Work Text:
Dear Beatrice,
Sorry for the cross-out. Sloppy work, but hopefully it reads as endearing with a note of authenticity. It felt kind of weird to write out your full name like that when you’re just Bea to me. Have been for a while. I’m not sure how much you enjoy that, but—you haven’t complained, so I’m going with it.
Hey, Bea.
I shouldn’t have put off writing this letter. It’s almost time to go, and now I’m locked in an epic battle between legibility and speed. Seems like battling is all I do anymore. Against Adriel and his goon cult, against Lilith, against the Halo when it craps out on me, against myself. But never against you. Even when we argue, fight, disagree, it’s never been me versus you. It’s been us, together, versus the problem. That’s important. Like I said, the problems we’ve faced can’t beat us. Not together.
I don’t know if you know how much that means to me. I haven’t had someone in my corner the way you are in a long, long time. I can barely remember having that at all. And it’s only a bonus that it’s been someone as amazing as you.
But this problem, today? This is one I have to face without you, Bea. And I’m more sorry sorrier for that than I’ve been for anything else. And I’ve been sorry for a lot of things.
You once said that things change when you realize that not everything is about you. As per damn usual, you were right. You were also right about something else that day—feels like forever ago—about me, being thoughtless and self-centered. Part of me wishes I still was. Part of me wishes you all—you, Mary, Camila, Mother Superion, hell even Lilith—hadn’t helped me realize how I needed to grow. It was easier to be the way I was before. But it wasn't better. And I want to be better. I want to belong to something in a way I never really have.
Still. Part of me wants to run away.
But it’s not because I want to live for my own sake. Not because everything is about me. Really, nothing’s about me. Never has been.
It’s because the selfish part of me wants to make everything about me, all about you.
And there it is. The big truth. That’s how I’ll say it in this letter, while kicking myself for not saying it sooner.
Since the Vatican, I’ve been thinking a lot about inevitability. All of these bizarre things that have happened to me—the car crash, the orphanage, dying, the goddamn Halo resurrection, who could have even imagined a sect of tactically-trained nuns, Jillian and her interdimensional arc, Adriel’s return—it’s all too fucking weird to be random. It’s gotta have meaning, and it’s hard to carry the weight of a purpose after floating by for so long without one. And I think my inevitable meaning is gonna cash itself in today. How do you prepare for that? Genuine question. Ask me tomorrow, if you can. Maybe I’ll have an answer.
But, hey. Even if all of this is inevitable—even if we’ve just been pawns in this bullshit game, even if everything has always been predetermined—that's okay. And there’s something I’ve gotta tell you. If my time with you was inevitable, I know I would’ve chosen that part anyway. And I would choose it again, as many times as I could. You’re part of my strange story. It’d feel wrong without you.
I hope you never see this goddamn letter. I hope tomorrow comes and I can rip it to shreds. I hope tomorrow comes and I’ll still have you in my corner, by my side, even with what I’m about to I have to do.
But it’s all gonna be for you. For you and all the rest, for the world. Maybe in some twisted way, that’s still thoughtless and self-centered of me. To make this a choice that affects all of you, too, behind your back. Just hope you can forgive me for it someday.
I want you to know that—sometimes—it’s okay for things to be about you. Be more thoughtless and self-centered, Bea. Live and love, twice as hard. Throw back some lemon drops. For me?
Time's up. None left to borrow. Glad we made the most of ours.
Yours in this life (because I am was, quietly but fully) and the next (I’ll find you there),
Ava