Warrior Nun Season 3

Psalm 32:7-8

"You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you."

When Beatrice had gone to pick up Mary in the hideaway village, after she had spent long days awaiting Ava's arrival back to the Cat's Cradle, it was the first time she was angry with the Warrior Nun. A girl she hadn't really known yet, but with whom she shared her past. Beatrice didn't let any of the sisters in as easily as she let Ava, and it upset her when she left. Here, Beatrice had spilled, and Ava had run. She had to think that a part of it might have been because of her. So many had done it in her past, perhaps she was no different.

But when she parked on the stone bridge leading out of the village, watching Mary stand with Ava and exchange a few words, Beatrice's anger seemed to evaporate. She stared in the rearview mirror at the girl, small and unsure, no path to guide her, and she knew that she would come back to her. And when Mary said that she would, Beatrice nodded in knowing.

She felt the slightest pain when they had to drive away from her, leave her behind, but Beatrice knew it wasn't the end. It was merely the beginning. Ava was on her own path, one different from hers, and she was willing to wait for them to cross by the grace of God.

Beatrice had been with Jillian a week before she came across the letter. She had finally built up the courage to visit the room Ava had been staying in before the final mission. Jillian had left it untouched, no one had been inside.

So when she steps into the room, smelling Ava instantly, her eyes immediately fill with tears. The aching of missing her so deeply sends a pain to her chest, to her head, and she has to sit down on the bed for it to pass. On the nightstand is an envelope, Ava's scrawling handwriting intending it for Beatrice.

She picks it up, eager yet fearful of what is inside. It feels like a last words letter. Sentences that Ava couldn't tell her in person, but were easier on paper. Heavy words. Hard words.

She reads.

"Dear Beatrice, I know you know I've been lying these past few days about the plan. That seems to be something we're both terrible at. By the time you read this, you'll know what happened. I'm sorry. But I still have some things to say that I'm sure I'll be too chicken to in the moment, so I thought I'd say them here.

"I like, really, really, really, really, love you. A lot. I think you do too, and I think you've known that I've loved you for a while now, even if you didn't want to admit it. But I can't tell you now, because I know that you'll say it back, and if you do I'm going to try everything I can to stay. And that won't save you. And I want to save you more than I want to love you, even though I really wish I could.

"I just imagine us in the Alps. Tending to the bar until we're old and wrinkled, the books pristine and the drinks too strong. I picture us dancing until we're the last ones there, and then going home to our shitty but perfect apartment, and falling asleep next to you and waking up in the morning to do it all over again. It's a good fantasy to think of.

"I don't want to leave you. If I could change all of this, everything, it would be that. That we could win and I could stay. But this is how it was always going to be, I guess. I think we all knew that.

"More than anything, Bea, I want you to love. I want you to love someone else. I want you to live the life I wish I had, so that I can live it too. Can you do that for me? Can you travel and run and swim and kiss and cook and do all the good things that living is about? Find someone who loves you so they can show you what it's like. You deserve it. You're worthy of it.