Title: Revelation
Author: Leiasky
Rating: PG
Summary: What would have happened if Zorro had removed his mask the day he asked Victoria to marry him?
Author's Notes: This story originally appeared on my web site but it has since been re-written. This is the finished piece. This is my version of what might have happened if Zorro had revealed his identity in the episode An Affair to Remember.
Revelation
"Don't I have the right to know the man behind the mask?" She asked.
"The man behind this mask is afraid of only one thing in this world. " Zorro moved to the mirror. Staring at himself through the mask. Uncertainty stirred in his heart. He stared at the man he had become and turned to her, trying to make her understand his true fear. "That you love a man with whom he cannot possibly compete." He held his hands out towards her uncertainly. " That if this mask was removed you would still be in love with Zorro and not with the man of flesh and blood." He knelt before her. Looking, searching for one more reason, the one last incentive to do what he had dreamed of doing for five years.
Their romantic dinner, their heartwarming conversation throughout the evening only hastened his decision to tell her. It couldn't be a more perfect time to reveal his identity to the woman he loved most in this world.
"I've never known this man of flesh and blood." Victoria shook her head. She had to make him clearly understand that his fears were unfounded. " But I do know this." She took his hands with her own and squeezed them reassuringly. "The courage and the passion that lives in Zorro's heart also lives in his. Share your secret with me." She pleaded.
"Very well, Victoria." He breathed , his heart beating rapidly. "You shall know."
Victoria held her breath as he lowered his head and slid his hands to the tie of the mask that had kept them apart for so long. The silence in the room was nerve wracking. The only noise that could be heard in the darkened room was the sound of their hearts pounding against their chests and the swish of material as he slowly untied the satin mask.
Victoria pressed a hand to her breast to still the pounding of her heart as the mask slid slowly away from his face.
She blinked. Once. Twice; as recognition thrust its way into her mind, and into her heart. Her heart lurched into her stomach and she swayed where she sat, her hands folded so tightly together they'd begun to turn white. She blinked again, uncertain at the image that was standing before her. She shook her head.
He clutched the mask in trembling hands. His heart was pounding as he watched expressions of disbelief and shock play across her beautiful features.
Her mouth moved but no words came out as she shook her head again, her eyes struggling to take in his remarkable revelation.
When she found her voice, the only words that came out were a strangled squeak. "It can't be."
He struggled to voice a response. His mind couldn't focus on anything beyond the beating of his own heart as he watched the woman he loved begin to cope with the true identity of her masked hero.
She shook her head slowly. Her eyes began to glisten with tears and he reached a trembling hand up to wipe them away.
"Why?" Her voice was still a whisper. "How? I don't understand." Her voice trailed away into nothing and he shook his head, his eyes as tender and comforting as they had always been.
Today, she did not take any comfort in that tender, loving gaze. As the shock began to wear off, it was replaced by another, seemingly stronger emption. Anger. Hurt and betrayal flashed through her eyes as she stared at him. She couldn't remember when she had last been so furious – with anyone.
As he opened his mouth to speak, she jerked her head away from him. His hand, where he had been wiping away her tears, fell away. She pushed angrily against his chest, nearly knocking him over from where he knelt beside her. She was shaking with rage and she looked around the cave for some hint that this could really be happening. It had to be a dream. The man she loved most in this world could not be her childhood friend. She would have known. The enraged woman tried to stand but the pain in her ankle was too great and she sunk into the chair once again.
"You must have just loved this little deception!" She seethed, remembering all of the little tricks Diego and her brothers used to play on her when they were children. The humiliation came rushing back in a wave that threatened to suck the breath right out of her lungs. " Did you take great pleasure in playing this little game with my heart!" The only outlet she had for her rage was to curl her hands into little balls and pound them against his solid chest.
Tears slipped down her cheeks when he no longer had the courage to try to wipe them away. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, struggling in vain to still the heart that threatened to beat through his chest. The one thing that he had feared would happen in revealing his identity was unfolding at breakneck speed before his very eyes and there was nothing, no words, he could say to stop it. For the first time in a very many years, he was at a loss for words. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to take away his pain and her feelings of being used. Her scathing words cut him like tiny daggers and the verbal backlash was staggering.
Realization flickered in his sad eyes and he did the only thing that he could think of to still her rage. He grasped her hands gently, but held them tight enough so that she could not pull them free. "Release me, you-"
He leaned in and very gently, very sweetly, kissed her trembling lips. Almost immediately, she ceased her struggling, simply allowing him to bestow something nearly as rare as the water in the arid California desert. After a few probing moments, her lips flowered beneath his and desire flooded through her body. Whoever this man behind the mask was, she loved him. And, it appeared, she'd loved him for a very long time. Far before he had donned the mask of the now famous outlaw.
This was the man whose lips she had tasted few times before. Their time together was so short; Always too short. It left her longing, desiring, wanting desperately to know the man behind the mask. And now she did. Memories raced through her mind and she desperately, one last time, tried to formulate a reason in her mind that this could be some cruel joke. But it wasn't. Even down to the time she and Diego had been forced to seek shelter from the rain in an old abandoned windmill – she knew he loved her. She'd just denied it. "And only your cool sweet lips will quench my burning desire." Diego had finished a verse out of a book her mother used to read when she was a child. Victoria trembled in his black-clad arms, remembering what Zorro had said to her later that day. "Your smile is almost enough to quench my burning desire." She'd wondered then, but only for a fleeting instant.
His earlier words slammed into her mind like a tsunami rushing up the ocean's shoreline, "That if this mask was removed you would still be in love with Zorro and not with the man of flesh and blood." Did she now think this way? Her heart pounded in her chest and she pushed the thought into the back of her mind, struggling to come to some kind of calm understanding about this revelation.
He released her hands and wrapped his own around her head to pull her closer, deepening the kiss.
A small sound escaped her throat at the gesture and she melted into his arms. His familiar scent overwhelmed her, the gentle caress of his lips covering hers. She wrapped her slim fingers around his forearms as his lips moved so gently over hers – just like they had done before.
A small bell began to chime and for a moment it was ignored until Diego realized that it was the warning bell outside the cave. He pulled away quickly and shot a quick glance toward the cave entrance. Tornado was snorting and digging his hoof into the ground, sensing the coming danger. Diego noticed that that a steady stream of light was shining where it had been darkness moments before.
"The alarm." He turned back to her a worried look in his eyes. "The warning bell. Someone is at the cave entrance."
Victoria's eyes narrowed as Diego lifted her easily into his arms and raced up the steps leading to the entrance to the hacienda.
Victoria looked around the small room as he set her on her feet. This was where he had come from and left by earlier in the evening but there was no visible entrance. Her eyes were glued to his face as the reality of his position and identity seeped into her senses.
"Can you stand?" He asked quickly.
"If I have to." Victoria breathed, balancing her weight on her good foot. What was he doing? This small room was not concealed well enough to keep those bandits from finding them.
She watched as he replaced the mask with practiced precision and took her hand. He placed it on the lever that would open the secret door and whispered. " If I do not come back, pull this and a door will open behind you. Go through it and find Felipe . Tell him what has happened."
"What?" She shook her head. None of this was making sense. A secret door? Tell Felipe? If he didn't come back? "No." She whispered, grasping his hand as he turned away. " Don't go. I don't understand..."
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, sending another flood of reality seeping into her heart. The words he had thought long and hard over in the past, had such difficulty voicing as his true identity, slipped from his lips as if he had been saying them all his life. " I love you, Victoria. Please never doubt that."
He turned and sprinted down the stairs leaving her standing there alone, her jumbled emotions threatening to drive her mad. She took a closer look around the room and realized that there must be an entrance to the hacienda hidden here. She was about to investigate a little closer when she heard the clash of swords at the bottom of the stairs.
Her heart skipped a few beats as she listened to the commotion mere feet away. She sobbed back a few tears and pressed herself as far away from the steps as she could.
She could hear the bandits yelling and the sounds of glass as it shattered. All of the experiments on the tables impacted with the stone floor and she shuddered at the thought of what the cave would look like when all was done.
She had no fear that Zorro could handle the banditos. But, Diego? Could Diego take care of them as well as...? She shook her head. Wait a minute! What was she thinking? Diego was Zorro and he could do anything.
After a few minutes, when she heard no sounds from the cave, she pulled herself away, slid along the side of the wall and peered carefully around the corner.
Unconscious bodies lay strewn around the room as her eyes came to rest on the masked man who had the last bandito pressed against the wall.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed movement on the floor. As she turned her head to get a better look, she noticed a bandito quickly and quietly rising from the floor.
As Victoria shouted a warning, the bandito picked up his fallen sword and thrust it into the masked man's back.
"No!" Victoria screamed as Zorro released the man he had been holding and landed a right hook squarely against the man's jaw, dropping him to the ground unconscious. He grasped his injured side with a muffled groan and whirled around with what strength he had left and thrust his blade into the shocked bandito's chest. Zorro stumbled and sank to the floor, dropping the sword so that he could grasp the wall and slow his descent.