I do not own Hetalia okay? I know I am a little slower updating this than some of my others but I will finish it. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!

February 2nd 1919

Dear Ivan,

I'm sure you're the last person you'd think would write you a letter, what with me living with Al and Natalya and visiting Katyusha a lot. I mean I had recently been by for her remedy to help the kids with their chicken pox. And because Katyusha wants me to talk to you more and more, I had agreed that we would at least start by a letter. This gives you a chance to think about what you will say to me, at least according to what Katy told me. She claims that I would be able to understand you better than anyone else in the family, having been in the war and damaged by it the same as you. Okay before you yell at me, even via letter, it is not the same. I get that. I know that. I was charging the trenches the Canadians and you were taking the wounded to the hospital. And trust me, I respect that greatly. Takes a special kind of bravery to focus on the wounded and ignore the bullets running past you and knowing they might not make it to the hospital at all. Well, if anything at all will convince you to talk to me, I'll tell you some of the shit that haunts me to this day and you know it's bad if I am swearing, at least that's what Al tells me.

It was at Vimy Ridge I had gotten the injury that discharged me and is with me to this day. I had been in that war for awhile, well the days all grew into one after awhile. But it was in that same attack that this white haired German pointed his pistol at me and his face is burned into my mind and many times when I try to sleep I have nightmares where he keeps coming out of the dirt around me, despite the fact his body is probably in some German mass grave back in France, but it comes out of the dirt here in New York and tries to pull me down with it saying I will be with you forever. And yes in a way that poor bastard is. Everyone from Katy, to Al to Natalya in the few moments I confess it to them, and to Katy more than anyone else as she has a better understanding of veteran suffering than the rest of them, they say "it's war, you did what you had to". I know that but that hasn't stopped the nightmares, the guilt, all that. He had shot my buddy Wayne just moments before I had gotten to him. I was just quicker on the trigger. By a split second. That's all it took. I know Colonel Kirkland kept talking to me in the hospital, said I reminded him of Al as he and that Major Bonnefoy both ended up going to your firm for munitions contracts. Yeah he thought I was Al there for a second, what else is new?

But I reach out to you because I am worried like the rest of your family is. Al tells me you hardly talk with him at work about anything other than the bare necessities that you need to for the job. Katy tells me you hardly eat, although if she pours you a glass of vodka, you'll take the bottle and wheel yourself off. Dude, when I tried that coming back with some of Canada's whiskey (which Al will fight me on but it is superior to much of what this country produces) all I got was a very dry mouth the next morning. The problems were still there. I hated the idea that I was going to have to move in with Al and Natalya. I felt like I was a drain on them. They had Nikolai to look after and soon after Natalya found herself pregnant with the twins. I was just just going to add to their troubles without worrying about you as well. But it was then I had found something that kept my eyes on the the future. Well two things, Nikolai, and Katyusha. I could add the twins but at the time the realization happened, they weren't born yet. Nikolai misses you so. He hasn't seen you since the last time he was brought to your place. He and the twins have chicken pox as I am sure you know but the thing he hates, more than the mittens Natalya keeps him wearing because he won't stop scratching is the fact you won't talk to him, won't play. He keeps trying to come up with games he can play with you, keeps going back to catch but still. And anything you want to keep to me, I will keep. I understand there's some things you cannot tell others.

With deep concern,

Matthew Williams.

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otherrealmwriter

aka

Realm.