02.
How I Wonder What You Are
The launch isn't until the next morning, and so America goes back to his home and tries to pretend the ticket isn't burning a hole in his pocket. He takes it out and puts it on the night table beside his bed, because he doesn't want to forget it in the morning. He sets his alarm for the first time in as long as he can remember. Goes around his room, looking for things he will take with him. There are lots of things, he finds. Too many to fit in one bag. So he fills the first and goes on to the second. If there's anybody allowed to request extra space on a shuttle, then it's most definitely him. It is an American shuttle, after all. And he is America. And the thing will only be half full anyway, judging by the amount of luggage being hauled aboard.
And then England comes to call. He knocks loudly on America's door and then, when there's no answer for longer than he likes, calls up at America's open window. "America, I know you're up there! It's rude to keep guests waiting on your doorstep!"
America sighs and drops the second half-full bag on his bed. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he calls back as he heads for the door, not really caring whether England hears him. "I'm comin', I'm comin'!"
He deliberately takes the stairs at a slow saunter, and pulls the door open exaggeratedly slowly. England shoves inside, trailed by a quick burst of night breeze, cooling as the sun sets and smelling fresh and sharp. America closes the door on it.
"I know you can't resist visiting and all," he says as he wanders back into the living room, trailing a thoroughly unamused Englishman, "but seriously, don't you ever call first? I don't need you to," he adds hastily without looking back. "It's not like I have to prepare for guests or anything. It's just rude not to let people know you're coming, you know?"
"They're taking the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution off planet today," England says, ignoring America's rambling. From his position a few paces behind his former colony, England has a perfect view of the way America's shoulders stiffen. But the nation doesn't deviate in his stride.
"Yep," he says, and stands to one side of the living room door, gesturing expansively that England should go first. "Just think about how awesome it'll be for the people on that shuttle, getting to spend time in the company of such neat papers. I mean, who knows how long they'll have to stay aboard? They might be able to say they spent years sitting right in front of my Declaration of Independence. How many people can claim that?"
England doesn't like that smile. It shows too many teeth. America's smiles generally do this, because there's no such thing as a happy medium where he is concerned. But this one widens to its limits and then freezes in place like it's been turned to stone, and America talks around it like he's having his photograph taken. It's eerie.
England takes a seat on the couch. "I take it you'll be going to see that shuttle off, then?"
The smile doesn't change. The stance does. America folds his arms across his chest, shifts his feet further apart. It almost looks defensive. "'Course I am," he says. "Who stays at home when the most important papers they ever helped write"-England gives America a raised eyebrow and a very skeptical look, which America ignores-"are being shot out into space to add a little bit more heroism to the galaxy? Just because you might-"
"I'll have you know," said England, and straightened up even further where he sat, "that some of my most vital national documents and papers have been shipped out over the past weeks on British shuttles. I have okayed each takeoff and been there to personally oversee. I don't neglect my country."
America shrugs. "All right, all right, keep your shirt on. Jeez."
"And," England adds, softer, "they're already beginning the disassembly of Big Ben."
This does catch America off-guard. That stone-still smile slips a little. "O-oh yeah?" He pulls himself together. "I bet that's gonna take up a lot of shuttles."
"So will the Statue of Liberty."
That blow allows no recovery. America's smile slides, catastrophically, covering up those gleaming teeth. It twitches feebly in its death throws as he tries to pull it back. Only the tiniest grin manages to remain, and this one bares no teeth. "Yeah," he says. "I bet it will."
England waves a hand at the couch beside him. America takes the silent hint and sinks down on the opposite end, leaning back into his cushions and staring at the wall opposite.
England says, voice less harsh this time, "I suppose you have been okaying the shuttle cargo."
"Well ..." America scratches his head. "I've been signing things, yeah. I guess those were probably the lists of stuff they've been removing from museums around the country. Been kinda preoccupied, though."
England can't help a slightly incredulous sidelong glance at his former colony. It's amazing how one can become such a powerful country and still have moments of such complete and utter stupidity. And somehow, miraculously, none of those many moments have quite managed to kill America yet. He's got the luck of the devil, England decides. Nothing else quite makes sense.
America turns his head back to England, and straightens his posture on the couch. England can see him pulling his shredded confidence back about him like a cloak, mending its myriad rips and tears and winding it back about his body. "So," he says. "Is that really all you came over to talk about? You've been staying in London, haven't you? I know my company is irresistible, but that's a really long plane trip."
But it's the end of the world, and long plane trips are the least of their worries. And somewhere along the way, between the moment he asks the question and the moment he trudges up to bed, America lets slip that there is a small piece of paper sitting up on his night table which will take him to the stars.
Suddenly England doesn't seem so superior. He tells America, coolly, that he is staying in a hotel a couple of miles away, and it's only after the Englishman has whisked himself out America's front door that the young nation realises England did not give him a room number. America supposes he could call the hotel, track England down that way, but the problem with the pair of them is and has always been their mutual stubbornness. So America doesn't call, and goes to bed telling himself that he shouldn't be feeling vaguely guilty about anything.
The shuttle launch is early the next morning, but America isn't one of the first ones there. He arrives fairly late, after many of his fellow passengers have already boarded, and slides his way with difficulty through the large crowd that has gathered for the launch. None of them seem to quite notice him, and it takes him several moments of pushing and shoving before he reaches the embarkation area.
He passes the officials there quickly, flashing his ticket and ascending the shuttle's ramp with sure footfalls. At the top, and just for a moment, he turns around to look back.
England doesn't duck away quickly enough. At least, America is fairly sure it's England. He doesn't get a good look; straggling passengers are hastening forward, catching him up in their rush, prodding him aboard. He has no choice but to take a seat. He manages to slide into one by the window, and, dropping his carry-on with little care on the seat beside him, he turns to peer closely out the window.
The crowds all blend, far down and far back, so that he can barely tell one person from another. But he has known England for more than two centuries; surely he ought to recognise his fellow, somewhere down there. So he scans the brown heads, and the black heads, and the red heads scattered here and there, bright points in the sea, and the blonde heads, and he strains to pick one out.
"Excuse me, sir." The shuttle's stewardess stands beside his seat, motioning to his carry-on. "I'm going to have to ask you to put this in the overhead bin, please. We need this seat free."
America turns from the window, preoccupied. "What? ... Oh, yeah. Sure." He grabs the bag and stands, whisking it over his head into the bin, and turning back to the window with just a small smile for the stewardess. And he watches until takeoff time, when the field is cleared and the heads recede into the distance to watch the launch in safety. He can't tell them apart that far away.
But he tries. Staring carefully out the window, he thinks back to standing just at the top of the ramp and staring back and seeing the flash of that face disappearing into the crowd.
The scariest thing is that suddenly, he isn't sure if it was even England in the first place.
They launch, and it's rough going while they reach escape velocity and blast up high into the atmosphere. It isn't a quiet shuttle. The engines roar and the roar surrounds him and bears them all away, and America is still looking out the window when the shuttle itself leaves him behind.
They are just about to break through the atmosphere. The engines have built their roar to a fever pitch and the passengers are all pressed back hard into their seats, and America watches the ground receding beneath them. And then suddenly there is a sharp tug in his chest, as if his heart has fluttered and stopped for just a split second, and then he is watching from outside the window as the shuttle roars away.
And he is falling. From the extreme upper edge of the atmosphere he is falling, down and down and down, gravity pulling him back to the Earth he wanted to leave, and for a moment he's afraid of what might happen when he hits the ground.
Personifications are hurt far more by the things they personify than by the physical reality of the world around him. When he hits the ground, it hurts and knocks the wind out of him, and he thinks perhaps he's broken something, but he can't tell because it doesn't quite hurt that badly. Not yet. But he has trouble standing or moving and just lies there for a moment, gasping and trying to reinflate his lungs.
England is there, it turns out. America doesn't know when he got there or why, but he's there, checking America carefully over and placing judgment and blame; America is an idiot and shouldn't have been trying whatever stupid stunt he was trying, and he hasn't broken anything but that's just pure dumb luck, and if England's offered hand up isn't accepted he's going to clobber the younger nation with it instead. He probably will do later, anyway.
For a while, America can't speak to defend himself. It's only after he's been pulled back to his feet by England, and they have got halfway back to the Englishman's car, that he finally manages words. "Man ... what do you think I was trying to do? Skydive?"
England opens his mouth, probably to start in on another rant, so America cuts him short.
"I didn't do anything," he says. "I was just sitting there, and then I got sucked out!"
"'Sucked out.'" England has befriended some of the world's finest fantasy authors of all time, but somehow he still has no imagination when it comes to America's stories. "You were 'sucked out' of the closed, pressurised space shuttle."
America nods. "Yeah! And you know ..."
Then he pauses, considering, and realisation begins to dawn. Scattered people are still heading away from the launch area, too absorbed in their own lives to notice the pair of nations arguing.
"... You know ... I think I know why."
"Oh, do you now?"
"It's them." America gestures expansively with the arm which is in less pain. "They still live here."
England just gives him a slightly annoyed look.
"They haven't left. They're still here. They're still American. And since they haven't left-"
Now that the theory looks credible, England is perfectly happy to break in. "-you can't leave either," he says.
America nods.
They reach England's car. The Englishman unlocks the door, hauls America's open and half-bundles him inside, then hurries around to his side and slides in. America can tell England is thinking something dour, by the way the man never seems to stop moving. He starts the car and drives away, going quite a few miles over the speed limit, and keeps his eyes stolidly on the road. "Sealand never came back."
The motor is the only reply England receives for a long time. America doesn't think he truly needs to give one. He doesn't know what to say, in any case. Sealand left with the only people who gave him being. Perhaps he's still alive out there somewhere, sleeping deep and peaceful in an English shuttle bound for God only knew where.
And perhaps not. Perhaps that tiny fort off the English coast is the only thing that remains. Stripped of their land, perhaps its nobility had given up who they thought themselves to be. Given up Sealand, the abandoned British fort, and Sealand, the tiny sailor-suited boy who had followed discretely at their heels.
America just doesn't know.
Anything.
Perhaps, he thinks, holding tight to a handhold on the car door as England takes a corner more sharply than is quite necessary, perhaps they'll all be able to depart on the last shuttles that leave Earth, when there will be no one left behind on the land at all. But what then? His people are spread out all across space, shuttles all taking differing courses in hopes of finding somewhere-anywhere-where life is possible. But he can't be in all those places at once. So maybe he'll never be able to leave at all.
England's hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel. If the road weren't so straight here, America is sure he would have been hurling them around corners with intent to kill. He's figured it out too. He's just as unsure as America is.
End notes:
- This is not scientifically correct by any means, because scientific correctness isn't the point of the story. However, if any glaring errors are pointed out, I'll do my best to fix them.
- This will not be a cohesive story, as such. Each new chapter will probably be a oneshot (in extreme cases, a two-shot in two chapters), and the next will be about a different character altogether. They will be in chronological order, though.
- I plan to deal with a lot of characters' reactions to these events in later chapters. If there's one you'd like to see, let me know. Other thoughts are welcomed as well.