Luka sat in utter silence as the few people meandering around him spoke in low voices and glanced in his direction occasionally. He had driven himself here on autopilot - the only place he could go to when he felt at his most desperate. The only place where he didn't need to talk if he didn't want to.

And he really didn't want to talk to anyone - anyone apart from The Man and, even then, he didn't really have to talk.

He let his eyes drift over the sisters standing about, some dusting down some of the statues at the altar. Their lives must be so simple, he thought. All they needed was faith and, once received, they held onto that through everything. Believing that The Man had a plan for everyone.

Was this his plan for Luka? To take away everyone he had ever loved? His goldfish when he was five? His father when he was a meagre seven year old? His wife when he was only twenty five? His two children? His mother when he was twenty seven? And now Sam?

Shaking his head, Luka looked accusingly to the sky and thrust his hand into his pocket, finding there her necklace.

It felt like fire to touch and he yanked his hand back out.

He looked back to the altar, to the crucifix standing in a watchful guard over the proceedings in the chapel. Sitting near the middle of the aisle, in the centre of one of the pews, Luka could see basically everything on the wide expanse of the altar.

His mind wandered back to his days in Croatia - to the days of his unwavering faith. Until that horrifying day in Vukovar when his entire family had been taken from him. Surely God wouldn't be as cruel as to spare him? What had his family did to deserve such a horrid departure from their peaceful lives? What had he ever done to deserve to live with the pain, with the memory of never seeing them again - all of his memories tainted by the last time he had seen them?

He had abandoned his faith then, refusing to believe in a God who was so cruel.

But when he had left Croatia and moved to Rome, he needed something real and tangible to hold himself above the rising depth of his depression and Faith was the only thing that seemed real to him. Of recent years, however, his faith hadn't completely disappeared but had dwindled as he hadn't needed it.

He found it funny - and perhaps a little selfish - that the only time that he reverted back to his roots, to the Catholic within him, was when he needed something. Whether it be a little guidance on where to take his life, or to beg and plead with God to take him, to rid him of his mortal body and let him live in peace with his family in the after life.

And today, he was there simply to ask The Man to spare Sam. He refused to believe that God would be so cruel as to take her from him.

Closing his eyes against the raw pain that stabbed into his heart like a thousand tiny knives, he slid off of his seat and leaned on the bench in front of him. Clasping his hands together tightly, his knuckles crushing painfully together, and squeezing his prayer fist to his lips, he felt his body rock gently against the unreleased sobs in his chest.

"Don't take her from me..." He pleaded silently, his fingers beginning to hurt form being clenched too tightly within one another. "I've repented over and over for my sins... what more do you want from me? What more do you need? Why have you not delivered me from this torment?" He shook his head as tears jumped into his eyes and he swallowed past the lump that was now an almost permanent fixture in his throat. "Is this payment?" He could feel his anger build at The Man but he tried to contain it. "Because our relationship was against the rules, you're taking her from me?" He felt a solitary tear trickle down his face. "I finally find a way to be happy again, after the Hell you put me through... and you take her away from me... make me believe again. Don't let her die..." Glancing up again and opening his eyes, he genuflected and then dipped his head again as he wept.

"She doesn't deserve this..." he muttered as he sat back up on his pew and watched the sisters again.

He envied them their faith.

"Luka," he turned, surprised, at the voice beside him and smiled at the frail woman who he had come to call a friend. "Haven't seen you here for a while... How are things?" She asked as she sat next to him on the bench and trained her gaze forward as she fiddled with the rosary beads in her hands.

He paused for a second as another solitary figure passed by them and then he turned his head slightly towards her and spoke.

"Not good, Mary," he felt his words stick in his throat as they tried to squeeze past his lump.

There was a silence between them again before she spoke.

"What has he done this time?"

Luka smiled tightly at her and turned back to the crucifix before them.

"Nothing he hasn't done before," he told her, his voice low but still managing to echo off the walls. He looked down as he felt another wave of tears strike him.

Heaven holds a sense of wonder
and I wanted to believe
that I'd get caught up
when the rage in me subsides

"The woman I love... she was in an accident..." he felt his throat close up - again. "And... she was hurt really badly... her... boyfriend," he looked to the woman beside him as he said it and saw her eyes flicker to him, but she did not recriminate him. "Uh... he... I don't know - I don't know how much damage was from the crash or..."

"He hit her?"

He nodded and pulled his lips together, flicking his eyes around the room.

"Yeah... a lot." He swatted away a few errant tears with his fingers. "They wouldn't let me work on her... I... I left before I could find out if she lived or not."

"You ran away?"

"I didn't run away," he retorted quickly.

She turned her head and looked at him, her eyes holding only a smile.

"And yet you're here and not with her." He looked away at the truth of her words. "I'm correct in assuming that this woman isn't Abby?" Luka nodded. "And you say you love her?" He nodded again. "Then why are you here?"

Luka waited a beat, brushing his eyes again and then turned to her.

"I don't know what else to do..." He let out a sob and dropped his head into his hands.

He didn't feel embarrassed crying in front of this woman.

"Go to her, be with her."

"What if she isn't there?" He asked, his voice filled with dread.

"Go to that place where you will find her," she told him and Luka let out another sob as his gaze became clouded with tears.

"I don't know how to go there... I don't want to have to go to that place," he whispered through his sobs and turned his head in his hands to look at the woman next to him.

"Find out if you need to before you do. If you have to - just close your eyes and she will be there, in every memory, speaking to you as you remember her best."

Never grow old...

Luka stayed in his pew next to Mary for a few moments, then stood slowly, genuflected again and then turned to the old, frail woman next to him.

"Thank you, Mary. Thank you."

He placed his hand on her shoulder as he walked past her and squeezed gently.

"I will pray for her Luka, for you."

Luka nodded at her and left the chapel.

TBC