“Okayokayokay, shit,” Ava calls out, crouched over with one hand on her knee, the other waving in surrender. “I yield. Have mercy. Uncle. Whatever.”
Her legs are jelly beneath her, her lungs burn as if she’d inhaled a pint of rocks, and there’s a stitch in her side that may just be a heart attack in disguise.
“I just need a minute,” Ava pants as she collapses, a breathless, sweaty mess, into the grass that lines their usual path. “Or five. Or a nap.”
A crunch of gravel steadily approaches, and before she knows it, Beatrice is standing over her, shielding Ava from the blinding blue sky with her hands on her hips and eyebrow arched in amusement that Ava doesn’t especially appreciate at the present.
She’s in no fit state to be mocked.
“I thought you said 'today was the day', Warrior Nun,” Beatrice says, and — yep — definitely being mocked. There’s nary a hair out of place nor a bead of sweat on her brow, and frankly, it’s rude.
Ava slaps her hands over her ears.
“Lalalalalala, I can’t hear you—”
“‘—I’m gonna make this run my—’” Beatrice cuts off abruptly and Ava lowers her hands, now rapt with attention. It’s all the wind she needs in her depleted sails.
“You know what you said.”
“Mm, maybe,” Ava concedes, grinning as she sits back up on her elbows. She taps Beatrice’s shin with the toe of her shoe. “But I wanna hear you say it.”
“C’mon, Bea. It’ll be our secret.”
“I’ll do laundry for the next month.”
“You do know that I already accepted your laundry bribe last week when you were trying to get out of inventory, don’t you?”
“Okay, but I’ll actually do it.”
Beatrice sighs, rubbing her fingers into her forehead.
“I will not be taxed into saying biatch like some—”
“Aha!” Ava shouts in triumph.
Beatrice groans and rolls her eyes in response, but there’s a light there, a flicker of mirth that slips through the cracks of Beatrice’s facade that seems to deteriorate more and more with every day spent under Ava’s relentless pursuit of Beatrice.
Not the sister warrior, pride and joy of the OCS, likely successor to Mother Superion.
Not Sister Beatrice, her designated watcher, handler, trainer — whatever.
Not the Beatrice that hides behind layers of masks and mastery and perfection.
The one that maybe Beatrice, herself, has yet to find.
Every day, Ava gets closer, and every day, she’s desperate for more.
She grins, eyes closed to relish in her victory.
“See? I knew you had it in ya, Bea.”
“Yes, well,” Beatrice snorts and settles into the grass next to Ava. “If anything is going to drive me to curse, I suppose it would be you.”
Ava cackles with delight and earns another eye roll as her reward as Beatrice lays back, head next to Ava’s, face turned up toward the sky with a contented sigh, and Ava can’t help but stare.
She swallows as her eyes trace the slope of Beatrice’s nose, the quiet curve of her smile, the gold strand of hair tucked behind her ear that’s too short to tie back with the rest.
Summer in the Alps has done Beatrice well.
It’s not like she ever needed the help.
Still. Her skin glows, bronzed, the highlights in her hair and the constellation of freckles on her face more pronounced. But more than that, so much more than that, the tension in her shoulders steadily unwinds, and her smile is quicker to ignite with every day they spend under the mountain sun, and the sum of it all keeps the air out of Ava’s lungs for reasons entirely unrelated to their morning jog.
And then honey-brown eyes find Ava’s and Beatrice’s lips twist into something adorable and self-conscious, her brows quirked in a question.
“What?” Beatrice asks, and Ava can only blink in response.
And maybe it’s the uncharacteristic spark of heat in her cheeks, or the blossoming in her chest that could rival the flare of the Halo that’s only grown with time.
Because it’s barely past eight — the sun has barely finished its ascent, the birds still sing their morning song in the trees that tower over them, and the chill of the previous night still clings to the bed of grass beneath them.
And yet, Ava has never felt warmer.
“I —” Ava fumbles, beginning without a plan, without a roadmap. Because what does she want to say? What can she even say? What words could do justice to the swell of her heart except — “Bea.”
But then an icy cold drop lands on her forehead, then another, and another, and another.
And the sun that goes on shining, the brilliant blue sky devoid of any clouds as Ava blinks away frigid mountain rain that hits her like a freight train, and she’d find the entire thing completely disorienting if it weren’t so wonderfully enlightening.
Beatrice jumps to her feet, forearm pressed to the crown of her head as though that will protect her from the sudden deluge, and she reaches out with her other hand and pulls Ava to her feet like she weighs nothing at all. And then they’re sprinting through the forest, puddles splashing up around them, the pounding of their shoes against the ground drowned out by the thundering of the rain, their shrieks of laughter ringing through the trees and echoing through the town square as they race home.
They collapse in a fit of winded giggles, Beatrice into the brick wall and Ava into Beatrice, when they find shelter under the awning of their tiny apartment building 10 minutes later, as the rain washes the world around them away, and Ava’s face threatens to shatter under the force of her grin.
There’s a flush in Beatrice’s cheeks, her eyes shine, dancing with light, the strands of her bangs slicked to the sides of her face, and her smile is just as bright, just as delighted, and Ava wants to bottle it — all of this — for the days when it’s all too much, when the world calls them back to duty, when the universe rests heavy on their shoulders.
“So, how’d I do for time, boss?” Ava asks as she tucks her hair behind her ears, and her cheeky grin isn’t enough to budge the delighted one that’s mirrored back at her.
Beatrice laughs — loud and unbound — and Ava thinks she ought to bottle that, too, but then Bea is clearing her throat, her eyebrows drawing into something serious and stern.
“Passable,” she offers with a shrug.
“Oh, come on,” Ava howls in affront. She points an accusing finger at Beatrice, taking full advantage of a functioning body that lets her gesticulate as emphatically as she pleases. “Admit it. Admit it. I totally made that one my bitch.”
“Ava,” Beatrice sighs, but it lacks all the weight of its usual exhaustion as she struggles to contain her laugh.
They’re breathless and soaked to the bone and Ava’s skin is slick, still humming from the constant pelt of rain.
And still, Ava has never felt warmer.