Chapter Text
7. sugar and spice and everything nice (that’s what little girls are made of)
It is right after lunch that the doorbell rings; Ava startles awake on the couch, but Sara tells her to rest and she’ll get it. She is expecting Gary, maybe Astra, but what awaits on the other side of the door surprises her.
“Oh, sorry- uh, we were looking for Ava,” the blonde – Kara? – says.
Sara nods. “Yeah, I’m-”
“Sara,” the other woman at the door offers her hand. “I’m Lena Luthor. We’ve met a couple of times, and Ava has told me about you, but I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced before. We’re sorry to barge in, but we need help with a rather private matter.”
She nods, “Sara Lance,” she shakes both of their hands. “Ava’s a little under the weather but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you, come on in.”
As they get through the door, Sara sees the three-year-old between them look up at her curiously. Lena knows her way around the house, because Sara has barely closed the door by the time she’s rounded the corner into the leaving room, with Kara and their daughter quick on her heels.
“Auntie Ava!” is all the warning the child gives before leaping on the couch. Kara struggles to follow without letting go of her hand.
Ava catches her in a hug. “Lizzie! When did you grown up so much, you little munchkin?”
The adults greet her, too, with Ava barely finding the strength to stand up for a minute before she has to sit back down on the armchair, leaving the couch to the three of them. She invites them to sit down, too, while Sara goes to sit on the armrest of Ava’s chair, so she can stay close. She offers her hand with a meaningful look that silently warns Ava: “tell me if you need anything.”
If Sara didn’t know any better, she’d say Kara’s arm around the child is to keep her on the couch: in the split second she wasn’t touching the kid, it had almost seemed like she was starting to float; surely her eyes are deceiving her, it’s been a weird couple of days.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but it’s been less than two months since I visited. Is something wrong?” Ava asks.
Lena hesitates, glancing to Sara quickly, before repeating, almost apologetically: “We need help with a very private matter.”
Ava must get something Sara doesn’t, because she turns to her with a guilty look in her eyes that warns Sara that she’s going to ask her to leave before she does.
Sara’s face turns to scolding. She’s being ridiculous, Sara knows all about her magic. “I’m not leaving you, Ava. You can’t even stand up for more than a minute, and I already know everything about your magic-”
“It’s okay,” Kara reassures the three of them. “If Ava trusts Sara, we can trust her,” she smiles to Lena, and takes off her glasses before anyone can protest any further, undoing her ponytail a moment later.
Familiar as it is, it takes Sara a minute to place her face. And she’s not completely sure, until Kara starts to explain:
“Lizzie’s beginning to show some of my… peculiarities,” she lifts her arm from around the kid’s shoulders and, indeed, she starts floating. Kara gently pulls her back down after a moment.
Lena continues: “We were wondering if you had an enchantment, an amulet, a spell, anything, that could help keep her identity secret and her powers hidden, at least until she’s old enough that she can control them.”
Sara’s mouth falls open. “You’re-” she turns to Ava, “she’s-” when Ava holds her hand tighter, Sara’s mouth closes. “Right, sorry. Go on.”
Ava clears her voice. “I can enchant an amulet, yes. Sadly, not today. It’ll take a week or so, I’m afraid.”
Lena and Kara look at each other, then Lena scoots closer. “Ava, please. She’s been doing this for three days, and Kara has had to keep her anchored the whole time. I brought letters I’ve written to my mom, two of my diaries. Kara has a couple keepsakes, one’s from Krypton.”
She shakes her head vehemently. “No, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t pay me for this, she’s my god-daughter. My niece. I’ll do it as soon as I can, I promise. I just- I can’t right now. I’m using my magic for something else.”
Sara frowns at the present continuous tense, turning to her, but doesn’t say anything. Kara gasps, making them turn.
“Sorry. X-Ray vision,” she grimaces. “What happened to your lungs?”
She’s shaking her head to Kara with wide eyes when Sara turns back to her, narrowing her eyes. Ava stops signaling to Kara not to say it but pretends to be clueless a moment longer, before she relents and confesses.
“I tried to heal a heart attack, but there was a massive lung embolism to go with it. Left one, I think. What you see with your X-Ray vision may be the fluids that gather after something like that. I’ll be fine in a couple of days,” she dismisses. “I just can’t use magic, right now. But in a few days-”
“I’m sorry,” Lena interrupts. “You tried to heal a heart attack?”
“It was my father,” Sara explains in a whisper, guilt overriding everything she’s feeling.
Ava grips her hand tighter. “It was important to me. Give me a few days, I’ll try to speed up the process, can you stay in town?”
They both nod, and thank her, as they get up from the couch. Ava doesn’t, and Sara takes it as her cue to be the one leading them out. When she gets back, Ava is at the cabinet, grabbing the other two green potions she had around. She gets back to the couch, gulping both down quickly, setting the empty bottles down on the coffee table. When she tries to get back up, Sara stops her.
“What do you need?”
Ava sighs. “The box from Friday night. I’ll use the rest of it, reassess after.”
Sara brings her the box, and sits beside her as Ava does her thing. She doesn’t speak much, just stays right next to her, patiently waiting. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in pain?”
She hums, going through a diary before turning to Sara. “You had already done everything you could, you brought me pain medication from the pharmacy, you even went grocery shopping. There’s nothing else you can do. The fact you’re here is enough, Sara. You don’t know how much it means to me that this hasn’t scared you off.”
Sara scoffs. “Why would it? This is part of you. I love you, Ava.”
Slowly, Ava takes her hand, intertwining their fingers. “Yeah, that’s kind of everything I need.”
Her voice is so soft, her eyes are softer. Sara knows, she’ll never be able to live without Ava ever again. Because this is kind of everything she needs, too.
Ava Sharpe – witch, lawyer, true crime aficionado – is the love of her life. Sara is going to marry her, someday soon; and then, she’s going to spend the rest of her life making her as happy as she’s making Sara.
Monday morning, Ava goes through a few more items from the opened keepsake box, before Sara goes to her childhood home and brings her the jersey that she’s offered a few times already. Ava tries to refuse it again, but Sara is firmer than ever.
“Why won’t you take it, Ava?”
“It’s- it’s a piece of you.”
Sara almost sighs and rolls her eyes at her, but she reminds herself Ava has just gifted her something priceless – again. She can accept her being stubborn. “I’m yours. Take the shirt.”
Ava keeps hesitating. “It’s not the same as with anyone else,” she tries to explain, “coming from you the jersey isn’t just a keepsake. I told you, this kind of entanglement with a witch can be strange. You gifting it to me means something, for my kind.”
Sara just stares at her. “Will it be more effective than the stuff you’ve been using so far, to make you feel better?”
Her shoulders sag. “Of course, it will, because of the way I feel about you.”
“Then, what is stopping you? The truth, Ava.”
She sighs. “You’re giving me a piece of yourself. It’s permanent. My magic… the side effects of it you’ve experienced, like the signs it sent you, will be permanent. This creates a bond between us that won’t be as easy to rescind as a contract.”
Sara mulls it over. “So, you never accepted old shirts from any of your ex-girlfriends, like, ever?”
Ava bites her lip. “Well, no. Not to transform into magic, which is what you’re proposing. And, even if I had, it wouldn’t have meant the same, because I didn’t feel the same about them. How I feel for you, Sara, it’s- it’s permanent. If I do what you’re asking, it’ll be for you, too. You’ll never be rid of my magic, as long as I love you. I’ll be indelible from your life.”
Sara would, honest-to-God, swat her arm, if Ava wasn’t already in so much pain because of saving her own father. “Like you’re not already? Like I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you? Like I don’t love you in a way I never thought possible? Ava, please, take the shirt,” she pushes it into her hands. “I’m going to propose to you very soon, anyway, and then you’d feel so stupid for not having used this.”
Ava’s sharp intake of breath doesn’t even make Sara falter. “Are you being serious?”
“Well, are you taking the shirt?” Sara raises an eyebrow.
Ava purses her lips, grabs the shirt, and doesn’t ask again. Sara holds her even tighter after the shirt fades to gray in her hands, and crumples into ashes as it falls to the ground. It hurts Ava more than Sara, truly; the jersey is part of a lot of happy memories, but it’s still only a shirt. Ava is the love of her life, and there isn’t much that Sara wouldn’t give more than willingly if it would make her feel better, especially when the reason she isn’t feeling fine is having saved Quentin.
Two weeks later, when Sara proposes to her, Ava says yes.
It isn’t until days after Lena and Kara visit them, that Sara realizes something doesn’t add up.
She tries to remember when she has first met Lena – she remembers seeing her in the office one of the first times she was there, so it must have been mid-March. Then, she has a memory of seeing her pregnant, very pregnant, near Ava’s birthday, at the end of November. She tries to remember Lizzie’s birthday, she’s pretty sure Ava has visited them at the end of January to celebrate it, so she must’ve been conceived a few weeks after Lena’s trip to Ava’s office.
Now, that could of course just be an odd coincidence. But, considering Ava is her god-mother, there is another thing that seem to fit into this strange pattern, somehow: she’s seen Lena pregnant, but the kid has Kara’s powers.
She mulls over all these facts, trying to fit them together, but feels like it’s better not to ask, while Ava is still preoccupied with healing as fast as she can.
She remembers about it randomly, a few weeks later; she goes to bring Ava lunch, and finds her video-chatting with Lizzie on her phone. She knows the kid is doing much better, with the enchanted amulet Ava has given her, and even peeks in to say hi: Lizzie yells her name and asks if she’s coming with Ava the next time she visits. Sara chuckles and tells her she’ll think about it.
After Ava hangs up and goes to sit beside her, Sara is still deep in thought, chipping away at her lunch slowly. After Ava starts on her own, she decides there’s no better time than the present, to ask.
“So, I’m pretty sure I remember Lena being pregnant, but the kid is obviously Kara’s, genetically. Did they do IVF with Kara’s eggs?”
Ava chuckles. “No, just a potion I helped Lena with. She has magic herself, but she was missing some ingredients and the spell to make it work.”
Sara’s eyebrows skyrocket. “A potion got her pregnant?”
Again, Ava chuckles. “No, sleeping with Kara got her pregnant, the potion just made it possible for them to… conceive.”
It just confuses her more. “How?”
“Well, a baby it’s just DNA from two people mixing up, right? Two women would normally lack the… means of transporting said DNA. With the potion, that isn’t needed. Theoretically, even a kiss would suffice as DNA transfer, although of course the potion works better if- why are you looking at me like that?”
Sara is sitting there, flabbergasted, mouth agape. “Are you being serious? And you never thought this could be relevant to us?”
“Uh?” Ava squints her eyes, as if Sara is the one being daft.
“You sent me around looking for a dude to sleep with, when you-”
She looks almost offended by the implication. “Excuse me, I sent you around looking for your soulmate to settle down with, I’m certain I was adamant you didn’t need to sleep with anyone you didn’t want to.”
Sara is still incredulous that she isn’t getting it. “Ava, I could have just slept with you.”
For a moment, she looks like she still thinks Sara is being delusional. She scoffs, like Sara needs to be reminded that: “You are.” Then, it slowly dawns on her what Sara’s telling her. “Oh, you mean, for the contract.”
“Yes, for the contract!” Sara scoffs. “I went on horrible dates for three years, when you could have just…” she makes weird gestures with her hands, as if mixing ingredients.
“Well, okay,” Ava rolls her eyes. “First of all, that would have been gross. Saving you father’s life if you slept with me? That is not consent. I wanted you to find happiness, I didn’t want to coerce you into anything like that. Second of all, it’s powerful magic but you still need a strong emotional bond for it to work.”
Sara hums. “When two people love each other very much, like you tell kids when you don’t want to explain where babies come from?”
“Right. I don’t suppose it would’ve worked, back then. Without mentioning, I still couldn’t carry to term, you still would’ve had to be the one carrying the child, but instead of choosing your partner, it would’ve been forced upon you. Doesn’t sound fair, to me.”
It wouldn’t have worked back then.
Sara mulls it over, for a moment. “Okay, so maybe not back then. But it sure seems relevant now,” she half shrugs, like the thought alone isn’t making her own stomach do somersaults. “I’ve chosen my partner, and I do love her very much.”
For a split second, Ava just looks at her, considering her words. It’s just a second. Then, she shakes her head, as if she’s shrugging the thought off of herself. “No.”
“No?”
“I told you a long time ago, I’d never choose anything else over you. In case you forgot, you proposed. We’re getting married, I want to be with you, full stop.” She’s serious, and unwavering. “And your debt has been cancelled for ages, you should really get over that,” she adds, with a teasing smile.
Ava is still not getting it. She puts down her lunch, moving to go sit on her lap, arms circling her shoulders. She kisses her tenderly, brushing their noses together before leaning back. “I didn’t mean you’d have to choose. I meant, you know, this could be an option for us.”
Even as her eyes stay closed, her arms tighten around Sara’s waist. “I thought you weren’t sure about wanting kids.”
“Getting surer,” she whispers against Ava’s cheek, as she kisses it.
Ava hums, as Sara’s lips move down to her jaw, then her neck. “Let’s think about the wedding for now, and revisit this if you’re ever one hundred percent sure?”
Sara nods against her neck, and Ava only holds her tighter.
They have a small wedding, just six months after Sara’s proposal. Ray and Gary officiate together; Ray celebrates the average rites, marrying them according to State’s law, while Gary binds them in a ceremony that Astra has insisted to Sara – and therefore Sara had insisted to Ava – they have to have, because it is the traditional one for witches.
By then, all the people close to Sara know what Ava does for a living, who she is; Sara wouldn’t want them there if they didn’t, anyway.
It is a very jolting reminder of everything that has changed in the last five years. When Quentin was sick, and Sara was taking care of him and barely had time to even text her friends, this all had seemed impossible. Now, she’s surrounded by family and friends, celebrating life, and it all seems like such a distant memory, it would be easy to forget all about it. At the same time, it’s hard to push it out of the forefront of her mind, to not think about how things were before Ava, when she’s walking towards her down the aisle. Ava smiles, and Sara knows this is the happiest she’s ever been.
This is all because of her, and thanks to her.
To Sara, she isn’t just a witch. Ava is magic, to her.
Sara doesn’t ask about it again until a few months later, after they go visit Lena and Kara for a weekend. Mari is growing up fast; but Lizzie, who lives far away and whom they see less of, is growing up even faster.
It makes her realize how quickly time is passing.
They’re in bed, one night, and Sara is looking right at her beautiful, sleepy, face; Ava’s hair is scattered on her pillow like a halo. Sara loves her so much it’s ridiculous to think she had almost convinced herself she would be able to live without her.
It’s been five years since they first met – under admittedly peculiar circumstances – and Ava had even been trying for several years prior. It must feel like a lifetime. What’s the point in waiting even more?
“So, what’s in the potion?” Sara asks, head on her hand, leaning on her elbow to look down at Ava with adoring eyes.
Ava hums, eyes opening slightly to look at Sara through heavy eyelids. “Depends on the potion,” she answers without pause; she’s used by now to Sara asking the most random questions about magic at the most random times. “Very disparate things.” She chuckles at a particular thought: “There’s a potion to cure hangovers created by mixing a plant that only blooms once every nine years, called the Corpse Flower, with morning dew and mandrake roots. Works like a charm, but it’s near impossible to make, that’s why even witches have hangovers. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Sara’s looped smile doesn’t fade as she bends down to kiss Ava softly. “I meant the potion.”
Ava doesn’t get it right away, but she notices how Sara is looking at her, eyes slowly darting over her face, as her fingers gently trace Ava’s arm. She bends down again, to kiss Ava’s cheek, and a small, sharp, intake of breath warns Sara she’s now awake enough to get it.
“Oh. Uh, well… as you know, love is pretty much a requirement for it to work. A generous amount of honey mixed in water, for the base. Lotus flowers, Sunflower seeds. And, of course, ginger and cayenne pepper.”
“Of course,” Sara echoes, eyebrows arching, like that isn’t a ridiculous combination of spices to put in honey water.
“Yeah, it doesn’t taste great, according to Lena.”
Well, this is the most information she’s ever gotten out of Ava about this: if Lena was the one to drink it, that means Sara would be the one who would have to, for them. She’s okay with that, it won’t taste worse than that mix of liquors Nate had dared her to drink at their last – particularly weird – Halloween party, a few months before. She hums and nods.
“And, even more of a bummer, it doesn’t work one hundred percent of the time. They had to try a few times a week, for months, before it worked.”
She mulls it over. “That’s not that long, couples try for years.”
“Sure, it’s just longer than usual for magic. It’s supposed to be instant, you know? But with things of this nature, even magic can’t be perfectly precise.”
Sara nods, kissing her cheek again. “We could track ovulation? It could give us a better chance.”
Ava stays silent for a very long moment. This isn’t just hypothetical talk anymore; Sara has made a specific reference to them. To them, trying. “Sara, you know I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, right? We don’t have to-”
“I know,” she kisses Ava’s lips to stop her. “I know we don’t have to, but I want to try. If you want that, too.”
Ava doesn’t really answer, she just kisses Sara again. When Ava turns them over and slides on top of her, it doesn’t feel like a way to silence her, but rather a way to be closer to her. To let her know, this is what she wants, too. Sara hugs her, as Ava kisses her neck, and murmurs sweet nothings against her skin.
Sara whispers to her, in between kisses: “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, too.”
A few days later, when she comes home from work, Ava’s in the small room on the ground floor where she keeps her “witchy appliances”, as Sara likes to call them to rile her up. She keeps the finished potions and non-dangerous stuff in the living room, but everything that is better kept out of sight it’s in the spare room downstairs.
Sara has been moved in for over a year, and she’s found the door locked when coming home just two times, before. Once, Ava was working with “a pinch of exploding powder” – her own words – making a retail order for a guy who wanted very spectacular fourth of July fireworks. They were even invited to see the end results, and it was a very whimsical and pretty effect, Sara couldn’t deny it. The other, she was making a batch of potion with very large quantities of onion to help a woman get rid of a stalker; despite the closed door, the house had smelled for days.
Since then, she had moved the bulk of her potion making to the office. Since renovating, and expanding to the seventh floor, Gary had been moved into her old office, working opposite Astra, while Ava’s own office had been moved upstairs, where a spare room had been turn into a common area where they could mix potions, perform enchantments, work on spells. It had improved both morale and team skills.
This is why, coming home that day, Sara is surprised Ava’s mixing something – either dangerous or disgusting, if previous experience could be an indicator – in her home study. That is, until the smell of honey comes through to the rest of the house, and Sara feels her heart soar.
Half an hour later, while Sara’s meditating in the living room, yoga mat perfectly placed so she can see the display cabinet in the corner, Ava comes in with a small tray. She opens the cabinet and places twelve little bottles filled with rose-gold liquid on the second-from-the-bottom shelf. When she turns, Sara’s looking at her with a raised eyebrow, trying not to smile too much.
“Hi, my love,” Ava goes to greet her with a kiss. Sara’s other eyebrow mimics the first one, in a silent question, as she keeps Ava close with a hand on the back of her neck. “I thought I’d make a few, since I was mixing it. It’s a numbers’ game,” she shrugs, like it isn’t that big of a deal.
Sara can’t keep her laugh in anymore, half mirth, half hope bursting through her chest. She kisses Ava again, pulling her down with her, as her back hits the yoga mat.
It’s a numbers’ game, is the reason why nothing is ready the first time they try it.
It’s not even been ten days since Ava mixed the potions, when the freshly installed app on Sara’s phone alerts her she’s supposedly starting her ovulation. She’s mostly curious to know if it tastes as bad as it looks; as sweet as the pink, or as spicy as the golden speckles in it: the mixture of sweet and spicy isn’t great, the ginger is good with honey, but the large quantity of cayenne pepper needed for the potion kind of ruins it. It’s still not as bad as she thought it would be, overall.
Neither of them really thinks it could work the first time, and Sara tells her next month they should try each day of the three-day range the app gives her, so they’ll have a better chance.
It works on the first try.
When she’s late, two weeks later, she thinks it’s due to the stress of a water tube bursting in the gym during one of her classes. She has to evacuate a class of senior women trying to learn Aikido. Three days later, she’s even worried the delay the stress is causing might impact next month’s ovulation, and she decides to tell Ava.
Ava just gives her a weird look. “You don’t think-”
Sara doesn’t think that. They have eleven other potions to go through; it takes people months, years, of trying, and Ava has told her – not in so many words – she thinks her own fertility issues might make it harder for them, despite Sara being the one carrying the baby. So, no, how could she think that?
Even then, she goes grocery shopping, despite their fridge being half full, just so she can casually throw a box of pregnancy tests in the cart and act mighty nonchalant about it. There’s two in the box, so they could use the second one next month, if they need it, right? Who knows. Better to have it home, just in case. Then, when she gets home, she tells herself at this point she might as well take one. She’s five days late, so the test should be reliable enough.
Ava’s still putting away groceries in the kitchen, when Sara comes down from the upstairs bathroom, clutching the stick in her hand, mouth slightly agape. Ava stops her movement when she sees her standing in the doorway, frowning. Her first thought is that something is wrong. But, when she turns to Sara, she only raises her right hand, still looking mighty caught off guard as she tells Ava:
“I’m pregnant.”
For a moment, Ava leans on the hand she has on the table for support, and doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even move. Then, a split second later, she’s clutching Sara into her arms so tight that Sara finally feels like she can breathe again. She circles Ava’s shoulders with her arms.
“I’m pregnant,” she says again, even more incredulous than the first time. “We’re having a baby.”
Sara has a million questions. Wasn’t it supposed to take months? What are they going to do with the dozen vials of the potion Ava’s prepared? They have less than nine months to get everything ready to go, why haven’t they started before? Oh, God, she needs to buy a pile of books on motherhood and start reading right now.
But, as Ava holds her, it all seems to melt away.
“We’re having a baby,” she echoes, kissing Sara’s cheek.
Sara leans back to look into her eyes, and isn’t surprised when she sees they’re filled with unshed tears. “I love you,” she tells her, kissing her softly.
“I love you,” Ava leans their foreheads together. “I love you.”
When Ava kisses her again, her fears melt away a little bit.
The next day, Ava comes home with a bunch of supplies to renovate the spare room upstairs into a nursery, with a smile as bright as the sun, and Sara knows they’re going to be just fine.
At least, she thinks they will be, until their first ultrasound appointment, when the lovely lady they’ve chosen as their obstetrician-gynecologist, tells them: “Oh, I’m sure the clinic where you performed the IVF warned you, this is quite common with artificial insemination. I think they’re fraternal, but to be certain we need to wait for the next ultrasound. However, you’re definitely expecting twins.”
They both are still shell-shocked, when Sara turns to Ava and mutters: “Well, I did owe you my firstborn, twice. I guess this settles it, then.”
Ava can only look at her like she’s lost her goddamn mind.
It slightly surprises her that Ava insists on doing everything herself instead of paying someone or asking their friends – and doing everything by hand.
For instance, Sara can’t be in the house when she paints the nursery, Ava is categorical about it, paint being a very big no-no during pregnancy. She even makes sure she has the opened cans gone and her own clothes washed before Sara comes back. And because it merely takes a day – Ava has organized a spa day for her, Zari, and Amaya, without telling them why – Sara expects it to be painted in single-color pink. Instead, she comes home to gold-rose walls, with purple line patterns on two of them, perfectly stenciled dark pink circles in another, golden stars around the door, and light pink clouds on the still white ceiling.
“You used magic,” Sara nods, as if Ava not confirming she had would be ridiculous.
She hums, and nods. “To dry it, yes.”
Sara narrows her eyes at the patterns and shades. “You painted everything by hand?”
“Well, no, I had stencils,” she deadpans.
Sara just looks at her for long moments, studying her face.
In moments like these, it hits her – properly hits her, not just as a thing she knows, but as a thing she understands on a very emotional level – just how much and for how long Ava has wanted this. So much so, that even painting a nursery becomes something to cherish, something to spend time on, and not a chore she would ever pay someone to do, or a corner she would cut with magic.
It's not just the room; she assembles the cribs with a patience that almost drives Sara crazy, scolds her when she wants to try and doing it without the instructions – failing miserably – and spends hours selecting the best car seats for twins; she even enrolls them in not one, but three pre-natal classes – Sara negotiates down to two.
It does drive her a little bit crazy, but it also makes Sara fall in love with her a little bit more.
It’s also endearing that she is bursting with all this energy in private, and still somehow manages not to mention it to a living soul other than Sara for months, before they start telling people. They wait until the end of the first trimester; and even then, Ava is a little reluctant, on the guise that “twins’ pregnancies are delicate”, which is true but, Sara suspects, is also not the reason Ava is reticent to tell their friends.
When her nerves don’t quell, Sara has to coax her into admitting what is worrying her, by sitting on her lap as Ava’s relaxing on the couch, asking softly just one time, and then kissing her neck until she relents.
“What if they think it’s too soon? Or, what if they think it’s because of the contract? What if someone asks who the father is?”
“Who cares what anyone thinks, these are our kids. No one else gets a say.” When Ava still looks doubtful, she adds: “If anyone asks you a dumb question, send them to me.”
Ava hums. “How will I know if it’s a dumb question?”
“If Gary’s the one asking it, chances are high,” Sara deadpans. “Any question about the kids, I got the answers,” she cuts to the chase, kissing Ava’s lips pointedly, to make sure she knows that the panic should be over.
Ava just sighs into the kiss, closing her eyes, hugging Sara closer to herself.
If any dumb questions are being asked, Ava doesn’t even notice when they tell everyone; Amaya and Zari are too excited, Gary almost faints, Quentin sheds a few tears: it’s a ruckus. But, overall, they all seem to take the news pretty well, so there’s that.
The first half of the pregnancy is fine; Ava goes absolutely overboard in taking care of her, so that helps. But then, the fact that not one but two tiny people are growing inside her, starts to make itself known. She’s constantly tired, her feet ache, and towards the end her belly feels so heavy she’s actually counting the days until the twins get there.
It happens sooner than they would have liked; they know, with twins, making it to forty week is rare, but they were hoping they would come just a couple weeks early. Instead, a full month before the due date, she goes into labor.
Ava drives to the hospital like a maniac, all the while telling her that it’s probably just Braxton-Hicks. Sara has never been this close to smacking her.
Half a day later, the twins are born. Rose comes out first, screaming with the vengeance of a thousand suns; Lily looks mighty flabbergasted that the baby next to her is causing this much mayhem while they’ve barely even opened their eyes yet. It kind of stays this way throughout their childhood.
There is one particular night, when Rose starts fussing well before Lily is even awake, that they’re so tired Sara would give anything just so she could sleep for a few more minutes. She must say it out loud, because when she opens her eyes again Lily is throwing one of her sporadic tantrums. When she gets downstairs, Ava is pacing the kitchen with Rose in her arms, feeding her through one of the bottles Sara’s pumped.
“And then, when she came into the office, she told me she had a string of bad dates and asked if it was possible someone cursed her.” The baby gurgles. “I know!” There’s another soft sound. “Yes, of course I was already in love with her, but I would never curse your mom, I was very much ready to accept she’d never feel the same.”
Lily barely stirs, content in Sara’s arms for the time being, letting her eavesdrop.
“Well, I wouldn’t know precisely,” Ava sighs. “I suppose, I had already loved her for a while, when she dressed up as Supergirl for Halloween and swore she’d give me a child. I’m sure of it, because that was the first time that she looked at me and I thought we were idio- uh, being dummies, because she felt something too, and we were wasting it.”
When she finally turns enough that she sees Sara in the hallway, she freezes for a second. Sara only raises an eyebrow.
“Rose asked how we met.”
Sara almost wants to laugh it off; but then, Lily makes a discontent sound, and Ava sighs.
“Not you, too.” Another sound. “Fine, fine. Where did I start?”
Of course, Ava is just being silly. She can’t actually understand babies. That would be ridiculous, Sara tells herself; although sometimes it does seem like she very much knows what the twins are telling them.
“It all started when mom walked into my office-”
No. No, that would be too much, even for a witch.
It has nothing to do with her magical powers, of course. Ava – witch, lawyer, true crime connoisseur – just so happens to be an amazing mom.