Holy War - Chapter 4: Isaiah 38:13
Beatrice was Lilith’s oldest friend. They had been closer after one particularly difficult mission. She was a little bit older than Beatrice, a year ahead in the OCS. They hadn’t talked about stuff but they had a shared understanding. Nights Lilith found particularly difficult she would go find Beatrice, instead of suffering it alone like she always had. Beatrice would sit there. Next to her.
The first few times they wouldn’t touch but they’d been close enough the air between them felt warmer. Then they would knock their knees together. Eventually scooting closer with each sought out comfort that they’d be pressed to each other's sides.
Beatrice was still a little jumpy when it came to touching. Never once would she initiate but she would let it happen if she thought it was what her sister needed. Until one night Lilith had a terrible pit in her stomach so she went to find Beatrice, again. But this time she entered the young sister’s room, instead of a quiet shuffle of blankets as she entered where Beatrice had moved aside in her bed for Lilith to sit with her. Lilith would sit against the headboard, and Beatrice would sit for a while before curling up at her side, back still against Lilith’s legs.
This time though, it was Beatrice who had her knees curled up in front of her as she sat against the headboard. This instead of the swish of sheets it was quiet sniffles and shuddering breaths. So Lilith took her spot next to her, and had no idea what she was doing. Mary had told her once she was allergic to emotion and affection. But Beatrice looked so small and truly fragile Lilith pulled her into her lap and held her.
Seeing her like this… laying on her back bleeding in a pile of rubble. It reminded her of that night. Beatrice looking so small, so young. Broken in a completely different way. It jars something in Lilith that not even seeing Shannon die in Mary’s arms did.
As she materializes in the van, she starts looking for the kit, thinking how nice it is to be able to help her friends like this, after everything. With how exhausting it was to jump from place to place… It didn’t matter as she continued moving past the burning in her muscles, the stiffness in her back the other part of her hadn’t taken care of yet. The only thing that mattered was getting this medkit. For Beatrice.
While Lilith is gone, Ava calls the Dutchie to her with a whistle “Here, Ki.” Her eyes not straying from Camila, as she starts to look more thoroughly at Beatrice to see what they’re dealing with, until she sees Kiva move in front of her at the edges of her vision. “Auf .” Ava points at the ground in front of her to get him to lay down, and sort of circles her arm wide to the right to get him to roll on his back.
Ava crouches down and goes over him bit by bit. Her flashlight held between her lips so she can actually see as she moves his fur to better look at his ribs. She takes each paw into her hand, so carefully, especially the one he has been limping on, and she’s relieved when she doesn’t see any cuts. “Good boy.”
Ava tries to remember what the signal is to stand, but she can’t for the life of her remember what Beatrice told her it was, nor can she remember the word. So she just hopes Kiva will pick up on what she wants him to do. As she checks near his left shoulder and neck, he lets out a small whimper, and when she pulls her hand away, it comes away red, his fur slicked down with blood. She really isn’t sure how she’d missed that first look she'd given him. “Stand up, buddy. Let me look, ok?”
As he rolls over quickly and gets to his feet, facing Ava head on as she kneels down to get a better look, she’s mildly aware of the weird static shift that means Lilith is back. She unclips the vest as gently as she can and slides it off over his head before putting it in the dirt just above Beatrice's head. There’s a deep gash in his shoulder, presumably where he’s been struck by a falling piece of marble. “Ki, that doesn't look great my friend, I’m not gonna lie. Lilith can you toss me some water or something?”
She looks up just in time to snatch a water bottle from the air, luckily it doesn’t feel too cold against her hands just yet. She wants to spare him as much as she can, just as much for her sake as it is for his. “This might hurt, buddy,” Ava warns as she runs a hand along the side of his face before scratching behind his ear on the other side to hold at the scruff of his neck as she puts the flashlight back in her mouth.. The second the water touches the poor dog, Kiva flinches away and lets out another whimper.
“Shh, I know, Ki. I’m sorry. Be still for me, buddy.” Not that seeing humans in pain isn’t hard, but to Ava, there’s something exceptionally more rattling when it’s an animal. The reddened water washes down his fur to expose the cut a little more, with some of the older blood washed away; it doesn't look as bad as Ava had originally thought it was, much to her relief. As Ava looks up to ask for some gauze and Coban, Lilith is already there with it in hand. “Thanks.” Ava is too focused on wrapping the Coban around their furry friend to catch Lilith’s nod of ‘of course’ , the weird noise of the elastic pulling apart calming her. One step at a time. She leans forward to loop it under Kiva’s chest and around his shoulders, a few passes to either side of his leg to hold the gauze at his shoulder in place. It would have to do for now, “Alright Ki, how's that?”
With no immediate protest from the dog, Ava finally allows herself to turn to her love lying in the dirt between her two friends. Apparently, she hasn’t been focused on the dog for more than a couple of minutes as she catches the tail end of Camila wiping at the blood on Lilith’s exposed shoulder, only to have her hand swatted away. “I’m fine, Camila. It will heal. Beatrice won’t.”
Ava swallows hard at that, leave it to Beaver… “Jesus, Lilith.” What the fuck? She hadn’t appreciated that comment at all. Lilith, to her credit, looks apologetic as she hands Camila her bag as requested. Their little medic wastes no time pulling the C-Spine collar free from its easy access spot on the side of the bag.
Ava has to look away as Camila takes Beatrice’s head in her hands and instructs Lilith on how to do it - “Careful. Good. Ok. I have it from here.” She’s going to be sick. Memories long forgotten come slamming back to the front of her brain. Somehow they feel more violent the second time around. Ironically, Ava had tried so hard to remember the immediate stuff that happened after the accident when she was growing up, but nothing ever came. She just assumed she’d been unconscious until she woke up in the hospital. Well you know what they say about assumptions Ava. Something about asses and whatnot.
There’s headlights and a burning smell, and sirens, so many things. All right there. There’s the endless dark sky above her as someone looks at her upside down. Speaking to her in a language she doesn’t understand. The - the feeling of hands under her head as something closes around her neck and - “Ava!”
She shakes her head as if it would help get the memory out. It helps a little. “Huh?”
“Ava I know this is hard. But I need you. Beatrice needs you right now. So please get over here.” Ava nods as she takes a few steadying breaths to calm herself down from a panic she wasn’t even all that aware of entering. “Good. Ok. Come here.” Camila motions to her with a flick of her head. And honestly, thank God for Camila. Her composure in situations like this, and there have been many - well maybe not like this - is something that never fails to impress the hell out of Ava. “I need you to hold her head still. Can you do that?” Ava just looks at her hands that have just replaced Camila’s, though the younger sister’s are still resting on the backs of Ava’s. “Ava. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” She feels out of body, looking at the large stone covering the majority of Beatrice’s right side. Some part of her is honestly surprised she hasn’t thrown up yet. “Sorry. Yes, I can do that.”
“Ok.” Finally satisfied with the Warrior Nun’s attention to the task at hand, Camila moves on, tasking Lilith to dig through the bag while she wipes over the inside of Beatrice’s exposed left elbow with an alcohol pad. “Hand me the 14 gauge, please - No.The-the-the,” she shakes her head at the one Lilith holds up but snaps her fingers as she tries to get the words from her brain to the air and points at the one she’s just seen, her other hand holding the bungie still across Beatrice’s lower bicep. Lilith lifts up the orange one. “The dark green one. Thank you.”
Ava wants to protest as Camila presses at the smooth skin on the inside of Beatrice’s elbow looking for a vein. You know how to do that? Since when? Can’t you, like, get an air bubble trapped or something and- “Ava. I need you to trust me and let me work.”
Aaaand that was out loud. Feeling properly chastised, her face lights up this time from an entirely different kind of callout from Camila. Ava prefers the other kind. Camila does too. “Sorry.”
Camila doesn’t so much as blink at her before she turns her attention back to sliding the needle into the vein while talking Lilith through setting up the bag. “A bag of saline. Doesn’t matter what one.” She glances up to nod before looking back down to release the elastic tourniquet. “Stick that tube - Yep. Now open the- perfect.” Now that the needle is finally in, Camila gives the bag a once over before connecting it and turning to Ava once she’s satisfied with her work. “It’s ok, Ava. I understand.”
Camila clicks on her flashlight before she eases herself down to the cracked marble below them to get a better look - well, she's trying to get a better look at least . From what she can see, the skin puckered below the weight of the slab where the rebar sticks through is about all she can see. Blood pulses out around the rebar, slowly. Slowly enough that she doesn’t think anything important was clipped, but there’s still a lot of blood. Maybe too much.
“Lilith, iodine, please.” She reaches up for the bottle to be placed in her hand. She tries her best to squirt it on the wound and the exposed rebar the best she could. She doesn’t want to think about the infection that could cause. This building was old and this rebar… it looks like it could be croding from what she can see of it, which is only maybe a handful of centimeters. “Ready on my end. I’ll help you guys guide it as best I can and get pressure on it. Get it off her quickly and smoothly. You’re going to have to lift it as straight up as possible. From what I can tell the rebar is mostly vertical.”
“That’s what it looked like to me as well.” Lilith confirms. One of them would have to stand over Beatrice’s legs and the other her head. Lilith can’t help but think it speaks to the dire nature of the situation that Ava doesn’t make a lewd joke about it. Lilith isn’t really all that mad she was given that small mercy though.
At least Lilith thought she had escaped it. “So. Are you straddling my girlfriend's face or am I?" Ava is insufferable when she gets like this. A quirk Lilith has quickly come to the realization that becomes especially bad when Ava is nervous or upset. Her coping mechanism is anger. Beatrice’s is diving head first into things so she doesn’t have to think, it’s her armor for everything being what’s expected of her. Camila’s is honestly the healthiest of all of them. It’s something Lilith has always deeply admired. And Ava’s is questionable humor.
“Ava. Take her head. Once you do, Ava I want you to hold her head still, in case she wakes up. Lilith. I’ll probably need your hands.” Camila directs the two women she would have been terrified to take charge of a year ago. She knows Lilith is capable of holding Beatrice’s head, just like she knows Ava is capable of helping her. She often has, on other missions. But this is different. This is Beatrice.
They all love her. Camila looks up to her so much that it’s hard to describe. She has admired her from the moment they met. Lots of the sister warriors had been kind to her but Beatrice took the time to see her, and teach her, and let her be Camila outside of being a nun. But Ava, she loves Beatrice.
Camila does not have the slightest clue to what they’ll find as they lift the slab off of their injured friend and she doesn’t have it in her to make Ava be the one to help her if she can help it. That, and part of her is telling herself that if Beatrice wakes up, Ava is their best chance at keeping her the calmest.
“Ok. Go slow. And listen to me.” Both her sisters respond with grim nods, so similar to each other in spite of their glaring differences at first glance, as they get in position. They each squat down and hook their hands under the edge, not even lifting yet but Camila could already see the strain on their faces. “Three. Two. One. Lift.”
Both women groan with effort, heads tilted back as they pull. True to their character, Ava’s is more of a yell while Lilith fights through clenched teeth. Camila heard them, when they said this slab was heavy enough to be an issue, but she has seen them lift heavy things together before. Heavy things that were on fire. “Slower.” Camila keeps spraying the rebar with iodine as it’s pulled further from their friend’s skin. “Almost there you guys. You’re doing great.”
Good. Ava thinks. Her quads are burning. Her back is stiff as she lifts, she can feel it pull almost sharp. Sometimes, in times like these, it’s hard for her to imagine what her life was before. She knows it’s cliché to say that it felt like a lifetime ago. But it was. She’d died after all but sometimes she has a hard time reconciling the two realities she’s lived. Well, three now, but who’s counting. So here she is, lifting a metric shit ton of concrete off of the love of her life. It hurts. Honest to God, it hurts and her hands are starting to slip against the rough parts of concrete she thought might help her grip. She lets herself glance across the slab to Lilith, and if the effort clear on Lilith’s face is anything to go by, she probably feels about the same. “Fuuuuck.”
That’s when Beatrice’s eyes snap open and she wakes with a short, sharp yell. She jerks upward at the waist, an unconscious attempt to follow the metal being pulled from her. It hurts . Everything from there happens so quickly. Ava thinks she might have unlocked a new power. The ability to freeze time or do whatever it is that The Flash does where you go so fast time is slow? It’s like minutes are ticking by but at the same time, it seems like only seconds. It probably is. Seconds, that is.
“Beatrice?!” Camila scrambs on her hands and knees to move up to put her hands on the parts of Beatrice’s chest that aren’t under the rock. She hates this. She hates that she has to hold her best friend down while she is in pain and probably so scared and confused. “Beatrice. You have to be still.”
Kiva jumps to his feet next to Ava, inching closer to Beatrice. His person is in pain, he needs to be by her. She needed him. “Nee. Auf .” Ava snaps. Not wanting him in the way to either get hurt by this rock or be somewhere that made it harder for Camila to work. She doesn’t even spare a second look in his direction, she doesn't have time. She meets Lilith’s eyes over the debris and they come to a very quick understanding. Pulling it the rest of the way off. “Camilla. Move.” She strains through gritted teeth. Both her and Lilith were about at their limits with holding the weight. Her hands were slipping and she didn’t dare try to readjust lest she drop it. “We can’t put this down with you right there.”
Camila scrambles back momentarily leaving Beatrice. The second she’s clear they half toss the slab to the side, half drop it the moment it’s past any part of Beatrice. They weren't going to have a lot of room to work surrounded by the ruble. But it’ll have to do for now.
Lilith immediately steps over Beatrice to the uninjured side, her hands finding her old Friend’s shoulders as she gets to her knees beside her. She didn’t want to think about how similar this felt to when Shanon lay bleeding on their last mission together. So she didn’t, she focused on her oldest friend, her little sister and what she could do for her in this moment. Ava didn’t miss the way Lilith let her thumbs brush over Beatrice’s shirt, a move only meant to sooth, as she held her still. “Easy. Beatrice, be still. Listen to me. You have to be still. Try to Breathe.” Lilith talks her old friend through it with a harshness and severity the situation calls for as Ava corrected Kiva and snapped at their friend and medic.
The first deep breath she takes is halted by pain shooting through her ribs. “Hurts.” She rasps. “I- I think my ribs might be broken.” She meant it to be comforting. Maybe a little bit funny. Because, clearly she was hurt. Beatrice with a twinge of a smile, looks wide eyed up at the night sky. It’s so big. Why aren’t there any stars tonight, she wonders.
Ava let out the strangest noise Beatrice had ever heard a sob somewhere caught inside a bark of loud laughter. She wasn’t sure which one it was meant to be, though knowing Ava likely laughed. She was glad the halo barer thought she was funny. The noise call’s her attention to Ava filling her field of view but it’s confusing. Why is she upside down? She watches the huff of breath leave Ava's mouth as she finally meets Beatrice's eyes. “Babe, I think you broke a little more than just your ribs.” The injured sister warrior is still not able to piece together why everything hurts so bad. Or why she couldn’t seem to breathe right. Or why everything is so dark. None of it made sense.
Camilla talks through something but Beatrice can’t process it yet. She’s trying her hardest to clear the fog settling around her mind. What she is aware of, is that her ribs hurt. She’s already established that. Breathing hurts. It feels like there is, or at least was, a weight sitting on her chest. Her back hurts. She’s cold enough she’s thankful for the three bodies around her providing some warmth where they touch her.
“Beatrice- '' She vaguely registered her name being called but not anywhere close enough to process that she might need to answer. She was too busy cataloging what felt like her immediate periphery. What she wasn’t aware of, however, was that as Camila put pressure on the hole through her side with one hand, she was scraping the tip of something hard against the exposed part of Beatrice’s calf, the clothes torn sometime in this very long evening. “Beatrice, can you feel that?”
Unfortunately for Beatrice’s heart rate, that is the first thing she truly processes, her brain kicking back in after its brief reboot. And no. She can’t. What is Camila talking about? Something’s not right. Her mind screams at her. “No.” She coughs out confused, wincing at the jar to her ribs. “Feel what?” Against all the instructions she’d received upon waking up, and against what commonsense would tell her, that Ava’s hands at her temples down the sides of her head should tell her, Beatrice tries to bend her neck to look down at what is happening.
“No. Bea. Don’t move your head.” Ava pleads at almost a whisper but to everyone around it’s so loud through her tears. She adds only a little more pressure to her hold on the sides of heatrice’s head. Her usually downy soft hair caked with blood and dirt against her palms. “Please.”
“Nothing. You’re doing great, Beatrice. Stay nice and still for me while I disinfect this wound..” The only thing other than the increasing pain ripping through her nerves at the edges of Beatrice’s current understanding of the environment was the ripping of clothes and a little bit of cool air brushing against her skin at her right side. Something felt wet though as the chill hit her harder in some places than others. Camila is coaching her through what’s about to happen while she lets her eyes close. Just for a little while.
While Beatrice has her eyes closed trying to listen to Camila, only responding about as half often as is appropriate, Lilih looks over at Ava from where she had been watching the blood ooze out of Beatrice between Camila’s fingers. “Ava,” she whispers sharply to get the frankly terrified girl’s attention without letting Beatrice in on it. Those large brown eyes fall on her and Lilith feels herself softening from the original chastisement she was about to send the Warrior Nun’s direction. “Ava, collect yourself. She needs you to be calm.”
Before Ava can respond with more than a hard swallow and small nod, Beatrice jerks as she’s met with the sting of the disinfectant. The movement immediately seals her attention back as she looks down at Beatrice. For the first time seeing a little more awareness in those eyes that weren’t quite focused before. If it weren’t for Beatrice trying to look down her body at the gruesome hole in her side Ava would have welcomed her back.
Instead she has to find a way to get her words, all of their words to sink in. “Beatrice.” Ava says with more urgency this time as she gets Beatrice’s eyes to lock on hers. “Do not move.” She says firmly. Not like she’s talking to Beatrice, her Beatrice , but like she’s talking to another sister warrior as their Warrior Nun. “You cannot move.” She has to take a step back to be what she needs to be right now. For Beatrice. She could do that. Anything for Beatrice. “I need you to stay still for me, okay. Just stay still.” She hears more conviction in her own voice this time. A command. Though she watches those brown eyes dart down to try to get another look as the wave stinging continues as Camila blows on the wound trying to do what she could to help.
Camila warns her again and apologizes before she douses the wound with more iodine. The sting of the disinfectant pulls the first sound Beatrice makes since coming to, a strangled cry ripped from her throat. Beatrice is only now processing the warning. Still trying to look down at her body she bites back the urge to let out a cry.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Camila offers sounds like she has something in her mouth, quickly followed by a rustle of paper and the sound of it tearing. The sounds disappear almost as quickly as they appear and Beatrice is squeezing her eyes closed so hard she’s seeing white as another sting hits her as Camila pours Quick Clot over the wound. Then she’s met with HARD pressure on her side aggravating her ribs but also something lower, as Camila presses the first of what will end up being a lot of gauze to the wound. Not for the first time, Beatrice wonder’s who’s groaning it is echoing off the rubble around them. “Shhh, Bea. Easy. Doing great.”
Somewhere in there she’s vaguely aware of Camila talking on coms to mother superion for medevac.“The Santa Maria sopra Minerva collapsed. Beatrice got caught in it. We got the stuff off her but some rebar pierced her side. She’s bleeding heavily. - She’s conscious. - Yes For now. - We can’t move her. - Suspected spinal injury. No response to the field pain test on her legs. - We need immediate extract. Bring a backboard with you. And some blood. She’s A-pos. - Hours? She might not have that long. - Understood.”
Tears spilling out the sides of Beatrice's eyes making tracks through the dirt at her temples. “Ava-” her voice breaks over the last syllable. I’m scared.
“I know.” Her voice thick with emotion as she acknowledges the fear she finds in her favorite brown eyes. The immediate threat past she sees Beatrice again as she hears the fear in her voice. “I know, Bea.” She says softer, bending forward to kiss Beatrice's forehead, not caring about the blood and dust coating it. She wipes the tears from the corner of Beatrice’s eyes. Ava can’t help but think that Beatrice being able to feel what Camila was doing was a good sign though.
But the story in the former nun’s brain is a little different. Beatrice knows Ava doesn't remember the immediate aftermath of the accident as she was comatose for weeks before she woke up paralyzed but the sentiment is there and it makes her heart sink. She comes into herself to take inventory of what she’s actually feeling. Her side might as well be on fire. The pressure is not helping how hard it is to breathe. Her arm is pulsating enough to turn her vision white with each beat of her heart. Her legs. Camilla asked if she could feel something. She can’t feel her legs. Her head is being held still. Something’s around her neck. Suddenly it clicks home.
