—love enters
your life, and the I, the ego,
a corrupt, self-absorbed king,
dies during the night.
Let him go.

-Rumi

Rapunzel stopped dancing down the street when they passed the chapel, drawn to the intricate, colorful windows that cast patches of rose, green, and azure light onto the grimy sidewalk. "What's this?" she asked, pausing at the hulking wooden doors.

"A chapel to the sun," Flynn yawned, paying it no mind. "A church."

"To the sun?" she asked, cocking her head. "What's inside? Can we go inside?"

Flynn was not in the habit of saying 'no' to her since their first date. When he'd finally let down his guard, the floodgates had opened, and he was left defenseless. She wanted to eat at a place called "Burrito Wonton Castle" three times in one day, so they did, God help his stomach lining, they did. She wanted to buy all of the one crown guppies at the pet store and release them into the bay, and so they had. She wanted to get matching henna tattoos and now he had a very bedazzled hand, which drew more than a few odd comments as he slid people their beers.

It was cathartic. It was the first time in his life that he just stopped fighting, just completely let himself get swept along by the river of her, and he did not think there was any stopping it. He didn't want it to stop.

"Sure," he said, though his relationship with organized religion had never been a positive one. He hadn't set foot in a chapel since the forced visits at the orphanage.

Beyond the heavy double doors was a long aisle with a plush purple carpet flanked by worn wooden pews with gold accents. The entire roof was stained glass, though now it was night so the place was lit only by candles and an emergency exit sign.

Rapunzel oooh'd, sliding her hand along the velvet cover of one of the votive tables, all the flickering tiny flames reflecting in her wide green eyes. She reached the coin box at the end and tapped it, hearing the change chink around inside. "What's this for?" she asked, and though her voice was at normal volume it felt loud in the hushed silence of the sanctuary, echoing around the walls.

"Donations," he murmured. "They want you to leave some money so you can light a candle."

"Lighting candles is fun," she said, as if that made perfect sense. She dug around in her pockets, pulling out some coins. "How much does it cost? Wanna light one? My treat."

He cleared his throat a little. "It's… whatever you think it's worth. And I guess they don't think it's just for fun, it's for prayer. If you want to ask for something. Like a wish."

"Ask who?" she asked curiously.

Oi, he definitely wasn't the one to be answering her theological questions. "I don't know," he said, trying not to sound annoyed. It was a reasonable query, after all. "The sun?"

She squinted at him. "The sun can hear us?" She asked skeptically. "Does it have ears? I don't think it could hear us all the way down here even if it did. I mean sometimes I can't hear you over the thugs in the bar and I'm really close to you…"

"You got me, Sugar. It's not really a logic thing, the church. It's… I don't know, when I was growing up they said you don't even have to say your prayers out loud, you can just think them, and the universe will hear them. Like magic."

He'd thought a lot of prayers, all those years ago. He never admitted it, but they were forced to kneel in chapel for hours, and there was nothing else to do but think about what he'd hoped for. The nuns said every prayer was always heard, however small and however silent, but he realized at a very young age that it couldn't have been true. He was either unheard or ignored. Unheard was easier to accept. It was easier for him as a child to think it was all bullshit than that someone or something was hearing him and not caring.

"This place is magic?" she said, her voice finally dropping to a whisper.

No. His answer was no. But there was something preventing him from declaring that to be true in that moment, something about how soft and the skin on her cheeks looked next to the candles that made him feel just the tiniest, most minuscule error in that statement, and he couldn't say it. "I doubt it," was all he managed.

Her coins thunked into the box and she took a long spindly candle from the hanging jar and held it up to an unlit votive, hesitating. "So, I think about something I want?"

"So they say," he said, shifting his weight, a little uncomfortable.

Her brows furrowed in concentration while the flame caught, then she brightened, handing the candle to him. "Your turn!"

He held up a hand, shaking his head a little. "I'm good."

"I already paid for you, too, make a wish."

"I don't really believe in this stuff, Rapunzel."

"So what?" she asked, gesturing to the gold inscription in mosaic before them: We cannot compare to you, our star, but we give what light we can to your world.

"A little more light!" she goaded him. "Give it!"

He made a face, but wasn't about to break his Zen river flow with her over something as silly as a candle, so he lit it, and in his head he hoped that whatever she had hoped for would come true. It was a true desire, at least.

She leaned up to whisper in his ear, her fingers twining delicately, naturally with his. "I wished for cake," she said conspiratorially.

He coughed a laugh, some of the weight slipping from his heart at her silliness. She glanced around the rest of the chapel, her gaze settling on the screened off confessional.

"What's that?" she asked curiously, starting towards it with Flynn in tow.

"That's just the confessional," he said reluctantly, having absolutely no positive memories of that space. "Where you can talk to a priest."

"About what?" she asked.

"Whatever you want," said Flynn. "I don't know… stuff you feel bad about. Stuff you're wondering. Stuff you want. Questions you have."

She blinked up at him, stunned. "And how much does that cost?"

Oh, he didn't like this, not one bit. "It doesn't cost anything, but Rapunzel, it's really not that fun-"

"How come I never heard of this before? I can just go in there and ask anything? And talk about anything? Any time I want?"

"Well yeah, but you can do that in therapy, too, and therapists are trained-"

"I cannot," she persisted. "I only see Dr. Jones once a week, and she only answers me if I call her one other time than that, because 'boundaries,'" Rapunzel said, accenting the final word with little ticks of her fingers. "But I have so many more questions, Flynn."

Flynn really wasn't sure that dogma was the answer to her questions, in fact, he was strongly of the opinion that it wasn't, but she had her heart set on speaking to the priest, and at least he could be there and make sure she wasn't brainwashed.

With a flurry of energy, she excitedly pulled Flynn into the little cubicle after her. It was really meant for one person, so she sat him down on the bench and then sat down in his lap. The way she wiggled around to get comfy made distinctly un-church-like thoughts flash through his mind, which were quickly squashed by the priest.

"Good evening my child - er, children…" came the mellow voice.

Rapunzel tilted her head, trying to see the priest better through the wooden netting. "Can you open this window or something? I can't see you," she said, adorably direct.

"You're not supposed to see him," Flynn said with a chuckle, stroking her elbow with his thumb. "Or he's not supposed to see you. So you have some privacy."

"Indeed," said the priest. "This way you may speak freely, with no fear of being identified."

"I mean, I have pretty particular problems," she said. "You could probably identify me anyway."

"I would not try," said the priest. "Rest at ease, and tell me what burdens you."

"I-"

She seemed so eager, but she stopped short, choking on the words before they could tumble out. Flynn could feel her pulse speed up as she squeezed his hand, feel the tension in her small knuckles. "So, if I ask you something, something really hard you… you'll answer me? You have the answers?"

"I may not have the answers," said the priest gently. "But I can listen, and perhaps offer gentle direction…"

"I don't want gentle direction," she said firmly, her spine straightening. "Everyone around me is always trying to gently direct me. I don't want that. I want explanations."

"What manner of explanation do you seek?"

"I-"

But she stopped again, frozen in Flynn's lap. It felt for a moment as if she'd stopped breathing, and Flynn ran his hand up her arm slowly in an attempt to soothe. He could try to guess what she'd ask, but knowing Rapunzel, it could be anything from 'what happens after we die?' to 'why can't humans communicate more effectively with dogs?' and either one of those questions could have been equally stressful to her.

"Can…" she swallowed, slouching slowly back down against Flynn's chest, and he stayed steady, solid for her. "Can you.."

She glanced back at Flynn, silently asking him for help, and he tilted his head, silently asking her for a hint about what she needed.

Well, he'd buy her some time, at least "I have a question," he said. "Where can a guy get a really great slice a cake in this part of town?"

Rapunzel was more sullen over the giant slab of red velvet in front of her than felt natural. He'd yet to encounter a Rapunzel dilemma that was unsolvable by sweets. But, she poked at it gingerly with her dessert fork, licking dabs of frosting off the tines with her mind clearly elsewhere.

It was quiet in the diner, in those low hours after the dinner crowd but before late-night drunkenly stumbled in. The wide booth made her look tiny, and he tapped her toe with his under the table.

"I'm not a priest," said Flynn. "But you can talk to me, you know."

She looked up, her eyes softening and some of the tension slowly easing from her shoulders. "I know," she said. "It was really weird, what happened back there. I just had this moment where I realized that there are some things I might not want to know."

Ever full of surprises, this one.

She sucked in a breath, leaning her cheek on one palm and looking at him sullenly. "Has that ever happened to you?"

He was about to respond in the negative, and go on about how he'd never cared enough about anything to avoid it, but that was such a load of shit he couldn't even bear to say it. Now that he was a little more conscious about his consistent falsehoods, the full extent of them downright amazed him at times. It actually took a little effort to decide on the truth before speaking.

"Well… you're talking to a guy who hasn't used his real name for a decade… and even whose 'real' name is maybe not his real name…" he said carefully, really only thinking about any of this for the first time, as he was speaking. "And most of whose life decisions were based on avoiding something rather than moving towards something, so… although I can't remember a time like that specifically, I guess I probably have slithered around hard truths pretty much 100% of the time since forever."

She smirked, shaking her head and spearing herself a piece of cake. "So what do we do? Just keep on avoiding? I think there are things I need to know. Don't you? Isn't there anything about yourself you need to know? Even hard things?"

"I think you should cut yourself some slack," he said around a mouthful of his own cake. "You've been out in the free world for what… six months? Eight?"

"Almost a year," she said. "But I don't see how time will change things."

"We never see how time will change things," he said. "Time is a tricky little shit like that. But it does."

She hummed in thought, stuffing a huge hunk of cake into her mouth and chewing slowly. "Like with us," she said. "We weren't speaking a few weeks ago."

He nodded, though it made him feel ashamed.

"But time is different out here. When I was… before, time was so slow. I noticed the leaves changing every day, I really saw every little difference. But last fall, when I was outside, they were so green and lush and brushing against my window, and then I blinked and they were on the ground."

"So you'll catch up," he said. "You're in the fast lane, now."

"It's a little scary," she admitted, scraping up the last of the frosting. "Aren't you ever scared?"

He'd never been scared. When your expectations were as low as Flynn's, there wasn't anything to be afraid of. The stakes had to be high for fear to be involved. She came around the table to slide in beside him, curling into his rigid side and stealing the last bite of cake off his fork, and he thought that since he'd finally found something real to want, there might finally be something to fear, as well.