strongerthanyouknow | Current Legends of Tomorrow/Arrow (2018-2019 Seasons)

Current Legends of Tomorrow/Arrow (2018-2019 Seasons)

Sara closed down everything early tonight, never returning to her office after dinner, with a single nod toward Mick, before returning to her room. Turning over and over the small, strangely shaped thing John had brought to her. That he'd said should work as long as she was holding it. That it should only work for her, but that it wasn't a perfect conduit. If it worked.

If she didn't upset all of hell and time doing it.

Which could be half arrogant bullshit, but gave her a little pause to stare at.

But it didn't stop her sitting on her bed, turning it over and over in her fingers. Then, scooting back until her back found the wall on the far edge of her bed. Taking a deep breath and trying to calm her mind. Her jangling want for it to work. The low grade current of deeply tangled emotions from the moment she got to Star, too late to do more than see her father dead and Oliver walked off to jail.

The jail he was still in, even when her father was well under the ground now.

Sara breathed in. Then, breathed out again.
Focused on the idea. The hope. The thread of concern.
Focused on Oliver's face. So many different flickers of it.

In that hospital hallway. In the Star news. Eyes edged in green leather. Smiling at her.
The last time he hugged her, when the worlds were all blurred and they had that last quiet second.
The last time she was in Star, before the last time, fighting at his side, when The Legends were done.

Here went nothing.

Oliver?

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Pain.
Bruises still healing, stitches hasty and strained from a sub-standard clinic. A wicked stab wound in his own side.

Small wonder he can't sleep, even in the hard cot he'd been afforded. Restless and tired, too ill at ease to sleep so he allows his mind to drift to the past. Better times.

Blonde hair in the sun.
Laughter and small hands and warmth he's come to miss in the cold and dark of prison.

The voice snaps him awake, sitting up suddenly enough to send his nerves firing in protest. Eyes flicking through the shadows, wondering if she'd found some way to get to him in prison from her ship.

Sara?

It's hard to explain, the way everything filters, and shifts like the whole world don't tilt, but doubles. Sounds. Shadows. Thoughts. Feelings. A flash of surprise snapped bright, speed, and something that's definitely pain, aged and new both, none of it hers, and then Oliver's own voice rushing into the space of the silence, cut under by intense focus, confusion, tension, under it all like a taut, vibrating wire.

All of it making Sara's fingers dig a little into the black of the jeans over her ankles.

Is that you?

I guess I will have to break that streak of not thanking John for anything.

Constantine. His head tips back against the cold concrete with a faint and very rare smile. I should have known.

Relief.
Comfort.
It's enough to know that he isn't alone because it's Sara. Bright, strong, always there when he needs her most. The relief is strong enough to chase away the pain.

Are you all right?

Yeah. He's-- Is that just a muddle of not quite words, thoughts, feelings, and Sara herself looking at the ceiling, not even quite having words. At least none she wants. At least none she wants to say to Oliver. Or anyone. --been around for a little while now. Demons, and dragons, and unicorns around here. It's a non-stop creature shop.

But I'm pretty sure I should be asking you that question.

At least I'm actually in my own bed to be doing it.

How are you doing?

Is it strange that in the question, there isn't any fear?

Edited 2018-11-05 02:26 (UTC)

Fine. A shift, a grimace, a burst of pain that's easily ignored just as easily as the blood on his fingers is ignored. He has work to do in Slabside. A Demon to find. A man to avenge for Sara. For Laurel. For himself.

So. Demons and unicorns? Sounds like a hell of a party.

You know, comes without any hesitation, but still waits for him to finish first even. Like she's in no rush overrun his words either, no actually driven to snap back. If you're going to lie to me, you could at least do me the favor of making it more entertaining.

The flick of amusement as the followup commends itself as Sara shifts to lay down, making sure to follow John's instructions. Skin contact with the small thing. Or at least compliment me on having the ~decency~-- That with something of a twang of delighted rudeness (that whispers audacity). -- to wait until you were married, this time, to pull you into my bed again.

Sara rested the strange small device on the bare skin of her breastbone, pressing it for a second just to be sure, before folding her hands on her stomach. Calm and centered beyond the faint taunt that was more old and worn in than anything. Allowing him the lie, allowing an old joke, allowing them both to know it's hell and words don't make that better.

Especially when it's so easy, to simply shift to.

Is the food terrible? I always hate it more when the food is just an annoyance.

Oliver is exhausted. In pain. Being in Slabside is just like Lian Yu, forcing him to remain constantly vigilant, constantly on guard. But in moments like this he can remain calm. Centered. Focused on his target.

A quiet smile as he curls into the comfort of a familiar voice, a familiar soul that knows him better than anyone in this world. She's giving him a brief moment of badly needed solace and she knows it. There's no boat this time though.

It's food. Passably. Enough to keep me going. Enough to keep him working. Enough to keep him moving towards his target and towards his goal. For his family, he can and he will do this.

How's the ship?

Speak for yourself. My boat is the best boat, Oliver Queen.
Better than your boat ever was. A faint smirk. Boat. Ship. Whatever.

But she gives him the answers. Fills the space with the sound of her voice, even in her head, marveling at the fact this is working at all. Gideon & Mick still keep forcing me to stop and eat now and then, and Mick is probably going to kill John in his sleep, if John doesn't drink and smoke himself into oblivion first. Ray & Nate are...well, Ray & Nate. Sara looks toward a wall. Things are still sorting themselves out with Z. You know.

The things they are supposed to do, but that are sometimes tiring. The whole being real. Being people. Leaders. The whole small, soft steps that made a team, and a team into something like a family, which was even more true with the Legends. Even if the other team didn't see it. The unending close quarters.

You haven't actually broken anything off this time, that can't be reattached, right?

I'm not entirely certain how this all works, Sara shifts her head, with a raise of her eyebrows. But I know what that feeling is, even if not what it really is. But it isn't mine. Gideon does a really good job of making them forget the states I get myself into.

Edited 2018-11-05 17:48 (UTC)

Best ship, best Captain. Oliver closes his eyes and loses himself in her voice. Sunshine and careless updates curled with fond amusement at her rag tag bunch of Legends-turned-family. Yeah. John's a challenge on a good day.

The question gives him pause and he shifts a bit against the wall, trying to take some of the pressure off the wound in his stomach. Not yet. Because he doesn't know how far this is going to take him, how many more battles he's going to have to fight before he takes down Diaz.
Before he avenges Quentin Lance and secures safety for his family.

It isn't, he confirms. This is Lian Yu again. But this time I have a target I have to reach.. Simply thinking the name of the island should be enough to impress on Sara just how bad things are in Slabside. How bloody and desperate.

She lets her thoughts about his last words spool, not entirely wanting to share them, to have them overheard but there is no shame in them either. She wants him safe. She always does. Always will. Can’t have that. The same way he can’t have her safe. Or home. The same way it’s probably best for those closest to them it only happens for a handful of days every year, few years.

The same way this is who they are, for better or worse. Usually for worse, for those around them. Who don’t understand. Who weren’t made the same way they were. In blood, in pain, in exacting action.

If you need me—

It’s starts slow, cobbling itself together backward.
Stopping, restarting. With the more important part. I trust you.

If you say you have to do this, I trust you. Whatever it takes.
I know you’re going to come out the doors on the other end.

But if you change your mind later, if you get in too deep, or if you even only just want out? You want help to take down that bastard? If the flicker of feelings of imagined images at that one are beyond brutal, beyond ready, beyond willing, Sara has no repentance. No remorse. No shame. Not in her father’s name. Not even if he’d hate to see her at it.

That happens?

You tell me and we’ll come running.

And if she doesn’t say it, doesn’t say she’d let the world’s burn and the magic monsters eat time and leave the Bureau in fall out, maybe it’s there, too. That there’s so little left for Sara to lose of the Sara who is almost all but gone now, and she’d choose him over the whole of it. Time. The Legends. (Ava.)

But only on his terms, too.
They’ve never forced each other.
They don’t doubted what each other can do.

But they’d never leave each other thinking they were alone either.

I know.

He knows it all. He knows what she means, why she slows her thoughts and backtracks a step. There is perfect and unspoken trust between them. If he needs to do this alone, if he needs to suffer this alone she will trust that he handles it. Still, Sara can trust him to speak if it goes too far, if he needs to call for help.

If Sara comes, it would be at the expense of everything. Time. Her ship. Everything that she has built.
He can't let that happen.
Won't.

Still. If he did need help, Sara is the one person in this world or any other that he trusts to do what needs to be done.

I'll remember.

A vague curl of weary amusement. And if I come out of this, maybe I can stow away on the Waverider for a while.

She does trust him. More than breathing. Enough to be gone months. Years.

It doesn't mean she isn't concerned, but her concern isn't the same kind of creature as most other people's. It not a clinging, choking vine. It's not a commentary on capabilities. It's something deep-seated and long-lived. It's about a want for better, intertwined with an unflinching, unblinking acceptance of their actual reality.

Actual being. Who they are. Who he is.

His last words flick her mouth into the smallest smile.
I think I could find you a closet for that.

If there's a warm thrill that trills somewhere among the shadows about Oliver nearby, living and fighting, and just somewhere close, to her, more than in clicks and whispers, she doesn't shy from that honesty with embarrassment or shame either. What would be the point? It's as transparent as the pragmatic-concern, or rage, or violence, and it's never been anything less than an accepted part of this for all their years, too.

The conversation is a warm and quiet comfort in the hell that is Slabside. A moment of solace and peace for the first time in longer than Oliver would like to consider.

Eventually the contact allows him to drift, to rest for just a few moments. A dozy thank you to Sara before his world goes dark and soft and calm.

Then Diaz happens.
Then the riot at the prison.
More violence, more blood.
Laurel-not-Laurel and he still hates her for what she cost them. Quentin.

The violence and the loss doesn't stop with his release.

Felicity.
Iris telling him, believing he was her Barry, her reaction to what he'd done and the deal that he'd made.

So with the Monitor dealt with, with their lives back where they should be, Oliver makes a call from STAR labs.

Think you've still got that closet empty?

Sara skims the words quickly, only for a second between listening to Ray and Nate ramble-bickering about the further proof or disproof of the multi-timelined-multiverse based on John, Zari, and Charlie's stories that way they do that isn't, and always seems to end in hugs, or fist bumps, or high-fives like a reminder to Sara that people like this even exist. Somehow.

(Anything that doesn't remind her how many people she killed in those stories. Again.)

Depends. Do I get to hide in it with you?

The reply is almost immediate and Oliver can breathe easier as he sees the dots dancing across the screen. The team in Central is far more welcoming. Kinder.
.. well aside from that whole Pipeline incident.

They won't abandon Barry. They won't betray him. He can leave for a while and know that his friend, his brother, is safe.

Always.

I can't stay in Star.

Her phone buzzes once, while she's pretending to nod at something for Nate.

Then it buzzes again. Sara's mouth is a faint fnd tug, as she looks down again, glad enough for the distraction -- that neither Nate or Ray really need her in this talk, they can carry the whole thing without her, probably will all day -- and it freezes. Makes her glance at his first words. Makes a number of small micro-reactions suddenly slide across everything, blot out everything, removes the voices near her.

I could probably rustle up an actual bed.

Then.

This a whole ship, or a jump ship thing?

She can trust the ship won't blow up if she's gone a short jaunt. That between Mick and Zari (and when did it start being Zari, but somehow it is; like Amaya, and Kendra, Zari, too, maybe) things probably really won't explode.

But it's, also, a benchmarker. A question that isn't the question it sounds like.
How bad. How bad are they talking, if it means he can't stay.

Jump ship.

Crowds still make him uneasy and while he doesn't have anything against anyone on Sara's crew, Oliver isn't ready to socialize. Ray. Nate. Rory. John fucking Constantine. He can talk to them later, but only after he's got a bit of distance from Star City and the life he can't continue to pretend is even close to what he wants or needs.

I'm at STAR labs with Barry.

Not only can he not stay in Star.
He's not in Star right now.

Sara looks up, the noise crashing back in, for a moment.

"Boys, boys," Sara says with an exaggerated wave of hands, and a far too calm, pointed yet unperturbed expression, especially for how tight the muscles in her shoulders are sliding into being. "How 'bout you take this somewhere else for a while?"

There's some waffled complaining but they don't mean it, and they are already right back at it before they are out her door and well at it down the hallways, when Sara is flipping her message box and sending a message to Mick first.

I have to take to make a pickup. I shouldn't be gone long.

She hopes its true. But Mick knows the level of anything that would need her off the ship.
Alone. No details. Because if she was leaving for Ava she'd just say it. It's common enough.

Mick's reply is simple. Direct.
Ok boss.
Not asking. Just stepping up quietly when she needs him to.

And across time, Oliver waits at STAR labs, gear stacked and tucked into a single bag. He's only sipping at the coffee in his hand because Barry made it and Barry is trying so hard to be quiet support when normally he's anything but quiet.

He'll wait for the jump ship.
For Sara.

It's not the coward's way out. It's not.
Oliver needs perspective. He needs to decide who he is and how to move forward and he can't do that with the team that betrayed him and abandoned him. With an ex wife who never really loved him as completely as he loved her.

He needs time.
Where better to take it than on a time ship?

The great thing about time ships is being able to fiddle with time a bit. Meaning Sara can set down near Star Labs not long after Oliver's message was originally sent. Take in the building while the jump ship covers itself and head inside. It all still mostly looks the same as the last time she was here.

Well. Maybe except that kid who goes zipping down the hallway past her. Babbling something when almost running into her, before she's gone again. And it's only been a year, but that there's someone that small that talks exactly like Barry?

She still wonders how this team works sometimes.
Which isn't her place entirely and she knows it.
It's enough that it works.

That's all the Legends ask people to recognize, too.
That they work in their own, and want to be left alone to it.

It doesn't take her long to figure out where Oliver is, though, after asking one far too tall, fall too snooty, far too overblown English accented guy. Alone in a room. Waiting. She's not surprised, though there's something that bothers her about it.

"You know," Sara starts, walking in casually, hands in her pockets, half-pressed smirk and all played ease. "If you missed me and couldn't live without me, that much, you could have just said so."

A daughter.
Another Wells.
Dibny, who Oliver can't decide if he likes or if he wants to knock him out. Barry's team, for all it's changes is still just as solid as it's ever been.

Barry can told together a team with his hope and his will and his goodness, no matter how it changes.
He's happy for him.

Still it throws into start contrast, much like the Elseworlds incident, just how different they both are. How good and how strong Barry is. How many times Oliver failed his team and the people around him.

Then there's a familiar voice and he's smiling before he even finishes turning towards her.

"Yeah, well. Can't have you getting an inflated ego about that." Quietly amused because he can do this too. Everything is fine. He's fine.

It doesn't even take the full turn.

It's already in his posture. The frenetic tension that isn't at the same key it's always low grade never going to leave him. The hold of his hips, and his shoulders. The shift in the placement of his weight. The way he moves when he does finish that barely even two-seconds worth of turning to face her, ending it all with that smile.

That absolutely isn't true, just like hers. But. Not. Worse than hers.

She can see it. In every inch of his face. Even if she bets they can't.
It's bruising, even when she just raises a hand to her chest.

"God forbid, that. How would any of you live with me?"
There's a head tip toward his pile. Adding. "That all?"

It's a familiar dance. A familiar lie.
They both pretend, put on the airs of old friends, kindred and untroubled souls even though they both know it's not true.

Oliver hasn't been this far from all right since those early days in Starling after the island. He can see the same lines of tension in Sara. Things haven't been easy on the Waverider either.

But when were things ever easy for them?
A lifetime ago?

For all that he's sacrificed for the city he loves, for all the blood and pain and loss, it's a relief to be away.
An even greater relief to see her.

"Yeah that's it." Still traveling light, still keeping his weapons and tac gear on hand.
Just in case.

"Sara.." a beat. A shift. "Thank you."

The shift in her expression is subtle, but it's not anything reproving or negative. It doesn't soften, but there's something softer about it. Receptive and acknowledging, without it really shifting much about her actual muscles at all.

"Always." There's no hesitation. No judgment. No question. No strings.

Not even if she knows two, three, days ago that it might have been different.
Was. But it wasn't two, three days ago. And she was there when he called.

"Let's go. There's no telling how much time might go to pot if I'm gone too long." Even if she says it, pulling her hands out of her pockets, with a gesture to the door, she doesn't quite start moving. "Anyone you need to say goodbye to first?"

A nod at her urging to go. The Captain of the Waverider. It looks good on her.

"I said goodbye to Barry already, but I think he's still hovering somewhere." A vague smile. "I can check in later." As much as his speedster friend, his brother, might want a hug Oliver isn't in any shape for one. Too tense, too guarded and too ill at ease with himself.
Maybe after time away from Star.

Maybe.

"Let's go Captain."

It's a little strange to have Oliver call her that, but it mostly only tugs her mouth a little crooked as she starts leading the way out of the room they're in, to take him to where she parked and cloaked the jump ship. The rest of it being so much easier in the roundabout fashion to end up dovetailing on.

"I'm pretty sure he's always hovering somewhere," Sara says, not mindless of the fact it could be heard by him or any of his team. "I think it's what they do." Beat. "Speedsters. They're definitely something all their own, aren't they?"

Sara made a mental note, somewhere, to see about checking in on Wally. At least making Gideon do it.

A sound that's almost a chuckle as something impossibly warm and fond kindles in Oliver's chest at the question. "Yeah. Yeah they are." But Barry will be all right. He has his family, his friends, a strong support network.

.. a network unlike the one that folded on him. A team that turned on him.

Oliver pushes those thoughts aside as he follows Sara to the jump ship and stows his gear before she calls the ship to life and they take off into the night.

A new life.
Or at least a new chance.

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