Chapter Thirty-Six: Remorse

Switzerland didn't even seem surprised to see him, Russia thought. The blond man stood up slowly, carefully, as if he were trying not to attract attention to himself or anyone around him. Then, almost casually, but with a wary air, he stepped closer to Russia.

"Call me Basch," he hissed. "It's not safe to use our nation names anymore; if there are soldiers listening, they'll find us."

"Are you all alone?" Russia asked, stupidly - he could see that Switzerland was alone, but where was the little girl? Switzerland never went anywhere without the girl.

"Yes, I'm alone," Switzerland said. And then, quietly, "Are you?"

"I'm with Lit- I'm w-with Toris," Russia said. "He's back at the apartment though; I'm supposed to be doing the shopping."

"You got an apartment?" Switzerland said. "How'd you manage it? The landlord ought to have reported you."

Russia chuckled. "I am…um…a bit good at the persuading."

They were quiet for a moment, standing immobile on the street corner, and Russia tried to think of what Lithuania would do in this kind of situation.

"Would you like to come back with me?" he asked. "My home is in an out of the way place; we will not be found there."

Switzerland eyed him warily, and Russia wondered if he should be as suspicious of Switzerland as the other man was of him.

"Um…you do not have to be coming if you do not wish it…"

There was still no reply, and Russia could almost sense Switzerland weighing the risk, trying to judge whether it would be wise or foolish to seek shelter in the company of another nation.

"I don't have anywhere else to go," Switzerland said finally. "Lead the way. But if you're tricking me, know that I'll shoot you. I still have a gun."

"I have no doubt of that," Russia said hurriedly. "I am not doing the tricking, so let us go, okay?"

He started off, painfully aware of Switzerland following him, and rather frightened by the thought that the other nation had a gun concealed somewhere on his person.

"If Toris got hold of a gun…what would happen to him?"

He wouldn't mind much if Switzerland shot him. At this point, it might be a mercy. But for the blond nation to hurt Lithuania, or leave a gun lying around…

"You will keep your gun on your person at all times, yes?" he asked Switzerland.

"I've always done so in the past."

"Good."

"I should probably explain to him about Lithuania. But…how would I begin? It is hard even to think about all that has happened…let alone to explain it all to someone who was not involved in the things that went on in that house and in the events since then. What should I do…what can I do? Maybe when he sees Lithuania he'll figure it out for himself, but…what if he doesn't? Then what am I supposed to do?"

He kept thinking about it as they made their way back toward the apartment, wondering how he could even begin to tell Switzerland, an outsider and a near stranger, about all that had befallen them in the Soviet house. He did not think that such a story needed to be told again, and yet, it might be necessary to explain to Switzerland what exactly was wrong with Lithuania, if only so that Switzerland could help him protect the brunet nation.

"Ivan." Switzerland's voice was very low, even more cautious than before. "There are soldiers watching us. I think they're suspicious - their leader has something in his hand, and the rest are discussing whatever it is he has."

Cautiously, Russia glanced in the direction of the soldiers, who were slightly ahead and to the right of them, across the road.

"Do we go the other way?" he asked.

Switzerland shook his head.

"No, they'd be after us for certain if we do that. We keep going. But be ready to fight if necessary."

There were too many soldiers for even Russia to handle alone, and he did not think that even with Switzerland's help, he wanted to go up against ten soldiers.

"No, it is more than that, and you know it is. You are afraid, afraid of hurting people, because you have hurt so many in the past. They are 'only' soldiers, but Toris and Eduard and Katya and the rest were 'only' my family, but that 'only' was not…they were more than just a commonplace thing, and I hurt them. Soldiers have nothing in common with families, but what if I am wrong about that too?"

"If we fight, we will be hurt, or we will die," he said aloud. "I promised I would go back for Toris, so I must not be captured or killed. We should run if they go after us."

"Run?" Switzerland snapped, green eyes narrowing to slits. "Running will only ensure you leave behind what is important to you. Don't be foolish."

"What is important to me is not here," Russia said. They were almost past the soldiers, but the soldiers were also watching them now, and their leader seemed impatient, snapping things at his men.

"He'll be safer if you don't come back," Switzerland said.

"No, you don't understand, I…"

"I made a promise. I said I would come back, so I have to. I have to go back for Litva. And he won't be able to get out if I don't come back; he'll hurt himself…"

The soldiers were starting across the road in little groups, one group still on the other side of the street, one coming at an angle to cut them off, and part of Russia wanted to fight, but another part of him had promised that it would never again wield any tool with the aim of harming another, and still another part had sworn to return alive for Lithuania.

"Basch," he said, "what do we do?"

"Is Toris in a situation where he will be seriously injured if you do not come back?" Switzerland asked, eyeing the soldiers, hand reaching inside of his coat as if searching for something.

"He will blame himself and likely die," Russia said. "He wants to kill himself."

"In that case, you'd best run for it," Switzerland murmured. The soldiers were so close; their escape route was almost completely blocked. "I'll cover you. You'll have to go for him at night, though, once you've lost the soldiers; it'll be too dangerous otherwise."

Russia almost bolted away immediately, but, suddenly, he realized what it was that Switzerland had said.

"You will not stay behind," he said.

"You don't own me," Switzerland said. "I won't take orders from you."

"I do not own anyone anymore," said Russia, very quietly. "But I do not allow my friends - or even those who are not my friends yet, but only allies - to die needlessly. Take out the two soldiers in front of us, and run. You have a gun, da?"

"Yes," Switzerland whispered, and in an instant the metal of that gun was flashing in the sunlight as he pulled it out.

Switzerland took out two soldiers before the others charged in, but Russia hurtled forward and, with bare fists and booted feet - he had not carried a weapon willingly since the termination of the Soviet Union - he knocked one soldier to the pavement. Switzerland had cleared an opening by then, and the small blond stood still with his gun leveled at the advancing soldiers.

"They will catch us," Russia warned. "Run!"

Switzerland did not move.

"I will not leave unless you do," Russia said, and he would have sat down on the sidewalk to prove his point, except that Switzerland turned like lightning and darted off, leaving Russia to run after him, trying to keep up. He was bigger than Switzerland, stronger, but small people were fast, and Switzerland was no exception.

"Get in front of me," Switzerland ordered as they ran. "They're coming behind us, and I can take a few out while…"

"No," Russia said. "That will waste time - they will call reinforcements if we delay. Just run now."

And Switzerland did, and Russia came thundering after him (every soldier in Panem must have heard him, he was certain), until they had run so fast and so far that even the once-immortal, once-mighty Russia thought that he might collapse and die midstride.

They were no longer in the well-kept areas of the city, but on the outskirts, in a place that was more ruin than city, and it was here, where no sound except the pounding of their own feet could be heard, that Russia determined that they had lost the soldiers.

Switzerland seemed to have come to the same conclusion, for he suddenly ducked inside of a tall but ruinous building, disappearing into the dark so quickly that Russia was left blinking in shock, trying to discern what had happened to the small man.

Then he realized it; then he ducked into the building, and found Switzerland standing inside, waiting for him.

"Come on," Switzerland said. "Further in, before we're home."

And this was Switzerland's home, it seemed, for as Russia followed the other former nation, they came to their destination in an inner room where Switzerland seemed to have stashed all the food and other useful articles that he could find. There was a hole in the ceiling, but there were blankets heaped against the wall, and Russia thought Switzerland probably thought of the hole in the roof as a possible escape route.

"This is your home?" Russia murmured, feeling almost guilty remembering the modest but comfortable apartment that he and Lithuania had been living in.

"They'll never find me here," Switzerland said. "No one comes out here anymore. Everyone has moved further in. And…and the explosion was only a few blocks from here. That's why so many moved away."

That put things in perspective. And it was sad, Russia thought, looking at the desolate, ruined building, that it was not only nations who had been affected by what Panem had done, that humans, too, had been hurt by the explosion meant to end all nations forever.

"When can I go back for Toris?" he asked, very quietly, because he could think of nothing else to say.

"Tomorrow night," Switzerland said. "If you go before then, you will be found and killed, and that will not help him. There will be soldiers swarming the city tonight, looking for us, now they know we are here."

"I am sorry," Russia said. "If I had not spoken to you, the soldiers…"

Switzerland laughed, a short, barking sound.

"Don't be sorry. I was hoping they would find me, catch me, kill me. They didn't because you were there. So, count that as you saving my life, not as you almost getting me killed."

"Y-you…"

"No more suicidal ones, please, I cannot handle multiple people trying to die all at once. Too many have already tried to leave, been forced to leave, left on purpose, no more. No more."

"It's not like that," Switzerland said gruffly. "I was hoping they would kill me, but my self-preservation instinct is too strong for me to actively… Never mind. Let's not discuss it."

"But a-are you okay?"

Switzerland had been standing with his back to Russia, looking out through the hole in the ceiling, but he turned then and stared at Russia, and it seemed to the tall man that Switzerland's eyes saw more of his heart with a single glance than his own eyes had seen of Switzerland's heart in a lifetime.

"You care a lot about Lithuania, and have decided to get attached to me within the last five minutes, because you think I am like him," Switzerland said. "Isn't that it?"

Russia said nothing.

"I don't want anyone to die."

"That's stupid," Switzerland informed him. "I'm not going to kill myself."

"B-but you wanted the soldiers to kill you?"

"Self-preservation instincts only go so far," Switzerland said, and then he left the room, saying that he was going to look for food.

Russia was left alone in the empty room, and the moment Switzerland had gone, he began trying to think out why someone like Switzerland, who seemed so stable and had nothing on his conscience, would possibly wish to die. He did not seem like Lithuania, so tired that he could not even move any longer, but then, he also did not seem as alive, as confident, as Russia had remembered him.

"And the little girl is not with him. Toris blames himself for not saving Estonia and Latvia. Could it be that it is the same for Switzerland, but it is little Liechtenstein that he did not save? Or does he truly have something on his conscience, something worse than failure? I do not think that is it. I think he is too stable - he is paranoid, but he is not unstable - to have done something like what I have done. But he loved Liechtenstein, and to have failed her…to have her not here with him…could that possibly be the reason for his sadness?"

He wondered if Switzerland was sad, or just tired and self-hating. He wondered if this, this thing that made you want die had sadness in it for the others. Lithuania seemed sad, but Switzerland just seemed tired, and Lithuania had grown to seem less sad and more exhausted the longer this had gone on. And he, Russia, was also tired, but he was more sad and discouraged and wishing he could change things than he was tired of this world.

"They do not believe they can set it right…?" he whispered. "Litva certainly does not think he can fix anything anymore. Maybe it is the hopelessness that makes them seem so tired."

And now he was tired, not just in spirit but in body, and so he tried to put his thoughts to rest, so that he could sleep for a few hours.

He could not sleep. He was worried about Lithuania.

Under ordinary circumstances, Estonia would not have gone near a prison cell containing a hysterical human being no matter how much he was paid. However, the person throwing a hysterical tantrum happened to be someone who would probably calm down fairly quickly if he just had someone to talk to.

And he had to deliver America's food and water anyways, or he would be in deep trouble with Panem for allowing her brother to starve to death.

He entered the cell cautiously, ready to be attacked, but instead of being assaulted, he found America sitting in the corner of his cell, bawling.

"Alfred?"

The blond boy looked up at him, wide-eyed, his face tear-stained, glasses blurred by tears, and Estonia knew that America was not going to pose a danger to him.

"What happened?" he asked, crouching in front of the American. "What's wrong?"

"I t-told her where France and Canada are," America sobbed. "And she's gonna hurt them, too, when she finds them, and…if I had just s-stayed quiet, they'd be okay, b-but…"

"Did she threaten you?" Estonia asked. "Did she threaten to hurt the rest of us? Because Toris would have done the same in your place, you know, if Panem had threatened to hurt the other prisoners, or kill them."

"She said she'd kill Natalya," America whimpered. "But she t-told me she wouldn't kill France and Canada or anyone else right now if I j-just told her where they were…"

"Then you weren't wrong. You had no choice. Making you choose between two bad things, like she's been doing this whole time, doesn't offer you any kind of choice. It just makes you take the path that seems best at the time. Neither choice would have been right…but neither was wrong, because there was no better option."

"But it was wrong!" America looked almost mad when he was hysterical, he had such a desperate, sad, wild look in his eyes. "It had to be wrong, because France and Canada were free! She's gonna kill us all, Ed, eventually… I…I…if I hadn't told her, then France and Canada could have escaped. But I told her, so…they're gonna die, too!"

America buried his head in his hands, sobbing, and Estonia sighed.

"She would have hunted them down eventually, anyways," he said. "All you would have done by refusing to tell her was prolong the time you would have to live and suffer. She said she wouldn't kill you until the rest of us are dead, didn't she? You've cut short your suffering, and France's and Canada's too. They'll be tortured, yes, but in the end…won't their pain end more quickly? Wouldn't that be better than years of suffering for you, and for them?"

"Maybe it is best that all of us just give in and accept our fate. We're going to die sometime; why not now? Why not get it over with? We've lived too long already; hundreds of human lifetimes. Isn't it time to stop? Wouldn't it be better to just end our torment?"

Belarus would not look at him.

It wasn't that he wanted her to look at him, but she usually glanced up when he opened the door, and today she did not, did not even move from her seat in the corner.

She was facing away from him, but she seemed very stiff, rigid, almost, and Latvia wondered in an instant of irrational panic if she had died sitting up.

"M-Miss Belarus?"

She said nothing. She did not move. His hands started to shake; he put down her food before it could slip through his fingers, and went over to her.

"Miss Belarus?"

She was staring blankly at the wall, dark eyes wide, and although he knew that she was not dead-he could see her breathing-he still thought that she might be somewhere beyond his reach, and that terrified him.

She had been crying yesterday, had been crying, it seemed, for many days, and she was still crying now, but unlike in previous days, she did not try to hide it from him. He was not even sure she knew he was there.

"Did something bad happen, Miss Belarus?" he asked.

Her face was like stone, she never blinked, but a tear slipped from her eye and rolled down her cheek, and he wiped it away.

"Don't cry. It's okay. You're not hurt, are you?"

She didn't look hurt, but she was also acting very different from yesterday.

"Did Panem hurt her and just not tell me? She doesn't tell me much, but she also doesn't hurt Miss Belarus much, and when she does you can usually tell..."

"What happened? Miss Belarus? Maybe I can help…"

He'd never seen someone this unresponsive before, not Estonia, not Lithuania, not anyone, unless they were dead. And Belarus was not dead, yet she did not speak or move.

"Do you want some food?" he asked shakily. "I brought you food."

He went and picked up the food and brought it back to her, and he managed not to drop it, although he was shaking terribly. And still Belarus did not look at him.

"Here," he said, holding the water glass to her lips, as if she were in chains and could not feed herself. (It almost seemed as if she was chained with invisible chains that not only took away the power of movement, but of speech as well.)

She finally moved, then, but it was only to turn her head away from him, so suddenly that the water glass finally slipped from Latvia's hands, its contents spilling on Belarus.

"I'm sorry!" Latvia squeaked, but she showed no indication that she had noticed his mistake, merely edged further away from him, into the corner of her cell.

"Miss Belarus, please eat. Look, there's food right here… I can feed you, if you want."

She didn't look at him, but she shook her head a very little bit, and he thought he might cry.

"A-are you going to eat it after I leave then?"

Another shake of the head.

"B-but you have to!" And out it came, before he thought about what he was saying. It was the only thing he could have thought of to say to her, anyways.

"Toris would be sad if you didn't eat! A-and Mr. America will be sad too! S-so…you h-have to eat…"

"Toris is dead." He could barely even hear her voice, she was so quiet and hoarse from screaming. (He heard her screaming from his room sometimes, mostly at night, when the entire complex was quiet except for her cries.)

"But he wouldn't be happy… And Mr. A-America isn't dead…how do you think he'd feel?"

"He shouldn't feel anything about it," Belarus said in a muffled voice, pulling America's jacket over her head, shielding herself from Latvia's gaze. "Neither of them should feel anything, even if Toris were alive. I hurt them both… I-I'm the reason they have to suffer, so they shouldn't c-care about me…"

She was sobbing audibly again. Latvia almost hated that more than the silence, but at least this way he knew that Belarus could still be reached, although it was difficult to get through to her.

"How did you make Mr. America suffer?" he asked, very quietly. And she sobbed harder, and he didn't know what had happened, but he knew who knew, and he knew that Panem would tell him the truth if he asked her. So he went first to Belarus and knelt beside her, pretending that he was Lithuania, as if that might help calm her, as if that might give him strength.

"I don't think it's your fault that anyone's suffering," he said. "So you shouldn't think it either, okay? It's not your fault."

"You sound like Toris!" Belarus wailed, throwing back her head so that America's jacket slipped off her head and fell to the floor. "Stop!"

And he had messed up again, as he had been messing things up all along, so he stood up and turned away.

"I'm really sorry. I guess being like Toris isn't a good thing."

"But don't we all want to be like Toris, even Miss Belarus? I think…I think she wishes she were strong like Toris too. I wish I was strong like Toris. But all I have is words, so words…will have to do, but not for Miss Belarus. Words are only a cruel reminder to her."

He slipped out into the hallway, and then, not quite knowing if it would work, yelled at the empty corridor.

"Panem! I need to talk to you!"

He waited in the hallway, and she did answer his summons, although she had never done anything else for him. She came striding along with all the confidence that he had always wished he possessed, and it struck him then that she was, in a way, very extraordinary for having learned such confidence with no one to teach her.

"What did you do to Miss Belarus?" he asked.

Panem pouted childishly, ruffling his hair.

"You never want to talk to me unless it's about someone else," she grumbled. "Don't you love me, Raivis?"

"No," he said. "I told you that already. What did you do to Miss Belarus?"

Panem sighed theatrically, shaking her head. Then, she grinned.

"I only told her that America betrayed his family so she wouldn't be killed. That's all. You'd think she'd be calmer about it, wouldn't you?"

"Y-you… America what…?"

"America has divulged the location of France and Canada," Panem said. "As a matter of fact, I'm off to collect them now. So, that's all that's wrong with Belarus. Don't worry so much. It's bad for your health."

"Well, maybe I wouldn't worry so much if you would stop hurting my friends," Latvia said pointedly.

"Well, maybe hurting your friends relieves my worry," Panem said. "Now, I must be going. Goodbye."

She ruffled his hair again, and then she turned away, aiming a kick at Estonia, who had unfortunately chosen that moment to exit China's cell.

"What was she doing?" the Estonian asked, when Panem had gone.

"Causing trouble," Latvia sighed. "Like always."

"I liked her better when she wasn't causing trouble for innocent people. But I guess…maybe we aren't innocent, and that's why she's here, hurting us. Maybe she's the personification, not just of Panem, but of literal judgment upon us. Huh. I never thought of that before."

"America broke," Estonia said. "He…"

"I know," Latvia said. "He betrayed France and Canada. Panem told me. What do we do?"

"I don't know. I thought you might have some ideas."

"We can't warn them," Latvia said. "We're trapped in here. So…I guess we can…I don't know? Clean the spare prison cell?"

He giggled quietly.

"That was supposed to be a joke, Eddy."

Estonia was watching him closely, and it made him nervous. Estonia had already seen far too much of his weakness, and it needed to stop. Estonia did not need to worry about him anymore than he already had.

"You can stop smiling, Raivis. I know you're pretending."

"But I don't know how to stop pretending. I'm supposed to be brave now, like Toris, and Toris always smiled. So I'm going to smile too. But maybe jokes are too obviously fake, since I've never joked around before. Just smiles, then. Smiling is easy enough. If I can laugh and smile for a psychopath's pleasure, I should definitely be able to do it for my friends' happiness."