Iggycat A/N: I am very excited to announce this new collaboration that will be a joint effort between myself and one of my favorite fanfic writers, Fakiagirl (who I've linked in my profile and you should definitely check out). We will switch off writing chapters, mine being from Arthur's perspective and hers from Alfred's perspective. On behalf of both of us, I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing (And neither does Fakiagirl haha.) Rights go to the respective owners. Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.

I'm not entirely sure if I was allowed to have a mid-life crisis at only 26 years old, but I guess I was always rather precocious. My first word was not a word at all but a sentence, "Mummy likes tea," and my mother swears to the fact that I learned to walk in a day, bypassing the process of crawling entirely. By five years old I was reading the equivalent of what a student in Year 7 might study, and I'd promptly fallen in love with literature. Thereafter I took advanced English courses in secondary school and college and eventually graduated from university with a degree in English literature. I was lucky and had found work quickly as a copy editor for a home and gardens magazine based out of Manchester. It wasn't exactly what I wanted but everyone had to start somewhere. I worked tediously, editing stories about the perfect duvet to match lavender walls, and continuously double checking the spelling of kaufmanniana and odontoglossums just to be perfectly sure. The job paid well, but I'd be lying if I said I was completely content. I wanted more than to read about how to pot flowers and the best method for arranging furniture to maximize space. I wanted to advance my career, to travel the world, and I needed something much more interesting in my life. Little did I know my life was about to get much more interesting.

"Ah, Arthur, yes, please sit down," my boss, Mrs. Spalding, a round woman with a reddish nose and graying hair spoke to me over the top of her computer monitor. She was the managing editor of the magazine and ultimately had the last say on what was published.

I pulled the door to her office closed behind me and uneasily took a seat in a very uncomfortable plastic chair. As nice as Mrs. Spalding was, no one really wanted to enter her office alone. A venture into her tidy little workspace meant one of two things. She either wanted your personal opinion on a piece, which doesn't sound horrible, but I can assure you it was. You would sometimes be confined to her office for hours picking apart the pieces of an article that didn't even bear any real importance. But of course, the only other reason she would call you in was much worse.

"How long have you been here, Arthur?"

I knew she already had the answer to the question but she hadn't asked it in a condescending way.

"Three and half years," I answered crossing my right leg over my knee. It was best to act casual, or so I thought.

"Ah that long, really?" She smiled and finally looked away from her computer screen. "Did you know I have a granddaughter about that age? She'll be four in a few months."

It was mid March and for a moment I pondered when the child's birthday might be. May? June perhaps? I smiled back at Mrs. Spalding hoping it looked genuine enough.

"That's lovely," I replied, not knowing what else to say. She returned my smile but then looked away.

"I'm sorry, Arthur. I'm sure you're much more interested in why you're here." She'd guessed correctly. I let out a tense laugh in agreement, but my nerves had shown through. Mrs. Spalding frowned a bit and her chubby face seemed to redden to match her nose. She shuffled through a stack of papers, pulling out a few and looking back at me.

"Arthur, you know the economy's been in quite a slump lately and the company's had to make some very hard decisions."

I knew what was coming.

"You're a great worker, Arthur. I've never seen a more brilliant editor, but," she paused and offered a sad smile as some type of concession. "We can no longer afford to keep you on. I'm very sorry."

She handed me some paperwork and continued to praise me to assure my pride wasn't overly damaged.

The 'brilliant editor' had two weeks to find a new job.

However, my mid-life crisis hadn't begun at that point. It didn't start as I packed the contents of my cubicle into cardboard boxes, or as the two week mark approached and I realized I would have no job to return to the following Monday. No, my mid-life crisis started on a sweltering day in July, four months after I'd been pulled into Mrs. Spalding's office.

"Arthur!" my manager barked at me and I had to fist my empty hand to resist biting back a nasty reply. "You're at the register today. Get your arse up there." I dropped my cigarette and stomped it out with my heal. Smoking was something I'd stopped but picked up again recently due to stress. Nicotine was heaven for the nerves.

I was working at Asda, as I'd been unable to find any type of editing work. For three and a half months I'd looked desperately, searching not only in my current home of Manchester but in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Leeds, anywhere that might house some sort of publishing house. In all that time I'd gotten myself only two interviews, neither of which resulted in a job. I slowly started to lose hope, and in late June I started working at the local grocer because I was running out of money and needed to support myself. So that's how I wound up walking up to the register, a disgruntled mess of a person who I doubt Mrs. Spalding would even recognize.

A man in business attire walked up to me and placed a frozen meal and lemonade on the counter. I scanned both items and tried to ignore the way he was looking me over. He was judging, I knew he was. No doubt he was thinking that I was some useless scum that had dropped out of secondary school at 14 and never dreamt of going to university. Why else would a 26 year old still be scanning frozen tikka masala? That was the point at which my mid-life crisis began. As I bagged the items and said "£2.75," I also involuntarily mumbled out, "What am I doing with my life?"

The man handed me some coins and shook his head as he walked out of the store.

That night I sat on the sofa with my laptop scouring the internet for hours. I must have checked every city, town, and village in the United Kingdom, and still no one was hiring. It was extremely frustrating and it got to the point where I was typing "what should you bloody do when there are no fucking jobs available?" into yahoo answers. I never expected to actually find a reasonable response.

There are a few things you can do if you can't find a job in your field...

I scrolled past some of the advice that suggested going back to school, trying a slightly different type of work, waiting it out, etc. But then I came across something else.

You might also want to consider looking into paid internships. These may not pay very well at first but they could land you a job at a well-to-do company.

I'd never considered an internship before. Of course I'd taken part in a few back in university to learn the tricks of the trade but I hadn't stayed on with any of the small firms I'd worked for. I guess I'd just never thought of an option that was usually associated with those new to the trade.

I opened a new tab and in the search bar typed out 'paid internship at a publishing company.' Out of curiosity I clicked on the first result, an internship as an associate editor at Golden Gateway Publishing, a company I'd never heard of. I glanced over the job description and was pleasantly surprised at the work it entailed. It was essentially my ideal job. I made sure to check the skill requirements of the position which I most certainly met with the exception of the "ability to learn and understand new technologies quickly" criteria. But aside from that, the position seemed perfect. I'd been about to click to download an application form when I realized I hadn't even checked what part of the UK Golden Gateway Publishing was based in. The answer to my query was that the publishing house was not based in the UK at all but in San Francisco. San Francisco, as in, California, United States of America.

I'd been stupid to blindly look at an internship without even checking where I'd be working. I was smarter than that, and I knew it. How could I have made such a trivial mistake? Deflated, I nearly closed out the tab holding the position, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. The job sounded so lovely, why did it have to be halfway across the world?

I bit my lip and looked away from the screen. But what was stopping me? A mediocre flat, a few sentimental items. I had nothing in England. My family was already spread out across the country and my brother William had even moved to Melbourne only two or three years ago. Why couldn't I do the same?

I pulled up a new tab and googled some pictures of San Francisco. I'd say it took me about eight minutes of looking at photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Warf, and Lombard Street to fall in love with the city. It took nine minutes to decide to download the internship application, and ten minutes to make a decision that would change my life.

Two weeks passed with no reply from Golden Gateway. I tried to shake it off, after all it was unlikely that I'd receive a response, but still I was disappointed. I had the credentials, I had the enthusiasm, the talent, and I wanted the position. Every day I spent bagging groceries just reminded me how much I truly wanted a change in my life.

It was late one evening after the usual rush of people coming in to purchase ready-to-eat dinners that my mobile buzzed in my pocket. I sighed, figuring it was one of my brothers. Steven had said he'd be coming up to visit at some point over the summer but never gave me an exact date. Brilliant, I thought to myself, planning how I was going to get to the train station to pick him up without a car. By the time I unlocked my phone, I'd decided on taking a cab and dumping the fare on my brother. But it was at that point that I discovered I hadn't received a text message, but a single email in my inbox. It was from an Alfred Jones, someone I'd never heard of.

Cautiously I pressed to open the email, hoping it wasn't a virus. My eyes widened as I scanned the text and I couldn't help but let loose a small smile. Jones was from Golden Gateway Publishing! He was impressed with my resume and wanted me to come in for an interview. I instantly started to type a reply, thanking him, and asking if there was any way we could do the interview over the phone. My mood had improved tenfold and for a good five minutes I just stared at my screen waiting for a reply, not even noticing the elderly woman who had started to load things onto my conveyor belt and who was losing patience as I failed to do my job.

Three days later I was sat in front of my laptop eagerly awaiting a call from Mr. Jones. He'd suggested a Skype interview rather than a phone call simply because he thought it might be more personal that way. I'd never used the program before, but I assured him I'd download it and that I was looking forward to the interview. In reality I was scared out of my mind that I would do something wrong and obliterate my chances of getting the job, but he needn't know that.

So there I was at my kitchen table in a suit jacket and tie. I was only wearing my briefs on my lower half, partially because it was more comfortable than trousers but mostly because my flat felt like a furnace in the middle of July. But regardless it didn't make much of a difference since my upper half looked dapper and that's all Mr. Jones would see.

I twiddled my thumbs waiting when finally I heard the strange tone that indicated an incoming call. Hastily, I pressed the answer button and waited for the black screen to display Alfred Jones, but it never did.

"Hello?" said a confused voice on the other line. He sounded younger than I expected.

"Yes, hello. Mr. Jones?"

"Alfred. Call me Alfred," the man said and a laugh emanated from the dark screen. There was a brief pause as I faltered and failed to find any words. "Can you see me, Arthur? Because I definitely can't see you."

I flushed, grateful that the man halfway round the world could not see it.

"No, I can't. Did I do something wrong? I'm terribly sorry if I did."

My mind started spinning at a mile a minute. I'd done something wrong already, just in the first 30 seconds of the interview. Fuck! There went my opportunity.

"Did you click 'answer with video'?" Alfred asked, but he didn't sound hostile at all. I bit my lip and answered.

"I can't recall. I'm a bit nervous so I might have accidentally pressed the wro-"

I was cut off by another laugh and for a second I was worried that Alfred thought I was technologically incompetent, which was not completely true.

"Don't worry about it, Arthur. We can do the interview like this. You initially wanted a phone conversation anyway, right?"

I nodded but upon realizing he couldn't see the action I muttered a:

"Yes. Thank you for your patience Mr. Jones."

"Alfred."

I cursed internally, wondering why Alfred even kept me on the line after so many screw ups.

"Oh yes, I'm sorry-"

"Hey Arthur," Alfred cut me off again and I fell silent. "Can you do something for me?"

I raised a brow not having the slightest idea where this was going.

"Yes?"

"Alright, can you relax? I want this to be as painless as possible, 'kay? I wanna be friends, not the scary boss figure that I'm pretty sure you're picturing in your head."

To be honest I was startled by just how casual Alfred was being but I agreed and he let out yet another chuckle.

"Great, so since we're friends why don't we start off by learning a bit about each other? I'll go first."

For about six and half minutes I listened as Alfred quickly summarized his life for me. He was born and raised in Berkeley, right outside of San Francisco. He took several advanced English and science courses in high school but his real passion was history. Alfred worked diligently through those four years and that eventually culminated in an acceptance to Stanford where he majored in the subject he loved so much.

"Stanford was perfect because it wasn't right at home, but it was still close enough that I could go home on the weekends or for an afternoon if I had the time," Alfred had said. "Eventually my parents moved down to L.A., but when I graduated I decided I just couldn't leave this place."

I was fascinated by Alfred's story and wanted to hear more, but before I knew it, it had become my turn to talk.

"So what about you? What's your story?" I could almost hear Alfred smiling on the other end. I think listening to him talk about his life made me feel more comfortable in his presence, or at least the presence of his voice.

"Well, first off I'm from England," I started, and this time when Alfred laughed, I didn't feel so nervous. "I grew up in a little town called Wooler up north."

"Oh cool is it near Liverpool?"

"A bit farther up I'm afraid." Thinking fast I added, "Do you know where Newcastle Upon Tyne is?"

There was a half a second pause before I heard chuckling on the other end.

"I'll take that as a no," I said and found myself grinning.

Alfred drew in a breath before he responded.

"I really need to brush up on my British geography."

After that I found it incredibly easy to talk to Alfred. I told him about my family, my three brothers and what it was like being the youngest. I explained about going to the University of Manchester for schooling and I told him about my job at the magazine and being laid off due to budget cuts. And in between my reminiscing, Alfred entertained me with commentary and tidbits of his own life. The whole conversation felt much more like a chat with a friend at the pub than a job interview.

"You do not have a record signed by Paul McCartney. You're pulling my leg, Alfred."

"No, I swear it's true. My dad had connections."

"Ah, so that's how you got into Stanford," I joked and Alfred grunted thousands of miles away.

"Hey that's not true! I didn't have any help getting in there. It was all me."

I smiled and gave into his pleas, shushing him.

"Hush, you might wake the neighbors with your whining. It's late here you know," I replied glancing at the clock and being shocked at just how late it really was. "Oh my. Have we really been talking for nearly two hours?"

"I could talk for another two. It beats doing paperwork," Alfred laughed and then sighed. "But if it's late there we can wrap it up."

"Well it's half past eleven. Do you think we could finish the interview in the next half hour? Or would you prefer if we rescheduled it to a later date?"

"What, no. Arthur, don't worry about it, the interview's over."

In that moment my heart sank. I thought the conversation had been going well but with just those few words Alfred dashed my hopes.

"I mean there's no need to continue. Your qualifications are impeccable, I set this whole thing up with every intention of hiring you. I just wanted to make sure you weren't an asshole or anything like that."

I didn't know what to say, so I mumbled the first thing that came to mind.

"So I have the job then?"

Alfred let out another one of his breathy laughs.

"Yes! Pack your bags, Arthur, you're moving to San Francisco!"

I needed to find my passport.