{ We stand shoulder to shoulder

[strongerthanyouknow]

Who: Sara Lance + Oliver/Legends/Team Arrow
What: Checking Out Her Stand-In
When: Shortly After Oliver Offered
Where Arrow Cave, underneath Verdant
Warning: ... all the normal ones for Sara Lance?

---

She's already told her people: where she's going and where their backup base of operations is (with Oliver, in the Arrow Cave) until Gideon is fixed from the newest shade of broken she's in. That's normal enough. One or two people in the know of where she's going, how to find her, if the world goes sideways in this place and she's needed at a moments notice.




There's something to being back in here.
Here, instead of where she belongs.


The second time in less than a year when that's true, that she doesn't have the Waverider and feels an adriftness from it she hates. Even if it's buried deep under the speculative look she's giving the room. Still, there's the unwrinkled constancy of Oliver and her team are with her this time. Comfort as much as it was extra weight to figure her -- and their -- way out of this as soon as possible.


[ OOT: Thread Original Here. All threads welcome to be continued and added to. ]

Comments

[havingprecision]

((continued from here

She doesn't have to answer. Oliver knows.

At the question he redirects his attention to the room, to the weapons and equipment and gear laid out in pristene fashion. Like he hadn't left a day ago with Sara laying cold and still on the main medical table.

His eyes flick to the wall. His tactical gear, his hood, his weapons. "I recognize my things. Roy's." A nod at the mannequin clad in dark leather and a domino mask. "Was this yours? After.. after you came back?"

[strongerthanyouknow]

Sara turns in the direction of the question even as the air around her goes cold. She hadn't even thought of it when she'd scanned the room. It's not exactly like her eyes shied from the line of costumes, but there're things she doesn't linger on. Doesn't let herself linger on. She has to make herself pass over to keep herself always going in the right, forward direction.

Her hand is still resting on the table when she makes herself say it. "No."




She says it before she even looks at him,
and definitely before her eyes make it to the costume in question.

She could be blind and she would still know that it was right there.

[havingprecision]

Oliver could be blind and still register the way Sara's world seemed to come crashing to a halt. He moves then, putting himself between the dummy and her, an unconscious move on his part. There's no threat, but something is very wrong.

"Sara?"
His hand rests lightly on hers.

[strongerthanyouknow]

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if all he did was step between her and it. If his reaction wasn't to instantly touch her; and whose reaction in the world is to actually touch her? She could glare at her own team hard enough they shifted steps back without her moving toward her. Even Jax kept a careful distance at close. When Jax was here. Mick, too. All of them.

Not Oliver.


Never Oliver.

(How are you doing?
I'll cry at the funeral.

Sara.

A hand catching her arm.
No hesitation then either.

I ... I'm fine.)

"It is the Black Canary still."

[havingprecision]

His reaction is always to close the distance between them. To reach out and touch. She might put distance between herself and others, but that's never been them. Never. A grounding touch is always offered, freely given.

"The Black Canary."

She's not telling him something. Not yet.
But he'll wait to hear it, wait to hear about his future. His life. Things he doesn't know yet.

[strongerthanyouknow]

This is not a conversation topic Sara does. It's not. She never went back. She never saw Laurel, again, after she left with The Legends. Laurel never got to see what she became, will never see what she might be becoming if her darkness doesn't ruin it all one day, too. Never saw her fail to take down Darhk for her, or to bring her back. One day she was giving Sara a new costume and new name, and the next Sara was returning to a grave marker, never to see her again.

Until The Spear of Destiny. The Holy Lance.
Damaged. Damaged, but strong enough to do the right thing.


To keep not choosing the only thing, only person, Sara would give everything all up for. Laurel.
Or wouldn't. Proven again. Wanted to with all of whatever her soul was. Except for that one last inch.



She can't say that. She can't say any of that. It's worse and more temporally damaging than any implied change. Than any sideways managed rule broke for him, willingly, already. A thing Oliver would be struck to his core by. Again. Would rail against. Would absolutely change time against the actuality of living through. She has to be careful, but she can't say nothing. "After I died, but before I came back, the mantle got picked up again."

[havingprecision]

His eyes never leave her face. Not once.

What happened?
What went wrong?


Who else did I fail to protect?

"Sara. What happened?"

What did he do wrong?

[strongerthanyouknow]

This is. She can't. If she knows she's already given too much, and she couldn't choose Laurel, she can't choose Laurel. Her eyes stay dry but the conflict is there. Conflict and something starkly clear, written. Pain. Regret. Shame, even. She should be better. She should be allowed to choose Laurel. Fuck allowed even. Laurel broke all the rules of their world, and the League's world, for her.

She should be willing to break all of time and space and everyone in it for Laurel.
She should be willing to bend all of reality and give herself, her life, her people, everything.




But she didn't. She couldn't.
She's not as good as Laurel. She's never been as good as Laurel.
Not even as reckless and loyal in the face of love except at the very beginning.



"Ollie." It tries to level itself. It tries to be sensible.
Clear. She shouldn't. She can't give this. She can't.

She knows better. Not time, in this one.

She knows him.
Because she knows herself.
Because she knows Oliver will always love Laurel, too.
Complicatedly, and deeply, and truly, when it does and doesn't work.
They are all a tangled knot, but that didn't stop any side from being true.


And she knows she can carry this alone. Even here. She has for so long already.

[havingprecision]

Something in his chest cracks at that. Bleeds. Because it was someone he knew. Someone he trusted and cared for if their gear was in his base like this.

Someone he failed.
Yao Fei.
Shado.
Slade.
Sara.
Mom.

So many bodies stacked at his feet.

Even so, Oliver doesn't demand. Doesn't push when it's so clear that Sara wants to but is only just barely holding back.

So he tangles his fingers in hers. Looks. Wonders how bad things are at home. Because good never stays for long. Something always comes, something to shatter moments of peace.

[strongerthanyouknow]

Sara doesn't know if she can do this. It starts at the backs of her eyes. An itch that hits the edges all too fast. That slams itself with all the force of its own arrow, it's own unending, so long ignored, scream in that place where she keeps all of it. Rip, and Martin, and Jax. She never takes off Laurel's necklace except to fight. It's all she has left, and it's barely a shadow. A language no one knows but her.

His fingers twist to slide between hers and hers curl around them on instinct and for a second she kind of hates him -- or she hates herself, time, fate, reality, living and living with living without living with someone who deserved to live more than you ever did a day in your life -- because it balls up in her chest, punching at the back of her ribs, at the bottom of her throat. Because no one, no one understands what Laurel means. Meant. Means. Always. Forever will.

Maybe more with each now than ever unforgotten every day with the League the first time.

"I hate it when you do that."

It's so small, so soft, and what she really hates is the faint tremor in her bottom lip. The catch in her voice, her throat, even at a whisper. Or the fact she doesn't know if it'll be worse if holds he on, or believes her and lets go.

[havingprecision]

Oliver can't fix this. He can't make it right. He can't help her. The helplessness makes him ill.
But he can at least offer some sort of comfort. Fingers not uncurling from hers as he draws in closer. Presses his lips to her forehead.

"I'm sorry."
For every mistake he'll make.
For every life that he can't save, for the loss that will cause her so much pain.

Oliver fights to be better, demands so much of himself and even then he still fails. He fails that Black Canary somehow. He fails Sara.

[strongerthanyouknow]

He pulls her in closer, and her hands raised, palms flat against his chest, and she knows she meant to push him back, but his lips press against her forehead, and her hands, too small and not ever lethal enough here, curl into fists around the fabric of his shirt, while her eyes clench too hard. A perfect mirror between all four and the way her teeth are trying to smash each other in her jaw. While something feels it snaps, her whole body giving a shiver against the warmth of that kiss.

Because this truth is too big. Too big for Time, and too big for Sara.

It's not a feeling. It's one of the last truly good things in her soul.
It's a layer of her skin. It's the marrow of every bone in her body.

It's everything everyone -- Rip, Martin, Destiny -- has told her she has to give up.

It's everything she is broken down to the only thing she just needs to have back.
Her big sister. Her hero. The person she betrayed, and who forgave her,
saved her, saw her light even when she was barely to living again.


"I miss her." It's a shaking breath, and she can't look up. Sara just pushes closer, until her forehead hits his chest, even though her hands haven't dropped, haven't unfisted themselves. She can't - shouldn't - can't stop - no one has ever understood. Like she could hide from the words, from saying too much, from the fact Oliver is too smart, from needing to be understood, from the way she can never fight him, even when she tries. "So much."

[havingprecision]

Laurel.
Laurel. Laurel is gone.

Even through his shock Oliver wraps his arms around Sara's shoulders to keep her close. Shelter her as his world spins wildly out of control. Oliver can't breathe through his shock, through his agony.

Laurel.

No. Nononono.
He failed so many people. Lost them.
But Laurel.


Again. Oliver can't grieve. Again.
He won't grieve, not now. He has to hold Sara even though he can barely breathe through his shock. His sorrow.
But he will do this for Sara. Give her shelter.


"I'm so sorry Sara."
He should have protected her. Should have been better.

[strongerthanyouknow]

This, too, she would know if she was blind. If she was deaf. If she was dumb.

The way Oliver's arms suddenly swallow her against him, but everything in the middle of him, everything that is not that touch and is not the sudden escalation of his heartbeat too close to her temple goes absolutely still, too. Not rigid. Not locked. Not muscles tight. Just still. And it hits in a wave, that he understands, that he knows, without a word, what she's done and she wrenches herself back against his words, hands flattening on his chest, shoving against his arms with all her strength suddenly, eyes widening in a horror almost worse than the brilliance of a well of pain never opened, never allowed, suddenly flooding everywhere.

That first one tear trickles from the side of her eye, and another follows it heavier, larger, even as she shakes her head, overwhelming responsibility slamming into her, with another tear on the other side, and too much knowledge, too much learning curve, and she just splintered it for herself after denying all of reality. "No," and "No," again, too big, it only gets bigger, it only gets worse, because she can see it there in his face already, "I'm sorry."

And don't and we can't and you can't scream in her.


Oh. Oh, God. Oh, no. She shouldn't have. Not even for a second.

No quarter. No mercy. No comfort. Not in this. Not ever. Not for Laurel.
But even worse, it's everything she keeps every one of her people from doing.

You don't break time. You can choose family, you protect them, but you can't break everything.
(Unless you are her. And then you fix time, you fix people, and they are the only family you can keep.)

[havingprecision]

When she shoves, Oliver gives, allows his arms to fall away despite his heartbreak, the raw and real grief etched into his features. So much loss. So much pain.
He failed her.
He failed them.

And Oliver will not let her run. He refuses.

"Sara." His voice shatters on her name because he can't bring himself to say Laurel's name. Laurel that he hurt. That he lost.
That he failed

Don't run. Don't run and don't leave him with this because it's too much. Too big. Too everywhere and nothing he can do to make it right. Fix it. He can't save Laurel here. He can't.

He's going to lose everyone he ever loved. Anyone he ever cared about. So many names. So many losses. That's his future at home. Grief and failure.
Death.

[strongerthanyouknow]

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

And this.

This is worse than all of that.

Tears clouding into all of her vision. When nothing should be worse. (It's called being better, Miss Lance.) Not than possibly breaking everything. (You have to hold yourself to a higher standard. I'm sorry, Sara. But you do.) Not than everything they broke, had to have fixed like children with trashed toys, and then got broken all around them, here again. And all of it. All of it pales before this. Before the raw, suddenly shattered, look more in Oliver's eyes than anything that finds his face.

"I'm sorry." Sara's arms come up, wrapping around herself, like maybe she could keep herself from him. All of her. Not her hands. Her voice. Her presence. Her - her. She was supposed to protect him here. Him, from the past. Him, in the future. She was supposed to be at his side, but without ruining him, or here, or there. It wasn't about her. None of this was about her. "I didn't mean--"

Except she did. And that's worse. She wanted a second. She wanted the one second she could never give herself. The one she buried down so deep after the crew from the future was all murdered, save herself, and time, and the burea, and that six months just trying to stay in one place that wasn't the answering the easy call of Nada Parbat, where she didn't have to say these words here. She could have just looked too long in this direction and Oliver would have drug her out for a meal, or Felicity would have started babbling about something.

Not this. Nothing like this. It didn't come out like this, when it didn't have to be explained. Touched.
She didn't have to see it like this. A flashbright cracking in those blue eyes. The absolutely responsiblity.
The fact she can't keep walking backward, when it's all she wants to do. Should do. She'll make it worse if she doesn't.

But she can't. Her nails are digging into her sides, but pain is a color and a string of music notes and passing wind that hardly knows her name except to wake her. And the pain in his face is so much worse. Worse than anything anyone could do to her. Worse than what she's done to all of them. And she did this. She did this to him, and it's spilling out, more, and worse, and she can't stop it now, can't stop herself from stepping back in, for reaching up and out for him. To make him focus on only her, even if everything is shattering under her, in her.

He has to know. "It wasn't you. It wasn't your fault."

[havingprecision]

Laurel.
The girl that he had loved but she had been so much better than him. So, so much better. She loved him and Oliver loved her the best that he could, in his own broken and jagged way.

Laurel was dead.
Gone.

Sara is pulling away and Oliver can't bear that any more than he can the news that threatens to cut his legs from beneath him in shock and grief and guilt. He wants to beg. To plead. Don't pull away. Don't leave me with this. Laurel was part of the team and gone because he had somehow failed. Screwed up and cost another life.

"She.." a shaky sound. "She was a part of this team. So it is. It was my fault."
Will be.
It will be his fault and that makes it so much worse.

"It will be. My fault. My fault that we.. that she.."

Her touch undoes his control and Oliver reaches for her again, desperate and shocky in his grief.

[strongerthanyouknow]

"No, no," Sara shakes her head, even as she pulls him down, saying the word over and over. Against his shoulder, his neck, his cheek, his hair as she shakes her head. She can't do anything except press on her toes and pull him into her, too. Like the tide. A wash of words in waves she never got to say two years ago. "Laurel always made her own choices. Laurel always knew what she was doing."

That she'd done it for Sara's death, like so much Oliver did, too.
That she'd known who she was, and wanted to be, and even who Sara could be.

"That wasn't on you. That wasn't you." Just like people tried to tell her it wasn't on her.

It wasn't on her, and she couldn't kill Darhk, and she couldn't save Laurel, and she doesn't let go. She can't. She's not sure the ground would support her weight. The time will let her live after this mistake. That her heart can handle the harm she's caused. Her arms are tight, and she can't hold any of it. Like an apology. Like a benediction on every worst sin she somehow felt she had any right to throw at him, had any right to admit she wasn't perfect before. To need.

When she's not allowed to need.

Strong enough to do the right thing,
and damaged enough to fuck it all up again.

(Story of your life, Sara.)

[havingprecision]

They are both the same in so many ways.
Asking so much of themselves. Demanding it, even. Fighting very day to be better than they were the day before.

They also carry so much weight on their shoulders. Bearing responsibility for everything. More than they should. And when someone on their watch is hurt, when someone dies, it guts them.
Because they should have been better. Stronger. Found a way to save them.

But as Sara tugs him into her arms, he goes without resisting, sinking into the warmth of her arms. So Oliver loops his arms around her waist. Breathes. Tamps back the tears stinging his eyes.
He's going to lose Laurel.
Just like he lost Tommy. Shado. Slade. Everyone he's ever cared about. Loved.

Maybe he was right to push Felicity away back home. To realize that he can't have a normal life as Oliver Queen. People who get close to him die.
They leave.

[strongerthanyouknow]

If Sara drags them back a few steps, so she can lean against the light-up table in the middle of the room, let it dig into the small of her back, and keep him there, a mountain falling into her, crashing because she was stupid enough to open her mouth and say words she never lets herself, never should have let herself, it's fine. The bite is real. It grounds her into her skin more than her heart. Gives her something to shove her focus toward. As real as the fact she won't let go. She won't let him fall, even if she's the one who pushed him.

Even if it remains the same as always.
Oliver is a weakness Sara never can get out from under her skin.
Every time, every place, every single person was and is and could become.

How was she ever supposed to keep it in -- Laurel -- aside from the fact it's the only thing she's ever been supposed to do with it. Push it down, mark it as passed, keep going. Be better. Hold herself higher. Be the person who somehow figures out how to the hell to protect and fix time even though she was never given an iota of the training that every other person looking down on her and her people have.

She's already broken it, and the thing with broken things, is somehow you can't help how they fall, you can't help that you free fall with the cliff, and hold on tighter, give more, shatter pieces with it, and when she pulls back a little, enough to see his face, again, she has to say it, too. "You'll get them. The person who did it. It's the only reason--"

It's one of the only way Sara ended up being able to handle anything. Any of being told no. And no. And no. She was not free. She was not allowed. She could not. Could not. Would not. That piece of information passed down from Gideon. And it's one of the reasons she hates most what time and destiny asked of her next after giving her that. Oliver got to kill Darhk. Mick got to make Leonard a better man. Sara? Sara got to put Darhk back in the timeline. Put Darhk back on the path to killing Laurel.

Even after what Darhk did to her, made her do to everyone she loved.

And then Rip and everything he did, said, that she so badly wanted to believe, and now he's back again.
Back, with his daughter and with Mallus, and after two years, Darhk'd finally almost managed to kill her, too.

[havingprecision]

That damn table.
The one she lay on.
The one where Oliver gently closed her eyes one last time.

No.
He can't fall. He won't.
The pressure of the last few.. days? Hours? Since waking up here is all threatening to crush him. To shatter him. People from his past and his future. Knowledge about him. About mistakes he'll make. Lives here won't be able to save.

This isn't an enemy he can fight or out think.

He can't do anything and it grates at him. Feeling helpless when he fought so hard to wrench back control of his life and his path.
Control that's been stolen away again.

"Tell me," because he has to know one thing. Has to ask even when he promised her he wouldn't push. "Tell me that I don't lose you. Tell me you come home. At least when you can."

Tell him that he doesn't lose everything.

[strongerthanyouknow]

If it were any moment but this one, any other moment at all, this would be a joke. She'd laugh and she'd smirk and she'd tease him about being needy, or greedy, or blow him off with a grin that said I know more than you do. This question, this need, the response welling up more certain than anything, especially in this second. A question he'll never need to ask in the future, even if they both still probably ask it from time to time, when the nights and months and years are long, and it's only a few days in among years. A few months when she's denied her own calling.

The answer doesn't change, and this moment. This moment isn't any other moment.
Isn't a joke. And it's not a question. It's a demand on the edge of precipe, already falling.

"Never. You hear me." Not a question either. Her hands slide up from his shoulders, across his ears and back down to his chin pulling him closer. So that she's all he gets to see. To hear. No other world. No other answer. Option. It's never existed. Since she came laughing down the boardwalk to that boat. Since that rooftop when she let herself get caught. Since the day she said she loved him too much to stay.

Since the one she took her new costume, and went off to find who she could be, and who they all might end up being in their futures. "You can never lose me. I always come back."

From death, and the edge of death.
From time, when they call for The Legends.
From the future, wherever he ends up, however he does.

[havingprecision]

And if it were any other moment, one that wasn't bright and sharp with grief and guilt and loss, Oliver would smile fondly and let her toss it away with a casual joke. Tease him as greedy. Needy for her.

Never mind the truth behind it.
Because it all started with them. Surviving hell and beyond to turn it into something right and good and pure. To take blood and darkness and use it for the light.

The reassurance is what he needs more than anything.
Strength. A promise that is unshakeable at it's core. If Sara comes back, he can persevere. He can go on.

And had it been earlier in their lives, he'd have stolen a kiss, needing the reassurance of touch and skin.
But he settles for resting his forehead on hers. Breathing.

"Good. That's.. that's good."

"Because I can't do this without you. Without knowing you're out there. Protecting time. Everything."

[strongerthanyouknow]

Everything is already in tatters, shattered around this space, and Oliver just leans in against her, closes his eyes, making her hands shift, curl against the sides and part of the back of his head, and Sara swears something in her chest, in whatever part of her heart isn't in that case, in that grave destiny turns over and over to make sure she can keep breaking and keep taking it while not falling down, she didn't know could, just aches even harder.

Spider webs whatever shards haven't absolutely shattered.

Trembles in a threat, that isn't a threat, it's a promise,
it's the last second before it snaps, trying to hold in place.

As those words can be felt on her skin, and she knows this isn't. He isn't. There are. She said. She broke. There are other people. Other places. He is. Will go. Hasn't been. But it's already written. And he's still here. Holding on to her. His eyes closed, and so close. So close she can watch the way his eyelashes shiver and how the muscles in his face tighten and release in the fight inside of him that she knows so well. As though he were fighting it in her head. Her heart. Her skin. Her veins. Don't fall. Don't fall. Never fall. It's not an option.

She doesn't think she can do this. She already broke the cardinal rule of everything.
She's never been great at this slope. She never had to be. None of them mattered.

"Always." She doesn't even know where that whisper comes from. An answer.

A confession. A promise. Given a hundred times. In a look. In being right at his side in a fight. In going to Star and not India. There. And there. And here. She doesn't know if it is to the right question. To what he said. How to look away. How to breathe. She's never been able to. She couldn't even when she found him last. When everyone had left him, let him die, and time was going to be rewritten by her, and the Legends, anyway. And she'd still had to. Make it better. Make him see that she never would, say no, back down, leave him without the light, the truth she knew about him deeper than time, or blood, or ruin, or right.

That it's the only answer that ever was and is and will.
It's all of it, all of it is only and ever been -- "Always."

[havingprecision]

It isn't fair.
It isn't right.
Oliver should be stronger than this. He should be able to bear up under this weight as much as any other.

Sara. Tommy. Shado. Yao Fei. Laurel.
His mind keeps tripping over it. A stutter. A stammer. He can't get past this. Can't.

Sure and steady fingers cupping his head, drawing him in. A breath whispering against his skin. A vow. A certainty and Oliver's hands curl against her. Clinging. For just this one moment as he closes his eyes and struggles against himself.

"I can't do this. Not alone. Not.. not without you."

Finally his eyes open.

"I have to know that you're out there. Protecting time." Somewhere out there bright and shining. A guardian of time itself. Doing what was right. "That you come back."

[strongerthanyouknow]

There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to take a step back to. It's the only thought she has when Oliver opens his eyes and her lips press together. Harder, when all of his words are the same words. The same ones he just said. The same ones he keeps saying. A jagged repetition. She did this, and even then. These are the words he keeps saying. These are the words, there are the eyes, she should step back from.

That something in him needs her. To be here. Alive. In time. With him. Keep him from falling apart entirely. Her. Which is why any direction, any step would be better. Smarter. Saner. But there's Oliver and there's a table she's already more than mostly forgetting biting into her back through the layer of her shirt. Because something like a minute ago that seemed wise, that seemed sensible. Something to have behind her. To hold her, holding him. And now it's her self-imposed lack of an exit.

"I come back." She makes herself say, makes herself find words, find sound, even as it's failing her, even as none of it good enough for the things that have no words to be spoken. That haven't. In. What. In how long. Four years. Six. That an ocean of blood, and brutal fight with the light, can't cure entirely. Not ever. "I leave, but I come back. I always come back."

She does leave and she doesn't, she has left and she never can, and that, that is the truth that turns time, burns through it, underneath it, and that's the reason she does it. The thing she shouldn't even more but it's breaking like a wave without a place to run, and she doesn't run. Sara Lance doesn't run. Hasn't in so long. There are a hundred reasons why she shouldn't burning in the shards, like there always have been, every single time. But none of them are this.

This broken thing she set on fire in his eyes, and none of them are the thing that never,
never leaves even while making room for all the world, and all of time, and all of everyone else.

"Shh." It's soft. So soft. She doesn't know if it's an apology when her thumb brushes through his hair and she almost shakes her head and finds she can't move even that far. Not away. It could be. An apology. For this, and that, and for everything. Everything she can never apologize for, and never let go of, even if she never stays, and she leaves to come back to leave again. But she says it, and she does the only thing she can't stop herself from doing any more.

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." Sara pushes up, just a little, tips her head just the barest little left between words and sound and breath, kissing him lightly, remembering only as it happens that last time he kissed her for the first time, again, she'd been crying, too.

[havingprecision]

He can't help it.
The way his mind keeps tripping over things. Dead bodies. Loss. Grief. The unceasing demand to be better. Do better. To stop being forced to bury friends and loved ones.

He can't help them here. Trapped. Trapped in a place where time doesn't make sense. Trapped and unable to fight back.
Too much.
It's all too much and while he isn't sure how much more he can take, he knows that he has to. Keep taking it. Be strong. Help the others first.

Then her hands, small and warm and so very steady, shift. A whisper of her thumb in his hair. A soft hush on her lips.
The final crack in the dam and when she kisses him so softly absolutely everything in Oliver Queen shatters apart. Breaks.

No wall can last forever and he clutches at her with a sound that's almost a sob before his lips find hers in a desperate, frantic kiss.

Everyone leaves him.
Everyone.
But not Sara. Not her.

[strongerthanyouknow]

There isn't a punch that could be landed on her skin or mind that hits the force of the sound that chokes out of Oliver against her lips, and she's done something so fundamental to her core wrong that making that happen, having to hear it, feel it escape, jagged, and ragged, and torn from denial and survival, like she reached in and ripped some part of what was left of his heart, his soul, against her skin, that alone threatens to split her, before he's kissing her back with a force to match it.

A shunt of somewhere to throw everything in him behind that sound at.

Rushed and hard, frantic with desperation, and grief. Her, and Laurel, and this place.
Things that she knows, that are all falling from her in seconds, because nothing is staying.

Nothing but the way everything gives, the way she would give anything, everything, he needs if he needs it from her. Light. Hope. Faith. Grief. Desperation. Defeat. Fingers digging into against skin and hair, and dragging him into her, and that goddamn unmoving table, kissing him back, as though none of this had come close enough, become too dangerous, gone too far already.

[havingprecision]

It's not her fault.
It's. Not.
Oliver would rather know than continue to operate in uncertainty. Not knowing what his future holds. To have something concrete, no matter how devastating, matters.

He will one day fail Laurel.
He will fail Sara.

But Sara will never fail him. She will always be there and he pours his grief and guilt and relief into every kiss, every clash of lips and teeth and tongue. Fingers tight enough to leave bruises, but he can't care.

Sara.
All that matters is Sara.
He couldn't manage this without her.

[strongerthanyouknow]

She isn't afraid of the ferocity of the fingers that dig in against her skin,
or this kiss that threatens to split lips and knock teeth.

Nothing that he could throw at her, beyond the edge of a cliff could surprise or frighten her entirely. That's not the only problem that raises up here, and there, and there. It's only being stuck. It's only that stupid table, and Sara's seriously done with the damn table.

At least sort of.

There isn't even a pause.

Sara doesn't even think about breaking this kiss yet. One hand slides up, fingers curving around the back of his head, and the other finds the edge of the table. One foot finding the flat of a support bar on it, and using that only to go about pushing herself up on the edge of it, and screw the fact it makes a slight screeching sound of movement.

She's done more with less, and could, even blind.
She's done of any of them now, except done.
Rules, and walls, and space.

Everything, that isn't, using her freed hand to grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer,
to that same edge that had galed her, between her knees, still kissing him.