I do not own Hetalia okay? I honestly don't have much to say here than I did in chapter 1 for this intro. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!
September 15th 1918
(from the diary of Ivan Braginsky)
It is a lot of work getting used to daily life when your legs do not work anymore. I know they are there and attached. I can clearly see them. I do have some better nurses than the ones on the battlefield. I am amazed they gave Ernest some leave just to see me to this hospital. Apparently this is in Rouen, France and while the medical staff here won't let Ernest stay here all the time, something I think would do him some good honestly as he keeps meeting up with those French women he is going to get a disease, it is good to see a familiar face as I get used to this. Putting pants on is harder than I thought it would be to say the least of other functions. I guess it is good that Katyusha was trained as a nurse and did serve some time as one in England last year. I assume she had seen things like this.
I do have to say at least I can get some, somewhat fresh air at this hospital and the nurses will help me into the wheelchair and walk with me as I wheel myself to the balcony. The late summer breeze feels nice. Unfortunately, I do have to deal with some unorthodox treatments for the shrapnel wounds. I can thankfully say that the infection and septicemia seem to be subsiding due to the reports of the doctors but they keep using such weird things. One doctor tried maggots. Luckily I had found this out after it had done it's work supposedly. They tried it while they had me on so much morphine and Chloral hydrate sleeping pills I don't think I knew what happened after I got to the hospital after the attack. But they also tried some arsenical compounds as well to threat this. Apparently the same ones they use for Syphilis. The doctors are desperate and apparently one told me he never wants to see Major Bonnefoy the way he was from what Ernest said when I was first brought in. Today is the first day in a long time the amount of morphine they have me on lends to actually being able to write. I am too happy to care what this all will mean right now, just dreaming of seeing Fredka, Nikolai and the new twins in person for the first time. That could be the morphine talking though.
Ernest has only a few more days left on leave and is spending them mostly with me until he his shooed away and then he goes to some girl's house saying he's in love. Oh boy, I do not want to hear it when that ends up badly. He's an American Soldier, they're exotic to these rather loose French women. I mean I heard of some tramp Jack Dawson drawing women naked for cheap. I may just have high moral standards. Or hold some old Russian grudges against the French. I do know Major Bonnefoy did not like my tales of General Winter versus Napoleon. I shouldn't be so mean. He's taken my treatment and discharge personally and is overseeing a lot even though I am not French.
So how was that? Good? Bad? Short? Long? Let me know in a review. And yes Chloral hydrate is a sleeping pill from the era and they did use maggots as a treatment, not extensively mind you, in World War I. I suggest all those interested watch Indy Nidell's The Great War series on Youtube and he does cover the post war and World War 2. If you know your history some of the jokes in Hetalia get really more funny, at least in my opinion. This story is intended to stand independent of both The Longing of the Heart and The Healing of the Heart which this story will have a difference from both naturally. Now if this will be as long as those, that I do not know yet and I won't update as fast as some of the others I have. But anyway, remember to read (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,
Otherrealmwriter
Aka
Realm