#conclave whump

Lawrence: take me, my life is finished anyway, you have so much to still do, it should be me, I should be the one to do the most dangerous and painful task, the Church needs you, I can't stand to see you hurt. It would be the greatest privilege of my life to suffer for you.

Vincent: the Church needs you, I've always known the risks I was taking on and I took them on willingly, I know how to handle this, I'm well suited to do the most dangerous and painful task and I have a duty to do it. It would pain me so so much to see you hurt and it would be my privilege to stand in the way and do what it takes so that you aren't.

Both of them: I'll gladly suffer to know that you're well and can go on, the world and Church will be better if you are still in them, I'd rather suffer than know you're suffering.

And I'd like to present: that pattern gets noticed, after a couple of assassination attempts and/or false alarms, how he moves as instinctively as they do to put himself between someone and the danger.

Next time someone tries, they shoot a guard first. It's not immediately fatal. There's enough time for Vincent to be the first one by his side, grabbing whatever is on hand to try and staunch the bleeding. Lots of blood on the nice white papal robes. On his hands.

Another guard tackles him out the way in time for the next shot to hit behind them. It chips the stone. Or maybe it doesn't, and Vincent too is shot—somewhere urgent, less so than the injured guard, but bad enough to be fatal without treatment.

The both of them are rushed to hospital.

Only Vincent wakes up from surgery, and in an already incredibly uncomfortable environment for him, he learns about the guard's death. Knowing that the man died doing his duty, trying to keep him safe, is guilt including enough.

Not even a stray shot as he got in the way, not a miss, a deliberate killing just to get to Vincent? Knowing a man died, because of Vincent, solely because someone saw him as useful collateral damage?

Instead of deciding to come to the conclave, Vincent doesn’t. It would be dangerous, to others not just him, and he doesn’t see what good he would be doing there - he’s just one person and this is a voting process needing a two thirds majority, he (as he observes in the novel) doesn’t know any of the candidates, and surely he’s not somehow better at listening to the Holy Spirit than all the other Cardinals. Many of whom have done this before. And he has work to do here, and this is where his work lies.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him somebody has found out about his appointment. (…He does say that he’s being watched. And he did receive documents.) And they have a different idea.

Cue Vincent going missing from his post (some of the members of his archdiocese are worried, but it’s not even uncommon for him to run into something that needs to be done and get involved doing it. And the Church has a most important time and situation to be handling right now. And there’s a less clear line of authority than usual. And they’re not exactly a well known or important diocese. And getting attention is not necessarily something they want to do. (And of course they also don’t know that he’s a cardinal). So anyway, they haven’t actually notified anyone in higher positions or that might generally be notified, that something might be wrong.)

And cue Vincent, bloody and beaten, dumped on the metaphorical and possibly literal doorstep of the Vatican, just when all the cardinals are arriving and the conclave is going to begin.

With a more traditional written kind of message, saying, I noticed you’d forgotten one of your cardinals. Gotta be careful to keep track of those, you know. Thought I’d help you out with that :)