I'm back, for the anniversary of the official dissolution of the great nation of Prussia. Not exactly a happy occasion, but well...

The wind blew swirls of snow over the now-familiar landscape. The heat of a tear rolled sluggishly halfway down his cheek before it froze. Gilbert gritted his teeth and tilted his head back to glower up at the slate gray sky as small white flecks floated down peacefully.

Twenty-eight years. He had spent twenty-eight long years in this godforsaken wasteland, living each day as Ivan's favorite plaything. A toy. A minion of Russia, that's what his once great country had become. Prussia was dead and gone, in its place the desolate land known as East Germany. A communist nation. Barely a nation.

He now spent his days locked in Ivan's dingy cellar. He actually had become rather accustomed to it, but whenever he could he escaped and fled here. He wasn't really sure why, but he felt as though he could feel his brother's presence when he leaned against the Wall. He liked to look at the graffiti plastered all over the grungy concrete, and sometimes he would add to it. Spray paint was surprisingly easy to steal when nobody paid you any mind.

But no matter what he did, at about noon the hulking figure of Ivan would appear before him with that eerily creepy smile, causing Gilbert's freezing body to go completely numb. The Russian would grab him roughly and jerk him up, pulling him back to his house so hard finger-shaped bruises were now a permanent feature of Gilbert's upper arm.

"You should have known better than to run away again." Ivan smiled, a brief warning before he was thrown bodily down the wooden stairs with the cellar door slamming shut and locking behind him. Gilbert caught himself halfway down, splinters in his palms. He slowly got to his feet after a few moments and stumbled the rest of the way down, blinking away the sting of tears in his eyes as his body throbbed in pain. There were countless tears in his once Prussian blue uniform from occurrences such as that. His fingers, ears, and toes were adopting a black tinge to replace the raw red of frostbite. His face was sunken and his ribs stuck out, pale skin graying as the effects of starvation set in.

Frankly, he wasn't even sure why he was still alive, when for all intents and purposes, he should be dead. Perhaps his status as a nation had shifted from Prussia to East Germany. He knew he still couldn't die by normal means. The first time he had escaped, he had tried climbing the Wall and was gunned down by a guard. When Ivan had found him, he scoffed at the sight of his long-time enemy stunned and bleeding in the snow.

"Š”ypak." Ivan chided. "You belong to me now. Do not try to escape."

Gilbert had learned a bit of Russian throughout his centuries of life and he knew that he he had just been insulted. What he couldn't comprehend at that time was how the Soviet nation knew where he was. But he really was a fool; if it wasn't obvious to every other nation in the world than he was even worse of a brother than he thought. Gilbert really loved his brother. And now he really missed him, and Ivan wasn't a dimwit. He must have guessed the connection to Ludwig that Gilbert felt at the Wall, as though he was right there with him.

The cellar was cold and lonely and Gilbert wasted away the days in which he couldn't escape sitting on the small cot he was given with his knees pulled up to his chest and his head down in his lap. He was used to the cold, but this... it was like Ivan went out of his way to make it absolutely freezing down here.

He lay on his cot now, staring vacantly up at the cobwebbed ceiling deep in thought. He had heard the talk. He knew that Ivan was growing weaker. The Soviet Union was close to its breaking point. And he also knew that when it finally, finally fell he would be free. He could go home. The Berlin Wall would be destroyed and he could see his brother and his friends again.

The day it snowed was the last day he escaped before it happened. He heard the cars pull up outside. He heard the door open and the loud, excited chattering of Feliks and the quiet, calm voices of others he did not recognize. Gilbert scrambled off his cot and dashed up the stairs to press his ear against the door and listen. Heavy footsteps clunked over the floor before the soft voice of Toris interrupted and they paused before stomping over to the cellar.

It swung open before Gilbert could move away and he fell forward, mouth agape and wide eyes staring up into the face of Feliks. He could read the dislike etched there and couldn't for the life of him fathom why he would do this for him, until Toris approached from behind him and his kind smile made everything obvious. He didn't by any means have a good past with these two but Toris was kind and forgiving, and would not leave him here.

The brunet reached down and grabbed his hand, pulling him up. Gilbert followed the three Baltic nations as they brushed past Ivan, who looked oddly crestfallen, and at long last left that house for the final time. Gilbert spared them a glance only to silently thank Toris before he was off, running, sprinting until the entire property was far behind him. When he reached the town he hitchhiked, using whatever means necessary to reach his destination.

Nations had a different sense of time than humans. Living as long as they do, hours can seem like minutes, weeks like days, and so forth. It's hard to keep track sometimes.

But Gilbert knew exactly how long it had been since he last saw his brother. The day was November 9th. The year, 1989. Twenty eight years, two months, and twenty-seven days since August 13th, 1961. And today the Berlin Wall was being opened. He waited at the edge of the crowd, fidgeting anxiously and bobbing up on his toes to peer over the heads of everyone in front of him, trying to see.

And then it was opened, it was official, they were free and the crowd was surging forward, pouring out into the western half. Families and friends reunited, crying happily on all sides of him but Gilbert only had eyes for one person. That tall blond in the green uniform with the icy blue eyes staring back at him. He ran forward, tears splashing down his cheeks in a salty torrent and he barreled straight into the arms of his little brother, choked sobs racking his chest.

"I missed you, bruder." He spoke for the first time in months and his voice was raspy but Ludwig smiled and just hugged him tighter.

"Me too." Ludwig whispered. The brothers reconciled in warm silence for several minutes before Ludwig turned and led him to where his car waited, engine still purring. Gilbert left with him, happy for the first time in nearly thirty years. They were going home.

But he would never know.

He would never know how, years later, Ivan would go down to his cellar, looking guiltily around at the filthy darkness and wondering just how Gilbert didn't lose his sanity sitting here for all those years.

He would never know how the loneliness he felt during those years was transferred to Ivan when he suddenly found his house empty and himself hated and feared.

He would never know how when the Berlin Wall was being demolished and Gilbert participated, that Ivan was on the other side watching.

And he would never know how every day in those twenty-eight years, Ludwig would travel to the Wall and lean against it, because he oddly felt as though he were closer to his brother here.

He lived with his beloved brother in blissful ignorance, and for that he was happy.

Damn. What was that? That was a lot shorter than when it was in my notebook... ah well. I like it, even if it was all over the place and probably historically inaccurate. And why do I always make Russia the bad guy? He's one of my favorite characters. I tried to redeem him in the end, but it didn't really. I have to wonder how my brain works sometimes...

By the way (shameless self-promotion woo) if anybody likes Blue Exorcist that's the next story I'm posting and it should be up either tonight or tomorrow ^^