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Stein is dead, and the team has to… figure out how to just get back to fixing the timeline. Without him.
Behrad knows that they’ve lost people before-- specifically, they’ve lost someone with the same face as this Leo guy who’s come aboard from another earth. He doesn’t know the entire story, because they don’t really seem keen on talking about it and he hasn’t had the courage to ask, but he gets the impression that this world’s Leo was a pretty good guy, though not as noble as other-earth Leo.
And though he and Stein were never all that close, Behrad really liked the old guy.
Stein was the one person who never let them forget that he was bound to his home time period-- the others had families too, of course, but Stein never stopped talking about his beloved Clarissa and his daughter, Lily, and insisted on taking time off every now and then to take the jumpship back to 2017 to visit them. Over the last couple of months, Behrad has to admit that he’s gotten kind of used to being away from home but still, he feels guilty, like he's abandoning his responsibilities, just like Zari always said he did.
And Stein, missing Lily every moment he spent away from her, had taken to nagging the whole crew as if they were his own children. Sara and Mick would always just roll their eyes, and Jax would complain about it-- loudly, like he did for all of Stein’s irritating habits. Nate and Amaya would take the nagging with a tired sort of courtesy, while Ray would respond to it with his usual bright enthusiasm. But Behrad had truly enjoyed Stein’s fussy nature. It reminded him of his maman's chiding about cleaning his room or doing the dishes. And sure, Stein was far from motherly -- it was more like complaints about the lab smelling like a drug that would rot his brain or warning him that napping on the couch would give him back problems, but that all very clearly came from a place of care-- and, from what Jax has told him about their encounters with Stein’s younger self, from personal experience.
Now, it’s more somber on the ship than he’s ever seen, even more than it had been after Sara sold Rip out to the Time Bureau in London. Sara throws herself into extensive training routines and Amaya spars with her to work out her own grief. Mick drinks even more than he usually does, which Behrad didn’t think was actually possible, and Nate buries himself into his historical research. Even Ray hasn’t been able to manage his normally lighthearted demeanor, and Behrad has seen him turn around while working like he’s about to make some scientific quip that’s too smart for any of the rest of them to understand, only to stop, and realize that the professor isn’t there to hear it.
Worst of all is Jax, of course, because the two of them had been tied together through the Firestorm Matrix for years , and Stein literally died in his arms to save him. Behrad watches the way everyone sort of tiptoes around Jax, like he’s a kid, because to everyone else, Jax is their kid brother who doesn’t need to be protected, but who they want to protect anyways, especially now that they all feel Stein’s absence like a gaping wound.
But it’s so bad for Jax that he’s been camping out in Behrad’s room for the last couple of days, because without their telepathic link, Jax feels truly alone in a way he hasn’t felt in over three years. He goes to Behrad for company, because even though he has every right to break down while mourning the man who was like a father to him, the rest of the team’s attempts to comfort him feel patronizing. Jax doesn’t talk to Behrad about his feelings-- that’s not the relationship they have-- and Behrad is grateful for that, because he wouldn't know how to handle it, and he’s afraid that he’d panic, get high to calm himself down, and say the wrong thing while stoned.
Instead, they duke it out in virtual combat, or race each other through every Mario Kart course they can get their hands on. When Jax holes himself up in the engine room to “run a diagnostic,” Behrad checks in on him after an hour with a bowl of soup and asks Jax to show him how the ship’s propulsion systems work.
So, when Leo calls Behrad into the library and pulls out a silly puppet version of Stein and asks Behrad to tell the puppet whatever he wishes he could say to their dead friend, he really doesn’t know how to react.
“Oh, don’t be shy, Behrad, I’m sure there’s something you want to get off of your chest.” Leo urges him, bobbing the puppet’s head from side to side. Behrad is just glad that Nate’s critique of Leo’s Stein impression got him to give up on ventriloquism. “Lay it on him.”
“I don’t know, man, I didn’t really know him that well.” Behrad fidgets in his chair, trying not to look at the puppet, whose glasses are slightly askew. “I’ve only been here for a couple of months, and we didn’t have much in common outside of missions. So, I’m fine, really.”
“That doesn’t mean you aren’t grieving.” Leo sighs, and retracts the puppet, setting it under the table, and laces his fingers together and rests his chin on his hands. “The thing about loss is that it doesn’t matter how well you knew the person, only that things feel different, when they’re gone. Now, you say you’re fine, but I could smell the skunk you’ve been smoking from a mile away.”
“What, that? That’s not new. That’s just Tuesdays.”
“You’re deflecting .” Leo purses his lips disapprovingly. “Let’s try a different tactic: is this the first time you’ve lost someone?”
“Sort of.” He admits with a shrug. When he was a kid, some of his relatives died, and he remembers funerals and family gatherings, and his parents looking weary and tired, and Zari seeming to understand what was happening more than he did at the time. “There have been deaths in my family, but I was just a little kid and I didn’t really know what was happening.”
“But now you do.”
“Yeah. But I don’t really know how I feel about it? I mean, of course I’m sad, of course I miss him, but it’s more like… I guess I just wish I had taken the time to get to know him a little better. While he was here.”
Leo nods solemnly, blue eyes piercing, but not cold.
“Regrets like that are natural, and they never really leave us. What you need to do now is let them take you forward , instead of dragging you down.”
---
Behrad takes a nap after Leo’s impromptu therapy session, but is rudely awoken by a timequake that gathers the team to the parlour, where Sara orders them to “take all of their feelings about Martin, and then put it in a box, and then close the box, and then lock the box,” because there’s a Level 12 anachronism for them to fix.
It sounds like a pretty bad idea, shutting their feelings away, but Behrad doesn’t argue. He just nods when Sara delegates him to QB, and heads back to the lab to go back to sleep.
Vinland, 1000 AD
When Jax, Sara, Nate, and Mick come back from checking it out, they’re accompanied by a skinny, disheveled-looking man wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a Hanukkah sweater. This, Nate tells him, is a young Professor Stein, because of course it is, with the way things go on this ridiculous ship. And now, the vikings think that the fluffy, blue, animatronic Beebo toy that young Stein had bought for his daughter is a god .
Watching Jax fix up a cup of earl grey tea for young Stein, because he knows exactly how the professor likes his tea, is a little bit painful, because Behrad can see how happy Jax is to have any version of Stein around at all. And then, when Sara tells Behrad to take young Stein to get cleaned up because she very clearly does not trust Jax to not try to prevent Stein’s death in 2017, Behrad obeys, because he knows Jax well enough to know that’s exactly what Jax is planning to do.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” young Stein says, once they’ve entered the hallway. He offers his hand, “Though, I suppose you must already know my future self.”
“Uh, yeah,” Behrad smiles awkwardly through the handshake. “I’m Behrad.”
“It’s a wonder I haven’t run into several different iterations of this team by now, with how frequently our paths seem to cross.”
“Really?” Behrad asks, brows furrowed. “Does this happen a lot?”
“Mmm, I’d say it’s often, as far as the chances of running into your future, time-travelling self go. This would be my third encounter, though it’s certainly the strangest by far --”
“Mart-- Marty-- uh, Martin!” Ray fumbles for words, spotting the two of them as they meet in the intersecting hallways. Mick, Amaya, and Leo aren’t far behind him. “You’re looking… young and lively? It’s, um, good to see you!”
“You too, Raymond.” Young Stein shakes Ray’s hand in greeting. “One question: where’s… me?”
Uh oh.
“Uh, you--” Amaya starts, and Behrad braces himself for whatever might come next.
“At peace.” Leo says, and Behrad can’t quite tell if he’s smirking, or if that’s just how his face is all the time.
“With your family!” Behrad blurts out in a panic. “For the-- for the holidays.”
“Ah, I almost forgot!” Young Stein clasps his hands together and nods, smiling politely. “Happy Hanukkah.”
Then, Behrad deflates in relief, and grabs young Stein by the shoulders to whisk him off to the bathroom, because the man has been stuck in viking times for over a week and desperately needs a shower.
---
The rest of the team heads out to retrieve the Beebo doll, leaving Behrad with Jax while young Stein cleans up. All things considered, Behrad thinks that Jax is actually handling this pretty well. Which means that things will probably go wrong pretty soon. But Behrad is trying not to think that far ahead, right now. That’s a problem for them to deal with later.
They’re in the lab, playing Mortal Kombat, and while Behrad has gotten a lot better at the game than he was when he’d first come aboard, he’s not usually able to beat Jax this badly.
“Dude, I’m not even trying at this point.”
“I’m just warming up.” Jax retorts, missing his next attack. Behrad strikes back and lands a nasty combo.
“Why don’t we make this a little more interesting?” He suggests, not looking away from the screen. “Loser takes the winner’s chores for a month?”
It’s really not much of a wager-- half the time, everyone procrastinates so long on their chores that Ray ends up doing most of them because he genuinely has fun doing the laundry and washing the dishes. Still, Jax laughs, furiously mashing at the buttons. “Deal.”
Jax lands a couple of punches, then nudges Behrad with his elbow. “I see what you’re trying to do, man. I know you’re trying to distract me.”
“Well… is it working?” He asks, slowly.
“I still wanna warn Grey.” Jax admits, dodging Behrad’s attacks.
“Then you should do it.” Behrad answers. “I mean, you’ll hate yourself forever if you don’t at least try to do something.”
“Yeah, but Sara--”
“Can’t stop you! Not while she’s off fighting vikings, anyways. Now’s the time.”
“Yeah, no, I know, but--”
“Ah, Jefferson!” The lab’s doors swoosh open, and young Stein strolls in, freshly showered and in a clean set of clothes. “There you are.”
While Jax is distracted, Behrad goes in for the kill, and he cackles when Jax shoves him playfully, complaining, “Oh, come on , B! Not cool!”
“Don't hate the player, hate the game.” Behrad laughs.
“You're the worst.” Jax rolls his eyes. Behrad just shoves him back.
“Forgive the interruption, but I would very much like to return to my Clarissa and Lily.” Young Stein informs them, primly. “With or without that wretched Beebo.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, I’ll take you in the jumpship.” Jax sets his controller down and gets up, moving to follow young Stein out of the lab.
“Hey,” Behrad grabs Jax’s wrist, “Seriously, do it. There might be a loophole, like the one I found for Helen of Troy. You could save him.”
Jax looks back over his shoulder, towards where young Stein walked out to find the jumpship. Then, he gives Behrad a determined nod and follows the professor out.
Behrad sets his own controller aside with a sigh and runs a hand through his hair. There has to be a loophole, somewhere, some way to change things without upsetting the timeline. He hasn’t forgotten that Amaya is planning to go home and die with her village, and he hasn’t given up on stopping her. So, maybe, if they can save Stein, that’ll put them one step closer to saving her, too.
---
More timequakes rock the ship, and soon, Sara’s group makes it back to the Waverider, after reporting via comms that the Darhks have arrived in New Valhalla. Jax hasn’t made it back from 2017, yet, which means Behrad needs to stall for time, because Sara will find out about it eventually, but he’d like to avoid dealing with her wrath for as long as he can.
He makes it to the bridge just as Amaya, Nate, Ray, and that stern lady from the Time Bureau take their exit, in pretty low spirits, but in pretty cool costumes.
“Whoa.” Behrad says, blinking rapidly. He takes in Sara’s awesome viking outfit, complete with a circlet and a fur stole and lots of messy braids. “Cool costume.”
“Yeah, thanks, B-- where are Martin and Jax?”
“They are…” He tries to come up with a convincing lie on the spot, then immediately gives up. He’s really regretting not coming up with something earlier, before the away team had come back. “They’re on their way back to Central City. Right in time for the holidays!”
Then, he walks out of the room as quickly as he can without outright running, so he can get out of there before Sara has a chance to process what he told her.
He makes it several feet down the hallway, before he hears a distant “Dammit, Behrad!” which is when he starts to run, even though there’s no way he’ll get far trying to outrun a former assassin.
“Stop running!” Sara yells, closing in on him. Behrad keeps running, until he reaches the cargo bay-- a dead end. With a resigned sigh, he stops, turning around to face her. “B, how could you let him do this? You know he’s going to try and change the timeline.”
“Yeah, I do! And that’s exactly why I had to let him!”
“Listen,” Sara pinches the bridge of her nose as she scolds him, “Eventually, you’re going to have to learn what we’ve all had to make peace with: we can’t mess with the timeline like this. Not even for the people we love. We don’t get to do that, because it only makes things worse.”
“I couldn’t have stopped him even if I wanted to. So, maybe, I stop him from telling Stein’s younger self today. Who’s going to stop him from taking the jumpship and tracking the guy down tomorrow? And the day after?” Behrad argues, gesturing helplessly with his hands. “When was the last time anyone else on this ship actually talked to Jax about how he was feeling? Because I have, and it’s pretty clear to me that he needs this.”
Sara narrows her eyes, and Behrad steels himself for a lecture, but they’re interrupted by the Time Bureau lady stalking onto the bridge, her shoes clicking loudly against the metal floor.
“Captain Lance. A word?” She eyes Behrad, and he takes that as a sign that he should get out of here.
“Agent Sharpe,” Sara pivots to acknowledge the woman, “Meet me in the parlour. I’ll be just a minute.”
As Agent Sharpe exits with the same uptight professionalism as she’d entered, Sara turns back to Behrad, gaze still stern.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe Jax needs to try. But you need to start accepting that we can’t save everyone. I just hope this doesn’t blow up in our faces.”
And then she leaves him, and he deflates and flops down to lay back on a nearby crate. Staring up at the ceiling, he hopes that Jax is having better luck in 2017.
---
They manage to defeat the Darhks, after scrapping several terrible plans that would get them all killed, and restore the timeline in the process, but even that victory is soured when Jax and Behrad head to the library to check on Stein’s death in 2017.
“Gideon, you’re sure there are no other changes to the timeline?” Jax paces back and forth in front of the viewscreen. Behrad takes a seat on the desk and crosses his legs uneasily.
“If you’re referring to Professor Stein, he still died in 2017.” The AI reports, switching from the anachronism map to an image of Stein’s obituary.
Behrad inhales shakily, closes his eyes and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and hanging his head. “I’m so sorry, Jax. I really thought…”
“Wait, I-- I just don’t understand. The loophole, it should have worked.” Jax turns to Behrad, distraught. “That letter should have told him exactly how to protect himself on the day he died. Wh-- what happened?”
“He, um,” Behrad wipes at his face. “He must have not read it.”
Jax turns back to the screen, where Stein’s image stares back at them, and just shakes his head. When he all but runs out of the room, Behrad doesn’t stop him.
It was simple with Helen of Troy-- she wanted so badly to be free from her horrible life, and there was a perfect place for her to go that wouldn’t ruin history. And maybe that had been a bad point of reference for him to start out from. Behrad still doesn’t like the idea that they can’t even try to save people, if they have the means to do it. It’s not that it doesn’t hurt that Jax’s letter hadn’t been enough to save Stein, but he feels a little lighter knowing that they at least tried .
“Hey!” Nate runs in, Ray on his heels, startling him out of his thoughts. “Dude, come quick, Jax is trying to leave without saying goodbye, so we gotta throw him a surprise party!”
“That lab isn’t going to decorate itself!” Ray adds. “Gideon estimates that we’ve got about an hour before he finishes packing, which should be just enough time to fabricate a feast and put up the tree!”
Behrad doesn’t have enough time to even react to that before the two of them grab him by the arms and haul him out to go help.
---
They barely manage to hang all of the garlands before Jax comes down, but the look on his face makes it worth it. Dinner is amazing, just like every meal Gideon whips up for them, and Jax even makes a really beautiful speech about family, to which Behrad raises his glass of OJ to clink against everyone else’s alcoholic beverages of choice.
It really sucks, knowing that Jax is leaving. From the beginning, Jax had been so easy to get along with, because they liked all the same video games and could roll their eyes and joke around about the rest of the team being old farts. Behrad wouldn’t understand a single thing about temporal regulators or transmission subsystems if it weren’t for Jax showing him the ropes.
This isn’t the same as saying goodbye to a friend made at a summer camp and promising to keep in touch. They might have a timeship and the ability to visit whenever they want, but this is Jax needing to move on from this life, and that means that this is a real goodbye. A real, “maybe-we’ll-run-into-each-other-by-accident-in-six-years, reach-out-if-you’re-in-the-area” sort of goodbye.
Behrad lingers by the tree while the others say their goodbyes, Leo offering an awkward pat on the shoulder before Mick follows with a hearty slap on the back that nearly knocks Jax over entirely. Ray and Nate both take a moment for a fist-bump after their hugs, and Amaya’s hug is followed by something that Behrad doesn’t quite hear, but sends Amaya into that beautiful, warm laugh of hers. Sara’s gone off somewhere with a promise to show Jax out, as a captain should, and now it’s just Behrad left, and Jax is headed his way.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t save him.” Behrad says quietly, still cradling his near-empty juice glass in both hands. “I wish I could have done more to help.”
“It’s okay, man.” Jax claps a hand on his back and rubs his shoulder. “Thanks for trying. It, uh, means a lot, you know? That you didn’t try to stop me.”
“You know me.” He shrugs, raising an eyebrow. “I’m a bit of an enabler. Now that you’re leaving, I’ll be able to help Ray implement all of his terrible, crazy ideas for upgrades to the ship.”
“No way, I know you wouldn’t betray me like that!” Jax scoffs, swatting at his head, but Behrad ducks, and Jax only manages to mess up his hair. “I’m serious, B, don’t even think about it. I’ll know, and I’ll come after you.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll try my best.” Behrad promises, setting his glass down. “It’s not gonna be the same though, without you hovering over my shoulder and nagging.”
“Only because I gotta make sure you’re doing it right!” Jax laughs, pulling him in for a hug. “But you don’t need my help anymore. I know you’re still new at this, but you picked up on everything quick, and I know she’s in good hands. You’ve got this.”
“I won’t let you down.” Behrad wraps his arms around Jax and squeezes tightly. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna miss you too.”
When they separate, they both look away, and Behrad knows that Jax is pretending not to notice that Behrad needs to wipe his eyes.
“See you later, B.” Jax says, finally, and turns, walking towards the door.
“Yeah.” Behrad smiles, bittersweet, watching Jax walk away, silhouetted by the brighter lights filtering from the hallway into the now-dimmed lab, and reflecting delicately off of metallic silver garlands. “See you.”