Chapter 36: A Time to Trust
Jesse sat in the peaceful sterility of the medical bay, wary eyes watching the man who had introduced himself to her as Rex Tyler, and her doctor. He was being very doctory, she thought, as she studied his serious face. He was watching the computer screen behind her. Her vitals, he had said. He certainly seemed intrigued by them for now.
She cast her eyes over the others assembled in the room: two women and three men, none of whom seemed happy to see her and most of whom looked actually quite scary. Especially the big guy glaring at the nerd. The blonde woman walked towards the bed. Jesse's attention was immediately riveted on her.
"Who are you?" Jesse blurted. "Where am I?"
"You're safe," the blonde repeated. "I'm Sara. You've met Rex. These are Mick, Ray, Jax and Amaya. You're on board our ship, the Waverider. The captain's name is Rip Hunter. He's asleep, so is Martin. Martin Stein? You might have heard of him? From our mutual friends at Star Labs? He's a metahuman, just like you. He's one half of Firestorm. His other half was once Ronnie Raymond: Caitlin Snow's husband? He died, but Martin survived. Now his other half is Jax there. He knows Barry, Caitlin, Cisco and the others well. Well enough you can ask him some questions about them all if you don't believe me."
"I don't know any Martin Stein, or any Barry, Caitlin or Cisco," replied Jesse, shaking her head but keeping her eyes on Sara. "My father and I run Star Labs, and we run it alone. We have since the particle accelerator exploded and put me in a coma. When I woke up, I had these powers. So far the only other 'metas', as you call them, that we've come across have been trying to kill me. Last thing I remember was training to be fast enough to fly. Everything blurred, then I was standing in the middle of a war zone. I tried to run, but something was wrong. I passed out. I woke up here. Now tell me why I should trust you?"
"How about because we just saved your life?" Jax frowned, walking up to stand by Sara's side. "You were unconscious in a prison cell when we found you. Ray there got you out. Sara too, and Rip. Gideon, our AI, has been keeping you alive until Rex there found a way to wake you up. You want a reason to trust us? How about the way we've trusted you? Granted we thought you were the Jesse Wells we knew, from Earth two, and granted a speedster can get out of most places, but we rescued you from the bad guys when we could have left you behind. We woke you up when we could have left you sleeping. We left you with an open door and the whole of the Waverider to check out when you woke up, when we could have let you come to in a speedster-proof cell, and trust me: I know this ship has one! You want a reason to trust us? How about you pick one of those and let us know when you've worked out a reason for us to keep trusting you?"
XXXX
Rip Hunter was not used to being the last one awake on board his own ship. He was the captain. He felt certain that meant he was the last to close his eyes at night, and the first to open them in the morning. Not this morning apparently. By the time he stumbled, bleary-eyed and yawning, into the Waverider's kitchen, the round tables of the dining area were fully occupied. The air smelt of cooking. Ye gods: even Mick had woken before him then! A glance around the suddenly silent tables made him frown. Nobody likes it when a room goes quiet on their entrance, except maybe teachers or generals, not that there was much difference sometimes. Something in the silence was niggling at his sleep-fogged, caffeine-deprived brain. He counted the heads again. He frowned. He counted the female heads again. He blinked. Ah.
"Why did nobody wake me?" Rip demanded, in tones that he hoped were commanding and dignified but feared were merely childish and irritable.
"We tried," offered Doctor Palmer with a smile far too bright for this time of the morning. "Well, Gideon tried. After that we thought we might as well just let you sleep."
"If you require breakfast, Captain," broke in Professor Stein, the only other person present still in their night clothes, "I believe there is coffee in the pot, pancakes, bacon and scrambled eggs in the oven and bread by the toaster."
Rip wagged a slowly processing finger at the professor, then the coffee pot, then the oven, and turned in the direction of the kitchen cupboards. He paused for a moment, as if the spark of memory had finally caught in his mind, and turned back to the group at large and one person in particular. "Good morning, Miss Wells. Welcome to the team."
XXXX
The script was mostly angular. Leonard didn't recognise it, but that didn't mean someone else around here wouldn't. He had three possible sources of information now: Brother Antoine, Brother Odo and the boy, Astralabe. How much use a kid would be in translating something older than the ground he was standing on was debatable, but Leonard had already learnt not to dismiss him out of hand. That kid had brains coming out of his ears! Odo had described the boy's intelligence as 'unsurprising', but he hadn't said why.
The morning's work was done, and Leonard was free to do as he wished. Free to be Leonard again, instead of Guillaume. At least while he was alone or with Brother Antoine. He had considered telling the others he worked with that he had remembered his name - his true name - and to call him by it, but his gut rebelled at the idea of giving away any more of himself than was absolutely necessary. He tried Odo and the boy first. They were the closest to hand. Odo shook his head, frowning down at the scratches in the mirrored candlelight of the cellar.
"It seems to me that I have seen this somewhere, but I cannot recall where," announced the monk, the rumble of his low tones fading into the darkness of the cellar tunnels and halls. He passed the ring to the child.
"I remember these also," piped Astralabe. "They look like writing I saw in an old carving once. It showed King Solomon on his throne, welcoming the Queen of Sheba. The writing like this was on her side of the carving. The writing on his was in Hebrew."
"Where is this carving?" Guillaume asked, focusing a new interest on the boy. "It may help us translate the ring."
"Gone," replied the child, shaking his curly head. "I found it once, not long after I first arrived here. I was exploring. The knights found me: Godfrey and Archambaud. They carried me back to the dormitory. I was told to stay there. The next day I was set to work here, with Brother Odo. I went back once, two moons later, but the carving was gone."
"A pity," murmured Odo, his features deep in thought. "No doubt the passage of the years will have all but erased it from your young mind."
The boy handed the ring back to Guillaume and shook his head. "No, I remember it quite well."
The two older men watched as the child took a stick and began to draw in the compacted dust floor of the cellar. The figures lacked a craftsman's skill, but the lettering on either side was recognisable enough to suppose it was accurate. Leonard lifted a candle from its sconce and held the flame closer to the earthen floor. Behind him, Odo's hurrying footsteps retreated and advanced, bearing a lantern and beaten metal mirror.
"I knew the boy's memory was remarkable," the monk breathed, crouching over the drawing, "but this is beyond anything I have yet seen from him!"
"He has perfect recall," murmured Guillaume, surveying the writing on either side and letting the Hebrew settle into his brain for translation. "The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. It's capabilities can surprise even the wisest of us."
"I can read the Hebrew," mused Odo, "but the other eludes me."
"I think it says the same as the Hebrew side," commented Astralabe, sitting back and admiring his handiwork with a serious and pensive demeanour. "It seems to have the same sort of length, and the same number of words. It says 'Bilqis, Queen of Sheba, kneels before Solomon, King of Israel."
"Surely the words will differ in their tongue as they do in their script," frowned Guillaume, his hand hovering over the delicate scratches.
"Perhaps that does not matter," said Odo, after some consideration. "There are four names in the inscription: the two lands and their rulers. Those may not change with the tongue. Not when their first knowledge of the other comes from this very meeting."
Guillaume looked from one side of the drawing to the other. In his mind, the Hebrew letters began to shift and take on meaning. As his gaze turned to the letters of Sheba, so did they.
XXXX
"Prepare to time jump in five minutes," announced Gideon's ever-cheerful tones.
"What?" Ray frowned up at the ceiling. "Since when?"
"And when to?" Sara added, pushing back her chair and striding out of the kitchen and dining area. The others were quick to follow her example.
A blur buzzed up to Sara's side. "What's going on? Where are we going?"
Sara, who was mentally congratulating herself on not jumping out of her skin at the sudden arrival of the speedster, glanced over at the girl. "This is a time ship. It travels through space, as it's doing now, and time, as it's preparing to do in five minutes."
"Four minutes, twenty-one seconds and counting," interrupted Gideon helpfully.
"Exactly," Sara muttered, "and usually our captain gives us a little bit more warning than that so I'm on my way to the bridge to find out what's going on. That also happens to be where the safest seating is."
"The rest of us are just tagging along for the fireworks," grinned Mick, easily keeping pace with Sara on her other side.
"Mick!" Sara warned.
"Not like there's any kind of television to watch instead," shrugged the unrepentant arsonist.
The bridge doors opened before the delegation. Rip was leaning over one of Gideon's screens with his back to them. He didn't look up as they arrived, but merely waved them to the surrounding seating. "I believe we should still all have a chair available now that Miss Wells has regained consciousness, however I left a bucket by the one on the far left. If she would be so good as to take that one, I would be much obliged."
"What's going on Rip?" Sara demanded, descending on the captain and ignoring Mick's choice of seat-with-the-best-view opposite her. "What's so urgent you couldn't take the time to tell us first?"
"Well if we're on the topic of not telling people things..."
"Oh get over it!" Sara hissed. "So we let you sleep. You needed it."
"Gideon spotted a flaw pop up in the timestream," he sighed, rolling his eyes. "Since we were all up and about anyway, I thought we might as well make a start on fixing it."
"What kind of flaw?" Sara pressed. "When are we headed for?"
Rip tapped a couple of buttons on the monitor and waved a hand at the information that appeared. He swung round to the rest of the now seated crew and headed for his own chair. "Ten sixty six, ladies and gentlemen, where Harold Godwinson is just about to win the battle of Hastings."
"So a tiny island exchanges one tiny king for another a thousand years ago," rumbled Mick. "How bad can it be?"
"That tiny island would one day become the greatest naval power on the planet," snapped Rip, tapping co-ordinates without looking up. "Apparently one of the dominoes in that particular chain of events involves the Norman conquest actually happening, instead of William the Conqueror becoming William the Conquered, and Harold Godwinson ruling over the land with no thought for anyone's happiness or welfare but his own. Instead of dying at Hastings as he should, he now apparently becomes Harold Hard-hand; rules over England such as it was for the rest of his natural life; taxes the kingdom into abject poverty; terrorises nobleman and commoner alike; takes whatever goods, lands or women he pleases; kills anyone who might even be thinking bad thoughts about him, including two of his own sons; and finally passes the dying remains of his kingdom on to a son who is even worse than he was!"
"I thought Harold Godwinson was voted into power by some kind of council," said Martin, his brow creasing. "Didn't they know what kind of a man he was?"
"Probably," muttered Rip, his eyes glancing up to take in the team, all present and correct. They glanced over Sara, settling herself in the last chair, and looked back to the controls. "They weren't exactly spoiled for choice. A weak boy barely into his teens who would have been easily controlled by them, but just as easily beaten by the foreign forces threatening either end of the country; an Anglo-Saxon earl that had kept himself and his mistress close to the throne and seemed easy enough to manipulate; or an illegitimate Norman whom the term Machiavellian wouldn't really begin to describe! Of course it is entirely possible he only turned quite so bad once the power really went to his head."
"Still, one can hardly see how a council of so called wise men..." Martin began.
"Power corrupts," suggested Ray, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If I was given the power to choose the next ruler, and my choices were between some evil, megalomaniac dictator type who looks like some kind of power-hungry, amoral idiot, a politician-type I could never be sure I trusted, and the guy I know is gonna lose, and I wanted to keep my power or better it, I guess I'd pick the one I thought I could control and who would hold on to that power for me."
"Lucky you ain't in the business of choosing world leaders then, ain't it, Haircut," rumbled Mick.
"Well, I am," shrugged Ray. "Of course I am. We all are, at least when we're around for the elections. We just all understand our responsibility to vote for the candidate that would be best for the country as a whole, not just best for ourselves."
Mick growled a wordless response.
"Well, some of us do," amended Ray, shrugging his eyebrows.
The ship jumped.
XXXX
Sara paused at the edge of the clear wall. She could see him, sitting there in his favourite chair, his back to her. He had just picked up his glass, whisky already poured. That was unusual. Nowadays he tended to wait on her before the drinking started. It had been a long time since she had seen him drink alone, at least while they had been on speaking terms. When they had been fighting, or avoiding each other, she had no idea what he did. Neither situation, however, applied here. They were back on friendly terms again. More than friendly. And he had surely been expecting her. But then, something had been off all day, whether he would admit it or not, and it was more than just peevishness at being left out of catching Jesse or frustration at the team's efforts to keep history on an even keel. They even hadn't started a single bar fight this time!
Picking her way around the curve of the wall and up the stairs, Sara crept up behind Rip and slipped her hands over his eyes. He flinched at the sudden, unexpected contact, then relaxed. She didn't even need to say 'guess who'.
"I feel I should be used to assassins sneaking up on me by now," Rip muttered, taking one of Sara's hands in his own and brushing his lips over her knuckles. "Although I think you're the only one not actually trying to kill me. Most of the rest would have gone for the throat, not the eyes."
Sara let her arms slide down around his shoulders and dropped a soft kiss on his neck. "I could do that too, if you like."
He stilled her with another kiss, this time to the back of her hand, drawing her around the chair to face him. "Not right now, if you don't mind."
One hand still tangled with his, Sara stepped over his outstretched legs and leant back against the arm of the chair. She ran her free hand through his already messed up hair. "What's wrong? Talk to me."
"It's nothing, don't worry about me," he murmured, trailing his free hand up and down her back.
"You started without me," she replied, inclining her head to the glass on the desk. "It's not nothing."
Rip let his hand flatten on her back and guide her off the arm of the chair and into his lap. Her free arm wrapped itself around his shoulders and she pressed her lips to his temple.
"Talk to me," Sara murmured into his ear, letting the arm around her back pull her closer.
"It doesn't feel quite right," he murmured back, releasing her hand and tracing his fingers up her arm. "Talking to one's mistress about missing one's wife."
"So I'm your 'mistress' now, am I?" Sara smiled, resting her head on his shoulder. "I wondered why that word seemed to bother you so much this morning. When did that happen? I thought we agreed on 'close friends'?"
"Very close!" Rip half laughed. "Especially right now!"
"Hmm," she melted into him, her legs curling under his, one arm encircling his shoulders, the other resting on his chest, her head nestled into the side of his neck. "I can live with that."
"Comfortable, are we?" Rip asked dryly, tracing soft, flowing lines on the back of Sara's shoulders.
"You started it," she smiled as his hand moved up into her hair, trailing through the tangled tresses. "And yes, since you ask, I am. So are you going to tell me what's been eating you all day? Or are we just gonna sit here all night until we fall asleep? Because if you keep doing that, that's exactly what's gonna happen."
"It really is nothing," he sighed, resting his head on hers. "The tiniest, most utterly insubstantial thing. I had a dream last night, it was more like a memory really, about Miranda. I don't know what put it into my head. I haven't been able to shake it all day. It was our anniversary. I'd stolen her away on the Waverider. Taken her to see a play in the time and place where I first lived. Where I was born. I remember taking her there. I remember arriving. I remember how fetching she looked in the dress Gideon made for her. I even remember handing over our money at the theatre door. The play was Romeo and Juliet. Then the memory fades. I get flashes. Glimpses, really. Of her, of course. Nothing about the play. No player could portray a Juliet more beautiful than mine. Certainly not in that era. Then nothing. I don't recall leaving the theatre. I have no memory at all of our journey back to the Waverider, or, indeed, our own time. It's odd. It feels like I'm losing her all over again."
"That's not nothing," breathed Sara. "Sometimes, when I think about Laurel, I find myself having to try to remember things. Like how her voice changed when she was angry or happy or sad, or how she laughed. I never thought I'd have to make an effort to remember my sister's laugh! I heard it so often growing up. How can the memory of it fade so quickly?"
"Memories are tricky things," he murmured peacefully. "They are the mirages of the mind, showing us the things we long for most only to snatch them away again before we reach them."
"Now who's 'quite the poet'?" Sara smiled, a chuckle of amusement barely hidden in her voice. "How many of those whiskies had you had before I turned up?"
"I may have been on my second," he admitted, his lip curling and his arms tightening momentarily around her. He turned his head and kissed hers.
Sara flattened her hand against his chest, lifted her head from its resting place and pressed her lips gently to his. "Our memories might fade over time, but we're never gonna forget them. No matter what, they'll always be a part of us."
"I know," breathed Rip, resting his forehead on hers, their eyes still closed. "I know. I just... I wish they didn't. I wish I could take those memories and store them in some kind of indestructible computer that would let me take them out and replay them as often as I wanted, whenever I wanted, forever, and store them away when I needed to."
"That would be nice," agreed Sara, content to stay exactly where she was, building up a memory of her own. "But maybe the thing that makes memories so important, so precious, is their ability to fade. They all have a time limit. Some longer than others, but they all do. And that's just something we have to accept."
They sat there in companionable silence, the universe drifting by around them as the night wore on. Rip gave an odd chuckle and Sara's brows came together in puzzlement. "What?
"I was just thinking," he smiled, running his hand through her hair. "What on earth would the rest of the team think if they walked in and saw us like this?"
"We should probably start locking doors," laughed Sara. "Just in case we start getting, er, 'close'."
"We?" Rip grinned. "You started it, Miss Lance. This evening and the first. In fact, come to think of it, you were the one invading my personal space the second time we kissed too. You can't resist me, it appears."
"Ohh, no," Sara smiled back. "I think you'll find you're the one starting things here, Captain. You asked me to dance, and picked the music. You kissed me the second time, and I wasn't that much more in your personal space than usual, so you don't get to use that excuse. And as for tonight, sneaking up on someone hardly counts. I didn't end up right here on my own, you know."
"Really? Fancy a wager?" Rip suggested, trailing his fingertips down her spine. "As of tomorrow morning, no hands. Let's see who can go the longest without reaching out for the other. I believe I'm the record holder so far. You came tracking me down last time, not vice versa."
"But I wasn't the first to reach out to the other then," she reminded him, "and if you think that means I'll give in now, Rip Hunter, you are sorely mistaken! You're on. Starting tomorrow morning. From when we get up in the morning until the first of us cracks. What does the winner get?"
"Well," Rip considered, "betting with money is rather pointless on a ship that can make it, so how about chores? Loser does the winner's chores for a week."
"Deal," she replied, kissing him and pulling away. "We really do need to start locking doors, though. What if someone walked in?"
"Would it be so bad?" Rip frowned. "They're bound to spot the change in us eventually, even if we are 'just good friends' in front of them."
"Remind me what Mick said to you after we got back here with Rex?" Sara raised an eyebrow.
Rip rolled his eyes. "He said something about not taking advantage of you. I believe he got a little too involved with his role as your big brother."
"Gideon?" Sara glanced up.
"My records show that Mister Rory invited Captain Hunter to 'keep his hands off' you," responded the AI, "and threatened to kill Captain Hunter if he ever so much as laid a finger on you again"
"Okay, so we hide it from Mister Rory," shrugged Rip, all ten of his fingers currently holding Sara Lance far closer than said Mister Rory would consider healthy... for the Captain. "There's no reason for the rest of them not to know."
"You want to know a reason?" Sara retorted with a short laugh. "Have you even met this crew? How about the more people know, the more likely it is that one of them will let it slip to Mick."
"This is true," he admitted, nodding, "so we're definitely hiding this away. From everyone, but especially from Mick."
"But we're still starting this bet tomorrow, right?"
"Definitely!"