#this one had horseback judging! Rory's first experience with people on horseback!

[abirddogmoment]

My beautiful baby dog absolutely crushed the field trials this weekend and pulled TWO third places over some really competitive and experienced puppies! I'm so so so proud of how she ran this weekend and I'm so happy the judges saw the same potential in her that I do 💛💛

[robininthelabyrinth]

Countless Roads - Chapter 37

Fic: Countless Roads - Chapter 37 - Ao3

Fandom: Flash, Legends Pairing: Gen, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, others

Summary: Due to a family curse (which some call a gift), Leonard Snart has more life than he knows what to do with – and that gives him the ability to see, speak to, and even share with the various ghosts that are always surrounding him.

Sure, said curse also means he’s going to die sooner rather than later, just like his mother, but in the meantime Len has no intention of letting superheroes, time travelers, a surprisingly charming pyromaniac, and a lot of ghosts get in the way of him having a nice, successful career as a professional thief.

———————————————————————————

“Your boys got into a dust-up with the Stillwater gang at the tavern,” Hex tells Rip. “Stillwater’s men have been stealing, robbing, killing people in this town for months. This ain’t gonna help.”

"That's terrible," Ray says. “Well, if they want to continue that, they’ll have to go through us first."

“No, they won’t,” Rip squawks, and for once Len is inclined to agree with him. “Your little ruckus has undoubtedly already placed the timeline at risk, to say nothing of potentially alerting the Hunters to our presence here.”

“Looks like someone’s already planning on busting out of town,” Hex says, sneering. “Again. You always were good at cutting and running, Hunter.”

“A man wearing a Confederate uniform doesn’t really get to talk about cutting and running,” Len says mildly.

“It’s rude to discuss matters to which you have no understanding, Mr. Snart,” Rip says hastily, even as Hex turns on Len and takes a step towards him, eyes narrowed and mouth all threatening-like.

Len seen a lot worse. He glares back.

“My mother was black,” he says pointedly. “Jax is black. Kendra’s black. Feel we’re pretty far along understanding all we need to understand about good ol' Jonah here, however buddy-buddy the two of you may have been back in the day.”

“I had my loyalties,” Hex says stiffly. “And I surrendered myself to the Union army after 1862 rather than betray either my comrades or my disdain of the slave-holding system.”

“The fact that it took you until the Emancipation Proclamation to figure out that the Civil War was about slavery doesn’t say much about your intelligence,” Kendra says, arms crossed. “Uh, no offense.”

Everyone stares at her.

“There a way of taking that that wasn’t offensive?” Hex asks, but he looks more amused than anything else.

“Maybe we should talk about the Stillwater gang,” Ray says hastily. “And how we plan to stop them.”

“Still not seeing how it’s any of our business, Haircut,” Mick says.

“We’re heroes,” Ray says. “We can’t just stand aside and let this town suffer!”

“Well, what about the timeline effects?” Sara says practically. “It’s one thing if the Stillwater gang was a bunch of nobodies who have no impact, but if they end up attacking someone who gets inspired by that incident to shape their belief system and then that person becomes someone influential – stopping that could be bad. Butterfly effect, right?”

“Excellent point, Miss Lance,” Rip says.

"But how does the butterfly effect square with the whole 'time wants to happen' stuff?" Jax asks, frowning.

“Gideon, why don't you check the timeline?" Rip continues, ignoring him.

He probably doesn't have a good answer.

“As it happens, no member of the Stillwater gang has a significant impact on history,” Gideon says. “In fact, the only individual in the town who does is one Herbert George Wells, a young boy, and he's not listed as having any life-changing incidents during this period.”

“Then we can interfere!” Ray exclaims. “Listen, guys, it's actually all pretty simple. There’s a town being terrorized by this gang, and I aim to do something about it.”

“You 'aim to',” Len says dryly.

“Haircut’s going native,” Mick says, smirking.

“I think it’s admirable,” Kendra says firmly, but her attention is elsewhere. “Uh, Sara, can I borrow you for a minute?”

The girls head off their own way.

Ray goes back to town to talk to the sheriff, Hex accompanying him – Rip having opted, yet again, to remain on the ship for reasons of his own.

Ray walks out with a sheriff’s badge pinned onto him and a gigantic grin.

“Oh, he’s gonna be insufferable now,” Len says, covering his eyes with his hand.

“Nevertheless, it is our duty as his teammate to back him up,” Stein says with a sigh. “Come along, Jefferson; it’s best if we stick together. Let’s go ask for a map or something at the tavern.”

That just leaves Len and Mick.

“There isn’t even anything here worth stealing,” Len complains to Mick, who nods in pained agreement.

“I’ve gathered up some other ghosts for you, sir,” Grace says, floating over to him. She points at a massed up crowd, some way distant. “I’ve asked them to stay back for now, though.”

“Well, that’s thoughtful,” Len says, noticing absently that James is nowhere in sight. “So, what is it you want the life in order to –”

At just that moment, an actual honest-to-god posse on horseback ride into town, shouting and firing guns.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Len groans, burying his face in his hands.

“We should find high ground,” Mick says, heading off purposefully.

Len grabs a rifle and follows.

Ray, of course, walks straight up to the guy. “This here town’s under my protection.”

The man sneers. “And who the hell are you?”

“John Wayne,” Ray says. “Salvation’s new sheriff.”

“Did he just –” Mick starts.

“Don’t,” Len says. He can feel a headache developing.

Grace’s still floating by.

“We can talk later,” Len tells her.

She nods, though she looks a little annoyed.

“– my boys ride into town whenever we want and take whatever we want,” the guy in charge says. “In exchange, we don’t kill the whole lot of you, the whole town. But the arrangement’s over now, little man. And given that there’s only one of you –”

Let it never be said Len doesn’t know his entrance lines.

He shoots the gun out of the leader’s – Stillwater? – hand, making his horse rear up and making the man have to take some time to calm it.

Ray smirks. “You get out of town and you don’t come back, or the next bullet’s in your eye,” he says. “I’ve got sharpshooters all around.”

“Boss,” one of the gang says. “The guy at the bar could also shoot a gun out of a man’s hand…”

“Probably the same guy,” Stillwater scoffs, twisting around in his seat to look to see where the shot came from. He sounds a little doubtful, though.

Len ducks down and shoves the gun at Mick, who stands up pointedly.

“There,” one of the gang says.

“Different guy, boss,” another reports.

“Fine,” Stillwater spits. “Let’s ride, boys!”

And then they all gallop out.

“Dude,” Jax says from the door of the tavern. “That was badass.”

“Running a bad guy out of town’s always been on my bucket list,” Ray replies gleefully.

“You lot ain’t nothing but trouble,” Hex says, scowling. “You just keep on poking that hornet’s nest.”

“Hey,” Jax protests. “He saved the town!”

“Today, sure,” Hex says. “What about tomorrow? Day after? For a bunch of time travelers, you don’t seem to understand much about the future. One day you’re gonna leave, and Salvation will end up like Calvert.”

“What’s Calvert?” Ray asks.

It turns out to be some town in Oklahoma that a guy named Quentin Turnbull razed to the ground, and it turned out that Rip had been there – Rip had actually moved in, gone native, and stayed there nearly half a year. The day after he’d disappeared, the whole place had been destroyed.

That, presumably, was why Rip was keeping to himself this mission.

“That would’ve been nice to hear from Rip,” Jax says, but shrugs. “Okay. So what do we do now? We can’t stay forever.”

“If you want to save this town, really save it, that means we have to find and destroy the Stillwater gang for good,” Hex says. “And that means finding and arresting Stillwater himself. With him gone, the rest of them will scatter like rats.”

“I have a map,” Jax says, holding it out to Hex, who snatches it. “And directions. Grey got them from the barkeep. He went back to the ship to get a kid some medicine.”

“Won’t that be a timeline problem?” Ray asks.

“Ask yourself if Grey cares,” Jax says wryly.

“This information’s good,” Hex grunts, ignoring them. “Based on this, I know where the Stillwater gang is holed up. We can go get ‘em.”

They go pick up more guns and a set of horses, some of which come from gang members they’d beaten up earlier.

Len – who’s already armed – leads his horse out to the area behind the stables to practice getting up on it. He’s not that familiar with the mechanics of horseback riding and he’s not particularly pleased about the idea of practicing in front of a judging audience.

“Pardon me,” Grace says from behind him as Len swings himself onto the horse the way people do in the movies – one leg in the stirrup, then up and over. It works pretty well, likely thanks to how tall he is.

Attempt to climb giant beast, successful. Go Len!

Oh, wait, giant beast is moving, what the fuck.

Not good, not good, not good!

Okay, gripping with the legs seems to work –

“Regarding your offer of life…?” Grace says, coughing a little.

“Sorry, yes,” Len says. “Gimme a minute, this – okay, whoa, whoa, boy! – this isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“Have you never ridden a horse before?” she asks, distracted.

“Not unless you count carousel horses,” Len says. “And one traumatic near-riding experience when I was younger, but that didn’t actually ever go anywhere.”

That seems to put her off a bit. “I see,” she says. “Regardless, I wanted to talk about your earlier offer.”

“Sure thing,” Len says. “Tell me, what is it that you’d like to do with –”

“Len!” Mick shouts from the front of the stable. “We’re riding out!”

“Damnit,” Len says. He hasn’t entirely figured out ‘go’. “Sorry, Grace,” he tells her. “We’ll talk about it later.”

He tries kicking at the horse’s sides.

Lo and behold, it works! He is achieving forward motion!

“City boy,” Mick sniggers when he sees him.

“Shut up,” Len says cheerfully. He’s in way too good a mood to let little things (like Mick’s perfect form on a horse) get to him. “We going to get them?”

“Hell yes,” Jax says.

“Where’s Stein?” Mick asks.

“Still with the medicine,” Jax says. “It’s fine; Rip took the time to swing by and re-emphasize how much we really shouldn’t be using any future tech or anything.”

“Well, if I get shot, I’d appreciate some future tech healing me,” Len drawls. “So, you know, don’t take him too much to heart.”

“Got it, boss,” Jax says with a grin.

“Y’all gonna keep flapping your mouths or you gonna come do some real good?” Hex asks.

“Flapping, clearly,” Mick says. “Speaking of doing 'good', how much of a bounty you gonna get from these guys, again?”

Hex glares.

“We’re allied for the sake of the town,” Len says. “You still haven’t given us a reason to like you, Mr. Confederacy; remember that. Let’s go.”

They ride forth.

At one point, Len notices when he turns to say something to Mick that Grace is still standing where he left her. That’s strange.

Then Ray comments that it would’ve been nice to have Sara on this mission and Hex replies with something offensive about their “fillies”, apparently referring to Sara and Kendra wandering off on their own, and Len has to turn back to stop Hex from getting shot by the more progressive members of their little group, and he forgets all about it.

“Time-era appropriateness,” Len reminds them. “Remember, just because he walks and talks like a racist stereotype doesn’t mean he’s actually as stupid as he comes off.”

“You fellows are real good company,” Hex growls.

“What, did Rip never mention any of this stuff?” Ray asks.

“No.”

“Look at me,” Len says. “Surprised that Rip Hunter managed to fail to mention something.”

Luckily, that manages to get a laugh out of the whole group, and tensions fade.

And then, because plans are apparently for idiots, not cowboys, Hex leads them straight into the gang’s camp without giving them a chance to pause and talk strategy.

Maybe he's where Rip got it from.

“Jeb Stillwater,” Ray announces in his most grandiose voice. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney –”

“There won’t be Miranda rights for another hundred years,” Len snaps.

And that, unsurprisingly, is when the shooting starts.

There are a lot more of the gang than there are of them. Len has his ghosts, though, and that would probably even the score –

“Don’t you dare, boss!” Mick calls to him. “Remember, no general-ing!”

Right. Len’s trying to avoid calling on large groups of ghosts. Need to ensure that he doesn’t try to take over the world.

Not that taking over the world as it exists in 1871 would be fun in any way other than to establish an iron-fisted progressive state…

No. None of that.

Even if it would be funny.

“Fall back!” Hex shouts. “We have Stillwater! Fall back!”

They turn the horses around – some judicious yanking on the reins by Len helps convince his particular horse to think about turning, but the loud sounds of the guns helps incentive it even more, Len finds – and start getting out of there.

And then, just when he thinks they’re free and clear, a lasso flies out of the dark and loops around Jax, pulling him backwards off his horse.

“Jax!” Ray shouts.

“We’ve got to go!” Hex shouts in return.

“Not without Jax!” Len bellows.

“We got Stillwater! We’ve got leverage over ‘em, we can trade him back to the gang in exchange for your buddy,” Hex argues. “Live to fight another day or die tonight.”

“Fuck that,” Mick says. “Boss?”

“Go get him, Mick,” Len says, glaring at Hex. "Jax is black, you asshole; they might just lynch him before daybreak on the grounds that no one would bother trading a man worth a bounty for a black man."

Mick jumps off of his horse – damn, his form is good; you could film a movie of just that and Len would be entranced – and sprints back towards the gang.

“Your friend’s gonna die,” Hex tells Len.

“Oddly enough,” Len drawls, “I don’t think that’s gonna be the case. C’mon, let’s get Stillwater back to the ship.”

He doesn't want to trust Ray alone with this guy - less because he thinks Hex will pull something, and more because he thinks Hex will successfully talk a still-too-trusting Ray into something stupid.

They’re about halfway there, Len hanging back from the others a bit because his horse seems to be intent on moving at a slow walk instead of a trot and all the kicking in the world doesn’t seem to be helping, when Grace appears right in his way.

Len grabs instinctively at the reins, making the horse buck and him swear.

"Grace, what is it?" he asks. "How can I help you?"

"Oh, you can help me quite a bit," she says. "You know how. Your life."

"I told you –"

"Later," she hisses. "Oh, yes, later, always later – well, I'm tired of waiting for a later that will never come!"

Oh, shit.

Len throws himself to the side, leaping off the horse and rolling badly onto the ground as she reaches for him, her eyes glowing white. She's only a minor poltergeist – he should be able to hold her off until –

Someone grabs at Len's shoulder.

Len wrenches himself away, twisting sharply to break their grip, but not before he feels that awful nauseating sensation of his life being sucked out of him by force.

Unquiet dead.

Len puts his back to a tree, even though he knows it won't help.

It's not just Grace, either; it's the whole group of them that she introduced the second time she came to him – the time when James was strangely absent –

"You gathered up unquiet dead," Len says, and has to leap to the side as one of them charges him. He escapes that one, but another grabs him by the hip, scooping out another handful of life. "What happened to James?"

"He didn't agree," Grace says, her pretty face still twisted in anger. "He didn't understand – for people with power, it's later – always later –"

"Not that I don't sympathize with that notion," Len says, hissing and ducking forward when another ghost's arm comes through the tree to gouge out more life from his back. "But if you keep up with this, you're gonna kill me!"

"So be it," Grace says indifferently.

"Damnit, if you just waited a little, I'd be happy to give you assholes what you wanted!" Len snarls and looks around. Hex and Ray are gone, with Stillwater. Mick is rescuing Jax.

He reaches inside himself for his power, intending on calling up some friendlies, but Grace herself darts forward and slams her arm right into his belly.

The sheer wrongness of it knocks the breath out of his body.

"Don't call for more of us," she says. "There's more than enough of us here already. Don't let him speak!"

And then they're on him, ghostly fingers scrabbling at him, hurting him, bearing him down the ground, pulling at him, and Len has a lot of power now, more than he ever did before, but he's still not an endless sieve of it.

"Stop!" he hears someone call.

"James!" Grace hisses.

And then the friendlies come – few of them, very few, damnit, he's too new to this era, he shared willingly with too few of them; he should have listened to Mick – and they wade in to help him, pulling the unquiet dead off of him.

But they're slow and he's getting weaker, and he doesn't want to risk Jax's life but he doesn't want to risk his own, either.

"Mick," he croaks, pushing ghostly fingers away from his mouth. "Mick!"

The second one came off as more of a gurgle than a proper yell.

"Mick!"

That was better, louder. Still not much – but then, Mick didn't need Len to be that loud.

"Shut up!" Grace screams, and shoves her hands into his chest. "Shut up and give it to us!"

"Get your goddamn hands off of him," Mick's blessedly familiar voice roars.

He's come.

"Mick," Len says, or tries to. His tongue is too thick for his mouth. He's slurring.

He's dying.

There are too many of them.

Mick roars above his head. The sound is filled with pain - not just pain at Len dying, but his own pain, pain of the unquiet dead lashing out at him.

If Len dies of the grasping hands, of the fire in his brain, of the choking death, Mick will be left alone.

No.

"Come," Len gasps, throwing his power out where his voice does not reach. "Come and fight for me."

And they come, his dead, his legions, his friendly followers, they come to him, they come for him, they come to fight on his behalf.

The dead of the war between the states, the dead of the clashes between the tribes and the white men who came ever onwards, the dead of the West –

They come to him, howling in rage.

And they rip the unquiet dead off of him, tear them off, and he can breathe free again.

His hands are clenching, his back arching, his muscles spasming, his legs kicking –

But he can breathe.

Len sucks in the air, filling his lungs. He ignores the shouts and screams of the dead around him, clashing against each other. It means less than nothing; his dead will take care of it.

His Mick will take care of it.

"– boss! Boss!"

Len opens his eyes. He's lying on the cold, dark ground, his back propped against a tree. Why?

There's a young black man kneeling above him, concern in his eyes. His hands are outstretched. He does not appear to be a threat, but he is not one of Len's ghosts.

"What?" Len rasps.

"How you doing?" the young man asks. "You okay?"

Such an inane question. Where are Len's ghosts? They will help him without badgering him.

"Where," Len says, but the strength fails him. His ghosts, he needs his ghosts – his legions –

"Lenny?" someone else asks. "You okay?"

Len sneers. What a stupid question. Of course he's not! And this, to come from one of his own, no less. He needs his ghosts, to come to him, to defend him –

"Lisa needs you."

It takes a second to register, but when it does, Len's belly seizes up with fear. Not Lisa, no –

He looks up. Jax and Mick are looking down at him.

"Where," he starts, trying to convey the urgency, that he needs to find her, help her, protect her – then he thinks about it for more than half a second. "When?"

Mick exhales and crouches down. "Good to have you back, boss."

"What?"

"You sure he's back?" Jax asks. "He hasn't even moved as far as 'how'."

Len painfully uncurls a finger in his right hand. Just one.

Jax laughs. "Okay, yeah, he's back." He reaches forward and clasps Len's shoulder for a moment. "Don't scare us like that, okay? We've only got one of you, boss."

Then he stands and walks off.

Len looks after him in confusion. Then he looks at Mick in question.

Mick shakes his head. "You lost yourself for a few minutes there. Megalomania. Not just that, though; it was worse than before. You forgot – everything. Even Jax."

Len swallows.

"It's okay. We got you back."

"Thanks," Len says. He swallows again, sitting up, though he needs Mick's arm to do it. "I'm back."

"I know." Mick's voice is fond. Concerned, yes, but fond.

"What happened?"

"Well, Ray and Hex got Stillwater back to town without noticing you’d fallen behind, the Waverider is now guarded by what feels like a full on legion of invisible ghosts, the Stillwater gang has notably increased its respect for and belief in the supernatural nature of this forest, and I think they're going to challenge us to a duel at high noon. For the town. Way for ‘em to save face before getting the hell out of Dodge."

"Not Ray."

"No, don't worry. No one is so stupid as that. Rip'll do it."

"And?"

"And I'll keep an eye from a distance."

"Good."

"You, on the other hand, will be spending some quality time with Gideon's med bay. That was the nastiest attack we've had in years."

"How many?"

"Dozens. Hundreds, maybe. First you nearly died, then you went all megalomaniac on us for a bit…It was bad, Lenny."

That sounded bad.

"Well, I survived," Len says, shaking his head even as he stands up and starts walking, very gingerly, towards the ship. "And I wasn't on a horse. So, you know, you win that argument."

"What argu—wait. You mean the one about you not being safe behind the wheel? I can't believe you even remember that."

"I remember when someone warns me about the dangers of falling off a horse," Len says. "Especially shortly after I have to jump off of one."

"Technically, you jumped off of one to avoid falling off of one during an attack –"

"That doesn't make you right."

They bicker all the way through the camps – literal camps, because you can take the man out of the army but apparently he’ll bring along his tent – of ghosts guarding the Waverider. They're almost at the ramp when Len hears it.

"—Snart!" a distant voice calls. "Grazhdanin Snart! I must speak with him!"

Len frowns. Grazhdanin is the Russian word for fellow-citizen; even if 1980s Russia hadn't featured it pretty heavily, old Vanya back in Iron Heights, an old Russian gangster who'd protected Len from his dad in one of his earlier stints in the can and taught him all the Russian he knows, had taught it to him early on.

"What is it, boss?" Mick asks.

"Exactly how many Russian communists would you expect there to be in the Wild West?" Len asks.

Mick frowns as well.

Len turns. "Let me see who it is," he calls, and his voice doesn't even go into echoes, good.

"I don't like this," Mick grumbles. "Maybe they're up to something."

"You'll stop them if they are."

The ghosts part and another ghost hurries through, aiming right for him.

A woman, powerful but weary, in a great big peacoat and a rifle –

"Svetlana?" Len exclaims.

"You know her?" Mick asks, surprised.

"Yes, we spoke – but that was in Russia. In 1985. How could she be here? Now? And still know my name? I mean, even if she wasn't so obviously a Night Witch from World War II, she's Russian -"

"I'd like an answer to all that," Mick says, lips pressed together. "I've had enough nasty surprises."

"Grazhdanin Snart," Svetlana says, coming close. "I have found you! I began to fear – but no matter. I have an update."

"What's the update?" Len asks. "And while we're at it, how did you get here? To this time, to this place?"

"The two answers are related," she says. "I took you at your word and followed the man in Moscow – Master Druce, his comrades call him."

Len blinks. "Wait," he says. "You followed him..?"

"I entered his ship, or rather, those of his three servants," Svetlana confirms. "It repelled me, but I persisted."

"Well done Svetlana," Len says, impressed. Even Mick, the only other ghost Len knows to have been willing to enter a time ship for more than a few moments, looks impressed by it.

She flashes a quick smile. "Thank you, Grazhdanin. But more important: they have followed you here."

"Of course they have," Mick growls. "Funny how Rip's hiding spot turned out not to be all that great for hiding."

"They suspected he would come here," Svetlana confirms. "He was here in the past; he has an attachment to the place. They have come here and plan to ambush you during the duel."

"Duel – the shootout at high noon?"

"Yes, yes, that. But there is more: they have changed orders. They are to kill you now."

"They weren't trying to before?" Mick asks.

"No," Svetlana says. She sounds very sure. "Not to kill. Only to chase."

"To capture, you mean," Len says.

"No," Svetlana says. "To chase only. They say this is an operation; they rely upon Rip Hunter to guide you."

"Hold up. He's with them?" Len asks, alarmed. If that's the case, they're screwed – and Len isn't the judge of character he thought he was –

But Svetlana is shaking her head. "No," she says. "It's a plot. A sting. He does what they expect. Only – they did not expect you to come so close to succeeding. Too dangerous."

"Close to succeeding," Len says. "You mean – in the 50s, when we nearly got Savage? They don't want us to kill Savage?"

"Makes sense," Mick opines. "What with them not wanting to change the timeline and firing Rip and all that."

"But then what's the sting part of it?" Len asks. "Why let Rip – why let us – do what we're doing? Why chase instead of kill or capture right off the bat?"

"Maybe we're not supposed to kill him until the moment is right?" Mick suggests.

"Then why’d they decide to kill us now?" Len scowls. "Something stinks."

“Stinks or not is unimportant,” Svetlana says impatiently. “The Hunters are going after the others now.”

Len looks at Mick. Mick looks back.

“Don’t you dare,” Mick says.

“We’ll need all the help we can get to fight them, if they're that tough,” Len points out.

“We will not,” Mick says, crossing his arms and glaring the way he does when he's really serious about something. “You are going to stay on the Waverider and get your brain looked at to make sure there wasn’t any damage. I’m gonna go warn the others –”

“But –”

“Boss. I’ll take half of the ghostly army we’ve got on our doorstep with me, okay? But I don’t think we’ll even need ‘em. If we’re prepared for these Hunter assholes, we can ambush them with just the forces we've got.”

Len thinks about protesting, but his head is hurting and he still feels vaguely cotton-mouthed. He probably won’t be of much use even in the best case scenario. Still… “If you need help –”

“I’ll send a ghost,” Mick promises. “So that you can get Gideon to come blast them from the sky. But trust me – you won’t need to.”

“Fine,” Len grumbles, conceding the point, and finally climbs onto the Waverider. “Gideon,” he says, once inside. “I need a brain scan.”

“Certainly, Mr. Snart,” Gideon says, sounding somewhat puzzled. “Is there a particular reason?”

“How familiar are you with the symptoms of epilepsy…?”