Existing without pain is something Ava never knew she would ever experience.

Existing without pain is freeing, it's Ava waking up in the morning and laying there for a moment. Breathing deep and feeling her arms and legs and chest settle; they don't move, she doesn't move and existing without pain is so new and different, but so beautiful.

Existing without pain...existing without pain is finding a family she never knew she needed. Bill stays with her, promises he won't leave her side and he is the father she lost so long ago; he is now the figure and pillar of strength she once confided in. And there's Scott, and Janet, and Hank; and then there's-

Hope.

It happened the very day she was healed by Janet. Hope's mother held to her cheeks and let her tears meet her skin, she felt her body come to an all-consuming halt and she let herself sob; because she could feel again, and her body stopped tearing itself apart, all thanks to the woman she almost killed.

There is a shame that runs through Ava in that moment, in that moment of Janet warmly pressing their foreheads together, that she ever thought of ripping this woman's life away from her. Make her go through the same pain Ava did.

When she gasps, tears tracing down her cheeks, she looks into Janet's eyes and then to just over her shoulder; to Hope who is looking on in quiet awe. Ava squeezes her eyes shut, falling into the older woman's arms.

Her cells settle, she does not scream. Ava feels alive again.

-

"Would you have really killed her?"

Ava blinks once, twice, tucks a stray piece of her hair behind her ear when Hope asks the question. She is sitting next to Hope in the back of the truck, the other woman tinkering with the miniaturized Quantum Tunnel. She's not even looking at Ava when she asks it, biceps flexing as she tightens one particular stubborn compartment.

Hank, off to the side, decides to busy himself somewhere else; clearing his throat awkwardly as he overhears his daughter. Scott widens his eyes with a "Yikes" and lets himself be yanked away by a disapproving Hank.

Ava swallows once, frowns to her fidgeting hands. Even though she is healed, she's so used to moving it's like a nervous tick now. So she plays with her fingers, closing her eyes and gathering her thoughts.

"Do you want my honest answer? Or one that will make you not hate me."

Hope listens to Ava's accented words, sighing as she puts down her tools, leaning her palms on the floor of the truck. "I don't hate you."

Ava tilts her head, eyes narrowing as she watches Hope's movements. "I think you do," Hope finally looks to the other woman, eyebrow raised as Ava elaborates. "And I don't blame you. The pain was so excruciating that it took over my thoughts, my entire mind. Anything to stop it, I would have done."

Hope's expression softens, listening to the other woman's words. She opts to lean against the truck, folding her arms and giving Ava her undivided attention. This throws Ava slightly, but she continues, swallowing once at Hope's nod for her to keep talking.

"That included taking your mother's life to save mine. But I'm..."

Ava closes her eyes softly, eyes glassy as regret fills her senses. She thinks of Janet's healing touch, her voice, how she was a light to Ava in that moment and how she took her pain; melted it in her very hands.

"I'm sorry, for what it's worth. I can honestly say that I...wouldn't be alive if it weren't for your mother, Hope. She saved my life."

Hope smiles softly, she looks to her mother, who is near by working on other compartments, and Ava follows her gaze. "Yeah, she's good at that huh?"

Ava smiles too, she stops fidgeting. She watches Hank come up beside Janet and kiss her cheek as they laugh. Hope seems to shine brighter at that.

"Very."

Hope looks back, motioning for Ava to pass her a tool behind her. The moment is broken, but Ava is left feeling like something shifted between them, like somethings changed.

"Come on, we got a mini Quantum Tunnel to build."

Ava tosses it to the other woman, and the rest of the day is spent with Hope teaching Ava everything she knows about quantum physics, with Ava tilting her head at parts and Hope looking at her blank expression and laughing softly. Ava feels something in her chest for the first time since the accident, and it's warm and new and it's not...pain per se. It's something more, something almost the same but completely different.

It's intense and destabilising and Ava doesn't understand it, but then Hope smiles at a joke she makes about Scott, and Ava feels one step closer to figuring it out.

-

"So, why are you building this?"

Hope raises an eyebrow, cleaning her hands on a near by rag. "You seriously don't know?"

At Ava's blank stare and soft shake of her head, Hope elaborates. "Well, we don't know if what my mom did fully healed you. At any time your cellular state could revert back to what it was, and you could start phasing again. So, we need a way to harvest the molecular energy to-

At Ava's slightly panicked look Hope notices, the memory of the pain coming back, of her body tearing itself apart; Hope quickly reassures the younger woman, laying a hand on Ava's forearm with a soft voice.

"Hey, you haven't had any symptoms yet, it's just a hypothesis."

Ava lets the breath she was holding out, she tries not to focus on Hope's hand that makes her skin feel alight. She's so sensitive to touch, a side effect she's just starting to become accustom to.

She frowns then, overcome with a sudden thought. "You're doing this all...for me?"

Hope shrugs one shoulder, hand not leaving its spot. "It's good to have one of these things anyways, if the need arises. But uh, yeah, I guess so."

Hope squeezes Ava's arm once reassuringly, smiling lightly, and focuses back on the tunnel. Ava looks to Hope, to the afternoon sun hitting her skin and to how her eyebrows furrow lightly when she concentrates, how her jaw clenches as she works.

Ava finds her beautiful, she's so so beautiful.

And in that moment, of warm sunshine and an orange bathed Hope, Ava feels herself change. Like there was a piece of her still moving, and it settled finally when Hope clapped her on the shoulder in excitement as the tunnel's energy powers up.

Ava smiles lightly, hands twitching, and swallows the feeling until it's buried deep into her chest.

-

Janet notices that night, a knowing motherly smile. They stand around a camp fire, on the beach of her and Hank's new home; and Ava thinks she's hiding the way she's looking at Hope right now. Thinks she's doing a pretty good job looking to the marshmallow on her stick and hiding her smile when Hope laughs at something Scott says.

Janet sits next to her, clinking their melting marshmallow's together in jest. "You're starin', honey."

Ava blushes, stares harder at the fire and lets her hair fall in a curtain down the side of her face. Janet laughs lightly, tucking the locks of hair behind Ava's ear. The younger woman flinches slightly, but settles when Janet puts her hand back in her lap. She doesn't mind the touch, it's just hard getting used to it.

"For someone trained to hide her emotions, you're really good at wearing them on your sleeve, sweetie."

Ava looks up, Janet smiling sadly at the younger woman's furrowed brows. Ava sighs lightly, hands fiddling with her marshmallow stick as she bites her lip.

"I suppose I am. Is she..." Ava then fondly looks to Hope as her question trails off, Janet watching how her daughter lets Scott drape his jacket around her shoulders as they sit together. Janet's eyes soften in understanding, catching on to Ava's words. She squeezes Ava's thigh, the young woman sharply looking down to the touch.

"Hope can be funny sometimes, she's so indecisive. Once, at a carnival we took her to when she was four, she spent ten whole minutes picking which toy she wanted when she won at skee-ball."

Janet chuckles, and manages to pull a small smile from Ava, continuing with her story as the older woman watches the fire dance across Ava's skin; her eyes never leaving her daughter.

"But, once she chose it, she never let that thing go. Took it everywhere we went. She has the same rules with her chosen family, and her real one. Once you're loved by Hope..." Janet smiles softly, their marshmallow's melting of their sticks.

"She'll never let you go, you know?"

Ava furrows her brow slightly, nodding softly. She guesses she understands now. "So, she cares for me." Janet nods, and Ava looks back to Hope and Scott, the other woman asleep in his arms. "But not the way I do for her."

Janet smiles sadly, she brings in Ava for a side hug and it's almost instinct how she melts into the motherly touch. Into the comfort Janet seems to radiate. No words are spoken, and to Ava, this is a different type of pain. It's a soft pain, a pain of understanding. Of acceptance.

She's never felt this type, this type of dull ache that starts at her chest and spreads to her throat. It's the pain of knowing you aren't seen in the same way you see another person, that gentle caress of 'You love her, but she doesn't love you.'

Janet kisses the top of her head, she says: "You're going to find someone who loves you so much, that you'll never know what it was like before them, honey."

Ava closes her eyes, feels the fire's heat against her skin, and wishes, for once in her life, that she could disappear.