This is an interlude story, set between my last season seven episode, involving Peter and Assumpta finally meeting again, and my first episode of a projected season eight, which will take up the very next morning. This interlude story does not involve any of the original show's characters, just my introduced character, Maggie MacAllister, and a person from her past.

Maggie has locked up the pub and returned to her bedroom, carefully ignoring the sounds emanating from Assumpta's room. She has closed her door, turned out the light, and gone to bed, but cannot sleep, so gets back up, pulls on a warm sweater over her nightclothes, and steps out onto the frosty deck, staring at the starlight shining down over the town. Then she looks up, into the sky, standing very still for nearly 15 minutes, until she is so cold she cannot stay out any longer. Heaving a deep sigh, she turns to go inside. Before closing the door again, she looks out, and turns her head slightly, as if listening as well. After closing the door, she takes off the sweater, and gets back in the bed. She closes her eyes, and deliberately relaxes herself, muscle by muscle. She does not try to sleep, but instead induces that state of mind between sleeping and waking, until she feels herself floating just a little free of her body, and time seems to cease passing.

After what seems like hours, but is probably only minutes, Maggie hears a voice, calling her name. She answers the call, but her body remains laying on the bed, only her spirit leaves, bound to her body by a thin, shining silver cord. She travels a long distance, until she sees the sea below her, and then drifts downwards, to walk along the shore. As she walks, she senses the presence of another person, also walking in the same direction, approaching her on a tangential course. Eventually, their paths intersect, and Maggie turns her head to see a man, a sliver-haired man, only slightly taller than herself, walking beside her.

"Hello, James."

"Maggie, will you ever call me Jim?"

"I thought you'd rather I called you 'Father'?"

"No, Maggie, I wouldn't, I never, ever felt like your father!"

"No, I suppose not." Maggie replies, and turns away, starting to walk towards the waves. The man follows her, calling out to her.

"Maggie, wait, where are you going?"

"I'm going back to my home, James, I can't stay here and talk to you. I don't know why my Master called me here to see you, he knows I can't be with you, even here.  Your Lord knows, he must know I'm here, too. James, surely you know your Lord will not let us be together, even here. You swore binding oaths, you know that. Remember, 'You are a priest forever, of the line of Melchizedech.' James, I've lost everyone, all of them, my family, my babies, even an innocent old dog. I can't bear any more loss, I have no one left to lose, no one else for your Desert God to take away from me. What more does your God want from me, James, I never, ever tried to take you away from him, I never even told you I......" Maggie turns away from the man she was facing, turning her back on him, and her face towards the ocean again. Moonlight is shining brightly down on them both. Maggie begins to walk, setting one foot into the lapping wavelet at the very edge of the ocean.

The silver-haired man also steps forward, following her, and reaching out a hand to try and place it on her shoulder. Just as his hand falls, Maggie gasps, and ducks out from under his hand, turning again, shock on her face.

"How, how can you touch me, we aren't bodies here!"

"Never mind that, Maggie, what did you never tell me?"

"James, I still have friends, they could be targets of your God's wrath, I don't know, I can't say any more to you, I have to leave!" James reaches out again, and takes a hold on Maggie's arm.

"Please, Maggie, don't leave. God won't punish you, he won't hurt anyone. He has known I've loved you for years, I never hid that, not only could I not, but why should I, I'm not ashamed of loving you! We never did anything to be ashamed of."

"But would we have, if I had ever told you that I felt the same way about you that you felt about me?" Maggie's face is white and strained. "What would you have done, James, if I had told you, years ago? What would you have done if I had asked for a private appointment with you, and told you, when I was 16 years old, that I was in love with you, that I had falled in love with you the moment we met? What would have happened, James?"

"I don't know, Maggie. I really don't. I took those oaths, I know I did, and I would never have broken them, but I might have bent them enough to at least kiss you once. If I had asked you, would you have waited for me to apply for dispensation?"

"I was young and blind, James, of course I would have, never dreaming the consequences. And yet, even though I did nothing, said nothing, still I have suffered the pain of loss, over and over, until now I stand virtually alone. The closest friend I have left, a younger friend, now takes the steps I never dared to, and I fear desperately that she will suffer even worse than I did. I hope not, but I have no
illusions. Your Desert God, James, he is a *jealous* god, an ANGRY god, he brooks no theft of that which he considers his. He is the single strongest god of the paradigm, he wields the most power, and as his power grows, he becomes ever more jealous, ever more willing to punish as well as reward. I fear, oftentimes now, that he grows mad, that the strain of his triple personality has become too overwhelming even for a god to bear. Look how he sets his own peoples at each others' throats, even today, Muslim against Jew, Roman Catholic against Protestant, and gleefully do they shed each other's blood, who should all be as brothers, sons of the same father." Maggie sighs. "But we did not come here to discuss theology and cosmology, James. I did not know I was coming here to see you, I merely answered my Master's call. Why did you come, James, how did you come here? I did not think any of your calling knew the way, in these later days, I thought the techniques long lost, the training abandoned and abhored as witchcraft." Maggie has turned, and begins again to walk along the moonlight beach, James walks at her side. He takes her hand. She stares down at their hands, puzzlement on her face. "And how did you manage to manifest a corporal essence?"

"Maggie, let me tell you what I've been doing since you left. I lasted about six months at my parish, and I told the Bishop I wanted to retire, that I was tired and needed time for prayer and reflection. He didn't like it, but he let me go, and I joined a contemplative order, not too hard a switch in the end. I didn't have anything to say to anyone, I only wanted to talk to you, and you were gone. I gave myself over to hard work, so I could fall into my bed at night and fall asleep, too exhausted to dream. In what was my little spare time, I read, I read everything in the library, even the old books, the really old ones. You know, those libraries can have some really unique books in them, and in one, I found meditation methods that taught me to visualize my soul and body as separate entities, and discussed how to travel in spirit. Since I had no way to track where your body had gone, I decided to try and track your spirit, and finally, last summer, I succeeded. I asked God to help me, and He did, I found you. I spent months, praying for guidance, and I finally felt I had my answer, so I put everything I had into travelling, tonight, and hoped that you would travel, too. And you did, God answered my prayers and called you here."

"James, does the Brother Cook in your chapter house use 'funny herbs' in your brownies or make moldy rye bread?" Maggie begins to laugh. "Your god may have let you travel here tonight, but he most certainly didn't call me! I recognize his voice, and that was not who called me, my own Master called me! He bids me come, and I do, when the Gates are open. He knows I am able to care for myself, I suppose, and has not come to drive you back to your body, but if you hear a horn blowing, well, just get out of the way, for I will go with him when he comes, I will ride in his Hunt, for that is most certainly why he called me tonight! I am sorry, James, but your God has no hold on me, even if he slays my body, my spirit is no longer his. Honestly, I thought, when I saw you, that you must be dying, and that was why you were here. See, look up ahead, see that headland, up there, where the beach stops? There's a path up that promontory, James, and we will reach it, and go up it, and if we follow it long enough, it will split, and split again, and you will follow your path, and I will follow mine, for our souls will not end their time on either the physical or astral planes at the same destination. But right now, as we both continue to have living bodies on the physical plane, our spirits walk along this shoreline, and we can talk for a little while. James, I am sorry, but you must go back to your body, we can never have what we might want, neither here nor there in the physical world. Live out your time, James, be as happy as you can be, and die content, knowing that you kept your vows. You may have found me, but you can never have me, I will do nothing more to bring your God's curses and vengeance upon me. Never come here again, James, do not seek me out here, or in the physical world, only pain and death can come of it. Your Bishop and even your Pope may set you free, but your God never will. Please, James, go back to your body, and do your best to forget me." Maggie disengages her hand from his, and sets one foot again in the ocean water.

"No, Maggie, please!" James reaches out, but she is beyond his reach, and he sees her set her other foot in the water. He follows, and as his foot touches the waves, she turns.

"James, you must not!"

"Why not, Maggie?" He steps fully into the water, and takes ahold of both her arms with his hands. The moonlight is low upon the water, and behind him, something like the sun's light seems to grow. "Why can't I follow you, Maggie? Why do you want to run away from me? Are you afraid of me?"

"No," Maggie answers him, "I'm afraid of myself!" Her eyes meet his, square on, and he looks down at her, her hair is lifting and floating around her face in a rising breeze. His hands tighten on her arms, and his lips part, a soft sound escapes them, almost a moan. He bends forward, and she stretches upwards slightly, their lips meet, softly, so softly at first, then fiercely, desperately. His arms close around her shoulders, hers slide around his waist. Finally, their lips part again, and she leans forward to lay her head on his shoulder. "Oh, James, please, I have to go, we both have to go, and try to forget this night, for surely we can never meet again, lest we both die." Maggie's voice is a whisper, James strokes her hair, and makes a soft shushing sound.

"Maggie, just for a minute, don't be afraid. God is Love, Maggie, he won't harm either of us for reflecting His love that we see in each other." Maggie straightens, pulling herself from his arms.

"God is love, you say? Oh, James, if only it were true. Let go of your dream, James, and let go of me, and your dreams of me as well. You made that dream impossible before we ever met. I can wish you hadn't become a priest, wish we had met before that, wish I had been older so we might have met sooner, but if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. James, when next you confess, beg your God to forgive you your weakness, and, because you are one of his chosen, he probably will. I will feel his wrath instead, and I pray that it falls on my head alone. I am ready, I suppose, to leave this body behind, so I will not fight him when he sends his angel of death for me, and once my body is slain, I will be beyond his reach, safe in my Mother's arms again. I pray she will let me rest a while in the Summerlands, before she dips my soul again into the Cauldron of Rebirth, and that that washing will wash the memory of your soul from mine, so I need never fear this fate again. Goodbye, James, I am sorry for any pain I caused you, but know that I did so out of fear to bring the wrath I had already felt so strongly down on your head as well." Maggie turns towards the setting moon, and, raising her arms towards it, fades from his view. He reaches out, grasping only moonbeams, then falls to his knees in the surf. The warmth of sunlight begins to strike his back, and he turns towards it, and stands, walking back up out of the water, towards the sand dunes he sees appearing in the daylight, and he, too, fades away, following the silver cord that ties his soul to his body, laying flat on a narrow bed, in a cold, dark, small room.

In Fitzgerald's, Maggie's eyes flutter open, and as she settles fully back into her body, she rolls to her side, and begins to sob softly. She cries for a few moments, then makes herself sit up, and goes into her bathroom to drink and wash her face. "Bright Blessed Lady, can you shield me now? My Lord, why did you not bring me into the Hunt, after you called me? I was ready to ride!" Maggie looks at her watch. "Ride I still can, my Lord, call me again!" Maggie goes back into the bedroom, dresses quickly, and steps out onto her balcony. It is still nighttime, and, as she stands still, she hears, very faint, and far away, the sound of a horn call. "I come, my Lord!" Her arms spread wide, and as her spirit once again leaves her body, it crumples onto the deck, limp and still, to grow slowly cold.