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Vincent is supposed to address the United Nations next week, he’s not at all happy yet with his homily for this Sunday’s mass, and Sister Agnes had to call a veterinarian to come and look at Giuseppe, one of the turtles, who has been oddly lethargic this week. Father Rashid has written from Kabul with news that a wave of the flu has hit his former congregation, dear Aldo has dropped a stack of papers nearly an inch thick on his desk for him to review, and the binding on his much worn biography of Hildegard had finally cracked in two when he was rereading a favorite passage this morning.
All this and more he thinks he could bear more gracefully, if only Thomas would look at him.
“I have here your itinerary for the UN trip to New York,” says Thomas, adjusting his glasses slightly. Vincent follows the elegant curve Thomas’s finger draws in the air—up to his glasses frames, down to the printout, skimming across the words, a gentle tap on the flight information. He wants to reach out and hold that hand. He does not.
It’s been about a month and a half now that Thomas has been slowly withdrawing. Invitations to join Vincent for dinner have been rejected more and more often, and even when accepted, Thomas always somehow manages to get another cardinal or sister or two to join them. No more walks in the gardens in the hour after the sun sets, not for three weeks now—and Vincent has been counting. Even when they meet like this, to go over the minutia of the business of being the pope, the only times they’re alone these days, Thomas seems to meet his eyes less and less, and Vincent doesn’t think it’s just his imagination.
“Yes, thank you Thomas. Was the soup kitchen able to confirm a time?”
There! A smile, slight, but there, on Thomas’s beautiful mouth. Vincent revels in it.
Look at me, my darling, please.
“Thursday. We can go for an hour in the afternoon and then to the airport after.”
Vincent had thought—but what does it matter now? Eight months since the conclave. Eight months to work together with Thomas, to learn the ins and outs of the Curia from him, to walk with him through the halls of the Vatican, in all its Renaissance glory. Eight months of thanking God that He has brought Vincent to Rome, to Thomas. The pope nonsense he could have done without—eight months is still not enough for him to feel comfortable in his all-white vestments—but if this is the path the Lord has for him, then at least it overlaps with Thomas’s.
“Wonderful. Really I cannot thank you enough, Thomas, for all your work planning this out.” He tries, somewhat desperately, to catch Thomas’s gaze. No luck, but his dear friend does seem, as endearingly typical, flustered under the praise.
“Your Holiness—”
This he cannot stand.
“Your Holiness?” Vincent cuts him off. “Thomas, please! Am I not Vincent to you, anymore?”
The title which fits him so poorly most days cuts him like a knife on the lips of his most cherished friend.
Why? Why, Thomas, do you reject me so?
“Yes—yes, of course. I’m sorry, Vincent.” Finally Thomas looks straight at him, but there’s no comfort here. The other man looks miserable.
Oh my darling.
“Thomas,” Vincent begins, trying to be as soothing as possible, “Please, won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
Will you tell me why you’ve drawn away from me? Did I do something? Have you—guessed?
Thomas opens his mouth as if to speak. And closes it. Closes his eyes and turns away.
Vincent is nearly ready to cry.
“I cannot…” Thomas finally begins, eyes still closed. “I don’t know if I can say this and look at you.”
“Close your eyes, then. Say anything you’d like, only talk to me, please,” he begs. “You can trust me.”
“If I trusted you less, I would not be here at all.” A sad half-smile. “First I think I need to apologize. I know I’ve been hurting you—being distant. I thought maybe you wouldn’t notice, or mind. I should have known better. I should have talked to you sooner, rather than treated you this way.”
So it has been deliberate. Vincent hasn’t been overthinking things.
“I have missed you, these past few weeks,” Vincent confesses.
Thomas winces. “I’m sorry. I’m not so good at hiding my own feelings. Avoiding you was the only thing I could think to do.”
And now Vincent is just confused, but thinks it best not to interrupt, not now that Thomas is finally talking to him.
Eyes still closed, Thomas continues, haltingly. “I was avoiding you because—I am in love with you. I'm sure that's not at all what you thought I would say. I would never have told you. I’m telling you now not in hope of any kind of reciprocation—I know you do not, could not. But I’ve handled it badly, of course, in trying to remind myself that I don’t deserve—anyway. I need you to know that it’s nothing that you did. That made me so distant.”
Oh. Oh, my darling. Sweet, suffering, brave Thomas.
“Or rather, it’s nothing that you did other than be yourself.” The words seem to come easier to Thomas now. “Because I love you. And there’s no other explanation I could try and give other than this truth. And you are accepting of all manner of things. Even, perhaps, the idea of a priest in love with his pope. Falling in love with you was the easiest, most natural thing in the world and this doesn’t feel like a sin, it feels like a gift. To know you and be close to you and to love you like I do. So I do not think you will shun me or hate me for this. Because you have always only ever led with understanding. If I loved you less I might be—truly afraid of what you might do or say. I'm not afraid, I’m only nervous. Because I’ve never felt like this before. But I know what this feeling is, and it’s love. I’m in love with you. Even if nothing will come of it. I love you and I’m so sorry for pushing you away.”
Vincent has, in the past eight months, accepted the papacy in a just a few syllables and given speeches heard around the globe. And yet knows the next words he says will be the most important ones he has ever or will ever say. So he takes a moment to breathe and give thanks that he is so blessed to be able to say them.
He reaches out and gently turns Thomas’s face towards him. Thomas’s eyes finally open and Vincent looks and looks and looks.
“What a precious miracle is this,” he says. “To learn that the man whom I love, loves me.”
Shock and then an aching hope crosses Thomas’s face. Then there’s nothing to do but kiss him on the mouth, which Vincent, radiantly happy, does.