Why is it always zombies (part 2)
The reward doesn't seem like a reward at first. It seems like my soul getting yanked out.
Moira's hurt. I don't remember it's a dream anymore. I lost that hours ago in my anger. I was running so hard and fast, all those mornings of working out paying off as I carry that sample back to safety. My arm is busted bad, my sword arm. I only have my katana still because Louis rescued it when I dropped it. Bone's poking through and Cloud is muttering about surgery.
But Moira's hurt. Bad. The baby's not going to make it.
And none of it's fair. I don't even know what she needs to learn from this but all I can see is the pain and terror in a girl that has given so much already and I press myself flat to the floor and I pray and pray and pray. And still she's whimpering and moaning in pain.
Susan's ring.
Ann's little stuffed animal.
"What the fuck good is being an angel if you can't help anyone!" the cabin closes in on me and I can't breathe with the walls around me. I need the air and the starlight and the pinpoints of hope and the fire. I hit the ground outside and if I could dig myself into the ground to bow lower I would.
help her, help her, help her The prayer is fervent and whispered and it rocks my body and I can't pour it out fast enough. Don't take this child from her. Not in this dream, not her. She's hurt so much. She's finally coming back from it, starting to smile again, finding happiness. She gives and gives and gives and she has to learn but this is too much. Let me protect her. let me. Let me keep her safe. Let me take it for her. Put the abuse on me, the bruises on me. Let her learn but don't take this baby from her because it will kill her in ways that have nothing to do with body and blood.
It's Ace that hugs me and tells me she needs me. I crawl into the cabin and I wrap myself around her and I pray as hard as I've ever prayed to save any of them.
Paladin tries. Praying, summoning, calling, begging. His hand grips Moira. He's nearly died tonight and still he is here, trying what I am trying and leaving it all to the one person we know can do anything - God. The faith in the room is so thick it's hard to breathe. Ace is there and he doesn't have a religion but it doesn't matter. Cloud even is hovering on the verge of belief. She whimpers in my arms. marcella's kicks get weaker and weaker.
What good is being an angel if I can't help her? I try and wrap metaphysical wings around her, I pour it all out in that huge, gripping hug, the same one that I tried to bind her to body and earth with when she saved Tampa. She saved a city. Save her child. I reach, reach, reach for heaven and can't feel it, not here, not in the dream but I know God and I know he's watching. He always watches.
Free fall.
Trust yourself.
Let go. I have you. I always have you.
The room goes dark. Everything is silent and then there's white light so bright I can't see anything, searing through my vision and my heart soars. I know that light. I know, peripherally, it's a dream and that this is a manifestation of dream. I know that. My head knows that.
My heart knows better. My heart knows my namesake. My heart knows the angel of fire and protection. My heart was bound in that light, my faith and my fate were bound in it, my destiny carried in it. My heart knows what my head sometimes questions and I give into it and let it do what it will.
When the lights come back on, she is still and Marcella is kicking gently against my hand. My broken arm is crushed and the bone's come out and I'm bleeding but who cares? Life stirs under my hand and I'm sobbing into Moira's shoulder.
Life. Faith. Love. Freedom. Cloud patches me up again but even he doesn't have the heart to curse me out. We gather Paladin up and set him to rights. Moira presses the rosary back into my hand and smiles a little. Whatever else she's found, whatever mechanics of faith she follows, I see something in her eyes i"ve been trying to get her to see for years.
She believes.
And that's worth all of the blood and sobbing and prayer. He's caught me again. he always does. And even if he didn't, it would be his will. Gabriel's even quiet and I tell him the irony of it all and for the first time, I see in him a belief as well, that he may be better than he believes himself to be, that he is not alone.
I'm in shock from pain. I let Cloud give me morphine. I relax the grip on the pistol when Solomon comes out of the darkness and carresses my hair and I know I'm safe. God's little gift, ironic and funny there.
When I awake from the dream, the little doll Ann dropped in the woods is next to me and I clutch it, crying. Life beneath my fingers in Moira's body. Choices to make in the future and a belief in myself that I had lost.
Trust yourself. Find your faith. Believe that you are better than worthless. Save the world because you can and when you can, even when you can't save them all.
These are the things my consilium and family and order learns in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
God, I love them all so much it hurts to breathe.
Moira's hurt. I don't remember it's a dream anymore. I lost that hours ago in my anger. I was running so hard and fast, all those mornings of working out paying off as I carry that sample back to safety. My arm is busted bad, my sword arm. I only have my katana still because Louis rescued it when I dropped it. Bone's poking through and Cloud is muttering about surgery.
But Moira's hurt. Bad. The baby's not going to make it.
And none of it's fair. I don't even know what she needs to learn from this but all I can see is the pain and terror in a girl that has given so much already and I press myself flat to the floor and I pray and pray and pray. And still she's whimpering and moaning in pain.
Susan's ring.
Ann's little stuffed animal.
"What the fuck good is being an angel if you can't help anyone!" the cabin closes in on me and I can't breathe with the walls around me. I need the air and the starlight and the pinpoints of hope and the fire. I hit the ground outside and if I could dig myself into the ground to bow lower I would.
help her, help her, help her The prayer is fervent and whispered and it rocks my body and I can't pour it out fast enough. Don't take this child from her. Not in this dream, not her. She's hurt so much. She's finally coming back from it, starting to smile again, finding happiness. She gives and gives and gives and she has to learn but this is too much. Let me protect her. let me. Let me keep her safe. Let me take it for her. Put the abuse on me, the bruises on me. Let her learn but don't take this baby from her because it will kill her in ways that have nothing to do with body and blood.
It's Ace that hugs me and tells me she needs me. I crawl into the cabin and I wrap myself around her and I pray as hard as I've ever prayed to save any of them.
Paladin tries. Praying, summoning, calling, begging. His hand grips Moira. He's nearly died tonight and still he is here, trying what I am trying and leaving it all to the one person we know can do anything - God. The faith in the room is so thick it's hard to breathe. Ace is there and he doesn't have a religion but it doesn't matter. Cloud even is hovering on the verge of belief. She whimpers in my arms. marcella's kicks get weaker and weaker.
What good is being an angel if I can't help her? I try and wrap metaphysical wings around her, I pour it all out in that huge, gripping hug, the same one that I tried to bind her to body and earth with when she saved Tampa. She saved a city. Save her child. I reach, reach, reach for heaven and can't feel it, not here, not in the dream but I know God and I know he's watching. He always watches.
Free fall.
Trust yourself.
Let go. I have you. I always have you.
The room goes dark. Everything is silent and then there's white light so bright I can't see anything, searing through my vision and my heart soars. I know that light. I know, peripherally, it's a dream and that this is a manifestation of dream. I know that. My head knows that.
My heart knows better. My heart knows my namesake. My heart knows the angel of fire and protection. My heart was bound in that light, my faith and my fate were bound in it, my destiny carried in it. My heart knows what my head sometimes questions and I give into it and let it do what it will.
When the lights come back on, she is still and Marcella is kicking gently against my hand. My broken arm is crushed and the bone's come out and I'm bleeding but who cares? Life stirs under my hand and I'm sobbing into Moira's shoulder.
Life. Faith. Love. Freedom. Cloud patches me up again but even he doesn't have the heart to curse me out. We gather Paladin up and set him to rights. Moira presses the rosary back into my hand and smiles a little. Whatever else she's found, whatever mechanics of faith she follows, I see something in her eyes i"ve been trying to get her to see for years.
She believes.
And that's worth all of the blood and sobbing and prayer. He's caught me again. he always does. And even if he didn't, it would be his will. Gabriel's even quiet and I tell him the irony of it all and for the first time, I see in him a belief as well, that he may be better than he believes himself to be, that he is not alone.
I'm in shock from pain. I let Cloud give me morphine. I relax the grip on the pistol when Solomon comes out of the darkness and carresses my hair and I know I'm safe. God's little gift, ironic and funny there.
When I awake from the dream, the little doll Ann dropped in the woods is next to me and I clutch it, crying. Life beneath my fingers in Moira's body. Choices to make in the future and a belief in myself that I had lost.
Trust yourself. Find your faith. Believe that you are better than worthless. Save the world because you can and when you can, even when you can't save them all.
These are the things my consilium and family and order learns in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
God, I love them all so much it hurts to breathe.