bringstheheat | Things feel like they'll be forever, but they won't

Things feel like they'll be forever, but they won't

There's an odd lightness in Mick's chest when he wakes. A feeling of contentment.

Mick Rory is happy.
It's not a feeling he has ever been used to.
Because something always came to take it away. Shatter it. Burn it to ash.
Monsters like him don't get happy endings.

But damn if he isn't going to hold on to it for as long as he can.

He's still oddly at war with himself as he showers, dresses and heads off in search of Sara. Mick swore to himself he would be up front with her. Honest.
So it's time to talk about last night.
About Leonard warm and secure in his arms.

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It's just the littlest bit easier this way, and she doesn't know if it counts as cheating. Sara's not certain she cares if it is or isn't as she drinks another swallow of the whiskey. There are too many conflicts with everything that comes to mind, and some of it has to bend, because other parts of it she's not willing to let just stop. She's not sure she could.

Happy. She rested the glass against her mouth, before lowering it.
(You have to come back, she'd so idiotically ended up blurting out.)

Happy, and yet with so much to learn, and so much to lose, and Leonard had to remember the worst of everything to get himself and them back, which seemed like a fucked up deal. Except the idea he'd never really get it, never look at them right, was worse. "We never do anything easy around here, do we?"

And that's the bitch of it right there.
To come back, to be Leonard again, he'd have to remember all of that pain, all of that damage. The walls would slam back into place. No more easy smiles. Mick would have to go back to being careful again. A double edged sword if there ever was one.

But the decision isn't his. Or anyone's for that matter.

A hum into his glass. "Ain't that what it means to be a Legend?" Because it does. Never do anything the easy way. To fix things you have to break them.
Like Leonard.

Hell, to fix the two of them they had both been forced to break. Shatter apart before finding their way back to this.

"He's the most stubborn son of a bitch on the planet. He'll fight his way back, even through his past."

Sara nods and she leans her head back against the chair looking up.

She doesn't doubt that part. Leonard is strong. Stubborn. He was always more than he even wanted to believe, and maybe that had been true even at end, but he'd still done it. That was what made a Legend, too. Like Mick had, eventually, in the other world. And Sara had, when she was the last person standing with The Spear in her hand.

It absolutely what it is to be a Legend. What would any of they give to forget that weight even for a minute? How many times would they be asked and pressed and to say no and pushed no and no each time? The Dominators, and Merlyn, and The Spear. Always no. Always to say no to easier. To less pain. To more happiness.

The selfishness that wants back the man she fell in love,
the knowledge that he'd always choose to be himself instead of that;

the part of her that absolutely hates having to give all of it back,
want to make it better than that, for him, for Mick, for everyone on this ship.
Just because she can't actually do it doesn't mean it hasn't taken root in her, too.

And that's it, too -- being a Legend -- wanting least of all to give up that tiny thing right at the bottom,
the good they fought and bled to find, in each other, in this team, and most of all in themselves.

It was the worst part to lose.

Mick.. has never been good with words. Ever. Written or spoken, anymore they still get jumbled up in his head. Don't come out right. He can't offer Sara any words of wisdom or even consolation because he doesn't have them.

All he has is himself. All he can offer her is himself. The certainty that he will never leave her side again.

Sara fought and won against her bloodlust, against her years as an assassin. Leonard became a hero. Died to save the people he loved most. Mick? Mick was so far behind on the journey to be a better man some days it felt laughable.
But he got up every morning and he fought for it because that's what he does. He fights. Fights to earn what he's got rather than simply stealing it.

A swallow of whiskey.
Another.

He can't offer her the right words or any kind of a solution. But he can offer her a distraction. A way to jar her out of her thoughts.

"Maybe we should rob a bank."

Sara's gaze shifts back down, and then to a side at him.

"I'm serious."

Sort of. He thinks. Fuck it, if she's not going to stop him he's going to talk this out. Mick leans forward, elbows on his knees. "Think about it. Lenny and me have been robbing places for years. Give him a heist. Give him something to plan and execute and see if that'll shake something loose."

Sigh.
Damn he hates this 'good guy' crap.

"I ain't saying we keep the money."

There's a faint snort at the end, as that whole idea just puts some kind of a pin in it. When Sara's trying to figure out whether she's going to half roll her eyes at that, after enough understanding with that, and just as much what where why how that came around and about as a thought from where they'd been a few seconds ago. Or Mick had been.

"You want me to find a bank--" Sara sits up slightly, mirroring just barely. "--somewhere in space and time--" Seeing as their options were not small when it came to anything around here, or how specific they had to be with them. "--so that Leonard, who can't remember his name without being told it--" Though this point is already known enough, it's a basis. A base. "--can see if he remembers how to crack a safe?"

His nose wrinkles. "Gideon could fabricate any kind of safe we wanted." And in truth it isn't a bad idea. He'll file that one away for later.

"I'm talking about giving him the plans, letting him set the job, then run it. Like the old days. Hell, you could probably even get Red in on it." Something familiar, something Leonard lived for. The job. The chase, the rush of getting away.

"It could kick something loose. Help him remember."

She's not considering it. She's not.
(They've done crazier things, haven't they?

No, no, no, no. That is a slippery pitfall path.)

Sara's eyes narrow, touching the one thing they truly have between them and that Mick has even when Mick of all people would like to ignore anything and everything in priority to Leonard. But Mick is one of the reason she is who she is now, that she can do everything she can do now, knows how to do her job and what to try and be better than all their predecessors for. Rip may have started it but it was the Mick Rory on the other side of Chronos that finished those lessons as slight and scant as they were.

She has to ask. She has to be the Captain. "And the timeline?"

She hasn't shut him down yet.
But he doesn't expect her to, he doesn't expect her to tell him to go away, have a drink or ten and only call him up when things needed to be hit or set on fire.

Mick gets to his feet, considering the drift of the timeline, his eyes going a little glassy.

"Apocalypse events." The drink is set down and his fingertips move on the screen, calling one up. "All life ends, no abberations, no changes to the timeline. It just stops. Don't have to be huge, a volcano, hurricane, fire." He can find them easy enough, a few options for them to consider.

"Mob banks are good too, can't exactly call the cops when they get hit."

She hates the sense behind it. The ease with which a few seconds of thinking lands on those first two words. People forget that Mick spent lifetimes being trained by the Timemasters. Yeah, tortured and brainwashed, too, but trained. She only has to think about it for a second and hates that it makes sense.

Because even questioning it in her head butts right up against the one truism she has left from Rip: time wants to happen. It's why so many of the smallest hiccups fixed themselves without prodding. Time wants to happen. Endings, beginnings, middles. All of it. Wants to happen.

"I don't like it."

She likes less that he's not wrong.

Mick rolls a shoulder as if it doesn't matter in the slightest which way she tilts on the idea. "Don't have to like it. Didn't say we had to do it either." But he knows Lenny, he knows those innate things about him that could help shake memories free.

"We got him back. That's what matters."

If he was really bent on a heist, he could always take the jump ship and rob a bank or two with Lenny, but he's not going to. No more taking off on his own. They're a crew and he's not breaking that apart for anything.

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Things feel like they'll be forever, but they won't

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Does this icon say everything already?

That icon needs to be named "... Mick. No."

Default Dubious Captain Face is Default and Dubious

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