AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story follows "Knife Dance" and "A Spot On Your Dance Card." Those two should be read first to set up this particular continuity.

As always, thanks to JaelK for the beta, and suggestions which made this a better story!

It was finally over.

Damien Darhk and Eobard Thawne were dead. Malcolm Merlyn was locked up in the Waverider's brig, heavily sedated. The hostages were safe; once freed, Lisa Snart and Quentin Lance had even joined in the fight against the Legion's goons while Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon protected little Sara Diggle.

And Leonard Snart…

Leonard had collapsed right after Sara stabbed Darhk through the heart, terrifying her with the thought that she might have killed the man she… cared for… along with the man who'd killed her sister.

She'd stood frozen with fear as Mick knelt next to his partner and looked for any sign of life. When he called out, "He's still breathing!" she let out a sob of relief, drawing a stare from Lisa, who'd also knelt next to her brother.

Now he lay in the Medbay, still unconscious, as Rip studied the readouts on the medical display. Lisa sat on a stool on Leonard's right side, Mick beside her with his hand on her shoulder.

Sara hovered in the entryway behind them. Rip noticed her as he turned back to Lisa and Mick. "Sara, is your father all right?"

She nodded and walked into the Medbay. "He had to put on the deputy mayor hat and help Ollie with the mop-up," she said. She moved to Leonard's left side, next to Rip. "How's Leonard?"

Rip shook his head. "There's no physical reason for him to be unconscious like this," he said.

Leonard's eyes started to twitch under the lids. "It's starting again," Lisa said in a worried voice.

"What is?" Sara asked.

"Mr. Snart is beginning to dream," Gideon replied. "He is seeing you as a child, Miss Snart, at a park."

Lisa reached out to fold her brother's hand in her own. "I'm here, Lenny, I'm here."

His breathing was becoming more rapid. Sara glanced over at the display. "His heart rate and blood pressure are up."

"These are normal changes during dreaming," Gideon said.

"Yes, and look," Rip said, gently opening one of Leonard's eyelids.

Sara took in a breath to see a blue-green iris under the lid, moving back and forth.

"But the changes won't stay normal," Rip murmured, still holding the eyelid open.

Leonard's heart rate continued to rise, and the readouts started flashing red. As they did, the eye turned dead black, just as it had been when she'd removed his goggles on that rooftop. No white, no iris, just an inky black.

"The dream has changed," Gideon reported as Rip let the lid close again.

"What's he seeing now?" Sara asked.

Lisa shut her eyes tightly, as if in pain, and Mick snapped, "Don't answer that, Gideon!" He shook his head at Sara. "Believe me, Blondie, you don't want to know."

"I wish I could forget what she told us last time," Lisa said bitterly, leaning into Mick a bit for support.

Rip sighed and rubbed the side of his face. "Sara, we've seen this three times now since Mr. Snart was brought on board. He begins to dream of something pleasant in his past, and the dream is somehow… replaced with a nightmare."

Leonard moaned a little, then gasped, and his heart rate began to fall again. His eyes stopped moving under the lids. Lisa sighed in relief, but Rip didn't seem to share her sentiment. He frowned at the readouts.

"Whatever they did to him, it's altered his brain chemistry," he said. "His neurotransmitter levels are all over the chart."

Sara looked at the readings, but they conveyed nothing to her. "What does it mean?"

"I think this is how the Legion was controlling him," Rip said. "Chemical reactions control everything our brains do, from making decisions to accessing memories. If they interfered with those processes enough…"

"They could make him forget who he really is, and implant whatever personality serves their purpose," Mick concluded. "That's not too different from what the Time Masters did to their bounty hunters."

From the look in his eyes, Sara knew what he'd left unsaid. What they did to me. "Are you sure we can't just wake him up?" she asked.

Rip shook his head. "I don't dare, Sara. This is not a normal sleep, and there's no telling what would happen if we interrupted it. And beyond that… we don't know who he'll be when we wake him."

"He could be our Snart, Blondie," Mick told her. "Or he could be the Legion's Captain Cold."

"But Damien Darhk is dead," Lisa protested. "Doesn't that mean his control over Lenny is dead too?"

"It's not that simple, love," came a new voice from the hallway.

John Constantine strolled into the Medbay. He stood at the foot of Leonard's bed and looked around the group. "Sorry to take so long getting here. Esrin and I had to make sure we'd collected all of Darhk's little toys.

"Now, to your question," he went on, pointing at Lisa. "This isn't a fairy tale, where killing the wizard kills the spell. If that sort of thing were true, the pyramids at Giza and the Great Wall of China would have collapsed long ago. And Venice would be under water."

He walked up the left side of the bed, Sara and Rip stepping back to give him room. "Darhk left something behind to keep the spell going even after his death. Sort of like an autopilot. And now that I've seen his collection of magical bits 'n bobs, I think I know what it is."

He raised his right hand and passed it over Leonard's prone form, starting at the top of his head and walking all the way down to his feet, then back up again, stopping with his hand over his chest. "There. There's something here that shouldn't be."

He dropped his hand and turned to Sara. "Can I borrow one of your knives, love?"

Constantine cocked his head and held out his hand when Sara gave him an uncertain look. She shrugged, pulled a knife from her boot and handed it to him. He nodded and turned back to Leonard, grasping the neckline of the unconscious man's pullover and sliding the knife under it. "Apologies to the man's tailor," he said.

"Snart's got a dozen more just like that one," Mick growled. "Just get on with it."

Constantine nodded and slit the shirt from neck to hem, baring Leonard's chest. "I thought so," the magician muttered, while Lisa and Rip gasped in horror. Mick grunted like he'd taken a punch to the gut, and Sara spat out an old League curse upon the soul of Damien Darhk.

The image of the Askaran amulet was burned into Leonard's skin, right over his heart. It was shiny, and the edges were oozing. Sara felt her gorge rising and swallowed hard to force the bile back down.

"What did that bastard do to my brother?" Lisa hissed, a tear trailing down her cheek. Her knuckles had whitened slightly as she tightened her grip on Leonard's hand.

"Branded him with the Askaran amulet," Rip said in a shocked tone.

"To control him?" Sara asked.

"Yes, but I don't think controlling this man was Darhk's endgame," Constantine said, handing the knife back to her. "Darhk was just using him as a test subject. If it worked, and if the Legion managed to knock your hero teams out, he could move on to bigger targets, like world leaders."

"To do what?" Mick asked. "Control them?"

"In essence," Constantine agreed. "He'd use the amulet to invade their dreams, weaken their wills and eventually take over their waking minds."

"How can he do that?" Lisa asked.

"Ever hear of a dream catcher?" Constantine dug into a pocket inside his coat and pulled something out. It looked like a webbed hoop, just a little larger than his hand. "The Ojibwa Indians make these to hang over their beds. The web is for catching bad dreams, and the hole in the middle…" he touched that section of the web, "lets the good dreams go through."

"You carry one of those things around with you?" Mick asked with a raised eyebrow.

Constantine shrugged. "Never know when you're going to get a chance for a kip, mate."

He stuffed the dream catcher back in his pocket, and looked clinically at the brand on Leonard's chest. "Now, you can think of the Askaran amulet as sort of a reverse dream catcher. It blocks the good dreams and lets the bad stuff through. It works really well when there's already a lot of bad stuff in the victim's subconscious. And looking at your friend, that seems to be the case here."

The ugliness of the brand had drawn Sara's attention away from the other scars on Leonard's torso, but now she noticed them and took in a pained breath. Cigarette burns, badly healed gashes and stitch marks were scattered over his skin, some of them trailing under the waistband of his jeans or the remains of his shirt.

"We had a crappy childhood," Lisa said simply, in a tone that warned not to ask questions. Mick caught Sara's eye and gave her a barely perceptible shake of his head to reinforce the warning.

Constantine's mouth thinned in a grim line. He said, "Well, that just gave Darhk plenty of ammunition. Someone branded by the amulet can be controlled by the bearer. He can use their own memories and worst nightmares against them. Even from beyond the grave."

"You mean Darhk is still controlling Mr. Snart?" Rip asked.

"The spell he left behind is," Constantine answered. He laid his right hand on Leonard's forehead for a moment and closed his eyes, cocking his head as if listening to something. After a moment, he pulled his hand back and opened his eyes. "And before you ask, it's not so simple as just destroying the amulet. The spell is inside his head."

"So can you fix it?" Mick demanded.

Constantine hesitated, and Sara huffed in exasperation. "Come on, John, you restored my soul after I died!" She disregarded Lisa's stunned look and went on, "Leonard's not dead, and his soul is still here, right?"

He nodded. "It is. We don't have to fix that. But this is a different kind of magic, Sara, one I don't know a lot about." He paused and sighed. "Bloody hell. I'm going to owe Esrin for this."

"You won't," Lisa said firmly, rising from her seat. "I will."

Mick nodded in agreement. "And me."

"We all will," Sara said, and Rip nodded as well.

"Mr. Snart was… is an important part of our team," he said. "Whatever price Madam Fortuna wishes to exact from us, the crew of the Waverider is willing to pay it."

Constantine looked at each of them in turn, holding their gazes for long moments. Finally he sighed and inclined his head in acceptance. "Right, then. I'll just go have a chat with Esrin," he said, and left the Medbay.

Lisa carefully moved the torn pieces of Leonard's pullover back over his chest, covering up the scars and the terrible brand before laying a hand against her brother's cheek. In a trembling voice, she asked, "Did you really mean that?" She looked searchingly at Rip and Sara. "Did you mean what you said about paying whatever this woman wants?"

"Yes," Sara answered, as Rip said, "We did."

Lisa looked disbelieving. "But… why? I can understand Mick, but… Leonard's not your family."

"Yes, he is," Rip contradicted, while Sara hesitated for a moment, not quite sure how to explain her own relationship to Leonard.

Lisa was obviously as sharp as her brother, catching the hesitation. She smiled slightly. "I think you and I have something to talk about," she said, pointing at Sara.

Mick smirked. "Come on, Rip. Let's leave the ladies to their little talk while we go and fill the team in." He reached out to squeeze Lisa's shoulder once more and moved to the entry.

Rip glanced at the medical readouts one more time. "Gideon, please inform me of any changes in Mr. Snart's condition."

"Of course, Captain," the AI responded. The men nodded at Sara and headed down the passageway.

The two women stood looking at each other in an awkward silence. Then Gideon said, "Mr. Snart is starting to dream again."

They both looked down to see Leonard's eyes moving under the lids once again. He smiled, just a little.

"What's he seeing?" Lisa asked.

"He is dreaming of Miss Lance kissing him at the Oculus."

Leonard gave a hum of pleasure before catching his breath in a pained gasp and falling silent. "The dream has changed," Gideon said. "It's now…"

"Don't, Gideon," Sara ordered. Leonard's little sister looked upset enough as it was. "Lisa, are you all right?"

The other woman's eyes flicked back up to meet Sara's. "Mick told me Lenny died at the Oculus. Or, I guess, almost died. He didn't mention anything about a kiss. Or was that just Lenny's imagination making it all up?"

Sara smiled sadly. "No. Mick was knocked out, so he didn't see it, but I did kiss your brother at the Oculus… right before…"

Lisa nodded. "Thought it was something like that." She looked back down at Leonard's sleeping face. "Just full of surprises, Lenny," she murmured to him. "What made you decide to become a hero?"

"I don't know all of it," Sara said. "But I'll tell you what I can."

Lisa met her eyes and nodded again. Sara perched on the other Medbay bed and began telling Lisa a story of card games, confidences and kisses.