Back with Chapter 2! Ready to climb the stairway to Heaven? Enjoy!

Additional Characters

Elizaveta – Hungary

Man in Heaven – Estonia

Boy on beach – Sealand

I don't own Hetalia or A Matter of Life and Death!

Chapter 2 : It's Heaven, isn't it!

Flight Engineer, Kyle Kirkland never thought Heaven would be like this. Everything was white with smooth, curved walls, not a sharp edge or pointed corner in sight. Right now Kyle was sat on a cushioned bench, watching attending angels, stood behind a counter, processing the new arrivals to Heaven and handing them their wings. Wartime was such a busy time for them as members of the militaries of every country involved in the current conflict spilled from the stairway that Kyle himself had traversed less than an hour ago. He scanned each new arrival, looking for someone in particular.

Two soldiers came off the stairway but neither of them were Arthur. One was dressed in a British Army officer's uniform and the other was dressed in a French one. The Frenchman was babbling in rapid French but from the hand gestures, Kyle surmised that the Frenchman was describing his death. When he finished, the army officer patted the Frenchman on the back and said, "Bad luck, old man!"

Kyle settled back into his seat as a crowd of American pilots came up the stairway, laughing and joking with each other. 'Well, at least dying had not dulled their mood,' Kyle thought as he figured that, somewhere, an American plane, perhaps a B-17, had gone down. They crowded round a machine dispensing a certain brand of soda that had appeared from nowhere and acquired bottles of the drink without needing quarters. Then they went to the counter to the attending angels. The angels presented a book for them to sign in and the pilot was the first to pick up the pen and scribbled his name in the book.

"I am assigned officer's quarters?" he asked, handing the pen to his co-pilot.

"All quarters are the same up here," the angel handing him his wings replied. The co-pilot smirked as he softly shoved the pilot to one side.

"Excuse me! Brother!" he drawled and he signed the book. Kyle lost interest and went back to watching the top of the stairway. After dealing with the American crew, Elizaveta looked up at the Australian who had yet to sign in but refused to until his cousin came. Elizaveta had already checked that Squadron Leader Arthur Kirkland had yet to arrived. The Hungarian angel with the long, brown hair had decided that either Arthur Kirkland had not arrived yet or was not due to.

"Flight Engineer Kyle Kirkland," she said as he looked up at her. "You can't stay here much longer, you really must sign in!" Kyle looked at the stairway one more time.

"You're absolutely sure Arthur hasn't arrived yet?," he asked. "There's no way he could have made it off the bomber alive! There's no mistake?" Elizaveta looked a little affronted.

"There hasn't been a mistake here for over a thousand years," she replied. Kyle raised a rather smug eyebrow.

"So mistakes have been made before," he said. Elizaveta looked a little uncomfortable.

"There was a mistake," Elizaveta admitted. "The girl before me. She told me that when there's a mistake, the alarm starts ringing in the Records Office" She pointed to some raised round viewing portals nearby.

"And how long have you been here?" Kyle asked as they strolled over to one of the viewing portals that looked down into the Records Department of Heaven.

"Six hundred years," Elizaveta replied and they looked down. Kyle had to admit that narrowed down the odds of a mistake. He looked down into the Records Department at all the people moving about among the billions upon billions of files, containing the details of everyone who lived or had ever lived on Earth.

"If someone had told me that there were clerks beavering about up here," Kyle mused. "I never would have believed them." Elizaveta smiled as another soul wandered over to the viewing portal and looked down. He had short blonde hair and green eyes behind square glasses as he looked around in awe.

"It's Heaven, isn't it!" the man exclaimed in an Estonian accent. Elizaveta gave a look of vindication.

"See, Mr Kirkland," she said. "Some think it would be Heaven to be a clerk!" And she steered Kyle to the counter to sign in and receive his wings.

"But it is possible for a mistake to be made?" he asked. Elizaveta sighed.

"Yes, it is possible but unlikely," she pointed to a complex ornate time measuring system above the counter. "If a mistake were to happen, such as if your cousin, and you, didn't sign in by the end of my shift, the alarms would ring when the time ran out."

"Then I better sign in," Kyle replied. "I wouldn't want the alarms to ring." He smiled at Elizaveta who smiled back as he signed the book and another angel behind the counter handed him his wings.

The clock ticked round but there was still no sign of Arthur. The clock ticked down and Elizaveta's shift ended and Arthur still had not arrived.

And the alarms began to ring.


The waves of the English Channel lapped against Arthur as he drifted, face up, toward shore, kept afloat by his flight harness which was a good thing because Arthur could not swim even if he was conscious. The current drove him toward the sandy beach and finally washed him ashore.

Arthur slowly awoke as the early morning sun shone down on him. He blinked in the sunlight, slowly standing up out of the shallow waves splashing over him and staggered out of the water. One of the first things he noticed was that he was missing a boot. He looked around as he discarded his flight harness and pulled off his remaining boot. Was this Heaven? It looked like a sandy beach in Britain. It had to be Heaven, there was no way he could have survived the jump from his bomber!

Where did he go? Was there some special place he had to report to? Why had nobody met him? Surely someone should have, to tell him what he did next!

He began to walk down the beach, pulling off his sopping wet socks and unzipping his flying jacket and discarding it, leaving his RAF uniform underneath, despite the fact that the uniform was sopping wet too. He must have walked a mile before he saw any sign of life when he heard a bark and turned to see a black and white border collie who stared at him and panted.

"So there are animals in Heaven," he mused. "I rather hoped there would be." He knelt down and called the dog to him. The collie obeyed and gave himself up to the strokes and pats that Arthur bestowed on him and then the dog padded away and Arthur followed him. As he pursued the dog, he began to hear the sound of a wind instrument, like a recorder. Arthur followed the music and came across a young boy, blonde, blue-eyed and with eyebrows that might have marked him as a Kirkland.

"Hello," Arthur said to the boy. "Where do I report?" Surely this boy could tell what he needed to do. The boy looked at him strangely.

"At the base, of course," he replied. What officer did not know that?

"The base?" Arthur began to realise that he was not dead or in Heaven. How he survived, he had no idea but it became clear to him that he had and been swept ashore in Britain. "Where is this base?" The young boy pointed down the beach.

"Just follow that path," he replied, pointing at a trail on the beach above the tidal point and coming down the trail was someone riding a bicycle. "That'll be one of those American girls. The Yanks use the trail to return to Hetalia House." Arthur turned to look back at the boy. Hetalia House! That was where Amelia said she was billeted, the girl on the bike might know Amelia. Arthur thanked the boy and ran toward the bike rider.


Amelia had reported the contact with Arthur to her superior so they knew his crew was out there so a rescue vessel could be sent and, maybe, they might find Arthur's body and be able to return it to his family. After that, she passed a rather subdued shift as Arthur played on her mind and she was glad when her shift ended.

She clutched the precious scrap of paper with Arthur's last wish written on it and retrieved her bike. Fuel was at a premium, thanks to the war, so fuel-less travel was keenly encouraged. She put her untouched lunch-box into the bicycle basket, put the paper into the pocket of her uniform and began her journey back to Hetalia House.

As she pedalled back to Hetalia House, her mind turned back to the British pilot who was probably dead now and Amelia wanted to cry again as the feeling of helplessness swept her again. Then she was pulled out of her melancholy by a voice calling to her.

A blonde man in an RAF uniform was running toward her bicycle, calling out in a British accent and she stopped her bike. As the man ran up to her, she noticed he was bare-foot and somewhat wet. He stopped in front of her and she noticed that he was rather cute with emerald green eyes and she wanted to cry when she saw his huge eyebrows.

Arthur said he had big eyebrows.

"Can I help you?" she asked and the man looked like he had been hit by a truck.


Arthur would know that voice anywhere! That Boston accent, so foreign to him but played so sweetly on his ear. The girl in front of him was very pretty with shoulder-length blonde hair and eyes the colour of the summer sky and she wore an female US Air force uniform.

Could he had been so lucky as to be swept ashore close to his American angel on the radio?

"Amelia?" he asked, tentatively.


Amelia wondered how the man knew her name and then it occurred to her that she had heard his voice before. She tried thinking of all the British officers she knew but none came to …..

That voice! It could not be!

Could it?

"Arthur?" she replied, just as tentatively as he did. The man's eyes glowed and his face split into the biggest smile she had ever seen. It was him! How he had survived she did not know but he was alive, that was all that mattered!

"Arthur!" She exclaimed, taking his face in both hands as if to reassure herself that it was him and he was here alive in front of her. "You're alive! But how …..."

Arthur disregarded her question, sweeping her into his arms and into a passionate kiss!

Our love birds have finally met but, as you can tell, they weren't supposed to and that'll cause trouble later. 'It's Heaven, isn't it' was spoken by a very young Richard Attenborough in, probably, one of his first roles.

To madsbouc – Happy to have given you what you wanted and I hope I don't disappoint with the rest of the story :) I update every week and I only have about two chapters left to finish on this story so the updates will be regular. Stay tuned!

To Normandy – Not to worry, he didn't! ;) But, as you see, that's the problem! And no hamburgers will be harmed in the writing of this story! :P

To DeiDeiArtistic – Yeah! Sad about Australia but he's not gone yet! :D Hope you enjoyed this chapter as well :)

To ArtemisIsis13 – I'm not surprised you're not familiar with the film, I only came across it by accident as it was released in 1946 and flips from black and white to colour. I made you cry in five minutes! Is it bad of me to feel proud of that? :D Kyle might be dead but he's not gone yet. He'll be popping up every now and then so look out for that! :)

That's that for this week! Next week, There's trouble in Heaven and someone comes looking for Arthur with bad news.

Till then,

Hasta la Pasta!