Feliciano does not know why he has come back, now, to him, but he might have an idea.

Salò still hangs over the two of them like old rotten bones, and why should it not? Only two years ago, it was there, a king in Brindisi and a dictator at Lake Garda and gashes across Feliciano's skin.

Yet he returned. He does not know why, only that the rest of Europe looks at him with suspicion: he changed sides, but did he? Feliciano knows that some- Francis, Herakles, Lovino- know, and he knows himself too, but what he does not know is why he has returned, returned to the man whose people and whose leader tore Feliciano and so many others apart.

Maybe it is because they were friends once, and lovers once, and with Feliciano Ludwig speaks, doesn't just answer Alfred as he had answered his leader, yes-sir-no-sir-three-bags-full-sir. Maybe it is because somewhere under the countless scars they could be that again, they could be friends and more, and maybe they are despite the stink and shadow of Salò. Maybe…

Maybe it is because of times like this.

Times like this, when Feliciano wakes up to a cold bed. He staggers out and down the hallway of the dilapidated apartment, groggy and confused, because Ludwig is many things but right now Ludwig is curled up in the corner of the living room. His face is buried in his hands, which tremble and shake with nails bitten down to stumps.

Maybe it is because Feliciano does not have to ask Ludwig why he is crying. He cries because he has not for two-five-ten-fifteen years (or longer, longer, has Ludwig ever dared to cry where someone could see) and because Gilbert is gone, dissolved and taken, and Ludwig's land is partitioned and he is so young- as if the war hadn't proven that- Ludwig is so young, a child with a sharp mind and a strong body and so many expectations weighing him down, so many for one who isn't really even seventy, and Feliciano suspects that he has not cried- has not been allowed- in far too long for one so young. He cries because he is lost and alone and adrift without the surety of Gilbert to ground himself on, adrift in a sea of corpses. Maybe Feliciano stays because he knows this, and he knows that Ludwig needs, more than anything, someone. And he knows that he is the only person willing- the only person able- to be that someone.

He kneels down next to Ludwig's hunched form and pulls him close and does not shush him because Ludwig has spent so long being silenced and so short a time being heard. So Feliciano pats his back and strokes his hair as Salò rattles in the back of his brain and murmurs words of comfort.

Maybe it is because those words are not meaningless, not empty.

Ludwig's hands fall from his face to clutch at Feliciano, like the child he is but is not because children cannot do what Ludwig did. Because Ludwig grew so fast, raised on war and maneuvers and suspicion and a man who had him sleep with a wrench instead of a stuffed bear. Maybe it is because they complement each other, Feliciano who was trapped a child for centuries as others profited off his land and Ludwig who never could be a child at all. Ludwig who sobs brokenly into Feliciano's neck, all exhausted red-rimmed eyes and trembling arms.

He speaks, as he never does to the Allies, and Feliciano listens to the torrent of half-hysterical German, Gilberts and my faults and should have gone should have dieds and so sorrys that tumble out of Ludwig's mouth sliced around each other and pile in twisted heaps like emaciated corpses, no distinction between one or the other. Eventually they coalesce into lead-heavyI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry and Feliciano tries to soothe him, tries to take his apologies and fold them close to his heart like his hands, tries to mend what small parts he can of crumbling, shattered Ludwig.

Maybe it is because there is nobody else in the whole world willing and able to brush their lips across Ludwig's forehead and swallow down the bone-rattle and say I forgive you. Maybe it is because something in Ludwig's eyes recalls a lost, frightened child and Feliciano has seen far too many of those.

Maybe it is because behind the Salò smell and the bones there are other bones at Amba Aradam and mustard-gas smell.

Ludwig sobs harder when Feliciano says those three words and four syllables, chokes out no and clutches him tighter. Feliciano can almost see Salò stretching out over him, adding to the millions upon millions of bones already in Ludwig's mind, burnt and broken and rotting in ravines, and Feliciano cannot tell Ludwig it's okay or none of that was your fault.

Maybe it is because he cannot say that, but he can say it'll be better and you are forgivable, I forgive you.

Maybe it is because under the bones and rubble and burning and shattered land-people-pride, Ludwig is Ludwig and Feliciano cannot let that disappear.

The king in Brindisi: Victor Emmanuel III, king of Italy and opposition of the ISR/Salò; the dictator at Lake Garda: Mussolini; Amba Aradam and mustard gas: Amba Aradam was a major Italian victory in Ethiopia, where the Italian army quite possibly used mustard gas as a weapon; Germany is very young indeed (76 years of nation experience as of 1947, and roughly half of that was Prussia calling the shots).