Chapter Text
“Okay, the coast is clear,” Sara whispered then rushed forward; feet nearly silent as she moved. The Captain reached the medbay doors and looked back- her sister had stopped, once again, to gaze in wonder at some part of the ship. “For the love of god, Laurel!”
“I’m sorry!” Hissed the attorney, running forward on clumsy legs to meet her sister in the infirmary. “Some of us are new to this whole time-travel thing.”
Sara closed the doors with a heavy sigh “I know. I’m sorry.”
She turned and gestured to the cot “I just need to be sure you’re okay before I can relax or focus on anything else. And definitely before I let my team see you.”
“I get it,” Laurel promised, moving to where Sara wanted “I just hope the doctors of the future have found a way to make the whole check-up process more comfortable.”
“I’ve yet to hear a valid complaint.” Gideon chirped, almost sounding proud
Laurel flinched at the voice. “What the hell?”
“That’s Gideon. She’s like the soul of the ship.”
“I’m not offended by the term Artificial Intelligence. I was named by small-minded humans, after all.”
Sara rolled her eyes at the subtle jab “Full diagnostic scan, please.”
“Right away,”
Sara pointed to the wrist band near Laurel’s left arm “Put that on.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” She teased
Sara’s eyes moved anxiously from the screen to Laurel’s face. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. The Canary of her visions had been right- Sara could bring her sister back, and now she’d done exactly that! Laurel was here, on The Waverider, alive and breathing and staring in awe at nearly everything around her. As much as Sara wanted to take the win and be happy, she couldn’t. It didn’t make sense, but she needed it to make sense. She’s talked to plenty of ghosts in the last few months, much to her surprise and frustration. Why had this been any different? Why had she brought Laurel back and not the villagers she’d spoken to only days ago? Or the man who’d been murdered by a serial killer just outside of Columbus? Or the woman who had died in a fire and refused to believe that it wasn’t government-funded arson? Even if she knew why she’d still be afraid of the trade-off. There had to be a consequence. Right? She’d offset the delicate balance of life and death. The powers that be wouldn’t let her get away with that, totem or no totem. Would they?
“I’ve performed a full diagnostic scan and found nothing to indicate that Miss Lance has any reason to worry.”
“What a relief.” Laurel sighed and reached for the wristband
“Wait,” Sara cried “Are you sure? You haven’t missed anything?”
“Aside from collecting tissue samples, I’ve run all the tests I can.”
The Captain chewed her lip.
“Hey,” said Laurel, smiling when she had her sister’s attention “It’s gonna be okay. Your supercomputer from the future just gave me a clean bill of health, which is a good thing. Now do me a favor and take some deep breaths.”
Sara forced herself to breathe slower despite the thoughts racing through her mind.
---
Sara waited on the bridge for Nyssa and Ava to arrive. Laurel had insisted on waiting in the Captain’s office, seeming afraid of the meeting. Her fear made Sara more nervous than she’d already been and her hands shook as her lovers approached her.
“Sara?” Ava frowned and looked over the shorter woman “You’re back already? Did everything go okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, everything went fine. Better than fine, truthfully. I have some news. I think my bond with the totem is growing because it did… something new.”
“What is it, Beloved?”
Sara inhaled, resisting the urge to increase the space between herself and the other women. She kept her feet planted and turned her head to call over her shoulder. “That’s your cue.”
Laurel stepped out of the office and walked down the stairs to stand behind her sister. She’d kept her eyes down, knowing she wouldn’t be able to walk toward Nyssa if she could see her. One of her last interactions with Nyssa before dying was disrespecting the assassin’s wishes and using the Lazarus Pit to revive Sara. She wouldn’t question it for a moment if her friend was not happy to see her. Taking a deep breath, Laurel lifted her head and faced Nyssa with hesitant eyes.
Nyssa’s expression did not change as she quickly released Ava’s hand, side-stepped Sara, and walked toward Laurel, leaving the newly resurrected woman unsure if she was about to be struck or not. Nyssa’s arms raised from her side mere inches from Laurel, who tensed in anticipation of the blow.
Nyssa wrapped Laurel in a tight embrace and rested her chin on the blonde’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you, my friend.”
Laurel leaned into the hug and exhaled her fear “I’ve missed you, too.”
Nyssa pulled back to see Laurel’s face, still disbelieving her own eyes. Her expression was bright, almost giddy, as she squeezed the lawyer’s biceps and took in the sight of her.
“You’re not still mad at me?”
“No. And I’m sorry I ever was in the first place. I should’ve known that you’d find a way to save Sara’s soul, and I certainly should’ve known that she would be able to overcome the challenges of the Lazarus Water.”
Sara blushed behind Nyssa, toying with one of the rings she wore to keep from facing the praise.
“I have my Beloved back now, because you defied my wishes, and for that, I owe you an apology.” Nyssa straightened her spine and bowed her head to Laurel “Forgive me?”
Laurel lifted Nyssa’s face with a gentle hand under her jaw. “Already forgiven.”
“Thank you.” Nyssa smiled, then turned to the other women in the room and gestured to the taller of the two “Ava, 'iishraq, come here.”
Ava gave Sara a sideways, anxious glance.
Sara smiled, bemused, and motioned Ava toward the pair.
The Director walked to Nyssa’s side and tried her best not to seem nervous.
Laurel grinned at the suited woman. “You must be Ava Sharpe. I’ve heard good things.”
Ava’s brow furrowed “You have?”
“Every time Sara came to visit my grave – God, that’s weird to say out loud – she would tell me about her life and for the past year, you’ve been in almost every story.”
Ava’s cheeks flushed, “Oh boy,”
“It’s okay,” Laurel promised, looking at both of her sister’s partners “I’m happy for all of you. You’re both the perfect match for Sara. And for each other, if you ask me.”
The pair shared a loving look, then turned the gaze on the fourth woman.
Sara was standing a good distance away and aiming her phone’s camera at the other three.
Ava sighed “What are you doing, Lance?”
“Making sure I'm not dreaming.”
If anyone saw the tears in her eyes behind the phone, they’d never say so.
----
Sara called the Legends onto the bridge and watched them file in. Ray and Nora came first, the latter holding the former's hand to keep up with his long, happy stride. The scientist stopped abruptly as he recognized the new arrival and Sara had to glare him down to keep him from saying anything. Next came Zari, Charlie, and Nate, all arguing over whether Charlie was cheating during their last round of whichever video game held their collective interest this week. John and Mick entered at the same time from opposite ends of the room, both doing their best to feign disinterest.
"Well, that's everyone" Sara sighed, stepping down from the office and looking at her team "As you all know, I left this morning to visit my sister's grave in Starling."
Ray swallowed his offense that she refused to call her home by its new name.
"It didn't exactly go as planned." the Captain said, speaking around a dry laugh as she turned and gestured to the mystery woman standing behind her with Nyssa and Ava "Legends, this is Laurel. My sister."
Charlie was the first to break the silence "Your sister. The one who was dead this morning. The sister whose grave you were visiting. Because she was dead. That sister?”
"That's the one." Sara confirmed, hands moving to her back pockets "I can't explain it, but I think I resurrected her. With the totem."
"That's great, Sara!" Ray beamed, stepping forward to greet the new arrival "Nice to see you again, Laurel."
“Dr. Palmer.” Laurel smiled, reaching out and shaking his hand “Glad to see you’re alive and well.”
“Same to you.” He chuckled, then stepped back to the woman he’d entered the bridge with
"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," said John, stepping forward and extending a hand to the woman in question
Sara moved a little closer to her sister “You remember Constantine?”
“How could I forget?” Laurel gave the warlock a tight-lipped smile as she shook his hand
The man raised a brow at Laurel as their hands disconnected “A part of me wonders if I’ll ever meet a Lance who isn’t freshly revived.”
“Anyway,” Sara directed Laurel’s attention away from the Brit “This is Mick Rory, also known as Heatwave. I'm sure you've heard stories from Barry and Oliver, but he’s a good guy now. Mostly. If you don’t count petty theft against him, which we don’t, so…” Sara turned to the rest of the room. “Zari, resident hacker and wielder of the air totem.”
"Air totem?" Laurel asked, failing to notice the sour look in Zari's eye or the too-stiff grip of her handshake
Sara played with the rings on her hands as she tried to fill in several years' worth of gaps without talking too much "You remember The Vixen? Worked in the Detroit area?"
"Yeah, the one with the magic animal necklace?"
Sara lifted the chain of her necklace and gestured between herself and the other Totem Bearer in the room "Same set of totems, different abilities."
"Uh-huh." Laurel turned to the man at Zari's side as he smiled and extended a hand to her.
"Dr. Nate Heywood, resident historian and literal man of steel."
Laurel gave him a skeptical frown, so he took the opportunity to show off. She stepped back with a gasp as his skin turned into a shiny metal.
"Are you a meta-human?"
"Does it count as being a meta-human if your powers came from a hijacked Nazi science experiment that saved you from dying of hemophilia?"
"I have no idea," Laurel answered, flinching again when the metal turned back into his skin.
“If you think that’s impressive,” Before either of them could ask a follow-up question, Sara was redirecting Laurel's attention to another face in the crowd "Charlie here is a shapeshifter."
The shifter in question extended her arm to twice the original length and shook Laurel's hand, winking at the startled look on the lawyer's face. "Pleasure to meet you, Laurel. Heard good things."
"Who's missing?" Muttered the Captain as she looked around the room before facing her sister again "Oh! Mona! She's at the bureau now, but she’s basically a werewolf, so try not to piss her off."
"The Bureau?" Laurel scratched her head as if unearthing a memory "Ava's Time Bureau?"
Ava laughed and pushed her hair behind her ears "I wouldn't say it's my Time Bureau."
"Yes," Nyssa answered, privately enjoying her girlfriend's embarrassed smile "That Bureau."
"Last but not least,” Sara motioned to the woman with Ray and kept her eyes on her sister “This is Nora Darhk.”
“That’s Nora Darhk?” Laurel blinked through her shock, then leaned closer to the Captain “I was only dead for 3 years, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because" Nora started "I was 13 years old when anyone in Starling last saw me.”
“Yeah, well,” Sara shrugged “Time travel.”
Laurel looked back at the witch with narrowed eyes and folded arms. “How much like your father are you?”
“I don’t tell the same godawful jokes as him.” Nora squirmed under the lawyer’s gaze “And I did use to be his evil minion sidekick, but I’m not under his influence anymore and I realize now that everything we did was wrong and I’m trying to live my life better than he did.”
Laurel looked to Sara again “Do we trust her?”
“I do.” Said Sara, thinking about her words only after she’d said them. She didn’t realize how much she’d come to think of Nora as one of her own until that moment. “Yeah, I trust her.”
Laurel turned back to the stunned Darhk. “Okay. Then we’re cool. Just don’t make me change my mind.”
Laurel’s tone was light and friendly, but Nora knew that look in her eyes. “I won’t.”
“So, wait a minute,” Zari’s brow furrowed, and she looked toward the center console “Gideon? Is the timeline okay?”
“Perfectly intact.” The AI promised “Pulling Miss Lance from Star City after her revival means that no one who knew her was able to recognize her or the Captain."
“Your totem is a loophole?” Zari asked, pointedly staring at Sara with a gaze that barely concealed her anger
“I… I guess so?” Sara frowned, absently touching the chain that held her totem in place “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“No, of course not.” came the sarcastic response as Zari turned on her heel and stormed out of the room “Why would you?”
“Zari!” called Nate
“Z, wait,” cried Charlie
“Don’t.” commanded the captain, stopping them in their tracks “Nyssa, Ava, will you two help Laurel get set up in one of the vacant sleeping quarters? I’m the one Zari’s mad at, so I’m gonna go talk to her.”
No one else said a word as Sara left to follow the other totem bearer.
---
Sara walked into the library and found Zari sitting behind the desk, head down on her arms, loophole software running on the screen in front of her.
“No offense, guys, but I just want to be alone.”
Sara walked in further and sat down across from the moping woman. “It’s not Nate and Charlie.”
Zari groaned.
“I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, but that’s why I’m here. I want to understand what you’re thinking. I don’t want Laurel to be a new rift between us, Z.”
"It's not Laurel's fault." With a sigh, Zari lifted her head to look at Sara. “I want to go back to our Jannah. I want to take you back there and see if you can-”
Sara waited as Zari fought her own emotions.
“I want to take you to the house where I grew up, where Behrad died, and I want…” the hacker wiped her eyes with trembling hands “Even if you can’t bring him back, I want to talk to him. The real Behrad. Not Mallus or a glamour. I want to talk to my baby brother, and I want to apologize and-”
Sara’s heart broke for her teammate as Zari choked on her words.
“But I can’t.” she said, surprising them both “I can’t because that could ruin my past and your future and-”
“Stop,” Sara interrupted, leaning across the desk and reaching out to Zari “Stop. I’ll try it, okay?”
Zari blinked at the captain “You’ll try what? Talking to them?”
“Yeah. Maybe even reviving them, if I can figure it out. The only ghosts I’ve been able to talk to on purpose are the ones that've approached me on missions, so I can’t guarantee anything, but if I can bring them back, they can stay on the ship with my sister.”
Dark brown eyes lit up with joy and disbelief “You mean that? You’d let me keep my family?”
“I’d be a hypocrite if I kept Laurel and didn’t at least try to bring your family back. Besides, it’s not really changing your past if we go to some time after we took you out of 2042.”
A blast of air knocked the desk out of the way and Zari stood, pulling her captain into a hug that they both needed.
---
Zari stood in the center of the sanctuary and breathed as slowly as she could.
Sara watched her from a few paces back and looked around the small clearing. Her totem was picking up on something, or someone, and it made Sara feel watched. She’d intended to give her teammate all the time she needed, but the feeling of some voyeur, even a harmless dead one, made Sara uneasy. She worried she wouldn’t be able to focus on her powers if her anxiety was too high, so she stepped forward and touched Zari’s arm.
Without a word, Zari pulled a cloth bundle from her bag and pushed it at Sara.
Strong energy radiated from the fabric and whatever was wrapped inside, an energy that was also coming from somewhere nearby. Sara turned in the direction of the trees and stared into the thick foliage. “Nasreen? Nasreen Tomaz?”
"Tarazi," Zari corrected "Our real last name is Tarazi. We changed it to hide from ARGUS, but… Her name is Nasreen Tarazi."
Sara nodded and tried again, calling to the tree line and feeling a little lightheaded as she used the right name.
Zari moved closer to the swaying Captain, heart pounding, as they both stared into the trees. “What’s happening?”
“I feel… someone. I think it’s her, but I don’t see or hear anyone yet.”
“Mom?” called the shaking hacker “Mama?”
Sara stumbled a little as the energy around them grew stronger. “Zari, it’s working.”
Cursing under her breath, Zari took a shaking breath and called again “Mama, it’s me. It’s Zari. I’m right here. Can you hear me?”
Sara closed her eyes and held onto her totem, feeling as though it would vibrate right off its chain if she didn’t. The stone seemed to heat up for a moment, threatening to burn the Captain’s skin, then cooled almost instantly.
“Hayati?”
The pair of Legends froze and stared into the trees.
“Zari?” The mother’s form became clearer and clearer as she pushed her way through the forest. The branches snagged at her hijab and she used her left hand to hold it in place. “Is that you, Hayati?”
Zari waited with tense muscles until the other woman was fully visible, then waited longer still for her to reveal her face. “Mami?”
Nasreen looked up and gasped at the sight of her daughter. “Zari,”
“Mami,”
The pair ran at each other and collided in an embrace.
Sara felt wrong for being able to understand their private conversation, but Zari knew she was fluent in Arabic, so it didn’t count as eavesdropping anymore. If she didn't want Sara to understand, she'd switch to Farsi. Still, the Captain couldn’t shake the feeling of intrusion, as she stood nearby and held something in her hands that had once belonged to Nasreen. Curiosity got the better of her and she unfolded the fabric to see that it was wrapped around a small copy of the Quran, al-mus'haf, no doubt a family heirloom. Sara refolded the cloth and held it close.
Zari turned from her mother to her distracted Captain. “Mama, this is Sara Lance. She brought you back to me.”
Sara’s head snapped up and she stepped forward to greet the unfamiliar woman. “Assalamu alaikum”
“Wa-Alaikum salaam.” Nasreen returned the greeting out of habit, then made a confused face at Sara. She certainly hadn’t been expecting that from a freckled white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Not that she’d ever meant to stereotype… She shrugged off her confusion and began to thank the Captain instead.
“Mama,” Zari interrupted, much to Sara’s private relief “We have to go back home. I want to try to find Behrad.”
Nasreen’s eyes watered at the mention of her son, and she nodded to the pair. “Of course.”
“Z,” Sara warned, stopping them both from running to the jumpship “We have to wait until nightfall. We can’t risk ARGUS or one of their supporters seeing us. I’d say we could jump to then, but I’d rather not do that to your mom so soon after…”
“You’re right,” Zari sighed “You’re right! I just- I need to talk to him. I have to make sure he knows-”
“I understand,” the captain promised “And I’m sure he will, too. But we have to be smart.”
“Zari?” asked Nasreen, failing to follow the conversation
“I’ll explain it once we’re back on the bus,” Zari said, leading her mother to the cloaked jumpship in the field nearby “It’s a lot to take in.”
Sara exhaled, having slipped the heirloom back into Zari’s bag when she walked past. The energy in the area was all but dissipated, Nasreen being the only spirit Sara could sense. She hoped that she was doing the right thing-- and that no one would ask why she hadn’t been able to find Zari’s father.
---
Slipping in through the back door of the home, Sara could feel the overwhelming presence of Behrad. Sad and scared and coming from the front of the house. Zari had given Sara her totem, as it was the only thing she had left of her brother’s. The air totem felt much lighter than her own as Sara carried it through the backyard, but it turned heavy once inside the house.
Zari tried to turn on the lights, but the switch was unresponsive.
The Captain held up a hand, stopping the other women just inside the door. “I can feel him, but he’s freaked out. Wait here, please?”
Zari wanted to protest, but she bit her lip instead. “Fine. Just be as quick as you can.”
“Of course,” Sara promised, turning and walking further into the house “Behrad? It’s safe now. Your mom and Zari are here. I... I have your amulet.”
“Don’t shout about that.” came a young man’s voice
Sara turned to see dark eyes watching her from the top of a downward staircase. He stood halfway behind a door, but there was enough visible for Sara to see the blood on his translucent shirt “Why not?”
“That’s why they were hunting my family.” he whispered, “That magic rock.”
Sara moved closer to him, but his body language pulled back. “Hey, it’s okay. ARGUS can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Yeah, because they already killed me.”
“Yeah. And because I’m here to get you out of this house. Out of this police state. We’re here to save you.”
The young man was still too transparent, darkly so, and Sara couldn’t be sure if he was even a viable option for resurrection. She still didn’t have a hang of the ability and wasn’t sure she’d be able to pull it off twice in one day.
Behrad stood a little taller, his head tilting with skepticism. “How? How can you save me if I’m already gone?”
“What’s he saying?” Zari asked, earning a glare from her Captain for following her into the house.
Nasreen stepped into the foyer and blinked at the ghostly figure of her son.
Sara frowned at the other women. "You can see him?"
"Barely," Zari answered
“You two shouldn’t be here!” he shouted “I told you to run! It’s not safe!”
The Captain and the ghost stood in silence for a moment before she realized his family couldn't hear him.
“He says you shouldn’t be here.” Sara told them “It’s not safe, that’s why he told you to run.”
“Behrad!” their mother shouted back “You didn't tell us you would be sacrificing yourself. We never would have left if we knew that!”
Zari nodded behind her mother.
Behrad took silent steps out of the basement, unknowingly causing the black totem to tremble against Sara’s skin. The Captain held onto the stone as the young man approached, then stopped halfway to them. “How do I know we will still be safe if I go with you? I can’t be the reason this family is targeted. Not again.”
“He doesn’t believe us that it’s safe. He’s worried about putting another target on your backs.”
“Behrad,” Zari begged “Please trust me. I have a place that’s safer than our Jannah. It’s where I’ve been for the last year and ARGUS hasn’t been able to touch me.”
“Trust your sister, my son.” said Nasreen “Her friend, Captain Lance, has a power that brought me back to you. She can bring you back to us, but you have to trust her.”
The man shuffled a little closer, his words barely above a whisper as the hardened look disappeared from his eyes.
Sara looked to her teammate “He wants you to promise they won’t chase you again.”
“I promise, Behrad, joon.” Zari told him “We’ll be safe. And together.”
He took the last few steps, becoming more solid with every move until his sneaker-clad feet could be heard when they hit the hardwood floor. New life seemed to rush through him as the totem rocked against Sara’s hand. Just when the heat threatened to sear her skin, the stone went cold and still again.
Behrad grinned and touched his chest, starting to laugh aloud at the solid feeling of it. His face lit up with his youth and he looked to his family. “Zari! Mami! I’m okay!”
Exhausted, Sara stumbled back from the family as they embraced in their home.
---
“It was amazing!” Zari told the crew, pacing the floor of the galley as her audience sat around the table with rapt attention “One minute he was see-through, like a shadow, and the next—there he was! We could hug him and everything.”
Nate sat up and spoke next “And he wasn’t upset with you for running away?”
“No, not at all!” Zari announced, grinning through her tears as she explained “He said I didn’t have a totem to protect myself like he did, so he meant it when he told me to run. I- I can’t believe I never thought of it like that, but I’d have felt the same way. Mallus lied! Behrad was never upset with me for leaving!”
Nora was understandably uncomfortable at her words, having channeled the demon’s lies through her own body, but Zari didn’t seem to be thinking of it at all. She was too busy telling the story of Nasreen’s resurrection again.
Nate, Charlie, and Ray were the first on their feet, cheering as they approached their friend and wrapped her in a congratulatory hug.
Sara sank further into her chair, avoiding the gazes of Nyssa, Ava, and Mick. Nora and John weren’t staring at her, but they didn’t seem to approve either. She was too exhausted to guess what they might’ve been thinking, but she knew it wasn’t anything she wanted to hear.
---
Ava and Nyssa were already in the Captain’s quarters when she arrived. They were sitting on the end of the bed and facing the doorway in a manner that was anything but casual. Sara had half a mind to turn around and take off, but it was useless. This was a conversation that needed to happen and avoiding it wouldn’t make it any easier. Sara stepped out of her boots and kicked them aside.
“This is about the totem isn’t it?”
“More like how you’re using it.”
Sara sighed and looked up at Ava. “I don’t regret reviving them.”
“We’re not saying you should, Beloved.” Nyssa assured her “We only want to know what you have planned for your new charges.”
“Planned?”
“Well, yeah,” Ava stood and walked halfway to Sara “They can’t just hang out on the Waverider forever.”
“Why not?” Sara argued, “Infinite supply of food and a ton of space.”
The Director tilted her head to the side “You know what I mean. This is a dangerous ship to be on and only one of them can defend himself.”
“Actually,” Nyssa chimed in, drawing an irritated look from Ava “I’ve taught Laurel a great deal about self-defense.”
“Way to present a united front, babe.”
“Loves, listen,” Sara waited until they were both facing her again “I don’t know what Behrad and Nasreen want, but Laurel- she doesn’t have much of a life to go back to. Laurel from Earth 2 has been living my sister's life. She has nowhere else to go. I know it’s different than my resurrection because they have their souls, but even things like sunlight are still so overwhelming. She looked like she was going to faint this morning because she’d forgotten what being hungry felt like and forgot that she needed to eat!”
The revelation shocked the other women, but Sara continued “I want to give her more time. I can ask Behrad and Nasreen what they want to do next in a week or so, but for now, my only plan is to let them be alive again. We can keep them safe on the ship. We used to do missions in groups of two or three people, so there’s no need for all ten of us to go marching out at every disruption to the timeline. Some of us can stay behind to protect the new arrivals, y’know?”
Nyssa seemed satisfied by this answer, the strategy of it made sense to her.
Ava, on the other hand, continued to bite her lip and look at Sara.
“What if they want to go home?” asked the director “What if they don’t want to stay on a time ship for the rest of their lives?”
Sara shrugged and paced away from the taller blonde “I don’t know, Ava. We can’t put Zari's family back into their timeline without making them targets again, and we can’t put them in the future because we're constantly changing it and we don’t know if they’ll survive, and the past is always a gamble to change, so I don’t know. I really don’t. But isn’t it a good thing that they’re alive again to help us make that decision?”
Ava sighed, unable to argue with the optimistic take on things. Sara’s totem had been more of a shock collar for her bloodlust when she first began to wear it. The Director couldn’t deny that she was happy to see Sara embrace her role as a totem bearer, even if it meant a lot more winging it than she was ever comfortable with. “You’re right. It’s their choice, and we can’t plan for every single possibility, so we just need to wait it out. And it’s your totem, so I trust you to use it. Promise me one thing?”
Sara made her way back to Ava near the foot of their bed “What is it?”
“Promise you’ll tell us if anything goes wrong? I don’t want you to have to figure it all out on your own.”
“I second that,” Nyssa added
Sara looked from Ava to Nyssa and back, then nodded “I promise.”
Nyssa raised a brow as the other women sealed their deal by clasping their smallest fingers together. She still so clearly remembered the day Sara taught her to pinkie-swear but didn't expect to see that she continued to use the gesture. Neither blonde noticed their girlfriend smile to herself as they continued getting ready to sleep.
--
Sara sat up and flinched. There was someone at her feet. She reached for the light beside her before realizing that she didn’t need it. She sighed and turned back to The Canary. “Why do I get the feeling you don’t have anything nice to say?”
“Your dominion over the dead should not be treated so lightly.”
“Who says I’m treating it lightly? Laurel was pulled from the timeline, so we don’t break history, and Gideon said it worked. We did the same thing with Zari’s family-”
“Do you think history is all that’s at stake here?” snapped the voice of the totem “You’re not wearing a time stone around your neck, Captain Lance. You’re wearing the balance of life itself.”
“I’m the one destined to wear you, so calm down and let me figure out my destiny!” Sara tossed the covers aside, landing them squarely where Nyssa’s body lay, as she stood and walked to the Captain’s bathroom. “I don’t remember Amaya getting this much feedback.”
“Amaya was much more connected to the ancestral line of her totem. Do you even know which half of your family your line comes from?”
Sara stopped at the sink and stared at her reflection. She’d never given it much thought before, but suddenly she knew. It was her mother’s line. It had to be. Her mother, with morbid interests, even for a historian, who could probably recite the lifespan and cause of death of every great ruler in the past few centuries from memory alone. Her mother, who always knew when something was fatally wrong with every childhood pet Sara and Laurel had ever had. Her mother, who had known that she wasn’t dead after the Gambit sank and who had known when she really did die. “Mom’s side.”
“Good guess,” The apparition in the mirror nodded behind Sara. “Still, if you asked her, she’d have no idea what the totem is. Amaya had less intervention because she never needed it. She understood her totem and all that it was capable of. That’s why I need you to hear me, Sara. You have to be careful with this aspect of the totem’s power.”
The Captain spun to face her past self. “You’re not gonna tell me why, are you?”
The Canary shrugged and began fading out of the Captain’s bathroom “It’s like you said. Some parts of your destiny you have to figure out for yourself.”
The lights went out and Sara gasped for breath. She hadn’t expected to wake up on the cold floor of the private washroom, so far from the comfort and safety of her bed. The call of warmth and rest was strong, but Sara’s fear and the desire to protect her sister were stronger. She rushed into the hall and ran at full speed for Laurel’s room. She stopped at the door, swiped the lock for access, and hurried inside. She leaned over the sleeping woman and used feather-light hands to check her vitals. Relieved, she exhaled and withdrew.
“You must not’ve taken the bedside manner course in med school.”
“Sorry. Had a nightmare, needed to check on you.”
Laurel rolled over to face her sister in the dark. “I could’ve sworn I locked the doors.”
“Captain’s override. I won’t use it again.”
“Liar.”
“Fine,” Sara conceded “I’ll only use it when I’m sure you’re in mortal danger.”
“Thanks. Can I go back to sleep, or do you need a proof of life photo?”
Sara nudged her sister’s shoulder. “No. Go back to sleep, brat.”
“Aye, aye.”
The older Lance pulled her blankets back up around her body and drifted off again as Sara left the room.
The Captain took the long way back to her quarters, trying to get her fear under control without resorting to whiskey. She had just reentered the last stretch of the hallway when she nearly walked into another woman. Both warriors dropped into self-defensive stances before recognizing one another.
“Beloved,”
“Nyssa,”
“What are you doing up?”
“I had a bad dream. Went to check on Laurel.”
“Oh,” Nyssa stepped forward and held Sara’s shoulders “Are you both alright now?”
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s fine. And I’m starting to relax. I’m sorry, I didn’t know I woke you up.”
“You didn’t. Not directly, at least. I woke when I couldn’t feel you beside me and your pillow was cold, so I knew you’d been gone for some time. Ava didn’t feel me leave, heavy sleeper that she is,” Nyssa paused to smile at the thought of their mutual love “but I couldn’t fall back to sleep without knowing where you were.”
Sara stood on her toes to kiss Nyssa’s forehead. “I’m okay, I promise. Back to bed with us?”
Nyssa took her partner’s hand and led her back to their bed
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