Chapter Text
————
Everybody's talking at me
I don't hear a word they're saying
Only the echoes of my mind
People stopping, staring
I can't see their faces
Only the shadows of their eyes
I'm going where the sun keeps shining
Through the pouring rain
Going where the weather suits my clothes
Banking off of the northeast winds
Sailing on a summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone
‘Everybody’s Talkin’’ by Harry Nilsson
————
Epilogue One - a year later
————
It’s late.
The party is starting to slow down. Alma looks contented, where she’s stood by the kitchen counter talking quietly to Pedro.
The ‘feliz cumpleaños’ banner on the wall is starting to sag - Pepa wonders if Casita is getting tired, or if they’re trying to wind the party down. Pepa pats the wall as she passes through the kitchen, and Casita rattles the tiles in acknowledgement.
Outside is a gaggle of friends.
How different, Pepa thinks, how much things have changed in a year.
Their birthday last year had been - subdued.
Alma tried her best, she always did, but she couldn’t shake off the melancholy that came from the day. The villagers tried, but there was always chores to be done - injuries to be healed. The best part of their birthday was always when everyone else had gone to bed and Pepa, Bruno and Julieta could sneak out and just be.
This year though -
Pepa doesn’t realise how much they’ve grown and changed, until the evidence is right here in front of her.
There’s Félix, of course, who she didn’t know this time last year. And with him, comes his family: Manuela and Fernando, and the girls, Angelica, Catalina, Valentina, and baby Natalia.
There’s Pedro, who tipped their whole world upside down when he turned up, shaking and rattling the foundations of everything that Pepa though she’d known. But, somehow, it’s worked out for the better. Alma is happier and more contented than Pepa has ever seen her. Bruno is louder and more outgoing. Julieta is relaxed, cheeky and witty. And Pepa -
Pepa feels safer.
Of course, last year on their birthday, Miguel had already been sniffing around her. She remembers the compliments, and how at the time she’d been beside herself with glee. She remembers his lingering looks, which now she understands were inappropriate, but at the time sent butterflies to her stomach.
She wonders where he is now. If he’s found somewhere else to be, if he misses the Encanto. But then she shrugs internally.
She doesn’t care.
There’s Ricardo and Julia, and beautiful baby Carmen.
There’s Roberto, who’s grown nearly a foot taller, and seems to be trying to flirt with Pepa’s sometimes-friend-sometimes-rival Sophia. They’d be a good match, she thinks, actually.
So much has changed.
And yet so much has stayed the same. So much can never be changed.
As if she’s heard Pepa’s thoughts - and maybe she has, stranger things have happened - Julieta comes up behind her and wraps her arms around Pepa’s waist, resting her chin on Pepa’s shoulder. Bruno appears on Pepa’s other side, and he joins their half hearted hug, resting his chin on Pepa’s other shoulder, linking his arm through hers.
How lucky she is to have them.
‘Happy birthday,’ she whispers, and they whisper the same back.
Félix had once asked her - ‘is it strange to share a birthday?’ and Pepa hadn’t known how to answer him. To her, it was like asking ‘is it strange that the sky is blue? or the grass is green?’
No. It’s not strange. It’s just normal.
‘Félix wants to talk to you,’ Bruno says, giving Pepa a poke in the side.
‘Really? How do you know that?’
‘Because he keeps glancing over at you,’ Bruno says pointing it out and Julieta laughs.
Bruno gives her a little push in the back and Pepa disentangles herself from them, wandering vaguely over to Félix. Sure enough when he sees her, he jumps up.
How annoying. She hates it when Bruno’s right.
‘Here’s the birthday girl,’ he says with a wide smile, and Pepa gives a little twirl, fanning out the skirts of her dress.
‘Do you want to take a walk?’ Félix says, glancing over his shoulder at the slowly quietening party.
Pepa nods, laughing when he offers her his arm, though, of course, she takes it.
They end up walking away from the party, down the path from Casita, to the hill overlooking the Encanto. They sit on the damp grass.
They talk idly: about the party, about how it feels to be sixteen, about anything at all. And then, when the conversation lulls, the air around them feels suddenly charged.
‘I like you,’ Papa says, slowly, thinking hard, ‘I think I like you most out of everyone.’
Félix laughs at that.
‘But. I don’t want - I made such a mess of things,’ Pepa blurts out, ‘With Miguel, and kissing him and - other things - made me feel so awful, and it was a mess. I’m not - I don’t think I’m ready for …’
She trails off, lamely, unable to put into words what she’s not quite ready for. She’s not sure she even knows what she’s not ready for, but Félix is nodding.
‘Hey,’ he says gently. He tucks his arm around her shoulders, and Pepa wiggles closer. ‘I understand, okay? It’s fine, it’s all fine. I’m very happy being your friend, Pepa Madrigal. You might be the best friend I’ve ever had, and that’s fine. It’s more than fine! It’s good. It’s good to be your friend. And if-‘
For the first time he looks unsure.
‘-if you ever want - something else - you just tell me eh? You just tell me, because I’m here.’
It’s so different to any of the conversations she had with Miguel. Pepa’s not stupid - she’s had a year now to come to terms with the way Miguel manipulated her, and to make her peace with the mistakes she made, the way she played right into his hands. She knows that normal and healthy conversations about love and relationships aren’t supposed to be like that. They’re not supposed to be full of stress and a fear of what might happen if she says something wrong.
But even knowing that, this gentle negotiation, this gentle acceptance of her boundaries feels so simple. Too easy.
But that’s how it’s always been with Félix - too easy. Too easy to be with him, too easy to talk to him.
Just too easy.
‘And you’re okay with that?’ she says, feeling vaguely like she’s letting him down, and yet she’s relieved.
‘I’m more than okay with it,’ he confirms.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay.’
‘Happy birthday Pepa.’
————
It’s almost exactly a year to the day that Pedro arrived in the Encanto, when he wakes up feeling like death.
It’s not that unexpected. There’s been a small breakout of flu around the Encanto, and though they’d tried to contain it as best they could, Pedro’s unsurprised to find himself as the latest victim.
Bruno had been ill the previous week, his eyes glowing neon green for days, half projected visions bouncing around the walls of his room, an agonising migraine leaving him weak and lethargic.
Pepa had been ill a few days before him, a thick fog encasing Casita, thunder rolling every time she sneezed, the temperature swinging hot and cold with her fever.
And Julieta had been ill in between them, her food less potent than normal, the taste and texture muted, and she’d spent three days laying in bed trying to sleep until she’d felt better.
They were all three mostly over their illnesses now. Back to annoying each other, poking and prodding and being general nuisances.
Pedro’s relieved. It had been difficult to see the three of them, usually so full of life, tired and moody. Alma had been fairly matter of fact - it’s not the first illness she’d nursed them through, and it’s unlikely to be the last, but to Pedro it had felt like an insistent ache in his chest. A constant worry, until they’d all been feeling better.
Or, maybe that was just him falling ill himself.
Pedro rolls over and groans. His head aches, and he’s cold, a sure sign he has a fever. His muscles are achy and he’s feeling generally pathetic.
He means to get up, a shower might make him feel better, but he somehow falls back asleep, only woken when there’s a knock on the door.
Bruno pokes his head around and says ‘are you coming down to breakfast?’ Then he takes in Pedro’s general pathetic state, and says ‘oh no!’
He comes into the room and sits on the bed. Pedro feels a gentle hand on his cheek and Bruno hums.
‘I’ll get you some medicine,’ he says hurrying away.
What follows over the next couple of days is something that Pedro had never thought he would have - his family fuss over him.
Alma first, making him drink down the medicine - which is disgusting - wiping down his face, and helping him change into clean pyjamas. She settles him down to sleep with a no-nonsense manner, and he listens to her when she tells him to rest.
Julieta makes soups and broths, easy to eat and nutritious. She brings them up and won’t leave until he’s eaten them. They help a bit - she can’t heal illness the same way she can injury - but they lighten the pain in his head, and ease the soreness in his throat.
She sings to him a little, from where she’s lying at the end of the bed. First quiet hums as he tries to sleep, and then later lullabies that the triplets have written, lilting melodies. She has a low sweet voice and Pedro hears it in his dreams.
Bruno brings him cold compresses and tidies the room. When Pedro - in a moment of embarrassing weakness - complains of being bored, Bruno brightens, and scurries away. He returns with a battered notebook and a pen, and spends the afternoon telling Pedro stories. Stories that he’d written, outlines and plans for serial novels, for dramas and plays.
Pedro is shocked. Firstly, that Pedro has known him for a whole year, and he didn’t know that Bruno did this. And secondly, that they’re good. They’re really good. Pedro is gripped in the tales that Bruno spins, and they spend a whole afternoon where Bruno catches Pedro up on a serial that he’s been working on - apparently for years - and Pedro is so captivated he forgets about his headache.
Pepa uses his illness as an excuse to skive off her chores - he’d expect nothing less - and she spends the afternoons after school curled up in bed next to him. The room is swirling with a light breeze that feels refreshing against his clammy face, and everything smells light and airy. When his temperature peaks, she makes a light drizzle, and then she has a nap, and Pedro knows there’s nothing more important to Pepa than her afternoon nap.
The illness only lasts a few days, thankfully, and by the weekend he’s feeling strong enough to rejoin them for dinner.
‘I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ Julieta says with a hug, and the words get stuck in his throat when he tries to tell them how grateful he is.
Julieta gives him another squeeze before letting go, and he thinks she understands.
Alma shoos him back to bed after dinner, and Bruno drops a kitchen bowl breaking it, and Pepa thunders over a stain on her new dress, and Julieta sighs into her hands, and Pedro laughs.
Pedro just laughs.
————
Epilogue Two - seven years later
————
‘Félix is engaged to Mariana Guzman,’ Valentina announces out of the blue, as Pepa walks hand in hand with her after school.
She seems to have no awareness of how she’s brought Pepa’s world to a resounding halt. No care for the way Pepa’s stomach clenches, and her breath comes in short bursts. The sky above them - previously blue with white fluffy clouds - has darkened, and the clouds grow fat and grey.
‘What?’ she asks, and her voice cracks a little. Valentina is fifteen now - the same age Pepa was when she first met Félix - but she’s not infallible. She might have misheard something, if, as Pepa suspects, she’s been ears dropping again.
‘Mmhmm,’ Valentine says, around the ice lolly Pepa had brought her, ‘I heard Mamí telling Tía, Mariana Guzman’s dowery will probably pay for the farm, or something like that.’
Pepa’s mouth is dry.
It’s not like her and Félix are together, technically. Despite hints and moments over the years, they’ve never taken that last step. Pepa has never quite been able to get over her insecurities - the fear that he can do better, the risk of loosing his friendship, the knowledge that she’s a lot (Julieta calls her high maintenance, and Pepa thinks she’s being kind) - she’s never wanted to put all of that on Félix.
But, somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d kind of always thought that they would be together. Eventually, when she’d sorted herself out. It was a fundamental in Pepa’s world - the sky is blue, and the sun will rise and one day Pepa Madrigal and Félix Castillo will be together.
But he’s engaged to Mariana Guzman.
‘Are you ok?’ Valentina asks slowly, eying the clouds over Pepa’s head. She looks vaguely guilty.
‘Yes,’ Pepa says, but it’s not convincing even to her own ears. ‘I have - I have to go, are you okay walking by yourself?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll walk with my primas’ and she gestures to a gaggle of girls in front of them, some of whom Pepa recognises.
‘Go on then,’ she says, trying to keep herself together. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ and she pushes Valentina towards the group and turns heel and runs home.
Clear skies, clear skies, clear skies.
————
Julieta throws open the kitchen door, and it hits the wall with a slam, making Pedro drop his cup and Alma to clutch her chest in fright. Bruno doesn’t look up from his snack.
‘Julieta -‘ Alma starts, but she drops off at the sight of their daughter.
Julieta is out of breath, a wild panicked look in her eye.
‘M’hija -‘ he says.
‘Félix is engaged to Mariana Guzman,’ she announces to the room. ‘Catalina told me.’
There’s a pause.
‘What?’ Alma gasps, and Bruno finally does look up, brow furrowed.
‘That’s not - wait, that doesn’t make sense,’ he says, muttered to himself.
Pedro can only let out a small ‘no’ of disappointment.
He’d always thought he’d have Félix for a son-in-law one day. He’s seen the way that he and Pepa are together, how they dance and laugh. How she goes to his family home for dinner regularly, how he comes here. It’s always seemed, from the outside, that they were already courting and if not for the fact that he knows Félix, knows the boy wouldn’t do that without asking for Pedro and Alma’s blessing, he would assume they’d been sneaking around.
They click, and he never sees Pepa so happy as she is with Félix.
He catches Alma’s eye and she looks heartbroken.
‘I don’t know if she knows already, but I know she was walking Valentina home,’ Julieta adds, sinking down into a chair, her duty done.
There’s a slam of the front door, and suddenly a small tornado runs through the house. They can feel the force of the winds, rattling the pictures on the walls, the sky darkens and when Pedro moves to the kitchen door, he catches sight of Pepa’s feet as she runs up the stairs. There’s another slam, and her bedroom door rattles in it’s frame.
‘I think she knows,’ Bruno says unhelpfully.
————
Pepa weeps. She’s held it in as long as she can, but here in her sanctuary, where the winds and the rain won’t hurt anyone else, she cries.
Félix.
She doesn’t know what she’s feeling - howling winds, lightning sparks in the clouds and of course, the rain pelting down.
How dare she? How dare Mariana Guzman think that she can have Félix? As far as Pepa knows they’ve never even hung out, never had a conversation beyond pleasantries as he buys bread in her mother’s shop.
Does Mariana know him?
Does she know how he likes his coffee? What songs are his favourite? Does she know how he likes to dance, how his shoulders and hips move to a samba, a tango, a jive? Does she know his favourite colours, and his sisters’ names, and his favourite books? Does she know how he looks early in the morning and late at night? Does she know how his fingers tap when he’s nervous, and how he likes the feeling of rain on his face? Does she know his secrets? The ones he would never tell, the ones he keeps hidden in his chest, except to whisper them to her in the early hours, or the late ones, or the ones spent hidden between the plants in the fields?
Does Mariana know? Because Pepa does. Pepa knows all this and more.
It’s not fair, she thinks. It’s not right.
It’s not right.
Pepa leaps from her bed, and throws back open the door. She nearly wipes out her mother on the stairs, who was probably coming to speak with her.
‘Sorry Mamá,’ she calls over her shoulder, as Alma calls her name after her.
She catches sight of the rest of her family in the kitchen, peering out the door frame at her, but she spares them no time.
Pepa runs, and she knows she looks insane - the clouds are still drizzling over her head (she’s still crying, tears dripping down her face and off her nose) and the lightening and thunder is still roaring, and the winds blow her skirts and for once she doesn’t care.
Down the path she’d been walking with Valentina earlier, towards the Castillo home.
Manuela looks up, from where she’s been pinning washing to the clothes line out front, a jumpy Natalia at her feet.
‘Pepa?’ she says, and Pepa can’t hear her, can only see the shape of her name.
‘Where’s Félix?’ she calls, careful not to get too close, lest she catch the two in her personal whirlwind.
They both point around the back, and Pepa hurries. Félix is in the small court yard with his father. They’re building an extension, so they’ve been mixing cement and laying bricks, hard labouring work. Félix looks up as the sky darkens, his eyebrows raised, worried.
When he sees her, he drops the tools and comes closer.
‘Pepa?’ he says, ‘querida what’s wrong? What’s happened?’ He’s reaching for her, but Pepa stays back. She doesn’t want to get him wet.
She can see his father watching curiously, and she’s sure if she turns she’ll see his sisters and mother peering out the window - and suddenly she’s overwhelmed and embarrassed, and she doesn’t know what to say.
‘Pepa?’ Félix says again, reaching for her hand, but she pulls it back.
There’s a drop in the wind as she struggles for a moment, the rain still pouring on her head, and she just blurts it out.
‘Don’t marry Mariana.’
Félix opens his mouth as if to speak, and Pepa can’t bear to hear what he has to say so she plows on.
‘Don’t marry her. You - you shouldn’t be with Mariana. You should be with me.’
There’s a silence and the drizzle slows even as Pepa’s heart pounds.
‘I think about you all the time,’ and Pepa’s mouth seems to be moving independent of her brain, she has no control over the words spilling out. ‘I think about you every single day, because you’re so wonderful and kind and handsome, and I think you might be my favourite person in the whole world, and I can’t bear the thought of you with someone else, because I always thought - I thought that - you’d be with me. That one day we would be together -’
Félix interrupts her, taking a step forward, a small smile growing on his face.
‘I told her no,’ he says gently.
‘What?’
‘Mariana,’ he says, stepping forward again, offering his hand to her. ‘I’m not engaged to Mariana. I told her no, because I don’t want to marry her. You must know - for me, there’s only you. There’s only ever been you, Pepa.’
The wind stops so suddenly it’s almost comical, and she’s aware that the rain is drying up, the cloud dissipating, but she can’t quite swallow around the lump in her throat.
‘Oh,’ she mouths slowly, for lack of anything else to say, and Félix’s mouth twitches. He’s trying not to laugh.
Behind him, Fernando is trying to look busy with the bricks and the wall, but he can’t hide the way he’s grinning too, stealing glances at them. Pepa takes Félix’s offered hand, and then closes her eyes, embarrassment burning her face. She raises one hand to her cheek, mouths ‘oh my god.’
Félix does laugh then, kindly, and pulls her in closer, until they’re stood nose to nose, and when Pepa opens her eyes, she can only see him, filling her vision.
‘I want to be with you,’ he says, plainly, as though it’s the most straightforward thing in the world. ‘Do you want to be with me?’
‘Yes,’ she gasps out, there’s no time for fear or worry here. There’s only the possibility of having Félix, and not having him, and both of these make her stomach swoop.
‘Ok,’ he says, and he can’t hide the pleased grin that spreads over his face. He grips her hand tighter, and reaches his other one to push her hair behind her ear. ‘So I need to come and have a conversation with your parents then?’
‘Come for dinner?’
‘Yes. When? Tonight?’
‘If you want?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, I want.’
‘Ok.’ Pepa’s head is spinning. ‘Half past seven?’
‘I’ll be there,’ and he presses a kiss to the back of her hand.
Above them, the sun shines.
————
Pedro paces up and down the kitchen, a ball of nervous energy building in his chest.
The rest of them aren’t much better, and when the front door opens, a gentle click and swoosh, all four of them look up in anticipation.
Pepa appears in the kitchen doorway, almost hesitantly. He wonders if she’s waiting for a chiding, for being dramatic, emotional, so when she meets his eyes, he nods at her encouraging.
She’s drenched, the shoulders of her dress soaking, and her hair is sopping too, dripping down her back. Her cheeks and eyes are pink, and she’s twisting her fingers together nervously. But she’s not storming any more, and Pedro hopes that’s a good sign.
‘Um,’ Pepa clears her throat. ‘Félix is coming for dinner tonight, if that’s ok?’
Julieta sucks in a breath, and Pedro agrees with her, his heart pounding.
‘That’s nice,’ Almas says pleasantly. ‘Is there a specific reason?’
Pepa fidgets, and nods. ‘He’s coming to ask for your blessing to court me.’
There’s smiles around the room, and Pedro can feel his own bloom on his face.
‘What about Mariana?’
Pepa blinks, tears welling in her eyes, and they spill over as she says ‘He’s not engaged to Mariana. He told her no. He said that, for him, there’s only ever been me.’
The sunlight over her head is blinding, as Julieta shrieks and Alma’s composure falls, a delighted smile on her face, clasping her hands in front of her.
He catches Bruno’s eye, as the women jump up to embrace Pepa, thrilled whispers as Julieta says ‘tell me everything, Pepa oh my god,’ and Pepa whispers, ‘I was so scared.’
Bruno has a pleased look on his face, almost smug, and when they catch eyes, Bruno sends him a cheeky wink.
I knew something you didn’t know, his smile seems to say, a well meaning taunt Pedro has heard over the years. Bruno only ever uses it when there’s a resoundingly good vision, and often when he’s been waiting a long time for something to come to fruition.
And then Bruno smiles properly, and slips into the group, squeezing between his sisters easily. When Pepa glances towards Pedro, her smile wet and teary, but wide, he smiles too and joins them, wrapping his arms tight around his family.
————
The End.
————