Passing, a storm hawks fanfic

Title: Passing
Author: Keeper of Tomes
Summary: 65 of the 100 Challenge. Piper- "Sometimes people give up one thing, one part of their existence, for some greater balance. And other times, they just...give."
Song: Shadow On The Wall and Cannonball, by Brandi Carlile
Words: 2182
Pairing(s): A/P

Ah, something from deep inside me. It's...complicated.

You don't have to read if you don't like stories dealing with religion and war. Really, I'm a little iffy about posting it in the first place. To be honest, though, it helped rid me of writer's block, so...

Again, you don't have to read. But I'd appreciate it if you did.

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On Ash Wednesday, I contemplated going back to church and getting a cross drawn upon my forehead. I contemplated the sensation of returning to something safe and stable, where the priests murmured sweet words of holy endearment in glorious tongues, and candles fluttered in the darkness.

For Lent, I considered the possibility of giving up something for a while, leaving behind my desire and need for adventure. Considered sitting in my room and pulling out the family Bible, all the while wondering if I'd ever have children to pass it on to.

There is a Catechism in my drawer and a rosary in my closet, but neither come out. Ever.

Sometimes, though...

Sometimes I pray. After a particularily taxing day, I kneel and whisper to God a plea for mercy.

Does God really forgive killers?

"It's Sunday, isn't it?"

Everyone nods and nods; the day means absolutely nothing to them and little to me. But I feel like I should ask.

"Think we should start going to church?"

I gather a few dusty stares and a smirk. "Church?" Finn says, eyes rolling upwards. "God, I haven't been to church since just about forever."

"Then maybe you should start going again."

Aerrow sets down the manual he was reading and gives me a half-hearted grin.

"Since when were you religious, Piper?"

I try telling him we shouldn't be. It's pretty wrong. It's pretty stupid.

But dang it, the boy is a locomotive with lips.

He keeps on smearing himself messily across my face. It's a little sad. It's my first time, too, but that doesn't mean I can't be critical.

The wall I stare at over his head carries my calander.

I squint when I see the date and sigh when I realize it's Lent again and I'm making out with a Sky Knight in my bedroom.

Mom always told me that God sees everything. Every now and again, when I go home to her, she does three things, and they all break my heart.

First she hugs me, swearing that if I run off again, she's going to stroke and lose her sanity, because Jesus, she just can't handle the thought of me dying.

Then she sits me down across from her in the living room and hands me my favorite tea. "I got it special for you. Fresh from Asiatica," she says, and she smiles because she knows I'm happy.

The green tea will swirl as she asks me if I've been following God lately.

Her smile will disappear when I say, "I try." Because she knows "I try" is just a substitute for "I've changed."

"How old are you, now?" she whispers. It always changes...This time I say eighteen, next time I say twenty.

How hard is it to tell the truth?

And before I leave, she'll always kiss me and whisper, "God is merciful, dear. God is merciful."

The next day we'll shoot ten boys from the sky, and it won't matter what color uniform it is they wear; I still can't keep from thinking what kind of God lets people like me live.

"Pull the trigger, Finn."

He gives me a watery glare.

"It's an unarmed outpost. We could just sail on by--"

"The Council told us to shoot down every Cyclonian we saw. Pull the trigger."

"Piper, we can duck beneath the clouds...We don't have to..."

"Pull. The trigger."

"Piper!"

"Pull it!"

Maybe the itch in my ear is someone telling me that Finn's right, that the people in that outpost don't have to die. But it's too late, now. The trigger's been pulled and there's a terrific bang. Lights shine and fizz and slam into the Condor's hull as we bank right, away from the carnage. Finn sighs and pulls the gun back inside the ship.

"Anyone else smell sulfur?" he mumbles.

"That's Hell for you," Stork says.

I was raised to be a good Catholic girl, a good Christian girl.

Where did it all go wrong?

When did I start closing my eyes and ordering Death out like I had every right to do so?

I know what I do. I've seen the bodies hanging from the wreckage, empty sacks of meat and gristle. I've watched the rain come down and wash the blood from their veins, watched the steam rise into heaven to be received by some glorious entity I simply don't know whether to hate or to love.

I contemplate all this. Meanwhile, my fingers draw out a few more plans for a new crystal.

The shrapnel, I calculate, would do more damage if mixed with an Eruption Stone...

One morning I stepped out of my room with the Bible in my fingers. Aerrow was at the kitchen table, fixing a blade of his.

"Do you want to have children?" I ask. The book chafes against my fingers. Like a cilice.

He looks up, surprised. "Odd question," is his only answer.

"Do you, though?"

"You've been asking the weirdest things, lately." Pausing, he stands and walks over. Takes my hand and presses his lips to my forehead. "Everything okay?"

"Just answer the question, Aerrow."

He shrugs and says, "We're a bit young to be thinking about stuff like that, aren't we?"

I pause and hide the book behind my back. Lest he should notice, lest he should judge. Momma would berate me for concealing my faith; "It isn't anything to be ashamed of," she'd say, but Lord, I love this boy too much for him to think badly of me.

"I guess."

We're twenty-one and this is the war, seven years in. Aerrow, we're not kids anymore. Don't you realize that? Don't you?

"Maybe we should get married," is my next suggestion.

His eyes widen before he lets go of my hand and returns to the table.

"I'm not ready for that, yet." He swallows and says what I expected him to say. "Maybe after the fighting's over."

I don't ask him if he still loves me. Being pretty sure of his response is good enough.

I'm too much of a coward to make sure it's still true.

Stork is an athiest but I ask him all the same:

"Think it's okay to give up God just because he's given up on you?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"On how badly you need Him."

He pauses for a moment and then whispers, "Are you angry at him?"

I nod.

He smiles. "Then I guess you haven't given up just yet."

"How so?"

"Well, you can't be angry at something that's not there."

Aerrow holds me. He keeps on trying to steer me towards the bed, but I won't let him.

He needs to unwind; I realise that. He needs something to take himself out on. I'm the something. I don't think he means for me to be his lover-slash-human stress ball, but that's how I feel.

His hands slide up and down my waist. He keeps on probing, keeps on trying... Poor boy...

I'm a good Catholic girl, a good Christian girl...A good girl...A good girl...

And that's all I think as I push him away and sob into the wall, "I can't do this anymore."

In the middle of the night, I wake up and feel the great expanse of space around me. I try to imagine an angel in the corner.

There's nothing there but shadow.

In the morning, I will get up and dress. I'll brush my teeth and spit in the sink, wipe my face, and head outside. I'll shoot Stork a smile, Finn a smirk, Junko a grin, and Aerrow an apology. Maybe even give Radarr a pat on the head.

The day will be normal. I'll find the matrix of a crystal. Help kill a few Talons. Then go into the kitchen and make lunch.

Sometimes people give up one thing, one part of their existence, for some greater balance. And other times, they just...give. I probably belong in the second catagory, but you never know what God was thinking when he was making people.

You never know what God was thinking when he made a lot of things.

People say War and Death have got to be best friends. But maybe Death gets tired of dragging bodies up the sky to be burned by a sunset. Maybe every now and again he'll take pity on us and kneel and ask God to please sir take War away and let things run their natural course, because damn it, I'm tired.

I guess God always shrugs and says that things are what they are.

Humans are what they are.

Stork tells me there is no God in war, only right and wrong, and damn, is he glad to be on the right side. So whose side am I on? he snaps.

God's side, I want to say, but all I tell him is, "Yours."

And he'll smile and stare into the sky as if Death was absolutely nothing. Seven years of killing changes people.

I used to be a girl who thought life was an adventure and God was a placebo. An excuse.

Now I'm a woman and God is absolutely ugly and horrible. He peels souls away and hangs them around his neck like trophies. He sighs and points out our mistakes, before promising salvation if we would just get down and pray.

For the first time in a long time, I get out my rosary and finger the beads. But all I feel is the hard wood between my fingers and the thought that I'm just wasting my time.

For Lent, I considered the possibility of giving up desire and bringing back God. I ended up against the wall with a boy for the sixth time and locking my Bible away forever. My rosary is placed firmly between the wafer thin pages, somewhere near where Paul says, "The greatest of these is love."

Because sometimes, people give up one thing, one part of their existence, for some greater balance. And other times, they just...give up.

At night I draw a cross on my forehead with ash from the guns. I step into the shower and stand in the steam, waiting for a revelation.

All I get is the sound of the water and my bleeding heart.

I touch my forehead, my shoulders, and the space between my breasts. I put my palms together and face the heavens.

I linger there, before suddenly snapping into another gear.

The cross, I remember. The others might see.

I wash it off.

A/N:

Shoot, this thing is chock full of symbolism. :P

I hate it when the only things I can write are sad and...ugh.