Chapter Text
Dear Ava,
As I am writing those lines, I can see the Gran Via from my hotel room. I know you’d like it. I wanted to go out, wanted to start living, as you ask me to, but I just couldn’t. Not today. I got your letter, by the way. I read it, over and over, and I’ll probably keep doing it until my tears have drained every last drop of ink. Even then, I’ll probably keep reading it, to be honest – I won’t need to see the words, they will be engraved in my memory. They already are. “Sister Photographic Memory”, right? Funny thing, though. I wasn’t always academically successful. I was lucky enough not to have any learning disabilities, but, in my early years at school, and, to some extent, the first months at boarding school, I was far from the model student. Even when I started actually doing my homework on time and listening during classes, some things didn’t come easy to me. Ironically, the subject I struggled the most with, at first, was Latin. But I kept trying, kept working, because, well, I wanted to have value, I wanted to make them forget my flaw, I wanted to make myself forget my flaw, my sin – or what I thought, what I was taught was a flaw, a sin. I don’t really know what I believe in anymore… I don’t regret joining the OCS – which means I can’t regret having conservative parents and being shipped to Catholic School. I don’t regret joining the OCS because I found a purpose there, I found a family, I found a life I genuinely loved, and a version of myself I… didn’t hate as much as I used to. Most of all, I don’t regret joining the OCS, because it meant meeting you. Loving you. Falling in love with you.
(Despite everything, writing these seven last words was hard, very hard – no matter how true they are. You can still see how shaky the handwriting is, and yet, it took me an hour to stop panicking and spiral out, and another hour to rewrite that letter three times because the letters were… well, let’s just say that your handwriting waking up from the dead after years of total paralysis would have looked more decipherable and assured. I guess religious guilt doesn’t just go away that easily, huh?)
So, yeah, I don’t regret joining the OCS, I will always love my sisters, and I will always appreciate how much of the world is open to me because of the things I learned there – from multiple languages to how to defend myself. Yet, when I left, it was with a smile on my face, because, for the first time, I wanted to use those gifts for myself, to find myself, to know myself, beyond what has been forced upon me, beyond what I have forced upon myself. Because, with your letter – or, really, to be honest, with your company, in our home in the Alps, and maybe even before that – I truly took the measure of how much I didn’t know myself. Or, to be more accurate, I didn't know how much of me was actually Bea , and how much was Sister Beatrice . How much of Sister Beatrice do I want to keep in Bea, and how much Bea do I want to inject in Sister Beatrice – though, as I left the order, I’m not really a nun anymore, so… -? So, yes, I want to live. I want to really live. I want to honor the sacrifice you made, and the life you gave me, gave all of us, by truly living it. But, Ava, my dear Ava, my love, don’t think for one minute I won’t wait for you.
There are still a million things in life I want to experience, but can’t fathom doing without you by my side. So, yeah, I’ll live, because I owe it to you, and because you made me want to, but don’t make me wait too long, alright? Plus, Lilith… (Small digression here: a part of me wants to go hunt her, want to make her pay. It’s her fault our first plan didn’t work out. You almost had the crown on Adriel’s head when she just flew in and… But another part of me – the Catholic part, I guess – knows she was not really herself, that she was lost, that she was hurt. And, at the very last moments, she did help, in a way, so…)
Anyway. Lilith mentioned a Holy War coming. When it comes, and my sisters need my help, I’ll be there. I’ll always be there for them, and I can only hope – pray, even though I struggle to do so these days – you’ll be by my side too. We’ll live together – take that any way you want – and we’ll fight any demons and devils - because, if we're together, they can't beat us. I’m not sure I’ll ever be a nun again, but, maybe I could still work with the OCS, perhaps the way Mary use to, with you by my side, the way she had Shannon. I feel so stupid now, never having noticed that connection between them. I mean, I knew they were extremely close, but I never fathomed… I mean, the Halo-bearer is supposed to be pure, right? Therefore, how could the Halo-bearer be gay ? I feel ashamed that I only learned about Shannon and Mary’s relationship, once it was too late, and through Camilla… She seems to have a really good instinct for that kind of things though, because it wasn’t like they were public about it either. I might have been a very repressed lesbian – again, hard words to write, I’m sure you can tell by the handwriting, took me several tries and a few tears of anguish, proud to have made it though – with what could be described as selective eyesight concerning this kind of things, but I was also highly trained at observing situations and reading people, so… But, yeah, I wish I had noticed earlier, I wish I could have talked to them about it, I wish I could have learned from their experience. I can’t help but wonder how their relationship worked. While Mary never took vows, Shannon did, and, while being the perfect exemple of tolerance and christian love, she was also very pious and bound by her vows. God, I miss them… I miss them so much… I miss you, Ava.
I miss you so much… But I’m looking forwards to the future. I’m looking forwards to finding myself, to living my next life. Because the sooner I do so, the sooner I find and live my next life, the sooner you’ll be back, and we can live it together, right? That’s how I choose to see things, that the meaning I choose to give to: “in this life or the next”. To “in the next”. That may be blasphemy, but even if it is, I don’t care. It gives me hope. One day, I’ll be my true self, and you’ll be by my side. You’ll find me a cool nickname– I definitively can’t be Shotgun Beatrice – and we’ll fight together for good and justice when needed. And the rest of the time, we’ll just live our lives together, happy and at peace, we’ll travel, we’ll experience everything good the world has to offer, everything we’ve been denied of for too long – though for very different reasons.
With all my love, and yours always,
Bea.
PS: writing really helped, I might keep doing it. Once I finished that letter – and though it took me almost the entire afternoon – I went out. Nothing fancy, I just took a stroll in the city, taking in the air, the night lights and the joyful energy, the people celebrating. No mission, no orders, just… taking a stroll, by myself, for myself, in the city of the bear and the strawberry tree. It hurt you weren’t there. It hurt so much. My eyes were looking out for you in the crowds, and each time, it was like a knife through the heart. I cried maybe six or seven times – I try not to repress my feelings so much anymore. It doesn’t feel good, I hate it, it leaves me drained and feeling weak, but, according to Camilla, it’s the healthy thing to do – and, as it was shown on several occasions, Camilla might just be the smartest of us all – so…