Chapter Text
Friar Lawrence awoke with a start as the small aircraft touched down hard on the Fiumicino Airport tarmac, just outside the heart of the city of Rome.
He hadn’t remembered falling asleep, and it must not have been for very long; the exhaustion he had felt hours ago had not dissipated in the slightest. Instead, he was disoriented, and felt the beginnings of a dehydration headache form in his temples. He sat up, trying to ground himself as best as he could.
"You slept for about two hours." Benítez said, handing him a small plastic water bottle and a tablet of ibuprofen. "I confess I watched you for most of it and it didn't look very restful."
Lawrence took them gratefully, and after swallowing it down quickly, he held out his hand for Benítez to take.
"What time is it?"
"Almost 11:30. We'll likely be back at the Vatican by midnight." Benítez looked thoughtful for a moment. "How much sleep have you had in the last twenty-four hours?"
Lawrence looked away, guilty. "Between all the traveling, not more than four hours here and there." Benítez shook his head, and squeezed his hand.
"By order of the Holy See," Pope Innocent said, his voice taking on that stern, kind quality that had sent Lawrence into a fit back at the Abbey. "You will go to sleep at once when you get to your room, and you will not awaken until you've gotten a full eight hours."
"Of course, your Holiness." He could not return his gaze.
Once the plane had come to a complete stop, the pair, and the guards who had been sitting at the cockpit, exited onto the tarmac, boarding into a large black vehicle that was escorted out of the airport and into the backstreets of Rome. It only took about fifteen minutes before they were within the safe walls of the Vatican City.
Cardinal Bellini had been waiting for them behind the security gates; Pope Innocent walked to him at once, linking their arms as they waited for Lawrence to exit gather his things from the vehicle.
"How was the trip, your Holiness?"
"Oh most excellent, Aldo, thank you. The weather in Ireland is very refreshing for the spirit... I was surprised you didn't meet me in the car at the airport like you usually do. I confess for a moment I thought you had already gone to bed."
Bellini reached across and gently touched the other man's arm.
"Never, your Holiness, I just thought it would be best to avoid an awkward car ride from the airport for our dear friend, who is no doubt tired from his journey."
As he said this, Lawrence approached, a sad, abandoned dog look in his eyes. He bowed slightly in greeting. "Your Eminence."
Bellini returned the greeting. "Friar Lawrence." His tone was unreadable. Lawrence couldn't stand that it was unreadable to him.
The air was thick enough to cut with a knife.
"Well, I think it's late enough for all of us," Pope Innocent interjected, patting Bellini's arm and removing his own from where they were linked. "It takes the Saints eight hours to bless a sleeping child. Let us not rush them tonight."
He gestured for the two men to follow, and they did.
Lawrence knew logically his old apartment was no doubt taken over by some other member of the Curia, but his heart still stuck in his chest when he found he was being posted at the Casa Santa Marta for his duration of the stay at the Vatican City.
Luckily this time his room was on the first floor, which meant it was slightly bigger than the ones upstairs. And he could open his windows as much as he liked.
"Just you right now, I'm afraid." Benítez teased as the trio approached the door. "You have the whole building to yourself. No neighbors to snore you awake this time."
"Thank you, your Holiness."
"Goodnight, Thomas.” Bellini said, offering a polite bow. “We’ll meet tomorrow morning after breakfast.”
Lawrence returned it. The formality was killing him. “Goodnight.”
He closed the door, and didn’t bother with changing. He kicked off his sandals and dropped his rucksack into the small desk chair. He rubbed his hands over his face, brushed his teeth in the too-small bathroom sink, and laid himself down gently on top of the covers of the uncomfortable dormitory bed.
He tried not to think. He tried not to imagine how easy it would be to hop out of the window and disappear into the night. Lawrence was still an older man but the past two years of manual labour had made him very fit, if he said so himself. He tried not to worry about what would happen if he was not able to repair his friendship with Aldo tomorrow. He tried not to worry about how devastated his brothers would be if he never returned back to the Galway Abbey. But most of all, Friar Thomas Lawrence tried not to worry about his relationship with God.
All he had wanted was a return to faith. All he had ever asked from those closest to him was to support him through his doubts. It seemed deeply unfair that the moment he had finally made peace with his relationship with the Lord, and learned to truly hear Him, that all of this should force him back into his sinful ways of blind devotion to others.
He wondered, perhaps greedily, if it were possible to have both. To keep true to his vows and enjoy the love of those he felt closest too.
It seems quite possible for Pope Innocent, who was both God’s mouthpiece and perhaps a mouthpiece for his own Secretary of State. Lawrence thought this bitterly, unable to bite back what he was now realizing was jealousy. He wasn’t sure of who.
These thoughts were not helping him to fall asleep; in fact they did the exact opposite. He shook his head to clear his mind, and crossed his arms to ensure his sleeping body did not betray him in the night.
Instead, he began to recite the daily tasks he had in store for him back at the Abbey, trying his best to remember the full latin names of all the plants he was to prepare for the fall. He dozed off halfway through the list. He dreamed of trains that didn’t move, on the run from two looming shadows behind him, trying desperately to find his way back to the sunlight.
When Lawrence awoke, the sun was already high in the sky. The clock next to his tableside read 10:19 in the morning. He got up and stretched, pulling out a clean habit and undergarments from his bag and changing into them, retying his chord and adjusting it just so.
Not much else to do. He slid on his sandals and gave a morning prayer. Most of him really did enjoy how simple the life of the monastery was. No zucchettos to fiddle with and adjust all day, no sash that would fall if not pinned properly in place. Just soft brown cloth that carried with it a level of respect because of its simpleness.
The food court area of the Casa Santa Marta was always busy; being where a majority of the Curia took their meals. When he entered, the dining hall got very quiet for only a moment, before erupting with greetings and cheers as some of Lawrnece’s old friends saw him for the first time in over two years.
He was surrounded quite quickly, answering all sorts of questions about monastic life and Galway and what he’d been up to.
Cardinal Sabbadin quickly cornered him, and began to talk his ear off as apparently he had been given Lawrence’s old position as Dean after he had resigned. And his apartment too. He congratulated the American profusely, knowing how much the man must enjoy all the managerial work that would come with being the manager of managers of the Church. Somebody had to do it.
After almost an hour of slow eating and enriching conversation, Lawrence knew his stalling had to come to an end. He bade everyone goodbye and promised to meet them again come dinnertime.
The walk to Cardinal Bellini’s office felt like a death march. What could he even say? He tried rehearsing several different apologies but none of them felt right. He gave up, knowing even if he had found the perfect one, Aldo would still find a way to surprise him. After all these years he was still able to do that, somehow.
He climbed up the marble staircase of the Vatican office building, and finally arrived at the Secretary of State office on the third floor. Much to his surprise it was already open, Benítez and Bellini in the middle of a chess game across the wide oak desk. It appeared that the Pope was winning.
“I’ve taught you too well, Vincent. You have learned all my tactics and now will always beat me.” Bellini feigned frustration, but Lawrence could tell easily he was very proud of Benítez’s progress. Bellini looked up and saw Lawrence standing in the doorway. Benítez turned, and stood upon seeing their visitor.
“Ah! Thomas. Good Morning. I hope you slept well?” He brushed his hand gently across his shoulder as he moved to pass.
“Of course, your Holiness. Thank you for allowing me to rise freely this morning.”
Benítez smiled warmly at this.
“You're very welcome, Thomas.” He patted the older man’s cheek before stepping away. “I will leave you to sort out your mess. Excellent game, Aldo.”
He had turned and walked away before Lawrence had even a moment to respond.
Lawrence entered the office and shut the door behind him. He took a deep breath, and turned to face Bellini, who had not moved an inch since he arrived.
“Good morning.”
The American set his jaw. Great. Already off to a productive start.
“That’s the first thing you can think of to say to me? In two years? ‘Good Morning’ ?”
“Well I’m not exactly sure of what there is to say.” Wrong again. Bellini stood, and walked to the window.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe ‘I’m sorry.’... maybe ‘I regret leaving you after an argument’... maybe even a ‘I really should have read your letters since you sent them so faithfully once a month and twice on holidays’…. Any of those would do, please take your pick.”
“I see you’ve been talking to the Pope since I’ve arrived.” Lawrence accused bitterly.
“I have, actually. Not so nice when you’re on the other side of it, is it?” Bellini turned to face him, his face looking both smug and on the verge of tears.
The comment was a low blow, and Lawrence supposed he deserved it. Had he not put Bellini in the exact same position he now found himself in two years ago?
“Is that what that is, then? Getting back at me?” It came out without thinking. Bellini actually laughed.
“In your absence, I think you will find how little anything has to do with you, these days.” He crossed his arms, and leaned back against the window. “Sometimes the people who got left behind have more in common than they thought.”
Lawrence tried to refocus. “I am, terribly, sorry Aldo. When I read your letter for the first time last night I realized perhaps I had made a grave mistake.”
“Why did you leave, Thomas. And why didn’t you answer me?” His voice was quiet, and Lawrence was terrified. On any given day, Bellini could be found yelling and raving for any and all to hear. But this? Silent fury? Thomas had never in his life seen him so angry.
He couldn’t bear the pressure of it.
“I told you why I left! I am not sure why the two of you keep pestering me so.” He exclaimed, incredulous.
“Because nobody believes you!” Bellini shouted, approaching Lawrence and pushing an angry finger into his chest.
“You respond to nobody but Ray? I sent you thirty-eight fucking letters. Ray writes you maybe six and he gets a reply to each one? That has nothing to do with God, and everything to do with me. Don’t you deny it.”
Bellini backed him into a wall, literally and physically.
“So I ask you again, Thomas Lawrence. Why didn’t you answer me?” Their bodies were impossibly close. The taller man couldn’t take it.
He shoved Bellini away gently, trying to distance himself as much as possible. How dare he demand such things of him, as if the answer would help! As if it would make anything better. It would only make things so much worse, if he spoke word to it.
“Why?” Bellini demanded, angry tears so close to spilling. Fine! So be it! Get ye as thou demands!
“Because I love you! Okay? Happy now?” He barked this, anger and misery at putting voice to how he’d felt for nearly two decades.
“Because you broke my heart during the conclave and because Vincent showed me that perhaps we are allowed to act on our affections if we so wished! Because I felt so strongly for the pair of you I stopped hearing the voice of God in my own head.”
He expected Bellini to break apart at this confession. He expected him to get angry or weep or smack him across the face. The American did none of those things. He just stood there, a bemused expression on his face.
“I knew this already, Thomas. I love you too.” He cocked his head slightly, a smile forming over his lips. “That’s a terrible reason not to write back though, truly.”
Lawrence was floored at the admission. He immediately sat down in the chair near the desk. He had supposed he had known, he had always known… but that didn’t make it any less life-changing to hear.
“You.. You do?” He said, when he finally felt his voice return to him. Bellini rolled his eyes.
“Is that really what you’re focusing on right now? Not on the thing I’m actually mad at? So typical of you Thomas.” Aldo teased, the anger and heat from his voice long gone.
“I couldn’t bear to keep hurting you so. I knew that my relationship with Vincent was unfair to you. But it was so lovely, even for a moment, to pretend that feelings weren’t fatal like they were with you.”
“And then they became fatal with him?” Lawrence looked away, but Bellini grabbed his chin and turned him back to face him. “It’s okay. I understand now. I really do.”
“I just knew I couldn’t stay here. It was suffocating. All I wanted was to hear God again.”
“Did you find Him? In Galway?”
“I did. I learned that God isn’t as black and white as I thought He was. That I’d been looking for voices in my head when He shows himself to us in other ways; He moves through us like a good feeling, like waves of excitement and energy and joy.”
Bellini kissed him, bending over the sitting man and putting action to what he had longed to do every day for twenty years. It was hungry and anything but chaste.
When they broke apart, he asked,
“What about now? Do you still feel Him? Are you once again a lost sheep under the strength of my thrall?”
Lawrence looked thoughtful for a moment, and shook his head. “I think I still do. I think I will be hard pressed to lose Him, now that I know exactly where to look.”
A pit formed in the friar’s stomach.
“What does this mean for us?”
Again, Bellini looked confused.
“I mean, who am I supposed to pick? Wasn’t that the point of the two of you dragging me back here?”
“Why do you need to pick?” This left Lawrence dumbfounded. He hadn’t considered that.
Well, he supposed he had, once, on an evening after drinking too much wine with his brothers a few months ago. He had been so ashamed at the fantasy he prayed the rosary twice and worked four extra hours laboring the next day.
“Vincent feels the same as I do.” Bellini said, “About everything.”
“How could you know that?”
“To know him is to love him. And I have gotten to know the Holy Father very well this past year.” he teased.
The jealousy flared up again within Lawrence. But he realized it wasn’t exactly jealousy. It was excitement, moving through him in waves.