( sara isn’t completely sure why the knock on the door makes a sense of anxiety creep through her, but mick letting it slip that in the future, the team has to ditch leonard, leave him behind somewhere because he decides to be some big damn hero, probably doesn’t help. sure, she doesn’t know all the details (considering she doesn’t know his true fate, thinking that he’s somewhere they can just go back and rescue him eventually), but …

finally, she opens the door, and there he is: leonard snart, in all his smarmy glory, clad in all black. sara nearly asks where his parka is, considering the oppressive summer heat outside.

she’s quick to snatch the bottle of whatever-it-is — it honestly doesn’t even matter right now, considering sara’s fairly certain she’s going to need it — out of leonard’s hand, lightning fast, finally allowing the smile that’s been tugging at the corners of her mouth to fully form. taking a few steps back to let him inside her small, fairly bare apartment, she quips: ) Yeah, yeah. Spare me the sentimental crap, Leonard. ( faced with him here and now, she notices an odd sincerity in his words. yeah, she likes him, considering he’s one of the few, if not the only one she can have a genuine conversation with out of all of her teammates, and they’d had an interesting time together trying not to freeze to death on the waverider; she wasn’t kidding when she said she’s happy that he’s here, but …

she’s perceptive. she gets the feeling that she’s missing something, and she doesn’t like it. )

[His eyebrows rise curiously when she's so quick to liberate the bottle. He walks in like he belongs there, letting the door shut behind him, and shrugs. So she still doesn't like him, maybe, though he knows Sara has always pretended not to care much, yet sought him out and spend time with him. That was why it was possible for their relationship to grow.]

Who's being sentimental? I'm just tired of beating Mick at cards. He's a sore loser.

[He grins with a touch of mischief, making himself at home on her sofa and shrugging out of his jacket] Met your sister the other day. Nice gal.

( mick, a sore loser? that's not hard to believe, even this version of mick that's here from her future that she can't quite wrap her head around. she smiles gently as she follows him to the sofa, sitting down cross-legged at the opposite end so she can face him.

she'll reach behind her to grab the pack of cards from the end table, shaking the deck out onto the flat of her hand. sara gets a whole ten seconds into beginning to shuffle the cards when leonard mentions her sister, and she stops dead, gaze immediately flickering back up towards him. )

You met Laurel? ( she can't help but ask incredulously, even if the question has already been answered. ) Lucky for you that Eudio's out of her jurisdiction or she'd probably put you behind bars. ( gentle ribbing, naturally, even if she's more than eager to find out what the two of them could've even talked about other than leonard's criminal record. )

[It's interesting to him how Sara reacted to that. She's clearly interested, and he's glad he brought it up immediately. He reaches to pluck the cards out of her fingers]

I did... We met at the gym. [Technically they met online and he invited her to the gym] She didn't even threaten to arrest me once.

Impressive, ( sara notes with a small smile that negates how sarcastic it may sound otherwise. she is, admittedly, pretty pleased; for all of len's bravado about his criminality, he's not a bad guy, despite how instantaneously he'd deny it. she's glad that laurel's judgement of people's characters is still as sound as she's known it to be.

sara lets leonard take the cards without a fuss, leaning her head against the back of the couch to simply look at him for a moment. ) How'd you manage that — all your wit and charm?

[He's pretty pleased about it, too.]

It had to be my wit and charm. You know how potent it is.

Do I?

( asked with a quirked eyebrow. if it feels like she's fishing for intel, maybe she is. this whole not knowing thing is getting old and fast. )

[He grins at her, mysterious] Well, I'm here, aren't I?

You're here because Mick is a sore loser, ( she reminds him, eyes narrowed at his ever-so-mysterious grin, as though she didn't invite him over so she could spend time with him. )

Noo, that's why we're playing cards. [Len purrs the words, leaning towards her slightly] But that's not why you let me come over.

( yeah, nope, she'll be staying firmly where she is right now, unflinching even as leonard leans in closer. )

Maybe I'm just looking for some answers.

[He arches a brow and begins to deal the cards. The deck is stacked - Len doesn't lose if he can avoid it, and he's pretty sure she's distracted enough that she didn't notice]

Well, if you want answers, you're gonna have to ask questions.

( luckily for him, she is distracted. she feels like she's out on a hit but wasn't given enough information about the target, so she's left casing each and every piece of body language leonard exhibits, trying to read into things she isn't sure she should be reading into — the way he looks at her, the way he shifts closer, the arch of his brow as the cards are doled out.

all she gets for her troubles is a shitty hand, which makes her lips almost pout as she glances down at the cards. ) Wouldn't know where to start, to be honest. It feels like everyone's dancing around the big stuff in my future but I don't know what the big stuff even is.

[He leans back, watching her over his cards with a thoughtful expression. Calculating]

Not sure what people are dancing around in your life, Sara. Except for the fact that you go back to the League in 1958... but you did come back on the Waverider after that.

The League? In 1958? That's ...

( he speaks about it so casually, whereas sara's gaze immediately falters. what could be so bad in 1958 that sara felt she had nowhere to go but nanda parbat? she knows that ra's al ghul will be there, as he has headed the league for nearly two centuries. she also knows that rejoining the league — even if it's before she technically arrives the first time — means one thing: killing. the very thing that she's tried desperately to avoid ever since laurel and oliver rescued her soul with constantine's help.

sara can't focus on her cards right now. she puts them down on the sofa in front of her (face down, thankfully), exhales sharply, and rubs her face with her hands, frustrated. )

But it's not easy to leave the League. You can't just come and go as you please. I was lucky to be released the first time, but otherwise ... there's only one way a person goes, and I — ( she's beginning to regret this conversation immensely. maybe she can redirect, stop talking about herself. maybe it'll be easier. )

Mick told me that we have to leave you behind. In the future.

[Len sets his cards down as well, sensing her distress at what he told her.]

There was a glitch... not sure exactly why, but the Waverider didn't get back to pick you three up for two years. You had gone back, but your boss let you choose to go when we came to get you. You've been better since - no more uncontrolled murder rages.

[He gets a rather strange look on his face] Is that what he told you? Wonder why he'd lie like that.

( two years. she can't imagine doing another two years with the league. she'd have to kill again, surely. not that it's really a bright side, but maybe that'd keep the — in his words — "uncontrolled murder rages" at bay.

but then leonard's got a weird look on his face and she gets the sneaking suspicion that things don't quite go how she'd been imagining. ) Lie? ( oh boy. here goes nothing. she's gravely serious when she explains: ) Mick said that one of us had to stay behind, and that you knocked him out and took his place. To which I told him that we wouldn't leave you behind. That we'd go back for you, get you back somehow, once we finished off Savage. And from the sounds of it, we did, so —

Not gonna happen. [He's unusually serious as he looks at her. Holds her gaze. ] Because I had to stay behind to make sure the explosion happened, and you can't kill Savage unless it does.

I came here seconds from my death, Sara. The only way I'm gonna make it out of there is if I get my reward.

( sara hardly knows how to react.

leonard's supposed to — is going to — die?

it raises a million more questions, like why him? well, he'd taken mick's place, so that's a given, but ... why not ray? why any of them, really? when beginning their mission, sara hadn't ever imagined losing any one member of their team. losing leonard feels especially like a punch to the gut, considering her ... friendship with him, if they'd ever call it that. she considers him maybe her closest ally on the team, regardless of how often she told him, even to his face, how she didn't like him, the words were always hollow and meaningless and she's sure that he knows it, too.

she tries her damnedest not to look upset, even if it's exceedingly difficult not to. len's here for a reason, sara tells herself. he can make it out of there.

with a soft sigh of a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, she picks up her hand of cards, averts her eyes from his watchful gaze to glance down at it. flatly, sara comments, ) Well, you'd better start working on your incentive.

[Sara may believe that Leonard is well aware that she likes him, but the truth is that he isn't as confident as it appears. Len doesn't have a good romantic history - or a romantic history at all - and few friends. He's more socially awkward than he lets on, dealing with most situations by deflecting attention away from his true feelings rather than forging connections.

But despite her attempts to hide her feelings, he does sense something that gives him hope.

He smiles sardonically and glances down at his cards]

Trust me. I'm working on it.

Good, ( sara retorts a little too quickly, even if it comes across as genuine, but she's equally quick to add, as she looks up over her cards at him, razor sharp: ) And if you're cheating, I won't have any problem kicking your ass.

( gotta break the tension somehow, which is palpable between them. she's bad enough at dealing with her feelings about people, friendly or otherwise, so she doesn't need to fret over this messed up situation that's playing out before her very eyes when she can just call leonard out on his card-related bullshit. )