Title: Tongues of Men and Angels
Rating: TA for implied?romance.
Summary: Glimpses of grace: the story of one brother and two sisters. Through the grace of God, all things are made new.
Disclaimer: *obligatory insert*
Interlude: Lazarus
It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
Psalm 119: 71
His wife said to him, "Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!"
He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
Job 2: 9-10
"It is remarkable to me," Gabriel said one day, "that you still have faith."
Bethany looked up, and it seemed to him she was amused. "Do I?"
He paused and considered. Her sister had told him, Everything in this world is a prayer—but perhaps that had been something uttered long ago, carelessly. He had known for a long time that humans threw faith around with reckless abandon, then expected it to bear them up in times of trouble. "Do you not?" he asked evenly, and she chuckled.
"I'm pretty good at hanging on to things," she said dryly. She paused and considered, tapping her foot as the gas tank filled. "Baby" seemed to require a full gallon of fuel to go even fifteen miles, but with the world in disarray, gasoline was inexpensive—at least in the sense that Bethany kept using a series of credit cards that no longer seemed to require payment. (Of course, she had told Joy cheerfully when the teenager had muttered something about accruing debt, it was Judgement Day, kid. I'm sure the tax collectors were among the first to go.)
And then she said slowly, "My parents bought our house when Joy and I were kids—well, built it, really. It was already in-progress when they stumbled across it but since they invested in it so early, they got to choose—you know, the windows, the doors, the fixtures—the way the light came in, the tile. But about three or four years later they realized that with all the moisture in the area, some of the support beams had rotted right through. They loved that house so much, Gabriel. They couldn't bear to part with it. So they tore it down and they saved all the parts of it they thought were precious, and then they rebuilt it—brick by painful brick—and restored it, strengthened it, used different types of paint and wood to seal it better. And I swear, Gabriel, it was even more beautiful the second time around."
He weighed the value of this seemingly meaningless story, trying to find the hidden door through which he was meant to walk. He had slowly come to discover that while Bethany was nothing if not circuitous, she was also oddly insightful.
He eyed her consideringly, but she wasn't looking at him. The gasoline gun clicked and she snapped it out of the first tank before striding three paces in order to fill up the second. "Perhaps," she said, as though it were some sort of comprehensible continuation of her original story, "perhaps I have faith because I never thought this world—this god, my God—would be, you know, just sunshine and puppies. I mean, He's a loving God, right? And love is never easy, or safe, or comfortable. It's—dangerous, and frightening, and unpredictable—but it's good. Isn't it?"
And then she did look at him, almost quizzically. She was right, of course—more right than her unexpectedly expansive human heart could comprehend—but he didn't understand her point. He kept his face very still, but perhaps she saw something in him that she recognized as a struggle to sift through her roundabout human approaches.
"Sometimes," she told him gently, "you have to tear something apart in order to put it back together the way it was meant to be."
He raised his head so she wouldn't see the confusion and doubt in his eyes. "You speak of humanity?" he asked doubtfully, and she eyed him with uncharacteristic shrewdness.
"Among other things," she replied.
Word Count: 594
Completed: May 6th, 2011
Well. The next installment should be on Sunday, if all goes well, and will be two or three chapters long (I haven't decided yet). It's a big reveal, I guess (I'm pretty nervous). It might twist some accepted Legion-lore on its head, but I ask that you keep an open mind. :)
Here's the rough sketch/sneak-peak into Chapter 32 (simply copy & paste it into a browser address bar and remove the spaces). Thanks again to all the incredibly supportive reviewers!
http :/ fyrefly-nyxa .deviantart .com /# /d3figm5
***Lazarusis the name of Jesus' friend, the brother of sisters Mary and Martha, who died before Jesus came to visit (though his sisters had sent word of his failing health). Jesus then went to the tomb where Lazarus had been laid for days and called out to him, whereupon the man rose from the dead. This chapter is meant to be evocative of resurrection, of rebuilding, of reconstructing. Interestingly, the town where Lazarus and his sisters lived was known as Bethany. [c. John 11]