Hello, I'm back with another USxFem!UK royalty AU, surprise, surprise. I know no one will read this because sadly, Hetalia is dying and this ship was never popular begin with, but I'll post it anyway,

There technically is some older/younger romance. Nothing sexual or graphic, but there is a two year age gap so there will be times later when Alfred is technically a legal adult and Alice is not. Either way, nothing sexual happens and nothing more graphic than some kissing and hugs throughout the whole story. Just thought I'd warn you guys ahead of time.

Edit: So I finished this with about 22000 words, which is a lot, there might even be more after I read through this all again. This was going to be a one-shot but obviously it won't be anymore. Now it will divided up by chapters. While writing this I divided it up randomly when I went to a new time or scene. So I'm just going to divide it up like that. There will be at least 39 'chapters' now but some might be added. These aren't all 1000 word chapters like I usually try to do, some are probably as short as 200 words. Im going to try and update once a week, but it might vary. This first one is a longer one. When I get to shorter ones I will update multiple at a time.

This is posted on both and AO3! I also posted links to both on my tumblr, if you care enough it's on my profile.

I think that's it, so I hope you all enjoy, if anyone even reads this.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.

Alice had been engaged before she had even been born. It was an arranged marriage, which was both good and bad. She didn't have to worry about dating or finding someone she liked, or something who liked her for her, and not her crown. On the other hand, she had no control over it. Her parents and her fiancé's parents had decided it a few months before she had been born.

She hadn't ever met him. All Alice knew about him was his name was Alfred Jones, he was the crown prince of Americana, the larger neighboring country, and he was two years older than her.

They were going to get married when she turned eighteen, but that seemed so far away now. Then she'd become queen of both his country and her own, Britannia. She was the crown princess of Britannia. They would be merging their countries with this marriage, joining together and becoming a larger and more powerful country. Americana and Britannia has been on good terms for a long time, so this was good. If only this was how it turned out.

Alice was six when there was an attack on the Americanan castle. Alfred would've been eight. Only a few had really been hurt, it was an attack from a small rebel group in the north. After the panic had subsided and the families of both royalty and nobility had rejoined and collected themselves, they realized something. Prince Alfred was gone. The crown prince had been killed. That small rebel group in the north had been murdered by morning.

The Britannian princess didn't really understand what it all meant at the time. She had never met Alfred, she didn't know him as anything more than some gross boy she would marry one day for the good of her country. She didn't understand standing in a pretty black dress in a foreign country at a funeral for a child she didn't know. She didn't really understand the people crying around her for a fallen future king, the queen of Americana becoming hysterical when the coffin was lowered in the ground and having to be held back.

No one talked about the prince of Americana anymore, not even in Britannia. Alice no longer had an arranged marriage. He had a much younger little sister, she was two at the time of the attack, who now got the crown, but Alice wasn't marrying her.

People seemed to forget it. It was better to forget that there ever had been an Americanan prince and just keep living. The commoners didn't really care much anyway. Sure, he was prince, and he was a child, but he didn't really affect them and their daily lives. By the time Alice was nine, the only reminder of that attack and his death was the annual memorial day. It was on July 4th, Alfred's birthday.

The years continued to pass, and as Alice got older, she got more responsibilities. She went to classes daily with the noble children, to associate with kids her age and also get to know them because some of them would be on the council when she became queen. She also went to extra lessons with her parents and sometimes they made her sit in boring meetings. Being princess was starting to get exhausting.

One her favorite hobbies was reading. She went to the castle library regularly and took the fantasy novels and read them in the little free time she had. Sometimes she stayed up late and read them at night in the moonlight, when she was finally left alone.

The princess was eleven, one late spring night. She was curled up in her large fluffy bed, an abundance of pillows and blankets, all soft and warm. A thick novel about a dragon hunter who had befriended a princess, yet didn't know she was a princess of dragons lay next to her. Her emerald eyes flickered across the words, quickly reading and turning the pages. They said it was bad to read in the dark, but Alice didn't care, she had to know how this book ended now, who needed sleep anyway?

The princess was in her own little world, when she heard footsteps outside her door and voices trying to be hushed but failing. She quickly stuck her bookmark in her book and set it on the nightstand, then pulled the covers over her and shut her eyes. She lay slightly curled up, how she usually did when she was trying to sleep. The footsteps continued past her door, they weren't coming for her. Alice heard a small muffled voice.

"...so important to wake us up at..."

That sounded like her mother's voice. Alice furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and sat up. Why was her mother up at this hour? Now she had something more interesting to do.

The princess left her bedroom, careful to shut the door very softly. She walked down the dim halls of the castle quietly. She knew her way around at this point. Still, the atmosphere of the castle was different at night.

Silent, dark, empty. The people of the pictures and paintings seeming like they would step out of their frames, the busts and flowers turning to watch the small princess as she walked. The plush carpet muted her footsteps, while the walls screaming back any noise. Alice could feel goosebumps on her skin.

She finally found the voices again, both her parents stood there, each wearing robes over their pajamas. Another man stood there, talking to them. Alice hid behind a corner. The walls yelled their words back, letting Alice hear.

"...on the western border, that's where they were found."

"The Americanan border?" Her father asked.

"Yes, Your Majesty. We think that they had some relation to those rebels, the ones who attacked the Americanan castle and killed the prince."

"What did they want? Did you get anyone to interrogate?" The queen questioned.

The man hesitated. "No, forgive me, my queen. The head patrol officer said they started killing each other before we could get anyone. Apparently it was a group of a few men and women, we got eight bodies total. When they were noticed by our border patrol they started chanting,'Times will change, you will all fall' and pulled out their guns and started killing each other. Some of them committed suicide as well. The only alive person we acquired, he.." the man trailed off.

Alice felt her stomach get tangled. She was young, but not young enough to not understand what that meant.

"He what?" The king pressed.

"He can't be older than fourteen."

"A child? What was he doing with a group of Americanan rebels?"

"I have no idea, Your Majesty. I don't think he was there because he wanted to be. He suffered injuries the others didn't. They tried kill him as well, but in the panic he got away and we found him unconscious several feet away."

"What kind of injuries?" Her mother asked.

"Head trauma, probably some version of a concussion. Several bad scratches and bruises, his wrists are raw, like he has been tied up for a while. He probably has a broken rib or something like that as well."

"Where is he now?"

"Being treated by the castle's doctors. Would you like me to take you to him? I believe he is still unconscious and probably will be for the remainder of the night." The man asked.

"Yes, I would like to see him."

Alice looked around the corner again to see her parents and the man walking down an opposite hall. She wanted to follow, see this other boy, but she didn't. If someone found her out of bed or found her room empty, the whole castle would become crazy. She didn't want to worry her parents. Alice would ask them in the morning about the boy, who he was and why he was with those rebels.