Chapter Text
It’s a rainy afternoon in early October when Pope Innocent XIV steps in front of the press to announce his resignation.
The office of the Holy See has called in the press conference only this morning, making the scene inside the cramped room on the ground floor of the Apostolic Palace somewhat chaotic. Press badges were printed in a hurry, together with an official statement to be handed out after the conference, and somehow, in all the chaos, no one has wasted a thought on the question whether the horde of journalist would even be able to fit into the media room the Holy See normally use to announce the results of synods and congresses to an only mildly interested audience.
The invite didn’t state the occasion of the press conference. Only that Innocent himself would be making an “important announcement”. It’s a rare occasion that a Pope speaks to the press directly on such short notice, and that alone sufficed to make hundreds of journalists swarm to the Vatican in a matter of hours.
Now, the media room and the adjacent hallway are cramped with people trying to find a spot from which they hopefully will be able to catch a glimpse at the pontiff. The two-hundred chairs are long occupied, forcing everyone who arrived too late or took too long at the security check to remain standing at the sides and elbow themselves into a more promising position.
Hundreds of intermingling voices fill the way too small room, swelling to a deafening cacophony of increasingly irritated speculations. Why is the Holy Father ten minutes late already? And what on earth could he possibly be announcing? The bets among the assembled media representatives are mostly on the abolition of celibacy or female ordination, and both options would make for a decent scandal worth waiting for.
Fifteen minutes. A few nosy journalists start questioning the Swiss Guards in front of the podium about the nature of the Holy Father’s announcement. The young Guards only shake their heads and stare straight ahead, paying their inquiries no mind.
At twenty minutes past three, just when the mood inside the media room is threatening to turn sour, Innocent finally steps out onto the podium. Immediately, the room falls silent, aside from the clicking of hundreds of cameras capturing his every movement. The Holy Father is flanked by his Secretary of State, Cardinal Bellini, and by his Dean and personal advisor, Cardinal Lawrence. The presence of the two high-ranking Curia cardinals confirms the serious nature of the announcement Innocent is about to make. A few journalists exchange meaningful glances. Today, they are sure, history will be written.
Innocent flinches as the flash of the cameras directed at him blind him momentarily. He appears untypically unsteady on his feet today. For a split-second, Cardinal Lawrence places a hand in the small of his back, as if to stabilize him. Only briefly, the Holy Father raises his glance to look at the assembled journalists. When he sits down in this chair, his gaze remains lowered, not in the humble way he usually addresses the public, but in the fashion of a man who carries a weight on his shoulders that is threatening to crush him alive. Like a lamb being led to slaughter, one paper will describe the scene later.
Innocent has lost weight, too. Even the favorable lighting on the podium can’t conceal that. His cheekbones are more pronounced than usual, and while he was already a slender, almost dainty man before, he now appears like his wiry strength he is widely admired for has vanished from his body. He seems exhausted to the bone, like it has taken him the last bit of his remaining energy to come here today.
For the first time in the three years of his papacy, Innocent looks lost in his white cassock, a small figure, head ducked as if to make himself even smaller. When he first stepped out onto the balcony to present himself to the world, he seemed overwhelmed, yes, almost shy, and yet equipped with a certain innate confidence. The confidence of a man who knows that he’s exactly where God intended for him to be. Ever since, Innocent has effortlessly managed to become the most popular and most beloved Pope of the modern age. He’s charming, handsome, eloquent, steadfast in his opinions, and he loves his flock, as he calls all believers, with all his heart. The Vatican’s brightest shining star, the press once called him. On this afternoon in October, that star seems to have burned out.
Beside Innocent, Cardinal Lawrence folds his hands on the table. His shoulders tremble visibly as he draws in a deep breath. He’s pale as a sheet, aside from the dark shadows underneath his eyes. The muscles in his jaw work as he looks over at Cardinal Bellini. Clearly, Lawrence is fighting tears. Bellini nods at him. His expression, though he’s seemingly less afflicted than Lawrence, is grim, as well. It doesn’t take long for the journalists to figure out that their bets have been wrong. This press conference won’t be about an unexpected liberal reform.
Innocent clears his throat and taps his finger against the microphone in front of him. When he starts speaking, his voice is even quieter than usual. A slight tremor has taken the place of its gentle tranquility.
“Thank you all for coming here on such short notice,” Innocent says. “I assure you I won’t keep you for long.”
He draws in a shaky breath. Only the cameras zooming in on him catch the faint, damp shimmer in his eyes. Besides him, Lawrence averts his face. It seems he can’t bear to look at the Holy Father for whatever it is he intends to announce.
Finally, Innocent raises his glance from the table in front of him. He fixates a spot somewhere far above the rows of the journalists, visibly forcing himself to straighten up. His demeanor is reminiscent of that of a prisoner on the scaffold, mustering his last bit of courage for a dignified ending.
He draws in another sharp breath.
“I hereby announce that I will step down from the office the Lord has assigned me. Today will be the final day of my papacy.”
*
Two weeks earlier
Vincent leans back in his chair and smiles to himself. Today is a good day.
This morning, he finally received the clearance from the commander of the Swiss Guard to undertake the Apostolic Journey to Kongo he has been tirelessly campaigning for ever since he took office. And as though that wouldn’t have been reason enough already to thank the Lord, his Secretary of State, Aldo Bellini, has just revealed to him in their weekly briefing that the delivery of humanitarian aid to a community in Nigeria has finally made it through the blockade that forced the effort of the local diocese to grind to a halt for months.
Now, Vincent only needs to sit through the monthly financial report and a meeting with a French ambassador, and then he will finally have the time to retreat for an undisturbed hour of prayer. Duties have kept him practically tied to his desk for the past few days, leaving him with little time for a proper, in-depth conversation with God. He will get to make up for it this evening, he reminds himself and hides a yawn behind his hand.
He’s tired, and the dry numbers the representative from the Segreteria per l’Economia is presenting to Bellini, his Dean turned personal advisor Thomas Lawrence, Vincent’s secretary and him aren’t exactly helpful in keeping him awake. Another cup of coffee surely can’t hurt. He gets up to reach for the can standing in the middle of the large conference table. He has to stretch a little to close his fingers around the handle.
All of the sudden, just as he pulls the can towards him, a sharp pain ripples through his lower right abdomen. It hits him with such an unexpected force that he fails to suppress a groan. Immediately, all eyes inside the conference room are on him.
“Are you alright, Your Holiness?” Lawrence asks. He doesn’t make an effort to conceal the worry in both his voice and expression.
Vincent lets himself sink back down into his chair. The movement worsens the pain, and it costs him a good amount of self-control not to gasp loudly. It feels like he’s being stabbed into his pelvis with a sharp blade.
“Yes,” he presses through clenched teeth. “I must have…moved the wrong way.”
Even speaking hurts. Before he can help it, his chest starts tightening with an anxious premonition. What is happening to him? He has just reached for a coffee can, he can’t possibly have injured himself doing that, right?
“I’m sorry. Please continue,” he tells the presenter, mainly to distract the others from the fact that he feels the need to curl up in his chair as another wave of pain hits him without warning. The young man doesn’t look too convinced, but luckily, he does as he is told. Lawrence throws him another concerned glance before he reluctantly turns his attention back onto the PowerPoint presentation.
Vincent closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. In through the nose and out through the mouth, slow and controlled. That’s what he used to tell the children in his parish in Kabul when they were afraid or in pain. He figures it can only help him now, too. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the–
He bites down on his own tongue so hard he draws blood as his pelvis tightens up with another agonizing cramp. His hand instinctively shoots to the most painful spot, low in his right abdomen. If he still had his appendix, he would suspect an acute appendicitis, but unfortunately, he has to rule out that explanation. Maybe, he tells himself, he will be able to relieve the pain with a light massage. Maybe he has just pulled a muscle in an unfortunate way. There are many muscles and ligaments in his abdomen, right?
He presses his fingertips into the aching spot, just lightly, to test for his own reaction. Instead of granting him relief, the pressure causes the pain to practically explode. Vincent sinks forward, hands grabbing the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turn white. Another stifled groan escapes his mouth, and once again, it draws the attention of everyone present onto him.
“Holy Father, are you sure you’re fine?” Bellini asks. “You don’t look well.”
Vincent shakes his head.
“It’s nothing,” he insists. It’s a sin to lie. He knows that this isn’t nothing. Something is wrong, terribly wrong. But maybe, if he keeps lying to himself for a little while longer, this will resolve on its own.
“Your Holi–” Lawrence starts, but Vincent cuts him off.
“I said it’s nothing,” he hisses angrily, and it suffices to make Lawrence shut his mouth.
While the presenter haltingly continues discussing the expenses of the last two months, Vincent fights to get his pain under control.
Breathe, he tells himself, just keep breathing. It will pass.
He should be used to pain. He had broken several bones throughout his life, he suffered burns and deep wounds, he was injured by a car bomb, and he had his appendix taken out. And yet, this pain feels unlike anything he’s felt before. It’s sharp and stabbing, like something is being forcefully twisted deep inside him. It’s unbearable.
Vincent loosens his fascia to alleviate some of the pressure on his abdomen. He can’t reach the belt of the slacks he’s wearing underneath, otherwise he’d open that, too. His fingers dig into his thighs below the table, so hard it should hurt, but the overwhelming pain in his abdomen numbs the rest of his body, rendering the attempt at distracting himself useless. Only marginally, he registers the presenter’s voice, from somewhere far away. His words blur into unintelligible mumbling. In a way, it sounds like Vincent is under water. He tries to emerge to the surface, tries to pay attention to whatever slide they’re currently on, but he simply can’t. The words blur in front of his eyes, and there’s a faint ringing in his ears, making it hard for him to listen properly.
Not knowing what else to do, he resorts to praying. Even that seems nearly impossible. He gets halfway through a Hail Mary, and then, the only plea that keeps repeating itself inside his mind is oh Lord, please help me, please make this stop.
The remainder of the meeting, though in reality only twenty minutes, feels like an eternity to Vincent. While the others start collecting their notes and having small talk, Vincent fights against the violent nausea rising in his throat. He tastes blood on his lips. He must have bitten down on them too hard in an effort to stay quiet. During all the illnesses and injuries he suffered throughout his life, he never had the urge to scream in pain. Now he can barely swallow down the shout that threatens to spill over his lips as he gets up from his chair, one hand grabbing the table, the other one holding on to his abdomen. He tries straightening up, but his body refuses to follow his commands. It’s like his muscles and joints have locked, forcing him to stay in a hunched-over position.
“I’ll go and lie down for half an hour,” he announces. His own voice, strained from the effort of forcing these words across his lips, sounds foreign to his ringing ears. “I’ll be back for the meeting with the ambassador.”
Lawrence makes his way over to Vincent’s side of the table. He places a hand on his shoulder and leans down to him so that he can lower his voice.
“Should we call a doctor for you?”
Vincent shakes his head. The movement makes him dizzy.
“No. I’ll be fine.”
Lawrence doesn’t look like he’s buying any of it. Bellini, who has come over to him in the meantime, too, puts down his notebook on the desk and gives him a once-over.
“You don’t need to push through if you’re sick, Your Holiness” he says gently. “Take the rest of the day off and please have a doctor look after you.”
He knows they both mean well, and he knows that at least Lawrence is aware of the risks calling a doctor would bring with it. In three years, Vincent never needed any medication besides an occasional pain killer for a headache, and he successfully refused to have any check-ups to this day. To have someone assess him for abdominal pain is unthinkable.
“Don’t worry, Aldo,” he says. He has to suck in a sharp breath before he’s able to keep speaking. “Give me half an hour.”
The two don’t look convinced, but they also know better than to argue with him. Over the course of his papacy, they have quickly come to discover that Innocent is a stubborn man and that it’s best not to waste time and energy arguing with him about things he has set his mind on already. Lawrence and Bellini step aside and let him pass.
The papal office is barely thirty meters down the hallway from the conference room. Today, that distance feels like thirty kilometers for Vincent. Hunched over, with one hand pressed into his stomach and the other reaching for the wall to stabilize himself, he shuffles down the hallway in slow-motion. How was he walking in the opposite direction just an hour ago with a spring in his step, when now, he can hardly set one foot in front of the other?
Little black spots are dancing in front of his eyes, too quick for him to focus on them. Vincent knows they are the foreboding of approaching unconsciousness, and it terrifies him. He doesn’t want to lose control over his own body, and being unconscious is the epitome of exactly that. At least he’s granted the mercy of not encountering anyone in the hallway.
He unlocks his office door with trembling fingers, almost dropping the keys in the process. Vincent intended to lay down on the couch in the corner of his office, but the moment the door falls shut behind him, a wave of nausea hits him with full force. He stumbles to the adjacent bathroom, sinks to his knees and throws up into the toilet. Usually when he’s feeling nauseous, vomiting once already provides him with enough relief, but this time, his stomach just keeps cramping until there’s nothing left in it for him to throw up. The cramps cause the blade in his pelvis to drive deeper into his flesh.
Tears burn in his eyes as he lets himself sink down on the bathroom floor. The cold tiles briefly help to cool down his feverish body, but the effect doesn’t last longer than a few seconds at most. Shortly after, his body starts shivering uncontrollably. At this moment, Vincent is sure that he must be dying. Something in him must have ripped open and now, he’s internally bleeding to death. At least this is what it feels like. Or rather it’s like something inside him is being twisted and squeezed with a force beyond his comprehension.
Twisted.
From some distant corner of his mind, a memory starts to emerge. A young woman in the clinic in Kongo, coming in with unbearable pain, shivering and crying, on the brink of unconsciousness. He can’t remember her name, but he remembers her diagnosis. Ovarian torsion.
The moment the term arises from his memory, he just knows. This is what is happening to him. His heart drops to his stomach.
Oh God, please, no. Anything but not this.
Isn’t it enough torture to go through to such horrible pain? Why must it be this part of him that’s deserting him? Why must his body commit treason against him for the second time? Before he can help it, he starts sobbing. He doesn’t know what else to do. He’s alone and terrified, writhing in pain, and he can’t possibly get help – if he does, this will be the end of everything. Of his papacy, of everything he’s done for the Church, of the Church’s reputation, everything. And all this because his body has decided to fail him.
While his mind starts spiraling, his body doesn’t give him a break to catch a clear thought. The pain eats its way through his pelvis, deeper and deeper, like it’s trying to split him in two. Vincent can’t take it anymore. With shaking hands, he reaches for his phone and dials the number of the only person he trusts with his bare life, the only one whom he will allow to see him like this.
Thomas picks up after the first ring.
“Your Holiness?”
He sounds out of breath, like he hurried to get his phone as quickly as possible.
“Thomas,” Vincent gasps. “You need to come to my office. Please.”
He hears Thomas draw in a sharp breath. Silence. Then: “I’ll be there in a minute.”
The phone slips from Vincent’s sweat-damp hand and clatters onto the bathroom tiles. He doesn’t bother picking it up. Instead, he closes his eyes and starts to pray.
Please, Lord, please let me be wrong. Please don’t let this be what I think it is. Let me be your loyal servant for a little while longer. I still have so much I want to do.
In his state, dizzy from pain and exhaustion, he neither hears Thomas knocking on his door nor entering. He only notices him when he’s already inside the bathroom.
“Good heavens,” Thomas gasps and sinks onto his knees next to him. He probably must make for a quite pathetic sight, Vincent thinks, how he lies there on the bathroom floor, curled up, with his cassock half unbuttoned and drenched in cold sweat.
Thomas’ face is grim with worry as he places one hand on Vincent’s forehead, feeling his temperature. With the other hand, Thomas reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. His fingers are shaking.
“I shall call a doctor immediately,” he says. “You need help.”
Vincent thinks of cold, sterile hospital rooms, of hands all over his body, touching him, pressing into him, undressing him. Doctors asking him questions he can’t answer and telling him things he can’t understand, that can’t be true. Needles and stitches, pain killers and ultrasounds. Father, you have ovaries and a uterus. Didn’t you know?
“No!” he yells. The spike of pain that follows makes him nauseous. He turns his head, trying to bury his face in the bath mat and muffle his whine.
Thomas’ hand lands on his shoulder. His anchor in a sea of agony, and yet, it doesn't suffice to keep him afloat. It’s just too painful.
“Holy Fa–” Thomas starts, but he quickly interrupts himself. “Vincent. You’re clearly unwell.”
Vincent. It doesn’t happen often that Thomas calls him by his given name, and if he does, it’s mostly by accident. It’s part of Thomas’ side of their self-imposed rules, ever since that fateful conversation two-and-a-half years ago.
He still remembers it as though it's been only a day since they confessed their mutual love to each other, both of them on their knees and in tears. Vincent held Thomas’ hands in his, like he did in the Room of Tears, and if he had been just a little weaker, he would have kissed him that night.
In a different life, we would have loved each other. But we can't.
It shattered his heart into pieces to accept this, and he knows that Thomas’ heart broke along with his. And yet, Thomas stayed.
A lifetime of longing is better than not having you at all, my dear Vincent.
He misses the sound of having Thomas call him by that name, but he also knows it’s the best for both of them. Innocent can keep his distance from Thomas. Vincent can’t.
And so, weakened by pain and fear, Vincent reaches for Thomas’ hand, breaking yet another unspoken rule.
“I just need you to stay with me. Please. It’ll pass.”
Thomas clenches his jaw, but he doesn’t retract his hand.
“Let’s get you to the couch,” he says.
Vincent doesn’t know how, but somehow, Thomas manages to get him up onto his feet and half-carries, half-drags him across the office towards the couch on the far end of the room. Maybe he briefly loses his consciousness somewhere along the way, since the next thing he actively registers is lying on his back on the touch, and Thomas kneeling beside him, with his hand still in Vincent’s. If he wasn’t feeling like his insides are being ripped from his body, Vincent would lose himself in the contact he yearns for every single day.
“You’re in pain.”
It’s not a question Thomas poses, and yet, Vincent nods.
“Where?”
Vincent slowly moves his free hand to his lower abdomen. Speaking is too painful.
Thomas’ eyes widen as his hand stops, right where the parts of him lie that have the power to topple over the entire Catholic Church. The secret they have managed to keep between the two of them for almost three years now.
“Do you think it’s your–” Thomas says quietly. He doesn’t need to finish the question for Vincent to know what he means. He nods again, and watches as the color drains from Thomas’ face.
“Are you sure?” he asks. There’s an audible tremor in his voice. “Maybe you’ve just eaten something spoiled, or–”
Vincent shakes his head.
“No, Thomas,” he whispers. It’s less painful than speaking properly. “I can feel it. I’m sure.”
Thomas takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then another one. Vincent can tell he’s trying not to give in to the same panic that has taken hold of Vincent. Thomas, too, knows what is at stake.
“And what exactly do you think it is? An infection, or– or–”
He gets up from the floor and starts pacing in front of the couch. His hand slips out of Vincent’s, and it causes Vincent to lose the last grip he has on his composure. He turns his head to the side and helplessly groans into the couch cushion.
“Oh heavens, I don’t know what you have, I’m not a doctor!” he hears Thomas say. His voice is getting louder with the panic he fails to control. “Tell me what to do, please!”
Vincent clenches his jaw and forces himself to try and get a coherent sentence across his lips.
“When I worked in my clinic in Kongo, we had several female patients with an ovarial torsion. They described the exact symptoms I’m experiencing now.”
Thomas stops in his tracks.
“And how does one treat that?”
“Surgery.”
The word tastes bitter in Vincent’s mouth. It’s a word he had hoped to never use again.
“Oh.”
Oh. That’s all Thomas says before he buries his face in his hands. They aren’t prepared for a case like this. They couldn’t possibly be. Vincent has never even remotely considered the possibility that his female organs wouldn’t just continue to lay dormant like they did for the first fifty-four years of his life.
Tears gather in his eyes as he looks up at Thomas, his loyal, devoted Thomas, how he stands there, fighting for composure, his shoulders heaving with forcefully controlled breaths. It breaks his already cracked heart to think that now, he’s failing not only his office, but also him, his closest companion, his rock, his guiding light.
“I’m afraid this is the end, Thomas.”
Thomas drops his hands to his side and stares at him, wide-eyed.
“The end?” he asks. “What do you mean, the end?”
He knows exactly what Vincent means, and yet, it seems that he needs to hear Vincent say it out loud, so that he will believe it. Vincent wishes he didn’t have to, and yet, he does him the favor. It’s the least he can do.
“If I have this surgery, my secret will be exposed. And if I don’t– well, if I don’t, my ovary will die due to the lack of blood supply. And necrotic tissue, if left inside the body, can lead to sepsis.”
Thomas’ breath quickens while Vincent is still speaking. At sepsis, the last bit of color drains from his face.
“I’m calling the doctors right now,” he says and pulls his phone from the pocket of his cassock.
Vincent knows that he will have to do this, that there is no escape for him. He’s cornered, and he will have to give in eventually. There’s nothing Vincent hates more than giving in.
“No, please,” he whispers.
Thomas starts pacing again. His hands wander into his hair, fingers pulling at his thin strands. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple. Vincent traces it with his eyes, dazed. He can feel himself slipping further into that delirious state between conscious- and unconsciousness. It hurts so much.
“Vincent, what are you waiting for?” Thomas shouts at him. “You just told me that if you don’t get surgery, given you really have what you think you do, you could die!”
“Maybe it’ll resolve on its own,” Vincent mumbles and closes his eyes. Thomas’ voice is too loud. Now his ears are ringing even more than they already did. Maybe he can just lie here for a little while, let Thomas bring him some pain killers and sleep. Maybe he’ll wake up and the pain will be gone.
“Can that happen?” Thomas asks. Vincent believes to hear a hint of hope in his voice. He hates to disappoint him.
“It would take a miracle to–” he starts, but another violent wave of pain cuts him short.
“Ah, God!” he cries out. His fingers dig into the couch cushions, searching for something to hold on to. He still feels himself slipping away, faster and faster.
Please, take this pain from me, Lord, I’m begging you.
The sound that leaves Thomas’ mouth sounds like a choked up sob. For a moment, that sound hurts Vincent more than his traitorous body.
“We can’t wait for a miracle. I’m not letting you torture yourself! To what end? If this can only be treated with surgery, we will need to get you to a hospital sooner or later.”
Vincent knows he’s right. At least his rational side does. But that side is slipping out of his hand quicker than he can get a hold of it, leaving behind only those parts of his mind he usually keeps locked away.
“Maybe God is punishing me after all for assuming I could fill this office,” he mumbles. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, causing him to slur his words.
Thomas groans in frustration.
“This isn’t the time for such discussions,” he insists. “We have to get you to a hospital. Now!”
Vincent shakes his head.
“No.”
He feels sorry for straining Thomas’ patience, but the fear of what’s to come is stronger than his guilt. He isn’t ready to face this. Just this morning he was preparing his homily for tomorrow’s general audience. His mind can’t grasp the realization that he will never get to give that homily in St. Peter’s Square.
Beside him, Thomas keeps pacing back and forth. Vincent can hear his labored breath even over the swelling ringing noise in his ears.
“Vincent!” he hisses. “You can’t be serious!”
Vincent flinches.
“I will be fine,” he whispers. “Just stay with me, please.”
He lifts his arm, reaching out for Thomas. He’s too far away. Can’t he just kneel back down by his side and hold his hand? Just this one time? They last did this two-and-a-half years ago, that one night in which they almost gave in to temptation, and after that, never again.
A sick part of him wonders what would happen if he would just stay here and endure this. How long would it take until his body gives out? Two days? Three? He wouldn’t have to resign, then. He’d die in office, as a Pope is supposed to. Wouldn’t it be a more dignified ending to his papacy? An ultimate act of sacrifice, for the good of the Church? Christ suffered on the cross, too, did he not?
Thomas seems to have guessed his delirious thoughts correctly.
“Are you asking me to wait for you to die from sepsis?” he yells, voice cracking. “Have you gone mad? I won’t allow you to kill yourself on my watch!”
He sinks to his knees beside the couch and takes Vincent’s face in both hands, forcing him to look at him. His hands are warm and gentle, cradling his face like he’s made of glass, like he’s the most precious thing in this world.
“Vincent, please,” Thomas whispers. “I’m begging you. Don’t do this to me. Please.”
He’s crying, Vincent’s dazed mind registers. Thomas’ eyes, his beautiful, skyblue eyes that have haunted so many of Vincent’s dreams, are roaming over his face, pleading, begging. Vincent wishes he could offer him consolation. While his vision starts to blur at the edges, Thomas keeps rambling, on and on.
“We’ll find a way to keep you safe, I promise. I’ll take care of everything. NDAs, press statements, whatever you need. This won’t be the end. Please!”
It’s Thomas’ utter desperation, not the excruciating pain, that finally breaks Vincent’s resistance. He can’t bear seeing Thomas like this.
“Alright.”
Thomas stops his rambling mid-sentence.
“What?”
Vincent draws in a shallow breath and closes his eyes in defeat.
“Call the doctors.”
It feels like he is signing his own death sentence. At least it’s the death sentence for Innocent XIV. And what is Vincent, without Innocent?
Thomas says that this doesn't have to be the end, but how could they possibly cover this up?
Thomas lets go of his face and scrambles to his feet. The moment Vincent loses the contact between them, he also loses his fight against the approaching unconsciousness. Through a thick fog, he remotely registers how Thomas shouts into his phone in Italian.
Blinded by pain, with his mind far, far removed from his trembling body, Vincent fails to guess how long it takes for the paramedics to arrive. Five minutes, or five hours? He doesn’t know.
Please, help him, Thomas pleads.
Distant voices, in rapid Italian. He doesn’t recognize them.
We’ll give him something for the pain first, Eminence.
He will make it, Thomas, don’t worry. He’s tough.
That’s Bellini. When did he come here?
There are hands on him, too many hands. They smell like rubber and disinfectant, and it makes him want to recoil in sheer terror. He can’t move.
Stay calm, Holy Father, we’re here to help you. Please don’t fight back.
Then, finally, a familiar hand in his. Warm, shaking, damp with sweat. Thomas.
You’ll be fine, Vincent. I will take care of everything. I promise. I promise.
Vincent’s eyes roll back in his head. Then, his world goes dark.
*
When Vincent slowly starts to emerge from the darkness all around him, the first thing he notices is that the pain has lifted from his body. It’s not entirely gone, but the slight, dull ache in his abdomen is so harmless compared to what he just felt a few minutes ago that Vincent barely takes note of it. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe he was just having a nightmare, and the past hour never happened. An ovarial torsion? How incredibly absurd.
“Your Holiness. Can you hear me?”
That’s Thomas’ voice. Vincent must have fallen asleep during that financial briefing. How embarrassing. He has to make sure to apologize to the poor young man from the Secretary of Economics later.
He opens his eyes, expecting the familiar sight of the conference room, the oval desk in its center and the large windows looking out onto St. Peter’s Square. Instead, everything around him is blurry. Too bright. And what is that beeping sound?
Only slowly, Vincent's vision starts to clear up. He's lying on his back, he understands now. Above him, the ceiling is white and sterile. No marble and gold ornaments, no warm lighting. This isn't the conference room, nor his office. In his left arm, he feels the familiar pinch of an IV line. He's in a hospital. This hasn't been a dream. Immediately, his chest tightens up with an onset of panic.
He turns his head to find Thomas sitting beside his bed. His eyes refuse to properly focus, but his silhouette Vincent would recognize anywhere.
“Hello,” Thomas whispers.
His voice is the only familiar thing in this unknown world Vincent has just woken up in and he clings to it like it's a lifeline. His limbs feel so heavy that he can hardly move and the sedation he must have been given clouds his mind, making it impossible to catch a coherent thought. He has lost control over his own body and it terrifies him like nothing else ever could.
He needs to get out of here. Right now.
Vincent tries to sit up, but he merely manages to lift his head from the pillow and groan quietly.
Thomas’ hand lands on his shoulder. It doesn't cost him much of an effort to urge Vincent's weakened body back down onto the pillow beneath him.
“Shh. Take it easy,” he whispers. “You’re alright. Everything went well.”
Vincent tries and fails to put together the puzzle pieces. The memories come back to him only slowly, and with gaps he can’t fill. The last thing he remembers is passing out on his couch, with Thomas’ hand in his. After that, nothing. Just darkness.
“What did–what did they–” he croaks.
He needs to know everything – what happened, what they did to him, who saw him, and who knows of his secret, how they will cover this up, what will become of his papacy now. His head is spinning with a chaotic array of unanswered questions his paralyzed tongue refuses to form.
Thomas understands him nevertheless. His thumb rubs slow circles into his shoulder, gently, soothingly. Oh, how he wishes Thomas would touch him like this more often. Two-and-a-half years, and the yearning hasn't ceased in the slightest, even though he used to pray for it to stop every single day.
“You were right,” Thomas says quietly. “You did have a torsion. The doctors said that your…situation makes you prone to such complications, because apparently, your– your female organs are at an atypical angle in your pelvis, compared to how they usually are in women.”
Vincent listens to the words he's saying and yet, they don't make any sense to him. It’s like he's back in the hospital where he got his appendix removed and he learned for the first time that he isn't like other men. Female organs. It still feels like those don't truly belong to him. He could comfortably ignore them for the past sixteen years and pretend that they weren't there, just like he pretended for the entire world. Sometimes, when it was especially hard to bear, he liked to tell himself that maybe the doctors in that hospital made a mistake. A switched ultrasound image, a translation error. Now, all of the sudden, that's taken from him. Not only are his female organs present and real, but they also threaten to cause his ruin for the second time already.
“Oh,” he manages to say.
“They had to remove your right ovary because the tissue had turned necrotic,” Thomas continues. “But they left everything else as it was. You are expected to make a full recovery within a week or two.”
There's too much unconcealed relief in his voice. Fine, Vincent survived the surgery. But his papacy surely didn't. How can Thomas be this relaxed?
“Who knows?” Vincent asks.
Thomas offers him a little, reassuring smile.
“Only the doctors and nurses,” Thomas says. “They all signed the highest-level NDA possible.”
Vincent nods. At least he tries to. His head won't really do what he tells it to.
“Good,” he whispers.
How many people have treated and seen him? Ten? Twelve? That's not too many, right? The doctors here must be used to treating patients who are under public scrutiny. Surely he isn’t the first to come in with a medical record the rest of the world isn’t supposed to learn about. A little glimmer of hope lights up inside his chest. Maybe they'll be able to keep his secret for a little while longer. At least another year or two.
Thomas still doesn’t retract his hand. Vincent yearns to lean into the touch, to soak it up like a plant long deprived of water.
“The doctor who operated on you even volunteered to help draft a press statement to explain why you had abdominal surgery. We won’t be able to fully cover that up,” Thomas says. “She said the most plausible and harmless explanation would be to claim you had an appendectomy. I approved the statement for publication already. You don’t have to do anything.”
Vincent’s first thought is that he must make sure to thank that doctor, once he’s able to have a proper conversation. The second is that while of course they will have to lie about the reason for his surgery, citing an appendectomy feels like a double lie. A dangerous lie. His heart quickens its pace with a new sense of dread.
“But I already had my appendix removed,” he slurs.
Thomas nods.
“I know. But no one else knows that, aside from me and the doctors.”
Only slowly, Vincent’s pulse slows back down. There’s a thought in the back of his mind he can’t quite catch, a memory that refuses to become clearer than a distant, blurry image. It’s barely more than a gut feeling that there’s something they are missing. Something Thomas has missed. The thought slips through Vincent’s fingers before he can get a hold of it.
Thomas seems to have sensed his internal struggle.
“It’s alright, Vincent. You can rest now. I think we dodged that bullet,” he reassures him and offers him another smile. It doesn’t quite suffice to cover up the dark shadows underneath his eyes and the deep crease on his forehead.
Thomas leans back in his chair. It causes his hand to slip off Vincent’s shoulder, leaving behind an uncomfortably cold sensation. Vincent wishes Thomas would hold his hand again, like he did in his office. It’s a selfish thought and yet, he fails to subdue it.
“Will you stay with me for a little while?” he hears himself ask.
Thomas exhales, deeply and shakily.
“Of course.”
He’s so incredibly tired. The sedation and the aftershocks of the intense pain have worn him out to the point that he physically can’t keep his eyes open any longer even though he wants to. But he’s safe here for now. Thomas is with him. Thomas has kept his promise to take care of everything. As long as he’s by Vincent’s side, nothing can happen to him.
“Thank you, Thomas,” he mumbles.
His eyelids fall shut on their own accord and Vincent lets them. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for him to drift off into a deep, dreamless sleep.