Closed.

Taggart glanced over at her half-movement.

"It's an admirable impulse." He said. "But not yet. We permit only those who can fully consent to take part in this and you don't know enough yet to be of that number."

--

The following morning breakfast was taken in the large kitchen, at one long table of the sort that might be found in an old fashioned country kitchen. Over the bread and tea Clare met too many people to keep all the names straight. She did manage to keep track of who went with what title - there were tenders, healers, and acolytes. Acolytes were those studying to be healers. Tenders were those without healing talent. They did not seem to be considered lesser in status to the healers, certainly they were not servants. Everyone in the temple did quite a lot of menial work, all of it without the aid of modern conveniences.

After breakfast, everyone dispersed to their work - some outside temple walls, some within. Clare's work was to be learning. As one with healing talent, she was an acolyte.

She started with plants. Taggart took her to the inner courtyard and turned her over to Alice, an older woman with an air of quiet calm.

"The same light of the Sun..." She begun, in the voice of one who often teaches children. "...is found in every living creature. When light is given to a human or animal, it increases their physical health. It enables the recipient's body to heal rapidly of wounds inflicted upon it and to fight off disease. Plants are much simpler creatures, so light given to plants merely makes them grow."

She looked to see that Clare understood.

"Today we will tend the herbs together." She demonstrated, touching the leaf of a plant for a moment. Nothing happened that Clare could see, but then she turned to her. "Your turn." She said. "Give it light and make it grow."

- Give the plant a little healing to see what happens.
- Push as much healing as you can into it.
- Drain the life from the plant to see what happens.
 
-Give the plant a little healing to see what happens

Clare followed the notions of what she thought was acceptable. Granted she didn't know much about the temple life. Only tumors and she had drained all that out of her system. She followed what Taggart told her to do. Which she found herself hating. Why was she acting like she was still a doctor or agent? She isn't! She was hoping to change, but only felt... The same.

The only moment she felt different was the teaching with Alice. She stared at the plant then her then the plant. She had never healed before. Didn't even know how to tap into it. But, her hand moved up and gently cradled the leaf. She tried to supply it with a little healing.
 
There was an instant sweet pinprick of connection, then a slight dizzy sensation as if she rose too quickly from her chair. She let it go on for a moment, then she stopped.

Alice closed in to examine her work.

"Not quite enough." She said. "Try again."

The second time, Clare managed to earn a nod of approval.

The third time, Clare begun to get a sense of how it was supposed to feel. By the tenth time, it had become easy, but she was strangely tired.

"That's enough for one morning." Alice declared. "You had better rest a little before the midday meal. Control can be more exhausting than the drain itself."

--

By the time a week had passed, Clare was able to tend all the plants to Alice's satisfaction and feel at the end no more fatigue than she might after walking up a long flight of stairs. Thereafter, she was put into the rotation of healers and acolytes who tend the plants.

- You are satisfied with that much progress.
- You'd like to learn more.
- You'd like to help out around the Temple.
 
-You'd like to help out around the Temple

As much as she felt a little acomplished after her training, she wanted to do more. She had always felt she was capable of a lot, but this gardening wasn't cutting it. She liked seeing the flowers bloomed, they smelled nice as well. But, she wasn't able to fill this void of her choice yet. It frightened her. What did she want? When she was brought to a position, will she be satisfied?
 
But the residents of the temple gave her the simplest task for the remainder of the week, sometimes also hauling her off to help out in the kitchens or with the cleaning. Her days passed by unexciting and bland.

Until, one day, she was stopped by Christopher Taggart in a hallway.

"You are ready now." He said cryptically, motioning her to follow him to an empty chamber at the end on the hallway. "You have been learning to tend plants and you have been taught patience through menial tasks. Now let's try something real." He pulled a knife from his pocket, flipped it open, gritted his teeth, and plunged it into the back of his hand.

Clare had seen worse, often, on the battlefield or in the surgery, but the urgency of the moment still snapped all her nerves alert. He was bleeding profusely, there could be muscle damage, Taggart needed his hands --

"You know how to do this." He said through set teeth. "Do it now."

He expected her to heal him.

- You can't do it.
- You don't want to do it.
- You try draining his aura a little.
- You do your best to concentrate and heal him.
 
-You can't do it

She didn't know what to expect. Her normalcy of daily life had affected her so much that she was startled by the knife alone. Then she winced when he plunged it into his perfect skin. She was quick to react, moving to his hand and inspected the wound like a doctor would. She had trouble with the rest.

She could feel his blood seep into her hand, feeling it somehow drip. She couldn't imagine healing someone. She could only imagine someone who had killed Finch while doing this. By that single thought alone, she was consumed by Finch like she never had before. Instead of light there was Finch. She felt unsteady and quickly withdrew her hand. "I-I can't! Taggart heal yourself!" She said frantically and backing away.
 
"I don't need to." Taggart held her eyes, stepping forward. "I have someone right here. You can do this."

As he took her hand with his bloodied one she felt a sparkle, a tug of energy.

- Try it.
- Don't try.
 
-Don't try

Clare stared at his hand and felt the energy. Suddenly she had forgotten all of her training, all the days in the garden, wasted. She pulled her hand away from his. "I can't heal like everyone else can! I can only mend the flowers. I don't want to make mistakes again, I don't want to kill anyone again!" She was on a verge of a breakdown. But, managed to hold herself together slightly.
 
"It's alright." Taggart let up, moving away from her, seeing as she was near breaking point. He placed his own hand over his wound and the tendons, muscle and skin soon begun to patch up, until, after a couple of seconds, there was nothing but a faint scar on the back of his hand.

"I understand that not everyone wishes to follow this path. Perhaps I was wrong about you detective. If I have forced you to do anything, I apologise. It was not my intention." His voice was calm and there was a smile on his face, but despite everything, Clare could see the disappointment in his eyes.

--

That evening the service continued as usual and everyone was in attendance excpect the young acolytes.

Taggart donned the green mask and stood at the center of the room, as volunteers came to kneel before him and put their hands in his.

- Donate your energy.
- Don't do it.
 
-Donate your energy

She wanted to say something to him. The fact she was afarid. The fact she didn't want to be called detective anymore. The fact she felt lost. All of it, lost in the tastebuds of her mouth and existing only in her mind. She felt as disappointed as him.

Then, the service came. She saw Taggart donning the mask this time. Her eyes were entranced with his hand, thinking about the scar he left behind. Therefore, she went to give her energy to him. Hoping this could help with her mistake.
 
Taggart's eyes shone with pride. "I won't hurt you." He murmurs as he handed her the gold mask. "I promise. I thank you for the gift."

His hands on Clare's were deft and light, and indeed, the experience didn't hurt. Quite the contrary - it was warm and soothing and very pleasant indeed. It left her with the same kind of lightheadedness that might follow loss of blood, but that passed after she ate breakfast.

--

Clare was transferred into the care of a young woman called Elaine. As she stopped her progress with the healing, Taggart did not want to pressure her into it further, instead giving her some other tasks to make her feel useful and hopefully less under stress.

Elaine was a tall, young woman, only just promoted from acolyte to healer. She worked outside the temple during the mornings in a charcoal factory. Three afternoons a week, she was in charge of the makeshift charity run out of the back kitchen of the temple, which served soup to all comers until the pot was empty and healing to anyone who needed it. The other two afternoons, she walked through the East End offering help where it was needed.

During the first day, Clare fed hungry beggar children, bandaged the arm of a man carefully, but without healing he will still be unable to work for a month, was shooed out of earshot when a young woman of the oldest profession wanted to talk privately with Elaine and had rocks thrown at her by an old man in a tattered Army sergeant's uniform, who reacted with horror to her sun medallion.

Taggart pulled up a chair beside Clare as supper was ending that night. "So, how are you?"

The question didn't have a simple answer.

- You are exhausted.
- You are feeling positive about your place again.
- You are overwhelmed by it all.
- Say something else.
- Stay silent.
 
-Say something else

Clare took to her new rule better, as long as she was around Elaine which wasn't all the time. This was a lot harder than the gardening which she liked, but it was similar to her detective work. Which was hard. But it was hard in a different way as she felt out of place. A red in a sea of blues if you want an idea.

Therefore, when Taggart asked her how she was doing, she hesitated before saying, "I'm... Lost." She let out a tired sigh as she dropped her utensil. "I feel like I don't fit anywhere. Not anymore. I feel like I'm stuck at ocean with no land in sight. I'm a healer that doesn't heal, a doctor that is afarid of death, and a detective that can't kill... I can't do this." She turned him slowly as she talked. Not sure if he could relate at all.
 
"I know." Taggart said. "I know. We all felt lost at some point. There is not much any of us can do, after all. We can't fix it all, we haven't the leverage. But we can fix today's problems, one hot meal and one blanket and one dose of healing at a time, and that's something. That's what we focus on at this temple and that's what you could focus on for the time being. And it gets easier, you know. Not easy, but easier."

He stood up, letting her finish her meal in peace.

--

And so Clare's life fell into a pattern: morning services, breakfast, afternoon rounds.

In the colder months, the line for the clinic stretched to the end of the street and the healers vary the pattern of their rounds, because even with donations from all the fideles, they haven't the strength to see to every coughing family that huddled in a single unheated room.

- You want the public to see that the healers are doing good work.
- You feel that the healing is foolproof, but they need more resources.
- You feel that the public should be concentrated on modern medicine instead.
- You feel that you should use the combination of the two, healing and medicine.
 

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