Title: I Can Hardly Remember (What We Were Before)
Series: Axis Powers Hetalia
Character/Pairing: Belarus-centric. Mentions of America/Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania/Belarus, and god I don't even know. This is freaking weird, I am sorry.
Rating: PG
Note: Hi, this is me being weird and horribly vague and toying with the idea of them suddenly not being countries anymore and oh my sweet god why am I even posting this. /dies

The first thing she remembers feeling is the pain. The pain that sat in her heart and tore it open as the pain tumbled through. Pain as she felt her nature change, as she felt her mind and heart bend as she became something that wasn't her but was her - and she knew she would never get to be the same again.

So, she screamed, and remembered that pain. Remembered, and watched as her siblings did the same and fell to the ground beside her.

----

When she wakes from the pain and the screaming and the shattering of all the things she thought she knew, she has a dull thudding her head and a blurry sight. It is only after she starts to feel the cool water on her hands that she realizes that she is crying.

And only with the crying that she realizes that she is alone.

Her siblings are still beside her, their forms still and rasping for breath amidst the pain, but she is not connected to them anymore. She does not feel that dull thud of her Brother's influence over the years or the warm breath of her Sister's voice on her mind. Or any of the others' idea or feelings or presence, like they always had. Or her people's twists and turns, or their cries for life. She only feels herself and her mind and the quiet that come along with it.

And it's the sudden fear and loneliness that makes her double over in sorrow as the pain returns to her.

----

It takes her weeks to feel well again - as well as she thinks she'll ever be. Her sister woke before her, but her Brother stays chained to his bed - he's taking the separation the hardest. He's the largest, and the loneliness they all feel now is what he had feared the most all his life, even with his sisters holding his hands and promising whatever their minds could come up with.

No one knows what has happened - and no one can answer to it, either. Each of them is feeling the pain, and each of them is finding ways to try to deal with it.

But, she knows what this means, she knows she's lost what she thought she had. What she had wanted for all these centuries, and what she had grown used to all these years of life.

She is no longer Belarus, but Natalya. The aching in her bones would prove her right.

----

She does not flinch as Lithuania - no, not Lithuania, but Toris - rushes to her and cries and sobs as he holds her. Holds her and begs her not to forget him, not to lose that one bit of connection they had all those centuries ago.

She does not flinch as his hushed voice cries into her shoulder, or when his usual blond company takes him away from her just as gently as his voice sobs, leading him away in a depressed heap.

She does not flinch as she sees the scars on his wrists grow deeper each day, or when he grows weak and becomes less and less that little boy she still remembers and more and more like that broken man that lived with her in her Brother's house.

She does not flinch as he cries at how it is harder to find a reason to die and puts another notch in his headboard at home.

----

America comes to visit, and he does not hide the worry on his face, or the ache of pain in his glance. He talks with her Brother - her not Brother, her Ivan - and promises whatever he can. Which is nothing, and they know it. But he still smiles, still pretends he's a hero like those movies he loves, and says he has scientists, the world is looking into this, and they would discover what is just happening to them...

But Natalya knows better. And she knows that dull ache in her body means they are what they used to represent, and they are not changing that.

America does not even flinch when she calls him Alfred and refuses to say otherwise.

----

They are changing. It took a year, and then it took a few, and then more for them to realize that time was not a friend like before, but a foe. It started with gentle lines in their faces, and the sudden loss of their memories. The slow and dying decay of what they had been, and the slow and losing battle against their newfound existence.

The younger ones were losing it quicker - the memories, the years and years of existence that were tucked away so neatly in their minds. It was as if their new bodies could not hold their whole lives like they used to. Even her siblings - and perhaps even she - could find themselves blanking, find themselves tumbling over things that used to come so naturally to them. Even the older ones could find themselves losing faith.

Mortality was a price to pay, Natalya thought, that she still did not understand. But, for whatever sin they were paying for, she knew it was to be. God did not do such things without a thought in mind, she knew. But still, the sudden loneliness at night and the loss of everything they were was a frightening nightmare that she was having more and more trouble waking up from.

Maybe that is why she stays still as America - no, Alfred, she reminds herself - holds her hand and promises that heroes will still exist, even though she wants to assure him otherwise. Perhaps it was because that there were such heroes the world clearly did not need them anymore.

----

She begins to grow used to making choices for herself. It is scary, it doesn't feel like her, but some strange being she's becoming. She'd grown so used to the quiet rattling in her head from her people, the loud rattling of the people who controlled her all her life, so used to everything in her choices that this is scary. She almost wishes for the bitter beatings and the cuts and bruises (and maybe even those suffocating arms that her Brother wrapped her in all those years) because that was what she was and what she knew.

Ivan still doesn't take well to it, and the tables turn as she makes his choices and cooks his food and makes his bed and sings him to sleep as Sister cries and watches as their world falls apart a little more each day. Ivan still smiles, and she recalls that small little boy he used to be, and almost kisses his cheeks along with Yekaterina when he asks to see his sunflowers again.

----

The years have made her old, she realizes. The others are older, too. Most are forgetful, most have become human - something they had so long thought impossible (and maybe even coveted for so many years). They're still connected though, clinging to the fading memories and the old feelings as they worm their way into a different life that still makes some cry as night falls and takes more of themselves away.

Her Brother is finally her brother again, and that little world they thought they were losing was coming more into focus than out of. Their home is small, but happy and warm and full of what they had longed for during those long years of loss and blood and fright and life. Sister sings and waters the plants as Brother holds the earth in his hands and marvels at the way the flowers tilt towards the sun in what was once his lands. And that old, suddenly familiar tick in Natalya's head seems so far away now - and it's the warmth of her Ivan's hand that she seeks, and not the house he owns with it. And all those choices make her think and make her grow and she can feel her bones for the first time. And makes her heart feel more like it's home.

And yet, it's those choices she makes on her own that leads her to a boy's doorstep - a stupid, foolish boy with blond hair and glasses and a promise of heroes still in his breath - and into the home that leads beyond it. And that boy's hands are the warmest thing she's felt, she thinks, since the snow first kissed her lands. And it's the gentle pressure of her Brother's hands on her back that push her into those fool's arms with a laugh and a promise that he'd give that fool harm if anything goes wrong.

It's Toris' bitter laugh of realization that makes her heart flutter though as Alfred sneaks a kiss - even as she punches him in the stomach for it.

----

They have children. Her sister is a mother (with Matthew happily taking their kids to their many homes), her Brother smiles and takes care of the flowers that become his. Their old ties and friends and fading acquaintances have marriages and children and mortal lovers and wives and men.

As she fades away from those old wounds in her mind - which Alfred quickly forgets in their now short time - she feels some sense of loss. And then it's gone and she's Natalya Jones and something is very strange with how she used to think.

And yet, there she is, holding her Brother's hand as they till the flowers and the sudden few graves that come from the others amidst their lands.

And she suddenly does not care for how she lost those memories, minus holding onto that still tattered bow that she will always always wear in her hair.

----

It's their death that finally makes her remember what she lost - all those centuries of being separate and yet so connected and a part of something she cannot quite recall.

But it's as death finally claims those bones that she feels that connection one last time flare in her chest, and she knows that this was her path. And they'd all be back again.