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wednesday
It's not much of a funeral because he wasn't much of a father. Lisa gets a grim kind of satisfaction out of picking the cheapest possible coffin and the most dismal church; it's just a happy coincidence that Lewis died in November, Central City's gloomiest month after March. She records the whole sorry process meticulously just to see the savage little grin she knows she's sporting mirrored on Lenny's face.
Lewis Snart wasn't a man who cared much in life about being missed in death, and it shows now. Maybe three of the people who show up for his funeral are there just to make sure the old bastard's really gone; Lisa really doesn't blame them. There are, of course, a few of the ghouls who show up at every funeral. There's Mick, who never really apologized for disappearing after that last heist but who spent the week after Lenny got taken in for Lewis's death making Lisa's favorites, conspicuously not setting any serious fires anywhere, and who showed up today just because Lisa needed someone and Lenny couldn't be there for her. And, finally, Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow shuffle awkwardly into the chapel, making a beeline for Lisa. It's more than a little unsettling.
"Even Team Flash wouldn't be tacky enough to arrest me at my father's funeral," Lisa says brightly, giving each of them a perfunctory cheek peck just to watch Snow's sputtered denial and Cisco's blush.
"No! Of course not, why would you think—you're fucking with us." Cisco's voice isn't surprised or disappointed. Lisa counts it as a win. "We wanted to be here. Not for your dad, obviously, but…" He trails off uncertainly and glances plaintively at Snow.
"But we know a little about shitty families," she quietly supplies. Her voice makes even profanity sound better, somehow. Cultured. "So. Here we are. Can we help?"
Lisa can't imagine any possible good answer to that question, so she doesn't give one. Instead she examines both Cisco and Caitlin; gives them a careful scan instead of the quick assessment she saves for marks, and is uncomfortably familiar with what she sees. Bone-deep pain, the lines that sharp constant fear carves into your face, the kind of suspicion it takes years to learn.
The compassion in their eyes is new, though. Most of her wants to either burst into tears or punch both of them in their dumb wholesome faces, but she doesn't move at all. For the first time she can't see who she is now in the woman with the shaky soft voice who thanks them both and tells them she's glad they came. She only knows that she hates that woman, the same weak idiot with no spine who tried over and over to prove her worth to a man who wasn't worth the hurt.
Mick's timing is terrible 9 times out of 10. Luckily for Lisa, the last 9 jobs she and Lenny and Mick pulled together went very, very south. True to form, he wanders back over from talking to the undertaker, and the off-key organ starts up just when she needs an easy out.
No tears are shed at any point during the ceremony. No one stands to speak. Lewis Snart receives exactly as much love and compassion in death as he dealt in life.
Afterwards it's just Lisa and Mick by the coffin, silently contemplating the earthly remains of Lewis Snart, father of Leonard and Lisa, husband to Jane. Mick lets a few minutes go by before he kneels down carefully, hocks a wad of spit on the corpse's face, and then rises to his feet, pulling Lisa up with him. "Promised your brother I'd treat you to a burger after all this shit. Come to the Motorcar with me?"
thursday, 4 a.m.
The Motorcar turns into Sinners and Saints, which turns into Lisa sniffling into Mick's shoulder in a corner booth and deciding to be mortified by all of it later. "It's not losing him. It's losing the person he should've been, you know?" she murmurs blurrily.
"Sure," Mick says, his voice echoing anywhere from 2 to 200 feet above Lisa. He's rubbing Lisa's back just like Lenny did in high school when Lisa came home sobbing about friends who weren't actually friends at all or kids who made a game out of hurting girls. "I know, kid. You and Len deserved better."
It'd be bullshit coming from anyone else, Lisa knows. But the thing about Mick is—he doesn't say anything without meaning it. He never makes a promise he can't keep. It's something he has in common with Lenny, even during their most vicious fights. Even when he and Len are almost broken up, like they are now. It's not good for either of them.
"I don't think I'll make it to the Heights tomorrow. Lenny'll want to know how—how it went." Lisa keeps her voice just on the edge of hysterical; thinks I'm sorry, Saint Dismas, I'll light a candle for you, wishes she could believe that praying to anyone at all would make a difference.
Mick's arm tightens around Lisa's shoulder briefly and painfully before he huffs a sigh and relaxes. "You know I'm onto you, right?"
"...No?"
"I'll go in the morning. Christ."
thursday, 4 p.m.
She finally gets the inevitable call from Lenny a good three hours after Mick comes back from Iron Heights the next day; the delay doesn't surprise her at all. It's a very short conversation, maybe seven minutes at most; they only need three, really. Maybe two.
"So it's confirmed," Lenny says. "Ashes to ashes." Lisa expected there to be some trace of emotion in his voice—anger, triumph, some halfhearted version of grief—but his tone stays unnervingly normal.
At least this is the last time we'll have to do this, Lisa thinks. "And dust to dust," she confirms. "You did it, Lenny."
Len's soft, bitter chuckle echoes down the line. "Sorry you couldn't make the main event, sis."
"Oh, don't worry, this was a close second," Lisa says; she's almost (almost) surprised to find that she's smiling now, has been for the duration of the call. "We'll have a grave desecration bash when you're out, though. I'll even invite the Flash, if you want."
"Looking forward to it," Len says wryly. "Love you, Lis."
"Love you too," Lisa says. It's not a sincere goodbye, but Len's isn't either, not really. The hard part for both of them's always been making the call at all.
friday, 7:30 a.m.
Lisa gets up, showers, dresses, eats breakfast, and takes the dog for a walk. Later she wanders over to the farmers market and buys a few pastries for herself and Mick with cash from Lewis's war chest before making her way to the used bookstore a few streets down. Reverse grieving, she thinks giddily, paging through The Long Goodbye and settling on the last few chapters. To say goodbye is to die a little, Chandler says.
Lisa barely notices taking the book over to the cashier, paying, and walking back out through the creaky wooden door. She's too busy wondering which—if any—part of her died with Lewis; too busy realizing she doesn't miss it, whatever it might have been.