Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia
Chapter four: one year later
It took a long time for Finland to begin getting better, taking him many days before he could spend more than a couple hours awake and could walk by himself. Even after he could do this however, Russia soon discovered that if he even gently touched certain places on Finland's head the boy would either crumple to the ground on the verge of fainting, would go temporarily blind, or would vomit. This led to Russia deciding to be gentle with his now younger brother.
As it was, Russia did try to take good care of Finland. He made sure that Finland was dressed, clean and was well fed; even if that meant leaving enough food for Finland in the crawl space with him when he had to go to a meeting. Even so, Finland would every once in a while ask if he could go out with Russia or even to one of the world meetings.
It was not that Finland wanted to leave Russia forever, Russia had made sure to fill Finland's head with so much anxiety that Finland would often be surprised that he asked. Russia had done this by explaining to Finland whenever he had a memory of one of the others and told him that the memories were the past and that they no longer care for him. He had even gone so far as telling Finland that those closest to him like Sweden, who he dreamed of the most, would kill Finland the moment he saw him.
And so the two of them lived their secluded lives for one year, with Russia doing everything he could to keep the others off his trail while taking care of Finland and Finland trying to follow Russia's rules and desperately try to remember why everyone hated him. As Finland thought about this one day, he came up with an idea. It was another morning before Russia had to lock Finland up in the crawl space and leave for a meeting that Finland rushed up to Russia.
After rushing up to him and catching his breath, Finland began to plead, "Brother please can I come with you. I promise I'll be good; I'll even keep out of sight of the others I promise. Please!"
Russia smiled down at him and asked, "No Finland you have to stay here where it's safe. What would you even hope to accomplish by coming with me?"
Finland paused for a moment before smiling up at Russia and saying, "W-well maybe while I'm there I could think of a way to apologize to them for whatever it was I did wrong. Then maybe they would believe me and forgive me. If that happened you wouldn't need to go through the trouble of hiding me, wouldn't that be great. Besides, I don't like being stuck in that crawl space away from other people for that long."
Russia gave Finland a sympathetic look before gently touching the side of Finland's head; causing the other to crumple onto him. He then told Finland, "I do not think right now is a good time, you still need to regain your strength. But tell you what, if I come back to you being a good little brother than we can sit outside for a while alright?"
Finland nodded gloomily and allowed Russia to lead him to the crawl space. There he watched as Russia closed the door, blocked the door with the wardrobe and listened for the car to leave. Once he heard the car go away, Finland let out a sigh and stared at the poorly illuminated walls.
The world meeting was held on the anniversary of Finland's abduction, and like with most of the other countries, Sweden was beginning to lose hope of ever seeing his little wife again. Due to this, he decided that he wanted to spend the day by himself instead of in a meeting; leading to him sending in a substitute. Estonia however had not given up hope of finding Finland, and still believed that Russia had something to do with it. After all, they only checked Russia's house once, and even then they did not do a great job of it.
Estonia figured that the best time to do this would be when Russia was gone, so he decided to also miss the world meeting and instead headed to Russia's house. There he was met by the silent house. After thanking the fact that Russia had not changed locks in the last few decades, Estonia allowed himself in and walked into the large house. He would have liked to have some others help him, but at the same time he realized that if a lot of people were not at the meeting it would only make Russia even more suspicious.
The first floor he decided to check was a top floor; the third floor and the one that they did not look through the best before. Once he reached this floor, he systematically began to go through each room while checking every nook and cranny. At last he came to a room with the wardrobe, where as he looked he noticed that there seemed to be something behind it.
Deciding to try moving the heavy wardrobe, he did so and found a small door with a very faint light coming through the cracks. Slowly, he opened the door and crawled a couple feet to find a small room with a lantern, a small bed, some food, and a small person on the bed; Finland. Finland saw Estonia too, but instead of going to him like Estonia expected Finland began to scurry deeper into the crawl space.
Estonia then quickly grabbed the lantern and followed Finland as he made turn after turn. At last however he caught up to Finland when the leader took a wrong turn and ended at a dead end. Upon seeing Finland, Estonia began to smile at him, only to stop when he noticed the terrified look in his friend's eyes and heard him yelp, "P-please don't hurt me!"
And so someone finally found Finland. But now what?
As always, please review~