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It was a colder than normal morning in Nanda Parbat, only a few days after the League had been disbanded, when it happened. Nyssa was outside training in one of the smaller courtyards when the portal opened and a teenage girl tumbled out and rolled to a stop at her feet. Muttering curse words in a variety of languages, the girl stood up and dusted herself off before going to grab her backpack that had landed a good five feet from the portal in the opposite direction. While she did all of this, Nyssa stood in shock, swords raised.
"Smooth landing my ass." The girl finished with, in English, before turning to face Nyssa. "Hi."
"Who are you?" Nyssa asked, pointing one of her swords at the girls neck and stepping towards her while she stepped backwards.
"Right, okay. Mom said you'd probably do that. And by that, I mean threaten me with your closest object." The girl replied. "As for who I am, it's a long story and definitely depends on who you ask, though the phrase pain in the ass does come up a lot, but basically I'm from the future and, well, I'm kind of your kid." Once the girl had given her explanation, Nyssa started to see the resemblance and sheathed her swords. The girl was paler than her, but not white, with long, jet black curls just like Nyssa's. Her face was a similar shape, and her stormy blue eyes were the same shape as her mother's.
"What is your name?" Demanded Nyssa.
"What the hell, I'm already breaking all of the main rules of time travel anyway." She sighed, running her hand through her curls. "My name is Amina Laurel Raatko-Lance, and yes, my other mom is exactly who you think it is."
"Sara is long gone." Replied Nyssa. "Even if her body is alive her soul has departed."
"No. This is February 2016, right?" Nyssa nodded. "I honestly didn't expect that to be right." Amina said, looking shocked. "Anyway, she's fine, she just joined a team of time travelling superheroes which is way less insane than it sounds. She did say she saw you after she got her soul back." Explained Amina. "Anyway, I'm here to give you this." She shrugged off her backpack and pulled out a large, oddly shaped, brown package.
"Here." Amina handed Nyssa the package. "This is everything you are going to want or need to make sure I end up existing. You don't have to open it now, probably best not to actually, but when you're ready, you'll open it." Nyssa took the package and stood in disbelief as the girl fiddled with a mechanical sleeve that covered most of her left forearm.
Suddenly a portal, just like the one Amina had fallen out of opened. "Look I have to go, need to yell at Cisco for telling me it would be an easy landing. See you soon, hopefully."
"Goodbye." Replied Nyssa out of a feeling of obligation.
"Bye Mama!" She yelled as she sprinted in to the portal and disappeared. It took Nyssa another moment to completely register what had happened before she took the package inside to her room and pushed it to the back of her wardrobe, hoping to forget about the incident until she saw Sara again and discussed it with her beloved.
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She never got that chance. It was weeks after, when Quentin Lance reached out to her about the death of his daughter and Nyssa was distraught, that she had started to consider opening the package. Laurel had been her dearest friend and telling Quentin that she had destroyed the Lazarus pit broke her heart and made her realise that Laurel was what kept Quentin from falling down a dark path.
Then Oliver made a comment when she went to tell him about what Captain Lance had tried to do, a comment about Laurel's legacy that reminds her of the girl who had been given her middle name after their fallen friend. She also asked her husband about Sara and got a harsh reply about how if her and Ray Palmer were alive, they would be here.
However it wasn't until the funeral that she decided that she would open the package. Laurel Lance was a good person with a good heart, a gene Nyssa believed typical of the Lance family. Nyssa loved the Lance sisters with all her heart and the girl had reminded her so much of her beloved and her sister that Nyssa could not wait to have her around.
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When Nyssa opens the box she finds various things: instructions to go to an appointment that had been made for a few days time in Switzerland, a photo album, and a collection of numbered letters addressed to her.
She followed the instructions and opened the first letter while in the waiting room to go in. It was written in Sara's handwriting and gave her more information about what she was about to do. Apparently she was about to be impregnated by sperm sample made from Sara's stem cells, so it would only be possible for them to have a daughter. It also informed Nyssa that she would have to write down all of the details of the process of Amina being created so Sara could send her back with the information once she turned Seventeen.
The next ten months were filled with doctors appointments, which Nyssa hated because all she got was questions about where her husband was. She varied the responses, sometimes referring to Oliver, who was only still her husband on a technicality, but mostly being vague about Sara and how her job was travelling.
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It's two am when Oliver calls asking for her help to defeat Chase, and Amina is three months old and has just gotten to sleep for what feels like the first time in a week. She is hesitant to help him, especially as it would mean working with Malcolm Merlyn but, once she hears that Quentin Lance has been taken, she chooses to go and save her child's grandfather, knowing it would kill Sara if he died, and leaving Amina with Talibah, her most trusted friend, who had chosen to stay with her at Nanda Parbat. She promises to only be a few days at most.
She tells Slade about her marriage to Oliver when he asks who she is but, despite knowing he knew Sara, she keeps Sara and Amina to herself. She would have told Oliver and Quentin and possibly the other members of 'Team Arrow', but does not get time alone with any of them and does not trust Slade Wilson or Malcolm Merlyn enough to let it slip in front of them.
She is left running from the explosion with Quentin, Rene and Dinah. She covered Quentin from Talia's army, who are also attempting to escape, refusing to let harm come to him. Dinah was helping her, attempting to keep the flames attacking them from the other direction away with her canary cry. Another bomb went off a few metres from Nyssa's feet, where she stood nearly ten feet behind the others, and blew her back, on to a broken branch that impaled her through the stomach, but did not render her unconsious.
"Go!" She half barked, half groaned to the others who had stopped where they stood, and started to run back to her. "I will not survive either way." They didn't want to leave her, Quentin even told her that they were not going to allow her to die, but did once another bomb went off, making a tree fall between them, making it so they couldn't get to her over the burning wood.
She stayed there for what felt like an age but was certainly several hours. She must have passed out from the blood loss at some point, because when she regained consciousness, she was in a futuristic looking lab.
"- appears she has already developed a severe infection which is to advanced for me to do anything about as it is already causing her vital organs to fail. I am sorry Captain, but I am unable to save her." Said a voice Nyssa couldn't place the origin of.
"Dammit Gideon." Replied a voice from right beside her, that Nyssa definitely knew. She hadn't heard it in so long, but it was certainly the voice of her beloved.
"Sara." Nyssa attempted to say, barely managing to choke out.
"Nyssa! You're awake, I thought I was going to lose you there for a while." Sara said, taking her hand.
"From the sound of it you are, beloved." Nyssa pointed out, feeling better by the second.
"I missed you." Smiled Sara, pressing a kiss to her forehead. The change of subject told Nyssa all she needed to know.
"I missed you too beloved." Responded Nyssa, smiling back at the blonde and attempting to enjoy the moment, while also trying to forget that she was dying. "Amina!" She realised in the comfortable silence, which jolted her from her sleepy state to try and get out of the bed.
"Your mom?" Asked Sara confused. "You said she died when you were young."
"Amina is my daughter." Replied Nyssa, then paused. "Our daughter."
"What?" Asked Sara.
"Our daughter travelled back through time to give me a package which sent me to an appointment where I was impregnated with a sperm sample made from your stem cells." Explained Nyssa.
"So, do I just go get her?" Asked Sara, still trying to process the news she had just been given.
"She is in Nanda Parbat with Talibah." Nyssa told her.
"When?" Asked Sara. "Gideon set a course for whenever she says."
"I left her two days before you found me."
"Gideon, set a course for Nanda Parbat the day after Nyssa left."
"We have arrived Captain Lance." Gideon told Sara a few minutes later.
"And where the hell do you think you're going?" Sara said to Nyssa as the other woman tried to get up again. "Look, Gideon's giving you the good stuff, but you aren't healed and you won't feel how bad it is until you get up, when it will kill you pretty quickly. I'm going to go in, talk to Talibah and get the kid and her stuff." She kissed Nyssa again before walking out.
"Thank you beloved." Nyssa called after her.
"Hey? Talibah?" Yelled Sara as she walked into the former headquarters of the League of Assassins.
"Show me your hands." Said a voice from the stairs, hidden so that Sara couldn't see the speaker.
"It's me, Sara Lance. Ta-er al-sahfer? Nyssa's beloved? She told me about Amina, I'm here to collect her because Nyssa's badly hurt." Sara explained raising her hands above her head. "She's on my ship and she's dying. You can go see for yourself, I parked right outside."
"Surrender your weapons." Demanded Talibah.
"I didn't bring any?" Replied Sara, as if it were a question. "I just came to take Amina to Nyssa, who doesn't have very long."
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After a long conversation and a visit to the medical bay of the waverider, Sara had managed to convince Talibah to give her Amina.
"You are back." Nyssa lit up when Sara walked into the room, cradling Amina.
"Yeah, Talibah is just putting the essentials in my room, but I thought you might like to see her." The words 'before you die' are unspoken but apparent in the silence.
"May I hold her?" Asked Nyssa. "Or would you deem it unwise?"
"It's probably not the best idea." Sara told her. "But I can lay her down on your chest?"
"I would like that." Nyssa smiled at her, while Sara put the child on her chest. "Her full name is Amina Laurel Raatko-Lance." The former heir to the demon interrupted the comforting silence with.
"You probably shouldn't talk." Sara said, holding back tears as she looked at the screen by Nyssa's head. "It will just be too much strain."
"I love you Ta-er al-sahfer." Nyssa told her as Sara scooped up Amina and held Nyssa's hand.
"I love you too Nyssa Raatko, daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, heir to the demon." Sara told her.
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"Gideon?" Asked Ray from the Captain's office. "Where's Sara? I haven't seen her since we picked up Nyssa."
"Captain Lance is in the med-bay."
"Thanks Gideon." Replied Ray, heading down the corridor. When he got there, he saw Sara crying and holding a baby with one arm and clutching Nyssa's hand in the other.
"Sara?" He asked warily. "Are you okay?"
"Gideon couldn't save her." Sara cried. "The infection was too advanced. She's gone."
"And, I hate to ask, but the baby?"
"Mine and Nyssa's daughter." Sara said as an explanation.
"But your both girls?" Ray looked incredibly awkward and confused.
"Actually the child was conceived using sperm made from Captain Lance's stem cells. The concept was perfected in practice in the year 2041 but has been an experimental procedure since the early 21st century." Explained Gideon. "From what Miss Raatko said, Amina travelled back in time to give the substance to her so she was able to be born."
"Is that her name? Amina?"
"Yeah. Amina Laurel Raatko-Lance, three months old." Sara said, tears streaming down her face "I can't do this Ray."
"Yeah, you can, because you're strong Sara. And even if you can't, you have all of us to help." He told her, wrapping her in a hug.