"What are you going to do about Kurtwell?" Voiello asked, sitting across from Lenny in his office. "Now that you've brought him back here."

"Get to the bottom of things myself," Lenny said.

"What is there to get to the bottom of? The evidence that Gutierrez has provided is more than sufficient."

"I want to hear him say it himself," Lenny said.

"Under the seal of the confessional?"

"No. No." He paused. "He won't ask for that."

"Why not?"

"If he believes that God forgives him, he hardly needs to ask me to do it as well." He paused. "And if I were to tell him, 'Go forth and sin no more,' I would have the power to make sure he didn't."

"Do you, Holy Father?" Voiello asked.

Lenny smiled, that thin, uncomfortable smile.

"But the question remains, Holy Father," Voiello said. "Your forgiveness and God's aside: what are you going to do with him?"

"I believe Alaska is a beautiful place this time of year," Lenny said. "I'm sure they could use some fresh blood." He thought that if God had any sense of justice whatsoever, Kurtwell would be mauled by a polar bear the minute he stepped off the airplane.

"Holy Father, I beg you to consider the Church."

"What about the Church?"

The second of silence was pregnant. "In the past, some of your predecessors have been accused of covering priests' misdeeds by sending them to new places, where no one knows them, where they can continue to sin."

"And you think I intend to do that with Kurtwell?"

"You intend to send him to Alaska."

"And what will happen to him in Alaska?" Kurtwell would not live very long there, Lenny was sure of it.

"Holy Father, Kurtwell is a sick man," Voiello said after a moment. "I recommend having him committed to some kind of care facility, and make a statement to his victims."

"A prison, you mean."

"We have no legal right to imprison him, Holy Father."

"You wish we did, don't you, Voiello?"

"I wish we had the ability to handle this matter in a way that damages the Church's reputation the least."

"The damage has already been done. And it was Kurtwell who did the damaging, not I."

"Do not send him to Alaska, Holy Father. That's all I ask."

"I'll think about it."

"And when will you decide what you're going to do?"

" Later , Voiello."

The warm glow of his office, the afternoon sun slipping away, was the kind of thing that made Lenny believe the man who designed it had been thinking about forgiveness. He should have held this audience at night. It would have suited them both better.

Kurtwell sat in front of him. When his hands were fixed on his lap, they didn't shake so much, but his face did, waiting for Lenny- no, he was Pope Pius XIII here- to pronounce his judgement. Gutierrez sat by his side, held in equal thrall.

The silence stretched on.

Lenny stood. Silently, he walked across his office to the globe in the corner. "Come here, Archbishop."

Painfully, Kurtwell rose to his feet and crossed the long stretch of office. His footsteps were heavy on the floor. He stared at the globe.

His reputation for exile as a punishment for anything that displeased him was well know. Lenny thought, if he had been a Roman emperor, he would have sent so many poets to distant islands, never to return home. It was a shame that the world was so connected now. So easy to access. Exile was less of a punishment than it had ever been, even for an old man who would not live to see his home again.

"I've made my decision, Archbishop," Lenny said. "I'm going to send you somewhere." There was a heavy silence. "But I'm generous. I'll even let you choose where you want to go."

"Thank you, Holy Father," Kurtwell said, his voice breaking. "Your forgiveness is magnificent."

Lenny's fingers traced the eastern seaboard of the United States, traipsing from Maine down to Florida. "Where do you want to go, Archbishop?"

"Home," he said. "Back to New York."

"Ah," Lenny said. "That's a fine choice." He squashed Long Island on the globe like it was a bug. "I love New York. Wonderful city." With the force of his finger, he spun the globe, feeling the etched glass move underneath his hand. "But, Archbishop, there's a problem with sending you back to New York."

"What is the problem, Holy Father?"

"There are children there," Lenny said, as if he was saying what the weather was like outside. "So, I don't think that will work, do you?"

Kurtwell was silent.

"Do you think that will work, Archbishop?"

"Holy Father, I-"

"So, Archbishop, I need you to point to a city without any children in it," Lenny said. "That's where I'll be happy to send you, and all will be forgiven. Nothing else needs to be done, as long as we can solve the problem that way." His voice was so light. "Go ahead. Point me to where you want to go."

Kurtwell's shaking hand hovered over the United States. Lenny stared at him. He reached northwest. He must have known about Lenny's penchant for sending people to Alaska, and the vacancy that had just opened up there. He was choosing exile. It was the least of all things he could be punished with.

Kurtwell dropped his finger heavily onto the globe.

"Ah, Ketchikan, Alaska," Lenny said. "That's an excellent choice." He smiled, grimly. "I've been there. Pristine. Heartbreakingly beautiful." He traced Alaska with his fingers. "Full of polar bears. And Ski-doos. But you know what else they have there?"

"Snow," Kurtwell said.

"Yes, plenty of it," Lenny agreed. "But, the thing is that Alaska has children in it, too. So, I don't think that will work. Pick again."

Lenny watched as Kurtwell, now understanding what the game was, hovered his finger over the Atlantic ocean. He dropped it down somewhere in the vicinity of St. Helena, far off the coast of Africa.

"If it was good enough for Napoleon, it would be good enough for you, Archbishop?" Lenny asked. "But I think there's a fairly sizeable population there. And where there are men and women, there are children. Pick again."

With even more hesitation, Kurtwell stabbed at Antarctica.

"An excellent choice!" Lenny said. There was a little too much of that dry glee in his voice. "But does McMurdo Station really need a priest?"

"Everyone needs a priest, Holy Father."

"Ah, but probably not a disgraced archbishop."

"Are you going to strip me of that title?"

"Yes," Lenny said flatly.

"And where am I going to go, Holy Father?"

Lenny turned away from the globe, walking over to the window. He pulled back the curtains, looking at the square outside. "I think that you are already standing directly in the center of the city with the fewest children in it."

"You're going to keep me here?"

Lenny continued as if Kurtwell had not spoken. "What you're going to do is spend some time in Vatican City, writing down a list of names, times, places. You are going to write your memoirs."

"And then, Holy Father?"

"Then you can go back to New York."

"Why, Holy Father?"

Lenny was silent for a second. "I don't believe in the justice of man, Archbishop." He pulled the curtain back shut, facing away from everyone in the room, not looking at Kurtwell, not looking at Gutierrez. "I believe in the justice of God." He paced forward a few steps. "And God has seen fit not to strike you down with lightning, but to give you time. He has given me the opportunity to deal with you, and not my predecessors." He turned back to Kurtwell. "No one can blackmail me, because my conduct has been unimpeachable. That is what is why I am here: to put the Church back on the right path, to shine a light on and to clear out every rotten element that has been taking harbor inside her and eating her from the inside out. I see everything that has been hidden in the gaps, in the holes the worms leave behind, Archbishop. And I am bringing it all out into the light."

Kurtwell didn't say anything for a second. When he did, his voice shook. "You're going to send me back to New York to face trial?"

Lenny smiled. "I would have liked to send you to Alaska, where God's justice could take care of you," he said. "But there are, sadly, worldly concerns that I must attend to."

He brought Gutierrez up to the roof that night, looking down over the square. The stars were barely visible in the sky, with the thin cloud cover and light pollution, but he thought he could see Mars, just overhead.

They were silent for a long time, just watching the tourists play with their little lit frisbees and other toys, the whirring noises echoing off the sides of the buildings.

"Thank you for how you dealt with Kurtwell," Gutierrez said eventually.

"It's I who should be thanking you," Lenny said. "You found all the evidence that I needed."

"It's what a person does with information that makes it valuable," Gutierrez said. "Not the information itself." He looked away. "Your predecessor could have sent someone to uncover the truth, too. Everyone knew what was happening."

"But you trusted me to act. More than Voiello did- does. I'm sure he still thinks I'm going to irreparably damage the Church's honor somehow." He chuckled. "If I haven't done so already."

"I trust you, Holy Father."

"Good. Good."

They were silent again. "This is a city without children in it. The only one," Gutierrez said.

Lenny leaned heavily on the railing at the roof's edge. "In some ways."

"Do you mean the children of the Swiss Guards, or the tourists? He can be kept away from them, at least."

"No," Lenny said. He paused. "Do you like science fiction, Gutierrez?"

"I've never had much of a chance to read it."

"Years ago, I read this science fiction story- it took place on a planet where nobody thought of themself as being a man or a woman. They all thought the most important thing about a person was if they were a parent, or only a child. A mother." Lenny stared out over the square. "You could stay a child your whole life, but once you became a mother, that was it, you couldn't ever go back. So Vatican City is full of children. People who will never grow up."

Gutierrez hesitated. "You are a priest forever."

"And a motherless, fatherless boy until the day I die," Lenny said.

"But you're the Holy Father to the whole church."

"Sister Mary said the same thing to me, or something like it." He looked at his friend. "Do you think I'm a boy or man, Gutierrez?"

"I don't know, Holy Father."

Author's Note

the way kurtwell is dealt with in episode 10 simply does not sit right with me so. I had to fix it. i am not going to write any further pope fic .

the title is from an arcade fire song

technically, this is a self insert fic in some sense :p lenny would actually hate my science fiction, probably

you can find me javert on tumblr natsinator on twitter and my other fiction can be read at gayspaceopera. carrd. co