. . . Sacrament . . .

"Do you remember it?"

She looked with that deceptively childlike expression at her, the real power slumbering. For she always knew who was really in control, even if she was kind and good when the other was slumbering. That was why they called it sleep, deceptively hidden behind dark robes and white smiles.

"Remember vhat?"

One of the smiles greeted her, though a little nervous, it seemed. The giant sleeps with only the pixie to guard her. Heinkel always thought it ironic and strange to associate such a heathen image with her. But she'd read Peter Pan a lifetime ago, and something about it always struck her with an image of Yumiko. Tinkerbell. A little pixie on the shoulder of the boy who wouldn't grow up.

"What it was like to be Catholic."

She turned sharply to Yumiko, eyes narrowed defensively. Bold statements never did anyone any good. She didn't want to know really what prompted such a statement; questioning faith was left for the likes of monsters and superiors. Not partners.

"I am Catholic."

Yumiko bowed her head, leaning further into her prayers. The reverent child had returned, polite and quiet and fully in the servitude of the loving God. Heinkel shook the words off as possibly no more than her imaginings. The past mission was weighing heavily on her mind, she could have dreamed up the whole thing. Yumiko didn't question, Yumiko didn't falter.

Neither did Yumie. It was a frightful sort of symmetry they possessed.

She rose from kneeling slowly, letting her joints adjust before settling her weight on them. She knew she could jump from kneeling in an instant, and fire off a round of shots before a breath was taken... but there was no need. She wasn't running. She wasn't.

The churches of the Vatican were elaborate. A more faithful person would be able to ignore the marbled sculptures of the Virgin, the gold leaf halo, and the immaculately silver crown of thorns...

God, was it so obvious?

Heinkel still had faith. When she prayed, she prayed to God honestly, fervently. She didn't often pray for herself. That would have been vain, and several years in nuns' and later priests' garb had worn that from her. She prayed for mothers. She prayed for sons.

She was outside, when her thoughts began to clear. Even after all these years, she felt His presence more keenly under the open sky. Churches were like tombs. She never could shake that feeling.

The truth was, Wolfe Heinkel was damned.

She could almost smile at the thought, in the sunlight. The sunlight is God's hands, holding her frail and imperfect form, cradling her with life and love. Love. Sunlight was an after effect of God's love.

This was only her second life. They had chosen her because she could kill without remorse, she could wake the giant, and she could humble herself before a collar. A daughter of a crime family, the ungainly second to a ravishing wife of a prominent Austrian lord; her previous life was just as bloody as this. Only the other had been without God. Even with the bloodshed of this life, she wouldn't go back to the first. The records had the very date of her full conversion on hand, at the becoming age of fifteen. Confirmation; pledging a life to the Holy Catholic Church.

What they didn't know was that she lied.

Enrico was certainly turning in his grave, for the dead surely knew that Heinkel, a nun, an Iscariot... was unconfirmed. No better than the fierce fifteen year old who insisted on cutting her hair like a man, dressing like a man under the habit. Her sister was the trophy wife; Heinkel was the gift to the great Church.

This was her rebellion. A rebellion for God.

It hadn't been the intention at first; she'd been a raving atheist who bit her tongue 'til it bled during catechism. Ironically vampiric, swallowing her own blood like that. But that was before she'd seen it, the revelation, the truth, the Calling.

But that was for another day.

She could feel her presence even before she approached, and relaxed. It was still Yumiko, after all. The giant was sleeping, and the pixie had come to find her Lost Boy. She'd seen the plays in London, back when her parents still hoped she would be beautiful. Her hero, the little Pan, was played by an exuberant woman with short hair. Later that night, she found the scissors, next to her sister's hair brush... and oh how her mother had cried.

No, I don't remember, Yumiko. I vas never Catholic in ze first place.

AN: Another idea I had to purge. Inspired by Mighty Crouton, and her wonderful writing. Not inspired by Peter Pan, merely augmented by it. Don't ask me, my mind works without my bidding.