Dolores woke up early. Very early.

Smiling to herself, she slipped out of bed, quickly got dressed, and left her room. Quietly, oh so quietly as only she could be, the girl sneaked past each and every door, then down the stairs without so much as a creak, before making a beeline for the kitchen.

She found the room empty except for her tío. Sitting at the table, taking a cautious sip of his tea, he raised an eyebrow at the girl as she looked around the room, lip sticking out ever so slightly in an almost pout.

Clearly Tío Bruno had been waiting for her.

She looked once more around the room as he offered her half of the thick slice of bread he held in his hand. She accepted it reluctantly and slid into a chair beside him.

"Disappointed?" he asked.

Dolores shrugged.

"You do have a history of sniffing these things out before they can happen," he pointed out. No Scolding. No judgement. It still made her feel guilty.

How could she explain she just go so excited she couldn't help herself? She didn't mean to ruin the surprise, she really didn't.

Dolores nibbled her bread, trying not wince when her tío tore a chunk from his and dipped it in his tea. She loved her Tio Bruno, but sometimes he was weird. Bread dipped in tea was just gross.

"I know you know what I got you. Do you still want it?"

Dolores nodded, and her tío wordlessly slid a small package in her direction. Badly wrapped in scraps of cloth awkwardly tied together with rough brown thread, she nonetheless appreciated the effort.

Carefully she unwrapped her gift, staring down at the silver heart shaped locket. It was simple and plain, smooth and unmarked on the outside. She opened it. It was empty on the inside.

She had spent days imagining what the locket would look like, but the reality was far plainer than any fantasy.

She smiled up at her tío. "Thank you," she said, reaching over to hug him.

"When you get a sweetheart you can ask for a portrait of him to put inside." Her uncle winced. "If you get a sweetheart. I mean-" he sighed. "I haven't seen anything, so I don't know. But anyway, you can put a portrait in it, like Mamí did with Papí. If you want to."

"Can you help me put it on?" she asked, holding the locket out to him. He took it from her carefully, releasing the catch, draping it over her head, then lifting her hair up out of the way with one hand before refastening it.

Dolores looked down at the locket, and decided it suited her.

"Come on." Her tío stood and set his empty cup in the sink before taking her hand and gently guiding her to the floor.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"It's a secret." he told her, grinning, his eyes full of mischief and promising adventure.


The adventure turned out to be one of Tío Bruno's regular hiding spots, specifically one of his few outdoor spots that both her mamá and Abuela would have thrown a fit over, had they only known he had brought her there.

It was pretty, though. Sitting with their feet dangling off a ledge, the ground roughly twenty feet below them, covered in jungle that spread out in front of them until it eventually became part of the mountains that surrounded their home, Dolores was pretty sure that Tío Bruno had not mentioned this secret outing to anyone else.

Their backs rested against another ledge that rose up behind them, creating a thin precipice that she had been surprised her uncle could still navigate. Dolores wondered idly how he had originally found the place, and how long he had been coming here.

She was glad she wasn't afraid of heights.

"It's beautiful."

"Yeah."

They sat there. Tío Bruno really wasn't much of a talker, unless he was playing games or telling stories. Sometimes he stuttered a little bit, especially when talking to the other adults, though he never seemed to have trouble talking to his sobrinos.

"So you're eight years old now, huh?" he finally said. "Getting old."

"You're getting old," she retorted, and he laughed.

It wasn't even very funny, but somehow it was. Dolores laughed too.

They stayed there until their stomachs started growling. Dolores realized they had both missed breakfast as they carefully shuffled back toward more solid ground, away from the edge of the cliff and what her mamá would certainly have described as certain doom.

Tío Bruno made a face. "Should've stolen a couple of apples," he muttered as they made their way back to Casita.


They were both sweaty and dirty by the time they made it home, but Dolores was having fun, so she didn't complain. Once back inside Casita, however, her thoughts turned in a different direction, as she wondered whether it would be better to try to sneak upstairs and change so no one could ask where they had been before trying to beg a snack from the kitchen, or if she were simply too hungry to wait.

Caution outweighed hunger, but only barely. Fully abandoning her tío, she darted upstairs to wash her face and change, too busy trying to hurry and thinking of what kind of food she would try to convince Tía Julieta to make her (it was her birthday, after all) to pay much attention to anyone else.

It wasn't until she was passing through the open doorway into the kitchen that it occurred to her that it was very quiet.

"Suprise!" No one actually shouted as they popped out from corners and behind chairs and out from underneath the table, but it had the intended effect.

Dolores jumped, then squeaked, then threw herself at her parents, hugging them fiercely as food and cake and presents were brought to the table. Bouncing around, she looked from her parents to her uncle and aunt to Abuela, the grin on her face threating to split her whole head in half.

She was passed from family member to family member as they all wished her happy birthday until her head began to spin, albeit in a good way.

Tío Bruno appeared in the doorway. Dolores noted he had also changed clothing and figured that though he had been tasked with distracting her while everyone else set up the surprise, specifics had not been discussed, and he did not want to explain where they had been any more than she did.

"Tío Bruno!" She squeaked, throwing herself at him in a moment of true and utter delight and catching him almost disastrously off guard.

For a terrifying second she felt herself falling, and her tío lurched, his heart skipping a beat as he fumbled to support her weight, and then everything righted itself, and he hugged her tightly against his chest with arms that shook.

"Feliz, feliz cumpleaños, Doli." he stuttered. She half expected him lift her up even further and spin her around, the way he usually did when he picked her up, but he instead simply set her gently on the ground. Looking her over, he nodded in confirmation.

"Defintely getting old."

"You are." Her tío snorted, and Dolores was quickly whisked away by her cousins, clamoring about cake and presents and food. She looked over her shoulder briefly, just in time to see her tía settle a hand on Tio Bruno's shoulder, her eyebrows raised in a wordless "everything okay?" that she was sure she was not meant to see.


Author's Note: So, yeah. I was writing the other story, and it just kind of spiraled from there. So I guess this is going to be a collection of interactions between Dolores and Bruno when she was younger, before he "left"? Anyway, I had fun writing this, and I hope you enjoy it. And really, there's still more to come.

Disclaimer: I do not own Encanto.