"We don't need these ones, Big brother, that's the problem."

"Natalia, you told me yourself that one of them was enough…"

"I meant one specific one! And out of all the ones we snatched, we missed the one we needed the most."

"What's the difference?"

"There's a big difference, brother, the President told you himself, did he not?"

"How were any of us supposed to know that he wasn't with them? It was dark outside, we couldn't see anything, and we're not too sure what this man looks like considering the picture we were shown was of when he was a child. We weren't even told he was a grown man until now."

Tino could hear this argument as clear as day, however his eyelids were too heavy for him to care. He didn't know where he was, all he knew was that he was lying in a warm bed, and that the air didn't smell like rotting flesh for once. So, instead of getting out of bed like he should have, he laid down and listened to the argument carry on. It was a man and woman, but Tino felt the presence of a third person in the room as well. He could see they're shadow standing stiffly at the side of the taller man.

"You're overreacting, Natalia, we still have time," the third voice finally chimed in. Soft and elegant - controlled compared to the other two.

"You butt out of this, this has nothing to do with you."

"It has everything to do with me, I was entrusted with this task just as you were."

"I pull rank over the both of you," the female in the room quipped.

The room grew silent, and finally Tino realized what was happening. These voices belonged to strangers, strangers that had kidnapped him, Berwald, his cousins, and even Peter.

Tino shot up straight in the bed, not even bothering trying to pretend to sleep. He looked around the room frantically, praying that Peter would be with him. When he didn't spot him, he internally sighed. He should have known better than to believe that these people would have left him. They had even shot Mathias, and he had no way of knowing if he was alive or not.

Tino cradled his head in his hands, and when he looked up, he finally realized how dire his situation truly was.

The room he was in was unbearably white, even more so than that of a hospital. The floor gleamed as though it had been freshly polished, and white sheets hung from the walls, giving it the appearance of a crime scene. However, the most disturbing part of this was the fact that Tino was inside a cell, covered with glass that he had a feeling was impenetrable. He didn't know where he was. After some thought, however, he immediately knew that he was inside a center for disease control, indicative of the white paint.

Only then did Tino realize that the voices had become silent. Tino looked away from the pearly white walls, only to realize that all eyes were now on him.

"So you've woken up," the woman in the room said, her eyes dark and intimidating. Though she was small in stature, her presence alone was terrifying and intense in ways Tino couldn't quite explain. The other two men also looked dangerous, properly dressed in military garb with completely blank expressions on their faces. What he couldn't miss, though, was the fact that both of the men were wearing different military uniforms. Most notable, however, was the fact that they were both Russian and Chinese uniforms, two communist countries that were known to be on bad grounds with almost the whole of North America.

Tino knew, just from looking at these uniforms, that he was not in a good position. And, judging by the way he was being treated, he didn't think that these people were sent out as emergency military support. The dark side of Tino's mind told him that they were most likely out to finish the job – wipe out the rest of the North Americans that had somehow missed being taken out by their biological warfare.

Tino opened his mouth, about to ask what they were going to do to him, but was stopped when the taller, stoic man in the Russian uniform finally spoke.

"Did you have a man in your little group named 'Lovino'?"

Lovino had finally woken up after 2 hours. He hadn't turned, but things were looking more and more sordid as the minutes passed.

When Lovino had opened his eyes, instead of the honey coloured orbs that usually peeked out from under his lids, they were met with dark brown eyes speckled with flecks of red. Black circles appeared under his eyes, and odd bruises appeared on the thinnest parts of his body.

He was showing the signs of early decomposition.

The hardest part about the whole ordeal, according to Antonio, was telling Lovino what had happened without breaking down into tears. It was difficult; however it didn't take much for Lovino to understand that he wasn't going to survive the bite. He wasn't blind. He saw the bruises on his body, and felt himself becoming weaker and weaker by the minute.

"So I'm going to turn in-" Lovino swallowed thickly. "I'm going to turn into one of those things now, aren't I?"

Antonio had a hard time meeting his eyes, eyes that had been so full of life not even hours before. Already they looked glassy and tired, like one of the cadavers that he had worked on when in Medical school. He found it hard to look at.

It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that Lovino had escaped death only to be met with an even more terrible ending.

"I don't know," Antonio said truthfully.

"Antonio," Lovino said, fear tingeing his voice, "I can already feel it."

"Lovi," Feliciano started from where he was sitting stiffly at his side, hands reaching out as though he could somehow fix what was happening to Lovino with a simple touch.

"As soon as my heart stops beating, don't hesitate to shoot me, "Lovino said siffly. "Please, promise me that. I don't want to put anyone else in this position too."

"Ok," Antonio said, "I promise."

Feliciano stood up, trudging over to Antonio so fast that no one in the room had any time to react. Feliciano surprised everyone even further when he punched Antonio so hard that he fell off of the stool that he was sitting on. Antonio fell to the ground on his behind, and the stool fell over with him, grinding against the old wooden boards. Feliciano, on the other hand, stood above him with his fists clenched at his sides as if he was challenging Antonio to get up and fight back.

"How could you," Feliciano asked, lips turned down in a scowl. "What kind of nurse are you, that you would give up so easily on someone's life?"

Antonio kept eye contact with Feliciano, refusing to look away despite how desperately he wanted to. He felt shame thick in his throat, and he was unable to swallow it down with his pride.

"Isn't it the job of a nurse to comfort their patient and keep them healthy for as long as possible? Isn't it the job of a nurse to monitor and ensure the patient that they're going to be fine?" Feliciano all but yelled this, and no one in the room challenged him. They were all too surprised by his outburst to say anything to him.

Calm, pleasant, simple Feliciano had just hit a man and was now standing him down, yelling in his face like it was something he did everyday. His fine, doughy features were now rough and unpleasant, his brows furrowed and his lips turned down in a scowl. This was not the Feliciano that anyone knew, this was someone else entirely.

After a long moment of silence with nothing but the wind breathing through the cracks in the house, Antonio finally spoke.

"Yes, Feliciano, that is the job of a nurse. You're not wrong."

"Then why are you acting like this," Feliciano asked, shaking his head, "you're acting like he's already dead!"

"I'm comforting him, I'm doing my j-"

"You just agreed to shoot him like an animal," Feliciano cried, leaning over to get into Antonio's face. "How is that supposed to be comforting, Antonio?"

"Feliciano," Lovino said from behind them, "stop it."

Feliciano fists unclenched, but he still didn't break eye contact with Antonio. Lovino's voice alone had been enough to break his concentration, enough to bring him back to his old self.

"He's comforting me more than you are right now, sitting by my side and promising me that I'll be fine. I'm not fine, and I know it. Being fed bullshit isn't helping me at all, right now."

Feliciano turned to look at Lovino, eyes wide and hurt. His hands fell to sides limply and his features softened. It was difficult to believe that he had done something so violent.

"All I need right now is my little brother, not this. This is something I never wanted you to become."

Feliciano dropped to his knees at his brothers' bedside, head lowered, "I'm sorry, Lovi, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, stupid, just don't do stuff like that anymore. I've never seen you act like that, and I don't like it. Where's my cute, stupid little brother when I need him the most?" Lovino smiled as he pet his brother's silky hair that was so similar to his own.

There was a heavy silence for a moment, but Lovino broke it when he locked eyes with his younger brother. "Can you leave me alone with Antonio for a little while, Feli?"

Feliciano looked worried, but he stood up despite himself and followed Ludwig out of the room in silence, sparing one last glance at Antonio and Lovino.

After the door had been closed behind Ludwig and Feliciano, and he could hear their footsteps a safe distance away, he finally turned to look at Antonio. He hadn't moved from the floor, but his eyes were studying the floorboards as if he wanted them to swallow him whole.

Lovino cocked his head to get Antonio's attention and patted the empty space on the bed next to him, indicating for him to come and sit with him.

Antonio complied, but he looked a little reluctant to do so. It seemed like Feliciano's words had struck a chord with him despite how adamant he was about doing the right thing.

"Feliciano is very protective of me," Lovino started as soon as he felt the bed dip beside him "as I am of him."

Antonio didn't speak, letting Lovino get everything out.

"I probably would have reacted the same way if I were in his position," Lovino said, letting out a fond sigh.

"I know," Antonio said.

"Will you take care of him like you've taken care of me when I'm gone?" Lovino asked, and despite the light leaving him Antonio couldn't help the urge to touch, reaching out one hand and brushing a stray hair out of Lovino's face like he had when he first saw him at the hospital.

"Yes, of course," Antonio said with a sad smile.

"I'm worried about him," Lovino said sullenly. "I've never seen him get like that, and I'm worried that with my death, it will push him over the edge. He's been through too much, and part of it was my fault."

"I promise to protect him," Antonio said, "and I know Ludwig will too."

Lovino still let out a huff of air at the mention of his name despite how tired he looked. "Well, if he doesn't take care of him, you can damn well bet that I'll haunt his ass forever. Yours too, dirty nurse."

Antonio let out a small chuckle, "I know you will."

Lovino let out a small sigh and looked outside of the window beside his bed, down at the field that was illuminated by the brilliant moon. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, but Antonio didn't want to spend these last few moments with Lovino like this.

"Do you miss Italy?"

Lovino laughed bitterly, "of course. If I were to die somewhere, I would choose my home over all. This is probably the last place I would have chosen to die. In a random farm in the United States."

Antonio nodded, "I would like to be back in Spain too, even though I only spent a small bit of my childhood there. I still remember a lot."

"We're lucky we made it this far though, you know," Lovino said with a quirk of his brow. "At least this time I'll have a chance to say a proper goodbye to my stupid little brother. That's a godsend, if anything.

"You're right," Antonio said.

"It could have been worse," Lovino said with a shrug of his shoulders, as if he were talking about something as little as getting a needle or skinning his knees.

"I'm going to call Feliciano back in here in a minute, but Lovi, could I ask one more thing of you?"

Lovino looked up at Antonio with his head cocked, and for a moment Antonio could swear that some of the colour was coming back to his eyes, but he knew it could be nothing more than the light of the moon playing tricks on him, or perhaps his own imagination.

"I guess," Lovino said, "I kind of owe you, considering you've saved my life so many times. What is it?"

"A kiss."

There was a heavy silence in the room at this suggestion, however, Lovino did not look upset or disturbed by what Antonio had said. Instead, Lovino nodded his head slowly, leaning his body into Antonio's warmth, surprising both of them.

Antonio laced his fingers through Lovino's soft hair, and noted that Lovino's body was still warm despite his bodily functions slowly shutting down. His lips were just as warm and soft as he had imagined, and his hair was still as silky as Antonio had remembered it from the first time he had seen him lying in that lonely, unmarked hospital bed.

Antonio didn't want to let go, because he figured that the next time he touched Lovino, he would be cold and unmoving.

Antonio wished he could kiss Lovino forever, but he knew his time was up when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. Feliciano came into the room with a worried look on his face, and Antonio pulled away quickly, marking Lovino's flushed features so he could tuck them away in his memory forever.

Feliciano seemed unaware of what was going on, but Ludwig seemed embarrassed, looking anywhere but at Lovino or Antonio.

That night, Antonio laid awake, recalling all of the memories that he had of Lovino, both good and bad, in the hopes of being able to keep them for as long as he lived.

It was dawn by the time Antonio fell asleep, and both he and Feliciano had their heads cushioned on Lovino's shallowly heaving chest. They would have told anyone that it was a show of affection – and it was – but they were also waiting for the moment that his heart stopped beating.

"Alfred, stop," Arthur whispered harshly over Alfred's shoulders, the steady run he was going at jostling him around uncomfortably on his back.

Alfred didn't listen to him, or rather, didn't want to listen to him and kept running forward – aimlessly into the steadily rising sun's beams. Arthur was familiar with this side of Alfred, constantly running away from all of his problems in hopes that they would disappear the further he ran.

"Alfred," Arthur knew that he wouldn't stop for him - or rather that he couldn't hear him - so he mustered all of his strength and used one of his dangling legs to trip Alfred.

They went down heavy, and Arthur tumbled forward a few feet after Alfred himself fell, but it didn't matter. He needed to get Alfred to snap out of it before he ran them straight into another problem.

Arthur sat up and brushed the dirt away from where he had hit the floor, and when he turned to look at Alfred, he was still lying on the cold ground in the same position that he had fallen in. At first, Arthur was worried that he was actually hurt, but after a few moments of silence, he realized that he was crying. His shoulders were trembling, and the smallest whimper would escape his lips every few seconds.

Arthur crawled over on weak knees, all of the fight having left him as soon as they had left Sadiq for dead. Instead of cursing Alfred out like he had intended, he crawled up next to him, cradled Alfred's head in his lap, and tried his best to soothe him as he ran his fingers through his hair.

Arthur wasn't the best at soothing, but he had become quite adept when it had come to making his younger brother happy. Though he tried to avoid handling his younger brother as much as possible, it didn't mean he was afraid to stroke his hair and whisper to him when he was having fussy nights while his parents were away.

Alfred was in no way a baby, but Arthur knew that everyone needed the same treatment every now and again.

"It's OK," Arthur said, brushing the sweat matter hair out of Alfred's eyes. The left lens of his glasses had a very prominent crack in them, but he otherwise seemed unharmed. "Everything's OK now, we got away, and Kiku's in a better place. OK?"

Alfred, of course, didn't respond with much, but a louder sob escaped the confines of his throat. Tears were streaming down his face like small waterfalls, and his cheeks and eyes were red and puffy from holding them in for so long. And, by the looks of things, Alfred had been holding them in for a very long time.

"I couldn't do anything," Alfred babbled helplessly. "I couldn't prote- I couldn't protect anyone. Everyone's gone now. Everyone's dead because I wasn't there for them."

"Don't say that," Arthur said, feeling a pang in his chest at the idea that all was lost. "We're going to see everyone again. Don't worry."

"You heard him," Alfred said, his breath was still hitching around every word, "there were more of those guys, just like that evil fuck in there, out to get everyone. There's no way…"

"Please," Arthur said, "just be quiet for a minute."

And, to Arthur's surprise, Alfred did as he told him. He closed his mouth, and laid there in complete silence, collecting himself as best as he could, given the circumstances.

"I understand why he did that," Alfred finally said about Kiku after a long bout of silence. "But it doesn't mean that I don't feel responsible. If I had come sooner, he probably wouldn't have had to make that decision."

"There's no way you could have known what was happening," Arthur said. "In fact, it's a miracle that you survived that fall. If you hadn't, both Kiku and I would have died," Arthur reminded him.

Alfred remained quiet after this.

"We should start heading out though, the rest of the group has probably already left, so we'll just have to try to catch up to them."

"OK," Alfred said, putting a brave face on, trying desperately to not think of the horrible things that could have happened to the rest of them group. He would no longer let anyone else die on his watch.

"I told you, I don't even know who that is," Lukas dead panned at the woman in front of him. "I just met Tino and Berwald while we were in the mall, I didn't know anyone else out of his group."

"You're lying," the woman said, leaning down to grasp the man's chin in her long, elegant fingers. She looked so clean and collected that one would have thought she hadn't truly seen what was going on outside.

In fact, there was a strong possibility that that was the case.

"Why would I lie about that?"

The woman laughed raucously, "to make yourself look noble, perhaps? You're afraid of what we'll do to your little friend? I don't know, anything's plausible at this point."

"Why didn't you kidnap him in the first place, why did you take us?" Lukas strained against the binds around his wrists, but stopped when he deemed the action fruitless.

The woman sighed, "it was dark outside, and we were under the impression that we were looking for a baby."

Lukas failed to fight off a lopsided grin that split his face, "do you even know what this person looks like?"

The woman in front of him looked visibly upset, and Lukas braced himself for the harsh kick that she aimed at the centre of his face.

The long haired woman leaned down in front of him and grabbed him by the collar of his freshly blood speckled shirt, dragging him as far up as she could given the fact that his arms were still bound to the wall in his cell.

"You don't know anything, boy," she spat before promptly dropping him back onto the floor.

Lukas leaned over to spit out the blood that was beginning to fill his mouth. "Whoever is leading you people can't be very reliable, considering he doesn't even know what he's looking for," Lukas said at the woman's retreating back. "Tell me, does your boss even tell you why you're looking for this man?"

The woman stopped dead, hand reaching out for the door to Lukas' closed in cell. She turned around full body and started trudging toward Lukas, and when she raised her fist he was sure he would be hit again, and in anticipation of the collision he closed his eyes tight. However, the punch never came.

Lukas opened his eyes up to see a much taller man in uniform, standing behind her and holding her raised fist in just one of his own.

"Natalia, we shouldn't hit them," the man said, his voice surprisingly soft and gentle for his intimidating size and stature.

"Why," she asked, "it's not like we need them anyway, they're just in the way."

"If you hurt them too bad, then we'll never get the information we need out of them. Do you know how much trouble we'll be in if we ruin our chances?"

The woman named Natalia let out a frustrated huff and left the cell without another word, seemingly unwilling to go against the large man's words.

When nothing could be heard but her distant, retreating footsteps, the tall man with the white blonde hair hunkered down so he was eye level with Lukas.

"Are those other men related to you?"

Lukas glared as hard as he could into the man's face, "why do you care, you shot one of them anyway."

"He's fine now."

Lukas wanted to let out a sigh of relief after having finally heard the news, but he didn't want to show it in front of this man in fear of him using it against him in the future. He kept his face as blank as he normally did, completely unchanging despite the mood.

"Fine."

"Is that all you feel about your cousin," the man asked, no, chirruped.

"You know…"

"Of course I know who all of you are, we're with the military. Did you think that we wouldn't be able to get a hold of that information? It isn't hard, especially now that the president is dead."

The man stood up again, towering over Lukas' seated form.

"So, Lukas, tell me everything about yourself."

A/N: Sorry for the late update, my friends, but I've just been incredibly lazy! Yup! Because all of the stress of my classes has been lifted off of my shoulders, I've just been sleeping and eating all day. But, I realize I shouldn't leave you guys hanging, so I'm coming back. I've gotten enough sleep to last me several months, and enough plot bunnies have come to mind to bring back my inspiration to finish this story.

I've seen one too many dropped fanfic due to lost motivation. I refuse to cave!

Hope you enjoyed guys, and prepare for the emotional roller coaster in the next chapter! : )

And, more good news, I know how and where I'm going to end the story. This fic should be done by the 32nd chapter, with an epilogue that will probably be made into a separate fic.

As always, thank you so much for reading and putting up with my lazy butt. :)