9343/Amongst the Gardens

Amongst the Gardens
Date of Scene:	29 December 2021
Location:	The Gardens
Synopsis:	Lydia takes Jon up to the garden so they can check in with each other. Some very necessary things are said.
Cast of Characters:	Lydia Dietrich, Jonathan Sims
Tinyplot:	Path of Glory

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Lydia Dietrich has posed:
The meeting with Mystique went well, or so Lydia thought. There was a bit of tension, sure, but she chalked that up to Jon being under a lot of stress. A /lot/ of stress, which is no surprise considering what the archangel Gabriel told her. She really hasn't had a chance to talk to him about it since then, since their lives had suddenly gotten so busy, so she suggested to Jon that they should go take a walk in the gardens so they can catch up and just... talk.

The gardens, as always, are beautiful. You wouldn't expect such verdancy in space, but through the efforts of a few talented mutants (mainly Bruin) they managed to grow something to be proud of. As always, the view is breathtaking. Earth hangs there out the dome, with most of Africa visible. It's night, so specks of light spiderweb across the continent, little pinpoints of brilliance, a testament to Mankind's achievements.

"I love it up here," Lydia is saying as the doors of the elevator slides open. "It's calm and peaceful. It's a good place to get away from everything." She leads Jon through the garden until the reach an open patch of grass that has a few comfortable looking park benches scattered around. "I come up here to write."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon has never been to space before, let alone an asteroid base. He is, in fact, the /first/ Archivist to have been to space that he's aware of. So he stares around at the halls and the elevator with interest, for all it's fairly mundane. Walls, floors, ceilings, screens.

    The garden, though... the garden takes his breath for a moment. To walk out into all that verdant life there on an asteroid is stunning, let alone when they come out into an open area and they can see the dome, see the Earth hanging above--or below--them.

    He stops for a long moment. His chest stills, like he's forgotten how to breathe. His heartbeat speeds up for a moment, then slows, as if he's calming, as he lets out the breath he'd been holding in.

    "Gods," he whispers. "She's beautiful, isn't She?" He reaches up a hand, tracing along the path of the Nile, the lights there of cities in the desert along that life-giving water course.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia grins at Jon's reaction. She knows it well. It's the same reaction /everybody/ gets when they come to the gardens for the first time. She did the exact same thing all those months ago. As Jon takes in the sight, she reaches out and takes his hand in hers, and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

"It's breathtaking," she says in hushed tones. "It never stops being breathtaking. I was afraid that, living here, I would become used to the sight of it, but... no. If I still breathed, it would be taken away every time I look at it."

She falls silent as she stares at the sight of Earth with Jon, just basking in the enormity of it. "It helps put everything into perspective. It's hard to conceptualize the whole of creation, but seeing our own little corner of it, like this, helps. /This/ is what we're fighting for. This... pale blue dot."

'Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.'

"Carl Sagan said that. Science was never my thing," she admits with a small smile. "But I remember watching reruns of Cosmos as a child. He really had a way with words."

She falls silent again to drink in the sight. Eventually she breaks this silence to embrace Jon. "I'm so sorry," she says, her voice barely a whisper. "The Archangel Gabriel visited me and showed me /everything/. I asked him 'where do we even start?' and you know what he said? 'With Jon.' I don't know why God decided to hang this all on you, Jon, and it's terribly unfair. But, I'm here for you. As our universe leans on you to do your job, I will be the one you can lean on."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon laughs. "That's precisely what came to mind, actually. I think about that a lot. 'A mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.' Not that I'm a scientist, either, really, but... the words always resonated. And I like documentaries." He flushes, a little.

    Then he turns to look at Lydia. "God... the Presence, whatever you want to call Them... didn't decide to put this all on me." He gestures toward the Earth far above the dome. "She did. I think. Or maybe more... She put me in place as an option, and I'm the one who stepped up. There could have been others... maybe if Sara'd been there, or John... I don't know. But I'm the one that..." He sighs. "I'm the one that got Michael to reveal himself. I'm the one that put my life on the line for the rest of you. When I did that... I was intending to take on /all/ of our punishments. Michael spared me that, but it's... still terrifying, what I'm facing."

    He lets out another long, slow breath. "I spoke to Uriel, Christmas morning. He told me this whole damn thing comes down to me. /Me/! I still can't... process that. The idea that they decided to make one person's choices matter that much, let alone... /me/."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods solemnly. "Gabriel gave me the impression that the rest of the archangels were mostly on our side. It's... enheartening that such beings have faith in us."

She tugs on Jon's hand for them to sit at one of the benches. "I thought, after our trip to Heaven, about abandoning my faith." She laughs softly, "You have no idea how close I came to going to Burger King and getting myself a bacon double cheeseburger. But, when Gabriel finally stopped beating around the bush and actually /showed/ me what was going on, I came out with my faith intact. Perhaps stronger because of it."

"You doubt yourself," she says gently, "and I think, in the end, that's a good thing. A man sure of himself is sure to make mistakes in his hubris, and we can't afford that. It's okay. You can doubt. Let me be the one who has the faith."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I think mine's gone for good," Jon says softly as he sits down. "At least in Them. In big-G God. Creator. But then... from what I know of Jewish thought there isn't as much difficulty reconciling the message and the messenger. You're not being told God is a loving Father who sent His only son to be reviled and tortured and die to cleanse our sins. And you did not, then, have to deal with the same people who claim that telling you that you're a sinner for loving Raven." He sighs. "I'll admit that a lot of what I bring to this is deeply personal. I /believed/, as much as you do, when I was younger. And... I still do, really. Obviously it's all /real/."

    He frowns, and looks down at the grass. "I just don't think They're worthy of my worship, anymore. My affection." He glances up, and gestures. "She is. I'm not sure I trust Her entirely, but... I believe She wants what's best for us. I'm not certain the Presence gives a shit, really."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia tilts her head curiously. "Raven? I sense a story, there." And all authors love a good story. "As for me it's... always been in my life. We weren't as die hard about our religion as other folks can be but believing in God was as natural as any other kind of family dynamic."

"I don't begrudge you for losing your faith in Them," she adds with a rueful chuckle. "After everything with Michael and witnessing what happened in Heaven, I was ready to abandon it. But, when Gabriel showed me our universe, how it was leeching off of other universes how it was... I guess you could call it a cancer, and told me we had a fighting chance to stabilize it and put it back into the natural order of things... well... I realized something."

She turns to face Jon squarely, folding her hands in her lap. "For God, it would be so easy, so thoughtless to just excise the cancer. In fact it probably would be the smart thing to do. But They saw in us the ability to rise up and /fix/ things, and They're giving us that chance. Instead of taking the easy way out They're willing to risk it all to give us a fighting chance to save our universe."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "God's not doing that," Jon says softly. "Uriel is. Or maybe Gaea. Or, hell, Michael. God?" He shrugs. "I... I won't tell you not to believe, Lydia. I am genuinely glad that your faith is restored. I just... I can't."

    He looks down at his hands again. "I had faith. In... in a higher purpose. In my gods, and whatever was beyond them. That I was doing the right thing, making the right choices. /Hard/ choices, but /right/ ones. I... I believed in /us/. The Justice League Dark. I believed we could save Chas, send Michael back where he belonged... I believed that even if we /couldn't/ do that, exactly, that we'd at least... I don't know. I didn't think..."

    He swallows down a lump in his throat and tries to blink back tears. "We couldn't touch him. You were there... nothing /worked/. Nothing... /physical/. And he was going to /punish/ us for binding him. For... for /saving/ people. And I made a choice. I stepped up, to save everyone from useless fighting and to try to stop him, to keep you all from being hurt in an endeavor /I/ led. And it /worked/. He stopped. Nothing else /touched/ him except compassion and love and sacrifice."

    There are tears dripping down onto his hands now. He can't seem to help it. "But... but it almost broke Cael. And nobody else has even... gods, Lydia, I /know/ what he's likely to do to me and it terrifies me and none of my /friends/ have bothered to... check in. See how I'm doing. Not even 'gee, Jon, thanks for saving my ass back there.' It was all just... patronizing or... nothing. Like nobody even..." He shakes his head.

    "Sorry," he whispers. "That's not... it's not... your fault. Their fault. It's... sorry."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia scoots closer and wraps her arms around Jon, comforting him as best as she can. Her body may be cold as the grave, but her heart is warm, and she tries to share that love and warmth with him. "I know," she says, "I was there. It was incredibly brave of you to step up like that. Maybe a little foolish, but sometimes being a good person will make us do foolish things. It doesn't make it any less the right thing to do though, and for that I'm grateful."

"Fighting..." she starts, and fumbles with her words as she orders them in her mind. "Fighting isn't going to solve this. It'll be necessary to save lives, yes, but Gabriel intimated that direct confrontation wasn't the answer. 'Compassion and balance,' he said. I don't know /how/ we apply that, but he said that that was what was needed."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon swallows, staring down at his hands. Watching the tears fall. Not insensitive to Lydia's hug, not pulling away, but... not quite leaning into it, either. Not yet.

    "I know," he says softly. "If they're depending on me... then the answer /can't/ be just about fighting. I'm not a warrior, a soldier. I'm a healer, a scholar... a father. Fighting isn't my strength. Compassion, balance, well... those I have, certainly."

    He hesitates, and looks up and out over the garden. Watches a dark-haired man appear and wave at him, shyly, then disappear again.

    "Lydia, can I... if I tell you something, can you promise not to tell anyone else?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia gives Jon a gentle smile. "Of course. If I can keep Raven's secrets then I can keep yours. And /believe me/ that Raven has secrets to keep."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon swallows again, past the lump in his throat.

    "I'm going to die in this," he says, still staring across the garden. "I... I'm trying to find a way out, a way to... avoid it, or come back from it, but it... it makes so much sense. Uriel mentioned the sacrifices Superman and Captain Rogers made to save the world. They're operating in a Christian milieu, so far as I can tell. It makes /sense/." He flexes his hands on his knees. "And I... I just... I don't /want/ to die. I keep saying I would, if... if it would save the world, but..."

    He shakes his head. Laughs, without mirth, with a pained edge. "I can't even tell my husband, or my other friends. It would worry them. Hurt them. And that thought just makes me... bitter, and angry. That's all I am, these days, deep down. Bitter. Angry. Even if... even if I /can/ come back... I won't be the same. I'm having to go around promising my friends I'll stay myself through horrific trauma so I can keep them from breaking down, and I just..."

    He clenches his hands into fists. "I shouldn't... I shouldn't be this bloody /selfish/. But, gods, if there was somewhere to escape I'd go find my daughter and take Martin and /run/, and... and fuck everyone else." He closes his eyes, shoulders slumping, expression guilty.

    "Please don't tell them," he whispers. "I can't... I'll get over it. I just... it's like poison, down inside me. I had to tell /someone/."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Nobody really wants to die," Lydia says with a sigh. She leans over and rests her head on Jon's shoulder. "Not even suicides. They're just in so much pain that they think that death is the only way to make the hurting /stop/."

"Death may not be as inevitable as you think," she says as she stares out onto the Earth. "but I know exactly where you're coming from. God sure does love Their martyrs. I was there when you made that bargain with Michael, so I know what he has in store for you."

"It's not selfish," Lydia reassures, taking Jon's clenched hands into her own. "It's just /human/. Dying is... it's no small thing. Even the peaceful deaths. My own death wasn't peaceful. It was filled with pain and fear and panic. In many ways I think my death was as inevitable as your own might be. Those first few nights when I came back while everybody was asleep I kept thinking about things. What could we have done differently? What if they had gotten there sooner? What if they had gotten there too late? Was there a better way to ward me?" She shakes her head, and lets a breath escape her in a sigh, before filling her lungs with unneeded oxygen. "Every scenario I could think of I ended up dead or turned, or, worse, turned by that /bitch/ who kidnapped me and bound to her for all eternity as a giant middle finger to Hatshepsut."

"And you're right. Even if you come back you'll be changed. There's always a price for a second chance, though sometimes we're better for it. Was it worth it to give up a piece of my humanity to be able to love, and protect those who I love? Yes," she says resolutely. "Absolutely. If you're given a second chance, and I have faith that you will, I doubt your price will be greater than mine."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Oh, Michael's not going to kill me," Jon says with a shaky laugh. "See, I get to be tortured, punished, and then come back from it--and then die /later/."

    He sighs. "It's not just... I know it's entirely human not to want to die. But, gods, Lydia... I'm not even sure I want to... I've been so..."

    He frowns down at his hands. "I have to hold together. Always. I have to... be okay. Stiff upper lip and all that. I have... trouble finding help. Even with my therapists, I... worry. It takes /months/ if not years for me to trust that they won't try to overmedicate me or commit me."

    He sighs. "Those first few weeks, when you first met me... as bad as I might've seemed on the surface? At home it was ten times worse. I was spiraling, obsessing. And nobody... checked. There was nobody /to/ check." He shakes his head. "All that business with the bloody meat-puppet... well... I think we talked about that. Again... hardly anyone checked on me. I got /kidnapped/ about a month ago and I just went on in to work the next day, because... what am I going to do? Who am I going to tell? The friends that are always busy, the young people I mentor, the husband who let me believe he was /dead/?"

    A momentary pause. "I'm seeing a new therapist," he admits. "But... I don't know her well, yet. I hope she can help me through this. And I want to believe people will be there for me, but... it's been so rare that people have. And... it's not just me, either. It's Phoebe with her Jar of Hearts, it's Chas with this whole bloody angel business... we're not /helping/ each other. And I just... right now, I hurt so much, I just don't see the bloody point. I... I know I will. I know I'll get through this, and past this. But... that's why I can't fathom why they're asking /me/ to do this. I'm /broken/. Walking around with gaping psychic wounds that every telepath I run into can see. And /I'm/ supposed to save the universe with compassion and balance?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"You're not by yourself, though," Lydia says, as she clutches Jon's hands. "You have me, at least. I'm here. I'm listening. I'm checking in to see how you're doing. You don't have to keep a stiff upper lip around me. I think, ultimately, that's my role in all of this. 'Compassion and balance, like me,' he said. It's the least that I can give."

"We all need somebody who we can be ourselves with. Somebody who can see the parts that we don't show anybody else. I have Raven for that, and she has me, and Clarice has Rahne, and her brother has Pete." She lifts her head off of Jon's shoulder so she can look at him. "I can be that person for you, if you let me."

"I'm with you on this. One hundred percent. I think we're the only ones who understand the scope of this undertaking. I'll be your right hand vampire," she says with a grin, "If you need anything, just call me and I'll be there."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "It should be Martin," Jon says, and /oh/ the bitterness there. "It /used/ to be Martin. But... it's my own fault that it isn't, anymore." He closes his eyes for a moment. Guilt pours off of him in waves, his empathic aura bleeding out beyond the walls he usually keeps up. Guilt, and pain, remorse, that bitter anger.

    He sighs, and leans in to rest his head against Lydia's. "I think... I never had siblings, but I would've liked a sister like you. I can... lean on you. Trust you. Right hand vampire." He smirks. "That doesn't fit in the song. You know, 'We are outgunned, outmanned, out-numbered, out-planned...'" He does it in rhythm, too. The English man at least /knows/ Hamilton. Ironic, maybe.

    He sighs and looks up at the dome. He seems to be considering something.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Maybe," Lydia says slowly. "But maybe not in all things. This stuff... this Justice League Dark stuff. Raven listens to me and tries to be supportive, but she just doesn't understand it. It's hard for her, so I... I try not to talk about it with her. Like you I /should/ but...." She just shakes her head.

"I was an only child, too, you know. Over the past year I've picked up many siblings. Clarice, Theo, Pete... you," she says grinning at him and giving him a friendly bump on the shoulder. "There's more to family than blood, and sometimes the sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles we pick up in life mean more to us than the ones we were born with."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "My parents died when I was young," Jon says, voice a little distant. Something he's saying while he thinks something else over. "I never had real friends until uni, and they all died except Martin. And he... well, that was part of the deal, for Agnes' safety. That he'd forget." He shakes his head. "Bloody stupid decision," he mutters.

    "I'm scared all the time," he admits. "Scared to be myself. Because..." A deep sigh. "'Myself' is... a frightening thing to be, in the world as it is. But now, serving Ma'at, it's... nagging me, every day. Not being... /truthful/ about myself."

    He swallows. "I'm, umm. I'm... not a man, Lydia." A pause, then, hastily, "I'm not really... a woman, either? Gender... has always been a bit of a confusing concept, actually. But it's... something I've been figuring out along the way and it's..." He reaches up to run a hand through his hair. Laughs. "Not as scary, when I just say it outright. But I couldn't... it's been... eating at me. For years."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia smile is warm and welcome as Jon confesses. "Thank you for trusting me enough to come out to. It's always a hard thing. I avoided telling my parents all my life up until a few months ago. And that was.... whoo. It got explosive." She gives Jon's hands a supportive squeeze. "I even avoided dating anybody when I was in college because I was afraid of what I thought my parents would think."

"You're not the first person in my life where the gender they were assigned at birth didn't fit them." Her smile turns into a grin, "You /are/ however the first non binary person, so you've got that going for you. Listen... if there's anything I can do to help, I want to be supportive of that."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon pulls away just enough to turn and wrap Lydia in a hug. "Thank you," he whispers. He just leans into the hug for a long moment. Like he's soaking up the support. There's relief pouring off of him now, for just a moment before he finally manages to pull the aura back in behind his barriers.

    Then he pulls back from the hug. "I've been... terrified. What if Martin doesn't love me anymore? What if people... judge me? Hurt me?" He swallows. "It's part of the bitterness. Living in a world that seems so... hostile. But, I mean... if the world's ending anyway, right?" He laughs.

    A sigh. "I'll... I'll be okay." He looks up at the dome. "I think, right now, what I need most is just... to handle this. To... to figure out how to get through whatever's coming. To cheat death, somehow. Save the universe, and keep as many people alive as possible while doing it." A smirk. "No pressure, right?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia leans into the hug to offer her support. "No pressure at all."