A Time For Great Things - Chapter 9
“We’re so close to getting him back, but with our track record… I’m afraid of getting the rug pulled out from under me again.”
Many, many thanks to stillwordgirl for all her work in this epic!
Sara sat by the forward window, staring out at the green maelstrom of the Temporal Zone. She turned away from the scene at the sound of Rip’s footsteps entering the bridge.
“Is Jax all right?”
Rip nodded. “Nothing Gideon couldn’t handle,” he said. “At least, the physical part. It would have been worse had Dr. Palmer not retrieved him so quickly from the rubble.”
He leaned against the holo table. “I think Mr. Jackson was much more rattled by the level of hate and violence in that era than he was by the blow to his head.”
“You’re probably right,” Sara replied. “To most of us, the Ku Klux Klan isn’t much more than a name in the history books. Speaking of which…” she cocked her head at him curiously, “…up to now, all our deflection points have been connected to… more minor historic events. The Morro Castle instead of the Titanic. Lewiston instead of Gettysburg.”
He nodded, and she continued, “You told us the Time Masters wouldn’t have bothered with them. But that church bombing wasn’t really minor. It was a big deal for the civil rights movement. Why wouldn’t the Time Masters have hit that site for chronium?”
She leaned forward. “What didn’t you tell us this time?”
Rip blew out a sigh before answering. “The answer is a crude one, I’m afraid. Body count.”
Sara gave a resigned nod. “Thought it would be something like that.”
“Yes. Well, they discovered a direct correlation between a high number of deaths and the amount of chronium left behind by the Ridge,” Rip explained. He shook his head. “As horrific as it was for four little girls to die in that church bombing, the Time Masters would have disregarded the event because there were ‘only…’” he made air quotes… “four deaths. It was more efficient for them to only visit sites with massive death tolls of a thousand or more.”
“Pretty cold-blooded,” Sara observed.
Rip raised an eyebrow at her. “And that surprises you? Knowing everything else the Time Masters did? Mr. Snart was right in calling them the Time Bastards.” Rip stared down at the table for a moment, then met her eyes again. “We’re going to do better than that.”
“We?” Sara asked, raising an eyebrow of her own.
Rip pushed away from the table, walking to his captain’s chair. “While we’ve all been busy working to retrieve Mr. Snart, I’ve also been thinking about what comes after that. And the question that keeps coming to my mind is: Who will protect history with the Council gone?”
Sara stared at him in surprise. “You’re thinking we should?”
He leaned forward. “If you all wish to join me. I know it’s one of many things you will have to discuss with Mr. Snart when we get him back.” Rip put a slight emphasis on when. “Of course, I will understand should any of you choose to follow Kendra and Mr. Hall back to your old lives.”
Sara reached for the locket hanging around her neck, thinking about her last conversation with Kendra.
“Sara, I know it seems like I’m abandoning you,” Kendra said. “But Carter wants to start over, and I can’t just leave him. He doesn’t have all his memories back, and he doesn’t know how to function on his own in the 21st century.”
“Kendra, you two have a history of four thousand years,” Sara answered. “Of course I don’t expect you to turn your back on that.”
Kendra hugged her tightly. “You let us know when you’ve got him back. And when you do…” her friend’s eyes got a little wicked, “Kiss him once for me.”
Sara’s thoughts returned to the present, and to Rip’s proposal. “Rip, ever since this started, I’ve only been able to think a few minutes ahead,” she answered slowly, staring down at the locket. “I’ve been… afraid to do more than that. I’ve lost too much.”
She looked back up at Rip. “Right before… everything… he told me he’d been thinking about the future… our future. That’s as far as the conversation went before he… you know.”
She sighed. “We’re so close to getting him back, but with our track record… I’m afraid of getting the rug pulled out from under me again.”
“Oh, Sara.” Rip stood and walked over to crouch before her. “I know I haven’t been much of a Time Master, too many times. But listen to me. We have set history right more than once on this… quest of ours, and I believe that has to mean we will be successful.”
He wrapped one hand around hers. “I need you to believe, too. Believe in this team, because we’re all with you. Believe in that Leonard Snart from the future.”
He took the locket from her fingers and opened it to reveal Len’s picture. “And believe in this man, too, Sara. He may not have said anything until we got to the Vanishing Point, but he loved you long before then.” He looked down at the photo, then back up at her. “Just look at the way he looked at you when he thought no one was paying attention.”
He was looking at her in that photo? With that soft expression? Oh, Len…
Rip gave her hands a squeeze. “Try to get some rest, Sara. One last stop tomorrow, and then we’ll bring him home.”
He rose and headed toward the passageway to his quarters. He turned back to her. “And Sara? Whatever you and Mr. Snart decide for your future… I will always be your friend.”
Sara nodded and he went down the passageway. She turned back to the window, but didn’t really see the Temporal Zone any more.
Instead she saw a pair of blue-green eyes, gazing softly at her.
--
The thread for Sara was white. Again, not a surprise.
The first thing it showed him was a young girl sitting on a window seat, staring outside at three slightly older children.
Leonard’s memory had recovered enough for him to be able to identify those three older children from the stories Sara had told him over their card games. The girl was her sister, Laurel. The dark-haired boy was Tommy Merlyn. The blond boy was Oliver Queen.
And the little girl in the window seat was Sara herself.
She was as adorable as Lisa had been as a child: golden hair in pigtails, freckles scattered across her face. There was a wistful expression in her blue eyes as she watched the others at play, then she frowned down at the cast on her left ankle.
“I tried all kinds of things to impress Oliver,” he remembered Sara telling him. “When I was six, he challenged me to jump with him off a jungle gym at the park. I broke my ankle, but I liked it when he put an arm around me to help me get home.”
He watched the girl change while still sitting at the window. The cast disappeared first, then the pigtails. At one point, a cage with a small bird appeared beside her, then vanished again.
She grew taller and more beautiful.
But she still stared wistfully after Oliver Queen.
There were other boys… and girls… who flitted briefly through the thread of images as Sara tried to leave Queen behind. But his shadow always seemed to be there.
Leonard smirked a little as one of those boys taught her how to hotwire a car. Then he raised his eyebrows at the sight of a teenaged Sara handcuffed to a chair in what he was certain was a police precinct. The girl looked irritated until a woman in black smashed into the room.
Right. The Pilgrim. It had to be 2007. Which meant that soon…
Leonard swallowed as the scene changed yet again, and he saw a giggling young Sara Lance board a yacht with Oliver Queen.
He knew what was coming next. “Please, no,” he said softly, not wanting to see her with Queen.
Not wanting to see what he knew came after that: The Amazo. Lian Yu. Ivo. The League. Names mentioned in conversation. Part of her path to becoming an assassin.
“I don’t need to see this,” he said as he watched her get swept out to sea.
“That’s not her anymore,” he said as he watched her train in Nanda Parbat, becoming a skilled killer.
“She is alive now!” he protested as he saw her take three arrows and plummet to the ground. He buried his face in his hands and took several shuddering breaths.
When he looked up again, the stream had turned white again, hovering a few feet away, as if it was waiting for him. “That’s not her anymore, but she wouldn’t be the person she is without any of it,” he said at last. “You… somebody needed me to see that, just like you needed me to see what was done to Mick. I think I understand.”
He thought for a moment. “Show me… show me what’s happened to her since…” Suddenly the memory crashed in on him, full force. “Since the Oculus.”
The white thread surrounded him once more.
She was crying. That somehow shook him more than any of the things he knew happened to her after the Gambit. The Sara Lance he knew didn’t cry.
Mick was there too, looking hollow and lost. There were other faces he realized he knew as well, and the names came to him. Stein. Jax. Raymond. Rip
All of them wore expressions of shock and mourning.
For him? Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs?
“He was a hero,” the image of Raymond said.
“I’m not a hero,” Leonard argued with the stream.
The image changed again, showing the team on a rooftop, all staring at a man in a blue parka.
His blue parka. Leonard stared, openmouthed, as he watched himself embrace Mick and Sara in a way he couldn’t remember ever doing.
But seeing it now, he wished he had.
It’s the things I didn’t do keep me up at night…
He smirked a little as he saw himself argue with Rip, and then took in a deep breath when the image Snart took Sara in his arms and kissed her like they were in a scene from a movie.
He knew he’d never done that; he could now remember the one kiss Sara had given him, and that wasn’t it.
“So you’re just making stuff up now?” he asked the image stream dryly. “Okay, then. I told Sara I’d been thinking about what the future held for her and me.”
He shifted a little, trying to get more comfortable. “So show me.”
Many, many thanks to stillwordgirl for all her work in this epic!
Sara sat by the forward window, staring out at the green maelstrom of the Temporal Zone. She turned away from the scene at the sound of Rip’s footsteps entering the bridge.
“Is Jax all right?”
Rip nodded. “Nothing Gideon couldn’t handle,” he said. “At least, the physical part. It would have been worse had Dr. Palmer not retrieved him so quickly from the rubble.”
He leaned against the holo table. “I think Mr. Jackson was much more rattled by the level of hate and violence in that era than he was by the blow to his head.”
“You’re probably right,” Sara replied. “To most of us, the Ku Klux Klan isn’t much more than a name in the history books. Speaking of which…” she cocked her head at him curiously, “…up to now, all our deflection points have been connected to… more minor historic events. The Morro Castle instead of the Titanic. Lewiston instead of Gettysburg.”
He nodded, and she continued, “You told us the Time Masters wouldn’t have bothered with them. But that church bombing wasn’t really minor. It was a big deal for the civil rights movement. Why wouldn’t the Time Masters have hit that site for chronium?”
She leaned forward. “What didn’t you tell us this time?”
Rip blew out a sigh before answering. “The answer is a crude one, I’m afraid. Body count.”
Sara gave a resigned nod. “Thought it would be something like that.”
“Yes. Well, they discovered a direct correlation between a high number of deaths and the amount of chronium left behind by the Ridge,” Rip explained. He shook his head. “As horrific as it was for four little girls to die in that church bombing, the Time Masters would have disregarded the event because there were ‘only…’” he made air quotes… “four deaths. It was more efficient for them to only visit sites with massive death tolls of a thousand or more.”
“Pretty cold-blooded,” Sara observed.
Rip raised an eyebrow at her. “And that surprises you? Knowing everything else the Time Masters did? Mr. Snart was right in calling them the Time Bastards.” Rip stared down at the table for a moment, then met her eyes again. “We’re going to do better than that.”
“We?” Sara asked, raising an eyebrow of her own.
Rip pushed away from the table, walking to his captain’s chair. “While we’ve all been busy working to retrieve Mr. Snart, I’ve also been thinking about what comes after that. And the question that keeps coming to my mind is: Who will protect history with the Council gone?”
Sara stared at him in surprise. “You’re thinking we should?”
He leaned forward. “If you all wish to join me. I know it’s one of many things you will have to discuss with Mr. Snart when we get him back.” Rip put a slight emphasis on when. “Of course, I will understand should any of you choose to follow Kendra and Mr. Hall back to your old lives.”
Sara reached for the locket hanging around her neck, thinking about her last conversation with Kendra.
“Sara, I know it seems like I’m abandoning you,” Kendra said. “But Carter wants to start over, and I can’t just leave him. He doesn’t have all his memories back, and he doesn’t know how to function on his own in the 21st century.”
“Kendra, you two have a history of four thousand years,” Sara answered. “Of course I don’t expect you to turn your back on that.”
Kendra hugged her tightly. “You let us know when you’ve got him back. And when you do…” her friend’s eyes got a little wicked, “Kiss him once for me.”
Sara’s thoughts returned to the present, and to Rip’s proposal. “Rip, ever since this started, I’ve only been able to think a few minutes ahead,” she answered slowly, staring down at the locket. “I’ve been… afraid to do more than that. I’ve lost too much.”
She looked back up at Rip. “Right before… everything… he told me he’d been thinking about the future… our future. That’s as far as the conversation went before he… you know.”
She sighed. “We’re so close to getting him back, but with our track record… I’m afraid of getting the rug pulled out from under me again.”
“Oh, Sara.” Rip stood and walked over to crouch before her. “I know I haven’t been much of a Time Master, too many times. But listen to me. We have set history right more than once on this… quest of ours, and I believe that has to mean we will be successful.”
He wrapped one hand around hers. “I need you to believe, too. Believe in this team, because we’re all with you. Believe in that Leonard Snart from the future.”
He took the locket from her fingers and opened it to reveal Len’s picture. “And believe in this man, too, Sara. He may not have said anything until we got to the Vanishing Point, but he loved you long before then.” He looked down at the photo, then back up at her. “Just look at the way he looked at you when he thought no one was paying attention.”
He was looking at her in that photo? With that soft expression? Oh, Len…
Rip gave her hands a squeeze. “Try to get some rest, Sara. One last stop tomorrow, and then we’ll bring him home.”
He rose and headed toward the passageway to his quarters. He turned back to her. “And Sara? Whatever you and Mr. Snart decide for your future… I will always be your friend.”
Sara nodded and he went down the passageway. She turned back to the window, but didn’t really see the Temporal Zone any more.
Instead she saw a pair of blue-green eyes, gazing softly at her.
--
The thread for Sara was white. Again, not a surprise.
The first thing it showed him was a young girl sitting on a window seat, staring outside at three slightly older children.
Leonard’s memory had recovered enough for him to be able to identify those three older children from the stories Sara had told him over their card games. The girl was her sister, Laurel. The dark-haired boy was Tommy Merlyn. The blond boy was Oliver Queen.
And the little girl in the window seat was Sara herself.
She was as adorable as Lisa had been as a child: golden hair in pigtails, freckles scattered across her face. There was a wistful expression in her blue eyes as she watched the others at play, then she frowned down at the cast on her left ankle.
“I tried all kinds of things to impress Oliver,” he remembered Sara telling him. “When I was six, he challenged me to jump with him off a jungle gym at the park. I broke my ankle, but I liked it when he put an arm around me to help me get home.”
He watched the girl change while still sitting at the window. The cast disappeared first, then the pigtails. At one point, a cage with a small bird appeared beside her, then vanished again.
She grew taller and more beautiful.
But she still stared wistfully after Oliver Queen.
There were other boys… and girls… who flitted briefly through the thread of images as Sara tried to leave Queen behind. But his shadow always seemed to be there.
Leonard smirked a little as one of those boys taught her how to hotwire a car. Then he raised his eyebrows at the sight of a teenaged Sara handcuffed to a chair in what he was certain was a police precinct. The girl looked irritated until a woman in black smashed into the room.
Right. The Pilgrim. It had to be 2007. Which meant that soon…
Leonard swallowed as the scene changed yet again, and he saw a giggling young Sara Lance board a yacht with Oliver Queen.
He knew what was coming next. “Please, no,” he said softly, not wanting to see her with Queen.
Not wanting to see what he knew came after that: The Amazo. Lian Yu. Ivo. The League. Names mentioned in conversation. Part of her path to becoming an assassin.
“I don’t need to see this,” he said as he watched her get swept out to sea.
“That’s not her anymore,” he said as he watched her train in Nanda Parbat, becoming a skilled killer.
“She is alive now!” he protested as he saw her take three arrows and plummet to the ground. He buried his face in his hands and took several shuddering breaths.
When he looked up again, the stream had turned white again, hovering a few feet away, as if it was waiting for him. “That’s not her anymore, but she wouldn’t be the person she is without any of it,” he said at last. “You… somebody needed me to see that, just like you needed me to see what was done to Mick. I think I understand.”
He thought for a moment. “Show me… show me what’s happened to her since…” Suddenly the memory crashed in on him, full force. “Since the Oculus.”
The white thread surrounded him once more.
She was crying. That somehow shook him more than any of the things he knew happened to her after the Gambit. The Sara Lance he knew didn’t cry.
Mick was there too, looking hollow and lost. There were other faces he realized he knew as well, and the names came to him. Stein. Jax. Raymond. Rip
All of them wore expressions of shock and mourning.
For him? Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs?
“He was a hero,” the image of Raymond said.
“I’m not a hero,” Leonard argued with the stream.
The image changed again, showing the team on a rooftop, all staring at a man in a blue parka.
His blue parka. Leonard stared, openmouthed, as he watched himself embrace Mick and Sara in a way he couldn’t remember ever doing.
But seeing it now, he wished he had.
It’s the things I didn’t do keep me up at night…
He smirked a little as he saw himself argue with Rip, and then took in a deep breath when the image Snart took Sara in his arms and kissed her like they were in a scene from a movie.
He knew he’d never done that; he could now remember the one kiss Sara had given him, and that wasn’t it.
“So you’re just making stuff up now?” he asked the image stream dryly. “Okay, then. I told Sara I’d been thinking about what the future held for her and me.”
He shifted a little, trying to get more comfortable. “So show me.”