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Date & Time: After the nuke announcement, but before the nukes
Location: One of Exsilium's Churches
Characters: Helena Bertinelli (

crossbearing) and Jaime Reyes
Summary: In the midst of the recent announcements and heated arguments over the network, Jaime ends up going to Church. Helena does too.
Warnings: Talk of war, etc. and VERY SAD PEOPLE 8(

There are no atheists in foxholes.

That's what his dad used to say, anyway, back before Jaime could so much as imagine what it would be like to see a war, let alone stand in the midst of one, running alongside people as unprepared and terrified as he was. He had a hard time thinking about his father in a war as long ago as it was; when he closed his eyes and imagined him, he imagined a quiet man with warm smiles, standing at a grill or puttering around the garage, smelling faintly of motor oil and sweat as he wiped down one of his tools.

Jaime wondered what his father would make of a war seemingly impossible to win and the unbearable options they were faced with, of the fact that Jaime himself was certain that not killing men was potentially as cruel as killing them. Knocking people unconscious on a battlefield was different from knocking them out in the streets of El Paso, where he could bring them quickly and safely to the police. He went one of Exsilium's Churches after that battle, but hadn't been back since, not even after so many Exiles had perished from bombs and disease shortly afterwards. It wasn't an active choice, or even something he had even given any thought. It had simply slipped his mind in the absence of every other ritual of his life replaced with little more than the reality at hand.

Now that the nukes had been announced, he was here again. Jaime wasn't certain what he expected out of coming back here, nor was he certain of what he could possibly pray for. Any irrational instinct to try to stay and help them, or to let someone go in his place had been quickly squashed by the combined forces of Steph and the Scarab alike and the reality that would be waiting for any Exile on the moonbase, bereft of home, family, and comrades alike, an exile in every sense of the word.

He had thought about it, had even been on the cusp of asking one man, and he had faltered. Would he leave, if he were them? Would he even want to know, to go rushing into UE territory to be gunned down in a blaze of fear and pain, or would he want to spend the rest of his days surrounded by families and friends in the comforting cradle of normalcy until it all just... ended. What was the right thing to do?

He wished that he could answer that question for himself even half as concretely as others on the network seemed to have answered them for himself. Instead, he was here. He stood by the pews at the very front of the room, arms hanging loosely at his side, and wondered.

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"Yeah," Jaime echoes, chest tightening a little at the presence of physical contact. It may not be much, but it's enough to tear at him a little and get underneath his skin. For all that it hurts, and for all that he's been trying to avoid people to get his head together, if he said that he was unhappy that Helena is here, with him, he would be lying.

He looks down at his shoes and swallows. "I didn't know you ever came here. To Church."

"When I was eight I wanted to be the Pope."
Quiet, like she knows the effort to say something light, something to make him smile is pointless. "I seriously thought about becoming a nun, for a while."

Moving forward, she stands alongside him, hand sliding across his shoulders, looking at the remains of stained glass. "I guess I could say the same about you." The attending church, not so much wanting to be a nun.

"I only really came here after the war. On Elmer's world." He looks up at her, a little wonderingly. "I don't think you were around for that."

Which is probably a blessing, he thinks. He has faith that Helena would have gone too, but he has faith that Helena too would have failed. It had been as hopeless a battle as the one they're facing now.

"I meant to come here more often after that, but we always seemed so busy," he says a little guiltily, following her gaze to the stained glass in front of them.

He can hear his father lecturing him about that excuse already, but it just doesn't feel the same here. With no religious community to speak of and every Church as run-down as the buildings around them, coming here feels like returning to a hollow shell.

A slight shake of her head, no she wasn't. She'd heard about it. Stephanie had told her bits and pieces, she'd scoured the network. It wasn't something a child should have seen, which feels a foolish response because nothing about this place was for children, or even really for adults. Not most of them, anyway.

Her hand stays at his shoulder, squeezes slightly. "It's been busy." This place drove her back, but only because she truly had no other answers.

"I hadn't been to a service for years, in Gotham." That's not really much in the way of comfort, either, but she understands. Sometimes it's... too much. "For a long time I thought it was because I didn't believe any more."

Jaime believes, believes like someone born and raised in the community, like someone blessed with a good life, a happy life. Even the atrocities that have taken place here haven't quite managed to shake his belief in God, but it's shaken him as to how much can actually be done, what he's supposed to do, how far they're supposed to stretch things.

The Spectre told him that he would be watching him if he ever strays from the path of goodness. Jaime just wishes that someone told him what that was.

Underneath different circumstances, Jaime would be aware that he's asking something deeply personal. Now, he simply sounds as lost as he looks. "Do you?"

That's worth a moment of thought. "I still believe," she admits, slowly. "But now I know that if I believe, my soul is already damned. Long before I came to Exsilium."

This does not condemn Jaime. "My mother would have said I have a lot of sins against my soul, and a lot to answer for. This isn't one of them, Jaime, but it doesn't make it any easier to watch."

Her hand balls into a fist, knuckles white under the protective cover of her gloves. Her opposite hand, still on Jaime's shoulder, remains relaxed. Comforting, as best it can be. "This isn't on you." Not the way that she has murdered and arranged the death of so many who had done the same to her family. Blood cries for blood, but nothing had cried for this.

He blinks at her in surprise, and starts: "I don't think--"

He doesn't finish that sentence. What he wants to say is that he doesn't think her soul is damned. He knows she's too forceful by half and has quite a few interesting things to say about government officials, but the fact that she is standing here, with him, hand on his shoulder says something. The fact that she's wearing that mask says something too. She's always been kinder to him than he would have any right to expect, and whatever she did in her past - and he has no idea what that is - there is always forgiveness.

He just doesn't have the energy to get into that right now, not on top of everything else.

"This is on the UE," Jaime says instead, voice trembling a little with the feeling of it, though whether it's anger or sadness he can't say. "But - all of these people, Helena, people we're supposed to protect. And we can't save even one. Not really."

Her grip on his shoulder tightens with the tremor in his voice. "I know." No such shake in her voice, only her anger, the threat of it, because when anger rises it is so much easier to forget about the grief. Only temporarily, but it helps. "I know."

Helena's jaw tightens. "I came here to find answers. This is not the end of this."

"I haven't found any yet."

It's not a search that has been going well. The people are so loud, conflicting voices yelling over each other on either side, both correct, both wrong, but any voice of moral certainty has remained utterly silent. He's starting to think that answers began to run dry the day he saw war for himself, the day he came away from a battle, took a good, hard looks at himself and wasn't sure if he liked what he saw there.

His jaw works, and he scrubs one hand across his face. "Never thought it'd come to this."

"I don't think God is big on making the answers easy."

On any other day that would have sounded a little more wry. Right now, it's bitter, because it feels like all her faith has done is fail her. Or did she simply fail her faith, before she even knew what it was to make a poor decision? She had wondered, when she was younger, if God had punished her praying for her father's death by taking her brother and her mother as well, by killing everyone, and if her entire life was a domino effect of begging for answers and being punished for her arrogance, for some undeniable corruption inside her.

"Me neither." Her anger is subdued, but only for Jaime, only for his sake, hand sliding from his shoulder to rub up and down his back in case that grip turned to hard, bruising instead of soothing. Venomous, she bites out her words. "How did this world get so screwed up? How did this happen?" Is humanity that inherently flawed, this monstrous?

The soothing motion of Helena's hand against his back is achingly familiar for a moment, reminding him of his mother. It's exactly what she'd be doing right now; whether it's from being a mother or being a nurse, she's always been quick to reach out and reassure others in the most tangible way she knows how.

Helena is voicing what everyone's been thinking, but that doesn't mean that any answers are forthcoming. They can read the Initiative's files all they want, but no sense of history will be able to explain this away, the sheer ruthlessness of what they're facing. He doesn't even bother to adding his own questions to hers, momentarily lost for words.

For a long while she's content to simple maintain the silence and the contact, because nothing else seems like it would be right, helpful, like it could be remotely valuable. In this moment, Jaime is all that matters, because Jaime is the only person she can fathom helping. Everything else feels so out of reach, and it is a helplessness that she has always despised. She longs to tear herself apart on hooks, to throw herself into a senseless fight and cause because at least that isn't inaction.

Trying to bring comfort to someone else who is lost isn't inaction, though. Eventually, she tugs - truly tugs, because she feels like there is resistance, protest - her gaze away from broken down icons and lets it settle on Jaime.

"Do you pray?" Somewhere between an offer and a simple question, as she tilts her head towards the pews.

"Sometimes."

He's never had too much cause to pray beyond the times he's expected to. He knows now how tremendously lucky he's been to never have felt the sudden desire to go to Church as he is now, to ask for forgiveness and guidance. Back home, his prayers are nothing of the kind, save for thanks and the ever-enduring hope for continued safety and happiness present in any family.

Jaime follows her gaze to the pews. He's not sure what he had initially come here for, but prayer was somewhere in the muddled mess of his mind. It hadn't occurred to him that he would be praying with someone.

"Did you want to...?"

"That was the plan." Though not a lot was going to plan, these days. "You don't have to if it makes you uncomfortable. Sometimes just sitting is enough to help you find some peace."

It used to be enough for her, although those days are long, long ago. She needed to ask questions and interrogate and beg God for answers before her parents died.

"No," Jaime says, shaking his head. This time he's the one to initiate contact, bringing one hand up to lightly touch her arm. "It's a good idea."

He leads the way to sit down at the pews, an oddly eerie feeling in this empty, broken-down place.

Helena pauses at the touch to her arm, observing Jaime for a second.

"Do you know the rosary?" Do you have a rosary? was a question that she figured the answer to was no, but even so. Her voice is quiet, observing the importance of the place even if it is broken down as she follows him, letting him pick where he'd like to sit or kneel.

"Yeah, I do," Jaime replies. He doesn't do it with any regularity, but it's not something he's forgotten even after all this time. He takes a seat at the pews, hands resting neatly in his lap for once.

"I don't have one, though."

"It's okay." She draws her rosary from her utility, holding it out with a wry smile, beads falling around her fingers. "I don't think the Holy Mother will mind if we share."

She had plenty of problems with religion and her faith, but they need this, right now. It's why she starts leading them, just murmuring the words quietly. It's important to take this time and it's important to grieve, even if it can't possibly be enough, and her hands are gripping each bead too hard before she moves to the next, and the next after that.

Being in Church has never been difficult for Jaime before. Sure, he's been bored, or sleepy, or maybe he didn't feel like going that day, but it's never been difficult. It's so simple to go over the familiar phrases and rituals, surrounded by familiar faces, but that's not the case here.

Here, he feels something he has to ask forgiveness for, a deep shame that he can practically feel rolling deep in his gut, sticking to his ribs. His voice is steady at first, but by the middle it's wobbling and it doesn't take long after that before he chokes and has to cut himself off, gritting his teeth and shoving the heels of his hands into his eyes.

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one day I will have more than one appropriate icon for this mood

just photoshop all your happy icons to have ":(" over his face

summary of the exsilium experience tbh

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and then I didn't press post comment for hours :|

it's ok, we're already rocking the backtagging thing anyway ;)