Hand in hand Prussia walked contently with a small, golden-haired boy at his side; bandages covered the boy's head and other various parts of his body like a finely wrapped present, although slightly damaged from the trip it went through to get to the receiver. He savored the feeling of the mid-afternoon sunlight that shined through the partings in the cloud and onto his exposed skin, knowing quite well that at any moment that the feeling could disappear.

"Where are we going?" Glancing down towards the boy, his red irises connected with curious and innocent blue ones, it was almost as if nothing of the boy's past encounters left any marks on him other than the ones that littered his body.

Instead of answering, Prussia smiled at him. It wasn't the usual smirk that haunted Austria and Hungary's memories or the one that had smaller nations slightly afraid of his future intentions. For once in the life of the great Kingdom of Prussia, there seemed to be some good intentions behind that smile.

The boy was left somewhat uneasy at the strange response, but didn't once try to take his hand out of the other nation's grasp for some reason that neither of them would ever fully understand. It didn't matter, though, because to them it seemed as if the clouds were never going to block the sun ever again.

Prussia felt the tinge of bliss disappear among those clouds for even that couldn't numb the feeling of exhaustion and another pain that he would never-not even now-admit to feeling. His previous denial desperately tried to prove that Aldo was nothing but a liar, a pawn in Germany's plan to make him a better bruder.

Something in his heart, rather than his brain made it clear that in a way, he already knew what he had become, but just didn't want to face it. The dirt he stepped on didn't feel like Germany's...it felt like his.

He still sprinted through the dessert, though, hoping that there was an end; a place where everyone was lined up in a row looking disappointed that he had figured them out and at this point he didn't care what would happened if he found them only that they were there in front of him rather than below him.

How could this be true! Everything that everyone around him had done now meant nothing more than the dirt that covered it, every single accomplishment and war was nothing any more. Nothing but forgotten pains and forgotten triumphs. It was almost as if all the blood that had once been spilled over the land in the name of their country had finally dried up, their sacrifices now really did mean nothing.

Prussia watched from the sidelines as a very glorious sight unfolded before him. What earlier had been harsh and heavy bombardment had abruptly ceased and stopped at the sight of two men, a drummer and a British officer waving a white handkerchief.

That single, little piece of cloth reflected in the eyes of one naïve nation an end to something heart-wrenchingly terrible and a beginning of what he hoped was peace and prosperity for as long as the earth still turned.

Although Prussia and him both new that this wasn't the end of everything, there were still things that they needed to be taken care of, but for the time being, America let him and some of his men enjoy a little bit of the victory despite the fact that there would come a time before all of this ended that he would have to face the man he had once called 'brother'.

America finally looked towards Prussia, though they were far apart, he could see the smile on his face that was no longer childish-or at least wasn't in this moment.

Prussia only nodded towards him, holding back any indication of approval; maybe he would pat him on the back at the very end of this war.

He had to give it to the kid though, this was the start of something amazing-maybe even awesome. Even if America's future as a nation came to be, Prussia would look at all of his accomplishments here on out as partly his as well (he trained him after all).

Neither of them knew that there would come a time in which all this wondrous glory would have to come to an end and the events of the battle of Yorktown would one day be forgotten or so he thought.

The thing that stumped him most was why he cared in this way, he wanted to look at everything that had happened as ironic; even when everyone was still alive and well his legacy was nothing more than a memory etched on a piece of paper that filled school-children with dread upon seeing it on their classroom chalkboards.

But even back then he was remembered, were as today everyone he had come to know were now nothing more than a name-if they were lucky, that is.

Finally, Prussia stopped dead in his tracks. Squinting he tried to look out into the distance, he had reached his tipping point; the peak of despairs springing out at him like clothes from an over-stuffed suitcase.

The cause, of course, was simple; Prussia in that moment, realized that out there in the distance-around him-there was nothing and no amount of running would ever lead him home. He was stuck in this pain, this new reality. He took deep, shuddering breaths in an attempt to hide more than he wanted to show.

He kept his mind busy by thinking about silly little things like how tall Aldo was or why Paige's hair was cut in a bob style, anything to keep him from breaking down completely; not because everything had changed so suddenly (or not), but because all the accomplishments and lives that had died in war for what seemed like nothing; the nations they had been fighting for, the nations that Prussia had come to know, were now dead.

These thoughts quickly lead his scattered mind to the one, true, truth; 'They are dead'. Prussia stood still not knowing what to do and what to think.

Without any forewarning, he began to laugh. It started slowly at first, but soon began to grow in volume. "They're . . . they're not dead." His denial somehow found a way to cover up the most obvious fact. His eyes found the ground at his feet, he gave the dirt a small kick causing dust to fly up a few centimeters. "West . . . Italy . . . and Hungary, they're just buried under this dirt. Waiting . . . waiting for the awesome me to dig them out."

"You're going to dig them out? That's going to take a long time if you're the only one doing it." The laughter choked in his throat, the voice that just spoke wasn't Aldo's or Paige's, but he recognized it even so.

Prussia hesitated for a beat before realizing that he had to look up; he couldn't hide from the manifestation in front of him. "Oh, hey there West!" Prussia grinned, in front of him stood the nation who he had once taken care of and trained, a little speck of dirt that had grown up to become a nation with a strong influence on the countries around him and a dark past that was left trailing behind him.

"I thought you'd be happy to see me..." It felt like he was looking at a ghost, but he believed that Germany was still alive. With that in mind, it didn't take him long to come to a conclusion about the boy in front of him with the same cut blond hair and blue eyes as his bruder, dressed in the same clothes that he had used to wear back when he was yet to be Germany. This boy in front of him was nothing more than a sick delusion created from his mind.

His clothes however were torn, though not the decayed scraps like Prussia had woken up to, no, they looked as if they had seen war.

Prussia remembered that he had seen him like this before. The boy currently gave him a small tired smile and looked at Prussia the same way someone would after finding something they had been searching for. "What's your name?!" The boy was startled, didn't his bruder know who he was? Could he have forgotten about him too?

"H-Huh?" Prussia noted that the accent wasn't the regular German one that his bruder had quickly developed, but was the tatters of the accent that Holy Rome had once used.

"Is your name the Holy Roman Empire?" This time he was slow and rather calm about how he said it to him.

The little boy was quiet and looked as if he didn't even know the answer. "I-I don't know."

Prussia started to grow impatient. "Is it Germany?" This time he hissed it out, causing the boy to flinch.

"I don't know!"

"Name all the wars you've been in!"

"What wars?"

"Tell me all about the nations that you know!"

"I don't know anyone other than you bruder!"

Prussia began to shake again, his emotions beginning to come to a boiling point. "If you don't know anything then how do you know me?" He said through clenched teeth.

The boy looked distressed like a tiny child being told to answer a hard question correctly unless he wanted to sit in time out. "I-I just know that-your my bruder!" The boy's spirits began to pick up, noticing that Prussia had lost the terrifying look he had been giving him. "Bruder, is my name Holy Rome?"

Prussia looked at him as if he was defeated and had lost all hope. "No."

"Is it Germany?"

"No."

"Then . . . what is my name?"

Prussia sighed. "You have no name . . . you are nothing." Tears welled in the boys eyes at Prussia's harsh words. "Not anymore."

"But-" He cut his sentence short, his brother was perplexed for a moment until he noticed the sound of slow footsteps behind him.

"Prussia?" It was Aldo, his king, his boss. "What are you doing?" Prussia turned around swiftly, giving him a strange look. Couldn't he tell what he was doing?

"Talking."

The look Aldo gave him was stranger. "To who?" Prussia glanced back to the boy who stared at him with the hope that he would tell Aldo the truth, tell him about his brother.

Prussia only sneered at the young boy, dashing the boy's hopes upon the dessert grounds. "Myself of course, no one but me is awesome enough to carry on such an interesting conversation that would have me running away from everyone just so I could talk."

The boy wasn't the only one who knew that what he said was a bigger lie than telling him that this whole thing actually was set up by Germany and other nations, yet for some reason Aldo chose to leave it in favoring of asking something else. "There you go using that word 'awesome' again, when will you tell me what it means?"

Prussia laughed at this and started walking away causing Aldo to follow him as well. "If you're going to be my king then you have to know what awesome means or else you're not going to be any good . . ." The two of them continued a pointless conversation up until they came back to their camp or rather their capital.

During this time Prussia only looked back towards the boy once. He had winced a bit at the sight of the miserable face the boy gave him, never had he ever seen his brother so crushed, so distraught than in that moment, however it wasn't as if Germany had never looked or felt that way before; but how would Prussia know? Especially if he had once been separated from him by a wall.

Still, Prussia kept moving forward and acted as if he had only ran out there to stretch his legs.

. . .

It didn't take long for Jonathan to find Paige standing with her arms crossed near the outskirts of their capital. Agatha up until then, had trailed after her father clenched to the end of his shirt but let go at the sight of her mother. With a smile, she ran up to her and threw her arms around her mother's waist; glad to see that nothing bad had happened in the time she was gone. Usually, Paige would have held her daughter close, sometimes even hummed a soothing song, but at the moment all she did was glance towards her and place a hand on her back.

"Love what happened to Aldo and that man?" Paige kept her eyes locked on the desolate nothingness in front of her, still not looking at either of them.

She let out an exasperated sigh. "I have no bloody idea."

He placed a gentle hand onto her shoulder. "Was that man actually sick?"

She chuckled, causing her daughter to take a step back, Agatha sent a worried glance to her dad; afraid that her mom had caught whatever disease Prussia had. "Oh you were right, he's the sickest man I've ever met."

"That's not exactly a good thing," the man muttered. Trepidation filled him just as it had his daughter, if the man was so sick that even Paige would let Aldo take him back into nowhere to kill him then who knows how badly it could affect her. "Are you . . . feeling okay?"

Her chuckles instantly stopped, but the grin on her face didn't falter. "Don't worry he's not that kind of sick."

Agatha stepped in front of Paige, hoping to catch her mother's attention so she would stop looking to the miles and miles of dirt surrounding them. "What type of sick is he?" Agatha spoke this time.

"Mentally." Finally, she turned away from the no man's land in front of her and switched her gaze to Jonathan behind her. "And you were also right to worry if it was contagious because Aldo seems to have fallen under the same delusion."

Agatha backed away from both her parents, whimpering at the sight of her father's upturned lips. Had he caught her mother's madness? "If that's true then it looks like you have caught it as well;" Paige narrowed her eyes at him, amusement still evident on her face. "You've always thought Aldo to be a lot of things, insane wasn't one of them, what makes you think he's mad now?"

Her mouth opened to tell him all about the man named after their nation and how Aldo believed it to be true, however a new hand clamped down on her shoulder again causing her to yelp in surprise. "You know, your daughter looked as if she was about to run straight into the nowhere land."

Swiftly, Paige twisted around to face Aldo and Prussia. She blinked, surprised to see her daughter cowering away from all of them looking quite uncomfortable around people she believed to be completely off kilter. "I see. And you're back with . . . him." She then mumbled, "Unfortunately." Under her breath.

"And I see you still don't believe me." His tone was serious, though there was a mocking edge to it-even without hearing her last remark.

"It doesn't matter if she believes you or not." Jonathan was taken back by Prussia, his voice and expression much improved from before when it held a half-deranged quality. Without warning, Prussia grabbed Aldo's shoulder and started dragging him away from the family. Although, it was more like guiding him away; seeing as Aldo appeared to have no problem with it.

Paige, unlike Jonathan and her daughter, started after them, dumbfounded as to why Prussia didn't seem to need her approval. "Oi, w-what do you mean it doesn't matter?!"

Neither of them stopped to answer her. Prussia did, however, laugh at her question. "In all honesty I really only need him to believe me. Even in the past, people other than leaders didn't even know I existed."

Paige stopped dead in her tracks, looking like a person realizing something terrible. Growling she yelled back at them. "Are you saying that I don't matter to this country?!"

Prussia didn't respond to her immediately. "Don't you have something to take care of?" He pointed to her family behind her.

Even though he didn't exactly answer her question, it was easy to see what he thought. With her hands clenched on either side of her, she watched as Aldo directed Prussia away from her and out of sight, she knew where he was going to and knew she would eventually go there.

Leaving her frightened child, confused lover, and her son, who she couldn't even be certain was still in their tent, behind her.