Disclaimer: Hetalia, Romano, Spain, Belgium and oregano all don't belong to me. Yay, oregano. (THAT STUFF SMELLS LIKE A PIZZA, I SWEAR. IT'S SO GOOD.)

"He was gay on you for years, sweetie," Belgium shrugged, placing a steaming mug of hot chocolate in front of me at the kitchen table, and setting her own down across the table, taking a seat behind it.

If I had had any liquid in my mouth at that particular point in time, I would have spit it out.

As it was, I managed to jab my own hand with my finger as I jolted in surprise at the news.

My palm was still sore from the glass shards from much earlier that morning, but by the time I had finally managed to get Spain to leave (I told him we needed oregano and I wanted to make pizza tonight, so he had to go get me some… And he acted really weird about it too. Hell if I know why that was. I made a mental note to ask someone what that was about later.), it had already begun healing.

Klutz I am, I should probably appreciate the healing capabilities of my body more than I do.

BUT! There were more important things to be discussed than my own lack of coordination; I'd demanded to know what (the fuck; it's amazing what two extra words can do for your tone) had gone on with Bella and Spain in my blank period, and she was explaining.

"I think everyone knew it but me. No, I knew it too, I just didn't want to admit it," she sighed, before smiling weakly. "Aren't you making pizza for dinner tonight, Roma? I love your pizza."

"Focus, dammit!" I snapped, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead as my vision swam for an instant. "I want to hear about you and Spain. Flattery gets you nowhere."

Dammit.

Stupid vision.

Stupid brain.

Stupid amnesia.

Fuck this shit, I want more wine.

Is this another memory coming on, or a concussion?

"Ah, I beg to differ," Bella smiled, tapping a dainty finger on the tip of my nose, before leaning back in her chair, and growing serious once more. "Well… Are you sure you want to hear this from me, sweetie?"

"Why not?" I demanded, frowning. "He didn't beat you or anything, did he?"

"Oh, God no!" She gasped, pressing a hand to her chest in shock. "That would have been awful! But we both know Daan never would have let that happen, and besides, what happened was entirely my own fault."

"Then by all means, please explain," I said, gesturing with one hand for her to continue, and taking a sip of the drink before me.

"Alright, Roma," She sighed, running a hand through her hair, and adjusting her green hairband before she started her story. "Well… We started dating in 1970. It was right after an issue with a Belgian-owned power company that powered a large section of Spain, which in the 60s was penalized by the Spanish government for being a foreign-owned company. My people wanted to sue Spain for their losses in the stock market, but there was something in the clause that actually linked it back to Canada, and my people weren't compensated for their losses."

Boring. But hey, every relationship starts somewhere, right? I really just wanted to know how it ended so badly, but I was the listener, so I'd sit through whatever it was she wanted to tell me.

"Well Spain felt really bad about it, because he couldn't do anything about what his leaders were doing politically, so he started spending more time with me, taking me out to see the sights of Spain again, just simple things. But then it was out to lunch and out to dinner, and it was getting hard for me, because I had always loved Spain more than I probably should have." She paused giving me a thoughtful look, lips pursed. "You always were his favorite, I should have seen it a lot earlier than I did. I stayed with Spain when Daan left, but I don't think he was ready to fight Daan for me even if I had tried to leave. He fought Turkey for you, though."

I looked down, ashamed by the sentimental, time-worn smile she was giving me. That much I knew to be true… I knew Spain liked me best, but I never really knew why. I could have told Bella as much if I had known what she was doing. When I was little, it probably would have been because I wouldn't want her to steal Spain from me.

But if they didn't get together until 1970, what had I thought about it?

"Well one night out at dinner, Spain had a ring box in his pocket." Bella said, her hands clenched tightly around the mug, and a contemplative look in her eyes, as they stared unseeingly at the table between us. "Well, I thought it was a ring box anyway. I started crying when he didn't pull it out when he dropped me off at my house. He didn't know why I was upset until I told him what I had thought. It was so silly; we weren't even officially dating yet. My not-so-inner romanticist had decided that was a good time to jump to conclusions, and look where it left me. Crying on my own doorstep with the nation I loved utterly baffled as to what he'd done wrong."

That I could picture, and I tried to recreate it in my mind as I took another small sip of the beverage, which I had since identified as being made with real Belgian chocolate. I knew what Belgium's house looked like; I'd visited once around 1830. It was probably new by now, though. Spain's was sturdy and classic, but Bella's had been little more than a shack.

I imagined a generic house's front porch, a generic dress for Bella, and a generic suit for Spain, and placed some flowers in Bella's hands, and deemed it complete. Add in the tear streaks and the confused look for Spain, and… voila.

…yeah, I wish I hadn't done that. Dammit, now I was jealous of imaginary-Bella for the attention imaginary-Spain was giving her.

I-I mean, I was pissed imaginary-Spain had made imaginary-Bella cry.

That's it.

Shut up, Goddammit.

"I told him I thought it was a ring, and he looked so shocked. I almost laughed, I swear. The look on his face was enough to make me stop crying. It was like I'd kicked him or something. He didn't understand I thought we'd been on dates, and so I sat him down on the steps to explain it." She smiled, and twirled a spoon around in her mug, to stir up the chocolate from the bottom. "As soon as I finished, he showed me what it was; a gold cross necklace for you. That's when you were dealing with all those terrorist problems in Italy… and the Golpe Borghese happened in 1970. Spain said he knew it was putting so much stress on you, and he thought maybe he could help."

I blinked, startled by the excess of information. Well this was new. Terrorism in Italy… and a gold cross from Spain? Was I-?

I put a hand to my chest, feeling for a cross, but found none, and glanced back up at Bella doubtfully.

"They probably took it off you in the hospital," Bella waved my half-formed question off, and took a rather large gulp of her chocolate. "You still wear it every day though. Maybe Spain has it. You should ask when he gets back from the market."

"Oh," I muttered, and dropped my chin into my palm.

"Well anyway, when he realized I'd thought we were already dating, he asked me out, right then and there." Bella's nose scrunched up, and her lips puckered as though she smelled something rank, as she said, "I should have figured right then he was just doing it for me. But I didn't. Alas, you can't rewrite history."

A heavy silence settled between us after that, and I hesitated, before blurting, "Well what happened next? You dated? How did you break up?"

"Ah," She hummed, blinking a few times, and pulling her mug in closer to her chest. "Well… yes, we dated. It lasted 30 years, so I suppose I should be pleased, but it didn't end well, Roma. I was passing through France to visit Spain as a surprise, for the new year of 2000, and I met France on the way through –Don't give me that look, he isn't so bad, Roma– and I told him I'd come back and celebrate with him on the way home. But when I got to Spain's house, he was nowhere to be found, and there was a note taped to his door saying he'd gone to check on "his little Lovi," and that if someone broke into his house they could have as many tomatoes as they liked, but that he really didn't want anyone to take his mixing bowl, because he only had one left."

I inhaled sharply at the words "his little Lovi," and got a nose full of chocolate liquid for it. Bella watched concernedly as I coughed for a few seconds, trying to stop the bothersome feeling in my throat, and finally I took another swig of chocolate to down it, and managed to get my breathing even. "I'm okay," I croaked, gesturing for her to continue.

But… that part about the fuck-face.

I didn't have a good feeling about that.

I hope that's not in there because…

Nah, it couldn't be.

Bella wouldn't…

No.

No way.

"Ah… okay, if you're sure," she said dubiously, but nodded and kept on. "Well… it was then I realized this had been happening for 30 years, and would probably continue for the next 30, and that I really ought to give up. He didn't love me like he was supposed to, as my boyfriend," she sighed, leaning her elbows on the table, and her head in her hands. "We kissed, but he refused to have sex –Oh don't look so scandalized– or even make out. He kept telling me it was because he was Catholic, but I didn't buy that for an instant. He hadn't been to church since before they started building the Sagrada Familia, that really big cathedral in Spain they still haven't finished. And he never proposed, either, so it wasn't as though he wanted to."

"So… you broke it off?" I prodded, feeling a little awkward that I had played such a large part in her unhappiness, but still not remembering anything she was talking about.

"No, I met up with France when I was driving home, and we had sex," she said simply.

…

Three, two, one…

…

Cue internal explosion.

Ah, dammit, I knew it, I knew it I knew it I knew it!

Dammit, dammit, dammit! Mental images! Gross! Yuck!

I didn't need those! Really! Seriously! Shit!

Bella… and France?!

"You cheated on Spain? With FRANCE?" I shouted.

"We… met up about once a month after that," She admitted sheepishly, toying with a lock of straw-colored hair between two fingers. "Ah, Spain found out in 2008. 'Francis is just giving me a massage,' only worked as an excuse about five times before Spain got suspicious. And when he walked in on us right in the middle of it, well… there was no explaining that away. He broke it off, but not before I could call him out on all those years of him neglecting me for… well, you."

"So it did end badly." I deadpanned. "Ugh, fucking wonderful."

"I-Is that a bad thing?" Bella asked hesitantly. "Am I part of some master plan of yours or something? I'd really like to know what it is before you try to make me kill someone again, Roma…"

"No! I- wait… I tried to make you kill someone? When…? No! Stop distracting me!" I spluttered, before draining the rest of my hot chocolate just to give myself a moment to think. "What about… you and France? You were never together, and now he's with the eyebrow bastard, so…"

"I'm single, and France is happy with England," Bella nodded, but pursed her lips afterwards. "And I'm sorry, Roma, I really am. I apologized to you before this as well, but clearly you don't remember that, so I'm doing it again."

"Oh…" I trailed off. "Um, thanks? I-I don't know why you should be apologizing to me for this…"

"Because you're dating Spain, of course!" she exclaimed, before clapping both hands over her mouth. She added, rather sheepishly, "Er, well, you were. When I told you exactly what happened the first time around you were mad at me for a good few months. Because I'd hurt 'your Antonio' and that was inacceptable. Something like that."

"O-Oh." I said simply.

There wasn't much else to say to that.

"My Antonio?" I asked after a moment's silence.

"Oh, you call him Antonio, sweetie," Bella informed me quickly. "You always call him Antonio. In fact, this is the first I've heard you call him Spain since I was dating him. Like how he calls you Lovi."

That explains why he looked so put out when I called him "Spain" in the hospital… shit.

…and in the middle of my processing all this new information, the phone rang.

What.

Fucking-

Goddammit all.

I. Will. Fucking. Murder. Whoever. Is. Calling. Sp…

Oh, wait… it's not even my house.

I'll just settle for being pissed at having my internal processes interrupted.

"Do you want me to get that?" Bella asked, after I glared at the phone for the first three rings, attempting to melt the plastic object into a puddle with my eyes. "…I'll get it." She said finally.

"Hello?" she asked, as she picked up the phone, and then promptly held it away from her ear, at about arms' length. "Veni! H-How wonderful to hear from you again!"

"Ve~ Signora Belgium? Buongiorno! Is my fratello there? I want to talk to him please!" Feliciano's voice blared out of the kitchen phone's speaker.

I face-palmed.

"Uh, yes, Roma's here!" Bella said cheerfully, after blinking several times in rapid succession in a vain attempt to acclimatize to Feliciano's volume. "Here, I'll put him on."

I watched as she pulled the spiral phone cord across the kitchen as far as it could reach (it didn't reach me, and I sure as hell wasn't reaching for it), and then gestured for me to get up to take the phone from her. I simply gave her a dead stare, hoping she'd get that I didn't want to talk to Feliciano at the moment.

No such luck.

She placed the phone on the counter beneath its receiver, and crossed back to the kitchen table, circling around it to come to my side. Two hands gripped the sides of my chair and propelled it across the smooth tile that made up Spain's kitchen, until I sat right beside the phone, still sitting innocently on the counter, through which I could hear Feliciano humming an Italian children's song on the other end.

"Dammit, Bella, I-" I started to complain.

"Talk to your brother," she growled. "I will not be on the receiving end of another eight hour lecture on how to make homemade pasta."

"…you could just hang up," I pointed out.

"He kept calling back."

"Oh."

"ROMANOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Feliciano wailed through the phone.

"DAMMIT, I'M HERE, WHAT?" I growled into the mouthpiece.

"Oh! Buongiorno, fratello!" my brother practically sang. "I was just calling to say hi. And I wanted to know how you're doing! Germany said you'd probably broken something by now, so I wanted to check to make sure it wasn't something I gave you and Antonio."

"When did you even have time to talk to the potato bastard?" I demanded, disregarding his mention of my clumsiness. "I thought he had meetings, and aren't you at a hotel? Did you go back to Italy yet?"

"No, I'm at a hotel in Barcelona! It's so pretty here! Oh, and America told me I could teach him how to make real homemade pizza if I did, so I decided I should stay with him and England and big brother France!"

"What the fuck are you doing with those morons?!" I exclaimed. "Dammit, I should have known the burger bastard would have tried something low like that, I…"

"No, ve, it's so much fun~!" Feliciano cheered. "I'm also lecturing him on everything he does wrong in his mass-market pizzas. He made a halfway decent one just now! Only the entire bottom burned this time~! Ve, where's big brother Spain? Can I talk to him for a minute, fratello?"

"What? No, Spain's not here, I told him to get more oregano, he's out doing that. I was going to make pizza but I can't find the oregano anywhere," I said, though I was fairly preoccupied by the information that Feliciano was making a pizza –or several pizzas, by the sound of it– with America. "Put the hamburger bastard on the phone, will you? I need to bitch him out."

"Oh... you sent him out to get oregano...? Ve, that might not be good... I should call big brother Spain after this to ask how he's doing. Um, but anyway! Okay, ve~ Mister Alfred," Feliciano called, his voice sounding muffled, as though he was holding the phone away from his face to call to the western nation. "Romano wants to talk to you, something about bitches and hamburgers!"

...again with this oregano business... what?

But hey, wait a minute... Alfred?

"You're calling him Alfred?" I screeched. "What the fucking hell! Feliciano!"

"Ve, here he is, fratello!"

"Italy Romano? Haha, I knew you'd see it my way!" America's voice took the place of Feliciano's, at an even higher level of volume. "So you're ready to become my bitch? That's cool, but I don't really do food kinks, so we'll hold off on the burger, 'kay? So I'll head back over to Spain's place for dinner tonight! We can make a pizza! You'll teach me! I'll come over extra early so we have enough time to do it! Feliciano says you're even better at making pizza than I am, but I'll bring little Italy too, that's cool, right? And I can tell France and England to come, because we have to get this plan enacted! I'll see you then, yeah? Hero out!"

"Wh-"

"Love you too, 'Mano!"

"NO, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, DON'T YOU HANG UP ON ME, YOU FUCKING OVERLARGE BURGER-EATING MOTHER-FUCKER…!"

Click.

...

Bzzzzzzzzzz.

"Shit."

So now I was supposed to teach the hamburger bastard how to make a proper pizza. How would I even…?

Ugh, more importantly, why wasn't this mother-fucking headache going away yet? And where was Bella? Slipped out during my conversation with Feli, did she?

Pizza tonight… ugh, does Spain even have enough bread flour for THAT MANY people?

Pizza, pizza, pizza… why does this keep coming back up?!

\(^.^)/ - Spain…?

I got all the dough ingredients assembled around the stove top, and dug a bowl, a pan and a mixer out of the bottom cabinet of the kitchen's tiny corner counter. (I was Italian okay? I could be lazy about all the mixing by hand shit when I wanted to. Amazing pizza would come out of my work, regardless of how it was done.)

First I tested the water from the kitchen sink, to make sure it was warm enough, then dumped what looked to be the right amount inside the mixer. Next I poured in the yeast, and began to hum as I did so. It wasn't even cognitive anymore; pizza making came naturally, and I was happy when I did things well.

I couldn't place a name to the tune off the top of my head, so I thought on it while I added the rest of the ingredients to the mixing bowl. I watched the stuff spin around and around in the metal bowl, and idly compared the rotation to my life. Around and around and around it goes, and always the same shit happens.

Ugh, Goddammit all, I was becoming a sap.

After that all was mixed, I decided to be a sentimental sap anyway and knead it by hand. I thoroughly washed the counter (no one likes weird shit in their food, dammit) and coated it with flour before dropping the ball of dough onto the surface, sending white flour up around me in a large cloud. I rolled up the sleeves of the business shirt I was still wearing, and got to work on the dough, pressing and shaping it the way I knew my best chefs to have done it.

The same tune was still issuing from my mouth, and I frowned, trying to place it. It seemed homely; like I'd heard it as a baby or something. But that was unlikely, because that would have been a REALLY long time ago. Still, it was catchy as all hell, even if I didn't know where I'd heard it.

I left the dough in the oven on 75 degrees Fahrenheit (what the hell is with that shit, what, Celsius wasn't good enough for the hamburger bastard?) after I deemed it acceptable and rolled it in olive oil, and then I sat my ass down to relax. Again.

There was nothing else on the television, so I sat there for an hour and watched more American news, and made fun of their politicians and news anchors. Like a motherfucking boss. They showed some more about that snowstorm, though. Frankly, I wasn't concerned. I'd been in freaking Russia for a world meeting before; that place was like an icy hell-on-Earth. There was nothing some New England snow could do to deter me from getting back to Italy on time. Besides, I was planning on leaving on Saturday, not Monday.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand finally that damn dough finished rising.

Or close enough, as far as I was concerned, because I was fucking hungry. I pulled it out of the oven, sliced it in half with a steak knife (because apparently we were out of bread knives; did I even want to know what Feli had made this morning?) and instantly went about flattening it; the Italian way. It took me a few more run-throughs of that mystery song, but FINALLY the dough was flat enough for me to start twisting it. I positioned my fingers around the edges of the dough, and flexed my arms once to make sure they weren't going to lock on me after I started.

With an expert flick of my wrists, I had that motherfucking crust two feet in the air, and spinning like the Earth. Except you know, a lot faster. And shit. It looked cool, okay?

There was a vague awareness of a door opening, in the back of my mind, but I was a little busy being badass and flipping a pizza crust to really register it. Well, that and the fact that even my subconscious mind was busy with humming that weird-ass song still. And I could only focus on so much at once. AND my attention spam sucked in general unless there was food or sleep involved. Especially tomatoes. Tomatoes are good.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand my really long ranty analysis of my surroundings without really paying attention was ended abruptly when I was once again (For the second time that day! Seriously people, what the crapola!) unceremoniously GLOMPED.

I gasped and cursed in the same breath ("Ahh- MERDA!") as the still-doughy crust fell onto the counter instead of into my waiting hands. Time slowed around me as my adrenaline kicked in, and I watched the dough drop in slow motion. Everything would have been fine, (except that bastard's face when I smashed it in for fucking up my pizza; I just bet it was the tomato bastard!) except for the fact that the dough half-landed on the bowl that had the other half in it. And the steak knife, which had been sticking out of the side of the bowl, went skittering across the (plastic, cheesy as fuck) counter towards me. I could only watch as it twirled end around end over the plastic surface, and then took a nosedive right off the edge.

My reflexes tugged on my legs like puppet strings, sending a jolt of terror down my spine as I realized it was going to land on my foot. Blade end down or not, I couldn't possibly calculate in the amount of time I had left before it would land. And before I could back up far enough to feel secure that the knife wouldn't hit me, my feet hit my glomper's legs, and got stuck in place. A cold weight settled in the pit of my stomach as I observed the last few milliseconds of the knife's airtime, and then I screamed.

\(^.^)/ - Spain.

And of fucking course it stops there. Of course. Just confuse me beyond belief, that's fine. I don't mind. I'm getting used to it, dammit.

(FUCKING HELL THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING.)

Nope. This is fine. I'm good. Really. It's all good.

(WHY IS MY MEMORY SO FUCKED UP. WHY.)

There's not even a point to arguing against any of this anymore. I need enough ingredients to make pizza for… me, Feliciano, Spain, Bella, the Netherlands, France, England, and America.

With the amount they'll all eat… (fat-ass America, cheap-ass Netherlands, never-ending-pit-ass Feli…) that's probably four pizzas. Well, shit. No, we didn't have enough bread flour for that.

I placed the phone back on the receiver to make the dial tone stop, before picking it up again and dialing the number Spain had written on my arm before he left, in case I needed to call him for anything.

"Hola? Lovi, is that you?"

"Yeah, tomato bastard."

"What is it, did something go wrong?"

"No. …Spain? I'm gonna need two more bags of bread flour, one of the big cases of oregano, and some fresh garlic. America just invited himself –and England, and France, and Feliciano- over for dinner tonight. You might as well tell the albino bastard and Canada to come back over too."

"Sí, I know, Feli just called and told me… er, this will be interesting, no?"

"Wow, inviting company over, Roma?" Bella asked, sounding surprised, from somewhere behind me in the kitchen. "That's good! It'll be so much fun! I'll help you cook, if you like! But not if Spain is helping."

"I'll help, Lovi! But not if Belgium is going to. She's not, is she…?"

"…er, no, America is," I answered the both of them at once, receiving one deafening silence for my trouble.

...

And then, in unison, "WHAT?"

…fuck my life.

A/N: Ahaha... um, so, so so so sorry for this REALLY late update. But hey, I was so rushing on all that summer work... and I got it all done! Yay me! But I've been having some problems with depression lately (you can go read Pancake Batter if you want to know/care at all...), so this was really hard to work on and be upbeat about.

But I got this finished, finally, and set up a FANTASTIC next chapter. I know just what I'm going to do, too~ Haha it involves pizza, wine, schemes and lots and lots of jealousy. Yaaaaay. Please review, they make me happy and happy me writes funny (and long) chapters. Yaaaaaay~