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Vincent’s revelation had fallen between them like a seed onto arid soil, and Thomas, with his ironclad rigidity forged by decades of doctrine, did not know how to water it. But time, that silent ally, began to soften the edges of his disbelief. It all started in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where Thomas often took refuge at dawn to pray the Office of Readings. One morning, upon entering, he found the prie-dieu he always used covered with a green velvet cushion—a small luxury amid Vatican austerity. Vincent was kneeling in a corner, as if he had nothing to do with the gesture, but when their gazes met, Thomas knew it was his doing. They didn't mention the cushion, but the next day, when he returned, a dried edelweiss flower—the same one Vincent often spoke of—lay atop the open missal.
The process unfolded like this: an invisible caress, a detail that could be chalked up to chance, but which Thomas, in his heart, knew was deliberate. Vincent did not force uncomfortable conversations; instead, he filled the empty spaces with a serene presence. During meals in the refectory, he sat near Thomas, not across from him, as if he understood that proximity without confrontation was more bearable. One day, as the cardinals debated heatedly about charity in times of crisis, Vincent slid a plate of figs in syrup toward Thomas, and though he was not fond of sweets, Thomas ate one out of politeness. The flavor, intense and honeyed, transported him to a distant memory from his childhood, when his mother would offer him fruits harvested from the neighbor’s garden. Vincent smiled when he saw him close his eyes, as if he had planned that journey into the past.
Their afternoon walks through the Vatican Gardens became an unspoken ritual. Vincent would appear by the Fountain of the Pigna, bending to touch the water before joining Thomas. They would not talk of theology or the conclave; Vincent pointed out flowers growing along the paths or mimicked the birdsongs he’d learned from natives in the Congo. Thomas, at first, replied with monosyllables, but one evening, as Vincent described how the children of his parish wove daisy wreaths for statues of Mary, he let out a short, spontaneous laugh. Vincent paused his story, watching him with sweet curiosity.
"I didn't know you could laugh like that," Vincent said; the wrinkles around his eyes accentuating in the setting sun.
"Neither do I," Thomas admitted, surprised at himself.
Acceptance came in fragments. One night, while going through documents in the library, Thomas found a 16th-century medical book open to a page describing intersex bodies as; divine works beyond human comprehension. Next to it, Vincent had left a note with a single line:
«Even the ancients knew God does not fit into molds.»
Thomas spent hours staring at those words, imagining Vincent sneaking into libraries to find answers the Church denied him. When he closed the book, his hands no longer trembled.
The turning point came in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel, during a rehearsal of the Gregorian chant for the coronation Mass. Thomas, whose voice always cracked on the highest notes, struggled to follow the score when Vincent stepped beside him. His deep, steady voice wove with Thomas’s, supporting it like scaffolding. As the Gloria ended, Vincent brushed his shoulder against Thomas’s—a touch so light it could have been accidental. But when Thomas turned, he found an expression on Vincent’s face that disarmed him: gratitude mingled with a tenderness that made no effort to hide.
"I've never sung with someone who will listen... without judgment," Vincent said, as if confessing a secret.
"Perhaps because you’ve never let anyone get close enough," Thomas replied, and as he spoke, he realized he was also speaking of himself.
In the days that followed, Vincent’s gestures took on a new clarity. One noon, as Thomas wrestled with a speech on mercy, Vincent draped his own stole over Lawrence’s shoulders. And though Thomas tried to return it, Vincent insisted.
"Today it belongs to you," he had told him.
The stole, white silk threaded with gold, smelled of myrrh and earth—like everything Vincent touched. Thomas finished the speech with unusual eloquence, quoting St. Teresa of Avila: God has no hands but ours. When he returned the stole the next day, their fingers brushed, and this time Thomas did not pull his hand away.
On the eve of the final election, Vincent invited him to his quarters. The room was austere: a wooden crucifix, a worn breviary, and in one corner, a small jade plant that Thomas recognized—it was identical to the one he had in his own room. Vincent served chamomile tea in cracked porcelain cups, inherited from an elderly nun in Kabul. They did not talk about the conclave or the future; instead, Vincent told how, as a child, he used to hide the plants that he collected from the street under the bed to protect them from fellow seminarians who deemed them too fragile.
"The most fragile things are the ones that survive," Thomas commented unprompted, as he stroked a leaf of the plant. "Because they learn to adapt without breaking."
Vincent smiled, and in that smile was a glimmer of release. As they bid farewell, he handed Thomas an ancient reliquary—a miniature of St. Francis embracing a wolf.
"So that you remember that even the fiercest need compassion," he said, and although the phrase sounded like a joke, Lawrence knew it was a veiled way of talking about himself.
During the ceremony, as he stepped forward to swear obedience, Vincent took Thomas’s hands in his own—a gesture that was not in the protocol—and whispered:
"Thank you for not being afraid to water the seed."
Thomas bowed his head, but not to show submission, but respect. That night, in his room, he placed the reliquary next to the velvet cushion, the edelweiss flower and the note about St. Augustine. Outside, the moon bathed the Vatican gardens, and somewhere, in that same light, Vincent Benitez was beginning his pontificate. Lawrence lay on his bed, listening to the song of a nightingale that Vincent had taught him to recognize, and for the first time in years, the silence did not weigh on him. He had learned that acceptance was not a grandiose act, but the sum of small yeses, of slits through which light entered, of hands that—without fully touching—were no longer afraid to hold each other.