Gilbert sneaks into Ludwig's apartment through the living room window- 42 years of living with Ivan does have the advantage of making you really good at not getting caught, and besides the window-box is really easy to grab on to. As he shuts the window behind him, Gilbert wonders where the window-box came from. Probably Roderich, since that was where the baking had come from. Not that Gilbert had complaints about baking, as long as he got to eat the batter, but window-boxes. Really.

He pads across the living room, past the shelf with the photos on it- lots of Ludwig and Feliciano, quite a bit of Kiku and Roderich, some Alfred, and the old pictures where Erszébet and Gilbert are there.

Fuck.

He should've invited Erszébet. But then, the point of this whole visit was to have nice brotherly bonding time, and besides, Erszi isn't going to dissolve-

Fuck.

He'd done so well not thinking about it. He'd managed not to think about the impending dissolution of the German Democratic Republic, but now he has and Gilbert will have to go in and explain this, explain to Ludwig, his baby brother Ludwig, that Gilbert's going to die, really die, not just get shot but die, and Ludwig probably knows already because nations have a sense for this, but Gilbert will have to explain anyway.

He's right outside the bedroom door.

I can do this.

He opens the door.

I can't do this.

But when he steps into the bedroom and sees Ludwig curled up on his side, with one hand up by his face and the other draped across his stomach, the way he slept when he was still the North German Confederation and too short to ride a horse, right then Gilbert decides that he will be damned if he dies while his last words to Ludwig (or even while Ludwig is in the same room) still are "I second Ivan's motion to adjourn" and he clears his throat loudly.

Ludwig stirs sleepily, opening his eyes. "… Gilbert?" He sits up, and Gilbert knows that Ludwig knows that this is the end, there's very little else that could get Gilbert to sneak across the Wall or could create the look of muted horror in Ludwig's eyes when he says, "How long?"

"I don't know, a few days at most." Gilbert needs to change the subject, he's not here to discuss this. "Offer me a seat, I taught you that, didn't I?"

"Roderich, actually," Ludwig says, but he slips out of bed and guides Gilbert into the living room and onto the couch. Padding into the kitchen, he adds, "Do you want anything to drink? Kiku sends me quite good tea sometimes, and you look like you could do with warming up." He could, and agrees to tea, and Ludwig sits back down next to him with the look of a man who doesn't quite know what to do.

Silence hangs over their heads for a while, and Ludwig fiddles with his fingers- ink-stained, Gilbert notices- and Gilbert crosses and uncrosses his slightly bony ankles. Neither of them know how to talk to a dead man walking.

Ludwig is the first to break the silence. "It was Roderich."

"Uh?"

"Who taught me about etiquette. It was Roderich. Erszi taught me how to dance-"

"And I kept yelling at her to teach you the man's part-"

"-And she never did, so you tried to teach me, and Erszi-"

"Didn't stop laughing for an hour, right. I remember that." He does, too, and also that he and Roderich had fought about what dance he was learning because like hell is Ludwig going to learn some stuffy crap from Francis' place but then Roderich had said if he is to be our representative he must learn the dances of high society, and by the way waltzes are Austrian, you're thinking of quadrilles and by that time Erszébet had gone and taught Ludwig the varsovienne so the point was moot anyway.

The kettle whistles and Ludwig is up again and pouring the water into the teapot, and- and Gilbert sees that Ludwig is making tea the way Gilbert taught him: warm the teapot, add tea leaves, add water, hum four verses of Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, pour tea. His mind frantically catalogues this, and Ludwig's candy-cane-striped pajama bottoms and worn Associazione Calcio Venezia shirt, and the Knight's Cross on his chest and the fact that the tea set he's using is chipped and worn and the one Gilbert and Ludwig bought in- 1896, was it?- green with white flowers, and a little clunky. Missing the creamer, because Roderich used to accidentally-on-purpose drop breakable things as some sort of passive-aggressive payback for the Anschluss-

Fuck, he never apologized to Roderich for that. Maybe he should write a letter: dear Roderich, sorry the kid and I annexed you, but the boss was one of yours anyway- and Gilbert knows that wouldn't do at all, but then Ludwig presses a teacup into his hands and when Gilbert takes a sip it's got two sugars and no milk and it's so hot it nearly burns his tongue off and God damn it, Ludwig remembered. He knows, without looking, that Ludwig's tea has four sugars and two milk because the kid drinks everything so damn sweet you can't taste the caffeine anymore.

Gilbert says none of this. Instead he takes another swallow of tea, looks at the coffee table with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagzeitung on it, and says "You remember the first time I met you?" He doesn't mean the first first time, because he knows the answer to that one and it's no, but Ludwig does remember the second first time.

"It was after I was the Confederation of the Rhine, right?"

"Yeah, and I took you back from Francis's house and you were tiny. Ludwig, you used to be a midget."

This argument is also something Gilbert and Ludwig both remember, and Ludwig gives the customary "I did not" in response, and Gilbert holds a hand near his waist and says in a high-pitched voice, "Bruder, heb mich hoch!" until Ludwig punches him a little.

"But seriously, you were tiny. And I took you into the Stadtschloss and you hid in a broom closet for five hours-"

"And you pulled me out and took me into the kitchen until I calmed down." Ludwig smiles a little. "You spoke French to me- I've never heard you use it with anybody besides Francis since, but you spoke it to me and then-"

"-And then I gave you stollen to shut you up for two seconds together." Gilbert takes another sip of tea. "Hey, talking of Francis, you remember the Exposition?"

"The one in 1937? Yes."

Gilbert's grin becomes more sharklike. "Remember those statues?"

Ludwig chokes on his tea a little. "Uh. What about them?"

"You know. Those statues. The ones where you saw them for two seconds and then spent the rest of your time there being very interested in Feliks's new train because they had-"

"All right yes I remember them please stop talking-" Ludwig buries his face in his hands. "At least I didn't laugh like a seven-year-old boy when I saw them."

"Only because you ran away like a seven-year-old girl."

"I did not run."

"You ran." Ludwig rolls his eyes at that but drains his tea anyway.

Looking cautiously at Gilbert, Ludwig adds, "Would you like anything to eat?"

"Ah, no, but could I take some stuff back? The others'd like something without beets in it for once." Ludwig nods and promises to pack him some stollen.

This time, it's Ludwig's turn to start. "Do you remember 1923?"

Gilbert winces, because does he ever- Ludwig coughing blood, Gilbert aching and feverish, and Ludwig could barely even move, couldn't hold a meal down, just lay in bed and shook- "Ludwig, let's not talk about that-"

Ludwig continues doggedly, "You took care of me. Even though you were sick too, you took care of me, and I don't think I ever thanked you, so. Uh." And Ludwig hesitantly pulls Gilbert into a hug, which he returns immediately. Ludwig is warm, which is odd because Gilbert's the one in coat and scarf, and Gilbert thinks he's not warm, I'm cold and tries not to think why he's cold.

Ludwig keeps his arms around Gilbert and his head on his shoulder and continues, "And then once I got a little better you tried to take me to a cabaret, remember?"

"Yeah. You sneezed on the doorman." Gilbert gives Ludwig a squeeze and tries to think of something happier. "Remember after the Franco-Prussian War?"

"When they crowned Wilhelm?"

"Yes."

"The uniform was uncomfortable but I was just so proud of being a nation-"

"I was proud of you too. Always have been." The way Ludwig sounds so surprised when he says "Really?" makes something wobble inside of Gilbert, so he gives Ludwig a soft thump on the back and says "Why the hell wouldn't I be?"

"Because-"

"Don't answer that." Gilbert's pretty sure he knows how the sentence was going to end. "I taught you, don't think about the past all the time, it'll give you indigestion."

"Right." Ludwig is blinking a little faster than normal when he gets up for more tea. Gilbert thinks he should probably follow his own advice, but then, most of his life is the past now. And indigestion is better than endless beet soup anyway, but thoughts like that are just Gilbert trying to distract himself from the fact that he's going to die, which is really not what he wants to be thinking about right now so he stares at Ludwig's bookshelves and remembers something Ludwig can't, when he was still small and followed Goethe around begging for another story.

Some of the books are grimy despite Ludwig's best efforts to clean them, and Gilbert remembers how in 1933 a few days before the Student Association started setting fire to everything he and Ludwig had snuck out into the Grunewald and buried half of Ludwig's books in a box, but he hadn't been there whenever they'd been dug up. It's kind of funny to imagine Ludwig going through all the books and digging soil out from between the pages-

Ludwig sits back down next to him and Gilbert notices the clock on the wall. He's got- he's got five minutes.

Five minutes.

What the hell can he say in five minutes? I'm so proud of you, Ludwig, so fucking proud- look at you, you've grown up, you've got friends who aren't related to you, you pulled through some of the worst shit I've seen and you're smart and strong and everything I raised you to be and I still remember teaching you to shave and drink and I remember bandaging you up after Mensur but you beat the shit out of the other guy first and Ivan had to tie me to my bed to stop me from coming over in 1961 and.

And what comes out of his mouth is "I'll visit."

"Hm?"

"After I- after, I'll visit. If Augustus could, I can. Maybe I'll bring Fritz along too, show him we finally managed to unite. He'd like that, he'd be proud."

Ludwig's smile is a little watery. "I think I'd like that too. You do always talk about him." He sets his teacup down. "Do you have to go now?"

So, so reluctantly, Gilbert stands up. He yanks Ludwig into a hug so tight he can feel his own ribs creaking and says, "Say something to Roderich and Erszi for me, all right? Something like, ha ha I got there first. I don't know. Something." He feels Ludwig laugh a tiny bit and adds, "I was promised cake?"

Ludwig extracts himself from the hug and hands him a package- stollen wrapped in the advertising section of the Sonntagzeitung. Gilbert shoves it inside his inner coat pocket- thank God they're large- and pulls his brother back into another hug. Gilbert eventually draws back and moves towards the window, but Ludwig stops him.

"You should use the door," he says in a tight voice. "It's safer."

Gilbert chuckles despite himself. "I got up here fine, I'll get back down fine. Used to escape really boring meetings in the Reichstag like this." He throws open the window and prepares to swing himself to the drainpipe. "Take care of yourself, all right? Don't, don't work yourself stupid or anything."

"I won't." Ludwig follows him to the window. "And- and please do visit."

"I will." Gilbert manages a smile, gives a last "Keep safe," and swings from the window-box to the drainpipe, slides down, swings again to the fire escape, and stops at the street. Ludwig is still standing in the window, and Gilbert sees him wave.

He waves back, and then runs down the street and towards the East and tries not to think about how Ludwig lit up the first time he saw a car, and fails, and instead just tries not to cry.

It's two days later and Gilbert knows this, this right here, is the end. Schabowski went and opened the borders, and that would kill East Germany and Gilbert both, and he stands and watches the civilians swarm around the bewildered checkpoint guards, and closes his eyes. The ones going through get their citizenship revoked, and Gilbert also knows that when the guards stop bothering with that, that's the moment he'll go. When there's no distinction between his people and Ludwig's, he'll go, and all he can think is did I leave the stove on because he won't let himself think anything else.

Gilbert won't let himself think Ludwig better treat them well or are Francis and Antonio going to mope too much or I should've punched Ivan. The funny thing was, Ivan had just looked at him with those fucking creepy eyes and said ah, so Gilbert goes as well and then wandered off to do whatever Ivan did in his spare time, Gilbert didn't want to know.

He checks his old, battered watch. 10:20. The crowds are getting louder and he knows nobody's going to try to order the guards to use lethal force, nobody wants that on their hands, and is it getting harder to breathe?

The minutes go by, and he doesn't know if they're too fast or too slow, and he wishes he could think something besides I don't want to die I don't want to die because those are the shittiest last words Gilbert's ever heard even if they're true, and nobody passing by is going to understand why there's a dead albino in the street or why he said Fritz better buy me a drink for this.

10:25.

Gilbert feels some sort of thread in him go pop, and the guards aren't checking anyone's passports anymore and everybody just storms through the checkpoints all over Berlin, and Gilbert closes his eyes again and.

And.

And he opens them.

He closes them.

He opens them again. This does not look like heaven.

He closes them.

He opens them. Still not heaven. Doesn't feel like he's dead.

Gilbert runs up to the nearest person he can find and says "Hey- hey, punch me!"

The man, a friendly-looking middle-aged person, gives him a swat on the shoulder and it hurts a little, but Gilbert feels it and looks again at the man- Albrecht Renke, 46, likes engineering, wife Lena and child Jan, lives off of Linienstraße and he knows this because?

Because he's still alive.

He's alive and this doesn't feel like dying, he can still feel all his people in him in every vein down into his fingertips and the ends of his hair and this feeling propels him giddily through the crowd (of his people, his) and through the checkpoint and into West Berlin, and he feels like he's flying even more than the times he's been in airplanes.

He sees Ludwig standing in the crowd, in a brown jacket and with bags under his eyes, and quite literally barrels towards him and bellows "Ludwig!", who turns towards him and looks incredibly surprised for the quarter second that Gilbert can see his face before he knocks into Ludwig, who staggers but manages to turn the momentum into a sort of spin and it's like back when Gilbert would pick Ludwig up and spin him around except now Ludwig's doing the spinning, and then they both fall over.

Ludwig half-yells, "You're alive," which is obvious enough but still feels fantastic and Gilbert shouts back "I know, I know, it's fucking awesome isn't it!"

Ludwig yells back something completely incomprehensible and squeezes him so tight all the air goes out of his lungs and Ludwig looks blurry, why does he look blurry?

Then Gilbert feels the wetness on his face and he's- oh damn it, he's crying. Gilbert is crying all over his brother and he can't stop, and Ludwig makes this weird laugh-sob noise and he's crying too and then he sits up, so Gilbert has to move out of the way before his spine bends backwards and then they're just sitting there clinging to each other's jackets and crying, and Gilbert is cursing and Ludwig is still kind of laughing.

Eventually, he gains control of his verbal facilities for long enough to say "Jesus, Ludwig, stop that- I taught you good soldiers don't cry."

Ludwig sniffs back, "Yeah, yeah you did."

Neither of them stop.

It's three in the morning when Ludwig and Gilbert manage to haul themselves back to Ludwig's apartment, and the first thing they do is call Roderich and Erszébet, and Gilbert shouts hey Prissy Princess and Crazy Bitch, I'm still alive and Erszi shouts back yes you are, Egomaniacal Asshole, but I got out of the Eastern Bloc first and then they keep yelling at each other until Roderich and Ludwig commandeer their respective phones and begin planning the party.

East and West Germany still aren't technically unified, but they call it a Reunification Party anyway and invite most of Europe and all of North America and quite a bit of coastal Asia, and they nearly all show up plus all the Länder and it's nearly impossible to move in the apartment but not for lack of trying, and everybody is pitifully hungover in the morning but especially Francis, Antonio, and Gilbert, and someone breaks a chair, and there's lots of cakes and absolutely no borscht.

Gilbert ends up moving into Ludwig's spare bedroom, and Feliciano visits a lot, and in the mornings when he wakes up Gilbert goes into the kitchen and sees Ludwig making pancakes and Feliciano staring at the coffee machine and remembers teaching his brother how to make both those things, and then swipes some of the batter before Ludwig can ward him off with the spatula.

He still likes to get to work through the windows, though.

And now a wad of notes wheeee

-North German Confederation: after the fall of Holy Rome, Germany basically went Rhine Confederation- German Confederation plus Prussia and (sometimes) Austria (but not often)- North German Confederation- German Empire

-dances: this memory is probably from the mid-1800s, when waltzes were still in vogue, but French dances such as quadrilles were fading away, and also Polish-inspired dances were a thing (the varsovienne means roughly "from Warsaw" or "Warsawer" in French), and I just think Erszi and Feliks were bros enough to swap dances

-Ein feste Burg: A Mighty Fortress is our God, Martin Luther's most famous hymn

-Associazione Calcio Venezia: technically not called that until 1990, but the Venetian football team

-1896: in the 1890s, the Germans really really really wanted to ally with the English (well. The German government did, the citizens not so much) and I think probably Ludwig and Gilbert were trying to accommodate Arthur with tea and such

-Anschluss: annexation of Austria, 1938

-Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagzeitung: Sunday edition of the second largest circulation paper in Western Germany

-Bruder, heb mich hoch: Brother, pick me up (thank you to merpa for correcting me!)

-Stadtschloss, speaking French: the Stadtschloss was the palace of the Prussian royalty, and the Confederation of the Rhine was a French territory

-1937 Exhibition: Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, ended up turning into a dick-comparing contest between Germany and Russia; the Germans contributed some highly aggressively nude male statues; Poland contributed a train

-1923: height of inflation in Weimar Germany, over four billion marks to the dollar

-after the Franco-Prussian War: the German Empire was established

-Goethe: wrote Faust, Erlkönig, Young Werther; in my head HRE and Germany both are major Goethe fanboys

-1933, Student Association: the beginnings of the Nazi book-burnings. The first people to start were actual students, which is really sad but there you are.

-Mensur: swordfighting contests between young men, usually pretty brutal

-1961: erection of the Berlin Wall

-Old Fritz really really wanted a unified German state

-Reichstag: like Congress- both the building and the people

- Länder: German states

-Grunewald: forest in the vicinity of Berlin

-Schabowski: the GDR's government had actually planned to open the checkpoints, but Schabowski accidentally opened them a day early, this basically led to a giant mob of people trying to get out until the guards were like "fuck this, everyone just go" and then that was the fall of the Berlin Wall. They didn't take it down for a while, though.