She splintered under the sight; the pastellic glow of the lamp echoed shadow carvings against his grim countenance: a stone that broke and scattered far too easily, a stone that hollowed itself by fatal decision, a stone that watched as its brothers and sisters eroded away into the dust of the wind. Many have thought the Reverend to be a cold man, at least compared to his former years. But Timothy had always been the cold man from the age of childhood; Helen remembered upon meeting her future in-laws that they always complained of their son's indifference to life as it was. He merely bestowed this more honest nature in later recent times

It wasn't until that he truly dove into his pastoral career that he seemed to have "dropped the act," the passing of his angst years. He would force a smile for everyone that walked by, shoving out his dead heart for everyone to see and admire. His parents fell for the acts, and so did everyone else around him. But not Helen, at least not at first glance.

It had been a late night, a supposed get-together with the friends she had at the time. The same friends that thought it would be funny to leave her out in the wilderness, and laugh about it the next time she strolled by. She wandered and huddled around a designated tree the entire night, the color black being more transparent to the view of the wilderness by comparison.

She had the nagging narrator accuse her of how stupid she could be, about how she was able to get herself in such a circumstance that could only ever happen in poorly written novels. Criticizing herself about how impossibly lucky it had been that no one took advantage of a young woman in the woods, or the fact that she was even able to survive the elements. When dawn finally did arrive, Helen was awoken by the man himself.

His eyes were cold under the rising sun, and his frown had forgotten to dress a smile. Helen forced herself to rise, mostly out of the unknown on whether or not the stranger intended her harm. She questioned whether it would be wise for her to scamp away while she still could, but by whatever fate, found herself in the midst of a shock response. The fall morning had been bitter against the skin, biting at her arms until they proved their goosebumps.

Helen never knew if it was the fear she held in her gaze, or just the sight of her being cold and alone, but it fostered a warmth she doubted anyone could have ever seen in Timothy. It hadn't been a look of pity, but one of compassion, an empathetic grieving for a woman he never met. "You've been here the entire night." It had been more of a statement than a question.

She stood there, in the darkness of the doorway, unsure if she should break trance. He had been staring at a single page, perhaps a line, of the bible he held. He never spoke, never glanced up, hardly any indicator that he was a person. He sat there on the bed, merely staring, as if the pages itself could breathe a soul he craved to have. Her best friend was dying, yet she couldn't find anything within herself to drag him away from death's cynical eye. Reverend Lovejoy had saved so many lives, through speeches, through example, through advice, yet he was dying all on his own with no one there to catch him.

Yet, it's why she loved him.

"My family just.." She hadn't known if it was the dust that fogged the garage within, nor if it had been Tim's presence alone that suffocated her. "...they weren't ever religious." She didn't think she could ever kill anyone. Tim's stone visage crumbled into one of guilt, the lines that formed his doubt contrasted against a pained set of eyes that refused to greet her. He shuffled away a stack of notes off an old cracked coffee table her family had dumped out, already two steps backwards toward the door. "Sorry. I didn't mean to push-" He had to present his first sermon the next morning, the do-or-die to finalize his college education.

Helen often wondered what would have happened if she never called after him, never reassured or eliminated his fears, never trusted him. Would he had been worse off than the state he was in, on that bed, holding that bible almost as if it had been a burden of its own grievances?

Would he had even considered the possibility of holding a bible?

Quietly, she felt the slow enslaving pop through each of her fingers, pushing each one against her thumb. Every night for the past couple of weeks had been like this, perhaps even farther than she wished to admit. Her husband sitting on the bed, in a dead daze, as she climbed silently into the separate sheets, trying to mimic a peaceful slumber.

Helen never slept, because Timothy never did.

"Just let it pass. And when he's ready to open up, he will." Marge's words still echoed from that dead phone-line, earlier that morning. Just let it pass. It was all she had to do.

It wouldn't pass, Helen knew better than that. She knew Timothy better. Tim wasn't someone that let emotions come and go, nor was he one that was particularly prone to them. She figured that out quickly farther into their friendship, in the beginning. He often had to verbally voice whatever it was he felt in order to even create a self-awareness for himself. Just thinking about it was never enough, he never found himself holding any conclusion. He was just there, in the present, nothing less, nothing more.

It was what drew Helen toward him, yet it was still a frightening sight. About what a person could become, feeling unaffected by the world around them, with a dim if any sense of purpose. Their baby girl, Jessica, was the same way; she hid the image better than her father ever could, that was the only difference. Helen didn't know if it was a mindset, a biological factor, or anything else that could explain the essence of the personality, nor did she wish to try and question it.

Yet, Tim seemed to take note of these concerns. He'd often push Jessica to find friends, real friends. And when she did find people, he'd make a tremendous push to meet and greet them, as if to be sure his daughter wasn't setting up some elaborate lie for him to fall for. An elaborate lie he had conjured at her age with his parents, when in reality he found himself stuffed in a corner of a class, quietly doing his work.

Despite the irony, he would never push the readings of the bible through Jessica. Not with a bullet, not with a shiv, not with a finger. He lived it through example. If Tim were such a brutal, careless pastor, there wouldn't have been a willing pastor for the religious hell that was Springfield.

Without a pastor, there wouldn't be a hopeful Ned Flanders who found his beliefs through the community church. Without Flanders, there wasn't an example or philosophy to follow nor hold true. If Timothy Lovejoy never chose to pastor Springfield, no one else in their right mind would have.

Jessica saw this, and she understood it. If her hometown had hope for someone to lead them spiritually, and her father was willing enough to go through the misery of leading them, whether the teachings be true or not, it was worth believing in for her.

Helen snaked into the room, as if the jittering of her lungs would stop once qued. It grew more difficult to avoid his attention each night, the burdened possibility of his eyes on her was something she did not wish to witness. She beckoned a stand-still, gazing at his back with her finger scissoring into the bed sheets.

What is wrong with you.

What kind of wife let their husband wallow in his guilt alone, when their vows promised he wouldn't have to ever again? Why was she letting him die?

Timothy averted his gaze unto her through a midway breath, grasping his hands together as he smacked the book shut. His eyes whistled an alarm, yet was practically caked in darkness aside from the dulling lamp. It took Helen a moment to realize she had spoken his name.

"What's wrong?" It had been the first in weeks that any kind of passion resonated with his words, which only spoke volumes in how well he upheld his own wedding vows. It disturbed the greed within her heart, if that what it even was anymore.

"Why are you asking me?" The shame of her absence seeped through her bloodstream, invading every part of her being until she was in shambles. It was like an recovering addict hitting one last puff, only to spiral down again. She couldn't tell if he was staring through her or slicing into her; she began to part from the bed, and beckoned close to the door as a probable effect. The way he faced her nearly obscured his entire visage, with the brightest spots of light coating the edge of his shoulder and the fringes of his hair. Even under the brightest summer morning, it wouldn't make a difference in seeing him. Tim was quiet, frozen in the timeless shadows.

"I'm not the one hiding behind a door."

"You might as well be." Her masquerade quaked the moment she spat those words, sending the venom flying to engrave brutal beatings into her husband's mind. Tim didn't react, not visibly anyway, however much that truly mattered. Her chest trembled under the weight of dread, whistling out airless words. "Tim, you're scaring me."

He didn't move, not even to breathe; it drove Helen insane. "You're not doing this to me again! I'm done playing this little game!" She didn't realize how close she had gotten to the bed again, not until Timothy made a point of standing and slowly backing from it. It wasn't until that very realization that she confronted her situation; the light finally casted against his face, it was the same one he gave her that cold morning in her parent's garage. The guilt and pains he carried, ugly in its long festering away from the surface, finally bubbling through. Helen's soul dropped to the very pits of her feet.

"Just talk to me. You're hurt and stuck in something, I know it." Shavings of Helen's nail began to spill over to the floor, yet she never stopped picking at her fingers.

"Helen-"

"Don't start, I said I'm done playing."

"How am I supposed to speak, when you keep interrupting just to accuse me of not speaking?"

"Just because you say words, doesn't mean you are talking." Tim couldn't find a proper retortment for such a statement; even under the lack of light, Helen could see his hands straining to grip the bible he still held close to him. She hated the sight. She hated the idea of losing him.

"...I don't know what you expect me to say." Tim was a man that never caved in, even when backed into a corner—physical or metaphorical. His voice resonated with unwavering ease, never breaking a syllable in a dejection. He uttered blunt thoughts, ones that could never be twisted against his intention. He drove her insane, because there wasn't a darn reason to reasonably be angry with him for. "I want you to tell me what the heck is going on in your head. You could hide from everyone else, but you won't with me."

"I'm not hiding."

"For a minister, you're a real good liar." The once pristine bible was smacked against the floor like a bomb in an unpredicted war. It was a sobering sound in the midst of Helen's emotional spiral, but she wouldn't grieve the loss. She stood her ground, eyeing her husband like a headshot. Him being angry was better than him becoming an impassive soul. She wasn't going to lose him.

The light from the lamp had drawn jagged across Tim's face as he narrowed his look, his grimace snapping off the faint edges that once softened his lifeless expression. The pain that had set into his gaze earlier in the conversation took a deep and furious burrow.

Anything that would have been said had been hushed thanks to the blaring ring of the phone. The phone took on the habitat of being on the side of the bed Helen stood behind. Both eyes were set upon it, and considering the time of night, it was no doubt who it was that had been calling. Helen's chest began to throb, as she witnessed the deadening seep into Tim's eyes she worked so hard to fight back. She was going to lose him.

Helen rushed towards the nightstand as Tim struggled and clambered over the mattress to reach it. By mere slips of seconds, Tim made contact first—that didn't prevent Helen from pinning his hand down where it landed with her own leverage of body weight through her hands.

"It's just Ned-"

"I know who it is!" The amount of anguish that could assault one's voice had been nearly an outlandish idea. Her voice forced more words than the ones she had spoken, and those were of words that had none to cite by. Helen couldn't handle the burden anymore, and thus let the dreaded sensation of tears drown out her mind.

Tim remained glazed, but it wasn't because of indifference—in fact, it was the very opposite. He didn't expect a sudden outburst of grief, nor the devastated look his own wife gave him. Standing before him, she was in shambles, gripping onto him as if it was the only thing keeping her from breaking her mind. And to think he had been the cause of it.

"Please. Don't do this." Those were the very last words he ever wanted to hear. He had made many promises, many vows, too many dedications to count on a single hand. But how in the world was he supposed to remain true to them all. He was meant to lead an entire community, yet he couldn't hear every single sob story a whole town would need to give him even within a week, and come up with a personalized solution for each individual. He was meant to be a good follower of belief, yet couldn't root out enough of the worldly pain he carried and not be considered for temptation. He was meant to be a good husband, yet here he was, standing over his shattered partner. What kind of sick person was he, to be a figure of a hope he couldn't find?

He was only human.

"Helen…" He wore the same eyes he did that bitter morning in the forest, the warm despaired gaze he worked so hard to chain away. She felt an idiot for smiling. Even across the warring battlefield of darkness and isolation, she found her way back to him. She saved him the very same way he saved her. She embraced him in a tired retreat.

One's own mind is a often demise. It would do them both well to remember that.

Author's Note:

I've been wanting to finish this story for awhile-I started it last year and couldn't finish it until just recently. I often see a lot of hate online for the Lovejoy's, and wanted to kind of make my own personal stance on it through this story. They have to be one of my favorite families in The Simpsons, so needless to say, I had a lot to express. The episode that specifically sparked the ideas I had in here was In Marge We Trust (episode 22, season 8), just to give some credit.

I haven't determined it yet, but I might do a more serious storyline with these two-that is if I can finish my other major projects. Anyways, thank you so much for taking the time to read this story, and all criticism is appreciated!

I did not create nor own The Simpsons, all rights are reserved to their rightful writers and owners. I do not make financial gain off this story.