Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: Hey hey, guess what? For the Hetalia Awards 2015, I received a questionnaire with questions that I answered for the interview-chapters that are going to appear! It was a lot of fun to answer all of them and Christoph Andretti told me I should share the questions/answers with my readers.
So I guess I'll wait for the interview-chapters to appear and keep you guys up-to-date about when there's a new chapter! ^^
Also, April 20is the date when he will announce the final results (if I read it correctly). I'm very excited, even though I'm not even sure what's going to happen. XDDDDDDDDD Anyway, now you know!

A/n2: Also, my date was… well, it was okay. *shrugs* It's a bit troublesome I was more turned on by all the books I've seen than I was turned on by my date, but I guess I'm just a nerd. At one point, I was even screaming at him 'OH GOD THEY HAVE BOOKS ABOUT MARQUIS DE SADE' , and all he did was laugh nervously and stammer that I should keep in mind people could actually hear and understand me in Belgium, hahahahahaahah (yeah, T. is a place in Belgium – I had no idea!).
He's a nice guy. He really is. But I feel nothing but friendship. :(

A/n3: ALSO also: artdumppage made me more fanart. AND she and waitineedaname and Italianskunk made more headcanons for the three dorks than I did in MONTHS. Look them up and be amazed!

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 94:

Every time I look at you,
I see myself
And I'm so proud of you.
You have made me what I am,
A son and a friend
And I'm so proud of you.
Alain Clark ft. his father
(Father and Friend)

It was very relaxing to have all the time in the world to get ready for the wedding anniversary party later this day.

Antonio and I had slept in, we had a light and lovely breakfast and we packed our brand-new suits VERY slowly, because why the hell not? We had all the time in the world! All the time! No rush, no hurry – we could take it easy and still be able to get to the Sagrada Família in time. Fucking perfect.

Hell, I was even able to give my stunning reflection of pure and utter greatness an approving smirk as I looked into a mirror when we were about to leave the House. So much manliness, so much rough, handsome coolness – my god, it was a fucking sin to be this damn content with myself, and I wasn't even wearing my tux yet.

But see if I cared.

'Lovi? Lovi!' Antonio's figure appeared behind me in the mirror, looking kind of nervous. 'Lovi, sweetie, we really should be going now, – if we don't leave right now, we'll be late, we won't be able to get dressed in time at the basilica and then who'll be there to welcome our guests?'

…

…yeah, funny thing: we were most likely still going to be late. And I personally blamed Raquel for that – if she hadn't told us we had till 3 o'clock to get in Barcelona and be ready, I'm sure we would have hurried a lot more. She should have lied to us and told us to be there at ten, at least.

'That's nonsense!' Antonio remarked when I told him, while I begrudgingly allowed him to push me into the car even though I thought I hadn't gazed at myself long enough yet. 'We should have kept an eye on the time instead of sluggishly hanging around the House for at least a hour – and whose idea was it to watch our wedding-movie "real quick" anyway?'

'…yours,' I said.

'It was yours, Lovi! God! You should have known better than to suddenly feel like watching us marry each other!'

I felt like I needed to stand up for my decision now and glared at him. 'H-h-hey, you didn't exactly complain when you noticed, bastard! You sat down and starting fucking bawling over my d-damn… my damn vows!'

'But you kept saying you love me. It was the leitmotiv in your vows, Lovi – it just… just kept coming back!'

Antonio's eyes got all shiny and watery again, already completely forgotten he should be griping about my behavior because he was a dork.

'Lovi. You… simply wouldn't allow people to forget about you being in love with me and loving me in general, not even for a moment.'

I shrugged, trying to look like it hadn't cost me, like, every single bit of my mighty Italian pride to be able to spit those vows out back then. 'Don't… please don't act like I never told you I loved you before this happened. That's unfair.'

'I didn't say that.' Antonio started the car, after smiling teeth-shattering gently at me. 'You did often tell me you love me before you spoke out your vows. But I think this was the very first time you said those three little words out loud in public, again and again, even though the church/basilica was filled with people that could all hear and see you say them. People we knew and people we didn't know (remember, all those tourists? They are kind of like a motif as well, huh?). That… um. Th-that was a very special moment for me.'

I smiled at him. 'It… it was special for me, too.'

'I would like to play that movie for Luisa, Matteo and Alejo one day.' Antonio said, as he swiftly looked to the left and the right, before turning left and leaving our House behind us.

'Yeah, I bet they can learn a thing or two from their stupid dads crying their grinning faces off during their own fucking wedding.' I groaned and folded my arms, leaning back. 'Seriously – we never seem to do things normally. We didn't get together normally, we didn't get married normally, and, last but certainly not least, we didn't get kids normally. We're so messed up. We're crazy as fuck.'

Antonio chuckled. 'You'll be amazed at how gruesomely normal we actually are for a couple of never-dying individuals, my love.'

'You think so?'

'Think about it.' Antonio kept his eyes on the road, but still managed to reach out a hand to me and softly squeeze my shoulder. 'You'll know I'm right.'

I breathed out a bit of air, gave Antonio a tender look – that he didn't see because paying attention to the busy traffic around me was apparently way more important than me for some fucked-up reason – and then, I bent towards his face and gave him a peck on his cheek.

Antonio looked at me right away, his eyes huge as he touched the blessed-by-Italian-greatness-cheek – that was rapidly reddening right now. Surprise-kisses like these always caught him off guard, and it was so adorable, it made me want to snicker and giggle like a stupid little teenager.

'By the way,' I said, now that I had his attention.

'Y-yes?' Antonio stammered, his open mouth slowly changing into a warm, open smile.

'Since we've been together for such a long time, you think I should… u-um… sh-should call you "darling" more often from now on?'

I quasi-nonchalantly scratched myself behind my ears and awkwardly cleared my throat and slyly looked his way, waiting for what his response would be.

'I-I don't know?' Antonio laughed clumsily, blushing just that little bit more. 'You know I'm perfectly fine with you calling me by my first name – that's fine by me, you—'

'That's not the damn point and you fucking know that. It took me several historical fucking bloodbaths and a damn Eurotrip to stop calling you Spain. Your lousy, lame-ass, far-from-personal name. You started calling me Lovi and Lovino way sooner.' I hesitated. 'A-also, you might think that me calling you "darling" makes you feel… old. Or… confused.'

'Confused, Lovi?'

I nodded. 'Yeah, confused. Since I'm me. You might want a better petname, a petname of which you know it's more likely for me to say out loud, like… um… babe, or…sweet-cheeks.'

Antonio laughed again. 'Okay – babe, I can see why you'd think it's something for you to say, sure. But sweet-cheeks. Seriously – sweet-cheeks? As a reference to my butt, is that it? Oh that's rich. That's adorable.'

'I-I-I don't know! I don't know, a-alright!' I stuttered right away as I heard the mild sarcasm, my upset blush now surpassing his by fucking miles, '…m-maybe you might… not like "darling" as a petname, since it doesn't really fit my personality—'

'You calling me darling fits your personality perfectly,' Antonio calmly interrupted me.

I forgot what I wanted to say and gnawed on my lower lip worriedly. 'Are you serious or… or did you just say that to make me feel better?'

Antonio didn't answer me – at least, not vocally. He did give me a loving glance, a tad longer than he needed to, before turning back to watch the traffic and the road we were driving on.

'O-okay. I'll just… call you darling whenever I feel like calling you darling, then… um…' I mumbled, fidgeting with my jacket. '…dar… darling.'

Silence.

Until Antonio spoke up with a very strange, somewhat shaky voice.

'Right. I hope you do realize I'm going to kiss you to smithereens as soon as I am offered the best opportunity.'

'Hm-hm.'

'You are warned.' He gripped the steer firmly and swallowed something.

I smiled and bit my lip some more. I loved him so much, it was going to fucking end me one day.

But not today. Today, it was just going to make my heart feel like it was hanging on 30.000 balloons on a bright, sunny day, being hugged by the clouds and caressed by the wind's soft, reassuring breeze.

And I-I could live with that.

\0o0/

So we drove to Barcelona.

All the way from fucking Madrid.

Now let me tell you: there are longer trips, sure, and I know that very well myself, too, but believe me – if you need to get in Barcelona at 3 PM and you left around 12 o'clock in the afternoon, with a moron behind the wheel that wants to keep himself to the traffic rules or whatever, and while driving in a VERY slow car and through MULTIPLE TRAFFIC JAMS because Spain's infrastructure FUCKING SUCKS BALLS and like I said Antonio drives like a GRANNY, you're not going to make fucking 3 PM.

That's why we didn't make 3 PM – nope, it was

5:56 PM IN THE FUCKING ALMOST EVENING

No, wait…

IT WAS 5:57 PM IN THE FUCKING ALMOST EVENING

when we finally arrived at the colorfully decorated Sagrada Família.

Oh my god. Ohhhhhh my god. Now we had gone and done it. Oh my fucking crapping shitting I-don't-even-know-anymores.

Antonio and I were so perplexed by our own incompetence, we didn't even left the car right away – we just sat there and stared at the pretty lanterns Raquel had managed to order and install for us, all around the basilica. She had got permission of the mayor of Barcelona to put all of her weird-but-nice decorations all over the place, because apparently, people think it's a good idea nowadays to throw parties in works of art and hell, why not letting the people partying hard in them put some lights on as well, whoop, why not put some random flowers near the entrance as well. what's the big deal, whahahahahahaha.

Anyway.

I was fucking tired.

Antonio was also fucking tired.

Because driving such a big-ass distance kind of gets to you, especially after you have sat in the goddamn car for such a long time you can practically feel your ass dying right underneath you.

'We should have booked a room in a hotel,' Antonio said, still holding the wheel, and he looked like something the fucking wind had just blew in – a beaten-up plastic bag or whatever.

'We have booked a room in a hotel,' I reminded him. 'Just… not for last night. Because we thought that driving from Madrid to Barcelona isn't such a big deal. Even Raquel said that it shouldn't have been a big deal.'

'I can understand that. We've driven bigger distances.'

'Yeah – for work, or PPSS-meetings, or other… awful shit. Not for our own goddamn wedding anniversary.'

'We also had bad luck with traffic and stuff this time.'

'Yes, we had.'

We stopped talking for a moment to do nothing again, and blankly kept on gazing at the Sagrada Família.

'They must be so disappointed in us,' I then said. 'All of them.'

Antonio flinched. 'We… we really screwed up this time, huh…?'

I sighed and rubbed my temples. 'Come on. There's no point in sitting here and hoping things will get better, we… we should just go inside and face the music already.'

Antonio got a bit pale, but he silently agreed and got out of the car. The warm, but steadily cooling evening air gently blew a comfortable breeze into our faces – and even though I still felt terrible, a weak smile appeared on my lips.

We got married on the perfect day: a day in-between Spring and Summer. Not too hot, not too cold, perfect for funny little dresses, ponytails, buns and naked legs, but also for suits, clammy, nervous hands and wedding rings. In the twenty years that we had been married, we almost always have had good weather on our wedding day. Maybe there had been a few years in which the weather turned out rainier than expected, but most of the time, the sun had been really generous for us on our wedding day.

'Lovi?'

'Hmm?' I blinked with my eyes and stopped daydreaming, looking at him questioningly.

He smiled at me and gave me the garment bag that contained the clothing I was going to wear this evening. It felt pretty official, I have to say. I mean, a garment bag. Whoa. Almost as if we were going to make a trip or something, or… or that we were businessmen that were filthy rich and casually switched clothing every three hours because they needed to look spic and span throughout the entire day.

Then I forced myself to quit thinking about these far-from-important things - I mean, god, was I daydreaming again? I should pay more attention to what i should do now. And I very much didn't feel like spending more time on anything else but the party than needed, so I actually went back into the car and started changing.

Antonio watched me in curiosity for a while, having taken his garment bag out of the car as well, and ultimately followed my example, getting undressed as well. It must have looked really strange and perverted, two men hasily changing themselves on the parking lot of the Sagarda Família, but I seriously didn't give a fuck, and neither did he.

When we got ourselves into our non-sweaty and cool suits (and when I had come out of the car, of course), Antonio locked the vehicle and walked over to me, grabbing my free hand.

'Well,' he started, as the two of us looked at the illuminated road ahead of us, that leaded to the main entrance of the Sagrada Família, 'better go and get our butts kicked by every single person we… let down so far.'

'Oh shut up.' I gulped down a thick lump. It wasn't funny. Nothing about this was funny. Our kids probably were so very disappointed in us. And our guests! All of the people we liked and got along with – all those countries, and their offspring as well, and all the people that worked so hard to please and help us out…

But especially our kids.

Especially…

We never seemed to be there for them when they expected us.

Fuck. My eyes stung. I hated this.

'I-I'm…' I shakily started stammering, 'I-I'm not sure if I can handle this, Antonio…'

Antonio knew what I meant and he didn't say anything, and I'm glad he didn't. Because if he had actually asked me what I was talking about, I think I had just cried. Not… desperately or anything, but yeah, I would have cried. I wasn't sure if I could handle disappointing our three children again. We had let them down too many times already – first by not accepting them as our own kids, then by attempting to be responsible parents for them (and not always succeeding in that), then by stupidly allowing crazy authorities to steal them away from us, then by not being able to remember them, then by being kind of depressed about the fact we turned out to have missed 20 fucking years of their way too short lives, then by criticizing the people they dated, and now finally this.

And don't tell me we couldn't help it – bullshit, we totally could, and we should be fucking ashamed to have the sheer guts to appear here like we didn't break like a hundred social rules.

…

Some fucking egocentric bastards we were, huh?

Some dads we were.

My throat felt like it was completely clogged as Antonio and I began to walk away from the car. Even the neatly placed flowers, decorating the sides of the path, seemed to judge us as we slowly shuffled by. You missed everything, you assholes! You ruined it!

Oh god. The most cowardly part of me actually wanted to run away right now – yes, part of me wanted to run away, because that's what I still like to do when things get too rough: flee, like an asshole. But Antonio held my hand tightly, as if he knew. It was sweaty, and far from comforting, but there wasn't any other hand I would have rather held right now.

'Antonio,' I heard myself croak out at a sudden moment, 'I—'

I stopped trying to form a sentence when Antonio stopped walking.

'What is… what's that?'

'What's what?' I asked, slightly piqued because he made me forget what I had wanted to say, and noticed he stared at something scribbled down on the pavement in purple drawing chalk – stuff that little kids used when they play outside and want to graffiti the streets with their hysterical fantasies.

Only it weren't drawings. It were words.

Very carefully written words.

'I don't like you two. You are a twit, you are a wanker and somebody poured cheap beer down my spencer just now. But I love your relationship. Keep calm & carry on, chaps. – England.'

England?

'What is this?' I managed to utter, while Antonio's jaw dropped as he looked up.

'Sweetie – there's more a little further up ahead!'

We stepped over England's message and paused walking by another part of the road – that had something written in blue on it.

'I do like you two! You are a brave crusader and you a great tourguide! No wonder you still get along so well after all these years! It was me, Iggy! Hahahahahahahahaha! – The U to the S to the A, FUCK YEAH!'

America?

'What…' I wanted to say, but there was more.

Some yellow words, placed a bit further than the blue words.

'Congratulations with your wedding anniversary. It's an admirable accomplishment. Just like crossing my borders and making it out alive. – Switzerland.'

Even… even Switzerland, huh…?

'Congratulations with your wedding anniversary,' was written somewhat above Switzerland's handwriting in a much more… delicate-looking font, 'It's an admirable accomplishment. Just like crossing my brother's borders and making it out alive. – Liechtenstein.'

'Wh-what is all of this?' Antonio said, as a big, confused grin appeared on his face.

'I wish I could love like you two can. And that's saying something. – Greece.'

'Never thought I'd say it, but glad you took South Italy back from me, Spain! He's less of a huge dick when he's with you! – Turkey.'

'These are all… well… blessings or something,' I muttered, astonished as we kept reading and walking further, bit by bit. The path we followed was rocky, still recovering from the last construction days of the back-then unfinished Sagrada Família, and it didn't lead to the big doors of the basilica straight away, we now finally realized – it was encircling the tall architectural masterpiece, each and every ring around it twirling closer to the entrance.

And each and every bit of road of those rings was scribbled on, in all the colors of the rainbow, enlightened by the lanterns.

'Your love chases off the darkest of nights and the Russia-est of Russias! – Latvia.'

'Let's go on a trip together again, Mr. Spain! But please leave the halberd at home if we do, okay? I wish you and Mr. Romano the best of the world! – Lithuania.'

'I wish you lots of happiness and gigabytes in your lives. – Estonia.'

'No way…' I heard Antonio say, his entire face beaming with happiness. '…they did all of this… but when? How? And why?'

'I-I don't know!' I laughed, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling it excitedly. 'But isn't this great? I mean… i-it's just so great! They all wrote down something – there's even something written by Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova – and… and we never even talked to those guys! And yet they still wrote such nice things for us – such nice… oh my god – how much work is put into this?'

'We…! Oh, we should keep on walking!' Antonio said, his voice light and bright, 'keep on walking and keep on reading, Lovi – read it all, read everything – read… read why we still like all of these horrible nations that we'll have to cooperate with for the rest of our never-ending lives!'

And that was exactly what we did.

The illuminated path

You are as fabulous as my ponies on a bright and sunshiny day, making each other's lives feel more worthy each and every time you, like, glow when you see each other! Yeah, totally! – Poland.

I love my brother. – Belarus.

But not as much as you two love each other! – Russia.

Incorrect. – Belarus.

No, it's correct alright. (please cut it out dearest sister) – Russia.

Lots of luck and happiness, you two! – Ukraine.

Thanks sis.*happy face* - Belarus.

She wasn't talking about us Natalia please stop. – Russia.

Your love reminds me of our love. That's a compliment (talking about Spain and Romano, Belarus). – Sweden.

You two inspired me and Berwald to get married as well, and I can't thank you enough for that. He is the love of my life, and if it hadn't been for you two showing me that love conquers all, I wouldn't have married him and I wouldn't have been as happy as I am now! Thank you so much, and good luck with everything! – Finland.

I ONLY SAY CONGRATS YOU IF YOU SAY HEY SEALAND YEA YOU ARE A NATION - Sealand.

I once went on this trip to Southern Europe and then I met this crazy guy with a bushy beard and thick eyebrows that covered all of his eyes and he taught me how to smoke pipe and how to skin tomatoes and in return I taught him all about the mighty Nordic gods (which rock btw) and then I went back to the Northern and most epic part of Europe to tell the others about how that man was the single reason why the two of you have such a healthy relationship and then they all looked at me like 'wtf Denmark' and now I am out of words. Congrats! – Denmark.

Congratulations. Denmark is a complete moron. – Norway.

Felicitations. Come visit me sometimes, we could trash-talk Denmark the Dork. You know you want it. – Iceland.

I hope you have a great time at the party and that my brother won't bother you too much with his obnoxious yelling and overall American presence. Oh! That goes for Gilbert, too, by the way. I'll keep an eye on him. Have a great evening! – Canada.

I love the way you two always look, Romano and Spain – your style is wonderful. And that for two almost broke countries! I'm impressed! Teach me how to look good without spending too much money one day, okay? Good luck to the both of you! – Luxembourg.

\0o0/

Antonio and I had no sense of time as we walked the road. We wanted to read everything – every single sentence, every single word, every single grammatical mistake – and so, we did the best we could to indeed just do that.

Every single European nation we knew (and America and Canada) had scribbled something on the road. About 70 countries – 70 fucking countries! – had written down compliments, praisings, blessings, felicitations and other wonderful kinds of words down on the pavement. These were the countries that had been with us during our marriage, the countries we got to know a bit during cold-hearted wars and even better during cheerful, nonsensical meetings. Regardless of the state of the path, they had written on it – they had written over the cracks in the path, they had ignored the weeds, they had laughed at the limits of the chalk, no doubt, and they had made sure we would read these things, these… these great, friendly, unbelievable kind things.

And the closer we got to the Sagrada Família, the closer the personifications that had written us messages became.

When Antonio and I were just a 100 meters away from the big doors of the magnificent basilica, only the closest of our friends and family members were left.

'Regardless of all of my obscene schemes, love for people of the same sex getting it on and frequent nosebleeds when something even remotely perverted happens, I am 100% honest when I tell you that you two make a lovely and very funny, good, simple, happy couple. Please make sure this is going to be a wonderful day for the two of you, and ignore anything that might look like a camera. It's just your imagination. – Elizabeta.'

'Congratulations, my friends. May the musical Lords smile upon you always. – Roderich.'

'Yo, gramps-to-be. Congrats. You still owe me money. – Daan.'

'I met your kids today! They are ridiculously handsome and pretty, and I say you should be very proud to be the parents of such a beautiful bunch of adult children. They arranged all of this for you, because they love you, and if they love you as much as you love each other – well – then you have the best kids a parent could ever wish for. – Femke.

'They arranged this for us – you read that?' I said to Antonio, after reading Femke's springy, yet elegantly written pink words.

'Hmm?' Antonio responded, while reading something chalked up in brown on the path.

'Our demon children – they made them write all these wishes and stuff on the ground!' I laughed and walked his way, since Antonio had walked further than me already. 'Oh my god – I can totally see how that must have went! Luisa nagging at Russia and Belarus to stop bickering on the path already, Matteo skipping around with drawing chalk, tossing and throwing it around like it's fucking confetti, Alejo distracting everybody with his weird handsomeness…'

'Hmm,' Antonio said again, his eyes still plastered on the text on the pavement below him.

'Can you imagine it?' I impatiently poked him as I automatically looked down to read the brown words as well, 'hey, can you…'

'Congratulations. We should hang out some day. – Juca.'

'Juca?' I muttered, staring at the name confusedly. 'I know nobody by that name. Who's Juca?'

'João's nickname,' Antonio said.

'And João is…?'

Antonio rubbed in one of his eyes, before smiling at me and taking my hand.

'My brother. Come.'

My jaw dropped and I wanted to – I don't know – I wanted to say something about it, it was just too – sheesh – Portugal? Even Portugal had written something nice for us?

'Antonio?' I stammered as I let myself get dragged over to the next text. It was hard to believe our kids had even convinced Portugal to write down a message. Antonio and he weren't on good nor bad terms, but I knew Antonio rather didn't talk about his brother. I had met him a couple of times, sure, but… I didn't really know him – not the way Antonio knew Feliciano, anyway…

'Look, Lovi, look!' Antonio said, pointing at the gray, gigantic letters on the pavement that was clearly Prussia's, 'Gilbert wrote something, too!~'

I stared at him. He didn't want to talk about his brother, that much was true.

But he smiled.

I smiled as well and grinned even broader when Antonio reluctantly glanced at me.

'Yeah,' I said, 'let's see what that albino freak has written for us, why don't we.'

'Lovi! Don't be mean,' Antonio complained, obviously relieved, and I felt he gave my hand a grateful little squeeze. Then we read what Prussia had to tell us.

'YO! ANTON! ROMANO! CoNgRaTuLaTiOnS! 8-DDDDDDDDD How very AWESOME of you to still be together after all these years! I mean, WOWZAH. I know I and Mattie can pull that off, and Ludwig and Feli, too, but god – GODZILLA, I say! You two! Gah! So cute and adorable (I can say that, I'm too awesome to sound like a sissy you know that kekekekekekekeeke)! I'm so happy for you! You rock, you guys! You're awesome! And stay awesome! Awesome people should be together always! YEAH! – Gil the Greatest!'

Pardon me – Prussia never told us things. He fucking SCREAMED them, even while writing on a fucking road with a small-ass piece of chalk, dammit!

'That douchebag,' I snorted, while Antonio chuckled. 'God. Could he hog even more writing space all for himself? What a nutcase.'

'I think it's nice,' Antonio remarked.

'It IS nice, dammit.' I bit the inside of my cheek to try and stop grinning this widely. 'Fuck him. Dammit.'

'Looks like Francis wrote something down as well…' Antonio nodded to the green words above the gray words.

'My dearest Antoine and Romano,

Ah! how much your love strikes me as real
Oh! how great that love is
HoHON! how puny it is, in comparison it is to the love I have for the two of you
Nothing but love and respect, kindness and happiness I wish for you, for now, for then and for forever
Make sure your love one day will surpass mine
And life's fulfillments will be thine.

- Francis Bonnefoy.'

'What the hell,' I grumbled, 'he wrote a poem that doesn't even rhyme till the last two fucking sentences.'

Antonio smiled. 'I think it's beautiful.'

'It IS beautiful, goddammit it all.' I bit my cheek even harder. 'W-why are your fucked-up friends so damn amazing!'

'You reap what you sow, and that can be unexceptionally good.' Antonio – cryptically – answered, bringing my hand to his face in order to press a kiss on top of it. 'That's how I hope I got you in the first place.'

I blushed, of course, but allowed him to kiss my hand, mumbling that he had gotten me anyway, d-dammit – whether it was the reaping-way or the… t-the how the fuck should I know way.

'We're almost there,' Antonio pointed out. He was right: the entrance of the most wonderful piece of architecture ever made by man was almost right in front of us now.

'Just a few more nice messages left,' I noticed.

And the first one of those last few messages was from Germany.

'It's my happy duty to congratulate both you, Antonio, and you, Romano, with your 20th wedding anniversary. Due to all the happenings, and because we don't want to steal your thunder, Feliciano and I have decided to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary next year, on our 21th wedding anniversary. You are hereby formally invited. But you will most likely get a obscenely loud invitation later anyway. Um. Please have a great evening. – Ludwig.'

'Classic Germany.' I snickered. 'See how those letters seem to get a little shaky when he had to write down his human name? Silly punctual bastard.'

'That's one of the nicest bastards you've ever called him,' Antonio smirked.

I huffed. 'Sh-shut up.'

'Looks like the last one's Feli's,' he continued.

I felt disappointment crashing down on me. 'Feliciano's the last one?'

'Hey Lovi!~ Hey Big Brother Toni!~ It's Feliiiiiiiii! Hi hi! My cute nephews and niece did a great job on organizing this party, you know that? They even thought about what to do if you arrived crazily late at your own party, simply because you're, as your daughter put it, "too dumb to fucking poop"! Hahahahahaha, she's so funny!~ I hope she and Mimi will get along fine!~ This is a nice color of drawing chalk, isn't it? I love orange! Oh! And don't worry about your kids having indirectly molested part of the Sagrada Família – this chalk is very easily rinsed off stoops! Luddy said he'd gladly do that for you later, after the party! Lucky! Also, Hungary made pictures of it! Of the messages and of all the people writing down words of it and of people making out (she should stop doing that, Luddy's getting a heart attack one of these days). She's gong to make a photo album out of all the pics she has made/is going to make today, so look foward to it, okay?
Anyway! I hope you will have a great evening with all of us! Now walk over to the entrance already, and let yourself get picked up!~ Obligatory veeeee! – Feliciano.'

'That Feli! I say he's up to something – what do you say?' Antonio laughed, but he stopped laughing when he saw my face.

'Lovi? What's the matt—'

'The kids didn't write anything down.' I gave Antonio a worried look. 'I didn't see anything written by Alejo, Matteo or Luisa… or even little Mia. I don't know what to think of that.'

Antonio thought about that for a second, the both of us halting in the middle of the path, just three, four meters away from the giant entrance of the Sagrada Família. He frowned deeply, rubbing his chin as I could literally see him think my concerned question over and over.

'I really respect and admire all of our friends, family members and fellow-nations,' I said, looking down at the rest of the road that was left for us to walk over (and that was virginally clean and not-scribbled on and I did NOT just say virginally ew ew ew), 'but I'd rather have had… their messages. Not that I don't appreciate the others' messages! But… um…'

'I know what you mean, my love,' Antonio said, giving me a reassuring look. 'But I think you shouldn't panic just yet. Maybe there was a reason why only the nations wrote their messages outside – maybe it's all part of their plan!'

'You sure?' I asked.

Antonio gave me a firm nod. 'You read what Feli wrote on the road, right? Something about Luisa and something about "get to the entrance already and let yourself get picked up". We should do what he advices us to do, so… let's go, sweetie! Let's see what else our children have prepared for us!~'

I smiled thankfully at Antonio. I loved that so much about him. His ability to just cheer me up, comfort me and make me want to hug him so hard it would bruise all of his internal organs. God. He was the only one, the single person in this whole entire world that could make me feel better about everything – absolutely everything.

So anyway, thanks to him, I felt a lot better and I walked with him to the big doors of the legendary basilica – and no, nope, I won't stop giving this fine piece of art all kinds of corny descriptions, it was just awesome and it should be worshipped.

I looked up at the building as we slowly approached it. Warm rays of the setting sun made the proud church stand out, even more than it already did. I knew that for every uncultured asshole out there, this basilica would look like something strange that every giant toddler could have made – a silly sandcastle, tossed together randomly. A molten building. Maybe even a cave-like monstrosity. But for me, it was so much more. It was the place things got real for me and Antonio. And its name – its name was surprisingly important for me. It symbolized what I thought meant the most to me in the world these days.

But I digressed.

When we finally stood in front of the doors, Antonio and I exchanged both glances that could be considered nervous and excited at the same time. All that was left to do, was open one of these wooden obstacles.

'There's no way back now, is there,' I breathed weirdly, pressing my hand holding Antonio's together so tightly I wondered if it was going to fall apart.

But Antonio didn't wince, not a moment, and grinned broadly.

'This is going to be good.'

I opened my mouth to protest, because I'm so damn good at being a skeptical sourpuss, but Antonio didn't let me start – he already had opened one of the heavy doors before I had even registered his swift movements.

I had feared that only paralyzing emptiness would greet us – a great, huge room, fully decorated… but empty. Completely empty, save for a little note on the floor from our kids, saying "enjoy the rest of your eternal lives without us, bastards".

But I was wrong.

Thank that one god I was wrong, and thank all the other remaining gods that the hall in front of me and Antonio was more crowded than I could have even imagined.

The immensely loud, cheerful words that were instantly screamed into our faces as soon as we got in was amazing. The view in front of us was stunning. Careful decorations. Lights. Gorgeous windows. Countries. Nations. Young, colorful persons that looked like different versions of certain countries and nations. A few humans here and there. All dressed up neatly, all standing to the side of the path they had managed to create in this big heap of living beings, and all waving, grinning, shouting and cheering – all for…

…all for us?

'O-oh my god!' I could hear Antonio stammer, as he looked around and beamed huge smiles at France and Prussia, who were whistling on their fingers (well, France was, Prussia failed) and slapped him on the back as we passed them by – while I was smacked on the shoulders as well, by several countries, like America ('Congrats, my man!'), Hungary ('Looking handsome as ever, sweetie!') and even the Netherlands ('So did you get footage of Spain's reaction to Luisa's pregnancy or what.').

Everybody kept laughing and clapping, yelling and waving – I felt like a damn rockstar, albeit a confused one, and I was seriously about to make everybody do the wave (can you imagine that – a HUGE wave, by nations and mortals, in a basilica) for no particular reason, when Antonio jabbed me in the arm and pointed to two big, red seats, standing at the end of the path, facing a higher-up podium. I didn't even know they had managed to put a podium in here in the first place, but I guess after having seen so many great things, prepared exclusively for me and Antonio this evening, nothing surprised me anymore.

I wanted to ask Antonio if we were supposed to go to those special-looking seats, but before I could make myself clear to him, something or someone yanked on our pants.

'Hiya!' Mia chirped, as soon as we looked down. 'Watcha think, Gravi? Watcha think, Grani?'

What the fuck's a gravi or grani, I wanted to say, while Antonio's brain instantly crashed and only made him able to whisper 'oh my god my precious grandbaby' over and over again.

'Lookie, lookie!' Mia said, twirling around and almost tripping, since she still was Matteo's kid, after all. 'Imma kroko-princess! Hee!'

While the rest of the crowd around us applauded for the little girl, I noticed that she wore a very cute and lovely dress…

…with tiny crocodiles on it.

And logs. Everybody logs and crocodiles belong together like peas and carrots, after all.

Her getup was FAR from suitable for a formal party, and so, it was only normal I picked Mia up and kissed her chubby cheeks firmly.

'You look great,' I grinned at her, glad to see her grin back at me. 'Are you the one that's going to pick me and Gran… um… what did you call him… Grani up?'

'Yea!' Mia nodded. 'Papa says, to te seets! Te seets, te seets!'

I nodded. 'Already, well, if that's what Pa… Papa said, then Grani and Gravi better start walking! Right, Grani?'

But Antonio was crouching and hiding his face behind his hands, his ears responding first by becoming bright red.

'Too much… it's too… Granvi and Grani… oh, my poor heart…'

I rolled my eyes, snickered and pulled him back up.

'Come on, you big sentimental wuss – let's do what our kroko-princessy granddaughter tells us to, like all decent grandparents do! Get a move on!'