Work Text:
Sara rolls over. After barely a minute, she reaches up and fluffs her pillow. She stretches. She curls up on her side. She splays herself out, spread-eagle on her back, staring at the ceiling. She tallies sheep. She counts backward from three-hundred by threes in Arabic. She shuts her eyes tight and tries to force herself to sleep through sheer stubbornness.
No dice.
A storm—a time storm—continues to rage around the Waverider. When it had appeared on sensors, Gideon had regretfully informed Rip that it was, unavoidable, Captain. Now temporal lightning shocks the ship’s bow, and spitting, guttural time winds gust against the aft and starboard sides. Sara’s cabin creaks and rattles.
She presses her eyes shut and takes a deep breath.
After another hour or so, Sara’s bones start to feel heavy. She blinks up at the ceiling and can’t stop her eyes from shutting again. It’s okay, she tries to tell herself. Sleep, and the storm will be gone in the morning.
So she does.
-
He pours her a drink, something expensive and red and way too fancy. She takes it in one hand, smiling, but quickly puts it back down. She says something about Laurel. He ignores it and leans in. They kiss, an almost chaste thing, until he pushes her into the pillows and she laughs. He kisses her again, his clumsy fingers trailing over her sheer top. He tastes like wine. He’s warm and he’s older and he’s forbidden and it’s enough for her to forget her guilt and get lost in the thrill of it all. Apprehension spikes when the lights flicker, but he murmurs, it’ll be fine, and she believes him.
And then:
The room turns sideways.
Sara falls.
She tumbles from the bed with Oliver but ends up on the wrong side of the floor. She reaches out, begging for help—cold water rushes up her legs and yanks her away. She’s tossed into the ocean, freezing waves crashing around her as rain sheets from the sky, and she swallows more salt than air. She tries to tread water, tries to remember the swim lessons she taught during eighth grade for extra cash—
But she can’t hold on forever. A swell comes and sucks her underneath, the black water coating her face and eyes and lungs. This time, there’s no wooden board; this time, she can’t break the surface. The sea grabs onto her by the stomach and drags her down. Her mind goes blurry, her skin numb. She twists so she can see above her. She spots the dark shape of the Queen’s Gambit, afloat and swirling in the gale. She can still hear Oliver’s screams.
I’m sorry, she wants to say.
She tries to breathe—gasp, yell, scream—but can’t. The world goes black.
-
Sara wakes up coughing and nauseated. Gingerly, she pushes herself onto her elbows. The bed rolls beneath her, the time storm evidently yet to pass, and she leans over and vomits over the side.
She’s surprised that it’s not seawater that comes up.
“Fuck,” she growls, pressing a hand to her head.
“Ms. Lance,” says Gideon, startling her. “If you’d like something for motion sickness, I can administer some in the med bay.”
Sara peers up at the ceiling, which spins in her field of vision. “I’ll pass.”
“Are you sure?”
“That would mean I’d have to get to the med bay.” She almost adds a snappy one-liner, but the ship trembles again and her stomach drops. She unintentionally lets out a low, pathetic whine.
There’s a long pause. The pause turns into minutes. Just when Sara begins to think that Gideon’s finally left her alone, the door to her quarters buzzes.
“Sara?” a voice calls, concerned.
“I may have notified Ms. Saunders,” Gideon says cheerfully. “She’s brought you some medication.”
Sara glares upwards. “Don’t think I won’t kill you, robot or not.”
In response, Gideon opens Sara’s door. Which would be. Fine. But Sara is currently sitting on the edge of her bed, shivering, breathing raggedly, and trying desperately to keep the few remaining contents of her stomach where they belong. And now Kendra, brow furrowed and pill bottle in hand, can see everything.
Remember when Sara was dead? That was a good time.
The ship tips again and Sara, against every instinct, falls back against her pillow. Bile runs up and down her throat and her head swims. Swims. Swimming. She’s in the water, swirling down into the black, the cold of the Pacific biting into her lungs. She just wants it all to stop—the nausea, the waves, the choking of drowning and the sliding of the deck. Her breaths come out in sharp pants.
“Shit, Sara,” Kendra says, sounding very far away. Sara can’t tell how far away she is. Sara’s eyes are shut. “Hey.”
Gentle hands brush over Sara’s hair, pulling it back from her face. Cool fingers press on her forehead.
"I'm fine," Sara croaks, reflexively.
“Right,” says Kendra. “Take this.” Somehow, she’s behind Sara now, propping her up. Sara can feel her weight at her back. Kendra pulls open one of Sara’s sweaty fists and puts a small, round pill into her palm. “Gideon gave me some water.”
Sara raises her shaking hand to her mouth but pauses before she pops the pill. Her stomach flip-flops. Kendra guides her arm the rest of the way, handing her a plastic cup that she sips at to wash the medicine down. For a terrifying second, Sara leans forward like she’ll be sick again. Then it passes, and Kendra lightly tugs her back.
“That should help.” She cards her fingers through Sara’s snarled curls.
Sara moans. “Is–Is the ship sinking?”
“Shhh,” Kendra soothes. “The Waverider isn’t sinking.”
Another tilt, and it’s not the Queen’s Gambit that’s being tossed, now, it’s a much bigger ship, a ship from hell, and it’s going down…
“No, Kendra,” Sara says, pushing herself off, “I think we’re–”
“Sara, we’re in the temporal zone—there’s no water. We’re not sinking. You’re just a little sick, okay?”
Temporal zone. Time travel. Right.
Sara groans and lifts a hand to her eyes. She can still smell her own vomit from earlier, and it makes her eyes sting and her nose burn.
“Have you always gotten this motion sick?”
“I was a blast on family road-trips.”
Kendra hums. “Even undead assassins need Dramamine. That’s comforting, I guess.”
The jab hurts, slightly. The two of them have been dancing around each other since Kendra brought Sara back from Nanda Parbat. Back from the 60s. Back from a time where they shared a bed and tried to fix the plumbing together and shared warm scarves in the snow. If Sara weren’t still half-convinced they were about to shipwreck, she would find it horrifically ironic that it’s Kendra, of all people, who’s being forced to play her nursemaid.
But she hardly considers any of that, because her head still pounds and her stomach still sloshes. Instead, she melts into Kendra’s touch when the woman strokes the back of her neck.
“Try to sleep,” Kendra murmurs.
“This sucks,” says Sara. “I want it to stop.”
“Sleep, then,” Kendra repeats.
“It needs to stop.”
“Sara. Close your eyes.”
“M’ sorry I left.”
“What?”
“You and Ray. I’m…” Her eyes trail hazily across the dark cabin. She burps. “I’m sorry I left.”
“We’re so not having this conversation right now.”
“Mm.”
“Don’t be a two-year-old. Try to sleep.”
Sara shakes her head and regrets it. “I’ll drown.”
“What?”
Cotton fills Sara’s mind. “I’ll drown,” she repeats.
“Before I woke you, Ms. Saunders,” Gideon chimes in, “she was having a nightmare about drowning. That may be what she’s referring to.”
“Oh. Thanks, Gideon.” A pause. “Was it the Gambit, Sara?”
Sara nods. Of course, Kendra would understand—she remembers the time they were going to go sailing in 1958 and she had to give Kendra an explanation before she would leave Sara alone on the shore.
“Okay. Well, this isn’t like that, okay? You’re safe. Shhh. You’re safe. Just sit. Shhh.”
Sara, cheeks hot, calms despite herself. She lets the dark room cascade over her, appreciating that Kendra always smells like warm, clean towels and jasmine tea and not something that would turn her stomach.
“You’re alright, Sara. You’re safe. Shhh.”
Sara sighs. Her bones feel heavy. Her mind begins to blur.
They lay there, tossed by the last edges of the storm, until morning.