Well, this chapter comes a week late, but it has come at last. Last weekend was just too packed for me to swing the update, so I apologize for that. Hopefully, updates will continue on time for a while now, maybe even up until the end of the story. We'll just have to see. Until then, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.


Chapter Fifty-Two: (Un)Spoken

Had anyone told Italy Romano that he would one day be found by a nation he barely knew, cowering behind a pile of rubble in the midst of the apocalypse, he would have either recommended they see a psychologist or, depending on his mood, cursed at them for their stupidity.

As things were now, it appeared that this hypothetical person would have been right.

"What are you staring at?" he asked the other nation, who, he thought, was somehow related to America. "Don't you have someplace to be?"

"I was looking for you," announced the other nation, as Romano tried to think of his name. He's not America, so…who's the other one? Canada. It's Canada, isn't it?

"Are you okay?" asked the nation who was probably Canada. "Are you hurt?"

"No. I'm not hurt." He really wished Canada would go back wherever he'd come from and leave him alone, but he was starting to get the feeling that wasn't happening.

"What are you doing way out here?" If Prussia had been behind Canada to begin with, Romano hadn't noticed. He was there now, though, watching him with a curious, if not sympathetic look in his eyes.

"None of your business," he muttered, but of course Canada had already guessed. He's always watching people; that I remember. He knows people, even if none of us can remember his name.

"You were looking for Spain, weren't you?" Canada asked, and the softness of his voice, the understanding, made Romano want to either punch him or cry, and he wasn't quite sure which. He decided not to do anything at all, which was an answer in itself, of course.

"You don't know what happened to him, then?" Prussia asked, and Canada shot him a look so uncharacteristic and fierce that Romano actually felt a bit afraid of him.

"If you tell us what you know, it might help," Canada said, turning back to Romano with his face calm once more. "But if you don't want to, I understand."

He shrugged helplessly, not wanting to think about it, but also wanting to know how they had known to come looking for him alone, and not for Spain as well.

"I don't know. He went out and didn't come back. I don't know…"

"We've been watching the public broadcasts in the square," Canada said, gently, "and we think he may be dead or captured."

He's not dead. He's stupid enough to die, sure, but he's not dead. He's probably captured, though; they're right. He would have come back for me otherwise.

"I…"

"It's okay," Canada said. "You're not alone, all right? We're here. We're not going to hurt you. But we're also not going to leave you here by yourself."

"What makes you think I'd want to stay with you?" he snapped. Don't leave me here alone.

"Well…I just…I thought you'd be lonely. And I thought…I thought it would be better if we all stayed together, so none of us have to be alone, even if we do end up getting captured."

"Basically, Mattie here cares too much and wants to help you out," Prussia says. "So you should probably take him up on it. Also, if you have any place to stay that's nicer than the back alleys downtown, we're moving in."

"Gilbert…" Canada hissed. Prussia shrugged.

"I was just saying. It'd be great if we could find somewhere to hole up for a while, anyway."

I could tell them no. I could just leave. There's really no reason for them to follow me… But they're alone too, and they're right, Antonio's…probably not coming back.

"There's a place," Romano said. "It's small and you probably won't like it, but it's close to here. You can stay if you want, at least…until Antonio comes back. Then we'll have to see."

He expected one or both of them to argue with him, to try and convince him of the fact that Antonio would never return, but neither did. Instead, Canada smiled reassuringly, and Prussia shrugged.

"Like I said, beats sleeping in back alleys."


Raivis has gotten so quiet. She could understand his emotions without feeling them herself, and she knew he was sad, but he had become distant and angry, too, as if holding onto his memories of Estonia by copying the older Baltic's actions.

And she, frankly, hated it, hated the fact that, even now, this was still about the others, about their lives and deaths, and not about her. Not that it had ever been about her. He never really loved me before, but that, that was the point of all this. The point was to make him love me. I just want him to love me… Why can't he just do that for me, to make me happy?

A nagging voice in the back of her mind kept insisting that she was doing everything wrong, that she would end up regretting her course of action, but she pushed that voice out of her head entirely and pushed on, blindly, searching for anything that would make Latvia happy, that could somehow make him care about her. He had to know - even if she hadn't told him - that time was short, that she didn't have him for long, and if they didn't get on with things she might be stuck in this loop forever, trying to get him on her side until the day she had to kill him.

And meanwhile, there were other things to consider. She couldn't find a single person in all of Panem who had just one favored pastime, and if her hobbies happened to be torturing people and obsessing over Raivis, the rest of the world was just going to have to deal with it.

Even as she sat at breakfast with Latvia, her mind was not fully on him, but on the prisoners downstairs, on what she might have to do to break them. (In some cases, she was starting to believe that the breaking point was not far off.)

"You've got that look again," he said, his matter-of-fact tone disguising a minefield of pain, fear, and hope. "What are you planning?"

"Not telling," she said. Even I know how sad you are, seeing them suffer. I'm not going to stop, but I don't have to tell you what happens to them, either. You're mine now. Stop caring about them.

"Because it will hurt me?" he asked. "Or to show that you can control me?"

Technically, he was right on both counts, but she wasn't about to tell him that. So she smiled, laughed, reaching over the food to pat him on the head.

"Don't you worry, sweetie. I've got everything under control."

"So you are trying to control me," he muttered darkly, and she realized then that he hadn't actually eaten any of his breakfast, merely pushed it around to make it appear as if he had.

"You'll lose weight if you don't eat, and I don't think you can afford to lose all that much," she said. "Eat, Raivis." There was a threat buried in her words, and she knew he heard it, but he ignored her, looking down and shaking his head.

"Actually, I don't want to grow any taller, and I think I'm starting to. So I'd prefer not to eat much and stay the same size."

"It doesn't work like that."

"Maybe it does," he said, eyeing her in a way that suggested he was repressing some kind of sarcastic remark about her rather unimpressive stature.

Maybe if Alfred had bothered to cook something that actually tasted good instead of leaving me with microwave meals and a beginner's cookbook, I might be taller.

"Well, in any case, you'll starve to death if you don't eat, so eat."

I cooked your stupid breakfast for you, now eat it, she didn't say, because, whether she had actually cooked the breakfast or not, she would never even hint that she had. Personifications of powerful nations do not cook.

She pulled her chair over so that she was sitting right next to Latvia, her chair almost touching his, and, picking up his fork, proceeded to attempt to feed him his breakfast.

"If you won't eat, I'll just have to make you."

And Latvia, with a resigned sigh, let her.


It wasn't that he couldn't contain it - he had been able to once, and he knew he must do it again - but that he was not sure he was strong enough to do what he had once done, to take everyone's pain and his own as well, and hold them inside of him, invisible to everyone but those he chose to let see.

He had realized that, whether or not she meant to do it, Panem was reminding him of his fear of not being strong enough, of not being able to save the others and of falling victim to his own weakness. She had rendered him powerless to save them, and yet she had offered him - intentionally or otherwise - the means to keep them from physical harm. But by torturing him, she could torture the others' minds, and in torturing him, she was slowly stripping away his sanity.

So when she came, he tried not to show his fear, although his body shook, although he grabbed Belarus' hand and held on, waiting, waiting, as Panem stood, looking over the pitiful group of nations as if choosing a victim. If he had not known better, he would have thought that she did not yet have a plan for the day's torture, but he knew her, knew that she left nothing unplanned, and he saw her gaze sharpen with cruelty and madness when she looked at him.

"Toris, would you come here?" Her voice was almost innocent, and yet there was a hardness beneath that innocence that spoke of coming cruelty. He had done many hard things in his life, and yet, to stand up and walk toward the promise of torture of his own free will had always been one of the hardest things, despite how many times he'd done it.

It was harder now, with Belarus gripping his hand more tightly than ever, as if begging him not to go.

"Natalya, let go," he said, very quietly. She looked up at him with sad, dark eyes, and he shook his head, willing her to let go and make this no harder than it had to be.

"I could come with you," she said, in a way that was more begging than suggestion.

"She would never allow that. Come on, let go. It will be over soon."

"No, no, not again…" Belarus' free hand went to the side of her head, fingers tugging at her matted hair. "I don't want it again, I don't…"

He reached down, trying to pry her fingers away from his, but she held on tighter, shaking her head. Near the doorway, Panem stood silent, watching, surely gaining some kind of twisted amusement from Belarus' terror.

"Nat," said America, "he's gonna be fine. I bet…I bet whatever happens, it'll happen right here in this room, so we'll…we'll be with him the whole time, even if we're not holding his hands. It's fine. It's gonna be fine."

"No, no…"

America was stronger than Lithuania, had always been stronger, physically speaking, and together they managed to pry Belarus' fingers apart, leaving Lithuania free to go. And still Belarus struggled, sobbing under her breath, and it was Russia who finally picked her up, as if she weighed nothing, and held her fast until she stopped struggling. But by that time, Lithuania had turned away and was standing before Panem, and he could only see out of the corner of his eye as Belarus stopped fighting and began to cry.

"Hush, Natasha, hush…" Russia soothed. "It will be all right, poor Natasha, hush…"

Lithuania forced himself not to think about Belarus or Russia or any of the others, focusing solely on Panem.

"What do you need me to do?"

She smiled. "Absolutely nothing. You can stand right there this whole time, if you like. I don't care."

It really didn't matter what she did to him. Some things hurt more in the physical sense, but in times like this, when she kicked and beat him and left a part of his mind free, he could hear the others' reactions and knew that they were suffering because of him. And he couldn't stop crying, although he wanted to, he couldn't stop begging and pleading for her to stop, just stop, because he could feel himself getting more and more panicked, more and more likely to try and kill himself - if that was even possible here - and he didn't want to do that, not here, especially not here, where there were five other nations who would either witness his death or have to find him lying dead some morning.

If I could die right now, I would. I wish I would die right now. It hurts too much…it…I just want it to stop… Why doesn't it stop?

And then suddenly it did. With one last, contemptuous kick, Panem was gone, no doubt having realized that much more of this would break him irreparably.

She did not want to break him, nor to kill him, not yet. She seemed only to want to plunge him into the darkness, and then, when he was on the brink of being consumed, to pull him back up into twilit realms again. She never let him reach the sunlight, though. He was not sure there was a sunlight to reach, not anymore, not in a world where people like her hurt others as they pleased.

"Why doesn't it stop…?" he whispered.


If you could die for someone else, would you?

Switzerland wondered if humans ever asked themselves that question, or if they just assumed that they would. Self-sacrifice was heroic, to them, and they always seemed to present it as easy, as if the natural human instinct was to give one's life for someone else, to take the bullet for a friend.

And maybe it was like that for humans; maybe, somehow, they were more selfless than nations, who knew the pain of death and shrank from having to experience it.

Wanting to give away one's life was one thing. Willingly sacrificing it when the time came was entirely different. That, at least, was probably a human instinct. He'd always tried to live as a human, but in the end, he didn't know much about their minds.

Perhaps they're not much different. But the question remains: if I could die for someone else, would I?

Lithuania was still sobbing, but Russia had released Belarus and she was with Lithuania now, whispering to him. Switzerland could not hear her, but he could guess at what she said. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry I hurt you, it's my fault, please forgive me…'

"It hurts." He knew Lithuania did not mean to speak so loud, but he also knew that it was all Lithuania could do to keep from screaming in pain, even now, when Panem had gone and his body was beginning to heal from the beating. He knew - they all knew - that Lithuania would be tortured again, and that it would continue to chip away at his sanity until there was nothing left of him but a shattered, empty shell.

"I know, Toris, it's okay…" America looked like he was struggling not to cry, Belarus was still crying, Russia and Italy sitting quiet, at a loss for words. And they probably thought he wasn't watching, but he was, and he knew they were hurt, but he did not know how to help.

If that girl had never existed, this wouldn't have happened. No one would be suffering like this. Heidi and Roderich wouldn't be dead. If Panem had never existed…

But it wasn't as if they could make Panem not exist. They could not just erase something like that, something so evil and hard to kill. Nor could they keep her from driving Lithuania - and in the end, all of them - completely insane.

So all we can do is delay the inevitable. Well…if it's to delay Toris losing his mind…I think there are a lot of things that I would be willing to do. I don't want to lose anyone else.


Romano's hideout was a small apartment near the top of a large complex, and, it appeared, most of the apartments on this floor were empty, making it a most convenient hiding place.

"I still don't know how he found this," Romano said. "But no one's bothered us here, and with things the way they are…most people don't want to live in the city. They'd rather go somewhere away from the politics and uncertainty."

Canada could certainly understand the sentiment. Everything was so much better in the cabin with France…even if things were uncertain, and he was sick…at least we thought we were safe, and we didn't have to see news of our friends' capture and imprisonment every single day.

"I guess, until we find Spain, one of you can stay in his room," Romano muttered. "There are two beds in my room, so someone else can stay in there, too."

"I could sleep on the couch," Canada suggested. "It wouldn't be any trouble."

"The extra bed was here specifically for a situation like this," Romano informed him. "Antonio thought we might be able to find some of the others, and since this place was pretty secure… Well, you know. It would have been a good hideout."

"Seems like it's worked great for you," said Prussia. "And Romano? No one's taking Spain's room unless you think he's not coming back. It probably wouldn't bother him, but it feels wrong, ya know?"

Romano apparently had no reply for this, and Prussia made himself comfortable on the couch, informing them that he was going to try and get some decent sleep for once in his life.

"We should probably go in the other room," Canada whispered to Romano. "I don't want to bother him."

"I'm not bothered!" Prussia announced. Romano rolled his eyes.

"He'll never shut up if we stay in here. Let's go."

They left the living room, abandoning Prussia to his nap, and Romano led the way to the back of the apartment, where the bedrooms were located. One of the doors was closed, but the other led to a small bedroom, which was almost completely filled with two equally small beds.

"I'm short enough to fit on one of these," Romano said. "Not sure about you, though."

"I'll manage," Canada assured him, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Thank you for letting us stay here. I think…I think both of us were sick of sleeping on the streets, although of course Gilbert would never admit that outright."

"He's a stubborn guy," Romano muttered. "Hyper, but stubborn too."

Kind of like you, Canada thought, but he didn't dare say it, because he didn't really know Romano that well, and maybe he only thought of him as stubborn and hyper. He might not really be that way at all.

I don't really know people as they are, only as I've observed them, with only a few exceptions. And now…all of those exceptions …are probably dead.

"Are you okay?" Romano was sitting on the opposite bed, leaning against the wall, his knees tucked up to his chest, obviously pretending that he hadn't been watching Canada.

"I'm all right," Canada said. "Just tired."

"Yeah. Me too."

"It feels like it's been ages since I've slept in a bed," said Canada, "but really, it's only been a few weeks at most."

"It feels like it's been ages since I felt safe, but it's only been a couple of months," Romano mumbled.

"It feels like it's been ages since I had a family, but…that's not true at all. I still have family, just not the one I grew up with." He glanced up at Romano, cautiously. "I think all of us nations should be each other's family now, especially since we've lost our original families. Maybe that's stupid of me, but…thinking of Gilbert as my big brother, I feel comforted."

"As long as we don't count Panem as part of the family," Romano said, "it doesn't sound like a bad idea. Although I'd bet the others would have something to say about it. They all hate each other. They probably even hate us, just for existing."

"I think old hatred shouldn't be a part of this, not now. I think we have worse things to worry about, like Panem. Hating people who in the same situation we are, people who might help us, just seems stupid. I think, if we'd all worked together in the beginning, instead of rushing blindly off in all directions…there might have been a lot more hope for us."

He realized, suddenly, that he was talking too much, that Romano was staring openly at him now.

"I didn't know you could string that many words together at one time," Romano said, his voice blunt and matter-of-fact.

"I'm sorry. I'm talking too much."

"Sounds like you needed to."

"Well…Gilbert isn't exactly one for deep conversation. I mean, I'm sure he thinks about this stuff, but…"

"But he doesn't want to say it out loud."

"No one wants to say it out loud. Saying the words makes them all the more real. But there's nothing we can do. It's real either way. And sometimes…sometimes you just have to say it. Sometimes, the things you don't say do more harm than the things you do."