As always when he needed to calm himself, Russia wandered the vast expanses of his land, caring little where his feet took him. Bad enough that the first frost of the season had fallen in Moscow this morning, the sign that within a month he would have to hand his poor, battered heart to General Winter. To have his boss lecturing him about being weak and not wanting his nation to be great again – greatness was a lie, anyway, Russia had decided long ago. It was just another way for his bosses to hurt his people – was worse.

To have the plumbing of the creaky old palace he called home go out again was just too much. His bosses always wanted him to put on a good show for the other nations, but never wanted to pay for it. They were much more concerned with paying for tanks and fighter planes and their own personal luxuries: Russia did all the maintenance on his house himself, now he no longer had Litva and the others to help him.

He couldn't call someone in to fix things: his bosses provided for him, but paid nothing. The old palace had been slowly crumbling for years, and having the pipes fail now, so close to winter, well… He would be spending winter scraping clean snow for water.

Russia blinked when he realized his aimless wandering had brought him to Kaliningrad. He hadn't wanted to come here: he never felt quite comfortable, as though the place belonged to someone else. Which was odd, because all the Prussians and Germans who'd survived the war had been expelled, and all the settlers replacing them were good Russians.

Still, there was something odd about Kaliningrad. Not the architecture: the new buildings were typical Soviet things, and what older ones had survived had lost their historical significance. It was more… the way Latvian and Lithuanian words had bled into the local dialect, making the Kaliningraders sound vaguely… Prussian. The way Kaliningraders worked harder and cared more for the quality of their work than most of the Soviets had done, something that in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union had given Kaliningrad Oblast the highest standard of living of any district in Russia.

Strange… Prussia had no influence here. Russia had helped to see to that himself. Yet he always felt as though he stood on foreign soil when he came here.

Not that it mattered, Russia decided, strolling along one of the bridges – there weren't enough for the famous bridge riddle any more, but the island in the river was still a park – and finding himself a nice, quiet park bench where he could try to drown out the disquiet and the day's unhappiness with vodka. The Kaliningraders were Russian enough for that.

#

When Russia woke it was to the pounding headache and nausea of a hangover. Normally that never happened, but since his memory stopped sometime between the third and fourth bottle of vodka, and he didn't remember eating anything, it made sense that he'd feel bad.

Which was about as much thinking as Russia was ready to do.

He lay where he was for a time, aware that he was far more comfortable that he should have been. He smelled wood-smoke, and could hear the soft crackle of a fire somewhere nearby. He was definitely in a bed, which was odd – Russians were not known for their generosity to strangers, and even the weirdness of Kaliningraders was not such that one would be likely to take a dead drunk stranger to his home and let him sleep in his bed – a bed that was far too comfortable for either a hospital or a prison. Hospitals and prisons weren't known for fireplaces, either.

He heard a door open, soft footsteps approaching, then a warm hand touched his forehead.

Russia blinked. And blinked again. He was hallucinating, surely.

The hallucination gestured to something on his left. "There's painkillers and orange juice on the dresser. I'll be back in a little while with breakfast." Even the voice was correct, but the sympathetic smile was just… odd.

The hallucination – it had to be, didn't it? - reached the door before Russia croaked, "Prussia?"

"Yes?"

Russia swallowed. He hadn't expected… well, he'd thought at best he'd wake in a hospital and have to influence his way out. This just wasn't possible. "Why?" was all he managed to say.

Prussia chuckled softly. "Later, all right? After the painkillers have had a chance to work and you have something solid inside you." And left, leaving Russia to stare at the whitewashed walls of a small, cozy room with firelight dancing on the walls and dappled sunlight shafting in through a single little window.

A window set so deep the walls of this place had to be at least a meter thick, and if Russia was right the window panes weren't glass, they were muscovite, and that made this place older than almost anything else in Kaliningrad.

Trying to sort that out made his head hurt even more, so Russia rolled to the side and found the promised painkillers and juice – it looked fresh-squeezed, too, not from a bottle – and gulped down the pills. The juice was warm and frothy, full of pulp. The mental image of Prussia squeezing oranges and being all domestic was just too confusing: Prussia was a warrior to the core, a fighter who refused to surrender or break. Who could be beaten into the ground but would build himself back and return stronger than ever.

Someone like that did not squeeze oranges to make juice, and certainly did not come to land taken from him seventy years ago to carry a drunk Russia to a cozy bedroom in a building that was possibly even more impossible, and definitely did not make breakfast for the nation who had taken his old heartland.

Yet, not long after Russia finished the juice – and started to wonder what had happened to his clothes and what else had happened while he'd been too drunk to notice – Prussia returned, carrying a tray loaded with more juice, and what smelled awfully like the result of a traditional Russian breakfast marrying a traditional German one.

"I've eaten," Prussia said. "Your clothes should be dry by now."

Russia just stared at him, not sure how those comments fitted together.

"You messed up your clothes pretty good," Prussia said by way of explanation. "I'm not going to ask why you were face down crying in the dirt, but to get you clean I had to take all your clothes off, so once I'd got you to bed, I washed your stuff and set it out to dry." He shrugged. "Nothing I've got here would fit you."

Slowly, too slowly, something impossible dawned on Russia. "You are Kaliningrad now?"

Prussia blushed a bit. "Kind of. The people aren't really mine, but the land, well… you can't take a nation's birthplace from them, no matter what you do." He shrugged. "Eat, Russia. We can talk after."

Once again, Russia was left to wonder what mad world he'd slid into while he was doing his best to drink his way to oblivion. At least this insanity was comfortable and included food that smelled good.

It tasted good too.

#

Later, after he had washed in a wonderfully hot shower and dressed in his warm, dry clothes – they smelled faintly of rosemary, which was nice, and he could only presume Prussia was the one who had mended his scarf with tiny stitches, because Russia had only noticed a day or so back that it was fraying there – Russia ventured into an equally cozy living room where a blanket folded by a couch said silently where Prussia had slept last night.

The other nation blushed when he picked up the blanket and took it from the room, but was back to his usual color when he returned and gestured to the couch. "I'll explain now, if you want."

Russia sat awkwardly, unsure where this was going. "Yes, please."

Prussia turned to stare out a small, deep-set window. He clasped his hands together behind his back, standing with his legs a little apart: parade rest, which looked kind of odd for a nation wearing jeans and a faded tee-shirt. "I honestly didn't know until recently." There was none of Prussia's usual bluster in his voice. "It hurt too much, see. Still does, but I'm getting more used to that." He paused, then said, "So when I felt you on my land, in turmoil, I pretty much had to help."

Russia swallowed. "You really are Kaliningrad."

"I guess so." A quick, one-shouldered shrug. "Not that it matters. Prussia hates the very idea of Russia." That was very dry. "Nobody would believe you if you told them."

It occurred to Russia then that Prussia was speaking Russian and his accent was close to identical to the Kaliningrader accent. "But you… you do have the people."

Prussia shook his head. "They're more yours than mine." A shrug. "And I don't think any of your oblasts are personified, are they?"

"No, no they are not." With the one exception standing here. "So you are helping me because you are Kaliningrad?"

Prussia shrugged. "Could be. Could be because I'm much more the Teutonic Order than Prussia these days, too, and that comes with a big share of helping those in need." He turned then, grinning. "Not that anyone would believe that of me."

Russia couldn't disagree. Prussia was a loud, arrogant, heartless ass. He would laugh at someone who needed help and call them a loser. "This is so. I am having trouble believing and I am here."

Prussia chuckled, and settled on the couch beside Russia. He felt very warm, nice. "Yes. I think you're the first nation I've brought here, actually. I hid the place centuries ago, and come back here when I need time to think."

He must have built it himself, Russia thought. He wondered how the other nation had provided such a lovely hot shower when – belatedly- he realized that there was no electricity here. Candles and firelight were all there was. "How… How did you keep it so nice?"

"The usual way – hard work and a bit of ingenuity." Prussia stretched, leaned back further. "This is the last place I've got that's wholly mine: I'm not going to let it go to ruin."

"And you are being nice to me even though I helped take your heart from you." Russia didn't realize he'd spoken out loud until Prussia made a rude noise.

"Russia, Koenigsburg stopped being my heart a long time ago. It was barely even mine, apart from my birthplace, when what was left of Prussia was dissolved."

Russia didn't think he could be that calm about something so momentous.

"You helped end the evil that had twisted my little brother into knots." Now Prussia sounded sad. "For that, I thank you, and I'm sorry I couldn't return the favor and get the communists out of your lands sooner."

For a moment Russia was tempted to ask who – or what – inhabited Prussia's body, then the man laughed softly. "I'm confusing you, aren't I?"

"A little bit," Russia conceded.

Prussia shifted to grin at him. "We all put on faces, yes? The arrogant arse with an ego that can't fit through a door is mine."

Russia blinked, trying to reconcile the Prussia he thought he knew with this rather different man who wore the same body and had the same mannerisms, but was much calmer, much more pleasant, and really someone he'd like to be friends with. He couldn't do it.

"Come on," Prussia said after a short, uncomfortable quiet. "You're not going to accept this unless I show you all of it."

#

While Russia wasn't certain what to expect from 'all of it', he was quite certain he didn't expect to be led to a trapdoor hidden in a – remarkably well-stocked – pantry, nor for the trapdoor to open to a long ladder that climbed down so far he was sure he was ten or more meters below the ground when his boots reached solid earth once more.

The air itself spoke of Prussia, whispering of things Russia would never have associated with the loud, arrogant nation he'd thought he knew.

Prussia himself had vanished into the dimness, the oil lantern he'd brought a flicker of light that didn't so much illuminate as define the darkness.

Light flared, then more, and Russia realized the other nation was lighting torches – the old kind: brands of wood topped with oil-soaked cloth. His eyes grew steadily wider as the torches showed more of this echoing space: an ancient tomb to a forgotten king, the walls of lime-soaked hardwood that must be harder than stone by now supporting beams of the same material.

Like any place sacred to a nation, this place defied time. Had this not been Prussia's heartland, the walls and roof would have collapsed long ago, leaving nothing to mark it as a place once used by humans.

Then Russia realized the walls were marked by scratches, none much higher than a meter above the hard-packed earthen floor. Those scratches were clearly grouped, like tally marks… no, they were tally marks. He counted to himself, stopped when he realized there were more than a thousand of them, many more.

Prussia rejoined him, hung the lantern from a hook set on the ladder. "I probably wasn't born here, but this is where my first memories are," he said simply.

Russia blinked. As always when he was uncertain, his hands found his scarf, wrapping it around his fingers in a complicated cats-cradle of fabric. "Probably?"

Prussia shrugged. "As far as I can tell, my parents were human. They abandoned me to the forest because they thought I was a demon. I was suckled by a she-wolf: her descendants are all over Europe by now, and still mine."

Russia swallowed. "Those marks on the walls… you made them, yes?"

"Yeah. I don't know how old I was when I started making a mark each time the first flowers of spring came through." A shrug. "It probably wasn't any worse a life than you had with the Horde. Maybe better: I might have been burned in sacrifice to the old Prussian gods – usually Peckols, the god of the underworld – but at least I was my own person, you know?"

Russia shuddered. Those were memories he tried not to bring to mind. But to be burned by ones own people? That was horrible, far worse than anything he could – or even wanted to – imagine.

The weight of a hand on his shoulder. "It's old news, Russia. I didn't know it wasn't supposed to be that way."

When he turned that way, Prussia was smiling, not his usual smirk, but a gentle, rather sad smile.

"Vanya."

Prussia blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Call me Vanya," Russia said. "That is how close friends call Ivan, yes?" Close friends and family, and if Prussia had trusted him with this, with his heartland, then Russia could not help but think the other man had to be a close friend, or as close to it as nations could be.

The other nation clicked his tongue. "I know that… I just never thought you'd..." He gave a quick shake of his head. "No matter. I'm being foolish." A shrug. "Gilbert, or Gil if you'd rather." One corner of his mouth quirked up in a wry smile. "This place does that to me."

Russia understood: all nations had layers of defenses, mannerisms they used to protect their true selves. It was hard to keep those in one's heartland, and grew more difficult the closer one was to one's birthplace – the reason nations rarely invited other nations into those lands.

He wondered why Prussia had brought him here, but before he could ask, the other nation said, "You needed help." Then, when Russia stared at him with his mouth fallen open, Prussia grinned. "No, I can't read your mind. That one was written all over your face."

To his considerable shock, Russia found himself blushing. He hid his face with his scarf, hoping the heat in his face wasn't too obvious.

If it was, Prussia didn't comment on it. "At any rate, this is who I am." He made a quick gesture Russia couldn't interpret.

"Has any other nation seen this?" The idea that he was the first to be trusted with something so sacred was beyond terrifying – and that was without considering that it was Prussia who was trusting him.

Again, Prussia's answer was nothing he'd expected. "That kind of depends, actually." Another complex gesture. "I brought Templar here from the Vatican's prisons, when his Order was dissolved." This time, there was no doubting Prussia's sadness. "I did my best for him, but I couldn't save him. In the end, I took him to his heartland to fade, and stayed with him until he was gone."

For a long moment, Russia could think of nothing to say to that: how do you respond to someone who has stood a death watch over another nation? Well… nation-kind, anyway. "I did not know any other orders were personified." It sounded weak.

Prussia shrugged. "Most people don't. They keep to themselves. Hospitaller survived everything and eventually became Malta. I think Benedictine, Franciscan, Jesuit, and the other purely monastic orders still live with Holy See, but I haven't seen any of them in a long time." Another shrug. "Templar and Hospitaller welcomed me as a brother. The other orders… not so much." A quick gesture to his hair and eyes. "I had to tell all my grandmasters God made me in the colors of my order so they didn't think I was a demon."

Russia tilted his head. "White, gold, and red, I can see. But where is the black?"

Prussia chuckled, and held out one arm. A moment later a huge black eagle swooped in to settle on that arm, beating its wings as its claws gently wrapped around Prussia's wrists. The bird blurred, becoming the little chick that nested in Prussia's hair, which it proceeded to do with a happy peep.

Prussia reached up to pet it gently.

"Oh." What else could he say?

Prussia's soft smile made him look, well… almost sweet. "He prefers to stay little."

People would definitely find a chick much less threatening than a big black eagle.

"So. Anything else you want to know?" Prussia asked.

Russia frowned. "Only that I still do not understand why you would bring me here and be so nice." Even allowing for Kaliningrad being a Russian oblast, bringing Russia to his heart like this was… He couldn't imagine even his sisters doing this. It spoke of a trust he really couldn't imagine.

The comment earned him another of those gentle smiles. "Really, Vanya? Let's put it this way: I'm not the idiot I pretend to be. Prussia might hate Russia with all his soul, but Gilbert can see past the things the Russian leaders have done to their nation, and rather likes Ivan."

"Does that mean you want to become one with me?" Nobody – other than Belarus, who was frankly disturbing the way she was so intense about it – had ever wanted to be closer to him. Most wanted to be far away, and the further the better.

When Prussia looked at him like that, with the harsh lines of his face softened and his red eyes gleaming with amusement, it was enough to make a stronger nation go weak at the knees. "I sort of already am, remember? But yes, I'd like to get to know you – know Vanya – better."

Again the emphasis on the person rather than the nation. Nobody had ever done that with him before, and Russia found that he liked it a great deal. "I would like that, Gilbert," he said. "I would like it very much."