Letters From Heaven, Rest Calm, Lost in Paradise, End of the Dream, Decision of the Loved

For someone who wasn't meant to speak until like his third meeting with Germany, Vene's become quite the chatty bugger. Then again I also thought this story would end in under 15 chapters, so what do I know?

This is my new favourite chapter, and because I'm a baby I'd recommend tissues and sad music.

Recovery

The Vargas Family

It was a long night that wasn't made any easier by the two strange Micro-nations sitting in Romano's living room. Vatican gave up on trying to turn them out after the phone calls started ringing and his watch indicated that it was well past midnight.

Veneziano had locked himself in the brothers' home office and had refused to come out. He was in pain, but it wasn't until Vatican answered the house phone and heard Romano's voice on the other end that he understood why:

"I'm sorry, Papa. Please, please forgive me-!" It was like that night on the train north to Venice, but this time the Vatican City State was too far away to help comfort his son. It didn't matter what words he chose to murmur or lecture through the receiver, Romano's tears wouldn't stop and South Italy sounded like he was dying. "I don't know what to do- what am I supposed to do? How do I-?"

"Land in France and get to him as fast as you can." It was all he could say, blinking through the shock of Romano's news without letting his voice crack. Seborga had lived a long time, one shooting would not end him now… "Romano, just worry about one thing at a time: sleep now- yes, sleep, you need to rest. You are travelling as fast as humanly possible: take advantage of that and do what's best for you. Sleep. Please." He might have felt better if he was running or driving, but the simple truth was that there was nothing faster than flying, and he was on one of the few aircraft in the world that could move that fast without having to land and refuel. "Sleep so that when you arrive you can help them. Please, for me, Lovino: you have to calm down."

He was beyond simply tired or distressed, South Italy was at his limit and Vatican couldn't rationalize how or why he'd failed to notice it before sending him on his way. Had he been taking care of himself before leaving? He'd certainly seemed like it…

Now wasn't the time for that. There could be no second guessing right now. When he finally coaxed Romano to hang up and try, please try, to get some rest, the Micro-nation was struck with a sudden sense of being in the midst of nothing.

There was no better way to explain it. He knew something was happening, that something had changed, or was changing, and that it would come to affect him in some way later. But right now there was nothing. He was standing in the eye of a mighty storm hovering directly over their household.

It was a terrible feeling.

And it only got worse when he heard Veneziano's footsteps coming down the stairs, and he saw what his son was wearing.

Those names, the dream wanted to use those names to wake him up, and he wasn't going to tolerate it. That was the decision he made when he left the office behind and slipped into his bedroom on the second floor.

His body was aching and sore, and to be honest his throat hurt from so much use today, but the anger was burning too high to let him care. He didn't want to speak, he didn't want to explain, but he'd accepted the challenge. The dream master had finally made a mistake, it had made a critical, crucial error, and he was going to exploit it.

If it had been him personally then the shock would have broken him today, he was sure of it. If it had been Romano, that would have broken him. If it was China: broken. Spain: broken. France: broken. Arthur Kirkland: shattered. America: destroyed.

But it was Seborga. The dream was attacking Seborga, and then it had tried to use one of those names against him.

Enough.

What he needed wasn't in his room, there were only pieces of it: black shoes that he forced his shaking hands to buff with a polishing rag. He stained his clothes in the process but that was irrelevant. A hidden key-card was still stuck in the back of a picture frame, and he turned that over several times in his hand before sticking it in his pocket. The picture itself had been removed from the frame like everything red or dark blue from his wardrobe: he hadn't been able to bear seeing those faces smiling at him. He had his own pale blue collared shirt and carried that with him.

He had to go to Romano's room for everything else, because they were close enough in size that the straight-cut blue pants fit almost right when he pulled them on- but why so loose? He didn't want to wear the tie, the black strip was terrifying to him because he could vividly recall all the many ways a cloth strap around the neck could hurt and choke the wearer. But he put it on, and a set of safety pins inside the collar and under the backside kept it from moving around: no one would be able to grab it. He tested it himself and jabbed one of his fingers on the sharp metal. Good.

Their badges were different and that irritated him. Romano's jacket was General-rank, as it should be, but instead of a naval crest the army's insignia was stamped on the cuffs and shoulder marks. He didn't want the army, and even as he felt the logic building up to tell him all the reasons why the army would serve him better than the navy or the air force, it didn't change anything: he didn't want the army. He wanted his navy. He wanted his air force. He wanted them because they were his, because they belonged to him. He wanted them because this dream had given him a time-line that said all the men and machines of his branches of the armed forces had trained with him, had been trained by him, and he wanted them.

But Romano was a General in the Army, and as much as he'd been frightened of the tie, on principle he would not put on this part of the uniform. He put it back on its hook and wrapped it in the same plastic as before, stuffing it deep inside the closet before he started searching again, pulling back hook after hook. Romano would not have thrown away the uniform he'd had removed from the other room. He had not been wearing his dress uniform to that meeting, certainly not while trekking through the wilderness, so it had to be here.

He could feel his frustration burning higher, forcing his left hand to hold back the piling clothes so he could keep searching. He ignored the tension in his sore limb and weathered through the lancing pain in his gut that told him something else somewhere else had gone wrong again, and when his hands found a black plastic sleeve he tore the zipper down to-

There…

Dark blue like any other officer's uniform, with four embossed gold buttons down the middle to keep the folds shut. Two breast pockets with a third one lower on the right side. An eagle pin with wings out-stretched was pinned to the right breast pocket under the gold button, and it symbolized the air force. The left side was embellished with ribbons and tags, only his four highest decorations actually pinned to the garment while the rest were safely protected in cases and boxes. Gold thread dominated the sleeve cuffs and shoulder straps, and a gold star on either lapel indicated rank.

The familiarity of the garment was terrifying because it was exactly how it should have been. Everything down to the minor tear he felt inside the lining was present, and when he opened the body of the tunic he found the worn-out patch under the right arm. Looking down at the closet floor, the familiar white box meant to hold his hat was sitting right there, waiting for him.

But it didn't fit?

He slid his arms through the sleeves and pulled the heavy material over his shoulders, and it didn't fit. It didn't make any sense: this was a dream and he was making a choice, an important, sensible decision to don an item drenched in symbolism. Why didn't it fit? It was too big: the arms were so wide they buckled when he let his arms hang straight, and when he did up the buttons in the front it hung loose around his torso.

He didn't understand. This had never happened before.

Other clothes hadn't fit him, old shirts and long jackets, jeans and belts and other things. He'd known he'd lost weight, he'd felt himself become thin and almost frail as his health waxed and waned, but this didn't make any sense.

This outfit should fit. The uniform was supposed to fit. How could he look at himself in the mirror and be such a mess? There were creases at the knees of his pants where they'd been hung up, there was dust on the hem of his tunic. When he pulled the black leather gloves out of the silk bag attached to the hanger, those were the only things that fit properly on his hands- but he didn't even know where that mark had come from until he remembered it getting caught on a car door in Paris.

Too many details. They should have been blurring together, why were they growing sharper?

Too many things were wrong when they should have been right. Everything should have been consolidating itself into a symbolic whole, not hanging off his bones and challenging the illusion like this. This wasn't right, it didn't even feel hopeless enough to be a manipulation: he didn't feel hopeless, he felt frustrated. He was irritated. It didn't matter how long it would take him to iron and brush the uniform, he couldn't damned well hem the stupid thing himself and take in the shoulders in less than forty minutes.

And he measured it in minutes, because he knew, he just knew, that the time wouldn't blur away and leave him confused in nine hours from now. He'd watched the time for weeks and it had never run away from him as it ought to have before now. Even in the other dreams, he would lay down in winter and wake up in spring, why did this one have to be so painful?

But he didn't have time for these thoughts now. He'd lost the precious minutes it would have taken to manage the dust and wrinkles. He saw the lights flash outside and knew he had to do this, the thing he'd resolved to do. The dream master could take his appearances, but it couldn't steal his resolve, not this time.

He marched downstairs and barely acknowledged Vatican as he came out of the kitchen with a worried call. He opened the front door before that terrible sound could ring and fill the house with the chimes and crashes of the devil's grandfather clock. He braced himself for the dream to end when he saw the Captain in officer's blue standing there, he was ready for it when he grabbed his long coat off the hook and kept that leather book under his arm.

He'd already tied his too-long hair back behind his head, and he dared the monster to take him away now when he stepped over the threshold and slipped his broad-rimmed blue hat over his head. He straightened the hat by its the black brim and ran his gloved fingertips back over the gold cords decorating it like the Italian eagle and stars. He waited for the dream to end, but with him standing outside under the cold white light over his front door, it didn't.

It didn't end. He was still here.

"General Vargas," And if he was still here, then he could still act. "Your orders were vague, sir, it seemed prudent that I should-" There were four soldiers here, not three. There was one enlisted and three officers, one was the Captain speaking to him before he raised one hand and pointed at the second man in dark blue: a Staff Sergeant.

"You, the boys." Ah- his throat scratched and grated, struggling against the sounds he was making. But these words were safe, he could use these. "You-" the other officer, a Second Lieutenant, "-my father."

"Sir."

"Yes sir."

"Veneziano, what are you-?"

He didn't have to say anything else, he didn't have to do or speak beyond what he already had. He felt a thick, heavy heat in his gut that welled up through his chest and shoulders before vanishing. Two sharp salutes answered his orders, which were taken without question or confusion.

"Hold on a moment, you can't just-"

"Signore Vargas, sir, it's late, please come inside."

"Ah, you two must be visiting Rome? Can you show me where you're sleeping?"

"Stop them- why are you-?"

These men would protect the people inside.

They would defend the people inside.

They would keep track of and care for their needs, they would warn away any potential threats. They would not hesitate to use force to carry out their orders, and they would shoot anything that compromised the safety of this household, and they would give their lives to fulfill those duties.

"Veneziano!"

And if they didn't, he'd shoot them himself.

"You two, with me."

Romano wasn't going to think about it: the remainder of the flight. And he wasn't going to think about the officials in Nice who were there to greet him for some reason. Obviously China had said something to France, who'd called ahead to his administration, and Romano just wasn't going to think about it. The French gave him a driver and a car, and Romano was barely functioning when he said something about friendship and climbed into the vehicle.

He was numb to the time it took to reach San Remo, the damaged city on the Mediterranean coast with the closest hospital to Seborga. Signs of the earthquake were still visible in places: cracked sidewalks, roped off buildings, empty squares where structures had collapsed, abandoned lots with the remains of churches and schools strewn across them. But it was still a city of almost sixty-thousand, and when the car rolled up in front of the local hospital at 8am that Sunday morning, Romano's door was opened by one of three police officers standing guard outside the building.

"Sir, thank you for coming so quick-"

"Are you the one in charge here?" Stepping out of the vehicle, Romano didn't want to get caught standing still or not doing anything and started walking immediately for the doors, the human keeping pace beside him. He'd been tormented for the entire flight from Hong Kong, now he was home again, now he could act. It didn't matter how little of his brain was actually functioning right now, he had enough mental strength left to notice the badges pinned to the man's uniform that meant he had seniority on his force. Just by paying closer attention to the way he held himself and pulled the door open for him, South Italy identified a former army man who'd transferred into the law enforcement branch of the armed forces.

He took comfort in this, there was no sense looking for pleasure as they ducked inside.

"What happened, Sergeant?"

"With all due respect, sir, I think you know." Comfort, not pleasure. The human knew what Romano was, had probably seen him in uniform, and had probably served under him in one of NATO's stupid wars. As they moved swiftly through the hospital's bright and sterile interior, the nation listened to his soldier speak: "According the three witnesses who were present, there were at least six armed men and three vehicles. The American took down the licencing information and we're running that now, the witnesses are here in the hospital." Good.

"Arrests?"

"None sir."

"Casualties?"

"All four of them put up a decent fight. They reportedly injured members of the other party, but nothing has turned up. We contacted INTERPOL offices in Rome and Geneva last night."

"Fatalities?" Romano wasn't even sure if he was listening or not, he was just walking. He asked the questions he had to ask because he was the nation, and he drowned out the answers because as a brother he didn't want to hear them.

"Two. They're both in the morgue here, sir. We'd like to request your help identifying one of them."

"Take me to the morgue." He'd end up there soon anyways, he might as well get it over with…

They crossed a red line on the floor that indicated hospital personnel only, and when they stopped in front of an elevator Romano watched the human touch the wall panel to summon the car.

A brief moment of silence followed, and the human took a sharp, uncomfortable breath:

"Again, sir, with all due -"

"Sergeant, you don't owe me respect right now." Not after the last twenty-four hours. Not after the last six months. "Speak freely."

The human was looking at him but Romano couldn't bear it, he just stared blankly at the steel doors in front of him. He kept willing them to open faster, but if they arrived down in the morgue and he saw what he expected on that table, it would break his heart.

"My…" The Sergeant had to stop and take another breath, and Romano must have looked so pathetic to him right now. How would it feel to spend your whole life serving someone who looked the way he did? "My daughter lives in Verona, sir." Verona, a city of rubble. Numbers tumbled into his head at the mere thought, but none of them equalled what was actually happening on the ground. "She told me that-"

The elevator bell dinged and the steel doors slid open with a lazy yawn, cutting off the Sergeant's voice as the empty chamber in front of them just hung there in the shaft. Romano's hands had been in his jacket pockets since they'd come inside, he didn't pull them out now or shift his weight to step forward.

"She told you what?" But he wanted to know. Romano had no right to hear it, but he wanted to. The fact that he could barely drag his voice up above a whisper just made him feel all the more pathetic for clinging to it. The deep breath the human took might have been for a sigh, but it wasn't.

"She told me that your brother dragged my granddaughter out of the rubble that night." It wasn't a sigh, it was more like a gasp, followed by a pledge: "So with all due respect, and there will never not be respect, sir, if you would rather set aside business and see your brother first, I would be honoured to help make that happen." It wasn't what he'd expected to hear, so Romano didn't know what he was supposed to say.

The hand that touched his shoulder just made it even harder to gain focus. The new, sudden perspective was enough. He suddenly realized that he'd missed this, and that he'd been missing this for months. He'd missed how, with one brief touch, the world outside these walls melted away and the man who lived inside the nation was allowed to let his head up.

Romano took a deep breath. He intended to say something with it but he just tilted his head back, blinking quickly in the bright florescence of the hospital lights. Everything made his throat squeeze shut, the words backing up into his chest until the pain tried getting out through his eyes instead. His body wasn't shaking, but his jaw was when he managed to voice one mangled plea:

"Tell me he isn't downstairs…" Not in the morgue, please don't let him be in the morgue. Vatican had told him Seborga had left with friends, his friends wouldn't let them put him down there with the dead unless he was never coming back…

The Sergeant changed hands so he was still holding the nation's shoulder, his other hand moving around his back. A little bit of force got Romano to start walking and they stepped into the elevator before the doors could sweep shut. He couldn't take his eyes off the ceiling, and he didn't look at which button the Sergeant pressed to get them going. The machinery driving the shaft started up with a quiet hum, and before Romano could tell which way the forces on his body were pulling him, the man to his left spoke again:

"The Principality of Seborga is on the second floor."

Romano blinked… maybe eight times trying to keep the stinging sensation from seeping out of his eyes. In the end he dropped his gaze to the elevator floor and tried to casually swipe the hot tracks with his hand as they formed. He couldn't pry his own lips apart, wouldn't let himself, instead he pinched them together with his teeth trying to stop the trembling in his jaw. He was upstairs.

"His friends aren't being detained, there are three of them but we've got the youngest one in our custody just until we can get a hold of his guardians." Guardians..?

As they left the elevator behind Romano tried asking if one of the people with his brother was a human, but he couldn't manage it. He stopped listening again after that and just focused on following the Sergeant around a bend in the hall.

A large space with blue chairs and a few potted plants appeared. Winter light was streaming in through giant windows, the Mediterranean Sea visible as a dark blue band over the horizon, mingling with the grey clouds covering most of the sky. Romano noticed two men and another police officer over in the corner, one with stark black hair and the other a dirty blonde, but when the one with sunglasses stood up South Italy just kept walking. He didn't care right now, not yet.

"Hey, uh-" no. "Wait, Mr. Ita-" no. Not even an American accent was going to get in his way right now, but with the officer's hand on his arm the man with black hair kept trying: "Please, we didn't know who was in there, if we'd thought he'd get hurt we never would have let him go alone!" Alone?

Seborga had been alone.

He'd left Rome with friends, but they'd abandoned him, left him. He'd been all-

"You have every right to be mad at us, but please, just-"

"Shut up." Romano stopped walking, he didn't understand why but he nodded at the Sergeant to keep going and lead him to the room he wanted. He didn't look at the man yelling at him in English, he just kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes staring blankly ahead of him. "Give your statement and leave. Get out of my territory, I want you away from my family." If they needed transportation to get back to wherever they were from then fine, Romano would pay for it out of pocket if he had to.

"Please-"

"Get out." And he started moving again, because Romano realized that if he let himself stop here he wouldn't go forward, and he'd come too far too fast to give up now. He walked away as he heard the second one standing up to challenge him, and didn't look back as he heard:

"At least let us stay until he wakes up!"

Romano's world tilted. He wasn't sure if he took a mis-step and stumbled, but it didn't feel like it, and he swallowed the stinging bile that suddenly teased the back of his throat. He was not going to fall, he was not going to fail, he was not going to stumble to a stop because some Micro-nation he'd never heard of said something to him. Romano was not going to prove China right again, he wasn't going to let himself fail his family again.

But that word hit him, and the hallway didn't straighten up again until he reached the door he could barely see with the Sergeant he hardly recognized. Asleep: that was the word that choked him. More than alone: asleep. All the bad things he refused to imagine were wrapped up in those two evil words. With all of their complex meanings, "alone" and "asleep" were what tried to unhinge him.

The Sergeant opened the door without being asked, and Romano was vaguely aware of it swinging shut behind him with a soft click once he was inside. The room had no windows, it was dim. There was an orange lamp on a small table, a hospital bed with plastic rails dominating the narrow space. There was a breathing machine and heat monitor, screens with vital signs plugging away in silence. It was a recovery room, not intensive care. The breathing machine had been turned off.

'Not again.' A week ago his brothers had both been safe in Rome, and now Romano had to end that thought because the parallels would kill him if he drew them all together. But it had been one week.

One short, tiny week.

Punctuated by a weeping phone-call.

Now unrecognizable, and asleep.

'Not this again, please-' Romano had both hands wrapped around the rail at the foot of the bed, staring down at the half-familiar person in front of him. The pale blue blanket over his brother's body had been tucked around one of his legs, leaving the other exposed and cradled in what looked like a splint waiting for reconstructive surgery. The limb was raised slightly, bent at the gauze-smothered joint that had been his knee some thirteen hours ago.

Seborga was a nation, he could heal faster than a human and from far more grievous injuries. Someone must have told the surgeons not to take him under the knife to try and fill his body with silicon and steel pieces. If they'd done any work on him it would have just been to control bleeding and blood-flow to his calf and foot. At least Romano hoped so.

His left arm was draped over his chest, but after the hospital staff had taken his clothes they hadn't redressed him properly. A hospital gown was just draped over him under the blanket, and Romano saw more white gauze and padding over whelming his right shoulder. There was a large buldge under the blankets over his stomach, and the older brother felt his bottom lip hurt from biting it so hard.

'Not again, not again, not again-' He wanted to reach out and touch him, but Romano just couldn't shake the suffocating fear that if he did then his brother would shatter. It didn't have to make sense, all he could think of were fragments of ice breaking away under his fingertips, sharp needles of helpless guilt like fibreglass clouds in the air.

The damage to Seborga's body didn't compare to the head, because it was the first thing Romano saw and the last thing he could process.

For a moment he almost looked bald, but the deformed way the white wraps cupped his skull made a far more frightening statement. The right side of his face was taped and bandaged, the upper half of his cheek hidden away and his eye completely engulfed in soft cotton. His left eye was visible, but closed, his head tilted slightly to the left so Romano could see the way the back of his skull had dipped in from the lack of support. Maybe, he prayed, someone had told the surgeons not to stuff the cavity with anything, that it would only slow the healing process if they did.

At least that's what Romano would have prayed for, if he could just interrupt the begging chant in his mind.

Not again.

Please not again.

Don't make them go through this again.

They couldn't do this again.

He couldn't handle this again…

"Wake up…" What was the point of even asking? Why bother whispering like that? God hadn't given him a break yet, why would he start now? "Wake up… please wake up." His heart was beating in his chest, the breathing machine was off and disconnected because he was filling his lungs on his own, but that didn't matter. Veneziano's heart had kept beating. Veneziano hadn't stopped breathing. But it had taken his brother two months to wake up, and he hadn't been the same again for a moment since.

"Please-!" No, the pain got him around the throat like a wire, and Romano just couldn't keep it together. He stumbled around the bed and took his brother's hand, "Don't do this to me again, please, please don't-" Not again, not again, not again- "I'm trying, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry- I know why this happened and I couldn't stop it!" He couldn't bring his voice down either, not with the tears blurring the horrible sight in front of him, not with his hands shaking like he was dying from the cold outside. He could barely touch his brother's face, nevermind speak as he gasped the words, sitting on the edge of the bed now and struggling with himself for how to hold him without breaking him…

"Please, please-" He just- cried. "You can't do this too, you can't leave me like this: you can't leave any of us like this! Seborga!"

He wouldn't call him by his human name. Luca? No! Luca Vargas wouldn't be able to recover from a shattered knee, torn guts, or a collapsed skull, but the Principality of Seborga could! The nation couldn't die from four bullets, he wouldn't let it, and South Italy just closed his eyes and pulled his brother's palm up against his lips. He kissed it and he felt himself rocking back and forth, his fingers brushing through Seborga's and cradling his wrist down to his elbow. And it hurt to sit there sobbing, but it would have hurt more to try and leave without giving up for a moment just to stay like this.

He didn't hear anything, the only thing he noticed was the pressure on his sinuses when Seborga's thumb pushed against the side of his nose, stroking slowly back and catching at least one tear under his eye. His fingers curled gently in Romano's grasp, but he couldn't let go of him: he just kissed his palm again and then slowly let himself lean down. He braced his hands on the bed and sank until he could press his lips against his brother's forehead, eyes only open for a moment before the tears made him give up and close them again.

"I… I can't see…" Seborga barely breathed the words and Romano just pulled back a little, looking down where his brother's green eye was half-open in the shadows. "I can't…" He had control of his hand though, and the older sibling felt the younger touch his wet cheek, trace his swollen eyes, and try to find something of Romano's to hold on to for comfort. Romano offered the cross hanging around his neck, and he let Seborga curl his fingers around the talisman. He swallowed his sobs and brushed his palm against the whole half of his brother's face, leaning down again to kiss between his nose and his eye, thanking a God that hadn't listened to him once until now.

"You'll be okay," he whispered, shaking still and scared to pull away. "You'll heal, and then-"

"They'll be back…" No… No don't say things like that… "Calabrian…"

"What?"

"He was… Calabrian." Seborga's eye was open but out of focus, his fingers still coiled around the rosary looping Romano's neck, but he wasn't pulling on it. "I think he's dead…" Such a soft voice, weak from pain and medication… "I hope he's dead…" Such a strong voice, hardened from grief.

"If he's not…" Romano took the hand around the rosary and lifted it again, wrapping his brother's fingers up between his palms and laying a reverent kiss on the back of his knuckles. He wouldn't let go, and he felt his brother try and hold on to him. "I'll kill him myself."

He'd kill them all himself, and no one would hurt Lovino Vargas' family again.

No one.

Honestly, the parallels between Sebo and Vene never ever came up in any of my notes, it wasn't an idea I thought up or scribbled down to keep track of. It showed up briefly in 24 when I was in the middle of writing it, and it reared its ugly head again here. This is what happens when you write +250,000 words with the same cast of characters. ):

But hey at least he woke up! I didn't drag it out for another 10 chapters so I think I deserve a cookie. Or a review. Why not leave a revieewwwww below? See you next week!