The next day was given over to rest and planning. Tim and Stephanie departed Saint Michael's cathedral later the initial night, though Stephanie returned long enough to pass on a change of clothes to Cassandra.

"I hope we can get the ash out of that fancy dress, helping you pick it out certainly took long enough," Stephanie said.

"Hope so too." Cassandra sifted through the clothes, mostly a few tank tops and sweatpants, that Stephanie and Tim kept at their bunker for her. As she sifted through, she came to a T-shirt with an eggplant and a pair of jeans beneath it. "These yours?"

"Sadie's closer to my size than yours, I thought she'd appreciate a change too." Stephanie stuck out a tongue and made a face. "She might not actually like the eggplant though, stupid people texting has kind of started ruining the vegetable. It's not fair, I was the eggplant avenger before any bros were fooling around with crappy emojis." After a long breath, she concluded, "But I digress. Sadie smells like smoke too, and I think she'll appreciate not smelling like that anymore."

When the morning came, Sadie's already tumultuous night of sleep was interrupted by the playing of an organ and the singing of a choir in the cathedral above her. She groaned and rubbed at her forehead. The monsignor's temporary solution was setting up a cot in a long-unused classroom in the church's basement. Shelves of old school supplies ran along one corner, and another corner of the room stood curtained off.

"During overflow times we used to do confession through that curtain," Father Ryan had said. "But we haven't exactly had overflowing confession times in a while now."

Shortly after Sadie woke, Cassandra slipped into the little classroom in the basement, two mugs of coffee in hand.

Sadie asked, "Your buddy the priest isn't going to kick you out?"

"Think he doesn't believe I'd try anything during service."

"He should really trust you better than that," Sadie said. "We've been pretty good about this stuff for the last few years, seems like you should at least get some acknowledgement and trust out of it.

Cassandra laid one of the cups by one of the feet of the cot. "None of the fancy stuff in the kitchen, sorry."

"I'll manage." Sadie sat up on the thin mattress, picked up the cup, and sipped. "It's good enough. You brew this? You do pretty good for someone that doesn't like coffee."

Cassandra chuckled. "Sometimes I need it. Quick, easy energy, you know."

The two sat in relative quiet for a few minutes. At some point, with a smirk, Sadie asked, "Does this count as finally getting me to come to church with you?"

"Don't know. Can you tell me anything about the sermon?" Cassandra spoke in a playful tone.

"Nope. Can you half the time?"

"Half the time I'm still too tired from the fight before—night before." Cassandra considered her words for a moment and then shrugged. "Either works, actually."

About the time the mass ended, Cassandra was forced to excuse herself. "Business and travel arrangements to make," she said. "We have another associate in disguise watching the church, you'll be safe."

"It's not that little brother of yours who's way too serious, is it?"

Cassandra said, "No." But even she couldn't shake the feeling she'd said it much too quickly.

As grateful as Sadie was for the change of clothes, she desperately wished she'd asked Stephanie to bring her a book or stop by her cousin's place to grab her DS or something. A phone charger sat tucked away with the clothing, so at least she could keep her phone running. But until Cassandra returned to take her away, it was her only means of amusement. For a few hours that dragged longer and longer, she sat in a corner, phone plugged in, and sifted through a few news articles and social media.

At some point, there came a knock at the storage room door. Sadie asked, "Yeah?"

"It's the monsignor." Father Ryan didn't open the door. "How are you feeling, Miss Leach."

"Okay, can we put a moratorium on that?" Sadie said. "I like my name. Everybody can just use my first name. Okay?"

"All right, no problem."

"And I think I'm going a little stir crazy," Sadie said. "Do you have anything I can read?" After a moment to consider, she followed with, "Besides the Bible, maybe?"

Father Ryan chuckled. "I do have some other reading material, but it's all of similar theme. I'll tell you what, though. We received a shipment of our new hymnals the other day. I think we were planning to make the students who come in on Wednesdays put the plastic coverings on them, but if you'd like to come help out, there's plenty to go around."

The priest waited quietly beside the door for about half a minute before it opened and Sadie stepped out in an eggplant T-shirt. "Well, you've got me," she said. "I have nothing else to do and I feel like I owe you for the cot. It's a rare combo, but I guess that's what it takes to get me to agree to this task."

Father Ryan smiled and led the way back upstairs.

"You're, uh, not going to try preaching at me, are you?"

"If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them," Father Ryan said. "And if you don't, we can keep to ourselves."

Sadie hesitated for a moment. From the limited impression she'd gotten, she did like this priest. And she wanted to continue liking him. But some things always made her inquisitive, and she was never one for letting things lie. "You know about us, right? I mean, you must. You saw us kiss last night. And if you ever broke Cassie's heart by telling her we should break up, I'm sure she would have told me, so I guess you haven't."

The priest made for the staircase as he spoke. "She told me when you two had a falling out, and we talked again the same day you decided to give it another try. That was her decision to make, and you're clearly special to her."

Sadie tucked her hands into her pocket as she followed Father Ryan upstairs and toward his office. "So you just let it be? Were you supposed to speak out against it or something?"

Father Ryan breathed a sigh and hesitated a moment. "There're two schools of thought among the priesthood these days. That those are those who, per dogma, are living in sin, actively. That also includes people like unmarried cohabitators and other people I think should be left alone. Those people are actively doing wrong, and therefor they should be denied the Eucharist. There is another line of thought, that the priest's place is only to bless and distribute the body and blood. That it isn't a reward, it's food for the hungry."

The words made Sadie shiver a little. "Man, body and blood? You guys are really dramatic." After the priest chuckled, she added, "The fact that you can laugh about it tells me which side you're on. I don't really get it, but I know Cassie would be crushed if she was cut off from it. So, thanks for being the second type."

Father Ryan unlocked his office and took a seat at in his chair. A tiny dog bed sat atop his desk, and Snowball perked up and sniffed in Sadie's direction as she sat down across from him.

"First box is right here, they can fit about twenty-five books in each of these." The priest retrieved an exacto-knife from inside his desk and slit the top of a cardboard box. Next to Snowball sat a pile of plastic blue cover protectors, Sadie opened one to test where the books slipped in and out.

The two made it a few books in in silence before Sadie started to ask questions again. "What's the deal with you guys and gay people anyway?"

"Isn't that the question." Father Ryan didn't look up from the work that already busied him. "There are plenty of theories about Old Testament writings, maybe matters of resisting being sucked into another culture, maybe mistranslation. It's certainly an ancient concept, I assume you're familiar with Sodom and Gomorrah."

"You know, I read that story once, trying to figure out what all the fuss was about," Sadie said. "It was always so weird to me everybody went with, 'because they were gay.' The people were threatening to break the doors down to get to those angels that the guy had traveling with him, and those angels clearly weren't giving consent. Sounds a lot less like, 'because they were gay,' and a lot more like, 'because they were rapists.'"

The priest cringed at the word, but nodded nevertheless. "There certainly can be interpretations such as those, would that the church would listen. The unfortunate reality is that it's just a very old institution. Bringing about change takes time, and the older the institution, the longer it usually takes."

Sadie paused from the book she was working on, set it down, and leveled a hard look at the priest. "You had me keeping up okay. But taking time? Taking time only works when both parties are in agreement about it."

Father Ryan didn't look up from his work, he just asked, "Do you think Rome was built in a day?"

"I hate time as an answer because what's it supposed to do for the people who are running out of it?" Sadie said. "For everybody whose parents and teachers keep deadnaming them. Or trying to kick them out of the house. Or won't let them in their homeless shelter when it's negative forty degrees outside?"

The priest looked up then, a stern glower in his eyes. "I'm protecting Cassandra's secrets and keeping you safe, aren't I?"

"You're being a good person right now, I know that," Sadie said. "And maybe in your line of work, doing communion for people who aren't asking to be forgiven for their biology is some really cool act of rebellion. But it's also quiet. It's also letting the problem fester until someone else can come along and fix it." Almost as soon as she said it all, her stomach jerked. What in the world was she trying to accomplish? This was still the man keeping her safe within his little slice of holy ground.

To his credit, however his forehead creased with frustration, Father Ryan did not rush to say anything. Eventually, after the silence held a few uncomfortable seconds, he went back to his work. "This is just further proof," he shook his head as he spoke. "We shouldn't be driving people like you away Miss—ahem—Sadie. You'd make a fine theologian."

The two went back to work on the books, neither heard much from the other besides and occasional praise of Snowball.

-…-

Late that night, after Monsignor Ryan departed and locked up, Cassandra returned through an entrance by the bell tower. She walked with in with a backpack slung over her shoulder and a long, cylindrical case at her side. When Sadie asked how she'd gotten in, she said, "Grappling hook."

"Of course." Sadie fought back a stunned expression. "What's in there then? An instrument you never told me you could play?"

A little smirk crossed Cassandra's face. Without saying a word, she set it up the cylinder vertically, popped off one of the ends, and drew out a sheathed sword.

With her jaw threatening to drop, Sadie demanded, "What?! That's legit? You can actually fight with a sword?"

"Since I was little," Cassandra said. "Fell out of it for a while, picked back up a few years ago. Dulled sides only."

"What, like Himura Kenshin?"

"Hm?"

"Nevermind, show I used to watch… can I see it?"

Ready to drink in all of Sadie's wonder and excitement, Cassandra slowly unsheathed the sword. Despite the lack of a cutting edge, the blade shimmered even in the church's low lighting.

"Amazing," Sadie said. "But, uh, why's it a katana?"

"Hm?"

"Is it just an aesthetic thing? You were honest about being Chinese, right? So, it isn't an ancient family heirloom or something, right?"

"No, gift from Batman." Cassandra took in another hit of awe that still came from just invoking his name. "We both trained with ninjas—both their texts and some who still practice. Guess it just came from there."

"So cool." As the shock slowly left Sadie's system, eventually she made herself ask, "You guys get everything sorted out?"

Cassandra unfurled her costume and moved toward a curtained off corner of the room. "Batman's helping supply a plane. We'll fly from Gotham to Rome. One of Day's people will meet us at the airport, help us get past security. Had to remind them over and over you don't have a passport."

"I'd be happy to get one just as soon as I needed one," Sadie said. "But no one's ever offered to take me to Cancun or whatever, I just haven't had a reason to have one."

"I know, I know," Cassandra's shirt flew up for a moment, then fell across the curtain rod. "Get an escort from there, get to Vatican City, get the thing in your hand out safely."

Sadie shuddered. "You still think we can trust those guys?"

"Don't think we have much choice," Cassandra said.

"Have they at least told you anything more about it?" Sadie asked. "Why it's so important? How it got like this? Anything?"

Cassandra shook her head, then remembered she couldn't be seen. "Nothing yet." Her pants followed the shirt over the curtain rod

"Ugh." Sadie collapsed backwards onto her cot. "Stupid secret society weirdos."

Cassandra pulled up the undermost layer of her uniform and pressed on. "Leaving early Tomorrow morning. Been on this plane before, it's nice, but sleeping in the air can be hard."

"Got it. I'll get plenty of rest tonight then." Sadie raised a thumb's up.

"And I'll keep an eye on things upstairs." She stepped out from behind the curtain, covered neck to toe in flexible black cloth intertwined with patches of Kevlar.

That made Sadie chuckle. "Does that make you my guardian angel?"

"I'm Gotham's guardian angel." A smile slipped into Cassandra's next words. "But tonight, yours especially." She lifted one of her boots and bent down to pull it on.

"Wait a sec—hang on." Sadie rose from the cot and walked to the shelves behind her. After a little searching she found a few dusty notebooks and a box of pens. "These are gonna have to do. Can you hold that pose for a couple minutes?"

Cassandra tilted her head a moment before she realized. "You want to draw me?"

"You know, pencil—er—pen sketches I can try painting with later," Sadie said.

"Not even wearing anything special," Cassandra said. "Like wearing a black sweater and pants."

"I know, but there's a feeling to it. Or something. I don't know. Can we just try it?"

After a moment still and confused, Cassandra slowly slipped on her first boot and held still when she'd pulled it to on fully. "Like this?"

"Perfect, I'll try to make this quick, thanks." Sadie sketched hard and fast for a few seconds, muttered a curse under her breath, and ripped out the page. She set to work again, the strokes slower that time. "The hero as she dresses for battle," Sadie said.

"Careful with my features," Cassandra said. "Already don't wear a mask."

"Yeah, well, nobody's recognized you yet, right?" Sadie filled in a few lines with a heavier hand. "This is nuts, I can't believe I'm front row for this. It's like you're performing a ritual and posing nude at the same time."

Red flushed Cassandra's cheeks. "What? Nude?"

"You're pulling on your costume, which is a whole ritual that turns you into something else." Sadie added definition to the hands that clutched the boot. "But you're in between states right now. Standing like how you're not supposed to be seen. So, yeah, kinda like being naked." She pulled the pen away, examined the sketch, and blew on it a few times so the ink would set. "Okay, I'm sorry, know you're still getting ready. We might have to do it again thanks for rolling with me tonight."

Cassandra nodded, pulled on her second boot, then her breastplate, and crossed to Sadie's side. "Going upstairs. Leaving early tomorrow, so get your rest."

"I'll do my best. Thank you again, for—well, for everything."

The two women embraced. Though Cassandra was sure she hadn't yet had her fill, she still broke the hold and stepped away. "Going upstairs to watch out. See you in the morning."

Sadie nodded. "May it be uneventful and over soon. Goodnight."