Romano had just finished feeding Amato when the house phone rang. Startled, he dropped the spoon onto the tabletop, just barely remembering not the curse in front of Amato as he all but stomped over to the other side of the kitchen, seized the phone receiver, and hissing irritably into the mouthpiece, "What the hell do you want?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line; Romano tapped his left foot impatiently against the kitchen floor, inwardly cursing his head off in annoyance. Just what is damn important?

He soon came to regret his impatience as his Northern twin's painfully cheerful voice bubbled through the receiver. "Ve, Romano, did you get your present? I got mine a few days ago, he's so cute! He looks like a a big block of that yucky bland stuff Japan calls tofu, but he's not tofu at all, ve! He's cute and soft and squishy and he talks like Luddy and I just wanna hug him and squeeze him all day long!"

What? Nonno sent my idiot brother a pet block of talking TOFU? What the hell was he thinking, giving him a pet? He couldn't even keep his stupid goldfish alive when he got them from that Japan guy's summer festivals! He couldn't even feed them the right amount of fish food, and they all overate and got sick, and then when they died, the Potato Bastard didn't even tell him they were really dead, he just said they were "sleeping", and then when he was asleep, they all got flushed down the toilet. And now Nonno's given him something even more complicated, just great...wait, that thing talks like the Potato Bastard!?

Romano felt a very unappreciated headache coming on from listening to Feliciano's mind-numbing chatter. Rubbing his temples in an effort to stave off the impending headache, he growled into the mouthpiece, "Feli, for the love of tomatoes, shut up!"

There was an answering giggle as the Northern Italian replied, "Aww, are you tired? You should've taken a longer siesta, Romano! It's good for curing your grouchiness!"

Romano opened his mouth to retort, but was silenced by a sudden cry from behind him: Amato, having finished his dinner, had been watching Romano talk on the telephone, and had become curious enough to try to come closer in order to hear more clearly. Unfortunately, it appeared that Amato had also forgotten where the table edge was, and fell off the edge, letting out a yell of surprise and fear as he went.

Romano dropped the phone receiver instantly, rushing over in a mad dash to catch Amato before his little friend landed on the cold, unforgiving floor. Throwing himself onto the floor with a pained grunt, he managed to grab the tiny creature about an inch from the surface of the floor. Letting out a sigh of relief, instinct took over, and Amato soon found, to his great delight, that instead of hitting the hard floor, he was instead being cuddled firmly against his Mama's chest, being petted.

Romano himself was doing something he almost never did: he was being concerned. In fact, he was being very concerned; his little boy had almost gotten hurt! He'd fallen and nearly gotten injured!

"Darn it, Amato, don't scare me like that!," he scolded, holding Amato up to eye level and waving his pointer finger at him in a gesture of reproval. "You could've gotten hurt, what if I hadn't been able to catch you?"

Amato gave a soft mewl of remorse and nuzzled Romano's fingers in a gesture of apology, his big green eyes gazing pitifully up at Romano's own concerned golden-brown gaze. "Sorry, Mama..."

There was a moment of quiet, and then Romano softened, gently holding Amato close again, content in the knowledge that his little friend was alright. Amato was just happy to be cuddled.

Well, if it's Amato, I guess I'm kind of supposed to be "Mama" anyway, since I raised him. If it's him, I suppose I can live with it.

On the other side of the room, unnoticed, Feliciano was wondered why his brother wasn't answering any of his questions. "Hello? Hello? Romano, are you there, ve? Hello?"

Faintly, on the other end of the phone connection, he could hear faint snatches of conversation: "scared me.." "be more careful..." "could've gotten hurt..." "glad you're ok, Amato..."

He didn't understand. Who was Amato? Romano didn't invite people over!

And then came the word turned Feliciano's world upside down: "Mama".

Fratello's a mama? And he didn't even tell me, ve?

Something seemed off about the word, somehow. Germany had told him that men couldn't have babies. Was he wrong? Or was Romano special? And if so, why hadn't he told him, his own brother, that he was going to be an uncle? And who was the father?

Feliciano began to grow worried at this thought. What if the reason that Romano kept the baby a secret was because the father wasn't around? But that couldn't be right, Romano couldn't have had a kid by himself, he had much too high standards to choose some deadbeat to have a family with. So what had happened? Did he adopt the child?

I'd better tell Ludwig. He always knows what to do!

With this thought in mind, he dialed the phone number, putting the call to Romano's house on hold. When he heard his friend pick up, Feliciano instantly began trying to explain the news:

"Romano's become a mama, ve!"

There was a sudden thud at the other end of the line, and panicked calls in the background. The Northern Italian was surprised as he heard Prussia answer the phone instead. "Feli, Toni just fainted. Mind telling the awesome me just what the hell you told him?"

Feliciano began to realize that maybe he should have checked who was answering the phone before speaking.

Maybe I should have made sure it was Ludwig first, ve...