This chapter will be a bit hard to swallow.

Warning: Angst, injury, reminiscing.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN HETALIA. I have fun manipulating their characters, though

Jagged Little Pill

By the afternoon, they had all been assigned duties, aside from the unresponsive Sadiq, and the injured Gilbert and Matthew.

"Dammit, bruder," Gilbert swore angrily. "Let me do something. The gloominess around here is killing my awesomeness!"

"You will stay here and rest." Ludwig ordered. His tone left no room for argument.

So it was that they all split into two groups: Alfred, Ivan, Francis, Yao, and Wynston (the state had insisted, even though Alfred said no) would explore the neighborhood and look for supplies, while the others (Arthur, Kiku, Lovino, Ludwig, and Feliciano) would remain at the house to prepare it for human habitation.

"Stay safe," Arthur said firmly to Alfred before he departed.

Alfred nodded. "Don't worry, Artie. I'm not finished yet."

But Arthur watched them go, still feeling anxious about the whole situation. The last time they had split up in a town, it had been unfortunate, one time ending in tragedy.

"You are worried," Kiku observed as Arthur joined him in the kitchen. The Japanese man was laying out some canned food from his pack onto the table.

Arthur stood with his back to him, turning on the gas stove. "You're never wrong, Kiku." He struck a match and lit a burner, the blue flames flaring into being. He flicked the match through the air to put it out before turning around and leaning against the wall, rubbing his face with his hand. "All I ever do now is worry. Sure, I try to do work to cover it up, but… it never leaves me."

"You are not the only one." Kiku said, handing Arthur a can of soup and a can opener.

Arthur took both in hand nodding as he studied them. "The price we had to pay for this," he lifted the can opener. "How many more will we have to pay, and for what other trivial purpose?"

"You should not brood on the negative." Kiku advised. "It is not healthy and it will not help our situation."

Arthur sighed. "You're right." He set the can on the counter and opened it. He poured the soup into a pot that he had retrieved from one of the cabinets, putting it onto the lit burner. "Forgive me. I forgot myself."

"There is no need." Kiku replied with a wan smile. "I have my own concerns as well."

"You hide them well, then." Arthur said, stirring the soup and watching the chopped vegetables swirl in the broth before being handed another can.

Kiku sighed. "It does not come without a price."

Arthur scoffed somberly. "Doesn't everything?" He opened the can and poured more in.

"Suppressing one's emotions takes time and experience." Kiku said. "But doing so places you at the edge of society. It separates you from your friends and family… but I chose it because I did not want my emotions to affect me while deciding on difficult things, such as war and politics. I slaved at it, and I achieved it, but it cost me those close to me. I never let anyone in. No one really knows me, though they might believe they do. All of those who knew me before… I am practically a stranger to them now. They drifted away from me, because they thought I did not care, which is partly true. But now…" He ran a hand through his dark hair. "Now I wish I would have been less blind to how my future would be without them."

The shock left in Arthur from Kiku's confession made him lose himself for a moment. He said, "You know, I thought all of this was because of what happened when I was a Captain." What am I saying? he thought, but his lips were already moving. There was no stopping the words spilling from them now. Kiku had shared something intimate with him and now he felt he had to share something of equal importance. "I remember the day as clear as anything. There was a storm. Vicious. Nothing I have ever seen before. The ship was bound to go down, I knew that. After the damage it had been done by Antonio's canons, I knew I had to make port. But I was greedy. I pursued a silver ship into the storm. Only when it disappeared did I realize what I had done.

"But I couldn't die. I knew that. My country depended on me. I realized how stupid I was thinking I could be a pirate and still expecting my nation to fare well. What would happen if I died? That was what I was thinking as we sunk." He swallowed hard. He was sweating. He had never revealed this to anyone before. "I took the last skiff out. It was horrible, seeing my mens' faces. And I knew as I watched her go under and all of the lives I was responsible for with her, that God would never forgive me. As soon as the Uprising happened, I knew it must be in payment for my greed and cowardice all those years ago." He looked at Kiku wonderingly. "But was it really cowardice? Was it really greed? Was it an awakening? If it wasn't for that storm, I might have been killed some other way and my people would have been left to suffer because of it. Well…" He paused to think. "I believe this is my second awakening. I will get through this, and when I do, I will be much stronger and wiser than ever before."

Kiku looked at him. "That sounds like a good belief."

Arthur stirred the soup. "Yeah, well… it's worth a go, isn't it?"

Ludwig walked in a sighed. "Sadiq's fever has gone up. His whole face and neck are red and I changed his bandages… his ankle… it looks bad."

"How bad?" Arthur asked, a spark of worry igniting in him. They couldn't lose another person. Not now.

Ludwig licked his lips. "Very bad. The skin around it is swollen and bright red. The wound is oozing pus. The infection has gotten worse."

"God," Arthur muttered. "We need to get some medication in him."

"How?" Ludwig asked. "He's still not responding and we might choke him if we force a pill down his throat."

"It's worth a shot." Arthur said. "There's some penicillin in my bag. Get one and some water. You know what," He dropped the spoon and wiped off his hands on his pants. "I'll help. Kiku, can you watch the soup for me?"

Kiku nodded and Ludwig led Arthur back into the living room and to the mattress on which Sadiq was lying, unconscious. Feliciano was by his side, dabbing a wet rag on his head. He had tears in his eyes.

"His pulse is weak." The Italian reported as they joined him. "He's so hot… I don't know how anyone could survive this."

"It's going to be fine, Feliciano," Ludwig assured, nudging him aside. The Italian sniffled and went over to sit by his brother, who was watching from the couch.

"What are you doing?" Matthew asked in alarm as Ludwig slipped the pill bottle out and Arthur set a glass half full of water on the floor beside him. "No," he said firmly. He wished he could do something, but he was bound to the chair unless someone helped him. "Don't do that. You might kill him!"

"What else do you want us to do?" Arthur snapped, his voice a little more venomous than he meant it to be. He glared at Matthew. "He's dying, and it's either try this or let him slowly starve to death. Do you want that, or do you want him to have a chance?"

Matthew swallowed and looked at the floor. Arthur turned back to Sadiq. "Tip up his chin, Ludwig… have you ever fed your dogs pills before?"

"Ja," Ludwig replied. "But that was different. They weren't unconscious."

"I know," Arthur said. He himself wasn't sure about this, but there was no other way other than to just resign themselves to know that Sadiq was going to slip away slowly. "Give me a pill."

Ludwig dropped the pill in his palm and Arthur took a deep breath. "I'm going to wait until he exhales, but I'll only have a few seconds. Try to hold his head still. He'll thrash."

Ludwig nodded and Arthur waited. When the time was right, Arthur jabbed his fingers into Sadiq's mouth, hoping to God that he wasn't going to kill this man, shoving the pill down Sadiq's throat. As expected, the man began to turn his head away in an effort to breathe. He began to cough.

Arthur snatched up the glass of water, hands trembling, putting it to his lips and pouring a bit down his throat. Sadiq swallowed some instinctually, but continued to cough, choking on some. The Turk began to thrash his limbs, and Ludwig struggled to hold them down. Panic flashed within Arthur, and his heart threw itself painfully against his ribs.

"No, no," Arthur chanted, batting Ludwig's fingers away to hold up Sadiq's chin himself. His other hand, stroked the man's throat, encouraging him to swallow. "No, I won't let you die on me, dammit. Swallow it! Breathe!"

And, as if the Turk had heard, Arthur felt his throat move beneath his fingers and the man coughed a few more times before his breathing returned to normal.

When it was through, Arthur leaned back, sweating profusely, blood roaring in his ears. He was panting and his limbs felt like jelly.

Oh God. he thought with horror. I could have killed him.

Ludwig seemed to be thinking the same thing as he looked at him. "That was close."

"Yes," was all Arthur could say, too shaken to get out anything more.

In the corner of the room, sitting on his sleeping bag, Gilbert said, "As I said before, infections are some ugly bitches."

"Here's another one," Wynston said, nudging an abandoned bike with his foot.

"That's the third one we've found." Alfred replied with suspicion. "It's like everyone just left. Their houses look looted, but other than that, there's no sign that the owners packed up before they took off."

"Is true," Ivan agreed. He was investigating the inside of a truck through the windows. "And you would think that they would have taken their vehicles with them."

Francis shook his head, looking behind him, expecting to see someone sneaking up. "I don't like this feeling… something bad happened here. The people could not have just left all their belongings behind and fled. That family back at the house," He swallowed as he remembered. "They had young children. If they were sensible, they would have left long before they were caught."

"Shì," Yao muttered, fingers stroking over his wok. "Something is wrong. Those people we found in the other houses…" He shivered as he recalled their lifeless bodies, dispatched with a bullet or stabbed to death. "They could not have possibly murdered each other. They were all in a similar state of decay… someone got to them, someone cold, evil…"

"Christ," Wynston breathed, hunched over and prodding at something with his pocketknife. "Pa… I think ya might wanna see this."

Alfred walked over, foreboding twisting in his stomach. He looked over Wynston's shoulder and his mouth went dry.

"Prison jumpers," Alfred said, his voice barely a whisper. "Dammit, I didn't even consider…"

"That your many prisoners would escape and wreak havoc upon the towns?" Ivan finished for him and Alfred frowned. "Da, this is a problem."

Francis's eyes were wide. "We cannot stay here. Who knows where they went?"

"Francis is right," Yao said, walking over to examine the evidence. "How many of them are there?"

"Two jumpers…" Wynston reported. "Two too many."

"Jesus Christ," Alfred groaned, running a hand through his hair. "Everywhere we go is unsafe. We need to move."

"We should go back to the house." Francis said anxiously. "Now. Those prisoners might still be around and we cannot afford to be separated."

"Da," Ivan said, starting off back toward the house. "We can explore another time. Right now, we need to inform the others and fortify the house."

No translations

A Word From the Writer: Hahaha, uh oh. Whatever you do, don't drop the soap. It is their mating stance! O_O

Yes, and I am a fan of Alanis Morisette. In case anyone was wondering.