A/N: Umm... Basically I've got this soft spot in my soul for GerIta (even though I don't normally go all drooly over pairing stuff even with Hetalia) because it's quasi-canon and also adorable. And I also subscribe to the ever popular Germany=HRE theory and if you don't, who cares, it's ambiguous, don't flame, etc.

Also don't ever forget that crack is wack... except when it comes to Hetalia fanfiction. This story has its fair due of crack because of the whole Herr Stick joke, which I decided to play with. I don't think I'm the only one who ever had this idea, either... Basically this is, like my other story Bring On the Hell, pretty much a love letter to the English dub, which has its flaws but was the first thing that I watched and so there is a special place in my heart for it.

Something wasn't right here. There was a stain on the floor.

Yes, there was a stain on the floor and it worried Germany, because he didn't remember anything being spilled on that spot. That meant it could be from anything. The stain was a sort of yellow crust with a greenish tint in places, and it was about the size of a tea saucer. Germany eyed it mistrustfully before reaching for his trusty cleaning supplies. He had on the same fearsome expression that he wore on the battlefield, the one that said, in plain terms: You're going DOWN.

As he got on his knees wielding wet rag and scrubbing brush, he heard a strange noise coming from the vicinity of his front door, but he wasn't really focusing on it. His mind was on scrubbing; back and forth, forth and back, scrape, scrape, scrape on the linoleum tiles in the kitchen.

"Ehi, Germany?" sang a voice he didn't expect to hear one bit. "Is it okay if I borrow a-?"

"Italy? What the hell are you doing here?" Germany turned around and then did a double-take. It was Italy, and a rather too-big shirt, and that, as far as he could tell, was it. Even though Germany was used to this kind of behavior, he still went red. "And why don't you have any pants?"

"Oh, wow! That's exact-aly what I was going to ask you about!" Italy grinned. "You really can read minds! I was going to ask you if I could borrow a pair of pants."

Germany noticed something else markedly odd about Italy (not that being butt-naked was actually odd for the Italian, for whom bare skin was just another outfit). "What happened to you? Why are you all wet?" He watched the puddle pooling at Italy's feet with increasing horror.

"Well..." Italy began, tugging at his soggy red hair, "So, it was really, really hot today at my place, capisce? Well, I wanted to have a swimming so I went skinny-dipping over by the beach..." His voice was growing increasingly whiny and distraught. "But when I came out somebody had stolen all of my clothes! I borrowed the shirt from a nice man at the beach but I didn't have any money or my diplomat card or anything so I had to sneak into the country-" He held up a lockpick, and Germany really didn't want to know where he had been keeping that.

Instead Germany asked, in disbelief, "You broke into my house?"

"Umm... I didn't want to have to explain to those scary SS guys what I was doing naked on the border without an ID in the middle of the war, you know...?"

For a moment, Germany was slightly impressed by this lateral thinking display from Italy. He waved a dismissive hand. "Ja, ja. We'll let it pass this time." Perhaps after he is fully clothed and I have finish mopping up the mess he made, I will lecture him about not being so damn careless with his belongings, he thought. Out loud he added, "All right. Go ahead and borrow some pants if you want."

"Grazie!" said Italy brightly, darting out of sight. "I'll be right back!"

Germany waited until the other nation was all the way gone and then pounced on the puddle of muddy water with his brush and rag. He had been practically holding down an aneurysm watching it grow, so it was a good thing he had just been cleaning.

Upstairs, the closet door in Germany's room swung open and Italy began to poke through the neatly folded and pressed clothes, humming to himself. Eventually he pulled out a pair of pants and held them against his waist.

Then Italy made a noise of disappointment. "Too big," he mumbled, and then threw the pants back. He tried another pair, with the same result. He tried them on, and tripped over the trailing cuffs. After rifling through the clothes some more, Italy had to admit this wasn't so easy. "Drat," he said, tossing the pants into the closet in a messy heap. "I can't get into Germany's pants because Germany is too big for me!"

Italy sat on the bed and dried his wet hair with a pillow. "I wonder if Germany keeps any of his old clothes, from when he was smaller and less intimidating?" he pondered aloud. "Maybe I could fit into those..."

Meanwhile, Germany was just finished mopping up the puddle. He picked up the brush and the rag in relief and then he looked up. The nation's blue eyes narrowed. A trail of muddy footprints led away from the spot and up the stairs.

I should just leave it... his rational side said. His hand, holding the brush, trembled. No, I should really just ignore it... But, he didn't, because he was Germany, and Germany was anal about things like that.

Italy, in the bedroom, kept digging deeper into closets. "Ah!" he said brightly. "I had a feeling he wasn't the sort of person to throw things away!" He held up a pair of tiny black shoes and giggled. "Wow! Little baby Germany must have been so cute!" Eventually he found some trousers that looked like they would fit him and he pulled them out of the closet with a quick jerk of his arms.

He didn't notice, but his movement jostled something long and thin inside the closet, and the object began to wobble uncertainly. Italy was halfway done with pulling the pants on when the something hit the floor behind him with a clatter.

"Beh? What's that?" Italy hopped around and buttoned up his pants, then reached down and picked the thing up. It was a stick - a thin, straight, sanded rod about the length of his arm with one end rounded and the other carved into grooves that could screw into a suitable hole. He held it up to the light and squinted at it. It seemed to be in very good condition, and free of dust, but it looked quite old.

Actually all Italy thought when he saw it was, it's a stick, because he wasn't exactly the world's best sleuth. He considered it and was about to put away when something large and frightening smacked into him from behind and twisted his arms in an uncomfortable way that tore the stick from his grasp and then, after all that, yelped, "Hey! What the hell are you doing with that!"

Italy shrieked and scuttled into the corner, wringing his hands. "AAH! Germany! I'm so sorry! Please, don't hurt me!" He squeezed his eyes shut and trembled. "Whatever it was I did, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"I... Italy... where did you find this...?" Germany stuttered. He backed up and clutched the stick to his chest in a very un-Germany-like way.

"Um... um... I found it in the closet, but I was going to put it right back, I swear!" Italy scooted further down the wall in terror. "You... Germany looks so scary, so it must have been really important... I thought it was just a funny piece of wood."

"It's..." Germany went red and held the object tighter. "It's... mein schticky friend."

Italy stared at him with a confused but polite expression, clearly wondering if his ally had gone utterly mad. "O-oh... I see..."

Flustered, Germany realized he was still holding the cleaning brush as well as the stick. He hastily put both down on the nightstand and stood in front of them protectively. "It's just something I used to carry around a lot when I was younger!" he said defensively. "That's all! Now... go away!"

Slowly the light dawned in Italy's eyes, which then crinkled with endearment. "Ah! I get it! Like a blankie!"

Germany covered his eyes with the back of his hand, his face burning with embarrassment. "J-ja... like... a blankie..."

"But, Germany, that's so adorable..." Italy cooed. "Can I see it? Please, please, please?" He tried to peek around the taller nation. "Just for a minute?"

For a moment it looked like Germany was going to refuse, but whatever crumbling semblance of masculinity was left in him demanded that he take an aloof stance on this matter. "Fine!" he said a bit too loudly, stepping aside. "It's not like I still do that, anyway! I hardly look at it anymore! And... I certainly don't talk to it or... or cuddle it..." Well, except at night, when I have the bad dreams, but... but surely that doesn't count!

Italy darted over to the nightstand and picked up the stick. "Aw, but Germany, it's okay to have a comfort object! Even if it is just a stick, it's still special to you!"

"But it isn't still special to- ugh. Never mind."

"I wonder what this little bit on the end is for?" Italy said musingly. He rubbed the grooves on the wood, and then tapped it against the table a few times, as if doing this would reveal some new information. And to him, apparently, it did. "I know! It's a, you know, attachy-screwy-thingy, right..."

His eyes fell on the large rectangular scrubbing brush that Germany had happened to lay down on the same table. The brush didn't have a handle, but it did have a perfectly circular hole on the top, just the same diameter as the stick. Italy wasn't actually stupid, despite what all his friends thought, and he had a creative soul. He got it.

In the meantime, Germany had been surreptitiously timing Italy. "Time's up!" he said, whipping around and stowing the stopwatch in his pocket. "That was one minute, now give back the- oh!"

Italy had the precious stick in one hand and the brush in the other and was industriously drilling the one into the other. "Let's see now..." he murmured to himself.

And then like magic it wasn't a stick and a brush he held, but one contiguous, familiar object. They both looked at it.

"So the whole time it was a-" Germany started to say, but then...

"My pushy broom," whimpered Italy, in a high voice. He hugged it, rubbed his cheek against the smooth wood. Then he looked up at Germany with a pitiful expression. "It's my deck brush from when I was little! How on Earth did you get it?"

Germany stared at him. "What?"

Italy pointed wordlessly at the broom and then at himself. His eyes were filling with tears of nostalgia... or was it nostalgia?

"There must be some mistake," Germany said stiffly. "I've had that stick and that brush all my life. Now please give them back."

"No!" Italy squeaked defiantly, shuffling back a few steps. Then he seemed frightened by his own daring. "It's mine!"

"Don't be a Dummkopf, Italy..." Germany growled dangerously. He felt guilty about intimidating the cowardly nation, but this was about the safety of his sticky friend. Granted, Italy was an odd bird and sometimes you had to just go with that. But not this time. Not with Herr Stick.

But Italy, through terrified, didn't give the broom up. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't hurt me!" His heels hit the far wall.

"I won't hurt you if you give that broom back to me!" Germany grabbed hold of the handle and yanked it back, but Italy hung on and was pulled with it.

"I surrender!" Italy shrieked. "White flag!"

"If you surrender, then you have to give it back!" Germany said, struggling for a better hold on the broom. "That's how it works, you idiot!"

"Then I take it back! I don't surrender!" Italy threw the white flag he'd somehow conjured up onto the floor. "You're always telling me I shouldn't!"

"But not with me!" Germany bellowed, having had just about enough of Italy's lunacy. "You're supposed to stand up to the enemy! Not your superior officers!"

"You'renotmysuperiorofficer!" Italy shrilled, the sentence coming out as one long word. "Whomadeyouthebossofme?"

Germany stopped fighting for the broom and looked at Italy with the kind of death glare that people give when they don't want to admit that you've just called them on a bluff they've been using for years.

Italy hastily backtracked. "Just kidding! I didn't say anything!"

"So are you going to give it back?" demanded Germany.

"No- yeep!" Italy yelped as the stronger nation finally wrenched the stick out of his grip, sending him crashing to the floor face-first. As soon as he looked up, he whimpered. Germany was looming over him dangerously, with a dark look in his eyes.

Italy had a feeling he knew what was coming. He was going to get roundly smacked, and if he had made Germany really pissed then he could say arrivederci to pasta (or any food, for that matter) for a month or more.

Germany picked Italy up by the scruff of his shirt and regarded him. "Well, before I punish you for your insubordination," he began (Italy squeaked in terror), "I just want to know one thing." His brow furrowed. "Why does this broom matter to you so much?"

"Because it's..." Italy's eyes started to leak afresh, and he sniffled as his nose began to run. "It's Holy Rome's push broom..."

Aside from the fact that the name 'Holy Rome' seemed to send a prickle up Germany's spine, this only served to bemuse him. "But I thought it was yours," he said accusingly. Italy started to babble incoherantly in Italian, big blobby tears dripping down his chin. "Hold on!" Germany interrupted. "I can't understand what you're saying!"

Eventually Italy got a handle on himself enough to slow down. "It was mine but I gave it to mi amore, Holy Rome, before he went to war so he wouldn't forget about me when he was away..." He hung his head.

From that, Germany tried to pick out important details. He kept coming back to one. He? Italy had a boyfriend? Of course, he always suspected that his ally was, well, gay, but he'd chalked it up to cultural differences and then there was the way Italy always flirted with pretty girls... hold on. He'd said Holy Rome, hadn't he? That didn't sound like a man - that sounded like the personification of something. Italy had been in love with another nation? "What... what happened to him then?" asked Germany cautiously.

"Oh. He, um, he died." Italy wiped his face. "Are you going to smack me now?"

Germany looked away, feeling oddly ashamed. He put Italy down carefully on his feet and sighed. "As much as I might want to... Nein."

"You can if you want to," Italy said disconsolately, seating himself on the edge of the bed. "If you really, really want."

"Well, I always really, really want to smack you but I have to have some self-control." said Germany, his manner becoming more crisp. He set the push broom on the table and began to search the dresser drawers. "Just wait there a moment. I can give you a new ID so you don't have any trouble with getting home."

"Eh?" Italy's gaze broke from the broom.

"Your papers," said Germany tiredly. "For getting back across the border."

"Oh, I don't need those... I visit whenever I like to..." He didn't sound like he was paying close attention - from his voice, his mind was very far away in the past.

Germany looked at Italy strangely. "You used to, ja, but not anymore. Remember? There's a war going on... not that you'd notice, since you never fight anyway..."

"Yes, there was a war..." Italy murmured. "And I let him go..."

At least this lack of sense from Italy made some kind of, well, sense. Germany sat down next to Italy and gave him a friendly thump on the head. "Wake up and stop moping," he said sternly, jarring Italy out of his reverie. "It is everyone's first instinct to blame themselves when something bad happens, but you have to let this go. Guilt over the past just is a bad habit that only makes you less decisive in the future."

"But I let him go away... maybe I should have helped him with the war! I used to be pretty good at the fighting back then..."

Germany hrmphed. Talking about Italy's childhood boyfriend made him very grumpy for some reason. "Well, you didn't, so you can move on and... and do your training when you're supposed to and not let people steal your clothes. Ach, mein Italien, what else do you want me to say? I'm your ally, not your therapist."

"I did move on, and I shouldn't have! I used to hope that maybe he was still alive somehow but..." Italy reached out and picked up the broom. He ran his hands over the polished grain and sighed. "Well, if you have it then he can't have survived because he'd never have given it up... he said he would cherish it forever..."

Germany was terrible at this kind of thing. The correct answer, of course, would have been: I'm sure he would have, but he just didn't say that for some reason. He took the broom back and re-examined it. "You know, on a battlefield it's very easy to lose things." Especially, he added in his mind, a useless object like a push broom. Not that he'd ever left Herr Stick behind when he was little (the very thought made him anxious), but not everyone was like him. "Maybe he dropped it and... forgot about it."

"Holy Rome would never forget about me!" Italy wailed.

That's not what I said, but okay, be weird if you want to, Germany thought. "Fighting changes people, Italy. It can drive everything out of your head until all that's left is the need to survive. Everything else is just... gone."

"Even love?" asked Italy pathetically.

"I wouldn't know," said Germany stiffly. "Stop asking me dumb questions."

Out of nowhere, Italy encircled his arms around Germany's chest and squeezed. It took Germany a moment to remember this was hugging, and it meant that Italy was feeling either especially insecure or just especially Italian. "Oh, Germany, you're so sad and lonely!" he burst out. "You poor nation! I can't imagine never ever falling in love, but it must be terrible!"

"Ja, okay, that's enough..." Germany shifted uncomfortably. "Talking about my personal business... you're just like your grandfather the Roman Empire."

"I'm not!" Italy cried. "I'm not anything like him! I'm weak and pathetic!"

"Fine," said Germany flatly. "You're weak and pathetic. Do you want me to escort you home or will you be fine on your own?"

"I'll be okay by myself, but grazie anyway!" He gave his ally's torso another quick squeeze (that is, hugged him again... right, right, that was the word...). "Well, I'll be off now, so thanks for the clothes!" Sounding far more cheerful, he got to his feet and made for the door.

"Italy... wait..." Germany stood quickly and clapped a hand on the Italian's shoulder. "Don't you want this?" He held out the push broom reluctantly. "If it has so much meaning to you, you should have it..."

The longing in Italy's eyes was undeniable, but he shied back. "No, no! I couldn't! I'm sorry I ever... no, I can't do that! You keep it!"

"It's not... just take it, Italy, I don't like to see you so sad."

Italy regarded the broom. "No," he said, folding his arms and pouting, which was as close as he got to an expression of ferocity. "You haven't told me why you like that broom so much."

Germany shrugged. "I don't really remember," he said gruffly. "It just reminds me of somevone I... used to know." And love, his mind added, until he mentally jumped on the thought and banged it senseless against the inside of his skull.

"Va tutto bene," said Italy calmly. "It's okay. Let's share!" And with a few twists, he had separated the brush and the stick once again. "You keep your lucky stick, and I keep the brush, since that's the important bit to me. Sound good?"

Germany was about to protest that he had found the brush very useful too (and that it still had some soap on it from the cleaning), but he stopped himself in time. "Fine," he muttered. "Ja, that's fine." He waited for Italy to stop waiting, but Italy didn't, so Germany added, "You can go now."

"Oh, I can?" said Italy happily. "Cool! Oh, and thanks for talking to me about all this lovey-dovey stuff. I know it bores you, but you were a really good friend for listening and not smacking me and all that!" Italy leaned over and swiftly placed a kiss on each of the other nation's suddenly very red cheeks. "Ciao, Germany! I'll see you at training tomorrow!" And with that he practically danced out of the bedroom, holding his old brush under the crook of his arm.

"As if he's actually planning on being there," Germany said ruefully to the stick, gathering it in his arms. "I for one have no question that he will be sleeping in like a lazy Italian like the usual." He paused. "What do you think, Herr Stick?"

And to his surprise, he got a response. Not words; it wasn't as though the stick had ever talked to him at all... it just would make him remember things to hold it and that felt like a response. Right now, it was giving him a memory.

It told him of a little girl in a green dress with a funny curl in her hair. She was waving goodbye.