Oh, dude, I can't believe this fic had collected so much dust! I'm sorry lovely readers who have faved and followed this compilation, and I'm sorry story for neglecting ya! *pats story* If you were a pet, you'd be long dead right now. I make a horrible pet owner. ;n;

I don't own Hetalia.

It was another spring afternoon. The bright blue sky promised a clear, beautiful morning for the quiet Beilschmidt household. With Prussia locking himself in the basement, Italy cancelling his usual daily visit, and Japan not answering phone calls at all, all of those added up can only mean one thing.

It's spring cleaning time.

On an almost monthly basis, Germany would set aside a day or two for his spring cleaning sessions, cancelling any and all appointments and visits- no matter how necessary they are- to free up his schedule. This meant that he and his house was isolated, with his older brother barricading himself in a dark, dank room, Italy not coming over to beg for pasta and soccer, Romano not invading his land to curse out the German for "stealing his brother," and Spain, France, Denmark, and America not coming to visit Prussia to unite the Awesome and Bad Touch trios in some form of party. All because they were afraid of Germany's "crazy, unnatural, insane perfectionist tirade" (as quoted by America himself).

Germany supposed it was for the best; sure, it would be nice if he had his friends over to lend extra hands and lighten the workload instead of just coming for their own convenience- Especially that Dummkopf who I've been letting live here rent-free while he makes most of the messes, Germany brooded- but America did have a point. With all of that military training he had over the decades, no one really could match Germany's penchant for order. Only he was able to know which item should be placed and how, which cleaning agent was best for a specific dirt stain, and what scrubbing or wiping method should be used on the tough stains; because of his decades of military training, Germany developed an eye for spotting the smallest imperfection, a blemish on his orderly lifestyle. If no one else was able to keep up with his way of cleaning, then it would be best for Germany to do it all by himself, seeing as how the others would simply slow him down or make the mess worse, especially Prussia.

Coming from the bathroom after a ruthless cleaning and disinfecting, Germany hefted a bucket of freshly ran cleaning water and another bucket of cleaning products into his long, empty hallway before setting them down on the marble floor and kneeling in-between them. He took out his rubber gloves from the cleaning product bucket and slipped them on his hands with a rubbery snap; he then took out the large sponge, dipping it into the soapy cleaning water and rubbing it against the hard flooring. He sighed in content at the splashing sounds of the water hitting the floor; another great thing about cleaning alone is the absolute peace of it all. With no America, Italy, or Prussia to run their mouths in a constant stream of random, unimportant thoughts, Germany had the quiet he needs to concentrate on his work and to collect his thoughts uninterrupted.

He stared down at the floor he was cleaning, his eyes tracing the blue-black lines running through the sky blue mass. Ja, this is nice. He started crawling on the floor, scrubbing and towing the bucket along as he went until he reached another section of flooring that needed his attention. As he resettled, he let his mind wander to pleasant thoughts, about the time that his country and citizens were so prosperous and strong before the horrid recession left them all hungry, desperate, and sick, a recession that led to...

"Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination! We as the greatest race on the Almighty's green earth must inherit what is rightfully ours! Germany will either be a world superpower or not at all!"

The rowdy crowd standing below his balcony shot their right hands up, applauding with powerful resonance, "Heil -!"

Germany gasped as he shot up from his daydream. W-what was...? He looked down at his floor and the water that was escaping the sponge. Why did that of all things have to come up? He felt a sort of sickness overcome him as he tried to push that memory to the back of his mind and continue scrubbing. When pushing that memory away to the darkest corner of his psyche so it can finally die didn't work, Germany tried the next best thing: reasoning.

"I don't know why I just thought that," Germany muttered to himself as he worked at a spot that seemed to not disappear no matter how hard he rubbed at it. "I mean, I didn't share that man's sentiments at all! I even tried to convince him to stop the entire thing and live with the Jews and Gypsies in peace. Maybe it's nerves. Yeah, that's it, nerves." Satisfied with the conclusion, Germany nodded and continued his work. "Come on, you stupid stain! Off, already!" He rubbed the sponge on the floor feverishly, creating bubbles that glistened in a rainbow spectrum in the sunlight like diamonds, or shattered glass...

Carefully moving above the large piece of glass still jutting from the windowpane, Germany swung a leg into the gape and swung the other leg in, climbing into the dark front room of a hat store. He squinted into the darkness and called softly, "Hullo? Is anyone in here?" He stood quietly and listened. He wasn't sure, but he thought he could make out...sobbing? He crept through the room, his heavy combat boots crunching on top of smaller shards of glass. When he stepped on the shards, the soft sobbing stopped, but Germany no longer needed the sobs to find the source.

Hiding in the darkest depths of the tiny hat store was a little girl, her shoulders and back quivering from contained weeping. Germany smiled gently to himself as he knelt down behind the girl and pat her head. "Little one, it's okay; I'm here to help you."

When she heard the soothing tone within the deep bellow, the little girl slowly looked over her shoulder at the man, the large, looming shadow that hovered above her. She shook harder.

Germany's eyes widened in surprise. Why on earth is she still afraid? Didn't I just tell her that-? He looked down at himself to see what was wrong and immediately spotted everything: the uniform, the revolver holstered beside his chest, the red band with the swastika in the center.

Mentally slapping himself, Germany hurriedly said, "No, no, little one, you don't understand! I'm not one of them anymore! I'm going to help you, see?" He ripped off the red band around his arm and yanked his uniform top off. He cast away his gun with the band and smiled down at the girl. "See?"

The little girl turned around in her spot, and Germany was able to see the fresh blood on her ripped sundress. "Y-you're not going to...h-hurt me?" The little girl stammered.

Germany wrapped the uniform top around the small girl as a blanket. "No, I won't. I'm Ludwig Beilschmidt, what's your name?"

"I-I'm-"

"Hey! Ludwig found another one!" A heavily German-accented voice called out from the window. Ludwig looked over his shoulder just in time to see the store's entrance kicked in. Military-clad men rushed into the store, surrounding the two people in the room, causing the little girl to whimper. In the moonlight, Ludwig could see that they were all smiling down sadistically. "Well, well, well, General Ludwig, looks like you were hiding out a kill from us," the leader of the group said. "Trying to keep the fun all to yourself? Heh, selfish bastard. But nice find, either way."

"W-what are you doing here?!" Germany stammered. He lifted his arms up to hide the girl.

"What do you think? We're going to complete the pogrom we were told to do." The man noticed Germany's protective state and shook his head in disapproval. "Oh, Ludwig, no..." He sighed and pointed, barking, "Move this man!"

"What?! NO!" Germany screamed as he kicked, punched, and wriggled wildly against the soldiers' grip. He was easily tossed to the back, and as he moved to get back to the child, the soldiers held him down, forcing him to watch in horror as the leader cocked his pistol.

The man sniggered and gave Ludwig a passing glance of contempt. "Wow, Ludwig, I knew you were a dog person, but this-" he slowly brought the barrel of his pistol to the little girl's forehead- "this is taking mutt-loving a little too far."

"NO!" Germany screamed, his protest drowned in the loud bang as the man's finger pulled the trigger back. Blood splattered from somewhere that Germany can't see from the blackness of his mind, and when his body fell limp from the shock, he felt his hands brush against something fleshy. When he looked down he saw bodies, lifeless bodies covered with fresh blood, blood that was spreading everywhere too quickly. Mind rushing with too many thoughts, Germany quickly wiped at the blood to get it under control and stop it from spreading. This shouldn't be happening; this shouldn't have happened at all; he should have stopped it and that soldier and this pogrom and the entire movement because he is the country, he was his own land, he should've stopped his people from following Nazism and try to create peace...

"-der! Bruder! What the hell?!"

Germany came back to the present, meeting the ruby eyes of his older brother, Prussia. Prussia was kneeling in front of Germany, gripping Germany's shoulders and shaking him to snap him out of his weird state. Germany looked around him at the hallway brightly lit by the sunlight, not a storeroom darkened by night hours and blood. He looked around for the soldiers and the bodies and the little girl. None of them were present. "They're not here..."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Germany looked around with wild eyes. "The soldiers. The little girl- what's her name? Where are they?"

Prussia furrowed his eyebrows in concern and confusion. "I have no clue what you're talking about, but I'm sure you're losing it." He sighed. "I come up here to get another case of beer and find you scrubbing away at this spot repeatedly and crying like an unawesome baby!"

"What?" Germany then felt the tears race down his cheeks and drip from his chin. The tears fell onto his glove and onto the spot where the blood should've been. "The blood..."

"What blood? What are you talking about?"

Germany sat still in his spot, staring down at his hands with his fingers tensely digging into the sponge. He then flung forward into Prussia, burying his face into Prussia's chest and wrapping his arms tightly around Prussia's waist. "I-I didn't want to, Prussia!"

Shocked by the sudden move, Prussia stared down at the blonde locks of hair. "What...?"

"I didn't want to do that, Prussia! I didn't want to! I had no choice! I was getting sick by the economy and I was desperate and I didn't know better and I couldn't save her! I couldn't even get her damn name before they got to her! Why didn't I stop it? Why couldn't I save her? They didn't need to kill her, she was just a child! I didn't care about being powerful, he didn't need to do all of that! They were all innocent! They were all human beings!"

Prussia gaped at the breakdown happening in front of him, unable to comprehend the jumble of nonsense flying from Germany, but he started to piece it all together, all of Germany's regrets and misery. Quickly, he pulled Germany closer to him and tightened his arms around him, shushing him and reassuring him over and over that he knows that it wasn't it fault, that it was all out of his control and there wasn't anything he could do.

When Germany finally calmed down, he gently pushed Prussia away and gathered his cleaning items. He walked off.

"H-hey! What's going on?" Prussia said, confused by the sudden change of moods and insulted by Germany's gesture.

"I'm going to clean the kitchen," Germany said over his shoulder.

"You're going to clean up after whatever the hell that panic attack was? And the kitchen's already clean!"

"I can't be too sure that it's clean," Germany said softly. "Besides, this is just...this is just throwing off my whole cleaning routine. Now, if you'll please..." With the stiff stoicism of a soldier, Germany walked away to the direction of the kitchen to start over.

This had to be the toughest and saddest chapter I wrote, because it required me to look up stuff I didn't want to read on (like Hitler's actual quotes) and write something that I'm sure I'll have nightmares and crying fits over. ;n;

Anyway, I intended to have Germany display symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (because I like giving characters only one illness), but when I learned that OCD is a means to both calm anxiety and gain control of a situation, somehow Post Traumatic Stress Disorder melded into the writing and fit itself perfectly into Germany's chapter. It's pretty cool, though.