A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for not posting for such a long time!
My laptop is having some issues with the keyboard, and it's kind of hard to write when the spade bar, comma and the letter aren't working. I finally managed to find a way to work on my fic on multiple devices so that I could have easy access to it.
This is a continuation of my Christmas fic (Christmas is several months ago I know, shhh) called "Three Ghosts". If you haven't read that one yet, I'd highly recommend you read that first otherwise none of this will make sense ;)
This is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine!
They keep going.
After Leonard Snart turned himself over to the Legends, the team expected things to change for the better, that maybe they'd finally have an advantage over the Legion of Doom, who so far were always at least five steps ahead.
But it doesn't.
The Legion of Doom are able to track down Rip and capture him, before the Legends can get their hands on him.
So, they keep going.
They keep going despite the nagging feeling telling them that they wouldn't still be five steps behind if Snart were with them. Or if their captain would listen to every piece of information that he's given them about the Legion.
But she doesn't trust him, despite Gideon wiping him of any mind control and false memories that he had. Despite the fact that she can trust him.
"We could've had him." Jax breaks the uncomfortable silence in the bridge. They've just returned from another attempt to rescue Rip Hunter, but it seems the Legion is just playing with them now, teasing them with the fact that they're still nowhere near capturing the Legion or saving their former captain.
Sara looks up from the screen and focuses on Jax. "What?"
He shifts his weight to his other leg. Martin, on the other side of the room, shakes his head at him."If you would've listened to Snart." he adds, ignoring the older man.
Sara visibly tenses, curling her hands into fists until her knuckles turn white.
"Jax." Amaya gives him a warning look, the rest of the team stays quiet, nervously looking to the ground. They're all aware of the sore subject to Sara. They've all heard the endless fights she's had with various team members about their former team member being locked up in their make-shift prison cell.
"What?" he continues, "We're all thinking it."
Their captain grits her teeth and lets out a breath. "What are you saying, Jax?"
"Look Sara-" Jax sighs, "We chose you as a captain because you're a good leader and you don't let emotions cloud your judgement. But now.." He trails off, but Sara continues where he left off.
"You think I'm letting my emotions cloud my judgement."
"Well, yeah." Amaya adds.
She turns to Amaya. "You too?"
The Zambesi warrior just shrugs in reply.
"It's been three months, Sara. Snart's gone above and beyond to prove that he's back to normal." Ray steps in, defending Snart as well.
"Are you questioning my choices as your captain?" Sara is trying to stay calm, but it's hard to hide the hurt that she's feeling. She's only trying to keep her team safe. No matter how unthreatening the danger might seem. She knows better than the rest of them that those are the biggest dangers of all.
"Ms. Lance, I think that perhaps what the team is trying to say, is that we believe that Mr. Snart's information could be useful in our quest to save Mr. Hunter."
She sighs, unable to deny that the professor has a point. Before, she was mostly able to ignore Snart's information and only just managing to get the information they needed, but with Rip's life on the line… She isn't sure she can still take that gamble, and no matter how much it hurts to admit it, she might need Leonard Snart.
"I'll think about it."
Mick finds her in Rip's old office later that night, while rest of the team is fast asleep, nursing a bottle of vodka.
When he enters, she looks up for a second, but when she sees it's him, turns back to her bottle of liquor.
"You know, I'm finally beginning to understand why Rip hid so much alcohol in his office."
Mick laughs at that, then reaches for the bottle and takes a gulp. "Whatcha gonna do about Snart?"
She sighs. "I don't know." She rubs her face and takes another sip of the vodka. "I know I should listen to my team and let him go, but…" She trails off.
"But you don't trust him." Mick fills in.
She turns to him. "Do you?"
"You know I do."
"How?" she asks so quietly, that at first he thinks he must have misheard her, but then she repeats the question, a little louder this time. "How do you forgive him?"
Mick shrugs, takes another swig of the vodka, then grimaces. "You know, I really hate vodka."
He gets up and stalks to the office's liquor cabinet and takes out a bottle of expensive looking scotch. He holds the bottle up to Sara. "Now this looks better."
She nods in agreement.
He returns to the chair across from her and sits back down, a bottle of scotch and two glasses in hand. He pours them both a glass and leans back. "He wasn't himself." he says, in reply to Sara's earlier question.
She gulps down the liquor in one smooth motion and refills her glass. "I know that. I just…"
"I trusted him the moment he turned himself in and admitted to his mistakes." When Sara looks at him, confused, he adds: "Snart isn't a lot of things, but he keeps his promises, and he always admits when he's wrong."
"He held a gun to my face." she replies.
Mick takes small sips of the scotch, appreciating the warm burn in the back of his throat each time he does. "That wasn't him." he says after he's taken another sip.
"He has tried to kill pretty much everyone on the team."
Mick can see her hands are trembling and he knows how hard it is for her to keep her emotions in check.
"That wasn't him either." he continues.
"It's a little hard to trust someone after they've tried to kill you several times, Mick."
He shrugs. "He's my partner."
She lets out another sigh and attempts to keep the tremble out of her voice when she speaks next, but fails. "At… At the Oculus, I kissed him. I thought I'd never see him again and I…" She sighs again, then runs her hands through her hair. "The next time I saw him, he was with the Legion of Doom, and he held a gun to my face."
At her confession, Mick looks up for a second, but then returns his eyes to his glass of scotch. "I know. He told me."
Sara furrows her eyebrows together. "He told you?"
He shrugs. "We've been talking." When he looks back up, her eyes are filled with unshed tears.
She downs the last of her scotch and slams the glass onto the table. "I'm going to bed."
Sara turns around and stalks out of the room, nearly slamming the door closed before remembering that her teammates are already asleep and she doesn't want to wake them.
He lets her go.
Leonard is woken in the middle of the night by sounds the team stumbling around the waverider. It's not the first time he's woken up like this, but as he listens to the voices of his teammates while he tries to fall back to sleep, he can't seem to shake the uneasy feeling in his gut, telling him that something is wrong. Memories of a best laid plan gone south, Alexa, are brought to the surface.
He sits up and lets out a sigh, knowing there's no way he can sleep now. He listens to the muffled voices, but the team is standing too far away for him to make out any words. The only thing he can make out is the panicked tone in which the people are speaking, which is just another indicator that something is clearly really, really wrong.
Worried about his friends, his team, he once again investigates the cell, looking for a way out, but finds none. Damn Sara and her lack of trust, he thinks to himself. If he wouldn't still be locked in here after the weeks he's spent trying to prove that he's back to normal, he could be out there, he could be helping.
He knows he shouldn't be angry at her for her behavior towards him, especially considering all of the horrible things he did, or threatened to do, to her and the team. To be honest, he hadn't even expected her to keep him aboard the ship. She had no reason to do so, except for perhaps claiming that she wanted to keep an eye on him herself.
But he has no doubt that she could just have dropped him off in Central City, straight into the hands of the Flash, where their team would lock him up without question or protest.
And yet she didn't.
It's kept him hopeful, despite knowing that it really isn't much the hope is built on, and knowing that when it comes to him, hoping has never really gotten him anywhere.
Then again, it's not like he has anywhere to go right now. So he keeps hoping on …he's not sure what.
His thoughts are interrupted by a loud, bloodcurdling scream. He jumps up, even though he knows there's no way he can help.
A few long, terrifyingly quiet seconds later, the doors to the room overlooking his holding cell slide open and Len braces himself for a moment, scared of whoever might come through that door.
The tall, muscular man practically runs inside with a very panicked look on his face.
"Mick."
His old friend turns to face him.
"It's Sara."
Leonard runs through the hallway after Mick.
"What's going on?" Leonard asks his partner for the third time, since he was broken out of the waverider's prison. He knows that whatever it is, it must have been bad enough for Mick to ignore direct orders from Sara, something Mick wouldn't just do. Of course he disobeys orders from anyone anytime, never really caring about the rules, but if it's someone he truly respects, which is only Leonard, Lisa and Sara, he obeys.
So breaking Len out of prison must have had some good reason.
Some really good reason.
Alexa.
Another scream fills the time ships hallways. Leonard shudders as the terrifying sound courses through his body. They seem to only be getting closer to the screaming, but Leonard isn't sure he should feel relieved or worried about it.
Mick's face hardens at the sound and begins to walk even faster. "Keep up." He mutters to Len when he falls behind a bit.
"Mick, what on earth is going on? Did something happen to-"
Suddenly, Mick skids to a halt and Len nearly collapses into him. When he looks up, he instantly recognises where they've arrived.
The medbay.
He spots Jax and Stein, both with their backs turned to them. They're standing in front of one of the hospital beds, blocking his view of the person on it. He hears another scream, followed by a softer whimper, and now it's clear that the person on the bed is the one responsible for the screaming.
"I got help." Mick grunts and shoves Len into the medbay.
Jax turns around at the sound of Mick's voice and steps away from the hospital bed, towards Leonard.
The moment Jax does, Leonard can finally see who is on the bed. She's wearing old clothing, he guesses something from the eighteenth century, her blonde hair dark and filled with dirt or perhaps blood, her blue eyes screwed shut, her back arching and blood dripping on the floor.
Sara.
He turns his attention back to Jax, who now has a gun aimed at his face. "How did you get out?" He demands.
"I let him out." Mick supplies, when Leonard is left speechless as his eyes drift back to Sara.
"I'm not sure that was such a good idea, Mr Rory." Stein adds to the conversation.
"Come on, Professor. Ya heard the robot. We need someone to get her out of it." He points to Len, "He can."
"She's gonna be really pissed when she discovers you let him out, Mick." Jax replies, gun still trained at Len's face, but his confidence seems to be wavering.
"She's gonna be even more pissed when she's dead."
Jax is about to reply, when Sara arches her back even further, clenches her fist and screams. The four men cover their ears, Stein immediately returning to her side to check her vitals.
Once the screaming has stopped, Stein looks up from the computer screen showing Sara's heartbeat, blood pressure and other information.
"She seems to be stable so far, but I don't know how long we can keep this up."
"Jax." Leonard pulls his eyes away from Sara and turns back to his teammate, who seems to at least have put the gun away. "Let me help. Please."
He knows he should probably pretend to be cool and keep his snark on, but he's too worried to even care what they might think of him. Sara is clearly hurt and he'll be damned if she dies on his watch.
Jax turns towards Stein, who simply nods, then turns back towards Leonard. "Alright then." He says has he steps away.
Leonard doesn't hesitate and immediately rushes to her side. "What happened?" He asks, not to anyone in particular.
"She was shot." Jax replies. When Snart turns to look at him, probing for more information that he knows he's holding behind, he adds, "by Rip."
"What?"
"He was brainwashed." Jax adds quickly, in attempt to make it sound a little less worse than it is.
Leonard reaches out and Sara immediately grabs his hand and squeezes it, as if she knows he's there.
"Unfortunately," Stein continues the explanation, "it seems that the incident has unleashed some unresolved traumas, presumably surrounding her own death. She is, at this moment, somewhat unconscious but stable, but if we want to treat the wound in her abdomen, we will need her to be more than 'somewhat' unconscious."
He runs a hand across her sweaty forehead, wiping the hairs out of her face. "So why doesn't Gideon just knock her out?"
"Due to Miss Lance's League of Assassins training, any anesthetic that I could supply her with, would simply be rejected by her body. Giving more of the anesthetic is not a possibility, as this will most likely kill Miss Lance." Gideon chimes in.
"Thanks Gideon." Jax replies to the AI. He turns his focus back on Len. "So basically, we need to get her out of whatever unconscious state she's in, just so we can knock her out again."
Len raises an eyebrow. "And you want me to what, talk her out of it?"
"Well…." Jax searches for the right words.
"Yes." Mick cuts in.
"Yeah, basically." Jax replies.
"She already seems to be responding to the sound of your voice, she's calmer than before." Stein adds.
Len's throat runs dry. He looks around the room, the three pairs of hopeful eyes trained on him. He takes a deep breath. This really wasn't what he was expecting and to be honest, he wasn't sure he could do it. To help someone in a fight or carrying them to the medbay when they were injured was one thing, but having to talk to someone about trauma, to get them out of their traumatic panic attack to save their lives was an entirely different thing. He wasn't even sure how to handle his own trauma, how on earth would he be able to help someone with theirs?
But he also knows he's being an idiot. There is no time for hesitating, enough time has passed already. He takes in the sight of her, her sweaty forehead, her eyes still closed, the soft murmers coming passed her lips, her entire face tight with worry and fear, her fingers wrapped around his with the knuckles turned white.
He realises that Stein is right, she does seem calmer, she hasn't screamed in about five minutes and although most of her body is still wound up tight, her back doesn't arch that far backward anymore and the deathlock grip on his hands seemed to have loosened a little.
"Sara."
She murmurs, her eyes still closed.
"Sara, hey." Len caresses her cheek, wiping away some of the dried blood from the battle, not even caring about what his teammates might think of him now. "It's okay. You're safe."
She murmurs again, then grips his hand even tighter and begins to tremble. "No!" She exclaims.
A bunch of monitors start beeping at the sudden movement and Len throws a worried glance in Stein's direction, who is hurriedly checking her vitals again. "Jax," he waves the kid over, "you need to hold pressure on the wound, she's losing too much blood."
Leonard continues talking to her, letting Stein do his job. "Sara, hey. You gotta wake up, okay?"
She continues to tremble, her face all scrunched up in either fear or pain, but it doesn't really matter now. Leonard might not know a lot about being a doctor, but he knows they're running out of time.
"Sara," he tries again, "you need to wake up. Whatever you're seeing, it isn't real. It's a dream. You have to get out of it. I know that it's hard, but you have to."
She stops shaking, her hand relaxes a little, but the change isn't much. She needs to wake up.
Leonard sucks in a breath, unable to process what might happen if he doesn't get her out of this nightmare. If he doesn't save her life.
"God Sara." He whispers, leaning in closer and planting a kiss on her forehead. "When I came back, when I surrendered myself, and you locked me up in the prison, I told you I was okay with it, that I was okay with waiting until all of the tests came back positive, until I was fully clear, until you trusted me again," he pauses for a moment, swallowing unshed tears and waiting until he can trust his voice not to waver, before he continues, "But I'm not. I'm really not okay with it. I don't want to wait anymore."
"Sara," he pleads, "Please wake up. Come back to me."
And then. "I love you."
Her hand goes limp in his. No.
He stops moving. This can't be happening.
Stein responds to Len's panicked look, looking over Sara's vitals again, then looks back up at him. Jax is still holding pressure on the wound, Mick is sitting in the corner, watching the scene fold out in front of him with a worried look on his face, but knowing he can better not stand in the way.
A few long, dreadfully quiet seconds pass, where they all hold their breath.
Then, Sara's chest moves up and she takes a deep breath.
And the next thing they know, her eyes flutter open, even for a second before they fall closed again due to the immense pain of her wounds.
But it's enough.
"Gideon, please give Sara the anesthetic now." Stein tells the AI, who immediately starts working.
Leonard can feel Sara squeeze his hand for just a moment, before her hand goes limp again, this time due to Gideon bringing her under narcosis.
Shortly after, a blue beam appears over her body, scanning Sara's injuries and starting the healing process. The three men step away from her so Gideon can do her job.
Mick gets up as well and immediately leaves the medbay. When Stein asks where he's going, he replies "To get a beer."
Stein huffs at the reply and moves to sit down and wait by Sara's side, but Jax stops him. "You know what Grey, I think we should grab something to drink as well." and pretty much pulls him out of the medbay.
The doors slide closed, leaving Leonard alone with an unconscious but alive Sara.
He lets out a sigh and drops himself into the chair next to the bed. He watches as Gideon heals Sara's bullet wound. Despite having been on the timeship for quite a while and having been in the medbay several times himself, he will probably never get over how weird all of the future technology is. He's incredibly grateful for it though, because he knows damn well that without Gideon, she probably wouldn't have survived.
He shakes his head at the thought of it, not even wanting to think about the possibility of it. He came so close to losing her today, it made him realise that their future together isn't guaranteed. The future his mother showed him, the future with Sara, was just one of many possible futures. And if he wants that future - married, four kids, working on team Flash together, being heroes - he'll have to work for it. He still can't quite believe he'd be the man to have that kind of life, even if it's several years away at least, but with Sara, he finds himself wanting to try.
He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knows he's being woken up by Mick returning to the medbay, with two beers in hand. He sits up, then gratefully grabs the beer bottle that Mick hands to him.
He nods towards the unconscious blonde. "She woke up yet?"
Leonard shakes his head and takes a sip of his beer, appreciating the soft sting of alcohol on his tongue. "Gideon said she should wake up somewhere in the next five hours."
Mick hums in reply.
Both men fall silent after that, sipping their beers and mulling over last night's events.
It's eventually Mick that breaks the silence.
"You mean all that stuff you said to her?" He asks his partner.
Len takes another sip of his beer and sighs. "Yes."
His partner grunts. "Doesn't surprise me. After, you know."
Leonard nods. During the many times Mick visited him in the cell, Leonard told him bits and pieces of his little Christmas adventure, and in return Mick would tell them how the team was doing. It was hard for him, hearing about all of the struggles the team - and especially Sara and Mick - went through, without him being to help. But at the same time, having Mick there, talking to him, as if nothing had changed, as if he hadn't nearly died, been recruited by an evil boyband, threatened to hurt or kill several of his teammates and as if he wasn't in a prison right now. His visits kept him grounded, gave him reason to hold on to the slight sliver of hope there was, despite never quite being the person to hold onto hope.
It was only one of the many things that had changed about him since joining the Legends on their crazy quest to defeat an immortal crazy dictator. In a good way.
Leonard lets his head fall back against the chair and lets out a sigh. "I should go back." He says, his eyes focused on the ceiling.
"You sure?"
He takes a sip of his beer, finishing it and stands up. "Yeah. I don't think she'd want me here."
Mick looks at him, his eyes full with ...is that pity? "You might be wrong about that, boss."
Len rubs his neck, sore from sleeping in the chair, and looks at the unconscious Sara one more time. She looks so peaceful, as if she's only sleeping, and not under narcosis and still recovering from a bullet wound to the stomach. She still looks pale, but she already looks so much better than she did before and he realises once again that tonight was a really close call.
"I'm not so sure." He replies to Mick, then turns around and wanders back to his prison cell. Mick follows him and locks the door behind him.
"I'll tell her what happened." His partner assures him before he leaves the room.
And once again, Leonard is alone in the prison cell, with nothing to do other than replaying the events of the past night over and over again until he falls asleep.
He's woken by the sound of the doors to the room connected to his prison cell opening. He assumes that it's Mick, so he doesn't get up. "What time is it?" He grunts.
"Nearly one pm."
Leonard immediately sits up, the sound of the voice, which doesn't belong to Mick, sending shivers down his spine. It's been so long since he's seen her up and alive, so long since he's heard her voice, yet the sound of it is burned in the back of his memory. The sound of the voice he thought he might never hear again when she was in the medbay last night.
"Sara."
She still looks pale, her cheeks a little less full than usual, dark rims under her eyes as evidence of the lack of sleep. He can tell by the way that she's holding herself that she's wobbly on her legs, but knows better than to comment on it.
"Hi." she whispers.
They stand across from each other, staring at each other through the thick glass wall of the prison cell.
"Mick told you about what happened?" he asks carefully. He doesn't want her to leave. He doesn't want to ruin this one moment.
"No."
He takes a step towards her, his eyes wide with surprise.
"I remembered," she pauses, licks her lips and focuses her eyes on her hands so they have somewhere to look that isn't him, then continues. "I woke up, and ….and i remembered. So I came straight here to see if you were still here."
"I bet Gideon didn't like that very much." he replied, somehow knowing that last night is too hard to talk about. Perhaps she'll tell him, somewhere in the future, but as of now, the wounds are still too fresh.
She snorts. "Yeah. She didn't like it very much." She looks back up at him and smiles.
"So what'd you do to get locked up back in here, huh?"
Leonard takes up the small prison cell for a second, his bed against the wall, a sink in the corner and a small pile of books that Mick brought him next to his bed. It reminds him a little of his safe houses throughout Central City - a small and not very home-y space, but just enough to get by for the time being.
He meets her eyes again and shrugs. "Figured I'd let myself back in."
The hint of guilt in her eyes breaks his heart. He doesn't want her to feel guilty about this, about any of it. If anything, he deserves this. He hurt them, hurt her.
"Why?" she asks.
He stares at her for a moment, taking in her features. The hint of guilt that was in her eyes just a moment ago, has disappeared. There's also no sadness, no hurt or even anger. Instead, she looks at him confused, and maybe even hope, but he convinces himself he's imagining it.
"It gave me some time to ...think." He drawls.
She smirks at him and tilts her head slightly. "Hmm. What were you thinking about?"
He takes another step towards her, towards the glass door in between them. His eyes flick to her lips for a moment before returning to her eyes.
"I don't know," he smirks, "maybe it's the fact that we're on a timeship, or that I saved your life," she rolls her eyes at that and laughs.
"But I started thinking about what the future might hold for me."
He licks his lips.
"and you."
Sara reaches for the panel next to the door and presses a button, letting the prison doors slide open.
"And me and you."
He takes another step.
They're now so close that he can pretty much feel the warmth radiating off of her.
Her arms wrap around his neck and she pulls him down in one smooth motion, connecting her lips with his.
He hesitates for a moment, he knows there's still so much they need to talk about, so much they need to move past in order to move forward.
But not now.
Now, he kisses her back, runs his hands through her hair and groans when she pulls him even closer.
Because now, even if it's for just a moment, she's kissing him and it says so much more than words could ever do. One hand trails down to her waist, and she lets him.
For now, this is good.
They're good.
THE END
A/N: That was it! I had so so much fun writing this! Again, thanks so much to everyone who takes the time to read, review and fave, you guys rock!
I'm considering writing a one-shot (or a multichapter, depends on the muse lol) on how (and if) Sara and Leonard get to married with four kids. Because after all, nothing in the future is set in stone ;) So let me know if you'd be interested in reading that!