Title: Ritual of Return
Disclaimer: I wish.
Pairings: No pairings, really. Alfred/World. A lot introspective and retrospective stuff. May become more than a one-shot.
Rating: T
A/N: I was thinking this when I was reading CigfrainSol's fic, Decadence. It was my inspiration.
America was so tired. Alfred was dying.
His energy was depleted, he could barely move, he was starving, he was shivering, and he was alone. No one cared about him. And that's perhaps what hurt the most.
"Come on Alfred," He whispered to himself, "You can do this." Alfred felt his people suffering, felt their sickness and each of their deaths. He felt his land decay from its once fertile rolling fields to barren land. Nothing was growing. All of that potential that was supposed to last for centuries, for millennia, for forever was gone. Wasted. Corporations polluted anything they couldn't use, didn't properly dispose of their toxic waste, killed lakes and streams with man-made poison, dammed the water that was left just to sell it for profit... America was gone. America was murdered. Murdered at the hands of corporate greed and government corruption.
Another Great Depression hit, and there was no strong government to protect or shelter them. America wasn't the land of the free or the land of opportunity. People were slaves to their debt, and once they went bankrupt, they had no home, no shelter, nothing. They wandered the streets, trying to find a job, but there were no jobs to give. There was no money for food and no money for housing. The people were dying of hunger and thirst in his streets, and freezing to death in the winter. The government was so weak that it shut down. America became weak.
The United States of America divided.
There was only time enough to elect their last president, and though she tried to help, America still fell. Had it been even a year earlier, she would have made a difference, but everything crumbled around her before her first Hundred Days were over. She lost her Vice President, her husband, to an assassin's bullet. A bullet that was meant for her. She raised her only child by him, a daughter, from the White House alone.
She was sitting at her desk, at a loss of what to do. Alfred could feel her hopelessness and despair. But her daughter was with her, and she had a spark of hope.
"It's going to be alright, honey. Everything will be alright," she whispered as she kissed the top of her daughter's head. Determination filled her soul as she envisioned the type of world she wanted her daughter to grow up in, and resolved to make that world come to life. As she consoled his children, Alfred knew what he had to do.
As Alfred/America staggered to the Oval Office, he saw the portraits of his presidents; his presidents of glory and dishonor, the presidents that sculpted and created the United States of America. He had helped of course; but his part was a guiding part, the part of letting the people decide and trust them to decide correctly.
Alfred was here since the first Native American Tribes roamed his fields, was created by the pitter-patter of feet on his soil. He was raised by a tribe that found him, and knew him to be important. But perhaps his Creation and his Death would open a new era for the United States. Alfred could only hope that the people would know what to do with the potential and identity he left behind.
George Washington, the First. The president that set the precedent for the rest. Thomas Jefferson, who doubled the United States' size with his purchase. Andrew Jackson, who showed that the common man could be president of the United States of America. James k. Polk, who fulfilled the Manifest Destiny. Abraham Lincoln, who sewed America up again when his States ripped him apart. Theodore Roosevelt, the first to support Alfred's lower classes. What he was doing in the Republican Party, Alfred never knew. Woodrow Wilson, who stopped the indulgence and corruption of the Gilded Age, and worked himself to the bone to uphold Democratic ideals. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who helped pull his people out of the First Great Depression, and who raised the hopes and dreams of America. His greatest presidents, and his greatest allies.
"Madam President?" He croaked from the doorway, "You have no idea how proud I am of you." She abruptly lifted her head to stare at Alfred, before she jumped up from her seat.
"Alfred! What are you doing up? You're not well!" She fussed, and Alfred smiled.
"You are going to be this Nation's mother, Madam President. You will build it back up from its ruins, and help raise the United States to its peak again. I know it." She looked at Alfred with a sad smile.
"Alfred F. Jones, you better stop flirting with me this minute. Now go back to bed and rest. Alright?" Alfred matched her smile with one of his own, and she could see the terror and hope and sadness lingering in his eyes. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not going to see you ever again. I'm not going to see any of the other Nations ever again. After I leave this building, I won't ever come back." She stood there, frozen. Hundreds of plans to keep him from leaving, but she knew if Alfred was determined enough, she couldn't hold him. "I want you to tell them I used the Ritual of Return. And to tell them I loved them all. Will you? Please?" Alfred asked, coughing slightly. He didn't have much time left. He was so tired.
"What do you mean? What ritual? Alfred-"
"Please."
"...I will."
"Thank you. Good bye. I will always be with you," He kissed her forehead, wished her a good presidency, and left.
By the time he made it back to his own apartment, it was sunset, and the sun was a brilliant orange and red. He smiled wistfully, as he knew he would never see it again as himself. He spent his last few hours as Alfred F. Jones on the Earth preparing to heal his people.
He went to his backyard, and dug a shallow ditch with his one good shovel. He always meant to take up gardening, but never found the time. Alfred smiled bitterly. He knew there was no time for him anymore. With what little sugar he had left he scattered it upon it, and poured his blood into the ditch. He took off his shirt, and stood on one side of the ditch, and looked in front of him. The light from the sun was fading, but he could see clearly.
Before him, he could see himself as the United States of America, proud, energetic, foolish and naive. He saw what he would lose. He saw himself, with his terror of ghosts, and love for junk food, and his naiveté, and trust and vindictiveness and grudges. He smiled sadly, and closed his eyes and said,
"I accept the price for the restoration of my Nation. I agree to become the land once more and feel its pain to return prosperity to my people and my country. I agree to become America and to forsake my identity of Alfred F. Jones."
The wind whipped around him, and he crumpled to the ground, that once immortal body now a lifeless shell.
America was the land again. Seedlings long dormant found the strength to sprout, wispy clouds far above found themselves heavy with rain and the dying found the strength to live. The depressed broke out of their stupor and looked at the world with new eyes, while the ruthless and desperate found kindness and hope within their souls. As the sky tore open with its first storm in ages, people ran out of their houses and danced, and children laughed and played in the water.
America jolted, and came alive.
Alfred F. Jones died.
Review and tell me what you think!
