After dinner, Diego took Felipe back to the library with him. Don Alejandro was already there, reading a book, and he raised his eyebrows at the sight of their dejected expressions.

Diego fell down on the settee, and immediately, Felipe curled up beside him.

"What's wrong, son?"

Diego sighed. "Felipe felt rather left out, because he was unable to follow the dinner conversation."

"Ah." Don Alejandro nodded. "Yes. I wouldn't have thought of that, but I suppose it makes sense."

In the silence that followed, Don Alejandro went back to his book, while Diego was absent-mindedly rubbing Felipe's arm.

He was roused from his troubled reverie by Felipe's hand patting his knee. "What is it, Felipe?"

Felipe pointed to the chessboard on the table next to the settee and asked, "What is it?"

Diego's face brightened. This could be a better way of spending the evening. "It's a game," he explained. "The name is chess. Chess."

Felipe mouthed the word after him, and then he sat up. "Can you show me?"

"With pleasure!" Diego moved to the opposite chair, and started explaining the game just as his father had long ago. Only this time, the story was told with words and gestures. "Long ago, there was a white king. He lived in a white castle, and he had a white queen. The white king was a nice man, but sometimes, when everything was going well for a long time, the white king got bored. And when the white king was bored, he wanted only one thing: he wanted to make war..."

Don Alejandro watched his son and the boy from over the top of his book. At first he was simply amazed at Diego's ability to tell an entire story in this mysterious sign language he had developed with the boy. And was able to explain the rules of chess with it, too! It was obvious that occasionally he had to make up new signs on the go, but the boy seemed to understand him perfectly. In fact... the boy was absolutely riveted, he noticed. His eyes were trained on Diego's face and hands, following those hands when they moved to the chessboard... Not even Diego himself had been that concentrated when had first started to get interested in chess. (Okay, he had been quite a bit younger, but still...)

Their communication was really something of a miracle, Don Alejandro decided, and he kept quietly watching the pair of them from over his book. And when they finally began to play their very first match, he noticed that little Felipe indeed remembered the move of every single chess piece. This whole sign language thing was... amazing – there was no other word for it.

It was rather late by the time the three men – or rather the two men and the young boy – retired to their quarters to go to bed. Diego took Felipe with him – he didn't have the heart to abandon the boy to a guestroom. The boy's nightmares weren't anywhere near subsiding, and so far, nothing seemed to calm him down as effectively as Diego's comforting presence right next to him. Besides, if he was in the guestroom, no one would even hear him when he silently cried and screamed. It just didn't seem right to force the boy to deal with his nightmares on his own.

The night was indeed interrupted by several nightmares again, and when Diego woke up again in the first morning light, he fastened his eyes on the still sleeping boy at his side with grim but uncertain determination.

He had toyed with the thought before, but now that the hour was drawing near, he knew it wasn't right what he had been planning to do. It wasn't right to put Felipe in an orphanage – even a small one, led by a good and kind padre as the one here in Los Angeles.

Dinner yesterday had shown that Felipe was as yet unable to handle being in a group. With his handicaps being so new, there was a good chance that in time he would learn to function in a group. But he didn't have that skill yet. And to put him in a group of some fifteen children without him being able to communicate with them at all – face it, it was plain cruel. He would have to learn to read people's lips first. Or the children at the orphanage would have to take the trouble to learn and use his signs. And neither was likely to happen soon, if at all.

Additionally, Felipe still needed someone to help him cope with his nightmares. Someone willing to sleep close to him, who would notice the signs even if Felipe was unable to cry out himself. And padre Berardo was a really nice man, but he doubted any priest would let someone sleep so close to him. Yet if Felipe were to sleep in the dormitory with the other kids, it was unlikely that he'd get any support at all.

No. It just wasn't fair on Felipe. With his handicaps, he needed more than the standard orphan did. He needed a home, with people who at the very least took the trouble to communicate with him, and to help him overcome his limitations. And who were not afraid to lose some sleep in helping him deal with his nightmares.

The question was: who could be persuaded to take on a task like that?

In response to the question, his mind instantly jumped to Victoria Escalante, the beautiful girl who now ran the tavern in the pueblo. She'd be perfect for Felipe: she had a heart of gold, stood up for anyone who was in trouble, and on top of that, she had recently lost her own mother, and in practice her father and brothers as well. So she'd be able to empathize with Felipe, and he was sure she'd welcome the boy with open arms and love him to no end.

But no. He sighed a little. It really wasn't fair to saddle Victoria with Felipe – he knew that. Much as he'd love to for himself because it'd give him a perfect excuse to spend a lot of time with her (and with Felipe), the reality was that Victoria was only fifteen years old, and struggling to learn how to run the tavern by herself. A few years from now it would have been the perfect solution indeed, but unfortunately not yet.

Unless of course he'd marry her right now, and then he could help her run the tavern, and together they could adopt Felipe...

A wistful little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. So many dreams... However, he was pretty sure his father would categorically forbid this one to come true just yet. And that was even apart from the fact that he had no idea how Victoria felt about him.

Still, the fact of the matter remained that he couldn't think of anyone else in whose care he'd feel comfortable entrusting Felipe. So what option did he have but to take him to padre Berardo?

"Diego!"

"I'm here, father."

Don Alejandro came into the dining-room, where he found his son and Felipe at breakfast. They both looked rather glum.

The old Don smiled and nodded to Felipe, and then turned to Diego. "You know, Diego, I was thinking. Maybe it would be better if we'd keep Felipe here. At the hacienda."

Diego's eyes widened in surprise. "Here? How?"

"Oh, as a houseboy or something. If the padre is okay with it of course. But what this boy needs first and foremost is to learn how to communicate. And from what I saw yesterday evening, you are by far the best teacher the boy could wish for."

"Me?" Diego blushed a little with pleasure, and glanced at Felipe who was trying to cut his tamales.

"Yes. What that boy needs, Diego," Don Alejandro continued with emphasis, "Is a good education. To make up for his handicaps. He is intelligent – I noticed that yesterday when you two were playing chess. But if we leave his education to the mission school, I'm afraid he will barely learn to read and write with his handicap – if they manage to teach him that at all. No. If we want to give him a chance to function properly in this world, he must learn to express himself fluently in writing, and learn all there is to learn through reading. What he needs, is a caballero's education."

Diego glanced uncertainly from Felipe to his father. "And you want me to teach him?"

"For now, yes. The boy trusts you, and you two have already established a means of communication. Right now, I'm convinced that no one could do a better job with him than you."

"But what about my own studies? I thought you wanted me to go to Madrid next year."

"I do. But that's many months away, isn't it? By then, I hope I will have learned enough of your secret sign language to take over the boy's education. And to be honest..." He hummed and hemmed a bit. "I think I would enjoy the boy's company around the hacienda. It's going to be a very long four years when you're away in Madrid."

Diego smiled a little. "Actually, I had been wondering, too, if the orphanage really was the best place for Felipe." He explained what he had been thinking about that morning (minus the part about Victoria of course). "So together, that's an awful lot of reasons to keep him here with us."

"Indeed. But since he's a ward of the Church, we would still need the padre's permission. Although I don't think padre Berardo would object to our reasoning."

"And then you want to give him some light chores as a houseboy, and focus on his education?"

"Yes. And I'd also like him to see a doctor. A specialist even. See if there's any chance of the boy regaining his voice and his hearing." Don Alejandro grabbed the back of the chair in front of him. "It'd be a huge responsibility, son. For both of us. But I think we can do it. What do you say?"

Diego's face lit up. "I say it's a wonderful idea, father! But I do think it should be Felipe's choice."

"Well, go ahead! Ask him!" his father nodded.

And with a broad smile, Diego turned to his little protégé. The boy automatically looked up. "Felipe... Felipe, I told you that we were going to take you to the kind padre in the pueblo this morning, so you could live with him in the orphanage. Remember?"

Felipe nodded.

"My father just told me he had another idea. He thinks you could live here and work for us – setting the table, opening the door, things like that."

"Like señor Salvador?" Felipe asked. "He works for you."

"Yes, like señor Salvador. And you would get money for your work, too, of course. Just like señor Salvador."

Felipe's eyes widened in delighted disbelief, and Don Alejandro couldn't quite hold back his chuckle. "That settles it – you'll see."

But Diego continued, "We will also help you to learn to..." He wanted to use the word 'communicate', but he couldn't really think of a gesture for that. "To talk," he settled for. "With our gestures. And to read people's lips, so you can see what they say, even if they don't know your gestures. And you would learn to read and write..."

Felipe's brow furrowed, and he signed that he didn't understand.

"Books." Diego picked one up and showed him the print inside. But Felipe just looked puzzled.

Diego smiled. "Okay, we'll get to that later. But the important thing is that your deafness will cause problems in your life. We want to help you... conquer the problems. And learning and books will help you with that. The problems will not go away, but with learning and books, you can conquer them."

Hesitantly, Felipe signed a question.

"Can you learn about the horses, too?" Diego translated.

And Don Alejandro smiled. "Yes, Felipe. Of course you can learn about the horses, too."

Felipe seemed to understand; at least he nodded gratefully.

"Felipe." Diego touched the boy's arm to get back his attention. "You need to choose. What do you want? Do you want to live here with me and my father? And work for us, and learn everything? Or do you want to go to the kind padre in the orphanage, in the pueblo, where there are lots of other children to play with?"

Felipe quickly shook his head. He pointed at himself, then at Diego, and then, albeit hesitantly, at Don Alejandro.

"You want to stay here, with us," Diego summarized in a semi-question.

Felipe nodded.

"Even if there are no other children around here? It can be a bit lonely for a boy here at the hacienda," Diego warned him.

But Felipe nodded again, and with exaggerated emphasis he pointed from himself to Diego. And then he gestured around him.

And Diego smiled. "Alright. You choose to stay here. And we would love to have you live with us."

And that's when it happened. Something Diego had not yet seen in all the weeks he had spent in close contact with the boy.

Felipe smiled.

It was a trusting, shy smile, beautiful in its hesitation. A smile Diego was going to see many times in the years to come.

He hardly got the chance to take in the boy's smile this time though, for Felipe threw himself in his arms. Affectionately, he rubbed the boy's back. "I'm glad you'll be staying with us, amigo," he whispered, even if he knew the boy couldn't hear his words. "And I'll do everything in my power to help you conquer your handicaps."

Suddenly, Felipe pulled back. Looking directly at Diego, he pointed at himself, then clasped his hands together, and then pointed at Diego.

Diego had to swallow something before he was able to respond with the same sequence of gestures. Only he said the words as well.

"I love you, too."

THE END

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Note: Diego's chess story comes from the movie 'Long Live the Queen', which of course postdates him by nearly 200 years...