Earth 10 Part III

Merman Snart x Shipwrecked Lance

xXx

"You came back?" Leo's voice was soft, almost in awe.

"I had to." she replied.

"Why?"

Sara hesitated. "I don't know. I haven't been able to stop thinking about the other day." she told him. He didn't respond to that, looking away, out into the jungle as if he was expecting to hear something, see something.

"You didn't tell the other humans about me." he stated. She shook her head. "Why?"

"It didn't seem right." she said and it was mostly true. From the moment she laid eyes on him two nights before she'd been struck by this strange feeling. A feeling with no name, no explanation. She was drawn to him, her mind consumed with thoughts of him. Staring out at the ocean at night, losing focus on whatever she was doing, missing entire conversations as she spaced out thinking about him. It wasn't particularly healthy. There was a part of her that wondered if this all wasn't some kind of hallucination, brain damage caused by nearly drowning. And yet it all seemed so real; too complex to all be in her head.

"Why didn't it seem right?" Leo asked.

Sara shrugged. "I don't know. I just know that I wanted to see you again, and if I told them about you they would have thought I was crazy or sick and I wouldn't be able to come out here again."

"I'm… glad… that you came back." Leo told her, swimming to the edge closest to her. He propped himself up on his crossed arms and lifted up out of the water a bit.

Sara smiled. "Do you think I could come visit you more while we're here?"

Leo smiled back. "I'd like that."

So that's what she did. Whenever she could, she'd sneak off to the oasis. During the day when her friends were distracted or at night when everyone was asleep. They'd talk for hours. He would tell her all about the ocean and the other merpeople and she would tell him about the human world, explaining things he'd heard from older merfolk through the years. As the days wound on, Sara's time on the island grew shorter and shorter.

"I'm leaving soon." she told him one night. "We have to go home. Back to Star City. I'll be leaving for college when we get back." she explained to him what that meant a few days before. He thought it was nice that she wanted to learn to help people. He said it meant she had a good soul.

"Will you visit me?" he asked. Sara smiled sadly.

"I promise that I'll try. I'll do everything I can to come back here whenever I can." she explained but they both knew it wouldn't be easy.

"You could stay." he told her.

"This isn't my island, Leo. I don't have any right to stay. I doubt the Queens would just let me build a hut on the beach."

"No, not on the island, here." he gestured to the pool of water. "You could be like me."

"What?"

Leo was getting excited now. "Yes, just like the merfolk talk about. There's a way, a ritual. You could come with me and we could be together...forever."

"I… can't, Leo, I have a life out there. I have a family." she explained.

He deflated. "I understand. But if you change your mind. I'll be here."

xXx

Star City had never been a shining beacon on a hill, so when Damian Darhk set his sights on the city, he found very little resistance. His militia ripped through the streets, unhindered by corrupt cops and politicians, spreading crime and drugs throughout the city. By the end of the year any attempt to stop him was futile. But that didn't stop Laurel. She was the district Attorney, she had grown up in this city and she wasn't going to let the likes of Darhk destroy her home. She wouldn't back down, so he killed her.

Laurel was a message, don't oppose him and you get to live. It only made her father angry. He pushed back harder and Darhk killed him too. Another message, No martyrs. Sara and a group of vigilantes had been working in the shadows to take Darhk down. Oliver Queen, Thea Queen, Roy Harper, John Diggle and herself. They donned masks at night and cut down his men where they stood and in the daylight they pretended not to notice the decay creeping into the city as it was sucked dry; just like everyone else.

Damian Darhk died by her hand on a night filled with fire and chaos. His soldiers fell around him. But the city was far from healed and honestly, Sara was far from healed either. When it was all said and done, her family was still gone. The chaos had burned a stubborn ringing in her ears and she struggled to quiet it. She isolated herself in the day and at night she donned her mask and cut down anyone who would take advantage of the aftermath.

They told her it wasn't healthy, that it was getting out of hand and she knew they were right, but there was nothing else for her. There was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. She devoted her life to helping people and none of it had mattered in the end.

And then, one morning as she stepped out onto her balcony, a handover pulsing through her skull, a swift breeze blew by, carrying with it the scent of salt and sand, and she remembered. She remember gorgeous blue eyes and a tail that sparkled in the sunlight. She remembered a handsome, shy smile and a promise. A promise to wait for her.

So she left everything behind. Left a note that she was fine and not to look for her, she wouldn't be coming back. She carried only the clothes on her back as she breached the jungle, following the path she hadn't taken in years and yet still remembered. She crawled to the edge of the pool and peaked over the edge and there he was, staring right back up at her with the most gorgeous blue eyes she had ever seen. Had they always been so beautiful. She thought so.

"You came back." he said as he leaned against the side.

"Everyone's gone. There's nothing left for me out there." she told him.

He looked up at her sadly and reached up. Sara reached back, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her into the water. Letting him pull her into the inky black depth. She felt no panic and the pain that had made home in her broken heart melted away as they went deeper and deeper.