Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bruno is 14 years old, and he’s beginning to notice there’s a difference between the way the townsfolk act around him, and the way they act around his sisters.

Of course they all love Julieta. He can understand that. On top of being kind and loving and warm, she’ll occasionally hand you a delicious treat that will also heal all your aches and pains. He can’t resent them for wanting to be around her. And the truth is, she really is that great, so he can’t even resent her, as much as he sometimes wants to.

Pepa is where it gets interesting, because anyone can see that having a moody, temperamental teenager around whose emotions are directly tied to the weather could be – well, it could get messy. And it frequently does. But the interesting thing is, as far as Bruno can tell, the townsfolk don’t seem to mind all that much. Sure, there’s the odd grumbling and complaining when it snows in the middle of summer or rains with no warning at all, and Mamá will frequently throw her a warning look when Pepa starts to get upset, with a stern, “Clear skies, Pepa, control yourself.”

But the townsfolk still smile at her when they see her in the street. They still ask her how she is, and sneak her a warm buñuelo from their stalls, and thank her cheerfully for the warm temperatures. Pepa always insists that they’re trying to keep her happy for the nice weather, but Bruno thinks that they really do appreciate what she does. Rain, after all, has a purpose too, and nobody wants clear skies all the time. Everyone knows that Pepa tries to walk amongst the crops when she’s raining and hide in her room when she’s storming, and besides, when she is in a good mood, she’s exciting and caring and fun to be around. People just like her, simple as that.

And then there’s Bruno.

The townsfolk were awed and amazed by all of the triplets when they first got their gifts, Bruno remembers. But while it seemed to wear off for his sisters, and people got used to them, it never seemed to get that way for Bruno. For as long as he can remember, everyone outside of his family averts their gaze a little when he looks at them and stares when he doesn’t. And somewhere along the line, that awe had somehow turned to discomfort.

Bruno isn’t sure when it happened. His sisters insist they don’t know what he’s talking about, but when you’re at the centre of it, it isn’t hard to see. Rooms quieten when he walks in. People cross the street when they see him coming, or pretend to be engrossed in conversation when he approaches. They come to him for visions, still, but that’s the only time most people will willingly talk to him.

There’s a difference between respect and fear, Bruno knows, and he knows it because he sees how they all treat his mother. That is respect, and try as he might to be friendly and normal, people just…don’t like being around him. He can see it in their faces.

Bruno may be a fortune teller, a soothsayer, a living prophet, but he’s still a teenage boy. He cares what people think, and the more uncomfortable they become around him, the more uncomfortable he becomes in his own skin. It’s hard to be warm like Julieta or chatty like Pepa when you know everyone in the room is waiting for you to leave so they can relax, he tries to explain to his mother, but she never seems to understand.

Bruno is 14 years old, and he’s found he doesn’t like leaving Casita unless he has something good to tell everyone.

Today, for example, it’s a beautiful day, and his mother and sisters are in the town, being helpful and adored. There’s building going on, some kind of schoolroom that’s become needed as the number of children in their town grows too big for the house of Señora Pascal, who taught Bruno and his sisters when they were young.

Bruno wasn’t needed and his mother had been in a good mood, so she’d let him stay behind.

It’s a full day in which Bruno is free to continue with his Plan.

The Plan is another reason he doesn’t often leave Casita. He’s sure, so sure, that if he works hard, and manages to have a good vision for everyone in the town, they’ll start to like having him around. At the moment, when people come to ask him about the future, he tells them whatever he sees – and it isn’t always good. But if he does visions for people in his own time, gets rid of the bad ones, the ones he can’t change, and only goes into the town to tell everyone good things – surely, like Pepa and Julieta, they’ll start to look forward to seeing him?

That’s his theory, anyway.

He's working his way through everyone, one by one, and when he has a good one, he races down to tell them. He doesn’t always get it right – what looks to him like good news doesn’t always seem to be good news, for complicated adult reasons that he can’t yet fathom – but… he thinks it’s working. When he goes running down the hill, the townsfolk have started to gather round, looking at each other excitedly, guessing who it would be Bruno wanted to talk to. The sight of it always sets his heart racing. He can be adored, like Julieta and Pepa, even like Mamá, if he just plans and works hard enough.

Pero ay, it’s exhausting.

Back to back visions until he has a good one sometimes takes hours, and makes him so tired he can sleep for a day and still feel terrible when he wakes up. Sometimes he doesn’t have the energy to have another vision until Julieta makes him something, and when she finds out what he’s done she tsks and frets over him. There are some townsfolk for whom it seems he can only see bad, no matter how often he looks into their futures, and he worries they’ll notice he never comes to them and ask him why.

But he doesn’t know what else to do, so he keeps going. The Plan has got him further than anything else he’s tried so far.

Today, since the moment he woke up, he’s had a burning headache. A vision wants to get through, that’s for sure. Normally, when his headaches are this bad, he goes straight into it, just to get it out of the way, but yesterday had been long and tiring. He’d needed sleep, and he’d needed a meal, particularly one cooked by Julieta, and preferably one she’d make without knowing why he needed it. There was no way he could skip breakfast and go straight into what already felt like an intense vision without passing out.

He paces around his cavern of a room, setting up a circle of fires and herbs. It’s something he’s working on, a ritual to channel his visions and make them easier to read, instead of plunging into them headfirst and being unable to understand what he’s seeing like he used to when he was younger. The ritual calms his mind and makes him feel in control. Sometimes he throws salt over his shoulder, an old wives’ tale about good luck Señora Pascal told him about, but he’s trying to focus less on that. It isn’t about luck or badness or goodness, he tells himself. It’s just the future. It’s neutral.

He settles in the circle, the fires burning around him, and feels the familiar wind start to pick up.

When he opens his eyes, the sand in front of him is coloured with a green haze.

He usually starts with looking at the Encanto as a whole, in case there’s something big coming that will affect them all. In the sand, he can see the townsfolk building the school – people carrying materials back and forth, poring over the plans, shouting instructions to each other.

He frowns a little. The building doesn’t look anywhere near finished. It looks only a little more done than when Bruno had last seen it, a few days ago.

This vision will happen soon.

He searches the sand, looking for a clue, something that will give him a timeframe.

And there – yes! His sisters and his mother - Pepa scowling in concentration as she tried to keep the temperature cool for the workers, Julieta setting up a table of food all ready for any injures, Mamá deep in conversation with Señora Cadiz –

Bruno frowns more deeply. The visual details aren’t always clear in his visions, but he thinks – no, he’s sure – those are the clothes his family was wearing when they left that morning.

Bruno’s heart begins to pound and he swallows, his throat suddenly dry.

“Come on, come on….” he mutters, willing his vision on.

At the top of the framework of the building, Señor Cadiz stands on a ladder. He’s fastening it to the framework around the building, so they can go up and build the roof – he pulls the rope tight, yanking it backwards –

The rope snaps. Señor Cadiz’s balance is thrown off and the ladder tips – for a moment, he hangs there in the air, his arms scrabbling to catch onto the edges of the building, but it’s too late –

Señor Cadiz falls off the ladder, through the air –

For a moment Bruno has hope. The building is not all that tall, and Julieta is right there –

As Señor Cadiz falls, his leg catches on something – a piece of wood, sticking out of the building – and it flips his body upside down.

He lands, with a sickening crunch, at the wrong angle, and Bruno shouts out, once.

The sand dissipates and Bruno lurches forward, his chest heaving, willing himself not to throw up. A glass plate falls to the ground in front of him, ignored.

It’s today – it’s bad, but he can change it – but it’s today, it could be now –

He stands, and on shaking legs, sprints for the door.

As he bolts down the hill, the vision replays over and over in front of his eyes. His lungs burn – he rarely leaves the house these days, he’s always tired, he won’t be fast enough like this – but the vision blocks everything out, and he keeps going.

“¿Dónde está Señor Cadiz?” he yells at the first group of people he sees. “¿Dónde está mi madre?”

They just stare at him, bewildered, afraid, and he barrels past them. He doesn’t have time.

He’s nearly at the square where the schoolroom is being built now – he can see the crowd, and – yes! There’s his mother –

“Mamá!” he screams, “Mamá!”

His mother whirls around, her eyes wide with alarm.

“Bruno? What is it? ¿Que te pasa?”

Bruno looks past her, scanning the building.

“Mamá – Señor Cadiz – he’s going to fall – where -”

“What?”

“Mamá, por favor escúchame, Señor Cadiz is going to fall –”

Behind her, Bruno hears Señora Cadiz draw in a shocked breath, but it doesn’t matter that she heard, he just needs to –

Bruno’s heart stops. He sees him.

Señor Cadiz is at the top of the ladder, tying a rope.

“No -!”

Señor Cadiz pulls the rope tight, yanking it backwards.

The rope snaps.

A strangled cry makes its way out of Bruno’s mouth, and unlike before, he can hear the gasps and screams around him.

Somehow, the whole thing is worse the second time round.

For a moment, a stunned silence falls in the square, and Bruno waits to wake up back in his vision cave.

There’s a low moan from beside him, and Señora Cadiz stumbles forwards.

“No, no, no, no…” she’s whispering hoarsely, and she falls to her knees beside her husband. “Por favor…por favor, no… Óscar, please, mi amor, no…”

Her voice is all Bruno can hear, along with his own harsh breaths echoing in his lungs. He doesn’t understand – he doesn’t understand –

For a few moments, the whole square seems frozen in shock, watching the scene unfold in horror.

Of course, Mamá stirs first. She takes an unsteady stop forwards.

“Elena,” she says, her voice heavy with grief.

Señora Cadiz’s head snaps up, her eyes burning, but she isn’t looking at Mamá. She’s searching the crowds, looking for –

Her eyes meet Bruno’s, and all his breath leaves him at the intensity he sees there.

“You,” she hisses, and Mamá stops dead.

“Elena?”

“You!” she says again, louder now, “You did this!”

As one, every head in the square swings round to look at Bruno, and he can’t move. He can’t speak or think, he can’t look away.

“You did this!” Señora Cadiz screams, “You cursed him! I heard you! You killed him, you killed him -”

“Bruno,” Mamá says in a low voice, without turning round, “Go.”

“Mamá?!” Pepa’s horrified voice cuts into Bruno’s awareness, but he can’t see her. He can’t see anything except Señora Cadiz.

“Take him away from here. Now,” snaps their mother, and Pepa falls silent.

Seconds later, there are hands on his arms, familiar, pulling him gently upwards – when did he fall down?

“Vamanos, Bruno – está bien, vamos –“ Julieta’s voice is in his ear, thin and terrified but still gentle, and it grounds him enough to try to draw his legs under himself.

“Julieta,” Mamá says, “Stay. Something for Señora Cadiz, por favor. Rápidamente.”

There’s a moment of hesitation, then two of the hands touching Bruno give a quick squeeze, before drawing away. Mamá steps forward again, blocking Señora Cadiz from Bruno’s eyeline, and the spell is broken.

He hears her collapse into broken sobs, and his legs nearly give way again, but Pepa’s hands hold him upright.

“Vamanos,” she says, not as gentle as Julieta, but with enough determination that Bruno feels just a little bit safer.

She manhandles him through the crowd, which parts around him, people stumbling backwards in an effort to get away from him, and Bruno wants to curl up in a ball and go to sleep forever.

He’s barely able to do any of the walking himself, but he’s small and light enough that Pepa barely seems to notice. It occurs to him vaguely that maybe people are equally eager to get away from the freezing sleet that is starting to come down around them.

“Sorry,” she mutters.

“Está bien,” he replies automatically.

They carry on up the street, people running past them back the way they came as word starts to spread, doing double takes when they notice Pepa’s weather and the way she’s half carrying her brother, and then hurrying on with their eyes cast downwards when she meets their gaze with a furious glare of her own.

It’s only when they haven’t seen anyone in a few minutes and they’re halfway up the hill that Bruno feels safe enough to speak.

“Pepa,” he says, his voice so strangled and small that he has to try again, “Pepa…it wasn’t…I didn’t…”

“Bruno…”

“Por favor, escucha,” he says desperately, pulling them to a stop so he can face her, because suddenly he has to say it, he has to make it true, “It wasn’t me, lo juro – please believe me, please, you know that’s not how it – I was trying to stop it -”

“Bruno,” she says again, exasperated, and Bruno falls silent. “Lo se. Tranquilo. Lo se, ¿vale? It wasn’t you.”

Bruno seizes his sister in a hug. “Thank you,” he breathes, “Gracias, Pepi, gracias, gracias…”

Pepa hugs him back tightly. “It’s okay,” she whispers back, “You’re okay.”

Bruno doesn’t bother correcting her.

Chapter Text

The incident with Señor Cadiz was the first time someone had simply come out and said it. And while it was by no means the last, there was no instant hostility, no pitchforks or angry mobs or confrontations in the street. Bruno is very sure that it was mostly down to some impressive damage control by his mother and maybe Julieta, but there was no opening of the floodgates like Bruno had feared. When Mamá had finally come home hours later, an exhausted Julieta in tow, she had gathered Bruno into her arms and assured him that no one blamed him for what happened.

It was an outright lie, but Bruno had appreciated the attempt.

The town had mourned, and after eight months, a pale and drawn Señora Cadiz had come to Casita to apologise. Grief and shock had twisted her mind, she told him in a low, toneless voice, and she knew her husband would never have wanted her to add to the trauma of that day for anyone.

She apologised, and maybe Bruno was paranoid, but he wasn’t entirely sure she took it back.

Bruno accepted her apology gracefully, and offered her his condolences, Mamá watching him like a hawk. Bruno had looked at anywhere but her, unable to forget that no matter what anyone said, the first thing she had done was remove him.

Get Bruno out of here, before things get any worse.

In a shaking, tremulous voice, Bruno had apologised for not getting there sooner. For avoiding his vision to have breakfast with his sisters, he thought, but didn’t say. For not going straight to Señor Cadiz and telling him to stop tying the rope.

Apologies were made and tributes to Señor Cadiz were made, and the school building was eventually finished and dedicated to him, and slowly, the town moved on.

Still.

If the townsfolk seemed wary around Bruno before, now they hold him at a distance. Visitors asking for a vision have dwindled to those who are desperate and despairing.

Bruno leaves Casita less, and he works on The Plan. Now, he gives the prophecies to Mamá to dole out, rather than running down into the town himself.

Bruno is 16, and unless his mother insists he show his face or his sisters drag him out, he stays in the safety of Casita as much as he can.

Today, he can’t.

Today, Adriana and Guillermo are having a baby, and he is accompanying Mamá into town to visit them.

When someone in the town is due to give birth, Mamá always visits them with Julieta, who brings her healing food just in case, and Bruno, who is offered to the expectant parents to give them a chance to prepare for whatever is coming. They’ve done it for years. Sometimes – less so recently – they ask for the vision. Even if they say no, they usually ask him to stay, sometimes changing their minds and asking halfway through if the birth is long or difficult.

It is Bruno’s most hated and most favourite job, because so rarely these days does he get to give good news in person, and so rarely is that good news so good.

But on the other side of that coin, if the news is bad, there is no worse prophecy to have to give.

He can usually tell which way it’s going to go the stronger his headache is as he approaches the house, and several times he’s begged Mamá to let him stay in his cave and use Pepa as a messenger. He even heard Julieta arguing with her about it, once, after one of the bad times. But Mamá put her foot down. This is his duty, she told them both, and he owes it to the townsfolk to deliver it in person. He thinks it’s for the sake of the good visions that she insists – just one of those is enough to boost his reputation for weeks as the grateful parents thank him and tell everyone how reassuring it was to hear – but he’s not sure. He often can’t tell what his mother is thinking.

“¿Lista?” she asks now, and he hears a quiet, “Sí,” from Julieta beside him.

He can only nod, stomach churning, and Mamá’s unreadable gaze rests on him for a moment, before she gives him a brisk nod of her own and turns to leave.

Julieta’s hand is tucked in his, and she squeezes it tightly. He squeezes hers back and bends to help her carry her basket of arepas and bread and fresh aguapanela. When he glances back, Pepa is watching them leave from the balcony, playing anxiously with her braid, her clothes damp with drizzle.

“It’ll be okay,” Julieta says to him as they walk down the hill behind Mamá, and he tries to smile and nod. She presses a bollo into his hand, because she can always tell when he hasn’t eaten, and he tries to pick at it as they walk along. It does make him feel a little better.

No headache as they arrive at the house, Bruno notes, and he smiles again at Julieta, feeling a little more confident. He can see the relief on her face. These visits can be awful for her, too, he remembers suddenly. He doesn’t think he remembers it enough.

“Buenos días, my friends,” Mamá says softly as they enter the main room, where Adriana is resting on a bed, leaning against Guillermo’s side. She looks exhausted, but she smiles warmly at Mamá.

“Buenos días, Señora Madrigal. Thank you for coming.”

“Claro que sí. It is my honour. How are you feeling, mi niña?”

“Tired,” says Adriana with a soft laugh, “Ready to stop being pregnant.”

Mamá laughs as well. “Ah, sí, I remember that feeling very well.” She glances back at Julieta and Bruno, gesturing them forward. “Speaking of which -”

They had lingered in the doorway out of politeness as Mamá had been welcomed, but now Julieta and Bruno step into the room. Adriana’s gaze flickers across them both. It’s almost too quick, too subtle to notice, but Bruno’s eyes catch the movement – when Adriana sees him, her hand reaches out and knocks, 3 times, quick and quiet, on the wooden table beside her.

Bruno blinks. He’s seen some of the older women in the town do that, but only ever –

His stomach drops.

“Buenos días,” Julieta is saying beside him, friendly and confident as ever, and Bruno thinks he says it too. Neither she nor Mamá react to the knocking.

Maybe he’s being paranoid.

“Now,” Mamá says briskly, “Julieta is here for obvious reasons – she’s brought her food, and some aguapanela if you don’t feel you can eat. If you feel comfortable, she’ll stay with you until you have your baby, so she can be on hand with anything you need.”

Adriana nods and smiles at Julieta, although she looks a little less happy than before.

“And Bruno,” Mamá continues, “Maybe you’ve heard this from some of the other parents in town – Bruno is here to offer a vision of the birth for you. This can be to foresee any difficulties and be prepared for them, or simply to reassure yourselves that all is well. Not everyone requests a vision, of course, but he can stay with Julieta and assist her in case you change your minds later.”

Bruno smiles and gives a little wave, trying not to look creepy.

Adriana simply nods, not meeting his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

“I have heard about this,” she says to Mamá carefully. “And I think perhaps…”

She looks at Guillermo, who nods his encouragement. Neither of them will look Bruno in the eye.

“Señora Madrigal, I mean no disrespect to you or your family,” Adriana continues, “We appreciate everything you’ve done for us, for the town… but Guillermo and I have discussed it and we – we’d like him to leave.”

There is a short, shocked silence. Over at the dining table, Julieta nearly drops the food she’s unpacking.

Bruno can’t move.

“¿Perdóname?” says Mamá, after a moment.

“Lo siento,” Adriana says, slightly pleadingly. “We truly mean no disrespect – it’s just that…”

She trails off, and Guillermo tucks an arm around her supportively.

“We just would feel a little safer,” he says firmly, and Bruno wishes he could be someone else. Anyone else.

There’s another pause. Julieta doesn’t turn around, but she’s unpacking her food so slowly that Bruno almost wants to laugh at her transparency.

“Ya veo,” Mamá says finally. “Bueno, of course it is your choice. This is your birth. We want everything to be perfect for you.”

Adriana and Guillermo visibly sag with relief, and Adriana finally looks at Bruno. She still doesn’t quite look him in the eye.

“Lo siento,” she says again. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just… I’m superstitious, you see.”

Bruno feels himself nod woodenly, in case his mother is watching him.

“Julieta and I will stay, of course – that is, if you’re happy for us to stay?”

“Sí,” Adriana says fervently, “Yes – yes, gracias, Señora, please stay -”

“Mamá….” Bruno hears Julieta whisper, sounding dismayed, but their mother doesn’t respond. Instead, she looks at him, her face unreadable as ever.

“Bruno,” she says quietly, and makes a subtle motion towards the door. “Por favor.”

There’s a rushing in Bruno’s ears, and he feels his face burning with anger or shame, he can’t tell, but there’s not a lot he can do. Nobody argues with Alma Madrigal.

He takes a moment to remember how to move, to remember he can move, and then forces himself to. He turns on his heel and walks out. It’s probably rude, he should probably say goodbye, and good luck, but he’s worried if he tries to say something he’ll crack apart.

Maybe he’s imagining it, but as he passes through the doorway he hears it again.

Knock, knock, knock.

Bruno hunches his shoulders and tries to block out everything other than the ground in front of him, and the sound of his feet hitting the path.

He doesn’t register much of the walk home, or anything he sees on the way.

He manages to hold his dignity together enough to stop himself running through Casita, deaf to Pepa’s questioning shouts.

The stairs seem to last longer than normal, but he finally reaches his vision cave and collapses on his knees in the sand. The last vision he did the day before is on the table – something inane. Cristina Santiago’s dog will have puppies, or something. He stares at it. It’s the latest of The Plan visions.

Bruno stares at it for a long moment, and then hurls it suddenly, violently at the wall. It smashes into pieces, glass flying everywhere.

The Plan. He wants to laugh at himself. It seems like a childish dream, now. Did he really think that he could balance out the death and misery that followed him everywhere with a few pieces of mildly good news? Did he really think he could change their minds?

He lies down on the sand and stays there for a long time, ignoring Pepa banging on his door and shouting. Hours later, he ignores Julieta calling quietly through the door that the birth went perfectly, and Adriana had a healthy baby boy.

For the first time, he genuinely wonders if the outcome would’ve been the same had he stayed.

Chapter Text

“I just -” Julieta takes a deep breath, visibly calming herself, and Bruno can see the effort she’s making. The deliberate way she’s trying to be reasonable and fair, to not be angry and say something she’ll regret, to be the mediator of her family, like always. He can see her instincts to wreak havoc on the person who hurt her sister warring with her instincts to protect her brother, of whom everyone always assumes the worst. He can see it’s only a lifetime of arguing with everyone on that topic that’s stopping her from doing the same right now.

“I just don’t understand why you had to say anything,” she says, finally, and Bruno can see that she really, truly does want to understand, if only so she can finally either just be angry or forgive him.

Behind them, Pepa weeps bitterly at the back of the church, as outside the hurricane howls and rattles the windows. Tables and chairs and beautiful decorations are being whipped around in a frenzy, and every now and then something is slammed against the window or the walls, making everyone jump and causing Pepa’s sobs to increase tenfold.

Beside her, her new husband is whispering to her comfortingly and stroking her hair, occasionally managing to make her smile. The ceremony itself was finished with, and Pepa had managed to stay relatively calm throughout, even as the growing winds outside had steadily destroyed the area they’d all spent days painstakingly preparing for the wedding celebrations. As soon as they were legally married, Pepa’s control had finally waned, and now here they are.

Across the road, Mamá and Julieta’s fiancé Agustín are marshalling most of the guests into preparing the schoolroom as a last minute venue replacement. Bruno hopes distantly that there’ll be enough space for dancing. He knows that was what Pepa was looking forward to the most.

The other guests are milling around nearby, chatting quietly in groups and pretending not to notice the weeping bride.

To say it is the most guilty Bruno has ever felt would be wildly untrue, but – well. It’s up there.

His only consolation is that throughout the entire debacle, Félix hasn’t looked angry or upset or even mildly put out. Not even once. Not even when his brand new wife had burst into tears as soon as they were legally married, which probably had the potential to hurt anyone’s feelings. Bruno wants to thank every higher power he can think of for bringing the most immovably cheerful man in the world into his sister’s life.

As always, today it’s mostly the stress Pepa is under that’s causing her emotional turmoil – the negative emotions always seemed to win out over the positive when it came to her weather. The one upside to this disaster is that now Bruno can easily see Félix knows that, too.

“Bruno?” says Julieta, shaking him out of his thoughts. There’s a pleading look on her face, and he doesn’t know what to say.

“Juli, it wasn’t – I wasn’t -” He stops. He wants to explain himself. It wasn’t a vision, he wants to yell, not everything I say is a vision, and you used to know that –

If he says that, he’ll have to say what it was, and he’s pretty sure saying it was meant to be a joke would go down very badly right now, with his sister in tears and her wedding destroyed.

Pepa had looked so stressed, so anxious, and he just wanted to make her smile, because it was her wedding and she was supposed to be happy. He hadn’t come down from his tower in days and when he’d arrived that morning it had only taken him about 3 seconds to see, no future vision required, that the stranglehold she had over her emotions was going to blow up in their faces. He’d been angry, all of a sudden. Everyone got nervous on their wedding day. Why did she have to keep it all in for the sake of the weather? None of them were made of sugar. They could deal with a little rain.

But he can admit that maybe his communication skills leave something to be desired, because this isn’t quite a little rain, and it’s his fault.

The feeling is familiar, but somehow it gets worse every time.

Julieta runs her hands through her hair, glancing back at Pepa.

“You had to know -” she started, then stopped again. “Bruno, I know you think telling people about bad visions helps them – helps them prepare, or, or change things, or something, but you had to know telling Pepa would -”

She cuts herself off, frustrated, and then looks Bruno straight in the eye.

“Bruno, do you really think this would have happened if you hadn’t said anything?”

Bruno recoils as if she’s slapped him, and even Julieta looks away, twisting her mouth unhappily, but she doesn’t look as though she regrets it.

A lot of the townsfolk have said it to him. He knows more of them think it. But this is the first time one of his familia have ever implied that he makes these things happen.

His stomach twists in horror, but the worst part is, she’s right. It’s just that it wasn’t a vision.

It’s just that he’s bad luck.

“Juli…” he whispers, but she doesn’t look at him.

He takes a deep breath, setting his shoulders decisively. He has to fix this.

He starts forward, and Julieta’s head snaps back round, her eyes wide, putting a hand on his chest to stop him.

“Hey, no – ¿que estas haciendo?”

“I – I just – I want to apologise,” he says, less firmly than he’d have liked. Julieta rubs her face, looking exhausted.

“Dios, Bruno, por favor, are you crazy?” she says, sounding angry for the first time. “Do you really think that is a good idea?”

“I -”

“This day is already bad enough, I don’t want to remember it also as the day my sister accidentally killed my brother with lightning.”

Bruno swallows, looking over at Pepa again. Although the hurricane is still raging, she looks like she’s calming down, laughing a little tearfully at something Félix is saying.

“Bruno.”

He looks back at Julieta. She’s calm again, gazing at him with sad eyes. It’s almost worse, because he can’t blame what comes next on words said in anger.

“I think you should leave.”

Bruno stares.

“What?”

Strangely, seeing his heartbreak reflected in her face doesn’t make him feel any better.

“I mean it,” she says doggedly. “This isn’t fair. You know Pepa will be angry. If she sees you, she’ll get upset again, and she deserves to get at least some of her day back.”

For a moment, Bruno can’t speak. His heart pounds and his face burns with some strange mix of fury and despair.

‘Not fair?!’ he wants to scream. ‘When has any of this ever been fair?’

He can’t do it. He can’t open that can of worms. Not today.

“Fine,” he snaps eventually, and hates himself a little bit for the sting of vindictive pleasure he gets when Julieta’s face crumples even further.

He turns on his heel, suddenly determined to twist the knife even further. Let her be upset, he thinks. Let her feel just a little like I do every day.

“’Nito, por fa…please don’t be angry,” he hears her whisper, and his resolve crumbles like sand. “Lo siento mucho. I just – it’s for Pepa. ¿Entiendes, no? For Pepa.”

Bruno can’t turn around. He won’t.

But he reaches one hand back, hesitantly. It meets another hand, grasping like his, and for a moment they cling onto one another.

“Tell Pepa I’m sorry,” he says, in as strong a voice as he can manage. “And, uh, feli - felicidades.”

He thinks he hears Julieta say she will, but he’s out of the door and into the hurricane before he can change his mind, and he doesn’t look back.

Chapter Text

“Tío Bruno.”

It’s pretty embarrassing for a man who can see the future to startle as easily as he does, but Bruno has got used to being embarrassed.

He places a hand on his chest to try and calm his pounding heart and looks down at little Dolores, her dark, intelligent eyes gazing back at him.

“Ay, Dolores,” he says, trying for a friendly smile, “You frightened me!”

She frowns up at him with no small amount of skepticism.

He supposes she’s impossible to sneak up on, so maybe she doesn’t realise the feeling of believing yourself to be completely alone in the kitchen as you search for a midnight snack and suddenly being confronted by an unexpected seven-year-old.

He swallows, looking around for an accompanying adult.

He loves his sobrinitas, more than he ever would’ve thought possible, but there’s something about being around them that makes him deeply nervous. It’s a mixture, he thinks, of not wanting to scare them, and also being scared of them. Which sounds ridiculous, he knows, but he’ll stand by it – kids can be scary. They see through lies and excuses, and they aren’t afraid to call it out, either. When he mumbles through some nonsense about why he won’t do a certain vision or why he looks like death warmed up, the adults will politely take him at his word and move on. Kids – naming no names, Isabella – will look him directly in the eye and tell him very seriously that there’s no point in lying if he’s going to be so obvious about it.

Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes Bruno simply doesn’t have the energy for the ensuing awkwardness, especially if there are adults around.

“It’s late, querida,” he says, belatedly realising she should probably be in bed. “Are you – is everything okay?”

She nods, her little face serious. “I heard you come downstairs.”

Bruno winces. “Ay, lo siento, guapa. Did I wake you?”

He knows all parenting is hard, but living in a house with a small child who has super hearing is proving to be a challenge that all of them are struggling to adjust to, not least Dolores herself.

But she shakes her head again. “I was listening out for you. I wanted to ask you about something.”

Bruno wets his lips, a little nervous. There’s usually only one thing people seek him out to ask him, even if his sobrinas treat him more like a normal person than the townsfolk do.

“Well,” he starts carefully, “I came down here to make some chocolate santafereño. You think maybe you want some?”

Dolores narrows her eyes. It's that kind of evasion tactic that kids usually see right through, but as Bruno had hoped, he can tell her desire for chocolate santafereño is overcoming her desire to call him out on it.

Eventually, she nods, and he smiles gratefully.

“Vale,” he says, “You wanna come sit up here and watch?”

She nods again, and he gently picks her and deposits her on the countertop next to the stove.

“It won’t be as good as Tía Julieta’s,” he tells her, “But it’ll still be good, I think.”

He used to make santafereño for his sisters a lot, actually, when they were tired or stressed out, and he has it on good authority that it’s one of his best skills.

Dolores watches him stir the milk with a quiet focus. She has a longer attention span than Isabella, and is less shy than Luisa. It makes her seem older than her years, and he wonders if it’s to do with her gift, but he knows that wondering what they would all be like without their gifts is a thought experiment that only causes him pain.

“Mom always adds nuez moscada también,” she says, in her soft voice that always makes Bruno think of wind rushing through long grass. It reminds him a little of Pepa.

“She does?” he says, reaching for some. “Bueno, your mamá is really smart. She’s usually right about these things.”

When the drinks are ready, he pours it out into two cups, careful to avoid knocking the pan against them, and sets it down gently.

“¿Quieres un poquito queso también?” he asks her, because he really did need some solid food, and cuts them both a piece when she nods.

Then, instead of lifting her down, he hops up on the countertop and sits cross legged facing her, making her giggle.

“You can’t sit up here, tío, you’re too big.”

“I’m allowed after midnight,” he tells her, which makes her laugh again, and Bruno feels a warmth in his stomach that has nothing to do with his santafereño.

They share their drinks in companiable silence for a while, until there’s a sudden rumble of thunder that makes Dolores clap her hands over her ears. Bruno feels a pang of guilt. His sister is five months pregnant; she needs all the sleep she can get.

He widens his eyes at Dolores comically to try and hide his own nerves. “Uh-oh,” he stage-whispers. “Did you tell your Mamá where you are?”

She shakes her head, looking anxious.

“No te preocupes, kid,” he says, winking at her. “We’ll tell her I was crashing around and keeping you awake.”

Dolores eyes him dubiously but smiles a little, and they sip their drinks patiently as they wait for Pepa to move her search down to the kitchen.

She does, eventually, crash into the kitchen with a hissed, “Dolores?!” that cuts off when she sees her brother and her daughter sitting innocently together on the countertop.

“Ay, mi amor, there you are. You scared me! I went to check on you and you were gone!” she scolds, sweeping over to them and kissing Dolores on the head.

“Sorry, mamí,” Dolores says, and Bruno adds, “It was my fault, Pepa. I was making too much noise, so I made her some santafereño to say sorry.”

He feels a familiar lurch of anxiety when Pepa looks at him, but she only gives him a distracted smile before looking away.

After the wedding, Bruno had avoided everyone for weeks, convincing himself first that an apology wouldn’t be welcome, and then that he absolutely should’ve apologised, but had waited far too long to do so. He’d snuck down for Julieta’s food late at night, and nothing else. In fact, he hadn’t really seen his family until Julieta’s wedding, at which he’d stayed away from everyone until he had to walk Julieta down the aisle. He would’ve tried to avoid that, too, but he’d been supposed to do it for Pepa and he was determined to succeed in his duties towards one of them, if nothing else.

After that, he and Pepa had slowly started talking again. It was stilted and awkward and sometimes a little hostile, but it was better than nothing. It had got more natural over the years, and now, if you weren’t one of the triplets, you wouldn’t be able to tell anything was wrong at all.

It broke Bruno’s heart a little more every day, but he held Pepa at arm’s length, and she did the same to him, and the wedding was just another thing that they didn’t talk about. With Julieta, it was a little better, but there was still a distance there that Bruno didn’t know how to bridge.

“Gracias, Bruno,” Pepa says now, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “Dolores, say thank you to your tío.”

“Gracias, Tío Bruno.”

Bruno gives her a tight smile. “De nada.”

“Finish your drink, and then it’s bedtime, okay?”

Bruno hops off the counter, carrying the pan and his cup over to the sink. He’d wash it in the morning, when Dolores was already awake.

“Muy bien,” he hears Pepa say, and turns to see her helping Dolores down. “Vamos, bedtime.”

“Buenas noches,” he says, going to retrieve her cup as well.

“Buenas noches, Bruno,” Pepa echoes, but there’s a pause. Then –

“Espera,” Bruno hears, and he glances over to see that Dolores has stopped, pulling Pepa to a halt. “I wanted to ask Tío Bruno something.”

Bruno doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Pepa tenses. He swallows heavily, but Dolores has turned and is looking up at him beseechingly. He can’t avoid it forever.

“Sí, guapita?” he says, aiming for casual. “What is it?”

Dolores takes a deep breath, visibly steeling herself. Beside her, Pepa seems to be frozen to the spot, dark clouds gathering over her head.

“Tío Bruno, will you do a vision for me?”

Bruno rubs his arm, fighting hard to keep his face calm and neutral. He doesn’t want Dolores to be scared of his gift, too.

“Dolores, I… I’m, I’m not sure that’s, uh… a -a - a good idea.”

Dolores frowns. “Why not?”

Bruno swallows again, his heart hammering.

“It’s – it’s complicated, querida, it’s hard to explain.”

“You did one for Isabella,” she says, a little accusingly, and Bruno winces.

He did, didn’t he? Because she’d asked and asked and asked, and he’d eventually been worn down, resolving to never mention it if it was bad, but it had been so good and he’d been so overjoyed to tell her, and even Julieta and Agustín had been happy, and thanked him, and he’d never thought for a second about what kind of precedent he was setting.

“Lo se, Dolores, pero… uh, it – it’s sometimes…different, and maybe I – I don’t want to – it’s just, maybe that wasn’t a good idea, and I don’t know if I should do it again, ¿sabes?”

Dolores chews her lip for a second. “Is…” she starts, her voice even smaller than usual, “is… my future going to be bad, tío?”

Bruno drops to his knees in front of her, horrified, taking her little hand in his. “Díos, no, no, cariño, yo creo que you’re going to have a beautiful, wonderful life, okay? It’s not that at all.”

Dolores stares him down. “Then why not?”

Bruno draws in a shaky breath, feeling sick. “Ay, Dolores, no se como – the future, it’s -”

Suddenly, Pepa is crouching down beside him, taking Dolores’s other hand in hers.

“Dolores, mi amor, the future is complicated, okay?” she says, gently, and Bruno feels a little lightheaded from relief. “You have such a big life ahead of you, and your tío can only see so much. Como – como last month, you remember, you were sad because you were sick and you had to miss your friend Bea’s birthday party? And then, when you were better, your dad made you a den in the garden and your tía made you all that tasty food, and you and Bea had your own fiestita and she said she liked it even better than hers?”

Dolores nods, looking unsure.

“Well, imagine your tío had looked into the future before all of that, and he only saw you being ill and sad, and he didn’t see the rest – and if he told you what he’d seen, you’d be sad even before it happened, because you wouldn’t know that something else really good would happen. ¿Entiendes?”

Dolores hesitates, then nods slowly again. “Yo creo que si. Lots and lots of things are going to happen, and Tío Bruno only sees one little bit, right?”

Bruno nearly passes out from relief, but he settles for nodding furiously. “Sí, sí, that’s exactly right, querida. You’re just as smart as your mamá.”

“Okay, so… now that I know that, and you told Isabella her little bit, and it was good…will you do a vision for me, too?”

Bruno sags in exhaustion, only just catching himself from swearing, which wouldn’t help his popularity with Pepa at all.

“Ay, Dios mio,” he whispers, wiping a hand over his face. He feels Pepa sigh beside him. He doesn’t know how to tackle this next – maybe the old ‘let’s talk about this in the morning’ - but he’s opening his mouth to try anyway when Pepa suddenly speaks.

“Alright.”

Dolores’s face lights up but Bruno barely notices, his head swinging round to stare at Pepa so fast he hears something crack.

“What?” he hisses, and Pepa looks at him long enough to smile tiredly.

“She’s just going to keep asking, Bruno. And she’s right, you did one for Isa, and it was fine.”

“¿En serio?” Dolores cries, delighted, but Bruno’s focus is still on Pepa.

“I’ll have to talk to your papi,” she’s telling her daughter sternly, “but if your tío doesn’t mind, then it’s okay with me.”

Bruno minds. Bruno minds a lot. But this – it feels like an olive branch of trust that hasn’t been extended to him in years. And Dolores is hopping about on the spot, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Please, Tío Bruno?” she says, “Please?”

Bruno swallows again, trying to ignore how hard his heart is pounding, and forces a smile.

“Okay,” he says, and his smile briefly becomes real as Dolores explodes into exuberant – and almost completely silent – celebrations.

“You’re sure?” he whispers to Pepa, unable to look her in the eye.

She just smiles and squeezes his hand quickly, before standing to usher Dolores out of the room and to bed, and for one wonderful, shining moment, it feels like old times.

Like old times.

That phrase rings in Bruno’s head as he stands anxiously at the doorway of Pepa and Félix’s room, watching Pepa try to comfort his devastated niece.

He’s not quite sure which old times he had been thinking of, because if he’s being brutally honest with himself, isn’t this moment what most of his life has been like?

Dolores doesn’t even cry like normal children – too noisy for her, he supposes. Instead, she sits cross legged on the bed, gazing down at one of her stuffed toys, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. She hasn’t reacted to a thing Pepa’s said, and Bruno thinks she’ll have to give up soon, because the two of them are soaked to the skin in the drizzle that’s coming down around them, and that probably isn’t helping.

He feels like a monster.

“What were you thinking?”

Félix’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts, and he looks at his cuñado.

Félix has never seemed to hold any animosity towards Bruno for the wedding incident, but he’s always seemed wary around him. Moreso than Agustín, anyway. He’s friendly, sure, but Bruno’s fairly sure Félix avoids him. Or at least being alone with him. He doesn’t blame him – Félix hasn’t lived in the Encanto for long, and even people who’ve known Bruno his whole life find him creepy. Plus, it’s not like Bruno has made any effort. By the time Félix had arrived, Bruno had readily accepted his role as town recluse. It was easier that way for everyone.

But now.

Now, Félix is staring him down with a fury Bruno has never seen before on his face. He finds it deeply unnerving to see such a cheerful and jovial man so serious.

“Telling a little girl something like that? How could you do this to her?”

Bruno opens his mouth to answer, but he knows before he’s begun that it’s a lost cause.

They will always, always assume the worst. That’s just how it goes.

Plus, he’s painfully aware of Dolores sitting just a few metres away, able to hear every word. And hadn’t that been the whole problem?

He hadn’t thought it through. He can see that now.

When he’d left his vision cave, chest hurting with what he’d seen in his niece’s future, his intention was to never breathe a word of it to anyone.

But he hadn’t thought it through.

You don’t keep secrets from Dolores.

She’d found him almost immediately, having heard the heavy stone door grind open and Bruno’s footsteps on his many stairs.

He’d tossed some salt over his shoulder as soon as he saw her, but it felt like too little too late.

“Well?” she’d asked, bouncing on her toes in excitement. “What happened? What did you see?”

“Nothing!” he’d replied, too quickly, too nervous. “No – I – uh, I didn’t – I didn’t look yet. That is, I lo – I had a vision for someone, uh, s - someone else.”

She’d frowned, slowing her bounces, her eyes flicking down to his chest and then back up.

“You’re lying,” she announced decisively, and his stomach dropped. “Else why would you be so nervous?”

“No – no, I, uh – D – Dolores, escúchame -” he stammered, scrambling for a lie, anything that would throw her off.

She narrowed her eyes, a picture of her mother.

“Tío Bruno,” she said sternly, “Why won’t you just tell me?”

“Dolores, please, it’s – it’s like I said, the f- the future, it’s complicated – s – s – sometimes hearing it makes – makes things -”

Dolores’s eyes widened as something occurred to her. “Is it because – is it something bad?” she whispered, and to Bruno’s horror, he saw tears start to well in her eyes, her lower lip trembling.

He was scaring her. Of course he was.

“No -”

“Am I going to die?”

“No! No, no – nothing like that – cariño, please -”

“Mommy -!” she’d started to call out, too quiet for Pepa to hear yet, but in an instant Bruno could see where this was going. Dolores would run to Pepa, upset and frightened, and Pepa would be terrified that Bruno had seen something terrible, and there’d be a damn cyclone, or something, and she’d make Bruno tell her, and Dolores would hear – or worse, she’d tell Mamá, and Mamá would be furious, and make Bruno tell her, and Dolores would hear – he could write it down, he supposed, or show them the tablet, but what were the chances they’d be able to never bring it up again? And if they didn’t, what, Dolores would just grow up with this – thing hanging over head, this fate she knew was waiting that everyone knew but no one would tell her? What terrible things would she dream up for herself?

His head had swum with the possibilities, and that was how he’d found himself shushing her, and agreeing to tell.

It wasn’t that bad, he’d reasoned with himself desperately. Maybe she’d be okay. Maybe she wouldn’t truly understand.

Surely it was better to know.

Now, he swallows heavily, and closes his mouth. How to explain all that without sounding like he was blaming a seven year old child for his mistakes? A child who would hear every word he said?

“I didn’t want to tell her,” he says hollowly.

“And yet you did,” retorts Félix.

“I know. I know, I’m sorry – I just – I didn’t want her to be afraid, and I thought – I just thought it’d be best to tell her the truth -”

“Oh, you thought it would be best? You didn’t think to talk to her parents first?”

“She would’ve heard -” Bruno starts desperately, but Félix swipes his hand through the air angrily.

“Ya,” he snaps again. Bruno shifts nervously, changing tactic.

“Please, let me talk to her – I do this all the time, talk to people about their futures, maybe I can help -”

“No – no, Bruno you’ve done enough.”

“Félix -”

“Bruno, por favor, just go.”

“I can -”

“Go, Bruno. Before I say something I regret.”

Bruno looks past Félix, into the room, and like she can feel him watching, Pepa looks up.

Their eyes meet, and for the first time Bruno can remember, he can’t read her face. After a second, she breaks the gaze, looking back down at her daughter, and Bruno feels a chill run through him.

It was a dismissal if he ever saw one. Possibly something even more final.

“Bruno,” Félix says again, jarring him out of the moment, and Bruno rocks back on his heels, his mind reeling.

“I – I’m going, I…”

He trails off, not even sure what he’s trying to say, and turns on his heel without looking at Félix’s face, his hand snapping out to knock on the wooden rail of the balcony.

“Bruno,” Félix says suddenly, and Bruno pauses without turning round. “Please. Never do a vision for any of my children ever again.”

Way ahead of you, buddy, he thinks, but he nods once, before making his getaway.

“Lo siento, Dolores,” he whispers, as he hurries through the house, knocking on every wooden surface he passes. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. You’ll be okay.”

He doesn’t get a reply, of course, but he hopes it got through. He hopes she remembers.

Chapter Text

Bruno is getting a little sick of all the nervous and bemused looks he’s getting as he pushes his way through the crowds. Sure, he doesn’t come down from his tower that much anymore, but he isn’t going to miss Mirabel’s gift ceremony. Relations between him and his familia aren’t that bad. Or maybe they are now – he’d have to check with one of them.

He chuckles humourlessly at his own joke, earning him even more alarmed glances, which doesn’t bother him as much as it probably should. What’s the point of being the town madman if he can’t act like it?

He’ll have to stand amongst everyone, he knows, for the ceremony itself, but it won’t start for another few minutes and he doesn’t have the energy to pretend he doesn’t see how they look at him without a distraction. There’s a small room secreted away behind the stairs, he knows, and he makes a beeline for it. Just to get out of the crowd for a moment, he tells himself. Just to catch his breath.

He slips inside and closes the door firmly behind him, standing for a moment in the sudden quiet and breathing deeply.

“You too, huh?” says a voice from behind him, and he whirls around on the spot.

Agustín gives him a little wave from where he’s sitting opposite the door, leaning against the wall.

“I get it,” he chuckles. “It’s, uh – it’s a lot out there. It’s a lot.”

Bruno slumps against the door, pressing a hand to his chest. “Dios, Agustín, you scared the life out of me.”

Agustín laughs again. “Sorry.”

As his heart slows down a little, Bruno realises he probably should apologise, too, seeing as he’s barged in on his cuñado’s moment of quiet.

“Uh – you okay?” he asks, hesitantly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to -”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Agustín waves his hand dismissively. “Just needed a sec.”

“I can go, if you…”

“No, no, it’s okay, I promise. Stay. I wouldn’t mind some company.” He pats the space beside him with a wry smile. “Pull up a floorboard.”

Bruno grins, a little hesitantly, and pulls himself off the door to go and sit next to Agustín instead.

“¿Cómo estás, Bruno?” he says, after a few moments of companiable silence. “I feel like we never see you anymore.”

“Ah, you know how it is,” Bruno mumbles, “Lots of visions to have, prophecies to deliver… Meditating…to do…to, to keep my focus, you know…”

Agustín hums understandingly as if that was a coherent answer, which Bruno appreciates.

“Where’s Mirabel?” he asks. “She doing okay?”

“She’s with Alma,” Agustín replies, nodding towards the ceiling. “And yeah, she’s – well. Excited doesn’t really cover it.”

He smiles fondly, which makes Bruno smile too. He doesn’t see his sobrinos as often as he’d like, but Mirabel is a sweetheart. She deserves the world.

He says as much to Agustín, who beams.

“Gracias, hermano. I’d say I agree, but I guess I’m a little biased.”

“Well, I probably am too,” admits Bruno, and Agustín laughs, knocking his shoulder against Bruno’s.

Neither of them speak for a moment, listening the muffled bustle of the crowd outside the door. Then Agustín sighs, a little shakily.

“Dios, I’m just so nervous,” he confesses. “I mean, this is just – this all just feels so new to me, still, and it’s so – it’s all so crazy.”

Bruno snorts. That’s one word for it.

“I mean, I don’t think you guys really realise,” Agustín continues, “how crazy it is. Like you know, but I don’t think you really know, you know? Like, obviously you know it’s crazy, but it’s also just your lives. You know you have a sentient house? Like, you know, but are you – are you fully aware that – that your house is – fully aware? Sorry, Casita,” he adds, when the hooks by the door clatter indignantly.

Bruno is openly snickering now, and Agustín is grinning, even as he presses on.

“I’m serious!” he insists. “And now my kids are gonna grow up thinking it’s normal, too, which is even crazier -”

“This is what you and Félix talk about, when the family leave you two to do your chores?”

“It is, actually,” sniffs Agustín, with as much dignity as he can muster. “Gracias a Dios for that guy, honestly. He’s my normality meter.”

Bruno’s smile fades a little. He knows Félix is a great guy, of course he does. He can see it in how he is with the kids, with Pepa and with Mamá, and he’s civil enough to Bruno. But - well. They just haven’t really spoken since the disaster of Dolores’s vision.

Agustín knocks against his shoulder again, gently bringing him out of his thoughts.

“I’m grateful for you, too, hermano. You’ve been a great friend to me since I arrived here.”

Bruno gives him a wan smile. He isn’t sure how true that is, but it seems rude to disagree.

“Don’t mention it,” he says instead. “I should be thanking you, anyway. Me and Pepa never thought Julieta would find someone good enough for her, but, uh, here you are.”

Agustín practically glows, a smitten smile spreading across his face. “Ay, that woman,” he sighs, and Bruno rolls his eyes.

“Okay, alright, she’s not that great,” he mutters, and Agustín laughs again.

They’re interrupted by the clock on the wall chiming, and then leaping down and nudging itself into Agustín’s legs for good measure.

“There’s that sentient house again,” he grumbles, and Bruno laughs, hauling himself to his feet and pulling Agustín up after him.

“Come on, man. We gotta go. It’s time. Sentient house says so.”

“Ay, Dios mio,” Agustín says, swallowing hard. “Vale. Vale.”

They stand in front of the door for a moment, Bruno giving him a moment to gather himself.

Agustín smoothes his clothes down and pats his hair, before reaching for the doorknob. Then he hesitates, his hand frozen in middair.

“Dios, I’m so nervous!” he groans. “Why am I so nervous? What do I think is gonna happen? It’s gonna be fine, she’ll be fine -”

“Agustín,” Bruno says firmly, and his cuñado turns to look at him, his eyes wide. “It is gonna be fine, I promise. Trust me.”

There’s a beat, a moment where Agustín just stares at him, and then he slumps in relief.

“Oye, gracias a Dios,” he breathes, and Bruno freezes. “Thank you, hermano, thank you. I know you don’t like to– it really means a lot, okay? Gracias. Gracias.”

He even shakes Bruno’s limp hand, appearing not to notice his sudden change in demeanour, before turning back to the door and reaching for the handle again, confidently this time.

Beside him, Bruno stands rigid, staring, unable to unlock his muscles.

He should know better.

After 35 years of this, he should know better.

Agustín has opened the door and stepped out at some point, and he’s glancing backwards, holding it ajar for him.

“Vamos, Bruno,” he grins. “Let’s go see Mirabel get her gift.”

Bruno stares for a second more, then shakes himself.

Get it together, he tells himself sternly. Okay, so Agustín had misunderstood him, but the gift ceremony really would be fine, so what was the harm? If it made him feel better, why correct the assumption? It didn’t matter, because technically he was right, everything would be okay. So there was no point in saying anything.

There. Who said he didn’t understand tact?

He forces himself to return Agustín’s smile and take a jerky step forward.

“Coming.”

He holds his breath and crosses his fingers as he walks through the door, then follows Agustín into the crowd, trying to ignore the way his head is suddenly pounding like a warning.

Afterwards, Bruno sits outside the nursery and wonders quite genuinely if he’s cursed.

He can hear Mirabel sobbing inside. He can hear Julieta’s gentle, soothing tones, sounding near to tears herself, and Agustín as well, both doing their best to console her.

He knocks on the wooden floor and on his head, 1 2 3 4-5-6, and waits.

He isn’t sure what for. The rest of the family have tactfully dispersed, giving them their space, and the crowd has long since filtered away. His mamá has gone up to her room, but he’s sure she’ll be back down soon to try and make this work for her.

For them, he reminds himself, trying not to let his bitterness get the better of him.

He just wants to help, if he can. Well. He knows he can’t, but he wants to – to try and comfort his sister, or his sobrina, to be there for them. It’s not his forte, wrapped up in his own troubles as he often is, but he wants to try.

The door opens, Agustín slipping out, and Bruno scrambles to his feet, tossing a little salt over his shoulder as he rises.

“Hey,” he says, “I just wanted to – are you -”

He swallows back the question, just managing to stop himself from asking if he’s alright. Probably wouldn’t be appreciated right now, he thinks.

Agustín is standing still, staring at Bruno as if seeing him for the first time. A water glass is hanging from his hand, and Bruno nods at it.

“Are you – you want me to get some? Some, some water? So you can stay? Or do you need a breather – I can -”

Bruno stops himself and tries to take a breath, rubbing his arm. Get it together.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asks, like a normal human person, hopefully one that can be relied upon in a crisis. There.

Agustín hasn’t moved, still staring, and Bruno swallows a little nervously. He’s starting to get concerned, and has mentally just committed to asking, once, if Agustín is alright, because he really doesn’t seem it, when he finally speaks.

“You promised,” he says, in a low voice, and Bruno’s stomach plummets.

“Agustín…”

“Before the ceremony,” Agustín says slowly, “You told me – you promised – that everything would be fine. You looked me in the eye and you told me it would be fine. What, were you – were you lying?”

Bruno swallows again, his throat dry, completely at a loss for what to say.

“Agustín, I wasn’t – I didn’t -”

“Did you know? Did you know this would happen?”

“No – no, Agustín, I pr- I didn’t -”

Agustín laughs once, humourlessly. “All this time… everyone in the town always told me, they always said that you – you got pleasure out of it, out of – out of people’s pain, and misery, and I never believed them, not once, but now I – I can’t think why else you would -”

He shakes his head wordlessly, and Bruno seizes his chance.

“Agustín, please, listen to me – I had no idea this was going to happen, I swear to you, I would never have -”

Agustín’s head snaps up, his eyes burning with tears, and he takes a step forward, jabbing a finger into Bruno’s chest.

“All you do,” he grates out, “All – you – do – is sit up in your tower, doing your - your visions, and then you come down here and dump them on us, without a word of explanation, and leave us to deal with them when we barely understand -”

“Because I barely understa-” Bruno tries to say, but Agustín keeps talking.

“- and you expect me to believe that you didn’t know this was coming?”

“If I had known,” Bruno says desperately, “what good would it have done? We couldn’t have changed it -”

“We could’ve been prepared – we could’ve prepared Mirabel -” Agustín argues, and Bruno wants to scream. Isn’t that always what he says? Isn’t that his reasoning, every time he gives someone bad news, and they ask him why?

Whatever he does, he hurts people. That’s his curse.

He takes another deep breath, trying to clear his head.

“Agustín, I’m sorry, I really am, okay? Can I – can I talk to Mirabel?”

“I think that’s the last thing she needs right now,” Agustín snaps, and Bruno tries not to recoil.

He’s upset, he tells himself. He’s upset and he’s lashing out at the person he sees who isn’t his daughter or his wife. It isn’t personal.

It feels personal.

There’s a tense silence. Then –

“You need to go,” Agustín says shortly, and even though he knew it was coming, Bruno feels like he’s been punched.

“Agustín -” he pleads. He can’t fail like this again, he can’t –

“Estoy en serio. I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Por favor, let me help – let me speak to Julieta -”

“Bruno -”

“Bruno?”

Both of them turn to see Alma, standing at the end of the corridor, looking pale and drawn. For the first time Bruno can remember, she looks old.

“Mijo, can I speak with you a moment? Please.”

Bruno glances at Agustín, anguished, but his cuñado meets his eyes coldly.

“You should go and see what she wants,” he says, before turning on his heel and striding away down the stairs.

“Mijo?”

Bruno watches him go, fists clenching and unclenching uselessly, before finally he lets out the breath he was holding, collapsing in on himself.

“Coming, Mamá,” he says, and casts one last longing look at the nursery door. Then he turns away.

Chapter Text

Julieta wakes up the morning after Mirabel’s gift ceremony with a sore neck and a heart as heavy as it’s ever been.

She and Agustín had been up late into the night comforting their little girl, and she had finally fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion, some tears still leaking out from under her eyelids even as they carefully tucked her under her blankets.

Both of them had sat in chairs Casita had produced beside her bed the whole night in case she had woken up again. She hadn’t, but it didn’t matter. Their aching muscles could be solved with an arepa. Their aching hearts couldn’t.

When she walks in the kitchen, she’s stupidly moved by the realisation that her sister has got up and made breakfast for everyone, so Julieta doesn’t have to do it.

She whispers her thanks to Pepa, who squeezes her hand, and gives Félix a shaky smile, who waves at her from where he’s helping Camilo pick out his food. She hopes, privately, with an echo of amusement, that Félix helped with at least some of the food preparation. Her sister’s cooking is famously…not great. But it’s the thought that counts.

The kids are all seated at the table, subdued. They look up when she and Agustín walk over, mumbling their good mornings.

“Mom,” whispers Luisa, “Is Mirabel okay?”

Julieta forces herself to smile, to not cry, and kisses her gentle, compassionate girl on the head.

“She will be, corazon,” she says, because she doesn’t want to lie.

Luisa nods glumly, looking back down at her food.

At the head of the table, Alma is sitting silently with her café, staring lifelessly ahead.

Julieta hates to see her look so worn down. And she hates that her mother can’t pretend that this isn’t the end of the world, for her granddaughter’s sake.

“Mamá,” she says quietly, and Alma startles a little, looking up like she’d forgotten where she was. “Mirabel is still asleep. I wanted her to get her rest. She – she was awake until very late, last night.”

“Entiendo,” her mother says stiffly, and Julieta nods her thanks before taking her seat.

Bruno’s seat, she notices, is empty, and she feels a sting of guilty relief. She doesn’t know if he’d have had a vision last night, after the ceremony, but she knows she couldn’t deal with hearing about it right now. She knows that her brother has never been able to hide a thing from her in his life, and that one look at his face would’ve told her whether her daughter’s future is in ruins or not.

Right now, if that were true, she’d rather remain in blissful ignorance. Just for today.

Just behind her, Agustín is hovering.

“Um…” he starts, into the oppressive silence. “I might – I want to go and speak to Bruno.”

He’s speaking, ostensibly, only to Julieta, but he’s the only person making a sound, even as he lowers his voice awkwardly as if to keep up the pretence of privacy.

“I want to just – I should apologise. I said – that is, we had some – some words last night. I should really go and talk to him.”

“Vale,” Julieta says, giving him a tired smile. She’d heard some of what was said, she thinks, but she can’t bring herself to worry about it. Her husband and her brother can sort out their own mess.

“Espera, Agustín,” Alma says suddenly, and he turns to her. She hesitates, and then sighs. “It’s – it’s nothing. Never mind.”

Agustín nods, a little awkwardly, and leaves the room.

For a few minutes, the family eats in silence.

Then, Dolores’s head snaps up, her eyes wide, staring in the direction of the bedrooms.

“Dolores?” says Pepa, alarmed. “¿Que te pasa?”

“Tío Agustín…” she whispers, and Julieta’s pulse spikes. “Tío Agustín is…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence before they hear running footsteps, and Agustín clatters back into the room, breathing hard.

Julieta jumps to her feet, her heart in her throat.

“Agustín? ¿Que pasa? Is it Mirabel, is she okay?”

“Sí,” he says quickly, “Sí, sí, sí, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I just – could you come with me, please? Just – just come for a moment?”

Julieta stares.

“…What?”

“Julieta -”

“Agustín, what’s going on?”

“Julieta, please,” Agustín says emphatically, and she can see in his eyes he’s deadly serious in a way he very rarely is. “Ven. Por favor.”

Julieta stares at him for a few seconds more, then nods once. “Okay. Okay, I’m coming.”

“Mom?” Isabella says uncertainly, and Julieta tries to give her a reassuring smile.

“Está bien, niñas. Eat your breakfast.”

She hurries out after her husband, avoiding the gazes of the other adults. Any other morning, she thinks, a mysterious summons like that would’ve had the whole family out of their seats, asking questions, clambering over to each other to find out what was going on.

This morning, everyone is still and silent.

“Agustín, what -” she starts when they’re in the courtyard, but he shakes his head frantically, widening his eyes and tapping his ear in a gesture that’s become universally acknowledged amongst the adults to mean ‘don’t forget about Dolores’.

“Just – come,” he says, and she sighs and follows him up the stairs.

They walk along the balcony, passing the rooms – not stopping at their room, or the nursery, which makes her relax fractionally – they continue further along to –

Of course. In her worry, she’d forgotten what he’d gone upstairs to do originally.

“Agustín, if he doesn’t want to talk -” she sighs, but he shushes her as they turn the corner into the little corridor that leads to Bruno’s room. She has her mouth open, ready to ask more questions, ask why he’s dragging her all the way up here to see Bruno – when she finally looks along the corridor, to Bruno’s door.

And she feels the blood drain out of her face.

“Wha…” she breathes, but can’t formulate a question.

“What does that mean?” Agustín demands beside her. “Julieta, no entiendo, what does it mean?”

“I don’t – I – I don’t know -” she stammers, because she doesn’t. They know so little, understand so little about their miracle, this thing that they’ve based their entire lives around, the lives of the entire Encanto – and when something new happens – an outsider marries in, one child out of five doesn’t get a gift - a door goes dark -

They’re clueless.

She knows what it could mean. The what-ifs and worst-case scenarios that are clamouring for attention in her head. She starts to run forward, suddenly sure that he’s hurt, that he’s lying dead in that room – but Agustín catches her arm.

“He’s not there,” he says urgently. “I looked, mi amor, I searched for him already. He’s not in there.”

Julieta stands frozen for a second, staring at the door.

Beside her, Agustín swallows with difficulty, his face ashen. “Juli – last night I – said some – some terrible things – I didn’t mean them, I didn’t, but I said them and now – now this -”

He breaks off, Julieta already shaking her head furiously. She can’t – she can’t get into what her husband shouldn’t have said to Bruno, not now, because then she’d have to get into what she shouldn’t have said to Bruno, and what she should’ve said, and –

It doesn’t matter right now why, she tells herself. What matters is that they fix it.

She turns on her heel.

“Mamá,” she says, “We have to – we have to get Mamá -”

“Julieta – Julieta, are you sure that’s a good idea -”

She’s already striding back down the corridor, Agustín hurrying behind. She’s certain. Her mamá will know what to do. If anyone understands the miracle, it’s her – she’ll know what’s happened, or she’ll know how to find out – she’ll rally the townsfolk and they’ll search for him, they’ll tear the entire Encanto apart to find him –

She bursts into the kitchen, Agustín at her heels.

“Mamí!” she cries, “Mamí, rapidamente, something’s…something…”

She trails off as she takes in the look on her mother’s face.

It’s not afraid, or confused, or even concerned, or any of the expressions she can see on the rest of the family, all staring at her, waiting for an explanation.

When she’d run in, Alma had looked at her, and her face had been… weary. Resigned.

“Por lo que es cierto,” Alma murmurs, quiet enough that Julieta isn’t sure she really heard it. Then her mother takes a breath, and nods decisively at an empty chair. “Sit, mija. Eat.”

Casita, perhaps sensing the tension, pulls out a chair less enthusiastically than normal, edging it towards Julieta.

Julieta doesn’t move a muscle, dread seeping into her skin. It must be that – that her mother has jumped to a conclusion, but the wrong one, and she’s tackling a different problem than the one they truly have, and now Julieta has to tell her.

“Mamí,” she tries again, swallowing hard, “Mamí, I think that something had happened to Bru-”

Alma’s head snaps up, her eyes blazing.

“No,” she barks. “I will not hear that name in my house. Not ever again, ¿me oyes?”

There’s a short, stunned silence.

“Mamí…” she breathes, uncomprehending. It makes so little sense that Julieta wonders, briefly, if she’s gone insane. Or they’re all playing some elaborate, cruel joke on her.

Or she’s missed something – something big.

“Mamí,” she says, desperate, pleading, “Por favor, you don’t understand – his door - he’s gone -”

“Sí,” Alma snaps, “He’s gone. Y ya está.”

She looks away, breaking their eye contact, and goes back to her breakfast. Julieta stands frozen to the spot, feeling as if all her breath has been punched out of her.

Slowly, she turns, and is darkly relieved to see her horror echoed on Agustín’s face.

The children, too, are staring, silent and terrified, and while that looks wrong, she doesn’t want them to be afraid, she feels less alone.

The dread seeps back in when she looks at her sister.

Beside her, Félix is clutching her hand, face grim, not meeting anyone’s gaze.

But Pepa.

Pepa is staring down at her plate, her expression cold and blank. The only signs of distress are in the black cloud hovering over her head, sparking dangerously, and the way her other hand is clumsily stroking her braid.

“Pepa,” Julieta says, as calmly as she can manage, deciding to ignore her mother for now, “Pepa, something – something is really wrong, we can’t just – we need to -”

“No puedo. Clear skies, clear skies,” Pepa whispers, not taking her eyes off her plate, and Julieta stumbles.

“We – what? Pepa, are you hearing yourself? Something has happened to him, what’s wrong with you -”

“Julieta, please,” Pepa snarls suddenly with a crack of thunder, her eyes snapping up to meet Julieta’s. “Do you want me to destroy the whole Encanto? I can’t, okay? I can’t right now, I – I can’t.”

Her hand speeds up, fidgeting convulsively with her braid, and Julieta can only stare.

“So he left us. He left us, y ya es -” Pepa's voice wobbles dangerously, and she lifts her chin, defiant. “Y ya está.”

She looks down again, and Julieta continues to stare, waiting for her to look up, to change her mind, to say something that makes sense –

She feels a hand in hers and looks around wildly. Agustín, her last ally, is standing beside her, his eyes griefstricken.

“Julieta,” he whispers, then stops. He glances upwards, significantly, in the direction of their rooms, then gives a tiny shake of his head.

And Julieta suddenly understands.

Everything feels so delicate right now, so precarious, with Casita and the miracle and the gifts – because of – because of the failed gift ceremony.

Because of their daughter.

Is that why he’s gone?

Agustín is afraid for Mirabel, she can see it in his eyes. And though she doesn’t want to admit it, even to herself, Julieta is too.

She can see what Agustín is trying to tell her.

Don’t upset everyone. Don’t make this worse. Think of Mirabel.

Years from now, in the dead of night, she’ll reason with herself that had it happened any other day, she’d have fought harder. She’ll hope they all would have. But that awful, fragile morning, after one of the worst nights of her life –

She just suddenly feels so tired.

She finds herself sitting, and eating, acquiescing to the silence that morning and every morning after.

After a few minutes, Dolores whispers, “Mamí?”, and Pepa shushes her.

She tries again.

“Mamí – Mamí, listen -”

“Not now, Dolores, please,” Pepa says sharply, and Dolores falls silent. There’s a pause, and then Pepa says, “Lo siento, mi amor,” in a shaky, quiet voice, and squeezes her hand, and Dolores smiles sadly, and says nothing more.

The family eat.

No one says a word when outside, in the middle of the summer, snow begins to fall.

The empty chair in front of Julieta feels like an accusation.

Chapter Text

Bruno is outside the door.

It’s the first night they will all eat together, as a family, in 10 years. At least, the first night where they’ll know he’s there.

The worst has happened, but somehow it turned out to not be the worst after all.

Casita has fallen, and yet they’re all still standing. Still a family, fractured and hurt as they all are.

And Bruno is outside the door, listening to the sounds of his family, loud and vibrant and alive as they’ve ever been, getting ready for dinner. It's muffled by the wall between them, the familiarity of which Bruno finds both comforting and a little disorienting.

The townsfolk have offered to open their homes to the Madrigals – even Bruno, he thinks, although he hasn’t plucked up the courage to clarify yet. The rest of his family have gratefully accepted, but for tomorrow. Tonight, they have decided to sleep all together in the church. It’s not a realistic long-term solution, and tomorrow they will be divided between the houses of their neighbours, but tonight, there’s not a single member of the family that wants to be separated from each other.

So supplies have been gathered – blankets and cushions and the closest thing to a proper bed they can find for Abuela – and arranged in the centre of the church, the chairs pushed to the side, and a mountain of food delivered to the small kitchen. Julieta had commandeered it, of course, gleefully assisted by several of her family members. Bruno had quietly helped to carry supplies and generally tried to stay out of everyone’s way.

And then dinner had been called, and Bruno had shied away from the stampede to the kitchen, finding it easy to slip out of sight and wait in the shadows until everyone was gone. He’d follow behind, he told himself, when it was quieter.

And now he’s outside the door, and he can’t make himself go in.

He stares at the doorknob, his heart pounding.

“This is stupid,” he tells himself.

Another few seconds pass by.

He shuffles foot to foot, shakes his hands a little, and reaches for the doorknob.

Then he drops his hand again.

“Dios, just go in!” he mutters, frustrated, and doesn’t move a muscle.

The second he goes in, he knows, the second he sits down to eat a meal with his family for the first time in 10 years, it’ll be official. He’ll be Back.

It’s all he wants.

It’s all he’s wanted for 10 years – apart from, of course, the desire to keep them all safe.

“What if it’s the same as before?” he whispers, giving voice to the thought that has been swimming in his head since Mirabel promised to bring him home. “What if - what if it’s worse?”

He thinks for a moment, and then counters himself:

“Bueno, what if it’s better?”

The shining hope he feels at that thought is almost enough to make him open the door.

Almost.

The truth is, he doesn’t have a lot of options here. There’s nowhere else, really, he can go. No Casita to hide in. If he leaves, this time, he’ll have to leave. Leave the Encanto.

There are two things he knows for sure:

Number one: there’s nothing he wants to do less than leave the Encanto.

Number two: he doesn’t think he can go through that door.

“Can’t go forward, can’t go back,” he mutters with a nervous chuckle, and feels more trapped than he ever did in the walls.

There’s a peal of laughter from inside the kitchen, making him jump, and he hears his mother’s voice rising above the chaos, calling for calm so they can all sit, but there’s a note of amusement in her voice, too, that he hasn’t heard for a long time.

He takes an anxious step back.

“I can’t go in there,” he says, and feels his rats shift uneasily in his ruana. He wonders whether that means they agree or disagree, but it’s hard to tell without looking at them.

“I don’t – I don’t think they need me,” he says, unsure whether he’s trying to convince himself or the rats. “Things will be different now – and um – that’s good! It’ll be better, I hope, and that’s good, and they, they don’t need me to drag up, uh, old wounds.”

He nods, trying to feel again the certainty he felt the night he left. He had doubts then, too, of course, but not this aching wound of indecision that gnaws at his chest any time he tries to move.

He feels whiskers tickle his ear, and knows without looking that it’s Nico, who loves to sit on his shoulder the most out of all of them.

“Ay, Nicky, what do I do?” he whispers, anguished, but if Nico has an opinion, he doesn’t share it.

Inside the kitchen, the noise level has lowered somewhat, and there’s a scraping of chairs and clattering of cutlery against plates that means that the family has sat down and food is being distributed. He winces automatically on Dolores’s behalf before he remembers – no gifts. And isn’t that something?

Bruno has to leave. He has to. It doesn’t matter where, he’ll figure that out, but suddenly staying seems like the worst idea of all.

His hand snaps out to knock on a nearby chair at that thought, 1 2 3 4-5-6, and he takes another tiny step back.

“Go, go, go, go,” he chants at himself, and he nearly does.

A loud, clear voice floats through the wall and cuts into his bubble. A voice well used to making itself heard over the clamour of ten other voices and all the noise that comes with a large family.

“Hey – hey!” Mirabel half-yells, and the other voices quieten down. “Where’s Bruno?”

Silence falls, and Bruno freezes, his heart thumping so hard he worries he’ll dislodge the rats.

“Where’s Bruno?” Mirabel says again, urgently, and chaos erupts.

“He was just outside – I just saw him, I swear -”

“Bruno? Bruno -!”

“No, no – not again, he can’t be gone again -”

“Mi vida, don’t think like that, vale? We’ll find him, no te preocupes -”

“Dolores, can you – ay, no, Dios, I forgot -”

“It’s okay, Mamá, it’ll be okay – I’m sure he’s just -”

“I’ll go find him! I’ll go right now, I’ll take a lantern – maybe he’s back at Casita -”

“I’ll come with you -”

“Rapido, rapido -”

“Agustín, grab that light – vamo, vamo, we’ll split up -”

Bruno listens to the cacophony of voices cutting over each other with panic and urgency, chairs clattering once more as they all get up at the same time, and feels nothing but sheer disbelief.

Disbelief, and a faint, terrified hope that grows inside him by the second.

They noticed he was gone. After ten years being used to his absence, they noticed, and what’s more, he can hear them, and it’s not ‘don’t talk about him’, it’s not ‘those terrible visions’, it’s not even ‘maybe it’s for the best’ – it’s –

Bruno is so wrapped up in his thoughts that he doesn’t put two and two together about his family searching for him and his current location until the door is yanked open, and they’re suddenly all face to shocked face.

There is a short silence.

“Oh, hey, he’s there,” Camilo says, helpfully.

Julieta recovers first.

“Ay, gracias a Dios -” she breathes, and lunges forward to envelop him in a hug.

“Sorry,” he mumbles into her shoulder, and abruptly does feel extremely sorry, because behind her he can see his whole family standing there with lamps raised as if they were going to battle, and it’s all because of him.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Julieta is saying, “We just – I suppose we overreacted, we thought -”

Agustín and Félix are sagging in relief against the doorframe, and Abuela sits down in her chair again heavily, helped by Luisa. Pepa shoulders her way through the bottleneck of people lodged in the small doorway, Antonio balanced on her hip, and fixes Bruno with a truly impressive scowl, before immediately and aggressively grabbing him into a hug.

“Idiota,” she curses into his hair, her ire slightly undercut by her trembling voice and the way she’s gently rubbing the back of his neck. “We thought you had disappeared again, you scared the life out of us -”

“Sorry,” he says again, “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to – I just, I didn’t, I didn’t -”

He’s stumbling, overwhelmed, and surprisingly it’s Pepa who draws back and pulls Julieta with her, looking at Bruno more carefully now.

“Okay,” she says, “It’s okay, no te preocupes. Juli, give him some space, come on -”

“No harm done, hermano,” Félix smiles at him over his wife’s shoulder, which is kind because it looks a little like he’s trying to recover from a minor heart attack.

Bruno can see Mirabel, now, as well, and she’s beaming, her eyes shining behind her glasses. She meets his gaze for a moment and raises her eyebrow, in a kind of ‘see?’ gesture.

He thinks he sees.

“I’m sorry.” He feels stuck on those words, unsure how to move past them when he’s been forgiven but he still feels bad. Dios, was social interaction always this hard?

“Hey,” Julieta chides gently, “None of that, now. You don’t even need to come eat with us, if you don’t want to – we just want to know where you are -”

“No!” Bruno says suddenly, and all at once he feels that certainty, that feeling he’s been searching for all night, except it’s more than when he left. For a moment, he just knows. “No, I want to. I – I want to.”

His sisters beam. “Muy bien – we set a place for you, vamos – move, chicos, let your tío sit down -”

His sobrinos jump into action again, and there’s yet another clamour as they all race back to their seats. Bruno steps forward a little anxiously, holding his breath and crossing his fingers as he goes through the doorway. He keeps glancing above Pepa’s head, looking for some kind of cue to see what she’s really feeling, but of course there’s nothing. It’s about the millionth time today he’s done it, and he’s beginning to wonder how he never noticed how heavily he relied on it. How heavily they all relied on it.

“Yeah, I keep doing that too,” a voice mutters from beside him, and Bruno glances to the side to see Camilo giving him a sympathetic look. “Now you can’t tell when she’s really mad till it’s too late. It’s already caught me out once.”

Pepa, who Bruno was sure until now wasn’t listening, glances over her shoulder with an unimpressed look.

“God forbid, now you might have to listen to what I’m saying, mijo.”

Camilo scowls. “It sounded like she was joking,” he says under his breath, not quite brave enough to answer back.

Bruno finds himself laughing at that, more easily than he has in years, and then suddenly Julieta has appeared in front of him and is guiding him round the table.

He swallows down his laughter, unsure if he can handle seeing a plate with his name on – but then he remembers that of course, all their plates are still in the rubble of Casita. That’s probably for the best, he thinks. He doesn’t need to cause more chaos by suddenly bursting into tears at the table.

He takes another, slightly bolder, step forward, and another, until he sees his place opposite Mirabel and Camilo.

They set a place for me, he thinks again, only just catching himself from saying it out loud. Another thing he’ll have to get used to, because he’s staying.

He sits down.

Mirabel gives him a huge smile and a wink. Camilo is already focused on piling as much food as he can onto his plate.

Bruno knocks on the table and on his head, going through the ritual twice – 1 2 3 4-5-6, 1 2 3 4-5-6 – and tries to smile back.

The nice thing about a big family, he thinks, as he slightly nervously helps himself from the food being passed round, is that dwelling on unpleasant events is difficult. Momentary crisis resolved, the group attention has now moved on to bickering over elbow room and attempts from the adults to enforce manners. The kitchen is way too small to contain them all, and several people are pressed up against each other with barely enough table room to put their plate down, but the suggestion to eat separately is never made.

Bruno allows himself a small, private smile. It’s strange to be back in the centre of it, but strange in a good way. There was a lot more time to reflect on his thoughts in the walls, sure, but he’d never been good at toeing the line between reflection and wallowing. Having someone (many someones) to pull him out of head from time to time was going to be – nice.

He feels Nico wriggle out of the neck of his ruana and pick his way down Bruno’s arm, Coco climbing out a pocket to join him on the table, and he begins ripping up his tortilla to distribute it out in small pieces. He sees his mother give them a wary glance from the other end of the table, but she says nothing, probably due to the surprisingly watertight speech Antonio gave as they’d eaten lunch about rat hygiene. He figures her tolerance won’t last forever, though, and he resolves to give them a little food now and get them back out of sight.

“How did you know, Camilo?” Mirabel’s voice suddenly cuts into his thoughts, and he glances up to find that she’s looking at the rats, her gaze thoughtful.

“Wha’?” asks Camilo through a mouthful of food.

Mirabel nods in Bruno’s direction. “The rats. How did you know about them?”

There’s a pause, and Bruno is slightly relieved to see Camilo looks as confused as he feels.

“Wharayoumea’?”

“Mijo, por favor, swallow your food -” Félix implores from somewhere down the table, and Camilo chomps impatiently through his mouthful.

“What do you mean?” he says again.

“When you always told us those stories about Tío Bruno – you always mentioned rats, but how did you know he had them?”

“Mirabel!” Camilo hisses, his face reddening and his gaze flicking frantically between her and Bruno. Around them, conversation has suddenly died down, the others looking slightly alarmed.

Mirabel looks at Camilo for a second, frowning, before she suddenly seems to remember Bruno can hear them. Her hands fly to her mouth, eyes wide, and Bruno can’t suppress his grin.

“It’s okay,” he tries to reassure them, “It’s okay, honestly – I was still there, remember? It was a good song -”

“You heard that?” Camilo wails, mortified, making his cousins shriek with laughter.

“I liked it!” Bruno insists, raising his voice, “It was – it was catchy!”

“Ay, Milo,” chokes Isabella, “That’s what you get for using your gift to scare all the local kids!”

“Honestly, I don’t mind people thinking I’m seven foot tall – it’s kind of a let-down now, I guess, but they believed it for a while -”

“Brunito,” Julieta says fondly, “No one thinks you’re seven foot tall.”

“Tío Bruno,” Camilo’s saying, his face genuinely anxious, “I am – I am so sorry – I didn’t mean to – it was just a story -”

“Kid,” Bruno cuts in firmly, “Está bien, I promise. You didn’t know.”

At least you talked about me, he thinks, but he doesn’t want the adults to feel bad. He can understand why they acted the way they did. As much as it hurt.

He glances down the table and sees shades of that thought on his sisters’ faces, and scrambles for a subject change.

“Anyway, Mirabel’s got a point. How did you know about the rats?”

Camilo swallows, still looking a little uncomfortable, and shrugs.

“I don’t know, I guess, I, uh – it was just a cree- uh, I was just saying whatever I thought would make the kids freak out,” he corrects hastily.

Bruno hums thoughtfully.

“So you weren’t just a rat guy even before you left?” Mirabel teases, and Bruno huffs a laugh.

“Uh, no, not really. There were always rats in my tower, you know, I think they liked the sand, but I wondered -”

He hesitates, glancing at Camilo.

“You don’t, uh – you don’t remember?”

Camilo blinks.

“Remember what?”

Bruno looks around them, and sees the whole table is watching now. He swallows, a little self-conscious.

“I always figured you – that is, when I heard that – when I heard you mention them, I thought you might – maybe a little -”

He stops himself, taking a breath. He’s going to have to get used to his audience needing him to get to the point again. The rats were a little more forgiving in that sense, although they did tend to wander off if he rambled too long.

He gathers his thoughts and looks back up at his family.

“When you were a kid – before I left, you were maybe four – you were terrified of them. The rats.”

“I was?” Camilo says disbelievingly.

“He was?” Antonio squeals, delighted.

Bruno chuckles. “Yeah, I think one ran over your foot or something. In the kitchen, definitely, because you wouldn’t go in there alone for weeks, someone always had to go with you -”

“Dios, I remember,” groans Pepa.

“And Mirabel thought it was so funny,” Bruno continues, warming to his story. “She always teased you about it, and she always wanted to try and catch one so she could put it in your room, and she would do these little squeaking noises -”

Mirabel snorts and Camilo elbows her, embarrassed.

“Cabrón,” he hisses, too quietly for the other adults to hear, and Mirabel rolls her eyes, retorting, “Dude, I was four.”

“Anyway,” Bruno says pointedly, “You hated it, obviously, but you were still so scared of them, and you – I guess you, uh, came and asked me. To help.”

Camilo stares. “Huh. I did?”

“Yeah. You knew they were always in my tower, I guess, and I kinda liked them, so.”

“Bruno,” Félix stage-whispers loudly, “It’s because he thought you were really cool.”

“Dad!” Camilo whines again, making the others snigger, and Bruno looks down to fiddle with his plate, equally embarrassed.

“Anyway,” he says a little hastily, “so, yeah, we – I got one from my tower and took it to meet you, and we kind of did a – one rat at a time. Kind of thing. So you could meet them, and, and know they were – friendly. Yeah.”

There’s a short silence, Camilo still gaping, and Bruno instinctively glances up towards his sisters to see if he’s said something wrong.

Pepa’s staring at him, her eyes bright. “I’d forgotten that,” she says softly.

Bruno gives her a quick, unsure smile, feeling a little scrutinised, and then turns back to Camilo.

“So yeah,” he says, “I thought maybe – when I heard you talk about me having rats, I always thought maybe that’s where it came from.”

“It probably did,” puts in Agustín, who's smiling broadly. “Subconsciously.”

“When you got more comfortable with them, you used to – we used to make them run along my back. And we’d – we’d make up stories for them, really complicated plots about their inner lives and like, their relationships, and we would watch them and – and do all the voices.”

It was where Bruno had got his idea of rat entertainment from, back in those early days of the walls, as he’d started to realise they were likely to be his only companions for what could very well be the rest of his life.

He elects not to say this aloud.

A slow, half-smile is starting to form on Camilo’s face. “I think – it sounds familiar,” he says.

“I remember it,” Dolores says. “You two were always doing the voices thing, and you always made us watch you perform these stories you’d written, even before you got your gift.”

“So that’s where he got it from,” says Luisa, and Camilo is grinning at Bruno now, conspiratorial.

“Ay, Tío, they’re so jealous of our talents,” he smirks.

Bruno’s smiling back, opening his mouth to answer, when there’s a sudden, unladylike snort from the other end of the table.

Everyone’s heads whip round to find the source of the noise, and to Bruno’s surprise it’s Julieta that has her hands clamped over her mouth, her eyes bulging.

“Oh my god,” she splutters, “Oh my god – I just remembered – I just remembered something -”

She flaps a hand at Pepa. “Pepi – Pepi, do you remember – el viejo, el viejo -”

She gestures now at the lower half of her face. “El viejo, you remember – when he came -”

Pepa frowns – and then her eyes widen dramatically. “Oh my god!” she shrieks, “El viejo! With the -?”

She does the strange face gesture as well, and Julieta all but yells, “Sí, sí!”, and they both dissolve into laughter.

Cold realisation washes over Bruno.

“No….” he groans, and his sisters jeer delightedly. “No… not that guy….”

“Yes – you remember!” cries Julieta, and Bruno moans, slumping down into his seat to hide his face against his plate, even as he starts to snort with irrepressible laughter, which sets his sisters off even more.

The rest of the family stares, completely bewildered.

“So…. anyone else know what the hell they’re talking about?” Camilo asks.

Félix and Agustín exchange a grave look.

“They used to do this all. The time,” Agustín tells the children solemnly.

“I’ll tell – I’ll tell it -” Pepa yells, and Bruno moans again into his food.

“Please don’t,” he begs, “We don’t need to hear this story.”

His sisters, predictably, ignore him.

“So we’re – shhh, Juli – so when we were kids, maybe 7 or 8? This guy, this viejo comes to visit the Encanto – and you know, we don’t often get visitors, especially back then, and he’s all – old, and wise, with this long beard -”

“Ay, Dios mio,” Abuela says heavily in sudden realisation, and Julieta and Pepa cackle. “You were 7. Ay, Bruno…”

“Make them stop, Mamí,” Bruno pleads, but when he glances up, she’s smiling too, and he resigns himself to his fate.

“So!” Pepa continues insistently, “This viejito comes to visit, and he’s travelled everywhere, and he says he’s met other people with gifts like ours, and Mamá invites him to la casa to eat, and to meet us, and to see Casita and everything, and so he comes -”

Here she briefly loses her composure again, but wrestles herself back under control when it looks like Julieta is going to take over.

“He comes to the house!” Pepa continues loudly over Bruno's grumbling, and by now his sobrinos are so nonplussed by the way their parents are acting that they’re giggling before she’s even finished. “He arrives and – and Mamá has us all lined up in the courtyard to meet him – and he goes along us one by one, and asks about our gifts, and tries an arepa, and watches my weather, blah blah blah -”

“Pepa…”

“And then – and then he gets to Bruno, and he says, como, ‘And what is your gift, mi niño?’ And Bruno says – and Bruno stands up tall, and looks him in the eye, and he goes -”

Pepa draws herself up and stares dramatically into the distance, her face deathly serious.

“‘Señor, my gift is acting.’”

The table erupts into laughter, and Bruno hides his face in his hands.

“He didn’t -” Mirabel gasps out.

“I was going through a phase!” he tries to say over the noise, “I decided I was done with the visions, I wanted to be an actor -”

“Mamí was so embarrassed –” Julieta yells, “And el viejo – he was so confused -”

“Y como – he was trying to be polite, so he’s going, ‘Ah, muy – muy interesante…’- ” Pepa gasps, before breaking into laughter again.

Abuela is staring at the sky as if praying for strength, but her smile is so wide that she’s fooling no one.

“Do you know how long it took me to convince him you had a real gift after that?” she sighs, trying and failing to look cross.

Bruno looks at the joy around him – Félix, his face red with exertion, wiping a tear away, Luisa pounding the table in time with her laughter, even Dolores joining in freely, unimpeded by all the yelling – and feels suddenly as if he never left. Like he really had spent the last ten years with his family, not just watching through a wall.

It’s a feeling that fills him with hope.

“You must have been in so much trouble,” Camilo’s saying, awestruck, and Bruno shrugs.

“Ay, Mamá saw the funny side,” he says, “Didn’t you, Mamá?”

His mother fixes him with a dry look. “Sí,” she says flatly, which makes the kids dissolve into giggles again.

“Bueno. Eventually,” mutters Bruno.

“I can’t believe we never heard this story!” says Mirabel, and the warm feeling in Bruno’s chest dampens slightly. He knows why, and by the look on Mirabel’s face as soon as the words are out of his mouth, she’s realised it too.

“I mean -” she starts, embarrassed, but Bruno smiles at her.

“It’s because they know I’ve got stories about them, too,” he tells her conspiratorially, and flinches slightly at the sudden explosion of noise from the rest of the table – Julieta and Pepa protesting, loudly, and the other kids clamouring for an example.

“Maybe we should eat,” Julieta says hastily, “The food’s getting cold -”

Pepa nods vigorously.

Bruno leans forward, the kids hanging on his every word.

“Did Pepa ever tell you about when Julieta drank too much at the fiesta de verano -”

“No-!” Julieta shrieks, at the same that Pepa yells, “Oh sí, sí, tell that one!”

“Traidora,” Julieta hisses, and Pepa grins, unrepentant.

“We had to sneak her back into Casita -”

“- and hide her in her room before Mamá saw!”

“Mirabel, do you have enough food -?” Julieta is saying desperately, “Mamá? Can I get you anything?”

Mirabel ignores her mother completely, her eyes huge. “No way,” she breathes. “Mamí?”

“Sí,” Bruno grins, “And then me and Pepa had to stay up all night cooking all the food to cover for her, but we had to try and pass it off as hers -”

“Julieta!” Abuela scolds disbelievingly, and Julieta stares interestedly at the sancocho as if she hasn’t heard.

“Agustín,” she says in a forcedly casual tone, “You think I should add más comino to this, next time? I think there was something missing.”

Her siblings ignore her as Agustín loyally tastes the sancocho, frowning in exaggerated concentration.

“And we – Bruno, remember? We kept trying to -”

Bruno snorts, nodding. “We kept waking Julieta up and trying to get her to put a little salt or something in the dough – so her gift would still work -”

Agustín lets out a bark of laughter, and Julieta shoots him a betrayed look.

“Did it work?” asks Isabella, fascinated.

Pepa and Bruno exchange a look, smirking. “Actually, kind of?” Pepa says. “I don’t think it was very effective. Everyone just thought Julieta was having an off day – it helped with some small things, but it -”

“- but it tasted so bad!” Bruno cuts in, and they collapse into giggles again, Mirabel and her sisters delightfully scandalised by this revelation.

“Julieta!” Abuela admonishes again, “I cannot believe you! What if someone had really needed your food that day -”

“Mamí, I was eighteen,” Julieta groans, her face scarlet, and then turns on her siblings. “You swore you would never tell!”

“Did we?” Pepa asks innocently. “Dios, it was so long ago.”

Julieta scowls. “Bueno, what about when Bruno –”

“Ay, no, you already did me!”

“Vale,” Julieta grins suddenly, “Pepi’s turn.”

The kids cheer, and Pepa wails dramatically, even as she’s unable to keep the smile off her face, and Bruno feels that warm feeling in his chest again. There’s something there, something unfamiliar that he can’t put his finger on.

It isn’t until hours later, when he’s washing up with his sisters, except they’re only making more mess, flicking water at each other and sniggering helplessly, and Félix and Agustín are gamely trying to clean up around them, and his sobrinos come in to help for all of three seconds before Dolores is ushering the younger kids out again, giving them all a haughty look and telling them off for acting like children –

It isn’t till then that he can put words to this feeling.

It’s that for once, he doesn’t need to dwell on the past. For once, he isn’t afraid of the future.

For once, he’s happy right here, in the present.

Not everything is fixed - he knows that. There are a lot of conversations that need to be had. Feelings that need to be aired. Apologies he wants to make, and, if he's being honest, apologies he needs to hear. But for once, he's pretty sure that he's going to hear them.

He knows all this. But for the first time in a long, long while, he also knows - knows in his heart – that his family want him to stay.