AN: Thanks so much for the lovely reviews on the last chapter! I hope you enjoy this one too.

Sara took a step towards their former captain. "Rip, I..." She trailed off as she tried to find the right words to explain what they had been caught doing, or more importantly why. "Listen, we found this file and there was this video attached. I know we probably shouldn't have watched it but..." She trailed off again, unable to find a decent excuse. How did you excuse wilfully watching a video of someone at their most vulnerable? It wasn't as if they had known what the video would contain, but they had known it would likely be something fairly personal, and they hadn't exactly stopped watching when they saw what it was about.

She braced herself for a tirade, for expletives and accusations, but none came. It was then she noticed Rip wasn't actually looking at her. He wasn't looking at any of them. His gaze was directed past them, fixed upon the now blank screen.

"Rip?" said Sara, eyes narrowing in concern.

Rip stood in the doorway, frozen and pale, paler than Sara had ever seen him. One hand clutched tightly to the doorframe as if he were using it to hold himself up.

"Rip, are you okay?" asked Ray. He began moving towards Rip, but Sara held out an arm to block his path, stopping him from going any further.

How long had Rip been standing there? Sara wondered. How much had he seen?

"Rip," she called out again.

There was no answer. Rip continued to stare at the screen as if mesmerized.

The memory wipe, Sara suddenly realized. God, the Time Masters had wiped Rip's memory of everything they had just witnessed. He didn't remember any of it.

She walked slowly towards him, careful not to make any sudden movements.

"Rip," she said, keeping her voice soft. "Rip?"

There was still no response.

As she drew closer, Sara noticed a wheezy raggedness to his breathing. It sounded as if he were on the edge of a panic attack. When she was near enough, she reached out and gently laid a hand on his arm.

Rip flinched away, but thankfully his eyes finally left the screen and focused on her. "Sara?"

Sara nodded. "Yeah. You alright?"

His brow furrowed. "Uh, I just...," he began uncertainly as if not so sure himself, "I just came down to see... to see if you'd gotten through to the database." His gaze drifted back to the screen. "That video..." There was a lost look in his eyes, and for a moment, he looked as vulnerable as the boy in the video. "What was...? Was that...?"

Sara swallowed. When she had gone looking for Rip's secrets, she hadn't imagined having to reveal some of them to Rip himself.

"We found a file on you in the Time Masters' database," she explained. "It seems to be mostly a basic personnel file, but there was—"

"You found a file about me?" Rip's voice grew sharp and some of the usual fire returned to his eyes. "Why wasn't I informed?"

It was Ray who replied, babbling nervously. "We wanted to take a quick peek before we told you about it. We were curious. We didn't think there'd be anything, you know..." He trailed off wincing. "Hey, second in your class that's pretty awesome," he added with a strained grin. Turning his head, he sent a pleading glance at Nate.

"Yeah," Nate quickly put in, "and all those missions and medals and stuff. I'd really love to hear more about them sometime. We were expecting to find all sorts of crap on you, not, um... What was it like growing up in the 19th century? That must have been—"

"Nathaniel," Amaya said, wearily. "Please, shut up."

Thankfully, Nate obeyed, clamping his mouth shut and grimacing.

Rip's gaze swept across the Legends. They shifted uncomfortably in response. "You read through my file? All of you?"

"Just a little bit," Ray insisted, demonstrating an appropriately tiny space between his thumb and forefinger.

Rip turned away, running a hand through his hair as he paced across the room.

"The file was with a bunch of other personnel files," explained Zari. "We found it by accident. We didn't think..." She trailed off wincing, clearly regretting having ever discovered the thing.

"So you thought you'd just invade my privacy for your own amusement?" The snort Rip let out was sharp and bitter.

"I'm really sorry, Rip," said Jax, genuinely remorseful.

"We all are," said Amaya.

Rip didn't say anything, just continued to pace back and forth, head bowed.

"But hey," Jax added, "all the stuff in that file, it's not a big deal. We don't care where you came from or what happened to you. You're still you."

Rip remained silent, but the rigidness in his jaw and the way he held his arms crossed tightly over his chest showed the statement had done little to calm him.

"Don't blame them," said Sara, intending to take full responsibility and draw all Rip's ire her way. "I'm the one who made the decision to look at the file. If you want to blame someone, blame me."

Rip took the bait, swinging towards her, eyes blazing. "And what gave you the right?" he demanded.

"I was trying to gather information for the benefit of the team," Sara replied, defensively. "I know you like to keep your past private, but given the number of times you've hidden stuff from us, I needed to know—"

"Then what was that?" Rip flung a hand at the screen. "That... that video." He paused shaking his head. "Was that something you needed to know? What the hell were you watching?!" His voice rose to a yell, reverberating throughout the room, but it was tinged more with distress than anger.

"Rip..." Sara began, unsure what to say.

Rip closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. "What was that?" he repeated in a much quieter tone.

The team exchanged glances, no one wanting to be the one to tell him.

Reluctantly, Sara opened her mouth to explain, but Zari beat her to it.

"The video was attached to your file," she said, matter-of-factly though her tone was softened with sympathy. "It shows a doctor running tests on you when you were a kid. You were tranquilized at the time and at one point the tranquilizer ran out and..." There was no need to say more. Judging from his reaction, Rip had seen exactly what had happened next. "My guess," she continued, "is that it was part of some initial screening process to see if the kids the Time Masters' took were suitable or not."

"Tests? What tests?" said Rip, the lines on his forehead deepening. "And I wasn't taken. I was... recruited."

Kidnapped, more likely, thought Sara. Based on what they'd just seen, it didn't look like Rip had gone willingly.

Mick let out a snort. "Hell of a blind spot you've got there, English."

"What are you talking about?" asked Rip, turning towards him.

"Face it. The Time Masters were bastards, completely and utterly. I wouldn't put anything past them."

"But they didn't..." Rip blinked several times and shook his head. "They wouldn't..."

"They fucked you up so bad you can't even see it." Mick's statement was blunt but there was a hint of sadness in his voice, the image of Rip's terrified younger self undoubtedly still vivid in his mind like it was in Sara's.

The lost look returned to Rip's eyes and his gaze was drawn once more to the blank screen on the far wall. "But it never happened," he said though there was growing uncertainty in his voice. "I don't... I don't remember..."

"They wiped your memory," Sara said gently, drawing closer to him.

"But why? I don't understand."

"Probably so you'd be more cooperative and willing to buy in to what they were selling. I guess they thought all that testing wouldn't leave a very good impression, especially considering the way they went about it. I bet that's why you were tranquilized too."

Various emotions warred on Rip's face as if he still couldn't quite process what he had just learned.

"It would have also been pretty traumatizing for a kid from the 19th century," Sara continued. "We all saw what happened when—"

Rip shot her a look and Sara immediately stopped talking. She had gone too far. She didn't know if it was the reminder of what had happened in the video or the fact the entire team had seen it, but Rip had clearly had enough.

Head bowed, Rip ran his hands across his face. There was a slight tremor in his fingers and the raggedness had returned to his breathing.

The team gazed at him with mixtures of pity and sympathy but that only seemed to make things worse.

Avoiding their gazes, Rip began backing towards the exit. "I... I have to go."

"Rip, wait," said Sara.

Rip turned to leave but Sara reached out and grabbed his arm stopping him.

The moment her fingers wrapped around his wrist she knew it had been a mistake.

Panic lit Rip's eyes as he swung back around. Suddenly, he looked exactly like he had in the video, a terrified little boy, trapped and helpless.

Sara let go.

Rip quickly fled out the door, not looking back.

The team watched dumbly as he left.

"What have we done?" said Amaya, once they had gotten over their shock.

"I'd say we fucked up," Zari observed sarcastically.

"Majorly," agreed Nate with a nod.

"It was the Time Bastards who fucked up," said Mick. "They fucked up Rip just like they fuck up everything. We should go back and blow them up all over again."

It was a ridiculous notion but for a moment Sara was tempted to do just that.

Ray began heading for the door Rip had just exited. "I'm going to go after him, make sure he's okay."

"I'll go with you," said Jax, joining him.

Sara held up her hands palm out stopping both of them in their tracks. "No, I'll go. I'm the captain." It was her responsibility, and she suspected dealing with Rip in his current state was going to require a delicacy she wasn't sure the rest of the team were capable of.

Jax and Ray looked upset, clearly wanting to help in some way, but thankfully, they didn't argue.

Sara gestured to the blank screen. "Get back to doing what we were supposed to be doing in the first place and find that information on Mallus. Maybe then this whole mission won't be a complete disaster." That said, she stepped out of the library leaving the rest of the team behind.

It was only after taking several steps down the corridor that Sara realized she had another problem. She had been so focused on how she was going to fix the mess they'd made, she had completely missed the obstacle in her path.

She had no idea where Rip had gone. He could be anywhere in the ship, and if she didn't want to waste time searching the entire place, there was only one way to find him.

Sara drew to a stop and lifted her gaze to the ceiling. "Gideon?"

"Yes, Captain?" inquired the A.I., a sharpness to her normally pleasant tone.

Sara's lips pulled back in a grimace. "I need to know where Rip is," she said, hoping her status as captain would still carry weight under the circumstances.

"Yes, Captain," Gideon repeated, unhelpfully.

Sara rolled her eyes. It seemed Gideon's bond with Rip still trumped everything. "I understand if you're mad at us."

"Yes, Captain," Gideon said for the third time.

Apparently, the A.I. wasn't going to make this easy.

"I know we invaded Rip's privacy. I know he's upset, but believe me I never meant to do anything to hurt him."

"Are you sure about that?"

The question took Sara by surprise. Had she wanted to hurt Rip? She wondered. Had she made the decision to look at the file solely for the good of the team or had she done it because she was still angry at Rip for breaking her trust and had wanted to get back at him, wanted to level the playing field after he had kept so many things from her? Suddenly, she wasn't so sure.

"I'm sorry, Gideon," she said with a sigh. "I messed up."

"Yes, you did," agreed Gideon.

You knew you had really messed up when an A.I. chastised you, Sara thought with bitter humour.

Something suddenly occurred to her. She narrowed her eyes at the ceiling. "You could have stopped us accessing the file. You could have prevented this whole thing from happening in the first place. Why didn't you?"

A few seconds passed before Gideon replied. "While I care for Director Hunter a great deal," she said, "I don't agree with his persistent tendency to keep secrets anymore than you do. I thought you could benefit from getting to know him better, that the information in the file might help you understand him." Her tone became accusing as she added, "I also assumed you would not do anything which could potentially harm him."

Sara winced.

"Unfortunately, I did not anticipate Director Hunter coming upon you while you were going through the file," Gideon continued, her voice growing softer and becoming tinged with guilt. "Nor did I anticipate his reaction upon seeing the video."

The guilt was something Sara could relate to. "It's not your fault, Gideon," she said, shaking her head. "You couldn't have known."

"I know what kind of demons Rip has in his past. I should have known bringing them forth would have negative consequences. We both should have."

"You're right," Sara agreed, "which is why I need to talk to him. I need to make this right somehow."

There was a moment of silence, then finally, Gideon said, "Director Hunter is in the cargo bay."

Sara let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Gideon."

She headed into the depths of the ship, to the very back where the cargo bay was located. Her steps became slower and more hesitant as she drew nearer, but never one to run from things, she persisted on. She almost regretted it though when she finally found Rip, a new wave of guilt crashing over her at the sight of him.

Rip sat on one of the large cargo crates, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as he gazed at the floor. His face was still too pale and his eyes held the same lost look they had before.

Swallowing, Sara stepped into the room. Fighting off an army dosed with Mirakuru and trained by the League of Assassins seemed immensely preferable than what she was about to do. She had never been great at admitting when she had made a mistake and she had never really enjoyed talking about feelings either especially her own. Being a Legend though had taught her there was more to being a member of a team than just having each other's back in the middle of a fight, especially when you were the captain.

Sara walked over and sat down beside Rip on the crate.

Rip's eyes briefly flickered in her direction before returning to the floor.

"You okay?" she asked, and then immediately cursed herself. "Sorry. Stupid question."

Rip remained silent.

Sara wanted to press him to speak, get this over with quickly, but instead she forced herself to be patient and sat quietly beside Rip as he gathered himself.

Finally, after several long minutes had passed, Rip took a deep breath and straightened up releasing his head from his hands.

"You want to know what I was thinking about earlier while I was looking out that window?" he asked. His gaze continued to avoid Sara's, eyes fixed on the far wall.

The question surprised her. Rip's willingness to open up surprising her more than anything else. She said nothing, afraid she would somehow ruin the moment and make him clam up again.

"I was thinking," Rip continued, "that revisiting my past was a very, very bad idea." He let out a snort, a broken, bitter noise. "It may seem ironic for a time traveller, but my past is something I generally tend to avoid. All my life I've tried to put things behind me, to move on and forget, and yet my past still haunts me."

"Like today," Sara said, quietly.

Rip nodded, a tiny jerky movement. "After what happened with Savage, I knew there were things about the Time Masters I didn't know, that they'd kept hidden from me, but this..." He closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. "Sometimes it feels like my whole life is held together by fragile threads, and if I tug at them, everything will simply fall apart."

There was a tremor both in Rip's voice and in his hands which rubbed restlessly across his thighs. Sara recalled how he had stood frozen in the doorway to the library, unresponsive, eyes unable to leave the place where his past had been on display.

"That video..." she began tentatively, knowing she was stepping on dangerous ground. She had no right to pry especially not after what she had done, but she had a feeling this was a secret Rip needed to share for his own sake. "How much did you see?"

It was a while before Rip replied, so long Sara began to think he wasn't going to, but after a minute or two of silence, he said, "From when the boy, I mean from when I broke free from the troopers." He paused for a second swallowing. "I didn't realize what it was at first. I didn't even recognize myself but then..." He stopped, hands tightening into fists.

"So you don't remember any of that?"

Rip shook his head. "Not really. I recall running into the Time Masters that first time when I was still... living on the streets."

The last bit was said reluctantly. It was the part of Rip's life he avoided talking about the most, and after seeing the effects of that life, Sara couldn't blame him.

"There were two of them, a man and a woman." Rip frowned. "I don't really remember what they looked like, but I remember thinking there was something off about them. Mainly though, I was thinking they'd be an easy mark." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I, uh, picked one of their pockets believe it or not, stole a remote tracking device."

Sara gave a tiny smile. "Seems like your sort of luck."

"Yes, well," Rip continued, "I almost got away with it, but one of them spotted me. They gave chase and I got away, but they eventually tracked me down, and then... the next thing I remember is waking up at the Refuge, Mother standing over me. They must have grabbed me and taken me to Vanishing Point where they did those tests and... and whatever else they might have done before erasing my memory and dropping me off."

His hands wrung together and then rubbed across his legs once more. On impulse, Sara grabbed the hand closest to her and held it. She wasn't sure how he would react, but he just squeezed her hand and continued talking.

"The thing is I used to get these horrible nightmares. They started shortly after I came to the Refuge. In them, I would be trapped, held down, unable to move as people..." He trailed off and swallowed again. "I guess some of what happened must have stayed in my subconscious or maybe the memory erasure wasn't a hundred percent effective. The nightmares did stop eventually. I'd almost forgotten about them but seeing the video..."

"It brought it all back," Sara finished for him.

Rip nodded. Tears glistened in his eyes. "It was like the video opened a door in my mind and all these memories came flooding in, memories and a feeling of absolute terror as if I were—"

He stopped, and if suddenly recalling himself, let go of Sara's hand and straightened up.

"God," he exclaimed, letting out a sniff and wiping his eyes. "Sorry."

"Hey," Sara said, softly. "I'm the one who's supposed to be apologizing right now, not you."

"It's just ridiculous," said Rip, "getting upset over something that happened when I was a child."

"An extremely traumatic event that you never had the chance to deal with and that you just got to relive," Sara pointed out.

Rip flung a hand in the air. "But I've been through much worse since then. I've narrowly escaped death on countless occasions, lost my wife and son, had my brain fried, my personality rewritten, was forced to do unspeakable things against my will, but this... One reminder and I can't seem to stop shaking." The tremors were evident as he ran his fingers through his short hair.

"This isn't a competition," said Sara. "There's no measuring scale for trauma to determine how bad something is. We don't get to choose how things might effect us or what memories haunt us at night."

Rip snorted. "Things would be a hell of a lot easier if we could."

Sara could certainly agree with that. There were quite a few memories she wished she could escape. She normally didn't like talking about her past either, at least not certain parts of it, but if Rip was willing to open up for once...

"In my case," she said, "you'd think I'd be bothered by what I did with the League more than anything or what happened when I died, but you know what haunts me the most?"

"What?" Rip asked, tiredly.

"The ocean."

Rip frowned. "From when Queen's Gambit went down?"

Sara nodded. "Since then I've absolutely hated the sight of open water. Even after everything I've been through I still get nightmares about drifting out there alone on that wreckage. I will happily face down an army of zombies or a ten-foot-tall metahuman who spits acid but try getting me on a boat and..."

Helpless and alone with only the endless sky and the endless sea as company. Unwanted images swam to the forefront of Sara's mind, but with an effort, she pushed them back down.

"I think we could use a drink," she declared.

"God, yes," Rip agreed.

Sara stood up and gestured towards the exit. "Do you want to go up to the parlour?"

"No need." Rip nodded his head towards the back of the cargo bay. "Second panel up from the floor."

Confused, Sara went over and knelt down beside the panel.

"Slide your fingers along the groove at the top until you find a switch," Rip instructed, "then move it to the left and lift the panel up and out."

Sara obeyed. The panel was a bit stiff but it came off the wall just like Rip had said revealing a hidden cubbyhole, a cubbyhole full of bottles.

She raised an eyebrow at Rip. "A secret booze stash?"

There was a tiny quirk of Rip's lips that might have almost been a smile. "It's comes in useful on occasion."

Grinning, Sara grabbed a bottle, something she recognized as a particularly expensive brand of whiskey, and headed back over to Rip. "I'm surprised Mick hasn't already raided this, or Snart never found it for that matter."

"No offence to Mr. Snart or Mr. Rory," said Rip as she handed him the bottle, "they might be some of the best thieves in all of history—" He paused grimacing. "Don't tell Mick I said that."

Sara drew her fingers across her lips.

"But," Rip continued, "this is my ship. It has been for a very long time. No one will ever know it like I do. Besides," he added as with a deft move, he removed the cork from the whiskey, "I know a thing or two about hiding things." He tilted the bottle up and took a long drink.

"Your ship?" Sara said pointedly as she sat back down beside him. "I thought the Waverider was the Legends' ship now."

"An extended loan," Rip explained, handing her the bottle.

Sara had a few things to say about that, but instead she accepted the bottle and took her own drink. The whiskey was wonderfully smooth and she understood why Rip had hidden this one away instead of leaving it on display in the parlour with the other bottles. He had quite a large collection of alcohol and Sara really needed to talk to him about his drinking habits one of the these days, but like the question of the ownership of the ship, now was not the time.

They sat drinking in silence for a little while. Drinking problem or not, the whiskey seemed to have been a good idea as Rip began to regain his usual pallor and was no longer plagued by tremors.

"Not a bad cure for nightmares," Sara said as she passed Rip the bottle for the third time.

Rip nodded and took another sip. "Second only to hot cocoa."

Sara raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"My mother, my foster mother, Mary," Rip explained. "She used to give us hot cocoa after we had nightmares."

"I only met her the one time but she seemed nice," said Sara, "in an uptight British sort of way."

Rip gave a slight chuckle, the closest he ever really came to laughter. "She was nice, amazingly so considering how much she had to put up with from me, especially when I first came to the Refuge."

A crease appeared between Sara's eyes as something nagged at her. "Do you think she knew?" she asked before she had really thought it through.

"Knew what?"

"About the Time Masters. I mean she worked for them, didn't she? Did she know what they were really like, what they had planned, what they did to—"

"No," Rip said vehemently, cutting her off. "No, no, no, no." His knuckles whitened as his grip on the bottle tightened.

Sara cursed herself realizing she had manage to break the small semblance of peace they had found.

"Mother would never have willingly been a part of something which harmed her children or treated them like that," he insisted, eyes glistening earnestly. "She loved us, all of us."

"Okay, okay," said Sara, holding up her hands in surrender. "I was just wondering—"

Rip shook his head. "You don't understand." He took another sip of whiskey. They had already made a significant dent in the level of liquid in the bottle and Sara was starting to wonder whether drinking had really been such a good idea.

"Then explain it to me."

Rip took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I didn't just start blindly trusting the Time Masters the moment I arrived at the Refuge," he explained. "I was never that naive. Living on the streets had taught me the only one you can truly trust is yourself."

Recalling young Rip, the boy, barely more than a skeleton wrapped in rags, who had been ready to stab whoever tried to take advantage of him, Sara supposed she shouldn't be so surprised.

"For almost two years, I kept stashes of food and cutlery all over the place just in case."

"Cutlery?"

Rip shrugged. "Knives weren't always easy to come by especially when Mother started locking them away after I'd stolen the first few."

Sara grimaced. She could understand the need to have a blade within easy reach at all times. She had learned that type of vigilance the hard way, but life in the League of Assassins was one thing, it was another for a little kid to feel that way. Just how bad had it been for Rip?

"I even had a bag packed and ready should I need to leave," Rip continued. "You have to understand that the Refuge was like paradise after living on the streets, all that food, real beds, central heating, not having to worry about the rain or... or the other people on the streets, but I knew nothing came for free so I spent my time waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"What changed?" asked Sara.

"There was no sudden change. Mother just wore me down with kindness and patience. Eventually, I realized I was safe, I was home. It was the first home I ever recall having and Mary's the one who made it that way so if... if..."

Sara's heart sank as she finally understood. "If she was in cahoots with the Time Masters, then it means that home was fake and pretty much ruins every good memory you have of your childhood."

Rip nodded and took another slow sip of whiskey.

Once he was done, Sara gently took the bottle from his hands and put it down on the floor.

"I need this," said Rip. "I need to believe that the person who cared for me after those nightmares did in fact love me, that she had no ulterior motive, that at least one thing about my time with the Time Masters was real and not some sort of lie or manipulation."

"I get that," said Sara, "needing to have something good to hang onto for when things get dark. For me, it's always been my sister." She gave a bittersweet smile. The loss still hurt though not as much as it had before.

Rip squeezed her arm, a small comforting gesture.

"Though these days remembering the team helps too," Sara added.

"The team..." Rip let out a sigh and rubbed a hand across his forehead. "You know, Sara, when I lost my family, I didn't just lose Miranda and Jonas. I lost the Time Masters too."

"And you're better off without those bastards."

"Most likely," said Rip, "but for so long they were my only family outside of Miranda and Jonas. They saved me, gave me so much, a chance at life, a purpose. I knew they weren't perfect. I didn't always approve of their methods and I had suspicions certain members of the council were in it more for the power than anything else, but I believed in them and I believed in their mission to protect the timeline."

Sara was starting to see where this was going. "You trusted them."

"Exactly, but it turns out I was just their pawn to be played with as they saw fit. The man I trusted the most even orchestrated the whole thing."

"Druce?" Sara had only met the man briefly but that had been enough.

Rip nodded. "He was my friend, my mentor, the closest thing I had to a father, and he ordered Savage to kill my family. You know what he said to me when he admitted it?"

"What?" asked Sara, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.

"That they had counted on my anger causing me to go rogue so I would do what they needed me to do. The doctor in that video said they might be able to find a use for my temper. Well, they certainly did." Rip's voice was full of bitterness. "It seems the more I learn about the true workings of the Time Masters, the worse they become."

"I'm sorry, Rip." They were paltry words but they was nothing else Sara could say.

Rip gazed at her. "You said before I'd gone rogue from every organization I ever belonged to because I don't trust anyone."

Sara winced. Those words, carelessly said in anger, seemed even worse now thanks to the recent revelations. "Yeah, I did and I was wrong. You went rogue from the Time Masters because those bastards screwed you over."

"But I think you were right when you said I don't trust anyone."

Sara's eyes widened in surprise. It could very well be true, even though she had been exaggerating slightly at the time, but she had never expected Rip to admit it.

"The one time I fully put my trust in something," said Rip, "and it turned out so much of it was a lie I can't even be sure where the manipulation began and where it ended. After all this time, I'm still trying to figure it out, still learning about things they kept hidden from me. There may very well be even more in those files and I'm not sure I want to find out." He gazed down at his hands clasped tightly in his lap. "I didn't even realize it until you said it, but I don't think I can trust anyone anymore, not fully at any rate, not after what the Time Masters did."

"You can trust us," Sara insisted.

"Can I?" Rip's eyes gazed pleadingly as if begging her to convince him.

Sara scowled. She wanted to argue. She wanted yell at him for doubting them and treating their time together as worthless, as if they hadn't earned his trust by fighting beside him against Savage and the Legion, but then she recalled what she had just done and her expression fell.

Rip hadn't trusted her, but she hadn't trusted him either. Rip hadn't trusted her with the Time Bureau's mission and she hadn't trusted him when he said Mallus was a threat. Rip had betrayed her during the disastrous mission which resurrected Damian Darhk and she had betrayed him when she turned him over to the Time Bureau. They seemed to be caught in a vicious cycle of mistrust and betrayal and Sara was sick of it. She understood where Rip's lack of trust came from now and she wished she could somehow find the words to make him believe in herself and the team, but she feared it was too late.

Looking away, she let out a weary sigh. "So are you still mad at us for going through that file?"

"I can't say I'm happy about it," said Rip, "but I can't really blame you either. Whatever your motivations, it's true I haven't always been honest with you or trusted you with everything, so I suppose it's only fair."

Sara didn't like the way Rip said that, resigned as if the betrayal had been inevitable.

"It's not fair," she disagreed. "I went behind your back. I pried into something deeply personal that had nothing to do with me or our mission and brought up stuff that—" That had thrown him into an almost catatonic state of shock, she finished to herself. "I should have at least asked you about it first or kept the others from it. I'd have been more than a little pissed if someone had dug up some of my darker memories and put them on public display like that."

"I'm sure you were just doing what you thought was best for the team," Rip said, quietly.

Sara was getting tired of him excusing her actions. "It's not best for the team if it hurts a member of that team."

"Yes, but I'm not exactly a member of the team, am I? Not anymore."

Sara pursed her lips and cocked her head to the side. "Says who?"

Rip's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Like it or not," Sara continued, "you created this team and that makes you a part of it. You can't leave. Even if you take off, even if you go behind our backs and create a whole other organization to take over for us, even if you decide to act like a complete imbecile and betray our trust, you are still part of this family."

Rip stared at her in disbelief.

Had everything he'd been through make it so hard to believe? Sara wondered. She wanted to kick the Time Masters in the ass all over again. Of course, he was a part of their family. That's why his betrayal and mistrust had hurt so much.

"We don't give up on members of this family. That's the thing, one of many things, that makes us different from the Time Masters. You think you're the only member of this team to do dumb things? We've all done dumb things. Some of us do dumb things on a daily basis."

A corner of Rip's lips twitched in amusement.

"You are one of us. You just need to get that through your stupid, thick, pig-headed skull and stop being so damn..." Realizing her voice was rising, Sara stopped and bit her lip. "Sorry, I'm supposed to be apologizing not yelling at you."

"And you're doing a fantastic job," Rip said, dryly.

Sara rolled her eyes. "God, you're infuriating sometimes," she said though she was glad to see some of Rip's old spark returning. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I am sorry, Rip."

Rip nodded. It was a tiny, almost imperceptible movement of the head, but Sara took it as an acceptance. "I know you want me to trust you, trust the team," he said. "I want that too and I can try. I will try, but I can't guarantee I won't fall back into bad habits and screw everything up again."

"Well, I can't guarantee that either," said Sara. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty good at screwing things up too."

Rip gave a wry smile. "I suppose we do have that in common."

Reaching down, Sara picked the whiskey up off the floor. "You think we'll ever stop screwing up?" She took a drink, then passed the bottle to Rip.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure we'll keep screwing up," said Rip as he accepted the bottle from her, "spectacularly so. It seems to be our destiny."

"It sure feels that way some days," Sara agreed.

Rip raised the bottle to her. "To screwing things up all over again," he declared and drank.

Sara smiled. "To screwing things up all over again," she repeated. Hopefully, they'd survive the next screw up together just like they had survived this one.