The Best Laid Plans

By TheLostMaximoff

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. This is just my thoughts on what might happen after the first season of Legends is done. R/R.

Sara Lance would rather be anywhere but back in 2016. She can feel her hands get clammy with sweat, her heart fluttering with the nervous dread of what she's about to do. She's killed so many people and never lost her nerve while doing it. So why should a task simpler than that make her want to run back to the Waverider and hide in her room? Maybe because it has to do with the finality regarding the death of Leonard Snart. Sara has way too many feelings left to process about Captain Cold. She hasn't always had the best track record at dealing with her emotions and the pattern persists even now. She needs to do this though. It's what he would want her to do.

Finding Lisa Snart wasn't hard to do, at least not when you had underworld contacts. Sara thinks it's strange to consider herself a crook. Being an assassin definitely wasn't legal but Sara never considered herself a criminal even though technically she was one. Maybe that was what she secretly loved about Leonard, the fact that he knew exactly who and what he was. Sara's tried her entire life to blend in. It is the way of the assassin to move amongst others unseen even in plain sight. She's worn so many masks over the years and lost herself more than once in the roles she played. She envied Leonard's sureness of his identity and his place in the world. She almost laughs to herself because if he could see her now, he would call her a sentimental fool. He would tell her that her emotions were getting the better of her. He always pretended to be above such things but Sara knows the truth now. When push came to shove, he did something as brave and stupid as anything a real hero would have done.

Sara wonders if her father has ever felt this way. As a cop, he's probably made countless visits like the one she's attempting to make. Not for the first time, Sara thinks about all the broken families she left in her wake when she killed for the glory of Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins. She's trying to be better, has been trying for what seems like a lifetime now. She doesn't bother knocking. Instead, she barges into the abandoned building without pause. She sees a brunette woman go for a weapon. Sara didn't come here to fight, one of the few instances in her life where that's the case. She's just here to deliver the terrible news to Leonard's little sister.

"Lisa Snart?" asks Sara, watching the woman keep her hand on the grip of her gun but not draw it just yet. "Look, I didn't come here for trouble. I just . . . I need to tell you something about your brother."

"You could tell him yourself," suggests Lisa, a wicked grin on her face as she looks at something behind Sara.

"Please do. I hate it when people talk about me behind my back."

Sara feels a chill down her spine when she hears his voice. She turns and sees the cold gun pointed at her face. Her mind flashes back to that moment on the Waverider. She knew that Leonard wouldn't kill her but now is different. She looks him in the eye and doesn't see the same thing she saw then.

"Leonard?" Sara manages to croak out his name despite the lump in her throat. "It's Sara."

"I'm afraid you've got the wrong hideout, Sara." Leonard's hand is unwavering and the finger on the trigger of his gun twitches slightly. "I don't know who the hell you are."

She looks him in the eye and sees he's telling the truth. She can't understand what's going on. After they killed Vandal Savage, they put their younger selves back into the right time periods. That meant that Leonard still should have been around to go with them when Rip recruited them in the first place. That still meant that he should be dead but he's clearly not.

"Rip Hunter," says Sara. "Ray Palmer. Kendra Saunders. Those names don't mean anything to you?"

"Should they?"

Sara wonders if this is how Nyssa felt when she saw Sara come out of the Lazarus Pit. How can you look into the eyes of someone you love and know that you have still lost them? It hurts on a level Sara's never felt before. He's gone now and the saddest part is that he doesn't even know anything that happened. Sara doesn't claim to be a genius, especially when it comes to time-travel. She barely passed her high school physics class and what information she's gained from her journeys can't explain this. All she knows is that Leonard Snart is alive but it isn't the Leonard Snart that she knew.

"I guess not," she finally answers as the elder Snart moves around her to his sister's side. "I've made a mistake. Sorry to bother you both." She puts her hands up to show she's unarmed and then starts backing out of the building.

The Snart siblings watch Sara leave. She gets out the door and then starts running. It's a block or two later when she stops and starts crying. Sara pulls something out from one of her pockets. Mick told her he couldn't keep the ring, saying that it brought up too many bad memories. He told her that she was the only other person Leonard would have wanted to have it. She stares at it now and blinks away the tears. It's a stupid silver pinkie ring and now it's all she has left of him. Leonard said he kept it to remind him that even the best laid plans go sideways. Sara's keeping it for the same reason. She never planned on falling in love with him. It just happened and it all went sideways when he died saving all of them. Now he's alive but he doesn't even remember her and Sara can't decide which is worse.

"Thanks for making my life go sideways, Len," she mutters before kissing the ring and putting it back in her pocket. "I promise I'll never forget you, even if you can't remember me."