It is very rare that every member of every team of heroes has the very same thought on a situation, and when they do then it's a pretty safe bet that they're right. The rare thought in question?
"This is going to be a disaster."
Now to be fair some do have more faith than others in the plan for the three teams to spend the Thanksgiving holiday together. Ray, for example, can't wait to go to Central City 2016 for the holiday (the Waverider crew has started using a calendar set to their own present so that they know exactly how long they have been gone every time they visit) while Cisco is sure that even with three teams of superheroes it can't possibly be more dysfunctional than his family gathering for the holiday. Then there are people like Rip and Len, who are both hoping that they can simply make it through the holiday without something setting on fire or any other great disaster. At first they had thought the idea to gather all three teams for Thanksgiving was absurd because who in the hell would be crazy enough to host that?
Apparently, Joe West.
For years, holiday's in the West household was just Joe, Iris, and Barry. They had no extended family and that was something that Iris knew her father wished were different. He had always opened their home to her and Barry's friends, and when the two of them went off to college he made it very clear that if for whatever reason a friend couldn't make it home for a holiday they were more than welcome at the West home. But still, even the two children he had raised were surprised when he volunteered to do Thanksgiving. Sure team Flash had joined them for both Thanksgiving and Christmas these past few years, but this was a whole knew level of crazy.
"Dad, are you sure you want to do this?" Iris asked as she went about peeling carrots for dinner while her father cut up some potatoes.
"Yes," He said defensively for what must have been the hundredth time in the past two weeks. "Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time when you get together with family that you never get to see otherwise, and no offense sweetie but I see you, Barry, and Wally everyday of my life." He continued,
"Yeah but all three hero teams?" Barry asked skeptically as he entered the kitchen, "I mean based on what Sara's said dinner with just her parents is a disaster in itself, but we're adding a bunch of vigilantes and time masters to the mix." He reminded,
"Ok I'll admit it, it's crazy. But do you guys really want to spend Thanksgiving without them?" Joe asked and both Barry and Iris shook their heads, they very much wanted to spend the holiday with everyone but at the same time they knew the idea was more than a little crazy.
"This is completely insane," Leonard deadpanned as he and Sara got ready to go over to Barry's place for Thanksgiving.
"No, what's insane is that they invited my mom. My parents haven't spent Thanksgiving together in almost ten years and now they'll be spending it not only together but also with his fiancée." Sara said and Len all but groaned at the thought, he had been so preoccupied by the idea of spending the holiday with Barry Allen and Raymond in the same room that he had completely forgotten about Sara's father.
"It's not going to help that you haven't seen your father since we told him you're pregnant," he mumbled and Sara huffed at the reminder.
"I've sent him some pictures, and I know Laurel's shown him a few." She muttered, knowing that probably wasn't going to make things any better. "But aside from Kendra I also haven't seen the team since I was two months and they don't exactly have filters." She continued, ever since they all decided to get together for Thanksgiving Sara had dreaded seeing the team again considering she obviously looks a lot different from the last time they saw her.
"We don't have to go," Len reminded her as he picked up his jacket. "If you want we can just stay here and have our own little Thanksgiving," he suggested but Sara shook her head.
"No I want to go," She assured him, and judging by the look in her eye she really did, she was just nervous about making it through the first ten minutes or so.
"What does he think we're going to do?" Ray asked Mick as the entire team was getting ready to head over to the West's house for Thanksgiving diner. He and everyone else on the team had just received a group text from Snart, the message containing a recent picture of Sara and the words "Sara's worried about the stupid comments you'll have once you see her, so get it out of your systems now!"
"Most of us, probably nothing. You, you'll put your foot so far down your throat even that doctor friend of Allen's won't be able to get it out." Mick remarked upon seeing the text. He knew his buddy was sending this warning for good reason, the last time any of them had seen Sara she was only two months along and hadn't even started to show. But in this picture here she looked like she had shoved a kickball or something up her shirt.
"I'm not that stupid," Ray defended and Mick raised an eyebrow before turning away whilst shaking his head.
"Let's just get going," he grumbled, marching off in search of their captain to see if he was ready.
So far, everyone had been gathered in the same house for Thanksgiving dinner and no one was dead, and with this group that really is quite an accomplishment. So Len knew he was risking this fact when he went and sought out Quentin Lance of all people, but it had to be done.
"If I ask to talk to you, are you going to murder me?" He asked, gaining the other man's attention as he approached.
At first Lance looked dumbfounded, as though his younger daughter's boyfriend was the absolute last person he ever thought would want to speak with him, and maybe that's because he was.
"No," He finally agreed after a minute or two of silence, "In fact I wanted to talk with you."
Now that caught Leonard off guard, but regardless he followed Lance out the front door and took a seat beside him on the steps of the front porch.
Both men were quiet at first, each waiting for the other to crack first and start this conversation.
"I owe you an apology," Quentin finally voiced, "I didn't give you a fair chance after I found out about your record, and that wasn't right. If I didn't know Sara and just saw her record… well I don't even want to think about what I'd write her off as." He admitted, ashamed at even the mere thought of what his opinion of Sara would be if it were based solely on her record.
"Apology accepted," Len said once it became clear that Lance wasn't entirely comfortable with continuing. "Now, running the risk of motivating you to revoke that, I have a question for you." He began, gaining Quentin's full attention.
"So it's official?" Sara asked excitedly after Kendra and Carter announced that they were engaged. At first she had been nervous, because just before they made the announcement she had caught sight of her father and her boyfriend coming inside the house. But neither of them looked to be physically damaged so when Carter called for everyone's attention she allowed herself to become distracted.
"Yup," Kendra replied, equally as excited as she showed Sara and Thea her ring.
"Nice," Thea commented before turning to Roy, who was looking over her shoulder. "Are you ever going to get me one of those?" She asked teasingly but Roy just shrugged.
"I was planning to wait another year or two, you have other plans?" He asked and honestly he couldn't help but smile when his girlfriend's face changed from teasing to a strange cross between amusement and shock.
"Just a warning Roy, you might want to talk to Oliver about those plans." Laurel advised, coming up behind Roy and giggling in amusement when she came around and saw his suddenly terrified face.
Dinner went off fairly well, but after dinner when everyone was scattered between the living room and the kitchen was when Sara started wishing she had taken Snart up on his offer to skip the big family party and just do their own little thing, because she should've known her mother would be insistent on bringing back an almost forgotten family tradition.
The baby pool.
Way back when Laurel was on the way, Dinah's parents had decided to run a betting pool at her baby shower and the tradition had carried over to her pregnancy with Sara. She set up a pool when Moira was expecting Thea, and clearly she wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to start the betting again after twenty-one years of no knew children coming into the family or families of close friends.
The rules were simple; anyone could bet, even the expectant parents, and in order to bet you had to give at least a dollar to the pot. The bets were all based on the date you predicted for the baby's birth, and if two people bet the same day then they settled it by betting on what the baby would weigh.
"Are we really doing this?" Sara protested from her seat on the couch.
"You don't have to bet if you don't want to," Laurel reminded her sister from where she sat across from her.
"Oh I'm betting," Sara assured her, suddenly changing her attitude about the pool. "After everything this kid has put me through, I can at least make some money off it." She continued and her mother smiled at her while putting the finishing touches on her hand-drawn calendar.
"Ok, who wants to start?" She asked and there was a long pause of silence. "Ok… I'll start. I will place my bet under… December 21st." She decided; penciling down her name and placing her dollar in the plastic bowl they were using for the money.
"Actually, pencil me down for that day too." Caitlin spoke up and Dinah did as she asked,
"We'll go through who needs to settle with weights later," the older woman decided, knowing that this was going to take awhile.
"Well I'll be nice and place my bet for Sara's due date," Len spoke up and Sara looked at him with a look that clearly expressed how she thought he was crazy.
"You're usually a better gambler than that?" She reminded him, her tone asking why he would make such a safe and yet unsafe bet.
"But you're better, so I'm counting on you to win." He teased her with a mischievous smirk and she only rolled her eyes.
"Sara was born a few days early, give me the seventeenth." Laurel cut in as she placed her money in the pot.
"But according to our grandfather, Lenny was born two weeks late; I'll take the 26th." Lisa voiced, earning a glare from Sara.
"I hate you," she said to her friend but the brunette only smirked.
"At least she only bet one week out," Cisco said in defense of his girlfriend, though he started to regret it when Sara fixed her glare on him instead. "I'll take the fifteenth," he quickly said to Dinah. He highly doubted that the baby would be born four days early, but the sooner it came the sooner Sara would stop looking at him as if she wanted to kill him for not letting her kill Lisa.
"I'll bet on Christmas," Ray spoke up, unaware of the issues Sara would have with such a date, and her glare quickly spun over to him.
"I hate you more," she decided and he while shrugged, his wide eyes made it obvious that he didn't understand why his ex-teammate would suddenly hate him for betting on such a date.
"I don't suppose Rex let any information slip to anyone before he ditched us?" Jax asked and the other Legends all shook their heads.
"Didn't even let me see anything in the future," Mick grumbled in annoyance.
"I'll bet on the 22nd," Clairissa Stein said as her husband and his friends argued about their recently missing teammate.
"Me too," Lyla Diggle seconded.
"You got any information Hunter?" Mick questioned, not happy at all with the idea of betting blindly.
Rip scoffed at the notion, "In the original timeline Miss Lance and Mr. Snart only ever met once, and said meeting didn't result in a child together." He said and this drew everyone's attention, particularly Sara and Leonard's.
"What?" Sara asked, she knew very well that she hadn't met Snart until Rip knocked the two of them out along with the other Legends and brought them all to that rooftop. She also knew that in the original timeline she was destined to die along with her father and sister back in April, leaving her window of opportunity to meet Snart very small.
"What? You're a former vigilante and criminal, is it really that surprising that even without my interference you would've crossed paths?" The time captain inquired and the others nodded acceptingly, knowing that he wouldn't give them any more details than that.
"So who do you think is going to win?" Leonard asked later that night as he and Sara were driving back to their apartment.
"Well hopefully not Carter who went all the way to the 29th," Sara joked, they had asked him why he was placing his bet so far out and he had responded with, "I have over 4,000 years worth of memories and you and Snart are still two of the most stubborn people I've ever met, so I'm betting your kid will be just as stubborn." The fact that, according to Lisa, Len had been born two weeks late did not help the argument against it. "Who do you think will win?" She asked and Len thought on it for a moment.
"I think Mick was smart going for the 23rd," he admitted, "The doctor did say that it's common to deliver late the first time, and I doubt you would go later than four days." He explained and Sara nodded.
"Well I hope I don't go four days late, or late at all for that matter." She muttered and Len snickered, it was no secret that at eight months pregnant (although technically she was 36 weeks and therefor going on nine) she was pretty much over the whole thing and just wanted the baby out of her already. They both knew that hard as the third trimester had been so far, and really it had only been more annoying than it had been hard, this coming month was going to be the worst of all.
Boy were they right.
About a week and a half after Thanksgiving, and after roughly five weeks of trying to talk her into doing it sooner, Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin finally forced Sara to leave work. Her doctor had ordered her to go on bed rest right after Thanksgiving but everyone knew that wasn't going to happen. For the most part everyone had let her go about her usual life, but now that she was due in just two weeks Caitlin put her foot down and told her that she needed to be at home resting and getting ready for the baby.
This, obviously, did not go over well with Sara. But eventually she relented when Len promised to play cards with her whenever he wasn't at work, and considering he works by appointment they did manage to get a few games in. But there was one day when he came home around lunchtime and when he found no sight of his girlfriend in the living room he went and checked the bedroom. Sure enough he found her there, laying on her side on the bed but wide awake. Her eyes were distant as if she were lost in thought and her hand was caressing soft strokes over her large belly and for a moment Len wasn't sure she even knew he was there.
"I'm getting nervous," she finally admitted, so she did know he was there.
"About the baby?" He asked, making his way into the room as she nodded.
"I can still feel it kicking up by my ribs," she confessed as he made his way onto the bed and took a seat behind her before proceeding to help her ease up into a sitting position and lean against him.
"Although I can't imagine that being comfortable, why is it making you nervous?" He asked as she settled against him and let out a sigh.
"Because it's supposed to drop down into my pelvis two or three weeks before it's born, I'm due in less than two weeks and it's still up here." She explained, rubbing her hand over the very top of her bump to show exactly where the baby's kicks were landing.
"So, looks like it might come late?" Len asked once he understood and Sara nodded,
"Unless it drops down sometime in the next two days or something, and even then I don't know if it'll come on my due date." She explained and Len sighed as he thought through what he could say to cheer her up. He had nothing and so he just pressed a kiss to her temple.
It was late that night, Len had been asleep but he woke up for no reason and now he just couldn't fall back asleep. Next to him Sara was still sleeping soundly, something he knew was becoming rarer and rarer for her. She'd been having trouble getting comfortable enough to fall asleep a lot lately, not that he could blame her. She slept on her side and half on top of one of those body pillows, elevated in a way that it looked like she was partially sitting up.
Len put his hand on her stomach, knowing it wouldn't wake her because he does this all the time when she's sleeping. However, unlike usual, the second he set his hand down he was greeted with a powerful kick from his child followed by another almost immediately. He lowered himself carefully further down the bed, as so not to wake Sara, before his face was directly in front of her stomach.
"Shh, settle down in there." He whispered to the bump as he kept his hand moving in a steady pattern over it. Sara's shirt was riding up just enough to expose a fair amount of her stretched skin and through it Len swore he could see the shape of her stomach distinctly change. They had seen this a couple times over the last four months or so, although Sara often looked away because apparently no one ever bothered to tell her that seeing the baby move inside her could be a thing that happened and so the first time that it did it freaked her out.
Anyway, between being able to see and feel the baby moving Len determined that it was wide awake and going crazy in there.
"Settle down, your mom needs some sleep and you're going to wake her up." He whispered, still rubbing Sara's belly as if the action could sooth the baby to sleep. "You need some sleep too, because everyone out here is excited to meet you so I'm sure you'll have an eventful first couple days." He said and he actually started to feel the movements against his hand grow fewer and farther between, not to mention he'd lost all visible sight of them. "Look," he said with a sigh, "Mom and I aren't exactly the storybook family a lot of kids come from, but I never want you to doubt our reasons for being together. You're a big part of it, but I started falling in love with your mother long before you were on the way." He confessed and upon hearing that Sara couldn't pretend to be asleep anymore.
"When was that?" She asked and Len looked up in surprise,
"I wake you?" He asked and she shrugged.
"Not sure," she admitted, "It was either you or the baby dropping, but probably the baby." She said and her smile only grew at the sight of Len's face as he finally realized that his hand was resting far closer to Sara's bellybutton than to the area she had gestured to earlier today. "So, when did you start to have feelings for me?" She asked as her boyfriend moved back up towards his pillow so that he could look her in the eyes.
"1975, after you snapped that guy's wrist when he tried to get into your pants." He confessed and Sara giggled. "What about you?" He asked, "Did your feelings for me start before or after I impregnated you?"
"Before," she replied, "After Russia I started to think I might have a little bit of a crush on you, and then after I was left in 1958 and rejoined the league, even when I was practically brainwashed, how much I missed you was my thought every night when I went to sleep." She admitted, "Look I know I played it off as a joke the night I got back, when I asked about getting lucky. But honestly, I had cried over missing you so many times over the past two years that I didn't want to miss my chance to make a move when I got you back. Clearly it didn't go as planned but still, I want you to know that I wasn't asking that night because I was lonely, it was because I had missed you so much." She admitted and honestly Len didn't know what to say to that, so he just leaned over and kissed her.