Summary: Three nations. Two walls. One year, and one awful mistake to confront - "Anything," Prussia finally admits out loud. "I'd do ANYTHING to get us all out of this mess with our necks intact."

Less Eloquent Summary: Prussia leaves East Germany behind and learns that pretty much everyone's been an idiot while he'd been gone. Seriously.
(This first chapter serves as more of a prologue than anything.)

Warnings: Contains violence, trauma, and a lot - no really, a lot - of implied sexuality (no smut).

Just a Heads-Up: This story takes place in the same universe as an older fic of mine titled This Hurricane and could tentatively be called a sequel. However, if you don't want to bother with the "first" one, then don't fret: this can also be a proper stand-alone piece of fiction. You'll just gain a lot of extra spoilers if you're working backwards and will miss allusions to the original.
For those who have read This Hurricane, don't expect for this story to be a copy rewritten for the middle of a different war or something. Expect for this to follow history relatively well. Expect to have your heart broken. Expect to be angry, with the characters and/or with me.
Carry on.

Music on Repeat: "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy and "Up in the Air" by 30 Seconds to Mars. When contemplating a story title and chapter names, it was a carefully calculated toss-up between these two.

Beta'd by: People Person I'm Not

Disclaimed. Hetalia is the property of Hidakez Himaruya and others.

XXX

You were the love of my life
Darkness, the light - this is
A Portrait of a Tortured You and I

Just

XXX

1962

It's a plain and ordinary day.

Except he can't find that jacket. The black one, the one with the golden buttons, their collective favorite jacket of Germany's. Italy has already scoured their closet, the dresser, and all the laundry baskets in the house. He doesn't need it for anything in particular - it doesn't need washed, it doesn't need worn - but he just wants to hold it. He likes the worn spot on the back, the slight tear in the cuff, the way it smells like Germany.

Germany. He hasn't been home much lately. Government business, he'd excused; Russia - oh, right, the USSR - has been keeping all of them on their toes. Italy doesn't like it much, but his absence is understandable.

Except he wants that jacket, the smell, the feel. He can't find it anywhere.

For whatever subconscious reason, it leaves him on the calm verge of panic.

He leans back and rests on his knees after searching their dirty laundry basket for the second time, emitting a nearly inaudible sigh of worry. "Ve... where could it be?" he wonders aloud to himself.

It certainly isn't being used at the moment, because he remembers Germany wearing a dark green coat that morning by the fire before going out to the meeting, and he doesn't have the slightest idea where it would be otherwise! Where would one of them have moved it? Why would one of them have moved it? Germany keeps his things in order, and Italy... well, Italy is admittedly less organized, but that jacket is an untouchable. And it certainly didn't move on its own!

He crosses his arms, uncrosses them, stands up, then promptly wonders why he's standing. Italy doesn't have the slightest idea where to go next. He feels awkwardly lost within his own home - why has this feeling of dread kept creeping up on him? And he wants to find that accursed jacket!

Absently, he glances through all the drawers in their bedroom. In the bathroom. Downstairs, in the kitchen. In Germany's desk in the study -

Oh. There it is!

"Why, hello!" he exclaims as he takes it out. "Ve, how'd you get in there?"

Grinning widely to his eyes, he holds it out at arms-length for admiration. Then, his smile slips a little. He softly frowns, his eyes running over the fabric frantically, in confusion, in something milder than horror but more grotesque than concern. Instead of disappearing, his state of panic begins to rise.

Tentatively, he brings the jacket to his nose.

Out of the million things rushing through his mind, two come to the forefront; two smells, two sickeningly familiar odors that do not belong and make his knees weak.

The jacket. The black jacket that fits Germany perfectly.

The jacket reeks.

He doesn't scream immediately, nor does he cry. Instead he dashes from the study as though his life depends on it, breathing only from the top of his lungs and running, stopping, throwing the protective grate out of the way, and hurling that jacket - that poor, beloved jacket - into the lit fireplace of the living room.

Italy balks for a moment, choking on the awful realization. He wishes that he'd been content to leave well enough alone, that he'd accepted it to being lost and had moved on. But it wasn't lost. Not anymore.

"No," he whispers. "No, no - "

The golden buttons start to melt. The fabric turns to ash. It's too late, because it's already burned in the fire and burned in his mind.

Italy has long since collapsed on the floor in broken sobs.

He can't be directly confrontational, and he knows it.

He know's what he's like when he's been stirred up into a shuddering rage. He wants to do nothing more than sit upon the carpet and weep into his knees, but he's not going to do that. He also wants nothing more than to rip his world to shreds, limb to limb, and scream, but he's not going to do that, either. He wants neither of these to be his reaction. As it is, however, he's not going to sit by without an answer.

For his first call, there are five rings before there is a click and a familiar voice to greet him.

"Is it - is it true?" Italy balks. For a moment, there is only silence, then - "Is it true?" he demands.

Silence is the response - the confirmation.

His hand shaking, he drops the phone onto its hook and goes to calm himself down.

For his second call, there are twelve rings and no click.

He has to walk away from the phone again.

For his third call, there are two rings and finally - an honest answer. His conversation with Romano lasts all of thirty seconds. He throws together a suitcase, and he doesn't leave a note. A part of him wants to look back, but (Italy hiccups in the struggle for air) he knows he can't, because this is the only way he can survive this revelation.

It isn't until they get to Switzerland that either of them speak. "Um," Romano tries. "Do you... wanna tell me what the hell happened?"

"...No," Italy says, an odd calm washing over him. The hurt of the day is nowhere close to fading, but knowing that Romano is still in the dark is strangely comforting. So he hadn't been completely blind, at least.

"Well, okay. I mean, you already know what I think of that potato," he counters bluntly. "Otherwise I'd be reassuring the both of us that he deserves to be left like this."

Italy doesn't explicitly reply, but his silence is as good as an admission.

His brother grips the steering wheel a little harder, glancing at the back-seat using his mirrors (hardly containing his questions and concerns and unexpected anger), and Italy barely hears him as Romano tries to keep his opinion to himself:

"What did that fucker do to cause this?"

XXX

Historical Notes

The year listed seems random, but I promise it isn't.

Additional Author's Notes

You all probably hate how short this first chapter (prologue?) is. Trust me, I do too - but this is how it worked out.