Sequel to "Enemy of Mine Enemy" and "Sleeping with the Enemy." Expect eight chapters and an epilogue.

Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

...

Leonard Snart will be the first to admit he doesn't know what the hell he's doing here.

He certainly didn't intend to let things get this...complicated.

Oh, they didn't start out that way. If a very, very attractive member of the opposition...one he already respected more than his own so-called "team" for her fighting skills alone...wanted to blow off some steam after an impromptu team-up, hey, who was he to argue? He's not usually one for that sort of thing—not at all-but she'd gotten under his skin for some reason and after all, she'd jumped him first.

But it didn't stay simple.

She stayed in his thoughts. Under his skin, more than just a fond physical memory. He's not sure why. This is not him, this is not how he operates. At least, it never has been.

But, damn it, he can't stop thinking about her. Not just the fairly mind-blowing physical encounter. The way she fights, the way she moves. The way she'd looked at him, like he was more...

When they're given the unexpected chance to...continue things, she seems to be just as, as…hmm…preoccupied by him as he is by her. Which is surprising, and unnerving, and addicting…

And as time goes by, and he just can't seem to walk away, and he just finds her more intriguing, more fascinating, he wonders if he's…if he's…could he be falling in love?

He's uneasily sure he is, actually, which is disturbing as hell. He didn't believe he was capable of that. Wasn't even sure such a thing really existed outside of fiction.

And it turns out "falling" is a good word for it. There's no way to catch himself; it's as inevitable as gravity. He's falling.

And the only question is when he's going to hit the ground.

"What did you say?"

Leonard keeps the tone cool, the comment delivered in his usual drawl, but only barely.

It's been three weeks since he'd been shot during what should have been a simple heist. (At least Thawne had been off his case during his recovery, given that they did get the artifact they'd been there for.) While the ship's medical facilities have gotten the wound well on the way to recovery (somewhat impressive, really), he's still confined there, in 2013, "for his own good," something that's increasingly pissing him off...and increased time spent with his three so-called teammates has him about ready to freeze all three of them.

Especially now, here, waiting on the ship for Thawne—how can a time-traveling speedster be so perpetually late?-to arrive. Their "leader" had requested (demanded, rather) a meeting, with foreboding hints of plans to be disclosed, and as much as he'd like to be elsewhere just to prove that Thawne is not, well, the boss of him, it seems a good idea to know what the man is up to.

But this...

Merlyn lifts an eyebrow at him, smirks a little, glances at the bored-looking Darhk, then back at him.

"How...incurious...of you, Snart. You've never noticed how the little White Canary looks at Damien here like she'd like to use his guts as a garrote?"

"Doesn't everyone look at Darhk that way?" Don't act too interested...

"Well. True enough." Merlyn smirks a little more. "But a future...for him, anyway...version killed her sister a few years from now. Isn't time travel interesting? Now she can't murder him without completely undoing the timeline she's supposed to be protecting. What torture." He shakes his head, reeking of insincerity. "One might almost feel sorry for her."

The sister. Oh, holy hell. The sibling it was so patently obvious Sara had lost, from the look on her face when he'd asked, what seems to be an eternity ago.

And he's working with the man.

The expression on his face feels frozen, but neither of them seems to notice. Darhk simply gives Merlyn a look, making a disparaging noise.

"That family tree needs pruning," he says with distaste. "If the sister was anywhere near as...inconvenient...as the one in white, I can see why. I'll do that job as soon as Thawne gives the OK."

"I wish you luck with that," Merlyn says, and laughs. "I gave it a try once, after all, and it didn't stick."

What?

He's never, ever had to keep the mask in place more than he has this moment. And it's never, ever been more difficult.

He merely lifts an eyebrow. A clear question.

"I told you she'd been dead for a year." Merlyn seems amused. "I can't say I fired the arrows personally, but, well…"

It's just as well, probably, that Thawne arrives at that moment, a blur zipping onto the bridge, interrupting the words and drawing the attention of the others.

"It's time to move into the final phase of the plan," he proclaims, eyes gleaming as Merlyn and Darhk focus on him...and the team thief appears to.

Because, as the speedster starts to hold forth, Leonard closes his eyes, fights the red out of his vision, throttles the rage-usually kept under such tight wraps-out of his expression and, for when it will be necessary, his voice.

He hasn't been very...invested...in Thawne's master plan here. He'd been recruited to steal, for himself and for Thawne, and that's all he'd cared about-right up until Sara Lance had held a knife to his throat 14 years in the future and woken something in him he didn't think existed.

Sure, the man had offered him a chance to change a piece of his past, somehow, and he's toyed with the notion, but even with all he's seen in the last few months, he finds it hard to believe that's even possible. And for once, for once...

Maybe he's more curious to see what the future holds.

And so he listens. He keeps the mask on.

He does exactly what's expected of him—drops a good dose of snark, disrespects all three teammates, asks a few pertinent questions and, ultimately, consents to stealing what he's being asked to steal.

And as he walks away, he knows what he has to do.

Time to chose a side, I guess.

"Chosen," he mutters to himself as he stalks toward the quarters that are, nominally, his. "Chosen."

As he leaves, the other three members of the Legion watch him go. Merlyn shakes his head, smiling.

"I think our crow is about to fly," he observes.

"Yes. Right to his canary." Thawne's smile is right out of a horror movie. "Now, to make sure they're back in 2013 when he does. Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

And he's gone. Merlyn shakes his head.

"Do you think he does that on purpose?" he asks Darhk, who simply gives him an irritated look and stalks off in the opposite direction.

"Never mind."

Sara hasn't seen Leonard in three weeks. Twenty-two days, actually, but who's counting?

The timeline is stable. Gideon swears it is. He's alive. They've crossed paths with other Legion members sporadically…still engaged in the seemingly random timeline-twisting they've been messing with for the past six months...but there's been no sign of the crook, no mention, no clue.

It's a tiny little slice of hell, really, the not knowing, and it's made her short with her teammates, perhaps a little bit reckless on missions. Amaya knows, of course, and keeps trying to instigate a heart-to-heart, but Sara's not too inclined to talk about it. She's trying not to think much at all, actually, knowing that her words, her actions may have damaged things in the first place.

So she keeps to herself.

And when things change, suddenly, she doesn't even see it coming.

She's been out on a mission with Mick, Jax, Stein and Rip, investigating a blip in the timeline that had turned out to be something embarrassingly innocuous: rather than a renegade Time Master, a journal once belonging to a Time Master that turned out to feature far more soft-core porn than any amount of real timeline information. They'd left it with its happy owner (who'd picked it up at a used book sale) and withdrawn, somewhat sheepishly, to head back to the Waverider in mingled amusement and embarrassment.

Sara is walking toward the ship, lost in her own thoughts, and it's Jax who first spots the vintage convertible parked not far from the cloaked Waverider...and the man slumped in the driver's seat.

"Hey...wait...is that Snart?"

The words register through her tangle of thoughts and she stops in her tracks.

But the others get there first.

The man in question blinks as they converge around the car, eyes flickering open as he peers at the heroes who've congregated around him. Rip has his hand on his gun and Mick, with an air of reluctance, does the same. Jax edges closer to Stein...moving aside as Sara pushes through.

But when she catches the first glimpse of bright red on the towel wrapped around his left forearm, she sucks in a breath, and his eyes fly to her face.

"Sara."

Her face actually heats at the tone of his voice and, really, you'd have to be deaf and blind not to hear what's there, to see the look in his eyes. And none of her teammates are either of those things. Stein's eyes cut to her immediately; so do Rip's. Jax looks baffled an instant before looking horrified.

Mick is the one who takes pity on her.

"Snart," he barks, "what's going on? What the hell happened to you?"

The man in the car blinks for a second, as if readjusting, then moves his towel-wrapped arm and winces.

"I'm...defecting," he says eventually. "To your side. I have information. And some...skills that might prove useful. And this car, which I'm told is a collector's item."

"You seem," Stein observes, peering at it, "to have ruined the upholstery."

"That's OK." Smirk. "It's Darhk's."

Mick laughs before he can think better of it, then glances at the still-speechless Sara and says, gruffly, "What the hell happened?"

"Thawne had a tracker implanted at some point. Don't know when," Snart says shortly. "But while I might not be short on scars, I figured out which one wasn't supposed to be there. It's gone now. Although I may not have done a very good job."

There's a fresh bloom of bright red joining the darker red on the improvised bandage, and he's wincing in pain again. Their captain makes the call, for which Sara is really quite grateful.

"Get him into the Waverider," Rip orders. "Have Gideon stop the bleeding, see if he's right. Replace the blood lost; he's downright...loopy, for lack of a better word. Then: everyone else on the bridge. We need a team meeting."

He's looking at Sara, who looks away. Time to pay the piper, she thinks.

But she can't help it.

Leonard is here. Alive. On the side of the angels, sort of. And about to be back on the Waverider, with her.

It's worth smiling about.