AN: DISCLAIMER FIRST. Read the end note after the chapter. DO NOT JUST SKIP OVER IT. READ IT. And review :D

Okay on to my usual rambling! I love this chapter, a lot actually :D It's short but it's super dramatic! Get ready to have your feels assaulted.

In other news, I have started posting a new fic! For all my France fans out there, it is a France x Joan of Arc, which is possibly the best and most underappreciated pairing in the entire Hetalia fandom. I hope everyone checks it out ^^


No matter how hard Maddie ran, she couldn't outpace Britt's accusations. That she shouldn't have come here. That she ruined people's happiness just by existing.

As she ran through the park back on the Hetalia High campus, she tripped and fell sprawling on the gravel pathway. The gravel dug stinging into her hands and made them bleed, but Maddie couldn't get up. She just couldn't run anymore.

She curled up in a ball and sobbed so hard that her throat hurt as the choking heaves built up against each other trying to get out. She hated herself for everything. The only good thing about her was her book smarts—but what did those mean in the real world? Her intelligence had done her no good in this situation, and her indecisive heart had hurt so many people. Gilbert, Francis, Britt, even Alfred. If she'd just been able to choose, he might have had a chance of being with Britt. But she hadn't. She'd drawn out everyone else's suffering and hadn't even noticed she was doing it. She was the worst type of sadist—the one who couldn't even see the trail of heartache she left in her wake.

Maddie wanted to go home. Canada home. She wanted to be a child again and curl up in her mama's lap, where everything was okay because Mama could make everything be okay.

No, even that wouldn't ease her guilt. Maddie just wanted to stop existing for a while, to make this terrible hurt go away. The hurt that came from knowing that your very existence was damaging to those you loved the most.

She must have lost consciousness for a while, because when she woke up, Gilbert was there. It was still raining, but he had her in his arms and was lifting her up, talking to her. "Maddie? Maddie, oh Gott, please be okay."

"Gil…" Maddie felt a little strength coming back to her as she felt the warmth of another living body heat her own cold one. Once again she could register the sensation of rain kissing her skin, of heat and wet and silver hair glowing in the dark.

"Oh, thank goodness." Gilbert's grip on her tightened as he clutched her closer. "Don't scare me like that, Birdie!"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. A few tears chased their way down her nose.

"Don't be," he said soothingly. "It wasn't your fault. Britt had no right to say those things about you—it was Francis who set her up just so he could crash our date."

Her hands fisted in his shirt. "But if I hadn't been…"

"Shh." The lights of a building were overhead. The boy's dorm? Warmth, the contrast from the outside so acute it was almost painful, washed over her. "I'm going to patch up your hands for you, okay?" he said gently as he set her down on a kitchen counter. "Can you sit? I'm going to get you a towel."

She nodded mutely and he disappeared into the bathroom. When he emerged, he had a towel slung across his shoulders and one in his hands for her.

With more gentleness than she'd known his strong hands could muster, he brushed away her tears with the towel. "Don't cry," he soothed. "Here." He set the towel in her hands so she could dry herself and used the towel on his shoulders to rub the moisture from his hair as he searched the cabinets for the first aid kit.

Maddie felt a little better once her clothes were dried to mere dampness and her glasses were clean again. By then the towel was finger-painted vivid crimson from her cut hands.

"Whoops," Gilbert said with a laugh as he guided her hands under the faucet. "Guess I should've thought of that." He cleaned her hands and spread antibiotic gel on her cuts before bandaging them. As he worked, he grew somber and unnaturally silent. When he had her all wrapped up, he turned her hands up and kissed her palms almost reverently. "Really. Don't scare me like that, okay?" he said quietly, his face still bent over her injured hands, and Maddie realized that he really had been afraid for her safety.

More tears pressed against her lids and spilled out over her cheeks. "Hey, hey," he said. "I thought we were over this!" He drew her into his arms. "Shh. Britt was wrong. I'm glad you came here, Maddie. Don't ever doubt that people here care about you and want you to be here. You should hear Ludwig going on about you, not to mention Feli and Mei! They all think you're awesome, Birdie, and so do I."

Maddie felt so safe in Gil's strong arms, so secure. "Thank you," she whispered brokenly. "Thank you, Gilbert."

"No biggie," he said nonchalantly. His hand stroked across her hair, a gesture so warm and comforting that it made his offhand treatment of his care seem ridiculous.

"No, it was big for me." Maddie pulled back and smiled at him as best she could through the remains of her tears. "Gil, I'm choosing you."

Francis couldn't do it. He didn't care enough about her to allow her to have even a single date with Gilbert when he knew he still had a fighting chance—so he'd tried to wreck it, and had hurt everyone else in the bargain. Gilbert had been so sweet to her. He had even chased after her through the rain, and he had never once said an unkind thing to her. In his presence, she had only ever been happy.

Gilbert's red eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Really."

"Awesome." His hand, which had been resting on her shoulder, moved upwards to frame her face, ever so slowly and gently. Deliberately, he leaned closer, hesitating to see if she would stop him.

She didn't. She couldn't dream of wanting to. So his lips met hers in a soft, leisurely slow kiss, her virgin lips fumbling while his experienced ones guided her through the contact. Kissing him, Maddie was sure that she had made the right decision. Nothing had ever made her so happy as knowing for sure that he cared, that he was honest with every word and every action. With him, there was no manipulation, no selfishness. Just…this.

The sound of the door opening made them come apart. Maddie flushed when she saw Francis at the door, partly with embarrassment but mostly with pain at seeing him.

The Frenchman clapped his hands mockingly. "My, my, well done, Gil."

Gilbert's eyes grew dangerous. "Francis…"

"I suppose I must concede the victory to you, my friend." Francis winked devilishly. "Congratulations."

Those words punched through Maddie's chest, each one a knife twisted viciously into her flesh. "Victory?" she managed after several tries.

Red eyes full of panic turned on her. "Nein, nein, Birdie! You gotta understand, it's not like that—"

"It was a competition," she whispered. "You never… It was…" Hot tears of shame and humiliation brimmed over her lids. "I can't believe I really thought…"

"Birdie, listen to me," he said urgently, taking her face in his hands and brushing her tears away with his thumbs. She jerked out of his grasp. Humiliation and agony burned through her in equal measure, heating her cheeks and sending a fresh gush of tears boiling over. "You don't know the whole story—"

"I know all I need to!" she cried. Sorrow stabbed at her with each word he said, each excuse, each lie. He'd been lying the whole time. Why hadn't she listened? Why did she have to lose her heart to such a pair of sadists?

Maddie's feet hit the floor. She pushed past Gilbert, ignoring his pleas, and ran out into the rain again.

All lies. All of it. Neither of them had ever cared about her. Everything they made her feel, everything she'd thought they felt for her—it was nothing to them. Empty. She was just another conquest, just another prize to be won and forgotten, to gather dust on an empty shelf.

It took three tries for Maddie to fit her key into the lock and burst into her dorm room, still sobbing. She threw herself across her bed and clutched Kumajirou tight, wailing into his fur until the rhythm of her sorrow lulled her to sleep.

o~O~o

Gilbert sat down on the kitchen floor hard, pushing his hands into his hair. How had everything gone so wrong?

Oh, Maddie. The hurt on her face had been a punch to the gut. Guilt pooled in his stomach like acid, burning and biting his insides.

But this wasn't all his fault. Partly, but most of the blame lay at the feet of the man who was enough of a jerk to tell her about the kissing competition and annul everything they had ever said to her, no matter how true it had been.

"Francis." Suddenly he found himself on his feet, stalking towards his friend.

The amused grin Francis wore made Gilbert so furious his vision was tinged with red. "I suppose we can call this one a tie." He had the gall to say that!

Gilbert's fist took Francis across the jaw, and the Frenchman went sprawling. Before he hit the floor, Gilbert caught his collar and rammed him up against the wall.

"You little weasel!" he bellowed, and added another few choice names in both English and German. "How could you do that to her? Don't you care about her? Saying you love her doesn't mean anything if you can make her cry like that and then joke about it!"

The amusement had drained from Francis' face. "I just…"

"It was never about her," Gilbert growled. "Or maybe it started that way, but all you cared about was beating me. Gott, you make me sick!" He threw him to the floor with disgust. "Don't you dare ever hurt her. I'll kill you if you ever make her cry like that again."

Suddenly all the heat went out of Gilbert and he sat down on the floor again, staring at nothing. "Oh, Gott. She hates me now," he said quietly. "She really hates me."

Francis still looked shell-shocked. He offered weakly, "Maybe I can…"

"No! Just stay out of it!" Gilbert snarled. Then he deflated once more. "Gott… She's it for me, and she hates me… I'll never meet another girl like her. I love her, Francis." He barked a humorless laugh. "Did you hear that? I love her! I love her and it's too late now because you had to go crush her heart!"

A look of utmost misery covered Francis' face. "Mon dieu… What did I…"

"You just ruined everything," Gilbert said softly. "That's what you did, Francis. You—ruined—everything."

Gilbert had never had his heart broken before. He hadn't been aware that heartache was a literal term.

All he could do through the ripping pain in his chest was put his forehead to his knees and sit there on the floor in silence, mourning the loss of everything.


AN: Giiiiiiiiil... ;^;

Okay so my commentary! I do not hate France, not by any stretch. I love him. And while I made him the D-baggiest D-bag EVER in this chapter, there is a reason. In my mind, France does really love Canada, but he's not quite sure how to. He's too used to not feeling anything-actually loving somebody unsettles him. He just isn't sure how to handle his emotions. This is the first time he's ever been in love, and who didn't screw up their first relationship? That is why France acted the way he did, and why I wrote this the way I did. So don't hate me! I was just being true to my headcanon.

So the contest is now over, but the plot continues... What will come next? Review! Flame me for making France a D-bag, whatever, I like any kind of feedback :D

Much love,

~Escritoria