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They actually arrived back at the farm a while ago, in the middle of the night, with no fanfare. Since then, Katara has been soaking in the winter sunshine, running around blissfully, practicing her bending and hugging her friends and brother, and basically just having a wonderful time. Today she's sitting at the edge of the pond, feeding Spots and grinning enormously at everyone who comes near. Life is great! Especially when you haven't had it for ages!

Steph is still working in Smallville at the bar, and has been catching up on missed shifts for the past couple of days; this is the first afternoon she's had off since they got back, and she's down at the training area making good use of her workout time. At the moment, just bending and stretching and general maintaining-of-absurd-Battish-flexibility. Any suggestions that she is avoiding Babs, using physical activity to avoid thinking, will be ... avoided via physical activity.

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"I know what the Bible says." Steph wrinkles her nose. "It just doesn't help."

She hesitates, and shrugs. "... it's just ... been on my mind a bit."

A lot.

"How does it not help?" Oliver asks, genuinely curious.

"Well, I don't think I believe in God." Thoughtful explainy Steph is thoughtful and explainy. "So doing stuff just because He tells me to is - I dunno, it doesn't make sense to me. I want to be a good person, I just don't think that has t'be tied up with being a churchy person."

But good people don't kill people. Right?

Except ... maybe they do.

"One can certainly be a good person without being a...churchy person," Oliver says. It just won't get you into heaven. Sucks to be you, good people!

"The way is harder, though, without the community of others on the same path, following the same basic laws. So I found it."

Find it.

Steph frowns, pulling a strand of hair free of one braid and fiddling with it. "I believe Sokka is a good person," she says, and for all her uncertainty about everything else, that rebounds with confidence. "I just ... I dunno. It took me ages to figure stuff out in the first place, and then I came here and ... everything I know is wrong."

Oliver's first reaction is to hide that he, too, feels as if everything he knows is wrong. But...is his first reaction necessarily the best?

"I do understand that." His words are sincere, tinged with sympathy - but he doesn't add why or how deeply he understands.

"You doubt how to be a good person in a world so random, so cruel," he states, for the sake of clarification. Killing people, Sokka, cannibals, the trip - he has suspicions, but he's reluctant to push further.

Barty would know how to deal with this. Anyone from the abbey would. But not Oliver, who only knows beasts and trees and lies....

Steph sighs again, rubbing her nose. "Yeah. I just ... yeah."

That narrows it down quite nicely, yes.

Oliver is good at stating the obvious. It's an unconscious way to prevent meaningful dialogue with anyone, particularly when it comes the Big Questions. He's much more unsure about those than he used to be.

"You might speak to others, to learn how people you respect act when faced with difficult decisions. There are many here in your line of work." He means being a superhero; trust Oliver to steer clear of modern diction.

"And I will pray that your path becomes clearer to you." So it won't mean much to her - it means something to him.

"Thank you," Steph says politely, because it means something to him. "Thanks, really. I'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure."

Everything works out eventually.

Oliver nods, a little anxious and wishing he could do more--

-- but of course it's not his place to do more. It's God.

"You're very young. You've got many more years to sort it all out than an old fellow such as myself."

Small smile.

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