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The fight was not going well.
They’d found Jonah Hex to help them stage their battle, and Jax had returned to give them a little extra firepower. Even Helen of Troy, fresh from her training on Themyscira (and looking amazing in her Amazonian war gear, Sara noticed) had come to help. But without the manpower of the Time Bureau, the Legends were finding themselves hopelessly outmatched.
Sara finds herself pinned down in the saloon. There are three pirates blocking the door, two Vikings covering the stairs, and four Roman centurions stalking towards her where she was holed up behind the bar. Not the worst odds she’d ever faced, but Sara is beginning to run out of options.
She’s just about to vault over the bar, try and take the centurions out two at a time, when the saloon doors explode open with a bang. Sara ducks down again, shelters her head from the debris, and then looks up. The pirates are down, groaning on the floor, as Sara sees a flash of blonde hair whip around. A perfect leaping strike and a follow through with a right hook take down the Vikings as they storm down the stairs. And then she turns - Ava, wearing her black clone fight suit, her face drawn in a fierce grimace and the line of her jaw set hard.
Sara wants to laugh, wants to cry, wants to scream that somehow, Ava keeps on coming back for her. This woman, this brilliant, frustrating, beautiful, stubborn, amazing woman keeps coming back, keeps rescuing her, precisely when she has no hope left.
Sara jumps over the bar as Ava turns to take on the centurions. She takes out the back of one’s knee as Ava drives her elbow into another’s throat. She knows that between the two of them, four Roman centurions don’t stand a chance. So she turns, leaps, and launches a perfect roundhouse kick into the jaw of the soldier she’d already knocked down. Two down, two to go.
Ava uses her baton to knock the third one out - she juts the end into his stomach and then slams her elbow into his back when he keels over in pain. Sara can finally see a way out of this saloon, can see herself relaunching into the battle with Ava at her side, can see a way to win- when the impossible happens. As she pulls back her arm to hit the final centurion, he throws his spear with deadly force. She hits him on the back of his head, denting the back of his helmet into his skull, but it’s too late.
She hears the sick sound of metal piercing flesh and looks up. Ava stands not three feet away, with the spear jutting from between her ribs, a spot of dark red blood spreading underneath her hands and spilling between her fingers. She looks down, surprise etched on her face, and Sara watches as she crumples.
“No! Ava!” Sara screams. She drops her weapon, throws her hat away as she rushes to Ava’s side, and catches her just before she hits the dirty saloon floor. “No, no no no, Ava, please!” She’s got her hands on Ava’s wound, feeling her ribcage expand with each breath - not enough. Ava reaches down, pushing Sara’s hands away, and jerks the spear out of her side.
Sara rushes to put her hands over the wound, blood gushing around her fingers. Ava has already turned away, closed her eyes, as her pulse starts to flutter.
“Ava, no. You’re going to be fine - we’re going to get you to the Waverider and Gideon will fix this. I can’t lose you now, I can’t let you in just to lose you, please!” Sara feels the tears start, burning her eyes and leaving tracks across her bloodstained face. If the League could see her now, they would never mistake her for the angel of death she thought she was destined to become.
She feels the life leave Ava’s body, feels as her arms go limp. She gasps at how quickly she feels empty again, like Ava was never there. After every loss she’s faced, Sara had thought she would never recover. She’s lost so much and came back from so much pain. But Sara knows - though the rest of her will go on, she’ll never make this mistake again. She will never again let someone fight their way through every wall she’s ever put up, make a hole in her heart that she won’t be able to fill.
Sara lets the last of her tears dry on her face. She’s just about to stand, try to rejoin the fight, when the door bangs open again. She leaps to her feet, throwing knife in her hand, and looks up.
“Sara?” Ava says. She hesitates, puts her hands up in a placating gesture. “Sara… it’s me.”
Sara gasps. Her knife clatters to the floor, as she looks down again. She looks up. The hole in her chest feels ragged, makes it hard for her to breathe.
“I thought -“ she starts. Ava takes two steps towards Sara, looks down and sees her - not her - body on the floor, blood pooling around her midsection. Ava pieces it together - looks up into Sara’s blood-and-tear stained face.
“I brought a couple with me. I thought we could use the extra hands.”
Sara looks down again, back up. Her mouth opens, then closes again, as more tears threaten to spill over.
Ava takes two more steps towards her, grips Sara’s biceps tight.
“You came back,” Sara whispers. “You saved me again.”
“Well, like you said,” Ava says, “You needed me. But Sara - all this for me… it’s crazy. When you could just… could just go to 2213 and get another?”
Sara twists her arms away from Ava, turns around, then turns back, fire in her eyes.
“Don’t you get it, Ava? There is no other. You think… you think where you come from makes you who you are! You’re wrong! You think because you were one of thousands, that you’re not real. But this is real, Ava!” Sara stalks towards her, grabs Ava’s hands, puts them on her face so Ava can feel the tears, still wet on her cheeks. “The way I feel about you.. the way I know you feel about me. It’s all real!”
She moves one of Ava’s hands to her sternum, pushing down just hard enough that Ava can feel her heart, still racing.
“You’re not one of thousands any more, Ava. You’re the only one.”
Ava gasps, feels air in her lungs rushing past the jagged edges of the hole she thought she’d feel there forever. She presses down harder, feels Sara’s heart thump in her chest, then throws her arms around Sara’s shoulders, pulls her close.
“Sara… you make me feel real.”