Work Text:
I'll see you on the other side
他に 道はない [there's no other road]
俺には これしかない [for me, this is all I have]
もう戻らない [I won’t return again]
On the other side
*
Ava comes back quiet.
That’s Camila’s first thought once the dust has has settled after she and Lilith had teleported on a hunch to a set of ruins and found Ava, barely conscious but alive (only three days after Beatrice had recounted in a monotone how Ava had disappeared through the ark; Camila can’t help but acknowledge the connection even though it’s more of a return than a resurrection).
They set Ava up in a room with Mother Superion stationed at her side in silent vigil and Camila debates with herself all evening over whether or not she should search for Beatrice. In the morning, Camila brings Ava breakfast but the way Ava looks at her when she comes through the door is an unnerving mix of confusion and terror and something else she can’t place. It leaves her face quickly but there are remnants in her eyes, in the shaking of her fingertips, in her silence.
Camila tries to engage her in conversation every time she visits but to no avail. Since her arrival, Ava has said nothing, at least nothing of substance, no puns or curses, nothing bordering on or diving into the realm of inappropriate. Just ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and ‘I’m not ready yet’ when asked about the other side.
Camila has a feeling she knows when Ava will be ready (knows that the question of ‘when’ is answered by ‘who’ but is followed by a question of ‘where’). Mother Superion just nods when Camila asks to assign as many resources as they can to locate Beatrice.
*
The first time Ava really speaks it’s this: “Bea’s in trouble.”
The words are spoken without panic, evenly, almost robotic. However, it’s the cold certainty in Ava’s tone, the sharp edge of her jaw that nearly makes Camila panic. Ava doesn’t say anything more, refuses to tell them any details until Camila and Lilith and Mother Superion each swear to her that she will go with them. Ava holds Mother Superion’s gaze for a long time, but Camila can tell it’s not a battle of wills. It’s something unspoken, shared, like the halo, like coming back from the dead, like their love for Beatrice. ‘Me too,’ Camila wants to say, desperately into the quiet. She looks over Ava’s shoulder and sees it echoed in Lilith’s eyes as well.
Lilith teleports with Ava in tow, Camila and Mother Superion on comms. They receive soft, terse updates from Lilith as they proceed, then a sudden, vicious flurry: shouts and gunfire, steel through flesh, screams cut short, then a quiet “Clear” from Ava, and a confirmation from Lilith. Camila and Mother Superion follow the blinking dot of their location on the map, Camila ready to call in whatever support they need.
And then.
“Bea!”
There’s a muted voice in the background, one that Camila knows instinctively is Beatrice even though she can’t completely hear over a sound muffling the comms. Camila realizes belatedly that it’s someone crying - she briefly wonders who, knows it’s likely both of them, if not all of them.
The sound stops abruptly and there’s another flurry, murmurs that have Mother Superion leaning forward with barely concealed anxiety. “What’s happening?” Camila finally asks.
“Ava collapsed, but she’s breathing.” Lilith’s voice is calm save for a discordant note of concern. “Beatrice needs medical attention but she’ll be okay.”
“Do you need a pickup?” Camila finds that one of her hands has been captured by Mother Superion.
“No. I can do it.” Lilith’s tone is firm. “I’ll bring them home.”
*
Beatrice comes back loud.
She’s fiercely protective of Ava, worrying about her even as she herself is getting bones reset, gashes stitched. Camila tries to keep her as calm as possible, brings Beatrice’s things into what will now be Ava’s room for the foreseeable future.
They get the story out of Beatrice as she sits propped against the headboard, Ava still asleep next to her. She’d received a tip from a questionable source, but she had been desperate enough to see it through. The meetup, of course, had been a trap.
Beatrice recounts the events as a matter of facts while her hand creeps closer and closer to Ava. It’s a matter of heart when she arrives at the point in the story when Ava appears, a pause punctuated by her gaze dropping to Ava herself. “I didn’t believe it at first,” Beatrice says softly, her hand finally finding its way to the back of Ava’s head. “But I should have known -” She cuts herself off with a bite of her lip, eyes tearing. “She’s really here.”
“She is,” Camila says, if only to reassure, to soothe, to confirm.
“Has she said anything? About the other side.” There’s concern written deep into Beatrice’s brow. A part of Camila is amazed that Beatrice could tell so quickly, that something was different; of course she did.
Camila shakes her head, watches Beatrice gently shift a lock of hair away from Ava’s face. “I think she’s been waiting for you.”
*
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
Camila can stand the quiet when it comes to the war, when it comes to research and training and planning and counter-planning (she understands now why this was Beatrice’s solace before, why she preferred to do this by herself - there’s only so much prayer can do in keeping the fear, the anxiety at bay).
But what Camila can’t stand is the quiet that comes from Ava, still, even with Beatrice at her side. She’d thought it would have broken by now, but the silence has been insistent, a nagging weight that she can see starting to chafe at even Beatrice’s patience.
“What do you think happened?” Camila asks quietly, she and Beatrice standing side by side, while Jillian is running tests on Ava and the halo. It’s been a week since Beatrice was found but her return is markedly different from Ava’s. She doesn’t wear the habit, doesn’t join them for prayers, but she walks the halls with that familiar confidence, a self-assuredness that Camila admits is stronger now. It falters only when faced with Ava and the silence she still wears around her. Even when she first awoke (lifetimes ago), Ava had never been this quiet - distrusting, yes, suspicious, understandably so but Camila can’t help but wish again, and again, that Ava would find her way to them, would find the trust to let them in.
Beatrice lets out a slow breath. Supposedly they’re there to help Jillian but Camila knows Beatrice is there to keep watch (she hasn’t left Ava’s side for more than a few moments since they’ve been reunited). In terms of the halo, everything seems fine - better than fine, actually, with both Ava and the halo even stronger than before. Camila catches sometimes a furrow on Beatrice’s brow, a twist of something like jealousy on her face (Camila remembers the last time Ava had grown this much, it was under a specific set of hands).
“Something bad?” Camila continues, mostly to herself. “The other side doesn’t exactly seem like a vacation spot.” They watch Ava complete another test, record numbers flashing on the screens and Jillian blinking in surprise. “But she doesn’t seem any worse for wear physically.”
“No,” Beatrice agrees slowly, eyes narrowing and her fingers clenching together behind her back. “But there are other ways to wear someone down. Even someone like her.”
*
It’s the middle of the night when the quiet shatters - literally.
Camila is the first to arrive at the scene, alarms blaring, strobes flashing - revealing Ava in the center of what looks like a windstorm in one of the lab rooms. Camila winces as broken glass and equipment glance off of her as she tries to make her way towards Ava. Around her, the screens are all full of flashing red warnings, and the alarms grow more shrill by the second. They need to evacuate. But the halo is glowing fiercely, the windstorm rising to match, and Camila is pinned between an overturned lab table and the floor.
Ava doesn’t seem to hear Camila when she screams her name. Ava’s eyes are fixated only on the glowing, flickering center of the storm - but there’s something manic, something like despair. The pressure crushing Camila leaves suddenly and she finds Lilith at her side, turns to find Mother Superion and Jillian struggling to make their way into the room.
“We have to get out of here,” Lilith yells, blocking the debris with her wings.
Camila shakes her head. “Not without Ava,” she yells back. She struggles against Lilith’s grip, frantic, ‘we only just got her back -’
And suddenly, somehow, Beatrice is there. The halo is muted beneath her hold around Ava: her chest to Ava’s back, her face in Ava’s neck, her hands pressed to Ava’s stomach, her chest. Camila sees Beatrice’s lips moving, cannot hear the words, but she does see Ava shudder, sees the glow snuff out, feels the windstorm slowly die down soon after, hears the silence settle once more.
Only to be broken by Ava’s keening sobs.
*
The picture Mother Superion paints the next day after she gets the story out of Ava makes Camila’s heart ache.
“We’re not sure if it was a hallucination or a dream or something else,” Mother Superion says when she begins, hands wrapped tight around themselves. “But it was real for her.”
Ava’s reality while she was on the other side had not been hell, Mother Superion explains - there had been no demons, no fighting, no hardship, no pain.
Instead, it had been something closer to her own personal heaven.
A family of her own, a life full and long. A home, a car, even a dog. “We were there,” Mother Superion says, speaking more to her tea than to anyone at the table. “All of us, everyone she’d ever loved. Even her mother.”
The weight of the words sink into Camila’s chest, craters into her stomach, cold.
“But how?” Lilith’s face holds equal parts rage and anguish. Then her teeth bares, bites out, “Was it Reya?” Camila reaches out, touches Lilith’s forearm briefly; the tension abates, but only slightly.
“We have yet to find out the reason for it, if Reya was involved at all.”
“If this was a blessing or a curse.”
Mother Superion’s gaze cuts sharply over to Lilith. “Ava is back.” She softens, slightly. “As are you. And Beatrice. That is blessing enough for me.”
Lilith looks away, fists clenched and a tremor in her wings. “I just -” The fight goes out of her as quickly as it had come, leaving slumped in her chair, helpless, as they all are. Mother Superion slides her own hand across the table to cover one of Lilith’s fists as Lilith’s head bows, shoulders shaking.
Camila breathes through the sting of her injuries from last night as she rises from her seat, murmuring about getting more tea. As she lets it steep, she thinks back to that first morning, how small and lost Ava had been and - she knows now - grieving. How her eyes had always been looking for something: someone here but not, for a way out.
Camila grips the counter, covers her mouth with her other hand to muffle her sobs. How must it feel to be torn out of heaven, to not know what is real; to be thrust back into a world of pain and war, where nothing is certain - she thinks back to the windstorm and Ava’s desperation and can’t fault Ava for wanting to go back.
Because to her, here is ‘the other side.’
*
“I won’t stop you. If you want to go back.”
Beatrice’s voice floats from the balcony to Camila where she’s just about to pass by. Sees Ava’s outline, about to step into the hallway; they both freeze at the same time, unseen.
“You think I want to go back?” The words are spoken as Ava spins around to face Beatrice, Camila presumes from what has now become her hiding place. It’s the loudest she’s heard Ava speak since her return. Camila’s heart aches at the pain in her voice but is relieved at the same time (Ava of all people was not meant to be muzzled, muted, quiet). She hears Ava’s footsteps, risks a peek around the edge.
Dawn is rising over the balcony, burning through the sky. Everything is still - Beatrice as well - save for Ava. It almost reminds Camila of how things used to be. But Camila’s not so sure what is right anymore, not when there’s so much grief in the air. A part of Camila is glad to hear them like this - not fighting but the emotion; she’d rather this than the quiet, than them slowly falling apart in silence.
Still, it tears at Camila’s heart because even in the short glances she takes, she can see how hard Beatrice is trying to keep herself in check, to stay impassive, but it’s obvious how much she’s affected, how much she’s feeling. Ava too is shaking, but it’s with fear, and it’s different, knowing both sides, horror and bliss, heaven and hell, and now being here but now with nothing. ‘You have us,’ Camila wants to say, to scream, to plead. She tilts her head back against the wall instead and clasps her hands close to her chest; prays. Waits, listens for an answer.
“I don’t know what’s real anymore.” There’s a shattered note in Ava’s voice that makes Camila bite her lip. “Sometimes I forget, that I’m here. And then - then I see you, or I see the sisters, or I feel the halo and …” A gasp, a shuddered breath, a sniffle. “I don’t want to go back, Bea. I swear, I don’t. But I - I want it back. That life.”
‘Normal,’ Camila realizes. It was all Ava had ever wanted: A normal, long, regular life.
Camila doesn’t hear Beatrice move - rarely ever does - but she imagines that she does, approaching in that careful way she has with everyone, but with that look on her face that she only gives to Ava: an open heart, offered still beating, despite everything.
“There’s no shame in it,” Beatrice says and the echo of Camila’s own words catches in her mind, her heart. “It’s normal to want it back.”
“But it was a lie.”
“It was real, then. There. I don’t blame you for wanting it back - no one does. You had so much there. Things that we - that I can’t give you.”
There’s a pause and something like a sob - Camila isn’t sure which one of them it’s from, wouldn’t be surprised if it was both of them.
Beatrice’s voice is steady when she speaks again, soft and sure. “But I can give you this: I will be with you, always, however you want me, in whatever way that helps.” And then softer still, “You remember, don't you? I promised. We will never leave you.”
“Still?” Disbelief and desperation braid together in the crack in Ava’s voice.
Beatrice’s answer comes out muffled - Camila has to strain to hear it. “Always.”
(Camila hears a quiet echo and looks up to see a shadow shift across the hall: Lilith, head bowed in prayer and promise. Camila follows suit, repeats the same vow.)
*
It’s an ambush. Of course.
The numbers are near overwhelming and Camila, Lilith, and their main contingent of sister warriors had been cut off from Beatrice and Ava early on. The lack of communication from either of them has started to pull a thread of panic up through Camila’s spine. Just as she’s about to break formation, Beatrice’s voice comes breathless over the comms.
“They have another ark. It -”
The rest is lost in shouts and gunfire and a sound that makes Camila’s blood run cold. She looks up and there’s the same recognition in Lilith’s eyes: the windstorm from several nights ago, the portal to the other side.
“Backup is en route, ETA 5 minutes.” Mother Superion’s words are clipped. Camila hears what isn’t said - ‘Hold on, my children, hold on.’
Lilith locks eyes with Camila, follows up on the comms with orders to the rest of the contingent, then takes her arm and everything is ash and brimstone. The world reforms without warning, resolves, solid underneath their feet and Camila, bleary, raises her gun instinctively.
Just in time: enemies in black appear with a yell from a hidden doorway, heading straight for the ark - for Ava and Beatrice. Lilith and Camila intercept them, holding them off with talons and arrows, teleportation and head shots, but they’re quickly driven back.
They’re close enough now to the ark that the hum makes Camila’s hair stand on end, that she can hear Beatrice when she says, “In this life or the next.”
The words are familiar - they’d all said it in unison before crossing into enemy territory less than an hour ago - but the way Beatrice says it is different. Less a battle cry or even a promise, more a question, the presentation of a choice. This life or the next?
Camila wants to turn to look, but she has to cover Lilith, catches an enemy about to knife her in the back with an arrow to the knee, throws a bomb to try to block the doorway from where the enemies keep streaming in.
But even with the explosions and gunfire and yells, Camila hears it - the slide of metal against leather, a knife unsheathed. It’s followed by a whispered reminder of the promise Camila had overheard and now all Camila can do is listen. She doesn’t dare to turn and look behind her, afraid of what she’ll see because she knows: where Ava goes, Beatrice will follow.
To the other side, to the next life.
Camila holds her breath; prays. Waits, listens for an answer.
“Get down!”
Camila’s body obeys before the words fully register. She slams to the ground just as she feels a prickle of energy shear through the air above her. An explosion rocks through the space, shakes the very air from her lungs.
It’s only when a quiet settles that Camila lifts her head. Bodies litter the ground in front of her and behind her - the ark, sparking, destroyed.
And in front of it, standing together, holding each other so tightly it’s as if they were one, is Ava and Beatrice. “In this life,” Camila hears Ava murmur, watches Beatrice’s hand tighten on Ava’s back. “In this life.”
***