A small boat near the Queen Anne, 1998
"Hey, Scully, you're not going to believe this. Get up here."
"What?"
"The sky just cleared and there it was."
"Is it the Queen Anne?"
"That's her."
"I don't believe it."
"Seeing is believing."
"They've got power."
"Maybe Mulder's already on board."
"Let's hope he is."
On the Waverider, 1998, in a holding pattern above the Atlantic Ocean, not far from Bermuda
Nate lets out a long, low whistle. "That's one big aberration."
Sara stares at the Queen Anne, a piece—a very, very big piece—of 1939 that's somehow slipped through into 1998. There's power, clearly. But no life signs on the entire ship, leading to immediate "zombie apocalypse" jokes from Nate and Ray. (And shudders from Stein and Mick.)
"We need to take a look," she says, worrying her lip between her teeth. Something's weird here. Weirder than usual. "Ray. And... Martin. Jax. Come with me." She straightens, ignoring Nate's "Awwwww!" "Mick, keep the ship here while we take a look around. If it's really empty, it won't be long."
"What about Captain... sorry, Mr. …Hunter?" Amaya asks. "That's a British luxury liner."
"Rip's still prone to fits of time drift at the most inappropriate moments. I don't think so. With our luck, he'd decide he's the first mate or something." She shakes her head.
"Blondie, there's a small boat off the side there. Four people on it. Don't worry, pretty sure we cloaked before they saw us." Mick frowns from his seat in the captain's chair.
"Well, then we just need to keep that up."
On the Queen Anne, 1939
"I told you, this man is the scientist."
The Fed has nerve too; Leonard will give him that. He can half-hear the man mouthing off to the Nazis—yeah, that can't end well—but keeps his eyes locked on Sara's.
"By killing one of your own?" he asks quietly. "It's not the answer."
"I haveto."
He has no idea of her story, here. But some things, in these places he lands, always seem to be the same. This is one of them: Sara Lance, in whatever incarnation, is a hero. The one who led him to become a hero himself, for better or for worse.
"That's how a killer thinks," he tells her, "and that's not you anymore."
She stares at him a moment longer, then lets out a shaky breath, some of the tension going out of her shoulders. He dares to look; the gun isn't in her hand anymore. He lets out a breath of his own.
When he looks up again, she's looking at him with shadows in her eyes, but a smirk on her face. "OK, stranger," she says, "I don't know who you are, or how you know me, but my instincts say your intentions are good. Now, what dowe do?"
At the center of the action, another man, the one Mulder's redhead was with, is claiming to be the scientist—and so does she, although the man then claims she's an OSS agent protecting him.
Another decoy. And an OSS agent—is that what this Raymond is, too? Layers on layers, and only one thing for sure: it's time to leave.
"Raymond!" The man starts at the sound of his voice and looks at him with wide eyes. Leonard shakes his head. "Come on. We should get outta here."
"Who are..."
"Just listen to me, Boy Scout. We need to get all three of you out of here, find somewhere safe until the ship..." He breaks off. "...well. Until it gets where it needs to go, and that's notNazi Germany. Come on."
For some reason, the man believes him. Raymond exchanges a few quick words with Stein and Jax, then looks back at Sara and Leonard, who start leading the way across the outskirts of the ballroom, toward one of the doors.
Leonard waves the rest through, then, for some reason, turns to look back... and pauses.
The Nazis have Mulder and the redhead on their knees near the front of the ballroom, hands behind their heads. An execution pose: they're dead if no one steps in. Leonard scans the ballroom, frowning. And no one in this cowed lot is going to do that.
He sighs, then takes one step back...only to pause again. Something's...off.
The engines have stopped.
And then, with a roar, a mixed group of sailors and crewmen burst through corridors on both sides of the ballroom. They immediately set to punching Nazis, initiating a good ol' bottle-smashing, table-throwing brawl. And in the middle of them, throwing punches and smashing Nazi heads with the best of them: Mick.
The Fed and the redhead have vanished. Leonard lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Mick's come through again.
The big man turns as if he feels the eyes upon him, hesitates a moment and then gives him a curt nod. He has this. Has Leonard's back—even though he doesn't realize, doesn't know...
After a moment, Leonard nods back. And then he turns and runs after Sara and the others.
"Hey! Hey…you!" Mulder catches sight of the tall guy from the captain's quarters again as he and Scully make their way, creeping on hands and knees to avoid the battle, from the ballroom. The man ignores him, vanishing out the doorway, and Mulder lurches after him, skidding to a stop in the hall as he realizes the other has already managed to vanish in plain sight.
"What the hell?" Not-Scully has come to a halt right behind him, gazing at him with irritation.
"I…saw someone." Mulder turns slowly, frowning. "Someone I think might be able to tell me how to…get home."
"Mister, after all that, you're helping fix this first." A wave of her hand indicates the ship, the Nazis, the missing scientist…everything he's managed to muck about in since he got here, slipping through time into 1939.
And she's right. He reaches out and grabs her hand, letting the mystery of the man in black go. For now. "Come on."
Leonard catches up to the others, slipping past the three men and then Sara to take the lead. "We'll lock you in the captain's quarters," he tells them. "There's a radio in there; you might be able to contact someone. At any rate, you can stay hidden for as long as possible. If you're lucky, Mi… that group will take back the ship and it'll all be fine. If you're not, well, it's not a bad place to stay hidden, and from what I've heard, the captain won't be back."
Raymond gulps audibly. "Oh. Ah. And who are…"
"Just move, Boy Scout!"
They round a corner and continue… and suddenly, another man, dressed in a Nazi uniform, steps suddenly out in front of them.
Leonard comes to an abrupt halt with a startled oath, the others piling up behind him. Sara moves up beside him, her gun in her hand, steel in her eyes.
The Nazi smiles at him, and Leonard feels ice in his veins. Because it's Vandal Savage standing in front of him, the spitting image of the man he'd sworn to take down, the man he'd…well, he'd thought he was going to die…to stop.
Why would the Nazis take Savage?he thinks absently, tensing to fight.He's not precisely their ideal…but I suppose they're his kind of people…
"Und wo sind Sie fünf gehen?" the Savage doppelganger says smoothly. "Ich denke, es gibt Leute, die Sie suchen..."
He never gets to finish, because with a yell of rage, Rip Hunter, or the Rip doppelganger, hurtles out of a nearby corridor, knife in hand, and tackles the bigger man.
"Run!" he yells at them. "Run, you idiots!"
They run. Leonard grabs Sara's hand as they do so. She lets him.
On the Queen Anne, 1998
There's someone else on the ship. Sara frowns, moving down the hallway, flashlight in one hand, bo in the other, Ray, Stein, and Jax trailing in her wake
She can hear the voices—a woman and a few men, she thinks—and hear the footsteps, but the group is always gone just before she turns a corner.
Otherwise, the Queen Anne is, indeed, deserted. The hallways are lit, though dimly, and in decent repair. Truly, a ghost ship.
She's seen some odd things—aliens, even—since going on the Waverider. This is among the odder of them.
They turn a corner…and an odd shudder runs down Sara's spine. She stops and shakes her head, looking at her right hand, which is closed around the bo…but momentarily felt warm.
The others have stopped as well.
"Did you feel that?" Jax asks the group at large. "Now, that was spooky. My grandma woulda called it someone walking on your grave."
"Jax, I've had people walking on my grave. It doesn't feel like anything."
The younger man eyes her for a moment, then shakes his head. "Yeah, and that isn't creepy or anything…"
The Queen Anne, 1939
They escort Raymond and his charges to the captain's quarters, where Jax immediately starts tinkering with the radio and Leonard ignores Raymond's questions in favor of wishing him a curt "good luck"—pausing to acknowledge Stein's quiet "thank you" before they leave the room. He uses the key he'd picked from the Fed's pocket, breaking it off in the lock, and then takes off again. Sara follows him.
When they finally emerge on the deck, Leonard casts a quick look around…and then grabs Sara's arm, pulling her back into the shadows as they see the Fed and the redhead standing there already.
"….don't go back and convince the crew of this ship to turn this ship around and head back into the devil's triangle, everything Einstein predicted will become true—except for the outcome of history," Mulder is saying, talking fast, obviously trying to persuade her of something.
The redhead is skeptical. "So, if I don't turn this ship around…?"
"In all likelihood, I won't exist … and neither will you." He considers her a long moment. "So, in case we never meet again…"
Leonard almost thinks Sara bites back a chuckle at the kiss that follows…and, standing there with her, he knows she does at the swift right hook that follows it. Personally, watching her in the darkness, he has some sympathy for the man. Does the redhead have a doppelganger, back where and when he's from? Was this a chance he'd never had the nerve to take before?
His mind is so elsewhere that he nearly misses it when the Fed hurls himself off the side of the ship, landing with a splash in the ocean below. The redhead runs after him, but after throwing a life preserver overboard and scanning the dark waters for a few minutes, she turns and heads back below decks. Leonard moves slowly to the railing and scans the ocean himself. Nothing.
Good luck, Fox.
"Was he right?" Sara's quiet question comes from behind him. "Is he…are you from…somewhere else?"
He considers and discards several responses, finally shrugs. "Yeah," he admits. "And he's right. The ship needs to turn around. I told…someone…in the boiler room. A man named Mick. If you find him, trust him. But whatever you do, make sure the ship turns. Take it back the way it came."
"And you?"
Almost time, he's pretty sure. "I'll be moving on." He turns to look at her…and she's standing close, so close, blue eyes gazing into his, a small frown on her lips.
Oh, what the hell. "So, just in case we never meet again…" he whispers.
And he kisses her. Finally stealing the kiss he's wanted to for so very long, or at least pretending to, given that this woman isn't Sara, just looks like her, moves like her, speaks like her...
...tastes like her...
"Sara? Sara? Are you OK?"
In 1998, Sara Lance stops dead in her tracks on the deck of the deserted Queen Anne, all thoughts of ghost ships and mysterious intruders washed away. Ray has turned back toward her; he's saying something, but she can barely hear him.
Her hand drifts to her mouth, fingers brushing against her lips, as a rush of warmth goes through her, the scent of warm leather and fresh winter air, the taste of mint and Leonard...
He semi-expects a fist to the face, like the skillful right hook Mulder'd gotten from the redhead. Hell, to be honest, he semi-expects a knife to the ribs.
Instead, Sara's double kisses him back, actually deepening the kiss by bending into him, lifting her arms and curving one hand across the back of his head, the other gripping the collar of his jacket. He makes a sound of surprise; she takes advantage of it by running the tip of her tongue along his lips, past them.
He can feels the pins and needles in his limbs that mean he's going to be leaving soon, any moment now, but he ignores them, pulling her closer, losing himself, or trying to, in the feel of her mouth on his, her body in his arms, the sense of Sara...Sara...Sara...
Just as he knows he can't hang on much longer, she breaks the kiss, pulling back just a little, looking at him with something amazed in her blue eyes.
"Leonard..." she whispers.
But he's gone.
Vanished...in blue light.
...
Author's note: OK, so you can accept that as the end, albeit a slightly mysterious (and possibly sad) one.
Or, you can go on and read the epilogue, which I posted at the same time. However, I'm warning you: The whole thing is another reference to one of my favorite TV shows from the '80s/'90s. I'll tell you what at the very end, if you don't get it, and you can comment or PM if you really want to scream at me.
You have been warned. ;)