Vitani needed a few more days at the Graad Foundation hospital to make a full recovery. Of course, her final decision was to stay in the Sanctuary so, when she was discharged, she was officially brought before the Pope and Athena: Elyn introduced her as the future Saint of Scorpio and she swore allegiance to her new goddess. Like everything, that ceremony seemed like a perfectly structured theatrical work, the interior of Saga's temple was worthy of the films of ancient Greece, the solemnity of the words of Elyn and herself sounded typical of the aristocratic past for that Vitani soon discovered that she wasn't bad at integrating into that magical environment. However, there were also things that reminded her that what she was experiencing was a reality, such as the union of her skin with the mechanical arm, it stinged her, it bothered her and of course, it reminded her that it wasn't her own.
But without a doubt, the worst thing was to enter the house of the temple of the scorpion again. Milo didn't receive her like the first time but it wasn't surprising either, Vitani and Elyn discovered him asleep, lying on the sofa and with a couple of glasses overturned on the low table in the living room next to an empty bottle of whiskey. Piscis Australis cleared her throat when Vitani dropped the travel bag that had been brought to the hospital to store everything that had accompanied her on her boring days of recovery. Milo woke up suddenly and when she got up, her body swayed sideways:
"Are you hungover?" Elyn asked raising an eyebrow.
"What time is it?"
"12:15."
"Fuck..."
"H-Hello, Milo... I'm glad to see you're safe."
Vitani's voice tensed Milo, who for some reason hadn't noticed her. Unconsciously, Scorpio's blue eyes moved to the girl's artificial arm and an expression of horror spread across his face; Vitani felt uncomfortable but she held her gaze with pride since from now on she would have to deal with that type of behavior without giving explanations:
"Oh...Hello ... I-I'm sorry, I... I forgot that y..."
"Yes, yes, yes." Elyn cut off "You forgot to have control, to go to bed early and to be a gentleman despite knowing that we..."
"Leave him, please. Never mind." Vitani said calmly then, controlling her breathing so as not to alter the atmosphere in the room "Thank you for your help, Elyn, I really appreciate it but I think you can leave me now."
"All right, but remember that if you need me, go up to Pisces or Capricorn, okay?" Australis put an arm around Vitani's shoulders and drew her close, kissed her forehead and then looked Milo up and down. "Welcome home, darling."
Milo looked away, jealous of the finn girl's camaraderie with Camus's sister; he had to accept that it would be something he would never have with Vitani after what happened.
"I wish the 'icecube' had stayed to sleep tonight..."
When finally they were alone, the tension could be cut with a knife. There seemed to be a gulf between the two even though both of them yearned to speak to each other. Vitani was the first to step forward, it was clear that Milo had no idea how to deal with the situation:
"I want to apologize with you. Saga told me that even with all our fights... you saved me. It touched me a lot." The girl gulped, measuring that the pronunciation of her words in English for sound more... according to Milo's level "Thanks for looking for me and taking the trouble to..."
The Scorpio Saint grabbed her by the mechanical arm and pulled her into his body before finishing the sentence to hug her tightly. Vitani didn't know what to do at that moment, that Milo to take her in his arms was something that she hadn't expected even in her best dreams... He was much taller than her, had well marked muscles and the smell that reached her was lethal: Milo smelled incredible despite spending the night drinking and sleeping on the sofa. It was warm and pleasant because his heartbeat was at the perfect height. Suddenly, Vitani found herself off guard, and the emotions she had built up from the previous days began to surface. Her hands searched the edge of Milo's shirt to cling to it since now, he was her only family:
"Forgive me, Vitani" said the scorpion using the cosmos to communicate with the girl because he was unable to articulate a word aloud, not only because the mere fact of thinking about what had happened to the girl had been a misfortune but because his my heart felt that everything had been his fault "I promise that from now on, I will take care of you as if you were Athena..."
"It won't be necessary, Milo." the girl leaned back slightly, separating herself a little bit from the one who was still hugging her "I want to learn to protect myself."
"But…"
"At the end... you were right. I died as did my entire family but I guess Hades didn't want to allow it until she knew the truth. If I had known how to defend myself, if I had been someone like you... perhaps I would have kept my arm or could have asked for help by the cosmos. You don't have the obligation to protect me, you have to teach me... even if it's just starting to cook. I don't care, I'll do everything for you feel pruod of the next Scorpio Saint."
Milo discovered before him a warrior from head to toe, a girl who was finally willing to live using her own power and strength; Suddenly, this girl was quite a different one from the one he argued with her over the weekend. Locked in his cell waiting to know his fate, he imagined a thousand times what it would be like to face Vitani again, promising himself to indulge her as much as she wanted in order to compensate for the damage he had caused her but now all he wanted was to make her bite the dust to see her get up using the pride of the scorpion that ran through her veins:
"Okey, go drop your things..." the eighth guardian finished saying in an ominous but fluent English "These days... I've been remodeling the house and now you have your own room."
***
When Vitani entered her new room, she dropped her travel bag on the floor with an expression that mixed illusion and bewilderment: it wasn't very large but the walls were painted in a crude tone so the feeling of spaciousness was wonderful. The furniture was white, as was the bedspread on the bed, but as a special detail, the room had a string of photos in polaroid format that hung a few inches above the pillow. Curious, she advanced to them and checked them one by one: she recognized Sira and Shura along with another man, smiling and happy; In another photograph, Elyn was next to an attractive woman with light blue hair in whose hand a rose was appreciated, there was also a child who could be Sira's age; in another, she recognized Saga and his twin; also Mu, Shion and a carrot-haired boy sharing the same expression as the previous ones... Thus until twelve photos were completed, one for each zodiacal temple and that, with total security, presenting the Saints that made them up that little by little she would go knowing. She looked for Milo in eighth position. She found him serious, listless, and somewhat melancholic; surely whoever had come up with that surprise had forced him to take the photo for her. On the contrary, she did smile after appreciating the effort of her temple companion.
Without wasting any more time, she picked up her bag, opened the closet and after checking that all the clothes she had left in Finland were perfectly arranged, she added what she had saved from the hospital. To finish, she put on dark leggings and a wide shirt that she used as pajamas, brushed her hair and started to leave her room when she discovered that in a corner of the desk was the Polaroid camera with a post-it that she put in her native language: Welcome to your new family.
She blinked astonished, she didn't know who had bought the camera or who knew Finnish enough to have left the note but she did know what first use for it: She ran to the living room in search of Milo, hoping to find him there but when she arrived, there was no one.
However, an delicious aroma reached her nostrils from the kitchen and when she wanted to step forward to discover what it was, she saw that the guardian of the eighth temple appeared with two plates in his hands:
"Did you… make me food?"
"Oh no, I made it for both of us."
Vitani watched Milo drop the plates on the table: spaghetti carbonara. At that moment the girl felt her eyes water, she had missed eating like a normal person so much that the mere fact of knowing that there was homemade food on the table moved her. Without moving from the site, she saw how Scorpio brought two cans of Coca-Cola and sat down, a simple lunch that suddenly became the most special:
"I see you found the camera."
"Eh ...? Oh yeah! I-I saw all the photos. T-Thank you very much for the detail."
"Say it to Aphrodite, it was his idea."
"Oh, s-sure but I-I would like to change a photo... do you think would it be possible?"
"Sure, anyone will want to pose for you again."
Faced with such a response, Vitani stood next to Milo and raised the camera:
"Then let's do it." However, before hitting the button to take the photo, the girl hesitated a second "I hope you're smiling."
But she didn't obey her own order but chose to look at the tip of her nose and appear in the photo much more disadvantaged than she really was. She pressed the button and a classic "Clik" ended the action. The girl vigorously moved the photo as she looked at Milo, waiting to see his reaction when he looked so divine next to a girl who had made an idiotic face. The mischief she had learned from Sira when the little girl had been in her house a little less than a year ago. Minutes later, the photo was revealed and when they saw each other, they both laughed out loud, discovering that the two had chosen to do exactly the same. The couple appeared somewhat off-center, with crossed eyes and a grimace full of fun, neither would admit it aloud but they knew that that image portrayed them perfectly:
"Do you want to repeat it?"
Vitani shook her head. Impossible, that had become his favorite photograph and he would not change it for the world.