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♻ 002 | spam
[After a few days, Tiffany checks herself out of the infirmary. They were willing to let her go-- except for her teeth, she's mostly healed up; even her bruises are gone-- and she was starting to feel stir crazy, so out she went.
Except now she doesn't know where to go. She knows there's her cabin, but she doesn't want to spend all her time there-- it looks like a Litchfield prison bunk, so it's not the most comfortable place around. She's new, so she doesn't know the best common areas to hang out in. There are a lot of doors, but most of them are unopenable to her. So she wanders.
Despite her bravado and argumentativeness, the things people have been telling her since she arrived-- that she's dead, that she was chosen to be here, that she's here to make amends-- are getting to her. She doesn't fully believe them, but she can't completely disbelieve them either. If they're right (and what if they are?), everything she thought she knew about God and faith and atonement has been turned on its head. There was that man-- that Catholic-- who'd tried to help her reconcile this with what she believed, but it hadn't worked all that well. She's relatively new to her faith, and without someone spoonfeeding it to her, she's shaky in it. She's used it as both a comfort and a crutch in the past, and now she isn't sure that she has it at all anymore. She doesn't know whether that makes her feel depressed or furious; she doesn't know whether she wants to punch someone or curl up and cry. She isn't ruling out doing both.
Predictably, she finds her way to the chapel. Finding a Bible in the cabinet, she sinks down onto a bench and flips through it aimlessly, barely taking in what she's seeing. She tries the trick of opening to a random passage a couple times, but it only ever seems to be just that-- random. Sadness is the overwhelming emotion here-- sadness, confusion, feeling alone and lost. When a teardrop or two lands on the pages, she doesn't bother to brush them away.
At some point, she also wanders into the dining hall, circling the room and poking around for something to do. It's not time for a meal, but the cafeteria was a popular place to hang out and relax in Litchfield, so she figures it might be the same here. Unfortunately, she's leaning towards anger right now, and she's spoiling for a fight. That's not a good thing, on a prison ship filled with inmates just like her.]
[OOC: Permissions post for this character!]
Except now she doesn't know where to go. She knows there's her cabin, but she doesn't want to spend all her time there-- it looks like a Litchfield prison bunk, so it's not the most comfortable place around. She's new, so she doesn't know the best common areas to hang out in. There are a lot of doors, but most of them are unopenable to her. So she wanders.
Despite her bravado and argumentativeness, the things people have been telling her since she arrived-- that she's dead, that she was chosen to be here, that she's here to make amends-- are getting to her. She doesn't fully believe them, but she can't completely disbelieve them either. If they're right (and what if they are?), everything she thought she knew about God and faith and atonement has been turned on its head. There was that man-- that Catholic-- who'd tried to help her reconcile this with what she believed, but it hadn't worked all that well. She's relatively new to her faith, and without someone spoonfeeding it to her, she's shaky in it. She's used it as both a comfort and a crutch in the past, and now she isn't sure that she has it at all anymore. She doesn't know whether that makes her feel depressed or furious; she doesn't know whether she wants to punch someone or curl up and cry. She isn't ruling out doing both.
Predictably, she finds her way to the chapel. Finding a Bible in the cabinet, she sinks down onto a bench and flips through it aimlessly, barely taking in what she's seeing. She tries the trick of opening to a random passage a couple times, but it only ever seems to be just that-- random. Sadness is the overwhelming emotion here-- sadness, confusion, feeling alone and lost. When a teardrop or two lands on the pages, she doesn't bother to brush them away.
At some point, she also wanders into the dining hall, circling the room and poking around for something to do. It's not time for a meal, but the cafeteria was a popular place to hang out and relax in Litchfield, so she figures it might be the same here. Unfortunately, she's leaning towards anger right now, and she's spoiling for a fight. That's not a good thing, on a prison ship filled with inmates just like her.]
[OOC: Permissions post for this character!]
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If everything dangerous or unrepentant or enraging deserved death, we would need another flood. But that's not what God asks of us. He's promised the opposite.
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[She did.]
-- but He told me I should. He wanted me to do that for Him.
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[She stands up, pointing a finger at his chest.]
Don't tell me God don't deserve me, or I don't deserve him.
[Not that he even came close to saying God didn't deserve her; she's throwing in a little projection of her own for good measure.]
You may be some fancy-dancy mind-reader, but you don't know what he's done for me. You think I mind him making use of any of the bad shit that's happened to me? Why you think he gave it to me in the first place? It was because he knew I could handle it, and because he wanted to use it for good later.
You can't lose your faith in God just because he lets a bad thing happen or asks something of you that's hard.
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[Quietly, because he sort of knows that won't help his case at all, but - he has read it, and he loves it, and it's still true.]
No. You can't. And forgiving her even when she didn't do what you expected would have been the hard thing. Better for her, and better for you, but hard.
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[Honey, no.]
Look, I tried to forgive her once, okay? Didn't work. It would've worked if that's what I was supposed to do, and you know it.
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Life isn't that simple. God isn't that simple. You don't forgive someone as bait on a hook. You do it because it's the - merciful thing. Because we all need forgiveness.
How do you know what worked would even mean? Like it would be obvious, and quick, and exactly the same as it happened for you? Like there's only one way to be affected for the better by human kindness?
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She thinks she's better than me, that's what this all comes down to. She thinks she's above me and she thinks she's above God.
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[There's not a speck of doubt in him about this; she's a person, she deserves respect, so does her faith, no matter how patchwork it is now. It's all she has, as she's said herself, and more, it's what she needed. But it can't be static any more than she can, which is to say, not healthily, not well.]
So she's wrong. People are wrong every day, people are arrogant every day, and they don't deserve to die for it. They can't ever learn if they die. And maybe they never do, but that doesn't mean she only gets one chance, or that she learned nothing from your forgiveness just because she didn't learn everything you thought she should.
It's not, 'And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, but if they don't fall in line after that, smite the bastards.' It's - Matthew, 18:21 and 22.
Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."
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That still don't explain why He sent me the message that He did.
I ain't lying about that.
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I didn't think you were lying.
[He bites his lip, looks away.]
There was a time when I thought I knew what God wanted me to do, too. I was so sure. I'd hurt so many people, and I had this incredible power - of course God gave it to me so I could fix everything, right?
But it wasn't God. It was my own guilt, and this other guy who was manipulating me, and weird terrible luck. Sometimes we think things are signs that aren't, that are just - I mean, coincidences happen. You never notice all the times they don't, you know? But sometimes they do.
It doesn't mean we're bad, or that he's not there at all. Just that we're human, and wrong sometimes, and we keep trying.
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Yeah, well, you're-- you're assuming she was a normal, regular person, you know? But you didn't know her. When I looked at her, I saw something evil. It took me a while to really see it, 'cause she hid it well, but I wouldn't be surprised if the devil himself had been inside her.
ha ha keywords
I'm just assuming she was a person.
lmao
What, you think I'm crazy?
Gonna send me to psych now?
[Her words are flippant, but she actually feels a little surge of nervousness at that idea. Psych sucked, and she doesn't actually know whether or not they have one here.]
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I don't think it's crazy to want to be right. That's how minds work.
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[But she cuts herself off. If he didn't think her saying Chapman might have had the devil in her was crazy, then she's sure as hell not going to try to make him change his mind.]
Never mind.
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[It's an idea he thinks she might allow a little more consideration without the feeling that she has to defend herself. Or she might convince herself she was right all the more strongly without pressure, bracing for any contradiction to come. He rolls the dice, standing to edge out of the pew, nodding a warm goodbye, inviting her to stay in the chapel herself as long as she'd like.]
I'm Dillon, by the way. It was really nice to meet you.
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[She doesn't really know what to say to that, because she doesn't get a lot of people saying it's nice to meet her.]
See you around, maybe.
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[And he slips out.]