Her hiding place was obvious, considering the wardrobe door was ajar and all of Monika's clothes had been carelessly tossed onto the bedroom floor. Monika wanted to think Maria had simply raided her room for something she had lost again, but she knew her sister wasn't the type to throw everything into chaos without folding things neatly and putting them back in place. Sighing, Monika stepped over the crumpled clothing and opened the wardrobe fully to see what would surely be the cause of her next headache.

Chiara Vargas glared at her from within.

"Don't. Say. Anything," Chiara hissed, leaning forward and slamming the wardrobe shut. Monika sighed, not wanting to deal with the hassle of throwing the girl out the house. That didn't stop her from wondering what Chiara was doing in her room in the first place, but maybe she could get an explanation from Alice later.

"Make sure you put everything back where you found it," Monika called over her shoulder as she made her way out into the hallway and down the stairs.

Maria was in the living room, sprawled out on a chair and watching television. Monika frowned at her from the doorway.

"There's an Italian in my room."

"You mean Chiara?" Maria tilted her head back to look at Monika and smiled. "She snuck in through the back window a while ago. I think she was trying to be stealthy."

"But why is she here?" Monika asked, her tone exasperated.

Maria shrugged. "She's probably waiting for Alice. She's pissed with her for some reason."

"Alice isn't here, though."

"Actually, I am!" Alice said from the other side of the room, cross-legged on the floor and as cheerful as ever. Monika blinked, wondering how she could have overlooked her, but she decided not to question the matter. "Sorry, I meant to ask, but can I hide here for a while? I accidentally scratched my sister's car yesterday and now she wants to kill me."

There was no time to reply. From behind Monika came the sound of very angry footsteps thudding down the stairs, followed by a scream of, "I knew you were here!" Chiara charged into the room, pushing Monika out of her way and spinning to face Alice with an expression of utmost fury. Alice screeched and jumped to her feet.

"Hey," Monika interrupted, glaring at the two from where she had been pushed into the wall and catching both of their attentions. "If you're going to fight, don't do it here."

"Or," Maria said, "at least wait for me to get some popcorn ready."

"They're not allowed to fight here at all." Monika sent a particularly pointed stare to Maria, who simply shrugged it off.

A few seconds of scowling passed, and eventually Chiara backed off, fuming as she dropped herself on a nearby sofa. "Fine," she muttered, and Alice sighed in relief.

Monika realised that Chiara storming out of the wardrobe like that had probably left her room in an even worse state, and she doubted Chiara would really fix everything unless properly threatened. She shook her head, slowly turning back to the stairs.

"Oh, wait, Monika!" It was Alice, hurrying after her with a sudden sense of urgency. "I need to ask you something!"

"I'm busy right now." In a matter of seconds Monika's reserve of patience had run out, her reply almost curt. "We can talk later."

"But this is really important! It's almost as important as food!"

Monika gave her a withering look, but Alice obviously wasn't going to back down. "Fine. What is it?" she asked, mentally promising herself she could kick both of the Vargas sisters out of the house if Alice simply asked if she could stay for dinner.

Looking uncharacteristically serious, Alice spoke in a slightly quieter voice. "You remember what you told me a while ago, right? About those weird dreams, and I told you I get dreams like that too sometimes?" Monika found herself gripping the banister; she nodded for Alice to continue. "Well, we're not the only ones! Rosa, Amelia and Sakura get dreams like that too, and guess what? It's because these weird immortal people exist and they represent countries, and we're connected to the country person we're from! That's why we get those dreams! So, I'm connected with Italy, Sakura with Japan, and you'd probably be connected to Germany, and—!"

"Alice," Monika said coldly, "I'm not in the mood for games."

"Huh…? Oh, no, it's not a game! It's all true! And the countries are in trouble 'cause they're being kidnapped by someone and they need our help…" Alice trailed off, as Monika had lost interest in what Alice had to say and started climbing the stairs. "Monika, wait!"

Back in the living room, Maria looked towards the direction they had gone with a frown. Alice's 'quiet' voice really wasn't good for secret conversation, so she and Chiara had heard every word.

"Countries?" Maria looked to Chiara as if expecting an explanation.

Chiara shrugged, though she seemed almost troubled by something. "If I paid attention to every weird thing that went through Alice's head I'd go insane. She's just been hanging out with you freaks too long. Forget about it."

Maria nodded, her expression thoughtful. It would be very easy to dismiss that conversation; Alice was known for sprouting some odd lines of thought when she was hungry. Something about what she had said, however, rang in Maria's mind, and she could only wonder just what Alice had meant.

At the very least, it would be nice to have a proper explanation for those dreams for once in her life.

—Chapter end.

Well, would you look at that. How long did it take me to update this? Two years? And I can't even come back with a long chapter to make up for it… I'm sorry.

I've been reluctant to come back to this because the writing in the first few chapters honestly makes me eyes bleed :/ I guess my writing would change since I started this fic nearly three years ago. A part of me wants to delete this and just rewrite it from the very beginning, but there isn't really much point in that right now since either way the storyline will be the same and that will just take more time than I seem to have. I still want to revise the earlier chapters though, so maybe I'll do that once I've finished this fic or have at least got much further.

Hopefully it won't take me so long to update next time, though this is coming from someone who's seemed to have made updating rarely a habit ^^' Again, I really am sorry.

As always, please review and tell me what you think ^_^