(Untitled)

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Who: Father Mulcahy and Clarice
Where: The church
When: After school sometime
What: Father Mulcahy and Clarice have a chat
Rating: PG
Status: Closed and incomplete

Comments

[never_blink]

This was the first afternoon Clarice had had off in several weeks. The girl who'd been offering extra gymnastics practices was out sick, and there was no official team practice today, so there was nothing to do but head home and start her homework. Lulu and Moira would be stunned to see her home so early, if they were even there

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy didn't get a lot of visitors in the church, but he was pleased when he did. He heard someone's soft voice call out a gentle hello, and he stood. "Hello? Were you looking for me?"

He moved forward, and suddenly he saw the...well, purple...girl standing in the center aisle. His eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise for a moment, but after that moment he got hold of himself. After all, if God could make different colors of people, it stood to reason that some of them should be...purple...even though he'd never seen one before. He smiled warmly at her.

"Hello, my child," he said. "I'm Father Mulcahy."

[never_blink]

Clarice had reasoned that the church couldn't be totally empty, so she wasn't too surprised when the man rose from the front pew, though she hadn't seen him sitting there. She saw the brief look of surprise cross his face, but she would have been far more surprised if it hadn't been there. The startled looks were nothing new, and they were certainly a lot better than what she'd dealt with at home. When he smiled, she timidly returned it.

"H-hello, Father Mulcahy. I just, I was walking by and..." Half-turning, she pointed toward the door. "I hope it's okay? I'm Clarice - Clarice Ferguson?"

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy smiled at the evidently very nervous girl. "Of course! You're welcome here--the church is open to all, always. Even if I'm not here, the doors are open. Or if I'm not here and you need me, I have an...office, I suppose...downtown."

He smiled at her. "Now. Did you want someone to talk to, or did you just want to be left to yourself? I was working on my sermon and can go back to it if you don't want to be bothered."

Father Mulcahy tried to be as accommodating as he could be. He supposed it came from being an Army chaplain; he had learned very quickly that people all worshipped in their own ways, and that the best way to help them was often to leave them alone. Not always, but sometimes. Clarice seemed like a goodhearted soul, and he was pleased that she had stopped by.

[never_blink]

That put Clarice in a bind. The diamond between her eyebrows furrowed. "I - if you want to work on your sermon... I don't want to interrupt you. I was just - curious." Was that the wrong thing to say? Was it disrespectful to enter a church, not out of piety, but out of curiosity?

But she liked this building. Maybe it was just because it wasn't filled with hateful, scared people, but it felt... comfortable. Warm, even. She hugged her books a little closer to her chest, opalescent eyes roaming over the warm woods and stained glass.

"I haven't been to church in... a long time," she admitted softly. "I didn't know there was one here."

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy shook his hand, gesturing slightly. "No, no, you're not interrupting, not at all! I wasn't so much writing as...pondering, anyway. Usually I think about the sermon all week and only write it the night before." This was true. Father Mulcahy found that it led to the most fresh and useful ideas.

"I think curiosity is a good thing," Father Mulcahy said with a smile. He watched the way she looked around, wondering if this was her first church or if she'd been in one before. He never liked to assume things about the people who lived here--and given the fact that they were from so many different places, times, and even worlds, he couldn't make any correct assumptions anyway.

Father Mulcahy smiled. "Well, you're always welcome here. It took me a while to find this place myself, and I was assigned here." He looked around. "But this is a very nice town, and the people I've met have all been very kind. May I ask what denomination you are? I'm Catholic myself, but I promise, I'm not out to convert anyone."

[never_blink]

"Oh, everyone here is very kind," Clarice agreed earnestly, something in her face lighting up. She would say so to anyone who would listen. Even though she'd been here for well over a year and a half, she would never take these people's acceptance - and friendship! - for granted.

"I'm Catholic, too... though I suppose I'm not a very good one." She let her fingertips trail over the end of a pew as she passed, still looking around. "We - my family - we used to go to church all the time, but it - it wasn't - a very nice one. Not like this. I feel like this is a church where... God might be."

Seeming to remember that she wasn't alone, she blushed and pulled her hand back. "I'm sorry. That sounded silly..."

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy smiled broadly. "I'm very glad to hear you've had the same experiences I've had with the people here."

He brightened when she said she was Catholic. "Really! I have to tell you, I haven't met very many other Catholics here. Then again, I haven't met very many traditionally religious people here. Not that I'm complaining. Everyone finds a different path."

Father Mulcahy's smile widened even further at Clarice's words. "That's wonderful, Clarice! I'm so glad to hear you say so! I try always to provide an open and welcoming space of worship or contemplation." He regarded the church with a warm look. "Though I must admit, whoever built this place provided me with a great deal of help."

[never_blink]

"Yes. I guess you could say it's one of the few things about me that's normal." Clarice ventured a little smile, raising her eyes to his face briefly before they dropped again. "My parents... really wanted that part to be normal. It was - it's - important to them." The tense thing was really a problem. She hadn't seen her parents in almost two years - sixteen, for them. (Which was just scary.) But they weren't dead.

She hoped.

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy's expression softened. "People can be very cruel when they don't understand something. But that doesn't change how God feels about you, and how special He thinks you are." From what he could tell, Clarice was a sweet, shy teenager, and Father Mulcahy would have given a severe talking-to to anyone who had treated her badly.

Father Mulcahy caught the change in verb tense but didn't know how to interpret it. "I take it, then, that your parents didn't come with you to this place? Were you close to them?" Father Mulcahy hadn't been to his...which was maybe one reason why he liked to try to build families wherever he went.

[never_blink]

Father Mulcahy might have found himself hard-pressed to give a severe talking-to to over fifty percent of the world's population, but the sentiment was kind. Clarice smiled, still looking down. "They can," she agreed. "But they aren't. Not here." If Father Mulcahy could only have seen what she'd been like when she'd arrived here, he would realize how much living in this place had changed her. How much she'd blossomed, and how much braver and happier she'd become. It probably would have been hard to believe for someone who hadn't known her before.

When he asked about her parents, Clarice took a deep breath and looked up. "No - no, they didn't come. They weren't with me when-" I died. "-when I was brought here. And the reality I came from - it was a different sort of version of the world, so... they're still there. And I'm here." She turned her white eyes to one of the stained glass windows rising overhead. "I love it here. I really do. It's so much better - But I do, I miss them. I wish there were a way they could know where I am now

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy smiled. "I'm very glad to hear that, Clarice." That was part of what life was all about, after all....finding places where you belonged. And if this was the place Clarice belonged, so much the better. Another miracle in a place that provided so many.

Father Mulcahy nodded in sympathy. "I'm sorry they couldn't come with you." A different version of the world? Well, that explained the purple. Perhaps. "I wish I knew how you could communicate between the worlds. If only letters could be sent! You see, I'm very far out of my time, and there are some people I would like to contact too." Like everyone back at the 4077th.

[never_blink]

There was never any doubt, in Clarice's mind, that her arrival here was a miracle. Not one without its downside, but nevertheless. Even if you disregarded the fact that she'd escaped death - a miracle in itself if not an uncommon one around here - she'd also escaped a world where she was isolated and hated and come to one where she was treated like a human being. Ironically, since unlike her world, people here weren't used to mutants. But they were used to people being different.

She glanced back at Father Mulcahy curiously. "Where did you come from, Father? I mean - what year? If you don't mind me asking..."

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy believed in the goodness of the world. He always had and he always would. Even when there were times when men did evil things, there was still so much goodness in the midst of those times. Like army doctors who could save countless lives that otherwise would be lost. Father Mulcahy also believed that things generally turned out for the best; if he was here, it was part of God's plan, and if Clarice was here, it must be for the same reason.

"I don't mind at all," Father Mulcahy said. "It was 1953 when I left Korea."

[never_blink]

"Korea?" Clarice repeated, startled. She wasn't sure exactly why that was so unexpected. Maybe because he wasn't Asian, and at her age the rest of the world was mostly a vague notion that existed only in history class...

And then the date hit her, hand in hand with the thought about history, and her eyes widened. "Nineteen-fifty-three..." She hesitated, unsure. History wasn't her best class, but at some point every year they talked about Vietnam and Korea. "Was that... the war? The Korean War? Wasn't that the year it ended?" But if Father Mulcahy had come from there, maybe it never had ended, for him.

[fatherfjmulcahy]

Father Mulcahy nodded. "I was a chaplain there. Although I was born in Philadelphia."

His eyes widened in delight at Clarice's declaration. "Yes, that's right...but you say it ended that year? That's such wonderful news! Oh, you don't know what it means to me to hear that!" Actually, she probably didn't, so he hastened to explain. "I was a chaplain in the Army, you see, assigned to a mobile surgical hospital. I knew the men who worked there very well, and they wished so dearly to go home. And now that I know that they did go home not long after I left...I'm very happy to know that."