her, pulling his right arm in front of his body, exposing the cold gun. He didn't train it on her, yet, and he didn't plan on having to. Whatever this was about, it wasn't worth fracturing the team's, or their own, relationship, which was why he had gassed her in the first place.

True to form, she stilled when he brought out the gun, self-preservation winning out even though she knew he had no intention of hurting her. She repositioned herself, drawing her legs up so that she was sitting more properly against the wall instead of the lounge-like pose she had woken up in. She rolled her neck, willing away the stiffness before letting her attention fall back to Leonard.

With her movements stalled, he moved on. "Care to explain?" What did you think any of this would accomplish? Acting alone against us?

"I have something I need to fix, and Waverider will help that happen." I don't have a plan, just an action and a desired end result.

"Oh, and you just thought you'd blackmail dear old dad into giving up command and then be on your merry, mercenary way with all of us what? Locked in our rooms?" Sara, you're better than that- hell, we all are.

Her eyes drifted around the room, looking everywhere but at him, arms slowly wrapping themselves around her torso. The fire he had seen in by the captain's chair hadn't reappeared when she came to. "I needed to- . . . I needed control." Over what is happening. "I just- . . ." Panicked. She faltered and by the look on her face, she wasn't going to recover. He took several long strides forward until she was hidden by his shadow in the already dimly lit room. When she looked up to question the proximity he had so clearly avoided it earlier, he quirked his brow. Explain, Canary.

She swallowed and he noticed how shiny her eyes were, intensifying their natural blue. He sighed and she looked away again, knowing what he had seen.

"Look, I saw the headline. Those archived papers don't hold much stock- once I was reading about a Berlin heist and the file just," he flicked his hand, "blinked out of existence. Gideon said that whatever had been going to happen was rewritten by the actions of another Time Master. We travel through time, Sara. Whatever that title was alluding to probably won't even solidify." There is, like, a 50/50 chance that whatever happened will be fine. He settled against the wall to her right side, close enough to be considered companionable without intruding on her space too fully, and crooked his left ankle beneath the knee of his right leg.

She buried her head in her arms and he barely made out her next words.

"She's gone, Len." I can feel it. He knew she was right once she said it and her actions made all the more since.

"Who was she?" To you?

She pulled her head out of her arms, but twisted, resting her temple on her forearm and keeping her face away from his analytical stare.

"Wh- . . . what would you do if your sister . . ." Died. Oh, the sister. She had asked in such a tone that he knew she actually wanted to know, so he entertained the idea for a moment. His mind whirled through all the close calls she had had as child and a few more recently as an adult, especially the bomb last year . . .and almost immediately Leonard felt his blood run cold and he knew what he would do, because he had done it already. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do to reverse an act against his sister's life and if he were on a time ship when he got word of her murder . . .

"Sara," he was careful, saying her name slowly, "I'm sorry." About her. Not about gassing you, I stand by that. "And yeah, I would have done the same." But probably executed it more efficiently.

She turned to look at him now, tears falling freely and her face pale.

"I don't . . ." Doubt that you would have.

"When did you find out? How?" Are you just now crying?

"When I . . . When I can't sleep, I search through the portal of the time database that Rip gave us access to," she sniffled and rubbed her cheek on her sleeve, trying to dry the tears tacks that were still forming and Leonard was very tempted to wrap his arm around her, almost tempted enough to do it. "Usually there nothing that interesting- a few unforeseen weddings and elections and whatever, but that- the article . . . it's from just a few months after I left." The hardness that he had heard in her voice earlier was marking its return. "She died doing my job." I should have been there. I could have prevented it.

"Lance, I think it's safe to say that if someone is running around in black leather and beating the shit out of the criminal element, it's by their own volition." It's not your fault.

Her voice was wet again when she responded. "I don't think we can label anything I've done tonight as a 'logical' reaction." Because I don't know how to.

"Luckily, the only people who know what happened tonight can't really blame you for what you did." He gestured to the several bruises still coloring his face. It's not like I, or Rip for that matter, have ever been accused of being a statue of fortitude when my family is involved.

Sara wrapped her arms more tightly around herself and Leonard gave in, reaching out tentatively with his arm to pull her into his side. She let him and soon she was crying silently into the shoulder of his thermal with her feet sitting in the gap that the position of his own legs created and one hand sliding around his back while the other curled into his collar.

Neither of them could have said exactly how long they sat there- though Leonard would have guessed just over three hours- her crying and him comforting while piecing together what he could about the sister, 'Laurel', he believes Sara had stammered out at one point. At some point they had fallen into a precarious sleep, wrapped around each other, but when his eyes registered the ship's programmable lights slowly returning to full brightness (Gideon's acknowledgment of morning in an occupied room) he ran his free hand gently up her arm.

Sara jumped, startled at being woken up tenderly by someone else for the first time in years, but settled when she remembered where she was. Then she shot upright, remembering why she was there, jerking Leonard horribly as she detangled herself from around him. He briefly registered how much he missed her warmth. She glanced at him, his bleary green-blue eyes blinking slowly, still working to adjust to the brightening lights above them, and she turned away quickly, forcing back the tears that threatened to spill out again.

"Gideon, lights to half power, please. I'm still too young to go blind." He grumbled to nowhere in particular but it seemed to be enough because the lights regressed to a more acceptable strength. He looked over to Sara. She hadn't moved far, not even out of his reach, so he laid a hand softly on her back and called to her. She flinched and he fought the urge to scowl while he retracted the gesture.

"Come on, Assassin. If you're lucky, Gideon will have self-repaired the damage you did to the table's interface and Rip will believe that he had a particularly prophetic dream when we tell him about the article later, but we need to get back to our rooms." Because it won't work if someone finds us camped out here before then and I'd rather not have you locked in the brig right now.

She didn't respond, but the set of her shoulders told him she wasn't buying it.

"You think I'm kidding, but it's a listed possible side effect for for long standing Masters, something about extended interactions with the onboard AI. . ." Even the 'unflappable' can be all sorts of screwed by time travel. It's not just you.

He stood carefully and was glad to see that she followed his lead. She moved to press against his side, her face still avoiding his line of sight but with the rest of her in need of the nearness that had comforted her during the night. Leonard draped an arm loosely around her shoulders and guided her down the hallway towards the crew's rooms.

They didn't have to walk quickly, knowing that Sara would have been the only one up already on any other day, but Leonard kept them walking, slightly fearful that Sara would just sit down in the middle of the corridor and refuse to move if they didn't make it to her room soon. As they neared Rip's room she tensed and looped an arm around Leonard's waist like she had the night before, steadying herself.

Another dozen of his long strides and they were outside of Sara's room. The door slid open soundlessly for her, but she didn't step inside. He glanced down at her and saw that she was staring into the room, pitch black except for the light from the door, with her features tensed. He was about to speak when she finally turned her head to the side to face him.

"Come in?" She said it in a whisper, but clear and direct. Only her body language added the silent Please, a few more hours of sleep. I don't want to be alone.

He waited a beat, giving her a chance to take it back, make a quip- but instead her eyes flitted down to the ground and back to him, pleading. He nodded.

"Fine, but don't expect any promises about keeping my hands to myself." Of course I can stay, but these bunks are a little tight for two.

She lead him inside, exchanging his waist for his wrist and tugging him over to the ledge-like bed.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Crook." Thank you.

They tugged off their shoes and outer layers, letting it all form a pile at the foot of the bed, before he crawled in first in his undershirt and the sleep pants he'd been wearing, she followed in her boyshorts and tank top. They weren't as close as the had been on the floor of the cargo hold, but with her using his arm as a pillow and hers laying across his stomach, Leonard revelled again in the warmth she provided and Sara in the comfort he only somewhat grudgingly bestowed.

Minutes later, when she is sure his breathing has leveled out, Sara leans in and presses an appreciative kiss to his still heavily bruised jaw and pretends that she doesn't feel his arm tighten involuntarily around her once she moves back.

A couple hours after the rest of the Waverider crew has woken up to begin their day, Kendra dares to venture into the room she used to share with their in-house assassin to get a book she had left behind during the move. As soon as she enters, she notices the lights are shut off, odd, but she shrugs and marks it down as some League-based training exercise. She walks over to her now abandoned bunk and finds the novel in question with a little help from her hawk-like eyesight. As she turns to exit, she catches the glint of Sara's hair in the limited light of the door. Fairly typical, hair of that shade is practically luminescent, but what makes the demigoddess stop in her tracks in the recognition of a long fingered and very Not-Sara arm wrapped around her friend's waist and the glint of silver on the pillow above the blonde's head. With a squeak, Kendra bolts from the room, remembering that Sara hadn't been the only teammate not to meet them for breakfast.

A/N:

Len may have come off a little OOC, but I leaned pretty heavily on the fact that he killed his dad for threatening Lisa, his own sister, and that he about lost his chill when Savage had Sara, so. . . yeah.

Fic by ask from user pineapplefish: Here it is. I tried.

Self-repair: I have faith that Gideon and the Waverider are an example of a technology that would imbued with self correcting glass.

Reviews are appreciated