We Are Zodiac (Hetalia Fanfic)

Chapter 11

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Arthur asked Mary almost accusingly.

"... I wanted to see if you would remember me or not. Besides, the past is gone. Or, at least, mostly..." Mary answered, and for a split second there was a hard look in her blue eyes that betrayed what she was thinking.

"Who is she?" Ludwig asked, then turned to the woman who had just slapped him. "Who are you?"

"Norway and I dated," she replied, gripping her upper arms tightly. "We were... right up until he turned into a Taurus."

"Really?" Alfred asked breathlessly. "That... That really sucks." Then he remembered something else. "And that's why you really believe they can be saved, right?"

"What?" Lovino spoke for the first time in quite a while. "When-a was this?"

"Oh, uh, this morning," Alfred explained.

"Yeah, he caught me outside on the deck and scared the Virgos away," Mary sighed with irritation in her tone. 

Earlier that morning~

It was upsetting to wake at the crack of dawn out of habit. Because it was the first time he'd slept in an actual bed in a year, it just didn't feel exactly right to him anymore. When a sliver of early morning sunlight filtered through a part in the curtains, Alfred opened his eyes blearily and sat up wearily. A quick glance at his watch told him it was only six in the morning.

Still, no matter how hard he tried to go back to sleep, he couldn't, and it resulted in him silently slipping out of the room and down the hallway. He ended up in the kitchen, which had a sliding glass door out to a terrace. To his surprise, when he stood up from peering into the refrigerator, he saw a blond-haired figure sitting on the deck. Her back was to him, and she was still in her pajamas. The ponytail her hair was thrown up into was a messy one, with locks of the straw-colored strands sticking out in random spots. They reminded him of his own Nantucket a little bit.

Anyway, Mary was looking up at something a bit above her. Alfred caught a glimpse of her jaw moving; she was talking? To who?

He moved closer to the glass door and peered up at the wire dome that encased their tree-house. What he saw was enough to take his breath away for a few seconds.

There were Virgos perched on the wire and looking at Mary curiously, almost like they were actually listening to her. What was this? 

He eased the door to the side and stepped out onto the deck, but no sooner had he come into sight that the Virgos screeched angrily and took off in a cacophony of flapping wings and iron talons grating on steel fencing wire. Mary turned to look at him with her eyebrows drawn together in irritation. 

"Hey, I was actually getting somewhere with them!" she exclaimed. "Uuugh... Nope."

"Uh, what are you talking about?" Alfred asked as he walked over and took a seat beside her. 

She groaned and put her head in her hands for a second before straightening and looking right at him. "You're going to think I'm crazy for thinking this, but I believe the Zodiac are still human inside themselves somewhere. I mean, they can't be completely gone, right? I've seen it before. They still recognize people that are important to them, if just for a second."

"You really think they can be saved?" Alfred asked with intrigue instead of the skepticism Mary had been expecting.

"Well, yeah. And if anyone's going to bring them back to their senses, it might as well be me." At that moment, Alfred noticed a little blackness under her collarbone, part of which was exposed by her loose pajama neckline. It was a tattoo, and from what he could see, it was a set of letters in ornate script. He saw the letters "F" and "J" on her skin.