A Stitch In Time

Chapter 1: A Time to Pause

Sara looked down at the cards in her hands. She had been shuffling them for how long? Five minutes? Ten? An hour?

More?

She was numb. Devoid of any and all emotion. Empty. She should feel something?

Shouldn't she?

The light from her doorway changed and she looked up, suddenly defensive. Mick stood there, blocking the brighter light of the corridor with his bulky frame.

"Food's ready, Blondie," rumbled Mick's bass tones. "Can't sit here all day."

"I'm good," she answered, turning her head back to the cards. Mechanically her hands began shuffling them again.

"You need to eat," Mick persisted.

"I'll eat at dinner," she shook her head without looking up.

"This is dinner, Sara," pointed out the ship's resident pyromaniac. "You've been here all day."

"What?" Sara looked up with a frown. It hadn't been that long, had it?

"Everyone's worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"Then you're doing better than the rest of us."

"Mick..."

"He wouldn't want this, Sara," growled Mick, a dash of menace colouring his warmer words. "I never met your sister, but I'll go out on a limb here and say neither would she."

"Mick..."

"My best friend died so you could live," he cut in again, blunt as a butter knife, and her hands stopped moving. "Not so that you could sit here and starve yourself to death."

"League members can go days without eating," she muttered, her head still down, staring at her motionless hands.

"Doesn't mean they should," he retorted.

"I'll eat when I'm hungry," she growled.

"Not the first time I've heard that," Mick barked back.

"Mick, leave," she warned.

He knew better than to ignore her when she used that tone of voice, but he refused to leave defeated. "It's pasta. I'll bring you a bowlful."

The light from the doorway returned to normal and Sara relaxed. He would be back. He had said he would bring food, and she knew he'd be as good as his word there. Then she would have to go through the whole conversation again. It would be Mick that brought it. None of the others would dare go near her when she was like this. She saw it in their faces on every mission. Even those that had known her before. Especially them.

"Gideon, close the door please," she sighed, sliding down on her bed to lie staring at the ceiling. "Lock it and don't let anyone in without my permission."

"Shall I soundproof the door too, Miss Lance?" Gideon replied promptly, the door sliding shut as she spoke.

"Please."

Time passed. It had a tendency to do that.

"Sara," Rip called softly from the far side of the door. He waited. No answer came. "Sara? Sara! SARA!"

"The doorway and chamber beyond have been soundproofed, Captain Hunter," Gideon politely informed him.

"Little late, aren't we, Gideon," retorted the ex-Time Master dryly. "You could have warned me before I started yelling."

"I fear you would not have heard me, Captain," replied the smiling voice, just a little too cheerfully for Rip's liking.

"I bet you do," growled the sullen man. "Just tell her we'll be jumping soon and she has a quarter of an hour to do something with the bowl of pasta Mister Rory brought her or she'll be cleaning every inch of this corridor to remove what remains of it."

"I shall pass the message on to Miss Lance. Thank you, Captain."

"Oh, and Gideon?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Stop taking sides."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I bet you don't."

XXXX

A small crowd of faces turned to Rip on his return to the bridge. He held up his hands without missing a step and headed for his office. He half expected to see Mick and Ray behind him when he turned, but he had the presence of mind to hide that half of him hadn't. And that their sudden appearance had nearly made that half of him jump three feet in the air. When had Ray Palmer learned to walk quietly? He had definitely been spending too much time around Mick!

"May I help you, gentlemen?" Rip enquired with a tight grimace. He turned to his central desk and pulled a star chart towards him.

"Did she eat the food?" Mick growled. "She needs to eat."

"Yes, I'm well aware of that, Mister Rory," Rip muttered. "Unfortunately it seems Miss Lance does not agree with us, and that she has asked Gideon to, as it were, block our calls. We can shout as much as we like, she won't hear us. I asked Gideon to pass on the necessary information, however, and I remain hopeful that we shall still be able to walk down that corridor after the time jump without danger of death by pasta pomodoro."

"The inanimate objects in here are never affected by a time jump," frowned Ray. "Why should the pasta?"

"That's like saying the gloves in your glove box aren't affected when your car goes over thirty miles an hour," pointed out Rip. "They are, they're just held in place by something around them. In that case the glove box, in this case the stasis fields set up around them. When random changes to the timeline aren't moving them around of course."

"So if it's still there and we time jump...?" Ray looked at Rip. Rip gave him a withering glare in return.

"Big mess," Mick translated.

"Maybe I should go round there just before we jump," suggested Raymond. "Clear things away."

"Don't you dare," warned Rip. "Gideon will only let her know and give her another excuse not to eat, won't you Gideon?"

"The idea had not even begun to speculate," returned the computer, "about the possibility of crossing my mind."

Ray's eyebrows contracted. "Hey! Stop reading my e-books!"

Under the weary glare of Rip's eyes, the two retreated disgracefully.

Ray leant over to Mick once they were out of earshot. "Who keeps gloves in their car glove box?"

Mick looked back with a slight frown. "You don't?"

XXXX

Light flooded Leonard's vision. Bright, white, searing light that grew and burned and intensified. Then darkness.

Time passed.

The scent of greenery nudged Leonard's consciousness awake. Something else was nudging his arm. Velvet black darkness filled his vision. He wondered if it was night. He wondered if he were in some odd building or ship large enough to house a forest. That was where he felt he was. He was sure of that. The outdoors had never been his thing, but if it smelt like a forest and it sounded like a forest, well...

The sounds that were filtering back into his hearing grew louder. Were they nearer or was it just his hearing getting better? He felt the muscles contract between his brows, pulling them down into a quizzical frown. Something was off. He raised a hand to his face. Nothing happened. He felt the frown deepen, surprise and worry adding to the growing congregation of confusion and disquiet. Once again, he focussed on moving his hand to his face. He felt the limb twitch, but no more. An indignant grumble sounded near his elbow. He felt his eyelids twitch at the odd noise. His eyelids. He ignored his arm and focussed on his eyes. It was dark. He couldn't see. But had he tried? The more he thought about it, the more certain he became: his eyes were still closed. He zeroed in on that thought. He held on to it like a lifeline. He had been knocked out before. Physically and chemically. He had been hungover before, though not often. He remembered this. He remembered slowly coming round from the general anaesthetic one time. He had heard everything going on in the ward far before he had been able to open his eyes and watch. He couldn't remember it affecting the rest of his body, but it had been a long time ago and there had been substantially less of it to be affected. And it had been in a hospital bed with a surgeon, an anaesthetist and several nurses looking after it. He had... He had what?

He remembered the light. That was written into his memory with indelible ink. He couldn't... He didn't... Why? There had been light. Why? Something. Some reason. There had been light for a reason. But no, more: he had chosen the light. He had chosen it for a reason. Why? To save. Save what? Save who? Lisa? No, she hadn't been there. Mick? Mick had definitely been there. Everyone?

"Sara."

A trickle of memory became a flood. He swallowed, aware that the rasping voice he had heard utter a scant two syllables had been his own. Images surrounded his semiconscious brain. A dance. A bar fight. A game of cards. An icy room with frost forming on their faces. A choice. And another choice. And a kiss.

"Sara," he breathed, his voice less ragged.

He should be dead. That was it. That was the choice he had made. He had chosen to die for her. And for Mick. For all of them. He should be dead. Was this death? She had said it had been lonely for her. Was he lonely? He was alone. Did that count?

The low, inhuman grumbling sounded again. It had moved to his shoulder now, and something was tugging at his jacket. He began to wonder if trying to open his eyes was a good idea. Whatever he saw, it wouldn't be familiar. It wouldn't be her.

Where was he? He had ruled out the ship, a hospital or anything with a bed. He had ruled out anything with a flat floor too. He was definitely outdoors. He was definitely in a forest. That meant something. Which forest? That meant nothing!

He reviewed what he knew and considered the possibilities. From a point outside of time and space he had turned up here. Where was here? Earth? Some other planet? Some other dimension? When was here? Present? Future? Past? What sort of critters inhabited this 'wood between worlds' he had landed himself in? Either the creature worrying at the shoulder of his jacket was a voracious predator, if so he should be dead already, or it wasn't. He sided with the 'wasn't'. If it wasn't a predator, his other options were scavenger or prey. If the latter, it was harmless. If the former, he needed to wake up. Quickly!

Leonard drew in a long breath as he focussed once more upon the back of his eyelids. He pressed his lids tightly together, then opened them.

A pale, crepuscular light filtered through the green canopy. The insistent tugging at his shoulder drew his attention back and round. The sudden turn of his head spooked the creature and it jumped backwards, tipping its head on one side and blinking elderberry black eyes at him. If it hadn't been for those eyes he might have thought he was staring back at some odd variety of green owl. But this owl had a parrot's beak and eyes. It blinked. He blinked back. It emitted a grumble-like call.

"Boo."

The owl-parrot thing turned and ran, disappearing into verdant undergrowth.

"Fine," he growled out. "I wasn't lonely anyhow!"

He rolled onto his side, groaning as the previously sleeping parts of his anatomy woke to an alarming chorus of pain. Now that his brain was fully awake, the rest of him was grudgingly following suit. He tried to push himself up, but at that his head rebelled. It was just one step too far. His vision swam. His stomach lurched. He closed his eyes again, but that made it worse. The forest floor seemed to reel and writhe below him. He emptied his stomach contents onto it and rolled back, collapsing into the Leonard Snart shaped hollow he had just dragged himself out of.

He was not going to die here, he decided. Leonard Snart did not step up and save the universe only to die in a pool of his own vomit somewhere in a random forest inhabited by weird birds.

He passed out.

The next time Leonard opened his eyes it was to the sound of gentle waves lapping against a sandy shore. The forest had gone. Thankfully, the pool of vomit had also gone, and he had missed everything but the arm of his jacket. He blinked against the harsh light of day, unfiltered by trees or clouds. This time his hand reached his eyes almost before he realised he had thought to move it. He tentatively edged himself up into a seated position. No tilting landscape. No pounding in his ears.

No vomit.

Progress.

He looked around himself. A vista of sand and sea spread serenely out before him. Behind him lay a forest. He was no expert on forests, but he was fairly sure it was a different forest from the last one. There were notably more palm trees.

"Now the hell what?" Leonard muttered, then frowned as he replayed his words in his head. He groaned. "Travel time damn!"