And I finally finished this chapter. I had never thought that the beginning would be so hard to write. And I didn't think that this chapter would be this long either (5k+ words-Wow!), and I even had to cut it short by a few paragraphs. Nevertheless, I finished, despite all my other work. Woot! I hope I'll be more timely the next chapter.

Now, before I go into the chapter... I finally got a tumblr! Yay! :D I'll be posting updates on my progress, betas and previews to the next chapter, so if you're not willing to watch everything else I do, you can just watch for some sneak peeks for upcoming chapters.

Now onto my thanks:

Thanks to ForestFireSong, Crazy Green Earphones, Rufescent, firelight3, and Fei for your awesome reviews! You guys are what keeps me going!

Oh, and speaking of reviews, here's a message to Fei, since I can't reply to an anonymous review: Don't worry. I've never been planning to add anything racy in this story. Those sorts of content won't fit in here. Yes, some characters will be developing closer than others, but have no fear: no lemony content will appear. After all, this thing is rated T for a reason!

Well, now I got my incoherent, jumpy A/N out of the way, I hope you enjoy this new chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Axis Powers: Hetalia. It belongs to Himaruya Hidekaz. I only own the AU plot.

To Create Perfection

"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring."
—George Santayana

"Law 7: Making Miracles, Part 2"

Arthur and Alfred stayed together for a while. Only quiet sniffles pervaded between them until they stopped entirely, so there was only silence. Neither of them moved. And it was comfortable. There was no need to speak or exchange any words. Alfred even began to fall asleep, his eyes starting to slip closed because of the tranquillity. That was until Arthur glanced up at the clock in the room and saw that it was only minutes before noon. Then the intern slowly pulled away from Alfred, who looked up with his bright, blue eyes. Then the boy too looked up at the clock. He understood what was going on, so he let go of Arthur so the intern may leave to attend to other business. But that didn't mean that neither of them missed the hug. They just had things to do other than sitting around and hugging each other.

As Arthur silently went to the door, Alfred smiled and whispered, "Thank you."

Arthur heard the words, so he turned back, smiled and nodded. The door before him detected his movements, sliding open. Then he slipped right through exit so then it might close behind him.

"You're quite timely."

Arthur jumped, snapping out of his small reverie. "Thank you, Edelstein. I pride myself in my punctuality."

Roderick smiled, approaching Arthur from around the corner. A tablet was tucked underneath his arm, flashing a few messages across the deep purple screen. "I'm glad that Francis didn't give you his habit of dallying."

The intern scoffed. "I'm not as foolish as he is."

Roderick chuckled and shook his head slowly. "Let's see about that." Instead of stopping beside Arthur, Roderick continued to walk, so Arthur had to troth after the man. "So today we're going to check on Antonio—I believe that you've already met him through Francis?"

The blond nodded.

"Good." Roderick pulled the tablet from his arm and began to tap through some messages. The little boxes flashed away, leaving a plain, gridded screen. A few notes lined the boxes on the left side, but Arthur couldn't read any of them. "We're going to be checking on him. I want you to be my scribe during the examination. You are to record every word and action exchanged during the procedure."

Arthur raised an eyebrow. The scribe job didn't seem hard; it in no way was taking advantage of his ability. But he wouldn't complain. This assignment was a part of his Paid Internship program, and Ludwig did warn him that some of the assignments weren't going to help him other than to give him pay. Besides, Roderick was an extraordinarily efficient man. Arthur wouldn't have minded working under the man's instruction if Roderick was an assimilation officer. Roderick was willing to teach much faster than Francis would ever dream of.

"So are you faster at writing or typing?" Roderick asked.

"Typing."

"All right."

Slim fingers began to skitter across the tablet. The screen blinked from purple to white to grey. Then Roderick dug through his lab coat pocket and pulled a cylinder object. It was of a rough stainless steel with protruding bolt screwed into each end. A long slit went down the length where a slip of paper peeked out. With one hand fiddling the switch on the side of the tablet, Roderick used his free one to pop out two legs on each end of the cylinder. Suddenly, the back of the tablet flashed a light blue. A click followed, and an indent with four hooks appeared. At first, Arthur didn't know how any of that could be a part of such a slim slab of technology and he had no idea what all of that was for until Roderick snapped the cylinder into place. Lines of glowing light immediately coursed through the tablet. Then whirling sounded, starting off slow and speeding up. Finally, a long sheet of paper curled out with words and notes adorning over its white surface. Arthur's eyes went wide as he watched.

But this was a normal occurrence for Roderick. Without acknowledging of Arthur's strange awe, the dark-haired man ripped the paper from the cylinder, clicked the object off the tablet, pocketed it, and then handed Arthur the tablet. All of that was done without a blink—no hesitation for the actions was made by trained hands. On the other hand, Arthur was still giving a strange look and was almost hesitant to take the tablet from Roderick. Finally, Arthur did.

"Woah, do they all do that?" Arthur asked as if the demonstration was one of the best things he had ever seen.

Roderick raised an eyebrow, folding up the long paper before pocketing it. "Of course they do. Francis just never takes advantage of it. He's much too 'afraid' of the tablet to ever use it."

The blond frowned and flipped the technology back and forth, feeling the back and the sides for any evidence of protrusions and indentations. But nothing was there, not even a crack or a line. There was no evidence of anything that could have a printing ability. Then Arthur looked back at Roderick, his large, dark eyebrows inching together and arching upwards.

"Don't look like you didn't expect something like this," Roderick grunted. Then he used his hands to turn Arthur back around and to direct themselves down the hallways and stairway.

Instead of looking up to see where he was going, Arthur continued to tinker with the tablet, flipping it back and forth and tapping anything interesting that caught his eye. He had never used such a thing before except that one time when he was sending a request for Francis. Everything seemed strange with its colour-coded buttons and messages. It was disorientating after a while, and Arthur didn't want to sit dumbly before Roderick could commence the examination. Consequently, Roderick rolled his eyes, snatched the tablet, pulled a formatted document up, and then gave the tablet back. Arthur blushed, glancing at Roderick before going to back to the tablet.

A scribing program had popped up: a keyboard took up half of the area, and a row of commonly used symbols, such as the square brackets, lined the top with a small area for autocompleting or autocorrecting shorthand. Although its simplistic and bland nature, the program was awfully sophisticated, having an autocompleting and autocorrecting system that recognised context and therefore had an accuracy of nearly 90%, and even a small gesture pad for describing subject movement and activating a camera setting. Arthur clicked that on. The screen turned from showing a blank sheet of paper to the hallway in front of him. The intern pulled back, blinking, and then moved the tablet up and down. The image moved as well, blurring until Arthur stopped and shut the camera function off.

As Arthur and Roderick approached room 60, Arthur turned to the older man and asked, "Why do you need a scribe when you have a camera? Wouldn't it be a lot more efficient just to record everything?"

Roderick glanced over to the intern again. "Confidentiality," he said as he pulled his ID card out of his pocket. "Preference. Accuracy. Consistency." They had arrived at room 60 at that point, and Roderick was starting to open the door. "Besides, written documents are easier to store and organise in a database. I want to be able to physically pull out excerpts without having to re-edit anything."

"Oh. Thank you for the information, Edelstein."

"You're welcome." A long, pale finger hovered over the keypad from the door. "Do you have any other questions before we pick up Antonio?"

Arthur shook his head. "No."

"Very well."

Roderick hit enter. The door slid open, revealing the residents of room 60. At first, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The room was organised correctly; nothing was left on the counters and only furniture such as the bed was left for the patients' usage. And both patients seemed fine. Antonio was tucked into bed, back facing the entrance and thick blankets wrapping around his body so he almost looked like macaroni. Lovino sat on the edge of the bed, his own back pressed up against Antonio's. His legs were crossed and a thick, leather-bound book was open on his lap. Lovino was reading aloud, his tongue working clumsily over foreign words written on the page. And for a moment, Arthur stood and simply listened.

"'Hijo mío —le dijo su padre—, tú siempre estás conmigo, y todo lo que tengo es tuyo. Pero teníamos que hacer fiesta y alegrarnos, porque este hermano tuyo estaba muerto, pero ahora ha vuelto a la vida; se había perdido, pero ya lo hemos encontrado.'"

The patient paused, turning the page. Then he looked up; at first, his eyes were flat, staring up at Roderick until the gaze travelled to Arthur.

Lovino shot to his feet. The book slipped from his lap and snapped shut on the floor; the noise disturbed Antonio from his supposed slumber, and the dark-haired man jolted up to look with his bleary, green eyes. Lovino glared at Arthur. His hands curled into white, shaking fists. Then he snapped, through gritted teeth, "What the hell are you doing here, bastard?"

"I'm here to do my job," Arthur answered. The corners of his lips tugged downwards. He couldn't help himself from grinding his own teeth as well. "What do you mean 'what the hell' am I doing here?"

The shorter male pointed an offending finger at the intern. "Whenever that French bastard is here, there's always something bad going on!" The hand turned into a fist, and the angry patient shook it threateningly at Arthur. "And since you're his lackey, that means that you're on the same level!"

Behind him, however, Antonio was reaching over the edge of the bed to retrieve the book, muttering something along the lines of, "Don't throw the Holy Bible on the floor, Lovi." Unfortunately, nobody except Roderick seemed to notice; the bespectacled doctor was watching Antonio, both his hands out of his pockets and one foot out before him.

Arthur was fuming. He would have thrown the tablet into the air if he didn't have any self-control. Instead, he shook his own fist at Lovino, narrowing his eyes to challenge Lovino's. "I'm not his lackey. In no way am I anything like Bonnefoy!"

Lovino's tanned hands were thrown upwards in exasperation. "Of course you're everything like that bastard! Your looks, your preferences, the way you talk—everything!"

Antonio struggled to get to the Bible. His torso was already off the bed and one leg stuck up into the air. The light blue blankets only covered one leg and most of the floor around the bed. His shirt was slipping off to reveal his gnarly ribs. A silver necklace had fallen from the folds of Antonio's scrubs, and the metallic chain pooled on the ground under his chin. The posture was rather comical if it weren't for the odd arch of his back straining the spine and the elbows of trembling arms skinning against waxed flooring. From a physician's standpoint, the posture was worrisome, and the drunken glaze coating over Antonio's green eyes was unnerving.

Before Arthur could retort, Roderick used a gentle hand to wave the intern to the side, taking a step forward. "Enough of this pettiness," Roderick ordered sternly. The angle of the lighting made a strange glare over his lenses. "We're here for Antonio."

"No. You can't have him," Lovino snapped, spreading his arms out and setting his eyes on Roderick rather than Arthur. The blond intern no longer interested him anymore. "He's going to stay here with me."

Roderick shook his head and sighed, approaching the two patients. One hand ran through his black hair. "I'm afraid that's not a valid request, IT-606. We only need Antonio for a few moments."

"No!" Lovino ran up and pushed the doctor away.

Arthur frowned. The display of outright irreverence was irking; Roderick was a high-level, competent doctor. People could push Francis around all they wanted, but Roderick was clearly a superior and earned the right to practice his authority. Quickly, Arthur walked up to Lovino and pulled the patient away from Roderick.

Lovino fought, kicking his leg as he stumbled out of the way. But then he was right back, planting a stern foot back in front of the BCWD workers. Behind him, Antonio had slipped off the bed and his stomach was pressed against the tiles. His feet were still up in the air and at least the Bible was again in his hand, but he looked at it as if he didn't know what he was going to do with it, tilting his head to the side and flipping through the pages without looking at any of the words. The man was completely oblivious to what was going on; it was unfortunate, for it was difficult to protect those who were ignorant of the situation. Nevertheless, Lovino continued, shouting, "No! You're going to hurt him."

"No, we aren't. We're just going to take him away for a moment."

"What do you take me for, a fool?" Lovino fumed, raising his two fists against Roderick and Arthur, despite the obvious disadvantages. His eyelids started to blink rapidly. "You're going to kill him!"

Suddenly, Arthur took a step back. Nobody noticed, however.

One of Lovino's fists came down upon Roderick's shoulder, but the doctor stopped it before it made contact, pushing it aside. "What gives you that idea?" the bespectacled man asked, moving forward until the two's chests were only mere centimetres apart. His height towered over Lovino, and his gaze was aimed downwards into the greenish-brown eyes. "As a doctor who has taken the WD Hippocratic Oath, I would never place a patient in a life-threatening situation."

"Lies!" Lovino's screeching voice cracked. "The Hippocratic Oath is the hypercritic oath! Antonio has a purple band!"

"That doesn't have anything to do with one another. I know that Antonio has a purple band, but that means nothing."

"Bastard!" Lovino grabbed Roderick by the collar and pulled the expression of apathy down to the level of his own. "I know everything you know! Don't think I forgot everything just because I've been out of your hair for a few years!"

"I know that you know a lot of things, IT-606, but this is not your business."

"Purple means future euthanasia, dammit!"

Roderick and Arthur's breaths caught in their throats. But each was for a different reason. Roderick's was because of the amount of heavy truth Lovino spoke. It was something he preferred not to hear, for the words were weighty. Even after years and years, euthanasia remained dark and foreboding; it wasn't something people would do left and right to anybody—it never had, and it never would, permanent like the act itself. Arthur's was because Francis had hidden away the truth for so long. For months he had been wondering about this answer, ever since Arthur's accompanied examination on Antonio, and never did Francis respond. He only spoke "Confidential," and eventually, Arthur had given up, and then had forgotten it.

Arthur risked a glance at Roderick for a moment. "Is that true?" he mouthed. Unfortunately, Roderick nodded in response; Arthur's eyes only widened further.

"Don't you fucking dare give me those shocked looks," Lovino choked out. His fists dropped to his sides, but were immediately brought back up to rub around his eyes. "You should already know all of this, but then you think you can screw with me and feign innocence?" Something quiet rustled behind him. "I have been around here for years for a reason, you know." Lovino sniffled. His shoulders lurched upwards before his hands dropped from his face, which had become a bright red that clashed with his skin colour. The shade appeared almost bruise-like, and his cheeks seemed to be inflamed.

Then, slowly, two darkened, thin arms wrapped around Lovino's torso. The boy hiccupped, arms tightening at his sides. Following, a head full of curly brown hair rested against the crook between Lovino's head and his thin shoulders. The man's chin nuzzled, and a tired smile playing over his visage. There was a silence until, finally, Antonio spoke.

"It's fine, Lovi. I'll be back later."

As quickly as he had gotten up, Antonio let go. He backed off, taking a few steps away from Lovino and towards Roderick while the smile on his face widened. Somehow, he seemed a bit different, almost purposeful. There was nothing holding him up except his own two feet—he was neither swaying nor leaning against railings or IV stands. His smile didn't seem loopy either, and it didn't droop to one side without a purpose. And then there were Antonio's eyes. The glaze from every other time was gone; once again, Arthur met the sharp gaze of the one who had threatened his life upon first encounter.

Roderick nodded. Without a single word, a hand stuck out to his side and led Antonio out the door. However, Arthur lingered behind, glancing over his shoulder at Lovino. The remaining patient heaved stuttering breaths; his hands were held stiffly at his side, clenched, and his head bowed down to the floor with his hunching shoulders. Arthur paused. His foot turned slightly back. Finally, the intern held the tablet up.

"Don't worry. It's only an interrogation," Arthur said.

"Interrogation my ass… I wish it is always just an interrogation."

Lovino didn't move. Finally, Arthur sighed, turned, and followed Roderick out room 60. The door slid shut behind them, and the three turned right to walk down the hall towards Roderick's office.

Antonio tried to strike a conversation immediately. The man trotted beside Roderick, smiling and bopping his head as if he were listening to a rhythm to go along with him. Roderick had pulled out the stream of paper from his pocket to read by that point, but Antonio yammered anyway, peering over the doctor's shoulder.

"So what are we going to do today?" Antonio asked. He tilted his head to the side, green eyes directed on the words. He was a bit on his toes, but he eventually gave up for Roderick was walking much too quickly. It didn't seem like the doctor was paying much attention anyway, for he took out a pen and began to write shorthand.

"Nothing much, Antonio," Roderick replied softly, almost whispering. He looked up at Arthur for a moment. The two stared at each other; then Roderick jerked his head towards Antonio's direction. From there Arthur got the cue. He adjusted his grip on the tablet, beginning to type.

Roderick's movement brought Antonio's attention right to Arthur. So moving on from bothering Roderick, Antonio bounded over to bother Arthur instead, his arms bouncing as if he were doing some strange dance with the slight shrug of his shoulders. "Hola," he greeted, sticking out a calloused hand. "My name's Antonio Carriedo. Nice to meet you!"

Arthur frowned a bit. After he took a moment to write down Antonio's actions, Arthur balanced the tablet upon his forearm and shook Antonio's hand. "Yes. I know who you are."

"Really?" Antonio chirped. Green eyes widened slightly. Then he laughed. "I must be pretty famous then."

"Of course, you are." The tablet was slipping out of Arthur's hand, and it was awfully difficult typing things while walking and holding a conversation. He glanced towards Roderick. Maybe that was why Roderick was unresponsive to Antonio's questions. But Arthur couldn't copy that; it felt impolite. Roderick was excused though—the man, after all, probably had far more responsibilities than Arthur could ever dream of having at that time.

"So…" Antonio's mouth made a small o as he extended the single syllable out. "Who're you?"

Arthur risked a glance at Antonio. One of his large, weasel eyebrows arched up, stretching. "I'm Arthur Kirkland. We've met before. Twice, in fact."

Antonio tilted his head. "Really? I don't remember ever meeting you before." He held his pointer fingers over his eyebrows. "I'd think I'd remember these things. Are those ferrets or something?"

Arthur scowled. Where had he heard that before? Oh, right, Francis had referred to the pair of "kissing weasels," as he had so lovingly dubbed them, when the two had first met. The short thought about Francis didn't, however, stop Arthur from noticing how Antonio seemed to have forgotten his existence entirely. In a way, Antonio never did meet Arthur because the man never remembered meeting Arthur, despite having met each other in rather memorable conditions, such as when Antonio had so blatantly threatened Arthur's life because the blond had picked Lovino up by the collar. As odd as that seemed to Arthur, he dropped it, speaking out loud a plausible solution, "Well, it has been a few months since we've last seen each other. You might have forgotten."

A long, gnarly finger tapped Antonio's chin as his green eyes were directed towards the ceiling. "Maybe…" After a moment of silence, Antonio's smile returned. "Then you must be some sort of genius-smarty-pants! Being able to remember that long ago and stuff. That's so cool!"

Arthur only rolled his eyes in response. Antonio must have been exaggerating; the man did seem to hand out compliments often. Of course, Arthur never really heard Antonio praise anyone before, but maybe because of Antonio's wide, rather innocent grin Arthur had thought that. Arthur wasn't too far off though.

"All right, I will be cutting off this conversation here," Roderick finally said. Suddenly, in front of the other two males, he turned on his heels and headed the other direction towards a door they just passed. Of course, Arthur and Antonio followed, but they ceased their conversation by then as Roderick pulled out his ID card to open the office door.

In silence the three entered the room, and in silence they took their seats. Roderick didn't say anything; he merely took a seat on a leather chair behind the desk pushed close to the side of the office for a rather large grand piano took most of the space in the far right corner, angled so the shining, mahogany instrument took as much space as possible. Antonio seemed to know the procedure quite well, since once his foot entered the room, he dove for a little, red leather sofa leaning against the wall before Roderick's desk. The furniture had only one plush armrest with its even puffier backrest, so Antonio tucked himself in the little corner between the cushions, his back angled in the desk's direction yet Antonio could still see Roderick face-to-face without having to twist his torso. An outrageously bright purple pillow had been placed off the side as well, and Antonio picked that up to snuggle with. Arthur, being the only one who didn't quite know his place, hung around the entrance of the room until he spotted a wooden chair set in the corner directly to his right. The chair was turned a bit in the corner, facing towards Antonio and Roderick, so Arthur had figured that was where observers normally were. The corner was the furthest spot away from the patient and the doctor and seemed dimly lit while still providing adequate lighting: it was an easily forgotten area.

Glancing towards the two other men briefly, Arthur took the wooden seat, falling completely silent to just observe and type. He had always been irritated when Francis ordered him to step aside and observe. He never liked just observing; he wanted to do things. But this time was different. First of all, this was a part of his Paid Internship Program; Ludwig had told him earlier that some of the jobs wouldn't directly tie into his training, so then a job like this was to be expected. Second of all, Arthur was being paid to learn. To complain would be the work of an ingrate. And finally, the most important point, this was Roderick. The doctor was different from Francis. This bespectacled man was efficient, straightforward, and far more capable than Francis could ever seem to be. And most of all, Roderick answered questions. That was far more than Francis ever did for Arthur.

The sound of crinkling paper and scratching nub of a pen permeated through the silence. It lasted only briefly before Roderick finally looked up at Antonio, adjusting his falling glasses, and started.

"How have you been feeling these days?"

"I'm doing great!" Antonio rocked back and forth in the chair, his blue scrubs scratching against the leather. "How have you been, Roderick?"

The doctor wrote one note. "I've been doing fine. Have you been sleeping well lately?" The tip of his nail clicked against his glasses lenses as he pushed them further up his nose.

"I've been taking a lot of siestas. I get a lot of nice dreams—I can't remember any of them, but I know they're always nice. Have you been sleeping well?"

"Yes. I've been getting the proper eight to nine hours of sleep per night." Roderick jotted another note down.

Again, Roderick adjusted his glasses again. For a brief moment, Arthur wondered if he should note what Roderick was doing, but then he thought better of it. After all, Antonio was the subject, not the doctor. Roderick probably wanted Arthur to pick apart Antonio's actions and words, not Roderick's own. But maybe Roderick's actions were deliberate and would affect how Antonio acted; that would be essential for analyses too. But the question was, "Would it actually be necessary?" In the end, Arthur took out Roderick's words and actions. It was easier to only keep up with one person anyway. He didn't need more on his plate.

The doctor opened his mouth to speak again. But Antonio cut him off.

"So how has work been?"

Roderick bobbed his head a bit, his nose pointing at his desk. "It has been going well."

"That's good!" Antonio laughed. "How has Francis been doing?"

"Swell. He's been working hard."

"Of course he is! Just an hour ago, he came in to talk to Lovi and me. He said that his thesis paper will blow everybody away—even that prickly Wang with all his doubting mind." Antonio shifted in the chair. One foot was tucked between the cushions while that other one was under his thigh. "Hey, do you think he'll actually make it?"

Roderick pushed his glasses again. Then his hand travelled to one of his ears, fingering the end of his glasses. "Of course he will. There is no chance that he would fail."

"Yeah, I think so too." Antonio's grin widened. "I didn't say that because I doubted him either. After all, he has the bestest teacher teaching him." He paused for a moment. Roderick moved to speak again, but Antonio didn't seem to notice. Instead, Antonio continued, his grin falling a bit, "But… after all the work you did, do you really want to give it up and let Francis take your place? You told me that being an SEP assimilation officer gives you the most satisfaction, so do you really want to step down?"

"Yes."

Roderick's writing hand clenched tighter around his pen. His knuckles turned a powdery white—Arthur didn't know whether the movement was from Antonio not letting him speak or from Roderick possibly losing his favoured job or something completely different. This subject of conversation was quite strange, and Arthur was almost tempted to put the tablet away to simply watch what was going on. Of course, Arthur didn't. He was too busy being literal to interpret anything. But he couldn't help question this: why did it seem like Antonio thought Francis was not yet an SEP assimilation officer when Arthur knew that Francis had been one for three years?

From there, Roderick continued. "He is far more capable than I can ever be. He can achieve things with a precision and accuracy that I wish I had. And he has more factual and philosophical knowledge than he needs to be a better officer." The doctor sighed. "I know that the job will be in better hands."

"Yeah, but what about you? How do you feel about this?"

"Antonio, I'm giving up the job on my own decision. I have found somewhere else where I'm needed, and I look forward to working with that instead of interns." Roderick looked up at Antonio finally.

The patient paused for a moment. Then he asked, "But what about Elizaveta? How does she feel?"

Roderick fell silent. His eyes were aimed downwards once more.

Antonio stared, his green eyes blinking as he scrutinised the doctor. Arthur began to feel that this questioning had reversed from its intended direction. Roderick wasn't the doctor interrogating Antonio anymore; Antonio was the counsellor interrogating Roderick.

"Are you two still fighting?"

One finger twitched around the pen. Roderick's voice seemed to shake for a brief moment as he replied, "What do you mean by that?"

"You told me about it a week ago. You two had gotten angry with each other over something serious, and then you accidentally broke your family's vase."

"You remember that?"

"Of course I remember! I said that I'll help you with everything!" A soft smile broke across Antonio's face, and his head tilted towards Roderick. "I'd never forget anything you've told me."

Roderick slammed his pen against the table. The loud snap startled Antonio and Arthur, who both jumped in their seats with wide, green eyes. Then the doctor got out of his chair, gathering his papers.

"Kirkland, over here!" he barked.

Immediately, Arthur shot out of his seat and walked up to Roderick. "Yes? What is it?"

Roderick furiously folded up the papers and handed the intern only half of them. His eyes were still directed towards his feet, and his lips were set into a firm line "I'm no longer capable to interrogating Antonio. Please do it for me; I have other business to attend to."

Arthur stammered an affirmative. Then he took the papers and looked at them.

"You will be doing only half of what I had intended, and I want you to videotape the whole thing and I'll transcribe it. I had not wanted things to go in this way, but it cannot be helped. Do you understand your instructions?"

Again, Arthur affirmed.

"Good. You can leave everything here when you're done. Just bring Antonio back to his room afterwards."

Finally Roderick turned on his heels and walked out the door.

When the doctor had made his abrupt departure, Arthur and Antonio looked each other briefly.

"What was that for?" Antonio asked.

Arthur merely shrugged. He took a seat behind the desk, wondering if he should be sitting in Roderick's chair. He did it anyway so he could get right to work turning on the video recorder on the tablet and going straight to the interrogation with Antonio.

All of the questions were generic. A good handful of them were standard for a general psychiatric or medical diagnosis. Then the rest were about whether or not Antonio could recall certain information. The patient was only able to answer half of them correctly, and he made strange explanations for the rest.

Throughout the whole interrogation, Antonio would ask questions. At first, they were simply about Arthur's input on why Roderick had suddenly left. Then they were about whether or not Arthur and Antonio had actually met. Then, for an odd reason, Antonio began to ask about Arthur's personal life. All of the personal questions tended to jump around, going from siblings to housing to friends to drinking. But no matter how many times Antonio asked or seemed to disregard what Arthur was saying, the blond intern didn't respond to any of them. Arthur didn't even nod or shake his head. All he cared about was asking Antonio Roderick's designated questions, so Arthur disregarded everything else. Antonio appeared rather frustrated with Arthur's unresponsive behaviour, for the patient pouted whenever Arthur cut him off. Nevertheless, Antonio continued to ask, and Arthur never replied.

For once, Arthur realised how convenient it was to not answer.