This is the English version of my fanfiction: 'Il lungo cammino verso te'. My sincere thanks to Fay71 who is doing a great job to allow English speaking readers to read it!

The long road to you

Part 1

Travels

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Chapter 1

Nocturnal thoughts

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The cold night air enveloped Candy with the caress of a light but steady wind. She knew Miss Pony and Sister Lane would be worried about her, but she really needed to be alone with her thoughts for a while; she was too confused.

Two dear faces appeared behind her closed eyelids as she felt the slight rustle of the leaves of the great oak tree above her. Maybe she should have climbed it, but for some reason she had decided to remain seated at its foot, as if she could get more answers from that position. It was as if little Candy who used to climb to the top of the tree had given her place to the woman who had to put her feelings in order.

For me nothing has changed. It was that phrase of Terry's that had shaken her like those leaves. She had expected the same to happen in her heart: wasn't she still in love with him? At first she had thought it was the sense of guilt. Terrence had waited for a year and a half after Susanna's death before writing those words to her and now there was nothing left to keep them apart. It was as if that fatal event had given them the green light to be together and it all seemed so wrong!

But no, it wasn't that either, she told herself, tearing up a few blades of grass, as if that gesture would help her to think more carefully. Actually her heart didn't beat so fast any longer whenever she thought of him and of the possibility of reuniting with her tormented lover. The truth was that her heart started beating whenever she received a letter from Albert, or whenever he turned and looked at her with those blue eyes that reminded her of the clear summer sky.

Albert...

Candy put a hand to her chest. God forgive her, but the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that she had fallen in love with her adoptive father. Or with her guardian. Or with Uncle William. Or with her best friend.

"With my Prince on the Hill," she sighed, sitting up and giving a light

tap on her forehead. "But is it my fault if they are all the same person?" she exclaimed, turning to her beloved oak tree.

Looking into her heart, she knew she had always loved Albert who seemed to be there for her in any difficult moment. Later she realized that this was done quite intentionally, since he had always watched over her as her adoptive father.

She had never, ever thought that that feeling of strong friendship and brotherly affection would change into something deeper. When did that happen? Certainly discovering all those truths about his identity had opened some doors in her soul to which she didn't believe she had the key, and every piece got back into place. Had she always loved him as her Prince on the Hill? Or did it happen later?

She was asking herself too many questions and was beginning to feel the chill of the night on her skin.

At the end of the day, the "when" was of no importance, she thought as she headed home. Now it was the present she was worried about: what should she answer Terrence? In a letter never sent she had written the words "I loved you" in the past tense. Did her heart already know?

She decided she had to see him again, and she had to do it now.

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Terry was looking at the ceiling, following the shadows cast by the beech branches in the moonlight.

In the evenings, in the solitude of his home, memories and worries always came to his mind, and that was no exception.

He had sent that damned letter months ago and had received no reply. Now he was certain that Candy had changed and that those tears he thought he saw in Rockstown were part of his fancy.

At the premiere of 'Hamlet' you were not there. And you have never written to me. Oh, Candy...

A truth that was as bitter as it was plausible was taking hold deep inside him: Miss Freckles didn't love him anymore. The time he had spent with Susanna, even if it wasn't the "forever" it was meant to be, had definitely killed their love.

"I destroy everything I touch," he said to the empty room, violently opening a drawer and grabbing an old pack of cigarettes, now empty and crumpled. He had been carrying it with him since his days at St. Paul's college, and every time he picked it up he recalled a pair of hands that had snatched it from him and replaced it with a harmonica.

That night Terrence was left with that packet clenched in his fist as if he wanted to crush it, and he was looking at the harmonica as if he intended to throw it off the balcony. Instead, his fingers loosened and followed the gestures they had learned long ago. In a few moments, a

melancholy music flooded the room while a tear held back too long slowly rolled down his face.

If he could have turned back time, he wouldn't have accepted the conditions of his stubborn Candy. But she wasn't entirely to blame; on the contrary, her gesture was a noble one.

In his heart, Terrence knew he would never find the courage to leave Susanna, especially after that suicide attempt. Candy's altruism had just made things easier because she had immediately interpreted the situation and solved it in the blink of an eye, perhaps too quickly and too definitely.

As the melody slipped through his lips, Terrence realized that if she had talked to him about love or if she had delayed, he would probably have collapsed and his good intentions would have gone to hell, just like his life. Candy must have understood that and had practically run away from him, from them.

The sound twisted into a discordant note for a moment. Terrence tried again and corrected it. He wished he could do the same thing with the past! However, his fate would forever remain a cacophonic melody due to a single out of tune.

Now Susanna was gone, and maybe that beautiful and passionate love which united him with his Freckled Tarzan had vanished too.

It was as if they were both dead and he was destined to be alone on a dark stage, after all the actors had left.

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Albert was looking out the window of the train that would take him back to Chicago. He had finally settled his affairs and could take a break, following things directly from there. He leaned back wearily, remembering that George was expecting him the next morning and he had already a busy schedule.

But his mind had never been this far from the family's financial affairs.

His first impulse a few hours earlier had been to get on another train, go to the port and return to Africa. He felt free there, in the midst of wild nature and the animals he loved so much. If he concentrated, he could still smell the parched earth and hear the fire crackling in the middle of the camp. Lost in his memories, he even thought he could smell the scent of cinnamon that emanated from Fiona with whom he had desperately tried to fall in love. He had left her sad and weeping, giving her a friendly kiss and murmuring "I'm sorry" in her native language.

He smiled at that memory that had crossed his mind, but he realized he couldn't force his heart to feel something other than what had always been inside it.

His fingers traced imaginary designs on the glass. His mind was now

irremediably lost in her memory.

"Candy..." he spelled out almost inaudibly while his finger wrote a faded C on the misty window. He put his hands on his face, feeling doomed: he had fallen in love with his adopted daughter; it was all wrong! He had begun to realize that only after regaining his memory. It was as if a feeling that had always been there but which he had always avoided letting to emerge had finally come to the surface along with his memory.

He recalled that at first she was just a child he wished to protect; then he had seen her transform into a woman before his eyes as quickly as that landscape was changing behind the window. In London, when they had met again on that dark street, while she was desperately looking for an open drugstore to get medicine for Terry, he had had to hide his astonishment. He wanted so much to take her arm and walk with her instead of accompanying her to the school! He laughed at the image of Candy climbing the wall with his help and jumping to the other side as if nothing had happened.

A lady, hearing him laugh, turned to look at him and he cleared his throat, composing himself and thinking that the whimpering Candy of Pony's Hill had become a rebellious and kind young lady who would do anything for her friends and...for her love.

His laugh from earlier became a bitter melancholy. Albert had relegated to the depths of his soul the pang of pain he felt whenever he thought of Terrence and Candy together. The feeling of sadness that had overwhelmed him when he had seen her in despair at the House of Magnolia after their farewell was still vivid in him.

That same sadness which afflicted him now and which he was trying to drive away by recalling his everyday life with her while he had no memory.

They had lived for a long time in that small but cozy apartment as brother and sister, but their complicity was consolidated in those dinners together, in the greeting she reserved for him every morning before she went to work in the hospital, in their plans to improve the house they lived in, including the weekly cleaning and her almost always disastrous incursions into the kitchen.

The pots overflowed, the food in the pans burned, but you were always the best thing that had ever happened to me. My salvation.

Once he had regained his memory, he understood that this Albert who had developed feelings for Candy was even more faithful to himself. The only restraints he had had were first the age difference and then his suddenly remembering everything.

The morning I left I felt like I was walking down a long dark tunnel. I had left the light behind.

Their relationship had been turned upside down and had started all

over again under the burden of his new identity. He had watched Candy's reactions and had realized how happy she was to have found her beloved Great Uncle William and also her dear Prince on the Hill. But could that be called love?

How many emotions I saw on your face! Astonishment, incredulity, joy...but in the end you always ran into my arms.

He had tried hard to get rid of that etiquette and had often joked in his letters about the nicknames Candy gave him. In the end he had convinced her to call him simply Albert or at least Little Bert as his late older sister did.

An incipient yawn suggested that he needed to sleep for a few hours if he didn't want to get to Lakewood exhausted but his thoughts continued to swirl around the same subject like a movie playing again and again.

Candice White Ardlay, who had turned his free and calm spirit into a kind of summer tempest.

He had to get her out of his mind, otherwise there would be trouble. It was not the first time he had formulated those thoughts but Candy always came to overwhelm his mind, heart and soul against any reason.

Once again he thought that she would never love him the way he wanted.

But before slipping into a troubled sleep amidst the jolts of the train, an internal voice whispered to him the bewitching yet disturbing words: "And why not?"

Another sudden jolt catapulted him out of a sleep that seemed to him to have lasted not longer than a minute. Actually the sun was high and the driver was announcing that they had arrived in Chicago. Shaking his head to fully wake up and longing for some coffee, Albert retrieved his suitcase and prepared to get off the train, while a new awareness became clearer and clearer in his mind.

All of a sudden, everything became crystal clear to him.

Basking in doubts or, worse, trying to get away from that feeling would never make him happy, or anyhow it would make him doubt forever. He recalled Aunt Elroy's words before he left: "When you return we absolutely have to think about your settling down. An important man like you should already be married and have an heir!"

And he didn't want to get married except for love. His sister Rosemary had fought and although her life had been tragically short, she had known happiness.

I want to be happy too.

Albert didn't know how things would turn out with Candy, but he was sure of one thing: he was in love with her and would have preferred to remain single and adopt one or more children from Pony's Home rather than marry another woman.

As he got into the car that would take him back to the Chicago residence, that conviction grew stronger.

"Good morning, Sir William. I hope you had a nice trip," the chauffeur greeted him politely.

"Very nice, thank you! How are things going?"

The man replied that everyone was waiting for him, especially his aunt. Albert sighed. One step at a time.

First of all he had to clear things up with Candy; otherwise all his plans would be castles in the air and nothing more. He was ready to expose himself and to suffer too, if necessary.

Life was too short to be wasted on speculation.