sorry for the wait. Thanks for all the reviews! (And thanks about the championship thing. Winterguard season has been... yeesh. but it's over now. Hooray! Free time!) Please excuse all the errors- I was in a hurry to get it up here. Happy Easter, if you celebrate Easter. anyway...
Disclaimer: I do not own the Robert Langdon series.
Wish I did...
Enjoy!
Chapter Ten
PATRICK
I stood in the pope's antechambers, Professor Robert Langdon and Doctor Vittoria Vetra both staring at me with identical looks of lunacy on their faces. I rub a hand through my hair tiredly and regard both of them with bleary red eyes. Sophie…where are you? I had sent Silas earlier to check on her, and he had yet to return, which was making me jumpy. Granted, I was nervous enough as it is, and listening to the Doctor and the Professor ramble on about Antimatter that had been stolen and was now lying somewhere in the City with enough energy to blow all of Rome sky-high was not helping.
"Professor Langdon?" I ask, and face both of them, steeling myself for what I was about to do. " Before I agree to help, I have but one question." The brown haired man stepped forward, his Harris Tweed and brown loafers rustling slightly as he moved. His eyes sparkled in the dim light with determination, and Vittoria Vetra's eyes behind him shone the exact same way.
"Do you believe in God, Professor?"
He appeared only slightly shaken by my question, and fidgeted slightly before he answered. I knew that Langdon was not a deeply religious man, something he had confessed to me while meeting to check up on Sophie. Although I had never pressed him on the subject before, the question was just too large on the forefront of my mind to ignore right now.
"I think… that God as a spirit is true, yes. I don't believe in the entire Bible, it's just that I also don't really want to believe in something that I have to take on faith. But I do believe in God as a Something, and I do think we go Somewhere after we die."
That's good enough for me.
"Then I will grant you permission to the archieves. Good luck, and God speed." He nodded at me, grasped my hand, and thanked me profusely before he turns and almost runs out of the room with Vetra hot on his heels. I wheel, glad to be alone, and fall on the couch, too tired to care about sitting properly. Before I can help myself, I fall asleep.
Five minutes later
I wake to Silas shaking my shoulder and staring down at me with solemn, frightened eyes. "What?" I ask. He looks at me with those impossibly blue orbs and says " It's Sophie. She's gone."
