Archive of Our Own

Everyone assumes Stephanie gave the trademark chain to her, but that rosary belongs in a box with only Renee’s prized possessions. a few of her knives sit beside the container, note inside sponsoring Renee’s baptism.

Born anew, and she renews those promises even when the priest doesn’t ask her to at mass.

Not only is it special, but it’s gold. It doesn’t fit her pale skin, doesn’t quite sit right on her collarbone, a bit too heavy in the wrong places. Stephanie doesn’t begrudge her not wearing the family heirloom, deemed worthy even if she’s not flesh and blood. She’s always been okay with whatever makes Renee the most comfortable, except in times when she truly believes it’s for the best.

(She’s usually right, which is only mildly infuriating. Natalie would have defied every request, scorned every suggestion. Renee on the other hand, accepts it without hesitation, only perhaps a snark made in good faith.)

In good faith, is what the woman who gives her the cross says.

I’m giving this to you in good faith that someday, you’ll do something that’ll more than pay for this. Who knows, maybe that kindness will make it’s way back to me.

The slim silver necklace is found at a second hand market, one of her first expeditions into the world as Renee Walker. Through a mess of Pokémon cards (she likes Jigglypuff, she decides on a whim, and something about the different Eevee evolutions intrigues her. like she can be anything) and enamel pins that sport slogans like Disneyland 1996, or Pel I Can’t, she finds the cross, not with the rest of the jewellery. No, it’s been discarded, maybe picked up and put back down, maybe just left to be found by someone who won’t take the symbol as a bit of fun, a joke.

If there’s one thing neither Renee or Natalie could stand, it’s people who don’t take shit seriously. Funny how the principles stick with you even through a complete overhaul of everything you’ve ever known and everyone you’ve ever been.

She remembers holding it, feeling the tiny Jesus etched into the cross, a small inscription along the back. ‘Live’ is all it says, and she can’t help but smile. It’s like it’s meant for her, and she’s never believed in coincidences.

Maybe she would have found God sooner if it hadn’t been for—no. No, she’s not going there. Not yet. Dr Ponik says it’s not time yet, just to immerse herself in the present. We’ll worry about the past later, she always says with kind eyes and a tilted head, the expression that forces Renee’s hand.

“How much?” she asks the woman standing there, digging her coin purse out to see what she’s got, unable to find Stephanie in the bustling crowd.

The woman stares at her for a little while, just long enough to be unnerving, for Renee to think she has something on her face, and realise she doesn’t, all at once.

“For you? Or for gift?” she asks finally, and Renee points to herself.

“The idea is for my foster mother, really, but this cross, this one right here, this is for me,” she insists, and the woman takes the cross from Renee’s hand and gestures for her to turn around. She leans over the table and clasps it around her neck, then runs her fingers through the short bob of hair, recently cut.

“Please have it. In good faith.”

The cross stays with her while she becomes who she’s trying to be. It’s clutched through her signing of the contract with the Foxes, around her neck her first Exy game as Renee Walker, and it’s there once she finally realises she’s made her way out of this hole.

Absolution of sin is never complete, but God has taken her as far as he can. The rest is up to her.

Jean, however?

God could carry him a little further.

Lose is too harsh a word for what’s going on. She doesn’t know what to make of the man in front of her, hasn’t for the last couple months, but this is a parting like few times she’s had before.

One where she’ll genuinely miss the person.

She knows he took a photo of her from the Foxes’ wall, Abby told her. Renee knows Neil has copies of every picture, so she’s not worried, In fact, she’s pretty sure Allison has already filled the precious wall space. When the photos from the couple of disposables they took with them on holiday after Baltimore came back, it was war to pick and choose which ones could fit, crammed in.

(Somewhere along the line, the Foxes became a more cohesive unit than ever before, even if it took a couple of almost deaths and and actual one to achieve.)

If Jean’s yearning for that kind of stability so badly, even subconsciously, to risk stealing something as the ever loyal rule follower he is, she wants to give him something a bit more tangible.

Without a word, she kisses him on the temple, and slips the necklace off.

It’s protected her all these years, and even if Jean doesn’t have the same fondness for God, it’s still hers. He knows how she got it, exchanging stories since the banquet. Knows it means more to her than any platitudes she could offer about staying in touch.

He says nothing, holding it, and that’s more than enough.

On her drive back to Fox Tower she calls Stephanie, just like last time when he was bleeding out in the back of her car. It goes straight to voicemail, and she’s unsurprised her mother is off yapping with whoever. She learnt to protect herself against the world from the Hounds, but she learnt to open that same heart up from her mother.

She’ll never get tired of saying that, her mother.

Instead, she turns the radio up. Renee is usually a classical listener, but so many of them are French, or European, and she doesn’t think she can do that right now.

It’s some shitty pop song she’s gotten ready to before, Dan blasting it while the girls do their make up and laugh. It’s such a beautiful time, Renee thinks, that liminality between being at home and going out. The getting ready is always her favourite part of an evening - it’s not like she doesn’t have fun at bars, but seeing her friends at their most pure is all she’s ever wanted.

This is the girlhood you never got, Allison whispered in her ear once, when she’d been particularly drunk and Renee had been crying about how much they all mean to her. It’s a rare occurrence, Allison comforting Renee, more often the other way around, but it still ends the same way. Them ending up in each others arms until the early hours of the morning, when Renee slips off to mass and Allison calls Seth up to make up, to tell him the sex wasn’t even that good, that he’s the one for her.

(Well. She used to call Seth. Before he died. Now, Renee stays until Dan comes back from Matt’s room, and she pretends she was up making breakfast. It’s not a very well kept secret, but if it’s what makes Allison happy, she’ll do it.)

Allison used to tell Seth she was a random guy from the bar. Renee doesn’t think God really cares, not when you’re already a decent person, but she doesn’t particularly want to be on Seth’s bad side.

And Renee? She is not a decent person, but she is trying very hard, and with every rosary she prays something in her lights up a little more, and there’s no possible world in which God doesn’t notice.

As if on cue, a text pops up from Allison, and Renee pulls over before checking her phone. It’s an odd habit of hers, one she knows Andrew shares, insanely enough. He’ll drive erratically, drink til there’s no tomorrow, but God forbid he text and drive.

Maybe it’s just the hatred of phones. She’s never seen him answer a call either. The car is a holy vehicle for him, something pristine. After the Ravens trashed it, they’d had one of their worst spars yet. Andrew was faster than she’d ever seen him, and twice Renee saw him do a double take at the tattoo across her back, wondering if they weren’t quite angel wings after all.

u done yet

then, a few seconds later,

need ur help deciding what to pack

Renee chuckles. The fashion emergency that always comes with holidays.

be there soon, Renee messages back, then checks her mirrors, indicates, and pulls back into traffic.

Maybe the same way Renee found herself in this team, Jean will find his.

She sends a small prayer up for him, please let him be okay in California.

Don’t let the sun burn him.

You already fucked him over enough, she thinks, but doesn’t whisper, and in her head that means God doesn’t hear it. It wasn’t intended for Him, therefore he doesn’t hear it.

She drives through the gates, and chances a look behind her. The Maserati is there, although why Andrew had gone out she’s not sure. The house in Columbia doesn’t seem to be much more than a recovery spot after a late night, and she’d seen Andrew in the dorms when she went to bed.

(It’s cleared up once Neil is revealed in the passenger seat, disheveled as anything. She’s glad to have played her small role in that, glad that Andrew is healing. Renee knows the upperclassmen thought he was her pet project, but if anything she was his. He kept her honest, kept her grounded in her old self more than any psych ever could.)

Oh, her Foxes. Her beloved team, the people who let her rebuild from a shell of who she was.

In good faith, God, I promise. Do your part to keep them safe and I’ll do mine.