Sad blue eyes met terrified caramel brown ones as the German lowered down to be face to face with the Italian.

"Ludwig, please please don't go!" the Italian man cried. "Something horrible will happen, I know it!"

Tears flowed unrestrained as Feliciano buried his face in the German soldier's chest.

"I must, Feliciano. I have to help Alfred, I have to help Arthur, and Francis. I must help our new allies. Matthew and Heracles are gone. Antonio is about to fall and your brother too. I must join the fight. I must protect you..." and on that note Ludwig pulled the Italian into one last kiss and walked away.

Feliciano sobbed, collapsed on the floor,screaming "Ti amo" at the retreating back. He couldn't see the tears of the soldier as he walked away, nor hear the murmurs "Ich liebe dich, mein engel" that came in return.

One year after Ludwig joined the war, it was lost. Feliciano received the German's Iron Cross as evidence of his lover's fall. Consumed with grief he lived his days onward, waiting for the sun to rise, hoping that Ludwig would come back to his home, come back into his arms. The Italian missed those arms around him while he slept, that look he received every time he made pasta, those eyes that could see right through him. How he missed those blue eyes, blue as the sky.... how he knew he wouldn't ever see them shine towards him again.

He had heard from the barren American soldier, who saw the building Ludwig was in get blown to pieces after he threw Antonio out. He tried to go back for him, Alfred told him while sobbing, but he didn't make it. The fires burned too hot and Arthur had to pull him back before the bullets were fired again. They had to retreat and leave him there.

After Ivan was led away from the site by fake tracks, the American said, they had went back. But all they could find was the Cross the German had worn and a ripped picture, barely recognizable as the Italian man that Ludwig had loved so dearly as to go fight in a losing war for.

Feliciano would never have even considered what was said to have been true if it hadn't have come from Alfred, who looked so broken that it couldn't be a lie like he wished it to be. He knew the second that the American came to his door, holding something like it was precious, which indeed it was. He never cried in front of the American, even as he was handed Ludwig's Iron Cross and the small torn picture of himself. He was shocked at his lack of tears, but the second he left, he broke down into hysterical sobs.

He crashed to his knees sobbing, holding the only thing left of his dear Ludwig tight to his chest, as if hoping, no praying, that it would sear itself in his chest, a permanent reminder of his only true love. He had nothing left. Ludwig was his everything, his friend, his ally, his protector. His lover...

Gilbert had been gone a long time. Austria was taken captive and broken down. Lovino killed himself after Antonio faded to nothing. Ludwig died to protect him. The Italian man had an enormous country, and a home in Germany that he lived in more than his own country, and no one left to share it with. He was all alone. His only solace was when he could finally manage to fall asleep, alone in that room, wearing his lovers cross. When he fell asleep, he went back to before the war. To a time when he jumped into Ludwig's arms singing, and the German would smile and laugh so quietly. His only solace in life were the few minutes of sleep he could scrounge up from the depths of his hell, until he had to say goodbye, every dawn, and watch Ludwig fade again.

The Italian quit doing anything. He stopped painting, cooking, singing or dancing. He stopped fearing,running, and fighting. Stopped blaming, hating, even loving. His heart died the second Ludwig's did, and like the German's, it would never beat again. Every once in a little while, another nation would manage to sneak over. America or England, sometimes Big Brother France. They could never stay long for fear of the Rules. Russia created the Rules.

No country was allowed to visit without the approval of Ivan. No country was allowed contact with any instigators of the war... this being America, England and France. No one was allowed to start an uprising. Nor any sheltering of any country. And if you broke any of these rules or the thousands others like it then you were just shot. That was it.

However, Feliciano found a different way of thinking. After a while of having to live with this dictator, he realized that that person was at fault. That person needed to be punished. And he could avenge the soul of all those lost, and those suffering now. A rage woke deep within him and began to consume him. He could feel as if Ludwig was guiding him, telling him what to do. Leading resistance, helping others gain weaponry, sheltering insurgents, as the victor of the war called them. All for his family, all for his beloved.

But now, a new wind was blowing, and Feliciano didn't know how much longer he would last in the world. The Russian was realizing what was going on, he knew what he was doing. So he would wait for Ivan to call him, like he had called so many others. Japan, Cuba, China, Egypt and Turkey had all been "taken for questioning" and they were never seen again. It was only a matter of time.

The brunettes thoughts were interrupted as he heard a knock on his door. He looked at the clock. Alfred wasn't due for another hour. After the war ended, one always learned to be suspicious. He grabbed Ludwig's old army issued handgun, and checked through the peephole in his door and saw the leather of America's jacket. Italy swung the door open, "You'r early Ameri-"

He stopped as the man he knew so well slumped to the ground, blue eyes frozen in the last moments of his life, fear and pain etched clearly within them.

"You shall be having explaining to do, da?..." Ivan stepped over the threshold of his house, walking menacingly toward the smaller man. "Da... you shall explain and I might not kill the others..." the psychotic grin drilling itself into the Italians mind.

"Y-you dropped the bombs on Ludwig?" the question was quiet but strong willed, one that almost wasn't even a question but a mere statement.

"Da.... it was meant to kill Spanish one... but German got in way... made sure he got out... it was just waste of blood... we killed Spaniard later da?..." That smile, slowly expanding, showing his obvious happiness, his disregard towards life itself...

A deadly calm filled the air as acceptance at what must come filled Feliciano's heart.

"Ludwig..... His name was Ludwig..."

"I do not care for name... German is dead... nothing more, da?" The large blonde leaned forward smiling at the Italian.

Bang!

The large man fell backwards, blood seeping from his chest, staining the scarf he had perpetually worn. Wheezing and gasping for air as his lungs collapsed within him, he looked up at Feliciano. On his face was nothing more than a look of true happiness. Like he had wanted nothing more than to die at that moment.

"I-i must n-now go... I w-w-will see my lovel-ly sister again... D-da?...." He looked up at the smaller man with things he had hidden away for years... Pain, anguish, sorrow, fear, love, and hope....

Feliciano looked upon the dying Russian and simply said in Ivan's own laguage, "Niet..."

The blonde man simply nodded, "I-i thought n-not...." and his face fell to one of purest grief, worthy of a sculpted image, as his gave his last breath to oblivion, knowing he would not go to the same place as Katyusha, his loving, kind sister who died as a result of an American attack.

The brunette watched as the Russian slowly faded into nothing, leaving behind only a sunflower and a bloodstained scarf.

Vengeance for Ludwig was completed and vengeance for every other country, living and passed. Still holding on to the courage that he had used to kill Ivan, he said only four small words.....

"I'm ready now, Ludwig." Tears swelled in his eyes and poured down his face.

The shot rang loud as the bullet passed through his head. As his body fell dead instantly, his heart soared to a level of hope and happiness unknown to him since the days before the war, before Ludwig had fallen.

Feliciano felt himself land, eyes closed through the whole ordeal, tears still forming in his eyes.

Suddenly he felt an incredible warmth, and gasped as familiar arms wrapped themselves around his waist. He opened his eyes to a vision of radiant blue eyes and golden hair.

"L-ludwig," Feliciano gasped, running his hands through his golden hair and tracing his face, remembering ever detail. "It really is you," The Italian nation wrapped his arms around the German's neck, as if afraid to let go again.

"I've missed you so much, liebling," The blonde soldier smiled at the small brunette, "waiting for the day when you were ready to join me..."

Feliciano buried his head into the soldiers chest, much like he did as he begged him not to go to war.

"Never again, please don't ever leave me again... Ti amo..." The Italian said to Ludwig with such fear and sadness.

"I won't leave again... Ich liebe dich, engel," replied the soldier, saying what he wished he had actually said to his lover's face over a year ago.

Feliciano turned his head to the side and saw his love. And passed his shoulder he saw the other nations who had been murdered by Ivan, all with their family and friends. Spain and Romano were talking to Poland and Lithuania. England was speaking with America, while France and Prussia were tormenting Austria... Hundreds of other countries were passed those friends, showing those who had been believed to be alive, and those known to be dead. It saddened him that they all had died because of Ivan. But he truly was glad that they all could be together again.

Yet nothing in the world, heaven nor hell, had made him more happy than the face of the man in who's arms he was in now. He leaned upwards to give a kiss he had been waiting to give for too long and it tasted as sweet as they had ever tasted before, showing him, he truly was home.