Chapter Text
“Any news on Sara?” Ava asked, her tired, hoarse voice crawling into the silence. The ex-director leaned against the central console, looking down as the blue hologram of Gideon’s head stared at her.
“Not since you last asked, three minutes and sixteen seconds ago.” The A.I. replied, gazing at the woman’s exhausted face: the bags under her eyes, which seemed much less bright than usual; the far-too-pale skin; the usually perfect golden hair that now looked like it hadn’t been combed in a while.
She was a mess.
“Of course.” The blonde nodded, and a yawl escaped her mouth shortly after. It was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. “Gideon, can you make me some coffee at the fabricator, please? I’ll go get it in a few minutes.” She said, her gaze roaming the screen in front of her, even though the sleepiness and a particularly bad headache made it hard for her to process anything.
A long moment of silence followed her request, instead of the quick acquiescence that the woman had expected from Gideon. She looked up, finding the holographic face emanating something akin to hesitation.
Ava frowned. “Gideon?”
Finally, the A.I. spoke. “I don’t believe that to be the appropriate action.” Gideon said, and the blonde’s frown deepened. “My monitoring of your physical state informs me that your blood pressure has exceeded the healthy level, as did your body temperature.” When she spoke again, the holographic face looked almost soft. “You should rest, Captain Sharpe.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The words came out hostile, irritated, like a reflex she was unable to contain. Her body stiffened, and her hands fisted over the console, knuckles turning white.
Captain Sharpe. It sounded wrong, like something out of another universe, or even from a reality altered by an anachronism. It was wrong. The Captain title was reserved for someone else.
Someone who wasn’t around.
Not for the first time that day, Ava felt tears stinging her eyes, her shoulders trembling. She took a deep breath, trying to keep herself calm, to keep herself from crying again. Because crying like a child wouldn’t bring Sara back.
“As you wish, Ms. Sharpe.” Gideon spoke again. Ava had almost forgotten that she was still there at all.
The blonde nodded, pushing herself away from the console. The world spun around her, and Ava stumbled, falling forward. Someone caught her.
She looked up at the owner of the arms that steadied her. Nora stared back at her with distressed green eyes and a sad smile. The shorter woman was still dressed in light-blue clothes – still a fairy godmother, it seemed.
Ava blinked, not quite believing what she was seeing. “What’re you doing here?” She asked, her words a bit slurred. The sleepiness was catching up to her faster than she’d thought it would.
Nora squeezed her arm. “Nate called me.” Ava took too long to understand her friend’s soft words, maybe, but, when she did, the blonde looked over the brunette’s shoulder to find said man standing a few feet away.
Nate swallowed when he realized that she was looking at him but remained otherwise motionless, his arms crossed. There were dark circles around his eyes, almost as deep and dark as hers, and a redness in them told her that he’d been crying as well. Concern was spilling from his face.
Then, Nora squeezed her arm again, and Ava turned to her best friend. “You look like hell.” The ex-witch said, but, despite the words, her voice was soft, gentle.
“And I feel like it.” Ava even had enough experience with literal hell to compare.
She let out a bitter chuckle, remembering her experience at that place. It had happened because, just like now, she had failed to save Sara, to protect the woman she loved.
She seemed to fail at it often nowadays.
Still, she looked at Nora, at the friend she hadn’t seen in person in so long, and tried to smile. “So, how’s married life?” Ava asked, though she knew that her fake smile was convincing no one.
Nora was nice enough to humor her, even if her grin looked just as strained as Ava’s. “Like I need to tell you. You and Sara are practically married already.”
Hearing those words was like taking a knife right to the heart, and the unshed tears that had been gathering in her eyes finally spilled. Nora wiped a few of those with gentle hands, her eyes holding no judgement to the taller woman’s emotional state.
“C’mon.” The fairy godmother said in a soft voice. “You need to get some rest.” Then, Nora tried to guide her away from the console, towards Nate.
“I have to...” Ava tried to argue, but her best friend was having none of it.
Nora put her hands on both of Ava’s shoulders, forcing the blonde to look at her. “The only thing you have to do right now is sleep.” Again, the ex-director tried to argue, only for her words to die on her tongue when Nora continued to talk. “You won’t get anything done if you can’t even stand on your own.”
Ava’s shoulders sagged. There was little she could say to retort, and she knew it. So, she nodded, and Nora smiled at her, wrapping one of the ex-director’s arms around her shoulders in order to better support the weight of her exhausted body.
They had barely taken three steps when the ex-witch found reason to complain, though her voice tried to sound playful. “When did you get so heavy? Nate!” She called, looking at the man ahead.
He rushed to them. “I’m on it!” The historian then took Ava in his arms, bridal style, and while normally she would complain, she was too tired to do so right now.
So, Ava let Nate take her to hers and Sara’s quarters, Nora following closely behind. Finally, the man laid her on her bed – her bed that was far too big without Sara on it – and stood beside it with the ex-witch.
“Now, sleep. We’ll wake you up if we find something.” The fairy godmother promised.
Ava frowned. “You’re staying?”
“Of course I am, and so is Ray.” The brunette rolled her eyes, as if offended that Ava would even think otherwise. “It looks like you need all the help you can get, and we can’t just do nothing.”
Ava eyed her best friend’s blue clothing through a blurred vision, remembering something.
“What about the kids?” The ex-director asked. Nora was a fairy godmother, and a busy one at that. Could she really afford to simply take off?
“I’ll manage.” The shorter woman shrugged. “Now, sleep.”
Ava shuddered at the idea. There was a reason why she had preferred working herself to the bone instead of taking a simple nap – other than finding Sara as quickly as possible, of course. She could still see it in her dreams, the love of her life being torn apart by zombies, being snatched away by aliens.
She didn’t want to see it again. She didn’t want to sleep.
“I can’t...” Ava tried to say, but Nora interrupted her by producing her shiny blue and silver wand.
“Nate.” The fairy godmother called, turning to the silent historian.
“I wish for Ava to sleep.” The words had barely left his mouth when Ava felt herself sinking into a peaceful, dreamless rest.
- LOT -
“SARA!”
Ava shot up from the bed at the sound of the piercing scream. It took her far more time than it should’ve to realize that it was her own, leaving her with a sore throat. She reached for the other side of the bed, finding it empty once again.
It was times such as these that made her miss Sara the most. She missed the way the tiny assassin’s arms felt around her, missed the smaller blonde’s gentle words of reassurance, missed those most beautiful blue eyes, inside which she could simply lose herself forever.
She just missed Sara and wished for her to come back, to be safe and happy with their little family of misfits. Ava wished to take her girlfriend in her arms and never let go. She wished...
The former director of the Time Bureau stopped herself, a sudden idea shining light into her brain.
Wish.
“Gideon, where’s Nora?” She asked, already kicking the sheets away. Nate and Nora hadn’t bothered to change her clothes and, still dressed in her rumpled pantsuit, Ava got up.
The answer came almost immediately. “Mrs. Darhk is with the team at the galley, Ms. Sharpe.”
Ava nodded and left the room with newfound purpose, walking through the unusually silent corridors of the Waverider until she reached her destination.
She found all the Legends gathered around the big round table, uncharacteristically quiet. Behrad nibbled on a donut with little enthusiasm, and Mick was, as usual, drinking his beer, but the rest of the team seemed less than interested in food or drink.
Ava wasn't the only one who was missing Sara, after all.
Upon noticing the presence of the newcomer, Nora stood up and rushed to her. Only then did the others notice Ava’s arrival.
“Hey, did you sleep well?” Nora asked, rubbing Ava’s arm.
The ex-director took a deep breath. “Can you bring her back?” She asked, seeing the other woman paralyze at the question. It should have been enough of an answer, but she still refused to give up on her brief glimpse of hope. “What if- what if we wish for Sara to come back? Can you do that?”
Nora looked away, as if she couldn’t bear to see the vain hope in her best friend’s eyes destroyed, and Ava felt her heart break all over again.
“We tried that already, while you were sleeping.” Nate’s voice was little more than a whisper, and Ava turned to him. The man had his head down, shoulders slumped, his arms on the table.
She had never seen him so defeated. She had never seen the Legends so defeated.
“Something’s interfering with my magic.” Nora explained.
Ava took a deep breath. “Great.” Her voice trembled, and she felt herself on the verge of crying. Again.
Nora put a hand on her shoulder, catching Ava’s attention. “Hey, don’t lose hope. Sara is out there somewhere, and there’s no way in hell she’s not looking for a way to come back to you.”
Despite everything, Ava nodded. She knew of Sara’s abilities and knew that the other woman was no damsel in distress. Still... aliens? Who knew what they were capable of? Even then, she figured that she ought to have some faith in her girlfriend, who had survived demons and gods alike.
If someone could get through this, it was her Sara. Or that was what she was trying to convince herself of.
Finally, the former director let Nora pull her toward the table, and she took the vacant seat between the fairy godmother and Constantine. No one said a word, and the heavy silence was only broken when Mick got up and went to the fabricator, coming back with two bottles of beer.
He offered one to Ava, and the woman shook her head, remembering the intoxicated state she had been in when her girlfriend was abducted. “Thanks, Mickey, but I don’t think I’ll be drinking again any time soon.”
The man stared at her for a short moment, frowning, but finally he nodded and went back to his seat between Nate and Astra. Tension filled the air, making it heavy, almost suffocating.
Nate, sitting not too far away from Ava, broke the silence. “You... you know that what happened wasn’t your fault...” He looked at the former director, his eyes full of worry. “Don’t you, Ava?”
She kept quiet, knowing that her voice would break if she tried to talk. It was answer enough.
Behrad, sitting between Zari and Astra, tried to reach for her hand, but he was too far away. “Hey, it wasn’t your fault.” He still said, sounding so confident that she almost managed to believe him.
Almost.
“Who else’s would it be?” Ava’s soft whisper sounded like a scream in the tense silence.
Constantine, of all people, put a hand on her shoulder. “Sharpie...”
She knew what he was going to say. The same thing Behrad and Nate had told her, the very same thing she couldn’t bring herself to believe. Because she needed someone to blame, and who could she blame other than herself?
“She was right behind us!” Ava finally snapped, interrupting John before he could speak another word. Everyone, even Mick and Astra, looked at her with wide eyes. “She was abducted right under my nose and I didn’t even notice it!”
Nothing was as clear in her mind as the memory of the footage that Gideon had shown her. Sara, being taken away by an unknown blueish light as the other Legends, including Ava herself, went on without her.
Why hadn't Ava turned around? Why hadn't she noticed that her girlfriend was missing?
Why hadn't she been able to save her?
Constantine squeezed her shoulder a bit too hard, and she almost flinched. Then, she turned to him.
“What the bloody hell do you think you could have done?” He questioned, sounding irritated, but no aggressive intonation could hide the mixture of sympathy and pain she saw in his eyes.
She looked away and grabbed her own hair. “I don’t know! Something, anything!” The ex-director took a deep breath. She couldn’t cry, couldn’t cry – not again, not right now. “She was drunk, and she was confused, and she...”
Ava remembered the image of Sara floating away, her short legs moving as if she were still trying to walk. She doubted that her girlfriend had even understood what was happening at the time, and it made everything even worse.
She sighed. “I should’ve done something. I should’ve protected her.”
It always came down to that. Her absolute inability to be a good girlfriend, to protect Sara like the shorter woman did for her. How could the captain have fallen in love with someone like her?
A hand was placed over hers on the table, and Ava turned to Ray, who sat on the other side of Nora. He proceeded to speak with his gentle, calming voice. “Ava, you can’t possibly think...”
Someone interrupted him, and it wasn’t Ava.
“Do you blame us?” Zari, who was sitting between John and Behrad, asked, her voice like steel.
Ava turned to her, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline. “What?”
“Do you blame us?” The shorter woman repeated. “For letting Sara get abducted?”
Ava’s response was immediate. “No! Of course not.”
How could she? They were all as drunk and/or high as Sara. How could they have noticed?
Zari continued to speak; her voice still steady “Because we were all there. I wasn’t even drunk or high like you guys were, Ava. And I didn’t notice anything.” The ex-director’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to find a retort, and Zari went on. “We had just defeated literal gods and saved the world. What reason did we have to even think aliens would go around kidnapping people that night?” The former celebrity sighed. “If what happened to Sara is your fault, then it’s ours too.”
Ava stared at the other woman, speechless, and her suddenly empty mind didn’t seem capable of providing an argument. So, she remained silent and leaned her head against Nora’s when the fairy godmother rested her head on the ex-director’s shoulder. Constantine squeezed her arm once more, and she then put a hand over his.
Maybe it wasn’t the time to look for someone to blame, and maybe, just maybe, there was no one to blame at all.
The silence remained, interrupted only by the noise of Mick still drinking his beer. Nate had laid his head on his arms, which were crossed over the table, and Ray put a hand on his shoulder while his free arm was around Nora’s shoulders. Behrad had abandoned his half-eaten donut. Astra was just quiet, and she avoided looking at Ava – most probably, the other woman simply didn’t know what to say, and the ex-director couldn’t fault her for that. Zari, for her part, was leaning on Constantine, who kept an arm around her shoulders.
None of them were fine. Sara was the very soul of the team and, without her, they were all just... lost.
Still, they had to get through this. And they would. Together.
- LOT -
Ava woke up screaming again, her skin coated in cold sweat. She reached for the other side of the bed, but her fingers grasped empty sheets. Sara was nowhere to be found, hadn’t been in a while.
Breath in. Breath out. Ava told herself, trying to calm her ragged breathing.
Tears gathered in the blonde’s eyes. Her nightmare had changed – it had started like a dream, with her being able to reach Sara and save her from the zombies. Happiness had bubbled inside her as she finally took the tiny assassin in her arms, holding her like she never wanted to let go.
Breath in. Breath out.
But, then... then she couldn’t move, paralysis turning her entire body into stone.
Breath in...
And unhuman hands grabbed Sara, pulling her away, taking her to somewhere Ava couldn’t ever follow. Sara vanished in thin air, looking at her girlfriend one last time with a mix of betrayal and pain in those beautiful blue eyes, and Ava was left alone in the dark.
Breath... out...
Alone. Useless. Unable to protect the woman she loved.
Breath...
She was crying, every sob ravaging her trembling body. The former director sat up and pulled her legs closer, hugging them to her chest. Tears slid copiously down her face, like an endless waterfall.
Three knocks on the door made her look up. She considered sending whoever it was away – quite honestly, she didn’t have the emotional stability to deal with anyone right now, not even a Legend – but stopped herself at the last moment. What if this was about Sara?
A tentative hope blossomed in Ava's chest, and she forced herself to take a deep breath and wipe her tear-stained face quickly. “Come in!” She said, and the doors opened soon after.
Nate stood in the doorway, his arms around his own body. He was wearing his Steel pajamas, a product of the Legends’ brief experience with fame.
“Is it Sara?” Ava asked, although her hope was already waning. Nate would be far more joyful if he had any good news about their captain.
“No.” He shook his head, looking apologetic. “Sorry, Ava. There’s still nothing. I just-” He looked away, uncomfortable. His following words were nothing more than a brittle whisper. “I heard you screaming.”
He sounded worried, and she hid her face in her hands. No one was supposed to know about the nightmares.
“Did I wake you up?” She asked. His quarters were far from her own, but, if he had heard it, then so did the rest of the Legends. The possibility made her wince.
He took a step into the room, and the lights finally came on. “No, I...” He took a deep breath, and Ava looked up. Nate stared at her with tired eyes and the face of someone who had recently cried. “I was just taking a walk, and I heard you.”
He didn’t sound or look fine. Ava wasn’t the only one who had lost someone recently, after all.
She felt her body relax a little, despite everything. “Can’t sleep?” The ex-director asked, her voice as soft as she could possibly manage, and as gentle as he deserved from her.
His answering smile was a broken little thing. “Neither can you, it seems.”
Ava chuckled, though the sound appeared melancholic even to her own ears. She then tapped the empty side of the bed in a silent request, which he was quick to obey. The mattress dipped under his weight, and the duo stood there, sitting together in the silent room.
She looked at him, finding his sadness far too similar to her own. “Want to talk?” Nate didn’t reply, and she saw him take a deep breath to keep himself from crying. Ava frowned and moved closer to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?” She asked.
Because talking about someone else’s feelings was far better than discussing her own.
Because she cared about Nate – he was like the little brother she had never really wanted but was stuck with anyway, and she was happy for that. He annoyed the hell out of her at times, like when he made her listen to the song-that-shall-not-be-named (baby move your butt, butt, butt) and she ended up with it stuck in her head for hours. Still, there was little she wouldn’t do for him, and she knew he felt the same.
“I am.” Nate said, and it must have shown in Ava’s face that she didn’t believe him, because he sighed. “I mean, I’m trying to be. This is what she always wanted: to save her family, to save B. And she did it.” The smile that appeared on his face wasn’t fake, but it wasn’t joyful either.
Ava squeezed his shoulder, encouraging him to continue.
He wiped away the tears that had started to flow. “And I’m happy for her, I’m seriously so damn proud of her, because this was her dream, but I just...” He swallowed, his next words dying on his tongue.
She knew what he meant, to some extent. Ava was closer to Zari Tarazi than she had been to Zari Tomaz, but, while she had grown to love Zari in all her somewhat eccentric diva glory, she was no replacement for Z and her snarky, donut-loving self.
“You miss her.” It wasn’t a question, but Nate still nodded. “I miss her too.”
Suddenly, it felt like they had lost far too many Legends in so little time: Charlie had returned to their band; Ray and Nora had left to live their married life, even though they had gone back temporarily; Z had returned to the air totem in order to save her brother; Sara had been abducted by freaking aliens.
She didn’t understand how this had happened.
Nate cleared his throat, and Ava turned to him again. “Getting my memories of her back is great, but it also... it sucks. I wouldn’t want to live without them, but... it kinda hurts.” The ex-director felt for him, and she grabbed his hand in support. “I should be used to it by now.”
Ava frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I keep falling in love with people who have to leave me.” Nate explained, and Ava was reminded that it wasn’t the first time something like this happened to him. “Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade the time I had with Z for anything in the entire universe.” Even now, he still smiled thinking about her, though the smile was short-lived. “I just wish...” that she hadn’t had to leave me.
She didn't know how to answer that, so she squeezed his hand in support.
“You’ll find someone.” She found herself saying before she could stop herself. “I know it, because... because I did.” He stared at her, confused, and she tried to smile. “I never thought I would fall in love, Nate. I don’t think it was something that Rip had planned for me.”
Then, she grinned to herself, remembering the wonderful woman who had changed that.
“But I found Sara.” Remembering her hurt, because it meant remembering that she wasn’t around, but it was also everything that kept Ava going. “And she was such a pain in my ass at the start, but then...” She took a deep breath. “Then I woke up one day, and I couldn’t imagine a world without her.”
It was hard to pinpoint the moment she fell in love with Sara. Ava had started to respect her when the former assassin handed Rip over to the Time Bureau. A while after that, she had felt the need to express her condolences to Sara when Dr. Martin Stein died, because, despite their different methods of handling the same job, Ava had known even then that Sara loved and valued her team more than anything. And then, the taller woman disobeyed orders to save the tiny assassin.
And everything went on from there.
It felt like so long ago.
Ava took a deep breath, and she turned to Nate again. The smile that appeared on her face was still smeared with sadness, but it was also full of hope.
“Nate, I’m a clone.” She said, and he nodded in confusion. “I’m a clone from the future, programmed to not have emotions, at all. And now I’m in love with the most beautiful, selfless and strong woman I ever had the luck to meet.”
Sometimes, Ava felt like she didn’t deserve Sara, like the captain would be better-off with someone else, someone better. Still, the ex-director would love the former assassin for as long as she was allowed to, because there was no feeling in the world that compared to being able to love Sara Lance.
And she wished her friend would find something like that.
“You’ll find someone too.” She found herself promising him. “Someone who won’t have to leave you.”
Because, if Ava, who hadn’t even been created for the prospect of love, could find it, why couldn’t this hopeless romantic of a historian?
Nate nodded, a small smile appearing on his face, even as tears continued to slide down his cheeks. “Thanks, Ava.” He said, his voice slightly hoarse, and he squeezed her hand.
She nodded, silent. Then, the man stood up, always slower than he could be, hesitant, and he started to walk out of the room.
Ava stopped him. “Do you want to stay?” She asked on a whim but found that the prospect was better than being alone. The room was far too big and too dark without Sara. “We could talk until we fall asleep.”
An easy smile appeared again on Nate’s face, replacing the previous sadness, and he pointed a finger at her. “Hold that thought.” Then, he turned around and left in a hurry.
Ava blinked.
It took about twenty minutes for Nate to come back, his shiny steel form dragging a mattress into the room. Ava immediately recognized the brand name sewn on the side of it, and the ex-director found herself smiling despite everything. It was the one from the promo code on her podcast.
“You actually bought it?” She asked, her eyebrows shooting to the hairline.
He dropped the mattress beside the bed. “It was a great discount.” He spoke, steel turning to flesh again.
Ava chuckled, and she found that her chest didn’t feel as heavy. “Where did you get the money?” The blonde had barely asked the question when the answer appeared on her mind, and she replied at the same time Nate did:
“Mick.”
Both of them laughed softly, and when the sound faded, Nate left the room again, announcing his need to go get his pillow and covers. He returned not long after that, throwing himself on the mattress without a care in the world.
The silence returned and, with it, the weight of the memories and the pain attached to it. Ava couldn’t bring herself to be the first to talk, mostly because she didn’t know what to say.
“So, I was thinking...” Nate broke the silence, and Ava mentally thanked him for doing so. “Gilles de Rais.” He said, in an actual decent French accent, and the blonde turned on her side and rested her head on her hand, looking at him. She raised an eyebrow at the man who was beaming at her. “He served as a commander in the French army during the Hundred Years’ War. Like, he even fought alongside Jeanne D’Arc!” Again, his French pronounce of the name was passable. “But, after the war was over, he was accused of murdering, like, hundreds of children. He’d make for a good theme for an episode. You could even make a miniseries about historical figures, and...”
Nate kept rambling; his voice filled with infectious enthusiasm. Ava knew what he was doing, of course. Talking about StabCast and planning its new episodes with so much passion – he wanted to distract her, and maybe even distract himself.
She didn’t call him out on it. Instead, Ava found herself smiling through unshed tears and listening intently to his ideas, even presenting some of her own.
The pain in her chest was still there, heavy and burning a hole into her soul. Still, she could survive one more night – for the Legends, for Sara, and for herself.
- LOT -
“There’s an incoming transmission from an unknown source, Ms. Sharpe.”
Ava sighed, feeling a familiar headache make its comeback. She pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering what threat to the timeline would be thrown at her now. Standing in front of the console and beside the ex-director, Nate was the one to speak.
“Put it on, Gideon.”
Blue eyes snapped up when a familiar voice filled the silence.
“Hey, guys, it’s me. So, you better have noticed already, but I was kinda kidnapped by aliens...”