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Don't imagine Ava’s beautiful heart breaking into a million pieces, her legs struggling to keep the broken mess of a human standing upright. Her eyes are reddening and tears are about to burst out, held back only by Ava’s last bit of willpower. Sara’s back is turned to her, her eyes tearing up too, forcing herself to not turn back around, because she knows she would take it all back and hold Ava until her arms gave up on her. Ava’s legs finally find the strength to move her away from a room, that was once filled with laughter only this morning, now a place she would never see again. The buzzing sound of the time portal is the only thing breaking an unbearable silence, and before stepping through it, Ava throws one last glance at the woman she was starting to fall in love with, hoping she had turned around and faced her to. But Sara stood firm, so Ava swallows back her tears once more and walks away.
The exact moment the portal closes, the captain finally turns around, losing the inner struggle with herself. But it’s too late, no matter how fast she would’ve turned around, the only thing staring back at her was the cold metal wall of the time ship. Ava was gone and she didn’t even know where or when. The pain of not knowing gripped her heart and squeezed it, there was no air in her lungs and she had forgotten how to breath, because Ava was gone, she had pushed away her one chance at happiness, the very thought of it almost made her throw up. But she had her reasons for doing so, this was the only way to keep the woman she loved safe. She convinces herself again, a deep breath escapes her lips. But regret circles her mind like a vulture lurking around, waiting for the perfect moment.
Ava finds herself standing in her cold, dark, empty apartment. It felt like she hadn’t been there in weeks, which was true, seeing as she had spent all her time on the Waverider. It had been a few weeks of perfection, filled with warmth and love. She can feel the back of her mouth drying up and she swallows hard to try and stop the tears from flowing out. But when her eyes catch sight of the crumpled dress she wore on her first date with Sara, she tries to be normal, but the tears start pouring out. She’s desperately trying to breathe between uncontrollable sobs, wondering how this all happened so fast, how she went from perfect bliss to this newfound hell.
Sara is the only thing on her mind right now, every memory they have made, up to this point, haunts her every thought, she’s trapped in an endless circle. Taking one long deep breath she manages to find her composure again and opens another time portal, not really knowing where to, she just knew she had to get out of her apartment that seemed to be suffocating her from every angle.
Back on the Waverider, Sara wasn’t doing much better, but she had put on her brave face, pretending to be fine. Inside she felt like she was the worst human being in the universe, how could she have completely broken the woman that owned her entire heart. Her own heart was being ripped from her chest every time she thought about that beautiful face tearing up, and the way she looked at her when she uttered the words ‘I’m sorry’. So she let herself fall onto her bed, the side Ava was sleeping on less than twenty-four hours ago.
She closes her eyes, hoping sleep will take her away from all this, her hands reach up under the pillow that still smells like the taller blonde’s perfume. The feel of slightly rougher texture surprises her, and she opens her eyes to see a small note stuck between her fingers. Sara sits up to read it and is immediately attacked by the vultures of regret, her throat tightens up and it gets harder to breathe once again. She’s not sure how much she can even withstand anymore, at this point, before she becomes a crying mess.
‘Sara, can you come to the bridge please?’ Ray’s voice rings over the intercom, not a moment too soon, Sara thinks, shrugging off her emotions and putting on her captain face.
The blinding light of the sun makes Ava wince and she turns her face away, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the sudden change. The sound of honking cars, yelling cab-drivers and the mixed smell of all kinds of food and exhaust fumes give her a first indication of where she has ended up. She finally manages to open her eyes that are still red and watery, making it that much more difficult, she can feel them burning. But it’s a physical pain, so she welcomes it over the emotional suffering. The sight of the city she is in brings back memories as she looks at her time courier to check the year she is in. As she figured, she had brought herself back to a time when she didn’t even know a certain captain, or not just yet, it was almost a pleasant idea.
She knew this block like the back of her hand, so she starts walking in the direction of this quaint little coffee shop, that sold the very best cupcakes of the entire country. The gentle sound of the doorbell as she opens the door and the smell of the freshly roasted coffee momentarily make her forget about Sara Lance completely. But only for a minute, which was a lot, considering it was still such a fresh wound. She orders a coffee and a cupcake and sits down in her usual spot; the nostalgia calms her down and gives her a pleasant feeling of home. The coffee is still hot and burns her throat, but she couldn’t care less right now.
After a while something catches her attention in the corner of her eye, and she starts to get an idea of when exactly she is. A brown file is lying on the bookshelf closest to her and everything comes flooding back. This is the exact day she found out about the very existence of Sara Lance. What was her mind thinking when it decided to drop her here? It was like some sick joke, wow she must really hate herself.
The file was from the Time Bureau Academy and it was the first of an incredibly thick pile concerning the captain of the Waverider. Ava was about to force herself to get up and walk out, but the file taunts her. She remembers how she felt the first time she ever laid eyes on the gorgeous, tiny blonde, even when it was just pictures. Butterflies start fluttering in her belly at the memory, but they quickly turn into moths desperately trying to get out.
She feels hollow as she opens the file she had forgotten all those years ago in the coffee shop, she needs to leave, before her younger version comes back, she quickly tells herself. In the first picture, the perfect blue eyes stare back at her, piercing her soul and shooting daggers into her heart. Her breathing becomes erratic and she can feel her eyes starting to well up again, the burn of the last cry had not even dissipated yet.
Ava can feel a panic attack rising and bolts out of the coffee shop onto the streets, where she is attacked by the sounds of the city. Everything is a blur because her eyes are burning and hazy, she just wants to get away from it all. She crosses the street in a rush, and someone bumps into her shoulder, hard. Ava turns around to see if he’s ok, but the man doesn’t seem to care. As she turns back, a piece of paper on the ground grabs her attention, it’s one of the crossword puzzles she had made with Sara one of those glorious mornings at breakfast on the Waverider. It must have fallen out of her pocket and she bends down to pick it up, not ready to part with it just yet.
Sara arrives on the bridge with her bravest captain face on, pushing all her feelings in a box and shoving it in the deepest corner of her mind. Everyone is standing around the screens in the middle of the room, except Mick, he’s distracted by his fire totem and is playing with it at a safe distance from everyone else. But at least he’s present.
‘What’s going on?’ Sara asks looking at everyone to see who would give her an answer. But everyone seems just a little more scared than usual and who can really blame them.
Ray is the first to open his mouth, he’s barely standing and still looks pretty bruised up, but he hides it well with his optimism. ‘Well, we were all worried about how you were feeling after all that happened and knowing you, you would want to jump right into action.’ Ray tentatively looks at Sara to try and guess her opinion, but she is not changing expressions at all. ‘So we have found a nice little level 2 anachronism for you.’ He finishes.
‘Look Ray, I get what you’re trying to do, and it’s very sweet, but I don’t think I should be in the field right now’ Sara says determined. She does not want to risk hurting anyone else, physically or emotionally. Ray’s face shifts to his typical sad puppy face and Sara responds with an eyebrow raise.
‘You can do this without me, should be easy enough! Momma needs some alone time! And Ray go back to the MedBay!’ Everyone just nods to each other as Sara leaves the room, her hand balling up in the pocket of her jeans, clenching the note Ava left behind.
She burrows her nails into her skin to keep her emotions from spilling out, at least until she has left the room. Tears are at the very edge of her eyes now as she swings herself onto her bed once again, loud thudding and laughter lets her know the rest of the Legends have left. She grabs Ava’s pillow and brings it to her chest, hugging it tightly, she has never wanted sleep to take her away from here as badly as she did right now.
Sara must have drifted off at some point because she can barely make out the words Gideon is saying to her. ‘Captain, wake up. I have an urgent message from Miss Jiwe.’ Gideon keeps repeating those 2 lines until Sara replies.
‘What is it?’ She rubs her eyes trying to make herself wake up, her eyes slightly burning and tired from holding back all those tears, and she is suddenly reminded of everything she did. Her heart drops down to her feet, a cold wave envelopes her entire body, making her shiver.
‘Sara, Sara! You need to come quick! Something went wrong!’ Amaya’s voice cracks and Sara swears she can hear slight sobbing. In the background there’s the sound of the siren of an ambulance, cars honking and people yelling. Sara doesn’t need any more encouragement than that to rush out of her room. ‘Gideon, watch Ray!’ She manages to yell before jumping out of the cargo bay door.
She steals a motorcycle that was conveniently placed near the Waverider, begging to be ridden, and is tracking Amaya’s position. ‘What’s your status Amaya?’ She yells into her comms.
The line cracks and Amaya is silent for a second or two. ‘…it’s Ava,’ Sara’s heart stops beating instantly, she cuts off the motorcycle for a second, before coming back to herself. ‘…it’s bad, Sara…’ Amaya barely seems to be able to get the words past her lips, ‘hurry.'
Sara jumps off the bike and lets it fall wherever it is, the past few minutes after she heard the name Ava she can’t even remember, it’s just all dark and empty, like she wasn’t even in control of her own body. Mick is standing closest to Sara and points his finger to the middle of this mess of crashed cars, people and ambulances.
She has no clue what she’s going to discover when she gets there, but she runs as fast as she can and as she gets closer she sees Nate first, his eyes are red and tears are running down his face, his hands bloody. He’s standing a few feet away from Amaya who is down on the ground bending over the lifeless body of a blonde woman in a suit. Sara freezes in disbelief and Nate holds up his hands, not sure what he wants to do, or what he needs to do, so he combs his fingers awkwardly through his hair. Amaya turns around to face Sara, there’s tears in her eyes and she is covered in blood, she’s holding Ava tightly, desperately trying to keep her from slipping away. Sara slowly moves closer, her legs and the rest of her body completely betraying her.
Sara swears she can’t even feel her heart beating anymore, her breathing is reduced to short bursts, all blood has drained from her face, her blue eyes are a shade lighter, staring into nothingness. Because now she sees her happiness completely covered in blood and dead, her legs can’t hold her up anymore and she scrambles to fall down next to Ava’s body. Amaya places a supportive hand on Sara’s shoulder and moves away to give Sara more space. Everything around them seems to be happening in slow-motion now, the sound muted. Sara grabs Ava’s bruised, dirty hand, it already feels cold against her own skin as she intertwines their fingers.
‘Aves?’ Sara tries, her voice barely a whisper. She tries to shift herself closer to Ava and puts her other arm underneath her neck, pulling her in towards herself. The former assassin knows by looking at Ava’s injuries that there’s no way for her to come back from this, but she can’t stop herself from trying to shake her awake.
‘Come back to me!’ Sara raises her voice slightly, as much as she has the strength for anyway. She’s getting angry and is starting to pound on Ava’s chest.
‘Come home…’ The tears Sara desperately had been trying to hold back are streaming down her face now, an unstoppable force of emotion. She buries her face in Ava’s neck, everything just feels empty, there’s nothing but just the two of them lying there. Amaya squeezes Sara’s shoulder trying to get her back, when it doesn’t work at first, Amaya tries again with her full force.
‘Sara we need to leave, we could still fix this,’ Amaya shakily whispers to Sara, who turns around to face Amaya now with a hint of hope in her eyes.
‘We need to go, now,’ Amaya urges her on and drags Sara away from Ava’s body. Sara reluctantly let's go, not looking away from her for one second and keeping their fingers intertwined for as long as possible.
When they arrive back at the Waverider, the Legends explain the situation as best as they can to the grieving captain. The level 2 anachronism was about this guy who invented some kind of pretty important technical gizmo, but was never able to do so, because he died in a car crash that was never supposed to happen. The idea of what probably happened was almost too much for Sara to handle, that was her Ava that died, the one she had only moments before broken up with. For some reason she went back in time, caused a car crash and died, because Sara Lance had to screw up another relationship. She felt completely worthless and wanted nothing more than to go fight some random thugs to let all her anger out.
‘You can take the jumpship and go back to before we all arrive and convince Ava to go back to 2018! Hereby saving Ava and fixing the anachronism at the same time.’ Nate states with half a smile trying to get his captain’s spirits up. Sara seems to be thinking it through, her eyes focused on the screen in front of her.
‘Ok, I’ll go back before all this happened and wait for Ava to show up.’ Sara says, still not looking away from the screen. Her mind is all over the place right now, between seeing the love of her life dead in her arms and seeing her heart broken in a million pieces. She doesn’t even know what she can possibly say to Ava when she sees her, maybe she’ll see her and run straight into a car. This is all too much to handle, but she knows she definitely never wants to see a dead version of Ava ever again. So, she clenches her fists and takes a deep breath before turning away and heading to the jumpship. Out of nowhere she feels a warm pair of arms wrap around her neck. Amaya was pulling her in for a hug, whether she wanted to or not, she was going to have to accept it.
‘It’s gonna be ok Sara,’ She whispers in her ear. She backs away to face Sara and puts her hands onto Sara’s face to reassure her. ‘It never has to happen,’ Sara gives Amaya the smallest of nods, but it seems to be enough. Sara puts her hand in her pocket as she walks away, the paper still there to remind her that her Ava, her girlfriend can still be saved.
Ava walks through the portal, she winces and turns her face away from the sun. She looks tired and all cried out, her eyes are red and darkness surrounds them. Sara’s eyes just about tear up as it takes her right back to that moment and she instinctively turns her face away because she can’t bear to see Ava like this. But she has to face her, to save her, what a turn this has taken. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster that even Sara thinks she’s going to need to recover from for a few days. She gathers all the courage and strength she has left and walks towards Ava.
‘Hello jerk,’ Sara blurts out without even thinking about it, she just remembered Ava dying and forgot that this Ava probably doesn’t want to see her ever again. Ava quickly turns around, her face confused and angry at the same time.
‘What? How?’ Ava asks, her mouth staying half open.
‘It’s a long story, but I need you to stay exactly where you are.’ Sara carefully states, not wanting to make it seem like an order.
‘Is this some kind of weird Legends thing?’ Ava is getting a bit agitated.
‘No, it’s not, this is actually work related,’ Sara says, cocking her head a little arrogantly.
‘What kind of messed up mind game are you playing here Sara? Because I can’t take much more at this point,’ Ava’s voice starts cracking up and the wetness starts showing in her eyes again. Sara cringes at the sight of it, she can’t go through this again. She can’t lose this woman ever again. With her thumb she wipes away a single tear that managed to escape Ava’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry, I love you Ava,’ it just slipped out, it was so easy, everything else be damned. She loved Ava and she didn’t ever want to lose her again or see her hurt like this period. Ava’s mouth hangs open and she seems stuck. Sara’s getting a little worried, this woman could still do a good job at kicking her ass. But all that worry dissipated when Ava wrapped her hand around Sara’s head and pulled her in for a kiss. It’s soft and wild at the same time, it feels like coming home. Sara wraps her arms around Ava’s waist and pulls her in closer, she needs to feel Ava’s warmth and needs to feel her breathing and her heart beating, she doesn’t ever want to let her go again.
Ava pulls away eventually, her eyes still red and teary, but this time at least it’s tears of joy, there’s a smile on her face going from one ear to the other. It warms Sara’s heart to see that face so happy instead of the misery she made her go through. Ava squints her eyes and looks around, not having fully grasped where or when they are. ‘Oh my gosh, we need to go to that coffee shop over there, it is the cutest and it has the best cupcakes!’ Ava says all giddy and cheerful. Making it very difficult for Sara to say no, completely forgetting what she came here for in the first place. Ava died on the street after all and not in a coffee shop, so this should be fine.
They order coffee and cupcakes and they enjoy each other’s company. It’s the actual second date come to think of it. And it’s simply the cutest, Sara’s nose covered with cupcake topping and Ava having to take it off which ends up in the cutest, softest kiss ever. They forget all about time and Sara forgets all about the reason she was there.
Eventually they leave hand in hand, giggling as they walk out into the street, only paying attention to each other. Ava pulls at Sara’s sleeve to stop them for a second.
‘I love you too, Sara,’ she says softly, smiling. This time it’s Sara that pulls Ava in for a kiss.
They don’t notice that there’s a young tall blonde walking towards them from the other side of the street, nose buried deep in the file she’s holding. She looks up from her file for a second to check her watch, but is shocked when she sees herself kissing Sara Lance…
A loud crash interrupts their kiss and they both look in the direction of the noise. Ava’s grey eyes are filled with worry as she seems to know instantly that it was her younger self and quickly turns to Sara who is still looking at the crash. Ava puts both her hands on Sara’s shoulder and turns her towards her, her heart is beating so fast, it feels like it’s going to explode. It might as well, she knows what’s about to happen. All she can think about now is telling the woman she loves how much she means to her. She can feel something weird happening to her, she looks at her hands on Sara’s shoulders and notices her fingers starting to vanish into nothingness. Sara’s face is still focused on the crash, like she’s considering if she needs to go help. But Ava gives her a gentle slap in the face.
‘Sara I need you to listen to me!’ Ava says anxiously, Sara looks at her and notices for the first time how scared Ava looks.
‘What’s wrong Aves?’ Sara’s eyes are filled with worry and the sight of Ava so scared and being unable to help her is clutching her heart. Ava lifts one of her hands to see how fast her fingers are fading, almost her entire hand is gone now. She didn’t think her heart could beat any faster, but it is. Sara sees Ava’s hand now too and grabs it, but there’s nothing there anymore, it’s a ghost hand. Now Sara is terrified, she looks back at the scene of the accident and sees the blue time bureau outfit lying on the street and she connects the dots. But as soon as she does, she wished she hadn’t figured it out.
‘We can fix this!’ Sara shouts nervously, she grabs Ava’s lapels and pulls her closer trying to keep Ava grounded to her, holding on for dear life, cause that’s what Ava had become to her, her life and happiness.
‘I need you to know that the last few weeks have been the best of my life, I’ve never been happier,’ Ava says, words interrupted by sobs as she can’t hold back the tears. How cruel is the universe that she would come here to a time before she ever even heard about Sara Lance and now about to be completely forgotten by the love of her life. ‘I don’t want to go…’ Her knees give out and she drops to the ground, pulling Sara down with her who goes willingly.
‘I don’t want you to go! I can’t lose you now, I just found you, my happiness!’ Sara went from scared to angry, she wants to be able to fight whatever is killing her girlfriend, but this time there is just nothing to punch or kick! This is the cruelest goodbye…
Ava is fading quicker and quicker, or so it seems to Sara, who refuses to accept this. She needs to feel Ava’s lips on her own at least one more time, if this really is the end. Their mouths crash together as they both seemed to have the same idea, they want to pour everything they are feeling into this one kiss, this last kiss. It’s impossible, there’s so many feelings between them, there’s so much left to say, but no time left.
‘Don’t forget me’ Ava whispers in Sara’s ear before completely disappearing.
‘I won’t remember anything else,’ Sara mouths to the empty air in front of her. She’s sitting on her knees, tears dripping down from her chin onto the cold, hard pavement. Someone is going to have to come pick her up at some point, because she doesn’t believe she is ever going to be able to move away from this spot. Her entire being is screaming at her, her limbs are simply too heavy and the weight of the world is pushing down on her chest, her heart crumbling under the pressure. She can’t breathe, she’s choking on her own tears.
She doesn’t know how much time passes but she regains her composure and hears the sound of the ambulance arriving at the scene. She’s a bit dazed and looks around, there’s some people staring at her weirdly, but most of the attention goes to the car crash. Her eyes shift from the empty spot in front of her to the people around her and she gets up slowly. Instinctively she runs towards the accident to try and help if she can. She sees the young woman on the ground, covered in blood, she feels for a heartbeat, but there is none.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sara whispers and slowly walks away from the scene as the paramedics arrive. She puts her hands in her pockets, but there’s nothing in there. There is no longer anything left of her relationship with Ava Sharpe, she doesn’t even know that name. A Legend has never gone quieter…