"What's this one?" Canada asks, turning Prussia's hand over in his. On the top of his left ring finger, a scar gleams white.

They've been going through each other's scars over the past few weeks, tracing the history of the lines crisscrossing their bodies. Some of the stories are funny or glorious or heart-stoppingly exhilarating. Others… Prussia's fingers had barely brushed across the faded smallpox lesions when Canada let out a low noise. He glanced up to see his lover's face shadowed with ancient, unfathomable grief, and ducked his head in silent apology for the massacre brought by European ships.

Prussia chuckles, tilting his hand to watch the light on the scar tissue. "I didn't want to stop for a shovel."

"What?"

"1989," Prussia reminds him. "November. The ninth."

"Wh-oh."

"Mmhmm. Cold War concrete's not too kind on the fingers."

"But you got through it?"

"Naw, someone gave me a shovel eventually. You shoulda seen Ludwig, though. Broke through and there he was clawing at the other side. Fell onto me and started sobbing like a baby."

"Right, and I'm sure your eyes were dry as a bone."

"Course, course. Berlin was beautiful that night, Matt. Felt like every light in the city was shining, just for me."

A comfortable silence settles around Canada's bed - their bed. Late-afternoon sun stretches in long rays through the window, casting a golden glow across Prussia's pale skin and playing over the red highlights in Canada's hair.

"Hey, Matt?"

"Mm?"

"Promise me something."

Canada props himself up on one elbow, watches his lover. "Anything, Gil."

Prussia swallows.

"Will you - I mean. I know we haven't known each other very long, relatively speaking, but - you know the picture of us that's up in the den, from that one time we went camping - the one where you're smiling real big?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you remember me by that one?"

The question hangs in the air until Prussia starts rambling. "See, you're - you're the only one I've ever - Matt, I didn't think I'd live to November tenth, I'm on borrowed time-"

"You're far too stubborn to die," Canada says, not sure which one of them he's reassuring.

"Just...remember me as Gilbert, okay? Not Prussia. Gilbert."

"I will, Gil. I will."

Prussia laughs his hissing laugh, and the mood is broken. "I'm a real old man, eh?"

"I'm only a few decades younger than you are," Canada reminds him, wrapping the smaller man in his arms.

"Yeah, yeah, you're just a kid and you know it. Where were you on November 9th, 1989?" Prussia asks Canada's chest.

Canada smiles against white hair. "Watching you get slam-dunk drunk on the television like the rest of the world."

"The end of a decade," Prussia says, reminiscing, "but the start of an age."

Canada bumps his chin against Prussia's head. "Are you quoting Taylor Swift at me, eh?"

Prussia grins wolfishly at him. "Always, Birdie."

He could've been sleeping, if Gilbert weren't the kind of sleeper who muttered and fidgeted constantly and kept Matthew up at night.

Matt is standing at the window, watching the morning sun pull itself over the horizon.

"You're such a fuck," he says without turning around.

Gilbert keeps - kept - a notepad on his nightstand, for strokes of inspiration at two in the morning, and as Matt finally stirs, planning to go call Ludwig and Elizabeta and Roderich and Francis and Antonio and anyone else he can think of, the scrawl catches his eye - a single sentence in Gilbert's unmistakable hand.

I had the time of my life with you.

Matt calls Ludwig and Elizabeta and Roderich and Francis and Antonio, and together, they remember.