A/N: Hullo there! This is slightly angsty. Be warned there is excessive bad language in this fic. Please let me know if I get anything historical completely wrong! I'm not trying to say England and France make a good pairing (Belgium x England needs more love~), just that they are better friends than everyone thinks. I don't own Hetalia: Axis Powers, or there would be compulsory Polska x Liet every minute or two. Well, please enjoy!

Do you have any idea what it feels like to have your closest friend beaten down into the dust whilst you are helpless to do anything?

Closest geographically, of course.

Imagine the horrific feeling you get as you see a cat get run over. That feeling of helplessness, of wishing that you could do something but your feet can't move and you know shouting won't do any good and you can't shout anyway because your throat is dry. Now, instead of the cat, replace it with someone close to you. Someone you see at school, perhaps, or at work. Someone you are fond of but someone you argue a lot with. Now, instead of a car, put another person you thought was your friend, but you had recently some to mistrust beyond repair (in your opinion). Imagine this person had been fighting with you… fighting a lot. They had tried to kill you, you had tried to kill them. But now, your friend in their clutches, and you can do nothing. Nothing, because you're not on the pavement watching some poor old man's cat get run over by a teen racer who would get caught by the police. You're not in the playground, where a teacher or even the headteacher might spot the violence and prevent it or give out punishments for it.

You're on a ship, slowly pulling away from the French port of Dunkirk, watching helplessly as your closest (geographically, again) ally is caught by the very nation that you had been fighting against. There was no policeman, no teacher, no guarantee of justice. And all you could do was watch and swear to someday teach that German swine a lesson.

Perhaps, if you imagine all these things very vividly, dear reader, you might get some tiny idea of exactly how Arthur Kirkland was feeling at that very moment.

…With a lot more swearing, no doubt.

That French idiot had told him to get going, to go with his troops home, where eh had been until Francis' calls for more men could be heard over the English Channel. (And yes, he'd be damned if he was calling the ENGLISH Channel anything but the ENGLISH Channel.) Then he had gone over, seen the true, horrific devastation his soldiers had had to face. He had seen the scars over Francis' body, most too horrific for him to remember without feeling sick. His own wounds and gas-induced blisters were bad, but somehow they seemed all the more drastic when peppered across the body of the amorous Frenchman.

He and Francis, despite their past, had decided it made sense for them to work together against Ludwig, in one of their rare moments of actually getting along. Their friendship actually ran much deeper than many nations (including America, the coward, whose absence Arthur and Francis had had many long, drunken rants about) would ever have suspected.

They stuck it out- England for the sake of Belgium, more than Francis. He had promised he would help her (again) if ever Germany invaded (again). Now, Belgium was lying in a muddy field somewhere, probably hardly breathing, or tied up in a room at Germany's house, being tormented by Prussia. Now, Francis was stood shakily before Ludwig, puffing up his chest, squaring his shoulders, true French pride running through his veins, refusing to surrender. Now, England was stood on a ship, watching the butt of the German's gun collide with the Frenchman's jaw and knocking him to the ground, unconscious.

Fat lot of good his troops had done. Imagine, the mighty British Empire, chased out of Europe by some stony-faced German and a barely-there Italian with a surrender flag tucked into his belt. His closest ally beaten, and Belgium in a worse state still. Everything was changing now. There was no room for him in this new world of independence and invasion and Nazis and old friends and new enemies and fire and sulphur and ash and tears and dirt and hope and despair. As Arthur stood in stony silence, his new wounds burning and his old memories doing the same, he wished, just for one fleeting second, that he could rewind ten years. Back to when he and Francis were still arguing about whose food was the best. Back to when Germany was silent, didn't have a psycho for a boss, worked for France. Arthur sighed.

Now, the English are known for their tenacity, their determination, and something stirred in the pit of Arthur Kirkland's bruised stomach. Something acrid, something boiling, like molten sulphur. It enveloped him quickly, coursing through his veins and making him shake.

Fixing his eyes on the blonde figure, hair slicked hack and blue eyes gleaming with the light of victory, he ripped a shout from the bottom of his heart.

"I'LL GET YOU, YOU FUCKING GIT! I'LL BE BACK HERE AND SOMEDAY I'LL TEACH YOU A LESSON YOU'LL NEVER FORGET! I'LL GET YOU BACK FOR BELGIUM, AND FOR THIS! REMEMBER THIS!"

Turning away from the fires that blazed in the port, his forest green eyes were as cold as the metal from his factories and as fiery as the infernos behind him. He was fucked if he was going to let that fucking German bastard win. He didn't care, at that moment, whether Ludwig was acting on orders or of his own volition, but all Arthur knew now was that Germany was not about to come anywhere near a single blade of grass on his island. On HIS island. And it would remain so.

"S…Sir?" one soldier asked tentatively. "Are you all right?"

"That's not fucking well happening to us." Arthur's voice was as sharp and cold as the steely blade of a bayonet at the throat of a soldier. His hands clenched into fists as he rallied off orders. "Get my boss on the phone, now. Tell him we're having a war meeting the second I get back. I'll be fucked if that fucking German sets one vile boot on the coasts of Her Majesty's Country." Arthur strode into the cabin. At the door he paused and looked back, old sadness flashing across his eyes for fleeting seconds. "And call America. Send him photos. Tell him, if he's not helping, we'll fucking well do it ourselves." He turned and shut the door behind him. He leant back against the wood, a stray tear leaking down his cheek.

"Francis… I'll get that git back for what he did to you and Belgium, you'll see. I fucking swear it."

Lying on the ground, his beard and pale, gaunt face splattered with dried blood and scarred by flying shrapnel, Francis' lips curled into a glad smile as he slept on, the sound of Arthur's promise echoing in his muted mind.

Reviews make Francis put on a piece of clothing! (PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, REVIEW! MY EYES!!!! -Arthur)

Thanks much!