Sara
"Rip! Rip!" I scream his name into his face, trying to force life back into his unseeing eyes. "You can't die, damn you. You can't die!" I'm crying, I know from the little teardrops falling onto his blood stained face. But I can't feel it. I can't feel anything but the blackness rising from inside me threatening to destroy any and all in its path.
The rushing tide in my ears finally morphs into comprehensible syllables. Someone's yelling my name. "Sara!" Stein's voice on the comms. "You need to get back on the ship. We can't take any more hits!"
The ship. Waverider. The mission. Our team. My team now. Truly mine. Not like when he was taken, not like when he left. We're orphans now. No captain at our helm. No time master to let us know of the world shattering consequence of breaking this or that silly rule.
He's lighter in my arms than I would have expected. Bullets rip the air all around. Why they miss us, I don't know. I don't care. Rip Hunter is dead, bullets can't hurt him now. And me, well. I should care. I have a team to lead, to save.
Waverider's door splits the sky, opening at our approach. I walk passed the shell-shocked faces of the team, Rip still in my arms. Deafening silence is my reward as Gideon closes the door and takes out the hell out of dodge without even needing to be asked.
My breaths echo loud in my own ears. I make my way to the med bay. Ray is the one closest to my heels, but he's not fast enough. The infirmary door latches close behind us, barely missing his nose.
"Sara-"
"Cut off sound, Gideon. Black out the screens too while you're at it."
"Yes, Captain."
I lay him down on the bed. He looks peaceful there -if I could ignore his still open, lightless eyes. I can't bring myself to close them. I'd had to admit to it. Kill out that voice inside me that says maybe there's some hope, any hope, that he would come back.
"Fix him, Gideon. Please. Please."
"I…I can't. Sara, I can't."
Who knew a disembodied voice could convey that much pain. But she loved him too. "He's dead. He's dead Gideon. He's dead and it's all my fault."
"Now the Sara Lance I knew wouldn't waste time wallowing around in self-pity."
Ice douses my being. I dare not move, not even a muscle. I must be going mad. That's it. All that strain must have finally gotten to me. How can I hear his voice, Rip's voice, when he's clearly laying there lifeless in front of me?
"No, you're not going mad," he says. "You're really hearing Rip Hunter's voice."
"But it's not really him," his voice dissolves into that of Gideon. "It's a memory file. I can.. I can run a subroutine that sounds like him, acts like him, thinks like him. I'm sorry Sara I shouldn't have. I just…can't accept he's gone. Forever."
Forever. "Can yo-" I have to clear my throat before I can get the next words out "Project him out as well?"
"You mean like this?" Rip Hunter says, standing right over his own dead body, hair immaculate, long coat swishing in the air, hands nonchalantly in his pocket, wound free, blood free, death free.
"Gideon, can you lock him to my neural signature?"
"Want to keep me all for yourself Miss Lance?" he asks, his head cocked, one eyebrow raised. "Or are you afraid the others will cast doubt on how 'healthy' what you two are doing is."
"Only you can see him, Captain."
"Good. Open the doors, Gideon."