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Chapter 3

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"You'll need a human name. It's been a long while already." This would be another step, another engraving of Kugelmugel's presence into Austria's memory.

Roderich ignored the vague feeling of warning in the back of his mind and continued on. Don't be ridiculous. The boy deserves a name, whether he stays or not.

"I was thinking about Edwin, as that is the name of your...'President'."

Said 'President', that eccentric artist, was still giving the Austrian government a world of trouble. But as the man was also keeping Kugelmugel's status secure, Roderich found himself personally torn on the issue. This was no longer a black-and-white legal tangle to him, a question of whether or not a man had the right to build a spherical home and declare it his own nation.

It was more than that. It was also about a boy who lived and breathed with him here and now, who had hopes and dreams and imagination just like any other child.

"Edwin is fine. He's an artist, and so am I." Kugelmugel stated without looking away from his still-life painting.

"You certainly are." Roderich muttered, and as simply as that, Kugelmugel's existence gained a new dimension.

.x.x.x.

"Your house is so big!" Edwin often exclaimed this, as if he still couldn't wrap his mind around it. Austria's house was so much more different than the home he'd come from – the house he'd come from, this place was home now.

"I suppose it still is." Roderich turned a page in his book. His thoughts were rolling off his tongue before he realized what he was saying. "It used to be very full. Other people lived with me."

"Like Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire and Miss Hungary, right?"

Austria looked up. "Did Miss Hungary tell you that?"

Shifting, Kugelmugel nodded. "She said you all used to be like a family."

Roderich hummed. "A dysfunctional family, of sorts." And he found himself talking about them, regaling stories of the past.

He told Kugelmugel about how hard Hungary worked, and how she was always there to whack people for Austria when he needed help, even if she was a bit late sometimes because she was cross with him as well.

He spoke of Italy, the boy whom he'd thought was a girl for years because Hungary enjoyed putting him in dresses.

He remembered his brother from further South, the one who drew mustaches on Austria's portraits and learned foul words at an early age.

He even told him about Holy Rome, who was so serious for a little boy that it was almost comical, and who loved Italy with that same awkwardly serious attitude.

And Austria only smiled vaguely when Kugelmugel said, "That sounds like Germany."

"Did you love them?"

The offhand question caught him by surprise, and he nearly dropped his book, the pages slipping through his slackened grip until he tightened his fingers.

Despite having kept his tone casual, Kugelmugel was now staring at him intently, those eyes which were so similar to his own locked on his expression.

"I..." His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and his gaze skittered away. I loved them, he thought. I think I loved them, I wasn't supposed to though I tried, but it was complicated and we couldn't last.

"Yes." He settled upon the safest answer, Antonio's words about honesty from the world meeting echoing in his memory and chasing away the bittersweet thoughts. "Yes, I did. I still do." He liked to think that they still loved him as well, at least Hungary and Italy.

"Do you love me?" Edwin asked, still in that casual tone. Upon a searching glance, however, Roderich caught the uncertainty lurking in violet eyes just a shade lighter than his own.

"Why would you ask such a thing?" He didn't want this. He'd wanted to keep his distance from the boy, be a guardian and nothing more. It would have been better that way. Safer. No one gets hurt. If there were no ties, then nothing could be severed. He was tired of losing people, of missing people.

But he was tired of being alone, too.

"Because the others, they did something for you, right? So you were glad to have them, even if they messed up." Kugelmugel voiced his reasoning. "But I don't do anything for you. I'm here because someone didn't want to be part of you anymore."

Clever child, was Austria's initial thought. This clever child was figuring out the world around him so fast, far too quickly for Roderich to keep up, to screen his answers and keep his personal barriers strong.

Yet, he found that he was proud of the boy for who he was, regardless of what he represented. It was that feeling which urged him to set his book aside and lean forward, gazing intently.

"Love is not about...being beneficial for someone else. You are here because someone believes in you, just as I am. I do not resent you for that. I could never."

He held his arms out to beckon Edwin closer, wrapping the boy in an embrace and patting the top of his head. "And I do love you, even when you mess up. Ich liebe dich."

As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he could never take them back. He didn't want to retract them, either. Something had shifted immediately between himself and this child. Although he knew now that there was no where go to but blindly, frighteningly forward, he couldn't bring himself to do anything but hold the boy in his arms.

"Love is art." Kugelmugel said, bringing the beginnings of a smile to Austria's lips.

"Ja," he agreed. "The highest form of it."

And he understood how England felt, how it was possible to lose so much that a person could not even bring themselves to enjoy what they had been given.

Kugelmugel reached up to tug Austria's glasses off, settling them on his own tiny nose and parroting the words of the older nation. "Ich liebe dich."

Roderich laughed softly, even as he felt his heart simultaneously warm and crack.

Yes, he sympathized with Arthur's way of dealing with others, never wanting to open himself to emotions and shying away from relationships which could hurt just as well as they could heal a human heart.

But Roderich was also beginning to remember how important it was to try.

Even if this doesn't last, I'm grateful.

.x.x.x.

"Who is this?"

"Hold on, Süßer." Roderich continued whipping the cake mix. If he paused now and allowed it to sit, the consistency would change too much. It wouldn't hurt the boy to have a small lesson in patience, anyway.

When the cake was safely set to bake in the oven, he brushed the flour off his apron and walked over to where Kugelmugel was holding a large photo album.

"Where did you get that?"

"Germany gave it to me before he left last time he visited. He said I could look through it as long as I like, so long as I don't draw in it."

"That was nice of him. You'll need to take very good care of it." Roderich hadn't been aware of what Ludwig had done, but he didn't mind too much. He was glad Germany was getting along with the boy. Edwin and Feliciano were the only ones who could bring a genuinely cheerful expression to Ludwig's face these days.

"Now, what did you want to know?"

As Roderich peered over the child's shoulder, Kugelmugel pointed to a tall man dressed in a dark military uniform, standing with a beer stein in between Germany and Austria. There was a chick-like bird perched upon his head, and his free arm was slung over Germany's shoulders while Austria stood with his arms neatly folded, shyly glancing away to avoid looking at the camera.

"Who is that man?" Edwin asked. "I've never seen him before."

"Preußen." He whispered.

Why hadn't Ludwig told the boy about his brother? Had he deliberately done this so that Roderich would have to remember him more than he already did, so that thoughts of the man would creep up on him even more?

"Prussia? I thought he was dead."

"Who told you that?" Roderich asked sharply, then calmed upon seeing Kugelmugel shrink back slightly. "I'm sorry, Edwin."He sighed culpably.

"Dissolved, not dead." The former aristocrat corrected, removing his spectacles and massaging the bridge of his nose. "Prussia was dissolved. He is no longer a nation, but he still lives. He's..." Trapped, scorned, starved, punished. "He's away right now."

"What's his other name?"

"Gilbert. Gilbert Beilschmidt."

"Why do you still call him Prussia if he's not Prussia anymore?" Edwin pressed, not easily deterred when he really wanted something. Persistence is art, he would say.

"Because," Roderich smiled - a wry, crooked curl of his lips. "That's who he thinks he is."

And that was the name which had been drilled into him for centuries. Not East Germany, which was arguably just as lackluster as Ostmark, but Prussia.

Kugelmugel was quiet for several moments. "Do you think that will happen to me if I can't be a micronation anymore? Will I have to go away, too?"

The expression froze on Austria's face, and he stared numbly down at the boy who was watching him intently for his answer, fear and disquiet in his eyes.

"No, Süßer, you won't have to go away." He promised, this time ignoring Spain's advice about honesty. "You can still be yourself."

I hope so, he added to himself. I will try everything in my power to make it so.

He patted the boy's shoulders. "Go, entertain yourself neatly for a while. I'm making your favorite for dessert tonight, so be good."

Later on, Kugelmugel had more questions about Prussia. What did he look like in person? Was he strong? Why did he have a bird on his head? Was he an artist? Why was he dissolved? Was he the reason why Germany and Austria started suddenly looking sad sometimes?

Roderich answered what he could without becoming too overtaken with memories and emotions, and deflected other queries which hit too close to areas that still stung when prodded.

"He's going to come back, some day soon." He informed the boy, and it sounded like an ardent promise. "You'll get to ask him all the questions you like then."

Austria called Germany that night to thank him for the pictures, and to tell him how Kugelmugel had asked about his bruder.

What he doesn't tell anyone is that he takes the photo album from Edwin's room that night, and spends hours upon his piano bench in the silent music room. He pours over the pages, staring at different images of the same face which he tries so hard to remember in warm color, instead of harsh, unfeeling black and white.

And he is very careful that none of his tears land on the photos, for after all, the pictures are precious and Ludwig has trusted them to return the album in perfect condition.

Roderich wishes futilely – fleetingly - that Gilbert, too, would be returned to them in perfect condition, although he knows reality is a harsh medium to work in.

Austria decided on this night that he did not hate Prussia anymore, because really, there was not enough left to hate. There was only enough to love, and certainly plenty to miss, as he'd had time and time and time to discover.

.x.x.x.

Edwin Lipburger, self-proclaimed President of the Republic of Kugelmugel, was given a prison sentence.

Upon the news from the court, Austria sagged down onto the sofa, held his head in his hands and vehemently uttered, "Scheiße."

He hadn't heard Kugelmugel in the doorway until the boy came and sat down next to him, still growing taller each day as if his existence hadn't been hanging on a thread for all this time.

"Never repeat that word." Roderich pleaded tiredly, attempting to quell thoughts of Kugelmugel suddenly disappearing as a personification, of never painting or playing again, never waking Austria up in the morning or asking questions or visiting with other nations.

"You're going to be alright." He told Edwin, taking his hands away from his face to look the boy in the eye. "You are, when this is all over."

Those last words, he'd repeated them like a mantra throughout his long life. When this is all over. Because, after all, something always had to give. An ending always had to occur, in order for anything to ever change.

Kugelmugel just stared at him, unperturbed, and said, "I know."

And Roderich didn't feel quite as helpless and afraid as before. He felt as though, perhaps, there was a chance that he could do something about this.

.x.x.x.

Austria's current boss was one of the most popular in his history to date. Kirchschläger was a miraculously wizened man in his second term, with an exceedingly high approval rate.

Integrity and diligence had come to be associated with the eighth Austrian President, so it was not entirely odd – not suspicious, nor strange – when he issued a pardon to Edwin Lipburger, apparently able to see the humor in the situation despite all the uproar.

The artist-turned-revolutionary was free to live his life, and Kugelmugel the micronation was just as free to live his.

Austria had come home and delivered the news, smiling when Edwin asked, "So I can stay for as long as I want?"

"You can," Roderich assured, laughing when the boy rushed into his arms and cried, "I told you so, Austria, I told you I knew!"

They went out to celebrate - Austria even paid for an expensive lunch and dessert.

"Would you like to see where they moved your...house?" He asked as they left the restaurant, holding the boy's hand from sheer force of habit and not because he was still afraid of losing him.

Kugelmugel nodded, and they headed to Vienna Prater.

Upon Lipburger's pardon, the Austrian authorities had relocated the sphere which Kugelmugel was named after. It had come all the way from the countryside to the stately city park.

They stood there before it, in all its round, barbed wire-surrounded glory. It did fulfill the purpose Lipburger designed it for, being the shape most synchronous with nature. There in the park, it would remain empty and exposed to the elements, through days and nights, the hours circling around it in the way that time unfailingly did.

Roderich thought of how this building had ceased to be a home for the eccentric artist who'd created it, becoming another odd sight among many in his precious city.

But he was one of the few in the world who knew that the dream – the spark of it all - was not exhibited in the sphere itself.

All the life that Lipburger put into his stunts had resulted in the creation of the boy who stood beside Austria now, with hands that loved to create and bright eyes which saw art in everything, especially music, certainly people and sometimes even food.

"My middle name is Leopold." Kugelmugel declared.

"What?" Roderich raised his eyebrows, glancing down at the boy. "How did - why?"

"Now this house is in second district, Leopoldstadt. It has a place it's allowed to stay now, and so do I." Kugelmugel replied. "And 'Leopold' has two o's in it. That's my favorite letter."

"It would be." Roderich concurred, feeling a rush of gratitude affection amazement welling up in his chest.

"I like that name, very much," he said. "I knew another Leopold, centuries ago."

"Was he an artist?"

"No." Austria chuckled at the thought. "But he did have a sort of flair for the dramatic, and gave me the colors for my flag."

And he told the boy a story nearly eight centuries old, of Duke Leopold V who fought in the Third Crusade until his white tunic was stained with blood save for a single stripe from where his belt rested, impressing the Holy Roman Emperor so much that he allowed the Duke to adopt those colors as his banner.

Kugelmugel made a face and shrugged. "My flag just has a silhouette of the guy who built this." He gestured to the house.

"Well," Austria conceded dryly. "Art takes many forms."

Looking up at his caretaker, Kugelmugel asked, "Can we go home now?"

Roderich raised his eyebrows in surprise, having thought the boy would have wanted to stay longer. However, he was hardly going to deny the request. "Ja. Let's go home."

And to be able to utter those words on that day felt like the sweetest victory Austria could remember in years.

.x.x.x.

It was five years after Kugelmugel came to live with Austria, four months after the 750th anniversary of Berlin and the electrifying speech at Brandenburg Gate from America's boss, and two months since Hungary disabled her physical borders with Austria, allowing over thirteen thousand East Germans to escape through her land and into his.

It was twenty-eight long years, from the summer of 1961 to the winter of 1989.

It was countless sleepless nights, days of empty chairs and hidden tears and painful, precious memories, not just in conference rooms and old houses but all across the country, across the heartland of Germany.

It was the evening of the ninth of November when the wall woodpeckers went to work, chipping and hacking away at the structure which was as good as fallen, unable to withstand the force of generations crying out, demanding freedom, peace, unity.

It was a bitingly cold night when Germany rushed forward to embrace his brother at last, shoulders trembling with relief and the effort not to start bawling. Then Prussia wrapped his arms around him in return, said something too low for Austria to hear from his position behind them and they both started bawling.

Austria didn't realize that he was sobbing too until his glasses fogged up so much that he couldn't see. He yanked them off, because he absolutely was not going to lose sight of Prussia now, after everything that had happened.

People were celebrating all around them, popping champagne bottles and dancing, laughing, crying, hugging, shouting with the ecstatic triumph and joy which comes from being completely desperate and finally finding a way out.

The surrounding noise and motion faded in Austria's mind when Prussia looked up over Germany's shoulder, locking eyes with him. For a moment, Gilbert looked surprised, as if he were shocked to see Austria there, and honestly, if he only knew...if he only knew...

Germany stepped back at some point to wipe at his eyes, heaving an odd half-laugh, half-sob. In that moment, he looked somewhat like the young boy he used to be, before war had reshaped him and stripped him of his innocence and made him everything he was today.

And then it was just Austria and Prussia, facing each other again for the first time in too long.

They were not what they used to be. They were not torrid enemies, nor reluctant allies. They were not Empires, strung up on lust for power. They could never be those things again, for Austria was neutral and Prussia remained dissolved.

But they were still something, and they still needed one another to remind them of everything they had ever been, all they'd overcome and accomplished, and the possibilities of what they still could achieve.

Roderich stepped forward with a sudden, urgent breathlessness to pull that man into his arms. Gilbert seemed thinner than before and unbelievably frail beneath the surface, but real.

Kissing him on both sallow cheeks, his hot tears mingling with Prussia's own, Austria wrapped his arms around him, fingers curling into the back of his threadbare shirt and albescent locks.

His breath hitched as he tried to say something along the lines of, you've missed a lot, but what came out of his mouth in tearful fervor was, "Gott, Preußen, I've missed you so much."

He felt Prussia's hands come up to clasp him in a hold just as tight, grinning and saying nothing about his slip of the tongue, if it even bothered him at all. The slightest chuckle breezed against Austria's ear. Gilbert was solid and steady in his arms, and it felt like another crack in Roderich's heart was being filled and smoothed over.

It burned beautifully, and then Germany was there beside them again, so they all cried together for a while, their pent-up sobs and misty breaths and half-formed sentiments lost to the cacophony of other sounds of love, renewed hope and freedom rising to the night sky.

It was that day which paved the way for German reunification, for the end of an era and a consequence, and the start of a redemption.

It was that day when Gilbert came home.

.x.

Austria returned to Berlin two weeks later, bringing Kugelmugel along this time. Gilbert was sitting at the kitchen table – a chair that isn't empty, Roderich thought, there's finally a chair for him that isn't empty – with his yellow bird on his shoulder, looking tired but slightly better.

Ruby-red eyes had widened at the new visitor, staring at the micronation in surprise.

"This is Edwin Leopold Edelstein. He's been waiting to meet you for a very long time." Roderich wore a look which promised further explanations later.

"Well, hey there, kid. Fancy name, huh? It sounds like you've been hanging around prissy Austria too much."

Gilbert held out his hand. "Glad you can finally meet the awesome me!"

"Hi. Austria only picked out part of my name, actually." Kugelmugel raised an eyebrow at Prussia, and Gilbert looked struck at seeing such a familiar, trademark expression of Roderich's on the face of the boy.

Edwin took the albino man's calloused hand in his own, shaking it lightly. "Are you going to stay from now on? I don't want Austria and Germany to be sad anymore."

The two adults froze, Austria's face heating up in mortification. He averted his eyes, but heard Prussia's response with perfect clarity.

"Ja, I'm going to stick around, so let's all be happy, okay? Now, no more questions for me until you tell me about who you are!"

The two instantly hit it off after that, talking and occasionally snickering for hours while Austria and Germany hovered about and pretended – terribly, at that - not to be interested in anything they said.

By the time Roderich regretfully announced that they needed to leave, Gilbert had three portraits of himself with Gilbird, a drawing of himself with Edwin, and a drawing of all four of them – Roderich, Gilbert, Ludwig and Edwin – holding hands on top of the world.

They all looked at that one for a few moments, and Roderich was close to feeling that way – on top of the world – when Gilbert looked up at him, their fingers brushing together just slightly over the paper.

"You did well with this kid, Specs."

"No." Austria murmured. "He is entirely his own person."

Gilbert shook his head with cherry fondness in his eyes.

"You've changed," he observed, and it almost sounded like I missed you, too.

"I don't know if people ever change." Roderich replied. "Don't you wonder if they just find parts of themselves they hadn't discovered before?"

"Maybe people change," Edwin piped up. "And maybe people can help others find the good parts of themselves."

And that made sense, so the adults all nodded and agreed, thinking about the good they had witnessed in each other over the centuries, from the golden years to the tarnished ones and all that time in between.

We're all still here, Austria realized with a private thrill of joy. Danke Gott, we're all still here.

.x.x.x.

Now it's Gilbert's first Christmas back home, less than two months after his release from behind the Wall, and there is a gathering at Austria's house.

Ludwig arrives first, his brother and Feliciano in tow, and Edwin throws himself at them and informs them of all his latest projects. He tells them about how Austria put the Christmas tree up in the drawing room last night but won't let him see it until after they eat dinner, because that's Austrian tradition.

"I could have helped, but I bet it's probably still beautiful! He says there are lots of presents underneath, and we can all open some tonight because it's Christmas Eve!" The boy cheers.

Roderich just smiles and opens the door a few minutes later for Elizaveta, who is carrying a hoard of presents and definitely looking even more beautiful than the tree, in that casual way of hers. Antonio and Lovino show up as well, and Roderich has even invited Francis for Gilbert's sake.

There is a general consensus among all the guests to make this Christmas special for the two most immature people in Austria's life – Gilbert and Edwin. Additionally, he does warn Gilbert's two old friends to be on your best behavior in front of Kugelmugel or so help me...

Of course, Hungary has brought her frying pan as always and Germany is there, so everything is lively yet mostly balanced out.

The halls and doorways are decorated with the paper chains Edwin has made, and they look homely – and slightly, ridiculously out-of-place in the elegant house – but no one minds one bit. Austria pats Kugelmugel's head and tells him he's proud of him, rewarded with the flash of a blinding smile before the boy runs off to spread his cheer to someone else.

To Roderich's surprise, the last guests at his door are Vash and Lili, whom he didn't think were going to accept his invitation after all.

Switzerland loads his arms with parcels and gruffly says, "Those are for your tree, but don't strain yourself." He takes them all back a second later. "Never mind, I'll just carry them because it's easier that way. We both know you don't have any muscles."

Austria is so shocked that he simply stands there for a moment or three, until he remembers his manners and says yes, of course, thank you, I suppose, and ushers them inside, out of the cold.

He's been so busy making sure that everyone is comfortable – behaving, as well - and that the house remains situated, so it's alarming when he finally remembers that there is sachertorte still baking in the kitchen.

Roderich hurries to check up on that, but instead finds his path to the oven blocked by Gilbert and Edwin, who are standing over a row of cookie pans, munching on the lebkuchen which has been set out to cool.

"You two had better not be eating dessert early." He snaps, coming up behind them and looking every bit like the righteously upset and dignified man he is, even if Gilbert had already been making in fun of his lace-trimmed purple apron for a couple hours now. "I leave this kitchen for five minutes and you two have the audacity - "

"Scheiße," Kugelmugel interrupts the rant to mutter contritely, startled into dropping the sweet biscuit back onto the pan.

Prussia laughs hard – cackles, really, while Roderich scowls - honestly Gilbert, you immature fool, you think that's funny? Perhaps you can explain where he learned that word?

"I learned it from you, Austria." The boy points out helpfully.

Still shamelessly holding his bit of lebkuchen in one hand, the albino man slaps his knee. "This kid is awesome!"

And from beyond the doorway, everyone else is snickering and giggling. Even Germany has a rare grin spreading across his face, and Kugelmugel dares to smile blissfully with sweet satisfaction at the scene he helped create.

Austria finds himself beginning to crack a smile as well, even as he warns Prussia and Kugelmugel that they won't be having any treats later at this rate.

He knows, however, that of course he'll allow them some, because it's Christmas and they're all together.

Oh, they all still have a long way to go. They always will. But now that all has been said and done, after so many wretched obstacles have been overcome, they are something like a family again. Some things have been lost, though it seems now as if so much more has been regained.

All these people are so precious to Roderich, and he's realized that he cannot do anything but love them, in this moment and the next, while their wild, colorful world twirls around faithfully still - the most beautiful sphere of all.

.

Ende

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.x.x.x.

AN: Well, thank you dearly for reading, if you've made it this far!

I know there is a headcannon that it probably would have been possible for Gilbert to pass into West Berlin briefly even while the Wall was in effect, him being a personification tied to the East German government and such. That's a far nicer concept and I support it, but the nature of this story evolved almost without my conscious effort, and I decided not to go with that.

Furthermore, I apologize for any historical or grammatical errors. This work is unbeta'd, and I'm sure it could have used far more revision that what I gave it.