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Time seems to hesitate the moment Nyssa walks through the door and comes face to face with Sin, who sits on the kitchen table, staring at a worn photo. She’s not certain how long it’s been since they last saw each other. Which is entirely untrue; she knows almost to the day. But it’s easier—cowardly, maybe—to pretend otherwise. She cares deeply about so few, and, now that she knows how a loss of this magnitude feels, there’s an urge to bury such connections. Although being with Sara changed her, gradually, deliberately, like the tide smoothing a stone, Sara’s death has fractured her, chipping imperfections into that vulnerable exterior. The person she has become—the woman who is more than a ruthless assassin—cannot survive without her Beloved to preserve her.
It’s what remains of Sara’s influence that has finally brought her here to Sin’s tiny…apartment is a generous term. This space might actually be larger if turned on its side. Her previous building was destroyed by the earthquake, and Sin had waved off all attempts to find her something better than this by arguing that the Queens’ hospitality made having a place of her own almost unnecessary.
The idea that Sin has grown close to the Queens prickles under Nyssa’s skin like betrayal, but she puts it aside. She has no right to expect loyalty from Sin. She has no right to Sin. Because Sara is gone.
When Sin looks up, her eyes are red-rimmed, and the photo that flutters out of her fingers onto the table is one of the three of them—Sara, Nyssa, Sin—at the circus, years ago, with “FAMILY” scrawled across the back in the blonde’s slanted handwriting.
“Nyssa,” Sin sniffles, reaching for her. “Sara—”
“I know.”
It was the wrong thing to say. That much is immediately clear by the way Sin freezes.
“You know? But you just got…” Her face darkens, and she bites coolly, “Right, ’course I’m not the first person you’d come see. There’s always a priority alpha, huh?”
“Sin…” Nyssa starts, attempting the gentle tone she’s heard Sara use in the past. It’s painful to remember.
“How long?” the teen asks. “How long have you known?”
There is no good answer. Even handicapped by this consuming grief, Nyssa’s smart enough to realize that. But Sin won’t let her dodge the question; she repeats it and folds her arms across her chest, every inch of her body language a warning sign.
Nyssa tries to heed it. She really does. But all she can say is, “I came looking when she failed to check in. That assignment…I had an unsettling hesitancy about it from the beginning. But she promised—” Nyssa’s voice breaks. “She promised she could handle herself.”
“So you’ve known the whole time?”
“Not quite the—”
“You were here…” Sin’s fingers curl into shaking fists. Anger makes her more enunciative than usual. “You flew halfway around the world because you were worried for her, but you couldn’t manage a few miles for me?”
“I had assumed your friends told you.”
Sin’s rigid posture doesn’t falter as she spits, “That’s not the point, Nyssa! Sara’s dead, and I deserved to hear it from YOU.”
Nyssa grimaces. She shouldn’t have come here. She shouldn’t have come, and, at the same time, she should’ve come weeks ago. But she didn’t because, “It should have been me.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying!”
“No, it should have been…” She can hardly breathe enough to whisper, “Me.”
“You’ve got to be fucking—If that’s supposed to make me feel better, just—”
Sin is still so, so angry, and Nyssa doesn’t know why or how to fix it, so she yearns all the more. She and Sin both need Sara, and neither Sin nor Sara need her. Not really. Not when she’s so very good at killing and so very bad at keeping those she loves alive. Not when her only redeeming qualities were whatever Sara found in her, and do those hold up now, without her Beloved to insist upon them? Did they even count in the first place, if she can’t recall a single one?
“Nyssa,” Sin sighs, and her patience sounds thin. “I know you didn’t sign up for this, this fucked-up, step-kid sorta shit, and, if you wanna bail, I don’t—I don’t need you.” She has a hard time on the words, as if she doesn’t believe them, which is surprising for so many reasons. “I can take care of myself. But, if you’re gonna show up here, can’t you at least pretend it matters?”
There’s something familiar about that, and now Nyssa remembers certain quiet longings from her own childhood. And she’s realizing how unfair this all is for Sin, who’s already been an orphan. Unfair in a way she herself could never relate to, even if her father wasn’t all but immortal. And where the center of her tortured thoughts had been revolving around Sara, Sara, Sara, it occurs to her that this, here and now, is hardly about Sara at all.
Almost against her will, Nyssa al Ghul breaks down.
Still standing on the doormat, because she hasn’t ever felt as though she belongs here. Hasn’t let herself. That, too, is unfair.
“Nyssa?” Sin takes a step, her heavy boots audible on the hardwood. “Oh, fuck. Nyssa?”
She’s never seen this stoic assassin cry; sounds horrified by it. The reminder should motivate Nyssa to compose herself, but she can’t. Her face is in her hands and her shoulders are shaking and she’s coming apart at the seams.
“Hey, look, Nys—”
“I’m sorry.” The words taste strange and sound distorted, so she repeats them. Then supplements the apology by haltingly explaining that she assumed she wouldn’t be welcome. And, because she now understands the importance of transparency, reveals that she couldn’t bring herself to tell Sin of her failure.
Sin, however, stares at her as though she’s been speaking the wrong language and cries, “Wait, how the fuck is it your fault?”
“I let her—”
“Rhetorical question,” Sin interrupts. “It’s not. And, y’know, I want her back more than anything, but I’d never trade you for her. You know that, right? That’s not how family’s s’posed to work.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Nyssa looks up at her, arms wrapped around herself protectively, and admits, “No, I suppose I do not.”
The smile Sin offers her is layered with sadness, and she replies, “Yeah, I dunno much about family either, but we can figure it out together.” Her expression turns doubtful. “I mean, if you wanna.”
“I’d like that. And, Sin? It does matter. You matter.”
They’ve never been particularly (at all) tactile, but the teen reaches for her and Nyssa returns the embrace readily. It seems they are not connected by Sara—not a line, defined by degrees of separation, but a triangle, the three of them interconnected. Sentimental metaphors aren’t her strength, but this one resonates. The relationship between them persists without Sara, just as that between Sin and Sara would have without her, and hers and Sara’s without Sin, though thinking of the latter case makes her nauseous.
“You got somewhere to be?” Sin asks shyly when they separate.
“I’m sure I am expected somewhere, but, if you’d rather I stay, I can charge anyone who questions me with treason.”
Sin’s grin is blinding as she tugs Nyssa to the sofa, and Nyssa can’t help but crack her first smile since Sara’s death. It’s a small and faltering one, but it’s there.
They talk for a long time. About Sara, about how they’re dealing, but most importantly about Sin and her life and her friends and what she’s been doing since they last saw each other. Because Nyssa cares, and she needs Sin to know that. She doesn’t know if this is the Right Way to cope, but it feels good. For the first time in recent memory, the need for vengeance doesn’t consume or overwhelm her.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Sin says. “It’s weird, knowin’ there’s other people all over who cared about her but not bein’ able to talk to any of them.”
“They won’t talk to you?” This makes Nyssa furious.
“No, no, it’s not—okay so they didn’t tell me until I noticed somebody else was pretendin’ to be her, but I think they just didn’t know they should.”
“Not even Mr. Harper?”
“Abercrombie’s got a lot on his plate,” Sin defends. “He told me eventually. Counts for something. Point is, I dunno if they’re doin’, like, group therapy or anything, but I’m not looking for an invite.” Nyssa’s confusion must show, because she elaborates, “Roy and Felicity, they’d be alright, but it’s like everyone else around here thinks the parts of Sara’s life without them in it—y’know, the League and stuff?—don’t count. Like one big, six-year obstacle until she could get back to them. They’re not willing to admit she mighta chosen to stay away. But she did, ‘cause we were as important to her as them, right?
“That really pisses me off: people acting like you forced her to be with you. She chose you. She loves…loved. Fuck.” The correction pains them both. “She loved you so fucking much. I don’t think Queen or them wanna hear that. They’d rather make you the villain.”
Nyssa frowns. “Perhaps I am the villain.”
Sin snorts at that, as though it’s too ridiculous to warrant a real response.
It’s long past dark by now, and Nyssa should be going soon. The possibility of drawing suspicion is sufficient motivation, especially since she wants to keep Sin off the League’s—read, her father’s—radar. She reminds Sin of the specially-equipped phone they’d given her and encourages the teen to make use of it. Stealing time in person like this is tricky enough even before considering how rigid her duties are back home in Nanda Parbat. So it’s well worth the long-distance charges that conversations with her adoptive daughter will incur, no matter how Sin balks.
As the Heir to a man who’s had half a millennium to accrue massive wealth, Nyssa’s not concerned. In fact, she’s already planning to look into better arrangements than this small and bare apartment. Preferably in a better school district, because Sin would sleep on hot coals before she’d ever, ever attend a private school. There are so many things she wants for Sin that she’ll now make priorities, because this truly does matter, their family, smaller though it may be. And she’s more comfortable with that knowledge every second.
When Nyssa does leave, it’s with every intention to return whenever possible, and she and Sin both are confident that she’ll adhere to that.