Title: A needed precipitation
Fandom: Warrior Nun
Characters/pairings: Jillian Salvius/Mother Superion
Rating: T
Length: 2576 words
Spoilers: for episode 2x07
Author's notes: this takes place in a very short window of time somewhere in the beginning of 2x07 and a little suspension of disbelief is encouraged to fit it in there.
Summary: In unrelenting weather, it's hard not to hope for the impossible...


Avoiding the cursed golden sunlight that might scorch her to the bone, Jillian Salvius kept to the shade as she stepped out into the terrace.

The dull uniform of white lab coats or expensive grey suits was a common sight within the walls of her company, one she could call tedious, if familiar—much unlike the profusion of religious habits parading along the halls of her house now. Behold the secretive Order of the Cruciform Sword, somehow stationed in the rooms of her very mansion, operating from inside her own living room!

They were not unwelcome company, far from it. Strange as it was to all of a sudden harbour a nunnery in her home, they had brought with them Jillian’s lost son, the boy criminally grown man in two months’ time; they had brought her Ava’s contagious optimism, Camila’s melodious giggles, Beatrice’s inspiring serenity, Mother Superion’s…

And Mother Superion.

Here was a woman who escaped rational classification, a walking miracle her science could not begin to explain. Jillian had seen her die, felt her expire under her very touch, yet Mother Superion lived, infusing the others and even Jillian herself with a sense of duty, the certainty of support and even hope—could a world truly doomed ever boast of the presence of someone so wondrously returned from the beyond? Were not her very voice, ringing after being so violently silenced, or the quiet intensity of a gaze meant to have been extinguished, were they not a suggestion that they might all yet triumph over that wide-smiling, conniving devil who had so deceived and defeated them so far?

Still, Jillian needed some air, some silence. Possibility did not equal probability.

Even a house as large as hers, with visitors as pleasant, could feel crowded. Solitude had so long been her closest companion that she almost felt guilty to betray it… Even if entertaining her most faithful of friends tore her from those women she was learning not only to tolerate but love—those women she might never again meet if their desperate plans did not succeed.

Looking out at the arid view, with the exception of a few vigorous trees here and there, Jillian felt the hot wind prick at her skin as much as her conscience.

It dispersed whatever shy clusters of dark clouds dared to gather up above, condemning all the land to the false angel’s might. The unnatural golden light, strengthened by technology of her own making and financing, cut through those clouds, irritated the already dry soil and nearly blinded her unprotected bright blue eyes.

Having years ago chosen her own exile in Spain, how she longed for England now! For a gust of cold wind, for the tender shadow of an overcast day and the comforting music of raindrops upon plant and pavement alike; for foggy windows and stark black nights into whose deep shadows she needn’t be afraid to dive. Simpler times, when she was only taunting the Vatican instead of being stuck in a war between Heaven and Hell, concepts she did not even believe in but which oppressed her all the same…

She resented that bright, prying, deadly light under which they must all strive more stubbornly to hide anything that should not be revealed to its unforgiving rays. These turned all thoughts unrelated to them obscene—what right had anybody to have thoughts if not those of worship or repentance under its unrelenting power? What right had anyone to let the mind go astray from the ubiquity of that apocalyptic messiah who claimed responsibility for that new, abrasive day and all others that would follow?

But a sound behind Jillian interrupted her train of thought and alerted her to the arrival of another.

Mother Superion looked as startled at herself at the chance meeting.

“Doctor Salvius,” she greeted. “I’m sorry. I didn't mean to intrude.”

She started to leave, but Jillian shook her head and motioned for her to wait.

“Please. It’s Jillian,” she offered with an awkward but true smile. “You’re more than welcome to stay, if only you can find a spot that’s safe.”

There were none except for the one in which Jillian already stood. With some adaptation it allowed for sharing and, in studying its owner and her apparent lack of refusal to do just that, the nun slowly made her way to Jillian, fitting just well enough under that canopy of vegetation that kept them from being touched by Adriel’s plague.

Jillian might have regretted conceding her hard-earned solitude out of sheer cordiality, but she didn’t. Not with Mother Superion.

A peculiar feeling arose from proximity to her; Jillian had found herself gravitating towards that woman in the moments between, when being near Michael was too painful or near the other nuns too much. Mother Superion had borne scars, as she did; perhaps one day her own might fade away as well—those stolen conversations they had certainly did much to distract Jillian from the branding on her own arm and soul.

Never would she have guessed at the liberty she found in talking to a nun, at the parallels of their experience, the mutual patience and even interest they had for one another, despite their wholly opposite professions… Something otherworldly had passed between them as Jillian held her during death, some unuttered promise, some sort of pagan ritual which provided them with ease and glee even in those times of distress. They needed only quit the society of others to find that nameless relief: the shelter of one another’s confidence, regardless of how young it was in the making.

“Have you come out for a breath of fresh air like me, Mother Superion?”

She received a disapproving glare, soon melted away by sympathy.

“Suzanne, Jillian,” Superion corrected her. “And yes. To get away for a while. Is that an odd confession for a mostly cloistered nun to make?”

The woman’s sense of humour astounded and amused Jillian, so contrary to her usual demeanour as it was. Her stern, serious figure and the rushed, hushed opinions on her held by the other sisters showed her to be disinclined to partake in such jokes, just as her dying discourse had painted to Jillian the portrait of an unhappy, unbending person. But, from her second first breath, their occasional encounters revealed a lighter, loving, irresistible disposition hiding just underneath the grave exterior.

Jillian couldn’t help grinning, knowing herself privileged to witness these glimpses of another Mother Superion—of Suzanne.

“No, it seems rather appropriate, in fact… Suzanne.”

They had already introduced themselves to one another before, but to speak their first names in front of the others sounded strange, almost wrong, and titles had been preferred. All alone, however, they could indulge—and Jillian found that Suzanne’s name suited her well, at once severe and sensitive as she was.

They exchanged a friendly glance, as if they had known one another for many years and going back and forth between names and titles were only some private game of theirs. In a way, this was the second lifetime by which Mother Superion made Jillian Salvius’ acquaintance and this budding familiarity, this connection between the two of them was not altogether out of place. Attending to someone’s last moments, witnessing them breathe their last breath in one’s very arms before they resuscitated shortly thereafter was its own sort of sacred intimacy.

“And as for you…?” Suzanne insinuated.

“I was merely wishing for the impossible,” Jillian answered, once more looking up at the sky, bemoaning the fugitive clouds. “Missing Britain, if you can believe it, missing the rain after so long, when there’s a chance everything might cease to exist so soon…”

“… Is that surprising?”

Jillian smiled.

“You’re Italian, aren’t you? I’m not sure I can explain the relationship with the weather that we have back at the heart of the empire.”

Suzanne examined her, setting apart genuine feeling from jest. She turned away to look upon the view that stretched itself before them once she found a satisfying conclusion to give.

“It’s normal to miss things. To regret some, even.”

The wind continued to blow, warm and unsettling, ruffling the leaves under which they had taken refuge. Quick shadows chased one another over the ground, aimlessly displaced by nature’s mysterious will.

“You shouldn’t speak so to me. I’m too curious for my own good and I’ll soon try to discover whether you’re talking about religious life or not,” Jillian told her, not devoid of humour.

Suzanne barely blinked.

“I am as well.”

The admission lacked hesitation or irony, even if Superion’s eyes continued to focus far away and whatever complementary information hiding in her irises was kept from Jillian.

“… Do you miss the time before taking your vows?”

“I don’t regret what I swore. But the full consequences of it are sometimes heavier than anyone could have foreseen… We make sacrifices much greater than those we think ourselves so eager and ready for at the moment of our oath.”

Jillian observed her closely. There was much beneath that veil that she would like to see, much which the scar she had carried over her face must have concealed—a sort of mask, a warrior’s sword ever drawn, meant to distract friend and foe alike from daring too much lest they incurred the wrath of that naked blade, that seasoned combatant.

The mark upon her cheek had been healed and only its memory remained now—but the threat lingered in the air. Jillian could not find words to pierce those intimidating defences without risking an immediate riposte.

Yet, at her silence, at the hostility of their environment and the threats it carried about the future, Mother Superion went on unbidden.

“Adopting chastity seems such an unnatural thing to do. But it only heightens love, all forms of it. To then lose those deeply beloved sisters one after the other… Nothing prepares you for that. Nothing steels you against loving and losing so much, no matter how many times you go through it.”

“… I’m sorry.”

It was not Mother Superion who turned to meet her eyes, but Suzanne, smiling faintly.

“Don’t be. It’s always better to love than not.”

The ends of her black habit swayed gently with the wind. Her tranquil expression, her easy confidence were to Jillian amiable provocation—almost as if Suzanne were inviting her, challenging her to either prove her wrong… Or to agree and love her instead.

“Even if it can’t be fully, concretely lived?” She dared to bite back, unable to stop herself from questioning restrictive Church dogma as always she had done, even despite the beauty and depth it appeared to have brought out in that dangerously charming woman before her, to whom her attention invariably drifted.

But Mother Superion took no offence. She gave out a little laugh.

“Sex?” She said amusedly, letting mirth soon fall wholly off her tongue. “Very few of us become saints, Jillian.”

“I’m sure I should be shocked by that declaration,” Jillian said through a smirk, “but I’m not.”

She might have chosen to take distance from most people as the secluded genius behind ArqTech, but Jillian still knew people. Hypocrisy fit some, the obstinately virtuous who only covered for their egregious behaviour in the shadows, the cruelly holy; but others were simply prey to human instinct and blunder. There was nothing spectacular about it.

Still, to hear it said and so casually by Mother Superion when she stood so near, as did the end of all things…

“… Or not yet,” Jillian muttered.

It was just as impossible as wishing for a sudden refreshing shower in the outskirts of sunny, suffering Madrid during a false angel’s draught, wasn’t it? If perhaps only a bit more indecent.

But if it all went to ruin, what good would it do to deny it? When else would she be so bold to voice such “indecency”? That was what it was. The electric comfort of being around Suzanne, the disposition to seek her out when rejecting all other companionship, the disconcerting desire to touch her skin again, without it now being coloured with blood leaking fast from mortal wounds… There was no ethereal bond. There was common, frightening, natural human want; primitive, irrational, complicated, lewd, just the same as what all those failed saints must have felt and felt still.

And there was no denying it, no effacing the proof of desire that Mother Superion found all over her features.

All seemed to grow a little darker, a little grim, as the nun realised the same truth Jillian had only now uncovered herself. Her reaction brewed carefully, unpredictable.

Yet wasn’t there a playfulness to her tone, a glint to her eye, a boldness she herself had professed first of all? Sex, she had said, naturally, loudly even, unabashed… And not unfamiliar with the word or its implications.

“It almost sounds as if you’d like to be shocked, doctor…”

They stood so close together in the cool shadow, hot breath upon half-open mouths, the implication of renouncement just dangling from their teeth; they stood so close to the precipice of an old world at the mercy of a new, at the edge of death—at the edge of love, at the limits of faith. If martyred in the coming battle, neither would ascend into the realm of sainthood, neither intended to.

The wind changed direction and greeted them afresh, though they did not notice. Fingers tentatively reached out to others, brushing shyly against skin, substituting the words in an even more private conversation than the one they had been engaged in.

Jillian leaned in when Suzanne did the same.

They might not return.

The world might be consumed in hellfire and heaven sacked by a legion of demons, damnation might be certain either way—as was the pull. Their foreheads touched, then the tips of their noses, hearts aflutter in flirting with the forbidden.

They kissed, uncertain but willing, slow and wavering but ever sincere.

Perhaps it was not want or lust; it was need. It might even be...

Low at first, nearly imperceptible, the sound of rain falling lazily surrounded them; droplets of water trickled down through the leaves and reached them with delicate caresses, recalling them to the present: to the small, defiant rain cloud that floated above them and offered them a short respite from the heat.

They broke apart, looking up, seeing a couple more harbingers of precipitation hovering above the landscape, fighting the inclemency of Adriel’s light.

“It seems your impossible wish was granted,” Suzanne said, one hand still upon Jillian’s cheek.

On the horizon, the corrupted angel’s power still bathed the plains in yellow tones of tyranny and despair, in sharp contrast to the humble, reinvigorating patch of grey they stood under.

Jillian faced her again, a mischievous little smirk breaking through despite herself, a thumb softly wiping away a drop of water from Suzanne’s face.

“Only mine?”

But a commotion inside the house reached their ears and their colloquy was cut short. They hurried in to receive some new intelligence Camila and Yasmine had managed to transmit from their post behind enemy lines—but not without shooting one another a trusting, hopeful look, a wordless promise.

Should they survive the storm, Jillian and Suzanne made vows anew: they would once more watch out for the rain to come, together, patient, and open to whatever other secret, impossible wishes might come true.