Title: In the midst of apocalypse
Fandom: Warrior Nun
Characters/pairings: Mother Superion, with some Jillian Salvius/Mother Superion
Rating: T
Length: 1365 words
Content notes: Mentions of character death, religious themes expressed with doubt.
Author's notes: Challenge 182, Together, for Amnesty 71 again. This takes place between episodes 2x06 to 2x08.
Summary: An exploration of what's going on with Suzanne when she stays behind "to protect the ark" and the consequences thereof.

She chooses to stay behind.

It’s not a choice, but she chooses regardless; someone must. The wine has been spilled into a common cup, consecrating it from its former profanity, and not a drop must go to waste—Jillian Salvius has housed them, broken bread with them, exposed her flank in battle with them, made sister by deed if not by vow. Mother Superion honours her as she has honoured them: she stays behind, beside her.

Her girls set off, doves with the hearts of eagles, heading for a war zone; along goes Jillian’s boy, a surplus lamb for sacrificial slaughter should all fail.

They leave. Superion and Jillian remain, sharing between themselves the sordid secrets of desperation—godless Jillian now prays, religious Suzanne now doubts.

She knows there should be light, there should be God in their every step; she tells herself there is. In Ava’s compassion, in Beatrice’s dedication, in Camila’s loyalty, in Yasmine’s courage—after all, she hears it herself, there is God in Jillian’s breath.

There she stands, jittery, a droplet of sweat the colour of impatience trickling down from her temple, hands at the ready—Jillian’s hands are meant to bend God, push Him to His knees before her own altar, to extract from Him protection, victory, a guarantee for the lives they risk. Superion also notices the shadow of a strange burn near Jillian’s thumb as it brushes quickly over a necklace of her own Order, displayed almost tenderly upon the desk. She mourns Lilith but is thankful for Jillian, too, crusader sans cross or sword as she is, just as devoted.

She herself waits. Others carry Suzanne’s oath to a friend and father on their already overburdened shoulders. It’s not them she distrusts, but herself: each passing second weakens her word to a frail, faltering Francesco.

But a sign comes, a triumph, and Jillian sets to furious work.

Suzanne watches him and watches her and awaits her girls. She has quite forgotten how to petition God, unworthy as she is, but she dares in her heart thank Him, thank Jillian, her sole companion in that private canyon of apprehension they mutually inhabit—just the two of them, removed from all the world but for those screens, as gods themselves in their distance, if still pulling at strings.

Yet the fervorous rhythm of clicketing keyboard buttons composing a secular Te Deum is soon converted into a slow and morbid Requiem. They are not gods; the strings are not attached to anything. They are separate and solitary and Mother Superion can’t say whether that other singular sister soul beside her can soothe her when she sees light, blessed, treacherous light strike from under a demon’s thumb, through a cannon of Jillian’s making, and Francesco is made into ashes and dust.

There should be light, there should be God, but she finds only Suzanne and only Jillian stranded in the immensity of failure.

And then come the acolytes behind their rotting priest, sniffing pain, and she is forced to leap deeper into the abyss, to draw blood when the soaked soil and air reek so strongly of it already.

There should be God.

There is only death.

She makes her way back to Jillian, battered and bleeding, but there is no consolation in store for her. A circular cross awaits and she must nail herself to it now, for the glory of God.

Mother Superion doesn’t think much of it. She has been forged for it all her life: acquiring her own golden halo around her head now that it had been so viciously torn from out of her back; she has been made for this all her life, to give it up in the name of something greater, to etch her name in the history books that will never be written, taking with her the names of Shannon and the predecessors others have already forgot but who had been inscribed in the pages of her own past if never in the Church’s.

There is only death.

She can’t remember the last time she begged so—to be forgiven, to be granted the gift of not dirtying Jillian’s vision so much with her own departure so that she could still see other colours apart from red after the blast.

But they aren’t alone. The bullet robs her of her reluctant redemption.

She falls, she fails, she fades. No angels descend to greet her and the demons don’t care to carry her down, too busy with what they actually came to take. No light, no choir, no forgiveness surround her.

The only presence while she lies depleting herself is Jillian’s—the only voice, the only touch.

She hears but does not listen, watches but does not see. A pair of blue eyes examine her, nervous fingers hold on to her; Jillian is around her, Jillian is inside her, an insisting Thomas diving deep and desperate into her wound, denying, denying.

There is no God, not here—but there is her, always her, covered in her blood, digging into her body, bound to her until her dying breath by will. When the others arrive, it’s still her hands that cradle her, that ease her into her coming judgement and Suzanne loves her, worships her then, wishing to stay in this woman’s grasp instead of slipping away into the harsh Lord’s. Her comforting and loving touch where His might scald her for eternity provide a pardon she doesn’t believe she deserves.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

And she is all but converted then.

Another pair of hands, just as cherished, reach her, but Suzanne does not forget about the first. They remain soft and welcoming even as she withdraws, even as she cannot express her thanks, and she expires into them, uneasy, afraid, but comforted by their patience.

… And she wakes. Another sort of light and divinity kiss her through Ava’s embrace and she wakes, her injuries washed away—the imprint of Jillian’s fingertips upon and within her do not.

There had been no God, but there was a partner, there was an equal, there was a daughter and there were sisters all gathered round.

There was a miracle.

And if the scars dissolve and the pain abates, that invisible branding still burns on the inside and out, pulling her closer than she should ever dare to go. Suzanne wonders whether Jillian can fully clean herself off of her or if she is just as stained with Suzanne as Suzanne is with Jillian.

A new creed writes itself, blossoming from in between the lines of her ragged Bible—new, yet old as time, as old as her own blood before ever it was shed. Time is fleeting, the hours drag them all along in their merciless current, and there are barely any moments fit for contemplation to fuel the establishment of the doctrine, the preaching of its power. The ink of its holy book must rely on the voices of each—magnanimous Ava, caring Beatrice, devoted Camila, trustworthy Yasmine, wilful Jillian… Perhaps even Suzanne’s own might still lend a chapter to that growing gospel.

Again she stays behind when the first and final mass is to be sung—off go the girls, the women, the heralds, Ava’s flesh the thurible within which their hope burns bright, from which an incense of love might yet purify the world of Adriel’s corruption as it had cleansed Suzanne of her own.

She stays behind, standing at Jillian’s side as Jillian had stood at hers.

She doesn’t call out to God now. Her faith is spread amongst them all, the first stone of her church cast by the breath of that woman she has known—and who now knows her—far more than any other, witness to the comings and goings of her soul. Mother Superion believes again.

They march into a sea of peril and it welcomes them, parting to concede them passage.

She rests a hand atop Jillian’s shoulder, quietly baptising her into a religion she is already a faithful adept of.

Jillian looks up.

In the midst of apocalypse, she smiles, reaches for Suzanne’s hand with her own—and, together, from darkness comes light.