Authors Note: General Warning for Panic attacks and lots of negative self talk.

Also, I edited the last chapter to fix the date mix up I had made.

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Florencia, the love of his life, was pregnant with their third child and he wished he could be coasting on the joy that gave him, but he wasn't.

Because, one morning, shortly after receiving conformation of the happy news, he had woken up to see it. Right there running up the inner wall of the Casita. A crack. It was small, thin, but it was there. Every time he passed, even as he crossed his fingers and sang sana sana colita de rana, his eyes were drawn to it. The dark crooked line, sitting there with all it's weighty implications.

It was starting, wasn't it? Mirabel was only about to celebrate her tenth birthday, nowhere near old enough to be the girl in his vision and yet it was happening. It was beginning. And he was panicking, because what was he supposed to do? There was a crack in the walls of the Casita and he thought it might be growing. Slowly, ever so slowly, but he was sure it hadn't been quite as big when it first appeared.

What should he do? What could he do? He couldn't touch it. Step on a crack and break your mother's back; that was what people said. It was bad luck, and he was Bad Luck Bruno. If he touched it he would only make things worse. He always did, didn't he? He could see it, in his mind's eye. Cracks just multiplying and spreading, until everything was coming down around him. ¡Mierda! His vision was coming to fruition right in front of his nose and there was nothing, nothing he could do to stop it. There never was. He was so useless. Mierda, mierda, mierda. ¡Joder!

He paced. He paced and muttered plans to himself, each as stupid as the last. His heart was racing, and he couldn't find a way to slow it down. Deep breaths weren't helping. In fact, it was getting quite hard to breath at all. His chest hurt. Mierda, was he having a heart attack?

No, no. He had to calm down. He was panicking, that was all. This had happened before; he knew what this was. Not a heart attack. Not a heart attack. He was fine. Deep breath in. Okay, okay, okay, he was okay. Long breath out. Blow. It might feel like the air wasn't there, but it was. He was fine. He was okay.

Once he had caught his breath, he looked around hazily. He'd slumped down against the wall at some point, finding the pressure the corner created against his sides grounding. He unwrapped his arms from around his knees and spread them, running his fingers over the texture of the inner walls of the Casita. It was hard and pitted, but not rough or jagged. He breathed, his eyelids feeling heavy.

"Sana sana colita de rana." He hummed to himself. "Si no sanas hoy, sanaras manana."

He was okay. The Casita was okay, for now. The crack was small and, while yes it probably was going to get bigger if it hadn't already, he had time to figure something out. He would... He would... Fill the crack. That's what people did, didn't they? If it was any other house, the people living there would, erm, make some spackle and fix the crack. He could do that. Right?

Would touching it with a trowel count? Would that be enough to stop the transfer of bad luck? He edged along the wall, reaching for his chest of drawers and knocking against it the moment he felt the wood under his knuckles. One round didn't help the tightness beginning to squeeze at his chest, so he went through another. And another. Oh, mierda, he was panicking again. Gasping for breath. Then he was choking on his own spit, coughing and spluttering and trying to force air through his now burning windpipe. Joder.

He needed to get a hold of himself. Someone was going to hear him. Delores could probably hear him right now. He needed to control his breathing. He had to calm down. He needed to get off the floor, get himself a glass of water and stop flailing about like a beached fish. He used the drawers to pull himself up, willing his muscles to support him. He stumbled to his jug, cursing his shaking hands when he missed the glass, spilling water over the counter. He would clean it later. He sank into his armchair after that, clutching his cup to his chest.

Mierda. He pulled the hood of his ruana up and over his head, covering his eyes and narrowing his vision to only what was right under his nose. He took a deep breath in, and out. He sipped at his water, washing away the tangy aftertaste of his own panic. He needed to do this. He had to find a way to do this. A way to be brave enough.

Over the next few days, after a little bit of sneaking and some help from the Casita, he got together the salt, flour and white paint in large enough quantities that he wouldn't have to do another equipment run in a while, should other cracks appear after he fixed the first. The trowel and metal bucket he'd been forced to steal from town. It was unfortunate but necessary, and he reasoned it wouldn't do anyone any real harm. No one was going to die because a bucket went missing, and people didn't have sentimental attachments to trowels.

He easily mixed everything up and he got the spackle on the trowel just fine, but the moment he looked back at the crack, aiming the fill it, his hand began to shake. Step on a crack and break your mother's back. Step on a crack and break your mother's back. Step on a crack and break your mother's back. It was running around his head at a million miles a second and his chest was beginning to feel tight again. Mierda. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. He was fine. He just had to suck it up. He's fine. It wasn't going to happen, even if it really felt like it would. It was just a silly saying people had said to him as a child. He had to do it. He had to. He couldn't just stand here and shake and whimper and flail about. He had to be a man and just do it.

He sucked in a breath, pulled his hood over his eyes and said something he hadn't said since he was a child.

"I am Hernando, and I am afraid of nothing!"

His arm, while still not exactly steady, was unfrozen and he smeared the spackle over the crack in the wall, forcing it inside, filling and fixing the wall as best he could. The moment he was done, he let his breath rush out of him and dropped the trowel into the bucket. He could feel a wobble in his knees but forced himself to stay upright. He shouldn't be falling all over himself for something like this. It should have been easy and instead he'd been forced back into childish coping mechanisms. He should have been fine.

Still, it was done, at least for now, and that was something he supposed.

He spent the rest of the day trying to immerse himself in his art. He knew the fun little set designs he made for his mini-stage weren't going to cut it, so he immediately picked out his old sketch pad. It was a lot messier nowadays than it had been when he first began using it. When he had first met Florencia. The first dozen pages were filled with her, the next dozen with her and Dante and then his dulce bebita joined them. In pencil, in charcoal, in paint. And between each of the pages was one of Dante's drawings, taped to the page behind it, so you had to flip the paper to see his own work. They were mostly coloured pencil or paint; sometimes made with his fingers, sometimes with a brush, mostly with both. There was a coffee stain on the cover, curtesy of su vida, and a corner had been nibbled away by a rat named Olive. It was probably one of his most prized possessions.

He touched up this sketch here and that bit there, before finding a new page to try to portray his amor's new barely-there baby-bump, but too often he was drawn back to the wall. He'd find himself scanning the grey around him, checking for any change or staring at the white stripe of spackle he had put there, slowly drying out. He had to get out of there. He hadn't been to see Reni and his niños in a few days, too distracted by the impending future.

He still felt a little jittery by the time night fell, and the halting journey slipping from shadow to shadow as he scanned every alleyway he passed for onlookers hadn't helped, so he was sure he looked a mess when Florencia answered the door. She took his hand in her own, pulling him towards the sofa without a word. The second he sank into it, sank into her, his frantic energy seemed to flow out of him, leaving him so unbelievably tired. All the days and poorly slept nights since the crack had appeared caught up to him all at once.

"It's beginning." He whispered, turning his face into her neck and fighting back tears.

"What's beginning?" She stroked her hands up and down his back. "Bruno?"

"My vision. It's starting. I mean, it won't happen all at once, I don't think." He pulled away, trying to explain. "It's not even time yet, but it's starting. And I don't know why? It- It just did. Like, for no reason that I can see. I just woke up and there it was."

"There what was?"

Her question made him blink. He'd never told her the prophecy. It had been the point of him running away in the first place, all those years ago. That no one would know. And he had told her as much, the night he had 'left', and she'd never asked for more. But that was then and this was now. And well, if he could trust anyone in this world it was the love of his life. Maybe it was time? She wou- She wouldn't blame him. She knew he didn't cause things to happen, had said it enough times to reassure him.

"The-there's a crack in the walls of the Casita and it's only going to get worse. I think, I mean, in my vision it looked like the miracle was failing." He heard her gasp, but pushed on, his eyes focused on his hands as they fiddled with the edge of his ruana. "I saw it the night of Mirabel's quinto cumpleaños. I was trying to look for a reason she didn't get a gift, but all I got were images of the Casita falling down around us and the lights fading from the doors and the mountains surrounding the Encanto cracking open. And now, it's happening. Even though Mira's only nine, not nearly old enough to match how she looks in my vision. And the boy. I thought he was Delores's, or Camillo's hijo, but maybe he's the new one Pepa's having now, and that means it's happening sooner than I thought. I think. Probably, maybe. He looked to be only four or five. So, I guess we have a little while but-"

He looked up during his rambling and the expression on Reni's face stopped him short. She was pale, ashen even, and if she wasn't already sitting down, he would have made her.

"Are you okay?" He asked, feeling alarmed and already reaching for her.

"The Encanto is going to fall." Her hand rested on her little bump, her eyes straying to the stairs where their other children slept.

He bit his lip. "Yeah."

"Oh Dios Mio. Bruno? The Mountains have kept us safe, what will happen to everyone without them?"

She wasn't angry. Shocked, sad, worried maybe, but not angry. Still, he couldn't help shying away at her question.

"I d-don't know. Do you- Do you want me to look?" She'd never asked him for a vision before.

"No, no. It's fine. I know how much it takes from you. We'll just take things as they come, like we've always done. I'm not asking for that, I just- Dios." She clasped his hand between both of her own. "My parents were only teenagers when everyone had to flee. Mi Padre lost two hermanos mayores and his own Padre that night, and Mi Mamá used to talk about her Tio, Tia and all her cousins that just disappeared. No one knew what happened to them. They went a different way I supposed. Probably cut down like the ones who didn't get out of town in time."

"Like mi Padre." He sighed.

"Lo siento, mi vida."

But he shrugged it off. "I obviously don't remember him. He's more of a story to me than anything. You know, Pedro Madrigal, the man who gave his life so that we all could live. I know Mamá loved him with all her heart, and he loved her the same way. I know they met during the Day of Little Candles. I know he was taller than me. I know that always disappointed Mamá a little. She'd get this wistful look and touch the top of my head once I'd stopped growing. I know we've got the same nose and the same eyes and it's him we all get our curls from, him and Abuela Maria, but he kept it much shorter than mine and I think he slicked it back. I only really know that because of his portrait. I don't know, Madre didn't like to talk about him much. She usually only mentioned him when I'd done something he wouldn't have done."

He could almost hear her. Your Padre knew how to stand up for himself, Bruno. Your Padre had no trouble sweeping me off my feet, Bruno. His personal favourite was after Pepa had refused to let him walk her down the aisle, after the whole hurricane incident. His Madre had told him not to worry about it, but as she was leaving, he heard her mutter to herself about how this wouldn't have happened had Pedro been there.

"Did you see our niños in this future? If you saw Pepa's bebe, well, they'd be about the same age as this one." She asked, gesturing to her stomach.

"No." He shook his head with a smile. "I never had any idea I'd ever get so lucky. It always seemed like a question I didn't want the answer to. You know, in case it came back with a firm 'no, you'll be alone forever' type vision. Delores asked me once, even though I told her it was a bad idea, and it turned out the guy she's gonna like gets engaged to Isabela, of all people."

He probably should have just told her no. That she was too little for a vision like that, but she'd pleaded with him. He'd told Isa her future, why not hers? So he'd given in, he wasn't really supposed to say no anyway, and watched her cry once he'd given her the glass tablet, feeling all over useless.

"So, you don't know how the miracle failing might effect our familia?"

"No." He sighed; his mind drawn back to the crack he had forced himself to fix.

If he was right and Pepa's new bebe was the boy he had seen Felix rescue from falling debris as the Casita fell around him, that meant his new little one would be of a similar age when his vision came to pass. And that would make Dante, what eight or nine?

"The Encanto is going to come tumbling down around us." She said aloud, seemingly more to herself than to him.

"Erm, yeah." He replied with a wince.

"And you don't know why it's happening?"

"No," He hesitated, taking a deep breath before pushing on. "In my vision, it was like everything centred around Mirabel, but I couldn't tell how. That's why I left. I knew how everyone would see it. They'd blame little Mira. It's been bad enough, her being the only Madrigal without a gift. Mamá treats her like she's in the way most of the time and sometimes Isabela can be sort of mean about it. I can only imagine how much worse it would be if I had let anyone see my vision."

"I don't see how Mirabel could be the reason the Miracle fails. She's such a sweet girl, all your sobrinas are." She frowned, biting her lip and absently running her fingers over his knuckles.

"Exactly." He sighed, relieved that Florencia saw it the same way he did.

"So what are you going to do? About the cracks?" She asked.

"Just fill them with spackle as best I can, I guess." He shrugged.

"Come on." She stood and pulled him up after her.

He stumbled up the stairs behind her, his brain turning slow and sluggish at the idea of lying in bed beside his amante. They brushed their teeth and changed into pyjamas, before slipping into bed and wrapping around one another. She tucked her head under his chin, and he felt her bump press into his own stomach. It would only be a month or two before they would be forced to lay with him as the big spoon. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and was soon falling fast asleep.

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Pepa and Felix had a hijo in late May. They named his new sobrino Antonio and Bruno was there, watching through the gap in the wall, as he was introduced to the rest of them. His Familia celebrated the birth well into the night, so it was much more difficult to sneak out than it usually was. Still, he managed it and quickly filled his querida in on his hermana's success.

"I'll send along my congratulations in the morning then." She told him with a smile.

"Oh, send some Mangostino from me if you can. I mean, don't tell them it's from me, obviously. But it's Pepa's favourite and well, I got some for her after she had Dolores and Camillo." He rambled. "I got Julieta a Torta Negra with Arequipe on top from the Bakery every time she had mi sobrinas. I feel a bit bad I didn't get you anything when you had mi dulce bebita. I'd get you a whole jar of cocadas de lechera and a bouquet of carnations and roses if I could. You know that right?"

"I know, mi vida." She assured him. "But I like the drawings you've done for our mijos and me. I like it when you bring me flowers that you picked yourself."

She was already laying on her back in bed, her stomach looking a little larger than it had been last time, considering she still had four months to go. He was behind her, sat up as she rested her head on his lap. He braided tiny plaits in her hair as he talked, keeping his fingers busy.

"They both looked so happy. Proud, you know. And Delores and Camillo argued over which of them would get to hold him first. Isn't that adorable." He rambled. "Do you think Dante and Val will do the same when this one comes along?"

"Maybe." She hummed.

When he looked down, he saw that her eyes were closed. He smiled, knowing that if he gave it a minute or so Florencia would be fast asleep. He didn't blame her for nodding off. This pregnancy was wiping her out much more than the others had. He sat there for half an hour before carefully shifting out from under her and creeping into the nursery. Dante's side of the room was covered in pictures. A few of them, the ones he had given him, were framed, but most were just stuck to the wall with tape. Valeria's side, on the other hand, housed the dressing up box, a dolls house and at least seven stuffed animals to go along with the occasional drawing she too had stuck to the wall. They were both fast asleep given the late hour, but he padded quietly across the room to place a kiss on their heads and tuck their blankets up under their chins. His hija snuffled when he did so but she didn't wake.

He knew that the crib wouldn't fit in the room, and they were both a little too big to be expected to share with a newborn as easily as Dante had shared with his dulce bebita when she was just born. The bebé would be waking up to feed every four hours or so of a night and his hijo was due to start school in September. His hombrecito couldn't be having his sleep interrupted if they could help it.

Walking back into the Master bedroom, he carefully pulled his amante's blankets out from under her. She had turn on her side after he left but there was just enough room to slip in behind her. Once he had changed into his nightclothes, he did just that, wrapping an arm around her waist and laying a palm on the curve of her stomach. He would stay here tonight and spend the next day with his niños, he decided, breathing in su querida's scent as he joined his pequeña familia in slumber.

He was awoken the next morning by a tiny hand poking his face. Opening one eye revealed Valeria peering up at him from the side of the bed.

"Papi, I'm hungry." She stage-whispered. "Can you come 'nd do breakfast? Dante can't reach the cereal."

He blinked the sleep from his eyes, rubbed his hair out of his face and sighed as he forced himself out of bed. Reni still lay next to him, hopefully sleeping through their hija's best quiet voice. A hand tugged at his own, drawing his attention back to Val. He mumbled his assent to her silent demand and let her pull him from the bedroom and to the stairs. He picked her up when they got there, not having the energy required to wait as she carefully stepped down each step one at a time on her tiny legs. It was somewhat luck he did, despite her protests, considering that he found his hijo standing on the countertop, while he tried to open the cupboard without losing his balance. He raced across the room, grabbing Dante around the middle with one arm and putting him on his feet on the floor.

"What are you doing?" He asked in a stern voice he wouldn't have thought himself capable of even two years ago. "You know the rules and I know you know how to follow them. We do not climb things in this house. We ask if we want something to eat and we wait for a grown up to make it for us, if it's not something we can do ourselves."

"But I can do it myself." His hijo muttered, crossing his arms and tucking his chin into his chest.

"You can't reach the cereal by yourself." Bruno corrected. "Once I have got it down for you, you can then do the rest yourself if that's what you want."

His hombrecito gave a sulky nod, so he got the cereal out of the high cupboard for him and set it on the table where he could reach. He then went about pulling out bowls, settling his dulce bebita in front of her breakfast and making Florencia's and his own. She joined them not too long after, defeating the breakfast in bed he had planned for if she didn't.

He always thought she was at her most beautiful when she was heavy with his child and that morning was no exception. It didn't matter that she hadn't brushed her hair yet and that it was a tangled mess. It didn't matter that she had morning breath when she kissed him good morning. It didn't matter that she dripped milk down her front when Valeria distracted her. She was just glowing, effulgent with the life growing inside of her. His fingers twitched to find pen and paper so he could try to capture whatever it was about her that drew him so.

"Papá? Will you draw with me today?" Dante asked once he was done with his breakfast, cutting through his thoughts.

"Of course." He agreed easily.

"But Papi, I wanteded you to play dolls house with me!" Valeria whined, thumping her little fist on the table.

"Ub, no slamming the table." Florencia scolded lightly, but otherwise said nothing, leaving him to sort out who was doing what.

"Ermm. How about... How about I draw with Dante until Lunch and then, after nap time, I'll come play dolls houses with you, Valeria? How does that sound?" He suggested, subtly holding his breath.

"Nooooo!" His hija cried while Dante said, "It's okay Papá, I can wait 'til after lunch."

"Isn't that a very nice thing for Dante to do?" Reni directed to Valeria while giving their hijo a proud smile. "You should thank your hermano for switching turns with you."

"Fanks Dan." She blubbered, as his amante leant over to give her face a wipe and encourage her to blow her nose into a tissue.

Since that was settled, after breakfast was cleared away, he followed Val up the stairs and into the nursey. She handed over two of her little wooden dolls that went with the doll house, telling him their names and their relation to the two dolls she was going to be controlling and then they were off. Playing doll houses with Valeria was a bit like writing a play while it was being acted out. If said play took place in a strange nonsense world where anything could happen. Tea parties could escalate into full blown fist fights at the drop of a hat, only for all the be forgiven moments later. Dragons and goblins and, strangely, horses caused all sorts of problems, only to be scared away by brave heroes and heroines in the end. Every time the dolls set foot outside their house, they had been transported to who knew where, but they always found their way home. It was all very silly and honestly, Bruno had a great time.

After an hour or so, she lost interest in the house and pulled him towards the dressing up box, pulling out a hat covered in the misshapen beads Florencia couldn't use on the commissions. It clicked and clattered as she stuffed it on his head, only pulling his hair a little as she did it. Then scarves and cut-outs of material were dumped on the floor so Valeria could pick out which ones she was going to wrap around her body as a pretty dress. She then declared herself the Queen, him a knight and her stuffed capybara his 'noble teed'.

Reni had to call them down for lunch he got so caught up in playing with his hija.

Spending time with Dante was a much calmer affair. His hijo wasn't one to let out happy shrieks or to burst out in loud laughter. He supposed he took after him, being more inclined to shy smiles, quiet chuckles and pink blushes. It seemed like his hombrecito had spent the morning using pencil but had decided on paints for after nap time. He was adding colour to a pretty accurate drawing of their house from the outside.

Bruno sat with him, keeping half an eye on his hijo while he worked on his own artwork. It was Florencia as she was right then, sitting at her table and working on her beads, leaning over her round stomach. He thought he might take it back with him to add to his walls when it was done. He might even switch out one of the older ones, so he could frame it. If it turned out well. If it was good enough in the end.

"Will the new bebe be here by Valeria's cumpleaños, Papá?" Dante asked out of the blue after almost an hour of companionable silence.

"Erm, no." He blinked, looking at his hijo's inquisitive face. "The bebe won't be born until September."

"That's when school starts." He told him as he picked up his paint brush again.

"I know that Hombrecito. Are you excited about school?" He prodded.

Dante hummed in a way that was neither agreement nor disagreement.

"Are you nervous?" He asked when he said nothing. "I was pretty nervous when we first went to school. But it was alright. There's lots to do there and I'm sure you'll make friends."

Bruno had. He'd been pretty popular even, when he was a little kid. And he had always had his hermanas. But then more and more people started asking for visions as he got older, and more and more people had been unhappy with what he had seen. It was difficult to maintain a friendship with someone after you had told them that their grandmother was going to die soon, or that the girl they liked was going to marry another.

"Really?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't you?" He assured him, glancing over his shoulder to catch his amante's eye.

She had obviously been listening to their conversation as she worked. He knew she'd keep an eye on it in a way he just wouldn't be able to. In a way he wished he could. Dios, did he wish he could be here all the time. That he could walk his hijo to his very first day of school. That he could be here when he came back and could hear all about it. Instead, he would have to wait until the sun had set and he could sneak out, hoping Dante was still awake enough to tell him.

He noted how Reni grimaced when she picked up Val, probably due to spending so long bent over her work, so he offered to make dinner. She gave him such a grateful smile, he promised to himself that he would give her a back massage once the niños were in bed.

Dinner passed by with pleasant chatter and he ended up reading aloud for his pequeña familia, curled up together on the sofa. Then Valeria and Dante got ready for bed, and he tucked them under the blankets his hermana had gifted each of them for their first cumpleaños. While his hijo's matched the colour of Bruno's ruana, his hija's was a teal green with white zigzags. He was touched that Julieta had got one for his niñita, even though she didn't think she was his.

Florencia was already dressed for bed and pulling back the sheet, ready to get in when he entered the room. He could tell she had back arch just from the way she moved.

"Sit for a minute?" He coaxed, kneading her shoulders as he came to stand behind her.

"Ay, Dios." She groaned, before pulling away and sitting on the edge of the mattress.

He wished, momentarily, that she could comfortably lay on her front so he could do this properly. But, well, they would make do. He slipped behind her, kneeling on the mattress and taking a firm hold on her shoulders. He could feel how tense her muscles were as he worked them, moving down her body, paying special attention to the small of her back.

"Bruno." She moaned, when he focused on a particularly taut bit.

She was half asleep by the time he was done, so he carefully tipped her sideways, making sure her head hit the pillow and pulling her blankets over her.

"I'm going to head out, mi vida." He whispered into her ear and pressing a kiss to her hair. "Te amo."

"Te amo. Come back soon, mi amor." She mumbled back, barely audible even in the silence of a sleeping house.

He promised he would, before regretfully leaving the home of his pequeña familia and climbing back up the hill to the Casita. The place was thankfully quiet when he got up there. He took the time to pass through the kitchen, picking up some of his hermanas cooking on his way. A few of his rats rushed to greet him when he tripped back inside the walls. They were always so happy to see him when he spent the night, and therefore the next day, at Reni's. He checked the walls as he went, making sure no new cracks had formed while he was away. He put down more food for the rats and made sure the water dish that sat beneath a slow drip hadn't been knocked over in his absence. Then he set about shuffling his pictures about.

Looking at them, once he was done rearraigning and tucking old art behind new art in the frames his amante had bought for him, he realised he was going to have to do one of Antonio once he had gotten a proper look at him. And it wouldn't be long before the one of Reni, Dante and Val would have to be replaced with one that had the new bebe in it too. He wondered if this one would be a boy or a girl. If they would have dark hair like him and Dante or share red curls with his dulce bebita and their Mamá? Would he pass on his Padre's eyes again or would they be Florencia's hazel flecked with brown that seemed to turn amber in the right light?

Still, he had his hija's third cumpleaños to think about before the new pequeño would arrive. He would bring her a new painting for her wall, obviously. It was practically a tradition by now. But he thought she might be old enough to appreciate it if he brought her flowers too. He was sure his Sobrinas had at that age. They'd brighten up the room either way, so he supposed he might as well. Flowers were easy to come by. Even if Isabela wasn't always going around covering almost every surface with roses, poses and Flor de mayo, he could sneak out into the forests that surrounded the village on this side and pick whatever he could find there. July was a good time for flowers, after all.

He brushed his teeth, washed his face and settled into his hammock, missing Reni's bed like he usually did.