War or Love / Reich x Soviet

Chapter 9: The ice lake

When Reich opened his eyes slightly, it was still dark. For half an eternity he tried to go back to sleep. He was soon thirsty, so he carefully tried to get out of bed without waking anyone. Third Reich grabbed his walking sticks and quietly crept out of the room. When he stood at the door, he looked back one more time, but they were all asleep, except for Kira, who laid her head back on the blanket and didn't care about Reich. He walked quietly through the bright hallway with a light on.

He went into the kitchen and sat down on a chair that he pulled towards him with his walking sticks. After he sat down, he looked in the cupboards for a glass. At the second door he found the glasses and took one out. Since he couldn't find anything else, he filled the glass with the water that was in a bottle on a small table in the kitchen. He drank his half full glass and put the glass on the table before he got up with the help of his walking sticks and pushed the chair back into its original place.

< I haven't finished reading the pages yet, should I do it now? I would have enough time. > So he went to the table in the living room after turning on the light. Third Reich sat down on the sofa and put two of the pages next to him. He read them one by one until the light in the living room went out. Reich looked around and saw a large shadow. "Reich? What are you doing here in the middle of the night?", asked the tired, tall man, who came closer to Reich. "I just wanted to have a drink, but then these pages came back to my head."

"You can read the pages tomorrow too." "Yes, I know, but I want to read them now!" "You've been reading for half an hour and it's four in the morning! Go back to bed and finish reading it tomorrow!" Reich thought for a moment before answering Soviet: "All right, but I will finish reading the last paragraph from the page first." "Good, I'll wait for you." After a short time, Third Reich finished reading and put the pages back on the wooden table before he got up and went back to the bedroom with Soviet. Soviet let Reich go to bed first, who immediately lay down with his son, then Soviet came.

When Germany woke up, he immediately tried to wake up his father, who was still fast asleep. The little one carefully climbed over his father and then lay between his father and Soviet Union. The little Countryhuman quickly got a lot warmer and it just felt good to lie between the two adults, as if Soviet were part of the family. Then Reich turned to his son and hugged him. Even the friendly face of Soviet, pleased the little Countryhuman. "It feels like we're one big happy family."

Reich and Soviet looked at each other with a strange look, the little one couldn't have known that he and his father were more like prisoners rather than visitors, on the other hand, neither of them wanted to tell the little one. To change the subject, Reich suggested: "How about breakfast?" "Yes! Please say there are pancakes!" "What you want!", replied Soviet Union, Germany jumped up and ran enthusiastically out of the room with Kira. Soviet slowly got up too, but Reich stayed where he was. "Don't you want a pancake?" "The pancakes always takes some time to prepare and I still need some time to really wake up."

"Then go back to sleep!", Soviet shouted before he disappeared from the room. Third Reich somehow liked this very springy bed, but he couldn't explain why. He liked so much about it, like sinking into it, for example was so soft, he liked the smell and... Reich was very confused, why did he like the smell, that was Soviet smell. The rest of the time he was busy looking out the window. "Reich, breakfast is ready!" He got up and went into the dining room, where the children were waiting enthusiastically for the pancakes. "Good morning, sleepyhead!", said Soviet when Reich sat down at the table.

Everyone enjoyed the pancakes, after dinner Soviet cleared the dishes from the table and before everyone left he shouted: "How about a little walk?" Almost everyone agreed and the kids took out their jackets. Only Third Reich and his son had nothing. "How about if Germany gets something from you?", Soviet Union asked his children, who immediately took out a thick jacket. "Reich, I'll give you something warm to wear." "Thank you!" After Soviet, Reich, Germany, Belarus, Russia and Latvia had dressed warmly, they left the house. Kira, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Estonia stayed home.

"Have fun!" or "See you later!", could be heard before they disappeared behind the house. The children followed the two men who were talking about several things. They walked for a short time, then Third Reich got too exhausted, so they stopped at a frozen lake with a bench. Reich went to the wooden bench and sat down, while Soviet sat next to him. They leaned back and enjoyed the moment very much. "In my opinion, your son was somehow right this morning. We get along really well most of the time. We're actually more friends than enemies, don't you think?"

Reich thought about it and replied: "Yes, somehow." "If I let you go, we could stop the war, sign a peace treaty and meet more often." "Would sound good if it were possible." "Why shouldn't it work?" "It's not what we were told!" "Bringing you here wasn't part of their plan either." Reich looked at him in disbelief. But before he could say anything, there was a loud crash followed by loud screams from the direction where their children were.

When Third Reich saw what was going on, he immediately got up and tried to run to the spot, but he was not progressing fast enough and he decided to run on both legs and throw the walking sticks out of the way. When he did that, a lot of pain shot through his leg, but it wasn't as bad as he had imagined and ran on, skidded across the ice and jumped into the hole in the ice. The cold water didn't stop him and grabbed the first one he could catch, but they were too heavy, so Reich took off most of his jackets again. The child kicked around wildly, but nevertheless Third Reich managed to lift her out of the water where Latvia stood to lift Belarus out of the water.

Reich looked around and saw that Germany and Russia were missing. He took another deep breath before diving back down to get the next one. He already grabbed the second and swam with him to the surface. Russia was now also saved, now only Germany was missing, but Reich felt already very weakened. After a short breath he dived, back down. Fortunately, after a short search, he found Germany and brought him to the surface.

Unfortunately, after the rescue of his son, Third Reich had so little strength that he couldn't hold himself on the surface of the water and sank into the depths of the lake. < Why am I fighting against it, I deserve to die in this wet grave, that's my punishment for everything I've done. > So he stopped paddling to get to the top, ran out of air and began to breathe in the water. He had already finished his life when he suddenly noticed that something was falling into the water. Somebody grabbed him and pulled him along, and then everything went black.

Soviet hit the ice, which then broke and climbed out of the water with the unconscious Reich. Germany ran to him coughing and hugged his father's arm. "Papa!?", shouted the little one, frightened. Soviet ran home with Reich and took him into the bathroom, where he put Reich in the tub and pulled him down to his underpants. Reich's skin felt cold and his skin was very pale, which worried Soviet very much. He fetched two buckets of lukewarm water and slowly poured them over Reich. After repeating this three times, he made sure that the water was warmer each time.

At some point he heard someone coughing in the bathroom and ran back with the buckets to see Third Reich, how was finally awake and coughing out the water. "Reich, how are you?" After he finished coughing, he looked at Soviet and answered in a scratchy voice: "Better" Soviet Union came up to him and poured the water over him, then checked his temperature and the heartbeat. The temperature was slowly returning to normal, as was his heartbeat. Soviet got a towel and dried Reich and at that moment the door of the house opened.

There was talk outside the room and then Estonia and Latvia came into the bathroom to get towels. When Reich was dry enough, he got him a blanket and wrapped him up. Soviet Union picked him up and carried him to the sofa, after doing that he went to the children. After a while, everyone was dry and wrapped in a blanket. Soviet sat on the sofa and pulled the powerless Reich to warm him. Third Reich was now on the Soviet's lap and snuggled up against him. The children sat in front of the oven to warm up and told each other different stories. While Soviet was looking at Reich, for some inexplicable reason an old pleasant feeling came up to him that he hadn't felt so clearly in years.