Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

+++

Cardinal Lawrence can work miracles.

He always has.

His birth was an easy one. He was his mother’s second child and she had demanded an epidural for him. She raved afterwards about the ease of the process, how well she recovered afterward, and assured her friends that a second baby would be easier than the first, and sang the praises of pain medication. She held Thomas in her arms like a point of pride and smiled at him. “I swear,” she says, “it didn’t hurt at all.”

Thomas’s sister is rambunctious and wild. She sprints through the fields and forests around their house, tumbles down gravel bridleways, falls through rotting wooden fences, and tears her clothing on the loose nails. Thomas, four years younger and clumsy and shy and scared, follows after her, dogs her steps, and grasps her hand whenever she deigns to let him hold it. She comes home covered in dirt and with holes in her shirt and briars in her hair and smiles, without a scratch or a bruise or a cut.

“Aren’t you blessed?” her mother grumbles. “One of these days, you are going to fall down and split your head open, Good Lord.”

“I don’t care!” she exclaimed, happily and childishly defiant. “I don’t care! It never hurts for long.”

Thomas is a crybaby. His mother frets over him. He trails after his wild older sister and gains bruises and scratches while she goes unscathed, and he whimpers and cries in her arms and then still insists on following her out the back door the next day, if their mother lets him. Some days, she doesn’t.

“No,” she says at once. “You are not bringing Thomas to the creek. Under no circumstances.”

Her daughter stares up at her, one hand holding on to Thomas’s determinedly, her lower lip jutting out. “He wants to see!” she defends.

“Not without an adult, and I can’t today,” she sighs. “It’s dangerous, baby. Thomas doesn’t know how to swim. What would you do if he fell in? What would you do?”

Thomas is six. He’s too big for his sister to carry, but small enough to be swept away by a creek. His sister wavers. “But it’ll be fun, and he’ll miss out,” she wheedles with less passion. “What’ll he do all day around here?”

Their mother huffs good-naturedly. “I imagine he’ll keep me company,” she says, turning to her gentle son. “Grandmummy and Grandpa are visiting tonight, baby. Do you want to help Mummy cook dinner?”

Thomas doesn’t have many words. He nods.

His sister disappears out the back door with a goodbye, her mother’s words following her out to be careful, to be home before five. Thomas holds her hand and they stand together in the doorway, waving together until she is out of view.

“She’ll be okay, Mummy,” Thomas murmurs. “And I didn’t really want to go, anyway.”

She loves them. She loves them both so much. Her wild girl and her easy baby.

They dance together in the kitchen while she cooks and Thomas helps where he can, and entertains and keeps her company. Thomas tends to be solemn, too somber for a child, and she worries about him. Their priest has only good things to say about his behavior, and mostly bad things to say about his sister, comments that make her smart, but she worries for him. She worries that he will struggle to make friends in school, and that he is too serious, but he still giggles with her and toddles after her, and she prays to God that He will take care of her baby.

They are making soup. She is cutting onions. The radio is loud and they dance together on opposite sides of the kitchen, Thomas ferrying potatoes between the cabinet and the counters, two at a time, one in each of his small hands. The knife slips on the papery onion skin and she gasps before it touches her skin. Both of her hands fly into the air, pulling away from the knife so quickly that it spins off the counter and clatters between her feet. She notices two things first: Thomas on the other side of the kitchen, far out of reach, and then the blood pouring from her thumb down her wrist.

“Mummy!” Thomas screams.

She kicks the knife away before he gets close, but she feels woozy at the sight of the blood. Thomas races to her. She feels too weak to resist when he, tears already in his eyes, reaches up. He takes her hand in his, pulling with childish concern. His brow, already more deeply furrowed than most children’s, lowers in fear and concentration as he brings the wound into his view. His mother tries to pull back, murmuring soothing nonsense, but her words tremble and her breath comes quickly. 

(And Thomas is scared, he is often scared, but this is the first time Thomas sees fear in an adult. He holds her hand in front of his face and sees where the skins split and the blood pools forth. He doesn’t have to think about it.)

She watches dazedly as Thomas suddenly yanks her closer and kisses her bloody palm.

She snatches her hand away with a shocked gasp, emotions caught between disturbed at the sight of blood on her son’s lips and wavering affection for his attempts to comfort her, mostly startled, but Thomas lets go easily this time. He gasps as well, his free hand flying up as his eyes overflow with tears.

“Mummy,” he says, and the tears pour down his cheeks. He thrusts his own hand into the air between them. “Mummy, it hurts!”

“Oh, oh no, did you- Tommy-” Her head swings around as she searches for the cause of his pain. But the knife is across the kitchen, lying innocently under a cabinet. She sinks to her knees and takes his hand, parental instincts kicking in as she checks the hand he is waving through the air and peers at it, searching for injury. Thoughtlessly, she raises her other hand, bloody, to his face and goes to wipe away his tears before she freezes. Thomas sobs, throwing his arms around her and pressing his bloodied face into the curve of her neck, and over his shoulder, she stares at her hand, raised in the air, not returning the embrace.

It is still covered in blood. She feels dizzy. It runs down her arm, has stained the frilly cuff of her elbow-length sleeve, and drips onto the floor. And then, the blood stops dripping. Stops gathering. Stops seeping from her skin, because her skin is unbroken. As it should be. The cut that had run from the tip of her thumb down to the meat of her palm has disappeared. Slowly, shaking, she raises both arms around Thomas, who clutches her front innocently, desperately. She uses her right hand to press tentatively on the bloodiest part of her hand. No pain. No pain at all. She searches with her fingers around her crying toddler but finds nothing. She wipes away the blood as best she can and sees nothing. She lowers her hand to her jeans and scrubs down, hard, wiping away the imprint of her son’s kiss, but there is no pain. No cut. Nothing.

Thomas sniffles, squeezing her tighter when she stops responding to him. “It hurts,” he repeats.

It takes her a long time to find anything to say. “What hurts?” she finally asks, sitting in front of him as stiff as a stone pillar.

Thomas wiggles and then pulls back. He raises his left hand between them and spreads his fingers out. “It hurts,” he insists, and she feels ill looking at her bloody baby, but it is her blood. There is no wound on his palm either.

Slowly, almost as though she thinks he might disappear or explode, she wraps her arms around him again and pulls him to her neck.

+++

Thomas joins the church as soon as he can. He asks specifically for placement in Italy. His mother begs him not to go. He tells her he must. He feels, in his heart, that it is true.

Thomas’s parents are Catholic, but neither were particularly devout, and his sister easily left the church behind when she became an adult, without guilt or wonder or even concern. She just left. Thomas, consumed by riotous, relentless guilt since his earliest memories, doesn’t understand her. He envies her, of course, in quiet, sinful moments of reflection, and during prayer, when prayer is difficult and hard and unrewarding. She, likewise, doesn't understand him. She is confident, strong, steadfast. She believes the world is as it is, and God is as it is, and she can move forward on her own path. Thomas relies on, requires, something more.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding,” he reminds himself, kneeling before his bed, although his parents stopped reminding them to say their prayers years ago. “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.” He breathes deeply. Lets his breath fill the room. It becomes part of the prayer. “It will be healing to your flesh… and refreshment to your bones.”

He feels God. He feels the presence of God in his life. In his body. In his hands. In his mother’s body and her hands, and his sister’s, both of their bodies, which are entirely devoid of scar tissue and free of all wounds - the greatest blessing, miracle, he will ever perform. A hundred blessings, over and again. Thomas joins the church because he feels guided to it. And because he is afraid.

His gift is strange to him. He does not need to pray to call healing from his hands. He healed his mother and sister as a child before he truly held a concept of God in his head, much less in his heart. Thomas’s faith grows, but it wavers, and he sins, but the gift remains. It is easy. As easy as breathing. Only it never stops hurting.

He hides. His mother and his sister are his only allies in his lie, their participation unavoidable. They fear for him. He fears for himself. What might happen to him if anyone finds out? Who would take him - a church, a government, a laboratory? So they hide him, and although it tears Thomas apart, for the first many years of his life, he tries not to use his gift. For their sakes. But, sometimes, he cannot resist.

Perhaps this is why his mother keeps his father’s illness from him until it is very late. His father, who never knew, anyway. Who, Thomas thinks, would have brought his only son to the Vatican the second he learned, no matter how much his mother screamed and clawed and fought to hold on to him. His father’s faith was steady in that way. He believed in a right and a wrong, and in the immutable power of the church. His mother protected Thomas and his sister from the unquestioning, uninterested strength of that kind of faith.

Thomas is not sure what he believes. But he does.

His faith feels separate from his gift. That is the truth. But he can find no other answer, and in his fear, he desires stability, he desires doctrine, and he desires guidance. He does not believe that these are bad things to desire.

He clutches his mother’s hands. “I will be careful,” he says, “but I have to go.”

Sarah Lawrence clutches him, and when he is gone, she prays for him.

+++

His mother dies while Thomas is in Italy, and perhaps he should have expected that. His sister folds her arms around him at the funeral, both of them orphaned, but she does not say the obvious - that if Thomas had stayed, this might never have happened. They both must think it. It is impossible to avoid such a thought. It haunts him. She forgives him, and forgives herself for thinking it, and asks him to stay, but he tells her that he must return.

“I believe it is my calling,” he says earnestly. “I believe that. I feel God - I feel God everywhere. I see Him in everything.”

Thomas visits three hospitals while he is in England, with his sister and without. He goes to A&Es. He tries to surreptitiously watch patients to find easy cases to treat, but he does not know how to identify people he can help without revealing his gift, and nothing terrifies him more than revealing his gift. But for his mother, for her memory, and the memory of all that she gave to keep him safe, he tries. He is responsible for three known miracles in the counties surrounding Birmingham - a young girl who broke her leg can suddenly walk and jump and skip again, a veteran with chronic pain from his limping posture can suddenly walk upright, a screaming baby who cannot tell anyone what is wrong (whooping cough, Thomas deduces before the nurses arrive, because he had made the wise choice to study medicine in school alongside theology) is suddenly quiet and happy again.

He will leave these miracles behind. He wants to be reckless about it. He thinks of his mother and prays, hoping to hear her, for the entire flight back to Rome.

His Bishop welcomes him back with a careful, “Deacon Lawrence,” and prays for his mother with him. Thomas has great affection for the man. He considers telling him his secret. Something in him calls out that it is time, or near enough to it, anyway. He cannot hide in the shadows forever, and he doesn’t wish to. He wants to help. He believes it is his purpose.

A sign comes in the form of a woman, who should not be reduced to the status of an omen. She comes to their church late at night, screaming in a foreign language that is nonetheless universally recognizable as a call for help, and Thomas and the Bishop arrive shortly after a Sister and guide her inside and sit her down. She is hysterical, and Thomas and the Bishop know enough to keep their distance, but the Bishop sends the Sister away for a first aid kit because the woman, a refugee most likely, has been attacked in the streets and is bleeding profusely from a knife wound on her arm. The Bishop murmurs prayers and comforts and instructs Thomas on how to contact someone who can translate for the woman, but Thomas’s eyes stay fixed on her.

His mother is dead, has been dead for a month now. But Thomas still sees her every day. He sees her in his sister. He sees her in this woman. In every woman. He sees her in everything.

He reaches out, already praying for forgiveness for the way the woman flinches, and sets his hand on her shoulder. He has enough experience schooling his pain that when the profusely bleeding wound on her arm seals itself in less than a second, none of what he feels reaches his face. The burn of it. He smiles at her, gently, as her mouth snaps shut.

He forces himself to watch as her eyes fill with awe.

+++

The Bishop brings him to the Vatican. He seems dazed. He can barely look at Thomas, the young man he has sheltered under his wing for months now. Thomas leans his forehead - a high forehead, already balding, his sister teases him - against the cool glass of the car window and feels every tremble and dip of the road in his skull.

This is, actually, how he has always imagined meeting the Pope, although it takes several days, and several other meetings, before he finds himself sitting in the office of the leader of the Universal Church, head bowed as low as he can force it, exhausted and terrified beyond belief.

“You claim to hold the power of God and Our Lord Jesus Christ,” the Pope says.

Thomas shakes his head fervently, eyes fixed on his hands folded tightly in his lap. “No,” he croaks. “No, I have never claimed that.”

His Holy Father, Pope Paul, asks Thomas why he revealed himself and why he kept himself secret before. He tries to explain. The Holy Father tells him that fear itself is not a sin, but fear that prevents correct action is one. He tells Thomas he should not fear the church if he has nothing to hide, and Thomas agrees. He asks Thomas if he is willing to prove his gifts before the discerning eyes of the Vatican, and again, Thomas agrees. He tells the Holy Father that he wants to live a life of service, but he does not know how.

The Holy Father promises to help him. 

The trials commence. The bishop leaves. Others are brought in. Testimonies are given. Proof is required. Thomas is left in a room beneath the apostolic palace, and he spends upwards of eight hours a day in desperate prayer. The tests occupy the rest of his time.

They learn a lot. Thomas’s gift is not limited to humans, although somehow it feels more outside the natural order to heal the hind leg of a dog struck by a car than to do the same for a person. He cannot regrow limbs or organs. He comes to think, and the others agree, that Thomas can restore a body to its natural state, however vague and unsatisfying that explanation sounds; he can expel invasions such as viruses and bacteria and bring bones, skin, and muscle together. He can disappear scars and cleanse the lungs of smokers. In some cases, he can restore sight to the blind and the Deaf, but not in all.

A blind man, blind from birth with undeveloped ocular nerves, receives Thomas’s prayer without knowing why he has been granted an audience with the Pope and those closest to the Pope, but he is a fervently devout Italian Catholic and is reverent in the opportunity. Thomas can do nothing for him, but this man - it makes his stomach churn that he was brought here under false circumstances, but also he has no wish to raise false hopes for his faulty gift - is all gratitude. “For we walk by faith, not by sight,” he says earnestly, blinking rapidly and squeezing Thomas’s hand so tightly that his fingertips start to tingle. Thomas imagines that it is something he has said - or been told - many times.

A young woman, equally devout, and Deaf from a young age but not birth, is brought in. She is all cheer and brightness, but she is equally uninformed. Thomas tours the Museums in the morning with her and her interpreter, and in the evening brings her to meet the Pope and together they say a prayer with her (the Pope insists that he must be present for any potential miracle; perhaps, Thomas thinks uncharitably and asks forgiveness, he wants to be able to claim credit. He dismisses the thought. It is sacrilegious, and besides, is that not why he came to the Vatican in the first place?)

Thomas takes her hand, but he finds nothing to heal within her other than sore feet from a day of walking, and he is relieved that he is not forced to change her request. He soothes her soles, doubling the ache in his own feet, although he is now very used to being on his feet for long days, and it does not bother him. He is becoming very used to pain, although it never dulls; he wonders if he feels the pain in proportion to how it is experienced by others. The Dean of the College and the Pope’s Secretary of State, the chief parties in charge of these ongoing tests, argue about why Thomas was not able to heal her, they say, and eye him suspiciously, because she was born hearing and in others cases it seems that Thomas’s gift was to restore what once was. A perfect state. Like Rapture. Thomas, who had watched the woman greet her family in sign language in St. Peter’s Basilica, all of them chatting at once, happy and thrilled and fulfilled, has his own suspicions, but he cannot put them into words, and he does not voice them.

The trials go on.

Cardinal Lawrence cannot resurrect the dead. “Some miracles are reserved for the Lord,” the Dean says. Thomas thinks they are relieved when the dead man stays dead. Or, he might be projecting. He feels unclean and unworthy. That night, he takes a shower so hot that his skin stays a bright, angry red for hours afterwards, and the delicate sheets on his bed feel like sandpaper.

One of the few people they bring in with foreknowledge of his true purpose there is a young priest from Venice. Tedesco, they tell him, suffers from recurring stomach ulcers. They want to see if Thomas’s abilities will cure only his current affliction, or solve whatever underlying problems cause them to continuously rupture.

Tedesco smokes like a chimney and keeps his small eyes locked onto Thomas whenever they are in a room together. Thomas tries to avoid his gaze when he can. Tedesco is not the kind of man he would have preferred to reveal his gift to, if he had a say in the matter, but of course, he doesn’t. If Thomas were allowed to pick the candidate or know anything about them in advance, it would affect the validity of the results. That makes perfect sense, he reminds himself.

Tedesco arrives on the morning of the test. He reports that he has been up all night vomiting blood. Thomas, dressed in plain clothes, is supervised by a dozen men older than him, all of them ordained, many of them highly positioned in the church. They watch as he reaches out and presses a hand to Tedesco’s shoulder. Tedesco watches closest of all.

Thomas’s gift does not give him knowledge, exactly. It does not tell him what precisely is wrong - which specific bone of the twenty-seven in the hand is broken, which muscle in the leg has been strained or torn,  what the scientific name of any given bacteria is. But there are broad strokes. Tedesco’s stomach is bleeding. Thomas heals the wound. Tedesco inhales. There is a foreign entity in Tedesco’s body. Thomas’s brow furrows slightly. He keeps his eyes closed so that he does not have to see Tedesco’s narrowed eyes. Foreign invasions - infections, he translates for himself, from the innate awareness that he has been given of what has been changed about this body from its natural state - are more difficult for Thomas than mending bones and sealing wounds, even more difficult than replenishing lost blood and healing scars, but it is still the work of seconds to eradicate the infection. Thomas coughs, once but loudly, as his stomach suddenly roars without complaint, but it will pass. He lets go of Tedesco before he opens his eyes. There was a blister on the heel of the priest’s right foot, but Thomas had left it alone.

They ask questions. Endless questions. He answers honestly. He has to. This is his purpose on this Earth, he is certain of it, to do this duty for mankind through the guidance of the church. But he is exhausted.

He understands their diligence. At night, and at other times, Thomas is locked into a well-appointed apartment with two bookshelves and a television, without a phone, or windows. He is left alone for long periods. They do not allow him to contact anyone outside of the Vatican for obvious reasons. It is their responsibility to understand these miracles. It is Thomas’s responsibility to subject himself to their diligence.

He is lonely. He is bored. The boredom exhausts him while driving him to distraction. The refugee entered their church in mid-spring, just after Easter, and so the days literally grow longer around Thomas, although he does not see the sky most days. He prays. He weeps. He gives confession every opportunity he is given and admits to his weakness, his longing, his doubt. He recites his Hail Marys in penance and prays that he will be stronger. He reminds himself over and over again that he understands.

The Sisters who deliver his meals and clean his room, sometimes while he stands awkwardly in a corner and watches them, not wanting to be in the way, are occasionally his only company for days on end. Sister Agnes, in particular. She makes it a point to speak to him, to hold a conversation over something - anything - even though the only things Thomas can ever contribute are tidbits from the books he has read or the films he has listlessly watched. She gives him news of the outside world, and he hungers for it. She begins to seek out news of English affairs in particular, for his sake, and he thanks her on bent knees.

She forces him up and leaves him, always.

He does not know what the Sisters have been told. He imagines that from an outsider’s perspective, it must seem like he is a prisoner, if a voluntary one. He reassures himself that he is nothing of the sort. But he also keeps company with the Pope, the Dean, and the Secretary of State. Sometimes, they dress him in fine, white clothing.

His Holy Father, Pope Paul, is stern. He warns Thomas of the sin of lying, of perjury and dishonesty, and prays over him, already asking for God’s forgiveness of Thomas’s sins should he be found out as a fraud. He does not touch him. But he is also, at random and bizarre moments, kind. He gives the directive to have Thomas’s favorite meals prepared for him during the second month of observation. He permits Thomas to write letters to his sister, and later to Aldo, his closest friend from seminary school, and warns him in advance that his letters and the replies will be read. He tells Thomas that if he is true, then he is the most miraculous thing he has ever witnessed.

Thomas craves the company of the Pope, who is straightforward and not cruel. He dreads the doubtful, sneering mouth of the Dean, the hungry, eager expression of the Holy Father’s doctor, and the growing awe and adoration of the Secretary. He misses his Bishop, whom he has not seen since he was brought in. He is told that he is also under watch to see if he is colluding with Thomas.

He tells them the Bishop knew nothing. But his words have proven to mean nothing.

+++

During the fourth month, they prepare Thomas for an exorcism.

“It’s possible you wouldn’t even know,” the Dean says. He seems amused. Exorcisms are increasingly rare. Thomas wonders if he even believes such a thing is possible anymore. “You’ve been granted many freedoms and close contact with high-ranking church officials. It would be a good ruse, you have to admit.”

Thomas doesn’t admit anything. He is always being watched. By now, they know that he can do what he claims to do. They have all witnessed it, although none amongst the Curia have yet experienced it themselves. The trick now, they tell him, is to determine where his gift - his ability - comes from. If it is good. If it is holy.

“If it can be replicated,” the Dean admits once.

Thomas is given a strict regimen of prayer. He adheres very closely to it. There is little else to do. They bring in theologically trained psychiatrists and therapists whom he speaks to often, whom he must tell his entire life story to. He detests it more than anything else. But he is honest. Honesty. It is what is required of him. Sister Agnes brings him tea in the evening, and he takes it with shaking hands and still does not sleep. He has begun to have terrible nightmares. He begins to worry that he may be possessed - the Dean is right, after all, how would he know? - and so he submits as lowly as he can, but he cannot go much lower.

The exorcism occurs at the beginning of the fifth month. They will perform three versions on him, on three different days. He is dressed in robes blessed by the Pope. He is sprinkled with Holy Water. He is brought into the center of St. Peter’s Basilica, a building which he visited when he first came to Rome and which was so beautiful that it brought tears to his eyes, and he is tied down firmly to a table placed under the dome, in the center of a church built in the shape of a cross.

They pray over him for hours from the many suggestions in De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam. Thomas lies, restrained, holding his muscles as still as he can so they will not mistake any accidental twitch or shuffle as a sign of a devil within his body rebelling. He aches - he never knew it was possible to feel such pain from lying still - but he commits himself to not showing or mentioning his suffering, lest they think it is demonic. He is given the Eucharist on his back. He is careful not to let it choke him.

They look him in the eyes, bent over his supine figure, and address him, “Vade retro, Satana.” He keeps his eyes open, watches the clerestory windows overhead, and prays with them.

At the end of the three days, he is untied for the last time and helped to his feet by the deferential Secretary. A nun is led into the church. Sister Agnes. She has had the fortuitous unluckiness to have cut herself slightly in the kitchen. Without explaining why she has been brought here, the Pope calmly asks Thomas to demonstrate if he still retains his power, or if it has silently fled from him along with the presumed Satanic presence.

“May I see your hand, Sister?” Thomas asks her, his throat dry and cracked from disuse and little water.

Silently, she offers her hand. Again, his fingers tremble. The cut, at least, has stopped bleeding, but no one has bandaged the wound.

Thomas feels unprecedented relief when it closes. His knees nearly give out on him. “Thank you, Sister,” he murmurs.

Slowly, she takes her hand back. Around them, the Cardinals bustle and discuss like clucking hens - next steps, always next steps. Sister Agnes looks at her hand, and looks at Thomas, and the men around them, and the table with its restraints and his bare feet and bruised ankles.

She folds her hands against her stomach and prays under her breath. She does protest when Thomas sidles forward and joins her.

Still, that night, Thomas is locked in his room again.

He is not released until the end of the sixth month, when he is reunited with the Bishop and ordained so fast it makes his head spin. He takes his Holy Orders without complaint. He is assigned within the Vatican and is suddenly free, holding the key to his own apartment, which he can barely stand to lock the doors of at night, but eyes follow him wherever he goes. He calls his sister and she screams at him over the phone for five minutes before he bursts into tears and thanks God, thanks God, thanks God to hear her voice for even five minutes more.

He reunites with Aldo.

“But what happened?” Aldo insists despite Thomas’s poor attempts to rebuff the questions. They sit together in a cafe, outside, al fresco. Thomas had insisted on it, and when he hesitated at the doorway, like he often does now, foolishly, Aldo had gone inside without a word and ordered for both of them. Now he grips Thomas’s wrists tightly across the table, leaned forward, eyes desperate and scared. “Thomas, what on Earth? Your letters - I was so worried.”

“And I’m sorry for that.” He holds Aldo just as tightly. “I am. But there was nothing to be worried about, it was only - only - I cannot say much, for it was in the service of the Holy Father, but-”

“And did the Holy Father hold you prisoner?” Aldo hisses, but quietly, and both of them glance around. They are in Rome, a block away from the Vatican, and they have both dedicated their lives to this. “Because - because, Thomas - because even if he is the - there are still laws, still-”

“No, Aldo,” Thomas says. “No, nothing like that. I was only sequestered for my education, for my position - training. I spent most of my days praying and was allowed few distractions. That is all.”

“Position,” Aldo repeats dumbly, and Thomas winces, because even when lying on behalf of the Pope, he does a poor job of it. “Position.”

Aldo never accepts his lies, but he accepts Thomas. One day, Thomas thinks, he will know, but the Holy Father controls that. He has pledged his life to the Throne of the Holy See and the Curia, and Thomas is twenty-three, but he imagines he will die here, or at least at the Pope’s side.

He starts as personal secretary to the Secretary of State but they promote him quickly, first to Monsignor. Aldo, without help from God or a personal relationship with the Pope, rises just as fast, and Thomas watches him with awe and guilt and gratitude, and asks for forgiveness for all three.

Thomas spends most of his time in the heart of the Curia. The Holy Father commands his ability. On his weekends off, Thomas leaves the Vatican without asking permission. He visits hospitals, like he did after his mother’s funeral. He learns how to be subtle and discerning. His soul calls out for him to help whomever he can, and he fights against his fear to do so.

He attends to the Holy Father’s every need. Some people talk of the vivaciousness of the man, how he moves without pain or limping despite his age. Some people speak of Thomas, young but hunched on alternating days. He lives to serve. He travels with the Holy Father often and sees the world on these tours, more than he ever hoped to see. During one of their trips, the papal doctor who had overseen Thomas’s testing and trials falls ill and dies in the span of forty-eight hours. Thomas was sent home by the Holy Father but did not make it in time. He cannot resurrect the dead. He kneels over the doctor’s body and feels guilt for the dislike he felt for the man while he was alive. He prays for him, and not for himself. He will have time later to confess. This man will not.

When he opens his eyes, Sister Agnes is watching him from the other side of the deathbed. 

“The doctor,” Sister Agnes tells him, her shrewd eyes watching him closely, “he begged and begged. Lawrence, bring me Lawrence, but he would not say why. Day and night, he insisted that you be brought to him. He became violent in his delirium. He was desperate to see you.”

“Why would you tell me this?” Thomas croaks.

“So you remember,” she says, and bows, and leaves.

+++

Decades of service.

His ability never wanes. Never falters. There is no space, no room in his life for anything but the church, and what it demands of him. Perhaps it is better that way. He does not have enough space as it is.

Thomas knows that he is not doing enough, and yet he fears, more than anything, being known. Now more than ever. Now, he knows what comes from being known. By the Holy Father’s grace, he can keep his anonymity. When he begs and pleads for the privilege, he is allowed to go out on his own and work by his own discretion - a miracle in itself.

He is careful in the hospitals. Though it pains him more than taking on any injury, Thomas has to be so delicate and so particular about who he chooses to help that in his worst nightmares - when he can manage to sleep, which is not every night - he pictures himself burning in Hell for eternity. Penance, for all those he walked by.

But he must help, and he does. He cannot intervene in criminal cases, lest he destroy necessary evidence, so frequently he cannot help victims of abuse or violence - he does not even know what would happen if he healed someone with a bullet wound. Would it be expelled like an infection or destroyed like a virus? Or would the body heal around it? Would his healing abilities extend to any side effects of this, or not? Thomas cannot, ever, subject unknowing people to uninformed experiments of those trials, and none of his Brother Cardinals have been shot, and so he does not know. He might never know. Another concern is treating people who have already been diagnosed - too many miracles, even in the Holy See, and someone will notice.

It is difficult to manage, but manage he does.

He finds women in ERs crying from pain and asks to pray with or for them. If they allow it, he takes their hands and soothes their stomach cramps, or eases a miscarriage, or cures a case of endometriosis before it can be diagnosed (if it ever would be - unfortunately, many of the people that Thomas can help are people whose doctors are failing them). He offers a handshake to those suffering from migraines and watches them blink in confusion first, and then relief. He favors babies and young children, those who cry and weep and scream but cannot communicate what is wrong to their frantic and desperate parents, who very often accept Thomas’s offers of prayer or comfort. Infants are the easiest, because even their more severe diseases can be explained - a fever was just a fever and it broke, and perhaps it was nothing more serious than that. The baby sneezed and coughed, but Thomas fixed their tonsillitis or rid them of diphtheria before a doctor ever saw them. A colic or teething baby may be soothed for a few days, if not forever. 

Sometimes, all Thomas can do is ease the pain for a time. Kidney stones that pass with surprising ease, a non-smoker’s hacking cough that relaxes for several days, a respite from illness associated with chemotherapy that will return the next time the drugs are administered. He cannot reverse aging. He has never tried to cure cancer, and he has not attempted to restore sight or hearing to any person since the Holy Father first asked him to.

Thomas meditates on how his Catholicism, visible in his dress and foreign voice, affects these proceedings. Many times, people deny his offer of prayer, and he has to respect that, although he searches for other reasons to lay his hands upon them with their consent - a handshake of understanding, a high five or fist bump to a shy child when a nervous parent would rather not have a stranger grasp them. He understands. He attempts to administer his ability equally to all, regardless of faith. The work soothes him as much as it pains him.

It is painful.

The pain never goes away. It hurts him every time. But the pain is internal, completely. And he learns how to feel it internally without showing any sign of it otherwise. The nurses at the nearby hospitals come to recognize him, although the doctors don’t. Some of them, he thinks, might suspect that his prayers are a more powerful tool for clearing out emergency rooms than those of other priests. Not one of them says anything to him, but in the Ospedale Cristo Re and in the Clinica Samo, a few of the nurses - only one of whom wears a cross - quietly direct him to specific patients. He helps where he can.

Often, following his days at the hospitals, he is indisposed. Exhausted and ill. He thinks that if he spread out his work over more days, then the effects would hit him less brutally, that the pain would not be so entirely debilitating for upwards of twelve hours after his longer tours, but he simply does not have the time. The Holy Father and the Curia demand his attention, and he can only manage to spare two weekends a month for most of the year - one day for healing, and the second for pitiful, lonely recovery, yet again locked away in his room, with the lights off and a trashcan near his bed.

In some ways, knowing that he has become wanted, not just wanted but instrumental within the Curia for more than just his preternatural ability, is comforting. He has become well-known for his managerial prowess and his stamina. He is one of many young men in the Vatican who sprint between buildings, assisting the more elderly members of the Curia. Monsignor Lawrence officially works for the Secretary of State but is known to be a close associate of the Holy Father and several Cardinals. More than one hundred of them, and fewer than twelve know his secret, but many more know his name. Know that he is capable, efficient, and pious. A holy man trusted by His Holiness.

And that is a comfort.

Thomas is tired. He has nightmares. Sometimes, in these nightmares, he dreams that he never left the locked, windowless room where he waited for six months. Sometimes he dreams about his mother bleeding out on the kitchen floor from a knife wound while Thomas stands, pressed against the counter far away from her, too scared of the blood to come nearer.

The papacy employs a robust staff of doctors and nurses, most of them devoutly religious themselves. It is a necessity; it takes many, many years to become a member of the Curia, and they do not retire at the same age as other men. As holy figures, God’s representatives, it is important that they receive optimal healthcare. Optics are very important. The sanctimonious men and women of the church often pray for refugees and immigrants, the impoverished and the addicted, those who receive no care at all from their government, which subsidizes their own bimonthly check-ups.

Thomas works closely with the papal doctors and frequently deals with the matter of optics. The Holy Father does not want to reveal Thomas’s abilities (which is a rare relief to him; he is a tool to be used by the blessed hand of the Pope, but he is grateful not to be used bluntly, or for popularity). The Holy Father understands that. He thinks it does not matter. That the majority of the world would dismiss any claims of Thomas’s miracles as a hoax, no matter how often they were shown proof, and the rest would believe him, but call him unnatural, ungodly.

Thomas wonders if there have been others like him. Five hundred years ago, he would have been a saint. He is glad that he was born in this era.

Thomas reckons daily with the reality of serving at one man’s behest while an entire world stretches out, suffering. He prays for guidance, and sometimes feels compelled to stay on this path he has chosen, one where he can use his unique abilities to maintain the well-being of important people, who do important, necessary work on the planet. The Holy Father is a complicated man, but Thomas likes his politics. He negotiates on behalf of occupied countries, decries segregation and apartheid in the Middle East and Africa, preaches tolerance, and listens when women address him; this is the bar that is set in the Curia. But there have been worse, and likely there will be worse. When the Holy Father steps onto the global stage, he does it with firm, good intentions that speak for mercy and the advancement of all peoples. When Thomas kneels beside him and reverses his liver failure (and vomits into his mouth, and swallows), he enables these actions. This work.

When the Holy Father brings him to suffering Cardinals, or sometimes doubting Cardinals, and uses his command over Thomas to heal them, or restore their faith through demonstration, he enables them also to do the work of God in the world. To heal the sick and wounded. To build hospitals. To shelter abused women and children. To take in those who are lost, and teach, and guide towards a happier path.

Thomas struggles with his faith. He struggles with the Bible, and the church most of all. But he believes, ultimately, that in its current iteration, which is vastly different from iterations of the past, that it does good. Individuals within the system do good. Thomas lays his hands on these individuals.

Like Cardinal Angelés’s beloved niece, who falls fatally ill with pneumonia on her first visit to the Vatican, which Angelés had publicized broadly to his diocese. Thomas is woken in the dead of night and chauffeured to the Domus Sanctae Marthae. The crying Cardinal opens the door, shocked by the midnight arrival of Monsignor Lawrence when he was expecting a medical evacuation team, and does not understand when Thomas insists he be let into the room. The Holy Father arrives shortly thereafter, and Cardinal Angelés acquiesces. Thomas is let in and swiftly finds the girl’s bed and kneels beside it.

She is close to death. Sometimes, Thomas imagines that part of his ability grants him the power to sense when death is near. Sometimes he thinks this, other times he is not sure. The Holy Father is growing old. Thomas suspects that something is being kept from him. Something small and distant that he wondered if he sensed when he healed His Holiness’s liver. But God’s will be done: if His Holy Father chooses not to tell Thomas, then it is not his place to take action, not over another person’s body. Everybody dies.

But this girl is young. New to the world. She is sweating, and crying, and in pain, and she calls out in Spanish for her mother. Thomas, takes her hand and prays over it, although he doesn’t need to.

The Holy Father’s reasoning for sanctioning this visit, this use of his powers, does not matter to Thomas. What matters is the brown eyed girl who sleepily, confusedly (always, they are confused) blinks up at a stranger with sudden clarity as Thomas falls back heavily on his heels and struggles to breathe.

+++

The Holy Father dies.

The Holy Father is elected, and dies, and is elected. 

On it goes. Thomas becomes a Bishop, and when the Holy Father dies again, the Holy Father is elected again, but this time, the Conclave elects a man that Thomas does not know.

The new Holy Father is from Brazil and has served his entire life in South America. Thomas has met him on occasion during his duties, both in the Vatican and in the broader world, especially when he has traveled with his preceding Popes. Aldo knows him better, which Thomas is grateful for, because by now Aldo is a Cardinal, and also knows Thomas’s secret.

Thomas was not given permission to heal Aldo after his friend’s first heart attack. He did not ask for permission, either. He simply did it. He explained through tears the secret he had held all his life. He begged for forgiveness.

Aldo has not had a second heart attack. He tells Thomas that he voted for the new Holy Father from the very first round, and admits that he is being considered for Secretary of State, but promises that if Thomas wishes to keep his ability from the papacy - the first time he has ever had the choice to do so - he will be at his side.

Thomas knows that it is not really a choice. The Dean of the College is still alive, although he cannot hold his position for longer than a year or two at most, if that. The papal doctors, the men who have led the Vatican’s and the Pope’s personal healthcare teams, have always been let in on this impossible secret, and will certainly feel morally compelled to tell the Holy Father the moment he experiences any ailment. Aldo knows as well. And there are others. Some Cardinals were still present from the time of Thomas’s trials, who prayed over him or saw his ability firsthand. Others, like Angelés, who Thomas had been directed to assist in times of injury to them or their families, a blessing, a reward for service, a moment of God’s mercy, doled out by his representative on Earth. Others still were promoted after the fact. Tedesco. Patriarch of Venice. His eyes still follow Thomas around the room whenever he sees him, always smirking, always smoking. He makes sure to tell Thomas, every time they meet, that he has never had another ulcer. He also comes to Thomas with every nick and scratch and bump and insists on receiving his care. His abilities. Thomas, though he dislikes the man, cannot deny any who ask for his help. His guilt, which already eats him alive, does not allow him to.

He tells Aldo, “We cannot allow a man like Tedesco to have access to a secret that the Holy Father does not,” and, “I was placed on this Earth to serve the Throne of St. Peter. I believe that, Aldo.”

“I know you do,” Aldo says, serious and even. They are beginning to be old men, the two of them, but Thomas feels much older. “Of course you do.”

Aldo and Thomas share the pain of a self-inflicted wound against a forearm, kneeling before the Holy Father. Thomas confesses the full and unaltered history of his services to the church - things which he has never admitted before, and feels Aldo growing tense and furious at his side. He tells the Holy Father how he has pledged himself to the Holy See, how he has always asked for guidance on how best to administer his rare ability to the flock of the world without revealing himself. He tells him that some of the papal doctors are aware of his abilities, and that he has contributed to the longevity of the Popes before him and hopes to extend this pontificate as long as is natural.

The Holy Father takes his hand and holds it. His palm is warm and dry, and strong. He is a quieter man than those who came before him. “My child,” he says, “we are all blessed.”

+++

Thomas becomes a Cardinal. He is relieved to find that he is certain of the belief that he is elevated because of his dedication to the church, and not because of an ability he was born with that he has gone more than fifty years without understanding.

He works closely with this Holy Father, but it is different from before. This Holy Father encourages and facilitates Thomas’s quiet visits to places that desperately need him. When they travel, Thomas often accompanies him as he has before, but instead of nervously keeping Thomas within arm’s reach, the Holy Father sends him out into cities. To shelters. Camps. More hospitals. Schools and nurseries. The Holy Father makes these arrangements, and then makes sure that Thomas is cared for the day after when he recovers from all the pain, all the suffering and illness and disease that he has subjected himself to feel. Dissolved from the world.

It is good work.

Thomas does not feel God in it.

He feels God in the Holy Father, who he grows to love, and to adore, perhaps more than is appropriate. But the Holy Father is good, gentle, and kind. All of the Popes that Thomas has served have been moderate or liberal-leaning, all of them working in small but crucial ways to push the church forward into a new era, but the Holy Father is beyond all of them. He is radical, they say, because he believes in the faith and worthiness of women and queer people, and lobbies for environmental reform, and enforces true consequences against those who use the church’s power for evil means. He appoints princes of the church across the globe, believing all places deserve and require people from their communities to lead them and provide them with divine guidance. He crusades vehemently against corruption within the Curia. He preaches tolerance. He loves all people. He tries to believe that Hell is empty.

Thomas sees him as a man of God, and he feels his connection to the Holy Father, but now he doubts that he has any connection at all to God himself. It is foolish. Hard to admit, even to himself, and for a long time he does not. When he touches someone, he can heal them. It is an indisputable, unexplainable miracle. How can there be space for doubt in the face of evidence like that?

Because God does not lie in evidence. Faith is not built on what he can see. For Thomas, unlike most, this is a harder truth than the reverse.

Thomas begins to feel adrift. The Holy Father begins to feel ill.

Finally, under the strict instruction of the head of the Pope’s medical team, the Holy Father submits himself to Thomas’s powers for the first time in his entire pontificate. Thomas finds himself grateful to serve in this way, a dedication that has never wavered. He has known since he was a young man, since before seminary, that his faith might fluctuate. He thinks of sin and swallows guilt and self-loathing. His life, his body, his hands have been dedicated to the church, but his mind has wandered. But this is something he can do. There is faith enough in this.

He kneels before the Holy Father, who grumbles that it is unnecessary, and takes his hand, intent. Though he does not need to, Thomas prays as he reaches out with his amorphous, untested sixth sense, looking for things he can make right, ways to help the Holy Father, this representative of God, the successor of St. Peter. He murmurs the Lord’s Prayer, hoping to find meaning in the words he has recited a million times, as he soothes every ache and every joint, every sore muscle, both tired eyes, as he reaches deeper and deeper and finds something unfamiliar and wrong within the Holy Father’s body. For a moment, Thomas’s words falter. He comes up against something that resists him - no, that is the wrong word. Like how it felt to try and heal the Deaf woman who did not need his services, or the blind man who was made how he is meant to be. There was simply nothing there to touch. But this time it is different, and Thomas knows it intuitively. Instead of pushing, he pulls, and feels it give way and surge outwards.

The Holy Father sighs, and then laughs, as if startled by the sensation of relief.

Thomas coughs.

The cough is sudden. Loud. It comes with a wave of pain, another awful cramping of his gut. It comes with a wad of blood spluttering up at the back of his throat, spraying over the white garments of the Pope in a fine mist, and a clot, heavy and thick like dehydrated drool dripping down Lawrence’s chin, which hangs open in horror. Not because of the pain. He cannot tear his eyes away from the blood on the Pope’s Cassock.

The room is silent. Then, “Thomas,” from the Pope, more shaky and uncertain than he has ever heard it. His hand comes, shaking, to cup his cheek, but Thomas resists the pressure that attempts to tilt his head upwards.

“That has never happened before,” the papal doctor murmurs.

Thomas pulls away from the holy hand touching the side of his face with fear and concern, so reminiscent of the way his mother held him once, and curls over his body, which suddenly aches down to his very bones. He is afraid. 

Cardinal Lawrence can cure cancer. He can cure a person of cancer, at least. His greatest miracle yet.

Aldo is a comfort to him during his treatment, during a time when the Holy Father is both incredibly busy and when their relationship is understandably strained. They pray together often, but for months, they hardly exchange a word. Thomas has forgiven him, and absolved him of needing forgiveness. But it must still stand between them.

If Aldo suspects why Thomas, who had not been experiencing any symptoms prior, suddenly decided to get a cancer screening in the middle of the year, two months ahead of his usual doctor’s visit, he does not voice it. He gives the same quiet platitudes as everyone else - It’s good it was caught early. It will be okay. You will be okay. I will pray for you. Thomas visits his sister before he begins chemotherapy, and tells her the truth, and thinks for a second that she might strike him when her eyes well with tears. Instead, she takes his hands in hers.

“It’s good to feel pain,” she says. “It’s good to be injured, and sick, and still have to force yourself to think about other people. I didn’t learn that lesson at the same age as everyone else - because of you, Thomas - but I think I learned it more powerfully.” They have lived apart for most of their lives now. She has scars that she doesn’t want Thomas to take away. She is a mother, and submits to having him look over her children - to ease an anxiety of anything truly sinister which might linger, hidden - but demands that he leave the scratches and bruises and runny noses alone. “We’re human,” she says. “All of us. We have to feel it, sometimes.”

Being sick, abnormally, reminds Thomas of his months spent in isolation, locked away indoors and out of sight. Knowledge of the cancer spreads throughout the Curia - how could it not, when the College runs so poorly without the Dean there to oversee every action? During this period, Thomas finds and promotes Raymond O’Malley, who becomes his trusted right-hand and a phenomenal agent, but who is only a man. And that is good, as well.

During the worst months, Thomas’s illness makes him so sick that he is not strong enough to do his usual rounds throughout Rome’s hospitals. He prays for forgiveness. He hears nothing.

He has not heard anything in so long.

He goes into remission through the work of medical professionals and decades of research and dedication by people around the world, some of faith, any number of faiths, some of none at all. He begins to heal. He returns to the hospitals. Prayer does not return to him, and he cannot find forgiveness.

On bended knees, he asks the Holy Father to accept his resignation.

“I want to return to England,” he says, eyes already watery. Did he cry so often and so easily when he was young? He’s not sure. “I feel I cannot serve the church any longer.”

“Thomas,” the Holy Father sighs, “all you have ever done is serve.”

It is all you know.

“I cannot pray,” Thomas admits, shame rising above all other emotions. “I cannot - I cannot hear God. I cannot see Him. Please, I - I would like to leave. To reconnect. I feel I cannot do so within the church.” He struggles with his words but says, “It is killing me, to lose faith. It will kill me.”

A hand settled on the apex of his skull, in place of the absent zucchetto he clutches between his fingers. The Holy Father exhales, and he sounds tired too. “As Jesus said to Thomas, you know - ‘Be not faithless, but believing.’” And he bends down and takes Thomas’s hand and places it on his chest, as Jesus instructed the first Thomas to do after the resurrection, to feel his wound with his hands and see that he was really dead, and really alive. The Holy Father knows his liturgy well. But it brings Thomas no comfort.

“Please,” he said. “I - I am tired. I do not belong here anymore. I can help no one when I am in such a crisis.”

“My child,” the Holy Father says, neither gentle nor cold, “you can help anyone you wish to.”

Thomas begs. Pleads. The Holy Father denies and denies and sends him away.

He has pledged himself to this man, and the seat he holds. The Holy Father may refuse his resignation, but Thomas is an English citizen, and his sister would never turn him away - she would scream and shout for joy if he turned up on her doorstep with nothing but a rosary. She would storm the Vatican herself if she ever thought he was being held against his will again. She has warned him of this many times. He makes sure to stay in regular contact.

He could leave. But he cannot. He cannot defy the Holy Father. He cannot. Prayer, faith, God, the church, his abilities; they are entwined and diverging and Thomas feels caught in the riptide, drowning. He reaches out a hand to the Holy Father, begging him to pull him to shore, but the Holy Father only says, “Swim.”

The Holy Father dies. He must be elected again.

Thomas’s eyes won’t stop watering, but he cannot cry. He folds himself as small as he can and scratches his hands with how hard he clutches them. He utters endless, meaningless words to himself, regurgitating and vomiting beautiful words, but he has known what real prayer feels like, and it is not this. There is no comfort in this. He tries anyway. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

+++

Thomas puts his hand on Vincent Benítez’s shoulder. He wakes this secret Cardinal gently, feeling guilty because he recognizes the exhaustion on the man’s face, although he envies his ability to fall asleep where he is. Thomas struggles to fall asleep even when he has been awake for days, on a comfortable mattress in a dark room. Benítez had fallen asleep on an uncomfortable chair, slumped against a wall, in dust-covered clothing in an unfamiliar building in the twenty minutes it took for someone to find Thomas, his fingers still wrapped around a rosary. Thomas regrets that it took twenty minutes. He regrets that he cannot be everywhere at once.

What a foolish old man he has become.

Benítez wakes gently. He finds Thomas’s eye and smiles, automatic, and kind. Thomas believes, as he said to Aldo, that although the circumstances are bizarre, this man has a legal right to partake in the conclave, which is why he is here. As soon as his eyes find Benítez’s, sees the calm and gentleness in them, he is glad. He would have welcomed another conservative member of the Curia if they had the right to be there, but he is relieved to recognize something of the late Holy Father in Vincent Benítez with that first glance. He feels familiar.

Thomas returns his smile.

+++

Conclave.

The windows shut. The doors click closed. Cardinal Angelés seizes his hand and prays his thanks over Thomas outside the buses that will shuttle them between the Sistine Chapel and the Domus Sanctae Marthae. Tedesco smirks at him knowingly, but Tedesco would never reveal Thomas’s secret. He knows what outcome that would lead to. He corners Thomas in an elevator, makes paltry, joyous chit-chat, and when he departs first from the elevator on his floor, leaves his hand in the frame to keep the door open and cheerfully says, “Oh, and Thomas, perhaps now is the time to give a little reminder, eh? ‘Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others.’” He grins, wide and sharp, finishing: “‘Keep yourself pure.’” He walks away whistling. Thomas’s hands curl into fists, and he forces his breaths to stay even.

But it is Adeyemi’s words beforehand - the claim that he should “offend no one” - that sparks life into Thomas’s tired fingers. Perhaps it was a mistake, and this is why he is punished with five votes cast for his name. It feels punishing to hear his name called out each time. He expected only one: Angelés. No other member of the current voting Curia is as devoted to Thomas’s abilities as Angelés, and Thomas had internally expected and accepted his wasted vote as it was due.

Five is a disaster. If those five had gone to Aldo instead, he would have been in the lead in the first round. Sabbadin, who doesn’t know his secret but would likely still cast his vote for Aldo anyway, looks betrayed. Villanueva, who knew the previous Holy Father before he ascended and was inducted into their secrets, avoids Thomas’s questioning gaze.

Ray tells him that the only information he could find about Benítez was medical concerns that almost caused him to resign. Thomas feels a surge of desire to reveal himself - something he has not done purposefully in years. He has no Holy Father now to direct his abilities. He could do it. He considers it. But Ray tells him that the late Holy Father was the one who convinced Benítez to continue his important mission and ministry. The Holy Father had made less use of Thomas’s abilities than those who came before him, but he was not a man who would completely deny a tool given to him by God. Thomas senses that he cared for Benítez. If it had been serious, he would have requested Thomas’s assistance.

Nevertheless, Thomas asks. That night, finding Benítez amongst the turtles feels kismet. How often has he knelt next to the pond? He asks, “And your health, how are you bearing up?”

“My health is perfect. Thank you,” Benítez says. His answer is prompt and firm, refuting further inquiry, but Thomas doesn’t sense dishonesty in it. He also does not sense that occasional feeling he has had. The reason the late Holy Father sent him away so often in his last days.

He accepts the answer easily, but is then shocked into stillness when Vincent - he asks permission to call him Vincent - tells him that he cast his vote for him. “I am not a serious candidate,” he stutters, but mostly his shock is this: he had not imagined that anyone who did not know of his abilities - his purported miracles - would ever think to cast a vote his way. The further truth, that he feels he has lost his connection to God, lost it long before the passing of his representative on Earth, that he struggles with prayer, if not specifically with faith, is easier to explain, though even under Vincent’s understanding eyes, still humiliating.

Vincent accepts his statement, but makes no claim that he will change his vote.

+++

Aldo has criticized him - unjustly, Thomas feels, deeply unjustly, because they both know that if Thomas had any desire to be Pope, he had an easy enough way of securing at least half the Curia’s full devotion. Tremblay is up to no good, and a poor actor to boot. Tedesco, though it is not a virtue, at least is open about his hostilities. And Adeyemi….

Thomas sits in Sister Agnes’s office with Shanumi, who is quietly crying into her cupped hands. He stares at the bird Sister Agnes keeps in a cage. In the bird, and in Shanumi’s muffled sobs, he hears his mother. Singing.

Only rarely has Thomas healed wounds of a sexually violent nature. In hospitals, evidence must be left behind so those people have the option of documenting and seeking legal justice for what was done to them. Often, there are no physical wounds to heal, and he can do nothing for the mind - not his own, certainly, and not even others. Shanumi has not seen Adeyemi in thirty years. There is nothing left to heal that he can help with.

He asks for her hand. She gives it to him. He prays with her, and says that he does not need to forgive her, for there is nothing to forgive.

Then he prays with Adeyemi also. Tells him he is a good man, not because he believes it, but because he hopes that if Adeyemi believes it, he might believe hard enough to make it true. He puts his hand on Adeyemi’s as the Cardinal sobs brokenly, so much louder than Shanumi in all things. There is nothing to heal here, either.

He dreams of the Holy Father that night.

+++

Each day, they pray that the Lord will guide their hands and their minds and enact His will through them. On Earth, Thomas steers this ship and fervently attempts, with every spare thought, to pray for forgiveness for his interference.

And, for the first time in his life, a miracle comes from beyond his hands.

Birdsong and light in the Sistine Chapel.

After the explosion, Aldo helped him to his feet. Cradled his shoulders. Feared for him, and ran to him. And later, when they found time alone, Aldo reaches out and touches the cut on Thomas’s forehead, among the worst of the injuries, although they are as a collective very fortunate that no larger debris struck any members of the College, and murmurs, “If you could only heal yourself.”

“That would be against the point,” Thomas says.

Aldo meets his eyes. His glasses, unlike Tremblay’s, are intact. Thomas, as he has viewed the entire event, sees nothing but symbolism in this. Though he and Aldo were wrong to cast their votes for Thomas, Aldo is paying attention, now, to what is in front of him. Benítez has spoken, broken his silence and made himself heard, and healed something wounded inside Thomas that no one else had been able to reach. What we do next. The next vote, only hours away, will determine everything. “Does it?”

“Yes,” Thomas says, firmly. “One cannot share a burden with oneself. Alone.”

“No,” Aldo says, “I suppose not.” He glances away, shaking his head, and then snorts, amused. “A Hell of a burden, though. You know, if you went out there right now, walked straight up to Benítez and all our injured brothers, held out your hand-”

“No,” Thomas says firmly.

“-you would be Pope before noon.” Aldo snaps his fingers, acknowledging what he had blinded himself to only the night before. “It would be yours. Like that. And maybe it should be.”

“We’ve already learned this lesson, I should think,” Thomas responds, voice cooling.

Aldo laughs again. “I suppose we have. Maybe I’m wrong, anyway - wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe they would accuse you of witchcraft or possession and throw you in the catacombs.” Idly, his hand drifts to the small table separating their chairs, and the familiar chessboard set up there. He fiddles with the Queen. “I’ve been wrong before.”

“We are none of us omniscient,” Thomas murmurs. “I’ve had my share of secrets. I want no more of them, if I can help it.”

“You have secrets of your own,” Aldo pointed out.

“And…” Thomas falters. Aldo’s eyes return to him, the Queen lifted. He clears his throat. “And, when I reveal my secrets to His Holiness, whomever it will be - if it is as I hope… will you - I would ask-”

Aldo grabs his hand so suddenly that he forgets to drop the chess piece. They hold the piece between themselves and indent its shape into the soft flesh of their lined palms. “Of course I will be there,” Aldo says. “Of course, my friend, my brother. And I promise to defend you from any accusations that are lobbied against you, witchy or otherwise.” He grins. “We can’t have you getting exorcised again, can we?”

It has been thirty-five years since he was exorcised, but Thomas still cannot smile about it.

+++

“Innocentius.”

God guides their hands. Or human men, making a difficult decision, somehow make the right one.

Nothing is left, in this moment, which needs healing.

Chapter Text

Vincent Benítez has experienced his fair share of miracles.

“You are special. So, so, so special,” he remembers his mother whispering. She always whispered, but she always said what she meant, and she never let anyone silence her. “The most special boy in the world.”

She held him against her chest, arms wrapped around his head all the way, so that they fully encircled his skull and her hands rested against his temples. She pressed kisses into his hair. His father watched them from the small kitchen table, resting his chin on his hand. He smiled, but his eyes were sad. Vincent smiled at him, hoping to cheer him up, and his father slowly shook his head. Outside the unshuttered windows, he could hear his sisters screaming with laughter and rolling through the tall grass in the yard.

They had just told him that he was going away. “You are so well behaved in church, and you pay so much attention in Sunday School, and you are so kind to the other children, and polite to all your elders,” his mother had whispered, already teary, “that Pastor Paz is going to pay for your education. Isn’t that wonderful? You are going to school, baby. You are going to have a lovely bedroom with air conditioning, and you will only have to share with one boy - that’s all! And they will pay for your meals, and you will have so many friends.” Vincent just stared up at her, so she played her trump card. “There will be a wonderful library,” she said, taking his hand. “Full of books. You can read them all.”

He wasn’t sold, although that came close. She wrapped him up in a hug.

He was going away to study and pray and learn with other children, none of which bothered Vincent. But he would be away from his family for most of the year, and not close enough to visit on weekends. Away from his mama and papa and his sisters. From his church, and his library, and his community.

He would have refused if his parents had not already been crying.

“Okay, Mama,” he said, hugging her back and finding another smile for his father. “Thank you. I will thank Pastor Paz as well.”

“So special,” his mother said. “You are a miracle, Vincent. Never forget that.”

+++

His parents live good, long lives. They send four of five children to college, and the fifth travels the country in her car and sells art out of the trunk and is the happiest of all of them - and they are all very happy.

A miracle, no?

Vincent chooses to see miracles everywhere he goes. He makes this choice, consciously, every morning, and it betters his life every time he does.

+++

He smiles at the Cardinal who awakens him in this little side office where confused and bustling Monsignors had deposited him. His smile is automatic, but not lacking in kindness.

The Cardinal smiles in return. It is a tired smile, a little weak. He wears an expression that says he would have preferred not to have an in pectore Cardinal added to his full plate, but also that he will not take out his frustration and exhaustion on Vincent. All of that, carried in a small, brief smile that pulls at the corner of his lips and dimples the wrinkled corners of his eyes. Cardinal Lawrence has an expressive face. To Vincent, at least.

+++

Vincent Benítez says his first prayer standing next to Cardinal Lawrence and hopes that there will be many more to come. Lawrence’s introduction was factual and straightforward, but under the glaring eyes of a hundred Cardinals, surveying him and questioning him, some, he is sure, hating the sight of him, it felt kind.

Lawrence guides him to a table of mostly Central and South American Cardinals, which at first he thinks is presumptuous, even a slight against his English. A look around the room, however, quickly confirms that in the Conclave, though diverse in race and ethnicity at a glance, groups keep to themselves.

Either way, Lawrence brings him to a table where he is greeted warmly and treated kindly. And it is nice to speak Spanish, admittedly, after so many years away from his first home.

“Cardinal Angelés, Brasília.”

“Cardinal Villanueva, Peru - Archbishop of Lima.”

“Cardinal Ector, Argentina. Metropolitan Archdiocese of Buenos Aires.”

“Cardinal Benítez, Kabul,” Vincent says, emphasizing the city name with the same dramatic gravitas that Lawrence had spoken with, and the table chuckles good-naturedly, many of the men eyeing him with interest. Vincent turns his attention to the meal before them; it is a habit that he will never be able to break, but he cannot ignore food when it is freely offered. “But please, call me Vincent. Thank you for welcoming me.”

“Of course, of course,” Angelés said. “It is always a delight to have another brother. Where are you from, before Kabul?”

“Baghdad, and the Congo before that, but originally Mexico - Mexico City in fact.” The room around him settles into a comfortable, happy susurrus of chatter. Vincent finds his eyes drawn to the nuns who linger around the edges, the only silent bystanders, and he feels a sympathetic and sharp pain in his chest. He offers a second prayer for them over the already blessed meal that one day, things will be different. He hopes that they are content and fulfilled by their labor and devotion.

“Magnificent!” Angelés said. “I have only spent time in the Philippines, personally. I should have travelled more when I was a younger man,” he says wistfully.

“You have been saying that for twenty years,” Villanueva says.

“Much younger, I mean!”

The table laughs. Vincent settles a little, although it is a difficult task amongst so many powerful strangers. He searches the rooms for the only faces he recognizes: Cardinal Bellini, who is deep in conference at the far end of the room, and Cardinal Lawrence, who is sitting stiffly beside an Italian-speaking Cardinal. Vincent feels briefly overwhelmed by the difficulty of this task. From amongst these men, he must find someone to cast his vote for. He knows only about five of their names.

“It must be shocking,” Villanueva says knowingly, drawing Vincent back to the conversation. He nods easily because it is an easy admittance. “You should not worry so much. For many of us, it is also our first Conclave. We are all learning together. It’s very archaic, isn’t it?”

“Thank you,” Vincent says genuinely. “It is… already, it is fascinating.”

More chuckles. “You are braver than I am,” Angelés said. “I think I would not have come, not as my first duty in public as a Cardinal.” He leans in, half-conspiratorially. “I was very shy when I first took my oath. I might have waited for things to calm down before seeking an audience with the new Pope. You are admirable.”

“I felt it was my duty,” Vincent says, “and that the Holy Father, may his name be numbered amongst the holiest of men, wanted me here. I felt it was my duty to him.”

“Ah,” Villanueva says, an approving gleam lighting up his hazel eyes. “You are a liberal, then?”

“Oh, no,” moans Cardinal Ector, although with a begrudging and good-natured air. “Don’t give him the whole spiel, not before dessert!”

“Vincent is young, and new, and he both deserves and requires our guidance,” Villanueva says patiently. He extends his hand across the table and shakes Vincent’s. “I mean that sincerely. We will happily inform you about the current speculations within the Curia of likely candidates for our next Holy Father - for all parties concerned,” he says, cutting off an objection from Ector.

“I would be most grateful,” he says. He has nothing to hide. Neither did the late Holy Father. “I imagine that many here will find my politics distressingly liberal.”

“Brother!” Angelés declares happily, and Ector rolls his eyes at the man, but no one shuns or dismisses him. That is comforting, at least. He wonders if it is graciousness for his newness, loyalty to their shared continental origins, or a genuine reflection of the Curia’s tolerance for each other. That could be good or bad. After all, Vincent has little tolerance for people with hateful views.

“Aldo Bellini,” Villanueva says seriously. “Italian American. He was the late Holy Father’s Secretary of State,” he crosses himself, “and was much beloved by him. He is the favorite of the liberal candidates. Many of us have agreed to vote for him and canvas on his behalf.”

“What does he stand for?” Vincent asks.

“Continuing the Holy Father’s work, and advancing it. Reform of the church, primarily, overturning corruption, and a tolerant approach to divorce, contraceptives, and homosexuals.” From the corner of his eye, Vincent sees Cardinal Ector make a face at this list. Villanueva, sitting across from Ector, must see it as well, but they do not acknowledge it.

“Cardinal Adeyemi,” Ector speaks up, pointing to a man who is surrounded by a large gathering of Cardinals, “is another front runner. I would say moderate.” Villanueva shakes his head and sighs. “Cardinal Tedesco, a conservative. He, like many, wants to see the heart of the church brought back to Italy, and a return to the Latin liturgy.” At least Ector does not seem to think highly of this. “Who else?” he hums, glancing around the room.

“Lawrence,” Angelés says at once.

Villanueva sighs. Ector laughs outright. “You and Lawrence!” he says. “No, do not let Michael lead you astray, Vincent, Lawrence-”

“He is well-known, popular, and extremely experienced as Dean of the College,” Angelés responds.

“So is Bellini,” Villanueva says, not as vehemently as the others. “Perhaps even more so, as Secretary.”

“Well, we know who these two are voting for, don’t we?” Ector jokes, nudging Vincent in a friendly manner. “I prefer to keep things close to my chest.” Demonstrably, he pats the front of his cassock, beside the cross that hangs down his front.

But Vincent is interested in the now murmured exchange occurring between Angelés and Villanueva. “Why do you prefer Cardinal Lawrence if Cardinal Bellini is already such a favorite?” he asks.

Angelés and Villanueva both look up. There is a meaningful pause. Vincent tilts his head slightly to the side. He reads something immutable in the air between them. Something that he imagines will remain unspoken.

“I believe,” Angelés says, “that he is the right choice. That is all.”

Villanueva shakes his head but his eyes flicker out around the room, not to Bellini but to Cardinal Lawrence.

The Conclave already has as much intrigue and secrets as Vincent had dreaded.

+++

He understands Angelés's passion the next morning, when he listens to Cardinal Lawrence’s moving homily.

He feels struck, like a still-ringing bell, by the sermon.

Certainty and doubt.

It is a courageous speech, delivered to powerful men from every corner of the Earth who are uninterested in hearing it. Even Bellini, Vincent sees afterwards, gives poor Cardinal Lawrence a look of displeasure. And, Vincent sees, Cardinal Lawrence delivers it because he is brave. And he is doubting. And yet - in his own words - he is carrying on.

The homily strikes a chord deep within Vincent. He knows it will stay with him for years - no, until he dies.

It soothes him like prayer does. And he has found someone to vote for.

+++

Vincent knows for a fact that in the first round of voting, Angelés votes for Cardinal Lawrence alongside him. And the others, five total, he cannot know for sure, but he believes that he is correct in identifying the other eyes which follow his Brother Cardinal around the room. Not merely admirers of his beautiful homily, which had moved Vincent so deeply and so personally, though Lawrence has no way of knowing why. Angelés and a few others in the Conclave watch Lawrence as they might watch God. As if he is already their Holy Father. His limited votes, which allude to his politically unlikely journey to the papacy, dissuade them as much as they do Vincent: that is, not at all.

Lawrence’s following grows. Vincent believes that it is for more than just his careful, worshipful stewardship and upright, pious practices, but he cannot make out the reasons. Instead of focusing on this, Vincent remains steadfast, and when Lawrence continues his plight to make Vincent change his vote to a more likely candidate, he holds firm and does not let Angelés’s name slip. He is new and aware that he does not have the full context of the Conclave and its implications to the media, but Vincent allows himself to feel the blessing of hope. The miracle of it. Even if it takes weeks, he can envision the steady accumulation of votes. He can envision Lawrence in a white cassock.

He pictures, and later dreams, of him with slumped shoulders. Sad eyes. A dutiful, loyal tilt to his mouth. He will be a good Pope. One of the best. And it will make him miserable.

Vincent prays for guidance. He prays more for forgiveness. He understands the burden that his firmity places on Lawrence, now as he struggles to redirect the flow of support, and more in the future. But he is here to be guided by God’s will to pick His Holy representative, and he cannot ignore the belief in his heart that was put there by Him.

+++

Thomas finds him admiring the turtles. They had startled Vincent, and then delighted him. Thomas stands on a balcony above their pond, but it does not feel like he is looking down on him.

Tremblay finds him the next day. “Ah, Cardinal Benítez, was it?” he says, holding out his hand with an affable grin. He is quite a tall man. He stands a little too closely when he speaks with people, Vincent has noticed, as though he wants to emphasize this advantage. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Cardinal Tremblay.”

“Oh, please, Joseph. We are all brothers, are we not?”

This comment, more than Thomas’s inquiry after his health, almost chills him. Already he knows that these men are devious, they are conniving. They watch Vincent, interested to see only where he falls along party lines. Only Thomas has been interested in watching the turtles with him.

“I hope you won’t think me presumptuous for asking, but I did wonder if you found someone you felt comfortable voting for.” A smile. He tilts his head like a patient teacher talking to a child. Vincent is hungry and wishes he could leave for breakfast. “I noticed that there was a vote for you, hm?” He chuckles.

Vincent has no explanation for the single vote cast his way. He supposes that possible candidates are another liberal Latin American bishop who would rather see someone like Vincent take the papacy, or a cardinal of Middle Eastern or African descent who has heard of his ministries and appreciates his work and expertise. Most likely, however, it was a throwaway. A joke, or a private rebellion. A name to write down while waiting to see the outcome of the first tally, something that wouldn’t influence or sway anyone.

Tremblay thinks Vincent wrote his own name, and he openly finds some amusement in the thought. “My brother,” he says, and Vincent begins to walk slowly, softly forcing Tremblay into movement; he does not want to be late to breakfast and hold any of the sisters up. “You are new, and I would like to offer what guidance I can. I have much experience with the Curia.”

Vincent is uninterested in Tremblay’s experience. He listens to the man prattle on, the inelegant way he steers the conversation toward a recounting of his own votes and the bare-faced suggestion that Vincent vote in his favor unless he definitively finds a candidate he likes - which Tremblay assures him will only keep the refinement of votes and popular parties moving along without delay, but which Vincent does not have to be cemented to. This ploy is not very convincing.

“I did find someone to vote for,” Vincent tells him when they reach the dining room. “I have found the man I believe will be the best pope, and I have voted for him. Please, enjoy your meal.”

+++

The one thing Vincent finds he does enjoy about the Curia is the conversations he has with engaging, intelligent Brothers (the cardinals, the priests, the monsignors who flit about) and quick-witted, studious Sisters. Vincent, like all of them, has studied theology all his life. Often, the people he works with require physical aid, first and foremost, and only then spiritual aid. His congregation in Kabul is as devout and worshipful as any in the world, he knows it, but they are guided by faith before they are guided by scripture - it keeps them alive. Vincent is happy, however, to speak with people who have had as much opportunity and theological education as he has, many of them more. At mealtimes, they debate everything from the Book of Ruth to the ordination of women. Some make good points. Many push back on Vincent and have liturgical reasons to back up their stances. A few are interested in what he has to offer, but they do not treat his speeches like sermons, but rather dialogues.

It is wonderful, both fulfilling and challenging. Among equals, Vincent does not consider what consequences it might have.

After the fifth ballot, Vincent has six votes.

+++

The Conclave is disappointing. Given one word, that is how Vincent thinks he would describe it.

Or disheartening, perhaps. It is sad. There had been times in his past life when he had questioned where the late Holy Father focused his attention; to Vincent, in the destructive and war-torn worlds of the Congo and Kabul, where people had to fight so hard to be gentle with one another, the Holy Father’s dedication to undoing corruption in the Curia had seemed so much less urgent. He understands at least a little better now.

Many of these men he has spoken with. Eaten with. Walked with and sat beside. Some listen, some do not, and Vincent avoids speaking in front of crowds but he never hides his voice. He is like his mother, in this way, and in others.

When the bomb went off, he felt as if he had awoken. He thought, with absolute certainty, that it had all been a dream. He believed that he was in Kabul and that he was about to die.

The bomb reverses time and condenses it. He is in Kabul, and Baghdad, and Congo, and Mexico City as a child, slamming his hands over his ears as the neighbor's car backfires and frightens him into his mother’s warm embrace. He is watching people die, watching their bodies burst into grey matter, watching blood seep into dirt that has thirsted for blood before, watching men jerk backward as bullets slam into them and children thrown off their feet by the force, and Cardinal Lawrence collapse onto marble. He watches but can do nothing to help until he realizes he is not asleep and has not been asleep, and then he stands and begins to administer what immediate first aid is possible and necessary to the Cardinals around him. He sees Bellini tending to Thomas. That must be enough.

And still, these men have nothing but their petty and cruel squabbles. They do not care that people are dead. Not really. He thinks that Thomas must have had a list of the names, for he knew the exact number, of the fifty-two who perished in attacks that would not have occurred if not for the pomp and circumstance that Rome elevates this holy ceremony to. But nobody asked for the names.

How could he remain silent? What did they know of war?

He casts his vote for Thomas one last time. He is sure, certain, Angelés does as well. And there is a little comfort in knowing that even without two votes, there are enough good men in the Conclave that, when pressed, more than two-thirds pick the side of love instead of hatred. What a small comfort it is.

Only one thought makes him hesitate. Not the consideration of his body or womb, which he is at perfect peace with, nor his desire to return to Kabul - that became all but impossible the moment he decided to attend the Conclave, and his name was published in the papers of attending Cardinals. But he wonders if, if he holds out, if he denies this appointment - if the next vote will raise Thomas up in his place.

He prays, under the eyes, the waiting eyes, of the Conclave. Vincent prays with his eyes open, on Thomas’s face. It is the happiness he sees there, the mutual belief reflected between them, the faith that they have in each other, that brings the word to his lips, “Accepto.”

Thomas will be with him, he knows. This is the enlightenment that God grants Vincent. He feels God’s will enacted. And, if he can spare Thomas the burden on this post, then he will do so, and be content.

+++

It has occurred to Vincent that Thomas, doggedly and tiredly seeking secrets and demanding truth from the other contenders, might come to know his secret. He had known it the second it happened, he believed. That was why he awaited the Dean in the Room of Tears. He had known, with certainty like faith, that he was coming and had been ready to receive him.

Thomas stands above him, looking down now. And then he walks away and sits, as though he cannot bear the weight of Vincent’s confession. Not confession. He has nothing to confess.

He sits in front of Thomas. Though he knew this was coming, he did not prepare his words in advance, yet they come to him because he feels he has nothing to hide and only honesty to offer. The greatest truth of all, “I am what God made me.”

Thomas stares. Then, shakily, he smiles. “We all are,” he says, and stands abruptly, scrubbing a hand down his face that pulls sweat from his brow and wipes the smile away. “It will be a great risk to you,” he says, referring to the possibility that anyone else may come to know, and unconsciously admitting that he will not be the one to tell.

Vincent rises with him and watches Thomas anxiously begin to putter about the room, neatening items left out by the attendants. “My faith has always been a risk,” Vincent says. “It is not more real because I have been threatened for it, but it is strong regardless.”

“Good,” Thomas says simply. He stops. Wrings his hands. “Vincent - my dear Vincent - I apologize, Innocent, I should-”

“Vincent. Vincent is always fine. It has always been my name.”

“No, no, I must begin practicing.” Thomas is backing toward the door now and Vincent cannot help the overwhelmed, amused smile that splits his face, or the quiet, terrified laugh which breaks free from his lungs. Thomas stops again.

“This is a lot,” Vincent says by way of apology. “But I am ready. I am. Thank you: I would not be here any other way.”

“Vincent,” Thomas says, as though he has already forgotten his own decree. “I hope you know… for any number of reasons - numerous, really… you are a miracle.”

His breath catches. “My mother said the same thing to me, once.”

Thomas smiles. Vincent loves his smile. “So did mine.”

+++

Cardinal Lawrence and Cardinal Bellini accompany him back to his room after the longest day in Vincent’s lifetime of long, trying days. After the Apostolic Blessing, when he worried for a moment that he would pass out from the appalling sight of the crowds gathered beneath the loggia, when for so many years he has sequestered himself for his safety and that of his flock: after he is brought to the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran and takes the cathedra, body shaking as he sits upon a throne that is hundreds of years old, if not older, he does not know, imagine all that he does not know, and meets the shaking, reverent Rector Archpriest: after he has met with a thousand (it seems) other regal and intimidating religious and political officials who have flocked to Italy, awaiting this moment. Some of them can barely repress a sneer at the sight of him.

It is difficult and weary work, but he accomplishes it. He delivered his first address in Spanish. He held out his hands, knowing that many would be shocked - stunned, even - to see a brown man; it would likely be the very first thing they noticed about him. Vincent is aware of this, and it makes him sad, but it brings him joy to know that he will be the first, but not the last. Firsts are powerful things, but a barrier once broken never needs to be broken again.

It is not even particularly late when he is allowed to retire. He asks to be returned to his rooms in the Casa de Santa Marta, and this request is obliged. His position means that no matter how hard and frequently he skirts or defies tradition, few are willing to question him. Especially when the former Secretary and the Dean of the College stay close to his sides, guarding and advising him, and give whatever necessary formal orders are required to finally end his day. They come with Vincent, who has to admit that the vestments of the pope are more comfortable than he expected, especially after Cardinal Lawrence instructed the attendants to let Vincent keep his Converse on, and he invites them inside his apartments.

“Let me make you tea,” he says, practically begging. “If I have to spend the rest of my life being waited on hand and foot, I will go wild.”

They finally agree and sit awkwardly on the sparse chairs and furniture. There is something heavy in the air. Vincent wonders, uncharitably, if Thomas has already taken the initiative to share his secret, but he dismisses the thought. More likely, they are here as representatives of the liberal Cardinals, perhaps to ensure that Vincent will keep their appointments in high offices, or suggest others to replace them. Tomorrow, he will temporarily confirm Bellini as Secretary to keep the affairs of the church in order - he has no current plans, or truly understanding, of who he might replace Bellini with, but he is more than comfortable keeping him on. And, truthfully, Thomas’s friendship with the man speaks highly to his character in Vincent’s eyes. More astutely, he knows that he will need as many men with experience around him as possible, since he himself has none.

He brings them tea on a tray. The meditative act, combined with the warm air and the earthy fragrance, has already soothed him considerably, and he smiles as he places the tray on a small side table. His room is not meant for hosting, but he has offered more in worse circumstances, and he will make do.

“Now,” he says, uninterested in stalling further. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

Thomas and Bellini exchange a glance. The air is heavy between them. Thomas’s knuckles are pale where they grip the armrest of his chair.

“Is something wrong, my friends?” Although he should, as their religious leader, give them equal accord, he cannot help but direct the question more toward Thomas.

Thomas, at least, meets his eyes. Across the short space between them, Vincent can see his throat bob as he swallows. Bellini, apparently interpreting this as a sign that Thomas intends to hold his silence, sighs heavily and begins to speak, but Thomas cuts him off quickly. “Holy Father,” the Dean murmurs, releasing the arm of the chair to clasp his hands together. “You have shown great trust in me today,” he says, skirting an admission he will not mention in front of Bellini. “I have - I would like - I have a confession to offer you. Not of a sin,” he hastens, “but of a secret. Long held.”

He stands. Bellini follows. Vincent feels like he is an actor in a corny movie, perhaps one where demons are real and all Cardinals are secretly martial arts masters who hunt them to the ends of the Earth, and he is about to be inducted into their secret society. “I don’t want to alarm you, Your Holiness,” Bellini says. “I have a small kitchen knife in my satchel.” He had left it beside the door, far away. “Do I have your permission to retrieve it?”

Vincent wonders if he is foolish for giving it. He wants to keep his eyes on Thomas, but knowing that the other, less familiar man in the room is now armed with a weapon, he is unable to avoid following him closely. Bellini returns to their circle - Thomas’s face looks very white, sweat at his temples in the lowlight - with the knife held awkwardly out from his body, movements slow. He shows it to Vincent when he resumes his place at Thomas’s side.

Then Cardinal Bellini pushes up the heavy fabric of his sleeve and slices neatly through his own flesh, discarding the knife on the side table in the same moment that blood wells.

Vincent launches to his feet, beyond disturbed and almost beyond words, one hand reaching for the wound, the other already flung out, a moment away from calling the guards before Cardinal Bellini can do himself any more harm.

Thomas’s hand reaches Bellini first. He takes him by the elbow as Bellini grimaces but turns toward him, having expected and awaited this. It is Bellini who says, “Thomas, wait. Your Holiness, please, just a moment before you call for help. Will you inspect this wound?”

“Cardinal Bellini,” Vincent says, immediately taking the arm which he and Thomas both hold now. “Why have you done this, my good man?”

“Please, just,” Bellini sighs, “I know we’re being dramatic, but just look at it.”

There is a considerable amount of blood, and although it reminds him of terrible things, Vincent has been a field medic for many years. Gently, with his fingers, he inspects the wound, peers closely to see how deep it runs, and determines if stitches or bandages alone will suit. Bellini has not cut himself very deeply, but the forearm is rich with veins and it will scar. He covers the wound with one hand, raising the other to Bellini’s elbow, where he grips even tighter to slow circulation and blood loss. He turns to Thomas. “There is a first aid kit in the bathroom,” he tells the Dean, “beneath the sink. Please bring it out for me, and if you would, find gauze, an antibiotic ointment, and-”

Still, it is Bellini who speaks. “Please let go, Your Holiness,” he says. “Thank you, I do appreciate it, and again, I’m sorry for this, but another moment and we can explain.”

“Thomas?” Vincents says. It is a question, although he does not know the words that go with it.

Thomas nods. That is enough. Vincent uncovers the wound, but keeps his hand at the Cardinal’s elbow. Bellini nods. “Now, watch.”

Thomas is still holding his friend’s arm, all of their hands sticky with blood that still flows. Still flows. Until it does not.

At Bellini’s instruction, Vincent watches the cut. The blood is not so thick that it obscures it completely, and so Vincent sees the moment - an infinitesimally brief moment - where the split skin seems to reach for itself. Like an invisible thread pulling together two sides. The skin refolds over the exposed layers beneath and shuts completely, leaving behind no scratch, no burn, no scar, nothing but blood.

Vincent steps back.

“From a very young age,” Thomas says, speaking again at last, “I have been able to heal the wounded. Cure the sick. Tend to ailments and injuries with nothing more than a thought. When I was six, my mother cut herself rather badly on a kitchen knife - rather like that one.” He gestures to the knife Bellini had discarded, which is sharp enough that there is no blood on the blade. “I grabbed her out of fear and kissed her hand, trying to comfort, and the wound disappeared. I have been able to do this all my life. It drew me to the church. It has kept me here.”

Later, Vincent will suppose that he should have spent more time wondering if it was a hoax. A prank or a test or something crueler than that. He is younger than many of his fellow Cardinals and has unfortunately seen such bizarre and mean-spirited tricks on the internet and television, and later his mind will spin over the possibilities of hidden cameras and debasement.

At the moment, this does not occur to him because he is looking into Thomas’s eyes.

“You should have been Pope,” Vincent says with breathless terror. And then he drops to his knees, crosses himself, and presses his forehead to the ground before Thomas’s shoes, murmuring rapidfire prayer beneath his breath as his mind spins with thoughts of miracles, revelations, shame, and how he will manage to abdicate his position of Pope as a pretender heir of St. Peter.

He hears the protest that Thomas’s body makes when he collapses to the ground before Vincent, even through his quick, desperate Spanish. The sound of his knees crashing into wood so close to his ears is loud enough that it shocks Vincent back, making him tilt his head up in time to catch the pain that encases Thomas’s features.

Bellini swears, caught halfway to reaching out to halt Thomas’s collapse, and instead steadies his shoulders. “You are both going to break your knees doing that,” he grumbled, worried and frustrated, glancing at Vincent before returning his attention to Thomas.

Thomas catches his breath and closes his eyes. “Bones are easy.”

Vincent presses his forehead back to the floor.

Dry, thin hands take his shoulders and urge him back up almost at once. “No,” Thomas murmurs. “No, Vincent, you misunderstand.”

“You are a miracle.” Vincent remembers a beat too late that Thomas had said these very words to him, not twelve hours ago. “You are blessed by God.”

“So are you,” Thomas says, and he smiles when he does. Vincent feels the pain disappear from his smarting knees. His mouth falls open in awe. “Your Holiness….”

“Vincent,” he says, sudden and forceful, grabbing Thomas’s hands with equal fervor. “Vincent. You called me Vincent before. You must call me Vincent again. I cannot be anything but Vincent with you.”

“Vincent,” Thomas says. Hushed. Hardly a whisper.

Vincent Benítez has witnessed so many miracles.

+++

Bellini retreats into the restroom while Vincent and Thomas kneel on the floor across from one another, mumbling something about cleaning up. Vincent cannot tear his gaze away.

“I have lived in service of the Holy See for nearly forty years,” Thomas says slowly. His hands go tense, fingers straightening briefly in Vincent’s grasp, before they forcibly relax again. “It has been the work of a lifetime, and I have rarely left.”

“You have used your gift on the Popes and the Cardinals of the Vatican,” Vincent says. He is used to working in warzones, thinking quickly and speaking at the same pace as his thoughts to de-escalate situations which could result in the deaths of dozens. But he is not thinking fast enough at the moment. He feels slightly foolish for it. He has seen evidence of God’s presence in the world every day of his life; he has felt God’s comforting will every moment he has lived. To see such an impossible miracle, as opposed to the beautiful, stunning, human miracles that he has been blessed to witness over and over again - it should not stun him so thoroughly. He thought he was used to miracles. Coming from Cardinal Lawrence’s hands, he is stupefied into stillness. “You have kept them well. Healthy.”

A turn of Thomas’s lips, and he looks away slightly. Vincent wishes that he could follow his gaze, but he cannot tear himself from Thomas’s eyes. “I have,” he said. “And I give you my pledge that I will serve you, as well. Your first address was televised, of course, so I regret-” His voice breaks. He clears his throat. He still does not look at Vincent. “I regret that I cannot heal the wound you received in the bombing.” The cut high on Vincent’s forehead is nothing. It does not pain him. He cannot feel it unless he scrunches his brow as firmly as he can, and even then, it is only a scab. But the guilt in Thomas’s eyes is deep and miserable. “You will be on camera very frequently in the coming days. Its absence would be noted. But any other wound, Your Holiness, I make it my pledge to-”

“You cannot heal yourself?” Vincent interrupts rudely, but he does not want to hear Thomas’s pledge. Not when the Cardinal has bent over their joined hands to deliver it, and he can no longer meet his friend’s eyes. The position does allow him to see the wound Thomas received up close. It is not larger than Vincent’s, but deeper, and Thomas was the only member of the College standing at the moment of explosion, and the only member thrown violently to the floor as a result. His body will surely be bruised from the collision against the Sistine’s ancient floors, and he will ache. Vincent wishes he could take it from him.

“No,” Thomas says. “No, I cannot.”

How unfair, Vincent thinks. He doesn’t believe that Thomas wants to hear that sentiment, though. “You have been retained by four, five Popes, then?” he asks, a prompt for him to continue his story.

“Four.” He keeps his head bowed. “I… I came to Rome after seminary. I… had known about my abilities from a very young age, but for a very long time I kept them hidden, as well as I could. Until I figured that it was time.” Thomas is not looking at him, but Vincent senses that there is something he leaves out. He does not press. “While I was a deacon, I found the opportunity to demonstrate my ability on an injured woman. I healed her before my bishop - I felt it was time, and that God had guided her to the safety of our church so that I might help her, and push me toward my purpose. And, well, very rapidly, I found myself in an audience with the late Holy Father, Paul the Seventh. And the then-Dean, the Secretary of State, and some others. I was frightened. Terrified, of course. And honored. I felt… that it was my calling, and my duty, and I longed for guidance from the Vatican.”

Vincent lets him sit in silence for several moments before prompting, “And then?”

“They tested my abilities,” Thomas says, quickly, trippingly, “very thoroughly, for weeks - months. All manner of tests to ensure the validity of the miracles and that I was not fraudulent, and that the source of my powers was not - was, indeed, holy. It was an exhaustive process. They had to be sure.” Thomas’s words take a defensive turn. He has not admitted to any crime committed against him, but his defensiveness clues Vincent in. Without meaning to, his grip on Thomas’s hands tightens. “At last, the Dean submitted to the final test. He cut his arm, much like Aldo volunteered to do, and permitted me to heal him before the Pope. I did so. And I was ordained shortly thereafter.”

A truncated narrative of extraordinary events. It is very like Thomas, Vincent thinks, though he has not known him long, to recount his incredible life narrative as nothing more than bullet points.

“They did not reveal your gifts to the world,” Vincent says. Obviously, he does not need to ask. Even isolated from the common gossip of the Holy See, as he was through all of his ministries, news of this magnitude would have reached him.

“No,” Thomas agrees. “It has been the subject of debate for the entirety of my time in the Vatican, but always the answer is the same.”

“To hoard the power of God in his own house.”

Thomas looks up. His hands tremble. “I have tried,” he said, and stopped, but it was enough.

Slowly, Vincent nods. “You have tried,” he agrees.

They sit in silence. Thomas’s hands held in Vincent’s. Perhaps the closest to a literal manifestation of God’s will that he has ever been, in more ways than the obvious.

Vincent takes his hands and raises them to his lips, and kisses Thomas’s knuckles. “Already, I was glad, relieved, to know you would be by my side,” he says. “I accepted my post knowing that I would have your guidance, and knowing that without it, I would falter and fail. Selfishly, I knew I would ask you to continue your work in Rome - in my prayers, I have already asked forgiveness for this selfishness.”

“Vincent,” Thomas says, exasperated, “you are not-”

“We all are,” Vincent interrupts. “All of us. Only men. Only human. No more or less. What a wonderful state of affairs, no?”

“You….” But Thomas cannot finish. There is wonder in his eyes.

Incredible, that he can look at Vincent with wonder. 

“I mean, more than anything, to impress upon you your importance to me,” Vincent makes himself continue, although deep within his chest, his spirit moves with adoration of his own. He is scrabbling uphill on a surface of sand and gravel, but he must reach the top. He must order his thoughts so that he can say this most important thing. He must, and he does. “Before this. Or rather, before my knowledge of it-” As often happens when he becomes impassioned, when he must say something important, he slides into Spanish. “I suppose you have been working miracles since before I was born.”

“Vincent-”

“But Tomás, you are precious to me for more than that.” He squeezes his hands. “I understand what you meant earlier. That we are both God’s miracles. That we are both blessed. I understand. Aren’t we all?”

Heaven, in the grasp of fingers between his own.

“I thought I would stick around to verify anything Thomas said,” Bellini says, startling both of them from where he stands in the bathroom doorway. He raises an expressive eyebrow. His arm is cleaned of blood, and he had folded his sleeve in such a way that it was unstained. The only evidence now is under Thomas’s and Vincent’s fingernails. “But I’m not sure I’m needed anymore.” He looks tired. Vincent remembers that this was a man who thought he would be pope and wanted it.

“Oh, no, but my offer of refreshment was very real,” he says, although the tea is likely past tepid now.

Bellini smiles. “I believe you. Nevertheless, I’m exhausted. If you don’t need me for anything, Your Holiness…?”

Bellini leaves. It is just Vincent and Thomas, but it already feels like they are alone. “Any questions you have,” Thomas offers, but trails off.

“A million,” Vincent admits, but yawns, wide and jaw-popping. “But, alas.”

“Alas,” Thomas echos. Unlike Bellini, he seems calmer than he has in all the short time that Vincent has known him. His eyes are lit up from inside, alive. “I will leave you, then, soon. Only a few matters of work require your attention tonight, and then I will let you get your rest.”

Vincent laughs, incredulous. “Work? What work can there be now ?”

“There is always work,” Thomas says firmly. “In the coming days, much of it will be diplomatic, but one matter must be addressed first - you should appoint a new Cardinal to your diocese, or a bishop at least, and we must begin organizing greater security and safety efforts for the members of your congregation.” He is serious and unforgiving as he lays out these harsh facts for Vincent, and Vincent is, of course, grateful for it. “Your sudden elevation might ignite tempers in Kabul. We should respond quickly. I recommend continuing the Holy Father’s practice of elevating the next bishop in pectore. And I do recommend an appointment; though we will oversee the defense of your former diocese, Your Holiness, I imagine that you will want someone on the ground, with their full dedication to this project, which unfortunately you will not be able to give, I am sorry to say. A bishop might do well, but I recommend a Cardinal - the power behind the position is not just in name.”

Thomas goes on, suggesting a few candidates, but prioritizing an explanation of why such action is required and how Vincent can undertake it as quickly as possible, and even in the face of indisputable miracles, Vincent’s heart blossoms to hear the care which his friend has already ascribed to the home that is now lost to Vincent. To hear the proof of care through Thomas’s skills of management. How long has he been thinking of Kabul, preparing it for what will come next?

There is so much love in this work.

+++

So his pontificate begins.

Pope Innocent XIV gives his first mass in the Sistine Chapel, beneath The Last Judgement with sybils and prophetesses looking down on him from their perches on the roof: Michaelangelo so preferred male models that even his Biblical women are posed according to masculine forms, and so the Libyan Sibyl and the Delphic Oracle have corded muscles, broad shoulders and thick necks beneath their soft, caring faces. Vincent feels the weight of them above him, and their grace in the unfiltered sunlight that slants through the broken window behind him. He feels that God has always meant for him to stand here. He knows it.

+++

This is a period of adjustment and planning. At Thomas’s suggestion, his first orders involve temporarily confirming Bellini as Secretary (both Bellini and Thomas insist that this be temporary, as the entire world and certainly the Conclave are aware that he has only met Aldo very recently, and he should not make it seem like he intends to wholly recreate the late Holy Father’s pontificate, but distinguish himself as an individual) and makes his first appointment to the senior clergy - his replacement in Kabul. Vincent did not work there alone, of course. He appoints his friend and right-hand, Bishop and Prelate-elect Jacob Marudo, in pectore. Jacob is less accustomed to Church politics than even Vincent, and he is a medical doctor as well as a spiritual leader. Vincent’s people will be in good hands, and he mourns them and hopes one day to see them again.

Like his predecessor, Vincent decides to remain within the Casa de Santa Marta. The Apostolic Palace makes his skin itch. It better serves the world as a museum and a library, and at his behest, Thomas makes a note to start the process of reopening rooms and wings that have long been closed to the public. Thomas insists that he move into a larger set of rooms, which Vincent accepts with less protest than anyone seems to expect, but really, did they believe he would object to having his own kitchen again? Even in Kabul, if he wished to prepare a meal for himself, he could do so, and he will not give up these little freedoms. He is pleased that the late Holy Father set a standard of modesty with his choice of apartments and the discarding of some of the traditional vestures. It makes his transition easier, and very little does.

Mostly, of course, Thomas.

Thomas, Thomas, Tomás .

“My dear Vincent,” he says. He put up less resistance to using Vincent’s given name than he expected, and it is delightful. Maybe they are both more malleable than the other suspects.

Vincent has celebrated his first public Masses - held in St. Peter’s Square because even the Basilica could not hold the number of expected visitors - and he is shaky and exhausted. A sea of exultant faces turned toward him and God. His sisters scream at him in Spanish when he calls them in the evenings and laugh hysterically. Vinnie, the Pope! Pope Vinne! Unbelievable! He always stole my pulparindo! Celebrations have broken out in his former Ministries in the Congo. Everyone he has ever met now has a story about him, and they cover the internet back and forth, anecdotes making the evening news. The younger generations love his sneakers, and Vincent gets to keep them. They joke that he is the first pope with a full head of hair.

“It has become a meme, Your Holiness,” Monsignor O’Malley, Thomas’s close assistant, tells him with a stiff upper lip.

There is still joy in the world.

The Cardinals filter out of the Vatican at their own pace, returning to their pastoral flocks. Some rush, eager to escape the political landscape or else eager to return to their diocese, where their good works will continue, or where they may sleep late into the day and take the afternoon off. Others linger, because their dioceses are less welcoming or less urgent or closer by.

Tedesco lingers longer than most. Vincent watches him curiously. Thomas had provided Vincent with a list of the Cardinals and those within the Vatican who are aware of his saintly capabilities (and isn’t it interesting, Vincent muses, that Thomas never uses the word gift?), and Tedesco was, to Vincent’s surprise, included. “I healed him when he was still a priest,” Thomas explains. “It is not a revelation you can revoke.”

Tedesco is, in turns, bitter and angry and amused. He makes bold-faced remarks about Vincent’s race that cause Thomas to expel him from meals instantaneously, but he is a Cardinal with a right to reside in the building, and so he always returns. Sometimes, he treats Vincent like they are great friends. Perhaps it is because he is aware that Vincent has begun work on finding fitting demotions for Tremblay and Adeyemi, although, surprisingly, of the three, it is Tedesco who has done nothing wrong. He is a touchy man, with little respect for the personal space of others, and he takes more liberty with Thomas than anyone else. Thomas, of course, does not defend himself as fiercely as he defends Vincent. Tedesco makes veiled, and then less veiled, allusions to Thomas’s miracles to Vincent, testing the water.

Through it all, Vincent stays somber, patient, and kind. He has had much practice with men much worse than Tedesco. And Tedesco is, at least sometimes, charming and funny. When he makes a good joke, Vincent freely laughs. More than anything, that surprises the Patriarch of Venice.

Finally, though, he leaves as well. Thomas and Vincent accompany him through the Palace where he has resided, and they linger on the edges of the beautiful interior courtyard where they had often lingered between votes. Vincent can still picture it full of Cardinals, and his eyes have wandered away from Tedesco’s retreating figure, studying the balconies and the columns and wondering how old they are, when Tedesco slips on one of the marble tiles and falls heavily. They are all old. They all wear heavy and cumbersome regalia. It happens. Many people start forward at once, Vincent included, ready to administer whatever aid, serious or minor, is needed to the Cardinal. He forgets.

Tedesco looks for Thomas first, head on a swivel as he looks behind himself, instead of toward the guards who spring forward.

Thomas reaches him first and holds out his undiscerning hand.

Vincent can see the wash of relief over Tedesco’s face, the fading of pain before any of the rest of the courtyard can discover how severe his injuries might have been.

He is close enough also to hear Thomas’s sharp, harsh exhalation. He takes over the work of helping Tedesco back to his feet when Thomas’s grip falters, his hands flexing as his expression freezes into one of careful stillness.

Tedesco, of course, hears as well.

“Sorry for that one,” he says, putting a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. To bolster him? Vincent wonders. “Should have warned you.” He can say no more in the courtyard, which has an amplifying echo, but he does his part by turning and raising his hands victoriously to his attendants. “I am alright!” he declares brashly, drawing all the attention to himself. “An old man falls down! Hah! What are you gawking at? Affrettarsi!”

Tedesco pulls his attendants away, ignoring their worried questions. He does not look back at Thomas as he leaves. Vincent places a light hand on the Cardinal’s back, between his shoulder blades, where wings would sprout if they were birds of another kind. “Thomas?” he murmurs. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Thomas answers, although it takes him a moment. “Yes. My apologies, Your Holiness.”

“No apologies,” Vincent says firmly. He does his best to ignore the guards and assistants who mill about them at an awkward distance, waiting for them to move on. “We go at your pace,” he insists to Thomas, content to stand there for hours until his Cardinal regroups himself. He watches him. Something has occurred to him, and when Thomas meets his eyes in a flickering glance, it is confirmed.

Thomas does not wait long enough. When they start off, he moves with a slightly awkward gait, a limp that was not there before. Casually, Vincent places a hand against the side of Thomas’s shoulder - a friendly enough gesture, but also a precaution.

Eventually, they are left alone in Vincent’s apartment. It does not yet feel like his, but it is getting there. His sisters have sent blankets and pictures (it is safer, here, to have identifying keepsakes than it was in Afghanistan), but the walls don’t have art, and he hates the dull, plain carpet. He supposes that most would assume that his modest choice of room would reflect an entirely ascetic decorating style, but that has never been Vincent’s fashion. He wants to see beauty and joy wherever he steps.

Thomas sits down heavily on a little couch in the sitting room without Vincent needing to cajole him, which is further proof of his suspicions. Vincent watches him close his eyes and breathe, a hand raised and pressed against a spot high on his hip, nostrils flaring and eyes fluttering. Then he busies himself in the kitchen, fixing tea and a light snack.

He sits down beside Thomas instead of in the armchair across from him, the tray on the table.

“Tell me,” he says.

“The miraculous healing of wounds is a burden meant to be shared,” Thomas says, almost like he is reciting scripture. Vincent wonders if he came up with this proverb himself or if it was told to him. “You don’t need to worry. I do not - no physical injuries actually transfer to me.”

“But they hurt you.”

“Only for a short time.” Indeed, the tightness of his expression has fled, and when he leans forward to begin doctoring their tea, he does it without the previous stiffness. “Nothing close to what it would feel like for the original bearer of the wound. As I said, shared.”

“I did not know this,” Vincent says. Now, in his quiet and private quarters, he begins to feel upset in a way that he would never manifest in public.

Thomas hands him a cup of tea, and his fingers linger. “I am sorry for obfuscating the fact from you,” he says. “There are… so many details of how my abilities work. I will explain them all to you, if you wish.” It is clear that the offer is genuinely given, but his reluctance is as obvious. Vincent takes a sip - prepared exactly as he likes.

“Not tonight,” he says. “But sometime, yes. Yes, I think I need to know, Thomas.”

Thomas nods. He looks grateful. “Of course,” he says, and Vincent senses other, unspoken words lingering in the air.

“I would ask until then that you do not heal me. That you refrain entirely from using your gifts on me.”

Thomas looks alarmed. “Vincent, it is truly no-”

“Thomas,” Vincent shakes his head, “please, listen. It is my body, and you are my friend. I would ask that you never use my body as a weapon against yours. I couldn’t bear it. It would be worse than any suffering.”

Thomas takes a moment to weigh this. Vincent appreciates the gravitas he gives to it. “If you were dying, I would act,” he says. Vincent nods; he, also, could never agree to such a stipulation about Thomas, so it would be hypocritical of him to rail against it, and besides, he does not want to die, either. “Otherwise… it is not at all an unfair mandate that I must request permission first - of course, in cases like Tedesco’s, quick action is useful to prevent inquiry, but…. Yes, of course, Vincent. I will ask.” He takes his teacup but holds it close to his lap. “But I hope you understand - the pain, though it exists, fades. It doesn’t linger like pain in a wound does. I take it, and then it goes. I think it is a more than fair bargain for the service I can lend. There is less suffering than there otherwise would be.”

“We are only human,” Vincent says. “It is necessary to feel pain, at times, but never necessary to feel it to excess.”

Thomas surprises him by laughing.

“Nothing, nothing,” Thomas says, but his smile betrays him. “Only - my sister, she once said something very similar.”

“Then I need not have said anything,” Vincent says. “You, less than most, do not need so many voices reminding you that suffering is natural.”

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

Sacrilegious and blasphemous, to the highest degree, to compare Thomas to Jesus’s sufferings on the rood. But of course, it was almost impossible not to.

+++

He goes ahead and confirms Aldo as his Secretary of State. He likes the man, and his serious bent is less stringent than Thomas’s in a way that makes them each perfectly suited for their respective jobs, and makes Vincent’s wildness and faith-first approach actually feasible. 

Perhaps more than that, he likes Aldo. After the Conclave ends, with his ambition smarting but doused, Aldo becomes a man Vincent can better understand as Thomas’s lifelong friend. He is funny and irreverent, and his dedication to the machine of the church, balanced impressively against a derision for many of its practices and almost all of its history, makes him an excellent spiritual advisor for men in their positions. Aldo is more of a politician than either he or Thomas. It is a good way to think of them, actually: shepherd, manager, and politician. They work well together. Aldo says that in a few years, they will put the fear of God into the Curia. The love, Vincent corrects.

They retire tonight in Thomas’s lovely apartments - warm and low-ceilinged, lived-in, decorated with pictures of a sister and nieces and a nephew, and warm throw blankets over every single chair and couch. The type of place Vincent might have lived in, in another life. It is easy to relax with these men who both know the weight of his position. Vincent enjoys Aldo’s company, and he usually enjoys his sense of humor.

Not always.

It is a slip of the tongue - a punchline from a droll but entertaining conversation about Catholicism's close relationship with horror movies.

“In The Conjuring,” Aldo says firmly, and they are speaking of movies now that Vincent has not seen or heard of, but apparently Aldo is an aficionado, “God is more real and more present than in God’s Not Dead.”

“Oh, please,” Thomas says, but he is smiling an unusual kind of smile that brings Vincent joy to see - it is a commonplace, easy, mocking grin. One unburdened by complexity. Simple.

“No, no, I mean it,” Aldo says. “In all those movies! Demons are real and on Earth, and it is the power of God himself - literally, actually the blood of Jesus in The Nun - that saves everyone and everything. It is the most devout depiction of a reality where God actually, tangibly exists and will help you.”

“You would describe The Conjuring as devout?” Thomas teases.

“I absolutely would,” Aldo says. “Not the real Ed and Lorrain - they were crackpots preying on vulnerable people and hyping up hoaxes - but the films? Absolutely. And that goes back to The Exorcist - and you, of all people, should know that they are more compelling portrayals of the supposed good the Catholic Church can do.” He raps his knuckles on the table. “It is excellent propaganda, Thomas, admit it. In their versions, the church only performs exorcisms on people who already look like demons, and never on innocents.”

Thomas’s smile drops. Vincent glances between them. Aldo pauses a moment later.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a beat, leaning back. “I shouldn’t - never mind.”

“What is it?” Vincent asks.

Thomas glances at him, and then at Aldo. Then he sighs. “Aldo was referencing a rather sore point with me,” he admits. “Quite some time ago, well, when I first came to the Vatican….”

Vincent looks at Aldo again when Thomas trails off, expectant and confused. “The late Holy Father, Paul the Seventh, was the first Pope that Thomas met,” Aldo explains. His fingers twist into the blanket laid over his lap. “He - well, he asked that Thomas consent to an exorcism to determine if-”

“An exorcism?” Vincent interjects, shocked. “Not literally? On Tomás ?” His accent slips, not that they could misunderstand him. Thomas’s Spanish is perfect (he has never spoken Spanish with someone who has such a posh British accent before, and he finds it charmingly delightful), and Aldo’s fluency with Latin and Italian provides him with a sturdy basis of mutual intelligibility with Spanish speakers. But it is a sign of his shock to voice what has become an endearment (a pet name ) in front of someone else.

Thomas and Aldo exchange a glance. Vincent has become familiar with it. The two of them have known each other for a very long time, and have seen each other through darker periods than he knows. Aldo stands abruptly. “I can’t be here for this conversation,” he says shortly. “Your Holiness.” He bows and leaves.

Vincent is stricken. He knows what Aldo’s departure signifies. He looks to Thomas for an explanation, only to find him looking elsewhere.

“I have said before,” Thomas begins slowly, “that when I came to the Vatican after performing my first… miracle, in front of a bishop, the Holy Father and his advisors conducted a number of tests. They desired to, first, prove that I was not false; second, to understand the extent and the limitations of my ability; and third, to determine that I was not… in any manner, unholy.”

“How could they think such a thing?” Vincent asks, breathless with upset.

“Well, you’ve seen it.” Thomas looks confused in the face of Vincent’s strong emotions. He wrings his hands and anxiously looks around the room. “It is, you must admit, shocking to witness. I always expected to be met with doubt. After a certain point, they had clearly proven that I could heal people at will, and then they sought after specifics, the breadth and reach of my powers, and then, I think, at least somewhat logically, they made some attempts to ascertain the source. All of this required isolation, so I could not be in collusion with outsiders, and the exorcism - well, it sounds silly to say, but it was more pre-emptive than anything else.”

“But you were only twenty,” Vincent says.

“Twenty-three.”

“A baby before men who should have known better!”

“Please,” Thomas holds up a hand. “I don’t - I wish not to-” It trembles in the air between them.

Vincent takes it and calms himself down with a gentle thought of self-reproach. He pulls Thomas’s hands into his lap and cradles them between his, warming the cold, thin fingers. “Please.” He strokes Thomas’s knuckles. “Explain. Tell me.”

Thomas breathes. “It is difficult for me to recall now.” An exhalation. “Or difficult to speak about, at least. It was a long, long time ago, Vincent.”

“If you cannot speak about it, then you cannot, and I will not force you,” Vincent says. “But I would like to know what my predecessors have done. What they did to you.”

“You bear no responsibility for their actions, whether or not you, or I, condemn them.” Thomas says it very firmly, but Vincent insists that he go on. Thomas does. He describes his first six months in the Vatican, under the command of the throne of St. Peter, in more honest detail than he ever has with Vincent before. 

He describes small apartments deep within the Apostolic Palace, where there are no windows and the doors lock from the outside; he describes days spent in guilty prayer for the simple wish of longing to go outside. He confesses guilt over making sick bystanders the subjects of experimentation of his power, and he asks Vincent to give him penance. Months without being permitted to contact his friends and family. Complete isolation, with only the solace of Sisters who did not know his purpose there, whether he was a criminal, or a demon. Thomas describes his fears, how he was told, in no uncertain terms, that he might be possessed. He admits that he believed them - that there were periods where he felt wild and out of control, almost violent with desire to leave, and that he convinced himself that it must have been a demonic presence lurking deep within him, growing sick under the attentions of the Pope of his Cardinals. He describes a body growing sore from being shut inside for months on end. Growing sore from being tied to a table with leather restraints. Going half blind from staring at the same ceiling for hours. He describes the gratitude he felt toward the late Holy Father for the comforts he gave him, and the sick self-hatred he later felt over how easily he had been manipulated by all of them. He describes belonging not to himself. Feeling that he had been wrong, and that God had not led him here, and that he would be trapped forever.

These are not the words that Thomas uses, although he is mostly open about his distaste for his treatment. Vincent reads between the sentences he utters and recognizes real bitterness in Thomas, but not hatred. Vincent thinks, in a rare moment, that he can feel hatred enough for a hundred men. When Thomas finishes his summary of those six months, Vincent answers him in Spanish because he does not think he could manage anything else. “That is… that is horrible.”

Thomas sighs. “Yes,” he admits. “But… it was not… Vincent, it was not how you’re imagining it. I shouldn’t want you to believe that it was worse than it was, although I understand in retrospect that I should not have allowed such behavior, and do condemn it now.”

“They - they - the church - the Pope locked you in a room, isolated, for months, all but dissected you, tied you to an altar and called you Satan, tortured you for the sin of being blessed and beloved by the Lord, of wanting to help and offering yourself to God’s house - forbid you agency, trapped you and controlled you, Tomás, it is no wonder you struggled with faith. Any other man would have, would have abandoned it entirely! They drove you away, and you still clung on.”

Thomas looks aghast. “No, no - I have explained it wrong - my dear, it was certainly not torture, you should not think such a thing-”

“I worked with victims of genocidal violence and genital mutilation while holding a secret - a bevy of secrets - that would have gotten me killed!” Vincent snaps. “Do not lecture me on what torture is!”

Thomas falls silent immediately. Vincent regrets shouting immediately.

“We should only ever be gentle with one another,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” Thomas reiterates helplessly.

“Not so long,” Vincent says. “Never long enough.”

+++

The infancy of his papacy wanes. Vincent learns how to stand on his own amidst the Curia. Thomas goes back to his hospitals, to the people he serves silently, with dedication, care, and secrecy. His fear is something Vincent has learned well: Thomas knows intimately, through firsthand experience, what institutions will subject him to should they learn of his gifts. It only makes his actions that much more compelling.

Whenever he can, Vincent waits for Thomas to return.

Thomas comes back late at night. He still refuses to take more than four days off a month, far fewer than Vincent, and so when he goes out, he is gone all day. He comes back stumbling and exhausted, limping from the phantom pain of torn muscles (some really intense cramps, I guess), voice hoarse from chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (short-term bronchitis, must have been the flu), and bleary-eyed from the ache of temporomandibular joint dysfunction (my mom had it, my dad it, I had it and then it just - went away, I don’t know, I can’t explain it). Usually, he goes alone, and Vincent dreads the day he will receive the news that his Dean has collapsed on the streets of Rome, to be tread over by indifferent tourists or trampled by unknowing crowds.

Vincent greets him and leads him to his bed, begs him to drink water and tea and eat a little before he succumbs to a feverish sleep, and then he continues his ministrations.

He bathes him with damp, cool towels, softer than anything he has owned in his life. He washes Thomas’s feet, performing maundy for no one but themselves and for no purpose and with no symbolism other than the simplest: he cares for Thomas, and so he takes care of him.

Thomas's body is more frail than his age necessarily entails. He is still in remission from cancer and has never fully recovered from the toll of chemotherapy. These trips, and the strain they put on Thomas in the days after, cannot be helping, not when he is so nauseous and exhausted that, left on his own (and his secrecy means that he is usually left on his own), he is not physically capable of always feeding himself. He might not, even if he was. Aldo has confided in Vincent that Thomas has always been a man of poor appetite and that chemotherapy nearly obliterated it; his tastes changed overnight, some foods became revolting by association with illness, including former favorites. Thomas’s struggles are also twofold, not related only to his illness. He believes firmly in the values of asceticism, and of himself demands frequent, near-constant mortifications of the flesh - fasting has become an unhealthily common way for him to demonstrate his faith, and he uses it as a religiously sanctioned punishment when his faith wavers.

Vincent closes his eyes and breathes through a moment of bitterness. He grew up in an area where many struggled immensely to pay for enough food for themselves and their families, where malnutrition was the given state of both children and adults, even when they could eat. In all his ministries, he has met women and children who are starving. He has watched them die, when they arrive too late for help, or arrive weak and ill already, their faces gaunt but their stomachs bloated, bodies cannibalizing themselves for sustenance. It irritates him, on an emotional level but not a logical one, that Catholicism has taught men with as much access to finery and good nutrition as Thomas to starve themselves. So much food goes to waste in the Vatican. The nuns always make an excess and distribute it to the poor and the shelters, but men like Thomas let trays of food go stale and cold and think it pious. But that is unfair, of course. Vincent allows himself the time to be unfair and ungracious and then lets it go, returning to his task.

Thomas is unwell, so Vincent will care for him. That includes caring for his mind. He is determined that by the end of the year, Thomas will at least have returned to the weight he was at before his diagnosis. 

It is a shame that Vincent cannot accompany his Dean on his visits to the sick and suffering of Rome and the cities they travel to. Already, the Cardinal, even if only in a black shirt and dog collar, attracts enough attention that it makes his work difficult. The Pope could not be seen in attendance without drawing crowds, and even if Thomas did nothing and kept his hands to himself, there would still be claims circulating the next day, headlines of healing and restoration. It might be attributed to Vincent, instead of Thomas, but it would only raise their notoriety, something that neither of them wants.

He regrets this. He regrets the necessity Thomas feels for secrecy, though he understands it. The papacy is a political, elected cage. Thomas’s gifts are something more than that, even. If anyone knew, he would be kept in a higher, more closely scrutinized cage than Vincent, with fewer luxuries, and a great deal more pain.

Thomas is sleeping now but he still looks exhausted. The corners of his eyes furrow tightly. He is doing what he can, Vincent reminds himself, and already ill for it. He cannot be asked to do more than this.

But it is a difficult reminder. On days when Vincent longs for Kabul, the home he loved and crafted so diligently, his flock, still struggling without him, now more than ever, as many have been forced to evacuate or risk their very lives because of their faith, he pictures Thomas with him. Even in his dreams, he cannot imagine returning without Thomas. And in his dreams, he sees Thomas walking through battlefields strewn with the dying bodies of children, and hospitals so full that patients lie side by side on the floors, rampant with lice and covered in bites from rats not nearly as hungry as they are. The difference Thomas could make in a place like that - it far outweighs what he can do in Rome. Thomas is aware, and has admitted like confession of mortal sin, that the majority of those he heals in hospital waiting rooms are not fatally ill; he uses his gifts to soothe and quicken recovery more than to prevent death. That is the hard truth of his life.

Vincent tries not to judge his choices. He understands the impossibility of his dreams. If a single soldier or sympathizer in Kabul had even an inkling of Thomas’s work in those hospitals, he would be kidnapped, trapped, and imprisoned before he could blink. There are worse prisons than the Vatican, regrettably. Vincent knows this well.

He has nightmares of this, also. Nightmares of himself dying from a grenade thrown by a schoolboy into his home, before he ever learned of Thomas’s existence. Of Thomas, in a life where his faith had led him in a different direction, who would have died before he turned thirty if he had truly, truly dedicated himself to nothing but the healing of wounds.

Thomas doesn’t seem to think so, but when Vincent tends to him on these long days as Thomas shudders and shivers, vomits or cries from migraines, he knows that Thomas is wrong about one thing. Thomas believes that he takes on only the pain of the injuries he cures from the world, that he does not internalize these wounds or take on these illnesses. Vincent knows he is wrong. He does not understand Thomas’s conviction to the contrary when he has admitted that his cancer was taken from the late Holy Father. Wounds do not split or bruise his skin, and viruses and infections do not leap to him, but Vincent knows well that the spirit can house damage of its own. Thomas’s spirit takes these injuries, more tangibly than the sensation alone. They pile up on his soul, pressing down until he can barely breathe, can barely move.

There are limits to what he can do; the first Pope Thomas served under died from the sudden rupture of a brain aneurysm before Thomas could assist. The second developed Alzheimer’s and retired and then passed in very short order - Alzheimer’s, like dementia and Parkinson’s, being among the diseases that Thomas could do nothing for. The third, Thomas had tended to almost daily, for he had been an elderly and monstrously ill man, for underlying causes neither Thomas nor the papal doctors had ever fully confirmed. Eventually, by Thomas’s account, he gave the word for the healing to be halted: “I am being called back to God’s embrace, and I should not have ignored Him for as long as I have.” Aldo had confessed to Vincent that much harsher words had been levied at Thomas during this declaration, accusations of witchcraft and unnaturalness and even, apparently, an attempt to remove Thomas from his position. The final Holy Father had known he was dying and sent Thomas away. Vincent loves him all the more for it.

Thomas accepts his limitations as due. He has spoken to Vincent of a “natural state of the body,” in which he includes aging and death. Vincent does not know if he is wrong, but he has his own suspicions about the amount of harm a spirit can hold, and whether Thomas’s spirit defends itself sometimes, refusing to take on any damage that would kill him. (Vincent wipes sweat from Thomas’s brow when he sees it begin to dip down into his eyes, which roll back and forth visibly beneath thin, blue-lined lids.) It could kill him. He wonders if that is the real reason why Thomas has only ever cured cancer once - the one time it mattered the most to him. When he fought and overcame a limitation that he should have respected.

But Thomas does not respect himself, and so Vincent will have to do it for him.

“Vincent,” Thomas murmurs, not fully awake.

“I am here.”

“Good,” Thomas says, and immediately falls back asleep.

Vincent smiles, although his heart aches. He thinks about the time Thomas first told him that he was struggling with prayer, and the conversations they have had about faith in the intervening months - has it somehow been half a year already? It seems impossible and infinite at once.

Vincent does not know if Thomas so much feels God as he feels love, and interprets love as God. He thinks it might explain his struggles with faith, and prayer. Vinvent does not believe that it is a false interpretation of the universe.

The next day is the Lord’s Day. Vincent, as he always does, performs Mass for those who work for the Vatican. Thomas is in attendance, back on his feet and steady, though his face looks a little wan. Vincent has a hard time looking away.

He reads, “Let us love one another, because love comes from God.” He has always loved speaking and reading, finding powerful words and speaking them into truth, holding a book and knowing that it has been read for two thousand years. On some evenings, he reads for Thomas alone, not just from the Bible, but this feels almost like that. “God is love.”

A deacon attends him, not Thomas, who today watches from the pews, his blue eyes bright in the room which glimmers from light cast through stained glass.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” He has these passages memorized, so he does not need to look away. He begins his sermon that day with a reiteration: “Perfect love is not a dominion belonging solely to the Lord and His child. We are all His children, His heirs. And though, perhaps, He is most practiced at it, we can share it with ourselves and with each other as well. We should do this.”

He sees Thomas blink away tears. Not of pain.

+++

They travel to Argentina for World Youth Day. Cardinal Ector has arranged the Welcoming Ceremony before the actual day, and Vincent shakes hands with the president and governors and celebrities that he doesn’t recognize. It is long, loud, and worshipful - it is exhausting and deeply fulfilling. This is his first trip to South America, and Vincent is nearly moved to tears by the exclamations of joy these people give to see a Pope who looks like them. In moments like this, he wishes it would be easier to share the fullness of who he is, to offer even more hope to the people around the world - women, intersex, and transgender people who have always been refused spiritual leadership from their own people. But, for now, this is enough.

Thomas departs from the ceremony early, more fixated on overseeing the many, many events Vincent must partake in over the following days than staying for a glorified party. Vincent misses him the moment he steps away, but he is grateful for his work, and distracts himself easily by attending to his far-flung flock.

Eventually, he finds a moment to sit down - even comfortable shoes cannot keep one’s feet from hurting after hours on end - but he isn’t granted a moment alone because Cardinal Ector soon joins him on the isolated sofa.

“Innocent,” he says, jolly. “Can I get you anything? It has been a long day, I imagine.”

“At least thirty hours,” Vincent agrees, because even without any connections and flying on Shepherd One (a truly insane experience for a boy from Mexico City who was sent away to school so that his parents could feed his sisters adequately), they left Rome at 8:00 am that morning, took a fourteen hour flight, and still only arrived in Buenos Aires at at 5:00 pm. Vincent hasn’t been used to such long days in quite a while, but Thomas is holding up suspiciously well.

Ector laughs. “Yes, I remember from the Conclave,” he says. “Yours was my last, but not my first, you know? I’ve just aged out of the electoral body, thank God!”

“I hadn’t realized that you were part of the Conclave that selected the previous Holy Father,” Vincent says curiously.

Ector hums. “Yes, yes. And, I will have you know, I am two-for-two.” He winks.

Vincent tilts his head. “Oh?”

“A perfect voting record,” Ector explains. “I voted for the late Holy Father from the very first ballot, and I did the same for you. You remember, yes? One vote - Benítez - first round. All me.” He smiles at Vincent's expression. “I surprised you, haven’t I? Good. Life grows stale when we start predicting what comes next.”

“Indeed,” Vincent agrees. He is rarely thrown for a loop, but Ector is right; it is refreshing. “I suppose I should thank you for your show of faith. You must have felt vindicated.”

“Oh, sure,” Ector says. “Vindication is an easy enough feeling to find, though. Not very exciting.”

“May I ask why?”

“Why I voted for you? Because you think I am a moderate or conservative voter, and you can’t understand it?” Vincent nods. Ector is correct, after all. “You see, your friends - Villanueva, Bellini, even Tedesco - they think these things matter most of all. Get all your votes together ahead of time, agree on a logical, good, probably safe choice. It’s the best way to win an election, unfortunately. Me, I think differently. I go in with open eyes. I make myself receptive to a greater will.” He smiles. “In all honesty, Your Holiness, I don’t know how much I expect the church will change, and how much a single man can do to change it. What I believe and what you believe may be different, but maybe not as much as we think. We say that the church is universal, but can one man fundamentally change it in fifteen years? I just don’t believe that - no disrespect meant to your pontificate, of course.”

“None taken.”

“You do important work. So would Tedesco. He would also have undone other important work, and what a waste of time that would be, huh? No, the church changes slowly, over time, because we represent a billion humans across the world - how can you shape a monolith from that? You can’t. So I don’t make myself deeply concerned with party lines within the conclave. Instead, I look for leaders. I looked at you the first day, and I thought - there is a Cardinal whose faith in God is steady, who understands what it is to do hard work and be faced with hard consequences, who will speak and be heard without shouting. Good qualifications for a Pope, you think?” He leans forward. “Sometimes we see a thing and we simply know it is right, without knowing why. That is God, lending us His wisdom. We should always listen to Him, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Vincent says. “Yes, I do.”

“I am very impressed with you, Innocent,” Ector says. “I think I voted well.”

“Thank you.”

“How about we both thank God instead?”

They drift apart. Vincent meets more people. His feet begin to truly bother him. His mind spins over Ector’s words and his claims. Thomas reappears at the very moment when Vincent thinks he might collapse into his guard’s arms.

“Are you ready?” Thomas asks. He smiles. “Your rooms are prepared. We may leave at your discretion.”

Vincent smiles in return. Even aware that they are not alone, he slides his hand into the crook of Thomas’s elbow and ignores the surprised tilt of his Cardinal’s eyebrows. “I am ready,” he says. Ector is right. It is good to be surprised.

+++

Vincent Benítez sprints through the gardens. The flat soles of his Converse slap loudly on gravel and stone, and the hems of his summer cassock will be stained green because the grass has recently been cut. His guards race after him, calling for him to slow down and be careful, but the Vatican is mostly empty at this time of year, a lull between religious holidays and a heatwave keeping tourists and locals away, and so Vincent feels unashamed to be seen running amok through the Holy See.

And besides, there are urgent matters he must attend to.

He sprints from the gardens and into the building, passing by a group of shocked nuns and nearly bowling over a poor startled monsignor before he sees him at a distance, calmly headed in the direction of the offices of the Casa de Santa Marta. He is facing away from Vincent, but he would recognize him anywhere.

“Thomas!” he shouts, and his Dean whirls around at once, alarm writ large upon his face as Vincent hurls toward him and barely manages to pull to a stop.

“Tomás, Tomás,” he gasps, bent over slightly as he gasps to regain his breath, holding his arms out steady and still in offering. “Thomas! She was struck - she was trying to leave the pond and she was struck in the road by a bicyclist - they rode off without even checking on her.” He could cry. The turtle in his hands wiggles unhappily and has most likely already urinated on him, which is unimportant because a large crack has split a diagonal line down the center of her shell. Vincent can see muscle and sinew inside. “Please, can you help? Can you heal her?”

“Vincent.” Thomas looks alarmed. He raises a hand out instinctively, hovering in the air between them, and Vincent almost shoves the turtle up to meet it when Thomas’s eyes flicker over his shoulder. “Of course, I can help, Your Holiness,” he says, suddenly bowing. “Please, come to my office. I have a basket we can make her comfortable in, and I do have a veterinarian on standby for all the Vatican’s animals. Come along.”

Vincent looks back at his guards, whose usually stoic faces are now a little flushed and disgruntled. He flushes and gives Thomas a deeply apologetic look that he accepts with the smallest nod.

“Your Holiness,” one of the guards says as they start off at once, Thomas in the lead, Vincent still cradling the poor animal against his stomach, “I understand that - that you considered this an urgent matter, but we have discussed-”

“It is expected that you are able to keep up with the Holy Father’s movements,” Thomas interjects, without looking over his shoulder, “which are not restricted within the safety of his own abode. If you cannot do so, then I suggest you add more cardio to your regular training.”

Vincent ducks his head to hide an inappropriate smile of delight. He loves to hear Thomas defend him, even against the most petty complaints. “It is all right,” he says, offering an amused and placating grin to the guard who had spoken. “Thank you for your concern and dedication to my safety. In this case, yes, I did feel it was urgent, but I am sorry for not communicating with you.”

The guard nods. “In situations like that, you can always trust us to do the running,” they try, gesturing to the turtle. “We could have delivered the - the turtle to Cardinal Lawrence for you, Your Holiness.”

“You aren’t here to run errands for me,” Vincent objects. “I do appreciate the offer, but when it comes to important matters, I fear I must attend to them myself.” He strokes a finger over the wiggling head, worried that less movement means less energy, not that she is calming down. He speeds up his pace. They reach Thomas’s office and Vincent is ushered inside quickly while the guards take their posts beside the doors. It clicks shut behind them, and Thomas locks it.

“Over here,” Thomas says, moving to his desk and sitting behind it. “Set her down, oh, that’s right, hello.” He coos at the turtle, which extends her neck curiously but doesn’t make any attempts to walk.

“She will likely defecate on your desk,” Vincent says. His cheeks, still red, feel even hotter now as he surveys the truly ruined front of his cassock. He hates to give the Sisters extra work.

Thomas follows his train of thought with a chuckle as he says, “Surely she must be empty by now? Do not worry about it, dear, I will have Ray bring you a change of clothes. Now then, are you ready?” Vincent nods eagerly, worry and awe building in his chest, before he realizes that Thomas is speaking to the turtle. It only makes his heart swell all the more.

Thomas places his hand on the shell. The crack mends and the turtle, which Vincent has never heard make a noise before, squeaks and immediately rises on all four legs, taking a determined step forward. He and Thomas laugh together, and Vincent feels relief and gratitude so strongly that his eyes well with tears. “That’s that, then,” Thomas says, standing up. “Already back to her curious self. I will find a basket for her and call Ray - he can tell the guards that he is bringing her to the vet himself and return her to the pond once he is alone. I am sure he’ll be happy enough to do so - what is one more secret among friends?” he huffs.

“I am sorry about the guards,” Vincent apologizes. “I lost my head. I was not thinking. Thomas, I am so sorry.”

“I understand,” Thomas says, raising a cajoling hand as he moves to search through a small closet. “I could tell that you were flustered, and I understand why. I care very much for the late Holy Father’s turtles, as you well know.” He sifts through a short stack of towels and linens. “And if you were not already so distraught about the guards, then I would tease you for refusing to allow me to heal you but demanding that I heal a pet.” He chuckles.

Vincent feels aghast. Weak in the knees. “Tomás,” he says, with so much agony that Thomas turns away at once from where he had been trying to fish a large woven basket from the back of the closet. Vincent is near tears. “I am so sorry. I did not - I forgot - I forgot what I should never have forgotten - and I have no right to have made - to demand from you-”

“Oh, Vincent, oh, no,” Thomas says, flustered. “No, it is alright - really, I should not have teased you.” He pressed a hand against his front. “I am beyond happy to serve you, especially in matters like these.”

Vincent looks miserably at the happy turtle sniffing at Thomas’s pencil holder. “It pains you.” He shakes his head. “I asked you to harm yourself and did not even think about it.”

“There is no harm,” Thomas says softly. “No harm at all. I am glad to do this - I have said before that I find it hard not to consider this work my calling. To have the honor to heal the people and things I hold dear? It is a gift from God. I know it is.”

Vincent sniffles. “A gift?”

Thomas nods once. “A gift. I had… forgotten. You help me remember.”

He could melt. He could sink right through the floor, and rise up through the rafters. “I am glad. Still, I would not risk you, my friend, or command you to any action you did not wholeheartedly intend to take. I am sorry.”

Thomas looks back at him with a soft expression. “Vincent,” he says. “No. You would not be yourself if you did not risk the world for a single turtle. And I won’t hear you apologize for being yourself.”

Vincent’s heart is so large that it pushes up against his ribs, a dull, wonderful pain that not even Thomas could take from him, and that he would fight tooth and nail to keep for the rest of his life. “You are so wonderful,” he says. “I love you.”

Thomas drops the basket and blankets he has found in the closet. Vincent walks calmly to his desk to redirect the turtle, who has now adventurously neared the edge. He strokes a finger down her spine, without a crack or mark, and for the millionth time, admires all that Thomas does.

Thomas’s hand finds his elbow and turns him around. Vincent goes easily. He would go, and trust, wherever Thomas wanted to lead him.

“Vincent.” Thomas says his name like a prayer. Perhaps it is sacrilegious. Perhaps it is how all people in love feel.

“Thomas,” he echoes.

He kisses him. This, too, is easier than he imagined. They fit together seamlessly, the way water splits when you touch it. Thomas’s hands come to rest on Vincent’s face, and they tremble. Vincent wraps his arms, thin but strong, around Thomas and pulls their bodies together until even through the thick layers, he can feel Thomas’s warmth.

“Vincent,” Thomas says again when he pulls away. “This - I-”

“We will never understand all of God’s infinite wisdom, or His infinite love,” Vincent says, because he has been praying and meditating on this for months. “We cannot. We should not. It is beautiful in its obtuseness. But we can understand ourselves, and each other. We should seek to do so. We should hold on to things that are beautiful and kind and tender. We should bring more of those things into the world. We should trust that we are not living embodiments of sin; that our bodies are not made to sin; that our feelings and our minds are primed toward love, and not hatred, not fear or punishment. We should love.” Thomas’s face is lined and his eyes are wide open. He holds Vincent so gently.

Then, “I love you, as well.”

Because Vincent Benítez is surrounded by miracles.

+++

They find their way to the pond that night after Ray has returned the basket to Thomas’s office. The guards hang back above the balconies, far enough away that they will not be able to hear or see them. Vincent will have to figure out how to find more privacy in his personal life, but that can wait until tomorrow.

They kneel beside the pond, although Vincent clucks at the strain it will put on Thomas’s knees. He has a hard time identifying the turtle they have saved that morning, given that her shell was fully healed, but Thomas points her out. “There,” he says, gesturing to the back of the pond where a fountain trickles steadily down. “She’s basking underneath the waterfall. Safe and sound.” He folds his hands in his lap and smiles at Vincent. “Are you satisfied, Your Holiness?”

Vincent rolls his eyes. “You are holy,” he tells Thomas, just to see the flush that steals over his cheeks.

They watch the turtles.

I see miracles every day, Vincent thinks.

“You are a miracle to me,” Thomas says, the full weight and context of his words behind the statement: even in a life made of the impossible, he looks at Vincent like the most extraordinary thing. It is an honor that he will spend the rest of his life living up to.

He gathers Thomas’s wrists in his, then slides down until their palms touch, then entwines their fingers. “I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.”

But around them, water, and the sounds of the turtles rippling and splashing through their own little waves.