A/N- Waaaah, this is really short, and I believe it took me all of five minutes to write it, so consequently it can't be that good, but...oh well... Anyway, I was reading Hetalia online and came to the bit with Italy and the Holy Roman Empire again, and I heard somewhere that Germany is rumored to be the HRE (like, in adult-form, with no memories...? I'm confused...) so this just popped out. Yeah. But I love GermanyxItaly mucho! -squeals- They're so cute! Hope you like! -OA

Flickers of the Past

By ObsessedAuthoress

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.

Sometimes Germany wonders if he's having an identity crisis.

Either that or he's starting to hallucinate.

It happens, every so often, whenever he glances at Italy out of the corner of his eye; the familiar brunet with his blue-and-white uniform suddenly blurs into the figure of a little child wearing a green dress under a white apron, a small kerchief tied over his head.

And if that isn't weird enough, sometimes when this happens, Germany gets the bizarre urge to take the pasta-obsessed nation into his arms and-

Cough.

Well. Never mind what he gets the bizarre urge to do. Let's just say it rather disturbs him, and he wishes he could figure it out, because it's really kind of confusing.

There are other feelings that well up at times like that, when he glimpses the cute maid-child, and usually after one of these visions Germany sits in his office for a long time, thinking about…empires. Ruling. Fighting long, long wars to take back what never actually belonged to him in the first place, something that he'd always wanted, but was always out of reach-

-And then slowly fading away into something entirely new, a new being who doesn't remember his past at all.

This is where the identity crisis bit comes into play.

Most of the time, he shakes it off after a while and sets about doing his paperwork, arranging training sessions, and rescuing Italy from whatever mess he's gotten into this time.

It isn't until late at night, when he can't sleep, that Germany digs up a pair of tiny, ruffly underpants from the depths of his closet and studies them, wondering where in the world they came from.

And it's strange, because even though he has no idea whose they are or where he got them, he can't recall a time when he didn't have them.

He can only pray that Italy never finds them, because boy, he does not want to try and explain his way out of that one.

A/N- There you go! Oh, and for anyone who hasn't read the webcomic version, when the Holy Roman Empire left to fight his war, Italy gave him a pair of his -ruffly- underwear as a memento (instead of that broom from the anime version). Just to clear that up. So...review? Please? Thanks! -OA