Relearning Faith by Hestia Lacey (Family Challenge)

[hestia-lacey.livejournal.com]

Title: Relearning Faith
Author:hestia_lacey  
Rating: G 
Summary: John relearns something lost. 
Warnings: Spoilers for season four. 
 

 

John watches the light slanting high and bright through the stained glass of the gateroom window; warm, blossom-pink, soft yellow-gold, delicate green and perfect, shimmering blue, watches the play of colour across Teyla’s face, the way it shades her skin, dances across her smile. In her arms, where he’s been pretty much since he was born, is her son, cradled close, lovingly. Rodney is working at the console next to her, hands describing myriad varieties of idiocy, a grin in his voice while Ronon measures the strength of the baby’s kick against his palms. Teyla’s smile, Mona Lisa, has yet to fade, full of the secret joys of motherhood and breathtaking to see.

John can’t take his eyes away.

In the back of his throat he can taste the ghost of incense, a tickle of grey-white smoke, sweet and ancient, spiralling from swinging censer. The sparkling dust swirling lazy in the sunbeams recalls the swirl of fine ash upward, and if he concentrates, he can almost smell warm candle wax, polished oak wood, hear the echoing chants and Latin prayers, the quiet, rhythmic click click of his mother’s rosary as she counted through her blessings. John can recall her warm, safe embrace, and the way the rainbow light shone on her fingernails as she placed his own small fingers on the string of smooth pearl and faceted emerald, taught him how to move, her slender, fragile hands guiding his. She taught him the words he needed for God, for forgiveness and confession and love. She taught him miracles.

Then, she died, fading away like ink bleaches, so slow, from parchment. Every Sunday after that at Mass, John would take comfort in the stained glass sunrays splashing warm across the pews and up the alabaster folds of the Holy Mother’s skirts, in the way her arms held her son, warm and safe, on her lap, her fingers curling over his.

But somehow, somewhere, without realising, John had lost the memory, the comfort. He stopped speaking to God in the way she had taught him, his words turning bitter and angry, questioning and demanding. He couldn’t find her love anymore either, a disappointing son to an angry father, selfish, disobedient, reckless. John choked on confession, of both guilt and achievement, and never did remember how to forgive himself.

John doesn’t think he can regain the things his mother taught him. He’s seen too much of human nature to place his faith in the man who, she explained, created it all, and he has the blood of too many people on his hands to ever truly confess the magnitude of this sins, or expect forgiveness for them. But watching them, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla and her son, the stained glass shadows on the fall of her sleeve and the ruche of the baby blanket, John thinks maybe he has something else to believe in.

That night, John takes a string of creamy pearls and glowing emeralds from a worn manila envelope, folded away in the very back of his desk drawer. Wrapping the rosary around his hand, closing his eyes, he bows his head, fingers the beads one by one, and counts his blessings: Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth, Atlantis, Rodney, over and over. They’ve all taught him miracles. Faith, love, forgiveness, confession; he relearns all the words, cuttingly new and deeply, achingly familiar.

When he’s finished, he carefully drapes the glittering chain over his bedside lamp, where the silver links and gems catch the sunlight in the morning and cast dancing rainbows across his walls.

Comments

[wintercreek]

Oh, John. What a beautiful thing for him to do.

I love the colors in this story, and all the images are wonderful.

[hestia-lacey.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much :) I've been working with images of the Rose Window and the shrines of St. Cuthbert and St. Bede at Durham Cathedral; the colours there are what inspired that initial image of Teyla in front of the window. I'm pleased you liked this.

[leesa_perrie]

The feel of the story and the imagery within it is lovely. Nicely done.

[hestia-lacey.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading; I'm pleased you liked it :)

[mary-russell11.livejournal.com]

as a person who spends most of her time in Mass observing everything but the priest-yea, not the best Catholic out there, I know *g*, I find the imagery you created in your story absolutely mesmerizing, and the way you tell your story-it makes me hear its rhythm in my head and feel its texture under my fingertips....lovely!

[hestia-lacey.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy that I could re-create that for you :) Thank you for reading, and for your comment.

[erda-3.livejournal.com]

This is lovely. You've recaptured for me a time in my childhood almost pre-verbal when I knew nothing about religion but I could feel the power of those beads in my mother's hands.

[hestia-lacey.livejournal.com]

The power of it is what I really wanted to get across here. I'm pleased I managed it :) Thank you, lovely, as ever :)