This is a bit of a follow up to my first Captain Canary fic Only A Matter of Time. Enjoy!
A few months passed after Rory Snart was sent home. The team went on missions, were thwarted by Savage again and again, yet they kept at it. It was as if nothing ever happened, because for most of the team, nothing had happened. The day spent with the crook and the assassin's future daughter was merely a source of brief entertainment until they were all back to the grindstone.
Sara was content to simply let the future play out, knowing that someday, somehow, she'd end up in that blue house with fake shutters just outside of Central City. In fact, she never mentioned Rory or anything involving the day she was on the Waverider at all after they took her home.
Leonard, however, was a different story. Ever since he and Sara had dropped Rory off, he'd felt this itching feeling for something more. It didn't help that Sara was acting completely normal, as if nothing had even happened at all. Sure, she came up and talked to him more, and seemed to be making an effort to spend more time around him than she already had been, but their conversations remained of the same nature.
It wasn't as if he had been unaware of his feelings for Sara before their daughter was on the Waverider - on the contrary, he was very acquainted with his feelings for Sara, having been awake many a night consumed by thoughts for her and uncertainty about how to handle them. The problem was: he'd had a plan, and now that things had gone completely off the rails, he didn't know what to do.
It was maddening.
Finally, Leonard couldn't take it anymore. He took the jumpship and commanded Gideon to take him to 2028, the night Rory had been returned to her parents.
"Mr Snart, interacting with your future self could cause holes in the timeline."
"Then I'd guess you'd better hope I don't meet my future self. Don't worry, Gideon, I'm going for the show, nothing more, nothing less."
So Gideon took him to 2028, the exact moment Rip drove away with himself and Sara.
He waited until he saw the car round a corner, at which point he situated himself on a wooden bench across the street from his future home. He had a pretty decent view into the living room and kitchen due to the large bay windows at the front of the house.
He watched the future Sara place Rory, still asleep, gently on a couch, knowing that she'd wake up in a moment or two. She then moved to the kitchen and began helping Leonard with dinner. They were making some sort of pasta, Leonard thought, perhaps spaghetti like Rory had wanted, and they moved seamlessly around each other in what was clearly a well practiced routine.
Then, they both looked over at the couch. It seemed that Rory had woken up. Leonard walked over to her, sitting beside his daughter as she stretched and rubbed her eyes. He said something to her that the present Leonard couldn't hear, but whatever it was made Rory laugh. Leonard pulled Rory into his lap and tickled her until she was writhing and shrieking with laughter that he could faintly hear from across the street.
He watched for a little while longer before getting up and returning to the Waverider feeling a bit lighter than he had before his visit.
Visiting his future home quickly turned into a habit. Whenever he felt that itching feeling, he hijacked the jumpship and took off to 2028. He made sure nobody knew what he was doing, knowing that Rip would go ballistic if found out, and, naturally, make him stop.
Leonard observed his future family once or twice a week for nearly a month. He found out that they have a black cat named Snowball (clearly Sara's choice because she knew it would annoy the hell out of him). He found out that Mick lived in their basement, coming out only to eat and to bring Rory to gymnastics on Tuesdays and karate on Thursdays (he also found out that Rory sometimes called Mick 'Mickey Mouse', which amused Leonard greatly).
He watched Leonard bring Rory out to the school bus each morning and wave to her as it drove away. He also watched Rory leap into Sara's arms when she got off the bus in the afternoon.
One day, he was watching his future family eat dinner when he heard footsteps approaching the bench on which he sat. He didn't look away from his future home as Sara — the current Sara —sat next to him.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked, following his gaze into the house.
"How'd you find out?" he ignored her.
"Oh, we always knew."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"We thought we'd let you have this one, but now we gotta go."
"And what if I don't want to?"
"Well, I guess that's up to you, but the way I see it, you're gonna have no future left if you watch it all happen."
Leonard shrugged defensively.
"Come on. Let's go," Sara prodded his arm. She managed to pull him to his feet and started to lead him back towards the jumpship.
"What's been up with you lately, crook?"
"Me? How about you? You can't say that you haven't been acting like nothing happened," Leonard retorted, not wanting to fully bring up Rory yet.
"Because, I don't know, nothing really did happen. Nothing changed. We just saw a glimpse of how the future's going to look. And," she gestured back towards their future home, "the fact that they're all still in there, just like before, proves that us knowing doesn't make a difference in the future."
"Well, now we gotta think about how we're going to get to the future."
"Not willing to leave it to chance?"
"You know me. Chance isn't really my thing."
Neither said anything for a while.
"Then…" Sara began, "…why don't we go see a movie."
"What?" Leonard asked, stopping.
"Let's go see a movie," Sara gestured for him to keep moving.
"Are you asking me on a date?" Leonard didn't budge.
"No," she replied with a smirk, "I'm asking you to watch a movie. We can figure out what to call it afterwards." Sara finally succeeded in getting Leonard to continue walking, but only after she grabbed his arm and pulled him in the direction of the jumpship, "Have you ever seen Fight Club?"
"Yes I've seen Fight Club, assassin," he replied, looking amused as he let her lead him away from their future home, "Who do you think I am?"