*sigh* Here we go...

Warning: Angst, sad stuff, a sensitive character death (yes, another one. Toldja they'd come fast).

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

Catching Nirvana

Feliciano winced in his sleep before shifting a bit in Ludwig's arms. His face twisted again moments later, and this time he squirmed so much that he was forced awake. Feliciano looked around the tent, the dark closing in on him and something much more sinister. Frightened and confused, the Italian nudged Ludwig until the German cracked open his eyes, none too pleased.

"Ja, Feli, what is it? Monsters? I already told you—"

Feliciano shook his head. "N-no," he stammered and suddenly he began to shake. He peered at the flap of the tent, unblinking. "Something's wrong."

The only time Ludwig had seen Feliciano in such a state was when he had been staring up at the sky through the top of their tent just before Gilbert's death, mumbling nonsense about the stars falling and a bloody head. There had to be something definitely wrong for Feliciano to look like that.

"All right," Ludwig muttered, slipping out of the sleeping bag they were sharing and tugging on his coat and boots (he slept somewhat clothed; it was still hard to think of Feliciano as anything but innocent), motioning for Feliciano to do the same. The Italian complied hesitantly, almost too scared to follow Ludwig out of the tent and into the night.

"Well," Ludwig said, examining the calm night. He surveyed the road and confirmed that no other vehicles but their own were occupying it. What could possibly be wrong? Ludwig narrowed his eyes and returned them to Feliciano, who was standing, shivering, beside him. "You did not need to make up a story so that you could pee, Feli. You do not have to be embarrassed; it is a natural bodily func—"

"No!" Feliciano exclaimed indignantly, and Ludwig balked at his sudden and unusual change in behavior. The Italian's eyes circled the camp once before falling on Lovino's tent. Poor Lovino. He must feel so lonely…

And yet. Feliciano walked toward the tent, and the closer he got the faster his feet moved across the snowy ground. Ludwig could only stare as Feliciano pulled aside the flap of the tent and disappeared inside. The German was reluctant to follow him, and for good reasons. He had no part in the relationship between the brothers, and he didn't want to intrude on their privacy. He just wondered how long it would take and why in the world he had been woken up to—

Ludwig stiffened as he heard a loud cry. He began to rush toward the tent only to see Feliciano emerge, weeping and waving a piece of crumpled paper in his hand. Before Ludwig could gather the ability to ask what was wrong, the Italian cried in a broken voice, "Lovi! He's gone! Th-this letter. He left it!" He practically threw it at Ludwig, and the German quickly righted it and read the front.

He raised an eyebrow. This was a… love letter. He gave the man before him a peculiar look. "Uh… Feli?"

"On the back!" Feliciano said with exasperation, and Ludwig promptly turned it around. The further his eyes traveled down the page, the more troubled they became. When he was finished, he knew what was going on. He shoved the paper into Feliciano's hands before rushing around to shake the tents, shouting at everyone to wake up.

"Ai-ya!" Yao exclaimed irritably. His head popped out of the tent, his hair askew. "What is going on?"

"I might ask the same question," Arthur said, zipping up his coat as he too exited his quarters, followed by a weary Francis.

There were many similar protests and questions thrown at Ludwig until the German told them all to shut the fuck up and listen. Nobody disobeyed.

"Feli went into Lovino's tent and found a disturbing note he had written," Ludwig explained. He didn't want to elaborate, for he didn't know if what he was thinking had actually happened. No need to add extra angst to the mix for no reason. "He took off somewhere into the woods. We must find him. His footprints reveal that he is barefooted, and he could easily freeze."

"Groups of three?" Ivan suggested, and they all gathered themselves into search teams.

They had no fear of splitting up in the woods. All the brush was bare and the only things that only slightly obscured their vision were the wind-parched tree trunks. They picked around in the snow, following Lovino's footprints before branching out when the snow became sparse beneath the spindly black limbs of the pines. They called Lovino's name, mistaking trees for shadowed figures only to examine them further before discovering their mistake. Since there was such a lack of foliage, it did not take long for them to locate Lovino, and when they did they realized how ironic it was to mistake a tree for the missing Italian.

The feet dangled off the ground, mere inches from salvation. The head was lolling lifelessly, and the rope tied around the neck below was composed of the twine they had taken from the safehouse, so delicately woven together by fingers now stiff and black. The limbs shifted with sickening limpness with every whisper of wind, ruffling the hair aside to reveal the cold, pale face beneath. They all stood and saw the hanging body, but they did not see Lovino.

Feliciano burst into tears after his initial shock and attached to Ludwig, who in turn was so taken aback that no words could come to his lips. "Holy hell," Arthur muttered, hand over his mouth. After a few moments of such expressions of dreaded surprise, Matthew threw out his arms and shouted, "For God's sake, someone cut him down!"

Ivan swept aside his coat and produced his pickaxe, slicing through the thick twine. Lovino toppled to the ground, sprawled and cold with death. Feliciano fell to his knees and scooped his brother up into his arms, hiding his face in Lovino's shirt and sobbing. Everyone just looked on, some studying the frayed strands of twine now swinging from the branch, others staring at the corpse that used to be someone they had known for centuries. Gone, just like that. It was almost too much to take in.

"Lovi," Feliciano cried, his grip like a vice around his brother's body. "Why, Lovi, why? I loved you. I could have helped!"

Feliciano sat there, rocking, a mess of tears and snot and whimpers, muttering Lovino's name over and over again. A name that had no place now. Matthew couldn't watch, feeling sick to his stomach at the thought that he himself had almost gone the way Lovino had, and this would have been the result. His fingers went to his wrist bandages and picked at them to distract himself from Feliciano's agonized wails. What had he been thinking?

There was the crunching of snow, and they all turned to see Alfred making his way to them. He was wobbling a bit and appeared a little too pale, but he managed to lean on Ivan's shoulder, take in what was happening, and say what they were all thinking: "It never ends."

Ludwig truly felt the weight of the world crushing him to the ground. Three had died under his command, one his own brother. His hands shook as he held the letter Feliciano had given him to read, the words of a dead man. He cleared his throat, but the tremor in his voice did not subside. "L-Lovino left this… um." He lifted the letter so everyone could see and began, "Feliciano, for all of your obliviousness, I hope you understand that this is not your fault. This is no one's fault. It's not even my fault. It was my fate that I should end up without a partner, but I wasn't just going to lie down and take it. I was going to beat it. I refused to live in misery. And so I wrote this and went off to battle and won. My death is not a painful one." Ludwig paused to clear his throat. It felt like a rock had been lodged in it. "It was my time, and I wasn't going to be killed like an animal by those bastards hunting us. I have found my place, Feli, and my place was not here. Tell everyone that I'm sorry it had to end this way and that they shouldn't feel guilty. I have done all I can, and now I'm going home.

"Tell the potato bastard that I will visit him to personally kick his ass," Ludwig gave a hollow laugh at this, "if he ever hurts you. I never told you before, but I fucking love you, and you deserve to choose who you want to be with. I have no right to judge; I was with his fucking brother, for fuck's sake!

"I am dead, and you are alive, but this will not disrupt anything. You can rebuild Italy, Feli. For all of your dumbass ways, I know you can do it. Never doubt yourself; you are strong, whether you know it or not. There is no running away. You can only stand your ground and beat those fucker's asses until they regret ever underestimating you. As for me, I can rest. I've been so tired lately I didn't know what to do with myself. I would only hinder you, so I removed myself so that you can go ahead and do what you need to do to put the pieces of this broken world back together. Kick their asses for me, fratello!

"Don't worry about me. I am safe and warm and restored. I am with Toni and Gilbert again, damn the bastards. I can never escape them! Give yourself a chance. You are braver than I ever could be and stronger than anyone knows.

"I only ask you to be happy for me, your kick-ass fratello and former personification of Southern Italy, Lovino."

Feliciano's cries picked up again and everyone else could only stare. It was as if everything was surreal; had the world really ended, had their friends just died, could they all die? Lovino couldn't be dead, and neither could Gilbert or Sadiq or Toni or Elizaveta or Roderich and definitely not Vash. They would all come back, right? The despair they felt was so great that it couldn't possibly be real.

And yet it was.

They were all tired, dehydrated, malnourished, and hardened. They had seen too much death to break down, and seeing Feliciano do so was almost an anomaly to them. They felt so disconnected from everything and everyone. In a world where anyone close to them, anyone they knew for hundreds of years, could die at any moment in any way, how could they bring themselves to be so attached? Later, when they had resolved to bury Lovino, they had no words to say. It was a silent funeral, if a funeral at all. They knew Lovino deserved better, but how could they be expected to regret his passing if so many of them considered going with him, thought him lucky to escape such hell?

It was a choice contemplated by everyone privately, though they all knew what was on everyone's mind. Lovino had bailed because he saw no hope. Those who had associated with them for as long as they could remember had perished. Were they too meant to do the same?

Lovino's grave was dug by Ivan, as per usual, and the body was rolled in and piled on with dirt once again—also as per usual. Death was becoming a constant companion of their's. They had lost three of their group—three pieces of the world—in little more than a week. How long would it be before they were completely wiped out?

They marked Lovino's grave with the cross Toni had given him, digging it into the ground so that it stood upright. It was so small, this little hope. And now they would leave it behind, just like they had everything else.

Feliciano cried for the rest of the night, his wailing keeping them all awake as well as their brooding. Partners slept in each other's arms without feeling the warmth of their closeness. They thought the same even without speaking. They lay in their tents until dawn, and as soon as the pale fingers of sunlight touched their camp, they were up, packed, and off, not looking back.

All was silent as they made their way past Cleveland and back onto route 76. Thankfully, no one was following them, but the tense quietude of their traveling was just as bad. When it was Matthew's turn to take the wheel, he only went three miles before he pulled the van to a stop. Ludwig stopped beside him, not questioning, just waiting. After all, who was he to take orders after having led three men to their deaths?

Matthew put the vehicle in park and folded his arms over the wheel, hiding his face in them. He gave a heavy, shaky sigh, and asked, "What are we doing, guys?"

No one answered because no one knew. Were they still going to fight, or was it too foolish to fight? After all that had gone down, they weren't exactly firm on their plans to usurp the Organization's power. The bastards had taken too much away from them already, and they could take much, much more.

Matthew glared at them like he had never glared before. "What is wrong with you people?" he snapped, tears pricking his eyes in frustration, though he wasn't so sure himself. He needed the support of his friends in order to avenge Sadiq's death, and he was determined to avenge it, desperately so. "W-we can't just give up."

A long minute ticked by before Ivan replied, "We never said that we had."

Matthew felt tears trailing down his face at that. He thought for a moment that he was going to be alone in everything. He never wanted to be alone again. "Then prove it, goddammit! Don't just sit there and stare and feel sorry for yourselves. That's… that's not how it works. I can't do this on my own!"

Francis sat up and began, "I promise—"

"Get out," Matthew told them, and they all stared. Matthew couldn't stand those blank, sheeplike stares. "Get out of the van."

Matthew unlocked the doors and they all hesitantly filed out, unsure of what was happening and feeling helpless to do anything about it. Matthew opened his door and got out, motioning at Ludwig and his passengers to do the same. Before long, they were all standing in a disjointed circle, all eyes on Matthew.

Having gotten everyone out of the vans and gathered, Matthew was kind of stuck. His only goal had been a change of environment, freedom from the stifling silence that had come to dominate their trip. Now, however, he remembered a time long ago when they had all sworn they were in this together. And so Matthew stiffly put his hand out.

"I will do anything to stop the monster machine that is the Organization," he said without hesitation. "If I die, then at least I will die trying. I promise." He looked over at Francis who was standing next to him.

The Frenchman, while having been lost in his own thoughts for some time, did catch on and placed his hand on top of Matthew's. "I promise," he said, and his eyes repeated the two words.

And so it went down the line, around the circle until all the pieces were found and connected again. While the circle could never again be complete, they still had enough to hold the world together if they tried.

When the last person pledged everything to the cause for which they had agreed to pursue at the start of their journey, relief dominated their minds. Then all at once everyone felt whole once more, bodies revitalized, minds set back on track, and their desire for revenge stronger than ever before.

Matthew stepped back into the driver's seat and set a white-knuckled grip to the steering wheel. "Well?" he said. "Let's go. Time to bring the world to their doorstep."

No translations

A Word From the Writer: Yeah, so... another one down. I like to think that Romano is actually a strong person inside (which he is in this fic, if rescuing his brother amid gunfire wasn't enough), but there's only so much someone can take before they, you know... break. That was the message I was trying to give here. And, I mean, really who didn't see that coming? Two lovers lost in more or less the same fashion? In all honesty, I have been kinda grooming Romano for this end since I first started writing the fic. In fact, I have planned all of the deaths so far, but there is one I have yet to write that has kind of been the center of a back and forth in my head for a while before I finally decided to kill him off. I'll just leave you with that.