So, for the first time since I had Roderich at my house, I come to visit Roderich at his house. I am wearing my favorite pink dress rather than the one I got that looks like his jacket, and I am not wearing glasses.

Shyly, I peek through the window, which, as always, is never blinded - does he forget to draw the curtains, or is he out of sheer vanity allowing voyeurs to watch him? Or maybe he just likes the way the sun gleams across the room...

He is playing a very calm Chopin melody, not the angry nocturne he played at the end of my last visit here.

I blush and shy away from the window. I do not deserve to be in his presence. Still, I must apologize...

I reach my finger toward the doorbell, shakily, press it, and withdraw quickly, staring down at my skirt.

Roderich answers the door, and I immediately feel the rush of his presence, his wonderful odor already in the air upon my first, gasping breath.

"G-G-Guten Tag, H-H-Herr Austria..."

"Frau Liechtenstein?"

Roderich takes a step back, though not as though he is in fear that I might jump out at him. I remain where I am, balling up a bit of my skirt in my hand.

"I-I-I c-c-c-came to..." I swallow and take a shallow breath. "Apologize."

"Well, then..." Roderich quietly clears his throat and flattens out his cravat.

I take a heaving breath, guiltily reveling in his scent, and let it out in a heaving sigh. "And to thank you. For saving me from my own brother for my own careless actions... how is your arm by the way?"

It has been a week since the gunfire incident. "Well, it still aches a bit, especially while playing the violin, but it functions perfectly fine for playing piano, danke for asking. As I am sure you could tell already."

I blush further at the realization that he was fully aware of my voyeurism. I then realize that I never did get to watch him play the violin.

"W-well, I was just about to fix myself a caffe Viennese, would you care for one as well?"

I perk up and brush my skirt with my hands, which have already made it somewhat sweaty from gripping it so hard. "S-sure..."

"And I also have some leftover Sachertorte that I made last night, if you would care for a piece..."

A piece of Austria's national dessert? WOULD I!

I sit on his couch and take small, polite bites of his delicious cake on the coffee table. When he arrives with the drinks, I grab my skirt in an effort to keep my hands to myself.

I take a sip of the foamy, milky coffee, rejoicing in the essence of honey and spices.

"Did you even bother to look inside the cup before you had a sip?"

I pull the cup down from my lips, which are foamy with steamed milk, and stare down into the coffee. The sip I had taken had not erased the image of a heart he had swirled out of the steamed milk.

"Lovely." I tell him, smiling meekly. I take another sip, now careful to keep the heart in the cup as long as possible, as much as I want to lick it off right away.

For several minutes the room is silent as the two of us sip our coffee. I blush at his philosophical gaze through the corners of my eyes, wondering what he is thinking about. Is he working on a Gedanken symphony in his head? Or is it just mundane, trivial daily errands that are on his mind? Or is there something he wishes to say...?

I know he wishes to say something to me. I just KNOW it. I swallow the heart (which by now is beginning to fade away) and open my mouth to break the ice.

"So... how was last night with my brother?"

Roderich holds his finger out at me to hold on for one moment while he finishes chewing and swallowing the Sachertorte in his mouth and pats the crumbs off his lips with his hanky.

"We had a splendid time. I do believe he is beginning to warm up."

I smile. It warms my heart that Big Brother is happy, even if it means my Roderich is with someone else. Well, I don't know for sure that that is the case, and it is probably not my business to pry too much into their personal affairs. All I can do is ask innocuous questions and maybe then I can put some of the pieces together.

"Does it... warm your heart having your old best friend being... friends with you again?"

Roderich swallows his current swig of coffee rather fast before putting his cup abruptly back onto the coffee table. "I am not sure that I should say that we are friends... well, friends, certainly, but, ahem... allies we are not."

Roderich picks up a satiny pale lilac colored pillow out of a sewing basket and begins to pull a threaded needle in and out of it. "That... incident that happened between the two of us last week illustrates why alliances can be dangerous. To favor one side is to disfavor another. And that is how wars break out."

"I see."

"Which is why I, like your brother had ages before me, pledged to be neutral. Not that I had much choice in the matter." Roderich hangs his head, almost guiltily, and stares blankly at the pillow for a moment.

"But just because you are neutral does not mean that you cannot show affection to the ones you love, does it?"

Roderich turns up from the pillow and smiles. "Of course not. And if I must say, you were... well... are enjoying the Kaffee and Torte, I presume?"

I nod, smirking slightly, pleased that he is too much of a gentleman to fully mention that I was good in bed.

Roderich takes another bite of Sachertorte, washes it down with another sip of coffee and resumes his embroidery project. "For many years I have been forbidden to see my ex-wife Elizaveta, but just last year she was able to break free from Ivan's shadowy puppet control, and I watched her ripping down the barb wire between our borders and running out to hug me. What a joyous day it was, and we had a splendid time at the Opernball for the first time in decades earlier this year."

"That's good to hear."

"Unfortunately, she is rather involved with the Persian Gulf war at the moment, and so she won't be able to make it to this year's Kaiserball."

"That's too bad."

"Indeed. Only last year was the first time she ever got to be my escort there - I began the ball during the not-too-long-ago time that she was a satellite state."

Roderich sighs. "So I talked to your brother about it - now you know he isn't one much for that sort of thing at all..."

Roderich's face turns to an expression of slight frustration as he pulls out the thread in the pillow to correct an error he apparently made. "...and so I asked for his consent, and he said yes..."

I snort with torte in my mouth. Big Brother at a Viennese ball?

"...and now I would like to ask... if you would like to be my escort to Kaiserball 1990."

I drop my fork with a bit of cake on it. Roderich... asked ME... not me asking him... to the KAISERBALL...

I try to compose myself, already shaking somewhat from the caffeine. "I... I would be... honored to attend with you, Roderich."

"Thank you. Now, it seems you are ready to have another piano lesson?"

Indeed, I am. He teaches me some Mozart piano piece that I really like (I can never remember the opus numbers and such).

When I get ready to exit the door, I hear Roderich say, "Oh, well, it appears I have just finished."

He walks over to me with the pillow in his hand. It has a picture of a white flower embroidered on it, which I recognize as edelweiss.

"I would like for you to have this. Vash did mention that you, er, like pillows."

"Danke." I hug the pillow. It smells like him, and my face tingles from touching it, knowing that it was his own hands that made it.

"And here is an audiocassette I recorded of some of my favorite violin and piano pieces and symphonies on it, including a few that I composed myself."

PERFECT! It's almost as though he were reading my mind... though I am certain that is not the case, otherwise he probably wouldn't have even answered the door to me, after everything he saw...

I put the stuff down and hug him - tenderly, in a reserved manner, same as he does. He leans over and kisses me on the cheek. I kiss him back, on the left cheek near the mole, causing him to wince and groan.

I wait until I get home to SQUEE - in the pillow, with the music on, which will help me to fall asleep over the pillow to dream about what the Kaiserball is like.

If I am not already dreaming, that is.

So there you have it, Clockwork Imagination's requested fluff chapter - pillow fluff, that is ;)