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“Hey,” you say abruptly as soon as you notice Ava walking into the room, the too-casual greeting flying out of your mouth before you can stop it, before you can think of anything actually eloquent and befitting of the situation. You turn red as you think of Ava’s last words to you, holding onto consciousness so she could whisper to you from a hospital bed, tu omnia, and now finally you get a chance to answer and… hey. That’s what you go with. Because of course you do.
“... Hello,” Ava replies slowly, clearly having watched your internal conflict playing out on your external expression, and your face burns even redder because you can’t even begin to imagine how strange that must have looked. You inwardly curse your open book of a face and try not to think about what Ava might have read in it.
“So I was thinking,” you soldier on, the words weak and faltering because you’ve played out a million different variants of this conversation in your head while Ava laid pale and bruised in that hospital bed--maybe to avoid thinking about that terrible moment when you had to physically pull yourself away from the magnet-like forces compelling you to Ava’s aid and rush to Sonja’s instead--and so far you’ve somehow already deviated from all of them.
“A dangerous pastime for you,” Ava remarks, the faint trace of a teasing smile lingering on her lips. You can’t help but grin immediately at the return of your usual dynamic.
“Shut up--okay, I’ve been, uh, mulling over some choice words of yours, because I tend to, in general, never understand you, but this time really takes the cake because I feel like I should, no, I definitely should after all those years poring over dictionaries and Wheelock’s, but I just don’t.” You let out a heavy exhale and run a hand over your face, trying to hide the redness of your cheeks even if only for a few moments. Ava watches from where she still stands in the doorway, and you’re glad you know her well enough now to recognize the flicker of amusement in her eyes. “Ugh, okay, so I probably should have led this conversation with, ‘hey, so I kind of know Latin…’”
At that, Ava immediately stiffens, which makes you bite your lip in worry while a small part of you is secretly pleased that she’s let her guard down enough around you for her posture to have been somewhat relaxed in the first place.
“Well,” she says tightly, “at least you managed to get the first part out.”
You chuckle, because by now you’ve gotten used to seeing the humor in Ava’s tenseness, and you feel a familiar fondness achingly creeping into your chest. “That I did,” you say with forced cheeriness, the equivalent of blatant sheepishness on your part. “I just wanted to bring it up because, well, I only caught the tail end of what you said but it turns out I can’t even translate that.”
Ava stares at you, looking more like a deer caught in headlights than you’ve ever seen her.
“It’s just… it doesn’t make sense. Omnia… the gender, the plurality, it just, it doesn’t match, it can’t be a predicate, so I must be missing the verb. I what all things, Ava? I ruin all? I need all? Please, just tell me what I’m missing,” you beg helplessly.
Ava turns away, refuses to meet your gaze. “You’re missing what’s right in front of you,” she somehow manages to get out through clenched teeth. “It means what you think it means, no verb necessary.”
“Oh,” you say faintly, and you don’t mean for it to sound so strangled but it does anyway. “I am… all things. Everything. I’m everything.”
“Mihi,” Ava adds softly. “Mihi tu omnia.”
“I am everything to you,” you repeat disbelievingly. “For you, I’m everything.”
She gives the slightest of nods. It means everything.
You’re trying to process this in your head, and you’ve always been in awe of how Latin can pack so much meaning into so few words but this takes it to a new level, just three words and your head is spinning, and that’s the power of Latin, you marvel faintly to yourself, the power of this sacred combination of love and Latin. Just three words. So much meaning.
And while you’re trying to make this make sense, you notice Ava trying to leave and you think, no.
“You’re like fucking Vergil, you know,” you say suddenly, without sarcasm, without venom, just a tinge of realization.
Ava turns back to you, curious. “What?”
“With the words. So measured and precise. So carefully thought out. And a lot of the time, I can barely understand what you’re saying even though I know what all the words mean individually.”
“Okay,” Ava says slowly.
“And just in general too,” you continue helplessly. “You just… seem like you would never start anything unless you were sure it would be perfect. Like you would leave it to burn if it turned out otherwise.”
Ava looks almost pained, and your stomach twists itself into knots. You’re saying this all wrong, you know.
“And you remind me of Aeneas,” you say weakly.
“Right,” she says with the hint of a sneer. “Pia Ava.” She smoothly elides the words with grace and derision, pi-av-a, and for reasons you could never be able to put into words, it leaves you a little weak in the knees.
“You are, though,” you say quickly, brow furrowing. “Not in the religious sense obviously, but in the Roman sense of the word, you know? Just… pure devotion. It’s amazing, Ava. I never thought I would meet anyone like you. You’re the stuff epics are made of; I can picture you head-to-head against Hector, sailing through Scylla and Charybdis, walking through a burning Troy…” You shake your head, cutting yourself off. “I’m sorry. I’ve said more than I meant to say,” you admit sheepishly. “I’m not like you, I have to use so many words just for it to mean nothing…”
“It... doesn’t mean nothing,” Ava says, and both her admission and her exceedingly rare use of the double negative serves in immediately perking you right up. “It means significantly more than nothing, actually. You’ve given me a lot to think about.” She purses her lips. “But you’ve done enough thinking for now. It’s time you should go to bed, Detective.”
You reluctantly agree, starting to leave when she stops you in the doorway. “Just how long did you spend thinking about this?”
You bite your bottom lip, hesitant to say it out loud. “Ever since it left your lips, Ava. How was I supposed to think about anything else?”
And there’s that nearly pained expression again, creasing her brows and making it difficult to manage looking into her eyes but impossible to turn away. “Why?”
“I needed to know what you meant,” you try futilely to explain. “It was just a surprise, I guess. I never would have expected words like that coming from you.”
“I think there’s a lot I could say that would surprise you, Detective,” she says quietly. And with that, she leaves, the unspoken words hanging delicate in the air.