Work Text:
It was late, well after the midnight Mass had ended. Father Gregor removed his vestments in the sacristy and prepared himself to spend the night keeping watch. The night watch at the Cathedral of Perpetual Solace was not a choice position, but he had been doing it for long enough now to appreciate it for what it was. He enjoyed the long nighttime hours, when the sound of the choir’s chanting seemed to rise from the ancient stone itself.
Movement out in the church caught his eye. He straightened, frowning. Few wandered in so late, and it was not yet time for the choir to change over. He left the sacristy and kept to the side aisle, wondering if it was a penitent, someone he could help, or simply someone he would have to ask to leave. The clerics weren’t to let anyone sleep in any of the churches of New Vatican City. The Cathedral of Perpetual Solace was no exception, even though Father Gregor personally thought it should be open to anyone, at any time, regardless of whether they wanted to pray or to rest. Perpetual solace, after all.
But such were the rules. Such had always been the rules, since the founding of the cathedral, and the Cathedral of Perpetual Solace had been one of the first founded after the Church took to the stars, so many centuries ago now. The foundation was laid with stone brought from Earth and blessed by the Pope himself, before the schism that divided the Church of Stars from the Church of Earth.
The man was lying in one of the pews. Father Gregor sighed. “Sir,” he said quietly, his voice pitched low to cut beneath the sound of the chants. “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t sleep here.”
The man sat up. Tall, thin, very short hair. Dressed in dark clothes. Anything else was impossible to discern in this light. He looked at Father Gregor, and he had the sudden impression of a storm at sea: something dark and roiling and extremely dangerous. “Wasn’t sleeping,” he said. “I was listening. Is that a crime now, Father?”
“No, of course not,” Father Gregor said. “But you were lying down -” with your boots on the pew, he did not add - “and so I thought you were sleeping.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” the man said gruffly.
Father Gregor nodded. He seated himself in the end of the pew, far from the man. Sitting up, he would never have mistaken the man for someone at rest. He was rigid, his shoulders hunched. His eyes glinted in the candlelight. He looked like a man in pain.
“What brings you here, so late?” Father Gregor asked, as the song rose and fell.
The man stirred. “Where’s here?” he asked.
Father Gregor raised his eyebrows. “The Cathedral of Perpetual Solace, of course.”
The man gave a low bark of a laugh. “Of course,” he echoed, and shook his head. “Solace.”
“Did you not come here seeking solace, then?” Father Gregor asked.
“No,” the man said, roughly. “I don’t want solace.”
He did not, Father Gregor noticed, say that he didn’t need it. “What about forgiveness?” he asked quietly.
The man sucked in a breath as though he’d been punched in the gut. “Not looking for that either,” he said, turning to glare at Father Gregor. “Not looking for solace, or forgiveness, or conversation.”
“I’m sorry,” Father Gregor said. “I did not mean to intrude.”
“Well, you did,” the man said harshly. “Don’t need you meddling. Don’t need her meddling either,” he added in an angry mutter. “Thinking she knows where I need to go better than I do.”
Father Gregor didn’t dare ask who she was. Instead he merely nodded and stood, and went about his nightly duties.
There were a few other penitents before dawn. Father Gregor heard confession once, and twice sat with someone while they wept. He brought out fresh candles and made sure that all was made ready for Mass in the morning. Throughout, he kept one eye on the man, who never moved. He sat still as a statue all through the night, barely seeming to breathe.
Finally, after a night that seemed much longer than most, dawn broke. Light streamed in through the windows high above, dappling the gray stone floor with colors from the stained glass. The choir’s music soared. Father Gregor sank to his knees before the altar. This moment, this daily ritual, was the reason he remained on the night watch, though he had seniority enough now to give it up. It was wearying and sometimes dull, but every moment of dullness and weariness was worth it for this: for the moment the light streamed in and the music soared, and he experienced a touch of Grace upon his soul.
When it was over, when the music had subsided -though not, of course, stopped - Father Gregor got to his feet and turned.
The man was still there. His face was easier to see now, and it revealed itself to be a harsh face, if also a handsome one. It was harsh even with tears streaming down it.
Father Gregor thought that he was likely to be rebuffed, but he decided that it was his duty to try in any case. He approached the man, who was weeping without shame, or at least without hiding his face. He sat in the end of the pew again. “Sometimes,” he said, very quietly, “a burden shared is a burden lessened.”
The man shook his head. “Sometimes burdens shouldn’t be lessened.”
“I find that is rarely the case,” Father Gregor replied. Though this was hardly the first man to enter the Cathedral who thought so. A surprising number of walking wounded found their ways here, from many worlds.
The man shook his head. “What do you want from me, Father? Do you want to hear my confession?”
“If you think it would help,” Father Gregor replied, though he sensed that this was not a religious man. He did not know how exactly he’d found his way into the cathedral, or why he’d stayed. But worship was not part of it.
“It wouldn’t.”
Father Gregor nodded. “I understand.”
The man was silent for a long time. Father Gregor sat quietly, as the cathedral brightened. He saw Father Bertrand enter, and they exchanged a glance. He was officially off-duty - as much as a cleric ever was, of course - but he continued to sit quietly, allowing the chant to fill his heart, his head, and his soul.
“But this has,” the man said after a long time, so quietly that Father Gregor almost didn’t hear him.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
“This has . . . helped.”
Father Gregor nodded. “I’m glad. I know that you might not feel that you deserve solace, but I believe that everyone does. That is why I’ve devoted my life to the cathedral. Everyone deserves comfort.”
The man looked at him. “Even murderers?”
Father Gregor kept his voice very even. “Yes. Even them.”
The man looked away. “Well,” he said. “Maybe.”
Up at the altar, Father Bertrand was preparing for the morning services. He raised his hand at Father Gregor, gesturing, and Father Gregor turned toward the man to excuse himself.
He was gone.
Father Gregor assisted in morning services, and then went back to the residence to break his fast and sleep. He woke in the late afternoon and had supper, then returned to the cathedral just as the choir was changing over. He would celebrate the midnight service and then take up on his post for the remainder of the night. He knew he would be on the lookout for the tall, thin man again, but he did not think he would see him. He had been doing this long enough to be able to tell when someone would be back, drawn in by the cathedral’s peace, and he didn’t think the man would be.
So it was with a great deal of surprise that Father Gregor looked out at the very sparse congregation during midnight Mass and saw him there. He was sitting very near the back, in shadow, and Father Gregor was unsure at first if it was him at all. But he became certain it was.
He did not approach for communion or for a blessing. Father Gregor closed out the Mass simply, thinking that it was unlikely that the man would still be there when he emerged from the sacristy after changing. But he was, still as a statue in the shadows.
A few of the sconces along the side aisles had burned low. Father Gregor relit them as he made his way down toward the man, moving slowly and carefully, as though trying to avoid spooking a wounded animal. Then he sat at the end of the pew and was silent for a time, waiting to see if the man would speak.
When he didn’t, Father Gregor said, “It’s my experience that sometimes, for grave sins, it is easier to forgive others than to forgive ourselves.”
The man was silent. “You don’t know what I’ve done,” he said at last. “It’s not something that can be forgiven.”
“Not by you,” Father Gregor replied. “Not by any mortal, perhaps. But there is no limit to what God may forgive.”
The man gave a harsh laugh. “I wish I could believe there was a god - any god. Any real god.”
Father Gregor shrugged. “And yet you find yourself here.”
“Because it reminds me . . .” The man swallowed. “In the Citadel, in the Room of the Untempered Schism, there was a perpetual choir like yours.”
Father Gregor frowned. “I’ve never heard of that church.”
“Not a church,” the man said shortly. “Only thing they worshiped was themselves, anyway. All gone now. The Citadel, the Untempered Schism, the choir. All of it.” His voice caught, and Father Gregor knew that they were treading very near the real pain now. “Gone.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, then.”
The man shook his head but didn’t speak.
Father Gregor drew breath. “And I forgive you.”
He shook his head again. “You shouldn’t.”
“But I do,” Father Gregor said, quietly. “I forgive you. I feel certain that you are a good man, whoever you are. Whatever you did, you may find it unforgivable. But God doesn’t. And I don’t. I forgive you.”
The man was silent for some time. At last, just as Father Gregor was about to stand and go, he murmured, “Thank you.”
“The Cathedral of Perpetual Solace is here for anyone who needs it,” he replied. “Stay for as long as you like.” He sensed that he’d done all he could. He stood and left the man to his thoughts and to his solitude.
The next time Father Gregor looked up, the man was gone.
***
Outside, in the cool, still night air of New Vatican City, the Doctor paused and looked up at the sky. Unfamiliar stars wheeled overhead. Once, Gallifrey’s own star had been visible from this planet. Now where it had been was nothing at all. There was an answering void in his own hearts, black and aching, and he didn’t think it would be filled until he regenerated again. If then.
But it was possible, he thought, just possible, that it ached a little less than the day before. And perhaps tomorrow, it would ache a little less still. Part of him still didn’t think he deserved for it to hurt any less. No matter what the priest had said, what he’d done could never be forgiven. But the priest’s words had healed something in him all the same.
The Doctor didn’t believe in a god or gods; he’d walked among them often enough to know how false they were. But in that moment, the priest had believed for him, and that was all that mattered.
Fin.