Earth 1, Star City
''You asked me to help you'' he said flatly. ''So, I am. Perhaps people don't like the future I'm showing them but it's the one they're going to make happen.''
Lyla took a deep breath and a few moments to think. What he said was true, in its way. The current aggression towards the aliens on Mars would be a disaster for humanity. She knew - she was one of the first people he'd shown the memories he'd got from Saffron. She still had occasional nightmares about that - and wondered if he did too.
At first things had seemed to be going well. With the President's approval to making the facts known, she'd contacted some of her more liberal-minded friends in Washington. They'd come to A.R.G.U.S., heard what she and Snart had to say. Most of them had agreed to actually being given the future memories. The few that didn't agree were still basically on the side of negotiation with the 'newcomers'.
Then she'd moved on to try and convince the more sceptical. It was in the middle of one of the toughest debates she'd had on the subject (she'd been wondering if she should bring the Flash into this - a trip to the future might be more acceptable than letting a stranger into her visitor's head) when Snart suddenly turned to the woman sitting in the chair next to him and -. Well, he'd basically zapped her with the memories. The woman in question went dead white.
''Yeah, that's what I did when I got the memories from Saffron'' he told her casually.
After that, the woman's eyes kept flickering towards him as if she was afraid of what he'd do next - she probably was. The meeting had ended on an inconclusive note. Lyla doubted this visitor would come down on their side.
''Don't you ever do that again'' she had ordered, the moment they were alone. ''Stay out of my visitors' heads unless they give you permission.''
That's when he made the remark about the future that people were making.
''Take the rest of the day off.'' she said. ''We'll talk about this more tomorrow.''
He shrugged and left.
It didn't take long for an irate phone call to arrive from the direction of Washington. Keep your - associate - under control or we pull the plug on letting you brief people on this matter.
X
When Michaels told him to go away for the rest of the day, he'd gone to his room and stretched out on the bed.
In one sense, the last few days had been great. He'd felt great during the day when he had the first talk with Saffron - was raring to go when Evelyn passed on word that Lyla needed him back. Now he was doing something that might make the future a better place.
''Just keep Watson out of my hair'' hadn't even been necessary. She was back in Washington and likely to stay there until the Mars situation was resolved.
Michaels had given her standard spiel about how far ahead of Earth the 'newcomers' seemed to be. The early visitors didn't really question that. It got a bit stickier when the idea of telepathy, visitors from the future and the transfer of memories between minds was introduced. Half reluctantly, he'd demonstrated that, no, this wasn't a matter of parlour tricks and most of them had given the OK. Some of them were even interested.
One retired General had commented ''The military's being trying to come up something like this for years.''
No way, I'm joining the program, he shot quickly at the (still) military insider.
He still switched the telepathy off when he was in company - mainly because the thoughts drifting into his head were trivial and boring. When he'd actually had a moan about it -''Can't you lot think of anything interesting' - there'd been a deathly silence and Ava Sharpe had glared at him.
Yeah, things were going well.