A/N: I knew there was a reason I watched HGTV! You see, it pays off to expand your horizons and watch TV channels you normally wouldn't! I say this because Hgtv, and more specifically, House Hunters International, was the place where I came up with the idea of this. I watched the very beginning, heard what was happening and instantly a flood of ideas came to mind! And from that, this was born! I am quite thrilled that the idea came to me as a Fruk, too! So please read and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, or any of the characters used in this story!

Title: A Taste of London

Chapter 1

Francis knew he shouldn't have gone home that night. Maybe he should've been tipped off to that fact by the seven missed calls he found on his phone after a rather eventful 'visit' with one of his many women friends. Or maybe he should've known from the sheer fact that… well… this scene repeated itself once a week. At least.

As he stepped just past the threshold of his Parisian apartment, Francis instantly found himself dodging a plate hurled at him from across the room. Francis cringed at the sound of his precious plate smashing against the wall. Yes, he told himself, if he had just stayed out for the rest of the night maybe then what was left of his precious dinner plates might be spared.

But it was already too late to rethink his decision.

The enemy had spotted him, and had their scope was locked on him. The first metaphorical shot had been fired in the form of his innocent dinnerware. The battle was on, and he knew he was going to lose. Just like every other night…

"Salaud!" Came the shout from Francis's enemy; a blonde haired green-eyed young girl the Frenchman knew as his girlfriend, though was properly referred to as Renée. "How could you do this to me!" She yelled quickly in French. Her words were always so heavily accented to Francis's ears and could only think of how this woman had come to Paris from the country in the south of France. He'd at one time told her the sound of it was cute –just another tactic in his long list of ways to win a girl into his bed for the night. But all things considered, he really hated every syllable of it.

He sighed. He was tired from his previous escapades and all he wanted to do was sit down for a nice glass of fine red wine and then retire to bed for the remainder of the night. But it was obvious that ideal was simply not going to happen. He didn't feel like trying to appease his girlfriend either, though. What was a poor Frenchman with too many woman and not enough lies to go around supposed to do?

Well… evaluate the situation first, of course. "What do you mean, mon amour?" He asked, trying to put on that romantic tone he used to seduce women into whatever he wanted. However, even he could hear how half-spirited it was. "What exactly have I done to wrong you?"

It was obvious that sweet words were not going to extinguish this fire tonight. Renée was too far drowned in her own anger to fall for his attempts to quiet her. Instead, she hurled another plate in his direction. "You are disgusting! You pig!" She shouted. "Your little whores called here looking for you! All six of them! You've been cheating on me again, Francis! You told me that this time you were going to remain faithful to me!"

"It was only one time, mon amour." He told her, letting his eyes close for a mere moment from sheer fatigue, before then remembering the danger he was still in at being hit with his precious porcelain.

"One time? Francis six women called! If you only cheated one time, that means you cheated on me with six other women! You are completely disgusting, Francis! Can you not think of anything other than yourself and how you're going to get sex the next time for one day?"

This just wasn't worth it, Francis thought to himself as he watched the woman continue to rant at him in the form of screams. Her words didn't even make it to his ears. He was too busy telling himself that this was just one more uphill battle for an end goal he wasn't even sure he wanted. What did it matter if he pleased this woman? She was living in his home, wearing clothes he had bought for her. And hurling his dishes at him; the same ones she had eaten off of!

This just wasn't worth it. This needed to come to an end. But what was he to do, throw the poor girl out onto the streets because he had failed to keep his promise to her? Francis might've been a dog, just as she was telling him, but he was no so low as to do that to an innocent woman.

That left one option, and he was more than willing to take it.

Straightening himself up, he looked straight at Renée, into those green orbs that were so filled with anger towards him. "You are completely right," This made her pause and backtrack a moment in surprise; he took this opportunity of quiet to continue, "I have wrong you, because of that, I cannot look at you anymore, I am too consumed in guilt. Please… allow me to leave. To go away for a while to punish myself for what I have done."

Renée remained silent, her piercing gaze burning straight through him in an attempt to find any scrap of truth that may lie in his lies. Finally, Francis watched as she relaxed –her entire body seemed to come down from the rigid level it had just been at. That was a good sign in itself. "Fine." She told him. "Get your stuff and go! And do not you come back here until I tell you you're allowed!"

Francis smiled, brushing back a strand of blonde hair and dismissing the thought that this was his home, and if he wanted to come back, he would do so at any time. There was no use dwelling on that fact, he told himself considering that Renée was giving him exactly what he wanted –the opportunity to leave and be as far away from the French woman as possible.

He nodded, "Please be swift in bringing me back to you, mon amore." He couldn't help letting a bit of that romantic in him show through. It was written into every fiber of him to try and win over whatever woman was around him, and Renée was no exception to this.

She glared at him as he stepped further into the apartment, heading of course to his room to grab a bag and fill it with the necessary items he would need for his travels. "Just get out you pig!" She yelled back at him.

'Gladly, my dear.' Francis thought to himself with a light smile of happiness on his face as he entered into his room and closed the door behind him –effectively separating him from the angry woman on the other side.

'Well,' He added, going to the closet to grab an empty bag, 'this night seems to have gone a lot better than I thought it would.'

"Where are you going, buddy?" The French taxi driver asked, looking back as Francis climbed into the stopped taxi. He was glad once again -as he usually found himself- that he lived in the grand city of Paris, where the taxi service ran twenty-four hours a day every day, when the subway service stopped running at midnight.

It was early in the morning now, just a little past four, and all Francis wanted to do was sleep after a long, eventful night. He exhaled, resting his head back on the seat. "It doesn't matter." He said, "Please just drive."

The taxi didn't move, "I need a destination, sir, or I can't take you anywhere at all." The driver explained with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

"Fine, fine, oui, alright." Francis ran a hand through his hair. "Take me out of the city. To a hotel somewhere in the country; somewhere with pleasant views and perhaps kind of spread out so the place is very quiet. Somewhere opposite of Paris." It wasn't a very detailed explanation of where he wanted to go, but it was his ideal; somewhere quiet and peaceful where he might be able to rest for a night or two.

The taxi driver nodded and turned forward, looking out the windshield as he pulled the vehicle out into the light traffic, "Yes sir, I have an idea of what you want now." And with that everything went quiet in the car except the sound of the engine, and the faint sound of the radio in the front playing some old French tunes.

Francis took a deep breath, as blue eyes watching the city pass by him. He was free, that much he knew. Free to get away from the drama that Paris held for him here; from all the women he slept with, and manipulated into falling in love with him. For just a couple days, he'd be able to start all over with a clean slate.

The thought was pleasant, and soon he found himself letting his eyes close, succumbing to the enticing pulls that sleep was having over him.

"Sir? … Sir?" Came a voice through the darkness. Who could it be? Wasn't he alone in his bed? So who could be in his home? "Sir!" The feeling of someone shaking his shoulder brought him to open his eyes, seeing the taxi driver from the previous night shaking him. In an instant, all the memories from the previous night came swirling back to the forefront of his mind.

"Sir, I think I found exactly the type of place you were looking for." The driver said, his pudgy face pulling up into a satisfied grin.

"Oh?" Francis asked, holding back a yawn as he opened the taxi door and stepped outside into the cool morning air. It had to be about six or seven in the morning, as the sun had just come up and a good part of the sky was still a dark blue shade.

The taxi was parked in front of a large, three story white brick home. There was lush green vines that were growing up one of the sides, and were just starting to grow flowers on them, giving the home a nice aged look to it. On all the windows there were blue shutters framing the paned glass, and flower boxes with beautiful pink plants growing out, under each window giving the outside of the house a nice contrasting color against the white. The home sat up on a hill, which France could see overlooked a large grape vineyard.

Francis exhaled with a sigh. Yes, this was exactly what he had been looking for. He turned back to the taxi and reached in, grabbing his bag. "Merci, sir." He said, grabbing his wallet and handing him some money. "This is perfect."

The driver nodded, reaching into his own pocket and taking out a white card. "Here you go, sir, this is my card. Just call when you want me to come get you! I doubt any of the other drivers would know where this place is."

Francis nodded, looking over the simple card with the driver's name, the company name and a couple phone numbers on it. "I will do that. Thank you again."

The driver nodded, "Have a nice stay!" He called before turning on his taxi again and pulling out of the gravel driveway. And with that, this was it… he was alone, and had his clean slate to now dictate exactly what was going to happen. He breathed in a quick breath, the cool, clean air feeling good in his lungs.

He walked up the rest of the way to the front entrance of the hotel, giving one more good look to the front façade of the building. Beside the rounded wooden door, there was an old-fashioned wood block hanging down from a chain on a wrought iron chain. 'A Taste of London,' it read.

'A British hotel in the countryside of France? Well… this should be interesting.' Francis thought to himself as he took the metal handle of the door and opened it, entering into what already felt like something completely different from what he was so used to.

A/N: Well… there's the first chapter, let me know what you thought of it, please! There will be more chapters to come, but I'm not sure how many. I'm aiming for ten in the very least, but we'll see. As you can probably tell, this is going to be a very lighthearted story, for the most part. Well… not sure what else to say. I hope you'll keep reading, and leave a review to let me know what you thought of it! Thanks for reading.

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-Forbiddensoul562