Grey Area (Avalance)

Chapter 1 - Where even is that?

Sara's (P.O.V)

Things have definitely been improving lately, telling the team about my issues has taken a weight off of my shoulders and Ava is the most understanding girl I could have ever hoped for. So much so that most days I feel as if I don't deserve someone as brilliant as her. The panic attacks are becoming few and far between and with Ava training the rest of the crew how to help instead of hinder, when they do happen everyone is prepared. Granted some more than others, there's no doubt that Amaya is better suited to helping than Ray but, who wouldn't have guessed that? It's also great that being the girlfriend of the director of the time bureau means that we are trusted with more anachronisms and are threatened barely any of the time with being arrested and having the Waverider taken from us. 

Which means here we are at the O.K Corral about to enter a shootout with Wyatt Earp himself who, according to Gideon is about to die. There's a time pirate supplying the outlaws with high tech weaponry that makes our six shooters look like nerf guns. Nate and Ray are tracking the time pirate right now but the fight is itching to begin, I can smell it in the air like fresh rain. All of a sudden a mighty blast fires at us and the massacre begins. Amongst the chaos I see Virgil and Morgan shot, pinned down by the outlaws. Wyatt is still out in the open firing like a real man while all of his allies are hiding for safety, this is it, I sprint closer to him dodging the bullets whipping past me as a gun is raised in his direction. He's too far away so I dive colliding hard with his body and then the ground, which is exactly when I feel a sharp pain in my side, pushing through to sit up I shoot the man down with Wyatt's gun and handed it back to him. The fight was over, Amaya jogged towards us. "Captain Lance, are you alright?"

"Just a scratch I'm sure I'll be fine, can you get Mr Earp and his friends back to town and I'll go see Gideon about patching me up and check in on Nate and Ray." I said standing as Amaya offered a hand to help. 

"Sara, that is more than just a scratch, the bullet is still inside you. Mick take Sara back to the Waverider please" Amaya chastised, I took Mick's grunt to mean lets go and walked slowly away from the action. Mick tried picking up the pace because there was more and more blood seeping through my clothes but with the extra blood loss I was slowing down, he turned and lifted me up and began to run back to the ship. I protested weakly but ultimately was unconscious before we even got close to the Waverider. 

When I woke up, still groggy from the pain medication and eyes not quite fully open I could hear Ava talking to me the way she does when I'm falling asleep after a nightmare, the way that makes me feel safe. "Hey sweetie, how was your day?" I asked innocently, hoping for a smile but gaining a quirked eyebrow. "I know I know, stop putting myself in that much danger, but it was a small injury for me or dead Wyatt Earp and I couldn't let that happen now could I?" Ava sighed in resignation. "I know baby, I just don't like seeing you get hurt, okay, it scares me." With Gideon's okay we walked slowly back to my room so that I could recover and we could cuddle properly.

It had been a few days since the Earp incident and things had been getting quiet throughout time, nothing had been dangerously out of order until Gideon informed us of futuristic weaponry and torture devices falling into the hands of Arab psychopaths, who, instead of being murdered in May 2009, went on to kill thousands of people all over the world and enslave entire nations. They became a ruthless dictatorship known for their mistreatment of women and torture methods more painful than anything ever recorded.  Nothing more needed to be said for me to know exactly who Gideon was talking about. "They called themselves..."

"Ukhuat almawt." I finished. "How did you know that Sara?" Ray asked, but by the look on my face and Amaya's I could tell she had figured it out. "I can explain but can I call Ava here first, I want her to know as well and I think she might want to help with this one." My voice wavered and they all nodded allowing me to courier into my girlfriend's office. "Sara, what are you doing here? Are you alright?" I shook my head. "I think we need yo on this aberration, it's important." She immediately stood up and followed me back to the Waverider.

"What's this aberration then?" She asked as I took a deep steadying breath. "It's from my past. The brotherhood of death or ukhuat almawt, for about a year between Lian Yu and the league I was on their island. Jazirat altaedhib, I washed ashore, barely alive. Again. They took me in and made me suffer for over a year. Jazirat altaedhib translates to the island of torture. May 2009 is when Nyssa and her team assassinate the brotherhood because they were becoming too big a threat to the league, Nyssa killed the man who had been torturing me for over a year and took me in. I thought it would just be more pain but she trained me to be what I am today. Until now she was the only one that knew about the other island. Not even Laurel knew what happened there. If we go, you will see unspeakable things, the kinds of things that give me night terrors. Not only that but you will see them happening to me and no matter how much I scream for help or cry out in pain you cannot help me or else I won't become the Canary. " I finished tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. They all nodded solemnly.