Germany remembers being the Holy Roman Empire.

He remembers bringing flowers to a younger North Italy, sharing a bed with him (although at the time he was sure the pretty little maid was, well, a Maid not a Male) during dark and scary thunderstorms. He remembered bringing poor little Veneziano food when the little gourmet had nothing to eat. He remembered his first kiss, his first farewell and receiving his first gift.

But no one knows that. Not even Prussia.

It's true that he couldn't remember his childhood until just after he met Veneziano, but he had chosen to remain silent on the matter. For a while he told himself that it was mostly because his first love was actually a man and, well…Germany didn't want to admit that he could feel that way about a man. He couldn't admit it, during the Second World War- not when his boss was condemning people left and right. Not when that dark and vicious part of him had seized control of his mind, his body and his voice.

The decade after the war was a blur. He was recovering from a mad, mad disease and more often than not, he felt feverish and dizzy, unable to tell the days apart. To top it all off, he been partitioned, and Prussia, his brother, his wonderful, annoying, effusive elder brother who had always been there to give advice (even if that advice was sometimes better left un-followed) was on the other side of an ugly wall, with Russia. He couldn't tell anyone.

When his finally cleared, Germany spent all of his free time trying to think of how to tell Veneziano that he remembered their shared childhood. He must have gone through reams and reams of paper trying to get the words down, and then, at half past three in the morning on February 19, 1965, he had what felt like his first clear thought in fifty years.

You are different now. All that you have seen, everything you have gone through…somewhere along the way, you lost your childhood innocence, Germany. Veneziano has retained his, but you are a different person now. He fell in love with the Holy Roman Empire. You are Germany. He would not love you.

With that thought, he swept the thirtieth, half-finished, twelve-page explanation/apology off of his desk and into the waste paper basket, stood, put his pen, paper and reading glasses away, then clicked off the lone desk lamp and went upstairs to bed. He lay there in the darkness, swept over by emotion. He felt like there was a vice around his heart. Tears pricked behind his eyes, but he could here Prussia's voice in his head, scolding him and telling him not to cry, so Germany swallowed the tears down like he always had- they were as hard to swallow as ever- and felt them settle into a cold lump in his stomach, like they always had. He was up for two days, waiting for the pain to pass, like he knew it eventually would.

The decades went by, and the pain in Germany's heart seemed to lessen, but it was a wound that just wouldn't heal. It made no logical sense. Veneziano didn't love Germany, that was a fact. He should just get over it and move on. Veneziano would have been a terrible match for him anyways. Their personalities clashed too much, what kind of partnership was that?

But nevertheless, Germany couldn't shake off his heartbroken feelings. Even when the wall came down and Prussia wrapped his arms tight around him and kissed him and kissed him. Even when his brother crawled into his bed and huskily told Germany that he'd show him what "reunification" was all about…even when Germany told Prussia that he loved him in that dark and twisted way, which was not so wrong because they were nations, even then...especially then…he felt that proverbial knife twist hard.

But he was Germany. He was nothing if not efficient, so he went about his business as usual, hiding his trivial memories from the rest of the world.

A/N: Stupid Toy Story 2, making me think of angsty emo-ness. Why do I write so much angst? It kills me to write it...