German expulsions, repairs, treaties, debt, promises, territorial changes. It was all overflowing my desk. Stacks and stacks of endless papers, letters of blame, mercy, hate--

I shouted and flipped over my desk in rage.

My brother was dead.

Breathing heavily, I stared at the mess on the floor. Going into a fit of rage wasn't ideally mature, but it was all I could do now. After all, Gilbert would just walk in any moment now, joke about the mess and--

I'm not a child anymore. And he's not here. I shut my eyes and pinched my nose. Gilbert was basically the only crutch that I had growing up. Recently, he had been extremely irritating and bothersome. I knew that it was all in his idea of good intention, but still.

I had hated it when he put his arm around me in front of other nations, calling me his little brother, making me feel belittled and weak. I had pushed his arm away then. Everyone had. After all, he seemed to be alright on his own. His enthusiasm alone was enough to be his only friend.

So why do I feel so guilty for... not being there? Not thanking him...?

For what? He never even told me who I was before.... before I don't know what. He wouldn't ever explain why I had this emptiness in me. In the back of my mind was a great blank. I would remember small things, try to connect them with the past. I would ask Gil, and it promised nothing but excuses or a change of topic. He was the only one who might have known of my past!

All he taught me to do was kill! Befriend nobody, and excell. To be just like him... Doesn't he understand how lonely that made me?

Is this how he felt?

I looked down at the mess before me. Sighing, I picked up the desk and gathered the papers. If it's one thing I knew about him, is that under all that crowing and egotistical boasting was a caring human.

Maybe my past was too delicate. He was just protecting me from something that I had been lucky enough to forget. He didn't have to but he did. Had it been anyone else, he might have used it against them. Instead he took me under his tutelage and had the decency to be kind.

He could have just left me alone to get up unsteadily off my feet and could have been my enemy. Instead, Gilbert called me his little brother. On the inside I had been proud. Outwardly I had acted unattached, like everyone else. Just to be accepted by the other nations. To have something in common with them.

Now he had died alone.

That was not the thanks he deserved. He deserved much more as my brother. The one who helped me when I was most vulnerable. Those Allied Force idiots made sure that I had a boatload of problems on top of being defeated, and I accepted them with no complaint. But my brother… gone and split up, forgotten. This was not how he was supposed to end.

Realizing I was standing in the middle of the room staring into nothing, I sat down at my desk, which was cracked at the corner now. Organizing papers, I stacked them as Complaints, Debts, and Territory. One title caught my eye.

Kingdom of Prussia- Division Settlements

Right. How has he been split up? Part of me hurt to see how shamelessly he had been broken, and part of me was dying to see where he ended up. It was that side that won.

Parts of East Prussia will be under Polish Administration.

Figures. Feliks had lost a lot during the war. Gilbert had picked on him a lot throughout history as well.

The Northern part of Prussia will be given to the Russian Federation.

Russia always had to have a hand in everything.

The territories west of the new border of Germany compromise of parts of Silesia, West Prussia, East Prussia—

…What? I carefully read over the last line. Shocked, I looked up. I looked up and smiled.

I'm receiving part of my brother's legacy.

Wasn't I supposed to lose land? How did I end up with—my brother? Am I being toyed with? My brother…

I held the paper close to my chest and shut my eyes. It's best not to question it. They truly can be idiots, and for that I'm thankful.

He won't be gone after all. I'll take good care of you. It's my turn now, after all.

I sat down and looked at the rest of the papers with a new attitude. Back to business.