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Ava woke up to the sheets being yanked off her as Sara rolled out of bed, pulling the sheets with her. Ava shivered, cold air suddenly hitting her skin, and groaned. She didn't want to be awake.
She had a day off - a real day off, where she wasn't on call, where she had turned her Time Bureau phone off, and locked away her Courier with her gun - and she had been planning on sleeping in. She had been hoping Sara would feel the same.
It was now obvious that Sara had not felt the same. Ava forced her eyes open properly, and blearily glanced at the clock. It was 6:30am.
She leant over to the other side of the bed, pulling at the tail end of the sheets. Sara came with them, tumbling back into the bed. “Sara, why are you awake?”
Sara shrugged. “I always wake up early.”
Ava sighed, her face exasperated. “Yeah, so do I. But not when I have a day off. And not when someone kept me up until two in the morning the night before.”
Sara smirked, leaning in, her face close. “But last night was fun, right?”
“Last night was great,” Ava admitted, and it had been. It had been more than great. Finally having Sara in her apartment, on her bed, under her hands, had been amazing.
Being with Sara anywhere was good, but the bunks in the Waverider were small. Ava’s bed was bigger.
Sara smiled, the sheets still wrapped around her body. “That's what I thought,” she said, leaning in for a kiss that was so soft, so gentle that it almost made Ava forget how tired she was. Her touch, where her hands rested on Ava’s face, was light.
And then she was gone, turning around and leaning away from Ava to fish something off the floor. Ava saw a flash of white, and then another, and then the sheets dropped away. Sara's arms stretched above her head, muscles on her back flexing as she pulled a shirt on. She stood up, now half dressed, her legs bare.
Ava swallowed, trying, and failing, not to stare. “That's my shirt.”
“I know.”
“You're a walking cliché,” Ava said, but she couldn't stop herself from smiling.
Sara just smiled back, then wandered away from the bed.
“Where are you going?” Ava asked, sitting up and pulling the sheets that Sara had discarded back over her. It didn't seem likely that she'd be going back to sleep any time soon, and she would just have to accept that.
Sara reached Ava’s dresser, trailing her hands over the surface.
“I'm exploring.”
“You couldn't do that at, say, eleven?”
“Nope,” Sara said, not turning to look at Ava.
Sara picked up a photo frame, one of a few on the dresser. “You went to Stanford?”
Ava knew the photo she was looking at. It showed a twenty-year-old her, grinning at the gates of Stanford, her parents either side of her. “For a year and a half. Dropped out.”
Sara turned, slight surprise on her face. “And then?”
Ava gestured to a jewellery rack next to the photos. It was almost entirely empty; she didn't wear a whole lot of jewellery. Apart from a singular bracelet that she had never worn, the only other thing there was her dog tags. “The army.”
Sara didn't say anything, just briefly examined the chains, her fingers toying with the tags. Ava’s hand went to her neck. It hadn't been long since she'd stopped wearing them everywhere. This examination of her possessions that Sara was undertaking felt intensely personal.
Few people had been in Ava’s room; even fewer had stayed the night.
The number of people who wanted to examine her room the next morning, to learn about her, was exactly one, and Ava was looking right at her, at blonde hair falling over the stark white of Ava’s shirt.
Sara was light on her feet, like she didn't have a care in the world. She moved to the windows and reached up on her toes to pull the curtains open, sunlight streaming in.
Ava groaned again, her eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness. Sara spun round again, and, seeing Ava, her eyes lit up, like she was seeing her for the first time. She crossed the space between them, leaning down to drag Ava’s mouth back to hers.
“You look beautiful,” she said, and Ava’s chest tightened.
“I don’t. It's too early for that.”
Sara shook her head, toying with Ava’s hair, a smile on her face.
Sara certainly looked beautiful. Her hair was bright. In the early morning sunlight, tinted orange from the sunrise, it gleamed a million shades of blonde, a halo around her head.
And then, a split second later, Sara was gone again from the bedside, moving fast, always moving fast. She had too much energy for this early in the morning.
She was too excited by the thought of examining Ava’s life. Ava wasn't used to that.
Sara spun on the spot for a second, then her eyes landed on the door to Ava’s closet.
Sara leant on it, her smile soft. “How many Bureau suits am I going to find in here?”
Ava shrugged, blushing slightly. “A few.”
Sara laughed, pulling the door open, her laugh continuing as her eyes roamed around the closet. Sara saw her counting under her breath.
“Aves, is ten really necessary?”
No. But she liked to have a new one each day, especially since she'd started working with the Legends. Things always seemed to end up messy. So she wasn't really lying when she said, “Yes.”
Sara raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.
Finally, Sara found herself in front of Ava’s bookshelf. It was more sparsely populated than Ava would like, but her job didn't leave her much time for reading for pleasure.
Sara didn't seem to mind, though, completely ignoring the few books that Ava did have, in favour of crouching down to look at the bottom shelf.
“You still listen to CDs?” Sara asked, incredulous, but there was endearment in her voice, too.
“My car doesn't have an aux cord.”
“That's so cute,” Sara said, running her fingers along the cases, looking over her shoulder to meet Ava’s gaze. “You're so cute.”
Ava ducked her head, hair falling over her face.
Sara turned back to the shelf, tipping her head to read the titles. “At least you have good music taste.”
“And what, exactly, counts as good in Sara Lance’s mind?” Ava asked, leaning forward on her elbows, intrigued.
“Music that I like,” Sara said, and Ava could almost hear the grin on her face.
Sara reached the end of the shelf.
Ava remembered what was there just as she heard Sara break into laughter.
“Do you own every single Taylor Swift album?”
“Maybe.”
Sara sat down, cross-legged, pulling the CDs out onto the floor in front of her. Ava moved down to the end of the bed, sheets still gathered around her. Sara looked up at her, her expression playful. “Certainly looks like all of them.”
Ava sighed, covering her face. “How do you even know about Taylor Swift? Weren't you on an island for five years? Can't I have an embarrassing crush on her in peace?”
“Technically I was on a mountain for some of those years. And then I was, you know, dead for a hot second there, but since then I’ve been on a time ship, not under a rock.”
Sara picked up Taylor Swift, turning it over in her hands, her eyes scanning the tracklist. “Anyway, it's not embarrassing. ”
“No?” Ava asked, suspicious.
“She’s hot. And I liked this album,” Sara said, gesturing to the blue CD case in her hand. “Before the Gambit.” She looked down at the other albums at her feet. “But I haven't heard any of these.”
There was a slight hint of pain in her voice. It must have hurt to think of everything she missed. And then Sara turned back to Ava, her face breaking into another dazzling smile.
“We could listen to them together?”
“You want to listen to Taylor Swift with me?”
“I want to do everything with you,” Sara said.
“That sounds very couple-y,” Ava said, her heart rate speeding up as she did.
“I know. That's the point,” Sara replied, pressing up on her knees to find Ava’s mouth again.
Her hands encircled Ava’s neck, her fingers warm.
When they broke apart, Sara was still smiling.
Sara paused. “That's what you want too, right?”
Just looking at her made Ava’s heart do flips. She couldn't say anything, couldn't even begin to verbalise everything she was feeling, so she just nodded, a smile on her face.
Sara gathered up the CDs. Red was at the top of the pile, and Sara glanced down at it. “I think you might have a type, babe.”
Ava shook her head. “Taylor Swift is tall,” she said, struggling to keep a straight face. “You're-”
“Not. Yes. Thank you so much for reminding me.” Sara crossed her arms. “Am I going to have to be competing with this tall blonde for your affections?”
Ava pretended to consider, before giving in and reaching out to pull Sara back onto the bed, the CD clattering out of her lap and onto the floor.
“What do you think?” Ava asked, their faces inches apart. Her hand was around the back of Sara’s neck, her thumb rubbing absent minded circles on the skin there.
Sara's eyes closed, and she leant in, their foreheads touching.
“I think think I might be falling in love with you a little bit, Aves,” Sara said, her voice slow. “And I was hoping you might feel the same.”
“I think you might be in luck, then,” Ava said.
Sara's eyes opened. “You think?”
Ava smiled. “Pretty certain, actually.”