Antonio was in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He glanced up from his cooking, sighed, turned off the stove, praying the rice didn't stick to the bottom of the pan, and trudged down the hall to the door. It had been a week since Lovino had vanished. The other three personifications of Italy had vanished at the same time, without a trace. Luisa had last been seen with Sebastian outside her meeting building, Feliciano last seen at the shop. None of it made sense. The bell rang again and a shadow breezed past the blurred glass.

"Coming, coming" he muttered, getting to the door and opening it. Nothing.  He was about to go inside again when movement caught his eye. A brown bundle sat on his doorstep, stirring every so often, a white note pinned to its side. It took his eyes a couple of second to realise what the bundle was.

Feliciano.

He staggered backwards a little before lunging for the note and reading it while lifting Feliciano up as best he could with one arm. The letters were blurring a little in front of him so he gave up, tossing it on the floor in his hall and focusing on getting Feliciano inside. Antonio dropped him on his couch and crouched down next to him.

"Feli?" he shook him carefully, then pulled at the skin underneath his eye. His pupils decreased in size the second the light touched them. Good. He wasn't dead.

Antonio let out a sigh of relief and went to the phone. He was surprised at his own calm demeanour given the situation. He dialled a number and after three rings, the phone was picked up at the other end.

"Ja?"

"We've found Feliciano" Antonio smiled into the phone. It was such a relief to say it.

On the other end, Ludwig choked. "He's alright?"

"He seems fine, he hasn't woken up yet" Antonio shrugged. "He's not dead though, which is always a good sign."

There was a scratching noise at the other end like Ludwig nodded. "I'll be over in a minute." The phone was put down and Antonio placed his back into it's cradle before re-spotting the note. He read it for a second before rolling his eyes and crumping it up. Sometimes the 2ps made him laugh. They always went for the terrifying view of things and tried to scare everyone. Sometimes, they failed.

Can't remember if this one's yours, but he's the only one coming out.

Of course, it did make him worried for Lovi, but it was probably meant to be threatening, which just made him laugh more.

He padded back into the kitchen, feeling calmer and more like himself than he had done in a while, and turned the stove back on. By the time he'd finished, Ludwig had arrived, somehow.

"Has he woken up yet?" he said, sitting down at the table.

"No" Antonio shook his head. "But he should do in a bit. Everything'll be fine."

"Have you heard anything from Lovino?"

Antonio hesitated before shaking his head again. "Nothing. But as I said, everything'll be fine. Nothing'll be wrong and this'll all turn out well like last time."

"You mean with most of us dying?" Ludwig glanced at him as he dished the paella out into two bowls.

"No, I don't mean like that obviously" Antonio sighed. "That was a minor flaw last time. I'm talking about how, although like you said, most of us died, we still managed to beat them. That's the main bit. If a soldier dies in war and his country triumphs after his loss, no one says his loss is useless. They all simply congratulate him for putting his life to the cause. Maybe, without that one soldier, the war wouldn't have been won. Maybe, it would have all come crashing down."

"At least you actually did some good last time" Ludwig sighed and frowned at his bowl. "I died almost straight away."

"I was the first to die" Antonio pointed out.

"You killed your counterpart though"

"That has nothing to do with anything" Antonio shook his head. "How do we know that you didn't contribute hugely to Lutz's death? How do we know you didn't weaken him, making him easier for us to kill?"

"Because..." Ludwig trailed off.

"Exactly" Antonio grinned. "So therefor, it doesn't matter if you died before you could noticeably contribute to the cause, because in some way, you did."

"But that's only a probability" Ludwig jabbed his fork at Antonio. "There's still a huge chance that..."

"You're over exaggerating and don't wont to appear like you've done anything" Antonio laughed. "Don't feel sorry for yourself. It's not a face that looks good on you."

Ludwig looked as though he was about to respond, but instead, there was a strangled sounding cough from the living room. Both looked at each other for a second before leaping up and ran to the source. Feliciano was sitting upright and scratching at his neck as though in discomfort. He jumped as they ran in, tensing, before visibly relaxing and leaping up to hug them.

"What did they do?" Ludwig grabbed his shoulders. "Did they do anything to you?"

Feliciano hesitated but shook his head.

"Are you alright?" Antonio frowned and stared at him.

Feliciano stared back for a second and then nodded.

"You're not" Ludwig stepped back a little. "You're not. Tell us what's wrong?"

Feliciano shook his head again rapidly and opened his mouth for a second before snapping it shut, still shaking his head.

"Tell us" Ludwig demanded.

"He can't" Antonio muttered peering at Feliciano. "You can't can you?"

Feliciano's shoulder's sank.

Ludwig blinked. "What?"

Antonio walked towards him slowly. "Open your mouth Feli". Feliciano shrank back against the couch shaking. "Trust us. It's just us, Antonio and Ludwig. You can trust us."

Feliciano hesitated for a second and then opened his mouth. Antonio drew in a sharp breath. There was a solid film from halfway up his teeth, stopping halfway into his mouth, encasing most of his tongue. It wasn't clear, it was patchy with a bit of white here and a lot of red dotted about.

"Mein got" Ludwig stared at it. "Is that... glue?"

Antonio almost felt like laughing at their counterparts childish 'thinking outside of the box', but didn't. It probably wouldn't get them anywhere anyway. "Can you talk at all or would you just prefer not to?"

"Ai... dun nt... a" Feliciano stuttered before falling back on the couch and glaring at the floor. "E hurs."

"So..." Ludwig started. "You can kind of talk."

"But can't at the same time" Antonio nodded.

Ludwig walked out into the hall and came back with his briefcase, opening it and dragging out a thick pad of paper and a marker pen. He handed them to Feliciano and then returned his bag. "Until we can get a sufficient replacement, this should do" he said when he came back to the living room.

Feliciano beamed at him, opened the first page and started scribbling.

Grazie, grazie, grazie

Ludwig nodded. "It's fine."

There was a short silence.

"Did you see Lovino at all while you were there?" Antonio asked.

Feliciano thought for a second and then started writing.

I heard people talking about him, Sebastian and Lucia from a distance but I didn't see them.

"This could get bad" Ludwig said. "Antonio, you stay here with Feliciano. I'm going to find Vash."

Translation
Ai... dun nt... a - I don't want to
E hurs - it hurts

Sorry this is a kind of crappy update ^-^