After their little bar brawl in 1975, Rip Hunter had decided that the killer, the clepto, and the pyro were not to be trusted on their own, and had locked them into one of the Waverider's smaller storage bays while he and Doctors Stein and Palmer set off on some mind-numbingly boring scientific excursion.

Mick Rory was immersed in a girly magazine. Leonard Snart amused himself inventing a new form of solitaire. Sara Lance, ever practical, had curled up on top of a storage container and gone to sleep.

Snart spared her the occasional glance as the afternoon crawled by. The woman was an enigma. He knew her biographical age, but there was a weight of experience in her expression that seemed to add years to her age. Not physically, of course, but it was there, in her eyes. In sleep, her guard was relaxed, and she was…really quite lovely. A fact he knew he'd never repeat aloud. He'd seen her in action, after all.

He looked up from his cards when she made a small sound. Sara was twitching and muttering in her sleep, broken words that sounded like bits of names, and small sounds of pain. A bad dream then; one that could easily escalate into a full fledged nightmare.

"Sara," Snart said quietly, but his voice didn't reach her.

"Hey, Blondie, I'm tryna read over here," Mick grunted.

The muttering escalated to moaning.

"Sara," Snart tried again.

Mick stomped over. "Come on, Blondie. Wakey-wakey."

"Mick, no!" Snart said sharply, getting to his feet. "Don't -"

Snart saw Mick reach out with one beefy hand, and the next seconds passed in a blur. Sara woke up - with a vengeance - and had Mick on his knees with the fingers of the offending hand bent backward to the breaking point. Her eyes were wide and staring but Snart wasn't at all sure that she was aware of her surroundings.

"Sara," Snart said in an icy-calm voice, "You're safe. You're on the Waverider. You were having a bad dream."

Sara blinked, and her eyes didn't look so dead anymore. She sighed and released Mick.

"Don't call me Blondie."

"Don't touch someone who's having a nightmare," Snart added. "Especially when I tell you not to!"

Mick glared at them both before retreating to his corner to nurse his pride, and his sore hand.

Sara released a deep, shuddering breath and slumped back onto the container.

"That must have been one helluva dream," Snart remarked, folding himself back down to his spot on the floor.

"Well, God knows, I've got enough material." She scrubbed a hand over her face. "Don't think I'll be going back to sleep any time soon."

Snart held up the pack of cards.

"Sure. Why not?" Sara said, sliding down to join him.

"Why do you object to being called Blondie?" Snart asked conversationally, as he dealt the cards. "It can hardly be the first time you've been called that."

"Maybe I don't like the sound of his voice," Sara snapped.

Snart shrugged slightly.

"All right. A long time ago, there was someone who called me that. Someone who I thought was a friend…only he wasn't. His name was Slade Wilson."

Snart shot her a blank look.

"You may have heard of him as Deathstroke."

"The nutjob with the sword and mask who tried to dismantle Starling City to get to the Arrow?"

"Yup."

"That was a seriously scary guy," Mick interjected, with something like approval in his voice.

"Yeah, he was," Sara admitted.

"But you're still here," Snart reminded her, with a new level of respect in his voice. "He's not."

"No, he isn't," Sara answered, with a small smile.