Chapter Text
Eadlyn- 12
Maeve- 9
Ada- 7-8
“But mom,” Ada whined as she stuck her head out from the pillow fort she had created.
“Ada, you need to go to bed; it’s really late. Eady and Maeve are already asleep,” Ava sighed from her seat on the couch. She leaned her head back and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was exhausted from the summer heat and parenting the three kids by herself for the past week while Sara was on a mission with the Legends to return Balto to Alaska during the diphtheria outbreak in the 1920s.
“Mama promised she’d be back tonight,” Ada cried.
“I know,” Ava whispered as she knelt down beside her youngest child, “but you know sometimes missions go longer than expected.”
Ada nodded and sat in silence for a moment gloomily looking down at her hands that were fidgeting in her lap.
Ava looked down sadly at her daughter before standing, “follow me,” she said, using her head to gesture towards the kitchen.
Ava grabbed a pen out of the drawer and ripped a piece of paper off the magnetic notepad stuck to the fridge. She handed the pen and paper to Ada and sat her down at the table.
“What’s this for,” Ada’s asked, her head tilting in wonder.
“I think you should write mama a note that you can leave for her so she will see it when she gets home.”
Ada smiled and lifted the pen to begin writing, her eyebrows creased in concentration and mouth slightly agape.
When Ada finished, she put the pen down and folded the paper. She headed upstairs, Ava following behind, shutting off all the lights except for the one by the door so Sara could see and walked into the master bedroom. Ada strategically placed the letter on Sara’s nightstand so she would see it.
She stood staring at the note until Ava gently wrapped her arms around her and kissed her cheek, “You ready for bed Ada-bear?”
She nodded, walking into her room so Ava could put her to bed.
When she finally got Ada to sleep, Ava changed into pajamas and collapsed onto her side of the bed after the long week, staring at the empty space beside her, wishing Sara were there cuddled in her arms.
Sara portalled outside the front door of their house close to two in the morning. She quietly unlocked the door and trudged gracefully up the stairs. She quietly placed her bag on the ground, careful not to wake her sleeping wife, and headed to the bathroom for a quick shower. When she exited the bathroom, she collapsed into bed and noticed her wife was smiling at her.
“Hi, my love,” Ava said, her eyes glistening in the light from the lamp.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” Sara whispered.
“I never sleep well when you aren’t here.” Ava wrapped her arms around her wife breathing in the scent of her shampoo.
“What’s this?” Sara wondered, noticing the folded paper sitting on her nightstand.
“Ada wanted to wait up for you, but it was late, so she wrote you a note instead.”
Sara picked up the paper, a smiled creeping onto her face as she read it. She opened her nightstand drawer and found a piece of scrap paper and colored pencil she had picked up off the floor about a week ago after one of her daughters had dropped it. She quickly wrote back and placed it on her nightstand to leave for Ada in the morning. She shut off the lamplight and curled into Ava’s embrace, both getting the best night’s sleep they’d had in the past week.
Despite coming home late, Sara woke early. She reached her arm out finding the other side of the bed cold. She got up and placed the note outside Ada’s closed- door before heading downstairs to see her wife sipping coffee and filling out the morning crossword puzzle. She took a seat beside her wife placing her head on her shoulder looking at the puzzle she was working on.
“How did you sleep?” Ava asked. Putting the paper down and resting her cheek on top of Sara’s head.
“Better than I have all week.”
“Me too.”
They sat in silence, enjoying the morning until they hear a pair of feet barreling down the stairs, jumping down the last few steps, and sprinting into the living room.
“You got my letter,” Ada yelled as she jumped into Sara’s arms, the note Sara had written back to her still in hand.
“I did. I missed you Ada- bear,” she whispered, hugging Ada tight and burring her head into the crook of her shoulder.
“I missed you too.”
Two more pairs of footsteps running down the steps caused the three of them to look over their shoulders towards the hallway. The two eldest daughters turned the corner into the living room and ran over to Sara to greet her, huge smiles on their faces.
Later that day, Ada taped the note Sara had left her on the wall next to her bed, still excited that Sara had written back.
As the day’s went on, Sara and Ava forgot about the note exchange; that is, until later that week. It was late Thursday afternoon and Ava was having a particularly rough day at the Time Bureau. She was impatiently setting up a PowerPoint presentation for her budget meeting to make sure there would be no blips. She reached into her bag to take out her folder filled with graphs, charts, and notes when she noticed a scrap piece of paper tucked inside the folder pocket. When she picked it up, she recognized Ada’s handwriting and read the script, “Have fun at work, mommy. I love you.” Ava couldn’t help the goofy grin that appeared on her face as she carefully placed the note in her pocket, giving her the energy to make it through the rest of the day.
When she arrived home, she grabbed a spare index card and responded, “I love you too Ada-bear,” before placing it on her pillow so she would see it when she went to bed.
It happened again the next morning when Sara noticed another note on the coffee machine. She grabbed a sticky note and wrote Ada a message back, placing it on the cup she left on the counter so she would see it when she woke up.
The trend went on for over a month, Ada leaving notes around the house for all her family members to find, and they all inevitably wrote back. Ada saved all the random, sticky notes, index cards, and scrap pieces of paper filled with messages from her family and taped them to the wall next to her bed.
A few weeks before her 8th birthday, Ava noticed how full the wall was getting, “You’ve got a lot of notes, honey.”
“I know, I’m going to have to start using another wall,” Ada responded, climbing under the covers.
“Hey,” Sara started softly, “Your birthday is coming up, do you know what gift you want or what you want to do?”
“I want my own special note pads so that I can keep writing you notes,” Ada smiled as she looked up at her mom’s.
At that, Ava could almost feel her heart start to melt away at the adorable request and Sara couldn’t help but grin widely.
“We can do that,” Ava smiled, placing a kiss on Ada’s forehead, “Good night, Ada.”
As her birthday drew closer, Ada’s excitement became less and less contained. She had picked out a cake, sent out the invitations, and decided on some decorations. Finally, it was the night before her eighth birthday and Ada was baltering around the house, shouting the lyrics to Taylor Swift songs.
“Please make her stop,” Eadlyn whined to her moms’ using the couch pillows to cover her ears, “Me and Maeve are trying to watch a movie.”
Sara sighs and turns to look at Maeve who was holding her hands over her ears and nodding in agreement with Eadlyn. She rises from the couch and starts to stretch her arms and legs.
She finally walks over to Ada and lightly places her hand on Ada’s shoulders causing her to stop singing and look up at Sara.
“Follow me,” Sara explained gesturing towards the mudroom, and started putting her shoes on, “We’re racing in the driveway.”
“Okay!” Ada exclaimed and tugged her sneakers over her socks before racing out the front door.
After realizing racing Ada up and down the driveway was an effective way of tiring the little girl out on Christmas Eve almost four years earlier, Sara had used it any time she needed the energetic child to calm down, but with her getting older, Sara and Ava weren’t sure how much longer the method would last.
While Sara was outside with Ada, Ava sat on the couch between Maeve and Eadlyn, to watch the movie with them.
When Sara was finally able to get Ada to bed, she joined the rest of her family on the couch. When the movie ended, and the two eldest kids went to bed, Sara and Ava collapsed into their own bed.
The next afternoon, Ava was setting food on the table when Ada ran up to her, “What time are my friends coming.”
“Any minute,” Ava responded looking up at the clock.
Ada had been beyond excited all morning for the activities she had planned. When Sara and Ava initially asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday, she wanted to have it on the Waverider, but the proposition was firmly shut down the leaving the girl at a loss of ideas. She enlisted the help of Maeve and Eadlyn who had helped her decided on a scavenger hunt through the woods behind their house until they reached the ice cream shop on the other side. Sara and Ava had planned out the clues for a week and refused to give any intel to Eadlyn, no matter how many times she asked, knowing she was going to want to participate.
When all Ada’s friends had arrived, they split into two teams and took off laughing towards the woods following the instructions Sara and Ava had left.
Sara and Ava walked hand in hand through the woods, towards the ice cream shop while the kids ran through the woods trying to decipher the clues they had left. They placed a birthday tablecloth on one of the picnic tables and waited for the teams to finish. Eventually, the team containing both Ada and Maeve came barreling out of the woods, exclaiming that they had won while Eadlyn’s team was running after them. Everyone’s faces were red and were heavily breathing by the time they reached Sara and Ava.
They were all able to pick out their ice cream flavors and eat at the picnic table before they all walked back to the house so Ada could open her gifts and play with her friends before their parents came to pick them up.
That night, after dinner, Sara and Ava gave Ada the gifts they had gotten her. She opened the wrapped box to reveal a coloring book that she wanted as well as different notepad designs with her name printed at the top and a corkboard, “To pin up all the notes you have,” Ava explained.
“Thank you! I love them!” Ada exclaimed and jumped up to hug her moms’.
That night, when Sara and Ava walked into their room, they noticed one of Ada’s new notepad papers sitting on their bed reading, “Thank you for the gifts and the party. I love you. Love, Ada.”