He took a step back, wiping his hands off on the rag he'd brought along. Although painting was minor work in the line of sabotage, he found it rather amusing. The faces of the Gestapo men, loyal citizens, and brainwashed Nazi children were always hilarious to watch when they found his words on the walls of their homes and businesses. Writing "horrible" messages on the wall was a hobby of his, something he did in his spare time much like how other men his age played cards or hung around the local bars howling at nearly any woman who walked by. But he, he was totally different from every other man. He liked to think it was because of his name, as he was named after a natural born rebellious spirit.

Basch Martin Luther Zwingli fit his name perfectly.

"What do you think?" he asked a sickly looking cat that limped out of the shadows. "Does it need something else?"

The cat hissed at him, golden eyes flickering in the faint lights. It yowled another warning before slinking off, turning its back on Basch like so many others had done.

"You're right, I definitely need to put a bigger swastika," Basch agreed, grabbing his brush again. He traced over the swastika he'd already painted, making the spider-like symbol from hell bolder.

"Looks good," he said, putting the lid back on the paint. He checked over his words once more, making sure he hadn't spelled anything wrong. The last time he did that, instead of infuriating the Gestapo it just made them laugh at the fact that he couldn't spell Luftwaffe.

"Hitler is killing your fathers," he read aloud, smiling at his work. Basch wanted to write so much more, but space was a big issue and paint cost an even larger one.

He didn't even react when the air raid sirens began wailing. Basch just grabbed the paint and walked away from the scene, humming a little song to himself.

The first bombs started dropping before he was even out of the alley, but he didn't mind. Basch was living a sort of life where he didn't really care if he was blown to pieces by a bomb. He wasn't suicidal, but he didn't value his life, either. Figuring the world would decide if it wanted Basch to keep living, he never went to a bomb shelter or even hid from the British planes. If they wanted him dead so badly, they could have him.

He was about to cross the street when a man rushed by, carrying a violin case and a notebook. Basch stumbled backwards, accidentally touching the man's coat with his paint covered hands. The saboteur tried to call out and warn the man, but then he realized that if the Gestapo finally decided to start doing something, he could just as easily blame that man as he could come up with some extravagant lie. He caught the warning before it could escape his throat, carrying on like nothing happened. Seeing the man with white streaks now on his coat bolt down the stairs to the bomb shelter, Basch's grin grew larger.

Scapegoats were wonderful.

Basch ran up the steps to his little home, tossing the paint can and brush under the porch through the broken step. He gently opened the door, slipping inside and locking it in an instant. The lights were all off, but the kitchen had obviously been cleaned from when he'd set out at four in the morning. Muttering a few curses to himself, Basch went to the sink and began the long process of scrubbing all the paint from his hands. A loud boom made him jump – the last bomb was closer than the rest had been. It was followed by a tell-tale little yelp from the only bedroom in the house.

"Hey, Lilli," he whispered as he walked into the bedroom, taking off his paint covered shirt and throwing it in a heap on the floor. "Are you alright?"

"Now that you came home I am," she replied, her voice trembling. She'd always been terrified of the air raids, but refused to leave Basch alone in the house. Basch was actually a bit happy she didn't go to the shelters with everyone else – if he died, she'd die, and they wouldn't have to be separated.

"I saw what you did in the kitchen. I told you that you didn't have to clean up. I'll do it when I get around to it," Basch sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Don't trouble yourself."

Lilli just whimpered in reply.

Basch crawled into bed next to her, pulling the little girl close to his chest. "It's going to be alright, the bombs aren't going to hit us. The Brits know I'm a good one."

"You say that so confidently. But my friend's cousin was just killed in an air raid last week," Lilli said, sharply inhaling as yet another explosion sounded off close to their home. "If it could happen to her, it can happen to us."

"It won't."

"What makes you say that?" Lilli looked up at him, her sea green eyes barely visible in the shred of moonlight that came in from their tiny window. Basch loved nights like this when she was close to him – it made him feel like he was a good brother and not the failure that he was.

"Because, as long as I'm here, you're going to be perfectly safe. I won't let anyone get to you," Basch said. "You'll be just fine."

Lilli snuggled closer to her brother, a contempt little grin on her adorable face. "You're going to get both of us killed some day, big brother. Not that I mind, of course. As long as you're happy, I'm happy."

"Don't say something like that. We're going to outlive this war, whether it likes it or not."

"Not if you keep going out and painting," Lilli added, her voice giving away how scared she truly was for her brother's sake. She'd never liked him working with the Underground, but normally she didn't voice her opinion or say anything so upfront.

"They haven't caught me yet." And they won't catch me now, he said to himself, thinking of the poor man with the violin case. Basch felt a twinge of guilt, thinking about the man's reaction when the Gestapo showed up at his doorstep – but that wasn't his problem anymore.

"You're absolutely hopeless."

"I know I am. What do you think my mother said when I told her I wanted to go to Vienna to work in a gun shop? 'Oh, Basch, you're so hopeless!'" he mocked in a high pitched voice, making Lilli giggle. "'Why can't my son just be a good boy and work in the boring old store? I ought to punish him for having real dreams! So what if he hates Geneva? Without Geneva he'd be dead! And what's this? He's adopted a little girl?! And they sleep in the same bed? Lord, Basch is going straight to Hell!"

By now Lilli was in total hysterics, laughing so hard she was nearly crying. "Does your mother know you talk about her like that?" she gasped in between fits.

"I've said something along those lines to her face," Basch said rather smugly. It took a lot of courage to stand up to a woman who had a whip mounted above her fireplace and wasn't afraid to use it.

"And she didn't kill –" Lilli was cut short by another blast, so close to their home that the windows rattled. Even Basch couldn't resist flinching. In an instant that happy glow about her was gone, replaced by a scared tremble.

Basch sighed quietly as he stroked the girl's honey hair. "We probably ought to get to bed. You have school tomorrow, and I'm working late, so you'll have to stay here alone for a few hours more. Will you be alright by yourself for that long?"

Lilli nodded, burying her face in Basch's chest. "Can…can you sing me a lullaby again?"

"What one do you want?"

"Good Evening and Goodnight," she answered, snuggling closer to him as the high pitched whistle cut through the air, followed by an earsplitting bang.

"Good evening, goodnight," Basch sang quietly, tensing up as yet another explosion shook their tiny home.

"Covered with roses,

"Adorned with thorns,

"Slip under the covers

"Tomorrow, if it is God's will, will you wake again

"Tomorrow, if it is God's will, will you wake again."

The song was so dreadfully ironic Basch almost laughed out loud.

"Hello again," Ludwig said with a vague hint of a smile, his tired blue eyes flicking down to the case in Roderich's hands for just a moment.

"Good evening, Herr Beilschmidt." Roderich yawned, falling back against the wall next to the kriminalinspektor. It was the second time meeting with the Gestapo man in just a day, and this time around he wasn't so terrified. "I must ask, do you live nearby and I've never noticed you before?"

"I live just a few streets down from you, actually, on Hauptstrasse. But I just moved here a month ago, so you probably haven't seen me. My job keeps me busy most of the time and I'm hardly home. And the one night I do finally get a chance to sleep in my bed, there's an air raid." Ludwig laughed a bit, folding his arms over his massive chest.

"I just got to bed an hour ago, only to be woken up by the damned Brits again," Roderich huffed.

"What were you doing up so late?"

"Working." This time Roderich could actually answer the man without a hint of shame in his voice – he really was working, not drinking himself senseless or sobbing.

"On what?" Ludwig asked, stifling a yawn.

"This new piece I had to put together for the minister of propaganda, Herr Goebbels," Roderich explained, holding up his composition book as evidence. "You see, I wanted to draw up something that was rather prideful, but it ended up being a lullaby. And I just kind of went with it."

"Do you mind if I see it?"

Roderich handed him the book. "Be my guest. I don't know if you'll be able to read any of it," he said as Ludwig opened the cover. "My handwriting has always been horrible and seems to get worse the later I work."

"You wrote this?" Ludwig asked in complete astonishment.

"Ja, I wrote that. Who else would have such a sloppy signature?"

Ludwig looked over the page, then back at Roderich. "This is amazing."

"Well, I'm glad you think so. Now, if only I could get Herr Goebbels to think the same way."

"No," Ludwig said, turning the page. "This really is amazing that you can come up with a whole new piece. I can hardly figure out who I'm supposed to bring files to, and you can draw up things like this." Ludwig handed the book back to Roderich. "I envy you."

"For what?" Roderich tucked the composition book back under his arm. "For being a good-for-nothing musician who's likely to go broke in a few weeks? Believe me, you better stay a kriminalinspektor."

"I'm jealous because you have a real talent. I don't really have anything to my name. What, I'm strong and a little bit above average in mathematic skills? I mean, you're actually getting somewhere with your talents. Me, I'm just being pushed around by my higher-ups, doing whatever they're telling me to do," Ludwig explained with a sigh.

"At least you're not going to freeze to death in Russia," Roderich added hopefully. "There's some good to come out of this."

Ludwig shook his head. "I'd rather be with my brother in Wolfsburg, but my father wanted me to join the Gestapo. Told me I was too smart to be just a regular old soldier. I don't think I'm that smart and all, but he had much bigger ambitions for me. And now my brother's the commandant of some stalag while I'm wandering around Vienna all day doing trivial things for my bosses. It's rather ironic – he being the screw-up of the family and failing nearly every class, yet he's in such a high position and I'm no better than a private, really."

"What stalag is he in?"

"I don't exactly remember the number, to be honest. It's over ten, if that helps any," Ludwig said, letting his eyes flick down to the violin case once more. He glanced back up at Roderich, appearing rather – if almost too – shy for a Gestapo man of his size.

"Would you like me to play for you?" Roderich asked.

"I didn't mean to trouble you. I'm just curious, that's all. You don't have to play," Ludwig stammered, holding up a hand to stop him.

"It's fine." Roderich propped up his leg, balancing his beloved Stradivarius' case on his knee. "Really, I've been itching to practice but hadn't found a chance yet. And this seems like the perfect time, ja?" He put the case down on the ground, holding up the violin. "Herr Beilschmidt, this is Marlene."

"You named your violin?"

Roderich flashed him a little grin. "When you have a Stradivarius, it's more of a relationship than an ownership. So it only seemed right that I would name her."

"She's a Stradivarius?" the kriminalinspektor asked in a quiet voice. "You own a real Stradivarius?"

"Ja, this is the real thing. Her given name is Le Maurien, but I liked Marlene much better," Roderich explained, tucking the violin under his chin. "Do you have any requests?"

"Just play anything," was Ludwig's reply.

Roderich thought for a moment, secretly thinking of what his most impressive piece was – he loved showing off. "Would you like to hear the one you just saw?"

"If you would like to," Ludwig said with an eager nod.

Music has an amazing power, one that very few other things can claim to do. Before Roderich started his song, the bomb shelter was a chaotic mess of nervous whispers and crying children. But once he played that first B flat, everyone stopped whatever they were doing and turned to the musician. The whole room went absolutely silent, all eyes trained on Roderich.

He just closed his violet eyes, letting his hands do all the work for him. Roderich tended to play any instrument almost subconsciously, never realizing the piece was over until people were applauding. Even though he'd finalized this piece only a few hours ago, he felt as if he'd been playing it for years. The melody flowed through the bomb shelter, the dulled explosions from above making an odd, yet fitting, accompaniment.

Roderich smiled just a bit, still keeping his eyes closed. A Lonely Winter's Lullaby was made to debut in front of Goebbels himself. And here he was in a bomb shelter with total strangers – dare he say commoners – listening to something prepared for Nazi elites.

And he loved every second of it.

There was just something so much more appealing about playing for the common folk than men who could have him killed with just one word. Just the fact that he wasn't terrified of being brought out back and shot if he made a mistake was enough. But the people seemed to care so much more about his music. For the Führer and his men, it was simply entertainment, but for the people, it was something to take their minds away from the fact that there were enemy soldiers destroying their city.

When the first song ended, Roderich immediately started up another one. And then another. He kept playing every piece he could remember until the sirens stopped wailing and they were cleared to come out.

"Herr Commandant, almost all are present and accounted for," the sergeant-of-the-guard said, his voice laced with a knowing fear.

"Almost?" Gilbert echoed, raising a pale eyebrow.

The sergeant shifted uncomfortably. "Do I really have to say who's missing? I think you know, sir."

"It's not me this time, Colonel!" one of the more frustrating prisoners, Sadik, threw his tanned hand into the air and gave Gilbert a little wave. "I'm actually here on time with no complaints." The man standing next to Sadik elbowed him in the ribs, telling him something in Greek. Sadik nodded, giving him a hard slap on the back. "Heracles says that he was here on time too," he added, translating for the man.

"I wasn't suspecting either of you," Gilbert snarled, clenching his gloved hand into a fist. Sometimes he prayed that they'd finally allow him to kill someone.

"I'm here!" Raivis said in a tiny voice, his blue eyes gleaming with pride. "And this time I didn't even get in the wrong place!"

"That's very sweet. Now, where is your 'big brother?'"

As if on some unheard cue, the door of Barrack Two slammed open, the most irritating of all the prisoners Gilbert had ever met sauntering out. He came over to where everyone was lined up, fiddling with the buckle on his belt. The infernal man didn't even stand at attention, but rather found it more interesting to put his hands in his coat pockets and look up at the grey sky.

"Colonel Braginsky, would you please stand at attention?" Gilbert hissed.

"I'm sorry, sir. You weren't looking for me, were you?" Ivan asked in a sleepy voice, running a hand through his disastrous blond hair. He flashed Gilbert a little smirk – that bastard knew exactly what he was doing. Just like when he'd spent the day throwing a baseball he borrowed from Alfred at the wall of the office, or when he'd torn a radio out of one of the staff cars and blared the BBC News while there were important officials visiting Stalag XVIII-A.

"Braginsky," the sergeant-of-the-guard muttered, marking off a name on his chart. "Herr Commandant, all present and accounted for."

"You're asking for solitary, Braginsky." Gilbert took a few steps forward, using all of his willpower not to punch the man's face in.

Ivan fluttered his eyelashes, putting a hand to his chest. "Oh, my, you'd put little old me in solitary confinement? And all because I was a just a bit late?"

"You've had four minor offenses in the past week, Colonel Braginsky," the sergeant reported, looking over his list. "One more automatically sends you to the cooler."

"I've had four offenses? Now, what could I have done?" Ivan asked himself like he was totally unaware of his atrocious behavior.

"The first was gambling, the second was for climbing on the roof and shouting things at the panzer division, the third was for gluing pictures of pinup girls to the colonel's car, and the fourth was for being twenty minutes late today." The sergeant looked back up at Gilbert for approval.

"To be fair, sir, Eduard, Toris, Alfred, and Sadik helped with the pinup girls," Arthur – Gilbert's probably least hated of the intolerable men besides Raivis – admitted. "And I may have offered up some of my magazines as well."

"We got all of them from you, you dirty old man." Ivan started laughing, completely ignorant of the fact that Gilbert was ready to send the man to Mauthausen.

"Dirty old man! Dirty old man!" Alfred chanted, making faces at the blushing Briton.

"Will you stop?" Gilbert hissed. "If you don't stop this misbehaviour, I'm going to put all of you on a work detail in Wolfsburg with the farmers again!"

This only made Ivan laugh louder.

"Do you think this is funny, Braginsky?" Gilbert grabbed the man by the shirt, pulling him close. Ivan was obviously trying to stifle his hysterics, biting down hard on his lower lip.

"No, sir. This isn't funny at all." He hung his head in mock shame, trembling with silent laughter.

"Oh, so you won't think it's funny when I assign you to clean the rec hall all day, right?"

Ivan glanced up, his dark eyes losing their joking gleam. "What?"

"You heard me. You, Adnan, Jones, and Laurinaitis, you four are going to clean the rec hall until I tell you to stop. Even if you have to re-clean things," Gilbert ordered, a triumphant smile lighting up his face as Ivan's smug attitude faded away.

"Sir, can you tell me what I did wrong?" Toris asked in a scared voice, keeping his green eyes trained on the dirt. He and Raivis always seemed to be afraid of something and never even dared to go against the most ridiculous orders. Gilbert rather liked terrified prisoners.

"You're completely innocent, but I need someone somewhat responsible to watch those three. Just make sure they don't break anything. Dismissed," Gilbert sighed, wondering how long it would be until he could get those damn transfer papers through.

As he turned to go back towards the office he heard Sadik and Alfred start cussing Ivan out, their slurs accompanied with the sound of punches and slaps. But what did Gilbert care if Ivan was getting his face beaten in? That man was nothing more than a thorn in his side.

"What took you so long?" Elizabeta asked as Gilbert stepped inside, not even looking up from the papers in front of her.

"Ivan," Gilbert muttered, hanging his hat up on the coat rack. "The lazy son of a bitch was late to roll call, and then used the standard Ivan excuses." He went over to Elizabeta's desk, looking at whatever sort of report she was working on. "Any word on the transfers?"

"You've been rejected again. Face it, dear; Barrack Two just has too large of a reputation. Everyone in all of Germany knows that those men are nothing but trouble," Elizabeta said, signing something with Gilbert's initials.

"You're telling me, the person who has to put up with them every day? If it weren't for their constant escape attempts I'd move them as far away from the office as possible!"

Elizabeta glanced up for just a moment, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Why don't you just double the guard and move them?"

"Because they'd figure out a way to get out of here. They can do literally anything if they're all together, but to keep them even moderately under control they have to be all together. Now, did Ludwig's papers come in yet?" Gilbert asked, trying to change the subject before he got too furious and ended up breaking something.

Elizabeta nodded, handing him an envelope nearly the size of the prisoner-of-war handbook Gilbert never bothered reading. "I hope Roderich is really worth the struggle."

Gilbert took the envelope from her hands without a word of thanks, disappearing into his office with a slam of the door. Checking that the door was locked, he sat down at his cluttered desk and ripped the envelope open. He pulled out list after list of names, removing detailed reports and copies of birth certificates and addresses. Ludwig had really outdone himself this time. Several of the names were circled, some even with black x's – the ones matching up to Roderich and his family's stories. A devilish smile spread across Gilbert's face. Could this be his chance to finally crack Roderich von Wolffe?

He pulled out just one of the reports, a paper detailing one of the acclaimed musician's phone calls from back in 1933, this one being to a man listed as Christian Kleiner. Gilbert could almost hear Roderich's imagined whiny voice – he'd never actually heard the man speak – as he read. But soon he grew bored of the "polite" rambling, skipping immediately to the suspicious part Ludwig had already circled for him.

"You've done all you needed to, right?" Roderich had asked. Ludwig wrote and underlined beside the sentence the words "very scared here."

"Ja. You're good for tomorrow."

"Listen, I really need to thank you. Without you I'd be…Well, I don't want to say."

"It's no trouble. That's what I'm here for. Although, I'd never expected that someone like you –"

And the call ended abruptly. Ludwig's notes at the bottom said something about the end being rather suspicious, not like it was a mistake or something similar. And right before it went quiet he wrote that the man tapping the line had heard Roderich shush Christian Kleiner, whoever he was. Beneath all of his brother's notes was a list of possible things Roderich could be involved in, at least according to Ludwig. Black market activities, drugs, Communist sympathizer, and Gilbert's still prevalent accusation, that Roderich was a Jew.

"Hey, Commandant, what are you doing?"

Gilbert flinched, tucking the reports close to his chest out of instinct. He tore open a drawer and shoved the papers in, turning to find Heracles standing at his window. The Greek looked at him innocently with his tired green eyes, much like a child would.

"That was really good!" Raivis said, coming over to Heracles. He gave Raivis a confused look, shaking his head.

Raivis just smiled – Heracles couldn't understand German, English, or Russian. "I'm sorry, Herr Commandant, he didn't mean to scare you. We were just working on his German."

"Could you work on it somewhere else?" Gilbert snapped, going to the window. "I'm trying to run a stalag here!"

"What is a stalag?" Heracles asked slowly, his dark eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

"Get out of here," Gilbert ordered.

Heracles shook his head again. Could he not understand even basic words like "out?"

"Maybe if a real German helped us, Heracles could learn faster," Raivis suggested.

"Excuse you, I am a Prussian. And no, I'm not going to help some illiterate Greek learn German."

Raivis frowned, crossing his scrawny arms. "Then why don't you let Sadik come help us so Heracles can learn faster?"

"Listen, kid, you have two seconds to leave before I send you to solitary," Gilbert said, watching as Raivis instantly stopped arguing and took off towards the yard with Heracles in tow.

God, Gilbert thought, falling back in his chair. He pulled out all the reports again, dropping them in a messy stack on his desk. They hit the scratched mahogany with a dull thud, a painful reminder of how many pages he was going to have to go through. Those Slavs must be desperate. How did they even let Galante into the army? He'd follow anyone's orders – enemy soldiers and children included. The little kid would do anything for me.

Gilbert stood up quickly, throwing open the window again. He scanned the yard for Raivis, thankful to find him scratching words in the dirt with a stick, Heracles standing beside him and asking endless amounts of questions the young soldier couldn't understand.

"Galante, Karpusi, my office, right now!"

A/N: It's a wonder I'm alive! Have any of you seen those tornadoes that have been tearing up America? Well, a few of those bastards thought it would be cool to try and touch down near my house. Don't worry, everything's okay, my house is fine, my school's fine, and nobody was hurt.

So, the lullaby Basch sings? According to my father, Brahms wrote it. But I just remember my dad singing it to me as a little girl, along with Danny Boy, so I had to put it in here. And hey, it's German, so it works.

Also, I know absolutely nothing about violins, being a flutist. If any of you find a violin error, please notify me at once. I'm going off Wikipedia and eHow, so my material isn't exactly the best.

Big thank you to Chizu5645, harrietamidala1691, the guest TooLazyToLogin, Abc, Patatemi, A Storm of Leaves, DemonStalker98, EllaAwkward, and 2/3 of the Holy Trio, SoulEleri and Comix and Co! Thank you guys so much for supporting my catastrophe of a fanfiction.

Also, as a weird little note, Numbers from Poland got a lot of attention. Like, there were people reviewing and favouriting? I don't know, it's a little strange, but I'm cool with it.

See you all next chapter!