Archive of Our Own

Beatrice likes to think that she is a responsible citizen.

It’s not just that she keeps a plastic bag on her to pick up trash, or the way she regularly attends town halls and local fundraisers. She’s been known to exercise her right to protest, and always brings extra water and sunscreen to share. And sure, she helps take her neighbor’s trash out to the curb when they go on vacation.

She also waits for the walk sign to turn green before looking both ways, she meticulously replaces her shopping cart in its corral, and listens attentively to flight attendants during their informative presentations. Every time.

Hell, she even wears a reversible reflective vest on her commute to and from work. Next week, despite the loving heckling from her friends, she’s got an appointment with her dentist to get scans done for a customized mouthguard.

She’s taken basic first aid classes, and hopes to never use them. The fire station down the street from her apartment holds clinic hours on weekends, and she’s graduated from attendee to volunteer.

Suffice to say, Beatrice takes safety seriously. That isn’t to say there aren’t other draws.

You see, Fire Station 8 is staffed almost entirely by women. They are something like infamous: part local celebrity and part small town hero. Beatrice knows they have a Tiktok account, because her friend Camila started an account for them as a joke and it took off.

And these women?

Hot. Heartstoppingly hot. Every self-respecting queer person in a twenty mile radius has had the opportunity to swoon over the dashing figures they cut and/or the indomitable heart they embody. (The Tiktok that made them go viral was one of the firefighters, sooty and sweaty and smiling, carrying a kitten out of a smoking building.)

As it so happens, Beatrice lives just down the street. It is a helpful coincidence. Beatrice has never felt so safe, knowing such a…competent…team of women work a brisk walk away. As it so happens, Camila lives on the other side of the station, and Beatrice has taken it upon herself to bike over to her building before they commute to work. Because she’s a good friend.

And if that route happens to go past the open firehouse doors every day…

(You’d do the same.)

The street has a dedicated bike lane. It’s simply the responsible thing to do.

(“It is,” Beatrice insists, knowing that by insisting she’s digging her own hole.

“So which one is it?” Camila wants to know, completely unmoved.

They are far enough away from the station that Beatrice feels comfortable enough to sigh gustily and admit, “I don’t know her name.”

“You know there’s an easy way to fix that? It’s called an introduction?”

“I’m aware,” Beatrice replies. They slow to a stop, each resting one foot on the ground for balance. She sighs again, and turns to look at Camila, who is watching her with warm, sympathetic and amused eyes. The usual, then. “It’s…difficult.”

Camila softens. “I know.”

She does, is the thing. Camila has known her for a relatively short number of years, but she was there when Beatrice walked away from her parents’ company to work for Jillian. When Beatrice severed her familial ties for good, so she was free to live as she liked. Love who she liked. There is no time to stand still when there is so much life to be living, when the days spin on like the dizzying revolutions of Beatrice’s trusty bicycle wheels. It is her efforts that let her push against all that holds her still. It is the distribution of these weights, the combined efforts of her friends to help her shoulder it on the heavy days, that allows her to push so hard. And it is that momentum that lets her move the distance.

Now that she’s on her way? She will not stop. Not easily.

For all of her playful prodding, Camila is one of her biggest cheerleaders and best friends. Also, coworkers. Maybe she needs more friends?

The light turns green, and they push off.

“There’s something in the water, though,” Camila says. She blows an errant curl out of her eyes. “No one should look that good in bright yellow. It’s illegal.”

Beatrice looks at Camila askance. “I’m wearing bright yellow.”

“Yeah, present company included, pal. Straight to jail.”)

There’s this girl. Alright?

She doesn’t look the part. That’s what caught Beatrice’s eye the first time.

Of the team, Beatrice is most familiar with the station’s leadership: Captain Masters and Battalion Chief Superion. They’re the ones who frequent the clinics most often, and with whom Beatrice interfaces with now that she has become a regular volunteer. Superion is exacting, stern and fair. She has to be–Duretti has been sniffing around ever since he got Assistant Chief, looking to poach or excommunicate as he sees fit. He even tried to corner Beatrice, once, and she doesn’t even work here.

Captain Masters, though. She’s a bit mischievous, that one.

Beatrice had not known what to make of it. At first, it had seemed unbecoming of someone of her rank, a leader and a role model both. But Beatrice came to see the way people turned to her like flowers in sunshine, always looking to her and for her. Her leadership style works precisely because of the loyalty she inspires.

So Beatrice is riding past one day and sees the captain horsing around. If she looks small against the towering, gleaming fire engine by the vehicle bay, the woman she’s jostling looks even smaller. They’re fighting for the basketball in the other woman’s hands. Someone’s shoe is untied, and there is a battered baseball cap on the ground.

The other woman has chin-length hair and it flops around as she does, pulling obnoxious feints and making sound effects with her mouth.

Captain Masters easily slaps it out of her hands and drives down their makeshift court to their makeshift hoop. Her celebratory noises are equally obnoxious.

“Foul! Foul!” the woman cries out, laughing all the while. She stoops to pick up the cap that had fallen off, dusts it off with a few careless slaps. Crams the hat onto her head. As she wheels around, still grinning wide, she meets Beatrice’s eyes for a split second.

Then Beatrice is out of sight. She’s always been a powerful cyclist, and has never had a reason to stop.

The adrenaline surge that Beatrice rides from that smile carries her through her entire commute, two meetings and an obscenely long work day. She considers the way it makes her heart pound, as she and Camila unlock their bikes and make their ways back home. Carefully does not consider it, as she blows past the lit up station, a steady beacon in the dark. Regrets it and tries to glance over, but by then it is too late. She is down the street and in the dark in an instant. It’s not that life has passed her by, rather, she has forgotten how to take it in when she can.

Her ability to grit her teeth and keep moving has always been useful, but. Perhaps the time to keep her head down and pedal faster has passed.

She slows down after that.

It’s likely more efficient, anyways. Conservation of energy, or so Beatrice has been told. Certainly it’s a bonus to be able to nod at the firefighters when they wave at her. Most of them.

The woman always seems to be busy when Beatrice cycles by.

The firefighter, that is, the one whose smile Beatrice carries with her like an extra charge. Beatrice sees her. Always in motion. Spinning on her own axis as Beatrice careens by. Chattering to a shy-faced child as she ties their shoelaces. Hauling around a hose and spraying more water on her colleagues than on the engine out for a wash. (Getting mercilessly doused in return.)

She’s not certain she is seen in return. Beatrice is just one person. Their trajectories never cross.

It’s probably for the best.

There are so many people on this spinning ball of dust, with many ways to live and more ways to die. First meetings are not guaranteed in an endless universe that cares not for anything but gravity and pull. Momentum and mass and inertia. Bodies in motion.

The nature of rotating bodies is this: it takes an incredible amount of force to go anywhere in particular. To move and be moved. Best laid plans are constantly foiled on the cosmic stage. Because life gets in the way, and physics takes care of the rest.

But this? She never could have planned for this.

Sometimes curveballs sort of just crash into your life. Best laid plans, and all.

It happens on a Monday, because of course it does. Nothing good happens on Mondays.

One moment she’s feeling the breeze ruffle satisfyingly through the hair escaping her helmet, glancing at Camila as they chat about their weekend plans.

(“Honestly, I don’t know how you don’t fall over with how slow you pedal by the station,” Camila teases. “Could you be any more obvious? The answer is ‘yes,’ by the way.”

“Just for that, I’m un-inviting you from movie night,” Beatrice replies.

“You can’t un-invite me from my own apartment! I own Monty Python on DVD, not you!”

“You underestimate my a–”)

The next:

Well, Beatrice doesn’t really remember it.

There’s flashes. Of the during. The look of horror blooming across Camila’s face. Shouts, honks. And impact. Impacts, really. When she hits the hood of the car, then the windshield. There are crunches, and it isn’t clear if it is the windshield (probable) or her bones (also probable). The way her breath is locked tight behind her ribcage. The way it explodes out of her as she hits the pavement. Glass, glittering like an explosion.

The ground is cold beneath her cheek. It should be, it’s only March. The leaves are only just returning to the trees.

The after takes a long moment to reach her.

More shouting. The honking has stopped, though.

It is dark, far too dark for the morning hour. Beatrice comes to realize that her eyes are closed, and tries to open them. One, then the other. There’s something in her right eye. No matter. Camila can take a look and let her–

Camila.

Camila?

Beatrice isn’t sure if she closes her eyes again or blacks out, but when she can see again, she’s managed to roll onto her stomach. It is a supremely bad idea. Something doesn’t feel right about the integrity of her ribs, but no matter. No matter. She needs to check on Camila. She was right next to her when the–

She’s just been hit by a car.

Beatrice grits her teeth, and lifts her head. There is a hand in front of her nose. It is slack, and unmoving, and Camila’s. It is still attached to the rest of her. God. Beatrice’s eyes refocus and refocus. The distance stretches before her eyes, almost insurmountable.

She begins to crawl.

Beatrice is vaguely aware that she is sliding her body across broken glass. But that is what her gloves and her body armor are for, are they not? To protect her when she hits the ground? This definitely qualifies. There might be a better way to do this, but Beatrice isn’t exactly operating at full capacity. Someone will forgive her for it, surely.

A minute or a lifetime later, Beatrice reaches her friend. She heaves herself onto her side, which also feels like a bad idea, and places her hand flat against Camila’s shoulder. Her head lolls against the ground, half on the road and half pressed against Camila. Her head is so heavy. She fumbles her fingers up until she finds the side of her friend’s neck.

Please. Please. Beatrice prays to a god she’s not sure she believes in anymore, who has never shown her kindness and always lets her down. Please, let her live. Send me a miracle.

Beatrice thinks she feels a pulse. She can’t be sure. Her fingers keep slipping down Camila’s skin. There is a siren going off in her head. It gets louder and louder. Louder and louder and louder and won’t someone please put her out of her misery?

Boots crunch in the glass nearby.

A firm finger against her own throat, there and gone. Beatrice imagines it, bird’s eye view, her fingers at Camila’s throat, a stranger’s at Beatrice’s. Linked together like a broken chain.

“She’s alive,” a woman’s voice calls somewhere above Beatrice’s head.

Beatrice thinks to say, “I could have told you that,” and finds that it isn’t worth the effort. So. Perhaps she couldn’t have. Still, it seems impolite to be lying face down in the middle of the road when someone’s talking to you. Or about you. So, Beatrice tries to turn over.

“Whoa! Hey! I don’t think moving is a great idea right now. How ’bout we take it easy?” The woman has pressed gentle hands to the sides of Beatrice’s shoulders. It is easy work for her to keep Beatrice from rolling further.

Beatrice has never been without control of her body. She doesn’t like it. She wishes she could do anything about it, but all she can manage is a noise, a groan.

“Hey, this is a first. I’ve never made someone groan before I even tell the joke. Wanna hear it?” The woman’s voice knotted tight beneath the overlying joviality. She clears her throat and moves right into it. “You know why it’s so expensive to fill your car’s tires with air these days?” Her next words come from a closer distance, almost at her ear. “Inflation.”

It is terrible. Objectively awful. She should be ashamed. Beatrice opens her mouth against the ground in agonized laughter. Nothing comes out. There is grit in her mouth now. “Don’t,” Beatrice grinds out, “make me laugh.”

“Ah, shit, sorry, yeah. My bad. You’d be the first to laugh at that one, though. Just lie here and think of, I don’t know, England.”

Beatrice rolls her face back and forth into the pavement. “Why.”

“I don’t know, maybe the accent? Ignore me, I’m an idiot.”

“Keep–” Beatrice cuts herself off, focusing her attention on pulling whatever air she can into her lungs. It is sharp and unpleasant, but Beatrice has never shied away from the unpleasant and the necessary.

“Keep? Keep, what, talking? I’m a keeper?” There is a scraping noise and a muffled thump. “God, where is that fucking ambulance?” the woman says under her breath. She speaks louder, to Beatrice: “If I start talking I’ll never stop. You’re in for it now. I’m a Grade A rambler.”

“Tell me?” Beatrice likes small talk exactly as much as she likes people who elect not to use their turn signals. Which is to say: not at all. But her heart is rabbiting in her chest, and she’s sweating in the cold morning air and feeling her skin from far away. When she comes back to earth, into her body on the hard ground, reality will sink into her with sharp teeth. She doesn’t want to know what happens next.

“Sure, sure,” the woman says. “I’ll try not to be too funny, but just know it’ll be a real challenge. On the premise that I’m hilarious, and all.” There’s more shifting. Beatrice feels fabric brush lightly against her cheek as the good samaritan leans over her. “What else can I say? Oh! Uh, our station has a friendly trivia competition going. Not to brag, but my unit–well, Lilith’s–is kicking ass. Guess there are some benefits to being in and out of a hospital for most of your childhood, eh? You get bored, and start reading and watching anything. And I mean anything. Did you know that beavers have a second set of lips behind their teeth? They use them to chew wood underwater.”

Instead of replying, Beatrice’s teeth clatter together. Something has her and is rattling her skeleton around. It’s not her, she doesn’t think. She wouldn’t. Not voluntarily, anyways. (She hates something about that. Right? She can’t quite remember why.)

“I’m an idiot. You’re cold. Shock, or something. Here.” Something soft is carefully tucked around Beatrice’s shoulders. Beatrice greedily sucks up the residual warmth from the stranger’s body. Oh. She is cold.

There’s a noise, the slightest of shifting among the detritus. Beatrice can feel it. Why can she feel it…?

Beatrice breathes painfully. Something twinges at the top of her limited inhale, and her full body flinch causes her fingers to slip down Camila’s neck. That’s right. Beatrice still has her hand on Camila. She resolutely inhales again, so she can say, “Cam.”

“Cam, who’s–oh, her? I’m keeping an eye on her, too. She opened her eyes a second ago, but I think she’s out again. Sorry you can’t see, what with your whole…nose to pavement sitch.”

Exhaustion is pulling at Beatrice from every direction. Her eyelids, her hands, her chest. It takes two breaths before she can say, “Ambulance.” Or something close to it. “Her.” Another few dragging breaths. “First.”

“I don’t think you’re in any kind of position to be making demands,” the woman says jokingly. Her tone is bright, emphatic enough to keep Beatrice’s ears on her if she can’t use her eyes. “Or decisions, for that matter. But your girlfriend will be taken care of, just like you. You’re going to be okay.” The lightest of squeezes at her arms. Her palms are so warm. Beatrice feels them burning after she’s drawn them away.

Beatrice thinks to correct her. She doesn’t get the chance, because the siren finally cuts out. The ringing in her ears continues.

“See? You’ll be out of here in no time.”

Then they are no longer alone. Someone is kneeling over Camila, carefully but decisively moving Beatrice’s hand aside to affix a neck brace. (They introduce themselves in clear, warm tones. Mary. PM-That’s-Short-for-Paramedic. “How do you do?” Beatrice inquires, woozily. “‘m Bea–Bea…”) Beatrice is helped into one of her own, and is reminded of all of the clinics she’d attended, suddenly feeling much more empathy for the volunteer victims. It is not exactly comfortable.

The new position affords her a view of the sky, and of the stranger who held her together. Only, it’s not a stranger, is it? Beatrice squints, but a moment later there is Mary, leaning into view, and any detail is lost. “Touch your fingers to your thumb for me?” Mary prompts, and her tone is calm and firm enough that Beatrice focuses on her and not the person hovering behind. Raising her hand takes a bit of coordination, but she taps the tips of her fingers to her thumb without much trouble. “Good. Alright, me and Mikey are gonna get you onto the backboard and then into the ambulance. On three–”

Beatrice is then carefully transferred onto a spine board. It is uncomfortable like the brace, especially the strap across her forehead. It itches something awful–but it is necessary. She’d read about it for her road safety class. It is used often in car accidents, when patients are thought to have suffered spinal injuries.

(She’s not thinking about it.)

As Mary and the EMT move to the ends of Beatrice’s cot, the stranger’s visage swims back into view. Oh–she is still here. She is moving with the EMS team and Beatrice away from where she’d been sprawled across the road. There is not much room in her aching head to make sense of it, but Beatrice finds that she is relieved. Her features are obscured by the sun and the visor of her baseball cap, backlit and forming a corona with her skull. It is supremely disorienting.

Beatrice reaches for stability, and finds fabric. She has caught this poor woman by the collar of her zip-up hoodie, which she’s just slipped back on after it slid off of Beatrice upon lift-off. She’s quick on her feet, though, hurrying alongside Beatrice’s cot as the EMS team hurries it to the ambulance. Her face, though. Beatrice can see it now.

It looks like–

Could it–

Her focus narrows down to the eyes that are flitting around Beatrice’s face. (Alternatively, that could be the work of the scrawling blackness creeping in at the edges of her vision). She opens her mouth to say something–to thank her? To beg her to stay? She’s never talked to her before. What can she say now, of all times? Of all places?

Her voice fails her. Her eyes, though. They are talking just fine. Beatrice just isn’t sure what she’s saying. The stranger-who-isn’t, who is holding Beatrice’s hand where it gathers at her collar, gently untangles it, looks down at Beatrice like she’s made a decision.

“You’re in or you’re out, Silva. Move!”

The back doors slam shut. The woman–Silva–is still with her. “Alright, you asked for it,” she says, addressing Beatrice. “You’re stuck with me and my sparkling wit for the rest of your field trip.” She smoothly navigates to the jump seat at Beatrice’s shoulder, finally relinquishing Beatrice’s hand to the professional’s tender mercies. Beatrice can hear her rub her hands together. “So! What do you call a square that got into a car accident?”

The PM–Mary–fitting a pressure cuff to Beatrice’s arm, shoots the woman an appalled look. “Really, Ava?”

Ava, apparently, ignores her. Her eyes have not left Beatrice’s. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that Beatrice’s hasn’t left hers. “A wreck-tangle! Get it?”

They go over a pothole, and the gurney judders for a long, teeth grinding moment. Groans, from Mary and from Beatrice, for two different reasons. “Christ. I should kick you outta my bus the moment we get onto the highway,” is the paramedic’s good natured response.

“You love me, don’t lie,” Ava says.

“The only lying I’ll do is over some train tracks if you sass me one more time,” Mary quips, clipping a pulse ox to Beatrice’s index finger. Mary taps around, and the screen next to them comes to life. “You’re in my territory now. My rules.”

“Tough crowd.” Ava’s quiet a minute longer, watching either Mary, Beatrice or the monitor in between them all. Beatrice doesn’t mind if Ava is looking at the monitor. Somehow, after someone sees you splattered across the pavement, BPM and oxygen levels don’t seem so revealing.

Ava leans back into eyesight, and Beatrice’s heart monitor blips. The background beeping speeds up.

Hm.

“Hm,” Mary says.

“What?” Ava asks. She’s smiling and not hiding it very well.

“You’re a menace,” Mary sighs. “Shut up, sit back and find it within yourself to be less attractive.”

They start to squabble. Beatrice thinks she might be embarrassed, but she’s not awake long enough for the feeling to take hold.

Recovery is long and painfully tender and full of iced knees and wrists and cheeks and ribs, but it could have been worse. Beatrice learns later, much later, that the woman saved her ass. Or at least a world of grief. By immobilizing her, she’d prevented Beatrice from crunching her ribs like an eggshell. So, no, the bruises and lacerations and strains aren’t ideal. But Beatrice knows she’s lucky. She takes the injuries with little complaint (and the odd over-the-counter pain reliever).

She also confirms that the woman is a firefighter, stationed at the firehouse down the block from her apartment. She wonders which one it is–there are a handful of women at that station, and Beatrice has seen a number of them on her rides past the station doors. Because she looks, generally, to take in her surroundings, points of interest, et cetera, like any responsible cyclist.

The uniform shirt is just–

Anyways, it would be polite to bring them cookies. As a thank you.

Perhaps one in particular, if her jumbled memory can be trusted.

Unfortunately, Beatrice is responsible. So she rests and ices and waits until she has been cleared to move around without her braces, albeit gingerly, to go grocery shopping. Camila had offered to crutch around with her, but Beatrice had gently bullied her friend into staying on her couch.

(“I can help,” Camila protests, even as Beatrice fluffs the pillow supporting her friend’s back. “‘Tis barely a scratch!” She settles into the pillow, arms crossed. A storm has passed over her face, leaving it dark and thunderous.

“You are helping,” Beatrice reminds her patiently, not for the first time. “When I return. I couldn’t bake myself out of a paper bag. I need you for that.”

“I am the undisputed winner of this year’s department-wide cupcake competition,” Camila brags, a smile unspooling at the ends. “Fine, I suppose you can do all of the manual labor.” Beatrice breathes out in silent relief as the frustration leaked out of Camila, leaving familiar sunny skies ahead.)

So, cookies.

They end up largely edible, albeit a little lumpy. Perhaps she should have mashed the bananas more comprehensively? (The instructions lacked clarity on that front, unfortunately, and Camila had fallen asleep by the third attempt.)

It isn’t her first time in the fire station. She’s attended their weekend first-aid clinics before, first as a learner and later as a volunteer. But she’s never been here on a weekday, and never outside of the designated community education space. Without an event, it feels unfamiliar. Still, she knows enough to make her way over to their small visitor area.

There’s no one at the watch desk. Stymied, Beatrice looks around the lobby for any signs of life. The uncharacteristic stillness in the normally bustling station raises the little hairs on her arms. No clanging, no shouting. Not even footsteps.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

Beatrice turns, tightly clutching the foil-covered plate to her chest. “Hello.”

There is a woman leaning out of a nearby doorway, dark braid falling over one shoulder. Her expression is politely curious, just as neatly curated as the rest of her, stepping out of the doorway. Behind her, the buzz of conversation and a brief flash of a computer monitor before the door closes. Beatrice’s eyes go up, and up. Clocks the familiar uniform t-shirt of the station firefighters. Like Beatrice’s shirt, it is tucked meticulously into her pants.

“Hello,” she replies. There is the suggestion of a smile. “Was someone expecting you?”

The foil crinkles beneath Beatrice’s fingers. It’s not nerves, exactly, that has her shifting. “No, not particularly. Perhaps you could help me. I’m looking for someone.”

“Oh?” Beatrice then gets her own assessment, and watches how the firefighter’s eyes go sharp. It is perhaps a more honest look. The polite curiosity had been an ill-fitting mask in hindsight. “What have you got there?”

“Come off it, Lilith,” someone else says, coming up from behind. “Everyone knows Beatrice.”

Beatrice jolts, not expecting to see anyone she recognizes and feeling slightly hunted for it. Though this new person isn’t, strictly speaking, familiar. They’d only met briefly, and Beatrice had had blood in her eye. But the fuzzy edges of distorted memory resolve themselves into exacting detail of the living, breathing person who has ambled up to them. It is Mary, Mary the paramedic.

Mary the paramedic does not appear to be in uniform, though her pants and shoes both are utilitarian. Her hair, too, is gathered back in simple twists. All the better to see her amused facial expression, the way a tiny smirk pulls her cheekbones into sharp relief.

“Everyone…?” Beatrice inquires, faintly. Surely her unfortunate tale of getting spread out across the pavement had not gone that far and wide? But Ava featured heavily in her story, so it is perhaps not out of the question. Beatrice breathes through the unexpected burn of humiliation, reminding herself that it is only logical and right for her situation to be used as a morale boost for upstanding citizens such as Fire Station 8. They deserve a success story. Beatrice is happy that she can be of use, if nothing else.

Logic is a cold comfort.

“Beatrice here single-handedly keeps our bi-monthly weekend clinics running,” Mary says, nudging Beatrice in the shoulder with a casual familiarity Beatrice is bemused by, until she remembers exactly how much of her body Mary has already handled. “Does it out of the goodness of her heart, if you can believe it. Is a real whiz at programming and talking people out of crying.” It is the latter and not the former that Mary seems to be most impressed by.

Beatrice relaxes, slightly, at the connection. It seems, miracle upon miracles, that her accident hadn’t been told and retold. The flames begin to recede.

“–also, this is Ava’s Beatrice.”

What?

The heat returns to her ears, her throat, her chest.

“Oh,” Lilith says, recognition and something like glee flashing in her eyes. “That Beatrice.” Beatrice gets a flash of deja vu, as Lilith casts an eye at her once more, though this time the assessment is a different kind of calculative. “And you’re looking for Silva, is it?”

“I believe so,” Beatrice manages, leaning heavily on years of practice at keeping her cool. Even before boardrooms Beatrice bore the trials that were her parents’ galas with only her most careful expressions for armor. She resists the well-worn urge to put it on now. Smiles bravely instead. “Wears overalls on her days off, is a firefighter here, rode with me in an ambulance?”

“For all her work putting out fires, she sure finds a way to jump into them,” Lilith mutters under her breath. Mary steps on Lilith’s foot as she gets in between them, grabbing Beatrice’s attention in a practiced move. Beatrice admires it, even as she knows she’s being handled.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Mary says. “Want me to take you to her?”

“If you would be so kind,” Beatrice confirms.

They move down the hall, the three of them in easy formation, Lilith taking point.

“Are you based out of this station, too?” Beatrice asks genially, after a crinkle of the foil reveals just how empty the air is of discernible noise. For firefighters, they are certainly light on their feet.

“Not exactly–” Mary begins.

“She might as well be, as often as she hangs around,” Lilith offers from over her shoulder.

Mary rolls her eyes. “As I was going to say, I’m here a lot. My wife, Shannon, just made captain, so these numbskulls are like family.”

“We keep telling her to join us–you can be dual certified as a firefighter/EMT or some such, but apparently she hates us and keeps saying no.”

“And I keep telling you,” Mary retorts, “that it would be a conflict of interest if I’m involved with the captain and on her team.”

“Not her team, my team. Brass keeps pulling her for photo opps and politics. Shannon might as well be sitting in her cushy office these days, shaking hands and kissing babies.”

A derisive scoff. “Shannon could dump you on your ass any day of the week.”

Lilith bares her teeth. “I’d like to see her try.”

Beatrice looks back and forth between her two makeshift guides. They’ve naturally drifted to a stop at an intersection, more hallway ahead and a staircase at their left. They have bypassed any of the spaces open to the public and are now deep in the belly of the beast. The rooms they passed have begun to look more administrative in nature.

“You spar?”

Mary and Lilith look at her in surprise. Beatrice feels distinctly like she’d been forgotten. “Unofficially,” Mary offers. “I join in on some of their workouts, but it’d be a bureaucratic nightmare if I ever got seriously injured since I’m technically a civilian around these parts.” Mary raises a hand as Lilith opens her mouth. “Don’t.” Lilith begrudgingly closes her mouth.

Beatrice doesn’t really mind the detour, not with this piece of interesting intel. “What styles do you practice?”

Lilith takes this question. “The lot of us are freestyle martial artists. We each have specialties in taekwondo, muay thai, tang soo do, aikido.” Lilith delicately wrinkles her nose. “Mary here prefers boxing, for some reason. Heathen.”

“You are really asking for it,” Mary challenges with a shake of her head. “Someone rearrange your jam jars in the fridge or something?”

Beatrice raises her eyebrows in secondhand offense. Why on earth would someone do that?

Lilith is clearly incensed. “Fuck you, Mary.”

“Fuck you, too, Lilith.” It sounds too fond to be a true insult.

Beatrice clears her throat a little. “I don’t mind a spot of aikido myself.”

Again the surprise, though this time it’s accompanied by a rueful chuckle from Mary. “Yeah? That would sure explain all of the…” A hand gesture. “You know.”

Beatrice is not sure anything has been explained. “I’m sure I don’t.”

Mary laughs delightedly at this, like Beatrice has said a great joke, and leans over to sock her fist solidly into Beatrice’s arm. Beatrice sways with it to remove some of the impact, but it still hurts. She bites back a sound. “Okay, damn, someone’s been spending time at the gym.”

Lilith reaches over to get her hand around Beatrice’s bicep. Her eyebrows raise. “Impressive.”

“I–thank you?”

“Okay, okay, we need to stop being so familiar with poor Beatrice. She’s clearly overwhelmed!”

Beatrice looks blankly back at them.

Mary pats her on the shoulder before realizing she’s being overly familiar again, retracting her hand to shove it into her pocket. “Sorry, Beatrice. It’s just that we feel like we know you. With the whole–you know.”

The phrase ‘Ava’s Beatrice’ comes to mind.

Beatrice hums. “About that.”

“Right! You’re here to see someone. I’ll go get her. Sit your ass down.” Mary points at the bench behind them. Beatrice sits. Mary disappears with a satisfied nod and it is just Beatrice and Lilith. A minute ticks by. Two. Beatrice slowly peeks at Lilith out of the corner of her eye. Lilith looks just as pained about the prospect of small talk as Beatrice.

Three minutes.

“So,” Beatrice says. She rebalances the plate in her hand for something to do. “Have many calls today?”

Lilith groans. “No, thank goodness. The amount of documentation…”

“It also means,” Mary breaks in pointedly, striding over, “that no one is in danger.”

“Yes,” Lilith agrees, frowning. “That.”

Mary rolls her eyes before pivoting to Beatrice. “Ava will be right out. See you around, Beatrice.”

Beatrice returns Lilith’s nod. “See you.” She watches them go, their bickering fading as they disappear around the corner. When she turns her head away, she is smiling.

She waits for Ava.

Another minute goes by.

She’s not sure how she got here, to be honest.

Life comes at you fast.

Beatrice hears her coming. The firehouse floors are poured cement, and the ceilings are high. And, unlike Mary and Lilith, she is the embodiment of an exclamation mark. She doesn’t come from the direction of the administration offices, though. Instead, she bangs through a set of doors at the top of the stairs at Beatrice’s back. When she glances over her shoulder, curiously, she gets a twisting sense of deja vu.

The silhouette. The light at her back.

The woman catches herself at the railings at the top of the stairs before she trips down them. The act spreads her arms wide. Beatrice’s mouth goes dry for the way it highlights the breadth of her shoulders.

Then she steps down, and the light follows her.

“Hey,” Ava says, and it is bright, much brighter than it had been when they’d been huddled close in a sea of glass. Beatrice only now recognizes, in hindsight, the difference. The difference is exuberant, joyful, relieved, and it floods Beatrice with all-encompassing warmth. “It’s B!”

Ava moves over to Beatrice in small, quick strides. She rocks to a stop, pushed onto her toes and then back down, full of forward momentum and little impetus to stop. Like she had decided at the very last minute not to walk straight into Beatrice. It’s likely wishful thinking on Beatrice’s part.

“Hello,” Beatrice says. Ava’s hard stop had pulled her up closer to Beatrice than she’d probably intended. It means that Beatrice can see everything she’d missed the day of the accident. It also means that Ava can do the same. Beatrice watches Ava take a good, long look.

It is unexpectedly flustering, this close up inspection. Ava has seen Beatrice at, frankly, a less-than-ideal moment in her life. She has seen her smeared across the pavement. It would be no stretch to say–and in fact, Ava has already said–that the look Ava is giving her right now is simple appreciation for a life lived. For the fact that Beatrice is alive, and upright. A marvel, a “Look, there you are.” But there is something else in this appreciative little up-down.

Beatrice has always appreciated her body for what it can do for her, what it allows her to do: breathe, bike, stretch, perceive, live. It almost failed her. Ava saw it. But Ava isn’t looking at her like she’s appreciating Beatrice’s body for what it does for her. Rather, she appears to just be…appreciating. That Beatrice is here. It is honest and straightforward like nothing Beatrice’s ever seen before. Experienced. There’s something about Ava’s guilelessness that invites honesty. Beatrice thinks of all the ways she’s been asked to give pieces of herself away over the years. This doesn’t feel like that, though. Even with her thumb on Beatrice’s pulse, Ava had not asked of Beatrice more than she could give.

Beatrice thinks about how dangerous it is to let someone else cradle something as precious and singular as a human heart. How vulnerable. Voluntarily or not, Beatrice is being perceived and weighed and is not found wanting. Like instead her being here has tipped the scale into making Ava’s day better.

There is an outrageous, law-defying simplicity to showing one’s hand. Ava has layered hers in a clear line. Like it is easy. Like wearing your heart on your sleeve isn’t something frightening.

It’s…a lot. She needs a moment from it all. To regroup and to breathe and to think. Make sense of it. She was just here to deliver cookies and now she’s considering…? She needs to–she should probably–

Beatrice jerks her hand out. They both look down at it.

Beatrice generally doesn’t live life with regrets. However, this is shaping up to be one of them. But Ava again proves her ability to move quickly in the heat of the moment, and accepts the gesture with a small, good-natured smile. The handshake is firm, warm and over too soon. Beatrice remembers the scrape of Ava’s calluses and shivers.

“What’s the ‘B’ stand for, anyways?”

“Pardon?”

“Earlier, when Mary–the PM? When Mary introduced herself on site, and you said something back. ‘B’?”

Beatrice nods in understanding. “I wasn’t the most coherent, to be fair. ‘Bea’ is my nickname. Short for Beatrice, which is what I was trying to say, I’d imagine.” She goes to clasp her hands behind her back, realizes she’s holding the plate still.

“Cute.” Ava’s broad smile is lopsided, and the dimple it reveals is wicked deep. (The way Beatrice’s heart skips, she can only be glad she’s no longer hooked up to a monitor. She remembers the first time. Once was enough.) “Beatrice, it’s honestly a treat to see you upright and, y’know. Not bleeding.” The way Ava crashes through conversations is dizzying and strangely charming.

“Yes, thank you,” Beatrice replies. “I’m rather glad of it myself. All thanks to you, of course.”

“Oh–” Here, Ava waves a hand around, as if diffusing Beatrice’s words into thin air. “Please. I should be thanking you, for letting me talk at you–you were a captive audience, after all.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Beatrice says, straight-faced.

Ava squints at her, smiling a little. “It was pretty bad.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Yeah, well, you were possibly concussed, so you don’t exactly count.”

“No concussion, just bruises and scratches and such.”

“Ah,” Ava says, “‘Just a flesh wound.’”

Beatrice smiles, just a little. “‘I’ve had worse.’”

Ava’s body language opens further, eyes widening, jaw dropping. She has surprised her. The rebound is fast and energetic: “‘You liar!’”

“Come on then,” Beatrice says, deliberately fudging the line. She wonders if Ava will let it go.

No such luck. Ava immediately leans in to prod Beatrice’s shoulder. “No, say it the right way. I know you know it.”

“I will not! I just met you.”

“Say it!”

“Ava, I will not call you a pansy.”

“I am begging you to complete the cute movie quote thing we’ve got going on. I’ll cash in my ‘saved your life, you owe me one’ card if I have to.”

“I thought we agreed that it was only a flesh wound?”

Ava pokes her again. “Cashing it!”

“Sorry,” Beatrice says, utterly and brazenly unapologetic, “it’s a punch card and you still need four more punches to get a freebie.”

“Ugh, fine.” Ava sways closer, as if about to share a secret. Beatrice makes sure not to breathe and not to move–not toward and certainly not away. “Not like I actually want you to be in mortal danger. Keep your card.”

Beatrice softens, pressing her shoulder ever so slightly against the wall, bookending Ava. “Indeed. Once was one more time than I had ever anticipated.” Though they continue exchanging smiles, Beatrice can feel the moment they begin to draw out of their self-imposed silliness. Beatrice knows, better than most: all moments end.

“Hey, accidents happen.” Or not. Ava resuscitates it, breathing life anew into an encroaching ending.

Beatrice frowns at her. “Terrible.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“I’m not smiling,” Beatrice defends seriously, so serious, the most serious she has ever been. Her cheeks hurt. She has never relished a moment like this. Beatrice wonders what she has missed in her forward momentum, why she is only slowing now. There’s something about Ava that invites lingering. Beatrice likes it. Likes her.

“Of course not.” Ava rests her head against the wall they’re leaning against, rolls her temple against the plaster. There is nothing that could hide the way she looks at Beatrice.

It would be easy to look away, but somehow it is easier to look right back. “Jokes aside, I’m glad you were there. I would’ve been alone with my thoughts, and how terrifying is that?” They laugh. It is not an especially funny joke but that does not matter.

Ava’s smile fades but does not fall, caught as it is between her teeth. She looks at Beatrice for some time. Finally, the calculations are complete: “Can I hug you?”

This is most unexpected. Beatrice blinks. “You want to hug me?”

“You don’t have to. It’s just, sometimes it feels nice. Nothing beats a proper hug, you know?”

Beatrice…doesn’t. But it does sound nice, the way Ava describes it. And she is offering. Perhaps it could be as easy as accepting what comes her way.

In response, Beatrice sets down the plate and opens her arms. Beatrice finally gets the embrace she’d barely imagined, and it is more. She could never have anticipated how much more it is.

Ava hugs with her whole body, the same forward momentum from before propelling her solidly into Beatrice. They walk a few steps backwards before they stumble to a stop, feet pressed firmly together. Ava has gathered Beatrice into her arms, and Beatrice has never felt so held.

They breathe together for a long, hushed moment.

She feels Ava’s ribs against her own. Her belly. The quiet intimacy of the sensation surprises Beatrice, which in turn is a surprise–for what could have been more intimate than her blood on a stranger’s hands? But she is hyper aware of the way the world slows, just for a moment, while they breathe in syncopation. Like despite the astronomical rotations the planet hurtles through, the mountain that they make is massive enough to challenge the forward momentum of time, like a bicycle teetering at the apex of a hill.

A pause.

A plateau.

The view is surely beautiful from on top of the world.

Perhaps it is because Beatrice rarely lingers in anything, much less a tender moment. She wouldn’t expect it from her friends, much less a stranger who held her during her most vulnerable moments to date.

Put that way–

Beatrice exhales, slowly, and relaxes into a heavier hold. Ava does not stagger. Like the handshake, it is warm and firm and, despite it all, over too soon. They look at each other for a beat longer. Beatrice can feel the quiet slowly retract. She is at the top of a hill, looking down. Her foot is on the pedal.

Ava waits. She does not push but Beatrice would not move on without her.

So Beatrice pushes off. “I’ve seen you around.”

“I’ve seen you around, too.”

“Really?” Beatrice can’t help the surprise coloring her voice. It’s just, whenever she’s walked or ridden by when there was activity in the driveway, Ava had always been busy. Politely answering visitors’ questions, roughhousing or arguing playfully with her teammates and, on one memorable occasion, hosing down the truck. Surely she hadn’t seen Beatrice, in between all of that? Surely she wasn’t that memorable?

“Well,” Ava says, smirking a little, leaning against the wall next to Beatrice. The action pulls the sleeves of her t-shirt tight against her biceps. “The bright yellow vest and adorable helmet would grab anyone’s attention, ideally.” She leans in like she’s about to tell Beatrice a secret. (Beatrice can barely hear her over the dull throb of her pulse.) “It certainly got mine.”

Beatrice straightens, caught between furthering whatever is happening right now and defending her choice in attire. “They’re perfectly respectable! And responsible.” Then she rewinds the sentence. “...not adorable.”

(Adorable would be a–a small child riding a tricycle in jelly sandals. A group of friends howling in laughter. Not…Beatrice. Who certainly does not feel sexy in a bright reflective vest, but is also not looking to be. Normally. Perhaps it is worth reconsidering the mouth guard…? No, no. Unless…? No.)

Shrugging, and clearly enjoying herself, Ava asks, “Por que no los dos?”

And Beatrice, well. She isn’t sure what to do with that. With a cute firefighter in a tight t-shirt with dimples and compact muscles and a heart of gold and eyes stuck on her like she’s something special–

Beatrice glances down at her attire. She’s just in a monochromatic button-down and pants. And, alright, possibly these are her favorite pair of pants, the ones that taper at the ankles and, yes, where her waist slopes into her hips. She likes the way it fits to her shape, rather than Beatrice shaping herself to fit some other version of herself. (She’s had enough of that.)

Thereby steadied, she looks up.

Ava isn’t looking at her ankles.

Ava isn’t looking at her waist.

Ava is looking right at her, catching her gaze as soon as she glances back up. And there’s something about her smile. A little pleased, a little interested.

“Oh,” Beatrice says. “You’re–flirting with me.” She doesn’t mean to sound so scandalized.

“I mean, I can be, if that’s something you’re into.”

“Yes. No–yes! It’s just that I came to thank you. I wasn’t expecting–” It is no accident that ties Beatrice’s tongue. Ava’s smile does most of the tangling, though it is slowly fading the further Beatrice stumbles. “I–cookies,” Beatrice says, finally.

“Sorry?”

“Cookies,” Beatrice repeats firmly, getting her feet beneath her. “I brought something. As thanks. I figured that is what people do, after that sort of thing.”

“Well,” Ava replies, scratching her head. She has pushed up off of the wall, and at her full height is not that much shorter than Beatrice. This is important for a reason Beatrice isn’t examining too closely. “I’m not sure about other people. But I like–cookies. Did you–” Ava glances over her shoulder, at a head disappearing back into a doorway. She laughs a little under her breath and turns back to Beatrice. There is a vaguely apologetic shape to her expression. It makes for a charming, lopsided smile. “Actually, did you want to come with me?”

Beatrice does, in fact. “Yes.”

Ava raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t say where we were going. Awfully trusting of you.” Her body language screams relaxed, especially with her hands in her pockets. But Beatrice thinks–she thinks Ava looks a little more cautious in the face than she did a minute ago. She thinks her oratory fumble may have had something to do with that.

She’s not sure how to recover this. How does one clarify that they would indeed like to have been flirted with? In a casual, cool and totally relaxed way? Beatrice does not know how to act casual, not by herself, but is certain that given time she could come up with something. But then Ava gestures and they leave the moment behind.

She tries not to look behind her. Sometimes there’s nothing but to keep going.

So Beatrice merely says, “I thought tours required advanced notice?”

“We make exceptions,” is the succinct explanation. Then Ava continues, throwing a cheeky smile over her shoulder as she goes: “If it makes you feel any better, I can scrounge around for one of those little toy helmets we give the kids.”

Beatrice laughs, smoothing her hair down. “I’d look rather silly, wouldn’t I though?”

“I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say this again, but it would be…” Ava bites her lip. “Let’s just say it would be a cute look.”

Beatrice pinkens. “No one looks good in a tiny hat, Ava.”

“You would.”

She clears her throat as subtly as she can. “Your faith in me rivals my best friend’s.”

A tilt of the head. “Oh?”

“Yes. You met her, actually–Camila? She would have joined me but she’s still finding it difficult to move around.”

“Oh.” Ava looks surprised, then tentatively pleased. “She isn’t–you’re just friends?”

Beatrice tries not to frown, but she is a little confused (possibly dismayed). “I’m here instead of there, aren’t I? With you?”

“Right. Right, yeah. Uh–after you?” They have reached their destination without Beatrice noticing.

The kitchen is immediately spotless and neat. The space as a whole is an eclectic combination of old and new: stainless steel tabletop islands, scuffed linoleum floors, multiple black fridges, a long well-loved dining table and a gleaming coffee station.

“You spotted our pride and joy,” comes Ava’s voice. Beatrice swivels her head, watching as Ava walks past to gesture grandly at the coffee pot. It is enormous. “Caffeine is a must for long shifts. And this one makes enough for us to drink our collective weight in coffee. See?” Ava hefts the pot up by the handle. It is half-full, and Beatrice cannot help but notice the way the tendons in her forearm flex, how her shirt sleeve fits ever tighter around her bicep.

She swallows.

“I…see.” Beatrice is quite certain they are not referring to the same thing. Beatrice is also not being casual, cool or collected. She needs to at least pretend to play it cool before Ava notices. She blinks rapidly to break her line of sight. Luckily, Ava has already turned back to set the pot down carefully, the glass barely making a sound upon contact.

“Honorable mentions go to the grill, which is a crowd favorite in the summer, and the dishwasher.” The firefighter presents the latter piece of equipment with nearly as much excitement as the coffee pot, wide sweeping arms and an even wider grin. Beatrice claps politely. Or, she goes to and realizes she is still holding the damn plate. She sets it down on the counter with great relief and then resumes clapping.

Ava laughs and skips forward. They stand at the stainless steel table bisecting the kitchen, smiling at each other. Beatrice looks down, then away. It helps that she is adjacent and not directly next to Ava. It also helps to look around and not at Ava watching her still, those interested eyes of hers doing most of the talking.

Beatrice supposes she could say something. “I assumed there would be a pole.” Like that.

Ava laughs again, leaning onto her elbows. “No, sorry to disappoint. Blame OSHA. And anyways, we don’t even need them anymore. Hey, did you know that fire trucks were originally pulled by horses and fire stations originally only had stairs?”

Beatrice adds her own elbows to the table. “No. Am I to assume they are somehow related?”

Ava beams. “So glad you asked! Anyways, there apparently was a widespread problem where horses would climb the stairs to the living quarters, and you’d wake up with a horse standing over you.”

Beatrice is riveted to the spot. “Fascinating. And a hole in the ground with a pole going through it was the solution?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Fascinating,” Beatrice repeats. She taps her fingers against her lips in thought, imagining horses in this space. It is just the right amount of absurd, and she can’t quite hide her smile behind her hand.

“Welcome to The Cradle,” Ava says, shrugging exaggeratingly, though clearly delighted at Beatrice’s reaction. She pauses, glancing up and down Beatrice consideringly, and then bends to ruffle through a junk drawer. “Aha!” Ava playfully offers Bea a toy firefighter helmet clearly meant for a small child. “No tour is complete without offering our guests a complimentary helmet. And–” she seems to peer through the open door for interlopers and lollygaggers, then turns to Beatrice with a conspiratorial look. “–coffee.”

“Is coffee not a usual component of the tour?”

Ava smiles at her. “Depends on the guest.”

“Does this guest have permission to respectfully decline the tiny hat?”

“Oh, sorry,” Ava apologies unapologetically, “I, uh, also have a punch card that means you have to do as I say when I am offering you a tiny hat. Also, it’s a helmet, and you’ll look so cute with it.” She shakes the plastic helmet, wiggling her eyebrows as she draws closer. It’s annoyingly persuasive, because Beatrice allows Ava in her space–or perhaps that was the point–and the plastic is perched lightly at the crown of her head. She is close enough that Beatrice can feel her breath fan across her face and the fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She stills, recognizing the bit, and seeking to honor it. Wanting to be good for Ava.

Beatrice swallows. Ava notices, eyes dipping low and hesitating on their way back up.

It is either an improbable cosmic favor or some great generational misfortune that shifts Ava back a step, just out of her space. Beatrice exhales as quietly as she can. Maybe it can be both.

“Told you,” Ava says, after a moment. “Cute.”

The way she’s looking at Beatrice–

“Dinner?” Beatrice blurts out. She’s never blurted anything in her life. She clears her throat. “Would you want to have dinner? With me?”

“Like…a date?”

Beatrice sighs in relief. “Yes, exactly like a date.”

Ava doesn’t say no, but she doesn’t say yes either. Not immediately, and not long moments later.

Something hard winds its way through Beatrice’s stomach as Ava hesitates, brows pulling together over unreadable eyes. She hadn’t realized exactly how expressive Ava had been until the door had been pulled closed. And she’s kicking herself. Wishes there was a way to backtrack, to grab at the words she’d let unspool from her mouth and stuff it all back inside. At least when she was pining from afar there was no chance of rejection.

But she’d put herself out there, for the first time in–for the first time in quite some time. Clearly. Just as clear is Ava’s conflict, which is not a yes and just as good as a no.

Beatrice opens her mouth to say something, maybe apologize? No, it’s not that she’s sorry–only she is, that she’s ruined something that never began, smothered a flame before it could flicker. But it’s been years since she’s felt the need to be anything other than her unflinching self, and she won’t be sorry about asking a pretty girl out to dinner.

Still, she’s not sure what to say.

She, too, hesitates.

Perhaps it is Ava’s nature to fill the spaces where she’s needed. To fling herself into fires of all kinds, just to save someone else from burning. Because Beatrice feels like she’s on fire–her ears are hot, the back of her neck, her cheeks. Fire-engine red. How utterly apropos. And Ava clearly notices, because she takes half a step forward and opens her own mouth, paying attention to Beatrice and not to the words dropping out of her own mouth.

“It’s–shit, I’m messing this up. You’re–I mean, clearly, you are a–with all due respect, of course–you are an absolute catch. Fucking stunning, and adorable, yes, I said it. Your fucking helmet, which saved your fucking skull from getting fucking–before I even got to talk to–” By this point, Ava’s words crowd the air between them with urgent impact. She forcibly closes her mouth for a moment to breathe deeply, and when she starts again, it is more measured. Focused. Or at least it starts that way. “That’s not what I wanted to say. And, okay, I’d have to be an idiot to say anything other than ‘yes’–which–I am absolutely an idiot, so maybe that’s not the best line of logic…”

For a minute, Beatrice’s open mouth becomes a function of a different kind of speechlessness. Then, because apparently she’d also throw herself on a fire if it meant saving Ava from herself, even to Beatrice’s own detriment–because this sounds like a letdown, right? A rambly, soft one. Kinder than Ava needs to give. But a letdown nonetheless.

So Beatrice interrupts, says, “Ava–” Shakes her head. “I understand. You–you’re not obligated to make me feel better. You’ve more than filled your quota on that front.” Beatrice laughs quietly, a little helplessly, a little frantically, hands rising and dropping to slap at her thighs in a “What can you do?” gesture. “You’ll forgive me for asking, I hope. I just–I’ve wanted to speak to you for a while now. That’s all it has to be.”

There it is. An out, clear for the taking.

Except if Beatrice is kicking sand over the dragging, smoking remains of this conversation, Ava is determined to breathe air into it. Her eyes, dark and smoldering like banked coals, stay locked onto hers, even as Ava shakes her head quickly.

“No, that’s not–” Ava stops abruptly, mouth hanging open. So much of Ava is energy and movement and go-go-go, and the sudden brake is jarring. There is a beat, two beats, where Ava is just staring at Beatrice staring at Ava. The devastating sweep of her lashes might kill Beatrice, if the suspense doesn’t first. But Beatrice waits, barely breathing, as Ava processes something that’s just occurred. Finally, she rouses to life, breathing slow and speaking slower: “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Ava.” Beatrice feels wretchedly tender and terribly amused for the way she’s allowing Ava another look at the vulnerable insides of her bruised-not-broken heart. It is the opposite of safety, and here she is anyway, stepping without looking. Covering her eyes won’t contain anything, much less her messy emotional detritus, now that she’s cracked herself open. But the temptation lurks. So too does incredulity.

Doesn’t Ava get it?

Hasn’t Beatrice said enough?

Must she implicate herself further? A human heart can only beat so long outside of a body.

(Only, offering no longer feels so precarious. Ava has already proven she knows how to hold Beatrice together with the lightest of touches and the heaviest of holds. It would be staggering, the way it works, except Ava would not let her fall. Her arms know Beatrice now, and it is impossible for her to slip between her fingers.)

Perhaps the better question is: why isn’t Ava getting it? Or: why isn’t she taking the out and leaving them both to their dignities, relative and ragged as they are?

Beatrice considers this. Perhaps Beatrice has been taking so many steps in her head alone, and Ava is scrambling to catch up. It may be worth starting at the beginning, as revealing as it is sure to be. The rest is sure to fall into place.

She thinks of elongated moments and furtive glances. Takes heart not only from second chances, but from, too, second moments of mass. When someone exerts just enough influence to change a body’s rate of rotation, so that you’re not simply spinning your way through the chaos of the illimitable universe. Beatrice is back at the top of the hill with her foot on the pedal. Just long enough to stay in a moment and see what happens. “Have you ever tried to ride a bicycle really, really slowly?” she tries.

It’s clear that Beatrice has surprised her. Just as before, with the ambulance and Beatrice’s unspoken request to stay close, Ava runs to keep pace. “No. What’s it like?”

Beatrice nods. “It wobbles. You lose momentum. Not to mention energy to friction. You’ll tip over onto your backside if you’re not careful. So, most don’t bother. The bicycle is an efficient machine and you only work against that for a very good reason.”

“Okay,” Ava says, drawing out the vowels. Still, she stays. That’s the important part. “I’ll bite. Why might I want to ride my bike so slowly I almost fall over?”

“Parades,” Beatrice suggests, wryly, “and unexpected crowds and moments you want to last longer than they should. Say, a specific part of your daily commute. Around 7am.”

“So what I’m hearing is that you’re a damn good biker,” Ava says, admiringly. “Badass.” She is surprised and unsure and following Beatrice’s lead anyways.

Beatrice closes her eyes so she doesn’t roll them skyward, feeling that same sweet-hot rush of affection and frustration sweep through. “I’m saying it’s a miracle I didn’t crash earlier, with the way I take my time riding past the fire station. There’s this incredibly cute and incredibly dense firefighter who sometimes works out on the driveway.” Beatrice gestures at her own chin. “Hair to here, seems to be powered by puns and sunshine and caffeine. Sound familiar?”

Ava tucks her bottom lip between her teeth. Coy suits her. It makes Beatrice want to scream. “Sounds like someone I know…”

Beatrice, finally, gives in and rolls her eyes. “Yes, Ava, I’ve wanted to talk to you. It’s taken me a while to drum up the courage, but nothing says ‘Now or never’ like a life-threatening accident, I suppose.”

“I’ve wanted to talk to you, too,” Ava admits softly. It sucks all of the hot air from Beatrice’s lungs, leaves her deflated and airless and still. “I was so–I was kicking myself, that the first time I got to talk to you was in a literal life or death situation.”

A scrunch of the nose. “I rather think it worked out, all things considered.”

“Oh, god, yes! Yes, and look at you!” Ava makes a few unintelligible gestures at Beatrice before doing a clear sweep of the hand up and down Beatrice’s body. Finally, finally, her eyes clock the neat tuck. The tapered pant. And more besides. There are points of interest along Beatrice’s body she had not considered when getting dressed, but Ava voluntarily connects the dots with her eyes, skipping down then snapping up. Beatrice feels them like a touch.

This…doesn’t exactly feel like a letdown anymore.

It feels like…well, it almost feels like Ava isn’t totally opposed. To them. To Beatrice.

She’s not quite sure how to feel, much less proceed. It’s not a yes. And Beatrice isn’t looking to push–would never ask more of Ava than she’d willingly give. But Beatrice had been ready to walk away, knowing she put everything on the table. A clean, if painful, ending. This? This murky soup of conflicting words and sticky emotions? The path forward is less clear.

Normally, Beatrice would puzzle out something like this in the privacy of her own mind, but she’s already cracked herself open for Ava once, what’s another? Besides–Beatrice knows a thing or two about momentum. If she and Ava are in the middle of an upswing, really and truly in one, far be it for Beatrice to interrupt their kinetic energy. “So,” she says. “I wanted to talk to you. You wanted to talk to me. We’re talking now.” She clasps her hands loosely in front of her, tapping her thumb lightly against her knuckles. “Is that…it?”

“I mean.” Ava drums a beat against the table, glancing away. “It’s more than I expected? I thought at first–but then you brought the cookies. And you were like, ‘Oh, Ava, you’re the greatest, your kickass company helped me through a super shitty day and I made you Thank You Cookies,’ so I thought I was mistaken.”

“I didn’t say that,” Beatrice responds automatically, then frowns. “But I am thankful.”

“Great!” Ava nods vigorously. “And I’ll, like, never say no to cookies. It’s just, you don’t have to invite me to dinner, you know? You’ve already demonstrated your, uh. Gratitude. Which is so nice of you. Too nice, even.”

“You think I’m being too grateful?” Beatrice asks incredulously. “I feel like I am the appropriate amount of grateful, all things considered.”

Ava shuffles her feet, running a hand through her hair. Her eyes dart around, landing on Beatrice only for brief moments, but never straying far. “Jeez, now I’m feeling ungrateful. It’s just, you’ve already given so much. I can’t make you get me dinner, too.”

Beatrice stares at her, hard. Then she sweeps the plate of cookies off of the table into the trash can. “There. They’re gone. Now can I take you to dinner?”

Ava blinks rapidly. “Did you just throw away my Thank You Cookies?”

“Fuck your cookies,” Beatrice says, and this seems to really get Ava’s attention. “I’ll make you more, if you want. Let me take you to dinner. Not as a thank you. Not because I’m grateful. But because I like you and want to keep talking with you, and I think you want to keep talking with me, too.”

The smile, like all of Ava’s smiles so far, begins with her eyes. Dawning on the horizon slow and sure like a golden sunrise, spilling over the landscape of her face. Beatrice watches with wide eyes, unable to look away. “Yeah, Bea,” Ava says, low. “Alright. Take me to dinner.”

A shiver runs through Beatrice. It could be the delicious scrape of Ava’s voice in her lower register. It could be the electric fizz lighting up her surging blood. It could be the door down the hall, letting in a stiff breeze and the discordant noises of the outside world.

Which: “Silva!” A now familiar face pokes through the very door, a fearsome scowl set into handsome features. “Quit your flirting and come on! It's time to go!”

Indeed, one of the discordant noises is an alarm. Behind Ava’s coworker, Beatrice can see bodies rushing past the doorway. As one, Beatrice and Ava turn towards each other, wide-eyed.

“Go,” Beatrice urges, before Ava can say anything. “I’ll find you later.”

Still, Ava hesitates, though she inches towards the door. “Yeah, sorry? Fires wait for no one. But I feel like leaving right now is kind of weird.”

“Ava,” Beatrice says with a little huff of a laugh. “Go. I’ll be here.”

Something changes in Ava’s expression. It starts with the eyes as she looks down, then up. It feels like a door opening. The naked affection that unfurls across her face is staggering. “And thank god for that.” Ava rocks back into her, pressing a quick kiss to the apple of her cheek. “I like you, too,” Ava murmurs from up close. Beatrice thinks she could get used to this view. “I like that you’re kind and you’re cute and you know silly movie references. I like that we can be silly together. I like that it’s easy to talk to you. So, you better not be going anywhere, ’cuz I’m looking forward to a whole lot more of it.”

Before she falls back onto her heels, Beatrice snaps out a hand to tangle in Ava’s collar, using her momentum to keep her on her toes. Just a moment longer, because Beatrice knows she isn’t the only person who needs Ava’s attention. But long enough to brush her lips against the corner of Ava’s mouth, to feel Ava exhale shakily against her cheek. Then she flattens her hand against Ava’s sternum, and gently pushes.

The way Ava stares at her makes Beatrice smile. As does the way she stumbles backwards. Inexplicably, Ava smiles back.

“You, uh–” Ava gestures at her hair. “–should keep the hat. It’s a good look.” She bites her lip, and the shine in her eyes is both mischievous and so, so warm.

Beatrice’s smile freezes. Her hand flies up to her hair. “Ava!”

“You-already-asked-me-out-no-take-backsies-bye!”

Beatrice watches her flee, tiny plastic toy hat in hand. She turns it round a few times, tracing the brim. She laughs quietly to herself.

It feels kind of miraculous.

Ava’s only been in her life for a matter of hours, and already she feels irrevocably changed by her.

It’s funny, too. Beatrice didn’t know life could be like this. That life could be more when you have somebody who sees you for who you are, when they look past all the noise to seek you at the center of it all.

There is a shifting in Beatrice.

Her marrow, her bones.

Galaxies, gravity, star stuff.

Alone, Beatrice considers the matter. How we are all made of the same things that make our universe. That we are rotating bodies amongst an endless sea of stars.

In fact:

We, too, are made of moments.

We are moments of acceleration and speed and go-go-go, pauses and spaces in between.

We are moments away from dying, at any point. By any means. We are living and tripping and dancing and careening and falling, falling into place and falling over ourselves and falling in love and out of it.

We little specs: a beautiful, tragic coincidence. A comedy of errors. A happy accident.

In a universe like this? We matter only because we give ourselves meaning. Who out there in the wide cold universe really matters as an individual? We are nothing but our bodies, spinning and spinning through our busy little lives on our buzzing little planets.

Except, except:

We are nothing except to each other. We are strangers until we are not. We are alone until we are not. We enter each other’s orbit and rarely escape the fall.

Beatrice existed before Ava. She went through the motions, kept her head down and kept moving forward. Then she found her path, and ran and ran and ran after it. She moved quickly so that life would not pass her by. She bet on herself. She has pride in that.

She is not the same as she once was, and that’s okay, too. It isn’t a waste of time, even if she’s come so far down this path. She carries her past selves with her–she builds and becomes. She wants. Is wanted. She changes.

What do you care about? What do you want out of this life? You need not choose wisely so long as you choose. After all, you will not walk out of here alive.

Live fast, live slow. It doesn’t matter.

So long as you live at all.