Chapter Text
The first thing Beatrice noticed was how strange the halls felt in her normal clothes.
The dark trousers fit loosely against her legs, it was almost unfamiliar after years of habits, uniforms and discipline stitched so tightly into every part of her life that even fabric had once carried meaning. Her dark blue coat was plain, soft with wear, and moved with her instead of against her. Her hair, pulled back into a low ponytail, brushed the nape of her neck whenever she turned her head, and the sensation of it felt… ordinary.
It should have made her feel freer.
Instead, it only made the silence louder.
The Order’s corridors had always carried a sound she knew by heart, boots against stone, distant voices softened by old walls, the low clatter of weapons after training, prayer murmured somewhere just beyond sight. This morning, everything felt hushed, like the convent itself understood what this walk meant and had chosen reverence over protest.
Her pace slowed when she reached the display.
The divinium sword rested behind glass at the end of the hallway, the blade polished to a silver gleam. It looked less like a weapon here and more like a relic, something sacred and untouchable. This was where the Order would keep it now, where future sisters would pause before it and hear stories about the girl who carried the halo and changed everything.
Ava barely conscious in her arms, her body trembling with pain as Beatrice held her upright in front of the portal, the light spilling around them in blinding blue. Blood had already darkened Ava’s clothes where the divinium shrapnel had hit, her breathing was shallow and broken, each inhale sounding like it hurt to exist. But even then, even on the edge of losing everything, Ava’s eyes found hers with clarity.
“Let me go,” she whispered, tears slipping down her face.
Beatrice said nothing at first. She only shook her head, small and helpless, because there had been no version of this moment that did not ask her to survive something impossible.
Her hand lifted almost of its own accord, fingers brushing Ava’s cheek softly, her thumb catching the path of a tear tenderly.
When she finally found her voice, it came out quiet. “Be free.”
Ava’s breath broke on a sob, her hand trembling as she raised it to hold Beatrice’s wrist, fingers warm and desperate against her skin. For a few suspended seconds, the world narrowed to that touch, the light of the portal, and the way Ava looked at her as if trying to memorize every part of her face.
“I love you,” Ava whispered.
Beatrice did not trust herself to answer. Her throat was too tight, her grief too vast, and so she did the only thing love could ask of her then. She smiled through the ache splitting her open and gently pushed Ava through the portal.
The light swallowed her whole.
Then the portal sealed.
Only then, staring at the place where Ava had been, did Beatrice finally let the words leave her.
“I love you.”
The corridor returned around her in a slow, aching rush, the sword once more resting silent behind glass. Beatrice stood in front of the case for a long moment, her reflection faint in the surface. For a second, memory was cruel enough to distort the angle and make it look as if Ava stood there beside her, shoulder almost brushing hers, hands shoved into her pockets, her grin already threatening trouble before a single word had even been spoken.
The illusion vanished when Beatrice blinked.
She briefly looked at the medallion in her hand. The OCS medallion had sat around her neck for so many years it had become part of her.
This, more than the duffel bag waiting by the front gate, more than the civilian clothes or the car parked beyond the courtyard, made the leaving real. She stepped closer and carefully placed the medallion beside the sword, the silver chain catching the same light as the divinium blade. For a moment she simply looked at them together, her life beside Ava’s legacy, her own vows resting next to the weapon that had become inseparable from the girl she loved.
Something inside her tightened and eased all at once, grief and surrender.
Behind her, footsteps approached. Mother Superion stopped beside her, close enough for Beatrice to feel the steady presence without needing to turn.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Superion’s voice cut gently through the silence. “Beatrice. The new recruits are waiting for you in the courtyard.”
The words settled heavily between them.
Another day.
Another duty.
Another version of the life Beatrice had always known.
For a moment she could almost see it, the recruits lined in formation, the smell of worn mats and metal, her own voice correcting posture, redirecting mistakes, shaping discipline into instinct. A life of repetition and service, steady enough to survive inside.
“I’m sorry, Mother Superion, someone else will have to teach them,” she said quietly.
Her voice was steady, but the words still scraped something raw on the way out.
The silence that followed held no disappointment, only understanding.
Mother Superion did not ask her to stay. She didn’t invoke vows, faith, or the needs of the Order. Perhaps because she knew what no one else would say aloud, that Beatrice had already given everything she could give, and what remained of her did not belong to duty anymore.
Beatrice inclined her head in the closest thing to farewell she could manage, then turned away.
As she passed Mother Superion, Camila.
Her gaze moved quietly over the plain clothes, the loose ponytail resting against the back of her neck, then finally to the empty space at her throat where the OCS medallion had always been.
She did not look surprised.
If anything, her expression was that of someone watching something inevitable finally arrive.
Beatrice felt it then with sudden painful clarity, that Camila had known. Maybe not all at once, maybe not from the beginning. She did it with every every glance Beatrice had let linger too long. Every reckless choice, in every fracture in her composure whenever Ava’s name entered a room. Camila had seen it long before Beatrice ever found the courage to name it herself.
Love had made her visible.
Camila’s eyes shimmered faintly, but she only offered her a small smile.
Understanding.
Beatrice slowed just enough to rest a hand briefly against Camila’s shoulder as she passed.
The gesture lingered for only a second but it carried everything she could not bear to say aloud.
Thank you.
I’m sorry.
Take care of them.
No words followed her down the corridor.
Only the certainty that some people had understood her love story even while she was still trying to understand it.
The courtyard opened into morning light and cool air. Somewhere deeper within the convent grounds came the sharp sounds of training, boots striking mats, wooden staffs colliding, the clipped voices of recruits answering commands in unison. Sounds that had once structured every hour of Beatrice’s life so completely she could not imagine existing outside them.
Now they reached her from a distance, already beginning to belong to someone else.
Her pace slowed slightly as she crossed the stone path, and against all expectation, a small smile touched the corner of her mouth.
She had told Ava to be free.
The words had lived inside her ever since the portal closed, echoing through every sleepless night, every silence heavy enough to bruise. At first Beatrice had thought they belonged only to Ava, one final act of love, of sacrifice. But somewhere between grief and leaving, she had begun to understand the truth buried inside them.
Freedom could not be something she only wished for the woman she loved.
It had to belong to her too.
Not Sister Beatrice of the Order of the Cruciform Sword. Not a weapon shaped by vows and duty and war. Just… Beatrice. A person with a heart made heavy by loss. A woman who had loved deeply enough to let someone go, and who now had to learn how to survive the emptiness left behind.
The realization hurt but it also felt like breathing after years underwater.
Ahead of her, Father Vincent stood speaking quietly with Sister Nora. Their conversation faded when they noticed her approaching. Nora’s gaze went over her civilian clothes, then softened with immediate understanding. Father Vincent simply watched her with a small smile, as though he had already pieced together the shape of this moment long before it arrived.
Beatrice inclined her head once in quiet acknowledgment, kept walking and did not look back.
By the time she reached the car, the ache in her chest had settled into something quieter and more dangerous than pain.
Emptiness.
—-————————
The drive to the coast took hours.
At first there were highways and city roads, lanes stretching forward beneath a gray sky, signs blurring past too quickly to matter. Then the city gave way to smaller towns, and those dissolved too into long roads lined with grass moving with the wind.
Beatrice drove with both hands fixed to the wheel, her posture still too rigid, too military, like discipline alone could keep the unraveling at bay.
It was strange, being alone with her own thoughts for this long.
No missions to review, no training schedules, no sisters in the next room. No Ava leaning against the passenger window, teasing her for gripping the wheel like it had personally offended her.
A memory surfaced suddenly...
Switzerland.
Not the postcard version of it with open mountains and untouched snowfields, but the cramped little apartment they had rented while hiding from the world. One bedroom barely large enough for the bed pressed against the wall, a tiny kitchen with old cabinets, a couch that creaked every time Ava threw herself onto it dramatically after work.
For weeks, that shoebox apartment had become their entire world.
During the day they worked shifts at the local bar a few streets down from the apartment, Ava charming tips out of half the customers while Beatrice learned how to pretend she belonged somewhere ordinary. At night, or on the rare mornings they both had free, they trained wherever they could, empty alleyways behind the building, frozen parking lots, abandoned stretches near the river. Ava complained constantly through every session.
“You know normal best friends don’t do combat drills before breakfast, right?”
Beatrice had adjusted her stance without sympathy. “Your balance is still inconsistent.”
“My balance is fine. You’re just terrifying.”
And somehow, despite the danger hanging over them every second they stayed there, despite Adriel and the Order and the constant fear of being found, those weeks had become one of the closest things Beatrice had ever known to happiness.
Because for the first time, there had been moments where Ava belonged only to herself.
No Halo.
No prophecy.
Just Ava laughing too loudly in their tiny kitchen while trying to cook pasta with music playing from her phone.
Just Ava falling asleep on the couch during terrible movies.
Just Ava.
The memory shifted again.
A late night after they had both returned exhausted from the bar. Ava had been sprawled sideways across the couch, one sock half hanging off her foot, while Beatrice sat at the tiny kitchen table cleaning a cut along her knuckles from training earlier that day.
“If this ever ends,” Ava said quietly, her voice softer than the dim apartment light around them, “I want a place near the ocean.”
Beatrice glanced up from the bandage wrapped around her hand. “The ocean?”
“Yeah.” Ava smiled faintly, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the ceiling. “Somewhere small. Quiet. I want to wake up and hear waves instead of alarms. Smell salt instead of blood. No demons, no missions, no destiny.” Her expression softened into something unbearably hopeful. “Just mornings.”
The memory dissolved slowly, the warmth of the apartment fading back into the road stretching ahead of her.
And for one moment, it almost felt like Ava was still there beside her.
Beatrice could nearly see her in the passenger seat.
Sneakers kicked up on the dashboard despite repeated protests. Hair messy from sleep. The sleeve of her jacket half covering her hands as she leaned across the center console with immediate offense already written across her face.
“I’m sorry, are we trying to set a world record for saddest drive imaginable?”
Her hand would have reached instinctively for the radio.
Because Ava hated driving in silence for too long.
Beatrice’s fingers tightened slightly around the steering wheel as the phantom movement vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
The passenger seat sat empty beside her.
Only her folded jacket remained there now, while absence settled into the space Ava used to fill so effortlessly.
By the time the sea finally appeared, Beatrice’s breath caught hard enough to hurt.
It was beautiful.
Ava would’ve loved it.
The beach house stood at the edge of a coastal road, weatherworn, quiet, its white paint peeling from the porch railings and the porch faced the ocean like the whole structure had been built around waiting.
Beatrice parked and sat motionless behind the wheel long after the engine died.
The sea was loud here, though not violent, not yet. Waves pulling in and out filling the hollow spaces inside her with something vast, ancient, and lonely.
This was what Ava had wanted.
A place where mornings belonged to light instead of survival.
A place where love might have had room to become ordinary.
The thought was so painful Beatrice had to close her eyes.
When she finally stepped out, the wind met her immediately, cool and salty, tugging loose strands of hair from her ponytail. For one impossible second, she could almost imagine Ava stepping out beside her, taking one look at the crooked porch and laughing before declaring it perfect.
The ache of that imagined laughter followed her all the way inside.
The house was small but warm. A worn sofa near the front windows faced the sea. The kitchen was small, sun faded, and simple, with blue cabinets softened by age. Upstairs, the bedroom overlooked the shoreline so closely it almost felt as if the tide might rise to meet the glass.
Beatrice unpacked slowly, mechanically.
Clothes folded into drawers.
Toothbrush by the sink.
A book on the bedside table she knew she wouldn’t read.
The rituals of settling in felt hollow, but she clung to them anyway because movement was easier than stillness… because stillness made the emptiness impossible to ignore.
Once the small rituals of unpacking ended, the house seemed to settle around her in a silence so complete it almst felt physical. No footsteps moving lazily through the hallway, no sound of Ava opening and closing cabinets while looking for something to eat, no voice suddenly cutting through the quiet with irreverence and warmth simply because she hated rooms that stayed serious for too long.
Beatrice sat on the edge of the bed, her hands resting loosely against her knees as the ocean murmured beyond the windows. Across from her, the second half of the mattress remained untouched and painfully empty beneath the evening light.
For a long moment she simply sat there and let the reality of it exist around her.
This house.
This life.
The terrible, aching permanence of Ava’s absence inside both of them.
And despite everything, despite the grief pressing against her ribs, some fragile part of her could still picture Ava here so easily it hurt. Curled sideways across the bed with wet hair after swimming. Complaining dramatically about the ancient plumbing. Stealing half the blankets in the middle of the night and denying it the next morning with complete confidence.
The imagined version of her felt so vivid that Beatrice had to close her eyes for a moment before the longing swallowed her whole.
By nightfall, the quiet inside the house had become enormous. It settled into every corner and stretched through every room until it no longer felt like silence but something vast enough to live beside her. Beatrice could feel it in the hallway outside the bedroom, in the creak of old wood beneath the wind, in the untouched space beside her on the bed where absence seemed to gather weight of its own.
Sleep came only in fractured pieces.
Every time she drifted under, memory waited for her there. Portal light burning blue against stone walls. Ava’s trembling hand locked tightly in hers. The softness of I love you spoken at the edge of goodbye, fragile enough to break her all over again each time she heard it.
Beatrice woke sometime after midnight with her heart pounding hard enough to hurt. For a few seconds she did not know where she was, only that grief still sat heavily inside her chest like something living. She sat up slowly, disoriented for only a second before the sound of the waves returned to her senses.
That was when she saw her.
Ava stood at the shoreline, barefoot where the surf kissed the sand, her dark figure unmistakable beneath the moonlight.
Still.
Facing the house.
Facing her.
The sight was so vivid it stole the breath from Beatrice’s lungs.
For one suspended heartbeat, hope overpowered reason.
She was moving before thought could catch up, throwing off the blankets, rushing barefoot down the stairs, the wooden steps cold beneath her feet. The front door flew open hard enough to rattle against its hinges, and the night wind struck her face sharp with salt.
“Ava!”
Her voice broke against the surf.
She ran across the sand the cold water rushing over her feet as she reached the place where Ava had stood.
Empty.
The shoreline stretched untouched before her.
No figure.
No footprints.
Nothing except the hiss of the tide pulling itself back into darkness.
Beatrice stopped so abruptly the force of it jarred through her body.
Her breath came fast, shallow, and unbelieving.
She knew what she had seen.
The image of Ava’s shoulders, the line of her bare feet, her hair moving in the wind.
And yet the sea offered nothing.
Only moonlight and the endless cruelty of waves that erased everything they touched.
A laugh escaped her then, sharp and broken.
Of course.
Of course grief would learn how to wear Ava’s face.
Of course longing would become visible.
She stood there with the cold surf around her ankles, arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring at the place where hope had lasted only seconds.
For the first time since the portal closed, she let herself whisper the truth into the dark.
“I came here because you wanted this.”
The wind stole the words almost immediately.
Her throat tightened, but she kept speaking anyway, because there was no one here to hear the breaking in her voice except the sea.
“And because some part of me still thought… maybe you’d know where to find me.”
The confession vanished into the waves.
No answer came.
Only the tide, reaching and retreating, over and over.
When she finally turned back toward the house, the porch light spilled a gold square onto the sand, and the sight of it felt lonelier than any battlefield she had ever crossed.
Back upstairs, she left the curtains open.
If Ava appeared there again, dream or grief or memory, Beatrice could not bear the thought of missing it.
She lay awake listening to the sea for what felt like hours, the sound filling every hollow place inside her until exhaustion finally softened the edges of thought.
Outside, the tide kept moving beneath the moon.
In and out.
Like a breath.
Like a prayer.
And somewhere in the fragile place between memory and longing, Ava had already begun to haunt the life Beatrice had built for her.