i love the idea of babea au beatrice ghosting into ava’s room at the orphanage, taking in the posters on her walls and the stack of old books on her shelf, yellowed things even the libraries didn’t want anymore. ava tracking her as she stands there in the doorway & bea wondering who would possibly want to kill this girl.
(thinking of herself in the alleyway. the cold wet pieces the police would have found her reduced to if not for mary. arrested by the thought of lilith capturing that needle, of mary’s whipcrack motions in the moonlight falling on blood)
ava’s little ‘i couldn’t stand her’ and bea huffing out a real laugh, thinking the halo ought to rebel against it. snuff it out like an injury, because she feels as if the laugh cracks her open. that it lets out a little light. bea thinking, this child needs all the light i can give her.
assuring ava that they’ll make certain only good people are stationed here (some former ocs sisters, bea thinks, who know what it is to have nightmares, to feel like spare parts. ripping away from the thought because shannon)
ava nodding and ‘cool, cool.’ a thoughtful look, bea raising an eyebrow to invite it out. ava like ‘what i really want is someone to read to me. i know some places have the money to get audiobooks and stuff, but not here. do you, uh, like reading?’
bea, whose hands are accustomed to blood, to metal, looking down at her feet. ‘i did. i do.’
and so it begins, softly, with bea back at mary’s apartment looking through her old bookshelves. bea with the hood of her hoodie pulled up, stumping around in the library for books ava’s asked about, others bea just thinks she might like. ava falling in love with bea angling the page towards a slant of sunlight, in her civilian clothes, old star wars tees and shorts or slacks, looking so young. reading to ava but also getting her a phone and loading it with accessibility features so she can ask it to read to her when she can’t fall asleep. ava falling for bea’s voice, the way she grows braver over time and does voices, accents, drawing on her training for undercover assignments. she’s oddly good at this.
bea falling for ava over spun stories, soft light and old clothes and ava sending her voice texts at night so she wakes up and pulls on her boots and listens to ava say ‘good morning bea’ over and over and over again
yeah you're right and also is it possible to go one day without you hitting me over the head with a steel chair asking for a friend
bea a halo bearer with such single-minded dedication that they can get ahead of the game a bit, get more proactive, set up programs to monitor trends in data and try to pinpoint burgeoning hot spots that way (camila targeted for recruitment on these grounds especially). an orphanage whose inhabitants are dying at a statistically significant rate. an infiltration. discovery of a murderer. warrior nun bea caught off guard by the way one of the children (and she thinks of them as children, no matter that she's barely reached adulthood) looks her up and down and smiles lazily, cockily
mary jabbing an elbow into her ribs because the warrior nun can't be going around blushing hot enough to set the world on fire
On the first anniversary of her parents' deaths, Mary rouses Bea with the sun, hand gentle on her shoulder as she shakes her awake. Her shirt is sodden with sweat and Mary kisses her forehead before shuffling her off to the bathroom.
Upon her return she's greeted with their usual weekend spread, tailored over the year into a melange of American and British and Spanish breakfast traditions. She's quiet, pensive, as she surveys the food, the two plates set out either side of the kitchen table.
Mary follows her gaze, gets out ahead of the question. "Just gonna be you and me this morning, kiddo. Shannon got called into work, but she should be back tonight."
"Will we have to take the motorcycle, then?"
Mary's face softens. "No, Bea, I got her to leave the van for us."
"I'm not scared," she clarifies, mouth set.
"I know you're not. I didn't particularly want to take it today either."
They make it to Malaga just as the central market opens, picking out the fixings for a picnic lunch, as always going for Bea's cherished favourites and one new thing to try, before making their way to a florist stall. Mary stands back as Beatrice goes up on her tiptoes to smell blossoms, hands twisting anxiously behind her back until the vendor assures her she can touch and then so very gently stroking a careful finger along the arches of petals. They come away with paired bouquets of lilies and a sprig of baby's breath tucked behind Bea's ear. (She waits until they're back in the van to carefully remove it, to hand it to Mary and rub at the back of her ear as Mary presses it gently between the pages of a sketchbook Shannon had forgotten in the footwell of the passenger seat.)
"Are you ready?" Mary asks softly, hand on the key in the ignition.
Bea takes a deep, shuddering breath, then another. Her jaw firms, resolution clear in the line of it. "I'm ready," she confirms, and her voice only wavers slightly.
There are no graves for Bea to visit, the bodies returned to England in the wake of the upheaval of Bea's life. But Mary had been desperate with Vincent in the aftermath, to find a way to give Bea something present and physical she could stand before, to find a way to give her some modicum of closure. And so Bea approaches the plaques erected in the memorial garden of Malaga's largest cemetery and kneels to lay her bouquets atop them.
The sight opens up a crater in Mary's chest, a sinkhole, but she hangs back, giving Bea the space to make her own choices on how to grieve.
When Bea rises she searches immediately for Mary, presses her tear-damp face into the side of Mary's chest when she raises an arm for her to slip beneath. They stand there awhile as noon approaches and the air grows warmer around them.
Finally, Bea pulls back, takes hold of Mary's hand. "I'm ready," she says, breathless, her fingers tight around Mary's.
"Okay." They amble back through the garden, bask in the brief moments of shade afforded by pockets of trees. Bea's grip grows loose, like she's expecting Mary to pull away from her, priming herself for it, and Mary tightens her own grasp, squeezes a gentle three pulse Beat that Beatrice echoes back. (It's a practised 'I love you' on Mary's part, though she's never quite sure whether Beatrice's response carries the same meaning, or if she simply finds comfort in the pattern of it.)
"Do you want to have lunch at the beach or a park?" It's habit, now, to present options that both end with Beatrice eating, to avoid her freezing when presented with far too much choice, to ensure she ends up fueled.
"The beach, please."
Beatrice stands calf-deep in the surf, water rushing up every so often over knobbly knees, as Mary lays a blanket out for them, pokes at the contents of the soft-sided cooler. Mary gives her ten minutes, watching her head rise and her shoulders settle, before she calls her back up the sand.
Beatrice sits primly at the edge of the blanket, waits for her legs to dry in the sun before dusting them free of sand and shifting closer in towards Mary. She busies herself unpacking the cooler as Mary slices the barra de pan, then hesitates over the jar of tapenade.
"Just one bite," Mary reminds her, poking an elbow into her side. "Just to try it."
Bea smiles small and sweet as she nods. She unscrews the lid and takes the knife from Mary, spreads a dab across the end of a piece of bread. She chews, swallows, sits silently for a moment before her nose crinkles and she shakes her head.
Mary laughs gently. "Which part of it?" she asks, retrieving Bea's battered notebook from her tote bag and passing it over to her.
Bea slides the pen from where it's hooked through the ring binding, traces her thumb across the pod racer sticker stuck to the front cover. "I don't like the texture," she says after a moment, flipping her notebook open to the dog-eared page, propping it on her knees, and carefully adding a new entry beneath fideuà (four stars out of five, would prefer longer noodles).
"And if it had been blended smooth?"
Bea wedges the end of the pen between her lips, catches herself, tugs it free. "Too salty and meaty," she adds, and "if it had just been olives I think it'd have been okay."
Mary nods, tucks the information away in the back of her head for later use, and produces a tub of olives from the cooler.
"Kalamata?" Bea asks, snapping her notebook shut and tucking it carefully back in the tote.
"Kalamata," Mary confirms, and Bea's pleased little noise makes her grin.
They return to Antequera late that afternoon, wind-chapped and worn tired, to find Shannon napping on the couch. Bea takes note of this as they begin to unpack the cooler in the kitchen, tries her best to keep her movements quiet. But Mary shoos her out into the living room with a wink, a murmured "go show her the shells you found."
Shannon greets Bea's cannonball leap onto the couch at her side with equal enthusiasm, schools her face well enough that her wince sneaks past Bea's notice. Mary doesn't miss it, though, and checks the ice pack stash in the freezer, finds the rib wrap missing. She stews in her worry, wipes the kitchen down top to bottom as she listens to Bea ramble on about tide pools and the hermit crab they'd found using a plastic cap as a shell and did Shannon know how hermit crabs traded shells? Had she seen the conga line of exchange?
"Bea?" Mary calls out when she can't stand it any longer, the not-knowing, the mask Shannon's donned so easily in an attempt to protect Bea on this of all days.
"Yes?"
Mary ducks her head into the living room, where Bea is pressed tight to Shannon's right arm, the day's treasures cupped safely in her palms. "Can you go ask Maria if we can borrow some tomatoes? We didn't pick any up this morning."
"It's not borrowing if–"
"Yeah, yeah," Mary interrupts, rolling her eyes. "'It's not borrowing if we don't return the same ones'. Get your shoes on, Little Miss Semantics."
She waits until Bea's footsteps have started down the stairs to cross the living room, to tug Shannon's shirt from the waistband of her sweatpants. Shannon lets it happen, head lolling back against the couch cushions as Mary strips away the ice pack to expose patchy purple bruising stretching across her left side.
"Just cracked," she says softly, laying a hand over Mary's. It's only then that Mary realizes hers are trembling. "They're just cracked, that's all."
"You can't let her–"
"I know. Get that back in the freezer before she comes back up, would you?"
But Mary can't move, her hand lingering over the splotches marring Shannon's skin. Can't help but skate her thumb along their margins, can't help but remember her own hands covered in blood.
"Mary," Shannon urges, pushing at Mary's wrist, pulling at the hem of her own shirt, "they're just cracked. I'm okay, but Bea won't be if she finds out."
"Okay. Okay." Still, she ducks in to capture Shannon's mouth with her own, pours every shred of emotion into it like in doing so she can anchor her here to this couch. Pulls back, breath shaking, forehead pressed to Shannon's. "She's going to catch on if you don't stop wincing," she says quietly.
"I didn't say it doesn't hurt," Shannon mock-grumbles, but she nods all the same. "I'll do my best."
After dinner, when Shannon's drifted off to sleep again and Mary stands at the sink scrubbing dishes, Bea pauses in the middle of drying off a plate and glances back over her shoulder.
"Is she okay?"
"Shannon?" Mary asks, fighting to keep her voice level. "Why wouldn't she be?"
Bea fixes her with a withering stare. "Don't lie to me, Mary. I'm not a child," she replies sharply, all of nine years old and four and a half feet tall.
Mary lets the pan in her hands drop, braces her palms against the bottom of the sink. "You are, Beatrice. No matter how quickly life has tried to make you grow up."
"Is she okay?" Bea repeats, the knife's edge of her voice going dull with worry.
"She will be," Mary ventures, but Bea crosses her arms, arches an eyebrow, all but taps her foot. "She hurt her ribs, but not badly."
"Just her ribs?" Bea presses.
"Just her ribs. She'll be back to normal in a month or so."
Bea worries her bottom lip between her teeth, darts another look towards the living room. "Just a month?"
"Give or take a couple of weeks." Mary bumps her hip against Bea's. "Plenty of time for you to get her to apply all the stickers to that new lego kit for you."
Bea doesn't crack even the tiniest smile at that, though. Instead, she bites her lip bloody as they finish up the dishes, then lingers in the doorway when Mary takes up residence on the couch, leaving space between herself and Shannon's side.
Mary pats the cushion, gestures Bea over with a jerk of her chin. Bea settles tentatively in the empty space, staples herself to Mary's side. Shannon's still disturbed by the motion, yawning herself awake, reaching a hand to Bea's shoulder with a quiet "Hey, Bea."
"Can I see?" Bea asks, gesturing at Shannon's side.
Shannon meets Mary's eyes over Bea's head and Mary shrugs. "Perceptive kid," she says in explanation, and Shannon sighs.
"Yeah, Bea, you can see." She pulls up her shirt again and Bea leans forward, hovers her fingers over the bruises.
"This one looks kind of like a sea urchin," she says quietly, and Mary leans forward to watch her trace curling fingers of bruising.
"It kinda does," she agrees, and Bea flashes a soft smile at her.
"They eat their own homes into rock faces," she continues, eyes fixed on Shannon's side. "They take reef rock and devour it and make shelters for themselves in places they'd be unsafe otherwise."
Mary smoothes her hand down over Bea's back. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Can you really eat them even though they eat rocks?"
Mary laughs at the helpless glance Shannon shoots her. "They're a pretty good protein source," she confirms, "and you don't eat the digestive tract. Do you want to add them to the list?"
"Please and thank you," she says, pulling Shannon's shirt back down for her.
"Where do the crabs you saw today live?" Shannon asks, slinging an arm around Bea's shoulders.
Bea shifts carefully in towards her, rests her head against the front of Shannon's shoulder. "The bigger ones make burrows in the silt," she explains, "but there are some pea crabs in the Alboran Sea that live inside oyster shells."
As Bea delves into her recent fixation on sea creatures and the homes they find for themselves, prompted every so often by Shannon, the stricture in Mary's chest loosens just the smallest fraction. She drops a fleeting kiss on the back of Shannon's hand where it rests on Bea's shoulder, plants another on the side of Bea's head, and lets herself settle into the quiet rhythm of Beatrice's voice.
for babea au i was wondering… is lilith there when beatrice gets the halo? i’d assume it’s a fairly traumatic procedure… wondering how lilith feels about it & if she takes care of bea after 🥺 /if the feelings are Complex but the love is inescapable
it's lilith who uncuffs bea in the back of the van, sent running for the osmium-lined box and tongs kept in the boot of every ocs van, that should be enough to dampen the energy and return the halo safely back to cat's cradle
it's lilith who sits silently next to bea, the edge of her pinky brushing the back of bea's hand, as shannon's stifled groans and mary's hushed reassurances provide soundtrack to the journey home
it's lilith who kicks her shin until she starts in on her plate of dinner, and lilith whose shoulder brushes against hers in the chapel that night, and lilith who's beside her in the library when mother superion and father vincent come calling
it's lilith who goes stiff and distant when it's beatrice they take with them
and so it's mary who grips one of beatrice's hands in both of hers when she's laid out like an offering, sweater rucked up off a back that's only rarely been bent in prayer. the hand-holding is an all-too-familiar feeling for mary, so to the reek of the anti-septic, so to the weight of mother superion's eyes on her. father vincent's voice drags and slurs in her ears and she crosses herself automatically as they do, and beatrice's nails carve into the tenderness of mary's palms as the sear of charred flesh wafts through the room
it's mary who kisses beatrice's forehead in the aftermath, when her skin has knit together into ropy scar tissue over the halo, and it's mary who apologizes, who leaves, because one of her girls is physically whole and the other is teetering on the edge of death and she can't be in two places at once and-
beatrice nods her understanding.
the halo bearer's first steps through cat's cradle are taken alone.
she's drawn to the door she's barged through countless times, but she leaves it closed. there will be time enough to take shannon's quarters. she moves instead for the tiny cell that's always acted her home away from home, not space for much more than the cot she used if she needed to spend the night at the cradle. not much space for more than one.
but it's lilith who sits there is the sputtering candlelight, her arms folded stiffly across her chest, her head tilted towards bea. it's lilith whose mouth curls as bea comes to a halt in the bracket of her knees, and it's lilith who catches her when she crumples into her lap.
it's lilith who murmurs "i understand" and "it's okay" and "I've got you"
bea knows the lies for what they are, can feel lilith's unease and hurt and anger and fear in the tension of her body, but it's an effort being made, and beatrice has never loved her more
should have expected the comics to contribute to brainrot but as usual I instead jingled my way to the guillotine like the painted fool I am
//
Night has long since fallen, shrouding Cat's Cradle in darkness, but the convent remains alive with activity as groups of Sister Warriors return from their patrol routes. Shannon sits in the refectory, knee bouncing anxiously beneath the table as she attempts to maintain an outward appearance of calm.
In the weeks since she arrived at the Cradle, Shannon's become fast friends with Mary, so it's normal to seek her out after a patrol. It's entirely normal. Expected, even. That's what the other sisters do, after all: linger restlessly in the entry hall and refectory and chapel awaiting the return of their comrades. So if Shannon's sitting at her usual seat in the refectory, face lit from below by the desk lamps, a plate of food she'd saved for Mary growing colder with every passing moment, it's normal.
Minutes pass, stretch long around her, a burn growing in her calf at the constant circuit of plantarflexion-relaxation-plantarflexion-relaxation. The room grows quiet as patrol after patrol filters through, grabs a bite to eat between debriefs and visits to the infirmary and armoury. Finally, when only a few sisters remain, when only one patrol remains unaccounted for, Shannon hears the roar of a motorcycle engine coming up the drive.
She starts up out of her seat, one leg getting so tangled in the bench that she has to hop to tug her foot free. She crosses the room at a measured pace – definitely a walk, absolutely a walk – and reaches the entry hall at the same moment the outer doors swing open.
In the shadow of night, the shape is indistinct, but then Mary steps forward into the light and she's–
"Mary, did you steal a child?"
"Got her for a pretty penny, actually. Thou shalt not steal, and all that." There's a familiar rasp to Mary's voice that for some reason calls to mind those few sessions of combat skills Mary had taken part in of her own volition, before she'd caught a strike to the throat and sworn off them altogether. She trudges across the entry hall, adjusting her grip on the child resting on her hip. A girl, from the bits Shannon can make out sticking out from beneath the oversized jacket she's wearing. She looks too old to be carried in that manner, her limbs gangly with new growth, but the grip she has on Mary's sweater makes her seem far younger than her size belies. "Shan, this is Beatrice. Beatrice, this is Shannon. I've got to go, but–"
Beatrice's voice doesn't quite fit the image Shannon's cobbled together in her quick scan. She remains prim and proper despite needing the sleeves of Mary's jacket rolled up to free her hands, despite the knobbly jut of her bare feet, skeletal tree limbs brushing the open air. "Please don't leave me."
There's a splatter of blood under Beatrice's left ear, visible only when she buries her face in the hollow of Mary's collarbone. The sight of it makes Shannon's gorge rise, but if Mary is this calm then it must not belong to either of them.
She's not sure that it makes it any better.
Mary presses her hand to the centre of Beatrice's back, her eyes wide when they find Shannon's. What do I do? she mouths.
Shannon shrugs helplessly, but steps forward, holding her arms open. "Hello, Beatrice," she says gently, but the girl doesn't raise her head, and her grip on Mary's sweater only tightens further.
"Please stay," Beatrice says, the sound almost lost in the folds of fabric. "Please stay."
Mary lets loose a resigned sigh. "Okay, kid. Okay. I got you. I got you, Beatrice. I won't let go."
thinking about babea au and the inevitability of a tiny gangly Bea spending weekends and after school at cat’s cradle.
and all the active sisters are kind but they’re so very often sporting bruises and bloody-noses and bea wants wants wants but she’s also still afraid of hot showers so she skirts away from them and the way they ruffle her hair.
she turns into a wraithlike thing, a shadow tucked into corners and alcoves, watching everything.
so afraid to touch any of it, because what she holds or has inevitably breaks. Shannon with her purple-stained ribs and her lightly wheezing breaths, Mary sometimes with a limp or a wince when she tries to lift something after taking a ricochet-shot to the shoulder; a wound that is shallow to everyone except Beatrice.
but then she sees Suzanne, still getting used to her cane, to being here, again, and not dead. (telling herself that she ought to be dead, that she has nothing good left to give, no purpose in these gunpowder-scented halls)
and then Mary gets hurt, and Bea’s trying to be small and helpful and not any trouble so she decides that she’ll shadow the calm shape of Suzanne around the convent (and the anger under her façade is not invisible to Bea; she knows this slow simmer, this unvoiced scream that has to stay or it will never stop).
and she is just a little shadow, with her knobbly elbows and too-big hoodie (black, to suit her mood). it makes her seem, to Suzanne, like a dark scar against the sun-blasted stone.
at first she just lets Beatrice follow her around as she watches the sisters run through forms or practice hand signs or spar from way up high on the walls. tutting at Beatrice when she tries to sit on the parapet, so she stands on her toes looking over. her small frame masking the intelligence in her eyes as she follows each fight.
the days pass and they slip into an odd, mute choreography. breakfast in the refectory and Bea choosing the same fruit as Suzanne, watching how she slices up a mango and eats it so that her face is stained by the juice, how she sucks the sweetness off her own thumb, after. Bea with her chocolate cereal they keep just for her, stirring it until the milk goes brown, eating plain toast while she waits for Suzanne to finish her coffee.
Suzanne notices that Bea has a tiny plastic thing she holds when she’s nervous, when the hallways are busy after morning prayers. accompanied by a blood-drawing bite of her bottom lip, one fist stuffed in the front pocket of her hoodie and the other turning a little plastic shape over and over in her palm.
and so Suzanne starts diverting, insisting that she needs to climb the belltower to look at the masonry, explaining conservation and how to find flaws in stone to Bea, who turns her little plastic x-wing fighter over in her palms, paying rapt attention.
Bea too overwhelmed by all the people at lunch time so they eat in the kitchen, Suzanne cutting the crusts off Bea’s sandwich out of habit, because she used to do that when she was young, and Bea making her laugh by picking up each stick of cut crust from the side of the plate and eating them one-by-one.
finding out that Bes hates raw carrot but likes grapes. adapting, adapting.
Bea like: “my favorite part of pizza is the crust.” and Suzanne ordering pizza for them when Shannon's out on mission one night, when Mary falls asleep early from the painkillers despite herself. the two of them in the refectory again but in the quiet, Suzanne confused but listening to Beatrice telling her the whole plot of a star wars movie, taking Suzanne’s discarded crusts when she’s finished each slice and munching determinedly while she listens for the sound of the vans returning home.
during the day when Suzanne has to rest (frequently) she smiles as Beatrice shows her how she can do fifty situps or her cartwheels or her handstand, knowing that this is Beatrice's way of not commenting on how tired Suzanne is, for someone so young.
closer, still tentative and full of silences. miniature misunderstandings and moments of genuine grace.
until eventually Mary takes a stroll and finds Bea sitting on the wall, Suzanne with an arm wrapped around her so that Bea’s watching the sparring half-asleep with her head resting against Suzanne’s shoulder, against her muscle-wasted thinness, because the halo has left scars beyond those you can see.
Mary watching them, not sure how to feel except perhaps grateful. a horrible part of her thinking that if anything happens to her and Shannon both, then there will still be someone left in the world for Beatrice.
looking at Suzanne and thinking “you couldn’t carry the halo, but if you can carry her in my absence, i might be able to forgive you for it.”
"The candles? In my back left pocket. Where do you want the–"
"Icing sugar? By the mixing bowl, please." Mary darts a kiss that skims Shannon's cheek as she spins away from the fridge with a bottle of milk in hand. "Did you check–"
"Maria's got Bea doing her homework in the backroom." Shannon turns into Mary's space, lifts a hand to thumb the crease between her brows smooth. "Relax, Mary. Take a breath." She traces the backs of her fingers across Mary's temple, down the plane of her cheek, the pad of her thumb trailing down the slope of Mary's nose, falling to rest on the pillow of her lower lip. "It's going to be fine."
Mary kisses the pad of Shannon's thumb, tilts her head to secret another kiss in the hollow of Shannon's palm. "I just want her to enjoy it."
"She will, darling. I promise you, she will."
"Is it enough? I don't know if it's enough. It's less than–"
"It's the perfect amount. It's what she told you she wanted, isn't it? And you know she's comfortable telling you whatever it is she's thinking."
Mary grins ruefully. "At times I almost wish she wasn't."
"You don't mean that."
"I don't." Mary's shoulders drop and she sways forward into Shannon's embrace. "I want to do right by her," she grumbles into the slope of Shannon's shoulder. "I don't know why that feels like such an impossible task sometimes."
"Because we're figuring this out on the fly. But you're doing your best. I know you are. How many parenting books have you read since she showed up? How many nightmares have you talked her down from?" Shannon rocks them from side to side, glossing over the disgruntled sound Mary makes in response to being jostled. "Would you have wanted anything more than what you've given her when you were in her position?"
Mary stiffens in her arms, burrows deeper into the collar of Shannon's sweater as she ponders the question. "No," she says finally, softly, "I've done my best to become the person I needed then."
"And that is…" Shannon cues, jabbing a finger into the firm span of Mary's side.
"That is enough," Mary replies, voice dripping with fond annoyance. And then, as an afterthought, "You asshole." But she turns her head to kiss Shannon all the same.
bea going to the movies for the first time with mary and it’s like 2008, so they’re going to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
bea frets and spends daaaays agonising over it because she wants to go see the film in her padawan robes that one of the sisters helped her sew and she wants to bring her toy lightsaber, but she’s also terrified of standing out. doesn’t want people to stare at her, because it’s not very jedi-like to hide in mary’s jacket while she orders popcorn.
and it’s shannon who finds her haunting the chapel, coming in barefoot, sore, a little dab of blood still on her neck, which bea points out to her with a soft fingertip as shannon settles into the pew next to her.
“that was ketchup,” she tells bea, swiping at it with the heel of her palm.
“you shouldn’t lie in a church.”
they sit in silence, votive candles and their soft puttering, casting spear-tip shadows up the stone walls.
eventually, shannon yawns, “so hey, sister agatha said you disappeared before lunch. it’s 7pm.”
“i know what time it is.”
“never doubted you for a second” - shannon reaches out to tuck a rebellious strand of hair behind bea’s ear - “but my point was more about you and me maybe going to the grocery store to get some stuff to eat? we can get those instant noodle pots and add M&M’s. have you ever tried that?”
a perturbed frown, “noodles with M&M’s?”
“yeah, the pretzel ones.”
and bea senses, then, that shannon’s trying to rile her up and slip through the cracks formed by her frustration, so she settles back against the pew, folds her hands in her lap, “no thank you.”
but a moment later she’s clenching and unclenching her small fists, staring fixedly at one of the crucifixes. it’s her favourite, apparently, because instead of nailing his feet to the cross, the sculptor gave jesus a little shelf to stand on. ‘that’s actually a little cruel,’ beatrice told her once. ‘without the asphyxiation, it would take him much longer to die, unless the centurions were feeling merciful.’
“bea,” she says, soft. “you know you can tell me what’s wrong. i’m not saying i can fix it, but i’m not going to say it’s stupid.”
bea’s silent for a minute. “but it is stupid.”
“more stupid than noodles with M&M’s?”
her brown eyes are almost blackened by the shadows in the chapel, irises laced with faint impressions of candlelight.
“mary’s taking me to a movie tomorrow.”
“i know,” shannon reaches into her pocket, produces two slightly-crumpled pieces of paper. “i picked up the tickets this morning.”
“oh.” bea squeezes her eyes shut, like she’s trying not to cry. “it’s just… i don’t think i want to go.”
and she tells shannon why, taking out her plastic lighsaber (blue, of course) from under the pew, holding it.
shannon kisses her forehead and takes her through the convent to her room, where her armour rests on its stand in the corner. someone’s already cleaned up the blood.
she lets bea touch the gauntlets, the links of the mail bumpy-smooth under her fingers. tells her, “i felt ridiculous wearing it, in the beginning, but then it saved me from a stab to the chest and i realised” - she huffs a laugh - “that i’d rather be alive, and myself, than one hundred percent comfortable all the time.”
she puts a hand on bea’s shoulder, “you should wear what you want, bea.”
so she does. holding mary’s hand with the sleeve of her padawan robe slipping up her arm, passing kids wearing darth vader helmets and carrying lightsabers just like hers. a couple of them wave at her and say “hi Obi-Wan!” and she buries her face in mary’s jacket, but she’s hiding a smile.
she has a short lightsaber fight with another kid in the lobby while mary’s ordering popcorn; a girl who shows her a pack of Top Trumps cards and tells her she thinks C3PO should be more powerful. bea gives a soft sigh of appreciation whenever Obi-Wan appears onscreen, and afterwards shannon picks them up in the van and bea falls asleep against her ribs as mary drives through the dark streets.
S.O.S. not shannon showing bea her armour and getting her even more invested in warrior nunnery
