Bruno didn't want to wake up yet. He'd decided that the moment he felt the churning in his gut. He'd like his reintroduction to the world to start with something other than throwing up. He could hear distant voices, angry voices, and Bruno decided that he really really didn't want to wake up right now. What was even happening? Where was he? Why did he feel so awful? He wracked his still waking mind to try and figure out exactly how he'd gotten where he was. Not that where he was wasn't nice. It was soft and warm and Bruno could be happy with that right now. He didn't want anything more. Maybe if he laid really still and didn't throw up he could go back to sleep.

Someone certainly noticed he was awake and their reaction was….less than ideal.

Something squeaked next to his head and bit deep into his ear. That hurt and Bruno responded in the exact way that someone might expect. He shouted, cursed, and grabbed his ear. He very quickly came back to himself and remembered everything that had just happened. This was displayed in what he said to the rat that had dug its' little teeth into the shell of his ear.

"¡Maldita sea! Eso duele, ¿no he pasado por suficiente?"

There was a louder squeak and the rat decided that the perfect choice for the moment was to climb right onto his face and he was not happy with little rat feet on his teeth nor the digging on his forehead. He opened his eyes and found himself staring right at Frida's belly. The image of her in his lap covered in blood came back to him and the only reason he didn't gasp was because he knew if he did then her back legs would fall right into his mouth. As much as he loved her he really didn't feel like experiencing that.

He reached up, grabbed her, and pulled her off his face as she began to chatter excitedly. It only served as an unintentional invitation for all of his rats to swarm over him, congregating around his chest and head. He realized that he didn't hear the voices anymore but he could hear footsteps growing louder with each passing second. He would have liked a few quiet moments to himself before his family burst in to yell at him and he was certain, after all of that, that he was definitely going to get yelled at. He'd run out of the house with no explanation, run through the town with no explanation, yelled at his sobrinas, nearly dropped a tree on them, tackled an eight year old girl to the ground and probably broke a few of her bones, and then proceeded to get himself mauled by a tiger of all things. There was no way he could wiggle his way through this situation without explaining more than a few things that he did not want to share. There was no way that people would buy any kind of lie he might be able to come up with.

He'd finally had enough when a rat foot found its' way into his eye. It had to be Fausta. She had always been unintentionally destructive. She was like the rat version of Agustin. It was ridiculous and, much like with Agustin, Bruno wondered how in the world she was still alive. He just sat up, letting the rats tumble back down onto the bed. He knew they'd be fine. It's not like they hadn't done this before but it was usually because he'd forgotten to feed them. He knew they could get their own food. They did get their own food but apparently it was better if it came from him. He took a moment to look around and realized something odd.

He was in his mamá's room. Why was he in his mamá's room? He would've thought they'd have stuck him in the nursery again. He heard the footsteps getting closer and contemplated the window before deciding against it. They were mad enough as is. He highly doubted that Casita would let him run off too. Suddenly he realized that the only window in his mamá's room was positioned directly over the open courtyard. He had to admit, that was some good planning on their part. Now it made sense why he was in this room in particular. There were only two ways in or out and Bruno would bet that both of them were being watched.

He ran his hand over his arm and thanked the stars above that, not only had they warned him, but that Julieta had the gift that she did. There wasn't a mark on him. There was nothing left of the wound other than in his own memory. Despite what anyone thought he would remain adamant, and truthful, in the fact that he could not have predicted any of that. Him still being here was astounding and not something he'd been expecting. From the moment the animal slammed into him he was certain he was going to die if a little confused about the method of his own demise. He was certain that that was not the way he was supposed to die but it came close.

He flexed his fingers and remembered watching a tendon snap under the strain. He shivered at the memory. That image was going to stay with him for a while although it hadn't been the worst thing he'd seen in his life. It was just unsettling because it had been his arm. Looking back on it he felt like he handled the situation well enough considering his usual behavioral track record. God, what had he been thinking?!

Oh yeah, he wasn't.

He hoped Liam's daughter was okay. That man was going to kill him already the problem now was exactly how slow it would be. Bruno knew he'd hurt her when he'd shoved them both to the ground but he didn't know how bad it had been. He'd been…..occupied. The rattle of the doorknob pulled his attention away from his own thoughts. Oh dear. Here we go. He could honestly say that he had not been expecting Felix to be the first one through the door and certainly hadn't expected him to look so frantic.

"Please don't be mad at me."

Bruno paused.

"Depends…..wh-why should I be mad at you?" Bruno narrowed his eyes.

"….I told them everything." He blurted out.

"Felix!"

"Things changed Bruno! This got a whole lot bigger than you or me and you almost died!"

"Believe it or not I'm aware of that fact." Bruno said flatly.

Felix bit his lip.

It quickly turned into one of the worst days of his life when his mamá walked in behind Felix and…..

She was holding one of those smoky tablets. Bruno's face fell, hand flying to his mouth while he desperately tried to figure out what to say. Those tablets were…..graphic to say the least. Or….most of them. His mouth moved before his brain did, as it often did. It usually got him in trouble but he was already in trouble so...whatever.

"It didn't seem important." He ducked his head and she raised a brow. "There's no way to change any of those so...what's the point." He shrugged.

"But you did change it." Felix reasoned.

"Did I though?" He looked back up at his cuñado. "Now that think about it, now that I have time to, I never saw her die." He moved a few messy strands of hair out of his face. "I did tell you that I understand almost none of this."

Alma shot Felix a look and he ducked his head down before slipping out the door and leaving Bruno to deal with this all by his lonesome. That traitor. He pulled his legs out from underneath the blankets and moved to sit on the edge of the bed next to his mamá. She set the tablet down between them and he avoided her gaze.

"It's uhm….hard to explain."

"Bruno." Her voice was soft and he couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze. He knew her eyes would be even softer and he'd break. "We have as much time as you need."

It was a soft voice but a stern one as well and he knew he would not be leaving this room until he gave as best of an explanation as he could.

"I-I didn't actually see any of that coming." He whispered. "I knew some things but...I-I didn't know how-what….It was too late and I didn't have time for explanations. I just had to get there."

He told her everything he'd told Felix and, as scared as he was, it seemed like a bit of a relief. He didn't quite realize how keeping all of that to himself weighed on him. Sure, he'd wanted to talk about it all with someone but he'd always been too afraid to do that. He knew that from this point on the family would know about all of this, about the depths of his gift. The whole village would probably know. Everyone would be asking her a lot of questions and she'd always answered their questions with honesty or at least said what needed to be said to give them comfort. There could be no more lying here.

"Luisa and Isabela said a tree fell in front of them while they were trying to catch up to you."

"I was sure they'd be fine." He squeaked. "I-I didn't know if that would actually work. I mean….I'd never tried it before. I just," He rubbed his forehead. "I didn't have time to stop but I didn't want them there. I was thinking that it would at least slow them down enough that I could lose them."

He decided to leave out how good he had felt after. He wanted that time to figure it out a bit for himself.

"Bruno, how old were you-"

"Seventeen." He said quickly, knowing that he wouldn't answer otherwise. "I was seventeen the first time…." He glanced down at the tablet between them. "They're never nice, never good." He whispered.

He took a deep breath.

"There really isn't a point, a reason, to show anyone any of those. They can't be changed. It's just….suffering. No rhyme or reason but always with drastic results of some kind. I can never see those though. I can't see passed those. I-I tried." He bit his tongue. "I tried last week."

He heard her gasp as she made that connection.

"The jaguar….there was nothing anyone could have done. It would have happened one way or the other. B-but when Antonio went missing…..I had to try. Th-there are rules. Rules that can't be broken and….and I tried. There are consequences to trying to break those rules. I paid the price for it. It's as simple as that. I'm just lucky it wasn't worse. There are some things that I know can't be done…..or shouldn't. Sure, everything started to change the first time….but I didn't know, didn't understand, that there were other ways too. Not until I had the time to myself and the quiet."

Oh why did he say that? He knew that whenever he mentioned or talked about the way his life had been for the past decade it always upset her and the last thing he wanted to do was upset her. Of course he couldn't blame her for getting upset. She had a son who did nothing but show people bad things. Her son was the curse of the Encanto. Bruno felt that she had the right to be upset about it.

Bruno would be correct in his assumptions that Alma was upset with him, upset about the situation, and upset about his visions. He was just wrong in the question of why. Everything had been a wake up call that was decades too late. Too late for her sweet, shy, baby boy. She knew that, looking at his trembling form and worried face, that she had done that to him and, even worse, she'd let other people do that to him. She hadn't stood up for him. She hadn't protected her own son and hadn't that been the whole point of everything? Everything they had was protection. Everything Pedro had given them was all about protection and keeping his family safe. Oh, what he would think of her now.

Somehow she felt that she'd had to work and pay back something that everyone acknowledged was a gift and you don't pay back gifts. A gift is given selflessly and with no expectations other than the happiness of the recipient. For some reason she'd missed that and, out of all people, Bruno seemed to understand why. Though she wasn't sure if she could get that answer out of him. Every now and then she would catch him looking at her with a gaze that was deep and full of sadness and compassion and knowing. He understood things, knew things, about people that they, themselves, didn't even know.

There were depths to him that no one knew simply because no one had tried. If she had only tried. Bruno had never been able to lie to her. If she had only asked. It was only by the blessing of one of his own prophecies that they knew what to do. More accurately, Felix knew what to do. He hadn't had time to explain either other than the fact that Bruno was running into a life threatening scenario and that was all it had taken to get all of them out the door with Pepa being worried and scared enough to bring out a violent rainstorm, which had been Felix's intent. Without that lightning, that thunder, perhaps the animal might not have been scared off in time.

Everything had suddenly made sense when Felix came back from Bruno's room with that crystal sphere.

There had been so much blood. She hadn't seen the wounds, the damage done, but Julieta had told them and it had been bad. She could hear him screaming over the rain and she thought for sure that she had lost him when that screaming suddenly stopped before her daughter had run into the house. They had almost been too late. Another minute and he would have died. That hit her hard.

Her Brunito had almost died and it was all her fault. He hadn't trusted them, any of them. She remembered very clearly what Felix had told them what he had said.

"You can't show anyone, tell anyone!T-they'll know I did this! They'll I-I don't know what they'll do to me!"

He hadn't just lost trust in them he was afraid, terrified, of them all. Her, his sisters, the whole village. He seemed certain that they all would hurt him, maybe even kill him. How had she let things get so bad? How had she not seen how scared her little boy had been all this time? Why had it taken this for her, for everyone, to see it? They had all turned him into some kind of evil person, a creature, a demon, a curse and he'd still run into danger like that without any hesitation at all. She looked at the tablet and remembered that he had more, a shelf full according to Felix and they were graphic. Bloody and horrid to look upon but Bruno had lived each one.

According to Felix Bruno could create beautiful things too and all of this time, if they had only asked, people could have seen that too.

This was long overdue and she needed to work up the kind of courage her son had. The kind of courage Pedro had. Why hadn't she seen it? Why hadn't she seen that he was so much like his father? Pedro had always been a good man. Of course he was and he was one in a million. People like him were rare and how could she have missed that Pedro lived on through his son? How could she have missed the ghost of her husband reflected in her son's eyes? Pedro would have been so proud of him and here she had missed it all.

This was long overdue. She ran her hands over the smooth glass and watched the smoke drift and flow through it.

"Bruno." The fact that he flinched a bit broke her heart and she choked on it.

She took a breath and looked back up at him.

"I am so proud of you."

Bruno swore his heart stopped. Bruno swore the world stopped. At least, his world anyway.

"Bruno, what you just did...not everyone would have done that. What you have done, been doing your whole life, is not something that just anyone would do."

He couldn't breathe. His hands were shaking too much to even hold Frida who seemed to think that was unfair. She chattered at him upset at not receiving the attention she felt she deserved.

"You ignored instinct and followed your heart and you have such a big heart."

He was a grown man. He was not going to cry right now.

"Everything you've ever done was for other people. You saw how broken we were long before Mirabel and you also knew that no one would listen. You did what you thought was best to protect her despite how much it pained you to do."

She put the tablet back down, no longer between them but behind her. She wished she could protect him from it but knew that she couldn't. All she could do was be there for him and help him carry this burden.

"We almost lost you for real this time." Her eyes filled with tears at the idea. "And it would have been my fault."

"Wh-no-"

She gave him a look and he snapped his mouth shut, turning his gaze back to the rat in his lap. The little creature had protected him more than she ever had.

"It would have Bruno. I was never a proper mother to you, to your hermanas. I never protected you like I should have and because of that you felt the need, for your own sake and safety, to keep so much from us and if we had only known then perhaps all of this might never have happened. Maybe we could have protected you and not the other way around."

He took a shaky breath.

"Bruno, I've only seen one other person like you in my entire life." He could hear the tears in her voice and turned to look at her, wanting to offer comfort. "I can't believe that I never saw just how much you're like your padre."

Oh that broke him. He clapped a hand over his mouth and looked away. No, she was wrong. She didn't know what she was talking about. There was, no just...no.

"Bruno." She said sternly, seeing the conflict in him. "If anyone has the right to say that, it's me."

She reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, bridging the gap between if even in this small way. It was a start.

"I'm so sorry Brunito. I'm sorry I was not there for you when you needed someone. I'm sorry I never protected you. I'm sorry I never saw you for you. I'm sorry I never looked passed your gift to see you, the real you. You deserve so much more from me, from everyone."

She turned his head toward her and held his hands on much the same way as she had when she'd first managed to coax him out from around the corner.

"I'm proud of you Bruno. I'm so proud and not just for this. I'm proud of everything you've done and I'm sorry that I never saw it. But I do now."

His brain told him to keep it together but it was too much for his heart to contain so, despite his efforts, he found himself sobbing onto her shoulder like a five year old. Not that she seemed to mind all that much. It was that ugly kind of crying too. He was so embarrassed. It did not help that she just kept saying how proud she was, how sorry she was, and how much she loved him.

She wasn't playing fair.

This was, by far, the last thing he had expected to come out of this and he had no idea how long that little scene lasted. For a little while he just sat there, forehead pressed to her shoulder, and holding her as tightly as she was holding him and...it was all he had ever wanted in his whole life. It was also something that he never expected to have. He'd resigned himself to a certain kind of life a long time ago and it was a life that was devoid of anything even close to this.

She let loose a sigh before her quiet voice reached his ears and she sounded….afraid. Which didn't seem right.

"This isn't over is it?"

Bruno shook his head and found something being pushed against him and his hands moved to grab it. He looked down in confusion.

"We found it outside, in the field. It must have come off."

Or he pulled it off. He looked down at the thick band in his hands adorned with gems. Emerald flowers sprouted from swirling diamonds and his jaw dropped. He was holding onto a massive collar. A collar he'd accidentally pulled off the tiger.

"I-it's somebody's pet?" He whispered and she nodded.

He definitely hadn't expected that. A lot of things happened that he hadn't expected. He hadn't expected this. He hadn't expected to live once he realized what had leaped on top of him the other night. He hadn't expected for Liam's daughter to live. He hadn't expected his family to come running like they had. He just hadn't expected any of this.

He certainly didn't expect Liam's bone crushing hug or confession of gratitude and definitely not the tearful apology that followed. He didn't expect the celebration that followed to rejoice in a life saved that could have been taken before she had even lived. It was...different. It was such a change. It was weird and he didn't know what to do with himself. He still couldn't believe it.

Maybe hope wasn't such a poison after all.

let's take a moment to talk about the real hero of this story. If anyone wants to know what Frida looks like just google powder blue rat.