Disclaimer: Justified ain't mine. Sadly. Comments welcome.

Author Note:This was written for norgbelulah's excellent Summer In Harlan fic meme at LiveJournal. The prompt for this story was: Boyd - so darkness I became

Blinded by the Light

When Orpheus and his Eurydice
walked up from the underworld, they thought
of the light up there, how beautiful it was,
how much they longed for, needed it;
but even so, they'd been a long time
in the dark, too long. They'd learned it needed them.

-William Bronk

1. Firestarter

Most people who know him know that he has an affinity with explosives. It's an art as much as it is a skill: too much or too little and the results are disastrous, but Boyd is unerring in his judgement. But few people, if any, could say why he likes it so much; no-one has ever really asked.

There is, Boyd would admit, a visceral enjoyment to it, something primal in creating fire against the night; and good as that is, it isn't really why.

It's dark down there in the hole. Stygian. Hellish. But after the charges go off there is light and fire. For a few blinding moments that rock deep in the earth is transformed by flame into a world of delicate, leaping tongues of reds and yellows and the kind of tangible heat that penetrates right to the core.

Just like the bullet in his chest has done. Raylan's bullet, after all these years. Raylan Givens, of all people.

It's molten, burrowing down through his flesh but it feels like it's squeezing out at the same time and the pain turns him inside out. Every nerve sings with it, joining together in a symphony of agony. If he breathes it hurts; if he doesn't breathe it still hurts; and liquid fire shoots through him, going down deep, burning away everything he is and was.

Lights and sirens against the night but he doesn't really see those, he sees - sort of - Raylan's face and Ava, Ava, always Ava, from the beginning she's always been the one, still all golden and golden hair but there is darkness around them and then everything is dark.

2. The Damascene Moment

He is blind; he cannot see; and he is afraid.

There are all different kinds of darkness and he can't tell if this one comes from within or without but he knows that it is impenetrable and will not be banished by fire.

There are voices all around but the one that comes through is older, familiar, something lost long ago but he can hear so clearly, as though she's sitting beside him, telling him stories just like when he was a kid.

He remembers hearing once that when you die the person you loved best will come for you and the thought, then, is that if this is his day of judgement then it won't go well.

He has not lived a good life, not a righteous life and the pain spears deeper, striking at the somewhere beyond his heart.

He listens to his mother's voice and recognises the story she is telling. A sinner, struck down on the road, left in the darkness until repentance and the mercy of God had spared him, saved him. No-one is damned if they surrender to the light.

In his whole life he's never believed in anything. He can make it sound as though he does, he can play at conviction so well that others will follow him but he says what he needs to say to get what he wants. It's the only faith he has ever had and it isn't enough.

Perhaps if there is a path to follow, perhaps if he gives his faith and his trust to something greater than himself then perhaps he will not be lost.

He cannot see, he realises slowly, because his eyes are still closed. For a moment he hesitates, afraid of what might or might not happen, but it is from this moment that he must surrender himself.

He opens his eyes and squints against the harsh white strip-lighting directly over his bed. The unforgiving illumination of the prison's hospital wing, but to him it is beautiful.

There is light, and he is reborn.

3. The Fall

It had still been daylight when he had cut them down, their faces too visible but he had made himself look at each of them, the flock he had gathered and tended and loved - yes, he had loved them - and he will remember the lines of their features, all of them. Night has long since fallen by the time he finishes.

The air holds the metallic tang of blood and the smell of freshly-turned earth. He sits among the silent mounds of the dead and holds onto the book through which he had come to define himself.

He had thought himself in the light; he had believed himself to be saved, to be on the path that would lead him, lead all of them, to redemption. For the first time in his life he had believed every word he had uttered.

Lucifer, he remembers, was the Morning Star, the bearer of light and he, the favourite of the Lord, had descended from the highest point down to the depths.

Hell is not a pit. It is not the fire and brimstone that the preachers say, he knows this now, now, here, he knows it. Hell is this. It is open and cold. It is seeing the stars of heaven and knowing you were a fool to think you could have them.

He had called Raylan the first saint of their church and it had been something of a joke at the time but not entirely. Raylan had saved him, so he had thought, had believed, had wanted to so badly, and he had been determined to be a saviour in return - and it had led to this.

Boyd Crowder, patron saint of the damned.

When he would come up out of the hole at the end of a shift, Raylan Givens would usually be waiting for him. Sometimes they'd talk - or he'd talk, Raylan only spoke when he had something to say, which wasn't all that often - sometimes they wouldn't, but mainly they would sit and drink.

Raylan believes.

In what, exactly, Boyd isn't sure but he knows it's something and maybe Raylan can explain to him how faith works. He pushes himself up, going deeper into the night and other words, also learnt and lost long ago, come back to him now: Oh God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.