Chapter Text
Well, shit.
These are the words with which Ava now greets death. At first, it was a simple why, me? Then it transitioned to an oh, no. But recently she has been dying so many times ‘shit’ seems to be the best description of both her current situation and her latest deaths.
A lot of dying has been going on ever since Ava was spat out of Reya’s realm. With the Holy War and Adriel’s remaining zealots on the loose, she has been stabbed, electrocuted, drowned. One time she lost an arm, and that is how she found out that she can regrow limbs (although it takes a while and is not a pleasant process). Another time she got pushed into a fire ant pit and discovered just how fast the halo can heal and those motherfuckers can bite.
At every turn she takes, Ava feels like she is being attacked.
Maybe because she is.
So it barely even surprises her when the divinium projectile hits her right there in the chest, and makes a fist-sized hole that leaves her shivering.
Much less surprised she is when she finds herself seating in a museum.
She’s used to it by now: appearing in a random place in the world after something bad happens. She has been to the Nile, the Everest, a small shop in Tokyo, the Colosseum… Each her own private version of limbo.
Obviously, she much prefers this randomness than the dumbfuck place where she landed the first time she died. Because that place had nothing, not even the necessary sounds for Ava to hear herself breathe.
A museum is cool, she thinks. It’s got benches, paintings, weird instruments one of her sisters would hit the back of her head with if she ever played… These things are plenty to keep her busy until she inevitably comes back to life.
Because she always does nowadays, even if divinium makes it a little bit more difficult, the relationship between death and her considerably strengthened by life’s latest events.
So that’s what she does.
Ava touches the paintings and plays the instruments, turns the pottery upside down. Simply because she can, because there are no consequences, and, in death, there is no one to tell her ‘no’.
Or so she thought.
“Ava?” a voice echoes behind her.
At the sound of her own name, Ava drops the piece of pottery she was holding. Her plan was to blow into it, see if, as she suspected, it made a sound like that of a flute once her breath met its opening. But with such stark interruption, the piece cracks on the floor, and the sound it makes is not nearly as graceful as what Ava had in mind.
For a moment Ava does not answer. She thinks that her brain is making her see things, hear them. Wouldn’t be the first time.
But the owner of the voice walks in front of her to pick up the scattered pieces. Once she’s done, she straightens her shoulders and spine like she always does. She narrows her eyes in gentle reproach, an expression all too familiar to Ava who always manages to fuck something up.
And when she speaks again there is no denying it. It is her. “Ava, what are you doing?”
“Beatrice.” Ava’s breath leaves with the name as soon as it parts from her lips.
Beatrice looks over her shoulder, probably searching for the reason why Ava is looking at her like a ghost. “Ava, why did you bring us here?”
“I didn’t – I didn’t, Bea. I didn’t bring us here.” Ava is too stunned to speak properly.
The last time she saw Beatrice, she was ahead of her. Fighting four different assholes, but she had each of them under the palm of her hand.
The only signs she carried of battle was a slit on her left eyebrow, a muddied face, and a wrinkled white button up that Ava liked a little bit too much for it to be considered reasonably sane.
It’s the way the collar presses against her throat, Ava thinks, but she brushes the thought aside because Beatrice should not be here.
She should not be here, and she should not look different. She is now clean, her eyebrow is as perfect as it has always been, and her new button up is black, her slacks are black. It is like she’s dressed for her own – no, no, no, no, no, no. Ava can’t deal with this right now.
“What do you mean you did not? We were in the graveyard, and now we are here.” As confused as Beatrice should look, she only seems exhausted. She was putting up a good fight, Ava remembers, but the first trip to limbo can be a very rough one, she can also recognize.
“Um, Beatrice?” Ava does not know how to say this. Does not know how Beatrice will take this, but the reasonable thing is to tell her. “Babe, we are dead.”
Beatrice’s eyes widen. She blinks. Once. Twice. Turns her head sideways as she stares at Ava. She gulps, and takes a breath altogether too long.
It’s okay, is all Ava wants to say. It’s okay. Someone, Camila, Mother Superion, Yasmine, Lilith, someone will come and give her CPR because it is impossible for Beatrice to be hurt beyond repair. And the halo will revive Ava in just a moment, and she will take care of her, so it really should be okay.
Yet all Ava does is hold Beatrice’s waist because she seems to be losing her balance.
And while she holds Beatrice steady, Ava barters with death. Can she reschedule? Take a raincheck and die at another time so she can go back to Beatrice and help her? Could she die a million times so Beatrice does not have to die once?
“How do you know we are dead?” Beatrice finally asks.
For a second the question rubs her the wrong way because Beatrice above everyone else should be aware of how many times Ava has died. She probably keeps a list somewhere in the kitchen.
Yet, Ava understands that Beatrice needs to process this, and the answer is easy enough to let the annoyance go. “There’s no pain,” Ava says. “And if the sudden realization that we went from fighting in a graveyard to being in a museum isn’t a dead giveaway, I don’t know what is.”
Beatrice nods and clenches her jaw entirely missing the pun. “Are you okay?” Ava asks.
“Yeah, I’m sure this is only temporary.” Beatrice takes a step back and Ava lets go of her waist, allowing her the space she seems to be seeking.
It’s okay, she wants to say but bites her bottom lip. “What is the last thing that you remember?”
“We were getting shot at. In the graveyard.” Beatrice says matter-of-factly.
“And?”
Ava wants to desperately seek her hands, but she clasps hers in front of herself instead.
She has been with Beatrice for so long now that she understands the silent cues.
The way she rolls her shoulders back when she’s tense.
The way her eyes narrow when she’s flustered in thought (which is entirely too different than when they narrow to lecture Ava).
The way she speaks like she’s reading a report when she does not want to speak at all.
“You fell. All the enemies started to target you, so you had to crawl in between the tombs.”
Ava nods and raises her eyebrows, her way of telling her to please go on.
“I noticed they had divinium bullets and arrows. It was a set up.”
“And?”
Beatrice stares at Ava calmly. That is as much as she gives when she’s frustrated. “If you let me finish, Ava, maybe I can tell you.”
“Sorry.” Ava takes a second. This is Beatrice, Ava reassures herself once again in case there was a trace of doubt. Only her would be so gentle in asking Ava to stop. “Please, go on.”
Beatrice takes a deep breath and focuses her eyes on the painting behind Ava. “You were about to be surrounded, so I ran to you as fast as I could to get you out of there.” It’s like she does not want to admit this, but she does.
Ava does not dwell too much on the details of every death. Not that she can remember all of them anyway, but with Beatrice going over what happened, it’s easy to retrace the steps of what took place down to the very minute actions.
And, oh when it dawns her it is with fury, with disappointment.
But Ava takes a deep breath, so deep she fears her lungs might burst and her veins might inflate for burying her feelings.
“You shielded me,” Ava says softly.
“I was – I was trying to save you,” Beatrice says.
Ava wants to throw her arms to the sides to mark her disbelief, her frustration. So now we are both dead is what she wants to say.
Ava dies. That’s what she does. Most of the time she comes back, but if it is certain that she will not, the least she wants is someone sacrificing themselves to prevent it.
Especially Beatrice. Above everyone, her.
But she cannot get mad at Beatrice for this. She refuses to take this testament of love for anything else other than what it is.
Beatrice takes a sharp breath and looks down for only a moment. There’s a twitch on her eye, which tells Ava she is fighting to keep her expression composed. “It seems I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I just thought that maybe if I took part of the blow, it would be easier on you.”
With this Ava rushes forward and cups Beatrice’s face. “Hey, no. Let’s not go there.” She rubs her thumbs across her jaw, her cheeks. “You did what felt right in the moment. You did it for me, and there’s no need to apologize. There is not a mistake so big you need to apologize to me.”
Beatrice kisses her, uninhibitedly, recklessly.
Places one hand on the back of Ava’s neck and permanently shuts any space between their lips.
Places another on Ava’s lower back and takes ownership of Ava’s body.
Ava adores this.
Now that Beatrice is no longer part of the church, just a warrior, just like her, she is much less reserved. Yes, she is still sort of contained and demure, but she does not lock her feelings and her wants in a box and drops them in the deepest trench in the sea.
No, that’s old Beatrice. New Beatrice takes when she wants to.
New Beatrice places dozens of kisses along Ava’s jaw, over her chin. She presses her lips against Ava’s lower neck. Breathes her in.
Beatrice takes.
She presses Ava’s body against her own with so much need Ava’s back arches to accommodate it, and Ava is only able to release this tension with a moan.
When their lips part, which is a considerable time after, Ava grins. She places a gentle kiss on the corner of Beatrice’s mouth. Then she follows such action by placing her forehead against Beatrice’s and closing her eyes. “Thank you, Beatrice.” She means this. She really does. So much so that her fingertips burn. “For shielding me. For being so calm about this fucked up situation. The first time I died, I was most definitely not calm.”
Beatrice’s lips curve into an endearing smile, which Ava swears holds a little bit of mischievousness. “Only because I’m dead with you, Ava.”
Ava’s chest swells a little bit. Well, more than she would like to admit.
Because Beatrice and her have never had time to talk about the future. Whenever they do, the future only means a list of groceries or the place they need to go to next. The future for them rarely involves anything else, even though, as of lately, Ava has been desperately wanting to discuss this. Discuss the next step.
Yet when Beatrice says this, it sounds like something she has wished for too, to spend the rest of their time together, through eternity, and after death.
“Aren’t you concerned that I’d drive you mad?” Ava asks ignoring the fact that she's tangling her fingers hard into Beatrice’s hands; entirely missing the detail that Beatrice is rubbing circles over her ring finger.
Beatrice shakes her head, and her smile is ever so sweet and enticing. “I love you, Ava. That is not a concern of mine.”
She places a kiss on Ava’s forehead, and Ava wishes for nothing else than to melt, find a nice place inside Beatrice’s chest and settle there, where she is sure it is very cozy and warm.
How much she loves this woman is impossible to put into words, hard for her to even comprehend. It would be foolish to attempt to describe such love as Ava is sure she would never make it justice.
But they are in a museum after all, where love has been proclaimed through centuries through art. And Beatrice is art, a living piece in front of her that she can touch.
She traces her fingers over Beatrice’s brows, her frown, her eyelids, makes her fingers her brushes, Beatrice’s body her canvas.
She kisses the skin under Beatrice’s eyes, every inch of her nose, each one of her freckles, each ridge on her lips. Tenderly, soft, afraid to ruin her texture.
When she’s done carving love into Beatrice’s face, she hopes that this is enough. Because while she can’t tell Beatrice exactly how much she loves her, she hopes that at least this shows.
“I love you too,” Ava says.
Beatrice receives this with an embrace, a tear. Well, many, but Beatrice is not one to cry, so Ava will pretend she only saw one.
They hold each other like that for so long Ava fears, rather hopes, that they will turn into a sculpture.
Two lovers that embraced for so long, they turned into stone, she imagines the description would say underneath.
She considers this. It would be the first time she would not fear being still.
“Ava…” Her name once again interrupts Ava’s thoughts. “In case I don’t make it back, though, there are a few things we need to discuss.”
Ava places a hand flat on Beatrice’s chest rather forcefully, but Beatrice stays firm like a wall and her eyes tender. “Oh, shut up. Don’t ruin the moment.”
“We need to consider the possibilities.” Beatrice always does. As much as Ava loves this, she hates it as well.
“No, shut up. I will not consider any possibilities other than the very real reality that we will go back together, and I’ll whip you up from the floor and take care of you for the rest of the week.”
“There’s something in my left pocket that I need you to find,” Beatrice says under her breath, so low Ava barely hears this.
Not that it mattered anyway because Ava is focused on silencing whatever it is Beatrice feels like she needs to say.
This is not the time, Ava thinks. No one can beat them, not when they are together.
“Beatrice, close your mouth. Shush your lips. Shush them,” she repeats.
“Ava, I’m not kidding.”
“I’m not kidding either. We’ll go back together. I promise.” Ava’s voice drowns although she is not crying. “And if we don’t, I’ll to use the halo.”
“That has only worked once before,” Beatrice protests.
Suddenly, they are gripping wrists, tugging shirts, holding on to whatever they can of each other. “I’ll make sure it works again,” Ava says.
“Ava…” Beatrice cups Ava’s face and places a bittersweet kiss on her lips that feels a lot like a goodbye. Ava abhors this. “If it does not, do I wait for you?”
The question seems absurd and unnecessarily loaded. It takes Ava aback with such force she’s barely able to consider it, to understand what it means.
Beatrice’s body back on earth is fine. Maybe a little bit battered, but that’s nothing Ava can’t fix with enough cuddles and tea. Beatrice is fine. She is going to be healed. She will be taken care of. She will be fine. She is fine. She is fine. She is fine. She is fine.
This thought transcends life, all the way from her small oasis in the museum to the graveyard, and Ava finds herself once again over consumed by pain.
Her hands quake over her abdomen as she processes the sensations shooting through her, all while the halo works rapidly to heal her. She has a fist-sized whole in the middle of her abdomen, so she’ll give the halo props for that.
“Beatrice,” she calls her name but hears no one.
She's being taken care of, Ava thinks. She’s 100% sure of this thing.
Ava lifts her head to look beside her or above her (in the ground swimming in your own pool of blood, everything’s the same).
And that’s when she sees Beatrice’s boot just over her head.
“Hey!” Ava slaps her muddied boot with her palm. “Stop playing with me.”
No response again. “Bea if you are fucking with me, I’ll kill you myself.”
Ava gets on her elbows and slowly drags herself over next to Beatrice, each push threatening to rip open her stomach again, to reveal her presence to still nearby enemies.
She can't stop. She wants to but she can’t.
Because what she sees churns her stomach more than the divinium bullet passing through her could:
Beatrice’s body lies flat on the floor and there's no one around her. There is no one helping her.
“Bea, hey, talk to me.” Ava slaps Beatrice’s cheek gently in an attempt to wake her up. The effort is futile.
She reaches for her wrist. Measures her pulse, her breath. Neither of those things are there.
No, no. This can’t be. Beatrice is fine. It’s okay. Ava repeats this over and over again as she searches for signs of life, but the more she searches, the more the answer sets itself in the back of Ava’s throat.
Beatrice lies on the floor with her eyes wide open, three of her fingers ripped from the bone, a portion of her neck and shoulder gone, her blood already dark and nearly dry.
Ava lays half her body on top of Beatrice’s seeking some sort of stability. “Bea.” It comes out as merely a whisper.
She tries to channel the halo’s energy through her, but the halo is exhausted, powerless from having just brought her back from death. It only lets out a few sparks.
No, no. This can’t be. Beatrice is fine. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
The whole world around her shakes as Ava sees her best friend, the woman she has always loved in such condition.
Except conditions are temporary, things that can be changed. And Beatrice doesn’t shake, her pupils do not move, and she is no longer warm.
“B-Bea,” she cries the name this time. “Somebody help! Someone, please! Somebody help!” Ava does not care that she’s giving her location away.
She barters with death again. She offers to die 3 million times rather than watch Beatrice die once. 6 million. Take 6 million. 10. She will experience death for the rest of time if that’s what it takes.
But the only one that answers is one of the newest Sister Warriors, one Ava has barely talked to before.
“Put the halo in her,” Ava demands despite the lump on her throat preventing her from breathing.
The Sister Warrior takes a step back and her eyes drift between Ava and Beatrice’s body, unsure of what to do.
“I said put this damned thing in her!” This scream shatters Ava’s throat, splits it in half if she could guess for how much it hurts.
“We can’t do that Ava. It's too risky. We might lose both of you.”
“Then so be it because I'm not losing her,” Ava groans through her tears.
“Ava.” This time it is Camila that intercedes, Lilith alongside her, both of them breathless as if they just got out of a fight.
“Lilith, grab the fucking halo. You can grab it,” Ava begs.
Lilith takes in a sharp breath, tears pooling under her eyes at the sight of Beatrice. Still, she shakes her head no.
They can’t possibly be agreeing with the new girl. Can’t possibly be agreeing to letting Beatrice die.
Ava does what she needs to do. She knows Beatrice has the claws needed to rip the halo out of her back, so she searches her body as unholy and wrong as it feels, looking for the damn thing.
She will rip the halo out of her own back. Give it to Beatrice so she can live.
Camila jumps forward, holds Ava’s hands in place to prevent her from defiling Beatrice’s body further.
Ava brings her trembling hands to Camila’s face, wishing to push her away.
That’s when she sees what she holds in between her fingers: A blue velvety box, the size of her palm.
She found this in Beatrice’s left pocket. She fears what it might be, but she opens it regardless.
Inside the box, an engagement ring lies untethered, bright, small like Ava would have wanted.
Soon after the box is filled with Ava’s tears, all the promises they left unsaid but knew were there.
Ava has not experienced a more painful moment in her life.
Not in between the 12 years she was stuck in a bed and the thousands of years she spent on Reya’s realm. No heartache compares, neither does any kind of warfare.
Because her greatest war has always been loving Beatrice and Beatrice giving herself permission to love Ava back.
No fight has ever been so hard, so scary, so tantalizing and filled with maybes.
Ava barters with death once again. “Take my life right now and not hers,” she says out loud, maybe her first prayer. But she receives no response.
She switches the direction of her hopes.
If death won’t listen maybe life will.
Thus, Ava begs for the chance to continue loving Beatrice.
In every thing she gets to see.
In every sound she gets to hear.
In every food she gets to taste.
In every texture she gets to feel.
In every step she gets to take.
In every leaf she gets to touch.
In every breath she gets to take.
Through every second of what remains of this life.
Through every second of the next.
Whether they are together or not, whether Beatrice exists there or just her. She wants to continue loving Beatrice in this life and the next.
She cries this into the crook of Beatrice’s neck, the only place where she has ever felt safe.
Then she fixes Beatrice’s hair, brushes every strand back into her bun just like she preferred.
“Don’t wait for me. It’s okay,” she finally says. “Be free. Please, be free. It’s okay.”