IT'S NOLLIE'S BIRTHDAY! I made her birthday 10/22/1911 because October 22nd is St. John Paul II's feast day (he's bae) and my aunt's birthday. Sooo... I actually think this one needs to be the last Tintin and Nollie story. This one's gonna be short, I know it, because I'm super busy already but I just HAD to write one more... to kinda put some closure into the stories. But I don't want them to be overrr :( Anyway, see you at the bottom! This one's gonna be sorta dark. Hehe. ~DP55
One
Honeymoon
It was supposed to be our honeymoon.
It was the perfect trip: three weeks in Italy! Venice, Verona, Milan—and then we'd be hopping a plane to Rome towards the end of the trip. A plane! I'd never ridden on a plane before—Tintin had been thrilled to finally get me into the air. Had been. As I said before, it was supposed to be our perfectly-planned-out honeymoon…but with Tintin, the world-famous journalist as a husband, plans don't usually keep.
The morning after our wedding, we boarded the train for the long ride all the way to Milan. I brought several books for the ride—English to Italian dictionaries, A Million Things to Do in Italy—Fifth Edition, Milan: A History… I'd taken any and every book on Italy from the library in the few days before the wedding, much to Isabelle's disapproval."You mustn't be worrying about the honeymoon now," she chided, "You're getting married in two days, after all…" She'd delighted in helping with the final wedding preparations—there wasn't much to be done, and yet she wanted to do it all. She insisted on it. She ordered the flowers, hemmed my mother's wedding gown so it would fit me…she was the patron saint of wedding preparations. And yet, despite her best efforts to make everything go perfectly as planned, it didn't.
It all began the evening we arrived in Venice. The sun was taking her last bow before dancing her way into the tufty, purple curtains, and the stars were beginning to dot the sky where she had once been. We'd just taken our bags from the cab and were on our way to our hotel, arm in arm, laughing about the cab driver. He was a stout, grouchy old man with the thickest black mustache I'd ever seen. He'd asked if we were cousins upon entering his cab—Tintin had chuckled at this, before explaining to him in fluent Italian that we were newlyweds. The man didn't even bother to congratulate us—he just grumbled something Italian and took us to Venice. "He probably just had a long day," I giggled as we crossed a bridge, leaning on Tintin.
Tintin smiled, pausing for a moment at the arch of the bridge. "Yes, several very long days with lots and lots of silly newlywed tourists." He leaned against the cement railing, and I did the same.
"It was a very long trip."
"Yes, but my companion made it worthwhile." The way he looked at me made my insides turn to mush. Slowly he leaned in towards me and kissed me softly, innocently, and I forgot how to breathe. When we broke, he took my hand and we were on our way to the hotel.
After we'd dropped our bags, we decided to go get something to eat. I changed into a black velvet evening gown Tintin had bought me in Verona. I'd insisted it was too expensive, but he waived off the price with a simple, "The wearer must be the most beautiful girl in the world. We have found her, and she is not going home without this gown." I felt spoiled and unworthy for this gown, but Tintin couldn't keep his eyes off of me. "You're my wife?" He beamed after I changed. "Wow." He wrapped his hands around my waist and stared at me, jaw gaping. "Just…wow." I kissed him at this, and we were off.
We dined on garlic-and-butter pasta under the moonlight, and he tried to teach me simple Italian phrases that I might need for the remainder of our trip. "Ciao is hello," he explained, twirling pasta onto his fork, "And addio is goodbye."
"Ciao," I repeated, and he smiled.
"Yeah, that's right. Now, to introduce yourself, you would say ciao il mio nome es Nollie."
"But your name isn't Nollie," I teased, and he rolled his eyes. "How would you say… I am his wife?"
A happy little grin crossed his face as he remembered that I was his wife now. "Io sono sua moglie."
By the time we'd finished our meal, Tintin had taught me five phrases in Italian, with plans to teach me more in time. We walked back to our hotel room hand in hand, talking about tomorrow's itinerary.
"I think tomorrow morning I'll take you on a canal boat," he explained as we crossed the last bridge before reaching our hotel, "Early tomorrow morning. It's just spectacular. You are going to love it, I promise you." He leaned against the cement railing again, pointing towards the horizon. "If we go out early enough, we will see the sun rise. Won't that be incredible?"
"It's like the sun will be rising on our life together," I smiled, watching his face light up at this proposition.
"It will be," he grinned, reaching out to wrap his arm around me. He was about to continue when the shots rang out.
Tintin didn't wrap his arm around me at this—he threw his arms around me, yanking me behind him and into a crouch so we were cowering in the shadow of the bridge. By this time, there had been five shots. Shaken with horror, I began to sob into my palm quietly, praying that whoever the shots had been aimed at were going to be okay.
There were six more shots before the air was still again, at which Tintin helped me to my feet, wiped the tears from my eyes and kissed my forehead. "Nollie," he whispered, and I knew what he was going to say next. "I need to go see—"
"I know," I swallowed hard, "I'll come with you."
"Sweetheart, it's not safe."
"Yeah, and so why would I let my husband go in there alone?" He stared at me as though he had no idea what to say next. "Io sono tua moglie. I am your wife. Let me come with you."
Apparently Italian is very convincing, because instead of leading me back to the hotel, Tintin allowed me to come with him to find out who fired those shots. The shooting took place not even a block from where we'd been standing, leaving two girls lying dead, face-first on the street, blood seeping out of their multiple gunshot wounds. There was a crowd of people circling around the bodies when we got there, and everyone was either shouting words in Italian or crying. Tintin was one of those shouting in Italian—except he was trying to part the crowd so we could get in. When this proved useless, he began to push past people, dragging me along, towards the center of the circle. As soon as we reached the center, he turned to me.
"Do not leave my sight, do you understand?" His tone was dark, annoyed just in the slightest. "These people…" He turned away from me, beginning to inspect the bodies of the girls.
I shouldn't say girls. They were more of young women, probably eighteen or nineteen, like us. One girl had five gunshot wounds, while the other had six. Each had four in the abdomen, while the girl with five shots—the blonde one—had one in the head. The girl with black hair had one in the head and one in the neck. My stomach convulsed as I stared at them, and I tried to ignore the fact that the hem of my new black dress was trailing into a puddle of blood. Oh well. It's washable. I watched as Tintin rolled the black-haired girl onto her back, searching for any form of identification. She wasn't carrying anything—no clutch purse, nothing. There were bruises on her face—they looked as though they'd been there for a day or two, not a few hours. I crouched beside the blonde and rolled her over to find similar bruises on her face. The blonde girl didn't have anything either—just herself. Her patterned white dress was tattered and dirty, ripped in places…as if she'd been wearing it for days. The black-haired girl's dress was in similar condition, again. It was almost as though they'd escaped from somewhere and had been on the run when they were killed.
"Tintin," I whispered, "I think these girls…"
"Someone had been holding them hostage and pursued them after they escaped," he concluded, staring at me.
Nollie can't take Tintin anywhere. Anyway, check out Tintin & Nollie's blog (google search tintinnollie & it's the first link) for my little happy celebratory birthday post for Nollie. And then review! Yay! I love you guys. I hope you guys like my stories. ~DisneyPrincess55
