Unrelated 91 Days Oneshots

staring out the window- Vanno x Fio

Fio sits by herself on the train, staring out the window and wondering what will come of her and her child, now that Ronaldo is gone and she is being sent away. Though perhaps "sent away" is putting it too harshly; Nero thought it would be for the best if she spent some time away from the city to breathe, and no one would be suspicious of a mourning widow doing something like that. She will not be under anyone's gaze in the ensuing trouble now that her husband is dead, and she will never have the opportunity to do anything to make herself appear suspicious.

So she isn't really being sent away, not like they would have done with Fratte- though to even think his name right now brings her too much pain- but she is not going to be seeing much of her family, and she wonders. They know of her baby now, because she didn't have much choice about telling them, but what is she going to do when they put two and two together?

Ronaldo had not yet figured it out, but he had his mind on other things and was so ambitious and needed her to have that baby so much that he would never have stopped to question it. And now that he is out of the picture, he will never have the chance to, but Nero is smart and her father is smart, and if word gets around...people will start to wonder and start to do the math.

And once the baby is born, the time frame will become all the more apparent, and when the baby is born looking nothing like Ronaldo, it will confirm everyone's suspicions, and she won't be able to cover up what she did anymore. Staring out the window, she feels tears pricking at her eyes because she is afraid and she is alone, and Vanno will never even know about their child.

"I love you," he says, "and I always have." It's too late, but he says it anyway, and Fio nods, hoping that she does not start to cry. If she starts to cry, he's going to want to comfort her instead and then he won't go through with this, after she spent so much time preparing herself.

"I know," she replies. "But there's nothing I can do about this, I have to marry him...you know this is the only way."

"There has to be something else!" he argues. "I could talk to Nero, and maybe he could do something!"

She shakes her head, resting a hand on his arm. "This is something I have to do," she says, a bit more firmly. "In a month, I'm going to marry Ronaldo. It's too late to back out of it now, but...before then..." Leaning up, she brushes her lips against his, and Vanno takes over from there, gently cradling the back of her head as he kisses her.

When she breaks the kiss, she says, "Before then, I'd just like to know what it feels like...with someone who really loves me."

She never tells him that she loves him in return, but if Vanno notices, he pretends not to and he pretends not to care, and she really thinks that no harm can come of such a wonderful night. She thinks that it can remain a pleasant memory to carry her through her marriage.

It's better now, that Ronaldo is dead. If her baby ends up with Vanno's dark hair, dark eyes, it would have been incredibly obvious to him what happened. After the way Vanno behaved at the reception...even with him gone, Ronaldo still expressed jealousy, and once he began to wonder about the time frame of her pregnancy, and once he saw the baby that looked nothing like him, he would know. Even if he would have done all he could to keep it under wraps that she had been with another man, he would not have made her life at home very pleasant.

She had wanted to hide her pregnancy from him, but eventually, it was to the point that she was sick often enough that he wondered, and she knew that the news would keep him happy as long as he didn't really think about it, so she had told him, though she had not wanted to tell her family. Now, she sits alone and she rests a hand on her stomach and she wonders what will become of her child, who will never know the man they will be told is their father, nor the man who really is their father.

She hadn't even known she was pregnant yet, when the news of his death came, but in the days between that and the funeral, she began to suspect. Just hearing the news, that someone had killed Vanno, had left her so devastated, but she was not able to express it. Their honeymoon had been a peaceful affair, but whenever Ronaldo started to think about the way Vanno had talked to him at the reception, he had gotten riled up all over again. She's almost certain that he's happy that the other man is dead.

But then she begins to wonder and suspect, and she's almost certain that she's pregnant and she's absolutely certain that, if she is, there is no way that the baby can be anyone's but Vanno's. Vanno, who was murdered a few days before, Vanno, who will be buried while his best friend can't attend the funeral, and Vanno, the man she never said that she loved. Ronaldo tells her that he doesn't want her attending the funeral, his jealousy over a dead man still driving him.

Fio sits at home and he makes her excuses for her, telling her family that she doesn't feel well and needs to stay in. He hasn't yet started to wonder about her symptoms, and she hopes against hope that her own suspicions are wrong, but in time, it's unavoidable. And while she is struggling to hide this, and then to hide the truth behind it, her family falls apart around her.

What will become of her now? What will become of her child and what will happen when everyone realizes the truth? She hopes that, perhaps, no one will dare to question the mourning widow, that even if Nero figures it out very easily, that he will help keep her secret out of love for her, and love for his best friend. At the very least, she hopes that he will help keep her secret so that their family does not break apart anymore than it already has.

Her night of disloyalty was supposed to be a fond memory to carry her through her marriage, and her marriage was supposed to help her family and to hold it together. Now Vanno is dead, and she has murdered Ronaldo and Nero has murdered Fratte, and her only memory of that night will be the baby that she has to pretend is the product of the marriage.

Staring out the window, she sighs and blinks back the tears that she has tried so hard to hold back, and she wonders what will become of her and her child, and what will become of whatever is left of her family.