Chapter Four

The Butterfly Dream

Prussia sighed and sat back on the couch, sipping at a mug of beer and looking out the window. Birds flew around and chirped merrily, and he found a small smile crossing his face. It had been a long time since he had been able to relax like this, and he had to admit that he rather liked it. He had been so busy helping Germany out with paperwork and the like that he hadn't had much time to himself. His grin widened as his tiny pet canary, Gilbird, flew onto his outstretched hand and chirped at him.

"Kesese! You're so cute!" he cooed softly at the tiny yellow bird, which began peeping at him in reply.

He leaned his head back and closed his vivid red eyes, relaxing further. He soon found himself being stirred from a light doze by a strange, and wonderfully familiar, whirring sound. He sat in complete stillness for a moment, wondering if it had been part of a dreamed memory. Still hearing the sound, the excited man leapt to his feet and ran for the front door. He threw it open and ran outside just in time to see his favorite blue police box materializing in front of his house. A huge grin mushroomed across his face: the TARDIS!

He walked up to the box and knocked on the door cheekily, waiting for his longtime friend to open up. After a moment the door swung open, and a familiar face greeted him with a confused look that immediately changed into a pleased smile.

"Prussia! It's been a while!" the Doctor proclaimed loudly, stepping out of the TARDIS and pulling him into a quick hug.

"Ja! Five years, to be exact. Vhat are you doing here?" Prussia asked.

"Ah, well, I always visit my friends." the Doctor replied with a slightly nervous smile.

"Liar. The TARDIS brought you here, didn't it?"

"...yeah."

Prussia chuckled and began walking down the street, the Doctor falling into step beside him.

"So, how have things been for you since I dropped you off?" the Time Lord asked.

"About as vell as zey could be, I guess. I've been helping Germany out a lot lately. It's been really boring compared to ze adventures ve've had, zough." Prussia huffed in annoyance.

"Ah, you're doing well enough here." the Doctor smiled and sat on a nearby park bench, Prussia sitting next to him.

"So, vhy did ze TARDIS bring you here?" the curious country asked.

"I'm not sure yet. It's weird." the Doctor sighed, then yawned.

"Are you alright?" Prussia asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"Yeah, just really...tired all...of a sudden..."

Prussia suddenly noticed that he was tired as well. Hell, he was exhausted. He tried to stay awake, but for some reason couldn't seem to fight sleep. He nodded off rather quickly, slumping against the Doctor's side just as the other man fell asleep as well.

Prussia awoke with a shallow gasp, groaning at the feeling of cold metal pressed against his face. He grumbled and pulled himself to a sitting position, looking around. He was inside the TARDIS, and the Doctor was staggering to his feet as well. Had all of that...been just a dream?

"Vhat ze Hell just happened?" he asked groggily, standing up to join the Doctor at the TARDIS console.

"We must have hit some kind of patch in space that made us both fall asleep all of a sudden." the Doctor explained somewhat nervously.

"I had ze veirdest dream. I vas helping Germany do papervork, zen I took a break. Und you showed up, und-" Prussia was interrupted.

"We walked to a little park and sat in a bench and fell asleep." the Doctor finished.

"Ja! Did ve have ze same dream? Veird."

"Ah, must have been a psychic link caused by the patch. It happens. We should be fine now."

Prussia was about to respond, but found himself feeling sleepy again. He staggered and leaned against the wall, shaking his head. He knitted his eyebrows as he thought he heard birds chirping, and could tell from the look on his friend's face that he was having the same experience.

"Doctor...do you hear birds...?" he managed to whisper before crumpling to the ground, asleep.

Prussia jerked awake, leaning away from the Doctor's waking form. They were once again sitting on the park bench, and birds were chirping in the trees above them.

"Ze dream again? But it feels so real..." he mumbled in confusion.

"It might be real...I don't know what's going on yet, but we had best be very careful..." the Doctor replied, standing and looking around.

"Hey, East!"

Prussia and the Doctor turned to see a tell, muscular man with blue eyes and slicked back blonde hair running toward them. Prussia grinned widely as he stopped in front of them.

"Hey, Vest! Zis is mein friend ze Doctor! Doctor, zis is mein little bruder Germany." Prussia introduced happily.

"Nice to meet you." Germany greeted with a small smile.

"Likewise." the Doctor replied.

"So, vhat's up, Vest?" Prussia asked with a curious gleam in his eyes.

"America heard about zis supposedly haunted old house zat he vants everyone to see. Japan, Italy und I vanted you to come vith us. Your friend can come too if he vants." Germany said quickly, and Prussia smirked.

"Ja, sounds cool! Vhat do you zink, Doctor?"

"I think we should be...really careful..." the Doctor swayed a bit, and Prussia knew why. He felt that irresistible fatigue creep into him, and his mind went blank before he hit the ground.

Prussia sat up with a loud curse and rubbed the place where he had hit his head when he fell asleep. They were in the TARDIS again, and he was already getting annoyed with this.

"Vhat ze Hell is going on?" he growled angrily.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Prussia and the Doctor looked up to see a strange man standing on the balcony of the second floor of the TARDIS. He wore an old looking brown coat, a pair of gray slacks with suspenders, a cream colored shirt, and a red bow tie. He had mischievous gray eyes and wispy gray hair, and wore an amused look across his visage.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked incredulously: it was impossible for someone to break into the TARDIS, especially in deep space.

The man smiled, then vanished. Prussia gasped when he reappeared a few feet away from them.

"Well, look at you~!" he nearly sang, observing the Doctor with an expression full of hate and malice.

"That tacky coat of yours belongs in a thrift shop, old man! And that spiky hair style died with your planet. Oooh, tender subject? Yes." the man vanished again, only to reappear walking down the steps onto the floor they were on.

"Well, you call yourself the Time Lord. So let's call me: the Dream Lord. I'm here to play a game with you two. You see, here's how it goes. One world is dream, and the other is reality. You have to decide which is which and...oh, but wait? You two look tired. You're not falling asleep on me? How rude!" he taunted as the two fell to the ground.

Just before they nodded off they heard the Dream Lord chuckle and ask,

"Or are you waking up?"

Prussia jerked awake and shot up, looking panicked. He found himself sitting in the lobby of a very large mansion, the Doctor by his side. Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Canada, America, China, England, and Russia stood around them, watching them carefully.

"Vhat happened?" Prussia groaned, standing up.

"You und ze Doctor passed out, so I brought you here vhere everyone else vas. Ve're inside zat mansion I mentioned. Ze haunted one." Germany explained as China helped the Doctor to his feet.

"Yeah dudes! This is gonna be awesome, broskis! Let's check this place out!" America shouted enthusiastically.

"Should we split up and look around, or all go together, da?" Russia asked.

"We should split up to cover more ground." England offered.

"Ve~! I want to-a go with Germany!" Italy shouted happily.

"Fine, we'll split up. Let's meet back here in an hour, oui?" France asked with his "charming" smile turned to the Doctor.

"Da. Sounds good to me. Let's go." Russia was the first to leave, and the others followed suit, leaving Prussia and the Doctor alone in the foyer.

"Finally, I thought they'd never leave. Now we can get back to our game." the Dream Lord suddenly appeared between them, and Prussia jumped in surprise with a small yelp.

"Gah! Don't do zat!" he growled.

"Quit whining. I swear, of all the people the Doctor has collected, I feel the most sorry for you. You think you're his friend." the Dream Lord chuckled.

"Vhat?"

"The Doctor doesn't have friends. He only has helpers. Companions. Tools."

"Stop it." the Doctor growled sternly.

"Right, back to our game. There are two worlds. One real, one fake, both feeling very real. There will be a deadly danger in each. If you die in the dream, you wake up in the real world. Ask me what happens if you die in reality."

"Vhat happens?" Prussia took the bait.

"You die, stupid. That's why it's called reality. So, you have to choose between the two worlds. Choose carefully." the Dream Lord smirked as the Doctor glared at him.

"I know who you are. Only one person could hate me this much." he whispered, and the Dream Lord simply glared back and vanished.

"Stay close, Prussia. We have to be very careful from here on. And keep your eyes open for anything suspicious." the Doctor warned, looking around carefully.

"Ja. Vho is he, Doctor?" Prussia asked nervously.

The Doctor ignored him and started walking toward one of the rooms in the large mansion, and Prussia followed hurriedly. They could hear the voices and footsteps of the others looking around the house. The atmosphere of the house was very eerie, and Prussia had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. His suspicious were confirmed a moment later when they heard frantic shouting from another room, and the two ran to find the source of the sound. They were startled to find the America, Russia, and China being stared down by a strange gray creature with massive black eyes that seemed empty and soulless.

"Vhat ze Hell is zat zing!?" Prussia yelped.

"This world's deadly danger, courtesy of the Dream Lord." the Doctor hissed, watching as the creature turned and ran up a flight of stairs.

"Hey! Vait!" Prussia called after it, and started chasing it. He felt that familiar grogginess come over him, and hadn't even made it up the stairs before he fell asleep.

The first thing Prussia noticed when he woke in the TARDIS was that it was cold: almost unbearably so. He shuddered and stood, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Shiza it's colder zan a vitch during a catholic sermon in here! Can you turn ze heat up?" Prussia asked.

The Doctor fiddled with a few switches on the TARDIS console, but nothing happened. He sighed and shook his head in frustration.

"No, nothing's working. The Dream Lord has killed the power to the TARDIS. We're drifting in deep space. Get a coat." the irritated Time Lord pointed to one of the many rooms of the TARDIS.

Prussia ran inside and snatched a black coat off of a hanger, returning to find the Doctor pacing around the console.

"Vhat do ve do now?" Prussia asked quietly.

"We need to figure out which one is the dream, and which one is real. Which one feels real to you?" the Doctor asked frantically.

"Zey both do. I can't tell vitch is vitch..."Prussia sighed and looked around for any hints as to what was going on.

The Doctor groaned and walked to the door of the TARDIS. If he could see where they were, maybe he could figure this out before things got really serious. He wanted to be done with this and the Dream Lord as soon as possible. They were in more danger than Prussia could fathom. He threw the door to the TARDIS open, glad that it had a force field that would keep them safe as the blackness of deep space met his searching eyes. But that wasn't all that he saw.

He gasped as a massive star burned in the distance, and it was clear that the TARDIS was being pulled toward it by its gravitational pull. That wasn't the only problem, however.

"That star...it's burning cold. It's creating cold fire." he whispered in disbelief.

"Vhat? How is zat possible?" Prussia gazed out at the whitish-blue mass of cold-burning gases.

"I don't know..."

"Ooh, and doesn't that just kill you?"

The Dream Lord appeared between them, gazing out at the strange, impossible star.

"A cold star, and the arrogant, all-knowing Doctor doesn't know why. I bet it really ruffles your jimmies, right?" he taunted before clapping his hands together and walking a few steps away from them.

"So you know your deadly dangers. In one world, a dead TARDIS drifting toward a cold star. In the other, trapped in a mansion with a murderous Oni. One is real, one is fake, but which is which? I suggest you find out soon." the Dream Lord smirked before vanishing once again.

"Gott, he's starting to get on mein nerves." Prussia snorted.

"Ignore him and focus on figuring this mess out. From the looks of things we have about 24 minutes before we drift into that cold star. Which isn't a problem." the Doctor muttered, looking around anxiously.

"Und vhy...not...?" Prussia groaned as tiredness started to drag him down.

"Because...we'll have...frozen to death by then..."

Prussia and the Doctor woke at the same time and sat up. The Doctor was lying on the floor in the foyer, whilst Prussia was pulling himself off of the steps. He groaned and walked to the Doctor's side, looking around with concern in his red eyes.

"Vhere is everyone? Und zat Oni zing?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know. We should look around and see if we can find anything." the Doctor answered him grimly.

Prussia nodded and followed him as he walked up the stairs, keeping close and looking for any signs of anyone. The mansion had gone silent, which was definitely not a good sign. Worry gnawed at Prussia's stomach. Not only were he and the Doctor in danger: his friends and brother were as well. He couldn't live with himself if anything happened to Germany, especially after he had promised his father Germania that he would protect him.

The Doctor was worried as well. He had promised Prussia that he would keep him alive while they traveled together. Now, he wasn't sure he could do it. It was nearly impossible to tell which of the two worlds was the real one, and this bothered him. The Dream Lord was clever. Of course, knowing him, he would have to be. There's only one person who could set all of this up and get onto the TARDIS undetected. He thought with a pained expression.

"Doctor!"

Prussia's shout shook the Doctor from his thoughts, and he was startled to see the Oni standing only a few feet away from them. It stared at them with empty eyes, tilting its bulbous head slightly to one side. Prussia winced as he noticed a sticky red substance drying to its strange hands, dripping onto the wooden floor with light sounds.

"Vhat did you do? Vhos blood is zat?" he shouted angrily.

"You...WoN'T...EscApE..." the Oni whispered, taking a step toward them.

"RUN!" the Doctor yelled and grabbed Prussia's arm, dragging the furious and terrified nation behind him as he ran.

Prussia was quick to obey, and ran as quickly as his legs would carry him. The Oni followed them, its feet making heavy sounds as it gave chase. Both men felt themselves growing tired again, and Prussia cursed loudly.

"Zis really isn't ze time for a nap!" he shouted desperately.

"You shouldn't fight sleep, boys. It only makes it worse." the Dream Lord suddenly appeared next to them, vanishing just as quickly.

The Doctor threw a nearby door open and stumbled inside, slamming it shut after Prussia had joined him. He barely managed to lock the door before slipping down the door's surface and falling to the floor. Prussia fell next to him with a loud thud.

When the two awoke, the TARDIS was nearly frozen over. Small icicles dangled off of the roof and console, and their bodies were coated in a thin layer of frost. Both men climbed painfully to their feet and dusted themselves off, glancing out as the cold star drew ever closer.

"We have minutes before we freeze, Prussia." the Doctor warned.

Prussia walked back into the closet that he had gotten his coat from, returning moments later with two striped cloth ponchos. He tossed one to the Doctor and pulled the other one over his head. The Doctor put his on as well and shot Prussia a curious look.

"Ponchos?" he asked.

"If we're gonna die, let's die looking like a Mexican Mariachi band." Prussia smirked softly, trying and failing to mask his anxiety.

"Good choice. Your bodies will look great in those." the Dream Lord assessed from his perch on the balcony above.

"Vho are you? Ze Doctor von't tell me, und he alvays tell me vho people are." Prussia growled.

"Oh, so you think you're the only one the Doctor ever tells things to? You think he trusts you? If that's the case, then what's his name?" the Dream Lord asked.

Prussia was silent: he couldn't respond. He didn't know.

The Dream Lord cast him a satisfied smile before disappearing once again. Prussia and the Doctor stood in silence, and soon sleep overcame them once again. They fell once again, not fighting.

When Prussia woke, it was to a horrible sight.

He and the Doctor had somehow ended up in the foyer where they had started, and all of the countries were gathered around them in a circle. Lying on the ground. In pools of their own blood.

Dead.

A gurgling, agonized sob bubbled out of Prussia's throat as he looked at all of them: then his eyes fell onto Germany. His brother's form was limp and splayed out, lying on his back, his blue eyes empty and dull. Prussia screamed and ran to him, falling to his knees and cradling his brother's body in his arms. Hot tears streamed down his face, and he cried more than he had since the Death of his beloved leader, Old Man Fritz.

The Doctor watched with a miserable expression, guilt bubbling within. He hated death more than almost anything. What he hated the most was that he couldn't have helped them. He wasn't startled when Prussia looked up at him with pleading eyes.

"Save zem. Save mein bruder und friends, Doctor. Please. You alvays save zem." he begged as he had never begged before.

"Not always." the Doctor whispered.

"Then vhat's ze point of you?" Prussia hissed, rage flashing briefly in his eyes before being replaced with grief.

After a few minutes of crying, Prussia sniffled and climbed to his feet, giving the Doctor an intense, determined look.

"It's zis one." he muttered.

"What?"

"It's zis one. Ze dream."

"...how do you know?"

Prussia sighed and looked down at his boots.

"I promised mein Vati zat I vould take care of Vest, und I failed. He's dead. If zis is ze real vorld...zen I don't vant it." he replied almost meekly.

The Doctor nodded slowly, looking over Prussia's shoulder. Prussia turned to see the Oni watching them, the Dream Lord at its side. The Dream Lord wore a serious expression as the Oni approached them.

"You...WOn'T...EscaPe..." it whispered.

"Ja, ve know. Get on vith it." Prussia growled, closing his eyes.

The Oni rushed forward...

And Prussia woke with a shuddering gasp to the feeling of the TARDIS heating up. He looked up to see the Dream Lord standing at the TARDIS console, flicking switches and turning knobs.

"Let's get you away from that cold star and warm this place up." he sighed.

Prussia and the Doctor watched him continue before he turned to look at them with a resigned expression.

"I have been defeated. I will withdraw. Goodbye." he nodded before vanishing for the last time.

The Doctor immediately jumped to his feet and began madly flicking switches on the console. Prussia walked to his side and watched curiously.

"Vhat are you doing?" he asked softly.

"Blowing up the TARDIS." the Doctor replied, jumping to the other side of the console to mess with a dial.

Prussia blinked in shock.

"VHAT!?"

"The Dream Lord withdrew too easily. I know who he is, and he would never do that. Both worlds are dreams." the Doctor grabbed the final lever that he would need to pull.

"Are you sure?" Prussia asked, scared.

"Nope! Allons-y!" the Doctor threw the switch.

Prussia walked calmly down the steps to the console area of the TARDIS, greeting the Doctor with a sleepy grumble. The Doctor stood at the door to the TARDIS, holding several tiny glowing specks in the palm of one hand. Prussia leaned against the console and nodded at them.

"Vhat are zose?" he asked.

"Space dust-ish stuff. They feed off of psychic energy and project it. They must have blown into the TARDIS." the Doctor blew gently on them, and they fluttered out the door.

"So zat vas ze Dream Lord?" Prussia questioned with a small smile.

"No. Didn't I tell you? The Dream Lord was me. All of my darkness, projected by the dust." the Doctor replied almost cheerily.

Prussia processed this for a minute, then knit his brow.

"Vait...all of zose avful zings he said about you...you don't really believe zem, do you?" he asked with a sad expression.

The Doctor cast Prussia a sad smile before brushing past him and walking up the stairs, disappearing into the second floor of his beloved TARDIS.

AUUUUUGH! SO SAD! The person who hates the Doctor the most in all of existence is the Doctor himself! :'( MOFFAT! Anyway, what can we expect in further chapters? Hints: EXTERMINATE, DELETE, count the shadows, don't blink, are you my mummy?, fear her, burn with me, and finally...CAN YOU HEAR THEM? THE DRUMS? I hope you're as excited to read as I am to write! Allons-y~!

~Silver