Ava wants to know Sara, requiring Sara to reveal parts of herself she has kept hidden in plain sight.
The candle light flickers and dances about the walls, to the silent tune of a subtle breeze. Sara straddles Ava's hips, she reaches up and peels off her tank top, letting it fall over the side of the bed and onto the floor. She pauses and places her hands on her hips, both women ignoring her proud perky breasts for once. Feeling uneasy, Sara sighed and allowed the candle light to flicker and dance about her skin - the soft glow illuminating and the moving shadows concealing her many and varied scars. She doesn't have a problem with her scars exactly…
Sara wore them like amour, deliberately so. Oh sure, she'd take her top off with sexual partners or for medical treatment - both frequent occurrences by the way, but then she would stare defiantly and mention of them would evaporate. She could fuck like she'd just been released from prison but she hadn't yet learned to move beyond that into intimacy. There was a speech she had repeated numerous times about how her scars let her know she had survived, Ava had heard it twice and both times she got the impression that Sara's problem was less about scar tissue and more about moving on. Oh yes, pop psychology one oh one.
Ava's eyes don't leave Sara's face. She watches her eyes, her mouth and the way her hair falls about her shoulders, she knows there are hundreds of tiny freckles on Sara's face, chest and shoulders but is unable to pick them out in this lighting. She can see without looking how the light reflects off of Sara's many scars. She had probably touched all of them inadvertently during their trysts, and any she hadn't yet touched she was sure to have seen at least in passing - but she had never dared to mention them. Ava didn't have a problem with Sara's scars either, not exactly...
Sara had loved Nyssa, no doubt, but their relationship was predicated on the unlikely possibility of their survival and for this reason, and perhaps somewhat due to their youth, they had not really progressed much beyond the honeymoon stage. Sara had loved Ollie too, but despite their strong bond, and sexual history, their relationship resembled the brother-sister model. Although he knew her better than anyone else on the planets, it wasn't the result of an open intimate exchange. It is only now, and only with Ava, that Sara felt a desire for something more substantial. Desire, well that may be a little misleading, but not necessarily untrue.
Ava places her hands on Sara's waist, her fingers curled around toward her back and her thumbs remained facing Sara's navel. Her waist is surprisingly small given her incredible core strength the result of years of extensive training and her skin is taut over the strong yet supple muscles. Sara's hands cover Ava's, she had promised her that their relationship would continue to evolve but they had failed. Or at least Sara had, she had sacrificed moving in with Ava and hoped that the incredibly hot sex between crazy Waverider/Time Bureau missions would tie them over. The consequence was that their relationship had stalled and Sara feared that if she couldn't find a way to make this right - she would lose Ava for good this time.
Ava recognises the intense connection between herself and Sara, it is far stronger than anything she has experienced with other lovers. Ava is caught between Sara's not wanting to rock the relationship boat and her own desire to build a life with this woman, that involved more than frequent sleepovers, occasional shared missions and dramatic pledges at each other's hospital bedside. To extend the marine flavoured allusion; Ava wants to push this boat away from the shallows, far out into the ocean to give them the opportunity to experience true intimacy with Sara. Whilst she remains unsure how to penetrate Sara's defences, she suspects that one such way may involve Sara's scars.
With her right hand, Sara takes Ava's left and brings it slowly to hover over a small but deep round scar on Sara's upper arm. She takes Ava's index finger and touches it to the indentation and says "Hot shrapnel, from an explosion, Lian Yu". Ava touches the mark gently. When Sara notices Ava trying to scoot up the bed a little to better see what she could feel, she rises a little and when Ava settles again, she invites Sara to return tugging her thighs back into place with her finger tips. "This little one," said Sara indicating her left shoulder, ".38 bullet wound".
"Little?" Ava crooked her eyebrow and covered the reddish mark with her warm lips. Sara shrugged, encouraged by Ava's acceptance of both her scars and her effort to mend bridges. "Apparently a doctor at Star City General thought I was a war vet due to the marks on my back" Sara offered. "Oh yeah?" replied Ava, "Not too far from the truth, considering." Sara pushed out her lower left calf to show Ava a collection of dark pock marks that still retained shards of metal, they ranged from above the ankle to about half way up her leg, "Grenade fragments". Ava kissed two fingers and reached over to touch them to the most prominent of the blemishes there.
Sara can feel something opening within her, between them perhaps? She knew it wasn't necessarily about the scars, but it was through them that she was able to begin to bridge the distance between them. The scars she usually used to keep people out, she had been able to use them to invite Ava in. Huge changes always seem so insurmountable, thought Sara, but being willing to change is so effective in itself. She had never felt closer to Ava than she did right now. Not because all had been made right by talking about a few old scars but by communicating to Ava how much she meant to her and how much she was willing to do to keep her.
Sara pointed to three distinct marks on her rib cage, "Please," she asked with a tremor in her voice, "kiss me here, here and here". Ava's eyes followed Sara's finger, she sat up and wrapped her arms around Sara, she ran her tongue around each one, licking and kissing each scar in turn. When she had, Sara pulled Ava to her and held onto her tightly, "Those were made by three arrows that ended my life in Star City. I was dead for over a year when my family used the Lazarus Pit -" here Sara broke off with a choking sob. Ava tightened her hold. "I don't even know why I'm crying" Sara tried to laugh after a minute, "I feel equal parts quite wonderful and new, but also exhausted and crappy."
Ava pulled back to look at her, she tucked Sara's hair behind her ear, and smiled at her, "Well, I'm a clone, so what do I know? But I understand that human emotions are quite complex and don't seem to run linear-ly. That's enough for one night. I love you, babe, I appreciate you so much. You being willing to be open, to invite me in, to share yourself with me, thank you. How about I hold you until you fall asleep?" Sara dried her eyes on the back of her hands, she gathered together Ava's hair and kissed her neck, she licked along her collar bone, kissed up to her ear and bit her lobe. With her one free hand she accidentally brushed against Ava's breast while gently pushing her back down on the bed, then stretched out on top of her, mashing their breasts together and seeking out Ava's tongue with her own. "You can hold me later" she grinned. From the moment Ava felt Sara's tongue in her ear she knew it was going to be on.