Author's note: my beta was away this week so I apologize in advance for any typos! I'll grab em as the week goes on!
When Rosinante woke up the first thing his senses latched onto was the puddle of drool his cheek was pressed against and the jackhammer going off inside his skull.
He groaned and curled into himself. His clothes were heavy with rainwater and they almost glued themselves to his skin when he moved. The floor beneath him was cold and hard enough that he already had knots in his back, but that wasn't what ripped him from his initial sleep inertia.
The pain did. The pain in his chest that snatched his breath away so fast that he instantly felt dizzy. The searing hot pain in his sternum and abdomen that made him nauseous and ready to vomit on himself.
It felt too real to be a phantom touch. It felt too tangible.
Rosinante whimpered and pressed his hands to his chest as if that could do something to soothe the molten hot agony his body writhed in.
Tears flooded his already hazy vision and his stomach twisted.
He needed to see his chest.
Fuck, he just needed to keep it together long enough to—
He gagged on the taste of his own pain. On the taste of copper saliva. On the taste of glowing hot metal in the back of his throat.
His body heaved until bile trickled out of his mouth and until his head collapsed back to the floor.
Where was Garp when he needed him?
Rosinante panted, withdrawing one hand away from his tender chest so he could feel around in his pocket for his phone. The effort made his entire body erupt into shivers and chills that felt like bolts of lightning and made him twitch between grunts of pain.
He must have been groping around for his phone for at least a solid minute before his fingers brushed against the plastic case and he had it in front of his face long enough to dial Sengoku.
He answered on the first ring.
"I'm surprised you're awake so early, Rosi."
Rosinante was sure that Sengoku could hear him struggling to breathe. So he tried to make it quick so he didn't worry the old man too much.
"I… Can you—" Rosinante's body betrayed him and he heaved again. A colossal task that made tears fall from his eyes from the torture the action caused his godforsaken chest.
"Rosinante, what's wrong?" Sengoku demanded. The panic was evident in his voice and Rosinante wished he could have told him he was fine, but he so very clearly was not.
"Sengoku," he sucked in a breath and blinked tears from his eyes. "Just—"
"Are you home?" Sengoku barked.
"Yes," Rosinante tried to keep his voice steady but it came out as a whisper instead because he couldn't breathe. He didn't mean to scare Sengoku but he needed help and his body was betraying him with every passing second.
"I'm coming. Don't. Move."
Rosinante wanted to laugh.
As if he could.
He didn't know how much time passed but he was still a convulsing mess on his floor, tearing up and gagging because his torso hurt so fucking much that when Sengoku threw his front door open he damn near tripped over him.
"What the hell are you doing on the floor!" Sengoku said. He never was one to waste time before reprimanding someone.
Rosinante couldn't even see him because his shivering kept him completely immobile and the thought of removing his hands from his aching chest was a thought too terrifying to entertain.
"D… Do you think," he couldn't even form a coherent sentence because his teeth chattered so badly. "…that I want to be on the floor?"
"Garp, get in here!" Sengoku shouted.
Rosinante didn't know that Garp was with Sengoku but he wasn't surprised.
"Why are your clothes all wet? What the hell happened to you?" Sengoku asked. The worry in his voice was all too evident.
The guilt would have been overwhelming had it not been for the sad state he was currently in. The only thing that overwhelmed Rosinante was the nausea in his stomach and the fire in his body.
Sengoku crouched down beside him and his eyes did a quick sweep of Rosinante's crumpled form and surrounding area.
"Rosi, who was in here?" Sengoku's voice was low and oddly calm?
That was bad. Really bad.
Things were always bad when Sengoku got calm like that.
"No one," Rosinante murmured. His stomach churned again and he tried to refrain from dry heaving on Sengoku's feet.
"What in the hell…"
Garp.
"Help me get him up," Sengoku ordered.
Rosinante shivered. He suddenly felt sleepy and was overcome with the desire to just lay there on the floor. It was a little like Minion Island in that way. It was similar to the comfort he felt as he lay dying in the snow.
But then there were hands on his arms and they were the only things that kept him lucid. Those grips were strong. They were powerful and intimidating.
But most of all, they were familiar.
All at once he was hauled to his feet (through no contribution of his own), and Rosinante almost blacked out right there and a string of incoherent gasps and whimpers tore from the back of his throat, hands clutching at his shirt.
"Stop stop—fuck—I can't—stop!" He felt something wet roll down his cheek. "Please!"
Was that him? Was that awful plead for relief really coming from him? There was no way. Rosinante had endured so much and he had never been reduced to such a state? He was a Donquixote for fuck's sake. He had a ridiculous ability to tank hits and hardly bat an eye. What was going on? Was this a dream?
"What the hell is wrong with him?"
"I don't know, Garp! I'm not a doctor!"
Rosinante's knees buckled under his weight and he would have hit the floor and hit it hard had it not been for Sengoku and Garp holding him up.
He squeezed his eyes shut and didn't fight back as they both hauled him off somewhere.
There was a pulsing behind his eye and a thudding in his temples. He could see memories on the backs of his eyelids. He could see fire and arrows. He could see guns and rain.
The back of his knees hit something soft and he could feel himself being lowered down onto what he deduced was his bed.
"Let me see your chest, Rosi."
Sengoku.
"C'mon, Punk. We can't help if we don't know what's wrong with you."
Garp.
At least he was still lucid enough to tell their voices apart. It was a small feat in itself and he intended to hold onto it for as long as he could.
Rosinante wanted to open his eyes. He wanted to tell them about last night. About how he'd stumbled home in the rain and almost passed out on a stoop. About how he thought he saw a shadow made of feathers right when he blacked out.
He couldn't.
His vocal cords weren't working and his body seized.
Things were foggy. He tried to speak, to get some sort of coherent sentence out but when he opened his mouth all that came out was a strangled wheeze.
Consciousness came and went. He felt drunk, only there was no pleasant buzz. There was only that horrible stinging, stabbing, who-fucking-knows-what, sensation absolutely wrecking his body.
There were hands on his wrists. Hands strong enough to pry them away from his chest and keep them away. Hands that were deliberate enough to not bruise him.
That had to be Sengoku. Garp never quite cared about leaving bruises.
Wet fabric was peeled away from his body and then there was the wonderful sensation of air cooling his skin.
"Who the hell did this to him?"
Garp.
"Rosi, I need you to stay awake."
Sengoku.
He tried. He really did.
Rosinante didn't think it should be a problem staying awake. Between the pain and the nausea, he should have been alert. He should have found it next to impossible to drift into any sort of sleep.
But it wasn't.
His consciousness started to slip through his fingers the way it had the night before.
"Rosinante? Stay awake, okay?"
Sengoku.
He sounded so nervous.
Why?
Rosinante licked his lips and tried to answer. Tried to tell him that he was awake and that he could hear him. Tried to tell him about the bar he'd been to last night. Tried to tell him about the feathers.
"Stay with us, Punk. An ambulance is on the way but we need you to…"
Garp.
His words buzzed until they faded into an unintelligible echo.
Did he lock his door last night? He couldn't remember.
He had to testify tomorrow, so he needed to lock his door.
He—he really needed…
Needed…
To…
15 years ago
Sengoku would never forgive him. The Bureau would kick him out. He would lose everything.
He would never sleep again.
Rosinante felt sick as he showered. He pressed his hands against the dirty tiled wall and dropped his head. Water that was too hot for his own good, water that burned his skin, fell upon him like rain and it was too much.
He retched until yellow bile came up and drained down the shower.
There wasn't anything left to throw up. He'd already vomited any food or drink in his stomach after he finished the hit. He was still uneasy though.
The queasiness let up long enough for Rosinante to pick up a bar of soap and start scrubbing at himself.
The suds of the soap turned the shade of his eyes. The same brick dust color. The same brown-red. He could smell the filth. He could practically taste the bitterness of the soap fusing with the iron of the blood.
He heaved again.
What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he agree to this? Why did he ever think he could get away with joining the Donquixote Family and remain unscathed?
And why the fuck did he go through with the hit?
Oh hell. What would his mother say if she could see him now?
He squeezed his eyes shut and turned the water as hot as it could go until it scorched his skin and pelted it until he was red.
She was there. She was always there, tattooed into the backs of his eyelids. She was as pretty as an angel and had a smile that could put any model to shame. He could even still hear her voice. It was as soft and sweet as wind chimes.
"See that, Love? Those little specks in the light?"
He could see the memory as clearly as he could see the bloody soapsuds on his arms.
He was just a child in his mother's lap, sitting in the grand library of their mansion in the Mariejois. Doffy was sitting in a deep red, velvet chaise, lazily flipping through the pages of a thick book.
"What are they?" he asked.
His mother brushed his bangs away from his eyes so he could clearly see the rays of sunlight and the way little specks drifted through the air.
"They're dust specks," she said. "My grandmother used to tell me that they were entire little worlds. That each dust speck was different from the last. Kinda like little tiny planets and cities. Isn't that interesting, Rosi?"
He blinked at the dust specks in fascination but found he couldn't quite focus on them with the sunlight in his eyes and wisps of his mother's blonde hair on his face.
There was the distinctive sound of Doffy slamming his book shut and Rosinante twisted in his mother's lap to look at his big brother.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
Rosinante opened his eyes and took a deep breath of steam.
He was being ridiculous.
All he did was act in self-defense. It wasn't his fault that Doffy's target decided to try and jump Rosinante first. He acted in his own self interests. So what if the target ended up dead? The guy had been a criminal. Same as Doffy.
And Rosinante would have been dead if he didn't do something.
So why did he feel so shitty?
He could hear Sengoku in the back of his head. Sengoku praising his sense of justice and saying that he had never met someone with such strong morals.
He almost vomited bile again.
"Cora? Are you in there?"
Rosinante didn't bother biting back the frustrated groan. It was one of the kids no doubt. He couldn't tell which one because the voice was muffled by the bathroom door and the sound of the shower, but it was one of them. They were the only people in the Family who called him that.
"What?" he snapped, finally deciding to get a hold of himself and wash away the bloody soapsuds.
He swore that if there was a voice that said the "Young Master" wanted to see him, he was going to gouge his eyes out with his fingernails.
Couldn't Doffy just leave him the fuck alone for five minutes?
"Nothing!"
He stared ahead at the wall and waited for the punchline or the other shoe to drop.
But it didn't?
His brows furrowed. That was odd. Beyond odd. Way too fucking odd.
Shit. Did Doffy suspect something? Did he send one of the kids to find him so he could come slit his throat when he was least suspecting? Was his own brother going to kill him when he was naked and in the shower?
He wouldn't put it past Doffy to do something sick like that. He would probably even get off on it.
Rosinante tried to be quick about rinsing off and did his absolute best to avoid slipping and cracking his head on the wall on his way out.
He wrapped a white towel around his waist and took brisk steps to the bathroom door and yanked it open. His heart pounded in his ears and his pulse quickened. Clouds of steam billowed out of the bathroom and flooded the clubhouse's narrow hallway.
Buffalo and Law stood there, blinking up at him as if he had six heads.
"What the hell do you brats need?" he asked a little breathlessly.
"O-oh nothing, Cora!" Buffalo squeaked. He took a step back and held his hands up like he expected a beating. "Young Master only wanted to know if you got back yet because he hadn't seen you! I'll let him know you're home!"
Buffalo bolted down the corridor and Rosinante just stared, dumbfounded, as the kid tripped over himself and tumbled to the floor, barely missing the stairs.
Rosinante's expression must have looked meaner than he realized.
Well. Maybe that or the fact that his face was clean of any makeup and the kids hadn't seen him barefaced before. Buffalo could become a skittish thing when Rosinante looked particularly pissed off after all. Seeing him glare with a clean face probably scared the shit out of him.
"You shouldn't take such hot showers. It isn't good for your skin."
Rosinante's gaze flickered to Law.
"Huh?"
Law looked perpetually bored. He just stared at Rosinante blankly and pointed to the center of his chest.
"Your body is bright red."
Rosinante didn't spare his skin a glance. He only looked at Law.
What the hell?
He snorted and said a sarcastic, "all right then. Because a little brat like yourself would know what's good for me."
Law's mouth pursed into a tight line and his hands curled into fists at his sides.
There was a sharp pang of guilt. It was a knife curling into his gut and Rosinante sighed in spite of himself.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that," he admitted.
"I don't give a shit," Law hissed. He walked away with his eyes shadowed by his hat and Rosinante pressed his shoulder against the doorframe. He watched Law leave and couldn't help but notice the white blotches on his skin.
They were getting worse.
Law was a rude little boy. A pest that needed a good ass kicking, especially after that whole stabbing incident.
Yet Rosinante couldn't help but feel a touch of sympathy for the kid.
He sighed and disappeared back into the bathroom to dress and towel dry his blond hair.
It hung in wet locks around his temples and cheekbones. When his hair was wet it almost looked brown. There had once been a time when he first ran away from his brother where he actually considered dying his hair black or brown, as another way to hide from Doffy. But he couldn't bear the thought of parting with his fair hair. It was something of his mother. Something of his father. And as a little kid, he almost cried at the thought of losing that minuscule tie to his parents.
Sengoku had simply patted him on the back and told him he didn't have to change his hair if he didn't want to because he would protect him.
Sengoku had protected Rosinante all those years ago and all he had done was throw it back in his face.
He was a sham.
He left the bathroom after that and stopped by his room only to pick up his cigarettes, only to find that not even smoking calmed his nerves.
He would have to report to Doffy soon, especially now that Buffalo told him that he was back from the hit.
Rosinante had a headache. One that could probably be soothed with some sleep if only it wasn't raining.
It was getting a little ridiculous at this point. Rosinante was beyond running on fumes and if he didn't sleep soon he was going to walk right up to Doffy, tell him he was an undercover FBI agent, and let his brother tear him to shreds until he was a mangled pile of flesh and blood on the floor.
In all of his self pity, he didn't notice the hanging light fixture in the middle of the second floor hallway and proceeded to stroll right into it.
"Mother fu—"
He stopped cursing when his cigarette fell out of his mouth and groaned in complete and absolute frustration.
Once the pain dulled in his forehead from the light fixture, he paused where he stood in the little hall.
He didn't want to go back to his room. He would just be forced to lay in his bed and listen to the horrendous sounds of rain against his window. He couldn't go to the card room because that was where most of the Family chose to spend their free time. And he didn't necessarily want to go sit outside on the porch again. He'd had enough of listening to the rain in the darkness.
So that left the second floor common room.
It wasn't really a common room anymore. Doffy converted it into a sort of library.
There weren't any bookshelves, but there were stacks upon stacks of books. Reading was one thing Doffy genuinely liked, so it came as no surprise to Rosinante when his brother decided to start leaving books in there until it essentially became a library.
And as far as Rosinante knew, no one in the Family gave a shit about reading except for Doffy. So most of the time the room was either empty or Doffy was alone in there.
Not to mention, the best part of the makeshift library was that it was an interior room without any windows.
Meaning Rosinante would be free of the rain.
Shit, maybe he could get some sleep in there. He didn't care if he had to sleep propped up against a wall or on the floor with his jacket as a pillow. If it meant he could get some shut-eye, then hell yeah. He'd deal with some kinks in his back.
Rosinante was almost grinning as he marched down the hall and entered the last door on the left.
It had been days since he slept. He was so stupid for not thinking about sleeping in there sooner!
The common room was exactly as he remembered it. There were countless stacks of books, really shitty lighting, and a single ripped, leather sofa pressed against the back wall. The walls were the same ugly red and that same nasty throw rug that had never been vacuumed was still in the center of the floor. It was absolutely beautiful! The perfect place for him to get some much needed rest. Nothing but books, Law, and most importantly, no goddamn—
…Law?
Rosinante halted in the doorway and blinked as if that would make the kid just disappear, and glanced over at the sofa to see Law seated on it with a book in his lap.
"What do you want, Corazón?" Law asked without looking up.
Rosinante wasn't sure if he'd ever felt such disappointment before in his life.
Which okay, sure. That was a bit of an exaggeration. But he was just so tired and all he wanted to do was sleep and just when he thought he'd found a solution, it had been ripped from his grasp.
"What are you doing here?" Rosinante blurted, unable to hide his disappointment.
Law looked away from his book with an eyebrow arched above the other.
"Reading?"
Rosinante's shoulders deflated in defeat.
You know what? It was fine.
Forget the brat.
Law didn't make a lot of noise. He wasn't obnoxious like Buffalo. He didn't talk a lot like Baby 5. And he didn't cry like Dellinger. He was a quiet kid who kept to himself.
So long as he didn't stab him again, Rosinante didn't give a shit.
He didn't bother looking at Law again. He simply walked deeper into the room, shrugged off his feathered jacket, and deposited it against the wall opposite of the sofa. He then lowered himself to the floor and folded his hands behind his neck, resting his head against his jacket and closing his eyes.
"What the hell are you doing, Corazón?" Law snapped.
Rosinante ignored him and waited for the sweet release of sleep to claim him and drag him into blackness.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!"
Maybe if he was lucky he wouldn't have any dreams. Maybe he would get six whole blissful hours of—
"You can't just take a nap here, Dumbass! I'm trying to read and I don't feel like listening to you snore!"
Rosinante's eyes snapped open and he propped himself up on his elbow to give Law the harshest, nastiest glare he could muster.
"I haven't slept in a fucking week, Brat. A week. So just shut the hell up and leave me alone. Otherwise, you can get the fuck out. Got it?"
It would have done the trick for Buffalo or Baby 5. They would have gotten the hint and scurried out of there.
But not Law.
Oh no. Never Law.
"It's not my fault you're some freak who can't sleep when it's raining! Go find some place else!"
Rosinante locked his jaw so hard that he probably could have dislocated it because this was it. This was the moment where he finally snapped and killed a kid.
"There is nowhere else," he hissed through his teeth. He was giving himself a headache with how irritated he was becoming.
Law stared him down. Not even remotely intimidated.
"Not my problem."
Rosinante just seethed and sat up until he could cross his legs and lean forward with an ominous scowl.
"Do you talk to the other executives like this? Or is it just me? Because in case you didn't know, I'm Doffy's actual brother. So if you should be scared of anyone, it should be me."
Law didn't even bat an eye. He just gave him that same bored look from before, from when he and Buffalo interrupted Rosinante's shower.
"Oh yeah?" Law quipped.
Rosinante was going to throttle the fucking kid.
"Yeah," he snapped.
Law fell into silence and Rosinante waited for another insult. Some stupid comment that made fun of his clumsiness or called him an idiot.
It never came though.
So Rosinante took that as a good sign and decided that maybe Law could take a hint and he reclined back down and closed his eyes.
"You're not like the others."
Rosinante's eyes fluttered open again, but this time it wasn't out of anger. More so out of confusion.
"What was that?" he asked, still on his back, now staring at the ceiling.
"The others would have told Doffy but you didn't. You're different."
Rosinante's body went very still.
The ceiling had some black smudges on it and a water stain in the one corner. He wondered if maybe they should do something about it. Then again, Doffy never said the clubhouse would be permanent. But still. If there were leaky pipes, then maybe they should at least look at it.
"I got no interest in Doffy skinning a kid alive," Rosinante said.
"But why? I tried to kill you."
Rosinante smirked and gentle laughter bubbled in his chest.
"It's gonna take a lot more than a little shank to kill me."
Silence.
Beautiful, wonderful, incredible silence. Silence that was sweeter than honey. Silence that was comfortable and warm. The ideal silence that he could lull himself to sleep in despite the rain.
Only now he wasn't so sure he was ready to go to sleep.
So that was how it was gonna be, huh?
Rosinante sighed in defeat and sat up again. This time he rested his back against the wall and brought one knee up to rest his arm against.
"How long you been sick, Law?" he asked as gently as he knew how.
Law glared at him but he answered anyway with a tight, "always."
"How do we cure you?" Rosinante asked. He was careful about how much silence he let linger between them. He didn't want to risk losing Law to some traumatic flashback because of it.
He knew firsthand how easy that sorta thing could spiral.
Law scoffed. It was an angry, hateful sound. It sounded so much like Doffy that it almost hurt.
"Don't you know what I'm sick with?"
"Amber Lead Syndrome," Rosinante answered without missing a beat.
"Right," Law said. His hands clutched at the book until Rosinante could hear pages beginning to crumple. "There is no cure. I'll be dead in two years."
Rosinante didn't quite believe that. He knew the rumors about the amber lead. He knew all about the government cover up. He knew that people thought it was some contagious disease and that anyone from Flevance needed to be eradicated. He knew the blemishes of the government and the footnotes in the history books. He knew it was all a lie and was, in fact, a disease brought on by generations of greed.
"I wouldn't be so sure. Doffy's got all sorts of contacts. I bet we could find someone or something that could help."
He could see Law's hands trembling from across the room and Rosinante stopped himself from going on any further.
"I'm telling you there's nothing. So don't even bother. Everyone thinks it's a waste of time and they're right."
Law's voice was so small. So broken.
So young.
"…I don't think it's a waste of time."
His words must have had some type of effect on Law because he looked down just enough that his hat cast a shadow over his eyes. Rosinante could see his hands tremble and his lower lip almost quiver.
Law stood up from the sofa, quiet as a mouse, and closed his book. He tucked it under his arm and took calculated steps to the door.
"You should sleep, Corazón. It doesn't look like the rain is going to stop anytime soon and you should be getting at least eight hours a night."
Law left after that and Rosinante lingered alone in his silence. He smoked a few cigarettes and rested his head against the wall, but did not try to go back to sleep again. How could he after that conversation?
There had to be some way to help Law. Right?
He was too young to be all alone and doomed like that.
Rosinante didn't think much of it after that. He hopped into action and stood up, left the library, and made his way to his brother's room.
He didn't knock and he really should have considering what happened last time (then again, Doffy did tell him to come in last time) but it was too late, and Rosinante was already pushing his brother's door open.
Thankfully, Doffy was fully clothed this time and was stretched out on his bed with a book in his hands. So perfectly similar to the way Law had been.
"It's about time you saw me. How long were you in the shower? Over an hour?" Doffy didn't look up from his book and Rosinante didn't care.
"I want to find a cure for Law's disease."
Well. No point in beating around the bush. Especially not with Doffy.
His brother rested his book on his lap and looked in Rosinante's direction. His mouth was relaxed. There was no maniacal grin or livid frown on his face. Just a neutral expression that curdled Rosinante's blood.
"Come again?"
"Doffy, you have to have some sort of information. There has to be something that could help, right? Don't you know any crazy doctors with cutting edge research or—"
"Stop talking, Rosi."
Rosinante did not like it when his brother used that name for him. He much preferred it when Doffy called him Corazón or his full name, but never the nickname. It wasn't fair for him to bastardize something so precious.
"Why the sudden interest in Law?"
Rosinante didn't have an answer ready. Didn't have a lie that he could pull out of the blue. All he had was the truth.
The truth that Trafalgar Law stabbed him in the hopes of killing him all because he was an angry, dying kid and Rosinante's heart ached for him.
"I don't know but I want to help him," Rosinante said. It wasn't totally false. He didn't know why he felt so bad for the kid. It just wasn't the whole truth.
Doffy gave a heavy sigh.
"You're too fuckin' soft," he complained. He grabbed a bottle of wine and took a swig without pouring a glass. "If I look into it, will you drop the attitude and stop giving me shit when you don't like your jobs? I can't deal with your puppy dog eyes anymore."
Rosinante didn't realize that his sour attitude bothered his brother at all.
Interesting.
"I'll drop the attitude," he said with the beginnings of a smile.
Red wine trickled from Doffy's lips as he drank from the bottle. It would have stained his shirt had it been white and not black, but he didn't seem to care.
"Fine. I'll look into it."
Rosinante's face split into a smile. Like an actual, real smile. Something he hadn't genuinely experienced since before he joined the Family and holy shit did it feel good. He felt like he'd just seen the sun for the first time in his life. Like he'd just seen the ocean.
Doffy snickered, "look at you. You're such an idiot. You're really that happy? Was that all it took? Shit, I would have done something sooner if I knew."
He didn't know. He had no idea if he was that happy or not. But hell, he was smiling and his chest fluttered.
He would help Law one way or another.
He couldn't save the other children but maybe he could save Law.
And then once the brat was all cured, Rosinante would help him live a normal fucking life, far away from the Family and Doflamingo. Far away from the hell they'd all inflicted. Far away from the constant reminders of burning cities and deadly diseases.
Author's note: the story that Rosi's mom tells him about dust specks is actually taken right from what my best friend's dad used to tell her when she was a kid. Thought it was a sweet little story to include(:
Next chapter will be up next weekend! Studying for my licensing exam is kicking my ass so only one update this week. Thank you so so so sooooooo much for all the AMAZINGLY sweet comments! Honestly didn't think I would get any since the Dressrosa arc has been over for quite some time now.
Anywho! Drop any and all feedback with a review! I always read/respond to them and appreciate them so much(:
