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It starts almost by accident: a rainbow flag unfurled in the crowds gathered to greet Pope Innocent XIV, and the Holy Father doesn’t turn away. Instead, he takes in the flag for the longest of minutes, and smiles—the cameras flash—and puts a hand to his heart.
“This is going to be a nightmare,” says Aldo the moment the photos of the incident hit the Internet. “The honeymoon period of a new Pope is over; Tedesco’s minions will be taking to their keyboards any minute now.”
Thomas Lawrence thinks that, all things considered, the honeymoon period had gone on a lot longer than he’d expected. Vincent Benítez had taken the seat of St Peter back in November, and had been thrown almost immediately into preparations for his first papal Christmas. His general audiences had been a succession of exhortations for compassion and understanding; his homilies during the Christmas masses had been about Jesus as the son of migrants and refugees. But he had also extended an olive branch towards the traditionalists by putting back on some of the papal liturgical dress that the previous Holy Father had eschewed, though Lawrence knew he didn’t really see the point of it.
“The Church must appear united,” Innocent had said with that sad, sweet smile of his moments before he was to appear in the window for his first Sunday Angelus address. “This is a world to which I am still new. I should learn the rules first before I can decide which ones to break.”
“You’ll probably want to make a quicker decision on whether or not to move back into the Apostolic Palace, though,” Lawrence had said, half-joking.
Innocent had then pursed his lips. “I don’t do well in large spaces,” was all he would say to that.
So the honeymoon period continued, boosted in part by these little nudges back towards tradition, and in part by Innocent’s own, well, innocent charisma. Church attendance in various parishes had gone up significantly, especially amongst younger people suddenly interested in their attractive new Pope. In a way, Lawrence understood the sentiment perfectly, though he never would’ve admitted it aloud. For those first few months, it had been easy for him to believe he was feeling the return of the Holy Spirit whenever he took part in one of Innocent’s private masses… kneeling before the Holy Father in perfect supplication, opening his mouth to receive the body of Christ…
Aldo’s cough brings Lawrence back to the present. With a twinge of guilt, he fixes his attention back to the photo pulled up on his old friend’s phone, drinks in the image of Innocent in his papal whites with his hand on his heart, smiling in joy and recognition at a rainbow flag.
What would become of me, Thomas, if you were not here for me? If I did not love you as much as you love me?
“He’s acting in continuity with the late Holy Father’s teachings on inclusion,” Lawrence says vaguely, aware of how Aldo must be reading the flush seeping into his cheeks. “A gesture of goodwill isn’t the same as a change in doctrine.”
Aldo looks like he’s barely repressing an eyeroll. “You know no traditionalist is going to read it that way. Definitely not Tedesco—”
“Yes, because we’re going to spend this papacy just like the last one: reacting to everything Tedesco does,” mutters Lawrence.
Aldo scoffs. “Krasinski will have opinions, too.”
“He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone,” retorts Lawrence, unable to help himself. “Would he be dressing down the Holy Father before or after the rent boys, I wonder?”
Aldo’s expression sharpens, and Lawrence knows he’s crossed a line even before his friend retorts, “I don’t think you want the Holy Father to be firing shots across the bows of the men who would have no scruples in loudly speculating why the Dean of the College of Cardinals has suddenly taken on… shall we say a more expansive role? In His Holiness’ new pontificate?”
It is not just love, Holy Father—
But it must be.
“It’s not like that,” says Lawrence weakly.
“Could have fooled the rest of us.” Aldo’s nostrils are now flared in irritation. “As much as I personally respect the Holy Father’s actions, anything indicating a departure from the doctrine of the Church would not align with his goal of unifying said Church. His Holiness would do well to remember that, if he wishes to emerge from this unscathed.”
Lawrence doesn’t think Aldo knows the full extent of what is at stake. He’s sure Innocent wouldn’t want Aldo to know, either; there’s still not much love lost between them.
“I’ll tell him of your concerns,” he states tonelessly.
“Do.” Aldo’s lips press into a flat line. “Everyone knows he’ll listen to you.”
Lawrence doesn’t dignify that with an answer.
Pope Innocent XIV is in the garden when Lawrence finds him, his usual retinue lurking a couple paces behind. A group of gawking, wide-eyed tourists linger even further past, their guides fruitlessly attempting to usher them onwards to the next attraction.
“It’s colder than in Manila,” muses Innocent by way of greeting when Lawrence draws closer. “But not as cold as Kabul. I’ve never really experienced a Mediterranean winter before.”
“Take my coat,” suggests Lawrence, already shrugging it off. Innocent laughs and stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll be fine. I find it cheering, actually. But the poor turtles don’t enjoy it as much, I fear.”
“Are they still out and about?” wonders Lawrence mildly. “Shouldn’t they be hibernating?”
Innocent’s response is to reach into the pocket of his white woolen coat and pull out a mildly-protesting turtle. It scrabbles blindly against his hands, though the movements are more sluggish than usual.
“It’s remarkable what mischief they get up to even when it should be too cold to function,” he jokes, before tucking the turtle back into his pocket. “Come, let’s get her back to the pond.”
Lawrence follows, a loyal dog even in spite of himself. “There’s been some concern about the gesture you made during one of your recent excursions, Your Holiness.”
“Vincent,” the Pope corrects with a mock-chastising look. Lawrence can feel his face heating.
“Vincent,” he amends.
“And the gesture you’re referring to… I’m guessing it’s the one I did with the flag?”
“The very same.” Lawrence folds his hands behind his back, trying hard not to admire the way the cold winter sunlight burnishes the Holy Father’s brown skin, the way it shines against his inky-black tresses. “There are concerns that… some people may take it as an indication of your intent to change the Church’s teachings on homosexuality.”
“People read too much into things,” scoffs Vincent. “What’s the phrase we use… a mountain out of a molehill?”
“And yet Jesus made mountains out of just a few loaves and fish,” Lawrence points out.
Vincent laughs. “Point taken.” His expression dims, nevertheless, even as they approach the pond where the turtles usually dwell. The other turtles here are slumbering on the banks like little rocks. The Holy Father kneels down to place the wayward one among its brethren, and Lawrence can’t help but kneel with him, ostensibly checking over the others.
“I think the Curia would want you to clarify your stance on the Church doctrine in a coming address or speech,” he remarks, trying to keep his tone light, unpressured. “And in the interest of preserving the peace with the traditionalists…”
He trails off, not because he’d run out of things to say, but because Innocent is now standing again, the sunlight haloing him in a soft, beatifical glow. You have misjudged the object of your reverence, echoes his memory from that dark, intimate confessional deep in Lawrence’s soul. I cannot take you down the path of desire. It would dishonour you.
“It seems that where the traditionalists are concerned, they would rather sin on Saturday and repent on Sunday than attempt to change Church doctrine,” Vincent muses now, as he extends a hand to help Lawrence up. The warmth of the Holy Father’s touch almost drowns out the aching in Lawrence’s knees.
“It is the path of less resistance,” he says dryly. “And the doctrine is Scripturally-bound.”
“Scripture hasn’t stopped the Church from having a bank and investments.” Vincent sighs, turning back towards the garden path. Lawrence follows him apace, looking back over his shoulder at the still-lurking guards and photographers. “What is set down in doctrine can differ from what is done in pastoral care. Some people at the top of the Church hierarchy seem to have forgotten that.”
Lawrence’s own lack of pastoral experience had been a thorn in his thoughts for the longest time, abated only by the knowledge of knowing how much Pope Innocent—how much Vincent—still needed him. Vincent’s hand, gloved against the cold, creeps its way into the crook of Lawrence’s elbow, and Lawrence doesn’t have it in him to deny him that.
“Being at the top can be isolating,” he concedes.
“Especially when all the faces of my flock are turned into statistics and figures,” laments Vincent. “But if every action of mine carries meaning, then isn’t it my duty to perform only actions which increase love and acceptance in the world, not diminish it? The catechism says homosexuals are to be treated with the same dignity and respect as others, and yet where is that in practice amongst our traditionalist brethren? Must I not then lead by example and offer the respect that has long been denied to these lambs of mine—the acknowledgement of the pain that the Church has caused?”
They pull up in front of a statue of a monk—no, an abbott, Lawrence corrects in his head, as he takes in the name on the plinth. St Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, beloved of St Malachy of Armagh. Vincent’s hand slips from Lawrence’s elbow down to his hand. The soft merino wool offers only a hint of the warmth underneath.
“Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth,” Vincent quotes now, nodding upwards at the saint’s contemplative face. “Let him whose presence is full of love, from whom exquisite doctrines flow in streams, let him become a spring inside me, welling up to eternal life.”
Lawrence’s heart stutters, skips. “Do you think St Bernard also misjudged the object of his reverence, so that it would be easier to resist temptation?”
“I’ve never been him, so I wouldn’t know,” replies Vincent, which Lawrence can’t help but laugh at. “But I know that I am not God. Though I’m sure you’re not the only one who’s been confusing their Holy and Heavenly Fathers.”
He playfully nudges Lawrence, who startles out another laugh before he takes Vincent’s hand. “It would be easier to change Church doctrine if you were,” he teases.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just blaspheme, dearest Thomas.” Vincent’s eyes twinkle conspiratorially. “But thank you for bringing the Curia’s concerns to me all the same. You can tell Secretary Bellini that I have no desire to change what has been set down in the past.”
The Church is not the past. The Church is what we do next. The words that had won Vincent the conclave echo now in the steel of his voice, in the determined set of his brows. He glances past Thomas towards the distant onlookers, towards the gawkers and photographers waiting with bated breath to see what the Pope will do next.
Thomas is overwhelmed with the smell of incense and honey when Vincent embraces him, almost like the sign of peace during his papal masses. The contact is short enough not to raise any eyebrows, and yet Thomas can still feel the traces of the other man’s warmth when he steps back again.
“Is this not another shot fired across the bow?” he wonders wryly as the sounds of camera shutters ring out across the garden.
“Only if you think all the actions of a Pope are declarations of war,” replies Vincent, and then turns to wave at the cameras.
The following weekend there is a seminar with the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life. Pope Innocent XIV opens it with a pontifical address on valuing all lives in the way God has created them.
“My previous ministries have taught me three things,” he says from his simple chair at the head of the audience hall, his gentle voice ringing out like bells across cold, echoing marble. “First, that doctrine should be a source of clarity and guidance, not a justification for cruelty. Second, that doctrinal rigidity will always cost more lives than it saves. And third, that those who exalt themselves for their adherence to the doctrine commit not only the sin of pride, but of envy.
“We are as God made us, created from His love. All that we do must be in service of that love. How, therefore, can we ever conscience the creation of a Church that values doctrine more than the well-being of its people? I exhort you, my siblings in Christ, not to put your love of rule-following above your love of God. If you have bitter jealousy and contentions in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.”
“I thought you were going to talk him down from this,” says Aldo reproachfully when Thomas joins him at the back of the hall.
Thomas frowns. “He did clarify that he wasn’t planning to change the doctrine.”
“And then turned around and called out Tedesco and the rest for hypocrisy!” Aldo rubs at his brows. “How did he even know—you didn’t tell him, did you?”
“No,” says Thomas. They would rather sin on Saturday and repent on Sunday comes back to mind, but he hadn’t thought to link it to any particular incidents. “I don’t exactly control what the Holy Father sees or hears, either. He’s bound to pick up rumours; you know how gossip-prone Cardinal Mendoza can be…”
Aldo pinches the bridge of his nose and mutters some faint exasperations about the newly-appointed Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for the Evangelisation of Peoples. After a moment, he looks up and sighs, “Fine. At least it looks like His Holiness went into this with leverage. And given the way those photos of the two of you in the gardens have torn up the Internet, I’m guessing he’s not going to back down from any rumours that might arise?”
Thomas feels his cheeks heat up. He can almost hear what Vincent might say to such pressing questions: we are but two chaste souls in a loving embrace, our wills in sweet concord, our heart’s affections mutually exchanged.
Lord, I love him as my own soul.
The Holy Father finishes his address to thunderous applause, and makes the rounds through the crowds of well-wishers with a friendly word for everyone. Thomas watches him be pulled into hugs and awkward handshakes, disappearing into the crowd of people clamouring for a bit of the Pope—for a touch of holiness, a brush with God’s chosen.
It makes his heart tighten with that familiar feeling of covetousness—that selfish little sin that had driven him to the confessional, seeking penance and absolution. Next to him, Aldo makes a pitying hum and claps him on the shoulder.
“How the mighty have fallen,” he quips wryly. “How does it feel down here, among the rest of us sinners?”
Thomas purses his lips. “It will pass,” he repeats, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“I admire your optimism.” Aldo shakes his head. Up ahead, a young person with a rainbow pinned to their coat lapel bows and raises the Pope’s hand to their forehead. Innocent beams down at them, and, when they look up from their bow, blesses them.
Aldo’s expression briefly flickers at that, before softening into something between happiness and regret. Thomas is reminded of the old rainbow umbrella that his friend keeps in the corner of his office at the Secretariat of the State, the colours still bright even after years of attempted thefts and destruction. He wonders if Aldo is thinking about it, too.
After a moment, Aldo reaches up and rubs at one eye. “Tell the Holy Father to stop making my life so much harder than it needs to be,” he suggests, though there is no complaint in his voice this time.
Thomas smiles, squeezes his friend’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t you tell him yourself?”
“I’ve got the whole Vatican to run, Tommo,” teases Aldo, catching him with a sidelong smirk. “And we all know he’d rather hear the news from you.”
The letters, which had started trickling in when Vincent first smiled at the flag, now begin to pour in after his pontifical address and the blessing of that young person with the rainbow pin. Sister Agnes passes on a whole stack of them from some nuns working in the Papal Correspondence Office. “His Holiness has requested we send him all of the letters from people responding to his… recent actions regarding inclusivity in the Church,” she remarks as Thomas shuffles curiously through the letters, taking in photographs and drawings and outpourings of emotion from their writers. “And since I’ve been told that he’s happier when he gets to close out his evenings with you…”
The trail-off is very pointed. Thomas can feel his face reddening in the silence.
“I’ll—I’ll take these to His Holiness, then,” he manages, coughing. Sister Agnes’ cool stare burns into the back of his head as he rushes away.
A couple weeks into his pontificate, Vincent had extended another olive branch to the traditionalists by announcing a move back into the Apostolic Palace. The renovations to the papal apartment had taken almost three months, owing to a decade of disuse and Vincent wanting to simplify the furnishings. But now he had moved in, and—much to the shock of pretty much the whole Curia—insisted his guards and staff move in with him and use the common spaces as much as they liked.
“I don’t do well in large spaces,” Vincent had repeated to Thomas as they watched the Swiss Guards help his cook, an old Filipina nun who insisted that even Thomas call her ‘Lola Josie’, carry her bags to her room. Behind her had trailed Sister Benedicte, a younger disciple of Sister Agnes’ in the art of managing a Papal household.
(Sister Agnes herself had opted to remain at the Casa Santa Marta, in defiance of all rumours that she was to succeed Janusz Wozniak as Prefect of the Papal Household. Thomas suspected it was more of a disinclination towards a sudden change in scenery than a snub towards Vincent himself. And Sister Benedicte had proven herself just as adept as Sister Agnes in ensuring His Holiness’ apartment remained a place that he actually wanted to retire to.)
“Not a fan of quiet, I take it?” Thomas had wondered then. Vincent had smiled flatly at that, his gaze growing slightly distant with some sort of recollection. Thomas had then realised, unpleasantly, that the aftermath of a warzone would have been eerily silent. No wonder.
He didn’t question it again, and neither did anyone else in the Curia.
Tonight, the Papal Apartment is filled with the smell of frying food and the sound of football and bossa nova. The simple-yet-elegant dining table is piled high with letters, with more in boxes beside Vincent’s seat at the head. Vincent’s off-shift Swiss Guards are watching a game in the living room, while Sister Benedicte sits at the dining table beside Vincent, reading a book that Thomas vaguely recalls once being in Ratzinger’s library.
(Vincent had also brought back Ratzinger’s piano, though Thomas has yet to hear him express any interest in playing it.)
Thomas clears his throat now, and Vincent, looking up from his letters, immediately brightens and leaps to his feet. “Oh, how lovely of you to join us, dearest Tómas!” he cries, coming over to relieve Thomas of his happy burden. “Are these the last of the letters?”
“For now, I suppose,” is Thomas’ breathless reply. Of course his body still hasn’t unlearnt its instinctive shiver at the sound of such saintly lips saying something as sweetly intimate as his name.
Vincent gives him a fond look, before tugging at his sleeve. “Come sit with us; Lola Josie’ll be out with dinner very soon.”
“I couldn’t possibly,” demurs Thomas.
“Don’t make me make it a decree,” teases Vincent, and Thomas capitulates. It’s inevitable. He could never say no to his beloved Holy Father, and certainly not to beloved Vincent.
“I could move to my room, give you two the dining table?” suggests Sister Benedicte as Thomas takes the seat across from her, at Vincent’s right-hand side.
“Dinner will be done soon, and you know Lola likes us all to be on time,” Vincent chastises gently, more like an older brother than the Pope. Thomas fiddles nervously with a spare pen and smiles at Sister Benedicte.
She smiles back, eyes sparkling with some unknown secret. “I just don’t want to get in between you two,” she says, nodding between them.
Vincent, to Thomas’ surprise, colours at that. “Sister!”
“Your Holiness,” replies Sister Benedicte quickly, ducking her head—as if her familiarity was the problem and not her unsubtle implications. Sinning on Saturday and repenting on Sunday might be more common than the Vatican is willing to admit, but surely one had to draw the line at childish teasing, right?
Vincent shoots a look at Thomas. “Ignore her,” he says. “Sometimes in our excitement we forget ourselves, don’t we, Sister?”
“Of course, Holy Father.” Sister Benedicte is still smiling, though, and so is Vincent in spite of his flusteredness. It’s more endearing than Thomas would care to admit.
Still, he barely tastes the dinner when it comes. He just knows the lumpia—the spring rolls—are good, and the spaghetti is made with a sauce that Tedesco would have declared a heresy. The Swiss Guards scarf it down and disappear into the kitchen for seconds, while Lola Josie—who’d turfed Sister Benedicte to the seat next to Thomas for this—drags Vincent into looking at the latest photographs of her grandchildren.
“She has you to thank, too, for what happened recently with her granddaughter,” says Sister Benedicte quietly after a moment of eavesdropping. Thomas doesn’t know a lick of Filipino outside a couple pop songs that he’d heard Vincent humming to himself a couple of times, and so he turns to her in the hopes of hearing more.
And, sure enough, Sister Benedicte obliges: “She recently found out that her granddaughter has a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend,” echoes Thomas, careful to keep his voice as low as hers. “She didn’t know that before?”
“The kid was worried about how she’d react, but after His Holiness’ address to the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life…” Sister Benedicte shrugs and marks her page in her book, which she had been reading in her lap throughout dinner. She closes the book and sets it aside, leaning in closer to Thomas. “What he has done for so many families cannot be understated. And that’s just from what I hear when I’m not busy tending to his household.”
“They don’t care that it’s not a doctrinal change?” wonders Thomas.
“I’m happy that our Holy Father is willing to welcome everyone as God’s children,” replies Sister Benedicte, as Vincent drags the Swiss Guards into complimenting Lola Josie’s grandchildren as well. “And you, Dean Lawrence, for your part in guiding our Holy Father, should also be thanked.”
Thomas wants to argue that he hasn’t guided Vincent to anything—in fact, all he’d really done was raise the Curia’s objections to the whole affair. But then he remembers the photos of their hug in the garden, and suddenly what’s left of his already scant appetite seems to curl in on itself inside him.
“You’re not going to have your dessert?” asks Vincent after dinner, gesturing to the small plate of painstakingly-cut fruit that had been saved from everyone else. Thomas looks down at the hulled strawberries and sliced apples, and pushes the plate towards Vincent instead.
“We could split,” he offers.
“You barely ate anything, again.” Vincent’s voice isn’t accusatory, just concerned. “Maybe I should order you to come to dinner every night. I shouldn’t be the only one Lola Josie is fattening up here at the Vatican.”
Thomas chuckles at that. Lola Josie has her work cut out for her; Vincent looks as trim as ever. “That’s hardly an argument for me to have all this to myself, though. God does love a cheerful giver, after all.”
“Then as long as we both eat an equal portion…” Vincent trails off, taking one of the strawberries and presenting it to Thomas’ lips. “Open up, dearest.”
Thomas’ mouth opens. The strawberry is almost as sweet as Vincent’s triumphant smile; he can’t help but chase the taste with his tongue even after the first bite. He is grateful that they are now alone in the dining room—something tells him Sister Benedicte would have a lot to say about him letting the Pope feed him strawberries out of his own hand.
“Are you truly not uncomfortable with even your staff making comments about… about us?” he asks after a moment.
“They have not yet crossed a line with me,” replies Vincent, “but if you feel that they have—”
“No, I—” Thomas cuts off, trying to reorder his thoughts. “It’s just a little dangerous, isn’t it, what with all the other actions you’ve done.” Tedesco had, predictably, stormed and grumbled about threats to Church doctrine, but it seems the reprimand from Pope Innocent regarding the extracurricular activities of some traditionalist cardinals had kept most of the pack at bay.
It was a lot more grace than what had been granted to the late Holy Father, not to mention Aldo. Perhaps they were trying to dig up something to tarnish Innocent’s image—something to make him seem less than innocent after all—something, something—
Vincent presses another strawberry to his lips, and Thomas accepts almost unconsciously. “Is that what has been spoiling your appetite, dearest Tómas?”
“Among other things,” admits Thomas, as the strawberry juice trickles out the corner of his mouth like blood.
Vincent inhales, a myriad of emotions passing through his unfathomably dark eyes. The conversation from the Room of Tears floats in between them, somewhere between memory and leverage, a secret with teeth.
And then Vincent shakes his head and chuckles wryly. “The worst they could do is demand I abdicate the throne of St Peter,” he points out. “Which would hardly be a burden for me, as you very well know.”
A man with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Thomas purses his lips and shifts the focus back to the letters that had been brought back out onto the table now that dinner was over.
“You could ask someone from the Dicastery for Communication to help you with all that,” he says.
“Don’t begrudge me the little bit of pastoral work I can still do, dearest,” chides Vincent gently. Saying that, he pulls up one of the letters from the pile, pushing back his inky black fringe from his eyes as he reads.
Thomas spears himself a chunk of pineapple. “I looked at a couple in the stack that I was given,” he admits. “Many of them seem to be… in desperate situations.”
“Seeking sanctuary in my words,” agrees Vincent, though his expression shutters a little. “I will admit, it has not been easy to minister within doctrinal confines. Reminds me of the clashes I had with the Church when I was ministering to the girls in Manila and Bukavu. Doctrinal rigidity, or absolving the sins of a child who is too young to bear children herself? I used to fight bitterly with the Vatican over these things.”
“But even within the Vatican there are those who struggle with the doctrine,” says Thomas, as he watches Vincent begin to write his response to the letter in his hands. “Sinning on Saturday and repenting on Sunday, as you put it yourself.”
“But is it sin that causes their torment, or doctrinal rigidity?” wonders Vincent, glancing up from his writing. “If both men are consenting adults who love one another, then where is the sin?”
“Sex outside of the sacrament of marriage, without the purpose of procreation—”
“A man and a woman may commit that same sin together, and yet it does not drive them to write me letters about their desperate self-hatred and guilt.” Vincent puts down the pen and fixes Thomas with a hard look. “And when desire is rooted in love and commitment, even when there is no marriage—even when marriage is denied—is it still truly a sin? Is it not God who gives the occasion for love, who creates the affection, who brings the desire to good effect?”
“Then why deny yourself that same desire?” Thomas shoots back, suddenly unable to stop himself from rising to the bait. “You told me the path of desire would dishonour me, but now you’re saying desire rooted in love is not a sin—”
“We swore vows to put God before our own desires, dearest; these people who write me letters did not—”
“There are priests and seminarians in those letters, Holy Father!” protests Thomas, cutting Vincent off by taking his hand. “I saw their photographs with their collars, in their choir dresses. Would you say desire dishonours them, too, or is it just me it would stain?”
Of course it would be just me, a part of him can’t help but think. All these years of continence, of desiring without action, of being able to successfully withstand temptation… the one time I commit a sin in my heart, I am marked forever.
The path of desire dishonours me, and even the man who says he loves me can see it.
He tries to let go of Vincent’s hand, but finds he cannot—Vincent grips him hard enough to cut off his circulation, his head lowered and shoulders trembling. Thomas instinctively reaches up with his other hand, cupping the side of Vincent’s cheek. He tilts Vincent’s face up to see the sheen of tears in the other man’s eyes.
“I… I hold too much power over you, dearest Tómas,” the Pope manages after a moment, still clutching onto Thomas’ hand like a drowning man to a life preserver. “I told you, didn’t I? That I am not God; I cannot be your object of reverence? That if we had been anyone but who we are…”
“You would have welcomed it,” Thomas finishes, wiping a stray tear that had trickled down Vincent’s cheek. He is so warm and alive, a flower blooming under Thomas’ touch. Even though his days are filled with handshakes and hugs and blessings, he’s still untouchable in a way that Thomas already knows will drive him mad with loneliness before the end. Ratzinger had clung to the hand of his secretary in a similar way. The Late Holy Father had had Janusz at his elbow more often than not.
And Vincent?
“Shall I not receive a richer infusion of grace from him whom the Father has anointed with the oil of gladness above all his rivals, provided that he will bestow on me the kiss of his mouth?” asks Thomas, his tongue running slipshod over St Bernard’s words as his thumb lingers against the corner of Vincent’s lips.
Vincent chuckles a little at that, tilting his head to kiss Thomas’ thumb. “I would not ask for more from you than what you are willing to give, my dearest.”
“And if I would give everything?” breathes Thomas.
Vincent considers it for a moment, his expression weighed down still by his own sorrow, before turning Thomas’ hand around to kiss his palm. With a couple determined blinks, he finally lets Thomas go and straightens back up in his seat, the posture bringing back memories of Catholic schooling. Thomas gingerly rubs the circulation back into his hands, offering Vincent a wry smile when the other man attempts to apologise for hurting him.
“It didn’t hurt,” he says—a white lie. “I just hope I was of some service.”
“I think I know now what to write.” Vincent wipes at his eyes, picks up his pen again. “You are as God made you: worthy of love, and of loving. You do not need to change who you are fundamentally in order to receive His love, and to be considered one of His children.”
Thomas sits beside him for the rest of the evening, helping him answer the rest of the letters. The rest of the fruit is shared between them, made all the sweeter when Vincent eats them out of Thomas’ hand. At some point Lola Josie comes in to bid them good night, and to scold them both—especially Thomas—for staying up so late at their ages. Sister Benedicte walks through the dining room with a knowing look, but keeps her tongue to herself.
The Church is not the past, thinks Thomas as he watches Vincent finish off the last of tonight’s letters. The Church is not just its doctrine and traditions—it is not even the Church that Thomas himself had grown up in. And under the guidance of Pope Innocent XIV, the Church could become so much more—could welcome back in the souls that it has hurt over the years with its teachings, or at least allow them, and others like them, to separate their love for each other from the doctrine of sin.
Maybe he’d misjudged the object of his reverence, but so had Vincent when he assumed that Thomas would not wait for him. For as long as Vincent would have him, Thomas would be there. The Lord is between you and I, and our fates are now entwined forever.
The Church is what we do next.