Here With You

The day that Ava returns, it is a Sunday. Later Beatrice will reflect on the symbolism of that. The day of, however, all she can think of is how fucking boring this church service is.

It’s her first time attending a service since everything began (or ended, depending on how you look at it), and the way this priest is droning on, it promises to be her last. Beatrice is barely sure she believes in god anymore. At least, not in the way everyone else here does. When she thinks of the love of god the preacher is talking about (droning about more like), this place isn’t what she imagines. Instead she imagines a bar where people smile at her when she arrives, and a landlady who grumbles all the time but leaves her dinner when she hasn’t eaten, and a librarian with an honest soul and a past much like her own.

Mostly though, she thinks of an irrepressible smile, a dirty mouth and a heart of gold. A holy woman without a praying bone in her body. Her Ava.

Last night she dreampt about her. Not one of her lucid, maybe-having-a-date-with-her-angelic-girlfriend dreams. Just a half remembered dream that left her with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. It still hurts like hell, but a little less every day.

Ahead of her, Beatrice sees another woman get up from her pew and make her way towards the back of the church, rolling her eyes. She winks at Beatrice as she passes her. She is familiar, and this time Beatrice is sober, so it only takes her a second to recognize the face. The woman from the bar. The woman from both bars. The woman from both bars who knew Beatrice’s name and that she’s in love with Ava. Years of working in the OCS have taught her that while miracles may be possible, coincidences are rare, and to never ignore someone who seems to be following you. She gets up to follow, readying one of her knives in the process.

She supposes

They’re just passing the confessional booths when Beatrice makes her move. She grabs her target, applying just enough pressure with her knife that the other woman knows she’s serious. Beatrice steers them into one of the booths and closes the door behind her, holding her dagger against the other woman’s throat.

It’s maybe a bit on the aggressive side, but in her defense, she hasn’t been sleeping much lately.

“Have you been fucking following me?”

If her tail seems concerned at having a knife to her throat in the confessional chamber of a church, she doesn’t show it.

“I have.”

Her face is calm, not the face of someone who means her harm, or is afraid of harm. Beatrice relaxes her grip slightly.

“Why?”

“Because you are lost, Sister Beatrice, and so very very close to being found.”

Sister

“Wait, you know? How do you know who I am?”

The woman, this enigma of hers, simply smiles.

“I know many things Beatrice.”

The first time they met, Beatrice was paying too much attention to Ava to really notice her. The second time, she was drunk. Now though this stranger has her full attention. She looks at Beatrice without any trace of fear. She's not a spy, or one of Adriel's followers looking for payback. In fact, the way she's looking at Beatrice, she has such a caring expression, one Beatrice hasn't even gotten from her own family.

Only from one other person, actually.

“Are you-are you going to tell me any of those things?” Beatrice gets out, afraid to loose her nerve all of a sudden.

The woman smiles, and, despite having a knife to her throat, reaches up and cups Beatrice's face.

Then she speaks, and though there's nothing different about her voice itself, every word reverberates in Beatrice's soul like a prophecy.

“Rejoice, sister Beatrice, for I bring you glad tidings. Your search is at an end, and that which you seek is upon you. That which you lost is soon to find it's way back to you.”

Beatrice staggers back, knocking into the door of the cubicle. The other woman looks at her, and in her gaze Beatrice swears there is something more than human.

“What, what are you...?” She gasps.

“Nothing you need to be afraid of. Now rest my child.”

The other woman, if that is even accurate anymore, gently kisses Beatrice on the forhead. Beatrice isn't aware of any time passing or of loosing consciousness, but the next thing she knows the woman is gone and she's alone in the confessional booth.

Not exacly alone though, there's someone on the other side of the screen. Someone achingly familiar.

***

Beatrice has of course imagined all the ways and all the circumstances in which Ava might come back. What she’d say, what she’d do. None of them ever involved her phasing through the divider of a confessional booth in a Catholic Church in the middle of the most boring sermon imaginable.

In retrospect though, it tracks pretty perfectly.

Ava looks pretty much the same. Beatrice knows time passes differently where she’s been but quite how that works is anyone’s guess. And Beatrice would love to puzzle that out, she really would, except there’s no time now because Ava is here and she’s back and Beatrice is touching her for the first time in forever, and when they kiss, it feels so perfectly exactly right that her heart aches all over again. She’s pretty sure she’s crying.

Finally they break apart, still hiding in the booth, and Ava offers a smile.

“Uhm, be not afraid? Or something?”

And Beatrice looses it. Just bursts out laughing. She laughs so loudly the preacher stops his sermon. She laughs as they disentangle themselves and tumble out of the confessional, and laughs even harder at the scandalized looks on people’s faces. She only stops so that Ava can kiss her, right there in front of everyone, because this girl is her goddamned salvation and everyone needs to know it.

They leave the church behind, walking out into the light hand in hand, ready to face the rest of their lives together.