Chapter Text
Everything has gone to hell. It registers that the Crown falls from Ava’s grip, jostled by the panicking crowd in Adriel’s theater. But the focus of Beatrice’s attention is Michael: attempting to overpower Adriel with brute determination, reaching for Ava, calling for her. Ava answers him.
No decision needs to be made. Beatrice’s mind and body are one, united force, honed and trained to perfect execution of service. Her faith in her own abilities is total and complete.
She runs, tackles Ava, refusing her the right to die.
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“Hatred that they had made me afraid to be myself.”
Ava still remembers the waver in Beatrice’s voice that day as she read from the journal of warrior nuns. It was the first time Ava ever heard Beatrice waver. It stuck. Bea couldn’t hide her pain, but pretended it wasn’t there, then lashed out at Ava when she pushed the point. Then, at last, she revealed herself.
The moment replays in her mind as she stands before Bea now, unable to comprehend what is happening. “Beatrice… Talk to me.”
Sun. Ava can feel it bathing her, warming her through. So strange, and so beautiful. A gentle breeze tickles every centimeter of exposed skin; even her fingernails feel the slightest pressure. The hairs across her arms, legs, and torso catch along the weave of the poly-cotton blend of her shirt. With the slightest effort, she can even feel her bra straps. With no effort at all, Ava can feel the constant vibration of energy pulsing out from the Halo through her spinal column, tickling every long-dormant nerve cell from the crown of her head to her pinky toes.
There’s so much to feel. Even her emotions alter how her body feels. Joy zings through her limbs. Confidence pulls her shoulders down and back just as much as it makes her grin. Self-consciousness heats her shoulders, her neck, her chest. Sadness weighs her chest down. Dread churns her stomach. Pain, in a way, also gives Ava something to feel, which in most cases is far better than feeling nothing at all. When Lilith threw her upon a dull sword and Ava choked up blood, Ava felt the slightest gratitude for sensation. The pain at least let her know how serious an encounter was, how much she needed to concentrate in order to save herself and protect the ones she loved, all without fear thanks to the Halo.
The pain Ava feels now – having followed Beatrice out onto the balcony after Bea stormed out on prayer – is probably trying to tell her something. She just hasn’t figured out what yet. And Beatrice won’t look at her.
“… I lost the crown. It was right there, and… I let my emotions blind me to the mission.” She won’t even look at Ava as she says it. As she says… what Ava has wondered, dared, even hoped Bea would say one of these days. But it’s all wrong. This isn’t how talking about feelings was supposed to go.
“You saved my life.”
“But if I’d grabbed the Crown,” Bea bites, “we could’ve beaten Adriel, and none of this would have happened.” She looks at Ava now, harsh. Lashing out like before. Here she is, Bea, all but admitting that she too has feelings – emotions – for Ava like Ava has for her and…
Swallowing thickly, Ava knows the devastating truth. Beatrice resents how she feels for Ava in a way Ava never could resent how she feels for Bea.
“Camila, Yasmine. They might be here with us.”
“So you’re saying, if… if I had died, the others might have lived,” Ava summarizes, her own voice wavering. Everything Bea – her Bea – said about how it was her pleasure to train and protect and be with Ava, everything she said about how Ava would never ever be alone again, even if Ava was a talking head in a bag or ‘festooned with boils’ (seriously, a phrase that only Bea would dare say in the twenty-first century). That promise had a limit. Ava really is alone, and the most precious person in the entire world to Ava resents her for it.
“I’m saying that maybe we’re just… delaying the inevitable.”
It’s inevitable that I will be alone, and I will die alone. Wait, no, what the fuck. Bea would never say that, not ever! Ava shakes her head, nonplussed. “No,” she mutters. Stronger, she says, “The Beatrice I know never stops fighting. Never loses hope!”
Beatrice crosses her arms, looks at her askance. Flat and monotone, like she doesn’t even care, she responds, “No. She never did. Before.”
Before what?! Ava thinks, feels like six meters of concrete just poured into her guts. Desperate, she pleads, “You said we would stop him our way. Together. That there’s always something else we can do.”
“There is nothing else you can do!” Even though Beatrice isn’t yelling, it feels like she’s yelling at Ava, stepping on all that concrete. “Run. Hide.”
What the fuck! “Are you kidding me?! I was hiding!”
Monotone again, Beatrice continues, “Our only priority now is to keep the Halo out of Adriel’s hands. At all costs.”
“Yeah,” Ava says robotically, taking a breath to keep from crying. It is harder than walking through rock or on water to keep all these goddamn feelings under control – How the fuck does Bea do this every second of the day?! – but Ava has some small sense of self-preservation. Still, she looks at Beatrice, and hope stirs within her. Whether it’s her own optimistic self or the spurring of the Halo, Ava takes a chance. If she must run, surely her Bea would stay by her side?
She takes a step. “If I left, would you come with me?” Bea looks at her, looks away. Ava persists, “We could go back to the Alps. To the bar. To Hans and the regulars…”
For a second, Bea seems to smile.
“You could teach me how to dance.”
Bea looks at her and, by Bea standards, smiles. Right?
“I could teach you how to drink.”
“No.”
No, please, Bea!
“I can’t.”
This isn’t just duty to her church or vows or whatever fuckshit. Ava is her duty. But the truth is, Ava realizes with a gaping breath, Beatrice really does resent her, sees her as a mistake, a failure.
Alone.
Beatrice turns from Ava, and she stands rooted to the spot.
Later – how much later, Ava isn’t sure because she stood there dumbfounded for who knows how long – Ava sits on one side of a full-size bed. Same size, same side as their bed in the Alps. Our bed. Strangely, the pain threatening to overwhelm Ava now brings up the pain of losing Mary, too. It’s so much anguish that she wishes Lilith was beating her up instead. As she blunders her way through a conversation with Michael, Ava wonders what Mary would do in this situation. Probably interrogate some son of a bitch, take names, and kick his ass off a cliff. Wait… that’s not a bad idea.
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Before the team left Jillian Salvius’s mansion for the mission at hand, Beatrice felt instinctual dread rising in her, knew something was wrong. Yet she cannot understand. She refuses to understand.
“Because I told her to.” Ava does not sound like herself. She sounds resigned and hopeless.
Yasmine double-takes, “I don’t… I don’t understand… Why?”
“Because things change when you realize not everything’s about you,” Ava responds, quoting one of the first things Beatrice ever said to Ava.
Too far.
Like a slap in the face, or a stab to her back, by her own past self.
Ever the strategist, Beatrice mentally retraces her steps to find where in time Ava changed, when she resigned herself to death. She feels her dread turn to absolute horror, filling her limbs with trembling. Ava turns to face her. With a voice still not her own, Ava says, “I’m sorry, Bea.”
No. She cannot move her mouth, her vocal chords. All her strength and speed and vitality seep out of her body. Never before has Beatrice felt so afraid that she could no longer fight or run.
“But that’s the Warrior Nun’s job… right?” Ava continues. The only tell is Ava’s watery eyes.
How is she doing that? How on earth has Ava maintained her composure long enough to pull the rug out from under Beatrice? It is counter to everything Beatrice thought she knew about Ava. She wants to go back in time, rework her strategy with this new information. If Beatrice hadn’t stormed off, if she had faith in herself instead of doubting – her holy, most sacred vow to care for and protect this woman, her best, dearest friend and partner and the Halo Bearer – she could undo this moment unfolding before her.
She’s frozen. No fight, no flight. Her faith in herself is lost. Beatrice needs to abort this mission, needs to overpower Ava right now and get her out of there before Ava can go forward with whatever plan she has kept secret. And Beatrice cannot move a muscle.
“They die so everyone else can live,” Ava says matter-of-factly.
All Beatrice can manage is to whisper, “Ava, don’t.”
Grimacing, Ava steps closer. “I’m doing this so you can live your life. So live it. Okay?”
No! Not without you! Beatrice thickly responds, defiant, “I won’t.” How could she… ever… with anyone other than Ava…? Breaking apart, Beatrice whimpers, “I can’t.” Can’t move, can’t think, can’t fight, can’t live!
Ava steps closer still, insists, “You can.”
Somewhere in the far reaches of Beatrice’s mind, a warning bell goes off that this is too close. It sounds suspiciously like the voices of her parents. Perhaps for the first time, Beatrice mentally suggests the warning bell shut up. Logical strategy claws back into control, enabling coherent thoughts: I have the Crown of Thorns!
Defiant once more, Beatrice repeats, “I can’t.”
It’s as though her body moves in slow motion. Maple syrup, rings through her mind in Ava’s voice. It’s not slow motion, however; Beatrice trained Ava for this moment, to be faster than herself. To sacrifice herself to the mission.
As she reaches to place the Crown on Ava, Ava grabs her wrist and whirls her around. Beatrice could have countered, should have, but whatever is happening totally upends her abilities, her trust in herself, her control. She is wide-eyed, uncertain how her hand is on Ava’s waist, staring into Ava’s eyes as Ava turns her gaze to Beatrice’s lips.
Suddenly, Ava sinks forward, eyes closed, and Beatrice is so stunned she keeps staring at Ava even as the most perfect, beautiful thing in her life occurs. The most perfect, beautiful lips on the planet touch her own.
Everything within Beatrice breaks apart. Thought ceases. Time stops. All her broken and unbroken pieces reach out for all of Ava’s, pulling her as close to her body as possible. Beatrice – Sister Warrior and combat specialist – fumbles through her senses, desperate and clinging. Ava’s hand caresses her face and elicits such joy and such sorrow and such freedom and loyalty, Beatrice strives to do the same.
But suddenly it’s over. Ava pulls away. Beatrice bows her head, tears already falling. Always hellbent on more, Ava offers one more kiss to Beatrice’s forehead. Hoping that if she looks up, they might not be in this church of demons, Beatrice gazes upon Ava’s face once more.
It doesn’t work. They’re still there. Still, Beatrice brushes her knuckles across Ava’s cheek, afraid that her calloused fingertips might be too rough for the woman she loves.
The woman she loves.
With a ragged gasp, Ava sobs, “In the next.” And she’s gone.
Beatrice is going to fucking kill everyone.
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