The Heart of Camilo (A Camilo Madrigal x Reader Fem Y/N Story)

Catalyst

*Y/N*

The next 24 hours passed miserably, the cold from being soaking wet settling into our bones. We couldn't go outside, didn't have anything to change into, and the cave was damp and wet to begin with. Diego was healed, but he was still cold as ice and was either refusing or unable to speak. I had tried to talk with him multiple times once he had regained consciousness and Ramirez had gone to sleep, but he wouldn't answer, sometimes looking at me when I spoke, but with a strange blankness to the gaze, like he was looking right through me. He mostly stared blankly ahead, leaning against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. I kept talking to him regardless, in a low voice that I hoped Ramirez couldn't hear. He mostly paced the cave further in, sometimes pulling out the catalyst and muttering things to himself that I couldn't understand.

As night fell on the 4th night, I was trying to get Diego to eat something before going to sleep, but he wouldn't look at me and didn't budge when I raised food to his lips.

"Please, Diego, just a few bites," I said, pulling more food out of Ramirez's bag, eating it myself, hoping seeing me eat would make him hungry. "You need your strength if we're going to make it through this."

At those words, he shifted his eyes to mine, anger flashing before the dullness came back over him and he slid his gaze slowly back towards the wall.

Wondering if I should push and see if getting him mad would make him talk, I took a deep breath. "When we get out of here, I think we should just tell Camilo to propose already," I joked. "I mean, who has been through more than all of us have? I think we deserve to just start our lives already."

It worked. Diego once again looked at me, angry.

"And I bet you'll meet a nice girl soon - maybe you'll even admit that you like that girl in your class," I continued. "Soon I'll be the one catching you making out in the living room and I'll get to make fun of you like you did to us. What's her name? Renata, right?"

He glared at me, and I pressed on.

"One time Camilo went through the entire library at school for me looking for a book about this flower I really liked and wanted to know more about," I said. "I want those flowers at my wedding. I can't remember the name of it for the life of me, but I know he will." I paused. "We were only 12 like you are, but I knew even then that he loved me, that he would do anything for me, even if we didn't know how to put it into words because we were too young."

Diego suddenly reached out and grabbed my arm. "Shut up," he said. "Just shut the hell up. You're not getting married. You'll never see him again. I'll be dead soon, you'll be dead soon. Just accept it and shut up."

"Yeah, that's not going to happen," I said. "You're alive and -"

"You should have let me go," he said. "It was finally over. I just want to be with her."

I knew he meant his mother. "No," I said, holding his arm. "You belong with me. You love me, you always protect me, just like I love you and I protect you. We're family. We're staying together, we're making it through this together."

He shook me off, laying down on his side, facing away from me, and I could hear him trying to quiet himself as he cried, covering his face with his hands. I lay down beside him, beginning to cry myself now that he couldn't see my face, my hand on his shoulder, his shirt still dark with his blood.

***

Ramirez woke me in the morning, shaking me roughly. "Let's go," he said. "It's time."

"What?" I asked groggily. "It's the day time."

"Just because we can't see the meteor shower doesn't mean it's not happening," he answered, with the tone of someone explaining something very simple to someone very stupid.