Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia or its characters. I thank Himaruya Hidekaz for letting me play with his characters.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to all those who have reviewed, alerted, favourited: Simonana, Spearsem, IrishMaid, Blueladymare, PeppermintTwertle, Ever Blazin, I am Sweden, Elizablue, Cathrag, Arkanhari, ScarheartofDarkclan, xxcatxx, NightshadeHetalia, Becky999, .me.1, fire hores is awesome, Lani Carmine, xxEu-chan, ChubbyCubby23, AFreezingFlame, Animechic420, White eyed fox, Furret the Sparrowsong, rubyredroses1, PhantomPrussia, Art and Soul, Starchacer296, GirlLoki, FiresCreek, JustAGirlWithAPen, SchrapnelGirl, GermanyIsAwesome-NotPrussia, iTorchic, kakashailuckyblackcat, , Xou, alexf801, chattie98, Myrna Maeve (and Romania!), ThatPurplyThing, Forever Halfa, WinterLake 25, Frustration, Ankhasia Riddle, Kitty the Dinosquirrel, envysfangirl, PikoPiko-Chan, Silver FoxWolf, citrine sunflower, Canyon's Rose, chickenkitty, ZeroLuver567, Lady Sandra of Sealand, Tamarutaca, 101Icestormxx, VengefulCat (my beta reader) and all my anonymous readers.

Well done to all those who guessed it was Estonia who bought the painting. And I got the name Mortimer Goth from the PC game, The Sims (it amused me).

Warnings: crack, angst, pure crack, bit more angst.

Chapter 36 – Stars 'n' Stripes

Vienna Auction House

The man dressed as Austria, aka Prussia was dragged out by security guards, yelling at the top of his voice, "But I'm the most awesomest Nation that ever lived! I'm the great Prussia... you can't throw me out!"

Actually, they didn't throw him out. They arrested him and threw him in a police van. Den, for good measure, was thrown in with him.

"Hey! What did I do?" Den yelled.

"Well, that's that..." Arthur said, getting up and straightening his trousers, batting France's hand away automatically as he did so – like a reflex action.

America was seriously disappointed, "I didn't get to kick ass!" he said, rather too loudly for England's taste.

Germany was actually quite pleased at the way things went – his Government hadn't had to buy the damned picture, nobody had got to see it – well only for a fleeting glimpse and his annoying younger? older? brother had been taken away. He nudged Italy awake, "Come on Italy, let's go buy you some ice cream," he said with a rare smile.

"Wut?" Russia asked, again. He'd missed something, he knew he had. Had there been a fight?

Vienna Hospital

"We brought Women's World, Women's Weekly, Cosmo and Practical Parenting," Latvia said, putting the magazines into Hungary's hands.

Hungary smiled. She looked tired, her eyes were red raw, there were dark circles under them, but she was happy that Austria had got through the night.

"Are you pregnant, Mum?" Lily asked.

Hungary nodded, and hugged Lily close.

"We all are," Belarus said, patting her stomach proudly.

Belgium nodded at Hungary's curious gaze, "Yes, I am as well..." she said ruefully, "No he doesn't know... yes, I'm going to tell him..."

Belarus and Latvia exchanged glances, this was something they had to see.

"Well, I'm not," Lily said with confidence. Then she stopped smiling and said quietly, "What's the date today?"

"The twenty-first, why?"

"Ooooh..." Lily looked around at her fellow Nations, "I think I might have to check something out..."

"You'll be a grandma then, Liz," Belarus laughed.

Hungary snarled at this.

"Or granny!" Latvia added.

"Have you told Austria he's going to be a father and a grandfather?" Belarus asked.

Hungary shook her head, "He's barely been awake. He wasn't coherent. He kept muttering silly things about Grandpa Rome and Mother Russia or something," she answered.

Latvia and Belarus exchanged more looks. It was a toss-up which scene was going to be the most dramatic – Hungary telling Austria, or Belgium telling America.

However, Lily took herself off to visit her big 'bruder' and Hungary, thanking them profusely, got changed into the spare clothes they'd brought her. The fact that these spare clothes were Alfred's jeans and a Star Wars t-shirt were neither here nor there. Hungary just shrugged, she was used to wearing men's clothing and just tightened the belt and rolled up the legs.

"Can you all keep an eye on him for me whilst I get washed up?" she asked them.

"Us?" Latvia asked.

"Yes, you... well... please no knives, Natalya and Louise don't speak any French it might alarm him..." Hungary said and hurried off.

The three women entered the room quietly, tiptoeing in as if they were going to wake a sleeping baby.

Austria was still hooked up to a plethora of tubes and his eyes were still closed.

All three women looked at each other in a kind of panic. It was Latvia who gently took the Austrian's hand and held it, "I hope you'll be okay, Mr Austria. You were kind to me and I had a massive crush on you a long time ago," she said quietly. She only spoke because it seemed impolite not to. She was also close to tears, she could only imagine how Hungary must feel, if it had been Russia lying there she knew she would be in tatters on the floor.

Belarus stepped forward, "I'm sorry I threw that knife at you back in ..." she struggled to think. Was it 1942 or 1642? No matter, she gently patted his hand.

Belgium sighed, "I'm sorry, Mr Austria. I've sometimes caused you a lot of trouble... but your lot did rule my country in the sixteenth century. And I did wear revealing clothing sometimes just to fluster you at peace conferences... I did like you really...you were like an uncle to me..." she said softly. And then, probably because it had gone very quiet she carried on, "It was a nice respite from living with Antonio... honestly he's such a lazy person... but then you'd know that. You were married to him as well... I hope you're going to be okay, we all miss your..." here Belgium struggled and looked at Belarus and Latvia for help.

"...Music?" Latvia suggested quietly.

"...Shouting?" Belarus suggested.

"...Well Liz misses you... and you have to wake up soon or you'll miss out on the baby..." Belgium finished lamely.

Austria's eyes snapped open and all three women jumped back. "Baby?" he murmured croakily, "You mean Lily?"

"No, not Lily... erm..." Belgium struggled to think, she hadn't thought that he could actually hear them.

Hungary came bustling back in, "Right, thanks guys. I'm back now..." she stopped when she saw Austria was awake and ran to him, clasping his free hand in hers, "Roddie! Are you okay?"

"Liz? Baby? What?" he whispered.

"I meant to tell you that it's yours..." she said, "But then you got yourself shot..."

"Sorry..." Austria said weakly.

"Yeah, how inconvenient..." Belarus muttered and was pushed out by Latvia.

"The baby's yours," Hungary said again.

"Mine? Not...not Gilberts?"

Hungary almost jumped on the bed and strangled him, "That idiot? Do you know what he did on our last date? Do you?"

Latvia and Belgium decided that now was the best time to go.

However, they heard the Hungarian as they went down the corridor.

"We went to a football match, he got into a fight, which I had to save him from, I beat up four Germans, then he rang up dude Den and we went to a club and we got thrown out and I had to kick some bouncer's arse and to top it off he wouldn't pay for the kebab afterwards and then he mooned my Prime Minister ... so no this baby is not his... you big idiot..." Hungary's voice faded as they walked down the corridor.

Belgium was laughing, "Poor Liz... can you imagine going out with Gil?"

Latvia shuddered, "I'm amazed she didn't kill him..."

Belgium carried on, feeling rather giddy, "It's been on and off with Gilbert and then Roddie and back again for centuries. Oh yes," Belgium said conspiratorially, "Our Liz has been around."

"...Really?" Latvia smiled.

Belgium looked around to check no-one, namely Belarus, was around, "...Antonio... Pol..."

"Pol's gay!" Latvia said, in shock.

"Honey, don't you think all of them have slept with each other at some time?"

Latvia considered this and shook her head, "I haven't slept with other Nation!"

"Yep, she even 'did' Ivan!" Belgium said with a dirty laugh.

Latvia nodded, "I knew that..."

Belgium was disappointed that Latvia knew that bit of gossip, "Ah well..."

"As long as they don't do it again," Latvia said with determination.

"Ooooh, possessive eh?" Belgium's eyes gleamed as she followed the younger Nation out of the hospital to find Belarus.

Lily found her 'brother' who was actually probably her uncle, possibly... in the psychiatric ward.

He'd been taken into a group counselling session, which at first he'd been characteristically reticent about. However, as time had worn on, particularly after drinking tea and eating cheap biscuits, his natural argumentative nature came out. It was unfortunate that his fellow members were, in order, a hoplophobic (a phobia of guns), a person with severe anxiety, an Austrian dressed as Napoleon (perhaps every ward has them?) and a recovering alcoholic – who was drunk.

Therefore, when he'd been told to 'share' which he would never normally do and being told by the other members that he was in a safe place to share and they all understood his problems, he did just that. One thousand years of nervous exhaustion coupled with possessiveness and obsessive behaviour bordering on mania to keep his borders safe and secure came out. To top it off, he waved a gun that he'd had concealed on his person around and then started shouting about 'invading borders' and 'idiot Austrians'.

The hoplophobe ran out of the room wailing, the unfortunate person with severe anxiety had to be coaxed out of a corner, the Austrian ended up in a duel with the Swissman – with rolled-up copies of Gardeners Weekly, and the alcoholic started singing a rowdy drinking song whilst supping from a hip flask.

"Bruder!" Lily yelled in exasperation.

Switzerland hurriedly dropped his weapon, "Lily, I was just..." he tried to explain, fruitlessly.

She pulled him out. He was still limping from his still-broken leg, but other than that she was pleased to see he was fine.

"Vash... we should go home. I left Icy under my bed and..."

"What!" Vash's voice almost broke the windows in the near vicinity.

Lily sighed, she was going to have to stand up to him, she decided. "Yes, Icy. My husband. I don't care what you think... we're in love and that's that. I'm going to need him more than ever. And you. Because I think I'm pregnant."

"What?"

"And now Mr Austria... father is alright..."

"What?"

"Vash, you knew Austria was my father..."

"Yes I did, and I'm sorry that I kept you from him but he's just... so... just..." Vash looked as if he were going to go into another apoplexy of rage, so Lily tried to calm him as they went through the hospital.

"He got shot trying to save Mum," Lily said sadly.

"Shot?" Vash reacted in much the same way as Prussia did, "Save? Saving money? The cheapskate..." Vash continued as he was pushed, by Lily, into a taxi.

"No, by a bullet. He was a hero and jumped in front of the bullet to save Mum," Lily said and then gave directions to the airport to the taxi driver, "Shut up, Vash," she added to Vash's amazement.

"But... but..."

"Yes, I think I'm pregnant. Deal with it. You can be godfather. And no - Icy will not be leaving or going anywhere... you can babysit, but I will have no guns near the baby." Lily had finally found her authority, being the daughter of a badass female Nation had given her 'balls' as Prussia would no doubt have said.

Vienna City Centre somewhere un-awesome

Prussia had rather a lot to say, not all of the words were printable, even for an M rated story. He flung his glasses off, threw off the velvet jacket and started kicking the sides of the police van in utter frustration.

"S'up, dude?" Den asked him, completely oblivious.

"S'up? S'up? Are you kidding me? I got dressed up as that fuckin' aristocrat and looking like a complete turd all for nothing... If you hadn't ran into me, man, I could have revealed that I was the awesome Prussia and that us Nations existed and..." here Prussia paused in his yelling to kick the police van again, "... and I could be ruling the whole of Western Europe right now, covered in women and beer..."

"Doubt that, dude... you didn't rule it before did you? Anyway your big brother was going to buy that painting, man."

Prussia answered this by continuing to kick the inside of the van's walls.

"Black hair doesn't suit you..." Den said slowly.

Prussia ignored this and perked up as the van stopped, and the door opened. He glanced at Den, "Ready?" he asked the big Dane.

"What for?" Den asked slowly and stupidly.

"I'm gonna kick ass!" Prussia yelled and then added, "Will you help me?"

Den nodded and actually put down his bottle of beer – it was that serious.

Prussia leapt out with the force of a thousand Ninjas or something awesome like that and Den followed, slowly.

Gilbert's ninja skills were fairly awesome – although he couldn't do America's back-flips or Russia's neck-breaking face-palms, but he did punch two police officers out and kick another in the 'menswear department', Den followed and caused further destruction in a rather, Prussia thought, apathetic manner by slamming two policemen's heads together and then punching another through the windscreen of the van.

"Aw man, we could have stolen this van!" Gil yelled. Evidently, his penchant for stealing vans had not been dampened just because he was dressed as a 'nerdy, swotty, aristocrat'.

Den ignored him and just cut a swathe through a further half dozen policemen yelling "Copenhagen!" as he did so.

Prussia grabbed his friend as Den was about to take on the reinforcements who had arrived in vans. Denmark had suddenly gained full Viking mode, his eyes glowed and he gripped his (rubber) axe with an intensity that reminded Gilbert horrifically of Russia.

"Shit!" Prussia yelled as he pulled Den away, "Come on!"

Denmark, his usual big wide happy grin changed to a horrid grimace and forgetting that his axe was a kid's toy, flexed his muscles, brandished his axe and stepped forward to kick ass 'Viking' style...

Gilbert took 'charge', jumped over the prone bodies, leapt into a police van, did a bit of nifty hot-wiring (it's not just Estonia who can hot-wire an engine) and slammed the vehicle into gear. He only just avoided running over several Austrian policemen before pulling up short next to Den as said Viking was wrapping a rubber axe around somebody's neck, whilst punching another in the face.

"Get in!" Gilbert yelled and, before Den could be swarmed by several large Austrian policemen (in much the same way as Russia had been in the Tallin Police Station, the difference being that Russia was ... Russia and had Mr Pipe, but Den was Den and had a rubber axe), grabbed his friend and hauled him into the van.

Den yelled a strange bizarre mixture of Danish and Swedish or some Viking shit that Prussia didn't understand before Gilbert slammed his foot on the accelerator and they sped off.

"Kesese! No-one can keep the awesome me down!" Pru yelled to the world in general as they broke the speed limit through Vienna.

Austria's Mansion

"Flights are booked – back to Warsaw and then ongoing flights back to Leningrad," Estonia told Russia, Latvia, Pol and Lithuania.

"Can't we get flights straight home?" Lithuania asked.

Estonia shook his head, "We," here he nodded at Russia, "need to get Mr Sweden's car... or what is left of it back to its owner..."

Russia looked up from cuddling Latvia, "Wut? Me?" he asked, confused.

Estonia nodded, "Yes, you," he said as he carefully packed his purchase into a crate. He didn't care that the art experts had deemed it 'worthless' and 'irreparable', he had bought a Da Vinci and he could wait until technology could catch up...

Somewhere... in Tahiti... a second-rate art dealer by the name of Cedric Cameron who had been watching the news in disbelief... cried. "50 million... 50 million..." he wailed as he was taken away by men in white coats.

"Meh..." Poland said with startling insight, still completely oblivious to the trouble and chaos that he'd caused, "I suppose I should go home..." he said.

"Yes, and you can stop giving interviews pretending to be me," Latvia told him.

"Sweetie..." Poland remonstrated.

"Never mind all that ... you are all invited to our wedding in England," Belarus announced dramatically.

Arthur covered his eyes. Dear Lord, he'd hoped that they could do it quietly, without these imbeciles.

"Honhonhon, I will be best man, oh yes!" Francis perked up.

"No you bloody well will not!"

"Me! I'll be Arty's best man... leave it to me, dude. We'll have the best stag night ever!" Alfred yelled.

Arthur shuddered.

"Raivis, sestra, Liz and Louise can be bridesmaids..." Belarus said confidently and then added with a gleam in her eyes, "... in blood-red dresses."

Latvia inched closer to Russia nervously and wrapped an arm around his waist.

"And big brother will give me away..." Belarus continued.

"...He'll have to. He'll get nothing for her..." Alfred muttered, for once quietly.

Before another fight could break out, the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it..." Toris sighed.

The builder's foreman was stood there looking sheepish, "We managed to extract the lorry from the swimming pool and re-filled the swimming pool. We also found this..." here the foreman held up a red and white flag with a black eagle in the centre.

"Tablecloth?" Alfred asked Arthur.

"Austria's flag!" Latvia said and then added, "It's like mine...before..." and then she stopped. She was about to say 'before her country became a Soviet Republic' but stopped herself in time. What on earth was she going to do when her country became independent again?

Russia wrapped an arm around her waist and gently patted her stomach.

"It shouldn't be dragged along the ground, man!" Alfred yelled. He snatched the flag from the builder, "Let's get this baby up!" Alfred said confidently.

"Honhonhon!"

"Dear Lord!"

"Ooooh Alfred, I love it when you're all commanding..." Belgium said, stroking his bicep.

The assembled Nations stood in the driveway and watched as Alfred and Arthur between them, arguing the whole time, hoisted the Austrian flag up the flagpole on the mansion's roof.

Alfred stepped back, almost fell off the roof, recovered his balance with Arthur's help, and saluted.

The Nations in the driveway all saluted – in their own inimitable fashion and then got into various taxis to take them home.

Vienna City Centre - somewhere awesome

Gil and Den were speeding through the city with no less than four police vans on their tail.

"Kesese!" Gil yelled in utter joy.

He sped through the city, weaving in and out of traffic as sirens blared behind them.

Gil expertly slammed down a side street and then joined a road running alongside the river Danube.

"Dude Den?"

"Ja?" Den answered.

"Shall we do this?"

Den frowned.

"Our most awesomest exit ever in the history of awesome-ness?" Gil continued as they slammed down the carriageway, the river flowing alongside.

Den frowned again and then nodded. The large Dane unbuckled his belt, leaned across and clasped Gil's spare hand.

Gil eased off the accelerator as the four police vans pulled up behind them. "Been good playing with you, Den!" Gil yelled.

Den nodded, squeezed his friend's hand and yelled ear-splittingly, "Hell yeah, man! Danmark!" as Gil spun the steering wheel around and headed for the river.

The police helicopter hovering overhead caught on full camera, the stolen police van entering the murky depths of the Danube (certainly not the blue Danube), bobbing around a little and then sinking very un-awesomely. It did not pick up the two 'awesome dudes' who jumped out just before the van hit the water.

Author's Notes:

In America, the Stars and Stripes – the American flag is never supposed to touch the ground by tradition. I just added this little bit in with Austria's flag because I don't know – a bit of poignancy?

The bit where Gil and Den (or Gilden/Dengil) end up in the river is a take-off of the end of Thelma and Louise – a film I've referenced before.

Sorry I took a while uploading this. And I know this was supposed to be the last chapter, but it ended up soooo long I've chopped it into two. Chapter 37 (phew) coming soon.