*re-upload to fix some formatting errors*

Well, bad news is I've been sent into another round of lockdown.

Good news is, that gives me a lot of free time for writing.

(I'm putting a trigger warning here for sexual assault. There is nothing graphic but the trauma is mentioned so I'd just like to put that out there now for anyone sensitive to the topic. I apologise for the inclusion but its necessary to the story I'm afraid.)


"So what are we dealing with here?" Oliver asked as he descended the stairs into the foundry.

At the desk on the left side of the room, Sara looked up from the microscope she had previously been bent over. Her face instantly lit up at the sight of him.

Rather than answering him immediately, she raced over and wrapped her arms around him tightly, squeezing him against her. A broad smile broke out on her face as she felt his own arms settle around her shoulders.

Nyssa and Slade were quick to join them in a group embrace. A moment of silence passed as the four reconnected, before separating as Sara led them back over to the bench she'd been working at.

"It took a while due to the fragmentation but we pieced it together eventually."

She gestured to the recovered bullet under the microscope. Erected beside it was an ultra-high grade laser scanner that had been used to scan the entire round, a digital model of which had been entered into the Cray XK7 'Titan' at the desk's centre – the very latest and best in supercomputing technology.

Its screen displayed a 3D, reconstructed rendering of the bullet around which the four gathered.

Due to Sara's time on the Amazo and Slade's military experience, they were the analysts of the group. The technical specifics tended to go right over Oliver's head and Nyssa was just plain uninterested most of the time, choosing instead to be more… practical… in her acquisition of information.

"It's a .40 calibre tungsten tipped Sabot round." Slade explained. "You can see the marks of the sleeve here. The Sabot sleeve allows a lower calibre bullet to be shot from a higher calibre rifle, which is why his shots had such a high impact velocity, the penetration of which was helped by the tungsten."

He shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it. Whoever this guy is, he's packing some serious shit."

Oliver whistled lowly, impressed by both Slade's analysis and the apparent lethality of the bullet in front of him.

"Oh it gets better than that." Sara interjected. "I ran a spectroscope analysis and the tip is also laced with curare."

That got Oliver and Nyssa's attention. Curare was a rare and deadly poison, originating from a South American plant extract. In its unrefined form it was a rapidly acting paralytic, survivable if treated quickly enough, lethal if not. Even the league used it from time to time.

"He wanted to make sure his target was eliminated." Sara finished lowly.

"Anyone who uses such specific ammunition would surely have been recorded in the past." Nyssa mused.

"Indeed." Sara nodded, leaning forward and clicking onto another screen on the computer. "Turns out he's killed all over the world. The States, Markovia, Corto Maltese. He's racked up more than two dozen hits over the past six years. Interpol has apparently codenamed him 'Deadshot'."

"And the League isn't aware of this?" Oliver queried.

"I'm sure we are." Nyssa replied. "But we don't have any file on this killer here with us and to ask for it would break my father's mandate."

"Oh, how wonderfully convenient." Slade threw his arms up in the air and turned away.

"Is there another angle?" Oliver ignored him.

"As a matter of fact there is." Sara smiled tightly. "Sabot bullets are rare. Tungsten tipped ones even more so. There's only a few organisations in the world who would know where to get them, and it just so happens that you and I have close contacts with one of them."

A spark lit in Oliver's eye at what she was getting at, though a frown quickly formed instead. "Are you sure you want to bring them in? You know how they work…"

"I do and I am." The blonde nodded seriously. "This Deadshot nearly killed me once and I don't like the idea of giving him a second chance. The sooner we find him the better."

Oliver bit his lip, taking a moment to weigh up his options.

"Okay." He agreed eventually.

"Then it looks like we have a Russian garage to visit." Sara grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair beside her.

"I can't go with you." Oliver stopped her in his tracks. She turned around, frowning, to see him holding up his wristwatch. "I've only got an hour's break from the company. I'd rather not get fired on my first day."

"Oh, you finally decided to sell your soul hey?" Slade drawled, making his way over to Oliver and slapping his hand down on the younger man's shoulder. "Have you had to pucker up and kiss anyone's ass yet?"

Oliver smirked. "Well you'd know all about that wouldn't you, Mr. government spy."

Slade opened his mouth to retaliate but was silenced by Sara and Nyssa's twin guffaws of laughter.

"He's got you there." Sara smirked as she moved past him. "Guess I'm going out on my own then."

"Hey, on the subject of going out, Tommy's invited us out this evening." Oliver said suddenly, "You know, do some 'hands on' reconnaissance for our plan for the foundry."

"Sure." Sara shrugged. "I've been wanting to let my hair down a while now. Didn't get a proper chance at your homecoming."

Oliver nodded his approval. "Cool. Slade?"

Both turned to look at the Australian, whose face immediately drained of colour and he grimaced. "No thank you."

"Oh come on, live a little, old man." Sara taunted.

"Call me old again and what I did to Oliver in Yao Fei's cave will look like paradise." He growled. "My idea of living is very different to yours, not to mention that degenerate Merlyn's. God only knows what that moron's version of 'hands on' is."

"I'm in." Nyssa piped up, causing all three to spin around to face her.

"What?" she asked at their identical expressions of shock. "I am allowed to have fun too. Who knows, maybe I'll even get to take part in one of these American bar fights you two have told me so much about."

Oliver and Sara glanced at each other worriedly. Neither particularly wanted to envision the outcome of such an occurrence. It would not be pretty.

"Plus it will mean my faithful bodyguard will have to accompany me as well." She sent an amused smirk at Slade.

"Then its settled." Oliver grinned. "We're all going to Poison tonight. First rounds on me Slade."

The man glared at him. "I hate you all."

Oliver ignored him and instead turned to Sara. "Hey, are you going to be alright on your own?" he leant down and asked her quietly. "Just because Anatoly is our friend, doesn't mean these guys will be."

Sara eyed him evenly. "I'll be fine." She raised herself onto her toes and kissed his cheek. "If they think I'm some defenceless little girl, they've got another thought coming."

Oliver gave her a soft smile before nodding his acquiescence. "Stay safe." He whispered.

In return, she squeezed his hands gently. "Always."

It was a rather unassuming building all in all.

With simple wire fencing, rusting car parts strewn throughout the front yard and the sounds of an angle grinder emanating from within the single storey workshop, it certainly didn't look like a mob stronghold.

But Sara knew better.

Her face was set in stone as she passed through the front gate, her hair pulled back into a loose bun and covered by a Starling Rockets cap. Simple jeans and a faded shirt completed her basic disguise. Enough to fool any passers-by, but not enough to give the men she was meeting any reason to doubt her identity.

She flicked her eyes up to the Cyrillic sign adorning the front entrance to the workshop, confirming that she was indeed in the right place. After a fleeting glance to both sides, ensuring she hadn't been seen, she took a deep breath and entered the building.

Almost immediately the Russian drawl of the two mechanics ceased – as did the sparking of their tools. The one closest to her – a bulky man with a bald head – frowned briefly, sweeping his eyes up and down her body appraisingly before removing his gloves.

"How can we help you."

Sara didn't blink. "I'm looking for Alexei Leonov."

The man's eyes widened ever so briefly, before his features hardened into a stony frown and he chuckled derisively. "The cosmonaut? I'm afraid you're about five thousand miles and fifty years off lady."

Sara's eyes narrowed. "Don't play dumb with me." She growled in Russian. "Where is he?"

The man was unable to hide his surprise at her use of his native tongue, but held his glare nonetheless. "There is no man here by that name."

"Maybe not in this garage." Sara strode forward, her sapphire eyes unwavering. "But certainly in the basement underneath."

Anger washed across the man's face almost instantaneously. His lip curled and he sent a glance at the man standing behind him, who immediately reached for the pistol concealed in his overalls.

Sighing internally, Sara braced herself to fight back when she was suddenly grabbed from the side by a third mechanic she hadn't previously noticed – so focussed had she been on the first two.

Fear and adrenaline shot through her in equal measure at feeling of the man's rough hands against her skin, terrible memories surging to the forefront of her mind.

Clamping down on her rising panic, she reacted quickly and brutally.

She drove the heel of her boot into the shin of the man holding her, eliciting a pained grunt and enabling her to escape his grip. She sent her elbow back into his ribs before spinning and delivering a pulverising chop to his throat with the side of her hand.

He doubled over, choking, but Sara showed him no mercy as she slung him over her shoulder and into the second armed man approaching her.

Having knocked him off balance, she simply strode up and slammed her foot as hard as she could up into his crotch.

His eyes bugged comically from their sockets and he collapsed to the ground in a quivering, whimpering heap.

Sara meanwhile snatched his gun as he fell and aimed it squarely between the bald man's eyes while simultaneously crouching down and holding a small seax dagger against her original attacker's throat.

"Touch me again and I'll cut your dick off and feed it to you." She hissed balefully at the man pinned beneath her, before switching her venomous glare to the bald man.

"I'm Bratva you fat shit." She spat at him. "Get me a UV light and I'll prove it."

Staring down the barrel of the gun pointed at him, the man had no choice but to comply. Sara kept the pistol trained on him as he moved to his workbench and gathered a small ultraviolet light.

As he approached, Sara stood and easily flicked her dagger around, sliding it back into her sleeve before pulling down the left corner of her shirt, exposing the bare skin of her shoulder.

The man frowned at the lack of a mark there, but Sara merely jerked her head at the light in his hand. "Shine it there."

He did so, and as the light shone across her skin it illuminated the previously invisible tattoo etched on her pectoral muscle in very rare ultraviolet ink. His eyes flew open as he recognised the circular design, marking her rank within his organisation.

"I-I apologise." He stammered. "I meant no disrespect to a Captain."

Sara pulled her shirt back into place and took her foot off the man pinned on the ground beneath her. Her icy glare never left her face.

"And yet you inflicted it anyway." She growled in derision. "Your Pakhan will not be pleased with your actions. Anatoly is a good friend of mine. He'll skin you alive when he hears of this."

Now it was the bald man – Alexei's – turn to look afraid. "No, please." He raised his hands. "I was not to know."

Sara hid her mirth. She had him right where she wanted him. "I know how this organisation works. A favour for a favour. Give me what I want and I'll say nothing of this to Anatoly."

Alexei eyed her warily. "How may I be of service?"

Sara smiled darkly. "How about we continue this down in the basement? I need information that is best not shared with the outside world."

Alexei did a poor job of disguising his relief. He bowed his head and led her over to the door at the back of the workshop.

Sara said nothing more. She was still trying to shake off the memories assaulting her.

As they descended the stairs, she shoved her hands firmly into her jacket to hide them.

They were shaking furiously.

"Ahh!" Oliver grunted as she replaced the gauze over his hand, the residual iodine of the moss stinging the freshly stitched wound inflicted by the arrow the previous night.

Saddened and guilty at the pain he was in, Sara tenderly stroked the unaffected skin around his palm as he grit his teeth and fought off the sensation.

Squeezing his other fist tightly, he took a deep breath as she set the dressing in place, pressing its sap-soaked sides down caringly to get the covering to stick to his hand.

"There, all done." She said quietly, withdrawing.

Exhaling, Oliver flexed his hand, testing it. The wound hurt for sure, but he had suffered far worse. He was quickly becoming used to the sensation of his skin being torn open. "Thanks." He murmured.

"No problem." Sara shrugged. "It's me that should be thanking you…"

She trailed off, glancing furtively around the fuselage as she recalled everything that had happened the last few days.

The plane was empty, save for the two of them. After dawn broke, Slade had left to show their new arrival the lay of the land, and both castaways were incredibly thankful for the time alone with each other. They desperately needed it, needed to opportunity to get their thoughts in order after what they had just been through.

"There was no way I was losing you after escaping that freighter." Oliver joked, trying to lighten the mood, "After that, one little arrow wound really isn't that bad."

Sara said nothing, just nodded mutely. Turning away from Oliver, she drew her legs up close to her chest and rested her head on her knees.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Oliver asked a moment later, sensing her distress.

Sara inhaled sharply, her eyes squinting and her chin trembling as she fought to keep control of herself. Everything she'd been through had welled to the surface and she was trying desperately to keep it inside.

She was failing badly.

"How did we end up back here, Ollie?" She whispered, forlorn. "After all of that… all that suffering, all that death… what did we achieve? What was it all worth?"

She looked down at her own hands, fingers still wrapped with cloth after being shredded on the hull of the Amazo.

Oliver sighed forlornly. It was easy to forget how young Sara still was, barely twenty one. He was quick to move next to her and place a hand on her shoulder for comfort. "We survived." He said firmly. "Whatever happened, whatever we went through, we're still here, still alive. As long as we're still alive, we have a chance. I have to believe that."

Sara sniffed. "How can you be so sure?"

Oliver gave a sad smile in response. "We've come this far haven't we? We survived the yacht going down, and somehow found our way back to each other. We survived Ivo, the Mirakuru…" he paused, deliberately leaving out Slade's name, those wounds still too fresh to try and heal, "Whatever the future holds, we'll survive that too."

Sara didn't look convinced. She scoffed slightly and averted her gaze, before stilling as she realised something. She turned back to him and looked up, her wide blue eyes peering vulnerably up at him.

"Why did you come back for me?" she asked darkly, "You had the sub, you could have escaped, could have gone home-"

Oliver hushed her, slinging his good arm around her neck and looking deeply into her eyes. "I could never leave you Sara." He said with all the honestly in his heart. "Not after I was the reason you got pulled into all of this in the first place."

"I was the one who led Ivo to you-"

"And I was the one who brought you on the Gambit!" Oliver strained, angry at himself rather than her.

He paused, licked his lips. "I thought I lost you once. I wasn't going to let that happen again. If sacrificing my chance to get home meant I can be here now, with you… Then I made the right choice."

Sara's mouth dropped open slightly, her eyes searching his own. "But… Laurel-" she stammered.

Oliver shook his head slightly, and brought his hand around to cup her cheek. "Is a world away." He murmured. "I don't know if I'll ever get home again, and even if I do things will never be the same. What I've learnt here is that time is fickle. These seconds… days… years… we'll never get them back. And it was killing me, knowing my entire life was slowly being stripped away by this place."

"Oliver-"

"And then I found you again-" Oliver's voice cracked, his own weakness bleeding into his voice. "I don't care what you'd done, who you'd helped. When I saw you… when I held you… when you called me 'Ollie' again for the first time…"

He paused, and smiled a sad, yet caring smile. "You reminded me that my life is still my own, that I hadn't lost every… figment… of myself. And I can't lose that again… Not now, not ever. I can't lose you."

Sara swallowed. "So… when you kissed me on the Amazo…"

"I meant it." Oliver said seriously. "Every moment of it. I love you Sara, I just didn't know it until I lost you."

Sara clutched at his wrist desperately, needing something solid to cling to, something to anchor herself amongst the hell her life had become.

She found it in Oliver's steely gaze, and couldn't stop herself leaning forward and pressing her lips against his in a chaste, needy kiss, the emotion of his words igniting her soul and sending fiery heat shooting through her veins.

Oliver stilled briefly at her contact, but as she increased the pressure of the kiss he brought his arms around her and pulled her closer to him.

Panting, Sara swivelled on the spot and brought herself into his lap, arching her back and pressing herself as tightly against him as she could, closing her eyes and allowing herself to drown in the presence, the salvation in her life that he was.

She fisted her hand needily in his long, tangled locks and he slowly brought his hands down her back, his fingers slipping beneath the raggedy fabric of her shirt, skating his fingers across the smooth skin of her abdomen.

He could feel himself reacting to the warmth of her body, her reassuring weight settled in his lap and the familiar softness of her lips plastered against his own.

Fumbling for her belt buckle, he slipped his hand into her pants. The moment he touched her core however, she did something completely unexpected.

She froze.

She went rigid against him, sitting bolt upright and clenching her thighs together, crushing his hand painfully.

He was quick to extricate his hand from between her legs. Pulling away from her in concern, he was shocked by what he saw.

Sara's already pale face had completely drained of colour, her bone white features contrasting starkly against the gunmetal fuselage. Her breath came in shaky gasps and she twitched involuntarily. Most worrying of all was the unfocussed, haunted look in her eyes, like she had been suddenly transported a thousand miles away.

"Sara?" Oliver asked, concerned. He brought his hand up to her cheek but the moment he touched her skin she reacted even more violently, jumping off him as if burned and pushing herself forcefully back against the wall, looking around herself frightfully.

"No…" she whispered, panicked, "No!"

"Sara! Sara it's me, it's Oliver!" he scrambled over to her and grasped her cheeks as gently as he could, forcing her to look at him.

"Ollie?" she squeaked, as if caught in a nightmare.

"Yeah, it's me." He assured her, voice quiet yet urgent. "You're safe, Sara, I'm not going to hurt you!"

Still caught in whatever was affecting her, she grabbed his wrist with both hands and held it as tightly as she could. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, trembling violently.

Oliver could only watch, helpless to do anything other than stroke her hands tenderly as she took a series of deep breaths to calm herself.

Eventually, she seemed to get herself under some form of control and she weakly raised her head to wipe away the tears that had formed.

Their passion a moment ago completely forgotten, Oliver stared at her in abject concern as she slowly regained her composure. Her face though was still deathly pale.

"Are you okay?" he asked gently a moment later.

Sara simply sniffed and nodded, closing her eyes.

"Was it something I did?"

"No." she rebuked immediately. "It was… it was…"

Her chin tremored and for a moment it seemed she was about to have another attack, but Oliver's hand gabbing hers brought her back once more.

"It's okay." He said. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to-"

"It was Ivo." She cut in, her voice weak and fractured. "On the Amazo… He… He…"

A bolt of dread shot through Oliver and he felt sick to his stomach. His mouth dropped open, instantly dry with horror. "Did he… did he force you to-"

"Not with him." She said tearfully. "His captain… to keep him appeased and me in line… he'd let him have his way with me…"

Oliver staggered back, feeling as if he'd just been sucker punched in the gut by Slade again. Bile rose to his throat and he audibly choked.

"Oh Sara..."

"I'm sorry Ollie…" She bowed her head meekly.

"No, don't say that!" Oliver shoved his own emotions aside and wrapped the quivering blonde in his arms, cradling her to his chest. Her shoulders bucked and she buried her head into his shirt, soaking the material through with tears.

"Don't ever say that." He affirmed, stroking her hair. "It wasn't your fault."

"But-"

"No." he silenced her, angling her head up and locking his eyes with hers.

"It wasn't your fault." He reiterated, "There was nothing you could have done other than survive. The same reason I killed Fyres, and the same reason I gave Slade the Mirakuru. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Sara, and you have nothing to apologise for. It was him, and him alone, and I'm sorry for bringing those experiences back up."

"You couldn't have known." Sara reached a shaky finger up to stroke his chin. "And I feel the same way about you, I just… don't think I can handle doing… that… just yet."

"That's okay." He reassured her. "You take as much time as you need. I won't let anything like that happen to you again, I promise."

And at his words, she finally let herself relax against him, snuggling tiredly into his embrace.

Oliver simply sat there, absently stroking her hair while guilt and rage warred within him. Guilt for what she had suffered, and rage at the bastard doctor for what he had done to her.

Jesus… she would have still only been nineteen at the time…

Oliver barely held back the animalistic growl that threatened to break free.

He thought of Ivo, and the way he had died. Recalled the bang of the gun and the jolt of the body.

More significantly, he recalled his words to the blonde in his arms afterwards.

"Once you take a life… It changes you forever. And I didn't want that for you…"

He scowled internally.

If he knew then what he knew now, he wasn't sure he would have taken the gun from her, taken the kill from her, just as he wouldn't have hesitated to fire his arrow at Ivo in their initial assault on the Amazo.

No, if he knew then what he knew now, he would have put that arrow between the fucker's eyes the moment he saw him…


This… was a hard one for me.

Not because of dialogue, or actions or events, but for what it signified for me as a writer to get to this point.

I binge watched all of season 1 and 2 this past week to try and get my characterisation back on point, and season 2 in particular transported me back to 2014 when I was sixteen years old, torrenting the show off Piratebay after school because I couldn't wait for the show to be released here in Australia, developing a huge crush on the revived character of Sara Lance, jumping out of my chair and screaming "Yes!" at the ending of 2x13, and then a few months later being inspired to write my very first fanfic and inserting a character in Sara's image to fill the void that her departure from the show left in me.

It really hit home how much time has passed, how much I've developed as a writer, to get to this point here and now. The line about losing seconds and never getting them back really hit hard, as did what I'm putting Sara's character through in this story (and am yet to put her through). Oliver, Slade and Nyssa are all awesome, yes, but Sara is the heart and soul of this story. She deserved better than what the show gave her, and if it wasn't for her initial character and how awesomely badass she was in the first half of season 2, I likely never would have gotten into writing.

The title of this chapter comes from Lindsey Stirling and Mako's 'Lose You Now'.

Hope you enjoyed! The next chapter will be far less emotional and far more action packed, and should be up by the end of the weekend.