AN: This hasn't been seen by a beta, so please ignore any errors. Unless you'd like to correct them all, in which case you may consider yourself hired.

When Shadows Fall

"I'm not Catholic," is the first thing the woman on the other side of the screen tells him before Joseph has even had time to welcome her. "I know you can't offer me absolution, but I don't expect to be forgiven. I just have to talk to someone. Can I talk to you?"

Her voice is even, measured, but Joseph catches the impression, though the shadows and the screen, that she is not nearly as calm as she attempts to appear. She isn't one of his congregation, that much is certain, or anyone else from the small town. She has an accent that he can't place, for starters, but it's more than that. There's something unknown about her, unknowable.

"Penance is a sacrament," he begins to explain. It pains him to turn people away, especially if they are desperate. Joseph understands desperation.

"Oh, I know," she replies. "I was confirmed once, although not into your church." The breezy quality slips from her voice and a tiny slither of uncertainty creeps in. "I certainly don't mean any disrespect, it's just that I think I might not exist by this time tomorrow."

Joseph has always dreaded these conversations. There's training for them, but that isn't quite enough to prepare you all the same. He wants to help her, of course he does, but that's never been any guarantee of success in the past.

"If you are afraid for your life, you should contact the police." He hesitates, teetering between the detached aid of his ministry and becoming involved in whatever is haunting her. "There's a phone in the vestry, if you like?"

There's a rustle of cloth as the women pulls herself upright. When she speaks, her voice has regained its former briskness.

"It's not quite like that."

"The number for the Samaritans is by the phone," he adds.

"I don't want to kill myself," she sighs. "Although if it comes to it, I will try." She sounds decided, almost abrupt, and it frightens him. "Rather that than the alternative."

Her words don't make much sense to Joseph, but he can hear the need to confess in her voice, that urge to unburden oneself. He certain he won't be able to help, that she needs something far beyond the penance and forgiveness that he can offer, but he finds himself wanting to try.

"Suicide is a mortal sin." He's gentle. Joseph doesn't judge, isn't in a position to. "Nothing can be that bad, surely?"

There is a long silence, broken only the fitful hum of the ancient heating system and the wind in the trees outside.

Just when Joseph suspects that the uneasy quiet will stretch on forever, the woman takes a shuddering breath.

"Does the church still offer sanctuary?" she asks. Her forced calm has gone and although she's not breathing like a woman close to hysterics, her voice is thick with tears and what sounds to Joseph like despair.

"Not for the last four hundred. We did have a frith stool here until the 60's though," he adds, helpfully. "It's in the museum now."

She laughs at that, although it's closer to a sob.

"Please don't cry," he begs quietly. "There must be someone who can help."

The light shifts as the women leans her forehead against the grill. "No, there's not." Joseph can just make out pale skin and tumbling dark hair. "'The Lord helps those who help themselves,'" she quotes.

"Strictly speaking, that isn't scripture," Joseph finds himself correcting her, absurdly. Years in the seminary can turn the most generous soul into something of a pedant. "The idea's first found in Ancient Greek. Aesop wrote about it."

She shuffles again, and the following silence is broken by the sound of a nose being blown with determination.

"What's your name?" she asks.

It's not a difficult question, although the answer seems hard. "In here, I am simply your confessor," he stalls.

"I've told you I might die, Father," she chides gently. "Yours might be the last voice I hear; can't I at least have your name?"

He swallows, nervous again. "It's Joseph," he answers at last. "Father Joseph Macavoy."

"Joseph," she repeats, and his name sounded heavy in her mouth. "I like you, Joseph. Can you pray for me? Even though I'm a sinner?"

"We are all sinners." This sounds sincere, even to Joseph. He is an authority on sin, after all.

"Not like me," comes the reply. "At least you are only hurting yourself. I've brought death to this town of yours."

Joseph freezes, uncertain of what he just heard.

"It follows me," she continues. "Sometimes I think I'm free of it, but it's always there. It's patient. Why would death stalk me if I can be saved?"

He swallows, searching for words, any words. "Death is part of life."

"Maybe death is the wrong word. Evil. Corruption." There's another pause. "You hear that?"

The wind has changed, throwing the evening's rain hard against the east window.

"The unnatural dark, the wind, the rain? I brought that with me, too, so close on my heels that I could have tripped it. It's how they hunt in the daytime; hide the sun away and grow the shadows tall."

Joseph wonders if it's drugs, or if she might even be dangerous. All types will wander into the church when the weather's bad. He's ashamed to think it, but he's seen what life can do to people. What it's done to him.

"I only came in here to rest," she admits, as if she has read his thoughts. "I couldn't run any further and I remembered the old tales, Elizabeth Woodville racing into Westminster with all her luggage to claim sanctuary." She sighs, and it's a soft sound. "It's funny what you remember."

"They knocked holes in the walls to bring all her furniture in," Joseph recalls, the pedant in him happy to display his knowledge even to a woman apparently as disturbed as this one. Shaking himself, he recalls his duty. "If you don't want to use the phone, perhaps I could call you a ta—"

A crash outside shocks him into silence.

"They're here," the woman sighs. "I had hoped for a little longer." Her shadow shifts through the grate as she pulls her coat about her shoulders, readying herself to leave. Although she frightens him, Joseph finds he fears her leaving even more. "Don't worry, they won't come inside."

"Surely it's just the storm?" Joseph pleads, although when the rain and wind became so strong he does not know. A glance at his watch tells him that he's been sat with this woman far longer that he realised, but it's still too early for the failing light.

"It is," she agrees, which only unsettles him further when he recalls his question.

The shadows shift again, but this time the woman seems quite still. Out of the corner of his eye, Joseph sees one of them stretch and begin to shift slightly, as if searching for something. He tells himself that he's imagining things and turns his head to stare directly into the gloom.

It pauses as if scenting the air, and his stomach fills with dread.

"They're just shadows," the woman whispers. "They won't be able to hurt you, although they will eat you up with fear or guilt if you let them."

"What are you?" he whispers, trembling at the sight, shadow's now oozing in the narrow space of the confessional box, hemming him in.

"A thief," she replies, and he can hear the sound of the cap being unscrewed from a bottle. "I came in here for holy water, but I'm afraid I may have taken the whiskey from you jacket as well." There is the sloshing sound of the bottle being raised followed by a cough.

"It's cheap," Joseph finds himself apologising, patting his jacket and finding it empty. He hadn't even noticed the missing weight, but that doesn't seem important right now. "What do you need the holy water for?"

"You neither need nor want the answer to that question," she answers. Another crash from outside, followed by an inhuman howl seems to underline her argument. A shadow brushes against Joseph's arm, sensationless and numbing at the same time, and he fears he may vomit.

"Head for the altar," the woman advises. "Pray to your god; you'll be safe. Just please, don't leave the church tonight."

She stands and Joseph almost trips himself up in his haste to leave the confessional and those awful shadows. He stumbles, his unpolished shoes catching on the low step, and slim arms catch him. The woman is every bit as beautiful as he feared she might be, small and sad, but steely with it. It's hard to tell in the darkness, but he thinks her eyes are blue.

"Good bye, Joseph," she tells him. She's so small that she has to reach up to kiss his mouth. She tastes like whiskey and rainwater, and smells faintly of death. "Wait till the sun is up, no matter what you hear."

With that she is gone, striding the length of the small church and pulling open the north door. Rain sweeps in, darkening the floor. She pauses, dipping her fingers into the stoup and bringing the water to her forehead in a hasty cross before raising her hood, then the door is closed and she is gone.

Looking round, Joseph realises that all the shadows have begun to move, although they seem more sluggish now that the woman has left. He scurries towards the altar, heeding her advice, sinking before the table to press his face into the cloth.

Prayer seems necessary, but the words won't come. Please, he pleads again and again. Please.

Despite the woman's warning, the sounds and the rain begin to die away, and Joseph realises she's leading them away, and relief and sadness threaten to overwhelm him. Pulling himself to his feet, he peers down the nave. The shadows are still.

Now no longer paralysed by fear, he glances round. The sanctuary has been disturbed and the almery is open. It only takes one glance to see that the Oil of the Sick is missing. He'll find the ampulla later, caught under the altar cloth, but suddenly Joseph recalls the scent of olives that lingered about the woman and understands that she had anointed herself in readiness for death.

Unconsciously, he reaches for the bottle inside his jacket. It isn't until the whisky burns at his throat that he realises that his thief had returned it to him.

His thief. She stole sacred oils, holy water, his whisky, and he recalls as his fear begins to ebb from his tight muscles and uneasy, aching bladder, she even stole a kiss. She's robbed him of the notion that there is nothing out there in the darkness, nothing waiting in the corners of the night, and he doesn't even know her name.

He's shaken roughly awake by a man with cropped black hair and a battered leather jacket.

"Did anything get inside the church?" the stranger demands. "Did anything touch you?"

"What?" Joseph blinks up at his assailant, his body aching from a night on the stone floor, his tongue feeling heavy and unwieldy in his mouth. "Who are you?"

"Did anything get inside the church?" the man repeats, talking slowly as one might to a child. Joseph remembers the empty bottle on the floor next to him and nausea floods his mouth.

"Only the shadows," Joseph gasps, between desperate swallows.

The man releases him abruptly, glancing round the sacristy, wiping his hands on the black cloth of his trousers. "What happened to the oils?"

It's only then that Joseph notices the collar and realises that the man is also a priest.

"A thief. She led them away. Walk out into the storm." Joseph struggled to his feet, shaking his head to shift the heavy, treacly sensation from behind his eyes. "Did you find her? She was small, dark hair."

"Shit." The man kicks out at the empty bottle and it spins away, disappearing under the altar cloth. "What did she tell you?"

"You believe me, don't you?" Joseph realises. This strange priest seems angry, perhaps a little scared, but not shocked. It occurs to Joseph that this man already knew about the unnatural storm, already knew about the shadows. "What happened last night? What were those things? What does the church have to do with those things?"

The man scrubs his hand across his face. "Honestly, you don't really want to know," he replies.

Joseph shakes his head, no. The woman had told him the same thing, and he'd allowed her to march out into goodness knew what while he hid his face in fear. "I need to help."

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them, but Joseph can feel the rightness of them. He's always been afraid; of judgement, of failure, of never being good enough, either as a priest or as a man. Fear cripples him. Last night he was terrified beyond reason, yet one woman dared to walk out into the storm alone.

He needs to find her, help her. Remembering the way she squared her shoulders before heading out into the night, Joseph realises he want to be her.

The stranger throws himself down into one the choir pews and pulls a hip flask from his pocket. Judging by the light, it can't be later than eight o'clock in the morning, yet he takes a deep pull of the flask before offering it to Joseph.

Joseph shakes his head again. He longs for the comfort of oblivion, needs it to still the tell-tale tremble that's already gripped his hands, but he needs a clear head more.

"Believe me, you don't want to know," the man reiterates. He's tired, exhausted even. "Once you know, you can never go back to not knowing. Once you know, you'll be a part of it. Now tell me, what happened to the oils?"

"The woman," Joseph answers, although he "She anointed herself, then ran out into the rain."

The other man is – or was – a priest, and needs no further explanation.

"We didn't find a body." He states it bluntly, but the relief Joseph feels is almost overwhelming. It must show on his face, for the stranger shakes his head. "That's not necessarily a good thing."

To be continued...