Tess 14: Help Wanted

Starling City, April 18, 2000, 11:45 pm

Tess shot upright in bed, gasping and clutching her stomach.

Harrison stirred at the unexpected movement. "You okay?" he murmured. He reached out to caress her stomach. "Kicking already?"

Tess shook her head. "I think it's too early for that," she replied. "Hormones and cramps, that's all. I'll be fine in a minute."

But the sensation was far more precise than any cramp she'd ever experienced, and it felt so cold that it burned. It felt like someone had just taken a knife and started carving into her. Exactly like had happened to Leonard a few weeks ago... and would happen again if he went back to prison.

In some part of her mind she knew she was being ridiculous, that it was just a combination of pregnancy hormones and the phone call Harrison had received earlier that night. But she also knew, with equal certainty, that she had to do something to save Leonard from that fate. "Harry, I was thinking...."

"Hmm?"

"Well, you said you've got the funding for STAR Labs, right? You're ready to design it and start building?"

"Mm-hmm."

"What did you plan to do about security?"

"Use the same company that did the university," he replied, his voice slurring as he drifted back to sleep. "Don't worry about it. They're experts. They know what they're doing."

"The same experts whose system Leonard broke into," Tess said. "All by himself."

Harrison lifted his head to blink at her. "Well, yeah...." he admitted. "I mean, we'd have to address that, but now that we know how he got in.... Tess, what is this really about?"

"I was just thinking," Tess said, "who really understands more about security than someone who knows how to break into it?"

Harrison frowned. "You... want his advice?"

"Not just his advice," Tess replied, "I want him to work for us. For STAR Labs." She shook her head before he could form a reply. "You said it yourself, this could still be about someone making trouble for him. If he worked for us, that could at least give us a chance to keep him and his sister away from whoever's been threatening them, and give him a chance to be a better person, make a better life for himself at the same time. And I don't doubt we could benefit from his expertise."

"Or he could give these people an easy way in," Harrison pointed out. "I believe that he is genuinely afraid of them. I do. But if that's the case, then that fear is exactly what they've been using to control him; I just can't imagine that giving him a job would be enough to change that."

"You're probably right." Tess sighed. "It was a stupid idea; just my 'mommy' hormones talking. I'm sorry, I should really let you get back to sleep."

But even after she laid back down and let Harrison wrap one arm around her, sleep eluded her.

Judging from the way his breath felt in her hair, sleep eluded him, as well.

—FLASH SIDEWAYS: TESS—

Starling City Jail, April 19, 2000, 9 am

Harrison stood in front of the one-way mirror and watched the man he found slumped inside the interrogation room.

No, not slumped. Leonard looked dejected, certainly, but the way he pressed up against the table, kept his head down and shoulders hunched as he watched the door, spoke more to his fear than to depression; as small of a target as he'd made himself, he looked very much like he expected someone to hit him at any moment.

And with the handcuffs that secured him to the table, he would stand little chance of defending himself if someone did try to attack.

He's hurt us, Harrison reminded himself. Betrayed our trust. Betrayed Tess's trust. He didn't want to work himself back into the rage he'd experienced back when he'd first learned about Leonard's betrayal, but he also didn't want to feel any sympathy for the man.

But the thief looked, as unflattering as the comparison was, like many of the strays Tess tried to rescue from the streets and worse. Even reminding himself that Leonard was almost thirty, easily aware of the consequences of his actions, was not enough to stop Harrison's heart from breaking at the sight before him.

"You said he didn't resist?" he asked the police officer standing next to him.

"Didn't even try," Quentin replied. "Surprising as that sounds. I figured he would've put up some kind of fight after what the other inmates did to him. Then again, I wouldn't have thought he'd go out of his way to get himself arrested again after that." He shook his head. "You know I don't want you here," he admitted. "Not after the last time. I don't know what it is between you two, why you keep showing up whenever he gets in trouble, but I don't like it."

"He, um, he was a guest in our home for a while," Harrison explained. "Before all of this happened. The way I behaved last time.... I thought he'd betrayed our trust."

He chose not to elaborate, to let Tess decide if the police would ever need more than that, but it was enough for the moment. The detective gave a start at the initial admission, and then he relaxed a little, the tension visibly draining out of him.

"And now he's betrayed you for real," Quentin murmured. "Chief said you wanted to know why. Well, we want to know the same thing, but he won't say a word to anyone. You honestly believe you can get answers?"

"I can try," Harrison replied.

Quentin hesitated just a moment longer, then waved him through the door.

Harrison had barely sat down in the single remaining chair before Quentin spoke. "What the hell is wrong with you?" the detective asked. He stood at the end of the table and stared Leonard down.

Or he tried to; apart from registering their entrance, the thief refused to look at either of them and was currently staring at his hands.

Quentin shook his head. "I mean, what had to be going through your head to make you think breaking in to the university was a good idea?" he added, the anger in his voice wavering as Leonard simply failed to react. "Did that concussion a month ago scramble your brain? You, uh, you already served part of the sentence that your old man pinned on you; what, did you think you might as well try to earn it?"

"I thought I was the one he was supposed to worry about," Harrison muttered.

"Oh, shut up," Quentin replied. "Do you remember what the judge told you, Snart? About who he thinks actually deserves harsher penalties than the one you got?" He waited a few seconds, but Leonard continued to maintain his silence. "Well, you're not saying yes, so that must mean you don't remember. How did he phrase it? Oh, that's right, it was a 'continued threat to society.' Now think about this; you've already had a taste of being on the wrong side of the law. Even with the one charge cleared, you still have a criminal record. Do you honestly think there's any judge around who won't see you as a 'continued threat' once you go back on trial?"

"Please don't send me back there," Leonard whispered.

Quentin closed his eyes and sighed. "You gotta know that's not my decision," he replied, finally showing a trace of sympathy for the younger man. "And there's no guarantee you'd be safer anywhere else. Not behind bars, anyway."

The shudder that passed through Leonard's body was so subtle that Harrison almost thought he'd imagined it. The way his knuckles turned white as he gripped his restraints was far more obvious.

Quentin didn't so much as blink at the thief's attempt to suppress his agitation. "If you were willing to answer our questions," the detective said, "we might be able to help you. You might even qualify for witness protection. If you'd just tell us why—"

"It won't make any difference," Leonard said. "No judge would ever understand. You wouldn't understand."

"That's an easy prediction to make," Harrison said, "when you refuse to explain yourself. Saying it, however, does not make it true." He watched Leonard for a few seconds, but the thief appeared to have regained some semblance of control over himself. "Well, since you aren't willing to talk, perhaps you'll listen instead. As much as I hate to admit it under the circumstances, I have to say I'm quite impressed with the way you got in. The Montgomery was designed by the biggest experts in the country; nobody should have been able to hack into it. But you dismantled it, bypassed the security completely and went straight for the power structure. If it wasn't for what appeared to be a minor glitch, you could've been in and out and nobody would've been the wiser."

He expected Leonard to perk up a little at the praise; even accounting for the criminal nature of his actions, most people found it hard not to show some kind of pleasure when someone recognized their skills.

Leonard, clearly, was not most people. If anything, he hunched even more in on himself, and Harrison found himself puzzling over the unexpected reaction until the thief spoke again.

"Of course I did a lousy job," Leonard mumbled, "or I wouldn't be sitting here getting lectured about it."

A startled laugh escaped from Harrison's mouth. "I like how you just skip right past 'biggest experts in the country,' and act like the fact that you didn't break in perfectly is the worst sin imaginable."

Leonard looked up to glower at him for the first time since they'd entered the room. "I'm not going to talk to you if you're just going to mock me." He flinched as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and the glower vanished, replaced once again with that animalistic wariness.

Harrison put his hands up in a faint gesture of surrender. "I'm not mocking you," he said. "I... I only laughed because you surprised me; I was expecting a completely different reaction. I'm sorry." He sighed and put his hands back down. "I just meant, it says something about you. About how valuable your skills are to you." He frowned. "Or is it... how valuable they make you to someone else?"

Leonard dropped his gaze back to the table. "Could you please just go away?"

"In a minute," Harrison. "I just need to know one thing, and then I can leave you alone for as long as you want. Look, your father framed you for a crime you didn't commit, and you nearly died in prison because of that. I just want to know why, after all of that, you decided—on your own as near as anyone can tell—to break into the same place those people did."

"Because I wanted to know why, okay?" Leonard cried out, his control finally beginning to slip. "I wanted to know what was so damn important that they had to make it look like I was involved...." His eyes flicked up to Harrison and back down again. "More involved," he amended. "I thought maybe I could use that information to protect—" He shook his head, stopping himself from finishing that sentence. "I just wanted to know why," he finished in a whisper.

You're wrong, Leonard, Harrison thought. That pressing need to know why, such a fundamental aspect of human nature, was all too understandable to the scientist. And assuming he wasn't referring to their motives from a legal perspective, it implied that he had not yet been disabused of the notion that people always had reasons for even the cruelest of their actions.

But Leonard was also right; it was a reason that no judge would ever accept.

"Protect who?" Quentin asked, pouncing on the thief's lapse. "Your sister?"

But Leonard refused to elaborate.

Harrison frowned. The detective's guess made sense, but something seemed off about it. Tess had made it clear that she believed Leonard had only acted because his sister was being threatened, and yet....

He tried to warn me! I made him choose between us, and then I just threw it in his face.

Harrison nodded to himself. Whether the compulsion to warn Tess had been born of guilt or genuine concern hardly mattered at this point; Leonard had to have known what he was risking and yet he had tried to protect Tess, to find a way to protect her and his sister both, and the attempt had nearly cost him his life.

We nearly cost him his life, Harrison amended. Whether the other crooks had originally meant to leave the thief alone was a matter of debate, but by showing up to spoil the heist, the two scientists might as well have announced Leonard's betrayal for the world to hear.

"Did you find anything out?" Harrison asked.

Leonard shook his head. "I didn't even know what I was looking for."

"Hmm. Well, you're probably not going to like hearing this, but I don't think they knew what they were looking for." Harrison tapped his fingers on the table a few times as he examined his next words carefully. "Just how badly do you want to find out?"

Leonard finally lifted his head up to peer at the scientist. "'How badly?' What is that supposed to mean?"

"That was probably a poor choice of words," Harrison admitted. "Obviously you wanted it badly enough to risk getting arrested again. It's just.... Well, I'm working on setting up my own science labs, getting away from the university and all of their internal politics. And there's something Tess said to me about that last night. Something I was against at the time, but I think I'm starting to see her point. Do you want to know what she said?"

Leonard shrugged.

"She asked me: 'who knows security better than someone who knows how to break in?'"

Quentin stared at the detective.

"But... you already know how I got in," Leonard protested. "I don't see how that's supposed to get answers for anyone."

"I do," Quentin said, "and I think it's a brilliant idea. The DA's office has been trying to push the convict employment programs for years now... community service, rehab...." He gestured at Leonard. "Working off your sentence instead of spending it in prison. That sort of thing. But if you leave it up to the court to handle that sort of thing for you, it's going to take a lot of funding and manpower, two things that are in short supply for anything that's basically unproven. If you and Doctor Wells are willing to work together on this, it could benefit everyone. Assuming that is what Doctor Wells had in mind?"

Harrison nodded. "I can't make any promises," he admitted. "I'd have to run it by the board of directors; even though Leonard was only interested in my research it was still their property that he broke into. But I know Monty—that's the guy who invented the Montgomery security—I know he'd back me up. Hell, he'd probably be pissed he didn't think of it first!"

"That'll be good enough for the DA," Quentin said. "So what'll it be? You want to talk to the DA about giving this idea a try, or would rather try your luck back in prison?"

"I'll talk to the DA," Leonard muttered.