Hey, there!

This took some (read: a lot of) time, haha. Thank you to everyone who is reading this, especially all you lovely folks who have favorited/followed: Invisble. Rose, FandomGirl1046, and melissa3636.

Without further ado, here's chapter 5!

If he were to be completely honest with himself, the run-in with Mick in the halls of the Waverider had left Leonard feeling completely and utterly pathetic.

At the very least, it was not a feeling he was completely unfamiliar with.

It had constantly woven in and out of his life, sometimes fleeting, a ghost of a sensation that reared its head after he did something stupid like helping Barry Allen back at home or joining the Legends back in time.

But those times were different. The hopelessness of it all, of doing something right in a life that had mostly known wrongs, would soon disappear; buried under words like hero and honor flung at him carelessly.

No, those times were alright. He hated them, but they were alright.

The times when the feeling would linger for a little too long, sticking to his skin like it would never leave, were the ones that weren't.

(The nights from all those years ago. Veins coursing with disgust. Wanting to crawl out of his own skin. The realization of what his time at juvie had done to his sister. What Lewis had done to her.)

As much as he hates it, this, he realizes, is more of the lingering kind. Mick may be a lot of things that are wrong, but he himself isn't too different.

Two sides of the same coin.

And he doesn't agree with how his partner – ex-partner – has changed history; he never will, he never can. But if everyone else aboard the ship isn't unnerved by it, terrified by its repercussions then maybe, he doesn't have to be either.

Four years.

There are too many lessons to be learned, too many to be unlearned, and some to be relearned.

It sounds exhausting (and terrifying), even when the words are whirling in his head; no solid ground beneath them.

And he decides, now is not the time for him to go back to doing something stupid, like giving shape to the floating words and giving them some semblance of tangibility.

That'll happen later. (Or not.)

For now, there's the cargo bay.

"Shouldn't you be packing for your honeymoon?" Leonard can't help but remark at the sound of heavy footsteps, and the appearance of a silhouette, in the periphery of his vision.

"Well, we aren't married yet," Ray sounds perky, annoyingly so, as always. "I mean, we are engaged. But not married."

"Absolutely thrilled for you."

"Well, thank you." Leonard rolls his eyes, almost instinctively at that, and prays for the solitude he knows he won't be getting. Ray continues, either blissfully unaware or blissfully disregardful of his wishes, "There was something I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

Right, of course. Leonard straightens himself, back rigid against one of the many boxes strewn across the room, and crosses his arms across his chest.

Ray reads the silence as acquiescence, and says, "I have been doing some research ever since the encores started to show up. Running probabilistic tests and the sort, you know." Leonard shrugs, refrains from commenting but he has a fair idea of where this is going. "So, the thing is... if I had to guess who the next encores are going to be, I'd probably get them right."

It's exactly what Leonard was suspecting but... why is he the one who is being told all of this? There are surely other people on the Waverider, people who haven't been hiding in their rooms and have been involved with the actual missions, who should be the ones hearing this.

But then: "Well, the problem is... one of them could be Nora's father." A beat, then guilt in his voice, "I'm leaving so that she doesn't have to face him. But... I never told her that and now, I realize it was wrong. And I don't know what to do."

He doesn't react, not straight away despite the droning in his ear— How dare he? Instead, he asks coolly, recollecting the name he had gleaned during his catching up with the past that somehow doesn't exist for him, "Damien Darhk?"

"Yeah." Ray shakes his head. "I'm sorry, you probably need more context—"

"I don't," Leonard cuts him off sharply, and decides he might as well give Raymond Palmer, self-proclaimed Boy Scout, a piece of his mind, "Why are you telling me all this? Do you want some stamp of approval for what you've done?"

Ray startles, draws his head back. "No— That's not... I thought you'd be able to help me out."

"With what, exactly?" It comes out as a little too incisive. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Raymond, because the history that's written tends to differ from the truth, but isn't Damien Darhk the reason why your girlfriend was controlled by a demon?"

Ray grimaces. "Ye—"

"Then why are you taking away her choice?" Ray recoils at his tone, and Leonard pins him in place with a steely glare. "Don't you think she deserves to decide how she wants to deal with her father?"

(Memories try to rush back to him. But he knows how to shut them out. Freeze all his demons.)

"I..." Ray looks around helplessly, floundering and grasping for words. "All I wanted was to make things better but..."

"Shocked."

"...but I think you're right."

Oh. He doesn't see that coming, feels the slightest crack spreading across his icy demeanor but reins it all in just in time.

Ray gives him a departing glance, one which he barely returns, and curses and slumps further only after he is left alone.

It's that stray comment that ultimately sends Leonard to Mick's door. He hates it, absolutely detests it, but... he wants to be right.

He knocks. Waits and waits for seconds which feel too long, before the door slides open. Mick is behind a typewriter, something that Leonard still finds hard to wrap his mind around. He barely looks up, adjusts his glasses, and goes back to typing, the keys clashing loudly.

"Mick," he eventually bites out.

"Is this going to be a heart-to-heart?"

(A memory slips through this time: "We don't have hearts.")

He almost says so but catches himself in time. He doesn't think Mick remembers it with as much clarity as he does; remembers the words that had twisted themselves in the space between them.

He wishes it could be the same for him, but he knows if he tried, just a little, he would be able to trace a path through where his skin had purpled.

Unlearn. Relearn.

And so he says, drawl seeping in momentarily, "I wanted to apologize. For what I said." Pauses, reads the room. Mick's still at the typewriter but he needs to get this out, "Things have changed. Around here. And... I may or may not have been a little obtuse about it."

Mick snickers, and this is where the conversation should end but: "You know what's funny, Snart?" And he looks up, finally, eyes burning through him. "That I had your back when you came back from the dead. That I had your back when you were attacking the rest of us in your fucking sleep."

Leonard freezes, the world spinning around him, lines blurring into empty space. "What?"

"You don't know?" The typewriter stands still now, and he vaguely registers Mick standing up, taking a step closer to him. He recoils, backtracks till cold metal walls greet him. "What do you think the chains were for?"

His voice trembles, "No."

Mick looks victorious, vindictive almost, and the all familiar sickly feeling crawls its way back onto Leonard's skin. This is going to linger, he knows, and he takes as many steps as he can, away from Mick and his piercing eyes that refuse to leave him.

Impossibly, the other man still gets the final word: "It's because you attacked me. And Sara."

And—

Leonard lurches back to his own room, skin prickly and sinful under all his layers of clothing. Blood does not change, and he locks himself up and wishes he could scrub it all off, peel it all off, or just fucking run away.

Sara stares at the ceiling listlessly as she lies awake in bed, painfully aware of the distance that exists between her and Ava. They have been through worse, haven't seen each other in days, and have still managed to find a way back from it all. And yet, this time feels more final than any of those fights ever did.

She knows why, just doesn't know if she wants to confront that truth right now.

Ava stirs beside her. "I'm going to switch off my light if that's alright."

Sara tries not to read too much into the crisp tone and nods in response. And then, almost on a whim, she turns around to face her girlfriend, gives her the best smile she can pull, and then: "I was thinking... what if we planned a date night like old times? We could have Gideon drop us off—"

"Sara, please don't."

She stops talking instantly, feels stupid and embarrassed, and feels yet another nail being hammered into her realization of how final all of this is.

Ava probably notices how she looks, and says, voice hardly different, "It's not... There's just a lot going on right now, okay? We have the encore problem, and John's decided to help Astra and— We have to be here."

Sara nods again, hears the unsaid words about a man frozen in ice who has come back from the dead. And who she refuses to engage in a conversation with.

It's been a day since their conversation in the library, and for some reason, Sara just cannot muster the courage to talk to Leonard. She doesn't even know what they should be talking about; she had bared her soul to him all those years ago, and then the world had taken him away from her.

She wonders if Ava would have wanted her to talk to him if she knew about everything the two of them had been through.

She probably wouldn't, and for a moment Sara wonders if that would be a good thing. At least that way, she would have been able to avoid Leonard like she had been doing – out of sight, out of mind – and wouldn't have to confront what his return actually meant to her—

And then, the light goes off and she forces herself to stop thinking.

Sara wakes up in an empty bed the next morning and has a horrible gut feeling that she isn't going to particularly like this day.

By the time she ventures out of her room, she is convinced she was right. Mick is pacing outside her room, a flask in his hand, and looking like he hasn't gotten any sleep.

The acknowledgment is stiff, "Boss."

"What's happening? Is everything alright?" She asks despite knowing it probably isn't.

"Yes, absolutely." Sara doesn't even register her eyebrows arching in disbelief. "I just wanted to tell you I'm not leaving. Not taking the days off for... you know."

"But..." This does not make sense, and she almost lets that slip. "Did something happen, Mick?"

"No. No." He takes a swig off the flask. "I realized a few things, that's all."

None of this makes sense, and Sara struggles to connect the Mick that had eagerly wanted a few days off to the one who is here right now. And so she presses, "What things?"

There's a pause, and a grunt. "Nothing important."

He turns on his heels, but Sara is quick to react, an arm keeping him from walking away. "Mick." And then, a thought strikes her. "Did someone say something?"

He stills, and everything coalesces into perfect clarity. "It's nothing." She hears Mick over the voice inside her head that has already started to piece together everything.

"It was Leonard, wasn't it?"

The lack of a reply is all she needs for an answer. She wants to be mad; she should be mad. But she knows Leonard too well, a little too well for her own liking, and she hates it but she gets it. He hasn't had these four years, he hasn't seen Mick save their backs over the majority of these years, and all he knows and remembers is betrayal from the man in front of her.

This is why resurrection is a bad idea.

"Look, this is between Snart and me." Sara blinks out of her trance and watches Mick leave. And then slowly makes her way into the dining room; who knows maybe breakfast will solve this shit?

Thankfully, she finds the bridge empty after that, and she sinks into her chair. She wonders for a brief moment where Ava is, and contemplates asking Gideon but eventually decides against it. If last night was any indication, there's no point in seeking out Ava now.

At least not till she has spoken to Leonard.

Which, well— It's been a long time coming and hearing what he's said to Mick, she suddenly feels like she should talk to him. Just to hear his side, to hear what he has to say, to listen to him.

She owes him that much, owes both herself and him that much.

"Captain, there's something I think you should look into."

"No good morning, Gideon?" Sara mumbles. And then, at the silence that greets her: "What is it?"

"It's... complicated," Gideon sounds less assured than usual if that's even possible. "Allow me."

A host of graphs and charts appear mid-air, right above the central console. Sara squints at all the information, tries to figure out what all of this is about.

Gideon doesn't leave her hanging in confusion for too long. "It took me a while but I could recover some data from the earth that used to be. I have a rough estimate of what the population was before the Crisis."

Sara blinks in confusion till her father's face pops up, along with Leonard's, and she has a vague inkling of where this is going.

"I compared that data to that of the current population, captain," Gideon continues. "And while there is an influx because of the people from the other earths, I noticed something peculiar. Of all the people from our earth who have come back, there's no one quite like Mr. Snart."

"As in?"

"Everybody else returned like they never left at all, your father included."Oh. Now, Sara knows what this is about, and she feels herself reeling, as Gideon's next words wash over her, "It's only Mr. Snart who returned frozen in ice, having vividly experienced his original death. Memories completely intact."

Sara registers herself cussing, and then: "Is there a reason for this, Gideon?"

"Nothing that I have been able to figure out, captain."

There's a pause, and Sara tries to breathe because somehow that seems like something she has forgotten. The heel of her hands finds her eyes, rubbing against them wearily. This day has only just begun—

"Maybe if we spoke to Mr. Snart..." Gideon breaks the silence, tone impossibly implicative.

Since when are artificial intelligences insinuating?

Sara gives in, feels herself walking right into whatever Gideon has set up for her. "You think that'll help?"

"Perhaps. Without his willingness, I can only read his dreams. And his nightmares."

Sara glances upwards on instinct, the screams from the other night ringing in her ears, and her heart thrumming ridiculously. "Again?"

"Yes. There were... triggers."

"Let me guess, Mick?" It bubbles out of her bitterly.

Gideon is silent for a second, and Sara starts to wonder if she has got this wrong. And then: "Yes, and no."

"Gideon!"

"I don't think you realize..."

Sara knows, right down to her bones, she is going to hate wherever this goes. "What?"

"...Mr. Snart was not cognitive when he woke up here for the first time, and then attacked you and Mr. Rory. And—"

She had never told him.

Sara feels the world collapse around her, bit by bit and then entirely, all at once. How had it come to this? She had been there, with him, with Mick, when all of that had happened. And then, she had been there again, when he had actually woken up, in chains.

How had she not mentioned it to him?

What the hell is wrong with her?

"Does he know now?" she rasps, voice smaller, fully aware of the answer that is bound to follow.

"Yes, captain. Mr. Rory mentioned it in conversation last night."

She has never felt things spinning so out of control. There's the Ava of it all, then there's this. She wants to scoff because avoiding Leonard had only resulted in more problems than solutions.

She thinks there could be a lesson in that somewhere.

She hates it.

"Captain, at the risk of overstepping my boundaries. You have to talk to Mr. Snart because—"

"Because." There's the sound of movement, and he looms into view. "He is here."

There's this tiny part of her that wants to laugh, the part of her that still thinks he is hers, and she is his, the part of her that still thinks about the me-and-you.

Because this is so dramatic, and so over the top, and just so Leonard.

But there's the sensible part, the one that knows everything is different, and can never be the same. The one that has horror in her eyes, and breathes rapidly, and readies apologies that will probably mean nothing—

"Captain Lance, a private audience with you, please?"

A/N: I wanted them to talk so much but Plot (TM) got in between. Ugh!

Also, have I mentioned how much I love reviews? xD