"Sometimes it hurts more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow. Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead."

-Angel, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

"Are you there?" he asked. His hands rested against the doorposts as he watched her read.

She didn't answer for a moment, trying to ignore him. But bright orange is hard to ignore, especially when it's a robe on a tall young man who doesn't really look the part. He could have been a skinhead in a different life. This time, life pulled a twist, turning Nazi nasty to Mahayana magga.

"Yes." Ice cold, but the smoldering inside her kept melting it, leaving slippery puddles of raw emotion on the floor. She curled up on the couch of the room, hiding inside a thick book. He couldn't see what it was.

No one had dared go near the wing of the house that held Rachel and Michele's rooms since the execution. Jon was the first. Maybe the last, Doug had commented before, in black humor.

His voice softened, firm but gentle. "You know me, Michele. We've worked here for six months at least. We're on the same side, aren't we?"

She kept reading, turning pages rapidly as if searching for something. The monk walked forward into the white room, bare of adornment except for the futon couch the girl made her shell. It was simple, like a fireplace carefully swept after a burn. He could imagine what a mess had been made after Michele had heard of her friend's fate.

"May we talk?" he asked again.

She lowered the book, then passed it to him. He glanced at the page. The Oxford Bible. The Ten Commandments.

"What side are you on?" she asked openly.

"On the side of compassion and against suffering," he answered simply.

Eyes flashed up, only for a moment. He gazed at her. "You seem afraid," he noted.

"It starts out as fear, always." She exhaled. "In everything. Fear, anger, hate. And now suffering. It didn't seem to take much before the Land of the Free was taken over. All you needed was a revival and a few people in power with the idea to enforce their beliefs."

He knelt, cradling a strand of jewels on a chain. "Was it really that easy?"

She watched the window. "No. The fear was of nuclear holocaust. And how it was stopped, they all claimed it a miracle. Harlen claimed it as Christ, and so they followed him thus. Many did, at least." Her mind, unable to push away what was truly devouring it, instead went on tangents that would still follow back home. Jon understood.

"Religion isn't a bad thing, Michele."

Her tone grew edgy. "Intolerance is. And that's the ideal that Harlen followed. When so many were converted, they started changing things. Constitutional Amendments. Judges. Laws. It makes so much sense on paper, and then you turn around and they've legislated Leviticus."

Jon passed the stand around his fingers. Michele looked at him blankly. Now the ice had changed, to a thin sheet of mica through which the inferno of her soul could clearly be seen.

"Yet even Christianity can do good." He raised the strand. "Let me show you--"

The blur in front of him grasped one end of the rosary and tore. Jon let go, but too late. The chain broke, exploded, shattered in fragments that glittered on the floor. The remainder of the prayer chain Michele smashed into the wall, before turning at the kneeling figure in rage.

"You fucking Buddshit bastard! Do you think religion did any good for Rachel? Look out the damn window!" She pointed, but Jon kept his eyes straight on her. "She's DEAD! The bastard Christians and their righteous bullshit for their Lord God Almighty killed her! And you have the balls to show me a bloody Lourdes crucifix rosary and tell me that Christianity does good? How DARE you!"

One hand was raised, as if to slap him. Jon simply watched her. They formed a tableau of stilled fury and passive action. Paradox in non-motion.

Eternity in a moment.

The futon mattress made a matte thump as Michele fell onto it. She lay on her stomach, face down into the futon. Jon breathed softly and rhythmically as he had been, but Michele's was irregular, jagged through the muffling of the futon.

She smashed her fist into the futon. Again. Twice more. Then like a tribal drum, each beat a beast, a demon feasting on her pain, she pounded out her rage. Only one fist, the other clenched under her chest. She played until she was drained. Then she simply lay.

Silence.

Jon stood, and walked over. He waited for her to decide to notice him, and sat when she scrunched down. He laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Rachel is a great woman. You were lucky to have her as a companion for however long."

The fire changed forms again...

"That faith which causes people to kill and persecute is not Right, in any way of Buddha. Any faith that makes people treat others as they would not wish to be treated is not Right. This brand of Christianity is definitely not Right."

A pause. He knew she knew that. This wasn't mental - it was her heart breaking. She'd forgotten something important...

Jon told her the truth she needed to remember. "You are not alone. We love you, Michele."

...and liquid fire flooded the world, hot tears soaking his orange robe at the shoulder. He held her softly as she trembled with each new dam crashing open. Hoarsely she cried a dozen laments, talking to the dead. Jon replied in whispers, reciting bodhisattva quotes, mantras to soothe her, to allow her to let go of her pain.

After a while she stopped crying. The fire had returned, but smoldered very low to conserve itself. Michele moved to sit next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. Together, they watched the shadows flitter on the wall.

"Harlen says he is righteous."

Jon thought before replying.

"Then perhaps Harlen is lying."

Michele smiled softly. "'I want to keep on smashing lies.' Rachel said that often. And something in Japanese - 'watashi wa sekai wo kaeru.' I will change the world. It's from an anime. Shoujo Kakumei Utena."

"Hmm."

Michele looked up once more. "I...I know that it's not all bad, I do."

"What?"

"Christians. I know...I mean, Evie. And Josh, most of the time. I respect, I know the Ethic, it's just..." She trailed off.

Jon smiled and held her closer. "Just because you give in to anger sometimes doesn't make you bad. We all know you're the fiery one. Things thought in anger must always be weighed against things thought in calmness." He thought a moment. "No one would condemn you for a moment of rage after Rachel's death."

"Hm."

Quiet. Breathing. Peace.

They sat, curled together, for a long time, gazing at the remains of the rosary, until Doug called for them.

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