Chapter 1: Whistle on the Wind

- Then -

The night was unseasonably cold - insultingly so, or so it seemed to Ava as she stormed out the doors of the Time Bureau. Leave of absence? Who the hell is he to strongly suggest that I take a leave of absence? Her thoughts were a tornado, all force and no direction. Disorganized, destructive - everything she hated to be, a state of mind she worked so hard to avoid. Control, she liked control, but now her stomach felt queasy as she felt the threads of that control, which she stitched into her life so carefully, fraying at the edges. And now the cold - salt to her proverbial wounds.

All force, no direction: her mind rocketed from thought to thought, each one feeling less like a contemplation and more like a head-on collision.

- Sara, and the look on her face when Ava had told her to go.

- Hank, rising from the chair behind his desk with all the physical authority of a high-school principal and all the professional authority to rip away the career she had so tirelessly constructed for herself, that she devoted herself to, that she loved. Hank cutting her off as she rose, too - tired of his lectures about regulations and how severely she'd broken them, or more pressingly, how the Legends had broken them - and she tried to remind him how much the Legends did for the Bureau, who invaluable they were, how their motivations to save Konane had been well-intentioned, even if their methods had been less than ideal.

She argued with herself as she walked to her car. I said to him everything I should have said to Sara. God, why couldn't I have just told her those things, instead of taking his side? The sidewalk was less crowded than usual; Hank had kept her late, lecturing on and on about the "integrity of the mission" and the "sanctity of their work."

I took his side when arguing with Sara because I was doing my job - why couldn't she see that I'm doing the best I can? I'm not responsible for Hank's actions? Even if his actions are reprehensible… ugh. Ava rubbed her temples and quickened her stride, head throbbing, seemingly from the pressure of all the tension within. Hurting magical creatures? What the hell, Hank? Faster, she walked, and faster, the torrent of thoughts came.

- A thorn against her tongue as Sara plucked a rose from a nearby bouquet and placed it between her teeth, an admittedly smooth - but utterly infuriating - attempt to stop Ava's arguments as they spun and dipped and twirled each other across the dance floor.

- Finally letting her cool facade crack, letting some emotion through the professional exterior, letting her voice raise in volume until it matched his, and she was looking Hank in the eye and not backing down, until he stepped back, paused, and then, quietly, told her that he "highly recommended she take a leave of absence," and that she should "gather what she needs from her desk for a week." Why? "It seems to me like you need some time to sort out your priorities."

In the quiet of the night, odd sounds felt amplified: her own heavy, solid footfalls on the pavement as she crossed to the parking lot; a rustle of wind through the trees that lined the walkway, sending a chill spidering up her spine. Arriving at the parking lot, Ava began navigating towards her car, which she had no trouble locating, since the lot was nearly empty. God, what was the hour? The irony of the Director of the Time Bureau not knowing the time was not lost on her as she glanced at her wrist for an answer: 11:17. Already? A wave of dizziness swept over her suddenly, and she reached an arm out, her hand finding the pole of a street light on the grass island halfway through the lot. It flickered as she leaned against it.

When did I last eat? Ava wondered, at first idly, then more seriously as her brain didn't immediately supply her with a response. Shit, did I eat today? She stood there, pausing, re-calibrating, walking back through her day and not reaching a meal until she recalled breakfast. If you could call it that. A granola bar and a banana? Was that really all? As if to punctuate her realization, her stomach growled, presumably in protest to its seeming abandonment, and for the first time that day, Ava allowed herself to fully check in with her body.

Head: like a dam just as the floodgates began to crack. Stomach: empty. Her muscles felt sore and kind of tight, likely a combination of stress and fatigue. Feet: about to swell out of her shoes. One of these days I'll have to draft an amendment to the dress code - professionalism is one thing, but if I'm going to be doing as much cardio in these shoes as I have been recently, what with saving the timeline and all that, I think some sneakers would be well within my rights to demand. Neck: stiff. Legs: heavy, wooden, rusted. Heart…

Hollow. Unbidden, unwanted, a knot of emotion rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down. Part of her wanted so badly to call Sara, to go home to her, with her, to melt into her arms and let that feeling of security carry her into tomorrow, when she could sort out everything that was going on in an orderly manner. But then, dammit, Sara was one of the issues right now, and… Ava sighed, slowly. She didn't want to still be mad, but for some reason, she was, the anger still hot in her veins, so strong that it brought a little tremor to her fingers.

Was that from anger at Sara, though? Or the rest of it? Or just the hunger?

Probably all of the above.

Time. I need time. And food. What do I have left in my fridge? Her temples throbbed again; even the effort of thinking that far ahead seemed too great, at the moment. Guess I'll see when I get there.

The street lamp flickered again, and Ava shivered, suddenly aware that she was alone in the Time Bureau parking lot at nearly half past eleven at night. Though she had a habit of pushing work hours late, that seemed to be a trend among upper-level Bureau employees, and she had grown accustomed to walking out with the same elevator group, nodding to the same pedestrians on the walkway. Bordering on midnight was pushing it, though, even for chronic Bureau over-achievers. Now the lot was desolate, and the night was dark. Ava felt her heartbeat quicken, just a flutter, and she whipped her head around, scanning the lot and its edges, shrouded in the shadows of the row of trees lining the walkway from the Bureau building and the looming edifices of Washington DC. The city - at least this district, full of government offices - never fully fell asleep, packed with people whose job it was to be awake so the remainder of the country could slumber peacefully. Still, this corner of it seemed to be, for the moment, at rest; she saw no one from her vantage point in the middle of the lot, not in any direction.

Ava released her grip on the street lamp; it had been tighter than she'd thought, and she watched the color return to her knuckles, curling and uncurling her fingers as she crossed the final distance to her car. A siren sounded in the distance; somebody blared a horn. Somewhere on another street, someone was whistling, and the tune carried to her ears in a frigid wind that blew her hair off to one side and turned up the collar of her coat.

She reached her car - finally - and fumbled with the keys, digging them from her pocket, finding the unlock button, and clambering in. Shutting the door felt like closing the world out; the ambient sounds of the night were abruptly cut off. If only it were that simple. If only I could close a door, lock a file cabinet, store all of my anxieties neatly away.

But that was the thing about anxieties, wasn't it? They weren't neat, they were unruly, and persistent, and if you didn't turn to address them when they tapped on your shoulder, they grew claws and tried more insistently to win attention.

Ava turned the key, and the engine came to life. As backed out of her spot and navigated out of the lot, the silence of the car's interior suddenly felt stifling, and she cracked the window, despite the chill, breathing in the icy air. The sounds of the night were more muted, with the window glass still mostly up between her and the rest of the world, but even as she drove and her vehicle carried her away from the Time Bureau premises, a song lingered on the wind.

What is that song? The tune seemed to lodge in her mind and stick there, like a fly in amber. The name came to her as she turned out onto a road with some actual signs of life on it, cars waiting at a traffic light, a lone cyclist zipping along the roadside.

Pop Goes the Weasel? Ava groaned aloud, waiting for the light to change. Perfect. Just what I need. The one song that it notoriously difficult to get out of your head. At long last, the light turned green. As much as she wanted to floor it until she reached her door, it appeared that the person ahead of her was in no such hurry; so, Ava inched down the road, alone with her thoughts and the sliver of cold air slipping through her window, the damn song stuck in her head on a loop. It was almost as if she could still hear the whistling, even as she continued down the road towards home.