Chapter Text
Day 19
Ava loved being in Switzerland, she loved being there with Beatrice and she loved walking around town and she loved the apartment she shared with Beatrice… did she mention that she loved spending time with and living with Beatrice?
She felt like they didn’t really do that much to mark the transition though, especially considering it was such a big change for Ava – Ava had to assume that it was a big change for Beatrice too, but god, Ava had barely left the same room for years, let alone the country.
Beatrice had changed her wardrobe up – she had to, the girl only had habits and sparring gear – and so had Ava – who also had to, considering the only clothes she had were from Mary, and Shannon… The halo bearer that came before her, who Ava felt she would forever be indebted to considering that her death was the only reason why she had this second chance at life. Ava would have to be blind to miss the way that the others sometimes looked at her – as if they were searching for someone else first, expecting another woman, a stronger, braver, smarter woman to be in her place and rather seeing only Ava, who had walked for the first time in twelve years just over a month ago, whose natural predisposition was to choose flight over fight, who didn’t have developed enough fine motor skills to do her own hair or write a sentence or tie her own shoelaces when she was first taken to Cat’s Cradle.
And she would have to be stupid to not understand how her relationships with all her new friends were intertwined with some type of grief. Grief for Shannon, mostly, but also grief for the Order, for the person that they all thought Vincent was, for the very religion that all of this revolved around – in Beatrice’s case, at least. Ava had been perceptive enough to notice that she hadn’t been praying with the same consistency that she used to.
She had also been perceptive enough to notice that Beatrice was becoming more and more relaxed around her, more and more trusting of Ava. The casual touches, the more frequent smiles and laughter that only Ava could coax out of her, the nights where they laid side by side, talking quietly in the darkness of the room and seeking out the physical comfort of having the other by their side – Ava loved all of it.
She loved being in Switzerland. But again, she felt like she hadn’t- they hadn’t done anything to mark what was looking to be a big transformation in both of their lives.
There was nothing that said that they had to do something to mark it, but Ava wanted to. She was going a little crazy, looking in the mirror everyday and seeing the same girl that stared back at her from the window of the shoe store on the first night that she woke up again, yet knowing that she had already changed so much.
And so Ava found herself pacing a little nervously in their small kitchen, waiting for Beatrice to get home from her morning shift. She kept glancing at the scissors she had pulled out of a drawer and left out on the counter, focusing very hard on restraining herself from just going into the bathroom and doing it herself – no matter how much she wanted to cut her hair, she knew she should wait for Beatrice to get back. She knew that Beatrice would be better at it than she was, even without knowing that Beatrice had cut Camila’s hair for her when she first came to the convent she would know that – Beatrice was good at everything.
Ava jumped when she heard the door unlock.
“Beatrice,” she called out, a little quieter than she meant to.
“Hello, Ava,” Beatrice called back as she took her shoes off in the walkway, before moving into the living room and seeing Ava kind of just standing awkwardly in the kitchen. “Is everything alright?”
“I want to cut my hair,” Ava said all of a sudden, the words bursting free despite the fact that she had prepared a much more graceful way to say the same thing. “I, um- sorry. I’ve been waiting for you to get home. I wanted to ask if you could help me cut my hair.”
Beatrice looked surprised, and Ava didn’t blame her. “I could help you find a salon, if you want? They’d do a much nicer job than me, Ava.”
Ava shook her head though, she wanted Beatrice to do it for a reason. “It’s fine if you don’t want to, but I can’t- I, um, have a thing with people touching around my neck because of the whole… because of a lot of things, and I’m worried that I won’t be able to control the halo if someone I don’t know is doing it, y’know?”
Ava winced as she trailed off and finished her rambling, she wouldn’t blame Beatrice if she was confused, but to her credit, Beatrice only nodded and took her seriously.
“Did you want to do it… today?” Beatrice asked, walking further into the kitchen and leaning against the table, looking at the scissors Ava put out on the counter as well.
Av nodded hopefully and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for.”
Beatrice smiled, a small and quick thing, but beautiful nonetheless, and moved to the counter, picking up the scissors and swinging them around a little. “Well, these scissors just won’t do. Why don’t we go to the chemist first. We’ll get some proper scissors, and whatever else we may need.”
Ava couldn’t contain her excitement, the flash of the halo brightening the kitchen matched the warmth she felt flooding in her chest. “Really?”
Beatrice grinned, one of Ava’s favourite smiles, where Beatrice’s teeth were showing. “Yes, unless you have something better to be doing?”
Ava shook her head quickly, deadly serious even though she knew Beatrice was just teasing. “No, nope. I’m coming, give me just one minute to get my shoes on.”
—
“I know you don’t always like it when I relate things back to the mission,” Beatrice started, hair cutting scissors and a new comb in hand while they scanned the aisles for something else Beatrice said they needed, “But it’s probably a good idea to change our appearances a little. I should’ve thought of that earlier. It’ll help us stay undercover even more.”
Ava swung her hands as she walked alongside Beatrice, shoving them into her pockets when she accidentally got a bit too close to a shelf and nearly knocked some things off. “Are you going to do anything with yours? Other than wearing it out now?”
Beatrice looked thoughtful, but Ava couldn’t tell if it was because of her question or because she was still searching for something. She finally found what she was looking for, sectioning clips, and then answered Ava’s question.
“I’m not sure what I’d do,” she said quietly. “I’m not too sure about cutting it just yet.”
“You don’t have to. You could colour it,” Ava suggested, they had just walked down the aisle with all the hair dyes.
Beatrice laughed breathily. “I’m not too sure about that yet either.”
Ava smiled and knocked her shoulder against Beatrice’s. “It doesn’t have to be anything too much, I think highlights would look good.”
“Highlights?”
“Yeah,” Ava said, “Not too much, but enough to throw people off in case they recognise you a bit.”
Beatrice looked like she was seriously considering it. “I’ve never dyed my hair before, only cut it. Do they come with instructions?”
Ava frowned as she thought about it. Surely, right? “Surely, they have to.”
Beatrice was silent for around a minute, until they looped back around to get to the checkout and passed the hair dyes again.
“Thinking about it?” Ava prodded slightly when Beatrice stopped walking.
Beatrice nodded, and Ava smiled when she walked further down the aisle to find some blonde dye.
“I can help, if you want,” Ava offered from behind Beatrice.
“Have you ever done this before?”
“Well, no, but… I can still help.”
Beatrice turned around and smiled at Ava. “I’m not 100% sure that I’ll do this today. It’s just in case.”
Ava smile and took the dye from Beatrice so her hands weren’t too full, before they started to walk back up to join the end of the queue.
—
“I’m going to head into the bathroom, clear the counter and set the space up,” Beatrice said once they had walked through the front door of their apartment, dropping the keys into the ceramic bowl on the table against the wall. “Do you want to grab a chair and bring it into the bathroom for you to sit on?”
Ava nodded, and they split off to do what they said they would. She allowed a wave of nerves to settle over her, allowing herself to feel it for a brief moment before taking a deep breath to calm herself down, like Beatrice had taught her.
Beatrice smiled at her when she walked into the bathroom with the chair, even though it was a very tight fit for the both of them to be in there with an extra chair. She placed a hand on Ava’s back and rubbed circles over the halo, Ava hadn’t even noticed that it had started to flare.
“Feeling okay?” Beatrice asked, her brow slightly furrowed.
Ava nodded and swallowed harshly, wiping her hands on her shorts. “Yes, yeah uh- I’m a little nervous. I’ve never… um, this is the first time I get to choose my haircut.”
She hadn’t felt this nervous in a long time. Surprisingly, though, Beatrice’s presence was doing a lot in helping her to calm down.
Ava still kind of wanted to curl up into a ball and cry when Beatrice’s eyes filled with empathy, though. “I didn’t realise, Ava.”
“Would it change anything if you did?” Ava asked as she shrugged, laughing once, more just a harsh exhale of air than anything.
“No,” Beatrice answered immediately. “It just… the way you asked me this morning makes more sense now. You’re never usually so nervous to ask for something. I was a little worried.”
Ava couldn’t help but smile – Beatrice was so nice. “It’s also why I don’t want to go to a salon. They might do it wrong.”
“It might look bad if I do it though,” Beatrice rebutted, looking a little unsure of herself.
Ava shrugged again. “Wouldn’t really care, to be honest. I just want a change, and even if it does look bad, which it won’t, you’d still have listened to me and cut it how I wanted.”
Beatrice smiled quickly. “Are you comfortable in those clothes? I’ll wash your hair first, and then we-”
“Do you have to wash it?” Ava asked, the sudden panic coursing through her causing her to interrupt Beatrice.
“I’d like to at least get it wet, yes,” Beatrice answered, frowning as she started to pick up on Ava’s increased nervousness. “But it would be best to wash it, so I can see how it sits naturally, with no product. Do you not want me to?”
Ava took a deep breath, in and out, another one, in and out. “I, um… didn’t realise that it was something people usually did when they got a haircut. Remember when I said I had a thing about people touching my neck?”
Beatrice nodded seriously, and Ava decided that she could be brave and open up.
“It’s because, um… at the orphanage, at St Michael’s, Sister Frances, she… She tried to kill me when I went back to see Diego. She stabbed me in the neck with a syringe and it’s why I’m kind of jumpy when people touch my neck now. And when I was there as a kid, when I couldn’t move, it meant I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t wash my own hair, Bea. And the nuns, they weren’t all that sympathetic to me. What with them thinking I was born an abomination and everything. They were rough and purposely didn’t completely rinse my hair a lot of the time, and they didn’t care to cut it well. They knew it would humiliate me and it worked. I dreaded every week’s wash day because of it. They always used super fucking cold water, and it just hurt. I could only feel things from the neck up, so I was like, super sensitive, but they didn’t care.”
Ava didn’t want to look up at Beatrice; a life’s worth of shame and trauma dredging itself up suddenly and making her regret opening up, worried that Beatrice would suddenly see that the other nun’s were right and that Ava wasn’t worth the time or care.
Ava’s worries quickly subsided though, when Beatrice’s warm hands tucked her hair behind her ears and cupped her face.
“Thank you for telling me,” Beatrice whispered, swiping her thumbs across Ava’s cheekbones slowly. “That was incredibly brave.”
Ava chuckled humourlessly. “I was just talking.”
Beatrice shook her head. “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do what you just did, opening up like that. And that’s not your fault, not at all, it’s just a question of courage. A level of courage and bravery you have that I will forever admire.”
“You’re plenty brave, Bea,” Ava argued quietly, feeling a little frustrated at herself that Beatrice’s words so quickly made her tear up a little.
Beatrice shook her head. “Not in the same way you are.” She kept rubbing Ava’s cheeks with her thumbs, a calming motion that Ava could anchor onto, and then continued after a brief pause. “It would be easier for me to wash your hair first, and the length of it will probably come out much more even. If it helps, I promise to be gentle. It’s not impossible for me to cut it dry though, and I’m happy to do whatever you’d like.”
Ava pulled away so she could think about it for a minute. She knew Beatrice wouldn’t be like the other nuns, she was just… scared. She wanted to do this though, and she trusted Beatrice, and she wanted it to look as good as possible even if she told Beatrice she wouldn’t care if it looked bad – she wouldn’t, at least not after the first couple days, but she still wanted to reduce the chance of a bad haircut by as much as possible.
Ava nodded.
“I’m not quite sure what you’re nodding to,” Beatrice laughed quietly.
Ava smiled. “You can wash my hair.”
Beatrice smiled too, another one where her teeth showed. Ava was on track for a new record of the amount of times she saw that smile in one day, the previous record was two.
—
Beatrice was gentle, like she said she would be. She got an extra towel for Ava to put around her neck so that water wouldn’t drip down her back when she got her hair wet, and she brought in a cushion for Ava to sit on as well while she leant back against the side of the bathtub.
“Is everything okay so far?” Beatrice asked, hovering above Ava as she ran one hand through her hair to make sure it all got wet while another held the detachable shower head.
“Mhm,” Ava said, comfortable but not quite comfortable enough yet to close her eyes. This was already so much better than at St Michael’s. The water was warm. She actually liked the person doing it for her. Beatrice was gentle and made sure no water got in her eyes.
Beatrice eventually turned the water off and started to lather shampoo into Ava’s hair. Her hands were simultaneously gentle and firm on Ava’s scalp, massaging in circles as the two of them conversed quietly.
Ava did most of the talking while Beatrice focused on washing Ava’s hair. She was clearly taking her time, and Ava appreciated it, even if it meant that Beatrice was just playing with the bubbles in her hair for a bit. When Beatrice asked her to close her eyes so that no soap would get in them by mistake Ava knew that the shock and surprise was evident on her face when Beatrice looked inexplicably sad for a moment.
Yes, she may have never been given that warning from the nuns at St Michael’s and used to have sore eyes for hours after each time they washed her hair, but she didn’t mean to make Beatrice sad. So she asked her another question about aikido in hopes that it would cheer Beatrice up to tell Ava about something she liked.
Ava eventually fell silent when Beatrice started to condition her hair, no longer feeling compelled by nerves to keep conversation up with Beatrice. She didn’t miss how it was kind of pointless for Beatrice to be conditioning the ends of Ava’s hair considering she was about to cut it off, but she appreciated it still nonetheless. She had just started to understand how this could be an enjoyable experience, and liked how she felt supported when she let herself lean back into Beatrice’s hands.
“Okay, the conditioner needs to sit for a few minutes,” Beatrice said quietly, rocking back on her heels to stand up and rinse her hands at the sink, before sitting down on the chair Ava brought in. “You’re still feeling okay?”
Ava nodded and smiled at Beatrice, just something small, her lips still pressed together, but she hoped Beatrice could feel how grateful she was that Beatrice cared so much that this process was as smooth as possible for Ava. “You’re so much better at this than Sister Frances.”
Beatrice laughed, and yep, Ava was right, she did break the record for how many times she got to see Beatrice’s toothy grin in a day. “I’d hope so.”
They talked until Beatrice knelt down next to Ava again and started rinsing her hair out once more. This time Ava closed her eyes on her own accord and tried to memorise the feeling of this, of feeling safe and cared for and warm.
“Okay, up,” Beatrice said eventually, after she wrapped a towel around Ava’s hair and extended a hand to help Ava up.
She helped steady Ava as she stood, a hand on her shoulder and hip was all she needed.
“Thank you,” Ava said quietly, gratefulness seeping into her tone. “Again. And for agreeing to do this for me. I know it probably wasn’t how you were planning to spend your afternoon.”
Beatrice smiled and guided Ava to sit down on the chair, unravelling the towel and starting to dry her hair once she did. “It wasn’t, no, but this was a good idea, Ava, and I’m always happy to help.”
Ava couldn’t help but smile even as she was starting to feel a little nervous again.
Beatrice’s hands were running through her hair again, done drying and now brushing and sectioning it all out so that it would be easier to make sure it was all one length.
Ava shivered when Beatrice ran the tail end of the comb down the middle of her head, and then from her crown to the top of her ear before twisting it up and out of the way and using a clip to hold it in place.
“Are you alright?” Beatrice asked, stopping what she was doing and looking at Ava through the mirror. “Did that hurt?”
“No,” Ava whispered, shaking her head but careful not to dislodge any of Beatrice’s hard work. “Just ticklish.”
Beatrice resumed what she was doing and it wasn’t long until she was tying up the bottom section of Ava’s hair into a ponytail. “Did you want to make the first cut?” She asked, holding the scissors out to Ava over her shoulder.
Ava thought about it briefly, nearly took the scissors from Beatrice, but then changed her mind. She wanted Beatrice specifically to do this for a reason. She trusted her and she wanted her to be a part of another of Ava’s firsts – getting to choose her own haircut. She also was worried about cutting diagonally and unintentionally forcing Beatrice to cut it shorter than she wanted to.
“No,” Ava exhaled shakily. “I want you to do it. Thanks, though.”
“Okay,” Beatrice nodded. Ava appreciated that she took it as an answer and didn’t ask Ava if she was sure, which may have caused her to start second guessing the whole idea of cutting her hair to her shoulders. “Here goes nothing, then.”
Beatrice worked efficiently, but she was always considerate of how much of a change this would be to Ava as well and constantly checked in with her, how she liked it and how she was feeling. It took her around half an hour to be happy with it, most of that time was spent cleaning it up and making sure Ava was happy with the length. Ava asked for some pieces to frame her face at the front, and she held her breath when Beatrice angled her head a specific way before cutting her bangs, focusing so so hard on not moving and disrupting Beatrice.
Ava’s hair was mostly dry by the time they both considered the haircut finished, but she took the towel Beatrice handed her anyway and ruffled her newly short hair with it to dry it even more.
She loved how light she felt, and couldn’t help but start to laugh out of pure happiness. Her hair was all over the bathroom floor and they needed to clean it up before Beatrice could dye her hair, but she felt good and she was smiling and so was Beatrice and Ava was so, so appreciative of her she didn’t know how to put it into words, so instead she stood up from the chair and pulled Beatrice into a tight hug, thanking her over and over as if words alone could somehow possibly convey any part of her gratitude. She knew they couldn’t but she tried anyway.
“I’m glad you like it, Ava,” Beatrice smiled, clearly happy for her.
“I love it, Beatrice,” Ava sighed happily, pulling away from the hug and turning around so that she could look at her hair in the mirror again. She ran her hands through it once more, and she felt Beatrice brushing off some of the small hairs that rested on her shoulders. “Really, thank you,” she added, turning around to face Beatrice once more.
Beatrice only nodded. “I’m happy to have been able to help. And also very glad that you waited long enough for me to come home from work to help you with this. I’m not sure how it would have turned out if you had attempted this by yourself.”
Ava laughed and smiled at Beatrice’ light teasing. “Yeah, me too. Are we gonna dye your hair later today?”
“I’ll think about it,” Beatrice said quietly. “I think so. Though, I’d really like to eat lunch first. I’m rather hungry.”
Ava looked at the time and noticed that it was nearly half past three, much later than they usually eat lunch. “Oh shoot, of course. Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“Ava, you have nothing to apologise for,” Beatrice laughed. “We’re just eating lunch late, it’s fine. We can turn it into an early dinner if you want and watch a movie, and then dye my hair after that.”
“Yeah?” Ava asked excitedly – as nervous as she was about cutting her hair, there was still a reason why she asked Beatrice to do it, and now she was remembering why. She wanted a change, and she got one, and she looked and felt good. She felt like herself. She would love to help Beatrice feel the same.
Beatrice nodded. “I’ll start on our food, can you sweep up your hair?”
“Yes, no worries,” Ava said, nodding.
They made their way out of the bathroom together, or as together as they could – the bathroom was still tiny, and Ava had to wait for Beatrice to get out first. She trailed behind her though, their hands loosely connected as Ava squeezed gently, one last attempt at trying to show Beatrice just how much she appreciated today.
Beatrice squeezed back, so Ava was kind of thinking that she got it.