The people Father Lantom passed as he walked around the neighborhood all had different lives, different experiences - but the undertone of fear and relief was still present. New York in general, and Hell's Kitchen in specific was still healing from the scars left in the wake of the Incident and all it entailed - the sudden collapse of a prominent financial building to a bomb of all things just set the people's anxiety on edge again.

Oh, there were some who said it was done by heroes of this city, and for a good cause - but even if that was completely true, if even one innocent life was taken by that building's fall, then Father Lantom felt sure Jesus would have wept unabashedly for the lives snuffed out so senselessly. He felt like doing the same, especially since the people's hearts, only recently settled, were now once again aflutter with nervousness and fear.

Shaking his head slowly, Father Lantom finished his slow walk, smiling at the people he had passed. He'd had a wonderful conversation with Imam Anseri, on break from speaking at the nearby mosque earlier today - it rekindled his feeling that though all humanity was blindly trying to understand God, anyone who sincerely tried is loved by Him, no matter what they call the path to Him. Watching the interfaith connections between religions of Hell's Kitchen grow had lifted his heart, and making sure those connections were still strong now was especially important, he felt.

His feet slowly took him up the stone steps to the church he had come to call home. Each day of his was full, but his duty to the people around him helped him feel as if his daily work had a tangible effect, even if it was a subtle one.

As he entered the doors, he saw the church pews otherwise empty, except for a single woman seated halfway toward the front, alone. Her head was bowed, allowing her long black hair to spill like a waterfall of ink over her shoulders. He saw her head turn slightly when he opened the doors, but she didn't turn to look, and didn't get up yet.

He frowned, and decided to approach her, making sure each of his footsteps scuffed against the hardwood floors of the church, so as to not surprise her. He waited to speak until he was standing next to the row of the pew she was seated in, and gave her a kindly smile. "You're welcome here as long as you like. Please ask me if you have any questions, miss," he said.

She turned toward him then, and he saw a thousand things in her face, all fighting together with a sense of despair, but this was a fight she was by no means surrendering to. He had seen that look several times in his life. What she said, however, took him aback somewhat. "Thank you," she said, an upper-class English accent dancing around her words. "To be honest, I was hoping for... some insight, I suppose. I can leave if I'm a bother."

"I can promise you now that you're no bother," Father Lantom smiled at her. "May I ask if you've been to church before?"

A wry smile appeared on her face before she replied. "I never have in my life before tonight, no. I suppose it's a relief that I haven't simply burst into flames after I walked in the door."

Father Lantom raised an eyebrow at that, but gave her a warm smile nonetheless. "Well, you don't have to worry about ceremony, or saying the right things. If you like, we can just start with a latte."

She blinked at that, looking for a moment as if she was trying to decide if he was joking. "You mean, you actually serve coffee here?" she asked, her tone making it clear she was trying deliberately to not sound incredulous.

He shrugged with a self-deprecating smile. "Several of the people who come in have a difficult time speaking from their hearts surrounded by wooden walls - some find it easier to just talk with a priest over coffee."

She smiled back at him, though her smile had a tinge of sadness in it. "That sounds lovely. I'd rather not do the wrong thing and cause my own spontaneous combustion," she said lightly.

Father Lantom chuckled at that, and walked with her toward the break room of the church. She kept pace with his slow strides without complaint. "For what it's worth," he told her, "Many people experience things in their lives that cause them to look at things differently."

She blinked once at him, and then gave him a wry smile. "I suppose it was obvious, wasn't it?"

He shrugged. "Everyone has those things happen, in one form or another. Some experience it with dramatic tragedy, others by quieter ways - but we are all affected and changed by those things. What makes our lives interesting and special is what we choose to do after the dust settles."

"It feels as if I'm watching dust settle, and still finding it hard to see," the woman replied quietly, as they walked into the breakroom.

Father Lantom went through the familiar motions of making a latte, giving her all the time she needed. However, she didn't speak a word until he handed her the steaming mug. Her skin felt hot, as if several degrees hotter than normal - he supposed it explained why she was still wearing a short-sleeved shirt when the weather was beginning to slowly turn from scorching sun to wind and clouds. "Thank you," she said quietly.

Getting his own cup, he sat down across from her on the small table, and smiled at her. "There is no real ceremony or specific words you have to follow here. Just speak from your heart, and I'll listen."

She held the mug in the palms of her hands, and stared into its depths for a few moments. Though the mug was a good ceramic one, made for coffee, it still conducted the heat from boiling water well, and he felt sure it would burn her - instead, she held it carefully in her palms as if nurturing a fitful flame. "I'm not a good person," she began in a quiet voice. "I want to learn to be, but I'm afraid that there's blood on my hands that won't ever come off. I worry... I worry that I've spent too long in the dark."

"The fact that you're here says that you're not convinced of that," he told her with an equally quiet voice, and a warm smile. "You've already done the three very most difficult things that there are to do, after all - so, let us say that I'm not convinced either."

Startled, she looked into his eyes, looking for duplicity or clues - but finding neither, she finally asked "What do you mean?" in a bewildered voice.

"Well," he said before taking a sip of his coffee, and sighing happily at the taste. "The very hardest thing to do is to listen to that little voice in you that tells you that you can do better, that you can be better, and not trying to argue it into silence. The second hardest is to admit that the voice within you might be right - and the third most difficult thing is to try to do something about it, even when you have no idea what to do. Am I right?"

She looked at him, a look of surprise on her face for a moment, before she looked back at her coffee and nodded. "I've... done many terrible things. I've hurt people, and killed more. I worry that I've already done too much to make up for," she said quietly.

"Then, the first step that matters is trying, right?" he asked with another smile. "Other people may not see it at first, but sincere effort counts for quite a bit. Show through your actions that you're trying to follow a new path - if you make a mistake, just vow to do better the next time you're in a similar situation. It's often harder to protect than it is to destroy, but far more worth it, in the end."

"What do you mean?" she asked, a curious tilt to her head.

"If you try to take from others, then it lends itself to being in a mindset where you see other people as having things you need, and it makes it much easier to see them as lesser than you," Father Landom explained, as he held his own mug in his hands to warm them. "If you try to help protect what other people value, then you are in a mindset where you recognize that as important - and you'll be able to see what is valuable to them."

The woman closed her eyes, and took a deep, shuddering breath before exhaling slowly. After another moment, she opened her eyes, stating into her coffee once more. "I didn't think it would be quite so simple."

Father Lantom shrugged. "Another way to think of it is that by always going on the offense, it's as if you're constantly trying to prove yourself - to prove that you're not invisible. By defending others instead, you're not worried about proving yourself anymore - you're worried about making sure they're safe."

"You were once something else, weren't you?" the woman asked, a dangerous twinkle in her eyes and an amused smile on her face.

He shrugged with nonchalance. "We all go down many paths in life others provide for us, until we find our own. For some, it takes longer than others - but what matters is that you look."

She closed her eyes, and took a slow, deep breath before opening her eyes again. "Thank you," she said softly, with a warmer smile than before.

"You remind me of someone who used to come into this church all the time," Father Lantom smiled sadly. "He carried the weight of others' sins on his shoulders as his own, in addition to his own - I always wondered how he was able to walk with all that weight on his shoulders. He defended others who could not defend themselves, though - and he gave his life doing it. Ironic that he looked to help others with their burdens so quickly, when he himself was blind."

"I see," the woman said, an odd look appearing on her face for a moment before clearing. "You know, an old friend of mine, Matthew Murdock was recently found alive," she said thoughtfully, "he was helping others when the Midland Circle building collapsed - luckily, someone cared enough to make sure he went to the hospital."

Father Lantom froze in his motion of taking another sip. "Matthew Murdock, you say?" he said, in a deliberately casual voice. "Not the same lawyer who works here in Hell's Kitchen, is it?"

"Oh, do you know him?" the woman asked with a smile. "He's at the memorial hospital here in Hell's Kitchen. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you."

Father Lantom chuckled, even as he took another sip. "Perhaps, but I think he'd also enjoy hearing from you, Elektra."

The woman, Elektra, froze mid-sip, looking at him with a calculating look before finally relaxing with a wry look. "I'd ask if Matthew ever talked about me, but I already know the answer, and that you wouldn't tell me."

"Well, he and I did have a small bet going," Father Lantom said with a smile. "He said Hell would freeze over before you walked into a church. I told him that if he was wrong, he owes me a latte," he said, with a happy sigh. "I think it's time to look into good places to have coffee now."

And that was the first time he ever heard Elektra laugh.