Disclaimer: Tch.
Story Title: Mother's Kiss Goodnight
Story Word Count: 3829
Rated: T/PG14
Genre: General/Drama
Focus: England ("Arthur Kirkland")
Pairings: England x America, hints of England x France
Notes: As canonical as dramatic Hetalia fic can be. Occurs on June 5, 1944, during sunset, on a location somewhat adjacent to Normandy. (Somewhat) Original Characters (somewhat) included in-story: Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Pre-Roman Ancient Celtic Tribes of the British Isles, also known as England's mother. Rated for a (tiny) bit of language and some implications as to adult concepts. Comments, criticism, and suggestions gratefully accepted.
Story Summary: There are the times when everything is gold and you can't help but feel invincible. And then there are the times when anticipation gives way to knowing, and the entire world will change tomorrow. "Stay with me? At least for now."
Author's Statement: This was written for the Secret Santa gift exchange on the US x UK LiveJournal community as a present for kaneha, whose prompts would all have been extremely hard for me to write - one because I'd never even heard of My Fair Lady before getting the request (and I call myself a thespian . . . ) and two because the other two were historical, militaristic, and dealing with WWII, and I absolutely hate writing for that period, because I know too much about it and military was just beginning to get complicated. Still, it was actually a lot of fun writing this. Yes, I know how pathetic I am that on my account, I have one rough, streamlined monologue and one gift for someone else. I'm working on it, all right? I have twenty unfinished oneshots all clamoring for my attention, I just got into a new fandom, and I really am a masochist for punishment.
About the fic itself. The prompt I finally picked was "day-before-D-Day interaction, worrying about the weather, if the plan will work, etc." And that means that this is going to have a buttload of historical notes, all at the bottom, again. England's mother snuck in there. I don't know how. This also got way out of hand in the metaphor department, and it eventually got to be less about Normandy and their relationship and more about introspective narration that clunks together in great heaps of nonsense. (Then again, when does my writing ever not do that?) I'm really, really sorry for this, but it's as good as it's ever going to be, and I hope you enjoy it anyway.
That having been said - as always: Happy reading!
It was actually going to happen.
When he'd heard the words, he'd panicked. He was actually fairly certain that half the army had panicked, actually, but the moment Eisenhower had sighed and nodded - the quick jerk of his head, up and down - something had clicked into place in England's mind, and he'd been left standing in the conference room for two entire minutes after everyone else had left.
Truthfully - he hadn't listened to a single word of the meeting after the words. He'd gotten the orders from Montgomery later, and had a vague recollection of hearing him talk of being reassigned from the 6th Airborne to the 50th Infantry, but the rest of the afternoon had been a blur of barked orders, the bustle of soldiers trying to save a plan tossed into the scrap heap without another thought and promptly fished back out, and Mallory's reluctant face.
England knew how he felt. He wasn't quite sure this was a good idea either, but he'd caught one glimpse of America (and his too-wide, too-young smile), and relented. You never knew, after all. It was English weather.
This is actually going to happen.
England breathed (in, out, in, out), and tried to look at the air.
He was leaning over the rail of the deck, now, too calm for his own good, too aware of what was going to happen to quite panic yet. The clouds had broken enough - just enough - to see glimmers of the sky, dyed red and orange like blood, a sky like he hadn't seen for years and years and years. On long campaigns - in war, really - you forgot what the sunset was like, was really like, and, he supposed, that was another reason why this - this had to work. Another reason why they couldn't wait another year for the right tides and pray that the whether was going to be better next May. Another reason for England's stomach to be writhing in turmoil, and it - it wasn't, like it knew something that he didn't, like his body could see past the arguments in tense, crowded offices of war and terse discussions about the weather that had absolutely nothing to do with small talk, could see the storm and relished in the calm of the before.
Maybe he'd see France there. He didn't quite know.
The thought was absurd, and it made him laugh - forced and harsh, but the sound eased the knot of tension in his throat, relaxed his muscles and forced him into a dreamlike calm. He'd fought before. Of course he had - even America, who had been born and grown in this softer time, knew battle (even if the way he had laughed, the way he had whooped and punched the air and beamed so brightly the entire closet had lit up, half-convinced England that he still didn't understand it). England, like all the oldest nations, had a past born in war and tempered in death, and he had long since comprehended - grown intimate with - the (precognition) sense that all nations have, before a moment that changes the world. (Now, he mused, the only thing he hasn't quite figured out yet was whether to tell if the change to come was one that would shape the world or destroy it, and he thought for a moment on how that would make things so much easier.)
It wasn't. Wasn't what you'd think it would be, not really. It was a sense of - anticipation, almost. Calmness. Stillness. Like the night just before everything erupted into flame. (Or went down in it, he thought, and promptly beat himself over the head.)
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, there was. Was - the next age of the world, and here, in this moment, in this war and in this fight - this was where Nations were born and killed, and for all the forces of the world that humans (with their softness and their mortality) succumbed to, it was - was only fitting it was war that could kill both a Nation and a mortal.
He wasn't nervous. He was perfectly aware that he should be, felt anxiety burrowed deep in his bones, somewhere, but - it was all covered up. Buried by the harsh reality that stripped away all illusions that today wasn't the last day - the last day. For. For something. This, this world - because there was tomorrow and then there was Today, and Today, something settled in his bones deep and aching and mildly reminiscent of America's idiotic smile and his conspiratorial whisper: We're going to change the world. With this, we're going to change the world.
Tomorrow, there was Normandy. Today - tonight, there was the sunset, and the clouds, and maybe the whisper of a hope of a promise that England couldn't find it in himself to believe.
He'd been standing there, half against the railing and half leaning into the sea, for hours and ages and seconds too long when he heard it - soft, shadowed beats that were oddly real after hours upon hours of ignoring the military bustle behind him (footsteps, and it was strangely not-painful when the thought that flickered across his drifting mind was: he walked the same way as a child). It took an absurdly long time for England to turn his head and see America leaning next to him, the set of his gaze too pointedly not England, the lines of his face too pointedly not worried. England blinked mildly and turned back out to sea. America. Right
It took a forever for him to speak. "So." England didn't reply. "It's really happening."
"I suppose it is." (And no, he thought, fighting down the urge to laugh and cry and break all at the same time, because those words - these words - had been drifting in his mind for the better part of the afternoon now, and America had only been the voice to them-)
"You nervous?"
He laughed. "Are you blind?"
"Yeah," America said, "me too."
"You should be," England told him, because in this last moment in this last time in this last sunset, there was no room for anything but honesty.
They stayed like that for another forever, just - existing, trying to soak up the feeling of false peace the way the sky reveled in false dawn. At false dawn tomorrow, the world would have shattered irrevocably and rearranged itself into something new and altogether more frightening. The unknown always was.
And even more frightening than that, and anchoring in an incomprehensible way as well, was America - by his side, by his side, and it had been long, so long, since he'd thought that.
"Weather looks nice," America tried again. "Or. Or, better. The weather looks - better."
"There wasn't much that could be worse, America."
"Still. Still, that was-" An inhale, a shaky exhale, and England realized with a rush of understanding that America knew, knew the world was going to shatter tomorrow just as well as he did. "Something. I mean. You know, it's - good."
"It is."
"Good. That we - look, I'm sorry, if you don't want me here, I'll just leave, and - and you can keep staring out to sea or whatever it was you were doing before-"
And now glanced out of the corner of his eye, and America was there (there), a blush creeping high on his cheeks and still, still determinedly looking away from England. He pushed himself off the rail, making to leave, and the sentimental part of England, the one he normally ruthlessly buried underneath three or four bottles of gin and massive piles of paperwork, forced his heart into a very uncomfortable position and squeezed. And he would not - would not think about certain things every time he thought about America leaving, because that was ridiculous, and-
Godammit, a hundred and fifty years and there was still a part of him screaming not to let him go (again). Not for a night, because tomorrow the world would shatter and if this failed-
"No," he said, feeling far too calm, far too unreal. "Stay with me? At least for now," he amended, hating himself just a little for the pleading tone in his voice.
But this was America, and he'd heard it all before, and for once - for once, he didn't say anything about it. America looked up, chanced a glance at him, and there was something there - and suddenly America looked very, very young, and still, and still.
America nodded, and there might have been a smile at the corner of his mouth. When he turned back, it was gone. (And it might have been for the better, because America was America-now, not the America-that-was, and if England couldn't remember that - well.)
They turned back out to the ocean at the same time and watched the dusky air in silence.
The next time America tried to speak (because it was America even when it wasn't, it was always America), the sun had sank by another half-degree and England was quietly dreading dusk and bed before tomorrow - Tomorrow - in the same way a dying man dreads his last meal before the executioner's axe. "Today."
But this wasn't about today, was it? That was the crux of the matter. "In the war room. That was - really something, huh? Eisenhower, I mean. Just the way he said it, you know? 'Okay. We'll go.' Like it - like it didn't matter."
"They can't feel. Not like we can." Feel the Earth shatter, were the unspoken words.
"I know. That's not what I meant. Only, I wish - you know? You have to-" Breathe, in his lungs. In and out, just like that. "Admire him. The war-"
"If this fails," bitter words, like cheap beer and orange peel on his tongue, "there will be other invasions."
"But - but." Next to him, America sighed, a sharp puff of breath that could topple mountains if he so willed it. "It wouldn't be the same. It's not the same, and you know it. Because-" (and that was America, because it was always America - he didn't have to look to see that mischievous smile, so young and fey and ancient) "I'm pretty sure no other campaign would ever be postponed - what was it? Three times, I think, one 'cause your Parliament wanted to try Africa first, and one 'cause airplanes take way too long to make, and one because of your shitty weather - oh, and one at the very beginning when your government scrapped Sledgehammer-"
"You can't even count the first one or the last one, those were completely separate operations from this one-"
"Oh well, it's still the same thing-"
"Idiot," he said, but there was no real heat in the words and he could tell America wanted to laugh.
If he looked closer, really, he could tell America wanted to do a lot of things. It had been - years, really, since they'd seen each other last. Centuries of it, eternities of it, endless piles and heaps of not America, only France and Spain and stupid, idiotic wars over stupid, idiotic things that he couldn't really be bothered about as politics got more complicated and economy and warfare and hegemony took on dimensions he hadn't known existed before. But America was America, and America was still very much (not) an idiot and still very much an open book. And America was America; it didn't matter that he was written in some obscure, long-dead language, because England could read it, and - and maybe this book-America metaphor was a bad idea after all, because, languages. Languages went away. Languages faded, in time. And he could still read America's heart as clearly as he could two, three hundred years ago.
(Because his heart - unlike the dusty books in his attic that had been rotting there since Rome or some other such nonsense - was written in a language that was impossible to forget.)
America wants. America wants, just like he always has. To win, to avenge, and there was selfishness there, in his eyes, in the hardness of them as he looked away from Normandy, looked out over endless miles of water (looked to where, somewhere, over endless miles and miles and miles of water, the New World is, his mind whispered), but there was something more, too, and England found his heart aching for a boy (his boy) like it had not done for years. Like it had not done for a hundred years. Like it had not done for 161 years, and every change, every correction brought the hurt deeper, closer.
America looked like a child again - looked like a child who wanted, needed, had to know that tomorrow (tomorrow!) the world would change for them and everything would be all right - and all England wanted to do was hold him tight and make empty promises against the night, and it was all he ever wanted and all his heart beat for, in that moment-
But he didn't.
Because this was the price of being his own, he thought (and he had never thought of this so clearly, no, never). Because America was his own now (self-evident, really), and England could no longer be there to coddle him, to lie. Even if America wanted it.
Even if he wanted the same thing, he thought, with that startling sense of clarity that only precluded the way the world would change tomorrow, and when he looked up, he suddenly realized that America is looking at him (looking and never looking away, something in his eyes, something wild and blue and too much like the sky).
"England?"
America did not look at him, did not look away.
"Yes," he said, and he was too, too old, and so, so young, and the sun stretched out to Normandy.
"If this works. If this works - it's going to be big. The biggest invasion ever. Like-" He paused, cleared his throat. "Like nothing anyone's ever seen before."
"Or ever will see again," England agreed, and watched the gold fade to red as they stood together looking over the Atlantic, as America breathed by his side - calm and still, in and out, like the tide at night or rocking of a mother's arms.
He couldn't remember his own mother very well. In the days before Rome - in the wildness, the long mornings spent throwing spears at Caledonia idly and the long nights spent spying on the people, watching them dance and laugh and burn in the flames - his memory was all blurred, smeared and smudged together. There were some things he remembered with water-clarity. Eire's scowl as she prised him away from yet another fight that consisted less of actual fighting and more of Caledonia and Wēalas alternately hexing him and beating him over the head with stones or sticks or whatever happened to be handy at the time. Lazy afternoons spent staring up at the sky and watching clouds drift by in an uneasy sort of truce with his siblings that day. He remembered battle, and he remembered, too, the way the four of them would shiver in the dark and try to light fires and laugh about what a sight they must have made, four little children barely old enough to walk.
But the clearest of all (clearer than nights spent huddled up with his siblings waiting for his mother to return from war, clearer than afternoons spent sharpening knives for battle and throwing stones for fun, clearer than the night she gathered him in her arms and took him to the forest and introduced him to his first faerie), he remembered nights when she would lift her half-sleeping son into her arms, hard and strong from battle and war, and rock him all the way to sleep, clear nights, nights when he didn't think of and didn't dream of wars and death and the hatred of his people. And of all he hadn't thought of in a thousand years, he missed that most.
Tonight, he would lie awake in bed and stare out at the moon and try to believe that everything would be all right, that the invasion would begin and his boys would be all right and the war would end within a year. Tonight, he would fall asleep and dream of the 6th Airborne, and when he woke, he would roll over and stare at the wall and try to pretend that his mother was rocking him to sleep again. Try to think of anything except the invasion and except the other note in Eisenhower's pocket and except the thought that even though the world would change regardless, even though this was the last night of everything regardless, if this failed, if it failed-
the eyes of the world are upon you
More than anything, more than anything, he wanted to hear - for tonight, for this last moment in this last time in this last sunset - that tomorrow, the world would be the same. That the war outside was only outside, and that tonight, tonight at least, he could believe that everything would be all right. And next to him, there was America - next to him, there was a boy wrapped up and carefully hidden in a man's bomber jacket - and tonight. Just tonight. Just for tonight. They needed - needed this, needed this promise, empty or not, that everything was going to be fine. Needed it so badly, and yet. And yet.
Because it was not theirs to take. They had - had no right, to deceive themselves like that. They were Nations. Stronger. And it didn't matter, how much you wanted or needed or feared when you were a nation, when you were your own, because that was - that was the cost of being independent, of being so far away and so long past from what might be a distant memory of a mother (to love and rock and lie to, for you, all for you).
There were times - times like these - when he wished-
"It's pretty. The sunset, I mean."
But he didn't wish for anything. Because no matter how much he wanted or needed to hear that promise - it was not his to make. And not his to ask for.
It was America's turn to "hmm" vaguely and nod without looking at him, and England continued distractedly with, "You're probably too young to have heard this one, anyway. It's only an old sailor's tale. We used to say-" a hiccup in time, and for a moment he was back three hundred years or more, laughing and drinking and secure in the knowledge that when he woke up tomorrow, the world would be the same, "-that if the sunset - if the sunset is red like this, tomorrow will be a fine day for sailing."
"Believe it or not, England, there are sailors at my house."
"Right, right." No malice, no annoyance, no weariness. Only empty words.
"England?" (America did not look at him. But he didn't look away, either.) "England. You know, when I'm nervous, my palms tingle." He didn't look at him. "They get all sweaty and slick and I can't hold anything for an hour afterward." But he didn't look away.
"Oh?" England said, because it was the only thing he could, and there was that feeling again, that something was going to happen - something that was going to change the world (but was it the world or his world?)-
"Yeah." He glanced at America out of the corner of his eye. "Hey, you're sure you're not going with the 6th Airborne tomorrow, right?"
"The 50th Infantry," he heard himself say, even though they'd gone over this over and over and over again and America should fucking know this by now, because it was America and even though - even though he could try to act invincible, try to act like a hero, he was England and he could always, always tell (could tell America was as fucking terrified as him). He thought of English summer weather, of the thousand ways tomorrow could go wrong, and thought of mothers. Thought of America.
He wasn't looking at the sun any more. He was looking at something else, something far, far beyond that - the future perhaps, and America was looking at him and not looking at him at the same time, and tomorrow the world was going to change, and - and. Suddenly he was tired. So tired, and America was looking for something that he couldn't give.
(Later, lying in the safety of his room and his bed and his last night in this world, he would turn this moment over and over and over in his head, and realize that this understanding - this knowledge - cut two ways, and America knew. America knew England as well as England knew America, and maybe understood a little better. Maybe.)
"England?"
And England. England was there, and the world was quiet now. "It's late, yeah?" he said, pushing back from the rail. The seas were quiet, and somewhere, over an ocean and too far away to think of, America was quiet, and beside him, America was quiet, and there was too much. Too much here. "You should - you should probably get to bed, America. We've both got a long day tomorrow-"
"England."
(And he was floating in a dream) "What, America?"
He looked down at the hand that was on his wrist - the one that hadn't been there before he'd spoken, he was sure of it - and back up at America. He made the mistake of looking into his eyes, and thought of the boy he used to know (the proverbial child, fashioned from gold and sun and sky). "America?"
"England." A beat. "England." Because there it was - that unreality, that knowledge that, tomorrow (today, in a minute, now) his world was going to shatter into something entirely new- "Hey, England, you shouldn't worry so much. Everything's going to be all right - right?"
And there it was again, that unreality, that strange sense of laughing and crying at the same time (pulled taut, unyielding, and something - something that had been years in the making - was about to break). He found himself incomprehensibly angry in that moment. As though America - America didn't understand that, that now, there was no point in this lie - "Don't say that. You can't - promise something like that. It's not - it doesn't-"
"Why?" Blue, like the sky. Like he really believed it.
And breathe. "Just wanting something doesn't make it true, America."
"It does for me."
"I - America, that's-" And he laughed, because what else could he do?
And when he looked up, the force of the next world that would descend tomorrow hit him in full. And there was America. America, who promised such impossible things - America, who thought he had the right to say this - America, with his hope and his assurance that tomorrow would be the same for them, even if the world shattered around them. The sun had long set, he realized belatedly, but there was America in front of him, and he blazed like fire and spoke like he still believed in miracles. "I promise. Because I'm a hero, hey?"
Because he was a hero.
Because England believed him.
(And America leaned in-)
The kiss was like the arguments in a crowded, tense war-council room, the faintest flickering of hope in those long nights as he lay within a bomb shelter and listened to his people scream, and the tiny gleam in America's eyes as he leaned over and whispered, Normandy - a prayer and a smile and the beginnings of a plan that could change the war itself. And the feeling - the warmth, the rising wave of reassurance and peace and something he couldn't quite name (but felt like he had never felt anything before) - was a promise, like a hand through sun-blond hair as a boy fashioned from gold and sun and sky slept, like a whispered memory in the night - and the rocking of a mother's arms as she eased her babes to sleep.
(And it wasn't perfect - far from it - but right now, he believed, and no matter what happened tonight, no matter what happened tomorrow, he knew that everything would be all right.)
For everyone who is lolwut-ing at my style, I only have one thing to say - I went to see the local senior high school's production of The Diviners the day I wrote this. That is all. Fellow theater geeks will understand. Coincidentally, the working name I used for this - "The Normandy Promise" - is named after the sequel to I Never Saw Another Butterfly, that iconic Holocaust play that every middle-school drama student has read, and also the One Act Play for my high school in the ninth grade. I played Mother. The sequel's called The Terezin Promise, and "Mother's Kiss Goodnight" really has nothing to do with The Terezin Promise in either tone or style, but - for those of you who missed it (or for everyone, if my ability to get across a theme is really that bad) - the entire point of the story is the need for reassurance. The kiss at the end is supposed to symbolize a sort of hope between these two calm, terrified people who only know that the world is going to change tomorrow, whether for better or for worse. For everyone else, who were probably lost because of the gratuitous use of metaphor - I DON'T EVEN KNOW, OKAY. SHUT UP.
Notes:
"He'd gotten the orders from Montgomery later"
- Bernard Montgomery, who is, at the time, in control of Allied ground forces and also wanted to proceed with the D-Day plan despite possibly dangerous weather.
"and Mallory's reluctant face"
- Mallory, who is currently the air commander for the Invasion of Normandy and the one yelling "GUYZ THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE IF WE GO OUT THERE WE'LL ALL GET KILLED DEAD DX DX DX"
"It was English weather"
- The biggest problem with going ahead with D-Day at the time was the weather, which was generally unfavorable and caused the invasion to be pushed back several days already. It had been set for May; the invasion didn't take place until early June. The story goes that the day before had shit weather too, but the meteorologist was all, hey, tomorrow might be better weather, and Eisenhower was "okay dudes lets go!" Only, you know, not like that.
"pray that the weather was going to be better next May"
- Like I said, the operation was originally scheduled for May, but had to be pushed back for weather. The time of year was very important, as well as the overhead conditions; the plan needed a late spring tide to work properly, and so everyone was understandably pissed when it decided to rain.
"'Okay. We'll go.'"
- Apparently, these were the famous words rumored to have come straight from Eisenhower's mouth that launched the biggest amphibious operation ever and turned the tide of the war.
"one 'cause your Parliament wanted to try Africa first, and one 'cause airplanes take way too long to make, and one because of your shitty weather - oh, and one at the very beginning when your government scrapped Sledgehammer"
- Operations Sledgehammer and Roundup were originally proposed by the American government to rout German forces in 1941, Sledgehammer in 1942 and Roundup in 1943, if extenuating circumstances forced the Allied Powers' hands. The UK shot Sledgehammer down and grudgingly accepted Roundup, before abandoning that one, too, for Operation Torch in North Africa. Eventually, Operation Overlord (that everyone better knows as the Invasion of Normandy and D-Day) was hammered out and scheduled for May 1944; only when May 1944 rolled around, the operation had to be postponed again. Then the weather rolled along. I'm frankly surprised that the Allies just didn't give up.
"You can't even count the first one or the last one, those were completely separate operations from this one-"
- He's talking about Roundup and Sledgehammer, detailed in the above note.
"self-evident, really"
- Yes, self-evident. In the "we hold these truths to be" fashion.
"The biggest invasion ever."
- He's lying. The biggest invasion ever was Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Which was frankly ironic. The Invasion of Normandy was the biggest amphibious invasion, however.
"Caledonia . . . Wēalas . . . Eire . . . "
- Scotland, Wales, and Ireland respectively. His "mother" is the Ancient Celtic Tribes of the British Isles, and headcanon states she died in the Roman Invasion of Britannia. The first one. After her death, Caledonia and Loegria (England) teamed up to kick some serious Roman ass with their weather and prehistoric weapons, until Rome finally won out; thus, Hadrian's Wall.
"dream of the 6th Airborne"
- The 6th Airborne was the very very first unit to be sent into battle on D-Day, sometime around midnight of June 5th and 6th. Of course England would dream of them. It's nothing - perverted, perish the thought! [shifty eyes]
"the other note in Eisenhower's pocket"
- The legend goes that Eisenhower had two speeches in his pocket. The first one was the one he read to the troops on D-Day, which was actually fairly unremarkable in comparison to some other, much more rousing, WWII speeches. The second one was only to be read if the invasion failed. It never saw the light of day.
"6th Airborne and 50th Infantry"
- Both units that battled on D-Day. To make things short: the 6th Airborne is the front line, and the 50th Infantry is the one you think of when you think Saving Private Ryan.
DUDE I HAD SO MUCH TROUBLE TRYING TO KEEP THIS PAST TENSE YOU WOULDN'T EVEN BELIEVE. It kept switching on me, because this kind of - stream of consciousness narration always feels so much less awkward in the present tense. But I started it out past tense, and I gave up on changing it because construction for the two tenses vary enough to sound awkward, and then whenever I broke off to write a new section, the tense would change too and IT KILLED ME. Waugh.
Also. I deeply apologize to all British and Anglophile readers, because the beta I used refused to look up lists of America-English differences in the language for me, and I agonized over this in my head for long enough that we were already under time constraints when I sent it to her (hence the last minute-ness of this post, which I also deeply, deeply apologize for). I am most decidedly from Alfred. I'll probably go back and Brit-pick it later, but for now, I only offer my most humble apologies and note that I at least managed to avoid the words "elevator," "Mom," and "apartment." That is all. I fail at life. *sigh* Sorry.