"You know, I never thought I would actually get married." Len whispered to Sara during the reception as the two of them honored the tradition of a first dance together as husband and wife.
They had decided to hold the reception at the same place where John and Lyla had held theirs, both because it was within close proximity to the lot where they had the wedding and because it had been John who suggested the place for himself and Lyla, so it was sort of a way for Sara to include him even though he's still overseas.
"Well to be fair, I never thought my dad would agree to me marrying you, which I still can't believe he did." She chuckled in response to Leonard's statement.
"It took some convincing," Len admitted, thinking back to his conversation with Sara's father on Thanksgiving. When he had initially asked about marrying the man's daughter, well let's just say the reaction was only slightly better than what Quentin gave after he was informed of Sara's pregnancy. But once he recovered, Len was surprised to find that getting his blessing was surprisingly easier than he thought it would be.
"Apology accepted," Len said once it became clear that Lance wasn't entirely comfortable with continuing. The older man had just, of all things, apologized to his daughter's boyfriend for judging him solely on his legal reputation. That had been the absolute last thing Len had expected to hear when he decided to spend Thanksgiving having a much-needed conversation with the man, but he was grateful nonetheless. "Now, running the risk of motivating you to revoke that, I have a question for you." He began, gaining Quentin's full attention. "I was wondering… what would you think of me and Sara getting married?" He drawled out the question, and much like the last time he had a conversation with the man beside him he started to wonder if maybe his heart had stopped, because his only reaction was to stare ahead blankly as if he were in a trance. He gave Quentin a minute to process the question, and then when he didn't respond he gave him another minute, and then finally when there was still no sign of a reaction in the near future he waved his hand in front of the older man's face. "Captain Lance?" He asked, finally the man in question blinked back to reality.
"Sorry um…" He coughed, "That's uh… that a big move. But then again so was getting her pregnant." He finally said and if Leonard weren't trying to win the man over he just might have punched him in the face.
But he is trying to win him over, so in the end he settled for clenching his jaw and pausing long enough to cool his boiling blood at the indication that the baby could be the only reason he would want a life with Sara.
"I know this may shock you, but I never planned on getting your daughter pregnant before marrying her." He insisted, ok so the fact that he made a point to emphasize the idea of marrying Sara had pregnancy not been a factor in bringing them to this conversation was a subtle way of trying to tell Quentin that he's wrong about his intentions, you know without verbally flipping him off too much in the process.
But it apparently worked, because once he picked up the sharp undertone of Leonard's words he seemed to regret his own, even if only slightly.
"Let me ask you something?" He said, licking his lips before continuing on with his question. "Do you love her?"
Leonard held the older man's gaze for a moment upon hearing the question, partially trying to determine whether or not Quentin actually thought that answer to that could possibly be "no".
"More than anything," he finally replied, "Sara is one the best things, if not the best thing, to ever happen to me. I don't want to lose her." He concluded and Quentin nodded, in fact for the first time since meeting the man Len thought he might have seen a hint of acceptance in his eyes.
"Then… how can I say no?" He asked rhetorically, Leonard could help the smile that found it's way onto his face.
Sara smirked at the comment before standing up on her toes, not that she really had to all that much in her heels, and gave Len a quick kiss just as their song ended. Len smirked just as she did this, right before he pulled away from her and spun her around to face her approaching father. He was more than ready to dance with his baby and Leonard was more than willing to step aside for him to do that. So while Sara danced with her father, Len went back to his seat where he found Lisa in hers and alone, which was odd considering Rory had been with her when he and Sara left.
"Did you lose my daughter?" He teased, prompting Lisa to look up at him and roll her eyes.
"Very funny," she mocked, "She needed a new diaper but by the time we realized that, Mick had her. He went to change her," she explained and upon hearing that Mick of all people had taken it upon himself to change Rory, Len became genuinely nervous.
"Has Mick ever changed a diaper before?" He questioned with a skeptical eyebrow raised, but Lisa only shrugged.
"Had you before you became a dad?" She asked but instantly regretted it upon seeing the deadpan glare her brother was now fixing her with.
"Yes; yours." He reminded her,
"Still, that was a long time ago." She argued and Len only rolled his eyes as he finally took his seat. "Relax, if their not back soon I'll go check on them. But he's fine."
Let the record show that Mick was very far from fine.
He had gotten out of the ballroom with Rory and into the men's bathroom, not really caring that the child he was bringing inside was female, when he realized that the restroom had no changing station for a baby. He figured that maybe the women's bathroom would have one; so his options were looking like they were between going and giving Rory back to Lisa, or changing her on the floor. Now being a man with some pride he wasn't going to admit defeat so easily, so he opted for the floor. He had enough sense not to lay her down on the tile floor of the bathroom, and instead went back into the hall where he promptly found a slightly secluded corner and decided it would do.
"Alright kid, work with me here." He murmured as he got to his knees and set his, so far cooperating, niece on her back on the ground.
He had been carrying her with one arm, and with the other hand he was holding the clean diaper and pack of baby wipes that Lisa had given him. In all honesty, he had no clue what he was doing here, but he was willing to try. He knew the first step was to get the dirty diaper off of Rory, and so he pushed up the puffy skirt of her dress before biting back a curse.
"Why do you have to be wearing tights?" He grumbled, and of course just to make things worse Rory started to fuss. "Shh, don't cry." He pleaded but obviously that wasn't any help, and so once he had taken her shoes off he gave her one of them to fiddle with. "There we go," he said triumphantly, not that he had much of a reason to feel triumphant just yet.
So with Rory distracted by her shoe Mick began pulling her tights off of her, lightly pinching her toes in the process because it made her giggle. That honestly brought a smile to his own face, but it quickly faded once he undid her diaper and saw that there was nothing in it. He quirked an eyebrow at this, he had been so sure that she smelled when Lisa asked him to check. But then again he really had no idea how strong the smell was supposed to be; maybe that was just the scent of the diaper. Of course she could just be wet, but Mick didn't really know how to make sure of that without sticking his hand in the diaper. He tried comparing the new diaper with the one that Rory was currently wearing, but he couldn't see much of a difference and he didn't have much time to look for one before she started kicking her legs impatiently.
"Better safe than sorry," he huffed out his eventual decision, but now he was faced with yet another problem: actually changing the diaper.
He had no idea how to actually get the old diaper out from under her or get the new one on. But he needed to figure it out soon because little Rory had just about lost any and all interest in her shoe and although she wasn't crying she was looking at him with a rather annoyed face as she continued to kick at his arm. He tried pushing her feet away with one hand but that only served to make her laugh.
"Would you stop?" He pleaded with her, trying to keep a smile on his face and it must have worked because the words appeared to only have encouraged her.
Finally, he was able to yank the old diaper out from under her and he tried to use the baby wipes to clean her up but her flailing legs made that rather difficult.
"Come on, hold still." He begged but of course she didn't listen, and it was then that he heard footsteps behind him.
He turned his head to see a kid that he had only met once or twice, Wally he thought his name was, walking towards the bathroom.
"Hey," he spoke up and got the kid's attention. "You know how to change a diaper?" He asked, he may have been screwing his pride by doing so but at this point he didn't exactly care.
Wally, who had just wanted to go to the bathroom, suddenly found himself distracted by Mick Rory and looking at him with a panicked face and a shake of his head. Obviously, he sees Rory on a somewhat regular basis, and over the past year he's slowly gotten over his hesitance towards her. She was roughly seven months old the first time he held her, not that he didn't try to put it off longer but Sara had all but shoved her daughter into his arms. She was about nine months old the first time he picked her up of his own accord, granted that was only because she had crawled right into a table and all he did was hand her off to Sara. She was almost a year the first time he was alone in a room with her, for a grand total of three minutes. So yeah, he had slowly but surely been getting more comfortable around her.
But he had never tried anything related to actually taking care of her.
"You ever seen it done?" Mick asked, clearly not getting the memo from Wally's terror stricken face that he had about as much an idea on how to change a diaper as the arsonist himself.
"Uh… yeah but-"
"Then congratulations, you know more about this than I do." Mick cut off, moving over in an invitation for Wally to come take over.
Seeing that he was in fact serious about asking him for help, Wally went over and got to his knees next to Mick.
"Hey Rory," he cooed nervously as he tried to think of what he had seen Iris doing that one time he had seen her change Sara and Leonard's daughter. He remembered Iris had grabbed her feet, but that was rather difficult with her angrily kicking at him.
Eventually he was able to get a grip on her ankles and lift her legs up in the air so that he could wipe her. Once he was reasonably sure that she was clean, he kept her legs in the air long enough to slip the new diaper under her and after that securing it was self-explanatory enough.
"What is Cisco doing?" Laurel asked, she and Caitlin were currently sitting at a table and had spotted Lisa dancing with Cisco next to her doing… whatever it is that Cisco does when on a dance floor.
"Don't worry, he's not having a seizure." Caitlin assured her friend with a laugh.
"Good, because for a second there I was worried." Laurel joked just as Thea came over to join them.
"Is Cisco ok?" She questioned,
"Define ok," Caitlin requested and the other two just chuckled,
"Oh I swear, if Roy dances like that at our wedding…" Thea trailed off, halting any ideas of finishing her sentence when she realized the looks that she was getting from Caitlin and Laurel. "What?" She asked defensively,
"Did he pop the question?" Laurel asked with a teasing smirk and Thea blushed before taking a small sip of her drink.
"Not officially," She admitted, "But we've been talking a lot about it recently, I think he might actually be getting around to it." She said, blissfully unaware that her boyfriend was currently off in a corner and having a conversation very similar to this one with her brother; although his was probably a little more defining.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Ray and Kendra where seated at a mostly empty table (Professor Stein being the only exception, and he was too busy spying on Jax) and enjoying each other's company. At least, they were until Ray noticed that Kendra intentionally wasn't drinking and was able to figure out what such a thing meant; she was pregnant.
"Do not tell Sara," she ordered him once he had it figured out and had a huge grin spreading across his face, which quickly faded once he heard her instructions.
"Why not?" He asked,
"Ray, it's her wedding day. Today is to celebrate her family, besides it's still early on. Carter and I don't want to tell people until we're sure it's going to stick." She replied quietly, keeping her voice low despite the fact that she didn't think Martin was listening and she also knew that even if he were, he wouldn't say anything.
"Got it," Ray said, pulling her back from her thoughts. "But for the record," he started to continue, "It's going to stick, so congratulations." He said,
"I second that," Martin spoke up from across the table, not once looking over his shoulder at them.
Kendra beamed at their words, especially since this was the first time in all her lives that her immediate reaction upon discovering herself pregnant wasn't instant fear. Instead it had been excitement, and hope, and then some fear but not fear for her future child's life. It was more like anxiety over something going wrong, and compared to the fear she's dealt with over pregnancies in her past lives, a little anxiety is something she was more than capable of handling.
"Thanks guys," she said before deciding to change the subject, "Martin, what's going on with Jax?" She asked and at her words the older man finally turn his head, but when he did he rolled his eyes in frustration.
"Well considering he isn't close enough for our psychic link to be of any use, I have to idea." He huffed and Ray chuckled. Jax was currently on the other side of the room with Sara's goth friend, and had been for nearly twenty minutes now.
Sin was laughing at the boy who was so far refusing to leave her side, and Stein was set on subtly figuring out why.
"So let me get this straight," she laughed after Jax had finished explaining himself when she told him to get lost. "You're hanging around with me, so you can piss off the old man?" She asked and Jax nodded,
"Yup," he confirmed. Initially no, that hadn't been his intentions. He just wanted to try getting back at Sin for all her mocking earlier, but when he noticed his partner watching him like the nosey pain in the neck that he is, well, the target of his antics changed. "I'm just out of his psychic range, meaning he has to figure out what I'm doing the hard way." He explained and in that moment he discovered the girl before him wearing a mischievous smirk that he had only ever seen worn on Sara's face before.
"Want to do something that'll really freak him out?" She suggested and she barely gave Jax the chance to agree before she was reaching for his hand and rising to her feet, effectively bringing him with her.
"Where are those two going?" Leonard questioned Sara as the two of them plus Rory made their way out of the ballroom after having been instructed to by Lyla Diggle, and passed Jax and Sin looking like they were up to something on the way.
"Don't know, where are we going?" Sara asked and Len shrugged, the movement jostling their daughter just a little bit, as he was carrying her.
"See, my question is, what the hell did I miss?" A new voice interrupted their conversation, a voice that was foreign to Len but struck multiple memories for Sara.
Standing there, right in front of them, was John Diggle.
"Dig!" Sara all but shouted, hurrying over to him as fast as she could and launching herself into his arms for a hug.
Diggle smiled brightly as he caught Sara and held her tightly in an embrace before pulling away.
"Seriously, I know I've been gone awhile, but you are the last person I expected to be married with a baby when I came back." He all but scolded her, a playful tone in his voice that made her laugh as he looked over at Leonard and held out a hand. "John Diggle," he introduced himself and Len accepted the handshake with the arm that wasn't supporting his daughter.
"Leonard Snart, Raymond told me I should watch out for you." He said and Dig snickered at the reminder of his first meeting with Ray Palmer.
"True, but he was with Felicity. You hurt Sara and I'm not the one you'll need to be watching out for," he teased and Len smirked,
"Don't I know it," he agreed and Sara took Rory from him, only to direct the little girl's attention towards Diggle.
"This is Uncle John," she said to the baby, "Do you want to go say hi?" She asked while John crouched down just enough to look his 'niece' in the eyes.
"Hi sweetie," he said with a wave and Sara tried handing her over but she started crying almost immediately.
"Oh Rory, it's ok. It's ok baby." She tried to assure her daughter but it wasn't working and the little girl only wound her arms tighter around Sara's neck, the same goes for her legs around her waist. "I'm sorry, she's getting tired." She apologized to Dig who didn't look offended in the least.
"It's ok," he all but whispered in a baby voice that he had used on his own daughter so many times, who he had already seen along with her mother.
"So what do you think?" Mick found himself asking Rip once he found the Englishman standing off in a corner by himself.
"I think…" Rip began, looking for the right words. "I think they're going to be very happy together." He finally decided on and Mick nodded.
"You think or you know?" He asked just before taking a swig of his beer.
"I think," Rip confirmed, "As I've said before, the timeline changed when I went back and recruited you all. I never thought about what would happen to you once I brought you back, never considered that you wouldn't simply return to your normal lives." He mused and again Mick nodded.
"Thanks," he muttered, garnering a shocked glare from his captain. "I'm not going to say it again," he growled the warning before directing his attention to a suddenly interesting spot on the wall across the room.
Rip just smirked before leaving Mick to his own devices, off to go locate the rest of their team and see if anybody was ready to head out or not.
Len was having the same thought as Rip; only he was looking for Sara. In the process, however, he instead found Lisa with her head on her boyfriend's shoulder as he sat next to her and talked to Iris about something. Maybe on any other day he would scowl at the scene and go to pull her off of Ramon, but tonight he just smiled. It had been a long time since Lisa had been about to fall asleep in a room full of people, and he knew at least part of that was because she never felt safe enough to let her guard down that much. Sure he'd done what he could to take the brunt of everything so that she could keep her innocence and good spirit for as long as possible. All things considered he'd like to think that he'd done a pretty good job. But this still warmed his heart, to see Lisa so relaxed around all these people, and even for him to be at ease himself. These people, even Allan and Raymond, had become family to him over the course of the last two years. And tonight they were all together, gathered like most people do to celebrate a wedding, as something Leonard never thought he would be a part of:
One big happy family.
Author's Note: Ok, NOW its over! Thank you guys so much, to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. It really means a lot to me that so many people have enjoyed this and honestly it blows my mind! I hope i did you all proud with these last three chapters!
