Archive of Our Own ^beta

1. Like Vincent, she’s restless and reckless.

Before María was born, Thomas had been terrified that she would inherit anything at all from him.

When he looked at himself in the mirror the morning of her birth, all he had seen were traits to dislike, quirks and details and qualities about him that he would hate to pass on. It had felt inconceivable that any being he could create would gain anything of value from him; when she had been born and resembled Vincent nearly exactly, Thomas had taken that as a positive sign from God that she would inherit more of him than of Thomas.

Of course, since then, María has proven to be more herself than anyone else.

That certainly hasn’t stopped her, though, from picking up a few things from her parents.

Despite the fact that Thomas chose to resign shortly before María’s birth, he is still a frequent sight within the walls of the Vatican. There is no precedent for a pope to invite his partner and their child to live in Vatican City, for obvious reasons. There had been no technical rule about his chastity, either; he had given confession, asked forgiveness, and received it. The obvious conclusions being drawn about himself, and about Thomas, and about himself and Thomas, had just heaped more on them, but they had endured.

Weathering the scandal had seemed like a storm that would never end— and yet, through it all, Vincent remained unbroken. The only times he would crack were when Thomas was the one being targeted, or María— and even then, he had always been calm in the moment before he would fall apart to Thomas later, confessing his anger and frustration and pain. There are some comments Thomas will never forget— and some nights he cannot forget.

Still, they got through it.

Thomas had asked Vincent, when everything started, if he felt that they had sinned, or broken their dedication to God, or destroyed their oath of service to the Church. Vincent had taken his hands and told him that he believed God was more present with them then than he ever had been before, and Thomas had believed him. How could he not?

For Thomas’s part, he had prayed and searched his heart and done just as Vincent had done. When he made confession and offered contrition and begged forgiveness, he had still felt that he was no longer meant to be the Dean of the College, nor a cardinal, nor a priest at all. He had thought it would hurt more, giving it all up— that there would be more of a shock— but, above all else, he had felt instant relief, as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Decades may have been spent in service of one goal, but Thomas is familiar with the concept of sunk cost; if he only has twenty years, ten years, one year left to live, he would rather live them happily than familiarly.

The regrets that had begun weighing him down— his yearning for the end of it all— his constant depression, his incessant anxiety, his never-ending dread that starved him in so many ways— they’re all practically gone, now. He may no longer be Cardinal Lawrence, but he also no longer wants to end his life.

These days, he thinks this trade is more than worthwhile.

Though he formally stepped down and left the Church in an official capacity nearly a year ago, however, he is seen near-constantly within the City walls. Most often, for the first six months of María’s life, he spent his time with her nearly-always in his arms: attending Vincent’s Masses, accompanying at his side to appointments, spending the time he was no longer permitted to be with Vincent on showing her around the Vatican. It was so much easier when he could just carry her around that way.

Then, she learned how to crawl.

Then, she learned how to walk.

This week, she has learned how to run.

It’s less a run, really, than it is a rapid-pace toddling lurch, but she’s getting horribly good at it. Thomas assumes he should have figured this would happen; she is, after all, Vincent’s child, and he spent more time than he could keep track of attempting to convince Vincent not to run, jump, skate, sprint, or otherwise move about the Vatican in methods other than simply walking. It should come as no surprise to him that María is just the same.

“María, please,” Thomas pleads, trying to keep his voice hushed as he hurries after her. They only get the occasional odd look; at first, everyone had openly stared, but now, she’s a familiar fixture within the walls. “Slow down—”

“No!” she calls back, her new favorite word. She only has four to choose from— no, Papa, Mama, and car— but no definitely gets the most mileage at present.

She swerves around a group of visiting bishops, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. It is a minor miracle in its own right that she doesn’t; she only tilts sideways before rebalancing and continuing in a blitz past them.

“You’re going to fall,” Thomas insists, catching up to her side. She’s quick, but she’s also barely one-third of his height. “Would you please hold my hand, darling?”

María keeps up her speed-stumbling, though she tries to glance up at him at the same time. The resulting shift in her equilibrium overcomes her, and she stumbles to the side; Thomas crouches to catch her by the shoulder, straightening her up before she can fall, all his joints cracking in protest, and she beams up at him.

“Mama,” she says, grinning up at him with all three of her front teeth. The front upper left has just started to come in, and she’s been accordingly miserable; seeing her smile just makes Thomas smile, too. How could he not, when she lights up just the same way Vincent does when he smiles?

“You’re welcome, darling,” Thomas tells her. “Now, would you like to walk where you’re going, hm?”

He offers his hand to her. When she hesitates, eyeballing it, he wiggles his fingers at her, and she laughs before reaching up to grab on. Her hand fits easily in his, still so soft and small and dimpled; he has to hunch over to walk with her like this, but he doesn’t mind so much.

“And where is it we’re going?” Thomas asks, allowing her to tug at him and start guiding them forward. She keeps her eyes ahead this time; the sky is so bright and cloudless that her blue— one of the only physical traits she actually got from Thomas— seems to reflect it and shine all the brighter.

María babbles out an incoherent answer that certainly makes sense to her. Thomas can pick out the shapes of things she tries to say often within it— water, playtime, turtle. Just a little too much for her brain-to-mouth right now.

Still, he’s able to understand well enough, and so he asks, “You’d like to go see Papa’s turtles, is that it?”

Excited, María does her weird skip-stumble that Thomas and Vincent are fairly certain is her version of jumping, though she hasn’t quite figured out leaving the ground just yet.

“Wonderful,” Thomas replies. Running through Vincent’s schedule in his mind, he realizes he ought to have just finished an appointment with—

Oh. With the visiting bishops that María just nearly collided with. Their conference must have already ended, which means—

Thomas is smiling when he ducks down and squeezes María’s hand. Quietly, he tells her, “I think Papa might be at the turtle pond, too.”

“Papa!” María exclaims, ringing clear and loud through the courtyard, and throws her other hand up towards Thomas so fast she nearly hits him in the nose. Her hand grasps at the open air, and she grunts, pushing towards him; he takes the obvious hint and scoops her up, letting her come to settle on his hip.

“Let’s see if we can catch up to him,” Thomas tells her, enjoying the delight on her face at the prospect. He can’t think of a time he ever felt so excited to see his own father; he hardly remembers him, honestly, and had never shared a close relationship with his mother before she passed, either.

María, though, lights up like a firefly when she sees either of them. There’s never been a person who looks at Thomas like she does, not even Vincent; just pure love, pure joy, the same purity of feeling he has for her.

Kicking her legs, too excited at the thought of seeing Vincent to contain herself, she repeats, “Papa, Papa, Papa,” until it becomes a chant, and still on until it becomes a song. Thomas thinks he recognizes the tune she’s vaguely following as belonging to one of the songs Vincent sings to her while she sleeps.

And, just like Vincent, she cannot stop fidgeting.

When Vincent chooses to be still, he’s capable of it. Thomas suspects that’s because he transfers his physical motion up to his brain, and that’s already going much faster than anyone else’s; Thomas often teasingly tells him he expects white smoke to come out of his ears when he’s so focused.

When he’s not thinking about it, though— when he’s just being— he is exactly as María is now: restless twitching limbs, constant active mind, fiddling and busy and unable to stop for even a moment.

“Look at that, hm?” Thomas asks her, directing her attention upwards to two birds far overhead, chasing each other in circles through the cloudless sky. “See the birds up there?”

María drops her cheek against his shoulder, tipping her head up to follow his point. One of her tiny hands reaches up behind him to weave her fingers into the short hairs at the nape of his neck, rubbing against the texture she finds there; Thomas just huffs a laugh. This, too, is just like Vincent.

“Bird,” Thomas repeats, trying to encourage her. “Can you say ‘bird?’”

Though her echoing response is mostly a babble, it’s close enough to the sounds of ‘bird’ that he’s fairly certain she’ll get it sooner rather than later.

She keeps swinging her legs without seeming to realize, tiny purple Converse colliding with Thomas's thigh. Thomas doesn’t mind, so much; the rhythmic thuds distract him from the pain in his back from carrying her.

At first, it had been a bit odd to roam about the Vatican in plainclothes, as a regular civilian, no longer with any responsibilities or elevation or power or— anything. His place at the Pope’s side is a double-edged sword, at best; some consider him a spectacle, some consider him an unholy sin, some still consider him as Cardinal Lawrence, some consider him nothing at all, and still others seem at a loss as to what to make of him.

It’s the most attention Thomas has ever received. He can’t say he’s fond of it; he feels more sympathy for Vincent than ever.

Recently, Thomas has been adjusting more and more to his new role, as it were. His life has always been one of dedication and service; shifting that attention off of his position in the Church and onto his position in his family— in his home— in between Vincent and María— has been more natural than he anticipated. It’s become second nature in a matter of months to walk about these same grounds not as Thomas Cardinal Lawrence but as simply Thomas— or Mama— devoted to his husband and his child and his Church, still, though in a different way.

The nearer they get to the pond, María starts fidgeting more, unable to stop wriggling. Thomas presses his cheek to the top of her head in an attempt to still her, and it works, even if only for a moment. A minute later, she’s moving again, shoving herself up so quick that Thomas only narrowly avoids getting slammed in the nose by her dark head of curls.

“Do you want to walk the rest of the way, darling?” Thomas asks, and doesn’t even get the full question out before María is squirming to be let down. With a laugh, Thomas shifts to set her on her feet once more; his knees throb, but she makes it down without incident.

María throws herself across the floor of the entrance to one of their chapels, stumbling footsteps echoing through the wide-open space. Columns of sunlight illuminate her in flashes; Thomas stays close beside her, careful to make sure she doesn’t topple over on the stone floor, half his attention on her and the other half scoping for loose turtles.

“Papa!” María shouts, which is all the warning Thomas gets before she’s tearing off— so much as she can tear off, scrambling away on stubby legs that have only just barely begun functioning.

He hears Vincent before he sees him, a call-and-response of an answer in his exclaimed, “María! Tesoro, you— Uh-oh—”

Thomas picks up the pace, hearing the sudden shift in Vincent’s tone and the simultaneous thud. By the time he catches up to the two of them, it’s to discover María on her knees in the grass below, green stains marring the lilac fabric of her dress, and Vincent hurrying to crouch beside her.

“This is why we must be careful if we run,” Vincent reminds her, lifting her up beneath the arms and setting her back on her feet. “Oh, see? That’s only grass. Stains can be washed so easily, right?”

As Thomas makes his hurried way down to join them, he watches Vincent sitting in the grass beside María, still in all his holy whites, tugging his skirts up to show her his own legs. Sure enough, his bare knees are scuffed and grass-stained; Thomas wants to laugh at the same time his stomach clenches, the same combination of affection and protection he feels so often for Vincent.

“My knees are the same as yours,” Vincent points out to María. The momentary shock of pain has passed from her; she leans forward, reaching out, and he encourages her, “That’s it. I’m the same as you, aren’t I? And neither of us is hurt.”

Based on the angle she’s at, Thomas can only guess what happened— that she tried to jump the rest of the way to the grass and probably only succeeded in pitching herself forward— but she seems not only unharmed, but now unbothered, starting to smile at Vincent as he catches her hand and kisses the back of it.

“You will be more careful next time, won’t you?” Vincent asks her. María is already mostly-distracted by an approaching turtle, moving on so quickly from her fall— and Vincent’s eyes have shifted up to Thomas as he extends a hand to him, offering to help him to his feet. “I’m not sure your Mama’s heart can take another fall like that.”

“And you were perfectly unbothered, I’m sure?” Thomas teases.

Vincent uses his counterbalance to stand, his hand gripping Thomas’s so tightly.

“Of course not,” he says, voice lowered soft for Thomas and Thomas alone to hear. “It does not help her if I overreact, though. She must learn to stand back up on her own, you think?”

Thomas glances over to María, finds her crouching to gently pat the flat of her palm on the crest of a crawling turtle’s shell, and recognizes so much of Vincent in her, it is like watching a small reflection.

“I think,” Thomas replies, “she already knows how.” Vincent presses a kiss to his cheek as he adds, “But, practice does make perfect, I suppose.”

Vincent’s reply disappears beneath María’s call of “Papa!” from beside the turtle slipping their way into the water. They both glance up just in time to watch her step down into the little pond— Converse, socks, skirts, and all— to follow after them.

Already, Vincent is laughing, parting from Thomas to go to her. He doesn’t hesitate in joining her, stepping right into the water after her, his own red Converse submerged in an instant. Thomas already starts mentally reconfiguring his schedule around getting them both changed into dry clothes before Vincent’s next appointment and María’s lunchtime.

“Isn’t that wonderful?” Vincent asks María, and she clutches his hand, splashes lightly with the turtle, laughs— just as Vincent crouches, clutching her hand, splashing lightly with the turtle, laughing— and Thomas is not sure he has ever felt the presence of God more strongly within the Vatican walls than he does in moments like these.

2. Like Thomas, she’s particular about her food.

Vincent is keeping an eye on the situation as it develops, but María is very picky about food.

Many children are, he reasons; just because it can be a thing doesn’t mean that it is a thing, necessarily. Developing personal tastes, asserting her independence, discovering textures and tastes and her reactions to them in both negative and positive ways— eating and food are only two of the endless human concepts she’s grappling to learn right now, and, on the whole, Vincent thinks she’s doing rather well.

However.

It’s difficult for Vincent to consider food in the way he’d like to. His has been a lifetime of depravity— of never having enough— while food was also, simultaneously, deeply valued and culturally significant and socially needed. He may not have had much food, but when he could get it, he made sure to partake and share and celebrate.

Coming to the Vatican and ascending to the papacy has meant Vincent does not go hungry anymore. For the first time in his entire life, he has more food than he could possibly eat, and more people trying to feed him than he’s ever encountered before. It’s an unfamiliar abundance, and one he thanks God for multiple times a day. He has never been so fed; he uses his mealtimes to connect with those around him, and to sustain his body with a healthy bounty of food, and he is nourished by it all. He is so, so nourished.

And then, there was Thomas.

Thomas, who pushed food around his plate at breakfast and lunch and barely brought anything to his mouth at dinner.

Thomas, who insisted on Vincent having more food than he knows what to do with, while he sits and observes him and consumes nothing of his own.

Thomas, who Vincent witnessed starve himself for months before he finally had to step in and say something, only for Thomas to practically collapse before him and beg his forgiveness and confess a self-restriction and sacrificial denial and imposed neglect in the name of piety and service and devotion.

He’s not sure he will ever forget the moment of Thomas knelt before him in the quiet darkness of his bedroom, shoulders hunched and back curved and head bowed and face downturned and hands clasped, shivering as he wept through apology after confused, stumbling apology.

It had taken a stomach-churning minute for Vincent to determine what he was even apologizing for, this starving creature shaking before him as if waiting for him to strike him down with God’s own divine wrath, rather than his holy love.

When he had understood, Vincent had drawn him into his arms and kissed him on the forehead and listened to him as he rambled through halting explanations that only made half-sense to Vincent, from the outside.

The things that did make sense entirely were that Thomas was hurting, and he was hungry, and he should not be; he is better now, though he still struggles.

Vincent saw many similarities between Thomas’s experiences and those he helped in trauma services, inpatient therapy, the shelters and the centers and the hospitals. People crave control when they can’t find it elsewhere, don’t have it in other ways, and controlling their body— and its intake— gets so tangled up, people’s physical and mental and emotional and social and spiritual health all one knot inside them. He went through similar periods, himself.

This has only made him all the more desperate to make certain that María does not feel the pressures or experience the hurts that bring her to the same point.

He knows there’s only so much he can do, and yet, he tries, and he fights, and he prays. Every time he eats in front of her, he clears his plate, and praises Thomas and María when they take bites, and he talks constantly on how good and wonderful and nourishing it is to eat.

It only makes it more nerve-wracking when she refuses to eat.

Today, she has resisted her breakfast, pushing away her cereal and yogurt with repeated and forceful exclamations of, “No!” Her lunch was much the same, even after Vincent cut her lamb and pasta into tiny bites for her.

Every time he brings the fork to her mouth, she frowns, scowls, turns away.

He can’t help but feel a twist of fear. She doesn’t seem aware of what she’s doing— she’s barely a year old— but he still watches her whine and keep her mouth firmly closed and turn her face away from him when he tries to offer her food off her own plate, then food off of his. Thomas makes a concerted effort to eat in front of her, obviously trying, and she still refuses nearly to the point of tears, at which Vincent relents with a pang in his heart.

His own appetite had been gone by then, and yet he still made himself finish eating, aware of her eyes on him.

Her refusal has him fretting through the afternoon. He can hardly focus on his meetings; most of his mind is occupied thinking about María and Thomas. They are somewhere else, without him, and probably hungry.

He loves his family. He loves Thomas, loves María, loves what they have built. His life is markedly different than it was three years ago in deeply unimaginable ways, and yet, he finds he wouldn't trade it— his position here, his family, the good he has done and still intends to do— for anything.

It makes him possessive, in a way he constantly begs forgiveness for, and protective, in a way he believes to be only natural.

Part of the unspoken agreement in Vincent remaining on the Throne of the Holy See, after everything that happened with Thomas and María, is that he will not allow his family to distract him from his duties. Of course, he knows this would only prove correct those that believe him unfit to be pope because of his supposed split dedication between his love for God and his love for his spouse and child.

Vincent understands that his love for God is buoyed by his love for Thomas, for María. He better serves the Church in loving them; he hardly had to pray on it to know it.

Still, this means he must remain focused on his tasks, even when half of his mind yearns to worry over María, to problem-solve, to stand from this conference table and go to her right now and figure out what precisely is wrong and guide her through to fixing it.

But he is helping to organize the opening of two new shelters for women in Baghdad, and this work is important, and he trusts Thomas with their daughter. As much as he frets— he knows he is where he has to be, right now.

When his meeting with the architects and engineers runs late, Vincent doesn't even notice at first. It's only the sight of Ray attempting to surreptitiously check his watch that prompts Vincent to glance at his own, and his eyebrows lift to see they've gone over an hour past the scheduled end of their appointment.

Makes sense why he's been fidgeting so much. He looks towards Ray and sees him have the same realization; automatically, he meets Vincent's eye, and already, they are in unspoken agreement.

“Unfortunately, we've run a bit over, and the Holy Father does have other appointments,” Ray says in the next possible opportunity, already moving to stand. “Could we continue this tomorrow, perhaps?”

Vincent is gracious and grateful and says all the right things when he stands to leave, but his mind has already raced ahead to María.

Dinner in the dining hall at the Casa Santa Marta would have started fifteen minutes ago, and Vincent is not there. He has to fight the stab of guilt that lances his heart; there are times when he feels as if he cannot succeed in one thing without failing at the other, and the realization always makes his fingertips feel numb.

The Guard no longer treat the Pope running anywhere as strange, a fact he's grateful for already, and especially so now, when he has his robes hiked up in his hands and is near to sprinting to get to the Casa. He tries to mentally shift back, to leave the mindset of Pope Innocent XIV and reenter Vincent Benítez, though they are becoming increasingly tangled.

He's glad, too, that he insisted on being allowed to wear his own shoes, not papal slippers or anything too-stiff or too-soft or too-uncomfortable. His Converse let him move a little more quickly; in an eternity and no time at all, the doors are being opened for him to stride through the lobby, near-breathless, and to the dining hall without hesitation.

He's just about to open the door into the dining room himself when he pauses.

Those within have already begun eating. He's glad for it; if he had come to discover they had all waited for him, indefinitely, he's not sure he would have had much of an appetite.

Inside, at their usual table, Thomas sits with María, turned to face her wooden high-chair, a bowl between them.

And they are eating.

As Vincent watches, Thomas withdraws something from the bowl— two little ravioli— and places them side-by-side on her tray. His mouth is moving, and María is alternating between watching his hands and his face as he speaks, though Vincent cannot hear a word.

Whatever Thomas says makes María laugh, eyes crinkling up, joy filling her face. Thomas smiles, too, leaning in to cut one raviolo into smaller bites; he extends one to her, and she takes it in her fist, shoving it into her laughing mouth.

Thomas reaches out, stroking his hand over her hair, cradling the back of her head. She glances down at the remaining pasta piece on her tray; grabbing it up, she holds it out to Thomas, and Thomas only leans in to take it, allowing her to push it into his mouth with an undue degree of force. It only makes Thomas laugh, catching the raviolo bit before it can fall, tilting his head to pull it into his mouth and chew it properly.

They are—

They are eating.

She is eating neat little bites, the same way Thomas likes to. She is letting him bring bits of pasta and cheese and sauce to her mouth and put them inside. She is eating, and Thomas is doing the same.

After a moment of silent, warm observation, Vincent pushes open the door to the dining hall. Greeted with the now-familiar sight of everyone rising to their feet, inclining their heads, bowing to him, he places his palms together and gives them all a gesture of goodwill as he moves through them, intent on joining Thomas and María.

Like everyone else, Thomas has stood; Vincent gives him a playfully admonishing expression, and receives a smile in return.

“Sit down, Thomas,” Vincent insists. “What are you doing, bowing to me?”

“Showing respect to my pope,” Thomas replies. He leans in, taking Vincent’s elbow under his hand, drawing him in for a kiss. “You’re late. I got you a plate— Is it hot enough?”

“I’m sure it is,” Vincent replies. “I apologize, my meeting ran late. But, you have started eating already, I see?” He ducks down, cupping María’s face in both hands and kissing the top of her head in greeting, murmuring, “Hola, mi chica bonita.”

“We did, I’m sorry,” Thomas replies.

“Please, do not be sorry for eating,” Vincent insists, unwavering and unhesitant. “I am so glad you have.” Taking his seat, glad that everyone else reclaims their own as he does, he asks, “She likes this, then?”

“Yes,” Thomas replies. “She’s been enjoying it, anyway. Haven’t you, Miss María, hm?”

She reaches for him with an eager smile; Thomas answers with a tap of his finger to the tip of her nose before he offers her another bite of pasta. Grabbing the raviolo fragment right from his hand, shoving it into her mouth, she laughs, and Thomas leans down to kiss her on her small round cheek.

“Well done, my good girl,” Thomas praises her, and she beams up at him, chewing happily at her pasta and cheese.

“I’m so glad to see you both enjoying your dinner,” Vincent tells him.

Thomas glances towards him as he serves him ravioli into his own bowl, pushing it in front of Vincent with an expectant glance.

Though Thomas’s eyebrows tilt, he doesn’t argue. Instead, he says, “Make sure you eat. You’ve had a long day, darling.”

He punctuates this with a spoonful of ravioli into his own mouth, glancing down towards María. In response, she kicks her heels, then grabs another raviolo in her fist and shoves it into her mouth, grinning up at him all the while.

Vincent can’t help but smile.

“Thank you,” he says, taking up his spoon.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Thomas replies.

He leans in to take another bite and, as he pulls the little pocket of ricotta into his mouth, Vincent echoes his words to their daughter and tells him, “Well done, my good girl.”

Thomas’s eyes fly to Vincent, eyebrows lifted, the same shade as María’s. When they meet, and he finds Vincent smiling, he smiles in return, chewing through his pasta with joy rather than hurt or frustration or agitation as he once did.

“Thank you,” Thomas says, before looking to María, the both of them halfway through chewing, and Vincent is just so glad to see them both eating.

Delighted, he eats a mouthful of his own pasta, and finds that they are so much richer and more savory when he is enjoying the company around him. María, with sauce smeared on her hands and the edges of her mouth, grabs onto another fragment of raviolo to push it into her mouth, and Vincent looks between her and Thomas, and their neat bites, and their long days, and he feels a wave of warmth so intense he can’t help but lean in and kiss first Thomas’s cheek, then María’s.

“What was that for?” Thomas asks him, and Vincent only smiles.

“I’m just so happy to share dinner with you,” Vincent murmurs, kissing him again. Thomas tilts into him with a smile, setting his spoon down, and that—

That just won’t do.

Vincent brings his own spoon to Thomas’s mouth, and Thomas, laughing, accepts the bite he’s given. María watches the entire time, then reaches out, begging, “Mama— Papa—” and takes the raviolo bite when Vincent gives it to her, just as Thomas did, and he is so proud of them, he can hardly find space within himself for anything else.

3. Like Vincent, she has powerful doe eyes; though they are Thomas’s color, they are Vincent’s eyes— and she uses them as Vincent does.

María stares up at Thomas with pleading eyes that are all too familiar.

From the first moment he had seen her, before she had even opened her eyes, he had recognized them exactly: Vincent’s eyes, in their baby’s face, a near-exact replica that Thomas would know anywhere.

Accordingly, it had been a bit of a shock when her eyes had been blue, though Thomas had read that many babies were born with blue eyes.

The greater shock had been when they stayed blue, settling into the same shade as Thomas’s, bright and sparkling and still—

And still, despite the intensity of their blue color, they are so, so much like Vincent's.

Like him, she has these huge-round doe-eyes, too big for her face; sometimes, Thomas looks at one of them, and all he sees for a moment is their eyes. Like him, her eyes are excessively expressive, as if Thomas can read their every emotion in looking into them.

Both Vincent's and María's eyes get darker when they cry, but brighter when they smile; both crinkle at the corners when they laugh, which is so wonderfully often; both have a depth to them that Thomas recognizes, that he knows. When he sees that deepening of their eyes, he knows they are thinking of something else— whether they are lost in thought, or concern, or mischief, or stress, or whatever it may be, Thomas can just tell.

And both, Thomas considers, have learned how to use their eyes— though, María is still perfecting the skill.

“Mama,” María pleads, reclaiming his attention, clutching for his hand, her huge eyes focused up on him. They’ve gotten darker and are swimming with tears; Thomas is already frowning even before she points backwards.

“What is it?” he asks, and she sniffles, pointing again. It takes him a belated moment to realize her hands are empty, and he asks, “Where is Minou?”

The tears in her eyes spill over, and she yanks at his hand, attempting to drag him in the direction she keeps indicating. He glances at his watch, but— honestly, it doesn’t matter when they’re supposed to meet Vincent, because they can’t move forward if they don’t have Minou with them.

It had quite a surprise when Goffredo had shown up to his first appointment with Vincent after María’s birth with a gift for her. It had been even more surprising when María had latched onto the little stuffed white cat in its little pink collar, attached to the toy above all and everything else. More often than not, the cat is in her grasp; if Minou is not with her, it’s likely it— she, as Thomas has come to think of Minou as more than a toy, God help him— is tucked into her bed at home after a great deal of careful convincing.

And though Minou had been with them when they left the apartment to come out and join Vincent for lunch in Rome between appointments, it seems that this is no longer the case.

“Okay, darling,” Thomas says, turning back with her. She’s starting to shake out her hands, bouncing anxiously in place, and so he bends, ignoring the strain in his knees, to lift her up and bring her onto his hip. Twisting into him, she grabs at his shirt, then reaches up to fist her hands in the hair at the nape of his neck. He rubs her back, lips brushing her temple when he promises her, “It’s okay. We’ll find her, it’ll be alright.”

“Minou,” she mumbles into his shoulder, mournful. Her hands plant flat against his shoulders a beat later as she pushes herself upright enough to look directly at him. Though her eyes still shine with tears, they have a hardening resolve in them, a firm determination Thomas recognizes from her and Vincent both. “Minou.”

“Of course, Minou,” Thomas agrees. “We won’t leave without her.”

He glances up, looking over the busy street they’ve been walking down. There are people everywhere, tourists and locals alike, weaving in and out of shops and stalls; cars and scooters blitz past them, nearly on top of each other; everywhere there is shouting, and the honking of horns, and the smells of cigarette smoke and hot sugar.

It’s a cacophony. Finding a single small stuffed cat is going to be impossible.

María’s hand finds the back of Thomas’s head and grips onto his hair again. Looking back to her, he finds she’s turned her attention to the street, already scanning, eyes flickering over everything, on a mission.

She jerks, says, “Down,” before adding, a heartbeat later, “Please,” and Thomas moves to set her down, though he keeps her hand in his.

“Do you remember where you put her down?” Thomas asks, letting her lead him back down the road, against the flow of traffic. People part, mostly— a few bump Thomas’s shoulders, but he keeps a bubble of space around María, at least.

María wipes her wrist under her eye; Thomas leans down to swipe his thumbs beneath both eyes, clearing her tears away, and she wriggles from him, too focused on her task to let him slow her down.

“Alright, this way it is,” Thomas says. She tugs him along, and he goes, head on a swivel, trying to find anywhere the toy could’ve ended up, every curb and display and empty square of pavement and—

“Minou!” María exclaims, yanking nearly out of Thomas’s hold. He tightens his grip, not wanting to lose her and the cat; he’s not sure Vincent would ever forgive him for that much. He’d certainly never forgive himself.

“Where do you see her?” Thomas asks, hunched in his stumbling run along with her. This, he thinks while tripping over his own feet, is why people his age don’t typically have children; every move seems determined to break one of his bones.

She points intensely with her free hand, straining against him to pull him harder, faster. “Look!”

Dropping his head a bit, he squints, following her point— and finds the little stuffed cat set on a low shelf next to a display of colorful fish, each in a small plastic container, and the story pieces itself together.

“Minou!” María exclaims, grabbing her up off the shelf, releasing Thomas’s hand so she can squeeze her tight in a hug against her chest. She kisses the top of Minou’s head, tells her, “Sorry, Minou,” before she buries her face in her fur.

Thomas shuffles them to the side, allowing María and Minou to have a moment before he reaches to lift her up again. She goes easily this time, most of her focus now on Minou: smoothing out her fur, adjusting her collar, fixing the bow on her left ear. Patting at her face, she’s mumbling something to the toy cat, but Thomas cannot quite make it out.

When he checks his watch, he sees they’re already a couple of minutes late to meet Vincent. He hurries down the street, but he can only go so fast; even Vincent enforcing morning yoga and nightly stretches hasn’t been able to completely reverse the effects of aging, and Thomas is just a bit too old to run sprinting through Rome in June while carrying an eighteen-month-old’s weight on his hip. Even trying not to run, he’s still a bit flushed and breathless by the time he gets to the restaurant, sliding past the disguised guard to find where they’ve seated Vincent inside.

Sure enough, he’s already at a table, dressed down in a plainclothes disguise that seems— to Thomas, at least— a bit obvious, but then, he thinks he’d know Vincent no matter how they tried to camouflage him, in every and all ways.

Even in the light tan linens and the shaded cap and the sunglasses indoors, Vincent still seems to be Vincent to him. At least he doesn’t look much like a pope right now, Thoams reasons, watching as Vincent notices them and instantly lights up, already rising to greet them as they make their way between tables to him.

“There you are,” Vincent says, taking María’s face in both hands, kissing each of her cheeks and drawing a grin up out of her. She reaches out in return, squashing Minou against one side of Vincent’s face when she squeezes his cheeks and drags him in to kiss him just the same. “I was beginning to grow concerned. Is everything alright?” His attention moves onto Thomas, then, and his eyebrows lift, evident even behind his sunglasses. “You’re all red. Have you been in the sun?” Thomas doesn’t even manage to answer before Vincent asks, “Did you run here?”

Thomas laughs, a bit breathless. “Only a bit.”

“Oh, Thomas— Sit down, please, have water,” Vincent insists. Thomas can only wonder just how terrible he must look, if Vincent is so insistent; maybe he should commit a bit harder to their yoga and stretching. “Why did you run here?”

“Minou!” María exclaims as Vincent withdraws her from Thomas’s arms, taking her back to his chair at their little table to sit in his lap.

“Minou?” Vincent echoes in confusion.

She pushes Minou up towards him, tells him, “All gone!”

Vincent’s head turns up towards Thomas’s; even without seeing his eyes, he can recognize the quizzical expression on his face.

“Minou was briefly misplaced on the walk over here,” Thomas clarifies, and Vincent looks down to María with a theatrical gasp. Suppressing a smile, he continues, “There was a brief moment of alarm, but she was, fortunately, very easy to locate. And all was once again right with the world.”

Reaching up to tug his sunglasses off, Vincent casts them aside on the table, looking down to María to tell her, “I am so sorry you had such a fright, mijita. Is this why you made Mama run, hm?”

“I didn’t want us to be late meeting you,” Thomas explains, apologetic. “I know you only have so much time.”

Vincent glances up at Thomas. The emotions on his face are complicated— affection and frustration seem to be most prominent, though there are shades of restlessness, and displeasure, and amusement. There’s a lot going on, and so Thomas looks to his eyes—

His eyes.

So dark, sparkling now, bright and clear and focused right on Thomas, and he understands exactly what he’s being told.

“For the two of you,” Vincent assures him, “I have nothing but time.”

They both know it’s not true, and yet neither of them acknowledges this. If he could make it true, he would; this, Thomas believes, is more than enough for him.

“Gelly,” María gasps, pointing at the gelato being delivered to a neighboring table. Her head nearly collides with Vincent’s chin in her haste to lift it and meet his eye, asking, “Please? Papa— Please? Gelly—”

“We’re here for lunch, not dessert, María,” Thomas reminds her.

In practically the same moment, and with the same movement, Vincent and María look to Thomas with nearly the exact same eyes. Their color is really their only difference; the shapes are exactly the same, so huge and round and bright— and, right now, deep with innocent, playful pleading.

“Maybe we can start with gelato today,” Vincent suggests gently, and Thomas has to suppress yet another smile, to pretend that he does not already know he is going to give in. “After all, the two of you had such a trial in coming here, no? You should be rewarded.”

Thomas cannot suppress a stifled laugh, at that, and earns Vincent’s mischievous glance in his direction in reply.

“What do you say, Thomas?” Vincent asks. “Just this once? Hm?”

“Mama, please,” María begs him, hands coming together with Minou crushed between them, as if she’s praying to God with her stuffed cat as the rosary.

Thomas looks them both over, with their teasingly-pleading expressions and near-to-identical features and impish-playful smiles and misleadingly-angelic faces and as-good-as-matching doe eyes— as big and wet and desperate as they can possibly make them— and sighs as if put-upon, as if he is immune, when he is so very much not. Both Vincent and María light up before he even speaks, though they are visibly excited when he says, “Alright, just this once.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Vincent exclaims, looking down to María. “Don’t you think so, hm?”

María practically vibrates in her seat, shimmying-restless and unable to sit still, and Vincent only laughs, wrapping his arms around her tight and kissing her cheek. She grins, twisting to look up at him with the same laugh— the same smile— the same eyes, and Thomas, looking from the other side of the table, can’t help but smile, too.

4. Like Thomas, she has a habit of rambling on.

Vincent is not particularly fond of formal events.

There’s a thick layer of falseness to every aspect of these sorts of affairs. It’s always more about presenting him and passing him around than actually interacting with him; most people just want to have said they spoke to the Pope, touched the Pope, were blessed by the Pope.

The fact that the Pope is also Vincent Benítez seems to escape just about everybody.

The occasions always feel as if they last forever, dragging hours where Vincent only grows more and more overstimulated and irritable and annoyed, and all the more frustrated for having to conceal all of these things. He wonders what it might say about him that he can be perfectly calm and collected under active gunfire, but— find him three hours into a party filled with strangers, in a stuffy dining hall, while wearing full formal papal regalia, and he’s just about ready to s nap.

Still, he knows these benefits are important. This is how the Church receives donations, charity, funding. The people at dinners like these have such meaningful amounts of money that they are looking to just give away. If being permitted to take Vincent’s hand allows for the construction of another shelter in Afghanistan, how can he not offer it? It is so simple, when he has already given all he has, everything.

It has been a long time at this event tonight, though— yet another dinner with so many faceless people, and Vincent tries not to take this for granted, and he tries to stay present, and he tries to be grateful and be thankful and be holy, but—

He is still a human person. He knows this, and reminds himself of it.

“You will have to excuse me,” he apologizes, keeping his tone as soft and gentle as he can during a lull in conversation with an elderly French couple who, it seems, co-founded some computer organization decades ago. They’re the sorts of people with whom he never would have interacted otherwise, he assumes— and yet, here they are, all in what still occasionally strikes Vincent as being the most impossible of circumstances.

“Of course,” the shorter of the two Madames Bellamy says. “Are you alright?”

“Perfect,” he assures her. “I just have a schedule to keep to. But it has been so wonderful speaking with you, and— as I said, please, give my best to your daughter. She will be in my prayers.”

Both women reach for his hands, grasp them, ask him to bless them; he does so with intention, always attempting to stay present, to not allow this to become a routine or a performance.

When he steps away, turning to his guards, he is intending to ask after Thomas and María. Before he can speak, though, Afi, the guard nearest to him, leans in and tells him in a low voice, “Signor Lawrence is on the balcony, I believe.”

Vincent pats his forearm with a grateful hand. “Thank you, Afi. Where would— Ah,” he says, as Afi motions to guide him out of the crowd that has gathered in the middle of the event hall. “Thank you so much, this is so appreciated.”

“You’re welcome, Your Holiness,” Afi replies, and Vincent only waves his formalities away. They might feel required, but— old habits. He is, after all, still Vincent.

Despite the fact that tonight’s dinner is in such a grand and lovely space, with walls made more of glass than anything else, it all still feels tight, closed-in. The windowed walls do not seem to make the space larger at night, but instead smaller, the bright lights inside reflecting back at them in odd stretching shapes as if in funhouse mirrors. Vincent spends enough time feeling as if he is at a carnival; he doesn’t need another circus here, too.

Outside, though, as his eyes adjust to the darkness, everything feels so much more open. He can breathe, and he does, taking in a deep breath of cool night air and letting it out slowly.

As the buzzing in his head leftover from inside begins to calm, though, he realizes he can hear another murmuring— and this one, he finds, is far more welcome. He’s already smiling as he recognizes it instantly as Thomas’s voice.

Striding down the balcony, avoiding the occasional set of wrought-iron chairs and tables draped in white cloth, Vincent follows the sound of Thomas. Whatever he is saying, it is unbroken; nobody interrupts him before Vincent reaches him, finding him just around the second corner with a group of American cardinals. Vincent remembers them by titles— Cardinal Rudgard, Archbishop Fitzgerald, Archbishop Santos SJ— before he thinks of them as people, with names— Bill, Willard, Mario. He tries never to forget the reality of things.

“—course, Pope Innocent the Fourteenth was not the first pope to need his cassock tailored before he could be announced from the balcony of St. Peter,” Thomas is saying as Vincent arrives. He can’t help but smile, hearing his name. “Did you know, Pope John the Twenty-third couldn’t, either? Unfortunately, they didn’t have a size that fit him, so they split the seam up the back and had him step into it arms-first, as…”

As Vincent approaches, he hears Thomas trail off. He’s heard this story from him before, and enjoys the enthusiasm of his telling; he loves all of Thomas’s stories, and especially the way he tells them, so filled with energy and interest and an intense desire to share.

Now, though, he listens as Thomas apologizes, “Forgive me— I’m rambling, aren’t I? I’m sorry, I always talk too much.”

The other men laugh, though Thomas doesn’t— and, Vincent notices, María doesn’t, either. From her place in Thomas’s arms, held on his hip, her cheek resting on his shoulder, she’s frowning up at his face.

Thomas, though, doesn’t seem to realize. He’s only deferred the conversation instead to Willard— who, Vincent observes, is longer-winded than Thomas by far— for the brief moment before they take notice of Vincent’s approach. The cardinal and archbishops all incline their heads without hesitation before leaving them to it; Thomas turns, catches sight of Vincent, and breaks into a bright smile that Vincent cannot help but automatically return.

“I lost track of you,” Vincent comments, and Thomas welcomes him in with a squeeze of their hands before they part. “How are you enjoying the night, hm?”

“It’s just fine, thank you,” Thomas replies. Vincent knows that’s Thomas-speak for, ‘I passed my threshold for all of this two hours ago,’ which he understands all too well. “How are you doing so far?”

“Tired,” Vincent answers honestly. “How much longer do we have?”

Thomas checks his watch before telling him, “Two hours,” and Vincent sighs, reaching up to rub at the space beside his right eye when it throbs. “You can always leave—”

“It will be over soon enough,” Vincent stops him. “And I would sooner be here, where I can be useful.”

Brow furrowing, Thomas protests, “You are always useful. Your rest is useful.”

Vincent chances reaching up and patting Thomas’s cheek. It is worth the potential frustrated reaction from the Vatican press office for catching them being outwardly affectionate to watch Thomas smile in response.

“Thank you, mi vida,” Vincent says before turning his attention down to María in Thomas’s arms, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “And how is your night, hm, mijita? Are you having fun?”

María scrunches her face up at him like he’s asked a ridiculous question and answers, “It’s boring.”

He can’t help laughing at that, reaching out to take her into his arms. She goes happily, more than pleased to get closer to the ornate decorations draped down his chest; she busies herself fiddling with the golden embroidery as Vincent returns his attention to Thomas.

“If the two of you want to leave, you do not have to stay here with me,” Vincent insists. “Only one of us should have to suffer.”

Thomas seems to hesitate before he replies, “‘Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.’”

“Galatians six-two.”

“Yes.” Thomas meets his eye, and there’s the spark of life that Vincent loves to nurture into flames. “I won’t leave you here, Vincent. This is the least of our suffering.”

“Always so dramatic,” Vincent tells him. Thomas only laughs. “Two more hours, you said?”

“That’s right.”

Vincent glances down at María, watching her steadily unravel a small embroidered sun near his ribs. He would stop her, but he’s been picking at the loose thread himself all day; someone should get to finally pull it.

“Would you stay with me?” Vincent asks. Thomas’s eyebrows lift slightly. “At my side, I mean. Until it ends. You make these a lot better than they would be otherwise.”

“If that’s what you want,” Thomas replies, clearly a bit surprised. “Won’t you be in trouble?”

“I don’t mind a talking-to,” Vincent says. “And it would not be as if I’ll be having my way with you in front of the entire party.”

“Vincent,” Thomas admonishes him, voice low, just before Afi takes a couple of steps closer and they both stiffen up, straightening, separating just a bit.

“Your presence is requested inside, Your Holiness,” Afi informs them before inclining his head and stepping back. He lifts his hand and speaks, Vincent thinks, into his sleeve; he wonders if he’d be permitted a microphone and earpiece as well, and allowed onto their network, if only to be kept in the loop—

“We mustn’t keep them waiting, then,” Thomas says. “Must we, Your Holiness?”

Vincent gives Thomas a look as he passes María back over to him, and Thomas only smiles at him. For what it’s worth, Vincent still far prefers him at his side, even when— especially when— he is teasing him.

The night is a bit better with Thomas at his side, though there is only so much that can be done. He cannot make wealthy contributors and too-tight hand-claspers and the crowded party go away any more than Vincent can; he can only ease the agitation that keeps flaring up in Vincent at having to still be here at all.

For a while, María tries to stay engaged. Being closer to Vincent injects her with some renewed energy for a little while, but the novelty of her presence has already worn off on the guests here and nobody is paying her much attention besides Thomas. It isn’t long before she’s flagging again, starting to fuss in Thomas’s arms, and Thomas is only trying to keep hold of her as she wriggles.

Vincent cannot help but feel grateful when Aldo joins their little group, ducking his head in and asking, “How have you been, María?” and smiling at her excited gasp.

“Zio!” she exclaims, reaching for him. “Hi!”

“Hello, sweetheart,” he greets her. He allows her to exchange Thomas's arms for his own, taking her onto his own hip with a soft grunt that makes Vincent have to conceal a smile. “How's the party?”

After a disinterested shrug, she says, “I saw pink bugs. Over there,” with a point towards the balcony doors. She's gaining excitement as she talks; when she gets going like this, she takes on a tone just like Thomas, like they're both just so eager to share that they can't help but trip over their own words in getting them out. “They're so little. And they had lots of legs. And one—”

She stops short, mid-breath. Vincent has only just begun to glance towards her in alarm when she frowns, ducking her head, looking down at the floor rather than up at any of them, her enthusiasm draining.

“Sorry,” she apologizes into the abrupt quiet. “I'm talking lots.”

A sharp pang steals through Vincent's chest. This, too, matches Thomas's tone exactly.

“You're not talking too much at all,” Thomas insists before anyone else can speak. Reaching out, he catches her chin in between his thumb and forefinger, wriggling her just a bit; he succeeds in making her smile at him, though it's still a small thing. “I love hearing what you have to say. It's all so interesting.”

María's beaming smile is short-lived; it falters after a beat, and Thomas's expression shifts accordingly, shaded by confusion.

“How come you didn't, then?” María asks, and Vincent thinks, Ah.

“How come I didn't what?” Thomas asks in return, bewildered, and María straightens up in Aldo's arms to frown at him.

“Talk before!” she exclaims. “You said sorry.”

Thomas's puzzled expression remains for a beat longer; Vincent is just wondering if he should explain himself when the confusion clears and Thomas's frown changes from baffled to crestfallen.

Quick as a flash— so quick Vincent could almost believe he imagined it, if he didn't know his Thomas so well— he schools himself back into the calm, gentle neutrality he most often tries to use with María when she starts to argue or expresses frustration or tries to understand.

“I am so sorry, you're right,” Thomas tells her. “That was wrong of me. I should have wondered if you wanted to hear me, hm?”

María's smile flickers back into place, with a little more staying power this time.

“Yeah,” she agrees, kicking her heels back into Aldo's thigh. Vincent almost misses his wince— almost; he has to hide his smile once more.

“Do you know what I think?” Vincent says, and more people turn to look at him than just Thomas and María. The only eyes Vincent meets, though, are theirs, matching shades of blue. “I think both of you have so very many interesting things to say, and you should not apologize for feeling moved by God to share them with us. I love every word.”

Surely, tomorrow, Vincent will be receive a firm lecture on the way he chooses to speak to Thomas and María in public.

Surely, too, he will not feel chastised or wrong or as if he failed. He has followed his conscience, his heart, his soul; what's more, he has followed God's will. He, too, has been moved to share these words; it would be hypocritical of him not to. All he needs to do is look towards Thomas's blushing face and María's bright smile to know that he has said the right thing.

He is certain of this later, too, when he, finally able to leave, seeks out Thomas and María at the very end of the night, and discovers them half-asleep rambling to each other at a deserted corner table. So long as he remembers this— Thomas with their daughter in his lap, tucked into a ball in his arms, her dark head against his chest and his cheek against her crown while he strokes her hair, the two of them quietly talking with each other without pause as if nothing and nobody else exists— he knows he has nothing to apologize for.

5. Like Vincent— and like Thomas— she cares deeply about other people.

Not yet three years old, and María already studies the faces of everyone in every room, as soon as she enters it, to check whether anyone seems upset.

Much like Vincent, Thomas has noticed, whenever María determines she has discovered someone in distress— a turtle that has gotten loose from the pond, a cardinal who is taking an upsetting phone call, a nun carrying too many dishes— she also decides that she must immediately offer her aid. There are few people within the Vatican— likely, there are few people even within Rome— who have not seen María them offering a hand to assist, or a suggestion of help, or running to find someone who can do something when she can't.

Thomas worries that she is too like him— that she, too, worries, that her anxiety and awareness and vigilance are too constant, that she is too troubled by nerves for a child so young, and all because of him. She can be fretful, as he can; she is always so very concerned about everybody around her, like he is; she seems to prioritize other people's happiness over her own, which seems as if it is good when Thomas is the one making the decision, but takes on a different light when he is watching María do the same.

She is, though— in Thomas's opinion— far more like Vincent than himself. The both of them are just so inherently helpful, in small and subtle and constant ways that they cannot seem to help as well as in huge and dramatic and powerful ways.

Always— like Vincent— María is offering to do anything that she sees or hears needs doing, encouraging and consoling and tidying and volunteering and supporting.

Always— like Vincent— María is running to help people as soon as she knows they're in need, sometimes even literally taking off at a run to lend a helping hand.

Always— like Vincent— María is in the middle of forming some big plans to save the world, to help everyone, to change everything, telling Thomas of endless ideas she has and is already attempting to put into motion.

Always— like Vincent— María is ready to stand up to anyone she sees as a bully, willing to put herself in front of men twenty times her age with her fists on her hips and shout them down when she considers them rude, as she has done on more than one occasion to Goffredo— and to Goffredo's delight (“Look at her, bambino feroce! Cucciolo di leone, so much like her parents, hm, Tommaso? Not so much the, ah— Immacolata Concezione, no?”).

And always— like Vincent— María is the first one rushing to help without thought or reason, just acting on instinct, no matter what.

Thomas already knows that even before he gets the chance to see her in true, dramatic action.

Today, they are on an official papal visit— or, an Official Papal Visit, as Vincent likes it capitalized on his schedule— to Grosseto, in Tuscany, so Vincent can give a public Mass and grant blessings to locals. Visiting the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, standing beneath the section that once collapsed in the earthquake of nineteen-ninety-seven, just as much the proverbial phoenix from the ashes.

People really do adore getting to see María. They especially like getting to see her and Vincent together; it’s as if the general public has overcome the scandal of the thing, and— while the occasional fringe outsider still objects to her existence on principle, which infuriates Thomas to no end and makes Vincent sit at the window and pray for silent minutes on end, at times— see her as a symbol of hope. She is, to so many, a manifestation of God’s will, which is so significantly better than those who would call her a manifestation of sin; Thomas vastly prefers when people think of her as he does, as she is, as special.

María is, after all, the holy child of the Pope. She is the only one like her; it makes sense that so many would want to see her, know her, even be in her presence.

Of course, they do not see her when she’s screaming and crying because she doesn’t want to wear shoes, but— then again, Thomas does not always want to wear shoes, either. Vincent certainly doesn’t. Everyone is human.

Today, Thomas is content to be at Vincent and María’s sides. They are so holy and special already, even before they are both adorned in so much white trimmed with gold; together, dressed this way, they are otherworldly, as if cast down to Earth from Heaven itself, and Thomas just cannot stop watching them.

His eyes are fixed on them— on Vincent with María in his arms, so divine outside the front doors of the basilica, gleaming in white sunlight that seems to be helping them glow— and he can’t think of anything but them. He loves them— just, so much, more than he thought possible, more than he believed himself capable of feeling, and it still overwhelms him in swells sometimes, waves that crash through him and rush over his head and have him drowning in the sheer depth of his love for them.

He is watching them so closely, even, that he sees when María takes notice of something in the crowd, her attention locking in as she frowns and her brow furrows.

As Thomas has his eyes on her, she pats Vincent’s cheek, saying something, drawing his attention. She’s squirming, trying to break free of his hold. Already, though, Thomas is looking in the direction she had been staring— and sees someone breaking out of the crowd— light hair, dark eyes, black shirt, staring straight ahead, moving forward— coming towards Vincent and María quickly, too quickly, and his instincts prickle automatically.

Already, he is moving. He doesn’t even think; he just moves.

Throwing himself forward, he nearly trips over his own feet. He thinks he pulls a muscle in his back, which— figures; he would pull something while trying to be useful. Still stumbling, though, he manages to put himself between Vincent and María and the person that has now begun sprinting in their direction. They slam into him, and the guards are there a second later, peeling them apart; Thomas doesn’t even feel the pain until the stranger has been hauled away and Vincent is asking, “What just happened? What was that—”

Glancing downwards towards the fire starting to burn in his side, Thomas is both stunned and not surprised at all to see the handle protruding from him at an angle.

“Oh,” he says, and feels stupid in saying it.

All he is thinking is, ‘That shouldn’t be there.’ The realization of what has actually happened— that someone tried to attack Vincent and María, that there was intent to kill them, that he had been stabbed in his instinct to defend them— would come much later.

In the moment, all he does is stare down at the handle of the knife that is lodged between his ribs, and he thinks, ‘That shouldn’t be there,’ and so he reaches to remove it.

Of course, he regrets this a moment later, when he is yanking the knife out and sending a spray of blood across Vincent and María’s holy whites. Guilt overwhelms him as he gapes at it, and Vincent stares back, huge eyes dark and shocked, as María glances down at herself with a shocked half-gasp, half-shriek of terrified surprise.

“I am so sorry,” he apologizes, nonsensical, trying to cover the hole in his side with his hands a heartbeat before Vincent is on him.

“Thomas— ¿Qué hiciste? ¿Por qué hiciste esto— Help me,” Vincent shouts to the side, voice raised to a pitch and tone Thomas has not once heard from him before.

Thomas’s knees feel strange, airy. It’s like all the energy in his body is centered on the point of pain in his stomach, flooding his torso and draining from everywhere else. When his legs buckle, Vincent catches him one-handed; he feels smaller hands against his face in the same moment. Not knowing when he let his eyes close, he forces them back open, blinking towards María.

“Everything is fine,” he makes himself say, hands firmly clasped over his own side as he crumples down to his knees. “It’s fine—”

“Thomas—”

“I’m fine,” Thomas insists, even as Vincent is putting María on her feet and catching Thomas, forcing him to lay down on his back. There are people everywhere, guards and civilians and chaos, so much noise and so many lights and so much happening. The sun feels as if it is burning into his eyes, and he turns away, facing Vincent instead.

Vincent, kneeling beside him, pushing Thomas’s hands out of the way so he can evaluate what’s happening himself. He and María both look down at him with twin expressions of horrified concern and grim determination, and Thomas huffs an unamused laugh, his head falling back.

“It’s alright,” he mumbles, allowing his eyes to close again.

There is a ripping sound, a tearing of thick fabric, and Thomas tries to blink himself back into coherence. He just barely manages to catch sight of Vincent shredding off a fragment of his cassock, and he tries to protest, but it’s too late; a heartbeat later, he is pushing the wad of fabric to Thomas’s side, staining it with his unholy blood.

“I’ll hold it,” María tells him, taking it from him, holding the ball tight against Thomas’s side. It steadily soaks with red as she looks down at him, ashen, and asks, “Mama? Are you okay?”

Thomas reaches up, finds her hand, squeezes it. She doesn’t let go, and so, neither does he, clinging on tight to her. Her white dress is painted in droplets of his blood, as if misted in it; he wants to put her in a bath, wants to clean her, wants to take care of her—

And yet, in this moment, she is caring for him, though she shouldn’t be— though she shouldn’t have to— as Vincent grabs security guards and demands, “Necesito una ambulancia— y ayuda— ahora, ahora mismo—”

“Mama?” María asks again, and Thomas tears his eyes off of Vincent to set them back on her. “Stay awake, okay?”

“I’m awake,” Thomas assures her, in the same moment Vincent is returning his attention to them, shuffling to check Thomas’s pulse in his throat, bending over him to press his ear to his chest and listen to his breaths. “I’m fine, Vincent—”

“You have been stabbed, Thomas,” Vincent points out, and María’s eyes well up with tears. They both reach for her, as if nothing else is happening; Vincent is already saying, “No, it’s okay—”

“Mama,” María sobs, throwing herself into Thomas. It hurts— God, it hurts, it is a lance of burning pain like few he has ever known— and yet he still puts his arm around her, clutching her close and kissing the top of her head, as if his blood is not staining them both in the process.

“It’s all okay,” Thomas tells her, stroking her hair back, kissing her temple again. “You and Papa have helped so much— See? The bleeding is already slowing down.”

María pulls back to look just as more people in white show up— paramedics, this time, that force Vincent and María to separate from Thomas, and María is already starting to panic again.

“They’re taking care of Mama, mijita,” Vincent tells her, injecting a calm into his voice that Thomas can tell he doesn’t quite feel. He reaches down, pulls her back to give the responders space to handle him, and María’s face crumples, more tears just behind.

“I want to help,” she protests, tears wavering in her voice. Vincent can only swipe them away, chased by more to follow, and hold her close, a tight embrace, her face pressed to his.

Despite the blare of pain ringing like a siren from the general area of his liver, Thomas can’t help but feel an overwhelming surge of love for the both of them. The both of them just— care so much, they are overflowing with how much they care, and they— they care for Thomas. It is so obvious in their matching expressions of love and horror. They care.

Thomas reaches out again, stretching. It makes his side flare with renewed agony, but he does it all the same, until he can manage to clasp María’s hand in his own. Vincent lays his hand over the both of theirs, warm and small and solid, and squeezes.

“I love you so much,” he tells her, before his eyes flick up to Vincent. “Both of you.”

María throws herself forward again, moving so fast she slips past the nearest paramedic and manages to wrap her arms around Thomas’s shoulders and throat. For his part, Thomas only brings his arms up to embrace her again, clutching her close, knowing they will have to get rid of the dress she’s wearing— no amount of bleach will get these stains out, and he would sooner not look at them again regardless.

Vincent, kneeling beside him, lays his hand over the top of Thomas’s head. It feels like a holy blessing and an intimate touch, all at once.

“We love you, too,” Vincent assures him. His expression would be unreadable if Thomas were anyone else; he is able to plainly see the terror, the fear, the affection, the anger, the everything that paints him. “Now, stop that. You are not going anywhere.”

“I love you, Mama,” María insists, and Thomas tightens his grip on her— on both of them.

When they have to be separated again, strangers taking hold of Thomas to hoist him onto a gurney, María clings to him until she can’t anymore. Even then, he makes himself keep his eyes on the two of them— Vincent clutching María in his arms, keeping pace with the paramedics, rapidly listing out Thomas’s blood type and allergies and medical history as if he has it all memorized— and finds that he can’t bring himself to regret what he’s done, so long as it means that the blood staining them is his and not theirs, so long as it means that they are safe and whole and nothing bad is happening to them, nothing.

Both Vincent and María care so much about Thomas— care so much about everyone. Thomas will happily care for them in return, no matter what it takes.

And when they are sitting together in the hospital— blood-splattered whites heaped in the corner in a pile to be destroyed, all of them wearing borrowed paper-thin hospital clothing instead— and Thomas has come out of surgery with a line of stitches in his side and pain medication coursing through his veins and nothing but love inside of him, and they’re permitted to be back together, he understands just how much they care.

It’s difficult not to understand, when Vincent pushes through the door with María in his arms, both of them in standard-issue baby-blue, and the two of them both seem near to breaking just at the sight of him.

All he does is reach out with one hand, and then they are with him again. Vincent sets María down on the bed, and she curls into his uninjured side, clinging to him as she cries; Vincent only sits on the edge of the stiff mattress, shifts until he can pull Thomas into him with gentle hands, and then clutches him in just the same way María is on his other side.

Thomas knows no regret, he is sure of this. And when he is here, bookended by them— he could not be more certain.

+1. Unlike her parents, she has never once been afraid to be herself.

It took Vincent quite a long time to get to a point where he could truly say he knows himself, likes himself, and is himself.

For so long, he had thought he had a general understanding of himself— what kind of person he was, who he was, what he wanted and what he liked and everything that made him up. The car-bomb— the appendectomy— the discoveries following them— all of this had made him question himself, to doubt.

Thomas begged for someone who doubts. Somehow, Vincent cannot believe he meant this— that he meant him— and yet, Thomas appears to adore him. How could Vincent question him?

Though it did take time, Vincent managed it. He prayed— God, did he pray— and he reflected and he introspected and he found himself. What’s more, he discovered that he truly does like the person that he is— the person that he got to know. There are always improvements he’d like to make, sure, but— he likes himself, the human animal of him, the person that God has built and the world has shaped and Vincent has grown.

It took Thomas a bit longer, he thinks— and still, he’s not sure that he’s all the way there. He is further than he had been, but Vincent fears he does not love himself in the way Vincent loves him— in the way he should be loved, deserves to be loved.

And still— for all their efforts, for all the work they put in, for all of it— it is difficult to be who they are. It is so, so hard sometimes to be himself, and Vincent sometimes clings to Thomas in the safety of their bed, in the darkness of the night, and wonders to himself over and over and over whether he is making the right choices, doing the right thing.

María does not have this problem.

Since the moment she started discovering she is a person, she has seemed tremendously confident and content in who that person is. Vincent adores this about her; she is so unapologetically and unabashedly herself, and she stands up for herself, and she doesn’t let anyone push her around or convince her otherwise or tell her who she is.

She is also absolutely not afraid to speak her mind, which Vincent— can almost relate to. He says what he wants to say, but he has nowhere near her levels of outgoing confidence. Thomas is diplomatic, and he can be sociable, but— similarly, he is not quite as spirited as María. She’ll say exactly what’s on her mind— though they are still working on teaching her tact— and trusts other people to listen and is unafraid to ask for communication, comfort, love. What’s more, she knows that she will receive it— at least, from himself and Thomas.

It is all Vincent could have hoped for for his child; he loves this about her, loves her mind, loves her words. In fact, one of Vincent’s now-favorite traditions is the time he spends with her and Thomas after every Mass— whether or not he is the one giving it— when she pulls out her small notebook and goes through her thoughts on the Mass, point-by-point.

At first, she had made her comments during Mass, but Thomas has since encouraged her to be respectful of whomever is speaking and instead write down her thoughts. Now, she scribbles near-nonsense through every Mass, every sermon, every homily, jotting down a running list of everything she agrees with or disagrees with, everything that made her think, everything she has a question about, everything she wants to reflect on— everything.

She’s never been afraid to discuss her thoughts and share her opinions and just— be herself. Vincent loves this about her.

It also means that he always has an eye out for when she is not acting like herself.

This morning, she is not at all acting like herself.

Thomas and María had already been in the crowd when Vincent entered St. Peter’s Basilica. He’d located them quickly in the second row, towards the aisle end; even in the most massive crowd, he thinks he’d still be able to pick them out in a heartbeat.

The Bible is already laid out for him, the table beside it set, everything prepared for communion, all ready to go. It’s a good thing, too, because he’s instantly distracted by María.

Typically, she already has her eyes on him by the time he finds her. More often than not, she’ll beam brightly at him, and wave her little hands, and likely try to make a face that will trigger a response from him.

Today, she stares down at her notebook, her chubby pencil held lax in her grip. It doesn’t look like she’s started writing anything down— or even doodling yet, which is unlike her. Every page usually has, amongst the collection of her huge and clunky letters, a number of drawings that could only have come from the mind of an overactive nearly-five-year-old.

Vincent frowns a bit, watching her. His attention flickers over to Thomas, who catches his eye right away; though he has a near-permanent resting worried face, he seems particularly concerned now, which does nothing for Vincent’s nerves.

Tipping his head slightly, Vincent watches Thomas glance down towards María, then lean to whisper something to her. She doesn’t respond beyond a half-shrug, and Thomas turns his eyes back up to Vincent. Even from this distance, Vincent can tell his brow is creased, and he can feel his own heart trip accordingly in his chest.

Surely, whatever it is is not a big deal; she is here, and does not seem to be injured or crying or— anything except lackluster.

But she is so bright that her shine being diminished strikes a bolt of terror through them.

Throughout the entire Mass, he cannot stop paying attention to her. He moves through what he wants to say, and even thinks he does it rather well, but he can’t bring himself to care overmuch; it is as if he is operating on autopilot while worrying after his daughter, trying to keep his eyes on her, half of his mind thinking about what could potentially be wrong.

It doesn’t help matters that she hardly takes notes throughout the entire thing. Now and then, she drags her pencil across the page to write something, but it is half-hearted and disinterested at best. Mostly, she just seems quiet, going through the motions.

By the time the Mass is only half-over, she is listing against Thomas— and by the end, she has practically curled up in his lap, twisted into him in a ball, face buried in his stomach as he strokes her hair and keeps his worried eyes up on Vincent. More than once, he drops his head and says something to her, but every time, she either shrugs or shakes her head and goes back to her apparent silence.

Vincent is grateful he can keep an eye on her, but he wonders if Thomas should take her out, bring her back home. Maybe she is no longer interested in Mass; she is still so young, and these can be so long. He would never want her to feel an obligation to this just because of his involvement.

All the same, they are still there when the Mass ends, and Vincent ignores decorum and tradition and performance and all that nonsense to stride right down to them the second he is able to do so.

Thomas is already standing, holding María in his arms. She is no longer so small that she is easy for either of them to carry, but still, he holds her now, and she clings to him, all limbs wrapped around him as if trying to burrow under his skin. Lucky for them that Thomas is as strong as he is, wiry muscle hidden beneath those sweaters and loose shirts he is always wearing, because he might topple over with the force of her embrace otherwise.

With her face tucked into Thomas’s shoulder and throat, it’s difficult for Vincent to gauge how she’s feeling from afar— though Thomas is rubbing her back in slow circles, so, whatever it is, she is obviously in need of comfort.

“Hello, my loves,” Vincent greets them as soon as he is at their side. He cups Thomas’s cheek in his hand for one moment, then lets his hand go to the back of his head, drawing him down so he can kiss his forehead. His attention turns next to María, ducking his head, asking, “What’s wrong, Maríta, hm? You did not take your notes today.”

María does not hesitate to turn her face out of Thomas’s throat. Her cheek smushes into his shoulder as she looks up at Vincent, and, this close, she seems a bit pale, her eyes dull, and Vincent’s concern swells.

“My tummy hurts,” she tells him without pause. Thomas just keeps rubbing her back. “Can we go home?”

“Of course, tesoro,” Vincent answers. He leans in to press his lips to her forehead, too, gauging her temperature; she doesn’t feel hot, but maybe a little warm.

“I can bring her home early,” Thomas tells him, readjusting his grip on María. Vincent strokes her hair back from her face, cooing softly at her when she blinks her blue eyes at him, big and wet and, right now, rather sad.

“I will come with you,” Vincent insists. “Of course, I will.”

“You have—”

“—Nothing more important than this right now,” Vincent stops him. They exchange a brief look, but Thomas is already crumbling, he knows. All it takes is him adding, “I feel a bit tired myself,” and Thomas is straightening with a frown, looking him over.

“You should come home,” Thomas now insists, and Vincent has to fight down his pride and his amusement in the moment. If he lets Thomas figure him out, his tricks may stop working.

Vincent only stops to tell Ray that he must postpone today’s appointments to tomorrow due to illness. He takes one look at María, now reburied in Thomas’s throat, and gives Thomas a pat on the shoulder before sending them along, and Vincent makes himself a promise not to abuse this power to escape meetings now that he’s begun discovering it.

The entire walk back to the apartment, María is quiet, clinging tight to Thomas. People stop and look at them, as they always do when they see Vincent— when they see the Pope— and he tries to be kind, to smile, to bless— but also, to hurry.

They make it nearly all the way there before María, without warning or preamble, shifts and vomits down Thomas’s back.

To Thomas’s credit, he only pauses for a stunned moment, then takes a single neat sidestep away from Vincent to avoid touching his papal whites. A second later, María starts to cry, and Thomas continues onward, telling her, “It’s okay, darling. We’re almost home and we’ll get you cleaned up and tucked into bed, okay?”

“I don’t feel good,” she cries into his throat, hands reaching up to grip the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

“I know,” he tells her. “I know. Papa and I will make it better, it’s all going to be okay.”

“My poor baby,” Vincent coos at her, circling around Thomas to stroke her hair, pulling the dark curls back from her face. Thomas shifts, cocking his hip; Vincent reaches into his pocket and withdraws a hair tie, body-warm, to pull it up and out of the way. “Do you feel any better, hm?”

Sniffling, she answers, muffled by Thomas’s chest, “A little.”

“A little,” Vincent echoes, kissing her cheek. “Mama is right, we will fix everything for you. Thank you for telling us.”

She just nods against Thomas, curling up tighter to him. Thomas picks up the pace, and Vincent scurries to catch up, lifting the hems of his skirts as they go. The apartment really isn’t all that far away, but it seems an eternity now— he’s sure it must seem even longer for Thomas.

As soon as they’re actually in the door, Vincent is ducking to shimmy out of the last of his regalia that was not left behind at the Basilica, quick prayers whispered as he peels out as fast as he can. Thomas has already brought María to the bathroom down the hall by the time Vincent is in his undershirt and boxer shorts, and he jogs to catch up with them.

Inside the gleaming white-tiled room, Thomas has stripped off his own shirt and now sits on the edge of the bath, bare-chested, running the warm water for María. She sits curled up already in the tub; when Vincent enters, she glances up at him with those same sad eyes, and his heart breaks.

“Still no good?” he asks, coming to kneel beside Thomas, reaching to rub his hand over her shoulders. She shrugs, tilting into his touch, and he taps her on the nose. “When you’re all clean, we will rest together, how does that sound?”

“Good,” she says, voice small.

“Good,” Vincent echoes, leaning up to kiss the top of her head. To Thomas, he says, “I can take over, if you would like to shower.”

Thomas hesitates, clearly not wanting to leave her, though he rises all the same. His own hand lingers on the crown of Vincent’s head for just a moment before he leaves him to cross to the shower cubicle only an arm’s length away, as if he is parting from him to go to war. They make quick work, the both of them; Vincent scrubs María down while Thomas washes himself, and they finish nearly-concurrently, the two of them letting Vincent wrap them in towels and pat them dry and escort them out of the bathroom and down the hall.

Hair braided and damp, wearing her favorite nightgown— printed all over with colorful vegetable illustrations, a gift from Vincent’s sister Ramona— María does seem to be feeling a bit better as she climbs into Thomas and Vincent’s bed, right into the middle, and wriggles herself beneath their covers.

“Are you coming?” she asks, clutching Minou to her chest.

Vincent glances towards Thomas and finds him already climbing in. His pink-striped pajama set matches Vincent’s, though neither of them are very visible after Vincent draws the curtains on the bright sun of early afternoon and sends their room cascading into darkness.

“Papa, come on,” María insists, and Vincent laughs once as he turns to join them on her other side, shifting to face the two of them.

Apparently now content, María tucks herself as tightly in between them as she can. Thomas brings the covers up beneath her chin while Vincent adjusts the pillow beneath her head; when they catch each other’s eyes, they smile, just for a moment.

“Is that better, mijita?” Vincent asks, and, this time, she nods— and her eyes seem brighter, and her face has more color, and she is not quite so sad. She’s more herself, and Vincent smiles when he kisses her forehead. “Good. I am so glad. You did the right thing, telling us. You could tell us even sooner next time, if you would like.”

“In all fairness,” Thomas interjects, “she did. And I also asked if she’d like to leave early, and she very firmly told me no, she wanted to stay.”

Vincent glances down at María, who only tells him, “I didn’t want to miss it.”

“Oh, silly,” Vincent accuses her playfully, and she giggles, turning to hide her face between Thomas’s chest and Minou’s fur. “You have to take better care of yourself! You are more important than a Mass, María.”

“But I didn’t even throw up until I was outside,” she protests. “I was right.”

Vincent can’t help but laugh in response. Even Thomas is smiling as he reminds her, “Yes, but wouldn’t it be much nicer to be at home when you get sick? Rather than on me?”

“No,” she answers, and Thomas laughs this time.

“You are mischievous,” he insists. “You’re just like your father.”

“You know,” Vincent comments, “I was just thinking how much you are like your Mama.”

Over the top of her head, Thomas meets his eye, and the pretty pink flush on his face speaks volumes. Vincent reaches over and cradles his face in one hand, lets his thumb stroke over that rosy heat blushing up beneath his skin, and lets himself rest into the pillows, relaxing, content.

“Sorry I didn’t say earlier,” María apologizes from between them.

“Don’t be sorry,” Thomas tells her.

“We just want what’s best for you, hm?” Vincent says, and she nods, yawning. “Get cozy, come here, get comfortable. Close your eyes, rest, you will feel so much better when you wake up.”

María nods, burrowing down into his side. Thomas shifts accordingly, as if a satellite tethered to her.

“Can we talk about the Mass later instead?” she asks, and Vincent and Thomas both smile at once, as if they are reflections of one another.

“Of course,” Vincent agrees. “I look forward to hearing what you have to say.”

Thomas strokes María’s hair still, and she yawns again, her jaw cracking. Vincent lets his arm slip beneath her pillow, the two of them forming a cradle around her that she sighs and relaxes into.

“I love you,” she says upwards to the both of them.

Thomas kisses the top of her head as Vincent says, “We love you, too,” and then they swap, Vincent kissing her cheek and Thomas telling her, “I love you, darling.”

As she so often does, she fusses and fidgets a bit before finally falling asleep— but, once she is asleep, she’s asleep, conked out entirely between them. Vincent tests as he has always done since she was a baby and lifts her arm, then drops it, watching it flop back down, all dead weight.

“Asleep,” he whispers, and Thomas moves again, rolling onto his back with a soft groan.

“You lied,” Thomas accuses him. “To come back here.”

“I am sleepy,” Vincent argues, smiling into the darkness. “I didn’t say I would sleep.” Thomas tsks at him. “Should I beg forgiveness?”

“Should I give it?” Thomas asks, teasing, and Vincent reaches over to lightly swat at the side of his head. Thomas only catches his hand and kisses his palm before releasing him, and Vincent feels his own blush warming his face. After all this, still, and Thomas can still get him like that. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Vincent murmurs back.

For a while, they only enjoy the quiet, the dark, the stillness. Vincent strokes over María’s braids, humming softly; Thomas shifts down a bit and closes his own eyes, though Vincent listens to his breathing and knows he’s still awake.

Thomas’s eyes are still closed when he quietly says, “You know, I can’t think of one time I did this with my parents. I’m not entirely sure I would have been welcome.”

Vincent breaks off his humming and considers this. After a beat, he says, “I often would fall asleep in bed with my parents. But, I would not often tell them when I felt sick.” Thomas’s brow creases slightly, his eyes opening to meet Vincent’s, even in the dark. “Everything felt so difficult for them. I could see it, even if they did not want me to. I never wanted to add to their stress, so…”

“You stayed quiet,” Thomas finishes.

“I did,” Vincent replies.

There is a beat of silence.

“María does not have that problem,” Thomas comments, and Vincent snorts a laugh.

“No, she does not,” he agrees, and looks down at her as she sleeps, and— for once, he finds he is grateful that she has not inherited something from the two of them, for all the wonderful traits that she has.

Internally, he promises her that he will never let her get used to going without. When he meets Thomas’s eye again, he believes him to be doing the same thing.

“I love you,” he whispers again.

“I love you,” Thomas whispers back.

Between them, María smiles in her sleep, and all seems divinely well again, and Vincent finds that he has never been happier that their child is their child, but also herself.