December, 1941; Church House, Westminster; London, England
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There are letters lightly scored into the wood of the table; the threadbare ghost of some long ago missive written by a slipshod and heavy hand.
They're too faint to read, their once stark edges smoothed by a century or more's accumulated beeswax and elbow grease, and England runs his fingers over them again and again, attempting to decipher the faded message by touch alone.
He's conscious of time slowly slipping away from him, but has lost track of quite how much has passed until the stately chime of some distant clock sonorously welcomes the arrival of noon.
Half an hour.
Half an hour, he's been sitting here, staring intently at nothing whilst the compulsive swipe of his palm betrays every ounce of nervousness he's otherwise doing his very best to ignore.
He halts the offending movement immediately, then slants his eyes leftwards to gauge his brothers' reaction to this sudden stillness.
Wales is bent studiously over an oddly-shaped scrap of paper that England thinks might be torn from a cigarette packet, scribbling away with a tiny stub of pencil at an inept and messy sketch of some imaged scene of pastoral tranquillity. He looks thoroughly absorbed in his work, and doesn't so much as twitch when England clears his throat experimentally.
Like as not, he didn't even hear it over the ringing in his ears. They've been resounding with the echoes of distant explosions for months now.
Next to Wales, Scotland sits slumped, one arm slung across the backrest of their brother's chair, the other swinging back and forth as he strikes his lighter repeatedly against the edge of the table. Its lid snaps open on the upward swing, snicks closed on the downward.
Open, closed. Open, closed. Tap, click. Tap, click. Tap, click.
England becomes aware of the sound and irritated by it in the same instant.
"Were you meaning to do something useful with that, or does annoying me suffice?" he growls.
Scotland quirks one shaggy eyebrow questioningly. "What?"
England nods towards the lighter. Scotland stares down at it with a sort of blank-eyed incomprehension which suggests that he hadn't even realised he was holding it.
"Right." After a moment's baffled silence, he extracts a battered packet of Woodbines from an inner pocket of his serge jacket. "I suppose we are about due for a smoke break."
He lights two cigarettes, and passes one on to Wales after rousing him from his artistic reverie with a gentle nudge of the elbow. The second, he holds out for England to take.
As England reaches for it, he is arrested by the sight of his own hand, bathed in the unforgivingly stark winter sunlight flooding in through the broad windows at his back. His skin looks thin and parched, cracked like a dried-out riverbed where it stretches taut over swollen joints and knuckles.
He barely recognises it as his own.
"Just take the damn thing, will you." Scotland sighs irritably. "There's no need to look so fucking suspicious. I haven't poisoned it or anything."
"Well, of course not," England says, plucking the cigarette from between his brother's outstretched fingers. "Otherwise you wouldn't have given one to Wales."
Scotland's lips curl back, revealing the gap in his smile where one of his eye-teeth had been knocked loose by an impact that landed hundreds of miles away.
In peacetime, it would have grown back within a matter of weeks. In peacetime, Wales' hearing would have already returned to him, and the arthritic ache of England's hands would have dulled, but nowadays such things are slow to heal.
England's arms are still peppered with burn marks and blistered skin.
France's back had still been runnelled by the trenches, the last time they'd seen him; blood soaking through his shirt as old scars opened into fresh wounds.
England hurriedly takes a drag on his cigarette, concentrating on the sharp sting of the smoke as it unfurls in his scorched lungs in a bid to derail the inevitable train of his thoughts. He longs for the day when his mind will once more be untroubled by a damnable sense of borrowed guilt whenever it turns to the frog, but until then, he can only try not to think of him at all.
Scotland sighs again, and sags further down in his chair, his long legs stretching out to their full extent beneath the table. "Jesus, the way the PM was carrying on, you'd have thought the entire bloody war effort hinged on us being here today, but it's just hurry up and wait, same as always," he says. "Wish I'd brought a book."
England heartily agrees.
The room that was set aside for meetings such as this in the Palace of Westminster was beautifully appointed and boasted a large, albeit narrowly focused library, but it had been gutted in the same conflagration that both destroyed the Commons Chamber and forced both Houses to relocate to the Church House annexe.
This temporary office they've been assigned to in its place is void of potential distractions: its walls bare save for a single faded and insipid moorland watercolour, and only just large enough to accommodate the table and four chairs.
And England is in sore need of distraction, because that single, empty chair at the opposite side of the table might as well be covered in barbs. Whenever his eyes happen to catch on it, he can't seem to tear them away.
"No-one's even thought to bring us more tea, either," Scotland continues grumbling, apparently undeterred the lack of response from his brothers. "We could be shrivelling away from thirst for all they know."
England could take, or preferably leave, a third cup of tea – the last they'd been provided with had been tepid, stewed, and gritty with powdered milk – but it seems as good an excuse as any to get out of this suffocating room with its portentous furniture for a spell, and so he latches on to it gladly.
"I'll go and see if—"
Footsteps echo down the hallway beyond the closed office door, and England pauses, half-risen from his seat, when they do.
A voice muffled by wood, distance, and the blood pounding in England's ears, asks, "So, they're waiting for me in here?"
It's lower than England remembers it being, and roughened by a slight, uncharacteristic rasp, but nonetheless familiar enough that it makes his heart flip over in his chest.
Beside him, Scotland gets to his feet, and after another prompting nudge, Wales does the same. Out of the corner of his eye, England watches them straighten out their uniforms, and snap out salutes that England knows he should mirror, but cannot. He cannot seem to straighten his fingers out of their clawed, steadying grasp around the edge of the tabletop, or his head out of its bowed stoop, and his gaze perforce remains fixed on the shiny toes of America's boots as he crosses the room's threshold.
He stops just outside arm's reach, and a low murmur of massed voices swells to fill the silence he leaves behind him. It's too quiet to pick out any particular words, though their general tone is one of clear anxiety. Politicians and military men, no doubt, both their own and America's, gathering in the hallway to bear witness to this long-awaited meeting.
This long-awaited, pointless meeting. Once, alliances between their kind were forged in blood and sealed in pledges to the divine, but signatures on paper had replaced those ensanguined rituals centuries ago, and, beyond their bosses' insistence, there had been no need for them to meet in person now. England would much rather have first encountered America in the field.
He has been a soldier almost as long as he has borne the shape of a man, and he would have known how to act, then. Now, he has no idea what is expected of him, so he stands, uncertain and inert, until Scotland clears his throat and says, "It's good to see you, lad."
He steps forward and, judging by the quiet inrush of America's breath and the way he pushes himself up onto his toes, enfolds America into one of the bear-like embraces he used to inflict on him when he was a boy.
Wales approaches him afterwards, murmuring a soft welcome, then England feels the weight of his brothers' eyes fall upon him.
Slowly, he uncurls his fingers. Throws back his shoulders. Lifts his head.
When they fought together in the Great War, America had almost seemed dwarfed by his own uniform. He still moved on occasion with the gawky awkwardness that had plagued him in adolescence. His wrists were still bony, his legs stick-thin. His glasses were always smudged.
England had looked at him and seen only his boy, grown a little taller, but for a dizzying moment now, he does not recognise America, either. Does not recognise the man standing before him.
It's been less than a decade than they last saw one another, but in the interim, America has finally settled into his adult height, and looks to wear his body with the same easy confidence as his new tan uniform.
His shoulders are broader, his complexion rosy, and his expression is one of complacent assurance. England is suddenly, humiliatingly aware of the crow's feet around his eyes, and the dull, ashen cast of his skin.
He and his brothers must look so old to America now. Old and worn down.
"Hey, England," America says, nodding his head in such a way as to draw England's attention down to the hand America must have been holding out expectantly for a good half-minute or more.
England holds out for few seconds longer, because, deep in his heart, he doesn't want to acknowledge America. Logically, he knows his people need America's troops; dispassionately, he understands their strategic importance.
But in that part of him which is often too human and always too petty, he doesn't want to admit that he needs America yet again.
As it would be diplomatically unwise to spurn the offered handshake entirely, however, he eventually forces himself to move, and as he draws near, America's eyes widen behind the sparkling clear lenses of his glasses. They're a a darker shade than England remembers them being. Almost navy. His boy's eyes were sky blue.
He clasps America's hand loosely, meaning to drop it an instant later, but America's grip soon tightens past the point of a gracious escape. He grins then, broad and dazzlingly bright, which telegraphs his horrifying intentions even before he raises his other arm and settles it around England's shoulders.
England tries to wriggle free, but America is even stronger than he remembers, too – an implacable force – and he's irresistibly, if reluctantly, drawn into a hug.
Close to, America smells faintly of ozone, and his heart drums out a slow, calming rhythm below England's ear. Despite himself, England's own breathing slows in response to that beat, and for a brief moment, at least, he feels a little safer.