Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“No!  No, no, no, no.  NO.  This is not happening again!”  Sara all but screamed, kicking a rock across the beachfront.  “I can’t believe this is happening again!” 

Ava had no response, simply watching the Waverider depart the Viking settlement. 

Without them. 

“They’ll come back…right?  They know where we are, it should only take a minute or two to notice we’re not on board.” 

“Right.  That’s what I thought last time.  Before I was stranded in 1958, and wasn’t picked up for two years.  Shit!”  Sara kicked another rock. 

“You’ve been stranded in time before?”  Ava asked, genuinely surprised.  As much information as she had on the “roving band of idiots”, as she had previously been calling Sara’s team, that had never come up.  Not that she was surprised; once retrieved it would only appear on the current timeline as though Sara was gone for a few minutes, not two years.  Rip must have covered their error well. 

“I was.”  Sara nodded, looking longingly up at the sky, letting out a deep exhale.  “They’ll come back.  They will.  I just hope it doesn’t take two years this time.” 

The Time Bureau agent simply nodded, unsure of what to say.  It wasn’t as though she could offer anything in the way of comfort.  She saw what happened to the ship from Damien Darhk’s lightning attack, before he had disappeared with his daughter.  She knew it was shot right into Gideon’s memory system.  Even though she was starting to trust Sara as a leader—partially, at least since they had turned Rip into the Bureau, Ava was able to consider her somewhat of an ally, and was more than ready to reciprocate help…but that didn’t mean she trusted her crew to make such complicated repairs, regardless as to how many Ph. D.’s were technically on board. 

Sara took a moment to look around, sizing up the situation.  Night was coming rapidly, and the Vikings who were still alive after the fight we still clearly drunk from the merriment before “Oden” showed up.  They were stumbling into their makeshift animal-skin clad tents. 

A piece of survival equipment the two of them most certainly did not have, never having considered their mission would turn into an overnight retreat. 

“We’re going to have to keep it low-key, at least until everyone goes to sleep.  Just because they have the temporal linguistic dysplasia that makes them think we’re speaking their language doesn’t mean they won’t notice something is off.  Once they’re asleep, then we can see what tents are empty, and assume it belongs to one of the dead…which means it’s ours.” 

Sara shuddered at the thought, knowing that Ava was right.  At least if she was going to be stranded with someone, it was someone with actual survival skills.  As much as she loved her team, she couldn’t imagine what would happen if she were outside with Nate. 

“Fine. But we’re going to have to figure something out.  I’ll be damned if I’m getting on a boat to Norway with these guys.”  Or a boat of any kind, Sara thought to herself, shuddering at the flashback of her boat with Oliver going down all those years ago. 

“Again, I can only apologize so much, Ms. Jiwe. The electrical hit took out my navigation abilities, as well as a number of other programs, and I am running the repair programs as fast as I can.” 

Mick’s eyes went wide. “Does that mean--”

“Not that system, Mr. Rory.  The fabricator is running just fine.”  Gideon at least had the intelligence to sound annoyed.

Amaya rolled her eyes.  She knew Gideon was getting just as frustrated as the crew, once they realized the hatch had auto-shut before they could extract Sara and Ava.  She wasn’t trying to make it sound like Gideon was in any way at fault, but the A.I.’s estimate of possibly a week before they could go back for their teammates was too much for Amaya to just roll over and take. 

“Fine.  Jax, what are the chances you can assist with moving the repairs along?”

“Slim to none.  If it’s internal damage—” Jefferson paused, seeing how distraught the crew was at having abandoned Sara. 

Again.

“You know what?  I guess I won’t know until I pop the hood.” The mechanic moved to retrieve his tools.  Maybe if he looked under the deck there was something fried or crossed that he could fix to move Gideon along, he reasoned. 

“Thanks.  In the meantime, Gideon, are we able to monitor them at all?” 

“Negative. The most I can do is refresh occasionally to see if there have been any significant changes to the level of the anachronism. Unfortunately, Agent Sharpe never gave our systems full access to all the Time Bureau’s satellites, which means we cannot place a location on her time courier.” 

Amaya and Zari looked at each other, ears perking up. 

“But there are, then, satellites that exist that could locate them.”  Amaya said.

“You are correct.” 

“Which means,” Zari added in, “There is a satellite network just waiting for us to hack.” 

“Ohhh! I volunteer!”  Ray piped up immediately.  “It’s like in that movie Hackers, with all the coding and breaking in--”

“It’s nothing like the movie Hackers. And that movie’s seriously old. This type of satellite network didn’t even exist then.”  Zari added, not hiding the doubt on her face.

“Excuse me, I happen to hold several advanced degrees.”  Ray boasts proudly. 

“Right.  And none of them involve real world hacking experience—you know what? Why don’t you guys give it a shot.”  Zari back tracks, deciding this is the quickest way to get Ray out of her hair.

“…Really?”  The Atom smiles to himself proudly. 

“Yeah. You, and Nate—he has one of those advanced degrees too, right?” 

“I do, but it’s in history.”  Nate’s ears perk up at being brought into the conversation.

“Right! So, you would probably be able to help Ray build a device to crack into the satellite network.  You know, based on historical instances of satellite…hacking…and such.”  Amaya nodded in Zari’s direction, on board with her plan.

“Now that you mention it, I did write a paper once on Soviet satellite transmissions.  Maybe there’s something similar we can do.” 

“Right! The guys are on it.”  Zari answered cheerfully, waiting until they left to go to Stein’s old workstation to tinker before speaking.

“So, I’m hacking the satellite, right?”  She asks.

“Obviously. They’re about to build a Lincoln log cabin that they think will talk to Ray’s Lego death star.”  Amaya answers.

Sara and Ava managed to keep a low profile, pretending to tend a pot simmering over a fire, watching as one by one the Vikings wandered off to sleep.  The two were picking up on Viking mannerisms quite quickly—observing the survivors, stirring the pots when they stirred, grunting when they grunted. By the looks of how many tents were left unoccupied, the Nordics had lost quite a few people.  They had their pick of tents.  Which was good, because it was starting to get chilly, and the fur cloaks they had weren’t going to cut it much longer, even sitting next to a fire. 

“Well, do you prefer white or brown? I don’t care which one I’m in, but I think one of us should be near the mess tent to sneak in and steal supplies and the other should be near the psycho sister who tried to make everyone follow Beebo to make sure she’s not still up to no good.”  Sara says, motioning around at the open tents. 

“What—Sara, no.”  Ava shakes her head. 

It was a good strategy.  It was exactly what she normally would have thought of with her extensive military background.  But when the had first embarked on this journey, it wasn’t lost on Ava that there was frost on the grass, meaning it would probably drop in temperature even further that night. 

“No?”  Sara cocks an eyebrow.

“Sara, we’re going to need to be in the same tent. It’s going to be freezing tonight.  We can probably find some blankets around in the empty tents, but even then we’re going to need to keep a fire at the foot of the text and our body heat is going to help.” 

“Oh.”  Sara shook her head, forgetting for a second that Ava wasn’t another assassin.  The cold would mean nothing to her, she’d slept in it many times without another’s body heat.  But…something about having Ava stay by her side was comforting.  “Right.  Sorry, you’re right.  We should stay together.  You know. Keep warm.  Cause of the cold.” 

“No need to get all weird about it.” 

Sara let out a laugh. “I’m not being weird.  Pft.  Shut up.  You’re being weird.” 

And at that, Sara turned around quickly, intending to ready one of the smaller tents by building a fire at the foot, as Ava had instructed. 

“Great.  I’m trying to stay alive, and Sara’s acting like I just asked her to change in the locker room in middle school with me.”  Ava rolls her eyes at herself, trailing behind Sara to start looting blankets from the surrounding camps.

Chapter Text

Sara was ecstatic to find that the other Vikings also kept fires going at the foot of their tents.  Just because she could brave the cold and survive it didn’t mean she wanted to, and if they all put out their fires, the stranded travelers would have no choice but to follow suit to blend in. 

She settled in on her left side, fur cloak now folded into a rather comfortable pillow.  Between the fire and the blankets Ava had found at the campsite, the assassin had to admit that as far as accidents go, at least this one was quite cozy. 

The only problem was Agent Sharpe, who deemed it necessary to settle in on her right, meaning they were face-to-face in quarters smaller than a billiards table. 

“Hey. Roll over. Now who’s making it weird.”  Sara loudly whispered, not wanting to wake the other campers. 

“I can’t. You sleep comm-device side down, so that your free ear can pick up outside noises. I didn’t peg you for such an amateur, Lance.” 

“I AM sleeping comm-side down.  It’s fitted to my left ear.”

“Well, mine is fitted to my right.  Besides, I’m not giving you an opening for spooning.  We’re still keeping this professional.” 

“I can smell the mead on your breath, Agent.  We’re well past professional.” 

“Oh, is that rough for you? Haaaaaa.”  Ava breathed directly at Sara’s face, watching the woman flail about. 

“Asshole.” 

The sound of a branch crunching outside of their tent had both women freeze, holding their breath.  The heard the crunching continue. 

Ava was trained enough in survival to know she was hearing footsteps, heading away from the campsite, towards the mess hall—one of few actual built structures at the settlement. 

However, Sara’s instincts kicked in further, telling her there were exactly two people walking, and judging from the weight on each step, one was a medium-build man walking briskly, followed by a medium-build woman shuffling behind. 

“I don’t really know what to tell you, man. He’s just kinda been like this for awhile.  You know, he’s just…Rory.”  Jefferson didn’t bother pulling his head out from inside the cabinet of wires, going over each bundle over and over again, thinking maybe he’d see an easy fix, such as one out of place wire. 

Leonard wasn’t having any of it.  “I find it hard to believe that Mickey’s alcoholism has been ever-present.  If he had been drinking this heavily from the day you were all recruited, he’d have been marooned somewhere in time by now.  Or shot dead.  Or kicked off.  Or--”

“Okay, I get it.  You’re worried about your friend.” Jefferson sighed, trying to pinpoint when Mick had went from ‘a couple of beers a day’ to a case a day.  Of course, he wasn’t blind.  It was clear Rory was drinking from the betrayal and then death of Leonard, the original Leonard, from this earth, not the Earth-X Leo currently pestering him. But the drinking didn’t start right after that—not that he noticed anyway.

“Look, I’m not sure exactly when it spun out of control, but I didn’t notice him morning drinking until we got back from London. Nothing in particular happened to him there, if anything Nate was the closest to actual death, but yeah.  The morning after London, after Sara turned Rip back into the time bureau, that’s when he started with a beer at breakfast.  If that helps.” 

Leonard smirked.  It was exactly the kind of information he needed to crack that rough and tough Mick exterior.  He knew his Mickey had to be in there somewhere, deep below the brut strength and rough exterior. 

“Thank you, Jefferson.”

Sara knew she didn’t have as much control over her responses as she did back when she was still with the League of Assassins. 

Back then, she could close her eyes and control her pulse using her meditative mind. She could easily even out her breathing and heart rate, and quickly too.  Nobody would ever be able to tell if she felt threatened or unsettled in the slightest.  It had only taken a month of training with the League for her to mentally regulate her body temperature, only three to cut her circulation to one limb and increase it to another. She had full control over all of her faculties, beyond what she had previously thought possible by a human being.

Now, things were different.  Ever since she came back from dying—she still had the knowledge.  Fighting. Survival. How to kill.  How to avoid being killed. 

But controlling her mind, that was a piece of the puzzle she came back missing.  The truth was, she knew just how little control she had over her emotions.  Still, she couldn’t stop the panic that welled up in her chest at the conversation they were overhearing in the mess hall. 

“Sister, we are leaving this land.”

“Brother, we can conquer this continent.  I know it. Just give it a chance--”

“No.  No more fighting here.  Don’t you miss our homeland? Our kinsmen? Come.  It will take a few days to ready enough supplies to set sail.  We start preparing first thing in the morning.” 

Sara closed her eyes, trying but failing to steady her breathing as they hid just outside the back door, hearing both Viking siblings storm out the front. 

She could feel Ava’s eyes on her, burning holes through her closed eyelids.  Of course, if she were going to have a panic attack, it was going to be with an attractive blonde staring her down, which was not helping the situation. 

“Sara. It’s okay.  This is good news!  This means we have a more days to lay low—give your team a chance to loop back around and pick us up.” 

Sara kept her eyes closed, letting out a deep exhale.  It came out shaky.

She knew logically that Ava was right. 

But there is nothing logical about a panic attack, is there? All Sara could picture were two scenarios, equally unsettling. 

In the first, they are not picked up, and stay on land.  Sara can’t help but flash back to being island wrecked, the living hell that was being stranded with insane people, fighting to stay alive in a living hell where an underlying thirst and hunger were always present, as well as the looming threat of torture or death. 

In the second, they are not picked up, and get on the ship with the Vikings.  In that one…

After being on a ship that went down in a storm on the ocean, Sara really had no desire to explore being sea-faring any further. It was the scenario that led to the full panic attack unfolding before Ava’s very eyes. 

The agent was frozen, unsure what to do.  She saw Sara trying to level her breathing, hands shaking as she rubbed up and down her legs.  Swallowing hard, she carefully placed her hands on top of Sara’s shaking ones, gently wrapping around slowly, so slowly so as not to startle the woman. 

“Breath Sara.” Ava’s voice was so gentle that the assassin swore she was imagining it, not thinking Ava capable of such softness.  It was uncharacteristic enough that it did pull Sara out of her panic, slowly opening her eyes, being met with Ava’s wide expression, hands still wrapped in Ava’s warmth.  Sara felt her cheeks blush with embarrassment.  Of course this was happening, now, with Ava here to see it.

“What’s going on right now, Sara?”  Ava kept her voice low, letting Sara know she was truly asking, not pushing or demanding. 

“We have to get picked up. It’s not okay.  None of this is going to be alright, Ava. Not if they don’t get us.”  Ava pulled her hands away, foolishly trying her time courier again, knowing it would still be dead, and wouldn’t function until either the Waverider or one of the Time Bureau’s ships were back to connected to her satellite.  She frowned at the blank screen on her wrist, before putting her hands back over Sara’s. 

The smaller woman was still shaking. The agent squeezed her hands in little pulses, drawing Sara’s attention away from whatever was going on her her head, down to their hands, giving her something to focus on.  Ava knew it was working when the assassin linked their hands together, squeezing back.

“Ava, I’ve lived through all of these scenarios before.  And none of them are good.  None of them are even ‘livable’ or ‘tolerable’.  And I’m one-hundred percent not getting on a boat of any kind. You might know that I’ve died before, but drowning and not dying—feeling your lungs fill up with sea water before being thrown on a shore—that’s actually worse than what it feels like to die, and I’m not willing to do either again. I just…” 

“Hey.”  Ava rubbed ring-covered fingers.  “If no boat is a hard rule for you, then no boat.  Okay? We will figure this out. Besides.  I’ve been stranded in time before too. Sara, I promise you, we will get through this.”

“So, not to put extra pressure on you, but…”

Zari rolled her eyes, knowing this was Amaya’s way of rushing her without trying to rush her. 

“I know, but it’s not that simple.  Trying to connect to a cloaked satellite that nobody is supposed to know exists, not even other government entities, and then trying to find the one that’s connected to that specific time period…it’s just…”  Zari’s fingers were starting to cramp up on her flip-slider, but she didn’t dare stop, not knowing how Amaya would react.  

“Gideon! Update please.”  Amaya commanded, easily sliding into the Captain’s seat. 

“I am at fifty percent, interim Captain Jiwe.  The repairs are working well, and I should be able to make a full recovery.” 

“Fifty percent.”  Amaya echoed back.  She was neither pleased nor displeased at the moment, starting to feel numb with the helplessness of sitting around waiting.  It was more than the last time she checked in, so Gideon was making progress, but it was still less than she needed it to be.

Amaya had been getting increasingly distraught, knowing they now had left Sara and Ava alone overnight.  It wasn’t that she doubted their survival skills—she had to admit for that environment the two of them were a lot more cut out for survival than she and Zari were, but she couldn’t help but worry. 

And judging from the amount of crashing she heard from the room holding Ray and Nate, she had ever reason to be. 

“I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a try.”  Ray stressed to Nate, who still wasn’t one-hundred percent on board with Ray’s plan. 

He wanted to replicate the transmitter he made in 1958, that allowed the Waverider to hone onto his beacon and ultimately come rescue him and his then girlfriend, who he was still not over and avoided talking about with Nate at all costs. 

However, there were two barriers to this plan.  First, he actually had less supplies to build things with on the ship than he did on earth even back in the late ‘50’s.  If he needed wire, rope, anything really, he could simply hop out to a store and buy it.  He even took apart kitchen appliances for the parts at one point.  But on the ship, he was limited to what he could command the fabricator to make.  The trouble was, he needed a visual to even understand what he needed—he needed to see the inside of a toaster to know there were pieces of value to him.  Trying to come up with potential parts in his head, and ones that would pick up a signal rather than emit, was proving difficult.

Even Gideon was getting tired of Ray’s requests, for everything from “every kitchen appliance circa 1960” to “the parts for a washing machine that don’t touch any water” to “one of those snacks that my Mom used to make—no, I don’t remember what it’s called but no celery this time!” 

The second barrier was that Nate was skeptical, and it was becoming frustrating to explain to the historian why using Soviet-era technology to hack a time satellite from the future wouldn’t work. 

“Look, I know you’re bent on building your old transmitter, but think about this: what if that transmitter wasn’t why you were picked up at all? What if Gideon was able to lock onto your location and this thing--” Nate pointed to the pile of useless parts in front of them, “—had nothing to do with it?” 

Ray stared back with wide eyes.  “Are you calling my transmitter…inferior?” It wasn’t until Ray stood up that Nate was reminded how much taller he was, which was intimidating even without the Atom suit on. 

“Hey, hey…buddy! No need to get upset.  I’m just saying, instead of having Gideon make you another toaster, and a mixer, and any other items on the garage sales greatest hits list, maybe we need to just narrow it down to working with what’s already here. Hmm? We can do this.”

Ray nodded, sitting back down. 

“Okay.  Just using what’s here.  We can do this.  I mean, sure, it took me almost a billion dollars to make the Atom suit, but I’m sure I could’ve done it with just some old socks and a soldering iron too.”  Ray laughed nervously. 

Nate smiled back.  “That’s the spirit!”

Sara was impressed enough with Ava’s stealth stealing abilities to be a tad bit worried.  She hadn’t seen anyone pocket such an array of food and tool items since working with Mick.  It made her wonder if the agent’s background was less military, and more about robbing the military. 

She didn’t dare say so, however, because every time she tried to speak to Ava, she was met with the look that she couldn’t stand, especially not coming from her.

Pity. 

She knew what it looked like when someone felt sorry for her, and the last thing Sara wanted was someone to feel sorry for her.  She saw it in Ava’s wide puppy eyes when Sara brought her a horn of water in the morning.  It was in her frown when they made breakfast together, and how she seemed to be walking on eggshells with her when they circled the perimeter of the camp to examine its scope, and where they could hide when the Vikings left to return to their ship. 

The assassin also noticed that Ava was getting worried, but wouldn’t vocalize it.  She checked her comm piece and her time courier every thirty minutes.  The time agent had become so linked with time that she knew intuitively when thirty minutes had passed.  She needed to snap Ava back into—well, being Ava, and not some caretaker who had soothed a very vulnerable moment for the Captain.  The agent was acting like Sara was in her care, not her equal.

Sara noticed some of the Vikings practicing with their swords, throwing knives and axes, in general keeping their battle skills in check.  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; the Vikings were known for their excellence in battle, and it only made sense that the were able to accomplish such through daily training, for both men and women. 

Ava check her time courier again, and seeing it fail again she sat down to a mess hall table, staring off into space.  She was only jerked out of it by a knife snapping into the table three inches in front of her.  Her eyes immediately snapped up. 

“Sara?”

“Care for a little Viking training circuit?”

Chapter Text

“Amaya, can you please tell Snart to quit hogging the fabricator?” Jefferson all but whined, not appreciating that his lunch was being held up by the team member who wasn’t quite their team member.

“Seriously, why do we only have one bathroom?  Did anyone ever think that if we have a fabricator, that means we can make another bathroom and just stick it in the corner or something?”  Nate danced around, clearly needed to use the restroom, that Zari had taken over for her first real break in close to 24 hours days. 

Or, the first break Amaya had to all but force her on.  Zari would have been content to keep tapping away, hacking each satellite in the sky one-by-one, until she could find one that was linked to the Time Bureau.  However, the interim captain saw the signs of fatigue setting in, and thought about how Zari was only moving to grab something to eat quickly or use the bathroom, and that combined with what were clearly droopy, teary eyes from staring at a screen, and Amaya order her on a two hour break, to involve no computer screens or repetitive finger motions that would further fatigue their best hacker. 

“I’m sorry, Nate.  She needs a shower break.  She’ll probably be out in a few minutes.” Nate answered by grunting, still dancing around holding his crotch. 

“And what about lunch?”  Jefferson interjected. 

“Honestly, how long could he possibly take, Jax?  Can you not wait five minutes for a sandwich?”

“I really need the bathroom, Amaya.  Seriously.  This is why nobody takes me on road trips. Stops every hour.  Can I help it if while I was a growing boy not all of my organs, you know, grew with me?” Nate whined, not caring to hear Jefferson’s answer.

“It hasn’t just been five minutes.  He’s been in there for a half hour.  I’d like to make my own sandwich, but we don’t have anything in the fridge.  Remember, we were going to stock up after ‘saving Christmas’ or whatever.  I guess nobody thought about what would happen if we didn’t win a mission.”

“Honestly, is it too much to ask for someone to give a heads up before taking a long shower?”

“Hungry, hungry, hungry--”

“ENOUGH! EVERYONE, CUT IT OUT!”  Amaya snapped louder than anyone thought possible, causing both Nate and Jefferson to take a step back, hands in surrender.  “Everyone is going to zip it, unless you’d like to see what happens when a hungry lion totem comes out. Gideon, can you please tell Zari she needs to be done in the shower in the next minute? And SNART!”  She yelled in the direction of the fabricator, “You have sixty seconds to leave the fabricator for the rest of the crew!” 

Snart stepped out of the fabrication lounge in a full 19^th Century suit, complete with a coat with tails, a top hat, and a monocle. 

“No need to yell.  I’m all finished.” 

“Yeah.  Me too.  Wow.  No need to be testy.”  Zari stepped out, having changed into a new set of clothes, hair still wrapped in a towel. 

Amaya just rolled her eyes, as Zari walked to cut through the main chamber. 

“Now, if someone could please point me in the direction of Mickey, I’d really appreciate it.” 

“Why? Were you planning on selling him some of your peanuts?”  Zari quipped as she shuffled past, causing Amaya to snort and look away. 

“No,” Leonard rolled his eyes, “it’s a form of immersion therapy.  If his drinking problems escalated during and after a trip to London, perhaps I can, I don’t know, shake his memory.” 

“Fine.  Whatever.  As long as everyone who’s not Zari gets out of my hair and stops whining, you can play dress-up as much as you want.”  Amaya went back to the main search screen, waiting until there was a hint of enough juice in the jump bar to make a move, and retrieve Sara and Ava. 

Ava examined the arrowheads available at the archery training station, deeming them already sharp enough, tying them to the shaft, and then taking out her side knife to add the nock at the end.  Sara noticed that she seemed to have an expert understanding of archery, but, of course, the agent was no member of the League of Assassins.

“You do understand that I used to hang out with the Green Arrow, right?  The Arrow.  It’s in the name.” 

Ava laughed, loving that Sara was getting cocky. 

“And if I were up against him, I’d be worried.  But, you know, it’s you…so…”  Sara kicked the agent playfully, jaw open in mock shock. 

“I’ll have you know I was a level ten in archery in the League.”

“Ten?”  Ava smirked. “That sounds impressive.  Ten out of what?”

“Well,” Sara stuttered, “Nobody knows. Ra’s al Ghul wasn’t big on divulging information. But it’s still high!”

Ava was satisfied with the arrows, dividing up a dozen between the two of them.  “If you’re so confident, care to make a wager?” 

“Oh, I’d love to make a wager with the time police.”

“Time police! Ha! Somebody’s cranky and I haven’t even beaten them yet. You do know I had to learn Viking warrior techniques in my first month at Bureau academy.” 

“Okay, then if I win, you’re making dinner.  No stealing from the mess hall, either.  Everything in there is being salted for when they set sail. It’s making me thirsty just thinking about it.” 

“That’s all you’ve got? The big, bad assassin just wants some soup?”  Sara cocked an eyebrow, waiting for Ava to continue.  “Deal.  If I win, I need you to teach me something.” 

Sara waited, pausing for Ava to continue. Ava, of course didn’t. 

“…teach you what?”

Ava blushed.  “I don’t want to actually tell you until I win. It’s…something I’ve just.  Ugh.  Shut up.  I’ll tell you when I win, okay?  But, it’s something you should teach me.”  Sara nodded, intrigued by the proposition.  She handed Ava the bow. 

“Ladies first.”

Amaya heard the entire altercation from the Captain’s chair, still diligently scanning Gideon, hoping for a jump in the progress bar. 

It was a clear grunt, followed by a slam, and a very clear “use your words, Mick, do not give in to the rage” in what was quite possibly the worst attempt at an English accent she’d ever heard. 

“On it.”  Zari zipped out of the captain’s office, walking over to what had become unofficially Mick’s spot in the library. 

“Last straw. I get a beer, and you get out of my face, or you don’t get to have teeth anymore.” 

Zari found Leo being held upside-down against the wall, and yet somehow the top hat managed to stay on his head. 

“Okay, Mick, I know you hate this version of Leo, but let’s take it down a notch, okay? What, did he try to make you buy the Boardwalk and Park Place?”  Mick continued to hold Leo in place, even after the man started shaking. 

“I don’t like him.” 

“Yeah, I got that.  But really, Mick--”

Rory let him go, letting him fall to the ground with a thud. 

“I was trying to get Mickey here to flash back to being in London, to get to the root of-”

And that was when Mick Rory finally punched Earth-X Leo square in the nose. 

“Mickey is the name of a mouse.  Do I look like a mouse to you?”

“Well, with those ears…”

“OKAY.  You two are in time out.”

“I guess it’s a good thing it warms up here during the day, because if it was still cold like last night…” Sara shook her head, not believing what Ava’s request was. 

The assassin was pretty sure that Ava knew she had thrown the match, if nothing else but out of pure curiosity.  She was, however, careful that every bullseye that wasn’t right in the center, as Ava’s arrows were, at least they were a hairline off, lest the agent think less of Sara’s aim. 

But now that they were standing next to a stream that Sara knew was going to be cold, even if the afternoon sun and archery had made them feel warm, she was questioning that decision. 

Who knew that Ava Sharpe, big badass Time Bureau agent, didn’t know how to swim?

“I know it’s still going to be cold, but, well, it might be now or never.”  Ava started undressing, stripping down to just underclothes, and Sara was suddenly much more motivated for the swim lesson, following suit. 

“You honestly never learned?  Not even as a child?” 

“Swimmies.” 

“High school?  College?  You never went on a boat?”

“Life vest.” Sara squinted, still not believing what she was hearing.

“Academy training?” 

“I took aerial combat instead of naval training.”  Ava seemed to get more and more embarrassed as they went on, now that Sara was also down to a bra and panties.  “Look, I know it’s silly and if you had won the bet I’d be doing something small making a dinner that you probably don’t even care about, but once I got old enough…well, I’d be too embarrassed to ask anyone else, and I trust you, even if you don’t trust me yet--”

“You think I don’t trust you?”  Sara rushed out, amazed. She let out a long breath.  She was literally half naked in front of the woman, what did she have to lose? “Ava, I was willing to let you cook for me. I’m an assassin.”

“Does that make you super picky or something?”

“It means I know that the easiest way to kill someone undetected is to poison them.  There are very, very few people on this earth or at any time that I would let cook for me.” 

“You let your crew cook for you.”

“And I trust them with my life.”

Ava looked into Sara’s eyes, seeing but a piercing blue, genuine gaze staring back at her, the Captain’s square jaw set.  It was so intense she had to look away after a moment.

“Well, then.”  She held out her hand, waiting for Sara to take it at the edge of the stream.  “Lead the way, Captain.”

Chapter Text

“Sara, I am so, so sorry.”  Ava began wrapping a cloak around Sara, who was still shaking and not responsive enough to put on her clothes.

“Sara, you’re going into shock.  Can you lay down?”  Ava was suddenly impervious to the air getting cooler, not having bothered to try to get her own clothes on just yet.  She tucked her cloak into a makeshift pillow, laying it on the ground, before laying Sara down by gently cradling the shaking blonde.  She only released Sara when she was sure her head was comfortable, and that her body was in the sun, with the second cloak still tucked around her.

“God, Ava.  You are so stupid, you selfish asshole.”  Ava cursed at herself, knowing Sara wasn’t taking in her words.  Of course, she shouldn’t have asked someone who was adamant about never getting on a boat to hop into the water for a swim lesson.  It was only now clicking in the agent’s head that Sara had clearly endured some kind of trauma involving a boat.  And Ava was seriously angry at herself for not thinking this through more thoroughly.

It also made Ava wonder what happened.  She knew the woman was a college dropout, and then dropped from her family’s historical record, only to resurface in time as a member of the League of Assassins.  She had just sort of assumed that Sara went off on a youthful gap year, probably partying or working some shitty bartending job, or something along those lines. 

Seeing Sara freeze in absolute panic for the second time in two days were enough to signal to her that she was so very wrong about that assumption.

Sara had only been in the water for a second before the rush of the cold water along with the current of the stream itself triggered another panic attack, causing her to flail her arms incoherently, looking for anything to grab onto to pull herself back out. 

And then she blacked out. 

Ava knew that something was wrong immediately, knowing Sara wouldn’t feign drowning during swim lesson number one.  The river was just a notch above five feet deep, still leaving Ava with a good length to work with without her head going under, walking over to Sara without needing to know how to swim. Sara was too short to stand up tall in the current, the water enclosing around her.  It took all of Ava’s muscles flexing to get to Sara walking through water without swimming, and then to carry her back to shore, with the woman immediately coughing up water once on the bank.

Ava put her hands on either side of Sara’s face.  She was breathing, which was good, and her eyes were open.  The agent put her hand on the smaller woman’s, giving it a squeeze.  She smiled when she felt a squeeze back. 

Good.  She was responsive, but unable to snap out of the panic yet. 

Sara just looked so small, that Ava forgot for a moment that this woman would normally be considered dangerous and deadly. She was not intimidating at all lying out on the river bank, her cloak matching Ava’s behind her head puffed around her body, making her look even tinier.  Ava wanted to find whoever or whatever was responsible for Sara having these issues and dismember them, piece by piece, and then hopping on a ship and going back in time to do it again and again until all of Sara’s fears went away. It might not be realistic, but it was the fantasy that kept Ava from further yelling at herself, instead stroking Sara’s hair, then her jawline, every so often checking her pulse and that she was still breathing. It angered the agent that there wasn’t a person she could punch—she felt helpless, waiting for Sara to come back to her.

“You’re going to be okay.”  Ava soothed, not sure that Sara could hear her yet. She seemed too out of it. “I’m not letting anything happen. Not ever again.”

Ava knew better than to let her guard down in the field.  They weren’t friends on a vacation, and while Ava wasn’t technically Sara’s boss, she still felt responsible for her well being when the were out on official business.  And it wasn’t like the agent wasn’t aware of what happens when someone in the field lets their guard down.

“I’m just getting to know you, Sara. And the more time I spend with you, the more I care. About you. So you’re going to come out of this, okay?”

If she was going to keep Sara and her safe, she was going to have to start keeping things more professional.  Even though she knew the feelings that were stirring up were anything but strictly professional.  Which signed to Ava even more reason to put the very large, very snug Time Bureau stick back in her ass where it belonged. 

Sara started blinking, and Ava moved her hand back to a freckled cheek.  “Hey.  That’s it.  You’re safe.”  No thanks to me, Ava thought to herself, letting out a sharp exhale at the internal statement.  She wanted nothing more than to kiss Sara on the forehead for coming back to awareness, but Ava wasn’t going to slip up again. 

Jefferson stopped to look at Mick, who was sitting in a corner, facing the wall in the library, as he walked past with a second sandwich.

“Mick…buddy.  You okay?”  He approached cautiously.

Mick didn’t actually want to say that Amaya put him in time out, so instead he just grunted.  Jefferson waited to see if there would be more of a response. 

There wasn’t.

“Okay.  Well, if you need anything…”

Mick’s ears perked up at that one. It was occurring to him that he was being addressed by the ship’s engineer.  Who could—perhaps adjust the settings of the fabricator.

“Actually…”

“And if we put this clip right here, it should—”

“Ray, that’s never going to work.”

“Trust me.  Trial and error is how most inventions happen, Nate. How do you think I have an atom suit? How do you think chocolate chip cookies were invented? Do you want to picture a world without chocolate chip cookies?” He paused for an answer, to which Nate provided in the form of a skeptical look. “We can start with a low-level transmitter, just enough to get the comms working, and then boom! We’re in a town where ‘beam me up, Scotty’ is reality.  Neat, huh?” 

Ray moved the last clip into place, watching the device, no bigger than a television remote, light up. He picked up the earpiece had attuned to the booster he had just built, holding it out to Nate.  “Would you like to do the honors?” 

“Ray, there’s no way this is enough of a signal boost for us to pick up on their comms from here.  This is enough juice for maybe if we were still in the same time, the same location, but…I don’t know.”  Nate shook his head, to which Ray just shrugged. 

“Baby steps. Before I can build something that will send out enough signal to boost a time courier, I need to experiment. You know, a smaller signal is easier to make tweaks on. You sure you don’t want to give it a shot?”

Nate shook his head.

“Fine.”  He put the piece in his ear, tapping a command on the buttons.  He only powered up the frequency to half what the device was intended before he heard Agent Sharpe’s voice, loud and clear. 

“Sara, I am so, so sorry.”

“Agent Sharpe, is that you?”  Nate’s face dropped, not believing what he was hearing, or the giant grin on Ray’s face 

“You’re okay, Sara.  Thank God you’re okay.  Don’t try to sit up too fast—okay, I guess you will sit up however you damn well please.” 

Ray tried to juice up the device. 

“Can you hear me now?”  He paused, hearing one side of what was clearly a Sara/Ava conversation. 

“I was so scared, Sara.  I’m sorry.  That was all my fault.”  Ray then heard murmurs that he assumed were bits and pieces of Sara answering her.  It was clear to him that while he managed to hack Ava’s comm, it wasn’t strong enough to sustain a two-way communication.

“Something happened to Sara.” He watched Nate’s face go from awe-inspired to panicked, knowing his own mirrored the sentiment.

The conversation did not sound good to Ray.  Not at all. 

He ran out to the Captain’s chair, carrying the device in his hand.  Maybe Amaya and Zari would know what to do. 

And also, he just really wanted them to know that he actually built something that was working.

Sara let herself come to her senses slowly, seeing the look on Ava’s face and immediately remembering what happened.  All she could hear was Ava apologizing to her over and over again, which she instinctively wanted to stop, but the pounding in her head limited her ability to speak. As soon as she blinked and turned her head, she felt the warm hand that was intertwined with her own jerk away. Ava shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment, squaring her jaw.

The chill of the water was just enough to remind Sara of almost drowning after a shipwreck, and re-living that moment was still overwhelming for the small assassin. Ava cleared her throat, seeing Sara snap back to reality.

“Captain Lance. Do you think you can manage to sit up?  It’s okay if it’s too soon.” 

Even though the voice saying the words were soft, Sara winced at being called “Captain Lance”. 

Then again, maybe it was for the better.  She needed to get a hold of her anxiety, and fast, or she would have a panic attack at a time and place that would get her and Ava killed, and that was not on Sara’s bucket list for any time period. 

“Thanks. I can.”  Sara sat up, using her arms to prop up, noticing that Ava was still in her bra and panties, a set that was much nicer than any Sara even owned. It immediately made her blush, self-conscious, keeping the cloak tucked around her. 

“Good.  You’re getting your color back.  I think we’re done with anything physical for today.  We should head back to camp and take it easy. We’re approaching sixteen hundred hours, time to get ready for the night.”  Ava nodded, moving to dress herself before helping Sara up. 

It didn’t escape Sara that Ava wasn’t looking her in the eyes as she spoke, the taller woman broadening her shoulders.  Sara wasn’t sure what to think about it, but she knew she didn’t like it. 

“This is really good, dude.  Like, really good.”  Nate said, rubbing Ray’s shoulders. 

The Atom couldn’t stop himself from beaming with pride.  It had been quite some time since he’d built anything himself that helped on a mission, not counting the actual atom suit.  It felt good to use his gray matter and help the team. 

“Hold on.  It sounds like Sara’s waking up, from what Ava’s saying.”  Nate put his hand up on the comm in his ear, with Amaya and Zari leaning in close.  “Yeah. Ava’s going all military and ordering them back to camp.  That’s good!  That must mean they’re staying put right where we left them.” 

“Gideon!” Amaya shouted, not meaning to sound harsh, but when Ray and Nate came rushing in saying that they thought Sara was hurt or in danger, she couldn’t get rid of the shake in her voice. 

“Yes, interim captain!”

“How’s the repair going?” 

“Almost done. We’re at ninety percent.  We should be able to perform an extraction in less than an hour.” 

All four crewmembers in the main chamber let out an exhale. 

“Good.  Nate and Ray, keep monitoring Ava.  Let me know if there are any updates on the Captain’s status. Zari, are you able to triangulate with Ray’s invention to try to get us the ability for them to hear us?” 

Zari nodded, surprised she hadn’t thought of it herself. 

“Actually, that’s a good idea. Ray, I have to say, it looks like you’ve outdone yourself this time.” 

Ray’s grin brightened even further.  “Aw, thanks.  You don’t have to, I mean--”

“Ray, just take the compliment.”  Zari added with a pat, before they all heard another crash coming from where Amaya had Mick in time out, followed by a grunt. 

“Come on!”  Amaya ran in the direction of the noise, finding Jefferson knocked out cold, with Mick pick up a bottle of beer out of his unconscious hands. 

“Mick! What the hell?”

“What? The guy took twenty bucks from me to make this, and then wasn’t gonna give it up!” He motioned to the beer bottle, downing it all in one long gulp. 

Zari pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering if smoke were actually going to come out of Amaya’s ears.

“Nate, can you take Jefferson to the medbay?  I will deal with Mick.” 

At first, Sara was appreciative.  It was obvious to Sara that Ava felt responsible for her panic attack that almost got her killed, so to let her ease some of the guilt, she went ahead and let Ava build both of their campsite fires. 

Then, she let Ava get their food from the mess hall, even bringing back two horns of mead.  Sara could tell right away from the way the woman struggled to balance the two plates of food and two horns that the agent had never worked as a waitress, nor would she have lasted thirty seconds as an assassin. 

Sara chuckled at that thought, gratefully taking the food from Ava. 

She had intended on thanking Ava for saving her, since usually it was the other way around.  If it had been anyone else to save her from drowning, she would have been embarrassed.  Or felt weak.  But, it was Ava, who she’d saved a few times herself.  So really, she just figured this is how it was going to go with them.  I save you, you save me. 

It was refreshing to feel like there was someone on the same page as her.

So, once Ava settled in, she was going to thank her, and see if she had any ideas for how to shake the increase in panic attacks.  Before being stranded on a Viking settlement, she only had low-grade attacks, waking up in the middle of the night, paranoid that she heard footsteps, or the occasional difficulty breathing in the shower, immediately turning off the water and getting out before it could progress. 

But now, being back in a stranding situation, with no intention to make her way back to the League, she figured she could use some input. 

“I’m going to go inside and try to sit by Leif and his sister.  I want to get a gauge on how soon they’re setting sail.”  Sara nodded, starting to stand up.  “Whoa, not you, Captain. You should stay here and rest.” 

Sara glared at the woman’s face, trying to figure out if Ava was being serious.  When it became clear that she was, Sara put her dish down on the log next to her, propping up the mead horn, before jumping up to a stance. 

“I’m coming.” 

“No, you’re--” Sara did a quick roundhouse sweep, knocking both of Ava’s feet out from underneath her.  Being caught by surprise the agent fell right onto the ground.  “Sara! What the fuck?”

“Good.  We’re back to ‘Sara’ now.  That’s better.  I’ll admit, clearly I have some issues, but I’m not useless, and I’m not some delicate flower that needs to just sit here and look pretty.” 

“No, you’re…look, you were out of it for awhile.  You should rest. I’m not trying to be condescending.  I’m truly concerned.” 

“Normally, I would agree with you.”  Ava paused, mouth stuck open, surprised. 

“I—you would?”

“Yes.  If any member of my crew went into shock and almost drowned, I would be saying the same thing. But I’m the Captain.  And you’re an Agent. We don’t have the luxury of laying around for recovery.” 

“No.”  Ava shook her head. 

“No?”  Sara gaped, amazed that Ava had the nerve to get up and dust herself off, while giving Sara a challenging look. 

“No. Sara, this mission is affecting you.  Take a breather.  Clearly, we’re not going anywhere.  You don’t need to push yourself to exhaustion while we’re at a base camp where all of our immediate needs are met.” 

“I know you’re just looking out for me, but if you’re going in on ops, then I’m going in on ops.” 

Ava nodded, sitting down on the log next to where Sara had been sitting.

“Okay then.”

“What are you doing?”  Sara asked, getting even more irritated.

“Fine.  It’s probably not a good idea for us to split upright now anyway.”  Ava looked up at Sara, looking—well, the look wasn’t something Sara was familiar with seeing from Ava.  Some combination of commanding but also afraid.  “So, if you’re on bedrest, then I’m on bedrest.  We both stay out here then.  We can recon tomorrow. I don’t think they’re going tomorrow; they haven’t even repaired the sails they laid out yet.”  She pointed to what looked like giant, thick sheets with all kinds of rips strung up on the shore. “That’s going to take them awhile if they do a full re-stitch.”

Sara nodded, deciding to make the face she would have made if she had gotten her way, even though this was clearly a compromise.  She sat next to Ava, the two starting to eat in silence, both keeping an eye on the stock tent where the supplies for sailing away were being stored. 

They ate together, enjoying the quiet, for awhile, before Sara broke the silence. 

“I guess I’m not handling being stranded so well.”  She exhaled, seeing Ava try to sneak a peek at her out of the corner of her eye without looking too obvious. 

“We never know what’s going to come up in the field until we’re out here. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t know what would trigger you until it’s already happening.”  Ava’s body language was tight, muscles clenched, her voice like stone.  It was like the Ava who was kidnapped by Julius Cesar all over again. 

The problem was that Sara really, really didn’t like that Ava, and she really, really did like the Ava who relaxed a little, came on a Viking trip with her, and could actually carry a conversation.

“Ava.” 

“Captain Lance.”

“Knock it off.”

“What?” Ava laughed, being caught by surprise, turning to look directly at Sara. 

“That’s better. You’re prettier when you smile.” 

“You.”  Ava shook her head, laughing again. Sara always managed to knock the stick right now. “I just want you to know that if you were a male colleague telling me to smile to look pretty I would be punching you in the jaw.” 

“Well, then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a man. And it’s also a good thing that we’re past colleagues at this point, don’t you think?” 

Oh, Ava could feel herself teetering on the edge of that question.  She should step on the brake right now.  She needed to stop being overly relaxed with Sara if she was going to keep them both safe and alive.  Stepping on the brake was safe. It was how she was taught to survive, both personally and professionally. 

Full speed on the gas then it was. 

“I was scared.”  Ava admitted.  “Earlier, when you--”

“Yeah.  When I…I know.  I was there.  Thank you, by the way, for getting me back on the shore. And for, you know, being really sweet.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I couldn’t talk. I was completely frozen.”  Ava’s muscles tensed back up, waiting for Sara to continue. “I couldn’t say anything to you until the cold feeling went away, but I could hear.” 

Ava’s eyes went wide.  Her guard was down, way down, when she thought Sara wasn’t coherent enough to hear her.  Mostly, she supposed, she was soothing herself more than her injured companion.

“How much did you hear?” 

Sara smiled, putting down her plate, before nervously rubbing her hands together. 

Blue eyes met a matching set of blue, illuminated only by a small fire and a the waxing moon.

“I care about you too, Ava.”

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.” 

Chapter Text

Freydis stomped about, turning over clothes, hastily made furniture, even piles of firewood.

For whatever reason that was beyond her comprehension, the god Oden was happily smiling on her plan to continue across the new continent and conquer the rest of New Valhalla.  In her mind, they were the best warriors anywhere in the world, and while the indigenous population had killed many of their best during their attempts to take over the new land, proving to be an even or superior match, the younger Viking was certain that having Oden on their side would tip the scales in their favor. However, Freydis knew her brother disagreed with this.  The only way to convince him was to get Oden back, which he promised to do, so they could continue their task of taking over the world. 

The only problem was, she couldn’t find the damned carved idol bearing the image of the god that would summon him. 

She could only stall leaving for so long. 

Freydis knew if she was going to avoid going back to the homeland against her will, she had to find that idol.  Which meant she needed to search every moment Leif’s watchful eyes weren’t on her, leaving no stone unturned. 

“I can take it apart if you need.  I don’t need to keep listening in on them.  Really.  I think Sara and Ava are fine.”  Ray took the earpiece out, hearing what sounded like a more R-rated turn in his ear than he believed he had signed up for. 

“No, I don’t need to take it apart.  It might pain me to say it, but you did a good job with this, Ray.  I just need to build an amplifier using the signal you’re already tapped into.” 

“I still think I don’t—you think I did a good job?” 

Zari rolled her eyes. For someone who was basically a scientific genius, the guy was seriously lacking in the confident department. Zari did have to admit that Ray’s approach to get on their signal through the comm pieces was a good approach, while she had been busy focusing on the time courier signals only.

It was unspoken in Ray’s lab that they were both starting to feel a bit sleepy, a side effect of the air no longer being filtered efficiently.  However, neither of them actually wanted to acknowledge that aloud, or they would be acknowledging what was starting to look like an inevitable death. The totem bearer was more than willing to have a distraction.

“Look, if you don’t want to keep monitoring them, I will.”  Zari picked up the earpiece. 

“No! Don’t!”

“What is your deal?” 

“It’s just—earwax.  It’s not sanitary.  You can’t just pick something out of one person’s ear and put it--”

Zari didn’t even wait until Ray finished his sentence, wiping the piece off on her shirt, then popping it right in.

She immediately regretted it. 

“Ugh, Ava. God, your mouth is amazing.”  Wide, brown eyes looked up, meeting Ray’s “I told you so” hazels.  “God, that mouth.” 

“Well then.  All the more reason to get this done.” Zari cleared her throat, leaving the earpiece in. After all, somebody had to keep monitoring them.  The hacker worked with Ray’s equipment, chuckling to herself at what was occurring in her ear.  “At least if they had to be stranded, they’re happy about it.”

Ava’s eyes were wide, looking down at Sara with both surprise and amazement. 

The smaller woman had flipped them around, attaching her mouth to a particular spot on her forearm that was sending all kinds of pleasure signals through the agent. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Sara.”  She ground out, being met with a growl from the assassin, who kept her mouth exactly where it was. 

The two had been engaged in a game of chicken, neither willing to venture into an actual kiss.  That would be too real, too much of an admission. 

But Sara was enjoying this game too much to give it up.  On spot after spot on her body, Ava gave Sara a preview of exactly what her mouth was capable of, and although Sara had had a sampling of mouths of women from all throughout history, nothing compared to what Ava did on her neck, shortly after followed on a spot lower, where her neck met her shoulder, now sporting a blossoming blue mark. 

Ava’s mouth had felt so good she was willing to abandon any pretenses, content to let Ava suck and suck, enjoying the woman’s moans into her salty skin, feeling breath exhale, hearing an inhale suction back in.  But after a few minutes, she needed to move things in a different direction, or Sara wasn’t going to just stop her at neck kisses. 

Luckily, she knew of a spot on a woman’s arm that was akin to magic.  And Sara had volunteered to be the guiding magician.

She sucked harder, feeling Ava gasp.  Sara was using actual pressure points that she had learned of, and she did feel a slight twinge of guilt at exploiting that knowledge for seduction. 

That is, until she felt Ava’s fingers thread through her hair, at which point any thought of how she may have had a slight advantage left her mind, along with any other rational thought she was formerly capable of. 

“Oh, cool.  It’s like any other transmitter.  Huh.”  Zari looked at what Ray was doing to boost their signal, commenting frequently on the device between them to drown out the drama playing out in her ear, which was moving quickly from network TV to a cable late night special, and quickly. 

“Yup!” Ray answered, humming to himself.  Zari smiled, thinking it was kind of endearing how happy the man looked with a soldering iron in his hand.  It reminded her a bit of her brother when he was a kid, happily getting lost in his books or writing in his journal. 

“It’s just—I thought this whole time that to pick up on a time traveler’s satellite signal there had to be some special time travel formula, or some detection for a cloaked signal, but nope.  This whole time, our comm pieces worked on regular satellites boosted from natural reflections off of the atmosphere. It’s actually—kind of disappointing for future technology.” 

“Yup!”  Ray said again, happily assembling the pieces, blowing on the device to cool it off, waiting for the metal to look solid.  “So then you understand that theoretically—"

“This should fix it.”  Zari looked up in amazement, ignoring the moaning in her ear for just a little longer. 

Ray smiled up at Zari as she picked up the signal booster, and Ray inserted the part he had just finished putting together, before Zari realized her ear now hold the moans of two blonde women instead of one, coming in crystal clear. 

“I think that one claims me as the winner.”  Sara sat back, smiling smugly at Ava, who was clearly trying to catch her breath from the things Sara had done to her with her mouth.  And to think, they hadn’t so much as kissed on the mouth yet. 

Ava didn’t answer, instead looking at Sara, letting the pant in her breath rhythm sound through, not even trying to hide her desire at this point.  She had a tremendous amount of self-control, more than the average person. 

All of that went out the window as she looked from Sara’s smiling eyes down to her lips, plump from their afternoon games, unconsciously licking her own as she moved forward. 

“Ava!  Sara!  Can you hear me?” 

“Zari?” 

“No, Sara, you asshole.  Were you thinking about Zari just now?” 

Ava waved Sara off, hand going to her ear, which is what allowed everything to click into place for Sara. 

“Oh, you mean that.  Wait you can hear them?” 

“Ava, you can hear us?” 

“Yes!”  Ava said to both women.  “I can hear you.  Zari, where are you?  Where is the Waverider?” 

“Ray, she can hear us!  Okay give us a sec.  We’re going to plug in the second booster, so that will hopefully…there!  Sara, can you hear us too?” 

Sara’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at hearing Zari’s voice through her comm. 

“I can hear you, Zari.”  Sara smiled, looking up at the sky thankfully.  “I knew you guys would come through. Are you coming to get us?”  Sara was immensely proud of her team, and from the looks Ava was shooting her, so was her partner in crime.  If they could avoid having to continue living in a Viking settlement, Sara was most certainly on board with whatever Zari came up with. 

Ava smiled, putting her hand on Sara’s and squeezing. 

“Oh, we’re not quite up to that step just yet.” 

Ava’s face fell, but she left her hand on Sara’s.  “Why?  What’s wrong?”

“Nothing to worry about, we’re on it, just--”

“Thank god it’s you guys because we all might die.”  Ray blurted out, unable to hold himself back any longer.  “Gideon can’t finish her self-repair because of the hit from Darhk, and Mick punched out Jefferson so it’s not getting fixed, and also our carbon dioxide filters need repair basically right now and we also don’t know how to fix that and honestly I’m starting to feel dizzy but I don’t want everyone else to start panicking.” 

“On it.”  Ava said to Sara, standing up, immediately putting one hand on her earpiece, with one hand back behind her back, standing at attention.  “Okay, Ray.  We need to address the repair delays as well as how to get into contact with our time couriers.  But first, if Gideon is unable to fix the filters you’ll have to do it manually.” 

“Yeah…because if we knew how to do that…”  Zari answered, not wanting to flat out agree with Ray that they might die, but she was fairly sure. She had also started to feel dizzy from the air problem, but wasn’t going to admit that out loud.

“Okay, the first thing you should do is get the emergency oxygen tanks to everyone.”  Ava said, going right into command mode. 

“We have those?”  Both Sara and Zari answered at the same time. 

“You should. Didn’t Rip show you—nevermind.”  Ava rolled her eyes, being reminded that this whole mess had started because Rip took a team with exactly zero time master training hours clocked and took them on a joy ride for personal reasons.  “I’ll just assume he didn’t show you anything about the ship before you starting flying. Is that a fair assumption?”

Sara stood up, looking at Ava in awe.  As much as she didn’t like being on the receiving end of Ava’s chastisements as a bureau agent, she had to admit, the woman had the air of authority about her, and it could be damn sexy. 

“So you can help us?”  Ray asked hopefully.

“Of course I can help you.  Besides, if I don’t, your captain and I are doomed to a life with twisty braids and fur boots, and none of that is really my style.”  Sara laughed, staying to the side, letting Ava take command. 

“Well, it might not be your style, but it looks good on you, Agent Sharpe.”  Sara said playfully. 

Ava turned to address Sara.  “Not while they’re listening.” 

“Oh, we’ve always been listening. You just couldn’t hear us back.”  Zari answered casually, before realizing what came out of her mouth. 

“Excuse me, what?”

Amaya couldn’t find anything on the ship’s drive to help with the filter problem, so instead she turned her attention to fixing the Medbay.  She hoped Nate would be more successful with their print archives in that regard, as she ran down to where Jefferson was lying, still unconscious. 

When she entered, she noticed that both Mick and Leo were silent, snarling at each other, but also doing nothing to help Jefferson.  She rolled her eyes. 

“Glad to see you two are still friends.  Has he moved at all?” 

“No.  But he’s still breathing, and his pulse is strong.  I’m checking every ten minutes, unlike this pile of leftover’s from Gold’s Gym.”  He shot a look in Mick’s direction, noticing a shift in Mick’s eyes. 

Amaya had seen the look many times, but never in a human.  It’s the look that male lions give when they’ve decided something is a threat to the pride, and is going to be eliminated.  Right then, she knew why Mick was being so tolerant of Leo.  For the moment. 

“Okay.  Nobody move.”  She addressed the two former friends, going over to the Medbay control pad.  “From what I could find on the schematics, if the Medbay is repaired enough to be operational, the problem might be with diagnostics.  So Gideon’s scans can’t tell that he has a concussion and was knocked out from blunt force trauma.  I’m going to program that in, and hope that with the commands entered manually Gideon can start healing him up.” 

Mick continued staring Leo down, running through exactly how he was going to snap the skinny man’s neck with his hands. 

“Leo, why don’t you go out and check on Nate.  Find out if he’s found anything useful.  Mick, you stay with me.”  

Chapter Text

“That’s good.  Great, even.  You both did a nice job tapping into our comms, and good job following directions for the air tanks.” 

Ray and Zari were absolutely beaming.  They had never gotten a compliment from Ava, not even after saving her life.  It was expected for Ray to grin like he was posing for a group photo at Boy Scout camp, but Zari’s wide smile also couldn’t be hidden. 

It was like being told, “you are a genius beyond belief” from Bill Gates.  It was a “you have the voice of an angel” from Adele.  It was the “you are fierce and gorgeous” from Ru Paul, Lady Gaga, and the entire cast of Queer Eye.

Hell had frozen over.  The Eagles were back together.  Because Ava Sharpe gave the Legends a compliment, and it was everything.

“Thank you.”  Was Zari’s simply reply, still smiling behind the air mask wider than she could remember doing in a long, long time. 

Following Ava’s exact instructions for how to locate, put together, and distribute the air tanks, each member of the team was now attached to an air supply, putting together the apparatus even while getting dizzy from the abundance of carbon dioxide in the air.  Amaya put together an extra one, going to the medbay to attach it to Jackson’s face. For the first time in hours, it felt like they had some hope that first, they weren’t going to die, and second, they could actually pull off a rescue of the agent and their captain.

Now, Ava turned her focus on how to manually fix a filter that Gideon couldn’t make the exact replacement for, as they had told Ava that the ship was stuck on manual fabricator commands, still stalling out at the “ninety percent” warning when in conversation. 

Sara stood by in awe, hearing Ava giving out instructions patiently, knowing that this was incredibly time sensitive.  The agent had explained that they needed to have the filters fixed in forty-five minutes or the tanks may no longer be effective, and it would take about that long to create new carbon dioxide filters.  And yet, even with that pressure, Ava’s voice never wavered.  If the commanding officer was nervous, it never showed. 

She also didn’t show any signs of doubt that the team could do it, which was helping the confidence of those on the Waverider so they could follow her instructions without any hesitation. 

“Okay, we’ll start with giving Gideon a shot at creating a full filter.  Probably not if she’s not fully functional, but worth a try.  So, from this point on, I will give instructions solely to Zari.” 

“Me?  Why me?”  Zari questioned, the first signs of nervousness shining through. 

“Because I believe you are Gideon’s favorite, after Sara here from what I’ve observed so far, and I’d like Amaya to continue to keep Leo and Mick separated. We cannot afford to be interrupted by any sort of scuffle.” 

Sara smiled at Ava’s command, agreeing with the plan.  It was exactly how she would have instructed, and as far as Gideon’s favoritism, well, as much favoritism as an AI can show, she agreed. 

Captain Lance’s concentration on Ava’s words were only interrupted by hearing footsteps, followed by someone with blonde braids and a battle sword starting to rummage through their base camp. 

Sara’s eyes went wide, as she hit Ava’s shoulder for attention. 

“Okay, I figured Gideon wouldn’t make a filter. It’s too complicated to get it done punching in manual codes.  It’s fine, it was worth a shot.  We’ll carry on with manual back up parts—ow!” Ava’s eyes shot daggers at Sara for being interrupted, seeing the captain make a “shhh” motion with her hands before pointing across the clearing to their tent. 

Their tent, that clearly had someone inside, throwing items out one-by-one, turning over each sack, clearly searching for something. 

“Okay.”  Ava said whispering, before dragging Sara down with her back behind one of the larger brush pockets.  “Everyone on the Waverider: I am going to have to whisper the instructions from here on out to keep us going.” 

“Everything okay down there?”  Zari asked, hand hoovering over the fabricator manual control panel, ready to go. 

“Possibly not, but we don’t have time to stop before you run out of air, so keep listening. Sara and I need to remain undetected.” 

“Grrrr!”  Freydis growled from the tent area, getting more and more frustrated at the missing talisman.  The Viking warrior woman decided right then and there that when she found the miniature Oden, nobody would stand in her way of activating it. Nobody.  Even if she had to kill her own brother—at this point, she would do it if it meant conquering the world. 

“Oooookay.  Focusing.” Ava steadied herself with a breath, seeing Sara draw her sword while squatting next to her, giving Ava a look that outlined their plan without having to say anything. 

Ava understood: if Freydis became a threat, Sara was to eliminate, and Ava was to continue with the instructions. 

“First thing’s first: I need you to have Gideon fabricate what is the most important repair part every created by human technology.  Zari, type in ‘duct tape’ and press the command button.” 

“Seriously?” Nate asked, rolling his eyes.  “Of course, it’s duct tape.” 

Ava ignored the groan, popping her head up to see Freydis move on from their ransacked tent out closer to where they were, the sails in the clearing.  She watched as the woman was literally leaving no stone unturned, flipping over every item or large rock that could be used to conceal anything, seemingly getting angrier as she continued to come up empty. 

It was only a matter of time before Freydis continued farther, to where Ava and Sara had their back-up camp supplies hidden.  And also, where they had hidden themselves. 

“Good, Zari.  You got this.  Next have her make two plastic grocery bags, and two medium-sized cardboard boxes.  Yes, the common items like one would acquire from shopping or buying a department store item that comes in a box.” 

Zari shook her head, finding the instructions a bit ridiculous, but carried out the command anyway, along with the ones that followed, reading like a simple Home Depot list.  She didn’t initially believe when Ava told her the Waverider had a secret room for emergencies, and yet, there it was, behind the exact panel she said it would be behind, with all kinds of emergency equipment.  And as Ava told her each item to input into Gideon’s manual command panel, each item did indeed appear.

Freydis had finished all but destroying everything in her path: base camp, a cooking station, the sails, a hull replacement part that was being built by her crew earlier, pulling up loose bushes, kicking dirt and sand, and she was starting to walk towards the area that Ava and Sara were hiding. 

“Don’t move.”  Sara said to Ava, knowing she would need to keep Freydis occupied so Ava could keep her team from dying.  Ava simply nodded, her voice not showing the concern her face had.  Sara looked at Ava for another moment, believing Ava would stay put and keep fixing the filters while she fought. 

But she paused, hesitating, with a look in her eyes that Ava wasn’t familiar with enough to describe.

Sara leaned in, giving the agent a kiss on the cheek, letting her lips linger for a full second before jumping over the brush, sword out in hand, just as Freydis had uncovered their supply stash. 

“Zari, no matter what you hear through these comms, you keep doing the repairs.  That is an order. Sara has down here under control.” 

Zari gave Ray a wide-eyed look, hands ready to move over the supplies on the table before them.  Ray responded by nodding, hands hoovering over the transmitter, ready for Ava’s instructions on that, hopefully as soon as the air was fixed. 

“You.  You couldn’t run off with your people, could you? You may have bested us once.  Do you expect to have such luck again?”  Freydis drew her sword, knowing that to go through the supplies she had just uncovered, she would need to defeat this woman before her first. 

And Freydis was absolutely going to search this stash, thinking her Oden talisman was there, judging from Sara’s reaction to her presence.  Sara charged at Freydis full speed, sword nearly taking off the woman’s head, but the counter hit was enough to throw Sara off balance for just a second. 

“Okay Zari, now that you have everything lined up, cut a piece of duct tape the length of your arm, and then rip it down the center lengthwise.  This should give you two long, thin strips, that you’re going to use to seal where the cardboard meets the round part.”

The hacker follows Ava’s instructions to a tee, even though her hands are starting to shake a bit when she hears Sara in a swordfight in the background.  It scares her that she only hears Freydis grunting before the clashing of metal on metal, but she knows Sara’s fighting style, and it is most likely from the assassin’s silent moves rather than a sign that Sara is losing. 

Finally, everything sounds like it’s put together. 

“Okay Zari, you should still have ten minutes left on your emergency apparatus, but we should give the replacement filter a try.  I want you to take in a deep breath, take the mask off, exhale.  Then inhale the air in the room, immediately putting your mask back on.  If the new filter is not filtering, you will become dizzy temporarily, but putting the mask back on will fix that.”

“Uh oh.”  Ava hears, turning her head back to Sara fighting Freydis.  “We’ve got company.”  Sara announces, still going toe-to-toe with Freydis, as she spots a dozen more Viking warriors who heard the fight, and were drawing closer, which Sara assumes is to help Freydis, judging from the drawn swords before them. 

“Zari?”  Ava asks, only letting her voice show her panic just slightly.

“All clear!  We can breathe without the masks.”  Everyone in the room with Zari lets out a long sigh of relief, Amaya and Leo openly clapping at the successful mission. 

Ava only has a split second to make a decision, seeing that she and Sara are about to be violently outnumbered.  Running over to their stash, she grabs the miniature Oden, and readies her hand on her time courier. 

“Okay, then quickly I need you guys to take the transmitter that you’re using to boost the comm signal, and dial it up four frequencies exactly.  That will tap into my time courier.  It’s going to ask you for a code to select a time to jump to.  I don’t know the manual code for the Waverider so you’re going to have to type in any six digits.” 

“What do you mean any six digits?”  Zari asks in a panic, cranking up the transmitter to exactly four frequencies higher, feeling the click in the device as it locks onto another satellite. 

The additional Vikings, several large, meaty, bearded men followed by a group of the largest women Ava had ever seen are within yards of Sara. 

“Anything.  Zari, anything.  I need to get us out of here immediately.” 

Zari types in six random numbers, waiting for further instructions. 

Ava hangs onto the items she already had strapped to her, including the Oden talisman, waiting for the time portal to open. 

When it does, it is a mere second before a sword is about to catch Sara from behind.  Instead, Ava dives at Sara, shoving them both into the portal behind them. 

Chapter Text

Sara hopped up off the ground, helping Ava up before dusting herself off. 

“Sara.  Ava.  Can you hear me?”  Came through Sara’s comm loud and clear.

“Yes, I can hear you Zari.  We’re okay. How are you guys holding up?”  Sara put her hand on her ear as she spoke out of habit. 

“Sara.  Captain Lance.  Do you hear me?  Hello?”

“Hello?”  Sara answered back, looking up at Ava in a panic.

“Well, I guess the jump blocked out some of the frequency.”  Ava said, noticing that Zari most certainly couldn’t hear them, continuing to try to get a response.  Sara was openly gaping at the block they hand landed on, never having seen anything like it before.  Ava putting a hand on her shoulder only barely snapped her out of it. 

It only took about half a second of looking around before Sara realized a) she had no idea when then had landed, and b) they were terribly out of dress code for whatever period this was. 

In fact, the more she looked around at how the sky had a more purple hue than the blue she had been used to all her life, the amount of people walking by with multi-colored hair, all wearing what looked like variations of track suits, albeit in different colors and cuts. 

It wasn’t lost on Sara that it was also snowing lightly, making her glad she had on Viking gear in the cold, and yet nobody around her wore a coat or even gave a hint of a shiver.  The streets, in whatever quaint looking town they had landed in, were immaculate.  There wasn’t a hint of trash every touching the ground, and the storefronts on what was some sort of Main Street were all clean and perfectly painted. It was also not lost on the captain that there were lots of people around, but no cars.

At least the people seemed friendly, all smiling and waving at each other as they passed by.

“Oh, this is not good.”  Sara saw Ava start to panic as she looked around, quickly dragging Sara behind a building before too many people saw them. She held Sara back, as though the street scene before them had consisted of a scene from Die Hard, instead of the near-utopia Sara saw.

In fact, the Captain wondered if somehow the team learned how to beam them to another planet altogether, because this was way too trippy to be any part of Earth, having seen quite a bit of both past and future. Ava’s reaction was strange indeed, based on what she saw.

“What? Where are we, Ava?” 

“Keep your voice down!”  Ava whispered, peeking around the corner of the building before pulling her head back in. 

Sara followed instructions, lowering her voice, but still demanding an explanation.  “We are in the future.”

“Pft.  I’ve been to the future, it’s nothing like this.  Unless—did we stop Darhk’s rise to power? Is this what happens if we defeat Mallus? Is that what this is and why everything looks so…”  Sara poked her head around the corner. 

She saw everything multi-colored, with people walking down the street happily, an ice cream truck parked on a corner, serving a crowd of happy looking people. 

“…happy?  Everything looks happy here.  Does the future actually work out?” 

“Well, a few problems with that.  I’ll explain what I know, but first we’re absolutely going to have to get out of these clothes. We won’t really be able to blend in here, but we don’t need to stick out worse than we will. We cannot be identified as from outside of this time, and Sara, you’re just going to have to trust me on that for right now.” 

“Sara.  Ava.  Can you hear me?”  Zari tried again and again, watching everyone else roll their eyes are her insistent trying. 

Even though it was clear that the time jump cut off communication again, the newest team member felt like she at least had to try. 

The rest of the team kept quiet, watching Zari and Ray scramble, trying to do whatever they could to boost the signal back up. 

“How about now? Sara?  Ava?”  Still nothing. 

“Hey.  It’s alright.  We found their frequency once, we’ll find it again.”  Ray said, spreading his optimism onto the exact wound that needed it. 

Amaya nodded at the two of them, knowing they would immediately be back on the comm situation.  “Right then.  I’m going to go back to trying to get Gideon to finish her repairs.  Anyone who would like to join me can—not you, Leo.  I’m taking Mick with me and you two need to stay separated.” 

Mick merely grumbled, snarling in Leo’s general direction.  Overall, he didn’t mind Amaya’s presence on the ship since she’d been picked up. She was polite, never bothered him about his drinking, and if Mick wanted something Amaya was using, such as the fabricator or the library, she merely had to get Nate to walk past, and the two immediately clung to each other like magnets from eight grade science lab, disappearing together within seconds.  She was someone he had no problem living with.  One could even say it bordered on liking someone more than merely tolerating.

Leo, or rather, the evil troll he considered to be an imposter in a Leo mask, was another story.  Mick wasn’t new to having to plan.  The real Leonard Snart would never admit it, but Mick did have some brains in there, and was never just the brawn of the team.

So naturally, Mick being placed by Amaya’s side was just another part of his plan to eliminate the imposter Leo altogether. 

“Okay, then where do you want me?”  Jefferson walked carefully into the main chamber, hand on his head, looking like someone who crawled out of a major morning hangover. 

“Jackson!  Careful!”  She ran over to him, helping him to a seat.  “How do you feel?” 

“Like someone punched my lights out.  What the hell, man?” Jackson snarled in Mick’s direction. 

“You lied to me.”  Mick growled back, still occasionally darting his eyes back and forth between Leo, and Jefferson, who was now clearly an addition to his threat list. It didn’t seem to phase Mick in the slightest that the list of enemies on the ship was growing, and Sara was not here to protect him, or more likely, sort out his nonsense. 

Mick looked away from Jefferson, oddly saddened at the thought.  He did want to get the Captain back. 

“I was joking. Do you really think I’d steal from you?” 

“Okay, let’s have this conversation when Jax doesn’t have a swollen face. Nate, can you grab him some ice?”

Nate immediately went to go, even as Jefferson immediately began protesting.  “No time.  I’m not just going to sit here with an ice pack on my face. If Gideon isn’t fixed yet, I need to work on that.”  Nate came back in with a bag of ice.

“Well, then lucky you.” Amaya picked up what was left of the duct tape from their ship repairs, taking the ice pack from Nate.  “How about you do both.” 

Jefferson simply grumbled, letting Amaya attach the ice to his head.

Ava was a little too familiar with the time period for Sara to let go of her unease. 

It was like the agent knew exactly what back doors to what shops would be wide open for them to steal clothes, knowing there was no hard currency in the time period.  Ava had explained that everything was digital, and without a personal device, there was no paying for anything. 

As Ava relayed the information, she seemed to be getting more and more frightened.  They had lifted items as need be throughout history: if an item of clothing needed to be stolen to blend in, well then, that’s what happened.  She knew Ava wasn’t a fan of messing with the past or future at all and would never steal for fun like Mick, but she seemed deathly afraid of having to do so at all. 

“Ava.” 

“Shhh.  Not yet.  Not until I can get us somewhere safe to talk.” 

“Why isn’t it safe here?  Nobody is around.”  It was true.  They were in the back of a shop that was closed for the day, nobody inside.  Apparently, security alarms weren’t a thing in the future, because according to Ava, nobody would even think of stealing as necessary. 

It started to explain why everyone looked so cheerful going down the street.  Sara began to wonder what it would be like to go through life never having to worry about being a victim to a crime.  Hell, in her adult life, many times she was the one committing crimes. 

She briefly wondered what it would be like for that not to have occurred as well. 

To walk around the streets at night with absolutely no possibility of being robbed, raped, or endure any sort of violence.  To not have a concept of having a lock on the front door or the car, because nobody would ever do such a thing that would necessitate a lock.

“We can’t talk here because a lot of people have mods, including for hearing.”

“Mods? Sorry.”  Sara went back to whispering as low as she could but still be heard by Ava.  “What are mods?”

“Modifications.  In the future, people undergo body enhancements.  Some are cosmetic, like the people you see who can grow blue hair or have cat eyes, those are just for fun.  But they also can enhance hearing or have zoom vision options on sight. Sickness is rare, most diseases have been circumvented by medical mods.  Regular over the counter medicines don’t even exist anymore. We need to keep our voices down, because someone out there will hear us, and we’re committing a robbery.” 

Sara nodded, now understanding why they had to whisper, saddle up, and get the heck out of Dodge before someone could hear them.  She still thought Ava was slightly overreacting.  Sure, she felt bad about stealing too.  Especially since they were essentially ruining this community’s picture-perfect life where nobody ever stole from anyone. 

They were violating this shop owner.  It did bother her more than usual, given the context. 

“So why are you so upset that we’re taking these clothes?”

“Sara, the penalty for committing any crime in this time, regardless of severity, is death.” 

Before this moment, Sara wasn’t afraid to die. 

She’d died twice before, and after coming back each time, she just considered that she was flying by on borrowed time.  If it were coming, she wouldn’t cheat death again. 

But now—now that position, being directly challenged, put Sara in a different mindframe. 

Sure, she wasn’t afraid to die anymore.  But right now, she didn’t want to. 

She wanted to go back to her ship of friends that had become her family.  She wanted to fix history and leave the earth not just the way it was, but better—certainly not the mess of anachronisms and angry gorillas, dinosaurs, Darhks, and Mallus-driven fanatics that it was. 

And whatever was happening with Ava, these smiles, the touches, the games that pointed at a mutual yet unspoken attraction—she was damn sure nowhere near ready for this to end. 

Ava sensed her discomfort as they sat side-by-side on the highspeed underground subway. 

Of course, there were no ticket checkers.  Because nobody would ever get on a train without having paid first.  Unless you are Sara Lance and Ava Sharpe, apparently.  Ava had the two of them at least stand in front of a machine and pretend to scan a P.D. (personal device) to pay, so as not to arouse suspicion. Another crime, another tick on the “possible death penalty” list. 

Sara felt sick. 

Ava took her hand in her own, lacing their fingers together, putting their joined hands on her lap once they were seated in one of the less crowded cars. Sara looked up. 

“It’s okay.  Stealing is not okay in the future, but hand-holding absolutely is.”  Ava said quietly, giving Sara’s hand a squeeze.  The assassin took this as a sign that Ava was good on public displays of affection, so she scooted closer, wrapping her second hand around Ava’s bicep, feeling it was well-developed. 

The smaller blonde took care to keep her voice on the lowest setting possible, barely breathing her words out.

“So, when we get to this secret place, are you going to tell me about why you know everything about where we are?” 

Ava looked stuck for a moment.  She really didn’t want to talk about it.  But she looked at pools of blue looking back at her, she thought about how vulnerable Sara had been with her so far, even if most of it was involuntarily so.  It really wouldn’t be fair for her to continue without sharing with Sara the things that scared her as well. 

Sara stayed silent, searching Ava’s eyes for the answer her mouth was clearly not giving, until the agent nodded slowly.  “Okay.  I will tell you.  When we’re at our stop.” 

In Ava’s mind, at least at the end of all of this, if they did get caught and were killed, she was the reason for the giant smile of appreciation that Sara was giving her as a reward for he response.  It was a momentary relief, before the train’s bells rang, signaling their stop, triggering Ava’s high alert state once again.

“This is our stop.” 

Chapter Text

As soon as they stepped off the train, Ava plastered the happy face on, using her demeaner to blend in further. To anyone passing by, between the outfit and her confident walk complete with face smile, she absolutely belonged in this time period. Sara had to admit, she was mildly impressed.  The wheels began turning in the assassin’s mind as to why wherever they were, Ava knew how to blend in and secure necessary items. 

She made a mental list of possibilities, following the agent’s lead, as she walked them above ground, then away from the hustle and bustle of the train stop. Former FBI undercover agent? CIA? KGB? Some other three letter organization?

Someone who was really good at first person role playing games on the Playstation? 

They were in a smaller town, still in the cleanest condition Sara had ever seen, with people walking around with multi-colored hair, skin mods of glittery-sparkles, leopard prints, or lizard tone seemingly popular with the teenagers, who all laughed together in little groups, not causing even a hint of trouble. 

Sara shook her head, “Kids these days,” she said as they passed, Ava’s head turning to meet what Sara meant. 

“Yep. I guess that’s the same in every timeline.  You can change society, and the kids still want their individuality.”  She noticed that Ava was walking them to a nature preserve, the emptiness of which told Sara it was probably a weekday and not many were around to enjoy a hike, even if this location was a tad warmer than where they had entered the train—something Sara was thankful for, even though Ava had gone out of her way to get them the thickest track suits available in the shop they had burglarized.

“So, if one of those kids fails a test, do they get put to death too?”  It slipped out of Sara’s mouth before she could stop herself.  She hadn’t meant to sound so flippant, but the one thing that had been on her mind for the last hour finally came bubbling up. 

Ava kept them walking, face falling serious.  “No. They are allowed to make minor life mistakes until adulthood.”  She let out an exhale, the gravity of the situation weighing on her.  But she wanted to hike Sara out farther away from any potential prying ears before getting into it all. 

“So, how did teenager Sara show her individuality? No secret teenager tattoos? Smoking in the ladies’ room?”  Sara relaxed, even letting out a chuckle. 

“Sorry to disappoint, Agent Sharpe, but teenager Sara rebelled by staying as clean-cut looking as possible. Blonde standard cut, mall clothes, multiple shades of pink, no tattoos or piercings to be found.” 

Ava chuckled back.  “I find that hard to believe.  Barbie to assassin is a big jump.” 

It wasn’t that Sara didn’t trust Ava, she most certainly did, but she was tensing up at how far Ava was taking them.  How sensitive were these hearing mods anyway?

Sensing her discomfort, Ava took Sara’s hand into her own, giving it a squeeze, bringing Sara back to the conversation. 

As though interlaced fingers with Ava weren’t a distraction in and of itself.

“Clean cut generally attracted my type, which as a teenager was to try for older boys. I mean, I suppose I would have tried for older women if I were a little more self-aware.”  Sara shot Ava a wink, trying to recover her usual mask of cockiness.  The laugh Ava gave in response was a reward to Sara’s ears. 

“Well, you’re in luck, since you’re with an older woman right now.  Boy does time fly.”  It was Sara’s turn to laugh back. 

“Time doesn’t fly, we do. That’s why we’re constantly in a time-mess.”

“True. So that was Sara Lance’s big rebellion?  Hitting on college men?” 

“You could say that.  I just—I was really insecure, you know? And anyway, even once I was a freshman in college I was still out hunting for older guys. It was easy to get positive attention that way. And if anyone else was getting the attention, I got jealous.  Like insanely jealous.  It was almost a competition in my head.”  Sara kept her hand in Ava’s, thinking back to her younger self, pausing for a moment of honesty that normally she would gloss over. 

But this was Ava, and she really had nothing to lose. 

“I stole my older sister’s boyfriend. I was that spoiled and starved for attention. And he had no problem giving it once Laurel wasn’t looking, and it didn’t hurt that his family was loaded. He was only two years older, but…I guess ending up as an assassin was good for me.  It taught me the opposite of being attention seeking. Self-control. Not always following an impulse. That whole deal.” 

“MmmHmm.”  Ava nodded, listening thoughtfully, although apparently it didn’t click for Ava that Sara was referring to Oliver, or as Ava knew of him, the Arrow.  “Then it sounds to me like your older sister was dating the kind of scumbag who would cheat on his girlfriend.” 

“That was your take away from that?” 

“Well, maybe you brought something to light that needed to be shown, just in a difficult way.”  Sara turned her head.  She could hear that Ava was attempting to be careful with her words, unsure as to why.

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, was he aware that you were his girlfriend’s sister?”

“Yes, but-”

“Yes or no, Captain Lance. No buts. And was he also over eighteen?” 

Sara rolled her eyes, biting her tongue, even though she wanted to argue. 

“Yes.” 

“Okay, so he had a responsibility in the situation not to chase after whatever you were offering. I’m guessing you didn’t hold a gun to his head to get him to cheat on his girlfriend. Did it even take that much coaxing?”

“I knew what I was doing was wrong, Ava.  You don’t have to make excuses for me.” 

“I’m not. If you knew it was wrong, then it was probably really a hurtful thing to do.”  Sara appreciated that Ava gave her that, not attempting to sugar coat. “I’m just saying in that situation, he had a responsibility to say no as well. You don’t always have to carry all the guilt for everyone, Sara.”  Ava stopped them, taking Sara’s other hand, so they were facing each other. 

“Well, we’re all different people now anyway.  He’s—different now too.  And I am.  I wouldn’t do that now. Not in a million years.”  Sara said, cautiously bringing up her eyes, blue on blue.

Ava nodded in understanding, hoping that Sara at least absorbed a bit of her point. 

She nervously swung her hands that were joined with Sara’s, taking in a deep breath. 

“The reason I know this time period is because at the end of basic training for the time bureau, Rip drops you and your team off to survive with nothing but the clothes on your back for seventy-two hours to see if you can survive.  My team and I were dropped here.” 

“Team Leader Sharpe, you may choose one item to take with you.  Choose wisely.” 

Ava looked at the items laid out before her.  There was a time courier, some generic model cell phone that looked less impressive than her own iphone, a bottle of simple penicillin, and a switchblade. 

Rip really was making this too easy. 

Clearly, the cell phone was a trap, as cell phones didn’t work across time.  She laughed at whatever idiot who was clearly about to not pass would choose that.  Penicillin wasn’t a top choice; even if they were sent back to before it was invented, what were the chances of picking up a specific illness that couldn’t wait seventy-two hours for an anti-biotic?

It was between the time courier and the knife, and Ava Sharpe, the cadet who was selected to lead the team, already had a knife tucked away, strapped to her ankle under her uniform. 

“The courier, please.”  She said with a smile, confident in her choice. 

“Ah, this is not a standard time courier.  It is only programmed to make one trip for one person, and you will wield it as the Leader.  And there is a rule: you may not use it to jump back to this moment and re-select. Remember, going back to a place one has already been is how we got into this mess in the first place. Also, it will be a one way trip, so don’t think you’ll be popping home to grab something.  This is not a simulation, it is the final test. Once you’re out of it, you’re out. If you use that to quit before the third day, consider it your last day as part of the Time Bureau.” 

Ava nodded. All of the items were basically useless then, meant to give the illusion of going in prepared. Still, she felt more confident having some connection to the Bureau while out in the field for the first time should a true emergency arise. 

“I understand. I will take the courier.” 

Amaya was so proud of Jackson.  So, so proud.  He found a chip that needed to be repaired, and doing so brought Gideon’s repairs up to 95%. 

Which meant they were closer to being able to tap into the missing team members’ time couriers, or being able to jump to pick them up.

But it also meant closer, not ready-to-go. 

Getting frustrated and feeling helpless, she was more than happy that Zari volunteered to babysit Mick in the lab with Ray, while she, Nate, Jefferson, and Leo continued to look in every nook and cranny below deck for what was left to be repaired to finally get this ship moving. 

She knew that Mick was a little too quiet about being moved, not even protesting when she made it clear out loud that Zari was to “keep an eye on him”. 

No grunt. No arguing. No off-putting comment about the babysitter wearing a low-cut top or anything else Mick-esque. He simply walked over to the fabricator, Amaya heard him punch in a bunch of buttons, and she saw him walk back out with a beer, following Zari and Ray back to the lab.

Amaya thought for a moment, before shaking it off, following the rest of the non-engineers with Jefferson, who would give them each a screw driver, explaining how to look for inconsistencies, the way he found the damaged chip. 

Mick, when he reached the lab, was careful to situate himself so that Ray and Zari most likely couldn’t see the heatwave gun snuggly secured in the waistband of his pants under his jacket. 

It didn’t take much for Mick to get his plan into motion. 

“You’re just going to tinker with the things then?”  He grunted out casually to no one in particular, picking up the transmitter that was based off of Ray’s 1958 beacon, albeit with some major modifications. 

“Careful, Mick.  It’s a fragile technical device.” 

“Hmm.  It needs new batteries.”  He said, before tossing it back on the table like he was tossing a TV remote.

“Hey!”  Zari yelled.

“Careful!”  Ray went over to make sure nothing was broken.  When everything looked okay upon inspection, he turned back to Mick, sweating from having almost lost his creation.  “It doesn’t need new batteries.  I just put these in.”  Mick shrugged, moving to sit on the side while the two of them worked. 

“If you say so.  Where did you get the batteries from?”  Mick threw out casually, taking a swig of his beer. 

“My alarm clock.  Which never goes off, mind you, because I’ve trained myself to drink a full liter and a half of water before bed to wake me up on time in the morning, so the alarm clock is really more of a back up.” 

“Right. And where did you get the batteries to put them in the alarm clock?”  Mick continued, hoping at some point this would click for Ray on his own. 

It wasn’t.

“Oh, I took them out of Nate’s portable DVD player.  He said he didn’t need it anymore once he found out Gideon can play any movie ever made on demand.” 

Mick nodded, as Zari finally chimed in, rolling her eyes. 

Of course nobody ever just BOUGHT batteries…

“Ray.  We need to find fresh batteries.  These things could be from the year you saved the dominator for all we know.  Maybe that’s why we can’t juice up the signal.”

Ava couldn’t believe how much she had managed to screw up a mission in twelve hours. Twelve. Not. Even. A. Day.

 It was an embarrassment.  She was embarrassed that she had so grossly underestimated how difficult the final test would be. 

As soon as they started being chased by the police, on the fastest moving Segways she had ever seen, with police officers seeming unafraid of going that fast upright without so much as a helmet on, Ava knew she had made a giant mistake, followed by several smaller mistakes. 

She had approached being in the future the same as visiting a past timeline.  She hopped right out of the time window, immediately securing period clothing and survival items.  It hadn’t occurred to her to spend any significant amount of time laying low, or in reconnaissance to learn the time period. Of course, when it was the past, she’d already know something about the period going in, either from learning in history, or from cadet field trips, even that one time watching the first season of ‘The Borgias’ came in handy after a group accidentally found themselves at the mercy of a very power-hungry pope. 

But in the future, she wouldn’t be able to wing it.  She should have done a time study.  Had them hold back.  Run a full observation before attempting to acquire any goods.

Little did she know the test was to stay alive for seventy-two hours after being set up for failure, as Rip sending them to this time period was their first crime: Unauthorized time travel. 

It seemed that not only were the police perfectly aware of time travel in the future, it seemed sanctioned—as long as one had a permit for such activities.

She and her team did not. 

Once panicked reports came pouring in regarding unexplained missing items, of a group of people using a public restroom without buying anything, and one citizen report of everyone’s least favorite city crime—littering—the police determined they were most likely dealing with time trespassers who had also stolen a laundry list of goods, including literal laundry for four people.  It took them less than twelve hours to deduce that there was a group of time bandits, there were four of them, and once they started closing in on them, they were able to identify Ava as the leader.

The police had attempted to arrest them peacefully, although not at all surprised when the criminals were uncooperative.

“Formation nine!”  She yelled out to her team, which gave them the evade instructions to split up, individual attempting to hide while making it look like they were still running.  It was the most difficult of the strategies they had learned at the Bureau, but she knew from experience that it worked the best in simulation, so she had to try now. 

“You are all sentenced to death, for the following crimes.”  The officers would yell as they chased them on the Seqways, shooting what appeared to be laser guns.  Ava noticed they were attempting to maim them, not kill, aiming for their ankles. 

They wanted them disabled in order to arrest them.  The idea of being saved for a public execution was of no comfort to Ava, running as fast as she could. 

She watched two of her team members split off to the side, while her and one other recruit, Bill, decided their best route to escape was up.  She doubted the devices the police were on could scale walls. 

She looked at Bill, then looked at a fire escape.  The two nodded at each other, climbing while trying to avoid the shots from below, the police still reminding them that they were sentenced to death for time trespassing, littering, public rudeness, theft, and breaking and entering. 

It’s not that Ava had WANTED to steal.  It’s just that she didn’t know that the phone that was one of her options at the beginning of the test was actually something called a Personal Device, which would have allowed them to pay for things, or open a tab on the honor system.  How was she to know?

By the time the two were on the roof, Ava climbing over the top, then pulling Bill, she could see he was hit.  His leg immediately began swelling at the cut site, oozing puss, as though it was an untreated wound that had festered for days rather than a fresh shot. 

“What the…” Ava’s eyes went wide at the wound. 

“Oh, that’s no good.  Instant infection.”  Bill groaned, feeling sick. 

“Whatever they shot you with has some kind of biological property.” Ava couldn’t believe how badly she was failing.  She had never completely failed at anything in her life, ever.  Not a single class, not a single sport team try out.  She was even an above-average bowler.  But this, this situation with Bill rapidly succumbing to an insta-infection, was most certainly failure. 

This is the exact scenario some penicillin would have come in handy for.

“You are under arrest and will be sentenced to death.  The penalty for all crimes is death. Initiating wall climb.”  Ava heard from below. 

“Oh God.  They’re coming up here.  We’re dead.  That’s it.  This is the end.  Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Cadet Sharpe. Now we die.”  Bill said, seeming to accept his fate. 

“No.”  Ava stated simply. 

“No?”  Bill cocked his head. 

“No.  This is my fault. You’re going to go back to the Time Bureau, and get yourself checked into Medical immediately.”  Ava took the time courier off of her wrist, strapping it onto Bill’s, hitting the activation button. 

“What are you doing—it’s only programmed for one person.  One trip!”  He said. 

“I know. I’m the one who screwed this up. I’m the one who made every call we’ve followed that lead to this. I’m the one who should stay here.”  Ava pushed another button, opening a window to the past, pushing Bill through before he could protest. 

It was then that she saw the heads of the police officers coming up over the edge of the roof.

“Wait—so what did you do?  How are you still alive?”  Sara asked, wide-eyed from the story. 

Ava was becoming visibly shaken at reliving the experience as she spoke.  They were in a small clearing next to the main trail, nobody around them as far as either of them could see.  When Ava had started using her regular-volume voice, Sara followed suit. 

“Rip.  Before the police from this time could apprehend me, Rip popped out of a courier window and grabbed me.  He also had the rest of my team with him waiting back at the Bureau.  Bill ended up fine, treated in Medical, by the way.” 

“Ava, wow.  I can’t imagine.” She could imagine.  It was a polite exaggeration.  Sara had lost count of how many times she felt responsible for something horrible happening to someone else due to her decisions.  “I guess you didn’t fail, though? I mean, you still ended up at the time Bureau.”

Ava nodded.  “I was the Team Leader, my grading matrix was different.  The other three failed, though.  Bill was expected to evade being shot like I had, and the other two were apparently pocketing more than just what I instructed when we stole food and clothing, rendering all of their training null and void.”

“But you?” 

Ava smiled for a split second.  “Look, I know Rip has been a major dick lately.  But after that mission, he was actually really kind.  He told me that my choice to save a member of my team instead of saving myself is what got my passing grade, even if I didn’t last seventy-two hours. I really wasn’t doing well after that mission for a few days.  I still felt guilty about the whole thing, about acting rash and putting everyone in danger.  Rip made sure that I learned from my mistakes, but didn’t dwell on them.” 

“I guess I should consider myself lucky then, to be out in the field with someone so selfless.” 

Ava shook her head, eyes bearing right into Sara’s soul.  “I’m not selfless.  If anything I’m about to be possibly really, really selfish. We might not make it out of here, Sara.”

“I know, but we’re going to try to--”

“Shhh.”  Ava said quickly, moving her body into Sara’s space.  “I can’t not.” 

Ava scooped a surprised Sara into her arms, putting all of her energy into bringing their lips together.  Ava pulled her body against her own when she felt Sara immediately kiss back, arms wrapping around the agent’s neck. Ava moved her lips firmly, opening and closing their mouths together, ignoring the feeling of her knees growing weak at Sara Lance’s softness.  It did amaze Ava, how Sara had such cut muscles, a strength she’d gone toe-to-toe against, but the woman was still so soft against her.

Sara hadn’t been expecting Ava to kiss her, but it was also a need she had growing inside of her that she wasn’t aware of until it was happening. But once she was aware of it, she kissed back like it was her purpose in life. She kept the entire front of her body pressed into Ava’s, leaving no space in between, keeping their mouths attached as they moved, breathing out of her nose to keep them together.  As she felt Ava do the same, breath skittering across her cheek, a tiny moan slipped out of the back of her throat.  It only further encouraged Ava to keep their mouths and bodies attached, enjoying the long reprieve from the stress of the situation, burrowing instead into the warmth of their embrace. 

The two worked well together, whether in a fight or in a kiss, as Ava and Sara somehow knew how to choreograph when to move their heads, when a tongue could slip in here or there, when Ava wanted fingers running up into her hair or when Sara needed to feel hands running up and down her back, each making demands on the other in wordless pleas.

When Ava finally pulled apart, she only backed out slightly, enough that she and Sara were still sharing the same air as the smaller woman spoke. 

“We’re getting out of here.” 

“But if we don’t--”

“No.  We are.”  Sara pressed their lips back together for a moment before pulling back to continue, letting their foreheads touch.  “I’m not ready for this to be the end.” 

Ava let two, three, then four breathes go by, before answering. 

“Then we’ll find a way out.” 

Chapter Text

“So…how much do you guys love me?” Jackson said, peeking out from behind the cabinet of wires he was going over inch-by-inch. 

“Depends—our usual love for you, or are you telling us some good news?”  Amaya peeked out from underneath a board of microchips that she had been staring at for the last hour, not even knowing what she was looking for. 

“Well, let me just--” Jefferson pulled out a replacement wire from his work back, removing a gray wire that looked like it had taken a blowtorch to the end, and snapping it into place, immediately garnering a response from Gideon.

“Ah, that feels much better, Mr. Jackson.  Commencing system repairs.  We should be back at one hundred percent in less than one minute.” 

Amaya, Leo, and Nate couldn’t help but erupt into a cheer at that. 

“Excellent! Jax, you saved our asses.  Big time. I owe you, we all owe you.  Gideon!” 

“Yes, Captain Jiwe!”

“Are we able to locate Sara?” 

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Jiwe.  The most the crew can do is monitor the anachronism map, hoping they make enough of a bubble for us to notice them.” 

“Well, it was nice to feel celebratory for that whole thirty seconds.”  Nate said, rolling his eyes, because of course it wouldn’t be that easy. 

“Rest assured, once Sara and Ava have been located, I will have no trouble jumping us to retrieve them.” 

“That’s good I guess.”  Amaya answered, knowing that the anachronism map was so large and contained so much of a mess from Darhk and Grodd that at this point they were going to have to each take a slice of it to babysit, watching for changes.  Unless Zari and Ray had made some progress. 

“I’m going to check on Zari and Ray.”  Amaya announced, standing up, giving Jackson’s shoulder a squeeze. 

“I’ll come with.”  Leo chimed in.

“No, you need to--”

“Not run away like a five-year old coward when big bully Mick gets all wound up? I’m not going to keep avoiding him, Amaya.” 

“Leo, look, I appreciate that you want to stand up for yourself, but I don’t think he just wants to pick a fight with you.  He wants to eliminate you.  Completely.”  Even Amaya didn’t know a delicate way to put it.

“Well.  Then my old friend is welcome to try.”  Leo smirked at the thought. 

They had gone over the plan several times, hiking around the nature preserve.  Over and over again, meticulously. 

If time travel was sanctioned this far into the future, that pointed to a reality where the means of time travel had to physically exist somewhere.  Anything would do—a time courier, a ship, a portal generator…Ava and Sara had talked about it extensively.  Time travel would only be something that warranted regulations if it were happening.  Laws weren’t just passed for the sake of it, they were passed out of necessity. 

And if they found the means of time travel to work with, they both decided that they would make the time jump, even if they didn’t know how to control where to.  They had a better chance of Sara’s team flagging them down and rescuing them if they were in the past rather than the future.  That way, they could find the nearest historical figure or site of significance, and cause an anachronism, hopefully flagging their system as a “please come pick us up” call. 

The problem was, in the twelve hours Ava had spent in this time previously, she had managed to learn a lot about the culture, albeit the hard way, but not once did she see any means of time travel.  At least not that she noticed or that was labeled as such.  So, it was great that they agreed that they were going to hijack a time travel device by any means necessary, and if that meant adding to their list of death penalty-laden crimes, then so be it.  But they didn’t know where to start. 

“Okay, you work for a government agency.” 

“Just catching on, Miss Lance?”  Ava cracked a smile, keeping Sara’s hand in her own as they started their third lap around the trail.

“Well, that is going to come in handy.  If you were the head of the Time Bureau in this time period, and you knew time travel was going to occur for civilians with proper reasons and permits, where would you hide the ship? Would you set up a port or something?”

“Hmmmm.”  Ava thought for a moment.  It was a scenario that she might have to live through one day, if they all survived the Darhks. “I suppose if we’re assuming they use ships or portal generators and not time couriers, I would stash the operation in an already existing port of transportation.” 

“…meaning?” 

“An airport, bus terminal, subway stop, something where travelers already pass through, and don’t question what terminals other travelers use. And it has the bonus of utilizing an already existing infrastructure, so we don’t have to attempt to inflate an already black-budgeted program--”

“Speak nerd to me again, babe. Such a turn on.”  Sara chuckled, shoving Ava with her shoulder. 

“Sorry.  I’m trying to--”

“I’m teasing you.  I like it.  I’m attracted to brains.”  Ava blushed, like she had any right to, after grabbing Sara and kissing her out of the blue a mere thirty minutes earlier. 

“Well, then I hope you’re ready to be majorly turned on for the duration of this trip.”  Ava leaned in to whisper in Sara’s ear.  “Lots of brains here.” 

“We are back at one-hundred percent, Captain Jiwe.  Awaiting your orders.” 

“Finally!  Thank you, Jax.  Really.  You’re a lifesaver.” 

“Don’t thank me yet.  We still have to find them.”  He said, as they both scanned the anachronism map in front of them with their eyes over and over again. 

“Amaya! Jackson! Where do you keep the fresh batteries?” 

“What?”  Amaya asked, shaking her head. 

“We need fresh batteries. The ones we’ve been using are triple used.  We might just need more juice.” 

“I don’t know about fresh, but I guess you can take them out of one of the smoke alarms.  If there is ever actually a fire, Gideon would alert us.”  Zari rolled her eyes. 

“Honestly, who knows how long those have been in there?  They could already be dead for all we know—scratch that.  With the amount of times Mick decided to ‘play’ with the heatwave gun and nothing went off, I can already bet they’re dead.  You don’t have anything else with a few batteries?”

Amaya thought for a moment to the small personal item she kept in her dresser drawer, a gift from Sara that the Captain had found hilarious to give a woman from 1942 with no concept of ‘adult’ toys, but that the interim captain had found to come in handy when Nathaniel was otherwise occupied. 

“No, nothing I can think of.”  She answered, a little too quickly, but Zari let it slide. 

“Okay then. Gideon, can you make batteries in the fabricator?” 

“Absolutely.  Initiating build now.” 

“Yes.  So good to have you back.”  Zari said, walking to the fabricator, expecting the batteries to be waiting for her. 

“E.T.A. for a pack of double AA batteries is five minutes.” 

“Actually, we need triple A.”  Ray said, coming up behind Zari.  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, it’s just that you were taking awhile.” 

“Ray! I’ve got this!  Gideon, make them triple A please.” 

“Copy that.  Initiating build now.” 

“Ray.  Did you leave Mick alone?”  Zari narrowed her eyes, reminding the overgrown boy scout that not everyone was as trustworthy as he was. 

“It’s okay, he promised me he wouldn’t do anything bad.” 

“Right.  Because Mick would never lie.” 

“I made him pinky-swear.” 

Ray was amazed at Zari’s ability to roll her eyes with her whole head. 

“I will go get him.”  He answered, hurrying back to the lab. 

“I can’t believe this is happening again.”  Ava said panting, out of breath, from outrunning the future police. 

At least this time, they were on foot patrol and not on Seqways, giving the two unauthorized time travelers a chance. 

“I guess they do take their rules seriously around here.  Ridiculously seriously. Not that I didn’t believe your story before, but now I really, really believe you.”  Sara panted, equally out of breath.  She was grateful in that moment that she trained whenever they weren’t actively on a mission, making sure to stay in tip-top shape.  Otherwise, she never would have made it away from the officers. 

She worked to get her breathing back to normal, taking in their surroundings.  The two hid in what appeared to be an abandoned mechanics’ garage, clearly untouched for decades.  She was actually shocked at what they had found inside, as the outside was as neatly painted as any other building in the town, lest an abandoned building fall into visible disrepair and make anything on the block look less than perfect. 

Sara was almost okay with being chased just to burst the picture-perfect bubble everyone around was walking around in.  Honestly, is it worth killing people to maintain?

Once inside, behind the not-locked door, everything was indeed falling apart from no usage.  They had popped inside in the back while the police where chasing them, and the police continued running right on through the back, not realizing they were no longer in pursuit.

At the very least it would buy them some time.  Much needed time, as they would need to come up with a new plan.

“I’m certain that was their equivalent of a time ship.  I’m one-hundred percent.” Ava said, shaking her head, as they had clearly failed in their main objective.  “I’ve just—I don’t know how to work it. How do I not know? I’ve never seen controls like that before.  It’s astonishing, really.”  The agent shakes he head, then hangs it in shame, avoiding eye contact with Sara. Of course, Ava was theorizing on the three seconds where she could see the control panel before they were identified as about to steal a jump ship, and the police inside the airport were dispatched with only one warning announcement. 

It was the announcement that let them know it was time to run. 

Sara popped her head up to look out of the tinted window, making sure the police were indeed gone, thinking they were still chasing the fugitives.

“Hey. This is a good thing.  You were right, they would conceal a time ship in an existing transportation hub.  We know where it is now.  All we need to do is sneak back when it’s closed.  We’ll figure it out.”  Sara puts her hand on Ava’s arm, who shows no sign of actually having heard Sara, still angry at herself. 

“Again.  This is my second time here, and I still manage to get us chased by the police.  And this time, there certainly will be no Rip to help.”  Sara didn’t like seeing the look of defeat on Ava’s face.

“Maybe that part’s unavoidable.  After all, as soon as you jump here, you’ve already broken the law.  We were kind of set up for failure, you know?”  Sara shoves Ava’s shoulder. Looking around the garage, she can see what look like car parts around.  There is clearly a lift, and the distinct smell of oil and gas lingers in the air.  “I didn’t see any cars here.”  Sara says aloud.

“There aren’t.  Public transportation is the wave of the future, apparently.  Nobody drives anymore—I’m not exactly sure when that started. A lot of people choose to walk if it’s a short distance since they can inject temperature mods and not have to worry about the weather. I can’t believe I was so stupid.  Like we’d just be able to walk in and fly a future time ship.”  Sara hadn’t heard anyone transition so seamlessly into self-loathing since the last time she listened to her own internal monologue.

“Hey.  I pretty much just walked into the Waverider and started flying a future time ship, and I’m lucky I didn’t kill us all.  What, did you think Rip actually gave us lessons? Nope.  Gideon wanted to strangle me on my first flight.  You’ve gotta stop beating yourself up.  Besides.  This isn’t the first time I’ve been chased by law enforcement.” 

That at least got Ava to look up. 

“You mean me, or when you were the Canary?” 

“You, you dork.  You kinda used to act like you hated me.”  Ava didn’t answer. 

“C’mon.  Ava, I’m just kidding. Trying to lighten the load a little.”  Still silence from the agent. 

Until she wasn’t silent.

“I did hate you.”  Ava admitted, hanging her head again. 

“Wow.  You really know how to make a girl feel special.” 

Sara watched as Ava shook her head again.  “It’s not you—like you personally.  I mean, this was before I knew you, obviously.  You weren’t Sara, the person.  You were Sara Lance, the Sara Lance.  Who broke time.” 

“That really bothered you enough to hate someone you’d never met?” 

“Sara, do you think that dinosaurs just get displaced, and major monuments fall out of the sky, and every power-hungry warlord running around in your time starts in chaos out of the blue, and nobody gets killed? Hurt? I know a lot of people who lost parents, siblings—I was lucky nothing happened to my parents, or my friends, but almost everyone at the bureau agreed to sign up to fix it because they lost someone close to them.” 

Sara stayed quiet, listening as Ava gave her what had been simmering under the surface this whole time.  And she had no idea.  Ava cleared her throat, staring off.

“Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when time broke.  Everyone has that story.  And everyone starts with how terrifying it was, especially not knowing what was going on.  Can you imagine sitting down to dinner one night, and suddenly a dinosaur is in your yard, and you see it for a split second before it stomps on your roof, giving you a split second to get your family out?” 

Sara put her head in her hands.  She knew that Rip was pissed at her for creating all the anachronism ripples.  And she knew Ava had been angry too.  And, well, the entire time bureau.  But she never really thought about why. 

“I’m sorry.  I am.”  Sara said so quietly she wasn’t sure Ava would hear her. 

“No, Sara—I’m not saying this to make you feel bad.  Wow, that was insensitive of me.  I’m sorry, just--I know now that it was this, or let the spear of destiny disappear and trap us all in a false reality forever.  Really.  I get it now.” 

“But it doesn’t excuse what I’ve done.  Christ, I’m even a killer after being brought back to life again.  I guess that’s never going to go away.” 

“Sara.”  Ava took her hand, cradling it with both of hers.  “I can’t imagine being in that position.  I really can’t.  I wasn’t thinking about you as a person back then, back when we first met.  I just knew you as the person who broke time.  Not thinking that you were a good person, who was trying to save us from something possibly worse.  I didn’t know you as someone who has to make the best possible decision between crap and shit. I just—I wanted you to understand where I was coming from, okay? Sometimes I tend to look at things as black and white.  I know that.” Ava said that last part softer, almost more to herself than her companion. 

Sara looked around at the dirty garage they were trapped in, somewhere in the distant future, with no team, and their only way out probably being guarded by the meanest police Sara had ever come across. 

“I just want one good day.  One.” 

“What do you mean?”  Ava kept Sara’s hand in her lap, stroking the smaller blonde’s arm. 

“When we get out of this.”  Sara turned to look at Ava’s face.  “One day where we’re not good guys or bad guys, or fighting or running.  Fuck.  I just want one day.” 

“When was the last time you had one day? No fighting. No life or death.”  Ava asked.

Sara sighed.  “Let’s just say it’s been well over a decade.” 

“Yeah.”  Ava exhaled just as loudly.  “Me too.” 

Ray gasped, before catching himself, hiding behind the wall at the doorway. 

Mick did indeed have Leo cornered, with his heatwave gun pointed at the man who wore his friend’s face. 

“I’m going to enjoy this.”  He heard Mick growl, and just as he was peeking his head around the corner, he saw Mick unleash the fire from the heatwave gun.

Only to be blocked by a quickdraw from Leo, with cold freeze staving off the stream of fire. 

Mick wasn’t one to give up, keeping his finger on the trigger. 

“You think you can outlast me? It’s only a matter of time.”  But it wasn’t a matter of time.  Mick could see his fuel tank on low. 

Clearly, he hadn’t thought through the scenario where he cornered Leo alone and his plan hadn’t worked out.  He looked up at Leo’s sneer, the man’s icy-cold stare telling him that his opponent most likely had plenty of fuel. 

“Fine.”  Mick lowered his gun, Leo immediately following suit. 

“Mick, Mick, Mick.”  Leo said shaking his head.  “You can’t just blast this away.  I think we know what this is really about.” He put the freeze gun down, walking towards the man. 

“What are you--”

Leo grabbed both sides of Mick’s head.  The kiss he planted on him was brief, but firm, continuing for an extra second even after he felt Mick freeze against him. 

“Stop fighting it.”  Leo said, before letting go and walking away, ignoring Ray completely as he left the lab. 

Mick continued to stand in place, frozen, blinking. 

Chapter Text

“I’m going to do it.”  Amaya’s hand hoovered over the “call” button, Nate holding her from behind. 

It’s not that she wanted to have to call the time bureau for help, but she could only stare at the same anachronism map for so long before the colors started to bleed together.  She also didn’t remember when she crossed into letting Nate show physical affection with her again, but she was too distraught to really question it.

Nate sighed.  “Alright.”  His tone conveyed his actual meaning.

“You don’t want me to call them.” 

“I think you should do whatever you think is best, Captain.” 

Amaya scanned the map again, not seeing a single fluctuation. 

“I should call them.  It’s the right thing to do.  The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be to do an extraction.  They will cause more anachronisms, time will cement, things will be harder for us to fix…plus, we don’t know if they’re in danger right now. Maybe that’s why they haven’t sent up a flair.  They could be anywhere.  They could be in front of Vlad the Impaler right now, hoping their heads don’t end up on spikes. Maybe they--”

“Hey, don’t talk like that.  Sara’s a bad ass, and Ava’s…well, scary.  But that means nobody’s gonna mess with her, okay? If you have to call the anachronism-holes, then that’s what you have to do.”

“Right.”  Amaya’s hand continued to hoover.

“Even if they are terrible, and were hand-selected by Rip, who we all know is only a smidge more trustworthy than Damien, who thinks this ship is just for training exercises and also kind of hates us.” 

“Ugh.”  Amaya took her hand off the button. “Not helping, Nathaniel.  Do you think I like this?  ‘Hi, Time Bureau? Remember how we told you to go fuck off a little while ago?  Well, we lost our captain, and yours.  Wanna help?’ Do you really think I’m looking forward to this conversation?” 

Nate thought for a minute.  She did have a point.  They couldn’t just float around the temporal zone without Sara indefinitely. 

“Fine.  What if we just ask that little squirrely one who’s afraid of Ava?” 

“I think they’re all afraid of Ava.”

“No, the greasy one with the glasses that follows her around, that Sara had tied up on here back when the saber tooth tiger was loose?” 

Amaya turned, giving Nate a kiss.  “You’re a genius.” 

“We can’t sleep in here.”  Ava stated the obvious.  Even if it had been decades since any actual automobiles had been serviced in the garage, the smell of oil and gasoline still lingered.  Not to mention unsafe levels of dust, dirt, and grime. 

“Well, the Ritz Carlton was booked, so…” 

Ava turned to look at Sara, eyes wide with the birth of an idea.  “Actually…maybe it’s not. We passed a hotel when we were running away before.  What are the chances all the rooms are booked?  We can probably sneak in late night and score an actual bed. Not that I’m being a baby about it, but we were just sleeping on blankets and floor with the Vikings and it’s not my favorite.” 

Sara broke out into a smile.  “Sneaking off to a hotel with a woman after one kiss?  What kind of a girl do you think I am?” 

Ava’s smirk told her exactly what kind of a girl she thought she was. 

Sara wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of letting her know that she was correct. And she was completely down with sleeping in a hotel rather than a dirty garage. The shorter blonde had a particularly mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Well, we’re going to need to kill a few hours before I can teach you to sneak undetected into a hotel.” Sara winked before continuing.  “Anything fun around here? It would be a shame to waste the experience of being in the future.” 

“I am really glad you called me.  I was starting to unravel when Agent Sharpe didn’t come back.”  The unrestrained whine in Gary’s voice was apparent, but ‘starting to unravel’ may have been an under-estimation of the man’s current existence. 

When Gary ported onto the Waverider, the man’s disheveled hair and grease stained shirt, that Amaya was certain was always supposed to be clean, pressed, and crisped white pointed to a man who hadn’t showered or changed in way too long. 

“I’m sure they’re fine.”  Nate supplied, trying to keep Gary from completely losing it. 

“No, they are.  Agent Sharpe would never let herself get killed off in a mission.  That would be terrible.  Terrible.  The worst.  Not going to happen. Nothing happened to Agent Sharpe.”  Gary then trailed off, rubbing his hands together, repeating “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”  Over and over again. 

Amaya and Nate looked at each other.  They did need his help, but they were also going to have to convince Gary not to completely go insane.  Did this man even feed himself if Ava wasn’t around?

“She always keeps a spare blazer in her office for emergencies. Not that I hang out in her office-I mean, I figured I’d wait there because that’s where she’d portal back to when she returned.  I just—it smells like her, and--”

“Okay, buddy.  Let’s get you a shower, and a change of non-Ava scented clothes, and then we can talk about tracking down our leaders.”  Nate put his hands on Gary’s shoulders, steering him towards the one Waverider bathroom.

“I can’t believe you stole us a popcorn.”  Sara said in a low voice, shoving more of what was apparently a timeless snack into her mouth from the large bucket on Ava’s lap.  The beers that Ava had also swiped were hidden neatly under their seats.

“Shhh.”  She laughed, knowing they were rows away from any other spectators, sitting the highest up in stolen baseball fan gear.  Nobody would hear them, but Ava’s natural response was anxiety at this point. 

“I can’t believe you wanted popcorn for dinner.  How is this going to sustain us?” 

Sara shoved another handful in her mouth.  “By making me happy.  That is the true fuel of a fugitive. Hey, why aren’t each of these guys hitting it out of the park? Don’t they have those mods or whatever?” 

“Athletes aren’t allowed to use performance enhancing mods. They are scanned regularly to make sure they only use natural strength.” 

“Right. And I bet none of them are mod-doping. I mean, I would.”  Ava shook her head, no longer bothered by comments like that from Sara. 

“Well, I wouldn’t.  But you were right, this is a more fun way to spend the night than moping around the abandoned garage.” 

They were lucky that they had swiped the right kind of fan gear. Ava was right to target a house that looked like the owners were on vacation, blinds wide open showing a house collecting dust and mail piling up.  Of course, there was no lock on the door. 

It gave them a chance to refill on clothes, swiping a PD, not that either of them had figured out how to turn it on, and pre-packaged food to stash back at the garage until later.  Ava was really hoping the owners were going to be on vacation for a good long while, keeping the cops off their tail.  When Ava saw that one of the occupants appeared to be quite the Robins fan, she had a good idea for how to kill a few hours.

They watched another inning, both pretending to be diehard Robins fans, cheering at every strike-out along with the rest of the crowd.  Ava blended in perfectly, like a chameleon. 

That seemed to be the story of Ava the entire time they were time-marooned.  Ava morphed to fit the bill, stealing items with ease.  It gave Sara pause. 

“How are you so good at this?”  Sara looked at Ava, seeing the woman freeze up. 

“The Time Bureau actually trained its agents, Sara.  You shouldn’t be surprised that we’re good in the field.”  Sara shook her head, reaching under them to pull out the beer.  She instinctively knew this conversation was going to need a little lubricant. 

Ava took hers without arguing. 

“They do.  But you seem to be a little—extra trained, wouldn’t you say?”

Ava didn’t respond, taking a gulp of the beer.  Sara had been thoroughly impressed at Ava’s ability to steal, particularly focused on survival items.  But she also walked away with an entire tub of popcorn like she owned the place, and was also successful.  She was just too good of a thief not to have an explanation for it.

“Okay.  If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.  But I doubt whatever it is can be worse than having ‘League of Assassins’ on your resume, so…”  Ava sighed. 

“You’re asking me for things that nobody else knows about me.”  The agent was confused when Sara smiled. 

“Nobody else knows you can’t swim, right?”  Sara smiled larger when Ava nodded in agreement at that, blushing a tad when Sara leaned in closer.  “I think I’ve proven that I’m good with secrets.” 

Coaxing Gary into morphing back into a self-sustaining human being took Amaya’s skills, as she recognized him as basically a scared, abandoned cat, skittish if anyone got too close. 

But he did agree to bathe, with Nate supplying a change of clothes, even though they were baggy on him.  And Amaya was smart to leave out a bowl of soup on the counter, letting him know it was there, and then walking away so he could cautiously approach on his own. 

They pretended not to see him.  They also pretended not to see him take out a picture of Ava from his pocket that looked like it was cut from some kind of time cadet yearbook which he quickly shoved back in his pocket whenever someone came around the corner, shoveling soup in his mouth regardless of temperature, still not making eye contact. 

Amaya sighed.  Still, he might know something that could help them.  And he was all sad and mopey without Ava, to the point where Amaya had to remind herself that they weren’t adopting him, there were already too many kids in this kindergarten. 

It turned out Amaya was right.  Gary was more useful than his appearances led one to believe. 

This became apparent once he was allowed in the lab with Zari and Ray.  Mick had retired to his room, grumbling something about how everybody better stay away from him, while Leo was off with Jackson to see if there was a way to scan inside the anachronisms to try to find Captain Lance faster. 

“Why are you trying to boost the signal?”  He asked staring down at the handheld device that now held fresh batteries, still not connecting with the comm devices of the displaced teammates. 

“Well, we started off being able to talk to them through their comms--”

“You got to talk to them? To Director Sharpe?  I mean, how is she? Not that I care. I don’t care…but did she sound okay?” 

“Yes.”  Zari answered, hoping now to boost the signal enough to beam Gary to wherever they had landed, if nothing else than to put the man out of his misery and get his mopey whininess out of her face. 

“Did she sound—good?  Say anything about me?” 

“Gary, focus.  Foooocus.”  Ray cooed back to the situation at hand. “That’s better.  Good Gary. It’s going to be okay. So, as I was saying, we made comm communication, and then Ava told us how to jump to the frequency of the time couriers, but they had to get out fast before we could beam them here, and they got shot somewhere and we don’t know where they were sent.” 

“Yeah, and then we lost their comm signal to boot.”  Zari pointed to the earpieces they had taken out after an hour of trying to get audio back. 

Gary shrugged.  “Okay, so they were beamed to the future.” 

“Wait-what?” Zari shook her head, not believing the explanation was so simple, but made so much sense.

“Yeah.  The comms work in past times because we were able to go back and plant satellites at strategic locations, both on the ground and in orbit.  But because the future isn’t solidified until you’re in it--”

“There are no comm satellites.”  Ray’s eyes went wide. 

“Correct. But, their time couriers should still have an active tracking beacon. So if we can tap into the signal Director Sharpe’s courier should be sending out--”

“We find them!”  Zari and Ray both said excitedly, now understanding what to do.  They didn’t need to boost the signal to get the comms back, they needed to scan for incoming pings from a wrist-sized black box. 

Sara sat quietly, munching her popcorn from the giant tub on her lap, knowing if she was patient enough, Ava would crack.  She knew if it was deep enough, some part of the woman would want to talk about.  The Captain likened it to her involvement with the League of Assassins.  She didn’t walk to talk about it.  Ever.  Too many feelings, doing too many horrible things that she hoped would make the earlier horrible things go away, but now she was just haunted by both.

But she would talk about it if she thought the listener was capable of understanding.  She hoped Ava felt the same way.

Sara only had to wait half a beer before Ava deemed her worthy. 

“Special forces, seven years into doing black ops missions, and we were loaded onto a helicopter with minimalist gear. We were in all black, not fatigues. No U.S. flag patch. Nobody with tattoos or any other physical identifiers were allowed.” 

Sara nodded, appreciating how much trust it took for Ava to tell her. 

“We weren’t told where we were going.  I still am not a hundred percent on where we were because I don’t speak Arabic and the region we were in border territory judging from the coordinates, but once we were in the air we were given assassination orders, and they took our dog tags away.  That was enough to make it pretty clear that if we were caught, we weren’t getting a ride back to the States.” 

“Is that—were you?”  Sara did speak Arabic, but she could see from the setting of Ava’s jaw that this was already a difficult memory to bring up; she didn’t want to make it worse probing for phrases she may have heard. 

“No.”  Ava shook her head, turning to look at Sara, this time not joining in with the crowd around them as someone hit a triple.  “We were successful.  I don’t even know who we killed—a diplomat, government official, whatever, but the three of us executed the mission perfectly.  Extraction was the problem.  They must have been tipped off to our presence, because the chopper that was set for retrieval was under fire as soon as it was visible.  It had to turn back.  Then, our back up extraction point was compromised as well.” 

“Wow.  I’m sorry, that’s--”

“After back-up failed, I knew they weren’t coming back. I don’t even know how long we were stranded, but it was months before we were able to make our way to a hospital, who recognized us as English-speaking and called the consulate. But until then…”  Ava trailed off. 

“Until then, you had to steal to survive and learn to blend in.”  Ava nodded, conveying with her body language that she was done talking, even though there was clearly so much more bubbling under the surface. 

Sara shook her head, putting her hand on Ava’s on the arm of the seat between then.  The former assassin thought about it.  What do you say to someone who is carrying this load? 

The more she thought about it, the more she understood.  The response is what she wished someone would say to her. 

“I know it was terrible, but I’m glad that you made it.  I’m glad that you survived, and you did what you had to do.” 

Ava didn’t respond, swallowing as she turned her head, giving Sara a nod.  Even with her attention on the game, Ava seemed to relax, even just a tad. And she let Sara keep their hands together.

It was the right thing to say. Sara knew it.  Because Ava’s silence was exactly how Sara would have responded as well. 

Chapter Text

It amazed the former assassin that most people who lived in a city never realized that it was never truly dark.  Even in the “pitch black” darkness of night, there was always enough light pollution to see shapes and shadows.  To regular people, nighttime probably was dark. 

To an assassin, it was just lit enough.

Lying awake in a single-bed hotel room, inches from Ava, was no exception, with the street lights of future perfect-ville providing more than enough light to see that Ava was also still awake, staring back at her.  Neither of them speaking. 

They had only spoke in short sentences since leaving the baseball game.  Working out the logistics to sneak into the hotel—the face that a Presidential suite, complete with a king sized bed and a hot tub, was open was something they both only acknowledged with a smile and a nod, sneaking right in.

The more Sara thought about it, the more she and Ava were alike.  More than Ava would ever admit, anyway.  She thought about the story that Ava told over and over again at the baseball game. 

She was basically an assassin.  But Sara would never say her thoughts out loud, not wanting to offend Ava, who most likely would distance herself from a clandestine order, holding herself above for being in an actual legitimate army.  Sara kept blinking, staying still, staring at Ava in the dark as they lay in bed. 

Why is her army legitimized and mine isn’t?  Didn’t the League save me from starvation, take me in, give me a life to lead when I thought there was none? Sara knew she was romanticizing her time there.  But she couldn’t help mentally revisit the time now that she knew more about Ava. 

Now that there was someone who could start to understand her.  It was true, that Ava hadn’t been brought back from the dead, hadn’t lived through the nightmare that was Lian Yu, but at least on some level she understood.  More than anyone else in her life at the moment, anyway. 

This—whatever this relationship was—it was intriguing, but had also gone from playful fun to scary real, and fast. But as scary as it was, Sara knew she didn't want it to stop.

Ray stared at Zari’s fingers, amazed at her speed.  It’s not that he’d never seen someone write code before, far from it—heck, he’d done it himself when need be, but the quickness that Zari exhibited at networking together her slider, two laptops, Gideon’s mainframe, and increasing his beacon’s ability essentially making it a functioning smart device blew him away. 

He hadn’t seen someone work with this level of both genius and fervor since Felicity Smoak, and given his former resources when he ran his own company, that was saying something. 

Zari’s fingers continued to fly, creating a major hub that would network every know Time Bureau Satellite, along with “borrowing” a few government satellites that were mostly used for conveying weather anomalies, and Zari guaranteed that if anything on Ava or Sara were giving off a locator signal, she’d be able to pick it up.

“I…how?”  Gary stared in amazement as well, not sure of what was going on in front of him, but knowing he was way out of his league at the moment. 

“Yeah, this is how I avoided those ARGUS assholes for so long.  All of their drones send out locator signals so the cop-bots know where to follow to if they stop responding.  When you need to send out a signal, Ray’s your guy.  When you need to pick up a signal that you’re not supposed to know is there, well…”

Ray nodded, amazed.  Of course a Time Bureau beacon would be cloaked. He started to open his mouth to offer Zari a job, before realizing that he didn’t actually have a company anymore.  But she had so much potential.  Honestly, was she just going to spend her entire life on the run, only using her genius to stay undetected?

“And now.”  Zari took her hands off of the keyboard, sitting back, kicking her legs up onto the table. 

“And now…?”  Gary asked, looking just as nervous as when Zari had started her build. 

Ray nodded, knowing.  “And now we wait for a ping.  Zari’s program is throwing out a wide net of signal seeing what we can catch. It’s kind of like fishing, only you don’t have to get up really early in the morning, and we don’t actually get dinner for catching anything, and there’s no relaxing boat—it’s actually the opposite of relaxing, but--”

“Please stop ruining my moment.”  Zari shook her head, keeping her feet up, but her eyes on two screens at once. 

Ava knew Sara was awake, eyes having adjusted to the night within a minute of them turning off the lights and climbing into bed. 

It was a luxury.  It had been quite some time since the two of them had a bed, with real, fluffy blankets and pillows.  The room they found themselves in was exceptionally comfortable with these things, clearly meant for high-end guests. Since they’d had access to a shower,  they each took one before bed, having snuck into a room that according to Sara’s assessment would be the last to be rented out based on location in the building.  They decided the hot tub would take too long, and they were both a strange combination of tired and wired up from the day.

Ava also knew that they were lying much closer together than a king sized bed would usually dictate, but they had gotten so used to it at the Viking settlement, and she had to admit she found comfort in being stranded with Sara rather than alone or with some other random field agent that the closeness was welcome.  She could picture herself doing this with Sara long after they were stranded.  It was a nice fantasy, even if it wasn’t helping her fall asleep.  The idea of Sara coming over, laying like this together in her bed, home, safe, where they could explore what was blooming between them more carefully, without a constant threat of death.

Sara was close enough that she could see the smaller woman’s eyes still open, raking up and down her face, scanning for what, Ava didn’t have the nerve to ask.  Even in the shadows, Ava could see Sara’s brow furrow, hearing a sigh. 

Asking what she was thinking about would be too much of a loaded question. 

Instead, she moved her hand up, bringing it to Sara’s cheek, the feel of Sara’s jawline bringing her a sense of calm.  Sara still didn’t speak, leaning up ever so slightly into Ava’s touch. 

It was the agent’s turn to sigh, using her fingertips to trace along Sara’s cheek, across to her forehead, lightly tracing eyelashes, before moving lower to skim lips, all the while Sara stared back, letting her.  She couldn’t read the expression on Sara’s face.  Her night vision was good, but not good enough to read the complicated woman that she had only just begun to share herself with. 

Then she decided that she didn’t need to pry, and Sara most likely didn’t need her prying.  She needed comfort.  They both needed the safety and security of this bed after so long sleeping on the ground.  Or how they needed each other, after being stranded, and also everything they’ve each ever lived through. 

Ava replaced her fingertips with her lips, seeing that Sara was very much still awake, still not speaking, but encouraging Ava to trace the path along her jaw, then up to her forehead along her eyebrows with butterfly kisses by wrapping her arms around the agent’s strong shoulders. 

Leo, Amaya, Zari, Ray, Nate, Jax, and Gary all sat around the screens running Zari’s scan, waiting for a ping.  Mick was updated and invited out, and opted to stay in his room, where he immediately began hanging up old posters of Baywatch women that he saved from his younger years along with a few leftover swimsuit model cut-outs, doing anything to avoid having to make eye contact with Leo. Only once his room was covered in scantily clad women did he relax, lying on his bed, popping open a book.

The behavior only made Captain Cold smirk in the doorway before turning away to follow the others. 

So, the crew, minus Mick, just stared, waiting for a hit.  It only took about ten minutes of nothing before Zari started to get nervous, and Nate wanted to scratch his eyes out, trying not to blink too much and miss something. 

“So…we just sit here?”  Nate said, his voice carrying just a hint of whine.

“Yep.”  Zari answered, opening a can of cola, preparing to be staring for the rest of the night. 

“I know! We could play a game.”  Gary offered, seeing everyone just staring, waiting for what the agent new could be a good long while. 

“On it!” Ray shouted, rolling over his clear marker board, drawing a bunch of dashes and an upside-down “L”. 

“Oooo!  I’m first!”  Gary said, clapping his hands together in excitement. 

Ava wasn’t consciously aware of when things escalated, but at some point they transitioned from soft, side-by-side kisses to being on top of Sara, shirts removed, still not having spoken a word. 

Until she felt Sara run a hand up her back and down her side, which meant she felt the scar on her side that was usually covered by her bra or a thick bathing suit top.  She froze, realizing it had been quite some time since someone knew that was there—and that she’d had to explain it. 

At least Sara already knew what happened to her, even if she left out the details.  She didn’t need to go into just how hard being stranded in a war-torn village was, even if she physically carried some reminders.

“Hey.  It’s okay.”  Sara said, feeling the woman on top of her freeze.  “I used to have them too.  Perks of the Lazarus Pit, or I’d still have them.  Well, and I’d be dead.  But I get it.”  Sara thought back to the scars that used to litter her back from her League days, and how she even flinched the first time Nyssa saw them. 

Ava nodded, scooping back down for a kiss, hoping Sara understood enough not to ask her for a story, dialing up the heat between their mouths, both out of desire and distraction. 

They needed this right now.  Not to talk, but to not be on the stressed-out high alert they’d lived in for the last few days.  It was scary to Ava, just how much she’d shared with the smaller woman whom she used to consider her nemesis. Now she wanted nothing more than to run every mission by Sara’s side, with each day ending like this: 

Ava on top of her, slowing inching down the stolen sweatpants that Sara was wearing. 

Amaya and Zari rolled their eyes as Nate and Gary got wayyyy too into the game, boring Jackson into volunteering to go check on Mick.  As soon as they all saw just how many dashes Ray put on the board, they both knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were not interested. 

“Give me an ‘E’!” Gary shouted, watching Nate groan, knowing that Gary probably just buried him. 

“Ding, ding, ding!  There are four “E’s” here!”  Gary looked at the word, which according to Ray involved two numbers, with a clue of “carbon structure”, which had only further bored Amaya and Zari. 

“I’d like to solve!”  Gary said excitedly.  “What is Buckminsterfullerene C60?” 

“Correct!”  Ray shouted, also excited enough to give Gary a little jump. 

“Incorrect! I demand Gary be disqualified for answering in the form of a question.  That’s a different game.”  Nate said, crossing his arms. 

“Nope!  No disqualifiers here.  Gary!  Your turn!”  Ray said, tossing Gary the marker. 

“You know what, Ray? I’m going to stick with carbon structures.”  Gary walked over to the board, putting up an obscene number of dashes in his phrase, causing Amaya to hang her head, and Zari to groan. 

“Please tell me these time couriers emit regular signals.”  Zari said, her frustration evident. 

“Oh, not at all.”  Gary answered.  “If this were a few days ago, sure.  But by now her time courier is going to be in battery-save mode. It could be a couple of hours still.” 

“Ugh.”

Sara hadn’t done this in a very long time. Having sex with someone who knew her full, real name? With all of her clothes off?

Having a full, naked woman’s body writhing underneath her full, naked body.  In an actual bed…

Some who gave her warm, fuzzy feelings? Who understood her more than everyone else in her life? 

Sara had to shut down this line of thinking, distracting herself by licking her way down Ava’s body, nuzzling a line of short, blonde pubic hair, inhaling deeply.  She didn’t want to think about the weight of what they were doing, only that in this moment, it felt right. 

Ava seemed to agree, letting Sara hook her knees over her shoulders, diving in tongue-first in a way that had the normally reserved, stoic woman crying out instantly, feeling Sara’s smirk against her. 

“I got a ping!”  Zari shouted excitedly.  She didn’t know what she was more excited for: finding Sara, or not having to listen to Nate list another unknown esoteric ancient Greek text on the hangman board. 

Everyone immediately moved around to look at the screen Zari was looking at.  A small, red dot appeared on their timeline simulator, showing them just how far into the future Ava and Sara had been flung. 

“Good!  This is good.  We’ve got a year.  Now we just need to narrow it down to a geographical area—may I?”  Gary asked, pointing at Zari’s keyboard.

“Help yourself.  I’m all nerded out at the moment anyway.” 

“Hey, that was really good, Zari.” Ray answered, moving to pat Zari on the shoulder, but then ruling against it, remembering that the smaller woman probably knew how to throw a punch. 

“Yeah, Zar, way to go!”  Nate answered. 

It only took a minute of watching Gary furiously type away to pinpoint a location before they all realized this wasn’t a quick endeavor. 

“Okay! Ray, your turn!”  Nate said, turning back to the board. 

“Oh come on.”  Amaya whined, falling back on her chair.  If she was going to have to sit through another round of hangman, she was worried she might actually try to hang Ray to stop it. 

“Wait…I’m getting something.”  Gary said excitedly. “We’re getting Ava back!  I mean, Agent Sharpe.  Agent my-boss Sharpe.  Who I definitely never refer to as ‘Ava’ in my head.”

Ava knew she was taking a risk by drifting off to sleep still naked from her night of activities with Sara, but she had decided that they were careful enough sneaking into the hotel to make sure they weren’t being tailed that it would be fine for a night.  Really, it was more about having Sara curled up in her embrace, feeling their bodies pressed together that made her think it was worth the risk. 

She was more relaxed than she had been in a long time.  Sara just had this habit of being just so real, so grounded, so non-judgmental throughout the whole ordeal—this was probably the first time Ava felt like she could be herself with anyone since joining the Time Bureau.  She hoped Sara felt the same.  She would give anything for Sara to feel the same.

And it was calm, and peaceful, the kind of deep sleep that only comes after sharing a few orgasms and settling onto someone else’s skin. 

Until it wasn’t, both women jumping up at hearing a commotion outside, complete with shouting and flashing lights. 

The two were dressed in less than thirty seconds, with Sara moving to peek out the window. 

“It’s the damn cops! Awww they’re coming inside on the scooter things. Fuck! Come on!”  Sara said, quickly gathering all their items into a stolen bag. 

Ava ran over, looking out the window herself.  “Sara.  We’re not getting out of here.  The building’s staying surrounded.”  They could hear the police coming in to search the hotel.  “How did they find us? We were so careful.” 

“There has to be a way out.”  Sara ran to the bathroom, intending on shimmy-ing them up and out through a vent.  Before she realized that bathroom vents in the future are apparently the size of a beer can, with no chance in hell of a body fitting through. 

“Okay, there’s no way out.  Plan B.  We need a distraction.” 

Ava nodded, rifling through the satchel she had stolen along the way, pulling out the figurine of Oden she had stolen at the Viking settlement.  If it was powerful enough that Freydis had wanted it, it must do something.  

“Time to find out what this does.”  Ava flipped the arms on the figure so they were facing down rather than up, seeing the idol light up, before tossing it out the window down to where the police were pooling at the main entrance. 

The portal opened up, with Gary being the first to run out, intent on “rescuing” Ava.  

It was less than three seconds before Gary ran squealing back into the Waverider, putting his arms out to prevent anyone else from running out. 

“Damien Darhk! He’s there. He’s—dressed like a Viking?”  Gary was dramatically out of breath, even though he had only run a few steps.  Amaya and Zari gave each other a look, nodding. 

They cautiously re-opened the portal to half the size of a normal window, peeking around, before shutting it again. 

“Okay! So it looks like Damien Darhk located the Captain—”

“And Agent Sharpe.”  Gary interrupted.

“And Agent Sharpe!”  Amaya continued.  “We’re going to have to try to pin-point the coordinates so that we open up the portal exactly where they are.  Clearly they’re somewhere in the vicinity. I don’t know why Damien is fighting against the police.  Or why he’s still dressed like Oden. Maybe the future police are protecting them." 

“Either way, we’ve got to narrow it down.”  Zari said, immediately looking at Gary. 

He sat nervously back in front of the computer screens.  “Okay let’s give this…now!” 

Gary hit a few buttons, then re-opened the portal, which lead then into a hotel room where Ava and Sara were clearly packed and ready to run, but were stuck watching Damien as “Oden” lighting blasting the police force down below on the street. 

It didn’t take long before a team of Legends poured into the room. 

“Whoa.  Whoa.  This is tiiiiight.”  Nate said, looking around. 

“Oh thank God.”  Sara said, moving to go through the portal, but was blocked by Ray, Gary, and Zari coming through. 

“Look at this—a hot tub? Hey! This T.V. is bigger than Gideon’s main screen!”  Ray looked around the room in awe. 

Zari wasn’t far behind, walking over to the amenities by the bed.  It wasn’t lost on the hacker that it was clearly a single-bed room, with the blankets ruffled enough to show her exactly how many people were occupying this bed.  She picked up a bottle of the complimentary lotion.  “Organic lemongrass relaxation lotion?” 

Nate picked up the phone, pointing at Sara.  “Hey, can we get room service before we leave? Oooo—” He opened the mini-fridge, “Complimentary drinks!”

“No!”  Sara answered quickly, grabbing Nate by the arm.  “We have to get out of here.”

“Why? In a rush for the honeymoon to end?”  Zari said, taking stock of the room some more, making no move to go back to the portal. 

“I’m afraid Sara is right.  Those cops downstairs are after us.  We sort of summoned Damien as a distraction. If they catch us we’ll be put to death, so…”  Ava added, rolling her eyes as Ray lept onto the bed, letting his butt bounce. 

Sara smirked.  “You probably don’t want to know what was happening on the bed earlier.”  Ray lept off the bed immediately, eyes wide. 

“We should go.  Portal, right? It’s just—we’ll just leave all this for housekeeping.”  Ray rushed everyone back to the portal onto the Waverider, including Gary, fresh from stealing a miniature soaps from the bathroom. 

As soon as the portal closed, Sara stepped into Ava’s arms, letting out a deep sigh.  “We’re back.” 

Ava hugged her back, smiling.  “We are.  Because your team rescued us.”  When Ava noticed Gary pouting with his arms full of soap and shampoo she added, “And Gary.  Your team and Gary rescued us. So, umm.”  Ava cleared her throat, “Thank you. For tracking us this whole time and getting us.” 

“C’mon.”  Nate said, stepping closer to the two women with his arms open.  “Bring it in.”  As the large historian wrapped his arms around Ava and Sara, the whole crew followed, even garnering an awkward addition of Gary, looking like he was trying to not show that he may have started crying tears of joy. 

Ava decided from the giant smile that Sara had from being back with her team that she would let this hug go on as long a they needed it. 

Chapter Text

After having been relieved of interim captain duties, Amaya was more than happy to hand over the reigns back to its rightful owner. 

While Sara and Ava took turns showering, getting changed, and eating something substantial with the rest of the crew, the totem bearer decided she could allow herself one more captain’s privilege for the day: the aged rye whiskey, eyeing her from the captain’s drawing room. 

Just as she was pouring herself a neat finger, she heard the actual owner of the contents coming up behind her. 

“I’m not going to pretend I didn’t have my fill of Vikings mead, but I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to something from our own century.”  Sara came up beside Amaya, waiting for a second glass to be poured.  The actual captain took a sip, giving it a hum of approval, before moving to sit down. 

“You did a good job while I was gone.” 

Amaya shook her head, thinking back to everything that had occurred over the last few days. 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“Yes, you did.”  Sara kept her gaze right at Amaya, until the woman was looking right back at her. 

“Sara.  I did absolutely nothing.  Ray is the one who figured out how to tap your comms.  Zari and Gary figured out how to find you.  Ava did more captaining that I did remotely, and I was barely successful at keeping Mick from killing anyone.  Did you see the shiner he landed on Leo? Jax? I couldn’t even stop one of the crew from beating everyone else up.” 

“Exactly.”  Sara said, nodding along.  “You did everything a good captain should have done in that instance.” 

“What are you talking about? Did you miss everything I just said?”

Sara smiled.  “I’m skipping over the self-deprecating tone and looking at what you did do correctly.  You are not an engineer--”

Amaya scoffed. “No kidding.”

“Really though.  You didn’t have the technical knowledge to find me. So…what did you do? You made sure that the people who did have that knowledge were on it.  And focused.  And I just had lunch—dinner? Linner? Whatever—with Zari and Ray.  You kept them apart when they needed to be apart.  You put them together when they could work together.  It sounds like you were making that call over and over again, which is most of my job description when we’re in the temporal zone.” 

Amaya sat down on the large cushion next to Sara, letting the blonde continue. 

“Then, when Ava tapped in and showed she had the expertise needed, did you step aside and let her walk your technical team through what to do?” 

“Yes, but--”

“Uh-uh.  No ‘buts’.  That’s what a good leader does, Amaya.  Being the captain doesn’t mean you have all the answers.  Hell, most of the time I don’t have any answers.  What you do is let each person do whatever they do best.” 

Amaya answered with a smile, looking down at her whiskey. 

“Besides. Think about how many people Rory’s punched on my watch.  You might actually be coming out ahead.” Sara put her arm around Amaya’s shoulder, giving her a good squeeze. 

“It was scary, you know? Trying to figure out what to do, even though I didn’t know how to fix anything.” 

“And you put the people who could fix the things in a room where they could do it.  And you kept everyone alive, and save, and at the end of the day, you did rescue us.  So, thank you.” 

It had taken Ava a good hour to peel Gary off of her.  Not that she wasn’t grateful that his expertise ultimately led to their rescue, it was an expertise that she herself had taught him, and she could do one hug—but not multiple, ongoing hugs. 

Still, she had stuck it out until he calmed down and went home, after she promised him formal recognition for a job well done in the Time Bureau monthly newsletter. 

It had surprised her, really, just how Sara’s crew had welcomed her as one of their rescued shipmates, inviting her in for food and to relax.  She agreed, partly because going home to her empty, single-person apartment after spending days by Sara’s side would feel strange, and way too quiet.  She prolonged the inevitable of having to go home and stayed. 

Falling back on years of learned formality as a government agent, had intended to thank everyone for rescuing her and Sara over their meal, Gideon having fabricated large family-style portions, and everyone cracking open a bottle of wine and a case of beer that appeared very much to be from a ship stash and not fabricated like usual at all.  But, then everyone was so happy and filling them in on how they handled things from their side and asking so many questions about the future that she couldn’t really get a word in. 

True to her word, Sara never uttered a sentence about anything Ava would find embarrassing, and she returned the favor to Sara.  The crew seemed most interested in running from the future police, not caring at all about their time living with actual living, breathing Viking warriors.  She couldn’t help but smile at how good Sara was at telling stories, and how she knew just when to ask them about their trials back on the ship, making sure to tell them over and over again what a good job they did. 

Still, Ava felt she did need to thank them herself.  They did save her ass, with Gary’s help.  She just couldn’t get a word in, and Ava was never good at showing emotions in large groups.

And then, one by one, the group disappeared, filtering out until Ava was left alone with Ray. 

The man who was nothing short of a genius, who was responsible for at least fifty percent of the entire rescue mission, actually looked nervous sitting across from Ava. 

Not nervous—maybe scared.  Uncomfortable. 

“Well, I guess I should call it a night.”  Ray faked a yawn, checking his watch, as Ava did the same. 

“It’s eight p.m. temporal time.” 

“Yeah.  You know what the say, early to bed, early to rise--”

“Means the man who saved Sara, and me, doesn’t get his victory drink.  Please, I insist.  I’d say this round is on me, but it’s most certainly on Gideon.” Ava got up, punching a code into the fabricator, returning with two cocktails. 

“Thanks.”  Ray said, livening up as he was being handed a giant, blush fruity cocktail, which was his preference. 

“No, thank you.  I don’t know what Sara and I would have done if you hadn’t stuck to your guns and built out all the apparatus we needed for you to retrieve us.” 

Ray shrugged.  “It wasn’t just me, you know.  Zari, Gary, even some ideas from Nate—we all pitched in.” 

Ava smiled.  “Yes, I agree.  And I suppose I owe everyone a round, not just you.  But you’re here now, so—thank you.  And maybe…”  The agent trailed off, biting her lip, processing in her head just the level of expertise it took for Ray and the team to pull off what they had. 

“Maybe?”  Ray asked hopefully. 

“Maybe I was a bit harsh when we first met.  I’d like to start over, if we can. Maybe.” 

“Maybe.”  Ray said smirking, pretending to mull over the idea while enjoying a large sip of his cocktail.  He was guessing Mai Tai, but with a hint of something extra.  “I suppose we can do that.  Hi. I’m Ray, inventor, engineer, time ship traveler.”  Ray stuck out his hand to shake Ava’s across the table. 

She kindly obliged, adding, “Don’t forget, the Atom, with superpowers to shrink.” 

“Shhhh!”  He said in a fake hush. 

“What?”

“You don’t know about that yet.  Starting over, remember?  So, it’s nice to meet you, regular Ava.  I’m just a regular Ray.” 

“Well, regular Ray, I am very pleased to meet you, and I absolutely will not toss you on the floor to attempt to handcuff you this time.” 

Ava stood in front of her time courier window, ready to say goodnight to Sara. 

Or rather, not ready at all to have to say goodbye, which is why they were both standing in front of the window, shuffling their feet, instead of actually parting ways. Ava seemed to be looking everywhere but directly at Sara, because she knew if she saw a hint of the woman’s blue eyes she would crack and not actually be able to leave.

“Stay over.”  Sara said suddenly.  She knew Ava was feeling it, and it was how she felt, so why not say it?

“I thought we weren’t U-Hauling.  We said we weren’t U-Hauling this situation,” Ava gestured between the two of them, “at least four times in the last hour.”  Sara laughed, knowing she was being irrational. 

But, after being time stranded again, even if it was only for a few days, and being thrown into the future, and chased as they try to run from death, thinking over everything Ava had learned about her, seeing things about her reality that nobody knew about, heck even the things she learned about Ava that she knew weren’t talking points at the Time Bureau employee picnic…

Cutting the cord before they’ve processed everything felt wrong. 

“So then we don’t U-Haul.  Healthy boundaries.”  Ava cocked an eyebrow. 

“Meaning?”She wanted nothing more than to acquiesce and stay, but she wasn’t going to admit it so easily. 

“Meaning it doesn’t count as U-Hauling if you don’t move your stuff in. Meaning if you have to leave in the morning—preferably after breakfast, no leaving items behind so you ‘have an excuse’ to come back.  Just know that you can come back. After, you know, taking care of your time bureau business.” 

Ava nodded.  “Right.  No items left behind.  Got it. Maybe I don’t need an excuse to come back anyway.” 

“What?” 

“Well, it’s only fair that next time you come over my place anyway.  If I’m spending the night here, then you should come over there.  Sometime.  Definitely not right away.  Because we’re not U-Hauling.”

“Right. It’s perfectly normal—” Ava stopped the charade by pulling Sara in for a kiss while simultaneously shutting down the time window, before wrapping her arms around the smaller woman, keeping her close. 

“So,”  Sara breathed out when they parted, “This—us—this is happening, right?” 

“Did I not show you how much I want this to happen last night?”  Ava’s smile gained her a smile in return, watching and feeling Sara’s shoulders relax as she shrugged.  “Well, then I think you should show me the Captain’s quarters so I can remind you of how much this is happening. And how much I would like it to continue happening, even if we’re not in immanent danger.” 

Sara laughed, “How about especially if we’re not in immanent danger.” Ava nodded in agreement.  The idea of having a danger-free night with Sara sounded splendid.

“Gideon!”  Sara shouted, as she led Ava back down the hallway towards the sleeping quarters with their fingers intertwined. 

“Yes, Captain!” 

“Nobody is to be allowed near my room for the next ten hours unless a someone has actively been beheaded.  Not if there is a danger of it. Not if they’re worried about being beheaded. Nobody bothers us unless a head is literally missing. Feel free to interpret that sentiment to apply to as many situations as you can calculate.” 

“Understood, Captain.  And it’s good to have you back.”