Chapter Eight: Solace

Two hours ago, Pearse Harman could have died and died a happy man with no regrets. He would have been content with his life, and his choices and secure in the knowledge that as he left this earth he would have left his business to those willing and able to shoulder the burden. But, more importantly, two hours ago, Pearse Harman wasn't thinking about dying. He was thinking about that terrible red wine Olivia had picked out and trying to guess if Peter Lorre took the bird and would Bogart figure it out before the music swelled. Two hours ago, Pearse's biggest problem was that Olivia had cold feet and the vague understanding somewhere in the back of his mind that he could not spend another night over without seriously compromising his vows.

Two hours ago, Pearse had been the most normal he had been since he was a teenager. He was watching some old American film, with a woman whose company he enjoyed immensely and the cancer and Code V's that had taken up his life for the past month were as distant and make-believe as Lorre's Egyptian accent.

Now, Pearse was fighting the nausea in his stomach and groping in the dark to find Olivia and put her down.

He knew she was there. He was not the kind of man who lent himself to whimsical or romantic ideas like feeling her presence in a darken room, or hearing her heart against his. It just stood to reason that the one who hunted him would try to kill him. It seemed right somehow to have Olivia face him now…

"You can put the gun down, Pearse."

Pearse straightened, but did not lower the gun. He rose his head slightly and adjusted the sight on his weapon before turning slowly. The darkness and alarms swirled around in Pearse's head, making his vision swim.

Olivia stepped out of the darkness and met his eyes before speaking. "You can put the gun down."

Pearse glanced into the scope. In the mirror he saw nothing but dark hallway. If it was possible, Pearse understood how it felt to die in that moment. Still, he did not lower the gun.

Olivia lifted her hands to her head, and looked at him. "Pearse, if I was going to kill you, I would have killed you by now."

He cocked the gun and readjusted his grip.

She didn't flinch. "And you would have done it already it by now if you meant to shoot me."

There was a rattle of gunfire behind them, causing them both of them to look over. Pearse thought he saw her flinch but dismissed the idea. There was no way she could feel…she was a Code V, after all. A monster.

Olivia returned her deep gaze to him and from this distance, in the dark, Pearse thought he saw tears in the woman's eyes. The priest flinched and the gun in his hand wavered just slightly. In that moment, instinct took over and she seemed to think how easy it would be to overpower him because she tensed then but just stepped forward. Pearse did not dare to retreat. She almost smiled. "You killed my son."

"He was trying to kill mine."

"Michael?" She looked up, catching his gaze. "He isn't your family."

"How little you know me."

"You don't belong to them, Pearse." She began, lowering her hands and stepping forward again. He raised the gun and leveled it to her eyes. She stopped cold. She trembled. Pearse felt his stomach turn. "You don't have to do this." She said slowly. "You don't have to do this anymore…you're not a monster."

"No. I'm not."

"And you know I'm not either." She inclined her head. "You know me, Pearse, you now know what I am. Who I am…you've talked to me, laughed with me…I've shown you what you've fought, and you can't say I'm a monster…I'm just like you."

"You're nothing like me."

"How can you say that, now? After all you've seen, all I've been to you…all you've to me. How can you say we're not alike you and me?"

"I didn't give up my soul."

"Didn't you?" Pearse took the hit square in the chest, and was not entirely surprised when he saw Olivia's regret flash across her face. She flinched when she said those words, and cursed herself. Glancing for a moment to the gun, Olivia lifted her hands again. "You want to talk. Let us talk."

"Why me?" He asked simply. "Why did you do this to me?"

"Why not?" For the first time, her voice became tensed and annoyed. She was resisting the question.

"You didn't pick me out of boredom. I wasn't just a diversion…I wasn't a ploy. You couldn't have been that lucky. Why me?"

"We knew nothing about you." She closed her eyes. Pearse thought she suddenly became smaller just then. "The priest who ran the team…you were the Crusader. Something mythic." Another bitter smile blossomed on her face. "You were our very own boogeyman, Father Harman. A creature who could destroy man, woman and…infant without so much as blinking. You were so sure of your path…so sure you were right." Her eyes darkened. "We knew you butchered our kind and never questioned for a moment why or even if you were right. You paraded behind a title of sanctity while you hunted us… and I wanted to know what kind of man did such things. I wanted to know what kind of monster could do that. I wanted see the face of the creature that took away my future and never asked why!"

Pearse did not move. She seemed to soften then. Her voice that a moment ago had been so raging with passion that was surprising for such a little body fled suddenly. The tears he thought he saw returned to her eyes and when she spoke again it was just above a whisper. "And I found the monster in a bookstore…I saw the Crusader for everything he was in a café reading about cancer…and do you want to hear something funny? He wasn't a monster. He was man, sick and dying and scared of the night. He was pathetic and trembling, and…handsome. And isn't that funny, Pearse? To search all those years for the monster and find he really wasn't one. Isn't that funny?"
There was a long pregnant pause, and she trembled, muttering. "Tell me it's funny."

"Yes. It's funny."

"I knew the moment I saw you we would fight one day, and every time I woke up to find you breathing next to me…I knew. I thought a hundred times I would one day be forced to kill you...knowing that if you knew what I did, you would think that same thing. It's so damn funny that way. How alike…we were. It's what makes it so wonderfully tragic. Makes it all romantic and like a story. Someone gets hurts, and someone dies…and things are said that can't be taken back. That's war, isn't it?"

Sometime during her speech, she had chosen to advance, each step taking with a word that followed, measured and slow. She seemed to be afraid of the chance his prejudices overruled his emotions. And sometime during her words, she had found his eyes and kept them. Pearse found himself thinking of how many times he had caught someone's gaze only to have them turn aside in disgust or fear of what he did. He thought for a moment that she was right, it was so damn funny, to find that the one person who did not look away was a dead woman.

His mind rebelled a moment later. He had called her a woman. Not a monster. Not a Code V. A woman.

"There's a problem with war, though." She was saying. She had come so close to him that the gun touched almost touched her nose. They were an arm's length from one another. "It's never clean. That's where this story fails. Where it stops to be funny. There's not going to be some last second where I prove I'm a monster, Pearse. This is all I am. I'm not a demon…" She offered a smile. "And I know you aren't. Even if we've done awful things, you and me, we're not evil. This war doesn't make sense for us…not anymore."

He was careful not to betray any emotion. She recoiled then. It seemed to him that she could have forgiven him for hating her, for fighting her but when she encountered his serenity, his apathy; she hated him.

It was so very human.

When Pearse spoke again, the voice was calm, detached. She seemed unsurprised. He doubted she would have been. He had a lifetime of practice. "You never explained what I was."

"I love you."

"Can your kind love?"

"Can yours?"

Pearse looked down. The gun faltered and in the split second, Olivia could have taken the gun and his life. She did move too, pushing away the gun and closing the distance between even more.

"You shouldn't try and test me, dear one." She told him. "I already know your games." He was staring at her throat, her body, desperately wishing this was some fevered dream. The murkiness of his brain swept and swirled around. He felt off balanced and so very tired. "And I'm not going to play anymore."

The words resounded in his skull and shook something loose. A smile brushed his features followed in succession by a flash of pain and remorse. He was vaguely aware of something being lost just then, and part of him wept for it.

Looking up, Pearse stared at her with new deadened eyes then, and would have touched his chest if he thought it wise but was half-certain he would have found nothing there. Something had fallen away from him with her words; something had fled…

He didn't feel sick anymore. Just tired. His whole body seemed poised on the darkness. What had gone, he thought, what did he lose just then when his shoulders slumped and as they did, the gun fell limply from his hand?

What had fled him just then, when he needed it most? Courage? Or Strength? Resolve? Or was it something simpler…his brain continued to drift slowly away, ignoring his protests and wonderings. He wondered what could have abandoned him just then to make him feel so…weak.

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?

"I cannot let you leave here." Some part of him that was just instinct said without meaning it.

"You mean let me escape?" She cooed at him, like someone talked to a child. "I doubt it. Professional vanity, Father Harman, never let things end so sloppily. I would never forgive you for throwing away your values so easily."

"Then what would you have me do?"

"Come with me."

Pearse looked up, seeing but unseeing. He was suddenly so tired. So…weak, with bits of him falling away in the darkness. Why had left…why had God…Eli Eli…

How precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of one his saints…

Where was He, Pearse wondered, where was God now…when he had always thought He would be there. God seemed absent again…

Just as He had that moment when Paul Hoyle had first offered Pearse this. Then he had been stronger…had been complete. God had seemed removed then but not gone. Now, Pearse just felt…

"You don't have to be afraid," He heard Olivia whisper as he became aware of her arms cradling him. "You don't even have to be concerned…you only have to be weak for a while…just one moment."

And Pearse closed his eyes, believing her.

He felt like he was drifting in the darkness and then he felt nothing at all.