Chapter 14:

The idea for this oneshot was inspired by a FanFiction story titled "Shadows" by Jubalii. I won't give any spoilers, but the idea of arthritis in skeletons came from this story. But even though I took one aspect of Jubalii's story to kick start this oneshot, that doesn't mean I copied it word for word! Their story is beautiful and honestly helped me write my own fanfiction for Coco, so go check their story out! If you like my stuff, you won't regret it!

Also, disclaimer, if you're a huge Hector fan, I'm so sorry, but he kind of gets thrown under the bus in this one. While Imelda is my favorite character in the movie, I still absolutely love Hector as both a character and just a cute guy, but he does get the short end of the stick here. I'm not trying to be mean towards him, but I needed a little conflict to get my emotional message across.

Pain is all she felt.

She felt each knot, every crack, and all of it was pure agony. And there was nothing she could do. She couldn't tend to muscles that no longer existed just as she couldn't tend to pain that wasn't real.

When Imelda first experienced the pain of her arthritis again in the Land of the Dead, she went straight to the local doctor. She had been a new skeleton frantic and alone and didn't know what to think. She didn't even link it to her old arthritis symptoms until she had a chance to breathe. And she only had a chance to breathe after the doctor told her this pain was normal and that quite a few skeletons experienced it when they first died.

He had told her, after she had had a chance to calm down, that this pain she was feeling was a Land of the Dead subcategory of phantom limb syndrome. He explained that it was similar to what amputees feel after they lose a limb. The nerves keep firing signals to a nonexistent body part because it used to be there, and the brain has yet to register that the body part is gone.

It was at this moment that Imelda got agitated again and demanded to know why he was talking about missing limbs when she had all of hers in their rightful place. He calmly informed her that he was giving her a real world example of her condition and that she should imply this example to her pain.

This is when Imelda finally connected the dots.

Her arthritis wasn't back. It wasn't keeping her joints from moving like they were supposed to because she didn't have any joints to move. This pain was only in her head. It was only there because her mind thought it should be there. It had yet to fully understand that she was a skeleton and that her arthritis wasn't there anymore. After thinking about this, Imelda turned back to the doctor and asked if there was a cure for this subcategory.

He told her that there was indeed a cure: experience. He said that she should just give her new body a couple of weeks to get settled, and then it would work out its problems on its own. Imelda was skeptical about this answer, but she knew she wouldn't get a different one. She just thanked the doctor, paid for her appointment with her newly earned money, and went back to her small home. The doctor's advice had surprisingly worked after a couple of weeks, and Imelda soon found her arthritis to have disappeared as fast as it had come.

But that was decades ago.

So why was she still feeling pain at that very moment in the present? Well, she had a few hypotheses.

One, that the doctor was actually an idiot and didn't know what he was talking about. Two, she kept hitting her bones really hard in the workshop by accident and didn't realize she was in pain until later. Or three, and the most obvious option, her pain never actually went away. It was way better than it had been the first few weeks of her death, there was no doubt about that, but it still came back every now and again to haunt her.

It came back when she was walking through the market and her fictitious ears picked up the faint sound of mariachi music, it came back when her son-in-law talked about how much he missed Coco in the Land of the Living, and it came back when she was alone in her room and she remembered the days when she had shared her bed with someone.

It didn't take her long to realize why she was feeling pain still.

Like the doctor had said: it was all psychological. Her phantom pain was tied to her experiences and her mind. She didn't expect the doctor's words to be so literal or for her pain to be linked to her mental emotions too. Her nonexistent arthritis was tied to terrible life events, and the trauma that came with them, that she thought she had buried deep within herself, and some specific things triggered her memories and therefore triggered her arthritis.

Well, one of these triggers, surprise surprise, was her husband, the one who had caused all this pain to start, and he was currently chatting up a storm in her lively workshop.

Imelda tried to concentrate on her hands. She tried to concentrate on the shoe and hammer in her hand. She tried to focus on anything else but him just to take away some of the pain she was feeling in her imaginary joints. But that was proving to be unsuccessful for obvious reasons. It was impossible to ignore him.

Some music or some words that caused her arthritis to flare up only caused minimal damage. It was enough to get her attention, but not enough to stop her movements. But this was on a whole other level. The person she had despised for years, the sole reason her arthritis still remained, was sitting in her workshop, talking and laughing with her family, like he belonged there. Like he had every right to be there.

And he does, the logical side of her brain kept telling her. He was completely innocent. He had never done anything wrong in life or in death. He had never wanted to hurt her. So why was it so painful?!

Imelda hadn't realized she had dropped her hammer, or how loud of a noise it made, until the entire workshop had stopped what they were doing to turn and stare at her. She hung her head. She couldn't bear to look into their eyes in case their gazes made her pain worse. She just stared down at her now empty, shaking hand. She knew that they could all see how badly it was shaking and how her secret pain wouldn't stay a secret for much longer.

She then turned to look at her other hand that still held onto the shoe for dear life. She noticed the dents she was making in the new, fresh leather before she dropped the contents of that hand too. She now had two empty, shaking hands in her view, and all she could do was stare at them. The pain that was shooting through them was unlike anything she had ever felt in both life and death. This pain that had kept her bedridden and out of work in her final living years was now set on to its highest level with no sign of stopping. She knew she wouldn't be able to take this for much longer.

"Imelda."

It had to be him.

Imelda's head shot up to glare daggers at Hector, which made him jump back a least three feet in alarm. Her teeth were clenched so hard it looked like they might break, her jaw was locked back in its socket so far that he feared it would go straight through her skull, and her eyes… her eyes.

Even though they looked like they could murder him again with their intensity, he could find something familiar within those brownish purple irises… that were rappedly turning into a shade of alarming scarlet right before his own eyes.

All he saw was pain staring right back at him. He didn't find any of the anger or fury that he had been expecting. All he could find was pure, unhinged, surging pain… Had he caused that?

"Imelda, I—"

"SHUT UP!"

The entire family gasped as she screamed at the top of her nonexistent lungs. He jumped back another couple of feet at her loud volume before standing as still as a statue. He definitely hadn't been expecting that.

He had never heard her raise her voice that much before ever, and clearly the rest of the family hadn't heard her talk like that ever either… except for a specific pair of twins.

"Alright, everyone out," Felipe said as he started to hurriedly push both Hector and Rosita towards the back door of the workshop that led to the rest of the house.

"Right. You can all start dinner early and we'll lock up shop for the rest of the evening," Oscar agreed as he followed his brother's lead and pushed Victoria and Julio towards the door.

"But it's only 5:30," Rosita began to protest before she was cut off.

"No buts," Felipe said sternly, and the rest of them knew they were deathly serious by how he had just said those two words without cracking an inappropriate joke. They all just nodded their heads rapidly before shuffling through the door that immediately closed behind them.

Rosita, Victoria, Julio, and Hector looked between each other in confusion. They had no idea what just happened.

"Did I really just cause that?" Hector asked as Rosita patted his shoulder. They could all hear the concern and sorrow that was within his words.

"Imelda! Imelda! Easy! Easy!"

Imelda was in fact not taking it easy as she started to lose her balance from the pain dancing up her legs. All her bones felt like they were on fire and knocking against each other with sandpaper for a texture. It was uncomfortable, it was shocking, and it was so so painful.

Her brothers had been able to catch her before she had toppled to the side and carefully rested her sitting up on the floor so she could possibly feel better, but also so they could still see her face. She had wrapped her arms around her ribcage in a vice grip, and when the twins looked into her eyes, they could tell they were unfocused and that she wasn't mentally there.

"Imelda! Hermana!" Oscar cried as he cradled his sister's head in his hands.

Felipe started rubbing his hands up and down her arms in an attempt to soften the grip she had on herself. He feared she was about to snap her own arm bones in half.

"Imelda!" Oscar kept trying to talk to her, hoping she would come back to them, "Imelda, I know this is hard for you! This is a huge change, and, especially after Dias De Muertos and everything else you've been through, I'm not surprised that this is how you are reacting. But I want you to know that we're struggling too!"

"Yes!" Felipe spoke up with both panic and excitement after he noticed that her grip was loosening, "We both didn't know what to do when Hector came back after so long. We were worried for the family, and we were especially worried about you. You are the toughest person we know, hermana, you've proven it time and time again through our entire lives, but we knew this would not be easy for you!"

"We're here for you Imelda!" Oscar said with a sad smile as her eyes finally came back into focus to look up at him, "You don't have to go through this on your own."

"We want to help you in any way we can," Felipe said as he kneeled down on the floor beside her, "You've always been our shield. Now it's our turn."

"We love you Imelda," Oscar said as he pulled his sister into a hug.

"And we always will," Felipe said as he wrapped his arms around her from behind so she could feel safe and secure from all angles.

Imelda sucked in and let out a shaky breath as she gripped her brother's shirt and apron, which she was resting her head upon. She felt her entire body relax as the pain began to subside. The warmth of her brother's love seemed to be melting it all away, and it was causing her already relaxing body to melt away with it. She could also feel all her barriers melting away too, which let lose all her emotions.

First to come were the tears of relief, and then the happy smile. She sobbed quietly into Felipe and Oscar's loving hug as they granted her all the necessary time to relax and calm down. It was so quiet and soothing in their embrace that they could easily hear her words even through the suffocation of their hug.

"I love you guys too."

Another disclaimer, I did not intend, and will never intend, to offend any amputees by writing this oneshot. I tried to do my research while writing this oneshot, but if I got something wrong, I deeply apologize. I've just read some stuff in the past about phantom limb syndrome, and I've found it to be truly fascinating, so I wanted to use it here. If anyone wants me to change something in here to make it more accurate, I would be more than happy to.

Second, I wrote this oneshot as a tribute to my own little brother actually. We've been going through some rough stuff recently, and I'm not talking about just COVID-19 here, and he's really been one of my greatest backboards so I wanted to thank him for that. If he ever finds out about this, he will probably be more concerned than moved, but this is my personal way of thanking him because writing these oneshots means a lot to me.