Encanto One-Shots

It's Been Too Long (Camilo)

Prompt: Mirabel was crushed and died when casita collapsed. It's been almost a year and Camilo shifts into Mirabel every now and again just to see her face but he's starting to forget what she looks like.

Also, just pretend that there was some other magical way they got their gifts back.

....

Camlio hated the saying time heals all wounds. As far as he was concerned, time only seemed to make it worse with the nightmares and flashbacks he had of the day casita fell.

The day the family lost the real gift.

He had been so close. He'd ducked away from and dodged falling debris and didn't even hesitate to jump over the railing, reaching for his cousin as she went for that stupid candle.

He had been so close.

Camilo didn't move from under his covers when the door to his room opened. He kept his back facing the door and didn't make a move to see who had come in. He didn't need to know who it was. She would have heard him crying quietly from the other side of town.

"Camilo," Dolores said his name as she sat beside him on his bed. She placed a hand on his arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Tell me what's wrong."

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to move his face further away from his sister's sight, but there wasn't anywhere for him to go. He tried not to cry again-- he hated crying, especially in front of the others-- but they poured out of his eyes before he could stop it. Pretty soon, his body was rocked with sobs he muffled with his pillow. 

Although Dolores had heard him breaking down before, the sight of her brother falling apart caught her off guard. She hadn't ever seen him like this before.

She hugged him in the best way she could with their positions and let him let it all out, holding back tears of her own. Of course, she knew who this was about, and she knew that (with the exception of their tia and tio) Camilo seemed to be taking it the hardest. 

"I can't do it," he whimpered out between shaky breaths, and repeated the phrase a couple more times. Dolores furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"Can't do what, Cami?" 

He sat up and faced his sister, and the sight absolutely shattered her. This wasn't the Camilo she'd grown up with, and it worried her.

"I sometimes stand in front of the mirror and shift into Mirabel, just so I can see her," he paused and took a shaky breath. Dolores swallowed the lump in her throat and placed a hand on Camilo's shoulder. "But I haven't been able to do it recently. I-I'm f-forgetting what she looks like, Dolores! I don't want to forget her!"

He leaned forward and cried out again in his sister's shoulder, who just wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, trying not to wince at the volume of her brother's cries as he held on to her tightly.

"I don't want to forget what she looks like," he kept reiterating as they sat there. 

"You're not gonna forget her, Camilo," she assured him. "And you don't need to shift in to her to remember her. She wouldn't want that pressure for you."

He shook his head against her should.

"Hermano, she wouldn't want you to let yourself be this torn over her. I know you miss her. We al do. It's okay to miss her, but you can't let this kill you."

He tensed up at that. Sometimes he didn't think about the fact that his sister could hear everything he said, in public or in private.

"You don't have to do this alone, Camilo," she continued. "I'm sure that tía Julieta and tío Augustín have pictures of Mirabel they would love to show you. They don't really talk about it but it's been killing them too, and it would be great for you guys-- for all of us, really-- to talk about her and look at her pictures."

After a little while, Dolores got Camilo to calm down and convinced him to do just that. So, he walked into the kitchen where tía Julieta was and walked up to her. She smiled at him, though the smile didn't quite reach her eyes like it used to. He returned the same smile, fidgeting where he stood. It didn't go unnoticed by Julieta.

"What's up, sobrino?"

His heart hammered against his chest and he was beginning to think that this wasn't such a good idea. His tía was already so sad and he didn't want to make it any worse by bringing up her dead hija. Still, Dolores' words rang in his head. 

"It's been killing them too."

"I was--uh," he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck with his clammy hand. "I've been, um... I've not been doing..."

He sighed and grew increasingly frustrated. Why couldn't he just spit it out?

"Camilo," Julieta put the ingredients for dinner she was working on down and walked around the counter next to him. "What's wrong?"

He sighted and swallowed the lump in his throat. He had to just spit it out.

"I'm forgetting what she looks like," he whispered, just loud enough for Julieta to hear him, as well as Augustín when he walked in. The couple looked at each other with saddened eyes, and Augustín walked over to the two. "I would shift into her sometimes so I could see her, but I haven't been able to do it recently and... Dolores said that I should talk to you guys about her because you guys are hurting too."

There was a tense silence between the three of them. It wasn't a bad tension, but no one really talked about Mirabel around the house. It hurt too much for her name to be brought up.

"I know she wasn't in the picture for Antonio's gift ceremony," Camilo continued on, feeling like he was stepping around broken glass as he spoke. "But I was wondering if... I was wondering if you guys had some pictures of her?"

Camilo finally looked up at the two in front of him, quickly wiping away a stray tear that fell down his cheek in frustration. For a moment, he couldn't tell if he had messed up or done what was needed by the looks on their faces. His nerves were eased, though, when Augustín gave him a sad smile and nodded.

"I'll go get the photos we have of her," he said softly as he turned and headed to their room. Julieta looked back at her nephew and hugged him, letting a few tears escape down her cheeks as she anticipated seeing her daughter.

"It's okay to miss her, Camilo," she told him. "It's okay to be sad. I have been sad every day sine I lost my baby. It's also okay to not be sad all the time. I don't want you to feel guilty when you feel happy and joy, even in her absence. Don't stay in this pit, okay?"

He nodded against her, and they stepped away from each other, walking over to the dinner table when Augustín returned with a box full of pictures.

The three of them went through those pictures one by one. Camilo let out a sad laugh when he came across a picture of him and Mirabel when they were just three years old. The two of them were covered in paint and Mirabel's tiny glasses were lopsided on her face, matching her grin.

"Your mom and I turned our backs for just a minute," Julieta chuckled at the memory, her husband smiling beside her. "And we were horrified when we turned back around and saw the mess you had made. But you two just smiled and giggled. Didn't have a care in the world."

Camilo smiled at the picture, staring at it fondly. They continued to sift through the other photos and came across one that was taken of the two of them the week before Antonio's gift ceremony. Mirabel was throwing a chancla at Camilo after he'd shifted into her and had been bugging her all morning. He chuckled sadly at the photo, and Julieta and Augustín shared a look before Augustín spoke up. He pushed the one of the two covered in paint towards his nephew and said, "Why don't you keep those?"

Camilo looked over with wide eyes. "A-are you sure? These are pictures of your daughter. I don't want to take them away from you."

His tío smiled at him a little less sadly. "They're also pictures of your prima. I'm sure."

Camilo nodded and picked up the two pictures, tucking them into his pocket. "Thank you."

....

Not gonna lie, I cried a little bit writing this.

Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it and continue to read and like my stories :)

~queendingaling