#also new wig for lilith pls we need it

[thanks--for--listening]

resurrection

ok i know i still have other fics to write but i got mad at those so here’s a little warrior nun fic instead. consider this my formal request for a better wig for lilith in season 2. (also on ao3.)

~~

Lilith had never cared much about her hair. For as long as she could remember, it held no importance to her or the people around her. When she joined the OCS, when she began to cover it, she’d felt no sense of loss, no internal conflict. She’d hardly paid it any attention — what did she care whether others could see it or not? Hair didn’t matter, appearances didn’t matter. Not as much as strength, intelligence, coordination. Not as much as duty. Not as much as a legacy.

Now she couldn’t stop staring at the mirror. Her reflection looked back at her, but all she saw was a stranger. She didn’t know this girl, with her grey hair and her coward’s eyes. She didn’t know this body, with a mind of its own and a history it refused to share. The person she used to see had died in that warehouse, and it’s replacement was second-rate. Undeserving of taking her place. Damaged beyond repair. 

“Hey, Cruella DeVil, you done admiring yourself yet? Or do the rest of us have to find another bathroom in this godforsaken place?” Mary’s voice broke her train of thought, and Lilith watched in the mirror as she walked up behind her. Something inside her twisted at the sight, at how every part of her appearance remained familiar. Despite everything that had happened, everything she’d lost, Mary hadn’t let it change her. She’d been strong enough to hold onto consistency.

“Don’t say that,” she heard Camila say, before seeing her head pop into the reflection behind her other shoulder. The hotel rooms they’d managed to hide in after the battle didn’t leave much room for privacy, it would seem. That, or her roommates simply didn’t comprehend the concept, or care enough to respect it. “I think it looks beautiful.”

“Oh, it’s definitely badass. There’s no doubt about that. I’m just saying, put on a fur coat, adjust the colors a little...”

“Her hair is prettier than that silly cartoon’s. And you know, I think grey is in right now.” She ran her fingers through it, and it took everything Lilith had not to flinch at the touch. “Lots of people would spend hours in a salon to try and get that color.”

“Yeah, you’re a real trendsetter now,” Mary laughed, and Lilith wanted to laugh with them, wanted to give a snarky response, wanted to do anything the old her would have, but she couldn’t. That woman was dead. And no miracle or Halo could ever bring her back.

She saw rather than felt Mary’s hand on her shoulder. “Hey,” she said, her voice soft and serious in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

Lilith didn’t know why she was asking until she shifted her gaze, saw the tears slowly making their way down her own cheeks. She couldn’t find it in herself to care enough to wipe them away. “I don’t know who that is,” she whispered.

“You don’t know who who is?” Camila asked hesitantly. “Do you...see someone?”

Lilith shook her head. Words had never been her preferred method of self expression, but she searched for an explanation nonetheless. “I look in the mirror and I see myself, but it’s not me. Not really.”

“It doesn’t matter what your hair looks like. You are the same Lilith you have always been.”

“You and I both know that’s not true, Mary,” she whispered. “Something happened to me. Something’s...wrong. And I don’t know what it is. How to fix it. Whether it can even be fixed.”

No one spoke for a moment. Between running away and desperately searching for a place to regroup, they hadn’t found the time to discuss her recent resurrection, or any of the complications that came with it. Part of her wondered if she’d even still be here if they had. There were only so many times she could apologize to Ava for trying to kill her, and if she couldn’t trust herself, how could she possibly expect the others to do the same?

“Maybe,” Camila said, “it’s not supposed to be fixed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you were supposed to be dead, but you’re not. Nobody’s ever come back the way you have. That has to be a good thing.”

“What part of this could possibly be considered good?” She snapped. “I don’t remember what happened to me. I keep losing moments, losing control. And when I do, I hurt people.”

“That’s not what it looked like to me when we were fighting Adriel.”

“That’s because you weren’t at the tomb. I attacked Ava. Fought against us. I almost ruined everything.”

Mary’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Did you?” 

The memory of being restrained, held back, held together, echoed in her mind. “You know I did,” she said softly, shame creeping into her voice without her permission. “You were there.”

Mary shook her head. “No, I mean, we thought you were attacking us. But that’s because we thought Ava needed to get into the tomb. You were the only one who knew going in there was a bad idea. That it would put us all in danger.”

She tried to think back. She remembered fighting, but it was all blurry. Like she was watching herself from above. Like she wasn’t the one in control. The feeling hadn’t gone away until she’d felt Mary’s arms wrapped around her, her words an anchor bringing her back to the surface. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know how I knew. It was as if someone else was using my body — I was just along for the ride.”

“Was it like a voice in your head?”

“No. It was more like...a feeling. Like I was acting on instinct. Only, I don’t know whose instincts.”

“Well,” Mary said, “I don’t know about you, but the next time you get that feeling, I say we let it play out.”

“Yeah,” Camila said. “Everything we thought we knew was wrong. Maybe wherever you went is trying to help us. Maybe it sent you back because it knew we’d need you.”

“Need me? You can’t even trust me. I can’t even trust me.”

“Hey,” Mary grabbed her shoulders, turned her until they were face to face. “There is nothing you could do to make me not trust you. You are the most honorable person I know— I’d follow you anywhere.”

“I tried to pull the Halo out of Ava. And that was before the Tarask.”

“A brief lapse in judgement doesn’t erase what I know to be true. And that is that you will always try and do the right thing, even if it kills you. So if something hitched a ride with you on the way back from wherever that Tarask took you, maybe we oughta give it a chance.”

“You could be the key,” Camila said, and she couldn’t see her but she could hear the smile in her voice. “You could be what saves us all.”

“I just—“ she turned, stared at her reflection, waited for something to change. “I don’t see it.”

Camila gasped. “I know what you need!” She exclaimed, before turning around and running out the door. 

Mary sighed. “I love that girl to death, but I’m one squeal away from sending her to Ava and Beatrice’s room.”

Her words almost dragged a smile onto her face, but the feeling didn’t last. “Mary,” she said quietly, “I know you want to believe that whatever happened to me is good.”

“We don’t know that it isn’t.”

Lilith just nodded. “If it isn’t, though, if...if I ever go too far, if I get too lost, I need you to promise me—“

“No, Lilith, I—“

“Promise me you’ll save them. Promise me you’ll stop me. No matter what it takes.”

Mary shook her head. “Find someone else to fulfil your death wish. I won’t do it.”

“I can’t ask anyone else. Camila’s too gentle to hurt a friend. Beatrice wouldn’t be able to live with herself afterwards. And Ava’s too important to have the others turn on her for doing what I told her. It has to be you, Mary.”

“What, and you think I’d be totally fine with killing you?”

“No, but--”

“How heartless do you think I am?”

The words hit her like a knife to the gut, the look she gave her twisting it until the pain was almost unbearable. Lilith forced herself to talk through it. “I’m not asking because I think you’re heartless. You’re the strongest person I know. I trust you more than I trust myself. I don’t want to ask you, but I also don’t want to hurt you. That’s why I need you to promise me you won’t let me.”

Mary hesitated. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

Lilith nodded, forced herself to keep eye contact, to pretend like she still had the courage she used to. “The others believe in divine intervention; you and I both know whatever happened to me is more likely the other way around.”

“We don’t know anything yet, Lilith.”

“Please, Mary,” she begged, and she knew the tears had come back but again she let them be. “If I hurt you, if I hurt any of them, I—“

“Hey,” Mary pulled her closer and she let her, rested her head on her shoulder. With anyone else she would have run, would have had to fight through the discomfort, but Mary had a way of making her feel safe in a way no one else did. “I trust you, 100 percent. And I promise I’ll make sure you don’t hurt anyone if you ever lose control. But I’m not killing you, Lilith.”

“Mary—“

“I won’t need to. I’ve always been the better fighter, anyway. Possessed or not, I’m coming out on top.”

She scoffed. Leave it to Mary to turn her heartfelt moment of vulnerability into a contest, although she had to work to fight back the smile that threatened to make an appearance in spite of the tears. “Maybe I should have asked Beatrice — at least she’d have a chance at beating me. If she got lucky.”

“Oh, it’s like that, huh? You take a trip to the other side and forget about the ass kicking I gave you on the pier?”

“One fight doesn’t outweigh years of victories.”

“Yeah, if that’s what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, go ahead.” Mary laughed, and Lilith wondered what she’d done to get so lucky, to have someone like her stick around after everything she’d done. She wasn’t sure she could ever do enough to deserve her.

“Got it!” They turned to find Camila running back into the room, scissors raised above her head. 

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“It’s Girl Code 101, Mary! When something bad happens, you cut your hair.”

“That’s for getting rejected by your crush, not getting stabbed by a—“

“It’ll still work! Trust me, all the magazines say that when you need to make a fresh start, you have to change your appearance. And since the Tarask did the dye job for us…” she opened and closed the scissors a few times, and Lilith wondered if maybe she should be nervous.

“Yeah, no. I’m getting Beatrice.”

“Get Ava, too!” She called after Mary as she walked out the door. “She’ll agree with me!”

The door shut behind her. Lilith felt her absence like a weight, heavy and hard and impossible to ignore. She’d known Mary the longest, had grown to find every part of her familiar, but Camila was still a bit of an unknown. The only significant time they’d spent alone together had been at the lab; now, Camila crept up next to her, put the scissors down and reached for her hair with no hesitation. Lilith didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, even when her mind begged her to run. Something kept her in place, something stronger than logic and habit. She couldn’t put a name to the feeling.

“I won’t do it if you don’t want me to,” Camila said as she collected all the stray strands of grey, “but I think maybe your problem is that you’re trying to look for the past in your reflection. You can try all you want, but the mirror can’t show you that. So maybe,” she folded her hair up so it looked like it hung just above her shoulders, “it’ll be easier to let go if you get to control what the present looks like instead.”

Lilith couldn’t look away. She knew it wasn’t real, not yet, but there was something about it that felt...better. She caught Camila’s eyes in the mirror. “How did you get so wise?”

Camila winked. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

They looked at each other, and Lilith thought maybe she’d underestimated her, had seen a smile and a shiny surface and failed to look deeper. She decided she wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Do it.”

She closed her eyes, felt Camila drop her hair down her back. She thought about everything that led her here. The life she’d had, the future she’d envisioned for herself. It felt so far away, so irrelevant in comparison to everything that had happened since she’d given her life for Ava’s. The Lilith who’d dreamed about that future didn’t exist anymore, but maybe that was okay. Maybe the one that replaced her would be better suited for the war that was sure to come. Maybe this, whatever it was, was her destiny after all.

She heard the cuts, heard the footsteps and gasps of the others right after. She kept her eyes shut for another second, tried to savor how light she suddenly felt, as if Camila had rid her of more than a few inches of hair. When she finally looked, she saw someone brand new. Someone free.

“It’s beautiful,” Beatrice said, and she watched the way Camila beamed at them through the mirror. 

“I told you it would work!”

“What do you think, L?” Mary asked, and she didn’t look at the mirror, but stared straight at her. Lilith turned and stared right back, tried to communicate a million things she’d never have the words for. 

“It’s nice.”

“It’ll be nicer once I clean up the edges,” Camila told her, and as they all began talking over one another, each making the case for why they should be the one to finish the transformation, Lilith let her eyes drift back toward the mirror. She watched the way they bickered, their words completely void of malice, their spirits somehow lifted despite the horrors they’d all seen. They let themselves find happiness in the quiet moments — maybe she could, too. She stopped trying to fight the smile, and found that letting it be felt more natural than stoicism ever had.