Chapter Text
Sara meets Ava the night three arrows are engraved into her chest, and she falls from a building and survives. She sees her for the first time, then. Standing beside her waiting for Laurel to get to her and telling Sara something that would change her life forever.
“Well, this was the third time, so I guess I'm sticking around.”
And Sara understands absolutely none of it.
Because the first time Ava meets Sara, is years before. Actually, Sara's her first human.
The Gambit goes down and everything's in shambles and the rain touches the sea like raging arrows and Ava's there by her side for the worst of it. Sara's passed out on the plank she's going to die on and Ava just looks at her frowning. She doesn't understand why this girl is so important that they gave her the possibility to save her. It's just a girl.
But then again... she's just a girl. Ava doesn't want her to die at sea without any loved ones present, she doesn't want her to become a tragic memory. So she empties her lungs of the water inside them, fixes the internal bleeding, closes a couple of wounds.
Ava knows there's still going to be tragedy ahead regardless, but what can she do if not this? She doesn't know how to do anything else. So she saves her life and then leaves.
The girl's life goes on, and she nearly dies a few other times. But Ava isn't given the choice to save her for three years after that first time. As she understands it, the girl has been on a boat for a year, on an island for another and then has been rescued by a woman who has delivered her to be trained as a member of the League of Assassins.
After almost a year of training, there's that night. The night Ava sees her for the second time.
The girl is, undoubtedly, dying. Two broken ribs are puncturing her right lung and she has a broken arm, there's a gush on her left leg that has missed her femoral artery by half an inch, but it's still going to kill her quickly enough.
Ava knew the first time she almost died was an accident, but this... the girl has volunteered to be on the League. She approaches her and kneels beside her, she looks almost peaceful; Ava's seen a lot of the place over the years and nobody ever looked like that. Revenge and resentment shaped so many features, and cruelty shaped so many hearts, she has never healed Assassins even when given the chance. She's never understood it very well. It's why they always sent her there with someone else willing to heal bad people for a greater good. Ava's never quite been like that.
But this girl... she was hers to heal. So here she is, watching her die. The girl's alone in the room, but she's not quite alone anymore in life. The woman who saved her, has a place in her heart. The girl's doing it for her. Ava doesn't understand how love can look like this. Like death.
But what does she know about love anyway? She's been around just a few years and has certainly never been in love before. And this girl, she's special. She was her first heal. And Ava can feel the goodness in her heart, the longing to do good, to do better. Ava knows, she'll do much, much worse before she does better. She knows there's still tragedy ahead. But she also has hope, faint and nagging, that she'll answer her call eventually.
So she heals the ribs, the lung, stops the blood from the gush, and leaves her to deal with the pain of a broken arm and a broken heart when she wakes up.
For the first time since starting to be a guardian angel, Ava wishes she could stay. Talk to the girl. Understand her better. Put her on the right path. But that's not for her to do or decide, so she leaves and promises herself to check in on her from time to time, and to never forget the girl's name.
Sara Lance.
Sara Lance almost dies a lot of times and Ava knows she can't save her again. She's used her two chances and she knows the third time she heals her, Sara will become her only charge. Ava's saved countless people in the years she's been doing this, she's saved almost every person she's been given a chance to save, but always only once. It's a rare thing, people needing saving twice. It's even rarer people needing it three times.
But she finds herself on that roof that night, watching as three arrows are embed in Sara's chest and as she begins the fall, Ava only has a split second to decide. To renounce her own calling for good, to take Sara on as her charge, to let Sara see her for who she is and to explain to her what will happen from then on. To be by this girl's side for good, this girl she doesn't understand, this girl who has cheated death so many times already.
She's suddenly on the street when the fall starts and Ava's made up her mind well before she hits the ground.
Ava cushions the fall, walks to her slowly, crouches down, knowing Sara can see her now.
“Third time is the charm. Apparently, I'm sticking around,” she whispers and Laurel's by Sara's side a moment later, frantically calling someone on her phone, trying to get help as soon as possible.
Ava doesn't do anything else, but stays by Sara's side as she's brought into Team Arrow's base of operation, as Oliver and Dig argue about what to do. It seems a little stupid, because, Sara's dying. Sara's dying.
They decide to bring her to a hospital, despite it meaning she'll have to give up being the Black Canary for a while, but they can't save her there. Ava agrees: they've lost too much time waiting around already.
She could heal her completely, of course, and Sara could go on being an Assassin. But Sara's been unhappy there. After she got home, after her affair with Oliver, things have stayed complicated. She's not together with the woman who saved her years ago, anymore, but she's still obeying her father's orders. Ava doesn't understand it. She just knows she can't heal her if it means letting her run around hurting others, so she doesn't.
They operate three times on her, until the internal bleeding stops. Laurel and Quentin are waiting restlessly and they don't leave the hospital for the five days it takes Sara to wake up. But Sara does wake up, and Oliver's been working on finding her killer. Sara says she can't remember. The whole night is foggy in her memory. She almost remembers someone, someone who saved her life, someone who...
The woman appears beside her and Sara almost has a heart attack that puts her back in a coma.
“Hi. My name is Ava.”
“You were there that night.”
“Who are you talking to?” Laurel seems worried, upset.
Sara frowns.
“Nobody else can see me. It's a long story. I'll tell you all about it later, call me back when you're alone.”
Ava disappears and Sara thinks about her again two hours later. It's dark outside and the room is empty, and Ava has to explain to her what guardian angels are and how they're stuck together now. Sara, of course, doesn't believe her.
So Ava heals her mind and makes her remember about Thea and suddenly Sara feels this bond settling, she feels this warmness in her chest, this certainty. Sara knows Ava's telling the truth. And it doesn't make it easier at all.
By the time Sara is discharged from the hospital, she's got the hang of how to call for her, and has been annoying Ava with it for days just because she's getting bored. Ava is starting to regret her life decisions right around that time.
The first two weeks she's home, things go pretty smoothly. She stops messing with Ava and their bond starts to settle, it still feels faint, like a distant echo of what it could be, but for the time being it settles.
It happens about a month after her discharge from the hospital; there's been pain radiating off of Sara in waves for days now, and at first she chalks it up to soreness or physical therapy, but she's pretty sure Sara isn't due to start before a fortnight, so she starts to get worried enough that she visits her one day.
The curtains are drawn and the room is dark. Sara's under the covers but she's not sleeping. Ava can feel the sadness, the pain, the anger, more clearly now, being in the same room as her. It takes her aback a little.
“What happened?”
Sara's silent for a long moment.
“Ra's al Ghul sent an emissary. I'm released from the League. These injuries, they'll take me off the field for months. Maybe forever. He doesn't want me to go back, he doesn't want me around Nyssa especially now, and he doesn't want to risk she'll take me back, especially like this.”
Ava grimaces. “I thought you already went back.”
“To the League. Not to her. I was trying to earn her forgiveness.”
“Why?” Ava starts to feel a little angry as well, the bond is strange and she's not used to it. She clears her voice. “Why?” Her voice is softer, but the feeling's still there.
“I left her. I was willing to kill myself rather than go back to her and the League.”
“Rather than go back to kill people,” Ava clarifies.
“She wants to change what the League does.”
“Which is, kill people.”
“Ra's will die eventually. Nyssa will better the League.”
“And that's great and all for her, but you're home now. Don't you want to do something good here, like she will do there?”
“There's not a place for me in Oliver's team. They saved Thea from Merlyn and that was all I was good for. Laurel's been training to be the next Black Canary since I was injured. The world's going on without me.”
Ava sighs, sits on the bed beside her. “You're still right here.”
“But if I can't be me anymore, what's even the point?”
Ava frowns. She knows what will happen if she heals Sara right now: their bond will grow, Ava will feel even more acutely what Sara feels even when they're apart, Sara will get back to the League and Ava will have to either be in pain as Sara harms herself and others, or heal her even though she'll be standing for everything Ava stands against.
If Ava heals her, Sara will make a terrible mistake with her returned strength.
But it's her mistake to make.
“The bond between an angel and a human sets the third time we heal you. The first time I did so, you were just a girl caught in a terrible accident and I wanted to give you a second chance when the Gambit went down,” Sara looks at her, then.
Ava has her attention, finally, and Sara looks like she wants to say something, but then just stays silent and lets Ava go on.
“The second time, you were dying on a League floor, and I promised myself that if you didn't use your third chance to do good, I wouldn't heal you a third time. I didn't want a charge. Not many angels do, almost none in fact, and it's rare there's even a choice to make, that there's even someone who needs saving that many times. But I was meant to do this, I think, to be bound to you, because your heart... is good. There's light inside you. I gave up saving humans when I healed you a month ago, now I'm your guardian angel. Only bound to you, feeling your feelings, sharing your emotions and intents. I'm here for you, and whatever path you choose, I will have to follow.”
Sara frowns at that, and for a moment Ava thinks she's either going to say that it's unfair or that she doesn't even want her around. But again, Sara stays silent.
“I gave up saving humans,” Ava says again, “because a part of me thought saving you, meant we would start saving people together. That the same as I feel your emotions, mine would influence your actions, even though you will not feel them as much. And I guess, it may be so, in time. But for now, you have to choose based on your own emotions, and I'd never take the choice away knowing I could give it to you. So, if you choose to go back to the League, then we'll go back.”
She doesn't tell Sara what will happen to her if she decides to help someone who kills others without regard for their affiliation, just following orders. She doesn't tell Sara what's going to happen to her the moment Sara follows through with the League's next order. Her wellbeing shouldn't factor in in the choice ahead, so she doesn't mention to Sara what fallen angels are, at all.
Ava's hand traces her profile without touching her and Sara feels warm all over for a moment. Then, the pain's gone. The wounds, the stitches, the soreness. She's completely healed right away.
It's certainly some kind of miracle. It has to be.
When she turns to ask Ava how was she even able to do that, or what's the bond she mentioned, or how the feeling-the-same-emotions thing works, Ava's already gone.
Sara's miraculous healing doesn't go unnoticed.
Oliver's convinced she had some of the water from the Lazarus pit, Sara calls him crazy and a lunatic and tells him she knows better than to mess with that.
She tries to tell Laurel the truth, Laurel thinks she's crazy for talking to herself and says she should talk to someone if she's seeing things.
So, Sara decide not to mention Ava to anyone.
She starts physical therapy, gets back her strength, tries not to think about Ava. It gets harder by the day, but she makes sure to distract herself soon enough that Ava doesn't mistake it for a call. The bond's always there, reminding her she could just give in, just see her again and ask her all the questions she wants to ask, but it wouldn't be fair to summon Ava out of pettiness. Ava's probably busy with her life, and Sara's been training again. She wants to be a hero in the light, the White Canary, as Laurel encouraged her to. In three months, she's almost back to how she used to be. Except, there's no use for her skills anymore.
Her life's pretty much in shambles; she's got no place to stay, no job, no purpose. What she has, is Quentin's credit card and an iron liver, so she decides to drink half her weight in tequila. She's at least a dozen shots in already when Laurel drags her home from Verdant and tells her she can stay in her apartment, she can have the spare room and they can live together. Like old times.
Sara hates the pity, hates the pain. But what other choice does she have? She's been living with her father, but the look on Quentin's face, getting more worried by the day, it's been killing her slowly. So she nods, and promises she'll do better for Laurel and for him. Laurel doesn't quite believe her, but she stays and helps anyway.
Ava's there two hours later when Sara's sitting on the bathroom floor, throwing up with her heart pounding in her hears.
“Can't you make it stop?”
“If I wanted to,” Ava says curtly. “But then what would stop you from doing this again and again?”
Sara can't tell, for a moment, if it's her own disappointment in herself she's feeling or Ava's. But then, clear as day, a wave of worry washes over her and she's painfully aware Ava isn't really disappointed or mad. Ava's here to check up on her.
“Please, Ava. Just this once. I'm not used to this anymore.”
Ava sighs, her shoulders sag. “There's a price for it, you know. The more I heal you, the deeper the bond grows, the better I'm in tune with you. But you'll be able to somewhat feel what I feel as well eventually, it goes both ways.”
Ava's said so before, but in her current state Sara is barely following. “Just do it. Please.”
Ava does, and the worry's grown now; Sara feels nervous, maybe even scared.
“Are all angels this anxious?” Sara jokes, trying to lighten the mood.
Ava's expression changes, she frowns. It's too soon, much too soon. Sara shouldn't be able to feel anything yet, after barely five months, let alone pinpoint how Ava's feeling in the same way Ava can do for her. Something is very, very wrong.
She disappears into thin air, and despite Sara trying to call to her, she doesn't come back for a week after that night.
Sara's been replaying the conversation in her head again and again, trying to understand if something she said might've spooked her, if she was offensive or something, and she's planning on apologizing to her as soon as she's back, because she can feel through their bond some anxiety still and it mixes with her own, amplifying off of it.
She spends a lot of time alone in her room that week, trying to connect with Ava through the bond, trying to call her, trying to learn how to read it better. She doesn't know why she's clinging to this lifeline so strongly, maybe because she knows now Ava's been there for her for years in the moments when everyone else couldn't or wouldn't be. When Oliver thought she was a goner already. When the League left her for dead. Ava was there, believing in her. Sara needed that energy now more than ever.
A week later, on the umpteenth time, it finally works.
“Nagging is a bit childish, you know?”
Sara jumps up from the bed, eyes shooting open, her meditation sitting position all but forgotten.
“What happened to you?”
“I had to confer with the High Council.”
“The High Council?” Sara's first instinct is to mock the institution, whatever it might be. “What, they're the bosses of you?”
“Pretty much,” Ava says seriously. “See, it's not average for angels to have feelings. Especially guardian angels. I shouldn't have been able to become one, they don't think I'm powerful enough. So you can sever the bond, if you wish.”
Sara frowns. “So the fact that I feel what you feel... is what spooked you?”
“Yes. I'm... defective.”
Sara scoffs. “No, you're not. You have feelings, you have opinions and...” Sara suddenly feels almost certain Ava shouldn't have made a whole speech trying to convince Sara to not make a stupid mistake. Maybe angels shouldn't offer guidance. Maybe they're just supposed to be there, to fix things as they can and disappear a moment later. But Sara also feels like... she needs exactly this. Someone who would call her out on her bullshit. Someone to stand up to her. Someone who cares. “No. No, I don't want to sever our bond. Do you?”
Ava knows this isn't ideal. Sara's hot headed and she's confrontational, it's not a good combination, but it's either this or Sara lives without an angel and Ava goes back to her plane of non-existence. They might as well try to make it work.
“No. And you can still change your mind at any time, if you wish,” Ava clarifies.
“Sure,” Sara shrugs. “So, anyway. Explain to me how this bond is supposed to work, why is it getting stronger? And where are you when you're not here? And-”
“Okay, slow down. One question at a time,” Ava smiles, tries to hide it, fails miserably.
Eventually, life has to go on. Six months after being almost killed, Sara goes back to living.
She finds a stupid job at Sink, Shower and Stuff. Moves in into Laurel's spare bedroom and starts paying half the rent. Even gets a bank account she can pay said rent from. It's like she's coming back to life after years of being out of it.
In the midst of her desperation, Sara even makes friends with another one of Team Arrow's rejects: Ray Palmer.
The guy's sweet and caring and a full-on boy-scout. There's no better influence on herself, she thinks, than this man.
Sara can barely stand him sometimes, but she cares for him in a way she can't explain, and they become friends so fast it's a little worrying. Sara helps him out of his shell, and Ray helps her to adapt back to life. Even Ava agrees he's been a good influence.
They've been talking more, her and Ava. After letting it slip that life when she's not around Sara has gotten kind of boring now that she can't help other humans, Sara calls to her more often. Not because she feels she has to, but because she doesn't feel guilty anymore doing so. Most of the times, Ava explains one thing or the other about her own existence. Sometimes they even engage in small talk, as crazy as it sounds, and on one particularly awesome day, Sara learns Ava likes pop music. Her angel is a big fan of Rihanna, as it turns out, and enjoys Britney Spears as well.
Sara discovers that, if she's alone in her room and puts on We Found Love, it suddenly feels like someone's humming beside her or, sometimes, singing along completely out of tune.
Laurel comes home to music most nights, and she's starting to think Sara either has a hopeless crush on someone or is trying to cover the weird noises from the apartment below. Sara smiles at her and tells her she just likes the sing along, but Laurel never hears her utter a single note of it.
Of course, Laurel thinks Ray's a good influence on her, too. They even go out for drinks one night and Ray wingman's her, getting this dude to buy her a drink and smiling her way with a thumbs up that make Sara accept the drink despite the man not really being her type. They talk for a while, he asks for her number; Sara is trying to let him down gently, when the man kisses her.
She's taken aback, surprised for sure, but the kiss itself isn't unpleasant; he's attractive and he knows what he's doing. Although, after just a moment, a wave of unpleasantness washes over her, mild disgust mixed with uneasiness. She pushes him away and gets up from her chair before she ends up throwing up on him. She apologizes to Ray but says she has to go, right now, and flees before he can ask.
Sara's back home, pacing her apartment, when Ava appears in front of her.
“Stop calling when you don't need me,” Ava says, but it's teasing more than genuine.
“Do you have a problem with physical affection?”
“What?”
“I tried to kiss a dude earlier-”
“Ew.”
“Exactly! Except... not ew to me! I didn't think ew, you thought ew, but then I... felt ew.”
“Oh. Well, I don't have a problem with physical affection. Can't really experience it, but you know...”
Sara frowns. Steps to her. Takes her hand. Or rather, she tries to take her hand, but her fingers go right through Ava's. How did she not know this? Ava's been with her for months, and granted they avoided each other at first but... how did she never notice?
“I'm not a corporeal entity, Sara. I'm a guardian angel.”
“Right,” Sara whispers. “Right, that makes sense. So, maybe it was just because it was your first time feeling something like that?”
Ava's eyebrows go up. “Sure. Might be. I feel a lot of the things you feel and it's hard to not feel something back sometimes. But I'll try to keep my emotions in check next time you... kiss a dude, as you put it.”
“So, from your earlier 'ew' I take it you're not into men?”
“Not really, no. But as I said, I'll keep myself in check next time,” even as she says it, Sara feels the unwillingness to experience that again, the reticence in having to feel what Sara feels while being with a man.
This is going to be a lot more complicated than she thought it would be, if it means she'll have to practice abstinence or traumatize Ava in the process. Of course, Sara doesn't say that. Ava saved her life, and she's been there for Sara, and Sara surely can go without a one-night-stand with bar dude or any other dude until they figure this out.
It takes Sara and Ray about three weeks of friendship with Nate, Amaya and Zari, before they decide it's time for their own superheroes team.
After reassuring every single person in her life it was going to be okay and they were going to take it super easy, Sara gets shot on her first night out as the White Canary. Three times. Ava's there a moment later, of course, healing away the wounds and telling Sara where she think the perp is headed. She catches him and he keeps screaming about how he was sure he shot Sara as they handcuff him and drop him off in front of her dad's police station. Sara tells everyone he's crazy and then spends the night patching up the holes in her brand new suit and scrubbing blood from it, regretting the white when she has to resort to a third wash.
Every time Ava heals her, the bond deepens. They feel each other better now, even when they're apart. They're always so in tune it's easy to get lost in it.
Sara tries to date, once or twice. Kisses a girl and feels okay for a few moments, then feels uneasy but pushes through it because she knows it's Ava feeling it, not her. It doesn't work. The mood's gone and she calls it quits.
She tries again with another girl, one she really likes judging from the one date they've been on. They kiss for a few minutes and the uneasiness sets in again, but Sara can push through it this time, surely she can manage. And Ava's trying, she really is, and it's better than last time. But then... she feels that this isn't right, and it isn't Ava the one feeling like this. It's all her, she's sure. Because what she feels is longing. For this girl to be different. For this girl to, well... be Ava.
That's not fair to anyone, so Sara decides maybe dating isn't for her anymore. It's not an easy price to pay for instant healing, but she's been cleaning up the city in a way Oliver had never been able to. Nate's invulnerable and Ray is in an impenetrable suit, and she has a guardian angel healing her every wound. They're invincible. Sara can see the city being better and better each passing day and there is no price high enough for that.
Sara calls for Ava one night, it's late and she's already in bed, holding a cupcake with a single candle on it and when Ava sees it she smiles so happily the whole room lights up. Or at least, to Sara it seems like it does.
“You remembered.”
“Of course I did,” Sara sounds almost offended Ava doubted her. “One year ago, right about,” she glances at the clock on her phone, “now-ish, you healed me for the third time and became my official guardian angel. And since then, you've saved my ass quite a few times, so I wanted to thank you. You think you can blow the candle?”
Ava chuckles, sits next to her and blows, or rather, does something to the air around the small flame until it goes out.
She's so close, Sara notices, she can see every small detail of her face. Her beautiful, stupidly perfect face.
“So, obviously the cupcake is for me,” she clears her voice and tries to get a grip. “But you can pick the movie for tonight, because I'm feeling generous.” Ava opens her mouth, but Sara cuts her off a moment before she can speak. “City of Angels is banned. We saw it twice in the past four months, I swear I'll do something crazy if you put me through it again.”
Ava rolls her eyes. “You're so dramatic, Sara.”
“How about Charlie's Angels,” Sara smiles innocently.
“Oh, another movie about angels? Sure!”
Sara feels a little evil, but then again, Ava's going to love this movie, and it's not quite a lie, so it's a win on all fronts.
Sara tries to tell the team about Ava, about how she's managed to cut it so close so many times, but they're reticent to believe her at first. Until, one night, Sara gets shot in the chest a couple of times and Ray and Zari are by her side a moment later, pressing on the wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. Ava's by her side a moment later, Sara looks into her worried eyes and knows immediately what is going to happen if she doesn't.
“Do it. Heal me. I don't care if they know,” Sara whispers. “I tried to tell them about you. I swear I try to tell everyone who'd listen to me about you,” she's not making much sense, Ray and Zari look worried as hell.
But Zari feels a weird warmness settling over Sara's body and lifts her hands from the wounds. And... the wounds are gone. Sara's breathing hard for another minute, but then she sits up.
“I'm okay, I'm okay.”
“I'm sorry, Sara,” Ava whispers. “There was no time.”
“It's okay, Ava. I don't care if they know about you.”
“Oh... my God,” Zari is gaping at her closed wounds. “Ava's real. Ray, Ava's... Sara's Ava is real,” she whispers.
“I can see it. Either that or this is the most elaborate prank Sara's ever pulled off,” he chuckles, then hugs Sara and tells her how glad he is she's okay. Sara sighs, but hugs him back.
From then on, Ava kinda sticks by her side a lot more even during her average day. Sara doesn't mind it. Quite the opposite, on the rare occasions Ava isn't by her side by the time she's drinking her morning coffee, she'll be the one calling for her. They talk more freely, share stories, Ava tells her what being an angel means and what she's been dealing with, and Sara tells her about the League, about Laurel, about her past.
Their bond grows daily as Ava starts to heal even mundane injuries Sara would be fine carrying through, but she appreciates it. The day comes when she can't really imagine their connection being any stronger than it is, and indeed it seem to settle.
It settles in kind, but it grows still a little bit in a different way, as they share secrets and dreams and learn to know each other.
Sara and Ava try to still keep some of their own emotions secret from the other, but it becomes harder. And besides, some things are off limits even for them to discuss so they just elect to ignore them.
For example, Ava never mentions how Sara isn't dating anymore, or how Sara thinks about her much more than she used to, how she calls for Ava without meaning to when she can't sleep or when she has a nightmare and how she's reticent the first few times Ava answers the unwilling call. Ava learns how to calm her down from nightmares and it goes as far as Ava staying with her a few times, just to make sure she sleeps okay.
Sara doesn't know if this is healthy. She can't imagine it being so.
Ava is literally an angel. Sara loves her and Ava's always there for her. Sara loves her but doesn't want to be creepy, to be the person falling in love with someone who's just trying to do their job. Sara loves her. And she doesn't know how to stop it from hurting so much.
They team up with Oliver, to try and stop Damien Darhk before he can fuck the city over, but it's a long process. Sara's never felt so good about the work she's been doing. Oliver's got his own shit going on and he's on this feud with the League, so Sara isn't really surprised when Laurel tells her Nyssa's in town. Sara's moved on, and she's sure Nyssa has as well.
When they see each other, Sara notices Ava's gone the moment Laurel leaves them alone. As if to give them privacy. As if Ava isn't with her every second of every day, even when they're apart. She expects to feel a little antagonization from Ava, maybe a bit of jealousy, but there's just this feeling Sara can't quite name. It's a weird mixture of “I don't want what we have to change” and “I want you to be happy in a way I can't make you” and it's so heartbreaking she has tears in her eyes before she's even realized Nyssa is talking.
“I was thinking about staying here, for a while.”
“Great. Laurel told me you're becoming friends, she'll be happy.”
“Will you be happy?”
Sara's confused, and her mind is somewhere else completely, but she doesn't understand what Nyssa is asking her. “Sure. I'm happy if you two are happy.”
“What?”
“That sounded...” like Sara was giving them her blessing, which... is not what this is about for sure. She knows they're friends, but she thinks Laurel's still a little bit in love with Oliver. “What I meant is, if you're happy here I can't see why we can't both live in the same city. What we had... is in the past. Right?”
Nyssa looks taken aback, she looks down and thinks about Sara's words thoughtfully. Sara doesn't understand. It's been eighteen months since she almost died and Nyssa was fine with her father releasing her from the League back then. Wasn't she?
“Right. Of course it is.”
“Nyssa-”
“You are right, of course. I've been so preoccupied with changing my father and his organization, with paving the path for you to come back, that I've never actually asked myself what would be best for you.”
Sara feels dread, clear and utter, for a moment, and it's all hers. But then there's calming energy coming her way, a reminder that Ava's still with her, still supporting her.
“I can't go back to the League. Not even if it's changed. My life's here now, my team's here,” Sara tries to explain, but Nyssa cuts her off.
“It's why I offered to stay. So we can be here, together.”
“I'm sorry, Nyssa,” Sara tries to think of a lie, a way to explain, but she owes Nyssa the truth, or a semblance of it at the very least. “I don't feel that way about you anymore.”
Sara can't tell her they can't be together because her feelings aren't just her own anymore, and she surely can't explain to her how she's in love with someone else.
“I understand.”
More than that, she can't explain how her heart completely belongs to someone else, just eighteen months after they stopped talking to each other, even though they weren't together for a while even before then. Sara can't explain to her how this stern, kinda rude, but also funny and smart and aloof woman came into her life and completely turned her world upside down. How Sara knows nothing else would ever come close to what she feels when she closes her eyes and thinks-
“I'm here,” Ava's voice is soft.
Of course she is. She's always been there, every time Sara has called for her. She has no choice – Sara has to remind herself of this – but to be there. Ava's caged by their bond. And Sara has been freed by it. And it breaks her heart.
“I need to be alone,” she says and doesn't know if it's aimed at Ava or Nyssa, she just knows she needs to be away for a while.
She walks and walks and loses herself in Star City's streets, until she finds herself on the pier, watching the waves crash into the shore and wondering what gives them the strength to get back into the sea.
Her head isn't clearer, if anything it's been getting messier with every step, and despite the need to be alone, all she wants is to have Ava by her side so they can sort through her feelings together.
“If you want to be alone, you should really stop calling to me,” Ava whispers.
“I don't mean to, sometimes. You're just... on my mind,” she tries to explain, albeit poorly. “I just, I need to think clearly and know what I'm feeling and what you're feeling.”
Ava frowns a little. “You can't lie to me, Sara. You can tell perfectly well which ones are your feelings and which ones are mine.”
Of course she can. But it doesn't make it easier to deal with.
“Can you just... go? Leave me with my own thoughts for a while?”
“What do you want me to say? You know I can't. You know there's only one way to leave you alone with your own thoughts and emotions. Severing the bond. And that's not something you can come back from, Sara. But of course, if that's what you want-”
Sara spins on her heels to look at her. “What?”
“Nyssa's here. And as long as I'm holding you back-”
“What?”
“If I wasn't defective, you could be with her. If I didn't have all these... feelings, if the bond was dampened on my end-”
“Stop, Ava.”
“Maybe they'll let you have a different angel, if you give me up.”
That's what really hurts Sara more than anything else. Ava thinking herself interchangeable.
“I don't want some other angel! And I don't want to sever our bond!”
“You don't?”
“Of course I don't, Ava. You're the reason I made it so far, you've been my guidance when I needed you and you've been there for me when things were the hardest, and I don't mean with the healing. I mean you were there to listen to me when I couldn't see a way through, and you showed me one. I don't want to give you up. You're the best part of my life.”
Sara doesn't know how to explain to Ava that she's exactly what Sara has been waiting for her whole life, that she'd never give Ava up. She can't say it, of course she can't. Because the explanation for it is the same exact feeling she's been trying to hide for months now.
“You're the best part of my life, too. You're kinda, my whole life actually,” Ava jokes. “I don't want to give you up either, but if it would make you happy, then-”
“You make me happy. I don't want things to change, either,” Sara lets it slip out, thinking about what Ava was feeling earlier.
Ava looks taken aback that Sara pinpointed it so accurately, but nods, sighs, and smiles tentatively. And Sara feels better just knowing Ava wants to be there with her just as much as Sara wants her to stay.
It happens on a night close to the two years mark of Ava being her guardian angel.
They're out patrolling the streets and Sara and Amaya are joking around when three men come out of nowhere. They handle them quickly, but they're distracted and something goes wrong: one of them stabs Amaya. They're all basically invulnerable except for her, and of course she's in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sara hits him on the temple and he passes out, but something's wrong with Amaya, because she isn't getting back up.
“Sara, I think-”
“There's organ damage, she's bleeding internally,” Ava whispers.
“How much time does she have?”
Ava shakes her head in the negative and Sara feels herself on the brink of desperation.
“Okay, hold on,” she says to Amaya, “Nate and Ray are almost here. You'll be okay. Ava said you'll make it to a hospital no problem.”
“No, she didn't,” Amaya almost chuckles. “Take care of her for us,” Amaya whispers in the direction Sara has turned to a moment earlier.
It's the first time one of the Legends directly addressed her, Ava thinks. Amaya's kind and honest and if she was given a choice to save her, she would have. But she hasn't been given one. She's chosen Sara. And this is part of the price.
“There's still time, we can-”
“It's okay, Sara. I knew the risks.”
Ava watches as Amaya's kindness radiates off of her even then and she knows there'll be a price for what she's about to do as well. She'll have to pay that price, and she has to hope it won't be higher than what she's bargaining here.
There's warmness radiating off of Amaya and, a moment later, the blood stops. Amaya breaths deeply once, twice, then she's okay again. Sara turns to Ava.
“You saved her.”
“I couldn't watch her die,” Ava explains. She looks down, her fingertips are fading already. “I'm sorry, Sara. I know you still need me, but I couldn't just watch Amaya die.”
“No!” Sara screams, getting up, rushing to Ava uselessly. She's gone before she can get to her, and even if she wasn't, Sara has never been able to touch her anyway. “Ava!”
“What happened?” Ray asks the moment they get there.
“I got stabbed,” Amaya explains. “I think... Ava healed me. I didn't know she could do that.”
“She can't. She's not supposed to heal anyone but me. I think-” her voice breaks. “I think the High Council has taken her away.”
Sara spends a lot of time researching angels, after that night. She closes herself into the Legends headquarters for a fortnight, takes the days off from her job on the spot, and tries to fix this. She can't, of course. Everything out there is just myth after myth, and the few truths she finds, she knew already. She doesn't give up, she can't.
It's day three when Zari and Amaya join her and Sara thinks they'll dissuade her, but instead they sit down with her and help with the research. Nate and Ray join on day six. But after two weeks, Sara's ready for a break, at least.
When she gets back home, Laurel is worried sick about her. Nyssa's trying to calm her down and Sara reassures her she's okay, she's just been busy with work. Laurel still doesn't believe her, and maybe now it's for the best. She doesn't want to have to explain how her heart's broken because Ava's gone.
She saved Amaya's life, Sara will always be grateful for that, but selfishly, she deems it unfair she had to lose Ava in the process.
The bond is still there, at least, and it gives her hope. She calls to Ava, her heart aching for her almost constantly, she tries to call for her out loud sometimes, but nothing changes.
A week later, she's pacing the headquarters brainstorming ideas with the rest of the team, when a voice breaks through the restlessness filling her brain.
“Are you having a team meeting without me?”
Sara turns so quickly she almost trips. “Ava.”
“Is she back?” Zari asks, then turns to where Sara's looking. “Are you back?”
“I am,” she exhales. “My argument was that having Amaya in your life saved it a bunch of times, making it safer. They reviewed the events of the past few months and... they agreed. So I've been granted the powers to heal your team, if the need arises.”
“Wait, they gave you more power because you broke the rules? Damn, I really am a good influence on you,” Sara chuckles, the worry already lifting, and she starts explaining to her team what is happening.
They're different from then on, they include Ava, ask their questions to her directly, speak with her, and Sara simply relays what she says instead of them only speaking to Sara. It warms her heart in a way she finds difficult to explain.