Sandstorm {Discontinued}{Rewritten}

4. He's a Star Wars Gag

The ship shook violently; the only thing Deserey could see through the window at the front of the ship was a sea of green waves. The waves swirled around the Waverider for a second before a tunnel opened up and the ship flew through it.

Once again, Deserey could see the cloudy sky surrounding the ship, but this time it seemed slightly different. Down below, instead of concrete and city buildings, she saw bright green grass, thick crimson trees surrounding the meadow. They were no longer in Star City, and it was no longer fall. They were in St. Roch, and it was, she guessed, summer or spring. Time travel. It really was cool. 

As the Waverider touched the ground, the ship's vibrating slowly decreased, and the lights faded back to normal. Fortunately, no one was bleeding from the eyes. Unfortunately, Deserey's ears were ringing like a bitch. Whenever she opened her mouth to speak, the ringing only increased, forcing her to sit back and press her hand to her temple. She groaned. It was like a tiny television set was in her head, and it had really crappy connection. 

Mick leaned forward, gagging like he was about to throw up. Sara made a face. Deserey cringed, but she wasn't nearly as grossed out as some of the others appeared to be.  As a mother, a gal tended to clean up a lot of gross things, which made her fairly immune to almost all the puke, poo, and bloody situations. Still, the noise was killer on her head. The louder something was, the more the buzzing increased. 

"Oh," Rip muttered, as the team started to stand. "I should have mentioned before, nausea is one of the side effects of time travel." 

Ray stumbled, as he attempted to walk to the center of the room. He tripped over his feet, falling flat on his face with a loud thud and causing the buzzing in Deserey's head to increase yet again. She flinched at the noise. 

"Along with vertigo," Rip added. He stood up and walked around Ray, but he didn't bother to help the poor guy up. Deserey thought that was kind of rude. 

"I can't see!" Stein announced, sounding quite alarmed. 

"And temporary blindness," Rip said. "It should only last a minute. After all, that was a mere jaunt." He walked calmly over to the professor, waving his hand in front of his face. After a minute had passed, Rip stood up right and asked, "Better?" 

Stein shrugged, "It's all relative." 

"The further back in time you go, the worse the side effects," Rip told everyone, walking to the center of the room. 

Deserey grunted. "Now you tell us." She clutched her head, groaning, as the ringing continued. Why wasn't her side effects wearing off? Everyone else seemed perfectly fine by now. 

Jax glared at Stein, as he stood from his chair. "I can't believe you kidnapped me." Stein had enough brains not to respond for the time being. So, Jax instead turned his attention to Rip, who had placed himself at the head of the center console. "Hey! I want to go home." 

"Good news then," Rip said, "2016 will be around in, uh, forty-one years." The tone in his voice made it very clear that they were not turning around for anything.

They had already come all the way here, and they would only go back when they had finished what they had come to do. No amount of whining could possibly change the captain's mind.

He'd said it with such a familiar finality, too, and it didn't take Deserey long to recognize it. She'd often used that tone of voice herself, before her depression had really taken a tole on her. It was, as her kids liked to call it, the Parent Tone. Every parent had one. 

Deserey wasn't sure if the buzzing in her head made her delirious or if she was just excited about the prospect of another parent on board, but she found herself asking, "You have kids, too?"