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There’s a single stream of moonlight coming in through a crack in the curtained window. Beatrice sits at the small kitchen table that barely has room for her elbows, let alone the set of plates she found tucked into one of the cabinets haphazardly while she searched for clean towels to help clean up some of the blood and dirt on Ava. She follows that single beam down from the window and across the peeling floor until it rests on Ava’s face, sitting on the kitchen floor with her head against the refrigerator, fast asleep.
She had only gone down to the car for one last bag - packed earlier in the day before they set out to go find Adriel - leaving Ava alone in the relative safety of this place. She counted forty-five seconds - sixteen stairs down, ten steps to the car, and sixteen stairs back up - but in that time, Ava had slid down the front of the refrigerator, heavy eyes closed by the time she returned.
Ava looks… small. With her knees pulled to her chest, her head tipped back, mouth open as she draws breath in and exhales it quietly, she looks as young as she is - hardly old enough to be carrying the weight of the Halo on her back. The idea that Ava should be having the time of her life at university—not curled up on the floor of a quiet apartment with blood caked against her temple— takes Beatrice’s breath away. The injustice of that steals it and holds onto it until her lungs burn. She curls one hand tightly until she feels her fingernails cut half-moon shapes into her rough palm, and she exhales noisily, still soft enough to be lost in the hum of the refrigerator.
They’ve been traveling for hours now, the Vatican far in the rearview mirror of the car she found, abandoned along the road as people poured closer to the explosions that rocked the city. Ava had fallen asleep quickly, the lull of the road too much for her to fight against. It had taken all of Beatrice’s willpower to stay awake once the adrenaline wore off.
But Ava next to her, breathing as steadily as Beatrice’s pounding heart, had kept her awake long enough to get them here: a small city in the Alps where no one would come looking for them.
She’ll regret that in the morning, she thinks, studying the curve of Ava’s neck as the moonlight traces the hollow of her throat. Get her up. But she waits another minute, her chest tightening with each passing second.
Ava inhales sharply, head rolling forward at the motion. Beatrice listens to the change in breathing, knowing that Ava is wavering between sleeping and waking. She casts aside her thoughts - Gather yourself, Beatrice, her mother would say - and rises with more strength than she thinks she possesses before crouching down in front of Ava. She carefully brushes some of Ava’s hair off her face, fingers tacky with blood. Ava sighs softly, forehead dropping into Beatrice’s hand.
“Ava,” she breathes quietly. “Stand up.” She curls her hands around Ava’s elbows, gently guiding her up until Ava is blinking sleepily at her, leaning back against the refrigerator.
Ava breathes in silently, her chest rising and falling between them. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Beatrice says quickly. She ducks her head, trying to catch Ava’s eyes as they move around the room, seemingly taking stock of the place for the first time. She smiles when Ava focuses on her, just a quick upturn at the corners of her mouth that feels less hollow than it had when she greeted Andrin, the retiree letting the place to them. “There’s a perfectly good bed right there.”
Ava’s eyes drift over her shoulder. “Bed,” she repeats, words slurred.
Her smile blooms slightly. “Yes. Bed.” She takes a careful step back, testing Ava’s balance. When she doesn’t teeter to one side, she takes a bigger step away, hands sliding off Ava’s arms.
Ava turns her hands quickly, catching Beatrice’s in her own. “Wait.” She’s alert now, eyes moving more purposefully. She looks down at her clothes, the moonlight catching the darkened spots on her shirt. “My clothes.”
Beatrice looks down, following the path she knows Ava is taking. Her shirt is ruined, crusted in some places with blood. Beatrice touches a spot carefully, flakes of dried blood whispering down to the floor. A mess to clean for another time. But Ava is looking at her when she looks back up, blinking owlishly as if Beatrice is supposed to know what to say.
“I want to take them off,” she finally says.
Beatrice’s heart stutters in her chest, a foot coming off the clutch too early. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth when she speaks. “Okay.”
Something precarious hangs between them now. She knows Ava doesn’t see it; doesn’t feel the moment go taut. But Beatrice has been walking a tightrope for days now, hovering between steady ground and a sudden free fall.
Gather yourself.
“Okay,” she repeats, trying her best to keep her tone even.
She takes a slow step backward but Ava is balanced against the refrigerator now. Her eyes track the slow move of Ava’s hands to the hem of her shirt as her fingers curl in the fabric. Ava looks impossibly smaller, covered in dust and blood. Beatrice has to turn away as Ava peels the shirt away from her stomach and works it up over her head, hissing softly with the movement. Her eyes stay locked on a small clock hanging on the wall, focusing on the picture behind the glass for a long moment until she recognizes it as a red-billed chough.
Ava clears her throat and Beatrice swallows heavily, a lump in her throat the size of a cherry pit. Ava is standing in that stream of moonlight, the pale stretch of her skin broken by a black sports bra and a row of dark bruises that disappear in either direction. Her first instinct is to reach out and try and soothe their ache. But she focuses instead on Ava, holding her shirt in one hand as it hovers between them.
“Let me take that,” Beatrice says quickly, gathering it one hand.
Ava opens her mouth to argue but it blends into a yawn and she ducks her head sheepishly at the slight laugh that escapes past Beatrice’s lips. “It needs to be cleaned,” Ava starts.
Beatrice shakes her head. “I’ll do it.” She takes the shirt carefully, her other hand flexing at her side as she thinks about wrapping her arm around Ava’s waist and holding her close. She feels like she needs it; to know that Ava is here, Ava is alive. She needs to feel Ava’s warm skin under her calloused fingertips to remind herself that they’ve made it out together.
For now, she has Ava’s shirt, weighed down with blood and dust and Mary’s handprint on the shoulder. She grips it tightly, focusing all of her energy into keeping it from the floor.
“My pants,” Ava continues. She blinks tiredly at Bea and curls her fingers into the waistband, pushing them down. Bea watches as battle-heavy limbs try to navigate getting through compressed fabric, caked with dirt and blood. She nearly offers to help, but Ava finally frees a foot and starts working on the second one. This one is easier than the other and then her pants are a dark puddle on the ground.
Beatrice quickly puts the shirt down on the table and lifts the bag she brought from the car off the floor. She opens it, finds a simple pair of shorts and a clean shirt she packed in case something like… this happened. She hands them to Ava wordlessly but her hands follow quickly when Ava just holds them, staring down at them.
“Here,” she whispers. She gently collects the shirt, bringing it down over Ava’s head and using careful hands to work her arms through it. It settles down over the bruises, hiding them. Beatrice exhales. “Bottoms,” she murmurs, pulling one of Ava’s hands to her shoulder so she can steady herself while she helps Ava slide one leg, then the other, into the shorts.
Beatrice steps back as Ava brings them up her body, passing over more bruises. Beatrice breathes in, remembering all of those rocks crushing Ava, suffocating her. She busies herself with picking up the pants and putting them on the table next to the shirt.
With a slight smile she doesn’t quite feel, she dances around Ava’s frame, gently turning her towards the bed across the apartment.
“Bea,” Ava starts, tripping over the single syllable.
Her words are a whisper when she says, “Sleep.”
Ava pushes back against her slightly. “Bea, I-”
But Beatrice shushes her quietly and eases her forward another step. Ava has needed her to be a guide before; she needs her now again. With careful steps, she leads Ava through the kitchen, past their small table, and into the single bedroom. Ava drifts like a leaf moving aimlessly on the wind, letting Beatrice move her without protest. She doesn’t fight when Beatrice pulls back the scratchy blanket and gently sits her down. She only sits, lets Beatrice pull the blanket up around her, closes her eyes when Beatrice runs a finger over her forehead gently, and turns into the flat pillow under her head and breathes out a soft snore, already falling asleep again.
Then it’s Beatrice, a bloody shirt, and an empty kitchen.
There’s work to be done. Beatrice will need to scout the neighborhood, determine threats and weakpoints. She’ll need to establish a perimeter and set up safeguards. She’ll need to find them something to do, somewhere to train and grow.
But for now, she needs to clear her mind and keep her hands busy.
She turns on the kitchen sink, looking back over her shoulder at Ava asleep in the dark, a shape on the bed she can hardly make out under the rough blanket. She lets the water run cold, testing her fingers under it before she figures out a way to plug the sink. She carefully holds the shirt in her hands, letting the water soak into the fabric before she starts dabbing it with a wet, clean cloth. The water is tinted pink as it fills the basin. She feels the dried blood flaking away from the shirt and swirling at the bottom of the sink. It stains her fingertips red but she works the fabric harder.
If she can just wash it away - the miles, the loss - then maybe when this shirt dries, it can be like new again. They can start new again. If she can get the stains out of this, then she can get the stain Adriel is going to wash across the world out. She feels the fabric start to stretch under her hands and she inhales sharply, dropping the shirt into the soapy, pink water.
Behind her, Ava snores softly.
Beatrice carefully picks the shirt back up, holding it up in the moonlight. She looks it over but the fabric is as black as the night that pushes in around them. In the morning, in the sun, she’ll be able to see where the imperfections are. Now, in the night, she just wants to hide away the reality that they’re heading into the unknown, no next clear steps. She fishes to the bottom of the sink and pulls the plug, listening to the sucking sound as all of the water rushes away.
She looks back over her shoulder at Ava sleeping one more time before she carefully hangs the wet shirt over the back of the kitchen chair. She listens to it drip on the cracked floor as she takes a deep breath, her heart beating in between the drops. In the morning, the shirt will be dry and they will look at what they have - nothing except each other - and what they need - nothing except each other . They will decide on how to move forward.
Taking a seat at the table, she looks at her hands, wrinkled from the water. It wakes her up a little. She feels more alert.
She’s not sure she washed all of it away; that she can wash away whatever is coming next. But for Ava, she’ll try until her hands crack dry.
-
Ava peels the last corner of the sheet off the bed, smiling triumphantly as it immediately springs back into a balled-up shape on the floor. She picks it up and thrusts it forward, but it escapes her hands and falls like water to the floor at her feet.
Beatrice sighs and looks at it as if it will rise on its own and float its way to the small top-loading washing machine tucked away next to the refrigerator.
Ava doesn’t take a step towards it.
“Honestly, Ava.”
Ava grins, tucking her thumbs into the waistband of the shorts she’s wearing. “Honestly, Bea,” she mimics. “It’s boring.Why can’t we do something fun?”
“Chores can be-”
“Don’t say chores can be fun,” Ava says over her. “Because there is nothing fun about wrestling sheets off lumpy mattresses just to force them back on hours later.”
Beatrice inhales deeply, tampering her slowly-building frustration. Where Beatrice lived her life by the precision corners of bed-making, Ava has not. She leaves the sheets a mess each morning after her night on its admittedly very uncomfortable mattress, blankets half on the floor. She doesn’t see the value in making the bed - or she just likes the slow sigh that Beatrice heaves when she has to pick up the sheets so she doesn’t step on them.
If Beatrice was a betting woman, she’d put her money on that.
“Fine. Chores can be beneficial.” She eyes Ava warily. “And fresh sheets are necessary.”
Ava groans like Beatrice thought she would. She drops down heavily on the corner of the bed, the frame of it protesting the sudden weight. “But every day?”
“We have a washing machine unit,” Beatrice reminds her. She looks into the kitchen and leans just a little until the small top loading washing machine is in view, flush with the refrigerator. “And we should be washing sheets in between uses.”
It’s taken years, but Beatrice’s startle response is nearly gone, washed away by practice. So when Ava claps, loudly, where she stands, Beatrice only blinks slowly, one eyebrow inching up in a quiet question she doesn’t voice.
“Which brings me to my next point.” Beatrice wants to point out that Ava hasn’t made a first one. “We don’t need to switch on and off.”
Beatrice keeps her gaze on the crumpled up sheet at Ava’s feet. It’s not the first time Ava has said this. They’ve been here, in the Alps, for a week now, spending some time hiding away in the apartment’s walls while Ava regained all of her strength and Beatrice scouted out the small neighborhood they’ve found themselves in. When Ava woke up the first morning to a pink-tinted sink and a drying shirt over the kitchen chair, she hadn’t said anything about it. They spent the day cataloging their meager belongings, things they managed to grab on their way out of the city, before Ava convinced Beatrice that she was fine to stay behind if Beatrice went out and found them something to eat.
It had been easy, that second night, to shepherd Ava back into the bedroom and push away the halfhearted “No, you slept on the couch last night”- which wasn’t entirely true. She fell asleep at the kitchen table, chair turned towards Ava to keep watch. But Ava had still been tired, the lingering effects of the Halo keeping her quiet enough that Beatrice didn’t have to push too hard.
But the next night Ava had been undeterred, firm hands at Beatrice’s shoulders as she steered Beatrice into the bedroom. For a moment, she thought about protesting. Her whole world had come down to this: protecting Ava, caring for Ava. Mother Superion tasked her, specifically, with this. And Beatrice liked to excel. But her body was tired, aching for something close to soft under her. So when Ava gently led her to the edge of the bed and sat her down, untying her shoes with slightly shaking hands, Beatrice hadn’t fought her.
She was too focused on breathing; on stopping her whole body from trembling as Ava’s fingertips ran over her ankle bone as Ava eased the boot off her heel. Ava was so free with her hands, unaware of the hesitation that ran like a leyline through her. She had given Beatrice a crooked smile as she tossed the boot carelessly over her shoulder, one after the other. “Seriously, Bea. You look like you’re going to fall over. I can keep watch for the night.”
She hadn’t remembered falling asleep, sure there had been another protest on her lips. But she woke up to the smell of burning tea leaves, heart pounding into overdrive at the acrid smell.
After she had calmed down and the tea bags Ava tried to make were extinguished in the sink she scrubbed the day before, Beatrice had stripped the bedsheets and loaded them experimentally into the top-loading washing machine in the kitchenette. Her housekeeper’s voice rang through her head, sharp and bright like the woman had always been: “There’s nothing quite like the cleanliness of a fresh set of sheets. Does the soul good.” It had taken all day for the sheets to dry, hung up around their small space like sectioning off the rooms. When night came and they only had lamplight, Ava made shadow puppets and tried to do her best Mother Superion, smiling as brightly as a sun when Beatrice finally allowed herself a laugh.
“I’m serious,” Ava continues. “The sheets take all day to dry.” She holds up one finger towards Beatrice before counting a second one. “And aren’t we killing the planet, running the machine this much? Shouldn’t we be more… environmentally conscious?”
Beatrice picks up the sheets and turns it over in her hands. They’re still warm from Ava’s body just minutes ago, before Beatrice prodded at her to get up and help with the morning chores. They may not be in Cat’s Cradle right now, but there are still morning duties that Beatrice isn’t going to give up, small reminders about her purpose and place. She inhales sharply, the sound louder than she intends.
Ava’s face drops. “Is this because I snore?”
Beatrice doesn’t give anything away, expression neutral as she thinks of what to say. “Sharing… a bed with you would do nothing to deter your snoring.”
“So you do think I snore.” Ava pouts, pushing her bottom lip out in a way that makes Beatrice’s heart flutter in her chest, the wings of it shuddering. “Bea, please.” She takes a few tentative steps closer, hands twisting in front of her before they find the loose ends of the sheets Beatrice is holding. “If my back is killing me after just two nights of sleeping on that deathtrap of a couch, I know yours must be too.”
A polite refusal sits on her lips but Ava nods gently and it dies.
“I promise you, I’m not a cuddler.” Ava holds up a finger when Beatrice opens her mouth. “I can take the side away from the door, if that makes you feel good about it.”
It shouldn’t. She shouldn’t be considering what makes her feel good about sleeping in the same bed as Ava. She should be firm, a flat and unarguable no. She made a promise to Mother Superion in the chaos of leaving, a firm handshake vow that she would do whatever it takes to keep Ava alive and well. Sleeping on a spring-filled couch is a sacrifice she’s willing to make. For Mother Superion, of course. For Mary. For the fate of the world.
Ava’s hands move like water until her cool fingers are working Beatrice’s away from the sheet. Her smile is growing, her mind focused on a victory. She’s impossibly easy to read; Beatrice knows Ava thinks she’s won this argument.
“Just think,” Ava goes on. Her voice is low, an attempt at disarming that Beatrice sees right through. “You don’t have to devote more time to washing sheets. You can do something else on your endless to-do list. Or,”she says, eyes lighting up. “More time for praying?”
Beatrice quickly crosses herself, control of the sheets gone. Ava might not have said anything, but there was a teasing lilt to her words. She’s not making fun of Beatrice,but Beatrice feels the need to apologize for Ava’s unspoken slight. She knows she’s fallen right into Ava’s trap, the sheets gone completely from her hands, replaced with one of Ava’s.
“Ava,” she warns, keeping her tone even.
“Beatrice,” Ava mimics. She sighs, hair fluttering around the edges of her face. She smiles charmingly and they both know at the same moment that Beatrice is going to give in. She appreciates that Ava doesn’t immediately crow in victory, simply smiles and holds her gaze. “I’ll be the best bed mate you’ll ever have. We can draw a line down the middle of the mattress and I promise to stay on my side.”
Ava can’t promise that. She sleeps like the pulse setting on a blender, moving in fits and stops as the blanket tangles around her. Beatrice finds it endearing, though she sighs heavily at the idea of it now, for show. Her heart pounds like heavy hands against her ribcage. She hasn’t shared a bed with anyone before, too afraid of who she was to risk it. There had been some nights during missions where she slept alongside someone, usually hidden among pews granted by kind members of the church. But in a bed, sharing a single sheet and a blanket that doesn’t quite fit the frame - no.
Never.
But Ava doesn’t know. Wouldn’t understand. So Beatrice finally meets her gaze and swallows back her fear and gives Ava the barest hint of a nod.
“I still need to wash the bedsheets,” she finally says, the words feeling too loud in the small bubble they’ve created together.
“But not every day,” Ava points out.
Beatrice holds her eyes for a moment. “ If you promise to make the bed in the morning and not leave the blanket on the floor, then no. Not every day,” she concedes.
Ava does crow this time, letting out a deep laugh that sends a shower of heat through Beatrice’s body.
“I still need to wash them now.” Beatrice takes them back from Ava, her fingertips dusting Ava’s knuckles. She turns and crosses the room, feeling more than hearing Ava follow after her.
Ava doesn’t seem to notice, too busy bouncing up and down on the tips of her toes, eyes bright with excitement. “I’m going to be the best person you’ve ever slept with.” She doesn’t even seem to notice the way that Beatrice feels her entire body go taut.
“I won’t hog the covers.” Lie,Beatrice thinks.
“You won’t even hear me snoring.” Lie.
“It’ll be like I’m not even there.” Lie, lie, lie.
Ava breathes in, her whole chest rising with the motion. Beatrice looks away pointedly when Ava turns to face her. “Can we go outside today? I’m starting to feel a little claustrophobic.”
Beatrice gently packs the washing machine with the sheets before she turns the dial, watching as the water rushes into the drum. “For a bit,” she allows. “But we need to be-”
“Careful,” Ava finishes. She rolls her eyes for show but gently pokes Beatrice in the side to smooth down the moment, a gentle smile on her face. “One day you’ll have fun, I know it. And I’ll figure out how to make it happen. There’s more to life than washing sheets, Beatrice.”
Beatrice ignores the traitorous voice in her head that nearly whispers something she doesn’t want to hear and focuses her energy on keeping her face arranged in perfect disinterest. “Yes, like other chores.”
When Ava groans and throws herself back into a kitchen chair, Beatrice allows herself the barest hint of a smile before she closes the lid of the machine with a satisfying click and focuses on what to do next.
-
Beatrice holds up a boxy button down shirt, studying it carefully. The apartment is pin-drop quiet, but she can feel the energy radiating off Ava as she stands behind the shirt. Squinting slightly, Beatrice moves the shirt minutely. She’s right. Ava is bouncing on the tips of her toes, working her bottom lip between her teeth as she looks expectantly at Beatrice. She moves back again, studying the shirt once more.
It’s a dark, nearly-black, blue. It reminds her of the habit carefully tucked away in the back of the closet in the corner of the bedroom. But while her habit was simple, this shirt is… not. This has small beach balls and flamingos on it in all orientations and sizes. Beatrice studies the large flamingo at the bottom of the front panel, expecting it to blink back at her.
“Well?” Ava finally asks, voice exploding with joy from within her. “What do you think?”
Beatrice holds her thoughts for a moment before she says, “I think discreet was the word I used when I suggested you go shopping.”
Ava waves her off. “Please. This is what everyone is wearing.”
Beatrice lifts an eyebrow carefully. “Everyone is wearing… this?”
Ava nods assuredly. “Would they be selling them if they weren’t what everyone was wearing?” She pats the shopping bag full of similar shirts. “And they were having a sale on them. If I bought one, I could take two more.”
“So, they were getting rid of them,” Beatrice translates.
“No,” Ava says slowly. She’s frowning a little though. “No.” Her face clears again. “It’s great though, isn’t it? I mean, it has flamingos on it. And this one!” She rifles through the bag, pulling out brightly-colored shirt after brightly-colored shirt.
Beatrice feels a small tendril of dread building in her stomach. Mother Superion had been clear: discreet. Draw no attention to yourselves. Train and wait. That is your mission, Sister Beatrice. Stay focused.
But it’s been hard to focus on that. They’ve been training each morning - despite Ava’s best attempts to hold her hostage by hiding her socks or trapping her under a surprisingly strong arm splayed across her waist. She thinks it has more to do with her inability to breathe as Ava casually tries to pull her closer, mumbling into the pillow that it’s too early, than it does with Ava’s strength. She could easily turn Ava back across the bed and slip out from underneath her, employing more drastic measures to get Ava to follow.
The first morning, pulling off the blanket off the bed, had made her intensely aware that Ava wears shorts to bed. And she’s sure that’s a stretch for Ava, something resembling modesty that’s only for her behalf. She hid her embarrassment well enough because Ava had only rolled over and groaned into the pillow, mumbling about God needing to keep better hours.
Letting Ava loose to go and find a new shirt had been a mistake, she knows that now. She should have gone with her instead of translating a new text Camila had managed to get to her. She had been so engrossed in it that she didn’t plan out the possible ways Ava could turn a simple shopping trip into something more complicated. A mistake on her part.
Ava thrusts another shirt at her, triumphant. Beatrice slowly takes it, eyeing it warily as she holds it gingerly. It’s green, this time. Not an unpleasant green at least. A neon green flashes in her mind and she sends up a small word of thanks that they either must not have had any, or Ava had been smart enough to know she should leave it alone. This one has colored dots all over it. At least they’re all uniform in size. But there are some neon pink ones that make Beatrice’s eye twitch.
“Right? It’s brilliant.” She pulls another shirt from the pile, holding it up against her body. “This one has parrots!”
Beatrice sighs and drops her arms. “These are not going to make you blend in, Ava.”
Ava’s smile drops a little and Beatrice feels herself wanting to reach out and take the words back. She’s trying. She’s trying to keep Ava at arm’s length and stay committed to their task. This… affection, she begrudgingly admits to herself in the late night when Ava is most decidedly snoring next to her, has been inconvenient. Things she should be frustrated about, like this, feel more like reluctant acceptance that this is just the way things are going to be from now on.
And she isn’t mad, she discovers. She’s more - she swallows heavily at the truth - fond than anything else.
“Hans has one, I think,” Ava tries, her smile still tremulous.
Hans. Of course he does.
There isn’t a better way to put this: Ava has been idolizing Hans since the moment they saw the Help Wanted sign in the window of the bar they’ve found jobs at. She’s not sure what Ava finds so appealing about him - he’s nice, sure. And he smiled whenever Ava over-poured a drink or tried to speak in a patron’s native language. A part of Beatrice was annoyed. She was smiling at those same things.
But Ava didn’t seem to notice that. She talked about Hans all night after their first shift, even though she claimed she was too tired to get up from the bed and change out of the simple black shirt Beatrice had deemed appropriate enough to wear working at a bar. Beatrice eventually knelt at the edge of the couch and bowed her head in prayer until Ava got the hint and quieted down.
“Well, if Hans has one,” she finds herself muttering. She’s as surprised as Ava when she does and covers it with a cough. “So you’re planning on creating some kind of uniform.”
Ava shrugs, eyes narrowed as if she’s expecting Beatrice to say something else unexpected. She’ll be waiting some time, Beatrice thinks. That won’t happen again.
“If it really bothers you, I’ll see if I can return them,” Ava finally says, shoulders drooping. She sighs, slowly putting away the button down shirts. Beatrice watches her hands work, captivated by the flex of her fingers in the late afternoon light coming in through their living room window. “Maybe they have some more of those shirts with the collars you like.”
Beatrice looks down at the shirt she’s wearing. She does like how wide it is at the shoulder and how it tapers down at her waist. But it’s a simple navy. Unmemorable. Easy to wear when slipping into a crowd and trying to blend in. Ava already stands out; if her smile wasn’t infectious enough, she’s constantly moving, lopping alongside her as they walk through town. They’ve been here for two weeks and Ava has already made several friends.
When she looks back up and sees the soft, disappointed look on Ava’s face, her resolve crumbles. She knows that she never really had a chance of meaning it when she said no.
“Fine,” she allows as Ava packs away a black button down with cat whiskers on it. “Fine, you may keep them.”
Ava’s smile is instantaneous. Warmth bursts in Beatrice’s chest, reaching to the tips of her fingers and toes and ears. She feels it spread across her face and she turns slightly to hide it away from Ava. She glances back as Ava laughs a little and dumps the shopping bag back out, littering the bed with colored shirts. She sees more of them: the flamingos and beach balls, the neon pink dots, the cat’s whiskers, a navy shirt with stenciled white flowers, a black with small pumpkins on it, a white one with red sailboats.
She cringes slightly, the heat fading from her cheeks as she thinks about the mess she’s just gotten herself into.
“Oh, let me try them on!”
Beatrice feels her throat close up. “No,” she says, commending herself on how it doesn’t sound like the words are strangled in her throat. Ava glances at her sidelong. “That’s not- they need to be washed first, as well. Who knows if their previous owners washed them before donating them?”
Ava shrugs. “It’s not going to kill me to try them on for just a second.”
“Mites can be passed in a short period of time,” she tries to argue.
Ava narrows her eyes. “In 3 minutes?”
Beatrice holds her resolve until it leaks from her like a balloon losing air. “No. 15 to 20 minutes.”
“Then I have a cushion.” Ava grins. She picks out the flamingo one and nods surely before she reaches for the hem of her t-shirt and pulls it carelessly up and over her head.
Beatrice’s breath catches at the sight of bare skin flashing above a waistline. She turns quickly, that heat back in her cheeks and flaming now. Her stomach has dropped to her knees, and she imagines herself following after it, hands clasped in prayer as she apologizes for even looking at Ava, let alone the traitorous thought that pierces in her mind: You could touch her. She hears a loud peal of thunder and knows it must be God coming down to tell her not to give into this thought. The walls don’t shake with it; it's only in her head. Her fingernails cut into her palms as she takes a deep, even breath in through her nose and lets it free between thin lips.
“You don’t have to- Oh, right. Nun things.” Ava laughs to herself and makes a few noises of displeasure before her voice rings in the apartment again. “You can turn around now. I’m covered up, Sister Beatrice.”
She’s not. When Beatrice turns, body braced against the movement, Ava is not completely covered up. She’s managed to somehow knot the end of the shirt just above her navel, that same sliver of skin on full display. The sleeves are shorter than Beatrice expected them to be and she watches the muscles in her arm flex as Ava smooths her hands down the front of the shirt, fingers working the knot until the ends of the shirt sit flush against her skin.
“What do you think?”
Thou shall not covet.
The words ring like a high-pitched bell in her ears. She blinks rapidly, trying to unknot the muscles in her shoulders by focusing on the fading, wallpapered walls and the hum of the refrigerator as it works too hard and the slightly split wooden kitchen chair. She looks at everything except Ava, too engrossed in rolling one sleeve up and comparing it to the other to see what Beatrice assumes is naked want on her face.
“It serves its purpose,” she finally manages.
Ava frowns, but it flickers for just a second before it’s gone. “You’ll grow to like it. I mean, you grew to like me, right?”
“You have many things in common with fungus,” she says flatly.
Ava only grins. “Well, then, now is a good time to show you what else I got.” She ignores Beatrice’s slightly groan and holds up one hand while the other goes through the pile on the bed. She grasps something and holds it up triumphantly. “I also got these!” She holds out three single-colored tank tops and a cream cardigan.
Beatrice blinks. “Why didn’t you lead with this?”
Ava’s cheshire smile grows slowly on her face. “And deny myself the pleasure of watching your face as I showed you the other things I bought? I would never.” She plucks the shirts out of Beatrice’s hands and gathers the large pile, carrying it into the kitchen. “Are you ever going to show me how to use this thing?”
She hadn’t planned on it, to be honest. Ava has never done laundry in her life, Beatrice is sure of that. And their funds are limited; they can’t afford to replace clothes that might get ruined or, worse, the washing machine. But Ava is looking at her with wide, hopeful eyes, and Beatrice knows that while today is not the day, she’s going to teach her eventually.
Ava takes her silence as a no. She shrugs her shoulders, uncaring, and drops the shirts into the washing machine, packing them down for Beatrice to add the correct amount of soap and spin the dials to the correct settings. She jumps up on the counter instead, kicking her legs slightly as she picks up the newspaper Beatrice picked up this morning.
“Stephan Zihler ersteigert,” she starts slowly.
“Ersteigert,” Beatrice corrects as she measures out the soap.
Ava winks and fires a finger gun at her. Beatrice stamps down the affection she feels and turns back to the washing machine, letting the water run as she watches the shirts swirl together like her complicated feelings.
-
“We’ll need to replace this,” Beatrice says, unfolding the ironing board and trying to steady it as best as she can. Ava leans forward from her seat on the couch and picks up the small, folded up piece of cardboard they keep on hand. She tosses it behind her without looking, but it’s no matter; Beatrice plucks it out of the air effortlessly, sliding it under one leg of the board.
Just like she has every other time, she tries and fails to get it to balance on the cardboard piece. She grits her teeth and, just like she has every other time, makes a note to file a complaint with Andrin, their subletter, who left this behind for them. She’ll make her point succinctly, but firmly: this is not a benefit to letting this place and is truly more than an inconvenience.
“Bea, I can hear the strong language you’re using from here,” Ava calls over her shoulder. She can hear the smile in Ava’s voice. “What would God think?”
Beatrice doesn’t rise to the bait. She knows Ava says things like that to make her smile, and she won’t give Ava the satisfaction of knowing it’s working. So she huffs as quietly as possible and looks at the large pile of their clothes, waiting to be ironed after a day of drying across their meager space. Ava had done the hanging and the pulling down, a concession for not doing the ironing. But after burning herself twice, Beatrice thought it was best for everyone if she just stayed away from the hot iron.
The downside to this is that Ava takes control of the remote and Beatrice is held hostage to her whims.
Her focus is typically impeccable; she has always been able to tune out distractions and get to what matters. It aided her during family dinners and covert missions. She can use it now when it’s her turn to do inventory and the managerial tasks the owner of the bar has granted her as she’s proven herself capable. It has always been easy for her to limit the scope of auditory and visual input to make herself as successful as possible.
But her resolve, her focus, has never gone toe to toe with Ava Silva before.
She finds she doesn’t mind losing as much as she thought she might.
“What movie should we watch today?”
Beatrice doesn’t answer. Her idea of watching something is a little more nuanced than Ava’s love of action and horror movies. Beatrice would rather watch something like M or Seven Samurai. Ava tends to lean more towards The Transporter and superhero movies. She tried to make an argument for Iron Man one time that Beatrice had tuned out, letting herself get lost in scrubbing plates that didn’t require as much attention as she gave them.
Ava doesn’t wait for her to answer. “We still have The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”
“No,” Beatrice vetoes quickly. She plugs in the iron, letting it warm up.
“Or Fast & Furious.” Ava spreads out her borrowed DVD collection on the coffee table. “Hans said-”
“Hans again,” Beatrice murmurs.
She likes Hans, truly. He’s a coworker and nice enough. He found out she liked strudel and has been bringing her little samples from a bakery he lives above. When she was given a promotion to manager last week, despite having worked there for only 4 weeks, he even brought her a bottle of top-shelf sparkling water.
But he also still sits high on Ava’s list of ‘people she likes’, and Beatrice has never liked being second best.
She reminds herself that some of their regulars also make that list and she has no feelings on them. But that’s another problem for another time. Right now, her problem is that Ava seems to be wanting to make her way through Hans' odd collection of action movies.
Ava looks back over her shoulder. “Huh?”
Beatrice quickly shakes her head. “I said that we can’t watch Vin Diesel again.”
“I like him, though. His head is so shiny.” Ava grins, holding up a DVD case. This one has another bald man on the cover. “Or we can watch Hobbs & Shaw.”
“That’s still a Fast and Furious movie, isn’t it?” Beatrice quickly tests the iron. It exhales a thin stream of steam. She busies herself with picking up a shirt, something of Ava’s with little sombreros on it, and spreads it out on the ironing board, tampering down a tendril of frustration as the board rocks.
“We’re having a theme night.” Ava fans out the three movies she’s mentioned. “Go ahead and pick one.”
“I’m not watching it.”
Ava huffs. “You say that every time and every time-”
“I have too much ironing to do,” Beatrice continues over her. “In fact, I might move to the kitchen to-”
“No,” Ava says quickly. She turns, twisting around so her legs are under her and she looks only at Beatrice. “This is our Sunday thing. You keep me from burning myself on that thing and I keep you cultured.”
Beatrice stares at her blankly. “My knowledge of Vin Diesel’s filmography is not an indicator of how cultured I am.” She gestures at her ironing pile. “I have a lot to get through anyway. I’ll do it in the kitchen.”
Ava launches herself forward, grabbing at Beatrice’s wrist. Her fingers close tightly over the bone and Beatrice feels them a hot sting; like if she pulled away, she’d have Ava’s fingerprints seared into her skin. She swallows down the shiver of want that runs through her and focuses on her mission: moving to the kitchen.
She makes the mistake of meeting Ava’s eyes.
Ava pushes her lower lip out a little, eyes darker with disappointment. “It’s our Sunday thing.”
Beatrice wants to protest. They have a lot of ‘things’ they do. Ava found a small tapas restaurant that does tacos and they have Taco Thursdays. Muenster Grilled Cheese Mondays. They have a favorite coffee shop that does a chocolate biscuit Ava always buys two of, just to eat them both. They stay late at the bar on Wednesdays while Beatrice does inventory and Ava dances. On Friday nights, they go to the small library for their board game nights.
They’re building habits together. Little things that Beatrice would have never indulged in before this. Little things she looks forward to. So she complains on Sunday like clockwork. Offers to do the ironing in the kitchen where she can’t hear Ava’s running commentary on what she would do better if she was in the action, or what she thinks Beatrice might do instead. Offers to get out of Ava’s hair and let her deep dive into whatever movie-of-the-week she wants to discuss with Hans the next afternoon.
And just like clockwork, Ava asks her to stay. And she does.
“Please?” Ava sings.
Beatrice sighs heavily, disarming Ava gently. She catches Ava’s hand before it drops away, her fingers circling Ava’s thumb. “I suppose I could stay,” she says slowly, as if she’s pulling the words out from the very center of her being as it resists her trying to.
It’s worth it to see the joy on Ava’s face as she thinks she’s won some uphill battle. She just doesn’t really know that Beatrice is flying down, face turned to the wind.
“But not anything with a bald man,” is her only concession.
“I can do that,” Ava says quickly. “Hans has tons of other options.” She turns back to the coffee table, her hand still in Beatrice’s. It doesn’t seem to bother her, pushing through the DVD cases with her other hand.
Beatrice is statue-still, afraid that even the slight breath will cause Ava to pull away. She should pull away. Everything in her screams she should. It’s unfair to Ava, to feel like every time their skin touches it's burning from the inside, and never say anything. A small voice in her head whispers it to her now; whispers it when Ava reaches for her sleepily for something; whispers it when Ava dances around her behind the bar with fleeting hands on her waist.
So she pulls away, holding a hot hand against her thigh before she turns back to the ironing board. She gently rearranges the shirt, lining up the hem so she can pass the iron over it. Ava is muttering to herself as she uses two hands to stack movies into piles that make no sense to Beatrice. She eventually has two in front of her that she holds up, eyes darting back and forth between the covers before she nods sharply to herself and turns around again, holding one out.
Beatrice takes it carefully. “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.” She looks up. “No.”
“There’s no bald man,” Ava says quickly, anticipating her no. “And Hans is always saying that line, ‘Safety never takes a holiday.’ You know he likes to say that.”
Her eyes narrow. Hans does like to say that, most typically when he’s waving around a paring knife while he’s cutting limes.
She sighs. “Why does he have this?” She hands it back to Ava, both of them already aware that she’s giving in to this insane demand. “And where did he get it?”
Ava shrugs, opening the case and pulling out the disc. She holds it up to the light, studying the way it reflects off the back of the disc. Beatrice finds herself smiling; Ava’s interest in the things Beatrice has always taken for granted makes her stomach flutter.
“Some tourists, I think.” Ava carefully opens the DVD player on the top of the television - another thing she swindled away from Hans when she told them that they had no entertainment outside of ‘all those books Bea likes to read’ - and slides the disc into place. “I think Hans may have bought the entire collection.”
Beatrice lifts the iron and gently releases some steam before she presses the heat plate to the fabric. She uses slow, methodical motions as she runs the iron over the colorful sombreros. Ava settles back against the couch as the DVD menu comes up and she tips her head towards Beatrice, smiling softly as she presses the play button.
“Our thing is good, right?”
Beatrice puts the iron upright and turns the shirt so the sleeve is flat against the board. She carefully runs the iron over the fabric, putting a crease in it before she slips the top of the iron just under the sleeve to round it out. “What thing?”
Ava waves her hands around. “Our… thing. This whole, living together thing.”
“You’re a passable roommate,” is all she allows.
Ava sticks her tongue out. “I’m a great roommate.”
Beatrice rolls her eyes a little, but Ava catches it and laughs brightly over the movie’s opening song. “Great is a very big word. Good, I’ll agree to. There are things you could… improve upon.”
Ava grins, turning towards her and resting her chin in her hand. “And what, Sister Beatrice, could I improve upon?”
She swallows, a lump in her throat. She takes a moment to move the shirt, ironing the other sleeve with deliberate motions. “Well, you leave your socks on the floor.”
“Lie,” Ava says loudly. “When’s the last time I wore socks?”
“Two days ago. And I picked them yesterday.” She arches an eyebrow, a silent challenge. She smirks when Ava doesn’t say anything. “And you never rinse off your dishes before you leave them in the sink. You always buy more pastries than we can eat at one time.”
Ava’s mouth starts to turn down and Beatrice rushes to see it lift again.
“But you do always leave the bathroom light on before you go to bed.” She nods as Ava starts to smile. “And you do get me the coffee I like when I’m working late.”
“See? I’m a great roommate.” She preens a little before her eyes light up. With deft feet, she leaps over the end of the couch and dips around Beatrice, heading for the kitchen. “Hold on!” she calls over her shoulder. There’s a small crashing noise and a loud huff before Ava appears back beside her, arms full with hangers. “Watch how great of a roommate I can be.”
Beatrice looks on, amused. “By collecting all the hangers for me?”
Ava rolls her eyes. “Of course not.” She drops the large assortment of them on the couch and plucks one out, freeing it from the hooks of the others. “I’m going to hang them.” She peels the sombrero shirt off the ironing board and slides it onto the hanger. “Oh. You were done with this, right?”
“I was,” Beatrice says slowly. She watches Ava drape the ironed shirt flat over the bed. “You don’t need to help.”
Ava smiles brightly. “I want to.”
“Your movie,” she reminds her.
“I’m still watching it,” she says, even as she’s turned away from it. “Come on. Do the next one. Then we can watch together and maybe get some gelato after dinner.”
Beatrice puts another shirt - one of her own this time, with golden buttons that Ava claimed fit her just right - on the board and begins to iron it. Ava stands next to her, eyes on the television screen but her hand on the ironing board, out of reach of the iron, as she holds it steady. She laughs at something the man on the screen does, head thrown back. Beatrice follows the long line of her neck from her chin to the hollow of her throat. Ava laughs again and she blinks and clears her throat, turning her attention back to the shirt. When she’s done, she nudges Ava’s foot gently and nods towards it.
Ava scoops it up with a smile and carefully slides a hanger into its sleeves before she puts that one down on the bed too.
On the screen, the man sighs. “Your mother certainly had something special.”
The girl scoffs. “She married you, got citizenship, and left us.”
Ava hands her the next shirt without looking, eyes on the screen. She laughs when the girl makes a face, her whole body folding in with the motion. Beatrice stops to watch her for a moment, wondering how she got to this place - this wonderful, confusing place - she is now. Ava looks back, eyes still sparkling with a laugh, and pauses.
“What?”
“I like our thing,” she says unexpectedly. She covers the sudden admission with a sharp nod at the pile. “But if you want to get that gelato later, you’re going to need to be a little quicker.”
Ava snaps a hand to her forehead, saluting, before she grabs the next shirt - the flamingo one - and flourishes it above their heads before bringing it down on the board. “Yes, ma’am.” She grins when Beatrice rolls her eyes and knocks her shoulder into Beatrice’s iron-free side. “I like our thing too.”
Beatrice hides her smile away and focuses her attention on the pile of things to iron, wondering how long she can keep going this way, so close to the sun and trying not to burn up.
-
“If we didn’t use real knives,” Ava says as she closes the door behind them. “Then this wouldn't be an issue.”
“Adriel isn’t going to use foam knives,” Beatrice points out, her voice even.
“Maybe he’s not going to use knives at all.” Ava stomps to the refrigerator, opening it and pulling out a bottle of water she put in there earlier. “He might use Moses’ staff, for all we know.”
“Ava,” she warns.
But Ava is on a roll, smarting from the hit Beatrice landed that cut a hole in what she’s claiming to be her favorite tank top. Beatrice might believe her if she hadn’t said the same thing about the shirt she spilled tomato sauce on last week. It took some elbow grease to get that stain out.
“Maybe we can kick Adriel’s ass with the Shoes of the Gospel,” she continues. “Why bring knives to an ass-kicking?”
Beatrice grabs Ava by the shoulders, pulling her to a stop. She waits until Ava’s eyes meet her and she breathes in, watching as Ava does the same quickly. She nods encouragingly. “Now. Hold still so I can look at it.”
Ava’s body seems to tremble when Beatrice’s hands go to the hole just next to her navel. Beatrice frowns. Maybe the Halo hasn’t healed her yet. They’ve been avoiding using it in a fight, unsure if they can rely on it when Ava goes up against Adriel again. She’s been focusing on hand-to-hand combat this week, fighting up close and personal. Beatrice has always excelled at it, finds comfort in knowing that her best weapon is an extension of herself. But Ava is still learning and for a moment, Beatrice forgot. She knows she can’t pull any punches; they don’t have time to pretend like this isn’t going to be the fight of their lives. But Ava is still years behind Beatrice and fighting doesn’t come naturally to her. She forgets sometimes that Ava spent so long unable to move, let alone spent hours training with hanbō and jian.
So she takes another deep breath and rubs her thumbs over the bone of Ava’s shoulders. “You’ll master knives. I found them quite difficult when I first started out.”
Ava looks away, a pout on her lips. Beatrice tampers down the piece of her that finds it endearing and focuses on Ava. When Ava looks back at her, she smiles.
“Did you ruin any of your shirts?” Ava asks after a second.
“Plenty of them,” she lies.
Ava studies her critically before the tension leaks from her shoulders and she goes loose in Beatrice’s grasp. “I just really like this shirt.”
Beatrice nods along, thinking of the other ten shirts that are Ava’s ‘favorite’. She finds herself opening her mouth before she’s truly ready, a quiet and confident, “I can fix it” escaping her lips.
“Really?” Ava’s face lights up. She frowns again. “How?”
Yes, how? she asks herself. Her mind races trying to come up with a solution. It latches onto the small repair kit she had found in town that she couldn’t resist picking up. Nothing expansive, a few spools of thread and a handful of different sized needles. Boarding school brought opportunities for many kinds of skill and Beatrice liked the idea of being a well-rounded person. Of course, it’s been years since she utilized any of those skills, the work usually going to other Sisters while she dealt with new recruits and combat.
But for Ava? She can try. It’s the absolute least she can do.
“I’ll sew it,” she says decidedly. She nods to emphasize her point. “A few simple stitches should do the trick.”
“Really?” Ava repeats.
“Really.” Beatrice straightens up, smile a little stronger. “Why don’t you-”
But Ava is already pulling her shirt up and over her head, leaving her in a sports bra and her shorts. Beatrice straightens up, spine pulled into a single, taut line as she quickly turns away from Ava, the look of her flat stomach and sun-dappled skin seared into her mind. She hears Ava make a noise in the back of her throat but she doesn’t turn at the sound of it, taking a steadying breath in through her nose instead.
The shirt lands on the table with a soft sound and then Ava is padding away towards the other side of the apartment. Beatrice hears a drawer open and close, then the distinct sound of Ava stumbling into the bed frame as she tries to pull a new shirt on. It happens every morning and Beatrice briefly wonders when Ava is going to remember where their end of the bed is.
She waits until Ava is back in the kitchen, a clear sign she’s wearing something again, before she turns slowly and spreads the torn shirt out on the table, fingers finding the ripped fabric. Ava is back in front of the refrigerator, leaning against it as she peels a banana.
“And she sews, too. Of course you do. How many ways can you use sharp, pointy things?” she asks after she takes a bite. Beatrice gives her a withering stare and she quickly closes her mouth, chewing the rest of the banana before she swallows and speaks again. “I feel like I’m always learning something new about you.”
“We haven’t known each other very long,” Beatrice reminds her. She pauses for a moment before she remembers where she put the small sewing kit. It was one of the things that Ava volunteered to put away when they moved in. Her effort to help ‘organize’ the apartment was a process Beatrice was still undoing, even after six weeks living together.
“No, we haven’t,” Ava says thoughtfully. Her nose is wrinkled in thought, and she seems to look past Beatrice for a moment before her gaze settles again. “So, who taught you?”
Beatrice thinks of her boarding school days, of throwing herself into everything she could learn, just to be well-rounded; just in case her parents wanted to see all the things she could be and not just the thing she was. She studied languages, trained her body and mind, tried to become the best version of herself she could possibly be.
“Enid Temple.”
Her lips twitch in a faint smile. Her roommate when she first arrived at school. She had been nervous, but Enid was worse, crying each night after her parents dropped her off, then hiding her puffy eyes in the morning. Beatrice hadn’t known what to do at first; her parents didn’t prepare her for things like this. But it stopped before Beatrice could do much to help her and in return for not saying anything, Enid taught her the finer skills that her training didn’t call for.
There’s an odd lilt to Ava’s voice when she says, “Oh, Enid.”
Beatrice blinks back the memory. “In school. She mended her own clothes from time to time. She was quite clumsy, always catching her sweaters on hooks.” She opens the small sewing kit, running a fingertip along the stems of the needles before she picks one out. “I once tore a hole in my favorite shirt. I was devastated. But Enid fixed it for me, and it was good as new.”
Ava hums quietly, taking another bite of the banana. “She was nice?”
“Yes,” Beatrice says softly. She doesn’t tell Ava that she cried too, silently and into her pillow, those first few nights. Her home had not been warm and inviting, but it was where she had spent all of her time. At school, for the first time she was far from her parents and the few friends she had, alone. Enid had made her feel a little less like that.
Ava’s voice is just as soft. “I’m glad.”
Beatrice lets the memory fade away and focuses on what she’s doing instead, picking out some black thread. She leads it through the eye of the needle and ties it off. “I’m not Enid, of course, but I’m passable when it comes to sewing.”
“I’m glad you’re not Enid.” Ava shrugs when Beatrice’s eyes cut to her. “I like you. I like Bea.”
Her chest tightens. It’s a good feeling, like a hug she’s been craving for years; like a hot drink on a cold day; like a lungful of air after holding her breath for too long. She’s not used to this, the open, honest look on someone’s face when they say they like her. Ava can be so casual with her affection but something about the way she holds Beatrice’s gaze makes her feel like this is special. Like she is special.
She knows it’s their circumstance, that they’re trapped together and flung away from the people Beatrice has called family for years, and that they’re all each other has. But Beatrice likes to believe that Ava sees her and truly likes her for who she is, even on the days Beatrice doesn’t like herself.
“You don’t have much of a choice,” she says, a light tone to her words as she tries to break through the heaviness in her chest. She looks back down at the needle, analyzing the best starting stitch. “It seems as if we’re all each other has.”
“I’d still pick you.”
Beatrice’s head snaps back up. Ava is staring at her, mouth pressed in a firm line. The banana is gone, the peel probably in the sink where Beatrice firmly tells her not to put them, and she’s holding Beatrice’s gaze. She doesn’t joke, doesn’t make some comment about how Lilith or Mother Superion being a better fit. She just stares at Beatrice, the truth naked on her face.
Ava would pick her.
The feeling of knowing that steals her breath away.
A silence drapes itself over them, but neither of them rush to fill the space. Ava has been more settled lately, diving headfirst into their routine: their mornings training together, their days at the bar, their nights on the couch. She still bounces from one moment to the next, always with an energy that Beatrice finds herself envious of, but she seems calmer, too. More relaxed. The further they get from Adriel’s rising, the easier it seems like Ava has been breathing.
“I’d pick you, too,” she admits shyly.
It’s worth the fear of confession to see the smile on Ava’s face bloom instantly.
Ava takes a step forward, pushing off the refrigerator. “You’re my best friend.”
Beatrice has never had one of those. Enid had been close, but she had been afraid of overstepping, of Enid finding out the truth about her. So she held Enid at arm’s length and had been a friend, but nothing more. Ava doesn’t give her the chance to hold her away; Ava is a wrecking ball that’s torn down all of Beatrice’s walls.
Well, not all of them. One stands left, resolute against any of these feelings that have been brewing since that moment in the hallway in Cat’s Cradle when Ava blinked up at her with a glimmer of trust in her eyes. She’s stopped them at the pass, pushed them back from swelling up against this last defense. And she likes to think she’s succeeding.
But Ava tells her that she’d pick her. Ava says she’s her best friend. And a crack forms. Small, but there. Water starts to trickle through it.
“You’re mine as well,” she says quietly.
Ava’s smile doesn’t waver. She pulls out a kitchen chair, the leg of it scraping against the peeling floor, and drops into it heavily, breaking the moment. Beatrice exhales, surprised to find herself holding her breath. Her hand shakes slightly and she quickly presses it flat against the table.
“So,” Ava says after a second. “You’re going to teach me to sew?” She grabs a needle, brandishing it like a weapon.
Beatrice heaves a sigh, that tendril of affection rushing through her. She grabs Ava’s wrist, holding her hand still, and plucks the needle from between her fingers. “First of all,” she starts. She watches the lights dance in Ava’s eyes and sighs again. “You’ll need thread.”
Ava grins. “I’m a quick learner.”
Beatrice hands her another spool of thread. “Yes, well, figure out how to thread the needle and then we’ll begin.”
She doesn’t fight the smile when Ava misses the first three times.
-
Her mind is swirling as she climbs the stairs to their apartment, a rush of numbers from the books and ideas for training for the morning crashing together. She’s tired, she’ll admit. It’s tourist season and they’ve been busier at the bar. Inventory took longer than she anticipated it would and she still wasn’t completely sure she ordered enough tequila to cover the next week’s anticipated rush of people coming through on their way to larger cities.
She wants a hot cup of tea, some of the leftover currywurst she’s been saving from last night’s dinner, and to put her feet up. She wants Ava to take her mind off things and calm her down. Running a bar is harder than she anticipated; harder in a way than combat is. She can’t aikido a salesman into submission and get him to stop pushing a low-shelf product at her. She may not drink, but she knows a poor quality liquor when she sees one.
So she’s looking forward to getting home and doing nothing, a rare indulgence. And she’s looking forward to doing nothing with Ava, which is quickly becoming her favorite thing to do.
She tries to doorknob and it’s locked. She frowns. Ava is supposed to be home now, already done with her shift. Her mind kicks even further into overdrive, thoughts of the bar and training gone instantly, replaced with Where is Ava? She cycles through a list of places she could be: the bar? No. The library returning books? No, Beatrice said they’d do that tomorrow. Swimming? The pool isn’t open at night. A walk? Possibly, though she usually tells Beatrice ahead of time, or walks by the bar on her way and pops in to let her know.
Her mind becomes a vortex of possible things that could be going on, all of them ending with Ava being in trouble.
She quickly pulls her keyring off her belt loop, sliding the key into the lock as soundlessly as she can. Maybe Ava is lying on the floor, incapacitated. A traitorous voice in her head whispers, maybe she’s dead.
The knob turns easily, the lubricant Beatrice put on it when they first moved in still doing the trick. Her free hand goes to a knife she isn’t wearing tonight, and she curses herself for leaving it behind in her rush to get to work. She had been preoccupied with Ava telling her a story about Miguel, the blond boy who seemed to come in and enjoy taking up Ava’s time, and she had rushed through her post-training shower to get them to work on time.
She kicks the door open slightly listening to any sounds beyond the doorway. She hears a curse word, the slam of something metallic, and she pauses. There’s the faint smell of flowers in the air, almost manufactured. Another curse, this one in German, and she straightens up. Ava is not dead. She’s inside and clearly doing something she shouldn’t be doing.
She sighs. “Ava.”
There’s a squeak and then Ava is sliding into view, hair and eyes slightly wild. “You’re home.”
Her mouth quirks in a humorless smile. “Where one goes after they’ve finished their responsibilities for the day.”
Ava’s head bobs up and down so many times that Beatrice has to look away. “Right, right. It’s just that, when I called Hans, he said you were pretty deep in the inventory and didn’t look like you were coming up for air anytime soon.”
She eyes Ava carefully, cataloging what might be missing. “I decided to put the rest off until the morning. I’m a day ahead of schedule anyway.” She slowly closes the door behind her with a soft click. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
She can see the way Ava’s throat bobs from here when she swallows. Her defenses start to go up.
“Ava,” she warns.
Ava’s cheeks flush red, she can see it from here, and Beatrice carefully puts down her bag on the floor. “Before you say anything…”
Beatrice takes a deep breath. “Ava.”
“I just wanted to surprise you.” Ava takes a step towards her, moving further into the light. Beatrice starts to see the slight shake in her hands, the way she’s bouncing on the tips of her toes with nervous energy. “Do something nice for you, you know? You work so hard, you make this house a home, you deserve-”
“Ava,” she says sharply.
Ava snaps to attention, her whole body going rigid. She takes another deep breath and nods her head slowly. “I did the laundry.”
There’s a moment of relief that flushes through her. She hasn’t tried to cook - a skill neither of them have quite yet mastered - and she didn’t try to patch the hole in the wall that she put there last week after she phased through it and got tired halfway through. She didn’t even try to make tea, a pastime known to result in a few flames. She only did the-
Oh.
“Ava,” she says slowly. “ How did you do the laundry?”
How, because Ava doesn’t quite know. She always manages to forget to do something when she’s being supervised. Sometimes she doesn't have enough water and Bea has to turn the dial a little more. Sometimes she forgets the soap and just soaks the dirty clothes. Sometimes she leaves out half the load and they have to do two of them in the same day, or go another day without her favorite shirt.
The short of it is, Ava does laundry under close supervision - not by herself.
“Well, I followed your instructions.” Ava’s head bobs up and down. “I separated out the whites and did the dark colors because we had the most of those. And I put the water in up to the line.”
Beatrice watches as Ava’s eyes dart over her own shoulder to the kitchen behind her. Slowly, she takes a step to the side so that she can get a better look at the washing machine, but Ava steps in her way. She lifts an eyebrow in question, but Ava shakes her head minutely, eyes pleading.
“Ava.”
“I added the detergent, just like you showed me,” Ava continues slowly. She starts to wring her hands in front of her and Beatrice catches sight of something sparkling on the back of one hand. “But…”
Beatrice waits for a moment before she prompts, “But…”
Ava explodes in a single exhale. “I might have gotten distracted by the currywurst I was heating up for you and forgot how much detergent I put in it.”
As she speaks, a pile of suds slides into view behind her. The sparkling on Ava’s hand comes into focus and she recognizes it as bubbles. Beatrice feels her heart start to sink in her chest, down to her knees, leaving her bone-tired.
“Ava,” she sighs.
Ava takes a step forward, one foot sliding out a little as she steps in soap. “I know. I should have waited until you got home. Or not tried to make food in the middle of doing the laundry. But I thought to myself: what if I didn’t add any and I’m just letting them soak in dirty water?” She has suds across her nose too. “So I thought, I can just add a little bit more and make sure they’re clean. What’s that thing Hans says? Easy peasy?”
Beatrice closes her eyes, reigning in the flicker of frustration. Ava is looking at her with wide, imploring eyes, a hesitant smile on her face as she rocks nervously on the balls of her feet. The flicker is extinguished immediately. Ava is so earnest, so hopeful, that she can’t do anything but accept this, suds and all.
She wants to say I love you.
The thought rocks her, stealing her breath. She hasn’t thought it yet, those three words. She’s thought, I could do this for the rest of my life and I hope reality doesn’t come knocking and She’s my favorite person. But she hasn’t thought this yet, hasn’t let herself slip into that thought. Because she knows now that she’s said to herself, she can’t turn away from the truth, that she loves Ava Silva. She loves her regardless of the Halo, regardless of the circumstances that have thrown them together. She loves the mess Ava brings into her perfectly ordered life. She loves how Ava pushes her to take chances but knows when to let her be. She loves how when she turns to find Ava, Ava is already looking for her.
She loves Ava, suds and all.
Her next sigh is softer and she watches the way it affects Ava, the line of nervous energy melting away. She feels herself melting slightly too at the way Ava’s smile brightens and she toes the floor, soap under her foot.
“Show me.”
Ava reaches out a hand at her words, silently beckoning Beatrice closer. She takes Ava’s hand without thought, feeling a soap-slick palm against hers. Ava is sheepish now, her cheeks still pink, and Beatrice moves without thinking, reaching up to swipe some of the suds off her face. Ava’s eyes flutter closed for a moment before she opens them and gives Beatrice a slow smile.
“The good news is, it isn’t water?” Ava offers as she moves Beatrice closer to the washing machine.
No, it isn’t water. But it is a seemingly infinite amount of soap bubbles, foaming at the washing machine's mouth and sliding down the unit, pooling at the base of it and starting a slow spread across the floor and under the refrigerator. Ava squeezes her hand gently and Beatrice looks away from the bubbles into her eyes.
“Surprise,” Ava says lightly. She grins when Beatrice snorts softly. “Would you believe me if I said this was my plan all along?”
“Your plan was to make more work?” Beatrice soothes the words with a small squeeze of Ava’s hand. “If it was, you succeeded.”
Ava groans, and opens her mouth to say something as she plants her foot. She slips, her hand tightens in Beatrice’s and she grabs Beatrice’s shoulder with her other hand. It throws Beatrice off balance and she feels her own feet go out from under her. She flails her free hand, grabbing for a kitchen chair. She feels it under her palm but the force of slamming into it kicks it backward and it clatters to the ground just a second before she does, pulling Ava down with her.
She inhales sharply as Ava’s elbow ends up in her gut, the wind knocked out of her and her head aching from where it hit the floor. Ava curses and tries to stand up, pushing her elbow further into Bea’s side. She coughs, out of breath, and tries to move with Ava’s body but she seems to be going left while Ava goes right. She can feel the soap seeping in through her shirt and hair and it’ll be hard work to get it out of both things. She tries to lift off the floor but Ava is too heavy to displace with such a slippery surface below her.
But then she feels Ava’s body shaking and she stops trying to move, confusion building as the ache in her head and across her shoulders starts to pulse. The elbow in her side eases away and then Ava’s hand is flat across her abdomen, fingers warm through the shirt she’s wearing. Ava continues to shake as she drops her head to Beatrice’s shoulder, forehead slipping comfortably into her.
“Are you…” Beatrice takes a deep breath, feeling Ava shift with it. “Are you laughing right now?”
It opens the floodgate. Ava’s next laugh is bright and loud in her ear, nearly deafening her. Her whole body shakes against Beatrice’s as she laughs again and her hand presses down just below Beatrice’s ribcage. Beatrice feels Ava there against her side, and it steals her breath away again.
“Ava,” she says sharply.
Ava only laughs again, panting against her neck. Shivers run down her spine and she feels it tighten and go taut, but Ava doesn’t seem to notice, curling further into Beatrice’s body again as her laughter shakes the both of them. There’s nothing else for her to do but lay there and wait as the time between Ava’s laughs start to stretch and she goes quiet.
“You should have seen your face, Bea,” Ava whispers into her neck.
Beatrice frowns slightly and tries to roll. Ava’s body keeps her in one place. “I was falling,” she finally says.
Ava’s hand starts to slide across her middle, curling up around her ribcage. Their joined hands are still trapped between them. She hears Ava sigh and feels her shift slightly. She thinks Ava might be moving away, but she feels impossible closer when she speaks again.
“Are you mad?” she asks, voice small.
Beatrice thinks for a moment, even though she already knows the answer. “No. Not mad.”
Ava pauses. “Disappointed?”
“Not that either.” Beatrice wriggles away slightly so she can turn her head. Her nose brushes against Ava’s forehead. “But not surprised. More like…”
“Like you expected I’d do this eventually?” Ava guesses.
More like in love.
She doesn’t say that, though. She looks seriously down into Ava’s face and smiles a little. “More like that,” she agrees.
Ava’s face breaks into a smile. “I kind of expected it, too. I knew I should have waited. I just wanted to surprise you.” She sighs and squeezes Beatrice’s side. “You just do so much for me. I wanted to do something nice for you.”
Beatrice hums slightly, watching the short strands of Ava’s hair flutter away. “Maybe next time you should stick to something a little less… messy?”
Ava snorts. “Don’t lie, Sister Beatrice. You’re just glad it wasn’t something like burning down the kitchen.” Her eyes light up. “The currywurst! I still never reheated it.” She sighs and makes no move to get up. “Maybe we can just go out for dinner.”
“We can’t leave this mess,” Beatrice reminds her. She carefully lifts one hand and strokes a shaking hand through Ava’s short hair. She feels her heart catch when Ava presses slightly closer. “We need something to wear tomorrow.”
“Imagine the tips if we didn’t,” Ava says, slurring just enough that Beatrice knows a day of training and tending bar is starting to catch up with her. “It’s not something we can do in the morning, is it?”
Yes, Beatrice wants to say. Yes, we can lay on this floor all night if we’re down here together. But she can imagine how sticky it will be if they don’t mop it up right now and the idea of dealing with it in the morning is too much. She turns her head to say so and blinks, Ava already staring at her.
“No,” she breathes.
Ava blinks owlishly. “Worth a try,” she says just as quietly. Her eyes seem to search Beatrice’s face. “Can we at least go out for dinner? It’s Tuesday. Flurin is making älplermagronen this week.” Her eyes close and she smiles dreamily. “All that macaroni and cheese. Imagine swimming in it.”
“I’m already swimming in laundry detergent,” Beatrice reminds her gently. “I’d like to keep my swimming to the pool.”
Ava sighs, hot air against her neck, and groans, rolling onto her back. It takes all of the heat with it and Beatrice shivers a little. She blinks up at the ceiling as Ava carefully stands next to her and then her vision is swimming with Ava as she leans over and offers a hand. She takes it, standing slowly so she doesn’t fall again, letting Ava grab her forearm and hold her steady. One foot slips a little and she slides into Ava’s body, Ava’s free hand looping around her waist and holding her steady.
Ava laughs a little. She reaches up and pokes her finger into Beatrice’s hair. “Bubble,” she explains.
Beatrice frowns playfully, popping one on Ava’s shoulder.
“I made a mess,” Ava sighs. She steps back and Beatrice feels the loss again as Ava’s hand slips off her hip. She rights the chair that fell and leans against the back of it. “But I tried? Her nose wrinkles as she thinks. “Better an oops than a what if, Leesa said to me the other day. I think she meant it more in the context of, do I get this special the new manager seems to want us to be pushing, but it applies, yes?”
Beatrice takes another step back, careful with her feet as she considers it. “Well, the floor did need to be washed.”
Ava brightens immediately, her smile infectious. “I helped!”
She softens even more, staring at Ava for a long moment with a smile on her face until she remembers that they do need to get started on cleanup before it spreads even further. She surveys the scene and sighs, imagining the hours of work this will take. She’s already planning what needs to happen: the washing machine needs to be drained and cleaned, the floor needs to be mopped, the clothes need to be rewashed again. It’ll take half the night.
Ava seems to read her mind. “I’ll get the mop. You empty the machine and we’ll go from there, okay?” She doesn’t wait for Beatrice’s answer, tiptoeing through the kitchen to the small closet where the rickety ironing board, the mop, and broom live. She looks at Beatrice over her shoulder, giving her a wide smile as she slicks laundry detergent back through her hair.
Beatrice inhales sharply, feeling something tighten in her chest at the look. It ebbs away pleasantly and she looks away, focusing on the current problem and how they’re definitely getting some älplermagronen after all of this is over.
But she spares a glance over her shoulder as she opens the foaming washing machine and starts to reach through the suds to get to the clothes below. Ava is wrestling the ironing board as she tries to get the mop out and swearing in German as the ironing board catches her in the forehead, nearly knocking her down.
She looks back down into the washing machine and lets herself accept the truth.
She loves Ava, mess and all.
But for now, she’ll do the laundry.