Warnings: Nothing terribly heavy in this one, to be honest. Character death, painfully obvious and major one at that. Other than that, mentions of war/destruction, emotional pain, and a sense of Alfred not being quite there. You can also see Alfred as being 'haunted' but, it really is not quite that. Off I go, from rambling about kind of warnings...

The screen turned on, a black and white image forming. At the corner, a white triangle showed that the video was playing. The picture showed a man, whose eyes refused to meet the lens. His face was turned to the side, as if contemplating something on a far wall. The sound coming out was a raspy buzz, annoyingly quiet and steady.

There was some rustling, someone sitting down off-camera. The man on the screen didn't move, blink, wasn't fazed at all by the movement. He kept his eyes averted.

"Sir? If you could please face me, we can begin."

The voice had been tentative, but settled - like they knew the man was here reluctantly, like they were uncertain of what he might do... but that they had a purpose and a reason to be there.

The man looked away from the wall, but his eyes were downcast - his head bowed, he instead looked at his hands that kept wringing themselves back and forth. But the movement was not agitated. It was soft, as if the man had something to say, but refused to say it. It was a movement of inner conflict.

(A conflict whose end you already know, don't you?)

"Mr. Jones?"

The man's eyes looked up shortly at the camera, a light grey flashing on the screen for a moment behind glasses before vanishing back down again.

"Sir, if you would please look at the camera, you know it is necessary."

The man sat up, leant back in the chair, his back reaching the backrest of the armchair.

It looked like a very comfortable armchair. Rich, plush, well stuffed and rather new. But it was obvious the man was uncomfortable, his position and stance completely off. Usually so very comfortable anywhere he went, he would own any room he walked into. But now, it seemed as if he had ended up with a bad investment, one he wanted to be rid of, but knew no-one would take his place. He was, once more, the centre of attention.

And he despised it.

He looked up slightly to the side of the camera, where it was assumed that the other person was sitting.

"Thank you." There was a pause, ruffling through papers. A cough. "Alfred F. Jones. Birth date: 4th of July, 1776."

(No, it's not, but he doesn't care, not like I did.)

Alfred's eyes wandered around the room again, trying to find something to settle on. Fleeting like birds from one place to another, never finding peace.

"If you're ready then, Mr. Jones, we might begin."

"Call me Alfred."

"Alright, then, Alfred. Why are you here today?"

Alfred looked incredulous. His eyes flashed for a moment, before flying off again - settling on a wall, then on his hands, something in front of him. "Do I really need to answer that question?" He asked, his voice dull and blemished, tainted by something underneath it. Something edging its way up to the surface, something that wanted to make itself heard, but that he desperately tried to suffocate, smother, asphyxiate. But as every other time, he couldn't. He could just hold it back, shove it back away to a dark corner of his mind.

"It's part of the process."

(The faster you do this, the sooner you're out of here.)

It seemed to be amusing to Alfred, his lips turning slightly upwards for just a moment - but it never reached his eyes.

"Why do I have to do this?"

"Because you were ordered to."

(And it's all your fault, isn't it?)

"Why do I have to do this?"

"That's what we're here to establish."

(You know. I know. He doesn't.)

Silence. Neither party said anything, the other person awaiting something from Alfred. Nothing came.

"Alfred, the sooner you decide to speak to me, the sooner it will be over."

"Speak to you?" Alfred asked. His downcast eyes lifted upwards, meeting the camera dead-on. "I'm not quite sure that a video camera, that records every word said in this room, and that will be circulated around the entire goddamn government for judgement, qualifies as a single person being in this room. I'm now addressing basically every important member of my government. I'm possibly addressing other leaders. Other nations." He paused, his eyes fleeting away. "Him."

"That's a start. Who do you mean by "him"?"

No response.

"Alfred?"

(No-one. Is that what you want to say? Deny me?)

"Does it matter?"

"Yes, Alfred, this does matter. Not to me, but to you."

Alfred huffed. "You mean everyone who's trying to figure why I did it?"

"Possibly, them too, but most importantly you."

"How so?"

"I can't tell you why. We're here to establish that ourselves. By yourself."

There was another silence, Alfred once more refusing to meet the camera.

"Do you have a significant other, Alfred?"

Alfred visibly tensed, but only for a split second. His body language returned to normal than eye could see. "Don't know what you mean."

"Well, do you have someone you care for? Like, or love? Do you have someone important to you?"

(Dodge, feint, fake, lie, it's what you always did best.)

"Sure, I do. Everyone does. I care for Mattie. I care for Arthur. I care for Francis. I care for my states. Love them all."

"That's not quite what I meant."

"I love my dog, I mean he's great. Every time he sees me, he just wags his tail so happily, he's always running around-"

"Not at all what I meant, Alfred, please."

"Then I've no idea what you mean."

(You never fooled me. You can't even convince yourself.)

The other person fell silent. Alfred looked back at his hands. The other said nothing, for a minute, then another. It went on for a while, until the silence seemed to become too much.

(So unresolved, so easily broken, so easily unsettled by mere silence. Is that what went wrong?)

"Who doesn't?" The words were soft, a surrender of arms. But it was not a surrender in which the question was life and death, honour or disgrace, nothing of the sort. It was one of those surrenders, when one gives up his most beloved possession. When one finally confronts their long-time mortal enemy, and loses - and that enemy holds you in respect. It was silent. Calm, quiet, gentle.

Alfred sighed. "Who doesn't have a significant other? Who doesn't love someone at one point in their lifetime? The longer you live, the more time you spend surrounded by other people. The more time you spend with others, chatting away and arguing and forming friendships and fighting and becoming enemies. And the more you do that, the lonelier you become. You realise that your friend has fallen in love - and while you aren't left alone, you're in the background. Your enemy finds someone, and you realise you're the one who's worse off. All the time you spent pitying him, all that comes back at you. All that becomes aimed at you, you aim your pity, your distaste - everything you aimed at him, you aim at you. And you slowly begin realising how alone, how lonely you are." He fell silent.

"You seem very specific."

(Silence does that to you. You begin to feel and hear and see. You hate it.)

"Well, maybe I just happen to know what I'm talking about."

"What is it you feel for him?"

(There's an easy way. There's a right way. I know which one you always pick.)

"Why do you assume I feel anything for him? What him do you assume this to be?"

(You haven't changed at all, even after everything.)

"I'll venture a guess. Is this mortal enemy the person you have fallen in love with? The person you do not want seeing this tape? The person who found someone else?"

"Yes and no. Bit of both, some parts are correct, some aren't." He didn't elaborate.

"Tell me more."

"What? What do you want me to say? What was correct and what wasn't? I thought I was here to speak my mind, to discuss my problems, not tell you a bedtime story." Alfred's eyes scattered and skittered about once more.

(Never willing to admit to a weakness, to a fault. But you're so full of them, a cracked scar after another.)

"As you wish."

Silence fell once more, and Alfred knew he would end up speaking at some point anyway. One thing he hated was silence. He couldn't stand it. It oppressed him, crippled him.

(Over and over again, you fall in the same traps you set for yourself.)

"He didn't find someone else. He loves - loved me. I love him. Don't know when I started to, must've been a long time ago. We were on and off friends, and then that friendship died, and was buried along with anything we might have felt. There was a point... We were up against each other, a face off, just us two on stage, and it was a battle to death. Except he didn't fucking die. Just came back. Lived. Stood again, bit weaker, but standing. And he left me to stand taller, stand on stage on my own. Run the show myself. It became my play. My game, my characters, my pawns, my board, my stage, my props and my setting and my plotline and... everything was mine, even that what wasn't supposed to be mine. I became too involved in it, it just... it drove deep into me, and combined with everything that had happened before, it just drove straight into my core. And before I realised it, I was stretched left and right, reaching up wards while drilling downwards, trying to tie my feet to earth with threads of my mind, ones that snapped the moment my attention was driven elsewhere. And before I realised it, I was alone."

(But you never looked around you.)

"What made you realise that?"

"I guess it was a little bit of everything. The way others would look at me. How they would look torn between asking for help and leaving me alone. It was when I realised I hadn't slept in weeks. When I was told I had lost weight. It was when my economy was draining, my people restless, my government torn, my relations falling apart. And it was also when he told me so, when he pointed out that I was circling the drain, spiralling - just..." His voice trailed off, the sentence hanging in the air, unsaid words waiting. "He helped me. He was so... so fucking sweet. He was amazing, he was so nice, great, gentle, everything I could have wished for. And for a moment-" He broke off, running his hands over his face. "For a moment, I was - we were happy. It had been such a long time since I'd felt that way, happy and light and free and careless, and I fixed things. It was looking up, going for the better, it was all fine for a moment. I..." Alfred laughed. "I fucked up. I messed it up, again and again and again. When there was a bump in the road, I'd overreact. I would push him away, I would close up, I would do everything I shouldn't, say everything I never would have."

"He kept coming back, he kept... he returned every time I pushed him away, he held me every time I told him to lay off me, he... he was the best I could ever have dreamt of. There was always political tension between us, but he pushed that aside and made me forget even the smallest and biggest of things. Made me feel normal."

(Don't lie, we were both broken, abnormal, everything but normal, and that just became our normal.)

"What did you feel for him?"

"What did I feel?" Alfred smiled, sad and half-hearted. "You mean, what do I feel? What do I still feel?"

(You never told me I affected you so much.)

"Yes, Alfred. What you feel, right now."

"So many things, too many things. Everything's connected to him. Do really want to say them all?"

"I have time."

(Don't we all?)

"I'm overwhelmed. There's always people around me. I'm lonely. I hate the silence, because it reminds me of the emptiness my life has now become because he isn't there. I am heart broken. I am in shock, I can't think properly, I can't feel properly. I'm smiling, but it isn't real. I don't differentiate between real and imaginary. I'm tired - emotionally and physically, I haven't slept or eaten. I'm circling the drain again, I'm falling down, I can feel it - I know it. I'm exhausted beyond my limit, but I can't feel that. I need to keep busy, but I'm always so bored, so listless. I have nothing to do. I'm useless. I don't know what I should do, where I should go, whom I should talk to, what I should say, what should I fix.

"I'm full of regrets. I regret everything and nothing. I regret ever meeting him, because it led to us talking, to us befriending each other. I regret ever speaking to him, because it was my words that hurt us. I regret not speaking to him sooner, because a hell of a lot could have been avoided if I had. I regret ever giving him my heart, because he gave me his and I broke both. I regret ever letting him in, because trusting meant my fears resurfaced. I regret ever inventing anything, I regret being so goddamn ambitious and stupid. I regret being so starry-eyed. I regret not having taken advantage of every small moment with him. I regret remembering every little thing about him, like how there were golden specks in his eyes, or how he would tap hum Russian songs when he was working. I regret both knowing him and not knowing him enough, loving him and not loving him enough, I regret that I don't regret loving him."

(You give such detailed descriptions, yet miss the small, important things. Are you scared, of what you might be reminded of?)

"But that doesn't answer my question."

"Do you really think I can remember what it was you asked me?"

(Of course you can.)

"What you feel, for him."

"I love him. That's probably the best place to start. I love him, with all my heart, with everything that I am. It's more than... it's stronger than anything I've ever felt before. I need him, I crave for him. I want to see his eyes spark again, like when he sees a sunflower or smells delicious food. I want to hear his heartbeat when we lay on the couch, doing absolutely nothing after we finished watching a movie. I want to feel his hands running down my body, I want to feel his fingers brush against my legs and my arms. I want to kiss every inch of his body, to make him feel like he deserves to feel. I want to smell the soft, natural scent of his hair after showering. I want him to sling me over his shoulder when I'm being stupid. I want to feel the way I did every time he touched me, every time he held me. I want him to comfort me the next time I watch a scary movie that I can't handle. I want to help him relax when he works by rubbing his shoulders. I want to hear the groans he makes in the mornings when one of us left the blinds open and the sun streams into the bedroom. I want to whine about something to him until he gives in with a smile. I want to tell him I love him until there's no mistake about it. I want to hear him say he loves me until the end of time."

(And I do, don't I?)

"Alfred, where is he now?"

Alfred eyed him strangely. "You mean, you don't know? Take a guess."

"It sounds as if he's passed away."

(How wrong he is. Are you going to tell correct him?)

"Oh, God, no, not passed away. Jesus, would that be clean and simple. I mean - he is dead, very much dead. But he hasn't passed away. You've seen the news - fucking hell, what I did was not nearly as clean cut and nice and gentle as 'passed away'. Please, tell me you've already guessed who it is I'm on about. To be honest, I thought it would have been obvious by now. But no, 'passed away' is too soft a term to use. He was destroyed, he was decimated, torn apart, and everything about him now haunts me. Somehow, he's stayed with me and he haunts my days and my dreams. I can't get rid of him. I can't lose him. I can't shake him off me. I want him so much, but at the same time I would give anything for him to leave me alone. He's everywhere - I see him in my daily life and when I'm in the city and in a restaurant and working and he's everywhere. But he isn't real, he's not really there, and that's what kills me a little bit inside every time I think I see his face, hear his voice or laugh, smell his cologne."

(And not only that, but I really am with you all the time, aren't I, darling?)

"Ah. Maybe that's the reason you're here today. Was it he who drove you to-"

"Yes and no, again."

(So restricted, you shut off everyone who reaches out to you.)

"Do you want to-?"

"No, I will not elaborate on that."

"Whatever you say. But Alfred, you do understand you need to give me something to prove you are still fine, able to take back up your duties as nation?"

(There's no proof to give, you have none. You're feeling as terrible as you ever will, but not that you really were fine usually. Were you?)

"Yeah," he laughed, cold, hollow. "I know. If you want to know, I am far from fine. But I've always been the same. And I am as fine as any other nation. We've all dealt with worse. So I had an episode? Happens to the best of us."

(But you swore it would not happen to you.)

Alfred placed a hand in front of his face, falling into thought for a moment. He looked then at the other again. "If you wouldn't mind, doctor, I'm leaving. I don't care if you want to continue some other day, but I am not going further with this today." He stood his face above the camera.

(Don't think you can run away form me as easily as you are doing now.)

"That's fine, we can continue tomorrow or some other day."

"Good-bye, doctor," Alfred said, turning away and walking off. Reaching the door that was within the camera's sight, he opened it before he was stopped.

"One last question before you go."

(Truth or dare, Alfred?)

Alfred turned to the other person, his eyes visible to the camera.

"If he's dead... why did you not want to speak in the first place? You said you did not want him to see the tape?"

Alfred paused for a moment, looking at the camera. There was an odd glint to his eye, one that could be thought a reflection or tears. He then turned his eyes to the other.

(For once in your life...)

"He is dead. But for me?" He shook his head. "Not enough so, yet."

(Truth.)

The door was slammed shut.

A/N: Before anyone asks: this was deliberately left very open-ended. I'm not going to tell you what exactly it is that I meant to achieve with this story, because there's a lot of interpretations that can be taken with it. I did put a lot of effort into this one, so you can be sure there's meaning behind most of what I've written. This wasn't even supposed to be anything so deep and angsty but I got carried away. I had a hard time writing this, especially because I tried analysing every single bloody word I put in there. As to the "second voice", as you might have figured out it's supposed to be Ivan (but you can kind of imagine it as someone else?)

If anyone is interested, or confused, in my opinion, in Alfred's head Ivan would be a representation of the guilt and other emotions he feels for his acts, all compounded into one person. The fact that Alfred sees him as being capable of watching the video and being there is perhaps a distorted sense of paranoia that's derived from said guilt. Eh, you know, interpret it how you want. And I didn't write anyone in to watch the video, it was more to set the mood and add to the sense of Alfred being exposed, watched upon by someone else.

Please tell me how you liked this, reviews make my day!