Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Hetalia characters nor Hetalia itself.

Note: Trigger warning this is based in WWII so there is Soviet and Nazi references.

Another note: I am getting help on this so I can still work on my other story. So uploads may be faster, I hope.

Chapter 3

"Keep the wrapping on till I shower, then let it air out and wrap it again," he repeated dutifully.

"Lay on my side to let it drain sometimes, to prevent infection. Okay, I can do that." He shivered slightly and reached up to grab the blanket, pulling it around his shoulders securely. It helped a little.

"Are you staying in here too? Or just waiting until they come back for you?" Gilbert commented, looking at the Austrian. Who then shrugged and looked at the door.

"I guess I just wait. To be honest I'd rather be out there where I'm at least in the sun than in here where it's dreadfully cold." He rubbed his arms in an attempt to warm himself up.

Gilbert smiled lopsidedly at the Austrians words, although there was nothing particularly amusing about it. The cell was cold, although he'd been shivering in the back of the truck while he was brought here, too. Apparently, it was daytime now, and that was good to know, at least some general idea of the time of day to orient himself around. He still had very little sense of how long the truck ride had been, or how long he'd slept. The disorientation was unpleasant, to say the least.

"I guess they don't like me enough to give me a warmer room," he remarked. "Even if they want me to have medical treatment. They don't want me to get soft or something."

The thought shouldn't have entertained him, but there was precious little to find humor in at the moment, and if he tried to think of it as funny, then it was a little less unnerving that he knew absolutely nothing of what the future might hold.

"These Soviets have a tendency to not convey a lot of information about what they want. I don't know if I'm stuck in here or not." Roderick sighed once again. "I suppose we could pass the time with a little small talk," he suggested. "Perhaps that will lighten up the morale. I meant to mention to you, but your name sounds quite familiar. Your hair doesn't happen to be almost white, does it?"

He couldn't really tell from the tattered condition Gilbert was in and the dark room. The tint of the light was rather orange so he could easily mistake Gilbert hair for blond as well. Roderick asked this particular question because he remembered some of the travels he and his father took when he was an apprentice under him and would travel to Germany to perform the arts of music. He remembered staying in a house with a boy with white hair that he didn't really like all too much. This is where Gilbert's name rung a bell and he had to confirm if he just so happen to be locked in a cell with someone he had met before.

The question made Gilbert lift his head up, though, a bit startled.

"My name's familiar? Yeah, it's... it's still almost white." He reached up to run a hand through his hair, dirty now and matted in places; it would be a relief to take a shower and wash it properly. It had darkened a little as he'd gotten older, but it was still a fairly light blond; it had been nearly white, and rather odd-looking when he was a child, and he was aware it was still rather striking-looking. "Have we met before?"

Roderick chuckled at Gilbert question of if they had met before. When Roderick introduced himself he did only say his first name and not his last name.

"My father was a musician like me and when I was young we would stay at your estate when he would travel to play at clubs and concerts. Edelstein. That is my family name. If it rings a bell, it should. If it doesn't, I wouldn't expect anything less." Roderick chucked. "I remember you were a very energetic young boy that couldn't stay in one place. I didn't really like you much, especially when you would try to convince me to play war." Roderick's expression turned from happily reminiscing to a softer, forlorn distant look. "Didn't think that we would ever actually be in one."

It took Gilbert a moment, but when the realization finally sank in, his eyes widened a bit. Roderick. He did remember that name, and "Roderick Edelstein" was definitely familiar. He'd never particularly liked the other boy either; he'd always seemed fussy and excessively prissy, in Gilbert's opinion, and he'd never wanted to play war. Even then, Gilbert had been excited at the thought of being a soldier, ready to sign up the moment he was old enough, and the war had felt almost like a gift, at first. That hadn't lasted, and at the moment, it was hard to look back on his own naïve attitude with anything but shame.

"I didn't like you either. You never wanted to play with me and you were always worried about getting dirty. I... I don't think I recognized you out of context, it feels wrong seeing you as part of a war after all."

Roderick chuckled and managed to smile fondly at Gilbert.

"I didn't really want to be in one either. I was drafted, and unlike playing with you, I couldn't say no. I still don't like to get dirty, but here I've succumbed to far worse things. I spend every day, dreaming that one day I'll have a proper bath, dressed in my comfortable clothing, and sitting at my piano playing the ivories. At first, being in service felt like a dream. Like every day I'd wake up in my home and go about my life, but the longer I'm here the more my old life seems to fade into the memory. But you. You'd always dreamt about going into service, ranking you pins, fighting against the enemy. I wonder, is it anything you'd think it would be?" He asked with genuine curiosity.

Gilbert remained quiet for a moment, simply listening. That was one thing it had taken a very long time to learn, no matter how many times he'd been scolded by his parents for talking too much and interrupting.

"I hope you get that again," he offered quietly, his own voice rather sober. There was a lot he'd grown to miss too, but, like Roderick, so much of life before the war felt like a distant and ill-recalled memory, as if there had never truly been anything, but the war.

"It was what I always wanted, yeah...I signed up as soon as I was old enough. It was the same as I was hoping for...for a little while, I guess. While we were winning." He managed a small smile at that, without any real happiness behind it.

"Not after a while, though. Getting shot hurt a lot more than I thought it would, and losing...That hurt more than I could ever have imagined it would. And I hadn't really considered, growing up, that we might not win whatever war we were fighting, and that a lot of our soldiers and civilians would die along the way."

"I know this sounds wrong, but before I got here, I didn't care who won the war, as long as it was over. Then I came here and I started to think: what went wrong? We were winning so well and then everything fell apart. Losing the war is much worse than I had anticipated and if I knew it was going to be like this, maybe I would have contributed more. I didn't know anything about fighting. I was trained with a weapon, sure. I've seen people die in front of me, but I've never killed anyone. And being here, I can't help but wonder if it was because I couldn't kill that I'm here or even the reason we are losing...lost the war. In Vienna...I gave up so easily. I didn't even try."

Roderick started to sink in the depressing thoughts that can't along with the insane amount of regret he felt, but soon tried to move from that, and looked up at the wounded man again. Gilbert bit his lower lip. It was an attitude he knew many of the other soldiers had shared, the ones who were drafted at least - the ones who had never been idealists and just wanted to go home to their wives and families. It had irritated him then; now, perhaps, it was more understandable or would have been if the war had ended in a less ugly fashion.

"Lots of people went in not wanting to kill anyone," he muttered. "Lots of them didn't. It isn't like one medic could have changed the tide of the war."

"I may not have liked it then, but I'm sure your stubbornness and enthusiasm to always have been the strongest and a major asset to this war. I have no doubt you've saved a lot of lives. I-I wonder. How far did you rank?" Roderick asked, trying to talk about more positive things.

The compliment made Gilbert smile a little, more genuinely this time - it was something he sincerely hoped was true, that he'd made a serious contribution to the war effort and saved at least a few German lives that weren't lost later. Still, he didn't want to talk about the end of the war much, didn't want to talk about the way it had been going, at the end - how they'd been so desperate for soldiers that they'd recruited civilians, the old men, the boys, and the women who'd been ineligible for the draft before. He didn't want to think about the civilians he had been fighting with by the end, about what might have happened to them after he'd been handcuffed and bundled into the back of a truck.

"I was a Hauptsturmführer by the end - a captain," he responded, still with a note of pride in his voice at the words. "It was a pretty good rank, too, for someone of my age."

Rodrick nodded with a slight smile.

"That is impressive for your age. However, just because you are captured in here doesn't make you any less of a captain. You are among some of your own kind. They will respect you for your rank."

Years ago, Rodrick would have never thought he would ever say anything nice to Gilbert. But being here, especially in this cold, dark room, what else could he say. He had already pointed out the things to worry about, the least he could do is balance it out with a little good. It was something of a comfort for Gilbert to hear that he'd get to interact with his own people again to some extent. That he wouldn't merely be left locked alone in a chilly windowless cell until he started to go crazy. He did also brighten up a bit at being told that even now, the rank he had worked so hard for still carried some weight. His thanks was quiet, but that small bit of hope did improve the overall mood in the cell for the next few moments - at least, until the door opened again, and several Soviets entered, two of them hauling Roderick to his feet and practically carrying him out of the cell again, a startled and rather indignant-sounding cry escaping him as he was removed from the cell.

Directly after was Ivan. Completely cleaned up and freshly dressed from what he was on the battlefield. You could almost smell the clean smell of the lard soap on him; Gilbert was all at once acutely aware of his own dirty, bloodied uniform and need of a shower, confronted all at once with the other officer in his neatly pressed and clean clothing.

Ivan walked up to where Gilbert was laying, two soldiers guarding the closed door from the inside. "How was your medic? Did he do a good job? I need to know just in case you need him again. If he did a bad job, I'll get rid of him and get you a new one. I would order one of my medics to fix you up, but my medics don't deserve to work on trash." He chuckled to himself, looking expectantly at Gilbert with a playfully sinister smirk from his sly, but also blunt, insult.

Gilbert struggled into a sitting position, ignoring the protesting stab of pain in his leg.

"He did a good job," he said, in a rather strained voice. He hoped that the apparent concern for his well-being was a good sign, but had to work in order to keep his expression neutral at the next words. Apparently not - though this did confirm what he'd suspected, that it had been the Soviet commander who'd ordered his injuries to be treated. The respectful term tasted bitter on his tongue, but he had to maintain some sort of dignity even here. "Thank you for that, sir."

Ivan chuckled once again. "Oh please. No need for pleasantries. I want to hear what you really think." Ivan challenged. "But that can come later. Can you walk? You stink and I don't need you reeking up the whole place. Tell me, how long has it been since you've had a warm shower? Probably too long judging by the way you smell." Ivan chuckled at his casual insults to Gilbert. "How about, if you can walk, you follow me and I'll let you take shower. And no worry. It won't be like a shower in one of the Nazi camps where, by the end, you die."

Ivan grabbed out a cane that was propped behind one of the tables and offered it to Gilbert. "This might help you move." He smiled. It was almost sweet, but his eyes definitely didn't show innocence.

Gilbert was silent for a moment, watching the Soviet's face to try and figure out just how sincere he was being, whether he ought to actually speak up and be honest about his opinions or just keep quiet and continue doing his best to be respectful. The man looked amused as if all of this was just a big joke - one at Gilbert's expense, no doubt - but it was hard not to perk up a little at the words. A warm shower, then - that sounded wonderful, well worth the trouble it would be to walk much more on his leg, and he frankly didn't remember himself when he'd last had a warm shower; it had been too long since he'd even had a cold one.

Warily, he reached out and took the cane with mumbled thanks, pushing himself up to his feet a little unsteadily. It felt like a knife was being stabbed through his leg when he straightened, but he managed to get to his feet, swaying a bit before catching his balance. He could do this. It wasn't quite as bad as he'd been expecting when he took a step.

"The medic did a good job," he repeated, tone slightly insistent. "I can walk, I can get to the showers."

"Good," Ivan responded almost sharply. "I trust you won't cause any trouble on way." He said as he opened the door and walked out, the soldiers leaving the room only when Gilbert did and following closely behind him, their guns facing to the ground at least.

Outside the room were the two Soviets that had dragged Roderick out. Kneeling with his hands folded behind his head and forehead against the wall, was Rodrick. He was shaking and almost whimpering as the two standing over him had a pistol pointed to his head.

It looked like he was ready to be executed.