"... So, according to your research... They're... They're not dead yet?" America asked surprised.

"Hai. But only just. I think you could say, they are in the Twilight zone. Neither dead nor alive. Kind of like a virus really... Not that I want to compare ourselves with a virus."

"But if they're still alive, couldn't we simply unthaw them?"

"No, I am afraid not. Unthawing them would kill them."

"Wieso?" Germany asked. Japan sighed, but refrained from showing his emotions.

"The... The unknown chemical I was able to trace in their bodies is what makes us become normal. It is artificial and is completely useless to humans. It's not dangerous or useful in any way. Other than that it to turn us into humans... It doesn't do anything."

"Eh? But how can such a chemical exist? How can it even make us normal?"

"Who said that?"

"... That was me."

"Dude, Canada. Don't do that. You scared us all." America grumbled, showing around the room, as if to prove his point, that indeed everyone hadn't noticed him. Spain leaned over to Canada curiously, his face focusing on the Canadian.

"When did you get here? And how did you sneak in without anyone noticing?" Canada sighed, wishing he had stayed quiet, looking away, instead of answerering Spain's queston.

Japan cleared his throat in order to continue.

"In answer to your question... Canada?... I would need more time, money and resources to study the functions of the chemical. However, there are many more pressing matters and I lack resources. Maybe when peaceful times come again, I will be able to study it." Japan replied solemnly.

"But why can't we unthaw them? So, they're currently human. And? They're still alive! Most humans would be dead by now."

"America... The reason why we can't unthaw them is also because they're loaded with a mixture of several deadly poisons. I cannot say how many or how dangerous the poisons are. Only that it would kill a human near immediately. And since they're injected with the chemical, they will die immediately."

"But that doesn't make sense. Why freeze their bodies and keep them partially alive, when they could simply kill them? Not that I'm complaining of course... Which doesn't mean I'm relieved that they're not dead or anything! Because I don't care for anyone at all!..." England half-asked and then rambled.

Honest as always England-san. Japan thought in his mind, biting back a bitter smile.

"I don't know. We would need someone, who worked in a high position in the HCS to know. I've been puzzling over it all day and night, but I could not come up with a sensible explanation."

"But wouldn't it be possible to somehow remove the chemical while they're in their frozen state?" Italy asked, gaining everyone's attention. Most gaped at the Italian, amazed that he had managed to say something useful for once. Italy shifted a bit, then continued.

"I mean, if we removed the chemical, the poison won't kill them... It may make them wish they were dead, since the poison would still affect them, but they wouldn't die when unthawed..." Everyone stared at Italy, then at Japan and back again. Hopeful whispers started flitting around the room and soon it became a discussion; everyone started to fill up with hopes.

"I... I don't know if we can." Japan said after a while of contemplating, bursting everyone's bubbles. Silence filled the room once again. Everyone knew that when Japan said "I don't know", it didn't necessarily mean "I don't know", but rather "I don't think so".

And if Japan thought they couldn't rescue them...

Japan cleared his throat, in order to explain why he doubted it.

"Their bodies are frozen. Meaning that their blood circulation is frozen too. The chemical was injected into their bodies before they were frozen, because it takes a while for it to take affect. Assuming the antidote to the chemical has any similar properties, such as it being too slow; then it would make them normal too late. They would be dead before they became a normal nation again."

Everyone was silent, staring blankly at Japan, who took another deep breath, before sinking into his seat.

"So... They are dead? Or essentially so?"

"Well, no. Not necessarily. Humans do not know much about brains. While their understanding is growing, their understanding between the organ, the mind and the person is still very limited. Afterall, if they knew exactly how a brain worked, they would be able to explain irrational behaviour."

"What are you saying?"

"It is possible that, though they are in a frozen state and though this is a long-shot, they're still concious. While I'd hate to imagine how being concious through this whole ordeal must be, it is a possibility. Of course, we lack technology to be able to see if this is true or not and as said, it's a long-shot."

"Oh~ You mean this is sort of like with a patient who's in a coma and has close friends and family talk to him and then he miraculously recovers, because hearing his friends and family some how made him happy and want to recover really, really fast, though he was unconcious?" America asked.

"... Er... I suppose." Japan replied.

"Well, thank you Japan for filling us in on the dead... Er... On the frozen nations. I guess it's a half-relief to know they're not really that... dead... I suppose."

"Well, I wouldn't consider them not-dead at the moment... As much as I hate to say it, there's a high chance that they're not concious, so they might as well be dead."

"Oh, cheers for the happy thought." England muttered from the back. Obviously someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today. (which was actually quite literally the case for England)

"Well... At least it satisfies our curiosity on the... dead, but not-dead... Which also brings us to our next topic. The HCS. The only reason it started existing was out of Human Curiosity. You know how humans are. When they see something that is strange and peculiar, they have two options they can follow. Ignore it, fear it or study it."

"That's three options."

"Klappe. OK, so it's three options. As said, the human can either ignore, fear or study it. In most cases, a human will pick the first option. The next common one is to pick fearing it. The least common is studying it."

"Go on."

"We've known for a long time, that even though a large percent of the human population would decide to blank us, there is that minority of people, who can choose to either fear or study us. I think the HCS is a dangerous mixture of both.

The HCS obviously knew about us before the kidnap and had been running for quite a while. While all their data was deleted and most of their material burned, some information still leaked through. From AB1 we gathered some information, including a rough outline on how the HCS started. It was originally called HCA, which meant "Human Countries Anonymous."

They were a group of conspiracy theorists, convinced that there were personifications representing every country and that the government was keeping them secret from them. It was a small group, but started off international despite the size, because the group got themselves a facebook page. Anyway, so the group started small, but became bigger and bigger, having started to collect concrete information on us.

But instead of making the information public, they decided to keep it secret. They were becoming more and more curious about us, as they learned more and more about us. Eventually, HCA became the HCS... It stands for "Human Curiosity Satisfactorers". And from there, they became criminal, needing funding to run researches on us. Eventually, studying us from afar wasn't good enough, which is why the... nation-nap happened. From there, I think we all know what happened." Germany finished explaining, pausing before he continued.

"This all happened because of human curiosity (and partially fear). The question is, whether or not we made a mistake somewhere. Did we make ourselves too public or not public enough? Frankly, we need to come up with a way to stop this from happening ever again. Oh, and while we're talking about the HCS, we... can't put them on trial. While we have plenty of evidence, any information about the personel, let alone the leaders, is gone; meaning there is no one to put on trial."

"WHAT?" Germany winced, all nations having said just that one word in their own language. And everyone was at their feet. Oh, if Japan thought he had it bad...

"Look, everyone calm and sit down aru!" China said, having already been aware the HCS had left no one to blame.

Everyone glared at China, who managed to pull off a glare scarier than even Russia's, making all sit down again (although there was actually a glare-off between England and China for a while, until Sealand successfully distracted the brit).

Germany sighed, running a hand through his hair and likewise sitting down. America stood up now.

"OK, so that's everything for today. Tomorrow we're discussing our governments. We need to figure a way to get you guys to be accepted as the personifications again. It should be easy enough, but we should still have a detailed plan and a few back-ups in case something goes wrong. It won't be easy, but we'll figure something out. Meeting adjourned."

Belgium sat outside the large house, a warm hot chocolate on her lap, wrapped up tightly in not only winter clothing, but several blankets as well. In her company were Italy and Liechtenstein, who needed a break from being inside the house for so long.

She smiled at the two warmly, watching them build snowmen, which were supposed to look like some of the nations. This was their sixth snowman and also their sixth failed attempt on making a SnowGermany. The snowmen somehow refused to look like him, despite being on German ground.

She smiled at the thought and took a sip of her chocolate. Oh, how sweet it tasted. She relaxed on the bench and looked up at the blue skies. It was all over now. She was in Germany, away from the HCS.

She was safe. Ish. Everyone was still skirting around the rescued prisoners, as if they were afraid that if they so much as looked at the ex-prisoners, they'd break. No one told them what was going on, what they were planning and what had actually happened ever since they disappeared.

The only thing she was told to do was relax. But how could she relax if everyone was avoiding her and refusing to tell her what was going on?

It was driving her insane. Liechtenstein and Italy knew what was going on, but refused to say anything too. And this worried her. Politics was taboo. The HCS was taboo. Even her past was taboo. And the rescued nations weren't given internet access or permission to leave the house, unless accompanied by certain people.

She tensed up and took another sip, frowning. She knew absolutely nothing of what was going on. She had talked to several other nations, such as Cuba, Ukraine, Estonia and Monaco, but nothing.

Suddenly, Italy and Liechtenstein were by her side and she was on the ground, hot chocolate spilled all over her... Wait, what happened? A minute ago she had just thought of the secrets being kept from her.

"Belgium? Are you OK?" Liechtenstein asked, her lip quivering in fear. Belgium looked at her confused, then turned to look at Italy.

"What happened?" Belgium asked.

"... You... You suddenly started screaming and panicking. We didn't know what was wrong with you and tried to help but you started throwing things at us and yelling at us to keep away... Then you collapsed on the floor..."

Belgium frowned. Oh dear. That wasn't good. She didn't remember this. She looked at Italy and Liechtenstein worriedly.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" She asked, sitting up. Both shook their heads and helped her to her feet.

"I think we should go inside..." Liechtenstein said, picking up the mug, which had luckily fallen on soft snow, and was therefore still in one piece. Belgium nodded slowly, a very worried expression on her face. Nations weren't supposed to go insane! ... Were they? Italy offered her his hand.

"Don't worry Belgium! Germany's looking out for us, there's nothing to worry about." Nervously, she accepted his hand and tiredly nodded in agreement.

"I suppose... Italy?"

"Si?"

"... Have you seen Netherlands or Luxembourg anywhere? I haven't seen them since I woke up."

Italy fell silent and said nothing. He then looked at her and said "They're resting somewhere else... Don't worry, when they can see you, we'll make sure they will!" He smiled at her and gripped her hand tightly, as if to comfort her.

Confused, Belgium nodded again and entered the large house. Italy let go of her hand and watched her leave, Belgium not noticing that Italy was no longer by her side.

Italy sighed and rubbed his eyes, in hopes of stopping an oncoming waterfall. Her brothers were dead. Belgium was never going to see them living, ever again.

And they still hadn't told her.

For Alex Knöpfer, it was an average, boring day. In fact, it was his first average, boring day in fifty years. And he was hating every single second of it.

He absolutely hated it. Why? It was quite simple. He hated the reason he was having a normal day. Everything, and he meant everything he had worked for, for so long, went and bit the dust in just a little over two weeks. All because of that blasted leader guy.

He had only been in his early thirties! Of course the boy was going to mess up royally! What did the old leader mean "He is gifted"? Alex knew more about how to run the Group in his pinky finger than that boy did in his whole body!

But no one cared. They had wanted someone young to work there, someone who would last a long time.

He knew the HCS hated having leaders that only lasted roughly twenty years, but giving it to someone young and inexperienced? That was begging for everything to go horribly, horribly wrong.

"Grossvater? Grossvater, was ist los?" His grandson asked, trying to catch his grandfather's attention. The man frowned, turning his attention to the grandson he hadn't known existed.

He always thought that after abandoning his wife and son, neither would want anything to do with him. While it was true on his wife's side, it wasn't for the son. When he finally found his father again, he was eager to make him part of his life again, involving his son as well; in hopes that this would encourage the elderly man to want to too.

It wasn't working. Not really. Alex sighed and patted his grandson on his head, giving the boy a fake smile.

"Nichts. Alles ist in Ordnung." The man replied. OK, so maybe it was working. Just a bit. His grandson showed a lot of interest in sciences and paranormal activity. He also lacked trust in strangers, a path that would surely lead to him becoming suspicious of the government and then eventually a conspiracy theorist, whose theories were actually true.

Unlike with Alex' son, he saw his grandson as a potential scientific genious, who would grow up to be somewhat like himself. And he loved his grandson for that. The boy wrinkled his nose, and took a slurp from his slush puppie( a slush puppie? In the middle of winter? Really?), eyeing his grandfather suspiciously, but not saying anything.

Yes. Alex Knöpfer deffinitely loved his grandson a lot. The boy had a brilliant and wonderful life ahead of him, filled with aliens, mad scientists and countries. Alex chuckled to himself, then looked out of the café window. Alex hadn't been to Berlin very often an. He had spent a lot more time devoted to the HCS, spending the long winters and summers there, studying with great interest the nations.

They were such beautiful creatures. Their biological structures were a lot better than that of a human and their personalities, or to be specific, their will power was a lot stronger. After all, almost a century later, they still dared to try escape? That took quite some will power. Frankly, Alex had fallen in love with them. Maybe that was why he left his wife.

He found that the nations were a thousand times more beautiful than any human, on physical, biological and any other given levels. Maybe he had fallen in love with them. Either that, or he loved his job.

Maybe both.

But of course, as much as he loved the countries, he hated them. He was researching how come they didn't age when they tore down the HCS. Of course, this was the new HCS leader's fault, but whatever.

Now when he saw a nation, instead of feeling the love he had for them, he would fill with lust. He used to be quite gentle when experimenting on them, but now he would love to carry out the exact same experiments, minus the softness and filled with a lot more "accidental" miscalculated cuts.

"Grossvater?" The grandson asked, worried about the creepy face his grandfather was making. This time however, Alex ignored him. The boy continued slurping at his drink, deciding he would go into great detail, about how weird his grandfather was, once he saw his dad again.

Alex stared out the window and blinked.

He blinked again.

Without thinking, he rushed out the door, forgetting that he hadn't paid and that he had a child with him.

He had seen one. He had seen one. And it was accompanied by a nation he had never truly gotten to see under the magnifying glass.

England. And he was in company of China, both seeming to talk to each other merrily. Under closer inspection, Alex noticed that they were not talking to each other merrily.

They were having a restrained, polite conversation. Or rather, a quiet and spiteful arguement, that involved a lot of sneering and jabs.

He could hear what it was about, but unfortunately for him, they weren't speaking in a language he recognised.

They were speaking in the language of the nations. A language no human could ever learn to understand. Another thing that made the difference between nation and country bigger.

Nations had a common language all of them could use.

Humans didn't.

Now he was curious. If his subconcious had been thinking about his grandson and the restaurant, that too would have been long forgotten by now, his mind overflooded with curious questions and burning hatred and anger.

England.

He had been one of the nations to escape.

The first time was admirable. But the second time, England actually escaped. Along with a whole bunch of other nations.

And while he knew that England wasn't alone in this whole situation (a lot of other nations had escaped and played key role in the great escape) England was the first nation he had seen walking freely outside the HCS.

And he hated him. Especially since it seemed England had recovered his eyesight. Damn Brit.

He quietly stalked China and England, wanting to know what they were doing in Germany. Following them lead him to a large house, which really should be described as a mansion. It was surrounded by a large, snow-covered garden, which could easily pass as a park, several people... No, after closer inspection, they were actually nations... So, it had several nations wandering around the grounds.

He gaped, recognising some of the nations as the prisoners that failed to escape a year ago.

Darn. They had set the prisoners free.

Well, Alex would be lying if he said he hadn't expected that. What with England having remembered where every HCS-base was on the planet, it was only a matter of time until they had saved them.

Now he hated the nations even more and yet still burned inside with not just hatred and anger.

He stood there a while, watching China and England open the large gates surrounding the house and garden, and then closing it quietly. They trailed towards the house, greeting a young, human man, who was busy shovelling the paths again, getting the snow out of the way.

Alex stood their, glaring at them. He hated the countries. He hated the nations. He looked at the human boy, shovelling snow, pausing briefly to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

Suddenly, Alex was hit by a brilliant idea.

England and America sat on a bench in the garden, both watching some of the "younger" nations having a snowfight. To England's surprise, America wasn't joining in, but then again, the young nation hadn't had much sleep lately, if the black bags under America's eyes had anything to say about it.

Ugh, if he had paid more attention to America, the American would also be playing with the others. But his focus had been pretty much everywhere, rushing from one nation to the other. He had acted like a mother hen, looking after everyone a little bit, checking to see if they were OK or not.

Of course, he wasn't doing this because he cared or wanted to help them or anything! The sooner they got better, the sooner they could kick the HCS' backside and go back to normal. Yes, he was doing it for the sake of himself, not for them, because he doesn't care about them! It had ABSOLUTELY NOTHINg to do with him being worried about them or caring about them or anything. Because that would mean he was some how nice and had a sensitive side, which he doesn't!

England looked over to America, who seemed to be on the brink of sleeping. Sighing, England stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets.

"America, go take a nap. I can tell you want one."

"Hm? Wha' you say?"

"What did you say. Use proper English. I told you to go take a nap." America frowned, pushing his glasses up and rubbing his eyes.

"No~ Don' wanna. Naps're for old people."

"America, I will not repeat myself. Use proper English. Besides, naps are just as well for overgrown babies like you."

"You know that's not true." America replied. "I've never taken a nap before. But I've seen you going to sleep at the most random of moments. And you're old. So napping must be for old peopl- Ouch! What was that for?" America wimpered, having been clipped behind the head by England.

"For being a git. And if you don't go indoors for a nap right now I... Uh..."

"You what?" America dared.

"I won't make any scones for you!" England said brightly, thinking himself a pure genius.

"Dude. Your food tastes like crud. No wait, crud tastes better than your food. I'm happy staying out here."

England glowered, but managed to miraculously restrain his anger at the comment, though the idea of bloody murder was becoming more and more appealing to him.

"OK, then how about this. If you don't take a nap right now, I will feed you some scones. If you do take a nap, I won't give you any."

"Dude, that's like blackmail."

"It's not though."

"That's besides the point."

Sighing, America got off the bench, a smile forming on his face.

"What are you smiling about?"

"Nothing. It's just so peaceful."

"... We're very likely to be on the brink of world war 3." America silenced and looked away. He looked up at the grey skies, then back at England, his eyes rimmed with tiredness.

"Yeah, but it's just another war. As shocking and horrible as it will be... It'll blow over. We just need to remember that as certain as every night must end, so must every war." He mumbled.

"I think I'll go to bed now. My head hurts." He then added as he swayed a little. England looked at him with surprise and shock written all over his face, but without saying a thing. Once America had disappeared into the house, England stared blankly at the scenery in front of him.

"I must be getting old. I think I've just witnessed my most childish ex-colony maturing." He muttered, letting a ghost of a smile crossover his face.

Then he got hit in the face by a snowball.

Translations:

(German) Klappe: Shut up (I'm not sure if this is Swiss German or High German. The two languages kind of blur a bit, in my opinion)

(German) Wieso?: Why?

(Japanese, written in our alphabet) Hai: Yes. (Although, I'm pretty sure you're all familiar with that one. :P )

(German) Grossvater? Grossvater, was ist los?: Grandfather? Grandfather, what's wrong? (note that "Was ist Los" can also mean "What's going on?" or "What's up?")

(German) Nichts. Alles ist in Ordnung: Nothing. Everything's OK.

I think one of the reasons why so much German turned up in this chapter is probably my personal need to show off. Well, if YOU were bilingual, would YOU keep it to yourself? :P OK. I might be a bit arrogant (coughcoughalotcoughcough). Hope you forgive me. ^.^

GOODNESS! ALEX KNÖPFER IS SUCH A PERV! HIDE YO NATIONS AND YO CHILDREN DUDES! I don't know why he happened. But good grief, he's such a perv. ... Either that or he's an obsessed Fangirl. :P

I'm sorry that this chapter isn't so well written. While there are some good bits, there are also a lot of bad bits. I tried figuring ways to make the bad bits flow better, but eventually gave up. :( Hope no one minds too much!

Question: Should I rewrite the summary? Because I've read a far better one else where, so I'm curious as to know what you think.

Whoop, another long chapter. Hope everyone doesn't mind. :) (It's 4'500 words long. AGAIN. Can you believe that? Wonder how long these chapters will stay... long.)

Review?