Series: « Time is nothing. », 20 historical Sweden/Norway drabbles. Written for lj/hetachallenge. Find my table at lj/coeurgryffondor.

Author's note: Mainly Sweden/Norway with some Denmark/Norway and Sweden/Finland. All the Norwegian history!

Title and opening line come from The Time Traveler's Wife because it seemed to fit. Originally posted to my writing Tumblr in case this seems familiar.

The 20 stories in this challenge go backwards chronologically, so you see the relationship in reverse: you know what will happen, but you don't know why it did; that's why I picked the title and opening I have. When this is all done you can read it either forwards or backwards and see how Sweden and Norway change. I hope you enjoy.


Time is nothing.

« It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way. »

Forsaken

After the meeting lets out those present go their separate ways: some go to group dinners, others to private dates; some have catching up to do, others have planes to catch. Lukas sits outside the building, letting small droplets of rain fall onto his face turned up towards the sky, flags flapping in the wind high above.

His phone buzzes in his pocket but he ignores it for the feel of cold water droplets forming and running down his cheeks, his neck, his arms and his legs. His jacket covers his briefcase but everything else is exposed to the elements, to whatever the world was about to give him. Lukas had survived it all before, even if everyone looked at him like he was some spoiled man who'd had an easy life.

As if they knew anything.

The phone vibrates again, and again, and the Norwegian lets it. The sky grows darker and the raindrops bigger and the storm grows more wicked until someone is heard running through puddles to him, shouting something Lukas completely misses. Even when he's thrown unceremoniously over a familiar shoulder and run back into the building before a bolt of lightning flashes, followed by the inevitable thunderclap, he never opens his eyes.

In the stairwell Berwald puts him down, muttering something about what a stuck-up mess his companion was and how sometimes he could be nearly as bad as Christen, which was saying something. The Norwegian watches Berwald shake out the water in his hair before interrupting the hushed complaints by demanding, "Who said you were to come save me from the storm?"

The Swede rolls his eyes. "You are as dramatic as ever."

"Oh really?" Lukas challenges. "Going to go complain about forsaken-little-me with everyone else later? About what an ungrateful bitch I am and how I've had everything handed to me on a silver tray my whole life?" Berwald stares at him like he has eight heads at that.

"Who said those things?" The Norwegian shrugs.

"Does it matter? They look at me and don't know me." He slides down the wall, throwing his phone into his briefcase as Berwald sits beside him.

"Has anyone ever known you?" the taller man ponders aloud. He stretches his legs and Lukas copies him, leaning his head against a Swedish shoulder. "Sometimes I wonder if I know you, who you really are."

Lukas closes his eyes, inhaling deeply the smell of Berwald's cologne and aftershave and the perfume that lingered from women who'd kissed his cheeks. "You of all people know me and what I have been through."

"I know what I put you through," and the man links their hands together. "I know most of what Christen put you through." Lukas spins Berwald's wedding ring, a visual mark of a relationship he once had. "Don't know why I still wear that," the man mutters, two years since the divorce from Timo. "Habit, I guess."

"Something like that." A silence falls over the stairwell, rain still pounding against the side of the building, people moving on higher-up floors.

"Do you remember, when we were young?" Berwald looks at him with honest sea green eyes behind stylish glasses and Lukas nods, feeling his heart speed up.

"We were happy then. Sometimes I think we were only happy then."

"We were happy in our union. First union," the Swede quickly corrects.

"We came to be happy again, later on, once the dust had settled."

"Until I truly loved," Berwald murmurs, "I was alone." The Norwegian remembers hearing the words before though he cannot place the who.

And perhaps that's for the better, his mind thinking back. "Time has always been nothing, compared to us," Lukas whispers and Berwald leans in for a kiss.