Archive of Our Own

The gossip is relentless the day after Ava sits with Beatrice at dinner. Mary almost faints when Sister Felicia tells her. Ava sat right beside Beatrice at dinner. The thought sends chills down Mary’s back. She goes to Lilith first. This is Lilith’s job and her being too busy salivating over the halo to do it makes Mary shake with rage. She doesn’t wait for Lilith to answer the door before she opens it.

“ Oh, it’s you,” Lilith says when she sees who storms inside her room.

“ What the fuck!” Mary rants.

“ Language,” Lilith rebukes by rote but they both ignore it.

“ What the actual, living fuck?!” Mary paces and gestures with both hands for emphasis. “Do you have a death wish? Because that’s where this leads. Even if you get the goddamn halo.”

Lilith glares. “This is not about that.”

“ It sure as shit is!” Mary points accusingly. “I know Ava might have the survival instincts of a fucking mythical lemming but I expected more out of you.”

Lilith huffs and crosses her arms defensively. “What was I supposed to do? Father Vincent decided Ava doesn’t need to be informed about anything but Areala and the angel right now.”

Mary huffs back, her hand twitching for a shotgun that’s safely locked away. “I expect you to keep Ava away from Beatrice.”

“ How?” Lilith throws her hands up in the air. “ Ava sought Beatrice out. Not the other way around.”

“ Well tell her not to!” Mary demands.

Lilith rolls her eyes. “She doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t trust anyone here except,” Lilith trails off, looking to the side.

“ Oh fuck the hell no. I know you ain’t implying what I think you’re implying.” Mary says with something like desperation in her voice.

Lilith bites her lip and looks at the ground like a child caught stealing cookies.

“ Fuck. Lilith!” She says and tosses her hands up.

“ We may have made a minor mistake in Ava’s testing,” Lilith admits reluctantly. “A mistake we wouldn’t have to correct if the halo was returned to the rightful bearer.”

Mary slams her hand against the wall. “Fuck your ‘rightful bearer’! How the hell could that happen? How could you let Ava trust Beatrice?”

Lilith sticks her bottom lip out in ‘not’ a pout. “It shouldn’t have happened. Even if Beatrice was the only one nearby Ava should have known better.” Lilith sighs and scrubs at her face with her hands. “But she has the survival instincts of a mayfly.”

Mary shakes her head in dismay. “ Please tell me you ordered Beatrice to avoid her from now on.”

Lilith bobs her head awkwardly. “Not yet. Duretti asked me to wait until he talked with her.”

Mary snorts disdainfully. Before she can say anything there’s a knock at the half-open door. The two turn to see Sister Selma standing in the hall with a serious expression. “Mary, Sister Lilith. Father Vincent asked me to inform you that Ava has run away.”

“Fuck me,” Mary grunts. “Could this day get any worse?”

It does get worse. Ava goes on the run and Mary runs after her, understanding as she does the weight of a halo. Lilith goes power hungry and runs after her too with a vastly different plan than dragging her back to the OCS. Unwillingly or not. Mary can only thank her lucky stars that Duretti had enough brain cells to not let Beatrice join Lilith. Then Lilith is lost and Ava’s staying behind in the small town they saved nearly a year ago. 

Mary gives serious consideration to how she could stop Beatrice from going for Ava when she opens the van to see who's been sent to pick her up. She really should have told them not to send Beatrice (even if she couldn’t say why). Her fingers twitch in longing for a shotgun until Beatrice starts the van and drives off with no further comment than her idle question about Ava joining them.

It’s weird.

Mary doesn’t comment on it. Doesn’t have the energy or capacity to deal with that shit right now. Her friend is kidnapped to hell. Her love is dead. Her home is in chaos. Her leg hurts. There are bigger, more important things to focus on than a weirdly calm and accepting Beatrice. Mary doesn’t even have the energy to deal with her own busted leg right now. With everything that happens in the next day it seems like the smartest choice she could have made. But then, most decisions can seem smart in the short term.

Mary knows that Father Vincent has decided to help her when she sees Beatrice intercept Crimson. Beatrice is all calm controlled violence with a little cocky pride she can’t help slipping out. “Just say when,” Beatrice offers after taking Crimson apart. Mary would rebuke her for it but she’s still busy recovering her breath. She looks up when Crimson says “when” to see her own fucking shotgun in Crimson’s hand pointed right at Beatrice’s face. A fatal blow for anyone. A fatal blow for Beatrice. The divinium laced pellets only add insult to injury. Her mouth opens to call a warning but Ava’s desperate shout of “no” and what can only be a grenade exploding in her face interrupts her. Getting thrown into the wall again doesn’t help.

“ Ava? Ava!” Beatrice shouts and Mary trembles at the concern in Beatrice’s voice.

“ I can’t move,” Ava sounds terrified. Mary looks around for her guns, for their only chance if the worst has happened. “I can’t move!”

“ Can you feel my hand?” Beatrice asks softly. Mary sighs in relief as she curls her fingers around the handle of her gun, muscles shaking with tension.

“ Ye-yeah,” Ava sighs in relief. Beatrice smiles gently down at Ava and Mary hesitates. She watches as Beatrice reassures Ava of her likely continued mobility like it was something she understood. Watches as she lets Ava step forward to face the rejected Sisters and something like honest concern crosses Beatrice’s face when Ava’s shot. A growing chill shivers down Mary’s spine as she sees Beatrice comforting Ava’s pain in the back of the van. She’d think she was imagining things if not how Camila looks curiously between Ava and Beatrice. Something is deeply, truly wrong and Mary doesn’t know what .

Perhaps the most concerning thing about it all is that Ava is frustratingly oblivious. Mary’s uncertain how Ava remains so ignorant to the warning sign. Shan had been so sensitive to it. Even four years of fighting beside Beatrice and trusting her to fight beside her hadn’t dulled it. Shan had refused to be within five feet of Beatrice for longer than ten minutes. Mary was certain it wasn’t even a conscious choice as much as brute survival instinct. 

Suzanne had commented once, when Mary was still young and dumb enough to need verbal advice, that it felt like static electricity that just kept building without an outlet. Hell, Mary had been one of the lucky few to read Warrior Nun Annabeth’s report about the ‘awareness effect’ as she called it. Annabeth had likened it to the same instinct animals have of approaching hurricanes, earthquakes, and fire. The words run through Mary’s mind as she watches Ava nudge into Beatrice’s space with a shy smile and pleased wriggle. It is as if every inch of my body is aware that nature, once so kind and giving, has a side that is without mercy. Has an aspect to it that is so divorced from humanity that it is truly alien. A side that is made solely of wrath and death. And my body seems to feel every inch of that vengeful nature’s approach. I can no more ignore that awareness than I can gravity. Not even true demons are as all consuming.  

Ava seems completely unaware.

With how fast everything was moving Mary couldn’t quite find the words to explain everything to Ava. She tried. She couldn’t not try. The night before they were set to leave for the Vatican Mary pulls Ava aside for a one on one conversation.

“ Look, babygirl,” Mary starts gently, “you need to be careful around Beatrice.”

Ava tilts her head like a confused puppy. “Careful how?”

Mary bites her cheek and considers what she should say. How to say it. “You noticed it, right? That you feel different around Beatrice. Maybe like static electricity?”

Ava’s eyebrows draw together and she shakes her head. “I don’t know what that feels like.”

Mary blinks. “Oh,” then she realizes that of course Ava doesn’t notice one weird sensation among countless others. What does it matter to Ava how alien Beatrice’s presence is when so is everything else? “ Oh . Shit. Right, it’s like,” Mary lifts up her arm, “when you're cold and the little hairs on your body stand up and your skin feels tighter?” Ava listens with rapt attention and nods her understanding. “And sometimes when you first get hit it stings before it kind of throbs dully. The moment before you realize the sting hurts, when it’s still mostly surprise combined with the little hairs standing up, that’s what static electricity is like.”

Ava chews at her bottom lip, eyes distant as she thinks through the sensations Mary described. “Yeah,” Ava says thoughtfully, “that sounds about right.”

Mary sighs, shoulders relaxing at the confirmation that Ava did feel the warning her body (or possibly the halo) was so desperately trying to give her. “Ok, so that feeling? That’s your warning sign.” At Ava’s confused expression Mary continues, “it’s your body telling you to be careful. You can’t be spending too much time around Beatrice.”

Ava sticks out her bottom lip. Unconsciously pouting at the idea of spending less time with Beatrice. Dread swirls in Mary’s belly. “I know,” Ava says mournfully. “She already told me. I promise I’ll be careful.” Ava looks so damned earnest that Mary believes her. God forgive them both. She doubts anyone else will.

It probably, maybe, hopefully would have been fine if Vincent wasn’t a fucking traitor. It starts going off the rails in the necropolis. Lilith shows up and is frantic at the idea of Ava going into the tomb. Mary manages to talk sense into her and is too concerned with keeping Lilith calm until Ava returns to realize that Beatrice helped her fight Lilith . Too caught up in the emergency they are embroiled in to realize what it means.

Lilith paces restlessly for the time it takes the halo to recharge, for Ava to come back. “Beatrice, how is she?” She asks with a sharp firm voice that did nothing to hide her nerves. 

Beatrice tilts her head like she’s listening to a distant radio. Her eyebrows draw together in something like concern. “Scared,” she responds with certainty.

Mary’s gaze snaps from Lilith’s restless pacing to Beatrice’s patient waiting. “What? How do you know? You said the comm cut.”

Beatrice’s brown eyes meet Mary’s laconically. “Ava’s loud.”

Mary grinds her teeth together. She’s worked with Beatrice long enough to know she’s not being intentionally obtuse. “Loud how?”

Beatrice opens her jaw, lips barely parting before she closes them tightly and shrugs.

Mary and Lilith both sigh. Recognizing that she simply lacks the language to describe what she means. Mary rubs her hand over her forehead. “Sometimes I think they’d have been better off letting you experience life outside the Cradle than teaching you another language. No point knowing words if you don’t know how to use ‘em.”

Beatrice just shrugs again. Like she had no actual opinion of how she was raised.

“We should get her out,” Lilith says, raising a hand to her mouth to chew at her nail before grimacing at the salty tang of blood. “I’ll set the charges.”

“No,” Beatrice says calmly and pretends not to notice how Mary’s hand twitches to her shotgun while Lilith freezes. “The charges need to be placed extremely carefully to not accidentally bring the building down on Ava. I’ll mark where you can drill then set the charges myself.”

“Did you just tell me no?” Lilith asks incredulously. There’s a flicker of movement that draws Mary’s eyes to her hand. Her nails are visibly longer and sharper than they had been before Beatrice said no.

Beatrice meets Lilith’s eyes flatly. “You died,” she says. It’s not actually an explanation but it’s all the explanation they need.

Lilith nods, her nails shortening back to normal. “Fine. Show me where to drill.”

Everything happens too quickly after that. The ground shakes and Beatrice looks at a particular spot on the stone like it’s personally chosen to prevent her from joining the only thing she cares about. Mary swallows down how hard her gut clenches at the oddness of Beatrice being so expressive on a mission. “I’m blowing the wall. Stand back.” Beatrice says and Lilith nods eager agreement even as she ushers everyone back down the hall.

The next ground shake is significantly larger and Mary wonders how many buildings she just collapsed. She shakes the shock from her thoughts and looks around the dusty opening. Blinking the concrete dust from her eyes she sees Beatrice nearly twenty feet ahead crouched over something. She thinks Beatrice is talking, her body language suggests it, but Mary’s hearing hasn’t caught up yet. Mary does manage to catch what Ava says and the terrified voice she says it in.

“Get me out of here,” Ava pleads.

Beatrice nods, leans down, and scoops her arms under Ava’s spent body. Mary looks around, seeking the danger Ava’s reacting to. There’s a hand, flesh and blood and moving! Beatrice lifts Ava up in a princess carry. Dead lifting Ava’s weight easily. Lilith moves protectively between Ava and the arm. It’s shoving rocks off a body they can’t see. Mary’s still caught on the sight. Shotgun pointed steadily. Lilith calls back urgently. “Mary.”

Mary twists to see Beatrice’s back disappearing down the hallway. Father Vincent walks briskly at her side. “Perhaps I should carry her,” he offers. “In case you need to fight.”

Eyes locked on the exit of the necropolis Beatrice ignores him. They reach the rope quickly and Beatrice swings Ava over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. “Oh fuck,” Ava comments with awe as the looks down Beatrice’s back at the quickly disappearing ground. Lilith shimmers at the foot of the rope and fades into nothing. “Convenient.” Ava’s voice echos from up top.

“What would be convenient,” Lilith says with minimal patience, “is you telling us what happened.”

Ava’s voice sounds the most serious Mary’s ever heard it when she responds. “We’re going to need everyone.”

“I’ll get Camila,” Lilith says. Mary finally makes it up the rope to see Lilith fade into another shimmer of what looks disturbingly like the hellfire Tarasks move through.

Beatrice cuts the rope and lets it fall into the hole behind them. Mary represses with long familiarity the jealousy she feels at seeing Beatrice not even breathing hard despite hauling herself and Ava up the rope. She follows after them, Father Vincent in front of her, twisting occasionally to check their six. Whoever, whatever , was in the tomb doesn’t appear to be following them. Yet.

Camila and Lilith rejoin them just outside the doors. “Set me down,” Ava says. Beatrice obediently carries her over to a nearby fountain and sets Ava gently on the lip of it. Mary decides she’s spent too long ignoring the warning signs when she sees how Beatrice caresses Ava’s cheek. Anyone else she’d call it gently, with Beatrice she knows better. She ope- “Adriel’s alive,” Ava says and Mary’s semi-open mouth drops fully open. She’s stunned by confusion as Ava explains that the entity known as Adriel isn’t the helpful angel they’ve venerated him as. How he’s planning to take the halo by force if necessary. She doesn’t have enough time to adjust to that information bomb before the dust covered man (if she can even consider him that) is shoving his way into the plaza behind them.

Father Vincent walks forward and Mary’s stuck wondering what the priest thinks he can accomplish against a being powerful enough to call itself an angel and be believed . “My master,” Vincent says and her ears ring. Her chest feels tight, her thoughts feel slow. Mary’s vision remains clear enough she can see how he moves from in front of Adriel to standing calmly at his side and slightly behind him as befitting a lackey. Her hands clench around the smooth curve of her shotgun. She’s drowning and Vincent’s traitorous blood is the only oxygen she needs.

“Beatrice,” Lilith says, low and vicious. Mary feels the muscle in her face twist and tighten. “Chain off.” Lilith flexes her hands, nails growing long and shining blue in the muted presence of the halo.

Beatrice tilts her head and hums consideringly.

“Beatrice,” Mary says gravely. “Chain off.” She checks the placement of her weapons, watching as Lilith advances towards Adriel with a slow predatory walk.

Camila, for all her freshness, catches on quickly. But then she was being trained to work in Shannon’s squad for a reason. “Beatrice, chain off.” She walks beside Mary towards Adriel before circling left when Mary circles right.

“Is this a thing?” Ava asks, confused. “Should I be saying it too? Like the whole ‘in this life or the next’ thing.” The loud noise of Mary’s gun covers some of what Ava says. Camila’s bolts are much quieter in comparison. Adriel goes down easily with one of Camila’s divinium bolts buried in the back of his head.

“If you want,” Beatrice responds neutrally from where she stands in front of Ava protectively. Mary can see how Beatrice’s eyes remain locked behind the three of them as they walk away from Adriel’s felled form. Understanding twists in her gut before Adriel’s derisive laughter rings out.

“It’ll take more than that to stop me,” he says arrogantly. He pushes himself to his knees and pulls the divinium bolt from his head with a single hand. The wound glows orange as it heals.

“You guys are really weird, you get that right?” Ava says and her voice is clearly audible in the sudden silence. “Chain off, Bea.”

Beatrice laughs. It’s low, almost a sexual sound of anticipated sensual enjoyment. More like Ava had propositioned her than made fun of her. “Yes Ava.” If Lilith’s walk was slow and predatory, Beatrice's loose limbed advance made clear the difference between a scavenger and an apex predator. Lilith’s long glowing nails were a little intimidating. The consuming darkness in Beatrice’s eyes, the eagerness on her face, makes Mary uncomfortably aware that humans were descended from scavengers. And Beatrice was neither a scavenger nor a human. That, despite the pretense, she never has been. 

The three of them move out of Beatrice’s way without thought. Parting as mere mortals do for the unstoppable force that was Beatrice unchained. Vincent pales. “Master, we should leave.” He pleads, placing a hand on Adriel’s arm in entreaty. Adriel shakes him off impatiently.

“The Warrior Nun and her Sisters are no match for me,” Adriel says confidently. “I cannot be killed in this realm.” He smirks condescendingly at them.

Beatrice advances steadily. Her arms reach up her back and she unsheathes her staff. A quick snap of her hand has it fully extended and a twist of her wrist has the bladed tip bared. Adriel’s smug expression falters at what he sees on her face. Mary knows, from experience, that Beatrice’s current expression is a small upturn of her lips in a not quite smile. The simple joy of freedom. “Let love be genuine,” Beatrice prays calmly.

Adriel sneers. Beatrice lunges forward, her staff fully extended. He twists. Barely saving his face from being impaled by the bladed tip. Beatrice shifts the weight of the staff in her hands. The balanced fulcrum allows her to slice her blade through his throat. The divinium edge cuts easily. Spraying blood that lights up orange in the darkening air like sparks. Adriel staggers back. Still alive. 

“Hate what is evil,” Beatrice resets. Lunges. Impales Adriel through the heart in a single smooth movement. She pivots and her staff flows with her. It cracks into Adriel’s head and he falls to the side. Beatrice takes the moment he’s healing, fire orange blood glowing from his neck and chest, to draw a shorter divinium edged throwing knife. 

“Hold fast to what is good.” She throws it into the wrist he has leaning on the ground to lever himself up. He shouts. Beatrice kicks forward. A steady foot drives the knife through his arm and into the stone beneath him. Her staff moves again. Rises then falls in a perfect ellipse that cuts through his face and crushes his throat. He chokes. The bloody spray of his spittle splattering up Beatrice’s chest. She flips him with her toe. Another divinium edged blade flies from her hand to his opposite wrist. Her precisely aimed kick drives it deep.

He yells. Angry and loud. “You cannot kill me!” Adriel strains upwards and Beatrice, standing over him, pushes her bladed staff into his chest again and again. She cuts through the muscles he’d tried to use to escape. He falls back. Panting. His bloody body glowing orange as he heals.

Beatrice tilts her head. Dark eyes locked on him. “Who said I wanted to kill you?” She asks with silky curiosity. Adriel’s eyes go wide. The white around his iris showed clearly. His unseen wraiths gather in the air above them. Cold air whispers as they move freely where his body cannot.

Ava’s jaw drops as she looks up at the gathering mass of red. More wraiths gathered than she’d thought present in the world. A sea of demons. “Bea!” She shouts a warning as her eyes track how the sea above them crashes down on the crowd of watchers. Person by person goes tense, muscles flexing under new control, head tipping back as pure black takes over their eyes. Ava wraps her fingers around the handle of the cruciform sword. Preparing to fight through the crowd to stand at her friend’s, her family’s , side.

Beatrice turns to look at them with Ava’s shout. Sees how ready Ava is to fight through a sea of the possessed with all of two days of training in actual fighting. For her . Her gut softens. The tense restriction she keeps herself under relaxing. Ava’s eyes finish scanning the crowd and rise to meet hers. She can see clearly how Ava’s gaze widens with concern as she sees for the first time Beatrice’s darkness. Ava takes a step forward, her hand lifting towards Beatrice. To save her them from the sea of writhing red wraiths only Ava can see. 

“Get her out!” Beatrice commands. Get her safe , she thinks, please .

Mary wraps a restraining arm around Ava and pulls her back to the group. Beatrice can see Ava’s mouth opening, protesting already, reaching now for Beatrice with both hands. Lilith curls her hands around Camila and Mary even as Camila wraps her one arm around Ava. Ava’s fully off the ground now. Both Mary and Camila pull her back and away from the possessed. She drops the cruciform sword. Holds her hands out open to Beatrice as though with will alone she could pull Beatrice to her. To safety . Something small and beaten in Beatrice’s chest unfurls. Ava sees her darkness and still wants to fight both her sisters and demons to stand beside her. Beatrice smiles as Lilith disappears all four of them in a flare of hellfire.

Adriel’s laugh is confident and dismissive. “They left you to my mercies,” he chortles.

Beatrice slams her staff down without looking. Severing through his throat and spine in a single motion. He bares his bloody teeth at her. His eyes tracking something she can’t see in the sky. A cold chill shivers up Beatrice’s spine. Freezing energy sparking at her nerves. Beatrice bares her teeth at the man who would call himself an angel. Her teeth are even and white with none of the blood that marks his. She lets the energy pool in her mouth and eats it whole. Adriel’s laugh chokes off in horror. 

“No,” she corrects, still in full command of herself despite the wraith she can feel fighting to settle into her bones. “They left all of you to my mercies and I have none .” Something deeper, more intrinsic, than her bones finds the wraith and devours it. 

Hand and wrist firm Beatrice arcs her staff out. The blade no longer glows blue, separated as it is from the halo from Ava , not that she needs the reminder. It still cuts easily through the crowd of bodies around her. Blood arcs out from sliced chests and whatever mild hope she had of being able to clean her outfit dies. A shame. This one had fit nearly perfectly and Mother Superion was always so grumpy when she requisitioned a new one. Bodies fall around her. Male, female, adult and child alike. The air grows colder with every wraith depossessed of a host. Some of the guards use their spears and others their guns to try and stop her. It distracts her enough that she’s unable to stop Vincent from freeing Adriel where he lay pinned to the ground. Her lips pull down in a small pout and she wonders if she will be bad dog forgiven for this lack.

Technically she’d been responsible for Adriel’s freedom. Twice, arguably. She supposes the true blame could be laid at Vincent’s traitorous feet. Beatrice locks eyes with Vincent through the crowd. His human brown eyes stare at her with the instinctual fear of a rabbit spotting a hungry wolf. “Run fast, Vincent,” Beatrice says calmly. Her breathing was still even and deep after the exertion of slaughtering the possessed masses. “It’s been too long since I had a good hunt.” She grins with all the feral bloodlust she typically hides behind her neutral detached demeanor. Vincent pales and tugs incessantly at Adriel to encourage their flight.

Adriel pauses at the edge of the plaza to look at the discarded bodies of his puppets. At how the blood pools into the stone and drips from the walls. Noting Beatrice’s easy movements as she dances with demons. “What are you, abomination?” He asks with curiosity and something that makes her want to pluck his eyes from his body. Beatrice growls . It’s deep and threatening and utterly impossible coming from a human throat. The sound echoes off the stone, reverberating over on itself until it sounds like a chorus of growls. Then a spear slams through her gut and she turns her attention to the combatant in front of her instead of the coward who’s running away. She’ll have time to worry about them later. After she makes sure Ava’s safe she’s done here.

“ No!” Ava’s shout starts in the plaza and ends blocks away in the empty alleyway Lilith portaled them to. “Take me back!” The halo bearer demands. A golden glow of determination lights up the rough hewn bricks around them. “Now!”

Breathing heavily Lilith collapses to her knees. She glares up at Ava but it’s Mary that actually responds. “Absolutely not!” Mary cuts through Ava’s demand with a gesture.

Ava turns to Mary with desperation and determination in her eyes. “I have to save her!” She protests.

Mary’s eyes soften. She’d been where Ava is now. Young and dumb without an idea of what she didn’t know. It’d taken a highly enlightening question and answer session between Shannon and Beatrice for Mary to begin to understand. It took a blood stained ten year old for her to even start wanting to. “Beatrice is fine,” Mary says and raises a hand to place it gently on Ava’s shoulder.

Ava shakes her off impatiently and turns back to Lilith. “Please,” she begs, “take me back.”

Lilith shakes her head ‘no’. Ava’s jaw firms and Lilith’s suddenly certain that she’s contemplating how to force Lilith to take them back to Beatrice. Not that Lilith could even if she wanted to. It was so much harder to teleport with multiple people than just herself. Not that she even really knew how to do that either.

“ Ava,” Mary says seriously, “calm down. Bea’s gonna be fine.”

Ava turns back to Mary with fury in her eyes. She takes a step forward, deep into Mary’s space, with tangible challenge. “No Mary. You don’t understand.” Ava shakes her head, “her eyes.” She locks eyes with Mary to convey the truth clearly. “She was possessed.”

Mary sighs, shoulders slumping. “No Ava, you don’t get it.” It’s Mary’s turn to shake her head. “Beatrice can’t be possessed.”

Ava scoffs. “This is not the time for your whole ‘have faith’ spiel,” she uses her fingers to quote.

Mary makes an offended noise and draws back. “It’s not about faith, babygirl. It’s about proof . We’ve tried before. The wraith can enter her body but it can’t possess her. All it does is make her cold.”

Ava pauses, still slightly on tiptoes from how she’d levered herself up to get in Mary’s face. “What?” Her voice sounds small and the golden glow flickers and dims around them.

“ Mary’s right,” Lilith says as she finally gets enough breath back. “Beatrice is immune to wraiths. They all are.”

Ava rocks back on her feet, eyes dashing from Lilith to Mary in search of a lie that isn’t there. “But what about the possessed crowd? We should go save her from that.”

Lilith shakes her head negatively. “I doubt there’s many left,” she says dryly. Ava’s eyebrows furrow together and she cocks her head in question. Lilith rolls her eyes at the idea that this idiot is the one that stole the role of halo bearer from her. “Don’t you know anything about what Beatrice is?”

The mild furrow on Ava’s brow deepens as she catches how Lilith phrased that statement. ‘What’ Beatrice is. Not ‘who’. “What do you mean?” She asks seriously.

“ I think that’s a deeper conversation than we have time for right now,” Camila finally interjects. She has a phone in her hand that she waves at them. “Mother Superion has a safe house arranged that Fath-,” Camila swallows heavily. “That Vincent doesn’t know about. If we move fast we can get our equipment from where we spent last night and evac to the safe house she arranged.”

Mary nods, slipping an arm under Lilith to help her up without asking. “Good thinking Cam,” she compliments. “Let’s get out of here before the guards start rounding people up.”

“Shouldn’t we let Bea know where we’re going?” Ava asks, chewing at her lip.

Mary, Lilith, and Camila all shake their heads. “She’ll find us when she’s done.” Mary says dismissively. An hour ago Ava would have assumed that just meant Beatrice was skilled enough to track them through a city with some weird ‘not’ (totally a) ninja ability. Now, she’s a little uncertain that it’s skill alone that will allow Beatrice to find them. Ava casts one last glance back to where she thinks the plaza is before she obediently follows along after the other three.

Beatrice does find them, two and a half hours later and freshly showered. Her hair, tidy in a pulled back bun, is still wet. Ava very purposefully does not stare at the water droplet on Beatrice’s neck. She doesn’t do a great job of not-starring. Beatrice has her bag, the one they’d tossed in some bushes somewhere between both safe houses, over one shoulder and a bulging bag of food in her arms. Her eyes, bright and human once more, light up when Ava opens the door with barely concealed excitement. Her lips turn up at the very tips in a familiar small, and in Ava’s unbiased opinion, underrated smile. “You’re okay?” She asks before Ava finds her own words.

Ava pouts, bottom lip pushing out, and she brushes her own freshly washed hair from her eyes. “That’s my question,” Ava protests and nudges at Beatrice’s shoulder. A thrill of static electricity sparks between them at the touch and Ava relaxes at the proof Beatrice is here . “ I have a weird metal donut healing me, of course I’m all right. I also didn’t fight through a crowd of demon possessed people.”

Beatrice’s smile grows just a bit more. Relief, at Ava’s teasing and the implication it carries that Ava’s well enough to tease, crosses her face. She walks inside and kicks off her shoes before hefting the bag of food with a question on her expression. Ava gestures to where she thinks the kitchen is but she walks beside Beatrice instead of in front of her. If Beatrice minds how their arms brush against each other, with a much missed snap-crackle of contact, in the tight hallway she doesn’t comment. “I’m a little sore,” Beatrice concedes. “I should be fully healed in a few days.”

Mary, already sitting in the kitchen and drinking a cup of hot water frowns at Beatrice’s words. “A few days?” Her voice is hard in a way Ava’s unfamiliar with. Her eyes examine Beatrice closely, scanning her body for some unseen injury with concern. Ava tips her own eyes to Beatrice. She may not have a ton of personal experience with healing pre-halo but she’s pretty sure any serious injury would require a whole lot more healing time. But any excuse to thoroughly examine Beatrice from head to toe is an excuse worth taking. Ava likes pretty things and Beatrice’s body, how she inhabits and uses it, is very pretty.

Beatrice makes a neutrally pleasant expression towards Mary. “Swiss guards are used to training with spears,” she comments dispassionately. “I’m more used to opponents that are unfamiliar with facing staff weapons.”

Mary grunts. Her eyes stay locked on Beatrice as she sets the food on the table and starts setting out containers. Ava dances over to the cupboards and looks through them shamelessly for plates and cutlery. “Did you get Vincent?” Mary finally asks.

Beatrice’s lips turn down and her eyes flash pitch black for a split second before she closes them and takes a calming breath. When her eyes open again it’s like they’d never changed. Ava feels the hairs along her spine stand on end and she unconsciously takes a step towards Beatrice before shaking her head and finishing her self assigned task. Beatrice looks peacefully at Mary. “No, not yet.”

Mary’s face flashes between a frown and a vicious anticipation. “I’ll come with you. When you go after him.”

Beatrice hums, a quite contented sound. “Of course,” she agrees.

Lilith prowls into the room with a scowl, hair still damp around her head. “Camila’s a brat,” she comments as she pours herself a cup of hot water and scowls at it. Ava snorts.

Mary chuckles. “She kicked you out of the bathroom before you could finish blow drying,” she guesses.

Lilith scowls harder and Ava laughs. “What’d you bring?” The tall woman asks Beatrice and ignoring the women laughing at her expense with expertise.

“ Chinese food,” Beatrice answers.

Lilith nods her head and grunts approval. “Good. We need the calories.”

Ava finishes placing the last spoon and slides over beside Beatrice. Close enough that a slight shift would make them touch. She wonders if they’ll bring it up or she should. How, exactly, does one apologize for accidentally releasing the antiChrist?

Beatrice must sense Ava’s distress as she shifts over, pressing against Ava’s upper arm, thigh, and hip in silent unwavering support. The current between them connects with the slightest of hums. ‘ You’ll always have us’ . Ava’s starting to believe those words. That promise.  She leans into the touch. They don’t address it. Not then.

It’s almost ritualistic, how they sit down to eat after showering the battle sweat, dust and blood off them and changing into clean clothes. Everyone is given a cup of hot water. Even Ava. She frowns at it until Camila shares her tea bag with Ava. “Hydration and heat are both important for combating shock and helping with adrenaline crash.” Beatrice explains evenly as she scoops food onto Ava’s plate. “Even if you don’t feel like you’re in shock it still helps with recovery. Same with food.”

Ava nods, realizing it is a ritual. One based on practical considerations and camaraderie as much, if not more, than religious faith. The meal is mostly silent, occasionally a comment or memory will be shared but more out of the desire to not forget than the desire to carry a conversation. Ava’s chewing on her last few, very tasty, bites when the topic of planning next steps finally comes up.

“You need training,” Lilith says without judgment and eyes locked on Ava. Ava’s hand had migrated sometime over supper to Beatrice’s thigh which is why she feels the flinch she doesn’t see. “Hand to hand, sword use, tactics.” Lilith lists all the areas Ava needs to improve neutrally. “Halo use.” Ava’s fingernails dig into Beatrice’s leg until her fingers entwine with Ava’s. Encouraging Ava to grab her hand instead. “Not at the Cradle. Who knows how much Vincent told Adriel. Somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”

Camila hums. “But Vincent knows where the safe houses are. The only reason we have this one is Mother Superion knew her friend wasn’t home.”

“ We’ll have to go incognito,” Mary comments. Her voice is oddly slow and measured. “Who knows how many traitors there are. Shan said not to trust anyone. I should have listened.”

Lilith nods her agreement. “Only us and Mother Superion. We can’t trust anyone else with the halo.” Ava wants to protest that she’s not sure Lilith can be trusted but Lilith beats her to it. “Obviously I’d be the best choice for teaching,” she chews at her lip in uncharacteristic hesitation, “but I’m not sure I can be trusted alone with Ava.” Lilith doesn’t mention why and so nobody else does either.

Mary nods heavily. “I got more practical experience than Cam and more street sense. No offense.” Camila shrugs unconcerned by the truth. “But I didn’t take any halo use lessons. Didn’t see the need, before.”

“ I do have access to more resources for hiding, y’know, electronically.” Camila says then shakes her head unhurriedly. “No idea how to find weapons dealers.”

Ava glances from Mary to Camila. Her eyebrows pull together. “Why does it sound like Mary or Camila are my only options?”

Mary blinks languidly at Ava. “Because we are?” She sounds dazed with confusion. 

Ava’s bottom lip pokes out and she clenches harder at Beatrice’s calloused hand. “I understand why Lilith can’t be the one who comes with me,” she says, “but why not Bea?”

The three across from her look faintly shocked as they take slow blinks at her. “Because that’s dumb,” Mary finally says with methodical steadiness. She shakes her head.

“Do you want me to be the one that goes with you?” Beatrice asks softly. Her eyes focused only on Ava.

Ava feels bigger with Beatrice’s focus solely on her. She liked how Beatrice had trained her to phase. How patient Beatrice was with explaining things. How she encouraged Ava’s success and never got upset when Ava failed time and again. “Yeah,” Ava agrees, “I want you to train me.”

“No,” Lilith shakes her head a little too long. “Bad. Bad idea. You don’t,” she wiggles her lips, “get to choose.”

Ava huffs but it’s Beatrice who finally addresses the other three. “Actually, Ava’s the only one who does get to choose.” She says crisply with inevitable assurance.

“But Lil,” Camila slurs and wavers where she sits, “Lil hand?”

“Yes,” Beatrice agrees, seemingly not at all concerned with how Camila is slumping forward. Or how Mary’s tipped back with eyes half closed. “Lilith was my handler. Before she died.”

“Fucng Vince,” Mary slurs in hateful understanding.

“U drug,” Lilith manages to get out before her head drops against the table with a thunk. Camila’s already got her head on her arms and her eyes closed. Mary makes a single pathetic attempt to stand and slumps ungracefully to the floor.

Ava, jaw dropped, turns to look at Beatrice. Beatrice smirks, tiny and cute, back. “I drugged their food,” she explains easily. “They can’t give up information they don’t have.” She shrugs one shoulder negligently.

Ava turns to look back at the two sleeping nuns and Mary. She watches Beatrice position all three of them gently on the floor in a puppy pile and giggles a little at how relaxed they look together. “But what if I didn’t pick you?” Ava wonders aloud as she follows Beatrice to where their bags are waiting.

“I supposed I would have been very embarrassed,” then quiet enough that Ava wonders if she was even supposed to hear her, “and quite sad.” Ava hides her triumphant grin behind picking up her bag.

Mary wakes up with a dry mouth and a foul attitude. She’s in good company that way as Lilith looks like she wants nothing more than to teleport to where Beatrice is and kick her. Or maybe Ava. “Fucking suicidal idiot!” Lilith hisses angrily when she realizes what happened. “I think she came back wrong.”

Mary scowls and bites back her instinctive response of ‘you came back wrong’. No point in stating the obvious. “Is that time right?” She says instead, pointing at the oven clock. Lilith growls, thankfully a familiar and human noise, and disappears in a burst of fire and air.

Camila blinks blearily at the glowing numbers. “Does it matter?”

Mary scowls harder. “Considering I once watched Beatrice take down an entire cult just by changing the time on some dude’s Rolex, yeah. It matters.”

Lilith flops into existence, holding her head with a groan. “It’s right,” she grumbles. “And my head fucking hurts now. No more teleporting while drugged.”

Camila giggles and gets up to pat Lilith on the shoulder consolingly. “Do you want some Advil?” Lilith nods and Camila heads for the washroom, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll get you some too Mary.”

Mary waves a hand in thanks. “We were out for two hours.” Frustration aches in her voice.

Lilith nods listlessly. “Even if we knew where she was going,” she says.

“She’d already be there,” Mary finishes. She dry swallows the pills Camila offers her.

“W-what will she do to Ava?” Camila asks hesitantly. She’d been thoroughly informed of Beatrice’s unique circumstance. It was one thing to be told and another to experience the helplessness of being drugged and abandoned by someone she considered a friend. A scary, standoffish, always monitoring her friend who would kill for her.

Mary sighs and scrubs at her face with her hands. “We don’t know. None of the others ever got enough time to-” Mary trails off. “Do what they were going to do.” She finishes lamely.

“Take the halo.” Lilith says knowingly.

“We don’t know that,” Camila protests automatically, “not for sure.”

Lilith snorts dismissively. “Sure Cam. Every one of the Hounds tried to stalk and isolate the halo bearer with a knife because they just wanted to talk.”

“Every one?” Camila asks. “Surely some of them didn’t?”

Lilith shakes her head. “Only one.” Camila sighs in relief. One in twenty weren’t great odds but it was much better than none. “Beatrice.” Camila relief disappears. “And,” Lilith gestures around the safe-house that is currently lacking both Beatrice and their halo bearer, “well.”

“We need to get Ava back.” Camila says.

Mary thunks her head back against the counter she’s leaning against. “It’s too late,” she says mournfully. She’d liked Ava. Not that Mary ever wanted to think of Shan’s replacement but Ava had been a breath of fresh air over Shan’s grave. “Whatever Beatrice was going to do, she’s already had enough time to do it.”

“So what? We just do nothing?” Camila asks with building frustration and grief. “Sorry Ava, hope you survive having the halo ripped out.” She gestures like she’s tossing something aside.

Mary meets Lilith’s equally frustrated and helpless eyes. “Yeah,” she admits and feels razors of guilt cutting her mouth with the word. Mary shakes her head, shaking away the tears that want to pool in her eyes. “Shan could take Beatrice, one on one. But only after she had six months of training with the halo and was in perfect health. Even if we knew exactly where they were and could teleport without knocking Lilith on her ass I don’t think we could stop whatever Beatrice’s going to do. Not once her chains came off and we didn’t have anyone to put them back on.”

”Stop, stop that. Both of you.” Camila demands. “Stop calling her ‘Beatrice’ like you didn’t spend years together. Like you don’t call her ‘Bea’. She is our friend and she’s not going to hurt Ava.”

Lilith shakes her head sadly at Camila’s foolish determination. “You don’t understand, Cam.” She says delicately. “Once they go bad, they don’t come back. That’s why they-.” Lilith swallows heavily. “It’s a mercy. For whatever part of them is still human.”

Mary closes her eyes wearily. First Adriel, then Vincent, now Beatrice. Today is just full of betrayals. Hell, Lilith and Suzanne were on thin fucking ice too. She opens her eyes to look at the one person who hasn’t betrayed her today. Camila looks so young. “Save your heart, Cam. There’s only one thing you can do when a Hound goes bad.” Mary staggers to her feet and pulls Camila into a hug for what frail comfort it offers. “I don’t think we’ll ever hear from either of them again. If Ava’s still even alive.”

The thing about escaping Vatican City with little more than their clothes on their back is, well, money. Ava forgets sometimes it’s a thing. Like, logically she knows it is. It’s just never impacted her life so viscerally before. With JC anything they wanted they grabbed. With the OCS the Catholic Church paid for whatever their well-funded Order needed.

“We need to make a stop first,” Beatrice says as Ava pesters her about where they’re headed. “We’ll have to be quick. The only contact I know that’s close enough is one Mary introduced me to.” Ava nods knowingly. Beatrice seems to read her lack of understanding and easily explains. “Mary will check if he’s created documents for us. We’ll need passports to get past the borders.”

Ava bounces a bit as she walks along with Beatrice’s sure strides. “You mean I get a fake passport?”

“Yes. Likely multiple different fakes.” Beatrice agrees and enjoys how Ava spends the next fifteen minutes excited about being a real spy. Beatrice slows to a stop next to a cafe and pulls out a wad of money. “Here,” she passes Ava some of the money, “get us something warm to drink and wrapped food that’ll last a day. So nothing heated or cream based. When you have everything, go to that building.” Beatrice points out a dark gray building with a formidable wall wrapped around it. “The buzzer will read ‘C Grimes’.”

Ava looks at the money held out to her then the building Beatrice is pointing to. “Can’t I come with you?”

Beatrice places a comforting hand delicately on Ava’s wrist. A comforting motion she’s stolen from Ava. “People like these, they don’t like strangers coming to them. I’ll talk to him first and buzz you up when you’re done here.” Ava bites at her lip. Aware that she’s never actually had to order anything for anyone. She’s never had to find a name on a buzzer. Beatrice squeezes her wrist in a subtle reminder that she’s not alone. Not ever again.

Ava nods and accepts the money. “Right, sure. I’ll get us drinks and snacks then come buzz ‘C Grimes’.” She nods again.

Beatrice smiles, eyes darting up and lingering on the hair that’s fallen into Ava’s eyes. She draws her hand back slowly. Reluctant to let go of their contact. “I trust you, Ava. I’ll see you shortly.”

The last of Ava’s anxiety bleeds away. “See you soon,” Ava promises. She hesitates, just long enough to know that Beatrice is also hesitating to walk away. The door dings electronically as she opens it. The cafe is mostly open space with tables and chairs interspersed. There’s a very bored looking boy in a stained apron waiting by the register. It’s late but not so late the place is completely empty. Ava makes her way over to the counter while looking around curiously at the decor and how it creates the aesthetic. She’d seen cafe’s on television before and being here in person creates a weird feeling. Like she’s walking onto a movie set or reality isn’t quite real. Even after two weeks of this being her life these moments still catch her by surprise.

It’d been like that after the accident. Moments where she’d forgotten and expected to move or feel and just, didn’t. That adjustment had been quicker but Ava suspects it was more because she could never escape the lack of feeling. Reality had liked rubbing her nose in how it had changed. This, by comparison, feels like a dream. She’s spent the last few days trying to smother the voice in her head that keeps reminding her dreams don’t last.

Ava orders hot chocolate and tea, figuring if Beatrice doesn’t like one she’ll probably like the other. She talks with the guy at the counter and he recommends a few different individually wrapped squares and pastries. He’s mostly patient with her when she counts out the money wrong. Ava’s still musing on what a weird thing money is when she finds and punches the appropriate button (she hopes). It makes a deep droning noise at her for a few seconds before Beatrice’s voice comes on.

“ Just a moment,” she says like she knows it’s Ava. “Ah, this should open the door. Come up to the fourth floor Ava.”

The door just beside Ava lets out a high pitched noise and she cautiously nudges it open. The elevator is mostly clean and shudders a little as it rises to the fourth floor. It opens to a worn hallway with one door standing wide open. She wanders to it and sees Beatrice typing something on a keyboard inside the room. Beatrice looks up with the same tight smile she always gives when she’s busy and Ava bugs her. She affectionately calls it Beatrice’s not-smiling smile and is endlessly endeared that she’s never once turned Ava away regardless of how busy she is. It’s one of her favorite Bea smiles for exactly that reason.

“ Come in and close the door behind you.” Beatrice says and she returns to doing something on the computer she’s typing on. Ava closes the door. She notes the thick line of locks down the door and the shotgun leaning against the wall beside it.

“Where’s your guy?” Ava asks, looking around the room curiously and seeing Beatrice’s eyes flicker at the question. The place has a semi-kitchen opening onto a living room. The living room area has a worn couch, massive computer and what looks like a professional photographer studio. There’s shelves full of various papers all against the wall.

“I asked him to step out while I did our documents myself.” Beatrice says half-distractedly.

“So Mary can’t track us?” Ava sets down their drinks and pokes around the room curiously. There’s a surprising number of guns and ammo on the shelves. Beatrice hums affirmatively. Ava sees the heaping full garbage can and wrinkles her nose in disgust. She clearly spots more than one plastic container of leftovers abandoned in the can and decides to not open the fridge. She wanders closer to Beatrice and looks quickly from the door to the fridge. “Can I help?”

Beatrice steps over to a shelf and starts grabbing what Ava thinks are blank passports. “Yes. Have a look around for cash.”

Ava blinks. “What? We’re just going to take his money?”

Beatrice chuckles lightly as she fiddles with a machine and places the blank passport into it. “He won’t mind.”

Ava thinks for a moment before she realizes. “Oh! Is Mary going to reimburse him when she comes to question him?”

“Something like that,” Beatrice agrees. Ava’s eyes narrow for a millisecond before she smiles. “We’ll need photos for our new passports.” She guides Ava over to stand in front of the camera. That’s when Ava sees it. There’s a red line of raised skin on Beatrice’s throat.

“Bea!” Ava gasps, raising her hand to place gentle fingers against the red skin. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Beatrice smiles at Ava. That tender smile she seems to save just for Ava. “Nothing. I wasn’t paying attention and tripped up a bit.”

Ava pouts up at her friend. “You’re hurt,” she protests, “that’s not nothing .”

Beatrice raises her own hand to hold Ava’s fingers against her. She’s so warm against Ava’s fingers that Ava takes an unconscious step forward. “It’ll be gone in a few minutes. Hardly worth worrying about.”

Ava’s bottom lip pushes out petulantly. “Wrong. Any time you're hurt it’s worth worrying about.” She pouts up into Beatrice’s eyes, entranced by how light they look. It’s not until Beatrice’s eyes drop down to Ava’s lips and she takes a shaky breath that Ava remembers where they are. What they are. Ava looks away and feels how Beatrice takes a step back. Still holding Ava’s hand but no longer pressing it against her chest. Ava licks her lips and drags herself forcibly back to reality. Reality where Beatrice is a nun and her friend . Where nothing is ever going to happen between them. 

It takes them another ten minutes to finish up. Beatrice presents Ava with three different coloured passports. One has her actual name but the other two definitely do not. “So which do I use?” Ava asks as she double-checks to see that the redness on Beatrice’s neck (and chest) are gone as Beatrice had promised.

“Well, that depends,” Beatrice says as she closes the door behind them without locking anything. There’s a muffled snapping noise through the door as the hard drive Beatrice had put in the microwave dies. “Where do you want to go?”

Ava loves trains. This is a new and unfamiliar love that she would fight for the death to keep. They rumble and the vibration of them travels from the rubber soles on her feet all the way to the hat on her head.

(“Weren’t you on a boat?” Beatrice asks as she listens to Ava expound on her new found love.

“ Yeah,” Ava admits, “but it was too big to rumble. I hardly felt it. I feel this in my bones .” Then she grins. Beatrice rolls her eyes but Ava can see how the corners of her lips stay stubbornly up.)

Trains are amazing for many reasons. There’s always something new to see out the window. New people come and go and all Ava has to do to meet a dozen strangers is stay in her seat. Not that she does. People can sleep on a train. She can hardly contain her excitement when she learns this. Beatrice makes a great show in sighing in protest but she knows she’ll let them sleep there before she even asks.

“Train bunks are small and the rooms are communal,” Beatrice warns. “Well it is unlikely Vincent has access to a greater intelligence network, the possibility is not zero.”

Ava shrugs, “so sleep with me.” Beatrice goes stiff in that way she does when she’s overthinking something. Ava can practically hear the gears turning in her head as she tries to figure out this new and unexpected puzzle. Ava nudges at her shoulder, hoping the contact shocks her friend out of the mental stall she’s locked in. Beatrice blinks. “Hey,” Ava reassures, “we don’t have to.”

Beatrice’s eyebrows draw together slightly. “I want you to experience everything,” she says solemnly. With no concern at all for how hard Ava’s heart kicks at her ribs in response. Ava swallows heavily and stares longingly at the strands of hair that escaped Beatrice’s bun. They would probably feel super soft if she tucked them behind Beatrice’s ear. Beatrice nods determinedly. “It’ll be safest if we’re together.”

Ava nods her agreement. “Yeah, absolutely”. Safety is important. It’s not at all that she wants to sleep in the same bed as Beatrice. (Ava, maybe a little bit, wants to know what it would feel like to sleep beside Beatrice. To feel her weight and warmth pressed against Ava, protecting her all night. To know if that connection that sparks between them every time they touch will build to something as intense as she imagines.)

Somehow in Ava’s mind the whole ‘bed on a train’ was an actual bed. The thing in front of her is much more of a bunk. A slab vaguely resembling a mattress. It’s probably a good thing, Ava thinks, that she didn’t end up in a coffin or else she’d be panicking right now. As it is, Beatrice is the only one of them panicking. In that quiet self contained way she panics about things. Beatrice’s hand creeps up to play with her collar. Ava bounces on her heels. “So,” Ava says thoughtfully, “I don’t think we’ll fit side by side.”

Beatrice flushes. “No,” she agrees with a long breath, “I rather think we won’t.”

Ava grins. Not at all put off by the tight confines she’ll be sleeping against Beatrice in. “Top or bottom?” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

Beatrice doesn’t stutter. She would never, Ava thinks. Beatrice does sigh like Ava is a trial sent directly to her by God. “God is faithful and He will not let you,” Beatrice murmurs quietly enough that Ava, standing beside her, barely hears.

Ava turns away so that Beatrice can’t see her fully inappropriate smirk. Just because Ava’s not Catholic doesn’t mean she wasn’t raised by nuns. While paralyzed she had little to do but memorize everything she can get her hands on. The Sisters were always eager to turn pages when the pages were the bible. She knows Corinthians well enough to know how that quote finishes. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it .

“I will take the bottom,” Beatrice decides in a steady voice. Ava snickers into her hand. “You’ll be on top.”

Ava’s core clenches and she bites her lip as humor turns to desire. She wrestles it, well, not down. She’s already a little too down for what’s about to happen. Away. Somewhere. She hopes. Ava is not pushing Beatrice’s boundaries. Which means no sighing longingly while she stares at Beatrice’s lips when they brush their teeth. And no dressing in her tightest, smallest clothes while they sleep together in a one person train bunk. Ava’s being respectful . Her pep talk is less than effective until she reminds herself why she’s being respectful. Beatrice is worth it.

Beatrice is worth it and Ava’s not God’s strongest soldier. Actually, Ava thinks she may technically be God’s strongest soldier. Which sort of really sucks for him because she’s about five seconds away from begging the beautiful woman who devoted her life to him to fuck her. Hell, Ava’s so turned on right now she’d be happy to have permission to touch herself while she’s beside Beatrice. 

It turns out that the static electricity Mary said happens around Beatrice doesn’t have an end point. At least not after eight hours of laying half on top Beatrice during what is, hands down, the best sleep Ava’s ever had. Ava’s not sure if Beatrice just went to sleep after she did and woke up first or if she spent the entire night awake. She’s grateful Beatrice’s stiff panic distracted the nun enough that she doesn’t question why Ava needs to spend an extra ten minutes in the small train bathroom when she wakes up. It helps, a little. Relieving herself sexually just becomes another part of the routine they fall into on trains. 

Beatrice slowly grows more comfortable with sleeping pressed against each other. Her body is less rigid every time Ava leans into her. It takes getting over her own fears for Ava to realize that Beatrice’s stiffness is never dislike. She never rejects Ava’s attempts at contact. The discomfort seems to come from unfamiliarity. Like Beatrice doesn’t know what to do when someone puts a hand on her arm or cries on her shoulder. Once Ava shows her Beatrice will faithfully repeat those actions as many times as Ava reaches for her. Ava knew logically that Beatrice’s parents were sucky. They willingly let her be raised by nuns, after all. She didn’t know contextually what that meant until they started living so close together. It breaks her heart a little. Beatrice deserves all the hugs and Ava wants to bite someone that she never got them.

They spend almost two weeks sleeping on trains. Every night feels like a miracle. Beatrice is warm and solid against her. The halo hums with awareness, the train rumbles with movement, and she can feel Beatrice alive against her. Beatrice’s breath moving through her hair. Beatrice’s heart beating steady rhythm against her finger tips, keeping time for their dance of sleep. Everywhere they press together sparks against her skin like that one time she accidentally phased into an electrical wire ( not the first hand experience with electricity that Ava wanted). She only notices the bunk is little more than thin foam tucked in plastic in the few seconds after she’s climbed in but before Beatrice joins her. She doesn’t even mind that they always have to be wearing clothes or how they both start to smell a little too strong after a few too many days of exploration and inconsistent showers.

Ava thinks she’d be happy like this for the rest of her life. Living together like nomads with Beatrice. Eating every meal at a new restaurant or with food purloined from a grocery store. Spending all their money on museums and tours at the towns they end up in while waiting for the next train to be selected. All they own in a bag hanging from one hand and the other hand clasping them together. Beatrice smiles like there’s nothing else in all the world that matters as much as what paintings Ava likes and what new thing Ava wants to taste.

Ava mostly ignores the whole desperately horny state living so close with, being so cherished and seen by, Beatrice leaves her in. The train bunks they sleep on are multi-person cabins; typically with four bunks. It’s not like there’s a lot of opportunity to address her issue with someone. There’s only one time when she thinks an opportunity might arise. One of the fellow passengers that night is a man who stares a little too intently at Ava’s chest to be friendly. Ava had spent the day testing how often Beatrice would let Ava touch her. Which meant Ava spent nearly the entire time awake feeling that sparking hum of connection through her entire body. She’s not opposed to having a helping hand tonight before bed. Ava tries to convey that message to him with subtle glances. Based on how Beatrice glares at him, like she’s a second away from throat punching him, Ava’s genuinely surprised when he tilts his head to the semi-privacy of the washroom and wiggles his eyebrows the moment Beatrice looks away. She grins back.

“Hey, I gotta brush my teeth,” Ava says as she tugs on Beatrice’s elbow and pulls Beatrice’s eyes to her. Ava sees how Beatrice furrows her eyebrows as she prepares to protest that Ava’s already done that (she has) or that their bed is all set up (it is). Or even that Ava doesn’t have her toothbrush (she doesn’t). She decides to preempt her friend’s protests in the most effective manner she can. Ava kisses her, half on her cheek and half on her jaw. Beatrice pauses like Ava had just hit the remote. Her hands stilling awkwardly midair. Ava ducks out the door before Beatrice can reboot, skipping eagerly towards the washroom. She spends the first minute waiting musing that if she ever has to fight Beatrice, like truly fight her, her most effective strategy would be stripping first. Beatrice can probably fight with her eyes closed but Ava doubts she can do it as well as she can fight with her eyes open.

The second minute of waiting Ava spends with her hands down her pants. Yes, she’d like to be able to do this with someone else (even if she feels a little bad about fantasizing they’re Beatrice). But also, she can not spend the next eight hours feeling Beatrice’s chest rise and fall beneath her head without some relief. She goes slow, hoping that he’ll join her before she finishes. He doesn’t join her. Not at all. Ava fingers herself to two orgasms before she washes her hands and goes back to the cabin. The only light still on is the one Beatrice’s using to read. The other three bunks have sleeping forms tucked under blankets or jackets. Ava pouts at the boy that had made eyes at her and fallen asleep less than ten minutes later.

“ All good?” Beatrice asks neutrally. Ava shrugs. Beatrice hums and Ava can see, now that she’s paying attention (she’s always paying attention) that Beatrice’s hair has little wisps falling out of her night time braid. Ava smiles a little at the idea that Beatrice was so flustered by Ava’s innocent kiss that her hair came a little out of her rigid restraint.

“ Yeah,” Ava agrees softly. This is all good. Ava from last month would have been dumbfounded that this was her future. Dumbfounded and incalculably jealous. “What are you going to read to me?” Ava asks as she climbs over Beatrice’s solid body to tuck herself in safely half on top Beatrice against the wall.

Beatrice chuckles and winces a little at Ava’s accidental kick. “This is how you lose the time war.” She moves her arm out, creating a pocket of space for Ava to curl herself into. Ava does with a happy little sigh. “It’s in German.”

Ava nuzzles against the softness of Beatrice’s blue cotton shirt over the firm muscle of Beatrice’s chest and shoulder. She listens to the little snuffling sound of what she’s pretty sure is Beatrice smelling her. “I know how to speak German,” Ava says, her tone lilting up with happiness. “Marten taught me. He was my roomie when I was, hmm, around thirteen I think.” It’s not the first time Ava’s mentioned a roommate. She’d bonded with them, one by one, and watched helplessly as they died, one by one. Every memory comes with a burning awareness that this person she knew and cared for was a victim of Frances’ cruelty. Ava blinks as tears come to her eyes. Beatrice runs a tender finger down Ava’s cheek, silent permission for the tears to come. Unspoken awareness that Ava is not alone in this grief, this understanding. The tear falls and another follows it for the chubby German boy who’d been so happy to speak with anyone in the language his parents taught him. Who’d been so patient and covered his chuckles when she’d fumbled words. Unlike the first memory she’d shared with Beatrice only two tears fell this time.

Beatrice watches her, eyes almost black in the dark. Ava’s smile wobbles then steadies. “Would you like me to translate it or read it in German?”

Ava closes her eyes, letting her body relax deeper into Beatrice’s. Her underwear is still uncomfortably wet from her earlier efforts and Ava thinks it’s one drawback to masturbating before bed. “Translate it tonight?”

“When Red wins, she stands alone,” Beatrice reads. Ava lets Beatrice’s crisp British accent wash over her, lets her skin thrill at the spark of contact, lets everything that isn’t in this small bunk with her Beatrice disappear. Doesn’t think at all about why the other three people in the room stay still and silent even when Beatrice talks long into the night.

It’s ten, or twelve, or maybe fifteen days after they fled Rome like the entire Catholic Church was nipping at their heels that Ava’s mouth runs too far. “This would be much easier,” Ava pants, “if you actually, y’know, trained me.” They’d decided to spend the day exploring a historical reenactment fair somewhere in France. Ava had jumped with happiness when she saw they offered ‘historically accurate’ sword fighting lessons. Beatrice had declined to join and instead watched contentedly while she held Ava’s bag. It’s the first time Ava brings up the training she wasn’t getting and it was mostly because she was tired from wielding a thick iron bar.

Beatrice tilts her head a little, her eyes scan how close they are to everyone else. “Is that what you want?”

Ava snorts. What she wants matters a whole lot less than the not-angel running around doing who knows what because of her idiot decisions. “I have to,” she says earnestly and sees something hard, implacable, in Beatrice’s gaze. Her heart flutters, knowing what it means far before her head does. Beatrice’s devotion to the altar of Ava’s happiness is as scary as it is satiating. Ava looks away and clears her throat. “I mean, yeah, who wouldn’t want to be a badass?”

Beatrice nods in slow consideration. Ava can practically see her mind plotting and planning. “We’ll need a base. Somewhere with enough of a crowd to blend and enough space to practice. Any preferences for the country?”

Ava doesn’t have one. She thinks about the book Beatrice’s almost finished reading and how Marten had been so happy she was willing to learn German. “Somewhere that speaks German? Not, like, all the time. But at least a little?”

Beatrice nods and takes the empty water bottle from Ava. “It looks like your break is over. We’ll talk more when your class is done.”

For some reason Ava thinks that means they’ll plan their course of action when Ava’s sword class is done. In retrospect she really underestimated Beatrice’s natural inclination towards planning things on that one. Their itinerary is already arranged by the time Ava says goodbye to the rest of her class, tucking their email addresses in her pocket, and hops over to where Beatrice is waiting. Beatrice has selected some semi-small town in the Alps and Ava knows it’s because of the conversation they had a few days ago on the beach. Ava had been lamenting that she couldn’t choose if she liked the beach or mountains better because she’d never run on a mountain like she had a beach (she doesn’t count the involuntary hike with Mary). Ava’s heart clenches at Beatrice’s quiet consideration. At the hundred little things she does that says she’s listening , that she cares . Even when Ava’s hardly paying attention to what she’s saying.

Ava pulls Beatrice into a hug and Beatrice is practiced enough now that she goes easily. Her arms are the perfect tightness as she squeezes Ava into her. “You’re too good to me,” Ava says into her neck.

“Impossible,” Beatrice rebuts steadfastly. Ava giggles and keeps an arm around her waist. Beatrice keeps her corresponding arm over Ava’s shoulder. Ava listens to her best friend explain the trip and the apartments she’d already arranged for them to look at. “Was there anything you wanted to do before we leave?” Beatrice asks.

There’s one thing Ava’s been wanting to do. Beatrice is great, amazing. Ava wouldn’t trade her time with Beatrice for anything. She still misses the others. Misses the closeness they were developing as a team. “Could I call Mary?”

Beatrice hesitates and Ava only notices it because of how rarely she hesitates to give Ava something. Especially something as easy as this. They’ll be nowhere near here this time tomorrow so it’s not a risk for them to blow their cover if Mary’s phone is tracked. Beatrice’s eyes are oddly heavy when she nods. “Of course.”

They call Mary from a train station pay phone. Ava’s so excited by the pay phone it takes her three attempts to actually call Mary. If hanging up just to push random buttons could be called attempts. The phone rings and rings then Mary’s voice comes over the tinny speaker. Ava lights up, drawing in a breath to talk, only to realize it’s Mary’s voicemail. She turns to Beatrice with her bottom lip out and sad eyes. Beatrice covers her giggle with an inadequate hand. Ava pouts harder. “Mary screens all calls from unknown numbers,” Beatrice explains with undisguised amusement. “Call again and she’ll likely pick up.”

Ava gets visceral enjoyment from hanging up the phone. It feels exactly as it looked in movies. She picks it up again just to hang it up with a grin. Beatrice chuckles at Ava’s simple pleasure. She makes no move to hurry Ava along, seemingly perfectly content to spend the afternoon watching Ava play with the pay phone.

Ava picks up the payphone and marvels, as she so often does these days, how much she improves just from practice. The phone rings and Mary’s voice, brisk and firm, comes over the speaker. “What?” Mary demands. Ava wriggles in place, grinning. The grin slips. She’s never had to talk to someone on the phone before. She doesn’t know what to say!

Beatrice must see the panic on her face because she saves Ava, as she so often does. “Say hello and whose calling just in case she doesn’t recognize your voice.”

“ Hey!” Ava shouts and hears Mary squawk in surprise at the sudden volume. Ava grimaces and continues at a more normal speaking range. “Hello, hi, this is Ava. I’m, wait, this is Mary right?”

“ Ava?!” Mary shouts and it’s Ava’s turn to flinch back from the phone’s speaker. She never knew they could be so loud. “Ava! Where are you? Are you safe? Are you hurt anywhere? Cam, find Lilith! Just tell me where you are babygirl and we can be there in a minute!”

Ava frowns and side eyes Beatrice at Mary’s weird panic. Beatrice seems not at all disturbed by the shouting voice that’s loud enough, it must be, for her to hear what Mary’s panicking about. “Whoa, Mary, calm down. Relax. I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. Bea’s with me. I promise she’s been keeping me out of trouble.” Ava looks over to see Beatrice’s raised eyebrow. She remembers the incident in the bakery in Germany, her first attempt at getting drunk in France, the pretty horrible decision she’d made at the zoo. “Mostly. She’s mostly been keeping me out of trouble.”

“ I- you- what?” Mary stutters, clearly confused by something Ava had said. “That’s impossible?”

Ava laughs. “Yeah, well, she’s trying. Or maybe I’m the trying one.” She grins at the pun and plays with the phone cord in her fingers, feeling the smooth metal of it. “We saw lots of cool stuff. We went to a medieval fair and a town fair that had these rides like at an amusement park. But Steve, we met him there, he said that actual amusement parks have much better rides so Bea promised she’d take me to one someday.” Ava’s not yet certain they’ll have a ‘someday’. She thinks Beatrice isn’t either and that’s why she’s so willing to promise the world to Ava ‘someday’. It wouldn’t be the first time someone promised so much only to deliver none of it. Her heart wants to believe Beatrice is different but her head doesn’t quite agree.

“Wait, wait, slow down,” Mary requests as her own racing thoughts slow down. “You’re still with Beatrice?” She asks as seriously and intentionally as she can.

“Yeah, duh,” Ava answers blithely. “I said I stopped running away and I meant it.”

“No, yeah, you said that and that’s, well, this is going to sound insane, but. Ava, you need to run away.” Mary’s tone fluctuates between the steady deeper tone she uses to get Ava to listen and the more frantic higher pitch of her initial panic.

“ We are,” Ava says in genuine confusion.

“ No, it’s,” Mary sighs and Ava can hear something like she’d just rubbed her face. “You need to run away from Beatrice .”

Ava forces a chuckle. “Why would I do that?” She makes an expression at Beatrice that she hopes conveys all the ‘Mary’s not making sense’ she feels right now. Beatrice gifts her a tight closed mouth smile in return. It raises the hair on the back of Ava’s neck because it’s wrong . That fear that lives on her shoulder starts whispering about broken promises and hidden agendas. She tries to ignore it.

“ Beatrice is, she’s different Ava. You must have noticed something weird by now? You need to keep your distance.” Mary says sternly.

Suddenly Ava gets it. What this is about. Why the sister warrior’s didn’t want Beatrice to go alone with Ava. They didn’t trust Ava. Not with their vestal nun. Ava scoffs. “Don’t worry, I haven’t touched her.” That’s not technically true. She’s touched Beatrice way more than she’d ever imagined possible. What Ava means is that she’s been respectful to Beatrice’s vows. She hasn’t once asked Beatrice to touch her, or to let her touch Beatrice, sexually. Not that Beatrice has tried. Much to her disappointment.

“ What?” Mary sounds distracted by something.

Ava repeats herself, tilting her mouth into the phone and speaking quieter so Beatrice doesn’t hear her. “I promise I’m being respectful. I’m not, like, tempting her or whatever you’re worried about.”

“ What are you talking about?”

“ Y’know, the whole,” Ava nearly whispers the words, “gay thing.”

Mary blinks at the stone wall of the Church they’d retreated to. The gay thing repeating in her mind. Was this moron really trying to say that she’s not hitting on Beatrice as though that was Mary’s concern? Mary doesn’t care if Ava’s railing nuns by the dozen so long as she’s safe . “You idiot,” Mary says softly to herself. Then with the anxiety building in her chest and coming out unthinkingly as anger; “You utter fucking idiot! Were you born this stupid or did you have to work hard to get this dumb?” Mary’s yelling into the receiver, into the ear of the girl she’d thought dead. Lost like Shannon had been lost. Killed by the hand of someone they trusted. She takes a deep breath, slows her panting, and tries to explain just how idiotic Ava is being. “I’m not worried you're going to take Beatrice’s virginity. I’m terrified she’s going to kill you.”

“ I’m not,” Beatrice says calmly from the phone. Mary’s stomach drops and she can feel her hands shake. “The first concern is far more probable. Though I admit even that isn’t likely.”

Mary pulls back her cell to stare at it. Did Beatrice sound disappointed? “What the fuck?” Mary asks the universe quietly. She’s quick to bring the phone back to her ear. “Put Ava back on,” she demands.

Beatrice hums and twists to look at Ava whose pacing up and down the train station tiles blinking tears from her eyes. “No. She’s quite upset by whatever you said to her.” Beatrice says and there’s something sharp in her words. Judgmental. Dangerous .

The same judgemental and dangerous sharpness she heard on their first mission together. A tone forever entangled with the iron scent of blood and the visceral warmth of once human chunks sliding off her face. “ Bad dogs get-” she forces the memory of that same tone shrill with youth from her ears.

Mary feels like the world is spinning the wrong way beneath her feet. She wrenches her mind back to the present. Ava’s alive . Ava’s alive and Beatrice is still with her. Ava’s alive and Beatrice sounds like she’s angry at Mary for making Ava upset. The world no longer makes sense. “What are you doing Beatrice?” It comes out high pitched with distress and more an entreaty than Mary means it to be. She just wants some of the world to make sense again.

“ What I said I would,” Beatrice explains calmly. “I’m protecting Ava.”

“ Why ?” Mary begs for understanding. “Why haven’t you done what all the others did?” Mary shakes her head. “We couldn’t’ve stopped you if we wanted to. You could have the halo by now. Isn’t that what you want?”

“No,” Beatrice says like it doesn’t catastrophically upend everything Mary’s ever known about Beatrice and the others like her. “It isn’t worth it.”

Compared to what? Mary wonders. She can’t bring herself to ask. “Why did you call?” Mary sounds defeated, even to her own ears.

“ Ava wanted to,” she says like that’s all the justification this insanity needs. “I’ll get her back on the phone if you apologize sincerely for what you said.” It’s a threat for all she’s worded it so politely. 

Mary thuds her head against the wall and gets her breathing under control before she responds. “Yeah, yeah I want to apologize to her. Put her on.”

Beatrice says something muffled in a gentle tone before a shaky tremulous voice comes on. “M-mary?”

“I’m sorry,” Mary says and lets her voice convey how much she means it. “What I called you isn’t true. I took my fear out on you and that wasn’t fair for you. I know you're amazingly smart. You deserve better from me.” Mary hears the gasping breaths as Ava lets her talk. “I’m sorry.”

“I just don’t understand why you were so upset with me,” Ava explains and her voice sounds oddly muffled, like she’s pressed against something.

“It wasn’t about you,” Mary sighs. “I’ve been out of my mind worrying about you.” She thinks of how Beatrice is probably standing only a few steps from Ava, if that. How implacable Beatrice had sounded as she’d threatened Mary. How she’s seen Beatrice kill the people she was raised beside, that she called siblings, without hesitating or flinching. Mary picks her next words carefully. “I kept picturing all the things that could go wrong. Kept thinking you were already dead and I’d done less to help you than I did to help Shan. I got scared and guilty. I’m still not happy you two ran away but I know it wasn’t your decision.”

“It was though,” Ava explains. “I picked Bea to come with me.”

Mary chews at her cheek. Ava did pick Beatrice but it’s becoming more and more apparent that Ava has no damn idea why that’s concerning. It’s laughable, really, to think that anyone other than Beatrice had a choice in what happened that night. In what’s happening right now. “You made the best choice you had with the information you were presented with.” Mary settles on. She bites back the apology that wants to escape. She shoulders the guilt she places on herself for failing to outline exactly what Beatrice is and how dangerous she is to Ava specifically. The danger Beatrice represents is immense even with the inexplicable stay of execution Mary’s too experienced to trust. Mary clears her throat. “How’ve you been, babygirl?”

“I’ve been really good,” Ava responds with a small spark of her familiar joy. “Bea’s taken me to all these really fun places. And we slept on a train.” There’s soft reverence in Ava’s voice at the idea of sleeping on a train. Personally Mary thinks she wouldn’t be able to sleep if confined to a train car with Beatrice. Probably wouldn’t risk blinking either after their last meal together.

“And you’re safe?” Mary asks.

Ava laughs. “Please, Mary. I’m with Bea. Of course I’m safe.” It sounds just as insane to Mary the second time she hears it. The conviction in Ava’s voice. The faith . Like there was no safer place for her in the world than at Beatrice’s side. Lacking any awareness the exact opposite was closer to the truth. A fatted calf seeking safety in the butcher’s arms. Mary can almost hear Ava roll her eyes. “She’s so cautious. It took me way too long to convince her nothing bad would happen if I went on the roller coaster. The halo didn’t even light up.”

Mary shudders thinking of how many people Beatrice was willing to silence permanently if the halo had lit up. “That’s, wow, that’s really good. And you’ve been training?”

“Uh, well,” Ava hesitates. “Not yet? It’s, um, actually why I’m calling. We’ve just been traveling around until now. Staying incognito and off the radar, I guess. Bea says we need a ‘predictable base’ if we want to actually start training the halo. I figured it was better to call you before we head there and Bea agreed.”

Mary holds onto that thin lifeline. Beatrice agreed to Ava calling. She wouldn’t have done that if she was really planning to take the halo. There would be no point. “Will you call? When you get there.” Mary tries to hold back the rabid desperation in her voice. She’s not sure it works. “We can send Lilith with anything you might need.”

Mary can hear the conversation between Ava and Beatrice. So clear they would almost have to be standing on each other. ‘Hey Bea, can we call when we get there?’

‘I’m not sure it’s safe, Ava.’

‘Yeah, but only Lilith would know where we are.’

‘Perhaps in a few months when whatever changes she’s experiencing have settled. I think it’s best for us all if they don’t know where we’re going yet.’ 

Mary grinds her teeth and remembers finding her contact dead and stuffed into his own fridge. Beatrice had nuked the hard drive but Camila was fairly certain she’d created at least two different sets of passports for them. Camila had viewed it as a good sign Beatrice had gone to such lengths to hide their tracks. Mary hadn’t been able to convince herself it was anything less than making sure she got away cleanly with the halo. If it hadn’t been about that, if it had actually been about hiding Ava, what did that mean? She didn’t know and the uncertainty of it all made her even more certain the answer was ‘nothing good’.

Ava sighs and it sounds more like a dramatic sigh than one that’s truly disappointed. “Sorry Mary, Bea thinks it’s best if it’s just us so far. I’ll try to convince her to sneak us away to make another call in a couple weeks.” Ava giggles, likely at whatever expression she sees on Beatrice’s face.

“Alright,” Mary agrees because it’s the only thing she can do. For as long as Ava has enough sway to convince Beatrice, Mary will do everything she can to make Ava want to use that sway. “We’ll keep working on how to stop Adriel from our end. You, stay safe. Please.”

“Promise,” Ava says with a smile. Mary knows she doesn’t, not the safety Mary means. Ava thinks she’s promising to be safe from getting caught by Adriel or his goons. Or worse, from having sex with Beatrice. Mary’s far more worried about whatever frail barrier that’s preventing Beatrice from acting on her most basic impulses snapping. How much would be too much for her? How thin was the thread that Ava’s life hung on? Would Ava even notice if it snapped? She prayed it was thick enough to hold until they could catch her even as her fear was certain it wasn’t.

They end up in Switzerland. In a small town tucked between a lake (“With a beach, Bea!”) and beautiful mountains that stretch into the sky. Ava skips happily after Beatrice when they go see the apartments. “It’s a shit hole,” Ava says with a wrinkled nose as she looks around the barren worn barely one bedroom apartment. It’s small and smells a little dusty.

“It’s cheap,” Beatrice counters, “and furnished.”

Ava throws her a look. “I don’t have a lot of life experience and even I know this is a shit hole.” She does a lap around the apartment. It takes her just a couple of seconds. If she found the right spot she could see everything by spinning in a circle. “This couch looks like it would kill anyone who slept on it.”

Beatrice looks at the couch in question and hums. “We’ll put a blanket over it,” she says neutrally.

Ava raises an eyebrow at what Beatrice doesn’t say. “Please tell me you’re not planning on sleeping on this couch,” she begs. Beatrice hesitates, visibly   searching for words. “Bea, no.” Ava pouts at her love friend. “We’ve shared much smaller beds than this,” Ava points at the small bed. “Not by much, admittedly, but I’m not letting you kill your back by sleeping there. We either share the bed or get a different place.”

Beatrice looks aside far enough that Ava can’t see her face. She does see how Beatrice’s shoulders slump as she sighs. “Fine,” she looks back at Ava with determined eyes. “Fine.” She nods acceptance as if to underscore how completely okay it is that they are continuing to sleep in the same bed. Ava doesn’t smile triumphantly and she’s very proud of herself for it.

It might be a shit hole, but it’s their shit hole. Ava decorates it with various knick-knacks she’d picked up at nearly every stop they’d had on the train. Beatrice cleans it as thoroughly as she would if she were covering up a murder scene. It removes the dusty smell and replaces it with fresh air and something citrus. In the future Ava will get candles to add new scents to fit whatever mood she feels. They’ll line the bathroom like a sacrificial altar to relaxation. The kitchen will fill with the scent of spices and heat from where they learn how to cook together. Beatrice bent over a library book and listing off the steps in precise order while Ava measures things with her eye and risks the consequences. The sound of music will accompany their laughter as they talk about how the food tastes and what few moments of the day were spent without each other. The bed will gain a collection of blankets that Ava’s resistant to washing until Beatrice insists. Ava will wrap each blanket, warm from the dryer, around Beatrice’s shoulders and hug her until the blanket regains the smell of them. It becomes Ava’s favorite chore.

It still looks like student housing. Cheap furniture that’s half falling apart and should probably be thrown out. Worn paint and cracked tiles. It also looks like the first home Ava’s ever had. Ava’s presence blended into Beatrice’s. So entangled that not even she can tell where one life ends and the other begins. If Ava were ever asked to paint a picture of happiness she would paint one that looks exactly like this. It’s everything she’s ever wanted in the world. She thinks it would be regardless of what it looked like so long as Beatrice was there to share it with her. 

It’s Ava’s idea for them to get jobs. She loves hanging out with Beatrice but ten hours of training a day is just too much. Even with the halo healing her. Beatrice reluctantly agrees. Swayed by Ava’s incredible logic that it looks weird for two women their age living so poorly to not even have a job. Ava’s first suggestion is a restaurant that’s hiring waiters. She thinks she’d enjoy it, and the very handsome man who manages it, so she’s a little disappointed when Beatrice changes her mind after they go check the restaurant out. 

Beatrice is the one who recommends bar tending. It’s not something Ava’s ever tried before but so is everything else. The manager at Bar La Vessur, Mr. Strauss, is pretty much the complete opposite of the handsome manager at the restaurant. He’s rumpled and slobby and leers at Ava’s breasts in a way that leaves Ava watching that muscle in Beatrice’s cheek flex. Ava’s put up with a lot worse than him.

Mr. Strauss’ hardly around as they begin anyway. He hands off their training to Hans. Hans rolls his eyes knowingly once Mr. Strauss disappears back upstairs. “ He’s a pig, ” Hans says. “He likes to hire all the pretty girls and doesn’t care if he has to fire them in a month .”

Beatrice frowns back up the stairs and Ava watches how Hans shuffles back from her when she does. “ Will he intentionally fire us ?” She asks.

Hans shakes his head. “ If you can do the job, he’ll keep you on .” With that reassurance Beatrice turns her full focus on Hans to learn. Hans shivers and unconsciously twists to hide more of his body behind the bar. He seems oddly tense the entire four hours they spend learning from him. Only really relaxing for a few minutes when Beatrice excuses herself to go to the washroom. They both learn quickly enough that Hans suggests they take over as primaries for the last three hours of their shift.

Ava enjoys doing this with Beatrice. Learning something new, working so close together their bodies brush against each other as they walk past with a crackle of awareness. She didn’t think she’d enjoy bar tending as much as she thought she’d enjoy serving. After a single shift she now thinks the opposite. She gets a kick at being able to talk to as many people as she wants. Thrills at hearing their stories and seeing how they enjoy the drinks she makes them. She feels connected, a part of something. The only bad aspect is their manager, Mr. Strauss.

It starts the week after they begin. He corners her in the walk-in, talking about how much she’s earning in tips and how he knows ‘other ways’ she can make money. Ava’s extremely thankful for Hans coming to check on her when he notices she’s been back there for a few minutes too long. Mr. Strauss doesn’t touch her, doesn’t proposition her. Not technically. That’s why she doesn’t tell Beatrice. What would she say? That he talked to her about how he knows they need money and it felt creepy? She can’t. Not unless she wants to look like a whiner who can’t be trusted to handle herself. She’s survived worse than some unpleasant comments and more unpleasant looks.

He doesn’t do anything when Beatrice is there. Not after the first time he was working on the floor and starring at Ava. Beatrice had ‘accidentally’ buried a kitchen knife an inch into the table right beside his hand. When he’d looked at her with wide fearful eyes she’d smiled so falsely it hurt and said neutrally, “oops. Perhaps we should both keep our eyes on the task in front of us. After all, we wouldn't want another accident.”

Ava had waited, patiently for her, for Beatrice to finish carrying the dirty cups to the dishwasher before throwing herself in Beatrice’s arms. She caught Ava as easily as always. “Bea! That was awesome!” Ava buried her face in Beatrice’s neck and breathed in her familiar comforting scent. Her body tingled everywhere she touched her. “That’s not going to cause us issues, is it?”

Beatrice holds Ava to her firmly, wrapping one arm around Ava’s waist and the other up her back to cup her head. It was, Ava knew, the first way she had ever held her. She defaulted to what was previously permitted unless given clear instruction on how Ava wanted to be touched. “No,” she promises, “and if it does, I’ll take care of it.” Ava sighs, releasing all her tension to better drape herself in Beatrice’s arms. Even the growing weariness about Adriel disappears when her Beatrice holds her.

Not so much the growing tension she feels around Mr. Strauss. He never does anything concrete. Nothing Ava feels comfortable asking Beatrice to intervene again. If he had, Ava would go to her in a heartbeat. Instead she’s left with this desire to shower off his presence the moment she gets home. He starts scheduling them at opposite shifts. Explaining it away as ensuring the bar gets full coverage. Beatrice makes noises about quitting and finding somewhere they can share more shifts. Ava knows that it’s not about what he says but she doesn’t have the words to explain it.

It turns out she doesn’t need to. Hans does it before Ava can. Ava’s mildly impressed with this because Hans avoids Beatrice when it’s at all possible. Ava teases him relentlessly about how afraid of her he is when Ava knows she’s one of the kindest people ever. “ I have a finely turned prey sense, Ava. I would rather face a starving bear than Beatrice .” Hans defends when Ava teases him. Not that she admits it but she can kind of see his point. She can agree that Beatrice is scary sometimes. Hot-scary, admittedly, but still scary. Hans looks oddly pale everytime she says that.

It’s on a Friday when all three of them are on shift for a few hours. Ava can see how Hans shivers as he approaches Beatrice to talk. Sees how she listens intently. Her full focus on the conversation in a way that always makes Ava feel so heard. It makes Hans look smaller, drawing away into himself in a futile effort to get out of her attention. Ava spots the moment Hans mentions her because Beatrice’s eyes snap to her. Always aware of where she is even in a crowded bar on a busy night surrounded by dozens of people. Her eyes darken. Deep and black in a way that is just the wrong side of natural. Hans stumbles back, cowering into himself, and she glides past him without a word. Ava swallows the flutter in gut and the excess of saliva in her mouth. See, hot-scary.

“Are you okay?” Beatrice asks with her eyes searching Ava for some unseen wound.

“Yeah,” Ava smiles brightly, feeling her chest open wide at her undivided attention. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Beatrice raises her chin, the muscle in her cheek flexing enticingly. Ava swears she can feel that connection between them flare to life even though they aren’t touching. “Hans told me Strauss has been,” she pauses to think, “ talking to you.”

Ava forces herself to laugh. “That’s not exactly a crime, Bea.”

Her eyes narrow. “It doesn’t have to be a crime to be something that makes you uncomfortable.” Ava’s bottom lip trembles and she leans towards the shelter that is Bea . “Are you okay?” It’s so soft Ava knows it’s meant only for her.

Tears well up in Ava’s eyes and she shakes her head. Beatrice takes the bottles from Ava’s hands and puts them on the nearest table. Ava stumbles into her arms the moment she opens them, curling them protectively around her and escorting them both into the back room. She’s whispering something softly into Ava’s hair. It isn’t until Ava’s tears calm down that she’s able to understand what Beatrice is whispering. “I’ve got you, Ava, I promise. I’ll fix it so that you feel safe again.” Ava relaxes fully for the first time since Mr. Strauss cornered her. Bea has her, Bea will fix everything.

“Don’t leave me,” Ava begs. Her true fear escaping without her permission.

“I’m here and I’m never letting you go,” Beatrice vows. This, Ava thinks, is what true safety feels like.

Mr. Strauss commits suicide on Wednesday.

They find out when the police come by to ask if he had any enemies. Any employees who were angry at him. Hans honestly explains that most of the staff didn’t like him. They do a cursory check with everyone but the young officer who spent half the time flirting with Hans confesses they don’t genuinely suspect anything. It would take a very muscular man to have lifted Strauss into the noose and Hans is the buffest man on staff.

Hans thinks of how Ava had drooled over Beatrice lifting kegs as easily as she did bottles. Remembers that darkness that’d bled over Beatrice’s eyes when he informed her that Strauss was being creepy to Ava. How Beatrice had thrown an entire table full of frat boys from the bar after one of them groped Ava’s ass. “Or super strength,” he wonders.

“Or super strength,” the officer agrees with a laugh. Hans vows to himself that he’ll do everything he can to avoid making Ava’s girlfriend angry with him (he already was).

This turns out to be a very good decision when their next (temporary) manager threatens to fire Ava for breaking too many bottles trying to do tricks and being consistently late. That might have been fine if he didn’t choose to do it in a way that made Ava cry. He’s mugged later that night by ‘a massive guy with pitch black eyes’. Even in the light of day the new manager flinches away from sudden movements and keeps looking around like he expects someone to leap out and attack him. Hans overhears the man recommending the owners ask Beatrice (“she’s the pretty one, right?” he sounds shaken) to manage the bar. They agree and when Beatrice is informed she’s so surprised Ava nearly knocks her over jumping up for a hug.

“Wha- but, no?” Beatrice manages to get out while she easily holds Ava up off the ground after her jump. Like she doesn’t even notice she’s lifting an entire adult with one arm. “Or super strength,” the officer agrees with a laugh. Hans shivers and pretends he sees nothing.

“Bea! This is so awesome!” Ava cheers in genuine happiness. “Oh! Does this mean I get to call you boss?”

“I- I guess,” Beatrice says, still looking discombobulated.

Does Hans think Beatrice murdered their first manager and assaulted their second? No. But he also doesn’t not think that. He doesn’t not think that enough that he makes it a point of warning everyone who looks at Ava a little too long that she has a very scary, very protective (possessive) partner. He figures anyone who fails to listen to him deserves what they get. After all, he did warn them. Besides, he kind of enjoys the safe reputation La Vessur develops.

And he’s not dumb enough to make Beatrice angry at him.

It’s empathy that makes him watch out for others who might stumble across the truth. Those who know but don’t know that they do or can’t explain it. Most of them just shake it off. An odd cold spot on the summer warm crowded dance floor. The dimness of the overhead lights. A naturally upset stomach. They fool themselves so Hans lets them. Mostly.

Hans sees the man first. He knows he does because if Ava had seen him she would have confronted him with righteous indignation. If Beatrice had seen him he would have fled. 

Hans understands. 

The way the man stares at Beatrice is full of horror. Pure and undistilled by inconvenient logic. Beatrice is taller than Ava but short compared to Hans or the man. She’s solidly built the practical way physically active people are not the etched muscles of a frequent gym goer. Logically she should be unthreatening and easily dismissed as a danger. Logic was wrong. 

Hans knew logic was wrong the moment the little hairs on his neck rose when she looked at him. He saw logic proved wrong when they went through two managers in less than three weeks. This man knew too. One glance at Beatrice from across the crowded dance floor had him shivering in the warm summer air. The man turns wide, shocked eyes away from where Beatrice is diligently doing the books and catches Hans starting. Hans nods. The man nods back. ‘Yes,’ they say to each other in this singular look, ‘our brute animalistic understanding is correct and we should be scared’. He realizes he’s never felt this instant understanding with another person in his entire life before. It’s rather nice.

Hans is pretty sure that Ava knows. Knows that her girlfriend is something else that only looks human. Pretty sure… but not certain. He can’t fathom Ava being so easy going and magnetized to Beatrice’s presence if she truly understood. No, if Ava truly understood how dangerous her girlfriend is she’d flinch away. He’s never seen Ava flinch away from Beatrice. Flinch to? Absolutely. Ava looks at Beatrice and sees safety. She knows Beatrice is dangerous but truly has no concept of how wild that danger is. Ava views her as a protector, a guard dog. Hans knows, and this man as well, that trusting her at his unprotected back is setting himself up for a sudden and inevitable betrayal. That something in Beatrice is too rabid to trust beyond the knife’s edge of necessity.

Something in his eyes must convey that understanding. The blond man stumbles over to him. His wide eyes still locked to where Beatrice is placidly doing the books the way one watches an oncoming train while caught on the tracks. He’s pale, shaking and sweating at the same time. Like his body can’t decide if it’s too cold or too warm. A physical symptom, Hans knows, of psychological shock. 

“I- That woman,” he mutters once he’s close enough for Hans to hear. 

“Beatrice,” Hans says calmly. He ignores how his heart beat jack rabbits as Beatrice, on the exact opposite side of a crowded bar with music so loud he can feel it in his bones, instantly perks up and turns her attention to him at the sound of her name. The man stills. A deer watching a hunter decide if he’s prey. Hans understands. He’s no hero but the closest he comes is probably that moment when he nudges the man and continues. “She is our manager. She likes doing the books where she can see how the crowd moves. No need to worry.” Then he flashes an ‘everything is completely normal’ grin to Beatrice and wishes Ava were down here to do a better job of distracting their manager. 

His prayer is answered. The phone face up on Beatrice’s side table flashes and her attention is immediately and irrevocably pulled away. Hans is certain by Ava. For one he doesn’t think anyone else actually texts Beatrice. Secondly, Beatrice is never as absorbingly distracted by anything or anyone as much as she is with Ava. It’d be cute if just being around Beatrice didn’t make the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. No, it’s still cute but it comes with that gut clenching feeling of knowing the roller coaster is rising towards inevitable doom.

He wants to warn Ava to flee, to jump out while she still can, that it might not be too late. Hans doesn’t say anything though. Ava chases Beatrice like a drug addict chases a high and all he can do is watch. Watch and praise her for her inability to leave Beatrice alone for longer than half an hour so that he can talk to this guy without Beatrice paying attention. Truly, Ava is the hero here. 

“No,” the blond man gasps out once Beatrice’s attention is no longer locked on them. “You don’t understand. She’s- she’s-“

“Dangerous.” Hans finishes. The man nods frantically. He pats the man’s shoulder consolingly. “Yeah. She’s firm and fair as a manager. Doesn’t really engage with others outside of that. Except her girlfriend.” He makes eye contact with the blond man to convey how serious he is. “You’ll be fine so long as you don’t fuck with Ava.” 

“Ava…”

‘ Micheal, this is Ava,’ Mommy says as she lets someone else inside his protective cage. He feels her. In his blood and his bones. It feels weird. Light and energized where he’s only ever felt drain and exhaustion. He distracts himself from the alienness of it by focusing on coloring the angel that speaks to him. Letting their conversation about the Arc wash over him. Sneaking covert looks at the pretty woman when her focus is fully on mommy.

‘ I like her.’ His mommy and the woman both turn to look at him. He didn’t mean to say anything now he feels like he needs to explain. ‘I glow when she’s around.’ Mommy and the stranger go back to talking quickly. He expects her to leave like all the other experts mommy’s asked to come see him. She doesn’t. Instead she picks up a crayon and joins him in coloring. 

She was one of the few people he’d seen while stuck in the protective cage his mother had made him. He would have remembered her for that. She was the only person he coloured with who wasn’t his mother. Certainly he would have been able to find her again just from the memory of her joyous smile as she’d joined him coloring. She had a kind smile full of her genuine curiosity about him. Not just his disease or his life. Him. He’d loved her for that as a boy who had so little of him left to share. He was a man now. A hero trained for this mission. 

Micheal was ready. Raya told him. She’d put him back close to where her Halo was and trusted him to find Ava. Trusted him to save both his world and her. It had been years since he’d last seen the guardian of Raya’s Halo. He still remembered her. She’d been

Micheal didn’t need to. No point relying on permeable biology for memory when he had within him something more divine. His heart was permanent and unwavering. The divinium in his heart would guide him to the same electric person who’d lit it up so brightly before. The remains of it in his blood would show him the truth of the world. He was prepared to see Ava bathed in golden happiness. 

He was not ready for the beast. 

Micheal stares in horror at the red flare and dark shadow of the beast. Sitting calmly at the corner of the bar with its eyes locked unerringly on Ava. He’s seen angels and demons both in Reya’s realm. This is scarier. This is unnatural. The last thing he wants to do is get closer to it. Too bad that’s the first thing he has to do to convince Ava to help him save worlds.

Winning Ava’s interest, in the fight, is easy. She’s restless and listens intently anytime the regulars start gossiping about the supposed angel Adriel. It’s easy to leverage her curiosity to the cause. He likes to think if it were for her shadow and how the thing that only looks human Beatrice watches him with distrust that he’d have shared their fate with Ava sooner. When she questions all he can think to say is the palest version of the truth. “I came to the mountains looking for someone. Somebody connected to my past.”

He’s driving the car and as mistakes go it ranks top ten in his life. Ava’s fidgeting in the seat beside him. Twisting every few seconds to glance back in a way he wants to. He doesn’t. He keeps his attention locked to the car in front of them and not the thing person (monster) behind him. Don’t look back . The corner of his eye catches how the shadow flickers where no shadow should exist. Looming between him and Ava in defiance of physics. It’ll eat you . 

He was just a child when he left through the Arc. Can barely remember laying in his bed listening to his mother’s voice as she read him Goosebumps. Beatrice is a sharp reminder that sometimes pretending you don’t see it is the only way to not draw the monster’s attention. Ignorance isn’t bliss but it can be an escape… if he’s lucky. He’s been really fricking lucky so far. 

He ignores how the shadow lingers where no light casts it. Doesn’t look at the flickers of red in its eyes and how it snarls at him when he talks to Ava. Pretends not to see how it stretches out from Beatrice’s dark eyes to loom violently over them. He keeps his eyes on the road, his hands at two and ten on the steering wheel, his mind firmly focused on his task. Raya sent him here to be her will on Earth. To stop Adriel before he could enact his grand plan. Micheal is here to be the hero the world doesn’t know it needs. To be the hero Ava doesn’t know she needs. And the weapon. He was clear and confident in his purpose for years before he left the other side. Unquestioning in his faith. 

But…

Raya sent him here . Sent him into the jaws of death with no warning of what creature lurked, waiting for him. Raya is all-knowing and she did not warn him of Beatrice . 

What else does Raya not know?

He plays his part. As he must. He believes in Raya. Is honored by her faith in him to do what must be done. He cannot stop the doubt that is seeded in him. No matter how he tries to ignore it or pretend he cannot stop himself from wondering. Is the Beast here for its own purpose or Adriel’s? For Ava or the Halo? Does it plan to protect, as it seems to, or destroy as he knows is its nature?            Does it know he knows?       Will it be his death?

The war comes for them. It was inevitable. Ava is its centerpiece. Beatrice understands. More than the her of last year would have ever thought possible. Ava is at the center of her world too . She cannot blame forces beyond mortal understanding for falling prey to the very trap she lives fatted and contented in.

She can blame Vincent. 

She does so gladly. She’d probably blame Adriel too. If he meant more to her. 

It takes three months for their enemies to make a move she cannot convince Ava to ignore. Wonderful months of learning how to live by Ava’s side . Concerning months tamping down the urge to get closer . Somehow . In every second she is by Ava the urge tingles under her skin. Had pressed ravenous teeth to her throat and choked her with want. She just… hadn’t quite figured out what that want was yet. Why she desired Ava’s presence so greatly she turned to her before Ava even arrived. Why she wanted to press Ava up against the wall and hold her trapped there while biting kisses into her neck .

She knew what Mary would say. That it was the same cruel urge all her kin had fell to. The one that led to them being killed. Bad dogs get put down . Beatrice had tried so so hard to be good. She always stepped back when the skin around Sister Shannon’s eyes went tight. Never went around the room if it put her at Sister Monica’s back. Waited patiently for Sister Agnes to initiate contact. It was easier When they were the Warrior Nun her skin had tingled and her muscles ached in the way they always did around the halo. The halo had something her body needed and that piece of her that wasn’t quite human knew it. But… It was the halo. Not the woman them. 

With Ava-

Beatrice didn’t know. Didn’t know if the clawing need in her stomach was that same siren call writ inescapable. Inevitable madness. She’d watched her kin succumb to it one by one if they weren’t lucky enough to die first. Or. If it was just

Ava. 

The thought alone feels sacrilegious it’s not . Her life was structured around her nature. Her nature was structured around that forbidden hunger for the halo. For twenty-one years, from her earliest memory, there was nothing else. There could be nothing else. 

Ava crashed into her life with a smile that invoked pure idolatry. She touched . She touched Beatrice . As easily as she’d watched Shannon touch Mary. Like their flesh was built to be pressed together . It was nearly as intimate as the way Ava looked at her. Saw into her. Seeking all the hidden pieces Beatrice had learned to hide away because no one seemed interested in the monster in their midst having human interests. Beatrice grew up with uneasy stares and obscure hyper-awareness of her every movement. She’s never felt so seen. 

Ava had joked with her. Multiple times. For no greater reason that Beatrice could divine than she’d wanted to make Beatrice smile. It was… mind-boggling. Entrancing. Consuming. And Beatrice wanted nothing more than for Ava to consume all of her. Except maybe to consume her in return . 

But that was wrong. 

Right?

They had been very clear in her training. She was not to get closer to the Warrior Nun then permitted. Ava climbed into her arms and fell asleep on her chest. She was not to stay within the presence of the Warrior Nun longer than requested. Ava pouted every time Beatrice offered to leave. The only times Ava asked for alone time Beatrice returned to a loose limbed Ava snuggled satiated in their shared bed, smelling musky and rich, demanding cuddles. She was to listen to the Warrior Nun’s commands and obey without question or hesitation. Ava had picked her as trainer. Had given Beatrice permission to make commands for the both of them. Changed her mind about getting Beatrice to teach her to swim when she’d haltingly explained she didn’t know how to teach with tears on her chin as she remembers how she was taught.  She was never, ever to touch the halo. Ava had whined and teased until Beatrice had agreed to give her a massage. And after the first had insisted on more. Beatrice now touched the halo nightly through the soft skin of Ava’s back. She didn’t know what to do. She did as Ava directed.

There was supposed to be discipline and distance there. Before Ava had taken one look at it and ran through it like it was as immaterial as she could be. She should regret it. Should enforce it even if Ava didn’t. Ava didn’t know what she did. Didn’t know what she was . She needed to keep Ava safe and the greatest danger was herself. If she was good Beatrice would have taken Ava back immediately. Would’ve apologized to Mother Superion and Mary. Would have prostrated herself and begged for forgiveness knowing she shouldn’t receive it. Instead, for three months Beatrice hoards Ava. A dragon protecting her treasure. For three precious stolen months. 

Then the war comes for Ava. Ava goes willingly. Never one to sit where she could stand. Not anymore. Beatrice goes with her. Knowing anyone with a hint of common sense (Mother Superion and Mary) are waiting to punish her. There’s only one punishment for bad dogs her dreams are full of it . But. Beatrice won’t let Ava go to war without her. She’s built for war. For blood. For death. It’s all she’s good for. And she’ll use all she’s good for to protect Ava. Every part of her agrees Ava needs to be protected. No matter what.

Beatrice prays she can protect Ava from herself. 

Prays until her knees hurt and God remains as silent as always. The only sign she’s ever received from Him tugging at her arm impatiently. She turns from the Church, sun hitting her shoulders, and sees her shadow. Her own personal darkness from which she never stops receiving signs. On the wall her shadow looms over Ava’s. Head twisted to look down at her sunshine . Jaws open to show sharp teeth and ears perked with interest. Her own jaw clenches in reflex at the constant visible reminder only she sees of her otherness.

“C’mon Bea, let’s go ride the train!” Ava cheers enthusiastically. Beatrice’s eyes snap away from her shadow to Ava’s happy face. Letting herself be pulled away from the church she shifts to place herself between Ava and the darkness that stalks her. One day, she knows, Beatrice will no longer be able to protect Ava. All dogs go bad eventually . She keeps a weary eye on her shadow as Ava leads them onwards. Its distorted inhuman frame keeps pace with her every move. Perhaps this is for the best. At least if they return Ava will have friends beside her to keep her safe when the bad dog gets put down .

Mary doesn’t expect them to come back.

Not at all and certainly not like this. With Beatrice limp and woozy, hardly cognizant but still stumbling her way between Ava and danger. It’s wrong-weird. It’s exactly what Beatrice was trained to do. Trained because she could not be trusted to do without blood and pain to teach her. Her instinct, that part of her that guided when logic and training eroded, was to be guarded against.

There is no trained grace or planning in how Beatrice, unable to even stand on her own, catches how the shadows move with Mary’s approach and flops herself between Ava and danger. Mary stalls. Deflates. She’d been ready to fight. Ready for her heart and bones to break in equal measure to protect what remains of Shannon’s legacy.

Ready to hurt, to kill , the girl she can remember being twelve and wide eyed with excitement while she listened to Evanescence on Mary’s borrowed headphone’s for the first time in her life. That she can remember at fifteen and standing protectively over Mary with a knife in her side as a demon tries to get past her to finish killing Mary. She’s not human. Mary knows she’s not human.

She’d seen monsters in human flesh. Irredeemable evil wearing a human smile. Mary knew that evil walked this world. She just… no longer knew if Beatrice was that evil. If she’d ever been. She should know and right now she 

Doesn’t. 

So she hesitates. Changes the plan she’d spent the last three months obsessively perfecting. Doesn’t raise her divinum filled shotgun and end the untenable risk that is Beatrice so close to Ava’s vulnerable back.

“It’s just Mary,” Ava says, soft and reassuring. Like Beatrice has ever needed reassurance. Like she should be reassured that it was Mary . Proof that Ava didn’t learn survival instincts while she was away. “It’s okay. We’re safe.”

They really aren’t. In any sense of the word. Judging by the way Beatrice sways determined to keep Mary in her sights she knows that. Mary keeps her hand no more than a finger from her shotgun because she knows it too. “I’m glad to see you alive.” She says and is surprised to find herself talking to both of them. Her happiness at seeing Ava alive, and the shocked relief that comes with it, is expected. Not so much that same feeling directed at Beatrice.

It’ll make what has to happen harder. Beatrice dying in whatever confrontation left her dizzy enough to lean on Ava for support would’ve saved them all the heartache of doing what needs done. Would’ve made it easier for Mary because she knows she’s going to be the one to do what needs done. Suzanne would. If her injuries wouldn’t slow her down. Camila would try. If she could bring herself to see Beatrice as what she truly is. Lilith would have. Before her bullet holes became scales and her grip on humanity started sliding.

Now Lilith spends her days brooding about her identity. Asking uncomfortable questions about the line between good and evil, humanity and demons. Questions Mary didn’t have answers for. Lilith was human. Was. She didn’t know if Lilith still was. She didn’t know at what point it changes. Do scales instead of skin make Lilith a demon? Beatrice never had scales. She looked just as human on the outside as any of the possessed. What about super strength? Lilith isn’t as strong as Beatrice. Yet. She’s getting stronger every day. How fast must someone heal before they are no longer human? Ava healed faster than Mary ever imagined. Even Shan took a few minutes (but then the halo never healed Shan from dying).

Mary doesn’t know. She doesn’t know where the line is anymore. Four months ago the world was so clear. Shannon, and the halo bearers before her, were saintific. The possessed were humans already a half step into being lost. The demons inside them are unambiguously evil in need of death. Beatrice and her ‘siblings’ altered into a necessary evil only to be trusted until their training inevitably broke revealing them as what they truly are, long lost.

Lilith didn’t fit in any of those boxes. She tipped over each one to play with what they held inside. Lilith was Shan’s chosen successor and Mary genuinely believed in her to do the right thing. She believed that it was concern for the world as much as petty greed that drove her to hyper focus on the duty of being halo bearer. Lilith returned with forces driving her that no one understood. She returned to them after being lost but not quite all the way. Possessed by a need she couldn’t articulate but still determined to help. Her powers were nothing short of demonic and her flesh changing to match. Changed from healing the blows she took to save the world. Despite it all Mary couldn’t think of Lilith as evil. They were sisters in their war for the world. Had saved each other’s lives multiple times.

The same was true of Beatrice and they knew her to be evil.

The whole concept had Mary hiding from Camila’s curious eyes and Lilith’s grumpy brooding behind Suzanne’s pile of busy work. She didn’t want to talk about it. Any of it. Not Shannon’s dying. Not Lilith’s change. Not Beatrice’s betrayal. Not even Ava still being alive. It was easier to not think about it when she didn’t have to talk about it. Until Ava came back with Beatrice in tow.

Not talking was no longer an option. Not acting was as good as handing Beatrice the knife to stab them in the back. Again. Her back is still bloody from the knives she’s pulled out of it. She shouldn’t have felt relieved at seeing Beatrice alive. Yet she is. Undeniably, unfortunately, glad to see them both alive.

Camila is far more concerned when they slip past the crowded theater and into cramped resistance tunnels to find her. She steps towards Beatrice immediately with her hand raised to help. Beatrice flinches back. But no, that’s impossible. Beatrice doesn’t flinch. Ava must have guided her back and closer into her own body so as not to stumble. Camila holds herself back from assisting and instead helps with her soft voiced support. “You’re okay! Not that we didn’t think you weren’t. Thank you for calling us. For keeping us informed. We really missed you guys.”

Mary is sure Camila and Ava would be hugging if Ava didn’t have the brunette leaning so hard into her. Ava grins and wriggles like a puppy whose people returned after a long day at work. “I missed you too,” Ava cheers. “It sucks we had to split up but I trained, like, super hard. I’ll have to show you after we get Bea checked out.” She nods her head at where the stockier nun is only half awake.

“I’m fine,” the brunette says the moment she’s aware of everyone’s attention on her. She’s noticeably not fine given it's taken her an uncomfortably long time to respond. Mary shares a concerned glance with Camila before she can remind herself that she shouldn’t be worried about Beatrice’s the brunette’s health. Her duty here is clear and if Camila had been with the team longer she’d know it too.

“Yeah, okay. Maybe you’d like to lie down anyway?” Camila offers gently.

“That’s a great idea! Thanks Cam,” Ava accepts for the both with the ease of practice. Camila doesn’t share Mary’s spike of concern at their closeness judging by her happy skip as she leads them to one of the spare rooms.

Mary trails after. Watching Beatrice watch her while they tune out Ava and Camila’s happy chatter. While they mostly tune out their chatter. “Wait, did you just say you can walk on water?” Mary interrupts.

Ava laughs, gleeful and vibrant with it. Mary can’t look away from how Beatrice turns towards her, sunflower towards the sun, instinctual and necessary. “Well, more like running across than walking. And only for a few seconds. We’re working on extending that though.” Mary’s mind whirls with ideas for why Beatrice would want to teach Ava that. It seems overly elaborate for any plan the brunette could have. She could probably just drug Ava if she'd wanted to knock her out. She’s proven she’s good at that after all.

It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. It’s worse, somehow, to have the brunette go so off script. To be a danger but so impossibly unpredictably so. Months ago, when Beatrice had first run off with Ava, Camila had asked if she could actually just be doing what’s best for the world. Or Ava. Mary hadn’t given it much thought then. History bore the same scars cut wide with the same consistent hand. Hellhounds went bad. It started with them ignoring what they were trained to obey and escalated to them stabbing the halo bearer in the back, literally, as they sought to cut the halo from them. The steps in between varied little. Some ran and hid first. Others came right to the halo bearer teeth bared for a fight. A few smiled and played nice while plotting betrayal (Beatrice was the most successful of them). What they didn’t, ever, do was successfully take the halo bearer and, after months of silence, bring them back. Unharmed. More capable than when they left by a ridiculous amount.

It’s unarguable that the brunette ignored multiple direct commands from her handler and those above her in the chain of command. That should have been as good as Ava’s death sentence being signed. Mary’s seen kids Hellhounds executed for less. It was just a matter of time, Mary had been sure, before the brunette had taken what she wanted from and emptied Ava’s corpse of that wonderful light she held. Had been sure. No. Must be sure. Beatrice The brunette might seem tame and content but she was born what she is. There was no escaping her nature. And what she is, is a clear and present danger to Ava. A danger that it’s Mary’s duty to deal with.

Ava tucks Beatrice into bed with tender careful hands. “I’ll go fill in Mother about what we saw.” She tucks a few escaped strands of hair behind Beatrice’s (you have a duty, Mary, stop fucking around) the brunette’s ear. “Get some rest before you join us for dinner. Please.” Any resistance in the brunette’s body deflated at Ava’s gentle request.

Mary lingers in the room. Eyes unable to watch and equally unable to look away. There’s an intimacy here that’s discombobulating in multiple ways. A shared moment full of love she’s viscerally aware she’s intruding on but also impossible. Impossible, wrong, unreal. Evil doesn’t love. Doesn’t lean into a comforting touch with heavy eyes. Or nod with the blind faith of a toddler being told the monster under the bed is a friend.

“Don’t let me sleep too long,” Beatrice says. But her eyes aren’t on Ava and her words sound the same as any prayer Mary’s heard her whisper.

She knows.

Mary bites her cheek to stop herself from laughing. Or maybe crying. It figures the one teammate who’d understand doing a despicable duty because it is what is demanded and no one else is stepping up would be Beatrice. Don’t let me sleep too long .

-not me!” Mary laughs as she leans back in the plane seat. “I want to go out gently. In my sleep maybe. That sounds like it’d be nice.”

Shannon chuckles and leans her cheek on Mary’s shoulder. Her heart kicks in her chest at the easy touch. A stubborn pride that her shoulder is offering support to Shannon blooming uncontrollably. “Really? Sounds boring to me. Too boring for Shotgun Mary.” She teases. The heat of embarrassment squirms in Mary’s gut even as she turns towards her crush friend.

“ Hey, boring can be good,” she protests. “We’re already too unboring.”

“ Unboring isn't a word,” a steady voice interjects from in front of them. Unseen due to the seat back in front of them. A sharp reminder the world is not as small as the space between rows they were tucked into.

“ Thanks Bea,” Mary responds dryly.

“ Exciting would be an acceptable adjective. Or perhaps interesting.” Beatrice’s young voice continues.

Shannon smothers her laughter in Mary’s shoulder and Mary isn’t teasing when she repeats. “Thank you, Bea.”

Giggling under control, Shannon twists her head to rest her cheek on Mary and free her lips. “What about you, Beatrice, would you rather die in your sleep or for a more exciting reason?”

The fifteen year old pauses for a moment to think. Mary has a moment of poignant awareness that no one so young should be thinking so seriously about this question. It should be asked and answered with all the immortality of youth. Not the resigned understanding of warriors laughing at their inevitable end. “I’d rather be awake,” she finally responds. “So that I’d know. It would be a waste to sleep through something so important.”

Mary snorts and presses her knee against the seat back to rock it forward. “Alright, kiddo, we’ll wake you up then.”

“ Yeah,” Shannon agrees, her hand coming to rest beside Mary’s. “We won’t let you sleep too long.”

Mary opens her eyes to an empty room. Only the brunette loving tucked into bed and her imminent executioner remain. Beatrice’s eyes are closed and she looks so young with her face relaxed in sleep. Defenseless and vulnerable. Mary’s hands are shaking so hard it’s probably a good thing she’s not holding her shotgun. She might drop it.

Beatrice’s breaths are slow and deep. Mary settles next to her on the bed. It’s still warm from Ava’s body heat. The dichotomy of their intentions makes Mary’s pulse pound in her temples. One to cherish and protect. One to distrust and attack. 

She’d joined the OCS to do good. To protect people like her mother from those like her father. Those who’d abuse and hurt them. It was hard. Hard to fight people who looked normal and unwittingly carried great evil inside them. Mary had done it because it had needed doing. That kind of evil that ruined lives needed to be stopped. There was no redeeming demons. Only destroying them.

Her hands won’t stop shaking.

Lilith looks up with knowing eyes when Mary sneaks her way into the meeting. Suzanne keeps her eyes firmly locked on Ava in a way that Mary’s experience tells her means she suspects. Yasmine, Camila, and Ava keep smiling obliviously. She slides in beside Lilith and leans against her shoulder just enough for their clothes to brush.

“Did you get what you wanted?” Lilith asks quietly as Yasmine explains her presence to the Warrior Nun.

“No,” Mary’s response is just as quiet. She caught Lilith’s wording. Wanted, not needed. Lilith hasn’t actually explicitly told anyone that she’s less sure Beatrice is evil because of what she was born as. She also hasn’t explicitly said she’s wondering if she’s still the good (human) person she thought she was. But Lilith has always had a way of making what she didn’t say speak as loudly as what she does. “I need,” oh. She didn’t mean to say it like that. “I need to talk with Ava. Privately.”

Lilith hums noncommittally. When the meeting wraps up with the rough plan of a museum heist (because, hey, why not?) she pulls Ava away from the group without any explanation beyond a brisk “come with me.” Ava does. Teasing Lilith about having missed her and wondering if she’s been working out all the while. Mary can’t help but grin at Ava’s graceless attempts at bonding. Lilith scowls the entire way to the roof and dodges those genuine attempts less successfully than she’d dodged bullets. Mary thinks Lilith wishes it were the opposite way around. Bullets are much easier to recover from. 

When Ava’s been plonked on a chair under the bright Madrid sun Lilith disappears in a blast of hellfire. “Oh,” Ava sounds a weird mix of thrilled at Lilith’s casual display of power and sad at being unceremoniously abandoned. Until she takes in the empty roof full of privacy and how Mary’s eyes are heavy on her. “Oh!” And promptly understands in exactly the wrong way. “I swear I didn’t try to seduce her!”

In all honesty Mary had forgotten that aspect of Beatrice running away with Ava. She’s (totally) not avoiding the inevitable when she leans into the set up. Team bonding via teasing is a time honored tradition between them. “Mm, bold of you to assume I didn’t see that hickey on her neck.” All Mary saw on Beatrice’s neck was vulnerability. How helpless she was to protect herself from an uncaring hand on her throat.

“What hickey?!” Ava demands, indignant with jealousy. “Where!”

Mary laughs. She’d have thought nothing about the sexual side of things if Ava wasn’t so adamant that nothing was or would happen. Her own thoughts gave her away as continuously thinking something less than innocent.

Ava scowls and nudges her hand against Mary’s shoulder to chide her. “Dick.”

“You should’ve seen your face,” Mary chortles unrepentantly.

Ava rolls her eyes in a show of disgruntlement but her smile is brighter, lighter, than it was just moments ago. The tension of being pulled aside for a private conversation flowing off her shoulders. “Whatever. She was a perfect gentleman, of course. And I was… acceptably well behaved.”

“What does acceptably well behaved look like, babygirl?” There’s honest curiosity behind her question. She wants to understand how Ava sees the world. How Ava sees Beatrice. She wants to know if Ava’s wrong… or she is.

“I, well, um,” Ava splutters for a second. “I respected her boundaries?”

“You sound a little shaky on that.” Mary points out neutrally. 

“No! I did. It’s just,” Ava looks aside as she thinks, “she doesn’t really have many.”

Sternly polite Beatrice isn’t the person most people think of when they picture poor boundaries. But the moment Ava says it something clicks. Beatrice does have poor boundaries. So long as things are clearly laid out she defends those expectations. It’s when they aren’t that she has problems. “Huh. I hadn’t noticed.” Why hadn’t she noticed?

“I think it’s the whole ‘life of service’ thing she has going on. She, and I adore her so I mean this with all the respect in existence, she sucks at people.” Once Ava starts speaking it becomes clear to Mary she’s wanted to say this to someone for a while. “She’s so smart, like scary smart, but I don’t think she had much experience interacting with people. Which is disappointingly funny because I was raised a paraplegic orphan and I still have better people skills than her. She must have been, what’s the saying, raised in a barn?”

“A nunnery, actually.” Mary corrects absently. Her mind is full of memories she’s spent the past three months studying. She’d been looking for a clue about what Beatrice was doing. Now she’s thinking about how young Beatrice was. Wondering what she did when not on a mission or training. Remembering how tentative she was when Mary offered to show her anything outside their purpose.

“What? Like, really? I thought she had parents though.” Ava’s words don’t distract her from examining her memories so she answers with atypical openness. The Hellhounds are a barely hidden shame in the OCS. But they are, were, hidden.

“Yeah, but they gave her to the OCS when she was a baby. After Sister Agnes depossessed them and explained what she was.” She’s distracted questioning if it matters that Beatrice was a child and misses how Ava goes stoney. 

“Are you telling me Beatrice was given to a religious paramilitary group as a baby.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement of both facts and how vastly non-impressed Ava is by those facts.

Mary snaps back to the conversation she’s having. Denial is immediate on her lips. “No, of course not. She needed special care that her parents couldn’t offer.”

Ava arches an eyebrow. “Special care her very wealthy parents couldn’t afford?”

“It wasn’t about afford, Ava. They wouldn’t have understood. Even if they were taught how to keep everyone safe they couldn’t risk the reputation Beatrice’s care would require. The OCS was, is, the best place for her.” Mary was eighteen when this had been explained to her the first time. She’s mucking it up so bad. Shan was much better at it.

“What kind of care?” Ava sounds protective . Mary thinks that’ll never stop being weird. 

“We never did talk about what Beatrice is, did we?” She asks rhetorically. “The first of what we call ‘Hellhounds’ were created nearly thirty years ago. Near as they could figure a group of demons got together and started experimenting on possessing pregnant hosts. It’d been done before,” Mary has nightmares about a few incidents she’s personally seen, “but never like this.”

“What made this different?” Ava asks.

“Dunno. No one ever figured it out. Not what caused it, at least. They figured out the side effects right fast. The first of the Hellhounds was only seven when she burned her family alive.” Mary grimaces as she remembers the black and white photos that Shan had shown her. “She healed. Her parents, siblings, and pets didn’t.”

Ava rests a sympathetic hand on Mary’s arm. “That’s awful.” She waits a moment to separate the statements. “I don’t see why that means Bea would need this special care.”

“Because,” Mary sighs, “all of them were like that. Broken. They, God Ava, they were all psychopaths. It would have been a tragic coincidence but they were also stronger than any adult and could heal debilitating wounds in days. Worse, each was progressive stronger and more deadly. A five year old having a tantrum is socially embarrassing. A five year old Hellhound having a tantrum was a mass casualty incident. They needed order. Structure. Training. The Catholic Church gave them that and in return they helped fight other demons.”

Ava thinks for a moment. Playing the concept around in her head. Mary waits patiently for the question she’s sure comes next. What about Beatrice? She should be used to Ava defying her expectations by now. “How young were they when they started ‘training’?” Mary can hear the quotes without Ava making a gesture. 

“As soon as they came to us,” Mary says. “Some took longer than others. Sister Marcella tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. Sister Agnes learned better.”

“You do see how treating a child like a soldier is a bit problematic, right?” Ava asks.

Mary shakes her head. “You’re applying human morals to something that’s not.” 

“Moral?” Ava snarks. “I think we both knew that.” 

“Human,” Mary says calmly. Her face softens. “Look, babygirl, I get it. You look at Beatrice and you see a pretty girl who can kick ass and wants to keep you safe. I get the appeal, I do . I met Beatrice when she was eleven. She was the shy, quiet thing. Always lurking around the grounds with her nose buried in a book or exercising. Hardly spoke at meals but when she did she was so smart. Had this tiny gap toothed smile on the rare time you could tease one out of her.” 

Ava hums. “Yeah, she’s, not really that different. I mean, she has all her teeth now, but,” Ava shrugs. 

“That’s exactly it,” Mary says seriously. “She’s not that different. But what I know about her? That’s a world apart.” Mary looks off into the distance. “I watched that shy reserved eleven year old rip a person’s throat out with her gap toothed smile. I realized then why they never served Beatrice the red jello for dessert. No one could bear to watch her eat it.”

Ava blinks. “Okay, well, that leaves me with a whole lot of questions and some horrible imagery.”

Mary snorts. “Yeah, you’re not the only one. I had nightmares about that for months.The point, babygirl, is that Hellhounds are evil.”

Ava scoffs. “I’m inexperienced Mary, not naive. I know cruelty. It’s a coward’s pleasure. Used most against those who are helpless. I spent most of my life more helpless than you could dream. Beatrice is the furthest from cruel I’ve ever seen a person. More importantly,” Ava says clearly, “I know Bea. I don’t know what it was but I know there was a reason she did that. A reason I’d probably agree with.”

“You can’t know that,” Mary denies. 

“Can. Do.” Ava tosses her head. “You all look at Beatrice and you see some kind of animal. Something barely human. Or worse, something pretending to be human. I look at Bea and see the person she is. The person who chooses kindness even amid cruelty. The person who’s willing to hurt and bleed to keep her team, her family , safe. I know who she is. I love who she is. Even if you try to dress her up in evil I always will.”

Mary sighs heavily and shakes her head with genuine pity in her eyes. “God save me from fools in love.”

“Arguably God’s on my side. After all, he’s got my back.” Ava smirks. 

Mary shakes her head disbelievingly. “That was bad. Even for you, that was bad.”

“Bea would have laughed,” Ava pouts.

“It was pretty funny,” Beatrice agrees from the doorway. Mary reaches for a gun she doesn’t have . Ava startles at the unexpected interruption before wiggling in excitement at seeing Beatrice. Utterly ignoring how what they were talking about (what she was finally able to tell Ava about) could have upset her. 

“Bea!” Ava says with a thrilled expression that slowly turns pale and horrified. “How long- did you hear- It’s platonic, I swear!” Mary buries her head in her hands and does her best to pretend she’s not here and she’s never heard of Ava Silva in her life. Ava’s got one track in her mind and it’s stuck on the ‘Beatrice is sexy’ train.

“Ava,” Mary’s world tilts on its axis. She’s never heard Beatrice sound so- soft? in love? Human? “I,” she licks her lips nervously, “am not opposed to any feelings you may hold towards me.” She was a perfect gentleman. Mary looks away from whatever kinky roleplay they’re doing right now. Some things were meant to be private.

“Really?” Ava looks bigger with the anticipation and excitement that fills her.

“Yes.” She sounds like a shy teenager with her first crush. She might be a teenager with her first crush. Well, now Mary just feels sad. “Before we address anything that might exist we should address what does exist. My nature.”

“Perfect,” Ava breathes out. Mary looks back to stare at her for saying that. Ava turns red and rubs her toe against the roof. “I mean, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“I’m not.” Beatrice is also blushing and Mary did not sign up for this. “I’m leeching from you Ava. Feeding off the halo every time we touch and one day, that won’t be enough. I’m a danger to you.”

Ava snorts. “Bea, you couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”

Beatrice frowns. “I’m a better trained fighter than you. Much better.”

“Yeah, no contest. Physically you could wipe the floor with me. But Bea, the first time we sparred and you accidentally hit me because I dodged into your punch you had a panic attack. You, honey, are a softy.” Mary’s thankful they’ve forgotten her presence. It’s still awkward to third wheel but she needs this unvarnished look at Hellhound (the person) she thought she knew.

“I’ve murdered people,” Beatrice grumbles. “So many people. An uncountable amount even.”

“You broke your ankle jumping over a stray dog instead of risking accidentally stepping on it. Where you can, you always choose kindness.” Aw, Mary sees why Ava looks at Beatrice like she’s adorable.

“I hung our first manager to fake his suicide.” Her eyebrows shoot up and concern beats at her chest. What actions are the truth of who Beatrice is?

“God,” Ava gives her heart eyes, “you make me feel so safe.” Mary restrains herself from grabbing Ava by the shoulders and shaking sense into her. 

“I am a bad person. Objectively.” She’d nod her agreement with Beatrice’s statement if she wasn’t afraid of drawing their attention to her continued presence.

Ava snorts. “Babe, I read the Bible. I know what angels do. More importantly, I know you.”

Beatrice freezes.

“I see you. I get you. I have from the first moment I saw you.”

Beatrice shakes her head in denial. “No, Ava. You never have. You couldn’t love me if you had. I killed Mary’s contact. The one we got the passport from.”

Ava nods. “You put his body in the fridge. I know. Why’d you kill him?”

“So he couldn’t say where we were going.” Beatrice responds quickly. Too quickly. Ava catches it too.

“Don’t lie, honey. Why did you kill him?”

Beatrice looks down. “I found child pornography on his computer after I knocked him out.”

“And the people on the train car when you got jealous, what happened to them?”
Beatrice blushing. “I-I didn’t get jealous. ” Mary didn’t know Beatrice could get jealous.

“Oh, babe, you were super green. It was so fucking hot. I got off- not the time. What happened to them, Bea?”

“I knocked them out.”

Ava raises an eyebrow. “Seething with jealousy and you only knocked them out? I know you’ve hurt people. I know your morals aren’t the standard well fed middle class morals movies push. I also know you only hurt people for a cause. Never more than is necessary. Even for your own selfish reasons.” Ava places her hand over Beatrice’s heart. “You are so fucking good. You deserve life. You deserve love.”

Beatrice is crying silent tears. “That can’t be true.” She sounds small and broken.

“Why not?” Ava questions, delicate and firm. Unyielding in the face of Beatrice’s resistance to admitting the truth that’s shattered her.

“Because if it is, that means everyone I’ve loved, everyone I’ve cared about has failed me. If it wasn’t me that caused it- if it’s not my fault- how could they?” Oh.

Ava hugs her. “I don’t know. I don’t know how they could hurt you. I don’t know why they didn’t keep you safe. I’m sorry you were. You deserve better.” Beatrice bawls. Loud gasping sobs. Her pain ugly and public in a way she wasn’t ever permitted. Until Ava. 

The determination to save Ava from Beatrice’s evil curls up in her chest and dies. Shivles away is an ocean of shame and understanding. She’s right. Mary failed her. Failed to stand up and protect someone who needed it. She let evil win when she approved a child being trained as a soldier. Fighting on the front lines against demons and her own siblings. She bites her lip to keep from throwing up. 

Mary could tell herself that Beatrice was already a soldier when they met. That it was too late for her to stop it. Even if she’d tried she doubts anyone would have listened. She wouldn’t even be lying. That doesn’t absolve her from the guilt of doing the one thing she never wanted to do. Being a bystander who tacitly approved of the abuse she saw with her own eyes. 

Beatrice had always been quiet and reserved. Many abuse victims were. She’d always had this need to serve. To fulfill her heavenly duty. A duty thrust on her by others. Religion was often used as a tool for power and control. In Beatrice’s case that was far too literal. 

Mary didn’t magically stop thinking Beatrice was broken. She was. Had been since the moment they met. But her blinders had come off. Beatrice wasn’t born this way. She was made this way. And Mary had let it happen. Shannon had let it happen. Suzanne and Lilith and, yes, even Camila had let it happen. The only one who hadn’t accepted ‘the way things were’ was Ava. For that Mary loves her.

Shan had never been Mary’s guiding light. Not the way others viewed the Warrior Nun. A leader spiritually as much, if not more, than she was physically. Mary’d loved her too much as a woman to see her as a legend. She sees it with Ava. A light to guide the way. Hope bringer. Halo bearer.

“I’m sorry.” The words come without thought or intent. Pulled from her soul. It hurts the way the truth always does. Softer with every blow. Liberation and absolution through embracing what most causes pain and fear. “I failed you. You needed protection and I didn’t see that. I’m so sorry. You deserve better. You are not evil, Beatrice. You’re good. You’re so good, kiddo.” For the first time, and she’s certain it won’t be the last, she follows Ava’s lead. Mary kneels. She wraps her arms around Beatrice and Ava both and holds her family tight.