Finally, Israel mumbled that sure, she'd stay and go to the dumb meeting, and after fighting off hugs from Spain ("KEEP YOUR FUCKING EYES ON THE ROAD, YOU'RE THE DRIVER HERE! DO YOU WANT US TO CRASH AND DIE?") the quartet finally arrived at the hotel that America had booked for the nations staying for the world conference. It was late at night, and Israel had been, in truth, a little worried that Spain might doze off at the wheel.

They were some of the last to get there, and they unloaded their luggage- France had the most, unsurprisingly- out of the suburban Prussia had rented (with the amount of bar fights he got into, he needed a sturdy getaway car when he came to America.) and walked into the lobby. France headed straight for the front desk; America had told them earlier that he'd already made room arrangements and to ask the nice people where they were supposed to sleep.

"Oh, that's nice," Prussia noted sarcastically, as America had been his usual clueless self when picking rooms. "Well, he put the Asians in two connecting suites… Thank Fritz he actually remembered not to put Greece and Turkey together, though. They each got single rooms." He went down the list, occasionally muttering things like "Luddy's with his boy toy and boy toy's bruder… Gonna hear some gunshots outta that room…" and "Specs is with Liza, that crazy bitch."

"Yes, mon ami," France sighed; he wanted to get to the room and sleep already. "But where are we?" Prussia stuck his tongue out, and Spain apologized quietly to the woman on desk duty about his friends' behavior.

"We're all in one room," Prussia laughed. "Guess no one else wanted to share. I'm not surprised that he put Birdie in a room by himself though… Guess I'll have to visit him so he won't get lonely…" Walking off towards the elevators (they were on floor number twelve), Spain chastised him.

"Alfred probably split you two up for a reason, Gil. You need to be awake for the meeting." Spain just smiled indulgently when Prussia muttered something about needing to unwind after the airplane flight. "Wait… Amiel?" He turned to Israel, who was still standing near the front desk. "Come on, perezosa! You're going to miss the elevator!"

"But I don't have a room…" Israel said slowly, like Spain was an idiot who never actually comprehended anything. Not saying that he wasn't, or anything, but still…

"Of course you don't, tonta! It's not like Alfred knew you were coming! He doesn't have special senses or anything! Come on!" Spain grinned, walking back to Israel and grabbing her hand to pull her to the elevator.

She moved so fast that not even Prussia, who lived for battle, saw it coming. If someone later replayed the security cameras in slow motion, they would see Israel dropping her bag like a hot iron, grabbing Spain's wrist, and stepping backwards then twisting around, using Spain's sudden loss of balance as an opportunity to jerk him forwards, back almost touching his chest, wrap her other hand around his forearm (which was situated behind her shoulder), and use the leverage to flip him over said shoulder. However, all France and Prussia (but not the receptionist; she was doing her nails) saw was a flash of gray (Israel's sweatshirt and sweatpants) and all the sudden, Spain was flat on his back on the tiled floor, with Israel leaning over him, a wild look in her eyes.

"Whoa, girl, let Tony go! He didn't do anything unawesome!" Prussia's eyebrows were raised; he knew that to get reflexes like that, Israel must have had to go through some pretty tough shit. "Now, that's someone worth fighting," he whispered to himself.

"Sorry, Antonio." Israel used the grip she still had on his wrist to pull him back up, grimacing. "Battle instincts." She handed him his suitcase, looking slightly ashamed, as Spain was rubbing his head where it hit the floor.

"It's fine Amiel, no blood no foul!" Spain smiled, turned to walk towards the elevators again, and continued with what he was saying earlier. "You can stay in the room with Francis, Gilbert and me until Alfred gets around to finding you somewhere else to stay!"

"… Thanks," Israel followed him, quirking one corner of her mouth up in a slight smirk. Not really a smile, because it was a little too bitter.

"De nada!" Spain almost skipped to the nearest open elevator, holding it open so his other friends could get in. Prussia was stuck in the back left corner, suitcases all around him ("My awesomeness cannot be contained like this! This is so unfair! Fick!"), Spain was standing pressed against the right wall with the button panel in front of him ("We were floor doce, si?"), and Francis had his back to the left wall ("There is a handrail pressing into my derriere."). Israel was stuck in the middle, surrounded on all sides by luggage. ("Francis, I will castrate you if your hand does not move right now.")

"We're here~!" Spain trilled as the door opened and the four of them and their belongings spilled out into the ornately decorated hallway. "Alright, we have to go to the left to get to our room. I wonder if Lovi is on this floor? Maybe he is, and then we can all go out for dinner and eat something with tomatoes, you like tomatoes, right Amiel? Well, everyone loves tomatoes, so that's a pretty silly thing to ask. Do you have a favorite food of yours? Mine is tomatoes, they're really delicious, and Lovi likes them too." This monologue lasted until Spain unlocked the door, and they filed into the suite.

"I CALL THE BIG BED FOR MYSELF!" Prussia jumped onto one of the king beds, flopping spread-eagled onto the soft duvet. He sank into the mattress, red eyes promising hell to anyone who dared remove him from his territory.

"Then I guess the other bed is mine, non?" France sat down on the second bed, setting one of his suitcases on the provided luggage stand, and walking to the closet to see if there were any more to hold the rest of his crap.

"Fold out couch!" Spain immediately starting transforming said couch into somewhere to sleep, while Israel did the same to another couch before snatching a plastic bag from her suitcase and rushing to the bathroom.

"I get to shower first!" She shouted gleefully, closing the door and locking it just as France began to rattle the handle, begging that he needed to fix his hair. "Too bad, Francis, bathroom's mine. And I intend on taking a nice warm shower, that plane ride was terrible." Ignoring France's muttered curses, Israel started getting undressed and figuring out how the hell the shower worked.

The water started running, and she waited until it was almost scalding to step in. Israel tilted her head back, letting the warm water erase all the aches and annoyances of international travel, letting it flow over the scars she had from years past, and spots of unblemished skin, which were few and far between. She grabbed the shampoo bottle, squeezing a generous amount into her hand and scrubbing it into her hair with a surprising amount of force.

After Israel was done with her normal shower routines, she just stood there, reminiscing. Remembering back before modern plumbing; when she bathed in oases in the desert, or in the huge baths at-

"חרא!" She clutched her side, where a new, angry burn mark had appeared, along with a jagged wound. "חרא!" Israel repeated, and collapsed, head hitting the semi-open glass door of the shower as her body fell onto the cold tile floor.


"… Did you hear something?" France paused his unpacking to move closer to the bathroom door, certain that he'd heard Israel swearing. "There it is again!"

Crack

Thunk

"Scheiße! Amiel!" Prussia jumped off his bed too, knowing that the noise probably wasn't her dropping a shampoo bottle or something. "Amiel, what's wrong?"

Nothing was his answer. Just the sound of the shower running.

"Amiel?" Spain had joined the group by the door as well, worried as much as the rest of them. If she was alright, surely she'd be swearing at them for interrupting her shower, not just… being silent…

"Amiel, you have one second to answer, or we're breaking in," France's warning went unheeded; Prussia was already picking the lock (he didn't want yet another issue with America about breaking hotel doors down) and Israel wasn't answering.

Click

"We're in." Prussia's voice was grim as he slowly opened the door, and was met face on by a wall of steam. "Fick," he waved through the steam and made his way to the shower, France and Spain right behind him. The steam cleared, and they were met with a sight that shocked them all, for a brief second.

Israel, the tough Israel, the one that had hit them all at some point in the evening, who threatened Prussia with nukes, who's country was a formidable force even before they knew her; was sprawled out on the bathroom floor, bleeding from a painful injury on her side, and from a smaller cut on her head.

"Antonio, get some towels, Francis, grab the first-aid kit from my suitcase, top pocket." Prussia took charge of the situation, and his friends didn't argue. Or question why he had a first aid kit (the bar fights again. Canada got annoyed when he had to keep picking Prussia up from the hospital, so he made the albino learn how to treat his own injuries).

Spain handed Prussia one white towel, and he used it to cover Israel, to preserve at least a little of her decency.

"Fick," Prussia muttered, "she has a hell of a lot of scars." France came back with the first aid kit, and Prussia opened it and grabbed a small knife, cutting a slit in the towel so he could help her. He knew that there was no way she'd gotten this by falling in the shower, and he said so. "It's impossible for her to get hurt this badly in the shower. This is a country wound, and if I'm not mistaken," and he rarely was, Prussia's years of experience during battle left him able to identify how and why people were wounded extremely well; he would be an amazing crime scene investigator. "She fell from the shock of the…" he paused, trying to find a word that fit the damage. It looked like someone wearing brass knuckles that were on fire had punched her! "The injury, and then hit her head on the door, that's what the scalp laceration is from. Since this is a wound from her country, there's not much we can do. We can bandage it, but she'll probably bleed through in a little while…"

"We can fold a towel and put it over it, then bandage her." Spain's suggestion was met by a grim smile from Prussia, and an expectant hand. He placed the towel and roll of bandages in the albino's palm, happy that the knowledge from his matador days had paid off. "Lovi did that for me the one time I was gored by the bull."

Prussia did as Spain had suggested, glaring at France (who tried to sneak a look) when he removed the towel to wrap the bandage. Really, did the pervert have no limits?

"I'll get her clothes," Spain was still somber, although he knew that in a little while, Israel would be up and as violent as usual. He walked over to the counter, where she'd thrown her stuff, including a long green t-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts.

"You put 'em on, Tony. She'd kill us when she woke up if she knew we dressed her. You're a good boy, you won't get in trouble. Francis and I will work on her head wound." Prussia smirked and received a nod from Spain, then grabbed antiseptic and a butterfly bandage from France.

He went to work cleaning the incision, then parted Israel's hair around it before sticking on the butterfly bandage, hoping that when it came off it wouldn't take too much of her hair with it. Spain interrupted him to slide Israel's shirt on, and then the three of them sat back and viewed their handiwork.

"What do you think happened to notre amie?" France pursed his lips, obviously concerned about the prickly girl.

"It's Israel," Spain replied like it was obvious. "You can't be who she is, where she is, without making some enemies. And judging by the burn marks around the wound, I'd say it was another bombing." With that, he bent over and picked Israel up, cradling her like a child and walking out of the bathroom and over to the beds. Prussia gave his consent, and Spain set her on his bed.

Now, all they had to do was wait.


Israel woke to find France, Spain, and Prussia watching her and talking quietly.

"Why are you looking at me?" She tried to sit up, but then decided not to after she felt the pain in her side. "And what happened?" Israel pulled the hem of her shirt up, revealing the bandages. "Wait…" her memory came back; the pain, then the swift sensation of falling, then the cool floor before she drifted off into darkness. "There was a bombing, and then I fell and…" She looked down again, saw that she was clothed and bandaged, and immediately realized what had happened. "Fuck!" Israel grabbed a pillow and held it over her now burning face, muttering swears and curses in every language she knew.

"Wow, even I don't know some of those! You've got quite the awesome mouth, kid." Prussia joked, only to get another pillow thrown at him.

"You saw me…" Israel's voice was barely audible, and France placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, only to have it violently shaken off. "You saw me." She repeated.

"It is alright, ma chere," France consoled. "It shows that you've been through suffering, and are all the more beautiful for it. It shows that you are strong."

"No." The bitterness in Israel's voice surprised the three sitting by her bedside. "It doesn't show any of that. All the scars, all the burns, all the bombings… If I was strong like you think I am, I could have avoided so many of those. And I keep getting more, why do you think I was wearing that huge fucking sweatshirt on the plane today? People would have thought I was an abuse victim or something, would have looked at me, would have pitied me."

"Kid, we all have scars. Every nation has them. Hell, even humans all have scars! You've been around longer, so it's only natural that you have a few more marks than the rest of us." Prussia looked at his own arms, the lines from swords and maces and axes almost faded, but still there.

"A few more marks." Israel's voice was monotone now, with no emotion at all. "A few more marks." Rage had started to seep into it, centuries of repressed fury. "I have scars from millennia before you were born; burns from the First and the Second temple, huge cuts when I was invaded, divided, conquered, gashes from the Crusades. I have a fucking swastika carved into my back," she hissed with venom, "courtesy of your fucking brother."

"Amiel," Spain interjected, "it's not fair to yell at us for not knowing what happened to you. Maybe if you told us a little of your history, we'd understand more. You've been dropping hints, and not really giving us anything to learn about you. I'd like to know you better, but if you insist on keeping secrets, we won't be able to help you."

"… Fine." Israel grumbled, and removed the pillow from her face. "But if you want to know my history, I'm going to need a much higher alcohol level in my bloodstream. There's no way I'm re-hashing all of that sober."

"Can you even legally drink?" Spain looked worried; France, however, was already looking at the different wines the hotel offered.

"Does that really matter?" Israel scowled at Prussia, who had adopted the kicked puppy expression. "I'm not apologizing, you know. I guess I have to thank you for not letting me bleed out, but I'm not apologizing for yelling at you, Gilbert."

"Fine." Prussia sighed dramatically. "The awesome me will go out with Francis and get some booze that's not ridiculously priced. Tony, try to calm her down some."

"Allons-y!" France grabbed Prussia's arm, and the two of them almost ran out of the room.

"… They forgot the room's key card."


Authoress' Random Ramble

First off, I'M SORRY. I wasn't originally going to split this into two chapters, but it's 2 am here, and I really wanted to post what I had… *cries* To make it up, I'll have the next chapter posted tomorrow ^^ And I know this was really sort of angsty… *sad face for making Israel suffer*

And here're the translations… I'm only putting up things that you probably don't know (for example, any self-respecting Hetalia fan knows that mon ami is 'my friend' in French, and that bruder is 'brother' in German. If you just said: wow, I didn't know that… Then there's a Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick coming your way)(crap I used a lot of different languages in this…)

FRENCH

Derriere- France means his ass. He does have a nice one.

notre amie- Our friend

ma chere- My dear

Allons-y!- Let's go!

SPANISH

Perezoso- lazy

tonta- silly

doce- twelve

de nada- it's nothing

GERMAN

Fick- fuck

Scheiße- shit

HEBREW

חרא- … it's supposed to be shit, but I don't know, because I used an online translator because my lovely Hebrew translator buddy was offline when I asked her… *whimpers* I'm sorry if it's wrong

Less than three. Less than three.