Chapter 3

Days passed and Diego did not awake. Doctor Hernandez had stayed the night with the de la Vega family. He'd wanted to keep a close eye on his patient. A guest room was prepared but the man hadn't used it. Diego's fever raged and the doctor did everything possible to make his patient comfortable. While he was still alive, his fever raged and he was deathly pale from loss of blood.

The doctor hadn't inquired as to the reason for Diego's injury. The man had sustained unusual injuries before and there had always been a reasonable, if yet oddly unbelievable, explanation. The man knew Alejandro, or even Victoria, would tell him what happened when they were good and ready.

The doctor's mind turned to the young Señorita who sat across from him, holding Diego's hand with such reverence it could have been Zorro lying there rather than bookish caballero. She had strangely refused to leave the sick room and she looked as if she had one foot in the grave herself. Her hair was tangled and matted, her eyes red and her skin nearly as pale as the young Don's. If the doctor hadn't been so concerned for Diego's health, he may have put all of the signs together more quickly.

In those few days, Victoria explained to Alejandro and Felipe, while the doctor was making his rounds in the pueblo, what had happened and how the events that had led to Diego's injury came to be.

To keep themselves occupied, one kept a constant vigil at Diego's bedside and the others would sneak into the secret cave and clean it, keep Tornado company, or read one of the many journals that young Don had kept of his adventures.

He was floating on waves of blackness that threatened to drown him. He couldn't see clearly, He couldn't hear anything but the roaring of the black waves crashing against an invisible wall . He couldn't remember exactly what had happened and he didn't know where he was.

All he had was a feeling of rejection and utter depression. As he searched the depths of his memories, it became clear why he felt the way he did. Victoria's disgust with learning who the real man behind her hero's mask was more painful than a dozen knives in the back.

He re-played the scene over and over in his mind becoming more disheartened after each re-play. If there was no goal to strive for in his identity as Zorro, if there was nothing waiting for him at the other end of the hard road, It wasn't worth the struggle.

The knife twisted and churned in his heart until he cried out from the pain. It was not an audible cry but a cry from the heart and soul of a man who had given everything to help his people in hopes that one day he would be able to live the life he had always dreamed with the woman he loved.

Now even that reality was sinking into the blackness that enveloped his mind and body.

He could find nothing in his memories to live for. There was nothing important about his life any longer.

As he felt himself sink closer and closer to the blackness of death, he could see a light at the end of the dark tunnel that was his mind.

He could see a beautiful woman, enveloped in blinding light, her long, dark hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back like waves in a tempest-tossed sea.

He reached his hand out to grasp her, but fell short. He strained to see her face, but the light was too bright. He could hear her a strangely familiar voice. It whispered to him, like a lovers caress, in his mind. He was soothed by its warmth, by it's tenderness.

'It is not your time. Go back to her. She needs you.'

'She doesn't want me!' He cried. "She wants her masked hero! Not the man of flesh and blood!" He envisioned being rejected by a woman he didn't even know, but felt that he should. He didn't know how much more pain his heart could take.

'She does. Give her a chance.' The voice became faint as the wind whipped around her, drowning out her voice.

'Please!' He called. He felt strangely attached to this woman. As if loosing sight of her would yield the final death blow. ' Don't go! Who are you? Where am I? What is happening?' Clear, crystal blue eyes stared at him from the near blinding light and his breath caught. A slim hand reached toward him from within that light and he saw the jeweled ring sparkling on her finger. His mother's ring. The ring he had hoped to one day present to Victoria the day he asked her to become his wife. Diego's eyes narrowed.

'You have to choose. Love…or eternal hopelessness – never knowing what could have been.' The voice was barely audible now as the light faded from view and she was gone. His breath caught. He could no longer see her but he could feel the resonance of energy she had left behind. Energy that he only need grasp and it would give him the strength to return home.

Victoria walked into Diego's bedroom, carrying a tray of soup to feed the still unconscious caballero. As she glanced at the bed, expecting to see closed eyes and steady breathing, she nearly dropped the tray when she noticed the man watching her through heavily lidded crystal blue eyes.

"Diego!" She cried, the excitement almost too much for her to contain. The tray she carried was deposited quickly on a nearby table as she launched herself onto the bed beside him and brushed away a lock of dark hair that had fallen into his eyes. She bent and pressed a kiss to his forehead and rested her lips there, as if silently thanking god that he had finally awoken.

"Victoria?" He blinked, trying to focus. He was uncertain where he was or what had happened. All he could remember was a strange dream and a woman imploring him to go back. Go back to what? The excruciating pain of rejection sill resonated through his heart.

"Yes." She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, embracing him tightly. "We were all so worried about you. Your fever wouldn't break no matter what the doctor did."

"All I can remember is..." His eyes began to focus on her excited features. He lowered his gaze when he remembered her reaction to him when he had removed the mask.

She understood his unsaid words and took his head in her hands and pressed a gentle, shy kiss to his parted lips.

Diego's eyes widened, paralyzed from the intimate gesture which prevented him from returning the gentle kiss.

"Diego, I am so sorry." Victoria's eyes pleaded with him to forgive her. "I never even thought that my masked hero and my childhood friend were one and the same." She twined her fingers through his hair. "I've had days to think about how empty my life would be without you. Can you forgive me?"

Diego's breath caught in his throat. This couldn't be happening. "I can forgive you anything - Bella."

A lone tear escaped her eye and he reached forward to wipe it away, wincing at the movement. He opened his arms and she crawled into them, careful to avoid his injured side. She pressed herself against his body and simply let him hold her.

Alejandro and Felipe found them, several hours later, wrapped in one another's arms, sleeping away the day in a contented slumber.

A few evenings later, Diego was sitting outside staring out into the open valley of stone-capped hills and man-sized tumbleweeds. The de la Vega land encompassed thousands of acres as far as the eye could see. He could sense someone approaching and smiled widely. When a soft blanket surrounded his shoulders, he reached up and caught her hands in his, bringing them around his neck and to his lips.

He could feel her hot breath in his ear as he caressed her fingers. Her presence warmed him like nothing else ever could.

She pulled her hands out of his gentle grasp and began to rub the tension from his back and neck. The intimate gestures were going to take some getting used to, but they hastened his recovery ten fold.

"You know if you keep doing that, we are going to be faced with a new – dilemma." There was a twinkle in his eyes that she could not see and when she did not immediately respond, he regretted saying something so bold.

"And what might that be?" She moved around the large cushioned chair and smiled down at him. He pulled the large blanket tighter around his shoulders and across his lap so that she couldn't see just exactly what all of these newfound intimate gestures had been doing to his still healing body.

Normally he could control himself and his body's reaction to her close proximity. Years of restraint had made it fairly easy to do. But the knowledge and her acceptance of his secret shattered that well-practiced ability into tiny fragmented pieces.

He quickly steered their conversation to one a bit more appropriate. "What shallwe to do? No one knows Zorro's identity but you and my father. Although, I think Dr. Hernandez has been able to guess by all the secrecy surrounding this hacienda in the last week . I..."

She leaned forward to slide her fingers through his thick, dark hair and he sighed, any further prepared comments soaring straight out of his mind. He didn't know if she just didn't want to talk about the important decisions that would have to be made regarding their relationship or if she just wanted to tease him tonight. Little did she know, every waking moment he could not touch or caress her was torture of the worst kind.

He took her hands and held them tenderly, his eyes pleading with her to stop. "We need to decide how we are going to proceed with..."

She slipped her hands from his, wrapped her fingers around his neck and pulled his face to hers for a deep, searching kiss.

Again words failed him, for the moment, and held her tightly, and simply enjoyed their closeness. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was careful not to turn in a way his injury would object.

"Victoria..." He murmured.

"I'm afraid that we will come to a decision that neither of us will like." She admitted as she moved to sit beside him on the spacious chair. She leaned back into his arms as they snaked around her shoulders.

This motion gave him a very pleasant view right down the front of her blouse and he couldn't keep his eyes from gravitating to the delicious sight.

When he didn't answer, she shot a glance over her shoulder and chuckled, causing him to look away embarrassed. She reached up and caressed his cheek, sliding her fingers across his lips.

"I think maybe we can come up with a solution that will be – mutually beneficial for all concerned." He smiled slightly, hoping she would be willing to go along with whatever ruse they could contrive.

"Zorro is a very public figure." Diego admitted with a sigh. "But Diego," He smiled and turned her so that he could look at her beautiful face, into her deep ebony eyes, " Is a very private man and has a very private life."

He reached for her and as his hands slid along her neck to caress the soft skin there, she sighed. He rubbed her neck lightly and leaned forward, slowly closing the distance between them. As she opened her lips expectantly, he diverted his head and found the sensitive spot on her neck that instantly caused her toes to curl.

She closed her eyes and shivered, her hands sliding behind his head to play with the strands of dark hair that fell over his collar.

As his lips kissed and caressed the soft skin, she barely heard him whisper." I think we can keep our relationship private for the time being."

"Yes," She breathed, trembling, and not from the cool breeze. "I think I shall resign myself to the fact that Zorro is just not the marrying type.

"Settle for the boring, bookish, Diego?" he asked quietly as his lips began to move slowly up her neck.

"Oh, I think I've discovered a facet of his personality that I hadn't noticed before. A very – attractive facet." Her hands tugged at his hair and she pulled away to look into his eyes. She traced a solitary finger down his jaw and across his lips. "And I don't think I could love you any more than I do right at this moment."

"I love you too, Querrida. More than life itself."

FINISHED