“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in here this late, Father.”

Elliot turned his head at the familiar voice. Fittingly, as if planned, the bells in the church began to chime nine pm. The elderly nun looked back at him where he saw in the pew, facing the giant cross displayed prominently behind the altar. She was in her early eighties, Elliot reflected, but she had always preferred the late nights. Here she was, alert and curious, holding a glass of water.

How she managed to get up in time for morning worship continued to mystify him. Even so, he chuckled quietly. “I could say the same, Sister.” He looked to the pew next to him as if making sure there was space. “Would you like to join me?”

“Of course.” Sister Gail Beck adjusted her clothing to sit herself neatly beside him, glass held carefully in hands wrinkled and spotted with age. “What’s the occasion?”

He was–had been–praying, and he said so. “For guidance, mostly.” He leaned his elbows on the back of the pew in front of them. Her eyebrows raised and she tilted her head to look at him over the top of her glasses as she took a drink from her glass.

“Guidance? The situation must be serious if you’re in here this late for guidance. Are you in trouble, Father?”

Yes. Oh, yes.

“No, not in trouble.” His chuckle was gentle, and he shook his head just as gently. “Just complicated. I was hoping for some clarity.”

“Well,” she tutted, adjusting her habit and smoothing it out with her free hand. “Is there anything I can do for you, if the Holy Spirit isn’t answering you?”

Not really. Not unless she became really okay with a lot of things very quickly. Considering nuns didn’t give confession and weren’t bound by confidentiality, she could very well report what he said. He paused for a moment to think it over. Sister Gail waited patiently for him to speak, sipping again at her glass of water.

“What was your motivation for joining a convent?”

“Hm?” She looked up at him, glasses making her eyes enormous behind the lenses. “Me? Oh, it’s been decades, Father. Let me remember.” Sister Gail looked up to the cross behind the altar. “I would have to say it was to avoid marriage.” She tutted again. “I had no interest nor intention of marrying a man, no matter how lovely he might be.”

“Not one for the spinster life, Sister?”

That earned him a laugh. “No. I had two options. Marry a nice man and have nice children… or become a nun. And here we are.” She looked up at him and, if it weren’t for the mischief in the curve of her mouth, Elliot would have missed the undertone behind, “men are alright, Father, but I’ve never been interested.”

The surprise must have shown on his face, because she laughed again, a warm, crackling sound.

“Father, we both live here at the church, and it’s not big enough to have a nunnery. I know you don’t spend all of your nights in your apartment.”

Elliot did not blush easily. Yet, here he was. “I… suppose not.”

“And… I suspect we both joined the church for similar reasons,” hummed she mildly, watching him sidelong.

“Well, it made my family happy.”

“Mine too!” She finished off her water and set the glass carefully on the pew next to her. “But they’re all dead and here I am. So who am I making happy now?” Before Elliot could respond, “myself, of course. I don’t mind this.” Her voice was quieter, now. “But we don’t have to share all of our experiences.”

“...Sister?” Elliot frowned. She looked up at him, her smile less mischievous now, warmer.

“I’m eighty-three. I am not able to take your confession, Father, but I can take your secrets to the grave.”

He returned her smile with a slight, lopsided one of his own. “...Thank you.” But it was several more minutes of comfortable silence before he said anything else. Even then, Elliot led with a deceptively casual, “there are three of them.”

Deceptive for its lightness and for not betraying the amount of peripheral-eye checking he’d done beforehand to make sure they were alone in the sanctuary.

“Oh!” First, surprise. “Oh.” Then confusion, and a pause, then, “oh!” with delight. Then, concerned, “oh. They are aware of each other…?”

“Yes!” Elliot coughed. “Yes, don’t worry. They all know about each other. They all knew each other before I knew them, even.”

That got him a puzzled look before Sister Gail seemed to shrug it off. “Are they also Catholics…?”

And that got her a quiet chuckle. “No. Two are atheists from Jewish families, and one is an atheist from a Muslim one.” Sister Gail made a noise he realised was a ‘tsk’. “I am not becoming an atheist, sister, don’t worry.”

“Oh, that is between you and God, Father. I just figured it makes an odd priest to be atheist, and was wondering if you were leaving the priesthood.”

Was he leaving the priesthood? That wasn’t something he’d considered before. Aside from the obvious drawbacks of having to live a double life, he didn’t mind the priesthood. It was comfortable and familiar at this point–

“Why are you concerned about whether I’m atheist, but not with the rest of it?” He couldn’t keep resisting the question. “I’m breaking my vows.”

“I’m aware. That, like I said, is between you and God, Father.” Her tone was very pragmatic, as if what she said was perfectly obvious. Elliot supposed it was. She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “You haven’t ever seemed the type to do inappropriate things with your priesthood, so.”

“Oh, no. I don’t.” There were many reasons Father Isaac stayed at church when Elliot went out on the town. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been asked, but that he’d always said no. Eventually, he’d stopped telling people entirely. He was a counselor, is what he told most people.

It was close enough to the truth.

“Is your vow-breaking the source of your stress?”

Well.

Yes.

Sort of.

His thoughts went back to his conversation with Nectaris and stayed there for several minutes as Sister Gail sat serenely next to him. “...What if I were to leave the church? You know, disappoint the family, the community, the church leaders…”

“We don’t have to share all of our experiences.”

“My family will disown me.”

She looked at him for another long stretch of silence. “‘Better is a neighbour who is near than a brother who is far away’.”

“Sister?”

“Proverbs, chapter twenty-seven, verse ten.” Elliot paused, watching her and hoping for an explanation. He could extrapolate, but– “What makes you happy, Father?”

He couldn’t help the snort. “I took a vow of celibacy, a vow of poverty, and a vow of obedience. I don’t think my happiness is what I’m supposed to prioritize. I’m supposed to find my happiness serving God.” In fact, he was specifically supposed to deprioritize things that made him happy on the earthly plane, for hope of salvation. He glanced quickly around to confirm they were still alone in the sanctuary. “I’m barely hanging onto obedience, and I abandoned celibacy in seminary.”

Her merry chortle made him blush despite himself again. “It does not sound like the Lord called you to be a priest, Father.”

“Are nuns supposed to encourage priests to laicize?”

“It doesn’t sound like the Lord called you to be a priest.” She gave a little shrug. “I am happy with my choice in the face of my family’s views, but you don’t have to be. In fact, I’m sure you have ways to serve God without being a priest.” Her feet kicked slowly in small arcs, toes skimming the carpet. “Deaconship would probably not help.”

He laughed at that. “No, I don’t think becoming a deacon would help me any.”

“Hm. Indeed.” She hummed thoughtfully to herself. “What appeals to you the most about the priesthood?”

Well, when he was a teenager, it was the lack of pressure it represented for him. “I never wanted to get married either, for one. It kept my parents off my back.” But, “I just had to navigate the whole celibacy thing, I guess. I figured it out.”

“That was never a problem for me, so I’ll have to trust you on that one.”

“...Have you heard of asexuality, Sister?”

“From a young nun, yes. If I thought it mattered at this point in my life, I would look further into it.”

Fair enough.

“Well, there’s that, but for romantic relationships. And…” He loosely gestured to himself. Her eyebrows raised oh so slightly, but she said nothing. “Priests can’t marry, so it seemed like the perfect out.”

That, on top of the countless nights wondering if it was a message from God that he was wrong for being aromantic, but not asexual. Taking vows of priesthood helped him convince himself he was alright for aromanticism. Subsequently betraying his vows had not helped everything, but if he didn’t think about it–

“And the men you see–they are good men?”

“Very good men.” Even if Zebulon would protest that he was more the neutral type–

“And you are not dating them?”

“Not… It’s complicated. Yes? No?” He didn’t call it dating. The other three did, and he was okay with that. Even Diryas, who had himself thought he was aromantic until his mid-20s, called it dating. Tobias had called it a situationship. Said he got the term from Zeb. “I’m not dating them. They’re dating me. I’m seeing them.” They were even mostly exclusive.

Mostly.

The elderly nun blinked up at him for several long seconds as she processed this. Elliot found himself having to break eye contact first.

“...Father, I don’t know what that means.” Before he could say anything, “but it doesn’t matter. They are good men. And I know what scripture says, but the ultimate authority lies with God.” And she shrugged, as if that was that.

“You’re not giving the typical nun advice, Sister.”

“I don’t see how it would help your immortal soul to convince you that you’re a horrible person. Scripture says no one sin is greater than any other–except for perhaps breaking the Commandments, of course.”

Of course.

“And it seems cruel to force someone to bear false witness against themselves or their neighbor in the spirit of preventing the canonically lesser sin of indulging one’s happiness. And Jesus Christ is not known for his cruelty. Plus, if we believe that all sin is unforgivable, then what was the point of His sacrifice?”

“...Sister?”

“I’m just saying, Father. I am just a nun, but I can read Scripture quite well. In the original Latin if necessary.”

…Fair enough. Sister Gail seemed to take Elliot’s silence as agreement, and so she sat quietly with him for several minutes. And to take it as agreement was fair, Elliot decided. It just wasn’t a viewpoint he was familiar with hearing from a Catholic nun.

As they sat, Elliot reflected. He reflected on what she had said, on what the handbook for the Negaverse had told him were his new responsibilities, on how he felt about that. A slow chill worked its way up his spine at the memory of General-King Faustite’s hand in his chest. It was a chill accompanied by the whispering in the back of his mind getting louder–just reach out, reach for her, she’dneverbeableto--just for a moment until he pushed it away with a purely internal shudder of revulsion.

He could never. He would never. He had never pulled anyone’s starseed, and he had no intention of starting now. Especially not with her.

And not with Zebulon, or the other three, either. Elliot was pulled out of his train of thought by Sister Gail getting to her feet. “Goodnight Father. It’s late for even me.” As she spoke, the church bells tolled ten.

“Oh, goodnight Sister.”

“Think about what I said, will you?” She offered him a smile as she turned and headed for the door that would lead her to the apartments.

He envisioned the other three, their faces, their voices… Elliot had been staying away to keep Prehnite off of Zebulon’s trail. But it had been a very long time. And he missed them. Was it worth leaving everything he knew to try and purify out? Would they even still want him around?

Would he even still remember them? He knew Nectaris remembered little–if anything–of her time as General Sylvite. What if he forgot all of them and, effectively, disappeared forever?

…He needed to talk to them.

“Of course, Sister.”