Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: I've caught a cold and my throat feels like it's stuffed with thick balls of snot. Whenever I cough, my brothers complain I sound like a walrus. That makes me laugh, which makes me cough again, and OUGH OUGH I'M THE WALRUS, BBY~
Seriously though, I wish the snot would just go away. :(

A/n2: According to an article I read during the Winter Olympics, some people apparently think that all Dutch people travel by skating. That that's the reason why the Dutch won so many speed skating medals – it's just their way of life.
...yeah, nice story, but no. XDDDDD We travel by bus and car and bicycle, just like most people. Hell, I don't even know how to skate! None of my family members or friends know (except for my mom, according to my grandparents my mother – aged four – knew how to skate right away when they brought her to an ice lake one day, but then again, that's just my weird mother for you).
But yes, the sport is incredibly popular in the Netherlands, just like football/soccer.

A/n3: Margaret Fuller was a pretty awesome lady. She had guts and she wanted to improve the lives of women. Then she, her husband and their son died in a shipwreck. Her body and the body of her husband were never recovered.
Whoa.
Anyway, as a non-American, I'd read the quote below and be like 'well that's nice' but man, this lady did all these epic things in the nineteenth century! You know, from 1800 to 1900 (it's called the nineteenth century, right?). That's pretty darn impressive!

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 41:

What a difference it makes to come home to a child!
Margaret Fuller
(American journalist, critic and women's rights advocate)

I stared at Dr. Delgado like an aspirant-cook would stare at a critic after the latter had just told him he fucking hated the perfect pasta-meal the young cook had especially prepared for him, dammit: as if I wanted to throw lots of sharp objects at his ugly, smirking, arrogant, food-hating mug.

That… that mean son of a…!

I opened my mouth to rebuff that crazy doctor's evil comment, but Antonio beat me to it.

'Guillermo!' he snapped at the doctor (who seemed to momentarily flinch from sheer astonishment, because, oh dear, his beloved country's personification – he could actually get mad at him?). 'I respect your authority as a skilled doctor and I'm very grateful you helped Lovino out even though you can't stand him – but I warn you, offend him one more time and I'll kick you out just as rapidly as I let you in!'

Dr. Delgado, who had been about to sit down on a chair, stopped lowering his butt to the seat to gape at Antonio (well, I think he gaped, his long, white beard was kind of blocking my view, so I didn't know for sure).

'He's very important to me!' Antonio carried on, before the doctor could say something in return. 'You should know that by now! I even married him, in case you didn't notice yet! And I'm just as gay as Lovino is – no, scratch that, I'm disturbingly gayer than him. Gayer than most men, actually. I'm probably the gayest man of all!'

I flashed him a crooked smile. 'Um, Antonio, that's very sweet, but I think you made your point clea—'

'I'm the gayest gay of all gays! The Alpha and Omega of the Gay!'

'…Antonio, seriously.'

'When God created gays, my spitting image was in the back of his head! I was his model, Guillermo! The model!'

'Oh my god, Antonio, please just stop it!'

'I'm running over the bed!' Alejo completely unnecessarily added and started sprinting over the bed sheets in hasty hysterical circles.

We all paused from yelling and getting agitated to watch Alejo perform his ADHD-qualities for a little while and slowly regained our breaths. Then, after Antonio had just… put our weird son off the bed and told him to go play with his siblings or whatever, I was the first to speak.

'…so anyway, Antonio, the reason why you called Dr. Deldorko instead of Dr. Tosca was…?'

And yes, I was totally ignoring Dr. Delgado at this point, because the bastard fucking deserved it.

Antonio frowned. 'First of all, what I told Guillermo goes for you, too, sweetie – don't insult him, he's only an old, conservative, old man.'

'Mr. Spain, you said old twice,' Dr. Delgado grumpily pointed out.

'And second of all,' Antonio deliberately continued, 'Dr. Tosca is on maternity leave. She's expecting her baby in about a few weeks, so I didn't have a choice, I had to consult Guillermo. So, I—'

'Yeah yeah, I get it now, the picture's crystal clear. Thanks, Antonio. Now tell me when you started addressing to your doctor by his first name,' I swiftly cut him off. It was a completely different subject, I know – but he had never called the old coot by his first name before, so I wondered why he was doing it now, all of a sudden.

Antonio blinked. 'Oh, why I'm doing that now? He asked me.'

'…asked you?'

'I asked Mr. Spain if he would be so kind to address to me by using my first name from now on – that's all, Mr. Romano.' Delgado huffed, rummaging through his scary brown doctor-suitcase or whatever it was called.

'But why—'

'That's none of your business, it's something between me and Mr. Spain.' He put on one blue, sterile gloves – you know, the ones you can throw away – and shuffled the chair closer to the bed. 'Now get your annoying head here, I need to inspect that wound you got.'

Get your filthy homophobic mitts out of my face, I wanted to nag – but Antonio's "don't you fucking dare" -glare kind of freaked me out, so I muttered something like 'okay' and obediently crawled closer to the edge of the bed.

'Turn around,' Delgado commanded, and just grabbed and twisted my head like he twisted open the lid of a bottle of soda, dammit – a bottle of soda he fucking hated.

'Ouch! You awful piece of shhhhh-ow! You're fucking –ouch!– hurting me!'

'It's a nasty cut,' the doctor told Antonio, pretending not to hear my yelps as he touched the painful, sensitive area of the back of my head over and over again. 'He was lucky his head missed the tap of the bathtub.'

'No I wasn't!' I snarled. 'I'm in fucking pain here!'

'You could be in a lot more pain!' the doctor barked back. 'But it serves you right! that's what you get for trying to engage in sinful activities while showering!'

Antonio laughed nervously. 'Erm, I'm also partly to blame for that, Dr. Del… I mean, Guillermo. Besides, if I had pulled Lovi up without losing my balance, there probably wouldn't have been an accident at all.'

'So let me get this straight, Mr. Spain. You and Mr. Romano were – for reasons I don't want to know – having a shower; then he slipped all of a sudden and bumped his head; you subsequently tried to pull him up, but you slipped as well, crashing down on him and causing him to hurt that same part of his head once again,' Delgado pondered.

'Yes,' Antonio nodded, 'and then he lost his consciousness and my nose started bleeding from the inpact with Lovi's forehead and I… well, I freaked out.'

'And then one of your children came along to check what was going on, saw you two, all covered in blood. The boy froze on the spot and started bawling. Right?'

Antonio sighed, looking at the opening of the door. 'Yes, he did.'

I visualized the image of a crying Matteo, groaned and rubbed my neck when Delgado finally let go of me.

'Man, now why did Matteo needed to be the one who came to check on us… kid's going to be restless for months now.'

'It wasn't Matteo. It was Alejo.'

I instantly jolted my head up, staring into Antonio's direction. 'It was Alejo?'

'Hm-hm.'

'He… started crying? Because he saw blood? Alejo?'

'Because he saw us, covered in blood.' Antonio bit his lower lip. 'It made me snap back into reality and get into action, but… I think Alejo got a pretty nasty shock from it – from finding us like that. It took me a few hours to ensure him you were going to be alright. I thought he would throw one of his dark tantrums again, but thankfully, he didn't.'

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My jaw even dropped.

'But… but he looked perfectly fine when I saw him just now!' I stammered.

Antonio shrugged. 'Well, you did wake up. That was pretty reassuring.'

'Right,' Delgado impatiently said, 'back to what we were talking about just now. So after your son discovered you, you called me. That's it, right? Nothing noteworthy happened after all that. Correct?'

'Aside from Alejo almost getting a fucking trauma? Naaah, not much,' I sarcastically said.

'Oh please, Mr. Romano. Children are flexible. They don't get trauma's that quickly. They can endure more than you think.' Delgado snorted. 'Besides, his parents are two men – no doubt the boy's already been traumatized.'

'I'm going to pretend you didn't say that,' Antonio slowly said, although he did look pretty angry again, 'but I beg you, Guillermo – stop that. I'm serious.'

The doctor made a demonstrative sniffing sound, but it seemed like he realized he had reached Antonio's limit, since he didn't complain.

'W-what about Matteo and Luisa?' I wanted to know, staring at Antonio as if I wanted to… as if I wanted to laserbeam a hole through his head.

Antonio gave me a comforting look and sat down on the bed. 'Don't worry, Matteo and Luisa didn't wake up during all of that, they slept all night. When they woke up this morning and found the three of us watching over you – me, Alejo, the doctor – I didn't lie to them and told them you bumped your head in the bathroom. That scared them a bit, but since you stirred and kept mentioning a bastard elephant stomping around in your sleep, the two of them were pretty much convinced you were alive and kicking and probably going to be alright.'

'I'll never understand the way the mind of a kid works,' I murmured. 'It's like they're just making up a horrible image of a bad experience they didn't actually experience in their heads and adjust that image to a nicer, better one the minute reality gives them that opportunity.'

Antonio smiled and touched my hand. 'The kids and I are just glad you're fine, my love.'

'I wouldn't be so sure of that,' Delpricko successfully disturbed the nice ambiance. 'That cut you got is a lot deeper than I thought it was, Mr. Romano. So I'll—'

'By the way, doc, do you know anything about what's going to happen to us?' I abruptly cut him off.

Ha! Surprise attack, FTW!

The Spanish doctor raised his brushy eyebrows to give me a confused (and annoyed, of course) look.

'What do you mean, Mr. Romano?'

I squinted my eyes. 'You're Antonio's personal doctor – the personal doctor of a personification. The bosses and the people from PPSS must have kept you informed of all the shit that's been happening as well. Hell, even worse – you're just as involved in all of this as Dr. Tosca is! As all of the European personifications' doctors are!'

Dr. Delgado's confused look made room for a look that I could only describe as alarmingly stoic.

'So what if I am, Mr. Romano? I'm just following orders. We all are.'

'So you must know more about us turning human!' Antonio butted in. 'Is is true? Are our children going to take our place? But how? We have three kids, the others have only one – are Alejo and Matteo going to represent Italy, then? But what about Mimi, Feli's daughter? What about, say, Anya? Can one mere little girl represent both Russia and Belgium at the same time?'

Antonio and I stared at the elderly doctor like our collective lives depended on it – but Delgado only shook his bearded face.

'I don't have the faintest idea what you're blabbering on about, Mr. Spain.'

A very disappointing reaction. I mean, god. He might as well could have flipped us the bird or something.

'You don't know?' Antonio pouted.

'Or do you mean you can't talk about it?' I tried.

He frowned. 'Of course I can't. Your doctor couldn't talk about it – then why should I be able to talk about it?'

'So you know what's going to happen to us, but you can't say anything about it.' I groaned. 'Classic. I should have known.'

'You should,' he agreed.

'And… you can't give us a tiny hint, either?' Antonio suggested.

'No.'

'A tiny, teeny, eenie minie—'

'No, Mr. Spain.'

'But… just a very very very very very—'

'Mr. Spain, what part of "no" don't you understand?'

'Um…'

The doctor sighed. 'I'm sorry, Mr. Spain, but I don't have time for this. I need to make a phone call to the hospital I work for.'

I snickered provokingly. 'Why – because they can inform us?'

'No, because they can inform me.' Delgado gave me a cold look. 'About whether I need to stitch some surgical sutures into your scalp or not.'

I felt like all the blood was slowly getting drained out of my face and I couldn't speak.

My god, that old bastard wanted to fucking needle-torture me!

Antonio's face twisted a bit as well, but I bet it didn't twist as much as my damn stomach was doing, dammit.

'Is… is that really necessary, Guillermo? Lovi really doesn't like sharp and pointy things, so…'

'I don't know, Mr. Spain, that's why I wanted to call the hospital.' Delgado snorted. 'I already told you I suspected your husband wasn't "fine" yet. But he will be, don't worry. I just need to know what to do. Now, where can I go make that call?'

'Um… there's a phone in the corridor…'

'Very well. I'll be right back. If you excuse me for now.'

Just like that, Dr. Delgado got up and left, not paying any attention to my scared-shitless-expression.

…

Such a fine man.

And with fine man I mean ASSHOLE.

ASSHOLE ASSWIPE ASSCRACK FUCKER.

MEANIE.

…

I-I needed a hug, dammit.

\0o0/

Thankfully, I got my hug – because the minute Delgado had asshole-walked out of the bedroom, Antonio threw his arms around me and hugged me to his chest tightly.

'Finally alone,' he murmured, kissing my forehead while I hissed (he was somehow hurting my head, but I didn't want him to release me, not yet anyway), 'finally, finally, finally alone, Lovi. Now I can finally tell you how scared I was when you were just lying here for so long. I was so scared. So, so scared…'

More kisses were raining down on my forehead, my cheeks, my lips, my neck. He really made sure there wasn't a single area of facial skin that didn't get peppered with love and affection, and I'd be lying if I'd say I didn't enjoy every bit of it.

'…you're overreacting a bit, don't you think?' I muttered, sighing delightedly as he squeezed me so damn sweetly. 'Did you think I was a goner?'

'I just don't know what to think anymore.' He caressed my back and nuzzled my neck one last time, before letting go of me. Okay, he held on to my hands a little bit longer, but at least he wasn't sugar-crushing me to death anymore.

And the dipshit was fucking sobbing, again, dammit, I noticed when I looked at his face.

I laughed a bit, surprised but shocked as well. 'Wow, Antonio, seriously. You're crying way too much lately. Are you having your period or something?'

'I'm not sure.' He chuckled and sniffled as I took his face in my hands and rubbed the tears away with my thumbs. 'I'm an emotional wreck, a-ahahahaha…'

'You shouldn't be – you should be fucking protecting me from Delgado's evil needles!'

'…ah, I knew that was frightening you.'

'Frightening me?' I looked at him critically. 'Antonio, you obviously don't get it. It's not that I'm scared of pointy or sharp objects, it's just that I'd rather go play experimental violin on the roof of an uncontrollable, suicidal train.'

'You always make me visualize such interesting images.' Antonio laughed some more, which made me a bit happy but a bit mad as well, since I was half-serious.

Antonio noticed. 'Lovi, I know what you're thinking, but don't worry. No matter what Guillermo is planning to do, I'll be with you the entire time.'

I teared up a bit, I actually totally did. Touched, I felt my face warming up.

'A-Antonio…'

'Oh wait, no, I can't – I have to watch over the kids! Well, in that case…' another comforting smile, '…I'll always be with you. In your mind.'

…

I glared at him. I glared at him so fucking hard.

'W-what?' Antonio defended himself when he saw my moody expression. 'Someone needs to watch over the kids, and I don't really feel like calling somebody! I'll have to explain everything, and they will stick around much longer than I want them to be, and you and the children are the only ones I want to see right now.'

'That's very nice and noble of you, Antonio, and I understand completely but I'll fucking scream murder if nobody sticks with me during the whole patching up shit!'

Antonio's lower lip started to tremble. 'Sweetie – please, I'm already at the end of my wits, I can't— well, maybe I can try to—'

'Don't worry, Papa Toni – I'll stick with Papa Lovi!' a determined, but small voice suddenly piped up.

Antonio and I looked behind us and saw that Alejo had walked back into the room again, killer smile present, and wielding his plastic axe like it was an actual weapon.

'Allie – I'm… I'm not sure if that's such a good idea…' Antonio hesitated.

'Are you okay?' I immediately asked the boy after Antonio stopped talking. 'Papa Toni told me you found us – and you were – um – are… are you okay?'

'Yea, I'm okay?' He gave me a weird, "what's the matter with you bro" –look and pulled his pants up, as if that was the way of assuring us he could handle watching the freaky doctor stick sharp, pointy, evil things into the back of his father's head.

'But I'll probably bleed. Again.' I shuddered and shook and had to grab the sheets to prevent me from making Alejo realize just how goddamn terrified I was.

Alejo nodded.'Yep.'

'But… but Papa Toni told me you didn't… like watching me bleed.'

'Nope.' Now he shook his head. 'But I really don't like to see you scared.'

'Oh.'

'So I'll stay, papa, and I'll protect you! From the mean pains and hurties!' Alejo grinned widely and skipped towards the bed. 'Like a fairy! A cool fairy, not a dorky fairy like those in Lulu's books. Teo likes them, but I think they're stupid, and then Teo cried and called me a nerd, but I think he's the nerd, and then and then… hey hey, pull me up, papa!'

'Well – what… what do you say?' Antonio glanced at me worriedly as he lifted Alejo up the bed. 'Really, I'd want to say "no, you're coming with me Alejo and that's that", but you should've seen him a few hours ago, Lovi. He hated seeing you passed out and being completely unable to mean anything for you. Also, I don't want to leave you alone with the doctor either, so…'

I didn't know what to say and looked from Alejo's face to Antonio's face and back (and I kept myself from cooing just how fucking much they looked alike, oh my god, so damn cute I was going to fucking die) and finally rested my eyes on Alejo.

'It's not going to be pretty, you know.'

I wanted to add 'and I'm not just talking about the blood', but I decided at the last moment to keep quiet.

'Okay.' Alejo smiled broadly, although I could've sworn I saw something like fear in his eyes. Seemed like I was going to laugh and smile my petrifying feelings away throughout the whole operation… thing.

'Are you sure you want to do this? Absolutely sure?' I asked him one last time, to give him an opportunity to back out.

'Yea, very.' He nodded again.

'…but I why, I still can't…why...'

'Geez, papa.' Alejo frowned and blushed and smiled, all at the same time. 'Cause I kinda love you, ya dork.'

\0o0/

After a little while, Dr. Delgado came back.

'Well, I have good news and I have bad news. What do you want to hear first?'

'The bad news,' Antonio said.

'Very well – the bad news is that I've spoken to my co-workers about Mr. Romano's severed scalp, and they agree with me: it's for the best I apply a couple of surgical sutures to his head.'

Antonio's face fell. 'What's the good news?'

'The good news is that Mr. Romano is very lucky I always carry the right instruments and materials with me – in other words, he doesn't need to wait for me to go to the hospital and back, since I already have everything I need to have here anyway.'

'Why is that?' Antonio asked. 'Is that even normal to do? It would make a lot more sense if you just said it's a coincident you happen to have everything you need to patch Lovino up with you.'

'It's not a coincident – I always carry these things whenever I visit you.'

'But why?'

'Because ever since Mr. Romano came into your life, I've been waiting for accidents like these to happen. A good doctor must be prepared.'

'…but… as long as you live, I've always been very close with Lovin—'

'Exactly, and I think it's ridiculously brutal to make an old man like me carry such heavy suitcases and bags around all the time. I wasn't very young when I began working for you to start with, for God's sake.'

'Ah.'

'My back is most of the time killing me.'

'Oh.'

'Therefore, I demand an apology.'

'Uh, sorry for… making you bring heavy instruments and materials with you all the time whenever you're visiting me, Guillermo.'

'Fair enough, apology accepted. Now, Mr. Spain.' Delgado looked at Antonio and nodded his head towards the door. 'I think there are some annoying brats out there that are looking for you. Supposing you're the "Papa Toni" they keep mentioning.'

'Oh, right!' Antonio said and got up from the bed. But even before he was able to walk a single step, Delgado halted him.

'Mr. Spain, don't you need to take that child with you?'

He pointed at Alejo.

Antonio looked at our son and smiled a bit. 'No, he wanted to stay. You know, to give Lovi some moral support.'

'Ah.' The doctor looked concerned. 'Also, about Mr. Romano – is there a reason why he's simultaneously snottering and smiling?'

'Yes.' Antonio's expression softened when his eyes met mine and he smiled even more tenderly. 'There is. See you later, sweetie.'

And after Antonio had blown an air-kiss to me and said goodbye to the baffled doctor, he left the room.

\0o0/

According to Alejo's report, Dr. Delgado really wanted to know why I was acting the way I was and kept asking for a while. When it hit to him I wasn't planning to tell him anything except for vaguely informing him it had something to do with Alejo, he kind of got mad – I don't even know why.

He then apparently shaved some of my hair off, so that he could "reach the wound better", although Alejo said he didn't think the doctor really needed to do that, and he also "forgot" to inject me with a drug that would dull the pain from stitching me up and stuff, or so he mentioned halfway.

Thing is, no matter how much the doc was doing his best to make this a painful experience for me – and I seriously wondered why the fuck he would do that, even if we didn't have a good relationship it's still no reason to treat me like that, there had to be a logical explanation for this – I didn't feel pain.

At all.

I felt nothing but those fluffy, soft, happiness-increasing clouds, filling my head and my chest even since I found out at least one of my kids outright loved me.

…

I mean, the last time I felt these clouds, Antonio told me he loved me for the very first time. I never expected to feel this much joy and bliss once again.

But look at me now.

It felt fucking fantastic, no matter what the doctor was doing to hinder me. Hell, he could chop my arms and legs off for all that mattered – I only felt happiness right now. Happiness and the unreasonable urge to squish my son in-between my arms and hug him to pieces.

'You're kinda cool, papa,' Alejo said, as he stared at me while Delgado was, well, busy, 'you said you were scared, but you don't look scared at all!'

'Well, it helps that you're here,' I said.

Alejo grinned and sat up proudly. 'It really does help, huh?'

'It helps,' I repeated with a smile and rubbed away my tears. 'Thanks, Allie.'

\0o0/

'Right,' Delgado said as he put on his coat without looking at me or Antonio, 'I'll be back in about a week. The surgical sutures need to be removed within 7 to 10 days, so we'll see next week if the wound is healing as it's supposed to be.'

'Ah, okay,' Antonio said. He had wrapped an arm around me and held me close to him as we stood in the hall, waiting for the doctor to leave. I felt like I had stayed in bed way too long and so, I wanted to join Antonio when he told me he was going to let Delgado out.

Delgado snorted and looked at me with one eye – which was kind of freaky.

'You shouldn't move around too much, and try to avoid putting too much pressure on that wound. It was a pretty clean cut, so I think it will heal well, but still. Be careful.'

'Anything else you have to say?' I asked, frowning. 'Hmmmmmm?'

'No.' He paused and it seemed like he just wanted to get away from here as quickly as his bended legs could carry him, but then he changed his mind and merely turned his back to me. Then it looked like he was going to say something, but he didn't.

'You should have said something instead of… just needle-ling away,' I slowly said. 'I didn't know being around us and our kids would be so painful to you.'

'Don't act like you know me, brat.' Delgado looked over his shoulder, his eyes two dark, brown stones. 'I hate children and I despise you. And your children. You are the worst that ever happened to Mr. Spain and I wish from the bottom of my heart that you and Mr. Spain had never met. I'll be glad if there ever comes a day you disappear.'

'Guillermo!' Antonio said, looking pale and shocked beyond words – but the doctor already walked away, slamming the door shut behind him with such harshness that a painting in the hallway clattered on the floor.

We remained silent for a few seconds.

'I'll fire his ass next time I see him, I swear I will,' Antonio eventually growled, scratching the back of his head. 'Sorry, sweetie. You were right about him. I should have fired that bastard long time ago.'

I, however, just smirked. 'He feels guilty, that old coot. Heh.'

'What?'

'You should talk to him next time. Something's bothering him – and I think it's got something to do with the kids. It's eating on him. That's why he acts even more hateful towards me than usual – that's why you need to call him Guillermo – that's why he doesn't dare to look at our kids.'

I gave Antonio a frightening serious look.

'He knows something fucking disturbing, Antonio, and the next time he comes, you should totally hear him out. Blackmail him with retirement or something, I don't care – but make him spill the beans!'