Tess 10: The Message

Iron Heights Penitentiary courtyard, April 5, 2000

"Snart!" the warden called. "Get over here!"

Leonard tossed the basketball to one of the other inmates and jogged over to the fence. "Yeah, boss?"

The warden scowled and feinted a punch.

Leonard flinched despite the obvious barrier between them, though the other man's reaction was hardly unexpected. The warden had never liked him, no matter how well he tried to behave.

Not that he expected to make friends at a place like Iron Heights, certainly not among the guards, though thankfully they weren't all as abusive as Lewis's stories had claimed. But he'd assumed—and assumed wrong—that the warden might appreciate it when the inmates cooperated and made his job easier. Or at least that he wouldn't threaten them for doing so.

Leonard sighed. "What did you need me for?"

The warden waved his baton away from the other inmates and in the direction of the nearest set of gates. "There's some boys want to talk to you about a job," the warden replied as they walked that way. "You interested?"

Leonard frowned. "You... want to put me on the work rotation?" Technically he was already on the rotation; nearly all of the inmates were required to take turns helping out with certain chores like kitchen duties. Only special cases were ever exempt from those tasks... or banned from them, like the serial poisoner on the second floor.

But those were mere chores, tasks meant to save the taxpayers money while providing the legally required care for the inmates. A job, on the other hand, meant a few special privileges, trust—or a reasonable facsimile—and even a little money he could send outside to take care of Lisa. Few inmates were approved for real jobs around here, not even for highway cleanup crews, and Leonard hadn't expected to ever be popular enough with the people in charge of that decision.

"What kind of job?" Leonard asked when they reached the gates.

"What the hell are you asking me for?" the warden growled. "If you're interested, you ask them. So do want to know or not?"

"Yes, sir."

The warden glanced around, then opened the outer gate to let himself in. He locked the gate behind him and aimed a pistol at Leonard before letting himself in through the inner gate.

Leonard tried not to react to the warden's behavior, but it was too odd to ignore. Where are the other guards? There should've been someone to cover the warden, in case one of the inmates got any ideas about tackling him. Not that an assault at this point would do any good; there would be someone with a rifle watching from the tower, the warden was quick enough with his own gun, and there was that locked gate to maneuver.

But the man's confidence was unnerving.

The warden gestured with the pistol.

Leonard nodded and walked ahead. He knew the drill; of course the warden would want him in full view at all times. He tried to walk a little off to the side so he could watch the warden in the corner of one eye—not to mention to avoid being directly in front of the gun—but the first time he did that earned him a thump on his recently-healed left shoulder from the baton and a jab with the pistol once he was back in line.

He had little choice but to trust that most of Lewis's prison stories were only that, stories, and that the warden trusted the legal system enough to focus on his job instead of whatever else he might call "justice."

"There you go," the warden said after a few minutes of walking. "The shack off to your left."

Leonard's eyes widened. That "shack" was the shed for Iron Heights' own inmate-run garden. He'd been put to work in the kitchen several times since he was convicted, surviving on the same rations as everyone else; was he going to have the chance to grow their food? His mouth watered at the dream of eating good food once in a while....

He scoffed at his own foolishness. Keep dreaming. The people in charge of the work rotations got special privileges, sometimes—off the books, of course—but as a drudge he'd be lucky to recognize a morsel of his work at mealtimes. But even just the smell of the plants.... The garden shed was no walk-in freezer, and Leonard would never claim to have a green thumb, but it still had to be better than the grit everywhere else in the prison.

The warden snickered. "Eager, are we?"

Leonard's face warmed. He hadn't even realized he'd sped up. "A little, sir," he admitted. "I don't think I've seen the garden yet."

The warden knocked once on the door, then opened it. "Got Snart out here for you," he called in.

Leonard stepped inside. He hesitated just a moment at the gloom before another jab with the pistol told him that he wouldn't be allowed to wait for his eyes to adjust.

The door clattered shut behind him.

Leonard blinked and tried to focus on the man standing across from him. Others waited further back, mere shadows in the gloom. "Warden says someone wants to see me about a job?" he said.

"Snart, right?" the other man asked. "Leonard Snart?"

Leonard nodded. He couldn't see the inmate well enough to recognize him, though he was certain he knew the voice from somewhere, but the other man would've been inside long enough to see him easily enough.

The other man scoffed. "I'm not sure you should be taking any jobs around here." He moved closer. "Way I hear it, you're the type to walk away and leave the job for someone else to mess up."

Leonard frowned. "I don't un—" He didn't get any farther before a fist to his gut drove all the air out of him and he crumpled to the dirt.

Breathe....

The punch had been a love tap compared to the way Lewis always smacked him around, nowhere near hard enough to do any real damage.

Breathe, dammit!

Too high to hit anything vital, too. Solar plexus, probably. He could breathe, even if it didn't feel like it.

But it hurt like hell to try. The message was clear: Let the man speak.

"—rot in here a while," the other man was saying. "But Ben talked them into giving you another chance. Said he'd hook up with your crew, see if your partner or your baby sister could talk some sense into you." He shrugged. "Simple job, right? Even someone as brainless as Mick couldn't screw that up."

Wait. Ben was going to try to get him out? When did this happen? But why didn't Amber tell him any of this? Even if Mick still distrusted her, surely Lisa would've had her pass along that kind of message.

"Funny thing is," the man continued, "Ben's gone and disappeared. Nobody's seen him since... not until they dragged his corpse out of the bay a couple days ago."

Leonard was still trying to wrap his head around what the man was saying, until one critical detail penetrated. "Ben's... dead?" he rasped.

He climbed back to his feet, bracing his weight against the nearest table. His legs didn't seem to want to hold him up, and it wasn't entirely due to the punch. Ben was the only one of the Santinis who gave a rat's ass about the crew; even if Leonard's freedom wasn't on the line, Ben's death could only mean trouble.

Though if Leonard could help them get revenge against the killer.... "Do you... have... any idea who—"

His eyes widened.

We've hit a snag.... We're not entirely sure that's an option anymore.

No, that couldn't be what she'd meant.

hook up with your crew.... nobody's seen him since.

His crew knew how much they depended on Ben's support; they could never dream of killing him!

But if Ben was truly dead, and if Frank believed they were to blame....

Leonard's eyes darted around the room. His eyes had finally adjusted enough for him to see the broken pruning shear, and to recognize the face of the man who held it.

He flicked his gaze from the blade to Frank's private messenger, the hitman who went by the nickname "Scribe," and made a break for the door. If he could just reach the warden—

"The hell?" The door was locked!

"Grab him!" Scribe snarled.

No, no, no. It couldn't be locked, the warden had been right behind him, why the hell was the door locked?

Leonard threw himself at the door and pounded on it, continuing even after his hands went numb. "Warden! Open the door! Let me out of here! Somebody, help me, please!"

But who would help him? He was just one convicted killer in a prison full of killers. If the warden wasn't stepping in, who else would possibly care enough to do anything?

Two pairs of arms dragged him away before he could beat his fists bloody.

"Let go of me! Help me!"

"Would somebody shut him up?" Scribe ordered. "And hold him still!"

Leonard felt something jammed past his teeth mid-scream. The rag was shoved down so hard he gagged, and the taste of his own blood and bile mixed with the aroma of fertilizer.

The rag was too deep for him to easily spit out, but he continued to try to call for help.

Scribe shook his head. "You know, someday, I'd like someone to face me with a little dignity. Just once. Is that really too much to ask?"

"They're scared of you," one of the thugs replied. "Frank likes it that way. Helps keep them in line."

"And yet they keep stepping out of line." Scribe glared at Leonard. "Will you shut up!"

The command shocked Leonard into silence for precisely five point two seconds. Then tears began to stream down his face, and soon he was unable to stop himself from sobbing, great racking sobs the likes of which he hadn't allowed himself since he was a child.

Scribe sighed and gestured at a table with the broken-off shear.

Two of the thugs frog-marched Leonard to the table, but when they picked him up he tried to kick his way free. Another two rushed in to hold his legs still.

A fifth, once they'd laid him out, pressed an arm to his throat, denying him the leverage he needed to keep fighting.

Scribe used the shear to tear Leonard's shirt free. "Best hold still," he said. "You've wasted enough of my time already, and my, uh, penmanship ain't what it used to be."

Leonard continued to weep even as he grew hoarse. But when he felt the first icy burn of the shear's plunge into his side, he found he still had voice left after all.

Only when the blood loss left his mind in a fog, and his vision blurry and grey, did he finally stop screaming once again.

—FLASH SIDEWAYS: TESS—

Starling General Hospital, April 6, 2000

"Wake up, sleepyhead," Lisa whispered.

She hesitated, then reached out one hand to Leonard's forehead, her fingers smoothing out the hair where one of Lewis's hack jobs had cut him too badly for it to grow back properly, while she let the fingers of her other hand travel down his recently-healed left shoulder to grip his free hand.

Any other day she would've enjoyed being the only one allowed to touch him. Probably nothing quite as gentle as this, and almost certainly not while he was asleep; her brother's instincts were attuned to danger, and even in his deepest slumber he was hypersensitive to anything that even hinted that someone was sneaking around him. But a deep massage when he needed one after a heist... or maybe she'd beg for a neck rub, let his nimble fingers soothe away her own aches after their father botched another job for them.

"Lenny?"

Any other day she might've teased him awake, the bratty little sister who knew exactly how to get a reaction from her beloved older brother... and who also knew what lines she must never cross.

"Lenny, please. You've got to wake up."

Any other day she would never have dared touch him when he was injured and drugged, knowing it was only his ability to recognize her that stopped him from lashing out at the unexpected contact. She'd learned that lesson a long time ago, when Leonard had been ten and so delirious from fever that he'd bitten her just for trying to check up on him.

"Please!"

Today he didn't so much as twitch.

Lisa wiped away her tears, but she had to blink several times to see through the blur they left behind. Her eyes followed the tubes and wires that connected Leonard to the hospital's machines, lingered on the oxygen mask that covered the bottom of his face, and continued to travel along the hose that pumped air into his lungs as readily as he should've done on his own.

Easier to watch the machines do their work than to look at the pale shadow that had once been her beloved brother. Easier than seeing him, perfectly still, evidence of how badly they had failed to protect him.

Easier. But only just.

A knock at the door startled her from her misery. She gave a start and jerked her hand away, bracing herself for the fallout for daring to touch her brother.

But Henry merely held out a plastic cup. "Coffee?" he asked.

"Thank you," Lisa muttered. She accepted the cup, but she let it warm her hands instead of drinking from it.

"Any reaction?" Henry asked.

Lisa shook her head. "I don't understand. His... his breathing sounds fine. And that...." Her voice broke, and she settled for waving vaguely at the heart monitor. "That. That means his heartbeat is steady, doesn't it?" Fresh tears threatened to spill, and she had to fight to speak coherently. "Why isn't he waking up?"

Henry sighed. "What you're hearing...." he said. "That isn't your brother. It's the machines. Right now he's too weak to breathe on his own."

"My brother is strong!" Lisa snapped.

"I'm sure he is," Henry replied. "But personal strength only goes so far. We calculate that Leonard's experienced a thirty-seven percent blood loss, maybe nearer to thirty-nine."

Lisa frowned. "That... doesn't sound like a lot," she said. "I mean, okay, I guess I could see why he'd be weaker than normal, but—"

"Fatality is highly likely at forty percent," Henry said quietly. "If the guard hadn't found Leonard when he did, you'd be having this discussion with the coroner."

Lisa's retort caught on a whimper.

Henry's eyes, gentle even while scolding her, softened further. "I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have told you that." He crouched by her chair and laid one hand on the armrest, an open invitation for her to take whatever comfort he could offer.

"No," Lisa whispered. "No, I... I'm glad you did. I needed to know." She ignored the hand.

Henry nodded. "He's doing well, though. Much better than I hoped for. We stopped the bleeding, and he seems to be responding well to the transfusion and the medication. Right now the important thing is to replace what he's lost; he just needs help with some basic functions in the meantime."

"Still no idea who did this to him?"

Henry shook his head. "It's an open investigation; the police aren't telling me much of anything."

"I don't see why they'd care!" Lisa spat. "Everyone thinks Lenny shot that security guard anyway. Unless they plan to give a medal to whoever—"

"They have jobs to do, just like I do," Henry said. "Your brother's sentence, as I understand it, was based on the assumption that he hadn't intended to shoot, correct? That he'd done so out of fear, not malice."

Lisa snorted. "You don't know the half of it," she muttered.

"But he can't be rehabilitated—" Henry continued "—nobody can—if the prisoners are allowed to deliver their own version of justice. Whatever the police might think of your brother, whatever security flaw allowed him to be attacked like this needs to be investigated."

Footsteps approached.

"Speak of the devil," Henry said. "Find anything new, Detective?"

Detective Quentin Lance glared down at Henry. "What are you doing here, Allen?"

Henry shrugged. "My job," he replied in a mild tone. "Had a patient to take care of, last time I checked. You want to complain that I'm here instead of Central, take it up with the boss."

Quentin shook his head. "Miss Snart? I've got something I need to discuss with you. If you could come with me...?"

Lisa's darted back and forth between the two men.

"No," Henry growled. He stood up to bar the detective's way into the room. "She is scared and grieving. You are not taking her away from her brother until she has a lawyer by her side."

"Oh, good grief." Quentin sighed. "Excuse us, miss. Allen, a word?"

Henry glared at the cop, but exited the room as requested. "Just make it quick," he said. "I do still have a patient, in case you've already forgotten."

The door clicked shut behind the two men.

"Don't I get a say?" Lisa muttered.

"Apparently not according to those two," Amber replied from the other side of the bed.

Lisa glanced up at the older woman, then back down at her brother.

She looked up again, clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the startled shriek, and jumped out of the chair, upsetting the coffee cup in the process. "A—Amber?" she stammered. "How did you get in here?" She'd been focused on her brother, true, but she couldn't have been that unobservant!

Amber shrugged. "Magic." She winced a second after the word left her mouth. "Sorry; that sounded a little more flippant than I intended."

Lisa narrowed her eyes. "That's not funny."

"Wasn't supposed to be," Amber said. "I mean it; I really can do magic." She gestured in the direction of the spilled coffee cup.

Or rather, the coffee cup that should have spilled. Instead it simply floated in mid-air, upright and full and waiting for her to take it back.

"That's impossible," Lisa whispered. She stared at the cup. "Magic doesn't exist."

"Sometimes impossible just means you don't know the right spell."

"Could you...." Lisa blinked the tears from her eyes again, and faced her old friend. "Could you heal him? If you can do this...." She gingerly prodded the coffee cup before taking it back into her hands.

"That's just a parlor trick," Amber admitted. "I'm afraid healing Leo would be impossible, at least directly. I know the spells, but I can't use them without his permission."

Lisa frowned. "You won't heal him because he hasn't told you it's okay."

"Can't," Amber repeated. "Not won't. This isn't a refusal, it's honestly the way my power works."

"You know he'd let you—"

"Implied consent isn't enough! Look, if I were to cast a spell on you, either you'd have to be a willing participant, or you'd resist it—" Amber nodded at the too-still form on the bed "—instinctively resist it, if conscious choice isn't available. There is no grey area here. It's a defensive mechanism; Leo has to choose to agree for it to work properly. In his present condition, resisting even a healing spell would do more damage than not casting it in the first place."

Lisa's eyes drifted back down to that still form. "He can't exactly choose to agree to anything right now," she muttered.

"So you see my dilemma."

Lisa sniffled, took a deep breath to steady herself, and let the breath out slowly. "So you're saying... you can do impossible magic—which, by the way, could've made a hell of a difference if you'd told us a long time ago—but when my brother needs you the most is the one time you're completely useless?"

"I won't even pretend I didn't deserve that," Amber replied. "And I never told you because it had never been necessary to mention it... unfortunately even that goes with the territory of needing consent. But I'm not completely useless. I may not be able to use my power on Leo, but I can use it on other things. The potency of the medication they're feeding him, the chemical makeup of the transfusion." She glanced at the door. "A computer-generated schedule that assigned a doctor who doesn't give a damn who Leo is—or rather, who the law claims him to be—as long as he's in need of medical care. Little things to speed up his recovery that don't require touching him directly with my power." She grinned. "Or maybe some not so little things. Amazing what a few drops of Lazarus water in the IV will do; I'd drench him in it if I wasn't worried about making everyone suspicious. But at the rate he's going, the doctor will clear him for release in a week."

Lisa opened her mouth to reply, but the door creaked open.

"—need to stop letting them drag you in!" Quentin finished saying.

"Time's up," Henry said. "I need to get back to my patient." He frowned at the sight of Amber. "Who are you?"

"And what do you think you're doing here?" Quentin added.

Amber stood up, gave Henry a smile, and turned to face Quentin. "I represent someone who feels that the events leading to Mr. Snart's conviction were not... thoroughly investigated."

Henry narrowed his eyes.

Quentin snorted. "Yeah, I know, Wells thinks the judge went too easy on him. You can tell him, if he's got another complaint he can go right back to the precinct, but he needs to stay the hell away from Leonard Snart."

"You misunderstand," Amber said. "My task is to protect Mr. Snart's interests until that investigation is satisfactorily concluded. Certainly those interests include his medical care, as well as any protection that he or Miss Snart might require for the purposes of this investigation. Unless you have proof that the two are not related?"

Another whimper escaped Lisa's throat, and she stared, wide-eyed, at Amber. They couldn't be related... could they?

They're not. Lisa forced herself not to jump at the sound of Amber's voice in her head. At least not the way I want the detective to think.

That was not as comforting as it should have been.

Quentin frowned. "Who did you say sent you?"

Amber shook her head. "Plausible deniability, detective. My assistance is strictly off the books for the safety of those concerned."

"Of course it is," Quentin muttered. "Damn bureaucratic red tape."

"In a sense," Amber admitted. "But wouldn't that be the same red tape that forbids you from discussing your investigation in front of the doctor responsible for treating the very man you are investigating?" She glanced at Lisa. "Barring his next of kin's approval, of course."

"Point taken," Quentin admitted.

"Not to mention the handcuffs interfering with that treatment," Amber added.

Henry's scowl turned into a smirk. "Oh, I like her. She might be worth keeping after all."

"You have got to be joking," Quentin growled.

"I doubt he's going to try escaping any time soon," Henry said. "It'll be a couple of weeks if he's lucky before he even regains consciousness."

Quentin glanced at Lisa, turned his gaze back on Henry, and lifted one eyebrow.

Henry sighed. "It isn't safe to move him, detective," he admitted. "The airlift was necessary, and even that could have killed him. Do you honestly believe Miss Snart is foolish enough to risk finishing the job, just to give him a few moments of freedom that he isn't even awake to enjoy?"

If Amber hadn't been there... maybe. It depended on how likely Leonard was to wake up. Lisa didn't want him to die, but if it was a choice between dying while surrounded by guards, or among the few people who gave a damn about him....

But Amber was one of those few, and she and the doctor were both confident in Leonard's eventual recovery. Lisa couldn't risk throwing that away, not on a "what if."

"I know your profession requires you to be cynical," Henry continued, "but really, detective...."

Quentin sighed. "Fine," he said. He walked over to the other side of the bed and pushed past Amber to remove the handcuffs that attached one of Leonard's arms to the bed. "But he has a guard at all times, and these go right back on the instant it looks like he's waking up." He glared at Amber. "As for you...." He sighed again and turned to Lisa. "Miss, if you want a lawyer, that's fine. I get that. But this woman, this... stranger. You don't owe her anything. Your brother doesn't owe her anything. And if she's off the books as she claims, then she sure as hell doesn't owe you anything. We can assign you—"

"I want her here," Lisa said. "And Doctor Allen. I don't care that it's an ongoing investigation, he needs to know anything that can help him take care of my brother. So whatever you've found out—"

"You have no idea how much I appreciate you saying that," Quentin admitted. "That's the problem, though. We think we've found something, but none of us have a clue what it means." He glanced at Amber and Henry, and shook his head. "Warden swears nobody was scheduled to work in the garden that day, and Tell—the guard who found your brother—claims he never saw anyone else in that part of the courtyard."

"I guess he wouldn't have," Henry murmured. "They told me Leonard was found in the evening, after—do people still call it 'roll call?' Anyway, after they realized he hadn't come inside with the other inmates. Even factoring in the severity of his injuries, I can't account for that amount of blood he'd lost unless he'd been laying in that shack for a few hours. Nor was it cold enough for his wounds to ice over like that in a short period of time; that might be the only reason he didn't bleed out, but he's lucky he didn't freeze to death instead." He shook his head. "No, whoever attacked him could've been gone long before Tell showed up."

Quentin nodded. "And no trail to suggest he'd been attacked anywhere else," he said. "Not that there would be with so many people tracking all over. But speaking of his injuries... I'm sorry, miss, if this is a little too vague, but does the name 'Ben' mean anything to you?"

Lisa stared at the detective.

No....

Lisa cleared her throat. "Wh—why do you ask? Did someone m—mention anyone named Ben?" She tried to make herself appear hopeful, and turned to look at Henry. "Did my brother wake up? Just for a moment? Did Lenny say—"

But Quentin and Henry both shook their heads. "You got the images from the operation," the detective said. "The ones we took are at the precinct."

"Right," Henry said. He retrieved the folder with Leonard's medical documents, and flipped through until he found what he was looking for. "I'm sorry; I admit I was hoping you wouldn't ever need to see this." He handed Lisa a single photo.

Amber stared at the photo with a look that Lisa couldn't interpret as anything but horror.

Lisa frowned as she tried to decipher what she was supposed to be looking at. The photo was from the operating room, she realized. Not an x-ray, but a clear image of Leonard's external injuries.

Or as clear as the equipment could manage under the circumstances. The amount of blood against the otherwise-sterile room looked like something from out of a horror movie, not a functioning hospital. Lisa couldn't identify any one critical injury, but there were an awful lot of little ones, easily enough to account for the blood markings.

And some of those markings looked almost like writing....

"Someone wrote the name 'Ben' in Lenny's blood?" she asked. But that didn't make any sense! Surely the marks would have been cleaned up long before he reached the operating table. Or—she swallowed down her nausea at the thought—he should've bled enough for the writing to smear. So how....

"It's not written in blood," Quentin said. "Not exactly. That name was carved into him."