A/N: Well, here's Friday's chapter. I'm shocking myself with my ability to update.

Now, I have been a very bad authoress. Why? Because I have neglected to thank all my wonderful reviewers! So, here it is, an AWESOME thank-you to all the AWESOME people who've reviewed this story. I know, I'm terrible about replying to reviews, but that doesn't mean I don't love each every one of them.

So, to thank you guys for this, I'm offering up a oneshot to my 42nd reviewer! It can be any pairing, but I'm not writing any lemons (at least not yet).

There we have it, kids. Enjoy the chapter~

It had been a nice, peaceful afternoon for roughly 10.63 minutes, even though it was raining outside. Both Elizaveta and Roderich had been sitting in the music room, where Roderich was working on the song that was only about Lizzy and not for her. The girl in question was pretending to read a book, but secretly listening to the disjointed notes and her lover's mutterings.

After 10.63 minutes, however, a pest by the name of Gilbert Beilschmidt decided to stick his albino head through the doorway and make everyone's life miserable.

"Hey, Lizzy!" he yelled, even though she was nowhere near far enough away for it to be necessary. "Guess what? Your day just got awesome!"

"If by awesome you mean headache-filled, then, yes, it got very 'awesome'," she replied dryly, going back to her fake reading.

"Gilbert," Roderich said, looking over the top of his glasses at the albino, in an attempt to be intimidating.

"Hah! Roddy's still a total wimp, right, Lizzy?" the other man laughed in response to this.

Elizaveta rolled her eyes. "No. Only when he sees a spider."

"Roddy hates spiders? Awesome!"

Roderich glared at Elizaveta, who smiled sheepishly. "Yes. Just like I hate you, Gilbert. So get out of here before I frypan you."

Of course, Gilbert did not comply. "So, Roddy, Lizzy's the man in this relationship, right? Even though she never grew a-"

"Shut it, or I will castrate you," she threatened.

"Fine, Lizzy. No reason to be so mean."

"And there's no reason for you to be so mean to Roddy. So stop talking."

"Nah, I think I'm gonna talk some more, if that's alright with you."

"It's obviously not alright with me, idiot!"

"Damn, Lizzy, you're no fun anymore."

"Leave." When Gilbert didn't do as he was told, she knew that he wouldn't go away for another few hours, which were a few hours that she was going to spend with Roderich. At the moment, Roderich was sitting on the piano bench, looking sufficiently awkward. He had never been a part of Elizaveta and Gilbert's sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, but all-time "frienemies" relationship, since he had been far too "boring" or "girly" for their rough-and-tumble, "let's go engage in more senseless violence and be awesome at it" kind of fun.

Frankly, he was a little jealous.

Elizaveta didn't notice that, but she did see Roderich sitting there, and that was what brought her the solution to removing Gilbert. It was simple, really. All she had to do was walk a few steps over to Roderich, plop down in his lap, and seize his lips with her own for Gilbert to yell, "Get a room!" and, after she started making noises, to give a disturbed, "So not awesome," and run from the room.

Satisfied, Elizaveta pulled back and was in shock to see Roderich looking stoically at her. "Roddy?"

"Yes?"

"You look angry."

"Do I?"

"Yes."

He sighed, turning his gaze toward the floor instead of the girl on his lap. "I'm not angry, Lizzy. It's just… Gilbert. I know I shouldn't let him get to me the way I do, but I sometimes I just can't ignore him."

"Was it the thing about the spiders that bothered you? 'Cause if it is, I'm so sorry for bringing that up."

He let out the closest thing to a laugh that he could manage in this situation. "No, it wasn't that, but thank you for your concern. I'm simply bothered by the fact that no one seems to think I'm… as much of a man as the other countries, I suppose."

At first, Elizaveta could think of nothing to say to that. "Honestly, I don't think I could handle being in love with a manly guy. After all, we'd be constantly fighting over who's the dominant one."

"And that's another problem. Gilbert seems to believe I can't handle you."

Now she was annoyed, along with being shocked. "Handle me? What makes you think I need to be handled?"

Roderich rolled his eyes and rubbed his temple, as if dealing with Italy in an outstanding moment of naïveté. "I didn't mean it in that way, and you know it. I simply meant that Gilbert doesn't seem to believe that I could actually be the dominant part of a relationship."

"You should know I won't agree to that. Gilbert's right – I'm more suited to be the man than you are." For some reason, Roderich's slave master side was coming out, and with it her own rebellious one. The sheer combination was enough to increase her anger.

Luckily for neither, Roderich looked suitably irritated as well. "First off, I must mention that you lack certain aspects of the male anatomy. And, secondly, since when were you and Gilbert so close? I thought I was your lover."

"First off," she said snidely, mimicking his superior-sounding tone, "I'm shocked you brought that up, especially since you know I don't like being made fun of for that. Besides, I have more balls than all you idiots put together. And for your information, Gilbert and I have been best friends since long before I was subjected to your rule."

She didn't even bother to answer that last sentence. Shoving herself off of him, she stood up and straightened her skirt. "Elizaveta, what are you doing?" he asked, still looking irked.

"I'm going to do my goddamn chores." Ah, such a convenient excuse. "If anyone's going to be the man in the relationship, that person should at least be able to work with messing up their pretty little piano hands."

Roderich looked a bit shocked and a bit outraged and it made her laugh. She may have loved him to death, but she really wasn't feeling it at the moment. With that, she flashed him a wink and sauntered out of the room.

Once she was satisfied that he wasn't following her (not that he would be, he was probably expressing his anger with that stupid piano), Elizaveta actually went and started to do work. In his current state, Roderich would definitely expect her chores to be done on time, if not before. He sure had a superiority complex at times.

She finished quickly, although she was not quite sure of the quality of her work and, frankly, couldn't care less. "Quickly" for her meant about an hour and a half, and she could still hear faint strains of Chopin coming from the music room. She rolled her eyes and went to put up her cleaning supplies in the kitchen closet.

While she was there, the cook asked her to go get some vegetables from the garden, now that the rain was letting up. Since she had nothing better to do and she figured that she should do all she could to make her fellow servants like her (after all, she was the traitor kissing their boss), she agreed.

She stepped outside with only an empty basket in her hands, stepping around puddles on the stone path as she made her way to the kitchen garden. Back when she was an idiot teenager roaming the world with Gilbert, she wouldn't have minded a few puddles, but now she had to deal with skirts as well as shoes that weren't made for long marches.

Elizaveta was too busy extricating a carrot to pay any attention to what was going on around her. After all, the process of carrot extrication was one that required complete concentration.

"'ello Lizzy," an all-too-familiar voice said from behind. Dreading what she was about to see, she turned her head and was met with the sight of John's ugly face. Right before she could wonder where Edward was, her legs and arms were seized violently. No matter how much she struggled, the larger hands couldn't be budged.

It seemed that John had her arms behind her back and Edward was gripping her ankles as she was forced into a sitting position with her legs straight out. She had a sinking feeling that things wouldn't stay this way for long. Still, the warrior in her began to look for an escape. Soon enough, they'd take their hands off her, if only for a split second, and she would have to seize that window and strike. If not…

Elizaveta really didn't want to think about the "if not".

"I'll 'old 'er down, Edward," John said, practically in her ear. "You can go first."

"Thanks, mate," the other man said, giving her a toothy grin which only revealed a lifetime of terrible oral hygiene. If his brain was as rotten as his teeth were, escape should be no issue.

Sadly, grey matter doesn't rot as easily as neglected teeth, a fact which Elizaveta discovered when Edward sat down on her thighs instead of stupidly giving her legs free motion. Without leaving her much time to think of a new plan, he smothered her lips with his own filthy ones and his tongue soon succeeded in roughly invading her mouth.

And then there were the hands roughly yanking down the top part of her dress after Edward pulled back, as well as the greedy gaze she could feel taking in her exposed skin. She screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable.

It never came.

"Lizzy!"

She had never heard Roderich sound so powerful. His voice was enough to freeze Edward's hands in midair, enough to wrench her eyes open and enough to loosed John's bruising grip on her forearms.

Within moments, he was at her side, knocking the guards out of the way and helping her up. She pressed herself against him and breathed him in, not caring about how vulnerable she felt or looked.

"So, would either of you care to explain what the meaning of this is?" He fixed both of them with a glare, his grip tightening on Lizzy as she burrowed deeper into his chest.

"Ah…" was all Edward could come up with.

"I said, would either of you care to explain this. And that is an order." This was the harshest and fiercest Elizaveta had ever seen of him, and it was terrifying and incredibly hot at the same time.

"We were just, ah… havin' some fun with Lizzy 'ere," John said quickly, a sheepish smile on his face.

Roderich raised an eyebrow in mock skepticism. "Really, now? From what I can tell, it seems that Lizzy was not having too much fun."

"Sir, I can explain…" Edward tried, but he was cut off.

"No, I don't believe you can. Since you are far too imbecilic to explain yourselves, I will take this as I see it. You two may come with me." Roderich led the two offenders into the house, with Elizaveta still holding on to him. Even after other guards took John and Edward away, she had a firm grip on Roderich. It must also be said that he had the stronger hold on her.

"Are you alright?" he whispered against her hair. "Please tell me they didn't do anything to you."

"Nothing I can't handle."

He sighed. "Look, Lizzy, I know you're omnipotent, but let me think I'm your savior once and again."

Elizaveta couldn't help smiling a little. "Alright. But I'm pretty sure that you are my savior today."

"What about tomorrow?"

"You think I'll forget?"

"No, but I'm quite certain you'll remember that you're a fearless warrior who doesn't need anyone to survive."

"Liar. I obviously need you, since I tend to get attacked by random perverts."

"That's because you're gorgeous."

She looked up at him quizzically. "You sound sad, Roddy."

When he smiled, it seemed almost bittersweet. "Why'd you pick me, out of all the nations who could relate to you better? Why me instead of Gilbert?"

"Because Gilbert's an idiot. And so is the rest of the world. Except you, really. Of course you're not an idiot."

"But why? I just don't understand, Lizzy!" He looked so anguished that she wasn't quite sure whether to laugh or comfort him.

"Sometimes, I think love doesn't have to make sense. If it did, where would the fun be?"

He smiled, and Elizaveta figured that he was satisfied, at least for now. "Hey, Lizzy? Can you write something on your promise list for me?"

She grinned. "Sure. What do you want me to write?"

"Write that Roderich Edelstein will always protect Elizaveta Hédeváry."

In response to that, he earned a kiss on the lips, right where they had left off before the argument.

And, later that night, Elizaveta wrote one more thing on the promise list: Elizaveta Hédeváry promises to let Roderich Edelstein be the man in the relationship… some of the time.