Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.
He wasn't there when it happened. Ships sinking, island burning, planes screaming through the bleeding sky.
And yet it was like the world caving in on itself, everything he'd built in the last two hundred years crumbling into dust.
They said he collapsed on the meeting room table. That the First Lady herself had helped to carry him out of the room. And by the time he woke up, they had found out what had come to pass. Fate's—or that of whomever was out there, pulling the strings—finest, most dangerous trump card now lay face-up on the table.
The irony was that he'd seen this happen so often before. The destruction. The betrayal. The way everything fell so quickly and vanished into the ragged last gasp. But never to him. Never, never, never to him. He'd seen, but he hadn't learned.
And now, tottering shakily to the top of the hill and looking out on seas of shrapnel and debris, America knew.
His hands shook, clenching and unclenching, as if that one action alone could undo all the damage, return it to that lovely, oblivious peace that he'd taken for granted for so long. It was warm that day in Hawaii, and still he shivered under his thick bomber jacket. The one Eleanor had made for him just yesterday after hearing the news, her face so calm and pale, her hands so steady and cold. Already he could see people out by the harbor, picking through the wreckage. The President was declaring war that morning.
It made him want to scream.
How could they keep going, keep pushing through with life, when here he was, unable to form a coherent thought about anything but the sharp aching pervading his entire being and the newly formed red gash running down his left pectoral?
Pearl Harbor. The very words, once so proud and soothing like the milky white gem it was named for, now left a foul taste in his mouth.
He rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling very, very old. Vaguely, he wondered what the others were doing. Wouldn't they be glad to know that he was finally getting off his "bloody arse" and doing something? It almost made him want to laugh or puke, whichever came first.
He didn't think of what Japan was doing. The idea both fascinated and repulsed him.
The water was clear, the Pacific breeze soft and sweet. Yet something was different, like there was still a faint trace of gunpowder smoke in the wind, and emptiness.
Another two days, and he was back in D.C., not even bothering to put himself through the usual paces in front of the Allied Powers. The war was here; there was no time to waste. And yet he couldn't find it in himself to smile-well, obnoxiously-in front of the Allied Powers. He was one of them now, was he. Something caught between a question and a statement.
War. It was hard enough to wrap his head around that concept, let alone everything else that came with it. In all of two hundred years, he'd never felt anything like this.
"America! AMERICA!" Voices he barely recognized anymore, drumming on his skull. He looked up to four different pairs of eyes trained on him, betraying nothing but a superficial layer of mild irritation, Eyes as smooth and cold as glass, so solid and unchanging he had to resist an eerie urge to reach out and touch them, see if they were real. Letting him see only his own hazy outline against the stark black of the pupils.
So bad at reading people, was he? Couldn't even tell what Britain, practically the closest ally he had now, was thinking behind the grim facade, behind the anger he kept balled up in his fist. Nor France-the one who still smiled slightly, despite having been invaded and now occupied just two years ago, exiled from his own homeland. Russia and China might have been statues carved into marble for all the real emotion he could see in their faces. He blinked slowly. Now he could see their faces displayed a myriad of different expressions, but those things-the things they chose to show him-they couldn't be real, could they?
Shuddering, his new bomber jacket riding up on his shoulders-made in haste, it was still ill-fitting on his frame-and running a gloved hand through his hair, he forced himself to focus on China.
China had been attacked, too, hadn't he? Betrayed, torn apart just as badly?
Had China seen Japan before the attacks, maybe looked into those same unyielding eyes and seen nothing, the exact same way?
No, of course not. China was smart, four thousand years old. Not so easily taken in, like he had been. Not so naive as to think nothing was going on.
But could he be trusted? Could anyone be trusted?
He surveyed their faces again. They were just as stone-cold, like...they weren't even human, didn't have the same consciousness. Like they weren't real.
And suddenly a wave of cold despair engulfed him, began to eat him alive. He was the only real one in this world, wasn't he? He would always be alone, afraid, too innocent, too childish.
And for the first time since the attacks, he broke down and cried. The others were polite enough-or perhaps had seen enough, detested his weakness enough-to turn away and pretend there was something extremely fascinating on the other side of the room.
He almost wished that one of them would sit down beside him and try again, extend a hand, just so he could turn them away, retain some semblance of pride.
Never show them anything more than what they expect to see. Never let them reach the real you. Was that all the world was now?
A few more tears slid out from beneath closed lids.
Japan…
The word was still raw in his mouth, a dark brand on his heart. His friend's name, bleeding out the still-open slash across his chest, the one they said would heal by the end of the war. But would there be an end to it?
Would there be an end?
A quiet cough. "America. Perhaps we… came too soon." Britain's voice, awkward and stiff and formal and… sad? The other nations murmured assent in tones like shades of dark blue. Shuffling noises, The slamming of a door.
And then he was alone again, left to his own devices.
And really, what was there to do now but hate and cry?
He stayed in that room that night. Left with a resolution.
He would never trust again.