Bessarabia had enough. There were already too many campaigns from the media and the people in his siblings' country for him to handle. Once again, they wanted a unified Romania and Moldova. It was driving him crazy. He had already refused once, back in 1992. Plus, Bessarabia hardly believed Russia would be thrilled of the idea, and he doubted his siblings needed to get into trouble with Russia.
As he got closer to Romania's study, he heard shouting and cursing. He opened the door (without bothering to ask permission since Romania didn't mind as long as it was his siblings and boss) and noticed the eldest sibling shouting over the phoned. He looked like a mess, although he wasn't the only one. The desk was barely visible under the mountains of paper, the couch and chairs were covered in coats, the fireplace was filled with logs and ash and the rest of the study was filled with dust, empty wine bottles and glasses, along with books and more papers.
Romania himself didn't look too well either. There were bags under his eyes, his hair was uncombed and his white shirt was stained with ink, along with his hands. He somehow managed to shout over the phone, despite having a bit of a hoarse voice. He had lost weight since the last time Bessarabia had seen him, and he was also paler. The year had been a stressful one indeed for Romania. The protests from the beginning of the year lasted about a month or so. His old prime-minister resigned and a new one had been chosen. To top it off, the president had been changed for a short period of time during the summertime.
Bessarabia soon realized that the one Romania was on the phone with was Hungary. He heard from recently news that she wanted to change the borders between her and his brother. Romania was infuriated. This made him hate Hungary even more.
After a while, Romania finally hung up and sat down in his chair. He buried his face in his hands and sat in silence, not bothering to greet his brother. Bessarabia wondered how other nations would react seeing his older brother like this. Everyone would be surprised, no doubt. Everyone knew Romania as being carefree, childish, constantly happy, gullible, weak and so on. Even Serbia and Greece knew Romania as being like this, not really knowing all about him. But his siblings knew better. That entire so called "happy and carefree" attitude was just a mask. Romania was really stressed, pessimistic and when he had something to work on, he wouldn't stop until he finished it, even it meant missing a week's worth of sleep. Transylvania usually had to pry his brother away from the desk to make him stop. Also, he wasn't as easy to deceive and as weak as some nations thought, plus he was smarter than some thought he was. Luckily, he still managed to have fun every now and then, but those things had gotten less often. Now, he was almost always in his study, signing papers, reading documents and making important phone calls.
Bessarabia sat down in a chair in front of the desk after removing the coats and putting them on another chair. He sat and waited until Romania looked up. He knew better than to say something when Romania was like this.
After a few minutes, Romania looked up at his brother. The plopped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on the back of his hands. They looked at each other a bit more until Romania decided to speak.
"Can I help you with anything?"
Bessarabia blinked. He was expecting something like 'Hello brother' or 'How are you, Bessarabia?". Not this. This usually meant he wasn't in the mood to talk. But they couldn't ignore this anymore.
"I want to talk to you about all these campaigns for unification."
"Oh, really? Have you finally decided to come back to us, dear brother?" said Romania, while letting a small smile appear on his pale face.
"No."
The smile disappeared.
"I came to ask you to stop them."
Silence. Unbearable silence.
Romania stood up and took a wine bottle and two glasses from above the fireplace behind him. He put one in front of him and the other in front of his younger brother. He then poured some wine for both of them, and then took a sip from his glass. They sat in silence a while longer, until Bessarabia couldn't take it anymore and spoke up.
"Why can't you understand?"
"Understand what, Basarabia?" Romania's brown eyes bore into his brother's blue ones. They sometimes found it funny how different they could be when it came to their eyes. And other aspects, to be honest.
"Understand that I don't want to be part of Romania. I-"Bessarabia was interrupted by his brother.
"Are you not part of our family?"
Bessarabia stared at his brother. Why couldn't he understand?
"I am Moldovan. Learn to deal with that." Bessarabia said.
More silence. More staring.
"Remember the good old days, brother? Back when we were united? Back when Michael was alive?" Romania began.
"Yes, but Dobruja wasn't with us…"
"True, but we got him back in the end."
"Where are you going at this, Horia?" Bessarabia decided to use his brother's human name.
"…Remember when we were an empire?"
Bessarabia stopped to think of what his brother said. Oh, the glory days of the Empire of Dacia. When they had conquered land where today lay Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine and all the way to Austria and more. Those days…those were the glory days of riches and power. Truly, Romania was the getting called Dacia most of the time, but he gave his siblings some credit. Few nations knew Romania was Dacia. They probably wouldn't expect him to be an Ancient. But once again, they all thought of Romania as a carefree, child-like person. He wasn't like that, at least not always.
And then, the Roman Empire arrived. He conquered them and took away land after he was old enough. Romania had helped raise him a bit. That was how he repaid him. And yet, they were part of the romance family, since they were related with Rome and admired what he had done. It was in his memory, you could say.
Going back to modern days, Bessarabia answered his brother's question. "Yes, I remember. The good old days…"
"And wouldn't it be nice to be like that again?"
"Horia…" Bessarabia began, "We can't become an empire again. It's impossible. Even our land combined wouldn't make an empire, and we can't go around taking land from others…"
Romania thought about his brother's words before replying. "But what if I, along with our other siblings, had more land? What if we were strong again? What if we became great again?"
Bessarabia chuckled. "Brother, if you can get back territories to remake Dacia, when it had the least bits of land, I will join you."
Romania rubbed his chin, replaying his brother's words again in his head. Eventually, he looked up at his brother and smiled. "Alright then…if I take back enough land to remake Dacia, at its weakest point, then you shall join us.
Bessarabia considered this. Should he accept? Yes? No? It was probably safe to agree. Romania couldn't get their old territories back without causing a fuss and getting into arguments with the other nations, right? It was probably the last thing the Romanian wanted. He couldn't get their old land back. Yep, looked like a safe bet.
"Deal, Horia." Bessarabia stood up, and he and Romania shook hands. "But, you have to do it in a certain amount of time."
"Fine then. How much time do I have?"
Bessarabia thought for a moment, and smiled. "One year."
Romania froze, but only for a few, short seconds. "Alright then. You can start packing your bags. I'll get those territories back before the year ends."
"Of course you will…" said Bessarabia, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "La revedere, frățioare." Those were the last words Bessarabia said to his brother before opening the door and leaving.
"La revedere, frate. "
Romania stood and noticed it had gotten dark outside. The moon was shining beautifully outside. It was a truly gorgeous night. Romania smiled. But it wasn't a sweet smile. It was a slightly insane one. One that promised pain to those who would stand against him.
"Nu mă subestima, pentru că este o greșeală foarte gravă…"
An insane, sadistic laughter echoed throughout the house.
"Skaudus tauta" is Dacian for "powerful nation".
La revedere, frățioare= Goodbye, bro.
La revedere, frate= Goodbye, brother.
Nu mă subestima, pentru că este o greșeală foarte gravă…= Do not underestimate me, for it is a big mistake...
I know, some of you might not like the idea of Romania being Dacia, but that's just how I see him. Sure, we saw him as Wallachia on the show but Romania's exact age is not known, so I decided to make him older than some would expect. Also, I changed his personality a bit (or maybe a lot) but I'm not sure Romania can usually be all "happy-go-lucky and carefree" and all that. He's gone through rough times, and I can only image it has effected him.
Please don't hate me because of this (at least not too much).
I do not own Hetalia, although you could say I own the character Bessarabia.
Hetalia (c) Himaruya Hidekazu
EDIT: Good Lord, a year has passed since I put this fic up and my views on Romania have changed quite a bit. As you might have noticed, he and Moldova no longer have red eyes, but Romania has brown and Moldova blue. And I changed Romania's name from Vladislav to Horia. And I changed England and Norway, and put Serbia and Greece instead, because out of all the nations in Europe, Romania gets along best with them. He won't be getting along with them anymore now, though. But now, I'll post another chapter, and then I might go on another hiatus. Now, off to reviews!
Also, MOLDOVA WON'T BE LIKE THE CANON ONE. Meaning, he won't be a child, he won't call Russia 'big brother' or 'uncle', he won't act nice around, let's say, Hungary. If you don't agree with this, please, do not send me hateful messages.
Nyb: I'm aware of that, don't worry! But I took into account that from recent polls, approximately 30% of the people of Moldova wish for a unification. Thank you for that percentage, though. And yes, according to recent studies, that is the case.
ICan'tLogIn: I will write this is English so everyone can understand. I'm Romanian as well, so I know the language, but it's hard for me to type the words on my computer. I know there's a special feature some computers have to turn the keyboard into a Romanian one, but it doesn't work for me. Anyways, they're fixed now. And I'm glad you liked the way I portray Romania!