Author's Note. I've had this one-shot in my head for a while, since around Christmastime. I'm really satisfied with the place Gretchen's story ends in The Lady and the Tramp, but I like her character and occasionally feel like writing her again, especially her banter with Beni. I also have always been really amused by Beni's religious/superstitious tendencies, but have never really taken the time to make it the focus of a story. I love the idea of these two people going to church together, and I can't believe it hasn't occurred to me to write it before.

Disclaimer. The characters of The Mummy are the property of Universal Studios. The title of the story is taken from the Christmas carole, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," published by William B. Sandys. Gretchen is a character of my own invention. For more on her character, see Tramps and Thieves, The Lady and the Tramp, 9:00 AM and Only the Constant.

To Save Us All from Satan's Power

Friday, December 25, 1925

Gretchen didn't give a damn.

That's exactly what she'd told Ghazi when the ugly, squat little man had threatened to give her a black eye if she didn't work that night. "I don't give a damn," she told him, "It's Christmas."

It was Christmas. Somehow, Christmas still came, even in Egypt. Even in the heat. Without the snow or the trees or the lights or the "goodwill towards man," December 25th still managed to roll around. This year and every year. And even if it didn't make a difference to Ghazi or his mostly-Muslim customer base, it was still Christmas. And Gretchen wasn't about to get paid for whatever depraved acts she was asked or coerced into performing on Christmas Day.

She left the brothel early that morning, after telling Ghazi she wasn't working. He told her she'd find all of her things on the street if she didn't come back with a customer, but she knew it was a hollow threat, and she was more than willing to call his bluff. Ghazi was too greedy to kick her out and send her into the wallets of his competitors.

She told him she was going to get breakfast, but the truth of the matter was, she didn't have money for more than a cup of coffee. She stopped into the first open restaurant and got her coffee, and sat there enjoying the silence for about twenty minutes. If it was going to be her only cup of coffee, and likely her only "meal" all day, she was going to savor it. And she was savoring it, until -

"Gretchen, my dear!"

The sarcastic tone of that whiny accent sent a chill up her spine like nails on a chalkboard. She took a deep breath and glared up at her unwanted visitor.

"What the hell do you want, Beni?"

Beni shrugged, settling himself down at the table with a plate full of eggs and his own cup of coffee. He'd barely sat down before he pulled a flask from his shirt pocket and splashed some vodka in his cup.

"Did I say you could sit down?" she asked irritably.

Beni snickered. "Oh, was I interrupting a charming breakfast with all of your friends?"

Gretchen rolled her eyes and took a sip of coffee. There was disappointingly little left in the cup.

"Merry Christmas," she muttered to herself.

"That's the spirit," Beni said, raising his cup in a toast before taking a drink. He looked her over with a thoughtful smirk, and then took a bite of his eggs, asking around a bite, "Are you busy tonight?"

"I'm not working," she told him pointedly.

Beni raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? On a Friday night? What does Ghazi think of that?"

"I don't give a damn," she said, downing the last dregs of her coffee with a disappointed sigh.

Beni chuckled darkly to himself. "Is he pretty pissed?"

Gretchen shrugged. "What's he going to do about it? I'm just not going to come back tonight. I'll pick up a bunch of johns tomorrow night. He'll get over it."

"I'm not busy tomorrow."

Gretchen felt her stomach tighten sickeningly, and she glanced up at him beneath a frown.

"I'm not thinking about it today," she said. "It's Christmas."

Beni took a sip from his tea. "So what are you going to do today if you are not working?"

Gretchen straightened in her seat a little, running her finger over the rim of her cup absentmindedly. "I don't know. But I'll tell you what I'm not doing. I'm not screwing anybody."

Beni snickered. "Well, if a virgin could have a baby today, I suppose anything is possible."

She reached over and gave him a hard smack on the arm. He let out a little cry and gave her a wounded look, rubbing his arm dramatically before returning his attention to his eggs. Gretchen sighed, looking around the restaurant for an awkward moment before starting to get out of her seat.

"Well, I guess I'm gonna go - "

Beni didn't even look up from his eggs. "Do you want to go to church with me?"

Gretchen froze, not quite out of her chair, and stared at him in shock. "What?"

He swallowed his bite. "I said do you want to go to church - "

"I heard you. Why?"

He shrugged, finishing off his eggs in two greedy little bites before looking up at her at last. "Because it is Christmas."

Gretchen just kept staring at him, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide.

"You're serious," she said incredulously.

Beni nodded his head, his expression puzzled.

"You go to church? On Christmas?"

Now it was his turn to look incredulous. "You don't?"

"I - "

"Aren't you a Catholic?"

"Well, yeah, but - "

Beni was watching her with the most judgmental look on his face - - such that Gretchen might have found it funny if she didn't feel so self-conscious from his inquisitions.

"When was the last time you even went to confession?"

Gretchen was getting uncomfortable in her current position, and stood up straight, staring down at him steadily. "What are you, my priest?"

Beni snorted. "I might as well be. You see me more often than you see a priest."

She crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth gaping for want of words. She shook her head in angry shock.

"I can't believe it. You - you think you're better than me!"

Beni leaned back in his seat. "Well, I certainly go to church more than you."

"That doesn't make you better than me."

Beni scoffed. "It makes me a better Catholic."

Gretchen glared hard at him. "You're not a Catholic."

His eyes widened with offense. "I am too! I was baptized and everything."

"I don't care if you were ordained a goddamn priest!" she said a little louder than she meant to, drawing the disapproving attention of the other patrons. "You've got all that...shit around your neck. You don't believe in any of it. You just use it to get out of trouble with religious people."

Beni glared back at her. "Says who?"

"Says you!" she retorted. "You told me that!"

He waved his hand dismissively. "That must have been before I became a devout Catholic."

"Oh, bullshit."

Beni downed the rest of his spiked coffee and got up from his seat. He brushed the crumbs off of his pants and said, "Fine. But I am going to church. And we can let God decide which of us is the better Catholic."

He turned and started out of the restaurant. Gretchen watched him go for an aggravating moment before letting out a grumbling sigh and hurrying after him. She caught up to his slight, sneaking form quickly, and he glanced at her smugly out of the corner of his eye before returning his attention to the street.

"So the sinner joins the saint," he said.

"I swear to God, I'll murder you in your sleep tomorrow night if you keep this shit up."

Beni turned and gave her a scandalized look. "Gretchen! It's Christmas!"

She rolled her eyes, walking a little bit faster.

"But I am glad to know you have accepted my offer for tomorrow night."

"Shut up."

She ignored him most of the way to St. Eulogius Catholic Church, which was situated on the cusp of two neighborhoods, just between the impoverished and dangerous Arabic side of town, and a renovated neighborhood of middle-class European immigrants. Beni spent most of the walk praying or pretending to, constantly glancing at Gretchen to make sure she was properly annoyed. When they finally reached the church, he stepped ahead of her and went inside, not even bothering to hold open the door. She caught it just before it closed and was about to tell him what a jackass he was before remembering that she was in a church.

She was in a church.

Gretchen hadn't been to Mass since she left America, and even then, she only went when her mother made her. She'd never been any more religious than she had to be to keep her mother happy. Or at least, to keep her mother from harping at her. She had always imagined most everyone else felt the same way. So it was odd to be following Beni into a church voluntarily, and odder still to see him acting damn near reverent about it. He dipped his fingers in the water and crossed himself without the inkling of an ironic smirk, and she hurried to do the same.

She was not about to be shown up at Mass by the likes of Beni Gabor. And she was not about to give in to the notion that he really was so religious. Beni was a dirty, crooked little con who didn't care about anything or anyone but himself. She didn't believe for a second that he was Catholic, or anything else for that matter. Beni's only religion was self-preservation.

She followed him down the aisle and sat down next to him in a pew that was uncomfortably close to the front of the church.

"As we prepare to celebrate the mystery of Christ's love, let us acknowledge our failures and ask the Lord for pardon and strength," the priest's voice bellowed.

All around her (and much to her chagrin, right beside her), people began to recite the proper response. She caught the gleam of a smirk in Beni's eye, and he leaned closer to whisper in her ear:

"It is in the hymnal if you need it."

"I don't need it," she retorted.

"May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life."

Gretchen knew well enough to say "amen" after that, but she was too busy thinking to join in the Kyrie or Gloria. Beni kept glancing at her, but she ignored him, because - damn it, that's what it was. Bring us to everlasting life, the priest had prayed. Everlasting life. Beni was certainly genuine in his devotion, but that didn't mean Gretchen was wrong about him. Because who on earth would be more drawn to the notion of everlasting life than Beni Gabor?

She felt smug as she lowered her head in prayer. Maybe Beni was a better Catholic than her. But that was only because he was too scared of death and Hell not to be. She leaned back in the pew and pretended to listen to the scripture readings and the homily, both of which lasted longer than she had the attention span for. She glanced over at Beni only once, who sat up in his seat and nodded his head in agreement with the priest's message, and the priest kept looking at him, fooled into thinking Beni was a kind and devout soul, made humble and holy in his poverty.

Gretchen had half a mind to hit him, but couldn't. Not in church. She stood next to him and recited the scraps of the Nicene Creed she could remember as he earnestly declared that he believed. "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty," he said, as if he could trick God into thinking there was a faithful bone in his body. I believe in one God, he said, with six different religious chains hanging around his neck. If Gretchen knew they were there, certainly God did, too.

She followed him up to the front of the church and received communion, and all the time she felt assured. Beni wasn't a better Catholic than her. He wasn't a better anything than her. When at last they'd received the benediction and sung the final hymn, and slipped out of the church like shadows, she turned to him with a self-satisfied look and said:

"I knew it."

Beni gave her a superior look. "Oh, what did you know? That you look like an ass and your mother would be ashamed you cannot say a single Hail, Mary?"

Gretchen clenched her teeth, giving him a grim smile. "No. That you're nothing but a fake."

"Oh, I am a fake?"

"Yeah," she said. "You're just a fake. You don't believe any of that. You just hope that if you keep showing up, they'll let you into Heaven."

Beni stopped, turning to look at her. "They will let me into Heaven."

"They will not," she retorted. "You're a slimy, selfish, greedy little rat. You've never done a nice thing for anybody, and you're not going to Heaven."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "I suppose you think you are going to Heaven."

Her jaw dropped, and she took a little step back. She hadn't expected that question. "Well, I don't - I mean, there probably isn't even a heaven."

"If there isn't a Heaven, then why do you care if I am going or not?"

"Heaven is for good people," she said firmly. "And you're horrible. Everybody knows it. God knows it."

Beni scoffed. "Heaven is for forgiven people. Why don't you pay attention for three goddamn minutes during a sermon?"

"Stop it," she said. "You can't make me feel guilty. This is just another little con for you. Just another way to cheat something out of somebody."

Beni looked down his nose at her. "I came here to celebrate the birth of my Savior."

"Oh? Which one?" she demanded, reaching under his shirt and tugging all of the necklaces free. He quickly yanked them out of her hands and tucked them back where they belonged.

"You can never be too careful."

"That's not how it works!" she nearly shouted at him. "You can't be a Catholic and a Muslim and a Jew and whatever else you've got hanging around there."

"How do you know?"

"Because you can't!" Gretchen said. "I may be a bad Catholic, but at least I'm committed."

Beni raised an eyebrow at her, a dark little sneer creeping into the corner of his mouth. "Is that what this is about? Me being a better Catholic than you?"

"You're not a better Catholic."

He wheezed out a laugh. "Oh, come on, Gretchen. I think we both know I'm a better Catholic than you."

Gretchen let out an exasperated sigh and starting walking away at a brisk pace. "I'm done. I didn't take the day off and get Ghazi all mad to spend it arguing religion with you."

She heard him walking behind her, and tried to hurry and lose him, but he caught her by the elbow and dragged her to a stop.

"Oh, come on, Gretchen. This is not what Christmas is about."

She sucked in a little breath and whirled around to glare at him. "I really don't give a damn."

He pulled her into a stiff hug which, despite her best efforts, she couldn't wiggle free of. "Christmas is about giving..."

"Stop."

"As our blessed Lord gave himself for us..."

"Beni, I swear to God - "

"In the form of a weak and helpless little baby - Ouch!" he spat a stream of Hungarian curses as Gretchen stepped a little harder on his foot and freed herself from his arms. "Damn it, Gretchen, now I am bleeding!"

"Gee, that's a real fucking tragedy."

He gave her a scolding, condescending look. "The language you use! On Christmas! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

She glared back at him pointedly. "I can tell you who I won't kiss with it."

Beni let out a scoff. "Oh, please. You would kiss me anywhere I want you to for twenty cents."

Gretchen's hands balled into fists, and she clocked back and punched him clean in the jaw. He staggered a few steps back, holding his face.

"You are such a bitch!" he shouted, wincing with pain as his mouth formed the words.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah? Well you can forget about coming by tomorrow night. I'll find someone else. I'll find ten of 'em."

"Sure you will," he sneered. "And I will tell everyone you have syphilis!"

"Go ahead!"

"I'll tell Gad! And then where will you be? He is the only other person in this goddamn city who will lay a finger on you more than once!"

She let out a short, humorless laugh. "First of all, that's not true. And second of all, Gad already has syphilis!"

Beni started to say something, but stopped short, staring at her in shock. "Gad has syphilis?"

Gretchen took a step back, thrown off by his sudden change in demeanor. "Um...well, I think so. He's got this rash..."

"Do you have syphilis?" he asked accusingly. A look of panic came over his face. "Do I have syphilis?"

Gretchen rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. Beni stood just a few feet away from her, rubbing his jaw absentmindedly. She glanced over at him and felt a pang of something like guilt.

"Sorry about that."

"You should be," he said bitterly. "It hurts." He looked up at her with big, woeful eyes. "What kind of person are you, hitting a man and telling him he might have syphilis on Christmas?"

She raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Really?"

"All I did was take you to church, and this is how you treat me."

It was all Gretchen could do to just stare at him. "You're a real martyr, Beni."

He looked back at her pitifully. "Oh, so now you will make fun of me, too."

Gretchen let out a loud sigh, glancing up at the sky and squinting for a brief moment at the white hot sun blazing overhead. It was Christmas, and she was sweating out in the dusty streets of Cairo, arguing with a pathetic thief from Hungary. Somewhere across the ocean, her mother was going to Mass and dressing a goose for dinner. Somewhere across the ocean, it was snowing and everything was decked in sparkling lights and tinsel. And across the ocean, they were wishing peace and goodwill toward men.

She glanced back at Beni. "I'm sorry," she said, more earnestly this time. "Do you want to go get a drink?"

"I don't have any more money."

She looked at him thoughtfully. "Neither do I. But I have a bottle of whiskey in my room."

Beni's brow furrowed. "I thought you were not working tonight."

Gretchen sucked in a little breath, offering him her hand. "I'm not. Merry Christmas."

end.