Perhaps, I should put a trigger warning up here. I'm not sure if it's "triggering" or not, but there is a scene where Deserey gives herself some advice and while writing it I sort of hit a few of my own nerves so...better safe than sorry. Tread carefully! Take care of yourselves!

(And maybe the advice will be something some of you need to hear too?)

---

"Carter, I think there's something wrong with your dog."

Luna was laying on her side, whining and wimpering. Her tongue was flopping out of her mouth, fur falling out left and right. Rip stood above Deserey and the hawks as the trio attempted to sooth the dog. "I tried to warn you." Of course he would have a lecture at the ready. "Time travel effects animals differently than humans. I can't imagine that little trip to Earth 38 helped matters any."

"What's wrong with her?" Carter asked. He'd be lying if he was't going crazy with guilt and worry. He was just going to get his dog killed the same way he got his son killed. (But really isn't that what he deserved for thinking he could put the pieces of his old lives back together?)

"I will be perfectly honest, Mr. Hall --"

"That's a first," Leonard muttered from where he was leaning on the console a few feet away.

Rip ignored him and went on, " --I have no idea."

The dog let out a howel. It was much louder than it should have been -- so loud, in fact, Deserey had to check her ears to make sure they weren't bleeding. (And even after she had done so she wasn't convinced there hadn't been some kind of nerve damage. She'd have to check with Gideon later.) The others were covering their ears, wincing at the noise.

"What the hell is that!?" Sara shouted over the howeling as she and the two halves of Firestorm walked in.

"Luna is hurt or something." Dez pointed to the poor, suffering dog as she dug her finger in her ear, a lame attempt to stop the ringing.

"Someone turn it off!" Mick growled. It didn't stop, though. The howling went on and on, growing in volume, so much so it was a wonder every member of the Legends wasn't now deaf. Glass shattered all around, including Mick's beer bottle (he was not happy about that); trinkets fell from the shelves in Rip's office. It was an Earthquake. At least, that's what it felt like.

Luna whined, covering her snout with her paws. Deserey ran her hand through the dog's fur, frowning worriedly. She was very warm. Was that normal? Then, out of no where, lasers shot from her eyes. It singed the wall and would have done the same to Ray, too, had it not been for Sara's quick reflexes, the assassin pulling him from harm's way, just in the nick of time.

The Legends stared at the dog. For a long stretch of time, no one said anything. Had she always been able to do that? Was it just the "different" side effects Rip had mentioned catching up with her? That was quite a difference...

Ray gave a little giggle, breaking the silence and drawing all the attention to himself. "A meta dog!" Dez couldn't help noticing that he wasn't sneezing around Luna anymore. In fact, he hadn't been since they'd left the 80s, and she couldn't help wondering if he'd actually had an allergy to furry animals or if it was entirely psychosomatic. (She did not, however, express those thoughts to him out loud.)

"Astonishing!" Martin grinned. In the same instance, Luna started floating off the floor, zipping around the room uncontrollably. "It seems our furry friend here is exhibiting the same abilities as a Kryptonian."

"So what? She's Super Dog now?" Kendra asked.

Dez shrugged. "Personally, I think we should call her Krypto."

"That's a pretty good name," Ray complimented.

"Thanks!" Deserey grinned.

"Well, as cool as that is," Sara said, pointing at the dog, "we're going to need to get it under control. We don't want any more crash landings and getting stranded." It was strange, how much of a natural leader she seemed to be, and everyone followed so easily. "You two, see what you can do about that while the rest of us figure out what to do about Pilgrim and Chronos," she told the hawks.

The duo nodded, taking Luna (as soon as they got her to stop super speeding around the bridge that is) to the gym Sara and Deserey had set up as the team's training room. As they left, Sara moved to the center of the room, somehow getting everyone, including Mick, to kick it into high gear, much faster and more effectively than Rip had ever been able to. "Hey, you ever think about promoting Sara to co-captain?" Dez asked.

Rip paused in whatever thought had been going through his head a moment before. He watched the blonde work her magic, getting everyone to straighten up in seconds rather than minutes or hours. They actually listened to her. "That's...not a terrible idea."

"Don't sound so surprised. I'm chalk full of 'em." With that said, the two moved to join the others at the center of the room, neither wanting to invoke Sara's wrath.

"You know what I don't get?" Ray said with a little frown. "Why don't Pilgrim and Chronos just go back a week earlier and kill younger us then?"

"'Cause the Omega Protocol calls for precision," Rip explained. "Multiple attempts could do irreparable temporal damage."

"Which means they only got one shot at killing each and every one of us," Mick added. He took a long swig from his beer as everyone eyed him with surprise. "What?"

"...Mr. Rory is correct," Rip said. "And we only have one shot to extract your younger selves from the time line before they pull the trigger."

"Yeah, which we did already," Dez reminded everyone.

"Fortunately," Rip agreed. "But it won't be long before, uh, other complications settle in."

The team exchanged looks. Deserey was the one to ask, though. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"We removed you from the time line." Rip was getting fidgety again, the same way he'd gotten when he'd been called out on his lies way back in the seventies. Oh, god. Had he left another thing out? "As I've said before it takes time for time to solidify, but if we take too long in placing you back in the time line..."

"Time changes," Sara finished. "Without us in it."

Maybe it was the fact that she'd eaten her breakfast too fast that morning that made Dez's stomach churn so violently. That's what she'd like to believe anyway. "What about my kids? If I disappear at thirteen... I mean, are they..."

Rip didn't immediately respond. He just stared, that vacant expression, that one he usually got whenever he was thinking of Miranda and Jonas, crossed his face. The captain didn't speak again until Deserey had repeated his name a few times. "They'll be erased from the time line, yes." He turned to the others, nodding to each of them in turn. "And Professor Stein's wife will no longer remember him, as well as Jefferson's mother. And Dr. Palmer's fiancee and anyone else he meets after the point of his abduction. And Mr. Snart and Sara's families will be effected as well."

"Yeah," Mickey said, "and my -- oh wait, I don't have anyone." The comment went ignored by the others, but Deserey couldn't help feeling the weight of his words. She patted his shoulder sympathically.

"You got us," she told him, which really seemed to confuse him but he didn't question it.

The team stayed silent, the weight of that reality settling in. How counter productive was that? They try to save themselves and they lose anyway? Whether Pilgrim and Chronos managed to off them or not, if they didn't put themselves back before the time line solidified they still disappeared. They still never grew up, and they never became the Legends because there wouldn't be anyone for Rip to get. There would be no team to form. Strangely, that was the last thing on Deserey's mind. She didn't care if she disappeared or lived or died or whatever. She wasn't all that important to history anyway, Rip had told her that himself, and really she was learning to live with that. Who needed fame anyway? But her kids. Her beautiful, perfect children who had yet to grow up, who still had a destiny to discover. Her baby boy and girl who would never have a chance, all because of her.

"Am I going to forget them?" The question came out before she even processed thinking the words. It really was the worst case scenario. Of all the horrible things Deserey had been desperate to keep away from her kids, the things she had worked hard to keep them safe from, she had never once imagined that she would have to keep them safe from her. They really should have thought this through before removing themselves from the time line. Weren't they all easier targets now that they were gathered in one place? What if Chronos and Pilgrim found their way on to the Waverider?

"No." Rip was lying again, but somehow Deserey appreciated it this time. At least, she could pretend there was a possibility she didn't have to worry.

"Well, I for one think it is worth discussing what the Pilgrim did," Martin changed the subject, perhaps sensing Deserey needed it or perhaps just trying to distract himself from his own troubling thoughts upon realizing he could quite possibly lose the love of his life. "The way she turned our attacks back on us, as if she were reversing time."

"It's called temporal micro-manipulation," Rip explained, "the ability to control time in one's immediate vicinity. We are lucky to have saved your younger selves."

Sara nodded in agreement, facing the team with that serious, down to business look she always got during their team meetings. "I'm thinking the Pilgrim and Chronos won't just give up because we picked the younger uses up. If anything putting us all in one place is making them easier targets. They'll find a way to breach the Waverider eventually."

"Which is why we will be relocating them," Rip informed the team.

"Relocating? What do you mean relocating?" Deserey asked. "Because I thought you said it was too dangerous to put us pack in the time line."

"Indeed," Rip agreed, "but we're not just placing them in any time period and calling it a day. There's a specific one, hidden from the Time Masters. Chronos and Pilgrim won't be able to find your younger selves there."

"Because hiding out worked so well for us the last time," Leonard rolled his eyes.

"To be fair you lot weren't exactly subtle in the Old West," Rip muttered but he was moving on again quickly before an argument could break out. "Strap in everyone. Gideon, I think you know where we're headed."

"Yes, Captain."

Everyone moved to their designated time jump chairs, pulling the safety harnesses over their chests. It was routine now; Deserey had already committed the actions to memory, as if she'd been doing it her whole life. As easy as a stroke of the paint brush. "You gonna fill us in?" Leonard asked.

"We'll finally be delving into my non-existent past." Rip's comment was a jab at Leonard's constant nit picking at the fact that Rip's younger self wouldn't be picked up by Chronos and Pilgrim since this whole thing began. Anyone could see that clear as day. Leonard stayed quiet... For the moment.

They time jumped to a pristine looking building -- stone walkways, fancy trimmed hedges, and Deserey thought she even spotted a few stone statues somewhere in the yard. "We're here." Rip spun his chair around, the first of the team to head for the door.

"Where is here?" Leonard asked because he'd be damned if he was just going to follow this man into the unknown.

"Come, I'll show you," Rip said, which was very irritating to Leonard because that wasn't exactly a straight answer.

The walk up to the house was a long one, Rip having parked the Waverider all the way at the end of the walkway. On either side of the concrete flowers decorated the freshly cut grass. The property went on for miles. Deserey made sure to commit every detail of the place to memory -- by snapping a quick picture of it with her cell phone -- so that she'd be able to paint the scenery later (when she wasn't dying or being erased from time preferably). It had been a while since she'd painted any landscapes that didn't involve beaches, she figured it was probably time to start branching out. Hone her skills.

Art was a nice distraction, but she was brought back into focus when a woman stepped out from the main house and met them half way. She was dressed in an elegant blue dress, her hair cut short, the biggest smile forming over her face as her eyes landed on Rip. "I've been waiting." Had she been expecting them? Did she know what they were here for? "It's good to see you." She fixed the collar on Rip's shirt in a way that was all too familiar to Deserey, and she put the pieces together just before Rip confirmed it himself.

"It's good to see you too, Mother."

Dez grinned, stepping forward so she was standing next to Rip. "Mother? As in the adoptive one that I remind you of?"

"The only mother I have," Rip said.

Jax took a look around as Rip's mother lead the Legends inside. "So, this is where we plan on keeping our younger selves?"

"If all goes according to plan," Martin started as if they had even discussed any sort of plan, "we should only be here a few minutes then presumably never remember."

"When's the last time anything went according to plan?" Ray had a point. Since the beginning their plans had been going awry very quickly.

"I don't think there ever was a last time," Kendra said. She and Carter were taking a break from training their new meta dog.

Rip's mother excused herself as a group of children charged down the stairs and out through the front door. "Don't forget to take your boots off before you come back in!" And as one of them nicked a mince pie from the tray of snacks she'd made for the Legends she let out a scolding, "Oi!" And she sent the boy off with a light tap on the wrist.

"I really would sit up if I were you," Rip warned Jax upon catching his posture. "She'll kill you if she catches you slouching."

Dez eyed the younger man as he looked at Rip oddly. "You could stand to sit up a little more actually..." When Jax turned to her with that same 'are you serious?' look he'd been giving Rip she shrugged. "It's a mom thing, correcting posture. You don't want your back to be all curved when you get old." Martin gave a discreet nod from where he sat. As the oldest Legend he would know all about the problems of aging. Deserey turned back to Rip. "Your mother seems so nice though. You act like she's all stern."

"Don't let her fool you. That woman is as tough as nails," Rip promised.

"Funny how you never mentioned having a mother," Leonard said, fiddling with a vase from where he sat in the window sill. Deserey wondered if he was contemplating stealing it.

As Rip's mother poured tea in some cups and passed them out to the Legends, she started explaining how the Time Masters adopted new identities -- which Deserey had already learned from Rip, (in fact the only one's who didn't already know that piece of information was Jax and Martin, Dez was sure) but she didn't want to be rude, so she let the woman talk.

"How do you know so much about the Time Masters?" Jax asked. He was still slouching.

"I work for them." The Legends had never been quieter. Everyone eyed their tea cups as if suddenly wondering if it were poisoned. Deserey knew better. As a mother there were only one place her loyalty could lie. "Oh, don't worry. My true loyalty is to my children." She gave Rip a little smile at that.

"When Michael arrived at the orphanage he had nothing but the clothes on his back," Rip's mother told them. "There's a reason it's called the Refuge, and a reason that it exists in a secret location in history." That seemed rather ominous... "The Time Masters will never know you're here."

"Thank you for your assistance," Martin said politely.

"I know I make an adorable child, but I should warn you, you've got your hands full," Leonard spoke up.

"Yeah, uh, sorry about any graffiti mini me might leave behind," Dez put in, cringing at her past self's hobby. "That phase went on longer than necessary..."

"I assure you, you're not the first tough cases to arrive at my door." She gave Rip a pointed look at that, to which the former Time Master gave a sheepish little grin.

The Legends split up before their departure. Sandstorm stumbled upon Young Dez as she reached the top of the stairs. She was sitting in the hall, sketching in a book with a cheap number two pencil; though Sandstorm wasn't sure where she'd gotten either of those things. Maybe Rip's mother had given them to her as a substitute for graffiti-ing the walls. "Having fun?" She slid down next to her younger self. What a bizarre experience.

Dez, the younger one, was quite strange, she had to admit. Her hair was even more wild than her adult counter, unkempt and caked with dirt in some places (the streets didn't actually provide many places to shower after all). The girl's dark clothing did little to make her look any calmer or saner, and Sandstorm found herself wondering how the flying fuck she had ever thought that was a good look on her. Her eyes were empty, passionless, loveless, despite loving her girlfriend, Adriana, with everything she had at the time.

It was the beginning of her career as an artist, and in all honesty the work was a little...execrable. Gory and freaky. All angry and bitter, those raw, fresh emotions leaking in from the wounds given to her by school bullies, fellow street rats, the world, her own parents even. It was all still so recent for her. It was raw, evident in her eyes even to those who didn't know what had happened to her -- she was just a broken, lost little girl. She had been for a very long time. That realization was a punch to the gut.

Dez didn't answer, just curled in on herself, her strokes becoming all the more vulgar on the paper. Sandstorm watched her, mulling it all over, the past, the present; and what a strange little thing it is to be face to face with herself at thirteen years old, to stare your very own history dead in the eyes -- dull and lifeless as they were -- the very thing that has, for so long, dragged her down, pulling her through that sea that has forever been clogging her mind, her heart, her soul, and feel nothing but ecstasy. Backwards, though it may seem, that was the way it was. A paradox within herself.

"It's not your fault." The words left her mouth before she even conjures them up properly in her head. It was such a simple sentence, but it was enough to get her younger self to look up and even drop her pencil. Sandstorm knew how hard the words are to take, because it's the same every time someone said them, every time she heard the words. Maybe it's because she'd never quite heard them often enough. They always threw her for a loop. "You're not a pain, you don't inconvenience anyone. Everything you're feeling is so completely valid and natural, and you shouldn't be ashamed for it. Feel it for as long as you need to, because there really isn't a time limit on this stuff."

Dez stared back at her, mouth agape, but Sandstorm was only just beginning, the words spilling out faster than she had time to process them. It was everything she'd been learning, everything she had been dying to hear, everything she had ignored, all the words that never quite reached her ears, all the little things people had tried to tell her but didn't quite word correctly. "Feel it, let it all consume you for a moment, but before you decide to end things, before you go thinking everyone is so much better off without you... Let go. Breathe. Work to move past it, despite how hard it's going to be. And just ... breathe, take it day by day, because I promise you you're not the only one who feels this way. You're not alone. You never have been."

It was true, even in her darkest hours there was always someone by her side. Adriana, Lucy, Darryl, the Legends. It was Deserey who had pushed them all away, who had decided Lucy needed to focus on her own mental health, who closed herself off to Adriana, and it was her who had first suggested a divorce with Darryl. She'd been over come with delusions, buried under her hurt and anger, her sorrows and woes. It blinded her to the truth. That's just what happens when you're world is ripped apart and you're tossed to the wolves.

It was what happened when you watched the only one you loved at such a young age brutally murdered by those meant to protect her. It's what happens when you're tossed out of house and home, when you fall so deep into the abyss there is not hope of climbing back out. You stop believing anyone can genuinely care about you. It really was such a shame it had taken her so long to realize that. "Others have gotten past it, and you can too. You just have to survive long enough to get there. You don't see it now, but it does get better. It has for others and it has for you. And if you don't believe me, fine.

"If you don't live for hope of a better future, then do it just to spite them. Live so they know they didn't break you, so you know you can pick up the pieces and create something better. I know you can. You've already done it. You're not a pain. There's nothing wrong with you, you deserve to exist just like everyone else." Dez still said nothing, but her eyes were glassy; Sandstorm herself was having a hard time talking around the lump forming in her throat. How long had she needed to hear those words? "You are valid and loved."

"H-how do you...?" Dez blinked, holding back the tears to the best of her ability.

Sandstorm wiped at her own eyes, gave herself a little shrug. "People don't always say what you need to hear. That's why you have to tell yourself, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm you... Uh, from the future that is."

The thirteen year old's eyes widened. Naturally, this was where Dez said something incredibly intelligent, like, "I'm really hot."

Sandstorm laughed to herself, eyeing a mirror hanging on the wall. For the first time she wasn't dirty. Her hair wasn't a wild, frizzy, untamed mess, and her eyes weren't boring. Her curls were flexuous, features defined in all the right ways. Her skin was glowing, vibrant. There were no more visible flaws, because even they served their purpose. Every curve, every blemish, every sharp edge she'd been taught to hate. Taken in a new light, Deserey Dunet was a work of art.

"Hell, yeah, I am."