It was close after dawn when Elena woke up, still lying next to her daughter. "Is she…?" She looked up to Bruno, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.
Elena sighed in relief when he shook his head.
"No, she is still breathing. "
She knew that he tried to act brave for her, but Bruno's eyebags were even more prominent than they used to be. Clearly, he hadn't slept at all at night, and clearly, he had been crying.
Elena took his hand, trying to give him as much hope as she could. "She'll be alright; I know she will."
Bruno glanced at her, giving her a sad smile. "You have always been bad in lying, Elena."
She pressed his hand harder, not allowing herself to even think about the possibility. "She WILL be alright, Bruno. She must be." He could see the tears filling up in her eyes, and before Elena could say anything else, he pulled her into an embrace.
"She must be ok. She must be ok." She sobbed, not looking up. The smell of his ruana calmed her down while the man she trusted and loved the most held her tightly in his arms.
"I am sorry, I shouldn't have said that." Bruno mumbled apologetical, hoping that he didn't shatter the last piece of hope left in her heart. Only yesterday, he thought that they might dodge everything that would have made one of his nightmares come true, but now he knew that everything he and Elena did in the last ten years led to this moment. They never had a chance to prevent this event from happening; the only thing Bruno couldn't tell was if a happy end had ever been an option.
"Bruno, your mother and sisters want to see you." They didn't notice Augustin and Félix standing in the doorway and slowly pulled apart. Bruno glanced at Elena, secretly hoping she would ask him to stay.
"You should go. I am staying here with Lina." She leaned her forehead against his, knowing that he didn't want to have this talk alone with his family.
"It's ok, Bruno, we'll look after them." Félix said softly, slowly leading his brother-in-law out of the room. His sisters hugged him as soon as they saw him, but their mother sat at her end of the kitchen table. Then, softly, Julieta led him to his place on the table where some coffee and Arepas were already waiting for him.
"Julieta, I don't think I can…." Before Bruno could utter any other word, Pepa pressed the coffee mug into his hands.
"Drink." She demanded when she sat down at the chair on the opposite side of the table. "You can't be strong for them if you haven't slept for days."
Knowing that his sister talked about Lina and Elena, Bruno sipped on his coffee, instantly feeling less tired when the hot drink went down his throat. He knew that it wouldn't hold on forever, but at least it would get him through the morning. However, he stared down on the plate before him, unable to eat or speak.
"I think you should start at the beginning." Félix whispered to him before he and Augustin left the kitchen, seeing how much trouble Bruno had to find the right words. They would hear the story from their wives, but this talk belonged to the triplets and their mother.
"Bruno, how did it happen?" Julieta still had her arm wrapped around her brother's shoulder; her sister reached for his hands from over the table. Only Alma sat there in silence.
"Well, I would say Pepa was right after all." He muttered, starring down at his plate. "Lina… It happened after Dolores's birthday party, but it wasn't Perez. It was me."
Pepa shook her head. She was already aware of that part of the story, but not how it was possible.
"But how? Well, we know how that happened, but how were you even able…. We all thought you always had a soft spot for Elena, but I never thought you would…."
"Stand a chance. Yeah, Pepa, I was also surprised." He grinned at her but couldn't get his whole heart into it. "We were getting closer some weeks before Mirabel's ceremony, especially when she told me she never wanted to marry this idiot." He paused as all the old memories flashed through his head, memories of a time he thought that everything would turn out fine for him just once.
"I knew the moment you asked me to look into the future that I was the reason why she couldn't get married." Bruno turned his head to his mother, who also took one of his hands. She still didn't say anything.
"Elena was the one who held me back when I tried to leave the Encanto that night, kissing me. She told me to stay with you if Mirabel needed my help or if something else happened. After that, we tried to meet sometimes, but mostly we exchanged letters using my rats when it was safe." He took a bit of an Arepa, mostly because he tried to distract himself from talking.
Julieta stared at her brother in disbelief. "You tried to leave the Encanto? You know what it would have done to you!"
Bruno shrugged. "I knew that I couldn't be with my family, and I thought that I would never have the chance to be with the woman I love. So I didn't really bother what would happen to me that night."
Julieta strengthens her arm's grip around his shoulders, not wanting to let him go anymore for even a second.
"But why were you coming out from your hiding at Dolores's party? The house was crowded! It is a wonder that no one had seen you!" Pepa interrogated him, not letting go of his hand.
"I was so busy trying to find a solution for our situation that we haven't seen each other for months." He continued, trying to not lookup.
"I felt that an uncontrolled vision tried to haunt me for days, but I held it back as long as I could. Then, the moment the fireworks started, I couldn't stop it."
"What did you see in that vision?" Abuela questioned, speaking for the first time that moment.
"I saw Perez drunkenly harassing Elena."
For a second, his sisters and mother stared at him, knowing what he really tried to say but couldn't speak out. Pepa was the first to find her voice back.
"And obviously, our little brother tried to be her knight in shining armor." Pepa rolled her eyes, knowing that Bruno would never stand a chance, let alone in a fight against Pascal Perez. It was not like he was not strong and quick enough, but she knew that Bruno couldn't hurt a fly.
"Well, it turned out that Elena didn't need a knight in shining armor. She punched the lights out of him the second I reached them." For a brief second, Bruno smirked when he remembered that scene. Perez got what he deserved from the woman he tried to pressure into marriage for a good part of her life.
"I helped her dragging him to the donkeys; one Arepa was enough to heal his broken nose but was not enough to sober him up." He continued. "I knew that I couldn't return home that night without you noticing me; that's why we talked."
"Talked." Pepa said, making air quotes. "That's how Lina happened?"
"That's how Lina happened."
Pepa shrugged. From all men in the Encanto, she never expected her brother to father Elenas child. However, she didn't mind being wrong this time a all.
"Bruno, why didn't you bring them here earlier?" Julieta questioned hesitantly. "The night Lina was born… I almost couldn't do anything for them." She knew that it was a rough topic for him, but she simply had to ask. He turned his head towards her; the guilt he felt was written all over his face.
"I would have if I knew that she was pregnant."
His family gasped, staring at him.
"We saw us more regularly after…well after that night, but one day, she didn't show up at the point we usually met. We had a little fight before, but I thought that her family kept her busy. Then, after a few months, I got used to the thought that she didn't want to see me anymore." Bruno frowned before taking another sip of his coffee, feeling tired again. He didn't like to even think about their argument the day Elena tried to tell him about her pregnancy. All the drama could have been avoided if he had only listened.
"Elena later told me that she needed the time to prepare the cottage for escape. She knew that her grandfather would force her to marry Perez if he ever found out, but he would never stop pressuring her until she told him who the father was."
Alma stared down at her hands, trying to hide her guilt. She knew that she would have done the same when she was in Samuel's position. How many times did she try to talk Bruno into considering marriage?
"The night Lina was born, I had another vision. Thankfully, I didn't hold it back that time." Bruno shook his head; he never could get her screams out of his head. There was so much blood on the floor that Elena already feared that she had lost her child, but Bruno never allowed her to give up on her and their baby. It turned out that their little girl was a fighter, and he prayed that she would surprise them once more.
"I was there when you helped her, hiding in that corner." He pointed at the corner behind him next to the door to the other room. "You were so busy and tired that you didn't notice me, and Casita helped me hide. I also begged Casita to not make her appear on the family tree." Bruno hid his head in his hands, forcing himself not to cry.
"I wanted so much to share the news with my family, I wanted to scream it out into the Encanto that I was a father now, but I couldn't. I couldn't because I saw something similar like this happen every time I thought about coming back." The memories of that night and all his previous visions tired him out and remembering that his daughter was on the edge of dying only a few meters from him finally broke him down.
"I can't lose her." Bruno cried, repeating the words he said to Alma last night. Again, she pulled him into a hug, only this time her daughters joined them. Together, they cried in silence, each of them knowing how it felt to pray for their own child. Alma almost lost Bruno because he was the smallest one; Mirabel was the one that came nearly five weeks too early. The huge age gap between Camilo and Antonio happened because Pepa thought that getting pregnant again wasn't a good idea after she almost lost her oldest son to pregnancy complications connected to her powers.
They all knew that nobody deserved to lose a child.
"You will NOT lose her, Bruno." Pepa suddenly muttered, sounding way too confident. "Lina will wake up, and she will play with Antonio, and they will drive us all nuts with all the shenanigans little children are capable of. And we will never stop giving you and Elena advice on handling your child, secretly knowing that none of us could do it better. And we will never stop loving you, all of you."
Bruno looked up at her, laughing while crying. "And I always thought that I was the one seeing the future." He wiped a tear from his face before his sister pulled him back into the hug.
"I have a lot of talents I never told you about, hermanito."
They stood there crying and hugging when Augustín stormed back into the kitchen.
"They heard about Lina." He cried out of breath. "Elena and Félix are holding them back, but the Morenos are here."
