The boy sat frowning at his reflection in the pond water. He didn't really have a home, just the wide open land that his big brother was helping him create a nation with. He wasn't a nation either, just some little colony boy roaming around and playing with the native kids. He wasn't ten anymore though. He was starting to grow up.

Arthur had helped keep the boy's hair in place for a little while, but that was darn near over now. His big brother had nearly left him already, barely listens to him anymore, busy tending to his own nation, across an ocean… where Al couldn't bother him with stories or games or staying up late watching the stars and forgetting completely about any business that they had to take care of the day coming. Al could see it in his own face… his posture… the hair that was starting to grow too long to manage. He was lonely. He missed his older brother.

A tear fell into the pond, the drop rippling the smooth water and obscuring the reflection. Al frowned and splashed his whole hand through it before sitting up and wiping his eyes. "Stupid…" He muttered, bringing his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and resting his chin on them.

"What's stupid?" The familiar voice made Al's blood run cold, and sure enough, when he looked up, there was his big brother, half smile planted across his face like it always was. "There's nothing stupid about getting your shirt all wet, you'll catch a cold. Come here and let me help you dry off." The British man's sentence trailed on, but Al wasn't listening.

Sudden rage built up inside of him, cold blood suddenly at a boiling point. Where had his brother been for so long? Did he forget that he had a whole set of colonies running amok in some new world that was completely foreign to him. Had it skipped his mind that maybe, just maybe, his little brother needed him? Was completely worried about him, was lonely, scared, hell, even confused about his own feelings toward other people? Al stood but didn't go over to brother, stayed there, fists clenched at his sides, blue eyes burning with unbridled fury.

"My god," Arthur had the audacity to laugh. He reached out his hand and patted his little brother's head, which was nearly up to chin level on him already. "You've grown since I've been away. What have the Natives been feeding you, Alfie?"

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Alfred shouted, slapping Arthur's hand away and taking a step back from him, mildly shocked by his own outburst. Arthur's hand lingered in the air between them, his expression far more shocked than Alfred's; taken aback, worried... frightened. "Don't treat me like that! I'm not a damned kid anymore, Arthur!" Frustrated tears streamed silently down his cheeks and it was all Alfred could do to keep his face from contorting in their paths. "You're gone for ages, I don't hear from you and you won't let me come near you and suddenly you're back, out of the blue, commenting on how I've grown?" The teen let out a bitter, humorless laugh that got louder with each syllable. "You've got to be kidding, Arthur!"

"Alfie plea-"

"Don't call me that, Arthur!" Alfred threw his hands up angrily. "Do. Not. Call. Me. That!"

"Alfred, please, listen, then-" Arthur started, only to be cut off, yet again, by the angered colonial boy.

"No! You listen!" The tears were steadily streaming down Alfred's face but he wouldn't let them get in his way. "Do you get off on this? On knowing that I'm over here sick with worry, growing up without my older brother or anyone to teach me what to do, how to run this place? Do you enjoy that I'm scared, lonely, and know that you're an ocean away and you just don't give a shit! Have you come back because you need money? Or were you bored of sitting in your little Parliament building thinking of new ways to suck me dry for tax money?" Alfred ran a hand through his lengthening hair, pissed off beyond the point of words.

Arthur made a gesture as though he was going to seize the moment and speak, but Alfred shook his head, frowning. "I'm done with this, Arthur." He said, more calm than he had ever been before in his life. "I'm done with this, and I'm done with you." He shrugged, voice taking on a lower pitch, somehow darker in his calmer moments. "I will fight you for it, but either way, this land is mine, has always been mine, and you cannot control it forever."

Accepting this, for some strange reason, beaten down by the boy he had called his little brother, loved, taken under his wing and saved from the clutches of the world, Arthur nodded. "I will not fight for your land," He stated, voice barely above a whisper. He was speaking to the boy that he had loved, since the beginning, as his own child. "I will not fight to keep your taxes or you men, but I will, little brother," He added gravely, looking down at the boy. "Fight to keep you."