Recuperating
“Come on, Bea,” said a soft voice. “You can let go now. I’ve got her.” She held on tighter.
“Bea? It’s alright now, let us help you.” She was having trouble focusing. The world around her was passing by in a hazy blur.
“Beatrice,” an imperious voice called her name, “status report.” Status report. What did that mean again? The phrase called back memories but she was not sure from where.
“Status report!” it said more sternly.
“I—I, um…” She took a deep breath, the world slowly coming back into focus. Status report—she could do this. “I have multiple contusions on my face. My head hurts.” She had to stop to breathe but she could see the older woman in front of her more clearly again. “I’ve taken a crossbow bolt in my hip; I think the blood loss has decreased. My ribs are likely bruised again.” She could hear her voice getting stronger as she continued speaking and she held onto the words like an anchor tethering her mind and keeping her stable in the storm that threatened to swallow her whole. “Camila has been neutralized. She should be secured in the infirmary by now. Ava is…” Where was Ava? She looked confusedly around her.
“Beatrice.” Mother Superion was up close to her face. She focused on the older woman’s eyes. “We’re moving Ava to the infirmary. Can you walk?”
Could she? Did she remember how?
“Yes,” she said not at all firmly. “But I might need help.”
“Dora.” Mother ordered. She had not looked away and continued staring into Bea’s eyes. “We’re going to take care of you.”
She gasped as the world around her came into sharp focus. Dull aches throbbed in her face and leg. She found herself being supported on both sides. “Dora?” she asked, looking to her left.
“Hey,” replied her friend. “We’ve got you. We’re almost back to the infirmary.”
“I’m okay now,” Bea said in a shaky voice. “I can walk.”
“No you can’t you stubborn ass,” said a familiar voice from her other side. She turned to see Lilith hunched over slightly supporting her arm over her shoulders. “Now stop fighting and let us take care of you.” Bea noticed that the taller woman wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“How long has it been?” Bea asked. “Since Ava passed out, how long has it been?”
“About twenty minutes,” answered Dora.
“Please take me to her.”
“No Beatrice,” responded Lilith with not a little annoyance in her voice. “Ava is in good care. It’s time you look to yourself for once.”
“Ava goes to bed every night terrified that she will wake up back in Reya’s realm,” Bea said sternly. “She dreams about it—frequently. Now she was just possessed by that—creature. Are you going to tell me after what you just witnessed that it would be a good thing if your face is the first thing she sees when she wakes up?”
Dora chuckled and Lilith had the good sense to look appropriately abashed. “Fine,” she agreed and she turned to look at Beatrice, “but only if you swear to me that you will listen to the doctors while you are there.” Bea nodded.
Ava awoke suddenly. The room was bright, lights were reflecting off the white ceiling and she was forced to close her eyes again almost immediately. She groaned at the stab of pain in her head.
“Ava?” said a familiar voice. Ava gently opened her eyes, squinting to keep the brightness out. Where was she? She felt a hand squeeze her own. Who was holding her hand? As her eyes slowly adjusted, something in front of her was coming into focus.
It was a face; a round face with soft curves, smooth skin and a smattering of freckles—partly. Purple and red bruises covered one side of her. The smile was bright and inviting despite the angry split in her bottom lip. But it was her eyes that drew Ava in, warm amber eyes that she could sink into forever.
“Bea?”
“Hi!” said Beatrice, laughing gently and blinking rapidly to stop her tears. “You’re back!”
Ava was reminded immediately of their reunion all those months ago. She tentatively looked down at her hand and squeezed her fingers into a fist. “Just testing,” she said, looking back at the other woman gazing lovingly down at her. Her eyes widened. “Jesus fuck, Bea! You look awful!” She heard more than one gasp in the background noise from around the room.
“Thank you, darling. I decided to try something new,” Bea said lightly before turning serious. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Sure,” Ava answered quickly, “I…” She paused as memories came surging back to her. Her breathing became fast and heavy and she felt her heart pounding. A shiver ran down her body and she felt herself begin to tremble. Her eyes began to well with tears as she turned to her girlfriend. “Bea?” she asked weakly. “What? What did I do?”
Bea leaned forward gingerly, taking Ava’s face in her hands. “It’s okay,” she soothed quietly. “Everyone is alright.”
“No!” Ava replied firmly shaking her head. “It’s not okay! I attacked—I attacked everyone!” She was breathing harder than ever. “What? Why? Why did I do that?”
Bea drew her close into an embrace and whispered encouragements into her ear. “It’s all alright now. It’s all okay. This was not your fault.” Ava grasped onto her, eyes slammed shut, and held on tightly to the only solid object that could keep her from being sucked away into the worst recesses of her nightmares.
“Beatrice,” said a voice in the background. “You need to be careful of that leg.”
Bea pulled back a little and held Ava’s face again, softly stroking the younger woman’s cheek. “Reya possessed you, Ava,” she said bluntly. “She somehow used the divinium in your body to control you. She did the same to Camila. But you stopped her. She can’t do that to you again.” Ava nodded, feeling the tears still falling from her eyes onto Bea’s gentle hands.
“Beatrice,” the voice repeated. “We need to take care of you now.”
Ava turned, slightly annoyed, to look at the source of the interruptions and found Lilith standing nearby next to Dora. Ava flinched at the sight of her and looked down. She heard the other woman come closer and tensed as a hand was placed awkwardly on her shoulder. “I’m sorry Lilith,” Ava mumbled.
“It’s fine,” Lilith replied shortly, giving Ava’s shoulder a rough squeeze. “But you need to let us take care of Beatrice’s injuries.”
Ava immediately pulled back and looked at her girlfriend, realizing that she didn’t remember causing any of the injuries to Bea’s face and quickly noting the older woman’s blood soaked pant leg. “What happened?” she asked, horrified.
“Camila,” answered Bea simply. “Reya possessed her too. Yasmine will explain. I have to…”
“Go!” Ava cut her off. All thoughts of her guilt or fear immediately melted away by the intensity of her concern. “Go take care of yourself.” She watched Lilith help her up worriedly.
Bea turned to give her a smile. “I’ll be fine, darling. I love you.” Ava didn’t comment on Lilith rolling her eyes.
“I love you too,” she replied as her girlfriend was helped away by Lilith, Dora and the doctors.
“You’re lucky, Beatrice,” the doctor told her after reviewing her x-rays. “All of your facial wounds are superficial, you reinjured your ribs but nothing is broken and the bolt in your hip barely grazed the bone as it slipped by. I don’t think it did any real damage.”
“I suppose that’s a bit of a miracle,” replied Bea. She was laying on her right side to keep pressure off the crossbow bolt lodged in her leg.
“More like you’re too stubborn to get hurt,” said Lilith sardonically. Dora smirked.
“That too,” Bea agreed with a smile. She looked over at the doctor. “What about the fun part?”
“Well,” the doctor responded, “usually when one gets shot with a crossbow they stop moving. This is good as movement typically only pushes the projectile deeper.” She stood up and moved closer, lifting the sheet covering sister warrior’s leg and pointing to the awkward angle of the bolt. “You, however, did not stop moving.” Bea was mildly impressed that the doctor was willing to scold her over this. Surely the woman must know what had been happening. “In your case, the bolt entered in the lower tensor fasciae latae, passed through the gluteus medius, and into the gluteus maximus.” Lilith lifted her head, looking briefly at Bea and then at Dora. “You’ve pushed it so far through that it started creating its own exit wound. So instead of pulling it out from the entry wound, the best course of action will be to continue pushing it through and pull it out tip first.”
“Excuse me,” said Lilith politely, fighting to keep an innocent look on her face. “I just want to make sure I have this correct...” Dora stood behind her with a barely concealed grin while Bea closed her eyes and groaned.
“Dora, any chance you brought that bottle of scotch back with you?”
Ava was fully healed by now, at least physically. Seeing as how Bea was already with the doctor, she decided she should be there when Camila woke up. The Warrior Nun was trying to put on a brave face despite being incredibly shaken by the day’s events. It had been so easy for Reya to slip into her mind and take over that she wasn’t even sure when it had happened and her thoughts and actions had no longer been her own. She didn’t know how much of the anger—and hatred—that she felt belonged to her. She would feel a lot better once she could be with Beatrice again.
Camila was asleep in her bed with Yasmine sitting by her bedside. Camila’s wrists, Ava was sorry to see, were secured to the bed. Seven other beds were currently in use in the room, not including the one she herself had just vacated. Happily the sisters that occupied them were all sitting up with no major injuries. Ava had already checked in with many of the women and was determined to visit the rest once she had finished talking to Camila.
“How is she, Yas?” she asked.
“She woke up briefly,” Yasmine replied. “She was really confused at first. Then she started crying and quickly fell back asleep. That was all before you had even been brought in.” She looked thoughtful. “I think she remembered what happened. She kept apologizing and wanting to talk to Beatrice. How is she?”
“She’s with the doctors now,” replied Ava. “Dora and Lilith are with her.” She paused at the look on Yasmine’s face. “Lilith is one of her oldest friends, Yas. She’ll be okay.”
“Don’t worry Yasmine,” said a quiet voice from the bed. “Lilith is harmless.”
“Cam!” said Ava excitedly, turning back towards the bed. “How are you?” She took the young nun’s hand.
“Physically I’m fine. Nothing worse than a hard day of sparring.” She gave Ava an ironic half-smile. “Other than that I’m awful.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ava and she leaned forward and kissed Camila’s forehead. “Me too.” Ava turned to the other woman. “Yas? Can you give us a moment?”
“Sure,” she replied and she got up and made her way to some of the other sisters in the infirmary.
Ava looked around the room to check if anyone was listening in and then turned to Camila.
“I wanted to ask,” she said quietly. “Did you see what I saw?” Camila’s eyes widened. She did not need to ask what Ava meant.
“I was hoping I imagined it.” Camila answered. “Do you think Reya meant to show us her plan?”
“Probably not,” replied Ava. “I can’t see how that would have helped her. I’ll tell Mom, we should have another meeting tonight.”
“Ava slow down,” said Camila, holding her hands tightly. “Mother Superion has a lot going on right now; Bea is with the doctor. You and I are completely drained and I am chained to a bed. This can wait until morning.”
Ava blinked at her and then shook her head gently. “No, no. You’re right. Um—sorry! I just…”
“Need to make things better?” supplied the sister warrior.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I know.” Camila’s eyes welled up and tears started streaming down her cheeks. “I could have killed her,” she whispered. She looked up as if remembering who she was talking to. “Ava, I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t you, Cam.”
“Wasn’t it though? Can you honestly tell me that you were being controlled? That it didn’t feel like you?” Camila was crying and Ava could tell she was on the verge of panic. She pulled her friend into an embrace.
“I know,” she assured the sister warrior. Ava lost track of how long she held her. By the time they were joined by Dora, Lilith and Yasmine, both women had started feeling better if not back to normal. She looked up at the three women, a hand staying on Camila’s shoulder.
“We have news on Bea,” said Dora to the group. “The doctors are working on her now. She has no major injuries apart from the crossbow bolt and even that only damaged muscle. She’s going to be fine.” Ava heard Camila’s sigh of relief.
“So what are they doing now? Are they removing it?” Ava asked.
Lilith explained with a clinical tone. “Due to all of her movement after she was…” Her eyes passed briefly over Camila. “…After she was injured. The bolt was forced through the muscles and created an exit wound in her gluteus maximus. The doctor said that the best way to remove it without causing more injury would be to force it through and pull it out tip first.”
“Her gluteus maximus,” repeated Yasmine. “That’s her…”
“Yes,” said Lilith. She used the same no-nonsense clinical tone but her mouth betrayed a small smile. “To treat her wound, they are first going to have to…” she trailed off and Dora jumped in.
“They need to pull the stick out of her ass.”
Ava, fighting valiantly against the edges of her lips as they curled upwards. She sucked a laugh back in and brought the back of her opened her mouth hand to her mouth. She looked up to see Dora trying desperately not to laugh standing next to Lilith who had given up trying to hide her smile. She felt Camila shaking her head next to her and looked to see the young nun biting her lips with her eyes screwed up tight.
“It’s not funny, Lilith,” squeaked Ava, not at all willing to meet her or Dora’s eyes. “There’s nothing funny about it.”
“About what?” Lilith challenged, raising an eyebrow at the smaller woman.
Ava could not bring herself to try to answer. She was saved by Yasmine.
“At least it’s not full-on surgery,” she said innocently. “That’s got to put her in a good mood.”
The four women finally burst out laughing as the day’s tension broke over them like a tidal wave. Tears were streaming out of Ava’s eyes as her abdomen began hurting and she had trouble catching her breath. She wasn’t sure how long it took for her to recover when she heard Camila say with a gasping voice.
“Yasmine, I love you, but you’re hopeless.”
When they had all calmed down, Ava eyed Dora and Lilith with a smile and pointed her finger between them. “I don’t like this pairing. This—this makes me nervous.”
It was approaching night fall when Ava returned to the infirmary with Beatrice. The sister warrior was hobbling along on a pair of crutches. The other three women were once again huddled around Camila’s bedside. The rest of the infirmary was mostly empty by this point.
“Bea!” cried Camila. “How’s your ass?”
“You’ll have to ask Ava,” she answered frankly. “She’s always looked at it more closely than I ever have.” The other women all stared blankly at her before Camila began laughing and they followed suit.
“You know,” said Ava standing next to Bea, “for all the grief I got for cracking jokes when I first got here, I’m seeing an awful lot of humor as a defense mechanism from all of you.”
“We only gave you grief because you weren’t funny,” said Lilith standing slightly apart from the group.
Bea moved to Camila and the other women walked away to talk amongst themselves. Camila began to tear up again as she took in the bruises on the older woman’s face. “I’m so sor…”
“No,” Bea interrupted her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I took you for granted, Camila. I have been for months. I am sorry. Perhaps if I had paid attention or simply been grateful for all that you’ve done for me recently, she would not have been able to use you.”
“Fine,” said Camila. “I know better than to try and argue with you. We’re both sorry then.”
Bea looked sadly at the restraints. “I don’t think she would be able to take you again. Can I take those off of you?”
Camila smiled. “Thank you Bea, but no. Mother Superion is bringing Dr. Salvius here tomorrow. She was able to stop my prayers from transmitting to Adriel. I’m sure she can take care of this.” She looked softly at her friend, eyes glistening. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“You too,” Bea responded with a small smile.
Bea sighed as she finally lied down in the bed, exhaustion catching up with her. Ava had been wonderfully attentive since they left the infirmary upon Bea’s insistence—the doctor had wanted her to spend the night after she had removed the crossbow bolt from her—leg. But she just wanted to be in bed with Ava. “It’s lucky I normally sleep this way,” she observed as Ava got into bed with her.
“Yeah,” agreed Ava. “If it was the other side we’d be all sorts of screwed up tonight.” She winked at her girlfriend. “How is your ass by the way?”
“Please don’t start,” Bea whined.
“Sorry Beebs,” Ava replied. “I’m just feeling ‘cheeky.’” Bea groaned. “I’m glad the doctors were able to ‘rectify’ your situation.”
“That one was ‘shitty,’” responded Bea. Ava’s eyebrows went up and she grinned. “Now will you please stop being a ‘pain in the ass?’”
“Aww,” whined Ava, “don’t be so ‘butthurt.’”
She said it lightly, but Bea could hear the change in her tone.
“I’m okay darling,” she said while looking into Ava’s dark chocolate eyes. “I’m going to be just fine.”
“I know,” replied Ava quietly as she placed a hand onto Bea’s face. She stayed quiet for a minute but Bea could see her wheels turning. “I’m sorry I got angry,” she said finally with a small smile, “at the meeting, I mean.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” said Bea, placing her hand over Ava’s. The younger woman just smiled back at her. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I gave birth to some weird creepy divinium baby,” Ava answered. Bea chuckled softly in response.
“Well, I’m glad that’s not actually true. I don’t know how I’d feel about taking care of a supernatural baby that glows bright blue whenever it gets near you. I would prefer one that was a little more human.” She immediately blushed at the implication and looked away from her girlfriend.
Ava smiled at her with wide eyes but decided to let the moment pass. Instead she asked, “How are you handling today so well? I would be freaking out if it were me. I think I still am, actually.”
Bea sighed, looking back up at the younger woman, the pink flush still light upon her cheeks. “I honestly don't know. I’m sure it will all catch up to me at some point, but I know you’ll fix me when I break.”
The Warrior Nun beamed at her. “Of course I will.”
After a few more minutes of silence, Ava spoke again. “Bea, there’s something I need to tell you.” The sister warrior waited, looking at her with interest. “While we were possessed, Cam and I—I think we were able to see into Reya’s mind.”
Bea’s eyes widened. “Well,” she replied thoughtfully, “I suppose that makes sense based on Camila’s experiences with Adriel.” She swallowed thickly. “What did you see?”
Ava took a deep breath and her voice shook a little as she spoke. “Reya doesn’t want me to help her fight the Holy War.” She closed her eyes tightly and took a shaky breath before opening them again. “She wants me to help her start it.”