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This isn’t about love. It’s about benediction.
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Blessed are the cowards. They need more help than most.
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The Priest lasts one hundred and seventy-three days.
(I wasn’t counting.) She says to The Watchers. (No seriously, I wasn’t counting.)
She knows he noticed her “disappear” as he once called it, but he doesn’t call her out on it and she doesn’t call him out on not calling her out.
“Can I get you anything?” She asks, striving for professionalism if nothing else. He smiles at her, just a little, like he can’t believe she’s here but he’s too tired for any real emotion.
Her heart skips a beat. (Fuck I totally was counting.)
“No, I just-“ he pauses, hesitates, starts over. “I was just-“
She watches him swallow his words down, watches him fidget with his hands and shift from side to side, watches him because it’s been one hundred and seventy-three days and she’s been aware that she’s desperately in love with him for one hundred and seventy-four.
She wishes she’s angry that he’s standing in her shop, well after she closed for the day. She wishes she could rage and scream at him and tell him how dare you. How dare you tell me it will pass. How dare you come back.
She’s not angry.
Short of anger, she wishes she could tell what he’s trying to say, that she could so clearly see the words he’s forming and swallowing and struggling to set free. She wishes she knew what he’s doing here, the way she knows what Claire will say or what Godmother will do or what Father will avoid. She misses the certainty of it in this moment, as something un-namable and un-knowable swells in the center of her throat.
She thinks it might be hope mixed with despair mixed with fear.
She thinks it might be love.
He swallows down another set of words.
She’s silent, staring at him like he’s salvation and execution rolled up in one.
“I’m- I’m sorry.” He chokes out, even as he turns and is out the door faster than she can blink, faster than the rage rises, faster than her tears can fall.
God, one hundred and seventy-three days and somehow this is even worse than before.
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Blessed are those who listen and love anyways, for they set the world right.
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It’s a testament to how things have changed that she can go to Claire about this.
They sit on the floor of her apartment, backs pressed against the sofa, passing a bottle of wine back and forth.
“So he just, showed up, didn’t get out a single sentence, and then left?” Claire asks.
(I just want to get drunk, and she’s still trying to analyze the situation like there’s any sense to be had in it.)
“Yup,” Fleabag says, popping the p.
Claire takes a deep pull from the bottle. “Fucking wanker.”
Fleabag starts laughing hysterically, swiping the bottle back. “Yeah, a big fucking wanker.”
They quiet for a moment, the now mostly empty bottle resting between them.
“What did it feel like?” Claire asks, voice quiet. “When you saw him?”
There are tears in Fleabag’s eyes but she doesn’t want to acknowledge them, because acknowledging them would mean acknowledging the heavy chasm sitting in her chest right now and she’s not sure she can come back from that at the moment.
She contemplates lying, saying that it was horrible and she hates him and if he’s going to keep leaving her why won’t he stay gone?
The worst thing is she’s not sure that’s such a large lie right now.
She thinks of saying it was just another encounter with a random fuck, but random fucks suddenly popping back up rarely resulted in wine with Claire unless it was a STI-free victory celebration.
The truth slips out of her before she can think better of it. “It was like heaven.”
Claire turns and studies her face for a long moment. Fleabag pretends she doesn’t notice.
Claire sighs quietly and slowly shifts until her head is resting against Fleabag’s shoulder. Fleabag pretends she doesn’t notice the wetness she can feel seeping through her shirt.
When she lowers her head to rest on her sister’s, Claire pretends she doesn’t notice the wetness she can feel in her hair.
They are quiet for a long while.
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Blessed are those who have broken and been cut upon the sharp edges of themselves, for their wounds are deep and their scars many.
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Fleabag stops counting.
(I’m really not.) She says. (Honestly.)
It’s a few weeks or so from that last encounter when the Priest shows up again.
It’s pouring rain outside and the café’s empty as she scrubs down tables and mops the floor.
The door opens, the bell jingles, and suddenly there’s a soaking wet priest standing in her doorway. She glances up at him just long enough for the rage to boil up in her before she goes back to pushing the mop around.
“Are you actually going to say anything this time or can we skip to the part where you leave. Again.” Anger clips her words and she doesn’t need to look at him to know that he’s just awkwardly rubbed the back of his head in that self-conscious way he does.
“I’m actually just here for a cuppa.” It’s clearly meant as a joke, a weak, hesitant joke, but a joke nonetheless.
(I know he’s joking, but let’s not make this easy on him.) She says to No One.
So she moves behind the counter and starts reheating the kettle that had been cooling on the stovetop. Every moment is precise and controlled and she knows she’s going to snap soon but she doesn’t know how to stop the inevitable booming release of tension. “What type of tea would you like?”
“I, uh-,” A thousand possibilities flash through her head, of things he could say that would make nothing better. Of things he could say that would make everything better. “I’m sorry I was trying to be funny, but Earl Grey would be nice.”
She nods, grabbing a mug and a tea bag and trying to find some shredded remnant of the peace she had fought so hard for and he’d just shattered by walking back into her life.
There’s no peace for her to grasp onto, so she internally shrugs and decides that she can be civil now and pick up the pieces later.
(Might as well rip off this particular band aide.)
“So if you aren’t really here for tea, what are you doing here.”
There’s a long pause, and she doesn’t want to look at him to see what he’s doing right now, because if she does that horrid hopefearlovedespairyearningempty feeling will return and she wants the upper hand here.
“I wanted to see you.” He says.
(At last. Full sentences. I’m impressed really.)
“You could have done that through the window.”
“I know.” There’s a pause. “I did.”
She doesn’t know what to say. There’s no way to respond to that without sounding creeped out or flattered or hurt and she’s not sure what categories she falls under right now.
He must realize this because suddenly there are more full sentences. “I mean- ugh that sounded creepy. I’ve been working up the courage to come in and talk to you since the last time I was here, and that involved a lot of me coming here and then chickening out once I actually saw you.”
She debates staying silent and then debates kicking him out. She decides to put him out of his misery. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I- I-,” she’s ready to making a cruel joke about him spending so much time figuring out how to talk to her but not knowing what to say, but he finally finishes. “I miss you.”
The tension stretches.
She breaks.
(What the fuck?!)
“What the fuck?!”
“I know- I know-“
“You don’t fucking know! You left!”
There are tears in her eyes and she’d be disturbed how frequently she’s cried over this one man when until now the only people who have been capable of that feat were related to her or dead.
“I know and I’m not going to say that was a mistake-”
“Fuck you, get out!”
“Please just-“
“I said get out!” Her final shout is punctuated by the kettle’s whistle, and maybe he takes that as a Sign From God, but the Priest looks at her for a long moment and then shoves his way out of the café.
Fleabag turns off the burner. She bows her head, bracing her hands on either side of the stove and feels tears trickle down her cheeks. If she thinks of it, she can pinpoint the exact moment that his heart cracked and hope drained away.
There is nothing left in her heart, in her head, or in her soul. She wonders if this is what he feels like after praying; if God strips everything from him, good, bad, and ugly, the way the Priest strips everything from her.
She feels hollow.
The door bursts open. “Jesus fuck!” He falls back into the café, almost tripping over himself in his haste to get the door closed. “Fucking fuck fuck fuck!”
“What on earth?” She asks, coming part way around the counter before she can think better of it.
“There’s a fucking fox out there that’s what!” He’s hysterical with fear and a crack about needing some nice men in white coats and a padded room rises easily to her tongue, only to suddenly die as she leans around him and sees that no there actually is a fox sitting on the other side of the glass door.
(Huh.)
She looks back and forth between him and the fox for a long moment. (Huh.)
“You weren’t kidding about them following you.”
“Of course I fucking wasn’t!” He’s essentially cowering behind the till now, and she wants to burst out laughing so badly, but she’s also pretty sure he Won’t Take That Well so she does her best to smother the mirth rising up in her.
“You can leave out the back.”
“Uh no I can’t, I’m sure there’s another blasted fox waiting out there!”
Her eyebrows go up. The situation may be funny, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be in it any longer than necessary. “I need you to go.”
“Well I’m not going.” He crosses his arms and looks up at her with a more than slightly manic gleam to his eyes. It’s so ridiculous, that he’s standing there, soaked to the skin, and his collar is gleaming under the lights like a taunt, and she’s trying so hard to not remember what he felt like inside her or what it felt like realizing he’d managed to get deeper under her skin than anyone other than Claire or Boo or Mother.
Some idle part of her brain that isn’t currently having a melt down understands that she’s teetering on the edge of total hysteria, and that she can laugh or she can sob or she can cry, but she has to do something to alleviate this awful pressure welling up inside her.
She feels something push up into her throat, but she doesn’t have the strength to free it from her locked lips.
He looks at her- really looks at her in a way very few people have- and he must see something in her expression that tugs at something lose in him. The mania leaves his eyes and he looks almost as old as she feels.
“I’m- I’m sorry.” She half expects him to fidget, to run his hands through his hair right before he runs back out of her shop, fox be damned. “I lied to you that night. About so many, many things. It wasn’t God. Or, it wasn’t just God. It was both of you.”
She stares at him mutely, trying to remember and forget all at once as he comes around the till to stand in front of her. He drops to his knees and stares up at her with a reverence that made her chest ache with it.
“You asked me if it was you or God that made me feel that way- so alive and free and full of joy and potential- and it was you. I need God to have the strength to live my life but I need you to have a life worth living.”
“What-,” her throat is dry as she tries to swallow, “what does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” His face is open and earnest and the last time she saw someone look at her like that, Boo asked to have all the love she once gave to her mother. She can’t take it if this ends the same way. “I thought about leaving the church.” One of her photos suddenly falls off the wall and he chuckles mirthlessly as she flinches in surprise. “But that kept happening every time I considered it.”
He licks his lips, “and I tried leaving you.” Behind her, there’s a yipping sound she thinks must be the fox even as she swears. “But that clearly isn’t sticking.” He smiles up at her, hesitant and unsure and totally desperately in love. “So I thought we could try to find a third option.”
She looks down at him, feels something burst into life just out of reach. She can see it in some dimension beyond the one they live their lives in, wonderful and beautiful and a riot of colors. It feels like a perfect grilled cheese on a cold day, like that time she got high and licked whipped cream off some coed’s perfect soft tits, like the only one I’d run through an airport for is you.
It feels like potential. Like a future she’s always secretly dreamed off and never thought she’d have.
It feels so very close but still just aggravatingly out of reach.
She feels the guilt boil and bubble in her stomach like molten lead. She’s carried it around with her since- well, since-
“I killed my best friend.” The confession roars from her, and once it starts the words spill from her lips like blood. “I killed her because I slept with her boyfriend and he told her and she just wanted to make him hurt a little only she was so stupid and she got herself killed and it’s my fault, it’s all my fault that she was hurting and I loved her so much and I did it anyways and-”
The need for air cuts her off, and she gasps in that strange, difficult way people do when they desperately need to bawl but can’t seem to get the first tear past the lump in their throat.
In between two of those funny little painful inhales (or maybe between two heart beats or milliseconds or eternities, she can’t tell anymore), she feels everything turn slow and numb. That desperate gaping empty feeling belongs to some other woman and they’re just currently sharing a body. She steps back, although the shared body’s feet don’t move, and looks down at the Priest because he’s the most interesting thing in the shop that’s become less and less a shrine and more and more a sanctuary.
He’s still kneeling, still looking up at her like she’s something glorious and precious. He’s got that curious head tilt going and that small confused grin that makes him look even more ravishing than normal.
Something in her clicks, like two gears finally hooking into place. She understands something, just as she steps back into her own body and rejoins the her that’s teetering on the edge of an emotional sinkhole. Oh, she thinks as she settles back in to her body, wrestling herself away from the sharp edges of herself, I think I understand God.
The understanding fades but the feeling of it doesn’t, and it soothes the aching in her throat even as tears fill her eyes.
“Okay.”
The ridiculousness of his response sends her back into near hysterics. “Okay? I just told you I’m responsible for my best friend dying, and all you have to say is okay!?”
“I know about Boo.” He says, calmly. “And I know you didn’t push her into that bike lane. And I know you feel responsible, but you’re not.”
She’s not sure what exactly it is she’s feeling right now, but it’s very far from the almost-calm understanding she had felt a few seconds before. “You know about Boo?”
“Well not the specifics.” He said. “But your Godmother sometimes brought it up after we met, that your friend stepped into a bike lane and a lot of people got hurt including her.”
It’s such a Godmother thing, that all she can do is stand there and open and shut her mouth like a particularly stupid goldfish. She settles on feeling indignant. “That’s not the whole story.”
“Tell me what happened then.”
“I slept with her boyfriend. He told her. She stepped into a bike lane hoping she’d get just hurt enough to land in the hospital and she wouldn’t let him see her so he could hurt too. So it’s my fault. My choice started the whole thing.”
“Hm.” He says. “That is awfully stupid.”
She’s so startled by the response that she forgets being indignant or angry all together. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m just saying your logic is flawed,” he says, “and also as a note, slightly self-centered.”
She gapes at him. “No seriously, like yeah sleeping with her boyfriend was a bit of a dick move, but it takes two to horizontal tango and taking all the blame for that is a bit much don’t you think?” He barely pauses for breath before continuing on even as she splutters. “And I may not be able to throw stones here, but you’re not actually a completely irresistible siren luring men to their dooms between your legs. You didn’t force him to do anything he didn’t always want to do.”
Something in her starts to loosen just a little, a slight unfurling as the tiniest bit of weight lifts from her.
“And again, not to throw stones, considering I’ve been watching you through the window of your shop for the past month and spent even longer driving myself insane over not being with you, but jumping into traffic even if it’s just a bike lane is a stupid way to respond to a break-up.”
She laughs once in spite of herself and his rambling halts as his eyes return to her. “I told her that too,” her voice wavers. “but she wouldn’t listen. She just did it when I was in the back of the shop.”
His eyes are kind. “I know you loved her. It’s not your fault.”
Even as she drops to her knees before him, she realizes that no one has ever said those words to her before. They do something to her, remove some weight she had grown accustomed to carrying. The loss of that heaviness leaves her trembling, sends her collapsing towards him as she sobs and grieves and heals a little bit better than before.
She does not know how long she is pressed against him, does not remember the words he mouthed against her crown, does not care that her whole body aches.
Eventually, she quiets and settles back into her skin.
“I know you loved her.” He eventually whispers. “I know you loved her more than anything. Have you ever understood why you did it?”
There is no judgment in his words, no harshness or scorn or malicious glee. “I did it because I loved her more than anything. She asked for all the love I had for my mother and I gave it to her. But she didn’t give me anything back. And I-“ she swallows, “I knew it was wrong but I did it anyways because I wanted whatever part of her I could have and that included him. Sex was such a small thing in comparison to how I felt that I ignored all the parts of me that knew it was wrong.”
He hums and nuzzles his check against her hair. She closes her eyes for a long moment, stands on shaky legs, and offers him a hand.
He takes it.
By the time they turn to the doorway, the fox is long gone.
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Blessed are those who have felt unloved. They won’t be.
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They do not count the days.
They do not count weeks or months. They will not count years when they have reached them.
They are lying on the grass in the park near Father’s home. He has a Bible and a notebook with his current draft of this week’s homily next to him. She has a shitty plastic paddle fan she’s using to try to keep cool.
She is lying with her head propped up against his chest. He has an arm thrown across her ribs right below her breasts.
Two months ago, they were standing before a bishop explaining that God wanted them to be together but also wanted him to remain a priest. The bishop refused to listen and all the paintings in all the churches in the entire diocese fell to the floor at once. When he continued to refuse to listen, the communion wafers spontaneously combusted. When that did not sway him, the communion wine turned to water. The bishop finally agreed to discuss it with his supervisors when the stained glass behind his desk began to rattle ominously.
A month ago, they were telling Godmother and Father. The former went into hysterics, although she still does not understand if Godmother was disapproving or rapturous that she was so fucked up the healthiest relationship she’s been in is with a priest. Father pulled her aside later that day and asked her if this is what she really wanted. She looked at him for a long moment as she tried to find the words to explain. He understood, kissed her on her forehead, and said, “Well, if you’re sure.”
A week ago, they were in the Vatican making their case before an entire gathering of Cardinals and the Pope himself. They agreed to the arrangement after the first painting in the room fell, and a café owner, a priest, and God were now, officially, a Catholic Church-approved threesome.
A day ago, he called her “Love” while handing her a cup of tea and she could feel her heart expanding with the sheer joy of it. It felt right in a way she could never articulate and like how he felt right next to her.
In an hour, they will catch the bus to the airport and fly to Finland for Claire and Klare’s wedding-slash-handbinding ceremony-slash-business awards celebration. Mother’s golden statue sits in her handbag, waiting to be passed off to Claire when she finally confirms that she’s pregnant.
But for now, Love and the Priest lie together in the grass in a park in London and God smiles down on them both.