From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 12:53:52 -0600 Subject: Saturday Confessions by Maidenjedi Source: direct Reply To: texgoddess@yahoo.com TITLE: Saturday Confessions AUTHOR: Maidenjedi RATING: R CATEGORY: SA, MSR, third-person POV SPOILERS: Requiem ARCHIVE: Anywhere, as usual, especially Gossamer, Ephemeral, Xemplary...you get the gist SUMMARY: Bless me Father, for I have sinned. DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Do you really think any fanfic writer would have written "Closure"?! NOTES: Well, here I am, back after a drought in ideas and extreme writer's block. I saw Revelations for the first time and it hit me that Scully's pregnancy, Mulder's disappearance, and the arrival of Agent Doggett could really drive a woman to the confessional. This story is written assuming that whatever happens come November either does not happen or it happens at a different pace. Artistic license!!! I think its fair warning that if you think the idea of a priest having lustful thoughts is just wrong and you are easily offended by movies like Dogma and Keeping the Faith, please don't read this story. Thanks and enjoy the read! ---------- This part of Saturday afternoons didn't bother the young priest who had become Father McCue's apprentice. While the elder priest had come to see confessions as routine, in a rather jaded way, young Patrick Donovan was still naive enough to imagine that in some small way, he was there to provide comfort to the masses in individual doses. Moreover, he didn't have to say Mass on Saturdays. That was reserved for Father McCue. So unless Father Donovan (and he had one heck of a time thinking of himself as "Father") ladled soup all day, there was nothing to do. Confessions gave him a chance, as he saw it, to get to know the congregation. He sat behind the old-fashioned screen that so many of the parishioners seem to prefer. In seminary they had been taught how to handle confessions in a small room, face to face with the man or woman. But here, many of the parishioners were pre-Vatican II. A great deal of the men here had served in WWII, and if Patrick were to be perfectly frank (as one often is in one's thoughts), many more funerals were performed here than were weddings. The woman on the other side of the screen had begun to cry, certain that she was going to hell for telling her mother that she didn't love her. Patrick hated when they cried, because he couldn't really say anything that would help them out at that point. He couldn't offer comfort the way he wanted to, by holding their hands and wiping their eyes. He had always been more of a people-person than the older, more conservative priests he knew. But oh well. He gave her a contrition of 10 Hail Marys and told her to be sure to try and reconcile with her mother. The woman sniffed and thanked him, then was on her way to make peace with God. Patrick peeked out the door to see if there was anyone else waiting for his services. Upon seeing no one, he sighed. Another Saturday and he still wasn't one hundred percent sure that what he was doing truly did any good. He tried, he really did. Sighing again, though it was more of a simple exhalation, he bent down to pick up a scrap of paper. As he stood up, he noticed a young, redheaded woman walking in and coming his way. *She is so beautiful* he thought. Then he wondered who she was. This was not a terribly large parish, and Patrick had been fairly sure he knew the majority of the parishioners, by sight if not by name. He realized then that she was probably there for a confession. As she came closer, he noticed that she was slightly round across the middle. Pregnant, he thought. From this distance she did not appear to be wearing a ring, but of course she was not close enough to tell. He pushed the thought from his mind so that he would not bias himself, and got back into the confessional. Patrick heard her walk up, then stop. She seemed to be a little hesitant, not really sure whether she wanted to do this. He heard a sigh, a resigned sigh, one that he imagined one would have heard from Jonah when the whale finally caught up with him. For a moment Patrick wondered what was weighing on this woman's mind. He heard the shuffle of her skirt as she settled into the seat behind the screen next to him. A crimson blush spread across his pale freckled cheeks as he realized he was wondering what she was wearing under that skirt. That was the hazard, he had begun to realize, of being a young priest in this day and age. Of being young at all, really. She began to mumble the words he had heard at least a hundred times in that afternoon alone. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession." Patrick braced himself. Surely she was another one of those women who came to confession simply because they had looked cross-eyed at a prettier woman on the subway. But as he looked at her profile through the screen, and saw the single tear slip down her face, he knew it was more, much more, than a simple bad thought. She began to tell him of her guilt. She was sure that she could have saved her partner from his fate. She was positive that even now, in her heart, she was betraying him. Patrick was baffled. He was just cocky enough to have thought he had heard it all. But this was not a woman in need of hearing the oft-times inadequate reassurance he would ordinarily offer. The woman continued. She was pregnant, she choked out. With her partner's child. After a moment, it dawned on Patrick that this woman was feeling abandoned more than anything, and lonely. It was in the hang of her head. "What's bothering you, really?" There, he had asked. He felt he had to, since she herself was not about to open up so readily. Through the screen Patrick saw her raise her head. "He's gone, Father. And I'm pregnant, and...." Her already fragile voice trailed off, and after a moment had passed and Patrick was opening his mouth to reply, she cleared her throat loudly. "Father, I just need some advice. How do I get through this? I feel like God stopped listening." How hard that must have been to say, Patrick thought. So many people felt the same way, in this very parish, and very few of them had the spiritual confidence to admit it. Here was a woman, pregnant for the first time and left alone to cope with it, along with maintaining a high profile job. Patrick found himself respecting this woman, for doing what she was. He knew he would never have found the strength for it, in her position. "God hasn't stopped listening, I promise. But maybe you have stopped talking to him." "I..." She paused. "I..." Another pause. "Maybe I have." "May I ask you something?" "Of course, Father." "You mentioned that your partner..." "Mulder." "Yes, Mulder. You mentioned that he is missing." She hesitated, just a heartbeat. "Yes." "May I ask what happened?" Patrick was imagining a lovers' spat, and she was blaming herself for whatever fate had befallen him since. Patrick fully expected to be told that this Mulder was dead, and that she was blaming herself for it. But what she told him exceeded whatever he had expected to hear. "Mulder was abducted. He...he wouldn't let me go to Oregon with him, and had I done so I could have stopped it. I could have held him back, and they would not have gotten him." Abducted. He noticed how she had pointedly forgone using "kidnapped." He wondered why. "You say abducted. By whom?" "Not whom, Father. My partner...and I know how this will sound...was abducted by extraterrestrial beings." Silence. She sounded so sure in her statement. Patrick fought the immediate impulse to laugh, suddenly feeling as though he were a player in a movie, but nonetheless certain that she was telling him the truth. "This is the truth?" "Yes." She all but whispered it. "How are you betraying him?" "I...I'm not fighting those who don't believe hard enough. I haven't looked everywhere I could be, I feel like I'm missing something. And..." "And?" Patrick could see the tears begin to roll down her face again. "And...part of me knew I was pregnant before I *knew*. I didn't breathe a word to him, I was so sure it couldn't be true. And now..." "He may never know," Patrick finished for her. He could see her nod behind the screen. Patrick, Father Donovan, took a deep breath before continuing. This was delicate, and she was so fragile. Something in the way she confessed these events to him told him this was a story she had been reluctant to tell outside a confessional. And she had probably been afraid to do this much. "Child," oh how ridiculous he felt saying that, but he didn't even know her name, "he knows. God has ways of taking care of our problems, you know. Wherever Mulder is, he knows. And God is taking care of all three of you." There. It sounded so trite to his ears, so contrived, but it was all he could think to say to this beautiful and fragile woman on the other side of the screen. And she accepted it. "Thank you. I knew all of that, inside. I just needed to hear it." With that, she stood and left the confessional. Patrick watched her leave. The last bit of sunlight trickled through the stained glass windows, and it glinted off of her bright red hair. It seemed to Patrick that God had given them both a chance to see what He was capable of. Miracles. Patrick turned around. The first few parishioners were arriving for Saturday Mass. With a renewed confidence and a quick prayer for guidance, Patrick went to the rectory to ready himself. As he walked, a thought struck him. He had felt, for just a moment, that the woman had come to confess fornication. He had misjudged her. Father Donovan stopped at a pew, and knelt down. He had a few minutes before the people arrived in droves. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned...." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* THE END Feedback will gratefully be accepted at texgoddess@yahoo.com I know, this one was a little drab, and I apologize. See what waiting for November does to fanfic?!