Author's note: the story and characters are not mine. They belong to Mr. Shakespeare. The inspiration for this story was the Wonderful 1996 Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, possibly the best adaptation and is set in that World of Verona Beach. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, but would be grateful for thoughts and ideas. It's not in the language, because quite frankly I lack the time and energy to put it in Shakespeare's English. It is an alternate ending, mainly because every time I watch the film, while I love it, I end up screaming at the TV. So this is how I think it should run. Hope you like it.

Prologue

"In other cities women pray for sun. Here in Verona, we pray for rain."

These thought, a saying of my mother rattle through my head, as I sit beside my cousins bed. Outside a huge storm rages. They say it's the worst in memory. Outside the hospital room, an even bigger one rages.

We've gathered in here, the younger generation, partly by common consent and partly because of the hospital lying outside Verona's walls, and having no idea of the feud.

Benvolio and I sit by Romeo's bed. He'll be alright, just a concussion and a flesh wound to the arm, or so the doctors tell us. They're right. I checked.

Tybalt lies in his bed alone. Initially the Caplets' gathered around it, but the nurse threw the elders out, and Juliet now sits nervously on a chair in the middle.

Valentino sits next to Mercutio's bed. He keeps talking to him in Italian, trying to get some response, but his big brother is still out cold from the surgeon's drugs. He was lucky. They removed the bullet and pumped him full of blood. He may now live.

"They seem to be getting quieter," Valentino observes hopefully in Italian.

"Just pausing for breath." I reply in the same language, "Or else the prince's men have arrived to stop them."

"Too quiet for that!" Benvolio observes and we all laugh. Juliet regards us, confused and I wander again at Balthazar's feverish accusation of a few moments ago. How could Romeo marry a girl, who is not only a Capulet, but outside his own culture?

"Is it true?" Valentino is probably the only one of us bold, or stupid, enough to ask the question. "What Balthazar said. Is it the truth?"
She ducks her head and nods nervously. Slowly Benvolio rises to his feet.

"Then you'd best take my seat."

She moves quickly and timidly to sit in his vacated seat. I cannot honestly say that I blame her. We are none of us sure what to make of this. Silence again reigns in the 

small room, broken only by the rumble of thunder outside, and the louder rumble within.

After about an hour, Valentino, no longer able to just sit there leave. He returns with food, that we are all grateful for, despite none of us been truly hungry.

He places the food, readymade pasta salad, in the centre of the hospital table, in an age old tradition to show he means no ill will. He cannot tell who will take which, so he cannot poison them. Not that anyone of us would suspect him.

We take them and eat while we listen to the quarrel. They have moved beyond the nature of the Balthazar's accusations and, the exchanges of personal insults, to every death in the quarrel within the last thirty or so years. Suddenly we can hear the thunder.

Captain Escalus Prince storms into the room.

"Right!" he says staring around the room. "Who wants to tell me what happened here?"

The explanation takes some hours. I can't really help; I don't know how the quarrel started, beyond the usual of Montague vs. Capulet. I didn't know anything about the marriage till this morning. I knew that Benvolio, Mercutio, Romeo and the others had crashed the Capulet's party, but I think its best not to mention that.

All I know about is how we got here. I was the only one in the house when the call came. I was the one the High Way agency told.

How in pursuit of Tybalt Romeo had left the jurisdiction of Verona Beach. How Tybalt's car had been upturned, and Romeo trying to help (at least that was what they thought and I wasn't going to contradict them) had swerved to avoid a collision with another car, and been injured.

Two seconds later, literally as I hung up the phone, Benvolio burst in with news of the quarrel.

The Fates had smiled on us, for the hospital, to which good Mercutio had been taken, by helicopter, was the same one to which they had taken Romeo. So here we are.

The others tell their parts, only Valentino is silent. I suppose like me he's got nothing to say.

Prince takes it all in his stride. In terms of the quarrel, he's heard it all before. And with the marriage, unlike Father Lawrence, he sees the risks to both. Which is probably why he says he will take Juliet to father's house, then to the station. He knows only too well that there is still the chance that her father will kill her to protect family honor. Or her mother.



Benvolio leaves too, to fetch some clean clothes for the three of us from home. That just leaves me, and Valentino, and the wounded of course.

After about 3 hours, I get up. I need to stretch my legs, and a faint calmness has descended upon the wing. I walk to the vending machine and buy myself a soda.

It occurs to me that Valentino has been here as long as I have, and might appreciate some refreshment, so I wander back to find out.

What I see there makes me feel ill.