Chapter Text
The living room clock chimed, its sound echoing throughout the house, blending with the wind outside into a cacophony that only made the American's chest tighten.
It was already midnight.
That meant he had been sitting in the kitchen for four hours.
Four hours without being able to take a single bite of the risotto he had worked so hard to make.
Four hours with his heart waiting for the front door to open, desperate for any sign of life from the man who had brought him to this unfamiliar country.
But once again, all that surrounded him was silence.
Only now was he realizing just how accustomed he had become to the routine they had built over the past six months.
Every day was exactly the same. From Monday to Saturday, Gyro would wake up early in the morning, get dressed, kiss Johnny on the forehead, and leave for work at the village clinic while Johnny slept a little longer.
Normally, Gyro would return around sunset. A few times he had come home an hour later, but never any later than that. It had been this way for so long that Johnny had never stopped to think about what he would do if one day that routine broke.
And now he realized how foolish he had been not to think about it.
At first, he had stayed calm, telling himself there were probably more patients than usual today and that Gyro would come home a little after nightfall. During the second hour, he had kept himself busy cooking dinner, convinced that at any moment he would see the Italian walk through the front door.
But these last two hours had been torture.
Johnny's stomach had twisted itself into a knot that refused to loosen, and cold sweat had begun to cover his body.
His mind could think of nothing except everything that might have gone wrong.
Because there really were so many things that could have gone wrong, and that was exactly the thought that had haunted the American ever since the fight with Valentine.
He couldn't stop thinking that one day someone from the government would find them, that sooner or later they would track them down and seek revenge for what they had done to the President of the United States.
And it wasn't just that possibility. There was also Gyro's past as the former executioner for the King of Naples. The kingdom no longer existed, but that didn't mean its loyalists had disappeared, and if they learned that the Zeppeli family was still hiding in the shadows, they surely wouldn't hesitate to take action against the crown's traitors.
Or maybe it wasn't even anything like that. Maybe Gyro had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up buried beneath one of the landslides that happened every so often along the road leading home.
Johnny's mind could only imagine the worst.
How could it not after everything that had happened to him?
First Nicholas, then his father, then his legs. Everything good life ever gave Johnny was eventually taken away from him.
And that was the worst part—thinking that now it was Gyro's turn to be taken from him.
For the past hour, he had been thinking about what he should do, or whether he should do anything at all. He could take Slow Dancer and follow the road Gyro used to reach the village, hoping to find him, but venturing out alone into a place he still didn't fully know didn't seem like a good idea, especially when he knew the area was notorious for its wolf packs. Gyro could surely handle himself with the Steel Balls, but Johnny had limited ammunition, and his legs still didn't work quite right.
It was far too reckless.
The only thing he could do was stay home and wait for Gyro to return safely.
That was the part he hated most—not being able to do anything. Anything except let his thoughts eat away at his mind until they reached his very last nerve, infecting every corner of his brain.
He knew he needed to stay calm, but he couldn't stop the voices in his head from asking him the same questions over and over again:
What if he never heard his voice again?
What if he never felt his arms wrapped around him again?
What if the last time he saw him leave that morning was the last time he would ever see him alive?
Johnny's heart clenched painfully.
In his mind, he prayed—or at least, he tried to.
He begged God, begged the heavens, not to take this away from him, because he didn't know if he could survive it.
Not another loss, and above all else, not losing Gyro.
His hands trembled, and his gaze drifted toward the window.
Tonight was a new moon, and outside was swallowed by complete darkness... it couldn't be a good sign.
Johnny swallowed hard.
Ten minutes passed.
Those ten minutes were followed by another ten, and then another, until an entire hour had passed.
Just as Johnny was about to say to hell with it all and go look for Slow Dancer, he heard it.
The sound of the prairie grass rustling beneath hooves, followed by the familiar snort echoing through the night.
One he knew by heart.
His heart skipped a beat, and before he realized it, he was already making his way down the hallway as fast as his still-atrophied legs would allow.
"Easy." He heard through the wooden door in response to the horse's snort.
His soul returned to his body before he even saw him.
Before he could even hear the doorknob turn, he pulled the door open himself, immediately greeted by the cool night breeze and a pair of green eyes that he could have sworn glowed in the darkness.
All the anxiety drained from his body, and for the first time in over five hours, he felt like he could finally breathe again.
Gyro stood before him, looking exactly as he had that morning, without a single scratch or injury.
For a second, everything else ceased to matter. He just wanted to run into his arms, ask him what had happened, whether everything was all right, hold him close, and let all of his fear disappear against his chest.
But before he could do any of those things, he watched the Italian walk toward him.
Yet, against all expectation, instead of stopping beside him, Gyro simply stepped through the doorway and disappeared down the hall, leaving Johnny standing frozen at the entrance, unable to process why his lover had just completely ignored him.
What the hell?
It was the only thought Johnny's mind could produce. His confusion was overwhelming; he couldn't understand what had just happened.
For a moment, he wondered if he had imagined it, if maybe Gyro simply hadn't seen him. But that excuse was impossible to believe—not when Johnny had opened the door himself and the two of them had looked each other straight in the eyes.
There was only one explanation.
Gyro had simply chosen to ignore him.
Little by little, the confusion gave way to indignation and anger.
Johnny had spent all these hours sick with worry over him, and the bastard acted as though he didn't even exist.
He still couldn't bring himself to move, the insult settling into him like salt rubbed into an open wound as he listened to Gyro's footsteps inside the house. He was just about to go back in and demand an explanation when he saw the Italian come back outside and head toward his horse, once again without saying a single word to him.
This time, he was carrying a blanket in his arms, one he had probably taken from their bedroom.
Was he leaving again?
Johnny's mind raced as he watched him, unsure whether to yell at him, slam the door in his face, or punch him.
Part of him wanted to summon Tusk and aim it at him. Gyro was bringing out instincts Johnny had thought he'd left behind after his fight with Valentine.
Meanwhile, the Italian seemed completely focused on retrieving something from his saddlebag. Judging by the careful way his hands moved and how gently he wrapped it in the blanket, Johnny assumed it had to be something fragile, but the darkness made it impossible to tell what it was.
Johnny watched intently as Gyro made sure whatever it was was completely wrapped before finally turning around, still without the slightest intention of saying a word, and heading back toward the house just as he had moments before.
He would have made it inside if Johnny hadn't stepped directly into the doorway, blocking the entire entrance with his body.
For the first time that night, Gyro finally acknowledged his presence, glaring back at him in irritation.
Johnny didn't care. As far as he was concerned, it was only fair that they were both equally furious.
"Move." Gyro ordered, his brows knitted together, still holding whatever was wrapped in the blanket tightly against his chest.
"Like hell I will. Who the hell do you think you are? You show up in the middle of the night, don't explain a damn thing, and your priority is getting inside the house?" Johnny spat back, his voice thick with anger.
Gyro opened his mouth, and Johnny expected the beginning of an explanation.
But at that exact moment, a piercing sound shattered the silence of the night.
A cry.
Not far away, and not the cry of a man or a woman.
The cry of an infant.
Johnny froze where he stood, his eyes snapping toward the source of the sound.
The crying was coming from whatever Gyro was holding.
What Gyro had taken out of the saddlebag hadn't been an object.
It had been a baby.
The Italian's brows drew together once more, though this time in what looked more like concern than anger.
His attention was now entirely fixed on the tiny child in his arms.
Johnny, on the other hand, couldn't react. If he had been confused before, now his mind was a complete mess, and his chest wasn't doing much better. He had gone from constant stress to relief, from relief to anger, and now to... whatever this was.
"I can explain, but first I need you to let me inside." Gyro's eyes lifted to Johnny's face, and only then did Johnny remember he was still blocking the doorway.
At first, Johnny opened his mouth, expecting to say something, to ask what was going on, but nothing came out. Probably nothing would while he was in this state. After a few seconds, he finally stepped aside with a slow, nervous movement. Gyro didn't waste the opportunity and finally walked back into the house, heading toward the guest room—the room everyone in the village knew as Gyro's room.
Johnny's mind was still overflowing with questions, but he shoved them all aside, closing the door to keep the warmth in before making his way to the living room, only to collapse onto one of the sofas.
What the hell was going on?
The question kept repeating itself in his mind, but the more important one was, whose was that?
As always, his desperate need for an answer, for an explanation, led him to the worst possible conclusions.
Was it from a mistress?
Johnny had never even considered the possibility that Gyro might cheat on him, but now, as he listened to the baby's cries gradually die down, the idea no longer seemed entirely impossible.
Maybe it had been one of his patients, a girl from the village, a woman who could give Gyro what Johnny couldn't...
But his rational mind buried the thought almost as soon as it appeared. There was no way. They had only been in Italy for seven months. The timing simply didn't add up.
But then what other explanation was there?
He was so lost in his thoughts that he barely noticed the footsteps coming from the hallway. It wasn't until Gyro was standing in front of him that he came back to himself.
"She's asleep," Gyro said with a sigh. It was a tired sigh, as though he already knew this would be the hardest part.
A girl, Johnny thought. You brought home a girl.
"Let me explain," Gyro began immediately.
"Yeah, you'd better." Johnny replied, his voice cold and sharp. He couldn't have reacted any other way.
Not after everything he had gone through over the last five hours.
"It's not mine, if that's what you're thinking." Normally, a comment like that would've been nothing more than a joke, but now his words came out with absolute certainty, aimed at putting any doubts to rest.
Johnny shook his head. Gyro knew him far too well, but he wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.
"I wasn't thinking that." He lied, but he didn't care if it let him hold on to a shred of dignity.
The silence that followed those words was palpable. Neither of them spoke again. Neither of them moved, and that was the strangest part of the whole situation.
It wasn't like them. Normally, after getting home, Gyro would sit beside him, take his hand, and tell him about his day. But now he remained standing in the middle of the living room, as though he didn't know what to do with his own body, as though he didn't know how to approach the very man he'd been sleeping beside just the day before.
That couldn't be a good sign.
Johnny was about to demand an explanation again when a sigh echoed through the room. It wasn't one of exhaustion, but of defeat—one he had rarely heard from Gyro.
Then his voice came, much quieter than usual.
"Earlier today, around noon..." he began. "Some farmers brought me a woman. They said they found her unconscious near the road leading into town... They had no idea what had happened to her, and no one recognized her. Most likely she came from some distant village." He paused, as though recalling the events one by one. "She wasn't in good shape. She was dehydrated, and it looked like she'd been crawling for some time. At first I thought she must've been sick because her stomach was swollen, but..."
Oh no.
"She was pregnant." Johnny finished the sentence for him, and Gyro lowered his eyes, his brow tightening.
"I tried to wake her up, but nothing worked. Her vital signs kept getting weaker, and eventually she stopped breathing." His Adam's apple bobbed, and Johnny could tell it was becoming difficult for him to keep talking. "The only thing left to do was see if I could save the baby."
"Jesus.” Johnny muttered, letting his head fall into his hands.
What little Gyro had said was already enough. His mind could picture the scene perfectly—a lifeless woman's body being cut open for the sole purpose of saving the child in her womb.
The thought alone left him speechless.
But the horror didn't last long.
As much as he wanted to feel sympathy, it was all buried beneath the worry of what would come next.
There was now another living being in their home—a home they had only been living in for six months.
A home where everyone believed only two friends lived: a local and a foreigner.
"And you brought her here?" he asked, more harshly than he had intended.
The question immediately seemed to offend the Italian, who shot him such a sharp look that Johnny instantly regretted asking it.
"It's not like I had much of a choice, Johnny," he replied angrily. "What did you expect me to do, leave her in the middle of the village? There isn't an orphanage. At the clinic there's only me and a healer who already has children of her own to take care of."
Johnny wanted to argue back, but he couldn't say anything, not when he knew Gyro was telling the truth. And yet his heart wouldn't stop racing with fear.
That alone was enough to make him speak again.
"Do you realize what everyone's going to think about us?" he shot back. "We've been trying to keep a low profile so no one knows we're here, so no one gets suspicious of us, and you just decide to show up with her?"
Gyro looked at him again, his gaze still cold, but then he let out a sigh, his expression softening as the tension left his shoulders. It was as though something had suddenly clicked inside him.
"I understand, Johnny. Trust me." The Italian replied, his voice gentler now, as though he'd finally realized that getting angry in return wouldn't change anything. "I didn't bring her here because I want her to stay. I don't. But leaving her now would be sentencing her to death, and you know I can't do that."
Of course he knew.
Gyro had always had a soft spot for children, and that was the very reason he had ended up entering the race in the first place.
But that was exactly why Johnny was worried.
Gyro was all bark and no bite. He always talked about these things as though he could keep his emotions separate from the equation, but Johnny knew him well enough to know he couldn't help forming bonds too deep to sever.
That was why they had ended up here in the first place: because Gyro simply hadn't been able to leave him behind, because he had fallen in love with him against all odds.
And that was part of the reason Johnny had fallen in love with him too.
Johnny bit his lip and lowered his gaze.
"I suppose you're expecting me to help you with this."
The answer didn't come immediately. It arrived only after a few seconds, as though Gyro was afraid to confirm it.
"Only until we find someone who can take care of her."
Johnny wanted to answer, And how long is that supposed to be? A few days? A few weeks? A few months?
What if we never find anyone?
It would've been easy to say it, and yet, he swallowed every one of those words.
There was nothing he could do or say anymore that would change the situation.
The little girl was already here.
Now all he could do was figure out how to minimize the damage.
"And what are you going to tell the people in the village?" he asked, his voice weary, trying to sound as calm as possible, though it was nearly impossible.
The answer came without hesitation.
"That she was born sick, premature, and needs constant supervision. In this case: yours."
Johnny frowned and let out a sigh.
The people in the village still didn't know much about him. Other than the fact that he lived with Gyro, the only thing they really knew was that he was good with horses. Over time, he'd become the person they turned to whenever they needed their horses reshod or wanted advice about one of their injuries, all of it, of course, going through Gyro's translations.
That had been their excuse. Johnny always needed to stay close to Gyro because he didn't know the language or the area.
But having a baby under the same roof... that would surely give them away.
"They'll suspect something."
Gyro shook his head, completely certain of himself.
"They won't, Johnny. People here aren't like they are in America. No one sees ghosts in the walls. Hell, even if they did, I'm sure they'd all pretend not to see them if it meant I'd stay. They went from losing ten people a month to one."
Johnny couldn't deny that he was right.
While he hadn't interacted much with the villagers beyond helping them with their livestock, he knew there had been a clear before and after since Gyro had arrived. At last, the sick had someone who could truly help them, and the village's gratitude was reflected in every corner of their home, its walls filled with decorations and furniture that grateful patients had given Gyro as gifts.
There were no more objections left.
Only one question remained:
"What do I have to do?"
Johnny's voice came out quietly, carrying a mixture of anguish and helplessness.
He still didn't understand why life treated him this way, why every time he thought things were finally going well, it threw a problem like this at him.
Because Johnny was the worst possible person to take care of a child.
He had never had younger siblings. He had never looked after anyone but himself.
He couldn't even remember if he'd ever truly been allowed to be a child. With his father constantly breathing down his neck, he'd never really gotten to enjoy his childhood.
And now he was supposed to take care of a newborn?
Life really must have hated him.
The man standing before him remained silent for a few seconds. It was as though he didn't know what to say, almost as if he couldn't believe they'd gotten this far. But after a moment, he finally answered.
"For now, I need you to take care of her and feed her while I'm gone. There's a signora who's willing to provide breast milk for the baby. I'll bring it back every day when I get home from work. Whenever we don't have any, we'll have to make do with goat's milk." Another pause, as though he expected Johnny to complain again, but when none came, he continued. "I'm going to cut back on the number of patients I see so I can come home at midday and take care of her myself. I don't want you getting hurt trying to carry her—or worse. Your legs still aren't fully healed. And I'll spend Saturdays looking for someone in the village who's willing to take in another child."
Johnny listened carefully to everything he said, yet the part that stayed with him the most was that he would have to take care of her until noon.
The weight of that responsibility twisted his stomach so violently that he was certain that if he'd managed to eat any of the dinner he'd made, he would've already thrown up all over the floor.
The fear of doing something wrong, of being the reason something happened to the little girl, was overwhelming.
And yet he knew he had no choice, for the baby, it was either them or death. And although the fear in his chest was nowhere near fading, he knew there was nothing left to do but trust Gyro.
He had trusted him during the race.
He had trusted him when he'd suggested following him to Europe.
And he would trust him again now.
He let out one last sigh and stood up, his muscles finally relaxing after hours of being tense.
"Don't make me regret letting you do this," he told the Italian without looking at him. He didn't know if he could. "Come on, let's have dinner. I've been waiting for you since the damn sun went down. You're lucky I'm not making you sleep in the barn."
Johnny didn't need to look back to know Gyro's expression had softened, or to picture the small smile of relief forming on his lips.
Whatever happened, whatever came next, this was another day where he could fall asleep wrapped in Gyro's arms, another day where he had made it home safe and sound.
And that was something Johnny would always be grateful for, no matter the circumstances.