AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks as always to Jael for the beta!

It felt like swimming… no, climbing… no, fighting up through something soft yet heavy. Maybe a mound of blankets. That would make sense, since her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, blinking against the bright light dappled with blobs of color.

"Easy there, Sara. Here."

A glass was held to her lips. She sipped at the cool water, feeling the cotton dissolve. She blinked a few more times, and the blobs resolved into Ray's smiling face.

"Welcome back, Captain. We've been worried about you."

Sara looked around her in confusion. "What am I doing in the Medbay?"

Ray's smile dimmed a little. "Don't you remember what happened?"

"Noooo…." Sara said slowly. "Something happened?"

Ray was frowning now. "What's the last thing you do remember?"

Sara furrowed her brow. "You and the rest of the team went off to play Pirates of the Caribbean, and ran into the Darhks."

"Riiiight," Ray replied in a tone that implied things were not right at all. "And you weren't with us because….?"

Sara smiled, just a little sheepishly. "Because Ava and I were on a date. A near-disaster of a date. But it turned out all right in the end. At least, I think it did. Where is she?"

Ray stared at her disbelievingly. "As far as I know, she's still at Time Bureau headquarters. Probably hoping we step out of line so she can go after us again. What's this about a date?"

"I did tell you Captain Lance's brain activity indicated some rather vivid coma dreams, Doctor Palmer," Gideon interjected.

"Dreams? Coma dreams?" Sara echoed. "Ray, what was the last thing that happened to us? To me?"

"You really don't remember?"

"Humor me, Ray."

He took in a breath and nodded. "Okay, okay. Sara, you've been in a coma for a week, ever since Nora Darhk… whammied you in 1930s Hollywood."

"The Helen of Troy mission? But that was… months ago!" She swung her legs around to stand, but as soon as her feet hit the deck her knees buckled. Ray caught her and guided her back into the seat.

"No, it was just last week," he said. "And you've been out since then. Trust me, if you'd been awake after that, you'd've put Zari in the other Medbay chair for dropping Helen off on Themiscyra."

"Themis… I remember that!" Sara exclaimed. "Gideon, why would I remember that if I've been out for a week?"

"Mr. Rory and Ms. Tomaz discussed her... transgression… here in the Medbay when she returned. Apparently the information made its way into your dreams."

Sara raised an eyebrow as she gazed up at the ceiling. "Apparently? You haven't been monitoring my dreams?"

"You did instruct me not to, Captain, unless it was necessary for your health. While your brain wave patterns indicated vivid dreaming, there was no danger to you."

Sara rubbed her forehead. "Okay, so what's happened since Nora... whammied me?"

Ray grinned again. "You'd be proud of us, Captain. We handled an aberration on our own. A level eight!" He paused and shrugged lightly. "Of course, it did jump to a level ten before we fixed it. And… you got possessed by a homicidal telepathic gorilla."

Sara did a double take. "Possessed?"

Ray nodded. "Yeah. But Sir Isaac Newton hit you on the head before you could hurt anybody."

That… almost sounded… familiar. She put her hand to her head and winced as she hit a tender spot, while Ray went on, "Anyway… we met Mick's dad, we prevented World War Three and…" he leaned toward her and said in a conspiratorial tone, "we got Lady Bird Johnson's pecan pie recipe."

Sara blinked and shook her head. "A telepathic gorilla, Mick's father… and pecan pie?"

"Amazing pecan pie," Zari said as she walked into the Medbay. "Gideon told us you were up, Sara. How are you feeling?"

Sara fixed her with a stern glare. "Lucky for you, I don't feel up to kicking your ass for that stunt with Helen."

Zari held up her hands in an appeasing gesture. "I checked first. Taking Helen to the Amazons made no difference to history, but it made all the difference in the world to her."

"Hmm. Maybe," Sara conceded. "I'm also not up to arguing with you over it."

Zari blinked at her in surprise. "Really?"

Sara shrugged. "Maybe it's just low blood sugar, if I've been out for a week."

"Captain, I have been providing you with nutrients the entire time you were comatose," Gideon said, sounding a little hurt.

"I keep telling you, Gideon, it's just not the same as having real food in your belly," Zari said. "Sara, we put together a little welcome back celebration for you in the galley. Including that pie."

"If Mick hasn't eaten it all," Ray muttered.

Zari chuckled. "Amaya and I made four of them! Even Mick can't eat that much pie."

"It sounds great, Zari. And you guys can fill me in on everything I missed," Sara said, setting her feet back on the deck and rising carefully, swaying just a little.

"Careful, there!" Ray warned, extending a hand. "Maybe we should bring the party to you?"

Sara waved his hand away. "I'm not spending another minute in that chair, Ray. I need to walk." When he started to object, she held up a hand. "I'll take it easy, promise."

Ray and Zari exchanged a look, and fell in on either side of her as they made their way out of the Medbay. Normally Sara might have snapped at them for their hovering, but she wasn't really paying attention to them or the route she knew so well. Instead, her focus was turned inward as she tried to sift through memories and timelines she thought she knew.

"Captain! Welcome back!"

Sara's focus snapped back to the present at the sound of a familiar voice. Her mouth dropped open as she stared across the room.

Martin Stein stood on the other side, a smile on his face and a plateful of pie in his hand.

To hell with taking it easy. The professor barely had a moment to put his plate down before Sara reached him, flinging her arms around him and hugging him tight, tears starting to run down her face. She heard him give a confused grunt, then felt him wrap his own arms around her, patting her back comfortingly.

After a few minutes, Sara pulled back to look around at the rest of her team: Mick with his ever-present beer, Nate and Amaya watching her with wide eyes, Jax… oh, Jax! She reached out to grab his hand and squeeze it, giving everyone a watery smile.

"You weren't this happy to see me," Ray complained. Then he looked more closely at her. "You are happy, right, Sara?"

She nodded, wiping away tears. "I… it's a long story. That coma dream..." she said. She looked up at Martin, who still had a hand on her shoulder and a look of concern in his eyes. "Martin, do you remember what I told Malcolm back in Chicago?"

"You said you'd take a nightmare that's real over a dream that's a lie," he replied. "You just said… you had a coma dream?"

She let out a slightly bitter laugh. "More like a coma nightmare. And I can't tell you how glad I am it wasn't real."

She hugged him again. "I'll take this dream any day."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my ideal S3 world (if I can't get S1 Snart back), Sara would wake up just this way in canon, Martin would live and be successfully separated from Jax, who could then continue his adventures as a solo Firestorm. And we'd get some real character development for Ava instead of the sudden flip-of-a-switch change we got. She deserves better than the writers gave (and I do salute the fic writers who've been working to remedy that).