Earth 12 Part II

Cop Snart X Firefighter Lance

xXx

"Burning the midnight oil partner?" Joe asked as he set his jacket on the back of his chair. Leonard was sitting across from him at his own desk, hunched over stacks of files that hadn't been there when the left the night before.

"I came in early to get some work done and I think I may have caught a break." Leonard explained. Barely looking up at his partner.

"Oh, what's that?" Joe replied clearly interested.

"Well I got to thinking. If this guy is being hired to set these fires then it stands to reason he's set fires in other cities. So I called Lieutenant Lance this morning and she made some phone calls to other precincts around the country, people she's worked with before. Between five cities in three years they found thirty seven unsolved arsons that fit our profile." Leonard explained. "She got called to the station to pick up more files and should be back shortly to go through them."

"She was here?" Joe asked. Leonard nodded.

"Yeah, when I called this morning she was just down the street so she stopped in." he told Joe looking back at the files. Joe stared at him for a moment, a small smile on his face before he shook his head. It never ceased to amaze him how clueless his partner could be.

"I'll take a few of those if you want." He finally said and Leonard looked up again before pulling a stack of files off a larger stack and passed them across the desk.

"I've started cross referencing their suspects to ours. So far no matches." Leonard explained. Joe nodded, before getting to work. A few hours passed before they were pulled from their thoughts.

"This is a lot to go through." Barry said as he walked through the bullpen doors behind Sara, both carrying two file boxes each.

"Yes, well, supposedly this is the last of it from Gotham and Bludhaven. I've got two more boxes from Keystone and at least one more from Coast City." Sara explained as they came to a stop beside Leonard and Joe's desks. She set the boxes with the others and Barry did the same.

"Detective West." Sara greeted Joe.

"Lieutenant Lance." Joe replied with a smile.

"How's the search going?" she asked. Joe sighed.

"So far nothing. All the M.O.'s fit our criteria with the exception of a few we ruled out, but none of the suspects match any suspects in our case."

"So either this guy is really good, or we're barking up the wrong tree." Barry added.

"Hopefully it's neither." Leonard replied. "If you've got the time Allen, grab a stack."

Barry did just that and four investigators hunkered down around the two desks, searching through files and comparing their cases to the cases sent to them. Lunch was fast approaching and they'd still found nothing. Barry set the file he was reading through aside and stretched.

"I promised Iris I would meet her for lunch and then I have to check on some test results. I'll be back as soon I'm finished." he told them as he stood from his seat. They all acknowledged that they'd heard him and a few minutes after he'd left Sara set aside the file she was working on and stood as well.

"Lunch doesn't sound like a bad idea." she said. "I'm going to run to jitters, do either of you want anything?" she asked. Joe gave her a small order and handed her some money and when she turned to Leonard he sighed standing from his seat.

"I'll go with you. I need to step away from this." he told her, grabbing his suit jacket off the back of his chair and slipping it on. He pulled his sidearm from the desk and slipped it onto his belt before following Sara out, completely ignoring Joe's amused look.

xXx

Jitters was packed when they got there. It took nearly forty five minutes to get three cups of coffee and three sandwiches to go. They'd stood in line together, their conversations stilled as they both struggled to find something to talk about outside of work. It seemed almost impossible until a thought stuck Leonard. "So you and Mick have worked together before?" he asked as they stepped out of line to wait for their orders.

"Yes, we met at a conference a few year back. He came to Star City for a joint investigation as well." she explained. "Mick said you guys are like brothers?"

Leonard nodded. "We've been friends since we were kids." he told her. "Used to get into all kinds of trouble."

"Yeah, he mentioned that. Couple of delinquents becoming various law enforcement." she smiled teasingly at him and he chuckled.

"Delinquents? That's a nice way of saying menace to society." he replied with a shy smile that Sara found rather endearing. Their order came up and Leonard grabbed the drink carrier while Sara took the bag with their lunches.

"So?" Leonard began as they made their way back to the precinct. "How do you like Central City so far?"

"It's… different."

"Good different?"

"Yeah, actually. I've never worked in a city that not crumbling under the weight of it's criminal enterprises. It's kind of nice not being threatened for having the nerve to do your job." she explained.

"I heard there was a lot of corruption in Star, I guess I never really thought about how bad it was." Leonard told her and Sara shrugged.

"My dad is a Police Captain, my sister is the District Attorney and one of my best friends growing up is now the mayor. There doing there best to clean up the city, but it's definitely not something that's going to happen easily, or quickly."

Leonard nodded in understanding. As the son of a corrupt cop, Leonard was all too aware of what corruption was capable of doing, he could only imagine what widespread corruption could do. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but if your family is back home fighting, why did you leave?" he wasn't trying to judge but if it were his family, Mick, his sister, his grandparents, nothing could take him away from them.

Sara took a deep breath, struggling with how to answer. She was angry, she knew he wasn't accusing her of anything and really he had a point. Her family was struggling to win a war with no end in sight and yet here she was, relocating herself over a thousand miles away. "I just… I couldn't fight anymore. It was just too much. I was losing myself in the fight. Mick heard I was looking to relocate and offered me the job as his second."

Leonard was silent as he considered her words. It made sense. Despite familial loyalties, sometimes you just had to do what was right for you, put distance between yourself and what weighed you down, held you back.

Leonard and Sara walked into the precinct, and made their way back into the bullpen to find Joe still hard at work. The three investigators made themselves comfortable, digging into their lunches as they got back to work. They'd just barely gotten comfortable when Sara's phone went off. She answered it, the distress on her face, alerting the two detectives to the nature of the call. She answered with short sentences and short patience before hanging up.

"Everything alright?" Joe asked as she stood, setting her lunch aside and grabbing her jacket. Before she could answer, simultaneously, their phones rang.

Another fire, and four more bodies.