"So… now what?" Nate asked as he and Ray made their way back to the Waverider after the decision had been made to leave Sara and apparently Laurel alone with Team Flash for the time being.

"Not sure," Ray replied, "We can see what Amaya and Rory-" But the very people he was speaking of cut him off. Just before he could open the ramp for him and Nate it lowered, and out walked Mick and Amaya.

"Where are you two going?" Nate asked as his teammates brushed right past Ray and himself.

"Don't know," Mick replied over his shoulder, "But don't wait up."

"Amaya?" Ray asked and, unlike Mick, Amaya did turn around, though she continued walking backwards in order to keep pace with Mick, and gave Ray a wordless shrug of her shoulders before turning back around and following the arsonist across the parking lot.

At this point Ray wasn't sure which occurrence was more confusing. Laurel's sudden appearance or the two most unlikely of his teammates opting to go off and spend Christmas together. Either way he and Nate made their way onto the now empty Waverider and by habit went to the library.

"Well, with those two gone, probably not a good idea to leave the ship." Ray mused as they entered.

"Come on, It's cloaked and whose going to be trying to drive through this parking lot in the middle of the day on Christmas?" Nate asked and while Ray had to admit to that point he still had no real intentions of leaving the ship, if only because he has nowhere else to go.

Suddenly Nate's face lit up as though the world's brightest light bulb had just gone off over his head.

"Hey," he said excitedly, getting Ray's attention. "The ship's empty, it's just us. No Jax to yell at us about his cargo bay and no Sara to send us to our rooms. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He asked with an excited smile that Ray not only matched but also surpassed once he caught on to the idea.

"I'll get my suit."

After a long, and for once uninterrupted, sparring session Nate and Ray settled in the kitchen for lunch.

"That went pretty well," Ray mused as he took out the sandwich supplies while Nate grabbed plates and cups, "But I really want to talk to Cisco about those upgrades before we leave." He continued before he shut the fridge, only to have Nate open it again so that he could grab the big jug of fruit punch.

"I don't know why Sara and Jax always flip out every time we spar, we put all the crates back where we found them." He mused while pouring the juice into the two cups while Ray worked on their sandwiches.

"I think Jax is more worried about the stuff that's in the crates, or that we won't put them back in the right place. Sara well… she's the captain now so I think she feels like it's her job to worry that we might break something." He theorized, holding out Nate's plate to him, which the other man accepted with a nod in thanks.

But before Ray could even take one bite out of his own lunch his phone vibrating inside of his pocket interrupted him. Putting down his sandwich he retrieved the buzzing device only to find himself looking at Stein's caller I.D.

"Hey Marty," he answered in his usual chipper voice, Nate looked over in curiosity and was met by the sight of his friend's face falling into a frown. "Ok, got it." The genius replied before his face brightened again. "Yeah that sounds great, thanks!" A little bit of a pause for Stein to speak on the other end. "Yeah Nate and I will be there," He promised, sending a glance Nate's way that had the historian even more curious about what was going on over that phone. "But you might want to give Mick a call, he and Amaya left." Ray admitted, "I don't know… Ok see you then, bye." He said and with that he disconnected the call.

"What'd Stein have to say?" Nate questioned, his mouth half full with ham and cheese.

"Not to call him Marty," Ray replied with a slight laugh. "Actually he's inviting all of us to his place for a holiday dinner tonight." He explained and Nate nodded as he swallowed his food.

"Sounds fun," He said, before a more thoughtful look crossed his face. "What should we do in the meantime?"

Ray thought on that for a minute as he took a bite of his own sandwich, truthfully it was hard for him to focus on anything aside from the mystery that had brought them here to begin with, and he could tell that the same could be said for Nate.

Ray Palmer and Nate Heywood are only capable of keeping their curiosity in check for so long.

They entered the cortex of S.T.A.R. Labs just after they had finished eating but to their surprise the place appeared deserted.

"Sara? Laurel?" Ray called out.

"Barry? Cisco?" Nate shouted and in response he received the slightest sound of a groan of annoyance.

Looking into the medical area of the cortex the two men saw none other than Oliver Queen getting off the sick bed before making his way to the doorway.

"They're gone." He informed the two Legends. "Sara and Laurel went to spend Christmas with their mother, while Caitlin and Cisco went to whatever it was they had planned for today. They all left about ten minutes ago."

"You didn't go with them?" Ray asked in surprise and Oliver fidgeted for a moment in the way that he always does when he feels uncomfortable, not that anyone would ever dare point it out of course.

"I've had a long, eventful, twenty-four hours. I figured that it might be best for me to stay behind and process everything." He excused but Ray, clearly not getting the hint, walked over and clasped his old friend on the shoulder.

"Come on Oliver, we can't let you be alone on Christmas." He said before moving past him and making way for the medical room, where team Flash had left the fake Laurel.

A sheet covered up the body, or whatever it was, because frankly Oliver had found it impossible to sleep while having to look at it. Not that he had slept of course, everyone had only left ten minutes ago and it had been a mere five minutes since H.R. showed up and promptly found reason to leave after ending up on the receiving end of Oliver's infamous glare. So he had just finally managed to get on the bed when Atom and Steel entered and once again drew him up. It's not like they were the kind of people he could trust to do their own thing while he slept, not that there are very many people alive with that quality. He doesn't know much about Dr. Heywood, but if he's anything like Ray then it's probably a safe bet that he needs a babysitter.

As if to prove his point, the two men went and yanked the sheet right off of the fake Laurel, looking rather impressed with the body.

"Please put that back," Oliver only muttered the words; he knew that this was already a lost cause.

"Dude, this thing is so lifelike!" Nate exclaimed in pure awe, not even hearing the annoyed voice of the man behind him.

"You've never met Laurel," Oliver pointed out, although he still might as well have been talking to himself.

"Yeah," Ray agreed with Nate, "Where do you think it came from?" He asked and it took every ounce of willpower that Oliver had in his body to press his mouth into a firm line and not tell Ray that he had been asking the same question for hours now.

"Don't know," Nate replied as he took hold of the dummy's wrist before letting it drop back to the table with a lifeless thud. "But to be in this great of condition after seven months underground, definitely high quality."

"Cisco's gonna kill us if we look at it without him," Ray mused and Nate nodded, but both looked as though they were still very much considering the idea and simply waiting to see who would crack first.

"We'll need a syringe." Ray stated simply and Nate nodded,

"I'm on it," he replied and he moved to go look for Caitlin's supplies but was instead pulled back by the collar of his sweater.

"No you're not," The rather fed up Oliver said as Nate let out a quick gasp of pain/surprise. "Neither of you is going to touch anything." He said sternly, glaring at both of them. "You are to leave that body-"

SMASH!

Oliver was cut off by the shattering of glass and H.R. standing in the doorway with a broken cup at his feet.

"Sorry!" The man called with his face scrunched up as though he were in pain, which he most likely was considering all the spiked eggnog he'd apparently had last night so there was no way he wasn't currently hung over.

With a sigh Oliver moved to go clean up the mess, H.R. already babbling about whatever it was he had come in here for in the first place.

"Dude," Nate whispered to Ray once Oliver was both out of earshot and distracted by their sudden guest. "I just realized, he's like the guy version of Sara."

Ray opened his mouth as though to protest, but then he abruptly shut it after thinking on how Oliver had just scolded the two of them with that oh so familiar look of parental disapproval in his eyes.

"Oh my god," he muttered, coming to agree with Nate's statement.

Once Oliver had the coffee mostly cleaned up and H.R. sitting down he turned back to the two present Legends whilst dumping the glass shards of what was once a coffee mug into the nearest trash bin.

"Give him some Advil, I'm going to find a dustpan, don't touch anything." He instructed in a calm voice that was clearly teetering on the edge of the end to his patience.

"Got it," Ray said, already getting up and moving to look through the cabinets for the pain relievers.

He found them fairly quickly whilst Nate got a glass of water for H.R. who took both items gratefully.

"Thank you," he said after swallowing the pills, "On my earth we don't, we don't usually tend to mix alcoholic substances with traditionally non-alcoholic substances so I didn't exactly expect to obtain a, a… what do you call it here?" He asked,

"A hangover?" Nate supplied,

"Right, on my earth we call it a flitsnapper." He explained and Nate couldn't help but look at him as though he had grown an extra head.

"Uh…" He trailed off, not entirely sure what to make of that.

But he didn't really have time to make anything of it before he noticed Ray going for a syringe and test tube, despite Oliver's warnings.

"Dude!" He whisper-shouted, leaving H.R. on the stool where he was sat and hurrying over to his friend. "What are you doing?" He demanded, hovering over Ray's shoulder just as the other man was about to stick the needle of his barrowed syringe into the dummy.

"This thing was underground, away from light and air, for seven months. Even being synthetic it should not be in this good of condition." He replied and before Nate could argue anymore Ray jabbed the needle into the dummy and extracted a sample of the gelatin and then proceeded to squirt the now liquefied sample into his test tube.

"Great, now all we need to do is-"

"Oliver's coming!" Nate warned and of course that had Ray panicking, actually it had both of them panicking but mostly Ray because he was the one holding the evidence that they had messed with the body. He just barely managed to stash the syringe inside of a drawer and shove the test tube into his pocket, all while Nate swore H.R. to secrecy, before Oliver returned with the dustpan and broom.

The Green Arrow looked at the two Legends suspiciously for a minute before getting down on his knees to sweep up the remainder of the broken ceramic, fairly certain that considering everyone he had left in the room was still accounted for things couldn't have gotten too out of hand in the minutes that he was gone. But then again maybe he spoke, or thought rather, too soon because just as he got down Ray and Nate decided that they suddenly needed to be back on the Waverider to oversee some system upgrades or some other nonsense that they were clearly making up. They rushed out with barely more than a hurried "See ya later," before promptly leaving Oliver alone with none other than H.R.

"Oliver is going to kill us when he finds out about this," Nate deadpanned as he and Ray rushed into the med bay aboard the Waverider and Ray pulled out their own centrifuge like device.

"Which is why we need to analyze this before he finds us." The scientist reasoned as he caught his breath, they had run the entire way across the parking lot.

Anyway, he fished the test tube of "blood" from his pocket and placed it inside of the machine in order for it to be processed by Gideon, which didn't take more than a few seconds.

"The substance consists of a highly durable gelatin compound, often used in 2016 for simulating the human body in the testing of weapons, but it is being preserved by a force that I can not identify." Gideon explained once she had examined the sample Ray provided.

"So a chemical beyond 2166?" Nate questioned, he may not have been a recruit of the original mission but that doesn't mean he hadn't been informed on what year Rip had originally traveled from.

"Possibly," Gideon replied, but her voice sounded almost skeptical. "However I am finding no traces of any unfamiliar chemicals."

That had Nate and Ray looking at each other in confusion, but neither of them had time to say anything because that was when Oliver trudged in.

At first the two disobeying Legends just stared at the man whom they knew could kick both of their asses as if they were waiting for that very beating to come, but it never did. Although it might have been what Oliver was intending when he originally followed the two out to the Waverider, he had heard Gideon and what she had to say about the mysterious preservative.

"Didn't Sara say you guys have dealt with a past version of Damian Darhk?" He asked.

Ray and Nate looked between each other, as if they were both wondering why they hadn't been skewered yet, but eventually Ray answered the question.

"Yeah," he said.

"Gideon?" Oliver asked, looking to the ceiling as though he expected to find some sort of physical proof of the AI up there.

"Yes Mr. Queen?" The computer replied.

"Is it possible that the dummy is being preserved by magic?" He asked and it was quiet for a moment, as though Gideon were thinking, before she finally answered.

"Yes. In fact, I would say that that scenario is rather likely given that the sample Mr. Palmer obtained contains no traces of any long term preservatives."

Oliver looked at the other two, who stared back in just as much shock.

"Why would past Darhk switch out the real Laurel with a fake one?" Ray asked, "How does he even know about her?"

Oliver's face grew almost dark at the question.

"We need to talk to Sara."