† Duo; Video; Backdated to the afternoon, after hers and England's fight.

[fettuttittes]

[The communicator flicks on as Romana tosses it onto her bed, somehow landing on her pillow in a way that you get just enough of a look of the room to tell what's going on. It jostles slight as Romana sits down on the bed, groaning softly as she reaches down to unlace her boots, wriggling her toes once they're free. There's worse aches in her body

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[crotchroses]

... Mon Dieu, the day you discuss philosophy with me is the day my head is much too clouded for it. [He lights his cigarette and looks away from Romana, thinking.]

Nothing stops the machine of conflict. Not even the Cold War with the tension between East and West and the arms race. No one wishes for nuclear war. You have not seen it yet, but you will. Amerique's war with Japon in the Pacific Ocean will hit that point, and two of Japon's cities will be destroyed when Amerique allows those bombs to fly.

None of us want that. So the world decided to be stupid and built more and more weapons just in case "the enemy" carried more than him. Then suddenly you have missiles pointed at each other, and everyone is staring around the room, and...

[he shudders, then shakes his head.]

... We learned our lesson from the Second War. Allemagne has repaid his debts from the First. And you know what? We may collapse into another war again. We may not. Amerique has his idiotic conflict in the Middle East, two of his buildings were attacked and destroyed ten years ago killing thousands.

Ah, the point is... [He sighs again and a puff of smoke curls out between his lips.]

It is the same as it always was, but the world is winding up to something yet again. For the moment we will enjoy our relative prosperity, even when half of us have colds and the spirit of national pride seems to have faded from the world.

It does not mean we should give up. Angleterre has--[he bristles for a moment 8|]--been an ass and we threw one another into chaos for centuries. I can tell you that there was a time he would not have cared if I disappeared. I did not give up then and I will not do so now. We are Rome's children cherie, we are built to last.

[fettuttittes]

[She snorts, slowly taking a drag from her cigarette, waving the match out before exhaling.] You, your head too clouded to complain? Never.

So it gets worse. And then even as it gets better, it gets worse. [Shaking her head, Romana look away] So they do make them, the bombs? Everyone's been trying but... America. Hah. So young and yet she... they, they're the ones who can destroy us all?

[Again, she shakes her head, rolling the cigarette between two fingers, tapping ash onto the floor] She's too young. At her age I was still with Nonna, I was still a child. Her and Germania... it just shows what happens when you let them grow up that fast. They haven't existed long enough to understand, to know how to think and pick the fights. Pick which will help you the most...

How fucked are we really Francia? How can you say it will get better when it clearly doesn't. And then what happens when it does get better. What happens if the South develops better, catches up to the North. Obviously it hasn't happened yet, if Romano exists still... but what happens when it does. No other nation is divided like me and Venezia... [Sighing, she rolls her shoulder, rubbing it with her right hand, the left only just holding the cigarette] Nonna fell. As much as everyone thought she would last... she didn't.

[crotchroses]

... There was little I could do for those brothers. Angleterre had his empire to manage and they were an ocean away with myself, Espagne and the others grasping at them until Amerique won his succession. I know they are much too young, but that is how things have turned out. There's little we can do about it now.

[France rests a hand on hers, but that is all.] If I could tell you how fucked we are, I wouldn't tell you that we shouldn't give up. You cannot waste your life asking these questions so much that you drown in them. They must be asked, but you must keep your eyes straight ahead.

It does get better! For a time. Life will continue to improve and degrade as it always has. Those of us who come to understand that run the risk of being consumed by it. That's why you should continue fighting--because it will get better and you will be happy.

Just because something does not last forever does not mean it's not worth obtaining in the first place.

[fettuttittes]

[She snorts softly, taking a drag on her cigarette, shaking her head. As she slowly exhales she speaks, head turned up to the ceiling] It's still... scary. That she's... he's so young, and powerful and yet... it's like handing an actual child a weapon and letting them wander off with it. You can't tell how much chaos they will cause.

[She lets her hand rest under his for a few seconds before slowly sliding it free, resuming a sense of boundaries.] I'm not giving up, idiota. Just because I'm showing some signs of despair, questioning everything doesn't mean I'm giving up. [Her voice turns fierce] I will never give up. [Not while Venezia exists, needs her.]

I am just... tired. I'm old, and I'm scared that these idioti will push us too far and something will crack. Maybe not now, maybe not for a hundred years. But maybe. We are not as strong as we think we are, and modern war is showing us that. I'm being cautious, not surrendering, or getting caught up in despair. There's a difference.

[crotchroses]

[At last, France has prompted what he hoped he would. He leans forward and turns, smiling at Romana. There are no mirrors, there's no smoke, no flowery movements. Just a smile, and she can take it or leave it.]

... I know, but as your brother I wanted to hear what you've just said to me. [He looks away, shaking his head.

Pay attention Romana, because he won't repeat this like, ever.]

I am tired too. I want to sit in a large open window on cushions on weekends and evenings with a cigarette and a glass of wine, I want to wake up each morning and, I don't know, run a bakery outside Paris. I want--

[This line of thought is getting dangerously philosophical, and he isn't certain he can trust to divulge something so personal yet.

Also, his pride hits him in the face like a brick wall and he leans back again, blowing a stream of smoke with a long sigh.]

... It doesn't matter what I want. You get the idea.

[fettuttittes]

[Her head turns slowly, and she blinks before meeting his gaze, the heel of her palm pressed to her cheek, her elbow to her knee. Smoke from the cigarette floats up, and the cigarette itself is rolled slightly between her fingers]

You can't just decide to call yourself my brother, you know. [Nevermind that she usually considers France a sister.

Her gaze moves away, hand shifting from her cheek to let her take another drag, tapping ash onto the floor. She should stub the cigarette out now, before it burns through it's filter, but she wants to final bits of nicotine, all that she can get]

You want to be like them. To have a life... outside of this. Outside of war and death and people leaving and all of it... to be human.

[Finally, she leans forward, grinding the stub of the cigarette against the battered coffee table. Her voice stays soft, and she doesn't lean back in the hope that distance will hide her words.]

I want to be a mother. A real one. [Something she's never really told anyone, even if it can be quite clear with her actions]

[crotchroses]

... [After some thought he taps ash to the floor as well and blows a stream of smoke straight up into the air, his chin high.]

I think...

I think you would be a wonderful mother. [And you know, he really means that. Though he does mean it somewhat sadly--after all, they can't...

And even if they could, as nations it hardly works properly... Not as it might as it does with a human family.]

But... non... I would not give up nationhood. For me, the Republic of France, that comes before anything Francis Bonnefoy could ever want or be. Monsieur Bonnefoy exists because France exists. The man could not be if the nation was not there first.

I don't know how it is for the others or for you. But--I am a nation and I know I couldn't be anything else. Now... if any of us could transcend that, I would admire them for doing so.

[so philosophical. he shrugs. It almost seems as though France has suddenly distanced himself from everything around him by losing himself in his thoughts.]

[fettuttittes]

... What does it matter. [Eyes mark on the coffee table from where she ground out the cigarette. Then she flicks the stub] I won't ever be one. Not even to another nation, the age of Empires is long gone.

[She stands with a shrug, before moving to the kitchen, rummaging around in it, trying to find something to cook that will take up her time] I won't be anything else, because I can't. So there's no point even trying... I'm am Italia di Sud, Italia Romana and... no one else.

[crotchroses]

[All France can be assed to do is sit and watch and listen. His eyes have wandered to her legs but he's forced to tear them away at the discomfort between his own.

With a smoky sigh, he puts his cigarette out.]

... It's better that you may not. We can never be the loving parents some humans are to their children, and we face war and betrayal with them when they become full states and break away.

[He doesn't mention Canada yet or even, generously, England.]

[fettuttittes]

[Romana stays in the kitchen, though the sound of her searching stops for a few minutes as she pauses to listen to him, quietly absorbing France's words.

It's true, what he says. She can still remember the heartbreak on Spain's face as Romana walked away, as Spain's other colonies left her. Spain who had been like a mother to her, who she had to turn away from to be the nation she was meant to be. Her people needed unification, and she had been craving it for so long she couldn't say no when they got the chance.

Even if the look of Spain struggling to hold back tears would never fully leave her mind.]

What... What do you want to eat? [Despite the shake in her words, her tone is one that demands that he not reject her offer. She needs something to do with her hands, something to do until she tires herself out and falls into bed exhausted. All these talks are just unsettling her more and more, dredging up old memories.]

[crotchroses]

I will eat anything you cook. [He takes this opportunity to stretch out on the couch, kicking his shoes off. He... he doesn't want to discuss these things anymore, as insightful as they've been.

So.

He will change the subject and shut his eyes tightly at the pain in Romana's voice.]

[fettuttittes]

You better. I won't tolerate such an insult. [For a few brief seconds, Romana does come out, going to her room, having realised that she should probably put on pants. When she comes out it's clear the pants aren't her own, maybe Romano's, though she's used the belt from her dress to cinch them tight to her hips, and rolled the hems up a few times.

She doesn't say anything as she passes France, going straight back to her hidey hole and starting on cooking again. The apartment has plenty of pasta of course, but it's making a sauce to go with it that will be troublesome.]

[crotchroses]

[Two seconds pass and France is on his feet, entering the kitchen. He can't allow himself to sit while she cooks, but he can't simply invade the resources of her kitchen.]

...

I will help you cook. [Rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet, he fidgets his hands.]

[fettuttittes]

[Standing over her stove Romana shakes her head, before going to open a tin of canned tomatoes. Not what she'd pick if she had a choice, but it's the best she can get]

No. I don't need help. Go and sit down.

[crotchroses]

Please, cherie.

[fettuttittes]

No! [Romana's shoulders stiffen, and she stays turned away from him. Her voice is clearly strained on the edge of another meltdown.]

No. No, I need to do this. To remind me. [That one day her hands won't reek of blood and gunpowder, that one day she'll be at peace.]