Once again, this is late. I'm afraid I'm in a bout of writer's block ATM. Life, stuff, is getting in the way. I will try and get things updated soon, I promise. Apologies for randomness, but I walked past two churches on my way home...
She never had liked churches. They were always too cold, full of long rambling sermons criticising their existence, or promoting the existence of a mythical being. For her church stood for loss, of a colleague or family member, and even loss of her past life. Every funeral she went to (including her own,) was permanently etched in her mind. Her grandmother's, a sombre event full of people who stared ahead in stony silence. John Noble from MI6, a surprisingly empty and melancholy event (well, melancholy for a funeral). Ruth's funeral, filled with guilt and the pain of watching Harry pretend he was alright, that he had never loved her. Like anyone believed that. Her own was barely any better, the knowledge that everything she had worked for had now gone.
Churches stood for loss, pain, an end to another chapter of her life. Only now, as she left this Russian church, her only possession a brown envelope, did she start to think of churches differently. This church, whilst once signalling the end of another chapter, allowed her to return to her job and her home. In that moment, her definition of a church changed - from a stone building full of pain, loss and mythology - to a place where hope is found.