But Like In A Happy Way? - Tumblr Posts
Beatrice dies first. Of old age, surrounded by friends and loved ones, with Ava holding her hand. (Well, technically Ava died first. And second. Maybe even third and fourth. But Beatrice wasn’t coming back from this one. There was only one halo and it had already given them seventy four years together.) Beatrice lives to ninety seven. Her hand trembles when she holds something too long or too high. She needs glasses to see half as well as she once could. She’s cold all the time. She’s lived a long life, full of service as she knew it would be when she was young. She’s lived a joyful life, full of love undreamt of when she was young.
Funny how nearly eighty years after learning about the OCS she still doesn’t truly know what comes next. Ava’s certain there’s nothing. She tries to hide it anytime either one of them get close to death, but Beatrice has spent a lifetime learning everything she could about her wife. Ava may have hidden it when they were young and fresh in their love. There was no hope of hiding it now. Not after more hours spent learning the shape of the others soul than they had lived when they first met. “I don’t want to leave you,” Beatrice confesses.
Ava looks the way she did when they first met. Like a handful. Beatrice squeeze’s her hand and Ava squeezes back. The unconscious habit of decades a subtle signalling that they are both here. Together. Ava lifts her unbound hand and caresses Beatrice’s cheek. “Bold of you to assume I’d let you,” Ava teases with the same gamine smile she’d given when they were just best friends hiding out in Switzerland and she’d kissed Beatrice’s cheek and called Beatrice boss and mother with equal affection. The same gamine smile she’d given when she returned to the other side with nightmares hidden in her eyes. The same gamine smile she’d given when she’d knelt on one knee with the divinium laced ring secure around Beatrice’s ring finger in her hand and a question on her lips. The same gamine smile she’d given when they danced together at their son’s (Digeo’s) wedding, and years later their granddaughter’s.
Beatrice has had a lifetime of this smile. It’s still not enough. Beatrice can feel herself smiling back, gentle adoration filling her just as it always has around Ava. “I made a promise to always be by your side.” Beatrice whispers.
Ava’s smile turns soft. “Funny, I remember making the same promise just a little while after that. This life, Bea, this love, it’s a two way street. This time, you go first. I won’t be far behind.”
Beatrice frowns, brushing a tired thumb over the smooth supple skin of Ava’s hand. “You don’t have to.” She says. “You could stay. Live.” Ava could live. Supernatural healing had kept her in the prime of her youth for seventy four years. It could keep her there an unknown amount of time longer. Ava never had to face that blank emptiness of death ever again. Not with the halo glowing in her back. Beatrice wouldn’t begrudge her that choice. Ever. “You deserve life.”
Ava smiles, half heart broken with sadness and half heart full of joy. “This life we had, it’s been more than anyone could deserve. This journey’s been a gift.” Ava says. “I’m sorry.” At Beatrice’s questioning eyebrow she explains. “I’m only now realizing how cruel it was to ask you to live. How could I have life without you?”
Beatrice blinks, slower, more lethargic. The beeping of her heart monitor seems to slow with her thoughts. “I understand,” Beatrice says. Ava was her everything and she may have survived losing her after just a few months of knowing her, just a few minutes of having her, but the idea of doing so now is preposterous. “Take your time,” the words come out softer and softer, slower and slower. “I’ll wait for you.” Beatrice doesn’t say goodbye. Not to Ava.
She passes away five hours later, still asleep. Ava keeps hold of her wife’s hand, feels the moment the soul she’s so in love with slips free of it. Then, the longest surviving Halo Bearer, the warrior who fought an Angel and won a holy war, the woman who loved Beatrice, throws back her hand and screams. Divinity burns it’s way free of her back. The halo glows bright and brighter still as it follows one last command. Ava’s body collapses across Beatrice’s as her soul follows her love’s into the dark.
I think Avatrice would be like, that elderly couple who die within days of each other, not because they can’t live without each other, but they’re at the end of their lives anyway and they just don’t want to. They were each other’s best friend, each other’s person. Their life was always a joint project, and it seems like a good end, to not be apart for too long.