Habit

[Alex Speare]

The silence was starting to really get to Alex, but it seemed he'd picked the worst pew to sit on. Every time he moved a fraction of an inch it creaked menacingly, threatening him into dead stillness.
Churches made him anxious. They made him anxious and faintly nauseous.

He didn't come here on a Sunday. He didn't come here for scheduled events and other charming 'lets get together and share our love for God' things.
Alex didn't have a love for God to celebrate.
Which is why he came to Church every Tuesday morning without fail. He figured that other non-religious worshipers might come at around the same time...although surprisingly there weren't too many of those.
He seemed to be the only one.

When he was little and his mother would take him and in time when they were born, his siblings, to Church every week, he'd believed then.
Without question, blindly following, because his mother could not possibly be wrong. So many people couldn't be wrong and there always were so many people. He loved it.
And he loved the idea that honestly, he could come to no harm at all, because he was being watched over. That's what they all used to say anyway. He's watching us and the like.

He wasn't sure where he'd lost that blind faith. Sometime probably around when his parents had sat him down and said that he was old enough to decide for himself whether he wanted to continue going with his mother to church or not.
That was probably where the nausea came from...it was giving him the choice to accept that his automatic faith might be wrong, telling him there was a possible this wasn't as infallible as he'd always thought...he'd felt sick then and he still felt sick to think about it now. Even as an adult.

He'd stopped coming in his late teens.
When the family had been moved out to Chesil Valley, he'd started again. His little Tuesday morning excursions which he conveniently didn't mention to his family or friends.
It was more of a force of habit, a gesture to reach for reassurance than from real belief anymore.

What a strange habit indeed. He couldn't think of anyone else in the whole planet who came and sat for half an hour once a week in a church, for no reason at all.
Bending his head a little, he closed his eyes, another little habit. This one of silent insincere prayer.

[Evelyn Doherty]

Evelyn kept her head bowed as she sat on her own in the almost deserted church. It was starting to get difficult to keep her breathing even and her sobs silent. The salty tears that slid slowly down her cheeks were hidden by her hands.
This is why she hadn't been here for so long, it just reminded her of what her life used to be like, and although there had been some unpleasantries, she had been loved, cared for and looked after. She had had family. Now, nothing.

She often tried to distract her thoughts from the family she used to have. She didn't want to resent herself or her abilities for what they had taken away from her. She wanted to feel blessed for what she had been given, not think of it as a curse. Although it was very difficult sometimes.

Evelyn still believed that there was a God. But not in the way she had been forced to when she was much younger. She didn't think he controlled what happened in people's lives. He gave everyone free will for a reason, so he wouldn't have to sort out their lives. Not when they were free to do it themselves. She thought that He intervened sometimes, but not often.

She wasn't sure about heaven and hell either. It was difficult for her to comprehend that they existed. Surely if they did then by now practically everyone would be going to hell, unless they strictly followed all of the ridiculous rules of the Bible.

Evelyn sniffed quietly and took out her hankie, wiping her eyes and cheeks. She was being silly. She couldn't be like this everytime she stepped foot in this place. She had to get over it, it was in the past and there was nothing she could do about it now.
She pulled her hands apart and lifted her head up, hearing the squeaking of another pew.

[Alex Speare]

Alex shifted again slightly, and then was very alarmed when the creaky pew seemed to advance to the next stage of creakiness and sniffed. Getting hastily to his feet, he watched it cautiously, then dipped his head as he bent to glance underneath it.
By rights, that pew should not be sniffing.

Straightening up again, he cleared his throat embarrassedly as he realised that he was being an idiot, apparently he wasn't the only Tuesday morning worshiper, and that he'd just been extremely stupid in thinking that the pew had sniffed. Pews can't sniff, because they don't have noses. Instead, it had been the company who he'd been oblivious to that had sniffed in the first place.

And now the question of what to do.
So, he'd found a fellow Tuesday morning worshiper, and a pretty one, and by moral obligation he should probably investigate why she might be crying in the first place. According to Abby, that is what a gentleman does.
According to Poppy, who he was more tempted to listen to at this point, crying people didn't like to be disturbed and it's best to let them get on with it if you don't know them. Poppy wasn't around anymore though, she was out there in the real world, and he was here.
And Abby was here...so he should listen to her.
All his advice from women about women, especially his sisters, tended to contradict itself and confuse him in times of crisis.

Heading quietly over to her, he hesitated briefly by the end of the pew, shifting his weight uncertainly from foot to foot.
Then eventually, he decided he was being right and managed to say over to her, "You alright, love?"

[Evelyn Doherty]

She had looked over in the direction of the squeaking pew. She felt slightly amused as it seemed that the gentleman that had been making the pew squeak had now thought her sniffing was coming from the pew also, she liked how his actions made her smile, no matter how sorry for herself she was feeling at that particular moment. As he stood up, obviously realising that the pew did not have a cold, she looked away. She didn't want him to see that she had been watching him.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye, he seemed to be making up his mind about whether to approach her now he knew she had been the source of the sniffing. When he finally made up his mind and walked over to her pew, she turned her head to look at him, hoping that her face wasn't too tear-stained.
She nodded before deciding that not verbally responding could be quite rude. "Yes, thank you." She replied before further deciding that just saying that could make their meeting awkward and that further explanation will probably be needed if she wanted the conversation to continue. "Churches just-..." She hesitated slightly, not really knowing how to put it at first. "...bring back memories." She finished.