milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Spring hasn't quite arrived, but it's nicer out here. Nice enough for some tai chi. Nice enough to enjoy the fresh air.

Not nice enough to totally calm Charlie. It's the time of year. Ash Wednesday. Lent. Memories of the 40 worst days of the year in the orphanage, when deprivation went from economic in its origins to religious. When the kids at the home (from what Charlie recalls) came pretty close to starving.

He has nothing against the truly devout. He even admires them, a bit. But at this time of year, all he can think about is that witticism he'd make every Ash Wednesday to anyone who'd listen. About giving up Catholicism for Lent.

Come say hi and ask why, for once, tai chi isn't quite so calming.

[ooc: The views expressed here are those of the pup alone. Online till 10 pm EST, and then slowtime to come]

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How about telling it to the Catholic who's taking out her anger/frustration/confusion by beating on a punching bag she's strung up to a tree?

Charlie doesn't notice Helena for a little while, but the loud thumps on the bag eventually catch his attention. He enters into cooldown, and then heads over.

"Afternoon, Helena."

That draws Helena up short.

"Charlie!"

That is not tone of happy surprise, more one of 'oh lord I really don't want to talk to you where can I hide?'

He can tell. (He wonders if she's met him yet. That could explain the tone.)

"Having a bad day? Or week?" His own tone suggests that they might be in the same club.

She doesn't respond to that. She doesn't want to talk about how bad her month has been, especially not with Charlie.

Except that now that Charlie is here she's thinking about Renee again and that's exactly what she came out here to try and not think about.

Helena turns away and picks up a towel from the ground and wipes the sweat off her face.

"I have a message for you, from Renee."

"Oh? Renee from here and now, right?" Did Helena and Renee know each other when Renee was a cop?

"Yeah. She wanted me to let you know that she went home."

And that's it now, right? she can stop talking about Renee and pretend like everything is normal.

Yes.

"Oh." He wonders why Renee didn't tell him herself. Or leave a note. "Crime Bible stuff?"

"I don't know, why would she tell me?" Helena snaps.

Yeah, real good job of acting normal there, Bertinelli.

"Because she told you to tell me she when back?" Yes. Suspicions have been raised. Which always perks Charlie up.

"Is something wrong? More than the usual 'Gotham is reeling, Batman is a jerk' kind of thing?"

"Yeah, well, she didn't provide any details."

But maybe she would have if Helena hadn't been acting so weird herself. God, what was wrong with her when Renee said she was leaving? She hadn't cared. Not one bit.

"Questions are like that, sometimes. She got that from me?" He's close enough to study Helena's body language more closely.

"And here I was thinking that all she got from you was a mask."

"And a hat. Don't forget that." Might as well crack wise.

"Yeah, wouldn't want to forget that now..."

Except she does. She particularly wants to forget how cute Renee looks in the hat. Was that something she got from Charlie too?

"Mind if I take a turn? Been a while since I tried a bag." Probably since he was still alive and healthy.

Helena shrugs and takes a few steps away from the bag.

"Be my guest."

He lets into it. His customary control is diminished, though the punches land where he wants them to. That, at least, will never change back to what it was before Richard and Shiva's lessons.

He switches from fists to feet. Here his martial arts training shows more, as he does a few kicks rarely seen outside Okinawa or central China.

Now, much as she wants to, she can't turn away and pretend she's uninterested: if there's one thing Helena loves it's seeing a skilled fighter in action.

She leans back against a tree, eyes wide as she watches the him perform the unfamiliar moves.

He really is something to behold.

He's calmer now. He hates that even now, random acts of violence soothe him when tai chi can't. He bets Shiva would love that.

"Do you give you anything for Lent?"

Shiva would love it but the catharsis of violence is something Helena understands only too well.

"Hmmm?"

Sorry, she was too busy staring at the way he was moving, so it takes a few seconds for her mind to catch up with her ears.

"Oh, um. Not this year."

After the deprivation she went through in the NML she won't be willingly giving up anything any time soon.

"The only thing I give up is Catholicism," he says almost automatically. "Lent was rotten for me as a kid. I know some people here hate Mardi Gras because it dresses them like Vegas showgirls. I hate it because of what it reminds me of." He isn't sure why he's telling her this. Maybe he hopes she'll remember it when she finally meets him in her reality.

"Oh yeah? How's that working out for you?"

In Helena's opinion you never really give up being Catholic. A lapsed Catholic is still a Catholic.

"Fine most days. This isn't a particularly religious institution, after all.

"It's just a bit of a sore spot around now, and Christmas." That rather ineffectual priest wasn't worth the anger, though. Or much else.

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