Summary: Rip went back to try and save his family countless times, ignoring the timeline and any consequences of his interference. When the team arrives in 2166 to make a final attempt at stopping Savage, things don't go as planned and they meet someone from the past…an older version of Rip, one who is ready to do anything in order to save his family.

There is a very sad lack of angsty Rip fics and I really needed one, so of course I decided to write one. Despite the fact that I literally have five other fics currently ongoing right now…uggh…well, doesn't matter. Rip is a much underappreciated character in the Legends of Tomorrow (I'd call it LoT, but that reminds me of LoTR and it's just too confusing) fandom. I will change this.

Enjoy the angst.

Dark Times

Miranda. Jonas.

Those were two names that had gone through his mind too many times for him to count. At one point they had echoed through his thoughts ceaselessly, replacing everything else and driving him mad. No other thought - not one other desire or motive - had ever occurred to him. He could call it a dark time, looking back, but that wouldn't have been quite true; it hadn't been dark. It had been pitch black, completely void of any sort of light or reprieve. It had been hell.

A hell that he'd spent circling around one day, one moment, endlessly - always trying to change it, alter that critical minute in which Savage pulled the trigger twice and ended their lives. Miranda and Jonas. His world. His everything.

He's gone back to that day so many times - it was impossible to keep track. Perhaps Gideon could, but he couldn't know. That time was a black hole in his memory, a blank space. An empty slot that wasn't quite so, just because it held two names and two faces that wouldn't go away. Miranda. Jonas.

All he could remember was pain.

He'd watched them die so many times that he couldn't even remember the aftermath, or the moments in between; for the most part, all he could picture was their faces as they fell to the ground. Their eyes, as the light faded and that terrible glassiness of death returned once more. That and the sound of his heart breaking again, and again, until there wasn't really anything left but it broke anyway, again and again into nothing.

He knew - he knew - that there had to have been moments in between; there were, he knew, and Gideon confirmed it. If he imagined it, he could see it - Miranda would look up with that bright gleam of astonishment in her eye, and Jonas would tilt his head and light up with a smile. He would wrap his arms around them both, clutching them as tightly as he could, and Miranda would smile and kiss him, and Jonas would laugh as he burrowed between them. He could see it, for a moment, and it felt so familiar that he knew it must have happened, but he couldn't remember it. All he could remember was death.

He should have stopped after the first few times. Logically he knew that, but thinking back, he didn't - couldn't - regret a single attempt. He only regretted the failure that each attempt ended in, and the look on their faces as they died. Again. Miranda, Jonas.

So he hadn't stopped. In that time, that haze of running and crying and endless death, he'd completely lost himself; at some point he stopped bothering to worry about the time line, and at some point he stopped listening to Gideon's warnings. All he heard was their names, their voices calling out to him as they fell, again. But he didn't stop trying.

At some point, he didn't even care what he had to do in order to save them. He fought. He killed. He nearly died - sometimes, he tried to. It didn't matter. Didn't matter to him, and didn't matter regardless because nothing worked, and they always died.

At some point, they were as dead in his mind as they were in reality. He would watch them die, and he'd scream as he always did, but it wasn't out of shock or sorrow like it was at first - it was frustration, anger, rage. It became normal, and he hated himself for allowing it.

As time went on, he grew to hate everything. After all, time was everything and time wanted his family dead. Time - something that he'd been taught to protect and work with - was doing everything it could to keep him from saving them, and he hated it.

He hated it all. Everything - he could take comfort in nothing.

Nothing, except an old recording that he'd memorized long, long ago...even to the point that it played in his head, echoing round and round, taunting him even in his dreams. Of course, dreams were never anything less than nightmares, twisting truth and time into things even more terrifying than they could possibly be in reality...

There was never any refuge, any escape. Dark times. What a poor excuse of a phrase - descriptive or otherwise, it doesn't do reality justice. Especially because of the implication that it's in the past - a dark time. A specific period, over and done with now. It isn't so, for Rip. The darkness may have been pushed back, shoved away into a tight nook of his mind - out of sight, but never far from breaking lose. They hadn't been dark times - it is a dark time, a dark existence.

For Rip, it is and probably always will be. The past isn't in the past; it's just tucked away in his mind, ready to break lose and torment him at any given moment. That dark time will never go away.

London, 2166

The orders have already been rattled off - Snart and Rory are suposed to go and steal Kendra's old bracelet; Ray, Stein, and Jax are accompanying Rip to the rebel's camp; Sara and Kendra are left to figure out exactly how one would go about killing an immortal psychopath with a piece of jewelry. Sara knows her job really is important, but she can't help but feel like it's busy work. The feeling is irritating, to say the least.

Apparently, Kendra feels the same way - she signs heavily and rolls her eyes a little as they make their way towards the archive where all of her son's work is stored. Then again, perhaps it's just the stress and anxiety that Kendra must be feeling - sometimes, it's a little hard to tell.

Either way, they're both noticeably irritable as they prepare to get to work searching for any useful information. Sara sighs again, letting her arms hang heavily at her sides, and tilts her head in Kendra's direction.

"Is it just me, or does this seem really pointless to you?"

Kendra bites her lip and lowers her eyes, slowing. "...Yeah, it does. Killing Savage with a bracelet - I just don't see how..."

Sara can usually count on Kendra to be less than entirely optimistic, so it's no surprise - but it is nice to have an agreeable partner in crime, or heroism, or whatever. Agenda or no agenda, it's just more comfortable.

Sara doesn't have an agenda, at the moment, but those are never hard to come up with. "I wonder if Savage knows about this whole object-present-at-first-death turning into a weapon...thing."

Kendra frowns and tilts her head in thought. "Well...I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past him."

Sara frowns as well, now, because something has occurred to her and it doesn't seem good. Trailing to a halt, she turns to face Kendra head-on. "He's known a lot of things, so far. So - assuming that he does know...why would he give the bracelet to that woman? He knows that we're after him, and he knows that we can use the bracelet to kill him. Convenient, isn't it, that we can just snatch the weapon right off someone's arm..."

Kendra has stopped too, at that point - she stares at Sara with a half-intrigued and half-dubious look in her eyes. "Except that it's not a weapon...it's just a bracelet," reminds Kendra, shaking her head.

Sara looks down, her forehead creased in thought. Not a weapon...true, and yet...

"As far as we know, it's not. But," says Sara as she raises her gaze once again, a conspiratorial light in her eye. "What if it is?"

Kendra's expression has turned to one of bewilderment. "But...what do you mean? How could it be - it's just a bracelet!"

"Maybe it's not just a bracelet."

It's then that Kendra seems to catch on. She lips make an 'o' of realization as she narrows her eyes, thinking. "You mean...well, Savage has had countless years with it. I suppose...what if he did do something to it? If he somehow - I don't know, gave it some sort of...powers?" Kendra scoffs, rolling her eyes slightly. "That sounds kind of ridiculous..."

Sara nods. "And that still doesn't explain why he would give something like that to one of his soldiers. Even if she is his lieutenant, or second in command, or whatever - does he really trust her that much?"

"I don't think he trusts anyone, other than himself."

Sara crosses her arms. "So, he doesn't trust her, and he gives her a bracelet that's potentially lethal to him and that he may or may not have already altered to be a weapon...all the while knowing that we may and probably do know about the whole bracelet-is-a-weapon thing as well." The summary sounds decidedly incomplete, and they both know it.

"Well, I hate to say it, but..." Kendra raises one slender eyebrow, grimacing.

"Trap? Yeah, it's sort of looking that way." They both stand there for a moment, finding that there isn't really anything left to add. Sara's muscles already feel tensed, ready to jump into action, and Kendra doesn't look so reluctant anymore either.

With a terse nod, Sara turns and strides back the way they'd just came. "Right, let's go warn them."

When Sara and Kendra arrive back on the flight deck, they find it disappointingly empty. It seems like everyone's already left the ship. Sara asks Gideon if anyone else is on board, just to clarify, and the answer is presented in a crisp British accent.

"No, Ms. Lance, only Ms. Saunders and you are on board at this time. Captain Hunter has already left with Mr. Palmer, Mr. Jackson, and Professor Stein. Also, Mr. Snart and Mr. Rory have departed to perform their illegal task."

Gideon's voice is as perfectly cheery as ever, and her words are met with a pair of exasperated sighs. Kendra places her hands on the back of one of the time jump seats, throwing back her head. "I can't believe they left so soon! Don't they need - I don't know, supplies or something?"

"Both teams left with all the gear they required." Gideon answers crisply.

Sara shrugs as she turns to Kendra, raising her eyebrows. "Well, I guess that means we're going to have to follow them -" she pauses, frowning, as a sharp noise suddenly fills the room.

Be-ee-eep, be-ee-eep, be-ee-eep.

The sound is met with silence. Finally Sara opens her mouth curiously, looking upwards. "Gideon, what is that?"

The reply is nearly instantaneous, and completely cheerful despite the context. "The signal is to be disregarded."

Turning around slightly, Kendra and Sara exchange a look. Both are curious now, with no hope of 'disregarding' the sound. "Okay, but what is it?" asks Sara, her tone bordering on impatient.

It might be that Gideon's reply is hesitant, this time - maybe just a second late.

"It is Captain Hunter's distress signal."

A moment of silence, then -"What?" They exclaim in unison, starting forward. "Distress signal? Why aren't we doing something about it?"

"I have orders to disregard any distress signal sent by Captain Hunter, effective for as long as we remain in this time period."

Something about Gideon's cheerful voice makes the situation seem all the worse - Sara squares her shoulders with a frown, crossing her arms. "Who gave you that order?"

There's not a second of delay. "Captain Hunter, of course."