Chapter Text
It was nice, Sara had to admit. Pleasant.
Okay, beyond pleasant. It was…relaxing. Peaceful. A warm dip in contentment.
Now that she and Ava had come to a sort of understanding, the agent relaxed, bantering back and forth with Sara late into the night, making sure they were the last to retire. By now, Sara had no qualms about sleeping face-to-face with the woman, as their mutual admission brought them to a sort of agreeable co-existence that Sara didn’t quite know the word for. She had already been giving Ava a heck of a lot of leeway, a level of trust only reserved for those closest to her. If she had been having panic issues in front of her team, or anyone else from the time bureau, she most certainly would never admit to it, distancing herself from the other person as much as possible. The mask of leadership was often the heaviest part of her ensemble.
But this was different. This was someone she cared for.
Sara smiled over at Ava, who was preparing a shelter off in the woods for them to hide in when the Vikings packed up to go home. Eriksson at least allowed his crew to take their time getting ready for a voyage, as they seemed to take quite awhile to prepare. The time travelers, meanwhile, had already squirreled away the possessions of one dead Viking family entirely: weapons, hunting tools, cooking tools, clothes, blankets, preserved foods, a wooden flute, and a miniature Oden that someone had carved out of wood.
Ava assumed Sara was hanging into that one ironically, making a face, but letting her throw the souvenir in their stock.
The woman really was a lifesaver. The longer they co-existed for, the less Sara was upset about being stranded, feeling prepared to face anything as part of a pair.
The two were hiding their loot in a trench the two had been digging while the Vikings practiced battle techniques, knowing nobody would hear someone digging out in the woods over swords clashing with shields and the grunts and yells of a good fight.
Until the pair could hear clearly someone walking away from the ruckus, and back towards their part of the settlement. Ava quickly moved to duck behind a bush, motioning for Sara to follow, who amazed Ava with her ability to not only dive behind the giant shrub, but to do so silently. Sara was praised with raised eyebrows from Ava, and a finger across her lips in a “shhh” position.
It wasn’t lost on Sara that the finger lingered against her lips a second longer than necessary.
The two could clearly see Freydis sneaking out to the clearing where the repairs on the sails had begun, hanging upright from the trees to show off the craftsmanship.
The blonde pair had a front row seat to watch the Viking sibling take out her hunting knife, re-ripping the sails, ensuring they were no longer ocean-ready, before sneaking back to where the rest of the Vikings were enjoying their afternoon.
“Huh.” Sara said, once the woman was out of earshot. “I guess someone has decided they’re not giving up on celebrating Beebo Day so easily.” Ava flopped down, relaxing. At least whatever Freydis was up to seemed to be buying them plenty of time.
“Gideon, update please!” Amaya was trying not to lose her patience at the ship, as even though she was aware that she was conversing with artificial intelligence, she was still fairly certain that it had feelings.
“Almost done. We’re at ninety percent. We should be able to perform an extraction in less than an hour.”
Even Zari’s ears perked up at that answer, meeting eyes with Amaya.
It was the third time in a row that when prompted Gideon provided that exact response verbatim, and it had been well, over an hour, almost three.
“Something’s wrong.” Amaya said out loud, at this point unsure if it was directed at Gideon or Zari. The hacker got up from her work on her handheld signal mixer, pushing buttons in front of Amaya.
“Well, you are correct. Gideon is stalled out. She hasn’t made any progress past here at all.” Zari pointed to the bar that showed on Amaya’s screen what files had been corrected, with still quite a few to go.
“Well, what hasn’t been repaired yet?”
“Good question. What are the chances Jax is awake yet?”
“Slim to none.” Nate said, coming out from the Medbay area, Ray following close behind, one finger in his ear signaling that he’s still monitoring Ava and Sara as instructed. “We just checked. He’s still out cold. I don’t know if Gideon’s actually healing him at all, so I put an ice pack on where he was knocked out.”
Amaya really wanted to go punch out Mick herself, as this would be the most necessary time for the ship’s mechanic to be conscious.
“Well, then we know the overall repair to time jump is stalled. And the files that haven’t been repaired yet must also control the Medbay. What else isn’t working properly?” Amaya asked.
“On it.” Zari synced her handheld to the mainframe, looking to see what systems weren’t a hundred percent active.
“Ah. That’s nice.” Ray said, breaking the silence as they all waited, hand moving to press his comm piece. “Ava thinks Sara’s ‘angry at the Vikings’ face is cute. Annnnd Sara just threatened to smother her with a sail. Gosh, the reception on this thing is great. It’s like I can hear the Captain pouting through--”
“Can it, Ray. We’ve got bigger problems.” Zari said, sending the image of the ship’s schematics from the initial scan to the big screen. “The ten percent left unrepaired also includes the air system.”
“Well, I can live without air conditioning for a day. What’s the big deal?” Nate asks, opening a candy bar, not seeming overly interested in the image before them.
“Not the temperature control system, Nate. The actual air we breathe. According to this, the carbon dioxide removal assembly, whatever that is, this,” she points to a red circle on the schematic, “only has enough whatchamacallits attached to the—this…thingie bit for the day. After that, no clean air, which…”
“There is none of in the temporal zone.” Amaya was starting to understand why Zari’s eyes were bulging out of her head. “Okay team, new emergency. If we don’t figure out how to finish Gideon’s repairs manually, at some point, we’ll no longer be able to breathe.”
“Ugh. Sara, yes.” Ava growled out, amazed at the woman’s skills. However, she was too caught up in what she was feeling to elaborate further.
“Care to further doubt my skills?” Sara said, squeezing harder on just the right spot on Ava’s palm.
“Mmm. Nope. Nope, never again. That is amazing.” Sara smiled, seeing Ava with her head thrown back, eyes closed.
“Well, you’re in for a treat them. This spot is a meridian that connects directly with your lower back, so if you rub it just so…” Sara stopped to chuckle at Ava’s eyes rolling back into her head, giving the woman a “shush, you” when she realized she was moaning loudly.
“I’ve gotta say, Sara, if I knew the League taught self-massage pressure points, I’d have considered joining.” Ava chuckled, keeping the smile on her face.
“No, you wouldn’t.” Sara laughed, still massaging the spot on Ava’s left hand, as the woman made no move to take her hand back.
“No, probably not. I’m guessing the rest wasn’t a spa.”
“Incidentally, we did also soak in the hot springs, but you had to earn that right. And no, you don’t want to know how. I promise.” Sara realized that she was no longer applying her thumb to the pressure point, simply keeping Ava’s hand in her own.
The look that Ava gave her sent Sara into a pure state of heaven. The taller blonde’s head was thrown back from laughing, hair down, cascading in soft waves. Her eyes were alive, smiling back at Sara. It was a far cry from the woman who actually had the nerve to complain when being rescued from Julius Cesar.
The truth was, Ava wasn’t just some uptight bun with a permanent scowl. She was gorgeous.
“What? No military secrets to share? Come on. What was all that special time bureau training for?”
Ava bit her lip in thought, letting Sara continue holding her hand. She had a split second to decide how far she was willing to push it with Sara. She knew better than to push it too far, after all they were still technically in the field. She knew the dangers that being in an enclosed, forced environment and how they could create a false reality bubble.
But then there was Sara, whom she had to admit to herself she had more than a little crush on, but thought she had been controlling it extremely well, until a freckled hand that was both rough and soft was massaging her palm, and the body attached to that palm had been moving closer and closer every few minutes until they were right next to each other.
Ava decided that for the rest of the time they were stranded, she was engaging in a field operation known in her head as “fuck it mode”.
“Well, maybe there is something…” Sara watched as Ava licked her lips, the woman leaning closer. She mirrored Ava, also closing her eyes, more than ready.
She let out a gasp when she realized that Ava wasn’t leaning in for a kiss. At least, not on her lips. The agent had found her way to Sara’s neck, lips pressing down on a specific spot before she heard Ava whisper a husky, “Right here.”
Sara thought she was going to lose consciousness when she felt Ava lick the spot on her neck, then nip gently, and then suck, shooting pleasure signals down her spine. Even Sara would have to admit that Ava's mouth was showing more skill than she had at, well, anything, feeling the suction that made her head swim.
“Whoa. Ava.” Sara gasped out, wrapping her arms around the back of Ava’s head, fingers tangling in the hair at the base of the agent’s spine, keeping her in place. Sara loved neck kisses, always a sensitive spot for her. But what Ava was doing, the specific pressure she was using, on a spot not quite at the base and just a bit to the back—it was clear that Ava had made expert markswoman in at least some activities in her past.
It was clear to the assassin that Ava had most certainly learned of a specific pressure point, as she gripped onto Ava, feeling her body turn into jello for woman. Sara had happily played many women’s bodies, but it was rare that someone was able to do this to her. Fingertips gripped and released, gripping and releasing again, pulsing through Ava’s hair.
Only once Ava was sure Sara was thoroughly putty in her hands, did she pull back, not even trying to hide her smug grin of victory.
“You learned that in the military?” Sara asked, eyes still closed, catching her breath.
“Nope. Marcy McNagel. Tenth grade dance. But I get all the credit for perfecting that move over the years.”
“Okay, we’re going to need to think fast.” Amaya paced in front of her crew, having no idea what to do about the potential suffocation. She was tempted to crowd everyone into the jump ship, push a bunch of random buttons, and hope for the best, but she knew the chances of the jump ship being operable if the rest of the ship wasn’t, well…Amaya knew better.
“Alright. I don’t know how to fix the ship. But we’re going to have to figure out how. Ray and Zari—I’d like you to try to work together to boost the signal with Ava’s comm piece. Whatever you can do—add in so you can hear Sara’s or a full portal to their time couriers, any progress is better than nothing. If worse comes to worse and you can open a time courier portal, we can jump back to the Vikings. It’s better than staying here with no air.” The two knew better than to argue with Amaya in Captain mode, so they left as soon as she finished.
“Nate, I need you to go through all of the books in the Captain’s office and library and see if you can find a ship’s manual anywhere. Start with the rolled parchments on the side. Mick! Leo!” Amaya yelled, waiting for the two men to enter the main chamber, snarling at each other upon arrival. “You two are on Jefferson duty. Mick, it’s your fault the one guy who can save us right now is knocked out cold, so you are responsible for being his medic.”
“Why do I have to go?” Leonard snarled, still giving the evil eye to Mick.
“Fire and ice. Two things that go well with injuries. You both need to figure it out. And if there is any fighting, I swear you two will be the last to get any oxygen if we don’t solve this problem in time. Go!”
Amaya waited until they were all on assignment, before pulling up her browser tab.
First, google chrome.
Then, googling “how to fix a carbon dioxide filter on a ship.”