NICCOLÒ

41. Goodbye

Life isn't fair.

Sometimes the universe pushed you, as far as you could go, stretching you until you finally snapped, but fate would just keep pushing. The universe was cold and unfeeling, and it didn't give a damn about who got hurt; existence is a delicate balance between pain and apathy.

Niccolò knew he was, physically, striding through the hospital doors, covered in blood with his girl, his Camilla, unconscious in his arms. Physically, he knew he could hear someone shouting, knew he could feel the stares on his back, but his mind was set apart, watching the scene like an outsider through a glass wall.

He watched as the stranger with his body lay her down, gently as he could, on the gurney wheeled out for her amidst the shouting and the doctors, running about. He watched silently as they whisked her away, running through the corridors; the moment was over as quickly as it had begun. Now he was left in the middle of the emergency room, Camilla's blood drying into his clothes, alone.

"Sir? Can you tell us what happened?" Niccolò's mind snapped back into reality as he looked down at the doctor in front of him. She tipped her head to the side, repeating the question, an impatient look on her face.

"She was shot." Luca's voice came from over his shoulder, interrupting Niccolò's silence; he couldn't even say it out loud. Camilla had been shot. His Camilla. Luca shouldered past his cousin, watching the uneasy expression on the doctor's face; she looked scared. She should be. "Any other questions?"

The woman shook her head slowly, backing up a step. "No," she replied hesitantly, her eyes flickering past Luca to the two men, waiting by the glass doors, eying her up suspiciously; the Romanos gave off a certain vibe - and right now, mixed with the tension over that girl's condition, the doctor didn't like her odds.

"Really?" Luca asked, pressing forward, his voice cold as he stalked her. "Don't you want to know that her name is Camilla Fiero? Her date of birth? Hell - her blood type?"

"Enough." For a second, Luca didn't realise the Don had spoken; he turned back. Niccolò's eyes were dead, lifeless as he stared at the doctor. "Enough." Niccolò, generally, would have made some form of a threat, to assure Camilla's priority case, but for a second, he wasn't the Romano Don, looking out for yet another victim of his enemies. He was a broken man; his eyes were dead. The doctor scurried away.

"Niccolò-" Luca attempted to start, but he was interrupted.

"Get Leo Fiero here." Niccolò turned, forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other, to walk towards the glass doors. "I'll wait outside for him." For once, Luca didn't question his cousin.

Niccolò kept walking, kept pushing forward until he was finally outside, and the cold night air hit him with a rush of sobriety; something in his chest was tugging, painfully - because he knew that when he'd let them take her away, she hadn't been breathing.

Abruptly, he staggered, reaching out to the red-brick walls of the hospital for support and crumpling, sliding down to the floor, staring dead ahead. Even at this time of night, cars were pulling up, searching for parking spaces with the street light glinting off the exteriors; the whole world was still spinning, restless even in the darkness, even though it felt like his world had stopped.

He'd give anything to walk in on her, asleep in his bed, dressed in one of his shirts - but this time, he wouldn't walk away. To feel her hand slip into his, to see her smile sleepily over her breakfast.

Overhead, Niccolò heard the distant drone of an airplane engine, echoing through the empty sky.

He could see it in front of him, just a breath away from reality; Camilla, curled in his lap, watching a movie with him as he poured her a glass of red wine and waited for the ice cream to defrost - they would be celebrating that she'd finally become qualified as a nurse - and she'd accidentally order him around - "Turn it up",- and he'd glare at her, only for her to roll her eyes and rephrase with a smile - "If it pleases you, your highness, please, would you mind turning up the volume?"