The concept of normal being a thing parents let their children do is, frankly, bizarre and slightly unsettling.

"Well, I wish you the best of luck. Don't tell me about what you're doing."

Smile.

"You too. I don't intend to."

Five days later:

Gale rests his head on Mordred's shoulder. It's... unusual. A sign that this is not an ordinary afternoon together.

(Mordred is going to die, and Gale has faith in the resurrection of the body, but even so it is a very long journey far away where Gale will not get to see him for a long time.)

He has Mordred's full attention as soon as they're touching.

"...hey. You okay?"

"No."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"You got out alive."

"I did. I'm alive, and Zoe's alive, and Oswald's alive, and Montgomery's alive, and Lela and Tereza and Lev are all alive, and the Mouth is closed, and nobody I," he almost trips over the word, "love, needed to die."

"You saved them."

"Yeah. I did. I'm getting better at saving the world."

This could, if it were in a different conversation, be a joke. It isn't one.

"What happened?"

Has he really not explained yet? He should do that.

"I found the leader of the cult in Malta in a coffeeshop and I asked if she was okay, and she said no, and I convinced her to let me give her a hug while she cried on me, and I asked for her help casting a different spell that doesn't run on self-sacrifice, and she said yes. And-- it was going to work, I was so sure it was going to work, I wanted so badly to come back to you and tell you I found a way to do it without sacrificing anyone and nobody would need to die-- and then it didn't. Because it turns out the thing that spell was casting out isn't the thing the mouth is.

"And then the second in command of the cult in Malta showed up with a gun and threatened to kill us and-- I should tell you about Inaaya, I don't think I have yet-- but I asked him 'why do you want this, what are you doing this for, what are your goals, do you even have any,' and he couldn't answer. So I talked him into sacrificing himself to close the mouth, and that worked, when nothing else had.

"And now Montgomery gets to have a future and her daughter gets to have a future and I get to come home and see you and-- we made it out alive. Not everyone, but all the people I decided I was going to save. We're alive."

"You know what I'm going to say about this."

"Do I?"

"Everyone is a child of God. Everyone can be redeemed."

"Yeah."

He's smiling, sincerely, he'd been kind of worried it was going to be another manifesto for why Gale should go with him to the Mouth so that he could commit ritual suicide.

"Not everyone is good but anyone can be."

"In some ways you're one of the best Christians I know."

There was a time that would have grated. "Thank you."

"I... wish there were something more I could do to help."

Gentle gentle fingers through Gale's hair. "That's... very fair, if I were you I'd want the same thing."

There's a longish silence. Not an uncomfortable one.

"I prayed about it." He quotes, "they also serve who only stand and wait."

"...I love you. I'm getting more used to saying that, when it's true."

"I love you too."

Sometimes he really wants to introduce Gale to Inaaya. "And-- I'm better, because I know you? You're the reason I'm any good at this."

(They've never talked about it before. But it's surprisingly natural to have it out in the open.)