Chapter Text
It had been a strange thing traveling back from the Holy Land so full of determination only to have it fizzle out little by little with each passing day. His first instincts had been purely selfish, he can admit that now, filled with the exuberance and foolishness of youth he had taken upon himself to chase a dream that had dwindled decades earlier; the nostalgia of a love lost, a missed chance, a women who had already chosen another. It had been an even stranger thing to remember his own tale in full, all the missing parts that had escaped his prior decaying mind; the fact that all those years previous he had whole-heartedly agreed with her decision.
It's easy, he realizes now, to romanticise events of the past; to glorify something that only exists in a moment of a memory far beyond the failing reality of it. How many things, he wonders, had been embellished over the years with rosy retrospection while he'd wallowed in his decline in this place? His relationship with the dear and delightful Millie Gunning, rest her soul, had been one of them, Crockett Island certainly another.
He had been so eager to be here in his youth, he remembers it as if it were yesterday. Odd how the mind recalls things when not muddled with age. He'd been so fresh with wonder and intention, his first parish! The excitement of it. He was going to do good things, make real change to the lives of people here, His people.
The memory is there but the feeling of it is lost to him.
Crockett Island. He had remembered it so fondly that it had taken him almost the entire trip back to recall the reality of it; A stagnating Island waiting to die. As he stands on his porch picking at the peeling white paintwork and looking out into the bleak rain he ponders that maybe this is his fate now too? Stagnation? To weather out the dullness, the dreary, like all these old buildings, weather beaten and worn by the bitter sea winds which chill him deep to his bones serving only as a reminder that he is alive. Hasn't one life alone on this island been enough?
He watches the people passing by, none of them paying him any mind in their attempts to get back to the warmth of their homes, to their families. Annie Flynn struggling to keep the hood of her rain coat up with one hand her other full of groceries, a couple of the local kids on their bikes out looking for adventure despite the weather and then out of nowhere her, rushing to help Annie with her bags and it stills him somewhat, isn't that just like her and his lips twitch with fondness.
.
"Your going the wrong way Monsignor Pruitt" she'd called dryly but with an affectionate smile.
Isn't he always going the wrong way these days? It isn't the first time he's gotten himself turned around and he doubts it will be the last "I am?"
"Yep"
"And which way am I supposed to be going?"
"Toward the church I'd imagine, given the service starts soon"
"Ah." That sounds about right. "maybe I'd had an idea to skip this one?"
"Pretty shit idea seen as you're the Monsignor and all" and it raises a laugh from him. He enjoys the brashness of her, the little curses that slip out where others would hold their tongue, especially in front of him. He appreciates the honesty, makes him feel human rather than the shell of a church leader past his usefulness that everybody else placates, coddles, pacifies like a toddler as if as long as he's quiet they can pretend nothing's wrong.
"Will we see you inside?" He asks hopefully.
"I might be tempted to lurk at the back if you pick a hymn I know the words to"
"And what if *I* don't know the words?" and this actually makes her laugh out loud.
"Just move your lips and pretend, no one ever notices" she winks and with a smile leaves him at the vestry door.
She lurks at the back, stays seated for the sacrament and doesn't know the words. He gives a somewhat inspired sermon, says all the right things in all the right places and only stops singing part way through one of the hymns, moving his lips and shooting her a smile and she's absolutely sure he does it on purpose.
It's almost a full week till she sees him again and she'll be forever thankful that the gate to the Masons old place had been banging enough against it's rusted metal frame to annoy her into action and brave her way out into the night to shut the damn thing up so she might get some peace.
At first she wasn't sure what she was seeing through the downpour and against the wind but once she does its strikingly obvious; The Monsignor, staring out into the sea, hat and coat soaked along with what looks to be his green plaid pajamas and when he turns to her she notes that the rain does little to disguise the tears staining his cheeks.
He doesn't understand why she's here, and why is she wet? oh. She's out here with him. In the rain. With that look on her face again, somewhere between exasperation and affection, the one that tells him this must be wrong.
"Shit idea?" He asks aiming for playful.
"Yeah Monsignor, yeah." she breathes through a sad smile as she loops her arm through his.
"I didn't know, I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it" she gives his arm a gentle squeeze "how about I'll let you know when you have anymore shit ideas yeah? "
"Yeah."
She guides him back to the rectory arm still in his and once inside sends him off to get changed while she turns on the heater and boils water for the tea.
He doesn't like the storms, he'd told her once before; from what she could gather from his ramblings it had something to do with his childhood and from experience she knows this hadn't been the first time the rain beating against the windows had driven him to tears.
When he returns freshly dressed, warm dry pajamas and wooly bathrobe wrapped tightly around himself, he takes the offered tea and shuffles toward the corner "Music?"
"Always" she replies as if it were obvious and he picks through his records before choosing one with a worn sepia tone cover, a little torn at the seams and dog eared with age. He slips the LP out of the sleeve carefully and with grace blowing gently across its face before placing it down on the turntable and dropping the needle in place with a trembling hand.
"So let me set the scene, it's 1963 and this... friend of mine, he knows he's about to be sent off to do something important..."
"A 'friend', OK" she smiles and he shush her with a grin.
"I've told you this before...?"
"It doesn't matter! Tell me it again" she sits on the floor in front of the heater and tucks her knees up under her jumper "Please, I love to hear you tell it"
So he does. He tells her about his "friend", about Washington, about Dr. King and the crowd, about the march and the speeches and the freedom, and he'll tell her about how he smoked his first pot and kissed a girl with red hair, she'll playfully swoon over his "friend" and argue about songs stolen from Irish poets and he'll laugh every time.
And when it's time to call it a night, and the howling wind becomes deafening, somewhere between the bathroom and the bed he'll forget where he is and she'll cradle him like a scared child and hold his hand 'til he falls asleep.
.
He hasn't seen her since he left and it's a little staggering to see her through younger eyes.