The Starling Saviour

Chapter 47

'I noticed, you seem... Wiser,' I said, not knowing what else to say.

'I left Starling City in 2015, two years from now,' Sara nodded.

'How did you get back to the city in the first place?' I pondered, more confused. 'I understand that you're from the future and everything, but I thought you had died on the freighter, with Ollie. Well, he also happens to be alive too-'

'I was rescued by someone from the island,' Sara continued. 'She taught me things; how to fight, how to survive. And then I was recruited into Rip's team.'

'So, I'll see you again?' I asked hopefully. 'I'll meet you again in Starling?'

'Yes,' Sara confirmed. 'But you can never tell my past self about any of this. This needs to stay a secret, so there can be no other aberrations.'

'What's an aberration?' I inquired, Sara looking like she has regretted what she had just said.

'It's an... Alteration in the timeline,' Sara told me. 'They create time quakes. And it's our job to make sure they don't happen.'

'Your Captain, Rip, said something about ripples in time, and that my sisters and I are disrupting the timeline,' I repeated what Rip had said. 'Are you going to stop... Me? Leyla? Rose?'

I looked at Sara with a great sadness, realising that I had messed up a lot this time.

'Are we aberrations?'

'... No,' Sara answered slowly, hedging my remark. 'But what you're about to do is. You can't kill Malcolm Merlyn. He's Tommy's dad, Aria. You can't kill his father, no matter how awful he is.'

'I don't care if he's a father or not,' I hissed in anger. 'Merlyn is a ruthless killer; he's killed probably dozens of innocent people before. If he thinks he can tear families apart, then I don't care if I do exactly that to his.'

'But I thought you loved Tommy?' Sara reminded me. 'He'll be devastated.'

'I do,' I nodded sadly. 'But his heartbreak is a small price to pay for Merlyn's death.'

'Please, just think about it,' Sara requested desperately.

'Okay,' I smiled, but really, I still wanted to end Merlyn for good.

Sara didn't need to know my true intentions.

---

'This ship is amazing,' I exclaimed to a tall guy with dark-Superman hair who was giving me a tour of the place, fairly soon after Sara and I had our conversation. 'How did you get involved in all this?'

'I died,' the man said matter-of-factly. 'Well, everyone thought I'd died. Massive explosion-'

'That's enough, Raymond,' an older man interrupted him. 'Aria here can't know too much about the future.'

'Professor... Stein?' I recognised the older man at once from Helena's days at the SCPD, as she so often read his books and mentioned his name many times in the lab. 'One of my old friends absolutely loved you, she talked about you all the time!'

'That's me,' he greeted me in laughter. 'But you mustn't tell your friend, or anyone else, about any of what you're seeing. As Mr Hunter has probably already told you, time is a... Delicate thing.'