[Chapter 41]

"Despite my wishes to pursue Savage alone, it seems that you're all intent on seeing this thing through till the bitter-" Rip was cut off as Sara punched him in the face and shoved him against the wall.

"Oh! Speaking of bitter," Mick comments. I merely shrug. Sara got to him before I could.

Sara unsheaths a knife and holds it up to Rip's throat. "You knew," she growled. "You dropped us off five months later because you knew."

"Knew what?" Jax asked.

"You knew that Laurel was going to die, and now you're going to take me back, and I'm going to save my sister," Sara hissed in Rip's face. At the mention of Sara's sister, I became a little more sober and aware as to what Sara seems to be planning.

"I'm afraid that-" Rip starts.

"You should be afraid."

"I can't allow you-"

Sara punches the wall behind Rip's head. "I don't care about the timeline! You're taking me back now!"

"Look Sara, I'm sure there's a valid reason why Rip didn't-" Ray starts.

"Stay out of this!" She yells at Ray and turns her burning gaze back on Rip. But she didn't see that Rip had grabbed his flashy knockout device and it was too late for her to move out of the way. She fell unconscious against Mick as he easily lifted her up.

"What the hell, Rip?" Jax asked.

"Mr. Rory, take Ms. Lance to sleep it off," Rip ignores my livid stare and heads into his office.

"Not to dismiss what just happened, but we do have to find Savage, assuming that Kendra and Carter are still on his timeship," Ray strategized as I walked over to Rip's arrangement of alcohol.

"He could be anywhere in time and space," Rip continues.

"Well that narrows it down a lot," I say sarcastically and grab the strongest drink I could find. Before I could lift the bottle to my lips, Jax snatched it away from me and in the process, accidently knocked over what looks like a really old helmet from WWII.

I turn an exasperated glare on him as the rest of the team turn to look at us. Jax closes the bottle and sets it on the table far from my reach and then apologizes and picks up the old helmet.

"Was this always over here?" he asked confusedly.

"No it lives over-," Rip turned back to his desk and then slowly turned to look at the helmet again. "Did you put it there?"

Jax shook his head. "Nah, man." Rip turned his eyes to me.

I raised my hands innocently. "Don't look at me. I didn't do it."

"Dude it's just a helmet," Jax said confusedly as Rip grabs the helmet.

"Chronometric repositioning," Rip said under his breath.

"What?" Both Jax and I ask simultaneously.

"Temporal changes can, on occasion, reverberate through the timeline, physically moving an object from one place to another."

Rip then starts looking inside the helmet. For what, I don't know but it must be the Mad Hatter's Hat or something if it held something more than maybe a piece of paper.

Rip reaches inside and grabs, of course, a tiny slip of paper.

He hands the hemet to Stein and then unfolds the paper quickly, scanning the words on the page.

"Gideon?" He said after a moment.

"Yes, Captain."

"Plot a course for Saint-Lo, France, 1944."

"Why then?" asked Stein.

Rip flips the paper around for us to see. "Because that's where Kendra is."

"How is that possible?" asked Jax, astonished.

"She sent us a message through time," Ray surmised. "Go ahead. Say it."

Stein had the goofiest smile on his face. "Astonishing."

***

"Are you going to keep stalking me?" I groan as I lounge on Rip's captain chair at the front of the ship. I was twirling a knife between my fingers, focusing on not knicking myself with the tip.

"I'm not stalking you. Just making sure you don't do something you regret," Jax replies as he turns the corner.

"Such a sudden interest in my well-being Jax. Careful, or else I might think you care," I wiggle my fingers at him as he sits down on one of the other seats.

"Would it be so horrible to have someone care about you? Is it so horrible that even though you were a psychotic killer for the past few hundred years, I still consider you to be my friend?"

"Don't get too close, otherwise you'll end up dead," I warn.

"Is that what you're afraid of?" Jax asks.

"I'm not afraid of anything."

"Your desperate attempts to get drunk tells me otherwise."

A loud bang echoes in the bridge as the knife I've thrown reverberates where it's stuck in the metal of the wall.

"Can't die. Can't get drunk. Can't get the damn voices out of my head. There's a reason why I learned to fight and use weapons instead of just relying on my power," I say and Jax waits quietly for me to continue.

"There is a rhythm to martial arts. There is stability in knowing that even if my god-given gift fails, I can still rely on myself. Because that's all I've ever relied on for my whole life. A hand-to-hand fight is like a violent dance. The chaos of a battle quiets the voices in my head screaming at me day in and day out. Telling that anyone who cares for me, who loves me, will die," I call the knife back to me and it returns to my hand in the same moment.

"You love Leonard?" Jax asked after a moment of silence. I nodded my head. "Then stop blaming yourself for his choice. He chose to take Mick's place. He knew what he was doing. Don't let his sacrifice mean nothing."

"We were supposed to go together," I bit out. "But my damn curse, because it sure as hell ain't a gift, took him away from me."

"Maybe for a reason," Jax replied quietly and I looked at him in confusion.

"Savage is still alive. He has Kendra and Carter. You and Leonard destroyed the Time Masters but the job is still not finished. And Isabelle, we need you. Our team needs you."

I took a shaky breath and then nodded. "Okay," I nod again, cementing myself. "Thank you."

"What are friends for?" Jax winks at me and I let out a small smile.

Rip comes in at that moment, Sara a step behind him.

"What are you doing in my chair Ms. Light?" Rip asks and my smile grows a little bigger.

"Don't know why but sitting in the captain's seat is more comfortable than the others," I reply as Rip rolls his eyes. He makes a motion for me to get out and I reluctantly roll out of the chair.

I claim the seat next to the one Sara took and I brush my hand against her knee, hoping she understands my comfort.

"Gideon, time to time jump to 1944," Rip commands and I feel the rush I get every time Gideon launches.

In a bare moment, we've jumped over into the new time period.

"We've arrived in Saint-Lo. No sign of Kendra yet, but I have located Vandal Savage and he does not seem to be alone." Gideon explains as we quickly head off the ship to where Savage was.

He was in front of a German transport, with dozens of soldiers in and around the military truck. Savage conversed with the leader and then the soldiers opened fire upon him.

Of course, if it were so easy to kill Vandal Savage, I would have killed him already.

The team launched themselves into the fray. I started blindly taking down soldiers who were taken by surprise of a 15-year old girl running into the middle of their ranks.

Explosions sounded everywhere as soldiers from the future with laser guns entered the fight. A soldier grabbed me from behind and tucked me close into his body, making me contort with revulsion. I grab his arm and bend forward, flipping him over my back and snapping his arm in the process. I launch a kick at the soldier coming at me from the front and reflexively grab a knife and twist, stabbing it straight through another german soldier's chest.

That's my girl, I could almost hear Leonard say. My lips curl into a soft smile at the thought.

"Keep Savage and out Nazi friends occupied," Rip said over the comms. "Gideon has detected a temporal signature consistent with a timeship. If Kendra and Carter are alive, that is where they're going to be."

I saw Sara fighting with her batons as I took down three more Nazi soldiers. I swept the feet out of another and let Mick finish him off.

The german soldiers were thinning but Savage's reinforcements outnumbered us.

"Rip, we're kind of outnumbered here," Mick yelled into the comms, voicing my thoughts.

"Fall back!" Rip commands. "Staying here to fight Nazis is exacerbating the damage that we have already done to the timeline."

***

"So this is a spaceship?" Carter asked. Well Future Carter. Or is it just regular Carter? I don't know anymore.

"Pretty much," I shrug, earning an exasperated sigh from Rip.

"It's a timeship," Rip said. "But yes, it does also travel through space."

"You've seen it before, Mr. Hall," Stein said.

"That used to be my name. Carter Hall?" Carter raised an eyebrow.

"There really is rather a lot to fill you in on, and we really do not have the time," Rip said in a rush.

"What about-"

"Kendra, yes, we need your assistance in locating her and Savage," Rip interrupted Carter.

"Perhaps we can start with what Savage was doing in 1944," Stein starts.

"Whelp, I'm going to head out and go check on Sara," I say to no one in particular. "If you need me, you know where to find me."

I leave Jax, Stein, Rip and Carter to their... whatever it is that they are doing, and head down the hall to Sara's room. I knock when I approach the door and here Sara's muffled voice telling me to come in.

I open the door to see her sitting on her bed holding a small square paper in her hand.

"It's going to take me a while to get used to seeing you like that," Sara says. "Just a hormonal teenager."

"An ancient, reincarnating teenager," I counter, making Sara laugh a little.

"With horrible temper tantrums."

I laugh. "Yep, with horrible temper tantrums," I agree. "Is that your sister?"

Sara nods. "Not too long ago either."

I sit down on the edge of her bed. "I'm not going to ask if you're okay if that's what you're waiting for. I already know you're not and asking won't solve anything."

"Always so blunt," Sara smiles.

"Can't get anything done if I'm not," I smile back. I hold my breath for a moment and grab Sara's hand softly. "I kinda understand how you feel though. I'm not comparing what happened to me to what happened to you but I'm here whenever you need me. Whether it's revenge or comfort, just let me know."

"I think you're the only person who understands how I feel," Sara says in a near whisper. She holds my hand a little tighter and I let her have her silence.

But after a few minutes, I have to break it.

"We're getting revenge right?"

"Oh hell yes."