A/N: This is just a quick little character study that's been needling me for some time. Religion is quite an important part of my life, and it is my belief that if you've never questioned your faith, you haven't traveled very far.

This falls between seasons eight and nine. I'm practicing getting more emotional effect out of fewer words. Not my usual format, but I believe it works. Enjoy!

When Standing Before An Open Door

Emily Grace

Everyone's riding on the rolling tide; their hearts are heavy and the sea is wide.

More than once she found herself standing stock still around the corner from St. Andrew's, seemingly hypnotized by the deep, reverberating chimes coming from the bell tower. Her heart pounded along its cadence, and it took everything within her not to turn and dash up the steps to the sanctuary.

Often she was coming from her lover's apartment, where she'd spent the night locked in a desperate embrace. While her paramour slumbered peacefully at her side, she would stroke between her shoulder blades and stare at the wallpaper, sleep evading her entirely. Such had become routine ever since her constable had gone to prison. To her, the sequence of events followed naturally: If she'd known a good thing when she had it, they never would have separated. He never would have become involved with the other woman, and her husband wouldn't have died.

But he had acted alone, entirely independent of her influence. This was the course of fate, and there was no way to reverse it. None of this was about her, but she still felt responsible.

She wore envy every day of her life towards those that could make sense of it; as a coroner, she'd seen the very deepest of depravity humanity could offer. If there was a God-a little voice inside her echoed yes, yes-there must be a reason that man had been formed in such a malevolent image. And she threw herself at the mercy of this notion, for at this point she had no other choice.

Julia Ogden

People change, and some people never do.

She was never a believer until she had to be.

Perhaps that wasn't exactly right, because it had been her decision to convert to Catholicism. It was only right, for she planned to adopt children and would prefer them to be raised on a certain moral high ground. But that couldn't possibly be correct, for even after all of these years she still felt the judgment of the Toronto gentry upon her as she ascended the steps of St. Paul's Basilica on the arm of her husband. Could they see within her, to the depths of her rotten heart and barren womb?

She prided herself on being a woman of science, and embraced the customary agnosticism that came along with that. But there had always been lingering doubts, stemming from the visions of her father's specter shortly after his death. It was only stress, she'd told herself, ignoring the prick of gooseflesh across her arms.

But there were some moments that she felt enraptured by the light streaming in through the stained glass, uplifted by the priest's words and bolstered by the detective's presence at her side. It was only then she dared to raise her hands to the heavens and plead that her recalcitrant heart buy into something wholly non corporeal and inexplicable. She knew that she would follow that feeling to the ends of the earth.

George Crabtree

Why does everyone sing along when we built this city on ruins?

"But why do bad things happen to good people, Auntie Azalea?" He found himself asking more than once as he watched her wash up after supper, his feet dangling from the edge of the bar stool.

So often she would carefully set down her dishtowel and shut off the water, only to sigh and lean across the counter to look him in the eyes. It was in these moments she looked much older than her thirty-some years, beaten down by time and circumstance. "Well, I suppose that's a question you'll have to ask the reverend."

And so he had, and repeated it twice monthly to the same response. "Master Crabtree," the surly gentleman had advised him one afternoon as they tidied the rectory, "I believe you know the answer quite well. It is to test our souls in preparation for our final resting place."

These words had played over and over in his head during the trying times of his young life. When he'd first left the only home he'd ever known to seek employment in Toronto, he'd carried the good book under his arm like armor. When the first woman he'd ever loved left him for another, he'd knelt by his bedside and swore to the heavens that not my will, but yours be done. And when at last he lay in his prison cell, wearied by his thoughts, he wondered when his trials of spirit would be over.

All his life, he had strived to be good and pure of heart. Perhaps it would never be enough.

William Murdoch

I've walked right through these lands and I believe in the faith of my fellow man.

After his father had left for the last time, the detective found himself trying not to wish the curmudgeonly drunk harm. Perhaps it had only been right, for all of the emotional stress he'd doled out to his family; even after it was known that he hadn't purposefully killed mother, he found it hard to trust him. He reasoned that such a man slow about wits couldn't have wandered far from British Columbia, and so had deputized his half-brother to keep his eye out for him. Apparently the blight on society had remained unrepentant until the end, perishing in a barroom row that the Mounted Police only just missed breaking up.

Not a day went by where he didn't pray for Harry's eternal soul. He was a staunch believer that there was a bit of good in every person, even angry, verbally abusive drunkards. Perhaps he had done good in his last months on earth, even though he doubted it would manage to tip the scales of transgression. The memories of his father were unpleasant ones, dark with fear and tribulation, so much so that in the early years of his schooling with the Jesuits he'd visualized demons as middle-aged men ruined by vice.

He regretted not speaking before his death, even though he knew their conversations would be fruitless. Too many of his recounts of the past were clouded by drink, and so Harry might never had realized just how perceptive his boy was, how much he enjoyed looking at the stars by night, and just how desperately he wanted to be loved.

But he knew that God would have mercy, because He did not create individuals that He did not plan on giving infinite chances. He had to believe this, for it was the sole chance his father would have at redemption.

He could only pray that his own disdain would be greeted with the same leniency.

The End