Still using human names.

America – Alfred
Canada – Mathew
China – Yao
England – Arthur
France – Francis
Germany – Ludwig
Italy – Feliciano
Japan – Kiku
Prussia – Gilbert 2p Prussia - Klaus
Romano – Lovino
Russia – Ivan
Spain – Antonio

Mathew sat on one of the beds in the hospital part of the conference building. Alfred was dabbing at his burnt cheek with one hand, the other arm strung up in a cast with the words 'may never use again' rolling round his head. Across the other side of the room, Lovino and Feliciano were strung up to scary looking medical equipment. Lovino hadn't been that badly done to, but Feliciano was another story, and when one of them is hanging in the balance between life and death, the other isn't far behind. Ivan had both eyelids screwed shut, his shoulder bandaged and one leg strung up in a sling.

Opposite him, Yao was slowly sitting up, wincing as he did so, clutching his side where he'd been hit. Near to the end of the room, Francis had patches and bandages in numerous places, and he was bent over Arthur's bed, muttering quietly. Shortly after arriving back, he'd collapsed and hadn't woken up. Even Gilbert looked pretty miserable, keeping on glaring at where his right arm was removed. He'd refused to have a wooden one, saying it reminded him of Klaus.

The entire room was silent, apart from the unison of beeps from heart monitors and Francis' almost inaudible muttering. No one was looking at the far end, where two of the beds were covered in slightly red, white sheets. No one wanted to be the ones to remind Lovino of Antonio's death, or tell Feliciano that Ludwig was dead.

Alfred finished dabbing at Mathew's cheek, put down the piece of cotton wool he'd been using and leant on him.

"I killed him" he muttered. "But... it keeps on coming back and..."

Mathew wrapped an arm round his brother. "It's okay."

Almost in unison, Feliciano and Lovino sat upright, Lovino a couple of second before.

"What...?" Lovino stared around, squinting.

Feliciano coughed and clutched at his stomach in pain. "It hurts fratello, it really hurts."

Lovino went to say something and then noticed the covered beds at the end and looked down, curling his hands into fists in his lap. "Toni."

Yao nodded sadly, still clutching his side.

"L... Luddy" he stuttered, staring at him. Yao shook his head, not meeting his eye. "N... no h... he... he's Luddy he c... he can't die. If... if I can beat him then... then..." his started crying quietly. "He can't die."

Ivan opened one eyelid carefully, watching him sob. "I'm sorry" he muttered, then screwed both eyes shut again. Yao rubbed furiously at one eye, stood up and walked out, muttering something about Kiku. Alfred sat up properly, leaning away from Mathew and frowned at the floor. Mathew stood up and wandered over to Francis.

"Papa?"

Francis looked up, smiled weakly and took his hand, kissing it lightly. Arthur was deathly pale and breathing with short, sharp, painful sounding breaths. Francis had one eye patched over and various sized wads of bandage stuck to his face, a long length running round his head was slightly stained with blood.

"Has Alfred washed that burn of yours properly?" Francis touched it carefully. "It looks sore."

"Best he could" Mathew muttered.

"You can only do so much when you've only got the use of one arm" Alfred said, coming up behind them and gesturing towards his arm.

"At least you get to keep yours" Gilbert moaned. "Mine got sawed off."

"Yours was hanging on by a thread" Alfred corrected him. "Dude, that wasn't going to survive anytime soon."

Lovino hissed at the word survive. Feliciano was curled up against him and the brothers was tightly wrapped up together, crying into each other.

"Careful what you say at the moment" Francis said glumly.

Alfred nodded.

"One... two... three..." he glanced over at Ivan, who started loudly counting cracks in the ceiling. "Four... five..."

"Shut up Ivan" Prussia hissed. "Stop annoying the awesome me."

Russia glared at him, giving off his creepy purple aura but shut up.

Francis grunted. "Some things just never change do they?"

Mathew shook his head.

The lines on the heart monitor flattened out into a single, straight, dead line and the beeping stopped, a low, flat noise replacing it, and Arthur's short, sharp breaths stopped.