I don't own Hetalia okay? But by as many entries as there have been so far, I would think you'd know that by now. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!

September 13th 1918

(from the diary of Matthew Williams)

Well that could have gone a lot better. I am sitting here with an ice pack, holding my desire to beat Natalya back inside because she is hurt, yes and is a woman. Wouldn't be right. But by god. I was just trying to cheer her up. May not have been the right way to do that I guess. That might have been the veteran cynicism showing, at least Katy warned me about not letting it get to me like that. But I mean the letter didn't say Ivan had died, just that he was in a bad shelling. I mean I personally wouldn't hold out much hope, I've seen what happens when the shelling is close by. If he does make it home, he's probably going to be paralyzed, at least from what Ernest described in his letter. And the fact he wrote does not bode well. I've done the same thing for Wayne's family when he was shot up pretty bad. I knew he wasn't very likely to make it and wanted his family to know he did his duty from someone who was actually there, not just some brass who probably has a form with blanks to fill in at this point. However I defiantly did not say that to Natalya. I'd probably be stabbed. Just that threat I heard (or at least Al translated) about skinning a kraut and putting her cabbage picking seasonings on his skin...yikes...I still won't understand why Al wasn't afraid of her. He's pretty thickheaded sometimes.

Although to be fair, she was pretty distressed. Natalya isn't a nightmare all the time. She is strict but not a nightmare. I did feel that I could warn Al about some of the other things Ivan would be facing even if he got over his injury. As much as they try to keep the hospitals clean, it's not enough. I mean it's better than when our grandfather was in the Civil War, but it's still gross. And that flu that is going around, the one that can take out a healthy guy, well it was going around there before it hit the rest of the world. I was delayed discharge a couple weeks because of it. I did have to calm down Nikolai and the twins when they saw how their parents reacted and it did scare them. They did seem to get when I explained that their mom and dad were just really worried about their Uncle Ivan and the letter had news that wasn't very good and they didn't know a lot. The twins, they barely can tell me and Al apart but Nikolai seems like a smart kid. He looked at me with his mother's eyes and Al's cowlick with a shade of hair color in between Al's and Natalya's and seemed to understand at least as well as a 3 year old can. I do dread what the next few months will bring as I do not think it will hold well.

Or I could just be depressed again and not seeing a brighter future as Katy keeps trying to get me to. It works. Sometimes. Sometimes, like this, it doesn't. I pray I am being a pessimist again. Like Ernest said in his letter, Ivan was one of the last people I know of that deserved a shelling.

So how was that? Good? Bad? Short? Long? Let me know in a review. Be ready to have your heartstrings pulled at in these next few chapters. Anyway, remember to read (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,

otherrealmwriter

aka

Realm