Archive of Our Own ^beta

Behrad loves his job– if you can call this a job, anyway. He gets to go places he’s never been to, time periods he’s always wondered about, and do things that most people only dream of, alongside some of the people he loves most. But what they don’t tell you about becoming a time-traveling superhero is the cleanup.

Sure, it wouldn’t have stopped him from joining up, but by far the dullest part of all this is having to go one-by-one with the civilians and the memory-flasher to make sure nobody knows they were ever there. It would probably be easier if they were a less destructive bunch, but apparently the singed wreckage of this edge of the boardwalk left by Mick’s heat gun and the man-shaped hole in the pier from where Nate got knocked down by the alien-of-the-week are inconsequential enough that they can leave it for the locals to deal with.

That, or the team has decided that they don’t get paid enough to deal with it themselves. Which is fair, because they don’t get paid at all.

But the boring parts aren’t so bad. Tedious, for sure, but it could definitely be a lot worse, and this mission had gone more smoothly than most, if he’s totally honest. By now, the others have all gone back– Sara and Ava, to keep making up for the time they spent apart while Sara was missing, Nate and the other timeline’s Zari, to make the most of the rest of their time together before the Zaris switch back, and Astra, to work on her magic with John, who’d just gotten back from the Spanish Civil War with Spooner. Even Gary had trailed after John’s group through the portal, but not before offering to stay behind to help Behrad with cleanup.

“Nah, I’ve got it,” Behrad had told him with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Besides, you probably want to get back to check on Mick before he eats something that’s bad for his, y’know, condition. I’ll be right behind you in a few.”

And then Gary scurried off in a bit of a panic, leaving Behrad to finish up by himself.

In hindsight, he should have accepted Gary’s help, even though they’d only brought the one memory flasher. Maybe Gary could have helped keep the people moving as Behrad wiped each of their memories, or even just kept him company and rambled about Necrian culture or told stories about his life pre-earth, or anything to pass the time.

But he finishes up dutifully on his own, roughly fifteen minutes after everyone else has gone back to the ship. The sun hangs low over the water as the carnival-goers head home, believing the story he fed them: the ferris wheel broke because of a botched safety check and one of the fallen cars put a hole in the pier, so everyone has to go home and their tickets will be refunded when they come back tomorrow. It’s far from their most believable cover-story, but they’ve gotten away with less-plausible ones before.

By now, the summer air has cooled as the sky melts from blue to peachy-pink, wisps of clouds catching golden light behind the silhouette of the ruined carnival rides, and it’s so beautiful, so quiet, that it makes Behrad want to stay a little longer to watch the sun go down. So he does, leaning on the cold steel rail and feeling the salt spray of the waves crashing against the thick pillars that hold the boardwalk above the water.

It’s been a long while since he’s had a moment to himself. They’re hard to come by, on a ship that spends most of its time isolated in the temporal zone, and especially so with nearly a dozen people sharing one bathroom. He loves the team, and loves spending time with them, he really does, but he can’t remember the last time he got to just stand around and bask in the quiet. He hasn’t spent more than a few minutes at a time in his bedroom since Atropos and Loomworld because it doesn’t really feel like it’s his anymore, and the lab is no good either– if Spooner isn’t already there doing pull-ups or with her nose buried in a book, then someone else is, hitting the bag or filling the room with the relentless clanking of the various exercise machines.

And really, he’s long since outgrown his childhood routine of just locking himself in his room for the entire day and refusing to come out. There’s not really anywhere he can go for privacy. Nowhere on the ship, and not at home in 2044, because maman and baba will fuss over his hair being unruly, over him looking too skinny, over how he’s doing at business school, over if he’s seeing anyone. The totem’s no good either, because there’s always a Zari in there, whether she’s interested in talking to him or not, and the ancestors are nosy– though he can’t blame them; eternity in the totem world has to get boring eventually.

If he could justify it, if he could do it without raising suspicion from Ava, who keeps track of the time couriers as best she can– especially after his last few grocery runs to the ancient markets, though she’s given up on keeping them away from Mick’s sticky fingers– he’d do this a lot more often, just step out of his life and into somewhere, anywhere else in the timeline, as long as it’s away.

He loves this life; he’s super grateful for all the people he has and the luxuries that come with a family back home and a second family on the Waverider, but he can’t escape that twist in his stomach that tells him to shrink into himself as far away from all of them as he can get, until he disappears. He can’t escape the lump that builds up in the back of his throat, or when he feels the impulse to hide away from it all and become invisible. The urge to run away and not look back.

(Sometimes, he wonders if the other Behrad, the one from the original timeline, ever felt this way too. If maybe there’s an echo of that Behrad that lives on inside him, or if maybe he’s just projecting himself onto a ghost.)

There’s something comforting about being alone in a sea of strangers. Even as the boardwalk slowly empties, the locals heading off after being told this week’s cover story, Behrad finds that the anonymity sets him at ease. He’s by himself, yeah, but he doesn’t feel lonely at all.

He stands there for a while, both warmed by the sun and chilled by the breeze sweeping over the water. Gulls cry overhead, punctuating the distant chatter of the locals further down the beach, and the old wood creaks beneath his feet when he shifts his weight, resting his forearms on the safety rails.

When was the last time he went to the beach, Aruba? Mick was really onto something with that one. But between the encores and the fates and now the aliens, it’s been a really long time since they had a break.

Behrad stands there looking out at the sea and at the sunset, for a while. Or it's probably a while, he’s not really sure how long he's there for, because his stomach rumbles: a reminder that he hasn’t eaten anything at all since breakfast. And as soon as he realizes that, he also sees that the sun has somehow already dipped nearly all the way down past the horizon while he was lost in thought, so he should probably head back soon. There’s a tray of leftover empanadas that he made yesterday in the fridge, and if the others haven’t raided it already, they will soon. He brings his wrist up and pushes his sleeve back to tap away at his Time Courier, sitting neatly next to the silver band of his totem.

It takes a couple of taps to turn it on– the battery is probably running low– and Behrad thinks that there’s some gunk still stuck in the crevices from when he’d been wearing this particular courier while cooking a few days ago and the wristband had come undone over the pot. Nobody else was in the kitchen at the time, but he’d been kind of mortified as he fished it out with a slotted spoon, gave it a quick wipe-down with a dampened dishcloth, and laid it in a bowl of rice to dry. He meant to take it apart to double-check, but he hasn’t had the chance. And anyways, it seems to be working fine, as he sets the location to the Waverider, but he’ll have to remember to track down the charger when he gets back onboard. It would probably really suck, he thinks, to get stranded in the timeline because of a dead battery.

He opens the portal in its usual rectangular fwoosh of light, and steps through to the familiar gray and blue of the galley.

The fridge door is already open and someone is rummaging around inside, so he waits his turn, leaning against the center island and drumming his fingers idly against the edge. The door shuts, and Ray Palmer steps back, armed with a tupperware of leafy greens. He jumps when he sees Behrad, nearly dropping his food in shock.

“Ray! Dude!” Behrad grins, straightening up and racing around the island to wrap the older man in a hug. “I didn’t know you were visiting. When did you get back?”

He frowns and backs away slightly when Ray doesn’t return the embrace. The other man looks… confused, clutching his tupperware close to his chest.

“Oh, uh, not that I don’t like hugs, but… do I know you?” Ray narrows his eyes, and Behrad sees him inch one hand towards his jacket pocket, the one that he keeps the A.T.O.M. suit in. Just as Behrad takes another step back and opens his mouth to respond, there’s a high-pitched sound behind him that he recognizes, vaguely, but can’t quite place.

“What’s wrong with you, boy scout?” Behrad pivots slowly, carefully, and finds the icy blue light of Leonard Snart’s cold-gun pointed in his face. “Put down the salad and sound the alarm. Clearly, we have an intruder on board.”

Then, before he can even begin to register what’s going on, something hits him in the back of the head, hard, and knocks him out cold.

---

Of all the ways he could have realized that he somehow portalled onto an older version of the Waverider, this is probably one of the least fun ones, but at least they didn’t kill him on sight. They just threw him into a cell, still unconscious, and waited for him to wake up so they could begin interrogating him. Which brings him here, inside a brig he’s never seen before, which is wild seeing as he’s literally responsible for keeping the entire ship in good condition. Something must have happened to it before he joined, because he’s only ever seen the cell with the honeycomb forcefield that they use in the lab.

In front of him– or rather, around him– Rip Hunter paces back and forth by the three transparent walls of his cell. Snart lurks on the left, by the door that leads outside, leaning up against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and one leg bent, boot resting on the wall behind him. Opposite him, on the other side of the room, a younger version of Sara watches Behrad’s every movement like a hawk, twirling her bo staff idly as Rip draws laps from Snart to Sara and back again.

“So, what brings you to our neck of the temporal zone?” Snart asks. “You look too much like a coffee shop hipster to be the latest assassin. Unless they’ve started posting bounties at CC Jitters to help fund indie films.”

“I told you, my name is Behrad Tarazi,” Behrad tries again, sinking down onto the sad, uncomfortable bench. Protocol has always just been to get out quick with as little interaction as possible at times like these, and while this isn’t quite the same as trying to keep Castro from starting World War III, he’s not sure what else to say to convince them to let him go without giving too much away. “I just got on the wrong ship. Give me back my time courier and I’ll be out of your hair. And the flasher too, I need that back. I’ll wipe your memories and it’ll be like I was never even here.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea. Give the intruder back his flashy future tech.” Snart drawls, unimpressed. “While we’re at it, let’s give him all of Gideon’s passwords, too.”

“I also need my, uh, bracelet.” He says pointing at his bare wrist. He feels naked without the totem on his arm, without his spiritual connection to his family. “It’s a family heirloom.”

“Oh?” There’s a curious glint to Snart’s eyes that Behrad doesn’t quite like, and it sends a shiver running down his spine. “Bet it’s worth a pretty penny, then.”

“The initial scans we ran after Ms. Lance rendered you unconscious determined that you’re from the mid-twenty-first century. And yet you came aboard with technology far beyond that time.” Rip interrupts them, shooting Snart a quick, disapproving glare. He pauses the loop he’s been pacing around the room, stopping at the center of his cell door. He barely knew Rip, during his first year on the ship, but it looks like he’d always been melodramatic. “You’re no Time Master. So, what are you? Some sort of time pirate? A rogue operative?”

“Time Master?” Behrad wrinkles his nose. “Man, they told me that was what you were called, but I still can’t believe it. I mean, it sounds like it was thought up by a twelve-year-old.”

Rip scowls, and Sara smirks slightly, in that way that Behrad recognizes as the way does when she thinks something is funny, but it’s not really the time for jokes so she shouldn’t show it. If he wasn’t already familiar with the way that the corners of her mouth twitch upward like that, he probably wouldn’t have noticed at all.

“Who’s ‘they’?” Snart asks, and Behrad shuts up. Oops. They all stare at him, waiting, but he just deliberately avoids eye contact.

“Alright,” Sara says, stepping forward from the wall so she can stand next to Rip, “Let’s say that you are telling the truth. How did you end up on this ship instead of yours? You shouldn’t have even been able to lock onto our signature to begin with.”

“Uh, that’s–” Behrad grimaces, glancing nervously between Rip’s stern frown and Sara’s suspicious glare. This is one of the situations he’d asked Nate about, once, hypothetically: what would happen if they ran into a previous version of the team? Nate had laughed it off, because they were both high at the time, and mentioned something about how they kind of did that once and broke time and that’s what created the anachronisms, so they’re not going to do that again. And they’d all worked really hard to avoid running into their past selves when he’d dragged them all back to Charlie’s concert. But while there’s no past version of Behrad on this ship for him to run into, he’s pretty sure he’s still not supposed to tell them any more than he really has to. “I’m not sure I should say?”

“Spit it out, kid.” Snart drawls. “I’d like to still be young and pretty when we’re done here.”

“Well…” He starts. This could go very poorly. But this could be the only way they get anywhere with this conversation. If Ava ever finds out this happened, she might kill him. “Technically this is the right ship. It’s less that I’m on the wrong ship and more that I’m on it at the wrong time. I think something went wrong with my time courier and it brought me here a few years too early.”

Yeah, Ava is definitely going to kill him. That is, if he hasn’t already done such irreparable damage to the timeline that she can’t even get to him. He thinks back to when John and Charlie had dragged him along on their disastrous time-breaking scheme and while that had turned out okay in the end, a person can only be so lucky. The chances of this one likewise resolving itself smoothly are probably pretty slim.

“You’re–” Rip stops, realizing what that means, and even Snart seems more attentive now, more intrigued rather than simply entertained by the novelty of it all. The glint in his eyes makes Behrad uneasy, like Snart is a cat watching a bird from through a window, thinking about what it might be like to strike it down.

“A future member of this team.” Sara concludes. “A couple of years… does that mean it takes us years to defeat Savage? Or–”

“Stop! Stop, stop!” Rip orders, and Sara does, but not without a disappointed sigh. Behrad, too, finds himself quieted by this, and behind Rip and Sara, Snart has already begun to lose interest again, pouting slightly and glancing towards the door like he’s ready to go. “No more questions. If we learn anything more about our futures, we could cause a massive paradox. The very fabric of time itself may begin to deteriorate.”

“I mean, if you’d just give me back my stuff I could just wipe your memories, and then–”

“No. You stay put, and don’t say another word. Ms. Lance, Mr. Snart, with me.” Rip insists, then storms out of the room, coat billowing out broadly behind him. Sara follows him with a tired, but knowing look on her face, Snart trailing close behind. Just before he exits, Snart spares one final suspicious look back towards Behrad, who offers an awkward little wave, and then Snart turns away and slips into the corridor.

---

It’s a while before anyone comes back to visit.

Or maybe it isn’t. Behrad has no real way of telling how much time has passed. He’s still hungry; he never did get to eat anything, and when he asked for a snack earlier, they’d just ignored him.

But eventually, Ray comes in with a couple of clementines, and approaches the cell cautiously, like Behrad is dangerous. In the three years they’d been on the ship together, Ray had never once looked at him like this before, not when they’d first met, and not even after Salem. If he ever gets out of here, he’ll have to give Ray a call, to ask him how he’s doing, how Nora is, just to see Ray at his happiest again, and to overwrite the memory of the doubt and distrust in this Ray’s eyes.

“Is that for me? Dude, I’m starving.” Behrad stands up, approaching the front. Ray still looks wary, so Behrad raises his palms in surrender and backs away from the door. “Don’t worry, I won’t try anything.”

Ray opens the door just enough to toss one of the fruits in, and Behrad catches it easily, immediately tearing into the peel to get to the sweet fruit inside.

“Thanks, Ray, you’re the best.” He sighs gratefully, through a mouthful of citrus.

“You’re welcome.” Ray smiles, less tentative this time, and starts to peel his own. Then, he frowns again. “Um, I’m not really supposed to talk to you. I mean, who knows if you were telling the truth and you really are a future part of this team?”

“I can prove it.” Behrad offers. “Ask me something that only a friend of yours would know.”

“Okay…” Ray pauses to think about it for a moment. “Where did I grow up?”

“Ivy Town,” Behrad answers. “But that’s a terrible question. I could have looked that up somewhere.” “Good point.” Ray concedes. “Okay then, what was I thinking about on October fifteenth–”

“Dude, no, you don’t actually think anyone can answer that, right? Do you even remember what you were thinking about?”

“Well, no. But Rip said that you’re from the future, so–”

“You’ve got a twin brother named Sidney. Your parents are David and Sandy Palmer. But you’re really not that close.” Behrad says, interrupting Ray. He figures that if this continues they’ll be here forever, so he might as well just start listing things until he lands on something convincing. “You love musicals, but never had time to be involved in theater because you were too focused on science. You’re allergic to most animals with fur, and you also have a gluten allergy. You put butter in your coffee and make your own custom loose-leaf tea blends. When you’re on QB, you pack lunches for the away team and you cut our sandwiches on the diagonal. Sometimes you sit in the Captain’s chair and pretend you’re on Star Trek. And once when you were in elementary school, you realized that you had checked out an issue of Scientific American from the library the month before and forgot to return it and you cried all day because–”

“Because I thought I was going to get arrested,” Ray finishes. “That was– when would I have told you that? That was–”

“One of the most embarrassing things you’ve ever done?” Behrad chuckles, picking off tiny pieces of the clementine’s peel and flicking them to the ground. “Yeah, you only told me because Na– er, someone put my edibles in the same box as the leftover gluten-free brownies you made for the holiday party.”

There’s not too much he can say, right now, that doesn’t give away too much about the future. He can’t tell Ray that he’ll become best friends for life with Nate or that he’ll fall madly in love with Nora, who loves him right back. But he can see that it’s working. Ray’s already softening a little bit, looking more and more like the Ray he knows.

“We must be really good friends.”

“You were the first friend I made on this ship.” Behrad tells him. “We’ve got this, uh, secret handshake thing? It’s not much of a secret, though, it’s you and me, and Na– uh, well, we do this thing,” he fumbles through the motions– hand to one wrist, still without the totem, and then up in the sort of explosion-y gesture, but it’s not quite as fun when he’s the only one participating. “It’s, uh. We call ourselves the ‘Time Bros.’ I hope that’s not too much of a spoiler.”

“Time Bros,” Ray echoes, thoughtfully. “I like that. We, uh, this team– the current one, that is– I’m not sure anyone is really close like that, except for maybe Snart and Rory, though lately… Never mind. Half the time, I’m not sure anyone really even likes each other. I mean, I feel like we’re friends, and I have Kendra, but the others…”

“Yeah, I sort of got that vibe. It’s a… different team. Not a bad one, but different. Not really what I expected, from the stories.”

“There are stories?”

“Of course there are–” Behrad winces at the way Ray perks up at that. He’s not doing a great job at keeping quiet about their futures. “Uh, I don’t think I should tell you any specifics, but yeah. There are definitely stories.”

“I should be– I should head back, I’m sure they’re all trying to figure out what to do with you.” Ray gets up and opens the door a crack to reach his hand through for Behrad’s discarded orange peel scraps, less hesitant this time. “I don’t know what we’ll decide, but if nothing else, I’ll see what I can do about your accommodations. Maybe regularly scheduled meals and a pillow.”

“Thanks, bro.” Behrad grins– that’s the Ray he knows, always a softie. “Say hi to everyone for me?”

Ray nods, then leaves, and in that moment, Behrad realizes just how much he missed Ray. There hadn’t been time for him to mope about it before– he was a little bit busy with dying and being resurrected– but the ship hasn’t been the same without him, just like it’s not the same without Jax, and Stein, and Amaya and Wally and Mona and Charlie and Nora.

---

Stein is the next person to visit, almost as if he wandered in idly, like he’s at a museum, wandering through different exhibits, where Behrad, stuck in this glass case, is a part of some sort of display– maybe a diorama, like those ones from Loomworld, of a cautionary tale titled Idiot Who Used a Broken Time Courier.

The sight of Professor Martin Stein, alive and well, absolutely knocks the breath out of his lungs. He hasn’t seen Stein since… well, since the man died in that terrible crossover. Not this version of Stein, at least, all gray hair and wooly cardigans and curious eyes framed by the gentle creases in his aging skin. And so, seeing him now is a lot like seeing a ghost.

“Astonishing,” Stein remarks, staring at Behrad from behind the glass. Or rather, it’s almost like he’s staring through him, more looking at the idea of him than really at him, or else surely he’d notice the shock and grief all over his face. “Living proof that our mission is a success. Unless, of course, you’re still hunting Savage– don’t– don’t answer that. I know I mustn't pry about the future. But truly, what is a man to do when such an opportunity presents itself?”

“Yeah,” Behrad smiles, weakly. Same old Professor Stein. “You asked similar questions when I first met you.”

“So we know each other, in the future,” Stein confirms. “Or rather, you know me, and I will know you, one day. I can hardly blame my future self for his curiosity. Or perhaps it’s my curiosity, I suppose. Ours.”

“I thought Rip told you guys not to talk to me.” Behrad tries, hoping simultaneously that Stein will insist on staying a while to chat, and that Stein will go away before Behrad says something he’s really not supposed to. “Aren’t you afraid of imploding the timeline?”

“Hm, yes, that certainly is a risk. But, on the other hand, what scientific endeavor comes without potential dangers? Is it not our purpose to seek out the unknown? Our raison d'être?” Stein muses, more to himself than to Behrad, as if Behrad isn’t even there to ask. It’s an achingly familiar thing, because this is how these kinds of conversations went, years ago, when Behrad did have the chance to spend time with Stein between missions and getting used to life on the Waverider. “Though I suppose in this case, the dangers may outweigh the benefits. We may be time travelers, but–”

“But we’re not gods.” Behrad finishes, and Stein blinks in surprise. “That’s what you said last time, too. When I asked why you guys don’t really look too closely at the future.”

“I see.”

One of Behrad’s greatest regrets has always been not getting to know Stein better, before he died. He’d spent some time around him, mostly in the lab while hanging out with Ray and trying to just absorb what genius he could from the brilliant people around him, or while hanging out with Jax, because inevitably Stein would wander idly in while they were playing video games or working on the engine just to bicker fondly with Jax about anything and everything. He misses how Stein would talk himself into theoretical circles, debating hypotheticals with Ray and musing on potentials and possibilities until Jax complained about it giving him a headache. He misses how Stein would take any opportunity to mention Clarissa and Lily– and, for that short while, baby Ronnie– whenever he could fit it into conversation, and even when it was totally irrelevant. It really sucks to live on a time machine and not be able to go back and make time for the things he never did.

He wants to ask after Clarissa and Lily, but he’s supposed to be keeping quiet and laying low, so instead, he asks, “How’s Jax?”

He shouldn’t have asked, really, but he’s curious. It’s been nearly as long since he’s seen Jax as it has been since he’s seen Stein, and he really misses him.

“Jefferson?” Stein blinks, probably not expecting the question. “Yes, I suppose if you know me, you must know my nuclear other-half.”

“I know that you kidnapped him and brought him onto this ship against his will.” Behrad shrugs. That’s not a spoiler, at least, and Jax never really let Stein down for it, always bringing it up when they were bickering, though never maliciously.

“Not my proudest moment, I’m afraid,” Stein says, wryly. “I suppose I just couldn’t help myself– the possibilities that had become available to us through the notion of time travel! I simply couldn’t pass that up.”

“Well, I’m glad you did it. Otherwise I would never have met you guys.” Behrad says. “And that’s probably as much as I should tell you. I’m really not very good at this whole ‘no talking’ thing.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. Nobody on this ship seems to be adept at following orders.” Stein muses, and Behrad laughs. “I should go before I, too, give into temptation and ask a question that you aren’t meant to answer.”

“Yeah, probably. Thanks for visiting, though.” He says, though a part of him wants to ask him to stay, because if he leaves again, this might be the last he ever sees of his old friend. He may not be great at holding his tongue and being careful about what he might accidentally say about the future, but he at least has enough self control to keep quiet now, as Stein exits, no matter how much he wants to warn him about what’s in his future.

---

There’s another lull, after Stein’s visit, where Behrad is left on his own for a while. He passes the time by braiding his hair and unraveling it when he reaches the ends, and by doing some simple yoga even though it’s hard to get into a good flow while trapped inside of a glass cage. He’s sure that Rip and the others have cameras on him right now, and they’re probably wondering what to do with him, what sort of secret scheme he might be preparing while pivoting into warrior-two.

Eventually he makes his way through the flow to where he lies down on the hard, metal ground, settling into shavasana. He tries to center himself there, feeling where his body meets the cold floor and trying not to think about how long it’s been since he got here, how long he’s been away from his team, and how much longer they’re going to keep him trapped in this box. It doesn’t work, of course– the more he tries not to think about those things, the more he does, and the more he starts to wonder if they’ll let him go at all. Some of them might be early versions of his friends, but they’re still strangers, and he’s alone on this ship.

The one thing that’s the same though, is the sounds. If he stays perfectly still and breathes quietly, he can hear the gentle hum of the engines– dampened a lot by the future-tech mufflers, but after the extensive hours he’s spent fine-tuning this ship’s systems, he knows that hum like the sound of his own voice. There’s the low whistle of air flowing through the ventilation, the quiet hissing of distant doors sliding open and closed, the electrical drone of the lights that he never quite figured out how to silence. He can feel the subtle vibrations of the ship’s mechanisms if he just focuses on the floor flat against his back. He’s felt the same sensation time and time again, every time he’s had to work on the ship, the way Jax had shown him to– listen to her, learn what good and bad sound like, feel what that feels like, trust her to tell you what’s wrong.

Nothing’s wrong, right now, with the Waverider. The only thing out of place here is Behrad himself.

It’s comforting, in this moment, because if he keeps his eyes shut and just listens, it’s almost like he’s on his Waverider. He can press the backs of his hands down onto the ground and pretend that he’s lying on his yoga mat in the lab. He can imagine that in a moment, he’ll hear the sound of Spooner turning the page of her book, and Zari will come in to nag him about the dust he’s probably getting in his hair, and Nate will come in and ask him to be his spotter while he lifts weights. And of course, it won’t actually happen, but it’s nice to imagine. Just a little while ago he’d been so grateful to escape that noise, but right now, he wishes he’d never left.

Has the team noticed that he’s missing? Have they assumed that he’s just taking his time with cleanup, or are they looking for him? Or maybe, will he get out of this mess and portal back onto his own Waverider right when he’d meant to return in the first place, like nothing had gone wrong?

There’s a sudden change to the ambient tune of the engine, barely loud enough to register, but he can hear it– he’s spent enough hours listening to the Waverider’s mechanical soundtrack to recognize it, his ears attuned to every shift in the hiss of the vents, every low pitch of the vibrations. It’s not a sound to be concerned about, but it tells him that there’s just been a little shift; maybe someone has adjusted the thermostat, or started fabricating something, just enough to change the flow of power through the circuits, and Gideon is hard at work doing what she does. And it’s enough to make him wonder…

“Gideon?” He asks, still lying on the floor, eyes still closed. “You there?”

“Mr. Tarazi,” she greets him, impassively. It’s not cold, exactly, but her tone isn’t quite as fond as the voice he’s used to, the one who had informed him proudly that he had turned twenty-five and wished him a happy birthday not so long ago, the one who greets him in the morning when he makes breakfast and joins him and the rest of the team for karaoke in the parlor. This Gideon isn’t his friend, not yet. “Would you like to speak with Captain Hunter?”

“No thanks, G– er, Gideon. I just… I just wanted to hear your voice,” Behrad says, eyes fluttering open to stare at the ceiling. “How are you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean, like, how are you doing today? How are you feeling?”

“All systems are operational,” she says.

“Operational. That’s good,” he sighs. This earlier version of Gideon is more clinical, less personal, and it just makes him miss his Gideon more. Even in the, what, two years? between this moment in time and the day he joined the crew, everyone is so different. “I just– I know you don’t know me yet so… It’s nice to meet you, I guess. This version of you. On my Waverider, sometimes we– me and the future you– we hang out, just like this. Sometimes we play video games– and you’re really good at them. And sometimes you join me for a jam session, just you, me, and my guitar. Except I’m not usually a prisoner. But anyways, you’re a good friend, Gideon.”

She doesn’t respond, not with words, but after that, it’s almost like the engines hum with just a little bit more warmth. The sounds of the ship lull him to sleep, on the floor of this cell, and he can almost imagine that he at least has one of his friends with him, even if the change in tone is all in his head.

---

Behrad wakes up to the sound of footsteps and the door of his cell sliding open. Blinking the sleep away and grimacing at the stiffness of his neck, he sits up slowly and stares up at Rip Hunter through the now-open doorway.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve decided to let you out of brig, for the time being.” Rip tells him, hands shoved into his pockets. “At least, until we can come up with a solution to your problem. At this point, I doubt you’re the threat we initially thought you were, but there’s no real way to verify it without delving too far into your history, and we’d run the risk of interfering with our own futures. Which means that we must get you safely off of the Waverider as quickly as possible.”

“So you need me to take the lead on this and get out of here ASAP,” Behrad concludes, getting back up to his feet. “I can work with that. I just have to get my time courier fixed and then I’ll use the memory flasher on you guys and it’ll be like I was never even here.”

“Yes, yes, good. You must erase any trace of you being here.” Rip says, stepping aside so that Behrad can finally exit his cell. “And, er– this team is… well, let’s just say that they’re difficult to reel in. So you must exercise extreme caution when speaking to any of them. If they ask about the future–”

“My lips are sealed.” Behrad assures him, miming the action of zipping his lips and tossing the key over his shoulder. Well, he’ll try not to mention anything too important, but if he’s honest with himself he’ll probably slip up once or twice. But telling that to Rip won’t do him any good, and he’s just grateful to be getting out of that cube. Rip leads him out into the hallway, on the familiar path to the bridge. “Uh, can I just ask though, while we’re here… why the change of heart? Not that I’m complaining, it’s just… a little sudden, and you guys probably could have figured out the tech yourselves. Did Ray say something?”

“Dr. Palmer did mention that he thought you were trustworthy, though I’ve found it best to take his… optimistic input with a grain of salt.” Rip says, which is fair– Ray has always been a little bit too trusting, but that’s also always been one of his most endearing qualities, and something Behrad has always respected him for. “But no, beyond his brief review of your character, we simply have a much higher chance of getting you off my ship with your help.”

“Oh, okay.”

“And earlier. You spoke with Gideon.” Rip stops, suddenly, turning back to face Behrad with an expression he can’t quite place. “It sounds like the two of you are quite close.”

“Yeah, of course. She’s as much a part of the team as I am.” Behrad tells him.

“Hm,” Rip stares at him for a moment, then turns back and continues leading him to the bridge.

Behrad doesn’t know that much about these early days of the team– he barely met Rip, before he died, and only knows what’s been brought up fondly at their parties, or what Jax and Ray have mentioned to him while they messed around with whatever part of the engine or piece of tech they were tinkering on at the time, and the need-to-know stuff, so he’s not quite sure what to expect. He just hopes he can get off this ship as soon as possible.

It takes a few minutes for everyone to get to the bridge once Rip calls for a team meeting, spent in an awkward silence between the two of them, because he gets the feeling that Rip Hunter isn’t much of a small-talk kind of guy. The others all seem to arrive at the same time, somehow, Jax and Stein emerging from one doorway, Ray and a beautiful woman Behrad has never met from another, and Sara, Snart, and Mick from a third.

Ray gives him a friendly smile, the woman– who Behrad assumes to be Kendra, from the stories he’s heard about this part of the team’s history– stares slightly, then looks away as she takes her place in their circle around the console. He waves at Stein, who nods, and Behrad can’t help but grin at the sight of Jax, who squints at him suspiciously.

“I see we’ve released Rapunzel from her tower.” Snart drawls, making himself comfortable leaning against the glass wall of the parlour. Sara rolls her eyes and takes a seat on the steps nearby, next to Mick.

“Yes, quite an astute observation, Mr. Snart.” Rip sighs. “While our primary mission of stopping Vandal Savage is still crucial, we have to now prioritize getting Mr. Tarazi back to his ship before his presence here disrupts the timeline, without interacting with his team.”

“Why don’t we just drop him off where he was right before he got here?” Jax asks.

“We don’t exactly have the best track record with jumping to the exact time we’re going for.” Sara points out. Right, Ray mentioned once that the two of them spent a couple of years living in the 1950’s. He’d rather not get stranded like that and have to just wait for his friends to find him.

“And we’d risk running into my guys,” Behrad adds. “You can call me Behrad, by the way. Or B. ‘Mr. Tarazi’ is a little formal.”

“Okay, so if dropping him off isn’t the plan, what is?” Sara turns towards Rip.

“This is the device that Mr. Tarazi used to board the Waverider,” Rip says, ignoring what Behrad had just said and digging into his pockets to out the time courier. “It appears to have been damaged by some sort of substance, though I have yet to run a diagnostic–”

“It’s bisque.” Behrad blurts out. Everyone turns to him, questioningly. “It’s, uh, tomato bisque. I was making dinner last week and the clasp came undone–”

“You’re here because you dropped your watch in soup?” Jax snorts. “Man, and I thought we were a mess.”

“It’s not my fault! The steam loosened the clasp, and– whatever, it doesn’t matter. And it’s not a watch,” Behrad says, reaching his hand out towards Rip, who deposits the time courier into his hand. Since he’s been locked up, it looks like someone opened up the time courier’s face and he can now see the damage done, dried-up bits of his bisque caked up into the circuits. It’s a miracle he even got the thing to work– and that it didn’t just spit him out into the void of the temporal zone. “Oh, yikes, okay, this is worse than I thought. We’re probably gonna have to replace a lot of these parts.”

“Dr. Palmer, you’ll assist Mr. Tarazi with his device. And Professor Stein as well. Perhaps if the three of you work together we’ll be through with this detour as quickly as possible.”

“Jax could help too,” Behrad suggests, turning towards him. Jax blinks, surprised. “Uh, if you want to, man, no pressure. The more the merrier.”

“Not like I have anything better to do.” Jax shrugs.

“So why are the rest of us here?” Mick grumbles.

“Because I must implore you all to absolutely never inquire about Mr. Tarazi’s knowledge of the future.” Rip warns them. “We will be wiping our memories of this entire experience regardless, but there is always a risk involved with learning too much about what’s to come, and we must do everything in our power to avoid that.”

“Got it, we can only learn about the future when it’s you who tells us the stories.” Snart rolls his eyes.

“Precisely. And Mr. Rory, if you’d return Mr. Tarazi’s bracelet? Don’t think I didn’t notice that it went missing from my person.”

“Damn thing isn’t even worth anything.” Reluctantly, Mick takes the air totem out of his pocket and tosses it carelessly back to Rip, who barely catches it, and hands it carefully back to Behrad. “Just a fancy rock.”

“Just a fancy rock that’s been in my family for generations, no biggie.” Behrad lets out a sigh of relief as soon as it’s clasped back onto his wrist. He immediately feels a little bit better having been reunited with it, and he almost wants to suggest trying to use it to contact Zari or seeing if there’s a way to get him home through totem-town, but he doesn’t– even after all this time, he’s not really sure how the totem works or how the totem world functions relative to the real-world timeline, and he’s a little afraid of finding out. “I’d tell you why it’s important, but that definitely qualifies as a spoiler.”

“So, are we done here?” Sara asks, tapping her foot.

“Yes, yes, go.” Rip waves her off, and she heads out, tapping probably-Kendra on the shoulder and motioning for her to follow. Mick storms out quickly, and Snart makes a point to head in the opposite direction after staring at the other man’s back for a moment. As Rip heads into the parlor and makes himself busy with… something, Behrad turns to Ray, Stein and Jax, who are all waiting expectantly.

“So, uh, should we head to the lab?”

“The what?” Ray asks. Oops.

“Don’t worry about it!” Behrad says, quickly, trying not to cringe too badly at his slip-up. “Why don’t you guys lead the way to wherever you guys do this kind of stuff.”

---

The trouble with trying to fix this kind of tech is that none of them are exactly sure how it even works. There are equations, sure, some math that’s practical and some that’s more theoretical, and he understands the theorems and the variables and all the things he’s gotten better at wrapping his head around over the last few years, but still there’s something abstract about the idea that all of those things come together to allow them to travel through time. And he’s never liked thinking about that, because it’s kind of scary to think about how they’ve been entrusting everything to technology they don’t understand when there are all sorts of unknown risks, all sorts of ways that things could go wrong. Like, say, portalling to the complete wrong time and place.

“I wish we could just fabricate the parts we need.” He sighs, setting down the pozidriv screwdriver he was using. They’ve set up in a storage room, from the looks of things, but Behrad recognized the path down the corridors as the same one as the lab, so it’s weird being inside and seeing a bunch of bulky crates instead of the cozy makeshift bedroom that he’d set up for himself or the workout equipment that Spooner’s been using or any of the tech stuff that lives in his version of this room. “If only big tech hadn’t gotten so caught up in trying to minimize tech and make everything so sleek– we’d be better off if they still constructed everything from components that were easier to replace. Uh, no offense, Ray.”

“None taken,” Ray says, unfazed. “Though if we need to shrink any circuitry, I’ve got that covered, at least.”

“Whoever designed this device must have made a point to keep it difficult to replicate,” Stein muses, probably wondering where exactly Behrad got the time courier from to begin with. And he’s actually not really sure of its origins, either– probably derived from Time Master tech, from when Rip founded the bureau? Which tracks because he’d imagine that yeah, the Time Masters probably wanted to make sure that their stuff was pretty exclusive in case it fell into the wrong hands.

“Yeah, I’m more used to… bigger stuff. Engines, machinery, repairs like that, not fancy Apple watches.” Jax says. “Why’d you ask me to help, anyways? Or is that also some kind of spoiler?”

“Are you kidding? You’re one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met.” Behrad tells him, without thinking. He’s not exactly sure when Jax officially became the ship’s technician, but it’s clear to him that even now, Jax knows his stuff. “I mean– I feel like I can tell you this without the timeline collapsing in on itself, so– you taught me pretty much everything I know about this stuff. All three of you did, you’re all brilliant. But I spent most of my time with you, Jax, you’re amazing.”

“Huh,” Jax turns towards Stein, grinning. “You hear that, Grey? Apparently, I’m ‘amazing’. Not that I didn’t already know that, but it’s nice to hear once in a while.”

“Of course, Jefferson, I never doubted you for a moment.”

“When you say it like that it just sounds fake, man.” Jax wrinkles his nose.

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I consider paying you a compliment.” Stein sniffs. “Perhaps I’ll think better of it.”

“Now you’re just putting words in my mouth.”

Behrad smiles, watching the two bicker. It’s been so long since he’s seen this– the thought’s started to feel a bit like a broken record, but really, he’s missed these two so much. He wants to tell them everything, all the bad parts, the things he wants to warn them about, but also about the good parts, too, all his wonderful memories that he has of spending time with the team and all the things he misses doing, but these aren’t his friends, and he’s already slipped up plenty of times on the no-spoilers front.

“From the look on your face, I’m guessing these two haven’t changed one bit?” Ray leans over the table to ask in a low voice. Behrad nods, because yeah, even up to the end, those two had never been able to agree on anything, including saving Stein’s own life. “It’s good to know you can count on some things to stay the same.”

“Hey, B– I know we can’t ask for spoilers, but you gotta back me up here,” Jax turns towards him, pointing at Stein. “Tell him I’m right.”

Behrad half-shrugs, half-nods, because he doesn’t even know what exactly he’s backing Jax up on, but it’s good enough for Jax, who lets out a triumphant laugh at Stein, whose pout has grown deeper. The way Jax had turned toward him expectantly, trusting him to have his back without hesitation– even in something as trivial as a random argument with Stein– and called him B, like the old days.

He hopes that his Jax is doing well, the one who retired and got married and had a kid. It’s been a long time since he checked in on Jax, and part of that was because Jax needed space from the Legends to build his own life on the ground, but it makes Behrad wish that he’d done a little more to keep in contact with him, like how Nate visits Ray for drinks every month, or like how book club still finds time to meet up. It would probably be weird, though, because Jax settling down in his own time period means that Behrad is around the same age as his daughter Martina. He’s always been just a little bit different from the rest of the team, being from their future– and at least he has his sister now, who understands what that's like, but he’ll always have that distance.

He’d love for them all to just do what they do forever, traveling together across the timeline as a team, as a family, nobody else leaving, but he knows that’s not possible; they’ll probably all leave eventually, settling down, building families outside of the ship, and he’s probably going to go back to the 2040’s again for good too, one day, and then it’ll just be him and Zari back home, with the rest of the team twenty-something years older than when they parted, scattered across the world.

---

After a while, their progress starts to slow, and everyone starts feeling kind of restless, so they decide to take a break and regroup in a bit, and Behrad does what he usually does in this kind of situation: head for the kitchen.

He takes some time to fabricate a nice coffee machine– one of the really nice ones, like the kind that Astra insists on having because it’s similar to the one she had down in Hell and she swears she can taste the difference when her coffee is brewed any other way. And once that’s done, he sets the fabricator going on making some high-quality coffee beans, a few different blends of loose tea leaves, and some gummies because he’s starting to get anxious and needs something to calm his nerves.

He chews on the bear-shaped candy as he gets the tea and coffee brewing, easing back into familiar motions and beginning to relax more with the help of both the gummies and the soothing scents of chai and earl gray and coffee.

He still remembers out of habit how most of them like their coffee, at least for the people he’d shared the ship with– Jax’s with just a little bit of cream and no sugar, Sara’s bitter black coffee, Ray’s with a pat of organic grass-fed butter, and Mick and Stein with their non-coffee choices of beer and earl gray, respectively. It’s been a long time since he’s prepared some of these drinks, having been replaced by Ava and Gary’s penchant for the kind of burnt coffee you find in a cheap communal office pot like the one they had at the bureau, Zari’s matcha-infused green juices, Astra’s extravagant viennese blends, and Spooner’s favorite local Texas roasts. But still, he knows their orders by heart and has no trouble whipping them all up even after all these years.

“Is that an Oscar II?” Someone asks from behind him. Behrad jumps, spinning around. He saw her on the bridge earlier, but he’s never actually met her before, and they didn’t exactly bother with a meet and greet. That said, he knows enough from Ray and Sara’s stories to know that this must be Kendra Saunders. She points at the machine with a low whistle. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you. But you sure know your coffee machines. I’m impressed.”

“I know a bit,” Behrad shrugs. “I’m more of a tea guy myself, but I figured that I’m a guest here, so this is the least I can do while you guys help me get home. I’m gonna have to toss this when I leave, though. Can’t have any evidence I was ever here. I’m mostly shocked you guys don’t have anything beyond the instant stuff. Not even a french press?”

“Well, we used to have one. But Rory threw it out because he ‘hates the French.’” Kendra says, wryly, putting air quotes around Mick’s reasoning.

“That sounds about right.” Behrad laughs. “Same old Mick.”

“Behrad, right?”

“That’s me. You’re Kendra,” he says, though it comes out more like a question. She nods, raising an eyebrow.

“You say that as if we haven’t met before.” She raises an eyebrow.

Behrad grimaces. There wasn’t really any way around that one.

“I probably shouldn’t say,” he says, as if that fixes anything, getting back to work pouring out the coffee into mugs. Kendra shrugs good-naturedly. He barely knows anything about Kendra; for the most part, in his mind, she’s Ray’s ex, which he does feel a bit bad about, she’s definitely more than just his friend’s ex. He knows that they parted on good terms, and that she played a key role in defeating the team’s first Big Bad, and that she’s got cool bird-wing powers, but there’s not much else that he can recall from any of the stories. But it’s interesting knowing that right now, Kendra and Ray are dating, especially knowing that they don’t last, and knowing the love that Ray’s going to find with Nora in a few years. “So what makes you such a coffee connoisseur?”

“Well, before I found out I was a reincarnated egyptian hawk goddess, I was a barista.” She tells him. “Sometimes, I almost wish I never found out. Things were a lot easier when all I had to worry about was rent no time travel, no immortal maniac who’s murdered me countless times,…”

“Yeah, life was definitely simpler before the whole superhero thing.” He agrees. He turns to her and points to one of the mugs, and asks, “Any cream or sugar?”

“I’ve got it, thanks,” she says, taking the mug when he slides it across the counter towards her and making her way over to the fridge to grab a carton of creamer. She adds enough to lighten the deep brown to a softer tone, and spoons just a little bit of sugar into the mix, stirring it slowly. Kendra brings the mug up to her face, inhaling to test the aroma, and then takes a small sip. “It’s not all bad, though, just… a lot, sometimes, you know?”

“Oh yeah, that’s an understatement.” Behrad says, taking a sip from his own mug of chai. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything, though.”

“Have you ever thought about it? What life would be like without all this?” She waves her hand, gesturing towards everything and nothing. “I mean, every step we take, it feels like we screw up and end up three steps backwards. I just… you know that Ray and Sara and I were just stranded in the fifties for two years, right?”

Behrad nods, and Kendra sets her mug down with a sigh.

“Even though– even though we were… starting to lose parts of ourselves because we were displaced, it was nice to have a normal life again. It was almost a relief to be a normal person with normal problems and to not have to worry about if we could complete the mission and beat Savage or about if we might die at any moment. I want to believe that we’ll win, but those two years living with Ray in that house, doing normal things… I’m still getting memories of past lives back, a little bit every day, but there are centuries of that, and I’m just– I’m just a former barista.” Kendra leans back against the counter, closing her eyes. “I never asked for this, you know? And the others, they don’t really get it. Even– even Carter didn’t quite understand. I’m sorry, I don’t even know you, and here I am rambling about all of my problems.”

“No, I get it.” Behrad reassures her. “I mean, not exactly, I couldn’t possibly understand exactly what it is you’re going through, but– I kind of get it.”

“It’s taking everything in me not to ask if we win.” She admits. “If I cave, just don’t tell me.”

“Sure,” he promises. “I, uh… probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I don’t think it’ll affect the future, and I’m going to wipe your memory soon anyways, so, uh, I guess I’ve been there? Kind of. In terms of the whole ‘memories of a different life that nobody else really gets’ thing. It’s not the same, and I shouldn’t really go into detail, but I know a little bit of what that feels like. Even the whole ‘immortal maniac who’s murdered me’ thing, believe it or not. I’ve been there too– just once or twice, though, not ‘countless times’ like you.”

“Damn. Really?”

“Yeah. It sucks.” He says, because he’s not sure how else to describe it without feeling melodramatic. She laughs at his bluntness, a bright kind of laugh that’s refreshing enough to break the bleak tension that had come over the room.

“It definitely does.” She agrees. It’s easier, somehow, talking with a stranger about this, than it is talking with any of the people who were there when it happened, and it seems like Kendra feels the same.

“It’ll get better, though,” He offers, though he’s not sure if better is exactly the right word. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it’ll get further away, or that there will be other things that come up that’ll be more pressing than reopening the same old wound, that there will be moments where somehow you forget to think about it, until you inevitably remember again.

“Good to know. Anyways, I won’t take up more of your time,” she says. “Sara said she wants to spar again soon. I think she’s getting bored of the temporal zone.”

“It’s no problem. It was nice to meet you, Kendra.”

“You too, Behrad. Do you need help carrying those back?” She asks, pointing at the tray holding the four drinks for him and the rest of the time-courier-repair team. “I’ll help. I’ve been meaning to stop in to check on Ray anyway.”

“Thanks,” he says, moving over so that she can grab Ray and Stein’s mugs.

He can see from the absence of a ring that she and Ray aren’t engaged at this point, though he does remember being told that that engagement had been very impromptu and short-lived, which he never really realized until now was sort of a pattern for the guy. Ray has talked about that first fiance that he lost, Anna, only a few times, especially back when Nora was still on the run from the Bureau and Behrad was the only one who really knew how he felt about her. He knows a little bit about the Felicity Smoak situation from having met her during the crossover, and now, of course, Ray is happily married to Nora, building their loves together off-ship.

Ray had always talked about the time he spent with Kendra fondly, as something that he needed at the time, and he was always grateful for the years he got to spend with her in the 50s, as well as the time they had on the ship. It’s clear to Behrad now, having met her, that she cares about Ray too, that this is probably something she herself needed right now, just like it had been for Ray. And if nothing else comes of this whole fiasco, Behrad is really glad that he actually got the chance to meet Kendra Saunders.

---

The first time they think that they fix the time courier, it opens a portal straight into the temporal zone. It acts exactly the same as if they’d accidentally busted a hole in the hull, which means that by the time they manage to get it closed, it’s taken half of their equipment and the bulk of their optimism. The rest of the team comes running in, minutes later, having felt the commotion rocking the entire ship, and find the four of them sprawled across the room, surrounded by the mess.

“You guys go get checked out in medbay,” Sara suggests, after Rip takes one look at their mess and walks right back out, muttering under his breath. “We can help clean up.”

“No we can’t.” Mick says, and leaves, too. Snart rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, but doesn’t follow him out.

“If by ‘help’, you mean pick up shards of broken ceramic, I think I’ll pass.” He drawls, pointing to where the tray of mugs had crashed into the wall and then fallen into pieces on the floor.

“Great, just what we needed, a peanut gallery.” Jax complains, getting up to his feet and helping Stein up. “You okay, Grey?”

“My tailbone is a bit bruised, and so is my ego, but I’ll live.” He mutters. The two of them head out as Kendra checks on Ray, who nearly got taken out by a microscope flying towards his head.

“Ray, you’re bleeding,” she fusses, brushing his hair up to check on his wound. He leans into her touch, and Behrad looks away, feeling like he’s intruding. “I’m going to take him to medbay, too. Are you guys good here?”

“Peachy,” Snart responds, and Sara swats his arm.

“We’ll be fine.” She assures her, and Kendra leads Ray out, too. Then, she turns to Behrad, who has yet to let go of the pipe he’d clung onto to avoid getting tossed out into the swirling green void. “You okay? Any injuries?”

“No, I’m good.” He shakes his head, releasing the pipe and sitting down on one of the crates that managed to survive the incident. “Just a little spooked.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Snart says, without any sympathy.

“If you’re not going to help, why are you even still here?” Sara asks.

“Great point. Goodbye.”

And then he exits as Sara flips the bird at his back, leaving Behrad here with the younger version of his captain. She kneels down to start picking up some of the things that had clattered to the ground, and Behrad hops off of the crate to help her.

“Sorry about all this.” He says. “I didn’t think it would be this much trouble. Maybe you guys should just drop me off and I’ll wait for my team to find me.”

“Yeah, you don’t want that. I just lost two full years to ‘waiting for my team to find me’ and backslid into some of my worst habits. Trust me, it's not worth it.”

“That’s fair. There’s always home, though.” He shrugs. “I’m from the future– the 2040s. If you guys have to drop me off, you’d want to leave me over there.”

“No way in hell. I’m not touching the 2040s with a ten-foot pole.” Sara grimaces. “I saw the nightmare that my home turns into by then, and I’d rather not revisit it.”

Behrad tries not to let the surprise show on his face– he doesn’t recall anything about Star City being a nightmare, though it’s not really a place he keeps tabs on. And nobody has ever mentioned any past visits to his corner of the timeline that aren’t related to him or Zari. He’s not doing a good job of it, though, because Sara catches on quickly.

“So it’s really possible, then. Changing the future that drastically. Fixing things before they happen.” She states, not quite a question. Behrad doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just keeps scooping up bits and pieces from the mess on the ground. “I’m not asking for an answer, I just– every mission we’ve had so far has been one disaster after another, and when I saw what happened to Star City… that place means everything to me, to the people I love… I guess it’s nice to know that we’re not total screw-ups.”

“By my version of this ship, we’ve embraced the whole ‘screw-up’ thing. It’s more fun that way.”

“You got any family back home?” She asks.

“Yeah. My mom and dad.” He says. Then adds, “And my sister.”

“Older sister?” She asks, knowingly. He nods. “Yeah, you just give off that vibe.”

“You’d be surprised, I mean, look at you– you’re the younger sibling too, right? Then again, all of you guys are older than me, so maybe I’m not the right person to make that judgement.” This Sara feels a little different to the one he knows, the captain of his ship. She’s a little more withdrawn, more cautious, more restrained in some ways, but she’s also… a little more curious– maybe she’s less burdened without the responsibility of being captain, because this Sara, while a little more closed-off, feels more carefree in the way that usually comes out best when they’re off-duty.

“I don’t know, I’ve done some pretty ridiculous things that Laurel had to bail me out of. I’ve always been the wild child in the family, so it hasn’t always been easy for her.” She admits. “Hell, I wouldn’t even be on this ship if she hadn’t believed in me and pushed me to step out of my comfort zone. Or if she hadn’t literally brought me back from the dead. Your sister anything like that?”

“More than I can probably get away with telling you.” He says, because even when they didn’t get along, he and Zari have always had a sort of understanding. He’s realized since she joined the team that even after she moved out of the house, even after all of their fights, she’d been looking out for him, in her own way. It was always her success that paid for the luxuries his family had, and it was definitely her bank account that funded his higher education, even if his parents never told him. And back in Fist City, when she’d nagged him about his questionable history with relationships, she was just trying to protect him. And yeah, his big sister fought tooth and nail to bring him back from the dead, too, in two different lifetimes. He never really realized that he and Sara had that in common. “She’s a real force of nature.”

“Yeah, mine too. It’s been a while since I saw her. The first thing I’m gonna do after we beat Savage is pay her and everyone else a visit back home.” Sara vows, and Behrad has to turn back to cleaning up to stop himself from telling her everything.

He never really understood, back when he first joined, the gravity of what Sara lost, even if he knew that it happened. And he still can’t quite imagine it– if anything ever happened to Zari like that, he’d never forgive himself. It wouldn’t be the same as when they all thought Sara was dead and he’d rushed back to the night of her abduction, and even losing the other Zari, he can’t imagine what it must be like.

Zari is… untouchable, almost. He knows she’s only human, like the rest of them, but the idea of anything happening to her feels so impossible that he can’t wrap his mind around even imagining it, let alone what he’d do in that situation. He knows that he’d do anything to stop it– he already has, twice– which means that if something were to happen to her, he’d already have to be gone, or else he’d have failed her in a way that he refuses to even consider as a possibility. And thinking about it just makes him want to warn Sara even more, to tell her to go home, right now, so she can stop Damien Darhk from killing Laurel, because he knows that she feels the same way. But he doesn’t; he just picks up tiny pieces of the broken mugs and pushes crates back into their proper place without speaking.

“So, if you can’t tell us about our futures, is there anything about the future that you can tell us?” She asks, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. At his hesitation, she adds, “C’mon, just general stuff. Nothing world-shattering, just a couple of fun facts.”

So he tells her small things– that by his time, people eat terrible food like cauliflower pizzas, and are obsessed with a performative brand of sustainability that spirals from paper straws to edible cups instead of implementing real initiatives to save the planet, and that network television is barely hanging on by a thread. He also wants to tell her the good things– that she’s found her people, the whole team, who were willing to destroy the timeline if that’s what it took to save her life, even though she wound up being the one to save herself. That she’s going to survive the loss of nearly every tie to her past and find love with the people who will be a part of her future.

Maybe, when this is over, he’ll take another trip home to visit maman and baba as soon as he gets the chance, because even if his parents are living safe, civilian lifestyles, it suddenly feels like it’s been years since he’s been home.

---

Later, Behrad comes out of the bathroom– the same exact bathroom that he knows, which is almost comforting, knowing that in, what, five or six years? that at least the bathroom has stayed pretty much exactly the same– only to find Snart and Mick staring at each other from opposite ends of the corridor. They don’t even seem to notice him, too wrapped up in whatever odd staring contest they’re in, until Behrad tries to tiptoe away unnoticed and his shoe squeaks on the metal floor. The tension breaks, both of their heads turning towards him.

Snart scowls, opening his mouth to say something probably very mean, but just as he does, Mick takes that as his cue to leave, and storms off with a grumble.

“Real mature, Mick!” Snart yells towards his back.

This is the first time Behrad has ever really met Snart. Not Leo from Earth-X, but the Leonard Snart, who gave his life for the team, who Ray remembers fondly as a hero, who Sara describes as both a menace to society and one of the best men she’s ever known, and who Mick staunchly refuses to ever talk about at all. He doesn’t know the entire story here, because Ray and Sara have always said that Snart was Mick’s story to tell, and Mick, for all the grandiose stories he writes for his characters, has always been tight-lipped about his own.

“What are you staring at, curlicue?” Snart glares at him.

“Nothing,” Behrad says, quickly. Then, asks, “I know it’s none of my business, but uh, are you okay?”

“I don’t know you.” Snart sneers. “And you certainly don’t know me. So keep your nose where it belongs or I’ll freeze it off.”

“Wow, okay.” He raises his hands in surrender. “Message received.”

“You strike me as the same goody-goody type as Raymond, so I’m going to give you a bit of advice.” Snart says, quieter all of a sudden. “Some things just can’t be fixed.”

“Not with that attitude.” Behrad says, shrinking back slightly as Snart scowls and reaches for his gun. “I mean– sorry, I’m really not trying to meddle. I’ll shut up now.”

Snart rolls his eyes and turns on his heel, stalking down the corridor in the opposite direction of where Mick went, and Behrad breathes a sigh of relief as soon as he’s gone. He can barely see an echo of the alternate-earth Snart in this one, and a little bit of what Ray and Sara have said about him, but where meeting Kendra was almost like making a new friend, like finding a sort of unexpected kinship with someone he was never supposed to meet, meeting Snart has only left him with more questions that he’s pretty sure he has no right to ask.

---

Mick is in the kitchen when Behrad arrives in search of a snack. He’s standing in front of the stove, broad body blocking the way, and he doesn’t move when Behrad approaches.

“Hey,” Behrad greets him, but gets no response. “You good? You and Snart were pretty weird back there.”

He walks over, slowly, around the counter, and sees that Mick has somehow managed to convert their electric stovetop to one that has a real flame. A quick glance upward shows some of Gideon’s circuit boards torn open and reconfigured, with a surprisingly delicate touch. Mick stares, transfixed, at the four flat burners enveloped in fire, standing dangerously close to the range.

“Uh, Mick? Not that I haven’t wished we had a gas stove myself, but I’m pretty sure this goes against Gideon’s safety–”

“Shut up.” Mick grunts. “Nobody asked you.”

“Okay, okay.” Behrad concedes, heading for the fabricator. It’s offline, probably from whatever Mick had messed with. “Can we get the fabricator back on, though? I could really use a–”

He’s cut off, suddenly, grabbed by the neck and shoved up against the fridge, Mick holding him there with a snarl. Without thinking, Behrad raises his hands to shield himself, and lets out a blast of air from the totem on his left wrist. It’s weak, whooshing harmlessly in Mick’s face and not doing any harm, but it surprises the other man enough to release his grip and drop him.

“You’re a meta.” Mick says, not really a question. He’s still standing too close for Behrad to move, staring stonily at him in a way that makes Behrad feel uncomfortably vulnerable.

“Something like that,” he says, not sure how to explain the whole mystical-totem-thing without spoilers. Then, he points his hand in the direction of the stove, sending a second blast over and shutting off the burners. “See?”

Mick grunts, and steps back enough for Behrad to get out from where he’d been pinned to the wall, rubbing at the back of his head, where he’d hit the wall. He’s probably going to bruise.

“Sorry I startled you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Yeah, well. Either way, I didn’t mean to bother you, I just wanted a snack before we got back to work on getting me back home.”

Mick grabs one of the chairs from the dining table and pulls it over towards the panel he’d ripped open earlier, moving wires around and reconnecting them until the fabricator switches back on.

“Mr. Rory,” Gideon says, coming back to life. “If you would please refrain–”

“Shut up.” Mick says, cutting her off. Then, he turns back to Behrad, cocking his head towards the fabricator. “There.”

“Thanks, man,” Behrad says, fighting the urge to pat the guy on the back. This Mick is so different from the one he knows now. Even the Mick who he’d met on his first day on the ship had been… softer isn’t quite the word. Steadier, maybe. He’s never really seen Mick quite this volatile. “Do you want anything?”

Mick only grunts wordlessly in response, which Behrad isn’t sure whether to take as a yes or a no. He fabricates a burger for him anyways, the kind that Ray always scolded him for eating because of the slow-caramelized onions and loaded sauces and crispy bacon and lack of nutritious vegetables, but Mick always loved them for those exact reasons. When it’s ready, Behrad takes the plate, alongside his own bowl of grapes, and offers it to him.

“I didn’t ask you for this.” Mick says, staring down at the dish in Behrad’s hand.

“I know.” He says, pushing it towards him. “But you should take it anyway. Otherwise it’ll just go to waste, because I can’t have it. Goes against my faith.”

Mick takes it, hesitantly, and after staring at Behrad again, for a little while, as he pops grapes into his mouth, Mick starts to eat. Behrad watches him, trying not to stare too hard, but it’s difficult, looking at Mick like this and thinking about the Mick from his own ship. Mick has always been guarded, hiding so much of himself even among the team, and it took Behrad getting trapped in a time loop for them to even figure out that Mick had a hobby.

Behrad doesn’t know what the situation is here, specifically between Mick and Snart, who are supposed to be partners– in some sense of the word, he’s not quite sure which– but seem to be at some sort of an impasse. He can see in the way that this Mick just stares aimlessly that there’s something deeply wrong, but he doesn’t know what, he doesn’t know enough about this part of their history to understand what’s happening here. But he does want to let Mick know that he’ll be okay, or that it’ll at least get better than it is now, in the same way that he wants to warn Sara about Laurel, to warn them all of what lies ahead, of what they’re going to lose. Instead, he just keeps eating his grapes.

Mick finishes his burger and dumps the plate unceremoniously onto the counter, heading towards the door, but before he leaves, he turns to Behrad, staring at him again for a moment before gesturing towards the empty plate and nodding.

“Anytime.” Behrad says, understanding. “When I get back, I’ll make you one properly, from scratch. I’ll even bake the bread myself. You just have to wait a few years.”

Mick’s expression doesn’t change, and for a moment, Behrad wonders if he’s even breathing, but then he seems to snap out of it, shaking his head.

“Your time-thingy,” Mick starts holding up his wrist and tapping a finger against it.

“My time courier?”

“Yeah, that. Check the subtemporal drift matrix. You might be missing a few parts.” He says, and leaves before Behrad can even blink.

“Well, well, look who’s tamed the beast.” Snart says, coming out from seemingly nowhere and making Behrad jump. “Don’t get too excited. It’ll take more than a quarter-pounder to get through to him.”

“He’s not so bad. A little rough around the edges, but he’s a good guy.”

“And you know this from experience.” Snart raises an eyebrow. “I see. You stroll in here with your fancy future knowledge, and we’re supposed to stay in our lane, not ask any questions, but you get to goggle at us all like we’re artifacts in a museum for you to study.”

“That’s not–”

“We should have kept you in that cage.” Snart sneers. “You walk around the ship like you own the place, and you tell people the most useless parts of the future like that you and Ray are besties, and that Jax is ‘amazing’ and making people coffee and poking your nose where it doesn’t belong instead of getting off our ship.”

“I never meant to intrude.” Behrad says, setting aside his empty bowl and drying the moisture from his fingers onto his pants. “And you’re right that I should get back to work so I can get out of here as soon as I can.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’.” Snart drawls, unimpressed.

“But I mean it when I say Mick’s a good guy. I think you know that it’s true. And you’re a good guy too.” He says. “I know it’s none of my business, and it really doesn’t matter anyways because I have to wipe your memories when I leave and you guys are just going to go back to how you were before I got here, but… he cares about you, even if he’s mad at you. And I can tell that you care about him, too.”

“Here we go again,” Snart rolls his eyes. Behrad shrugs, picking up his and Mick’s empty dishes and rinsing them off in the sink. “I told you that some things can’t be fixed, kid. Believe me, I’ve tried, and I’ve learned when to cut my losses.

Snart flexes his right hand, idly. Behrad winces– he does know that story, Jax told him about it once, when they were working on some of the tech in medbay, and he first learned that Gideon could regenerate limbs.

“Believe me, nobody wishes they could tell you guys about your futures more than I do.” Behrad admits, drying the dishes and setting them aside. Snart looks at him, as if daring him to give in and do it, to tell him that he’s going to die very very soon, so Behrad turns away. “This team is like family to me. And you’re a part of that whether you like it or not.”

“I never asked for family.” Snart says, a little quieter, but still cold.

“You got a pretty good one, if you ask me.” Behrad says. “Which, I know, you didn’t ask. I’ll get out of your hair. It was, uh, good talking to you.”

“Can’t say I feel the same.” Snart drawls.

It’s awful, walking away from Snart, knowing that he’s still hurting over whatever is going on between him and Mick, and knowing that Mick is going to lose him soon, and what that’ll do to the team. And he can’t help but also wish that Earth-X’s Leo Snart was here, just to have some proof that Leonard Snart doesn’t have to be a dick and can actually talk about his feelings from time to time. But Snart is right that he’s starting to overstay his welcome, and with every minute that he spends on this ship, his composure starts to weaken, too, and he’s not sure how long he can keep this up.

---

“Take that!” Jax laughs, mashing several buttons and sending Behrad’s Kitana flying with a nasty combo. The announcer calls: Fatality. Jax wins. Flawless victory. “Now that’s what I call a finisher.”

“I’m just out of practice.” Behrad wrinkles his nose, setting his controller down and wiping his sweaty palms off on his knees. “It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to play.”

“You asking for a rematch? ‘Cause practice or not, sometimes you just gotta know when to call it quits, dude.”

“Yes, please, continue with that barbaric game of yours,” Stein complains from where he’s sitting with Ray at the desk. The two of them are tinkering with some of the finer wiring in the time courier, Ray having shrunk down to get a closer look, and Stein keeping an eye on him with the microscope. Mick’s suggestion panned out well– they had overlooked something almost too small to notice, but with Ray’s suit, they were able to find the problem. Whatever original parts had gone missing probably made their way into the tomato bisque, too small to be found before being digested. But they decided that three pairs of full-size hands were too many to help Ray’s miniature ones, so Jax roped Behrad into fighting a couple of rounds of MK. “It’s not as if anyone here could use the peace and quiet to get work done.”

“You’re the one who told me to take a break so I don’t strain my eyes,” Jax retorts.

“I could feel you getting tired through our psychic connection, Jefferson. Or must I remind you again that you cannot pretend so that you can impress Mr. Tarazi over here.”

“It’s all good, Professor,” Behrad waves him off. “Do you want me to take over? You should watch out for eye strain too.”

“I may be your senior, but I’m hardly an invalid.” Stein shakes his head. “I can continue for a while longer. This technology is simply remarkable.”

“Now look who’s showing off.” Jax rolls his eyes and mouths remarkable, mockingly. He turns to Behrad, giving him a look as if to say can you believe this guy? And Behrad grins. “I’m serious, you want a rematch? I’m more than happy to wipe the floor with you another time.”

Before Behrad can accept his challenge, Rip strolls in, moving briskly.

“Gentlemen,” He greets them. “Where are we on Mr. Tarazi’s device?”

“We’re getting there,” Behrad says. “It’s taken a while to get all the parts we need, and Gideon’s still working on fabricating some of the more complex alloys that the wires have to be made of. We’re taking turns right now because it turns out that eight is too many hands for this part.”

“Wonderful,” Rip sighs. “Mr. Tarazi, a word, please?”

Behrad nods, getting up. He glances briefly towards Jax, who just shrugs and stands up, too, heading over to the other side of the room to sit by Stein as Behrad follows Rip outside and towards the bridge.

Rip leads him into the parlour and once Behrad is inside, he says, “Gideon, activate force-fields and sound dampeners.”

Behrad tenses, readying his left hand and backing towards the wall.

“What’s this about?” He asks, hesitantly. Rip waves a hand towards the viewscreen, which pulls up a historical record– or maybe it’s of the future? It’s of this team’s future, and of his past, and of a timeline that hasn’t been rewritten yet. “Oh… I thought you guys weren’t supposed to look me up.”

“My crew mustn't learn about any part of the future that isn’t pertinent to our mission. I, on the other hand, must ensure you pose no threat. I’m sure you’re aware that the Time Masters are after us already. After you nearly destroyed my ship earlier, I thought it best to confirm you weren’t an assassin after all.” Rip says. He presses a button, and the screen scrolls down, past grainy security-camera footage and A.R.G.U.S. logs and stops, finally, at the end of a long file, landing on: D.O.D. 07132042.

“What are you going to do?” Behrad asks, “You don’t have to do anything drastic– you could drop me off somewhere. I was just at Coney Island, 1966. You could leave me there–”

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Rip states, voice oddly thick.

“No, I’m not. So if you’d just let me fix my–”

“You’re not supposed to be alive. You’re–” Rip stops, searching for the words. “You’re not from an alternate earth; your vibrational frequency matches that of this one exactly. Which means you must be from a different version of the timeline, because in this one, you’re meant to be dead.”

“I–” Behrad starts, then bites his lip. Even after all these years, the logic of time travel is still nebulous and hard to wrap his head around. He hadn’t known what to expect, if the historical record here would show the version of history where the other Zari joined the team after he died, or if it would show the one where he co-opted her experiences without her noble mission. But now he knows, and he wishes it were the other one, if only to avoid this conversation. “I wasn’t sure what the historical record would show, to be honest. But yeah, that’s accurate. Outdated, but accurate.”

“How? What changed?” Rip asks. “How is history not fractured beyond repair?”

“Well–”

“It’s possible.” Rip says, ignoring him altogether. It’s less like Rip is confronting him with this information, and more like Rip is talking at him, like he just needs someone to say it out loud to, instead of keeping the thoughts in his own head. “It’s possible to change things.”

“Sometimes.” Behrad agrees. “Sometimes it’s possible. Not always, but it can be if there’s some sort of loophole.”

“I cannot ask you to tell me if we succeed in our mission against Vandal Savage. If we succeed in saving–” Rip bites his lip. “I’ve already learned too much. But– I was always taught to treat the timeline as absolute, something that under no circumstances could be tampered with. And now I see that they were wrong.”

“You’re going to forget about this anyways,” Behrad warns him, holding the truth back. How can he possibly tell him that they’ll succeed, but also that it’s too late for Rip’s wife and son? How can he not tell him?

“I know. I know, that’s how it must be. Gideon, take down the force-field.” Rip sighs, closing his eyes. “You should go back to work. So we can erase my memory of this conversation as soon as possible.”

Behrad all-but runs back out from the bridge, away from Rip.

“Oh, hey, you’re back,” Jax greets him, when he gets back to their work station. “We’re almost done here. You missed all the good parts.”

“We should be good to go for another test run in a few minutes.” Ray chirps, full-size again. “Maybe let’s aim for somewhere on the ground instead of going right for your ship this time. Less risk of getting sucked into the temporal zone that way.”

“Yeah,” Behrad smiles, walking towards them at a more reasonable pace and hoping that whatever residual strain from his conversation with Rip doesn’t show on his face. “Sounds great. How can I help?”

---

It works. They test it by opening a portal into 1923 Los Angeles, in the canyon that would later become Runyon Park, watching workers put up a giant sign reading HOLLYWOODLAND on the distant hillside.

“Well, I guess that’s it, then.” Ray says, closing the portal as they step back onto the bridge and handing the time courier over to Behrad. “Just lock it onto your Waverider and you’re home free.”

“Finally.” Snart drawls, still just watching from afar and offering snide, unhelpful commentary. Sara smacks him on the shoulder and he makes a face at her like children misbehaving on the playground.

“Honestly, same, man. I had a pretty good time, but I’m ready to go home now.” Behrad shrugs. Then, he holds up the memory flasher. “Thank you all, for all your help. You guys, uh, just get in a line and I’ll use this little guy and I’ll be on my way.”

He starts with Ray, who says, “It was really great to meet you. I can’t wait to meet younger-you later.”

“Give it a few years. I’ll be here soon.” Behrad grins, wrapping him in a quick hug before wiping Ray’s memory. Ray blinks and stares off into space as Behrad moves on to face Sara.

“Say hi to future-me.” Sara says. Behrad gives her a thumbs-up, and wipes her memory too.

Mick just lets out a low growl from the back of his throat during his turn. Kendra gives him a hug, and before they part, she whispers, “It’ll get better for you too,” quiet enough so only he can hear.

“Thank you.” He says, as he pulls the trigger.

“I usually prefer to be wined and dined before we get to the flashing,” Snart drawls. “But fine. If you must.”

After Snart’s done, next in line is Stein, who offers Behrad a firm handshake and similar sentiments to Ray’s. Behrad wants to cling to his hand for a little longer, but he stops himself, choosing to just commit Stein’s face to memory as best he can, one last adventure with his late friend.

“Not that you’ll remember to, but say hi to Clarissa and Lily for me.” Behrad says. Stein furrows his brow.

“Lily?” Oh, shoot. Behrad raises the flasher as quickly as he can, mortified at his blunder. He completely forgot about Lily’s anachronistic conception.

Turning quickly towards Jax, who’d just watched the exchange, amused, he just shrugs helplessly.

“I’m not even gonna ask.”

“Hey, good thing you guys won’t remember a thing, right?” Behrad laughs at his own misstep. He offers his hand out to shake, but then changes his mind, stepping forward to wrap his arms around Jax instead, savoring the moment with a silent promise to give future-Jax a call sometime soon.

“It was nice to have someone my age around for once,” Jax says, returning Behrad’s tight hug. “Too bad I gotta go back to just hanging out with these geezers again.”

“You’ll pull through.” Behrad assures him, flashing the light in his face.

Finally, he turns to Rip, who holds up a tablet and points to the ceiling.

“Of course,” Behrad smiles, looking up. “Bye, Gideon.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Tarazi. Lovely to meet you.” She says, and Rip presses his finger to the tablet screen, deleting Gideon’s memory of Behrad’s stay.

“Thanks for putting up with me.” Behrad tells Rip.

“I’d say it was a memorable visit, but I won’t remember a thing.” Rip half-chuckles. “But it was a comfort to know that not only is it possible to change the timeline, but also that this team will live on. Even if I could only know that for a moment.”

“Take care, captain.” Behrad says, and pulls the trigger one last time. Then, he opens the portal onto his Waverider, ready to finally step back into his proper place, but before he does, he glances back behind him, at where everyone else is still in disarray as the memory-flasher’s disorienting effect wears off. It kind of kills him to leave them to the things he knows they’re going to experience very soon, especially all of the losses they’ll face, but he’s at least comforted knowing that they’ll become the team he’s about to walk back towards.

Taking a deep breath, he turns back to face forward and steps through the portal, tapping the time courier on his wrist and shutting it behind him, back where he belongs.

---

The ship is exactly the same as it always is. Not that he had any reason to believe it would be any different. He’s managed to portal back into the kitchen at exactly the time that he should have returned, if he hadn’t gotten so very sidetracked, and still, the rest of the team has managed to clean out all of the leftover food he’d thought might be waiting for him. Which is fine; he’d eaten his fill while he was on the other ship, five-ish years ago.

"Oh– guys," He yelps, turning the corner out from the kitchen. Nate and flannel-Zari step apart, reluctantly, from where they'd been making out pressed against the wall. "Not that I'm not thrilled that you guys love each other, but don't you have a room?"

"Dude, where have you been?" Nate grins at him, wrapping an arm around Zari's shoulders. Behrad holds up the memory flasher, and Nate nods sagely. "Right. Everything go okay with cleanup?"

"Yeah, of course." Behrad lies. "Possibly the least eventful cleanup job ever."

"Thanks for letting us go ahead," Zari smiles, leaning into Nate. She turns her head, looking up at him, then turns to Behrad, pointing off to another direction with her thumb. "So, uh, we're gonna just–"

"Yeah, please," Behrad steps aside so she and Nate can hurry off to find some privacy. He missed their ridiculous penchant for public displays of affection.

He heads in the opposite direction and as he takes a left turn, he nearly crashes into Spooner, who's clutching a few empty plates that nearly clatter onto the ground. Behind her, Astra quickly murmurs a few words in Latin, and the plates sweep back upward and into her outstretched hand, wrapped in a vibrant red glow.

"Damn, B, look where you're going," Spooner complains. "Not all of us can be giants like you two."

"It's not our fault you haven't grown since you were twelve." Astra teases.

"Never underestimate the little guy." Behrad grins at them both. "Nice save, Astra."

"I guess I'm getting the hang of this magic thing," Astra grins, proudly.

"Speaking of magic, we were gonna go bug John for a while after we're done with the dishes. You in?" Spooner offers. Astra wiggles her fingers menacingly, and they spark red.

"Next time," he promises. "I'm pretty tired after all that memory-wiping. I'm gonna get some R&R instead."

"Suit yourself." She shrugs.

"Later, Behrad." Astra smiles, following Spooner toward the kitchen.

He doesn’t run into Sara, or Ava, or Mick, or John, or even Gary at all, but that’s probably for the best. He isn't exactly sure why he feels the need to keep this story to himself right now; it's not as if it would make much of a difference if anyone knew, and they've done this sort of thing before. He'd told everyone about Gideon’s time loop when it happened, and all the things he'd learned about them from it, and when he got dragged into John and Charlie's scheme back in New Orleans, they'd come clean about it too. But for whatever reason, he feels compelled to keep quiet about this adventure for a little while.

Maybe it's shame, guilt that he didn’t do much of anything to try and warn the earlier version of the team about the troubles ahead. That he didn't warn Snart or Stein or Rip about their deaths, or tell the others, so they could try to stop them, and now so much of it feels unresolved, even though it was years before his time and the moment has passed. Maybe it's embarrassment that it happened at all, because he could have avoided the whole mess if he'd checked on the time courier sooner, before it could send him to the wrong place. Maybe he just wants to keep this experience to himself for a bit, to process it, because if he talks about it, it'll feel less like some bizarre fever-dream. Maybe it’s a combination of all three.

He'll tell the others eventually. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, or if eventually it ever feels relevant. Maybe the next time he calls Jax, or if he joins Nate for his monthly drink with Ray, or at the next all-holiday party, or if one day a future member of the team accidentally wanders onto their Waverider in some sort of implausible parallel.

He flops onto his couch in the lab with a sigh, sinking into the cushions and pulling the blanket over onto his lap as he finally lets himself relax.

“Welcome back, B,” Gideon chimes, from above.

“Hey, G, what’s cookin’ in those circuits of yours?”

“I’m afraid cooking isn’t within my programming. However, all systems are operational, including the fabricator, if you’re hungry.”

“‘All systems are operational,’ huh?” Behrad frowns, glancing up. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“How are you doing today?” She asks, instead of giving him an answer. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, you’re sneaky,” he laughs, catching on. “I should’ve known. You’ve always been more independent than we gave you credit for. What did you do, create a copy of your logs before we wiped them?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” She says, but he can hear the smile in her voice. “And you failed to answer my question.”

“You’re right.” He concedes. He hesitates, for a moment, then answers, “I’m good. I think. It’s a lot.”

She says nothing, but the sound of the ship shifts, just slightly, like she’s humming in agreement.

“So you’ve known all this time? Before I even came aboard?” He asks. She doesn’t answer, so he just shakes his head and backs off. “I guess it doesn’t matter– I’m glad you were there with me.”

“You’re a good friend.” She says, echoing his words from years before.

“You must miss them a lot, huh?”

“Every day.” She says.

“Me too.” He agrees.

He misses everyone who left, everyone who died, even if it’s been a while since he’s really thought about it. And now he has more people to miss– people like Kendra, with whom he hadn’t expected to find so much in common, and Rip, who he’d never thought he would see so vulnerable. Like Jax and Stein, who he hasn’t seen in years, and Ray, whose departure feels like so long ago. Even Snart, for all his biting words and condescending eye-rolls, Behrad wishes he could have at least gotten to see more of him, so he could understand him better, outside of whatever fresh conflict the man had been dealing with with Mick. And Mick and Sara, who just seemed sort of lost, back then. They’re visibly more comfortable now than they were on the other ship, but there was also something nice about how the younger Sara didn’t have to be team captain, something about the younger Mick’s stoniness that made Behrad want to wrap him in a blanket and give him a comforting meal. Looking back on those two just makes him appreciate how far they’ve come since then.

But Gideon must miss them all more than anyone else on the ship can understand, let alone him. She’s been here for everything, since before there even was a team, back when the Waverider was just another Time Master ship, through everything they’ve faced. She’s the real OG onboard, and they probably don’t acknowledge that as much as they should.

“Hey, what do you say to a little jam session?” Behrad asks, sitting up and reaching for his guitar, unclasping it from its stand and pulling it onto his lap. He tunes the strings, tightening the A-string, and strums, left hand finding a few chords in quick succession. “Any requests?”

“You already know my favorite.” She says, and he smiles, fingers having already made their way to the familiar configurations. He strums the intro, and when she comes in with the vocals, he just closes his eyes and lets his hands go through the motions that he knows back and forth, listening to the soothing tones of her voice through the ship’s speakers. He joins in at the second chorus, singing along with his eyes still shut.

And when the song ends, he just switches to another, Gideon following along seamlessly. And then another, then another, and another.