❅❄❅ When the Snow Falls ❅❄❅
Afterward
It'll take me quite a bit to sum up the past few months and all that I had witnessed. Pain, trauma, and improvement are things I'm familiar with, but with every new experience, it doesn't feel like I am. I guess it's better than expecting everyone else to have to same problems and experience and feelings. That's just not how life works.
Growing up with Francis, I never witnessed night terrors, having to stay up late on the phone with him to get him to stop crying or freaking out, and encourage him to go back to sleep afterwards. With Ivan, it was like jumping into the deep end of the swimming pool for the first time, but not knowing just how deep it is.
I would be lying if I said it wasn't difficult, or that certain events didn't stress me out enough to want to sleep it off for a day or two. But that's not because Ivan is a burden to me; I care for him too much to consider him one, and for his troubles to not distress me too.
Through al l the rough moments, through the crying, through the occasional screaming and him questioning if I really love him, nothing helps me though even my personal troubles than seeing Ivan stand back up on his own. His steps are little, but enough. Ivan's too worthy for his baggage to weigh him down, and he's seeing that now one piece at a time. After holding his hand through most of these past months, I can't take credit for even 1% of it. It's all him.
A couple weeks ago, he decided he wants to go to school and become a therapist eventually. He wants to use his past to help others. He also said he wanted to move onto receiving individual therapy, but decided he didn't want to leave his group therapy just yet.
Author's Farewell
I thought about just changing the status to this fic to "finished" and passing it off as such. But since I intended to continue it for just a little longer, I shouldn't do that. That wouldn't be nice. That wouldn't be fair.
This story only had a few followers and I was happy for just that. I still love this pairing, and I was happy to contribute something towards it. My work is incredibly flawed but I hope my portrayals of the characters and mental illnesses were accurate enough.
I no longer will be writing fanfiction. I really did try holding onto the idea of writing again, but there's just so much happening and I'm bracing myself for more to come. I will be working soon, starting college in the fall, and I want to keep pushing myself to work with my art and my own original characters.
I had lost my motivation to push for artistic improvement when my depression worsened years ago, but finding interest in writing these works helped me through that. I owe the Hetalia fandom and many of its wonderful writers a huge thank you. I owe everyone who followed this work till the end a huge thank you and apology. I always hated when I work I enjoyed came to stop, I'm sorry to do the same to you.