Chapter 2

Sara ran her fingers over the glass covering a picture of herself and Laurel, at a happier time, when they were both younger, not long before Sara had went behind Laurel's back and went on the trip with Oliver. It seemed so long ago, so far away, but yet it also seemed like it was just moments ago that the picture had been taken.

She put the picture back on the small table, and turned around, looking the apartment over. Oliver had kept the rent up on it, and left it exactly as she'd left it. If she closed her eyes a moment, and then opened them again, she could almost believe Laurel would come around the corner with a steaming cup of hot cocoa, with extra marshmallows, just for her, the way she liked it.

Everything in the apartment, the things, the way it was set up, the way it was kept, it all screamed Laurel in every aspect. Once again, Sara fought valiantly to keep the tears at bay. She had promised herself she wouldn't cry anymore, because Laurel wouldn't want her twisting herself to pieces, thinking of what she could have done, should have done, that she should have stayed instead of going with Rip and the others, and any other recriminations she could torture herself with.

She glanced towards the door, where she knew, out in the hallway, Oliver was leaning against the wall, letting her have her time alone in Laurel's apartment, to relive memories and to sort herself before he intruded on her grief. He had grieved quite strongly, and was still grieving, Sara knew, no matter how hard a face he tried to put on.

They'd spent hours at Laurel's favorite little café down on the corner, eating a light meal, drinking sodas, and just talking. They'd spoken of memories, good times, the laughs, and the fun they all used to have. Like Laurel, Sara had also known Oliver and Tommy all her life, they'd all been friends, and done all the sorts of things that young friends often do, even when you're the youngest in the bunch.

Despite herself, she smiled at a particular memory they'd talked about at the café, a time when they'd all been a little wilder. Oliver's parents had been gone on some trip or another, and that left Oliver and Thea alone. Since Thea was so young, she'd gone to bed, and Sara, Laurel, and Tommy had joined Oliver on one of their many mischievous hijinks. Looking back, she couldn't believe she'd ever been that silly, but that feeling came back hard and strong just standing near where she knew Laurel sat every night, curled up in a chair, and went over case files, making notes, and figuring out defenses, or prosecutions, depending.

Oliver and Tommy had gotten the bright idea to pick the lock on Oliver's parents' liquor cabinet and declared they were going to get drunk. She'd never been sure if they'd been serious, or if it was some sort of scheme where they'd dare Laurel and Sara to get drunk and they'd back down, or if actually getting drunk had the been the plan the entire time. Either way, it'd turned out embarrassing, mortifying, but ultimately a hilarious memory to look back on.

The boys had cooked up this scheme where before the night was over, Laurel and Oliver would end up making out. They'd only weeks before told each other how they felt about one another, but they hadn't really done much more than peck each other briefly. It was amazing that they got that far, considering that even though Laurel and Sara's father, Quentin, liked Oliver, he had gone through the roof when he heard that Laurel was in love with the young, wild, unpredictable billionaire playboy that Oliver had been at the time. So, with the typical fatherly hassling, and of course the implied threat of jail time if he did anything remotely untoward with Laurel, they'd been snatching every moment they could, every time they could, as far out of Quentin's knowledge as possible.

Sara had always thought Tommy was cute, and she knew Tommy had been giving her the eye for months at that time. It was all pretty harmless, after all they were all under eighteen at the time. Even with all the heavy flirting on both sides, Sara had no illusions that Tommy would ever fall in love with her, especially with him being cut from the same cloth Oliver was, rich, suave, fickle playboy.

For her own part, Sara was old enough that she was definitely interested, since she was a couple of years younger than the others, but wasn't ready to really start a real relationship, let alone fall in love with anyone. But, she figured, what could a little innocent making out hurt? It wasn't like Tommy was repulsive, right? It'd be a drunken night of laughing, flirting, kissing, and maybe even a little groping, and then they'd pass out and laugh about it all the next day. Nothing serious, just a bunch of teenagers having fun.

A couple of hours after the liquor had been liberated from the cabinet, they were all pretty sloshed, and giggling like hyenas. Laurel had tried to stand up, falling back to her backside on the expensive carpet twice before finally finding her feet, and leaning down in each of the others' faces, still giggling, saying, "Hey, let's play Lights Out."

Sara shook her head at the memory as she picked up a picture of the four of them Laurel kept in the little divider between the living room, and the kitchen, running her fingers over Laurel's face with a light touch. Lights Out was a game the local kids played, usually while drinking. It consisted of everybody sitting beside either the person they were dating, or if everyone was single, they'd sit in random places, and when someone turned out the lights, they'd all reach for their boyfriend or girlfriend, or just someone in general, and make out until whoever cut the lights out decided it was time to turn them back on. The game had often resulted in some pretty ridiculous and funny tonsil hockey, often embarrassing, but funny in the end because it was all a gag, after all.

Even though most people had a particular person in mind to grab when the lights went out, drunken teenagers in the dark weren't always quite as agile and adroit as they thought they were. Sometimes, they'd actually connect with who they intended, many times it'd be a total surprise who would be on the other end of the kiss, especially if they'd been expecting someone, and they found out people had shifted in the dark and who you wanted wasn't always who you managed to grab. It was more fun with a lot of people, but it could be entertaining with even a few, like they were that night.

So, there they had sat in Oliver's huge living room, on chairs and the couch, all getting ready to grab that person they had their eye on. The further you sat away from the person, such as across the room, could add to the fun, and the pure randomness and uncertainty of the situation. In most cases, in games among friends, if you accidentally kissed someone else's boyfriend or girlfriend, it was more something that was laughed at, maybe some mild embarrassment about, but rarely did it turn into a nasty confrontation. You were drunk, plunged from light into sudden darkness, and have to find the person across the room, while trying not to fall over furniture and other people. It was a recipe for some blushing, a lot of laughing, and entertaining stories to tell your friends that hadn't been able to be there about it the following Monday in school.

Laurel had slapped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. Almost immediately, the sounds of scuffling feet could be heard in the darkness. There was a crash as something was knocked off a table and broken, and the sounds of heavy, drunken kissing started. Sara had been sure that Oliver and Laurel had found each other, and she kept reaching out, swiping her hand, trying to grab Tommy's arm.

Right then, there was a loud thud, and Sara tripped over flailing legs and ended up straddling a prone body. Instantly, with a grin that couldn't be seen in the dark, she darted out to kiss the lips of the helpless make out partner she held between her squeezing knees and thighs. She fully planned on being one still lip locked when the lights went back on. She and Laurel had a friendly sort of rivalry in that way, who could kiss longer, who could last longer at any number of activities, both amorous, and things in general, like races, endurance contests, and so on.

Tommy's lips were a lot softer than she expected, but that didn't bother her. He seemed to be flailing quite a bit, probably the result of her suddenly pinning him to the floor. She was aggressive in the kiss, because she wanted it to be a kiss he would remember for a long time, and maybe he might even want to try it again. Maybe she'd even let him, if the mood was right.

A muffled cry made its way from Tommy's lips into her mouth, and her tongue teased over his, and then suddenly, he wasn't as rigid anymore. Finally, she thought to herself at that time. He's finally relaxed, and is enjoying it. Or at the very least, not fighting it!

It felt like Tommy wasn't sure what to do with his hands, or even with his lips. He just seemed to sink into the carpet, though he'd stopped flailing his arms and legs, and trying to squirm back from her. Maybe he thought he was kissing Laurel, she didn't know, and right then, she didn't care. She just was determined to blow his socks off, and make sure his ears were smoking when she finally pulled back from his lips.

Muffled moans, smacking and half smothered laughing could be heard all around her, and in her drunken haze, she just took that as inspiration to kiss deeper, and even slip some tongue action in on the deal. Tommy didn't try to push her off or anything, but he was still oddly unresponsive with regards to kissing back, other than a somewhat feeble movement of his mouth.

Either he's all talk and can't kiss for shit, or he's a lot more drunk than we all thought! ran through her mind as she kept the lip lock going strong on the hapless rich kid. Her lips wrapped around the tip of his tongue when it moved towards her mouth, and she teasingly flicked it with her own, and sucked lightly at it. She was hoping that if she kept laying it on heavy, he'd eventually let go and let her have it, give her a kiss that lived up to his reputation.

Suddenly, her eyes filled with both light, and spots, as Laurel had fumbled behind her and turned the lights on. Just as they came back on, she and Oliver fell into the large chair she'd been sitting in earlier and were still going strong, kissing deeply. She'd managed to catch sight of that out of the corner of her eye as she cracked them a fraction. Then she broke the kiss just long enough to look at Tommy, intending on round two catching him as unaware as round one had seemed to.

As her lips pulled back and her eyes moved back towards Tommy's face, a loud, feminine scream split the air right in front of her. Under her, Thea, dressed in a long night tee shirt and ankle socks, was laying pinned under her, gripping the carpet, wide eyed, and screamed. "Holy shit, let me breathe!" Thea screamed, trying desperately to catch her breath, looking up at Sara as if she'd been holding her under water at the beach or something.

The room erupted in laughter as Laurel and Oliver stopped kissing at the sound of the scream, and had turned their slow, drunken gaze to the source. Behind her, Tommy was laughing, his arm still around the bust of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom that Oliver's father kept next to the bookshelves in the room. The statue's face was still wet where Tommy had been kissing her for all he was worth, and was mumbling, "No wonder Sara was so stone faced. Stone faced…get it?" Then he dissolved into another fit of laughter, falling backwards over the ottoman near the couch, laughing even harder.

Sara and Thea had both looked around at everyone laughing, then at each other, and they had started laughing as well, though Thea's laughter seemed more strained. That just made everyone else laugh even harder. The brilliant shade of scarlet she'd turned didn't help any, especially when Sara's face was as red as Thea's.

Sara's wistful smile grew slightly as she remembered how mortified Thea had seemed at first, as she had quickly gotten up off the younger girl, and helped her to her feet. In an attempt to make Thea actually laugh, instead of the imitation she'd been doing, and to dispel her own embarrassment, she had dropped to a knee, grabbed Thea's hand with one hand, and threw the other heavily over her heart, exclaiming, "Oh, Thea, Thea, who's light is like the sun, will you marry me, such a silly, stricken fool drunk from your kiss?"

Before she'd managed to get it all out, she'd fallen backwards, giggling like mad, and even Thea had shook her head and laughed heartily. "I don't think it's my kiss you're drunk from," Thea had quipped, finally letting the laughter out. "But you know, it's sad. I've been trying to get Will Carver to kiss me all month, and he finally did. And the best kiss I've had all year has been from my brother's girlfriend's sister!"

All of them had laughed for what seemed like hours, until Thea had finally gone back to bed, though she'd never made it to the kitchen to get the water she'd actually gotten up for. She'd taken the teasing very good naturedly, though. For weeks after that, she and Thea would run into each other during school, and very animatedly and with very heavy overacting, fly into each other's arms, making smoochy noises, and professing very loudly their undying love for each other in the hallways, which always erupted in uncontrollable fits of laughter for all of them.

Sara shook her head again, and carefully put the picture back on the table where it'd been. It was such a stupid, silly memory, but it was a silly time where she and her sister had had a wonderful time. Laurel got in on the act many times, egging them on, and leaving school later with her arm around Sara's shoulders, talking and laughing. Every time Sara was having a bad day, Laurel would say, "Well, if your day is so bad, I can always call Thea and have her come kiss your troubles away."

What had surprised Sara at the time was that though she'd been mortified and was glad it'd become a big joke, it hadn't been so bad kissing a girl, nothing like she always thought it'd be. Of course, she wouldn't find out until several years later that she was actually bi until after Nyssa had found her and took her in with the League of Assassins. But after that, she'd thought back many times, and wondered if that accidental kiss had been the first road sign she'd passed that indicated what was always inside her.

Sara knew that, to anybody else, the memories she was experiencing wouldn't really make a lot of sense, but a lot of the things she and Laurel did in their younger days didn't really make a lot of sense, and had been funny as hell. For every experience like that they'd shared, though, there'd been ten experiences where Laurel had been not only a true sister to her, but a true friend as well. They'd talked, laughed, cried and so much more with each other all their lives.

The sense of loss she felt at Laurel's passing was suddenly very sharp, pointed, and harsh. It was amazing how silly, stupid memories could evoke such strong feelings, and such a sensation of missing a loved one as it was right that moment. A fresh round of tears threatened to slowly seep from her eyes as everywhere she looked she saw Laurel's face, pictures of them and friends, of them together, of many things that the first thought that came to her mind upon seeing it was Laurel. The apartment even smelled like her, after she'd freshly showered, and had gotten ready for a date, or for work. It was a smell like mom's fresh baked pie, a smell that was in your memory forever.

Sara walked back into Laurel's bedroom, and sat down on her bed. Burying her face in her hands, the conversation she'd had with Laurel when she was struggling with whether or not to go with Rip and the others, when Rip had first recruited them, came rushing back. The conversation had happened in the Bunker, of course, while they trained together, but the tank top and jogging pants she'd been wearing that night were hanging on the closet door.

It'd been Laurel who had told her that she had to follow her heart, and what she felt to be right. Sara had told her that since she was back, she wouldn't feel right about taking the mantle of the Black Canary back up, after Laurel had suggested it, it was Laurel's calling then. She had felt lost, and told Laurel that she could never do the things as the Canary that Laurel had been doing, that she could never make that kind of difference, do that kind of, and as much, good as what Laurel had been doing.

Laurel had hugged her and told her that she was silly for thinking that way. She'd told her that she was capable of doing the kind of things that Laurel herself had been doing, that it'd been Sara who had originally lit her way down the path of wearing the black.

"You've literally got a second chance, Sara," she'd said while still holding her in a sisterly embrace near the heavy bag. "You've come back from the dead, the same Sara that left, but a new Sara as well. You say you can't be the Black Canary, it's not you anymore. Then don't be the Black Canary. Be the White Canary, a symbol of rebirth, of hope, of the good I know is in there, even if you don't know it yourself."

And that is where it had started, the first steps on the path that she now trod. Despite her own lost feelings, and sense of helplessness, Laurel had given her a strong hand to hold onto, a guiding nudge on the right path, in the right direction. Every day before, and especially since, she learned of Laurel's death, she tried to embody what Laurel had told her that she could. She had tried to make her big sister proud of her, the way she was proud of Laurel.

Sara felt, rather than heard, the presence behind her. Before she even turned around, a quiet voice she knew so well half whispered to her, "Hey, are you doing okay?"

Sara turned towards Oliver, who was reaching a hand out for her shoulder, but had paused, waiting for her to turn, and nodded softly. "Yeah," she said, as her voice cracked a little. "Let's go somewhere else, anywhere else. I can still feel her here, Ollie. It's like she's sitting right beside me, even now. And it hurts like hell because she's not, and I can't touch her, hug her like I want to right now."

Oliver nodded softly, not saying anything. He understood completely what she meant, what she was feeling. He hadn't had the heart to step foot back in the apartment since he'd secured it for an indefinite time after Laurel had been laid to rest.

When Sara stood, he wrapped an arm around her, and walked out of the apartment with her, her head on his shoulder, her arms around him. He paused long enough to lock the door, and then they went down the elevator, leaving the building behind them.

X

The wind whipped through Joe's hair as he and Kara flew rapidly through the brightly lit night of Star City. The buildings, the cars, the people, all of it was passing by too quickly for Joe to focus on any of it, though Kara was slowing somewhat as she seemed to be nearing her destination.

"Are you sure you know where this place is?" he asked, regarding the young Kryptonian who carried him effortlessly as she flew through the air like a red and blue phoenix. The rush of the wind was loud, but he knew Kara would hear him anyway.

Kara smiled and nodded, slowing even more, and easing down into a descent. "Oh, yeah," she said with a soft laugh. "Laurel made sure to give me directions, detailed ones. And since it's late, and she's not in her apartment, I figure she's either here, or out on the streets."

"I haven't seen anything that looked like a commotion or anything on the way in," Joe mused, looking back down as they suddenly entered a tunnel, and took a hard right, flying rapidly along a series of ever switching tunnels until it opened into a large chamber.

Supergirl nodded as they touched down on the concrete floor of the chamber. Ahead, though an opening, they could see green and silver, lit with subdued, but sufficient lighting, that only brought the colors to life. "I didn't hear anything, either, and nothing on the local police radio chatter, so I'm guessing she's most likely here at this hour."

She frowned as she tilted her head slightly, looking towards the entryway into the next chamber. Joe didn't see or hear anything, but apparently Kara did. He started to ask her what was up, but she had started walking, though she did motion for him to stay slightly behind her. He fell into step as she indicated, and rounded the corner with her.

Ahead, they both could see a raised dais with a lot of computer systems on tables there. Around the room were glass display cases, each one inhabited by a uniform of some sort. Joe guessed this must be where Team Arrow kept their uniforms when they weren't in the field. Some were missing, but one was conspicuously in it's case. The uniform of the Black Canary.

Now, Joe could hear what Kara was hearing, the rapid tapping of keys on a computer keyboard. He looked towards the computers, and could barely see the top of a blonde woman's head. Her golden hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and the various beeps, clicks, and so forth blended together in his ears.

"Laurel?" called out Kara, her smile growing as she moved quickly across the floor and up the ramp to the dais. "Hey, what's going on? I've been trying to get a hold of you for—" She stopped mid sentence as the blonde jumped up from her seat, spinning, and nearly fell backwards over the computer bank she had been seated at.

"Holy shit!" exclaimed the blonde, as she tried to catch her glasses, which were in the act of falling off her face from the force of her startled jump. Her eyes widened at the sight of the unexpected visitors. "Wh-who are you?" she stammered, still trying to process the presence of the strangers in the Bunker.

Joe's eyebrows shot straight up as the blonde asked the question, and looked incredulously between the blonde, and Kara. "Um, Lady, you're kidding, right?" he asked, pointing at the stylized glyph on Kara's chest that closely resembled an "S."

"Overwatch, what the hell is going on? Are you all right? Have you been compromised?" came the voice of Oliver over the earpiece the blonde was wearing. He had heard Felicity Smoak's startled outburst, and it hadn't sounded pleasant to Oliver's ears.

Felicity's eyes moved from the Native to the Kryptonian, and back again several times before her eyes fixated on the symbol on the woman's chest. She could hear Oliver demanding answers in her ear, but her vocal chords were temporarily paralyzed with surprise. She heard Oliver say something about taking cover, they were on their way in, and immediately John Diggle's voice came across also, saying he was coming in from the north entrance.

Swallowing, Felicity positioned her glasses back properly on her face once more, and cleared her throat. "Oh…yeah. I, uh, um…well, to be honest, I wasn't expecting…well, I didn't know you'd actually be coming anytime soon. I mean, she said you might be coming sometime, but not that you were like coming coming….and uh, well, that just came out all kinds of wrong. What I mean to say is that she didn't mention that you'd be…you know…here anytime in the near future. Though at the time it was said, this wouldn't be the near future, it'd be quite a while in the future, but I'd forgotten all about it until you just popped up behind me."

Kara blinked a couple of times, and glanced over at Joe, who shrugged his shoulders, apparently clueless. The expression of realization dawning graced Kara's features, and she smiled winningly and laughed briefly. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You have to be—"

Before she could complete her sentence, two voices rang out from opposite ends of the room, as one, "Don't move or it'll be your last!" The Girl of Steel, and Joe, both looked to each side of the room to see a dishwater blonde woman, drawing what looked like two Escrima sticks from her jacket, a rather handsome man with a bow and arrow drawn and trained on her, and on the other side a large black man with twin 9mm's directed at her.

Kara glanced at each of the new arrivals, then to Felicity, and back towards Oliver once more. "It's okay, really. I can ex—" she began, but was cut off as two arrows came whizzing lightning fast towards her and Joe on one side, and a succession of six bullets total hurtled towards them from the other side.

Without thought, Kara reacted, snatching both arrows out of the air with one hand, and catching all six bullets in the other hand before any of the projectiles could strike either her or Joe. While this was going on, the newly arrived woman leaped over equipment, coming at her hard and fast with the two weapons.

Supergirl reacted instinctively, dropping the arrows and the bullets like chicken feed, and blew a quick gust at the advancing woman, the force of the super breath sending her flying back over the equipment and onto the practice mats in the corner of the room.

Oliver and John were recovering from their shock and setting up a second volley, still not quite believing their eyes as to what they'd seen. Sara rolled to her feet and shook her head, trying to clear the spots from her eyes. None of them had ever witnessed anything like that before, at least not personally.

Before another volley could be fired, Felicity yelled loudly, throwing her hands up. "Guys, guys, guys!" she exclaimed, looking back and forth between Oliver, John and Sara. "Can we cut the John Woo movie fight scene a second, please?"

Dumbfounded, the three lowered their respective weapons, trading glances with each other, and at the two strangers, Felicity and back. They were all still cautious, but they were ready to listen to Felicity.

Felicity collected herself, and walked closer to the woman in the red cape, then glanced at her friends. "I know you guys don't get much downtime, but surely you must have heard the stories Laurel told when she came back from National City last year," she said, giving them all a withering stare. "Or if you don't remember the stories, surely you recognize the lady's outfit, right? Red cape, red boots and skirt, blue top, big assed 'S' on her chest? I mean, you guys do watch TV or read the paper sometime, don't you?"

Nobody seemed inclined to talk, so Felicity pressed forward, "These are Laurel's friends from National City. This is Supergirl, and since the nice looking man behind her only fits one description, I'd have to guess he's Joe Swift, the guy that was saving people left and right and ditching any attempt at identification or media attention. Am I right?" She turned to regard Kara and Joe, hands palm up.

"Superman's cousin that's been in the news the past couple of years?" asked John slowly, putting his guns away as if he was in a daze. He tried to blink, but couldn't he was staring at their visitor so intently.

"You'd be right, Miss," replied Joe, stepping out from behind Kara, since the ballistics had seemed to have halted for the moment. "And given the descriptions that Laurel gave us, I'd have to say you're Felicity Smoak, computer genius, and heartbeat of Team Arrow?" His words may have sounded somewhat flippant on the surface, but it was clear from his face that wasn't his intention.

Oliver's face registered recognition once he got a good look at Kara, and he nodded slowly, but his eyes narrowed. "That's all well and good," he said, his voice taking on that growling rasp that it did when he was in all business mode, his Green Arrow voice, as Felicity called it. "But what are you doing here, and more importantly, how the hell did you get in here, or even know where this place was, or that it existed?"

Sara was uncharacteristically quiet where something concerning Laurel was in play, and she stood off to the side, listening intently, and keeping her eyes on the woman that had swatted her across the room without ever raising a hand. Like the others, she'd heard of Supergirl before, but she'd never expected to actually meet her.

"Oh, that's easy enough to explain," gushed Kara, thrilled to be meeting the people she'd heard and read so much about, both in the news, and from Laurel's first hand accounts. "Laurel told us where the place was…very nice headquarters, by the way, I love it…and we flew in. We're here because she invited us to come, if we were ever up this way."

The room was unusually quiet for a moment, and Kara glanced at Joe, who simply shrugged. He had no idea what was going on, either. Unsure of what else to do, Kara continued, "Oh, and please, call me Kara. All my close friends that really know me do. Out in public, of course, I'm Supergirl, but you get the idea."

Once again, there was silence. "So, anyway, we haven't heard from Laurel in ages, literally months. We would have come to check on her a lot sooner, but things have been crazy in National City, and we're just now getting to where we can deal with personal things. So, we're just glad to finally be here." She looked around a moment, and focused her eyes intently for a moment, using her x ray vision to peer through the surrounding walls, hoping she didn't accidentally peek into a bathroom or something.

"So, where is Laurel, anyway? We've been really worried about her, and we'll feel a whole lot better once we see her and see she's really okay," finished Kara, still feeling the odd silence growing thicker by the moment.

Sara stared at Kara in silence for a long moment, and everyone was silent. Finally, she collapsed her weapons, tucked them into her jacket, turned, and walked back out the way she'd come in.

After she disappeared, Kara frowned, and glanced around at everyone else. "What did I say?" she asked, confused. "We're sorry if we intruded or something, we really just wanted to make sure Laurel was okay."

The color drained from Felicity's face as she cleared her throat, her eyes moving from Oliver to John and back before fixing on her. "Oh, my God," she breathed softly. "You don't know, do you? Nobody's told you, have they?|

A cold chill was creeping up Kara's back rapidly, and her brows furrowed over her delicate nose. "Know what?" she asked, her voice a bit higher pitched than she intended. "Told us what? What's going on? Please, just tell me what's going on."

The three members of Team Arrow felt the confused gaze that the Kryptonian gave each of them. They could each see the horror rising on her face, in her eyes, and the supreme effort she was exerting to fight it down with her endless hope and optimism.

Finally, Oliver broke the silence. "Laurel's dead."