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Sara’s in the middle of a conversation with Felicity when she realizes it.
She’s telling Felicity all about how the Legends handled the past couple missions without her while she was in Star City, and how Ava rose to the challenge of acting as captain. Sara knows the Marie Antoinette mission hadn’t gone as smoothly as the others pretended; when Ava called her later in private, she sheepishly admitted that things had spiraled out of control, and they’d barely escaped getting trampled to death by paparazzi from the future.
Hearing that just made Sara even more proud of her girlfriend. Not only had she defused an extremely precarious situation, she’d also earned the respect and loyalty of the Legends. Sara has started to toy with the idea of putting Ava in a more permanent leadership position over the other Legends, like the one she herself holds. A co-leader, or perhaps co-captain...
She mentions Marie Antoinette, and through the videoscreen she can see Felicity holding back a laugh.
“What?” Sara inquires. “You’ve got that look on your face.”
“Nothing!” Felicity insists. “Just... don’t you kinda have a thing for French noblewomen?”
“Oh, shut up. That was one time .”
“Whatever you say.” The corners of Felicity’s mouth twitch. “I know you love Ava, but... do you ever miss it? Your, y’know, temporal trysts. Cross-time conquests.”
Sara wrinkles her nose at Felicity’s phrasing, but stops and thinks about it. She’s surprised to realize that the answer is no. She doesn’t miss those days. She certainly doesn’t regret them—she had plenty of fun seducing women and men across time periods. But she doesn’t long for them, either.
After being weighed down by the League of Assassins and by the sins of her hometown for so long, traversing the timeline on the Waverider and engaging in all sorts of time-displaced hookups had felt like freedom. It had felt like owning herself, like she was finally the one in charge of her own body, not Ra’s or Ollie or anybody else.
But there was more to it. Part of the reason those encounters were so meaningful to Sara was that, at that point in her life, she had been desperately lonely. Casual sex had been her way of connecting with others.
Now, she’s not lonely anymore. She has the Legends, who have become her family, and she has Ava, whom she loves more than anyone in the world. She no longer needs those “temporal trysts,” as Felicity called them.
Sure, she’s still got eyes, and when an attractive guy or gal walks her way, she looks. But she’s content to just look.
“I don’t miss it,” she tells Felicity. “I don’t regret it, but I don’t miss it.”
Felicity nods. “I never would’ve guessed you’d turn out to be the monogamous type,” she remarks. “Not back in the day.”
“Me neither,” Sara admits.
Her first serious relationship had been with Nyssa, and they’d loved each other fiercely; but even then, Sara knew she and Nyssa didn’t have a future together, not really. Not in the way people like Laurel did (oh, cruel irony). Assassins didn’t “settle down.” They survived each day and held their lovers tight and hoped for the best, but knew better than to expect anything but the worst.
After she and Nyssa went their separate ways, Sara assumed that a steady romantic relationship just wasn’t in the cards for her. She was fine with that, mostly, or at least she tried to be. And then she broke time, and met Ava Sharpe.
Sara couldn’t stand her at first, but once they became friends and developed a tentative flirtation, she was terrified. Because she felt in her bones that this relationship would be different, that Ava was different, and she didn’t trust herself not to hurt her inadvertently. But she went for it anyway, and she’s so glad she did.
Ava is smart, and thoughtful, and caring, and brave. She reassures Sara when she’s feeling uncertain, and never hesitates to speak her mind when Sara does something Ava disagrees with. Sara loves her, more than she thought possible.
It’s not monogamy that appeals to Sara. Not really. It’s monogamy with Ava. She likes that no matter what kind of trouble the Legends get themselves into during the day, at night she will always crawl into bed beside Ava and fall asleep holding her. She likes that she can count on Ava being by her side when she needs her, as a friend, teammate, and lover. She likes that their relationship has settled into something a little less about passion (although she does enjoy the passion) and a little more about companionship and constancy.
And that’s when Sara realizes.
The words are out of her mouth before she can fully register them. “I’m gonna propose to Ava.”
Felicity claps a hand over her mouth. “Really? Oh my god. Do you know how? Do you have a ring picked out? What ring size is she?”
Sara shakes her head, overwhelmed. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll figure it out. All I know is I wanna spend the rest of my life with her. So. I’m gonna propose.”
Once she says it, it seems obvious. They live together, they’re wholly committed to each other, they even bicker about whose turn it is to do laundry. They’re practically married already; the next logical step is to make it official. Sara feels sheepish that she hadn’t thought to propose earlier.
But like Felicity pointed out earlier, Sara never seemed like the monogamous type. Getting married was the farthest thing from her mind for many years. Her relationship with Ava has ended up working out far better than she ever dared dream, yet she hadn’t entered into it with the goal of getting married.
She wonders if Ava has thought about marriage, if she’s been waiting for Sara to pop the question. Back when they were stuck in Ava’s personalized purgatory, they’d talked about commitment. Sara knew that Ava was the person she wanted to be with when she was old and gray, and she knew Ava felt the same way. But the topic of marriage hasn’t really come up since then. It seems a little irrelevant, since they live on a time ship; tax deductions and health insurance aren’t really issues for them. Still, it’s what marriage represents that matters.
She sees Felicity blink a few times as if she’s gotten teary-eyed, and feels self-conscious. Sara truly hadn’t meant to make this conversation all about her romantic plans. It just sort of happened. But Felicity doesn’t seem to mind at all.
“That’s wonderful,” she enthuses. “I can show you some wedding boutiques I visited way back when, if you’d like. Of course, I didn’t actually end up wearing a bridal gown for my wedding, but that’s because it was kind of an impromptu thing.” She pauses for a moment, struck by a thought. “Would you wear a dress? I know you’re more of a pants kinda gal, but you rock a corset like nobody else I know.”
“What’s this about corsets?”
Sara nearly jumps from where she’s seated on the bed. She’d been so engrossed in the conversation she hadn’t noticed Ava enter the room. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like Ava heard what they were talking about.
“Hi, Ava!” Felicity chirps from the video screen. “We were just, uh, discussing Sara’s old Canary costume. The black one.”
“Right, I seem to remember that one from her old Time Bureau file.” Ava sits down next to Sara and gives her a mischievous look, eyes twinkling. “I absolutely would’ve kicked your ass if you’d been wearing that the first time we fought. I don’t know how you could even move around in that thing.”
“Hey, we all have phases,” Sara protests. “At least mine involved my tits looking spectacular.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” says Felicity, shaking her head solemnly. “Anyway, I gotta run. You two take care. And Sara: think about what I said. See ya!” She waves, and the screen goes blank.
Ava frowns. “Did she end the call because of me? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you guys.”
Sara waves off her concern. “It’s fine. We were wrapped up anyway.”
She stretches and tries to think of a way to change the subject. “How’s your Prognosticator? Still prognosticating?”
“Yep. Gideon’ll let us know if it picks up anything, but all seems peaceful for now. The team’s also pretty quiet tonight, thank God.”
“Ava Sharpe, do you know what this means?” Sara takes Ava’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “We have a night all to ourselves.”
Ava bites her lip, smiling. “Got any ideas on how to spend it?”
Sara thinks. “There’s this new Italian place I heard about while I was in Star City. Apparently the wait times for reservations are murderous, which would probably be an issue if we weren’t, you know, time travelers.”
“I have been wanting to try gnocchi…” Ava muses.
“Perfect!” Sara presses a kiss to Ava’s knuckles. “You can order the gnocchi, and if you really like it, then you can make a Prog-gnocchi-cator!”
“Wow, babe, that was…not good.”
“Oh, hush.” Sara puts a finger to Ava’s lips. She giggles at Ava’s indignant expression, feeling giddy despite her attempts to appear nonchalant.
She doesn’t know how or when or where, not yet. But Sara does know one thing.
Someday soon, she’s going to propose to her girlfriend.