The hour has come...[Belarus]

This really wasn't the sort of information that Natalya should be hiding, but then again, 'should' was a very subjective term, and depending on one's point of view, withholding the information thus far might have been a wise move altogether. It probably wasn't in her brother's eyes, but, well, Natalya was not her brother, was she? Besides, she had personal matters she had to attend to using this information, and for all anyone knew, it was a dud. Hmph. Goes to show that loyalty pays, she supposed- even in soldiers not from her own native country, she had a bad habit of getting humans attached to her when that would only hurt everyone all around, and in this case, she'd been given information two weeks early to do with whatever she pleased. If her brother had him court martialed for this, Natalya would be very cross.

The point was: Natalya had a reason to be somewhat deep behind enemy lines today, reading a magazine in a hospital waiting room, waiting for a proper receptionist to show up in the small, understaffed, somewhat beleaguered hospital, and she still wasn't certain what she thought about it. She knew for a fact, though, that she was somewhat disappointed with the current United Allegiance security if her information was correct- though, admittedly, getting into town was a feat that would have likely been impossible if she hadn't still been fluent in Polish. She was also- concerned was the wrong word? Very wrong word. Just... unsettled, she supposed.

Ah. Receptionist. She stood up, and, in clear Polish, said: "I am here to see Feliks Łukasiewicz. I know that these are visiting hours?" The receptionist looked unamused.

"Family only, or the people on the list. Give your name."

"Natalya Arlovskaya," she said, "and I suppose I lived with him long enough that he should be family." Her inflection was... off. The receptionist gave her a long, cool look, and Natalya suddenly realized that this hospital, startlingly close to the front lines, was likely staffed entirely by people who had some idea who a Nation was. Normally, unless Poland was as insane as Natalya could be, a simple receptionist would not know enough to give Natalya a look like that. This, too, was unnerving.

No wonder the place was understaffed. They'd only kept it running to hide one person.

"When I run your name through this database, I am going to have to shoot you," the receptionist said, and Natalya sighed.

"Centuries, and he does not consider me family. Truly, I am wounded." Her flat tone of voice and raised, bored eyebrow suggested otherwise. She hoped that whatever the receptionist was doing hadn't set off some silent alarm causing Alfred F. Jones to come bursting in at any moment. It would certainly be an awkward way to run into him. Then again, it could be any member of the United Allegiance, it had only been Natalya's mind that had immediately jumped to Alfred. Hmph.

"Yeah, are you here for your brother or something? 'Cause it would be a shame for you to somehow get this far through security without at least interrogating you on how you did it, but if you try to walk past me we're gonna have to put a few bullets through that head of yours. Then again, you do get back up, right?" The receptionist shrugged, and Natalya pulled out a knife. She continued to look surprisingly unintimidated. Then again, this was apparently a secret hospital to allow for the care of a particular blonde diva, or something like that, so perhaps the staff was used to Prussia waltzing in and demanding a beer and a fight for old times' sake, or something equally idiotic, impulsive, and infuriating. That, or just Poland being his infuriating self. At any rate, this woman had proved Natalya's point: she was utterly used to the presence of Nations.

"I suppose I cannot risk that, can I?" Natalya says, and, sighing at the loss of someone with a commendable attitude and ability to handle chaos, slits her throat. She's not certain whether to be glad or upset that, for a moment, shock was on the receptionist's face. She rather hoped the woman hadn't successfully pulled any silent alarms yet. With any luck, Natalya's next foes would all be doctors. Natalya, despite common belief, generally liked doctors. They followed rules, and they were generally trustworthy enough. She simply hadn't seen any in awhile.

Sure enough, she walked past a doctor as she cleaned blood off of her knife. "Where is the biohazard containment area?" she asked idly to one of them, one of the ones who had been staring more. "I do not want to risk your patient." The doctor- possibly army, but Natalya rather suspected he was new, judging by the shock he seemed to display at the blood on her knife and the lack of initiative- looked torn between giving in and telling her, running off to hit what was probably yet another silent alarm, or tackling her. He had some equipment, but Natalya could already tell he would not think to use it. Why would he? Do no harm, after all- which was rather why Natalya loathed to have to kill any more people in a hospital. It was why she had not attempted to use any form of EMP to shut down equipment and alarms. It was a hospital. Natalya had lines she did not cross, and shutting off life support equipment, killing defenseless doctors, killing even more defenseless patients- that was one of them.

(A tiny part of her knew that she'd do it anyway, for the right reasons, but for now, she did not have those reasons, and for now, a small part of her was remembering things that took place locked behind sterile white walls. They were not all good memories. Rarely, though, was this the hospital's fault.)

She sighed. "Oh, nevermind, I know there is one in his room, but I was rather hoping not to need to go that far." She kept walking. He'd probably run and hit the alarm, but it was clear that the hospital was only semi-prepared for an attack, let alone an attacker who wasn't trying to blow things up, bomb things, invade, or really do much more than reach a single person. A single person who they'd made the mistake of putting the name of on his door. Natalya opened it.

And she blinked.

This was disconcerting. There was Feliks. He looked like he wanted his phone- wait. There was Poland, bedridden and looking rather like death warmed over. Natalya couldn't decide if this was normal for the man or not- she'd seen him injured many times before, but it never seemed quite fitting. It didn't help that he was clearly attached to an IV and clearly still in pain. They were probably trying to avoid too many narcotics. Natalya hadn't.

"Look who I found," Natalya said, remaining in the doorway, taking in the bandages. She didn't like that it looked familiar. She didn't like that she was in a hospital. She didn't like that the information was right. Her hands were shaking. She clenched them before beginning to toss a knife between them idly, keeping them moving. "and look at him now."

She hadn't expected to startle him so badly when she'd started talking, but then again, given her quiet footfalls and how sick he was, he might simply not be in the correct mental state to handle her appearance. Pity. While somewhat shy, he normally put on a decent enough front as an unflappable idiot, but she supposed he was too shaken up to put on that show now.

The phone he'd grabbed clattered to the ground, and, almost on instinct, she picked it up, flicking her finger across the screen. It wasn't unlocked. That was smart. She would have almost immediately, after all, gone through the contacts, the saved data, everything had it been, to keep for her own purposes. She still might manage it- he had dropped the phone, and it was in her hands now.

"Be careful with this," she scolded. "You never know when a person such as myself may come along and find something to do with it." She flipped it in her hand. It wouldn't take much to get Estonia to hack into it for her, most likely, if she couldn't just get Poland to open it for her later through the liberal use of threats. Then- well, she wasn't completely certain what she wanted off the phone, but the contacts alone, once again, would likely be worth whatever trouble she had to go through to get to them. After all, contact information for even some of the United Allegiance wasn't something she could just easily come by, most days.

Now, all Natalya had to do was get over the stone that had settled itself somewhere in her heart and stomach, looking at Poland's condition. It wasn't like she hadn't seen him ill before, after all. He'd been made sick, put in pain many times before. The defeated expression was the problem, though- Natalya distinctly remembered something about him being a "fucking phoenix, darling". She remembered tired eyes with cocky assurance buried beneath them, not... this. Her expression curled into something near disgust, but a touch unreadable all the same. Look at him now, indeed, cowering in a hospital bed. She wouldn't begrudge him for the illness. The rest, though- what he did with it- that was something else.

God, he was crying. She hadn't even done anything yet. His attempt at a smart response didn't work terribly well when he was crying. Perhaps it was illness. Perhaps it was the drugs. Natalya was just having an oddly difficult time accepting that no, it might just be Poland- if it was, he'd just gone and fallen father again, taken her low expectations and shattering them like he took offense to the idea that he couldn't possibly get lower. At least he didn't admit he was giving in. He'd learned that lesson. He was instead making small talk, and while part of her wanted to immediately attack him for responding so- so- so weak, the other part wanted to simply indulge him, see where his words would take him, give him a moment to redeem himself.

(She should know better than that by now, she scolded herself. She should know better.)

"Oh, I have been doing perfectly well myself," she said, a boldfaced lie that she did not feel remotely sorry for, and that did not even make her face twitch- if Poland could call that great, well then, she felt perfectly justified in describing herself the way she had. She paused, looking him over again. Mess. She should use that one- except no one should ever know, so she's never need to use it. (Another boldfaced lie, but one she told herself was a truth for the moment- it wouldn't do to start thinking about cold hospital beds and her siblings' horrified faces in a situation like this one.)

"Oh no, I can forgive the 'mess'," she responded next. "No need to apologize for that." (And of all the meaningless things to apologize for...) "I hope you will not begrudge and old friend for a surprise visit. I see nothing of you, these days, you know." She looked at him critically, her expression suggesting that this was hardly a loss at all.

He was still crying. This was ridiculous. He should not be crying. Natalya looked down on him. He should not be crying- that wasn't a thing he was supposed to do. The way he was crying was ridiculous and wrong and weak and he should not be doing it. She didn't say that out loud, though. Her expression just twisted further, because Fe- Poland was not meant to fall this far. He was not meant to look like this. He was not meant to sit before Natalya, sobbing like a child, speaking words into oblivion. He was supposed to get out a pistol and shoot her, or at the very least act defiant- he was normally quite good at that.

He winced as he turned away from her. She wasn't certain if it was to hide his tears, or to hide his disapproval. He sounded genuinely interested. That was probably a lie- Poland was also far too terribly good at not caring. It was a problem of his, and, she supposed, a strength. It was not a strength she liked. The point was: he should not be crying, and he should not sound so genuinely interested in her health, and something was horribly wrong about this entire picture and Natalya was waiting for the trick to come. She knew Poland was sick. She just thought that meant vulnerable, but still his infuriating self.

Not- did he just call her sister? Her throat went somewhat dry for many reasons at once. "...cousin may be more accurate in our case," she said, the sarcastic edge bleeding out her voice barely cracking over the words all at once, though she tried to hide it and pretended that the emotion in that had not been there in the first place. Family? They had- they weren't- but he'd just said so, and if it wasn't more than he'd said since... Shake it off. She was being ridiculous. Though cousin was, in fact, probably the best word to use. He wasn't her brother, not the way Ivan was. But he'd once been family, somewhat like Toris still was. There had to be a word for that. Natalya could not quite find it. Cousin didn't sound quite right, but it was closer than brother.

He was crying. Why was he still crying, the idiotic man? He was not supposed to act like this. She did not like it. She didn't like the murmured claims to family that at once sounded completely fake and partway genuine. She did not like the increasing feeling that she might be witnessing genuine emotions, not just something caused by whatever cocktail of drugs he was likely currently on to manage his symptoms. She did not like the increasing feeling of something rising in her chest. She hated him. She really did. How horrible, that he kept on crying, too, and that for a moment, she'd actually accepted his claim to family-

-and then he kept on speaking, and Natalya saw red.

"Stop being such a fucking idiot," she snapped, "that's not an option." Because if Poland had just said that he'd given up, Natalya was looking at the wrong person. This could not be Poland, except she could feel that it was, and it infuriated her. The worst part of it was- no. (The worst part of it was sitting in her bedroom, telling herself that if she could just make her family a bit more happy for once, they'd have no reason to realize she was gone, curled up, convinced that maybe everyone really would be- but she was afraid- but she had to- but they would be-)

"Call Toris right now," she snapped again, without meaning to, "because I want you to hear exactly why I will be furious if you up and die now, do you understand me?" She snarled, stalking to where Poland was and practically shoving the phone into his hands. "Next, tell me what the hell your doctors have you on, because you should not both be this emotionally compromised and wincing just by turning a little. They need to change medications or dosages, and either you've been deliberately withholding how you feel from them or they're incompetent." She began pacing. "After that, you will tell me when exactly Feliks Łukasiewicz became suicidal, because that is not okay!" She stopped back in front of his bed, glaring down.

"Well?" she snapped, fury flashing in her eyes.

Someone was going to pay for this.