The Guardian Angel's Lament

Who: Jamey and Sam
Where: St Peter's Cathedral
When: After Morning Mass

It had been... awhile since Sam had attended mass, let alone a morning mass. Sam didn't want to be there and had try to convince her mother but Marcelena was a force to be reckoned with so Sam donned a navy skirt and suit jacket, a matching hat on her head with one of those stupid little veils that covered the upper half of her face. That was the only thing Sam liked: That her swollen eye and cheek were properly covered, still too tender and puffy to cover up with make up.

After mass, her mother was adamant that she should "commune with the Lord" in her "time of need" and left her in the family pew near the front of the church and wandered off to talk to someone about "church things".

So she sat there, staring up at Jesus on his cross, looking down at her with his forlorn face and wondered, exactly, what she was supposed to do.

Jamey was grateful to see the line of exiting congregants was coming to an end; and after his last goodbye, he let the smile drop from his face, his shoulders hunching a little. Normally offering Mass gave him solace, some peace, but the ripples of violence in the community bothered him more and more. His own tortured dreams didn't help.

After closing the massive doors to the cathedral, Jamey strolled down the main aisle of the chapel, his fingers brushing against the polished wood of the pews. The altar boys were gently folding the altar cloths and extinguishing candles, clearly eager to leave the dark of the cathedral for the slightly brighter outdoors.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed figure in the pews and he turned his head slightly. For a moment, he thought it was old Mrs Craethennan, the elderly widow who spent most of her day praying the rosary, but closer inspection proved otherwise. The veiled woman was in a smart suit rather than the dowdy house dress Mrs Craethennan favored, her hands empty of any thing.

His curiosity piqued, Jamey slowed his steps. If the woman was praying, he didn't want to interrupt her but her posture indicated meditation, perhaps, thoughtfulness. Should he approach?

Unaware that she was being watched, Sam slouched somewhat in her seat and kicked her feet up to rest on the back of the pew before her, long legs on display, her black heeled feet moving from side to side in what would appear as boredom. She watched the boys cleaning up the altar, wondering who they were. Were their families destitute? Did their fathers and brothers work for the mob? Did they have fathers? Did they have mothers?

The woman shifted and suddenly there was no mistaking her for old Mrs Craethennan anymore; the shapely legs belonged to someone far younger and vastly more appealing. Jamey nearly tripped at the sight and his face flushed hot with embarrassment: first, for looking; and secondly, for looking.

Trying to recover, Jamey paused, his hand gripping the back of one of the pews, and he cleared his throat. He wasn't sure if he wanted to speak to the veiled woman any longer -- now that she was no longer a mere congregant but a kind of temptation -- but it was his job to offer council and succor as needed. He couldn't -- shouldn't -- shy from his obligations.

The clearing of a throat behind her startled her briefly and she turned her head slightly, her profile to him, full face not entirely visible. Nervous in a church. Pathetic, she thought before she spoke. "I don't appreciate being watched. If you want to talk to me, do so." She smirked. "I'm not going to bite." And she turned away again to look back at the crucifix. He'd either leave or come over. Sam didn't particularly care.

Jamey blinked in surprise, stunned at the woman's response. Since becoming a priest, he's been treated with deference; not since he was a teenager had someone spoken so sharply too him. It was a shock.

"Would you like someone to talk to?" Jamey managed upon finding his voice. He sounded nervous -- less like a priest and more like one of the teenaged altar boys -- and Jamey flushed again.

Ah. That voice. She shouldn't be surprised that Jamey - Father James - was still there. He had led the congregation that morning after all. His voice, he had sounded like that before when they spoke and Sam wondered if she should apologize to God for tempting a priest. At least, that's the impression she got from time to time. Well, it wasn't his fault. She was good looking after all.

"I'm supposed to 'commune with the Lord'. Any suggestions on how I should go about that?"

Sam. Jamey chuckled at her question and he moved, walking down the row to sit next to her, careful to keep a respectable amount of space between them. "Do you wish to commune with the Lord?" He sounded amused even though he knew he shouldn't; he should take every query seriously, reverently, without judgment or opinion. "You can't force yourself to find peace with God, if you don't want it." He kept his gaze around her shoulder but it was hard: her legs were still kicked up on the back of the pew in front of her.

Sam shrugged, reaching down to scratch an itch on her calf. "I think my mother believes it'll make things better if I repent. I'm pretty sure she blames my sins on what's happened lately." Her mother certainly hadn't said that, but she'd been tutting about police officers and how it was no place for a lady. "Is pre-marital sex enough to send me to hell for all eternity?" She couldn't resist. The preacher was more fun when she threw him off his game.

He blanched at her question, just as he was formulating a response about sin and punishment; the reminder that Sam indulged in 'carnal pleasures' (as the Bishop preferred to call such failings) hit too close to home. His own struggles with lust and desire made him more aware of temptation and while he wanted to offer some kind of sympathetic response, as a priest he should condemn her behavior.

Finally: "Not if you repent." Again his voice rasped a little, as if he were unused to speaking, and Jamey cleared his throat again. "If you sincerely repent and ask for God's forgiveness, you can receive absolution." He offered it enough to men who faked pious sorrow; Sam deserved the same.

She nodded slowly, chewing on her thumbnail in thought. She contemplated on how much she should tell the priest. He was bound to confidentiality after all and boy, wouldn't she love to pick his brain on all the wrong doings in the city. "But what if I feel I shouldn't have to ask for forgiveness in this situation? Because I believe it isn't my fault?" Her voice was more quiet this time. "Why would God want to punish me in this way? Isn't he supposed to be a good and righteous... being?"

Jamey let out a long breath at Sam's question and he wasn't sure if he was relieved or worried at the serious topic. "God is good and righteous," he began slowly, and he turned to a fragment from seminary: "'God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good.'" Cold comfort, he knew, to anyone who was victimized by sin not of their volition, but he wasn't sure how else to counsel Sam. "We ask forgiveness for temptation, for the transgressions in our intentions, our thoughts, our heart." For the moment, Sam's legs were forgotten and Jamey tried to see Sam's expression through the veil. "What happened?"

A shrug. "I didn't do anything to deserve this. I mean, I don't think I have because what kind of greater good would be drawn out by an act of violence in this case?" She didn't want to say because it'd make it real. Her guilt and her anger. She still wanted to kill Johnny. She still wanted to fight him and make him wish he'd never been born, but those thoughts were only after everything had happened.

"We cannot know God's plan for us..." The same weak platitudes, trotted out day after day. It was one thing when he was comforting a near stranger; something else entirely when it was someone he knew. "It may be hard to understand what our Lord has planned for us, but if we have faith..." He trailed off, aware that Sam wouldn't accept anything so whitewashed. "Deserved or not, life comes with pain, and our challenge is to act in the most holy of ways."

Sam turned to look at him, arms still folded across her chest, ankles crossed. She didn't care if he noticed any of the puffiness or bruising under the veil. It was everything that she was used to hearing in the sermons, familiar like the back of her hand. At least the last thing he said didn't sound as fake as the rest. "How do you act in the most holiest of ways when the only thing you want to do is string up the bastard and shove his testicles down his throat?"

His complexion went pale at the violence in her question. He should be used to the threats -- real and imagined -- but the years only showed him what his neighbors were willing to do to each other. He wasn't sure he would ever get used to it.

"You turn to God," he said quietly, and he lifted his hand, anticipating a protest. "I can quote parable after parable to you, Sam, but I don't think you want that." He leaned forward a little and slowly, he could make out more of Sam's face until--

The bruises and swelling shocked him, even though it was as he feared, and he recoiled a moment. "What happened to you?"

Another shrug and she looked away and slouched a little more in her seat, appearing to be getting more comfortable. It was the reaction she suspected and Sam was torn between feeling shame and feeling... like this was how life was. Just like he said. With happiness there was pain after all. "Hazards of being a female cop who tends to piss suspects off," she explained softly. "But that's what you said, isn't it? That life has pain in it?"

He took a deep breath, hating the dual sensations of anger and sadness, and he considered the wisdom of reaching out to touch Sam's arm. "It's a challenge, but we should try to keep our mind and heart from turning toward anger." No touch, then; and Jamey placed his hands flat on his knees. "It is God's place to mete out justice -- including revenge."

"But if God let's these things happen, if he's given us free will, why wouldn't he let us do our own justice?" Ah, theology discussions. They were always interesting.

"It's not meant to be a trick," he started weakly, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees, his hands outstretched, pleading. "But it's pride to think we understand God's judgment, however right we may think we are." How many wives had he talked down in this same way, begging them to return to the men who caused them their pain and bruises? Jamey felt sick to his stomach and he dropped his gaze.

"To seek out your own revenge, Sam, places your soul in peril." His voice was low, almost defeated, and he lifted his head to stare at Sam through the veil. "You endanger yourself more when your intentions are evil." Evil was the cuts and purple welts on Sam's face, the other violations, but he didn't have to tell Sam that, did he?

"Then what am I supposed to do? Wait around for the Almighty to send a thunderbolt down and kill him?" She snorted softly and looked away. "I may not go out there myself, but I want to see it happen. For him to feel everything that he caused me but ten times worse."

"Yes, and you must rid yourself of the desire for revenge." Easier said than done. Holding his breath for a moment, Jamey examined his clasped hands before asking: "Would you like to pray together?" It's all he can offer without incurring sins of his own, and Jamey schooled himself to keep from touching Sam's hand. Even if he told himself it was out of sympathy, he and God would know it was also out of lust.

"Father, don't tell me you wouldn't feel the need for revenge if someone did what they did to me to someone you loved and cared about. Your mother, sisters, daughter, wife." She slowly took off her smart little hat, clean, silky blond hair falling around her shoulders. The bruising was vivid and stark against her pale skin and she gave him a smirk. "I work in homicide. I see what people do when they defend their loved ones. When they exact revenge. If you don't feel that, then are you human?"

The blood drained from his face and Jamey struggled for a response, watching impotently as Sam removed her hat. Violence had indeed left its mark on her pretty features and he flinched. "I'm sure I would want revenge," he confessed quietly. "But I would hope I could-- That I would-- That my anger--" All sensible arguments evaporated and he tried helplessly to formulate a theologically-appropriate response.

"My feelings don't matter." At last, a complete sentence. "God's will, not my will, is what I should obey." Another sentence. It grew easier; Jamey let himself get carried away with his plea, trying to ignore the stony expression on Sam's face.

"We, all of us, cannot understand God's designs for us; it's pride to think we can. Desiring revenge only blackens your soul, Sam."

A sort of ironic smile spread on her face as she listened to him stumble for his answer before falling back on his religious studies. It was satisfying in a way that she had shaken him off that pedestal the clergy liked to be on. "Liar," she said casually and reached out and patted his clasped hands in a comforting manner. "But that's why I like you. Because you want to believe. It's more than a lot of people have."

He opened his mouth to protest when he was silenced by the press of her hand on his. He had just spent all morning shaking hands with innumerable parishioners but this felt like the first real touch he experienced all day. "I do believe..." She's right: he wants to believe. Desperately. It wasn't just that that he's devoted so much of his adult life to the church it was that he needed the church's teachings to be true. Otherwise, they were living in a world where the horrible actions and choices went unpunished and the cold and cruel won out over the innocent.

"I know you do," she said quietly, patting his hand again. They were warm and when she looked down, she noticed faint ink stains on his fingertips. "And there's nothing wrong with believing. It's hard to believe in a higher power in a place like this. I'm a cop because I want to help people. There's so much death in the city. I've seen things that will give you nightmares, that will make you wonder if God is truly gone and the Devil has taken hold, but if I can figure out what's happened. Give their loved ones closure? Then that's what I'm going to do. Besides, aren't the angels in the Old Testament avenging angels? They bring down God's wrath and smite the evil." Another smirk crossed Sam's face, eyes bright with what might be tears. What might be amusement. It was hard to tell. "Maybe those of us left in this city fighting to keep it from going under are the angels."

You are an angel, he nearly said, but by some miracle he managed to bite back the words. Sam's touch helped silence him; again the shock of skin-against-skin left him stupefied. He flushed a little, then stammered: "There are angels in this city," and he stood, afraid he might reach for Sam. "And I pray to them each night."

And you, holy, loving angel and guide, watch over us with all the tenderness of your angelic heart. Keep us always on the way that leads to heaven, and cease not to pray for us until we have attained our final destiny, eternal salvation. Then we shall love You for all eternity. We shall praise and glorify You unceasingly for all the good You have done for us while here on earth. Especially be a faithful and watchful protector of our children. Take our place, and supply what may be wanting to us through human frailty, short-sightedness, or sinful neglect.