I don't own. Enjoy.

Chapter 3: Geranium

As the plane touched down in China, Vadim handed a sleeping Yue Chang to Yao as he and Ivan got back on the plane. Yao wished them both a safe journey, Ivan might terrify her, but he was easily her closest friend.

That didn't stop her from feeling incredibly sorry for Vadim. The second Russia looked incredibly nervous. All though Yao completely understood why, she acknowledged the fact that Vadim was a total sissy. This wouldn't end well.

After she saw them off Yao turned to her chauffeur waiting with her car, "welcome back Miss China." The man said politely in Chinese. He glanced curiously at Yue, who hadn't even twitched this whole time, but said nothing.

Yao smiled, "good evening Zhou, how are your wife and daughter?"

The kindly man beamed, "wonderful, just wonderful."

He took Yue from her and buckled her in as Yao climbed in and sat down with a sigh. She thought it was funny how one could spend hours sitting down on a plane and the first thing you wanted to do was sit down.

"I'm too old for this," she grumbled quietly. She looked over at Yue who still hadn't moved since she fell asleep on the plane, despite being handled by three different people.

Is she dead? Yao leaned over her to check that her other self was, indeed, breathing. Naturally Yue picked that exact moment to open her eyes.

The first thing she saw when she awoke was Yao's face leaning over hers. So she did what any person would have done in her situation. Yue yelped with fright and jumped up, knocking heads with Yao. Both women cursed and clapped their hands to their heads. Yao's to her nose and Yue's to her forehead.

"Dammit! You cause me trouble when you're not even fully awake-aru!" Yao exclaimed.

Yue just rubbed her brow and sat up, looking much more alert than she had the last time her other self had seen her conscious.

"So you weren't a bad trip? Dammit!" She exclaimed. Yao scowled, if one of them was a bad drug-induced hallucination, it wasn't her.

Leaning back in her chair she rubbed her nose and sighed, "Why do I get the feeling you're going to cause me so much more trouble than you are worth?"

Yao was right. Yue was an absolute nightmare, she terrified the staff that came around occasionally, picked fights with Yao and seemed to be constantly high despite no longer having a source of opium. Occasionally Yao wondered if Yue faked having a drug addiction to get out of her responsibilities. At other times she was sure there was no drug addiction and Yue was just like this naturally. Eventually she snapped and hit Yue around the head with a wok, knocking the other China unconscious. Then she called Russia.

"I have had it-aru!" She snapped, clenching her phone so hard the plastic creaked. She began ranting the second Russia picked up. The moment she heard the word "privet," her rant began.

"I am fed up with this nonsense," the oldest of the nations snapped, "ever since those things came to our dimension I've had nothing but loud-noises and madness! I don't know how you and the others are handling it but I am done. I'm not looking out for this brat for a second longer! She and her little friends can just get out!"

You knew it had to be bad when China, who had raised all of the Asian nations single-handedly, refused to put up with someone. "I think that-"

"Okay! Okay!" A Russian voice yelled, but it wasn't Ivan's. "We'll leave! I swear! Just please don't yell at me anymore!" His voice cracked on the last line.

Yao searched her memory for the other Russia's name, it wasn't hard to remember, Yue Chung never shut up about him.

"Vadim? Is that you?" She asked, hoping like hell it was just Ivan with a bad head-cold in a wimpy mood.

"Uh-huh, it's me," Vadim said. "I'm sorry I made you mad Miss Other-China." His voice was rapidly speeding up now. "I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, really I am. I didn't think we'd be staying this long, I mean, it's already been a week. Or eight days? I can't remember. I'm so sorry, pleasedon'tyellatmeagain."

"Vadim calm down," Yao ordered with a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, "I'm sorry. I should have not yelled at you. I am just under a lot of stress right now. But that doesn't give me an excuse to take my feelings out on you, even if I did think you were Ivan. Please forgive me."

"W-what?" Vadim sounded both incredulous and hopeful, "no one's ever apologized to me before! Not for anything! But you don't need to apologize Miss Other-China; I understand that you're stressed. Yue can be a bit much," he added in a softer voice. "But she's a good person deep down inside! Probably…"

"I'll take your word for it Vadim," Yao said. She personally thought this kid was far too hopeful and that Yue was an irredeemable nut-case. "And just Yao is fine." She added as an afterthought.

"Yao…" Vadim tried out her name thoughtfully; it had a nice ring to it. "What a pretty name."

"It's a guy's name, aru; it makes no sense that I was named that." China replied, puzzled, he certainly is an odd one.

"I dunno," Vadim disagreed, "I like it. It's pretty, you're pretty, I think it works."

"Oh," Yao blushed slightly, "thank you Vadim, what a nice thing to say." She had always liked her name, even if it was a boy's one and she was glad to see that someone else liked it too. Plus that had been a very nice thing to say,

Yao didn't get complimented often and she found Vadim's comment incredibly sweet. Ivan had never complimented her like that.

"Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Yue is becoming a bit too much for me. I was hoping you and Ivan could find it in your schedules to visit my country tomorrow so we could discuss what has happened so far and then maybe contact England and France." China said, she just wanted something to do really.

"Oh, sure, I'll ask." There was the sound of the phone being shuffled and Vadim's voice calling, "Mr. Ivan!" Then the sound of footsteps and more shuffling.

"This is Ivan," the voice on the other end of the phone said sweetly.

"Ivan. I want you and Vadim to meet me at my house tomorrow to discuss what we plan to do before we contact England and France." China said briskly, she felt so much more confident talking to Ivan. He might scare the living daylights out of her sometimes but at least she was back on familiar ground. Though Yao had to admit, talking with Vadim had been unexpectedly… nice…

"Sounds good. We'll be there by three-thirty," Ivan said, not missing a beat. Yao smiled.

"Good, I will see you then." She promised. They said goodbye and then they both hung up.

No sooner had Yao pressed the 'end call' button, then her phone rang again. She glanced at the caller ID and nearly dropped it when she saw who it was, what could he want? She wondered.

Heart thudding slightly (though she would never admit it), Yao answered the phone, "Japan, aru?"

"Good evening Yao-chan," Kiku's warm, soft voice said from the other end. He'd called her 'Yao-chan' not 'China-san' so that meant he hadn't called her on official business. That made China even more curious. Japan never called her of his own free will.

"What's going on Kiku?" She asked, China didn't want to be blunt and straight-out ask why he was calling, that would give the impression that she didn't want Japan to call when it was simply the opposite. However, she was insanely curious now.

"Do I need a reason?" Kiku asked, if Yao hadn't known him his whole life she never would have caught the slight trace of amusement on the edge of his voice, it made her heart thud erratically.

Give it up Yao, he's a nation. And he's your little brother! Yao mentally scolded herself, she couldn't help the way she felt about Japan though. And though he had been her little brother once he hadn't called himself that in a very long time. He had changed drastically since back then. He was no longer the young child who clung to the hem of Yao's dress, but a calm and capable adult with wisdom and grace far beyond even his many years.

But not as many as mine though. Yao reminded herself sternly. But if she didn't like guys hundreds of years younger than her she wouldn't be able to crush on anyone, so that didn't help.

"Well I don't have a reason. Is that a problem?" Kiku asked. Yao's heart rate sped up even faster.

You traitor, even if he doesn't consider himself your brother any more he's still the kid you raised, you're betraying his love for you. That was the problem though. Like everyone else in the world, Yao couldn't control who she fell for. If she could she would have chosen to crush on someone sensible, maybe even Russia. Certainly not her younger foster brother.

"That's no problem at all," Yao said truthfully. "What would you like to talk about?"

They chatted about trivial things for a while then bid each other good-bye as it approached dinner time. Yao set down her phone and turned towards the kitchen to decide what to have for dinner. She stopped when she saw Yue leaning on the doorframe, smirking.

"What?" Asked Yao, not in the mood to argue.

"You like him~!" Yue drawled a teasing gleam in her eye. At least she appeared to be sober once more.

'I do not," Yao lied bluntly; I'm having enough trouble convincing myself that I don't like Japan. Don't you make this harder for me, she warned mentally. Yue, not possessing mind-powers, naturally didn't hear this.

She shrugged, "that's fine Yao, it's cool with me. I mean, it's not like he's your blood brother or anything but-" she shrugged, "-you're aware that your creepy-ass Russia's in love with you, right?"

"I'm aware he wants me to join 'Mother Russia,' if that's what you mean." Yue's more serious self replied, "it is nothing new, trust me."

But Yue shook her head, "nope, he's in love with you, I can tell."

"And how can you tell?" Yao asked, crossing her arms over her chest, feeling as though Yue was a small child trying to explain a complicated algebra question she didn't understand to an adult.

"Because," Yue popped her lips, "the personifications in this world are the opposite of the personifications in my world, right?"

"I suppose that makes sense," Yao agreed.

"Well in my dimension my Japan loves me but I don't really like him. I'm in love with Vadim," she said. Yao hadn't known that. Yue certainly was very honest about her feelings. "And in this world you love your Japan but he doesn't feel that way about you so logically-"

"-My Russia is in love with me and I don't feel that way about him," Yao finished, seeing where her other self was going with this. "You are right about the second part, aru. I don't feel that way about Ivan. But I am sure you are mistaken about the first part. I am certain Ivan is not in love with me. I would know about it if he was."

"Okay." Yue shrugged and pushed off the doorframe, "believe what you want to. Either way, we'll figure it out tomorrow." She walked off.

"Yes. Yes we will. Tomorrow is looking to be very interesting indeed." Yao agreed quietly.

Unbeknownst to Yao the portal Olivia had opened for her companions opened again and a small, slender figure, clothed in black tumbled through.

"Ow!" The figure hissed, he stood slowly, straightening his black cap. His maroon eyes flicked from right to left. "Where the hell am I?"

Now you see the problem my pretties? R & R people. Seriously, I didn't hear from anyone last chapter and it hurts my heart. Who is this mysterious figure? Will Yao's feelings for Kiku ever come to anything? Am I talking to myself? Find out on the next episode of DRAGON BALL Z!

Kidding, just R & R people, if you do I'll keep writing and I want to keep writing. I don't want to dump a fic, it just seems like a waste.

I said the parings were inside, didn't I? Well here they are. This is going to be a 1p & 2p NiChu vs RoChu and a 1p & 2p FrUK vs USUK. But only YOUR review will decide who wins!

PS: I named this chapter 'Geranium' because it means 'stupidity & folly.'