I don't own Hetalia okay? I know I skipped a bit of time on this section but it's building to the big drama coming up. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!
April 7th 1917
(From the journal of Ivan Braginsky)
That was the hardest thing I had to do, but I had done it. I couldn't let Fredka join up. He would have felt he had to in order to follow his family tradition. But he has a family of his own. Natalya, little Nikolai, and there are more on the way. Maybe more than just one because I do not recall her being that big at this point when she was going to have Nikolai and he was a large child. I do not have a wife and child. I have been taking care of Katyusha, but I made him promise to help look after her while I was gone. I also know that he's scared. Matthew had joined to help Britain last year and the letters he sent back sound awful. He's been lucky when many of his unit has been wiped out at the first start of the Somme. I've gotten some Canadian newspapers to keep track of what happens to him. I suggested Fredka do the same but he couldn't bring himself to do it. It's all over the news. When I said I had joined up, I thought Fredka would hit me and Natalya be begging me to stay but it was the other way around. Katyusha, the one I thought who would be crying the most had to keep them calm, if for no one other than Nikolai's sake. Maybe her time working as a hospital nurse in England left something on her.
It must be very hard on Fredka too, his brother had enlisted not too long into 1916 and he's only gotten a few letters that tell of what he's going through. He never would say to me what he has read, but I noticed one of the letters left out while I was visiting one day and while sounding horrible, all the rain, life in the trenches, constant artillery barrages, even then he sounded like he was covering something up. Fredka called me insane but I couldn't let him get pulled into this. I mean if he wasn't married, I am sure he'd have joined up at the first call. That's who he is. But I will not let Natalya be a widow all alone with young children. Just the fight we had when I did was horrible and he said that Natalya always had me if that happened to him, but I made him promise to look after Katyusha if something were to happen to me using that same logic. Katyusha sees him as a little brother as well and it is the family duty to look after each other. Wasn't until Natalya actually seriously threatened him for the first time in her life, and I am not counting when they first dated, that he conceded. I know not every man joining up is in my shoes and many are in Fredka's but they don't have a wife like Natalya. Also I couldn't go on if Fredka died. I love him too much to see that happen.
And I still have not shook what kind of feelings I have for the man in the first place. He's my best friend. This is what best friends do. But at the same time, the idea of his death makes me want to die. I had to do this. To protect them all.
So how was that? Good? Bad? Short? Long? (for a journal entry) let me know in a review. I don't have much else to say on the note to this one, so remember to read (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,
otherrealmwriter
aka
Realm.