Chapter Twenty-Five: The Question of Faith
March 19, 2011
When Jason woke up the next morning, he first thought was, why did I sleep in my bunk? His second thought was shit. There was no moment of denial, which he found odd once he realized it. He knew, implicitly, that he had seen a man shot late the previous night - or rather earlier that morning - and he knew that Fi had crumbled in the wake of that gunfire.
After that, there was really no going back to sleep, even though it was barely after eight. So Jason got up, put on a set of the civilian clothes he kept in the Wards' base, and wandered out to the conference room.
Triumph was sitting in the seat nearest the elevator.
Jason walked over cautiously, surprised to see the other teen in uniform. "What's wrong? Didn't you have patrol?"
"No. I've been assigned to help guard Contract."
Jason glanced toward where the door to her bunk was, but decided there were more important lines of inquiry to pursue. "What's the situation with the Simurgh?"
"She attacked just after six am. They drove her off in just over twenty two minutes, and they engaged her so high and so early that she barely got within range Canberra. The Australian government is refusing to quarantine the city, because the police force on the ground claims they didn't hear the scream. It's a mess."
"What's the death count?" Jason asked cautiously. No quarantine was less than ideal, but Triumph looked like he'd been to hell and back.
"Forty-one capes. A couple hundred people died in stampedes trying to evacuate as the deadline kept moving closer, and a couple hundred more from collateral damage during the attack."
That was really very light for an Endbringer attack. And it didn't explain Triumph's tension. "That's not terrible. Why do you look so worried?"
"The mainstream media is eviscerating Fi. For not being there, for not stopping the Simurgh, for accelerating the schedule by destroying Behemoth and pissing off the other two… It's bad. The local talk show leaked the interview from last night, which bought her a lot of sympathy because evidently Behemoth killed her parents, but it's only bought us time.
"The general public has reacted in the opposite extreme. A lot of people, individual people, are bombarding the media outlets in her defense and crashing servers by pure overload, but even so, Glenn thinks this is going to be ugly. The entire PRT presence is Brockton Bay has been put on media blackout, and most of PHO is locked after it crashed too."
Jason swallowed, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. "Armsmaster around?"
"He's upstairs, with Piggot and the Triumvirate." Jason felt his eyebrows jump involuntarily, and Triumph elaborated, "They showed up here as soon as the Simurgh was in retreat. Remember when Contract explained her powers?"
Jason shrugged. Triumph waved his hand, dismissing the question. "Well, Alexandria remembers it word-for-word, of course. Contract admitted there was another way to end an Endbringer, but said that it was evil. After seeing the schedule accelerate, they want more details. Armsmaster is trying to convince them to stand down, at least for now."
"He's standing up to the Triumvirate?"
"I assume so, since they're up there and not down here," Triumph observed dryly.
"Wow." Jason glanced towards Fi's door again. "I'm gonna go check on Dennis, since I'm up." Triumph nodded, but Jason was already turning away.
The walk over to her room felt much longer than the ten steps it took to get there. On one hand was the gut-deep feeling that he shouldn't, the Wards shouldn't, be the one to keep vigil over her sleep. They barely knew her, had only met her four or five weeks ago, and yet they were the closest thing she had to family right now.
Competing with this was a defensiveness, almost possessiveness, at the thought that the Triumvirate were in the building, somewhere, and they wanted to exploit his friend. The Wards might be all she had, but Jason for one wasn't about to let the big-shot heroes pile more guilt and more weight on her already breaking back.
The door was cracked when he rounded the corner, so he eased it open and tapped ever so lightly on the frame to get Dennis' attention. The new team leader stood up from the desk chair, where he'd been watching Fi sleep, and came to stand closer to Jason so they could whisper more effectively.
"You're supposed to be asleep."
"Couldn't. You good here?"
"Yeah. You hear about the Simurgh?"
"Triumph told me. You know about the Triumvirate?"
Dennis nodded.
"You two know that women are biologically wired to wake up when they hear higher registers?" Fi asked, amused. Dennis jerked around, and Jason took a reflexive step into the room. Fi was still lying down, eyes closed, but she was smiling slightly. As he watched, the smile faded and her eyes opened.
She met Jason's eyes unnervingly quick, and she must have either just remembered or read something in his face, because her face drained of color. "I didn't imagine it?"
Jason shook his head, mute. She nodded, eyes closed again, and then she suddenly rolled out of bed and pushed past Jason, racing out of the room and down the hall. She plunged through the door to the girl's showers, and Jason could hear her retching by the time he'd taken his first steps to follow her.
Jason and Dennis reached the bathroom door at the same time, then hesitated in unison as cultural conditioning warred with concern for Fi. Then Jason squared his shoulders and pushed his way in. Fi was standing over a sink, shaking and coughing, while water ran over a mess in the sink to her left.
He grabbed a wad of paper towel to throw over the mess to keep the stench down, then wet a second wad to place on the back of her neck. "It's okay," he said, and she nodded but kept coughing and mini-heaving, fingers white where they gripped the sink basin. "It's okay to be sick." He placed a hand on her back to let her know he was there. She relaxed slightly, whether because of the human contact or some other reason he didn't know.
"How long was I asleep?" she finally asked, still leaning over the sink and trembling heavily.
"Couple hours. I think it was one or two o'clock when we went to bed, and it's just after eight now."
"The Simurgh?"
"It's over."
"Shit."
"It could have been a lot worse. The warning helped."
"No it didn't. I don't know what her target was, but I guarantee she got what she wanted. She's a precog; hell, she's the precog. She knew about the warnings. Whatever she was after, she got it." Jason started to disagree with her, but as he opened his mouth, he really looked at her.
If anything, Fi's shaking was getting worse, not better. She coughed again, and her head hung down between her arms. Dennis opened the door and poked his head in with a cup of water and a bottle of apple juice. Jason nodded to signal him in, then realized his mouth was still waiting for his brain to put the counter-argument in a coherent order.
She continued her line of thought before Jason could figure out what to say. "That was our mistake. We thought we could outsmart her, we thought we had figured out a way to be immune. There's no safety, not from her."
"You think the Simurgh set you up?" Dennis asked, wary. Fi jerked and looked over, surprised to see him so close. She stared for a long moment, her body tense and leaning away from him, before she finally seemed to recognize him as her teammate.
She took the water, swished it in the mouth, and spit in the sink. Then she reached over and turned off the first sink. From where Jason was standing, all he could see was a mass of soggy paper towels. Fi turned more fully toward Dennis, leaning one hip against the closer sink. Jason caught the damp towels that had been on her neck before they fell, then put his hand back on the small of her back. Again, it relaxed her, a little, but he could feel that it didn't relieve all the tension in her body.
"There are people from my past who actively want to kill me, and are willing to kill anyone helping me. And there are a handful of people who know me well enough to recognize my mannerisms in just a few seconds, no matter what I look like. Lucius fell into both categories.
"For him to walk in on Ash and I in a video conference, when Ellis was distracted, is a one in a million chance. I've refused to have contact with my family for this very reason. The whole conversation lasted only a few minutes. It was a small window of opportunity.
"Is there a reasonable explanation? Of course. Dozens of people want me dead. And a couple dozen people wanted Ash dead in his own right, though they'd never admit it. On top of that, Lucius had every reason to go to the Roadhouse after hearing that the Simurgh was active. The events make logical sense, but considering the timing? It's suspicious.
"So yes, I have to assume it was the Simurgh. She may have had other purposes too; in fact I'm sure she did, because she is the premier precog, but I think this was her. I took out an Endbringer. And she took out the only adult I respect. Ash wasn't a parent, but he was the closest thing I had." Fi crossed her arms in front of her chest, rubbing her hands against her skin, and Jason suddenly realized it was chilly in the bathroom. He was in sweats and flannel, but she was still in her short-sleeved shirt from last night.
"Are you going to throw up again in the next ten minutes?" Jason asked, before Dennis could pursue the question of the Simurgh's influence. If it was creeping him out, it couldn't be helping Fi. Dennis probably knew that, but Jason didn't want to risk her mental health on a probably. Fi shook her head.
"Okay. Then you go use our shower, soak up some hot water, and we'll get this place cleaned up. Sound good?"
Fi nodded, and walked slowly down the hall to grab her toiletry kit. Dennis stepped closer to Jason, blocking him from leaving, and hissed, "We can't leave her alone."
"She's not suicidal." Fi had been upset, and scathing, and depressed, and logical, and probably in shock, but she wasn't going to harm herself. Dennis glared. "I'll stand in the doorway and listen, but she's shaking like a leaf. Showers calm her down."
"Fine. I'll clean up here." Dennis grimaced as he said it, but Jason was selfishly glad he'd volunteered. The room was starting to reek.
Jason slipped out of the bathroom just as Fi left her dorm room, clothes and kit in hand. There was really no good way to approach the subject, so Jason took a deep breath and went with bald honesty. "So, listen, technically you're on suicide watch. Mind if I stand in the doorway and listen awkwardly like a creeper?"
Shockingly, that actually got a tiny smile out of her. "I get it. I've done the favor for other friends a couple times. You want me to keep up a running commentary of some sort so you know I'm okay, right? I can do that."
It was a much more casual response than he had anticipated, but Jason wasn't going to question this one bit of good luck. "Thanks." He held the door for her, and she slipped inside and into the first stall, pulling the curtain behind her.
Immediately, she started talking as promised. "I wish Ash could have seen that movie last night. It's exactly the sort of thing he'd love. He got me hooked on all that old horror, monster-in-the-dark stuff when I was eight. Scared the pants off Ellis when she caught me showing it to Jo. Man, did we get a hiding.
"He never showed me that one in particular, but he probably knew about it. He knew all sorts of obscure titles, the worse the special effects the better. The boys told me once that Ash actually in one when he was in college, but they could never find a copy of it. Ash denied it completely."
The sound of the water changed, and Jason assumed it was warm enough for her to step into the main stream. She sighed, actually sounding relaxed, and he knew he'd made the right call. From where he was standing, he could just see the edge of the water pool under the curtain, but nothing else. If she did decide to take some sort of drastic action, he'd be able to see the blood in the flow of the water.
"This watch is useless, by the way. For one, it's not necessary. And even if it was, well… If I wanted to be dead, I would be. You know how easy that trade would be? No one could stop me.
"Not that I want to die. I've got a bullet to put in Lucius. And Jazz too. That bitch will go down if it is the last damned thing I do." Her voice, which has been rising in anger, broke on that last phrase. She was quiet for a moment, while Jason carefully monitored his breathing.
He hadn't considered how her power might affect her ability to kill herself, and he tried to convince himself that her ability to talk about it so flippantly was good. It wasn't working.
"Not that Lucius will need my bullet," she continued, and Jason jumped. He hadn't expected her to keep talking without prompting. "If Ellis is half the woman I've known her to be, Lucius is already dead. No way she'd let him take a second shot, she's not that old yet. I never thought I'd see the day when I wanted to kill a man. But for Lucius, I could make an exception."
"The snake has wanted Ash dead for years, he just never had enough of a reason to take the shot himself until last night, I guess. God knows why he hates him so much: it's not like Ash didn't save him as often as the rest of us. But Lucius hated him on first sight, and the feeling's mutual now. Or maybe I should say it was."
The water shut off, but she kept talking. "Maybe it's better that way. I can focus on the bitch."
Jason cleared his throat. "You think you can kill the Simurgh?"
"Come hell or high water. I just can't figure out how she got around the contract. It's solid. I can feel it, sitting on my shoulders, wrapped around my chest. And it clearly stipulates that the remaining Endbringers have to adhere to their natural attack progression. Natural attack progression. I don't see a loophole in that.
"I mean, I know I rattled off options with Ash, but the more I think about them, the more none of them apply. The whole point of the clause was to restrain the attack schedule. Even if there are suddenly more Endbringers, which is itself hard to believe, they should still have to obey the clause. And even if they don't, the Simurgh does. I just can't figure it out."
She stepped out of the cubical, dressed in jeans and a white shirt. It wasn't quite her cape uniform, but it was close. He chose not to say anything, but he wondered if the choice had been purposeful or accidental. She walked over to the sinks, combed out her hair, then ran a hand through it to muss it slightly into its normal pixie-cut style.
"You've only been thinking about it for a couple minutes," he pointed out, neutrally, following her back to her room. She dumped her stuff on the bed, where it looked starkly out of place with the military precision of the rest of the room.
"It doesn't make sense," she repeated. Jason shrugged. She stepped toward the desk, put a hand out toward her laptop, then snatched it back. He could see her face tighten up as she held herself together, and prepared himself for the next swing. He'd made it through one cycle of puking-sobbing-being surprisingly okay. He could do it again.
But the break down didn't come. After staring at the desk, and the laptop on it, blankly for several long seconds, Fi glanced up.
"I think I want to go out."
"Go where?" Dennis asked, as he came to stand just behind Jason. Jason, for his part, carefully didn't jump. There was no reason to be nervous around his team leader. None at all.
"There's a church just up the street. St. Paul's. Ash was Catholic," she answered, looking at Jason and not at Dennis. "I wouldn't mind if you came." She flicked her eyes to Dennis ever so briefly, barely including him, but including him all the same.
"Sounds like a plan," Dennis said.
Fi tried to offer a smile, but it faded fast. Jason reached out and squeezed her shoulder as she came closer, and that bought him a genuinely thankful glance.
Getting out of the base, and down the street, was easier said than done. The hardest part was convincing Triumph that there was no need to alert the Triumvirate without expressly saying 'Triumvirate' and cluing Fi into the fact that they were there for her.
On one hand, Jason didn't really want to keep secrets from Fi. On the other, he wanted to let her grieve in peace for as long as she could. And Fi had kept enough secrets from him, for his own good, that he felt justified doing to the same for her. He'd make sure to warn her before they went back into the base.
The church was a squat little brick building that looked like it ought to be an office complex until they were actually inside. It was also much busier than Jason would have guessed on a Saturday morning, until he realized a lot of people were there praying for the Simurgh's victims.
They came in behind a couple who dabbed their foreheads with wet fingers and knelt at the threshold. Fi did neither, instead slipping along the back of the church to sit in the far right of the second-to-last row. People were murmuring, and occasionally someone went up to the front where a bunch of candles had been lit, but the place still had the feel of a library or museum.
Fi sat on the pew, put her elbows on the pew in front of her, and rested her chin on her closed fists. And then she just sat there. Cautiously, Dennis and Jason sat on either side of her, and mostly just looked around the church.
There were wooden relief carvings all around the room, even in the back, which didn't seem practical. In the front, was a larger-than-life cross with a shockingly detailed and bloody depiction of Jesus, framed on either side by life-portioned representations of his parents. Did Joseph count as a father of Jesus? Jason had never been clear. Or maybe the man up there wasn't supposed to be Joseph?
They'd been sitting in silence for maybe ten minutes when they were approached by a bishop. Or he was called a priest? Pastor?
"Hello, I'm Father John," the man introduced himself.
"Elizabeth," Fi offered mildly. She waited until after she'd spoken to look away from the front of the room and make eye contact with the man in black, who was now seated sideways in the bench in front of them. Jason barely remembered that this was the name the PRT had assigned to her over a month ago.
"Hello Elizabeth." He glanced at Jason and Dennis, but somehow understood that they didn't have anything to say. Instead, he refocused on Fi alone. "Can I help you?"
"I doubt it," Fi deadpanned, looking past him toward the front again, "I didn't come here to talk to you."
To his credit, Father John took that in stride. "Perhaps not. But the Father does speak through his children."
Fi laughed her bitter, brittle laugh. "In my experience, he speaks to his children."
"Then you didn't need to come here to hear from him."
Fi turned back to the father, surprised. Her gaze flickered once to the front, but immediately returned to Father John. Jason wasn't sure why, but the priest now had her attention now. Finally she conceded, "There is that."
Father John smiled without the slightest trace of victory, and gently asked, "What troubles you?"
Fi opened her mouth, took a breath like she was about to speak, and then shut her mouth so sharply her teeth clicked together. She closed her eyes, bowing her head slightly, and took several sharp breathes through her nose, trying not to cry. After three or four of these, she choked out, "Ashland Texas is dead."
She bowed her head further, and Jason put a hand on her shoulder. "God," she said, and Jason was pretty sure it was a prayer, not a curse, "Ash is dead."
The father, to his credit, didn't seem fazed, though he did reach out and put a hand on hers, which were still clasped together in front of her. They sat that way for long enough that Jason started to wonder if he should say something, but he couldn't decide what. When Fi looked up, Jason could still feel the tension in her body.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Father John murmured. "May I pray for him with you?"
Fi scoffed. "I don't believe in intercession for the dead." This evidently surprised Father John, and after a moment Fi continued more mildly. "Ash was a staunch Catholic. He knew what he believed and why, and he introduced me to God in a church very much like this one.
"I walked away from the Catholic Church when I was twelve; I had questions that my priests couldn't answer. I've been a Baptist since I was fourteen. I know what I believe and why I believe it's true. I don't believe in intercession for the dead, but Ash did." Jason hadn't realized that Fi was Christian, and wondered if that said more about him or about her.
She huffed in what might have been an attempt at laughter. "We argued about religion a lot. The fact that you're upholding his position for him from beyond the grave… well… that would tickle Ash's funny bone but good. He's probably up there laughing right now."
Father John continued in his same mild tone, "How long has it been since you were in church?"
"Fifty-one days. But it feels like a lifetime." By Jason's quick mental math, that was just under two months, so right around the time she'd killed Behemoth, give or take a couple days.
Father John didn't seem to know exactly how to react to that. Did he think she was lying? Was he thrown by the very specific number of days? The length of time? Finally he offered, "If you didn't come for intercession, why are you here?"
Fi looked away from him, past Dennis on her other side, twisting her body enough that Jason let his hand drop off her back. He tried to follow her gaze - there were wooden reliefs hanging near the ceilings, some windows, and a bulletin board - but he couldn't tell what she was looking at. Her forehead wrinkled. "What's that banner for?"
The bulletin board was topped with a large header that simply said "UNCOVERED."
Father John allowed the subject change graciously. "Our youth are currently on a retreat, studying the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10, verses 26 through 28. Jesus encouraged his disciples to preach boldly for the protection of their souls."
Fi looked back to Father John, and said in a clear, steady tone, "So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
Father John looked dumbstruck, and Jason realized that Fi had quoted the passage in question off the top of her head. It wasn't one he'd heard before, much less recognized. For a little while, they all sat in silence, as Fi studied her knuckles and the rest of them waited for someone else to speak.
Finally, Fi looked back up and continued, her mouth twisted in a wry smile. "I've heard it summarized as, 'what Man covers, God will uncover in his justice. But what Man chooses to uncover, God will cover by his grace.' I owe you an apology, Father. I did need a little help to hear God today. I guess I've become a little hard-headed recently. Thank you."
Father John recovered, and when he spoke, his voice was just as steady and mild as it had been when he sat down. "You're welcome. I will pray for Ash."
Jason half expected her to return to her mild-toned passive-aggressiveness, but Fi nodded instead. "That would have meant a lot to him." She glanced toward the front, perhaps toward the crucifix. "Pray for me, too. I've got some things that need to be uncovered."
"A confession?" Father John asked, but from the wry tone it was clear he didn't expect to be taken up on his offer.
"Not sins, Father. Secrets." Jason felt a chill run down his spine. Did she mean that she was finally going to give them some answers? Because of a banner in a church?
Before he could consider it further, Fi extended her hand toward Father John. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, child." He shook her hand, then glanced at Jason and at Dennis, and somehow read that neither of them had anything to add. Father John stood up, and walked over to two women who were sitting several rows ahead of them.
When Jason glanced back at Fi, she was trembling again. Carefully, he put a hand on her shoulder and she didn't flinch. "You okay?"
"I will be," she whispered, and looked away from the crucifix to meet his eyes. "I really needed this. Thank you."
Jason nodded, sensing that something had changed but not quite able to put his finger on exactly what it might be. Was she a little more peaceful? A little stronger? Regardless, Fi didn't seem ready to leave yet, so he fished for something to say and came up with the utterly obvious: "You're a Christian."
"I am. Ash took me to mass off and on until I was twelve. At that point I started asking questions, and I got patronizing answers. So I went looking for better ones. I talked to Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, and finally at fourteen I ended up as a Baptist. I'm not arrogant enough to swear I know every answer, but I am satisfied with what I've found."
Jason's family had never been religious, and he didn't particularly care about religion in any real way, but he'd lived in Texas. He'd been handed tracks and yelled at from street corners. He'd seen people who set their clocks by Sunday morning mass, followed by Sunday afternoon football.
Fi didn't fit that mold. He wasn't even sure how to address the father (or priest, or pastor, or bishop) but she could probably tell him the meaning and story of every scene carved, painted, and displayed in the building. And despite that, she was surprisingly… normal.
On her other side, Dennis shifted. "We need to get back to base before we're missed. We can get clearance to come back, but we've already been out here for close to forty minutes."
"It's okay. I got what I needed." Fi stood up and led them out of the church, calm and steady.
The entire time, Jason had half expected her to start yelling at God for taking Ash away. Anger was a stage of grief, wasn't it? But she seemed mostly composed, and not at all in danger of flying off the handle. It was probably a good sign that it was time to tell her about the powder keg waiting for her back at base.
As they walked up the street, Jason fished for the right words, before finally deciding to just take the plunge. It had worked last time. "The Triumvirate are in Brockton Bay, trying to talk to you."
Fi grimaced, but didn't speak. She just kept walking, hands shoved in her pockets, head tilted down. Jason glanced at Dennis; he didn't look pleased, but he stepped up to carry on the conversation anyway. "Armsmaster is talking to them, holding them off."
Fi kicked a bit of litter in the pathway and it zinged off down the street. "Let them come. I'll tell them to shove off myself."
Jason swallowed, but elaborated. "Alexandria wants details about the potential solution you hinted at a couple weeks ago."
"Damned eidetic memory," Fi muttered. Jason wondered if Christians were allowed to damn things. Fi seemed to be doing it a lot in the last twenty-four hours. "I don't suppose she remembered the part where I said it was evil. Beyond evil."
Dennis glanced at Jason with raised eyebrows. So whatever report or file he had on Fi as the new team leader didn't include a transcript of that debriefing. Or maybe he didn't officially have access yet.
Jason shrugged at Dennis, and replied to Fi instead. "I think they want to know what their options are."
Fi scoffed and kicked another piece of trash. This one spun off to the side and impacted one of the building fronts they were walking past. "It'd be nice if someone trusted my judgment occasionally."
"We do," Dennis said, and Fi actually looked up at him. "We, your team, I mean, we just want to help. The Triumvirate may not know you but we do. And just because we're curious or ask questions doesn't mean we don't trust you. It means we don't want you to be alone."
"Maybe we can offer a fresh perspective." Jason put in. Fi looked back at him. "If you don't want to talk to the adults, that's one thing. But talk to someone." Fi stared at him for a long time, actually stopping on the sidewalk to study him.
"Okay," she finally answered.
"Okay?" Dennis asked, shocked.
Fi didn't break eye contact, and Jason met her gaze steadily as she repeated, "Okay."