strongerthanyouknow | 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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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.

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

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