Posted first on my LJ, xparallelhearts. As you can see, I am still afraid to try out dialogue... orz
Disclaimer: I do not own APH.
He needed a reason, a political cover that would allow him to act. It would be a truth stretched out to be a lie, or a lie cleverly masked to be a truth; either way, he needed something, anything, that would remove the shackles weighing down his hands and allow him to shoot the German bastard between the eyes.
The cries of the British people echoed across the seas, penetrated his walls and danced past his ears. He wanted to help - needed to help - but he simply couldn't; not until Roosevelt allowed him to.
'Be patient, Alfred,' the president said, always with a stern expression with a hint of sympathy. 'There is little we can do at this moment. Just wait.'
But he couldn't wait. He was home, safe and comfortably warm, while Arthur was an entire ocean away, having his cities burned and his people massacred. From what news he was able to get, Great Britain was standing up to the devastating German blitzkriegs surprisingly well, but that didn't mean anything, because that had been the news yesterday. There was a chance that it wouldn't be the news today, or even tomorrow. After all, Francis had felt safe behind his precious Maginot Line, but look at him now - forced to sign an armistice with that dirty German and being torn into two as Free France and Vichy France struggled to be represented by one entity.
Great Britain was all alone. Arthur was all alone. Weary, hungry, cold, tired, and in pain...
Meanwhile, Francis was probably in one of the grand mansions in France - or maybe a fancy building in Germany -, warm, properly fed, and having his wounds tended to. Meanwhile, he, himself, was holed up in a room in the White House, restless with energy, quite satisfied with the dinner he'd had just two hours prior, and as physically comfortable as one could get. Meanwhile...
He couldn't stand it. Though he hadn't seen Arthur for a while - far too long, in his opinion -, he knew what the proud British Empire would look like at this very moment. Head held high, with blood, sweat, and mud smeared across his face and matted into his hair; pale, bony fingers, calloused and stiff as they clutched rifles and daggers and grenades; lithe, skinny body, almost trembling from exhaustion and covered in bruises and scratches and scars; vivid green eyes, bright emeralds that shone with silent pleas for help and sanctuary, masked with a stony stubbornness and a willingness to fight; and finally, cold, chapped lips, sealed shut as they held in every whimper and cry of pain that dared crawl up his slender throat.
The image haunted him day and night, both when he was awake and asleep. It paralyzed him, suffocated him, blinded him, and brutally murdered him from the inside-out. Because it wasn't just an image, or a grotesque piece of his imagination. It was absolutely real, and the distinct cry that finally broke past tightly sealed lips and echoed over thousands of miles of water proved it.