Never Let You Go
Summary: In which Nyssa al Ghul returns once again to Starling City to bring Sara back home to the League, and is shattered when she finds out instead that Sara is dead and gone. Mentions of canon (Seasons 1-3). Heartbreak. Grief. Loss. Death. Angst. Complete.
Pairing: Sara Lance, Nyssa al Ghul
TV Series: Arrow (DC, Warner Bros.)
Rating: Rated M. For themes. No smut.
Warnings: Femslash. Character death (canon).
Why I'm writing this: Because I'm big fan of DC and Arrow, and until recently, hadn't realized that I could actually write fic for 'em. And also because Sara Lance, Season 3x1, and Nyssa al Ghul Season 3x3. You know the one.
Spoilers: Yes. Mentions of canon from TV series, mentions of canon from DC comics, animated DC shows and short films and from Dark Knight film trilogy (but sparingly), but not entirely canon-compliant. Also, lots of angst. Skip this if you don't like drama and angst.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. DC and Warner Bros. do. The prose though, is all mine.
It had not been that difficult to find the man, Oliver Queen.
It had not been difficult to find where he was, or what he was doing.
It had not been difficult to put that arrow in that bow, point it at the man, step into the light and demand, "Where is Sara?"
What had been difficult was looking at Oliver Queen's usually inscrutable face, not just because this is the man who had replaced her in Sara Lance's bed, although that is part of it, and the rage, already bubbling beneath the surface, kept under perfect control, is rearing to get out, but because there is something in that normally inscrutable face – a passing flicker of emotion, pity perhaps? - that makes her even more afraid.
"Did you not hear me the first time?" Nyssa al Ghul asks again, this time with the barely concealed loathing and irritation in her voice. Her father would not have approved of her display of emotion. Then again, he had not approved of Sara either, and had said, on more than one occasion that emotion and forming intimate ties, had no place in their kind of work. She struggles to control her voice as she repeats her question. "Where is Sara?" As if to prove her point, she shoots an arrow past the boy Roy Harper's ear. She hears the boy yelp. "I am not going to ask again."
Oliver Queen only stands there, face perfectly inscrutable, remaining unperturbed by her threats. It would be infuriating were it not for the fact that she needed to know where Sara was. She had a dream. A premonition. Sara falling. Sara never coming back. Sara had left once more, without saying goodbye, a fact that infuriated Nyssa al Ghul to no end. Nobody leaves the League without nary a farewell. Certainly nobody leaves Nyssa al Ghul, Heir to the Demon and daughter of Ra's al Ghul himself, without facing the consequences.
There is a silence then. A silence which further agitates Nyssa's already frayed emotions. A silence that stretches out to eternity as Oliver Queen seems to consider this question as if it were some kind of mathematical equation in need of solving.
Finally, Oliver Queen lets out a long, slow breath, looks at Nyssa then and says, in that measured, careful, level tone of his, "We...need to talk."
They do not talk so much as Oliver Queen tells her briefly, succinctly that Sara Lance is dead. It is not clear whether the cause of death was the single arrow to the heart or the plummet of death that followed soon after. No matter. Sara Lance is dead when she hits the ground.
Everything else after feels like a dream. A vivid, lucid dream.
She does not know how she ends up in Oliver Queen's car, nor how they end up in the middle of a dark forest – she honestly does not know where they are, but here they are, and the engine is purring softly and Oliver Queen is not speaking, is sitting there, behind the wheel, looking ahead, pausing, waiting for Nyssa to say anything. But when Nyssa is silent, he gently informs her that this is where they buried Sara. When Nyssa is about to ask where, Oliver Queen opens his door, goes around to the other side of the car and opens it and quietly leads her to the grave. It is dark, night has fallen, a soft, cold breeze is blowing, stars have come out. In this place surrounded by trees, Nyssa feels like the world has fallen away. There had been no wake, Oliver Queen informs her. No ceremony. She stares at the grave, at the name, at the date of birth and the date of death,and is struck by how a woman who had come to mean so much to her, more than life itself, would be reduced to nothing but a slab of stone with a name on it and dates of birth and death – as surely as if she had not existed at all. She kneels in front of the grave, traces the name, her name, Sara's name, a name she had not used since she joined the League, and she wonders. She wonders what Sara was thinking, what her last thoughts were, was she thinking at all of Nyssa? Was she thinking of what life might have been had they met under different circumstances? Had she secretly, like Nyssa, dared imagine a life free of the League? Of this life of constant secrecy and shadow? Of death and nightmares? Had she secretly imagined a life with Nyssa? Imagined a life of bliss and contentment?
Nyssa does not know.
Nyssa does not want to know.
For in knowing, then there would be regrets. Wishful thinking. A lifetime of training had taught her these were not thoughts to be entertained. They were distractions. And distractions could spell the difference between life and death.
And yet.
And yet.
There is a lump that forms in Nyssa al Ghul's throat. She tries to swallow, but finds she cannot. Her eyes feel moist and she realizes that tears have formed. She tries hard not to let them flow. For in doing so, then it would be admission that Sara, her Sara, is irrevocably gone.
She had found her too weak. Too frail. Too delicate.
She makes this decision as she watches the woman fall on her face again and again and again during training. The woman will not last much longer, she thinks. This had been her opinion the first day the woman arrived in Nanda Parbat as well. The woman had been thin, her bones seemingly sticking out of shoulders, her chest, her arms and legs. There was a sunken, haunted look to her eyes, as if she would break down and cry any minute, which she did, the first few days she was on Nanda Parbat, an exercise in weakness if she ever saw one. Crying had not been allowed. And only then, it had to be done in the privacy of one's room, softly, quietly. Pain was not something they were encouraged to show. It was not that the League encouraged its assassins to deny or ignore the pain. On the contrary. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. This had been the League's guiding principle when it came to pain. Nyssa had learned to manage pain at a young age and had felt some impatience at Sara's difficulties overcoming it. Sara would eventually overcome this weakness, but not without a lot of punishment and pain.
She almost felt sorry for the girl – a young woman, really – for she had had to learn it late. It is harder to train the older ones. More painful. And painstaking. There is too much to unlearn, too much to ask of them, a past, a whole life to give up. It was harder for Sara than for anyone else the League had trained. She could see it in her eyes – the longing, the loneliness, dreaming of a past life she could never go back to.
"I am so sorry, Nyssa."
The voice is so soft, so gentle, Nyssa hardly registers it at first as Oliver Queen's voice. It would be amusing that Oliver Queen is being sensitive and gentle to one of Oliver Queen's sworn enemies, to Sara's former lover, when they had traded blows and arrows over Sara Lance one too many times – were it not for the fact that the woman, the person, in question, that Nyssa suspects will be the only one she will ever love, is lying beneath earth and sky, dead to the world.
When she does not offer anything in response, Oliver Queen says, "Everything happened so fast. I didn't even...I should have...I'm really sorry..."
If this is an apology and an attempt at words of comfort, it perplexes Nyssa. She and Oliver Queen are many things to each other, rivals for Sara's affection, sworn enemies, the villain to his hero, but what they are, are not friends. Certainly not friends attempting to comfort each other. She shoots Oliver Queen an angry look and that makes Oliver Queen stop whatever he is saying next.
"She shouldn't have come back," she whispers, her hands wandering from the letters on the marble to the wilting flowers on the ground in front of the grave. "She shouldn't have left."
Oliver Queen is silent for a few minutes before he says, "No, she shouldn't have come back here."
She could say she liked Sara Lance straight away, the moment she first laid eyes on her, but she would be lying. In fact, she may have developed an active, albeit unspoken dislike of her.
The moment she sets foot on Nanda Parbat, it is clear from that moment on, that she would require more work than the others. She is slower to dodge punches, slaps, kicks, easier to bruise, easier to hurt, easier to defeat. Over and over and over again. She struggles to commit martial arts moves to memory, frequently stumbles, mumbling an apology to her instructor. Nyssa could not count the number of times she had watched the other woman fall on the floor, crying out in pain as her opponent defeated her nor count the number of times she had seen her with a black eye, a bruise, a swollen face, a sling on an arm, or a bandage on a leg – injuries the healers could not mend - limping alone to a dinner of porridge or an early morning workout in the snow, or meditation in the temple.
She had told her father, Ra's al Ghul, a few times that the woman would not last long. Ra's al Ghul had listened patiently to her and had only said, "Give her time."
Give her time, her father had said.
Time, Nyssa thinks, that they did not have the luxury of having.
Time, she thinks, that they should not have given her.
For it is time that lends unexpected opportunities for Nyssa's opinion of her to change.
"We've had a few...leads," Oliver Queen continues to speak, as if wanting to fill the silence, the void, with noise.
What is it with Westerners and their need to fill space with sound? Nyssa wonders in irritation, wanting, more than anything else, for Oliver Queen to leave her alone.
"But they've all led to dead-ends," he finishes. "I...we, Felicity, Laurel and I, thought for a while we'd found the killer...or killers...but it turns out their alibis check out."
Go away, Nyssa thinks, willing her thoughts to make the man leave.
"It almost seems like...she was killed by a...ghost..."
They do not speak to each other during those early days.
Nanda Parbat is nothing but a place of silence and contemplation broken by the intermittent sounds of assassins practicing, meditating, talking to their masters, their teachers.
They pass each other regularly in the hallways, see each other practicing, see each other in the temple, or having dinner, but they do not speak to each other. But as time passes, Nyssa notices little things: there are fewer and fewer bruises on the other woman's face, nor any other evidence of injury that she can see. Nyssa thinks either Sara has gotten better at concealing her injuries or she is getting better at fighting. When she visits the practice room to watch Sara and her opponent fight, she watches, surprised, as Sara combines techniques from ninjutsu, jujitsu and kung fu to take down her bigger, much stronger opponent. She watches, over a course of days and weeks, when Sara's awkward body movements turn into fluid ones, fast and nimble ones, as she masters techniques of grappling, blocks, joint manipulation and strikes to vital points of a person's central nervous system.
Another time, she sees Sara shooting arrows at a target, and is impressed that she repeatedly hits the target over and over and over again. It is no surprise then, during the ceremony where she swears allegiance to the League, the very same ceremony when she is given her new name, when she chooses this very same bow and arrow as her weapon of choice.
Slowly, as the days pass, Nyssa notices a marked difference in Sara's stance. She walks more confidently, more proudly, shoulders back, back straight, eyes more focused and determined, but still holding that sadness that seems to never go away.
Sara is first to wake up in the morning, last to sleep. Nyssa finds this out during her early morning training routine. She sees her jogging, walking up and down the stairs, doing push-ups and pull-ups, going up and down the salmon ladder over and over again. She sees the soft, weak body turn into a body of toned muscle and hardened bone, finds her body turning into something more. On more than one occasion, she finds herself staring at Sara's body, finds herself admiring it, wondering how it would feel to have Sara's body moving beneath her own, head thrown back, her body on fire.
Nyssa notices that Sara can now understand, even speak, Arabic and a smattering of the other languages spoken in Nanda Parbat. Previously, Sara, whose inability to speak Arabic, or any of the other languages required to survive not only in Nanda Parbat, but in the larger world, had seriously isolated her, inhibited her ability to communicate with everyone else. The fact that for the longest time everyone had taken to calling her 'yellow bird' – a variation on 'white girl', as much out of some grudging affection and pride as in reference to her yellow hair that would eventually inspire her new name – without her knowledge, had been an example of this. But now, she notices the woman turn, strain to hear parts of a conversation done in a different language, sees those quick, intelligent, blue, blue eyes deep in concentration as she listens attentively to people speaking.
Despite herself, Nyssa feels impressed, develops a grudging admiration, a respect for this white girl who manages to transform herself into an efficient killing machine. Nyssa knows that more than anything, Sara had forced herself to tranform not only out of a burning need to improve herself, but out of a more burning need to stay alive, to survive. She can see it in the woman's eyes, in her movements. She fights as if her life depended on it, as if everything is at stake. Nyssa can relate to this.
She does not even know how she and Oliver Queen come to blows, but they do, on the lawn, in front of Sara's grave. She does not remember whether she had started it first, but it is probably something about Oliver's demeanor, and the fact that he had deigned to put a hand on Nyssa's shoulder to comfort her, she thinks. No one touches Nyssa al Ghul, daughter of Ra's al Ghul, heir to the demon, without her permission. Certainly not sworn enemy Oliver Queen. She had grabbed the said offending arm then and thrown him clear across the ground. Oliver had landed with a thud then, surprised, more than anything that they would come to this. She does not let him speak though, as she moves towards him and starts to kick him repeatedly, and when Oliver manages to steer clear of her boots and get up, punches him over and over with all her might. On the face, on the left side, then the right, hearing the cracking sound of bone crashing against bone, bone against muscle, as he gasps in pain. She sees the man reel from the pain, recoil, crouch, ready to fight back, and they trade blows, punching, kicking, hitting each other, inflicting as much pain as they can to each other. This is all she knows. Inflicting pain. Being the cause of it. Being the recipient of it. Her whole life had been dedicated to one, singular purpose: killing and the avoiding of it, and now she finds this is the only way she can express her grief. They are a blur of motion and action, and the world seems to be swirling and Nyssa registers pain. It all happens too quickly for them before Oliver Queen shoves her back and shouts, "Stop it, Nyssa!"
She moves to punch him again, but he says, "It's not your fault, Nyssa."
When she tries again, he stands firm, looks her in the eye and says, more quietly, "It's not your fault. It never was."
She stands there, huffing, out of breath, feeling spent and suddenly, so exhausted. Her body hurts, her knuckles hurt, bruised, skin split, her lips feel swollen, split, she tastes blood, wipes at it, feels her cheek sting, parts of her body ache from where Oliver Queen had hit back with as much force as she did. You had to hand it to him, he never backs down from a fight. Even if it comes from a woman. This is probably one of his best qualities. It makes Nyssa acknowledge a little grudging respect for him. That he treats everyone equally. That he understands grief and how strange it makes people. Maybe he has gone through grief himself. Had he grieved for Sara as well? She feels a brief stab of jealousy. Briefly, but still. That Sara had chosen to stay, and rekindle relations with this man is beyond her ken. That Sara had cared for and chosen a man over her, a man who had managed to have a woman killed on that infernal island when he had been asked to choose between that woman and Sara, who had juggled relations between two sisters and consistently bedded a slew of women and still managed to be a good example of masculine ineptitude is beyond Nyssa's understanding. But Sara had eventually chosen to return to the League, in exchange for the promise of the League leaving her family and Starling alone, and despite the dubious reasons behind her return, Nyssa had accepted it. It had been better than anything.
The League had taught her many things, as much for her survival as for the fact that she is Ra's al Ghul's heir, but what they did not teach her was this kind of pain, and how to handle it.
She had watched the woman walk through coals of fire without flinching. Had watched fascinated as she smelt burnt flesh, even as the woman walked from one end to the other without crying out. She does not remember how old she was then, but she knows that she had been fairly young, younger than Sara when she had first come to the League. In fact, she had not come into the League, so much as had been born into it.
"Does it hurt?" she had asked the woman.
The woman had smiled peacefully, enigmatically at her. "What pain doesn't?"
"How was it? How did it feel?" she asks then, impressed and terrified at the power this woman had over the coals.
The woman had shrugged nonchalantly. "I think of it like the rain when you have decided to take a walk down the village. Or when you have decided to take a picnic and ants have decided to join you. Like an annoyance. Nothing more."
"But..." Nyssa says, still perplexed. "How did you..overcome the pain?"
The woman had smiled then. "Pain, Nyssa, cannot be overcome."
Nyssa had stood there, taking this in, before the woman had grabbed Nyssa's hand and put a burning coal in it. Later, it was said that Nyssa's scream could be heard for miles around. The woman had closed Nyssa's hand over the coal, had calmly looked Nyssa in the eye and said, "But it can be put in its place."
As the pain burned through her palm, and she smelt burnt skin, the woman said, "Pain does not work for you. You work through the pain."
Pain cannot be overcome, but it can be put in its place. Pain does not work for you. You work through the pain.
It is a mantra that Nyssa tells herself over and over again as she tears through Starling, looking for whoever killed Sara.
But even the best computers, informants, whispered discussions in alleys, the best that money can buy, fail to yield anything.
She realizes this as she holds a man by the throat, dangling him on the edge of a building, threatening to drop him as she shouts, "Do you know who killed Sara Lance?! Answer me!"
"Put the man down, Nyssa," a voice from behind reveals to her that Oliver Queen has realized what her nocturnal activities had been the past few days. "Put the man down, Nyssa, or I shoot."
She has no doubt Oliver Queen will do as he says,but the difference between them is that Nyssa al Ghul is an assassin, a killer, and Oliver Queen is not. But she does not want this to end in any sort of confrontation that will keep her from discovering who Sara's killer is and so, with a grunt she swings the man's body away from the edge and flings him back on to the roof. The man lands on the pavement with a grunt. There is a gaping hole on his arm where Nyssa had shot him with an arrow and he clings to this now as he groans in pain.
She had neither seen nor heard from Oliver Queen since that time at Sara's grave. She would have preferred it that way had the man not chosen to interfere now.
Oliver Queen waits a beat before he slowly moves toward Nyssa, arrow still trained at her chest. "I know this is hard for you, Nyssa. I know you cared for her. It's hard for all of us. But turning my city upside down for a personal vendetta is not the way to go."
Nyssa glares at Oliver Queen then. "And what, pray tell, do you think I should do then? Sit back and let Sara's killer run free? You know us better than that."
Oliver stops just a few yards from Nyssa then and says, "I know it seems difficult now, and it might take some time, but I promise you, I will find Sara's killer."
Nyssa tilts her head then and smirks. "I'm sure you will."
Before Oliver can say anything else, Nyssa had already jumped from the roof, plummeting down the side of the building, before she shoots an arrow into one of the windows, and hauls herself up and against the window, glass breaking into a million fragments with a great and resounding crash. She tumbles through the room right into a surprised old couple's living room before she jumps up and makes her way through the apartment and out into the hallway, safe and away from Oliver Queen's pitying eyes.
Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.
Sara gets her first assignment days after the ceremony. She gets her first assignment and it is with Nyssa. Nyssa does not question why she would be paired so suddenly and seemingly so randomly with the 'white girl', the 'yellow bird', but assassins learn never to ask questions or disobey orders, even if they are the much revered heirs of the League and its equally revered master assassin.
They had been preparing for their mission when the bomb had exploded.
Nyssa does not think twice then, but grabs Sara and manages to pull her to safety even as the world around them, their world, crumbled. She does not know how long they crouch in that little corner, in that tiny space that Nyssa had once made for herself when she was growing up and had wanted to escape punishment for childhood pranks, something the League discouraged. In between the cracks, she could see burning timber, falling rocks, people shouting, fire, people injured, pain, and she does not even notice it until later that she had held Sara so tightly against her. She only notices because she realizes how soft Sara felt against her arms. That underneath the muscle and sinew, bones and flesh, Sara felt soft. "What's happening? What are we going to do?" Sara whispers then, eyes looking up at Nyssa. Her eyes. Nyssa remembers. She had the most exquisite eyes. She looked so vulnerable then. It is unusual to be thinking about this at this time and Nyssa feels heat crawling up to her face. She is thankful for the half-darkness that hides her embarrassment as she deftly tells Sara they need to escape to safety. Nyssa's little corner had led to a tunnel, deep in the bowels of the earth, which in turn led to a small village away from Nanda Parbat.
The tunnel ended in a hole high up on a wall, which led into a cave, high up in the bluffs. Aware of the dangers, and taking care not to expose Sara to anymore danger than is necessary – for some strange reason, Nyssa seems to have developed a protectiveness for Sara - Nyssa had been first to emerge from the cave. She takes a thorough, sweeping inspection of the cave, finds no danger, before she calls out to Sara. Outside the cave, night has fallen, but the moon is out, and it is sufficient illumination for the cave. After a few heartbeats, in which Nyssa thinks Sara may have disappeared, Sara slowly emerges on the edge.
"It is a bit high, you have to jump. But it is fine. I will catch you," Nyssa whispers then.
Sara had nodded, seeming to have implicitly trusted Nyssa in this endeavor. Nyssa stands in front of the hole, arms stretched out, as Sara emerges out of the hole and nervously holds on to the edge as she tries to half-slide and then jump into Nyssa's arms. Nyssa had planted both feet firmly on the ground as she manages to catch Sara. They wobble back a bit, Nyssa takes a step back to steady herself, holding Sara firmly in both arms, Sara slides down in her arms, so that Sara's chin is level with Nyssa's head, Sara's hands are on Nyssa's shoulders, Nyssa's arms are around Sara's waist. They stay in that position for a few moments, before Nyssa becomes fully aware of Sara and Sara's body pressed against her body. She feels the softness of Sara's breasts against her, her heart beating wildly against her chest, her breath blowing against Nyssa's cheek as she bends, her fingers pressed on Nyssa's neck. It is brief but she feels the desire flare up within her. She moves so as to let Sara slide all the way down to the floor, but Sara surprises her and they both land on the ground with a thud. There is an awkward silence after that, and then an even more awkward sound coming from Sara. Laughter.
"I'm sorry," Sara says then, absently pushing away at a strand of hair on Nyssa's face. Why she apologizes while still on top of Nyssa, instead of getting up first is beyond her, but she does not mind the feel of Sara pressed close on top of her. Sara stops, and smiles at Nyssa then.
"What?" she asks.
Sara shakes her head then. She gets up and off Nyssa.
"Seriously, what?" Nyssa asks, making to brush dirt off her clothes.
"Nothing," Sara answers with a smile, "We should...keep moving, make sure no one's following us..."
Nyssa only watches her then, wondering what is going through Sara's mind, but decides to let it go. "No, we should stay here," she says instead. When Sara makes to argue with her – an important distinction their future relationship will have – Nyssa puts one hand up and says, "Night has fallen, winter is coming, it is cold and dark. As far as I know nobody knows this cave exists. The tunnel, the entrance are well-concealed, and may perhaps have been destroyed. I highly doubt we are being followed. Not in this anyway. And we cannot travel in this kind of conditions. We need our rest, we need our strength. We may need it for whatever lies ahead of us."
Sara had considered what Nyssa had said before she had nodded.
There had been no food that night and for fear of attracting unwanted guests, human or otherwise, no fire. And so Nyssa finds herself huddling for warmth with Sara, close to the wall, in the darkness, a few yards from the hole, Sara's back to her as she puts an arm on Sara's waist. They keep watch in shifts. Both are exhausted and sleepy and hungry, and later, Sara reveals to her, terrified, but that night, they vigilantly keep watch over each other, finding strength in each other. Nyssa does not know it then, but she finds strength in having Sara near her. Finds strength in Sara herself. Later, much, much later, late one night with Sara naked and sated in Nyssa's arms, when Nyssa asks her again what she was thinking that night at the cave, when they had both fallen on the ground and Sara had looked at her, Sara smiles and kisses her and tells her that it was the first time she realizes Nyssa is beautiful. Unconventionally beautiful. Nyssa does not tell her she has always found her beautiful herself.
But if there was one thing that night spent with Sara for the first time had taught Nyssa, it is that there was a different kind of pain that the League had forgotten to teach her. Or had taught her and had not adequately prepared her for. The truth of the pain of loving someone, of falling in love with someone. For she knows then, holding Sara tightly in the cold of the night, that she could fall in love with this woman. That she may well have already fallen for her. And with the love comes the pain. And with the pain comes suffering.
The pain, that much she knows, is inevitable.
She does not know if she can choose to make the suffering optional.
What she does know is the fear that comes with the truth.
For how can she hope for Sara to love her back?
If truth be told, she knows that there is nothing for her here, in Starling.
Arrow is right. There are no leads.
No one to blame.
No one to punish.
The pain is great. The suffering is greater.
There is a great void, a chasm, that has opened, deep within her, when Sara had died. And she knows nothing and no one will ever fill that space.
She knows this pain, this loss, will never be overcome.
She wonders if it will ever be put in its place. If she can ever make it work for her again. If she can work through the pain.
For she knew that the truth, that of how she felt for Sara, how much Sara meant to her, had shifted her priorities forever.
Sara had changed her forever.
They make it through the night, and out of that cave the next day.
They manage to escape detection, elude authorities and enemies, manage to cross borders, through Tibet, then Islamabad, then New Delhi, and on to the Middle East, before they make it to Istanbul and from there, a safehouse in Prague.
The attack on the League is considered only a minor setback, an annoyance in the grand scheme of things, and it takes only a few weeks before the League is back on its feet, more world-weary, more cautious, more eager to unleash its plans on an unsuspecting world.
Nyssa had connections, contacts and she and Sara had bank accounts, numerous fake identities, a stash of arms ready for the taking, a world to conquer. Nyssa is not heir to the demon for nothing.
Whether Sara had apprehensions about her new chosen profession, she does not let on, not until that fateful night itself anyway.
But for now, as they prepare for their first mission, Sara manages to squeeze in a bit of normalcy in the proceedings. They have continental breakfasts, Turkish coffee in cafes on cobble-stoned streets, dinners of caviar and foie gras at relatively inexpensive restaurants. It is winter and it is cold, and Nyssa is cranky and the safehouse's heating system does not work half of the time, but then they share a bed and Sara ends up curling beside her and Nyssa does not mind.
What she does mind is how much she has come to care for this person.
She had taken to long, solitary walks in this god-forsaken city.
Why Starling had not gone the way of Gotham's fate is beyond her. She thinks Malcom Merlyn's plan, "The Undertaking", though having been in violation of the League's code of honor, would have done well to destroy an already decaying city.
She stops.
She does not know how she gets here, but her feet seem to have led her to Sara's grave again. Standing there, in front of the reminder that Sara is gone, she finds herself feeling boneless, helpless. And she finds herself falling down on her knees, looking at Sara's grave.
She knows why she wants the city destroyed.
It has become unbearable.
This is where Sara died.
It does not deserve to exist.
It deserves to be destroyed.
Destruction is the price it pays for killing the only one she has ever loved.
Sara had choked.
Sara had choked on that first hit.
It was a Russian mobster, head of a Russian mafia, responsible for illegal arms trading, drug trafficking, gambling, prostitution, murders and political maneuvering that ensured major cities of the country were kept in his pockets. She does not remember him, only that the president wanted him gone. Nyssa did not ask questions, only obeyed orders. She did not care. Never did. Not until she met Sara anyway.
They had managed to creep into the large yacht, in the dead of night, slipped past the guards smoothly and stealthily without killing anyone. Sara had gone first, had opened the door, had parted the curtains. Sara had it memorized. Knew this place's floor plan inside and out, had wanted to make sure no one else but the mobster would be killed. She had grown upset when she found out the man had children, two of them, ages three and five, and that they were both girls, and very pretty, and had blonde curls and blue eyes. Nyssa had wondered then what had upset Sara – that the man had children, and that she would be responsible for making them orphans, or that those children reminded her of her own past life. Nyssa remembers wondering if Sara had parents, too, if they were still together, if she had sisters or brothers. Nyssa had a half-sister, Talia, and a half-brother, that she knew of. She had grown up with her father, and had not known her mother. Sara would later tell her she does have parents, but that they are divorced, and an older sister, Laurel, who would probably not be happy to find out she is alive, if she knew she had been with Laurel's boyfriend, Oliver, on the day that boat sank. Nyssa remembers wondering if Sara's sister Laurel had the same pretty blonde hair Sara had, or if she had the same pretty blue eyes, too. When she does eventually meet Laurel, she realizes she is nothing like Sara. She finds this pleasing. It means Sara is special.
Sara had crept into that room then. The room was simply furnished, with a flatscreen television on one side. In the middle of the room sat a sofa, just in front of the television. From the head on the sofa, she knows there is someone there, and that this is the man they are looking for. She moves around, to the front of the sofa, arrow at the ready, the expression on her face showing that she wants this over with. Nyssa had moved to the other side of the sofa, making sure to cover Sara from across the room.
Nyssa finds the child first. Lying asleep on the man's thighs. The man himself is asleep, mouth slightly open, chest moving up and down in rhythm.
Sara had hesitated then.
"Kill him," she orders Sara in a whisper.
Sara stands, hand and arm steady, bow aimed at the man, but unmoving and silent.
"Kill him," she repeats, annoyed.
Sara seems to have frozen on the spot.
Nyssa curses under her breath and draws her bow and arrow to shoot at the man himself.
But then, the man wakes up. He sees them. He instantly knows he will die. Everything after happens as if in slow motion, when in fact, it could have happened in a matter of minutes. Chaos erupts. He quickly grabs his gun, even as Nyssa shoots an arrow into him. He dodges the arrow, but barely. It grazes his shoulder. It lodges itself into the sofa. He leans forward, gun in hand, and shoots at the frozen Sara even as Nyssa shouts her name.
Sara seems to have come to her senses as the gun explodes. She dives away from the gun, and narrowly misses the bullet. The bullet grazes her on the shoulder. There is total chaos now, as Nyssa runs for cover and tries to shoot at the man. The man is anything but determined, as he grimly looks at her and shoots again. She hears the shout come from Sara, the screams as the child wakes up and the man shoves her down on the floor, sees Sara aim the arrow at the man, shoots him right on the chest and his body jerks back and goes limp as the child screams some more. By the time security realizes something has happened to their boss, Sara has already dragged Nyssa out the door and they jump out of the boat. They land with a splash into the water and manage to escape after.
It is only after that Nyssa realizes she has been shot. On the arm. The man is anything but a good shot. Sara manages to take the bullet out, sterilize her wound and stitch it up. She had gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to punch something. Pain was, after all, inevitable. She was refusing to suffer.
Sara had cried that night.
It had not been her first kill, Nyssa rightly deduces. But it is her first kill as a League assassin. Whatever kills she has made before were for survival.
Nyssa had not known how to comfort her then. What she does do, despite the excruciating pain on her left shoulder, is reach out to run an aching hand on Sara's back, to hold her, to rock her back and forth. She does not know how long they stay in that position, seated on the carpeted floor of the hotel room, leaning against the bed, shivering. Sara's head was resting on Nyssa's shoulder, breath blowing against Nyssa's throat, sending shivers down her spine.
"Are you alright?" Nyssa asks then, because it is the only thing that she can think of asking. It is a ridiculous question, she knows.
She hears Sara let out a small laugh. "No."
Nyssa squeezes her shoulder. She feels Sara snuggle deep into her. Nyssa feels Sara's warmth beneath her shirt. Feels warmth herself just being near Sara. She swallows.
Sara shifts, tilts her head up a bit so she can look into Nyssa's eyes. Sara's eyes are so blue and bright Nyssa feels the urge to look away. But Sara's eyes also look pleading and mesmerizing, almost hypnotic, and Nyssa finds herself looking deep into her eyes.
"Does it get any better?" Sara whispers to her. "The killing? The guilt? Everything?"
Nyssa stops to consider this. She wants to say yes, it gets better, but this Nyssa the assassin, the one who was brought up by the master assassin himself, Ra's al Ghul, the one for whom pain was taught as nothing more than an annoyance, that killing was just something as a means to an end, cannot. Nyssa would say that it does get better, that for someone like Nyssa who had trained to kill her whole life, she feels dead inside, that the only time she feels alive is when she lets the beast out.
But Sara is looking at her with such perfect earnestness, such vulnerability, that Nyssa cannot seem to find it in herself to tell her the truth. As if there is still something of that innocence left in Sara that Nyssa wants to preserve. That maybe she does not want Sara to be like her.
But then she realizes that maybe it is Sara who has changed her. That maybe Sara has awakened something in her. For these days, she feels the most alive when she is with Sara.
And so she says what Sara needs to hear. "No. It does not."
Sara tilts her head, gazes steadily at Nyssa. "How...how can you stand it? How do you cope?"
Nyssa considers this question, before she says, "I do not know. For each one it is different. We kill for a living, at some point we find a way to deal with it."
Sara nods. "I'm sorry about today. On the boat. I was so...terrified..."
Nyssa nods.
"I thought I was ready...had prepared myself for it," Sara says, gazing away into the distance. "But then the kid was there and I couldn't...I just couldn't..."
"It is hard, yes. But do not make the mistake of hesitating again. Ra's al Ghul will not be so understanding," Nyssa says. "Or forgiving."
"Yes, I'm sorry, I disappointed you," Sara says. She turns and looks back at Nyssa. "I could've gotten you killed, I'm sorry. Are you alright?"
Nyssa smiles at the concern on Sara's face. "I'm fine."
"But you're...you're hurt...You're disfigured...Ra's al Ghul won't be so happy I almost got his heir killed."
Nyssa gives her a reassuring smile. "My father will understand."
"No, he will not," Sara says, concern and worry etched on her face.
"My father need not know," Nyssa adds with a wider grin.
Sara smiles then. Then her smile disappears as she says, "I wonder if fears ever really go away or if they just...lose their power over us. I thought when I joined the League they would, but they're still here."
Nyssa says then, "Just...do not forget who you are. Remember who you were. You are not just an assasin. You're not just a fighter. Fighting is easy. The killing is easy. It is why we fight that matters."
Sara looks at her then. "Yeah, you're right. Thank you, Nyssa."
"You are welcome," Nyssa says.
"What would I do without you?" Sara asks.
"I expect dead on the water," Nyssa says matter-of-factly.
Sara laughs. "Yes, I know," she says, pushing at Nyssa playfully. "Don't remind me."
"Well, someone has to."
Sara shakes her head as she looks at Nyssa. "You saved my life. Thank you."
"Are we not done with the thank-you part of this conversation yet?" Nyssa says with a lift of her eyebrow, a smile playing on her lips.
"Yeah, maybe we're done with that," Sara says thoughtfully. "But maybe we're not done with something else entirely."
Nyssa looks at her then. "What?"
And then Sara leans over and kisses Nyssa.
"You need to stop breaking into our...office like this," the voice is low, deep, unmistakable.
"Unfortunately, your computer is the best chance I have of..."
"Finding the Markov device," Oliver Queen says. "Or something similar."
Nyssa turns and looks at Oliver.
"Felicity didn't become one of my trusted...associates without having mastered the art of...subterfuge," Oliver says in carefully measured tones as he takes a step forward, looking at Nyssa. "I guessed maybe a person in your...line of work...would think of something...equally as destructive. Not just to deal with the pain...but to express it. Sometimes, grief's most logical result is wanting to see the world burn."
Nyssa ignores this.
"What are you doing, Nyssa?" Oliver says.
Nyssa does not answer at first, but then she says, "I think it is pretty obvious what I am doing."
Oliver Queen does not speak again, watches as Nyssa works, before he says, "Killing people will not bring Sara back."
"No," Nyssa agrees. "But it might make me feel better."
Oliver Queen steps forward then, as she sits unmoving in front of Felicity Smoak's computer in the team's basement.
"Do you really think that?"
No. Nyssa knows this. But she will be damned before she admits this to the Arrow.
"You know, you're not the only one who has lost someone," Oliver Queen says.
Nyssa does not dignify this with an answer.
"I lost my father on the island. I lost my best friend Tommy. I lost my mother. And now, I've lost Sara."
Nyssa stops. "And what, exactly? Am I meant to feel better that I only lost Sara? And you have lost so many? Am I meant to pity you now?"
Oliver Queen smiles a pained smile and shakes his head. "No. I guess you're meant to...grieve. As it were."
Nyssa looks at him.
"She...meant a lot to you," Oliver Queen says, "As you have to her. You're allowed to feel that loss."
"Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional," Nyssa intones flatly.
Oliver smiles thinly at her. "Yes. I understand that. But...don't beat yourself up over what you could have or should have done. The past is gone. Sara...is gone. You need to move on...to the future."
"Is this the kind of pep talk you give your super friends just before you try to save the world ineptly?" Nyssa asks, a smirk on her face.
"This is more...other people's thing, than mine," Arrow agrees with an apologetic smile. "Look, it's okay to feel sad, to feel like you've lost the world. And to feel that the only way you can make the world right again is to destroy it. But that's not what Sara would have wanted. I know you think Sara's gone forever, but really, in truth, Sara...What she was to you...What you were to her...That will always be with you. That lives inside you. Nobody can take that away from you. Not even me. And a part of me will always feel jealous that you will always have a part of Sara I can never have. Something that's all yours. There's a part of that you have to let go, yes, but still something that's made you who you are."
Nyssa fights the lump that is growing in her throat, the tears threatening to form in her eyes.
"This isn't the way, Nyssa," Oliver says. "Sara wouldn't have wanted it this way."
If Oliver had other nuggets of wisdom he wanted to impart, Nyssa does not stay to hear the rest of it. She leaves.
It is not what Nyssa had expected to find. Least of all with Sara.
She had not even realized something was missing and that she had found it with Sara until Sara showed her.
She had not even realized what she was feeling until Sara had whispered it one night, when she had risked her life for Nyssa, on an operation gone wrong, to save Nyssa from the very people who had sought to destroy Nanda Parbat all those days ago. The League was not, is not, romantic in its dealings with its people. The league was in the business of killing, in the business of death, and in this business, people, even highly-trained assassins, can and will die. Assassins are thus trained to cut their losses, to abandon lost causes, to not risk their lives when completely unnecessary. League assassins are a highly-valuable commodity, it is not easy to replace one. It takes years of training, and years more to be as skilled as they are at the art of killing. So when Nyssa had been captured, everyone had written her off as a lost cause. Sara had not, of course. She had refused to accept Nyssa's fate. She had somehow managed to sneak out of the League's formidable hideout, found the place where they kept Nyssa, stuck arrows left and right into anyone who got in her way, and, bleeding and bruised, had managed to get Nyssa out. It had been a daring, ridiculous rescue. Later, after Sara's wounds are dressed and she is lying beside Nyssa, almost as delirious with victory as with pain, they spend the better part of the night still arguing, with Nyssa pointing out how dangerous and reckless it all was, but Sara shushes Nyssa's attempts at scolding her and at gratitude with a kiss and says, "I did what I had to do. You would have done the same for me."
She had wondered then how and where Sara could have gotten the courage to defy orders and rescue her, but Sara beats her to it.
"I remembered who I was, Nyssa," Sara says. "Who I am."
"And who are you?"
Sara looks away, almost embarrassed. "I am a person still capable of loving, of feeling courage in the face of fear...you told me once not to forget. That the fighting, the killing was easy. That it's why we fight that matters." She looks back at Nyssa then and smiles. "I used to fight for myself, and then for my family, but I realized, I'm fighting for you, too...for us...for the right to imagine a better future for the both of us. That was all that mattered. That's all that matters. I love you. Leaving you to die there was never an option."
The declaration of love comes so naturally to Sara's lips Nyssa feels warmth spread through her being. She smiles at Sara then. That ends the argument then and there.
If truth be told, she had no one, not even her own blood, care for her, love her, the way Sara did. No one's eyes lit up the way Sara's did when Nyssa entered a room. No one would greet her with the most enthusiastic of kisses after she had been away for so long, quite like Sara did. No one would hold her the way Sara did. And that night, and in the many, many nights they would share a bed together, no one would love her, or make love to her, quite the way Sara did.
And she is surprised, when Sara says it, that it is as true for her as it is for Sara: that she knows, instinctively what she is fighting for, too. That she is fighting for Sara, too. For them, for herself. That she is fighting to be the person Sara always wanted her to be, the person Sara knew she could still be. Nyssa knows people kill other people without a lot of reason or justification – but she realizes Sara is the one person she is willing to fight for, to kill for, even to die for. And she realizes something even more – that pain might be inevitable, but that the journey that comes with it, the constant tension between what was and what is, a tension of joy and sadness, of feeling alive while always courting death, that was worth it, if only because she had Sara at her side.
She realizes then, holding Sara close to her side, Sara clinging to her as if for dear life, the greatest truth of all: that she loves Sara as well. That she deeply, irrevocably loves Sara. Perhaps even more than Sara loved her. That it feels like home.
And so when Sara had left the League the first time without saying goodbye, it had devastated her.
Goodbyes had never been easy, not between the two of them. They were usually long, unbearable goodbyes. Like it is the end of the world, like they will never see each other again. And so whenever they spend time apart, and then see each other again, the enthusiasm with which Sara had greeted her was something Nyssa had come to look forward to. When she sees Sara again in Starling and receives a less than enthusiastic greeting, Nyssa knows something had changed. Not even her attempting to poison Sara's sister, or kidnapping her mother, would change that. She had wanted to save Sara from death, from the League, from Ra's al Ghul's wrath. What she had gotten instead, was defeat.
It had broken her heart setting Sara free from the League.
When she comes back to the League, it had been one of the happiest moments of Nyssa's life. It helps that most of the happiest moments in Nyssa's life have Sara in them.
So, when Sara leaves a second time, it devastates Nyssa even more.
And now Sara has left for the last time. Nyssa's home has gone. Nyssa feels lost. An altogether unwelcome, unusual, unnatural feeling. How did one find one's way home again when that home is gone?
Sometimes you have to get through hell to get to heaven.
She had forgotten that adage. The woman responsible for the scar on her palm had also told her that. What frustrated her so much is this feeling of powerlessness, this feeling of guilt, of wishing she should have stopped Sara, should have done everything to keep her from coming back, to keep her from dying. She wishes she could have saved her.
The truth is, she will always love Sara. Maybe she always has. Maybe no one will ever come close to what she and Sara had.
Standing here, paying her last respects, saying goodbye to Sara for the last time, feels permanent somehow. There is an ache in her chest, in her very being, that refuses to go away.
There is so much she wants to say to Sara. How she knows now what she is fighting for. How she still wants to be that person Sara would want her to be. That fear does lose its power over people. That pain really cannot be overcome, but that with time, and patience it can be put in its right place, that one can work through the pain. That the truth is that she loves Sara so much the pain of her loss, her grief, is unbearable. That it hurts. It is inevitable. That there is nothing worse than losing someone. It feels a bit like being given a glimpse of what it is like to have reached the top, and to have found there only the perverse urge to plummet back down. But maybe, eventually, it will fade away, too. Leaving only the memories she had of Sara. Memories shared with Sara. A smile. Eyes the color of the deep blue sea. Hair the color of the sun. Skin as white, as smooth as ivory. Arms wrapped tightly around her. Fingers running, playing on bare skin. Laughter. When they thought they could cheat their fates and owned the world. She wants to tell Sara that more than anything else, Sara was everything to her, that Sara had felt like home. And though Sara is gone now, maybe she can make a home somewhere inside herself, to carry with her where she goes - which is the way she carries Sara now, deep in her heart, living inside her, permanent and forever.
And maybe, just maybe, someday they will meet again.
And when that day comes, Nyssa will be waiting.
In the meantime, there is that one other truth as well: All must live by the living, not the dead.
She must remember who she is. She must not forget. I am Nyssa al Ghul, daughter of Ra's al Ghul, heir to the demon.
She stands up then, looks at Sara's grave one last time and says her farewell.
What am I fighting for?
Nyssa al Ghul smiles then.
Sometimes she feels like there is so much to be afraid of, and sometimes she feels like there is nothing left to fear.
She looks down at the flowers on Sara's grave.
The flowers look beautiful and savage.
A wind blows.
She pulls her leather coat around her, turns and disappears into the night.
- FIN -
A/N: That's it for this story. Thanks for reading. Kind reviews much appreciated. Much thanks to pictureofsuccess and zarathustra76 for helping with this.
I know there are stories yet to be finished, but I never knew I wanted to write a story about Arrow's Nyssa al Ghul and Sara Lance until Season 3x1 and 3x3. Wanted to write this before the new episode came out. I am sure Arrow will do justice to them (Arrow and DC are awesome like that), but I've always wanted to expand on their backstory, since the series gave us so little. Cheers!