The Legends, minus Sara and Mick, stared blankly at Wally.
"I mean it, guys," he reiterated. "What if he's not dead?"
Zari crossed her arms. "Wally, you don't still have that Rocket Fuel stuff on you, do you?"
"No!" he denied, then added sheepishly, "I mean, I do, but I haven't had any today, I swear."
Ray copied Zari's posture. "Look, Wally," he said, "Snart's been gone for years. That explosion would have killed anybody."
"I get that," Wally said, "but hear me out." He walked across the room so that he was standing behind the table displaying Snart's belongings. "I've seen this before," he explained. "Or, really, Barry and the rest of the S.T.A.R. Labs crew did, but they told me about it. When the particle accelerator exploded in Central City, Ronnie Raymond was presumed dead because his body had, supposedly, been incinerated. But actually, he'd bonded with the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. matrix and Professor Stein. Ring any bells?"
Ray, Zari, and Nate shared a glance, simultaneously remembering Firestorm.
"Ronnie should never have survived that," Wally continued. "He was in the location where the radiation was the strongest. The center of the explosion. But he did survive, and it was because he bonded to the thing that was exploding. You said Snart was holding onto the Oculus when it exploded, and there was no body left to find. I think Snart might have done the same thing as Ronnie."
"So what?" Zari asked. "He's like a…time Firestorm?"
Wally shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe the temporal radiation was strong enough to have the same effect as the particle accelerator."
Ray offered a sympathetic smile. It was so nice to see a younger hero with so much hope, even if he had to let him down. "Wally," he said, "I like the way you're thinking, but that's just not possible. If Snart became time Firestorm, there would be a massive surge in temporal energy anywhere he went. After three years, we would have detected him."
Charlie leaned back in her chair. "I don't know much about this Firestorm thing," she said, "but I think the speedster's got a point. You did say there wasn't a body, mate."
"Yeah," Ray reiterated, "because any trace of him would have exploded. Would have? What am I even saying?" He threw his hands up, frustrated. "You see what you guys are doing? Now I'm sounding crazy."
"Oh, you're only sounding crazy now," Constantine remarked sarcastically. "Good to know."
Zari raised her hand. "Hold that thought," she said. Her mind raced, piecing together an idea. "Snart might not be time Firestorm, but I think Wally's onto something else. Anybody got a paper and pen…" Wally zoomed out of the room, searched through Ray's supplies in the lab, and came back instantly with a notebook and pencil. He handed them to Zari. "…cil?" She took them from him. "Still not used to that."
She set aside Snart's cold gun to make space on the table, then began drawing several long lines across a blank page in the notebook. Then, she drew a large circle at one end of the lines. She held up the drawing so the rest of the Legends could see. "Let's say this is the timeline," she explained, pointing to the lines, "and this is the Oculus," she pointed to the circle. She drew a couple of shorter lines coming off the circle, then held it up again. "The Oculus exists outside of time, right? So, it's not part of the timeline. It is, however, connected to time somehow in order to manipulate it. There's something linking it to timeline. Let's call it…a temporal hook. Except they wouldn't only connect to one part of time," she paused to extend the shorter lines with dashes until they were the same length as the other long lines, "so it would be more like this, hooking into all of it at once."
"So," Wally joined in, stepping closer to her, "when the Oculus goes boom…"
"The hook goes boom too," Mona completed his sentence.
"And if the hook goes boom," Zari sliding her finger across the dotted line, "then that leaves an empty gap where it used to be, like a vacuum."
Nate started to understand where Zari was going. "But time doesn't want to be unstable for long if it can help it," he said, "so it would probably want to do something fast to fill in that vacuum with temporal energy."
"Yep. So, let's say this is Snart." Zari drew a rough stick figure next to the Oculus circle with an arm reaching inside it. "Snart is touching the center of the Oculus, directly connected to the temporal hook. When the bomb goes off, the timeline is sucking in energy from the explosion to patch itself together." She drew an arrow from the stick figure to the dashed lines. "If Snart bonded with the temporal energy when he came into contact with it, then he'd be sucked into the space previously filled by the hook. He'd be…" she paused to draw tiny circles around each dash, "…splintered throughout time itself."
Charlie smiled approvingly. "That's brilliant, Z."
"Still sounds like a big 'if,'" Nate pointed out. "He could've also just not bonded with it and the timeline could've pulled in the temporal energy without him."
"Nate's right," Ray replied. "And, more importantly, Marty already had a theory like this, and it turned out to be false. Mick thought he was seeing Snart, so Marty hypothesized that pieces of Snart were fragmented throughout time, like a time ghost, for lack of a better word. It turned out Mick was just hallucinating and there was no time ghost to see."
Wally turned his head toward Ray. "Okay, but how did he know?" he asked. "How did he test that out?"
Ray shrugged. "I'm not sure. It was his theory, not mine. He just told me his evidence turned out to be false." He looked skeptically at Zari. "I know you're just trying to help, and I want him back as much as you do. Maybe even more. But I've been studying this kind of science for years, so you can trust me when I say this is impossible."
"So was bringing back my brother," Zari replied.
"And saving you from hell," Nora added.
"And getting my shapeshifting back," Charlie commented.
Ray had to admit they were right. The Legends had done plenty of impossible things before. But bringing Snart back? he thought. After all this time? It can't be possible. It just can't.
"Fine," he relented. "Marty's old notebook is in the top drawer of my desk in the lab. You can see for yourselves what he said…hey!" He jumped out of the way as the Legends stampeded out of the library. "Careful!" he exclaimed as he chased after them. "There's delicate stuff in there!"
In the laboratory, Wally speedily located Professor Stein's old notebook and flipped through the pages until he found one matching Ray's description. The other Legends crowded around to have a look, aside from Ray, who stayed in the doorway keeping a lookout for Mick and Sara. He still wasn't convinced by Zari's theory, and the last thing his original teammates needed was to walk in and discover, yet again, that Snart wasn't coming back.
"It says that Mick had an antenna in his brain," Nora paraphrased after reading the entry, "that would have picked up on Snart's time ghost."
"Except the antenna wasn't actually functioning," Nate continued, "so Stein concluded that Mick was just seeing Snart because of his feelings about losing him."
Mona sighed. "Wow, he really did miss him."
Ray leaned his head into the lab, still remaining in lookout position at the doorway. "You see? There never was a time ghost. Marty knew what he was doing."
Nate leaned in closer to the table and reread the entry. "Unless…"
Ray raised an eyebrow. "Unless? What are you talking about, buddy?"
Nate straightened up and looked across the room at his best friend. "Unless the antenna was a red herring," he suggested.
Zari snapped her fingers. "Exactly," she agreed, barely hiding her excitement under her usual deadpan voice. "Mick might really have been hallucinating, but that doesn't mean Snart isn't still splintered in time. It just means that's not what Mick saw."
Ray looked down in thought. "So," he said slowly as he pondered, "you're saying that Marty's hypothesis may have been true, but his method of analysis was wrong."
"Bingo," Wally said.
"Huh," Ray reacted, taking it in slowly. "That's…astonishing." He was now too intrigued to stay in the doorway and made his way in to join the group. "But it still doesn't prove anything," he said. "If he is in the timeline, like you're saying, how would we even know? And then, if we did know, that still doesn't mean he's alive. He could've died in the explosion and been sucked in anyway."
Nora and Constantine shared a knowing look. "I think we've got a way to check," John said.
A large space had been cleared out on the laboratory's floor. The lights were dimmed, and several faintly glowing candles formed a circle around John Constantine and Nora Darhk. Nora handed him a small pouch of silver dust. He poured it onto the floor into a strange shape, muttering an incantation at he did. The rest of the Legends kept their distance on the other side of the room.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Wally asked quietly, leaning toward Charlie. He was used to metahumans and time travel, but magic was still relatively new to him.
"Nope," she replied, "but it's never killed us yet."
"It's perfectly safe," Nora answered, apparently able to hear them from across the lab. "John and I are experts."
"She's right, love," John said. "It's a fairly simple spell."
"Then why do you both need to do it?" Wally asked. "Aren't you both, like, super strong magicians?"
"Aye, that we are," John explained, pouring out the last of his pouch, "but, if Snart really is dead, three years is a long time. His soul would be pretty far away from here by now."
Nora continued, "It'll take both of our power to go deep enough to find him. That is, if we find him. If we don't…"
"Then he's alive," Ray finished her sentence, still in disbelief that he was even considering that possibility.
"Well," John corrected him, "more like not dead. Alive might be too strong a word. But we would know he's not as dead as you lot think." He clasped his hands together, stretched his arms, and asked Nate, "Now then, mate, why don't you get one of those things you stashed in the library? Something we can track his soul with." He glanced at Nora, then added. "Make that two things. One for each. Don't want to risk one of us getting lost, do we?"
Nate obediently left the lab and returned with the parka in one hand and the cold gun in the other. "Would these work?" he asked.
"They're perfect, Nate," Nora replied, taking them out of his hands. She gave the cold gun to Constantine and kept the parka for herself. "You guys should stand back," she instructed the Legends. "Try not to do anything that would break our concentration. And definitely don't move anything in the circle."
"Cool," said Wally.
"Unless we start catching on fire or screaming bloody murder," John added. "Then, go ahead and pull us out."
Wally's eyes widened in terror. "Wait, what?"
"Just messing with you, mate," John chuckled, waving the cold gun into the air in no one particular direction. "But do stand back." He turned to Nora. "Ready, love?"
She nodded. "Ready."
The two of them stepped into the circle on opposite ends of the symbol. The sat down cross-legged. Nora placed Leonard's parka in her lap while John did the same with his cold gun. The two of them held onto each other's hands, closed their eyes, and started whispering an incantation. The candles around them grew hotter and glowed brighter. A cold wind blew around the circle, sending chills down the other Legends' spines. The lights flickered on and off, over and over again. Wally involuntarily grabbed Nate's arm in fear. Mona grabbed onto Wally's for the same reason. Still, Nora and Constantine continued to whisper their magic words, focused completely on Leonard Snart's soul. The Legends could hear deep echoes of what they assumed Nora and Constantine were saying, although none of them could understand it enough to be sure.
Suddenly, the wind and echoes stopped. The candles went out and the lights turned back on. Nora and John opened their eyes, gasping for air. Ray ran toward Nora.
"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly.
She stood up and stepped out of the circle. "I'm fine," she assured him. "It worked."
"What do you mean, 'it worked'?" Zari asked.
John stepped out of the circle as well. "She means," he explained with a grin, "that Mr. Leonard Snart's soul is not in the realm of the dead. And that means…"
"He's alive," Ray breathed, in shock. The first Legend they'd lost was no longer lost. He couldn't believe it. He took a deep breath, then grabbed Nora in a celebratory hug and exclaimed again, "He's alive!" He let go of her and searched frantically for words. "Oh my…holy…wow…I can't believe…this is amazing!" he finally decided. "We have to tell Sara and Mick. But…how…how are we going to tell them?"
"Easy there, mate," John interrupted him. "I said he's not in the realm of the dead. That just means there's enough life in his soul to keep it out of there, not that we can snap our fingers and have him standing here. If he is embedded in time, and I think that's a likely option, he's still technically outside of existence itself. It's not so much that he's fully alive as it is…"
"As it is that he's not fully dead," Nate said.
John nodded approvingly. "Right, love."
"So what I'm hearing is," Ray said, "he's only mostly dead. And mostly dead…"
Nate finished the quote for him, "…means slightly alive. Great reference, buddy!" He gave him a thumbs up from across the room, then glanced to the side. "Um…Wally? You can let go of me now."
"Oh!" the speedster said, realizing he was still gripping Nate's arm. "My bad." He let go and scooted an extra inch away from him as Mona did the same to him.
"This is great, guys!" Mona exclaimed. "If Mr. Snart is alive, or at least not dead, we can totally bring him back, right?"
Everyone turned to look at Zari. She took a step back from the group. "Hey," she told them, "don't look at me. All I did was figure out where he might be. Even if I'm right, I don't know how to just pull him out."
"Well," Ray reminded her, "you are an expert on how the Waverider works."
"And didn't you make an algorithm for Gideon to hack time?" Charlie asked. "Can't you make another?"
Zari shook her head. "It's not that simple, guys. My algorithm is designed to find loopholes of events that can be changed without significantly altering history. This is way bigger than that. We'd have to find a way to detach whatever's left of Snart from the temporal energy he's bonded to. Then, we'd have to pull every single piece of him out of every single moment in time he's gotten himself embedded into. On top of that, we'd have to hope the process of getting ripped out of time itself piece by piece doesn't kill him. That is way beyond my skill level."
"Hm…" Nate wondered aloud, "I guess it's impossible, then. Unless the Waverider can somehow be in all moments of time at once."
"It can't," Zari said. "Even trying to pull that off would probably break time."
The Legends thought silently, each trying to come up with an idea for how it could be done until Wally stepped forward. "The Waverider can't experience all of time at once," he said, "but something else can. You guys ever heard of the speed force?"
They shook their heads.
"It's this thing speedsters can tap into," he explained. "We use it when we time travel. Which we rarely do!" he quickly added, remembering the Legends' mission to protect the timeline. "It's like a source of power. But it's also a place, like its own dimension. We can run into it like a portal. And when we run into it, we see all of time happen around us because it flows through all of time and space."
"So," Ray said, "you're saying you could bring Snart into the speed force?"
"Oh, definitely not," Wally immediately denied. "No non-speedster can survive in there for long. But what I could do," he suggested, "is use the speed force to run through all of time fast enough to collect all the particles of Snart that are splintered through it in only a matter of seconds."
John considered the idea. "Not a bad proposal," he said, "but you've still got a problem on your hands."
"John's right," Nora agreed. "You'd still have to find a way to split Snart from the temporal energy he's bonded to. As far as I know, there's no spell for that."
"But there is S.T.A.R. Labs," Ray pointed out. "Between me, Zari, Cisco, and Caitlin, we could probably come up with some kind of device to do that."
"Brilliant!" Charlie exclaimed. "Always wanted to see that place after hearing you lot go on about it. So, when do we leave?"
Zari held up a hand to stop her. "Hold it," she said. "This is a really big deal. We can't just all run off to Central City without telling the captain. I mean, we can, but the jump ship would get pretty crowded. More importantly, if any of this goes wrong, how are we going to explain it to Sara and Mick? I trust you guys' brains and all, but when was the last time anything went exactly according to plan?"
"Zari's right," Nate agreed, stepping closer to her side. "Plus, even if it does work, how would we know which Snart we were bringing back? Sure, the 2016 version is the one that got fractured in time, but if he's experiencing all of time as well, then maybe he'll come back only remembering 2014 and be a bad guy again. We don't know."
Mona huffed. "Are you guys kidding me right now?" She used a chair to hop up on top of the nearest table, commanding everyone's attention. "You're talking about one of Captain Lance's best friends," she said. "You all saw the footage. You know it's true. She is literally having the worst time right now. And do you have any idea how many people she's lost over the last few years? It's a lot! If we can bring back one person for her, just one more person she can lean on and talk to, why wouldn't we do it?"
Charlie climbed onto the table with her. "Yeah, that's right, mate," she said, giving Mona a light punch on the arm. She took off her sunglasses, wincing slightly at the brightness of the room, and looked down at the rest of her teammates. "And he isn't just her friend, either. He's a Legend. One of us. What's the one thing the captain always says? The one rule she follows any time any of us get lost?"
The Legends on the ground looked at each other, then back at Mona and Charlie. "Never leave your own behind," they recited.
Charlie snapped her fingers. "There you go! So, are we doing this or not?"
The room fell silent for a moment. Ray broke it with a cheerful announcement. "Sounds like it's time for a classic Legends rescue mission!"
"Yes!" Wally exclaimed, practically jumping with excitement. "Let's do this!"
Zari smiled. "Awesome. I'm down."
Constantine smirked. "I wouldn't mind another handsome face running around the ship."
Nora elbowed him. "Rescue first," she hissed, "flirt later." She turned to her boyfriend. "But seriously, I'm in, too."
Everyone turned to look at Nate, who had been noticeably quiet. Finally, he spoke. "Charlie's right. We're a team, and we don't leave teammates behind."
"Yes!" Mona squealed. "Who's telling Mr. Rory and the captain?"
Ray put his hand on his chest. "It should be me. I knew Snart when he was here. I should be the one to break the news. Wow," he added, mostly to himself, "this is going to be a weird conversation."
Ray knocked his fist against the metallic entrance to the cargo bay. There was no door, but he still didn't want to surprise Sara and Mick too much before explaining what was going on. What he knew he was about to say was going to shock them enough on its own. "Hey, guys?" he asked. "You done working out? Or should I come back later…"
Sara turned around to face him, leaning her back against one of the cargo bay's many large crates. "Sure, Ray, we're basically done."
Mick, who was in the middle of putting away his weights, barely looked up. "What do you want, Haircut?" he asked.
Ray walked closer to them, fiddling with his hands nervously. "You know how we do crazy things a lot on this ship?" he started, trying to lead into the subject gradually. "Like, things that really should be impossible, and a lot of times actually are impossible, but then we end up doing them…I guess what I'm saying is, we've kind of started expecting the impossible to be possible on this team, right?"
Sara tilted her head and looked at him quizzically, unable to understand where he was heading with this conversation. "What are you talking about, Ray?"
Ray continued, "I'm talking about how, a lot of the time, things aren't what they seem. And things can change. And the way we think about them can change. Especially when someone with a new perspective looks at them and thinks about them in a way we haven't really tried yet."
Mick raised an eyebrow and leaned toward Sara. "Is he making any sense to you?" he asked.
Sara shook her head. "Nope."
"I know I'm not making sense," Ray replied. "But it's because what I'm about to say is going to make even less sense. I'm just trying to prepare you, because seriously, it is a doozy…"
"Just tell us," Sara ordered.
Unable to resist a direct order from his captain, Ray took a deep breath, then gave them the news. "We think Snart might not be dead. And we think we can bring him back."
Sara's eyes widened. If she hadn't already been leaning against something, she would have fallen over. Her mind spun. Leonard Snart…alive? She'd checked the timeline before. There was no way to travel back in time to change events in the Vanishing Point, which meant there was also no way to save him. It couldn't be. It was impossible.
In a blur, Mick pounced on Ray, pinning him to the wall. "Are you telling me," he demanded, his face red, "that my partner's out there? Alive? Right now?"
Ray struggled to speak with Mick's arm so close to his throat. "Yes…kind of…well…"
Sara snapped out of her thoughts enough to pull Mick off Ray. "Let him go, Rory." She let Ray catch his breath before saying, "Ray, I swear, if this is your sick idea of a joke…"
"It's not!" Ray insisted. "The others found out about him this morning. Long story short, Constantine and Nora figured out his soul isn't dead, which means he's not dead. Zari has a theory that he's embedded in time, and Wally thinks we can save him if we get help from Team Flash at S.T.A.R. Labs."
"You'd better not be pulling my leg, Haircut," Mick seethed, looking more than ready to attack again.
"I know it sounds crazy," Ray explained, "but I think, with a little preparation, it could work. We've seen crazier, after all."
Mick reached out and grabbed the front of Ray's shirt intimidatingly. "You listen to me," he growled. "That's my partner you're talking about. This isn't some stupid experiment."
"You're right," Ray said, trying very hard to remain calm with the stronger man still gripping his shirt. "I can't prove anything until we try, but I wouldn't even be telling you if I didn't think we had a chance." Mick grunted and released his shirt. Ray readjusted it as he kept talking, "All we need is to go to Central City and explain everything to Team Flash. I'm sure they'd love to help us. Barry always saw the good in Snart. He wouldn't hesitate to save him if he could."
Mick pointed at him warningly. "If you're wrong about this, Haircut…"
"You'll…burn me alive?" Ray guessed.
Mick nodded.
"Noted," Ray said with a shudder. He turned to look at Sara. "Captain?"
She was staring at the floor, frozen in thought. She felt like she was spiraling downward, reliving every memory and emotion of the mission against Savage. She'd blocked them out for so long, but now she couldn't. Leonard Snart. Her closest friend on the Waverider. The man who had fought side by side with her in 1975 before he even really knew her. The man who had stopped her from killing Professor Stein, now another lost friend. The man who had given up his jacket to keep her warm while they were freezing to death together. The man who had been her card game partner every spare minute of the mission. The man who had blasted his own best friend to protect her, then sacrificed himself to save that same friend. The man who had confessed his feelings for her only hours before his demise. The man she had kissed, then left to die, even though she knew exactly how it felt to die alone. She knew she hadn't had a choice, but that hadn't removed all the guilt. Leonard could be alive, she thought. How could he be alive?
Ray repeated himself. "Captain?"
"I…I don't…I can't…" she stammered. She looked up from the floor. "The last time I saw him," she said, "he wasn't…him. I mean, he was him, but not the way we knew him."
"The Legion," Ray nodded solemnly. "I know."
Sara continued slowly, struggling to choose her words. "When I came back to life, I was a monster. I had bloodlust. I hurt so many people. I had no control." She began to pace back and forth across the floor. "Snart was a hero. He was our friend. I can't…I can't let him become a monster, Ray."
Ray placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It won't be like that," he said. "We're not putting him in a Lazarus Pit. We're just pulling him back into reality, where he belongs."
She studied his face, searching for any trace of doubt or uncertainty. "If we do this," she asked, "can you promise me that won't happen?"
Ray put his arm down and waited a moment before answering, "I can't. I wish I could, but I really can't promise anything. Except this: he'll be here, he'll be our Snart, and he'll be alive." He stepped away from her and looked at both of his original teammates. "If it were up to me," he said, "I'd do it. But you two were his closest friends, and the last people to see him before he died. It's your call."
Mick and Sara stared at each other silently. Neither of them ever expected to see Leonard Snart again. Now, faced with the possibility, they were almost speechless.
Finally, Mick spoke. "If my partner's not dead," he said simply, "I want him back." He turned his attention toward Sara. "What about you, Captain?" he asked.
Sara locked eyes with him. It was rare for Mick to refer to her as his captain without a trace of sarcasm. She knew how important this was to him, yet he was still deferring to her. He knew it was important to her, too. And he knew the choice she was going to make.
Sara took a deep breath and allowed her thoughts to settle down. "Round everyone up and get them strapped in at the bridge," she ordered Ray. She lifted her head toward the ceiling and called out, "Gideon! Plot a course for S.T.A.R. Labs, Central City!"
"Yes!" Ray exclaimed, rushing off to inform the other Legends.
Sara and Mick remained in the cargo bay for a few more moments. Sara turned her face away from him, fighting back tears. She didn't have time to cry. She had to lead the team. She had to save Leonard. She looked back at Mick. "He's coming back, Mick," she said, her voice faltering with the emotions she tried to push down.
Mick nodded, not saying a word. Sara took a step toward him and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tighter than she'd ever hugged him before. She knew he wasn't much of a hugger, but she was too overwhelmed to care. "He's coming back," she whispered.
Sara was surprised to feel Mick's arms around her, hugging her just as tightly. "He's coming back, Sara," he repeated, disbelief still audible in his voice.
The two of them finally let go of each other. "Well," Mick said gruffly, regaining his composure and perpetual scowl, "don't just stand there. We're about to get my partner out of…wherever he is. Can't do that without you doing your dumb captaining thing."
Sara smiled at him. He could hide it under as many layers as he wanted, but Mick was as emotionally overwhelmed as she was, if not more. "You're right, Mick," she said as the two of them hurried out of the cargo bay. "Let's go save our friend."
