Safe and Sound - Fedemila fanfic

Chapter 8 Just Hear Me Out

 Leon flinched as he heard the door loudly slam. He understood where Violetta was coming from but that didn't change the fact that he still thought what his friend did was heroic and didn't deserve to be chastised. At least, not yet, not with everything still being so fresh.

"Vilu, why did you do that?" Leon questioned, breaking the silence that had set in between the two of them.

"What? Say what was on my mind? Be the voice of reason? Or was I supposed to think this is some joke, like the two of you seem to?" Violetta sneered at her boyfriend. She turned her head back towards the door silently praying that her friend would walk back through.

"No one thinks this is a joke," Leon said, feeling insulted that his girlfriend would think he wouldn't take what could only be described as one of the worst days of his life seriously. Ever since the bombing started, all he had been doing was praying for everyone’s safety, waiting for updates, trying to call them every half hour. How dare she think that!

"Hmph! Could have fooled me!" Violetta didn't look in Leon's direction.

"Fede was just trying to make the best out of a bad situation, if he wanted to make a couple of jokes, then that's fine, I'll let him. There is absolutely no reason to make him feel worse on one of the worst days of all of our lives!" Leon all but screamed trying to make his girlfriend see his reasoning. Leon was seething. "You also had no right to make him feel like absolute crap for what he did for Ludmila and himself"

"What do you mean I had no right?!" Violetta snapped her head away from the door and quickly turned around to face Leon head on. "Leon, your best friend could have died today because of the choices he made, I mean facing an armed gunman…" Violetta leaned her head down and sighed, not even wanting to think about this anymore. "He acted stupidly. I don't care what his reasons were. If me being mad at his decisions and voicing it makes me a shitty friend, then so be it."

Leon sighed. He and Violetta stared at each other, the pain and anger on her face abundantly clear. He didn't want to fight with her. He took a single step towards her, trying to get closer to her but not too close to make it look confrontational. "No one is calling you a "shitty" friend," Leon made sure to put air quotes around the word to make sure she knew that was her choice of wording. "You're a great one. But I'm also not going to sit here and let you down play what he did."

"But…"

No, Violetta, you said your piece now please let me say mine." Violetta closed her mouth and folded her arms across her chest, signaling for Leon to continue. "Now, do I agree with some of the choices Federico made? No. But he stands by them and I stand by him. I understand that you feel the way you do because of what could have happened. But why dwell on what could have happened? There's no point in it. Stop thinking about what could have happened and start rejoicing in what did. Our friend is alive and generally unharmed and someone else is alive because of what he did. He's a hero. I'm just calling it like I see it and I think he should be praised for that. Vilu, you can come up with all the could have, should have, would haves you want but it won't change what happened." Leon finished completely exasperated, hoping his girlfriend at least heard him out if nothing else.

Violetta's face softened as she listened to him and realized that he was right. She should stop dwelling on the "what if's" and just enjoy the fact that her friend is still here. She wasn't sorry for what she said and was nowhere near pretending to be, but her reaction to what happened could have waited. And the longer she listened to Leon she realized that Federico was what many would considered a hero. Even if she did think his actions were dumb and thoughtless, she could at least give him credit for the outcome of them.