A/N: Hello, this is my birthday present for my friend and practically sister Steph! She asked for a dark, Arrow based fic so I hope this works. I really hope you like it Steph, Happy Birthday! And thank you for helping keep me as close to sane as I get. Also side note to anyone else reading this I hope you like it too.

Nightmares that Never Leave

Sara Lance woke up shaking, and terrified. This was not the first time this was just another night of the seemingly never ending torture from her dreams. She slid slowly from her place beside Oliver and rose to her feet, legs a bit trembling from both tiredness, and fear.

So what had caused this? What nightmare, or terrifying creature could reduce Sara Lance a trained assassin, to this sort of state? It was not like the things that terrified normal people no monsters, demons or ghosts. No, because what tortured her was true demons, her own demons.

Sara Lance, was tortured by her past. She had done things terrible things, some that made even her to sick to her stomach. She knew that she was bad, and in her own opinion didn't deserve to be called a good person. She was a killer, pure and simple.

She sighed heading up the stairs and outside to get some fresh air. She knew what Oliver would say, if he were to see her like this. He would say that she was no monster, that she was not a killer. Maybe even, in his more hopeful moments he would tell her that she would be alright and would get over this.

"He's wrong though." She muttered to herself.

She had said it, something that she had never said to Oliver's face because, she did not want to see the look he would give her. A look of sadness and maybe even loss, Oliver seemed to be losing everything lately. She knew that she, Felicity, Diggle, Thea, and maybe even Roy were all that kept Oliver sane these days.

So, she had lied told him that he was right, and pretended to recover and only let it out when the nightmares woke her. Only when she knew he was asleep. It was hard, every time she and Oliver fought the criminals of Starling City she had to hold back because she wanted to kill them.

That she realized was the true reason that the nightmares were so much more. She wanted to kill, no matter how much she hated what she had done in her past she still wanted to kill. She didn't know why, but did want that.

"Maybe that's just what the league does, turns you into the monsters it needs you to be." She thought, because in spite of all that they had said about them being true justice. The league of assassins were just for all intents, and purposes well behaved monsters.

They, made themselves seem like normal people, or in the case of the Al Ghul's well to do rich folk. They were however, still monsters. Not that many of them other than her felt that way though. They thought they were the only true good in the world.

She chuckled darkly, she had once believed that too, until that night in Canada two years ago.

Flashback

Sara was in position, her squad had silently and effectively surrounded the mid sized home. It was simple really, this man was a problem. One of the biggest thing about the League was the value of secrecy, if you knew about them you were either in the league, or you kept quite about it and they left you alone.

This man Richard Thomas, a high ranking Canadian official was about to break that simple set of rules. He was about to expose them to the world at large, so he had to be silenced tonight. That, was where Sara came in, Ra's Al Ghul himself had assigned her and her partner/lover Nyssa Al Ghul to take him out and they had excepted.

"Team confirm locations and status of assignment." She said calmly.

"Team one, in position security guards taken out."

"Team two, in position car battery removed."

"Team three, in position preparing to cut power at your command ma'am." The last two man team said to them.

"Cut power in sixty seconds, then everyone guard exits." Nyssa said before turning to Sara.

"Ready to get this over with?" She asked.

Sara nodded, waiting for night fall had been boring, and she was ready to move on to whatever was next.

"Alright then, lets get this done." Nyssa said as the lights in the house they were watching shut down. They moved in quickly and slipped into the house.

Sara stared around, the decent sized home in her night vision goggles and headed up the stairs to where they could hear hurried attempts to be silent. It was easy enough to find them, she paused and kicked the door in to the Master bedroom.

There, they found them the black haired blue eyed man cowering in front of a blonde green eyed woman and two children she couldn't really tell much about, and before she could take a closer look Nyssa spoke both their faces concealed

"Richard you have overstepped your boundary Richard. You should have known better than to even think of exposing us." She said coldly.

"You, need to be exposed your monsters! Kill me if you must but please don't harm my family." He said and no matter how strong he wanted to sound it came out in a false courage, that would scare no one.

"Oh, we won't we do have rules, they are innocent their only crime being that they have the unfortunate fate of having a fool, for a husband and father." Nyssa said drawing her bow and arrow.

"Step away from them, we don't want them hurt now do we?" Sara asked.

He stepped away on shaking legs and stood off to the other side of the room, but not before he turned to his family.

"Don't look any of you just keep your heads down, it'll be over soon." He said before heading to where Sara had directed him.

Sara felt, for the first time a twinge of both guilt and doubt in the league as she stared at the terrified children. She had always known that, of course most of the targets had to have had loved ones, but she had always thought they were just as guilty. Never innocent, and on top of that they had never been this close.

"Any, final words?" Nyssa asked in a clearly bored tone of voice.

He glared at them simply stating, "Are you proud of this?"

"Yes we are." Nyssa said and before Sara could speak she fired the arrow going straight through the mans neck and he fell to the floor, blood flowing from is neck onto the carpet as a child screamed Sara turned to see a green eyed black haired girl staring in horror.

Before Sara could approach, the mother drew the child back to her. "Stay away from my babies!" She shouted.

Sara took a step back from them, not wanting the women to scream anymore both to avoid drawing attention, and simply because it made the guilt feel so much worse.

Again it was Nyssa, who spoke. "We are not monsters, we simply do what is necessary. Besides we are done here, if you do not speak of us we will not harm you again. Have a pleasant evening Ms. Thomas " She said and with that she headed out Sara following after casting one final glance at the now weeping family.

Flashback Ends

That had been when the nightmares had started, and after a few more missions Sara's doubt and guilt had overwhelmed her and caused her to run from the league, using the tragedy of the Glades as a reasoning to check on her family.

She sighed, no matter what she tried or did these nightmares never left her, nor did her want to kill. She seemed caught forever between the two conflicting sides of herself. Dimly, she was aware that she had been up here much too long and decided to go back down and try to sleep again.

It was pointless though she knew that eventually she would be woken again by the faces of people who's family members she had taken, who's lives she had ended. Woken by the knowledge, that she still wanted to kill again, and that one day she may have to leave Oliver again for his own sake as well as her families.

She knew one thing the was certain. For as long as she lived and no matter how hard she tried, these Nightmares would never leave.