Red
He finds her in a church of broken glass and hallelujahs. Her dark eyes are haunted, like every other holy thing, but what tried to destroy her didn't have the strength.
She had been shattered before, and come back stronger for it.
And so, there she sits, a congregation of one in the solid oak pew, straight-backed and smelling of smoke.
He pauses at the font, the blood that had been drying on his hands becoming fluid again and staining the holy water red.
The cloud of blood mesmerizes him as it spreads, and for a moment he is lost, but he stumbles through the haze and falls onto the scratched wood behind her.
She doesn't move.
They are silent for a while, lost worlds apart in the same sorrow mere feet from each other, and then he reaches for the kneeler, pulling it down to rest against the worn floor with a creak and a dull thud. He lowers himself down to recite a prayer long forgotten, with shaking hands and a mouth full of metal, but the blood that drips from his tongue during this confession tastes nothing like holy wine and his Hail Mary feels hollow in the face of all that has happened, so he falls silent again.
They stay that way until long after the blood has dried in the creases on his hands, and he thinks absently that blood is one of those things that never seems to wash off completely, and he knows that he will feel the stickiness of it long after the stain has been scrubbed from his skin, but then she is crying, and he only knows that because in this darkened cathedral only the candles are speaking, so her soft gasps tear through the air like bullets had just hours ago.
He reaches a hand out for her and is startled when she pulls away, but he drops his arm back down anyway, briefly mesmerized by the red confetti that is floating ever so gently to the ground.
And then she is speaking, or maybe she isn't, she's praying, but she's not, and he understands perfectly and not at all.
And when she's done, he reaches for her again, confetti-less, and when he makes contact with the smooth skin of her arm the last vestiges of her strength are suddenly gone and she collapses onto the bench.
There is nothing left for him to do then, nothing at all, except to go to where she is and pull her against him, so that's what he does. And she may be broken, but she is still solid and warm, and she is covered in blood, but it is not her own, and she smells of smoke, but so does he, and he knows when she slips her small hand into his calloused one that they will get up tomorrow, their cracked pieces taped back together with cellophane, and prepare to do it all again, because she can no more walk away now than he can.
And that thought makes him pause for just a moment, makes him wonder if she knew when she came into his office all those years ago to fight for a spot on his team just what she was asking for, if she would have fought as hard if she knew what the job would take and the nightmares it would give in return. But then the moment is gone, and she is still beside him, and her small hand is warm in his own, and he is desperate, desperate, to comfort her, to be the one to brush the last of her tears from her bruised cheek and hold her together while she falls apart and guard all of her most precious secrets, and maybe someday he will.
But that day is not today, and so tonight they will sit side by side in this midnight chapel, hollowed by loss and hallowed by sorrow, and spill their secrets to the dark.