[The silence draws out for a long moment after that, as Mick offers up something Rip hasn't yet considered. Chronos had come at them with fiery determination, not because he had been the Time Master's puppet but rather because he'd held onto himself. His rage, the seething anger at Rip and Leonard and everyone else had enabled him to hold on to that last fragment of himself.

But the near resignation Rip can hear now? If that anger has truly dulled, perhaps Mick with this knowledge wouldn't be able to overcome the induction.]

You aren't entirely wrong. [There is no good end to this, not now. As dangerous as it is to reveal too much, knowing too little might be worse, in this case.] After you return to the team, you do indeed prove your worth time and again. But that is not because of the training that made you Chronos.

[He stares into the camera, as intensely as he would if Mick were standing before him.]

It is because you have the strength to withstand the Time Masters taking everything from you. Not Chronos; you.

[Without that spark of humanity, Mick truly would have been lost. So would they all.

He gives Mick the time to let that sink in, to in turn ask what he will next. Considering all that Rip knows, the question itself is rather a loaded one.]

I've told you all many times that time wants to happen. [Certain aspects must always be, although now Rip knows so much of that had been due to the orchestration of the Time Masters and the Oculus.] You are likely right to think that you becoming Chronos is inevitable.

[But Leonard's death--that had truly been an act of free will, hadn't it? At the Oculus itself, where its manipulative effects were negated by the altered flow of time. Mick no doubt would pick up on the omission, however, leaving Rip with limited choice.]

The circumstances of the situation required the death of someone. [That much is fixed and true.] Mr. Snart elected to be that person.