Chapter Text
It was well past office hours when she finally managed to put her pen down and call it a day. The report she had been writing was finally finished and it would be archived the following morning along with the reports from the last three missions the Legends completed. The magical creatures were being dealt with at a satisfactory rate and with so few complications it was starting to feel quite suspicious.
Of course, Ava would never say to their face they were doing a decent job. First of all she had no time for sentimentalisms, and secondly she did not want to jinx their streak of luck. Not that she believed in luck or the concept of jinxing something, but where the Legends were concerned it was better safe than sorry.
Unbeknown to her, something out of the ordinary was already happening on the newest mission, so it was really not her fault for thinking that maybe things would have remained quiet until all the creatures were settled. After all, without Neron always getting in the way, it was fair to assume things would have moved quicker.
Alas, her phone still rang flashing the Waverider as the caller – not Sara, not one of the Legends, but Gideon, personally calling her – and that could only mean trouble.
Her fingers hovered over the screen for just a moment before she realized that ignoring a present problem would only lead to a bigger problem sooner rather than later.
“Hello?”
“Director Sharpe, the Legends are finding themselves in a rather dangerous predicament.”
“How can I help?”
“You could perhaps go to them and help with the mission? India, 1947. Bring something apt to catch a Buru.”
“A... Buru?”
“Massive reptile, not unlike a crocodile.”
“Of course, sounds about right. Well, Gideon, I might have something useful actually. I'll be there in a minute.”
A short trip to the storage and a temporal jump later, Ava was shrinking a Buru with Ray's Shrinking Ray and trapping him inside a costumed jar.
She held up the small container for Charlie to grasp while walking past her, the shapeshifter smiled and patted her arm. Zari thanked her quietly, Mick grunted in a friendly – at least she thought it was friendly – way and Constantine was the only one who looked sore she was the one who managed to trap the creature.
Sara sighed and stopped in front of her, leaving them to be the last ones on that side of the portal.
“Thank you. With Ray and Nora... recovering, and Nate still working on his dad's project we're a little short handed.”
“No problem, just,” she raised a hand, thumb and index roughly the same distance apart as the height of the miniaturized Buru, “a small thing,” she reigned in the smile that almost slipped alongside the joke.
“Director Sharpe, was that an hill attempt at humour?”
Ava shrugged, walking back into the Waverider and waiting for Sara to do the same before closing the portal behind them.
“Captain, we might have a small problem on our hands,” Gideon's voice reached the bridge.
All of them immediately went back into alert mode.
“With the Buru?”
“Nothing like that, Captain. It appears we might have a little stowaway on the ship.”
“What, like a time pirate?” Mick grunted, raising his gun.
“That a real thing?” Charlie asked in a whisper.
“I believe this particular stowaway is sensibly too young to be a time pirate,” Gideon informed them, prompting Mick to lower his gun again.
“There's a age restriction on criminal activity?” Zari asked. “Like, no time pirates under twenty-one because a pirate crew that drinks together, stays together?”
“Why is the drinking age in the time stream twenty-one when literally anywhere but in the USA the limit is eighteen?” Charlie asked, a little indignant.
“Is this really the most appropriate time to have this discussion?” Zari raised an eyebrow.
“Stop flirting,” Sara told them. “Gideon, who's our stowaway?”
“Oh, bollocks,” was Gideon's only answer.
Sara waited for her to add something else, but before she could formulate an answer, the little stowaway marched right into the bridge.
The small child stomping around the ship could not have been more than two years old, two and a half tops. A blonde haired, blue eyed, little girl with chubby cheeks and unstable legs. She was holding a stuffed giraffe by its right ear and the animal was almost as tall as her, resulting in it being dragged across the Waverider's floor alongside the wobbly but determined steps of the little kid.
They all held their breaths and waited for the kid to reveal itself as something else, maybe a magical creature or a disguised time pirate, maybe even a shapeshifter or a malevolent entity, anything but an harmless child wandering the halls of their time ship.
The little girl kept walking until she was standing directly in front of Ava.
The room was deadly silent. They all waited to hear what the creature's request was going to be, if the small being would demand to speak to the one in charge or ask for asylum. They were all staring at her with wide eyes, waiting.
The small child raised her hands in the air as far as they would go.
“Up.”
There was no doubt left, she was staring at and speaking directly to Ava.
“Mom, up.”
Like in a trance, Ava bent down and picked up the small child, holding her safely in her arms, still looking at her with wide eyes. The toddler seemed unimpressed with her.
“No mo' wo'k. Home now, mommy.”
“Is, uhm-” Sara cleared her voice. “You wanna tell me something Aves?”
“Gideon?” Ava's voice cracked on the last vowel of the AI's name.
“Director Sharpe, I believe she managed to get ahold of a time courier that displaced her from her own time back to 2019. I was able to pinpoint the location her jump originated from, so you can take her back home whenever you're ready.”
“Home, mommy,” the child demanded once more.
Ava had faced, in her time as a Time Bureau operative first and Director lately, a vast number of scary and endangering situations, including, but not limited to, actual monsters and dangerous magical creatures, one of which she had, just a few minutes prior, shrunk down and entrapped. But she had never felt this scared before in her life.
“Why's- uhm, why's she calling me mo-” she cleared her voice. “Why's she calling me that?”
“Based on a quick scan of her DNA, I believe she is your daughter, director. She was displaced here from 2025 directly from your apartment. If I'm correct, you aren't there currently in her timeline, perhaps she used your time courier to come looking for you on the Waverider. I believe this is why she is demanding you accompany her back home.”
“Home,” the child echoed Gideon's last word. “Mommy, home now.”
Ava swallowed trickily, nodding. “Okay, home.”
She seemed content with the answer, because the second Ava said so she snuggled closer and rested her head on Ava's shoulder, one of her little hands clutching Ava's shirt.
For a moment, time stood still. The kid fitted perfectly, her weight felt right in Ava's arms, her presence filled something inside her she had no idea had been empty. There was no doubt left in her mind that this was her child.
But then she saw Sara, standing there, her eyes filled with fear and her feet glued to the ground.
No, this wasn't her kid. Not yet, at least. But someday. Oh God, someday. This little menace would fill up her life in a way that made her feel electric if she just thought about it.
But for the time being, she knew she had to get the little angel away from Sara before she had a heart attack or got scared away for good. She pressed a few buttons on her time courier, until a portal opened. She stepped into the future quickly, before she could think better of it.
Her apartment looked pretty much the same, but there were toys scattered around and colouring books on almost every flat surface and sippy cups and small clothes.
“Hey, you're home,” the familiar voice greeted her as the woman came down the stairs. “How did Laurel get downstairs? I was just going up to tuck her in and the stairs gate was safely closed.”
“Sara,” she sighed in relief, releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding.
“Yes, weirdo,” Sara rolled her eyes at Ava's almost surprised tone upon seeing her.
“Wait, Laurel? We- we named her Laurel?” Ava smiled softly, eyes suddenly shining with a few unshed tears.
“Oh. You're not from here. This is the night we met her, isn't it? The night we had a little stowaway on the Waverider.”
Ava could only nod. “How-”
“She must've got ahold of your old time courier, it got broken a few weeks ago, it only sends you back to 2019 now. That must be why she was there, she wanted to look for you on the ship but the courier brought her back in time.”
“Maybe we should lock it up. She wasn't in danger this time, but I don't think we should risk it.”
“Trust me, it is locked up. But your daughter has her ways.”
“Oh, so when she misbehaves she's my daughter? That is rich, Lance,” Ava smiled at her mischievously.
“Haven't you heard? It's Sharpe-Lance, now. I shouldn't tell you anything more, probably. Spoilers and time folding in on itself and all that.”
“Right, you're right,” Ava nodded decisively and went to hand the kid over to Sara.
“Mama, mommy's home. Night book?”
Ava felt her heart melt at the child's request, despite not really understanding it. She turned to Sara, looking for an explanation.
“You've been working late for a few days and she likes when both of us tuck her in and read her a story and use the voices. You're surprisingly good at improv,” Sara explained.
Ava had a hard time believing it, but looking back at Laurel she felt she already lost the battle with herself. She was going to do whatever the kid asked and she was painfully aware of how quickly she had her wrapped around her little finger.
“Okay. Let's tuck her in, then.”
Sara raised an eyebrow, but didn't argue. She gestured for Ava to follow her and walked up the stairs, the other woman in tow, opening the old studio that was now a bedroom. Ava asked Sara for a pair of clean socks, replacing the ones Laurel had walked all over the Waverider with and then finally placing her under the covers, while the whole time the child just kept blabbering gibberish at them.
The kid was already half asleep, tired out by the search mission she had been on, and reassured by the presence of both her parents she fell asleep pretty quickly after Ava started reading to her “Gertrude the Giraffe”.
Once they were sure she was sleeping, Ava watched her for a moment, trying to stock away in her memory all the details she could, then after she pressed a kiss to her forehead she got up and let Sara led the way back down the stairs.
“What is the deal with the giraffes, anyway?”
Sara chuckled. “Spoilers. Very, very cute spoilers that I want us to live through together.”
“Fair enough. Thank you for letting me stay. And please tell your present Ava for me that if she doesn't tuck in her daughter tomorrow night I will kick her ass.”
“Consider the message delivered.”
She smiled at Sara again and then went to open a portal, but she noticed a spark in Sara's eyes that lit up her curiosity.
“What?”
Sara shrugged. “I just, I can't believe there was a time you doubted you'd be an amazing mom. You're a natural, you're not even a mom yet and you're already great at it.”
“Please, I just read her the first ten pages of a kid's book.”
“No, not that. The socks thing.”
“The socks thing?”
“Yeah, the socks thing. You changed her socks because she walked out of bed in them. I don't think anyone has ever changed their socks on the Waverider after getting up for a midnight snack in the entire time that ship has been functional. But you changed hers. And that is such a mom thing to do, honestly.”
“That's not a mom thing, Sara, that's just common sense. You concern me sometimes.”
Sara chuckled again. “Yeah, yeah. Now go before my wife finds me with another woman in our home.”
“Your wife?”
“Aves, come on, spoilers!”
“You were the one- fine, fine, I'm going,” she raised her hands in mock surrender, then opened up a portal. “Goodnight, Sara.”
“Goodnight.”
To absolutely no surprise, the Legends were all still on deck, waiting for her to return from her adventure in the future. Luckily, Ava knew them well, perhaps even too well, so she opened a portal directly inside Sara's room.
She sat down on the bed, next to a very silent captain.
“So, you have a kid.”
“So I do.”
“She looks adorable.”
“Indeed. She has a thing for giraffes, apparently.”
“Did you, uhm, did you happen to see who you're going to have that adorable kid with?”
“I did, yeah. Not that I really had any doubts about it, only one person I'd go on that kind of crazy adventure with.”
“So was it me?”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Yes, dork,” she bumped her shoulder into Sara's.
“Oh,” Sara let out a breath and then turned to Ava, giving her the most breathtaking smile Ava had ever seen her sport. “Good. I mean, I suspected, of course, because those freckles she has she did not get from you, miss porcelain skin,” Sara tried to lighten the mood, teasing her.
Ava smiled. “That could be a coincidence, the chin dimple is telling another story. And Gideon told us she has my DNA, apparently.”
Sara chuckled, but then got a slightly more serious again. “It doesn't really matter, does it? She's ours either way. Our little stowaway.”
Ava smiled, moving a strand of Sara's hair behind her ear and then cupping her face.
“Yes, she will be. I'm glad we got to have a glimpse.”
Sara leaned over, kissing her softly. She rested her forehead on Ava's for a moment, then leaned back suddenly.
“If I may interrupt, Captain. It appears that using future technology you were able to combine both your DNA's, so your daughter is both of yours biological daughter.”
They suddenly fell silent, realizing what just happened. They met their daughter, their future daughter, from 2025. A daughter they were supposed to have somewhere between two and three years from that moment. They would have a future together, and not just any future, but a happy future, a married-with-kids future, the kind of future they often didn't dare to hope for, but both craved. They were going to make it. And as impossible as it sometimes sounded, they had the certainty they could make it if they tried, if they wanted to.
At the same time, thinking about it could be maddening. They had to stay in the present, live in the present. They couldn't let thoughts of the future make them rush into things.
They started to move around, both silently getting ready for bed, wordlessly agreeing Ava was going to stay the night on the ship since they were both already there.
She was in the middle of getting changed when a thought returned in her mind.
“Hey Sara, if you walk on the floor wearing your socks you change them with clean ones before going to bed, right?”
Sara scoffed, then laughed. “Who does that, neat freak?”
And just like nothing happened, they were back to teasing each other, laughing about silly things and talking about anything and everything, carefully avoiding the thing that kept peeking at the back of their minds for quite a long time.