Diego found himself once again in his luxurious and soft bed instead of crouched on the ground with his father. He had absolutely no recollection of how he had gotten to his bedroom, much less in his own bed. He dreaded leaving his bedroom and facing the grim reality that he knew was on the other side of his bedroom door. As he sat up and began to decide how to proceed next, scorching tears leaked out of his eyes and down past his lips. The salt from his tears tasted like defeat and he regretted that he had been thinking of himself and his desires. He placed his feet on the floor, which felt as cold as he felt emotionally. As he dressed himself his hands were shaking and his legs barely wanted to hold him up. He knew that he had no choice, but to face the day and greet it with a broken heart.

He had no appetite, but decided to search for Felipe to see how he was coping with their devastating loss. Felipe was nowhere to be seen in any of the rooms he had been peering into. He dreaded going into the dining area where he had his last conversation with his father the day before. He approached the dining area, but instead of spotting Felipe he laid eyes on his father. His father, Don Alejandro was alive!

"How could this be?" Diego wondered to himself.

Diego stood there as if glued to the spot watching his father partake in a plate full of eggs and pastries just as he had been during the last two mornings. Emotions and confused thoughts flowed through Diego's mind.

"Diego, are you listening?" his father's voice penetrated his jumbled up train of thought.

Once again he had the feeling that he had already experienced the same conversation with his father. Diego decided that he must have been having nightmare after nightmare. His father was alive and well. He must have dreamed that his father had been killed. It was the only reasonable explanation.

"I'm sorry father, I wasn't paying attention again," Diego once again admitted to his father.

His father, who once again seemed rather frustrated with Diego repeated himself, "Nearly two dozen heads of cattle and horses have gone missing from local ranches."

The conversation was definitely filling him with a sense of Deja Vu. Now that he knew that his father was alive Diego sat down and joined his father with a renewed appetite. He picked up the delicate pastry and began to savor it.

"When did you find this out?," he quizzed his father in anticipation of getting the same answer from yesterday.

"Marcelo Ramirez stopped by to inform me about it this morning after searching for the missing cattle," his father recounted in between his bites of eggs.

"How could the conversation with his father be so similar to the previous conversations that he had held with him over the last several days?" he found himself wondering.

It appeared that his father had been informed by a vaquero who had been trying to recover the stolen livestock. He needed to become Zorro for several hours after he finished eating and take care of the situation. His father needed him to stop the thieves before they had a chance to approach the hacienda.

Diego was definitely certain that he had to have dreamed about the last several days. Everything had felt so real, but logically it couldn't have been. He found himself eagerly engaged in a lengthy conversation with his father and dedicated his full attention to every single word. If he had learned anything from the nightmare of going through the loss of his father, he had learned not to take him for granted or anyone else for that matter. At the end of the meal he took the time to wrap his arms around his father in a tight and much needed embrace. His father looked at him with an expression full of surprise and returned the full embrace.

He definitely needed to find a way to fix the rift between him and his father. He had begun to resent the way his father had been talking down to him about how he had been disappointing him by seeming weak. All of that would come in time, but he had important work to do. To avoid arousing suspicion he excused himself from the table and left the room in order to pretend to read a book.

After his father had gone outside to begin his day, Diego knew exactly what he had to do. The world as he knew it was not ready to go on without the assistance of Zorro. He would not allow the heinous thieves the opportunity to take his father from him as they had in his nightmare. He would make sure that Zorro tracked down each and every single man responsible for the recent cattle theft. Diego cautiously looked around as he snuck through the fireplace to make sure that his father would not step back inside and spot him entering the cave. He redressed himself as Zorro and felt a renewed sense of pride in himself as he prepared to track down the thieves. He had a mission and clarity on exactly what he needed to be doing as well as who he was truly meant to be.

He was excited to once again be racing the wind with Toronado. Diego was fully embraced in the mindset of Zorro and had decided to follow along the river in anticipation that the thieves would be watering the stolen cattle and horses. He was in full fox mode. Every single detail did not go unnoticed by him. Soon enough tracks began to appear before him, and the sound of cattle calling out reached his ears. He quietly continued to follow the sound until he spotted the disgusting scoundrels surrounded by their contraband.

Diego adjusted his mask and quietly slipped off of Toronado. He stealthily walked directly behind one of the oblivious thieves. He placed his hand over the surprised man's mouth and then proceeded to knock the man completely out with a single punch. The frustration and anger caused by the emotional rollercoaster of the last several nightmares had become the fuel behind the fist that he had used to lay the man out flat.

As Zorro's arrival had been discovered he found himself punching two men at a time as shouts of Zorro's presence fell upon everyone's ears. He successfully grabbed the heads of others as they rushed towards him and banged them together as they fell like a chain of dominos. He continued kicking the legs out from underneath the others as they tried to run away. His reflexes were in overdrive as he fought to overtake the rest of the thieves while taking advantage of their overconfident and poorly coordinated defenses. The men were all immoral and bloodthirsty bendejos.

The majority of the thieves had been defeated and were shouting various insults and curses in his direction. One last remaining thief was left to subdue. The thief began racing towards him. When he saw the thief's face the memories of being beaten and whipped by him flooded back. He was sure it had been a set of nightmares, but the man's face was identical to the man he had seen.

The determined thief lunged at him as he hissed, "Zorro, I'm going to teach you a lesson for always interfering." The thief began to lunge at him with the filthy knife from his nightmare. He cracked his whip and allowed it to rip the knife from the thief's hand. He probably shouldn't have been so aggressive with his whip, but the memories of being whipped by the man with the same face had gotten to him. This stunned the thief slightly as the thief continued to attempt to attack him. The fist of Zorro collided with the man's nose, breaking it as thick blood began to fall, covering the scars on the man's face.

While each of the men were still licking their wounds, he helped himself to their ropes and any object that could be used as restraints. After tying the restraints around the hands and feet of the thieves he loaded them up one by one into their supply wagon, which was most likely stolen as well. He drove the wagon to the pueblo as a feeling of relief washed over him. He knew that he had been true to himself and was exactly where he needed to be. Toronado had faithfully trotted beside the wagon as if he had been on guard duty.

Once again proud to be disguised as Zorro, he vacated the wagon and sought out DeSoto. He had personally delivered the thieves who all sported a matching Z on their bottom halves to ensure that they would be placed in a jail cell. They would no longer be free to harm anyone, especially his father.

After filling in the much despised alcalde on the whereabouts of the cattle, horses, and other stolen goods, the alcalde as predicted suddenly shouted, "Zorro, you are to be arrested along with these criminals."

He sarcastically informed the over zealous alcalde, "Not today!" as he quickly leapt up on to Toronado and began his escape from DeSoto's men.

"Shoot him!" he heard DeSoto cry out.

He continued on as shots were wildly flying all around him. Some seemed close to hitting him, but thankfully luck was with him as he fled from the pueblo. Most of the soldiers either had bad aim or were deliberately missing him because they respected him. He had built a good relationship with many of the soldiers by defending the innocent people in the pueblo and standing up for a few of them over the years.

Once he had decided that no one was following him, he reflected on how the morning had turned out as he continued trotting along the route to his secret hideout. His thoughts were interrupted as he spotted a familiar wagon. It appeared that the back wheels had become suspended in a nasty rut. He slowed Toronado down and dismounted to help the stranded family who was in the process of unsuccessfully attempting to free their wagon. The wagon belonged to the Gitanos.

As he worked alongside the Gitano man to push on the wagon it seemed as if Toronado was trying to encourage their horses to pull the wagon forward with maximum strength. The wheels of the wagon inched forward, becoming free and clear of the restrictions of the rut. Before he could leave the Gitana woman once again grabbed onto his right hand. She looked into his eyes and seemed to recognize them even though his face was mostly hidden.

"You have answered your most important question, I see," the woman, now seemingly in a trance, replied.

His mouth fell open as he searched for words. She couldn't have known he was the man who had purchased the horse from them. He was disguised as Zorro.

"Yes, I know who you are as your eyes are still the same, yet less troubled…" she slowly spoke while grasping his hand even harder.

"But don't you worry, your secret is safe with me," she added.

She knew who he really was without seeing his face.

As if reading his thoughts she informed him, "Those days you experienced did happen."

"How?" was all that Diego could manage to get out of his mouth.

Seeming as she knew exactly what he had been asking, she replied, "The soup can be healing and is thought to have magical properties."

He found that he couldn't look away from her deep brown soulful eyes. It all began to make sense to Diego. He had noticed an energy surrounding him after he had eaten the soup.

"What happens now?" he asked the woman as he was genuinely at a loss.

"Tomorrow is a new day, and you now have the strength to find the answers to the rest of the questions you seek the answers to," she replied while letting go of his hand.

He exchanged goodbyes with the family and continued on to his hidden cave. The woman had given him a lot to think about. Any explanation other than nightmares for what had felt as if it were a never ending day seemed impossible. No matter how it had happened he had been given a second chance to make things right with his father and to decide who he was meant to be.

Upon arrival he brushed the dust off of Toronado and made sure that his faithful companion was properly fed. Now that his role as Zorro was finished he found his discarded everyday clothing and switched back to his role as himself. Well, almost himself, as Zorro was as much a part of who Diego was, just as much as the role of the quiet scholar that he had eluded to with everyone else other than Felipe.

Diego checked the peep hole near the secret entrance to his home to see who might have been near the fireplace. He stepped through it after only seeing Felipe.

"Where have you been hiding?" he asked aloud, startling the young boy.

Felipe turned around as his face began to blush a bright crimson red. The color spreading across his cheeks gave away his thoughts about what he had been doing during the day. He began to sign to Diego that he had been visiting with a girl who had made his heart flutter.

"There you are!" Don Alejandro's voice echoed throughout the room.

Still feeling grateful to see his father alive, Diego spent the rest of the evening having meaningful conversations with him and Felipe. His father had proceeded to tell him that he had received news that Zorro had apprehended the thieves and DeSoto's men had returned the stolen livestock.

Diego quietly smiled while Felipe signed, "If he only knew that you already knew."