A Thousand Reasons
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia Axis Powers, but I do own my overly random plotline and any OCs I throw in.
Chapter 26: Interlude: Dark Side of Love
The European nations have always held onto romantic notions. The French claiming to be the people of love, the Spanish claiming passion and desire, and the Italians being the most charismatic, but even the English who are taken for gentlemen would balk at the truth. Love, for all the beauty in it, can be a perilous path to pursue when you see the darkness that can come about.
Truth in love, lust, desire, passion, greed, jealousy, spiral into the darkness of want for beauty. People want what they cannot have and so often it is a madness to leave the world in upheaval. The truth to love, is that all those good things can be turned black. Lies can taint every memory and make a person mad with grief as they wonder if any of it was true. Jealousy can tear a relationship apart. Love can make every insecurity more real until it pushes away the person that matters most.
Lovina knows all of this and more, because her heart is riddled with the mental scars that attest to the very nature of love. She knows of the fear of admitting it for the first time, knowing in her heart that it would probably end horribly and now being proven right. She knows the fear of waiting to tell the other person of her true feelings and at the same time feeling so inadequate she would never measure up to some invisible standard in that person's eyes. She knows what it means to wait and want and be with the person every day and never say anything, because of being terrified of being alone if she was to be rejected. She knows how to lie well enough no one would ever know anything was wrong unless they knew her very well and how to push people away so that they can never get close enough to hurt her.
More importantly, Lovina knows that with Sadiq, and now Alfred and Arthur, constantly in her life it would not be long before the other nations start to come forth as well. It would not be long before more start remembering. She knows this will mean she will have another duty to protect her children and herself, even if it means vanishing again and this time never being close enough to anyone for a chance at finally allowing a love into her heart outside of her family unit.
Sadiq knew some of these things too. Perhaps not as instinctively as Lovina and not as prepared as she, but he knew them. He knew the pain of loving someone he could not have. Lovina had slowly helped him find love in Egypt and see all the good qualities the nation possessed. Gupta might not have been Sadiq's first love, but he was the person Sadiq knew he would build a special relationship with during their time as nations. Gupta was Sadiq's second chance, but Lovina knew should would not have another.
Her children would come first, she had a duty to preserve their lives and innocence for as long as she could. Lovina's chances had come and gone, between the centuries of hesitations, the heartbreak, the second chance, a second heartbreak, and what may have been a fool's choice, she knew she had used her chances for loving anyone other than her children. It would not matter that Antonia would go with Arthur to learn what she needs, Antonia would always find her way home once she knew how to use her gifts and gypsies always did have a talent for finding their way to the place they call home. Lovino at some point would probably travel with his sister; perhaps the two would meet more of the nations on their own. Maybe they would be safer.
Lovina knew her children very well, where one went the other was sure to follow and if one had gifts linked to their gypsy heritage and wandering nature of genetics that nonno Rome possessed it was only natural that the other likely had some too. Her children would leave and discover their own truths, about love, life, and the paths they themselves will deign to choose and Lovina could accept that very easily. Her uncertainty lies in if they will just as easily accept her loss.
Lovina could feel it more certainly with every year that passed. She could feel herself fading and offhandedly would wonder if this is perhaps what Gilbert felt as well. She hated the thought of leaving the twins alone in a selfish and cruel world where their kindness would be taken advantage of, but she was as equally grateful that Antonia would certainly protect Lovino to the same extent she had once tried for Feli.
While she could regret such thoughts, the void called to her. Humans that hit their lows with depression, hurt, poverty, and various other problems all had their own coping mechanisms, some of them even going so far as to commit suicide. All the nations could feel the crippling loss of their people to some extent. Mostly during wars, but the feelings and emotions were constants. Maybe most people would see it as selfish, a cowards act in taking one's own life and leaving behind the other's to deal with the fall out…but those others put those same people who committed suicide in the position to begin with. If they were going to blame anyone shouldn't they blame themselves?
Why can't those people just be tired? Done with fighting, hurting, feeling…done with life and just everything in general? The call of the void promised peace. It promised an end of silent suffering, an end of being alone, and an end to waiting for a miracle, for the promise of something that would not come.
Lovina was tired of waiting. She had waited centuries for love, for Antonio to look at her and see her, striving to do what she could even if everything she did seemed wrong, she had tried…and trying hadn't mattered in the least. Everything was always too late. Too late for love, for life, for love's true happiness…her children would have all of that and more.
It would just be without her.