(EngHun)
A/N: A lovely reader asked for this pair after a week or so playing around with ideas I finally found one that I think works
It's a bad dream, the same that he always has. A constant cycle of deaths and screams, some his, some his brothers. Each one still haunting him even if he's not quite sure if it ever really happened. Did the mansion really exist or was it something he thought up in one of his opium dens?
"They were so important to me..."
His green eyes bolt awake and for a second all he can see is the darkness around him, his lover asleep next to him. At least she can dream peacefully, he thinks to himself as the nation eases out of their shared bed.
While England creeps out into the moonlight hallway he's unaware of her eyes watching him. She waits for a few minutes before slipping out after him. It's been something she's done for as long as she can remember. A gentle game of cat and mouse though she doubts in the morning he'll remember. Oh how his memory has faded but at least he remembers her.
He doesn't have to remember the long year that looped in a constant hellish nightmare. Or that on the other side how desperately they had all tried to break the curse. It had taken such a toll on all of them and she was sure that while his magic would keep him safe it wasn't enough to bring him back to her...to them.
Softly her feet land on the warm carpet until she's watching just outside the door. There she watches as he strokes their daughter's small arm, humming an ancient melody that both know so well. Soon he sits down in a chair beside the bed, a mix of confusion and worry in his tired eyes.
"Don't worry," she whispers only now daring to enter. Their little one is sound asleep and soon her father will be as well. "It was just a dream." Hungary says in a kind voice reaching out for his hand.
He looks up, blinks then nods. Then like always she takes his hand and leads him back to the warmth of their bed but tonight he looks up. "If I knew...I would have fought harder."
Hungary stops short, squeezing his hand. "The wall wasn't something you could fight." Her lie has been rehearsed yet as it escapes her lips they both know the truth.
"The wall took too much from all of us." He answers his mouth suddenly dry. "And I'm sorry."
She doesn't want to cry, not in front of him yet, soon she finds it hard to ignore the tears streaming down her face. "Don't be." He pulls her back into a tight embrace. "You were doing all you could and...and you're home so what more does it matter?"
A gentle smile appears on his face. "Eliza..." He kisses her forehead, "I guess it doesn't but." Again he stops shaking his head. She's had to be so strong for them, its time he let her rest for a change. "Let's go back to bed."
She doesn't argue, sure that by the first morning light he won't remember anything. Again she'll chalk it up to a bad dream and nothing more but England won't forget this time.
He lost her once, consumed by the nightmare and he'll be damned if he lets it happen again. They aren't victims. They're survivors even if only he knows it.