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Chapter Text

They teach you to look for threats in basic training. How to scan crowds, picking through each section for anomalies. Someone moving against the flow, lingering too long, sweating too much. People have tells, and Andreas likes to think that he can read a room with a deftness that he never had with books, where words seemed to swim on pages and letters rearranged themselves when he wasn’t looking. But people? People are different. The way shoulders wilt with shame, how voices get just a shade too bright when nervous, eyes darting towards the exit before trouble starts. This is Andreas’s language, written in gesture and breath and the space between what people say and what they mean.

And when something goes wrong? (It hasn’t gone wrong in his six-and-a-half years of service to the Holy See, mind you, though that doesn’t mean he goes without reciting a silent Pater Noster before each apostolic assignment). In moments of adrenaline, your body learns to be a shield before your mind does. To position yourself between danger and your charge. Acriter et Fideliter. To serve is a privilege. To die is an honor.

Pope Innocentius XIV may send him to an early grave.

The Holy Father, for all of his kindness and patience, has a predilection for defying protocol. Holy Father, we really must insist that you do not eat home baked biscotti given to you by children, Commander Müller would say, a hint of consternation coloring his voice. Or, Holy Father, please, we ask that you limit your time with the faithful to the scheduled fifteen minutes. His Holiness would demur, naturally, but it was clear that his concern for safety began and ended with the service to his people.

But on days when the Pope resided within the Apostolic Palace? His routine fell into predictable patterns. Metronomic. It had taken no small amount of convincing from the Swiss Guard to persuade the new Pontiff to take up residence in the more secure papal apartments, as recent threats had made his preferred quarters at Casa Santa Marta untenable. It was an arrangement that the Pope had accepted with reluctance, and not for his own well being, but to placate the fretting of the Curia. He was an austere man, this Pope, one who still shied from the more ostentatious displays of his position as heir to the throne of Saint Peter.

At half past six each morning, his assigned sergeants would pull open the dense walnut doors to the apartments, their well-worn hinges groaning in protest, and the Pontiff would emerge, stepping out in his black Converse (a man of the people, truly), his white wool cassock rippling with each delicate movement, matching zucchetto perched on dark hair. He would turn to each of his two guards, stationed at either side of the entrance, and greet them with a gentle buongiorno, (and always by name) then set off at a comfortable pace through to the adjacent courtyard where morning air carried the scent of dew-damp stone and blooming perennials, toward Casa Santa Marta.

Klaus, a fellow sergeant, fell into step beside Andreas, a few paces behind the Holy Father. Years of shared assignments had refined their rhythm, and Klaus moved to the left, as was his custom, while Andreas took the right. Palm fronds from Sunday's celebration still adorned some of the doorways, curling against the humid air. The groundskeepers, intent on missing the midday sun, had already begun preparing the outdoor spaces for the Easter celebrations expected later in the week.

His Holiness paused when he came upon one of the elderly gardeners tending to the grounds, his face warming as he complimented the man on his handiwork in coaxing a shy set of blushing roses to climb up a wooden trellis.

Klaus halted a few paces away, his fingernails tapping against the radio at his hip, his eyes scanning the courtyard for other people, for other potential… delays. He touched his earpiece.

“Still proceeding to the chapel on schedule. Over.”

The gardener snipped through the base of the flower. A clean cut. He offered the bloom to the Pope with a smile, shy. The Holy Father accepted the rose with care, grasping the stem at a point where the pinpricks of thorns would not wound.

Klaus shifted his weight. He tilted his wrist just so to glance at his watch. Tapped the edge of his radio.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Andreas exhaled. This compulsive need to check and double-check had probably kept them both alive, but “I think we’re fine on time.”

Klaus stopped tapping. Straightened. When he turned to Andreas, his eyes narrowed against more than just the rising morning sun. 

“Müller will ream us out if we’re late.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing, resuming his walk. “You should have seen him after what happened yesterday.”

Andreas followed, throwing him a sidelong glance. “I’m assuming it wasn’t just another tourist wandering into a restricted area.”

“No, but that did happen the day after you left. Hope the coast was good. Almalfi, right? First time there?” 

Andreas nodded, looking back at the Pope. “First time seeing the ocean.”

Klaus raised an eyebrow. “You never forget your first time.”

Andreas gave a noncommittal shrug, but his eyes lingered on the rose in the Pope’s hand. “Didn’t expect it to feel so big. So what set Müller off yesterday?”

Klaus checked on the Pope’s position, a quick professional sweep, then moved closer to Andreas until their shoulders nearly touched, lowering his voice to the space between them.

"The Holy Father disappeared.”

Andreas missed a step. “He what?”

“Yeah, he went missing.” Klaus’s voice cut through the morning air. “Couldn’t find him. Never showed up for morning Mass.”

Andreas watched the Pope rise from examining the blooms, brushing flecks of damp soil from his white cassock. He turned back to Klaus. "Christ. Missing for how long? And no one thought to brief me once I got back?"

"You got in pretty late last night, and,” Klaus paused, muscles in his jaw working. “I think they’re still deciding who needs to know what."

Andreas stopped. “Okay, so how do you know about all this?”

“Müller asked me to handle the response after Martinas called it in. We checked his rooms— the entire apartment, and it was empty, no signs of a struggle. But the Pope was only gone for two hours, and I mean, look at him, he’s fine!”

Andreas watched Klaus’s eyes flit over to their charge, still speaking amicably to the gardener. 

“He’s fine, but Müller is having you report on our position every five minutes?”

Klaus winced. "Well, you should have seen Müller. He asked us, ‘—what do you mean he disappeared? Do you expect me to believe that the Holy Father climbed out of the window and scaled the Vatican walls himself?’"

Andreas watched as the Holy Father offered his gratitude toward the gardener while cradling the rose stem. Two different worlds, this panic Klaus described, and the serene figure before them.

He could never imagine him scaling walls.

Andreas followed the Pope’s farewell to the gardener. "So where was he?”

"Stuck in the private papal elevators. Some sort of mechanical failure, and a broken call button."

"Oh. Was he hurt? Distressed?" Andreas paused, studying Klaus's face.

Klaus's silence stretched too long. His jaw worked like he was chewing on something bitter.

"Klaus."

“No,” Klaus pulled a face then, fussing with his watch. "But Cardinal Lawrence was with him."

Andreas blinked. The Dean of the College of Cardinals?

The Holy Father turned to them then, a slight tilt of his head. Both sergeants straightened. A smile, the smallest nod, and he continued on. Klaus and Andreas fell back into step, but Klaus’s stride was shorter now, clipped, as if his body were still braced for an impending crisis.

“So he was gone for at least two hours…do you know when they actually got trapped?”

Klaus sighed. "No. They haven’t shared the full timeline with any of us. But hey," Klaus said, leaning close enough that his shoulder bumped Andreas, "When we found them, Lawrence could barely look at anyone. And the Pope seemed..." He struggled to find the word. "Dazed. Just out of it."

Andreas frowned. "Dazed how?"

Klaus scanned the courtyard before he drew closer, words dropping to a whisper.

"When they came out, they were—“

“Holy Father!”

The three turned to find Monsignor O’Malley weaving through the courtyard, breathless, a folder of documents tucked under his arm, papers threatening to spill from its edges.

"Good morning! Just a quick note on the Vigil schedule, if I may.”

As O'Malley drew the Pope into conversation, Andreas guided Klaus away with a hand on his arm.

"Let's talk after Mass," Andreas offered, “we’ll have a moment later.”

Klaus nodded, but Andreas caught him glancing back toward the Pope and O’Malley, afraid someone might overhear even their silence.

The details followed Andreas as they walked. Two hours. Step. Trapped. Step. Dazed. Step. A rhythm that matched their movement. They arrived (on schedule, to the visible relief of Klaus) at a quarter to seven. There would be no verbal reprimands from Commander Müller about a missing Pontiff today.

The chapel's triangular peaks cut angles against the clear morning sky. The scent of the delicate lilies placed at the entrance curled through the courtyard, preparations for Easter that would transform the Vatican in days to come. Andreas moved ahead first, already reaching for the door handle. Klaus positioned himself to scan the small but growing congregation of Vatican staff and visiting clergy, while Andreas pulled the door open and stepped aside with a slight bow for the Pontiff and the Monsignor to pass through.

The Pope stopped at the foot of the modest shrine to the Madonna and Child, cradling the rose between his steepled hands, head bowed in prayer before placing it at the mother’s feet. He made a sign of the cross and then moved toward the vestment chest to prepare for the morning’s service while O'Malley found his seat within the congregation.

And then Cardinal Lawrence arrived.

Instead of taking his usual seat in the front row, often filled with other visiting Cardinals and members of the Curia, the Dean halted in the aisle. His gaze found his familiar place among his peers, lingered there, hesitating, then turned away. He walked toward the furthest corner, closest to the door. His black cassock rustled in the hushed space as he sank into his seat, shoulders curved inward like a penitent, eyes fixed on his fingers clasped tight in his lap.

At precisely seven o'clock, the congregation rose as one body, and His Holiness emerged from the sacristy. His head bowed in communion, hands folded in prayer, draped in violet and gold vestments that caught the morning light. A concelebrant and two seminarians followed in silence. The Pope’s movements, while reverent as always, carried a quiet but inspired lightness that hummed beneath his serene exterior.

He ascended to the altar and turned to his flock, scanning the many faces in the front rows. Of the liturgists, the secretariat, the head of the papal household. Indispensable mechanisms that kept the ancient wheel of the Holy See moving. But when his gaze reached the back and found the lone, lean figure of Cardinal Lawrence, a smile bloomed across his features.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…”

Andreas let his attention drift across the gathered faithful, of faces softened by light filtering through the glass wall. But his focus kept returning to Cardinal Lawrence, who sat rigid in his corner seat, fingers worrying the fabric at his lap.

When the final reading dissolved into silence, the Pope rose from his chair, stepping toward his flock, hands clasped in front of him.

"Today's Gospel," he began, his words carrying with ease through the hushed, intimate space, "tells us of a woman who came to Jesus with an alabaster jar of precious ointment. The disciples were scandalized by her extravagance, calling it waste."

The Holy Father paused, gaze drifting toward the back of the chapel. "But Jesus saw something different."

Lawrence didn’t stir. A taut wire.

"'She has done a beautiful thing to me,' our Lord tells them. Not shameful, not excessive, and not inappropriate. But beautiful. Divine." The Pope's voice grew quieter, more contemplative. “The disciples called it waste because they couldn't see what Christ saw. That love, when genuine, sanctifies even what others would condemn."

"This morning I found myself thinking of the mystics who understood this radical acceptance. Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross. They wrote of being 'ravished' by divine love, of being completely overwhelmed by a single glance of divine recognition."

The Pope walked a few steps, his tone growing more contemplative.

"Sometimes revelation comes when we least expect it, at times when we feel trapped. But they understood that true love, whether human or divine, has the power to bring us closer to God."

Andreas saw the Pope look over at Lawrence in the back corner. Lawrence kept his head turned away, eyes fixed to the side, as if the adjacent stone of the Leonine Wall could provide reprieve.

"There's a verse from the Song of Songs that speaks to this. 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.' The Church Fathers taught us to read these words as Christ speaking to each of our souls. But I think we often forget that love requires recognition. Understanding. Really seeing someone, and being seen in return."

"Grace can find us in the most unexpected places, in moments when we have nowhere to run, when all of our defenses fall away."

Several congregants leaned forward, drawn in by the intimate tone.

“My brothers and sisters, as we continue in our celebration of Holy Week, we must remember that our Lord sees us this way. Completely. Without judgment. And sometimes he allows us to see each other the same way."

The Pope paused. Blinking, caught off-guard by his own words. No, Andreas realized, retreating from whatever precipice he'd approached. The Pope's gaze dropped to the floor for a moment before he looked back at the congregation. A timid request in his gaze.

"Let us pray that we have the courage to accept such recognition when it comes to us."

———

When the time came to receive communion, the congregation rose, forming in quiet procession toward the altar. But Andreas kept his attention pinned to Lawrence, who remained seated a beat too long before rising to join the line.

As the final prayers concluded, and the recessional music came to a crescendo, Lawrence rose with such haste that the scrape of his chair against marble cut through the chapel's hush, sharp enough to turn Klaus's head.

Klaus leaned in, his voice barely audible. “He didn’t look great yesterday when those doors opened. He looks worse now.”

Andreas had to agree. “What exactly did you see when those elevator doors opened?” Andreas asked, not taking his eyes off Lawrence.

"A complication."

Andreas turned to Klaus, frowning. Before he could ask what Klaus meant, a familiar voice rang out.

"Thomas!"

Monsignor O'Malley intercepted Cardinal Lawrence near the doorway as Mass ended.

“The schematics for Friday’s procession are ready, if you’d—“ O’Malley stopped then, taking a closer look at his old friend and colleague. “Thomas, you look terrible. When’s the last time you slept?”

Lawrence's knuckles whitened where they gripped his breviary, the fine leather binding flaking and falling under the pressure.

"I sleep fine."

"In your office chair doesn’t count. Aldo said you haven’t been at Vespers."

“And Aldo talks too much.”

O'Malley took a step towards his friend. "I could have Janusz cover the security meeting. The agenda's simple enough."

"Ray, I'm perfectly capable of—"

"Cardinal Lawrence!" The Pope's voice carried across the intimate space, bright with the afterglow of prayer.

Lawrence's shoulders cinched inward as the Holy Father’s footsteps cut off his path to the door.

"Monsignor, how good to see you again.” The Pontiff joined their small circle.

"Beautiful homily, truly moving." O'Malley's face brightened with genuine admiration. "I was just telling the Cardinal he looks rather peaked."

The Holy Father shifted his gaze to the Cardinal, eyes softening further, and a gentle, teasing reproach coloring his voice.

“Our Dean has been shouldering the cross of this week for us all, even if it comes at the expense of his sleep—” His hand moved with a natural grace, fingers extending to graze Lawrence's arm.

Lawrence stepped away from his touch.

Andreas watched the Pope pull back. Surprise, then pain, colored his features, a frown in his eyes before he could control it.

"Your Eminence?"

“I—” Lawrence’s voice caught. He blinked. “Forgive me, I need to get to the Secretariat’s office. Aldo’s expecting me.”

He cut past O’Malley and toward the door, his gaze cast low to the alabaster floor, the quiet dignity of his office forgotten.

The Pope stood frozen, arrested, his hand extended in the empty air. In the space between one breath and the next, before the approaching parishioners could reclaim his attention, Andreas saw the Pope's mouth slightly parted, as if to call after Lawrence, his gaze fixed on the doorway.

The look of someone who had offered something precious and watched it fall.

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The formal ceremony had concluded, and with it, the fragile pretense of decorum. Almost.

For a second time this morning, Andreas witnessed a communion of men. A few concelebrants remained, gathering under the expanse of the sacristy as they waited for their fellow fratelli. Unburdened of their chasubles and stoles, the clergy drifted toward one another, their voices a murmur of half-formed plans. Now and then, a hand clasped a shoulder, or faces leaned close in confidence. Andreas caught fragments—a trattoria near the Tiber, yes, excellent wine…old friends, they just arrived from Milan…let’s catch up before the week carries us off.

Monsignor O’Malley conferred with a sacristan over a portfolio of notes while Monsignor Mandorff hovered near the doorway, listening and nodding. Opposite them, Andreas and Klaus stood a few paces apart. Alert. Together, they observed the clergy spill out in twos and threes into the adjoining corridor, eager to delight in the offerings of the secular world beyond.

The Pope stood apart at the far side of the chamber. His vestments, the color of eggshell, the last to be unpinned by his acolytes. They moved in silence around their Holy Father, working with an obeisance that did not allow their eyes to meet his. They spoke in gestures, and only to each other, as though words might profane the sacred duty entrusted to them.

Andreas noticed as the Pope’s gaze swept to the far side of the chamber and settled on Cardinal Lawrence. The Cardinal, unaware of the Holy Father’s attention, stood off-center, near the wall, removing the last of his vestments.

The acolytes finished, stepping back in unison, heads bowed, awaiting dismissal. Not one looked at the Holy Father’s face. The Pope thanked each in turn, but they only responded with deeper genuflections, eyes on the marble floor. The Holy Father gave a final nod of dismissal, and with the yoke of his chasuble gone, he adjusted his zucchetto and strode toward the Dean.

“Your Eminence,” the Holy Father called out, his voice carrying across the chamber, “Your homily this morning—may we speak of it in private?”

The Cardinal’s eyes, a deep blue, held the Pope’s for a breath, then returned to his vestments, draping the last robe onto its hanger. “I believe I made my position clear. And we have additional preparations to complete before this evening.”

The Pope reached for Lawrence’s arm, fingers brushing the sleeve of his black cassock. “Tomás, please, I need to understand—”

Lawrence’s shoulders stiffened. A line drawn in air.

“There’s nothing else to understand, Your Holiness.” Lawrence stepped back. He drew his arm to his side, the Pope’s touch falling away. “We have our duties. Each of us.”

The Pope’s eyes widened, struck.

Another voice cut across the moment.

“Thomas, Your Holiness, apologies, but we need your final approval on tomorrow’s order of service,” said Ray, looking toward Cardinal Lawrence. “Willi mentioned your revisions affect the processional, and he’s waiting on your guidance.” Ray inclined his head toward Mandorff, still at the door, pointing to a paper and discussing it with a sacristan.

“Yes, thank you, Ray.” Lawrence extricated himself from the Pope’s reach and smoothed his cassock.

The Holy Father stepped forward, lips parting as if to call after Lawrence, another word that might have bridged the growing distance between them. But the Cardinal had already gone.

The Pope’s shoulders slumped, a momentary, silent collapse of posture. Diminished. His eyes dropped to the floor, tracing the tessellations of fractured marble beneath his worn Converse. One of the laces had already begun to fray. He took a breath. And another. In that small space of quiet, he worried the wooden beads of the rosary at his side. The contemplation of his sorrow broken by the reverberation of a distant door slamming shut. He looked up. With eyes set in resolve, he strode ahead, past the ingress, past the guards themselves. Andreas caught Klaus’s eye. They could not carry the burden of the Holy Father’s cross, but no matter his intentions, they would follow.

—

The annex stretched through arches and colonnades, corridors folding back on themselves, each turn revealing another doorway, another hum of voices. Light muzzled by cloudspun skies filtered through the high windows. It pooled across the checkered marble, catching on brass nameplates and polished wood. A door here and there stood open to let in a breath of spring air, yet others remained ajar, muted conversations drifting out. Preparations for tomorrow’s liturgy, adjustments to the processional timing for the Via Crucis. A note of worry toward the weather.

Andreas trailed behind the Holy Father, with Klaus just to his right. The building itself seemed to have machinations to funnel him into tighter and tighter cloisters, each one narrower than the last, winding and twisting him toward some shallow semblance of reprieve.

A door creaked on shrill hinges just ahead. Cardinal Bellini, with a well-worn book in hand, turned to lock it behind him. The Pope’s shoulders shifted, a fraction of the tension in his back giving way. He walked through a final gallery, threaded past a loggia overlooking a courtyard filled with palm fronds, eyes fixed on Bellini.

“Aldo! May we speak for a moment?”

Bellini straightened, adjusting his glasses. “Yes, please come into my office—”

“I find I think more clearly in the open air,” the Holy Father said, gesturing toward the courtyard.

Bellini’s eyes flicked toward Andreas and Klaus, just long enough to register their presence before returning to the Pope. He adjusted his glasses. “Of course, Your Holiness.”

Andreas and Klaus exchanged glances as they fell into step behind the two men, maintaining a respectful distance.

The Pope started tentative, slow. “My inexperience in Curial matters isn’t lost on me. You know better than most the weight and responsibility of these offices we hold, the proximity to decisions that affect the Church. I—” He pursed his lips, gathering himself. “I am concerned about Thomas. His behavior this week has been troubling.”

Bellini nodded in acknowledgment. “Holy Week is always taxing,” Bellini said, “but this year seems complicated, compared to years past.”

The Holy father glanced at him. “Complicated?”

“The Curia has noticed certain tensions.” Bellini’s tone remained mild. “Nothing scandalous, mind you. But a shift in dynamics, between yourself and the Dean.”

The Pope’s momentum stalled. “Have they.”

“They have eyes, Your Holiness. And unfortunately, they also have tongues.” Bellini adjusted his glasses. “The aftermath is becoming visible enough that it requires management.”

The Holy Father stilled. “I see.”

“Do you?” Bellini’s tone remained firm. “I know it’s not fair, but perception is everything, and the Curia is watching. Right now, they see something between you and Thomas. Some will call it favoritism. Others will invent worse.”

“But Thomas won’t even speak to me,” The Holy Father said, his voice carrying a note of desperation Andreas hadn’t heard before. Fragile. “I’ve been trying since yesterday, and he won’t even look at me. Aldo, I don’t understand what I did wrong.”

Bellini’s expression grew careful.

“Your Holiness…” The Cardinal sighed, eyes dropping to the clothbound book he held, fingertips brushing over the embossed title. St. John of the Cross. “Thomas came to see me. But I can’t share what we discussed.”

The Pope nodded, understanding the implication.

“I’m not asking you to break confidence. But we fell out of step, somewhere. Yesterday at the meeting, what he said—” The Pope’s voice caught. “And this morning’s homily. He’s in pain, and I don’t understand why he won’t let me help.”

Their feet reached the rim of a fountain. Circular and low, so low that a single misstep would send them spilling into the water. A shy burble disturbed the surface, backbrushed by flecks of light and sky.

Cardinal Bellini studied the Holy Father. Bespectacled eyes, not unkind, but shrewd in a way that Andreas associated with the men of the Curia, stared back. They did not flinch from the Pope’s plea, no, nor did they soften. They held steady, a mental arithmetic between duty and discretion playing out.

“What do you think happened?”

“I thought—” The Pope stopped, uncertain. “We’ve grown close these past months. And I thought, perhaps, that this closeness was mutual.”

Bellini’s eyes softened a fraction. He nodded once, sight settling on the water’s blue, following the droplets that slipped over fountain’s edge, into the runnels below. “Thomas has always been… difficult with himself. Even at seminary, he set standards no person could meet.”

The Holy Father tilted his head, hesitant. “What do you mean?”

Andreas watched Bellini remove his glasses, massaging the bridge of his nose. “He would fast until he fainted, shower with hot water to the point of scalding his skin. The rest of us learned to live with our imperfections, but Thomas? His scruples never allowed him that mercy.”

For a moment, the Pope seemed almost thoughtful, his gaze following the ripples of water spread across the fountain’s well. Each broke and met and spread in widening circles, fragile patterns that vanished as soon as they formed.

“But that was years ago.” His tone carried more hope than certainty.

Bellini did not answer.

The water’s surface quivered under a passing breeze, unraveling, scattering the fragile ripples. His face drained of color, faltering.

“Dear God,” he whispered, voice raw.

The Holy Father lifted his gaze from the fountain, uncertain, lost in the terrible implications of this revelation. He started forward, each step tentative, with Bellini falling into step beside him, matching the rhythm of a man carrying too much at once.

“Thomas sees saints where others see people,” Bellini continued. “He’s never learned to forgive himself for being human. The closer someone is to what he considers sacred, the more dangerous he believes his own humanity becomes.”

The Holy Father stopped, abrupt. Andreas nearly collided with Klaus's wiry frame as they both halted, watching the Pope stand in the middle of the walkway.

“How do I reach him then?” The Pope’s voice carried a note of desperation. “Because I can’t just abandon him like this. There has to be something I can do.”

Bellini turned to face him, apprehension written across his features. “You show up. You stay consistent. You let him know you’re there, that you care, that you’ll listen without judgment.” His voice grew pained. “I cannot excuse his unreasonable behavior toward you. You’ve been more patient than most. But he does care, deeply, perhaps too much sometimes. In his own way.”

The Holy Father’s shoulders sagged. “And if he pulls away for good?”

Andreas could hear the distant splash of the fountain, the rustle of wind through the palm leaves. A door opening, slamming shut, from the Curia’s office beyond. Voices, a distant conversation. Laughter. A lone swallow, calling for its mate.

“Then you let him go,” Bellini said, “and pray he finds the mercy he cannot yet give himself. That is all any of us can do.”

-

Hours later, evening’s air cooled. Rest period over, they left the barracks behind, passing in the shadow of the Tower of Nicholas V.

“Drivers should already be at St. Damaso,” Klaus said, checking his watch just ahead of them, his dark jacket catching the breeze. “We’ve got twenty minutes.”

Andreas walked alongside the other sergeants, hands in his pockets, eyes already scanning their route. They each wore variations of the same plainclothes—dark trousers, button-down shirts, a light jacket. Understated attire meant to maintain a low profile during pastoral visits. Tadeo’s jacket hung open, while Martinas kept tugging at his collar. To any passerby, they could be senior Vatican aides, or diplomatic staff. Only the earpiece connected to his DP 3441 radio and the weight of a Glock 19 beneath his jacket reminded him this wasn’t, in fact, a casual stroll with friends.

“So Will,” Martinas said, turning to the taller sergeant beside him, “how’s the fencing coming along?”

Will beamed. Quiet, stoic, no-nonsense, Will Lüscher actually beamed. “Really great. Beatrice and I have been practicing our advances and retreats.”

“Oh, Beatrice.” Tadeo grinned. “You letting her score on you?”

“She earns those touches,” Will said with a slight smile.

“I bet she does.”

“He’s gone,” Klaus called back to the others. “Completely gone.”

Will shrugged, not denying it. “Guilty.”

They passed through an archway, entering the ground-level corridors of the Apostolic Palace. The air changed, cooler now, carrying the scent of old stone and polished marble.

“So the club, it’s near the Gregorian?” Martinas asked, fumbling with his jacket zipper.

“Yeah it’s by her school. Though the whites are such a pain to wash.” Will paused, running a hand through his sand-colored hair. “But it’s worth it. Even when she kicks my ass. Which is often.”

Andreas stopped. White. The word snagged in his mind.

“Well at least if she actually stabs you, you know how to patch yourself up—”

“Did any of you notice someone in white at Chrism Mass?” Andreas asked. “In the seventh row? Just standing there while everyone else was seated?”

“Well that narrows it down,” Tadeo said. “They were all wearing white for the ceremony.”

Klaus sighed. “You saw a priest in white robes acting weird at a Mass full of priests in white robes.”

“It was different,” Andreas insisted. “They—he, was staring right at me. Not moving. Then I looked away for maybe two seconds and he was just… gone.”

Martinas frowned. “You think it’s connected to the thing from Tuesday?”

Tadeo shot him a warning look.

“What happened on Tuesday?” asked Will.

“I know how it sounds—”

“It sounds like you’re seeing patterns everywhere.” Klaus’s voice cut through. “You’ve been doing it since you got back.”

Andreas’s jaw tightened. “Maybe. But what if I’m not?”

“Then you report it,” Tadeo said, his voice firm. “Through proper channels like we discussed.”

“I did report it—”

“And now you let the Gendarmerie handle it.” Tadeo stopped, forcing the others to halt with him. He fixed Andreas with a look, his eyes grey, stern, the color of steel and flint.

“Our job tonight is to watch the Pope’s back at Sant’Egidio. That’s it. Can you do that?”

Andreas exhaled through his nose, looking past Tadeo's shoulder, out toward the corridor. Then at his own oxfords. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Good.” Tadeo resumed walking. Then, he let out a sigh, rolling his eyes in frustration. “Will, we’ll brief you on the other thing later. For now, just stay sharp.”

They turned a corner, the administrative wing stretching ahead. As they passed, a door stood ajar, harsh light spilling into the corridor.

“—the one I prepared last year, before the late Holy Father’s passing.”

Lawrence’s voice.

“Thomas,” Ray’s voice carried through the gap of the door. “Is everything all right?”

He could hear the shuffling of paper.

“We’ll see, Ray. Just make sure it’s there by tonight.”

They kept walking, past the colonnades, footsteps on marble. The words circled in his mind, something prepared before the last Pope died, now needed tonight. Andreas filed it away with everything else that didn’t quite fit.

St. Damaso’s courtyard opened up before them. The surrounding loggias glowed with interior light, arched windows stacked three stories high. Three black vehicles sat in formation on the dark cobblestones, engines idling, drivers from the motor pool standing at attention beside open doors. Waiting for the Holy Father and the rest of his entourage to arrive. They moved to their positions without discussion. Andreas approached the middle vehicle, nodding to the driver, a man in his forties he’d worked with before, competent and discreet. Tadeo and Martinas headed for the lead car. Klaus and Will moved toward the trail.

The Holy Father emerged from the palace entrance first, white cassock catching the light from the loggias, flanked by two sergeants from the previous shift. They nodded to Andreas and his other colleagues at the ready, handing off their charge to his next engagement.

Behind him came the evening’s entourage. Cardinal Lawrence, several visiting members of the clergy, and a Vatican coordinator. The supporting staff moved toward the trail vehicle, with the clergy heading for the lead car.

After the day’s tensions, Andreas couldn’t be certain what to expect anymore. But when Lawrence followed one of the bishops toward the lead vehicle instead of taking his usual place beside the Pope, the message was unmistakable.

“Your Eminence?” The Pope called out.

Lawrence turned, but kept his gaze averted from meeting the Pope’s eyes. “I’ll ride with the advance party, Holy Father. I need to review the evening’s agenda with Bishop Torrini before we arrive.” Lawrence climbed into the back seat of the lead vehicle, and the driver closed the door with a decisive click.

The Pope didn’t move, brow furrowed, his hand reaching for the rosary at his side, still staring at the lead vehicle where Lawrence sat. The driver opened the papal car’s rear door. “Your Holiness?”

The Holy Father turned to the driver, dipping his head in thanks, and climbed inside.

Andreas made a decision, then. Instead of taking the front passenger seat, he circled to the other rear door and slid in beside the Holy Father.

The Pope looked up, a little surprised, then gave a nod, the side of his mouth quirking up in a half-smile.

They pulled out of the courtyard, the three vehicles advancing through the Vatican’s interior routes toward the gates that led into Rome.

—

The convoy wound through Trastevere’s narrow cobblestone streets as evening deepened over Rome. Andreas sat beside the Holy Father in the back of the papal vehicle, the world outside muted through tinted, bulletproof glass. Tourist cafes gave way to residential blocks, the Vatican’s pristine marble far behind them, replaced by weathered ochre and rose-colored walls that seemed to glow in the fading light. Outside passing restaurants, waitstaff carried out wrought iron chairs, arranging tables for patrons to enjoy evening aperitifs al fresco.

“I’ve been Pope for a few months now.”

Andreas turned to regard him. The Holy Father’s hands rested on his lap, rosary threaded between his fingers, his gaze directed out the window, as though the words had been meant for the streets themselves, rather than his guard.

When the Holy Father looked at him, the changes showed. The Pope’s hair, long, longer even than that of many of the younger guards back at the barracks, had picked up more silver since his election. Those eyes, which Andreas would categorize as kind, had dimmed, holding a weariness that had only deepened since he’d first accepted the fisherman’s ring. That cautious, hopeful smile that dazzled millions from the central loggia at St. Peter’s square on that cold November day, had set itself into a firm line. A slight downturn. He carried the grace and dignity of his office well, but not without effort.

“What do you think of the job I’m doing?”

“I’m…” Andreas stammered, caught off-guard. He’d never been asked such a thing by his previous charge. “I’m very happy with your work, Your Holiness.”

The words came out reflexive. Professional, even. Safe.

The Holy Father nodded, offering a wan smile. He turned back to the window.

It was a true answer. Why, then, did Andreas feel like he had said the wrong thing?

“Eyes up,” Tadeo’s voice crackled through his earpieces from the lead vehicle. “Civilian foot traffic around the church.”

Through the front windshield, between the driver and front passenger seat, Andreas caught sight of Sant’Egidio’s pale facade emerging from the maze of narrow streets. Evening light caught the weathered stone. The surrounding buildings glowed warm against the deepening sky, laundry lines still strung between windows.

As their vehicle slowed, Andreas leaned forward, conducting a visual sweep. Instead of tourists with cameras, small groups of people clustered on the church steps and around the square. Some wrapped in worn coats despite the mild evening, others carrying plastic bags or small backpacks. A few children clung to their mothers’ hands. Near the church entrance, a bronze figure lay stretched across a bench, wrapped in what appeared to be a tattered blanket, a sculpture with only the visible wounds on his feet revealing the sacred identity.

The papal vehicle drew up before the church doors, settling behind the lead car that had come ahead to clear the way.

Andreas touched his earpiece. “Status report?”

“Perimeter secure,” Martinas answered over the radio, from his position near the church steps.

Andreas gave a curt nod, exiting, and circled around to the other side of the car, opening the Holy Father’s door. The Holy Father stepped out, shoulders loosening as his gaze lit on the sanctuary before him. He adjusted his white zucchetto, offered Andreas a quiet thank you, and made his way toward the modest entrance.

Warm light spilled from the church’s open doors. he Pope paused at the threshold, one hand still resting on the metal railing. A woman in her fifties, perhaps a volunteer, extended her hand with a warm smile, and the Holy Father took it without hesitation.

“Holy Father,” the woman inclined her head. “Welcome to our community.”

“Thank you, Teresa. The pleasure is mine entirely.”

Andreas followed the Pope inside, scanning the space on reflex. Tadeo had positioned himself at the far wall and gave Andreas a nod as he entered. Martinas had taken a spot near the side entrance, maintaining visual contact with both the main door and the kitchen area. Volunteers from Sant’Egidio moved between folding tables, placing crisp linens and setting silverware for the evening meal. Cardinal Lawrence stood with several clergy from both the Vatican and the parish, their quiet conversation pausing when they noticed the Pope. Meanwhile, children darted under the tables, giggling as they played makeshift tag.

One of the clergy members, a younger bishop, stepped forward, extending his hand in greeting. “Your Holiness, we are deeply honored by your presence during this most sacred week.”

The Holy Father clasped his hand. “The honor is mine, Bishop Esposito. Cardinal Lawrence has often spoken to me of your community.”

The Pope’s attention shifted past the bishop to where Lawrence stood with the other clergy. Their eyes met. Lawrence inclined his head, a minute gesture, and looked away.

“Your mission here truly speaks to the heart of our calling,” the Pope said, his attention returning to the bishop, though his voice had quieted.

Bishop Esposito, oblivious to the tension between the Holy Father and his Dean, brightened. “Thank you, Holy Father! We’ve prepared a small reception, nothing elaborate— just wine and some remarks. Several of our board members are hoping to meet you, and we thought perhaps Cardinal Lawrence could say a few words about the community—”

As the bishop spoke, the Holy Father’s focus drifted toward the kitchen doorway. To the clatter of cooking utensils against pans, the sizzle of onions meeting oil, the low hum of conversation, voices rising and falling, punctuated by laughter and the camaraderie of service.

“Forgive me, Your Excellency,” the Pope’s voice interjected. “I find I’m most needed where the work is being done.”

Bishop Esposito froze mid-sentence, glancing back toward Cardinal Lawrence. Lawrence said nothing, his hands falling still at his sides as he watched the Pope walk toward the kitchen. Around them, the other clergy shifted, with one younger priest opening his mouth as if to speak, then closing it again. After a moment's hesitation, they followed, forming an awkward cluster near the kitchen threshold.

The Holy Father peeked into the busy space, where the air wafted with the scent of garlic sautéing in olive oil and the rich aroma of simmering tomato sauce. Steam rose from large pots on the stove, and the rhythmic chopping of vegetables provided a steady percussion beneath the volunteers’ conversations, none yet aware of their distinguished visitor.

Mild shock crossed Bishop Esposito’s face. “Holy Father, you really don’t need to—”

“I have two good hands,” the Pope said, moving toward the sink to wash them. “Put me to work.”

As the Holy Father’s voice carried through the kitchen, heads began to turn. A young man stirring risotto nearly dropped his wooden spoon. One by one, the volunteers noticed the white cassock and zucchetto. Several began to genuflect.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt. Pretend I’m not here.” The Pope smiled as Teresa offered him a simple blue apron. The Pope accepted it, tying it around his waist over his white cassock.

An older bishop, pushing ninety, if Andreas was being generous with his estimation, made his way forward with slow but determined steps, one gnarled hand steadying himself against the doorframe.

“Bishop Emeritus—” Esposito began, alarmed.

But the elder bishop had already crossed the threshold, moving toward the carving station. His hands trembled as he reached for the knives, his face alight with purpose.

Teresa intercepted him, offering her arm. “Bishop Emeritus, Sister Elena is setting up the wash area. She could use your help there.”

She guided him past the cutting boards to a corner sink where a severe-looking woman arranged dish racks. Sister Elena pulled over a stool and set a tray of wine glasses before him. “These need drying, Eccellenza carissima, thank you.”

The elder bishop gave a near pout as he settled onto the stool.

Behind them, the rest of the visiting clergy lingered at the threshold, watching the Pope roll up his sleeves, watching the volunteers bustle about, but making no move to join in. Too stunned, it seemed, to participate.

The kitchen returned to its rhythm, though Andreas noticed several volunteers stealing glances at the Pope as he rolled up his sleeves to chop vegetables into neat little piles. Steam continued to rise from the pots, everyone working with renewed purpose, honored by his presence but trying to follow his directive to treat him as just another pair of helping hands. Andreas positioned himself near the kitchen entrance, while Will, having just arrived with Klaus, took a spot where he could observe the food preparation area. Both guards watched the Holy Father’s easy movements as he worked alongside the others. He seemed more relaxed than he'd been in days, shoulders loose as he diced carrots with surprising skill. Will eyed the paring knife with mild wariness, but said nothing. For several minutes, the only sounds were the rhythmic chop of his knife and the gentle conversations around them. Then—

“—komak konid nan ra be miz biyavarid.”

The words came from somewhere behind Andreas, spoken by a young woman carrying a tray of bread. Andreas couldn’t place the language for a moment. It wasn’t Italian, not Arabic either.

The Pope’s head snapped up. He turned toward the voice, his face lighting with recognition, a smile breaking across his features.

“Man kami Dari balad hastam,” the Holy Father replied, his pronunciation careful but clear. “Shoma az koja hastid?”

The woman almost dropped her tray. Her eyes widened as she stared at the Pope, shocked to hear her native language from the Holy Father’s mouth. She responded, excitement evident in her voice even though Andreas couldn’t understand the words.

The Pope smiled, shy, and replied with words that made the woman laugh. Soon others had gathered—an older man with weathered hands, a teenager who’d been helping serve water. All speaking in the same melodic, unfamiliar language.

Andreas felt Will step close to his shoulder. “What language is that?”

“Dari,” Andreas murmured, though he couldn’t be certain, “from Afghanistan.” He’d heard it before, from the Pope’s Sunday calls to Kabul, speaking with the faithful of his former parish, yet the Holy Father’s fluency still surprised him.

The Holy Father came alive in a way Andreas hadn't seen since before the security meeting. His hands moved as he spoke, and when the older man made a remark that made the group chuckle, the Pope threw back his head and laughed. Genuine, unguarded joy that seemed to lift years from his face.

—

The long tables had filled with Sant’Egidio’s evening community. Afghan refugees sat beside elderly Romans, while a young mother from Syria found herself sharing bread with a Ukrainian family new to Rome. Volunteers had settled in alongside the residents, and the clergy too, joined the shared meal. The Pope had taken a seat near the middle of the longest table in the nave, not at the head as protocol would demand. Conversations flowed in multiple languages as the atmosphere quieted and people noticed him rise to his feet, hands resting on the table’s white linen.

“My friends,” the Pope began, his voice carrying through the makeshift dining hall. “As the Lord met with his disciples on this Holy Thursday, tonight we too gather not as strangers, but as family. We may come from different places, speak different languages, hold different beliefs, yet here we are, sharing this meal together.”

His gaze swept across the faces around the tables. Andreas noticed how the Pope’s eyes fell on the Afghan family he’d spoken with earlier, then on Cardinal Lawrence.

“In the tradition of my faith, we remember that service, shown on this day through sharing a meal and washing the feet of others, is love made visible. But I know that this call to serve one another, to care for the vulnerable, to welcome the stranger, exists in all our traditions. Tonight, in sharing this meal, in opening our hearts to one another, we live that universal calling.”

“We ask the Divine, or however you name the Sacred, to bless this food, prepared by many hands and offered with generous hearts. May each person here know that you are seen, you are valued, and you are beloved, exactly as you are.”

His gaze found Lawrence again. “May we find peace in one another’s presence, and mercy toward ourselves and our circumstances.”

The Pope made the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” some of the attendees responded. Others bowed their heads in respect.

And as the blessing settled over the room, the evening meal began in earnest. Conversations resumed, steam continued rising from the serving trays. The Holy Father moved among them, white cassock smudged at the sleeve where he had helped serve plates. His hands ladled minestrone into bowls, filled glasses, and pressed food into waiting hands.

“And you too,” he said, turning to Andreas, who stood taut at his shoulder, gesturing to an empty chair beside him.

Andreas blinked, caught between duty to remain at the ready and obedience to his charge, but the Pope’s eyes brooked no refusal. With an awkward half-bow, Andreas lowered himself onto the chair, next to the parish clergy. Across the table, Klaus smirked, nudging a bowl of insalata mista toward him.

Andreas scanned the dining hall as he settled in. Tadeo near the entrance, Martinas and Will among the other diners. At the table, Bishop Esposito leaned toward a visiting priest, deep in conversation.

Bishop Emeritus (or Nonno Vicano, as Andreas had overheard the Sant’Egidio regulars call him) reached across the table, grabbed Esposito’s wine glass and downed it in one smooth motion. He set it back down, empty.

The younger bishop turned back, his eyes narrowing on his empty glass, and then on the Bishop Emeritus beside him. Nonno Vicano kept a straight face, nibbling on a piece of bread.

Bishop Esposito rolled his eyes and reached for the wine bottle to refill his glass.

A boy beside the Holy Father tugged at his sleeve, pointing at a basket of bread. He smiled and passed it to him, watching as the child selected a piece before sending the basket down the line. Then his eyes found the Cardinal, sitting at the furthest end of the table. Lawrence sat between a parish priest and one of the volunteers, both deep in their own conversation across him. In front of him sat nothing but a glass of water, untouched.

The Pope frowned. With a quiet word to the woman beside him, he rose, crossed to the serving table, and prepared a plate himself—ladling minestrone thick with vegetables, adding a piece of crusty bread still warm from the oven, a small portion of insalata mista, a drizzle of olive oil over everything. With care, as though setting an offering.

When he reached Cardinal Lawrence, the Pope set the plate before him. “I haven’t had the pleasure of sharing a meal with you in days,” he said. “Please. Eat.”

The Cardinal looked up, startled. For a moment he seemed about to protest, words pressed behind his lips. But the Pope’s gaze didn’t waver, warm and unyielding. At last Lawrence lowered his eyes, nodding, his hand closing around the spoon.

The Holy Father smiled, the lines around his eyes softening, and laid a hand on Lawrence’s shoulder, a brief touch, before returning to his place at the table.

—

After the meal, the Sant’Egidio volunteers rearranged twelve chairs into a semicircle in front of the altar. Beside the first chair sat a silver pitcher and matching basin.

Teresa, along with Sister Elena, invited community members forward. Each settled into their chairs. The room quieted as people turned their attention toward the altar. The Holy Father rose from his place at the table, moving toward where Teresa waited with the basin and pitcher.

Andreas watched from his position near the wall as the Pope knelt before the first person, the older Afghan man with whom he’d conversed in Dari. Years of toil had calloused the man’s feet, marked them with the evidence of hard living. Placing the basin underneath one foot, the Holy Father poured water over it with his other hand, washing it clean. He reached for the towel tucked at his side and dabbed the foot dry, then leaned down and kissed the top of the refugee’s foot.

“Tashakor,” the man whispered.

Nodding, the Pope replied with a phrase in Dari that made the man’s eyes tear up.

One by one, he moved down the row. An older Italian man gave a wobbly smile as the Holy Father dried his feet. A young mother down with gratitude as he washed the dust of Rome’s streets from her sole—while in the background, Sister Elena chased after the woman’s toddler, who’d escaped toward the kitchen with gleeful determination. A man from Somalia, just eighteen, stared in wonder as the Pontiff knelt before him.

He spoke to each person, sometimes in Italian, once in fluid Spanish, and when words failed, in gesture. The room had quieted except for these murmured conversations and the gentle splash of water against chased silver.

When the Holy Father finished with the last of the community members, a frail woman from Eritrea who blessed him in her native tongue, he rose, towel still in his hands.

“And now,” the Holy Father said, looking across the room to the clergy, “I invite my brother priests to join us, so that we may remember what our Lord taught when he knelt before his disciples. None of us is above this call to humble service, or above receiving it.”

From the startled expressions on their faces, Andreas gathered they hadn't been told of the Pope's intentions. They filed to the front of the altar, settling into the chairs, each removing their shoes first.
As the Holy Father began moving down the line, the room's atmosphere shifted. The reverent hush gave way to quieter, more relaxed conversation as voices resumed at the tables, volunteers began gathering empty plates. The ceremony continued, but the formality had eased into a communal rhythm.

Lawrence sat at the end of the row, hands gripping his knees. While the other priests bent to untie their shoes, he remained motionless, staring straight ahead. Tension gathered in his shoulders as the Pope began moving down the line.

When the Holy Father knelt before the Bishop Emeritus, the old bishop’s face grew solemn. As water poured over his thin feet, he reached down and placed his hand on the Pope’s head. Brief but deliberate, the touch made the Pope look up.

Andreas couldn’t hear what passed between them, if anything had been said at all. But the gesture made Bishop Esposito go very still, watching.

The Holy Father moved from the second-to-last priest to the final chair. Lawrence still hadn’t removed his shoes.

“Tomás,” the Holy Father said.

Lawrence stared down at him, his resolve crumbling. His hands shook as he untied his shoes. The cassock bunched around his knees, and he had to gather the fabric awkwardly to one side. His fingers fumbled with the laces—once, twice—before the knot gave way. Andreas saw the Cardinal struggle to remove his socks, both hands working the fabric down over his heel, the physical effort of it making his breathlessness more apparent. When he finally placed his bare foot in the basin, his hand gripped the chair.
The Pope waited until the Cardinal steadied himself, then raised the pitcher, letting the water flow over Lawrence's foot. His movements were the same as they had been with every other person, but Andreas noticed a quiet intensity in the Pope’s gaze.

When the Pope reached for the towel and began to dry Lawrence’s foot, the Cardinal’s breath hitched.

The Pope’s hands stilled. He looked up.

The Holy Father’s expression softened, but Andreas noted a hint of urgency in the way his eyes moved across Lawrence’s face. Not with the pure, gentle fondness of days past, but an assessment. Cataloging. Did he see now, the hollow beneath the Cardinal’s cheekbones? The way his cassock seemed to hang looser at the shoulders? The shadows under his eyes that even the lights overhead couldn’t hide?

Lawrence had leaned forward, watching the Pope at his feet, his own hands clasped tight, whether in prayer or simply gripping his gathered cassock, Andreas couldn’t tell. The pectoral cross hung forward, swaying.

The Holy Father reached out and took hold of the silver cross. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to it.

The kiss lasted seconds. When he pulled back, his hand lingered on the cross, and he whispered words too low for Andreas to hear over the room’s noise. The Pope pressed his mouth into a thin line, and while Andreas did not possess the gift of reading lips, he was almost certain the final word was please.

Lawrence met the Holy Father's gaze. The Pope kneeling, the Cardinal hunched forward in his chair, the silver cross still in the palm of Holy Father’s hand.

Lawrence looked past the Holy Father’s shoulder and gave a minute nod.

The Pope released the cross and rose, carrying the basin and towel back toward the altar. Lawrence sat motionless in his chair, staring at his hands in his lap.

The Holy Father turned to the gathered community.

“Saint Paul wrote, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Tonight we have opened our hearts, allowed ourselves to be seen in our weakness. This is where God’s grace meets us. Go in peace, knowing you are loved.”

The Cardinal bent to retrieve his shoes. Andreas watched him fumble with the laces, missing the eyelet twice before getting it right. When he finally tied them, he sat back in the chair for a moment, hands resting on his knees.

Then Lawrence lifted his hand to his face, wiping away what might have been moisture from his eyes.

The gesture so quick, so private, Andreas almost missed it.

Chapter Text

Nightfall had cloaked the sky long before their departure from the shelter. It was never a true darkness though, not really. City haze mixed and meddled with the skies above, casting a tinted glow over the pale façades of the Vatican’s many buildings, each one, it seemed, frozen in amber. 

His Holiness remained silent throughout their ride back. As the passing lights illuminated the Holy Father’s profile, Andreas saw his eyes flicker, more than once, toward the windshield, toward the lead vehicle in front of them, homeward. He had taken to smoothing the white fabric of his cassock at his lap. And while Andreas noted the fretting with mild concern, the Holy Father’s demeanor as a whole seemed much improved, compared to the gloom he had witnessed earlier. The weariness Andreas had seen in his eyes on their way to Trastevere replaced now by determination and hope. The visit to the shelter had done him well.

Leaving their charge at the palace entrance and in much higher spirits marked the end of their shift. They made their way back to the barracks on foot along the Via Sant’Anna, with Klaus and Andreas in front, Tadeo keeping pace just behind them, and Martinas and Will trailing behind. Lampposts punctuated the narrow two-way street, casting their glow in measured intervals along the cobblestones. Andreas had more or less checked out, half-listening to Klaus as his friend mused about, well, whatever abstract concept plagued his mind this evening. 

“—That’s the thing though,” Klaus said. “It’s not the wanting that gets you. Everyone wants things that they can’t have, right? That’s just being alive.”

He kicked a loose stone on the sidewalk. And there it was. That restless energy Klaus always carried with him, the constant need to fidget, to burn off whatever was churning in his head. It wouldn’t settle, at least not until they were all back at the barracks.

“But it’s the almost having it. That moment when you convince yourself the rules don’t apply. That you’re the exception. That’s what gets you.”

Andreas made a noncommittal sound.

“Exception to what?” Martinas asked from behind them, quickening his stride to catch his colleague’s words.

“To consequences,” Klaus said, pulling at the side of his jacket, wrapping it closer around himself. “You know it’s going to cost you, but you reach for it anyway. Then you lose it. Or it breaks you. And either way, you can’t even picture going back to how your life was before knowing about—”

His foot caught an uneven stone. He stumbled a step.

Tadeo’s hand shot out, steadying him by the elbow. “Careful,” his voice mild, but his grey eyes had lost their usual levity. “Don’t want you tripping over your words now.”

Klaus shot him a look. 

Will hummed, oblivious, it seemed, to Tadeo’s growing consternation at the direction the conversation had taken. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” he mused.

“I’m speaking from observation.” Klaus gave Andreas a playful shove on his shoulder. “You hang around this one long enough, and you pick up a thing or two.”

Andreas smirked.

Klaus stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, that’s my theory.”

They crossed into the sidestreet that led them past the Tower of Nicholas V, gate to the barracks in sight, the sentry on third shift already at their post. Andreas could feel himself begin to uncoil with relief at the sight of the building. First he’d have to wash the day off of him, then maybe, to unwind, play a round or two of Jass if Klaus and Will were up to it. At least tomorrow brought Good Friday, and for their unit that meant a later start, since they had worked tonight’s evening shift. The Passion service should prove simple enough, but the Way of the Cross would be a complicated affair, with all of the moving parts. Not to mention the impossibly open venue for that portion of the service. Still, the Holy Father wouldn’t have it any other way, not from what Andreas had seen in the months of knowing him. Tomorrow would bring its own headaches, sure, but tonight he just needed rest.

That’s when he saw him.

A man in maintenance coveralls criss-crossed through the lamplight ahead, moving toward the Apostolic Palace. Nothing unusual about a worker, Vatican maintenance assisted at all hours, and things broke all the time. Things always seemed to break at the worst moments, even, considering that elevator incident. Except— 

Andreas tracked the man as he passed between patches of light and shadow ahead, weaving around the lamplights. Weird. Dark hair, average build. Older than Andreas, maybe by a decade. But this man’s face, or what little Andreas could see of it in this low light, just stuck with him.

His mind flashed back to the Chrism Mass, earlier that morning. That priest in white, in the vestments, standing in the seventh row while everyone else sat.

Could it…could it be the same man?

He tried to get a better look, adjusting his angle, gauging the gait, the shoulders, but the man drifted further away, and momentum carried Andreas and his colleagues toward the barracks. Different clothes, different contexts, but as far as he knew, priests around these parts never moonlighted as maintenance workers. 

But what if he wasn’t wrong?

He almost spoke, then held his tongue. You’re seeing patterns everywhere. That’s what his friends had said earlier.

“—one drink before we call it?” asked Tadeo.

Definitely not. “Another time,” said Andreas. “I’m feeling a bit off, I think I’ll head to the pharmacy to get something.”

Klaus gave him a concerned look, then glanced at his watch. “You better hurry, they’re probably closing soon.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning in the general direction of the Farmacia Vaticana. “You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

Tadeo nodded and moved toward the front of the group. “Feel better, man!,” he called over his shoulder.

They ambled toward the barracks, their voices fading as they passed through the sentry’s gate. Andreas waited, counting under his breath, watching until they disappeared inside.

He turned on his heel.

There. The man moved through the colonnade. Andreas started walking, keeping his pace casual, in case others were watching, but decisive, quickening as the distance grew. He had ground to cover, if he wanted to ensure that this man stayed within his sights. He rounded the corner toward Cortile del Belvedere, watching as the man ducked into one of the archway entrances. Andreas followed.

The passage opened into a wider avenue. Via di Belvedere. Utility trucks, a few carts, a small flatbed lined one side of the street. The man cut between them, taking a direct route through the equipment.

Andreas slowed. His training kicked in, use the vehicles, stay low, keep the target in sight. He slipped between a truck and a cart, peering around the edge. There, the man ahead, moving toward the museums' service entrance.

Andreas darted to the next vehicle, then the next. His oxfords were too loud on the pavement. He shifted to the balls of his feet, trying to muffle the sound that seemed to echo across the empty lot. The man paused at a junction, looking side to side, then back over his shoulder, before continuing across.

Andreas froze behind a utility truck, pressing himself against the cold metal. His heart hammered in his ears. 

After a beat, the man turned and continued on, head held low, faster now.

Andreas waited three breaths, then followed. The man headed toward the Stradone dei Giardini—the wide avenue that led into the Vatican Gardens proper.

Andreas rounded the last parked vehicle and—

“Hey! Stop!”

An officer stepped out from an adjacent arcade, his navy uniform almost invisible in the low light, save for the reflective strip on his jacket, and the word GENDARMERIE in block letters over his left breast pocket. 

Andreas squinted against the flashlight beam trained on his face.

Oh. Right. Damnit. In any other circumstance, the officer would have taken one look at his uniform, and not have paid him any mind. But right now, in his pressed button-down and jacket with dress slacks, he looked like exactly what he was— someone that didn’t belong here. 

“Identification, please. What brings you out at this hour?”

Over the officer's shoulder, Andreas caught movement. The man in coveralls, heading now, toward the garden paths, the one flanked by the dense bamboo grove. What could need maintenance on the grounds at night? Andreas exhaled, fishing for his wallet in his inner pocket, careful to not flash the weapon holstered at his side.

“I’m…ah, going for a run.”

Where is that wallet?

The officer's flashlight dropped to Andreas's shoes. His oxfords.

“In those?”

The man had reached the tree line now.

“They have good arch support.” It wasn’t a lie, at least.

Found it! Andreas opened the leather bi-fold and handed the frontmost card over to the officer.

The officer held the ID up, tilting it to catch the hologram, the Pontifical Swiss Guard insignia, under the flashlight. Taking his time.

The man had disappeared. Swallowed by the olive-dark of the gardens.

“Andreas Schild…Sergeant Andreas Schild?”

“Yes.” Andreas forced himself to focus on the officer, not the empty path beyond.

The officer looked at him with a bewildered expression, he opened his mouth as if to say more, but then stopped, and shook his head. He gave Andreas his ID back. “Have a good run, Sergeant.”

Andreas pocketed the ID and moved toward where the man had disappeared. The trail wound deeper into the thicket, the underbrush obscuring the glow of the main way lights, fading behind him with each stride he took.

The foliage thickened. The distant splash of water grew louder. Through the trees ahead, he glimpsed the pale stone of the Casina. Andreas crept closer, using the low light as a cover. There—near the colonnade. The man, heading around the side of the building.

He circled to follow, but when he reached the grass clearing the man had vanished. Between the buildings, or deeper into the grove of olive and cypress trees. Andreas scanned the area, frustration mounting. He closed his eyes, hoping to hear a sound, the snap of a twig or the rustle of leaves, something, anything, that could point him in the general direction of where the man had fled.

He heard a nightingale. And crickets. A canopy of branches sway overhead, with the breeze.  

Lost him.

Okay, let’s regroup. The Casina’s buildings were locked, no doubt about it. Both the museums and the Pontifical Academy. No access without keys, and he couldn’t imagine a single maintenance worker doing repair work in any of these buildings so late. Searching blind through the thicket would be futile, but if he held position, and watched the lit walkways, he could at least see which direction the man went. Due north, deeper into the gardens? Or southeast, back toward the Palace? 

He moved through to the far side of the nymphaeum colonnade, going up the stairs. keeping out of the light, and pressed himself against the railing. He had an unobstructed sightline to the pond, the surrounding walkways, and the building entrance. Good vantage point. If the man crossed any of them, Andreas would see him. He settled in to wait. 

The splash of the fountain. The rustle of wind through the palm fronds.

Then he heard voices.

Andreas tensed, ducking further into the shade. Hiding as best he could, in a gap between a potted plant and the museum’s stone exterior, he saw the Holy Father approaching the turtle pond. Unusual, given the time of night. But he could move as he pleased, within these walls.

Two guards emerged next, several paces behind. He let out an exhale. At least the Holy Father had protection.

The Holy Father slowed, turning to address his guards. Andreas couldn't hear the words, but he caught the dismissive gestures. The guards hesitated, but the Pope's body language left no doubt about his desire for solitude. Leave me. I'll be fine.

After a moment, the two guards bowed and retreated back down the path.

The Pope stood alone.

Andreas's chest constricted. What was he doing? Dismissing his protection, alone in the open at night, and somewhere nearby, the man Andreas had tracked still lurked out there. His hand moved toward his radio—wait. Call it in now, and he'd have to explain why he’d come. Never mind what Klaus and the rest would say, he could only imagine how that would go over with the Commander. Oh, yes, sorry Commander Müller, I saw a man that stared at me for three seconds at Mass this morning, so I decided to stalk his doppelgänger into the gardens to…to what? To question him?

And the Pope had wanted privacy. But if that man harbored nefarious intentions—

Andreas remained in position, trapped between duties, it seemed. Watch for the suspect. But what if he wasn’t a suspect? Protect the Pope. 

The Holy Father stood at the pond’s edge, pale cassock luminous against the verdant ground. A few turtles that had clustered around the far rim basked in the moonlight seemed unaffected by their late night visitor. 

A sound carried from just beyond the clearing. Footsteps on the gravel ahead. The Pope turned his head at the sound, expectant, almost. 

He’s waiting for someone, Andreas realized.

A tall, lean figure half-obscured by the brush came into focus on the tree-lined path. Black cassock accented with red piping. A clipped stride, with a folder in hand. Cardinal Lawrence. 

The Holy Father’s entire body sagged in relief, the tight set of his shoulders releasing, his hand worrying the beads on his rosary going still. 

His face softened. “I was waiting for you to come.”

Lawrence halted a stone’s throw away, the folder a barrier held between them. “Thank you for asking to see me, Holy Father.” He exhaled, as if steeling himself. “I had also hoped to have a moment to speak with you alone. I think a discussion is long overdue.” 

The Pope gave him a small, tentative smile, nodding. 

Lawrence stiffened, his grip tightening on the folder. “My comment about your parish in Kabul during the security meeting was beneath my office and yours. I should not have raised such a sensitive topic in that forum and certainly not in that callous manner.”

The Pope inclined his head, the memory of the previous day clouding his features. “What you said about Kabul hurt. You knew it would. Especially after what I’ve shared with you about my time there.”

“I have no excuse,” he said, his voice strained. “I have been discourteous in my duties this week. Abhorrently so. How I’ve behaved toward you in my official capacity has been unconscionable, and my lapse in judgement in the—” He broke off, brushing a hand across his face. “What I did to you was ill befitting of a member of the Apostolic Camera.”

He held out the folder, his hands not quite steady. “I can no longer serve as your Dean.”

The Holy Father took it, slow, his brow furrowed in confusion. He opened the folder, eyes scanning the first page. “Notice of resignation from office…” His voice trailed off. He looked up, alarm crossing his features, then turned to the next page. “Request for release to Sacro Eremo di Camaldoli?”

He blinked, stunned. “Tomás—”

“I will stay through the end of Holy Week, of course,” Lawrence continued, as if he hadn’t heard the protest. “Ray can handle the transition, and I’ve already made arrangements for—”

“No, wait. Stop.” The Pope looked between the folder and the Dean. “You want to leave and join a monastery? A hermitage? We had a heated moment, yes, and I understand that we are all overwhelmed by our duties for this week. But this? What passed between us, it does not warrant a resignation.”

“Of course it does!” Lawrence snapped.

The Pope flinched.

Lawrence let out a slow breath, his voice fraying at the edges. “These months…watching you step into this role, seeing you bring your pastoral heart and your compassion to this office, watching your vision for the Church take shape—” He exhaled, collecting himself. “Serving as your Dean has been the greatest honor of my life. I am grateful I was here to see it.” 

The softness vanished, replaced by a harshness that seemed directed only at himself. “But I cannot remain if my presence has become a liability and a threat to your pontificate.”

“A threat?” The Holy Father shook his head, bewildered. “You’ve been my most invaluable—”

“I took advantage of you in that lift!”

The words tore out of Lawrence, sharp and anguished. The careful control shattered. 

Andreas remembered, in that moment, what Klaus had said about the Holy Father’s fascia.

The Holy Father’s gaze found Lawrence, steady and unwavering. “You cannot take something that was given to you freely,” he said. “That I would give to you again.”

“Miserere mei, Deus—” Lawrence’s voice cracked. He turned away, raking a hand through his hair as he paced before the pond, looking at everything, it seemed, except the Pope. “Oh God, what have I done?”

“Don’t.” The Pope stepped forward, catching Lawrence’s arm. “Don’t twist this into something shameful.” 

His gaze searching, fingers tightening just enough to make Lawrence look at him. “It was never only you. We both—” The words caught in his throat. “We both wanted. For months now, and you must have felt it too. In the lift—we both knew what we were doing, and I didn’t stop you. I didn’t want to stop.”

Andreas felt his face burn. What did he just hear?

Lawrence stepped back, pulling his sleeve away. “The Holy Father cannot entertain these follies.” His voice trembled, laced with bitterness, each word a lash against himself. “And I betrayed your office in the most lecherous way possible, by failing to protect you from myself, by allowing my selfish actions to lead to your ruin!” 

“I don’t need your protection, especially from you!”

Lawrence flinched, shoulders drawing in. For a moment he looked as though the Holy Father had struck him.

The Holy Father stepped forward. “No—Tomás, wait, that’s not what I meant—” The Pope’s anger drained away, replaced by dismay. “I trust you. I still do. But I don’t need protection from my own choices.”

“Choices that will mar the Holy Office you hold and negate all of the work you have accomplished?”

“Well at least they are mine to make!” The Pope’s frustration finally broke through. “You keep talking about the office. The work. The pontificate. What about us?”

A turtle splashed into the pond. 

The Holy Father stepped forward, eyes pleading. “Can’t I just be Vincent, with you?”

“There is no us,” Lawrence’s voice fell flat, final, laced with accusation. He held his ground. “Because it cannot be, we cannot be. You are the Pope. The Vicar of Christ, the heir to the throne of Saint Peter. And I am your brother Cardinal. That is precisely why this is impossible.”

He drew in a breath, looking down at the ground, each word seeming to cost him. “And you don’t—you don’t actually want me, Vincent.”

Vincent. Andreas knew the Holy Father’s given name, but he had never heard anyone use it.

“Have you seen me, truly? I’m an old man, nearly a decade your senior, with all of the burdens that come with it. I was there when you needed guidance and comfort, when everything was new and overwhelming. You’re confusing gratitude with, with lust—”

Andreas needed to sit down.

“That’s not—how can you say that?” The Holy Father looked stricken. He caught Lawrence’s hand and held it against his own chest, over his heart. “Look—feel this? You have all of me, my heart and soul too!” His voice grew desperate. “I would…I would bleed for you. You are altogether beautiful, Tomás—you carry yourself with such grace and dignity. Your care for others, your spirit, your whole being…there is no flaw in you. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you, the way I have seen you for months.”

Cardinal Lawrence looked as stunned as Andreas felt.

The Holy Father’s grip tightened on Lawrence’s hand. “It’s the same gift you gave to me. Please don’t take that from me. Don’t turn what we shared into a wound I have to pretend isn’t there.”

Lawrence drew a sharp breath, eyes downcast. “It is a wound,” he admitted, his voice strained. “The Curia knows we’ve become close, and frankly, they are right to be concerned. I was supposed to be your guide, and instead I’ve become the greatest liability to your pontificate, a weakness.”

“Then stay weak with me,” the Holy Father said. “Stay human with me. We can figure this out together, please.” His voice broke on the plea. “I am yours, and you are mine. Remember?”

Lawrence gave a rueful smile. “To be what, then? Secret paramours, hiding in dark corners? Snatching moments between audiences and Masses?” His composure began to fracture, bitterness rising with each word. “Every day I stay, every day I let this continue, I pull you further from your ministry. Your calling deserves better than to be compromised by an old, degenerate louse.”

The Pope’s face fell. For a moment he could only stare, as if Lawrence had spoken blasphemy. “Don’t say that,” he whispered, his voice pained. “Don’t you dare call yourself that.”

“But it’s true.” Lawrence’s voice had hollowed out, resigned. “You’d come to resent me eventually, when the weight of what we’ve done becomes too much.”

“No.” The word came out fierce. “I could never resent you. The Curia can gossip all they want. You think disappearing to Camaldoli is the answer? That locking yourself away in a cell will make this right?”

He closed the distance between them. “There’s a difference between self-immolation disguised as sacrifice and piety. One purifies, the other destroys. It’s not holiness to suffer for its own sake.”

Andreas felt a twist in his chest. He’d never heard the Holy Father speak to someone with such raw, desperate conviction.

Lawrence’s composure wavered. “I have examined my conscience and prayed for discernment. My pursuit of contemplative life will redirect my focus toward—”

“Toward wasting away in the name of holiness?” The Pope’s voice broke. “Your conscience was turned against you by the very institution meant to guide it. The church failed you, and I am sorry for that.”

He reached toward Lawrence, hand hovering before settling on the Cardinal’s arms. “My heart bleeds for you, for not allowing you to feel, for twisting love into pain. For creating this instinct to retreat somewhere I can’t follow. But you’re not running toward God. You’re running from yourself, and away from me.”

The Pope let out a shaky breath.

“Tomás, please—if that’s what it takes, we'll find another way. I'll…I’ll find you a different position! I’ll keep my distance, whatever you need. If it means you won’t disappear to some monastery where you’ll punish yourself until there’s nothing left—” His voice caught. “Just stay. Please, don’t make me watch you walk away and pretend it’s a calling. Stay where I can see that you’re safe.”

Lawrence stood frozen under the Holy Father’s touch, his face a mask of anguish. “There’s no version of this where I can remain in Rome and not—” he faltered, swallowing. “The temptation would always be there. I’ll break every vow I’ve ever made. Again.”

Andreas wished he could make himself even smaller. He wished he could sink into the inky blackness of the night. Yet he couldn’t look away. And worse, he could not leave.

The Pope stood there, watching Lawrence turn away. Tearful. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave me.” His voice trembled, small, wounded. “Stay. If you lo—” he stopped, almost afraid to say the word. “If you feel anything for me, just stay. Please.”

Lawrence paused. A bell rang from St. Peter’s Basilica, the pale dome only just visible beyond the palm fronds and cypress trees. Two turtles slipped into the water.

He turned to look at the Basilica, then stepped toward the Holy Father. 

“My dear Vincent, of course I love you,” he said, voice breaking, fragile, an impossible confession. He pressed a kiss to the Pope’s cheek, tender, and yet final enough to be a farewell. “That’s why I have to go.”

He retreated, the soft rasp of gravel underfoot fading with each step. He did not look back.

The Holy Father stood at the pond’s edge, motionless save for one hand which rose to touch his cheek. The folder hung from his other hand. He stared at the path where Lawrence had disappeared. His fingers loosened, the folder slipping free, landing on the cobblestones with a soft thud.

He sank to the ground beside the pond, white cassock pooling around him. His shoulders began to shake.  

Andreas leaned back into the column, his throat tight. His training urged him to go to his charge, to offer protection, presence, something. But what could he say? I'm sorry, Holy Father, I was hiding in the corner over there after stalking a maintenance worker and heard you confess your love to the Dean? 

He shouldn’t have followed that man. Klaus was right—he saw threats that didn’t exist. And now, trapped here, witness to a compromising situation that could rupture the church. All because he’d chased shadows into the gardens.

The Pope's hands came up to cover his face, a sound escaping him that Andreas had never heard from the man before, pure, unadulterated grief.

Andreas took one step back, then another. He needed to leave, to get out before the Pope noticed him, before this moment became even more unbearable. He moved along the wall, toward the outer perimeter of the Casina’s courtyard, and climbed just over the stair railing, the grass muffling his landing. He kept just off the gravel path. The grate of the pebbles under his oxfords would be too loud. He felt through each step, hoping he wouldn’t snap a twig or crunch a leaf that would give him away.

When he reached the tree line, he glanced back one last time.

He wanted to stay, to help in some way, but what protection could he offer now? What comfort could he give that wouldn’t make this worse?

The Holy Father remained at the water’s edge, alone in the garden, weeping beside the turtle pond. The resignation letter scattered on the cobblestones like fallen petals. Beyond the hill, the pale of the Basilica rose against the night’s dark. The Dean had put him back in his rightful place; left amongst the marble and stucco, seen to, but never seen, trapped under the starless sky.

Chapter Text

There was no music today.

There never was. No hymn for the processional. No organ. Only the staccato of the occasional cough, the rustle of a breviary. Every sound amplified, announcing itself to the congregation that had grown with each passing day of this eternal week. Andreas found his threadbare attention drawn to other rhythms. The elderly Cardinal in the third row who unwrapped a lozenge, the plastic film of it crinkling. A young priest who couldn’t stop clearing his throat.

The altar stood stripped. His eyes felt gritty. And although the liturgy would start at 17:00 sharp and he had all day to rest, he found that he still could not think. Not after last night. His mind circled and circled and circled. What if they knew? What if they had seen him leave?  

Andreas stood just to the left of the Papal throne, though his charge had yet to arrive. He glanced at his watch. 

17:03.

Maybe they knew. Maybe they were making plans to remove him from his post. He hadn’t seen the Commander all day, perhaps they were briefing him right now. We saw one of your sergeants last night, in the gardens. He wouldn’t blame them—a Swiss Guard was easier to replace than a Pope. Or a Dean. 

His eyes flicked back, and not for the first time this evening, to the Dean of the College of Cardinals, seated in the first chair of the first row. The first among equals. Pale, and drawn, and swaying, just so. The object of the Holy Father’s affections.

Stop stop stop stop stop.

Andreas looked indistinguishable from the other guards in his full ceremonial regalia. Maybe he didn’t know he was here. That’s why the Dean hadn’t glanced over yet. 

The congregation rose. 

Shoulders angled toward the mouth of the nave, phones raised on outstretched arms, recording just over the heads of the many faithful. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the processional. The Cardinals donned their birettas. Each in full choir dress, red against white, each turning to look toward the entrance of the church. Save for Lawrence. 

The concelebrants filed out first, two by two, along the main aisle, each donning white, their robes swaying with each step. 

Andreas heard the shutter of cameras grow more incessant with each passing second. The press. The press could see the Holy Father. 

He caught a glimpse of his mitre first. White. Trimmed with gold. Moving at a solemn pace. The dark waves of his hair. Him. 

He was bathed in red.

In a red chasuble made of satin, trimmed, too, in gold. It caught the eddies of light with each step, his gaze directed to the single wooden cross in front of the altar. The Holy Father stopped at the foot of the ornate rug laid out on the marble of the basilica. 

He wore his black, monochrome Converse. 

Two concelebrants stepped forward, one removing the mitre and zucchetto from the crown of the Pope’s head, handing them to the other. They both bowed, and retreated to the edge of the sanctum.  

He knelt. His hands came forward, finding the floor. Then his whole body followed, lowering, lower, onto the ground. His arms and elbows pressed into a velvet cushion of carmine and tasseled gold at the head of the rug, hands clasped in prayer, forehead pressed to his fingers.

A prostration. Mourning. The deepest physical expression of submission to the altar before him by the supreme Pontiff. I am not worthy.

Heads bowed. Birettas and zucchettos off. The entire congregation knelt. Andreas looked up—almost everyone.

Cardinal Lawrence half-kneeled, half-leaned onto his prie-dieu. Hands clasped before him, gaze boring into the Holy Father’s prone form. His biretta had fallen on the floor. 

Camera clicks and a dry cough and the cry of a restless child punctuated the nave, as the congregants and the faithful and the millions at home watched the Holy Father in his lament. 

Then—so faint Andreas almost missed it—a sound. A sharp inhale, caught and held. The Holy Father’s fingers tightened where they pressed against his face.

Don’t, Andreas thought. Don’t break here. Not in front of everyone.

The Pope’s hands unclasped from their prayer. He pressed his palms flat against the floor, steadying himself. Then pushed up to his knees, pausing, perhaps to gather strength, then to his feet. His chasuble spilled around him in heavy folds.

The concelebrant stepped forward with zucchetto in hand, placing it on the Holy Father’s head, then bowed, eyes averted.

A deacon walked alongside the Pope as they made their way toward the dais leading up to the Papal throne. For just a moment, before he turned to face the congregation, Andreas saw his profile.

His face looked composed. Serene. The mask of the Vicar of Christ in place.

Except for his eyes. Red-rimmed. 

Another acolyte holding a crimson leatherbound book approached, opening it to the page marked by a ribbon. A second one moved a microphone just off to the side. The Holy Father raised his hands in supplication, looking out to the faithful.

“Remember your mercies, eternal Lord, and protect your people, through Christ your son, who instituted the Paschal mystery.”

His eyes swept past the Cardinals, stopping, for a moment, over Lawrence. 

The Cardinal had his hands steepled at his chest, gaze lowered to the floor. 

The Pope sighed. 

“Who lives and reigns forever and ever.”

“Amen,” responded the congregants.

And so began the liturgy of Good Friday. 

-

One by one, lector after lector, stepped up onto the pulpit, at the right side of the altar. Isaiah’s prophecy echoed through the nave of the Basilica. 

“He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain. Yet it was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured.”

Andreas watched Cardinal Lawrence shift in his seat. 

The responsorial psalm. “Dio mio, Dio mio, perché mi hai abbandonato?”

The Holy Father’s hands clenched in his lap.

Then the Passion according to John. The garden. The betrayal. The denial. “Peter was standing there keeping warm. So they said to him, ‘You are not one of his disciples, are you?’ He denied it and said, ‘I am not.’”

A relentless retelling of the Lord’s suffering. Next, Pilate. The scourging. The cross. 

“It is finished.”

Janusz Woźniak rose.

The Holy Father never gave the homily on Good Friday. 

Woźniak made his way toward the ambo, hands clasped over his front, his vestments swaying with every step. He climbed up the three steps to the top of the wooden pulpit, and adjusted the microphone just so, as he looked out over the congregation. 

“My brothers and sisters in Christ, on this solemn day we contemplate our Lord in his passion.”

The Holy Father, seated in his throne, bowed his head in contemplation. 

Woźniak continued, “In the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.’ He knew that betrayal, suffering, the weight of the cross, and death awaited him, if God willed it to be so.”

Andreas let his eyes drift between the Dean and the Holy Father. If God willed it to be so, maybe I can get through this shift without anything else going to hell.

“And yet, in that moment of agōnía, he did not face it alone.”

Even that was too much to ask. 

“Christ brought his friends and fellow disciples Peter—“

A light flickered. 

Andreas furrowed his brow, letting his eyes look up. The lights overhead had dimmed, then brightened again. Half a second, maybe less. Most of the congregation didn’t notice. They were focused on Woźniak, on the homily.

But Andreas noticed.

“—and John with him, pleading, ‘Manete hic et vigilate mecum’—‘Stay here, and watch with me’. Our Savior did not wish to face his darkest hour alone.”

He struggled to see Klaus from this angle, the potted palm fronds behind the Holy Father’s chair obstructing most of his view. Had he seen the lights flicker, too?

Woźniak carried on. “We often think of holiness as a solitary pursuit. We may imagine the anachorētēs, the hermit in the wilderness, or the saint who withdraws from the world to embrace sacred stillness. And yes, there are times for solitude, but that is not what we saw in Christ’s passion—“

Andreas let his gaze sweep the Basilica. The crowd seemed undisturbed. The Holy Father hadn’t reacted, his head still bowed, lost in whatever private thoughts Woźniak’s words had stirred.

Lawrence, in the front row, remained still in his seat.

“—our Sorrowful Mother, stood at the foot of the cross, and watched her son die. She could not stop his suffering, but her presence mattered. And John, faithful John, John the beloved, stayed. So moved was Christ by his devotion that he entrusted our Blessed Mother to John’s care from the cross.”

The Holy Father’s hand moved to grip the armrest.

“While Peter, the fisherman, the rock upon which our church is built, denied him three times and fled!”

Andreas heard a small sound at his immediate right. The Holy Father. 

“He left for fear of retribution for his association with Christ. And Christ, left alone in his agony, bore not only the physical torment but the anguish of abandonment. To suffer, forsaken by those he loved.”

Woźniak leaned forward.

“My friends, how often do we imitate Peter without realizing it? Convinced that our presence is a burden to others? We step back, imagining that absence and withdrawal is the right choice.”

The Holy Father lifted a hand to his face.

“As Christ said to his disciples, ‘Maiorem hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis’—‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’ We hear this as a call to martyrdom, and yes, it can be that.”

Another sound. Andreas glanced over to the man seated on the throne. 

Oh God, was he weeping?

He heard a few murmurs from the congregation. The rapid-fire shutters of several cameras. Various members of the cardinalate shifted in their seats. Uncomfortable.

Lawrence at least, had the presence to look stricken.

“But it can also mean the martyrion of presence, of watching with someone through their agony, as John did.”

More tears came. The Pope’s shoulders began to shake. The white zucchetto caught the light as he inclined his head to wipe the tears from his face.

Woźniak paused, eyebrows raised, glancing toward the Papal throne. He blinked once, taken aback by such a public display of piety, then collected himself, his tone gentling. 

“Tomorrow, we will keep vigil with Christ in the silence of the tomb. But we will not sit alone. We will keep watch together, as one Catholic, Holy, and Apostolic church. Because if our Saviour sought the companionship of his friends, how much more do we need one another—”

A small sob. 

“—one another in faith and love?”

Woźniak bowed his head, clasping his hands at his front, allowing the silence to hold, and descended from the ambo. He spared a glance toward the Holy Father, then lowered his gaze again, as another deacon moved to the lectern to begin the Solemn Intercessions. 

Andreas struggled to find words for what this was. 

Ten petitions, each intoned by the deacon, each followed by the Holy Father’s trembling response. His voice barely held.

Torture. He looked between the Holy Father and Cardinal Lawrence. This was a public torture. 

Why wasn’t anyone interceding? The Pope, Vincent, was beside himself. It was obvious to anyone with eyes and ears. No, he thought, this suffering is only obvious to three people in the entire basilica. Nobody cared to look at the humanity of the man before them, on display for millions to see, hidden behind the thin veneer of the Papal office. A veneer that had already begun to fracture. Andreas stole a glance toward Cardinal Bellini. 

His lips were pressed into a thin line, looking once, between Lawrence and the Holy Father. He had schooled his face into a mask of careful impassivity. The breviary gripped in his hands bearing the brunt of his distress at the situation unfolding before his eyes. 

Scratch that, four people.

The cameras, ferocious, hungry always for more, more, more, clicked away. Feeding on the spectacle of the man on the throne before them, emotions stripped bare for all to see. 

Behold, your king.

A wooden crucifix carried by a deacon wearing a gold-trimmed chasuble advanced at a solemn pace through the central aisle of the basilica, with two acolytes flanking his side, each holding a tall processional candle. The body of Christ, carved in relief out of resin or perhaps stone, reflecting the low light from the basilica. 

They had neared the end.

The cardinals and bishops removed their zucchettos and kneeled at their prie-dieux. 

The procession stopped before the altar and turned to face the congregation. The deacon raised the cross, placing it on a stand at the center of the sanctuary.

The Holy Father rose from his throne.

An acolyte stepped forward to remove the blood-red chasuble from the Pontiff, leaving him in his plain white alb, cinched at the waist. 

He descended from the dais, and approached the cross alone, kneeling. Bowing at the foot of the crucifix. His hands clasped together in prayer. The Pope bent forward, pressing his lips to the feet of Christ.

He rose, unsteady. An acolyte stepped forward to help, but the Pope waved him away. At his return to the dais, Andreas could see fresh tears cutting tracks down his cheeks.

A child cried. 

The light flickered, again. 

Andreas needed an ibuprofen. 

The schola began to sing. 

Crucem tuam adoramus, Domine, et sanctam resurrectionem tuam laudamus et glorificamus…

One by one, the cardinalate filed out into the main aisle, toward the stationed cross, with Cardinal Lawrence at the helm. 

The Dean stopped before the crucifix, almost collapsing to his knees before it. Lawrence bent forward, pressing his forehead to the cross. Just his forehead, resting against the feet of Christ, where the Holy Father had kissed moments before. Fingers interlaced.

He stayed there, and based on the murmuring of the other cardinals, longer than protocol required. Then, finally, he lowered his head further and kissed the feet of Christ. The exact spot where the Holy Father’s lips had been.

Lawrence returned to his seat, head bowed.

…ecce enim propter lignum venit gaudium in universo mundo…

Andreas glanced toward the Holy Father. The man looked deflated, sagging against the back of his throne, fingers pressed to his temple. Next to him, Klaus’s jaw clenched. 

He looked back at the processional, swallowing. The bishops, wearing aubergine, filing into the aisle now. Andreas glanced at his watch, then at the Pope. Fifteen more minutes, his eyes tracking the standing congregation, awaiting the Eucharist that would follow. Fifteen more minutes, Holy Father, and then we’ll take you to rest. 

Rest.

Rest couldn’t come soon enough. 

-

Andreas positioned himself near the door of the sacristy. Two acolytes moved around the Holy Father, back in his white cassock now, helping him adjust his pellegrina. The Pope stood motionless, letting them work, his face still drawn from his earlier outburst.

“Hey man, I didn’t see you at lunch today!”

Klaus. 

“Yeah, just needed some quiet,” Andreas said, turning to look at his colleague, trying to keep his voice neutral. “Long night ahead of us, and all.”

Andreas wasn’t trying to avoid his friends, but given everything that had transpired the night before, he had wanted time alone, to think. To sleep. To hopefully wake up from the nightmare he had walked into. 

He could not avoid them forever, though. Not when Müller assigned him to guard duty with one of them, for the rest of the evening, leading up to the Via Crucis. At the Colosseum. 

Klaus nodded, but his eyes searched Andreas’s face. “You look like shit.”

Oh, that ibuprofen would do wonders right now. 

“Thanks.”

The Holy Father moved past the threshold of the sacristy, and toward the corridor, wordless, withdrawn. Not even sparing his usual greeting to his guards. 

Andreas and Klaus exchanged a look, then fell into formation, flanking the Pope through the warren of corridors leading back to the Apostolic Palace.

Klaus leaned in. “I’m serious,” he said, lowering his voice. “Something’s off with you. Do you need to take a day?”

“I’m fine,” Andreas gritted out. 

The evening crowd had thinned, most of the faithful dispersing into the night at the conclusion of the service, but clusters of clergy still converged at the doorways under the loggias, their conversations dropping to a hush as the Pope passed them by, some craning their necks to catch a glimpse of his shuttered countenance.

Not one person, not a single soul stepped forward to ask if the Holy Father was okay. 

Neither are we, thought Andreas, glancing over at Klaus. Barring security matters, the Guard never initiated conversation with the Holy Father. Protocol. 

An impenetrable wall of decorum. Respected by all, but at the expense of the man. 

They rounded a corner near the administrative wing, when someone coming from the opposite direction, knocked into Andreas’s arm. 

What the...

“Mannaggia! Mi scusi,” said the man.

Andreas looked back.

That face. 

That dark hair. 

Andreas stopped in his tracks.

He thought back to the maintenance worker, though now he wore a clerical collar, a black cassock, and he was walking away.

Andreas took a step toward him, he wouldn’t let him escape, not this time—

“Hey,” Klaus grabbed his elbow. “You are not fine.”

Andreas looked back at Klaus, then at, well, where that man stood a second ago. 

He’s getting away. He’s getting away.

Klaus’s frown deepened. “Who’s getting away?”

 Oh, did he say that out loud?

“Andreas, what are you—”

“You could not have picked a more inopportune time to do this. He was weeping on live television, for millions to see!”

Cardinal Bellini.

His voice cut through the quiet of the lone corridor, sharp enough for Klaus, and even the Holy Father to come to a halt. Andreas saw his colleague’s eyes widen a fraction.

The door just to the right of them left ajar. 

“Given the solemnity of the service, it does not seem out of place.“ 

Lawrence.

“Oh yes, I am well aware,” said Bellini. “The Dicastery for Communication has been informed to emphasize that the Holy Father’s display of emotion was due to his reflection on the Passion of the Lord.”

“Then the faithful will know that their shepherd suffers with them,” Lawrence replied, his voice cold. 

Bellini slammed something on a hard surface. “He is suffering because he respects you, because he adores you, and we cannot bear to see you self-flagellate yourself and call it penance!”

“He will forget me, Aldo.” Lawrence said, at last. Voice small. Broken.  

A sigh.

“Thomas, people do not forget how others made them feel in their time of need. You can still salvage this.”

Andreas heard the floorboards creak under the weight of footsteps. Going around the desk? 

“No,” Lawrence said with finality. “In a few months, when emotions have cooled, he will see that this was a mistake. He was lonely, and I was just the most convenient option.”

The Holy Father sucked in a breath.

“Leaving is the best decision for both of us.”

He didn’t wait to hear more. 

The Holy Father turned on his heel, walking away from the door, past a bewildered Klaus and Andreas, down the corridor, his hand clutching the rosary at his side. 

The Pope’s shoes, those worn, scuffed Converse, pounded against the cold travertine floor. When they reached the doors to his apartments, he grabbed the ornate handle himself, shoulders rising and falling with each breath.

He didn’t wait for the guards, pushing through and closing the doors behind him with a soft, final click.

Andreas and Klaus stood in the corridor, staring at the heavy walnut doors.

Well, so much for that. 

They heard a sound coming from within the apartments. Faint, but unmistakable.

A sob. 

They shouldn’t be hearing this. The Pope, Vincent, shouldn’t be alone in there, breaking apart, with no one to comfort him. But what else could they do? The Holy Father, blessed, infallible, untouchable, unreachable, despite being right there, just beyond the door. His suffering is between him and God, the millions out there might think, seeing his anguish play out on news stations and television screens and video reels. A most holy communion with the suffering of Christ. 

Klaus let out an exhale, his shoulders dropping. 

“Right.” Klaus rounded on Andreas. 

“Want to tell me who was ‘getting away’ back there?”

Andreas looked between Klaus and the door. His thoughts flipping back to the gardens last night. To the turtles, to the fascia. The clocks and the elevators, and the Dean and the Holy Father and the—

“Okay, that’s enough.” Klaus fumbled with his radio, giving Andreas a sidelong look. “I think you need to take the rest of the night off.”

He touched his earpiece. “Evening corporal, this is post three. Requesting repla—“

“No!”

Andreas all but lunged at the radio, switching it off. 

“What…the hell?” 

He didn’t have a way with words like Klaus did, when he spoke about these sorts of things, but, “I know about the turtles.”

Klaus stared at him. “What.”

“I saw…I saw the turtles in the garden…last night! And they fought, and now the Holy Father is, well,” he inclined his head toward the door. “Really upset, because his favorite turtle is leaving.”

Klaus took a step back, the confusion in his eyes shifting to concern. His hand found the radio switch again, ready to press it. Oh, this wasn’t going over well. “Andreas, what the fuck are you talking ab—”

“The Dean and the Holy Father are in love!”

Klaus froze. His face drained of all color. A rare feat, that, given his already pale complexion. He looked down at his radio, his finger on the switch. Then his eyes darted to the door, then down the corridor in both directions, before pinning Andreas with a withering glare. 

“I know.”

Oh.

“Why were you in the gardens?”

“I…” Andreas stammered, “I just, um…” 

I’m so fucked. 

“You said you felt ill yesterday, after we got back. Which, you know, given how fucking strange you’re acting,” Klaus narrowed his eyes, taking a step forward, hand still on the radio. “But you didn’t go to the pharmacy, did you?”

“I saw…I think I saw the man from the Chrism Mass, from the corridor—just now! Except last night he was wearing coveralls, so I followed him.”

“You followed him.”

“Into the gardens, yes.”

“You followed a man wearing coveralls into the gardens.” Klaus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Christ, Andreas. You followed a maintenance worker into the gardens?”

“It was not a maintenance worker!” Andreas took a step forward. “What kind of priest does maintenance work?”

“You know, of all of the crazy things you’ve done, this one is really up there. That priest you saw just now, and at that Mass? Probably one of a thousand clergy passing through the Vatican during Holy Week.”

“I think he has something to do with the elevator, or lift, or whatever incident. What about those failsafes? The power going out? The lights were flickering in the basilica today!”

“Because it’s a building from the sixteenth century with wiring from the 1980s! I mean, listen to yourself, man.”

“You don’t believe me.”

Klaus removed his fingers from the radio, running a hand over his face. “I believe you’re stressed and sleep-deprived and carrying knowledge that’s eating you alive. Believe me, I get that. But I don’t believe there’s some mysterious figure orchestrating power outages.”

“Then how do you explain the disabled failsafes?”

“I don’t, because it’s not our job.” Klaus’s voice lost some of its hard edge. “Our job is to stand here and protect the Holy Father. That’s it.”

“So we just pretend we don’t know?”

“Yes,” Klaus’s voice remained flat. “Because what’s the alternative?”

He imagined the alternative. The truth spilling out, with no taking it back. No one left unscathed. The thought made him feel sick.

Klaus moved to his post without another word. Andreas took his. 

Each saying nothing, knowing everything.

Chapter Text

Nightfall descended upon the Vatican in waves. First as a deepening chill that seeped through the arches of the open loggias, and then as curtains of pounding rain. The water bled into the crevices of the worn cobblestones, pooling into puddles of murk that caught the tawny glow of the incandescent streetlights on Via Sant’Anna. Marring the path ahead, toward the motorcade, toward the Cortile di San Damaso. Seeping into his shoes.  

“Keep up, Schild!”

Andreas huffed. Tadeo never really liked stragglers.

He pulled his jacket around him with one hand. Wool, worsted-weight. Standard and appropriate for any other night on close security detail. Except this one, it seemed. Even his umbrella did little to protect him from the onslaught. Not much could when the wind decided to pick up. 

“We’re not even late, Deo,” Martinas chimed in just to his left, the younger guard maneuvering to avoid the growing puddles underfoot. 

“If you want to get soaked, that’s fine by me!”

A gust of wind caught Klaus’s umbrella, the dark nylon fabric straining against the gale, before turning it inside out with a hollow metallic snap.

“Ugh!” Klaus shook out the battered thing, folding the disjointed bits into the dangling fabric and tucking the umbrella under his arm. “Think they’ll cancel?”

Andreas angled his own umbrella toward Klaus, offering whatever cover he could. 

“Not a chance,” Will said at their right. “The Holy Father’s toughed out worse. Remember Lampedusa?”

Andreas wasn’t on assignment for that one, though an island in the Mediterranean sounded pretty great right about now. 

“He likes to suffer,” Tadeo called back. “It’s very Jesuit of him!”

“He’s not a Jesuit though…” mumbled Martinas. 

Tadeo didn’t argue the point. Or maybe he hadn’t heard Martinas over the deluge. Despite the discomfort, at least the cold and the wet acted like a shot of adrenaline, jolting Andreas awake. On three hours of sleep, it was the best he could hope for to avoid nodding off on his feet. 

The convoy waited just ahead. Five vehicles instead of the usual three. And one motorcoach to accommodate the visiting Cardinals and Bishops who came to attend the celebrations of Holy Week. Though given the weather, Andreas wasn’t sure how many would opt to participate in this outdoor event. Even the headlights struggled to cut through the downpour. 

Andreas and the others jogged the last few steps, collapsing their umbrellas as they neared. The rain lashed at his face in earnest now. He reached for the door of the last vehicle, shaking water from his jacket as best he could while Klaus slid into the back seat. Andreas followed, pulling the door shut.

The tinny drum of rain pattered against the roof of the car, joining the low purr of the idling engine.

Andreas reached for his radio to do a quick channel check—when his hand found empty air.

Belt—nothing. 

Jacket pocket—nothing. 

Really?

He patted his other pockets, knowing already it wasn’t there. 

“Gopferdammi,” he muttered under his breath.

Klaus looked over from scrolling through his phone. “What?”

Damn it damn it damn it.

“My radio...” Andreas exhaled and swiped a hand over his face. “I left it at the barracks.”

Klaus’s eyebrows rose. “Seriously?”

Andreas pushed the door back open, rain soaking his shoulder. He jogged to the lead vehicle where Tadeo had begun to load equipment into the trunk.

His mouth felt dry. “I need a spare radio,” he averted his gaze. “…forgot mine.” 

Tadeo straightened, his grey eyes giving Andreas a look that said everything about what he thought of that. Tadeo sighed, reached into the equipment case and tossed him a DP 3441. 

Andreas caught it on reflex.

“Bring it back after the shift, and don’t forget.”

Andreas nodded, clipping it to his belt, and threaded the earpiece under his collar. 

“Thanks.”

He jogged back through the rain, sliding into the vehicle beside Klaus. 

“You’re lucky he didn’t send you back to the barracks,” Klaus said, not looking up from his screen. The blue light of the phone casting shadows across his face. “He’s in a mood tonight.”

“It’s the schedule,” Andreas said. He leaned his head back, feeling the dampness of the water in his hair slide down onto the heated leather seats. “I’m just the one stupid enough to forget my gear.”

Klaus locked his phone and shoved it into his pocket, turning to look at Andreas. 

“It’s been a long day. And we’re all tired, but after what you’ve been through? I’m surprised you’re still talking in complete sentences. Just get through tonight. We’ll grab lunch tomorrow—after you sleep. Deal?”

“Deal,” Andreas said with a slight smile, leaning his head against the cool glass, as they waited for their charge and his entourage to descend from the steps of the Apostolic Palace. 

He hoped, at least, that the Holy Father had gotten some rest. 

—

“Hey.”

Andreas felt a tap on his shoulder. He groaned, curling away from it. Burrowing deeper into the warmth of the leather seat. His cheek against cold glass. 

Another tap. 

He folded his arm to his chest.

“Andreas,” Klaus hissed, giving his shoulder a shove. “We’re here. Look alive.”

His eyes cracked open. The world a smear of orange torchlight refracted through rivulets of water streaking down the window. Fogged by condensation. The shadows danced across his lap. 

He grimaced, wincing at the crick in his neck from the angle he’d been sleeping at. He felt the impression of the leather edge of the car’s window sill against his cheek. 

Andreas glanced at his watch when his earpiece crackled to life.  

“All units prepare to dismount and secure the perimeter.” 

Tadeo.

Klaus straightened, and touched his earpiece. “Copy.” 

“Copy,” mumbled Andreas, hoping that the sleep in his voice didn’t bleed through the comms. 

A chorus of ‘copy’s from the rest of the team followed. 

Klaus glanced at Andreas.You ready? His eyes almost seemed to ask. 

Andreas gave a tight nod. And with that, he opened his door. 

The cold hit him first. Then came the sound—the growing clamor, scattered applause and cheers from the faithful as they saw the motorcade doors swing open. They knew their Holy Father would emerge soon.

Andreas stepped onto the slick pavement, his boots finding purchase on the uneven stone of the forum. Through the hazy night air, he saw hundreds of pinpricks of light. Pilgrims holding candles cupped in their palms. He had to give it to them, it was a feat to see that they had managed to keep them burning against the damp, braving the less than ideal conditions. Many wore those colorful, disposable ponchos found at every tourist kiosk this side of the Tiber—forming a shivering mosaic of neon yellow, clear blue, and translucent white. Pushing against the crush barriers, phones out, hoping to catch a picture-perfect moment of the Vicar of Christ under the illuminated ruins of the looming Colosseum above. It seemed the Lord had decided to show a measure of mercy tonight, reeling in the earlier tempest into a steady, persistent drizzle.

Will and Martinas were already in position ahead, flanking the papal vehicle. Andreas moved to his assigned spot on the left rear, the cold air snapping his focus into place. Klaus mirrored him on the right.

The front passenger door of the papal vehicle opened. Commander Müller emerged, his presence tightening the air around the motorcade. He didn't just look at the crowd, his gaze swept the scene with precision, measuring distances and scanning the sea of the faithful. He gave a slight nod, almost to himself, and touched his earpiece.

“Clear.”

Tadeo got out of the idling vehicle from the driver’s side. He reached for the handle of the rear door, and opened it. 

A hush seemed to ripple through the gathered faithful.

The Holy Father stepped out.

He wore a heavy, double-breasted white wool coat that glowed against the charcoal backdrop of the night. A most holy ghost. It looked warm, and sturdy enough to repel the rain, but as the camera clicks and light from the pilgrims' candles caught his face, Andreas felt a pang. The man, Vincent, looked tired. Fragile. He had deep lines of exhaustion around his eyes, a reminder that he had wept only hours before, in public and behind closed doors. He carried more than just the weight of Holy Week on his shoulders. 

The Pope raised a hand to acknowledge the growing applause and shouts of joy. Even soaked and in this miserable weather, the gathered cheered for him.

Viva il Papa! 

Ti vogliamo bene!

Above the barriers, the Cardinals and Bishops rose from their seats as the Holy Father approached the steps to the raised platform overlooking the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine, shaking hands and blessing as many of the faithful as he could, as they reached out for him. Andreas scanned over the many faces, of the men, of the women, of a few brave children, that had decided to stand here, for who knows how many hours, for the chance of being within feet of the leader of the Catholic church. Martinas and Will stood at each back corner of the canopy, off to the side, blending into the shadows in their dark, tailored suits. Tadeo and Müller formed a loose, protective arc at the base of the steps, as the Pope ascended, his hand gripping the railing wet with rainslick. Klaus and Andreas followed close behind, scanning the perimeter once more before they took their marks alongside the rest of the protection detail. Once at the top, the Pope surveyed the assembled clergy. Even from here, Andreas could see him steel himself before stepping forward to begin the greetings.

Lawrence stood toward the back, flanked by Cardinal Bellini and a fretful-looking Monsignor O’Malley. Nearby, a cluster of Cardinals spoke in low, jagged half-whispers that carried over the rhythmic patter of the rain hitting the canopy over their heads.

“What happened to the Holy Father’s secretary?” A visiting Cardinal that Andreas didn’t recognize asked another. “Nice fellow. Young. I haven’t seen him all week.”

Ah yes, Andreas remembered him. But—

“Lawrence ran him off months ago,” another Cardinal, one of the members of the Curia murmured. “After he leaked private information to the press.”

Exactly. A security risk.

The first Cardinal spared a glance toward the Holy Father. “It must be nice having a loyal guard dog.”

A third voice quipped in. “Their devotion to each other is singular. They’re never apart.”

“Well, I heard the Dean has tendered his resignation,” another Cardinal said.

Murmurs rippled through the clergy. 

The Cardinal let out a coarse laugh. “So much for a loyal dog, you would think he’d know how to sit and stay on command!”

Andreas saw it happen.

The Pope’s hand froze mid-gesture. His smile remained—the papal mask held firm for the cameras and the crowds—but hurt flashed in his eyes. Hurt and indignation for his Dean.

He turned to the Cardinal in question— 

But Lawrence had heard them, too.

The Dean stepped forward. “Your Eminences.”

His voice didn't rise, but it had a particular crisp cadence to it that cut through the murmur of the clergy like a razor.

The Cardinals turned.

“I must correct any misunderstanding,” Lawrence said. “His Holiness and I have a strictly professional relationship. We are colleagues, not friends. We have both toiled for the good of the Church, and my duty is first and foremost to the Holy See. Any suggestion otherwise is deeply inappropriate, and undermines the work we had done.”

The small cluster of Cardinals fell silent.

“I served at the Holy Father’s pleasure, and my time here has run its course. Nothing more.”

O’Malley’s eyes widened a fraction.

Bellini grit his teeth. 

And Andreas watched the Holy Father’s face fall.

For one terrible moment, the mask cracked. He flinched. Taken aback. His hand trembled where it rested against his side.

Then a bishop that Andreas didn’t recognize stepped forward from the opposite side of the platform, smoothing a hand over his damp vestments.

“Your Holiness,” he said, his voice bright and unaffected by the tension hanging under the canopy. “What a blessing to be here with you tonight.” He looked out at the crowd below. “Thank you for allowing us to share in this sacred observance.”

Andreas watched the visible effort it took, the fractional second where the Holy Father’s shoulders squared and the jaw set, as the mask of his office slid back into place.

“Your Excellency.” Vincent’s voice was gracious, though it carried a slight, brittle reediness. “The blessing is mine. Thank you for braving this weather to join us.”

He took the Bishop’s hand. He even managed a small, hospitable smile.

Andreas felt a knot tighten in his chest. It was a masterclass in performative duty. Vincent stood there, playing the role of the shepherd, as if his heart hadn’t just been dissected by the one person he adored most.

Andreas shifted his gaze back to Lawrence. The Dean had already retreated. Hands clasped, face a blank slate of marble. He looked like what he had claimed to be. A colleague, a professional. 

Nothing more.

—

The procession formed under the starless sky.

Andreas took his position at the rear of the elevated platform, with Klaus opposite of him. The cold had seeped through his waterlogged jacket, settling deep into his bones. He flexed his fingers, trying to keep the blood flowing, trying to stay awake.

He scanned the crowd. Hundreds of candles flickered, little pinpricks of light in a sea of undulating darkness, small flames cupped against the evening’s rainfall, which had petered off into a drizzle.

Wilhelm Mandorff walked to the podium, off to the side. He adjusted the microphone, clearing his throat.

“Forty days have now passed since we began our Lenten journey, with the imposition of ashes. Today we lived the final hours of the earthly life of our Lord Jesus, where from the cross he cried out, ‘It is finished’.”

“We have gathered in this place,” he said, gesturing out toward the piazza, “where thousands of people have suffered martyrdom for Christ, to walk this Via Dolorosa in union with those on the margins of our societies. With displaced refugees, with the victims of war, of famine, and especially the children that suffer through these atrocities.”

The Holy Father, seated on his papal throne, closed his eyes, bowing his head, hands clasped together in prayer.  

“May we also keep those that, even now, are enduring their own persecution, in our prayers. Those that are victims of our narrowmindedness, our institutions, and our laws… our blindness, and our selfishness, and especially our indifference and hardness of heart.”

Bellini gave Lawrence a pointed look.

“May the cross of Christ, a means of death, but also of new life, light our path forward, toward mercy, toward forgiveness, and toward grace. May it guide us in our darkest hours, and may it remind us that God has not abandoned us.”

He allowed the words to settle over the faithful.

“Tonight, the meditations for the Stations of the Cross have been written and will be recited by Sister Maryim Nader, director of the orphanage at the Little Sisters of Charity in Grottaferrata.”

Andreas saw the Holy Father look up, toward the last of the steps. 

A woman of slight build ascended from the base of the stairs. She wore a grey habit and matching veil. And yet despite her humble garments, she looked regal. While the few wisps of hair which had escaped from her veil had streaks of grey in it, she had to be no older than her late forties, or early fifties. Andreas couldn’t tell.

“Sister Maryim served alongside His Holiness during his pastoral work in Kabul,” Mandorff continued. “Her meditations tonight are a reflection on the suffering of refugees and children of war. Those who, even now, walk their own Via Dolorosa in our world.”

She stopped at the papal throne.

The Holy Father looked up at her. And rose.

Sister Maryim reached out, and Vincent grasped her hand with both of his.

It was a complete breach of protocol. And the murmurs and shifting from the clergy said as much, too.

Andreas watched the exchange. A look passed between them, an unspoken something, of a past that extended far beyond their offices, or their work. A deep friendship, perhaps. The sister gave him a minute smile. Her eyes, the color of amber, taking him in, filled with understanding, and sadness. 

The Holy Father inclined his head, and managed a half-smile.

She squeezed his hand once, then released it. The Pope sank back into the cushioned throne as she continued to the podium, and archbishop Mandorff stepped aside.

Her hand found the microphone, lowering it, adjusting it to her height. She looked at the Holy Father, who gave her a nod, then out to the crowd.

“The First Station,” her voice rang out clear and firm. “Jesus is condemned to death.”

The voices of the Schola, just off to the side of the platform, rose into the night, the Gregorian lament permeating the air.

‘Stabat Mater dolorosa, iuxta Crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat Filius…’

Sister Maryim began to recite the stations. Her lilting voice carried through the Roman night. 

“In refugee camps across our world, children wake each day condemned by borders they did not draw, by wars they did not start, by powers that have decided their fate for them. Like Jesus before Pilate, they stand alone. Abandoned. Not understanding why love has grown cold, or why the hand that once held theirs has let go…”

The stations progressed. The second, third, fourth. Sister Maryim’s voice rose and fell with each.

Andreas could begin to feel the exhaustion pulling at him. The debt of sleep finally claiming its dues. And it would not wait, would not care, that he still had a duty to uphold. The words and the lamentations began to blur together—

“…bearing crosses from broken promises…”

The fifth station. Sixth. Seventh.

‘Pro peccátis suae gentis, vidit Jesum in torméntis, et flagéllis súbditum.’

Andreas’s eyelids felt like lead. He tried to fix his gaze on a specific point. The Arch of Constantine, or the glint of a camera lens, but the 'Stabat Mater' and Sister Maryim’s voice wrapped around him like a warm blanket he couldn't push off. His knees threatened to buckle, and he hoped Klaus, or worse, Müller, wouldn't notice.

‘Eia, Mater, fons amóris, me sentíre vim dolóris fac, ut tecum lúgeam.’

The tenth. Eleventh.

‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ 

Andreas let his gaze shift between the Pope, and his Dean. 

Neither man looked at the other. Not for the rest of the night. 

— 

He didn’t fall asleep on the car ride back.

Somewhere between the aching cold and the wet jacket clinging to his shoulders, the discomfort of the evening had tempered the dregs of sleep that pulled at the edges of his consciousness, at least for now.

They disembarked at the Cortile di San Damaso without incident, and after the nightshift had picked up the Holy Father from the courtyard at half-past eleven, the remaining clergy and security detail dispersed. The visiting prelates to the Casa Santa Marta, and the guards, off to the barracks. 

Finally.

The sergeants took a shortcut through the inner corridors, which would save them a couple of minutes from walking through the rain. And though Andreas felt his mind still humming on the last vestiges of adrenaline before an inevitable crash, his body had begun to shiver, lagging behind the rest by several lengths. He removed the earpiece, the wet coil clinging against the side of his neck. Right. He’d need to return the radio before—

“It’s ready,” he heard, just off to his left.

He turned toward the sound, but saw no one, nothing. Just an empty corridor.

Yeah, he needed sleep. Like, now.  

He unplugged the earpiece from the radio, wrapping the coil around itself, and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

“—No, we need to test it one more time,” another voice said. 

Test what one more time?

He slowed to a stop. Swaying, just a bit. Looking off into the far corridor.  

“It’ll hold for tomorrow,” said the first.

Tomorrow... Andreas took a step toward the voices.

“We’ll have eyes on the basilica.”

Now that stopped Andreas cold. And it had nothing to do with the weather. No one, save for the Swiss Guard, should have eyes on St. Peter. Unless they were a part of the Gendarmerie? But that didn’t make sense, what would they test—

“Where are you going?”

He almost jumped. 

“Klaus,” Andreas said under his breath. How did he not hear him approaching? “I’ll be back in five minutes. I need to check something.”

Klaus looked over his shoulder, toward the corridor, shooting him a warning look. “Andreas, don’t—”

“Five minutes.”

He turned right before Klaus could protest, moving through the dim passageways, hearing footsteps ahead.

They heard him, they must have. Andreas quickened his pace, following the sound deeper into the wing. 

There. Through the archway, he caught sight of two figures in black cassocks heading toward a metal door, emblazoned with a prominent yellow triangle and a lightning bolt inside it. ALTA TENSIONE, the sign said. HIGH VOLTAGE. 

They heard a door slam down the corridor.

One of the men turned to look toward where the sound came from, the one with the key card in hand.

Him.

The same priest from earlier, from the Chrism Mass, from the gardens.

“Stop!” Andreas’s voice rang out in the empty corridor.

The priests turned, and Andreas got a clear look at his face. Mid-forties, dark hair, ordinary features that would blend into any crowd. 

But the other…the other…

“Can I help you?”

“Father…” Andreas’s eyes locked on the younger man. “You shouldn’t be here. Your credentials were revoked.” 

His light brown hair had been dyed black. And it was long, longer now, curling past his ears, combed to the side. And those blue eyes that he remembered, crystalline, the color of ice, were hidden behind dark contacts. Ambitious, young. A climber. Though he looked gaunt now, he must have lost at least 10 kilos since he had seen his last. Like an underfed wolf looking for carrion. Andreas sifted through his mind for his name, Rafael…Degas? No, Degas was a painter. Emmanuel Dumas….no, it started with a ‘G’, he was almost certain. Gabriel?

Was it Gabriel? 

How far have you fallen. 

“Are you sure? You seem lost,” the younger priest said.

Spare me. 

He reached into his pocket, pulling out his credentials, and flashed his badge.

“Pontifical Swiss Guard. Show me your credentials. Both of you, now.”

He sighed, reaching into his cassock. “Of course.” He produced a laminated ID card. The other priest followed suit. 

Andreas took both cards. The photos matched their faces. Their current faces. The credentials looked legitimate, with a hologram, proper formatting, the Vatican seal. It was even the right thickness. 

But he knew. He knew.

This wasn’t his name, it couldn’t be. He remembered the shape of it, and it wasn’t this. He doubted that the other priest’s name was real, too. 

“These are forgeries,” Andreas said. “Good ones, I’ll give you that. But they’re fakes.”

“Sergeant, you look unwell.” The older priest’s voice took on a note of faux concern. “Perhaps you should sit down,” his eyes narrowed. “Before you get hurt.”

The fuck.

“No, I’m calling this in.” His hand found the radio on his belt.

The older priest’s eyes widened the moment Andreas reached for the radio. The priest seized Gabriel by the shoulders and slammed him against the door, wrenching the young man’s wrist hard against the metal frame.

Gabriel cried out, cradling his wrist, sliding down the floor, as stunned as Andreas.

“Aiuto!” The older man shouted, “Help! He’s attacking us!”

Andreas started forward, then stopped himself.

Don’t touch them. Don’t give them anything.

“Alt! Gendarmeria!”

Two officers rounded the corner, hands on their sidearms, taking in the damning scene. Andreas standing over Gabriel, who had slumped against the door, black cassock spilling around him, cradling his wrist. The older priest standing between them, looking terrified. 

He wasn’t a priest. He couldn’t be. No way that he was a priest. 

“This man, he grabbed Father Biancheri, and slammed him against the door!”

“No, that’s not what happened,” Andreas held up his hands, backing away. “I didn’t touch him. He did that. He—”

“Hands where we can see them, now!”

One of the officers kneeled down next to Gabriel, examining his wrist.

Andreas stood there, clutching the two forged IDs, the only evidence he had, which now looked like stolen property.

“Check their credentials,” Andreas said, one hand raised, the other handing the two cards to the standing officer. “They’re not who they say they are.”

“This is ridiculous,” the older priest said. “My name is Emiliano Acosta, and I work under Monsignor Olena at the Directorate for Infrastructures and Services.” He glared at Andreas. “Call him, if you like, but I suspect he won’t appreciate being woken at this hour.”

The officer nodded, examined both cards. Flipping them over, checking the holograms, holding them up to the light, comparing the photos to the priests’ faces. 

“And I’m visiting from a parish in Aosta,” Gabriel lied, clutching his wrist. That was going to bruise, for sure. “Father Luca Biancheri, at your service.”

After a long moment, the officer looked up. “These appear legitimate.” He handed both credentials back to their owners.

No.

“They’re not,” Andreas insisted. What on earth could he say to get through to them? “You need to check the system. He was the Holy Father’s personal secretary until he was terminated.”

The older priest, Emiliano pointed a trembling finger at Andreas. “No, you are just an insane, mad man. And this, this—pazzo—has been stalking me since yesterday! Since last night, all the way to the gardens!” 

“So it was you, in the coveralls?”

The priest, Emilliano, took a step back. “What? No, no, no, I was wearing this,” he gestured downward to his black cassock. “As you see me,” he turned to the officers. “Please, this man is unwell.”

The officer stepped forward. “Sergeant, did you follow this priest into the gardens last night?”

“Yes, but he was wearing—”

“So you admit to following him?”

“He looked suspicious during Chrism Mass, at the Basilica!”

The officer raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been following him since yesterday morning’s mass?”

“What? No!”

The second officer stepped forward. “I remember you…”

Andreas scanned the man’s face, his build, his…oh, shit.

“You were wearing the oxfords last night. To go for a run, apparently.”

“Yes,” because what else could he say? He had been caught in a lie.

The officer's hand was on his arm now. "Sergeant, this is the second time in two days. You need to come with us."

"Check their credentials again. Please. That man isn’t who he says he is. Look at the maintenance logs, the disabled failsafes—"

“Go ahead and check whatever you need to officer,” said Emiliano, confident.

Why weren’t they afraid? 

The officer nodded. "Your names have been noted. We'll look into everything," the officer turned to Andreas. "But right now, you need to come with us."

"Tomorrow," Andreas's voice cracked. "They're planning something for tomorrow—"

"I don't want to press charges,” Gabriel spoke up. “He’s a poor boy that clearly needs help, not punishment."

Boy? We’re practically the same age! The magnanimity of it made Andreas's stomach turn.

“Please escort the sergeant to headquarters.”

The gendarmes flanked Andreas. One of them, who Andreas recognized from joint training exercises, looked apologetic. 

They lead him down the corridor. Andreas caught a glimpse of Klaus, frozen at the far end.

"Klaus!" Andreas called out. "It’s the secretary! The one that was fired! Tell them—"

But Klaus didn't move. He just stood there, eyes wide, shocked, as Andreas was led away.

A sickening realization curdled in his gut. He had no tangible proof, but he knew a foul plot would come to pass tomorrow.  

And he’d just lost any ability to stop it.

Chapter Text

The room had no windows. 

It had no clock hanging up on its yellowed walls, either. Andreas had lost all sense of time after last night. After they took everything, including his watch, his phone, and even his shoelaces, and put him in a holding cell with a cot, smaller than this room, where he fell into a dreamless sleep.

At least he slept.

No windows, but the room had a wooden desk and three chairs. It had bright, white lights, and a white tile floor flecked with grey. No clock, but it had a plain wooden cross, a framed portrait of Innocent XIV, and a domed camera. 

Always watching.

Andreas pulled his feet back under the chair. His boots gaped open without their laces, leather loose around his ankles. He ran his fingers through his hair, and then rested them on the wooden table, trying to look less like someone who’d spent last night in a cell. Waiting. 

How long had he been sitting here? Twenty minutes? Thirty? Every minute he spent in this room brought them a minute closer to—

The door swung open. 

A man, mid-fifties, with greying hair and sharp eyes, took in Andreas with a single glance. He held a thin file folder. Behind him, a younger officer carried a laptop in his arms.

“Buongiorno, Sergeant Schild. My name is Riccardo Salvetto. I am an Inspector with the Gendarmerie Corps.” He gestured then, to the man settling into the chair to his right. “And this is Agente Camino.”

Andreas nodded to both. At least he knew now that it was still morning. “Buongiorno.”

Agente Camino opened his laptop, and began to type.

"Have you eaten yet?" 

His eyes snapped to the Inspector’s. "Yes. One of the officers brought me caffè and biscotti."

"Good." Salvetto sat down, and rested his hands on the file folder, looking him in the eye. "How did you sleep?"

"Better than the night before," Andreas said. And it was the truth.

"Long week for you, I imagine. With Holy Week security, I know the Swiss Guard works long shifts during this time. And last night was...difficult."

That’s bait. Andreas tried to keep his face impassive. Neutral. “There are challenges every year.”

Salvetto’s mouth twitched, but he didn't press the point. He leaned back, acknowledging, perhaps, the wall Andreas had just reinforced between them.

“Before we get into details about what happened last night, I need to advise you of your rights. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to legal counsel.”

He gestured to the younger man, whose fingers danced across the keyboard. “This conversation is being transcribed by Agente Camino—” then he pointed to the domed camera in the corner, “—and my colleagues are watching as well. Do you understand?” 

“I understand, sir.”

Salvetto nodded, satisfied. “I want you to explain what happened, in your own words. I’ll ask some follow-up questions to clarify things. If you don’t understand a question, tell me. If you need a break, tell me. This is your opportunity to give your account. Does that make sense?”

Andreas met his eyes. “Yes.”

“Good.” Salvetto opened the file now and picked up his pen. “Are you Andreas Schild, sergeant in the Pontifical Swiss Guard, assigned to close protection detail for His Holiness?”

“That is correct.”

"And at twenty-three forty-five yesterday, you were in service corridor six, near an electrical room. Correct?"

“I don’t remember the exact time, but yes.”

Salvetto flipped to another paper in the file. 

"Two priests were present. Father Emiliano Acosta and Father Luca Biancheri."

Andreas's hands curled on the table. "Those were the names on their IDs."

Salvetto didn’t look up from his notepad, but underlined a word Andreas couldn’t read from this angle. "Are you disputing their identities?" 

“Yes.”

Salvetto nodded and looked up. "Explain that to me. Father Acosta is a Vatican employee, and Father Biancheri was cleared at the Sant’Anna Gate. What did you see in that corridor that made you question the credentials of men that the Gendarmerie had already vetted?"

“It wasn’t what I saw,” Andreas clarified. “It was what they said. They were talking about testing something one more time, for tomorrow. And that they had eyes on the basilica. That’s when I decided to investigate.”

"Eyes on the basilica,” Salvetto’s pen remained poised over the documents. “Did they use those exact words, or is that your interpretation?"

“Their words, that's why I stopped. No one except the Swiss Guard and the Gendarmerie,” Andreas said, gesturing toward the Inspector and his agent, “would speak like that.”

Salvetto lowered his pen and exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “So you heard these words, you followed them, and you cornered them in front of the electrical room. And then you asked for their papers?”

The typing paused for a moment, as Andreas gathered his thoughts.

“Yes, I recognized Father Biancheri as the Holy Father’s ex-secretary. I suspect he isn’t allowed on Vatican grounds.”

Salvetto inclined his head, but kept his face impassive. “You had mentioned as much to the officers at intake,” he flipped through the papers in the folder, “accusing the clergy member you assaulted of forgery.”

“I did not touch him, and his name is Gabriel—“

“Demas.” The Inspector slid the document to Andreas. A high-resolution printout of the man he remembered stared back at him. “Gabriel Demas, the Holy Father’s former personal secretary. His credentials were revoked in January, after accepting reassignment to a small parish in Savoie. An act of mercy from the Holy Father, given that the Curia wanted him prosecuted for disclosure of confidential documents.”

It was the way of things here. Minimize the damage by moving the problem away. Anything to avoid a scandal.

“Fired in all but name,” Andreas murmured, as he leaned forward, examining the picture. Eyes darting from the printout to the photoscopied IDs. “Can’t you see the similarities though?”

Salvetto shrugged. “Well no, not really.”

What would become of Andreas now?

“You are right on one thing,” the Inspector conceded. “He should not be in any service corridors. And he wasn’t. We confirmed with his home diocese that he is on a three-week retreat at an abbey in Gordes, France.”

Enough time to get from France to Rome.

“Did you call the abbey to confirm?”

The typing in the corner stopped.

“Yes, I contacted them, though I didn’t need to,” Salvetto answered, pushing several documents toward Andreas. “Because Father Biancheri and Father Acosta are in the SIDI database. They are real people, and their credentials matched what we found in the system.” 

Andreas scanned the printouts before him, along with photocopies of the IDs he had examined the night before. Same names. Same ages. Same dates of ordination. 

He couldn’t prove it, and he didn’t have the tools, the training, or the clearance to investigate further, but he knew the physical assault he had witnessed wasn’t a figment of his sleep-deprived brain. He was certain of it. But if they were real people…

Wait.

“Then the database is compromised,” Andreas said at last. 

“Compromised?”

Andreas leaned forward. “And the electrical grid too.” 

Agente Camino typed with fervor.

“On Tuesday morning, the Holy Father and the Dean were trapped in a lift. But it wasn't a mechanical failure.”

Salvetto nodded. “I am aware of the incident. It was a power surge.”

“No, it wasn’t. Martinas, my colleague, saw that the digital clocks were off by several hours. That means the main power was cut, but the back-up generators, which are supposed to kick in, were manually disabled. That wasn't an accident, sir. It was a test.”

“A test for what?” Salvetto asked, his voice skeptical.

“To see if they could kill the failsafes for the Basilica without being detected.”

The Inspector scrawled an illegible note onto the margins. “And why would they carry out this hypothetical test on an elevator instead of the Basilica?”

“I don’t know, maybe they hit the wrong switch? The point is that they have insider access through Demas, and he’s here because they’re executing their plan today.”

Salvetto put down his pen. “We’ve established that the ex-secretary, Demas, isn’t here. And that doesn’t explain why you attacked Biancheri.”

“I did not attack him. It was the man claiming to be Father Acosta.”

“The same Father Acosta that works for the Directorate for Infrastructures and Services? The one you followed into the Gardens on Thursday night? When you told one of my officers that you were going for a run?”

“He is an imposter that was wearing coveralls. They are both imposters.“

Andreas felt a change in the room. An almost imperceptible shift in the demeanor of the two members of the Gendarmerie before him. 

The officer stopped typing and glanced at Andreas, then made eye contact with the Inspector. Salvetto nodded once, and Agente Camino began to type with greater intensity. 

Something passed between them. Something had been decided. And Andreas was running out of time. He turned his thoughts over and over in his head, trying to find the right combination of words that would get through to him, to someone, to anyone, instead of falling into a void. 

The Inspector sighed, and tapped the end of the pen against his notepad. “I know that not just anyone stays for six, almost seven years in the Swiss Guard and becomes a sergeant. That’s dedication, and I respect that. But maybe between then and now, the years of constant stress, compounded by the logistics of Holy Week caused something to snap.” 

He made a thoughtful sound. “It would explain why you resorted to creating this conspiracy instead of following procedure. Even your colleague, Klaus, had mentioned that you have been acting erratically.”

Klaus?

Andreas was many things, but insane and delusional wasn’t one of them. 

“I will repeat to you what I’ve been told every time I’ve brought it to someone’s attention this week,” he said, his voice serrated with exhaustion. “That is not my job, it’s yours.”

Salvetto leaned back. He didn’t look angry. He looked disappointed. Dismissive. 

He gathered the SIDI printouts, the photocopies of the IDs, and Gabriel’s profile and termination letter.

“You’re right, Andreas. It is my job,” Salvetto said, sliding the file shut. “And part of that job is protecting the peace. Right now, the most peaceful thing I can do is keep a man who sees ghosts away from the Holy Father.”

He stood up, signaling to Agente Camino to stop the transcription. The younger man’s fingers gave one final tap and the laptop lid clicked shut.

“Wait,” Andreas said, “you need to check his hands. If he’s really part of the Directorate, look at his hands! He had the hands of a soldier! Not a priest!”

Salvetto stared at him for a long moment.

“Get some rest, Sergente,” Salvetto said. “Agente Camino will stay outside. If you need water, ask. But do not ask to leave.”

The door swung shut. The heavy magnetic bolt engaged with a final, decisive thud. 

—

Every Swiss Guard had a black beret. 

Andreas had three.

One that he kept in pristine condition, inspection-ready, for events where he knew the Commander or the cameras of the Sala Stampa would be nearby. Another, that he subjected to regular use. It was the most comfortable one, as the black wool had softened to the shape of his head. The third had pilled over the years, the lining worn so thin that it had torn and frayed. He held onto it for sentimentality, the first he had received. 

None would see another shift.

He tucked each into his open suitcase, next to his thermals and an FC Guardia jersey from the one summer he joined the Vatican intramural team. He had just enough space for his white button-downs. Everything else from his last six-and-a-half years of service would need to go into his second suitcase and his duffel bag. 

The Commander’s words from this morning snagged at his mind. 

“You’ve been a good guard, Andreas. One of the best. But sometimes the work takes more than we have to give.”

He shook his head and strode to his wardrobe, removing the remaining shirts from their hangers, tossing them onto his bed. 

Müller himself had come to collect him from the interrogation room, almost shouldering past Inspector Salvetto. 

Once they were out of earshot, Andreas turned to Müller. 

“I swear on the very life of the Holy Father that I am telling the truth,” he had said, as they walked down a corridor and past a prelate wearing a violet fascia. “You need to review the evidence and look into the person that almost broke into the apartments. Something terrible will happen tonight.”

“Enough, Andreas.”

He unfurled the last shirt from the hangers, then folded it regulation-style against the bed. One down, six more to go. 

Some guard he was, if he couldn’t even make one person believe him. Not the Inspector, not his Commander, not even his own colleagues. His own friends. And he doubted anyone in Bern would too, once he was back in Switzerland.

Andreas heard the door open, but he didn’t care to look up. Not anymore. 

A few tentative footsteps against the floorboards. 

He’d know that gait from anywhere. 

“Sister Ola sent you this,” Klaus put a tray down on the desk beside the window, laden with a plate of schnitzel and pommes allumettes. A small slice of carrot cake too. “She was worried when she didn’t see you at the canteen.”

It smelled good, it always did, but Andreas had no appetite. 

“Thank you.” He carried on, back turned to Klaus, arranging the last of his button-downs into his suitcase.

Now go.

The floorboards creaked, but not toward the door. 

“Deo said we could get drinks when this all…when you’re back from leave.”

He stopped folding. 

The Swiss Guard, and much of the Vatican, if Andreas was honest with himself, operated on a tacit agreement. Discretion in the face of scandal. Information passed down on a need-to-know basis, containment, anything for the good of the Church. So yes, he could believe that his friends were kept in the dark about the extent of the accusations leveled against him. 

But Klaus was the reason why they would never let him come back. 

Andreas rounded on Klaus and pointed a finger at him. “You told him that I was erratic. That I snapped!”

Klaus gaped. “No, I told him you’ve been extra vigilant lately, but given our jobs that’s not exactly a bad thing!”

“The Inspector at the Gendarmerie thinks I’ve lost it because of whatever you said!”

“I…wait,” Klaus ran a hand through his hair. “I only spoke to Müller. I never said—I didn’t think he would—”

“You didn’t think he would report it back to the people who hauled me away while you just stood there?” 

He advanced on Klaus.

“They took my shoelaces, they had the lights on the entire night, and someone was coming in every hour, apparently, because they thought I could be a danger to myself!”

Klaus looked at him, stunned. But Andreas was having none of that. He turned back to his suitcase and continued folding his shirts. 

Anything to keep his hands busy. 

“Christ, Andreas. I’m sorry. I didn’t think they would take it that way.” 

Andreas huffed, and opened his wardrobe, pulling out his slacks and draping each one over his left arm.

“Did you even tell him about the ex-secretary,” Andreas asked over his shoulder, “or were you too scared to stick your neck out and break protocol?”

He heard a sharp intake of breath as he threw the slacks onto the bed.

“That’s not fair.”

Andreas almost rolled his eyes at that. 

“None of this is fair. But I guess fair and right don’t mean the same thing around here.” He grabbed his second suitcase by the handle and lowered it to the ground with a thwack. Unzipping it. He kneeled and started folding each pair of slacks into it, one by one. 

Klaus crouched down next to the suitcase. 

“For the record, I did tell Müller about the ex-secretary.”

Oh.

“And about the things you noticed. But I didn’t think they’d count that against you, or make you take a break over it.”

It seemed genuine, and that’s what made it worse. This idea of it being temporary. 

“I’m not sure what they told everyone, but I’m not coming back.” Andreas struggled to say the words. “Tomorrow’s my last day here.”

Müller’s last, painful words to him echoed in his mind. 

“You’ll be on medical leave while we process your discharge. This is the best outcome for everyone.”

“What? You can’t go!”

Andreas got up from the floor and dusted his knees. Trying to avoid the distraught look on his friend’s face. “It wasn’t my choice.”

“But we can…maybe we can talk to someone to get an appeal?”

After the dressing down he got from the Commander? Yeah, no. He really couldn’t do this right now. Andreas walked past Klaus and reached into the wardrobe for his suit jacket.

“Just drop it, Klaus. You know how the—“

His jacket felt heavy. Heavier than normal. Andreas did a double take and squinted at the mass protruding from the side pocket. No, that couldn’t be. They swept his entire room before dumping him back in here to pack. How could they miss—

Klaus grabbed the wardrobe door. “I think you should fight this. What do you have to lose?”

His eyes flicked between the jacket in his hand and Klaus. 

At this point, nothing. 

“Maybe I will,” he said, as he bunched up the jacket in his hands. Hoping it was enough to obscure the rectangular shape inside. He shouldered past Klaus and shoved the jacket into his duffel. “But right now, I need to pack.”

Andreas made a show of tossing some jumpers into the bag too. 

Klaus exhaled after a moment of watching Andreas organize his things. “Right, fine. Just remember to eat something. We can talk more later.” He shuffled his way to the door, then paused, looking back. 

“You know you can lean on us, right? Even if…”

Andreas looked up. 

He recognized the look on Klaus’s face. He’d felt it all morning. The stark disbelief over the finality of it all. But also, the loss. No more morning jogs, or lunches at the canteen, or pub nights at Morrison’s. Almost seven years of shared shifts, shared jokes, shared silences, shared danger. 

And it would all end like this. In a barracks room with half-packed suitcases on Easter Saturday.

Andreas let his eyes drift to the duffel bag. 

He hoped he’d be able to lean on them one more time. 

“Yeah, I know.”

Klaus nodded once, giving him a shaky smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and left. 

Andreas held his breath. Listening for the footsteps to fade down the hallway. Then, nothing.

Just the ticking clock on the wall. 

Andreas lunged for the duffel and shook everything out onto the bed, the jacket falling out last. 

He stuffed his hand into the left side pocket and extracted the radio. The same one he had forgotten at the barracks the night before. 

He couldn’t risk turning it on. It would alert the control center that it was here. But it had enough battery for a shift. 

And that was all he needed. 

He shoved the radio back into the jacket pocket, then threw it into his bag with the rest of his clothes. If anyone remembered it was missing, he could say it was where he’d left it before he was taken into custody. Then he sat down at his desk, perhaps for the last time, a plan forming in his head as he cut into the breaded veal.

Andreas wasn’t hungry, but a solid meal would give him strength. 

He would need it for tonight. 

Besides, what did he have to lose? 

—
Saint Peter’s bells announced the eighth hour of the evening. 

That was also his signal to go.

Andreas had changed into the dark slacks and button-down he’d laid out earlier. He pulled on the suit jacket and clipped the radio to his belt, checking it to make sure it was secure, then buttoned the jacket closed.

Standing there in his oxfords, hair combed back, he looked like any civilian attending the Vigil. No one would know he was a guard. Or had been a guard.

Now for the hard part. 

From a technical standpoint, he had complete freedom of movement within the barracks. The door to his quarters remained unlocked, and there was no guard stationed outside. He doubted that the skeleton crew left behind cared about a guard being discharged pending medical leave either. But the sentry posted at the barracks entry knew, in all likelihood, that Andreas Schild wasn’t to leave the building. 

He didn’t care much for causing a scene. Not here, at least. So that left him with two options. Use a side exit and risk setting off an alarm. Or hiding in plain sight. But theory was one thing, and reality another. So he straightened his jacket one more time, and stepped out of his room. 

There was a stillness in the hallways that Andreas associated with the busiest times of a Swiss Guard’s career. Christmas. Easter. Conclave. Everyone deployed—

“Ciao, Andreas!”

Almost everyone. 

“Reto.”

The younger halberdier hobbled down the hallway on crutches, his left foot in a cardinal-red cast. This was his, what…third injury this year? And it was only April.

Reto eyed his suit, and his oxfords, tilting his head. “You off tonight too?” 

“Something like that.”

Andreas kept moving. He had no time to chat, much as he didn’t mind Reto’s company most days. 

The crutches hobbled after him. 

“One of the turtles made a break for it, but I grabbed it before the car did!” Reto wiggled his bad leg. “Only got two fractures this time!” 

Right up there with the Third Secret of Fátima and the sudden death of Pope John Paul I stood a third Vatican secret. How the hell did Reto Steiner make it into the Pontifical Swiss Guard?

But at least he had heart.

Reto looked down at his foot, then back up, eyes wide and hopeful. "Do you think I can get the Holy Father to sign my cast?”

“Not…likely.” Andreas glanced at his watch.

“There’s leftover carrot cake in the canteen!” Reto said, falling into step beside him, as best as he could, given the crutches and his injured leg. “The sisters said I could have whatever’s left. You want some?”

The sisters. They were long gone for the night, which meant that the service entrance behind the kitchen should be free.

Andreas slowed as they neared the main hall. The guarded entrance just ahead, manned by a single sentry. 

Maybe it could work.

“Sure.”

They passed the glass vitrines containing an armored breastplate and a plumed helmet. The sentry was standing at attention between the cases. Watching Andreas.

“How about a round of Mario Kart?” Reto interjected.

“Another time,” Andreas said, keeping his gaze fixed ahead, avoiding eye contact with the sentry. As they moved beyond him, Andreas felt the man's gaze burning into his back. He hoped that Reto’s presence, crutches and all, would be enough cover for now. 

Andreas exhaled once they stepped into the canteen. As expected on a night like this, it was empty, devoid of guards and sisters, chairs upturned on the tables, the overhead lights dimmed to their evening setting. 

Now, just one small problem. 

“Reto,” Andreas said, as he strode over to the nearest table, out of sight from the self-serve bar and the adjoining kitchen. He pulled out a chair. “Sit here, and I’ll get you the cake. Where did you say it was?”

“Thanks! On the far counter.” Reto swung himself into the seat, propping his crutches against the table. 

Andreas nodded, walking toward the back of the canteen. He spotted the cake sitting on the stainless steel prep table, tucked under a glass dome. A whole cake. The sisters’ entrance just to the left. A plain door with a pushbar handle.

This was his chance.

He leaned his weight against the pushbar, testing for the deadbolt. It gave with a click and a low groan. Unlocked.

“Andreas!” Reto called out. “Did you find it?”

Right, the cake.

“Yeah, just getting you a fork!”

If Reto indulged himself, that would buy Andreas some time before the sentry started counting heads. So he grabbed the entire dish, glass dome and all, along with a fork from the utensil caddy, and strode back to his colleague. He set the plate in front of Reto.

The younger guard’s eyes went wide at the sight of the cake still sitting untouched beneath its glass dome.

"You didn't slice it?" Reto asked, already lifting the cover.

“No, take as much as you want.” Andreas straightened his jacket. “I, ah…need to make a call. I’ll catch you later.”

"Yeah, sure, thanks Andi!" Reto was already halfway through a massive bite of frosting.

He didn't wait for a second invitation. He backed away toward the kitchen area, and as soon as the industrial refrigerators blocked Reto's view, he pivoted and lunged for the service entrance.

Andreas pushed through the sisters’ door and stepped out into the night.

—

There were two sets of eyes in the sky at Vatican City. God. And the Gendarmerie. 

Andreas knew there was no point in trying to hide from either. The omnipresent gaze of the surveillance system would, without a doubt, capture the likeness of a single rogue guard traversing the grounds. The question was whether headquarters would notice in time to stop him. Or after.

He hoped that God would forgive him for his trespasses. 

The Gendarmerie would not. Not without his Vatican ID. 

He walked past the Tower of Nicholas V, under the peering eye of a domed camera on a lamppost. Shoulders back, walking with purpose. 

Let them see. 

At least God knew he was trying to keep Vincent safe. So long as Andreas carried himself like he belonged, they should have no reason to suspect otherwise. And on a night teeming with personnel, that wouldn’t be hard to do. 

He stepped into the floodlit Cortile di San Damaso, still bustling, even at this late hour, with the last-minute arrival of dignitaries and their entourages for the evening Mass. Several bishops filed by the idling cars, a few staffers and their secretaries trailing behind. Heading into the corridors of the Apostolic Palace.

Perfect.

Andreas kept a half-step behind as he fished for the earpiece in his pocket and put it on, threading the coiled wire behind his ear. He opened his jacket to adjust the radio on his belt. Pretending to flip through a channel, for the benefit of the two young halberdiers at the mouth of the corridor.

Brazen, yes, maybe. But acting like someone with nothing to hide was his only armor. 

Like Reto, he hoped that word of his discharge hadn't reached the rank-and-file yet, that the ghost of his Sergeant’s stripes still commanded a bit of respect. However unearned.  

Andreas acknowledged them with a terse nod and—

They nodded back. 

Not even sparing him a second glance, as he passed shoulder-to-shoulder with them. 

Just a phantom guard watching over his phantom charge. 

They moved deeper into the belly of the Apostolic Palace. The bishops at the head none the wiser about the straggler they’d picked up at the tail end of their procession, and the secretaries too engrossed in their own conversation to notice Andreas in a dark suit walking three paces behind.

But the air had changed. It was a few degrees cooler here, in these corridors ensconced in marble. Threading between the administrative offices of the Curia. A stray Cardinal in full choir dress crossed their path, heading south. 

They were approaching the heart of the restricted zone. Another left hand turn. And the inner service corridors that cut past the Sala Regia, toward the Sistina. 

Andreas almost—almost—reached into his side pocket for his confiscated credentials on reflex. His hands felt emptier without it. He would have to make do with slipping through the checkpoints on the goodwill of the guards he crossed paths with. 

The bishops at the front came to an abrupt stop. 

“Commander! Has His Holiness already left the palace?”

Oh, fuck.

Andreas wasn’t sure which Commander was at the Sala’s entrance, be it Swiss Guard or Gendarmerie, but he didn’t wait to find out. 

He broke from the tailend of the group and sidestepped into the passage that led into the Sistine Chapel.

He didn’t look up.

He never did, not anymore, not since his first year of service when the frescoed ceiling still arrested him mid-step. The room was climate controlled, and his oxfords too loud against the marble inlay, the braided axis of circles stretching ahead of him toward the far altar. His eyes on doors ahead. One led to the Room of Tears, and the other toward the Basilica itself. 

Andreas climbed the four marble steps up the dais and veered right, his hand finding the cool brass handle on the wooden door, and pushed.

The door gave into a vestibule. 

A shortcut only known to the cleaners and the Guard. The first flight of the Scala Regia, with columns flanking a path down, down, down, funneling toward the Bronze Doors below. He descended to the second flight, risking one glance back toward the party he left behind, and found nothing but darkness beyond the colonnade.

He exited through the lower service door, the bite of April’s chill sharp against his skin as he stepped onto the narrow stairway leading down to St. Gregory’s Courtyard.

Andreas could already hear the hum of the gathering faithful in the distance, the thousands waiting for the light to break the darkness of the Vigil. He stayed close to the stone walls, keeping to the unlit side of the courtyard, until he reached the heavy gates of the portico and slipped inside the Basilica’s cavernous entrance hall.  

A few stray candles near the Holy Door flickered in the dim. Beyond them, the faithful were finding their places amongst the pews with the help of the ushers, and security. 

Andreas straightened his collar and retreated to the perimeter of the Basilica’s interior, maneuvering past a small crowd gathering next to the waist-high railing at the foot of the Pietà. The ivory marble of the Mother holding her broken Son, glowing against the dark swirling stone behind it.   

If I fail, he thought, looking up, reaching for the lead weight of the radio at his belt, this is how it ends.

“Scusa!” 

A heavy shoulder clipped his, spinning Andreas toward the railing. He looked up, an apology dying in his throat. Blue uniform. Silver insignia. A Gendarme patrolling the perimeter of the Pietà.

The officer didn’t stop to look at him, he was busy clearing a path for a cluster of late-arriving VIPs in black cassocks, but his eyes flicked over Andreas for a micro-second. Andreas dropped his chin, turning back toward the marble Virgin in mourning, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

He waited for the hand on his shoulder. The Sergeant Schild, come with us.

But instead heard another voice, one that took him a moment to place. 

“Sergente?”

Andreas turned to see Bishop Esposito, and Nonno Vicano next to him, with wide, bespectacled eyes. 

The bishops from Sant’Egidio’s in Trastevere. 

“Buonasera, Excellenza,” Andreas said, his mouth dry, hoping the officer wouldn’t look this way.

“The crowds are so thick tonight,” the Bishop said, as he squinted toward the front of the Basilica. “Do you know where the reserved seating for the clergy is? I thought it was near the Altar of the Chair, but the ushers are pointing everyone toward the transept.”

Andreas looked at the two men—one leaning on a cane, the other looking overwhelmed by the sheer volume of pilgrims. And he knew the floor plan better than the back of own hand.

“I can take you, it’s been moved.” For security reasons, though Andreas didn’t say that part. He stepped between them, offering a steadying arm to Vicano. “Follow me.”

They began the slow trek down the left aisle. At least being an escort gave him a reason to keep his head up, and a reason to be there. As they moved, he performed a peripheral sweep of the pews, checking the hands of every man in a cassock.

Then he let his gaze drift toward the shadows of the left transept. Nothing. The sea of faces remained a blur. 

When they reached the cordoned-off section near the Choir Chapel, an usher in a black suit stepped forward, checking the bishop’s paper biglettos with a penlight.

“Grazie, figlio mio,” Nonno Vicano said, patting Andreas’s arm. “Vai, trova il tuo posto.”

Go, find your place.

Andreas gave a sharp nod and stepped back into the shadows of a marble pier as the Bishops were led to their seats.

He took one final, long-range scan of the aisle behind him.

And, there. 

A man in heavy black and a clerical collar moving away from the main seating area, heading toward the gilded expanse of the Choir Chapel's exterior wall. He was looking at his watch. As the man passed under a wall-mounted sconce, the light hit his face, a face Andreas would never forget. 

Acosta. Or at least his pretender.

The man pulled a slim white card from his sleeve and hovered it over a hidden sensor in the gold leaf. With a soft, hydraulic hiss, a rectangular section of the ornate paneling swung inward, revealing a lit passage that few knew about. A restricted door, as it led straight to the Sacristy. To the Holy Father. 

Beep-click.

The target vanished into the Corridor of the Choir.

Andreas broke into a jog, pressing his finger against his earpiece so it would look like he was carrying out sanctioned business. He reached the door just as the magnetic lock hissed, the pneumatic arm pulling it shut. He jammed the toe of his oxford into the gap, the metal frame biting into the leather of his shoe. He winced at the weight of it, but it was enough for him to shoulder through. 

Andreas slipped into the corridor, the door sealing shut behind him with a vacuum-like thud that swallowed the noise of the Basilica. 

Several lengths ahead, the silhouette of Acosta was halfway down the hall, moving with the terrifying confidence of someone who knew where he was going.

Andreas broke into a sprint. Gaining ground, closing the distance, when—

“Tomás, please. Look at me!”

Andreas pulled up short at the junction, his hands finding the marble wall. Acosta’s footsteps fading toward the Vestry. Gone. 

They had dimmed the atrium of the staircase, lit by a single sconce above the gallery window. He stood there for one suspended moment, caught between the two. In the half-light, the statue of Pius VI watched from his marble throne at the top landing, one finger extended in judgement. Or accusation.

Acosta was still moving, but so was Vincent, unguarded from what he could see, and Andreas knew this building. So he made a choice, and pressed his back to the stone balustrade. 

Act like you belong.

He touched his earpiece. Pretending to check the channel on his radio, which still remained off. Though he couldn’t help but glance up.

“Your Holiness should not concern himself with matters beneath his office," Thomas replied, eyes downcast, as he descended the first steps of the marble staircase. "The rest of the Curia has already—”

Vincent grabbed Lawrence’s arm and pulled him to a stop. “I do not care about the rest of the Curia. I care about you!”

At this distance, they were level. With Thomas two steps down and Vincent on the landing, they stood eye to eye.

Thomas looked at him at last, then away. “There is nothing left to say, Your Holiness. This is finished.” He pulled his arm free and made to continue his descent.

“As your Supreme Pontiff, I command you to look at me.”

Cardinal Lawrence, no, Thomas, stilled.

“You will be free of me after tomorrow.” Vincent said. He took a step toward Thomas, the heavy silk of his vestments rustling. “And I will respect your wishes. But I need you to make me a promise.”

The Dean swallowed.

“Promise me that you will take care of yourself in my absence.” 

Vincent’s eyes searched the Dean’s face for any sign of the man who had once been his sanctuary.

Thomas pursed his lips, mulling, then he reached up and adjusted the angle of Vincent’s pallium, smoothing the creases of the fabric out. 

A final, cold service.

"I will do what is required of me to maintain the dignity of your station," Thomas said, his voice hollow. "And I will pray for the success of your pontificate, Holy Father. But after tomorrow, my life belongs to God alone, as it always should have, however far it takes me from— “ 

He stopped, and averted his gaze. “Do not ask more from me.”

His hands dropped from Vincent’s vestments, and he continued his descent to the landing below. 

Thomas passed within an arm’s length of Andreas, paying no mind to the presence of a random staffer touching his earpiece and checking his watch. One of hundreds deployed on a night like this in the Vatican.

But Andreas saw him. And despite the low light, Andreas saw a different feeling in the Cardinal’s eyes, for the first time this week.

Doubt.