"I don't like it."
Nyssa makes the pronouncement into the quiet of their chambers.
"You don't like it 'cause you don't understand it," Sara counters, tying off the end of her braid.
"And you understand it?" Nyssa ripostes.
"No, but I trust Ray."
"Ah yes, Dr. Palmer." Nyssa frowns. "You cannot even be in the same room with Mr. Hunter's physical form without attempting to end his life. How are you to go into his mind and refrain from killing him?"
"One, I don't think I can kill him in his mind. Two, this is for the mission – we can't find the rest of the Holy Lance without Real Rip. And maybe I won't want to kill Real Rip."
Sara tries to put real conviction into that last sentence, but she doesn't feel it. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to look at Rip again without white hot anger and cold nauseating grief. He was once her mentor, someone she looked up to. That's poisoned now. He killed Nyssa. But, she is not a mindless animal controlled by bloodlust anymore. Nyssa is alive, so Sara can stop herself from killing Rip, even if she'll always want to.
"But why must it be you?" Nyssa asks.
"Jax and I have the closest connection to Rip, and I'm not letting Jax go in alone. Gideon will be monitoring us the whole time, and Ray is so scared of you that he'll take us out the minute you tell him to," Sara placates. She slips her socks on and then presses a gentle kiss to Nyssa's lips, leaning down a bit to where Nyssa perches on the edge of the bunk. "It'll be fine."
Nyssa grumbles as Sara threads their fingers together, but she allows herself to be pulled to her feet.
"Well, I have registered my objection, but you are the captain," Nyssa sighs.
"Exactly," Sara grins, keeping one set of hands locked together as she leads Nyssa to the door and steps into her shoes.
"Now if only I wasn't the only one on the ship who actually respected the chain of command…"
One head-trippy alterna-Waverider and a weirdly hot human Gideon later, Jax and Sara wake in the medbay, a nervous Nyssa hovering over each in turn. On the third bed, Rip, the real Rip, wakes as well.
Sara has him escorted to the brig anyway. She says it's for the crew's safety, just in case, but it's just as much for his.
"You are well, habibti?" Nyssa asks softly in Arabic, turning from checking in with Jax.
Her concern is sweet and genuine, and it makes Sara's bloodlust sing louder in her ears. She's grateful when Ray and Nate clear the medbay doors with Rip.
"Fine," Sara promises, meeting Nyssa's eyes and giving her a sloppy grin. "We'll let him rest, and then we'll go lance hunting."
Ray and Nate, being the people who deposited Real!Rip back into the brig, think they're the right choice to go in and reassure him that everything's okay.
"Hey Rip," Ray starts gently.
Rip looks up, clearly thinking, or at least hoping, that they were someone else.
"How're you doing?' Nate asks kindly.
"Who are you?"
"Dr. Nathaniel Heywood, reconstructive historian," Ray tells him.
"Also, I turn into Steel," Nate says, demonstrating.
"Well, while I am happy to see most of the crew is here and well, I admit I'm still having trouble putting together what happened after I-"
"Fried the time drive?" Ray asks.
"Precisely," Rip nods. "And why I am still here."
He gestures around at the brig, at Ray and Nate on the opposite side of the energized wall.
"Well, you've had a couple of different personalities recently," Ray starts. "Not all of them were super nice. You're not Captain Lance's favorite person right now."
"Especially since you, y'know, killed the Captain's wife."
"Her what?!" Rip exclaims
"Well, not technically," Ray says. "But you know the old sea stories. Captain's wife: very, very beautiful. Very, very untouchable."
"Super untouchable," Nate echoes.
"Who are you again?" Rip asks.
"Steel." "He's Nate."
"But Nyssa's alive now," Ray says brightly. "So, I'm sure Sara'll come around."
"Nyssa?" Realization dawns on Rip's face. "Nyssa al Ghul?"
Nate nods. "You know her?"
"Nyssa al Ghul is on my ship?!"
"I mean, technically our ship," Ray says at the same time Nate says, "Sara's ship."
"I want to see Sara."
Ray pauses, listening to Jax in his earpiece.
"The Spear first," Ray says. Nate echoes him:
"We need to find the pieces of the Spear of Destiny before the Legion of Doom does. Tell us where you hid them, and then we'll get Sara."
Rip starts talking, and Ray starts writing.
Rip provides a list not of locations but of guardians – the Justice Society of America scattered throughout time with a piece of the Spear each.
As a reward, Sara appears before him, after swearing (to Nyssa) that she would not kill him on Nyssa's account.
It is very hard to keep that promise when her Beloved's name is the first one out of his mouth:
"You cannot just remove Nyssa al Ghul from the timeline," Rip says exasperatedly.
"Well, I did. Though, technically, she removed herself."
"Nyssa al Ghul."
"Yes, Rip. I of all people know who she is."
"She belongs in 2017."
"If it's really that serious, then eventually we'll go back there."
"We?"
"Yes, Rip, we," Sara says with a sigh. "You scattered us throughout time, erased your own memory, ended up working for the enemy – which I get, not your fault – and now all you want to talk about is my relationship?"
Rip deflates, perhaps duly chastened. He takes a deep breath, hands held behind his back.
"Very well. I suppose those timeline effects can wait for another time. What is your plan for the Spear?"
"Nyssa and Amaya are working on that now."
"You must act quickly. Eobard Thawne-"
"Who?"
"The Speedster. He wants the Spear to write himself back into reality. His time, ironically, is running out. He is getting desperate."
"Okay… so how do we destroy the Holy Lance?" Sara asks.
Rip wrinkles his brow. "Destroy it?"
"We can't just hide it again. We have to destroy it. Mick tried to burn the piece we have. Firestorm even nuked it. No luck."
"You can't."
"We're the Legends. I'm pretty sure we can destroy anything," Sara says, half-joking and half-serious.
"You can't," Rip repeats. "It's indestructible. Sara, about-"
"Well, let's focus on finding the Lance. Hopefully we'll figure out the destruction thing before-"
"Sara," Rip says, more insistent.
Sara drops all pretense of friendliness, stepping up to the humming energy wall separating them.
"No," Sara says coldly. "We aren't discussing her. Your life depends on it."
"I don't begrudge you your happiness, but-"
"Rip. You shot her. And when that didn't work, you put your hands on her and you snapped her neck," Sara recounts through gritted teeth. "You are not responsible for those actions, but there are still consequences for them. You don't get to talk to me about Nyssa."
Rip holds his hands up in surrender.
"Too soon to ask about getting out of here, then?"
"Way too soon. I'll have Ray get a comfier bed in there, though."
Rip nods. "Much obliged."
Sara looks at him, face drawn and resigned, a two-day stubble across his chin, and for an instant, she sees only her captain, her friend. But the instant passes, and her vision flashes red.
Yes, keeping him in here really is for his own good.
Sara divides them into teams to retrieve the four remaining pieces: Firestorm to the future to retrieve Dr. Mid-Nite's piece, Ray and Nate to the sixties to retrieve Commander Steel's piece from Nate's grandfather, Mick and Amaya to the eighties to retrieve Obsidian's piece, and herself and Nyssa off to Camelot, where Stargirl is playing Merlin.
Amaya is understandably nervous to see a member of her old team, the one she feels she abandoned in order to avenge Rex Tyler, but Sara tries to give her a good pep talk and assigns her the best possible partner. Odd as it might seem, Mick and Amaya really bring out the good in each other, and the most important part of Sara's job is putting together the pieces of her team that work best.
Camelot is easy enough, and they return to the Waverider with Nyssa giving Sara a good-natured teasing about flirting with Guinevere.
"Seems to me you're deflecting from all of Stargirl's attention on you," Sara ripostes as they head back to the bridge, spear piece in hand.
Nyssa gives her a fond eyeroll, and Sara takes advantage of their alone time on the ship to steal a kiss as they enter the bridge.
"Alright, Gideon," Sara says as she leans against the center console, beating a rapid tattoo on the edge. "Let's do a team update."
"Mr. Jackson and Dr. Stein are wrapping up in the thirty-first century. In fact, Mr. Jackson would say they are now simply 'nerding out' and should be ready to be picked up within the hour. No sign of any of the Legion of Doom."
Sara groans. "Not you, too. Mick and Amaya?"
"Mr. Rory and Ms. Jiwe encountered a few complications with Obsidian but they were well-suited for the task. No sign of enemy activity, and they are saying their goodbyes now. We'll have them on board shortly."
"Great, and the boys?"
Gideon patches into Nate's and Ray's comms, and the bridge fills with the sounds of bullets ringing off Steel and the Atom flying around. Sara shares a look with Nyssa, who raises a brow as her "boys" seem to exchange fire with NASA.
"I know, I know," Sara says. "It was risky to send those two by themselves. Do they need a bail out?"
"This is a time period appropriate firefight and does not seem to be Speedster related. They should have their target in hand shortly, and I've sent the shuttle to retrieve them. All is likely to be well."
Sara is tempted to express relief and surprise at how well this is going, but she knows better than to tempt fate.
"How's the research on destroying it going?" Sara asks Gideon instead.
Gideon manifests her giant head simply to mimic a shrug.
"It appears that Captain Hunter was correct. There is, strictly speaking, no way to destroy it."
"Strictly speaking?" Sara asks. "What if we're not so strict?"
"The Spear of Destiny-"
"-Holy Lance, but continue," Sara says magnanimously.
"Is it not enough to have been written into legend as Lancelot?" Nyssa chides warmly.
"I barely flirted. I was being nice!"
"The Holy Lance," Gideon repeats, humoring Sara. "Has the power to rewrite the rules of reality. So, in theory, one could-"
"Use the Spear to write the Spear itself out of reality," Nyssa says with dawning realization.
Sara grins at her. She loves how smart she is. Not just a pretty face that can kill a man with her pinky, her Nyssa. But definitely that too.
Sara nods once, with finality.
"Sounds like a plan to me."
tbc