The altar chamber was still; still in that eerie, unnatural way that followed violence and ritual. The kind of silence that didn't mean peace, it just meant something had opened its eyes and gone back to sleep.
Sin's legs gave out halfway across the stone floor, as if gravity had suddenly turned up.
Jacob caught her before she hit the ground, wrapping an arm around her back to steady her. She was clammy, cold, and breathing fast and shallow; the panic setting in. Her eyes darted around, unfocused, as if she couldn't quite find the present moment. Whatever had taken her, whatever had touched her, hadn't let go easily.
"I've got you," Jacob reassured her, anchoring her to him.
She didn't respond, not trusting herself to speak just yet. She just gripped his arm tightly, like he was the only solid thing left in the world. She tumbled under his touch, and the pressure she used to hold onto him wasn't just strength…it was desperation.
Sara stood a few steps away, still and quiet. Her face was locked in that neutral expression she wore when everything inside her was screaming: pain, terror, regret, all rolled around in her thoughts. She watched Sin lean into Jacob and said nothing, didn't move, didn't offer to help.
Because she couldn't.
The pit's glow still clung to the backs of her eyelids, and the Loa's voice – that voice dripping in poison and sweetness — echoed in her skull like a memory that wasn't entirely hers.
You carry something too.
She hadn't really understood what it meant at first, not really, but now her stomach twisted in recognition, and that realization hit her like a gut punch she couldn't breathe through.
The whispers that clung to Sin were not all meant for her. Something else had looked at her in that moment. Seen her, tasted her grief and regret. She remembered the pressure in the air, the static around her bones, like hands reaching for her from beneath the dirt. She had chalked it up to adrenaline; to fear. But she knew better now, it had marked her too.
The weight of that knowledge settled into her chest like a second heartbeat – wrong and insistent. Her throat felt too tight, her limbs too heavy. Her mind spun with the impossible thought that none of this had been an accident. That Sin's collapse, Jacobs' resurrection, the Loa's whisper in her ear, the impossible plant, the unnatural handprint in the soil—
What if it was all her fault?
What if letting herself hope, had cursed them? What if coming back to the island had pulled the thread loose on something that should've stayed buried? What if her brief moment of vulnerability – those nights with Jacob, the days with Sin, with that life she never believed she deserved – had been enough for the Loa to crawl through the cracks?
The thought made her want to scream. Instead, she clenched her jaw and stayed silent.
They walked in near silence back through the twisting tunnel, the barely visible light flickering on ancient walls and beconning them to leave. Sin flinched once when the wind swept through and echoed like a whisper too close to her ear…
At the mouth of the cave, sunlight broke over them, but it felt like it didnt belong; it still felt unnatural. Jacob helped Sin sit on a rock just outside, her skin still pale and her breathing unsteady yet.
"It's over," he said, kneeling next to her. "You're safe now."
She turned her head slowly, almost as if she wasn't sure he even spoke, and blinked at him. "It's not over."
He didn't argue, just stayed there; steady, quiet, waiting.
Behind them, Sara pressed two fingers to her comm, both seating it better in her ear and establishing a link.
"Gideon," she called, voice flat. "Bring the jump ship to our location."
"Confirmed, Coordinates locked on your signal. ETA, three minutes."
Jacob turned to her. "We're all going back?"
Sara didn't look at him, she couldn't bear to. "I'll take you both to Star City…after that…I've got other things to handle."
"You're running."
"I'm regrouping," she snapped, too fast, too harshly.
Jacob's jaw visibly tightened. "This isn't the first time you've pulled away when it matters."
Sara's voice dropped, colder now, more distant. "We don't have the luxury of pretending this didn't happen. You didn't see what she looked like through my eyes, in that pit. What it did to her."
"I saw what it did," he said, without raising his voice. "And I'm not leaving her."
Sara didn't answer. She just turned away and walked towards the jumpship as it appeared through the trees, hovering low with the ramp extended. She climbed aboard without looking back.
Because she couldn't; because if she turned around and saw the way Jacob had looked at her – his disappointment steady, understanding maybe – she might fall apart completely.
She felt the Loa's presence still curled somewhere inside her, quiet but awake, watching her from behind her own ribs. It wasn't possession, not yet. But it knew her. It had shown her Sin's pain, but what if that was only a mirror to her own?
What if the Loa had chosen Sin because Sara had opened the door into her?
Jacob helped Sin inside, halfway dragging her up the ramp, before she collapsed into a seat, leaning against his shoulder, eyes closed with silent tears tracking down her face.
The jumpship lifted up, humming slightly as it cut through the sky in a straight line north. With a small shudder and a flash of light, it time jumped.
Sara sat in the pilot seat, staring straight ahead, her knuckles white on the control. She didn't speak the entire trip.
Not because she had nothing to say.
But because she was terrified, she might finally say the truth…
Later, the clocktower felt hollow. Familiar walls and familiar air – but something was different now. Off-kilter. The city was too quiet, for a city that never really slept.
The air inside was cool and dry, compared to the Island, filtered through vents that hummed with just enough power to keep things running. Their few monitors blinked with data that Felicity had helped rig up – local feeds, scanner sweeps, police bands, security triggers for the clocktower – but nothing moved, nothing threatened them, not tonight, not right now.
Sin lay on the bed in the corner, alone, body curled in on itself like she was trying to make herself smaller. Jacob had helped her remove her sweat-soaked clothes and tried to wrap her in something warm, but she had refused, choosing to lie naked in the bed and passed out. She was twitching in her sleep, murmuring things Jacob couldn't understand. Names that once meant something to her, a number, a pleading tone that turned sharp like anger, dipping into a kind of rawness that made his chest tighten, then dropped into silence again.
He sat beside her, trying to give her as much room as he could without abandoning her altogether. He couldn't, not like…
She was burning up, her skin clammy but flushed, her brow furrowed even in sleep. Whatever she had seen in that pit–whatever had taken hold–was taunting her in her sleep. Not just memory, not just trauma, something deeper, something more…intimate.
He reached over and gently brushed sweat-damped hair from her face. She didn't stir, but her fingers twitched like she wanted to reach for something…or someone.
Across the room, under a quickly rigged-up UV grow light, the flower from the island sat in fresh soil. It had been transplanted carefully into a new pot, its roots settling into something meant to nurture it, but it hasn't bloomed, didn't move, just….existed in the space…like it was waiting for something – something buried deep and old, like the island itself had followed them home.
Jacob stood after a while, and looked out over the city through the window hatch. The wind was cool against his skin, brushing past his still sweat soaked shirt. He rested his hands on the ledge, eyes scanning the rooftops and shadows below like they would offer some sort of clarity. But all he saw were reflections –those of what happened, and what might still come
His war was still here. Sin would heal, in time. And somewhere, someone had tried to kill him – someone who wasn't done yet.
Sin had survived, but something had been left behind in that chamber. Something neither of them could name yet. He could feel it in her, see it in her eyes, feel it clinging to her like a second skin. And in himself, too. The same pressure he'd felt when he was dragged back to life – that humming, unnatural current – it hadn't faded. If anything, it had threaded deeper into his bones, becoming part of his entire being.
And Sara….Sara was gone, again.
She had left quickly, without saying goodbye. Like she had planned the escape before they ever stepped foot back on the jumpship…maybe she had. She called it regrouping, but Jacob knew better. He knew what it looked like when someone couldn't face what they were feeling – he had seen it in his own face when he looked in the mirror after he lost his world, his Thea….
What had the Loa said about her?
They tried to remember the phrasing, the tone. There had been something in the way the spirit had spoken, cryptic, yes, but sharp, accusatory. Sara had brushed it off at the time, but he knew her tells. He'd seen the way her face had gone still, the way her voice clipped on certain syllables. She hadn't told him everything,
And now she wasn't here to answer.
He glanced back at Sin; her breathing had evened out a little bit. She was still pale, still shaking occasionally, but she was stable for now. He'd keep watch, make sure she came back to herself fully.
Because they were all they had now.
No team, no Gideon, No Waverider, No Sara…
Just a couple of half-broken people in a rusted-out, run-down tower with a haunted flower and questions no one wanted to answer.
He exhaled, long and low, letting it carry the weight in his chest for a moment before standing upright again.
They'd regroup; they'd heal. And then they'd find out who was behind the poison, who had tried to finish what it started.
Who had followed them off that island in more ways than one.
But tonight….tonight the City could wait.