It was punishment. Payback. Revenge.

It had it be. It was the only explanation that Nyssa could think of.

Her father was dead, the league dissipated and her followers sent away. The pits were no longer exclusive, now nomansland and the heir to the demon - finally the heir again, rather than simply the daughter - stood to inherit nothing.

And she was absolutely fine with that.

Because she was sitting on the cream sofa in the quaint little apartment in Starling City, her knee bobbing in place as she glared not too seriously at the pette bespectacled blonde, impatiently and excited in every fiber of her being.

"No, Nyssa." Felicity said again, noticing the pulling of her fingers for what is was. "Stay there." Poking out her full lower lip in a pretty pout had no effect on the IT girl, so she slumped back into the sofa with a growl, her foot still tapping.

"She's had several months, Nyssa, of death and grime to wash off. She's going to be a while." Felicity's voice was full of the smiles that always seemed to be on her face. Or had been since their return to Starling City.

"But if you were to-"

"No Nyssa." The same two words, again, and good the tiny girl had said them more to her in the last thirty minutes than everyone else had in the entirety of her life. "Leave her alone for a while."

"I missed her." Eventually she forced the admission from deep within the heart she thought had frozen over, resorting back to pulling at the thick hair that fell over her shoulders - a habit that she'd started long before the league had started to forge her into it's willing weapon, even before the murder of her mother, ordered by her father's wife and executed by Talia. It was a habit she thought she'd long since broken.

"She's missed you too." Felicity assured her, leaning forward and pressing her cool fingers against Nyssa's knee to stop it bouncing. The corners of her mouth pulled up slightly and she realised that Sara had been right, that the hackers smile was infectious. "Just… stay here. Do you want coffee? I'm normally very against getting coffee for other people - well, when I say other people, I mean Oliver - but if it makes you stay, like we've both told you to, I will do it!"

"You're not afraid of me, are you?"

Nyssa blinked twice in surprise. That has not been what she had planned to say. The 'yes' to Felicity's coffee offer had been on the tip of her tongue, but apparently her mouth had a different plan. She wondered briefly if that was how Felicity felt most days. The unnatural apology left her mouth without another thought. It was highly disconcerting.

"No I'm not afraid of you Nyssa." She smiled, relieved, leaning forward to cover her hand with her own carefully, because despite her words, she still believed that Felicity would bolt at the slightest touch. It was ridiculous. Felicity Smoak had driver the final blow to the Demon's head in every way but the physical. She did not scare easily.

"I'm glad." And despite the lies that she had told all her life, the truth reflected back in the blue eyes she held with her own. She was glad, she was more than glad, that Felicity wasn't afraid of her, that even though she might now have her trust, she refused to turn her back and run.

"I don't understand why," She admitted, tilting her head slightly, focusing on the running the shower, the sound of falling water. It rained so scarcely in Nanda Parbat that the sound, the smell, the feel of it aided to put her into a meditational trance. "You've seen me kill, I've almost killed you - does that not hurt? Not scare you? My father killed Oliver. You really feel nothing?"

"Of course I do. I lost Oliver in the same way you lost Sara. It hurt, but I've learnt that you can't hate people for heir parents mistakes." Felicity shrugged, leaning back into her sofa. "I don't hate Oliver for the crimes of Robert and Moira Queen. I don't hate Thea and Tommy for the undertaking. I won't hold you responsible for the actions of Ras Al Ghul, especially not when it was Malcolm Merlyn's plan in the first place."

"You have wisdom beyond your years, Felicity Meghan Smoak, MIT class of '09."

She was smiling again, a big, bright, happy smile that reminded Nyssa of Sara's nickname for her. Vigilante Catnip. It was more than right.

"I know - certified genius, remember?" Felicity laughed as she reached over to snag her hand, tugging sharply as she stood before she turned towards the kitchen. Nyssa followed her willingly.

"I do. Your beloved refuses to let me forget." Felicity set about making the promised coffee and the assassin pulled herself up onto the table top beside the pile of papers that Felicity had left there. She had every skill necessary to look through and find out what exactly they were about without her host ever knowing, but she clasped her hands loosely in her lap, keeping her eyes on the tiny blonde and off of the paper stack that she refused to look through.

It felt like turning over a new leaf, and it brought the smile back to her face.

"And I believe," Felicity continued, smiling just as widely as she brought the two warm mugs over to her. She didn't ask how she took her coffee. Certified genius. "That killing doesn't define who you are. It's how you let it affect you that defines who you are at your core."

"Spoken like someone who has never killed a soul. " Nyssa wrapped her hands around the mug, breathing the words into the stream, letting the mist absorb any malice, so the words that brushed against Felicity's soft skin were gentle and caring.

"I've killed plenty." Felicity sighed, leaning against the counter beside her. "Not personally, of course. But every time Oliver drew back that bow and left arrows in people, every time someone in this city died because of something we did, or something we didn't do, that comes back on me. I feel that. Especially the Count's death. But I know a lot of killers." She winked over the top of her mug, letting the smile pull at her mouth. "And I know your soul isn't gone yet, Nyssa. I have faith that we can bring it back."

"You have more faith than I do Felicity."

"It's a really cool gift, actually. She can keep her mad hacking skills and I'll take her optimisation! She can't have it all!"

Felicity shook her head as she turned her back to make a third mug of tea: milk, two sugars and the tiniest amount of chilled water, so that she didn't have to wait to drink it. Nyssa shifted in place, turning quickly, only league instinct preventing her from falling from her perch when her balance failed her in her rush.

She looked gorgeous. Lazarus pit had really done a number on her.

"Sara." She breathed, air stolen from her lungs quicker than the strongest punch she had ever had the disfortune of being on the receiving end of (her father, aged six. "I have never made a worse mistake than I did by bringing you into the world") Her eyes prickled with the pain of tears and she closed them only momentarily. It was a big improvement on the jet back, where she'd feared blinking, terrified that she would disappear again.

"Nyssa." Sara smiled at her brightly, like Nyssa herself held the sun inside her soul, rather than the breathtaking blonde. But water dripped from the ends of her hair, saturation tinting its darkness until it looked dark, closer to Nyssa's brunette than Felicity's blonde. "You're going to drop Felicity's mug if you're not careful."

Nyssa sat that mug down instantly.

"It's kinda hard to see you as the fearful, world renowned assassin that the rest of the world knows you as, when the Canary has you trained like a dog, Nyssa." Felicity laughed, touching her hand as she passed on her way to Sara's side, handing over the mug she'd fetched.

"My thoughts exactly," Sara laughed back, stepping forward to tug gently on the dark hair that Nyssa had been pulling on herself minutes before. "You alright?" She whispered, raising her chin, because while she trusted Felicity impeccably - hell they both did - there were things that they liked to keep to themselves.

"Better than I have been in a long time." The Demon's daughter - rather than handing her the world, the title haunted her now - nodded her head, turning her head when Sara cupped her cheek to press her full lips to her palm. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." The words coaxed Nyssa's small smile into a wide grin, because in Sara's memory, there wasn't a gap between then and now. There wasn't a gap between Thea knocking her off the top of a building with three arrows in her chest and her waking up in Lazarus Pit. For the rest of the world it had been seven long, painful months, while for Sara it had been mere seconds. And she had missed her anyway. So yes - Nyssa smiled.

"I have a present for the two of you." Felicity pipped up, her phone back in her hand where it belonged, her hip pressed into the fabric of the arm of her sofa. There was a tenderness to her smile, a light in her bright eyes, and there was no doubt in any part of Nyssa, mind, body or soul, that she was conversing with Queen. "If you both want it."

"Well, considering I missed both Christmas and my birthday this year, I'd say yes please!" Sara laughed, bashing her shoulder into Nyssa's lightly. She had always detested sharing a birthday with a popular holiday, always complained that Laurel got presents on her birthday when Sara never got any on hers. Nyssa herself, never having celebrated Christmas or her birth - the date of which she couldn't even remember - but she did remember the Demon's wife showering her daughter with expensive gifts. Sara had stopped complaining about how unfair her birthday was then, after learning that. (She'd also located Nyssa's birth records, found out the date of her birthday and celebrated it with her every year of the five she was with the league.)

"Why don't you come sit over here then," Felicity perched herself on the floor, her long legs crossed as though she was meditating and patted the seat in front of her. "Nyssa, could you bring over those papers beside you please? They're kinda important."

She brought the papers over as asked, even though once upon a time Nyssa had refused to follow orders, and set them down in Felicity's lap carefully, as though she could kill her with a papercut. She curled herself into the arm of the chair, folding her body around it . Sara followed suit, sitting on the opposite end of the love seat, throwing her legs over Nyssa's lap. The small contact was enough to make her heart jump, compared to her kiss. Sara's kiss made Nyssa's heart stop. It always had.

She hoped it always would.

"The first thing that I did when we got back from Nanda Parbat -"

"Apart from Oliver?" Sara asked laughing, and Felicity slapped her leg sharply, the resulting crack sounding like it hurt a lot more than it did.

"No, Sara stop it." She rolled her eyes, resting her hand on top of the papers that still sat in her lap. "Behave. The first thing that I did was the thing that I did best. I mean hacking, not sex." She beamed, lifting up the first paper in the pile. "I dug into the New York records and created a new one. My ex was a minister, so I sorta forged his signature, but… I married you. Legally. I know you still haven't had the service, and I forged your signatures too but yes, I married you. You two. To each other. Not to me Because while you're both absolutely gorgeous, but you both know that I'm highly, highly, involved with Oliver, but even if I wasn't, I wouldn't marry either of you, because you are both very, very in love with each other, so no, I didn't marry one of you, I married the pair of you. Together. You're married. Congratulations. And I'm going to stop talking. In three, two, one…"

And she clapped hand over her mouth and offered out the paper. Their marriage certificate.

Married. Them. And Sara didn't look the least bit surprised.

"You know." Nyssa smiled, looking at the older blonde - her wife apparently, and Sara grinned at her.

"She checked with me first, to see if it was something that we both wanted. I said yes, because I wanted it, and I know that you wanted it, and oh my god, Felicity your babbling is infectious." Both of the blondes began to giggle, but Nyssa sat silently. Married. To Sara. It kept running through her head. Married. To Sara.

"Why?" She asked, reaching across the space to take Felicity's hand, to pull her attention off of the paper in front of her and the other girl - her wife - and drawing it back to her

"Because you two deserve your happy ever after." Felicity smiled, squeezing back. "Here - take a look." And she thrust the certificate was in Sara's hands and she was crawling across the sofa to plonk herself in Nyssa's lap, waving the paper in her face, blue eyes alive and glowing.

Felicity talked on, because she was Felicity and she was happy and there was no force on earth that could shut her up (except maybe, Nyssa wondered, Oliver Queen's kiss) going on about how she just had a few more papers for them to sign, one's she'd thought that they'd want to do themselves rather than her forging them too, even though she'd technically forged the whole thing, so technically it wasn't legal no matter what they signed, but it was a pretty important thing, to make commitments to the ones they loved whole their unpredictable lives allowed it -not that she was gunning for her own marriage, mind, but the point still stood and hey!

Neither of the assassins (ex-assassins, which, okay yeah, felt pretty good to say) listened to her though, her words falling on deaf ears when Sara raised a gentle finger to lift her new wife's chin, dutifully ignoring the way that Nyssa's steady hands shook so she balled them up in her lap, afraid that even the slightest touch would turn the Phoenix into ash for a final time, never to wake again. And then suddenly she was the Phoenix, burning bright, white hot under her Canary's gentle kiss, melting until there was nothing left of her soul that was not branded as property of her wife, the way that her body was branded as property of the Demon.

Yes, the dismantlement of the league of assassins had stripped her of all the things that the Demon's heir had cherished. But it had given Nyssaa back something far more precious.

Utopia

Ahhh, so, quick little thing written down in the middle of the night, so there's a high chance it's terrible.
Sorry! Set at the end of series 3.

Sara's birthday is in fact on Christmas day. According to her grave stone (and the Flarrow Wiki)!
IIHH Xx