Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: I had thought this fic would have quite some chapters, but I certainly hadn't expected to practically write another doorstopper. I mean, I'm probably going to write yet another twenty chapters before this fic will be complete – let's be honest here, I know myself and I know I still have some plot-twists and the like up my sleeve and they don't fit in five measly chapters.
So, um, I hope you're not planning to go somewhere else for the upcoming ten, twenty weeks. I'm just saying. XDDDDDD

A/n2: Indeed, I have seen Sherlock, and indeed, I loved Benedict Cumberbatch/Buddledeeps Scottersnatch/Bobberby Lumberhatch (I laughed my ass off when I read all of these punny names they've made up for him)'s character! ^^ Also, homosexual undertones between him and Dr. Watson, who, by the way, is also strangely attractive to me. Mmmmm. I like them.
It's too bad each season only lasts for three episodes, but man, some episodes they were! I can't wait for the next season to come. I MUST SEE.

A/n3: Don't let the cheerful author notes fool you about the nature of this chapter, by the way. *skips away in a field of flowers*

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 61:

Maybe it's because I was an only child, but I've always wanted kids.
Benedict Cumberbatch
(English actor, voice artist and producer)

For some reason, I didn't throw up.

I'm not sure why. All the elements one needed for a good vomit-fest were right there: a mediocre breakfast, a shocking relevation, a disturbing turn of events, a kidnapping, a weeping England, a wall smeared with bloody smudges.

It was all present.

However, I just sat there.

With dry eyes. A heavy stomach. And a hand that had gotten red and numb from being squished to a pulp by Antonio's.

I felt all kinds of crap. Really, I felt it all and it all felt revolting. I couldn't even decently name it – like somebody had plunged a huge fist into my body and pulled, stretched, scratched, twisted and tore apart every single organ it could hurt, right on this very moment.

And I, I wouldn't even fucking cry. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.

I could. But I wouldn't.

Because… hell, who knows when I was going to stop once I got started?

'Let's get up and get out of here already!'

Oh, someone was shouting something. I decided to blink with my eyes, surprised to notice that I had actually lost my vision for a little while – I guess that's what you get for staring into shear nothingness for more than five minutes – and looked into the direction the nagging was coming from.

Hungary had stood up from her chair and was currently giving some sort of… I don't know… a speech, a peptalk, whatever – I didn't give a fuck, really.

'I'm not sure what… what's going to happen with America,' she continued, her voice high and unbalanced, 'but we shouldn't stay here. They know where we are, they know we've seen them capture America, so we should run now we still can!'

England let out an incomprehensible wail and curled himself up to a little, neatly-clad ball.

It was annoying. Her preaching, England's distress and my disinterest.

'But shouldn't we discuss this?' Finland looked at Hungary worriedly. 'You saw what happened, didn't you? That isn't right! We're in danger, Hungary!'

So, so very annoying.

'Ha, never thought I'd say this, but Finland's right. We should talk about what happened,' Russia said.

I wanted to smack my head until it just spinning around on my shoulders. You couldn't see it spinning – but it was, it was whirling around madly and it made me sick.

'We should make a plan,' Netherlands suggested.

'No – we should go home for now,' Austria protested.

I growled lowly. Fuck all of this.

Fuck fucking all of this.

'We're going.'

I stopped my many, many screaming thoughts when I felt a kind force gently pulling me off the chair. I firstly wanted to yank myself free and snap at him to leave me the fuck alone, let me be, let me fucking sit and be blissfully unreceptive for all the drama and shit that was going on, let me be an oblivious statue – an unfeeling, simple statue, unable to feel or think or even function.

But he got me up on my feet before I even fully realized it.

The others looked at us and opened their mouths. Fortunately enough, we didn't stay around to hear them make words out of their unmistakably powerless thoughts – Antonio simply dragged me with him as he walked out of the room with big, determined steps. The last things I saw before the door of Conference Room 5.3 was shut behind me were the left personifications, staring at the table in silence, and Canada, who had walked over to England, crouching down next to the broken shell that was once his brother's lover.

And that wall.

That damn, cursed wall, still lit up by the light of the beamer.

I gagged, jerked Antonio's hand off me and started running, running like the Devil himself was chasing me, ignoring his cries and his pounding, headache-increasing footsteps that ran after me – reaching the toilet just in time.

It all came out in sour, biting floods.

\0o0/

I don't remember thinking or seeing much while I was busy emptying my stomach in the neat toilet of the second floor. I just smelt my own stench. It was disgusting, but it helped me get rid of every single bit of food that tried to stay inside of me, and that was everything I wanted right now.

At a certain point, when nothing came out anymore and I just kept my head stuck into the toilet as if I wanted to join my waste, Antonio wrapped his arms around my back and plucked me off the ground, or toilet, or whatever I was lying on. I was like a ragdoll and didn't help or struggle. My thoughts were hazy, my throat was burning and my body was shaking.

I didn't know what to feel or think anymore.

I didn't know how to think or feel anymore, really.

I probably wouldn't even have minded all that much if I had stayed in this vegetable-like condition, but I was brought back into reality bit by bit by Antonio – Antonio, who was wiping my face with a moist piece of cloth and both supported and controlled my neck very carefully.

It was cold and wet and welcome, and after glaring at him for at least two whole silent minutes, I finally started to come back to my senses.

'…tonio,' I said.

Antonio hadn't said a single word all this time and was just cleaning me with a dead expression in his eyes. But he also seemed to snap out of it when he heard my attempt to speak and even managed to squeeze a small smile out.

'Lovino,' he acknowledged me, his fingers gently massaging my neck.

'Antonio,' I said again, grabbing his wrist. 'Stop that. I stink, dammit.'

Antonio wanted none of that and shook my hand off. Then he carried on dabbing my dirty face.

'I don't care.'

'Maybe you'll care if fucking spit you in the face.'

'Go on right ahead.'

I felt I was getting angry – unreasonably angry, even, but seeing Antonio's heart-broken face prevented me from doing anything drastic.

So we both kept silent. I reluctantly allowed him to fresh me up – as good as he could – and he reluctantly allowed me to send him the most hateful looks I had stored inside of me.

I thought I hated him on that moment. I really, really thought I hated him – hated all of him, dammit, hating every single bit of flesh and bone he was.

Because he looked just as fucking frail as I was, just as weak, just as helpless, just as useless, just as stupid and just as worthless and that made me so mad, so angry, so desperately aggressive that I wanted to kick his ugly, sad face in.

'Lovino.'

Antonio put away the cloth, pulled me closer and pressed a loving kiss on my dry lips.

'I love you.'

He kissed me again and I let him. His words and lips were like a cleansing tidal wave, crashing down on me ruthlessly.

I choked up against his mouth and harshly gripped his shoulders. I probably hurt him, I knew I did, but I still did it.

'A-Antonio…' I rasped when he finally let go of me, '…goddammit, Antonio…'

'I'm sorry.' Antonio smiled and hugged me. 'But I'm not really sorry, you know?'

'I can hate everything and everybody, dammit. I can hate the whole world if I want to – if I need to,' I hissed weakly. 'But you… you… I-I thought I could…but… but I just can't…'

'It's because you love me, too.' Antonio pressed our foreheads together for a second, keeping me in place when I squirmed and tried to back off. 'No – stay. You love me, Lovino. Even when you really want to hate me, you love me. Like I love you.'

'D-damn you.' I quit protesting and pressed my lips together, allowing him to rub his face against mine. 'S-stupid… stupid asshole…'

'I know. It's very frustrating.' Antonio let out a sigh of relief when I submissively returned one of his kisses, closing his eyes momentarily. 'Mnm– let's… let's go home, my love.'

I mimicked him and closed my eyes as well, sighing just as deeply.

'A-alright.'

\0o0/

Antonio and I walked through the big halls of the Conference Building like no heart-shattering shit had happened at all. I had thought it would be difficult to casually pass all those employees in the lobby – but to my amazement, we actually pulled it off very well. We even had an idle chat.

'So how did the meeting go?' the friendly young lady of before said, beaming a smile at us from behind her counter. Her male partner smiled curiously at us as well as we walked past them.

'Oh, you know – the same boring stuff as always!' Antonio breezily answered them, receiving light-hearted chuckles in return while he was at the same time holding back tears, and grabbed my arm for support.

'You'd think they'd know by now that we only want to work hard when they've got something interesting to offer us,' I suddenly yapped, patting, stroking and squeezing Antonio's hand on my arm. 'But nope! I guess they'll never learn!'

It was… such a lame thing to say – but it did the trick, it was the final touch: the guy gave me a very realistic, knowing grin and the girl even snorted, the both of them waving at us while we got the hell out of that lobby. As we made our way to the car, I couldn't help but wonder how the others would try and get past the employees without showing them any of their actual emotions. The young workers would probably get a very strange parade of awkwardly smiling people passing their counter later this evening.

But, hey.

There are worse things than that.

We arrived at the car and stared at it for a little while, as if we had never seen such an intriguing sight before. Then I wanted to open the door to the passenger seat.

'Please let me sit there,' Antonio hastily halted me.

I looked up at him. 'Wow, this is rare. You see, Antonio, in case you didn't notice already – this is one of those special situations in which you are allowed to drive. Because I don't exactly feel like driving right now.'

'But Lovi,' Antonio said, 'I can't.'

I blinked, confused.

'I can't,' Antonio repeated, holding his breath and showing me his trembling hands.

Oh.

O-oh.

'L-let me hold the door for you,' I muttered, stepping aside and doing what I had said. After that, I got to the other side of the car and entered it as well.

'Let me warn you, though…' I started as I sat down on the driver's seat and gripped the wheel, 'I… I might not drive very well.'

Antonio didn't answer, he just nodded a bit, which probably only meant that he had heard me but didn't give a shit.

…

Well, then there were two of us.

I didn't say anything anymore. I simply started the car and drove off the parking lot.

\0o0/

We made the ride back home in complete silence.

…

That was a lie.

I mean… sure, we didn't talk, or nag, or discuss anything, but we did make sounds. Muffled sounds at first. Sobbing sounds. Devastated, crushed, pathetic sounds that we attempted to hide from the other, as if the other wasn't aware of how awful everything was right now. I guess it was that last shred of manly pride, doing its very best to keep us from making fools of ourselves.

But after the first hundred kilometers had been driven, our common sense helpfully informed us that it was perfectly fine to cry like the world was falling apart, because one, our world was falling apart, and two, we didn't have to act tough in front of each other – we loved each other – we could safely let our tears run free as long as it was just the two of us, and so, we did.

Of course, I was the first to release the water works. But in my defense, I had to. I couldn't see anything anymore because my welled-up eyes blocked my sight. So I blinked furiously, and then a loud sob escaped from my lips, and before I know it I was making the most horrible faces as I cried and tried to keep the car on the good side of the road.

Antonio followed soon after. I didn't want to look at him when he burst out in tears – partly because I was afraid it'd only get worse with me, partly because I needed to focus myself on the road as much as I still could – but, god. He wailed. He bawled. He shamelessly cried, and cried, and cried, and it sounded so sad, so very depressing, so very loud—

I couldn't handle it and pulled over at a gas station.

Antonio sniveled and gave me a strange look as I pulled the hand brake and clicked out of the safely belt.

'W-w-why are you—'

I interrupted him by throwing my arms around him and pressing my face into his chest, clutching him, ruining his shirt, trying to stop all those godawful sounds that came from deep within me from producing and reproducing themselves.

And I really made the most terrible sounds. It sounded worse than England's. It was an incredibly weak move of me – looking for comfort like this while Antonio didn't know where to get the comfort he himself was looking for, too.

But he held me nevertheless. He whined – but he held me, clawed his fingers into my skin and did his best.

It wasn't enough – of course it wasn't enough. But it helped, at least a little bit, and after fifteen minutes of experiencing almost unbearable sorrow and sadness, I started the engine again and left the gas station.

All's okay for now, I found myself thinking as I roughly dried my tears with my sleeve. I just needed this one break – I could go on for hours again now.

It was a nice, encouraging thought.

But the truth is that I pulled over at least seven more times.

\0o0/

By the time we finally arrived at our place in Madrid, it was past two in the morning. Picking up the kids now would be ridiculous, in more than one way, so we decided to just go straight to bed.

It actually turned out to be a good turn of events – the fact that we needed the kids to stay at the neighbors for the night. I didn't want to think about what their faces would look like if they saw what our faces looked like. Also, we couldn't deal with them right now – we just couldn't. I didn't want to see them yet. Oh god, no. Not yet.

Without exchanging a word, Antonio and I retreated ourselves to our bedroom. Antonio instantly pulled the covers over himself and turned his back to me. It would have been a move that'd hurt me badly in any other situation, but right now, I was thankful he didn't want to share more of his grief with me – and I did the same thing, distancing myself from him.

We fell asleep. Somehow.

\0o0/

I woke up the next morning, feeling strangely refreshed and clear-minded.

I'm not sure why I felt that was – I just found myself feeling relatively at ease, and folded my hands behind my head. I looked at the ceiling without having that need to scold my poor, abused eyes with another cry. No, instead, I was musing. Musing about what to do now.

'Oh, look at that,' I heard Antonio – sounds like he had woken up as well – mutter, 'I apparently received a text message from Blanca and Diego yesterday night… wait a minute…'

'Let me guess,' I said, clacking my tongue, 'they say they'll put the kids to bed and that it's okay for us to come pick them up tomorrow – today, that is?'

'Something along those lines, yes.' Antonio fidgeted around with his cell for a few more minutes. Then he yawned and put it away.

'They're good people,' I remarked.

'They are,' he agreed.

'What did you send back?'

'That we'd come pick them up around lunchtime. Oh, and that things got later than we expected, and that we're sorry for that, and that we're very grateful that they took care of the kids in the meantime.'

'Okay, nice.' I focused on the ceiling again. 'Well done.'

A pleasant silence followed. Which was both nice and very confusing, judging on how our condition was last night. But I guess that sometimes, a good cry can clear up the foggy mist that is your problem. It still won't be solved by crying – but hey, you at least have an idea of how you could get out of its murky labyrinth without bumping your nose to a lamppost.

'So…' Antonio eventually broke the silence, '…what should we talk about first?'

'Hmmm?' I just said.

'You know,' Antonio carried on, aloofly shuffling his hands over the sheets. 'Should we talk about the fact that America was taken away by the PPSS people, or should we talk about the fact that our kids are… you know.'

I sighed. 'Ohh, that's a tough one.'

'It's not tough at all – we should talk about the kids first, of course!'

'But… what about America? You're not worried about him?'

'Okay, in that case, let's start with him.' Antonio rolled on his side, and looked at me carefully. 'You know, sweetie – even though they've captured him, it's not like they can actually hurt him. It might influence his nation – and I don't think it's good advertizing when an organization that has vowed to protect all personifications goes around torturing said personifications. It's just not very ethical.'

I laid on my side as well and frowned at him. 'I guess you're right, but… come on, Antonio – they've captured one of us like he was an animal. No, like he was a thing. You call that ethical?'

'Well, maybe…' Antonio licked his lips as he thought about the whole America-kidnapping scenario, '…maybe they haven't captured him. For all we know, he could be back at his own place, or in his Boss' office, looking down at his feet while his Boss reprimands him for sneaking into off-limit areas.'

'Oh, so you're saying you think they've released him?' I rolled my eyes. 'Of course. A personification has been shot in his neck with a creepy dart and got dragged out of a room afterwards by dark soldier-types – but that was just to put him into his own fluffy bed. Hell, maybe they've even left him a glass of freshly-made orange juice and a little note that says "don't you do that anymore, you naughty boy!". Sure.'

Antonio shrugged, which was funny to see since he was still lying on his side.

'I'm just saying I don't know what to think or what to do about this situation, Lovi.'

'We could flee, like Feliciano did,' I suggested – although my voice alone let both of us know I didn't really think that would be a solution.

'We could,' Antonio nodded slowly, 'but they'd know where we'd go anyway. You heard England: the PPSS is everywhere. I mean, they even told him you found Feli and tried to bring him back home. Plus, he also knows some nations are trying to get to another continent, or trying to get another identity…'

'Yeah…' I muttered.

'If we'd run away, we'd put an unreasonable amount of stress on the children, and in the end, it would all be for nothing anyway.' Antonio scratched his head and sighed. 'That's not what I want…'

'Then what should we do?' I asked him.

'I think… I think we should just accept the truth that we're completely helpless, Lovino.'

I swallowed a lump. 'Well, that sounds nice.'

'But it's true. You know it's true. We can't do anything but wait and see what happens. That something's going to happen – I think that's inevitable. But it can never be that bad. We're still very important personifications,' Antonio explained. 'Besides… do you really want to frustrate yourself about what could happen, while you could also just enjoy spending time with our kids, now that they're… they're still kids?'

'You're basically telling me that we should pretend nothing's going on,' I concluded his explanation.

'Well, we can still talk about it, of course – but we shouldn't worry about it too much. For the kids' sake.' Antonio gave me a serious look.

I bit my lip. 'I don't know, Antonio…'

'Do you have a better idea?'

'I don't even have a better "i".'

'Then let's do it my way. Let's just… wait and see. Now that America has sneaked into the PPSS headquarters, we're likely to receive a message from them sooner or later anyway. It's their turn to do something now,' Antonio reasoned.

'Yeah, but do we want to wait for them to do something?' I mumbled.

He looked troubled as well. 'We… we don't have a choice, I fear…'

'Okay – let's just decide, for now, that we're going to wait. I'm still feeling very weird about that, but… ugh, but you're right. And I guess there's indeed not much they can do to us, since we can't die.'

'They could take our kids away,' Antonio blurted out.

I smiled, but shook my head dismissively. 'Naaah, the PPSS can't be that stupid – taking our kids from us would hurt us too much as well and it'd probably affect our respective nations in a bad way. And do you think our Bosses would like that? You know, with the Crisis going on in Europe and everything?'

'No – no, not at all,' Antonio said and took a relieved breather.

'But talking about the kids…' I started – but paused right after.

'Yes, Lovi?' Antonio scooted closer to me and gave me a calm smile.

'What…' I averted my eyes and fidgeted, '…w-what should we do about them?'

'We'll raise them, of course.' Antonio chuckled. 'What, were you planning to ditch them on the streets now that they're not immortal?'

'I actually wanted to try and see if I could bring them back to the store and get our money back.'

He grinned. 'Aww, I'm sorry, sweetie, but I seem to have lost the receipts a while ago.'

'Dammit.' I snorted and rubbed my eyes. 'You're so going to hell for talking shit about the twerps like that.'

'At least I'm not going alone,' he fired back, which earned him a light smack on the arm.

'Anyway,' I said, still smiling, 'I'm fine with that. With raising them anyway, I mean. We're still their parents, after all.'

'Exactly.' Antonio's eyes shined with a hint of hope within them. 'We're their parents, so we'll raise them. Piece of cake.'

'You know what that means, right?' I said.

Antonio looked at me, not saying a word but mimicking the word 'uhhhhhh no' with his green orbs flawlessly.

Ugh – dork.

'It's time,' I slowly said as I pushed myself upright, 'to answer Luisa's question.'

\0o0/

We did the things we still had to do as soon as we could – like taking a shower, having a quick bite, get ourselves dressed, make the beds, not particularly in that order – and then we left the House, heading for the neighbor's place.

The weather was somewhat grizzly, or so I noticed when we walked to the cozy house next to our… villa-esk building. The air was gray and it felt chilly outside, but that was okay. The past few days had been way too hot anyway, it was about time a cooler day introduced itself to us.

'I wonder if they'll be mad,' Antonio said as hastily walked towards the front door of the neighbor's house. 'You know, because we didn't come to pick them up yesterday.'

'Just one way to find out,' I sighed – and then I swiftly rang the doorbell, before I could change my mind.

On the other side of the door, several high-pitched voices started to scream and shout out loud, which I took as a (hopefully) good sign. My heart hopped up in delight when I heard Alejo on the other side of the door shriek and run around and push over all kinds of stuff – he always did that when something exciting was about to happen, always, he just had to break things, I don't know why that is.

'IT'S MAH NECKTHINGZIE!' another familiar, tiny voice yelled out loud. 'SHE'Z COMEN FUR MEH!'

'No Teo, dork, it's papa! And papa!' Luisa nagged in the background.

'Oh, whupsie,' Matteo giggled, followed by a short pause and eventually an even louder 'IT'S THE PAPA'S! THEEEEI'VE COMEN FUR MEH!'

'I'll go get the door – sweetheart, please grab Alejo before he cuts himself to that glass – or that plate, or that window, or the… the remains of the ancient lamp I inherited from my great-grandparents,' I heard Blanca say while she was exhaling a long puff of air at the same time.

'Man, they've wrecked the place!' Antonio flushed and grinned at me happily.

'And yet, you seem to be strangely upbeat about it,' I grinned back at him and for some reason, it really did feel like everything was okay again, no matter how fucked-up that okay actually was.

But that was a matter for later. For now, the only thing that mattered to me – that mattered to us, was getting reunited with our kids again.

The door was opened and Antonio and I were able to catch one single glance of our worn-out, female neighbor, before three screeching mini free fighters threw themselves against up and wrapped their short arms around us, successfully knocking us over, like they were a pack of young dogs instead of actual children.

I could only laugh and cuddle whatever kid I got into my arms – hug and laugh and feel myself so much better now that we were reunited again. It was lovely and it was a feeling I would probably never get used to, no matter how much it would happen.

The hugging, yelling and attempted murders – at a certain point all those arms around my neck started to feel really tight after all and I didn't like the fact Mia was this close to my face – carried on for a minute or five at least, and after Antonio interrupted Matteo's hysterical chatter about neckthingzies ('Ah'vvvve looked EVVERYWERE, Papa Toni, I swears!'), I could finally stammer some words of thanks to the relieved, outlived neighbors.

'T-thank you guys so much,' I said, patting the back of Luisa's head. She was hugging me so desperately that I was afraid my heart was going to shatter and god, I couldn't stop smiling. 'Really, if it weren't for your good care, we wouldn't have known what to do. I… really, thanks so much!'

'Oh stop it, we're neighbors!' Mr. Sanchez pleasantly chuckled while wrapping an arm around his wife's thin shoulder. 'That's what neighbors do! They look out for each other! Am I right or am I right, dollface?'

'Yes, dear.' Mrs. Sanchez' smile was a bit more reserved, but I could understand. I mean… I had a brain. I knew how difficult our three kids could be. And also, I could totally see the complete mess the kids had left in the hallway of our neighbors, which probably was the reason why they didn't invite us in.

I sure hoped that wet stuff I saw glistering on the surface of their expensive, wooden floor was water, by the way.

…

Yeah, we-we should probably leave now.

'Did you have a good time?' Antonio cooed to Alejo while I was hastily stammering a few more thanks and goodbyes and 'haha thank God for insurance companies hahahahaha'. Alejo had attached himself to Antonio's ankle like some kind of leech and grinned at him in a way that was very unsettling creepy and cute at the same time.

'I killed a BEAR, Papa Toni!'

Then he let go of him and firmly gripped my ankle.

'I killed a BEAR, Papa Lovi!'

'That's nice, Allie, that's… that's lovely!' I cackled, collecting him with my free hand while Mrs. Sanchez' smiling eyes stopped smiling.

'He means he killed my couch, by the way – with a hammer,' she said in a disturbingly sunny voice. 'Haha! Kids.'

'Haha! Yes.' I gulped and didn't dare to speak another word – she probably was waiting for me to scold Alejo, but I couldn't do that, not when said kid was clinging to me so fucking happily.

'Well!' Antonio said, also realizing that we lost quite some points with the wife. 'I guess we're going back home now! If that's okay with you!'

'Of course, Mr. Fernandez, of course!' Mr. Sanchez roared, giving me the impression he either had been away for a good portion of the day or was a crazily positive person. 'Have a good day, my homosexual comrades! Hooray for love in all kinds of colors! Bwhuhahahahaha!'

…

Antonio and I stared at him weirdly.

'Okay,' I finally said.

'We're leaving now,' Antonio just as uncomfortably said – and we did.

It's kind of amazing how fast somebody can walk while carrying around yapping, squirming kids and a cactus – but believe me, an awkward moment between people that were babysitting your kids was just the trick, especially when said people were trying very hard to act like cool, straight people that supported same-sex… things.

…

It was a good thing Antonio and I only burst out laughing because of the silliness of it all when we had stumbled into our own, not-wrecked hallway.

\0o0/

The rest of the day was like a flash of a great dream: time past by very fast. Way too fast, if you asked me, but I guess that's only natural when your kids are demanding every single bit of your attention and you're doing the best you can to give them everything since you felt like you had to make something up to them.

Which we had. I mean, I had told the kids we'd pick them up yesterday evening – not the very next day around lunchtime. I swear, we were so very lucky that neither of the kids seemed to be upset about our late arrival. They could have been really angry with us, for all that mattered. Hell, I had especially feared Luisa's rage, but she apparently was so delighted to come home with us that she simply didn't want to be mad.

So the five of us had a wonderful day. We played the whole day long, had loads of fun and didn't think about all the uncertain things that would most-likely be knocking on our doors someday in the following week – no, for now, we were parents.

Just… parents. Nothing more than parents. We were just an unusual but very normal family right now, and that was all I could ever wish for.

But later that day, after we had put the kids in bath and helped them putting on their pajama's because they were still a bit too little and helpless and – fine – ridiculously cute to do that all by themselves, I suddenly found myself thinking that there would come a day they could put on their PJ's all by themselves. Just like there would come a day they would help their kid put on its PJ's.

It was strangely depressing.

'Teo and Allie lost their thingies,' Luisa sneakily told me as I buttoned her PJ's up.

I snapped out of it and smiled at her. 'Sorry, baby – what did they lose?'

Luisa pointed her finger to my neck. 'The neck-thingies, Papa Lovi. They lost it.'

'She's right,' Antonio, dressing Matteo up somewhere behind me, said. 'Alejo said he and Matteo lost their dog tag.'

'Both of them?' I said, frowning as I shot a glare at Alejo, who was busy ripping the mat in the bathroom floor apart because he was bored again.

Antonio chuckled. 'It's just like twins to lose their stuff like that!~ Isn't it cute?'

'It's annoying,' I huffed.

'I'm sowwy,' Matteo blubbered softly.

'Aww, it's okay, kiddo, it's alright. We'll go look for them tomorrow, alright? Here's your glasses.' I was finished with Luisa and the both of us turned around, just in time to see Antonio put the red glasses on Matteo's small nose.

'I killed another thing!' Alejo proudly declared.

'I liked that mat,' Antonio informed him, noticing the blue heap of rubbish that was once out bathmat.

'Uhm.' Alejo mumbled, trying to shove the mat under the laundry basket with his foot. 'I'm… sorry?'

'For what, exactly?' Antonio asked. I watched and waited. That squishy little bastard had destroyed more than just a bathmat today, after all.

'Uhmmmm… uhm. Uhnnmm… mat… and the vase… and… uhm… every… thing?' Alejo said, looking at us with big, hazel-colored, pleading 'am I doing this right my dearest papa's' –eyes.

…

Of course, Antonio instantly forgot all about his grumpy feelings and chuckled, twittering to Alejo about how deceivingly cute he was and how he was going to rule the world one day with that kind of attitude, which was adorable, in a faintly disturbing kind of way.

'Papa Lovi,' Luisa said, and pulled on the necklace. 'I wanna hear a story. Tell me a story.'

'Yea!' Matteo cheered. 'A STOWWY!'

'A SCARY one!' Alejo – totally forgetting his remorseful act – chipped in.

I looked at the three gleeful, fluffy faces around us. Then I looked at Antonio. Antonio knew why I looked at him and nodded slowly. So I looked back at the fluffy faces and took a deep breath, tenderly gripping Luisa's hands.

'Alright. I'll tell you a story. A very… special one.'