Written for "Christmas in July" over at lot-fan dot livejournal dot com. Join us!
This started as a sort of an "It's a Wonderful Life" takeoff, but then settled as sort of a "Christmas Carol" one. (There are elements of both.) Set about seven months after the end of my story "If I Never," so I recommend reading that first. (You may wish to read the others in that series, too. *shameless self-promotion*)
Four chapters written, one a week throughout July. (Or maybe more often depending on how quickly other work is going.)
Many, many to LarielRomeniel for beta'ing! It's a better story because of that. :)
xxxxxxx
"He carried his own low temperature always about with him …"
Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" (as are all quotes except for the last)
...
Leonard Snart is not, really, a big fan of Christmas.
He'd say he never has been, but that's probably untrue. There was probably a time, back in his foggiest early days, when he looked forward to a decorated tree, a visit from a myth in a red suit, the potential of presents.
It didn't last.
He tried to patch together a sort of holiday for Lisa, during her earlier years, and apparently he accomplished that, because his sister is still somewhat fond of Christmas. Enough so, anyway, that she teamed up with Sara this year to insist they have a tree at their apartment. (Lisa may not live there these days, but she's still a little proprietary about the place. Sara, fortunately, is mostly amused by this.)
He doesn't care enough to fight it, so today, three days before the holiday, there's a sweet-smelling Fraser fir in one corner. Since it went up a week or two ago, the two women in his life have decorated it, in the midst of much laughter, with a combination of snowflakes, birds, and a scattering of golden baubles. (And the lights look a little like flames, Lisa says, for the absent Mick.)
This also necessitates presents, they say, a practice he and Lisa had mostly abandoned once she reached adulthood. And Sara Lance, it turns out, was a Christmas baby, so there's even more pressure there. (Although not on her part; he'll be fair.) That's fine; he's not a man to dither over gifts and he knows what she likes.
He thinks.
Lisa says, a bit regretfully, that she'll be out of town for the actual holiday. No one asks why; the bargain is that she doesn't pull any jobs in Central or Star Cities, she doesn't actually turn people to gold or otherwise damage them, she keeps her people under control … and her brother, newly on the side of the angels, looks the other way. He can't help but wonder, though.
He misses it.
He misses the chase. Misses the challenge. Misses the planning and the adrenaline and the satisfaction of pulling off a heist.
They don't need the money. (Rip would probably have a conniption - to use one of his grandfather's favorite words - over it, but what's the use of getting a peek into the future without borrowing a little stock info? The Oculus was veryhelpful.) They're perfectly comfortable here.
But he's bored.
Working with the Flash is entertaining, in its fashion. The crew at .R. Labs occasionally has a real use for the security information he's absorbed over the years, or even for an actual heist. He's used his knowledge of these things to foil a few, too, including at least one he thinks could have gone very, very badly. (Amateurs. They have no place in his city.) Doing these things, for a while, he can lose himself in the numbers and the planning ... just for a different side this time.
Sometimes they're called as backup for more physical confrontations, with the meta of the week or whatever. Fighting with Sara by his side will always be an intoxicating experience. And while he'll never admit it, he enjoys the teamwork.
Team Arrow … well, Sara's headed out that way solo a few times, and when she returns she's quiet and clearly irritated. She doesn't say so, but it's also clear he's not really welcome there. Not yet. Maybe not ever?
It grates.
Still, he partners with Team Flash when he's asked. He adjusts to life with Sara, which is the best part of this whole thing. He occasionally joins Mick on the Waverider if his skills are needed. He's been back to the Vanishing Point a time or two. (The often recalcitrant Oculus is a pain in Rip's rear, and Leonard finds this all too amusing.)
He's not sure who he is anymore. A hero? Sara says so, as do the others. The term still makes him uncomfortable. A vigilante? Not really. A crook? He hasn't stolen anything that didn't come with some sort of official sanction (from Team Flash or the new Time Masters) since his return to Central City.
He will admit temptation, from time to time. He admits it now, a few days before Christmas, stopping dead in his tracks and scanning the headline in the Central City Picture News. (Iris West praises him for his fondness for actual print newspapers, which amuses him.)
"MILLENIUM STAR IN NEW U.S. EXHIBIT"
The Millennium Star: one of the largest top-color diamonds in the world … and one of the centerpieces of what could have been the biggest robbery in history.
He knows about the Millennium Dome raid of 2000. Of course he does. He recalls at the time thinking about how hewould have pulled it off.
He still thinks he could - with 17 additional years of experience, now more than ever. Knows it. Can feel the plans and the calculations and the cool, cool logic demanded by such an undertaking unfolding in his head even as he lets himself entertain the matter for a fraction of a second.
The sudden rush, the temptation, is actually breathtaking and he stares at the headline a moment longer before crumpling the paper in his fist and heading back to the apartment with a sigh.
Sara is home. But she's holed up in the bedroom, the door closed, and he frowns as he quietly closes the front door and steps closer.
"Dad …"
He stops in his tracks.
"No. Nope. Not without him." Pause. "I'm sorry. Actually, wait, no, I'm not. Are you kiddingme? After everything I've told you, after everything we've ..."
Another pause.
"Dad. Formercrook. You keep forgetting that first word. That's better, actually, than being a formerassassin – which you managed to forgive. How is this …"
He can actually hear her suck in her breath at the next words; she's that angry.
"Well, I don't have any plans to be seen hobnobbing with Mr. Mayor of Star City during the holiday anyway, so you don't have to worry about his reputation. Really? After all the shit Ollie has pulled in his life? And you're welcome here, but I'm not coming there if Len's not. Deal …"
He knows Quentin Lance is skeptical of his only living daughter's relationship with a former criminal, a convicted killer, a man with a record that has, after all, only been wiped out due to a partnership with a certain Barry Allen - who may not be quite the best judge of character out there.
On some level, he can't blame the man. He's not sure how he'd take the news Lisa was seeing someone similar …
No, actually, he issure. He trusts Lisa.
(No matter how much shit he gives Cisco Ramon.)
It's all just another kick in the gut only minutes after the temptation that was the exhibit news mixed with his boredom, and he feels the anger rise up in such force that, for the first time in months, he has to remind himself to breathe, to pull the ice around him, to take a mental step back.
If there's anything in life he has promised himself he will notbe, it's his father … with all the uncontrollable anger that entails. But he's learned … Sara Lance has taught him … that the ice comes with its drawbacks, too.
But at this moment, he needs it.
You can play the hero all you like, you can change down to your core for her, but it's never going to be enough, the little voice whispers in his head. Crook. Criminal. Liar.
Disappointment. His father's voice gets a word in, there. That doesn't happen much these days, and his gut clenches.
Do you know what I did forher? He wants to say to Quentin Lance, to Oliver Queen. Do you know what I did for that team?
Do you know that ithurt, getting blow apart in thetimestream, and I still remember it some days? Do you know about the nightmares, how Sara is the only person who can chase them away? Do you know I still see two sets of memories sometimes, and the effects aren't pleasant?
He can't hear Sara's voice on the phone now, whether she's hung up or whether she's listening to her father in silence. He should stay. He should talk to her, tell her he really does understand if she wants to go to Star City for the holiday anyway. It doesn't mean anything to him, really.
Instead, newspaper crumpled in his hand, he turns around and walks back out the door.
Since the Oculus let him go about seven months ago, he's been sensitive to temporal energy. (It might predate that, actually, but he's not sure he would have been aware of it.)
So far, that's mostly been useful just to know when the Waverider is back in the current timeline, whether it's their cue to meet Mick for a beer or to be aware they might be recruited for a mission.
Now, he's trying it for something else. Eyes closed, ignoring the chill December wind, he stands in the field on the outskirts of the city and concentrates, trying to reach his connection to the time stream, the Oculus, to send out a sort of … flare. He started trying not long after he left the apartment, and since it's time travel anyway...
It works, because within moments, he feels the sensation that means the Waverider is back in 2017, and he opens his eyes to see the ship landing, snowflakes drifting picturesquely around it.
Mick is not particularly pleased as his former partner's newfound ability. "Gideon freaked out because she detected a burst of temporal energy here and it's you?"
He shrugs. "I need to go to the Vanishing Point."
Mick's eyes narrow. "Sara?"
"She's fine. And because you're going to drop me off about 10 minutes from now," I think, he adds mentally, "she won't even know I'm gone." He holds up a hand. "But I'll tell her. When we get back.
"Now, can we go?"
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A small story note: The Millennium Star is a real diamond. I suggest you look up the Millennium Dome raid story, which is fascinating - and there are a number of things about it that are reminiscent of our favorite crook. The judge in the case noted how it was "carried out with the minutest attention to detail." One of those involved noted specifically that the plan was for no one to be hurt – the timing was calculated to be such. (And speculation is the Russian mob would have been the ones to sell the gems had the raid worked. Heheh.) There's a Wikipedia page on it and several books have been written. A young Leonard Snart would likely have been aware of it from the news of the day … and, I'm convinced, utterly positive that he would have done muchbetter. (And that's far more information than you needed for a throwaway line, but there you have it!)