{All credits to "Coco" for the song itself! I thought it would make a lovely songfic though, since Miguel sounds like Luca a little bit.

One more note: This can be read as a stand-alone post-confession fic, but I have it set directly after the last chapter of my Luberto fic, "A Train's Too Far Away". Just wanted to let y'all know, since I will be posting it at the end of there AND separately!}

~~~

"Luca, this is supposed to be MY planned date for YOU! What are we doing here?" Luca let go of Alberto's hand and grinned excitedly. He'd dragged them to the fountain in the center of town.

"You'll see! Stay right here!" Luca ran off to get something and was back in moments.

"What the heck is that?" Alberto asked. Whatever lump of wood Luca had didn't look very interesting.

"It's a chitarra, a guitar! I learned how to play it at school for music class. I even learned how to talk a little en Español, in Spanish! The teacher wanted us to write a song to play for someone special, and...I- I wrote this one for you." Luca gave Alberto a piece of paper, then motioned for him to sit on the fountain. He started to strum.

"Say that I'm crazy or call me a fool,

But last night it seemed that I dreamed about you."

Luca looked up from the strings at Alberto, to see him reading the lyrics. Alberto looked up and seemed to know Luca needed encouragement, so he smiled. Luca's nerves started to settle and he smiled back, his voice getting stronger.

"When I opened my mouth what came out was a song, 

And you knew every word and we all sang along."

Alberto jumped up onto the fountain and pulled Luca up by the arm next to him. Now more people were starting to gather around to watch the music. Luca hesitated on his next strum, scared to play in front of everyone.

Alberto noticed and squeezed his shoulder. "Don't let Bruno ruin this!" He whisper-shouted. He started the next line off-key and Luca quickly recovered, joining in the singing. Their voices wove together in the way that only they could do.

"To a melody played on the strings of our souls,

And a rhythm that rattled us down to the bone."

"Papá! It's Luca and Alberto!" Giulia exclaimed to her father as the crowd around the two boys grew even more. She and her dad had been out fishing and had just returned. The boys could be heard almost everywhere in town now! "Let's go see them!"

"Our love for each other will live on forever!"

"THEY DID IT!! Oh, Papá! They finally told each other!" Giulia shrieked and hugged her dad tightly, who chuckled and grinned. She dashed off towards the front of the crowd to see better.

"In every beat of my proud corazón!

Our love for each other will live on forever!"

"Luca! Alberto! You crazy ragazzi did it!" Giulia shouted and waved. Alberto waved back and grabbed Luca's hand, pulling it up with a shout. Luca's face reddened immediately but his smile showed he enjoyed it, too.

"Giulia! Luca loves me too! Isn't it great?!" The mist from the fountain made their forms shift back and forth. Partly sea dragon, partly human, never the same. Giulia thought it was beautiful how it represented so much of what they meant to each other.

The boys started to dance around on the fountain walls, laughing and singing together. The townspeople around them started doing the same with whoever was around them.

"In every beat of my proud corazón!"

"Luca?" Giulia was startled by Daniela Paguro popping up next to her and whispering her son's name. "Luca! That's my boy!" A grin spread across her face and tears appeared in her eyes. She pushed to the front of the crowd with Giulia and Lorenzo in tow.

"Ay mi familia, oiga mi gente,

Canten al coro, let it be known!"

Luca saw his family approaching from different directions and grinned, strumming more. His voice got even louder and Alberto laughing next to him made him never want to leave. It seemed like the world was just him and Berto, dancing without a care.

"Our love for each other will live on forever!

In every beat of my proud corazón!"

Their families finally made it to the front of the crowd. The townspeople around them were celebrating their newest couple and the sea dragons in the crowd couldn't be happier. The world was finally accepting them, starting with the two youngest among them.

"Ay mi familia, oiga mi gente,

Canten al coro, let it be known!"

Luca and Alberto turned away from singing to each other and sang to the crowd now. Luca didn't realize so many people would like his song! He found his family in the front row and smiled even wider if that was possible.

"Our love for each other will live on forever!"

Luca felt a tap on his shoulder and he turned to see Alberto. They sang the last line at each other. They danced around each other in a way they didn't know they could, the moment seeming as if it was only them again.

"In every beat of my proud corazón!"

They held the last note looking at each other, then the crowd burst into cheers and clapping. Luca was about to thank them when something else surprised him. Alberto yanked him close, dipped him, and asked one question. "Can I kiss you here?"

Normally, Luca would've freaked out. But after the whole song they just did, he just went with it. He nodded and kissed Alberto. It was amazing! He let go of the guitar and wrapped his arms around Berto's neck instead. The guitar fell onto the ground, where Signor Massimo picked it up.

"THAT'S MY BOY!" Daniela yelled.

"GO LUCAAAA!" Giulia joined in as Alberto brought Luca back up. They watched as the crowd around them swarmed in, congratulating them and praising Luca for his song. Finally, the crowd thinned and the family was allowed near.

Daniela immediately rushed forward and crushed Luca in a hug. She would've swept up Alberto, too, if he hadn't jumped away at the last second. "Why didn't you tell your mother about this?!" She pulled back and shook him, demanding with no intent of real malice.

"Uhh..." Luca was at a loss for words. "I was going to, I swear!" He answered with a sheepish smile. Daniela hummed and let go. Alberto immediately stepped back over to Luca and sneakily grabbed his hand. It didn't escape Daniela's eye, however.

"You GUYS! When did this happen?!" Giulia hugged both of them at once and squeezed.

"Uh...last night, after Luca's mom and dad let us leave. We went to the tower and-"

"And Berto decorated it just for me! He kept all my letters, Giulia!" Luca interrupted but Alberto didn't mind.

"Hey, didn't you have some sort of book you were going to show him?" Giulia reminded Luca.

"Oh yeah! I tried to show it to you earlier but I couldn't get you away long enough." Luca apologized to Alberto, who shrugged with a small smile.

"You got me all to yourself, now, Bubble." He winked at Luca, who smiled sheepishly and glanced down at their hands.

"Bu- do I wanna know about..." Giulia motioned an 'all this' at the pair and raised an eyebrow. Alberto shrugged.

"Do you need to?" Giulia made a 'bleh' face and shook her head. "Well then, let's go see that project you keep talking about!" Giulia watched them run off with a playful eye roll. The parents were too busy chatting among themselves to notice the boys slip away.

~

Luca snagged the scrapbook from his bag and they returned to the tower to look through it. They settled into their beanbag and opened the cover.

"Oh, there's my first letter to you!" Luca pointed. Alberto was confused. He had Luca's first letter on the wall! Before he could ask, Luca clarified. "I never sent it, actually...I was too scared to. I sent the second or third one I wrote."

{There are supposed to be strikeouts here, marked with ~}

Dear ~Alberto~ Berto,

I miss you so much already. We just got to Giulia's house in ~Geneva~ Genova and I already love it, but I miss all of you so much! Maybe ~you can come visit me~ we can call you soon! I really just want you to ~hug me and~ tell me it'll be okay, but I don't know how to ask. There's no way you'll ever be able to come here either... Plus, it's not like you'll ever see this letter after all the mistakes I already made here anyway. I hope you miss me as much as I do you.

Caro (love),

Luca

"Luca! How come you didn't send this? It's amazing!" Alberto asked and Luca glanced down with a shy smile. He shrugged. Alberto didn't push it and flipped to the next page.

They flipped through a few more pages of scrapped letters and got to some drawings. Alberto did a double-take on the first one.

"Is that our Vespa drawing?" The drawing he'd given to Luca had been pasted on one side and a redone one was on the other. The detail was immaculate. It was so lifelike, Alberto could almost feel the wind blowing picture-him's hair and hear Luca laughing behind him.

Alberto was steering the Vespa with Luca latched onto his waist behind him, leaned against his back. Both of them were laughing with rosy cheeks and Luca's head rested on Alberto's shoulder. When Alberto looked closer, he saw that Luca had on a blue skirt in the picture too! Everything else about their outfits changed too, but that was the only thing that he focused on. Seeing Luca (even not the real one) in a skirt made him giddy for some reason. The style was just so...Luca.

Luca nodded and gently put the picture back in the holding tabs on the page. "This was one I was going to give to you, but after Giulia sent you the one I hadn't finished yet, I-"

"This one?" Alberto jumped up and took it from its place on the wall. It was a picture of Alberto stretching his hands to the sky and laughing. Luca nodded. "This is my favorite thing you sent me! I mean, look at me!" He copied the pose on the paper and exaggerated his face. Luca laughed and Alberto grinned. The best sound he'd heard all day.

"That wasn't supposed to be the final product, you know." Luca left the book on the bean bag and came over to Berto. "I was going to, uh...draw myself in right here. Then maybe put some detail in the background. And..." Luca was still embarrassed by the next part.

"And...?" Alberto prompted him.

"And...I was going to give you a kiss on the cheek. In the picture, I mean. While you were picking me up. See, it looks like you should be holding something right there." Luca pointed to the spot where picture-Alberto's hands were. "But Giulia sent it before I could finish and I totally forgot about it."

Alberto wasn't surprised that Giulia sent it, now that he looked back. "Why don't you finish it then?" Alberto suggested. Luca hadn't thought of that. Now that he was home, he had access to everything he didn't have at school. "Then we'd have something to put on the cover of our book!"

"That's a great idea, Berto!" Luca grinned. "I could start on it right now and- well, we have to finish looking through the book first. There's not much left." They returned to their bean bag and flipped through unfinished drawings of Genova, Alberto, the sea, anything and everything Luca had seen.

The night was filled with laughter and silly re-enactments of scenes Luca described in the book. They decided to call it "HeARTs of Luca & Alberto". At the end of the night, when they reached the end, they signed the date. Underneath, a heart with their initials. Further below that, a quote:

"No train is too far away.

With love,

Luca and Alberto <3"

~~~

{Thank you for all the kudos, comments, inspiration, help, and praise that you have given to my Luca content so far! I absolutely adore writing and it makes it so much more fun when people I know (or don't know) enjoy reading it as well! You'll never know how much I appreciate every single one of my readers <333 Don't worry, this isn't the last of my Luca content ;)

Ciao! Many hugs and thanks <3}