Work Text:
Even with everything she had seen and done, accidentally portaling into Mallus’ realm had been disconcerting. She had been acutely aware that she was alone and that no one knew where or when she was. Sara believed in her team, but they could not help her while they were knocked out by "Odin" and/or fighting for their lives against Leif Erikson’s crazy sister.
When Mallus reached for her in the void, she stood frozen. She did not want to ponder what would have happened to her had Ava not pulled her back from the cold darkness.
Sara sat alone in her office, swirling the liquid amber in her glass and replaying moments of the week in her mind. Vikings. Beebo. The Darhks. Addressing the team’s grief. Meeting Mallus.
And Ava.
“I need you here...”
She knew that the ramifications of Martin’s death would be long lasting, seeping into every team interaction for the foreseeable future. Jax’s choice to leave was not surprising, but his loss added to the growing hole in the Legends.
A Legend may never die, but they could leave behind a spot that could never be filled, regardless of any future new team members who might sleep in their old quarters.
Sara knew her team would move on from their grief because they had to. There was a mission – save the world over and over again – that prevented them from doing anything other than putting one foot in front of the other.
Life was like time. It just kept going.
Even after one briefly entered a demon realm.
For one moment there, she had felt nothing. No joy, no friendship, no safety, no laughter, no hope, no love. No light. Only cold, bitter, nothingness. Only evil at its core.
“It was worth it…”
That look. There was so much possibility in that look from Ava right before she headed back to the Bureau.
With Constantine’s arrival overnight, Sara was aware that Ava’s actions to save her from the void did little to dissuade the demon from trying to escape his prison.
Her team was currently gearing up for the mission to an asylum, hoping to help yet another little girl Constantine could not save on his own.
Sara could hear their distant laughter and low voices reverberating through the Waverider’s metal halls. She should join them.
But she needed this moment. One moment just to take a breath before jumping right back into another mission.
Dealing with Constantine and a Mallus-possessed girl was a safer option for Sara than her spending time considering why Ava had come back to Vinland.
Sara was an expert at dealing with darkness. It never left her. She had long known that her blood-soaked hands would not ever be clean. So a mission involving a demon-possessed child in a mental institution was not the kind to cause Sara any real concern.
Mallus was an issue she understood. Demon, bad. Destroying time, bad. Possessed little girl, bad.
Do whatever it takes to protect the innocent. Help the helpless. Live to fight another day. That was her mission.
Mallus might be problematic for Rip and the Time Bureau, perhaps the whole world, but Sara and her team knew how to deal with such things.
Ava was a different story altogether. Something unsettling.
Sara’s one night stand with Alex before Barry’s wedding several weeks prior had been fun. Hot, mindless sex. She could feel nothing while having all the pleasure and none of the drama, though Alex’s discomfort around her over the next few days was frustratingly angsty.
However, their uncomfortable conversations about Maggie and relationship choices pushed Sara to evaluate her own love life, or lack thereof. As she had told Alex, she had her own Maggie.
Sara’s decision to move on, choosing life away from the League after her resurrection (and again after she was briefly stranded in the past by Rip) was the right one – then and now – no matter how often Nyssa al Ghul’s softly whispered “Beloved” might float through her mind. Sara had promised Nyssa that she would live her life fully, but while Sara readily had company in her bed, she did not let anyone near her emotions.
It was safer that way for both her and everyone else. No heart. No drama. No regrets. Just sex.
Fantastic, sizzling, shag-fucking on any available surface. Fast and furious. Release and done.
She could find such opportunities on almost every mission. She wasn’t missing anything, right?
The glass paused slightly, halfway up to her lips. She no longer knew the answer to her own question. Damn it.
Ava was a threat. Plain and simple.
It did not help that Amaya had helpfully offered her own thoughts to Sara after their impromptu Christmas/going away party.
“A woman whose essence is following and enforcing every regulation in the book disobeyed a direct order, Sara.”
Damn Amaya and her annoyingly accurate observations.
With a long sigh, Sara downed the last of the whiskey. She needed to get ready for the mission. She knew Constantine, Amaya, Nate, and Leo were waiting on her.
“Oh, I’m not really the husband kind.”
Sara’s momentary smirk at that memory faded quickly.
Ava was a question to which she simply did not have an answer.
She found herself wanting to spend more time with Ava during the Vinland mission. Wanting to be near the Time Bureau agent just to talk, just to share the same brief moment in time and space. Wanting to share a glass of wine, as she had half-jokingly suggested to the agent just minutes ago.
The idea of actually doing so, however, was a little frightening to a woman afraid of nothing. Every real relationship she had ever had, had ended in death, tragedy, betrayal, imprisonment – bad choices. Bad endings.
Yet Sara could feel herself being drawn in. She did not know how to stop it or that she would even if she could.
Even Earth X Leo suggested Sara might be in trouble with Ava, “classic courtship signals” and all.
When Sara had immediately, defensively pushed back against the very idea that Ava was interested in her or vice versa, Leo, like Amaya before him, called a spade a spade – “Little Miss Time Bureau” had disobeyed an order for her...for her.
Another sigh.
That little nugget was something that Sara could not easily dismiss. From the time they met, Ava’s sole focus was book, chapter, section, verse of the regulations. A relentless, demanding drive for perfection from herself and everyone else, particularly the Legends.
But something had changed. Even Ava’s appearance seemed more relaxed, more open.
She had willingly gone along with the Legend’s - with Sara's - plan, and she had not made any attempt to take over the mission.
She seemed to genuinely care about how Sara was dealing with Martin’s death.
Something about the way Ava had softly said Sara’s name, not the standard “Ms. Lance” had affected Sara in ways she wasn’t ready to spend too much time thinking about yet.
Of course, there was nowhere to go other than up from their beginnings of dripping disdain, ridicule, baton combat, and playing chicken with time ships.
“Captain.” Sara’s small smile at the memory of those fierce battles disappeared at the AI’s interruption.
“Yes, Gideon?”
“Your team is ready to head into the asylum. Mr. Constantine is trying to light a cigarette for the fourth time in the last thirty minutes, despite my reminders that we are a non-smoking vessel. He appears anxious to leave.”
Sara exhaled in a long, slow breath. So many things to do and so little time to herself. Perhaps that was better, though.
She pushed up from the oversized leather chair and headed to the team’s ready room.
As she donned a doctor’s white coat, Sara made a decision.
This was who she was – a time traveling superhero ready to face the darkness. She did not have the luxury or energy to think about life beyond the next few hours.
She mentally shoved Ava in the box right next to her grief for Martin and closed the lid, locking it tightly. Her mind’s wondering was a fool’s errand, a waste of mental time and space, so she slammed it shut.
Sara Lance was a badass, the kind of girl you take to an exorcism.
She was a loner who needed nothing and no one – other than the occasional few hours over/under a warm body.
Regardless of what everyone, even Gideon, was hinting at, Ava – Agent Sharpe – did not matter.
Only the mission.
Only the White Canary who lived, fought, and fucked hard, wet, fast.
No feeling.
No drama.
No regret.
No fear.
Now looking every bit the part of a mental institution doctor, Sara turned to face her Legends.
“Let’s go.”