A/N: As promised in the last chapter of Following the River Styx, I have begun a Bananun fanfiction! This story is much more character-driven than what I'm accustomed to writing; it's new territory to me, especially writing a devoutly religious character. It may not be up everyone's alley, but I've had fun writing it so far.
Welcome to my newest piece, To Light and Guard! I hope you enjoy reading. :)
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"Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen." -the guardian angel prayer
"you are the faint line between faith and blindly waiting." -letter to my future lover, rupi kaur
When the demon exited Sister Mary Eunice's body, a frigidness sucked into her to fill the void that it left behind; the cold seeped down into the very depth of her bones. A bright white light beamed from somewhere above. "J-Jesus?" she whispered to the face that loomed between her and the light source. But the shape ducked out of view before she could murmur to it again. The light didn't look like heaven, not in any way that she had imagined it. This light didn't sparkle and glow with the warmth of God's love like she had felt before. It chilled her, exposed her; the whiteness of it, like a blizzard, left no room for a temperate gesture. Her nude body shuddered once under the gazes of the other people in the room—she could not make out their faces, but their silhouettes moved like shadows, voices familiar and yet unrecognizable.
The words made little sense to the befuddled Mary Eunice, flowing into nonsensical jumbles. "Her temperature is spiking again. We need to cool her down—"
"No. Get her out of here, now, while we still can. She's still susceptible." A cold washcloth dabbed at her face. She flinched away from the rough fabric against her sensitive, sweaty skin and attempted to mumble a protest, but it emerged in a slur. "She won't survive another exorcism. We must get her to safety while we have the opportunity." There were hands all over her skin; each one stung and smarted upon contact. Please, no… A thousand pleas died on the dry fat of her tongue, and tears rolled down her hot cheeks. "Help me move her."
Someone wrapped her up tightly. It scratched against her exposed flesh like sandpaper. She whimpered and closed her eyes against the bright shining of the light, turned her head away. "Are you sure that she's herself again? Absolutely sure?"
The hands on her roamed some more, lifted her like an infant and settled her onto something much less comfortable. Her body throbbed with the impact and her head lolled backward with weakness. Please, God, just let me die. "Look at her face. She's crying. She's ashamed. This is our Sister Mary Eunice."
"The devil has many tricks, Monsignor."
A cool touch brushed her hair out of her face. Her frazzled nerve endings drove pain through each intimate contact. "Not like this." The soft tone of his voice shifted abruptly. "Take her to the car. We must instruct Miss Winters on her condition. Neither of them are to speak about this. We cannot risk the exposure of Briarcliff right now." He cleared his throat. "We have things we must clean up."
The feeling of drifting followed, and Mary Eunice drifted like a leaf on a stream, a feather in the wind, in and out of consciousness. Her head bumped several times against something solid; each time, she grunted and attempted to shift, but she didn't have the strength. Those invasive hands had left her alone. Something rumbled underneath her. It sounds like the ocean, she considered dimly. The waves rolled in and out, carrying her along with them. The salty flavor of the water stung the tip of her tongue. It left her parched and shivering with the icy wind that hadn't yet left her goosebump-ridden skin.
How long she lolled about on the ocean, striking her head and wanting to die, she hadn't a clue. Her world faded to a numb darkness. Only the cold remained.
…
As the long black car pulled up in front of Lana's house, her lip automatically curled without consideration. She clutched her cup of coffee tightly, watching as the driver, an unfamiliar man, and the Monsignor emerged from the front of the vehicle. How she had allowed herself to be bullied into this position, she wasn't certain. Mary Eunice. What a bitch. After the nun had confirmed her pregnancy, the mere thought of allowing such a sadistic woman into her home caused her to cringe. I'll take care of that problem whether she likes it or not.
But the Monsignor and Sister Jude claimed possession. Lana had never been a religious woman, but after she had witnessed one piece of the exorcism, she had suspended her disbelief long enough to agree to this arrangement. They had targeted her while she was vulnerable. And the thought of returning to this house alone, the home that she had shared with Wendy, where her lover had been kidnapped and murdered by Bloody Face, paralyzed her heart and her lungs. She had not slept since she arrived home. The thought caused her mug of coffee to tremble in her hands.
The unfamiliar man roughly dragged Mary Eunice from the backseat of the car, and she fell like a limp ragdoll between them, clad in a thin robe that ended just above her knees and had a dip between the breasts. Her blonde hair fell in dull mats around her face. Lana placed the coffee mug on the end table and went out into the yard. "Couldn't you have managed to put some clothes on her?" A deep scowl etched itself onto Lana's face. The cold nighttime dew upon the grass shivered upon her bare feet. As Mary Eunice slumped away from the Monsignor in a semi-conscious attempt to free herself, he pitched her back upward. Just manhandle her, why don't you? Lana wanted to fume, but she pinched her tongue between her teeth.
"It was imperative that we remove her from the facility immediately. She's susceptible to all manner of spiritual attacks now." He held eye contact, and upon his face, weariness crept in wrinkles beside and beneath his eyes. A shadow of a beard crawled prickled across his jawline. "Miss Winters?"
"Bring her inside." Mary Eunice mumbled and grumbled in a delirium as they hauled her into the house, and once they dropped her upon the couch, she curled into a shivering ball. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, eyes glazed in pain, and she rocked herself for comfort. Lana pressed her hand to her sweaty forehead. "She's burning up. Why didn't you call a doctor? She's ill."
The Monsignor held up a hand. "No—No one can know about this. An exorcism is a matter of utmost privacy. That you know about what happened to her is already a grave violation of church standards based solely on the need that she must be removed from Briarcliff."
"Have you even given her any Tylenol?" The uncomfortable silence that followed told Lana everything she needed to know. She took a measured breath to calm herself. Sister Mary Eunice had been in her house for fewer than five minutes, and already, Lana's blood pressure had skyrocketed. "Fine. Where are her things?"
"We didn't have time to collect anything. Her chamber will be combed through at some point this week for anything that she might need while she's here. Her habit was destroyed—"
"I recall," Lana said in a stark tone, hands tightening into fists of resistance. The memory, evoked by his words, sucked to the front of her mind where she had hoped not to revisit it.
Lana peered through a glass window in the room where they had bound Sister Mary Eunice. "What are you doing to her?" she demanded of the Monsignor, but his pensive look gave no answers. As the priest continued to bless her, his words mingling to Latin, the nun writhed against her bounds and foamed at the mouth. "She's seizing! She needs a hospital!" Lana reached to let herself into the room, but the Monsignor stopped her. She jerked away from his touch. Within the room, the nun snarled in an inhuman growl, and at the priest's touch, her clothing caught fire. Another nun dove to rip the habit off of her and smother the flames. Underneath it, the lacy red lingerie remained untouched by the ashes and soot. Black vomit spewed from her mouth. Lana stumbled back from the door. "Jesus H. Christ."
The Monsignor's weak smile accompanied a nod. "We thank you deeply for this, Miss Winters, from the bottoms of all our hearts. Sister Mary Eunice deserves much better than what we can provide at Briarcliff. And you will receive a monthly stipend for her care. As long as it takes for her to get well enough to be appointed to a new position by Mother Superior."
Lana studied the trembling woman from the corner of her eye. In spite of all of her resignations, all of her insistence that she would feel no pity for Mary Eunice, sympathy curled up in her stomach and settled like a cold snake. She didn't know what she believed. Demonic possession sounded farfetched. But after all that she had seen at Briarcliff, things she had once considered impossible had come to light. "She will be safe here, Monsignor."
"Call if you need anything." The men dismissed themselves without a farewell, and Lana did not linger on them. She locked the door behind them; she kept everything in the house locked now, even the windows.
For a long minute, she stared at Mary Eunice, sniveling and puny on her couch, face streaked red with fever and hands trembling as she fought against the chills. One part of her wanted to reject the nun outright, to forego every vow that she had taken and dismiss her. But the other, more tender part wanted to comfort an ill woman in a time of need. Neither half of her psyche could square with the other, so instead, she fetched some Tylenol and a glass of water.
As she sank onto the couch, Mary Eunice recoiled. "I'm not going to hurt you." A bit of a sarcastic snip worked its way into her voice. She made no effort to stifle it. "Here." She pushed the pills onto Mary Eunice's tongue and poured the rim of the glass against her upper lip. "Swallow. Swallow." After a moment of sputtering, she obeyed. A reek of piss and sweat rose off of her like a dirty, wet dog. "Good god, you're gross. You're burning up."
The nun lolled back onto the couch cushions without responding, and Lana sighed. "Come here." She flopped one of the other woman's arms over her shoulder and tugged her up. In an awkward stagger, she managed to haul Mary Eunice through her bedroom into the bathroom, and she sat her on the toilet. "Don't fall over. You've got to take a bath. You smell like a wet dog." The faucet squeaked as she turned it on, and water poured out in turn.
Plucking the robe from Mary Eunice's body caused a rolling sense of wrongness to tremble through Lana, but she paid it no heed. Sex was the last thing on her mind. A year ago, she would have inspected each inch of flesh with her eyes, taken advantage of the exposure to drink in the pale breasts and the rosebud nipples, but in this room where she and Wendy had once showered together, the thought of examining another woman sickened her. Each stolen glance felt like a violation of fidelity. Eyes down on the tile floors, Lana lowered Mary Eunice into the warm water and pumped soap into the washcloth.
Cleansing the stench and filth from her body was an obligation that Lana fulfilled without much consideration; she knew that, if she allowed herself to think about it, she would inevitably linger too long on thoughts better left unvisited. Floral scents filled the humid air of the bathroom as she gently scrubbed the scum from Mary Eunice's body. How long they had allowed the nun to go without a bath, she wasn't certain and wouldn't ask, but she knew that it had been too long. The water discolored with each rinse, taking a translucent gray hue.
As she gathered the blonde hair into her hands, she poured water over her head, using her hand to shield Mary Eunice's eyes. The nun remained unresponsive, eyes periodically fluttering open and then falling closed again while her head rolled about on her neck. Lana worked a conditioner through the matted locks and began to run her brush through it. "Sorry," she said when she tugged, but Mary Eunice did not complain. Lana rolled her lower lip between her teeth as she worked the bristles of the brush through the sticky hair.
Once she had straightened it into a manageable length, she washed Mary Eunice's hair with shampoo and rinsed it. How did I become the maid here? she griped internally. "Lie back," she instructed, and she guided the other back with a firm hand on her shoulder. "Good." With a towel, she gently dried the golden blonde locks and took her brush to it again.
Sister Mary Eunice's awareness wavered. She had felt someone grab her, two someones, dangle her out in the cold where the breeze tickled all the parts she didn't want exposed, but the voices made no sense to her. Her fevered skin throbbed everywhere she was touched. But when she sank under and rose above again, the pain had faded from her body; it had all localized just behind her eyes and pulsed there. Her face screwed up, and she groaned.
"Sister?" A woman's voice startled her. She wasn't alone. She grappled for increased alertness. Where am I? What happened? Her memories ran through her fingers like sand. But her naked body was submerged in lukewarm water, and the air smelled like sweet soaps. "Are you alright?"
She reached to remedy her exposure first, pinching her legs close together. Who is she? Her eyes refused to open against the glowing light overhead. "Ih's too—bright." The words thickened like honey in the back of her throat and slurred.
"Would you like me to turn the lights off?"
Yes, please. She couldn't quite manage that. "Mhm." A few seconds passed before the light switch clicked, and the darkness swallowed her eyelids, allowing them to part. She could scarcely make out a silhouette of the other woman. The vision quivered at the edges, her head swimming with pain and emptiness. "I—I don't remember…" The whisper died on her tongue.
She did remember. Fragments, the black mist swirling around her and consuming her, the demon thrashing about in her mind—the gap that it had left in her belly oozed invisible blood. She gasped at the faces that circled before her in a mocking haze. Surging upward, she grappled at the sides of the bathtub. Her head spun, black blots dancing in her vision. Her belly turned. She gulped at the bile that threatened to eject from her stomach. With the loss of balance, she floundered like a spineless fish.
Lana dove to steady her. "Hey—Hey!" She seized the nun by the shoulders. "Relax! Don't drown yourself!" She had to bite her tongue to keep from demanding, What the hell is your problem? Mary Eunice reluctantly fell backward. "It's okay. You're safe here."
In the darkness, her eyes glittered like fearful gemstones, a deer paralyzed by headlights. "Lana." At the croaked word, Lana inclined her eyebrows. "I saw—Thredson—Bloody Face—" She could not form a coherent thought from the snippets that she could recall. She had heard his thoughts, so similar to the dark things that the demon itself whispered to her ear.
"He's dead." The bitter words flamed from her lips. "He'll never hurt anyone again." Mary Eunice's eyelashes fluttered, knuckles white where she gripped the side of the bathtub for support. "I'll get you some clothes. It's late. You need to rest." Lana folded a towel on the toilet and left the room.
As soon as her outline vanished from view, the shadows swam into haunting faces and demonic eyes and inhuman forms. Mary Eunice dove to the towel and wrapped it around herself and charged in a series of wet skids after her companion. She stood in the doorway where she could see Lana in front of a closet, picking through it, and there where she had her salvation in view, she attempted to dry herself in several harried swipes. Her lips trembled at the cold misery of all of this. She could not feel God here.
Lana turned and jumped at Mary Eunice's form in the doorway. "Jesus! You scared the hell out of me!" She shook her head and scooped up the things she had dropped. "I suppose that is in your job description." Mary Eunice didn't laugh; a confused frown remained wobbling upon her face, and twin tears rolled down her cheeks. Lana followed them with her eyes, torn on offering comfort. It was not her place. She was out of her element. Instead, she offered the heap of clothing to the weeping woman. "You can wear anything in the closet that fits you. I'm used to sharing." How many washes would take away the smell of Wendy's perfume forever?
Mary Eunice dabbed the tears out of her eyes with her thumb. "Thank you." She couldn't hold her words steady. They quivered with her lips and tongue. "Where—Where is my habit?" In the dark fabric she had cloaked herself to defend herself from the evils of the world, preserve her body for God. The habit gave her a sense of security that nothing else could mirror.
"It was destroyed in the exorcism," Lana said. Mary Eunice's tears fell a little faster, and she hurried to explain. "They brought nothing of yours. Just you. The Monsignor said it was a matter of utmost importance to remove you from the premises immediately. He said he would have your things delivered as soon as possible." Arching one eyebrow, she continued in a mutter, "He also thought an attending physician was optional, so how much he actually has vested in your wellbeing is a matter of opinion. But I'm inclined to hold him to his word." Lana studied Mary Eunice a moment longer. "Are you alright?" she ventured to ask, uncertain if she wanted to know the answer.
"I…" Mary Eunice swallowed hard. "I need to pray." She looked down at the clothing that Lana had given her, a long-sleeved T-shirt of a deep green shade and black sweatpants, plain white panties and a bra with too large cups. As she swayed on her feet, Lana caught her by the shoulder and guided her to sit on the bed. "I'm sorry," she apologized, head rocking loosely upon her neck. "I don't feel well."
"How long has it been since you ate anything?" Lana asked, fingers curling into the soft flesh of Mary Eunice's upper arm. Her collarbones protruded and her eyes looked haunted, sunken; she had clearly lost some weight, but the nun spent so much time buried beneath her habit that Lana had no way of gauging how much.
"I don't remember." Mary Eunice closed her eyes and waited for the world to stop spinning. "It's all—pieces." She shivered and hugged herself, doubling over at the middle. It hurts, she wanted to cry, but she bit her tongue, unable to identify the location of the weeping wound just beneath her flesh. Lana smoothed a comforting hand up the flat of her back, and she curled into the friendly touch, burying her face into her neck. "I'm afraid."
Lana's heart had already broken irreparably, but as the crumpled ball of a woman clung to her and wept, her belly wrenched with pity. "You're safe," she promised once again. She didn't know what else to say. "Sister," she began, and blue eyes lifted slowly to fix on her from below. "I know I don't have much to offer you. But Wendy had several family heirlooms that she brought here. Her rosary and her Bible—among other things, I'm not sure what all. If that would make you feel better, you can have them. I don't have any use for them. Would you like that?"
Mary Eunice blinked through her watery eyes. "I—I don't want to impose…"
Lana chuckled. "It's not an imposition, I promise." No more than being dumped on my doorstep, anyway. She plucked Mary Eunice's hand from the front of her shirt with a gentle insistence and then stood. Mary Eunice scrambled after her, prepared to follow, but Lana only went to the closet again, pulling a cardboard box from the top shelf. "Wendy wasn't practicing. You'll get a lot more out of these things than she ever did." Dust rose from the top of the box in a cloud when Lana dropped it in front of her on the floor. "I'm going to make us something to eat. Shout if you need something."
The bedside lamp was on, but even with the light, Lana's absence sent icy anxiety spiraling down her spine. She threw on the provided clothes and started to lift the box to take it with her, but the weight of it caused her to flop backward in dizziness. She pulled the rosary from it instead and left it there at the foot of the bed before she tiptoed after Lana, clutching the sacred beads like a weapon against all of the evil that peered upon her.
Light exhaled from the kitchen, and Mary Eunice sat in the living room adjacent where she could watch Lana work, could hear the sounds of a spray can and smell the scents of butter warming in a pan. It was there that she lifted the rosary to her lips and felt safe enough to begin her quietly mumbled prayer. "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth…"
At the sound of Mary Eunice's whispered words, Lana lifted her head from the bread that she had begun to butter and watched. She had expected the nun to remain in solitude, in privacy. Watching her felt like intruding. With pursed lips, she turned away and scraped out the tomato paste into the pot on the stove, mixing it with milk and stirring furiously. She desperately wanted another cup of coffee, but with the late hour and a guest in her home, she knew that she needed to attempt to sleep. I don't think either one of us is going to rest easily tonight, she suspected, the pit of her gut sinking.
Some of her words were more familiar than others, and occasionally, Lana glanced over her shoulder to ensure that Mary Eunice hadn't moved from her position on the sofa. The more she prayed, the more her posture relaxed, her shoulders slumping slightly, hands stilling from the quivers that had shaken them since she arrived. The prayer veiled her in a sense of safety. Seeing her lose the tension that had plagued her since her awakening allowed Lana to release the breath that she had been holding.
Fat tears rolled down Mary Eunice's cheeks, and Lana brought her a box of tissues and placed it on the coffee table without interrupting. She put on the two cheese sandwiches and grilled them, one slightly more burnt than the other. She put that one on her own plate and poured herself a glass of wine. Then she returned to stirring the soup.
When Mary Eunice blew her nose, it sounded like a trumpeting elephant, and Lana took the sound to indicate that she had finished praying. "Food's done," she called. "What do you want to drink? I've got wine and cola."
"I just want water."
"Care for a chocolate?"
"No, thank you." Mary Eunice ducked her head. "Sister Jude says sweets lead to sin," she mumbled under her breath, but at the words, Lana inclined an eyebrow. "I'm not allowed."
"Sister Jude says a lot of things." Lana poured her a glass of water regardless. "With what you've been through, I don't think she would hold a candy bar against your eternal soul." She poured two bowls of soup. "Then again, having become far too well-acquainted with Sister Jude for my own good… She probably wouldn't be incredibly forgiving."
Mary Eunice stared at the sandwich on her plate. "I cannot afford indulgence now," she murmured. "I must cleanse and purify myself…"
Lana ogled at her for a moment. You can't be serious, she wanted to say. Cleanse and purify after all you've endured? Self-imposed punishment for a crime you did not commit? She sucked her teeth to prevent any of that from coming out. Catholics really are nutters. "It's not your fault, Sister," she said instead.
"A possession is a matter of personal, spiritual weakness." She stared at the sandwich like she expected it to change colors, unwilling to miss a single detail of its crust. "I must accept the consequences of my sins."
Lana frowned in disapproval, but she had nothing more to say on the matter. She had no authority to speak upon it. She placed the bowl of soup in front of the nun and sat across the table from her. "There's a parish down the road from here. I can take you there tomorrow if you like." Spooning up the tomato soup, she sipped it, hoping it tasted like something more than red water. It was hardly a meal that Wendy would have claimed, but it was edible. She dipped her grilled cheese in the soup and ate it in nibbles.
"I—I don't want to put you out." Mary Eunice ate with more modesty that Lana expected, napkin in her lap, dabbing at her mouth like she attended a much fancier occasion.
"It's no bother. I hardly have anything else to do." Writing that book would be a start. Her stomach curled whenever she thought of the typewriter in her office. She had written only a single article since she emerged from Briarcliff, a short piece discussing her absence from the paper in vague detail; the vagueness didn't matter. Everyone knew her now, the journalist who had saved the community by killing Bloody Face. The editor said she could have as much time as she needed. She wasn't certain she would ever be ready to return to her old life.
"You're very kind, Lana." Mary Eunice picked the crust off of her bread like a child. The sight of it drew a smile upon Lana's exhausted face. "Why… Why did you bring me here?"
The question startled her from her reverie. "I—" That's a goddamn good question, actually. Her mouth dried suddenly, and she sipped her wine in the hope that it would loosen her tongue. "The Monsignor said he didn't know where else you would go. Dr. Arden had offered his home, but he gives me the creeps." At the mention of his name, Mary Eunice blanched. Lana stirred her soup. The steam curled gray in the air, and she inhaled it the scent of it, comforting, like awakening to her mother's cooking. "And…" And I'm scared shitless to live here by myself. Lana was not in the business of admitting her own fears. "Well, that's it, actually."
Mary Eunice's hands trembled. She had wrapped the rosary around one hand and squeezed it. "Thank you." She pushed her spoon around in her soup but didn't drink any of it. "Dr. Arden is not—I would not have—" She shuddered and fell silent, face screwed up against memories. The sweet taste of the caramel apple, his sickening smile just beyond—things she had experienced while sane. The heavy dangling weight of gaudy earrings, his expression much more pensive—things she had experienced through the orange eyes of a demonic entity. The shimmering memories faded into snippets. Would they all eventually come back to her? She didn't want them to. She didn't want to know all that she had done with that monster inside her.
"Yeah, I get it. He's one freaky bastard." Mary Eunice watched as Lana poured herself more wine and drank. "How did somebody like you end up in a freak show like that? I mean, you could've been off somewhere reading to children or something. Living in a normal abbey with normal folks. How did you get dropped off on the doorstep at bedlam with Sister Horrible?"
"Mother Superior appointed me to Briarcliff after I took my vows. Sister Jude said that I could benefit from working there—that I would learn something more about real service." Mary Eunice sipped her own water. "I cannot help where I am placed by God."
Lana finished the last nibble of her sandwich and stood to wash her plate at the sink. "Sister, I don't know much about religion. But I think if there was ever a godless place, it's that asylum." Mary Eunice didn't answer, still eating in tiny bites with that same hollow look upon her face. Lana emptied the bottle of wine into her glass, and as she started toward the doorway, Mary Eunice began to shovel her food in a series of rapid gulps, frightened of letting Lana out of sight. "Don't choke yourself," she dissuaded. "I'm not going anywhere."
An embarrassed heat rose to Mary Eunice's cheeks. Internally scolding herself, she slowed her desperate attempt at keeping pace with her companion. But the loneliness came with its own threats, the moving shadows forming faces she did not want to see. If she kept Lana nearby, she could hold out. If she kept Lana beside her, perhaps the gap within her would fill.
The rosary felt like a string of beads in her hand. It held no sacrilege. Her prayers were just words, just empty ritual. Where had God gone? She drank the tasteless soup in long swallows, reluctant to keep Lana waiting. Without the veil of heavenly light to protect her, she fell to her weaknesses, the sins that had plagued her before she turned to the church. You're weak. God does not desert His children. It is your duty to seek Him. She needed counsel. But who could she possibly involve? Who would believe her? Even if she confessed to a priest, how far back would she have to go to possibly explain all that had happened at Briarcliff?
"Are you alright, Sister?" Lana's voice plucked her out of her reverie like an apple pulled from a bucket of water between a child's teeth.
A wry, unhappy smile tittered upon her face. "I… I don't even know how I could answer that honestly, Lana." She took her plate to the kitchen and washed it and dried it, putting it away like she had watched the other do. "What time is it?"
"It's almost midnight."
She hesitated a moment, and then she asked, "What day is it?" in a somewhat meeker tone.
Lana exhaled a breathy laugh. "It's Monday, September twentieth." She downed the rest of her wine and washed out the glass. "The world went on without us in it. It's surreal how much time has passed." Mary Eunice lowered her gaze to the floor and didn't respond. Lana touched her elbow. "We both should get some sleep. You can have the bed." Mary Eunice's lips immediately fluttered into protest, but Lana silenced her. "No offense, Sister, but you look like you've got one foot in the grave. I would hardly live up to my promises if I dumped you on the couch now."
"I don't want to be by myself." The words tumbled out of Mary Eunice's mouth in a quick slur before she could dare to stuff them back in. She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth and closed her eyes in shame. "I—I'm sorry—You don't have to—I didn't mean—" Her tongue flapped in useless stammers, so she quieted it and said nothing more. If she couldn't manage a coherent thought, she could at least remain silent.
"It's fine," Lana assured. "I understand." She did understand. She understood so well that the sight of Mary Eunice shaking like a leaf in front of her made her want to wrap them both in blankets in front of a fire with hot chocolate and never leave the safety of a swaddle again. They deserved better than the fear and the memories that surfaced when they slept. "I'll stay with you." Lana awkwardly extended one arm with a smile to Mary Eunice, an invitation that she wasn't sure the nun would take.
Mary Eunice needed no encouragement to burrow herself into Lana's arms. "Thank you," she breathed. She squeezed tightly around her middle, not entirely sure that she could separate herself from the embrace.
Lana closed her eyes. At the fervor with which Mary Eunice seized her, she wondered, How long has it been since someone touched her? Her instinct wanted to smooth a hand over her hair, but she resisted. "Let's get some sleep. Really." She guided her back to the bedroom and took the side of the bed that she had always occupied. The weight on the mattress was different than when Wendy had slept beside her. "Do you want me to leave the light on?"
A moment of hesitance passed before she decided in a shaky voice, "N-No, I'll be fine." She rolled over to face Lana until the darkness consumed both of them with a flick of the lamp.
Lana lay on her back, face up to the ceiling. She had always been a stomach-sleeper, but her breasts and abdomen were too tender for her to put that much weight upon them; she did not like to consider the why behind those symptoms. She hadn't made an appointment yet, and she knew that she needed to before it was too late. The idea of some person forking metal things into her body disgusted her, repulsed her, only slightly less than the concept of bringing Baby Thredson into the world. Baby Thredson. The title caused her stomach to whirl.
The bed shook in a great roll, and Mary Eunice hurled an arm over her middle and dropped her head heavily upon Lana's shoulder. "Sister—" sputtered Lana for a moment. "What the hell?" The sleeping woman answered her with a snore against her cheek.
I should wake her up. This was not part of the job description. But with eyelashes against her cheek and the occasional wheezing snore indicating deeper peace than Mary Eunice had known for weeks, Lana did not have the heart to interrupt and embarrass her. She wriggled one arm up from between them and draped it over her shoulders. "I don't even like you very much," she muttered. "I just really—really needed a friend." She turned her head and bumped her nose against Mary Eunice's forehead. "Well, this is uncomfortable."
Still, with the warm breath and the heartbeat there beside her, Lana eased herself into a sense of security much more easily, and her eyes fell closed without her consent. Lulled into peace at last, Lana found herself drawn into a dreamless sleep.