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Jess is dead. Jess is dying. Jess is in the dirt and she’s in Marion’s arms and she can’t do anything but spit up blood, and she’s dying and she’s dead and it’s Marion’s fault, it’s always Marion’s fault. It’s the same vision every night. Jess dying and then Jess dead, alone in the cold on the church stairs and they’re pulling Marion away but she doesn’t want to go. She wants to stay. She wants to die there on the stairs, too. She doesn’t care about the bombs or the fires.The water in the bunker doesn’t have Bliss in it, but Marion sees ghosts anyways. Jess, Jess in Faith’s dress with her hand outstretched surrounded by a flurry of glowing green sparks, waiting for Marion to take her hand. Marion doesn’t know if it’s her own broken mind or something Joseph’s doing. She isn’t sure it matters.Joseph signs his sermons now, a constant flurry of hand motion that Marion can barely keep up with. She hasn’t bothered replying to anything he’s said in what she only knows are months because of a calendar Dutch kept. Jess, who wears Bliss flowers in her hair, puts one hand on Marion’s shoulder and her other under Marion’s chin so she can’t look away from Joseph, can’t ignore Joseph’s Word and there is blood spilling from Jess’s mouth but she smiles like Faith, a smile that never belonged to Jess at all.He tells her there is Forgiveness but first there must be Judgement. There must be Atonement, Cleansing. But there’s no forgiveness, because Jess is still dead and it’s still Marion’s fault. It will always be Marion’s fault. Pratt is dead. Hudson is dead. Whitehorse, Faith, Virgil, John, Adelaide, Eli, Burke, Jacob, everyone is dead and they can’t forgive her because she lived and they all died. When Joseph will weigh her soul, it will be against those of everyone she lost and the scale will never find balance. He will Judge her and there will be no way for her to ever find Forgiveness.Jess with Faith’s smile and Faith’s dress is always there to remind her of that much. For Marion’s failures, Jess will always be there, blood in her mouth, watching in the shadows. An arrow left in a wound was safer than an arrow removed, because removing it would only do more damage. Jess is the arrow in Marion’s back. Joseph cannot Judge her because Marion does not know how to survive otherwise. He cannot remove this arrow. This grief is all Marion knows.It’s been a year, or maybe it’s been two or three. The calendar ran out of pages and so Joseph scratches tick marks into the walls of the bunker. Jess is still dying, dead, on the church steps, every time Marion goes to sleep. Marion can never save her, even in her dreams. There’s blood dripping from Jess’s smile as she stands in the dark corners of the bunker, but she smells like the powdery floral of Bliss in full bloom, not old copper.There will be Judgement for Marion if she asks Joseph. Through Judgement she can find her place in Eden. There are so many pages in His Word that Marion can’t read them all. Jess with flowers in her hair promises her that she’s waiting in Eden, in the Bliss, but her throat is still slit. All Marion has to to is ask. It’s in His Word.There is no Bliss, no mint green containers stamped with the Cross of Eden, but there’s still white trumpet-shaped flowers being crushed under Jess’s bare feet on the concrete floor of the bunker. Joseph will Judge her. He knows. She can’t be Forgiven, but she can be born again.Marion dies on the church steps, with Jess in her arms, in the dirt, with Jess’s blood on her hands and Bliss in her lungs. His Word is His Promise and it is His Judgement. The world died, and so did Jess, and so did Marion and Faith and Nick and Grace and everyone else.Jess, with green sparking around her silhouette, tells Marion it’s alright. She’s still with Marion. They died together and this is how Marion will Atone. She will be born again, and this time she will do good. She will make it right where before she failed. Jess, with flowers under her feet and a slit throat, still smiles like Faith did. Marion can listen now. She understands what Joseph says in His Word. If she can Judge the Father’s Will, she will find Eden. Jess with be there, waiting for her, but she’ll be whole again and she won’t need to borrow Faith’s laughter anymore because they’ll be together like they were supposed to be.Marion dies, and the Judge is born in her place, new and pure. Nobody will see her again, because though her soul has been reborn she still wears Marion’s face and cannot change that. The Father is Righteous and His Word is Good, so he gives her a mask and it becomes the Judge’s face, blank and dark-eyed because God’s Will, the Will of the Father, does not need to wear human expressions.Jess, in a white lace dress, is proud but not prideful when the Judge put on the mask, because the Judge is Righteous now, too, and they can be together like this forever. The Father has mended what was once made so broken. Jess, no longer dead on the church stairs but with the Judge forever, is her Reward. What was once Marion’s Punishment has become the Judge’s taste of the Eden that will come, if she is Right and Just. She will be. This time, she will be.Jess, crowned in Bliss flowers, guides the arrow true every time. Marion, dead and gone, always preferred rifles and bombs to bows, but the Judge has promised to live life with no concessions to the old world. It has taken her years to learn how to silence her every movement without the help of hearing aids, long broken, but the Judge must move swiftly and silently. The Lord’s Will must be done and it must be done without hesitation or fear.The woman they call the Captain is younger than Marion was, younger than Jess. The Father had Judged the Captain and found her worthy, so the Judge follows her. The Captain gives the Judge her name, spelled clumsily in the sign alphabet that she taught herself from a book years ago: A-M-R-I-T-A. Amrita asks what the Judge’s name is but the Judge has no answer, because the Father had never given her a name.Amrita thinks she understands, but she can’t. Jess, blood spilling from her lips, is still and silent in her green-tinted haze when Amrita pushes open the gate to Prosperity and it’s not Eden, but Grace, Nick, Jerome, everyone is there and they are all broken but they lived. They saw the Collapse and were not destroyed by it. They were Reborn and Redeemed into this life, fractured but without the Judgement of the Father how could anyone be whole? Something inside of the Judge twists, coils like a snake preparing to strike.The Father made the Judge. He had freed her from the weight of every one of her mistakes and Cleansed her from Sin. He had killed Marion on the church stairs, with Jess in her arms, but. But.But they had lived, and they had Forgiven because there are crosses in the Prosperity memorial garden with MARION ROOK and JESS BLACK on them, and the Father could only Judge her for Sins against the voiceless. It was not in his power to Forgive transgressions that had been committed on those still able to Forgive them themselves.Jerome’s voice shakes when Carmina asks about the old memorials, next to the grave that says RUSH on it, because Marion Rook was a good woman who had given hope to people who had been hopeless, who tried to make things right when nobody else dared. Jess, who no longer wears Bliss flowers in her hair but still stands in the shadows, does not move or offer a reaction. Marion was Forgiven. Marion was Forgiven and these people had all weighed her Sins against her actions and the scales had balanced.The Judge is unfailing. The Judge is unfaltering. As long as she does the Father’s work, she has a place and a purpose in this world. She was Reborn and given new life. She cannot be weak. She will not forget her duty. Marion died in Jess’s arms.Jess, in her own green jacket, no blood to ruin her clothes or wound on her neck, smiles and it’s own smile, not Faith’s. It’s okay, she signs. But it can’t be. It can’t be. Marion can’t be Forgiven, because if she is then what does that leave the Judge with? Amrita, spelling out J-U-D-G-E with her hands, sitting by the campfire inside Prosperity, moves forward and the Judge doesn’t flinch as the Captain eases the mask away. All that’s left behind is what little remains of Marion Rook. She’s a ghost now, twisted by age and scars, by grief and suffering. The Father could Forgive but he could never make her anew, and how can there be Forgiveness if Marion never even needed it? Jess who is finally herself again smiles and when Marion closes her eyes they sting with tears she hasn’t cried in years.