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“This is really exciting,” Ray comments – mostly to himself, because the rest of the crew are off on their missions and the only way Mick is coming back is if something that isn’t supposed to be on fire ends up on fire and Gideon bullies him into returning. “Cold fusion is so awesome.”
Len always claimed it wasn’t the silence that bothered Ray but loneliness. But Len was the one who thought that maybe six months in a terrarium followed by a period of near total self-isolation as he continued to pretend to be dead had been damaging. And that he thought Team Arrow were full of idiots for letting that happen – and it wasn’t the fond way that he called Ray ‘idiot’ when he said it either.
“I think it’s working,” he observes and forces himself away from those thoughts. The less he thinks of Leonard Snart the better. He’s not sure but it does look like the beginning of embers are forming, but is that magic or just whatever material the totem is made of?
“Talking to yourself again, Raymond?”
He straightened, his chest tightening. How many times? He wants to believe, he really does, but it has been twice. It has his heart hesitating. He doesn’t want the wave of relief and joy rushing over himself, he knows it’ll be proven false. That this isn’t real – it can’t be happening.
“Len,” he says quietly, before he turns, and there he is.
That slightly downwards cast to his gaze as he observes everything, the sly smirk, the air of deadly confidence. It’s his Leonard, not some alternate-earth version, or it’s supposed to be.
“No warm greeting? Didn’t you miss me, Raymond?” Len stalks towards him with all that feline grace that always sent a shiver through him. Still does apparently, even as he’s trying to stomp down his hope.
“Of course I did – but,” he looks down, away from Len, trying to find the strength to steel himself against this. “This isn’t real. This is the death totem. Somehow.”
“Bingo,” Len smiles, just a little. “You know – I wanted you to be my partner, Raymond. Then you had to go and be so stupidly heroic that someone was going to have to die there. I couldn’t let it be you or Mick.”
“I know,” Ray’s voice is even softer. “But…whatever you are, however much I miss you, I can’t let you have what you want. You’re not him. Not really.”
“Very clever, Doctor Palmer,” Mallus’s voice echoes and it’s not Len but Sara in front of him.
He puts up a fight but he doesn’t have his suit and Ray’s not sure he could put up a decent fight against Sara even with it.
He coughs, tasting blood as his vision fades out while she walks away. Either he’s going to be seeing Len again sooner than he was hoping or the rest of the team will have to find a way to stop Sara.
(Later Ray doesn’t volunteer what he saw. But he thinks Mick knows since he sits in the lab to drink while Ray cleans up after the fight. They don’t talk. They never talk about him. But they try not to leave each other alone when the hurt gets suffocating either. And it’s not the bruised lung that is making it hard to breathe.)