Chapter Text
Someone is walking toward her. She registers it, even as her body and mind refuse to react. She doesn’t know how long it’s been since Ava went through the portal. Doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting here, her hands gripping the edge of the arc painfully, like it’s her last lifeline to reality. The cruciform sword, laying abandoned, is her only focal point as she wills the blade to turn blue. Begs and pleads for a sign that Ava is coming back to her.
“Bea?” It’s Camila, her voice sounding as if she were underwater. “Are you okay? Where’s Ava?”
“I had to save her. She’s gone.” She hears herself speak but the words still feel as if they’re from a thousand miles away. Her heart clenches, throat seizes as she utters “The arc. It was the only way.”
She’s barely aware of the hot tears rolling down her cheeks as Camila kneels in front of her. Her eyes don’t leave the sword whose blade stubbornly, tauntingly stays grey. Camila places a gentle hand on her face, a thumb brushing tears away, too slow to stop the steady stream. “Oh, Bea. I’m so sorry.” There’s a pregnant pause before, “You did the best you could.”
It’s instantaneous as everything hits her at once. It feels like taking a breath for the first time after being trapped under water, and the labored sob that painfully wracks from her chest fills the empty room. Because she did, didn’t she? She did everything she could have. Ava wasn’t dead. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be because Beatrice did the best she could.
Her hands leave the arc as Camila wraps her arms around her, the sobs coming harder. She feels words leaving her mouth, pleading with someone, anyone, to tell her she did the right thing. She swears promises to the air, oaths of what she would give for a sign that it wasn’t for naught. Thrashes her hands against Camila’s shoulders in desperation because she had to let Ava go. Knew it was the only way. Ava would come back to her. She had to come back to her.
“I love her.” She hears herself gasp, her voice cracking with fragility, her body sagging in exhaustion in the safety of Camila’s arms.
“I know, Bea. And you saved her. She’ll come back. I know she will.” There’s such a deep sadness to Camila’s voice that it only deepens the devastation that has taken root in Beatrice’s chest. She hears another plead, one saying that they should go but she can’t. She’s rooted to the spot because what if Ava comes back right now? What if she returns and Beatrice is gone? What if she thinks she left her? The thought creates another wave of anguish, her lungs screaming for air as she wails.
It’s another moment of desperate sobs, of tight embraces, before a small prick on her neck tells her that her sister is going to take care of her. Her vision flickers, limbs go limp, and she catches sight of the sword one last time before things finally fade to black.