Missing Scene

Sara's 3x04 capture scene by the Dominator redone with a slight Avalance twist. For commentary, do please let me know about characterization. I hope I did them some justice but I'm really not sure if I captured them right. I'd love feedback regarding that. :) thank you!

"You know what I'm looking for."

"A breath mint? Dermatologist recommendations? Reese's Pieces?"

"RARRRRRRRR."

Sara grimaced as the Dominator snapped her jaws and screeched in her face.

"Alright! Your kid! You're looking for your kid, and if you let me go, I will help you."

"Your species cannot be trusted."

"I wanna help you, I do. But you can't find him without me."

"Really?"

The Dominator reached for Sara's head, gripping it firmly before she broached into Sara's mind, perusing through her memories trying to find her son. Sara felt like her mind was being scrambled, pain and confusion all blurring together as the Dominator searched her brain.

When she finished, Sara was on the verge of passing out, completely spent, dizzy as the world spun around her. The Dominator smirked.

"And since you cannot be trusted, nor be of help, what's one less of you worth?"

The Dominator reached out back towards Sara's neck, the blonde trying to move but stuck in the webbing. Before the alien's scaly hands could graze Sara's neck, blasts came from out of the woods.

"Ahh!"

The Dominator screeched again, looking towards the woods, Sara still confused and witnessing two bodies approaching quickly. The alien leaped away, running towards what Sara could only assume was her child.

"Gary! Follow after the alien and keep me posted."

"Gary?" Sara mumbled out, hearing someone run off and another body come to stand before her.

She heard a knife get unshielded and Sara tried to move, struggling against the webbing again.

"Captain Lance."

Sara blinked quickly, registering the voice, trying to focus her blurred gaze, in complete disbelief Agent Sharpe of all people would be there to help her.

"A-Ava?" she mumbled out, the Agent eyeing her briefly as she tried to swiftly yet precisely cut Sara out of her prison.

"Gary was following your team, and notified me when he thought you were about to become a part of history yourself," Ava said, sweating as she worked to free Sara.

"You sent that idiot to spy on me? Again?" Sara mumbled out.

"You're lucky that idiot tried following you again, trying to make up for his recent failures. You would have been Dominator dinner had he not broken protocol," Ava replied tersely, cutting Sara out of the webbing.

As Ava cut away, Sara was finally loose enough to wiggle her way out, stumbling faintly and falling to her knees, Ava catching her in her arms and holding her in place, the world dizzying for Sara at the moment.

"Agent Sharpe… it almost sounds like you care," Sara commented, missing the blush coloring Ava's cheeks and the grinding of her teeth in irritation.

"You realize I promised to banish you the last time we spoke? You know? After your last little stunt," Ava replied, and Sara tried to pull away but Ava stood up fully, still holding Sara close and keeping the woman upright.

"And you trying to fight me after having your brain scrambled is yet another bonehead move," Ava said, Sara feeling nauseated.

"How long till the effects wear off?" Sara whispered, gripping her head in one hand and holding herself as upright and steady as she could while gripping Ava's shoulder.

"If it wasn't a deep mind probe, or if it didn't last very long, I imagine less than half an hour."

"There's no time. I have to-"

Sara stumbled as she tried to pull away yet again, Ava gripping her waist and keeping her up.

"You need to lie down."

"What I need is to help my team."

"And how will you be of any help when you're unconscious and in the way?"

"Jesus, are you always this bossy?"

"Well, I am an Assistant Director of the Time Bureau and boss people around for a living, so I guess so," Ava replied, rolling her eyes, following Sara as she went back to the ground, the smaller woman trying to stay up by keeping herself on all fours.

Ava rubbed her back, keeping a hand on her shoulder, a surprisingly tender yet unacknowledged gesture.

"You don't know… what it's like…" Sara started, another wave of dizziness haulting her words and thoughts.

"I just told you I'm in charge of people, Sara, and in fact, many more people than you. Believe it or not, I do know what it's like to be in charge of people's lives. You're not the only person to have ever been a leader, you know."

"What is your problem? Hm? With my team? With me? What the hell did any of us ever do to you?" Sara said, raising her voice, looking over her shoulder to stare Ava down, the taller blonde pressing her lips into a thin line.

Their eyes clashed, but Sara had to look away, lowering herself to the ground fully. Ava followed, helping Sara adjust her body, rolling her onto her back and bending Sara legs and putting them up on her own bent legs to help the blood flow back to her head. Sara breathed deeply, cursing this mind control stuff silently.

The pair was quiet; the only sounds around them were the birds and the tree branches rustling in the wind. Ava's mind raced, and she glanced back to Sara, whose hand covered her eyes as she tried to stop the spinning.

"I don't hate you," Ava whispered, staring straight ahead as Sara peaked a glance at her.

"Really? Because you have a funny way of showing it," Sara replied dryly.

"Can you blame me?" Ava repeated impulsively, Sara quirking a brow at her.

Ava shook her head, turning away again.

"I don't hate you, and I don't hate your team, but… Christ, Sara, do you have any idea what you caused? The chaos your decision unleashed? Not just on the world, but on reality itself? The Bureau has been cleaning this up for years, years, and who knows how long it will take."

"I had no choice, Ava," Sara said slowly, watching the normally uptight and frigid woman finally show some semblance of emotion.

"You said you knew all of our screw ups, spent the last 5 years watching us? Well guess what, congratulations. You were trained! You were able to learn from us. You had Rip create an entire organization, which prepared you to handle all of this," Sara began, Ava looking back down to her.

"Us? We didn't get any of that. We've barely gotten by and we lost people along the way as we stumbled through. We didn't get a 'how-to' pamphlet; we just got dragged into all of this and have tried to stop everything that's come our way ever since. You can laugh at us, call us losers, and judge us all you want, but I'd like to see you and a team of your uptight ass-hats just jump into the fray like we did and be able to handle a fraction of it."

Ava kept her gaze on Sara, the Captain feeling more emotions than she thought she would at the moment. Why did she care what Ava, Ms. Uptight Time Bureau, thought about any of this? She huffed and closed her eyes again, her anger and frustration not making her feel any better. She groaned, wanting the spinning to stop already, knowing her team needed her.

Ava looked away, frowning sadly as she thought over Sara's words. Ava had spent the last five years of her life learning about time, time travel, and the so-called Legends who mucked it up. She probably knew more about them than anyone in the Time Bureau, aside from Rip of course. Ava blamed the Legends, and Sara Lance specifically, for all of the stress she had to endure in this job, but Sara did make a good point; not many people in the world could have done what she did regarding the Spear of Destiny or made the choice to break the rules of time in such a way knowing the potential consequences.

Not many people could do what Sara Lance did, and if Ava was even more honest, she had never met anyone like Sara Lance before, in the present or anywhere else in time. Ava sighed.

"Maybe I've been a little… harsh... on you… and your team."

Sara frowned, looking up to Ava, staring at her in confusion.

"Is this another Dominator trick?"

"God, can you ever be serious?" Ava huffed out, blushing all the while.

"I'm dead serious. Did you just admit you were wrong?"

"No! I said maybe I've been, a little, harsh," Ava replied, pushing Sara's legs off her and standing up, the small blonde watching her curiously.

Ava adjusted her suit, and stared down at Sara, observing her closely before deciding to extend her hand to the woman. Sara took it cautiously, Ava helping her up.

"I thought I was supposed to lie down," Sara whispered, Ava glancing back, and moving to her pocket.

Sara clenched her jaw, ready to fight Ava off if she pulled out handcuffs, but was surprised to find a small device in her open palm.

"This helps reboot your brain after a mind probe. It re-syncs your brain waves into their normal rhythms. May I?"

Sara was even more stunned by Ava's comment, but nodded once in compliance, the taller woman turning her to face her head on. The small device beeped and did a scan of Sara's face before flashing several times. It was over with quickly, and when Ava pulled away, Sara realized she was holding herself up without an issue.

"I-I… why?" Sara blurted out, stunned as Ava kept a straight face.

"Captain Lance, you've been on thin ice with the Bureau since your ship was given back to you. Do me a favor and don't give me a reason to come after you again. Are we clear?"

Sara opened and closed her mouth a few times, but froze, taking in Ava's face, the woman not even looking her way. Sara nodded to herself as she relaxed, seeing Ava in a different light in this moment.

Ava saw movement out of the corner of her eye and looked to see Sara extending a hand to her, which stunned her in return, Sara smirking this time.

"Maybe we can try this truce thing for a while, you know, as long as I don't give you any reasons to come after me."

Ava glanced up into Sara's bright blue eyes, and she swallowed, shaking her head and reaching out, taking Sara's hand putting her game face back on.

"Don't think we won't be keeping an eye on you," Ava said confidently, Sara chuckling briefly.

"I'd expect nothing less, Agent Sharpe," she replied, and for the first time since they met, the women felt something almost like respect for one another.

"Captain Lance," Ava said with a nod, turning on her heel and opening a portal, walking into it as she rang for Gary to return to the Bureau and leave the mission for the Legends.

"Agent Sharpe," Sara said to herself quietly as the portal closed, utterly baffled by the other woman's appearance and the possible progress they had just made in their… relationship

Sara turned and began walking just as an incoming call came from her team.

Ava watched through Gary's surveillance camera as the Dominators beamed back up into the sky.

"See ya later gumball."

"I'm not crying I just have, ah, alien goo in my eye."

"Yea me too," Sara replied.

Ava paused the footage, unable to see Sara's face, but knowing from the audio the other woman was clearly choked up. She leaned back into her chair, Gary looking on.

"S-So, um… does that make up for-"

"You're no longer suspended Gary. Thank you for contacting me when you did," Ava replied, still staring at the screen as Gary hovered in front of her desk.

"Of course boss! How do you want me to file the report?"

Ava pursed her lips, tapping her pen on the desk.

"Since this was not an assigned task Gary, creating a report about this solo mission of yours, during a suspension no less, would warrant an investigation by the Tribunal, and most likely? A complete expulsion and brain wash regarding the Time Bureau."

Gary's face visibly paled, and Ava smirked as the man began to internally panic.

"We'll just keep this recent rendezvous between us, and you can go back into the field. Do not breathe a word of this to anyone. How does that sound?"

He nodded his head frantically and nervously, Ava waving for him to leave, the small man bolting out of her door.

Ava released a deep breath pulled her hair out of her ponytail, running her hands through it as she thought to herself. She didn't want either Director Hunter or Director Bennett to know of her encounter with Sara, nor the fact she let her escape. While the Legends weren't the Bureau's focus at the moment, they were still on their list and either of them knowing Ava just let them go would result in problems for her.

Ava stood up and began walking around her desk, trying to understand how everything had become what it was recently. Rip had been acting increasingly erratic and impulsive, and she knew Director Bennett wanted him and the Legends out of the picture because it seemed like more trouble. What further perplexed Ava was her encounter with Sara and the respect she now came to feel for the reckless Captain she had formerly spent so much time despising. Ava sat back against her desk, scrolling back to replay the last bit of footage Gary had given her, Sara's voice choking up emotionally once again.

Ava smiled. Maybe there was more to this woman than some impulsive, man/womanizing breaker of time. Ava chuckled to herself, feeling crazy that she felt even some small semblance of hope for the woman, but brushed it off. There were bigger issues at hand, like Rip's theories on Mallus and the Time Bureau's stance on it. She only hoped that with whatever was coming next, they would be able to handle it.

Knock Knock.

"Come in," Ava said, surprised when she saw Director Bennett enter her office, the man looking more exhausted than usual.

"Sir?"

He looked to Ava.

"Agent Sharpe. Director Hunter has taken off, on another rave about Mallus. I… I'm not sure what's going to happen. I've tried helping Rip through all of this, but now he's gone rogue. I'm not sure how much longer I can cover for him at the Bureau, but… should you hear anything regarding his motives or whereabouts, please do inform me."

"O-Of course sir."

The short man nodded briefly, and Ava felt a pit in her stomach, her observations spot on as of late. While the two Directors never completely saw eye to eye, much like she and Sara as of late, there was a certain level of respect in place there. Director Bennett, as much as disagreed with Rip, was clearly worried, and Ava bit her lip. She wondered if Rip would be foolish enough to go to Sara and his former team, but she hoped that if that was the case, Captain Lance would call on their recent truce and do the right thing.

Only time would tell.

FIN

My attempts at trying to bridge the Avalance gaps. I LOVE this ship, but yea I'd have liked a scene or two between eps 3-5 and then 5-9 that gave more details into their transition from rivals/ enemies to respected colleagues, to friends and now… well, whatever they become as of this upcoming ep. ;)