A/N: 1, It is alright Ilcuvi. I know there was little chance that you would magically know I knew about Venice. I admit my idea of where I put the Casa Massimo is sketchy in my own mind. I just knew I wanted it away from the canal and where I could use cars. –shrug- anyway, due to the sad misunderstanding – I dedicate this chapter to you. Hope you like dramatic chapters. lol.

2, Sorry for the abnormally long wait. My comp's video card is on the fritz so I'm trying to use it as little as possible until I have the money to buy a new computer. Right now I'm using my sister's computer. I'll try to update quicker next time.

Chapter 10

Scipio paused in his writing to look up at his mother. She was humming as she washed dishes. SHE was washing dishes. She wasn't making a maid do it for her. That alone gave Scipio great pride in having her for a mother. After a short moment of his staring, his mother dried her hands and looked over her shoulder at him.

"No more writing today, Scipio?" she asked. Scipio shook his head.

"That's not it," he said. "I was just thinking of home."

"This is your home," Miss Massimo replied, frowning slightly at him.

"For now, but when these three years are over, I'm going to move back to Venice… at least for a little while. I have to at least go back and see the others. I promised," Scipio explained. "And I have to go back and tell Prosper everything. If you're right and he liked me, even after these three years, then I'll find a house to live in back in Venice… or at least still in Italy. However, if he rejects me, I'll be back in this house before the plane takes off the ground."

Miss Massimo threw her dish towel over her shoulder and frowned deeper. She strolled over to him and gave him a hug around his shoulders. Her eyes glanced over his paper. She took a deep breath.

"Writing about the effects of environmental based noise on the stress level of students?" she asked, a bit shocked. "That seems a bit advanced for your age, doesn't it?"

"A bit," Scipio admitted. "I'm meeting with a guy from school tomorrow to work on it with him because we have the same assignment." But Prosper probably could've done it all on his own, Scipio noted in his head. "The biggest problem is finding the right sources to cite and remembering how to cite properly."

"Well I'm sure you'll work it out," she assured him. Scipio sighed.

"Yes… but American schools seem so much pickier than Italian schools."

"But you do like living here, right?" Miss Massimo asked, concern evident in her face and voice.

"Yeah," Scipio smiled encouragingly at his mom. "I love living with you, Mom."

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

A year and six months after Scipio left for America and Prosper headed back to the orphanage only to be adopted within the week, Scipio found the world to be a harsher place than ever before. He was only half way through his exile to the United States of America and then… this had to happen.

Scipio watched out the car window as he was rushed through the streets. The world seemed to be shaking… like in those movies when a person starts to faint. Scipio felt like he was shaking too. In fact, he was. He couldn't stop himself. His whole body just wouldn't stop shivering despite the heater turned all the way up in the car. Rain thudded down on the car roof. The sky was a dark and dismal gray. Why did America have to be so ironically appropriate?

"I'm sorry, sir. Traffic's backed up. I'm going as fast as I can," his driver apologized. Scipio shook his head. He was in the passenger seat. The car was moving at a snail's pace, stuck in a traffic jam.

"It's… not your fault...," he murmured, but his body felt tense and stiff. He had to go faster. He had to be moving. He couldn't sit here in this car and be patient. "Actually, I'll meet you there," he quickly added and shoved the car door open.

Scipio ignored his driver's calls and panic. He slammed the door shut and made a quick dash down the sidewalk. He was instantly soaked right through his preppy school uniform. School was still in session, but the worried phone call that had arrived had pulled Scipio out of class early.

The sidewalk was literally dripping in the rain. Water rolled down across it and into the street. Puddles gathered every few steps. The bushes and trees that lined the street where no buildings stood were soaked and weighed down by the onslaught of rain. Scipio could hardly see where he was going. Besides the world shaking in his vision, blurring and focusing, shifting like an unsteady camera, Scipio's hair was sticking to him and blocking his eyes.

Scipio pushed his hair back and stumbled in a crack in the sidewalk. A second later, he miss stepped and fell right into a large and growing puddle. He winced. His knee was scuffed up now and his elbow hurt. So did his forehead. Scipio glared at the ground as though he could blame it for his pain. Then he began to shake even worse.

"Damn it!" he screamed and punched the wet concrete. He let out a pained cry afterward, pain shooting through his fist and arm. He shook his head wildly and ignored the pain. He didn't have time for this!

The young Massimo pushed himself up and kept running, the stinging in his knee the least of his problems. Soon, he was under a covering. Without slowing, he turned and ran into the building the overhang protected. He ran right until he hit a desk. He gripped it harshly.

"M-Massimo!" he exclaimed at the startled woman behind the counter. "Tell me where!"

She typed as quickly as possible, scared out of her wits. The woman looked over Scipio's wet and ragged appearance. He probably looked like a crazy teenager, which is exactly how he felt… but he didn't care! Why was she taking so long to tell him where to go?!

"Room 323. Take the elevator around the corner," the woman said, pointing. Scipio nodded. As he ran off, he remembered to call a thank you over his shoulder.

Where was Scipio? As the elevator moved sluggishly upward, Scipio remembered the call. Sitting in class and then being summoned to the office. At first he'd thought he was getting in trouble for some unknown reason. However, when they handed him a phone and gave him piteous looks, he knew that wasn't it. It was the hospital calling for him… His mother…. His mother had been attacked while at work. The suspect was caught, but not before shoving his mother down three flights of stairs backwards and shooting her in the side.

Apparently they only called because his mother had been conscious enough to beg them to call for him. Hospitals…. Scipio shivered, and it wasn't because he was soaked and standing in an air conditioned elevator.

The sterile elevator couldn't open fast enough. Scipio squeezed through as soon as there was enough room, startling people waiting to board. He didn't care. He pushed past everyone on his way to the hospital room.

"Mom!" he exclaimed as he burst into the room. A doctor was standing by her bed. She was patched up but still bleeding through the bandages. She was beginning to turn purple and black with bruises, but she was conscious and she smiled at him when she saw him.

"Scipio," she said in the happiest tone he could ever have expected. Her voice was tired and Scipio's eyes began to water. No. He shook his head and cleared the tears away. He got a distinct feeling he'd done that before sometime… or someone he'd known had. Right now it didn't really matter.

"Ah. This must be your son. Scipio, was it?" the doctor asked. He sounded nice enough. He probably looked nice and kind too, but Scipio couldn't take his eyes off his mother. He walked slowly forward to her bed.

He wasn't really listening, but he got the main points. "She's not going to make it, Son." "Probably won't last the night." "..says she understands…. has a will…"

"Do you understand?" the doctor asked, sounding worried about Scipio. The boy was shivering violently and his knee had started to bleed. Scipio nodded numbly. Then the doctor said something about getting Scipio cleaned up, but Scipio still wasn't listening.

When the doctor left the room, Scipio limped closer to his mother. She smiled and offered her hand to him. He took it. Even he could see the way his hand was shaking… but he wasn't even feeling the cold. He only knew how his heart was beating like it would burst.

"Scipio," his mother murmured. "You're shaking… Did you run here in this storm?"

"Mom," Scipio whimpered out, his eyes swimming again.

"It's okay, Scipio," she assured him in her tired voice. "Everyone has to go sometime… I guess my time is now… I uh… haven't told them to call you father… I'll need you to tell him."

"No," Scipio growled out through his tears.

"Scipio, this is important…. I've left everything to you. Everything that is mine, including everything I left at your father's house… it's all yours now," his mother explained. "You have plenty of money to pay the maids and the house payments until you go back to Italy… Can you do that for me?"

Scipio shook his head as he fell to his knees. He pulled his mother's hand to his forehead and let the first tears escape his eyes.

"Mom, don't do this," he begged.

"Scipio… Prosper will forgive you for leaving… He never held it against you… I promise… he'll still love you," Miss Massimo breathed out. "Brotherly… Romantically… He loves you. I could see it… in his eyes."

"Mom, please….," Scipio's voice sounded foreign and pathetic, even to himself. He squeezed his mother's hand and she squeezed his back.

"I love you too… Scipio, I love you so much," she said, regaining some of her voice. Scipio just cried there, sitting by her bed and holding her hand.

She didn't speak again for a long while. Scipio didn't know how long he sat there before she fell to sleep, unable to keep herself conscious anymore. A short while later, he knew the nurse's came in because he had a temporary set of clothes to wear and a towel to dry off with. They also helped bandage his knee and elbow. Then Scipio sat in the chair by the window, only five feet from his mother's bed. He watched the rain and tried to keep from crying. Soon, he couldn't take it and closed the blinds.

His mother was dying. In a moment of relaxed reverence, Scipio remembered a time that seemed so long ago. A dark night with crickets chirping, a muted study, a lamp illuminating a tear stained letter and a crying teenage boy. How long had it been since he'd been in that room, comforting Prosper? Now Scipio was living the same thing Prosper had learned about through an impersonal letter… He wondered if Prosper had ever found out what his mother had left him in her will… or how Prosper was handling without him.

Scipio hadn't received a single letter from his siblings. Not one. He'd sent one, but after he got no reply to it, he'd stopped. Had they all forgotten him? Had they forgot the promise to send letters everyday?... at least every week. Not a single letter in a year and a half. Not even Prosper?... Why?

"Scipio."

The raven haired teen turned to his mother. He'd thought he heard her say his name, but she was sleeping soundly. Then, suddenly and without warning, the heart monitor began to drone out a long and resounding note. Scipio's heart rate sped and his eyes widened.

"Mom?" he exclaimed, jumping from his seat to grab her hand. "Mom?!" He shook her but she did not respond. The heart monitor continued to drown out his hearing with its loud beep.

Nurses rushed into the room and made Scipio leave. He was in the way, they said. Scipio stumbled into the hallway. Others visitors looked down the hall as if it would reveal which patient was dying. Still, most were sleeping and took no notice. Scipio saw an open window at the end of the hall. He stumbled down to it, his brain a fuzz of static and heart monitor beeps.

The window was clear and had no curtains. Outside it, Scipio saw the rain had died down. A cloud moved to reveal the moon. Scipio's chest felt squeezed. He gently, slowly, placed his hand against the window. The last time he'd felt bad, Prosper had been there for him… to comfort him and make him feel better… This time, the sadness was even worse. It was all encompassing. Scipio was finding it hard to breathe through it all.

If his mother died… and the orphans had forgotten him… what was Scipio even doing? What would he do after the three years?... Everything would be gone. A dangerous thought crossed Scipio's mind just then. Suddenly a voice, no a memory entered Scipio consciousness. It took no concentration to hold onto this memory and to hear that voice.

"You are not allowed to try to kill or harm yourself on purpose for any reason," Prosper's voice echoed back from that small memory. Scipio smiled sadly out at the night. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the glass.

"If that is what you wish." His own voice answered Prosper in the memory. Scipio felt his heart beat heavily. Every beat was a workout, it was hard and it hurt.

The beeping from his mother's room stopped abruptly, but no steady rhythm replaced it. Scipio pressed his lips together in a tight line, like his father often did when he heard news he didn't want to hear. Then a hand set on Scipio's shoulder. A nurse apologized to him, but he shook her off. He distantly heard himself tell her that he wanted to be alone for a while. She complied and Scipio was left by himself again. He tried to grip the window, but it was flat and cold.

'Prosper….Prosper what do I do now?' he asked. 'Why… why haven't you sent me anything?'

"Prosper…," he cried out loud, voice trembling. Then a sob escaped his lips and he cried once again, leaning on that window and all alone in the hallway.