DID YOU KNOW?

Disclaimer: All characters do not belong to me but to their respective creators. None of the events are canon, they are merely my take on what could happen or what could have happened behind the scenes.

Author's note: This story was meant to be part of a group of stories based on actual dialogue spoken in the series. However, this story came to me on the wake of episode 18 of Arrow, season 4. This was written without any foreknowledge of what the writers have in store for the Arrowverse, and is just what I think may happen to our favorite characters. I will probably be proven very wrong in my theories, but I had a lot of fun writing this version of what happened. The title is based on Sara Lance's question to Rip Hunter during their brief sojourn in 2046.

88888

[Previously on Legends of Tomorrow: The White Canary, Sara Lance, learned that her sister, Laurel, had died as the Black Canary. She found a way to force the Waverider to return to 2016 in order to stop it from ever happening, unfortunately, she miscalculated and landed a few days after Laurel's death. Unable to correct her mistake, she went after Damien Darhk on her own. The Legends team barely made it out with her alive.]

His eyes flew open.

"Did you know?"

The dim light cast a multitude of shadows over Sara Lance's bruised and tear-streaked face. She stood over him as he lay on his back. She was leaning heavily against a bed post and had one knee balanced on his bed. His bed?!

"Miss Lance, what on earth are you doing in my bedroom? How did you even get in here? Gideon wouldn't have –"

"Gideon didn't have a choice," Sara cut him off and motioned to the door with her eyes.

Rip Hunter followed her gaze and saw a knife handle sticking out of his door's control panel.

"Did you know?" Sara repeated her original question.

"Miss Lance," he began moving to get up on one elbow. "Sara, you need to rest. Your injuries were near fatal. Where is Professor Stein? He was supposed to be watching over you."

"He's sleeping."

With a pointed look at the knife embedded in his door, he asked, "By his own volition? Or did you make that choice from him as well?"

She didn't answer him. He sighed heavily.

"Sara…"

"Did. You. Know." Her words were softly spoken but each word brought her threateningly closer and closer to him. It was only then that he noticed the knife in her hand. It was a twin of the knife that was deep in his door and it was uncomfortably close to his neck.

"Did you know she was going to die?!" she cried out hoarsely.

"Sara, I…"

"Tell me!"

"Yes," he said softly. "I knew."

With a cry of pure pain and anguish, she raised her knife and stabbed three times with as much strength as her weakened body could muster. For a long moment, only her labored breathing could be heard in the dim-lit room.

"You stabbed my pillow," he grumbled.

"I'll stab more than just your pillow if you don't tell me everything you know about Laurel's death," she growled out. The knife was back at his throat. Rip fell back against the pillows.

"How many times must I tell you that you can't know too much about your own future?" he argued.

She allowed the knife's pointed end to touch his skin. The cut was small but it drew a sharp intake of breath from the captain.

"Tell me or you won't have a future," her voice was cold.

"If you kill me, you and the rest of the team will be stranded in limbo for the duration of your short, short lives," he told her.

The look she gave him told him that she didn't care. He relented.

"I knew your sister was going to die before I recruited you," he started. The knife in her hand trembled slightly. "Records indicate that in 2016 the Black Canary dies after an encounter with escaping convicts from Iron Heights Prison. She had gone in there with the entire Green Arrow team, however they were betrayed and thus failed to subdue the inmates that included Damien Darhk. She was gravely wounded and was brought to the hospital. Her injuries proved fatal despite adequate intervention. Most of this you already know."

"I should have been there. I could have helped them," Sara's voice was barely above a whisper. Her face changed suddenly. Her voice was suddenly hopeful and insistent. "She doesn't have to die. This timeline can change. You said we can't go back to events that we had participated in, but I miscalculated in this one. I came back to the time after she died. We can go back to the time before the prison and save her."

He was already shaking his head before she could finish.

"I already changed the timeline when I took you with me," he said.

"What?"

"In 2016, you learned about your sister's death while you were in Tibet. You rushed back to Starling City, and in your brilliantly hotheaded and stubborn way, you went after Damien Darhk, one of the Green Arrow's most difficult adversaries, on your own. Consequently, you failed. Sound familiar?" Rip asked her sardonically. "The only difference between that version and ours is that you now have the Waverider technology that kept you alive. Otherwise, you would have—"

"I would have died with her if you hadn't taken me away," she said in realization.

"Yes, and then both Canaries would have died within a week of each other in 2016," he finished.

"I should have died with her if you hadn't taken me away."

Rip looked at her sharply. There was a sudden change in her voice. He didn't like where her thoughts were going.

"Sara—"

"You took that away from me!" She screamed at him pressing her hands and the dagger increasingly close to his neck. "Why did you take me? Why didn't you take her instead? I should have died instead of her! I should have died with her."

"Yes, and you would have been happily dead together!" He shouted back at her. "Your sister was going to die with or without you around. She had to die. Her death was instrumental to—", he stopped himself. He had said too much already. His voice softened when he noted her tortured face. "Sara, Laurel's death was a necessary evil that I could not touch. It was a fixed point in time, an important event that decided the future. But yours was not… yours was—"

"Useless? Pointless?"

"No," he was quick to assure her. "Although the world had already considered you dead even before 2016, your death was another log to the fire that was driving the Green Arrow and his team to seek justice against Damien Darhk. Your death spurned them on but it also gave them additional grief. Your parents would have lost both their daughters in the same week to the same violent man.

"If you think about it," he continued softly, "you being here spared them of that grief."

The knife lowered slowly. Rip watched her sit and lean back on the bedpost. Her shoulders slumped. All the fight had gone out of her. She looked ready to faint.

"Sara, please, you should be in bed," he said, as he moved to get up. With the dagger no longer at his throat, he was able to raise himself up to a sitting position. He would have left the bed immediately but his bed was against the wall and Sara was blocking his exit. "Let me escort to back to the Medbay, and we'll have Gideon take care of you."

She nodded tiredly. She threw back his covers and got into bed with him.

"What are you doing?" he drew back in alarm.

"I'm doing what you said," she replied flatly. "Getting in bed."

"Not with me! In the Medbay!"

"I'm too tired," she said wearily. She adjusted the pillow under her head and realized it was the one that she had stabbed earlier. She tossed it on the floor and pulled the undamaged pillow from under Rip to use as her own.

She gave Rip's room a sleepy once over and noted that just like Rip's study, his bedroom was furnished like a 17th century naval officer's cabin, complete with a queen-sized four-post bed. "Besides, your bed is big enough for three people snuggling very closely to sleep in comfortably. How did you get this thing in here anyway? It looks like an antique."

"I'm a time traveler. With a spaceship. From the future," he answered matter-of-factly.

"Right," she said as her eyes drifted close, and she snuggled deeper under the covers.

Her eyes snapped open and she lifted the dagger that was still in her hand. She looked him straight in the eye and said, "You touch me and I will cut you…" she watched the trail of blood from the nick she put on his throat, "…more."

"Rest assured I have no intention of dishonoring you, Miss Lance," Rip said stiffly. "In fact, I am more concerned about what you might do to me once I fall asleep."

She smiled faintly. "Good night, Cap—", her words were cut off as her eyes closed and she became still. Deathly still.

"Gideon," Rip called out in panic. His hand immediately checked the pulse on her neck.

"It's alright, Captain. She is merely in exhausted sleep," the AI's voice assured him. He sighed in relief as he felt her steady pulse under his fingers.

"Why did you let her in?" he asked pointedly. "That knife in the control panel wouldn't have stopped you if you really wanted to keep her out of my room."

"I'm sorry, Captain, but Miss Lance was suffering from fitful dreams that wouldn't allow her mind to rest, and furthermore it kept her body from fully recuperating," the AI's voice did not really sound sorry at all.

"And so you thought that allowing her to talk to me would give her some sort of closure, and then she would stop dreaming about her dead sister," Rip shook his head. "Well, what is she dreaming about now?"

"Miss Lance is still dreaming about her sister, Captain. But the dream is no longer causing her the physical pain and mental anguish that it did before," said Gideon.

"I suppose our conversation gave her a small amount of closure, after all," he said. "Well done, Gideon."

"Thank you, sir. But I believe that being around you has also helped her," the AI postulated.

Rip raised an eyebrow. "Explain yourself."

"I hypothesize that Miss Lance is drawing comfort from you because of the knowledge that, among everyone else in this ship, you are the only one who can truly understand what she is going through. Your loss coupled by your desire to seek justice mirrors hers in this situation. I suppose that she wants to be in the company of one who feels the same pain as she is feeling."

"Well, she didn't have to invade my bed for that, I would have gladly shared her pain in the Medbay," he said as he watched the blond assassin sleep. "I've never slept in bed with another woman since Miranda," he said softly.

"But, Captain, what about that time—"

"I said 'slept', Gideon."

"Shall we return her to the Medbay, then, Captain?" Gideon asked.

"No, I don't want to wake her. She needs to rest. Let her sleep," he said. He sighed a short moment later. "She ruined my pillow."

"I believe you have three of the same in storage, Sir," the computer reminded him. "Shall I retrieve one for you?"

Rip Hunter shook his head. "It's alright, Gideon. Miss Lance and I will share this one for now."

"As you wish, Captain," the AI's tone made him think that it was smiling knowingly at him.

"Shut up, Gideon," he said under his breath. "And close the bloody door!"

"Yes, Captain," Gideon said.

The cabin's door closed smoothly with soft sound. The room was awash in darkness, except for the dim light on his table. Rip faced Sara and settled at the edge of the shared pillow. He studied her sleeping face. It was badly bruised but she did seem at peace. He closed his eyes and slept.

88888

"Isn't it a little early for home improvement? You look like you just rolled out of bed."

Rip Hunter looked up from the control panel that he was repairing to see Leonard Snart leaning against the wall.

"That depends on your definition of home improvement. Since I'm actually repairing this control panel that was damaged last night, it's actually technically a little late to improve upon it," Rip answered as he turned back to the wires of the control panel.

"Whatever," Snart shrugged. "Anyway, I went by the Medbay and—"

"If you're looking for Miss Lance, she's in there. Sleeping," Rip interrupted him without looking up. He drew back quickly as sparks flew from the panel.

"That's your room," Snart said with cold curiosity. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yes, I am fully aware of that, Mr. Snart," Rip murmured in annoyance as he rearranged the wire connections again.

"She's sleeping in your room? In your bed?"

"Well, I do have only one bed," Rip said under his breath.

"Where did you sleep?"

Rip sighed and turned to face him. "Miss Lance came into my room last night needing to talk about her sister's death. We talked until she fell asleep."

Leonard Snart tilted his head to one side and looked at Rip with an expression of incredulity on his face. Rip fidgeted with the tool in his hand.

"She also stabbed my door's control panel, destroyed my favorite pillow, and held a knife to my throat until I told her everything I knew," Rip admitted.

"Now that sounds more like our Sara," Leonard laughed. "The first one you described sounded too needy."

"Yes, well, 'our Sara' needs us more right now than she cares to admit," Rip gritted out. "Her grief could very well destroy what humanity she has left."

"You don't have to tell me, Rip," Leonard drawled. "And she doesn't have to hold a knife to my throat. She is welcome to get in bed with me anytime."

"I'll make sure to inform her of that when she wakes up," Rip bristled, "from my bed.

Leonard Snart smirked and walked away.

The End