The personification of Canada, Matthew Williams, was sitting at his desk in the beautiful city of York, fiddling with a quill while he debated the best way to pen a letter to his brother without sounding like he couldn't handle the war. Francis had always been against the way that Arthur raised Matthew after beating the Frenchman in the Seven Years War. Canada didn't want to cause anymore troubles between his father-figures. He was just about to dip the quill in ink when he felt a searing pain go through his heart.
Matthew barely noticed when a messenger flung the door open. He felt like a branding iron had been pressed against his skin.
"Arthur…" He croaked. "Get Arthur."
The poor man nodded quickly and flew out the door, coming back only a few minutes later - though it felt like hours to Canada - with the British Nation.
"Matthew!" Arthur took one look at his little brother and barked an order to the messenger to alert the doctors and bring a stretcher. When the mortal had left, Arthur turned his attention back to the blond boy still struggling for consciousness on the floor. "Hang on. The surgeons are coming soon." Arthur pressed a hand against his ward's shirt, but drew it back quickly with a hiss. The cloth was smoldering from the heat being emitted from whatever wound was underneath it. The British man scowled. Where were the bloody doctors?
England was just getting to his knees when he was knocked back down on the hardwood floor by a cannon blast that shook the house and blew out the windows. He coughed the smoke and gunpowder from his lungs and looked out the window.
"Bloody Hell." He swore, looking upon the scene in horror. Decimated houses and shops lined the sides of the roads, rubble lying on the cobbled streets, and people running away from the advancing American soldiers.
He was distracted by a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see two men with a stretcher loading Matthew onto it. Arthur followed them past the collapsed bookshelves and out the hole in the wall that used to be the door.
"You know, you two are lucky to be alive." England turned his head to the doctor speaking. "A cannon ball went right through the wall and through the office window. Do you know what happened to the young man over there?" He asked, gesturing to Matthew, who was groaning in pain with every jolt of the makeshift stretcher.
"No." England admitted. "Though I think he got burned some how. His chest was hot even through the shirt. What's happening to York?" He asked, changing the subject.
The doctor's face hardened and his knuckles went white, gripping the sides of the plank roughly. "The Americans are burning down the city."
"Oh." England focused his gaze forwards and clenched his jaw. That would explain the wound. He couldn't believe that America would do that to his brother. The two used to be as thick as thieves. Then again, he didn't believe that Alfred would start a war against Matthew and he was proven wrong.
Minutes later, Arthur watched as the surgeons cut the ruined shirt off the teenager and nearly threw up when he saw the wound. He had seen his share of injuries, but never one so severe on one so young. The entire top of Matthew's chest was covered in red shiny flesh, but it was the skin covering his heart that made Arthur's vision swim. It black, festering and charred, and Arthur knew that if Canada weren't a nation, he would die.
One of the surgeons turned his attention to the other nation sitting silently in a corner, looking ill. "We'll treat it and the wrap a bandage around his chest, but there is no guarantee that he will live. I recommend contacting his next of kin and tell them to prepare for a burial."
Arthur swallowed roughly and gave a curt nod. "In-in that case, could I take him home. So he can...um, pass, in a familiar place?"
Hours passed as Arthur watched the sun setting on the blood stained streets from the window of Canada's house near the edge of York.
"Wh're 'm I?"
Arthur turned so quickly that his neck cracked. "Canada, you're awake!" He wanted to ask the nation if he was still in pain, but figured that might be a bit tactless of him. Instead he asked. "How much do you remember?"
"Not much. I was writing a letter to Francis, and then...nothing. I had dreams though." He looked up the older man. "I dreamt that American soldiers were walking through my capital, burning it as they went. They…" He put a hand to his head in shock. "They burned York."
Arthur didn't think he would ever see the expression on the shy nation's face, but Canada's violet eyes hardened and England saw a spark of madness behind them. "I will burn him, just as he did to me."
Arthur never thought he would be afraid of the young man, but in that moment, he was terrified.