September 1st 1946. The Opera House. Budapest, Hungary.

Elizaveta sat in her seat at the conference. She had all these mixed feelings in her gut. She knew this conference was going to end in a fight before it had even begun. She could just tell. She knew that this conference would consist of everyone in Europe, Asia and America arguing over recent events and everyone not involved would be stuck in the middle. It would be madness. No change there then. She sighed and watched as, one by one, each nation entered. Neither speaking to each other.

An hour later, Three fights had already erupted. Germany hadn't even arrived yet. Taiwan was standing up for Japan. America was yelling back.

"Dude! I told you! It was totally an accident! I was aiming for the Gobi Desert!" Was his argument.

Arthur was throttling Francis, as usual. They were fighting over who truly won the war. Ivan was, as usual, sitting watching the chaos unfold with plenty of other nations.

The whole room went silent as the doors opened. Gilbert Beilschmidt entered. He sat down in his seat. There were dark circles under his eyes. He looked almost dead. Antonio looked at him with concern.

"Are you ok, mi amigo?" The Spaniard asked.

"Ja! Ja! Roddy just kept me awake most of the night." The Prussian nation replied. This confused the Spaniard. Before he could even utter a '¿Qué?', Ludwig arrived pushing a very unhealthy looking Roderich Edelstein. Ludwig had the same kind of ghostly look in his eyes. All eyes were on them. Ludwig wheeled Roderich to the table and then took his seat by his older brother. All eyes were on the German before people were bombing him with questions and comments.

"Why did you do it?"

"They were innocent people!"

"Did you feel anything?!"

"Perhaps you should be dissolved."

"Enough!" All eyes were no longer on Ludwig, but on the smaller, handicapped Austrian. "Can we not discuss this kind of things? Please?!" His eyes were wide. Nobody really knew what kind of emotion he was showing, but it was a dark and unpleasant one. Then, he went into a massive coughing fit. Elizaveta continued to back up his point.

"He's right. I know it was a bad thing that happened. However, there are other issues that need to be solved. Besides, who hasn't had a bad boss?" She pointed at Arthur. "Remember your queen who burnt Protestants? What was her name? Mary?" The English nation didn't retaliate. She had a point. "And you!" She pointed to Alfred. "Care to explain your ripping people from their homes and selling of them for labour?" The American went bright red and fell silent.

The rest of the meeting went pretty without a hitch. Only a few minor disputes over stupid things, like food and ports. Surprisingly, no huge fights erupted. Nobody mentioned the 'Final Solution' at all. That would have to be discussed at a later date. Only four people remained in the meeting room. Gilbert was asleep in his seat. He was snoring louder than a whale. Ludwig was clearing up. Elizaveta was chatting to Roderich. Small talk. She tried asking about the wheelchair. He merely replied with that he'd rather they didn't speak of it. Or he'd change the subject to something like the weather. Ludwig then hit Gilbert on the head with a newspaper. The Prussian sat up.

"I wasn't asleep! I was just making you all believe that I was!" He grinned. His German brother looked at him.

"Of course you were. That's why you have left a puddle on the table." Ludwig proceeded to wipe the drool off of the table connected to the albino's face.

When Ludwig, Gilbert and Roderich arrived at their hotel, Ludwig had to rush out to get some milk and eggs. This left Gilbert alone with Roderich. It was really awkward. Roderich was sitting in silence, staring at the piano with desire, and Gilbert was prattling on the phone. Most likely to the Frenchman and the Spaniard. He did this for three hours at least, if not more. When the Prussian eventually got off of the phone, he sat in front of the aristocrat.

"Sup!" He beamed, contrasting Roderich's sour expression. The Austrian stared at him for a moment before averting his eyes.

"Come on! We have to talk about it. We don't have to necessarily talk about that but we have to talk about it at some point!" Gilbert said. "Fine. But you gotta talk to someone. Anyone. Even that homeless guy round the corner! He's usually too drunk to care!" The albino let out a heavy sigh. "Fine." He got up. "Keeping it in won't solve your problems! It just make makes you even more unawesome!" He got up. "Anyhows! I'm gonna go and get a drink with Toni and Francy!" He then proceeded to run out of the room. The phone began to ring. Roderich sat there for a moment and let it ring, before then deciding to answer and see who was calling.

"Hallo?" Roderich answered cautiously. He listened to the person on the other end. "Nein. I'm not ready to talk about it." He slammed the phone down, wincing slightly at his bruised hands. Why did people feel like it was necessary to question him? He would never understand. He wheeled himself up to the piano, lifted up the cover and gently pressed one of the keys. It gave of a soft, high pitched sound. He knew that he couldn't play like this. There was no use in trying. He sighed and wheeled himself away. He proceeded to distract himself with a book. Grimm's fairy tales. Childish, but it should work. He opened the book and let out a yelp as he dropped it to the ground. A shard of glass the size of a tablespoon had pierced his skin and splintered out in all kinds of directions. He shut his eyes and tried not to think about the horrifying sight of his hand. He slowly began to feel himself drifting away.