Romancing the Pain - Part 10
Title: Romancing the Pain
Rating: M
Pairing: Pepa/Silvia
Summary: Post episode 104 as well as my last fic, Come Back to Me. It’s basically its sequel; the events that occur after Silvia was released from the hospital.
A/N: Ok so I blindsided you guys with the last chapter. Lo siento! There is a plan, I promise. Just uh…grit your teeth for now. Vale? Here’s the next part. Hope you enjoy it. Comments, criticisms and tin cans are all welcome.
ROMANCING THE PAIN - Part 10
Silvia sat rooted to the bed, unable to move, unable to breathe. For what seemed like the longest time, she merely stared at Pepa’s wedding ring and the folded note with a look akin to paralyzing terror. Irrevocably, against her will, her arm began to extend out, fingers fanning open, tips curled in anticipation as her hand reached over to Pepa’s bedside table to pick up the two objects that had so quickly spun Silvia’s world off its axis.
The redhead flinched visibly as the pads of her fingers made contact, reacting as if the cool wedding band had somehow burned her. She closed a fist tightly around both items and retracted her arm, bringing it back to clutch against her chest. Silvia gazed down at her closed fist looking for the world as if it was a bomb just waiting to explode. She unclenched her fist slowly, uncoiling one finger at a time, stretching out the dreaded moment. Fingers now splayed open; she glanced at the now crumpled note, hating how the wedding band had the nerve to glint merrily against the sunlight pouring into the room through the window.
Silvia extracted the note carefully with her other hand, with all the concentrated effort born from years of medical and forensic training. The hand still cradling the ring immediately shut fingers into themselves, curling so tightly against her palm that the ring bit harshly into her skin, fingernails digging painfully into her hand. The redhead paid either pain no heed.
With trembling fingers, Silvia unfolded the note, shaking it open. She stared down at the achingly familiar handwriting and felt tears well up in her eyes. Pepa’s untidy scrawl, punctuated with bold strokes and deep dots reflected starkly against the crisp white sheet.
“Lo siento”
The ink on the‘t’ was smeared by a dried but prominent teardrop. It was as if the letter itself was weeping. Silvia felt her heart contract and she scrunched up the note in her hand, tears running freely down her cheeks. The two words said so very little, but at the same time meant so much. Alone in the room, Silvia’s heart-wrenching sobs were heard by nobody but the four walls.
*********
Don Lorenzo felt something amiss the minute he stepped into his daughters’ house. Something dark lingered in the air, an almost corporeal manifestation that tattooed goosebumps onto the exposed skin of the older man’s arms and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. The commissioner frowned, a mask of worried concern sliding over his face. He closed the door behind him and let his eyes take in the empty living room.
Everything seemed to be in order. Nothing was broken or out of place. He turned to the kitchen. It was immaculate. But for some reason his frown deepened. It caused his brows to furrow, creating a deep-set line between his eyes.
It was quiet. Too quiet. And not the calm, soothing quiet that permeated a house when the sun rose over the horizon, announcing a new day. No. No, this quiet spoke of a deep disturbance. Of something terrible to come. It was tangible in the atmosphere, a dense, thick wall of ominous foreboding.
Don Lorenzo walked cautiously to the couch only to find it empty. Was the lack of Pepa on the couch good or bad? The older man could not answer. Instinct told him to proceed to the bedroom. So he did. Each footfall echoed silently against the walls but it was the pounding of his heart in his ears that sent an overdose of adrenaline to shoot up his veins, sending his blooding racing throughout his body at an unnatural speed. His steeled nerves, tensed muscles and dread of what he may find still did not prepare the older man for the sight that would tear at his eyes upon reaching Pepa and Silvia’s bedroom.
Silvia was bent into herself on the bed, mirroring Pepa’s fetal position the night before. The redhead was crying so vehemently that she shook against the mattress, practically throbbing against the surface. In her hand she clutched something white and crumpled, wrinkled from excessive clenching of her fist. Her other hand, also molded into a fist, was tucked under her chin.
Don Lorenzo blanched, blood draining from his face so fast that he momentarily became light-headed. Nevertheless, it did not stop him from bolting over to his youngest, kneeling down by the side of the bed and picking up the comforter at the end of the bed to cover Silvia’s naked body.
“Silvia!” Don Lorenzo wrestled an arm under the shaking woman and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the redhead into his lap.
Silvia did not resist but allowed her father’s insistent pulling to act as the momentum for her body weight and gravity to tumble into the older man’s embrace. She felt her father wrap the comforter tighter around her but did not care that she was naked under it. All she wanted, all she craved right now was human contact, human warmth and comfort. She burrowed her head into her father’s shoulder, sobbing relentlessly, the pain of her bruised cheek knocking against Don Lorenzo’s collarbone a distant murmur compared to the way the pain of her broken heart cleaved at her battered soul.
Panic filled every pore in the commissioner’s body. He tried to lift Silvia’s head off his shoulder to look into her eyes, ask her what the hell was wrong, but his daughter was not budging. She wetted his shirt with an alarming flow of tears and subsequently sent tremors through his body, a consequence of Silvia’s own trembling. Don Lorenzo pressed a firm; comforting hand on the small of Silvia’s back, rubbing soothing circles. His other hand sank confused fingers into thick red hair, sifting strands through the cracks of his fingers and brushing messy wet locks from Silvia’s face.
“Silvia, por favor,” the older man begged. “Hija, you need to tell me what’s wrong. Tell me so I can fix it.” He rocked his youngest, an action that would normally mollify the girl when she was little.
Unfortunately, for Don Lorenzo, it had no effect on the woman in his arms. In fact, it seemed to make Silvia cry harder, sobs tearing out of her throat cruelly, encased with unyielding sorrow and grief.
Now Don Lorenzo was not a patient man on a good day. But seeing his daughter so emotionally undone, crying as if the world had ended only caused the commissioner’s nerves to fray and his patience to crack. He shook his daughter’s shoulder none to gently.
“Silvia, look at me,” the older man barked. He waited scant seconds and got no response. He sucked in an infuriated breath. “SILVIA!”
Don Lorenzo’s commanding tone penetrated through the fog of grief that blanketed, Silvia, suffocating her senses. Nevertheless, tears still cascading down reddened cheeks, she looked up into her father’s turbulent and troubled eyes. It was a fatal mistake.
Her father’s gaze zeroed in on the bruised plastered on Silvia’s cheek. Against her normally pale skin, now accentuated with red splotches from crying, the bruise stood out like a tattoo, the smears of purple-blue and tinges of green leaking out to stain freckles and porcelain skin. Don Lorenzo felt something inside of him snap. Eyes refusing to leave the all too apparent mark on Silvia’s face, he practically knocked Silvia sideways as he bolted up. He spun around on the spot, almost giving himself whiplash as he finally tore his eyes away from the bruise to scrutinize the bedroom with an increasingly crazed expression.
“Where is she?! DÓNDE?!” Spit flew from his mouth as Don Lorenzo prowled to the bathroom, shouldering the door open and almost ripping it off its hinges. It was empty. The older man stalked back into the bedroom, eyes filled with fiery rage as he sought out his daughter in law, with all the intent of MURDERING her.
Silvia stood up on shaky legs, fearing for Pepa’s life. She had never seen her father so angry, and that was saying something. The look on his face was nothing compared to the murderous look in his eyes. They were practically glinting red from the flames of rages that flickered behind dark set eyes. It terrified the redhead and she scrambled to collect her wits as she dropped Pepa’s note onto the bedside table. “No, papa, no!” Silvia began, reaching out to grasp his elbow. “Papa, it was an accident!” Silvia emphasized the last word. Another mistake.
Don Lorenzo whirled around and stared Silvia down, his eyes consumed with so much wrath, his very expression so livid that Silvia involuntarily took a step back, eyes widening as the heat of her father’s anger washed over her.
“DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS NEVER AN ACCIDENT!” the commissioner roared, his voice reaching such a decibel of loudness that the windows almost rattled. “Where is she Silvia? I swear to GOD when I get my hands on her...”
Silvia was now desperate. She grabbed the lapels of her father’s shirt with one hand and yanked his face down to hers. “Papa, STOP!” She shook the older man. “It was an ACCIDENT!” She threw Don Lorenzo away from her, causing the man to stumble and glared at her father with something parallel to disgust. It was so tangible on her face that it froze the commissioner to the spot. Never in all his life would he ever thought to see such a look of disgust aimed at him by his own flesh and blood of all people.
Silvia tucked the comforter firmly around her and sat back on the bed, disturbing messy waves of red hair with agitated fingers. She looked sternly into her father’s face. “Pepa hit me when I was trying to wake her up from a nightmare, Papa.” The redhead’s expression changed to one of abject sadness and disappointment. “How could you think Pepa would physically hurt me on purpose?” Silvia looked up at her father as if looking at a stranger.
The last sentence was voiced with so much pain and sorrow that Don Lorenzo felt shame color his cheeks. Combine that with the disappointment in his daughter’s eyes and the commissioner suddenly felt very small. He drew in a deep shuddering breath and knelt down in front of Silvia, eyes seeking the redhead’s imploring for forgiveness.
“Lo siento, hija,” he apologized softly, tentatively reaching out to clasp her hand. He pressed a tender kiss to it. “I...I didn’t mean it.” He caught the skeptical look in Silvia’s eyes and shook his head vigorously. “What I mean is that...I jumped to the wrong conclusion, Silvia. My mind just went crazy when I saw that bruise.” He smiled up softly at his youngest and with a shaking hand reached up to trace the darkened skin where the bruise sat. He heaved a sigh of relief when Silvia turned her cheek to drop a kiss onto his palm. He got up and sat next to Silvia, pulling her back into his arms. “Lo siento,” he repeated.
Silvia nodded against his shoulder. She could never stay angry with the older man for long. She knew that it was his over-protectiveness that had caused him to say those things and whilst it hurt her that some deep part of him thought Pepa capable of such an act, she did not want to dwell on the subject. She had bigger problems to deal with.
Don Lorenzo unknowingly echoed his daughter’s thoughts. “Where is Pepa, Silvia?” It was the loaded question. He looked down at his youngest in trepidation as Silvia stiffened against him and sniffled. “Silvia?”
Silvia reached over to the bedside table and closed shaky fingers over the crumpled note. She handed it wordlessly to her father and watched the play of emotions cross his face when he opened it and read the two words. He dropped it on the bed with a sigh. Silvia felt fresh tears anoint her cheeks but did not brush them away.
“She’s gone, papa,” Silvia muttered brokenly. A sob wracked her body and she cuddled closer to her father, her one fist still cradling Pepa’s ring.
Don Lorenzo wrapped his arms tightly around his redhead. “We’ll find her,” he vowed, the determination in his tone clearly stating that he would not rest until he did. “We’ll get her back, hija. She can’t have gone far.”
It was a lie. They both knew it. Both knew Pepa. Both knew that if the brunette was capable of running to another state at the age of eighteen, for all they know, Pepa could be on her way to another continent by now. Her guilt over her mistaken act would certainly make sure of that. Her stubbornness and inability to see past her own views would seal her fate.
Don Lorenzo bit back a sigh as he held his youngest. He wondered now just how he was going to fix this new mess life had thrown their way.