To Love's End, Soldiers (Piano ver), Mind Heist: Evolution, KRWLING, Iris, All Faith Is Lost. Dirty Little Secret, Decision of the Loved, Missing Remix, Missing, End Of My Journey, The Colonel, Vanity, Secret Door, Good Enough, Elysium, Honor Him, Now We Are Free, Safe And Sound, Utopia, I Need a Doctor, Good Enough (Felicity), Ezio's Theme.
Recovery
Elysium
Winter, 2014.
It took a year.
It took a year of wild fighting in the streets, the near-collapse of the national bank, and international responses that wavered between staggeringly ineffective and desperately needed.
The fighting tore off the gauze and bandages of the bureaucracy, exposing the festering welts and black death of corruption. United Nations teams headed by Canadians, supplied by Russians, and manned by the Chinese flooded into major cities with guns and supplies. Many of those teams were assaulted and some sank in the mire of blood money, but most were welcomed and protected. Canada personally discharged and arrested any of his own who carried the stink of corruption on his uniform, and China executed at least three for giving in to their greed.
North and South Italy went a step further: with the military swollen with new recruits brought in by drafts and conscription, anyone with suspicions or ties to those black-hearted groups was more than executed, they were erased.
Files were burnt, numbers erased, bodies buried under new roads commissioned by the Captain.
Families were sent simple declarations of death, but God help them if the State had any reason to believe the webs of corruption had spawned from inside filial walls. If a father had encouraged a son, or if a mother enabled the spread, then the State went after the cancer with electric shocks and black bags.
Personal Liberties were casualties in a war for survival. After a year it stopped being about fighting for a strong government. After twelve months of fighting and back-stabbing and fear, it became about killing the clans.
It was about fighting for people to have the right to work. Fighting for those who worked to have the right to wages. Fighting for the right to a safe neighbourhood, a safe school- or even just a neighbourhood or a school to begin with. No more living in the rubble of a calamity two years gone, no more stepping over black chasms carved down city streets while listening to men in black suits snicker from the sides of expensive cars.
Their Captain took control of the military, he took control of Rome. He took the young men into the army and he told them "work", and they worked, because most of them wanted to and all of them had to. He took the women too, he took them and he did not give them guns like the men, not hammers or slabs of concrete: but graphs and paper, goals and deadlines. Their Captain took the youth of Italy and he made them work to cut away the death and stitch and heal what remained.
And it hurt.
BANG.
"Uh-"
It hurt, and it hurt, and if it wasn't the pain of reconstruction, that sting before the relief of progress-
BANG. BANG BANG!
-then it was the filial pain of watching his other half suffer.
BANG, BANG, BANG!
"They're not going to open the-"
"LET ME OUT!"
Because as much as Italy Veneziano felt himself suffering through reconstruction, Italy Romano was the one writhing from the corruption. So if one stupid mistake one night had put Veneziano in this latest mess then he was not going to stand for it.
Not down here: not in the dark somewhere below Rome, not waiting calmly while Mafia Henchmen tried to organize his transfer down south. They knew who and what he was, but they had no idea what he was.
BANG.
Did they know what North Italy could do? Apparently not, because he'd already snapped their damn restraints.
BANG.
And if whoever was trapped on the other side of the steel door didn't know who their cell-mate was, then the dents marring the old metal would teach him soon enough.
BANG.
Because with one more driving punch with his left arm, knuckles bleeding and flecked with rust, North Italy brought up one leg and-
BOOM!
"Holy shit!"
"Shoot him!"
He was in a basement, a warehouse, a place with concrete walls and poor light- but not poor enough to blind him. He saw men running at him and he knew, he knew that there would be guns.
But guns couldn't hurt him anymore, not with a strong master in Rome to keep his heart beating, not with another half who needed him home and not down in the murk killing rats trying to get out of here.
Mafia were not people anymore. Mafia were not citizens, not Italians, not his or Romano's or anyone else's. Veneziano had signed the paperwork and he'd ceded those rights to value and protect them. They were exempt from the laws and because they could claim no citizenship elsewhere: they were no one. They didn't exist, they were only here to destroy and be destroyed. Italy abandoned what was never theirs and recognized them now only as another threat: another invasion.
They'd taken his weapons when they caught him in the dark between Rome and Milan, killing his entourage in the process. They'd torn and stained his uniform with the fighting to drag him down here, but when a bullet cracked the wall by his head Veneziano crouched and threw his weight forward, ready to fight again and this time win his freedom.
His boots bit into the rough floor as his right hand reached for the closest gun-bearing arm, speed taking the thug by surprise so instead of putting a bullet through the Nation's eye, he staggered back and forgot to fire. He snagged the henchman's wrist in the dark and pulled, turning his body so the human collided with his shoulder, and then with both feet planted he flung all of his weight back until he slammed the fragile body against the concrete wall. The crunch of bones behind him and the strangled noise told him how much damage he'd done, and he felt no guilt wrenching the gun free as he let the human collapse boneless and broken to the ground.
One bullet killed the second human who came at him, the third henchman shot him through the chest and then ran for his life when the blow didn't make him fall.
He killed that one too, ignoring the heat running down his back and making his shirt stick to his skin as a double-tap seared through the human's body and made him crumble to the floor with a sick gasp.
It had taken them a year to drive the violence back down under the streets like this so the people above could try to work and sleep under the illusion of peace. North Italy was not a chess piece to be won and locked in a cell while one side or the other declared 'this is ours now! We win!'
He was the State. And when he released the other prisoner and climbed up into cold Roman sunlight again, he took driver's licences, credit cards, and anything else from three bodies that would blacklist their names and send the raiding parties in the night to erase progeny and partners.
He was the State.
Spring, 2015.
Time was a strange phenomenon. Germany did not enjoy dwelling on the issue of months and years on a personal level, but sometimes it just crept up on him.
Three years ago he and Italy had been best friends, maybe even danced together on the cusp of something more.
Today he had done everything to distract himself from the media's image of the French President shaking hands with the Italian Dictator.
Dictator.
Although Italy and his press would both deny it: an unelected leader with all the strength of a burgeoning army at his back. The limits on his power were vague and no earnest cry for democracy could be heard from within the former Republic.
The man had not changed Italy's name yet, but Germany did not doubt that his will would shift soon enough.
"At least eat something." But for the time being the entire issue left Germany without the appetite Austria insisted he should have. It was hard with so much going on in his mind and under what was supposed to be his sphere of influence, for Germany to remind himself why of all places he'd fled to Vienna for a day away from sour politics. Why put himself closer to the problem? "As unsavoury as France's decision is, you know it's for the better."
Germany didn't want to hear about it. He didn't want to discuss France's policies or his ability to smile at the man who in ten years would be a tyrant in Rome like so many emperors before him. France wanted to take the reins of the EU? He wanted to stand up and tell the world to sit down while he made sense of all their misguided, sordid little issues? Let him.
"Tense friendships benefit everyone more than cold distrust ever would, Germany. This is Europe's way." Tolerance for corruption and a c'est la vie attitude towards watching history repeat itself. Yes, that was exactly Europe's way.
"It's not friendship." He finally made himself say, slowly standing up in the classically inspired dining room and making his way over to the tall clear windows letting the dusk light shine in on the two nations. He knew his next words would be bitter: "It's appeasement."
"Germany-"
"I would know!" He stated harshly, meeting Austria's disapproving look with a fierce refusal to stand down. "And somehow you can just sit here in Vienna as if there isn't a military crisis building itself up along your southern border."
"I am not Italy's concern." Of all the irresponsible ways to cast aside the issue- "I'm not saying you're wrong, Germany, but do not pretend the Italian Army has any interest in my affairs. No Man's Land stretches on their side of the border, not mine." The way Austria said it meant he had to know how the words sounded to Germany, the memories they evoked of a wall too high to climb and too politically strong to pull down.
How was he supposed to accept knowing Russia kept company in Rome the way he once had in Berlin? While France was kindly, Russia made a point of standing or sitting directly beside the Italian brothers at every conference and meeting. And with Russia came someone even worse…
"Germany-" Because how was he supposed to welcome China into discussions and meetings that had never included him before? European matters that should have had no bearing on the far east! "Germany listen to me, as delicate as matters are you must see reason!"
"Reason where?" Curse the rest of them for not taking the issue seriously. Curse Germany for not being able to put the issue down.
"If not reason, then logic." Austria was still sitting there at the dinner table, the remains of their meal waiting to be whisked away while coffee was prepared and set out with cake in the other room. Germany did not feel like following the motions of evening coffee and dessert, he just wanted to know what made Austria think issues like these could be settled with a few brief words. "You and France are politically and economically joined at the hip now, and as I said: soothing relations with that military state growing in the south will preserve peace in the region. By having France extend that olive branch to Italy on Europe's behalf, he's spared you from having to do it yourself."
"That still justifies nothing," he hissed, watching the older nation sit there and dab at his lips with his napkin.
When he opened his blue eyes again to speak, Germany didn't expect what came out:
"Well, Germany, what in God's name did you expect would happen?" The harsh way Austria sneered at him startled them both, but it didn't keep the former Empire quiet for long. "Two years ago you had the chance to be a friend to Italy, and you squandered it for reasons none of us have been able to validate since."
Germany didn't want to discuss it.
"Romano walked out of that meeting, I-"
"After the way you spoke to him? He would have had every right to throw you out of Rome for it." That issue was still between him and South Italy, if Romano couldn't own up to simple- "I was there, Germany, I heard you!"
And maybe that was why Germany didn't want to talk about it. Maybe it had taken him this long just to realize that being right hadn't made him right, and maybe even after having another two years to come to grips with that information, Germany still hadn't found a way to overcome it… That was why he simply couldn't stand to talk about it.
And maybe, in his own way, Austria understood that when his anger slowly melded into something like disappointment. A heavy weight settled on Germany's chest when he realized it, but that didn't stop Austria from insisting on pushing through with the matter.
"What on earth did you expect Italy to do after you forced him out of the EU like that?" If only Austria and all the nations standing behind him could just let Germany lick his wounds in peace. It didn't matter that it was only the two of them in the room right now, Germany could still feel the rest of the world acting through Austria to grill him again, to shame him the way cold logic and clear hindsight demanded he take the blame…
"I don't know." Maybe he just hadn't expected South Italy to walk away. Maybe he'd forgotten that Romano had no qualms with switching sides in a conflict. Germany could even convince himself that maybe he'd believed enough western propaganda that declared anarchy better than a fall to the eastern powers.
Maybe, just maybe, he hadn't thought Italian pride would let Romano submit himself to China the way he had.
"I understand how delicate the issue is for you." Delicate? No. Once maybe, but nearly three years of conflict had covered the raw wound with a sturdy callous. "But if we're to make any progress in bringing east and west back to a stable, sustainable balance, then you have got to admit to yourself and everyone else that penalizing South Italy for things that were never his fault was-"
"You don't know that."
He didn't like the sound of his own voice, Germany didn't want to acknowledge that tremble in his pitch as his voice climbed higher than it should have.
"Germany…"
"None of us know what really went on between them, Austria," and the stories other nations had brought to him carried no comfort. Hungary's insult, Switzerland's reservations, Liechtenstein's refusal to weep… "From how you've told me he was to the way he his now, don't tell me Romano had no hand in that." Where had the soldier come from the ruins of the victim? How had someone rendered mute from trauma become so violently callous?
"Whatever South Italy did, you cannot hold it against him like this, not if you want to move forward." But did Germany even…? "There are problems all over, Germany, problems which need your attention because you can help them. Hungary is suffering and America is still silent out west. Every inch you give up fighting emotionally with Italy will be taken up by someone else behind your back, so please, see reason." Reason…
Such a virtue, did Germany even deserve it?
"Tell me the truth, Roderich…" He almost refused to say the name, the name he'd been allowed to hear only in the days following the Italian Republic's formal collapse. "Did I betray my best friend by trying to defend him?"
Austria had remained seated this whole time, hardly moving while his hands remained at rest on the polished wooden arms of his chair. His dining room was a lovely chamber, tall windows of sparkling glass calling the faded sunlight in to warm empty china plates, glittering over crystal stems and fluted wine glasses.
"Betrayal is difficult between our kind." How had Austria kept such a youthful face for so long? Here Germany stood several centuries his junior, and yet the older nation sat there with a face barely approaching thirty. "But you have been selfish, and it is difficult to forgive such cruelty."
"Do you think he ever will?" Forgive him, that is…
"In time I think Italy will put his anger and suspicions to rest." Germany nearly took relief from those words, but Austria tricked him. "But Veneziano will take longer." Because North Italy was no longer the world's Italy, just like how Germany could feel himself sliding into France's shadow as the face of European power…
"If France… and Italy… can build a friendship between east and west…" One without Germany's hands in it, one where Germany barely even had to be aware of the relationship and get involved between them…
"Then that friendship will maintain peace in our hemisphere." And peace was worth more than anything, economic or otherwise.
But that didn't stop Ludwig's heart from breaking a little bit more as Germany reached for the windowsill and looked out into the fading light of day, almost wishing for the brilliance to blind him before night could be fall. He didn't want to see the new world that the sun would rise up over tomorrow.
"Then let there be peace." Because Germany could not fight this fight any longer.
Summer, 2020.
"No, no see I have to stop you right there." As soon as Philip Westwood, Presidential Candidate for the American Republican Party opened his mouth, he knew he would never be invited back onto this program, maybe not even this network, ever again.
"You see now you're equating Tea-Party politics with Republican politics, and that's where I have to draw a line." He deviated from the script, he ignored the cues from the host who had just been speaking carelessly into the camera, and with one hand still raised he started speaking. "I am a Republican. I am a proud member of the Republican Party and have been since as long as I can remember, but do not try and tarnish fifty-percent of the good, hard-working people in this country with the politics of the erratic and out-of-touch."
The host was going to strangle him, he could see the comedian choking on his disbelief.
His campaign manager just off-set was either going to hug him and cheer, or stab him in the throat.
But the studio audience was paying attention, and frankly their votes just mattered more to him.
"Both the Republican and Democrat Parties here in America are founded on the same core principles of community, democracy, and brotherhood- to which I may add sisterhood, because this country would not be what it is today without the Founding Mothers or the women working alongside the men to make this nation a beautiful place to live." Someone back at the head office was going to throw a fit about 'pandering to the feminists', but it was the 21st century and some people needed to stop acting like acknowledging half the country's population was in any way 'pandering'.
"We are all neighbours, we are all Americans. It's about time we had the kind of leadership in Washington that will stop picking apart the differences between the Right and Left wings, and focus on the fact that those wings are what keep our society flying high regardless of our internal strife and bickering." Because there was strife, and there was pain, and there was everything wrong when factories in small towns shut their doors for the final time, or when families went bankrupt trying to save the lives of children gunned down by fate.
Or thrown down on the tracks of a crippled bureaucracy…
"I want to bring that kind of leadership to America. There's always a lot of talk about appeasing big business and supporting the corporations, but do you know what will happen to those power-house companies if people can't afford to buy the bread and butter they've monopolized and sell?" It was a heavily worded question, and he felt his voice drop the way he'd been drilled by his campaign manager not to let it fall, but he was looking at the in-studio audience for his answer. He was looking at them, and then he looked through the lens of the camera closest to him, hoping he hadn't been pushed onto a commercial slot to stop him from kicking sand in the face of the one-percent.
"Without the American people, the American corporations will starve. Colleagues I've had for years want to move their investments into China, but lowering production costs with sweat and slavery isn't going to fix the problems here at home. I want to bring corporate reforms, I want to bring tax reforms, I want to bring health and safety reforms. I want to re-form America so that we can break the chains of social poverty and take back our place in the world as innovative and inspirational leaders." He wanted safe streets for American children and hospital beds for the American ill, jobs for the American workers and education for the American youth…
He wanted back all the things that had been taken from a young man he had once known. He wanted to give America everything he hadn't been able to promise that same young man on a black and blustery May night…
He wanted it, and he was running for it, and if Philip Westwood, Presidential Candidate for the American Republican Party had his way, then he would take those things back for America. He would win those things back for Alfred… He would.
And he did.
Twice.
Autumn, 2023.
"But are you sure you're okay with this plan?"
"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"
Rome had changed over the last ten years. The city had toughened up and now the people walked at a faster, harsher pace with their laughter turned down. Life moved with determination while the sun's glare shone harsh and white over the past's archaic glory.
It was still Rome, complete and undeniable, but it was hard to step onto the city streets and remember that Rome was the heart of Italy.
Canada was unwilling to admit it, maybe even beginning to feel worried or afraid, but borders within Italy were beginning to mean less and less. The earthquake years ago had forced so many people, north and south, to move and trade places that not everyone had even made the effort to go back home once the trauma began to heal.
Physical mobility across the peninsula had never been an issue, and now with the quake several years gone and nearly all of Italy's rail lines and major road-ways back in place, it was once again a moot point. What had changed was the culture: the culture of remaining bound forever in one place, because that was where parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had called home.
"Wake up, will you?"
Canada's thoughts were only a problem when faced with the reality that was Italy himself: Italy Romano embodied more of the new state than anyone else in their company was ever willingly going to admit. Italy Veneziano was reducing himself to a facet, a shade, a dimension of Italy, but his brother was taking on the whole.
"Sorry," and he was, because Italy's time wasn't meant to be wasted. The stress alone on his dry face told Canada to mind himself a bit more carefully. "I just want to make sure I'm not overstepping my bounds with this idea."
Italy just huffed at him from across the table they were sitting at, the roadside café in Rome looking out at crowds of not-enough tourists and just-enough suits and ties to say there was work being done in tall buildings behind glass walls. Italy himself was rough around the edges of his starched and pressed blue uniform, general stars on his collar and a pistol strapped to his hip.
He was balancing a cigarette between his thin lips, the white roll unlit in Canada's presence because he was polite enough not to smoke right in front of him. Their powers weren't equal in a point-for-point kind of way, but the two of them matched up evenly enough that they were better off just being friendly, not trying to tally the marks. Despite his political ties Canada was still an honest democracy, and Italy was not.
"You're not overstepping anything." Italy was a military state doing what military states did best: cutting down on crime, slashing unemployment, rebuilding infrastructure, and never even trying to apologize for the lack of elections along the way. "My boss doesn't have much money to put towards cultural projects, but whatever I can scrounge up is yours to put towards this. I can give you names of institutes and leaders who would be good to have on-hand as well." So somewhere between his words, Canada felt the quiet sting of a problem.
"Would you let me bring your brother on board?" He had to try and reach out though, even if Canada knew the wall would be too high for him to scale alone. "I'd like him to be part of this."
"I'm not surprised that you'd say that, but it's impossible." He just wished Italy wouldn't make himself smile like that when he said it, his expression just paper folded and wrapped over the barrel of a gun pointed at their friendship. "If Veneziano finds out what you're planning, he'll shut it down immediately."
"But you won't?"
"If he finds out, then yes. If he doesn't, then no." That didn't make any sense. "The important thing, Canada, is that I agree with you: this needs to happen. This should have happened years ago."
"Then why hasn't it started yet? Why did you need me to approach you like this?" And why did Canada know he was going to be left in charge of this new project?
Italy just picked up the coffee he'd ordered and sipped from the hot ceramic edge, and Canada forced himself to do the same with his own drink. It was a stale silence.
"I know what people whisper about behind my back, Canada." The smile Italy put on wasn't threatening, but he could sense the glaze of irony that fell over the words and heard the paper crinkle when he spoke. That masking smile refused to reach his tired green eyes. "That Veneziano is less than a nation and more like a force I just keep in my pocket and bring out to harass the world with at meetings, but I don't control him." Canada chose to believe him. Their friendship depended on Canada at least trying to have faith in what Italy said. "And I have no say over what happens in Venice. His heart won't heal until his city is finally put back together, but even I need his permission before I can so much as step within the city limits."
"So I'm supposed to invest all of this time and money and engineering into a project I have to keep secret from the territory himself?" Canada knew he was twisting his own words a little bit. He was offering to do all of this, but that still didn't make hiding everything a restriction he was happy about! "What do I do if he finds out? What if he just stops by the site one day and sees what we're doing?"
"Then you'll call me in and hope I can calm him down before he does any serious or lasting damage, and you accept that unless I can convince him that you've made enough progress to keep going, your work will end there." This agreement almost felt illicit. Sneaking around behind the back of someone who was so unstable, changing things that needed to be changed, but would hurt so much if they were discovered too soon… "But—"
Canada looked up from where his gaze had drifted across the sunny streets and a taxi idling outside the tall glass body of a bank. A man in a strapping blue suit was hustling over the pavement to welcome a pair of Chinese businessmen from Asia…
Italy hadn't noticed the businessmen, they weren't important, he was staring at nothing while pinching the end of his cigarette between his lips. Canada waited for the words he was trying to find.
"In all honesty, Canada..." The words didn't look like they were painful for him, but the realization they brought seemed to be more than Italy could handle all at once. "In five years, I don't think my brother has so much as set foot in Venice. The chances of him discovering you there… they don't exist, not anymore."
For some reason, Canada didn't think he would have believed the literal meaning of those words if they hadn't been uttered in such a slow, unsteady voice…
"…Is that why I have your secret permission to do this?" Italy took an uncomfortable breath and finally took the cigarette out of his mouth, shifting in his seat before biting one lip and answering bluntly.
"It's why you have my sincere request that you do this." And that pledge, somehow, was something Canada felt compelled to believe.
"And if I choose to bring France into things?" France who held a prized position clearly on the Western side of the international debate, but still close enough to centre that Canada could reach out and speak to him. France was someone Italy might not have regularly invited to Rome, but who still tended to show up from time to time with limited notice and no apologies for coming so suddenly.
Sometimes, back home in Ottawa, it felt easier to trust France than Italy. And maybe here in Rome it felt easier to trust France instead of Canada.
"I would welcome him." France was just… safe. "Just keep him quiet."
Canada almost laughed into his next sip of coffee.
"Easier said than done."
Winter, 2027.
"What do you think of that Westwood person?"
England knew he had asked Canada that question so many times in the last seven years- it probably didn't even make sense in his head anymore. It was just a way of filling the silence around that one forbidden aspect of their life and politics together.
It was hard to visit Canada, and it had been that way for nearly ten years now. With what historians and archivists already widely referred to as America's "darkening" in the middle of the 2010's, Canada had, like Japan and many other nations, been forced to sever economic bonds with America and find political and financial support elsewhere. The suppliers needed demanders, and nowhere greater was the demand than in China.
India too though, and maybe that was why England was still able to visit Canada on occasion- at India's dinner table, not China's. His former colonies were friendly with each other, and Canada was too fond of trade with Australia and New Zealand and England himself to leave the Commonwealth. It showed how sturdy he really was that, even with pressure China had not even bothered to hide trying to force Canada to give up those connections, the younger state had refused. He had the strength to refuse, because he had the Commonwealth's support to catch him if he needed to make that leap.
But the same support worked the other way as well: China and Russia would catch Canada if England tried to push and bully his way into Ottawa and tell him "don't do this, don't sell to them, don't trade with him". He had to simply let the other nation be.
England could not try influencing China through Canada.
England could just eat his different curries and drink his tea with Canada discussing consumer projects and energy agreements with India, who was more than thrilled to swap automotive designs for licencing packages. He could just sit and observe, wondering silently at how Canada had inherited from France an ability that England himself somehow lacked.
That ability was the skill to stand firmly on the line between two opposite worlds, that meeting of currents where fresh democracy met saline dictatorship.
Because Canada's closest friends were China, a power who had indeed opened up more freedoms to his people over the last twenty years, but how many restrictions still muzzled them? Where was the opposition in China's One Party? Russia was a democracy who couldn't hold an election without a riot although he'd smile his way through all of it. Russia's sister Belarus was no better than the Italian brothers…
Canada could eat dinner with India and then fly to Iran for a weekend of hard diplomatic talks. It had been a reality-check for England the day Canada had announced he was abandoning America's embargo on the Islamic state in order to join the economic plan proposed by China and Russia- two countries who had never acknowledged the ban to begin with.
He was so like France: that quiet, confident presence across the English Channel who had calmly tucked Germany behind him after the repeated disasters of the century's second decade. France was the only western state who could simply knock on Italy's door and invite himself in past the militant guards, and the only person England could think of who could request and win himself an appointment alone with North Italy on the first try.
But England wasn't anywhere near Europe right now, least of all France. He was walking next to Canada in a heavy wool coat, umbrella on hand and tapping the flagstones at his feet, the two of them taking slow, meandering steps in the crowd of officials following several yards behind the King of England and the Canadian Prime Minister.
"What do you think of that Westwood fellow?" And he asked the same question he had for the last seven years, the tired old words moving slowly down a well-trodden path that would take them along the safe road to a peaceful conversation.
"I think he's done a lot for America."
Canada smiled when he said the words, a wistful kind of reaction to a topic he was usually melancholy about. England was curious.
"With the reforms he's brought in recently, or do you mean…?"
"I mean," Canada was walking slowly, not unusual for him but he was making a point of letting each step come up a bit shorter than normal. Most of the time England had to pick up the pace a little to keep up with the taller nation, now he found himself moving easily in time with Canada's steps as their progression made its way up towards the Canadian Parliamentary buildings. "He's done a lot for America."
England didn't let his mind take those words too literally. Glancing up at the head of the progression, the King and Prime Minister were there shaking the hands of Veterans who'd served in the Italian Revolution and several other peace-keeping missions of the 21st century in former Soviet territories. Canada had kept himself busy.
But up at the head of that train was one other foreign leader, and this man wasn't part of the Commonwealth and he didn't represent the bond between England and his former Imperial might. The American President had been invited and welcomed to Ottawa, and in an uncharacteristic bout of humility from the White House, he'd kept himself one step behind the British Monarch for the entire procession, speaking amiably with the Canadian Prime Minister without causing a fuss of any kind.
Westwood: that mis-guided human from decades before with a security badge and no idea what he'd wandered into. England only knew it was the same man because that man knew him, and when he'd won his first election he'd come back to their meeting hall and he'd introduced himself again as the American President.
He'd known England was England.
He'd known Canada was Canada.
He'd known the Italian brothers- South and North.
He'd apologized for over a decade of misbehaviour and undue criticism from Washington.
And now seven years later the first President England could say he'd actually liked in almost three decades was running out of time to lead his nation. It didn't matter that he was a tall and very plain looking man with dark hair and green eyes in a round and washed out face, looks didn't count for as much as the media still wanted to think: he wasn't out because he wasn't handsome. President Westwood was getting ready to step down because America had been so obsessed with keeping kings off their thrones that he'd tied the hands of the good, qualified men to lead him and saddled them with an eight year restriction. But of course, in seven years England still hadn't seen America face-to-face… In ten years for that matter… twenty…
"I spoke to him about today."
"Westwood?" Canada smiled softly in his way, eyes down and his blond bangs hanging free of the soft red ribbon he'd used to tie it back today. He looked like he had something to say, but he wouldn't just come out with it until England felt himself growing annoyed. "Who, Canada?"
"America."
England stopped walking. That had been a cruel and unnecessary comment for him to make, and England couldn't tell if he was serious or not about it.
"What did he say?" But he humoured the Canadian, because the alternative was mockery.
"He said he'd be here."
"Well then he lied." The first thing England had heard definitively of America in over twenty years was a lie. Good job, Alfred.
"I don't think so." Now if Canada would only cease then England could get on with his walk and his day: they were nearly at the doors to Parliament and once they were properly inside and seated in the House of Commons they'd have more than enough administrative and ceremonial work to occupy them. "Look over at the President."
England looked. He saw the President's stooped shoulders and his poorly aging body: he was thick from mid-life and too much travel. His dark hair was beginning to fall away and the man's pale face was riddled with lines around the eyes and mouth. Twenty years was a long time for humans.
"I don't see anything special." Just an old American, hardly something worth noticing.
"Look at the person behind him."
Blast it all everyone except the King and Prime Minister were behind him! But England looked again: a woman with red hair knotted behind her head, an older member of the armed forces, the Crown Prince and his mother the Queen, a young man with dark brown hair and a bronze complexion…
"If we're going to play games you could at least tell me the rules." England was still watching when he noticed the change he was meant to see. It shut him up and it stopped Canada from saying anything to goad him, because as they reached the stone doorway one person broke away from the procession: that young man.
Dark brown or black: either colour worked to describe his hair and the way it was combed back, thick and coarse and simultaneously in and out of style with current trends in America. His skin was so dark he might have been Hispanic, or Native American, and just in general the dark grey suit he was wearing didn't seem to match the rest of him.
On approach England realized how tall he was, nearly a match for Canada and not as scrawny as his discomfort in the suit might have suggested. He looked strong, but somehow much too young to be here with people like this. His features were alien to England: he didn't know that mouth with a full bottom lip hiding a thinner top one, his nose long without being too long, rounded gently and not squashed against his face. But there was something about the eyes. They weren't the right colour, but… the… shape…
"No…" He'd changed his face- he'd changed his face, or he really had died and vanished from the world just to be replaced by- "Who is that-?"
"It's him." Canada was there to catch England by the arm when he felt himself turning away, his former colony snagging and holding him close in a way that was almost restricting, but at the same time felt like it was trying to give comfort along with the support. One arm came around his back, the other hand sliding down to hold his wrist. "It's him, Arthur."
"That can't be him, it's-" The boy by the wall was fidgeting, looking down at his shoes and up at the building over him, but then those blue eyes- blue like the prairie skies and the cornflower rows he'd once planted, blue and wide because curiosity always manifested through the eyes and souls as strange as theirs' needed windows wide and shimmering with light to see through.
And when those eyes landed squarely on England and Canada because the seer knew they were there-
"Oh god…"
-England felt it, and he stopped pushing back on Canada's arms. He stopped, then he stumbled, then he started moving forward as quickly as he could through the crowd. He heard Canada following him but he didn't slow down, because he felt like if he stopped again he'd look up and that person would be gone again: America would vanish from sight all over again.
"You idiot!" He didn't know what else to say, he just needed that stupid child with those scuffling feet and nervous face to know he was coming. "What have you done? Where the hell did you go? Did you seriously think in an information age like this that you could simply-?"
"Englan-?"
England didn't finish what he'd been saying, his voice snapped that head around again and brought his name out past unfamiliar lips. The voice was almost the voice it was supposed to be, it was so damn close- England just wanted to hear it again but more than that he needed to make sure the speaker couldn't get away.
So England grabbed him by the shoulders and he yanked him over, making sure the Nation at equal height with him was made to stumble before England locked both arms around that back and up over his shoulders, grasping at thick, refined wool and pulling that warmth tight and close against him. And he didn't let go: he refused to let go. Not again.
"Where did you go?" Was he crying? God, don't let him cry. He closed his eyes tight because he could feel them itching, his voice falling because this couldn't be real- but it had to be real. "We thought you were dead; that your pieces would start to break apart and the fighting would just get worse. Where the hell did you go?" Was it him though? Was it really him with a different face and a frightened, anxious body?
The way those arms wound their way under his and squeezed tightly under his chest, said yes. And the rib-cracking strength of an over-funded military cause a breed of pain that didn't burn hot enough to make England let go. It wasn't the frightened embrace of a new state seeking acknowledgement either, England could feel the desperation that mirrored his own and repeated the same words over and over again to both of them: don't let go.
"I missed you…" It really was his voice. The accent was different- his lands and people were so varied that he'd adopted the speech of another region. But it was his voice. "I'm sorry…"
"What happened?" Oh god it was him, it was him and any moment now England was going to wake up cold and alone in London because he was holding someone who should have been gone forever. "Where did you go?"
"I'm so sorry, England…" Maybe they were both fighting tears, because that voice dropped so low and fell so softy against his shoulder that there was no other explanation. With Canada hovering so close and blocking them from the proceeding crowd he must have known they both needed this moment too. "Everything was so wrong and I just had to fix it…"
"Why didn't you say anything?" Anything at all, anything that would have at least let them know what was wrong. Said something so that even if he couldn't ask for help, they'd still have known he was alive and working on it. Why had he scared everyone like this?
Why had he scared Arthur like this?
"I couldn't- I just couldn't…"
They let go slowly, or at least moved back: England still didn't want to let go and he kept his hands on this young man's sleeves, fingers wrapped around his elbows and watching as their faces pulled back. He closed his eyes and that strange face with its different features revealed again the soul of someone England had lost a long time ago.
Just the way his eyes creased when he squeezed them shut, the pain behind locked behind teeth that set themselves the way they always had with new lips drawing themselves into thin, trembling lines. The tears took the same paths down straight cheeks, brown hair flopping free of relentless combing and dropping just the way it was meant to.
And America cried, and it was still his voice and his staggered breaths, twenty years apart not enough to shake centuries' worth of memories from England's heart.
"You fool…"
"I'm sorry!" He sobbed the words out and England brought a hand up to hold one flushed cheek, trying to hush him as his voice rose too high in the dwindling crowd of onlookers. But instead of calming down America just looked up at him through stressed, weeping grey eyes; his words came prying open his jaws and falling to the pavement like raindrops. "I'm sorry for the loops- I'm sorry I wouldn't listen, I'm s-sorry for blaming you and then that time I barged into your house like that-"
"America-"
"I'm sorry I said all that shit!" He shouted, and England believed him. "And I'm sorry I didn't listen and you had to hurt yourself to protect me and it hurt you- And I'm sorry I didn't stay in the hospital to see you!" England could barely even remember that far back to tell him not to- "And I'm sorry! I was angry- I was so mad I drove myself insane, and I-"
"And I forgive you!" Even if the sincerity of his words hadn't won England over, he knew the proof on America's face would have done it for him. It took something of… almost cataclysmic force to change a Nation's face like that. Trauma was almost exclusively portrayed through age with their kinds, but sometimes that wasn't good enough.
England had never gained back the weight and muscle-tone he'd lost after World War Two. Prussia's body had never been quite so pale and plain before he had lost his hold in the world. Italy looked so weather worn and sun-dried now it was like there was nothing but hardness and leather under his skin.
Habits always suffered first, their height and weight came next, but physical features: their skin, their hair, everything that made the person in the mirror the same as the one looking at the glass… England had seen it once, but that had been a long time ago.
"I believe you…" He said softly, almost whispering the words as he held America's face with both hands now, trying to calm him down as he felt Canada's arm slip around his back again like before. The former colony was standing beside them now, head down so he helped close the gap between them and the cold November air… "I believe and I forgive you, America…"
But God his face was so different now…
"I couldn't do it anymore." America pulled his sobs back inside and just dropped his eyes again, staring at the stones under their feet and staying close enough that England didn't need to let go. He could taste the rain waiting in the grey sky above to come down on them, but his umbrella was left hooked over his elbow. "I couldn't keep his face anymore… or his name…"
"That was such a long time ago, my friend." Because, maybe, England still wanted America to be his friend. "And you've borne it well."
America didn't laugh, but he tried it with tears still leaking warm and fast down his face. He spread his thinned lips and hissed air between his tongue and teeth. It was almost a sneer but the sounds couldn't reach his eyes.
"Don't lie to me, man… I…" England pulled him in again for another hug, because America needed that more than he needed to finish that thought. "I… pretty much dropped the whole planet, didn't I? I- I'm so…"
"We all fall eventually." He hushed, speaking for a moment as one past Empire to another, one hand moving up and down the shaking back leaning on him, trying to remind him of what comfort felt like. "You're still here, and that means you did well…"
"I'm so sorry…"
"America-? Oh…"
England picked his head off America's shoulder when he heard the voice, looking through the mist of his own poorly held-back tears as the first drops of cold winter rain hit the pavement around them. When he looked up, he saw a familiar human coming towards them, but the man had stopped short.
"Hey, boss…" As America straightened up a little, taking a deep breath through his nose and taking a handkerchief from Canada, his President remained at a full stop and brought one hand up so they would give him a moment to speak.
"Just wondering where you'd gone." He was casual about speaking to his nation, it was refreshing to see. But he was also casual about speaking to nations he didn't serve: "Mister England, His Highness was looking for you but I can just tell him you three need a moment."
"I'll come with you." Canada piped up, glancing at the sky briefly before smiling down on America and England again. He still had a hand on both of them where they'd separated again, a friendly touch that added to his smile and the kind words that followed. "You two can take your time."
"But we're your guests-" England didn't expect a defense of manners to come rolling out of America's mouth, but there they were. "We should…" He also didn't expect whatever humility it was that stopped him from saying the rest of what he was thinking, because America looked between the two of them slowly and then dropped his voice again. England wasn't sure he approved of the change.
"We should participate in the ceremony we came here for." He pulled the words out of his chest because he felt the cold touch of rain on his hair, the sky darkening further above them before with a ruffle of nylon a black umbrella opened itself in the President's hands. They were close to the door, but the covering was held up over England's head to protect him from the two and a half feet of weeping sky above him. "And you-" Grabbing and pulling hard on America's sleeve, it made the reborn nation look down from the umbrella and face him again.
"Yeah?" He didn't even say 'yes' properly, because even with that bit of twang in his voice that would take so long to get used to, he was still the United States of America.
"You will have a lot of explaining to do."
Fifteen years' worth of explanation.
Spring, 2035.
"I have ruled Italy for over twenty years: if you think I'm afraid of you, Former President Westwood, then you're wrong."
"It's Secretary Westwood." Secretary of the State, because after two successful terms in office Philip Westwood was barred from running for President a third time. The United States of America had a firm constitution, and it was one he'd obeyed even with staggering popularity. "And I'm not telling you to be afraid, I'm telling you to pay attention to the voices around the world-"
"Voices that haven't stopped whispering about me since the media first saw my face- hah!" The way the man behind the large stone desk laughed and tossed a dismissive hand in the air just had a way of getting under Phil's collar. Even when he'd still been America's Head of State, dealing with his Italian Counterpart had never been easy for him: how could someone disregard democracy so completely? Just the laws his hands had signed- how many innocent families had been destroyed for the sake of this man's witch hunts?
"Off the record then, Lorenzo." But at the end of the day they were two old men who had been in politics for too long, and they'd both seen and done things no sane men should ever have to live with. The fact that they weren't alone in this room was a testament to that. The old man in his Italian General's uniform behind the desk tilted one hand for Phil to speak, Rossi's thick neck inclining his half-bald head forward. They were just barely on a first-name basis after well over ten years working in similar circles, but Phil reached for it and wasn't cast down.
"Twenty years. How does Italy still trust you?" How were the two halves of Italy still able, and still willing to stand behind their leader? And Phil didn't just mean that in the metaphorical sense, because as he looked up a little bit he saw them literally standing there: two men who didn't age and had never wavered in all the years he'd been coming to Rome.
America had explained them to him before: the Italian brothers. He'd explained more over the years than Phil felt a lot of other world leaders had been told: why the Earthquake had happened, how the Italian people had been able to change so quickly, what it was that kept them so damned loyal to someone so radical they should have been hiding from him instead. The Italian master wasn't a fascist in the classic sense, in fact his policies almost bordered on communistic, but an absolute ruler should have absolutely terrified the nation he was ruling.
"Because I listen to them." Phil wanted to argue, opening his mouth and- "Ten years ago there was no parliament in Rome; I brought it back. For almost a hundred years now there has only been one party in China, but in Italy we have two."
"But first and final word is always yours-"
"You were a Red President who signed more Blue bills into law than any president before you, don't act like we're so different." Rossi brought one fat hand up and stopped him from leaping down the other man's throat for the comment, because he nearly did it. "I know we are different, Westwood, but American Presidents have vetoes, and you only used yours twice in eight years. I have not used mine yet."
"But if you hatched another crazy scheme tomorrow, no one in Italy would be able to stop you from pushing through with it."
"No, but a crazy scheme would only hurt my nation." He worked a gesture into things easily, indicating both men with one tilt of his head, not breaking eye-contact as the American folded his arms and tried to listen. "As I already said: I listen to them."
"And how are you going to guarantee that the person who replaces you will do the same?" That was the hardline issue here: that was the reason why Phil was here in the first place to talk to the ruling Italian figure. He was here to sue for Democracy, to try prying apart the thick mortar and heavy bricks of the wall keeping the people out of their own Presidential palace. "It's been twenty years, how much longer are the Italian people going to suffer from your purge?"
"I'm expected to take cues from China for that answer, and name a successor with their approval." If Lorenzo Rossi had at least one redeeming feature about him, it was that blunt honesty that he pulled out when it suited him best. Now seemed to be one of those moments because Phil had never known Rossi once to deny what role the People's Republic of China had in all Italian affairs. "But I don't think I will."
These words earned everyone's attention, because even the two men in uniform behind him shifted slightly. The older brother looked confused, the younger was curious.
Sitting to his right, Phil was aware of America shifting awkwardly in his seat too. He was tempted to check and see if there was some kind of eye-contact going on between the three nations but kept himself focused the man in front of him.
"What do you mean?" He pressed.
"I don't want to make Mussolini's mistakes." There were times when honesty moved from refreshing to overwhelming, and harkening back a hundred years to the Second World War was standing right on that edge. "I've kept my people out of international conflicts, I have not settled for half-measures to curb organized crime instead of crushing it properly, and I don't intend to be shot in the chest and have my corpse dragged through Rome by revolutionaries." Phil closed his eyes.
"That… is a good plan." And that was about as good a reply as he could think up for a declaration like that.
"But I also don't want to give democracy back to the people only to have the Families come and snatch it out of their hands again." Looking at Rossi's square, rigid face actually said something about how sincerely he meant that. They were old men now, and Il Capo let out a long, heavy breath through his nose and seemed to stoop a little in his seat, shrinking and aging with the strain of twenty years' rule over what had been a corrupted and withering nation. He'd ruled for almost three times as long as Westwood, and as much as there was to disagree over, he knew what that weight was like.
"I have raised a generation accustomed to rules, with expectations of an accountable government, and having consequences which match the crimes they address." Phil almost spoke, but held back and let Rossi address what they both heard with a wave of his hand. "And no, I don't mean accountable in the democratic sense, but accountable in that this law is read this way, and it is meant only that way. People know what to expect from my government, and they always have."
"What about the next government?"
"Now you see why I'm willing to even have this conversation with you." Not… really… "I do not like being bound with a leash to Beijing, I've never liked it." But Chinese money had kept the Italian state afloat for over two decades: barely enough time to raise that next generation. "If I move too quickly in any direction they will either choke me or shoot me: it depends on what I'm trying to do."
The Nations behind the man reacted strangely to that. The older brother dropped his eyes straight to the floor, the younger one turning his head to look at him. Clearly those words meant more to the brothers than Westwood was qualified to understand.
"What does China want?"
"As I said: for me to choose a successor now and rule until I either have a stroke at this desk or I die some other way, and then let that successor come into power and rule exactly as I have, with them standing over him to make sure things progress as planned." As planned…
"Alright… then what do you want?"
"I want to retire." He said it so casually, words rolling off his tongue and a smile pulling at his weary face. "And before anybody here says anything: yes. I know. I made the decision twenty years ago not to live that life so it's impossible now, but…" And now Rossi sat up properly, adjusting his chair so he was seated straight and in-line with the back of his desk. He wasn't sitting there in a throne or some elaborate piece either, just a wooden chair with a bit of padding for however many hours a day he spent in it. "But Rome doesn't need me anymore."
The deep breath and sudden stream of Italian from one of the brothers standing behind him made Westwood look up in surprise. He couldn't understand the words, but he watched the older brother with his thin and leathery expression speak, ribbons of the language tying themselves in knots. Watching the nation and the ruler was incredible not just because Italy spoke so freely, but because Rossi actually did exactly what he'd said: he listened.
"He's saying…" America spoke up quietly next to him, jolting Phil from his mesmerized moment and encouraging him to lean over and listen. "That without the strength of an absolute leader in Rome, there's no guarantee protocols will continue to be followed… there's a lot of other stuff, but-"
"If you're going to translate, America, then we might as well just say it in English." Rossi interrupted, his Nation appearing frustrated behind him and the Northern brother giving Phil and his companion a look that clearly asked if he was serious for having interpreted like that. "And in English, Romano: I disagree."
"Capo-"
"I disagree and this is why:" Somewhere unspoken was the command to just let the Americans watch and listen, because the Dictator didn't even pause before going into his explanation: "I already rely on men half my age to explain what goes on in this office. I was a pilot, an officer, a soldier: not a banker. Social order? Yes. Chain of Command? Yes. Reconstruction? Yes. Corruption? Yes, these things I understand. But now you have a generation of loyal Italian people who understand it just as well, and you've already explained to me how you cannot go out and choose a replacement for me the way I was chosen so long ago. You need a new, better solution, and whining about not wanting to change isn't going to help anything."
"He got you there…"
"Shut up."
Even Westwood found America's comment out of line, giving his nation a firm look where the dark-skinned young man was trying to cover his smile with one hand. South Italy had already responded to it though, and in an environment like this the State Secretary was satisfied with having the nations keep each other in line. The man across from him also seemed inclined to do the same, so Phil put the conversation back on track.
"What do you want from us, Rossi?"
"I want American economic support for the Italian people." And now they were talking business, and that honesty brought things back into the realm of the refreshing. It was rare, almost unheard of in a way, for a Head of State on one side of that feral line across International Politics to speak openly about cooperation and mutual aid. "But I want that economic support to filter through public industries only: do not give the Families a foothold back into Italy."
"You know if you changed the word 'Families' to 'Jews' I would-"
"The colour of a man's skin rests in God's hands, and no man can challenge that." The Italian shot him down with a violence that threatened to turn his English on its head and fall back into his native tongue. "But the decision to do evil is a man's choice, and it is his son's choice, and his wife's and his daughter's and his mother's. Do not make me explain this again, American, because your nation has always had the luxury of choice whereas mine was forced into action."
Phil wasn't an idiot and he knew that the synchronized actions of the nations behind Rossi's chair were a warning. The brothers moved together to take one step closer to their master's chair, and each one brought a hand down to rest on the back of his seat. It was the kind of solidarity and strength that Phil had used during his own administration after finding a young man with impossible memories and a distinct familiarity loitering in the White House halls. Nations could sway congresses and parliaments, they breathed the will of the people and lived to do their work.
Nations, Phil had come to believe, meant more to democracy than ballot boxes or campaign fliers ever would.
So he dropped the issue, and he let its thorns bite into the hard ground between them instead of letting it draw more blood over soiled matters.
"Public funding." He said slowly, rephrasing the other man's request.
"My people need options, they need a way to keep themselves clean of corruption." So he wanted his industries to have third party support- or fourth party, because China was already involved and now this dangerous man was asking America to step boldly into Chinese territory.
"He'll throw a fit."
Phil should… not have understood those words. If his brain slowed down enough and broke down the sounds then they didn't sound like English, and his rudimentary grasp of Spanish and German should have been useless too. When he looked at the young man seated next to him again Phil knew it was because America trusted him, because the nation was looking at his counterparts across the room again, and Phil understood words that had once just been gibberish.
"I mean it, Romano: he'll make your life a living hell."
"How do you think China will react to this?" The Secretary asked, because he knew Rossi wouldn't be able to understand America's question and when the Italian brothers finished hitting each other with such conflicted looks Westwood wouldn't be able to hear their answer. "What if you end up shot?"
A string of nonsense came out of South Italy's mouth, not Italian: that secret code of almost-language that America listened to and processed slowly. North Italy was biting his bottom lip and watching his brother closely, South wasn't looking at anyone and even Rossi seemed tense, waiting for his own thoughts to collect before he could answer.
"Having two larger economies, neither one based in Europe, will bring more stability to Italy's industries and investments." Was he interpreting for his nation? It almost felt that way because his cadence wasn't quite the same. Grey eyes were looking down at the stray papers placed on the desk in front of him, a pen idly lifted to spin and roll between old fingers. "Stability curbs criminal tendencies almost as well as force in most cases, sometimes better in others. Furthermore, bringing American investors into Italy, along with the Canadian and French influences we already enjoy, will help calm down those whispers in Europe that you're so worried about."
"And China?"
America didn't repeat him when Phil asked the question again, which meant he was right: whatever South Italy had replied with matched what his master had just said. North Italy remained silent throughout, but there was something in him as he looked back and forth between leader and brother. It was Rossi who spoke:
"I'll handle China."
And somehow… it felt like Ruler and Ruled still gave the same answer.
Spring-Summer, 2038.
Three years later, Il Capo resigned and the first truly free elections in Italy occurred in almost a quarter century.
A Youth-Dominated Party focused on tax and service reforms swept into office with an emphasis on Globalization.
Lorenzo Rossi was elected President and Head of State by a majority of voters over forty.
"So much for retirement." Was all he told the newspapers.
South Italy spent the following two months in Beijing after the elections, returning with bruises hidden by clothes but painfully obvious when he stood or moved.
North Italy was there with a reinvigorated finance sector to sooth his brother's aches, making excuses for his absence until South was ready to take the spotlight again.
No one was allowed to know.
Summer, 2042.
FIFA-Forty-Two: Rome. The last three decades had brought wave after wave of change to the host nation, but one thing that had endured was a ferocious love of sports.
"Pass- pass!"
"Use your head!"
There were still marks of what made relations between one half of Europe and the other so difficult: the long speech during the opening ceremony a week ago, the suffocating security meant to keep the players, audience, and officials safe, the tricolour painting itself across the field thanks to the multi-million euro lighting system.
Prussia hadn't been welcomed to Rome so much as acknowledged and then left to follow his brother around. His tickets had been scanned and his elevator pass worked just fine, but the marks were still there.
The way North Italy bared his teeth instead of smiling at him, the way South Italy wouldn't leave the two of them unattended if he could help it. North Italy could hold a grudge with the best of them, and Spain was treated much the same way.
"Just go talk to him." They were wearing suits and ties, not jerseys and face-paint. A large and impressive box had been reserved for them high in the best seat of the stadium house. It made sure the nations had all the scope they needed to watch their teams compete in the dim interior lighting and the bright spotlights up above.
"I can't." Not everyone was here tonight, but as Prussia ran a finger over the edge of his beer sleeve, there was still a murmur of conversation pinched with the hiss and yell of the people watching the game below. He was seated comfortably in a thick leather chair and only a few spaces down from the former Italian Dictator where the man was relaxing comfortably having a drink and discussion with the politician whose party had replaced his rule. His presence spoiled some of the mood for the blonde, but that was what kept him focused on Spain sitting next to him.
Spain had a perpetually worried look on his face whenever talk of Italy or Rome came up around him. He was barely watching the Portuguese team run back and forth against the Italians on the turf below, but even Prussia could see his friend's eyes flickering over to their hosts at the glass window.
"Don't you dare- don't you-!"
"Aaaaah-!"
"Go cheer for their team." Prussia pushed again, drinking from his beer while South Italy muttered curses through the glass and North had his hands clenched tight in front of him, bouncing a little on his toes and hissing with sportsman's pain as the ball was intercepted and taken against their net by the Portuguese.
"I can't." Down at the other end of the box, Portugal was clapping and yelling loudly, laughter moving through the strings of bodies as nations started picking sides.
"Go beat up Portugal."
"Prussia, I-"
"Yes you can." Prussia cut him off and watched Spain puff out his cheeks, his friend slouching until he sank further into his seat and rubbed his forehead with one hand, shaking his head slowly. Prussia sucked back more cold, frothy beer and swallowed it down before attacking Spain again: "I know what's with you and those two, but that was years ago, for fuck's sake." Spain's economy had rebounded. He wasn't running into a Golden Age, but he was doing better now than he arguably had in the last hundred years. "What's between you and him isn't like what's wrong with his brother and my brother, so cut it out and go talk to him."
Because what was wrong with Germany and North Italy wasn't going to go away until West could figure out what was wrong with the German automotive industry and try to bring it back to life. West was in Rome for FIFA's tournament, of course, but he wasn't here tonight: unless their team was playing, he didn't want to come too close to their hosts.
"And if North stops me?" Spain was looking over at them again, the Italian brothers in some of their best designs and even the younger brother, in a rare attempt to just have fun, had left the uniform at home tonight in favour of a black suit and polished shoes. He still looked done-up, but his face was doing this thing Prussia hadn't seen in years, this weird thing with his lips going really thin and his eyes flashing before his voice caught up with the rest of him:
"Bene- bene! Run faster!" It was something like a smile.
"Go, go, go!"
"NO! DON'T YOU DARE!" -and of course Portugal had to get his two cents in as well.
The crowd was beginning to do more than just hum and cheer, voices rising like a wave of sound that crested just under the box's floor and then slammed down on the athletes running for their lives down below. Prussia had to get up and watch it happen, pulling Spain along with him because politics and pressure aside: there was a game going on!
It wasn't a picturesque goal: the clean break-away by the forward runner, firing at the net while the goalie dove the wrong way. No, it was more like the almost-clean break followed by a yellow card after he was shoved down by a panicked defender. Lots of pressure on the Portuguese net and a good ten minutes of dancing before someone tapped the ball in and let it roll right off the goalie's glove into the netting.
But it was still an Italian goal, and it made the home crowd scream while upstairs the two halves of the nation turned on each other and shocked Prussia one more time with all the changes right in front of him.
The laughter and the yelling, and finally a high-five that turned into clasped hands and more rapid-fire Italian over what they'd just seen.
And when Spain finally made a move and spoke up to South Italy about the goal, North not only let him approach and carry on, but ignored them to rib Portugal instead. It was like going back a long ways through time and seeing friends he'd counted out of his life for good, and that realization made Prussia decide on something.
He decided that, even if China was still hovering there, almost unseen but still listening to every word that passed between Italy and Spain, and even if France swept in unannounced to follow North Italy and poke Portugal full of holes while the match below was reset and prepared to continue… Even with all the politics hanging over their heads and clouding up their eyes, double meanings confusing their words and making enemies out of friendships…
He decided that he'd make West come to the match tomorrow night. Prussia decided that… thirty years was long enough to let his brother hurt and hide.
Prussia decided that it was time to start tearing down the walls between them, and even if it took another thirty years to continue, he could start it tonight with a handshake.
"Nice goal, Italy. A bit sloppy, but it worked." He'd thought he was speaking to South Italy when North turned around from across the room with:
"Says the one with zero tournament points!"
So, on second thought, maybe he'd punch them both out instead.
November, 2053.
Bird feathers and the glitter of sunlight on ocean ripples.
Bits of trash, plastic floating on green slime.
Red tiles, broken, white plaster crumbling off grey concrete.
Venice.
Anywhere else but his heart would have satisfied him; any place else could have left him the strength to keep breathing.
"Why are we here?" Why had China brought him here, made him step off the train platform in a place where North Italy with all of his broken heart did not want to be?
"Does your own city disturb you?" It did, and it was more than the pull on China's lips or the quiet light in his black eyes could comprehend.
"I have urgent business in Rome." North Italy had to escape.
"And I have urgent business with you here, in Venice." China wouldn't let him.
He couldn't control himself and his people noticed it. Hiding behind the tinted windows of the car didn't help him as they were driven down rebuilt Venetian streets, those who were out and walking on a Sunday afternoon stopped and took notice of something that never should have caught their attention.
Transferring from the car to the water's edge nearly made him run away.
"Get in the boat."
"I don't want-"
"It wasn't a request."
China was firm and unyielding, frightening and willing to use force to get him into the black gondola. Maybe he didn't hold the same kind of crushing influence over Italy that he'd held during previous decades, but that didn't make him negligible. China still had the power to walk into Rome and tell North Italy to stand up and leave with him for the train station on a whim. China, in a way, still owned them.
That they had to use the slowest method of travel, the most traditional and therefore painful means of getting through the city, just made the entire experience that much harder for him to bear. Having China seat himself across from him in the wooden vessel, eyes drifting periodically from the broken city to the half-nation who'd been born here, only made it worse.
"Why are we here?" And why in God's name were they following a path through the city that made Italy Veneziano want to throw himself overboard and swim away? He told himself he understood and agreed with the judgement Romano had held against Venice for centuries: that the canal water stank of garbage and stagnant sea water. He clasped his hands hard in front of him and refused to rock his body back and forth on his padded seat, planting his gaze down between his boots telling himself there was no comfort in the lilt and give of the gondola through the water.
He told himself.
He ordered himself.
And yet he could not believe himself.
"We aren't there yet." No, China, don't do this to him. Veneziano looked up at the stronger nation and tried to make sense of the ageless face glancing casually at the bridges that shadowed them, eyeing the windows open or shuttered against the light. "You'll figure out the answer when we do."
"China…" But that was all China was willing to say, because the firm look he was given told him to stop trying to argue his way out of whatever was going to happen. He could feel his fingers going numb between each other when the boat rocked a little more and then made a graceful turn around a wide corner, the distant whine of a radio singing from a balcony telling him to close his eyes and imagine himself anywhere else.
'I am…'
In Florence, maybe.
'I am…'
Moving down the Tiber in Rome.
'I am…'
Even Verona would have been a kinder place than this.
'I-!'
"North Italy." He felt the breath go out of him when China said his name, his shoulders collapsed and bound in tight while his hands were locked trying to keep from shaking. A swollen feeling infiltrated his lungs as he felt the change, the subtle flush of colour and light across his eyes when they passed the non-existent line between one quarter of Venice, and another… "Tell me your name."
"You just said-"
"Your whole name." He was in pain, he couldn't be here- "We both know the pain will pass, now answer me."
"I am…" he couldn't breathe, and maybe he was wrong to call it pain because that sharp, cutting sensation hadn't come to him yet, it wasn't piercing through his ribs and drawing out the blood of corruption and lies. "I am the North half of the Sovereign State of Italy." The word 'republic' had fallen out of use over ten years ago: he no longer knew that word.
"Progenitor of which state?" China's hands were resting comfortably in his own lap, his long black coat unbuttoned in the sunlight and hair pulled back severely behind his round head, the tail running down between his shoulders and only showed itself when he looked out across the city again. How casually he ignored his own question…
"Of Veneto." If China truly wanted his full name, then Veneziano was going to make him drag every piece of it from his chapped and thirsty lips.
"And which city?" If only his master hadn't been so overbearing.
"Venezia."
"And the quarter of…?"
The words were in his throat but he only raised his eyes to give China a warning look, calling on an anger he couldn't feel to protect him from a fear that wasn't real. The idea that there could be something beyond the hatred, terror or agony that had sustained him for this long could not be given space to take root. Veneziano wouldn't let himself delve down that deeply, he had to be firm about the one thing he knew would always keep him alive.
The gondola knocked against the old stones in the neighbourhood he would not name, because giving it a name would bring back the memory of what it had once been: the memory of who he had once been.
"Please go." The voice forced him to turn and look at what was more important than the water or stones of Venice, the sunlight leaving his eyes long enough to see the young, uncertain face of the man who had directed the gondola here. He was young enough to be a student, his face long and narrow with pinched lips and sunken brown eyes shaded under his tanned brow. Most humans looked first at his uniform, forgot to look up and find his eyes and take comfort in the presence of the nation working hard to protect them. "Go with him, I mean…"
This young man did not speak to him in standard Italian, maybe he just knew not to speak to the whole of North Italy. Maybe he didn't know how much it would hurt to have Venezia itself singled out inside of him. The man spoke the local dialect, and he used it smoothly, almost lovingly, with a hand touching first the nation's shoulder and then moving delicately down his arm trying to help him find his feet and stand.
"Please go see San Marco…" He pleaded. "Please…"
"What did they do to it..?" Veneziano found himself being coaxed up to stand, and though he let the human hold his arm he did not need it. Centuries ago he had been the Republic of Venice, and he had known waves and open water better than any other: he would not fall in the gentle rocking of his own canals…
But he needed his answer: what had happened in his city?
"My heart…"
Slowly, his son only smiled at him.
"Are you coming?"
And when his master called, North Italy was quick to turn and grab the rope tethered to the stone pillar marking the steps for boat passengers, boots grabbing the worn stone steps easily and carrying him up the few feet to reach the walkway and road above them.
He didn't know if he remembered the last time he had been here or not: in Venice. He had heard the story of how he'd been found, and he sometimes thought he remembered enough of the pain and desolation to say he knew what the others meant when they recalled the catastrophe that had weakened him. But it was very hard for him. The nightmares of fire and his children weeping under the debris had passed, but it was still too hard to remember. What good would dwelling bring him?
If he had to remember deaths, he remembered the collapsed tunnels and the burning fires. He couldn't handle remembering the ones who had breathed their last before polluted water rose up and swallowed their homes; he couldn't take in the lives snuffed out under the sunken cavern of their basilica…
But he could walk over the scars cut into his city by that night, the ribbons of plaster and concrete liberally poured to fill breaks in tile mosaics and smeared between old bricks to paste them back together. Still the broken towers of old churches loomed high between the blue sky and white sun, their fallen heads visible in the murky green waters running between raised streets. New steel structures hovered over the places where stone spans had been strong for centuries, the traditional face of his city staring up through the water where the ruins had been cast and faster-to-build, cheaper-to-maintain steel constructions had replaced them. It hurt him to see how little the 21st century had cared for, or really even been able to tend to, those ancient memories…
He could admit it here more easily than any other city or township that was a part of him: the reconstruction had not brought Venice back to life, it had simply kept it on life-support…
They passed people as they walked, Veneziano giving up the effort to question China because it was clear he wasn't going to receive any answers. But there was one thing that struck him as he mentally followed the path they were taking to its original end, and there was one detail he couldn't shake.
There were too many people.
Too many people for a road that led nowhere.
Where were they coming from?
China and Veneziano passed from sunny streets to blue shadows, crossing steel bridges and even one or two spans made out of wood. He could feel their passage and track it in his mind, confusion building as a bicycle wheeled by and a row of arches shaded them from the bright winter sunlight.
There wasn't enough land left for this much life. Shops and dwellings should have begun to dwindle long before now, the population escaping north away from the water's edge and the frail, fragile platforms half-submerged between the waves.
"China?"
There should be no people here, because beyond this row of buildings, he knew: the land ended.
"China stop-" The structures had collapsed and the lagoon had shifted: no more land beyond here, past these stones, under those arches. San Marco had crumbled into the saline water of the Adriatic, the beating heart of Venice was gone, and in another fifty yards there would be nothing but broken stones and- and…
They were walking along under a covered mall now, columns classic and modern holding up a roof of renaissance plaster and new-age ceramic, lights worked along the edges so the brilliance of day was bolstered by 21st century convenience. And there were too many people, because where the sun came shining down at the far end of the plaza was where the land was meant to-
Veneziano took another step and he felt it, he felt the jolt pass from the sole of his boot up through his leg, a shock of pure white energy that blinded him because it tingled straight up his spine and flushed over his skin like cold water. The map he knew, the dimensions and form of his city; the thing that he was because he embodied and lived it: it disagreed with this.
He should have just stepped into water.
But he looked down at here he was atop several feet of concrete and wood, iron beams buried in supports submerged in lagoon mud, varnished with coloured tiles and shimmering under electric lights.
But no.
This was where San Marco was meant to end.
For forty years now, this was the place where San Marco had ended.
China had stopped and Veneziano knew why, because he turned his head from looking straight down and stared at the line of shops next to them. His eyes touched the walls and the stones and- and he saw the line.
He didn't have to touch the walls, he felt it push through him: the place where old stone met new concrete, the cherubs free of grime and growth, freshly cut and hidden under eaves and beside windows.
He looked down at the stones again and he knew it: he knew how the composition of the road changed from his youths' techniques to construction methods of the modern day. Where wood met steel and stone boulders became cement pylons.
The old and the new, the original and the reconstruction: he felt the difference.
He felt his heart squeeze itself and slow down, and then with one firm push it beat against his ribs. It was a hammer hitting him from inside and it only struck once, like a bell's tang waiting to see of the shell would crack from the force.
Looking up again into the sunlight, Veneziano couldn't ask: only fear.
"My city-"
"A World Heritage Site." Those words felt like they should have meant more, or hurt more, but all Veneziano could feel as China took a few slow steps back towards him was cold. The cold of winter water lapping gently around his calves, currents brushing over his stomach and whispering to him of a time long ago in this place right here.
A hundred years ago.
A thousand years ago.
Two thousand years ago: the warm hands pulling him out of the mud and weeds of the lagoon to hold him on a strong Roman shoulder.
For a thousand years the steps and songs of revellers wearing masks, because gunpowder and politics be damned they only had one life to live and love with.
A hundred years that tasted of ash and blood before independence led to peace and peace brought safety and safety meant rest and wealth… from peace.
Peace.
"Thank you."
China was holding a hand out to him, and it was strange because he rarely ever offered to shake hands. He didn't like western conventions but there it was, a hand offered with palm and wrist straight. The firm words felt sincere because China wasn't lacing them with anything, boldly making Veneziano meet his gaze and see how there was no laughing light or dark secrets swimming in the black pools. Just a handshake, and a thanks that North Italy didn't understand.
"What happened?" He took the hand and it felt so hard to shake it, like he was a child being shown how the grown-ups conducted business.
"Thank you for what you did for me." Forty years. Forty years and now- "We disagree on many things, North, but I can only afford the luxury of power because you sacrificed so much more to ensure it." He was… actually hearing… And when China didn't let go of his hand, just tilted it so-
China bowed, the Eastern Dragon and Juggernaut of Industry bowed and kissed his hand, stately and reserved without affection or hesitation. He kissed his hand and it was done, and Veneziano felt his heart slam him again from the inside again and send him shaking. Why was the light shining so loudly around them?
"Go." Go where? Now China smiled, just a small, soft tug on his pink lips as he took a step out of Veneziano's way, leaving the path dotted with people open and lead him to that brilliant light. And then he looked sad…?
"Go see what they've built for you." Built for… "Venezia."
Their hands fell away. They didn't drop, but parted smoothly in light that was so strong it was singing in his ears, sighing through his hair like the sea breeze that funnelled through the closed space and coiled itself around his shoulders: pulling. He could feel himself being begged to move, forces beyond him pleading with him to accept what he had not touched in so long.
Peace.
But it took one more thing to push him, one more sensation that was more than the wind or the light or the water of his city. It was more than too many people along a street that should have led to nowhere but ruins and salty water. It was something that touched him deeper than he'd let anything else come close, and when he felt it break over him like a wave he lost the power to breathe and felt his senses fade out for a moment. He was desperate to connect with it: with that sound.
That sound.
Those bells.
His bells, chiming so far away and echoing in the empty cavern of his chest before the tang struck again and his whole body shook from it. He was staring through the light half a hundred yards away but the brilliance shielded him from what was beyond. His children like reeds in the shallow waters parted the white curtains and moved like fish about their business, chilling him with the reality of more beyond the veil, something past the arches and columns keeping him safe inside what he knew.
But the bells…
"Go."
He went after China coaxed him again, walking first, almost stumbling, but then his knee picked itself up higher and his weight fell forward on its own. Reflective, instinctive, shoulders bowed and wrists loose, the wind knocked his hat away and he didn't stop or try to catch it.
He ran.
He ran and nothing stopped him: no voices calling him back or pain to slow him down. The distance wasn't enough to wind him and when he broke through the light the shower of sparkling day only made him slow down, not stop completely.
But then he did stop, because he didn't have to stop.
Because there was still stone and tile under his feet. There was still mosaic and masonry, there were more hidden pylons and redirected water. There was city beneath him, his city, his heart, and as the light pulled away like sheer curtains meant to protect him from that knowledge, he felt that sharp pain knock through him again.
Because he saw the bell-tower first. Bright red bricks capped with a white head held proud against the unbroken blue sky, his flag unfurled and flying over what had for too long been a pile of red rubble submerged by green water.
And he heard the voices next, the people and the children, the tourists and locals drinking coffee and taking pictures. The youths too young to know pain were laughing brightly, chasing friends and playmates over smooth stone and behind tall statues, the eyes of the older and wiser watching them with ageless care.
Statues that should have been sealed in watery graves here stood with hands raised, wings spread, white bodies and grey hands. Roman robes and Renaissance garbs, reborn as it were beneath the cold sun with plaques glittering on tall marble pedestals.
And he saw the water, but it was so far away and tamed by the traffic of puttering boats and sleepy black gondolas. The fresh green mingled with pure blue and azure winds breathed cold fingers of frost against metal and glass rising on the far horizon. It was his sea-port, his access to the world, his second home lapping at the edge of the first one.
He couldn't stop moving, stop stepping over what had been ten and twenty feet below the surface for so long he'd lost touch with it: lost to a grave he couldn't stoop before and a long-lost life he had not mourned. Venice had died exactly the way he had: tormented and drowned by forces more than itself. His city had been brought to ruins and North Italy had abandoned it like everything else he'd left behind every time at every painful junction along his uneven road to survival. Life support, not resurrection: that was what he'd given his heart.
Someone else had changed that.
Veneziano couldn't even look for the swooping, patterned roof of a landmark cathedral long forgotten by God and given back to his cold waters. He heard the bell again, marking another hour, announcing another time, and maybe he'd wandered straight back through memories and fallen into a dream where nothing hurt and he knew no fear, but maybe not.
"Italy?"
Maybe not.
"France?"
Because maybe it really was France who appeared through the streams of light, a pale blue suit revealed under the white volume of a winter jacket, his long blond hair catching the wind and ruffling gently in the sea breeze, his hand holding a bouquet of flowers Veneziano needed too much time to recognize as roses. He didn't know why the Leader of the European Union was here, he didn't know why he'd brought flowers with him here to a place that shouldn't have existed outside North Italy's own memories, but when six thorn-less white roses were handed to him he somehow reached out to take them.
"Thank you." Another thanks.
"I didn't do anythi…" But then he saw England's shy round face forming in the light and words abandoned him, because the nation with dirty blonde hair and a gentlemen's cane approached slowly and then stopped, performing an elegant bow and whispering the same words.
"Thank you."
"Why..?"
"For everything." Russia's voice took too long to register beside him, and he knew he could feel confused tears in his eyes as the stems of three fresh sunflowers were pressed between his shaking hands. The taller nation was a friend who could be trusted more than China, but not as much as America, and he laid a hand on Veneziano's shoulder that felt just right for their bond as more footsteps told him more people were approaching.
So many people…
"Uncle?" Bless America for approaching him with Italian on his lips. "Do you want to sit down? There's a new bench over here." Bless him twice for putting both arms around him in a hug before worrying about his strength or how much more he could take. He gave up trying to understand and he just hugged the younger state with his dark hair and familiar voice, eyes closed for a moment as the bell kept tolling, tolling…
"But this one's salvaged." Canada too..? When America stepped away, Canada was there to neatly bow again to him out of respect, the taller boy gesturing to some structure Veneziano couldn't see for the light, but he could feel it. He welcomed the solemn voice that explained so much to him in only a breath of words:
"We salvaged as much as we could from the water."
The stones were authentic. The statues were originals. The piazza had been raised brick by brick from the muddy floor of the lagoon and brought back to the sun and the streets and the children and-
"Please accept my heartfelt thanks…" And Veneziano had not spoken directly to Japan in so long that he almost didn't recognize the soft, mellow voice that reached him from inside a growing ring of nations. A gently wrapped letter of red and blue paper was handed to him and hidden amongst the flowers, petals rustling in the wind as someone's voice told him how many years and how many steps the process had taken.
"I owe you the lives of my two best friends," was what Spain said to him, his tone soft and reserved, his tanned face lost without its smile as Veneziano just stood there, shaking, hearing words he'd stopped understanding and turning again when he felt something different. An arm pushed its way through the bend in his elbow, locking around his before he saw the pale red hair and one blue-green eye that matched the rippling sea beyond them.
"Seborga…?" One-eyed and quiet, the patch he'd worn for years over one side of his face didn't mar the smile he gave before he leaned up and pressed a kiss against his cheek, a hand on Veneziano's shoulder and arm still comfortably linked with his. Shaking free never crossed his mind.
"I love you too, okay?" Was what his brother whispered. And it was okay… because Veneziano could accept love today…
And he could handle Romano's warm hand rubbing over his other shoulder and down his back, the familiarity of his touch telling Veneziano everything he needed before his older brother was there at his side. His touch was solid and unwavering, and he was standing there unapologetic and firm, only meeting his eyes for a moment with one arm around him.
It was like he was asking through Veneziano's tears if he was still okay.
Speaking led to a sobbing, sorry sound that he fought back with a smile that was too fractured to tell the truth. His heart was screaming in his chest and everything was spinning rapidly, but another kiss in his hair this time made the trembling cry of the bells soak into him faster. He breathed around the trembling force and took it in, he felt it pump his blood through weary veins and leaned back against his brothers to support him.
"Italy." And he needed that support, because in his mind he knew how to count, and he had counted ten nations out of twelve already with Seborga standing close to break the memory.
Eyes locked on the bell-tower high above again, someone's steps disturbed a trio of pigeons making their way across the piazza. China had rejoined them and the whittling sound of feathers against the breeze brought motion that dropped his gaze again. His eyes fell on two at once now that the sun's brilliance was tamed and he could see beyond the ring of strangely familiar faces.
So he saw Prussia first, his footsteps lingering and hands dug deep in black jean pockets, a canvas jacket protecting him from the chill as his red eyes drifted over and under the confining circle. It took him more than one approach to make it in line with the others, choosing a place between France and Spain before he nodded twice in silence to himself and then spoke.
"Thank you." The same words, but then with eye-contact that meant more than what followed. "And I'm sorry for making it so hard to come this far."
"Do you mean that?" It was almost rude of him to ask that question, but he'd already seen who was behind Prussia and he was entitled to it. Defensive walls took too long to deconstruct, and now was not the moment for him to tear them down all at once. There was so little keeping him together between the stones, sunlight and sounds that Veneziano leaned further into Romano's arm and tugged his younger brother closer at the same time. He wanted them close.
But Prussia didn't take insult, he just lowered his eyes slowly to the reclaimed stonework under their feet, brushing the toe of his shoe over the faded pattern before wrestling his words out for them to hear:
"I mean it more than… pretty much anything I've said to you in the last fifty years."
And that was going to be good enough for Veneziano, because the last person to enter the ring of nations was the one he found hardest to face. There was no mystery for him about why it was hard to look Germany in the eye, but so many things happening around him so quickly made it hard to move past those barriers. Years of enmity and distrust, such a long time spent not saying words that should have been used before everything had spiraled out of control… But really…
Really, so much of that was solely because Germany still looked like him.
Only their voices were different, and that was why it took every fading shred of strength left in him as the bell-tower silenced itself for Veneziano not to look away and hide his face against either of his brothers. He wanted to just slump to the reclaimed ground and let his hands run over stones his founders had laid. The same stones saints and martyrs and fore-fathers and grandmothers had touched, everything that had built him up into what he was restored now for his children to experience freely…
He wanted his heart back more than he wanted Germany to try and address it. What made him keep his head up and back straight wasn't some long-forgotten hope of reconciliation, it was what Germany was holding in those wide, calloused hands as he took the final spot in the circle.
It was just a small, shy, bouquet of cornflowers peppered with white daisies to symbolize a friendship that no longer existed.
"Thank you." But Germany presented them with the last words Veneziano expected another living being to murmur in his presence: "Thank you for not letting his sacrifice be in vain."
He felt the lack of impact those words had on everyone else, because maybe they hadn't thought about it or maybe they didn't know, but Veneziano knew. He remembered.
"Is that all?" He knew the tears were still wet on his face, he could feel the itchy tingle of them sweeping down under his chin and dripping free of him, the tracks drying when he moved his head and created new paths for the tears to run down.
"No." Those blue eyes wouldn't look at him, but that suited Veneziano right now. It had taken him a long time to work up the courage to believe that if he looked properly at that face then he wouldn't find himself staring straight into the black, mirror-ball eyes of the Thing that had destroyed him. Watching Germany keep his eyes down now did not insult him, and it kept him from hiding. "Thank you for taking his place as North Italy, and for ensuring that everyone really did escape this time."
Germany's words brought a ripple through the ring around them. France turned and said something low and bitter under his breath, but it was Romano who tightened an arm around Veneziano and pulled both him and Seborga to stand closer. The hold did not hurt, and the wound those words could have inflamed had long ago transformed into a tough, unfeeling scar.
"As South Italy, I'll be the one to say what happened to my other half." Because although he rarely thought of it now, and even if it was something that almost never crossed his mind anymore, their world was one where two North Italies had existed. Veneziano was one had hidden and waited for the other him to die, but after so much pain and hard-work, the line between them barely existed anymore.
Venice had died the same way he had.
And now it was reborn, the same way he was.
"It's okay." So he spoke quietly to his brother and twisted his arm back and around until he could place one hand on Romano's shoulder, their arms almost linked and his other hand full from the gifts he'd been given. Romano did not break eye-contact with Germany. "Lovino, I know what he's saying: it's okay."
"It's not-"
"I want to sit down."
France sounded like he was saying something similar to Germany across the circle, but when Veneziano made his request Romano gave him a grumpy, frustrated look with his teeth clenched and eyes storming.
"You're full of shit." He accused.
"I still want to sit in my piazza." And Veneziano smiled, watching as much as feeling the small jolt that moved through his brother when the expression didn't feel forced or false on his face. Just the way the words came out, a sweet taste rolling off his tongue: 'my piazza'.
Which was why his brothers let go of him and took the burden of his gifts, freeing up his hands as the voices fell away because the others saw him moving. They were watching him, but that was okay: he could handle their attention right now because his was focused on what was around him. A deep breath of sea wind, the cold rasp of carved stone under his hands, his eyes travelling up along the revived faces of stone angels and heroes erected around his square. His heroes. His martyrs… His…
"The bench is this…" Romano didn't finish calling him, no one tried to stop him, he saw them and he moved in that direction, ready to cross the entire stone square if that would bring him faster to what he wanted.
The reconstruction was not perfect. The Piazza was not exactly as it had been and this was one of the changes. Instead of standing high atop a Byzantium pillar to the south of the actual Piazza, the monument he reached for now had been graciously placed atop a high, polished block of white marble. The bronze had gone green with age, and years underwater should have corroded it even more.
Without even touching the Lion of Venice, Veneziano knew the statue had been altered, reinforced, and restored to the solid beast it was now.
His Lion was in a state of perpetually resting its weight back as if about to pounce, head aloft and looking across the city with folded wings raised off its shoulders. Its face was not beautiful and its corroded eyes held no joy or anger, they merely looked and they watched while the creature kept both paws planted heavily on a bronze book open in front of it. The book was learning and knowledge and history, it was wisdom and finance, culture and creativity.
The Lion itself was strength, vigilance, and grace. Majesty and power wielded naturally and responsibly, without awaiting or responding to emotional triggers of pain, fear, or anger…
He could barely reach up high enough with one hand on the marble and the other extended up to reach the lion's mane. Without climbing up on top of it he knew he wouldn't be able to reach the face. But he tried.
He tried…
"Signore?" And it wasn't another nation who stopped him or tugged on his coat like that, but a small voice that startled him and made him look down again, lowering his arms and taking his weight off his toes. A child, and one of his with caramel-brown hair in ringlets shaking over a round face. A small child, one too small to know politics or leadership, but still old enough to know the Lion and smart enough not to climb up on his own.
But with a smile like that and grasping hands, curious and unafraid and drawn to a stranger with dry tears on his face and so many strange foreign men watching…
That round little body was soft and warm under a plastic blue windbreaker, short arms staying up so he could wrap his much larger hands around sturdy ribs and lift with his legs so tiny feet left the reclaimed ground. A trill of laughter through the bright winter sunshine and red boots touched polished marble, hands with wool mittens hanging from the sleeves reaching up to feel and grasp at green ripples cast in metal. He kept one guiding hand on the child's leg to stop him from trying to reach up and climb too high on the lion's back, only to look down in surprise when something else warm and laughing collided with the back of his legs and made him stumble against the side of the block.
"My turn!" It was a little girl with braided pig-tails, only a little taller and older than the boy who was already behind him. Her arms were around his legs until he nodded, not sure where his voice had gone before picking her up like he had the first child. Because she was taller, he braced her against his chest and felt her legs around him, running shoes digging in to find his waist and keep her up while she hugged him tight over his shoulder and neck. Carefully pushing and placing her up on the Lion's pedestal brought the toddling boy over again, and with an unexpected squeal the child jumped at him and had to be caught before he could get hurt.
"It's big!" It was big, and he'd almost stopped Veneziano's heart by leaping like that. "Dirty! See? See it's-" But the small, copper-crusted fingers that shoved their way into his face made him snort with laughter and try to turn his head away, one hand under the boy's rump and the other quickly tangling with soft, tiny fingers to clean away the flakes of grime and sand. When little arms locked around his neck he held his breath for a moment, surprised and unsure until more cheerful babbling reached him and-
"Mama, look!" and a shrill yell straight in his ear made him close one eye and tilt his head again, biting his lip as another breathless little rush of air left his chest.
"Catch me!" Oh no-
One arm was already busy holding the little toddler, so when the six-year-old threw herself at him Veneziano caught her on his other elbow, stumbling trying to soften the collision before dropping to one knee with both children. He heard laughter and that meant no one was hurt or upset, but before he could set them down on the ground he felt another pair of arms join the set already hugging tight around his throat.
"Alright, very good…" And he wasn't used to it, murmuring his words in Italian as close hugs brought soft skin against his. One of them asked to be lifted and spun around, the other wanted to jump again, they both refused to let go so he had to wrap an arm around each child and make himself stand with the extra weight.
Maybe the others thought him strange for ignoring them, but he couldn't find it in him to care. China and Russia would keep anyone from creating a scene in his city, Romano would let them know if they acted in a way that would make them unwelcome. If they wanted to prove how much they suddenly respected him, then they would let Veneziano do as he pleased.
And if it pleased him to hug two of his children tight and then set them down on the stones when a soccer ball brushed against his ankle,
And if it pleased him to set his toe against that rubber toy and knock it rolling over to the three small boys who owned it,
And if it pleased him to be approached by parents, and called after by children, and asked to shake hands with visitors, and knowingly listen as veterans of his revolutions came forward…
If it pleased North Italy to be himself again, the way he hadn't in so many years, even the years before he'd woken up in Rome again. If North Italy wanted to try and be that person who had once foolishly wandered off into the Swiss Alps without a second thought for what was happening…
Then he would.
Because every loop really happened, and everything that happened was really real, and this loop was not a perfect loop because there was no such thing as a perfect world or a perfect life.
But it was his world.
And it was his life.
And it was happy.
Fin.
Roll Credits
Title:HetaOni: Recovery
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Main Characters: North Italy, South Italy.
Chapters: 40
Word Count: Pending.
Page Count: Pending.
OST: Pending.
Gracious thanks to all of my reviewers over the past year, you guys have been wonderful and every comment, long or short, along the way has helped me push through to this moment. Thank you.
Special thank-yous to all of my tumblr friends and followers, because without your support this never would have moved past the twenty-fifth chapter. Hell, it probably wouldn't have moved past the 13th.
Thank you, thank you, thank you again to Pochiownsakitchen, Sophiaphilemon and Wilsontoyourhouse for possibly having the greatest impact on me to get this done. Thank you guys, you don't know what your silly comments and constant presence mean to me.
One more thank you for Sophiaphilemon, Blue Wallpaper and Thiszcat for beta-reading sections of this mammoth chapter right here. Without you three this would have easily taken another month to proof-read and edit.
Thank you.