9464/An Intervention Crisis of Faith

An Intervention Crisis of Faith
Date of Scene:	05 January 2022
Location:	Saint Patrick's Cathedral
Synopsis:	On New Year's Day, Donna Troy makes one last effort to reach out to Caitlin Fairchild and caution her about the upcoming Judgement of the Heavenly Host. Her efforts earn only a painful rebuke.
Cast of Characters:	Caitlin Fairchild, Donna Troy
Tinyplot:	Path of Glory

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Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
The Sixth draws near, and every day less feels like the Sword of Damocles swinging ever-lower on that pendulum chain. The city knows it, too. Manhattan is subdued. A calm before a storm, millions of people moving through their lives with little concern beyond the next hour ahead of them; collectively holding their breath while waiting for the other shoe to drop. But New York is a city full of the weary and the jaded, and so most largely influenced by a sheer, stubborn unwillingness to accept that there is *something* wrong on the horizon.

The grounds of St. Patrick's Cathedral have swollen with believers. Some crackpots, some devout; and not just Catholics, either. Though the Cardinal had attempted to present the incoming visitation as the domain of the Holy See, the 'Voice of the Angels'-- the Prophet, Caitlin Fairchild-- had used her rare stands at the pulpit to excoriate anyone who tried to paint the angelic host as 'belonging' to a certain religious group.

'They are here to purge the world of evil, and the only tenet they care about is who is righteous in their heart,' she proclaimed.

It had become necessary to move Caitlin to one of the Church outbuildings on the property. Zealots and admirers both were stalking and even harassing her, some doubters trying to undermine her authority or others worshipping her footsteps. Messianic murmurs among the most extreme of them had driven her in full flight into the clergy house, and some had taken it upon themselves to guard the doors so no one interrupts the 'holy moments' of the prophet.

There is of course a distinction between holding back a mob of sycophants, and trying to stop Donna Troy from seeing her best friend. One guard starts to put on a stern face when Donna lands and approaches the door, a hand lifting. The other recognizes Donna's face, balks, and fairly slaps the other fellow's arm down. "Dude, that's -Troia-," he hisses. "You couldn't stop her if you wanted to."

He quickly reaches to open the door for her and ducks his head with a servile expression. "Miss Fairchild's right inside, she's with a patient. I'm sure she'd like to see you."

When Donna passes, he mutters under his breath 'big fan', and closes the door in his wake.

"Kiss-ass," the second guard accuses.

Donna Troy has posed:
    It's a crisp day, the sky is a clear blue, and the world is beautiful. There's *always* something wrong on the horizon. Donna simply isn't as weary and jaded as the typical New Yorker. It may be a city subdued, but it's still New York. It's still vibrant and full of life, and how can you not bask in the glory of Gaia's creation? "Happy New Year!" Troia replies to the guards, beaming a wide smile at the pair as she strides past them, perfectly confident she wasn't going to be stopped.

    If she doesn't see the clouds in the sky, she sees clouds right here in Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Caitlin is her best and dearest friend. Her /first/ friend in some ways. And Caitlin, Donna is increasingly coming to believe, may be under a malign influence.

    You wouldn't think it from the crowds that are gathered here. Here in the cathedral grounds, she marks on the faces of so many here a clear /joyfulness/, a sense of purpose and wonder shining in their eyes. She doesn't find it reassuring, and the fact that she doesn't find it reassuring, she finds even less reassuring.

    Donna Troy is worried. She is worried about the message given to her by Jonathan Sims, the explanation of what is happening here, but there's something abstract about that threat; another invasion, like so many before. At the moment she's more worried about her friend.

    She comes to a halt just inside the door, suddenly unsure of herself. Oddly, she hopes she'll find Father Pat here. The priest who had told Caitlin that it was okay for her to consort with Amazons, and that Donna and Raven weren't inherently sinful. She has never met the man, but he sounded so /sensible/ for a priest. Surely he would see that something about all of this just wasn't right.

    It's the face of Caitlin she sees though, and for a moment all those concerns leave her. Caitlin looks happy. Caitlin looks fulfilled. For Donna there is a happy moment where she doesn't think too hard about /why/. "Hey Cait!" she calls out. "Happy New Year."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin looks up and over her shoulder at Donna and beams a truly radiant smile. There's nothing supernatural about it; she's just earnestly pleased to see her dearest friend. "Hey!" she says, and in that one word, sounds completely like herself. "There's coffee made. It's just Church coffee though," she apologizes. Rachel's refined taste for coffee has ruined the Titans on instant mix, probably forever.

Caitlin turns back to what she's doing, and as Donna rounds the corner she can see that Caitlin's not sitting; she's kneeling with two other people, holding hands with a fourth. A young woman in a wheelchair, her legs looking bandied and weak. She's perhaps younger than Caitlin, blonde, with the delicate structure of a crystalline bird and almost transparent white skin. Some injury, some ongoing disorder clearly plagues her.

She looks at Donna with hope and terror on her face, then bows her head and joins the prayers of the others. They are quiet but earnest and Donna's ears would catch repeated pleas for strength and grace, begging intercession for the woman.

Then Caitlin breaks her grip, shuffles forward, and puts a palm on the girl's bowed head. Her brow furrows in concentration, and the blonde shudders even more violently.

She gasps; twitches, then screams feebly, and tries to swat at Caitlin's wrist. There is no great show of force or power but energy whips past Donna's nose like a livewire dangling from the ceiling, and it focuses on Caitlin and surges into the blonde. Caitlin holds her gently immobile until the girl quits thrashing, and carefully rights her on the chair.

"It's okay. It's okay," she soothes. "And I'm really sorry about this."

"S-sorry? About wh-- OW!" Caitlin winces and pats a red mark on the girl's bony foot where she'd pinched it hard with her blunt, clear-polish fingernails.

"Ohmygod," one of the prayers chokes. Probably her mother, from the look of her. That makes the balding fellow her father, and tears pour down his eyes when he realizes what just happened.

"I felt that. I can feel that!" the girl yells. The parents break down crying and hugging Caitlin.

She gives them a few moments to gather themselves and stands up. "Just don't overdo it, okay?" she tells the blonde. "God is great and has healed your spine, but as far as I know, He isn't big on physical therapy." The joke provokes some laughs, and with apologies Caitlin ushers them out.

She turns back to Donna and smiles apologetically, wiping a few happy tears from her face. "So... that started happening the other day," she says, gesturing over her shoulder at the departing family. "A kid fell and broke his wrist in front of me, and I was splinting it, and he said it ... just didn't hurt anymore. I was sure it was broken. X-rays showed no injury at all."

She shrugs, looking a little embarassed about it. "Kinda... short-circuits my tentative plans to go to medical school," she says with an attempt at humor.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna returns the smile in kind, and when her smile falls it's at the prospect of church coffee rather than anything more dramatic. The shift in expression is quickly replaced by a grin of amusement shared with Caitlin. There was usually pretty decent coffee in the tower even before Raven started sharing her special mix with the others. It's a shared thought though, a communication between the two that is unspoken because it arises so fully from the shared experience of friends, and doesn't /need/ to be spoken.

    Her eyes drop to the people accompanying Caitlin, and the grin slips back to a mere smile, somewhat emptier of meaning. She senses the desperation, and holds back in respectful silence.

    So that's what the guard outside had meant by 'patient'.

    She remains silent through the performance of healing, her reaction to the display well hidden behind that mask of a smile. When the supplicants are gone, she shakes her head slightly, and a more genuine grin returns to her features. "It's from outside though Cait. Learning is what's inside you. I don't see why it should interfere with your plans to go to medical school. Never stop learning."

    She leans forwards to give Caitlin a quick -- perhaps slightly too quick -- hug, and wishes her "Happy new year, Cait." A consummation devoutly to be confident of for Caitlin, but not so much for Donna. She glances back in the way the family had left before returning her attention to Caitlin, studying her closely. "Things have kind of changed for you these last few days, huh Cait? It's... it's hard to know what to make of it all. Everyone seems to have a different story to tell. You... you look happy."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
The hug is a half-beat fast but Caitlin can't see past the smile on Donna's face, and any doubt is dismissed. "Yeah, it's..." she turns to look in the direction Donna is staring, and nods at her friend.

"It's a lot. It's weirdly, everything I ever wanted, and at the same time it's so overwhelming I don't know what to do," she admits. "I just want to to home and stand in the shower for an hour and watch badly dubbed anime."

The expression is more wistful than aggrieved, though, and that serene smile returns to her face. Someone's brought in a chair heavy enough for her and Caitlin moves to sit in it. The white dress she's wearing looks like it might have come from some dusty frocks once reserved for a nunnery, almost spartan in terms of a lack of detail or fitment. Caitlin's nimble needlework can be seen in how she's altered the stitches and hemline to fit modestly.

"Michael speaks to me almost every day now. Actual words. The angels that appear, they talk to me too. I don't understand it all the time," she admits, "but they're doing things. There is a Purpose. Sometimes Michael tells me where to send them, sometimes he just asks me to do what I think is right. But then I started... I started talking to people, I mean, really -talking- and they listened like no one ever has," she admits. "No one's looking at me like they used to. It's not guys checking me out or people worried I'm going to step on their toes. I tell them to be nice, and they're nice. I tell them to help each other, and they do." Her hands rise and fall in something almost like exasperation. "I thought that was just the, y'know, the loud talker leader thing, but Michael said 'When Heaven speaks, even mountains move', and..."

She shrugs awkwardly, shoulders moving with an asymmetric shrug. "I guess that's part of the package deal."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I remember when everything you ever wanted was enough money to not go hungry, Cait," Donna says with a slightly mischievous smile. "And then it was to have your efforts as a hero accepted and recognized by other heroes. And then... well, for Gar and Wally to be a bit tidier, I guess." She takes a seat close to Caitlin, not worrying too much about whether it'll take her weight -- they usually do.

    "Then last year, when you became an Amazon... maybe that was really everything /I/ wanted, not everything you wanted. But you acted that way. Maybe this is overwhelming to you because it's /more/ than you ever wanted, for yourself at least." Donna feels a headache coming on. "Doesn't it worry you?" she asks. "I mean. The whole 'package deal' thing. You don't know the borders of the thing. If you're moving mountains because Heaven is speaking, what's happening to Caitlin's words?"

    Donna looks down uneasily at her hands resting in her lap, holding nothing. "I'm... sorry if I sounded dismissive of your concerns about Jonathan Sims. The message about it you left on the duty log. I mean... getting worried about what the group calls itself seemed kinda... trivial, Cait. I know they're legit, associated with the League. But because you were concerned, I arranged another meeting with Sims to check him out properly, asked him to explain himself. " Her head tilts slightly to the side, though her gaze remains on Caitlin "I think you're being unfair on him. I don't think he's a bad man at all, I think he genuinely believes what he's saying. And I think some things might have got lost in translation."

    The corners of her mouth curl up wryly. "Apparently he wasn't texting Lucifer, Lucifer was texting him. Sims is a shrink and one day Lucifer turned up in his office. That's why Lucifer has his number. Which is a collection of sentences I never thought I'd say."

    "I don't know if this Lucifer guy is exactly the person you think he is, but... well, he's certainly not /trustworthy/, though he seems to be pretty convincing. He turned up at the Embassy a while back, you know. Returned some old Themysciran artifacts to Di, asked if he could visit one day. He hasn't been invited. Also he offered to help Terry with a magic book back when Terry lost his power to the doppelganger, but Rae and I talked Terry into returning the book with a polite 'no thanks'. But if he's who you think he is, or... well, either way, whatever he's doing, it's not really Sims' /fault/ it happened."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's face falls when Donna posits her theory about becoming an Amazon, and she looks away when Donna stares at the tabletop. A hand twitches in an abortive motion towards the mythical gold clasped around her wrists. It's hard to shake the sense that Donna, in her typical incisive logic, managed to both make a compelling point and also put a thumb squarely into a raw nerve Caitlin didn't even know she had.

The silence grows awkward for a beat until Donna speaks up again. By the time she offers her conclusion about Lucifer, Caitlin's posture has shifted slightly. Not truly defensive, but... wary. A subtle tension that suggests she disagrees with Donna but is still working herself up to actually making it a point of contention.

"I... okay, I mean I guess the League isn't full of dumbos," she concedes. "It's not like we didn't offer to join them ourselves back then. So I'll give him that," she allows.

"But the rest of this, Donna, this--" she grimaces, and her hands sweep around at the clergy house, the chapel, the grounds. Manhattan. "This is serious stuff. Cosmic stuff. There isn't a lot of room for guesswork. I'm -absolutely- sure anyone calling himself 'Lucifer' is not a nice guy and definitely is not trustworthy, no matter how much he believes his own press or not."

Her lips thin, and she grimaces at the table. "I know you think your truthsense is infalliable," she says, and looks up without quite making eye contact with Donna. "But you're asking me to set aside a lot of empirical evidence, least of all my contact with THE literal archangel, and take seriously some guy who is at best a crackpot and at worst is--" she hestiates. "Well, manipulating you," she concludes, and gently reclasps her hands in her lap to emphasize her point. "And he's messing with you, in order to get to me."

Donna Troy has posed:
    That small movement of Caitlin's hand to the bracer touches a raw nerve in Troia too, but that's a topic she's skirting around. Reconciling the reality of the /theoi/ with Caitlin's beliefs had taken years of discussions between the pair. Caitlin had reached that reconciliation in the end, without sacrificing her own beliefs. That had been important to Troia. Would it last, though? With all this happening, would Aikaterine be tempted to remove her bracers?

    Donna holds a hand up. "Cait... I talked to Sims, not Lucifer. Like I said, I don't know if Lucifer is who you think he is or not. I'm not discounting it, I don't trust him an inch. Listen, I said to Terry exactly what you're saying to me right now when Terry told me he'd got a magic book from a guy who claimed to be Lucifer. Doesn't /matter/ if he's the real deal, you'd be a fool to trust him. I'm not a fool."

    She looks down, taking a slow breath, careful not to let it be audible. "Cait... my truth sense tells me what people believe is true. I know it's not infallible. I completely recognize the possibility that Sims is being manipulated into believing something that isn't true. I'm not... I don't know what your guy is up to. Or Lucifer. But I do know that this stuff that Sims is saying about your guy wanting to end the world, that's what Sims actually, genuinely believes. He genuinely believes that he has spoken to Neith -- that's the Egyptian mother goddess, an aspect of Gaia herself. And he genuinely believes that Gaia has told him -- Neith has told him -- that Michael coming here is not a good thing for... anyone. He thinks Michael's plan is to end the universe and build a new one in which people do not have free will. The way he's acting... surely you'd agree, if he genuinely believes that is true, then what he's doing is no more than what any good person would try to do? I really think, whether he's right or wrong, Sims is a good guy. That's all I'm saying here."

    The next sigh is much more obvious. "No... no, Cait, I'm saying more than that. I'm suggesting he's worth listening to. That's not to say he's right. I just... don't know. But consider the stakes in this. Isn't the logical, rational, /scientific/ thing to make sure? Test the evidence? Maybe Sims is being deceived, sure. But on the other hand... maybe it's you who is being deceived. Okay, maybe my Truth sense isn't infallible, but /nor are you/."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I guess that's the difference between us, isn't it?" It would be a -perfect- moment to surge to her feet and stomp off, but even Caitlin's frustrations can't overcome years of conditioning. Too many disasters have been caused by the redhead standing up too fast. So it turns into an awkward chair scooting around the table before she can stand up and stalk over the one-and-a-half paces the small kitchen in the clergy house allows her, leaving her scowling out the window over the sink with Donna behind her.

"You're always -right-. You always know what to do. You've always done the plans, you made the calls, and I have spent my entire-- my literal, entire life-- doing whatever it is *you* think is best."

She turns that frustrated, aggrieved expression back on Donna. The light from the window strikes her hair and it turns into a halo of red and orange crackling around her fair, freckled skin. "It's been you telling me 'have faith' since day one. In myself, in the Titans, in the Amazons, in Themyscira, and I have been with you for every step of it," she says, with a pained note in her voice. "And I did that. I did that for you. I have spent so much time scared, a-and uncertain, and not knowing what I was -doing- and the only thing I could ever do was put my faith in you, and that you had a plan, and it'd-- that everything would work out as long as we stuck with *your plan*."

Caitlin wears her heart on her sleeve, and it takes her a few shuddering breaths to hold back the threat of tears in her eyes. "I have never asked for anything. I've never put down an ultimatum sterner than asking to keep the Tower tidy. Now I've got this, this--" she gestures wordlessly at the Cathedral, her hand grasping at the open air as if trying to catch words. "I have a -purpose-," she gets out. "I've been Chosen for this. St. Michael himself brought holy fire when I prayed to him. He showed me his vision, and it was-- it was so, so -much- that I just sat and cried in awe, Donna."

Her lips press into thin lines and her hand drops. "We are going to save humanity, Donna. Michael. And his angels. I have spent years wandering blind in the desert, wondering what 'faith' is, wondering if following you into-- into -your- Hell, was going to drag me into mine."

Her voice is tightly strained, frustrated with exhaustion and over-emotion. And yet it carries a note she's so rarely elocuted before. It's like hearing Diana speak. Hippolyta. That royal conviction. No fear, no stumbling or hesitation. It doesn't just touch Donna's truth sense; her words are like a tuning fork of absolute conviction, jammed against Donna's teeth.

There is definitely a presence about Caitlin that has never been there before, and it bolsters her words in ways that are not purely magical, but rather reinforces Truth as some absolute unit.

"I've done all of that. For you. I have almost -died- for you. And now that it's my turn-- where I'm -this- close to touching the face of God, with all my beliefs and fears and my faith all now out in front of me-- you tell me 'it's time to be rational'."

Donna Troy has posed:
    It may be a surprise to Caitlin, later, when she's had a chance to think about it, that Donna just sits there through the whole of Caitlin's impassioned speech, taking it. A storm of emotions cross her features, but never resolve into anything fixed enough to become a response. Slowly, as the speech continues, the storm fades and stills, and by the end, Donna stares down at the floor, unable to even look at Caitlin.

    Even after Caitlin is done, the storm long gone from her face stays raging in her mind. Words come to her in response; some impassioned, some angry, some pleading, some even intended to be hurtful. Each of them is dropped from her consideration, one after the other, as unworthy. Donna sits in silence, in the shadow cast by Caitlin standing in front of the window, and she's silent a long time. The only voice in the room is the murmuring sound of the crowd outside.

    When she finally speaks, she speaks softly, the exotic yet so familiar smoke-and-honey voice of Caitlin's oldest friend barely a whisper, dwarfed by the power of Caitlin's glorified utterances. "No," she says. "No." Her eyes glance upwards to meet Caitlin's briefly, but they barely seem to engage. "I love you Cait," Donna says. "And I'm scared for you. Because you're putting the whole of your faith in Michael. I never tried to tell you my gods were infallible, Cait. But you seem to think Michael is, because he's the leader of the angels. Wasn't Lucifer the leader of the angels once, too?"

    Her eyes drop back down again. "I never asked you to put your faith in me. Or the Titans, or the Amazons. I asked you to put your faith in /you/. I asked you to have the same faith in you that I do. That's all I ever ask."

    Troia draws a long, shuddering breath and stands. "And now it's your turn..." she echoes. Her voice starts to lose that quiet calm, and become more impassioned. "But you were already chosen, Cait. Athena chose you, remember? And /she/ never demanded your unswerving and unquestioning loyalty. She simply recognized /your/ worth. You already touched the faces of /my/ gods, Caitlin."

    Troia pauses a moment, then turns away. "Remember me telling you about /my/ trail, Cait? Hera. Not one of the five. Not /all/ of the five. It was... nice. I didn't learn anything, but it was nice. Comforting. 'You can go home now, Troia,' she said."

    Troia's shoulders rise and fall in a quick shrug. She turns to look at Caitlin, her eyes wet. "I'm not sure I can any more. But I guess I'll try," she says, and turns once more to walk away.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
For the first time in her recollection, Caitlin turns away from Donna when her friend shows her sorrow and turns to leave. She does not move to follow. She does not budge until the door latches shut in Donna's wake.

Caitlin walks to a small prayer shrine in the corner of the house, settling her knees down on the old hard stones and bowing her head in front of a small statue of Mary. She starts murmuring a soft prayer to seek forgiveness. The words flutter and die on her lips in stillborn whispers.

Old oak beads clatter against her polished gold bracers. Caitlin's eyes open and she stares at the rosary in her hands. The rosary is old-- ancient, really. A gift from the Holy See for services rendered, during the time when the Titans were defunct. A reliquary that once belonged to a Catholic saint. There were more glamorous rosaries attributed to that notable; the one in Rouen was by far the more famous, a fine example of craftsmanship. Steel and gold, brass and silver. The pendant bore a cross on one side, and on the other, an icon of a penitent female warrior armed and ready for battle.

Caitlin touches the oak rosary pendant balanced on her thumbs. It's a humble, rough-hewn thing. Made by a peasant, with love and what skill they had. Steel wire passed through old oak, a few beads for color here and there for the penitent to slip through their fingers while saying their prayers. The pendant is perhaps the size of a silver dollar with a hard-carved, simple cross on one side. She turns it over to look at the reverse, and a fingernail catches on the edge of carved letters nearly faded from sight. 'Jeanne d'A'.

Her face sets. Caitlin pushes herself to her feet and starts back towards the door. There is determination on her fair features, though what precisely for is uncertain. A few last thorny words? An apology? The action precedes a fully realized decision, haste hurrying her to reach for the door.

It swing opens ahead of her hand and three men almost spill into her lap. They clamor with apology, two supporting a third in clear anguish.

"My apologies, Lady Caitlin," one says. From his taqiyah and thobe, he must be one of the local imams who had accepted Caitlin's invitation to forge an interfaith community on the grounds. "The Father, he gave us permission to build a madhbah in the nave. Qabid fell and broke his wrist. Will you help him?"

Caitlin looks over their shoulder, up in the sky. There is no sight of the Amazon princess. Caitlin shifts her searching gaze and focuses on the men, then gestures for them to bring their man inside. She drapes a thin white cloth over her head for the sake of respecting their custom.

"Bring him in, set him down," Caitlin says, and checks him carefully with her fingertips to look for signs of concussion or other injuries. "And we'll pray, and see what God wills."

"Inshallah," the two other men murmur, looking skyward in gratitude-- and therefore, miss the last, final look Caitlin throws over her shoulder towards the church grounds. The long look expresses no sentiment more clearly than a sinking realization that a crucial moment has been well and truly passed over.