This is NOT a crack fic
Title: hail mary full of grace
Rating: PG-13 for injuries and implied violence/rape
Genre: Angst/Drama
Summary: witch!fic, history AU
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Shows: Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Rachel Maddow Show
Pairing: Gen, Keith and Rachel, appearance by Ana Maria Cox, implied presence of Al Franken and Dan Patrick
Author's notes: This takes place in Avignon, France, right around the turn of the 16th century. I fudged it a wee bit with names, and I don't think that Avignon had a Jewish quarter. What the hell, this is a work of fiction.
All magic, all witchcraft, depends on the Devil, and is fundamentally evil.
MONTAGUE SUMMERS, Witchcraft and Black Magic
Witchcraft is not evil. At least not any more than lighting a votive candle, praying for a sick friend, or carrying a lucky charm is. However, there are some who do view witchcraft as evil. This is only because organized religion (primarily the Christian church) has conditioned them to fear anything which strays from their narrow condemning view. After all, if you have the ability to fend for yourself, solve your own problems, and choose your own method of spiritual expression, why would you need the confined structure of a church?
LADY SABRINA, Secrets of Modern Witchcraft Revealed
The blackest chapter in the history of Witchcraft lies not in the malevolence of Witches but in the deliberate, gloating cruelty of their prosecutors.
THEDA KENYON, Witches Still Live
He didn’t quite know what inspired him to stay up that night. He’d had his evening ale (from the Germans down the street, who made the best ale, no matter what his Irish comrade might dispute), and he’d settled into his bed, watching the shadows deepen as the fire in his hearth died down to the embers.
Yet, for all of this, he could not sleep.
It would, he would later conclude, as though he quivered on the brink, waiting for a sign. From the Lord Almighty, or something more sinister.
For now, he hovered in between that deep space between consciousness and sleep, feeling any second as the child who waits for the punishing hand to descend.
He jumped nearly a foot’s length into the air when there was a pounding on the door. He threw back the covers, pulling on a dressing gown as he went. Down the stairs, where he kept one candle burning (for the nights the Fiend kept his legs jumping), and he pulled open the heavy oaken door.
In the shadow of the threshold, someone stood, wrapped in a dark woolen blanket that smelled of blood and terror. From the small opening, he discerned a woman’s face, her eyes hopeless and shadowed. Dried blood could be seen on her right temple; her eyes pled, “Help me.”
He threw out an arm and dragged her inside, shutting the heavy door in time to avoid the papal legate and the witch hunters riding through the town, screaming at each other.
He brought her to the back of the house, where light couldn’t be seen from the front street, and lit the fire once more. She flinched when he reached out to touch her arm. He nodded, putting some milk in his cauldron and warming it over the fire. He still had some brandy left, and he got it out.
“What’s your name?” he asked quietly, gesturing for her to warm up in front of the rapidly-growing fire.
“R-Rachel Maddow,” she shivered.
Maddow…if he recalled correctly, he knew that a Jewish friend of his had a woman living with him. “Are you the one staying with Al?”
“I was,” she murmured. She watched him make up the toddy. “I can’t hold it, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, looking at the earthen floor. “Two of my fingers are broken.”
His heart broke. She must have been the infamous prison situated directly under the home of William O’Reilly. “Do you have any other injuries?”
She peered at him, finally relaxing the blanket around her. “Yes.”
The light from the fire only illuminated her slightly, but what he saw was enough. Her hair had been cut raggedly; there was a cut extending from her temple to the top of her head. Her eyes were shadowed not only from terror, but bruises. She was garbed in a filthy, torn dress, and through holes in the “garment” he glimpsed more bruises and cuts. Her right arm hung at a strange angle, and two of her fingers on her left hand were clearly broken.
“I have splints,” he told her. “I believe your shoulder to be dislocated. That I can fix relatively easily, but I will need to clean your cuts. I can get enough water for you to wash with, if you like.”
Her face flushed. “I can not wash myself,” she said in clear embarrassment. “I haven’t the strength.”
“Give me a moment,” he said gently. He exited through the back of the house, and padded through the rough landscape to his neighbor’s. His neighbor’s lady answered the door. “Keith? It has to be past midnight.”
“Ana, I need you. A woman came to me, seeking refuge, and she needs help to wash.”
She nodded. “I am afraid I cannot help with her likely injuries,” she said. “My mother’s skill with herbs skipped a generation.”
“I can do the rest,” he reassured. “That, at least, I am capable of.”
Rachel’s face showed blank terror as Keith re-entered the room, but it relaxed again when Ana appeared next to him. “Come, my dear, let me help you wash. The water will be cold, but Keith’s already fixed you a toddy.”
She laid a gentle arm around Rachel’s torso-she flinched. Broken ribs, as well.
“I’ll bring the water upstairs,” Keith tells them both, and Ana and Rachel disappear up the stairs. He fills the large tub with water from the cistern, and he can vaguely make out the yells of the witch-hunters. They’re taunting and cursing Rachel by turns. Keith forcibly ignores them, heaving the tub into the house and up the stairs.
Ana has restarted the fire in his bedroom. He puts down the tub with a grunt. “There are extra linens in the closet,” he whispers. “I have no women’s clothing, but some of my clean clothes should do.”
“Thank you, Keith,” she murmurs back, and he descends back down the stairs.
He has no official timepiece, only the church clock that chimes the hour. It chimes once, before Ana appears in the doorway, her pretty features wrought in rage. “They raped her,” she hisses, and Keith can fancy her an angry cat at this moment. “The supposed men of God raped her.”
Curse him for saying it, but it must be aired. “Are you surprised, Ana? Father Glenn is hardly the model of Christian charity. And the witch-hunters-they’re for the violence and the florins, not the supposed ‘purification’ of the church.”
Ana wraps her shawl around herself more firmly. “Thank you for helping her, Keith. You’re a good man.” She surprises them both when she kisses him on the cheek. “But you must get her out of here. She’s not safe here, and now that you’ve helped her, you’re not safe either.”
“I’ll take us to my sister’s. She owns a house and land west of here, closer to the sea. It should be safe.”
Ana suddenly looks very old. “Can anyone be safe in a world run mad? Good night, Keith, and good luck.”
“The same to you, Mistress Cox,” he replies, and for one breathless moment, they hang suspended in this tableau, and then she disappears out the back door, and the moment is broken.
The rest of the night is spent bandaging Rachel’s injuries, and Keith burns with rage every time he discovers a new one. For her part, Rachel falls fast asleep on his bed as he finishes cleaning and stitching up the cuts on her legs, and though he sways with tiredness, he pulls the covers over her sleeping form and stumbles downstairs.
--
He’s woken up by a loud pounding and yelling in the morning. From the light peeking in from under the door, it’s just after dawn. Blearily rubbing his eyes, he opens the door to come face-to-face with an angry Father Glenn. “Have you seen the witch?”
Keith can honestly reply, “What? What witch?” He has a feeling that Glenn means Rachel, but all he can claim for Rachel is that she lived under the roof of a Jew.
“The heretic Maddow!” Glenn literally spits, and Keith wants to wipe it off his face, but that’s enough to get him arrested. “Have you seen her?”
“No,” Keith rumbles. “When would I have?”
“Last night!” Glenn says shrilly. “She escaped my custody!”
“I was asleep all night,” he informs Glenn.
“Can anyone verify that?”
Keith narrows his eyes. “It’s well-known that I am a bachelor. Are you daring to impugn the honor of any of the women in this town by implication, Father Glenn?”
Glenn reddens. Keith isn’t quite the gentry-he doesn’t have a title, but he does have the money, enough that the titled in Avignon would take it amiss if Keith were to bring up that Glenn may have implied dishonor on the part of the noble women in Avignon. For now, Glenn backs down. “If you hear anything, it is your divine duty to report it, Olbermann. Remember the papal bull-all witchcraft is abhorrent to the church, as are those who practice it. Anyone who assists a witch is guilty of heresy themselves.”
Keith draws himself to his full height, looking down at Glenn. “Are you threatening me, sir?”
Glenn reddens further. “I am just repeating something you already know. Good day.”
“Good day, Father Glenn,” Keith replies sarcastically. He shuts the door, and sags against it. Dear Father in Heaven, how he loathes the papal legate.
“Keith?” Rachel whispers, walking down the stairs carefully. “Thank you.”
“It would have been immoral to give anyone up to that grasping fool, whether they are a witch or not. My soul is settled with God, not with Father Glenn,” Keith tells her firmly. “Do you need more opium?”
“I have to leave, Keith. I can’t threaten your safety,” she mumbles.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says briskly. “Don’t worry. I can get you out of here, but you need to heal first. Would you like some more opium?”
Rachel’s face crumples. “Yes. The pain…”
Rage flashes through him again, but he stifles it. “I will bring you a tincture. Please go get back in bed.”
She nods, and climbs back upstairs oh so slowly that he can feel her pain himself.
--
It takes five days for the cuts to close up, the bruises to slowly disappear into yellowed skin, and finally the previous porcelain shade the skin had obviously been before.
Rachel’s other injuries, like her broken bones and broken heart, cannot be healed so quickly. He refrains from touching her, though there are times, when she says something offhandedly, and he just wants to crush her to his chest and never let her go.
He sends out small rumors that he’s received a letter from his sister, and he needs to visit her right away. Ana does her part and repeats the rumors. He gathers supplies, and no one thinks it strange.
After five to six days, it is thought that the runaway heretic has drowned herself in the river, and Avignon settles down again, once more ignoring the screams that emit from O’Reilly’s basement prison.
He procures another horse, and he fixes his wagon. He’s only bring the necessary supplies-food, water, linens, some furniture (not much), and clothing. The night before they leave, Rachel is leaning heavily against the doorframe, watching him put in the last of the necessary farm equipment and making up the travel bed directly behind the wagon seat. He liberally strews fleabane and other herbs within the wagon, to keep too many insects from bothering them.
“Why did you help me?” Rachel asks suddenly. “You didn’t have to. I’m only a heretic.”
Keith pauses to dry his brow. “Because I loathe Glenn and his ilk,” he grunts. “Because I think that the papal bull is ridiculous. Because I cannot see an injured woman and pretend to myself that simply because she’s heretic, she is not deserving of my sympathy and my help.” He looked at her. “You are more deserving of my help than any papal hypocrite.”
“Thank you.” Rachel looks incredibly old. “They killed him, you know. They killed Al, because he fought to defend me. They clubbed him down in front of me, and laughed when he tried to crawl away from their kicks. I can’t get that image out of my head.”
“Rachel, no amount of prayer and confession will ever free them from their burden of sin,” Keith sighs. He wants to hold her, because it’s how he is, but he can’t bring himself to do it-but Rachel decides it for him. She plods to him, raising her left arm to wrap around his chest. He gently places his arms around her, mindful of her injured right arm. She trembles in his arms, and finally lets herself cry.
--
They’re three days out from Avignon, when Rachel finally asks, “Where are we going, after your sister’s?”
“Someplace safe, someplace the church has no reach,” he answers.
She laughs bitterly. “Shall we live in hell, then?”
---
His sister is happy to see him, but she says they cannot stay-Father Glenn’s reach even pervades here. His colleague, James DeMint, is the papal legate here. She’s able to send them both on to a house by the Mediterranean.
The soil is rich enough to plow, and they live far enough from town that Rachel can explore around the villa without worrying about the vile children.
Surprisingly, she has a skill for growing wine grapes, and though Keith offers to help, she waves him off. As she works hard to raise her grapes, she grows stronger, and Keith fancies one night, when they’re sharing the “fruits” of her labor, that Rachel might be a pagan after all.
He blurts it out, and Rachel looks at him steadily. “I recognize the Father, but I recognize the Mother as well.”
He inclines his head. “My mother was a hedgewitch,” he says suddenly. “The village midwife. She recognized the Black Madonna. My sister has the only figurine my mother ever kept.”
“So we’re just rolling in sin,” Rachel smirks.
Keith looks at her, and feels his heart squeeze. “I suppose we are.”
Author's notes: I am considering a Part 2, but I wish for feedback first.
Also, the torture alluded to and this movement that Glenn Beck perpetuates actually happened. Google it, or ask me if you wish.
Rating: PG-13 for injuries and implied violence/rape
Genre: Angst/Drama
Summary: witch!fic, history AU
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Shows: Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Rachel Maddow Show
Pairing: Gen, Keith and Rachel, appearance by Ana Maria Cox, implied presence of Al Franken and Dan Patrick
Author's notes: This takes place in Avignon, France, right around the turn of the 16th century. I fudged it a wee bit with names, and I don't think that Avignon had a Jewish quarter. What the hell, this is a work of fiction.
All magic, all witchcraft, depends on the Devil, and is fundamentally evil.
MONTAGUE SUMMERS, Witchcraft and Black Magic
Witchcraft is not evil. At least not any more than lighting a votive candle, praying for a sick friend, or carrying a lucky charm is. However, there are some who do view witchcraft as evil. This is only because organized religion (primarily the Christian church) has conditioned them to fear anything which strays from their narrow condemning view. After all, if you have the ability to fend for yourself, solve your own problems, and choose your own method of spiritual expression, why would you need the confined structure of a church?
LADY SABRINA, Secrets of Modern Witchcraft Revealed
The blackest chapter in the history of Witchcraft lies not in the malevolence of Witches but in the deliberate, gloating cruelty of their prosecutors.
THEDA KENYON, Witches Still Live
He didn’t quite know what inspired him to stay up that night. He’d had his evening ale (from the Germans down the street, who made the best ale, no matter what his Irish comrade might dispute), and he’d settled into his bed, watching the shadows deepen as the fire in his hearth died down to the embers.
Yet, for all of this, he could not sleep.
It would, he would later conclude, as though he quivered on the brink, waiting for a sign. From the Lord Almighty, or something more sinister.
For now, he hovered in between that deep space between consciousness and sleep, feeling any second as the child who waits for the punishing hand to descend.
He jumped nearly a foot’s length into the air when there was a pounding on the door. He threw back the covers, pulling on a dressing gown as he went. Down the stairs, where he kept one candle burning (for the nights the Fiend kept his legs jumping), and he pulled open the heavy oaken door.
In the shadow of the threshold, someone stood, wrapped in a dark woolen blanket that smelled of blood and terror. From the small opening, he discerned a woman’s face, her eyes hopeless and shadowed. Dried blood could be seen on her right temple; her eyes pled, “Help me.”
He threw out an arm and dragged her inside, shutting the heavy door in time to avoid the papal legate and the witch hunters riding through the town, screaming at each other.
He brought her to the back of the house, where light couldn’t be seen from the front street, and lit the fire once more. She flinched when he reached out to touch her arm. He nodded, putting some milk in his cauldron and warming it over the fire. He still had some brandy left, and he got it out.
“What’s your name?” he asked quietly, gesturing for her to warm up in front of the rapidly-growing fire.
“R-Rachel Maddow,” she shivered.
Maddow…if he recalled correctly, he knew that a Jewish friend of his had a woman living with him. “Are you the one staying with Al?”
“I was,” she murmured. She watched him make up the toddy. “I can’t hold it, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, looking at the earthen floor. “Two of my fingers are broken.”
His heart broke. She must have been the infamous prison situated directly under the home of William O’Reilly. “Do you have any other injuries?”
She peered at him, finally relaxing the blanket around her. “Yes.”
The light from the fire only illuminated her slightly, but what he saw was enough. Her hair had been cut raggedly; there was a cut extending from her temple to the top of her head. Her eyes were shadowed not only from terror, but bruises. She was garbed in a filthy, torn dress, and through holes in the “garment” he glimpsed more bruises and cuts. Her right arm hung at a strange angle, and two of her fingers on her left hand were clearly broken.
“I have splints,” he told her. “I believe your shoulder to be dislocated. That I can fix relatively easily, but I will need to clean your cuts. I can get enough water for you to wash with, if you like.”
Her face flushed. “I can not wash myself,” she said in clear embarrassment. “I haven’t the strength.”
“Give me a moment,” he said gently. He exited through the back of the house, and padded through the rough landscape to his neighbor’s. His neighbor’s lady answered the door. “Keith? It has to be past midnight.”
“Ana, I need you. A woman came to me, seeking refuge, and she needs help to wash.”
She nodded. “I am afraid I cannot help with her likely injuries,” she said. “My mother’s skill with herbs skipped a generation.”
“I can do the rest,” he reassured. “That, at least, I am capable of.”
Rachel’s face showed blank terror as Keith re-entered the room, but it relaxed again when Ana appeared next to him. “Come, my dear, let me help you wash. The water will be cold, but Keith’s already fixed you a toddy.”
She laid a gentle arm around Rachel’s torso-she flinched. Broken ribs, as well.
“I’ll bring the water upstairs,” Keith tells them both, and Ana and Rachel disappear up the stairs. He fills the large tub with water from the cistern, and he can vaguely make out the yells of the witch-hunters. They’re taunting and cursing Rachel by turns. Keith forcibly ignores them, heaving the tub into the house and up the stairs.
Ana has restarted the fire in his bedroom. He puts down the tub with a grunt. “There are extra linens in the closet,” he whispers. “I have no women’s clothing, but some of my clean clothes should do.”
“Thank you, Keith,” she murmurs back, and he descends back down the stairs.
He has no official timepiece, only the church clock that chimes the hour. It chimes once, before Ana appears in the doorway, her pretty features wrought in rage. “They raped her,” she hisses, and Keith can fancy her an angry cat at this moment. “The supposed men of God raped her.”
Curse him for saying it, but it must be aired. “Are you surprised, Ana? Father Glenn is hardly the model of Christian charity. And the witch-hunters-they’re for the violence and the florins, not the supposed ‘purification’ of the church.”
Ana wraps her shawl around herself more firmly. “Thank you for helping her, Keith. You’re a good man.” She surprises them both when she kisses him on the cheek. “But you must get her out of here. She’s not safe here, and now that you’ve helped her, you’re not safe either.”
“I’ll take us to my sister’s. She owns a house and land west of here, closer to the sea. It should be safe.”
Ana suddenly looks very old. “Can anyone be safe in a world run mad? Good night, Keith, and good luck.”
“The same to you, Mistress Cox,” he replies, and for one breathless moment, they hang suspended in this tableau, and then she disappears out the back door, and the moment is broken.
The rest of the night is spent bandaging Rachel’s injuries, and Keith burns with rage every time he discovers a new one. For her part, Rachel falls fast asleep on his bed as he finishes cleaning and stitching up the cuts on her legs, and though he sways with tiredness, he pulls the covers over her sleeping form and stumbles downstairs.
--
He’s woken up by a loud pounding and yelling in the morning. From the light peeking in from under the door, it’s just after dawn. Blearily rubbing his eyes, he opens the door to come face-to-face with an angry Father Glenn. “Have you seen the witch?”
Keith can honestly reply, “What? What witch?” He has a feeling that Glenn means Rachel, but all he can claim for Rachel is that she lived under the roof of a Jew.
“The heretic Maddow!” Glenn literally spits, and Keith wants to wipe it off his face, but that’s enough to get him arrested. “Have you seen her?”
“No,” Keith rumbles. “When would I have?”
“Last night!” Glenn says shrilly. “She escaped my custody!”
“I was asleep all night,” he informs Glenn.
“Can anyone verify that?”
Keith narrows his eyes. “It’s well-known that I am a bachelor. Are you daring to impugn the honor of any of the women in this town by implication, Father Glenn?”
Glenn reddens. Keith isn’t quite the gentry-he doesn’t have a title, but he does have the money, enough that the titled in Avignon would take it amiss if Keith were to bring up that Glenn may have implied dishonor on the part of the noble women in Avignon. For now, Glenn backs down. “If you hear anything, it is your divine duty to report it, Olbermann. Remember the papal bull-all witchcraft is abhorrent to the church, as are those who practice it. Anyone who assists a witch is guilty of heresy themselves.”
Keith draws himself to his full height, looking down at Glenn. “Are you threatening me, sir?”
Glenn reddens further. “I am just repeating something you already know. Good day.”
“Good day, Father Glenn,” Keith replies sarcastically. He shuts the door, and sags against it. Dear Father in Heaven, how he loathes the papal legate.
“Keith?” Rachel whispers, walking down the stairs carefully. “Thank you.”
“It would have been immoral to give anyone up to that grasping fool, whether they are a witch or not. My soul is settled with God, not with Father Glenn,” Keith tells her firmly. “Do you need more opium?”
“I have to leave, Keith. I can’t threaten your safety,” she mumbles.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says briskly. “Don’t worry. I can get you out of here, but you need to heal first. Would you like some more opium?”
Rachel’s face crumples. “Yes. The pain…”
Rage flashes through him again, but he stifles it. “I will bring you a tincture. Please go get back in bed.”
She nods, and climbs back upstairs oh so slowly that he can feel her pain himself.
--
It takes five days for the cuts to close up, the bruises to slowly disappear into yellowed skin, and finally the previous porcelain shade the skin had obviously been before.
Rachel’s other injuries, like her broken bones and broken heart, cannot be healed so quickly. He refrains from touching her, though there are times, when she says something offhandedly, and he just wants to crush her to his chest and never let her go.
He sends out small rumors that he’s received a letter from his sister, and he needs to visit her right away. Ana does her part and repeats the rumors. He gathers supplies, and no one thinks it strange.
After five to six days, it is thought that the runaway heretic has drowned herself in the river, and Avignon settles down again, once more ignoring the screams that emit from O’Reilly’s basement prison.
He procures another horse, and he fixes his wagon. He’s only bring the necessary supplies-food, water, linens, some furniture (not much), and clothing. The night before they leave, Rachel is leaning heavily against the doorframe, watching him put in the last of the necessary farm equipment and making up the travel bed directly behind the wagon seat. He liberally strews fleabane and other herbs within the wagon, to keep too many insects from bothering them.
“Why did you help me?” Rachel asks suddenly. “You didn’t have to. I’m only a heretic.”
Keith pauses to dry his brow. “Because I loathe Glenn and his ilk,” he grunts. “Because I think that the papal bull is ridiculous. Because I cannot see an injured woman and pretend to myself that simply because she’s heretic, she is not deserving of my sympathy and my help.” He looked at her. “You are more deserving of my help than any papal hypocrite.”
“Thank you.” Rachel looks incredibly old. “They killed him, you know. They killed Al, because he fought to defend me. They clubbed him down in front of me, and laughed when he tried to crawl away from their kicks. I can’t get that image out of my head.”
“Rachel, no amount of prayer and confession will ever free them from their burden of sin,” Keith sighs. He wants to hold her, because it’s how he is, but he can’t bring himself to do it-but Rachel decides it for him. She plods to him, raising her left arm to wrap around his chest. He gently places his arms around her, mindful of her injured right arm. She trembles in his arms, and finally lets herself cry.
--
They’re three days out from Avignon, when Rachel finally asks, “Where are we going, after your sister’s?”
“Someplace safe, someplace the church has no reach,” he answers.
She laughs bitterly. “Shall we live in hell, then?”
---
His sister is happy to see him, but she says they cannot stay-Father Glenn’s reach even pervades here. His colleague, James DeMint, is the papal legate here. She’s able to send them both on to a house by the Mediterranean.
The soil is rich enough to plow, and they live far enough from town that Rachel can explore around the villa without worrying about the vile children.
Surprisingly, she has a skill for growing wine grapes, and though Keith offers to help, she waves him off. As she works hard to raise her grapes, she grows stronger, and Keith fancies one night, when they’re sharing the “fruits” of her labor, that Rachel might be a pagan after all.
He blurts it out, and Rachel looks at him steadily. “I recognize the Father, but I recognize the Mother as well.”
He inclines his head. “My mother was a hedgewitch,” he says suddenly. “The village midwife. She recognized the Black Madonna. My sister has the only figurine my mother ever kept.”
“So we’re just rolling in sin,” Rachel smirks.
Keith looks at her, and feels his heart squeeze. “I suppose we are.”
Author's notes: I am considering a Part 2, but I wish for feedback first.
Also, the torture alluded to and this movement that Glenn Beck perpetuates actually happened. Google it, or ask me if you wish.