Summary:

It happened by chance in the middle of the night.

Told in the third-person perspective, this one-shot focuses on the history of Bruno's powers and the secrets he knew about his beloved before they even met.

-o-o-

A "What We Don't See" One-Shot. The ending takes place between the events of Chapters 30 and 31.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The future held infinite possibilities and different realities. People had always been given a choice, a key to their fate. Life was never set in stone.

He was five years old when he was first given a gift.

Bruno and his sisters had been told the story countless times before. How on the day they were born their Mamá lost her home, lost her husband…their Papá, and in her anguish, a miracle happened that changed their way of life forever.

And in the fifth year, their doors appeared, Casita and the candle bestowing them with blessings it deemed fit.

Oh, how wrong and painful and long it was. Imagine, a child like him, suddenly waking up in the middle of the night, screaming from a vision he never wanted to see. Or being like his favorite sister, who can't even so much let out a cry without setting the town in a hurricane.

Lucky Julieta, for even if she was just learning to cook, the inedible food was still tolerable, to say the least.

The first years of their newly gifted lives meant learning, experimenting…and more importantly for Bruno and Pepa, controlling. Maybe that's why he stuck to Pepa's side more, being in the same boat as she was.

His gift wasn't unwanted at first. Who didn't want to see the future? Bruno was the darling of the townsfolk for he could always predict their luck. Most of them were pleasant, but some were vague. No one blamed him then for not seeing something that wasn't there when bad things happened.

Somewhere along the line though, things changed.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

He was ten when he and his sisters stumbled upon the river they never knew existed. It was after their Mamá had caught him trying to blow out the candle at Pepa's suggestion. They all got scolded, even the perfect Julieta, and so they ran away, as kids do, to sulk.

They wouldn't have discovered the place if not for Pepa chasing after a mariposa and almost falling into the water.

It became their secret place where they can be themselves. Julieta could be mean and goofy and imperfect, Pepa could weather out all her storms, and Bruno…

Bruno was just there to escape the visions that were slowly starting to descend to a place no one wanted to be.

The townsfolk slowly lost faith, but they still couldn't get mad at him. He was a child and children don't know what they're doing most of the time.

Except he was no ordinary child, they were not an ordinary family, and there was always a tiny inkling of fear in people's eyes whenever they saw him.

The unwanted glimpses of the future only grew more and more. There were days when Bruno refused to sleep. He had a small grasp of his visions during the day, doing a little ritual he had yet to perfect, but nights were painful, riddled with headaches and scary green eyes…

Until he saw the future of someone he had never even met. It was an accident, something he never expected, that for a small moment Bruno thought it was a dream.

But he never dreams. He stopped having them the moment he got his gift.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

He was thirteen when people started to shun him away. Bruno lost what few friends he had and his sisters were now starting to gain more and more attention for their more useful abilities. While people still wanted to see their future, a good handful hurled hurtful words for visions that were less than desirable. And it was too much, too much for Bruno. Enough to make him try to hurt himself one day, if not for Julieta stopping him.

So Bruno resigned himself to his room, with all the sand and stairs and dark caves, and refused to come out for days. Even when his hermanas and his Mamá repeatedly asked him to open the door. It all fell on deaf ears.

He never asked for this.

On the fifth day locking himself in, Bruno suddenly had another vision of the person he never met. They were alone, crying, at a loss of what to do.

Just like him.

He had never felt more connected to a stranger than this.

He saw them pick themselves up and put a brave smile on their face before it all ended.

It inspired him so. The tenacity and audacity to stand tall. Even if he was terrified, he did the same, and his sisters were more than happy to see him again.

There were no more friends in town for Bruno. He felt lonely, but he found new ones in the form of a little squeak. Soon his room became filled with rodents of all shapes and sizes, and he was at least less alone than before.

Of course, the stranger of his much so.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

He was sixteen when Pepa asked for a vision about the man of her dreams. Julieta was too busy to be interested in boys, but Pepa…

Bruno relented even if it was a toll on him. He would do anything for his sister. But a fight ensued when he revealed her future with the young man she was seeing wasn't meant to be.

Pepa didn't talk to him for weeks. It crushed him more than the villagers storming out of his room. Bruno escaped to the hideout more times than he can count on his fingers to clear his head. Life was too short and too long to even make any sense.

Then one such afternoon, something strange happened.

He wondered if they were just a figment of his imagination. It was only in his desperate times did he see them.

Bruno never understood initially why Pepa was furious with him, but it became clear that day, by the water. There was an unfamiliar pang in his chest. He wished he knew who this person was…because he realized…he had fallen in love.

It was the best and worst feeling in the world.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Pepa was twenty-three when she met Félix. It was amusing, to say the least, that for all her grudges against Bruno, he was right when he told her her previous lovers would not be. Though, she made it difficult for her new beau to woo her.

Bruno had forgiven her for her past transgressions, though a part of him wished he could just shut his eyes when the world became heavier.

He was well and fully hiding now, the only consolation are his rats and the comfort that somewhere out there was the person he longed to be with. No one told him that he should not see his future, and so he tried countless times, only to come up empty.

He could only see them when he least expected it to be.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Julieta was twenty-five when she fell in love with an outsider named Agustín. A bumbling, soft man who stumbled upon the Encanto to learn about rare plants, only to be rushed in front of her day after day from bee stings. Pepa teased Julieta that it wasn't accidental, much to her chagrin. On the other hand, Bruno quickly warmed up to him, wanting to learn more about the world beyond the Encanto.

Maybe his beloved was out there somewhere, and Bruno would go looking for them, if not for…

The vision that broke his heart. It came so suddenly and so strongly that he threw the glass away the moment it formed.

It couldn't.

It can't.

Bruno became troubled when he saw what would happen to them.

And he was helpless to prevent it.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

It had been years since he last saw them in a vision. His Mamá had finally given up trying to match him with someone from town. Bruno knew she meant well, but he was never interested, to begin with. Because deep in his heart, even if he had almost forgotten, he knew what it was like to have something so dear and so close.

He's now thirty years old. He could wait for lifetimes if that is what it'll take. For all the love he had for his sisters and their esposos and his sobrinas, emotions scared him. But Bruno will always be Bruno, still hopeful that maybe, someday, he'll find the one he's looking for.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"Bruno?"

Bruno glances over at the woman sitting next to him. Her head is on his shoulder, their hands are entwined. "Yes, amor?" He asks. "What's on your mind?"

The cool breeze blows around them as they watch the whole town from above. It's been three years since they've gotten together, eight years total if he counted the day of their chance meeting. Bruno never expected it to come true, but a part of him had always known.

Even the story that she is yet to tell.

"Have you ever seen this coming?" She whispers. "You and I?"

Bruno hums as he brings her hand closer to his lips. "I recall telling you before that I never expected us to happen, Gabriela."

"I know." Gabriela's eyes twinkle as she snuggles even closer to Bruno, making him blush. She always took his breath away. "But, still, wouldn't you have seen a thing?"

He smiles. If only she knew. All those years he's waited for her, from the first moment he saw her in a vision. She had always been there, bringing light into his life even before she arrived.

The future holds infinite possibilities and different realities. People are always given a choice, a key to their fate. Life is never set in stone.

But for Bruno, he felt lucky that she chose him. And he knows sometime soon when she's well and ready, it'll happen again. For now, though, he'll just keep it close to his heart.

There is plenty of time in the world.

"Fate can only do so much. Part of it was up to you, mi amor, but yes, I knew before we met."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-