England Does Not show Weakness

The bombs going off were enough to make anyone deaf, but when shrapnel pelted you from all sides, it made it enough to kill. I fell back, tugging metal from my leg and tossing it aside. It press my hand to my leg and blood soaks my fingers, but I honestly can't feel any pain anymore. I'm exhausted, more so then I have been in a long time. I'm shaking, and my throat and eyes are stinging, but I shove myself to my wobbling legs and keep going, because my friends are still fighting. I am not the only hero in this war. I'm fighting to save my life, and the lives of the men around me. I'm fighting.

I take a bullet to the leg, but my own sink deep into blue fabric, and I can only pray to God I've hit a vital enough place that the attacker will stay down as I struggle to stay on my booted feet.

There's a blonde flash to my right and England is at my side, bloody and bruised but alive, and I'm so grateful I want to fall to my knees and thank fate, but I can't because he knocks me over and more shrapnel flies over our head. We're pressed to the ground behind a slight rise in the earth, the best cover I've had all day.

We're loosing. Badly. Last I saw, France took two hits and went down. Not even sure he's still alive. I can't even worry about him, now, because England is cocking his gun and rising up on one knee, and then there's a boom – the loudest one I've ever heard in my life – and everything is black and red.

By the time I come around, I realize I don't hear anything. Not a deaf kind of nothing, there's this high-pitched whistle, but other than that its silent. I try to sit up and can't, because every muscle in my body is in pain. I blink and am staring up at the sky. It's stormy, and I think of how fitting it is. The first lousy loss of the Allies, and it rains.

As the first droplets of water finally wash over my face, I regain a bit of my hearing. The first thing I hear... screams. Screams of the most intense, primal form. The screams of someone who is dying, or perhaps so badly wounded they wished they were.

And something about it is familiar. As my body comes back into my control and sit up, ignoring the warmth that flows down from below my ribs in something scarlet and thicker than water. I spit, my tongue is cut, and there's a gaping wound in my side, but all that matters is that I get to the source of that pain. I drag myself, and the cynical part of my brain wonders how heroic I can look crawling across the ground with blood leaving a trail after me.

But I don't care, because my horrifying thoughts I've been praying are lies are true. He's laying there, in a pool of blood that is so big...

I shudder and nearly fall, but heroes don't faint so I pull myself to his side. His face isn't visible because of the blood, but that's where his hands are covering. "B-Brita...Britain?" I stammer, unable to form a complete sentence because I'm shaking so bad.

I feel something else slide down my face, besides the blood trailing my jawline, and when my cuts begin to sting from salt I know that I'm crying. I tremble again and tear the cloth off my jacket, mopping blood from the parts of his face that are visible. He's moving faster and faster and I don't know what to do. I tear his hands away in frustration and choke.

My reaction is to tear off my jacket and press it over his face. His blonde hair is red. I'm scared. I have no idea if he's dying, and if he is he's dying under my hands, and I've never even...

I'm sobbing, shouting for a medic and no one is showing. "A...mer...i...ca..." his voice makes me grab his shoulders. "Help... me."

No... he... he... England doesn't ask for help. He's the image of pride. He's... he's dying. "I... I am, Britain. Don't you dare die, you idiot!" I demand, finding a voice. His movements are getting slower, until he's lying on his back, each breath an effort.

He can't speak anymore, but suddenly there's the noise of a helicopter. I can't look up. My eyes are fixed on England, my hands pressing my jacket on his face to staunch blood, and knee shoved into his side to stop blood flow there. Because he's dying.

Gloved hands are picking him up and I panic, but I can't move. They take him away, and then come back for me. I don't move. I'm kneeling in the dirt, spike of pain arching through my body and tears still racing down my face. The trembling isn't making my wounds any better, and I've lost so much blood the doctors try to jokingly tell me they couldn't tell the difference of mine and England's. It doesn't make me feel better.

I try to get up, because I have to find England, because he has my jacket and I can't remember why, but there are thick black bands over my wrists. There are bandages tight around my chest and waist, and a few around my head, and all over my arms and legs. I'm wrapped up so tight I feel like a mummy. I shout for a doctor and one shows immediately, because they think I'm in pain.

I tell them what I want and they shake their head. They tell me he's in critical, and I don't understand. I must throw a fit, because suddenly there is a needle in my arm and everything is going fuzzy.

I come to, and the bandages are changed. There is a plate of hamburgers on my bedside. I'm hungry, but I don't eat them because my throat is so sore I feel as though someone is dragging nails up and down it. I stare at the water and then sip at it.

Where am I? I don't know. Don't care. A doctor comes in, tells me all the casualty numbers, and I barely listen enough to file them away into the still okay part of my mind. This wasn't supposed to happen. This... this isn't... it doesn't...

It was a skirmish! This couldn't have happened, because it was impossible. I fall under again when the doctor stabs me with another needle.

Next time I wake fully some of the bandages are gone and I'm allowed to get up to get my food. I do. I'm wobbly, and my legs are threatening to slide out from under me, but I wander my way to the dining hall.

We're in some hospital somewhere – white wall, white floors, everything stinking of Clorox and cleaning supplies. Not even the stink of bleach can cover the smell of blood and pain, though, and I see a cart full to the top with bloodstained bandages roll by. I'm beyond feeling other than hunger, though, so I manage the rest of the way to the food.

I scarf down something I can't remember, that might have tasted great or might have been poison for all I cared, drank about a gallon of water, and then began the seemingly long walk back to my room.

"He's not... I don't know what to say to him. How do you tell a man he'll never see anything again? I'm a nurse! You do it!" I freeze and turn my head to face the person who had spoken. The girl is young, with a innocent face.

I walk over. They stop talking immediately and stare at me warily, as if I'll attack them. "Who are you talking about?" I surprised my voice is this strong, as I haven't used it since God knows when. The doctor and the young nurse stare at me, as if amazed I understood what they were saying. I frown. "Well? Answer me."

"One of our patients has lost sight in both eyes due to - " the nurse begins, and I hiss.

"I don't give a damn how, who?"

"A...Arthur Kirkland... sir." the nurse stutters, and the doctor gives me a long look.

"You're Alfred Jones, are you?" he asked me, and I turn my glaring blue eyes to him.

"Let me in. Now." I snarl, because they are lying. England's fine.

They both stare at me, and I wonder if I can make it past them. Then the doctor nudges the nurse aside and lets me in. I shove past him, ignoring the protest from my reopening wound in my side, and find myself staring at a sleeping, blindfolded Great Britain.

His hair is soaked with sweat, and sticking to his forehead, and his lips are dry and chapped. He's wearing a hospital gown beneath the thin blankets, and that too is stuck to him from sweat. He must have had a fever or something.

I walk forward slowly, every step hard, and reach the chair by his head. As I sit I turn eyes to the doctor. "Thank you." I tell him, and he takes his cue and leaves.

There's quiet, besides the snuffles of the man in the bed. I stare at my hands, then at the ceiling and finally poke him in the shoulder. "Brit?"

He stirs and reaches out, panicking. "Wha- AH! Why is it... I can't-"

"See?" I finish for him, and he whimpers. Its a sound that makes a shiver pass down my spine because he never shows weakness – not to me. Never, except that one time... back... back in the rain.

I shake those thoughts away and focus on him. He's clawing at the blindfold, trying to pry it away from his face, but the idiots have tied it like a lifeline. I reach back and take his hands in one of mine, then untie the cloth, praying not to see empty sockets staring at me like Death itself. "Eng...land? How... How many fingers?" I ask quietly, holding up three slowly and cautiously, because he's gone very very still.

"I can't see." he whispers. I feel my body droop.

"I know..." I tell him.

And even if he can't see, those green eyes – now hazed over with a mist that shows their uselessness – can still fill with huge tears. I look away, because England never shows weakness.

A/N: Okay, the idea came from a piece of fanart I saw while watching an AMV. This might be continued, might not, so if you want more REVIEW. Anyways, I'll list as complete for now. ANYWAYS AGAIN, hope it was alright. I know I didn't say 'dude' or anything like that, but I was trying to write America's serious side, the side he has while fighting or while worrying over something important.