Falling

Falling.

The plummet of your stomach as you fall.

The feeling when you're brain is still awake but you're body is asleep.

That was what it felt like.

The shimmering of the portal as she passed through was practically undecadent as she watched with acceptance. The tears welled in her eyes, threatening to fall. To show her true emotions behind a carefully sculpted mask Ava had chipped away at for nearly two years. She didn't need to hear the words back, she knew. Ava liked to think she had always known, deep down. Although six months travelling across Europe together, sleeping in the same bed. It was something else.

She was still falling.

Falling so hard it made her heart stutter.

The weightlessness.

The thought of her heart slipping into her throat in a pounding, blinding realisation.

It's like she's drowning in it. Water filling her lungs as she struggled to breath.

Then she's gasping. Her eyes blinking open.

She's dead.

Ava Silva finally died.

She was in heaven.

No.

The other realm.

The one they thought was heaven but wasn't.

Reya's realm.

There was a faint whooshing above her. Familiar yet distant.

Ava squeezed her eyes, she wasn't ready to not see Beatrice stood on the other side of that portal. To not see her again.

There was movement and Ava felt her heart pulse in her chest. She was going to have to face the reality of her situation sooner rather than later.

She opened her eyes and was met with white. No, a white ceiling. A turning fan. Her stomach plummeted. Orphanage. She tried to feel her toes and felt relief wash over her as cotton sheets rubbed her calves.

Bed.

She was in a bed and she could feel her feet and legs. Not the orphanage.

"Are you planning to sleep all day again?"

An familiar yet oddly distant voice came through. Sharp and piercing. An amused tone of an English accent, that she doesn't know exactly where from. Related to the queen, she had joked on their first and last drunken night together.

Beatrice.

As quickly as she sits up, the nausea swells in her stomach.

Ava swallowed away. Beatrice was here. Ava had survived, she was back, Bea had saved her. Just as she had saved her so many times before.

But as Ava's vision clears, something's not right.

Beatrice is still Beatrice. Soft long brown hair, in a loose braid down her back. Thought filled brown eyes, occupied on removing her jacket, a hoodie, Ava distantly recognises.

No, what isn't right is Beatrice's face. Not that anything is ever wrong with Bea's face, absolutely not, it's- well- it's perfect but it's different. Older. Her jaw is more angular, her posture far more relaxed than Ava has ever seen it. In fact, she was certain, Bea couldn't relax that much. Her hips are slightly more filled out, and she's just different.

Was the cat's cradle doubling as a time machine? No, don't be ridiculous. Beatrice's voice echoes in her mind. Think logically.

She was in a dream? Surely, it must be a hallucination. Or maybe that's what death was like? Stuck in her ideal dream.

But this felt real. The way her hands ran over the soft sheets beneath her, the smell of Beatrice's perfume that she had become so accustomed to smelling when they were in the Alps. Ava looked down, she's not naked, but she's not exactly well clothed. In a bra and boxer briefs she pulled the sheets closer to her chest as the other hand ran through her chopped locks. Still just below her ear, ok that was the same.

But in her underwear in front of Bea? She's surprised the nun hadn't had a scowl on her face.

Maybe they were back in hiding? incognito had no place for habits after all. Ava spared a glance up at Bae who was now untying the braid, a soft hum spilling from her that made Ava far more relaxed than she would have liked.

God, what was happening?

"Are you alright?" Beatrice asked, her eyes finding Ava's in the mirror. Ava felt pinned. God, she was still way too good at being an interrogator.

Play it cool.

"Uh, yup, just you know, waking up and getting ready to will myself for the day," Ava grinned as she stood from the bed. She needed to test Bea's reaction.

Beatrice narrowed her eyes at her response. The same eyes unashamedly looked over Ava's body for a second, a split one, but Ava caught it before darting back to her face.

"Are you sure?"

"Yup, just peachy, you know me, just like lying in bed, lounging some may say," Ava laughed, finding flannel pyjama bottoms on the floor. She tugged them up her legs and paused as her eyes caught her hip. Scars. She didn't have scars. The halo made sure of it.

Ava ran her thumb over the ridged skin, soft and uncomfortable to touch. She gasped at the feeling.

"Are your scars bothering you? I can get the salve from Dr Salvius," Beatrice was quick to stand, ready for action and it made Ava take a step back.

"No," she protested. Beatrice seemed to reel from her haste. "No, I'm- uh fine, just fine. I'll be fine, I just need to get ready."

Ava trailed off, her mind couldn't keep up and she felt like she might puke. She had scars. Beatrice was older.

Time machine was beginning to look more and more possible.

"So, you're fine?" Ava's eyes snapped back to Beatrice's. Her tone was teasing but her eyes were far more analytical than Ava remembered them being on her.

"Yeah, totally," Ava dismissed with a grin.

Where the hell was she?

In a darkened room.

A small window lets the setting sun filter in.

On a bench lies a woman.

A woman that is all too familiar to the observer.

Her hands battered and bruised. Her body still bloody.

Footsteps pull the watcher's eyes from the young woman.

The arrival waits. Silent and awaiting instruction.

"Send an urgent message."

"What shall I say?"

There's a silence. A pondering.

"Tell her the Warrior Nun has returned."