He hated feeling like this. Helpless. And somehow it was worse in these situations. Trapped, pinned under the shrapnel on Lian Yu—at the time Billy couldn’t have imagined anything worse than that. But this? Being unable to help someone he cared about, someone he loved? He’d take the disaster in purgatory all over again.
He didn’t try and hold on, when Sara pulled away. Maybe that was the right thing to do, maybe it was the wrong thing. He didn’t know. Helpless, helpless, helpless.
It took a moment to gather his thoughts, arms folded on his knees. But finally, he spoke again.
“If that’s what you want—I’ll go—or I can get you a lift somewhere you feel safe. But I can tell you, that’s pretty much the last thing that I want. After the past few—after everything that’s happened—I don’t—hell,” he gave a weak chuckle. “It was already going to be hard for me to leave you alone long enough just to go to the bathroom. Right now… right now there is no place I would rather be than right here, helping you figure this out.”
“What I want?” Sara replied with a watery, mirthless laugh, “What I want is to sleep for three days straight, and to wake up with you sitting beside me. Then I want to order in a giant breakfast - pancakes, and waffles, and French toast, and sausage, and eggs, and toast - and have you shake your head and tell me there’s no possible way I can eat all of that. Which would lead to me dazzling you with my eating abilities, which are impressive on a good day, but even more so after going without food for over a year…” Because one would think you wouldn’t miss things like food and sleep while you were dead, but you could. She did - among many other things.
She fell silent as Billy went on to say that the last thing he wanted was to be separated from her. That he didn’t want to walk away to go to the bathroom, let alone drop her off somewhere. She took a minute to think everything over, and while she did come up with a solution… He wasn’t going to like it. Which was why she dropped her gaze before uttering, “I can’t stay here. I could hurt you, or Laurel. And if I go to one of my old safehouses, you can’t stay with me. Because if I lash out…” She could hurt him again. Or worse. “…But I’m tired, Billy. I’ve gone days without sleeping, done countless missions without it, but this is different.” It was like she couldn’t breathe. “…It’s only a matter of time before I’m out. So if you want to stick with me, that leaves us with one option: the cage in the bunker.”
