Chapter Text
At first, all Ava recognizes is pain. From the moment she regains consciousness to the moment she opens her eyes, her world is pain.
She’s used to pain. She pushes it to the side.
When she opens her eyes, her world becomes dark and pain.
Not much of an improvement.
She curses under her breath and snaps her eyes closed again. She focuses on breathing, in and out and in and out, until the sharp stabbing all over her body eases into a dull sting. When she can think more clearly again, she blinks her eyes back open and lets them adjust to the dim lighting. They adapt in small increments, but before long she’s able to see enough to get a feel for her surroundings.
She’s in a clearing surrounded by trees. The stars are bright dots in the sky, but no moon is in sight.
She’s alone. No one and nothing is around her other than the trees.
“Fucking hell, you guys couldn’t have dropped me off directly in Cat’s Cradle?” she mutters.
She shoots a glare up to the sky, just in case Reya or one of the others happen to still be watching. Then, she sucks in a sharper breath and forces her protesting core muscles to contract.
The biting, stabbing pain returns, rushing through her muscles like fire and burning everything to a flaky crisp as she sits up, but she manages it. Once upright, she pauses to assess. The world around her tilts and wobbles in front of her eyes as her body struggles to adjust, but it stabilizes after a few more deep breaths. She keeps pushing the pain to the side.
She’s used to pain.
Pain is better than nothing at all.
She drops a hand down to her side and digs her fingers deep into the cool soil, gathering up a big handful and holding tight.
Home.
She made it home.
She pulls the handful of dirt up to her chest and stares down into it, then releases her hold and lets the grains and chunks slip through her fingers.
It’s been a long, long time since she got to feel something like this. And, at the same time, she knows it’s been no time at all.
She’s home.
She sighs and shakes her head to clear it before looking back up. She’s still alone. Nothing in her immediate surroundings has changed at all. There’s also nothing to give a clue of exactly where she is. She’ll need to stand up and get moving in order to figure that out.
She drops her eyes down to her feet. They still ache just like the rest of her, which is still better than feeling nothing, but she feels a hesitance all the way down to her bones at the thought of trying to move it and stand.
Reya had promised that although she’d be banged up she wouldn’t be paralyzed.
She’d sworn it.
Ava bites the inside of her lip and wills her foot to move. The toes twitch and she exhales in one big rush. She lets all of the tension in her body release in her relief and flops back onto the dirt, staring back up at the stars.
“Thank fuck,” she breathes.
She lays there for a while, letting herself really feel it as the stabs and aches settle again.
She needs to get moving. She knows that. Theoretically, Reya put her back just a few days after she left. Everyone and everything is probably still frantic and chaotic. She needs to get back and explain to them. She has a lot of big, key, important information...
…she needs to see Beatrice.
Really, if she’s being honest with herself, it’s only that last thought that drives her to sit up again and try to stand. Every single movement stabs and burns, but she manages to get her feet under herself enough to stumble over to the nearest tree.
The bark is chilly and sharp below her palm as she leans her weight into it, and it’s just as grounding as the palmful of dirt had been.
She’s home.
She made it home.
It’s been a long time.
She breathes out and shoves off the tree, savoring the even deeper bite in her palm at the move.
Some kind of tug grows just behind her ribs, drawing her forward and just to the left, so she follows it.
Somehow, she knows it’ll get her where she needs to go. She’s gotten used to operating on this kind of blind trust as of late.
This tug will take her home.
It’ll take her to Beatrice.
Every step is torture.
Still, she keeps moving.
Trees pass her by slowly but surely.
The landscape goes up and then back down again in slow, rolling hills.
The light slowly changes, shifting to the slight dull gray of early morning.
Still, Ava keeps walking. Her limbs slowly shake off their ache, not really healing the wounds from re-entry yet but getting there.
She keeps walking.
The tug keeps pulling her, directing her every step of the way.
Eventually, she stumbles onto a road. Long and open, with no discernable landmarks on either side. Yet, that thing inside of her tugs her to the right, so she settles onto the shoulder and keeps walking.
The first car passes her about an hour later. It’s a small, red thing and it doesn’t even seem to tap its breaks to consider stopping.
A few more pass her as the sun keeps rising. A few slow, but none seem willing to stop once they get a good look at her.
Honestly, Ava doesn’t blame them. She glances down at herself a few times and can’t help but grimace. She’s still in her battle gear, only now it’s seriously torn and caked in dirt and blood. There’s no telling how rough the rest of her looks.
She wouldn’t stop to help her either.
She keeps walking.
She needs to get back.