#zarlie tag

[childofsquidward]

Top 10 favorite ships involving POC in 10 different fandoms

Tagged by @freddieslater so long ago that they probably had a different username when they tagged me

1. PriyaxRam aka PriRa (Bade Achhe Lagte Hain 2)

2. MachixYuki aka YuChi (Fruits Basket) 

3. Zamaya + Zarlie + Zarlie 2.0 aka I’m gonna cheat and put in every possible version of Tala and Maisie’s characters because Talasie’s chemistry deserved more and if I could find a gif of Amaya and Zari Tarazi just know that it would be here (Legends of Tomorrow)

4. AmyxJake aka Peraltiago because they will always be on every single one of these lists 

5. Layla/AishaxMusa aka SonicWave (Winx Club)

6. MGxEthan aka Methan (Legacies)

7. TorixAndré aka Tandré (Victorious)

8. TabithaxJughead aka Jabitha, but also shout out to every Tabitha ship ever because Tabitha Tate is my favourite character and I love the dynamics that she shares with every character, anyway moving on (Riverhell Riverdale) 

9. JamesxKara aka Karolsen (Supergirl)

10. Love Square (Miraculous Ladybug)

Tagging: @tellywoodtrash​ @darwinquark​ @shaonsim​ @lightninginmyeyes​ @infp-obsessing-over-everything​ and anyone else who wants to do this

[blazethecheeto]

wasnt tagged but i wanna do this

I GOT FRIENDS TO LOVERS WITH A LOT OF FLIRTING LET'S GO

tagging @nutelladoesstuff @shinygemstone @the-feral-gremlin

tag your results!

[dunsbar]

three times, 'cause i waited my whole life (5302 words) by zarlies Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: AMBITION (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Isaiah "Zay" Babineaux/Charlie Gardner Characters: Charlie Gardner (AMBITION), Isaiah "Zay" Babineaux (AMBITION), Riley Matthews (AMBITION) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, soulmates au KIND OF but not really. more like a fate draws us together again au. whatever, meetings, Timeskips Summary: Right place, wrong time. Over the years, Zay and Charlie meet. Written for AAA Secret Snowflake 2023.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS MAGGIE @quincywillows @ambitionsource

[nancywheelxr]

27, Zarlie

There are few things that surprise Zari anymore, especially regarding missions with the Legends. Once you had a pet dragon, she supposes, your bullshit-O-meter sort of gains new heights. So yes, when Sara tells her the string of murders in the suburbs of New Jersey needs investigating, Zari thinks nothing of it.

When Sara tells her she needs her and Charlie to go undercover, it’s not like she’s pleased, but she can see it makes sense. Zari has an amulet, she’s lived in a house in the ‘burbs before, she can pass as not-cuckoo-crazy better than half of the Legends. Charlie is a shapeshifter, she knows the supernatural, understands these creatures. 

It makes sense.

Constantine lays down all sorts of wards and spells on their newly bought house. Sara inspects it thoroughly with Ava, pointing out all the ways they were unsafe under that roof and fixing them the best they can. Mick is given a half-assed badge and a generic uniform and told to play night watchman. They set all kinds of contingency plans in place.

By all means, Zari and Charlie are as safe here as one can possibly be. 

Safe as houses. 

“Do you think,” Charlie says as they settle for the night. There’s only one bed, just in case anyone comes snooping, and Zari has claimed it, allowing Charlie to graciously take the large couch they had chosen on Gideon’s IKEA catalog. “This place is haunted?”

“No,” Zari immediately says. But then again, just last year, they’ve dealt with a possessed doll and a demon again. Maybe it’s time she, too, reevaluated her beliefs. “I mean, not this particular one, no. Why?”

“Nothing,” she shrugs, lounging on the velvety couch, and her sleeping shirt rides up, revealing too much skin for Zari’s sanity. Something hot and hungry growls deep in her belly. “It’s just all this empty space– it’s an awful big house for just the two of us, innit?”

It is. Now that Charlie mentions it, Zari feels it, too. All these empty rooms on the other side of the door. Just stale air and the creaking of the wood. The blinking lights of the microwave. The clock ticking in the living room. It’s an awful big house, yes. 

“Mick’s outside,” Zari says nonsensically, wondering who she’s trying to reassure here. Or why, anyway. There’s no reason to be scared at this point, they’ve barely gotten here. Today’s been a blur of moving in, making a spectacle of furnishing the place, putting on a show to assure the neighbors that yes, this is a perfectly normal household, nothing to see here. The most frightening thing so far has been the lingering sewer smell from the busted pipe a few houses away, but Zari’s been living in an enclosed space with both Mick and Constantine, she can stand some stupid unpleasant smells. “Anyway, great topic to discuss at midnight, thanks for that, by the way.”

Charlie smirks, slow and syrupy. “I aim to please, love.”

It’s not easy, falling asleep. Zari has to stop herself from tossing and turning, forces her body to stay very still, a light sheet over her body in the stifling warmth of a heatwave during summer. Even in her dreams, she feels too hot, burning up a fever that brings strange visions to the forefront of her mind– she dreams of walking down a road with thick woods at either side, alone under the moonlight, reflecting eyes watching her from the shadows; she hears the cars approaching, sees the headlights, and yet no one passes her by. Around the bend, there’s a sign but the writing is all wrong, foreign in an impossible way, and Zari keeps on walking with the determined certainty of a dreaming person that whatever she’s looking for is at the end of this road. The eyes follow her, unblinking, and the sour smell burns her lungs like sulfur. Ahead, the road stretches on, infinite.

At some point during the night, Zari jolts awake. Just like that, tugged from her dream between one blink and the next, and she’s staring right into the vanity’s mirror. It’s a rather startling thing to see right as you’re so jarringly regaining consciousness, something terrifyingly cold crawling down her spine. Her reflection stares back at her, just as distraught, and Zari averts her eyes to the window in the reflection, exhaling at the silver moon visible through the blinds. Although, she quickly glances down, lying back on the mattress, glad that Charlie is sound asleep on the couch, because there’s no excusing her irrational fear at how much that car’s headlight had looked like glowing eyes in the dark.

*

In the morning, with the sun shining once again scalding on her skin, Zari pauses as she’s opening the bedroom window. Something odd settles on her gut. She can’t see the bed reflected in the mirror from here. This spot should not have been in the reflection last night.

The room feels suddenly very small and very empty and Zari shivers, hurrying away even as she chalks it up to the remnants of a dream. She had never seen nor heard that car drive by either. Clearly, she must have been dreaming, Charlie wouldn’t have been that still anyway, they all know she’s a messy sleeper.

*

“Do you think,” Charlie asks over breakfast with a plate of steaming pancakes between them, “someone died in this house?”

Zari sets her mug down forcefully, glaring. “Why are you like this?”

“I’m just saying,” she defends herself, resuming her inhaling of the pancakes, “the Boss said a buncha people died ‘round here, right? This place was way too cheap, I’ve seen the papers. I’m just connecting the dots, love.”

“Well, don’t, then,” Zari watches the honey slowly drip down on her plate rather than the way the sunlight hits Charlie, softening all her edges. This early in the morning, she looks too touchable, beautiful in a way that doesn’t seem impossibly far. She’s warm and solid, a person instead of a concept. It makes the fluttering feelings caged between Zari’s ribs too real, too plausible. The waters become too dangerous to thread. “I don’t need any more weird dreams because of your weird theories.”

At this, Charlie perks up. “Oh, you had a weird dream, too? Mine was completely bonkers!” She grins, excited, but something is dulled behind her eyes like she’s trying to fix up the holes in her wall with malleable plaster instead of bricks. “I dreamt I was here, in this house, but it was different. None of our stuff was here, for one, and there was this hideous wallpaper. Very 70s. The lights were out and I had a candle like some bloody Victorian penny dreadful, but whatever, I had a candle and I was hiding from something, I think? I could hear it growling and pacing around the house sometimes, so I hid in a closet– which, by the way, is kind of funny, in an ironic sort of way? Bet the big guy would get a kick out of it– and I could see it coming to open the closet door, you know, I could see through the gaps, but I woke up before it did.”

“Wow,” is all Zari can say. There’s so much to unpack there, she doesn’t even know where to begin. Jesus. 

“I know,” she shrugs, deceivingly nonchalant, “how was yours?”

Uncertainty pools all over Zari, filling her to the brim. A dream is just a dream, but something about those eyes and the writing and the window in the mirror just feels off somehow. Like the sort of thing you shouldn’t say aloud. “Can’t remember,” she says instead, and then because the wind picks up and breezes into the kitchen, she scrunches up her nose, “shit, they really need to do something about this smell.”

A disgusted sound comes out of Charlie as she pushes her half-full plate away. “It smells like something bloody died in there. What the fuck was in those pipes?”

“Dunno,” Zari shrugs, standing up to dump their dishes into the sink, and glances at the street. A few houses away, the sewer is still cordoned off. “Maybe a possum fell in or something? I think I heard some raccoons last night too.”

“Coulda just been Mick, though,” Charlie snickers and leaves to contact the ship.

*

“Nothing’s coming to mind, mate,” Constantine’s voice is staticky and tiny coming from the communicator and it grates on Zari’s nerves even more than usual. She’s folded herself on the couch, throw pillow in her lap, while Charlie is sprawled on the carpet, communicator on her stomach. “Dreamwalkers wouldn’t make this mess.”

“Are you sure?” She presses, sighing frustratedly. It had been foolish of them to think they’d get a lead so soon in the mission. 

“Positive,” he agrees, words mumbled in that way which means he’s trying to sneak a cigarette without Sara noticing, “but I’ll look into it, just in case,” then, a pause where Zari can practically hear the smirk on his voice, “anywho, how’s married life treating you lot?”

“Piss off,” Charlie scowls, eyes still closed, basking in the patch of sunlight like a cat, “don’t be a bastard. We’ll be off playing nice with our dear ole neighbors today, so tell Sara not to call until later.”

“Will do, love,” Constantine is laughing, chuckling, really, considering he doesn’t laugh, still entirely too amused by their situation, but he grows serious before adding, “be careful, though. There’s something dark in here, something hungry.”

Zari thinks of eyes watching you in the dark. She shudders. “Thanks.”

“Ta-ta,” Charlie murmurs, turning off the thing. 

In the silence that follows, his words hang in the air, floating along Charlie’s it’s just all this empty space, and Zari grips the fabric tighter, resists the urge of pulling the quilt over herself. It stems from child logic, the naive certainty that if you don’t see it, it doesn’t see you, as if a flimsy blanket would be enough to build a safe space. 

“Think its time to go pay Ms.Flower-Prints a visit?” Charlie is sitting up now, studying her with guarded eyes, a tension to her shoulder that hadn’t been there before.

Pull yourself together, Zari tells herself. To Charlie, she only says, “don’t call her that.”

*

Myrtle Jones has lived in Cherry Street for her whole life, from childhood to now, and according to her file, she never married, never had children; a lonely life in a fairly lonely place. It makes Zari wonder why she had been so reluctant to invite Zari and Charlie to her home– no, actually, it doesn’t. There are dozens of possible reasons and none of them is a good omen to the kind of person Myrtle might be. Zari wants nothing more than turn right back on the quaint stone path leading to her front door, but Charlie’s got her hand on a vice grip as if anticipating her flighty attitude.

That, of course, is a hurdle on Zari’s whole plan on staying sane and dignified for the duration of the mission. She had banked on Charlie staying as disinterested in her as she is with following rules, not teasing her over breakfast, all soft-eyed, or holding her hand because she knows Zari is liable to turn tail. Zari needs Charlie to be as awful about this whole thing as possible, needs her to make it difficult not to focus on the mission. 

In all her plans, Zari had been very stupid not to consider Charlie, as unpredictable as ever.

“Christ, could you look less like I’m holding you hostage here?” Charlie hisses, ringing the doorbell. On the glass door, Zari tries not to commit the reflection to memory. “We’re going for happily wed, not a Criminal Minds episode.”

“I really don’t want to talk with our racist neighbor,” she whispers back, shuffling a little, “besides, this whole thing is a Criminal Minds episode. Wanna bet our murderer is probably passing as a middle-aged white man?”

“Point,” Charlie admits. Huffing, she rings the doorbell again. “But Sara told us to interview everyone, see what they know. And hey, we could make a game out of pissing her off?”

Zari snorts, relaxing instinctively, and glances around. The mailbox is empty, a sign Myrtle has got to be awake already to pick up her mail. “Weird. Do you think she went out?”

“How would I know?” Charlie shrugs, peering inside the dark foyer, “looks empty to me. Do old people go out? The fuck would she go?”

Feeling considerably better already, Zari can barely suppress her smile. “Well, what a pity, it looks like we’ll have to come back later.”

Unfortunately, once again, she had forgotten to consider Charlie’s overall Charlie-ness. “Forget that,” Charlie says with a smirk bordering on excited, “why don’t we try it my way, uh? Let’s pop in, snoop around a bit, see if the old lady has got something interesting in there.”

“Charlie,” Zari hisses, fuming, “that’s breaking and entering! That’s a felony!”

“That’s rich coming from Miss FBI’s-Most-Wanted,” she raises her eyebrow in challenge, “or are you too scared, Z?”

Hey now, that just won’t do. “Shut up,” she scowls, uncrossing her arms harshly, “I’ll pick the damn lock. At least the smell can’t be any worse inside,” she mumbles with a resentful look behind her shoulder at the offending open sewers behind her.

*

With the way this whole mission is going, it’s unsurprising that the smell is not, in fact, gone. If anything, it’s even stronger inside the house, with flies buzzing past them in a frenzy. “Damn, Myrtles,” she murmurs, slipping the door closed behind them, “you live like this?”

“Bloody hell,” Charlie breathes beside her and Zari follows her gaze, taking in the living room beyond the small foyer. Yellowed photographs in old-time frames line the walls, making up almost all the empty space in the shelves too, all those people undoubtedly dead by now, their eyes seeming to zero in on them and follow their movements, staring from every corner. Everything in this house seems to have stayed in the past, left stagnant in the 40s. The furniture, the decoration, the curtains– even the TV looks like it might not broadcast in color. It also must not work anymore if the static station it was left on is anything to go by. “Talk about creepy.”

“C’mon,” she tugs at Charlie, hand slipping oh-so-easily on hers, “let’s take a look upstairs first.”

The stairs creak with each step they take as if hell-bent on announcing their uninvited presence there to unseen witnesses and Zari feels Charlie squeezing her hand in wordless reassurance. Any other time, any other place, Zari would probably focus a little more on this. As it is, though, stepping into the bedroom without gagging is her main concern. Jesus, is there an open window right over the pipes in there or what?

“Well, this is dodgy,” Charlie says after getting one look inside the room. “Either the old lady is into some kinky shit or someone definitely got murdered in here.”

Blood stains the walls, the ceiling, the floorboards, in different stages of drying, while the whole place is trashed beyond recognition, almost as if a wild animal had torn it all apart in a fit of inhuman rage; a butcher’s place destroyed down to the red-stained structure. Deep scratches have gone through the floral wallpaper and revealed the wood, the plaster, all the way to the other room, and the smell is even worse in here, sticking to the back of her throat, to her tongue, to her lungs, makes her taste mothballs and rotten eggs. “What the hell,” Zari croaks, holding her breath before her stomach turns inside out on what’s clearly a crime scene.

“We should go,” Charlie coughs, eyes tearing up at the foul stench, her hands like claws on Zari’s wrists, “Z, come on, I’m not trying to be funny, we should go now.”

But they can’t, not yet, not when the closet is staring right there at Zari, door slightly ajar, and fuck, she knows what she’s going to find there, she’s seen their eyes on her dreams last night, but she has the same crystal clear certainty now– whatever it is she’s looking for is just up ahead, just around the bend. Just beyond that closet door.

“Oh, bollocks,” Charlie curses, kicking a nearby ottoman and checking the hallway outside as Zari slowly unfreezes herself to follow the bloody breadcrumbs, that terrible smell. “Please tell me you’re not going to– for fuck’s sake, Z, we need to go!”

Zari doesn’t answer her, simply reaching a hand to the cold metal handle, pointedly not taking a deep breath before carefully swinging it open. 

The contents inside all topple down at her feet but the first thing she registers is the smell. It burns in her nostrils and she gags, dry heaving in the blood-soaked carpet. Then, she notices a terrified Myrtle Jones staring right back at her with glazed unseeing eyes.

Her scream stays stuck in her throat, but Zari feels nausea lap at her stomach and the next thing she knows, Charlie is supporting her weight, an arm around her middle, and there are even more flies now, buzzing around them, covering what’s left of Myrtle with black polka dots that clash terribly with her floral patterns, with the blood staining her whole dress. Limbs and body parts too rotten to recognize litter in a pile over her body and Zari is going to be sick because they all look gnawed on, there are teeth marks on them, sharp fangs that scratched down to the bone and sucked out the marrow, and the maggots fester on the putrefied meat.

“Z,” Charlie whispers, arms tightening around her, drawing her back, away from the gore, “that looks–”

“That’s Myrtle,” she confirms, voice breaking and wavering, as she wobbles herself, “that’s– Charlie, that’s Myrtle!”

“That’s at least a week old, Z,” Charlie continues, eyes fixed on the bloody pile of what must be their murderer’s leftovers, “Myrtle’s been dead for a bloody week.”

Something cold crawls up her spine and Zari’s stomach bottoms out. If that’s– that can’t be right, it just. If Myrtle has been dead for a week – “then who the fuck did we talk to?”

Downstairs, the stairwell creaks.

[pinkpunkpie]

yk in fake dating stories when they have to unexpectedly kiss for the first time in front of people to really sell the lie and they're both like "oh shit oh shit oh shit this feels so good why does this feel good this is all fake wtf why am i gettig nervous?? and also happy?? oh shittttt"? yeah... it's about that

[blazethecheeto]

three ships:

-supercorp

-sirenwatch

-zarlie

(ignore how all of them are from the arrowverse)

first ship: (don't laugh) i vividly remember my first marvel ship being winterwitch (bucky x wanda) so take that as you will. i remember being like 9 and being like hold up. wait a minute. they would work. after one interaction in civil war and that was that.

last song: paris, texas from lana del ray

currently reading: one of my old stories i wrote at 11 lmaoo it's horrific but it's some hilarious content

currently watching: first of all shiny you're so real for that me too, second, i'm currently just watching some youtube edits of arrow characters

currently consuming: oxygen

currently craving: sleep

tagging: @nutelladoesstuff @the-feral-gremlin and anyone else

9 people you would like to get to know better

Tagged by @crimsonrainseekingflower - thanks bud

Three ships:

Aziraphale/Crowley (because. Well. Yeah. Them. the inherent tragedy of 6000 years of friendship and you go too fast for me and no nightingales)

Kakashi/Obito (found some art of Phlebotomy by bluefisted that dropkicked me back into my naruto era. you should read it. good art.)

House/Wilson (kakaobi? hilson? what is this, 2006? no. it is 2023. i am cringe but free)

First ship: first one i can remember as an actual ship is Crowfrost x Dawnpelt from Warriors. child me on Fanfiction.net went wild over em. oh god oh fuck i think i found the fic what the fuck was i reading back then

Last song: King by Florence + the Machine

Last movie: Nimona

Currently Reading: rereading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Currently watching: season 4 of Scissor Seven on netflix -- underrated and fucking amazing. it's hilarious especially if you know enough mandarin to get the more inside-y jokes. the action and animation are weirdly good too.

Currently consuming: room temperature water

Currently craving: baldurs gate 3 but it is so so late and i am so so eepy and i have been putting off a small mountain of work

tagging @ace-ace-attorneys @fikturya @petralemaitre @air4sale @hellenar-ts @kestrel-wylde @soitsbee @littlefowlee @re-danimator and anyone else. do it only if you wanna!

[northby-northwest]

just a reminder i still want it

[lesbianmarrow]

is charlie able to shapeshift into nonhuman animals as well? i think it would be cute if she and zari went swimming together and she shapeshifted into a seal or dolphin to frolic in the water

[lesbianspooner]

i haven’t stopped thinking about this for days

[shytlys]

is there an avalance fanfic that is based on taylor swift's lover?? i need it🥺

[usercelestial]

the next person who tells me lot is amazing for queer representation because it features a relationship between two white cis abled bodied women played by cishet actors is getting fucking maimed

[princesstarazi]

i’m definitely not thinking about the fact that at the beginning of the season, zari wasn’t there and coincidentally, charlie couldn’t remember why she was sticking around and at the end of the season, after zari 1.0 had gone, charlie decided to stay behind and not go on with the legends 

[wyrdnis]

ok so since I'm thinking about this stupid TV show all the time and I keep rewatching episodes in weird order I find out new things about me and this fandom in weird order as well.

today's realization is that I was still very much stuck with zamaya / amari (my first lot shipping love) when I watched season 4 for the first time, and that's the reason I totally missed zarlie, even when it was staring me right I the face. wow, that was a big thing to miss, wasn't it.

[puppetsoftomorrow]

contributions are open for the legends news network!!

i'm going to be searching out legends news each week, but i'll probably miss things, so i would appreciate y'alls help!!

did you see some LoT behind-the-scenes content? new pics from the set? new episode title released? new synopsis? anything related to legends that's new this week, please send me it with a link to the source!

cast up to anything new? (doing new projects, in a new tv show / film etc)? let me know and i can include that too!

are you running an upcoming event, fandom week, bingo, big bang or similar that involves legends, or the arrowverse / dctv more generally? do you run a discord server that involves legends or the arrowverse? send me a link and i'll promote it here!!

please send me the news via asks or submissions - i'll aim to post every sunday, so pls send anything you have before then :)

just a psa - whilst i will do some due diligence to check the information provided is correct, i can't check it all, so if i post something incorrect or i promote an event / server that is problematic, please let me know!!

all contributers will be given credit for their work and a shoutout in the post of course!!

[a-biochemist-not-a-bird]

Rules: List your favourite character ship from 10 different fandoms then tag 10 people

Tagged by @justanalto​ - I’m gonna go with the changed rules too. Side note, thinking of 10 fandoms was hard, I’m new to the whole thing. 

1. Zarlie, Legends of Tomorrow

2. Huntingbird, Agents of Shield 

My very first ship!! 

3. Supercorp, Supergirl

I’ve only ever watched one episode of Supergirl, but... 

4. Linny, Harry Potter

I couldn’t find one of the both of them which was tragic. 

5. Merthur, Merlin

I started watching this a month ago because I genuinely thought it was about them over throwing the homophobic king but then Morgana the Lesbian turning evil because she did not further the patriarchy. 

6. Paris/ Rory, Gilmore Girls (I don’t think there’s a ship name) 

7. Andy/ Quynh, The Old Guard (I’m not looking for their ship name)  

8. Clintasha, MCU 

I flip between platonic and romantic. 

9. Alan Turing/ Christopher Morcom, The Imitation Game 

10. Eve/ Fabiola, Never Have I Ever 

I don’t know who’s been tagged already, so tagging @apathbacktoyou​, @smallblueandloud​, and @almostlikequake​. If you’re reading this, you’ve somehow found it - so you’re tagged. 

[nancywheelxr]

9 or 14 for Zarlie?

14. “you want a better story. Who wouldn’t?”

*

Charlie has lived many lives. 

She’s seen the world from dozens of eyes and she’s been stripped to bare bones and a mangled soul, tossed into Hell and left to rot in a cage meant for bigger, fiercer things. Things with fangs, with claws, with hunger. Breaking out of Hell makes Earth feel like Heaven. Just a bit, just enough.

Just until the world shifts again, broadens, and time cracks like an egg, spilling at her feet, and Charlie feels scared and angry, all at once, Constantine’s magic sparkling with Hellfire and Zari keeping her pinned at the dirty wall of her hideout. The Crown’s jewels would have looked lovely on her, Charlie thinks later, a lot later, stuck in a skin that isn’t hers, but fits better than any other since Hell. It doesn’t feel loose, doesn't bunch at the knees, doesn’t itch. It just is.

After that, Charlie holds to her anger, cradles it like a candle on her ribcage, the only thing keeping her warm at night, for longer than she cares to admit. Longer than she should’ve, to be honest, but she’s been angry for a long time now and she’s not so sure how not to be so she lets it go by pieces.

By the time she’s holding on to a cat in a small time-traveling ship, Charlie thinks there’s nothing left to scatter. 

“What do I do now, Z?” She asks the cat, peers into her eyes searching for a sliver of humanity left. Is this Zari, still? Charlie can’t help feeling a kinship. Is this Charlie? A change of a change of a change? How much can you shift into something else before there’s nothing left of you? “Wretched thing, this growing up business. Think we’re good to go home yet?”

Zari doesn’t answer, only flickers her tail, and Charlie pulls a face. Constantine slams the ship’s door soon after, face scrunched up in a miserable scowl. She wisely doesn’t ask, and Zari, when time stitches itself back together, doesn’t either. Silence hangs heavy and Charlie watches Zari work the controls.

“It’s not fair,” Zari says, months later, too many things later, after time shifts yet again, rearranging around the Waverider. She’s crying in the middle of the kitchen and there’s coffee all over the floor and Charlie is caught in the headlights of her oncoming car of a tragedy. Behrad is gone, erased back into a casualty of a dictatorial organization. But Zari’s back. Charlie’s not good enough of a person not to know she’d make this trade every time. There’s no one she’d pick over Zari. “This is such bullshit-- it’s not fair, he-- I had him back and I-- it’s not fucking fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Charlie agrees, approaching cautiously, sidestepping the ceramic shards and the scalding puddle in the tiles. It’s gonna stain if they don’t clean up soon and Ray’s gonna be a wanker about it. Zari’s shaking and her arms feel bony and sharp when Charlie tugs her into a hug. “It’s a bloody tragedy and there’s nothing fair about it.”

“I can’t go back to missing him,” she whispers as if that’s a secret, as if that’s not already spelled in the coffee stains. Charlie holds tighter. “I want to try again, I want-- this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

Except it is. This is exactly how things should be. Their very own fucked up timeline and seeing the big picture doesn’t make it better. It never did. It just makes you want to smash it all and start all over again. A different puzzle, maybe. Something with flowers in the cover. Who wouldn’t? “I’m sorry,” Charlie says instead, doesn’t bother to wipe away the tears, tastes the salt in her tongue, and holds Zari until she stops shaking, until she sags into her chest, deflates like a balloon.

“I don’t know how to be okay with this again,” Zari admits, sounding small and weak and very breakable; very un-Zari like.

“You’ll learn,” Charlie replies. It’s a terrible thing, to see the big picture. “It’s gonna be bloody awful, but you’ll learn.”

For a moment, Charlie thinks it’s too much, she pushed too far, too soon, but Zari has survival carved into her bones as much as Charlie. Deeper, even. She might bleed hope yet. “Okay,” she says, and wipes the tears herself, and it all looks painful, but she glances at Charlie and her cracks are starting to fill with gold. 

Charlie takes her hand, squeezes. Some pieces are still sliding into place, and it’s gonna be beautiful, someday.