Rated T for safety.
Warning : mention of character death, past Spamano, lots of angst, grammar mistakes.
A fic written when I was in an emotional state. This one-shot is set before the timeline of A Lifetime Story of A Lifetime Love, so this is kind of like a prequel.
The lyrics written in italic at the end of this fic is from the same song in ALSoALL. The song is titled Semua Tentang Kita in Indonesian, and the artist is Peter Pan. The song in this fic still does NOT refer to SpainxBelgium.
I do not own Hetalia or the song.
She had never thought she could recover. She had cried so hard in the funeral, her knees buckled beneath her and her brother had to sling an arm around her shoulders and keep her steady. But even now, it was still ripping her inside, tearing her apart that he was gone.
He was gone.
She dreamed of hospital beds and silent room and him laying there, his breath came out ragged and the hospital shirt looked too big on him but his golden eyes still had their fire. She remembered the big, empty window beside his bed and the absence of life-supporting machines around him even though it hadn't been her who was at his side when he died.
She woke up in the dawn with the first morning light coursing through the veins of the city and painting them golden, but then it was cold in her room, it was cold on her bed, and her tears hadn't dried.
"Don't act as if I'm already dead, you silly girl."
"You are dead," She whispered into the silence of the room and hoped that she would wake up once again and found that it was only a dream. But she realized, just like how she told herself every night before going to bed, it wasn't a dream and he was gone.
Gone, just like that.
She pretended that she could still hear the beeping machine that had been supporting his life.
-o-
He was sitting in her house, in her kitchen, and watched her back as the dusty sunlight from outside poured into the room through the half-heartedly-pulled blinds.
Her blonde hair was tied neatly with a green bandana, like always. Her clothes were clean and tidy, like always. The smell of coffee she was making was still the same. But her silence, their silence, was the difference in those routines.
She turned around and smiled to him, her hands full with cups and a steaming pot of coffee, but even in the obscured lighting of the room, her smile looked forced, crooked almost. He smiled back out of gratitude, but he knew he must looked as bad as her, maybe even worse.
Ned was in the next room, reading his marketing books, but he knew that he had ears in the room. She stumbled on her feet and her grip on the cups slipped, sending them into pieces on the floor, the sound of the shattering cups felt like screams in their ears. He hastily bent down to help her but she shook her head no and shakily tried to smile again.
She cut her finger on one of the shards, but she didn't even flinch. She kept doing her task like she was hypnotized and stained the floor red with her blood. He caught her wrist but thought of him, out in the sun-bathed courtyard among the tomatoes, healthy and scowling and alive.
He released her hand almost at the same time she yanked it free. Both stuttered apologies, but both were aware that they fell into deaf ears as their minds were full of someone else, of a time that wasn't then.
Her body shook and she started crying, silently, but he couldn't comfort her because he felt so much like crying too inside.
Then, even though he knew it wasn't the time and he was being merciless, but he asked about it nonetheless.
"You loved him too, didn't you?"
He received no answer but he didn't really expect one either.
-o-
It had been a year and a spring with blooming flowers and a summer with ripe tomatoes and an autumn with yellow scenery and a winter with white sky.
When the spring came again, it wasn't that much different as the flowers were still blooming and he was still not there anymore. Ned still smoked his drugs and not getting high at all. They still met Romulus sometimes, either passing him by in the street or visiting him, noticing how tired and old he looked and how silent his house was.
He visited her sometimes and she did him. And they visited him together so often that they decided they should plant something there instead of buying flowers everytime they did. And after saying that, they both chuckled softly, wistfully, because they were reminded of his scowl and his harsh words and his irritated eyes that held a smile. The chuckle would turn into a laughter, almost happy but sounded like a cry, free but was held back by a sob.
It had been a year, and they hadn't had enough of grieving.
-o-
Two years passed and they weren't sure if they had been able to let go.
She still went to the art gallery and he still visited the street painter.
Ned was working on his final essay, Louise had started holding hands with Ludwig, Gilbert started his own workshop, and Francis now lived together with Matthew. They met Romulus when they visited him one day and he looked healthier and cleaner than he had been a year before.
It was in Antonio's kitchen that they finally, unconsciously, talked about him again.
She told him about their middle school years, he had been such an adorable, always sour-faced young man. He had been unfriendly to most people and she had seen him softened to his younger brother and only to him. But then he had been unexpectedly polite to girls, and because of that they had become friends in the first place.
Both she and Antonio laughed, their laughter reverberating in the small kitchen and bouncing off the cold wall, even when it was still bright outside and the day had just started.
He told her how he had smiled, how they had spent sunny days out in the tomato field and rainy days inside watching the droplets rolling down on the glass window. He had been stubborn and insecure, but he had had kindness deep down inside, a fragile and a strong person he had been.
She chuckled and he smiled at the picture of him, and even though it was ever so slightly, the cold wood of the table felt warmer and the ray of the sun from outside finally seemed to burst colors into their eyes, green and orange and blue and golden.
They didn't know when they would be able to let go. They didn't know either when they would stop grieving.
But at least for now, they knew that they could mourn for him together.
-o-
"Mama?"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"I looked at the photographs on the fireplace."
"Yes, and?"
"Who is that mister in the photograph of you, papa, and Uncle Ned?"
There was a story about me and her when we were together so long ago. There was a story about beautiful days, when we were laughing and when we were mourning