"What ?" Amedeo said, his voice carrying a note of deception, shock and resigned disillusion at the same time.
"Sranje !"
"Langage." Said the Duce with a note of irritation, the gaze still focused on some paper he is writing or signing on his desk.
Is he even writing anything ? Or is it some power move he has in his bag, which he uses to clearly make sure people know who has the power in the room ?
Or maybe he is just purposefully annoying him. The fuck he knows about croatian anyway ?
"I can recognise a man who swears when i see one. Whatever barbarian langage he is using." Mussolini say with a small smile, while adding another paper to a pile so big it seems at one too powerful sneeze to crumble.
Amedeo can only look away for a few second to recompose his mask, slightly annoyed and fumbled by the reprimand, before looking back, a baffled but quite resigned look on his face.
"Are you serious? …Actually, no... Of course you are."
"Anyone in your position would likely be..."
"I know." Benito answer while dismantling his pen, piece by piece, in a flexible and easy but particularly too meticulous way, before storing all these parts in a small wooden box seemingly provided for this only purpose, before storing it in a drawer hidden from Amedeo's view and looking to him again with a face of false apology
"I could let you do that, specially between us. But the use of swear words without an obvious need of them, particularly irritates me."
"I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT AND YOU FUCKING KNOW IT !" The prince of Savoy scream, angered by the preposterous and irritating attitude of his fellow time traveler, suddenly getting up to accompany his words with a punch on the desk, knocking over his chair in the process.
At this time, the room felt suddenly colder, like if it had lost a various number of degrees, not caused by the freezing winter, we are in spring, not by the cold marble walls or the distant echo of footsteps, revealing the size of the grand Palazzo Venezia halls, but from the sudden tension in the air.
As the future Duke of Aosta calm himself, like slapped in the face to calmness by the look in the eyes of the man in front of him. Before putting his chair back in place, to sit down again and look his interlocutor in the eyes. As the minute passes on, in the gaze exchanged is shared a glim of a subtle and silent fight, all subtility being gone for a moment, the veneer of civility, of shared understanding, had given way to something more primal in the expression from both sides... ambition, ideology, fear, moral... and the will to fight for each of these.
Amedeo leaned forward slightly, both hands resting on the carved edge of the table, his gaze steady but searching. "Excuse me for this... incivility, but i think i deserve it."
Mussolini... no, Søren Dumitrescu... or whatever, rise from his desk, cracking is back before moving, now standing near the tall window, hands clasped behind his back, framed by the Roman sky like a statue of history revisited. "What I want," he said slowly, "is for Italy to survive. To thrive. To matter."
"And you think you need absolute power for that?" Amedeo's voice was measured, but his words pierced sharply.
Mussolini turned, his brows furrowed with both frustration and conviction. "Do you think this country, this fractured parody of what was here thousands of years ago which is barely holding itself together, can stomach democracy in the years to come ? Do you remember the instability? The strikes, the debt, the weakness of the liberal governments? We are in 1926, not 2026."
Amedeo exhaled sharply, sitting back in his chair, suddenly weary. "I remember. But replacing it with a dictatorship didn't work either. It led to a war we couldn't win, a people betrayed, and a leader hung by his feet."
The silence that followed was not empty. It was heavy with ghosts and regrets.
"I'm not him," Søren said at last. "I have the benefit of hindsight. I won't make the same mistakes."
Amedeo tilted his head. "Won't you? The road to hell is paved with people who thought they were different."
"That's rich coming from a man playing prince and warlord with prototype rifles," Søren snapped, the first crack in his composure. "You think giving soldiers better weapons will stop Italy from collapsing in on itself? You think elections will fix what's fundamentally broken here?"
"No," Amedeo admitted. "But the people have to have a voice. Italy's strength doesn't come from one man at the top pulling strings. It comes from unity, a true unity, not the kind you enforce with blackshirts and fear."
Søren turned away again, arms crossed now, his voice low. "You say that now. But wait until the communists start stirring in the factories. Until the monarchy stumbles. Until Austria starts mating with Germany, and France and britain looks down on us like the peasants with delusions of old empire we are. What then?"
"I stop them," Amedeo said simply.
"With what? A rifle and a constitution? I thought you knew a piece of paper isn't as good as a munition than a bullet."
"With a better Italy. One we buil... not conquer. One we lead, not rule."
Søren laughed, but it was cold, as there was not an ounce of joy in it. "You're naïve."
"And you're scared."
That stopped him. Søren's shoulders tightened.
"You're afraid that if you let go of control, it'll all fall apart. That if you give the people a choice, they'll reject you. But here's the thing: if they don't choose you, you were never meant to lead them."
Søren turned, eyes sharp, lips tight. "You think the people always make the right choice?"
"I think they deserve the chance to."
Another silence. This one, longer. Heavier.
Outside, a church bell rang, echoing down the avenues of a still-sleeping city. A reminder that time was passing, that choices must be made.
The echo resonate in the room, synchronised with the gesture of open arms made by Benito.
"Would we be in this situation if they had wisely used this privilege you want to give them back again ? You... maybe. Me ? Ha !"
Søren approached the desk again, resting his palms against the polished wood. "I don't ask you to put a black shirt, wave the fasces flag liek a mascot and follow me as i create a truly totalitarian state, no, but what i want you to do is follow my lead, which is compromise. I won't hand over the government to parties that couldn't even govern a dinner table, but I won't march into war like a madman or open camps like my future homologue in the north either."
Amedeo raised an eyebrow. "You mean you want to be a benevolent dictator ?"
"I mean," Søren said, voice tightening, "I want time. Time to build a foundation that isn't made of sand. Then we can talk about elections. About handing over power. But not now. Not when the wounds of the Great War are still fresh, and revolution is in the air. And the terrible events that we both know about are so close of us."
Amedeo studied him. "You want stability."
"I want Italy to live." Søren's voice cracked slightly, and it is too passionate, too real.
"And I want Italy to be free," Amedeo responded, gentler now. "And maybe we both want her to be something she never had the chance to become."
They stared at each other. Two ghosts in stolen skin, bearing the weight of a nation's destiny.
"And do you really think people will let you that ?" Mussolini respond with a rictus on his face
"Do you really think you or i can go on the balcony of this palazzo, scream to the people "fascism is not cool, let's be free" and everything would go well ? Do you really think the fascist who had the four last years to build their absolute power in this state will let us do that ?"
"i..."
Amedeo had only the time to articulate the first syllabe that the duce interrupt him, his fist on the table.
"No ! No ! No ! No ! And no !" His hand slapping in a thunderous synchronisation with each of the screamed 'No!'
"If we only expose even openly the idea of reforms, i don't give us a month before cars of blackshirts arrive at the palazzo, seize it, declare that i am clinically insane and throw me in a nice villa in Rhodes for the rest of my life while you are buried with honours after having slipped and broke your neck on a slab in your house or finish your poor days in a mental asylum if they aren't merciful."
"And then everything we will have tried to create would be throw apart, destroyed by our negligence and recklessness. Italy would follow again the same path that it did in our reality, while we languish about the chance we had, and that we wasted by our uncompromising vision and our foolishness."
Ante (Amedeo) has only the time to think about a counter argument, which he doesn't really find in any way, that Soren continue.
"And even if our ass doesn't get putsched at the first sight, do you think they will let that happen, that those who prospered under this regime, who have so easily destroyed the fragile and pathetic Italian constitutional monarchy, will not do exactly the same at the first occasion ? Especially when at this point nothing about this new Italian democracy would be exactly new, only a replica of what has fallen after years of corruption and instability, a rotten tree ready to be cut, even by bare hands."
"And i didn't even talked about the commies, the red menace that i know we both hate from the bottom of our heart, given our respective backgrounds... Do you think this side, radicalised by years of intense repression, knowing that the democratic regime isn't stable and will likely betray them again at the first difficulty and knowing that it can be so easily destroyed by the one who already killed it one time, will step aside and respect the democratic dream ? Or will they strike at first, ready to destroy the regime who betrayed them, and which is likely to fall again under the black eagle or the crown ?"
"No, so at best it is a fascist coup and nothing change. Or at worst, it is a brief democracy , followed by a civil war between fascist, socialo-bolsheviks, monarchist, and the remnant of liberalism. And i don't know if it is what you dream of, but a Spanish scenario isn't my goal for this Bel Paese that we rule now !
"And when this country is destroyed, a shadow to even the shit it is now, you will have realised at that point the obvious that i am trying to make enter in your head right now ! Italy can't have democracy ! Will not have democracy ! Must not have democracy ! And should not think democracy ! For now at least... and until the fifties, we can't officially and seriously take this idea seriously..."
Amedeo can only nod in agreement, convinced in spite of himself, while his new friend sit again behind his desk, seeming having recovered his calmness.
" For now we can soften some of the less... moral and inefficient aspect of the regime, but not put his existence into question."
"And even if we wanted that, which is a part of the goal... yes, isn't it opposed to what we also want ? Change this country and its destiny ? Its economy ? Poverty ? Lack of prestige ? Disgrace of an army ? Its lack of pride and unity ? And how the other countries will treat with it, not as the laughing stock it has always been when you aren't a small nation ? Change its status of "greatest power of the little ones" ?"
"Do you think when you will have handed this absolute power in your hands, which you can use to do so much for this country, you will be able to do what you want ? To make the changes you want ? To use your insight at his best ? To apply change for the future ? Especially if we return to the old Italian regime and its three month old governments ? With its prime ministers who don't even have the time to sit on their desk that they have to leave because the coalition has broken apart or there was a crisis... No, it would be impossible for you to make change."
"I say for you because let's be honest, in this new democracy i would not last long..."
Amedeo try to keep a serious face, but fail, an amused smile on his lips as he speak
"Yes. In this situation i guess your heel will turn."
This bad joke of him made the Duce chuckle softly.
"Yeah, at least i would have turned fascism on its head."
Amedeo answer with another laugh, dry by the weight he feels on his shoulders, but happy to not be alone in this situation. And also happy to not be the one people will blame and kill if things turn out bad, but just a little less. As Benito reach for something in his desk, before showing a decanter of wine on the table, then pouring two glasses, and slid one across the surface.
Chianti, eh ? Cliché... but nice...
"At least we ended in a place where food and art aren't missing. But i think after some years here, i could never taste again my homeland food. And the sun is also nice."
"For sure..." Amedeo say with a slight smile, he will miss his old country, but there is way worse than Italy.
They could have ended as Stalin and Beria.
He steps aside these thoughts in a little place in his head as he is taking the next... problematic subject.
"And what about... your future homologue?"
"Let's be honest." Soren begin after taking a sip of the red liquid, his gaze on the city.
"Our army, although less terrible than it is sometimes portrayed, is still dogshit. Our economy is not good either, never was, so we can't even put more money than the scrappy funds the army still receive, which is such low for a "great power". Our industry isn't big enough to supply a big or efficient army. And our military doctrine could be considered old and antiquated, in the last world war."
"We can't fight mustache man. And Japan is quite far away."
"So i want to apply the same strategy as i advcied for ruling our country... compromise."
The reflexion made Amedeo choke on his drink.
"So... you... want to... ally with Hitler ?" he asks between cough as he still choke on his wine, the red liquid pouring on his white costume, tainting it in a mix of red and white.
Such a waste for such a beautiful liquid.
"No..." The Duce answer with a rapid look on the now rose clothe. "I don't know about you... Mister "I like Pavelić", but.."
...
"I don't like Hitler."
He say with a serious gaze.
...
"A quite bold statement." Amedeo say before receiving a blank sheet from his interlocuteur.
"I know... It is such an honour to be the subject of your unequalled wit, but next time, think about cleaning yourself from your disastrous attempt at drinking before honouring me again."
"What i am saying is... we aren't ready for war. Not yet, if there is even a time where our country can equally face the militaristic and industry powerhouse that is Germany. We need to be careful about our position. Italy must remain strong, but not by aligning ourselves too closely with any one power, especially Hitler. The Nazis are dangerous, yes, but they're also unpredictable, our different attitude in this reality could bring a thousand different reaction of them, we know history, we know Adolf isn't a rational man, he is driven by ideology and emotion. The Germans could pull out so much different plans and diplomacy on us just because he feel like that."
"So... our best option is a carefull neutrality. If we throw ourselves into Hitler's arms, we risk being dragged into a conflict that will destroy us, and i don't even talk about the horrific idea to help germany win ww2."
"Look at Franco in Spain... he managed to keep his country out of the worst of it by staying neutral, even if at some point his alignment and preferred side wasn't even a question. We need to do the same. Strengthen Italy from within, secure our borders, build our military, and stay out of foreign entanglements. That's how we survive the storm that's coming."
Amedeo listened carefully, trying to absorb Mussolini's pragmatism. "So, you want to avoid war at all costs?"
"Not at all costs," Mussolini corrected. "But Italy isn't prepared for the kind of war that's coming. If we're going to fight, we need to be ready—not just militarily, but economically, socially, and politically. And that means not rushing into anything. Neutrality buys us time. It buys us the chance to build the strength we need to face what's coming."
Amedeo's expression softened slightly. He wasn't entirely in agreement, but he could understand the logic behind Mussolini's cautious approach. "So, you don't want war, but you don't want to antagonize Hitler either. You want to keep Italy strong without committing to any side."
"Precisely," Mussolini said, his voice firm. "Italy needs to survive. We can't afford to become just another pawn in someone else's game. We need to remain a powerful force on our own terms. And use our neutrality to grow stronger and grab everything we can have from this type of situation."
"Besides, staying neutral, with sparing our people from war, also give us the same bargaining hand that the Vatican had and used in our reality. We can convince the nazi to soften their stance on some... people and subject, or even ask them to handle them to us, in exchange for what we can offer, or what threat we could represent at some point."
"We can save people, a lot of them. And if by staying neutral, we prolonged Hitler's life by a year but managed to rescue even a hundred Jews from what horror they would have endured if we haven't done that, then it was the better choice."
"History will probably judge us. Asking why didn't we attacked Germany when we had the chance. But if my image, which is already the one of a totalitarian dictator, not the worst of the three but still, suffer in exchange for even only a thousand Lifes, so be it."
"I know what we want to do will require work like no one has ever done, but i think we can do it, or at least better than the last user of these bodies of ours. Just… let's not fuck this up like last time."
Amedeo looked down at the glass, then back at his colleague while picking it up.
"To the second chance, Soren" he muttered.
"Yeah, about that." Benito replied. "For integration purpose and not possibly create awkward or strange situation with other people, i am Benito, you are Amedeo, is it okay ?"
"Good for me." Amedeo accepted, wanting to erase their past isn't a bad idea.
"Perfetto... to Italy !"
"To Italy."
The glasses clinked, the sound crisp and oddly hopeful. Outside, the city waited.
And so did history.