Quick update and long chapter. Still some explaining, action will start in the next chappy. Please Review and I love you all!

Enjoy.

I first realized something was different six months ago when my friends and I were rocking out on Rin's ukelele. Now, I admit I'm not a horrible songstress, but I am definitely no Adele or Freddie Mercury, or even Britney Spears once you auto tune her good and plenty. So that doesn't explain how I was able to sing rolling in the deep "better than Adele herself." No, not at all making of the sense.

I remember it pretty well, the moment when I realized I was singing alone and my friends were gawking.

"What?"

"How long did you just hold that fermata Baby?" It was Anne, count on her to be watching my bar holding abilities.

"I dunno, two bars mabes. Why?" Then I realized what I'd just said and turned around. The whole cafeteria, it seemed, was staring. As soon as I turned, they looked away and started chatting again. It was bizarre.

"Two? Try more like eight." That was Rin, of course. Considering she was playing the Uke, she would know how many bars had passed.

Even Kelsey looked up from doodling long enough to nod and go back to her work.

"Umm... I can't hold three bars without a breath, let alone eight. I think you must have made a mistake." I shrugged.

"Whatever. You still held that note for a long time."

Now that I think about it, that night wasn't the first time I dreamed the dream. I had thought it was, but now I'm pretty sure that the nigh before I held the fermata I had dreamed it as well. Oh, right; the dream... it would probably help to explain.

After a long day and a few hours of homework, I finally managed to collapse that night. The first time I vividly remembered dreaming the dream was the night after the singing incident.

You see, my dreams are usually predictably random. I always have at least three layers of dream and they usually have to do with stupid stuff like TV shows or movies and books. Often they involve traveling, and this night was no different.

I was at the Camp Lazlo camp with members of Disney Channel's camp rock as well as (for some reason) Sheldon from the Big bang theory. We were working together on a solution that would help the head counselor's mustache grow so he would stop feeding kids to the lions behind the mess hall. While we tried to work on that, Demi Lovato made fun of Sheldon and I got really upset and started crying. I threw the beaker of solution at her and it accidentally burnt her skin. I was then on the run from the camp lions (which although supposed to be lions, looked much more like mastiffs and for some reason at this point in the dream I was the girl from the original Escape to Witch Mountain) because the head counselor turned out to be Demi's father. At this point you may be wondering, "what does this have to do with anything?" For starters, this isn't the dream that is important.

No, that dream came later. But not by much. When I was being chased by the lions, I started to lose the grip on the dream and not hear things as clearly which is usually a sign I'm waking up. So when I "woke up" to find myself in a completely different dream scape, I was pretty surprised.

"The Dream" always took place in a beautiful park at nighttime. It was close to a stream and the flowers were in bloom. Sweet scented roses glowed silver in the moonlight and one of those archways with the honeysuckle twined up it and hanging heavy from the top was in front of me. It was a lovely place, but strangely vivid.

Like any good little girl, I decided to explore my surroundings. Through the archway I went and out into the rows of rosebushes that lined the park path. It was an oddly quiet, lonely place. The only life I could pick out were the flowers and the fireflies. Until I realized that my shadow on the path had a friend.

I stopped and turned around; there was a man behind me I had never seen before. He looked at me for less than a split second before turning away. He didn't say anything.

"Who are you?" My voice surprised me since it was my normal one not a dream made version. So I repeated. "Who are you?" No reply.

I kept walking. Every time I stopped, he stopped too. I tried to catch him off guard, but I was shy and let him be. At least... that night I did.

When I went to bed the next night, my normal dream was much shorter and "the dream" (I started calling it the Rose Garden Dream. I know: original, right?) lasted longer. This time, I worked up the courage to talk to the guy more and tried to get a better look at him. Since recurring dreams are a rare thing for me, I was happy to finally have one. It was like getting a second chance to lengthen the story.
After a while, though, I just sat down by the creek and watched the water flow past. This time, there were birds in the garden.

When I had the dream for a third time, I started to get a bit weirded out. Nonetheless, I kept talking to my "friend" and tried to get closer to try and see his face. On the fourth night the dream took up nearly half of my sleep (or so I estimated) and my normal dreams lasted for not much time at all. That night, I started getting fed up with Blondie (my name for the mute guy) and his constant following of me wherever I went. I started circling him and trying to get closer, but he was a bit to smart for me.

The next day I came up with a master plan. I didn't know if it would work, but I hoped it would. Almost the entire time I shelved at the library I was thinking about Blondie. I guess I must have been distracted because for some reason when I got home, I realized I had checked out five different books on the history of Great Britain. Plus I had a craving for peppermint tea. I don't know why.

The fifth night of the dream commenced my master plan. In the dream, every time it came, I would jog. I jogged throught the park, which was much bigger than I thought it would be, without stopping. Well...without randomly stopping. I'm not a good runner, so I slowed to a walk more than I'd like to admit. For some reason, the dream always felt pretty real. And everytime I went there it seemed something was added. Like the unmanned lemonade stand by the Honeysuckle arch... or the little blue bird that landed on my head when I stopped to rest.

After three weeks of randomly jogging in my little dream world, it was time to test my theory. Like always, after an incredibly short random dream about extremely tasty apples (yes... it was an odd dream) I "awoke" in the park. My little bluebird friend chirped and fluttered down to nibble on my hair as I made my way to the bench to stretch. The whole time I'd been jogging, I had discreetly kept tabs on Blondie to make sure he was close behind. I always gave him plenty of warning when I was about to come to a stop, but not today. One of the additions to the dream-scape was a small, Japanese style bridge over the creek (which was about two feet deep and five feet across) and it would serve as my trap in this experiment.

I took off jogging, following my usual route while taking some shortcuts and random paths. Although it hadn't helped at all in real life, my dream jogging stamina had increase a bit to the point where I could go nonstop for say... ten minutes. At the pace of a limp horse. Yeah... maybe not that bad, but you get my point. I'm no athlete. I gave that up for my writing ability and comedic timing.

So we came up close to the creek on the path and, like usual, I sped up a bit to leap from the bridge to the path on the other side. Only this time, I didn't leap. I spun around and stopped; in the dead middle of the bridge.

Blondie didn't get the memo and crashed into me, which was what I had wanted. His eyes were green and he was young, just a bit older than me. Maybe in his twenties. And the collision with him felt like I was being hit by a bus.

"Yahh!" I don't know which of us screamed, but it didn't matter because we both plummeted (if you can call it plummeting when it's like, three feet) off the bridge and into the water.

"Ack!" I sat up in the creek, spitting water and shaking hair out of my eyes. "Oh hey, there are fish in here..."

"What the bloody hell are you trying to pull!" Blondie was angrily blinking water out of his eyes and rubbing his head where we'd collided. Mine was throbbing a bit too, but I wasn't about to let that distract me. He'd finally spoken.

"I should be asking you that. You come into my dreams and continually show up only to stalk me silently through some human deprived flower garden. The least you could do would be offer an explanation as to why I keep having this same dream! Isn't that what people who live in a dream-scape are supposed to do?"

"What, explain your own mind to you? It's me who's stuck here you twat!"

British accent... my subconscious knows me too well. Eeeee...

"Oh so you ARE stuck here. Then why not tell me? It wouldn't kill you to have some company would it? But when I say company," I cut in as he opened his mouth to argue, "I mean company that involves actually talking to the person and not just following her like some Blond British shadow. Who are you anyway? My name's Barbara Jean Lipincott and now you have to answer because it is common courtesy to tell your name to someone who's already introduced themselves... so ha!" I breathed heavily and looked at him for a reaction.

Blondie blinked, then smiled sadly. "You're right, I do. But can we at least get out of the water first? It isn't cold here, but we're still sopping wet."

"Oh. Sorry, sure yeah, okay..." Shy mode had suddenly kicked in and I blushed (if people can blush in dreams...) and he helped me out of the creek and into the grass.

If I didn't still (secretly and deep down) believe (or hope earnestly that it was possible) in magic, I would have found the entire story Bull. But I was actually excited to find out that my wildest and bizarrest dreams were sort of trueish. Okay, so I never thought that the spirits of nations actually took human forms... I mean, aside from Scandinavia and the World I had never really given the possibility much thought. Of course, SATW characters weren't exactly the type of people you wanted to secretly be living inside your head. Aside from that, his story made absolutely no sense to me at the time, but I decided to believe it anyway.

Blondie's name turned out to be Arthur Kirkland, the representative (he had to go back and explain that he meant "personification" later because I was very confused by how someone from the house of representatives could be inside my head, or British. Yes, I am American. I am also kinda slows sometimes) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

"So, you, in a way, are the country of..."

"The United Kingdom of-"

"England."

"*sigh* Yeah, pretty much."

After he apologized for ignoring and confusing me, as well as not talking to me when I was awake (which I now wish he wouldn't do, I now have to deal with the guy 24/7) he tried to explain how he had gotten us into this situation in the first place; something happened to his body and his spirit was now (for some unknown reason) attached to mine.

"You see, the nations can only die three ways; another nation can kill us, our people can develop a "national sense" and become powerful enough to kill us as a mob, or our people and land can be so devastated and ruined by forces of nature (like famines or natural disasters) that our bodies are destroyed from the inside and we die that way. But if something simply happens to our body with no national significance; our spirit and actual country is unharmed, but we are separated from out bodies until they can heal enough to support us."

"Hmmm... weirdly, that makes sense. Hey Artie?"

"Arthur, dear. I hate nicknames. What?"

"Are you a good singer?"

So now it's been about five months since I finally managed to talk to him and Arthur has avoided the subject of "special condition" that I know nothing more than what he told me the first night. In other words; what happened to his body, why he is "attached" to me and why he hasn't gone back yet are all a mystery to me. All I know is that for the time being (and it doesn't look like he's going anywhere soon) I have a young British man in my head nagging me to correct my spoken grammar and to work on pronunciation. Yay. I swear, if that guy's accent weren't so hot...

But now this new information has slipped. He probably didn't mean for me to hear it, or to say it at all, but the fact that he referred to Alfred as "dead too" is not very promising. I thought Engl-Arthur had said nations couldn't die?

And not to mention that spinning feeling. Arthur had taken over my body once before, but it was while I slept so I guess I didn't feel it as much. Still though, it was as though he unconsciously did it... and I have been feeling weird lately. So maybe he's taken control of me (yek, that sounds really bad) more times than that? No... he seemed as confused as I was... It didn't make sense. And if he had taken over my body while I slept, I should have had no dreams like I did the time with the mackerel...

"So... what's your name?" I asked the boy across the table from me as I tried to ignore the two voices having a nice little "chat" in my head.

"Sean."

"Ahhh... I'm Barbara, but everyone just calls me Baby." I try to smile,, but it comes out feeling more like a grimace.

"Oh."

Awkward silence then...

"Everyone calls me "tiny." Or at least they used to before-"

"Before you started hitting on older women?" I couldn't resist, his face got red and he glared at me, but I still found it amusing.

"How old do you think I am?"

"Mmmm..." I sipped and pretended to think "Thirteen maybe? Fourteen? Twelve?"

"Huh. Wow, that's actually not what I thought you were going to say..."

"I don't judge on stature. If you want me to say five or six, I couldn't because it would be a lie and make me feel guilty. Plus, I didn't realize you were vertically challenged until like ten minutes ago."
I could tell he didn't believe me, and we kind of sat in silence for awhile, listening to Arthur and Alfred. Until it was necessary to cut in.

But dude, come on! I mean, I've already been to my place-

Yes, your place is only a bus ride away from here. I am NOT kidnapping a child to fly across the Atlantic ocean!

Technically, I'd be kidnapping myself...

Girl has a point, dog.

You two stay out of this-

Arthur, we've got to at least go to Mattie's place and try to find him-

I don't have a passport.

See? She doesn't have a passport, so we couldn't get to Canada anyway!

We COULD swim across lake Ontario...

Yeah we could!

Don't encourage him Baby!

Still, what are you two talking about anyway?

I well... in truth I need to go to my house and pick up some things and we should try to contact the other members of the G8 at least but-

But Iggy's too chicken to face Francis in a girl's body!

GIT! That isn't it at all!

Then what is it, pops?

It's... I don't want to...

We didn't get the chance to find out what it was that he didn't want to do because at that moment, a man walked into the tea shop and the mental conversation ground to a halt.
He had a long ponytail and sunglasses, but I couldn't see his face very well. He seemed normal though, so I couldn't understand the touch of fear in England- Arthur's voice when he next spoke.

Barbara, lets get out of here now.

Huh, why?

Arthur...

I know, Al.

But-

Barbara, get out of here now.

I stood to leave and thanked the lady at the counter. Sean stood as well, and I got to the door. I couldn't understand why those two were so freaked out. It was just a normal guy.
I started to push open the door when I heard Al's last comment before we exited the shop.

Arthur, that's him.