Tomatita

Part 11

"Ve~ a—are you sure Lovi's in there?" Feliciana stared deep into the dark, spooky forest, voice trembling slightly as she imagined what kind of scary things might be in there. Scary monsters, maybe. Like the ones Gill told her about. Like the scary ghosts that would appear out of the trees and go 'boo!'

She shivered and clung more tightly to Ludwig's arm, snuggling against him.

Antonio frowned, as he also stared into the darkness. Although his thoughts were travelling more along the lines of, 'Lovi could be in there. She may have been in there all night. How could she have gotten so lost that she couldn't find her way out?'

Unless something terrible had happened to her...

"All right," Gillian suddenly took the lead again, her confident voice bringing their minds back to reality and calming some of their most terrifying fantasies. "We have to decide if we're going all together or splitting up..."

"Ve~! I don't want to go alone!" And Feliciana immediately started to sniffle, tears dampening her big brown eyes.

"You won't, Feli!" Gillian hurriedly reassured her, bending down to give her a quick hug. "What if Francis goes with you and Ludwig? We can split up into two groups. Francis, you, and Ludwig, and Antonio and the awesome me."

Feliciana blinked, staring up at the girl for a moment before nodding fearfully. "Ve~ but what if you get lost, Gill?"

"I'm awesome! Awesome people don't get lost, silly!" She flicked her nose, drawing a giggle from the younger girl. "Don't worry. Francis has his cell phone, so you can call the grown-ups if something happens to you."

"But what if something happens to you?"

She grinned and reached into her back pocket, pulling out one of the walky-talkies that Francis's parents had bought the children a few months ago as a 'sorry we're never home' present. "I've got my talky, don't worry. And whoever finds Lovi can call the other group, okay?"

"Ve~ okay." She seemed reassured by this and suddenly reached up to throw her arms around Gill's neck. "I love you, Gill-Gill."

Gillian blinked in surprise, then laughed and hugged her back. "Yeah, yeah. I love you too, Feli. Now, you guys start looking so we can find Lovi soon as we can, right?"

"Right!"

Ludwig blinked at his sister, rather surprised that what she had said actually...well...made sense. He'd never actually seen her act this serious before...

Which led to the question why she didn't act like this more often?

"Should we meet here when we've found her?" Francis suddenly questioned, as he slipped a hand around Feli's little fingers, keeping her close. "Or if it gets too dark to look?"

Gill hurriedly shook her head. "No! We'll look 'til we find her! An awesome person like me won't leave Lovi to be lost in the woods all night. That would be completely and totally unawesome."

Francis hurriedly nodded. "All right, then. Come on, Ludwig, Feli. We'll go look for her over here."

And they walked off, leaving Antonio and Gillian to head in the opposite direction.

"Well, let's start looking, Tonio. We've gotta find her before Francis does! Since we're totally more awesome than he could ever hope to be!"

~.~.~

Everyone would be happy...

Everyone would be happy if she disappeared forever...

Lovina could hear the monsters now. They were surrounding her, getting ready to pounce at her and gobble her up. She closed her eyes more tightly, shivering as she felt one of them brush against her leg.

Scary monsters. Scary monsters. She didn't want to be eaten by scary monsters.

Antonio. Where was Antonio? He was supposed to take care of her. He was supposed to scare away all of the scary monsters.

They'd all be happy if she was eaten. Mommy would be happy, because then she'd only have Feli. Because everyone loved Feli more than her.

They wanted her to disappear forever! They wanted her to stay out here forever and be eaten by the monsters! That was why no one was coming, because they wanted her to get eaten.

And she whimpered; she couldn't scream or cry or do anything anymore. All she could do was lay there. Lay there and listen to the monsters. They were breathing right near her. And soon they'd pounce on her and everyone would be happy because she'd be gone and...

And she could hear something else... Something besides the sound of the monsters... Something from far away...

"...ovi... Lovi! Lovi!"

"Hey, kid! Where are ya? The awesomeness is here to rescue ya!"

"Lovi! Lovi! Are you okay? Lovi, don't be scared!"

...Antonio?

She could hear Antonio. But that couldn't really be him, because he'd forgotten about her. He was with everyone else. Everyone else who didn't want her... Because she always made his friends angry with him and he'd have lots of kids to play with if it weren't for her...

And then another shout of "Lovi!"

"Hey, what's this?"

"Qué? It looks like a cliff. There's a stream at the bottom, I think..."

"I can't see the bottom. My flashlight doesn't reach that far..." Lovina knew that voice, but her mind was too muddled right now to identify it. "Here, I'm going to go down..."

And then Antonio again. "Don't fall, Gill..."

"I won't. I'm too awesome to fall!"

There was a moment of silence, which almost convinced Lovina that she couldn't have really heard Antonio. No, because he couldn't really be here. But then there was the sudden sound of scuffling coming from above. And rocks were falling near her... Little rocks. And some bigger ones.

Antonio. She'd heard Antonio. Antonio was coming?

"Ow!"

"Gill! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just scraped my leg a little bit. I'm at the bottom now..."

And then Lovina saw a faint light coming from nearby. A faint light that was moving from side to side...

Antonio?

"I don't see anything ye—wait...wait a sec..." And suddenly the light was shining right in her eyes. And it was bright and that hurt. Lovina immediately ducked her face away, making a soft sound of discontentment. "Ah! Tonio! I found her!"

"Lovi?" And then there was the sound of more rocks moving. Even more than when Gill had come down. But Lovina was distracted from this by the girl that suddenly dropped down beside her. And her hair was being stroked and fingers tilted her head upwards. She couldn't really make much out about the figure in the dark.

"Thank Gott. Thank Gott. Lovi? Lovi, you okay?"

And suddenly she was being suffocated, this time by a figure that immediately started cooing to her in Spanish, fingers gently running through her hair, arms wrapped tightly around her...

Antonio. Antonio...

"You're okay, Lovi. Gill and me are here. We're going to take you home now."

She looked up at him, to see Antonio looking down at her, smiling with relief. And then he gently lifted her up so she was now sitting in his lap, head resting against his chest as he rocked her gently and now he was singing to her and his voice sounded so pretty...

"I think her leg's hurt. It's all twisted."

"Sí, pobrecita..." Lovi could hear his heart going thump thump thump and he was so nice and warm… She snuggled closer to the sound and the heat, feeling how he moved when he breathed…

And he was talking to her again, his voice soft and gentle and calming and she was so sleepy…

"Ja, Francis, we found her… Ja, call mutti… Oh… Well, she can't be very angry at the awesome me, right?"

"You're such a brave little girl, Lovi." He was rubbing her back now. And it felt nice and she was just so sleepy right now…

And that was Lovina's last thought before she fell fast asleep to the sound of Antonio's beating heart and whispering voice. Now finally feeling safe again…

A/N: Yay, Lovi's with Tonio now :) Poor little thing. She needs to be snuggled after going through all of that.

And yes, Francis has his own cell phone. Already. He also has his own chauffeur, though, so I guess that a cell phone isn't all that much...