I do not own Encanto. This story is not for profit.

Chapter 44

November 10th

Morning

Julieta

As was her preference, Julieta slipped out of bed before Agustín did, bathed, dressed, and crept down to the kitchen. It wasn't her kitchen, but she imagined being able to cook in her new kitchen. Although she was glad that Luisa wanted to cook, she found cooking breakfast to be the one thing she would miss if she had to give it up. Breakfast was special, sacred.

She was rolling arepa dough between her hands when Bruno entered the kitchen, badly startling her.

Julieta stared, feeling lost. She was used to her time to herself in the kitchen early in the morning. It was the only free time she had all day, and secretly this time of solitude was what got her through each day. She could breathe, soothe herself with the silence of everyone slumbering, and work at her own pace. Bruno unexpectedly being up disrupted that. But there was no way to tell him that. "You're up early."

Bruno smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I know. It's great, isn't it? I slept for the first time in ages without tossing and turning." He took a deep breath and stretched. "It's so great to know that everything is okay now."

The spot between Julieta's shoulder blades twitched guiltily. "Yes." She forced a smile. Let's forget about yesterday. Let's forget about how terrifying it was and celebrate.

"Everything's not okay?" Bruno asked.

"Everything's okay." Julieta set down her ball of dough and wiped her eyes as the tears welled up, betraying her and dragging her back into the discussion she wanted to end. "But it might not have been." She did what she hadn't yesterday and had wanted so badly to do: she launched herself at him and hugged him tightly, sobbing against his chest. "I was terrified. If they hurt you, hurt you badly enough to kill you, I couldn't have saved you. My power is gone. I'm so helpless."

Bruno hugged her tightly. "You got used to carrying the world. Like Luisa. You never stopped to consider that maybe…it should never have been yours." He rocked her gently. "Besides…I got pretty – pretty strong inside the walls…I'm not the washed up, out of shape alcoholic I used to be."

Julieta's head jerked up. "Don't call yourself that."

"I was one." He met her gaze relentlessly. "This family has got to stop covering up each other's problems. We're never going to get well unless we call things what they are. And, in fact, I'm still recovering. I'll never be not someone who was once using alcohol every day. I'm terrified of the power it has over me. Every time I feel the urge to steal from the Guzmáns I run away to my private place and sit and think and pet my rats until it passes."

Julieta's eyes filled with tears again. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that when you feel the urge to work without resting, you need to find a private place to hide and cool off until it passes."

Julieta was shocked.

Bruno shook his head. "Your addiction is working yourself to the bone. When you work all day, how does it feel? Good? It makes everything seem better, doesn't it? You don't have to think anything." He tilted his head. "Or feel any feelings you don't want to feel."

Julieta looked away, ashamed, feeling as if she had been uprooted on the inside.

"Is that scary? Giving it up?" Bruno's arms tightened around her. "That's the fear of giving up your addiction."

Julieta didn't want to hear anymore, but with Bruno hugging her, she couldn't pull away or cover her ears. Her heart pounded, and there was a sour taste in her mouth.

"You wanted to heal me so that you could stop feeling your feelings. I know that's not all of it, some of it is love for me, but the real reason you wanted it so badly is because it would make your feelings go away."

"No." Julieta did pull away, and Bruno let her go. She stared at him, feeling shaky. His rapid changes of mood had always caught her off guard. It was as if he could become a different person, with no warning, no sign of changing. She sometimes felt as if she had three brothers instead of just one; Camilo changed on the outside, but Bruno changed on the inside. "That's not true. I was scared for you. For you. I didn't want to do it for me."

Bruno sighed, and the severity left his face. He raked his fingers through his hair and gave her a sweet, retiring look. "We don't have to talk about it now. I'm sorry. I-I shouldn't have pushed. You can't talk about it if you're not ready. If you're not ready, you're not ready." He shook his head. At that moment, a rat popped up out of the collar of his shirt and cuddled against his neck, squeaking. "Te amo mucho."

Julieta felt worried, confused, and headachy. "Te amo mucho." And now he's changed again.

"Would you like help with the coffee?" Bruno asked.

Relieved that Bruno was truly dropping the subject, Julieta smiled. "Yes. You always did brew the best coffee."

"I always needed it the most," he replied with a light laugh.

They lapsed into comfortable silence as they worked. About twenty minutes later, Dolores joined them, followed by Luisa, and after that it was like a dam had burst: everyone else showed up, talking cheerfully and telling each other good morning.

Julieta was glad for the buffer between herself and Bruno. Now that he was back, she had to face something she had always known but managed to forget in the intervening ten years: her brother's insight terrified her. It was so much easier to lie to herself without him around. Dolores could hear everything – or had heard everything – but it was Bruno who truly understood what he witnessed. But he was around. And he saw everything. She suddenly felt ill.

During breakfast, Mariano and Dolores' gentle flirting was a welcome distraction, even if it confused Antonio and made Mirabel subtly roll her eyes. After everyone finished eating, Félix took Mariano aside as everyone else went on to the building site. Mirabel and Antonio walked on either side of Bruno, tugging him ahead of everyone else and chattering at him about how nice it would be to have their own rooms again, and how they would visit him in his new room all the time.

At the building site, Julieta got to work helping Pepa place smaller items in the now furnished rooms, starting with Pepa and Félix's bedroom. Without mirrors, paintings, vases, rugs, and other such things, the space would feel too empty and un-lived-in.

"Do you think I work too much?" Julieta blurted out as they straightened a colorful rug in front of the new wardrobe.

Pepa snorted. "I think you'd work in your sleep if you could figure out how. Why?"

"Bruno said…never mind. It's nothing."

"Nothing? I think we've all remembered now that nothing Bruno says is nothing, even if he's not talking about a vision."

Julieta turned her back to her sister as she arranged a vase of flowers on a small table. "We're glad to have him back, remember?"

"That's not the same as being ready for him to be back, and he never left, remember?"

Julieta scowled at her sister. "Bruno said my urge to work all the time is like his alcoholism. I'm a little offended."

Pepa stroked her braid, looking down at it, and then frowned. She took her hands off of her hair deliberately and faced Julieta. "Because underneath your compassion, you're disgusted with the choices he made, or maybe angry at the strain it placed on Mamá to try to explain his behavior away, even though he was embarrassing us in front of the townspeople?"

"Helping other people is nothing like losing myself inside of a bottle," Julieta said. "And I'm glad Dolores can't hear us."

"So, he's selfish and you're selfless."

Julieta's jaw clenched. "I know I'm not perfect. But I never hid from this family. I never stopped upholding my responsibilities."

"Spoken like a true Señora Perfecta."

Julieta's shoulders stiffened. "I thought we left this behind when we stopped being children."

"Did we ever stop being children?" Pepa folded her arms over her chest and appraised Julieta. "Besides, what makes you think that being so responsible is a good thing? Look at the way Mamá works you. Look at the way she works Luisa and Isabela and Mirabel. Yes, even Mirabel. All of you work like livestock. Despite not being able to keep Dolores away from her, I tried to encourage Camilo to have fun. When did you ever tell your children to have fun?"

Protests died on Julieta's lips. A stifling, hot feeling rose in her chest. "Fun is a luxury we didn't have as children, isn't it?"

"We had a new settlement to protect and magic powers," Pepa said. "The children who run around town don't seem like they have anything in common with us. They get to play. Like Antonio." She went back to stroking her hair. "When I look at them, I wonder how our lives would have been different if Pá had lived. Maybe we would have been put to work just the same. Maybe it would have been better. Maybe Mama wouldn't have been as harsh. I don't know. But the village is a town now, and the town doesn't need us like they used to. They spent the last month helping us instead. So maybe it's time to think about what that means."

A cold feeling filled Julieta's chest. "It means they don't need us anymore."

Pepa gripped her upper arms. "I'm saying it means we can rest a little more. Maybe even laugh a little more. And yesterday, the town stood behind us when we finally stood up to them about Bruno. Our position here isn't as fragile as Mamá likes to say it is. The townspeople are spoiled, but aside from a few bad apples, they don't think of us as animals or slaves." She smiled. "I noticed you're finally singing again. I'm glad."

Julieta wanted to tell Pepa about the vision at the river, but there was something so special and sacred about it that she wanted it to be private. She had too few secrets from anyone, too few things that were solely hers, and she didn't want to give up the specialness of her experience. She nodded. "Singing makes me happy."

Pepa looked pleased. "That's what I mean. When was the last time you did something because you wanted to do it?"

"I want to work hard, and I want to support our family, and I want to help the Encanto," Julieta objected.

Pepa sighed and gestured, doing a twirl. "But when was the last time you did something only because you wanted to do it? Something that didn't have any consequences for other people if you didn't do it. Something with no pressure. Just because you want to."

Julieta shook her head and went back to rearranging the vase of flowers. "I can't think of anything."

"Except singing."

"Except singing," Julieta agreed.

xxx

Julieta's head was so full of thoughts from Bruno and Pepa that she hardly noticed the next two hours passing. Somehow or other, in a daze, she ended up working on finishing the furnishings for her room with Agustín. Hanging up their clothes in an ordinary wardrobe felt strange, even though an ordinary house with ordinary furniture that did not move was how everyone else had been living.

She crossed the room to him where he had just pushed a chest of drawers into place against the wall with the window. "Do you think I work too much?"

Agustín went in for a kiss, and she let him kiss her neck. "You're always working to help other people. You're the most selfless person I know. You could never say no to anyone. That's why I fell in love with you."

"You fell in love with me because I can never say no?"

He laughed. "There are lots of reasons I fell in love with you." He squeezed her gently. "And you are still all of them." He kissed her lips lightly. "Who would you be if you weren't the lovable Julieta who helps everyone?"

Julieta had the horrible feeling that because Agustín said it, it was automatically wrong. Then her mind cleared enough to think of Mirabel. "Isn't there something besides that?" She remembered her pilgrimage down to the river and the beautiful vision of being a singer. She struggled to call up the peace she'd felt over knowing there was something else inside of her, something special and inherent, something she could express through singing that she couldn't through cooking.

Agustín looked at her with confusion. "What's wrong?"

"If my magic came back, and it wasn't healing, would you still love me?"

"Of course I would. But why wouldn't the magic you had come back?" He took her hands in his. "I know this is scary. The scariest time you've ever been through. You're questioning everything. But it will be okay. We have each other. We are the Madrigals. With magic or without magic, we're still a family. So what that you're all like Mirabel now. We've spent years telling her she's just as special. Why wouldn't the same apply to you?"

The utter emptiness and meaninglessness of her husband's words told Julieta exactly what she had been doing to Mirabel all these years, more than any number of talks with Mirabel could have. "I want magic back. But I'm not sure I want the same magic back," she whispered. "I think, if I could change it, I would."

"To what?" Agustin asked.

Julieta looked away. "I don't know." But she did know. I'm tired of healing all the time. God, please grant me mercy. I need to rest. I need something different. I need to be different. Or maybe more like myself than I ever have been before. Maybe…I need to have fun. I need to somehow discover what joy is. Joy at myself. Not my daughters. Not at seeing someone healed. "I can't remember ever enjoying myself for me."

"What do you mean?" Agustín tilted his head, looking at her with an odd expression, part concern and part confusion.

"I don't know yet. But I want to find out."

Agustín laughed. "Okay. That's fair enough." He kissed her lips. "Well, you are a very intelligent woman, so I know you will figure it out."

Julieta wished he wouldn't make light of what she said so often, but at least he wasn't attacking her. She hugged him in response.