Day 98 of 100
Volume 2, Chapter 49
MAIN EARTH, THE CITY BENEATH THE BREACH
(ARGUS designation)
Looking at the house from the outside, no one would have imagined what was to be found inside. John Diggle would have been one of those people, too. He had looked at the house the day before, and it had looked normal, not even the kind of normal that made you suspicious because there had to be something wrong.
But then after he'd gotten the six of them away from the place, they had told him about what it had been like, told him about that room where they'd been held in great detail… They'd had more than enough time to inspect it, hadn't they?
He was back at that house now. He walked through the door, no locks, nothing, already telling him enough to foresee what he would find inside, or, to the point, what he wouldn't find. There was nothing left, the entire place stripped, not that there had been that much there to begin with, the parts of it that the six had seen on their way out. Still, there was not one thing in that place, top to bottom.
In time, possibly, the police or ARGUS would descend on this place and inspect it just as he had done, in some attempt to track down the kidnappers. If it was in any way up to him, Deathstroke would find them first. They'd done more than to kidnap those six. And for all they'd orchestrated, all the attacks, all the deaths, the injuries, the one thing that drove him above all else to track them down was the same one that had always motivated him, the thing that always ran the risk of sending him over the edge.
They had put his family in harm's way.
X
BREACH EARTH, HAVEN QUARTER
POLICE PRECINCT
It would be a few days more before they would give the okay, telling them that they no longer needed to wear masks. The process of decontamination had started, and it was progressing. They could probably have taken the masks away already, but for what the poison had done to everyone in here, no one was taking chances.
It was little more than a skeleton crew who had been allowed back into the building, to see to the process of getting everything and everyone back on their feet. They would need new blood in here, replacing all the good people they'd lost, and it might have seemed as though no one would even want to be here after what had happened, that they'd rather tear the building down and start fresh than to be reminded of everyone dropping dead where they'd stood…
Instead, they were finding a thriving recruitment in progress. Some other precincts were offering transfers to help fill in their ranks. The police academy was seeing to fast tracking some of their most promising future officers, and they were seeing more people seeking to sign up. The attacks on their city may not have been as intense as those that had happened in War, but it didn't matter. The people were not sitting back, not now.
Lyla Michaels had been one of those to return into the building that day. She had only just returned from Main, and she fully intended to take the paid vacation that was being offered to her, while they dealt with the aftermath of the attack on the precinct. She would go and spend time with the twins, just be a mom for a while, freeing her mind from the events of the past week, but before she could do that, she just… she had to see it.
She didn't know how she knew, maybe because a part of her always seemed to know, but when she went down to her CSI lab, she stopped at the door with an even look as she found her ex husband waiting for her there. He had a mask of his own.
"This place is still quarantined, I don't even want to know how you got in this time," she told him. She knew what he had done, how he had been instrumental to the return of all those people who'd been kidnapped, but it was just stronger than her. She would see him, and her reflex would be to go on the defensive. Taking a breath, reminding herself of what he'd done yesterday, she restarted. "Thank you for bringing them home."
"It was the least I could do," he told her. She stared at him, telling herself that the mask would hide any telltale facial ticks from the nose down though it wouldn't be able to do anything for her eyes and how well he could read those if she wasn't careful.
"And are you going to make me say it?" she asked him.
"You mean 'this doesn't change anything,' right?"
"What else would I say? John… No matter what I do, I will never be able to forget what you've done before, and I try, I do. I just can't go back."
"I know. And I'm not asking you to." He said nothing after that, though she could read him pretty well, too, she knew there was more he wanted to say, but he kept it to himself.
So, they left it there, for now. They both knew better than to think it would be the last time they did this dance. Much as they tried, they couldn't seem to say away from one another for too long. She would think of him, every time she saw him in their children's faces, and he would wonder if he'd ever let her in on the fact that he had known about the twins since just before their birth.
X
MAIN EARTH, THE CITY BENEATH THE BREACH
ARGUS HEADQUARTERS
They were headed back home, most of them the same way they'd come. With her brother and Tommy at her side, Iris West was bound for Haven once more, following along with Robert and Moira Queen.
While the Queens were returning to Haven, they had already informed the three of them that they were doing so solely with the intent of starting the process of relocation here on Main, so they might be closer to their children. The Queen were cared for by all of them, but it was clear that Iris would be the one most affected by their departure. For all that had been happening with her father over the years, these two had been the family she'd needed.
"This is not goodbye," Moira had promised her after they'd told her, seeing the look on her face. Given more time she might have realized this was bound to happen even before it ever did, but there had been so much going on and so she had been blindsided by the news.
"I know," she'd promised, willing herself to smile. She really just hated to think about how her father was still out there, what he might do next, him and Tommy's dad…
Oliver and Thea were coming along to help their parents out with the relocation, and so they waited together, the seven of them, until they could be taken through the breach. Iris was getting the sense, looking at them, that Tommy and Thea were really trying to get to know each other, as friends first, maybe, before siblings.
It was strange for both of them, but then if Iris and Tommy had been bonded by their 'Bad Dad Club,' then Thea had more than earned her spot. They could recruit Ruby Arias while they were at it, though until she actually knew about her father's involvement…
As much as they all talked together as they waited, it got to feel like they were all thinking about one thing and trying very hard not to bring it up. She could see it in the way their eyes would sweep off into a moment just thinking to themselves before looking back to the rest of them.
They were all thinking about what had happened with Malcolm and Joseph earlier, the implications brought on by the supposed double-crossing from their other partners. What had they been after that was so important to mount this massive distraction campaign? Had they finally given up on it, or had they actually found it and that was why everything had stopped?
All of them, not just the seven of them, were hoping to put the entire matter behind them, to move forward with their lives and not constantly have to look over their shoulders, but… wouldn't that be prudent? So long as they were out there, so long as the question remained unanswered, there was always this possibility that something might happen, to them or to people they cared about.
X
The ship that had brought the three of them to Earth, before they had taken on the names of Felicity Smoak, Roy Harper, and Rory Regan, now sat far away from anywhere it might be found, in what had become a place of solace for them, to get away from the double lives and the secrets, and just remember who they were and where they'd come from.
That was where they'd gone that day, as they'd left ARGUS headquarters. After spending years believing that they would never get their chance at capturing Merlyn and bringing him back the way they'd been supposed to, many more years ago… they'd had a chance. And they had failed.
They could blame the circumstances all they liked, but the fact was that he continued to be out there, and for that they would shoulder the blame without shame, their captain most of all.
The circumstances were gone now. The breacher problem, the grenade problem, the kidnapping problem, that was done, and going forward they knew what they had to do. They had to find Malcolm Merlyn, and once and for all they had to capture him.
They had duties to the city, they knew, and they weren't forgetting those, but they had to set a priority on the thing that had brought them here in the first place. They had to go back to the beginning, remember the people they had been before they'd come to Earth. Those people were supposed to be the best in their field, but somewhere along the way they had forgotten how to be those people. It was time to remember.
X
HOME OF QUENTIN LANCE
It had been at his youngest's request that Quentin Lance briefly left behind the Waverider and the rest of his team to go and spend some time with his daughters. Five days ago, the dynamics of their family had been something they no longer were today and, now that the dust had settled, they really just needed to take a moment to explore what that would mean.
He arrived to find the two of them sitting in his kitchen, talking, of all things, about archery. It seemed that Laurel wanted to understand how her sister was able to shoot the way she did, while Sara, after dreading her being pushed aside if the truth ever got it, looked all too happy to give her a rundown of what she knew. It was a far cry from the things they used to discuss as kids, but it made him smile as much as their talking about games and cartoons ever did.
They would talk on and on like it was any old day, but when you looked at them you couldn't help but pick up on the marks of what they'd been through over the week. The bandage might not have shown under her shirt, but he could see in Sara's movements how the wound at her side still dictated some of her movements when she wasn't forced to grit her teeth through the pain and do what was needed anyway. The bandages on Laurel's wrists, from the press of those cuffs, were very visible for their part, and she didn't gesture with her hands nearly as openly as she usually would.
Sitting down with them, it felt very much as though a weight had been lifted. He didn't know what the future would bring for them, whether it would be good or not, but after everything their family had gone through over the years, the fact that they could be sitting here now, Quentin, his girls, all of them happy for one another's presence, to him it said so much on the bond that they shared.
X
Cisco walked into his apartment for what felt like the first time in forever, having spent the last several nights camped out at the clocktower more than anything else. There was no mountain of mail – the postal service had taken a backseat to the breacher invasion, by the looks of it – but there was an answering machine's worth of messages from his mother, asking where he was and why he wasn't calling her at what could only be called an increasing level of frantic blame. By the end of it, she seemed to have convinced herself he had forgotten she even existed.
He also found Cynthia, standing there and perusing his bookshelf. He froze when he saw her.
"You have a lot of books about dragons," she commented.
"Well… sure… who wouldn't?" he slowly replied. She turned back to him with a pensive frown. Alright, maybe she wouldn't. "I have a pretty good idea about how you got in, but what I don't know is why you're here, breaking into my apartment and critiquing my choice of literature." She set the book she'd been inspecting back in its place on the shelf before taking a few steps toward him.
"It dawned on me that perhaps the two of us didn't part on the most… ideal of terms. I wanted to rectify that," she explained.
Cisco did not know what to do with this. Despite the multiple instances of Sin's teasing him about it, and his refuting every part of it, he really did feel something for this woman, now more than ever. It could have been that the time they'd actually spent working side by side the last few days would have had the opposite effect. More than once she had taken a step back and chosen to do her own thing.
That might have made him reconsider, but to him it wasn't so much that she'd leave, it was that she always came back. It could have been for the fact that the city needed all the help it could get, but he was very aware that she wouldn't get involved if she decided she didn't want or need to, no matter what was happening. She'd stayed this time. She'd leave, but she'd return. She'd just done it again.
"How… how would you like to rectify that exactly?" he tentatively asked. She smiled.
"I believe your city is not nearly as through with its troubles as it might seem. I will stay, for now, and, as it happens, I need a place to stay." He coughed.
"I have a spare bedroom…" he pointed, and she tipped her head.
"And many books about dragons."
X
THE BREACH SHIP WAVERIDER
While there would have been no way for her to go back into hiding if she had wanted to, Catherine Grant had insisted that she would be satisfied staying right where she was, living in her rooms down in the ship. The only difference here of course would be that her door would be visible to the rest of the team, and they would be able to visit her.
This was what Leonard Snart did, now that they were all back, or they had been. Quentin had gone home to be with his daughters, Lucy, Ava, and Winn had gone to call on the families of the two guards who'd been killed at headquarters, Rip and Gideon were taking things easy after their fight with the Horus soldiers… He had questions for their surprise twelfth teammate, and now was as good of a time as any to ask them.
Catherine let him in, offering for him to take a seat. He took a curious look around, couldn't help it. As clean as it was, he could see how it had been adjusted over time to fit her needs as a sort of stowaway. That wasn't what held his attention the most however. What did take the prize in that category were some words, sort of melted into the walls like someone had taken a torch to them. GET HIM HOME, with a symbol underneath.
"I don't know if I believe in prophecy, but that right there might be as close as I ever will," Catherine told him. He looked at her. "The night you broke into this ship, and I watched you, and I first pretended to be 'Cat the artificial intelligence,'" she intoned, "That happened. Eventually, I realized that my inspiration for this ship, these stories I'd once read about of a ship called the Waverider… was this ship. So, I… borrowed… the time ship and went to leave myself a message. And I got you home, Mr. Snart."
He took a seat, feeling his head work through the loop she was describing like it would leave him dizzy.
"Tell me something," he looked at her as she came to sit across from him. "You're from the future. Not that strange, displaced time in Future Quarter, but our future." She let out a breath like she already knew where this was going. He forged ahead anyway. "Do you know how this turns out? Holt, and Savage, and Albert, Merlyn and West… What do they do now?"
"Mr. Snart," she sat forward, trying to find the right words. "If I did know, I probably still wouldn't tell you. You don't make time ships and disregard the laws of time. It's a complicated road to navigate, but this much I know. You have to trust your instincts, they will tell you what you can and can't do, and this… this I can't do."
He considered this for a moment, looking at her.
"You do know, don't you?" he asked. She didn't say anything, and he knew she wouldn't, no matter how hard he pressed her on it. He breathed out, sitting back. He had a bad feeling he would have regretted asking her to say anything if she did tell him.
TO BE CONTINUED (tomorrow, in volume 1)
