One-shot time~! It's like Adventure Time, but with one-shots.

Enjoy~!

"Coming!" Elizabeta yelled as she rushed down the stairs, hastily tucking fly-away strands of hair back under her bandana. She wasn't expecting company today, it was cleaning day, and she was fairly certain that Austria wasn't expecting any either. Still the doorbell had been rung, interrupting her in the middle of cleaning the upstairs floor of their house.

'I wonder who it could be? Maybe Italy with more stories about Germany.' Elizabeta smiled to herself. She loved it when the little Italian nation came to see her. He was always so happy and willing to talk all about his relationship with the much more reserved German, who hardly breathed a word. She giggled, 'They really are cute together.'

But besides her and Austria's old charge, it could be anyone that had come knocking today. Lots of people came to her looking for romance advice, that was usually after they had visited France and either been personally violated or creeped out by his suggestions, or sometimes they would drop by just to have a chat with her.

'It could be Prussia, I haven't seen him in ages.' She went down the last step, and hurried over to the door.

'Or Seychelles, or Taiwan, or Japan.' Whoever was at the door kept ringing the bell like there was no tomorrow, "Coming! Calm down!"

Elizabeta flung the door open with a huge smile on her face to greet her guest, "Hello! It's so nice to…" She trailed off into silence, and stared in shock at who was standing on the doorstep, "Oh, it's you."

"Nice to see ya too." Turkey snapped back, glaring at her while he shifted the large cardboard box around in his arms. Elizabeta wiped the surprised look off her face and glared back at him, "Vhat do you vant?"

"Oh, I was just gonna ask to borrow some sugar and then maybe-. What does it look like I'm doin!" He yelled, thrusting the box at her, "Yer crap was in my basement."

"I don't recall ever even going to your house." She said, crossing her arms and refusing to take the box, greatly ticking off the Turkish nation, "Well duh, that'd be creepy, but I meant Topkapı."

Elizabeta cocked her head to the side, that name didn't sound familiar at all, and in response to the unasked question, Turkey sighed, "The Yeni Sarayı."

"Ooooooh." Now she remembered. The place he was mentioning was the Ottoman's old palace in Istanbul, or Constantinople as it was known back then. It actually had been where she had lived for a while as a child, but that had been such a long time ago. Elizabeta had nearly forgotten about it, and about how her people had lost to Turkey's, or rather his mother's armies.

Still, it had been quite some time since she'd actually lived, she was sure the palace had been converted into a museum by now. "I didn't know you still lived there." Elizabeta asked, leaning on the door's frame.

"Are ya kiddin me? We got kicked outta long time ago by the monkeys in suites." Turkey said with a great amount of malice, he was glaring at a bush now instead of Elizabeta, this not being her fault, "I just got stuck with cleanin out ma's old shit again and found some of yer stuff. Woman was a pack rat I tell ya."

He then tried to give her the box for a second time, "All a dis was in the basement in a couple of ya trunks, an I figured I should return it." This time Elizabeta took it, the sudden weight making her stagger back a little bit, "Vhat about the trunks? Vhere are they?"

"Still down there I guess."

"I vant them back."

Now it was Turkey's turn to look shocked, "What?"

Elizabeta set the box down behind her and kicked it further into the house, "You heard me. I vant you to return vhat is rightfully mine."

"They weigh a friggin ton! Not to mention they are down three flights of stairs!" He yelled, completely flabbergasted that she'd even suggest that, but Elizabeta didn't care, she just shrugged, "So? Get Egypt and Greece to help, er, not Greece you two fight vay too much to actually get anything done."

"B-but, what, come on…" Turkey stammered, before running a hand through his hair, knowing he would be shot down with logic if he even tried to argue back. He took a deep breath, his eyes flicking up to the woman in front of him, before letting it out in one huge tired sigh, "You're so annoyin'."

She gave him her brightest smile, "Thank you~! Now get off my porch before I beat you off." Turkey's eyes went wide behind his mask and he took a few steps back grumbling, "Alright! Geez, this is the friggin thanks I get?" He then turned to walk back down the gravel path, muttering under his breath, "Tch. Stupid crazy woman."

"I heard that!" Elizabeta called to his retreating figure and in response he yelled, "Who said I cared!"

She made sure he got off Austria's property before slamming the door shut. "That annoying little prick! Vhy is he alvays like this! He has been for centuries, you'd think he'd grow up some." She muttered, rubbing her pounding temples now that Turkey was gone. Why was he such a headache inducing nation? He was always too loud and arrogant. Always getting into other people's business, speaking of which…

The box had scooted across the floor when Elizabeta had kicked it, and it now rested up against the stairs. She walked over and took a seat on the worn wooden step before pulling the box closer to her. She pulled the flaps on the top open and started going through its contents.

There wasn't really much in there. A majority of her most prized possessions had stayed behind in her home country while she had been placed under the care of the Ottoman Empire, and the scarce number that went with her were promptly returned as soon as she was freed. The few things the box did contain held no real interest or significance for her. A few books, some old Ottoman gold coins, a flute, several faded dresses, broken arrows, and…

Elizabeta paused in her digging, and just sat there, staring at the object that was at the bottom of the box. Carefully, she reached in and picked up the old, dried out tulip. It was amazing that it survived for this long, especially considering that it had been at the bottom of a box packed by Turkey. She didn't know why it was in here, it wasn't her's. She didn't even know anyone who liked them, well minus Ottie who had loved tulips so much that she went to war with the Netherlands over them.

Resting the flower in her palm, Elizabeta looked it over, still not finding anything special about it. It was old, crumpled, and withered, and didn't ring any bells. So she set it down on the steps next to her, and looked back into the box.

Not much was left, save for a scrap of yellowed paper on the very bottom. "It must have been under the tulip." She murmured, reaching in to get it, and when she had it in her hands and had flipped it over, she saw the writing scrawled on the back.

It would have looked like Arabic to anyone else, but Elizabeta could tell the difference. It was in a very old form of Turkish, the type used when she had been under the empire's control, and a language she had begrudgingly learned.

'ىم سورري.'

That's all the paper read.

It took Elizabeta's brain a few moments to figure it out, but once she had, she was more confused than ever. Looking back at the slip, and the words printed there, something about the angle they were written at, and with just the right amount of messiness that was still readable, but implied that it had been done by someone of a younger age did seem familiar.

Her eyes went wide and she slapped a hand over her gaping mouth, realizing who the writer had been. Now it all made sense. And she did remember that day, it had been a bad one. It was back when she was younger, during the height of the Ottoman's control over her lands.

She had been feeling lonely and home sick, so it had been no surprise when she had snapped at Ottie, and then run outside into the palace's spacious gardens.

She stayed there for hours, just hiding and feeling sorry for herself, when low and behold, who should show up? It was none other than that wretched woman's heir, the one with the dark eyes and wild demeanor.

They usually never got along, and Elizabeta had no desire to see him when she was like this. She had yelled at him, told him to go away, but he had ignored her and walked up to the bench she was sitting on. He placed something on it before taking off.

After he was gone, Elizabeta's curiosity won over and she peeked out of the corner of her eyes. Sitting next to her was a brilliantly red flower, a small tag tied around its stem.

It was a tulip.

It was this tulip. The one that had been in the box.

It was the same one that Turkey had gifted to her all those years ago, and it was ironically sitting next to her again. Elizabeta whipped around to her side to look at the flower, but it wasn't there anymore.

Time had finally caught up with it, and while she had been pondering the message on the tag, it had crumbled to dust. So with a heavy sigh, she brushed the powdered tulip into her palm and went to go dump it in the trash along with the note. As she scraped both in, the note did several backflips in the air, flashing her the same message every time it did.

'I'm sorry.'

Review if you want. I don't mind as long as you enjoyed.

And yes, in my world the Ottoman empire was a sepearte entity from Turkey.

~Anna

P.S. And if any of you are familiar with Homstuck, go to the bandcamp website and look up Questant's Lament from volume eight.