Chapter Text
Sara Lance is not weak.
Sara Lance is a lot of things, but weak is not one of them Then again, a normal person might describe what is happening to her right now not as weak, but simply as human.
Sara Lance is not a normal person.
But Sara Lance is most certainly human.
She had been so sure that she would be able to handle it, a mission aboard the Titanic. The team has faced worse, and they all knew that this ship would be going down in the very early hours of the morning, so it’s not like she walked into this unprepared.
Then again, maybe if she had come in unprepared this wouldn’t be happening.
She’s had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach ever since they set foot on the docks this morning, but she told herself it was nothing and would go away.
It has not gone away.
They walked up the ramp onto the ship, and she instantly felt worse. She could feel her stomach churning, sweat starting on her face and under her arms that she chose to blame on the thick material of her period dress. She needed to focus on finding their anachronism; she didn’t have time for… for whatever the hell had suddenly come over her.
Once the ship set sail, things got a lot worse.
She’s up on the deck right now, making her rounds and trying to do her job but it just isn’t happening. She can feel her skin growing clammy; her face flushing pale, and her stomach has only gotten worse since the boat left port. Briefly she overhears some man comment to another about the chill in the sea air, but she isn’t feeling any chill. All she feels is hot. She needs to rip this insufferable petty coat and skirt off of herself right now! She is going to be sick if she doesn’t.
“Sara?” She hears her name and recognizes the voice, Leonard. He’s standing right in front of her, and he sounds like he is too, but for whatever reason it feels like he’s a million miles away.
“I…” She finally splutters out, and only then does she realizes how little she trusts herself to do so much as open her mouth without her breakfast coming up. “I need to go.” By some miracle she manages to finish the sentence. She knows that she hasn’t said where she needs to go, as far away from this ship would obviously be the best scenario. But that isn’t an option. Her cabin will have to do, and that thought only makes her more nauseous.
But Len nods, even if she hasn’t fully explained, and places a hand along her waist.
She doesn’t think about how they haven’t talked about the conversation they started before the Oculus. She doesn’t think to make a jab at him about getting handsy with her or something along those lines. She does let it briefly cross her mind that he’s doing what he’s doing in order to keep her standing on her feet, because she must look like she’s about to faint.
Then she does.
She wakes up what must be only a few minutes later.
Leonard’s face is spinning in front of her, like her eyes can’t agree on exactly where he is. But he’s there, and as soon as he comes into focus she realizes that his features are lined with concern and he’s calling her name.
“Len?” She asks weakly, and finally looking past him she realizes that they’re still on the deck, albeit on the ground.
“Hey,” He all but whispers to her, “Are you ok?”
She nods at his question and he breathes out a sigh of relief, helping her stand up once again.
“What happened?” She murmurs once she’s up and dear God she suddenly feels even worse than before.
She still, somehow, hears him chuckle. “You fainted, straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”
She tries to give a laugh, while rubbing at her eyes in a desperate attempt to get her world to stop spinning, but she’s not sure if the laugh comes out.
The second time that Sara wakes up she has no idea how long she’s been out.
She figures it’s been longer than a few minutes, since she is now under the familiar lights of the med bay, and when she tries to sit up a gentle hand lays on her arm and guides her back down.
“Stay down,” It’s Leonard, she realizes, and so she obeys.
She realizes then that she still feels cold, but it’s a different kind of cold. She doesn’t feel clammy, like all of the heat in her body has suddenly flown out of her without warning, and yet she somehow still feels hot. But instead she feels the kind of cold that one might get standing in shorts and a tank top while underneath an air vent.
Well, that’s probably because she may as well be doing just that.
Leonard, at least she’s assuming it was Leonard, has stripped her down into the periodic underwear she had worn going into the mission. She knows she should probably feel annoyed, or at the very least naked in front of him, but the old fashion jumper covers more than enough and frankly she’s too damn grateful to him for freeing her of the rest of her outfit.
“Gideon said you had a panic attack.” He finally breaks the silence she didn’t until now realize they were in, and her mind stops.
She’s never had a panic attack before.
He must see the confusion on her face, because he folds his arms and starts explaining. “She isn’t sure why, she said that you’re probably the only one able to figure that out. But the good news is that she scanned your brain, you don’t have any kind of stress disorder or anything like that.”
Sara nods as she takes in his words, slowly moving to sit up and when he reaches out to stop her she flashes him a look, one that promises she is ok to do this much.
“I’ve never, I’ve never had a panic attack before.” She admits, shivering as the coldness of the room really starts to hit her and Len grabs a blanket off one of the shelves and drapes it around her shoulders. She smiles up at him in thanks before she frowns again, realizing that she knows what set her into this crisis. “But… when we got on the boat. All I could think about… was the Gambit.”
Her voice is shaking along with her body now, her mind starting to spiral again, and it’s less than a second before Len has an arm wrapped around her shoulders with his thumb tracing light patterns on her bicep.
“Hey,” he says it softly, but firmly all the same. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
She nods at his words, as they do make her feel better.
It’s easy to explain it after that, how knowing that the ship was going to sink and they could very likely still be on board when that starts had terrified her. How images of being swallowed by the ocean when she was barely Jax’s age had plagued her mind from the moment they got off the Waverider, from the moment she got dressed if she really thought about it, and once the ship set sail her mind told her there was no turning back. She tells him how she felt trapped on that doomed ship, sentenced to die in the very manner that she almost did nearly ten years ago. He listens throughout the whole thing, tightening his grip on her arm when he fears it might be getting too rough for her to say, or maybe he was growing scared just listening and needed to confirm that she was still solid under his grasp. Either way it feels good, and by the time she’s finished her story she feels much better, normal even.
“Sara,” He finally says once she’s done, looking her in the eyes with the most serious gaze she has ever seen on him. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that, and I know I can’t talk you into never going on a mission like this again.” She chuckles at that, because he’s right. She will avoid going on another mission like this in every way that she possibly can, but if it’s ever absolutely necessary that she board a sinking ship, she’ll go and she’ll pray that she doesn’t go down. “But I want you to remember,” he starts to continue, “That we will never let you go in alone, someone will always have your back, and you will always make it home.”
She smiles at that and leans her head into his shoulder, pulling her blanket tighter around herself.
“Thanks.”
They don’t stay like that for much longer, because the more that she calms down the more the freezing temperature Gideon insists on keeping the med bay at starts to bother Sara. When they finally do get up Leonard walks with her to her room, just to make sure she doesn’t faint again. Once she’s alone behind her doors Sara realizes how late it is, not to mention how exhausted the day has left her. So she changes into her favorite sweats, a neon pink color that she briefly wonders what Leonard might think of should he ever see them, and a tank top with a warm sweatshirt over it. She’s fairly certain she’ll eventually overheat and throw the sweatshirt off during the night, but for now she snuggles up under her blankets and tries to get some, voluntary, sleep.
She doesn’t have any of her usual nightmares that night.