This is just a moment of madness, let's say so... Let's hope the souls of Catherine and More are not watching me now LoL Hope you like it (or at least don't dislike!)
A Thousand Times And One
Catherine had fallen asleep in her endless sleep believing, as the true Catholic she was, that she would have lived the true life and known the true world only closing her eyes; she was convinced that waking up, in whatever place she would have been, she would have met again all the people she loved and that she wouldn't have felt alone anymore like she had been for the last half of her life; she had been confident until the last breath that she would have found on the other side a hand held to her, a guide and a voice.
And she heard the voice for real, but it wasn't the voice she had expected. It wasn't the safe voice of her mother Isabelle, nor that commanding but protective of his father Ferdinand and neither her dear sisters Maria and Isabella's voices or her brother John's, dead a bit more than a boy… Not even the voice of the other boy who she was still complaining the premature loss: the voice she was hearing wasn't Arthur's, who she remembered in her heart not with the love for a husband, but with the respect for one of her only true friends in England.
No, the voice that welcomed Catherine of Aragon as she entered the netherworld, wasn't the one she was expecting, but probably it was the one she was hoping for.
"My Queen" said the voice and before she even turned to see the face of the soul that have spoken, Catherine knew who her guide would have been.
There could be only a person that would have still called her that way.
"Queen of what?" asked her stupidly, founding herself with the same voice she had left in life, only sweeter and purer.
"Queen of what you've always been, of Hearts!" answered the voice while the figure approached her and Thomas More's face became clearer "the only thing that here really matters!" he precised underlining the word really, maybe not just to make a difference to the hypocrisy of the material world, but also to strengthen the idea of concreteness of that eternal life, that was evanescent only at the appearance.
"Here" she repeated giving a look around; she couldn't see anything but light, a strong light that strangely didn't hurt her eyes "Here… Where?" asked then looking again at Thomas, trying to lend a hand to him but, for some absurd irony, she just couldn't touch him.
"In Heaven" the former Lord Chancellor said giving her a smile, that was immediately able to reassure her. "Did you think you would end up in a different place?" added then widening even more the wonderful smile.
Catherine had always thought Thomas More had died as a saint, but now she changed her mind: she was convinced that he had become an angel.
"I am not as pure as you, Thomas" she revealed looking down.
"I have my sins too, Catherine" he cut her off while the shadow of a human weakness seemed to cross his face for a moment.
"You a sin?" she asked surprised, still not able to look away from the peace that his figure seemed to emit. Maybe he was the one to release all that light.
She couldn't look away from him, and he from her. Catherine thought then that maybe she was an angel too; he in reality always thought she was an angel and he couldn't take the eyes off of her Queen not even in life.
"I desired you" her angel revealed bending his head slightly.
"I… Sometimes I've found myself thinking about what would have been making love with you" Catherine admitted too while the words skipped her mouth without even take form as thoughts before. But there, in Heaven, there wasn't time for thinking, there was only space to the absolute truth.
Thomas smiled tenderly and this time he was the one to lend a hand to her. Neither this time she felt his touch, but it seemed there was more light.
"But our souls made love a thousand times"
Catherine felt tears rolling down her cheeks and her head filling with thoughts, not made of words but of emotions, and she looked up to him.
A thousand times and one, with that simple look.