The baby is about six months old when it appears on Barry's doorstep. He's dressed warmly in a hand-knit sweater, securely fastened in his carrier. He's quiet the entire time he waits outside, and quiet when Barry makes the decision to bring him inside.
There's an envelope taped to the bottom of the carrier. Barry almost doesn't notice it, only realizes it's there because Nora points it out when she gets home from school twenty minutes later.
She doesn't ask where the baby came from, though he can tell just by looking at her that she wants to.
She's a good kid though, and lets him stay silent.
The letter is addressed to Leonard Snart.
-x-
Len doesn't expect Barry to call him. It's tacos and movie night at the West house tonight and Barry is usually fairly silent until after.
So maybe he's a little worried when he picks up the phone-so what?
"Len, I need you to come over right away..." Barry's voice trails off into a shushing sound, and Len just... doesn't understand.
"I'll be there soon. Should I... be armed?"
Barry chokes out a laugh before he says no in a strangled tone.
-x-
"Why the hell do you have another kid?!" Len says in surprise as soon as he walks in the door. Nora starts giggling into the back of her hand, but Barry just glares at him.
"I'm pretty sure this one's yours," Barry says pointedly, gesturing towards the unopened envelope scrawled with his name. Len refrains from flipping him off-barely-because Nora is still watching them.
He breaks the seal and pulls out two sheets of paper.
One is a birth certificate.
He hands it to Barry and leans against the kitchen counter as he reads the letter instead.
Len,
I'm sorry for interrupting your life like this. But neither of us had any choice. It's too dangerous for him here, with the ways things are. I don't think they're going to change any time soon. Michael is my priority, our priority. And now he has to be yours.
I don't know what your life is like right now, but I'm trusting that your life must be better than it is here. I have to believe in something, and there is little to have faith in these days.
Michael's mother died when he was just a few days old, and if not for Michael it wouldn't have affected you at all. I didn't know her, you hardly knew her. She was a passing mention in our lives, if not for him. When you died, Cisco and I took him in when you could no longer care for him, but with the city's defenses failing, we had to make a decision.
I can't pretend to understand how it works. Cisco tried to explain it to me, but c'mon, I dropped out of high school when Dad Snart Sr. was arrested. Cisco said this was Michael's only chance, using the device. After all that's happened here, after everything we've been through, I have to trust him in this.
I made a device, it works a lot like the Flash's powers. Speeds things up, allows for travel between time, between timelines. It's dangerous, but
Look, we have to go. They found our hideout, and with the Flash and the rest of the Rogues dead, we don't have the protection here that my nephew needs.
Take care of him, Len.
I love you,
Lisa. & Cisco
Barry silently hands over the birth certificate as Len throws the letter down and pulls out his phone, and Len's already got Lisa's number dialed in and calling when he notices the name scrawled across the field that reads "mother".
Terran Drake?
"'Lo?" Lisa's voice says sleepily over the phone and Len can't help the sigh of relief at hearing it.
"Len? What's wrong?"
Len is silent for a long minute as Barry reads over the letter himself, obviously completely thrown by its contents as much as he is.
"Len?" Lisa asks again, her voice alert and insistent. Barry nods, obviously finding the contents believable somehow. Len thinks, maybe, it's something in the way this other Lisa sounded so afraid, or maybe... because even if his sister and Ramon had decided to play a prank on them using someone else's baby... neither of them knew who Nora's mother was. Neither of them knew who Nora's mother was, and even if they had... she was dead.
"Congratulations, you're an aunt?"