Chapter 13

"ZORRO, WATCH OUT!" A loud shout cried across the plaza.
Instinctively, he looked in the direction Victoria was pointing.
He saw that the third bandit, the only one he had not yet overpowered, had a gun pointed at him, and he was right in the line of fire.

As the shot sounded, he ducked.
Zorro heard the bullet whistle past his ear, followed by a cry of pain. Without even looking, he knew immediately that his worst fears had come true.

Horrified of what he was going to see.
Zorro glared in the direction where the cry of pain had come from.
His vision blurred.
On the ground, Victoria lay, groaning in pain.
A bloodstain slowly became visible on her snow-white blouse.
Victoria was shot as she had tried to save him.
She had caught the bullet meant for him!

He had to get to her.
Zorro tried to make his way over, was grabbed from behind by two, four, countless hands.
He fought.
He had to get to Victoria.

"We got him! We got him!" De Soto danced with joy as Zorro was pushed hard on his stomach into the mud.

He fought her life depending on it.
In vain, the force in which he got overpowered was too great.
His feet and wrists were bound together.
He tried to crawl towards Victoria.
He had to reach her, somehow.

The crowd in the plaza looked on in horror at what was happening. All Zorro saw was the red stain on her blouse growing and her face becoming paler.
Her lips formed his name.
Victoria needed him.
He had to get to her.
He could not live without her.

"He has gone mad!"

Strong arms dragged him further and further away from Victoria. His father knelt beside her, put a hand on her neck. Alejandro lowered his chin to his chest, seeking eye contact with his son.

He had lost her!

Bathing in sweat, Diego woke up, he flew upright.
Bewildered, he glared around him.
There was only darkness.
Where was he? In prison?
The surface beneath him felt too soft, and the smell surrounding him was strangely enough reassuring.

"Diego," A sleepy voice was beside him.
"What is it?"

VICTORIA!

She was here, right next to him.
Had it been a nightmare…? Diego had to be a hundred thousand percent sure...,
In the dark, he groped for her body.

When he felt her shoulders, Diego enveloped her firmly into his arms. "Victoria, Victoria, my love." Diego sniffed her scent and searched her body until he felt a heartbeat pulsing in a regular rhythm under his fingers.

Victoria, her voice, became clearer.
"Diego, what is it? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing, go back to sleep." His heart was still racing like a frenzy.
The fear he had experienced had not yet left his body.
With difficulty, Diego let go of Victoria.
"You better go back to sleep." Slowly, his breathing came under control.
Diego saw a dark figure sitting upright beside him.

Her knees raised, and her hands folded around her legs.
Calmly, Victoria asked, "Diego, how long have you known me?"

"I think since you were born, how come?"

"Then where do you get the ridiculous idea that I will sleep peacefully when something is the matter?" The shape began to move, and Diego heard soft rustling of bedding pushed aside. A moment later, a lamp illuminated the bedroom.

Diego blinked his eyes and felt relief when Victoria didn't dissolve into an intangible fog.
A soft hand caressed his cheek and tenderly turned his head in her direction.
Dark brown eyes looked at him. "So tell me, what's going on."

Diego sighed. He didn't want to burden her with his fears.
But indeed, he knew Victoria well enough by now that he couldn't brush her off.
"I had a nightmare. Sometimes, I dream I'm losing you." Vulnerable, he looked at her.

Victoria said nothing, just looked at him.

So he cleared his throat and continued.
"This time, Zorro was fighting bandits. You shouted I should watch out.
When I turned around to dodge a bullet, it hit you instead of me.
I tried to get to you but was grabbed by lancers and overpowered.
I watch you slowly die as the lancers capture me and pull you away from me.
Then my father confirms for me that you are dead, and I get dragged further and further away from you.
Afterwards, I wake up."

"Do you have dreams like this often?"

"Sometimes. Mostly it happens after you were in danger and saved by Zorro in the nick of time.
I had nightmares like this one almost every night for weeks after you got shot by Bishop.
Always slightly different, but always ending that I couldn't save you and me losing you." Diego watched as a tear rolled out of the corner of her eye.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. I shouldn't have told you."

Victoria shook her head as Diego wiped the tear from her cheek.
"I'm not crying about that.
I'm crying about how lonely you must have felt.
I wished I had been by your side back then."

"Oh, sweetheart." He swallowed the lump in his throat away.

Another tear rolled over her cheek as she pressed a kiss on his.
"Diego, you will not lose me, never again."

His throat ached as he pressed the bitter truth to his lips.
"You don't know that for sure.
There may come a day when Zorro can't protect you, and he gets there too late."

"Even then, you won't lose me.
I will always be with you." She took his hand and pressed a kiss on it. "For the same reason, I will never lose you."

"Victoria." He didn't dare say that this was very naive thinking.
Him, being Zorro, came with risks.
No matter how much he trained, no matter how much preparation he made.
No matter how hard he tried and how careful he was, there was always that chance that something would be fatal to him.
He had accepted Zorro putting his life at stake a long time ago.
In the past, it had happened several times.
Not that he planned ever to remind Victoria of that, and her life would come first every time.

Victoria soothed him.
"Do you think that since I fell in love with you, I haven't prayed for your safety daily?
In the beginning, it was for your safety as Zorro.
Later, for the man you are.
You said I thought Zorro was invulnerable, and that is not true.
I've always known he isn't." She stared into his eyes, wondering why she had been blind so long.
"Since I found out it was you hiding behind the mask, my fear has only grown." Frantically, she wiped a tear from her face.

Diego tried to reassure her. "Victoria, when it comes to your safety, nothing will stop me."

"And this is supposed to reassure me?
Don't you think I have just as much, if not more, a reason to be just as scared as you?
I'm not the one doing flip-flops from rooftops.
Nor am I the one fighting time and again with dangerous criminals or have bullets fly by his ears.
Or jumping over ravines on a half-wild horse." Victoria hesitated for a moment.
"Felipe told me how Palomares tried to poison you.
He also told me about the time, Ramon thought Zorro was dead.
And Diego told everyone he had fallen off the old mare. You could have died falling off that cliff.
And what about the time the pueblo got taken hostage, and you crawled through the aqueduct, risking your life?
Or what about all the other times when Zorro risked his life for the pueblo."

"I am going to kill him," Diego said through gritted teeth.

"No, you won't.
Anyway, don't blame Felipe.
I was the one who asked him to tell me because I knew you would never tell me, and the things you told me should I ask to downplay it.
Yes, you would have."
Diego didn't even get a chance to open his mouth, or she was already stopping him.
"I knew what I was getting into when I married you.
There's a real chance I'll be a widow long before I grow old.
The problem is, I love you too much not to want to be with you, and I know that you will never abandon me.
Even when you are not here, you will be with me because you live in my heart.
And for the same reason, I will never leave you.
Even after I am gone, I will be with you." Victoria took his face between her hands and looked at him.
"Diego, listen to me.
As long as I breathe, I will be with you.
And when I can't any longer, I will still be with you and never leave you, not really."

There was a wry smile on his face.
"It seems both our fears are justified," He said.

Victoria agreed.
"And we will have to learn to live with that fear.
Because my love for you is so much stronger than my fear of losing you." Diego pulled her against him, brushed hair from her face, and pressed his lips to hers for an all-too-passionate kiss.

"I love you." He mumbled into her hair.

"And I love you so very much.
I promise you, as long as you live, you will never be truly alone.
Wait...,"
Victoria jumped up, grabbed the lamp and walked to the dona bedroom.

Diego got up and followed her.
He saw how she was sitting on the floor, rummaging in a trunk that had been under the bed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sure I put it in here." She searched further and pulled out a small mahogany box from the trunk.
"Found it." Victoria opened the box and took out something small.
She scrambled back to her feet and into his arms.
"I hope you will accept are cufflinks, and they were my father's. I know it is not much. You always wear gold ones yourself, and these are..., I think copper.
You have much nicer ones...," Victoria opened her fist.
There were two cufflinks on her palm.

She was right. He did have a dozen nicer and more exclusive ones.
Yet because of the emotional value, these were infinitely more precious. Diego felt his eyes getting watery.

"It is the only tangible thing I have from my father..." She looked at him with such love. "Except for the gifts you have given me, this is my most precious possession.
Would you like...? You make me happy, should you consider wearing them..., sometimes." Her voice faded away. "You don't have to.
Don't think I mean to impose…,"

"Victoria, I am honoured."

Victoria glared at him, feeling a bit nervous.
The cufflinks meant a lot to her, even though they were actually worthless.
She muttered.
"I thought about giving them to you earlier, as a wedding present.
But then you gave me those diamond earrings and…, I thought you might not...,"

"It's the most beautiful gift I've ever had. I will cherish them for the rest of my life."

"I know they are worthless and nothing like a gold ring, or...,"

His heart was beating intensely in his chest. He might burst out in tears. "It is a gift given with your heart.
Those gifts are more precious than all the gold in the world.
Thank you, Victoria.
I will cherish them and wear them on special occasions."

"You don't have to."

"But I want to."

"You remember, I will always be with you, always."

Carefully, Diego placed the cufflinks on the nightstand, lifted Victoria into his arms and carried her back to the big bed.
Tenderly, he flattered her.
Victoria had not taken away his fear completely, nor would she ever be able to.
She had made the fear more manageable and less frightening.
She was right about one thing, Victoria was in his heart.
Hopefully, he would always be in hers.
Victoria snuggled against him and kissed his shoulder.

"I love you." Satisfied, he held her in his arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"I love you too."

.

Zorro was looking forward to coming home.
He had paid a visit to de Soto's office.
Would that man ever learn to lock the roof hatch?
Really, how stupid could you be?
Mendoza had told him at lunch that a letter had arrived from Monterey, and Zorro had wanted to read it.
Not much to his surprise, de Soto had stored the letter in the safe. But as long as the code of the safe remained the coordinates of Madrid, opening it was a breeze.
Amused, Zorro wondered if it was considered breaking, into a vault when you knew the code.
Did de Soto know how to change the code at all, or was he just too lazy to do so?
In any case, the letter got found soon enough.
It was said, in black and white.
The Emissary visiting Santa Paula was investigating the course of events in Los Angeles.
That was definitely good news.

Toronado stepped on the hidden board, and the door to the cave opened. Zorro bent forwards not to hit his head on the low ceiling.
In the stable, he slid out of the saddle.
To his disappointment, the cave was empty.
Ever since his marriage, yesterday three months ago, it had often been Victoria who sat curled up in his grandfather's chair, waiting for him.
Usually, she was reading a book. Two times he had found her sleeping.
Diego quickly started to change his clothes, smiling at the idea of seeing his wife again.

It was late. Surely, Victoria was waiting in the library, keeping his father and Felipe company.
After Toronado had been cared for and provided with fresh hay and water, Diego walked at a brisk pace up the four steps to the small corridor leading to the library.
He expected to find his father and Victoria in the room, probably reading, playing a game or talking.
To his surprise, only his father was alone, reading a book.

Alejandro was startled awake by the rustling sound that the door in the fireplace made as it slid open.
He had just had time to lift the book lying on his lap and pretend to read and see his son enter the living room. "Ah, son, there you are."
He slammed his book shut and put it back on his lap.
"Did you find the letter?"

"Yes," Diego wearily rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.
He had had a long day. Not only did he ride out as Zorro.
He had also worked all day to work on the next edition of the Guardian. "There will be an investigation into de Soto's doings."

"Good work, son." Alejandro praised his son.

"I'll just go straight to bed." He said, yawning.

"Aren't you waiting up for Victoria?"

"Victoria, isn't she home?"

"No, I don't think so." Alejandro looked at the clock by the fireplace.
"She should be by now.
I had planned to pick her up. I think I fell asleep."

Diego looked at his father questioningly. "Victoria is in the tavern?"

"Didn't she tell you?' His father asked. "Alicia went ill. So Victoria stayed in the pueblo to help Pilar and Maria.
I believe there were no guests for the night. I offered to fetch her, but you know how she is, and rigorously refused.
That is why I planned to pick her up without her knowing."

Diego grabbed the oil lamp next to the door, ran to the bedroom and threw the door open.
The bed was empty, nothing to indicate that Victoria had been here recently.
Diego turned and ran outside.
His father tried to keep up.

.

.

I promised a bit of a storyline. Since this story also contains parts of my first effort to write.
I guess the mainline starts in this chapter.

I updated rather frequently. Due to my work schedule I can't say when the next update will be. So make sure when your following the story to check or you haven't skipped a chapter.
And don't forget to let me know what you think.;)