Title: Love's Aftermath II
Pairings: Italy/Germany, England/America, Spain/Romano, France/Canada, Greece/Japan, Hungary/Prussia, Spain/Italy, Germany/Romano, Switzerland/Austria
Sequel to Love's Aftermath - They're no longer kids, but they've all got their own to deal with now. With their relationships being tested to the very limit and emotions pushed to the edge, did these guys ever get their act together?
Chapter 14 - The Laws of Causality
Dresden blinked slowly; surely she'd heard her brother wrong. "...magic?"
Milan nodded slowly; he seemed to be mulling it over in his mind. "Yeah...remember? The dinosaur from last time?"
"Ve?" Dresden was befuddled. "Dinosaur?"
Milan nodded, racing over to his large blue toy box he dove into it, eventually producing a plastic dinosaur. "Yeah, remember last time you were here I changed the dinosaur from red to green?" he said, holding it out to his sister.
Dresden took the green dinosaur from her brother, eyes widening slightly. "Oh sì! Uncle England is teaching you magic." she said, turning the plastic toy around in her hands, she'd been playing with it with Milan and their cousin Quebec a while back when she was visiting, and her twin had demonstrated some magical abilities his British father had taught him.
"Yeah." Milan took it back and tossed it carelessly into his toy box. "So I could use some magic stuff to get rid of the baby!" he said, excitement climbing in his voice.
Dresden still seemed confused. "But...how does changing colours help get rid of a baby?" she queried.
"There's lots of other stuff I could do!" Milan insisted, grabbing her hand. "Daddy only showed me little things...but I know where he keeps all his big magic."
"What kind would we use?" Dresden asked, enthusiasm now replacing her confusion as her brother tugged her towards his bedroom door.
"I think I know, but shhh!" Milan whispered loudly, sticking his head out of his door he strained his ears for any noise. "...I think the ghost is clear..."
"What ghost?"
"Let's go!" Milan crept as silently as could out onto the landing, closely followed by his sister. He winced every time the floor beneath their feet creaked, slowly and cautiously they slid down the stairs one step at a time.
"Where are we going?" Dresden asked, creeping after him.
"Shh!" Milan shushed her desperately as they reached the hallway. The two children paused in the empty corridor to listen once more, they could hear the soft murmurs from the adult's conversation in the kitchen just to the right of them behind the closed door. Their hearts drumming nervously at the prospect of getting caught; Milan led them to a bolted wooden door that stood at the end of the corridor beside the bookcase. Dresden had never really given the locked door much thought in the past, but then again she never had reason to.
Milan jumped up onto the very tips of his toes, and slowly, with his hands trembling slightly from the immense effort, he managed to shift the stubborn lock and carefully unlatch the narrow door. Dresden peered round anxiously from behind her brother at the room they'd just been granted access to. Milan held it open just wide enough for them to slip through. There was nothing but darkness in front of their eyes and Dresden was incredibly apprehensive to follow her brother through as he edged into the blackness.
A few moments of hesitation later Milan's hand poked back through the gap in the door, and with a deep breath Dresden took it, letting herself be dragged into the room. There was a moment of silence as Milan was looking for something, his hands scrambling across the wall before he settled on what he was searching for, the light switch. He flicked it on and a dull glow slowly emitted from a single bulb above their heads, showing them the way down a narrow set of stone steps.
"What is this place?" Dresden breathed as she kept a tight hold of the rough stone wall with her hands as she edged her way down the steps, carefully following Milan down the stairs into some kind of cellar.
"It's daddy's magic room." Milan answered, glancing back up at the door that was still just the tiniest crack open, but he knew they wouldn't be down here too long.
Dresden nodded slowly as they reached the bottom step. Dark stone walls encased them in the dimly lit cellar, it was a sparse room with no windows and very little light. The wooden floor boards beneath their feet were covered with strange white symbols in a circular shape that seemed to have been chalked and re-chalked over and over again. Wonky, half collapsing shelves held bottles and jars of strange liquids and a black cauldron sat hanging beneath a boarded up fireplace. However Milan ignored all of these and instead headed straight for a large pedestal at the back of the room beside the shelves, where a large leather bond book was sat heavily on top.
He hitched himself up onto a foot stool that belonged to the fireplace and, with some difficulty, dragged the book down from it's perch. Milan almost fell over backwards under the weight of it as he clutched it tightly to his chest and climbed back down. The book was dropped heavily at his feet in the very centre of the strange white markings on the floor. He winced harshly at the loud bang it made, fists clenched anxiously as he strained to hear any intrusions from upstairs.
None were heard and the boy went back to the book, getting down on his hands and knees to flick through the pages. Dresden watched him curiously for a few moments before she went to join him, kneeling down carefully opposite she gazed down at the complicated looking words and creepy looking illustrations on the pages of the large book. "What's this?" she asked.
"Daddy's magic book." Milan said, brow furrowed as he quickly shifted through the browning pages, the corners of most which were curling inwards with age.
Dresden attempted to read some of the confusing names of spells as they blured past her eyes. "What are you looking for?"
Milan smiled in triumph when he'd located the correct page, pointing directly in the centre to show her. "There! The time travel spell!" he announced, voice echoing slightly off the chilling walls of the cellar.
Dresden shivered slightly, inching closer for a better look. "The time travel spell?"
Milan nodded, examining the page. "Yeah! Germany said a stalk brought the baby right?"
"Sì..." Dresden said slowly.
"Well you said to call it back yeah? But I dunno how, so maybe instead we use this." he jabbed the page again. "And go back to three months ago and tell the stalk to go away when it shows up!"
Dresden stared at him, her mouth slowly forming into a grin. "Wow Milan! That's so cool! You can really do that?"
"Yeah daddy said so!" Milan said happily, still squinting at the page. "He said he's used it only a couple times, when he can't remember stuff he goes back in time to help him remember where he left things."
"Do you know how to use it?" Dresden asked, gazing down at the sketchy pocket watch that was illustrated at the bottom of the page.
Milan nodded slowly. "I think so, daddy told me about it..." he muttered, biting his lip slightly. The boy looked momentarily vexed, humming slightly in thought. "...but he said something."
"Ve?"
"...daddy said something, said it was really important to do when time travelling..." Milan said softly, trying hard to remember what it was. He shook his head, shrugging slightly. "Don't matter, shall we do it?" he asked, looking up intently at his sister.
Dresden looked a little distorted but nodded. "Okay, if you think it'll work." she said, beaming at her brother. "Let's go find that stalk!"
Milan grinned, holding out his hands. "Yeah! Okay grab onto me sis."
Dresden took his hands tightly in her own, staring down at the book and then back up at the blond. "Okay, how does this work?"
"There's a spell you say." Milan said, pointing down at the distinct gold lettering in the middle of the page, different from the rest of the text; the spell's description and other information was only written in black, the actual spell itself shining golden. "And to get to the place you want to go you have to think really hard about it."
"...so, think about a stalk?" Dresden asked slightly worriedly, she wasn't entirely sure what a stalk actually looked like.
Thankfully Milan shook his head. "No you think about past times, so um..." he bit his lip in thought. "...I'll think about a baby, and you think about home, okay? That way we should show up at my house when the stupid baby gets here." he said determinedly, squeezing her hands.
Dresden nodded slowly, trying to put herself in the right mind frame. "Okay, got it, let's go!" .
Milan smiled, nodding. He stared down at the gold lettering, leaning closer to read the nonsensical words on the page, still clinging tightly to his sister's hands. The boy's forehead creased with concentration as he tried to focus all his attention on babies, and more importantly, an unborn baby that was due to arrive. He glanced up briefly and saw that Dresden had an identical expression on her face as she no doubt thought about her brother's home. With this in mind, Milan leant back down and began to chant the words on the page.
He wasn't one hundred percent confident in his reading abilities, but this spell didn't use real words and he was simply muttering sounds that made no sense in any language. In a matter of moments the ground had begun to shake, he felt Dresden's hand clamp tighter around his own; the white markings on the floor burst suddenly into life with a dazzling bright light that nearly blinded them. Milan forced himself to keep his eyes open, speaking louder and louder as he read the spell over and over, thinking of nothing but an unborn child from the past. The blinding light was radiating stronger with every passing second, bathing them in white and shaking the very ground beneath them.
In an instant the floor was swept away from beneath their feet, they got the sensation of floating through the air, wind whipping around them as they spun incredibly fast. Milan thought he heard his sister scream but her voice was washed away by the roaring wind in his ears as they went soaring through the air. Just moments after it began it suddenly stopped, still holding each other's hands for dear life they fell back to the ground with a heavy thud, a ground completely different from the one they'd just left.
Light was still radiating down on them, but it was warm and welcoming and different from the stark blasts of brightness that had blinded them moments before. Milan's eyes slowly flitted open and he stared around with wonder, they were definitely not where they had just been. Dresden opened her own, blinking up at her brother in surprise when she saw where they were.
Dresden and Milan were outside, and the light shining down on them was from the sun in the slightly clouded sky. They were on a pavement to be precise, in a quiet, friendly neighbourhood that looked undoubtedly familiar. Milan spotted the spell book lying at their feet and he propped it up against the small picket fence they had fallen down next to as he gazed around, trying to work out where they were. It was Dresden who realised, when she got to her feet, spun around and gasped out in shock. "This is my house!"
Milan jumped up to look over the tiny fence as well. It was indeed his sister's house. However it looked slightly different, newer almost, the garden was more well kept and Dresden's beloved tyre swing was absent from the tall alder tree that stood at the front of the house. Milan frowned slightly, looking around. "This is wrong, we're supposed to be at my house!"
Dresden bit her lip, looking slightly guilty. "Oh...I must have thought about home but did my home instead of yours...sorry Milan." she said apologetically.
Milan sighed slightly, but shook his head. "It's okay, maybe the stalk comes here first? Maybe that's how Germany knew about it, cause it came here to see them." He suggested, leaning over the fence he tried to stare into the living room window but they were too far back to see anything clearly.
"Maybe..." Dresden murmured, she was feeling slightly odd about something, she didn't like seeing her house this way, it was different but she couldn't work out why. "...what past is this?"
"Umm..." Milan gazed around as if hoping the answer would be written in the sky somewhere. "...daddy says newspapers help, they have dates and stuff." he suggested.
"Okay, shall we go look for one?"
Milan nodded, he tried to lift the spell book up but almost keeled over with the strain. "We can't leave this in case it's stolen..." he muttered anxiously. "...why don't I go look? You stay here and guard the book okay?" he told his sister.
Dresden nodded slightly, fiddling with the edges of her dress. "Okay, but be quick!"
"I will, I'm a hero remember?" Milan said with a grin, however he looked slightly apprehensive himself as he set off down the deserted pavement, head switching from side to side as he tried to locate a newspaper.
Dresden watched him go until her brother disappeared out of sight around the corner onto a new road. She sat down slowly next to the spell book, hoping to God that Milan didn't get lost on his travels and couldn't find his way back. The young girl glanced back at her house with a furrowed brow, it was definitely hers, there was no denying it, but there were things missing. She looked up to the top right window where her bedroom would normally be, but the windows appeared to be free of her bright pink curtains, it just looked like an empty, unused room.
Dresden frowned, turning back round she leant back against the white picket fence as she stared out at the road ahead, the road she'd crossed many times with her dads and even played on with her scooter (when her parents weren't watching of course). She couldn't be sure of the date, it was relatively sunny, and there were protruding buds in flower beds that spilled out over their neighbours lawns. That meant spring right? It was summer back in their time...so maybe they really had gone to the right time, three months previous, even if it was the wrong place.
After a few long minutes of waiting in almost complete silence, with merely the chirping of birds and the gentle rustle of trees for company; Dresden jumped at an unexpected noise behind her. She spun around to stare at her house and saw that someone had just burst out of the front door and was walking briskly down the driveway towards where she was sat, moving so quickly it was almost a run. The man was clearly upset about something, he had tears streaming down his face and was making soft whimpering noises in the back of his throat.
The man turned in the opposite direction to where Dresden was sat and set off down the pavement to get away from the house. He stopped just two houses down and hitched himself up onto a wall outside somebody's house. A shuddering sigh left his lips before he fully broke down, crying softly into his hands as he hunched over onto his lap.
Dresden stared at him from where she still sat, eyes wide with shock. This man looked amazingly like...but no, it couldn't be him...could it?
The man sobbed slightly, scrubbing at his eyes. "Dios mío..."
It was!
"Un-Uncie Spain!?" Dresden gasped out as she stared at the man, the more she looked the more obvious it became. This man sat just feet from Dresden was undoubtedly her uncle, however he, like the house, had distinct differences in his appearance. The Spaniard looked a lot younger than she knew him, hardly a man he in fact looked more like a teenager. His brunette hair was shaggier and slightly longer than it normally was; Spain was skinnier and seemed more youthful in his stance; the way he slouched on the wall, his face was younger also, less experienced. His clothes were slightly baggy and brighter in colour than what she was used to seeing him in. This confirmed Dresden's suspicions that she and Milan had indeed unintentionally wound up in a time in her uncles' youth, when he was not much more than a child.
"What am I going to do?" Spain cried, tears continuously pouring down his teenage face. "I-I can't take care of him! He hasn't eaten since yesterday...dios mío, why is this happening? N-Never should have slept with him, my own fault..." the Spaniard's voice wavered noticeably as he spoke to himself, sobs wracking his words.
Dresden bit her lip, she couldn't stand seeing her uncle like this. Spain never cried, he was one of the most cheerful people she knew, always smiley and happy-go-lucky, even more so than her Italian father, what on earth had gotten him so upset? She made up her mind; Dresden was aware that Spain wouldn't know who she was, certain he was far too young for her and Milan to have been born yet, but his dismal face was driving her insane, she had to talk to him and see if he was okay.
The small girl approached him gingerly, leaving the spell book propped up against the fence she stepped over to the tearful Spaniard a few houses down from where she was. Dresden bit her lip as she halted beside him, he hadn't looked up to notice her. "...um scusi?"
Spain jumped slightly at the sound of a tiny voice, staring down at the young girl at his feet. "O-Oh, hello little señorita..." the Spaniard sniffed hurriedly, wiping his eyes across his sleeve.
Her uncle clearly didn't know who she was. Dresden grabbed onto the edge of the wall, heaving herself up to sit beside him with some slight difficulty. "...are you okay unc-...I mean, mister?" she asked, gazing up at him. It felt so unusual to be talking to her uncle under these circumstances, with him not knowing her and he looking about eighteen years old.
Spain dabbed at his eyes delicately as a deep sigh escaped him. "Sí I'll be okay...no use crying about it." he said with a harsh laugh, slowly shaking his head.
Dresden continued to stare at him, interested to know what had happened. "Why were you crying?"
Spain glanced down at her, "I don't know whether I should be discussing things like that with a young señorita like you..." he said softly, smiling sadly at her.
Dresden pouted slightly, gently tugging at his arm. "Please? You look really sad..."
The Spaniard seemed slightly startled by the contact from this little girl. He glanced down the street behind him to the house he'd just left, running a hand through his messy locks. "Let's just say that a friend of mine I...care very much for, isn't doing too well lately." he muttered softly.
Dresden looked back at her house as well, was he referring to uncle Romano? "Can't you make them better?" she asked.
Spain sighed, "I've been trying but nothing I do works...he's just getting worse." he said with his melancholy voice, still gazing back at Dresden's home.
Dresden bit her lip as she tried to think of a way to help, she grabbed Spain's arm again, smiling brightly up at him. "When I feel sad, my daddies tell me they love me, that always makes me feel better." she said happily.
Spain glanced down at her with a look of surprise. "You have two dads?" he asked; Dresden nodded and the Spaniard smiled slightly. "That's sweet...I'm sure they love you very much...but this is a little different."
Dresden tilted her said to the side curiously, "Don't you love your friend?" she asked in befuddlement.
Spain blinked slowly, this girls' facial expressions seemed creepily familiar. He swallowed slightly, shrugging. "Well...sí, I guess...to a degree." he muttered awkwardly, eyes flitting back to the house again.
"Love always makes people feel better." Dresden sang brightly, swinging her little legs back and forth as they dangled over the wall.
Spain's eyes slowly widened, still fixed on the Italian's house. "Love...could I really learn to...love him?" he breathed, he seemed to be questioning himself more than anything.
"You can love anyone!" Dresden chirped from beside him.
Spain swallowed heavily, slowly nodding. "Sí, you're right." his head snapped back round to stare out at the road in front of them, his eyes blinking rapidly. "I mean it's not ideal I mean I...I still love my ex and he's still hung up over his, but it would certainly solve a lot a problems..." the Spaniard babbled to himself, words spilling from his lips as if voicing his most inner thoughts. "He's depressed because he's pregnant and Germany's left him, but if we got together everything would be okay!" Spain suddenly jumped to his feet, despondent face suddenly sporting a grin.
"Ve?" Dresden struggled to climb down as something Spain had said struck a chord. "What did you say about my daddy?"
Spain didn't seem to have heard her. "Sí! I could be with Italy! We could raise the child together and fall in love...he wouldn't have to be alone." the teenage Spaniard sounded more sure of himself, a look of determination on his smiley face.
Dresden stared at him in complete confusion. "What? Uncie Spain..." she called after him as the Spaniard was hurriedly moving away from her.
Spain broke into a sudden run, racing back into the Italian's front garden he tore up the path and burst through the front door yelling, "Italy! I have something I need to tell you!"
Dresden could only watch as her young uncle disappeared into her house and out of sight, the door shut behind him and she couldn't hear what was going on. For one tense moment she was actually tempted to go after him but at that point she heard the loud patter of swift footsteps fast approaching and her brother Milan appeared around the corner.
"Dresden!" Milan came flying down the pavement towards his sister, she ran to meet him halfway next to the spell book where Milan collapsed slightly into the fence, panting heavily.
"Did you find a newspaper? I think I know what year-"
"We have to go now!" Milan interrupted loudly, yanking the spell book down onto the ground, desperately flicking through the pages.
Dresden stared at him in panic, "Why what's happened?"
"I remembered." Milan blurted out as he frantically shifted through the book. "I remembered what daddy said about time travel!"
"What?" Dresden implored, falling onto her knees beside him.
"He said, he said bad things happen! Daddy said time travel is dangerous, and it should never ever be used to change things!" he cried, whipping around to check they weren't being watched.
"But what about the stalk?" Dresden questioned curiously, surely that had been the whole point of this venture.
Milan bit his lip. "I know but I forgot! It's important, if you change stuff in the past, bad stuff happens in the future!" he insisted, looking triumphant as he located the correct page. "So you can't change things in the past by moving stuff or...or talking to people."
Dresden felt her stomach drop. "...talking to people?" she squeaked quietly.
Milan nodded, holding out his hands. "Yeah, so we gotta go before someone sees us!"
"...sì." Dresden took a tight hold of her brother's hand, biting her lip anxiously.
Milan began chanting the return spell, focused intently on the gold lettering. The ground once again began shaking and the sun above their heads grew brighter and brighter until it became almost blinding. Dresden cast one last worried glance over her shoulder at her house from the past as it slowly disappeared from view and was replaced with white light.
~0~
The two children fell with heavy thump on a surprisingly soft surface; Milan sprung to his feet first, shaking his head to clear his disorientated mind. He was relieved to see they were no longer outside, but felt a knot of unease when he couldn't recognise where they'd actually ended up. "This isn't my house..." he muttered softly as he rotated on the spot.
Dresden sat up on her knees, gazing around with wonder. They were on the upper floor of a house, sprawled out on the narrow landing just above the stairs that led to the ground floor. Something about this house seemed rather familiar, but neither child was able to put their finger on it. They'd landed on the soft red carpet of this brightly lit corridor and Milan moved slowly towards an open door just behind them and peered inside. It was a rather large child's bedroom, with two beds stood at either sides of the room. One half of the room was showered with pink and purple, butterflies and rainbows dancing across the wall and hundreds of soft toy animals showered on the bed. The other half of the room was a dark shade of blue, trucks and fighter jets splattered the wallpaper and lego bricks and train sets littered the carpet.
Milan furrowed his brows in confusion. "Where are we?" he whispered to his sister.
Dresden got to her feet, slowly spinning around. "I don't know..." she crept to the banister and peered downstairs to look for any clues, a soft gasp of realisation left her when she spotted something familiar. The front door was housed in a curved archway that she knew very well, it had always been recognisable to her. Dresden ran back to her brother, grabbing hold of his arm. "This is cousin Madrid's house!"
"What? No it isn't." Milan argued, glancing back into the strange bedroom. "That's not his room."
"Sì...it's where it should be though." Dresden said curiously, checking as well. This would normally be where the small boy's room stood, if she remembered the house correctly. It wasn't often she went, Madrid and his dads would almost always come to stay at their house, and it was only on rare occasions they'd go to visit them in Barcelona.
Milan went to stare down the banisters and saw what Dresden had seen before. "Wait...this is Madrid's house!" he'd know that curved archway and shockingly brightly coloured front door anywhere.
Dresden nodded slowly, biting her lip. "Sì, what are we doing here?"
"Milan? Valencia?"
The twins jumped in surprise as a sudden voice echoed from downstairs. Milan panicked slightly before he hurriedly scrambled across the carpet towards the spell book, he shoved it into the strange bedroom just in time before spinning back round as the source of the loud voice started jogging up the stairs.
A few moments later they were stunned to see the smiling face of their uncle Spain. They didn't know which was more shocking, the fact that they had ended up in his house at all or the fact that Spain didn't seem even the tiniest bit confused as to why they were there.
"There you are! What have you two been up to?" Spain asked cheerily as he reached the landing, bending down to ruffle their hair with a laugh.
The children exchanged an awkward glance. "Um...uncie Spain, what's going on?" Dresden asked the Spaniard softly, fingers knotting together with worry.
Spain looked slightly caught off guard, still chuckling a little. "What did you call me, Val?" he asked, shaking his head. "You kids sure play funny games! Come on downstairs now you two daddy made pasta for lunch." the Spaniard said with a cheery smile as he wandered back down the stairs.
He stopped about half way down, looking back curiously at the two of them. "Hey have you two always had those clothes? I don't remember buying you them." he called back, the children said nothing, trying immensely to keep their faces neutral. Spain shrugged with a grin, skipping down the rest of the steps to the ground floor.
When the sounds of Spain's footsteps disappeared from the hallway below them, Milan and Dresden turned to stare at each othe with panic stricken eyes. "What's going on!?" Milan whispered desperately, staring around widely. "Why are we here? Why aren't we home?"
Dresden bit her lip, thinking back to her conversation with the teenage Spain. "Um...that may be my fault..." she mumbled guiltily.
Milan stopped fretting and stared at her. "Why? What did you do?"
"I didn't mean to!" Dresden insisted with wide eyes. "I didn't know you couldn't talk to people from the past..."
"...what, who did you talk to?" Milan asked in horror.
"Uncie Spain...he looked sad and I wanted to make him better." Dresden moaned, covering her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"That made something happen..." Milan said slowly. "...it changed things here."
"What kind of changes?" Dresden asked softly, biting her lip.
Milan looked blank for a moment before he put on his determined hero expression. "Let's go downstairs and find out."
This could be a completely new story, I promise it won't be XD
Scusi - Excuse me
Reviews are love :)