Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One Year Later

“Cheers,” Mary raises her flute of champagne, the others looking up from around the table. “It’s been a year. I haven't touched a gun, a knife, a sword, nothing. I am so…” Mary stops, looking at Camila, Lilith and Beatrice. Eyes downcast as small, sad smiles eclipse their faces.

“I am so happy I have the three of you. After all of it,” Mary raises her glass a little higher, a soft cough comes from the open laptop screen on the table. “Right, sorry, four of you. Sorry Miss America, you should be here by the way, you dick. Where even are you with all those trees? Are you fucking camping again, I will never understand why Americans love camping so much.”

“Turn around.” All four turn in unison, to the voice they heard both on the screen and faintly behind them.

Leah, suitcase in hand, stands in the doorway leading out into the back patio of the Barcelona safe house. Tears in her eyes, a handle of American tequila held out, more a shield than a celebratory beverage.

“I hate you,” Camila yells with water in her voice, pushing up from her chair, running forward, throwing her body against Leah in a bone crushing hug.

“I called you a dick before but Jesus fuck Lee,” Mary joins the hug, holding on tighter than she should, eyes closed to hold back tears.

“You could have called,” Lilith chides lightly, wrapping all three in the expanse of her arms.

Beatrice is the last to stand on shaky legs, joining the group, all arms pulling her into the center.

It has been a year. A bitter sweet, trying, fucking bitch of a year. Figuring out real life, deciding who they wanted to be. And doing it all without Ava.

Leah had been accepted into Cornell, the others goading her to the fullest extent at her American Ivy League status. She had no idea how she got in but she was sure Jillian had a hand in her accelerated course schedule and early admission. She’s been in New York for eight months, Face Timing the girls individually and as a group at least twice a week.

Mary had contacted another lawyer to make her vision a reality. The retrial wasn’t for another two months but the lawyer had come round so often she started to feel like family. She walked Mary through every step of the process, encouraging Mary’s ideas, and pushing her to either start interning at a law firm or start taking college courses. Mary wasn’t ready though, not just yet. She wanted to see all the work they had put in actually change something before she made her decision.

Lilith struggled. She waited for weeks, months even, for the Tarask to take back their own life-giving power. Waited for word to hit them that Adriel had been defeated, that her purpose had been served. She hardly slept, panic attacks riddled her body and mind daily, she couldn’t focus, hardly function. It was only at the sixth month mark when she let the metaphorical blade she held against her own throat drop.

She talked to Jillian every other day for remote and in-person therapy sessions. During the second half of the year, she finally let herself feel and experience life. She took a solo trip, they all refer to it as her sabbatical. She hasn’t talked to her parents, not yet. She still doesn’t feel ready. But she talks about herself now, her mind and her feelings, and that’s enough.

Camila went home for a while, spent time with her mother, reconnecting, relearning their relationship and her tiny town. She tried Sunday mass for a bit but it felt far too close to the catholic church, like she was being watched and controlled. She wandered into a still-life painting class one Sunday in the square after she snuck out of church and it stuck. She attended the class every week and had recently started talking about going to school for it.

Not in her hometown though, somewhere bigger, closer to the others, to more than her small town. She couldn’t stand to be away from Beatrice, Mary, and Lilith for long. Away from their now-permanent relocation to the Barcelona safe house - renamed Casa C’Ava.

They were bankrolled by Duretti, they knew it, they also didn’t care. They were compensated appropriately for time served and for keeping quiet about Adriel. Mother Superion was still around, sometimes too often. Too pushy. Too excited about their futures. Wanting to know what they were up to, how they were feeling, what they were planning. They eventually had to limit it to family dinners every Sunday after all four of them, at different times, had been spooked by Superion just standing in a room randomly waiting for someone to appear.

The fourteen were around for two weeks before they started to leave one by one. They stayed in touch, dropping by for a chat and a meal from time to time. But mostly, they took the money and ran in groups and pairs towards dreams they never thought possible. School, the states, backpacking around the world.

Once, exactly seven-months after, all fourteen had just showed up, independently of each other, all claiming they had felt a pull to be back together. No one could explain it and no one tried to. They accepted it, spent three days together, and life went back to normal.

Beatrice.

If she thought back on the past year. Three-hundred and sixty-five days. Countless minutes and hours. What comes to her mind is nothing. She didn’t have a blue car the color of Ava’s eyes. She didn’t confront her parents and she knows she never will. For nearly two months she didn’t do anything but lose. Weight, the color in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, her nails, bitten to the quick, the skin around her cuticles. The circles under her eyes grew though, deeper and darker, hallowed.

She spent hours wandering the back forest. Following the fading markings against the trees Leah put up when Ava got lost so long ago. More still in the center of the crater Ava blasted into the ground. Always sitting on a curtain, running her fingers along the deep stitching, always remembering.

But most of all, her time was spent sitting against Ava’s gravestone. For those first two months she slept in the dirt and growing grass more than she slept in her own bed. Wrapped in the curtain, using an old shirt of Ava’s as a pillow. Another to wear. Rubbing the blue fabric of Ava’s old soccer jersey against her cheeks, against her lips, burying her nose into a new shirt each night until the scent of Ava finally faded. When she finally stopped, the outline of her body was visible and evident in the growth of the grass, she hopes it would always stay like that.

She would track the constellations Ava knew as they moved across the sky at her grave and then at the house when she could no longer bring pieces of Ava to the grave site. She would make the cocktail Ava made for her their first night here, stirring it with her finger, not drinking it but placing it on the ledge of the fire pit. She learned the entirety of the star chart, when they were visible, when planets were closest just so she could tell Ava in their next.

Maybe the drink is an offering, an invitation calling her back to this world. Maybe it's a vigil. The others were never able to figure out why she did it and they never questioned her. They gave her space to grieve but made sure they were around if she ever wanted to talk.

When she started talking, so rarely, she would talk for hours. Stories and feelings and tears that could fill the sea. Those nights, Mary lit the fire, brought out the cooler of drinks, stood at Beatrice’s shoulder in the kitchen as she made Ava’s cocktail and they all cheersed the cocktail for Ava. Those were the good nights.

Other nights, one of them would tentatively wake Beatrice from her nightmares when she started sleeping in their shared room again. Hold her as she cried and mumbled her words until she went back to sleep. Assured her that it wasn’t her fault, none of it was their fault. That they all did everything they could. That they would see her in the next life.

Exactly a year later, to the day. It was a good day. A stories day. A talkative day for Beatrice. The sun was shining, it was warm and now. Now the OGs were all together again. All but one.

They break up the hug, settling into their spots, too early for a fire but basking in the mid-afternoon glow of the sun. Ava’s cocktail is on the edge of the pit, champagne on ice, another bottle popped as soon as the last is empty. A year later, and somehow, some way, it feels okay, not great, not even good, but just okay for the first time.

“To- To Ava,” Beatrice smiles, her eyes swimming at the memory of a story Lilith had just finished. “To the person I loved with all of me. That we all loved. To the person that-” Beatrice breathes out, it shouldn’t still be this hard, it shouldn’t feel like her world cracks apart anytime she hears or says Ava’s name, but it still does. “To the person that made our lives possible. Made me possible,” Beatrice lifts her glass to the sky then around to her sisters.

“I love you. If you can hear me, I ask you every night, every day if you can hear me, but I’d love to meet you again,” Beatrice knows she talks to Ava more than she talks to her sisters. Her sisters know this too but it still feels like a heavy, open admission. Heavy in the fact that it is still every single day. Even now.

Their glasses clink together over the fire pit, all reaching down to clink Ava’s glass as well. They sit back in comfortable silence. Letting the whispers of the trees and the kiss of the sun take up space. Invade their minds. Hoping it’s Ava cheersing back with the wind.

After a few more rounds of drinks and a cheese platter, the sun starts sinking lower and lower behind the treeline, the sky stained pink in the setting sun. Mary lights the fire, the glow of it feeling familiar and warm, the flickering of flames against faces hiding sad looks.

As they are talking about the updates from the fourteen, a crash comes from the front of the house, jarring all of them. A year later, an entire year and yet Beatrice still pulls a blade from her sleeve, standing in front of the others.

Blade in one hand, champagne flute in the other, Beatrice flicks the dagger towards the girls, indicating a formation pattern they had yet to forget.

“It’s probably just Mother Superion,” Camila whispers, falling next to Beatrice’s left shoulder, Mary at her right. “I texted her that Leah was here a while ago.”

“Oh, right, of course,” Beatrice relaxes back into her seat along with the others as the sounds from the front start to sound less crash-like and more like a well-visited arrival kicking off their shoes, shuffling around the front room as they make their way to the back.

Mother Superion comes into view with a much more infrequent visitor at her side, Jillian. Their eyes dart around the space, heads swiveling around the kitchen and backyard as they come into view. The girls narrow their eyes, lift eyebrows, frowning at the suspicious way Mother Superion and Jillian look around, how awkward they seem standing at the edge of the door to the porch.

“I um,” Jillian clears her throat, pursing her lips as her fingers twist in her sleeves. “So there is no easy way to ask this but…”

“Is Ava here?” Mother Superion steps forward, chin held eye, hands clasped behind her back, her eyes slowly moving around the circle of girls, giving nothing away.

“Excuse me,” Mary is on her feet again before any of the other girls can fully process the question. “Excuse me, what the fuck did you just say?” Mary throws her drink on the ground, the shattering sound jarring the others, all five women on their feet, advancing forward in a rush. “You did not just come here, exactly one year from the day, and ask if Ava is here with those shit ass expressions that make it seem like it’s possible that she could actually be here.” Mary pushes into Mother Superion’s space, pointing between Superion and Jillian, daring them to prove her right, before shoving her finger into Mother Superion’s chest.

“Whatever it is you think you want to say,” Lilith shoves her way to the front, standing shoulder to shoulder with Mary. “Don’t. Not here.”

Lilith looks to Mary, their expressions speaking in the silence as Mary turns to the girls, nodding with her head back towards the fire pit and turning and pulling Jillian and Mother Superion back into the house.

“No,” Beatrice steps past Lilith’s directing hand on her stomach, “I want to hear. I’m coming too.”

“Bea,” Mary shoves Jillian and Superion into the house behind her, snapping her finger towards the sitting room before turning back, expression soft and worried. “I know you do, I really want us all to know what the fuck this is all about but babe, let me do it first. We don’t…”

Mary grips onto Beatrice’s shoulders, trying to convey everything they don't know in a single squeeze and a look. It wasn’t really Ava, it was a possession, it was a demon wearing her face, it was any number of things that Beatrice didn’t need to know, not yet.

“Mary,” Beatrice’s voice cracks, her face crumbling, her knees buckling. “Please, I don’t care, I just need to see her again. Just for a minute, a second even. Please.”

Mary looks over Beatrice’s shoulder signaling for the others to come closer and take up her hold on Beatrice.

“I know, I know, and if that’s a thing, whatever this is, if you can see her for a second, I will make sure it happens okay, but wait,” Mary guides Beatrice into the arms of Lilith, Camila, and Leah and turns into the house to either murder two women for their lack of tact or kiss them.

----

“Can I recap please?” Ava asks, face white, cold to the bone, sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by the Warrior Nuns. They had all taken turns explaining the expectations of her true next.

“Whatever you need,” Ada nods, attempting a smile, reaching out to place a hand on Ava’s knee. “If you want, the stage is still set up, we could put on a show or something.”

“N-no. Um, no thank you,” Ava hiccups, still putting her damnedest into not succumbing to her tears, into not letting her sadness consume her. “I just need to say it out loud. Make it real in my head, if that’s okay.”

“Of course Ava Silva,” Shannon shuffles forward, her hand covering Ava’s other knee. “We have all had our own version of this when we arrived. It’s only right we allow you the same.”

“I died, like a true death, no going back, and Adriel is one hundred percent dead?” Ava sees nodding so she continues. “I am meant to stay here with you all but it will be completely different then what you’ve all done since you’ve arrived?”

“Yes,” Christine nods, her face morphing into a deep frown. “I know we should be celebrating and be happy that we finally succeeded, but it just feels…”

“Like absolute dog shit?” Ada interjects with no joking tone or laughter in her voice. “Yeah. It sucks. Legit. Sure we won or whatever, but come on, haven’t we done enough.”

“Ada,” Shannon whispers, the warning so far from that it sounds more like a plea. To save everyone from feeling worse about what they were expected to do now that the halo was gone.

“She’s not wrong though Shannon,” Ava’s shoulders drop even further, her chin hitting her chest in defeat. “Everything is gone. And now we're all meant to, paraphrasing here,” Ava looks up briefly before dropping her head again, speaking into her lap. “We’re meant to rebuild the bridge that once connected Heaven and Hell, the Tarask and Angels, before Adriel destroyed it on his way out. We are responsible for recreating a connection that once existed before any of us were even born or thought of when literally God could do it with a snap of his fingers but since we’ve been touched by the Tarask, we’re the only ones that can do it.”

“With the absolute bare minimum of words and lore and reasoning and prophesy. Removing the fact that it was always the Warrior Nun’s duty to clean up the mess after the defeat of Ariel, yes, that is correct,” Shannon nods, gripping Ava’s knee, attempting to push reassurance but knowing it does nothing.

“And it’s a literal bridge, bricks and shit, just floating in the air. Definitely not some metaphorical power of family, love, and friendship bridge?” more nods. “Fine, manual labor, work the muscles, repent, repent, repent,” Ava blinks rapidly, her mind processing the batshit scenario that will be her next. “But we’ll still get to see them right? Mary, Lilith, Camila and Beatrice yeah? In that mind theater you all talk about. I can work on this bridge and still see them, feel them as they grow up?”

“Unfortunately no, Ava. The halo is gone, as is our connection to them,” Ada bites at her lip, her confirmation is surely another gut-punch and there is no way to soften it.

“Do we have like a Netflix series of greatest hits at least? So I can look back at everything we did together? Anything to see their faces again, hear their voices?” Ava clenches her jaw, despite her best efforts, she sees a tear hit against the fisted palm in her lap.

“I’m sorry Ava, no. But we can talk about them, as often as you want. Share stories, keep everyone we love in our minds,” Shannon assures, “we will never lose them, not really.”

“How long? How long will it take to build the bridge exactly? Will we get to pass on or whatever when it’s done? Can I maybe see them again when they pass? Or is rebuilding a bridge all we have to live for for an eternity?” Ava knows she is sobbing, can bet her words are nearly unintelligible in her stuttering, gasps for breath.

“It may take many lifetimes.”

Ava can’t be sure who says it, doesn’t want to know. She can’t think of it further. She’ll lay bricks, she’ll hammer, she’ll forge. She’ll work as fast as she possibly can, to make sure she sees her sisters at the end of their lives. Meets them when they get to the end of the bridge. She’ll be able to plan the best joke possible for when they finally do arrive. She’ll make their reunions worth it. Each one of them.

She lays down her first brick the very next day, well, day is generous, time doesn’t exist now. She doesn’t sleep, never feels the need to. She talks to the Warrior Nuns about what it was like to live during their time. She meets so many of them, knows their stories, but the best part? The best part is that she gets to tell her own story. Day after day, year after year.

She gets to tell each girl she works alongside what her sisters meant to her. She talks of love like its oxygen. Like its sunlight and water. She talks of Beatrice like she is the very thing that makes life possible in the real world. Her own Helen of Troy, the very reason she would willingly eat six pomegranate seeds. She would gladly stay here, building a bridge if only she could have six month, hell, even six minutes of every year to be in the real world, to see her before returning back to build the bridge.

She tells her story over and over, never needing to exaggerate or boast. She tells her story with glee and tears and raw emotion she so rarely found the words for in the real world. There are no movie or television references, she doesn’t need them. Her life is revered enough in her own eyes now without the silver screen being the goal. Who she was, who she got to be with her sisters and Beatrice. That was enough, it was more than enough to craft the best story, the best life, she had ever thought imaginable for herself.

After a while, Ava would guess at least a handful of decades, the sanctum long gone from their back, eternal, endless nothing in front of them, they talk about what they would have wanted. They talk of children, husbands, wives, families they would have liked to build. Their fantasies and daydreams build up and up and out until they truly believe them. Until they start asking each other how their third child’s second birthday would play out. What their fiftieth wedding anniversary would be like. They hold the made up names, they hold their made up futures as if they were factual.

The bricks of the bridges are unintelligible from the next but as they lay them, they know that each brick has a name. Each brick has a feeling, an emotion, a memory, parts of a story. Their lives, both lived and their unlived potential, etch and bleed into the very foundation of the bridge, holding it together, stories compounding on each other over the centuries of lost sisters.

They all start off together, the hundreds of Warrior Nuns together, building this bridge brick by brick but slowly, one by one, they fade, it’s the only way Ava thinks she is tracking time. As if the last brick they place is their final sacrifice, their final act connecting them to their next, carrying them over and beyond.

It’s always a slow, mid-sentence departure that makes all future conversations that much heavier, that much more significant because at every placement, someone you know, you love, could disappear. The first one halts work for days, or so Ava thinks. All of them too scared to disappear in a burst of gold light. The second one to go laughs as she does, the realization of what is happening brings tears of joy to her eyes and she yells, with her final breath, to embrace the light.

Her words are passed up and down the line of sisters, describing and reassuring them of what is now a regular part of their lives. No one wants to say it or acknowledge it but they all work just a little bit faster, a little harder, ready for their own burst of light, their own next.

“I don’t want to like, gift horse this mouth or whatever but,” Ava lays down another brick of the bridge, never fatigued, never tired, always hungry for more stories, never wanting to fade away as the other Warrior Nuns had so longed to do. “It’s just us three now. I am shit at math so I don’t know how long it will be, but Ada, you’re next to go chronologically. What happens when it’s just me left? What happens when I place my last brick?”

“Ava Silva,” Shannon speaks, pressing a brick in place, looking as stoic and ethereal as the day Ava met her, despite the years and years of laying bricks. “It will be your next.”

“What does that even mean though? Are we reborn into some infant and just get to watch their life from the sidelines? What is next when you say it with so much hope like you do.”

“That is up to you and what happens when you go.” Shannon smiles as she places another brick, a smile for just herself, like Ava is missing the punchline of the joke.

“What she means is,” Ada winks at Ava as she places a brick, bumping her shoulder against Ava’s. “Next is nothing and everything. We don’t know what it is but we know it’s there. It’s a promise. It’s a whisper. It’s how we know that what we felt when we were alive, those emotions, your feelings, they will never die and neither will you.”

Ada places another brick and the tips of fingers start to burn gold. Ava has seen it enough times to know that this is the moment of next for her. The sign that one of them is ready to leave and pass on. She looks up from the glow of her fingers to the wide, toothy grin on Ada’s face.

“Fuck man, I genuinely did not think this would happen for me,” Ada’s grin pinches in as her eyes start to water. She picks up another brick, her last brick and looks to Ava and Shannon. “I never knew you in life but,” Ada presses her fingers to her wrinkled forehead as her face breaks with sobs. “Next, I intend to know you both for as long as I live. Ava Silva, you dirty cunt, I adore you more than nearly everyone I knew in real life. Thank you for sharing your life with me, thank you for setting us free.” Ada places the last brick, her eyes sparkling, her grin dimpling her cheeks.

“I love you more than words!” Ava yells as Ada’s body bursts into gold light, out from her fingertips and toes until she burns so bright she is no longer with them.

“Just us two now, Ava Silva,” Shannon places the next brick, the end, the horizon of their mission, the end of the bridge unclear, the end of their progress unimaginable. How long they have been building unknowable.

“Finally, now we can talk about gay shit,” Ava grins, placing her own brick, watching the glittering particles of Ada float out in front of them, setting against her shoulders like a hug. “Maybe I’ve said this before and you have definitely seen it but, Shan, Beatrice is, golly, she is like nothing you have ever encountered.”

Ava and Shannon work on the bridge, brick by brick, story by story. Sharing their adventures in deep, personal detail. Talking about how the others did things, going into the specifics and little ticks of Mary, Lilith, Beatrice, and Camila. What Mary said here, what Camila did there. They start singing songs of their time. Ava is easily able to sing along to Shannon’s songs but she finds herself singing a few of the newer songs over and over at Shannon’s request.

Time stretches on, Ava finds comfort in silence with Shannon, hardly needing words to share thoughts and feelings after so long together. Another aspect that Ava has never experienced on earth, always needing to fill a silence, make a joke, cover up negative feelings with her words. Like now for instance, Ava knows Shannon’s time is coming to a close just as she had predicted Ada’s departure, but she stays quiet, waiting for the moment she is left alone.

“I will find you in the next,” Shannon whispers, drawing Ava’s eyes up, holding her last brick, in glowing hands, not placing it yet, holding on for one final sermon. “Whether I’m a businessman, food truck owner, or a clown at a kids birthday. I will find you and I will say these words, listen to me because my next will live by them if I have any say in the matter. Brick by boring brick. I will find you and when you hear it, you’ll know it’s me.”

“Ha, pick something else because,” Ava laughs before she starts to sing a song she heard on the radio years ago. As she sings, the tips of Shannon’s fingertips start to glow a little brighter, she just wasted precious minutes on a joking song. “Wait, no, no, Shannon, please don’t. Give me the brick. I can’t be alone in this. Please, Shannon. I am no good alone”

“If that phrase is already a song then anytime you hear someone say your name like it could punch out your teeth, that’s me. Anytime your blood boils at the sound of your name yelled across a room. Any time your body reacts in full-body shivers, that will be me saying hello again for the first time. Remember yourself as I will remember you. Remember me, remember us in your next because we will be right beside you.”

“Shannon, don’t leave, please don’t leave,” Ava knows she is crying as the light on the bridge grows around the two of them, Shannon disregarding her plea. “Shannon, please, I can’t be alone, I won’t make it, please don’t leave, we won’t finish, this will all be for nothing. Don’t go.”

“Oh Ava Silva, you’re the only one of us that will,” Shannon’s once somber face lights up in a grin at her final words, as her hands shoot out streams of gold light, bursting from the tips of her fingers, her eyes, her mouth as she fades and takes the light with her.

Ava watches the last of the light fade, letting herself cry for a long while, replaying Shannon’s last words until she places her first brick completely alone. In silence, Ava continues. She works, she waits for her next. She pictures her sisters growing old, hoping they get out of life everything they deserve. She pictures what next looks like for her sisters, for Ada and Shannon. Who and what they got to be, hoping all of this was worth it for them.

She is silent in her work except for when she decides to talk to Beatrice out loud. Decides to make a joke for Mary’s ears only. She keeps placing bricks, pulling at an indivisible pile until she places one. She places it and the black in the distance becomes white, blinding light.

Reaching back for the next one, there is nothing for her hand to grab, no pile of bricks, no golden burst carrying her off to her next. There is nothing but the bright white light in front of her, solid ground for the first time both behind and in front of her. She pushes up from her knees, from placing bricks for what feels like centuries and takes a singular step on the solid ground in front of her.

----

“What in the actual fuck is wrong with you two?” Mary slams into the living room, yanking both women up from the couch and shoving them towards the farthest bedroom from the deck. “You know what day it is. You know what you shits barging in here and being all is Ava here would do to us, to Beatrice,” Mary scolds in a harsh, condescending whisper, kicking against a shoe on the floor, running her fingers through her hair as she slams the door behind her.

“If you would just give me a minute to-”

“Fuck off, I am not done,” Mary puffs her cheeks out, releasing a huge breath, running her hands over her hair again, pulling at the ends, eyes blazing as she faces the two again. “It has been a year. If you two cunts come at with a we preserved her dead body this whole time explanation I will dust off my shotguns and your pulverized kneecaps will be used in my next loaf of bread.”

Mary starts pacing, mumbling under her breath, ears trained towards the hallway, out to the deck, making sure no one is tiptoeing towards them, trying to listen in. Mary’s pacing falters when neither of the older women speaks to counter her. She turns, mouth hanging open, as she openly stares at them, daring, hoping, wishing for a counter to her heat of the moment theory.

“Are you fuuucking kidding me. A year! Fifty two goddamn weeks, three hundred and sixty-five days you kept this from us. You,” Mary shoves her finger in Mother Superion’s chest again, pushing her back into the wall. “You saw what we were going through. You saw what Beatrice was going through and you said nothing,” Mary, voice dripping in venom, drops her finger and turns away, her bravado draining, her shoulders dropping. “How… how could you keep this from us?”

“How could you do that to me,” Mary turns back around, her voice a whisper, her eyes pleading, starting to brim with tears as Mother Superion tries to maintain her stoic nature. “You told us you were only cold and distant because it was required to defeat Adriel but why….” Mary growls, frustrated with the tears that won’t stop falling. She doesn’t even know what happened, doesn’t really know why they came in asking that question, she hasn’t let them answer, but she knows it’s not going to be an answer that makes her feel better.

“Mary,” Jillian moves forward, her hands held out in defense, “you might want to sit down for this because you’re right, I, no we weren’t honest with you, with any of you.”

Mary feels her chest pinch, her breath catch in her throat. She doesn’t lets herself hope, doesn't let her mind spiral to the best possible because Mary’s life has never been a collection of the best possible of any situation. She instantly starts to prepare herself for some demonic, biblical horror creature with Ava’s face. A creature they were going to be asked to kill.

Mary drops heavily onto her bed, her head lolling forward, her eyes staying locked on a scar on the top of her bare foot. Steadying herself for the horrors of a reality Superion and Jillian are about to reveal.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, like this but-”

“Don’t you dare apologize for something you knew you were doing for a year. Don’t patronize me like that,” Mary wipes harshly at her cheeks, trying to erase the burn against her eyes.

“You’re right,” Jillian stands up taller, her meek, awkward persona dropping away immediately, a cold scientist in its wake. “I knew what I was doing when I preserved Ava’s body. She was dead. Is dead for all I know. I preserved her body in a cryochamber, kept her body hydrated, sustained, because Mary,” Jillian kneels in front of Mary, attempting to catch her eye line. “She didn’t experience the same levels of rigor mortus following her death as any normal human should. I didn’t think it was anything, just the halo’s energy wearing off, but she didn’t experience the same levels of decay as any normal dead body well after the point of decay. Not in the first few days, not ever actually.”

“We buried her doc, I saw it, I was there, I did that pathetic slow motion dirt shovel thing,” Mary was blubbering, she knows it, but she is so confused. She had seen Ava’s body prepared for burial, had moved the crank that lowered her into the ground. “We were at her grave, Beatrice was there every day for two months. It was never disturbed.”

“I exhumed her body less than an hour after the funeral party went back to the Cradle for the celebration of life.”

“You were there for that too! I saw you, you wouldn’t have had time.”

“I took advantage of tumultuous emotions. You were all grieving, supporting each other, it wasn’t hard to slip away.”

----

“Why aren’t they talking louder, I can’t hear anything,” Camila whispers as the shadow of Jillian, or what she assumes is Jillian, crosses the window.

“Clearly they are whispering to keep this from us,” Lilith rolls her eyes. She had fought and begged for them to stay behind at the fire pit, knowing Mary would come back from the conversion with the truth. A truth that would be easy to digest and move on from. One that wouldn’t be riddled with lies or heavy science or assumptions based on half the story. A confirmation of some poor joke or some sciencey-ghost theory that asks if a dead person is present when they were clearly dead.

But no, Camila and Beatrice, not even a minute after Mary disappeared from the deck, got up from their seats and tiptoed around the house, trying to find where the conversation was happening. They snuck around the house silently, listening in at each window, looking for lights and murmuring voices.

“I just feel like we could have done this as a group, we do everything as a group,” Camila whispers, elbowing Lilith, craning her neck to hear more. “With the exception of Miss Americana.”

“Stop giving me crap for America babe,” Leah wraps her arm around Camila’s waist, pulling her close and up towards the lip of the window. “You’d love it by the way, there is this piano that’s just out in public on my street, people can sit and play on the side of the street. It’s like you created the concept yourself. You should visit, my dorm is big enough. One bed though.”

“Sign me up,” Camila grins before turning her attention back to the muffled voices through the window.

“Mary just yelled!” Beatrice stands up from her crouched position, hushing everyone, “she said you were there, that's… that’s all I heard,” Beatrice drops her shoulders. “God damn it, this is stupid, I’m going in there,” Beatrice takes two determined steps away before Lilith pulls her back.

“Bea, I know, we all want to know, but Mary did this for a reason,” Lilith tries to placate, her hand digging harder into Beatrice’s arm as she attempts to pull away.

“Mary isn’t the halo bearer, it’s a flat team structure now, there is no leader so I can go in there and demand answers right now if I want to,” Beatrice pulls her arm from Lilith’s grip, her lips in a snarl.

“You know why she did this Bea, please, you’ve come so far,” Lilith knows she sounds like she is begging, pleading for Beatrice to just wait, wait for Mary to explain in simple, non-life-ending, heartbreaking terms. This, them being directly outside the window, was already too much for Lilith to handle, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what Beatrice was going through.

“What do you mean I’ve come so far?” Beatrice startles, standing straight and still and daring Lilith to continue with her train of thought.

“Bea,” Lilith whispers, her hands looking for Beatrice’s to squeeze instead of saying the words on the tip of her tongue.

“No, no I would like to know, how far have I come? Do you think I’ve forgotten Ava? Do you think she doesn’t matter to me anymore? Do you think I don’t think about her everyday? Is that why this conversation shouldn’t be important to me?”

“Jesus Bea, no,” Lilith recoils, burned by her accusations, by Beatrice thinking Lilith could possibly think that of her.

“Bea,” Camila steps in, replacing Lilith’s hands with her own in Beatrice’s. “You know that isn’t what she means,” Camila’s thumb runs over Beatrice’s scarred knuckles, Leah coming to place her hand on Beatrice’s shoulder. “We know you don’t need saving or protecting but this, whatever this is, we just don’t want you to go back to where you were.”

“I don’t think I can see you as thin and pale as you were Bea,” Lilith steps closer again, closing the circle around Beatrice. “I can talk about her, cry about her, reminisce and remember, but I can’t do you like that again. Not for me, I can handle you like that, but forcing you to eat, making you get out of bed, I can’t let you do that to yourself again. Whatever this is, you can’t do that to yourself again.”

“What if-”

“No Bea, no, I won’t let you do what ifs again,” Lilith breaks, voice cracking, tears filling her eyes. “Just no, you said you wanted a minute, a second, it won’t be Ava, it won’t be her. You… we had her and it was amazing, she was amazing, even if I… I never told her, but we had her already. Whatever is happening, you don’t want that. You have memories, you have feelings, but whatever is going on in there, you don’t want it. You don’t want to know.”

----

“Mary,” Jillian reaches out and grips Mary’s knees, knowing its a gamble, knowing Mary could and would punch her if she got too close. “I only did it because I had to be sure. I had to be sure she was really dead. And I know we waited, we waited until science said it was the last possible moment. But I wasn’t convinced because I took all of the outlier data for decay and rigor mortus out and even then, she surpassed every known outlier.”

“You said she didn’t, you were the one that called it,” Mary whips her head up, voice slicing through gritted teeth. “We buried her because you told us to.”

“I know that,” Jillian sat back, cross-legged in front of Mary. “I know because it was also the end of day three, the longest someone can go without water. I needed to hydrate her body, I needed to do that without you all thinking I was playing with a dead body.”

“But you did play with a dead body!” Mary doesn’t contain herself anymore as she hisses her words, listening more closely to the deck door for the others, shoving Jillian away from her as she stands, her fingers twitching, aching for a weapon. “You played with Ava for an entire year and didn’t tell us about it, you fucking cu-”

“I didn’t play and I didn’t tell any of you because there were no improvements, no brain activity, no movement, there was nothing,” Jillian tries to soothe Mary, tries to explain herself. “I gave myself a year. One year to see if she would actually come back and then I would rebury her. I saw her in the lab this morning, still looking like a preserved, unmoving, unthinking, barely alive body. I went to a few meetings, lunch, I saw her throughout the day like I always do, then, three hours ago, she wasn’t in the tank anymore. No one knew she was there, she was in Michael’s old room, no one had access, not even Kristian knew she was there. The tank was open and she was just… gone.”

“So you’re telling me,” Mary looks up, her heart brimming with hope but her brain punching and shooting against it, pushing it back down, knowing she won’t be able to handle a second heartbreak, knowing she won't be able to see Beatrice relive the last year. “You’re saying she could have, what, got up and left?”

“Would you expect anything else from Ava?” Mother Superion chooses that moment to speak, stepping up behind Mary, placing her hand on her shoulder.

“Nah, fuck you dude, don’t you dare touch me right now,” Mary shoves Superion away, “I get the doc lying to me, but you couldn’t have just dropped a single clue? Back up, I don’t want you anywhere near me,” Mary shakes her head in disgust as Superion relents, backing up and away from Mary’s seething form.

“Mary, do you really think you would have lived your life the way you have the last year if I had dropped a hit? That any of you would have done anything other than wait for a daily update on something we had no idea would be real? I know you don’t believe me but we kept this from you because we didn’t want to give you false hope.”

“False hope is looking a lot like zombie Ava out in the wild ready to wreak havoc on the masses. False hope sounds like you want us to be prepared to take her down if she’s not herself anymore,” Mary stalks closer again, fire dancing on the surface of her tears. “What do you think is going to happen if she shows up here? What do you think is going to happen for the others, to Beatrice, if Ava is really just wandering around half dead or possessed? It's gonna kill them if they have to kill her. Even if she is herself, we’ll never stop wondering if she'll will just disappear or drop dead. If she is here for keeps, will she eventually snap and kill us for no reason? You have no idea what you’ve done.”

“She isn’t going to kill anyone, Mary,” Jillian placates, eyes on the floor, hand reaching into her pocket.

“What are you not telling me?” Mary catches the far too certain tone of Jillian’s voice. Catches on to the fact that they didn’t show up with weapons, didn’t show up armed to the teeth screaming about defenses and preparing for an attack. They just walked in, brimming with anxiety and nervous energy.

“I said she wasn’t progressing, I said she wasn’t improving, there was nothing there, but she never once slipped into a declined. And, on the counter in front of her cryochamber, she wrote a note,” Jillian smiles, unable to hide the laugh that breathes from her nose, shaking her head as she unfolds the note she pulls from her pocket. “It says your taste in music sucks, I hate a concerto, but, thanks for the science, doc, smell ya later in purple sharpie. She spelled concerto wrong,” Jillian hands the note to Mary to inspect. “So either she knows she died and knows how long it's been or she thinks we healed her and it’s only been a few days since the fight.”

“So what you’re saying is that she was self aware enough to know you played her classical music while she was locked away and is now probably making her way back here as Ava, our Ava,” Mary’s eyes are wide, goosebumps covering her entire body as hope flushes and fights back against her brain, pulling up and pushing out towards her sisters on the deck. Her eyes drag along the familiar, too large, shaking script of Ava’s handwriting, her shoulders shaking as silent sobs take over her body, hope winning out. “I… I have to tell the others.”

“Mary, no, not yet,” Mother Super catches Mary by the arm as she is half out the door, tugging her back in, shutting the door behind her. “We don’t know how long it will last, if she’ll make it here, if she’ll be the same, if she’ll still be Ava. We drove and walked along every road and path here before actually coming inside. So did about ten other vehicles and thirty other people from Jillian’s lab. We never saw her.”

Superion tugs Mary in closer, hesitating for a moment, looking for consent before she pulls Mary into a hug. “We’re going to go back and look in places a… well, a body might fall mid-step but we just had to check here first. It’s why we asked. We wouldn’t have asked if there was any other option.”

“You don’t think she made it?” Mary looks up at Superion with swimming eyes, cold buckets of water halt and freeze any and all hope she had so carelessly let fill her body, removing it all in less than a second. “Yo- you don’t think the regeneration lasted?”

“We can’t rule anything out,” Jillian steps up, placing her hand on Mary’s back in comfort. “We will keep every option on the table but right now, we need to find her as soon as possible.”

----

“Hey, hey Eve! Eve! It’s me! It’s Ava Silva!” Ava jogs over, waving her arms. Arms that should be tired, shoulders that should be worn down to the bone, elbows with hardly any joint movement. It had easily been centuries. She knows this because she actually did get a little good at math, it’s why she voiced it to Ada because she knew Ada would be gone in a matter of minutes. She took her knowledge of the Warrior Nun diary, the years they were in service, and calculated it against how long she thought it took for them to pass on after the first few faded.

By her rudimentary calculations it had meant she was now over four centuries old but she still wanted to cling to her bad math skills on the off chance that it hadn’t been that long, that she would still able to greet her sisters when they arrived at the end of the bridge.

Regardless of time, she has been on her hands and knees laying bricks. Her fingers should be worn to the bone and beyond, she should feel fatigue from the lack of water and food, and yet, she jogs easily as she waves her arms strong above her head. Skipping the closer she gets to Eve.

“Ava Silva, as I live and breath,” Eve grips Ava’s forearms briefly before pulling her into a hug. “I have aged some four hundred years since last we spoke. Since the last time I sent my signal out through your halo.”

“Bruh, yeah, no, I felt it! You have no idea how many people you saved by that little power move of yours. It’s been four hundred years for me too, ” Ava bunches the silk of Eve’s gown in her hands, burying her face in Eve’s chest. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“As have I, daughter,” Eve reaches up from Ava’s back to stroke her hair, running her burning hot fingertips along Ava’s scalp. “I would like to formally welcome you to your next.”

Ava squeezes her eyes shut, she knew this would be her next. With the Tarask, in Hell. She wants to feel pity, feel hurt for not getting to share the inevitable heavenly light with her other Warrior Nuns, with her sisters that had probably long since died, but this was her next and she would gladly accept reprieve from brick laying and loneliness.

“If I could,” Ava squeezes tight once more before steps back from Eve’s hold, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I would love one of those septum piercings though my Tarask snout. If that is something I have to earn then I would love to be fast tracked for that particular decoration.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow,” Eve lets a tiny, high pitched giggle release itself from her throat as her hands grip Ava’s shoulders. “Do you think you’re going to transform into a Tarask?”

“I mean,” Ava looks around the familiar gates, where a door to a theater used to be, the red glow of her surroundings. “Is this not my next? Is that not why I’m here?”

“Dear girl, I mean this is the most loving way but, you are truly an idiot,” Eve laughs, the sound like a harp reverberating in the middle of a quiet lake.

“I mean yeah, of course I am, obviously. I just watched hundreds of girls burn up in a golden flurry as they got to pass on to the next. I didn’t get that. I just walked away from the task that I have been doing for four hundred years. Why would I not think my experience would be this? I am an idiot, but not about whatever the fuck this is,” Ava throws her hands up, huffing, trying to glean anything from her surroundings, from what Eve has said, the final words of Shannon, however many years ago that was, biting at the back of her mind.

“Let me ask you this,” Eve snaps her fingers and the gold tea table appears between them, the high-backed chair tucking against the back of Ava’s legs, forcing her to sit. Her mouth watering at the sight of the familiar orange tarts despite the lack of hunger in her stomach. The watering is for a memory, the want of her sisters around this table. The want for Beatrice to wipe the sugar trail of tart from her bottom lip.

“Why do you think you are here?”

Ava tears her eyes from the tarts with a scowl, looking up at the far too divine face of Eve looking back at her. Ava has been asked over and over what she thinks, what would happen if, what she would do if. She is so very tired of having to guess. All she wants is her next, the singular chance of seeing her sisters again. Seeing them in whatever form their next takes. She doesn’t want to have to guess at anything ever again.

“Respectfully, fuck you Eve,” Ava’s voice is tired and resigned, she drops her head in her hands, exhausted with her life for the past few centuries or so. “I don’t want to play guessing games anymore. I am nearly what, four-hundred and twenty-two years old. I don’t have time for your games and your bullshit. Either make me a Tarask or send me to my next. Please, Eve. I can’t keep being dragged along like this.”

“Just one final guess Ava Silva, indulge an old woman,” Eve pushes a hot cup of hibiscus tea towards Ava, Camila’s smile coming to her mind immediately, a little muted and dulled around the edges with age but still so vibrant and bold.

“Alright, bet,” Ava takes a sip and her insides flood with a warmth she hasn’t known was missing until now. “I am meant to be some sort of ambassador of sorts. Between heaven and hell, head of a Tarask, body of an angel. Able to broker deals and traverse worlds to keep the peace and keep the worst of the worst inside.”

Ava takes another sip of her tea, rolling her eyes, she then sinks her teeth into the gummy, gooey center of the orange tarts, her mouth flooding with flavors she hasn’t been able to remember. Her ears tingle with it, her chest rounding and filling, her cheeks flush. It’s the most perfect bite of food she has ever experienced in her entire life.

“Ava Silva, I have another question for you,” Eve cocks her head to the side, her fingernail running around the rim of her own tea cup. “Have you had visions while you were building the bridge?”

“That’s vague as fuck but,” Ava breaks off the corner of a baguette, the crust feeling like buttery sand against her fingertips. The softest thing she’s felt in decades. She slathers a wedge of brie onto the bread and moans when she tastes it against her tongue. “We all did. We saw ourselves, our loved ones, we talked about it every day.”

“Not memories or dreams, visions dear girl.”

“What’s the difference when you’re dead? I had memories, I had fantasies, I had every single thing my mind could conjure just to see them, to know them still. I couldn’t tell you the difference,” Ava licks a drip of oil from the palm of her hand, tasting garlic and salt and pepper, she wants to finally let herself cry with how real and good it feels to finally feel again.

“What is your last non-memory?”

“Eve, please,” Ava takes a sip of tea to clear the oil and butter coating her tongue. “Just do the thing okay, I don’t have time for games. I have somewhere I should have been three hundred years ago. I would like to at least ask the big guy for video footage before it’s cleared.”

“Humor me, just one final time dear girl.”

“Fine,” Ava closes her eyes, licked her lips and slips back into her mind, a place she is now so intimately familiar with. “The last thing I saw was a dream of my sisters. They were in the safe house, happy and together. The night was clear, like so clear, every star was out. Camila, Leah, Mary and Lilith were joking and laughing. Beatrice, god her smile was so real, she didn’t feel burdened, she was light and so easy like if the breeze blew she would float up with it. Up and up and out and just maybe, maybe she could feel me wherever I was. She laughed, her smile lines were less pronounced than I remember but they were growing back. Her hair was longer, she wore this button up that I’ve never seen. It's like a shirt that’s made of jeans. And Mary, her hands looked soft. Lilith, Jesus, that chip on her shoulder, that shadow hanging over her was just gone and her hair was jet black again. Camila’s cheeks were apples I wish I could bite into. And Leah, she had this weird accent. It reminded me of this show from way back called Seinfeld, but like a muffled version of it, like it wasn’t fully there yet.”

Ava opens her eyes, knowing she has talked for far too long, knowing her vision could keep playing out, she could describe the smell of a fire, the tickling of bubbles against Beatrice’s nose, how Mary’s pockets were empty, how Camila’s fingers would play along to the song coming from the speaker. She makes herself stop before the lump in her throat grew any bigger.

“This is a memory?”

“Uh, no because I wasn’t there. You asked for a vision and I gave it to you,” Ava rolls her eyes, reaching for a second tart, suddenly feeling ravenous, her stomach an unending pit she needs to fill.

“And you know this why?”

“Eeeve, fuck, please!” Ava shoves the entire tart into her mouth before reaching for another, her cheeks stuffed as her body shakes in fury. “Stop. I have done everything you all have asked of me so please, stop with the games and just let me have my next. Everyone else got it. Why can’t I?”

“You are not like the others.”

“For fucks sake,” Ava’s entire body huffs, eyes rolling, hands thrown up in the hair. “Babe, if you don’t say things that matter I will just walk off into the red glow and never come back,” Ava can’t help herself, her hands reach for more tarts and scones and water and anything she can put into her body to fill this endless pit taking over, begging to be filled.

“One final question Ava Silva. If you could go back, what would you want?”

Ava chews the collection of food in her mouth, takes a drink to wash it down and uses the back of her hand to wipe the crumbs away. She gasps when she finally feels like she has a fraction of sustenance to keep going. She tilts her head back finishing her tea, refilling her glass before looking up at Eve.

“I don’t have to go back for this but all I want is for my sisters to be okay. I want Lilith’s fingernails to not be claws, I want her hair to turn back to black like I described. I want her to understand her emotions and I want her to know they are valid. I want Mary to never pick up a weapon. I want her forehead to be clear of disappointed scowl lines. I want her to see her mother in jeans and a sweater instead of an orange jumpsuit. I want Camila to find love in music and art and family and people and not be scared of losing them. I want Leah to go, I want her to run away from her life and find joy in a coffee shop all the way across the world and get whatever that accent is because it’s weird as shit but it fits her.” Ava takes a bite out of the baguette and digs her fingers into the wheel of brie, shoving it into her mouth, breathing heavily as the pit grows deeper.

“And Beatrice?” Eve’s question makes Ava choke, her eyes burn, her brain tingles with how many times she had told the other Warrior Nuns what she hoped for Beatrice.

“Happiness. Joy. Truth and love and steady and easy and bright and light and- and just knowing that she is as good as the best human, no, better than the best human that has ever walked the earth without someone having to tell her. I want her to just know she is good and perfect, her thoughts, her feelings. I want her to know she is perfect on her own and I want her to own that and just be that. I want her to be herself, unapologetically and take everything from the world that she has ever wanted and not be scared to take it.”

“I said last question, but I lied. Here,” Eve hands Ava a warm bun, the top cinched shut, little bits of ruby red pushing out through the dough. “Eat this as I ask you this next question.” Ava’s hands shake as she takes a huge bite of the bun, barely chewing before swallowing and taking another.

“I asked you what you wanted and you told me what you wanted of your sisters. The final question is, what do you want for yourself?”

“I don’t follow, I just answered that. I want my sisters to be happy. Oh wait, shit, the fourteen!” Ava bites off the three corners of a scone before continuing. “I forgot about them, damn, and I even said I would remember them for forever. But I do! I swear, if that’s your question, I do remember them, all their names and their faces if you want a description. I want them to be happy too. Go on and do great things for themselves and the world. None of them should have been a part of the Order in the first place. I want them to be as far away from it as my sisters are.”

“Is that all?” Eve hands Ava a vine of grapes, the smallest of smiles on her lips, knowing she is pushing Ava to keep talking with her lack of words.

“I mean no,” Ava plucks grapes from the vine, barely chewing before swallowing them whole. “There are like, so many things. Homelessness, food deserts, domestic violence, gun violence, climate change, the housing crisis, lack of a moving minimum wage to meet inflation, capitalism. There are easily over a hundred other issues. I just, I don’t think I can tackle them in the time it takes my body to burn to gold up there,” Ava points to where she thinks the bridge is. She finishes her second cup of tea, taking half a tart in one bite as she finally thinks she deduces what is going on.

“Which is now what I think is happening here. That two second burst of gold light that happens for us is actually suspended in this single conversation with either you or the big guy, am I right? You’re trying to determine what actually happens in our next based on our responses? If I go up or down? Duh, of course, that is exactly what the viewers would like to see in a movie. The suspense is killing me Eve, I’m ready though. Decide.”

Ava finishes the tart, stuffing a few in her pocket knowing she is about to be sent somewhere other than here. A few in her pocket, another in her mouth. Fiendishly, with shaking, pulsing hands, she reaches for anything she can on the table, into her mouth, into her pockets, laughing to herself as Eve just watches on with a curious look. Pockets full, cheeks puffed out, the pit in her stomach barely satiated, Ava stops. Chews, swallows, and watches Eve back. The silent stare down lasting longer than Ava would like.

“In this life Ava Silva,” Eva walks around the table and stands in front of Ava, gripping the back of her neck, tilting her head towards the red sky after she swallows the lump of food in her mouth. Eve places her thumb on Ava’s forehead, rubbing lightly in circles. “You have given us far more than we could have possibly imagined. When the time comes, we will call on you again, but go. Go to your next.”

Ava is confused by the involuntary tilt of her head, more so when Eve pressed her thumb against her forehead. Rolling her eyes, she attempts to voice her confusion, ask questions, force Eve to explain her cryptic message. She chokes on her voice instead, caught in her throat, sucked down into the bottomless pit of her stomach, taking the very breath in her lungs with it.

Dizzy and lightheaded, her hands clumsily reach up to Eve’s wrists, trying to pull at the burning sensation melting down from her head to her chest, to her toes. She is forced to close her eyes when the light coming from Eve’s hand goes to bright to look at. Gritting her teeth, she hopes this is what it felt like for the others. She hopes it was softer, less intense.

Finally, her hand wraps around what she thinks is Eve’s wrist, grounding herself as the glow behind her eyes dissipates enough for her to chance a glance at her next. Her confusion returns, doubles, triples even when she wakes to find herself in a glass case, tubes and wires running in and out of her body. Not what she expected of heaven, so she’s definitely in hell.

Ava looks around, testing her voice with a few yells but chokes on the tube in her throat, the thing she had thought was Eve’s hand. She thrashes around in the jelly-like substance, ripping the tube out only to choke on the liquid seconds later.

She tests her strength as she pouches against the glass. Clutching bruised knuckles against her chest she tries another approach. She runs her fingers along the edges of the tank, fingers catching on a latch. Blindly fumbling, the doors to the tube hiss open, spilling Ava and the jelly substance onto the floor. On her hands and knees, a little manic, a lot panicked, she stands, digging her fingers into her throat to clear her airway, hacking up the goo and gasping for breath.

She pulls out the wires and needles next. She could be in the year 2300, she could even be in the past. She could be anywhere in time but at least she knows where she is on this planet. Better still, she knows exactly how to get back to her last vision from this place, no matter who is still left to greet her. She looks around, grabs a jacket and throws it over the weird wrappings on her body, slips her feet into a too big, ratty pair of sneakers and heads for the door.

At the door she pulls back. No matter what time she is in, Jillian, her kids or their kids or whoever was running ARQ-tech now, would have kept Ava here on purpose. She needs to leave a note, to explain the utter chaos of the room. She walks back towards the counter, grabbing a piece of paper and a sharpie, grimacing as the words in her head are scratched inelegantly across the paper. Hopefully Jillian’s great grandchild would get the humor. She drops the pen, flinging her middle finger back at the room and runs towards the door, leaving a trail of wet footprints as she goes and doesn’t look back.

----

“This is so annoying,” Leah rolls her eyes, they hadn’t heard a single thing since Mary’s tiny outburst, they couldn’t see into the window to read lips, they had no idea what was going on and it was still driving them all insane. Beatrice hadn’t stopped crying, Lilith’s grip grew tighter and tighter against Beatrice’s back as Camila continues to try to catch even a fraction of a word by jumping up to look into the window.

“We should go back to the fire,” Camila concedes, finally, recognizing their loss, knowing standing in the dark under a window would not give them clarity to the earth shattering words they had heard less than twenty before.

“Just, one more minute okay,” Beatrice wipes her nose, tilting her red, blotchy face back towards the window. The others follow suit, waiting for another outburst, a raised voice, something to shed light on what is actually happening.

Without headlamps or the outside lights, the setting sun casts low and deep shadows, the treeline nearly blocking out the sun completely. Whatever is happening inside is not going to bleed into the outside world until they choose to let it out.

The four of them stay, ears straining, Lilith offers to put Camila on her shoulders to get even closer. They hear nothing and they would continue to hear nothing for a single minute more. Whatever Beatrice wants they will do.

Beatrice strains the hardest, her ears, her eyes, her body trying to glean any bit of information. Why they would have said the things they said, why their faces looked the way they did when they arrived.

Whatever it was, whatever they would reveal, it would taint the fire pit and forever solidify what Ava meant around it. Could Beatrice still leave a glass on its edge or would she have to hang a relic to ward off her spirit. Could she still find the constellations in peace or would she need to always be looking for Ava’s demonic spirit showing up in the dark?

Could she even sit out on the patio and remember her Ava, could she sit out here and remember what her life was, what she hoped it would be before. Would she be able to move on knowing that a piece of heart, that Ava, her Ava was still out there, in some way, in some form.

“Leah, sorry but your hand is really hot, can you maybe not touch me anymore,” Lilith doesn’t take her eyes from the window, her shoulder shrugging against the far too hot grip of Leah.

“Not touching you babe,” Leah responds off-handed, her hands clutched in front of her, not even close enough to Lilith to be touching her.

“Huh-”

“What are we meant to be looking at fam? That’s our bedroom, why are we standing outside of it?”

The words are voiced in a secretive whisper to match their crouched positions. It fits so seamlessly into what they are doing but Lilith stiffens at the sounds of it. Her voice lost in her gasps, doubling over, unable to help anyone as she sinks to the floor.

Camila’s voice stutters, unseeing in the dark, unable to turn around, unable do anything but fold in on the grip of her chest, her throat letting out a whine of sadness, her ears betraying her as tears start to leak from her eyes. It’s not real, she tells herself. It’s not real, they are too high strung, this isn’t real.

“No, no no, please no, not this, not this again, not this, please,” Beatrice chants loudly, high pitched and strained, gripping her head as she falls to her knees, Camila and Lilith drop to the ground on either side of her, covering her body. “No, no, I didn't want this again. Please, please don’t do this. Please, please no.” Beatrice’s sobs fill the air, one hand gripping the front of her shirt, tears pouring out of her eyes, panting and wishing and pleading for the voice in the wind to stop.

She buries her other hand in the grass and damp dirt in front of her, grounding herself in the present. She begs the earth to stop playing with her, begs her mind to stop playing tricks like it had the first few months, nearly half a year. She can’t do this again.

Leah pounds against the window of the bedroom before turning towards the voice. It's too dark to see past the faint glow of the window now, her eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark of the night yet. She blinks and looks and pounds her fist against the window behind her again, more urgently. Waiting for this haunting memory, the voice to leave them.

“I told you to wait!” Mary yells as she rips the curtains back, pushing the window open and looks down at her cowering sisters. Her eyes follow the beams of the light from the room to where Leah points, unseeing.

Mary tears at the curtains, pulling them from their rod down to the floor, then scrambles more as she punches the screen from the window, pulling herself up and out of the window. She launches herself over her hunched over sisters and digs her hands into the collar of a shirt. Pushing them back, pulling them into the air before whipping their body up and then down against the ground.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mary holds them in place, a knee against their chest as they gasp for breath against the tackle and shove to the ground. Gasps turn to laughs turn to sobs.

“Mary.”

It’s a single word, drenched in tears and anguish and apology and want and glee. Hands that shouldn’t be able touch flesh do. Ava’s hands grip against Mary’s as she holds her in place against the dampening ground. Her thumb runs over soft skin, her eyes begging to be let us, to be heard.

“You jumped through a window,” Ava grins below Mary, sucking in lungfuls of air as the pressure of the knee lessens, her eyes burning at the sight of the real world, she pushes up against the limb, struggling to see past Mary. “It’s me. I’m me, I promise I’m me just let me…. Just let me. If I only have six minutes, please Mary, please,” Ava struggles against Mary’s body trying to sit up, trying to look behind her, to see Beatrice, find her, hear her, see her.

“Prove it, prove that you’re you,” Mary blinks the haze from her eyes and holds tighter against Ava, keeping her from sitting up, her tears falling against Ava’s chest. “How did you trick Lilith the first time you decided to wage a prank war.”

“An apple. I pulled it from her mouth when she was just about to bite into it,” Ava struggles more, wiggling, anything to catch a single glimpse before settling back, Mary doing exactly what Ava would expect her to do.

“Favorite tart?”

“I mean, orange, obviously, Eve makes the best ones but I’m not ruling out more earth ones. It’s the only tart I’ve ever had.”

“Who am I?” Mary’s face breaks, her tears falling faster as she looks down at Ava, Ava’s own tears leaking steadily from the corners of her eyes.

“I fucking hate you, I would kill you in a minute but I love you more than I love myself, Mary,” Ava breaks, gasping and sniffling, her chest tight with emotions she hasn’t feel in centuries. “I love you so much and I am so- so- fuck, I’m so glad I am looking at your face right now,” Ava breathes in deep, exhaling slowly, trying to regain her composure. “I have missed you. I have missed you all, Mary, for years. It's been years for me. I almost lost your clear outline. Proof though, uh, proof, I am the false warrior that binds with confidence. I’m Baby Hay. You shot me when I got jealous of that girl that kissed Beatrice and showed up the next day. Um, ugh, I died! You faked my death and didn’t tell me for months and I was so mad at you. I’m me, I’m me, I promise. It’s me. It’s me, Mary, it’s me.”

Mary doesn’t let her grip on Ava’s arms waver even as she cries, as she recounts their life together. She stays on top of her, looking over her shoulder at Jillian and Superion, having also jumped through the window, holding Beatirce back as she screams and cries, threshing, trying to break free.

“You don’t get to do this,” Mary grits her teeth, her mouth turning down to keep her sobs at bay. “Whatever you are, you don’t get to do this.”

“I know. I never wanted to but check. Mary, check my pockets, please check my pockets,” Ava begs, her head nodding towards her left side. “Look, please. I was gone for so long but you are still here. You should be dead and buried in my mind three, five times over. I should have seen you pass. But look, you will know when you see what's in my pocket, why I’m here.”

Without looking away from Ava’s eyes, Mary reaches into the large pocket of Ava’s pants, her fingertips burying into the soft, sticky feeling of jam. She reaches further and pulls out a soggy orange tart, the same that Ava, the real Ava, had raved about in the Tarask realm.

“Mary, it’s the same tart Eve makes, I swear it, I don’t know how long I’ve been gone for you, I don’t know if you are even you or like a great great granddaughter, but it’s me. It’s me so please,” Ava sobs, throwing her head back against the grass, body shaking, neck tired for holding itself up. “Just, just hug me okay. I have been waiting for you to hug me for over four hundred years. I don’t need anything else, I could disappear in a second and if I can’t see Bea, you’re second best. So just, please, please just hug me. Please.”

Mary tries to keep her face, her feelings, her body neutral but when she sees this version of her Ava break underneath her, she can’t take it anymore. It feels real, it sounds real, and she decides that it can be real for however long they have. Mary drops her body down against Ava underneath her, crying and whispering in her ear, pulling her into her body as she cries and holds her close.

Mary tells Ava that they are okay, that they have grown and are still growing, that they did it all with her in mind. That they never forgot her. Mary took it all for her sisters. If this was a singular, fleeting moment, she would air everything, tell this Ava apparition everything she could so she could pass without affecting the others.

When she is done talking, she still feels Ava’s fingers rubbing against her back, still feels Ava shaking underneath her. Still hears the grunts, the screams and struggle of Beatrice trying to break free of Jillian and Superion behind her. Ava is still there, the real world is still there.

“Are you going to be here for long enough to talk to Beatrice?”

“Lowkey,” Ava adopts her signature shit eating grin as she looks back at Mary, “Your hero bit has cut into my time with Beatrice for too long already. I will make fun of you forever for this but if you don’t let me up this instant so I can talk to her, I’m going to murder you.”

“I can’t risk that.”

“I know, but, you actually can, so get off me please and let me explain everything, but first, I am going to need a few minutes with the love of my life and if it's the last of my minutes, know that I will not harm her. In any form, in any time period, I will never hurt her,” Ava purposefully makes the last few words louder, Beatrice pushing harder against Superion’s arms.

“Ava,” Mary warns, pushes Ava back down.

“Oh... Oh wow. There she is, holy shit, there she is,” Ava lets her head fall back to the ground, her tears leaking harder and hotter from the edges of her eyes as her blood ripples in her body, her toes curl, her teeth hurting as if someone has punched her in the mouth. Ava’s chest stutters as she places her own name, places the voice and the silent duality of the voice that speaks it. Shannon is within Mary. Shannon’s next is Mary’s now.

Mary repositions herself on top of Ava, eyes wide and confused at the psychosis on display beneath her. If Ava is going to crack, fracture, become mad with the last of her life, Mary will not let it reach the others. Refuses to let Ava’s manic state be the last the others remember.

“Oh my fuck, she is right here, she is you, she is right here and I fucking can’t,” Ava cries harder, shoulders shaking, chest heaving as she presses herself further into the grass, fingers pulling at the cool, damp blades of grass. “She is you, fuck, how long has she been you? God damn if she isn’t the happiest version of herself right now.”

Mary slips off Ava’s chest onto the ground next to her, watching her cry, watching her speak nonsense, watching her squirm and crumble in on herself. Mary’s hands stay planted against Ava’s shoulders, keeping her against the ground as she watches this play out. Her heart breaking as Ava breaks bit by bit before her.

Ava continues to cry on the ground, eyes opening to look at the sky then squeezing shut, staying inside her own head. She splays her arms out, reaches as far as she can with her arms as she lays on the ground.

It’s solid and real and cold and warm and wet and so many more feelings than she has felt in decades.

“Mary, listen. I don’t know if I’m even really here,” Ava cries in a whisper, no longer feeling the tether to the earth when Mary’s hands slip from her body as she lays in hot and cold and wet earth, the only solid thing against her body. With her eyes closed she lets herself feel it and talk to it. “I don’t know if this is real or a memory or a vision. I don’t know how long I have. I was told they would call on me again, but if you’re listening, Eve, I see Mary. I feel her, she yelled at me. It feels so real. I know this is real and Beatrice, if you can hear me, I can smell your shampoo,” Ava’s voice breaks, her arms coming up to cross over her eyes, waiting for the vision to fade, waiting to be back at the bridge or back with Eve. Waiting for her final vision to fade to her next.

“Bea, I heard your yell, I think, I think I hear it still in my mind. I don’t know if I’m here. Mary asked me questions. I answered them as me, so that’s true, but is this real? I’m covering my eyes because I can’t- I can’t see you for just a single passing second before I leave. I thought I could. I thought I could do the pomegranate six-month thing but,” Ava, having pushed up on her knees without Mary keeping her in place, speaks behind closed eyes, doubles over, looking down at the dark green of the grass. “I can’t do the last seconds of my final six minutes. I can’t do it. Eve, Eve please bring me back. I can’t do this mindscape anymore, it's too real. Bring me back. I’m not strong enough, it’s too hard. Send me on. Please.”

“Ava.”

Ava drops back to the grass, the cold hitting her chin, her chest, thighs, knees and toes. She feels it all as her body drops, then curls in on itself. Her knees pull to her chest, her arms wrapping around herself again, trying to be as small as possible, preserving the warmth of herself and wanting to keep her latest vision wholesome and good. Waiting to feel the smallest level of pain as she slips back through the pinhole of reality to where she should actually be.

“Ava.”

She hears her name again and it’s not a punch to the teeth, her blood doesn’t boil. She hears her name like it’s soaked in grace and love. She hears her name like it's the steady heartbeat of a healthy, active human saying yes, you’re here, yes, you’re here. She hears her name being said over and over in her mind, up and down her body. Like it's in the air she needs to stay in her visions, like it's in the space around her that she needs to solidify and hold true.

Again, she hears it. In her ears but on her tongue too. Her own name, the different ways it's been said, breathed, moaned, by the voice in question. She has let her name echo in her mind like this hundreds of times. Beatrice addressing her over and over for years. She has pictured it in a dog’s bark, someone calling out a coffee order, a cab ride, a crack of thunder, the first beat of her favorite song. She has watched Beatrice’s lips wrap around her name for centuries and now.

Now, the Beatrice in her mind’s eye, her visions, the locket of her heart, breaks through. Her voice, the sound of her own name rings loud and clear and real, so very real a few feet away. Ava stays on the ground, eyes shut, not believing, waiting to go back to the bridge, to Eve. Waiting for her six minutes to end.

She breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. She hears struggling, hears choked voices, her name said in anguish and relief again. She hears the blades of grass bending back as the vision of Mary moves back towards the voices. She hears yelling, she feels, she tastes, she waits for it all to go away.

Real, alive, there and solid. Ava stays curled up, chanting those four words as the cold ground seeps into her, as the grass tickles her arms, the voices cut through her mind. Hoping that if she tries hard enough, thinks them loudly enough, they will be real, she will be real and here and not just her final goodbye.

She has waited and would wait another four hundred years to see Beatrice. Would wait for however long it took. Behind her eyelids, Ava tells herself that Mary looked the same, if not a little softer, a little less ready for her hands to twitch towards her belt. The bedroom window looked the same, the curtains were the same, the grass, the sounds, the night air. It was the same but was it real?

Ava doesn’t begin to think of what Beatrice would look like. How old she might be now, if she had moved on. She doesn’t care. She wants to force her body open, force her eyes open, let herself see and look and then she’d happily go back. Ava can’t speak now, can’t move but she hopes they all know it's minutes, she gave herself minutes to be here when she placed her hand on Lilith’s shoulder. Placed herself in what she thought was reality, placed herself in a vision in a way she never let herself to before. She felt the warmth of skin, the sturdiness of a shoulder. She felt at all, which was better than any vision or memory she’s ever had.

During her time alone at the bridge, she never let herself think of what it would feel like to hear her name from Beatrice’s own voice again. She didn’t dare let herself do so or else she would have given up completely, gone mad. She never let Beatrice’s true voice hit her. Never let herself indulge in the sweet taste, the sound of Beatrice saying her name lest she forget it entirely. She kept it in her head, never made it a part of her stories to the others. Never once wanting to lose the way Beatrice said it.

Now. Hearing it twice. Breathed, gasped, questioning, begging. It was no different than what Ava kept in the vault of her mind. It was perfect. She can see Beatrice’s mouth forming around the vowels and the hard consonant in her head. It had always been perfect, but hearing it now, after four hundred years. It was sweeter and more savory than Ava could have ever imagined.

It rips through through her skin, into her bloodstream. Shannon said to look for the tooth punch, and she heard it when Mary spoke her name but hearing Beatrice say her name was a heart punch, a shock bringing her back to life. Her body reaches towards Beatrice with every inch of her. Skin and fingers and mind. She sits up, her eyes opening and instantly locking on Beatrice across the yard.

She watches Beatrice shove an elbow against Superion’s jaw, a fist against Lilith’s stomach breaking free. She watches in slow motion as Beatrice takes bounding steps towards her. She knows she is breathing in real time but thinks her body is still in a different realm, not settled here, not yet. Not until Beatrice dives against her body, taking the breath from her chest again as her shoulder connects with Ava's chest, throwing their bodies back.

Ava rolls over, her body trying to right itself as Beatrice grapples against her. She doesn’t breath, doesn’t dare disturb the place between herself and Beatrice. Wants to make sure the feeling against her chest is real, not wanting to break it before she loses it.

She is back against the cold, damp ground, looking up at the stars, Mary’s knee replaced by Beatrice’s heaving chest and a fountain of her hair.

“Ava, Ava, Ava are you real? Are you real? Please be real, please please, it’s all I want. Just for a minute, just for a single minute,” Beatrice’s words are muffled against Ava’s unmoving neck. Both trying to stay as still as possible, stay here in the now for as long as they can.

“I’m real Bea,” Ava’s hands find life, pulling from the damp grass to run up and down Beatrice’s heaving back. “I’m me. I’m right here, for as long as they let me,” Ava grips against Beatrice’s back. “I don’t know how long I have baby, please please, look at me. I have to see you,” Ava pushes against Beatrice’s shoulders, begging her to look up from where her head is buried in her neck.

“Oh there you are,” Beatrice looks up, her face breaking in a sob, her lips sucked into her teeth, her tears dripping down onto Ava’s face. ”I love you. For whatever we have left, I love you. I want to say it over and over. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“You don’t look a day older,” Ava runs her thumbs down Beatrice’s cheeks, over a new frown line between her eyes, along the tickle of her eyelashes, under the curve of her mouth. “How long has it been for you?”

“A year. I’ve been without you for a year.”

“Oh sweet girl,” Ava grins, kissing against Beatrice’s forehead pressed against her mouth. “I see you and raise you four hundred years.”

Beatrice looks, waiting for a joke, waiting for a punchline, “Oh Ava,” Beatrice sobs, pressing her lips against Ava’s, wet, salty, colors bursting behind Ava’s eyes at the feeling of Beatrice’s lips. Ava kisses back, gasping, sucking in air through her nose to keep her mouth in place. It can’t be long now. This is her best, greatest vision yet, what she assumed the golden glow was for the others. Eve would pull her back any second.

She has never let herself picture kissing Beatrice after, never pictured new kisses, always relying on memories but maybe this was Eve giving her a really good golden goodbye.

Her hands wrap around Beatrice’s back, pulling her closer into her, her hands feeling the fabric of a shirt she used to own. Her fingers feel the stitching before slipping under, feeling Beatrice’s smooth, hot skin. The silkiest, softest thing she has felt since she was alive. She runs her fingers out, splaying her palms along Beatrice’s back, greedy in her touch, pulling her into herself, remembering every inch and curve of Beatrice’ body as she lets her lips remember Beatrice’s mouth.

“Bea, wait,” Ava kisses her once more, her hand pitching against Beatrice’s back. “Look at me.”

Beatrice’s hot breath washes over Ava’s face before she pulls back. Brown eyes, watery and scared but so beyond loving, look down at her. Ava clenches her jaw, sucking her lips in to hold back a grateful, overjoyed sob for this singular moment.

“Hi, hi baby. God, you are,” Ava pushes up to kiss Beatrice’s cheek, settling back against the ground. “I know you heard but, I might not have a long time here. This,” Ava kisses her other cheek, “this was worth four hundred years of manual labor and I hope you know that.”

“This was worth a year without you too,” Beatrice’s laugh turns to a sob as she buries her face in Ava’s neck again, pushed her arms under Ava’s neck to hold her closer, dropping her weight against Ava’s body, feeling every part of her over as she relaxes, truly, for the first time in a year. Waiting for the body underneath her to disappear again.

—-----

“E, A, R, P, F, U,” Ava drops the giant plastic spoon from one of her eyes as she raises her brows, smiling at Jillian, swinging her legs against the exam table as she reads the eye chart twenty feet away.

“Can you repeat the bottom two letters please,” Jillian rolls her eyes, pointing at the smallest letters of the chart.

“Of course, F and U. F for fuck, and U as in you,” Ava smirks, jumping down from the table to grab a lolly pop from the jar on the table, throwing the wrapper on the floor as she pops the red lolly into her mouth.

“You know those aren’t the letters. I can’t clear you until you take this seriously,” Jillian snaps her fingers, waving for Ava to get back on the table.

“Fine. H and O. Also, come on doc, you know we’re good here. I have places to be,” Ava holds out her arm for her blood pressure check even as she counters Jillian. “I feel like F and U are better than H and O but you know, you do you doc.”

“120 over 80,” Jillian writes Ava’s blood pressure down in her little notebook and places the thermometer into Ava’s open mouth. “97.5. Perfect, as always.” Jillian charts it and drops the book to the side, looking at Ava with a knowing look.

“No, no, come on, we didn’t schedule this. It’s four times a month now, today is not a scheduled day doc, please, I only have like two hours,” Ava bites down on her lolly pop and throws herself back on the table, groaning.

“I know what today is and that is why I did a full-body assessment. You knew mental would come with physical so stop being dramatic,” Jillian opens a mini-fridge under the desk, pulling out two packages. “So, come down, follow me, no griping or I’ll tell mom.”

“God I hate that you said that,” Ava grabs the package with her name on it and follows Jillian from the room. “Who fucking knew that Superion would just fucking parent us to the point of wanting to be orphans again.”

“You did, you all did,” Jillian rolls her eyes and presses her fingers against Ava’s back, pushing her into the therapy room. “As soon as she was able to be emotionally available, you knew she would smother you all. She told me you even told her to be a smotherer the day it happened so, this is all a little on you. Plus, you had to go and die for a year, you knew she would baby you even more than the others.”

“Ugh, I’m literally four-hundred and twenty three with a degree in numerical analysis, I feel like I have transcended the need for a mom,” Ava pulls out the veggie sandwich Beatrice packed for her this morning from her package, the arugula biting against her taste buds.

“You have taken two courses on numerical analysis, you do not have a degree,” Jillian laughs, tossing a canned sparkling water to Ava across the room. “So, two years since the defeat of Adriel, a year since you’ve come back to life. Ava Silva, we have a report now, it’s lunch, but be real with me, like you have so many times before. How are you?”

“Besides thinking this is the day I’ll get sucked back into bridge building or getting a Tarask snout, I’m okay,” Ava lets her eyes trace along the looping script of her name against the brown bag Beatrice had sent with her.

It’s been a year, Jillian has become some sort of deranged aunt she didn’t know she wanted but definitely needed.

She was in the lab daily for three whole months before Superion finally let her return home. She had gone through every single blood test, every CT scan, MRI, had basically had a living autopsy, all conducted by Jillian, before her release. So naturally, their relationship has evolved, grown into familial and teasing but during therapy, they both adopt a completely different persona. Real and raw and honest.

“We’re all on edge. We will never not be on edge Ava, but I think you are the most on edge of all of us because, as you said, you've lived over four hundred years. You’ve lived lifetimes, what does this day mean for you really?”

“I mean, honestly, I don’t even care if I get sucked back down or up anymore. I don’t care if this is just some elongated vision. I have lived more in this past year than I ever had the chance to before,” Ava sets her sandwich down, smiling with arugula and pesto in her teeth. “I ate pizza in Italy after getting escorted away from Trevi fountain for taking a little dip. I stood at the top of the Eiffel tower and had the most cinematic kiss with Beatrice. I caught purple and green beads in a place called New Orleans and saw just, so many boobs doc.”

Jillian tuts but smiles despite her eye roll and the shaking of her head. She had seen the pictures Ava sent them. She had also read the reports of her field agents that silently followed behind Ava during her trip to Rome, Paris, and New Orleans. Scientists that took her vitals daily and sent them back to Jillian, a very contested compromise but it was that or restricting Ava to Casa C’Ava. Ava had only managed to lose them twice, one of those times resulting in three stitches to Ava’s chin in the back of an ambulance on Bourbon Street.

“I know what a bodega is, I know I loathe the smell of New York City but I do love a bagel. I know what Beatrice looks like with her hair grown down below her shoulders. That last one, if I didn’t get the other stuff, if I didn't get to travel and all I got was seeing Beatrice grow more comfortable, her laugh lines deepen, her hair, her confidence. If I was stuck here with you for a year but I still got to see her every day, it would have been worth it.”

Ava takes another bite of her sandwich, letting the bubbles of her water fill her mouth, reflecting back on her year. It wasn’t all easy, not even close. The anxiety, the not knowing. She hardly slept, she talked to Lilith about her own experiences with the unending thought of being taken back. How she was supposed to just carry on as if she hadn’t died. As if she wasn’t gone for a year. Still having no idea when she would be called back. No explanation of how or why she was even back at all.

“So how am I? I’m fine. If I just get a year of real experiences, I’m good. I say goodbye, I say goodnight, I say good morning like it fucking matters. I don’t take real life for granted. I didn’t for a year so if I get ripped out of it now, I’m good. The people I love know I love them, I hope they know it every day, every hour even. The only thing I’m scared of is not saying those things one day and that being my last day.”

“That is the only thing you’re scared of?”

“Doc, come on, you know I don’t want to leave. But I can’t help it any more than- Fuck! Fuck! Woah, shit, holy damn, do you see that!!” Ava screams, pushing her body up and back, flipping over the back of the couch as the air behind Jillian’s desk splits open, energy pulsing around the room. Papers flying, Jillian jumping over her desk, their food whipping in a tornado around the room.

“I will not allow this!” Beatrice bursts into the room, Mary, Lilith, and Camila right behind her, dusted off weapons at the ready, angled towards the rip in the fabric of space and time not seconds after it formed.

“What are you all doing here?!” Ava pulls the others behind the couch with her, perfectly human, no halo, no extra strength, nothing but green in her teeth, and the ability to pull her sisters out of harm's way.

“Don’t be mad but it’s the year mark, we had to be here, we couldn’t just let you be in this place without us,” Beatrice attempts a smile, coming out as a grimace as they brace against the heat and wind of the tear in space.

“You are so dumb! We sent me here knowing it could go wrong! You all said really great goodbyes, why would you just disregard the good goodbye clause. We agreed. We all agreed! You don’t need to relive this!” Ava yells as the noise and light in the room grow louder and brighter.

“I won’t accept that. Not anymore. I accepted the meeting of the swords. I accepted an old prophecy once. But I will not accept losing you again so whatever that shit is, I’m going with you, no matter what they say,” Beatrice flicks her wrist, knives appearing between each of her fingers, poised and ready to fight whatever this is. Ava hears other weapons pulled and cocked.

The rip above Jillian’s desk grows, the bright white light expanding, filling the room, forcing the girls to huddle closer together behind the couch. Jillian crawls on her hands and knees towards the back of the couch. The six of them sit there, waiting for the bright light to dissipate, leaving an enemy in it’s wake.

When it does, they wait a single second, Mary shoving the Cruciform Sword into Ava’s hand before they burst up from the back of the couch in a flurry. An old formation around the room as shots and arrows fill the space, Beatrice flicking knives one after the other, reaching for another as she lets one fly.

“Girls, girls, please, relax,” Eve stands on the top of Jillian’s desks, hands held up, a glow around her, smiling across the room at each of them, their attack suspended in air in front of her. “I came to wish my daughter a happy first reborn birthday.” With a flourish of her hands, dozens of arrows, knives, and bullets clatter against the desk and floor in front of her.

“Wha- Ho- The fuck you taking about?” Mary steps in front of the group, the barrel of her shotgun catching as her finger slips, firing at Eve without meaning to.

“Mary, dear girl, language, please, not in a house of science,” Eve waves her hand again, Mary’s gun, Camila’s crossbow, the Cruciform swords, Lilith and Beatrice’s knives skittering across the floor in a singular movement. “I simply came to say, Ava, seventy-one years, I will see you then. That is all. I bid you adieu,” Eve bows, winking at Lilith, before looking back to Ava for a final time. “Actually, five-hundred and thirty-six, ah, wait, no, five-hundred and thirty-seven days from right now. Stitch up your jacket pocket. Actually, from here on out, make sure every single one of your pockets is patches and whole. You will thank me later.”

Eve disappears in a swirl of light collapsing in on itself not letting any of them react to her words, not letting any of them ask questions. They all stand, staring at the space above Jillian’s desk, Beatrice moving first. Body pulsing in nervous, anxious energy as she pulls Ava into her.

“Honestly, solid first birthday I guess,” Mary speaks first, voice wobbly, eyes blinking fast, her fingers threading through Lilith’s hand at her side, bring her into her side. They stand there, waiting for something else to happen. They talk about the numbers Eve threw out for Ava, what they could possibly mean for Ava, for all of them.

Eventually they go back home, back to the fire pit, to drinks, to red-eye flight arrivals of Leah and a few of the fourteen. They celebrate the one year and the two year anniversary at the same time.

----

“Oh fuck, Mary,” Ava reaches to the comms link in her ears as she frets in the bathroom, her hand running up and down her clothes, her pointer finger dipping into a hole in the inner pocket of her suit jacket. “It’s gone, it’s gone, fuck Mary, fuck, fuck, what do I do! What do I do? Play it off like it's just a regular really, really expensive date? No, no, I did that yesterday and chickened out. Oh god, we both know she knows, she knew yesterday. Oh no, oh no,” Ava grips her hair, pacing in the dark bathroom, turning, placing her hands against the cool ceramic of the sink, staring at herself in the mirror, trying everything to calm herself down.

“Oh my,” Camila’s voice comes through her ear followed by a loud, long laugh. “Oh my god! five-hundred and thirty-seven days! Mare, Lil, this is why I told you!” Camila’s laughter breaks and statics through Ava’s ear. The broken laughter continues as Ava tries to deduce what Camila is talking about. What possible mathematical theory she could be calling up to give Ava confidence.

“Check your left leg, pull up the inside pocket at your ankle,” Leah’s voice crackles through the comms next, the same fractured sound as Camila’s. “Cam told Mary to put it there when you were getting dressed because it’s your only patched pocket! Remember when-”

“Oh my, oh my god, Eve! Eve was right!” Mary cuts off Leah and Camila in New York, her voice stronger, less choppy in Ava’s ear. Ava does as she’s told, rolling the cuffs of her pant leg up twice more to reveal the hidden left pocket. Her fingers feel the metal band, the jagged edges of the stone, her heart slowing, taking a deep breath as she slips it around the knuckle of her finger and pulls it out. She stares at the ring, remember the day nearly two years ago in Jillian's office, the numbers Eve rattled off. She hadn't thought about it since, always thinking of each day as its own number.

“Okay, yeah, she was right about that but-”

“Fuck you Baby Hay, why didn’t get a fancy box like I told you!” Lilith’s voice comes through the comms, huffing loudly, Ava could feel how strong her eye roll was from this far away. “You’re just going to loose leaf this massive thing and rely on someone else to make sure it happens! You are the worst and I hope Beatrice says n-”

“Love you all, byeeee,” Ava pulls the comms from her ear and flushes it down the toilet. Admittedly, she shouldn’t have let someone else place the ring on her person but here she is, in a bathroom of the most expensive dinner she will ever pay for, about to go back to sit across the table from a person she will love until her very last breath. A person she will love in every lifetime. A person she knows, without question, that she loved in her many, many lifetimes before one.

She is twenty five, almost twenty six. Maybe a little young for this particular event but she has lived and died and lived again, then died for four centuries, only to wake up and finally, really, truly live for the first time in her completely chaotic life.

Whatever is supposed to happen in seventy-one years is irrelevant. All she knows is that she wants to spend the rest of her time with Beatrice. She wants to use that time to build and grow and make her dreams and fantasies a reality. She wants to argue and fight, she wants to make up and love more and more each day. She wants and wants and knows she will never stop wanting Beatrice.

Sucking in a breath, feeling the band in her palm, she knowing her future is real and solid and etched in the the grooves of a ring in her hand. Etched deeper in multiple places along a never ending bridge. She knows her future, her next and next is currently outside the bathroom door, sitting at a table with a white tablecloth stained with her sweaty hand prints. Knowing and not knowing anything at all, she leaves the bathroom with pink cheeks and the image of a perfect future, suppressing a nervous smile as she does so.

Yes or no, though Ava is really hoping for a yes, her next, her now, her always will be Beatrice.