ECCLESIASTEELE

by Anne <arplab@yahoo.com>

Author's note: This story is set somewhere near the end of the fourth season.

Remington Steele closed the folder on the report he had just signed and glanced at his watch. It was finally time to call it a day. He normally looked forward to every Friday's closing time, but this week he was particularly glad to see the end of the week. Once again, a case that had seemed relatively simple on the surface had become more complex as the week went on, occupying all of their time until Friday afternoon.

Fortunately at the beginning of the week he and Laura had made plans for the evening, and that was just about the only thing that kept him going. He went to Laura's office door to find her intently reading, her head propped up by one hand as if it weighed a ton.

"Let's call it a day, shall we, Laura?"

She glanced at her watch. "Oh, definitely, let's get the hell out of here." She pulled her purse out of the drawer and sighed. "TGIF, huh?"

"Indeed. A bite to eat, something to drink, some time to unwind, should be quite restorative. I'll get our coats."

He went to the coat tree in his office and retrieved their seldom used overcoats. The last few days had brought some unusually cool weather to the area, and the coats had gotten more use lately than they had in years. Remington grimly recalled how uncomfortable their stakeout had been Wednesday night.

One of Laura's leather gloves was about to fall out of the pocket, so he stuffed it back in so that it would not get lost. As he did, his fingers felt a folded piece of paper. Before he even stopped to think, common courtesy concerning one's private property gave way to overwhelming curiosity about anything that had to do with Laura's personal life.

`Aldersgate United Methodist Church.' Opening the paper, he realized that it was a church bulletin, dated last Sunday. Hearing Laura moving around just outside the door, he quickly returned it to the pocket and threw their coats over his arm.

He helped Laura into her coat and gently pulled her long hair out of the collar. Laura went to church, he mused. As he shrugged on his coat he tried to recall if Laura had made any mention of what she had done last weekend but came up blank. He thought better of bringing the subject up when they were both so tired and stored the information away for later in the evening.

Laura turned to him and smiled. "Ready?"

"More than. Good night, Mildred, have a good weekend."

"You, too, kids. See ya Monday."


Remington was thankful that they had made their plans earlier in the week so no decision making was necessary tonight, other than what to select from the menu. He was grateful for the quiet surroundings and solicitous service that let him relax and be restored just by Laura's presence.

During dinner he kept the conversation steered toward the light and inconsequential, and by the time they were finished eating they were both feeling energized again.

The waiter came around and cleared their places. "Something for after dinner, Mr. Steele?"

"Yes. Drambuie, neat, please. Laura?"

"Amaretto on the rocks, thank you."

Remington smiled at Laura and tried to think of a way to tactfully and gracefully bring up the subject of the church bulletin. Somehow he had never thought of Laura as a churchgoer, but then he also realized that they had rarely been in each other's presence on a Sunday morning. If there had been a time that they got together for any reason, it was always in the afternoon. He regretfully recalled how he yearned to wake up with Laura beside him on a Sunday morning, or any morning, for that matter.

Remington contemplated his options and decided that a direct approach was best. He knew all too well how it irked Laura when he used the angle to cover the shortest distance. He leaned over to Laura's chair and reached into her coat pocket, producing the church bulletin.

"I happened upon this while I was getting your coat earlier," he said quietly.

Laura snatched it from his fingers and buried it under the table. "You weren't supposed to see that."

"Why shouldn't I see it? Going to church is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide," he said quietly. "I certainly wasn't intending to invade your privacy."

"I know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump at you like that. It's just been.well, an experiment for me that I wasn't really ready to share it with you or anyone else. I've been thinking about life, and death, and emotional issues that have been crowding in on me, and I wasn't sure if going to church again would help me sort it all out. I wanted to try it for a while and see what happened."

"If you'd rather not tell me about it." Remington looked away from her, giving Laura an opening.

Laura played with her knife, hesitating for a moment, and then taking the plunge. "I've been going there on and off for a few months," Laura said. "Ever since our days on the streets after Freddy Lazenby and his girlfriend were found dead in your condo, I've felt compelled to find something or someplace that helps me find some peace. Those times and so many others have reminded me how quickly something or someone can be snatched away." She rearranged the salt and pepper shakers and wine list on the table. "I guess I fell back on my upbringing when I was once again reminded about the tenuous nature of my life."

"Your parents went to church?" Remington ventured.

"Yes, we were classic WASPs, through and through. Mom, Dad, Frances and I would go to the Episcopal church near our house regularly. We went to Sunday School and my parents were on church committees now and then. It was a part of our family routine that on Sunday mornings we went to church."

"Sounds wonderful."

Without warning Laura's face clouded over with a frown, and Remington realized that it probably reflected an unhappy reminiscence.

"It didn't stay that way." He took her hand as he became aware that Laura was going to have to confront another painful aspect of her childhood. "It's just that, as my mother and father were drifting apart, my father was drifting away from church. He started making excuses for not going with us, but Mother insisted that we continue going. At the time I couldn't see the connection, but looking back I can see that he was cutting his ties, and not just at home."

"I didn't mean for you to have to relive this again, Laura."

"No, it's OK, I've dealt with all of that." She took a deep breath. "After, after he left, Mother was so humiliated that she couldn't bring herself to be seen in church. Just the thought that she would be there alone and the talk that would follow were too much for her to handle. Frances and I had friends at church and we insisted on going, so for a while she would drop us off." Laura brought the church bulletin out from under the table and folded it into ever-smaller squares. "But none of my mother's friends called or visited anymore, and it didn't take long for our friends to stop inviting us over and talking to us at church. It was like the whole place turned its back on us. Within a month or so we stopped going all together, and I never wanted to step foot in that church again." She unfolded the paper again and vainly smoothed it out on the table. "It was bad enough to have to deal with my father being gone, but it was like having the rug pulled out from under us to feel no support whatsoever from the church."

"I'm sorry, Laura."

"Oh, you shouldn't be sorry for anything." She reached again for his hand. "I was so bitter after that experience that it was a long time before I wanted anything to do with religion. Then my schedule at Stanford, and Havenhurst, didn't leave time for much more than an occasional visit with a friend, or a wedding."

Remington nodded in understanding but said nothing.

"What about you?" Laura asked. "Did anyone bother to bring you to church as you were bounced from place to place?"

Remington smiled to himself and sat back in his chair. "Despite the fact that no one really wanted me around, the one thing they did not neglect was my religious upbringing. It was 100% Irish Catholic, to be sure." He sipped his drink. "Even at a very young age I can remember going to Mass regularly, understanding nothing that the priest said, but learning all the steps in the ritual. I kept myself distracted by studying the statues and reliquaries in the sanctuary. At those times that I did go to school, the day always began with Mass, the priest intoning in Latin."

He signaled the waiter for another round. "As I got older, and the ritual became part of my subconscious, I began to realize that what I understood of what was said at Mass and what I experienced wherever I was living did not gibe." He laid his left palm on the table beside his glass. "On the one hand, we were being taught about the ten commandments, and Mary's love for her son, and Christ's sacrifices for us." He laid his right palm on the other side. "But at home, wherever that happened to be, there were people who didn't care if I even came in at night, as long as they could claim me as a dependent, and get some work out of me." His hands slid off the table into his lap and Laura extended her hand under the table to hold one of them.

"When I became old enough to be an altar boy, I thought that perhaps this would be an improvement, giving me some responsibility and perhaps more understanding of the Mass. But unfortunately my rebellious nature was not ready for the discipline of that task, and I got in trouble on a regular basis. Whenever word of my latest indiscretion got back to my current relatives, I was given quite a beating. But it didn't do any good. It only added to the healthy dose of cynicism building in me."

"You heard and were taught values that you didn't see in real life," Laura suggested.

"That's pretty much it. There was one bright spot, though. Sister Mary Claire. When I was about 11 and getting into more trouble every day, she plucked me out of the fire, so to speak, and tried to straighten me out. She reminded me of Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's." He smiled wistfully to himself. "If ever there were someone who showed Christian love through the way she lived her life, it was Sister Mary Claire."

"Kind of an angel among us?"

"Oh, yes. She might have succeeded in turning me around if circumstances hadn't prompted me to run away to London a few months later. Then after I hooked up with Daniel, who was never much of a churchgoer, going to Mass never happened."

"I don't suppose conmen and jewel thieves would attend regularly."

"Between drifting from place to place and keeping a low profile, it was not a part of the life."

Laura contemplated her drink, swirling the ice cubes around. Deep in her heart she felt calmly reassured that despite the miserable circumstances of Remington's youth, here and there people had been placed to pick him up and point him in the right direction.

"Do you believe in divine intervention, Laura?"

Laura was so startled by his question that she could not formulate an answer before he went on.

"I mean -- do you think that some power greater than ourselves moves and shapes our lives."

Laura nodded. "Yes, I think many things happen that are not necessarily beyond our control, but I also think that sometimes there is no other explanation except that God has intervened." She leaned forward, warming to the subject. "You know, for many years I used to believe in luck. I'm lucky I went to Stanford, I'm lucky to have had Murphy and Bernice, we're lucky to have Mildred. But in one of his sermons Mr. Lonergan said something that made me realize that luck has nothing to do with it. When God steps in and what we want for ourselves aligns with His wishes for us, he brings people into our lives or puts us in places that just make everything work out right. It might not happen right away, or in a way that we expect, but it happens. Mr. Lonergan called it serendipity."

"So, according to what you're saying, it wasn't luck that kept my skin intact all this time."

"It depends on how you want to look at it. I prefer to think that you were being kept in His care for something better."

"Like being Remington Steele."

Laura smiled. "Well, sometimes I think that the other guy, with the pitchfork, had a hand in that, just to test me."

Remington pretended to look offended. "I see. I'm just a traffic cone on your road of life."

"Oh, you!" Laura knew she was being teased. She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. "Maybe you think the Royal Lavulite brought us together, but I think it goes way beyond that."

Remington grinned at her. "Like divine intervention?"

Laura shrugged and took another sip of her drink as Remington watched her. Although he had not given much thought to Sister Mary Claire in a long time, Laura's comment about her kept her on his mind.

"I was thinking about what you said about Sister Mary Claire."

"What did I say about her?"

"About being an angel among us. She wasn't the only one I've encountered."

"No?"

"No. In fact, I'm sitting with another one right here."

Laura digested what he had said and when it's meaning became clear to her she could feel the heat rise to her face. She looked away, embarrassed at the compliment.

"I mean it, Laura. Like the dear Sister, you plucked me out of the fire as well, did your level best to straighten me out."

Laura was highly flattered that he would label her so but couldn't think of a word to say. Remington leaned over to place a gentle kiss on her cheek and decided it was time to change the subject.

"I take it, then that since you've been to this church regularly you're fitting in, made a lot of friends, eh?"

"Yes, I feel like it's the right place for me, right now."

Remington toyed with his empty glass. "And do you think there's room there for a sometime Catholic?"

Laura stared at him. "You think you might want to come along?"

"Only if you think I'd be welcome there." After all, Remington reasoned, a church affiliation could be a good thing to have if one were contemplating------

"Of course you'd be welcome! I've met several ex-whatevers there. I know that Mr. Lonergan has purposefully mentioned that everyone is welcome, regardless of where they come from, or where they're going."

"Then I could join you this Sunday?"

Laura's grin widened. "I'll pick you up at 10:00!"

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