Chapter Text
“You’ve joking.”
“No, look – free boarding!”
“Still, I’m sure there are others...”
“Bea, it pays fifteen dollars an hour! That’s five more than the national average!”
“The minimum wage is only ten? That’s horrible!”
“Not the point, Bea. Think about it – who’s going to look for a couple of nuns in a hipster bar?”
Beatrice rolled her eyes and Ava did a fist-pump when no further protest came.
Beatrice regretted saying yes to the job. The bar owner was a little too drunk on a Wednesday morning to be holding interviews and they escaped scrutiny through the lack of any on his part. However, their luck had to run out sometime. Now she was staring at the single bed in the small single room and the only thing that kept her from turning them out to the streets again was Ava’s chipmunk face as she chomped down on yet another taco.
“Wade you toin’ ower dere! Come ea’!” Ava continued her rampage, blissfully unaware to Beatrice’s internal floundering.
“There’s only one bed.”
She was not whining. Nuns do not whine. She was just worried about the structural integrity of the whole set-up. This bed probably had maggots in it.
“Yeah, and?” Ava took a swig of her drink, washing down the remnants of her meal.
“And nothing, we can’t both fit in one bed!”
A look flashed across the warrior nun’s face and Beatrice gulped.
“Is this one of the private school rich kid culturally-entrenched-to-have-a-king-size-bed thing?”
“Wh..What?”
“Is this why I have never seen your room in the Cat’s Cradle before?”
“My room?”
“I’ve always wondered. I mean, I share my room in the orphanage with the other kids since it makes sense, I didn’t take up much space then. But then they gave me my own room at the Cradle, and I didn’t really know what to do with it. I wanted to see your room, and the others’ too, but I wasn’t sure if there was a nun-rule against seeing other rooms.” Ava sucked in a big breath when her lungs ran out of air. “But now I think it’s ‘cos you have a lavish big bed in yours and you don’t want the others to see your whole other rich-kid-persona.”
Beatrice could only blink helplessly.
“You wanted to see my room?”
“Is that the only thing you heard?” Ava raised an eyebrow.
Blushing, Beatrice reached for the bed linens. “Never mind.”
“Ugh, come on it’ll be fine! You won’t even notice that I’m there when you’re sleeping!” Ava smiled reassuringly.Beatrice stared at her for a beat.
“It’s the falling asleep part that will be hard.” Beatrice muttered.
“What?”
“What? Nothing.”
“So, what do you know about alcohol ladies?” Hans grinned at them.
“Tequilas are nice?” Ava shrugged. “I mixed it in with Campbell’s beef broth once and it wasn’t too bad.”
“Alcohol consumption shortens life expectancy and over-indulgence is sinful,” Beatrice nodded solemnly.
Hans guffawed like he heard the funniest joke ever told.
Ava looked at Beatrice, who shrugged.
“Oh wait, you guys were serious?”
Throwing on her most charming smile, Ava gave him two thumbs up, “Yes?”
Beatrice elbowed her in the ribs and Ava quickly corrected, "No we were just joking."
Beatrice could see Hans re-evaluating his boss' life choices and horrible recruiting principles and quickly injected, “We know how to wipe tables?”
Hans sighed and prayed for guidance. Beatrice resisted echoing his amen.
“So how much did Mother Superion pack into our duffel?” Ava was lying on the grass, drenched in sweat after a training session. She smelled funky and looked like she was on the verge of death and Beatrice hated that she still looked like perfection to her.
“Not a lot, enough to get us going for a while.”
“What’s the exact sum?”
“It’s a pile of cash, Ava. I am not going to sit there and count it.”
Ava pouted. “Where’s the fun in having cash if we don’t know how much we have?”
“Surviving.”
Ava rolled her eyes, “Okay, Sister Practical.”
“Does that mean that Mother Superion had a bunch of cash just lying around?”
Beatrice laughed. “Just for that question you are going to run 2 extra miles today.”
“Hey Bea?”
Exhausted, Beatrice contemplated feigning sleep.
“Do you think the others are okay?”
Tensing, Beatrice forced herself to turn over so she could face the other girl. “I am sure they are fine.”
Under the moonlight, Ava’s eyes looked a little watery and her lips were quivering. Her hands were clenched in fists and twisting through the blanket. She was so beautiful that Beatrice’s heart broke and thumped wildly at the same time.
“What if they aren’t though?”
Beatrice understood the question – it plagued her waking hours too, running like a loop at the back of her mind and haunting her every time she dared to enjoy herself, just for a little bit.
“We just need to have faith that they are.”
Ava said nothing to that, choosing instead to burrow herself into Beatrice’s arms before a sob escaped.
“What do you want to do after this is over?”
Ava frowned at the question as she played with a tea towel. Beatrice never strayed into speculatives or questions about the future. “Why worry about it when we have enough to deal with today” was her default answer whenever Ava talked about anything similar.
“I guess…continue training?”
Beatrice raised her eyebrows, genuinely surprised at her answer. “Even after we defeat…”
"Fear of a name only increases a fear of the thing itself.”
Beatrice paused in her wiping of the bar top. “That’s oddly wise, Warrior Nun.”
“Wha? No, that’s Hermione from… You know what, never mind.” Ava made a resolution to catch the other girl up with all pop culture references. It was as if she was the one that was paraplegic and stuck in her own room, not Ava.
“So, you will remain in the OCS.” A smile graced the nun’s lips.
“I mean, I am the Warrior Nun. Halo goes wherever I go, and OCS goes wherever the halo goes.” This line of questioning had Ava questioning her own motives in life.
“That’s rather surprising. I thought you would want to travel the world. Live. Be free from the shackles of any institution.”
Eyebrow quirking, Ava laughed, “Shackles of the institution? That’s a little melodramatic coming from you, Bea.”
Beatrice blushed and shoved at Ava. In retaliation, Ava whirled her tea towel over her head and slapped it, lightly, on her shoulder.
“Besides, living with the OCS is life.”
“…That makes absolutely no sense.”
“Maybe we can still travel the world. Roaming circus of nuns.”
Beatrice went back to cleaning the grease out of the counter. “I want to be there when you suggest that to Mother Superion. Be sure to call us a circus.”
Ava smiled. “Imagine, all of us wielding nun-chucks.”
Bea tried to keep a straight face. “You are so bad at branding, Ava. Nun of them would agree to it.”
“I’m sure they will agree once I e-nun-ciate my terms.” Ava laughed and laughed and laughed.