60,000 Feet Above The Pacific, June 21, 1945
Mick turned off the Heat Gun and stepped back to inspect the new windowpane he'd just welded into place. Sara knelt to take a closer look at the old damaged one.
The bullet from a P-51 Mustang was still embedded in the glass.
She grinned as she pointed it out to Mick. "Another souvenir for Rip's collection," she said. He smirked back at her.
Repairing the shot-out window was just one part of the work the team had needed to finish before going into the Temporal Zone to catch Jurgen's Ridge, and finally, finally bring Len home again.
"It will be a bumpy ride once we intercept the Ridge, and the Waverider needs to be in top condition," Rip had said. "We have time to make sure of that here in 1945. Once we're back in the Temporal Zone, we won't have that time."
So Gideon kept them high above the Pacific, out of range of any planes, Allied or Japanese, while Jax and Rip reinstalled the ion drive and checked out the time drive. At the same time, Ray inspected the Waverider's exterior to make sure there wasn't any other damage from their little dogfight.
Sara carried the glass over to Rip's study, where Stein was taking one more look at the math with Gideon, to plot their course while in the Zone. She leaned the pane against the wall, then turned to the professor. He'd been scribbling equations across the glass wall. She tried to follow the numbers and symbols, then shook her head with a wry smile.
"Please tell me all that means we're on target," she said.
"It does, Miss Lance," Stein replied. He pointed to the top row of equations. "This first row determined our need to go to Lewiston and to the Morro Castle. The next row shows the impact of those simultaneous deflections, leading us to Chicago and to Cape Town."
The pattern of the equations started to fall into place, even if the math itself didn't. "And then the third line is what took us to Birmingham and to Lian Yu, and the last one shows where we'll intercept the Ridge."
Stein smiled. "Exactly! As soon as the repairs to the ship are done, we can be on our way."
"The repairs are done," Rip announced, coming onto the bridge with Jax and Ray. "Gideon, is there anything we missed?"
"Negative, Captain Hunter. All systems are at 100 percent of normal or better."
"Excellent," Rip said. "All right, everyone. Gather round. Mission briefing."
The team converged on the holo table. "The aftereffects of the Mirakuru kept me awake for a while last night, so I spent the time doing some more research on the Ridge," Rip told them. "Sara, I know you're still worried about Mr. Snart's mental state, so I started digging through the records about Jurgen himself."
Rip touched a section of the table, and the image of a handsome dark-haired, bearded man appeared. "That's Jurgen?" Sara asked.
"Yes, before he was lost on the Ridge." The image changed, and the handsome man's hair and beard became wild and unkempt, and his eyes… Sara shuddered at the haunted look in them.
Rip continued, "While we were still at the Vanishing Point, Gideon was able to download a great deal of information, including the writings of a doctor named Henares. He dealt with Jurgen after he was rescued, and recorded the things Jurgen said."
Rip smiled bitterly. "This is another example of the tunnel vision of the Time Council. All they knew was that Jurgen was 'broken' because of the things he'd seen on the Ridge. They never looked into the nature of those visions."
"But Henares did," Stein surmised.
"And the Time Masters never bothered to look at what he found," Mick said. "They just told everyone to keep the hell away from the Ridge, even if it meant a bounty hunter losing a target."
"Yes. It suited them to keep us afraid of the Ridge," Rip said with a nod. "Mr. Rory, your assessment of the Ridge as 'hell' is accurate as far as the official Time Council training goes. I received the same training. But from Henares' account, some of us might just call it heaven."
"What does that mean?" Jax asked.
"I told you that a man on the Ridge can see everything, and the implication was that the vision would be overwhelmingly negative. I'm a product of my training, I'm afraid. But the readings the Time Council never shared reveal that those visions can also be the things that are nearest to your heart. Your fondest wishes and desires."
"Like when you have a really good dream that you don't want to wake up from," Sara added.
"Exactly. And on the Ridge, you don't have to wake up. You can just stay in the dream. Forever," Rip said with a sigh.
"Like being caught in the land of the lotus-eaters from Greek mythology," Stein observed.
"Or staring into the Mirror of Erised," Ray added. At Stein's look, he shrugged. "You have the Greeks, I have J.K. Rowling."
"It's not a myth that my partner's still there," Mick interrupted with a glower. "Rip, what does all this have to do with getting him back?"
Rip looked down at the table as he answered quietly, "I'm telling you this because I want you all to understand why I'm not taking any of you with me onto the Ridge."
There were sounds of protest around the table. Rip held his hands up for quiet. "I'm not going to risk losing anyone else to this… lotus land. There isn't one of you here who wouldn't be susceptible to the temptations of the Ridge."
Sara frowned. "Rip, you're just as susceptible. You're the one who spent hours replaying that recording of your family."
"I know," Rip conceded. "But that was also a time when we were at a dead end in our mission against Savage. Time Masters are given training to resist the pull of history when a mission is underway."
"That training almost failed you in Calvert," Stein interjected.
Rip sighed. "Yes, I know that," he conceded again. "But having been tested in the past, I know what I need to do now. Besides, all of you will have important tasks here on the Waverider."
He touched another portion of the screen, and the image changed. "You'll remember this diagram," Rip said. "The orange circle is us, and the red triangle is the Ridge."
The two shapes intersected in the time stream. The picture zoomed in, and they could see the orange circle shaking as the red triangle pressed against it. Mick grunted at the sight; the image apparently conveyed more to him than it did to the rest.
"Is that just distortion?" Ray asked. "I hope?"
Rip shook his head. "No. It's a representation of what we can expect. Imagine a dam holding back a flood. The Waverider will hold the Ridge back from its path through history."
"We're the immovable object, and the Ridge is the irresistible force," Stein said.
"Indeed," Rip replied. "The deflectors we've placed through time will force the Ridge to stay where it is, but the resistance will be violent and could cause severe damage to the Waverider. It could even knock Gideon offline."
"The probability is greater that I will need to shut down to save power for the engines," Gideon stated. Sara felt a pang at the AI's matter-of-fact tone.
"So what do you need us to do?" Jax asked.
Rip pointed to each of them in turn. "Mr. Jefferson, I want you and Mr. Palmer in the engine room monitoring the systems. Martin, you will stand by in the Medbay. There's nothing on the Ridge that could physically harm Mr. Snart, but we don't know if he was injured in the original explosion of the Oculus. Sara, you will be in the pilot's seat here on the bridge. If Gideon does go offline, you will have to maintain our position blocking the Ridge. And Mr. Rory…"
"If things go really south, I scuttle the Waverider and get everyone out on the jump ship," Mick said with a grim expression.
"That's right," Rip said in a quiet voice.
"What do you mean, scuttle?" Sara asked, though she had a sinking feeling she already knew.
"Blondie, we're gonna get bounced around like a trailer park in a tornado," Mick answered. "If the ship gets too damaged to fix, it can't just stay in the time stream. It would be a navigation hazard all through time. We'd have to destroy it, and use the jump ship to escape."
Sara looked at Rip. "And what about you and Leonard?"
He sighed. "If the worst happens, the Ridge will have moved on, and we'd be trapped."
There was silence at that. Rip looked around at the team and took in a deep breath. "Right, then. Places, everyone. Time to fetch our missing teammate."
Sara was lying small and still on the pavement, her white suit contrasting with the men in black who were lying all around her.
None of them were moving either.
Leonard reached out, trying to touch Sara, but his hand went through the image as if passing through a ghost. Then the scene made another of those shifts he was starting to get used to. Now the vision was of a dock at night. Sara was there again, still untouchable, along with others he recognized as Star City's resident vigilantes, once again in battle. He watched them fall one by one, the last victim the Green Arrow himself.
"Is this what happens because I'm not there? Are you trying to tell me Sara dies because I blew up the Oculus?"
Another shift, and he saw himself outside the Oculus Wellspring once again with his teammates from the Waverider. He watched them get cut down at a signal from Time Master Druce.
Except for Sara. She was dragged away and thrown into the same chair that had turned Mick into a monster.
"So if I hadn't done it, Sara would have become one of the Time Bastards' creatures, and the rest of us would have died right there at the Vanishing Point. What if I'd left Mick there like he wanted?"
Sara, dead again, this time in an alley. And he's lying a few feet away from her, eyes open and fixed.
"And if it had been Raymond?"
Himself and Sara lying broken on rocks at the bottom of a cliff.
"So I'd've been dead any way you slice it." He paused, reflecting, then asked, "Did they stop Savage?"
A woman with wings… Kendra… swooping down to deliver the final blow. A blast of energy radiated from Savage's body as he collapsed.
"Sorry I missed that. Did Rip save his family?"
He saw the former Time Master weeping over a woman and child. Not just once, but over and over again. He closed his eyes and drew in a pained breath.
"Dammit." He opened his eyes again. "Was there ever a chance that he could save them?"
The images changed again, to the battle they'd once seen raging across London. Soaring overhead… the Waverider? But it looked a little different.
Another shift, and he saw a team of leather-clad fighters striding through the battle zone. He recognized the Green Arrow right away, and knew his little red sidekick and the man in the weird helmet from news accounts he'd seen before leaving Central. Firestorm and the Atom soared over the group, one sending out nuclear blasts and the other shooting his photon cannons. Mick was burning through soldiers with his Heat Gun, and yellow lightning zoomed around everyone. But… Barry wasn't that fast.
Was he?
Cisco was there too, wearing a strange pair of goggles, holding a silver canister as if it was the Holy Grail. He was so focused on his burden that he didn't see a soldier approaching…
Only to be flung away by a familiar burst of blue-white energy.
Leonard sat up a little straighter as he saw himself firing the Cold Gun at every target he could see. He watched the images for a moment, then said, "Wait a minute. How can I be there if I'm dead? Or are you showing what would have happened if I hadn't died?"
He thought about it for a moment. "No. You showed me what would have happened if I hadn't sacrificed myself. I asked you if Rip had ever had a chance, but it looks like we missed it."
He sighed and shook his head. "Doesn't matter, I guess. Is there anything else you need me to see?"
The image stream had turned white, and showed nothing. He watched it for a moment, then said, "Then show me what I asked for before. What could it have been like for Sara and me?"
Pictures started to flow past him again. All the possibilities he'd imagined for "me and you," and things he hadn't dared to dream:
Kissing Sara at the window on the bridge of the Waverider….
Sara in a pale green dress, dancing with him in the moonlight…
Wrapping his arms around her as she wept in front of a statue of a woman in a mask...
Fighting side by side with her, each watching the other's back, moving together in a deadly pas de deux…
Standing in the midst of a group of heroes (friends, his mind whispered), sliding a ring onto her finger and kissing her…
Back on the bridge, Sara with white flowers in her hair, kissing him again…
Sara smiling at him, rounded and… beautiful with pregnancy…
Sara cuddling up to him on the floor, a small dark-haired boy sprawled over his chest…
He felt the tears running down his face and made no move to wipe them away.
Rip held on to the bulkhead near the hatch, bracing for the impact with the Ridge. He imagined he could feel the vibrations of the engines through his fingertips.
Gideon gave the countdown. "Interception in five, four, three, two, one… Intercept."
The ship rocked with the impact, and now Rip could feel a real vibration; the tension between the immovable object and the irresistible force. "Gideon?"
"Now, Captain Hunter." The hatch opened. "Good luck."
Rip stared out at the vista before him: A sloping surface of black rock rising upward. It disappeared into a white fog, reminding him of a snowstorm on a mountainside. He stepped out and felt the slide of loose rocks below his feet. He glanced back briefly at the sound of the hatch closing behind him, and saw the flickering green of the temporal zone above it.
"Take care of my ship, Sara," he murmured. Then he began to climb.
Sara could feel the strain of the engines working to keep them in place, right through the metal of the captain's chair. "Gideon, how's our ship?"
"The resistance from the Ridge is causing a strain on the engines as expected, Miss Lance. We have power to hold the Ridge for thirty minutes with full systems."
"Did you hear that, Rip? Clock is ticking!"
There was no reply over the comms. "Rip?"
"Captain Hunter's comm appears to be offline. The concentration of chronium on the Ridge may be causing interference."
Sara huffed out a sigh. "Then let's just keep our fingers crossed, Gideon."
And she crossed hers on both hands.