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Well, it takes less time than Len thought to get that chance to fight.
Frankly, though, he hadn’t expected it to be back in the time Sara and the others came from, in Central City itself, and against the very time pirates who’d ambushed them barely a month back. Pirates teamed up with aliens, which is unexpected, but so much of their lives is, isn’t it?
Pirates and aliens are one thing, though. (Hell, he’s known aliens before.) Finding himself fighting, here, alongside this Earth’s Green Arrow and the Flash and Supergirl and other heroes, is both familiar and weird beyond belief. Because they’re both the same and not quite, and some of them stare at him the same way, in the way the Legends rarely do anymore.
Still, they’d also accepted him, quickly and with no obvious reservations, even the ones that’d known his doppelganger as an enemy, back before the Legends and the Oculus. In fact, after the fighting was done, the enemy defeated (the aliens fleeing, the time pirates departed under Rip’s custody), Barry had introduced him to this world’s Team Flash, including a dark-haired man named Cisco Ramon, who’d looked at him nervously, for some reason, but also nodded eagerly when told Len’s provenance.
“Yeah, I know your Earth,” Ramon had told him. “I can send you back, if you want. Anytime. Um. Well, tomorrow. Tonight is par-TAY time!”
Jax and Gideon had still been working on the puzzle of getting the Waverider to jump between Earths, although they’d recently gone down a promising new path. Len had still thought he’d had time. Maybe only days, weeks…but time.
Not hours.
The kid had meant to help, Len knows. Ramon had looked puzzled at the way the Legends had all stared silently at him, post-battle triumph and high spirits immediately flattened, expressions ranging from Ray’s open distress to Mick’s stony look. Barry, who apparently hadn’t expected the other man’s immediate recognition of Len’s Earth of origin, had gaped at his friend, then given Len a look that wasn’t sure whether to be apologetic or hopeful.
Sara’s expression, a fond grin for Ramon, had frozen, then vanished, leaving her face rather blank. She’d looked at Len after a moment, eyes holding his, then nodded once.
He knows how she feels, in more ways than one. This decision is up to him.
The exultation after the combined team victory had been such that certain more social members of Teams Arrow, Flash, Legends—and what would it be, Team Super?--had decided celebration was in order. The owner of one Central City establishment had been amenable to an impromptu semi-private party, given enough cash to make sure it was worth his while, and the booze is flowing with abandon as the music pounds on.
Len, knowing what he knows now, might have preferred to take Sara to a quiet hotel room for a while, to somehow build enough memories to sustain him for…for, well, the rest of his life. Or at least to go, by himself, back to the ship and take the time to talk to Gideon some more, to research answers, to figure out how to fix the mess he’s committed to going back to.
But he’s not going to try to entice Sara away from the friends she’s know far longer than him, now—not when they’ll be here for her and he won’t. And to go back to the ship by himself would mean giving up everything here just that much earlier. Not that it matters so much, he reflects with a sigh, when he’s tucked into a corner here at the bar by himself, nursing a beer, watching the festivities glumly and turning things over and over in his head.
There's no reason to delay. Not really. If he's decided he needs to go back, he needs to go back. Tomorrow, in a week, in a month... delaying will only hurt things worse, back there. And drag out the torture here. Right? Better to make a clean break?
He knows Mick and the others had offered to help him fix things, but aside from Sara (and Gideon, whose "brain" he'd picked while trying to figure out what to do), none of them really know what those things are. He's sort of glad for that. Sara, veteran of the League of Assassins, had been good about realizing that he hadn't meant to cause...well, any of it...but how would the others look at him? How would Mick?
He doesn't want to admit, to this world's Mick, what he'd done to the man's doppelgänger. The partnership he'd had with that Mick wasn't as strong, as resilient, as the friendship that'd existed between this world's Leonard and Mick. They'd met as adults, on a job, not as kids in juvie. The bond isn't the same. But he'd still considered the other man one of his few friends, and the first of the Rogues besides himself, and he’d never wanted…never meant…
Len pulls himself away from the memories, shuddering, and takes another swig of his beer. He doesn’t mean to, but he glances around for Mick as he does so. After a moment, he notes the bigger man’s presence across the room, where he’s talking with, of all people, Ramon himself, as well as a few other members of Team Arrow and Ray and Stein. They seem serious, even in the midst of the noise and bustle, and Len frowns, wondering why.
Barry, not so far away, is talking earnestly to this world’s incarnation of Supergirl (Len can’t help wondering where her cousin is, though there’s no way in hell he’s going to ask), her adopted sister and Green Arrow. This world’s Queen had merely given Len a flat stare when first introduced, then ignored him. Len rather thinks he likes his Earth’s version better. At least he’d seemed to have a sense of humor.
Len takes another drink, shaking his head, both glad that no one's intruding on his melancholy and regretful that he's wasting his remaining time sitting here.
Sara's out on the dance floor with a few of her friends, trying to give him space and trying, he suspects, to forget, herself, that this could be it. He doesn’t have the heart to chase her down. Let her enjoy herself, if she’s managing it.
Sara’s not managing it.
Oh, she’s trying. How often does she see Felicity and Thea, let alone any of the members of Team Flash or the National City contingent? And she’s known most of them a lot longer than one snarky crook-turned-hero from another world. Right?
And the massed teams have just kicked time pirate and alien (aliens again!) ass, so celebration is definitely in order. So she tells herself, as she joins Thea and Felicity and Iris on the dance floor, trying to give Len the space she’s pretty sure he needs for a while, since Cisco (damnit, Cisco) had dropped that bomb on him. On them.
She’d thought they had more time.
Sara’s already had a few drinks, and she’s telling herself no more for now. Maybe the alcohol makes the hurt a little more distant, but her family’s had too many problems with it, and she doesn’t want things to be too distant. One more night. They have, at least, one more night.
And then…
So, despite her assurances to herself, Sara finishes the latest dance song by pulling her hair back out of her face again, then reaching out to take the glass, filled with an unnaturally bright green liquid, right out of Thea’s hand and downing a few quick swallows while her friend swears at her. By the time she returns it, all three of the other women are staring at her, apparently clued in that something’s off. Sara gives them a smile, but she knows it looks insincere.
Felicity, straightening her glasses, looks concerned. Thea still looks pissed, but there’s an edge of question in her expression too. Iris looks back and forth between them, putting on what Sara thinks of as her reporter face, a listening, patient look that seems designed to get people to speak.
Sara has no intention of speaking. It hurts too much. And the booze has apparently reached its capacity for giving her distance.
“What’s gotten into you?” the blond woman wonders aloud. “Sara, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Look, the next song’s starting, we…”
But Felicity Smoak does what almost no one on the planet would dare do knowingly, and actually reaches out to grab Sara’s arm, dragging her over toward the far edge of the dance floor. Sara, slightly buzzed and slightly bemused, lets her, and Thea and Iris follow them.
Felicity finally comes to a halt, folding her arms and glaring. Thea takes a drink of her drink, apparently not minding assassin cooties, and translates the glare.
“I’d talk, if I were you,” she says knowingly. “You’ll never hear the end of it otherwise.”
Sara rolls her eyes and looks for help from Iris but doesn’t get it. The other woman does reach out, however, to put a supportive hand on her arm.
“Spill, girl,” she says, not without sympathy. “It’ll help.”
Sara sighs, looking around for another means of escape. “I doubt it,” she mutters. “Seriously, let’s…”
“It has to do with when you were talking to Barry and Cisco, doesn’t it?” A new voice cuts in. “And it’s something to do with the alternate Snart you have with you.”
Caitlin Snow lifts an eyebrow at the sudden regard of four sets of eyes but smiles regretfully at Sara. “Sorry,” she adds. “I just…your entire team got quiet. And let’s be honest, they’re usually not.”
Four sets of eyes are on Sara again. And she’s tired of dodging, tired of pretending. Maybe saying something will help.
“Cisco’s going to send him home,” she says, trying to shrug like it doesn’t matter. “Len. Tomorrow. And…that’s it. He’ll be gone. And he’s part of the team and we’ve…we’ve gotten close…”
Thea makes a sudden noise at those words, bringing her hands together in an almost-clap.
“And you’ve been banging him!” she says, looking almost gleeful. “Oh, Sara. There’s plenty of fish…”
No, letting it out didn’t help, Sara thinks. Not at all.
“No,” she snaps, not certain why she’s suddenly so angry. At Thea’s flippantness. At the world. “I’m in love with him. And he…he feels the same. And he’s leaving. And there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise.”
Thea makes a tiny, pained noise, looking abruptly horrified at her own words. Iris sighs, looking at Caitlin, who closes her eyes in sympathy. Felicity bites her lip.
“Then why doesn’t he stay?” she asks quietly. “Here? I mean, there’s no reason people can’t, right?”
Sara shakes her head again. “That’s his tale to tell, not mine,” she says, suddenly exhausted. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I want to get a drink…a drink of water…and then dance some more. When I’m moving, I’m not thinking as much. OK?”
Thea, still looking chagrined, nods decisively. "I get that," she announces. "I do. You sure you don't want anything stronger? No? Then come on." She grabs Sara's arm--the second time that's happened in just a few minutes, the former assassin thinks with faint amusement--and pulls her back on the dance floor, over toward the DJ.
What Sara doesn't see, then, is how Felicity, Iris, and Caitlin watch them go, then look at each other.
"Well," Felicity says after a moment. "I don't think we can let this stand. Guys?"
Iris, twisting her engagement ring around on her finger, nods--than throws a sudden look at Caitlin, one that is, perhaps, a little more knowing than it should be. The other woman, looking just a little thoughtful--and maybe a little unsettled -- nods back, then turns and heads back toward the various knots of people around the bar, making particularly toward a group composed of Barry, Team Flash's Harrison Wells, and a few of the Legends.
Kara and Alex Danvers, passing Caitlin on their way toward Felicity and Iris, turn to watch her go, then turn back toward the dance floor with slightly suspicious looks on their faces.
"What's going on?" Kara asks a little plaintively when they arrive. "The...err, Legends are acting weird...weirder than usual...and now Caitlin is, too."
"Sara, in particular," Alex comments, turning to scan the room. "She was...friendly...before, and then she just vanished."
Felicity eyes Iris. "Well," she says slowly, "I thought I knew. But now I think there's more I don't."
The other woman turns to make sure she knows where Sara is, pinpointing her with Thea over by the DJ, then nods again, looking back at the others.
"I'm not entirely sure we do," she says. "But...something weird happened a few weeks ago..."
Len hasn't been wholly alone in his corner, and that's probably just as well, considering the tenor of his thoughts. He might almost suspect the team of making it a point to check on him, but there hasn't been much rhyme or reason to it.
Stein, of people, had come over to introduce his wife, Clarissa, who looked rather amused at her surroundings but still greeted him graciously, and Stein’s daughter, Lily, who doesn't seem much like the bar sort but is clearly pleased to be hobnobbing with her father's "co-workers." (Some, he notices, more than others.) The older Stein had stayed a little longer, then patted Len on the shoulder in an almost fatherly fashion before vanishing into the crowd again.
Jax had appeared nearly as soon as Stein had left, leaning on the table and amusing Len with his take on the more stereotypical barflies and other club denizens. The youngest Legend can drink now but has decided he doesn't have much of a taste for it, so Len switched to club soda with him, spending a good half-hour trading observations and commentary before Jax saw a girl he thinks he knew in high school. Len toasted the kid with a glass as he left, wishing Jax more luck in love than he's having at the moment.
Then, Ray and Nate had found him, arranging themselves one on either side and plopping down two drinks in front of him, both an absolutely ridiculous-looking concoction they assure him is called a "Captain Cold," named for his this-Earth doppelgänger. Len eyes one dubiously before taking a sip, then coughs, pushing the sweet blue stuff (decked with silver sparkling sugar, for fuck’s sake) back to the others with his compliments.
When they'd finally wandered away, Mick had tracked him down, studied him a long moment, wordless, then grunted and walked away again. Len didn’t even bother to ask. Amaya, who’d been approaching them, changed her trajectory to follow Mick, then stopped. She studied Len, then mouthed “OK?” at him, apparently wondering if he wants company or not.
He nodded. She followed Mick. Good. She’s good for the big guy.
No one’s “bothered” him since.
Len hears Mick bark out a laugh, across the room, and glances over again at the other man, almost smiling as he sees Mick clap Ramon on the back, Amaya smiling at both of them. He’s glad Mick seems happy, here. Glad all the team is, even if he’s not a part of it anymore. It'd been a nice gesture, offering to help him, but he's not sure there's anything they could do. Hell, on his Earth, he'd been prepared to abase himself before Bruce himself if the man's technological resources would help and--
"Mr. Snart."
He looks up, startled, at the unfamiliar voice, and registers the brown-haired woman standing across the table, watching him with tentative eyes. Brown haired now, anyway; he realizes that she'd been white haired before, when they were fighting, and the memory actually makes him smile a little.
"Good team-up,” he tells Caitlin Snow, trying for cheerfulness and raising his bottle to her in a toast. “Seriously. Fun to ice up with someone who gets it. And the ice-gliding move? Genius.”
There's a Killer Frost on his Earth, too; he'd met her once. She'd been so different as to seem an entirely different woman from this Caitlin Snow. Maybe she is. He'd never cared to find out.
This woman, though, blinks at him a moment, and he belatedly remembers that she’d known the other Snart here as a former nemesis. Maybe it’s too weird? Or maybe he shouldn’t be acknowledging her alter ego so openly. In this place, with these people about, he’d assumed it was OK. But…
But she shakes her head, then, a smile touching her lips, and leans onto the table across from him. For a moment, they study each other, and Len has the uncanny feeling this woman is judging him somehow—not in a bad way, really, just in a very measuring one.
Len’s too tired and just a little too depressed to return the look or argue with it. Instead, he just signals a passing waitress for another beer, plus one for Caitlin. The woman eyes it dubiously, then shrugs and sips, nodding to herself and studying him again before speaking.
“The Snart we knew here,” she says, seeming to choose her words carefully, “he didn’t have powers. How did you get yours?”
Len stares at her. That goddamned question. He’d figured it was coming, from someone here, but when it didn’t earlier, he’d thought…he’d hoped…
Caitlin seems to read something in his face, but she doesn’t back away.
“We’re still working out how I got mine,” she adds quietly. “I had a…a pretty rough time controlling them at first. Not so much now. Was your…situation…similar?”
He’d told the Legends an accident had sent his gun critical during a battle. It’s true. He’d alluded to the presence of a meta whose powers had had something to do with it. That’s true, too. But…
But.
Well. Sara knows and hadn’t flinched away from him. Better, maybe, to finally come clean. And if he’s lucky, Mick won’t find out before he leaves.
“I had a cold gun. Like the Snart you knew.” He takes a bigger gulp of beer, suddenly wishing for something stronger, although he really doesn’t want to be plastered his last night here. “Sort of.”
Caitlin nods, then says, quietly, “sort of?”
“I tinkered with it. Did a lot of that. Always tryin’ to up my game. Mess with the Flash.” He gives her a half-smile. “Hear tell that was much the same here.”
She chuckles, quietly, just a little, but doesn’t speak, and Len continues. “Well, I got ahold of some sorta plans for a weapon, something from my Earth’s STAR Labs.” He pauses. “Well, OK, I stole ‘em. The weapon itself isn’t important…or I didn’t think it was. It was the other tech I found intriguing. It…it linked the weapon itself with the user. With their DNA.”
“Like being a meta yourself, sort of.”
“Yeah. Well…like I said. I tinkered. I adapted it for my gun. Tested it on myself. And damned if it didn’t work.” He knows his own eyes are distant. “Just had to think about it and aim. And, boom…ice. Worked like a dream. I…”
Len just can’t say it, just can’t tell her the next part. So he doesn’t. Yet.
“Anyway, wasn’t more than a couple days later,” he continues. “There was a meta. To this day I couldn’t tell you just what his powers were, just some sort of power waves, and he was wreaking havoc, explosions throughout the city, and the Flash wasn’t anywhere to be seen. But…he was on my turf, in my city, and I decided I was gonna show up the Flash this way, instead.”
Caitlin eyes him, taking another drink of her beer. “You were going to play the hero. To show up the Flash.”
“Well. Yeah. I didn’t think about it in those words, not then.” Len glances away. The memories want to choke him. He won’t let them. “I was trying to ice him down so he couldn’t move, and…and there was other stuff going on, and then he just…just imploded. My gun went critical. So did…”
He stops, continues. “When I woke up…” He holds up a hand, suddenly covered in a thin glaze of ice, even in the warm bar. “No gun. Plenty of ice. Found out later when the meta lost control, his powers, which had some sorta effect on the cellular level, took the bond with my gun to the nth level. Bonded the cryogenic material with my very DNA.”
A circle of ice around him, except where it’s been melted, a cloud of steam, the sound of screaming. And from the other side, just silence….
The memories crowd around him. Len soldiers on. “Didn’t have great control, at first. I kept at it.” He glances down at his beer, then lets the ice creep up the sides, just enough to chill it. “Got better, got more control. I…I left Central City. Found a new…gig. Then wound up here.” He stops then. He’s said enough.
Caitlin, however, is still watching him. There’s something in her eyes that looks perilously close to sympathy.
“And?” she says after a moment.
“And?”
She waits.
It’s probably his own guilt that’s hounding him here. He doesn’t even really know this woman. Why would he tell her this?
But suddenly, he is.
“The Mick from my Earth. And my…sister. I’ve heard…I’ve heard you helped her once. The one here.”
Caitlin nods. “Lisa. We did.”
But Len plows on, trying to get the words out. “I messed with their guns too. They weren’t so sure about it…well, Mick loved the idea of having fire at his beck and call, even if he was dubious about my tinkering, and Lisa…she didn’t like the idea at all.” He sighs. “I didn’t give ‘em any choice. My call, I said, as the leader of the Rogues. We had to up our game. It worked, but Mick couldn’t quite get the knack of control as easily as I did, and Lisa largely stopped using her gun that day, except when she really had to. She said…she didn’t like how it felt.
“And they were there that day, with the meta, even though they still weren’t great at controlling their guns. I made ‘em come with me. And…”
He stops again.
Caitlin continues for him after a moment. “Fire and gold,” she says. “Did they…did they live?”
“Yeah.” Len swallows. “They lived. But they…they haven’t managed to control their powers. Barely at all. And it’s…it’s not good. It’s bad. Really bad. And they blame me for it all. They’re right. I…” He shakes his head roughly, willing the images away. “Anyway, like I said, I left. Looking for a way to undo it, for them anyway.
“And then there was other shit going down, and I found myself on the same side as the Flash and the other heroes. And…well, I didn’t want anyone to destroy my city, or any other for that matter.” He shrugs. “Next thing you know, they say I’m a hero, a member of the Justice League, and I don’t know who and what I am anymore. The real villains don’t want me--and the feeling’s mutual. The Rogues despise me. My sister and my best friend hate me. And the heroes don’t quite trust me.”
What’d been in that beer? He doesn’t normally talk like this to anyone, let alone someone he barely knows.
But Caitlin’s nodding, something sad and understanding in her eyes. “I get it,” she says. “But you feel you have to go back and…what, fix them?”
“Help them, anyway. They’re not broken, just…” He pauses. “Wait. How did you know I thought I had to go back?”
Caitlin smiles at him, and then Ramon is on her right, and Barry is on her left, Iris next to him, and the man named Harrison Wells is standing behind her. Len shuffles his feet a little, hands going cold despite their smiles, because he’s still Rogue enough to be unnerved at five members of a Team Flash from any Earth facing him down.
“We just wanted to know,” Caitlin tells him. “What you’d tell us.”
And then Ray’s on one side of him, Nate’s on the other again, Mick’s looming over him and Amaya’s at his side, with Stein and Jax on the other. Len freezes again, feeling a little surrounded, though he’s pretty sure the team means to have his back. But…where’s Sara? He can’t see past the others.
Wells snorts at them, rolling his eyes and sipping his drink.
“Oh, back off,” he says drily, scanning the Legends. “We’re not going to hurt him. You don’t need to close ranks.”
Caitlin glances back at him, her own eyes sparkling. She starts to speak, but before she can, Ray interrupts, his voice dripping with eagerness.
“But did you tell him?” he asks eagerly.
Len frowns at the other man, trying to hide his unease. His hands are getting colder, and he clasps them under the table, exerting control. “Tell me what?”
Barry speaks up. “Well,” he says, “a couple weeks back, we got a message. From your ship.”
“Who…”
“He should say,” Wells interrupts this time, “from your AI. Which was a bit…disconcerting, to say the least. It…she was looking for information.”
Ray can’t contain himself anymore. “You asked Gideon for help with a problem, right? She couldn’t help you, so she took the initiative and contacted Team Flash. Which is waaayyy more initiative than I thought her programming allowed, but…”
“What’d she tell you?” Len interrupts, his mouth dry. Are they saying that they all know? What he’d done?
Iris breaks in now, and her eyes are understanding. “Just that she was inquiring about help for a new sort of meta. She wouldn’t say more.”
Ramon picks up the thread. “And when you guys were on your way here, she actually called again and requested secrecy…which is unnerving in a Skynet kinda way…”
“But at that point, the rest of us had figured some things out. Sara let a few things spill,” Amaya says then, smiling at Leonard. “At first, just that you felt you had to leave, which the rest of us didn’t completely understand. And then Team Flash didn’t keep Gideon’s secret…”
“And when the teams put the information together, it made sense that Gideon was making inquiries for you,” Stein adds. “Not because of your powers, because you seem at peace with them…”
“But for someone else,” Caitlin concludes. “And we knew enough of this Earth’s Snart to guess.”
Len stares at her. Then he glances around, at the others. All of whom watch him in return, with nary a sign of uncertainly. Mick, a very uncharacteristic look of understanding in his eyes, even nods to him. Yes.
“You know,” he says numbly. “You all know. And you don’t…”
But Stein holds up a hand, glancing around as if to make sure the others know he plans to take this, then nods.
“Mr. Snart,” the older man says kindly. “My somewhat misguided experiment led to the creation of Firestorm. It affected my life, Clarissa’s life, my original partner’s life….” He gives Caitlin a sad look. “And Ms. Snow’s life. And then Jefferson’s life. I didn’t plan for what happened, to happen. But it did. Do you blame me?”
Len considers the other man, but Ramon breaks in.
“I created the Earth-1 Snart’s cold gun,” he points out. “To…ah.” He darts a slightly apologetic look at Barry. “To stop Barry if he went rogue. That gun caused both a lot of damage….and then did a lot of good. Am I responsible for both?”
Wells mutters something under his breath, but Caitlin elbows him.
“And both Cisco and I worked on the particle accelerator here,” she points out quietly. “And that…that changed everything. We didn’t intend it to happen, but it did.”
“It’s not the same,” Len protests, but now it’s Wells’ turn to interrupt him.
“Whatever,” the scientist says with a shrug. “Wallow in guilt if you want. And it probably won't be completely undoable. But I ran into something similar back on my Earth…”
Len frowns at him. “Your Earth?”
“I'm from what they call Earth-2, here. Why this one is Earth-1 and the rest have to merely follow, I find somewhat irritating. But give me a blood sample and I’ll work it out. Snow and I,” he adds, and Caitlin smiles at him.
Len’s feeling a bit slow on the uptake. The man can’t possibly mean… "You can...undo it?”
The other man waves a hand in what might be annoyance but also might be genius in pursuit of a puzzle. Both, Len thinks. "Oh, yes. I’m certain we can. We’d already started looking into it. I have a thought…”
“How long?” Amaya asks, since Len can’t seem to find his voice at the moment.
“Within the week, I'd say.” Wells shrugs again. “Stick around long enough to get it—whatever remedy we come up with—and Ramon here can send you over. You can be there and back within the day, depending on where you…”
Len’s world has narrowed to those two words. “And back?”
Wells frowns at him. “Well, yes. You're coming back, aren't you? Ramon can pluck you out at any time. I'd been under the impression that you had many reasons to stay on this Earth.”
For some reason, he glances at Caitlin then. But Len’s barely paying attention.
He hadn't thought he'd be able to return here. He hadn’t even really considered it. Even if whatever method he uses to get back to his Earth could retrieve him—it’d seemed unlikely—there was still the probably of figuring out how to clean up the mess he’d left behind.
Beyond that…
“Yes. Yes, I am,” he hears himself saying. “Staying, I mean. I can stay. No reason not to. Right?”
Mick, laughing again, claps him on the back. “Good!” the bigger man declares. “Someone go tell Blondie. Glad to hear it, Weird Snart.”
The team is all talking at the same time, and so are Barry and Cisco. Len’s head is spinning, and he stands abruptly, then takes an abrupt step back, then another, turning and pushing through the others.
Sara. Where’s Sara? He can stay. He can…
Sara's been actively trying to avoid paying much attention to her surroundings, for once, or she'd have noticed something weird was going on sooner.
But she's actually managed to enjoy dancing with the group, including Kara and her (rather hot) sister and her friend Winn--who seems unperturbed by being the only guy in this particular group--and hell, she can use the distraction. But eventually, she needs another break and a drink, and turns aside, making her way toward the sidelines of the dance floor.
Kara and Winn are immediately on one side, chattering nonstop at her in a way that makes Sara side-eye them. Alex, behind them, closes her eyes briefly, then shakes her head.
It only takes a moment for Sara to realize that they're...well, herding her.
And then Felicity and Thea come up on her other side. Felicity is looking as fake-innocent as only she can, and Sara stops in her tracks, instantly suspicious.
"What?" she demands, starting to turn around.
But Oliver and Digg are standing there now, the former looking rather resigned, the latter looking rather amused.
“Sara,” he says in his deep, even voice. “Hello. Didn’t get much of a chance to say so earlier, with the pirates and the aliens and all.”
Sara eyes him. “Mmhmm. Hi, Digg. What’re you hiding?” She steps to the side, amused when Kara, certainly the strongest person in the room, nearly steps back before remembering and standing her ground.
“Little Sara is getting so big; you really need to come visit…”
But Oliver breaks in. “Yes. Visit,” he says in that abrupt way that’s a dead giveaway. “I want you to teach the newbies about a few of those moves your team uses. And…”
Sara glares. And it’s good, in a way, to find out she can still stop Oliver mid-word.
“You should visit us, too!” Kara sounds far too happy about the notion. “You could meet my cousin. I have this weird feeling he and Ray would hit it off.”
“Oooh, you’re right.” Winn looks like he’s going to have a fanboy meltdown. “They would. And they should meet…”
Felicity and Thea, who’ve been suspiciously quiet, for them, seem to be trying to look over their shoulders while Sara’s distracted by the others. Sara shakes her head, then takes a step back neatly out of the cluster of friends, pushing back Felicity even as she hears a loud laugh from Mick and sees the rest of the group gathered around where Len had been sitting, solitary, earlier.
Even as Felicity protests and Sara starts across the floor, Amaya, who’s been approaching them from that side of the bar, holds her hands up, stopping her.
“Sara,” she says, raising her voice as another song starts, something far too cheerful for the worry Sara’s feeling right now. “Wait. We…”
Len’s tall enough that when he stands, Sara can see his abrupt movement immediately. She starts toward him again, only for Amaya to step in front of her again.
Sara’s about to tell the other woman off, worry and stress combining to make her words a little sharper than usual, when Amaya, trusting her captain and throwing caution to the winds in a way even Felicity hadn’t dared, reaches out and grabs her shoulders, actually giving Sara a little shake.
“He’s staying,” she says simply.
Sara blinks at her. “I…what?”
“Wells, from Team Flash, he says he can fix it. The…issue Len has, back on his Earth. It’s a long story. But Len’s going to go there and then come back. He’s coming back, Sara. He’s staying on the team.”
There she is, still out on the dance floor, talking to Amaya, who actually has her hands on Sara’s shoulders, holding her in place. Then even as Len takes a step toward them, she lets go, stepping back, leaving nothing left between them.
In more ways than one.
Sara takes a step, then pauses, a smile starting to lurk around her mouth as she tilts her head, apparently listening to the music. Then she starts toward him again, slowing as she nears…and reaching out to take his arm, pulling him toward her.
“She took my arm
I don't know how it happened…”
Len brings his arms up and around Sara, holding her loosely, not caring if anyone sees them now. He’s still in shock, stunned by how the team—the teams—had come together to help him, help them. Stunned by how a relatively bleak future is suddenly something a lot more …a lot more…
He doesn’t really have words for it.
Sara’s looped her arms around his neck, studying his expression.
“It’s true,” she says after a moment. It’s not a question. “You can stay.”
‘Oh don't you dare look back
Just keep your eyes on me
I said you're holding back
She said shut up and dance with me”
“I go have to go back, first,” Len tells her. “Clean up…what I did. Help Lisa and Mick. And yeah…then…” He says the next words in a rush, barely thinking about them. “Come with me? See my Earth, where I came from? It shouldn’t be long…”
Sara’s smiling at him. “I’d love to.” She snickers a little. “I could knock some sense into your…league...there?
“I felt it in my chest as she looked at me
I knew we were bound to be together
Bound to be together”
“Eh, they’re not all that bad.” He can be magnanimous, now. “And I’d appreciate the backup. Mick, there…he’s…dangerous. And Lisa…”
His voice fades…but now’s not the time. Now is the time to celebrate. He suddenly spins Sara around, grinning when she laughs, and catches sight of the team watching them from over where he’d been moping his night away, earlier.
Mick is beaming, grinning from ear to ear, looking so very different from the other Mick that Len knows. And—well, whaddayaknow—he has his arm draped over Amaya’s shoulders in a way that manages to look, hmmm, personal, without being possessive. And certainly Amaya, whose smile is nearly as wide, doesn’t seem to mind.
Why did he and Sara ever think their teammates would mind their relationship? Len nearly laughs again at the smug gleam in Stein’s eyes, at the amusement on Jax’s face, at the gleeful smirks Ray and Nate are wearing. They’re a bunch of matchmakers, the lot of them.
And Gideon. She might not be here, but in her meddling AI ways, she’d gotten the ball rolling on all this.
Len’s not sure what a ship’s AI could possibly want, but he’ll do his damned best to show his appreciation. He looks back down to comment on this to Sara, only to see her studying him in a particularly intent way, and he catches his breath, watching her.
“Deep in her eyes
I think I see the future
I realize this is my last chance
She took my arm
I don't know how it happened
We took the floor and she said”
“Guess we finally got that dance,” Sara whispers to him. “The one you mentioned, back in Central City on our first date? I asked if you danced.”
Len smiles, thinking about it. “ ‘With the right partner,’ ” he recalls. “Well, guess I found one.”
Sara rolls her eyes at him. “Like you had any doubt.”
She’s right. He hadn’t. At all. And as the music quiets for a moment, Len looks down at her, his almost giddy high spirits quieting for a moment, appreciating how they’re come here, across worlds, to be together, and what the odds must have been.
Then, he pulls Sara into a firmer embrace, dipping her backward as she laughs, and kissing her, right out there in front of all the teams and a good deal of strangers, as laughter and wolf whistles echo and the music rises again. Sara grabs his face and kisses him back, fire to his ice, and this, here, is all he really wants in his life: this woman, in partnership with a team that likes and respects him, and all the potential ahead of them.
“Don't you dare look back
Just keep your eyes on me
I said you're holding back
She said shut up and dance with me
This woman is my destiny
She said oh-ooh
Shut up and dance with me”