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Ava has dirt on her face.
It’s not an uncommon occurrence out here, in this secluded patch of wood that Beatrice has chosen to be their training grounds. Ava’s specific combination of enthusiasm and clumsiness means she always comes away with leaves on her back or grass in her hair. Or in this case, dirt on her face.
They are practicing levitating at the moment, Beatrice timing how long Ava can stay up, while Ava simply grins at Beatrice, eyes alight.
“I’m flying, Bea,” she said in awe the first time they practiced this, her voice almost breaking.
Beatrice simply watched her, watched the way her eyes welled up, watched how this girl who hadn’t been able to move for most of her life could defy the elements like this. How every time her feet left the ground, she would look around, like she had to take in each piece of every movement, commit it to memory. Even when she would stutter and fall, she would leap up again with glee, and Beatrice could feel it reflected in her own chest, like being in a ten foot radius of Ava gave her that same wonder through osmosis.
Even after a few weeks of this, Ava’s enthusiasm hasn’t waned. Even today, when she landed in an odd kind of roll, which is how said dirt got on her face.
“You have dirt on your face,” Beatrice tells her. “And you’re at 43 seconds hovering a foot off the ground.”
“Hey that’s pretty good,” Ava says with a grin, halfheartedly swiping at her face. It only spreads the dirt around.
“Could be better,” Beatrice says.
Ava rolls her eyes, still smiling. “It always could be better, that’s the point.”
Beatrice nods. But Ava’s time has only gone up by about ten seconds since they’ve started. Which is still technically progress, but it’s not ideal. At this rate, it will take several months that they don’t have for Ava to actually use this skill tactically and purposefully.
“Try to concentrate,” she tells Ava, “tap into what reserves you need to.”
“I ran five miles today, Bea,” Ava says, petulant, “my reserves are running on negative.”
“Ava.” Beatrice steps forward. “You have more power in you, I know it. You also still have dirt on your face.”
“Aw man, I thought I got it.” Ave tries to wipe at it again, fails again.
Beatrice sighs, and without thinking, reaches her hand up to where the dirt is, swipes the pad of her thumb over the top of Ava’s cheekbone. Ava’s skin is warm and soft and suddenly, Beatrice is thinking about this action, about Ava’s smooth cheek and the way she breathes in slightly at the contact. Beatrice’s palm is on the plane of Ava’s face, gently cupping it, molding to Ava’s cheek like her hand was designed for this very action.
Beatrice clears her throat, takes back her hand. “There. Should be gone now.”
Ava opens her eyes. Beatrice didn’t realize she had closed them. Her face is a little pink, and Beatrice isn’t sure if it’s from the sun or the five mile run or the 43 seconds of levitating.
(Or from Beatrice’s hand, from the way Ava maybe also feels it, feels the way sometimes they are simply destined to touch each other, the way gravity is not just for planets but for everything with mass, drawn together into each other’s orbits.)
“Thanks,” Ava says, soft. Ava is normally loud, so when she speaks quietly, Beatrice knows it’s significant.
“You’re welcome.”
Unbound for a second, Beatrice lifts her hand back up. There’s no dirt, no excuse, but she palms Ava’s face again, just to feel it, just for that special close lipped smile that graces Ava’s face again, just for her to sigh.
She removes it quickly—not quickly enough, too quickly—catches Ava’s eyes when they open again.
“Now,” Beatrice says, voice soft and serious. “Let’s try again.”
Ava nods, the halo glows, her feet leave the ground, and she doubles her time.
It could be an isolated incident. It could be. But Beatrice doesn’t believe in isolated incidents. She believes in cause and effect. She believes in progress, believes that if something works, it should be studied, should be taken apart and put back together again.
Ava gets a cramp in her leg the next day, her left calf seizing halfway through her run.
“Ow, fuck, Bea,” she says.
Beatrice almost scolds her for language when she turns around, but stops at Ava’s face, screwed up in pain as she drops to the ground in the middle of the path.
“What is it?” Beatrice is immediately at her side.
“My leg,” Ava says, voice hoarse and cracking. “It just started hurting like hell and stopped—stopped, um, working.”
“Show me where,” Beatrice says.
Ava points and Beatrice’s hands follow. Ava’s calf is hard as a rock, muscles seized and tense. Beatrice knows exactly what’s the problem. Remembers when she first started physical training, how she couldn’t acclimate in time, her muscles becoming tight and overworked. But it must be a thousand times worse for someone who has only started using her legs recently.
“It’s alright,” she tells Ava, because she sees the wild fear in Ava’s eyes, the fear that she can’t move. “It happens to everyone. Too much exertion.”
Her thumbs dig into the muscle and Ava hisses in pain.
“I’m sorry,” Beatrice says, “but this will help, I promise.”
Ava nods. “Okay,” she says, breathing out harshly through her nose. “Just do what you need to do.”
“We’ll just focus on stretching in the future, okay?” Beatrice says. She looks at Ava’s face, still scrunched up, still with a hint of fear on it. “You’re alright.” Her thumbs presses in harder. “You feel that?” Ava nods. “That’s good. That means your legs are working, that means you’re getting stronger.”
Ava breathes out a shaky breath. “Okay, okay, yes, I feel it.”
“Good. I’ve got you.”
Ava manages to smile, eyes watery. Beatrice's fingers continue to work on Ava’s calf until the muscle becomes malleable. She watches Ava’s face the whole time, watches the way she slowly becomes calmer, watches the fear leave her eyes.
Beatrice can’t imagine what it must be like, to have a constant specter that the sensation of feeling could go away at any minute. Can’t imagine starting from scratch like Ava is doing.
“How does it feel now?” she asks softly. Her hands are no longer pressing as hard, now more of a gentle stroking of Ava’s calf, feeling the small hairs there stand on end, the softness of the curve of her leg.
Ava breathes out, slowly and deeply. “It feels a lot better.”
“Good.” Beatrice knows that means she should stop, but she doesn’t. Ava needs to know she can feel this, can feel Beatrice’s touch. “We don’t need to continue the run today.”
“Oh, score,” Ava says, “I should get cramps more often.”
Beatrice chuckles a little. She knows Ava by now, knows the way she jokes when she gets scared.
“Don’t you dare,” she tells Ava, giving her calf a playful light smack.
Ava laughs, and Beatrice tries not to let her relief show. Her relief that Ava is back, that she’s okay. Reluctantly, she takes her hands off of Ava’s leg. Something else flickers across Ava’s face, an absence felt. Beatrice ignores it, ignores how Ava’s disappointment at Beatrice no longer touching her stirs something deep and wild in her chest.
Instead she offers offers Ava a hand up. Ava takes it eagerly, and if her hand lingers for a second longer than it needs to, neither of them mention it.
“Come on,” Beatrice says, “let’s get you in the air.”
“Yes ma’am,” Ava says, with a goofy salute.
Beatrice does not laugh no matter how much she wants to. Instead, she starts her timer, Ava’s feet leave the ground, and Beatrice just knows, just knows, that she’s going to beat her best time by a landslide.
“Hmm,” Ava is saying, “can I be all of them? I think I’m all of them.”
“No,” Hans tells her, grinning. The man has known Ava for all of three weeks and is already endeared to her, but well, Beatrice has known her for only twice as long and she… she can’t exactly blame Hans. “You have to choose one. Or at least rank them.”
“Ugh,” Ava groans, “you’re no fun.”
Then her eyes flick to the door of the bar, where Beatrice has been standing for a few seconds, eavesdropping. She feels her face turn a little pink at being caught in the act.
“Bea!” Ava says, lighting up as she so often does. “Just the person I wanted to see.”
Beatrice purposefully ignores the compliment. Sometimes she has to. Sometimes she has to shove away every kindness and praise that falls out of Ava’s mouth in her direction because if she thinks about it too hard she won’t be able to think about anything else.
Instead, she approaches the bar, drops a small paper bag on it.
“They were having a two for one special,” she tells Ava by way of explanation. It’s not untrue, the bakery down the street had given her both croissants for the price of one, given the hour, but Beatrice would have bought them for full price, would have even paid extra for the look on Ava’s face as she opens the bag and beams at Beatrice before tearing into it.
“You’re the best,” she says, mouth full.
Hans glances at the bag, back to Beatrice, then back to Ava. “Gifts,” he says.
“Oh my god, you’re so right,” Ava says, spraying croissant flakes on the bar. Hans wipes them off without so much as the blink of an eye.
“Gifts?” Beatrice asks, feeling like something was lost in translation. Figuratively; her German is perfect.
“Beatrice, are you familiar with the love languages?” Hans asks.
“You mean romance languages?” she asks.
“No,” Ava says, “way more fun. It’s like how different people show love. You have to choose one.”
“Or rank them,” Hans adds.
“Also I need you to tell me what mine is,” Ava says, “because I think I’m all five.”
Beatrice knows she’s going to regret asking, but Ava has some pastry on her full grin and she’s practically bouncing at the bar and there aren’t even customers anyway.
Beatrice sighs. “And what are the five?”
After a mixture of German and English explanation is haphazardly thrown at her from Hans and Ava, Beatrice thinks she gets the concept. It’s oversimplified, as these things often are, ways of affection condensed for the internet age.
But still. Still, she thinks Ava is right. She thinks Ava is brimming with all five of them, with the way she plants herself next to Beatrice on the couch every evening, even when they have spent the whole day together; the way she brings home a wildflower or a piece of chocolate or tea for Beatrice when her shift ends; the way even though Beatrice knows that Ava hates doing the dishes, she will do them when Beatrice is visibly exhausted; the way that every morning Beatrices is greeted with an, “ooh Bea, I like your hair like that” or “Bea, that shirt looks good on you” or the classic, “Bea, how are you so good at literally everything?”
And even so, even with all of those, with these different categorizations of love streaming out of every pore in Ava’s body, it’s obvious.
“Physical touch.”
“Really?” Ava leans forward over the bar toward Beatrice. Her eyes are serious. “What makes you say that one?”
Hans laughs a little, like he’s in on some joke neither of them know about.
“Well,” Beatrice says. She glances at Hans. He’s not fully fluent in English but Beatrice still doesn’t allow herself to say the real reason. She clears her throat. “You are perhaps the most physically affectionate person I’ve ever met.”
Hans laughs.
“I mean,” Ava says, eyes still entirely focused on Beatrice, “it’s not like you’re hanging around a bunch of huggers.”
Beatrice smiles. This is easier. This she can do. “I don’t know, Camila’s a hugger.”
“Who’s Camila?” Hans asks.
“College friend,” they say at the same time.
And the conversation moves on. And Beatrice is spared.
Until. Until they are walking home after work and the sun is long down and Ava nudges Beatrice’s side with her shoulder.
“So why physical touch?”
Beatrice looks at Ava’s shoulder, where it’s pressed into her upper arm, raises her eyebrows pointedly.
Ava laughs. “Okay, fair. But come on. I know you had more to say than what you said to Hans.”
Beatrice sighs. She likes these walks home, the calm in the air after last call, lights out in most of the buildings, stars bright above. Like the world outside the two of them and the cobbled streets can wait, it all can wait.
“Ava,” she says slowly, trying to be sensitive, yet not make it too obvious how much she’s thought about this. “You spent over a decade unable to touch. Of course now you will utilize that ability. It’s only natural.”
Ava huffs out a laugh. “Utilize that ability, huh?”
Beatrice smiles. “It’s not the most flowery language, but it’s correct, yes?”
Ava nods, something in her eyes. “Yeah, that’s correct. I still—” she flexes a hand, watching it move. “I still sometimes think it’s all a dream, you know? Like I’ll just stop one day.”
Beatrice reaches up, grabs Ava’s hand firmly. “It’s not a dream. It won’t stop.”
Ava’s palm is warm in Beatrice’s, solid. Beatrice’s hopes hers is solid too, hope Ava knows the reality of it.
“Thank you,” Ava says seriously.
There’s no one else on the street, just the two of them, hands clasped. It’s heavy, the air around them, not just from the summer humidity, but something else. Something that comes when Ava is serious for once, from the weight of Beatrice’s touch, something new and quiet that Beatrice can’t think about too much, or the whole world will shift, like the stars above them do minutely every night.
Ava, thankfully, being Ava, breaks the moment, swinging their hands together, continuing on their walk home.
“So what’s your love language, then?”
Beatrice hasn’t given it much thought. “Acts of service, I suppose. Only makes sense. Life of service and devotion and all.”
“Boo!” Ava shouts into the night. “Boring nun answer.”
“Well, I am a boring nun.”
“Beatrice.” Ava stops them again with a tug of her hand. They are never going to make it home at this rate. “You are the least boring person I know.”
But you know yourself, Beatrice almost says. How can she be anything compared to that? But Ava’s eyes are once again serious and the air is once again thick. So Beatrice doesn’t deny it, lets herself revel in Ava’s compliment for once.
Ava smiles at her, gently rubs her thumb on Beatrice’s palm. She leans into Beatrice’s space.
“I think yours is touch, too.”
And Beatrice, in that moment, can’t deny it.
It’s hot that week, sweat sticking to the back of Ava’s neck after she runs. Ava ties her hair up into a messy ponytail, but strands keep falling out. Beatrice is running behind her, trying to speed her up from the back, and keeps noticing the red-brown hairs wet with sweat sticking to Ava’s neck.
They stop after eight miles, (“Like the movie!” “What movie?” “Eminem? Mom’s spaghetti? Come on Bea.”) and Ava almost keels over from it.
“You’re trying to kill me,” she pants, swiping at her neck.
“Here,” Beatrice says. She takes Ava’s hair out of its shoddily constructed ponytail and gathers it all together, including the loose sweaty strands. She pulls it tight and Ava lets out a sharp gasp.
“Sorry.” Beatrice quickly loosens her hold. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” Ava chokes out, but even from behind her, Beatrice can see the red growing on the back of her neck. She very carefully ties the rest of Ava’s hair up, smooths it over with her palm.
“There,” she says, before turning Ava around by her shoulders so they are face to face. Ava’s face is still red from either the heat or the run or Beatrice pulling her hair. She’s very close. “Ready to try for five minutes levitating?”
“Sure thing, boss.” Ava looks out of breath and eager and almost… reverent. “Whatever you say.”
Ava has a skip in her step that afternoon, after she made it over seven minutes in the air.
“I want a haircut,” she announces. “It’s too hot and I have all these split ends. I haven’t gotten a haircut since I died.”
She looks at Beatrice, like she’s expecting either a laugh or a roll of the eyes. Beatrice can’t provide either. Whenever Ava jokes about being dead, something heavy knots in Beatrice’s chest.
“Let’s get you a haircut,” she says instead. A solution. Something concrete she can offer. “I think it’s about 20 minutes to the next town over with a salon. Or I could do it if you want.”
Beatrice assumes Ava will opt for a salon, for another experience she didn’t get to have for the past dozen years. But instead her head whips around to Beatrice, eyes excited.
“You could cut my hair?”
“It wouldn’t be professional grade, but yes I’ve cut some of my sisters’ hair now and then.”
“Hell yeah, add me to the list!”
“Language.”
Which is how they end up in their miniscule kitchen, a towel over Ava’s shoulders, kitchen scissors clasped in Beatrice’s hand, locks of Ava’s hair falling to the floor.
“You’re sweeping after this,” Beatrice tells Ava.
“Yes, ma’am, one act of service coming up.”
“Don’t move your head,” Beatrice scolds, but she is smiling, not bothering to hide it while Ava’s back is to her.
Ava is wearing a tanktop and has the towel around her shoulders, but there is one sliver of skin exposed between the two, right around the center of the halo. As Beatrice keeps cutting, slow and deliberate, she watches those strips of the halo. At first it’s nothing, but then a dim light omits when Beatrice brushes the back of her knuckles over the back of Ava’s neck, a brighter light when she adjusts Ava’s head with her hands, and a steady increase as Beatrice’s fingers comb through Ava’s hair to make sure it’s all perfect.
Beatrice has to stop herself from reaching out and touching the light of the halo, from marveling at it openly, the fact that this simple act, the simple touch of her own fingers to Ava can make this holy object in this holy person do exactly what it was meant to do.
“How we looking back there?” Ava asks, thankfully oblivious. “You’re being too quiet, did you accidentally cut too much? You know, I do think I could rock a buzzcut if it came down to it, but baby steps, you know?”
“I’m not giving you a buzzcut, don’t worry,” Beatrice says, relieved at Ava’s familiar teasing. “You’re almost done.”
And she is. Ava’s hair now falls just below her chin, her split ends on the floor, more of her smooth pale neck exposed to the elements. Beatrice examines her from every angle before turning to her front, kneeling down.
“Keep still,” she tells Ava.
Ava swallows and nods.
“Nodding isn’t keeping still.”
Ava huffs out a shaky laugh that Beatrice can feel on her face. “You’re so right. My bad. I’ll be still.”
She sounds almost nervous, and Beatrice isn’t sure if it’s because of the scissors in Beatrice’s hands or something else that she cannot name, cannot discuss, cannot ponder too much at this moment.
Instead, she lets her fingers slowly grab the strands of Ava’s hair that fall in front of her face, lets the scissors glide across them, so Ava’s face is framed by her hair. Ava’s eyes are on her the whole time, breath coming quicker than usual. Beatrice doesn’t let any reaction to that show on her face. She has a task. A task, which it seems is finally completed.
She gets up off her knees, steps back a little to admire her handiwork.
“How do I look?” Ava asks, eager for praise.
And Beatrice can’t help but give it to her, can’t help but say the simple fact of the matter.
“You look beautiful.”
Ava inhales a little at the compliment, then smiles so sweetly that Beatrice is nothing but grateful she told Ava the truth. Then Ava’s smile turns a little mischievous and Beatrice knows exactly where this is going, cuts her off before she can make the reference.
“And if you say anything even close to ‘words of affirmation’ you’re sleeping on the floor tonight.”
Ava laughs loudly and even if the word beautiful wasn’t already on the top of Beatrice’s mind, it would be now.
“Her levitating times are definitely increasing,” Mother Superion’s voice says over the phone, after Beatrice gives her the weekly Ava numbers.
“Yes, she’s doing better across all fronts,” Beatrice says, quickly trying to move on from the current subject, “I think combat should be priority this coming week—”
“Why is that?”
“Why should combat be a priority?”
“Why has her levitation time increased so much? You always have a method, Sister Beatrice.”
The “sister” rings loud in Beatrice’s ears, the weight of it, the reminder. This has probably been the longest time since she took her vows that she hasn’t heard “sister” preluding her name, and it almost feels unfamiliar now.
She shakes the thought, focuses. This is all business. Despite these new unorthodox methods of enhancing Ava’s performance, she is enhancing Ava’s performance, and that’s what matters. That is her duty.
“She responds to touch,” Beatrice says simply. The truth of the matter. How Beatrice feels about that truth is irrelevant at best. “Perhaps due to her history, she and the halo respond to human touch. And I’ve been… utilizing that.”
It hangs for a second too long. She prays Mother Superion does not ask any follow ups. She feels sweaty, her face warm, saying this out loud for the first time. She’s lucky Ava’s at the bar already, lucky this isn’t a video call, lucky for many reasons.
“Alright,” Mother Superion says after what feels like minutes. Beatrice feels relief for one brief fleeting moment. Until, “is it just your touch?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does Ava—does the halo—respond to the touch of others or just you?”
“I…” Beatrice is lucky she has studied breath control, studied how to keep calm under pressure. “I… an opportunity hasn’t come up to see if she—if the halo—reacts to…not me.”
Unbidden, Beatrice's mind flashes to everyone at the bar who tries to flirt hands-first with Ava, to that boy Mary had mentioned was with Ava back when they found her, to longing eyes, to wanting hands, to everyone that is not her that wants to touch Ava. The fact that someone else’s touch could affect Ava the way Beatrice’s does makes something hot and sinful and unruly grow in her chest.
“For combat purposes,” Mother Superion is saying, “we need to know if you need to always be by Ava’s side or if a fellow sister warrior could help activate the halo.”
“Yes,” Beatrice says, stopping herself from saying, the former please. Me always by her side. That one. “I’ll, um, I’ll try to find out.”
It’s sour coming out of her mouth, but if Mother Superion notices, she takes mercy on Beatrice.
“So, increased combat training…”
There’s a mid-afternoon slow spell when Beatrice clocks into the bar that day, only a couple regulars milling around, and one tall dark-haired man sitting at the bar, chatting up Ava as she absently cleans glasses.
Beatrice watches him, the way he leans his elbows on the bar, desperate to be within her orbit. How everyone is so desperate to be in Ava’s orbit.
(Yet no one so desperate as Beatrice herself, constantly craving the moments she can press a finger to soft skin and watch it glow.)
The man is asking Ava a question and she answers, smiles. Beatrice moves closer to hear him say something about palm reading. Idiotic. But not to Ava of course, who listens to strangers’ stories and interests every day and only encourages them.
So Ava holds out her hand to this stranger, and he takes it, his large unworthy fingers tracing the lines in her palm. Beatrice gets just close enough to hear him say the words “love line” before she steps in.
“Ava, can I talk to you upstairs? Quickly.”
Ava’s head whips up, a grin painting her face, hand blessedly falling away from the man’s finger.
“Yeah, of course.” Ava is already moving toward the staircase. “Don’t break anything,” she calls to the three patrons.
Beatrice knows they shouldn’t leave the bar unmanned, even on a Wednesday afternoon, but this is important. To the mission. She is doing what Mother Superion told her.
“Did the halo react at all?” Beatrice asks as soon as they are alone and out of earshot.
“To what?” Ava asks, clearly confused. Of course she is. Beatrice is making no sense. “Is there a wraith here or something? Or an Adriel thing? Do we have to fight?”
“No,” Beatrice says quickly, “nothing like that. I just—” she’s gone about this all wrong. “Can I see it?”
“The halo?”
“Yes.”
Ava, thankfully, doesn’t ask follow ups, just obediently turns around, shrugging her overshirt down her shoulders.
And the halo is dormant. It’s fine. It’s doing nothing. Beatrice must let out an audible reaction, because Ava turns back to face her.
“Bea. What’s going on?” It’s not unkind, simply curious, as Ava always is.
Beatrice sighs. She scrubs her hands over her face. The only way out is through.
“I’ve been—” She doesn’t look at Ava, only at the bottles behind her. “I should have told you earlier, but I’ve been observing our training and I couldn’t help but notice that you—that the halo—responds to touch. To… my touch.”
Beatrice focuses on a bottle of tequila to the left of Ava’s head. Waits for Ava’s response. It doesn’t come, so Beatrice reluctantly pulls her eyes to Ava’s. Ava is just standing there, a half smile forming on her face.
“And?” she finally says.
“What do you mean, and?” Beatrice counters.
“I mean, like, I obviously do better when you touch me, that’s like, a known fact.”
“It is?”
“Bea, come on. I got through the walls because of your voice, and I get in the air because of your touch. That’s just how it works.”
Beatrice stares at her.
“You were—you were aware?”
Ava rolls her eyes. “God, Bea, I’m not stupid. Yesterday, you got that crick out of my neck and I got, like ten feet of air. Which was so cool by the way, there’s a really incredible view of the lake on this big boulder up there, you should see it.”
“So you don’t—” Beatrice feels three steps behind, like when she learned Spanish via immersion. “You don’t mind? That I touch you?”
“Mind?” Ava laughs. “Bea, it’s great. We just talked about how I didn’t get to feel literally any human contact for 12 years. And now I get to and it helps the mission. Win-win.”
Beatrice exhales. The nerves that had built up from her conversation with Mother Superion feel far away in the face of Ava’s stead enthusiasm.
“Good,” she finally says. “I don’t—I don’t ever want you to feel uncomfortable or—”
“Bea.” Ava steps toward her. She tucks a strand of hair that had come loose from Beatrice’s bun behind her hair. In doing so, her fingers graze Beatrice’s cheek. “It’s all good. God, more than that, I actually”—Ava looks almost shy—”I look forward to it, okay? It’s the best part of my day. Please don’t ever feel like touching me is anything to be ashamed of.”
“Oh,” Beatrice says, like the fool she is. Ava’s hand lingers around her ear, her jawbone.
“I’m serious,” Ava says. She’s close, eyes intent on Beatrice’s, too knowing. “It’s good, Bea, it’s—human and wonderful and beautiful, okay?” Her hand now is fully cupping Beatrice’s face. “Don’t ever think it’s not.”
Beatrice closes her eyes just for a moment. She’s not in a bar in the Alps. She’s not in the middle of a mission in which the fate of the world hangs in the balance. She’s not a descendent of two cold souls who cast her out. She’s just Bea. Just a person who takes comfort in a warm palm of a warm woman who tells her these things about her are beautiful.
She opens her eyes. Ava is right there. Beatrice can inhale Ava’s exhale.
“Thank you,” she whispers, not sure what for.
But Ava smiles. And that’s all that matters.
Then there’s noise downstairs, a squeaking of a chair, a laugh of a customer, and the world comes back.
Ava glances downstairs, the act taking her further from Beatrice, and Beatrice feels the few inches like a chasm.
“I should probably get back down,” Ava says, a hint of disappointment in her tone. She turns away, but then, “wait, what does all this have to do with you calling me up here and looking at the halo?”
“Oh.” Beatrice feels herself blush. “I just—I needed to see if it was just me that set off the halo. Or if that guy down there could also…”
“What guy?”
Warm relief settles in Beatrice’s stomach. But not just relief. Something bigger and brighter, that threatens to take over her whole body.
“The man. At the bar. Reading your palm.”
“Right.” Ava laughs, eyes sparkling. “I can confidently say it’s just you, Beatrice.” She turns to go back downstairs, but stops at the top of the stairs, looks back at Beatrice. “Like anyone else could come close.”
It’s easy after that, no more coyness about it, nothing hidden. Beatrice presses her palm to Ava’s shoulder and she floats up effortlessly; Beatrice holds onto Ava’s sides and Ava grows strong enough to lift up one of the boulders surrounding the lake; the closer Beatrice pins Ava to the ground, the more raw power Ava gains to throw Beatrice off.
It’s effective, to say the least, exhilarating to say the most. Beatrice has always liked to be useful, and nothing is more useful than this, preparing the strongest soldier for the toughest battle in any way she can.
But it’s not just that. Of course it’s not. It’s the beads of sweat on Ava’s back coming away Beatrice’s fingertips, it’s how Ava’s breath stills when Beatrice gets closer, it’s how sometimes, Ava seems to forget they are in the middle of training and turns to her and softly murmurs, Bea, and her eyes are wide and full with something that all 12 languages Beatrice is fluent in still can’t define.
Beatrice welcomes it. All of it. She can’t not, can’t bring herself to bring out the guilt she’s been carrying around for a decade when Ava smiles so big at simply the brush of fingertips, when Ava tells her about a small yellow bird she saw in the air (“and he looked at me like we were buddies, you know? He gets it, we both fly!”), when Ava reaches for her hand after training and Beatrice doesn’t pull away.
Because of course it seeps into more than just training. It’s Beatrice’s hand on the small of Ava’s back when they are both in the kitchen, trying to move around each other. It’s Ava coming out from behind the bar to give Beatrice a hug hello that lasts just a little too long. It’s how, for the last few weeks, they’ve fallen asleep closer and closer as the nights go on, Ava’s head resting on Beatrice’s shoulder, or Beatrice’s hand splayed over Ava’s stomach, or this morning, Beatrice waking to Ava sprawled across her, touching everywhere from shoulders the thighs.
Beatrice normally rises far before Ava, enjoys a quite moment with a cup of tea and the day’s to do list. But today, Ava’s face is buried between Beatrice’s neck and shoulder, her chest overlapping with Beatrice’s, a thigh sprawled haphazardly over Beatrice’s hips.
It’s a lot, to say the least. Every one of Ava’s breaths hits Beatrice on the side of her neck, each twitch of her legs the flint of a fire. Beatrice is hot, too hot, even in the cool 5 am dawn, needs to throw the blankets off, needs to throw Ava off, needs to bathe in ice water for several hours.
And yet. Yet, she does not want to, she wants to stay here as the sun comes up, wants to watch what it does to Ava’s hair, reds and golds shining in sunlight, wants to trace a little pattern over Ava’s shoulders until the sun is high and the sky and the day has slipped away from them.
So she does. Just for a few minutes. Just to see Ava like this, at peace and content. Sleep was hard for Ava their first month up here, Ava waking from nightmares, or unable to fully sleep for fear of not waking, restless in the night. But now, now contentment paints her brows, her lips, every part of her that Beatrice can’t help but stare at, for the rare moments Ava is still.
Eventually, the sun gets a little too high, the clock exasperatingly ticks on, and Beatrice has to rise to accomplish all she needs to before work. She tries to shift an arm, a leg (she does not notice when that movement makes Ava’s knee press in between her thighs, not at all), tries anything to solve the impossible problem of getting up without disturbing Ava.
She thinks she’s got it down, gently shifting Ava’s head off of her, when Ava stirs. She doesn’t open her eyes, doesn’t show any signs of being awake, except burrowing further into Beatrice’s neck, and whispering, barely audible, “please don’t get up.”
“Ava,” Beatrice whispers back in an attempt at being stern, prepared to list off reasons why she has to get up.
“Please,” Ava repeats, sounding so earnest, so vulnerable, “just stay here a little longer. I haven’t—I haven’t had this before.”
Beatrice breathes out, long and slow. She doens’t need to ask what this is. Sometimes if she thinks too much about every moment of Ava’s life that she hadn’t got to experience, it pulls something deep inside of her.
“Alright,” she whispers, arm holding Ava tighter, “just this once.”
She feels Ava’s lips smile against her neck. She nuzzles in deeper, the top of her head under Beatrice’s chin, her arm around Beatrice’s waist, her toes on Beatrice’s calf.
“Thank you, Bea,” she murmurs, “thank you, thank you, thank you. Love you.”
Beatrice tries not to visibly react. It’s just Ava being sleepy and cuddly and Ava, it’s not—
But it is. It’s not just with words, said simply and casually as if Ava says them every day, but the way Ava’s body molds to hers, the way Ava drifts off yet again, heartbeat steady and strong and so close to Beatrice’s.
Beatrice feels a tear come to her eye. Her hands are busy holding Ava, giving her this moment of peace in a life that God has chosen to be anything but peaceful. So the tear falls down the side of her cheek, and Beatrice lets it, lets it leave a saltwater track on her face, evidence of the tenderness, evidence that she hasn’t had this closeness before either, not really.
She waits until Ava is definitely asleep before whispering to the top of Ava’s head, so quiet Ava couldn’t even hear it if she was awake, “love you too.”
She kisses the strands of Ava’s hair that she had cut mere days ago. And the halo glows.
“You should come with me.”
Beatrice blinks a couple times, tilts her head. “Excuse me?”
Ava grins, brighter than the almost setting sun.
“You should come with me,” she repeats.
“Into… the sky?”
“Yeah. Duh.”
“Ava. I know I have a great many skills, but you may have forgotten that I am simply human.”
Ava barks out a laugh. “Ooh, that was braggy for you, Bea.”
Beatrice simply raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps.”
“But!” Ava says, finding her point again. “You being only human—which, debatable—is kind of the point. I’m getting stronger and faster and better at levitating—”
“Who is the braggy one now?”
“—and I want to see if I can take you with me.” Ava breathes out. Smiles. “Think about it, Bea. You touch me and I get better, I go higher. If you’re, like… full body touching me, I think I could take you up with me.”
Beatrice considers. She considers logically; she needs to test Ava for any situation that could arise during battle, needs to determine the extent of her skills. That is what matters, not whatever full body touching consists of.
“Come on,” Ava says, “the sunset is really beautiful from that boulder up there, I think you’d like it.”
She bounces on her feet a little. Beatrice thinks she is seconds away from saying “pleeeease” like a petulant child. But she wouldn’t need to; Beatrice’s answer has always been yes.
“I suppose,” she says slowly, “it could be good to see if you can support another person, to use that as a tactic.”
“Uh-huh,” Ava says, nodding her head exaggeratedly, “a tactic. I love tactics.”
It is a lot of things, but it is certainly not tactical what occurs next, Beatrice positioning herself behind Ava, her front to Ava’s back, ready to essentially be piggybacked into the literal sky.
“Put your arms around my neck,” Ava says gently.
Beatrice is used to the reverse, used to giving Ava orders, but she finds she likes this a little, the soft command in Ava’s tone, the way she turns her head slightly to check in with Beatrice.
Beatrice smiles quickly at Ava and then leans forward, wrapping her arms around Ava’s neck. The action positions the halo at Beatrice's chest, and it glows upon contact, in what feels like a friendly greeting.
“Ready?” Ava asks, voice low and kind.
“Ready.”
Then Ava leans down, hooks her hands under Beatrice’s thighs, and hoists her onto her back. And well, maybe Beatrice wasn’t ready. Because now Beatrice’s legs are essentially wrapped around Ava’s waist and Ava’s hands are strong and firm holding her up. Ava’s only wearing a sports bra and shorts, so Beatrice's forearms are flush against bare shoulders, knees grazing the bare skin of Ava’s stomach.
They are so close, so agonizingly close, and Beatrice only wants to be closer. She wants to bury her head in Ava’s neck and smell her, she wants her own legs to be bare so she can feel Ava’s palms on them, feel the new calluses on Ava’s fingers rough on her thighs. She wants to slide her hands lower, under the straps of Ava’s sports bra, wants to touch the parts of Ava she hasn’t gotten to yet. She wants.
“You good?” Ava asks, still gentle, still soft, still unaware of the sinful thoughts spreading through Beatrice's whole body.
Beatrice swallows, nods. “Yes, I’m—I’m fine.”
Ava must mistake Beatrice’s overwhelming desire for nerves, because she tightens her grip on Beatrice’s legs, adjusts her stance the way Beatrice taught her, and gives a confident, “I got you.”
The halo glows, warm and familiar against Beatrice’s chest, and then, like the actual miracle that Ava Silva is, her feet lift off the ground.
Beatrice has watched this from below dozens, perhaps hundreds of times at this point, but it is entirely different to feel it for herself, to be connected at every point to Ava as she does this, as she defies gravity, holding Beatrice in ways far beyond the literal.
Beatrice watches as the ground becomes further away, as she can see more of the lake, more of the trees. There's a breeze a few feet off the ground, the air that she could never touch from down on earth. The sky is turning a light pink, the sun preparing to set, and it’s somehow far more of a marvel than it’s ever been from the ground.
“Ava,” Beatrice can’t help breathe, reverent.
Ava holds onto her legs tighter, the halo goes brighter, and Beatrice thinks she’s the only person in the world who gets to experience this kind of thrill.
As promised, there is a boulder about 10 feet up that has an incredible view of the lake, of the sun making its way toward the mountains on the West. Ava lands gently on the flat top of the rock, slowly lets go of Beatrice.
Don’t, Beatrice wants to say, just like Ava did the other morning, please don’t let me go.
But she lets herself slide off Ava's back, feet planting firmly on the boulder. Yet her body is shaky from the contact, from touching only Ava and the air, from being anchored to the one person who has her completely unmoored.
Ava turns to her, grin huge and proud and expectant.
“So?” she asks eagerly, “whaddya think?”
“It was—” Beatrice could try for her cover, could say something about tactics, about teamwork in battle, about improvement over time. But she doesn’t. Can’t. Can’t be anything but honest in the face of Ava’s clear desire for approval. “It was incredible, Ava.”
Ava’s smile breaks even further open, eyes shining.
“Yeah?”
“Of course.” Beatrice swallows. “I’ve never experienced anything—anything that compares.”
Ava’s smile turns sweeter, softer. She steps closer to Beatrice, not an inch between them, standing on a surface they shouldn’t be able to, surrounded by nothing but quiet forest and gentle water, a dusk only for the two of them.
“It’s all because of you,” Ava whispers.
“I—” Beatrice tries to counter, flustered, pink as the clouds above them, “the halo—”
“The halo wouldn’t be anything without you, Bea.” Ava reaches out, grabs one of Beatrice’s hands. “Without this.”
Ava’s fingertips gently trace Beatrice’s palm, such a small touch still making Beatrice’s blood hot, her skin tight. Oh, how she wants.
She opens her mouth, ready to fight back again, but Ava’s eyes are so earnest, so pure, so completely set on Beatrice’s, that Beatrice swallows down her argument. Why fight it? She has felt the evidence, the air beneath her feet, the wind in her hair, showing that her touching this girl is not the sin that has been peddled to her, but perhaps the most holy thing she has done in her life.
Ava’s fingertips are still dancing over her palm, and Beatrice finds herself moving her own fingers, tracing the outline of Ava’s hand, the underside of her knuckles, the gaps between her fingers, the inside of her wrist. She feels Ava’s heartbeat there, quick and eager.
Ava’s eyes are darker than before, watching Beatrice’s fingers with her full focus. Beatrice slowly reaches with her other hand, and tilts Ava’s chin up so that her focus is once again on Beatrice’s face. She leaves her hand there, softly stroking Ava’s chin, up to her cheek.
“Bea,” Ava chokes out, “Bea, I…”
She doesn’t finish her sentence, seemingly equally unable to put it into words what happens when they are like this, so fully in each other's orbit that they become the same celestial body. Ava’s mouth is still open, trying to find her words, and Beatrice takes the opportunity to ghost her thumb over Ava’s bottom lip—another rare place Beatrice has yet to explore.
A small whine fights its way out of Ava’s throat, and Beatrice feels it hot in her gut. She moves her thumb to press firmer into Ava’s lip, the pad of it brushing against the wetness inside Ava’s mouth.
“Bea,” Ava pants, the name hot and wet on Beatrice’s thumb. It makes Beatrice bold, makes her thumb reach further into Ava’s mouth, over the softness of her lips down to her gums, then up, until the tip of Ava’s tongue presses into her thumb.
Beatrice gasps at that, unable to help herself, and that’s what sets Ava off. Her lips close around Beatrice’s thumb, sucking it fully into her mouth, tongue pressing eagerly, teeth biting gently. Beatrice feels it all the way through her arm, into her chest, down the the pit of her stomach, down to where she is aching between her legs, has been ever since Ava lifted her into the air.
Ava lets go of Beatrice’s thumb, a ravenous look in her eyes. She is out of breath, face flushed, chest heaving. She’s gorgeous like this, every part of her so alive.
Beatrice takes her now wet thumb and strokes it down Ava’s chin, into the hollow of her throat. The rest of her hand joins, tracing down Ava’s neck, to her collarbones, to the smoothness of her chest, the tantalizing skin at the top of her breasts.
“You’re beautiful,” Beatrice tells her.
“Beatrice,” Ava breathes, and each syllable of her full name is filled with wanting, “please, I need, I need”—however she finishes her sentence, Beatrice is prepared to give it to her—“you.”
Beatrice lets out a breath, shaky and joyous and eager.
“You have me.”
Then she kisses Ava.
Ava surges to meet her halfway, body and mouth falling into Beatrice like a new gravity that even Ava can’t resist. Beatrice’s arms wrap around Ava’s waist, needing the closeness, needing to feel as much of her as she can. Ava’s hands are on Beatrice’s face as their mouths meet again and again and again, Ava’s lips soft and wet and on fire. Beatrice craves more each time, craves to taste Ava’s mouth, Ava’s soul, all of Ava she can.
She’s bold here, above the ground, above the lake, in a world that doesn’t feel real. She's bold enough to suck on Ava’s lower lip, to press her tongue against Ava’s until she moans, a sound so sweet that it wrecks Beatrice from the inside out.
Her hands grip Ava’s sides, move over her back, trace the indent of her spine, all while still kissing Ava, mouth open and hungry and wanting. She moves her hands higher until one slips into the back of Ava’s sports bra and the other presses into the halo.
Beatrice can’t fully explain it, but she can feel the halo’s light on the palm of her hand, feel the raw power glowing brighter and stronger the more she kisses Ava, the more she tastes her, the more she swallows Ava’s breaths and gasps and groans.
She pulls back for just a second and Ava looks at her, eyes wide and dark, mouth wet and open, cheeks red from exertion. The flush spreads over to her ears, down to her neck and the top of her chest, disappearing beneath her bra. Beatrice needs to see more of it, craves it, craves every patch of this woman’s skin.
Slowly, deliberately she starts to pull up Ava’s bra. Ava stares at her in awe, before she lifts her arms up. Her breath is fast, her chest is heaving, and Beatrice wants to cherish every single molecule of this sensation; of Ava so clearly and so desperately wanting her.
Then the bra is gone and it’s just Ava. Beatrice stares for a moment, watches the last beams of the sun highlight the curve of Ava’s breasts, the warm flush of them, the soft pink of her nipples.
“Bea, please,” Ava says, voice breaking, and it’s enough to pull Beatrice out of her trance. Her hands are eager as she cups Ava’s breasts, feels the weight of them, the softness. Her thumb circles Ava’s nipple, and Ava cries out, a sharp desperate sound that causes a couple birds to fly out of a nearby tree.
It only encourages Beatrice’s hands, hands that have been unable to stay away from this girl now given freedom to do so, freedom by Ava’s need, freedom by the sanctity of her own desire, how if it makes this happen, it is more powerful than any other force.
Beatrice takes Ava’s nipple between her thumb and forefinger, and Ava’s knees buckle, her feet stuttering, like her body can’t hold herself up anymore.
Beatrice catches her around the waist, holds her up. Ava smiles up at her, sheepish and playful and still so wanting at the same time.
“Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all. “That was kind of the best thing I ever felt, so.”
Beatrice laughs a little.
“Here,” she says, slowly moving down to sit on the boulder, taking Ava with her, so Ava ends up on Beatrice’s lap, thighs framing Beatrice’s. “This alright?”
Ava laughs. “Alright? Alright? Bea, this is the best day of my life.”
It’s fun, it’s a joke, but it’s also deadly serious, Ava’s weight on top of her, the affection in her eyes, the way her hands make their way into Beatrice’s hair.
“Mine too,” Beatrice whispers and then kisses her again.
Ava’s mouth immediately opens, her hands tugging Beatrice’s hair, her hips pressing into Beatrice’s, like she needs to be closer in every way. Until she pulls back a bit, just enough to gracelessly pull Beatrice’s shirt off her head, and bra as well.
“Okay, better,” Ava says and kisses her again.
This time their bare chests are touching, the press of skin on skin, Ava’s arms pulling her closer, mouth needy on her own, savoring each moment. Ava’s hands are restless, in Bea’s hair, down her neck, on her shoulders, her back, her breasts, like she doesn’t know where to focus. It’s frantic and messy and Ava in a way that Beatrice can’t resist, each touch of Ava setting Beatrice on fire. She shamelessly grabs Ava’s ass, pulls her closer, slides a hand under Ava’s shorts, feeling the curve of her thigh, the edges of her underwear.
“Fuck,” Ava breathes in Beatrics mouth, raw and needy. “Fuck, Bea, please.”
“Please what?” Beatrice asks, not knowing exactly where it comes from, but loving the way it feels to have Ava on top of her, begging for her touch like it’s sustenance.
She slides her hand just a little further and Ava moans, loud and filthy as Beatrice’s palm presses over Ava’s wet underwear, feeling how warm Ava is, physical evidence of how much she wants this.
“Please what?” She repeats in Ava’s ear, before licking the edge of it, biting down. “What do you want me to do?”
Ava moans into her ear, panting, unraveled.
“Touch me, Bea.” It’s broken and shaky and desperate. “Please, please, please touch me.”
So Beatrice does, culminating everything that’s built up on her since Ava barreled into her life. She pushes Ava’s underwear to the side and slides a finger into her.
The sun is behind the mountains at this point but the halo bursts light into their little corner of the forest as Beatrice sinks inside of Ava, a mikvah, a baptism, emerging a different person than she was before.
“Beatrice, fuck, God, Jesus, please.” The words fall out of Ava’s mouth as Beatrice keeps going, a steady rhythm, while her palm presses higher, against Ava in a way that makes her voice pitch up an octave, makes her hips jerk erratically agains Beatrice’s hand.
It’s unruly, the power Bea feels doing this, the movement of her fingers causing Ava to be this out of control, this joyous, this overcome. Illuminated but halo, she can see the sweat breaking out over Ava’s forehead, the wetness of both their saliva on Ava’s mouth, the flush of Ava’s chest. It’s a sight only for her, a sight that everything in her life has lead up to, seeing Ava in the throes of pleasure by Beatrice's hand.
Words are still tumbling out of Ava’s mouth like she can’t help it, a steady stream of, “God, fuck, Bea, I’m gonna—this is—fuck, Bea—God, I love you—”
The last one slams into Beatrice’s chest, her breath stuttering as Ava looks down on her, light surrounding her, telling Beatrice she loves her while Beatrice touches parts of her she’s only dreamed of.
“Ava,” she lets out, voice breaking and needy and overcome. Her fingers work a little faster. “Ava, Ava, Ava.”
And that’s what breaks Ava. She lets out an unseemly groan, body seizing up around Beatrice’s fingers, back arching, the halo shining like the sun, nails digging into Beatrice's shoulders, as she rides it out. It lasts for longer than Beatrice expects, and Beatrice takes it in raptly, watching each detail of Ava’s face, her whole body cresting with the pleasure that Beatrice has given to her.
After long glorious moments, Ava collapses, head on Beatrice’s shoulder, panting into her neck. Beatrice slowly drags her fingers out of Ava and wraps both arms around Ava’s back, holds her as she comes down. The halo’s light slowly grows dimmer, but doesn’t disappear completely, just turns into a steady glow against the palm of Beatrice’s hand.
When Ava finally manages to speak again, it’s muffled into Beatrice’s neck. “Bea.”
“Yes?” Beatrice says, trying to be gentle, but coming off a little smug.
Ava leans up to grin at Beatrice, her smile huge and toothy and joyous, and oh how Beatrice loves her.
“You are unreal,” Ava says.
Beatrice traces the outline of the halo with her fingertips. “I believe that’s you, actually.”
“I think we can share the title.”
“Sure,” Beatrice says, “we’ll share it.”
Ava kisses her, their first truly soft and gentle kiss, simple comfort and affection. After, Ava looks at their surroundings.
“Oh man, I kind of forgot we were up here.”
Beatrice laughs, she can’t help it. “Will you be able to get us down?”
Ava snorts. “Please. I could do anything right now. You just powered me the fuck up, Bea, I could fly to the moon if I wanted to. Take that, Sinatra.”
“You’ll have to take me,” Beatrice says. Something is growing in her, something wide and hungry yet somehow content, a certainty, that sitting on a boulder with Ava in her arms is where she was meant to be, her position in this universe.
“Of course,” Ava says, grinning, “we’ill have to get one really big space suit though, I can’t get all the way to the moon unless you’re in there with me.”
“I don’t think that’s how space travel works.”
“I don’t know, Bea, you literally just sent me to space.”
“I don’t think that’s how space travel works.”
Ava grins at her, leans down and kisses her again, soft and slow and open. She kisses the top of Beatrice’s cheekbone, the skin, behind her ear, before whispering into it, “I guess I have to spend you to space this time.”
“You know that thing,” Hans is saying.
Beatrice is truly trying to pay attention, but Ava has decided to have her bare shoulders out today, and now that Beatrice knows what they taste like, she can’t look away.
“What thing?” she asks Hans absently. Ava has a dimple in her shoulder and Beatrice wants to devour it.
“The thing where when the sun sets, and you see a flash of green.”
“Right,” Beatrice says, “I believe that phenomenon mostly only happens on the coastline.”
“That’s what I thought!” Hans is getting excited now. “But last night, I swear, when the sun was going down, the whole sky lit up for a second. It was more yellow than green, but still.”
Ava, on the other side of the bar, chokes on absolutely nothing.
“Hmm,” Beatrice says, schooling her features to look casual and semi-interested and not like someone who made the sky light up last night simply by touching the woman she loves, “maybe it was lightning. Summer weather is so unpredictable these days.”
“Yeah, summer weather,” Ava says, having recovered from her coughing fit enough to scoot over to Beatrice, to lean into her space across the bar, “she is wild, coming out of nowhere and totally changing your whole life.”
“Yes,” Beatrice says. Her fingertips brush the inside of Ava’s forearm over the bar, and she watches Ava’s eyes light up at the action, feeling Ava’s skin warm beneath her hand, Ava turning toward her like a flower toward the sun, like her whole being exists simply for Beatrice’s touch. “She really does change your whole life.”