( she doesn't recognize the number of the device that's calling her, but she picks up anyway. she most certainly recognizes the voice; it could make her blood turn cold.

sara's first reaction is anger; he'd left her here in eudio without so much as a single goodbye, though she figures it's pretty much her fault considering what she'd told him about what he did to mick.

next comes relief. she respects him, in some completely contorted way, as a teammate. better company than the likes of professor martin "astonishing" stein and ray palmer — better at cards, too, even if she's pretty sure he cheats. he's back.

rather than show her entire hand all that once, she settles somewhere in the middle: indifference, maybe mock, or maybe very real. )

Well, well, well. I didn't think they let crooks into this place.

[Nice to hear from you, too, Sara. Gosh. What's with the cold shoulder?]

Yeah well, the fact is they sought me out. Talked a good game, too. I almost believe that this place is some magical fairy land of orgies and candy where all our dreams'll come true.

How long've you been here?

( like he doesn't know? he was here when she arrived.

unless ...

shit. maybe they don't remember anything if they leave and come back. this is kind of problematic, but sara decides to continue playing it cool. she'd messed up the first time with him, and she won't go down that road again. it's better to play it safe. )

Two months.

Can't vouch for the candy, but the orgies are pretty decent.

[His response is in that purring register he uses when he's flirting with her] Good to know...

So Mick tells me the last thing that happened before you came here was being left behind in 1958. We do come back for you, FYI.

( if only he could hear the sound of sara rolling her eyes at his apparent flirtations through the phone in spite of herself. )

Think that's wise, telling me about my future, Leonard?

You think I care? [Grin] There's a future I want to bring about... again. Just have to figure out how. But don't worry, I won't spoil you, yet.

Cryptic.

( god, it's going to nag at her though, despite how she knows that not knowing about her future is quote unquote "the right thing to do". guess what? doing the right thing really sucks sometimes, especially where this one is involved.

which, speaking of: ) I'm glad you're here. And Mick, too.

[That pleases him, and he brightens] I'm glad you're here, too. So what do you think? Maybe there's a little canoodling for you and me in our future, hmm?

Oh, give me a break. "Canoodling"? Please.

( she's not gonna cave that easily. believing that captain cold himself has suddenly got himself a case of the warm fuzzies? unlikely. )

You don't like canoodling? [He may very well use that word as often as possible from now on]

I like canoodling plenty. ( two can play at that game. ) I just didn't take you for the canoodling type.

Well, that just shows how much you don't know about me.

( well, he's not wrong — though if he's speaking generally or offering another sly dig at her unfortunate point in their collective timeline. regardless. )

By all means, Leonard. Enlighten me. ( it's said almost like she's poking fun at stein and his enthusiasm for their travels. )

[His voice, already slightly flirtatious, drops into an even more suggestive - but still very playful - register]

Let me know where you are, and I will.

( well. that's certainly something. sara certainly feels a certain type of way about that, but ask her to put a name to said feeling and she wouldn't be able to. )

My place.

( regretted almost as immediately as it's said, so she's quick to add: )

I've got an unopened deck of cards sitting on my coffee table. I'll send you the address. ( which she does, pulling her phone away from her ear so she can type it and hit send. ) Be here within the hour.

I'll be there.

[And he does click off almost immediately. Forty-five minutes later, he's at her door, rapping a shave-and-a-haircut with his knuckles. He's got a bottle tucked into his jacket, lifted from a liquor store on the way over, and he's wearing all black and a leather jacket in defiance of the warm weather.]

I'd have brought flowers, but that didn't seem like the right move. [He smirks at the joke, pulling out the bottle and wiggling it. Then he sobers a little.] It's good to see you, Sara. Didn't think I would.

( 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. )