Looking over the chapters I realised you don't get any insight into Romania's actual thought's until III, but oh well. He's a bit here anyway.

If I was more cool I wouldn't bother to put read and review like a desperate concrit whore, but I'm not more cool. So. Read and review. Concrit appreciated.

Sigh.

ASAS xx


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In the Heart of the Woods

Pairings:FrEng, RomaniEng, ScotEng (sort of), AmeriCana and PruDen/DenPru eventually, possibly Past!ScotFr

Genre: Fantasy/Drama, really. There will be fae. Of course, there will be romance chucked in, because what would be the point otherwise?

Universe: Canon!Verse with a twist

WARNINGS: Language, possibly non/dub-con in later chapters, and also possibly lemon if I ever get the ability to write it

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France was generally bored through the meeting, not having England there to flirt/argue/talk with. Not that he missed rosbif, he was just infinitely preferable to Scotland. Although his face is rather adorable when he blushes... France snickered might hate the personality, but who was he to deny cuteness as and when he saw it? France smirked to himself. The only reason he came to meetings early, or on time at all, was to get the maximum time teasing England, although he often earned a bruise or two for his trouble. He remembered when England got that nasty cold. He would be so cute if he just shut up for ten seconds. Oh, and didn't call me a 'bloody frog' constantly. Tch. He managed to snatch some amusement hiding under the table with North Italy, occasionally giving him comforting hugs. Well, gropes, but the two are one and the same in France's opinion.

He didn't pay attention until Scotland and Germany's exchange at the end of the meeting. Scotland definitely knows more than he's letting on. Scotland had been voted out of meetings, and seemed to be taking it rather well. Or at least, his smirk never left his face.

It turned out he had an ace in the hole, anyway.

"Ah, but who exactly will represent the United Kingdom?" Scotland asked, challengingly. Scotland just seemed to emit obnoxious obstinacy. A slightly tense atmosphere pervaded the room. France looked up with interest at the cockiness; considering that numerous countries made up the UK it would surely be possible to find someone to replace England other than him. Scotland must have some sort of strategy. That question might as well have been rhetorical. But if he wants to come to the meetings and can get England out of the way, why not do it all year round? To France, none of this made any sense, particularly not why Scotland was there. If these meetings are so 'bloody pointless' and you apparently hate them, why bother coming at all? The Scotland I know would sure as hell never do this as a favour to England.

"Wales-" Germany offered, but was quickly interrupted.

"-is missing at this time of year, also." Not just England then. Scotland had better have one hell of an alibi.

"Why?" Germany continued to question. Why indeed?

"Dunno." Yes you do. France wrote on a piece of paper 'Wales missing. Scotland knows about this also.'

"Nordirland – " He was again interrupted, this time by a derisive snort.

"Oh, sure, you can invite Northern Ireland. If you want the meeting to turn into a mass homicide." Germany was by this point back to being incredibly annoyed. "Explain." His tone was stern.

"Putting North and Republic in a room together fer three hours solid is like locking Greece and Turkey in an interactive, pick-up-and-use 'Weapons Through the Ages' exhibition and telling each that Japan prefers the other." He continued, ignoring the scowls, or in Japan's case, looks, he got from the mentioned parties. "Bound ta end in disaster, murder, and good fucking luck ta ye getting the bloodstains out of the carpet." He finished with a triumphant Cheshire-cat grin. No suspicion on that count. The rivalry between the two Irelands is legendary. But everything else…

Germany's face was the picture of defeat. How is it that Scotland has the ability to make the mice of men? France had witnessed the most stubborn of people wither away under the toxic gaze.

"So. It looks like ya stuck with me." This being said, Scotland turned on his heel and swaggered out of the meeting room's double doors, smoke from his cigarette arcing and looping in the air behind him before dissipating like the man himself.

Scotland instantly became a priority in France's mind.


After the meeting, France waited for people to disperse for about ten minutes. After the time passed and nations drifted around like dust particles in a still room, he stood on the table and cleared his throat. "Excuse me! Could everyone not involved in my post-conference meeting please leave the meeting room." Nations looked round expectantly, and a couple of people left, but overall there were still about fifty nations in the room. France was surprised and somewhat annoyed. Most likely people were just curious as to what had happened, or wanted rid of Scotland, and with this many nations there was no way they would get anywhere near to a plan of action. No doubt it would just end up a mini replica of the previous meeting, and Germany would kill him if any more desks got broken.

France sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Attentión! Could anyone not actually willing to get involved in any plan that may arise as a result of this meeting please leave the meeting room?" A large crowd of nations immediately vacated the room at speed hearing that. Including France, and not counting Prussia, who not being allowed to come to meetings was yet to arrive, there were only seven nations present. These were France, Germany, America, Canada, Denmark, Norway (although Denmark might've had something to do with that) and oddly enough Romania. France knew not of a connection with England and was mystified as to why the man was attending.

And also slightly horrified. There was something, not quite tangible, about that man that set his teeth on edge. He made France more than a little nervous, something about the red eyes maybe? No, because he was good friends with Prussia. But that man… To France, he seemed to be one of the few nations who still had the ether of death around him. To France, he seemed to be one of the few who relished it. To France, he was one of the few people who were wholly terrifying.

"Ah, Roumanie, mon cher,porquoi êtes-vous ici?" France instinctively spoke French in his haste and received a glare from every nation in the room, particularly Romania. "Franţa, just because you believe French to be superior to every other language in the world, does not mean I can speak it. Please speak English at least." Normally with that sort of comment France would have gone off on a tangent about how French was the most beautiful language in the world, and anyone who couldn't speak it was an imbecile and a philistine, but Romania's stare was colder than Russia's, and France couldn't help but think that his irises were not dissimilar to blood. He swallowed, and mentally kicked himself for being so irrational.

"Ah, oui, oui, bien sûr." Romania's eyes narrowed and France's hair prickled as he felt the fight or flight instinct kick in. France ignored it and corrected himself hurriedly, "Euhm, that is, yes, of course. What I said before was, why are you here? I was not aware of you having any connection to Angleterre ou Ecosse, so what reason do you have for assisting us?"

"Angliyaand I are friends. I am teaching him how not to make a complete mess of black magyk, although it is slow progress, I must admit. I am concerned he has got himself in trouble with it as he is most prone to. I do worry about him." France was baffled. England hadn't mentioned Romania since he was an enemy in the war, and frankly they didn't seem like they would be close – Romania was a creepy bastard, and England had a thing about creepy bastards since Russia began haunting him about communism when he was a socialist in the sixties. Mind you he probably wanted to keep the whole black magyk thing on the down-low. Understandably. Romania smiled just enough to show his wolfish, overly long canines (fangs?).

"I and Norvegia are both here for the same reason. The Solstices are both incredibly magical times of year, particularly to England because of his pagan history. The number of times we have had to clean up Angliya's messes he's made with magyk made us think that it's entirely possible that England had messed up a spell that leads him to be inconvenienced on the Solstice. Although, using logic, Angliya would have come to me or Norvegiafor help." Romania's face was entirely solemn, ignoring the either incredulous or weary looks on the group's faces depending on how much they'd heard before. Norway added quietly, "This is why we believe that Scotland may have enacted a curse of some sort that is only active on the two Solstices. He will have stopped England from going to us to lift it, probably through threats or blackmail. He will have stopped Wales helping England either through the same curse or plain threats." He delivered this stony faced, and abruptly resumed his silence. Everyone was dumbstruck.

"OK… I will… consider it." France responded awkwardly; nobody quite knew what to say to something so fantastical. However the cogs in France's brain were turning: It certainly fits with the best theory I can come up with so far, and England has always been very insistent that this sort of thing is real… And now these two. One person is insanity, two a coincidence, but three… No, it's completely irrational… But what was it that fictional English detective Arthur loved so much said? 'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth'… France shook his head and put all thoughts of magic to the back of his mind.

The slightly awkward atmosphere was broken after about a minute and a half of nobody speaking, by the doors being practically busted off their handles from being kicked open. A couple of the group jumped at the loud noise but most of them, Germany in particular, just sighed as a figure walked through the doors announcing "The Awesome Me is here! Feel free to bow down before my Awesomeness! Hey, why isn't anybody talking? West, good to see you bro! Miss me much? Kesesesese! Den! Get your almost-as-awesome ass over here!" Prussia had the speech pattern of a machine gun, and Germany's "Mein Gott, brüder, shut up." Went unheard as Denmark vaulted the desk to bro-hug the loud albino.

"Ha, you wish you were as awesome as my ass, Gil." Germany's head was in his hands as the conversation quickly descended into pure untainted bullshit. "Ha! You wish I wished I was as awesome as your ass!" France decided it was best to cut them off here before they got stuck on a loop. "Good to see you too, Prusse. Now can we please get on with this?" Apparently this was enough to distract Prussia from the 'argument' that was developing. "Ja, ja. We need to figure out why Artie has unawesomely missed all our awesome booze-ups around the Solstices for, like, ever. Gott, I need to stop watching crap American daytime TV, I sound like Poland." A vein once again started twitching in Germany's forehead.

"Gott Verdammt, brüder! You shut up for Frankreich!"

France once again had to keep the meeting under control, as half the group were looking agitated and the other half bored shitless, which is not really the mood you aim for.

"Allemagne, I am sure Prusse didn't mean anything by it, calm down. Gil, that's not really the issue here."

He then walked from his usual seat where he had been standing, up to the front, and wrote 'Reasons for England's absence: 10 mins' on the whiteboard in a bubble before putting an interactive timer on the projector screen.

"Are we ready to start the meeting? Good. Now we will discuss this topic for ten minutes, as shown by the timer. I will begin, and then I will start the timer once I have finished. This will be group discussion time. At the end of the allotted time we will move on to elaborate on any particularly good ideas. We will then repeat the process in discussing England's brother, potential people to replace him, and an overall plan of action for finding out where mon petit lapin is or goes. D'accord?" France clapped his hands together expectantly and looked around for answers to his end question.

There were a few stunned nods, and Germany in particular was practically slack-jawed with amazement. "Why are you never this serious in meetings?" He asked.

France gave a small half smile. "Because, mon cher, I know we will never, ever accomplish anything in those meetings. So I figure why not just sit back and enjoy the show? Besides, this meeting is about something I actually care about and am interested in." The half-smile became a smirk at this. He ignored the slightly shell-shocked looks on people's faces and continued.

"I have been thinking on this for a while. There are a number of possible reasons for mon lapin's repeated absences. All of them are unfortunately highly unlikely which is why I do not wish to spend a large amount of time on this subject. I believe the only possible reasons to be: sickness, kidnapping, 'emotional reasons', blackmail, something to do with his brother."

A few people looked like they were going to object but France silenced them with a finger and the warning "Interrupt me and I will come to your house and molest you in your sleep." France was well aware of his reputation for perversion (being constantly reminded of it by England, who he thought was a right hypocrite – the inventor of the vibrator and the sex chair in the Victorian period in England and he was the pervert?) and utilised it to his maximum gain. Everyone shut up after that – no-one dared to put it past him.

He wrote the potential reasons in smaller bubbles off the central bubble with lines linking them to it – a mind map. "I will not talk for much longer. I know all these ideas are rather vague, and frankly I only put some on here to cross them off. Let us first look at sickness, for example. To get randomly sick at the same time every year for as long as anyone can remember is impossible. More likely, although not much, is that he may have some kind of condition which may need biannual treatment and perhaps Wales may have the same condition – from what we can gather from Scotland's unhelpful answers, Wales is missing at the same time and, the implication is, for the same reason. However as nations' bodies are self-healing, this would be surprising. Furthermore, while Arthur is certainly prideful enough to want to hide any weaknesses, most of us have at some point or other been allied to or fought against England so it is highly unlikely that none of us would have noticed something off about him. Indeed, both I and Alfred have spent time with him through the suspicious periods of time, and we would have certainly noticed were something amiss. Therefore, sickness is off. Kidnapping is frankly stupid – no ransom, and why the same time every year? So that is off."

France had begun counting the reasons off on his fingers, and pacing up and down, conceivably ignorant to the slightly awed looks some of the nations were giving him. "'Emotional reasons' are off – he comes to the meetings around the fourth of July, and most of us know what he is like around that time of year." There were a fair few grimaces at that. "Any emotional links to the Solstices we don't know about, he would either bottle up or drink to forget. Full on going missing is not his style." Nods of agreement. "I believe the last two to be linked. It is obvious Scotland enjoys going to these meetings, no matter whether he believes them to be pointless. Otherwise he would have accepted his being kicked out of meetings easily. There is no way Scotland would do this as a favour to his brother – I have too much experience of their relationship to hope otherwise. Therefore I must conclude that Scotland has some kind of blackmail, or power," this was obviously put in to appease Romania and Norway, "over England, only applicable twice a year, which he also uses on or which also works on Wales, so he can attend the two meetings. And possibly he may use it for other things as well, but this is just speculation now. It is weak and vague I know, but it is all I have got." France's face then brightened to his normal smirkish-smile. "So, mes chers, what do we all think? I will now start the timer." Doing so, France looked around expectantly.

Prussia was the first to speak. Slowly, he said "Jesus, Franny." His trademark smirk returned, however, as he added, "You should speak like that 'round Artie, he'd be all over you like a rash. He's had a thing for detectives since Sherlock Holmes."

France returned the smirk, however replied, "Please focus on the issue in hand, Gil." Prussia sighed and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'spoilsport'.

Canada chipped in, thankfully louder than usual, "Uncle Scotland is always really possessive of maman. I was staying in England once. Papa, you came round and you and maman were talking for a bit, 'til maman kicked the you out, for groping him," Canada giggled and France's sigh went unheard, although he was secretly pleased Canada still called him and England daddy and mummy, "but after you'd left, Scotland, who always seems to be chez mamanthese days, literally locked him in a room for about an hour. From what I could hear, he was interrogating maman about what you were doing." Prussia along with most of the others looked a little confused at this, and asked,

"Who is Amerika calling Mutti in French?" France gave him a 'duh' look, which morphed into a smirk as he replied, "England, of course. And it is of course mon cher Canada, can you not tell by his sexy hair that is so much like my own?" Prussia grinned and made a mental note to tease England about it, apparently not noticing France's correction on the identity front.

America had been listening to this exchange gleefully, "Canadia, bro, you call Artie mommy? Oh, he is so never hearing the end of this! Never again will he tease me about my eating habits! The hero is now officially tease proof! Ha ha!" America pulled his hero pose and everyone looked varying degrees of irritated. "America, it's Canada, and Australia and New Zealand call England mum, it's no big - " Canada was back to his normal volume, and sighed as even France unknowingly butted in. He might notice Canada, but he wasn't past ignoring him. "Amérique, Nouvelle-Zélande et Australie call Arthur mum, it's really not an issue." America sat down with a smug smile, evidently planning to use the new information against England. ("Maple! Wait 'til I get my hockey stick out, then they'll listen…"

"Who are you?" A small polar bear poked out of the rucksack at Canada's feet.

"It's Canada, Kumakichi! The man who feeds you!"

"Oh… fish man."

"Maple!")

France had by this point wiped the board of the previous mind map and written a whole new one with 'Scotland' at the centre. He clapped his hands twice and announced, "I know the ten minutes isn't up, but I think we would be wasting time speculating as to why England is absent. Now that Canada has brought this point up, I am certain that it is something to do with his brother, so we will focus on him. Also, pour l'amour de dieu, please try to stay on topic. I am sorry for starting the whole mum conversation, but can we try to stay focused from now on? Bien." There were reluctant ok's across the room and then silence descended, broken only by Germany's "Oh, ja, listen to Frankreich." Germany's scowl deepened. Why does no one take the actual meetings seriously? Oh, yeah, global warming and the economy are positively trivial compared with this. Germany's thoughts continued like this for several minutes.

France paused the timer and continued talking. "D'accord, so from what Canada said, Ecosseis extremely protective or even possessive of Angleterre. That could possibly be why he wants to stop him going to meetings – to prevent him getting into relationships with other nations."France wrote this on the whiteboard. "Now, does anyone have anything to say about Ecosse?"

Various nations then came forward with anecdotes about Scotland and England, Prussia and Denmark in particular having plenty of stories.

"Do you remember when he came out drinking with us, Køhler? Gott, that was so unawesome." Prussia started, only for Denmark to continue. "Mm, he sat with us all night ignoring us and silently downing whisky, so we pretended he wasn't there. Later when we were a little tipsy," (snorts from pretty much everyone, Prussia included. The capacity of the FBT to get utterly smashed was legendary), "I made a pass at Artie – for a joke! And he full on punched me in the face, the unawesome dick! My face is way too awesome to be punched!" Even America was looking a little irritated with the arrogance by this point, and Germany snapped at his brother and Denmark, "Scheiβe, could one of you please get a new word!" Only for Prussia to protest, "No way, West, awesome is awesome!" Head-desks all round. Denmark continued, "Anyway, back to the story. I'm way too awesome to be interrupted. Here's where it gets a bit creepy. After the whole unawesome-face-punching thing, he doesn't say a word, just goes back to nursing his third whisky which he's been on for like two hours, even in the face of my awesomely fear worthy Viking rage!" Prussia snorted derisively, and challenged,

"Bro, you totally threw a wobbly, as Artie puts it. That was not awesome Viking rage, that was a drunken toddler tantrum!" Prussia smirked at the outraged expression on his buddy's face.

"You did not just insult my awesome Viking rage!" Denmark looked furious, and Prussia looked like he was about to collapse laughing.

"I just did! You threw a hissy fit!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!" France looked like he was about to have an aneurysm, and Germany seemed to have taken France's part in the meetings for he was smirking coolly at France, Prussia and Denmark. It was quite a sight to behold, and France decided he would be a lot more helpful to Germany in meetings from now on. He also decided that "If you two don't stop bickering like idiots, I will murder you both! TAIS-TOIS, the pair of you! Stop bickering and get the fuck on with the story! Dieu!" He was standing up with his palms on the table, red in the face and yelling his head off. Oh, God, I'm acting exactly like Germany. Please, don't let me turn into a sexually repressed beer swilling tight-arse! Prussia looked shocked. "Calm down, Fran, you're meant to be the cool one."

"Caisse-toi, Gil." France flopped down in his seat, defeated. Prussia took up the story from where Denmark left off.

"Whatever, Fran. So I will awesomely finish the story about the Scottish arschloch." Denmark looked like he was going to object but a glare from France shut him up sharpish. "Anyway, we all got a bit more smashed, apart from ginger-balls, and Artie, Matthias and I were making one of our awesome plans to go and put traffic cones on all the bus shelters in the area, or something similarly awesome, to be honest it's all a bit fuzzy – why are you glaring at me like that West? We never get caught, chill, we're too awesome for that. Anyway, Schottland just gives us this evil glare, and when we go to leave and do some awesoming of the local area (that's the official verb), he literally picks Artie up and chucks him over his shoulder. Artie didn't even protest that much. At the time I thought it was because he was completely smashed and didn't really know what was going on. But thinking about it, he didn't actually have that much to drink, probably because his brother was there, and he just looked kind of resigned, like he was expecting it." Prussia finished, a bit red in the face, and took a huge breath, like a small child telling a parent that his imaginary friend broke the vase, honest. Which was fitting, considering what he had just said.

"Merci pour ça, Danemark et Gil." France wrote on the board 'Scotland is very protective/possessive of England.' And underneath, 'England lets him push him around and act like that – wouldn't do this normally – power over England.' France looked up, "Does anyone disagree with anything I have written so far? Non? Bien."

America and France could both remember weird interactions between England and his brothers: America remembered, somewhat reluctantly, when he was a colony, Scotland would visit sometimes, and England would seem genuinely terrified of him. "In fact, he's the only nation England seems truly afraid of, or at least afraid enough to show it." He sounded unusually pensive, as if he'd never really considered it before. France quickly wrote a summary in his fluid cursive.

France recalled how Scotland would bully England when he was little, and how whenever he saw them argue even recently, it never went on for long, normally ending with England giving up quickly, or Scotland hitting England. France never questioned it because he assumed England must get back at him somehow, that being his way. "Although, in lieu of all this, perhaps I should have assisted mon petit lapin more than I did…" During the course of the meeting, France's concern for England had skyrocketed. Maybe this thing with Scotland is more serious than I thought… He was distracted by Romania, who had been largely silent up to this point, although he and Norway had an air of smugness about them, probably because nothing they'd heard went against their theory. "Why do you always call Angliya 'petit lapin'?" France winced at Romania mangling the words, however replied, "Because he's so cute, of course!" Romania just gave him a weird look and said, "Can we please get on with this 'plan' of yours; we've been in this 'meeting' for half an hour and I haven't heard a word of anything that could be called a plan." Romania's face was blank as ever but his eyes screamed a mixture of boredom and bloody murder. God, he really is scarier than Russia. "But of course, Roumanie, I was going to be moving it along now anyway." He reassured the blood-eyed nation with barely concealed fear.

He went back to the business-like persona he seemed to have assumed for the purposes of this meeting. "Now, this plan isn't overly complicated. In fact, it's almost moronically simple, fool-proof as it were. All we have to do is set up surveillance outside his house before the next solstice, which is in a couple of days' time. A couple of us will also wait outside his house on the day in case, as I suspect, Scotland enters the house or England leaves, so we can either intervene in whatever may occur, or follow them." The room went deadly silent for a couple of seconds before America said warily,

"So… we might as well call this 'Operation: Stalk Iggy'." People were starting to look a bit suspicious: this was France, so it was entirely possible that he was using this for his own perverted gains. "Frankreich… I will not hesitate to call the police if this turns into some kind of peeping tom thing for you…" Germany looked sternly at France. Well, more sternly than usual anyway. France put on an over-the-top look of horror and offense, putting a hand to his forehead and tipping his head back dramatically. "Mes chers, you wound me! How could you think such a thing! My intentions in this are nothing but innocent, I swear!" No-one was fooled.

"Frankrig, if you perv on my drinking buddy, I will not hesitate to punch your face in. That is a promise." Denmark was looking dangerous, and entirely serious. France returned brought out his serious face. "Of course, that is entirely reasonable. I promise I will act entirely honourably, and will delete any indecent footage." Unless we get any really good stuff, ohonhonhon. Denmark looked satisfied until France stopped speaking and started thinking, unwittingly putting on his infamous 'rape face'. Prussia recognised the infamous face, and warned, "Franny, whatever it is you're thinking, stop it. You might find perving on Artie fun, but if Matt catches you perving on Artie I'm not gonna stop him, and will probably lend a hand. Or a fist. You're one of my best friends, but that face is terrifying. And anything that terrifies the awesome Prussia is seriously unawesome." Prussia's face was deadly – he had first-hand experience of how France got when in his pervier mood. America was glaring at France, ("If I catch you with your face on 'round Artie I will go totally hero on your ass.") and Canada looked nothing short of exasperated. ("Maple! Papa, you're just giving yourself a bad reputation.")

Merde, I had no idea so many people were so protective of England. France looked fairly terrified now, and was seriously considering doing an Italy. Must ask him where he hides those white flags. "Ok, ok, I will not keep any of the footage we get! Jésus, lighten up!" Everyone relaxed a bit. "So we will set up cameras trained on his front door and any windows – excluding the bathroom," a conciliatory measure, "—we can see or get access to. Luckily his ground floor is open plan, so we should be able to see if he does anything there. The second and third floors will be more difficult, but I am sure we will manage."

Prussia interjected, "Pfft, his house is stupidly huge. So unawesome." America laughed , and taunted Prussia with, "Dude, you live in a basement. A broom cupboard's probably 'stupidly huge' to you!" Prussia just smirked and replied, "At least my second home isn't a McDonald's, unawesome fatarse." America pouted.

"I'm the hero, I need lots of energy for, uh, heroing! Yeah!" France rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Amérique, you were doing so well! I thought you had finally learnt to shut up!" It would fall to pieces so close to the end, wouldn't it? America looked like he was going to argue, but then quite unexpectedly sat down and shut up, after grunting, "Let's just here the rest of your stupid plan then." France frowned but continued, "Prussia, Denmark and I will go down to the house on the day, since we know the area-"

"No." Norway seemed to have not quite used up his daily word quota with his speech at the beginning.

"Quoi?" France was understandably shocked. In truth he wasn't really expecting anyone to object to his plan. Despite Norway being the one to object, it was Romania who elaborated, if not fully explained, the objection. "What Norvegia is saying is that he and I will be the ones to accompany you." This was said with a tone of finality, inviting no argument. "Care to explain why, Roumanie? Norvége?" France questioned, mildy annoyed. Prussia and Denmark had matching looks of outrage on. "No, not really. Problem?" Romania smiled, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop a couple of degrees. "Ah,non, non. Just curious, really." His reassuring smile was more of a grimace. Prussia and Denmark were both glaring at him, but I'd rather face a century of their glares than a second of Romania's. "Good." This was accompanied by another one of Romania's icy smiles, and was in no way meant to appease so much as petrify. France swallowed and then shook his head, trying to clear it. "So, any questions?"

Germany put his hand up, looking a little awkward, "Um, ja, Frankreich. I am concerned for England, and want to get rid of Schottland as soon as possible, but… I am not very sure of the, ah, legal ramifications of this plan of yours. I was wondering if it would be ok for me to, ah…"

France smiled knowingly, "…sit this one out? Ouais, bien sûr. I understand. That stick you have shoved up your derriére is in far too deep for you to get involved in this sort of thing." Germany grimaced and scowled at how France termed his law-abiding disposition.

"I would have put it differently, but essentially, ja, I am unwilling to take risks. However I would be very interested to see what you find out, and if you come up with a way to get rid of the Scottish arschloch I will join in if it involves murder, but I don't want to join in with this. It feels a bit uncomfortable." Germany's face morphed into a smirk, which looked very strange on him. "Although I would like to thank you for allowing me to sit back and not take control of a meeting for once. You are right, it is very… entertaining. I think perhaps I will be doing this more often from now on."

France paled a little, crying, "Oh, Dieu, Allemagne, please don't! You are the only thing that stops those lunatic conferences from descending into mass murder!" Germany laughed at this, and said,

"Don't worry, I can't stand chaos – so inefficient. You must tell me how you get people to listen to you, though."

France smiled a little and said, "It's just because I don't shout very often. If I acted the way I acted in this meeting all the time people wouldn't listen to me either. When was the last time anyone paid attention to one of Angleterre's rants?" Germany groaned resignedly. "Now, any more questions?"

America, who had been looking annoyed for some time, jumped up. "Yeah, actually. I'm the hero, I should be the one to go and save Iggy from the evil Scottish asshole!"

France smiled slightly. He could practically hear England going 'That's not a question, you utter moron. Now sit down and shut up, you complete wanker, before you give anyone else a migraine.' France frowned, worrying about the fact that he seemed to be thinking about England a little too much – what he would say to this or that, how he would be insulting people, or yelling. He shrugged it off – he probably was just bored without being able to have an intelligent argument. France replied to America, smirking, "That's not a question, Amérique. But to answer your non-question, you can't come because wherever you go you make as much noise as the neighbourhood where the 'Elephant Marching Band Club' is conveniently situated next to the Vuvuzela manufacturer and the TNT testing ground." America gave him a blank look, and France clarified, speaking very slowly, "You are too loud, mon cher. You would be useless on a reconnaissance mission such as this. Also, you have little knowledge of the local area." He grinned, "And, obviously I must go because of my superior spying skills, and my gift for stalking – ah, covert surveillance, ohonhonhon." Prussia grinned at this. "Good to have you back, Fran."

"Why, thank you, Gil ma chérie." Francis grinned. "Right, I have plenty of cameras we can use – don't ask," he flashed a quick half-smile, "and we only have tomorrow to set them up covertly. Prussia, Denmark and America – provided he can be quiet – will set them up seeing as they are not now part of the action, under my supervision of course." The matching scowls of the mentioned parties dissipated a little. "On the day everyone else will be back at HQ – my house – monitoring the cameras and informing us of any interesting news, for example if it looks like he's ill. Clear?" Nods all round. "Bien. Meeting adjourned."

A plan was set in motion.

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