Chapter Text
Working behind the bar at the pub she runs in a small rural village in Scotland, Beatrice serves a customer with a polite smile and then cleans the surface of the bar with a cloth. Business is good. Everyone enjoys a drink after work or whenever so owning a pub is if it’s well run of course is a solid steady source of income which Beatrice’s pub Highland Haven is most definitely is on both counts. She enjoys this life. She has stability; she has employees who are friends as well as employees; it’s a relatively easy existence, and she hasn't always had that.
This village is cut off in the countryside; it’s quiet; it’s peaceful; it’s all Beatrice has wanted throughout her life, and she has it. A nice, calm existence away from the big cities, just a simple life.
“Hey boss, mind if I clock off early?” The all-too-familiar German voice of Hans, her friend and bartender at her pub, asks beside her suddenly.
She looks up at the clock on the far wall, raises her brow, and chuckles as she keeps cleaning the bar surface. “4 hours early? No chance,”
“Come on, the fight's on tonight. I’ll miss it if I don’t get back, and this place is deserted. I’ll make it up to you, I promise." Hans begs beside Beatrice.
She looks up to scan the pub. Hans is right; tonight is slow; no one except a few customers are here. She could let him go, but she’d rather not if there’s a sudden influx of customers. "Sorry, bud, it’s just me and you tonight. I need you here.”
Hans sighs defeatedly. “This is the biggest fight in years, and I’m going to miss it and..” Hans trails off, drawing her eye.
“And What?”
“We have a TV!”
“You’ve worked here for 5 years, and you’re just realising this now?” She slings the cloth she was using to clean over her shoulder and teases.
Hans dramatically falls to his knees and begs, "Please, can I put the fight on? I’ll set you up with Ana. I know you like her. I’ll do anything. Just let me watch the fight.”
Beatrice rolls up her sleeves and folds her arms. She has had her eye on Han’s sister Ana for a while, but asking out the stunning blonde beauty has been something she’s chickened out of numerous times now. His assistance in the matter might make it easier. She thinks on it for a second, then answers, “Is the fight pay per view?”
Hans jumps up excitedly, his dark brown hair becoming dishevelled as he says, "Yes, it is, but I got it.”
She retrieves the TV remote from underneath the bar and tosses it to Hans. “You work for me; I pay you your salary, so I’ve got it.”
He catches the remote and grins. "Thanks, Bea." I’ll get my dork of a sister to go out with you; don’t worry.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Hans turns on the TV absentmindedly and replies, then clutches his heart: “I wouldn’t dream of backing out of our deal; I’m a man of my word.”
She hums and throws her cloth at Hans. “You better not,”
“I won’t; Ana needs to get out of the house anyway; you might be good for her.”
She smiles and shyly looks at the floor. She’s not really dated anyone since her last girlfriend and first love, Ava, years ago, and Ana, she thinks, could be the sort of woman she could end her barren streak with. Ana’s a soft-spoken woman and works at the local library. She’s not going to bring drama and pain into her life like Ava did. That’s exactly what she wants in her next girlfriend—an easy-going person to have pleasant conversations with.
The memory of Ava flickers in her mind. She hates that woman now. She loved her so much that she thought that after she dated Ava throughout her school and college years, she’d marry and spend her life with her. She and Ava just clicked. Ava wanted to be a singer and a dancer with her main aspiration of becoming a leading performer at the West End, and she loved music a lot growing up, so Ava’s beautiful voice drew her towards her like a siren drags sailors to their dooms. Ava was beautiful in more ways than one; she had such a caring heart and such a fire within her to achieve her dream.
She admired Ava for how determined and brave she was. She loved her for it, but that admiration died a death when Ava told her she had cheated on her with some man. It came out of the blue; she didn’t expect it, but Ava was a loose canon at times. Maybe she should’ve. She was an avid partygoer, and the stress of being in such a competitive environment every day to achieve her dream made her sometimes erratic and prone to bad choices.
Although the way she revealed she had cheated was so biting that it made it seem like it wasn’t a bad choice, it was something she did and didn’t regret. Beatrice blinks a few times, angry at herself for getting emotional again even after all these years about how Ava revealed it. Ava’s voice, filled with anger and hate she’d never heard in Ava’s voice before, now returns to her mind for the first time in a while.
“I loved it, Bea! He wasn’t stiff or an uptight bitch like you! I fucking loved it!!!”
Beatrice flinches. Ava’s gentle, caring brown eyes turned from the constant soft affection she had given her throughout the time she had known Ava to a person Beatrice no longer recognised. A person who, despite being the one who had cheated, was the angry one. She snapped back at the time and ended their relationship on the spot. She hasn’t seen Ava since that night in London five years ago. She’s not heard from any of the Silva family—not Camila Ava's sister, not Ava’s mother and father, Vincent, or Suzanne—none of them. They would’ve been family in another life if Ava had never cheated. She’s craved a family since the death of her own since before she met Ava beyond her doting grandmother, who has passed now too.
Camila could’ve been her sister. Ava’s parents could’ve been parents-in-law. She wanted it. She dreamed of having a lovely house and home with her first love, something not many people get. But it got crushed when Ava cheated, and it’s left her unable to date because of the pain it brought her.
“I can’t wait for this fight. My money’s definitely on The Silence; she’s so fucking cool.” Hans, resting his arms on the bar surface, speaks back to Beatrice as his eyes now fix on the TV screen overheard.
She shakes herself from Ava, and she hopes for good soon when she hopefully can take Ana out, then retorts, “The silence? What a stupid name.”
“Shut it, boss, she’s awesome. 20 fights, 20 wins, all by knockout. She's the undisputed champion of the world, and get this.."Hans excitedly spins the spot back to Beatrice, as the first fighter Beatrice spots is called Lilith Andrea starts her ring walk. “She never speaks; that’s why she’s called The Silence.”
Beatrice scoffs as she gets her bottle of water and swigs it down. “It’s probably an act for the cameras.”
Hans shakes his head roughly. “It’s definitely not. I read a newspaper column about her recently, and her mother said it’s far from an act. Apparently, she hasn’t spoken in like 5 years. Not even to her own family. It’s so cool!”
“That’s hardly cool; imagine not talking to your own family.” She darkens at the memory of losing her own family, her parents, and her sister. She can’t imagine not talking to them, loving them, and appreciating every second with them if she had the chance to again. “She’s a stupid woman if...”
“Introducing to the ring the undisputed Champion of the World, Ava! The Silence Silva!”
Beatrice snaps her gaze to the TV instantly. “What the fuck?”
“What?” Hans's head tilts, then he looks back to the screen as Ava’s ring walk track starts to play.
Way down, we go by KALEO.
"Oh, here she comes! Look at her; the woman’s a monster. Look at those eyes; Andrea is totally screwed.”
Beatrice ignores Hans; she moves out of the bar, never taking her eyes off Ava on the screen in the corner of her pub. Ava’s so different; she’s so much bulkier, and her arms are toned beyond belief. Beatrice gulps as she sees below Ava’s sports bra that she has a six-pack. Ava was always fit, but this is something else; it’s like she works out all day every day. That’s not what shocks her most about Ava. It’s the fact she’s a boxer; she’s not just a boxer; she’s a world champion. In all the years she knew Ava, she never heard Ava mention boxing or any sort of contact sport. She was a dancer and a singer—a beautiful one at that—and now she’s completely unrecognisable to Beatrice.
“That can’t be her.” She mutters to herself.
The TV camera zooms in on Ava’s eyes. Beatrice feels her heart stop; there’s nothing in them. There’s none of Ava’s bubbly personality, none of her playfulness or joy; her face is just stone, cold, and unmoving; her eyes just stare unblinkingly into the camera, hauntingly.
“Did you say she doesn’t talk?” She speaks back to Hans through her daze.
"Mmm, hmm, never. She’s like a mute or something, I guess. I wonder why she stopped talking. It must be some cool origin story type shit!”
Beatrice flickers in annoyance and asks back, “She stopped talking five years ago?”
"Uh, huh, after a long time of not speaking, she probably wouldn’t even recognise her own voice anymore. Her mother’s column was kind of sad, actually. She, her father, and her sister don’t understand it; she’s a mystery to her own family as well as everyone else.”
5 years. Ava hasn’t spoken for 5 years; that can’t be a coincidence. She remembers being so shocked at Ava’s revelation that she cheated so shocked at Ava’s rage towards her that she had never once shown her before in all the years she had known Ava. It wasn’t Ava, and she feels her heart drop at the potential reason why that was now. She can’t even think of the word; she can’t breathe it. Her first love, the woman she loved so much, perhaps didn’t cheat; perhaps the reason she flipped and changed was a much darker reason.
Beatrice steps closer to the screen. Ava’s beautiful voice, the one she loved to listen to as Ava rehearsed and practiced relentlessly for her dream to star on the west end, hasn’t been heard for 5 years. It chills Beatrice’s bones, and as Ava, with a gum shield in her mouth and a look of nothing in her once emotive, kind eyes, enters the ring and gets ready to fight, it cracks her heart too.