Casita isn’t well. And she was _always_ well, so the Madrigals are going to know about it sooner or later.

She couldn’t help it, these days. Footsteps were either heavier and slower than usual or they were light on their tip toes, usually when Abuela was around.

Her doors were either slamming shut or shutting more slowly. Voices were either louder and angrier or they were whispers. Most often when Abuela was around.

She loved Abuela. She loved them all.

So one day, when Mirabel walks through Casita’s front doors and stops dead in her tracks in front of Abuela, fear ripping through the girl’s young heart, Casita gives her the tiniest little nudge forward. The wood panels shift and puzzle piece the girl’s legs forward in a clumsy stride, and now she is standing directly in front of her greatest enemy.

_Talk to each other. _

“I—I…,” Mirabel starts, eyes are wide.

Abuela raises her brow, suspicious.

Mirabel decides to smile, painted in lies behind those big girlish teeth.

_Talk to her. _

Abuela speaks first. “What are you hiding…?”

“N-nothing!” Mirabel stammers, and she holds a plush little animal behind her back. A sweet giraffe. “Just a gift for a close friend, really it’s nothing! I should uhhh go get it to him - really it’s nothing ok bye—!”

Mirabel practically leaps on her heel to head back out of Casita’s doors. Casita shuts them in front of her face, defiant to the escape. Mirabel groans, stamps her foot at the chipping wood panel of the door like the young and naive and sweet and difficult girl she is. Casita loves her all the same.

_Talk to her. _

__

_“_Mirabel,” Abuela warns.__

__

Stern and maternal and authoritative, Abuela loves her grandchildren too fiercely, these days. And still Casita loves _her_ all the same.

Abuela_ _stands like her heels are dug two inches into Casita’s floor. “A boy’s affection is not to be taken lightly with a silly gift, _mija_. Besides, you are too young. You are not yet of age or mature enough for such passions, unlike Isabella.”

__

Mirabel faces the door, hunched over, fists clenched. Growing angrier. Growing defiant. Growing, growing, and _growing_ like they all once did as babes. Growing independent...

Growing up.

__

“It’s…,” and with all the rage in the world Mirabel only sighs, resigning from her escape. A girl with a heart on her sleeve can only make it beat so angrily. She loves her Abuela, too.

“It’s for Antonio,” she says quietly, sadly. “Not for some boy.”

She turns to show her the gift.

__

Abuela stares at it and stands like the world can never shift beneath her feet. Casita makes her remember the foundation. __

__

And Casita pulls Abuela forward. __

__

_Talk to her._

__

_“_Oh,” is the only thing Abuela can say when Casita moves Abuela closer to Mirabel, so that she sees the hand made embroidery and beading of the giraffe, stitched together and woven in love. The giraffe is made with two eyes, four legs, a tail, and a heart: Mirabel’s._ _

__

_Just like Casita. _

__

Casita knows Abuela’s tears more than anyone, even if Mirabel does not yet know what they look like, because Abuela has never shown tears to the Madrigal’s before. But Casita knows. Casita can feel Abuela tremble just slightly in her stance, Abuela’s walls crumbling like Casita’s walls. The sound of the floorboards creaking below, soon unable to hold Abuela if she falls through in a puddle of her worries and wants and fears. But Abuela stays so still, so silent…__

__

Abuela will not talk today, Casita knows. Neither will Mirabel, as much as Casita can try.

__

And so Casita slowly opens up her front doors, giving Mirabel the relief, and Mirabel runs back out, on a mission to find Antonio. Giving Abuela space to watch Mirabel leave so that she may wipe a hidden tear.

__

_Casita has given so much. _

__

She can only hope that her familia will one day give it back.

__

(An event before the final ending of Encanto, imagined.)