Work Text:
There is nothing.
There is dark, and cold, and nothing.
The world passes in a blurred stream of events, no emotion, no connection. There is nothing. She is nothing.
She.
She is- Sara- nothing.
Her body blinks, and the world disappears. Eyes reopen and it is reborn. Death, rebirth. Death, rebirth. Like her.
Like her?
-Sara you don't want to do this-
She is dead. Not dead, not alive. She is nothing. She is-
water dark water screaming drowning
-Come on love fight this-
She reaches. Her body reaches out. Up. Grasping. Finds nothing. -fight- Nothing-
a hand
Pain. The body feels pain. The void does not. Blinks once, twice, heart beats, hand reaches, grabs, crushes. There is pain, and blood, and screaming. The void feels nothing. The hand reaches again- Sara don't do it-
Freeze. Don't do it don't do it don't- that's not who you are anymore- head splitting screaming bloody hands and pain and emotion no she doesn't want the emotion she'll take the void over the emotion - come back to me, little bird.
Sara screams. Feels the nothing lurch, crushing and expanding until her body should simply explode, hears voices and feels hands and then-
Nothing.
A different nothing.
An empty hollow human nothing, and there's blood on her hands and- "Len?" she whispers, not daring to raise her head. To see whose blood- "Len?"
Boots, a body kneeling, hands cover hers gently - worn hands, equally roughened and scarred, and Sara falls back with a cry.
"I'm sorry," Leo says. "Gideon told me some things to say to try to get you back. I'm sorry." Sara shakes her head, buries her face in bloody hands and lets him pull her closer, lets him wrap her in familiar arms and pretends for just a moment that this is home.