Early October came around, bringing with it a long anticipated weekend. He had told Giacomo that he would be there, and Stefano was planning to keep his promise. As soon as he'd gotten back to his home in Salerno, not even an hour had passed when there was a knock at the door and a very antsy Lucia was standing on his porch.

"Giacomo's plane is going to touch down any second now," she snapped the moment Stefano answered the door. Bless Lucia, the silly creature. She had actually dressed up for this—hairpins and all. "Hurry up!"

Travel had worn him down, and he'd been hoping to at least sit down or something before being whisked off to the airport. "I haven't even changed yet."

"It's okay! You look fine!" Lucia replied impatiently. "What if the plane lands and Giacomo walks out of the gate only to find no one waiting for him? He'll think we forgot about him!"

"He won't," Stefano sighed. "I told him I'd be there to pick him up. Aye, Lucia, you sure know how to drive a man crazy."

Lucia giggled as he stepped out and closed the door behind him. "Oh really?" She sidled up to him, almost brushing against him had Stefano not drawn slightly back. He stared, not sure what to make of what had just happened. Had she…?

She seemed to sense his shock. "I'm just messing with you," she snorted before stepping down the porch.

The man they had come to pick up was almost unrecognizable from the one they'd waved off a few months prior. Day after day in the sun had tanned his skin, and his golden brown locks had been cropped right down to his head.

And he had gotten big. When Giacomo clapped an arm around Stefano's shoulder, it actually hurt this time.

He'd been worried that time would erase what they had built up between them as kids. But that didn't happen. It felt just like old times when he heard Giacomo laugh as they met eyes. Lucia squealed and ran up to him. He hugged her and lifted her right off the ground.

"Oh mio!" Lucia purred when he set her down. "I've got a big burly man now."

Giacomo chuckled. "Yeah." He gave his chest a firm pat. "They tore me down and built me back up." As he ruffled Lucia's hair, he asked Stefano, "How've you been, Camera Boy?"

"Again, with that. Am I ever going to outgrow it?"

"Nope. It'll outlive you," Giacomo quipped. He patted Stefano on the back, nearly dislocating his shoulder. Stefano kept silent by clenching his jaw. "Dio, I'm starving. Let's get out of here."

The mama's boy in Giacomo surfaced when he arrived back at that tiny apartment. Even being a head and a half taller than his mother, Giacomo seemed to shrink back into a little boy when he hugged her. "Gia, cucciolo mio!" she cried joyfully. "You've grown so much in three months! Have you been eating well? Are you hungry?"

"Always!"

"Oh," the woman sighed as she withdrew from Giacomo. "That won't do. It's okay, Gia. Mamma will fix something right up for you. There, Stefano, don't be shy. Stay a while too."

He hesitated. Giacomo's mother always made it clear that he was welcomed under their roof. The hospitality, especially coming from someone who had so little to even keep to themselves, felt strange to him.

"I just got home," he muttered quietly. "Haven't unpacked yet."

"Come on, man!" Giacomo invited cheerily. "Listen to Mamma. It'll be the perfect time to catch up!

"Well…" Stefano said. "Alright."

"That's the spirit." Giacomo turned and called out to the doorway of the kitchen. "Hey—it alright if I call Lucia to come over too?"

There was no answer at first. Stefano was certain there was no way she hadn't heard Giacomo.

"Mamme?"

"Hmm?" came the response.

"Can Lucia come too?"

"Of course, Gia. Dinner will be ready in an hour."

"Take your time, Mamme." Turning back, Giacomo nodded towards the door. "Come on, let's step out and give her some space. God knows if we stay we'll run the risk of getting bowled over." Stefano followed him out of the front door. They went to the stairwell and sat on the top steps. For a while, they were silent as they let the last remaining wisps of unfamiliarity dissipate between them. Then, Giacomo was the first to speak.

"I'm glad to see things haven't changed with us," he admitted. "To be honest, I was worried." Stefano glanced at him. Giacomo's hands were laced together on top of his knees.

"Why?"

Giacomo gave a meaningless shrug. "That's just the natural course of life, I suppose," he said. "At basic, I got to talking with a lot of the other recruits. When conversation turned back to our childhoods, a lot of them admitted to dropping connections with their boyhood friends. Things they had in common as children disappeared when they got older. Hell, Stefano, look at us. You couldn't even use up one hand to count the things we've got in common." He finally looked up. "Guess I got to thinking maybe you'd find more people like you at uni, and it'd finally make you realize what a sod I was."

"Nah," Stefano dismissed. "It's full of pompous personalities that drive me up the wall. One thing I've really learned, Giacomo, is that honesty is a rare thing. If there's an opportunity to get ahead or save face, it's the first thing to go."

"Yeah," Giacomo agreed grimly. He let his hands drop from one another, and then in a brighter voice said, "How do we always manage to get so somber? Fuck that, man. How are the girls at university? Have any caught your eye?"

"Sure," he replied. "I've seen a few that made me think to myself, 'she could pull off a close-up really well.'"

Giacomo laughed. "Damn, you're a geek. You better step out from behind the camera once in a while or you're going to die a virgin."

"You should have used that joke when you had the chance," Stefano countered. "Last spring was when that chance expired."

"Oh? After the Maturità?"

"Yup. Romana."

"No fucking way it was Romana." Giacomo scoffed. "She always struck me as the 'waiting until marriage' girl. How did you even manage to pull that off?"

"I don't really remember." At all.

"Well…" Giacomo leaned towards him, holding a fist up to be bumped. "Here's the congrats that came a few months after the fact, but better late than never."

Stefano glanced quizzically down at Giacomo's fist and awkwardly tapped it with his own. "I think you're making it a bigger deal than it actually is."

"I probably am," Giacomo agreed. "Sorry, I guess the mindset at basic polluted mine a bit. You think you have big personalities at uni? Try a training camp some time—just a cluster of testosterone, sweat, and pent-up… you know. The only women for miles around were on printed pages in magazines you'd never let your mamma catch you with. Speaking of which…" Giacomo whapped his hand against Stefano's arm. What the fuck, even that hurt. "Those were taken with cameras. Next time you lift yours up, think about doing your fellow brothers a solid, huh?"

That would be… ugh. Stefano knew Giacomo was only joking, but a part of him prickled at his words. "I'd rather not let my pieces only serve to titillate," he mumbled. "If the model I'm working with wants to take off her top, more freedom to her just so long as it doesn't ruin the composition I have in mind."

"I hear ya. But hey, when that happens you let me be the first to know, okay?"

"Lucia would kill you."

"She would." There was a pause, and then Giacomo groaned loudly and leaned back, holding a hand over his stomach. "Man's starving out here! Look at me, Stefano! I'm turning into skin and bones!"

"Dio mio, I can count your ribs," Stefano replied sarcastically. If Giacomo was only skin and bones, then Stefano was the goddamn prime minister of Italy.

Giacomo planted a hand down on the stairs and pushed himself onto his feet. "I should probably get Lucia before it gets dark. I don't know why she insisted on making a trip home—probably to change her dress for the fourteenth time. Well, whatever the lady wants. In the meantime, can you see if Mamma needs help?"

"Sure." He wasn't sure what kind of help he was going to be, exactly. All of his previous offers to help Giacomo's mother in the kitchen were always shot down. She didn't seem to want anyone encroaching in her territory, where apparently she took on the spirit of a testy Rottweiler.

As he stepped inside, Stefano could hear the bumping of pots and pans, the bubbling of things, and the heat and aromas drifting from the kitchen.

"Giacomo?" the woman called out from the kitchen.

"No, ma'am, it's me."

"Ah, Stefano." There was a sudden pause where the shuffling of feet stopped. And then, Giacomo's mother said, "Do you mind… do you mind if we talk? Step in here, caro."

Stefano walked into the kitchen, but lingered near the doorway. He placed his hands behind his back and leaned against the wall, pinning them in between. "Has Giacomo gone to get Lucia?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

She stopped, finally turning away from the stove. Pulling a tea towel from the pocket of her stained apron, she dragged it across her damp forehead. "I'm worried about Giacomo," she confessed. The trouble clouded her eyes. "I… I don't know what to do."

Stefano swallowed nervously before asking, "What's wrong? Are you…?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Giacomo's mother said quickly. "This is… about Lucia." She brought the towel up to her forehead again. Stefano wasn't sure if it was the heat trapped in this small kitchen, or the stress of their conversation, but he was starting to perspire a little too. "Giacomo really cares about her, and that's why I don't know what to do."

"What is it?" The tension was killing him.

Giacomo's mother squeezed her hands together. "A few weeks ago," she began, "I was out when I saw that girl—she was walking out of a movie theatre, holding hands with another boy. I was across the street, so she didn't see me, but…" Stefano saw that her fingers were practically digging into her own skin. "I'm his mother, Stefano. Of course I jumped to conclusions. But I was so shocked, I let them walk away. Maybe…" The distress was painted all over her face. "Maybe I should have confronted them and demanded to know what was going on. But now, I can't bring myself to do it in front of Giacomo. He's only here for a week before he's gone again. Stefano, do you think I'm over-reacting? Reading things wrong? From what I saw, all they did was hold hands."

If that was all they did… Stefano wasn't sure, and part of him wished he had remained ignorant. It was a hard call to make. Culturally, handholding was something that friends often did—both of the same and opposite sexes. Still, he thought back to that moment when he and Lucia had been on his porch earlier that day.

Confirming the distraught woman's fears seemed like the right thing to do, but it was also the harder choice. She was right—Giacomo was only here for a blink. Stefano was only here for a weekend, and this had been meant to be a fun, relaxing one.

"It's probably fine." He was comfortably numb as the words came out of his mouth. "Lucia cares about Giacomo just as much as he does her… it's fine."

"I… I think you're right," Giacomo's mother said. "Yes… thank you, Stefano. You've always been a good friend to Giacomo. I can't tell you how grateful I am." She smiled a deep, warm smile, but all it did was make Stefano uncomfortable. "That's an incredible weight off my back. Now, what was I doing? Oh!" The woman cried out as she turned back to the stove. "Che roba, I nearly let this burn! Go sit down, caro. You've traveled a long way."

It's probably fine.

Funny how things swept under the rug eventually made their way back out. It was almost as if they always waited for the most opportune moment.

After that week, Giacomo went back to training and Stefano went back to university. Both of them once again left Salerno behind, and it was as if things had gone back to the way they were supposed to be. He and Giacomo kept loosely in touch, and was how Stefano found out Giacomo had finished advanced training, had been assigned to a brigade, and was heading overseas on his first mission.

Before leaving, Giacomo had assured Stefano that he would be fine. The assignment wasn't that bad—just a bit of surveillance. Direct combat was only foreseen the in the worst case scenario, and the chances of that were low. There were wars being fought overseas, yes, but none demanded their country's direct involvement. Giacomo's brigade was only being sent over as part of Italy's contribution to NATO's efforts.

"I'll be deployed for 12 months," Giacomo told him. "But I get two weeks of leave, and you bet I'm coming home for that." When winter came around, Giacomo was one of the lucky ones whose two weeks sent him home for Christmas.

The festivities. The familiarity of home. The reunions. It was supposed to be a happy two weeks. But the things under the rug came out.

Giacomo hadn't told anyone but Stefano that he was coming home. He wanted to surprise everyone else.

Stefano got back to Salerno a day after Giacomo did. When he stopped by the apartment, Giacomo wasn't there and his mother was in tears. She told Stefano that Giacomo had been gone all day and begged him to go find him.

He did. Stefano walked around the city as he'd done as a boy. It was bitterly cold, but that didn't matter to him. With each passing minute, the pounding in his chest worsened.

He found Giacomo by the water, sitting on the wharf where the boats were. He reeked of alcohol.

Lucia saw it. Those had been his own words, hadn't they? Ones Stefano had spoken—no one else. The catalyst that led up to this. It was all because of him.

Giacomo had come home in secret, hoping to surprise her. It'd be romantic—another way to show her how much he loved her. Instead, he'd found her in the arms of another man. What was done was done, and none of the excuses Lucia had sputtered out after tearing herself away from her lover mattered. And that had just been the tip of the iceberg. After more shouting, more arguing and hurtful words, Giacomo learned this hadn't been the first time.

Stefano only knew about all this in the days after. When he saw Giacomo on the wharf, all he had were his worrying premonitions. And the moment their eyes finally met, a look of fury like none Stefano had ever seen crossed his friend's face.

He was up on his feet in an instant. "This whole time!" Giacomo roared. Stefano realized he was crying. "Why? I love her!" He wavered, staggered, and quickly caught himself. "Is there any man in town who hasn't had their hands all over my Lucia by now? And you?" Stefano felt his heart drop when those eyes, filled with anguish and rage, turned back to him. "Have you been fucking her behind my back too?"

"Never." His voice was quiet. "I would never do that to you." Stefano was scared—an honest, gut-wrenching fear. He was afraid he had lost Giacomo. There were very few things he genuinely cared about in his life, but please, don't let him lose this one.

"How can I trust you?"

Trust was all they had. He thought it'd been enough. And if it wasn't? "I don't… I don't know," Stefano stammered, fear beating a rhythm in his chest. He was talking too fast. "I can't prove it to you, but you're my brother, Giacomo. I would never. Y-you know this."

Giacomo was breathing heavily through gritted teeth. Suddenly, the rage seemed to drain out of him. What it left behind was lifeless and broken. "I have to trust you." Giacomo reached out to hold onto the railing and sink to the cold ground. "I have to… Because if I don't, I'll…" His words gave away to uncontrollable tears. He curled up and buried his head in his arms.

I did this, Stefano realized. I let this happen to him. He stepped slowly over to Giacomo and sat by him. All he ever was, was my friend. Always.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this happened." Giacomo wouldn't answer him. "I wish… I could do something. Something more than this—just sitting here. But it's all I can do, so I'll do it. I'm here, Giacomo, for as long as you need me to be. Okay? I'll still be here. And when the smoke clears, I'll be here too."

Slowly, Giacomo lifted his head. He turned towards Stefano and suddenly hugged him tightly. "What do I do from here?"

He froze, and then slowly put an arm around Giacomo. "I don't know," Stefano said. "Get fucked up and take over the world?"

Giacomo gave a dry, emotionless laugh. "Yeah," he said. "I'm halfway there already."

"And you're not going any further," Stefano said. "Your ma is already worried, and I'll be damned if I have to carry your sorry ass home."

"Ah, fuck." Giacomo scrubbed his wet faced. "Mamma—she's definitely worried, isn't she? Fuck." He took a deep breath, and continued, "Help me sober up. I just need a few minutes." Giacomo was definitely going to need more than a few minutes. Stefano wasn't sure just how much he'd tried to drown himself with, but if the state of him now was any indication… And it was freezing. Giacomo had the alcohol to numb him down, but Stefano was completely vulnerable to the chilly, seaside air. It didn't matter. He had made a promise.

Lucia… all this time. Stefano felt sick with anger. He quickly told himself she wasn't worth it—it was Christmas, after all. He and Giacomo were home and together. There had been a life before her, and there sure as hell was going to be one after.

The currents had hidden the rocks.

Two years seemed to go by ridiculously quick. It was funny how the nearing of graduation coincided with a declining will to live. Stefano took a week's trip to France, where he found some much-needed inspiration at the Louvre. Then he took a train a few hours south to Lyon, using the scenery and people there for a class project. Things were quiet. Life had finally settled down neatly enough to where he began to wonder which direction he ought to take his. To be honest, and he didn't know why, he was starting to get bored with the way things were. There was something missing, and he couldn't quite put a finger on what.

At the end of the term, Stefano finally decided to head back home. He hadn't gone back to Salerno in two years, not since that Christmas.

Home never did feel the same again. Maybe the coastal city had its comforts once when he was a child, but that had faded. Stefano was almost done with school, and after that—it was all uncharted territory. He wanted to be an artist. He wanted to be recognized. He just didn't know how. Not yet, anyway.

Stefano went home and spent some time with his parents—people he'd always been told he should care about but never quite could. They lacked vision, and they never supported him as they should have. But let it not be said he never made an effort.

He went to that other part of the city, to the small apartment where Giacomo's mother was. The woman had become as much a mother to him as his own. She greeted him warmly as she always did. She asked him about school, if it was going well. If he had found a girlfriend yet. And instead of asking if he'd gotten a job yet like Mamma, she asked about his works.

"You're a talented boy," she told him. "Someday, you'll be famous." That was the hope. But it took more than just hope to make it reality. Still, her words made him happy. He asked her how she was doing. Giacomo's mother smiled and used that tone Stefano knew all too well—the one a mother used when trying to pretend all was well to her child. "I'm perfectly well," she said. "Been getting by just fine, waiting for Giacomo to come home. He's being a strong young man in another country, but he'll always have a mamma to come home to. That's the promise I keep to him." She sighed, and as she did her hand bumped against a pencil that was on the table. It rolled right over the edge and clattered on the floor. Giacomo's mother frowned and looked down. It had fallen right in front of her. In fact, it should have been the first thing she saw when she looked down. Instead, the woman's eyes continued to helplessly scan the floor. "Oh…" she muttered softly under her breath.

"Right there. Let me." Stefano scooted his chair back to pick it up. He held the pencil out for her. Her hand missed it at first before taking it.

"Thank you, caro."

"Are…?" The question couldn't leave his lips. Instead, he let his hand drop.

It worried him. He knew there was nothing that could be done. People got old. But when it was a parent, that truth was too hard to face. She wouldn't ever admit what was happening to her to Stefano, nor would she ever accept any money to have her eyes get the treatment they needed. Stefano knew all this already, even if the woman was adamant on keeping it a secret—and she did so to save him from the grief. Then, a few days later, there was a phone call to Giacomo's mother. Her son had been shot.

It was Giacomo himself who was on the other end of the line to tell her. He was wounded, but he would pull through. There was more to the news—he was coming home on convalescent leave to recover. The hospital commander had given him 25 days.

Both of them, back in Salerno after two years. It'd taken a bullet fired into Giacomo's gut to finally bring them back together. Stefano was there at the airport. He saw his friend come rolling in on a wheelchair and couldn't help but laugh. Giacomo told him to shut up.

At first, he was mainly bed-ridden. Stefano spent a long while sitting in his room while they passed the time chatting. And in those moments, he was reminded of the days that had been like this.

"For three weeks I wasn't allowed to put a single thing in my stomach," Giacomo told him. "They stuck a giant needle into me and fed me directly through a tube. I tell you—it was my own personal hell." He chuckled. "But hey, at least the nurse was cute."

"Did you talk to her?"

"Nah, man. Most of the time when she was around, I was too hopped up on pain meds to even get a word out." Giacomo paused. "Aren't you supposed to be at university? Did you come all the way back for me?"

"I'm on break," Stefano said. "And next term is my last."

"You're graduating? Hell, time really flew, didn't it?"

Stefano shrugged. It had, but he didn't want to admit it.

"What are you planning to do afterwards?"

"I really have no idea."

"Well," Giacomo said. "We're still young. Plenty of time to figure it out."

It was Stefano's idea that, once Giacomo was able to stand on his own two feet, they take a trip up to the university just to do a little sightseeing. Giacomo liked the idea. "I'll get to see what your everyday was like," he told Stefano. They took a train up north to Rome. When they arrived on campus, it was, predictably, empty with just a few stragglers and tour groups going around. Trees grew in groves around the grounds, throwing shade over the pale stone walkways. Beige buildings were tinted yellowish on their angular roofs by the afternoon sun, growing darker in gradient to their bases. Giacomo pointed out just how many statues there were on campus, and Stefano agreed with a chuckle.

Stefano recognized a few people and stopped to say hi, taking the opportunity to introduce Giacomo. They noticed his cropped hair and bulky frame underneath the linen shirt, and asked if he was in the army. When he confirmed, their eyes grew wide with excitement. Stefano immediately knew what they were thinking. To them, Giacomo was exotic. Some strange person to be marveled, like a thing in an exhibit. A gladiator in the Colosseo.

A few of them were insensitive enough to ask Giacomo if he had ever killed anyone. Immediately, a look crossed over his face—one Stefano had trouble reading. Then, in a very quiet voice, Giacomo replied, "I did whatever I had to do to protect my team." Abruptly, he said, "Nice meeting you," and quickly turned away.

They didn't think much of it. Stefano hurried after Giacomo, who had slowed down enough for him to catch up in a few steps. With his hands buried deep in his pockets, Giacomo stared forward. "Hey, sorry about that."

"It's no big deal," Giacomo replied. "A lot of people don't know what it's like."

Stefano paused. "What… is it like?"

Giacomo turned back to him. "Not like this," he said, pulling hand out of his pocket to gesture around. "Not shady and pristine with green trees all around. Not where you can stroll around and feel safe. And it's not even like I expected it to be, Stefano. It—."

Suddenly, there was a loud bang. It was likely a car backfiring or someone slamming the back of a truck too hard. Stefano had heard it countless times and knew exactly what it was, but something immediately flooded Giacomo's eyes. He had heard something else entirely. He moved so fast Stefano didn't even have time to comprehend what was going on. The sound of Giacomo's voice shouting, "Get down!" flooded his ears. The next thing he knew, his body had hit the ground and Giacomo was pinning him down.

It all lasted for a few seconds, but it was an eternity in Stefano's mind. He was stunned and confused, and his back hurt where it had slammed onto the ground. Giacomo quickly got off of him, holding an arm over his stomach. He was breathing heavily. "Stefano, I'm sorry, I… I didn't hurt you, did I?" People nearby had stopped to stare.

"I'm fine," Stefano grunted as he sat up. He reached back and patted the dirt off his back. "Are you okay, Giacomo? What was that?"

"Sorry… sorry." Giacomo shook his head and pushed himself onto his feet. He held his hand out and pulled Stefano back up. Stefano waited for him to go on, but all Giacomo did was stand there in silence with his arm wrapped protectively over his stomach.

"It's okay. I get it." He knew what Giacomo must have heard in lieu of an innocent sound.

"You don't," Giacomo suddenly muttered. The hand over his abdomen clenched. "Stefano." His voice was deathly quiet. "I don't want to go back. But I have to. It's my duty."

"What do you mean?"

"People…" Each word was articulated slowly. Painfully. "Don't know what it's like. I'm scared, Stefano. They call me a soldier, but I'm only a kid. When I got shot at, when I got hit, I was awake the whole time. I couldn't even move and I knew exactly what was happening. I thought I was going to die, and all I could do was cry for Mamma. I… I'm just a kid, Stefano. I should have gone to university like all the other kids, but this was the life written out for me."

Always, Giacomo had seemed nothing but proud of being in the army—being the hero. The soldier who loved his country. But this…

Giacomo was right. Stefano didn't know what it was like.

Addendum: "It was funny how the nearing of graduation coincided with a declining will to live." This sentence came straight out of my soul.