Title: If God has a master plan
Fandom: Warrior Nun
Characters: A little bit of everyone despite the length: sisters Lilith, Beatrice, Camila; Shotgun Mary, Mother Superion, Ava Silva, Jillian Salvius, father Vincent, cardinal Duretti, and Adriel.
Rating: T
Length: 1764 words
Notes: Contains some mentions of violence. Angst.
Summary: A short canon-divergence AU for if Mary hadn't arrived on time and Lilith managed to get the halo in 1x05.


When she arrived at last, she saw only the swing of the sword glowing blue as it banished a creature to Hell; she saw the light of the halo shining bright from the bearer’s back as the girl lay, unmoving, sobbing and bleeding at Lilith’s feet.

“Lilith,” Mary called out, low and appalled, “what have you done?”

The nun turned around to face her, putting the blade back in its scabbard. She could more comfortably look upon Ava Silva’s bloody, sad figure than she could face Mary, although her voice was as firm as stone.

“It was too precious a resource to waste. You know this, Mary. I did what I had to do.”


x


There was a stench of blood and burnt flesh Lilith couldn’t quite ignore lingering in her nostrils but the compliments cardinal Duretti gave her, complimenting her for joining the illustrious ranks of her ancestors and the line of halo bearers her family had provided for ages, helped soothe her disquiet.

No knocks upon the door warned her or the clergyman of the interruption and Mother Superion stepped into the room without much ceremony. Lilith made out Mary, Beatrice and Camila just outside, gathered around a wheelchair upon which Ava had been placed. When her gaze reached Lilith’s, the halo bearer immediately looked away.

“I was not informed of these procedures,” Superion told her colleague.

“They were done at my behest,” the cardinal said with a smile, “and God has willed it.”

Mother Superion shot Lilith a brief look of acknowledgement; it was not her newly acquired status that so bothered the senior nun.

“And of the girl?”

“She is of age and cannot be sent back to the orphanage. She has seen too much.”

“You’re not suggesting—”

“These unfortunate events have taken place while under your responsibility as well as father Vincent’s, Mother Superion.” Duretti opened his arms and hands as if it were obvious. “Our Lord teaches us to care for the next.”

“No!” Ava protested. “I don’t want to stay here. I don’t care if you throw me on the street, but I don’t want to be here!”

They all looked at her. Nobody addressed her directly.

Duretti took two steps near Superion and lay a heavy hand upon her shoulder as she grew instantly pale.

“Patience is a very precious virtue, Mother.”


x


“I had no choice. None of us do.”

Beatrice stared at her. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to,” Lilith snapped. “I can see it in your eyes, all of you, as if you were better, as if you would have done differently. I’m not glad to have crippled her but God only sends us the challenges we can endure. She’ll live with it.”

“Will you?”


x


Camila tried offering her food.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Ava, you have to eat…” She put the fork and the plate down. “I can only imagine what it’s like—”

“Sorry but no, you can’t. You think this is my problem?” She looked down at her own unresponsive body. “This is what I’ve known for most of my life. It’s being here that I can’t stand. For people whose whole thing is being merciful and forgiving, I’m sure as hell not getting a lot of that.”

Camila listened, embarrassed. As silence settled between them, she couldn’t help but shyly reach out for one of Ava’s hands, strewn at her side.

Ava sighed when she noticed. Camila could have sworn some of those limp fingers tried to reach out to her own and return the gesture.

Amidst that awkward ambiance, they managed to exchange a little sorry smile.


x


“You can hate me all you like but when we’re on a mission I expect you to play your part!”

“What’s that? Like you’re trying to play Shannon’s and failing?”

Beatrice intervened, stepping in between Lilith and Mary.

“This is not the time or the place.”

“It’s never the time. When it is, I only hope you all care a little more about her than anyone did Shannon.”

“Mary, that’s not fair—”

“Oh, they’ll certainly care more than about you—”

A message came in through their communications.

“Return immediately.”


x


“They’re fighting among themselves.”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“This can’t go on like this, Suzanne.”

“You and I both chose Lilith, father.”

“Not like this.”

She scalded him with a single look.

“Should we rip the halo out of her back too? Give it to Beatrice, maybe give it back to the girl and if that doesn’t work we just move on to the next and then the next after that?”

Vincent clenched his jaw and let his gaze fall to his feet.


x


“She won’t listen to me. I’m gonna blow up that god damn wall.”

“Mary…”

“Someone killed Shannon, father. Somebody might want to kill Lilith too for all we know but nobody thinks about that, do they?”

The priest tried to study her from behind the trellis work of the screen that separated them within the confessional, silent.

“You think I don’t care just because I hate her,” Mary mumbled unbidden.

“You hate what she did. Not her.”

She sat there and said nothing for a few seconds before storming off.


x


Beatrice stood at the door, kept ajar. From the darkened corridor, she could see and guard their unexpected charge while she slept in the dimly-lit, simple room.

Footsteps cadenced with the help of an insistent, light beat approached. She was not surprised to see Mother Superion emerge from the shadows and join her, risking an inquisitive look towards the slumbering outsider upon the mattress.

“She’s stronger than she seems,” Beatrice remarked plainly.

Superion observed the girl from afar.

“Do you think she should have kept it?” There was a bite in the nun’s whisper.

“… Do you, Mother?”

Superion regarded her.

She withheld her thoughts and simply walked into the darkness whence she had come.

Beatrice looked back inside. She found Ava staring at her, quite awake.


x


Nobody was supposed to be there at that hour but they were all startled when the lights suddenly turned on while they fiddled about with the computers, stealing whatever information they could on what had been going on in that laboratory.

Lilith was upon her before she could call for her guards, a hand firmly around her neck.

“What are you doing?” Jillian croaked. “You can’t—”

“I’m afraid we must,” Lilith said, glancing towards Camila and Beatrice as they disconnected the devices which now carried as much sensitive information as they could gather on that strange ark the scientist had built. “You would usher in the apocalypse if we didn’t, doctor.”

“No, please, you don’t understand—”

Lilith released her into another sister’s tight grip. Jillian Salvius was immobilised, helpless as those women went through her things, her notes, her reports; she stood equally helpless as Lilith drew out the Cruciform Sword and sauntered up to the hellish contraption that dominated the room, ready to cut it in half.

Jillian set one hand free, making use of a single instant of distraction on the part of her captor, and activated an alarm. Red lights blinked and a loud, disturbing sound blared, deafening them all.

“We need to go,” Beatrice told the bearer, tugging at her arm before she could wield the weapon. “Now.”

She looked over at doctor Salvius, almost apologetic.

The warrior nun would have landed her blow against that machine if it weren’t for a familiar voice calling them back through their communication gadgets again — Vincent, though he was rarely in charge of overlooking their actions, urged them to abort. Lilith could not resist a command. She retreated alongside her sisters while Jillian Salvius watched them disappear somewhere into the night, finally releasing the breath she had been holding now that she saw her invention escape the uncanny occurrence untouched.


x


How long had it been already?

She forced her shoulder, felt it strain, so she could trace as best she could the full extent of the large mark she had worked so hard to gain and which should have rewarded her with the worth she had always lacked.

Her mother knew by now, Lilith had sent a letter as soon as her flesh first received the blessing.

No reply had come.

She crept into Ava’s room unthinking. The girl lay just the same as when she had first been put upon that bed, countless days, weeks ago.

“What do you want?”

The harsh welcome was to be expected. She hadn’t talked to Ava since carving the halo out from in between her shoulders. Lilith had walked past that room numerous times, however, and heard Camila, Beatrice and even Mary speaking to Ava in ways none of them now talked to her; she had even heard them let out a small laugh here and there, with the young woman who currently frowned at her presence, suspicious, afraid. How long had it been since last Lilith had laughed?

Her body felt heavy, her spine too weak to support her weight.

“If I could go back now, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Before Ava could reply to that confession, Camila’s voice sounded from a corner of the room Lilith had not inspected, making herself known.

“Lilith?”

The halo bearer rushed out without another word.


x


“Don’t suffer so, my child.”

“I failed you.”

“No… It was my Father’s will. We humbly bend to it.”

Something tugged at Adriel’s smile but Vincent was too consumed by his own frustration to read his angel’s.

“Come now, my son. Your faith is being tested, that is all. You know the gates to Heaven don’t open without sacrifice.”

“Those girls…”

“We each have a purpose. None of this was in vain. This… Lilith is precious. You will bring her to me and we shall fulfil my Father’s wishes.”

“How?” Vincent asked, his vision already fading as he began to wake.

“She will come. Have faith.”


x


When she arrived at last, she saw only that ring of light amidst all the dust and the rubble of a thousand years — light dripping in blood, held out by a pair of greedy hands while a body lay at their owner’s feet, broken and bloody.

Mary sprung towards Lilith, picking her up, pulling her into her arms.

“Lilith…” She choked. “What have you done?”

The weakened nun looked up at the would-be angel beside them, unable to speak through her pain.

Mary pulled one of her guns and aimed it at his head, but a smirking Adriel departed with the halo faster than she could pull the trigger and both women were left behind, in complete darkness.