hetalia is hidekaz himaruya's I'm just borrowing

Standing on the river bank, looking for smooth and flat stones, I felt like the butt of a joke that had been building up since 1932.

They took my land. Tore me apart.

And today they took my last rhine province from me.

Ripped out my main artery.

'I can still feel my people here,' I noticed with a bitter sort of glee. 'They haven't forgotten who they once were.'

But I still had one ace up my sleeve: I knew how to stay alive, I have known since the Teutonic Knights ceased to exist.

Königsberg might have been my head at some point, but Berlin is my heart.

'As long as the city is pulsing, so will the blood in my veins,' I told myself.

After I gave up on skipping stones and moved on to throwing fistfulls of sand into the river, I felt Ludwig's presence.

'I'm glad it's him,' I thought. Seeing Arthur or Francis -'Gott, Francis, I'd thought we were friends!'- would break me.

"Bruder," he greeted me.

'What an innocent greeting that is,' some ugly part of my brain screamed, 'coming from the mouth of your murderer.'
I didn't turn around to face him, just kept looking at the river in front of me, a river that belonged to him now.
"Gilbert, I'm sorry this has happened."

Of course he was. He had just followed orders like I taught him to. Followed the orders of a madman.

"Ivan wants me to live with him." I finally turned to face my brother. "Nearly all that is left of me is in his occupation zone."

"Gilbert-" I could hear him choking on his words.

'I want to tell you that it's not your fault!', but I couldn't. The wounds were too fresh, the thought of living with the tall Russian too scary. I turned towards the river once more.

"I'm not going to die." I didn't know if it was him or myself I told that.

"Of course you're not!"

Must have been myself then.

"I still have Berlin." I felt his hand on my shoulder.

'Why is he already taller than me,' I thought bitterly, 'I'm so much older.'
"You still have Berlin." I could hear his nod even though I couldn't see it.

"I still have Berlin."

On the 25th of February 1947, Allied Control Council Enactment No. 26 formally dissolved the historic state of Prussia after more than four centuries of existence.