Chapter 3

I wrung my hands nervously, something I was definitely not used to when it came to world conferences, I mean I was England! I had never felt any need to do anything besides speak my mind during these godforsaken things, but today, well today was going to be different. I scanned the room trying desperately to invoke some tiny amount of recognition but, of course, all I saw was a room almost completely full of unfamiliar women and a small scattering of men. How could I expect to find someone in here I knew when I couldn't even recognize France!

"The game is easier to play when you know the rules." Marianne whispered sliding her hand reassuringly into mine. "Just remember they are female counterparts to people you have met, I'm sure they couldn't be all that different, at least their outwardly ethnic appearance will be the same. Look at the person your talking and try to visualize what area of the world you would think she was from, at least that will lower it down for you."

"You aren't going to sit with me?" I said squeezing hard onto her hand, she smile and shook her head.

"We have assigned seating, alphabetically, so your in the U section obviously." Oh right some people had the capability to organize things. We had attempted to sit in assigned seats once, but it quickly dissolved and we gave up on that, apparently it had stuck better here. Which meant that I was stuck sitting with a whole bunch of people I didn't know, who on top of that would expect that we sat together at every meeting! "You sit next to Emily, at least you will know who she is, and with her you can't get a word in edgewise anyhow." America was a loud mouth I could probably skirt by on just bantering with her. I breathed in deeply, this wouldn't be so hard, its just people what could I possibly do wrong? "Do you want me to walk over with you, so that you don't look like you have no idea where your seat is?" I felt my chest tighten, the sarcastic glint in her blue eyes reminded me suddenly of the France I had always known. How could this woman sometimes be him and the next be someone kind and understanding! She negotiated our way through the crowd, my eyes falling quickly to each face, each more beautiful then the next, every straight man's fantasy, many incredibly good looking women most of which happened to be lesbians.

"Yo chica, come here I wanna talk to you before the meeting." The woman who spoke was tall and strikingly pretty, like Marianne she looked like a model, but otherwise her polar opposite, with tan skin, thick dark hair and green eyes. Language! Why hadn't I thought about that, obviously someones specific language would help to know who they are!

"Do I not seem like I'm in the middle of something Spain?" Marianne asked pulling me closer, the other woman screwed up her pretty face.

"Si, cause Rosa can't walk herself across a room, mas importante hermana." Spain said rolling her eyes and taking hold of the blond's hand. "Come on Marie." France looked over at me, cocking her head in question. I nodded, she didn't need to drop everything in life just to deal with me, I was an adult after all and had lived on my own for a long time. She leaned in close to my ear.

"You see America over there?" I looked over and nodded. "Sit next to her, you have a name plate. If you need anything come find me." She pressed her lips lightly against my cheek. "Sorry I have to keep it authentic." My face flushed red, and a part of me was disheartened. France would kiss me in public, but he would only do it in an annoying way, he would never willing show real affection, though that was probably my fault for stopping him so many times...

"You talking dirty to her?" Spain smirked throwing an arm around her friend.

"Oui Isabella, are you jealous, shall I continue?" The dark haired woman laughed as they disappeared into the crowd. I took another breath, come on Arthur pull yourself together!

"Oh I'm so sorry!" I fell forward catching myself on a chair as someone came colliding with my back, I spun around to see a small dark haired woman picking up a tray and the pieces of glass that had once been the cups she was carrying, that and the apron around her waist, she must be a waiter that I almost killed!

"No I'm the one who should be sorry, I was standing spaced out in the middle of a crowd." She smiled in relief. I knelt down to the ground helping her pick up the shards of cup all over the floor. The servers were always from one country, it rotated so that everyone had to drag people here at any given time. She appeared to be of Asian descent, her almond shaped black eyes looked up at me with interest.

"If you don't mind me asking, what were you doing just standing there?" She raised a black eye brow. "Besides looking embarrassed by the other woman kissing you."

"Oh no, I mean..." Shit! "We're, um married, so I wasn't embarrassed. Obviously...Why did you think I was?" She smiled kindly, rubbing her hands on the apron before standing to adjust her red skirt.

"I don't know, you just seem, uncomfortable with her. You have been married long?" She asked taking the glass from my hand and placing a towel in it to dry off. Had we been? She said that Canada was ours, so maybe we had been together as long as she had been around, but then again we could have gotten together at millions of other instances I had no idea if history was even the same here! I spun Rose's wedding band as I dried the coffee off it, there was definite wear to the jewelry, that most likely meant that we had been together for at least a fairly long time, I mean one hundred years was long for a regular human like this waitress was!

"Yes, we've been together a good number of years, definitely longer then a human life time, so um here, I must get to my seat." She took the towel from my hands as I turned quickly away making my way through the many people in the room until I found my seat beside America, who appeared to have decided to put some clothing on to attend a business meeting.

"You warm or something?" She asked pointedly, I must look like I was running because that was America speak for you look like crap right now.

"Yes I guess so." I dropped to the seat placing my briefcase onto the table scrubbing my hand over my face.

"Do you want me to call over a waitress? We can get you water or something." I couldn't help smiling at her concern, manic as Alfred was he did always care when it was important, and it seemed that Emelia was the same. She stood up towards the back of the room and I leaned back in my chair. Life here was so much different, I wasn't alone, I was happy...At home all I ever felt was lonely, it seemed like everyone in my world was always fighting and power struggling, but here...Me and France, our relationship seemed to be based on something else, Marianne seemed to genuinely love Rose and it made me wonder...Did Francis actually love me? Could he really after all our years of fighting?

"Here you are ms." America sat back down as a waitress placed a glass of water down next to my arm, the tone of her skin caught my eye. I looked up, she had long white blond hair and big blue eyes, but that couldn't be right...

"Thank you. America what country are waiters from today?" I asked sipping the water slowly.

"I think Zofia said that they were coming from her country, I guess that woman looked Polish so that sounds right to me." Poland? The waiters were Polish, but the one from before...She had definitely been Asian...She couldn't have been from the same country as the server that I had helped clean up before. I scanned the room quickly, there were so many people there was no way that I could find her, not without having any idea who I was looking for! Arms wrapped around my waist, a chin rested on my shoulder. Even without looking around I knew it was the woman I had thought was a waitress. My eyes rested on her red fingernails against my pale pink shirt.

"I don't know whats wrong with you today, but I do know one thing. Your currently weaker then normal." She purred into my ear, the accent finally registering in my mind.

"What do you want China?" I asked trying to move from her grasp, I didn't know this woman, but if she was anything like her male counterpart she was completely unpredictable, and could go from tranquil to crazy in a single moment.

"I don't want anything England, just letting you know that I always know your weaknesses. And that I'm watching you, have fun today." Her grasp left my body just as I managed to turn around, to find no body there. Damn it! How the hell could she tell that I wasn't totally myself today!

"Something wrong?" America asked, I shook my head.

"Just talking to China, shes in a good mood today."

"Shes always cheery around you, I don't think she has gotten over you taking Ana all those years ago. Not that I think Hong Kong cares anymore, but the woman can keep a grudge when she puts her mind to something." All of the dealings with Hong Kong had always made relations tense between me and China, but not like this, though I didn't really know the whole story, maybe things had been even worst when I took control of the little island nation...Its hard to take accountability when you don't even know if what you did was forgivable or not!

"Everyone sit down we're going to begin." A serious young woman stood in the front of the room, pushing back her cropped blond hair out of her face as the other occupants of the room settled down into their seats around her. "Thank you, now let us start who would like to remind everyone of what we are continuing from last week?" This girl was probably Germany, he tends to take control of the meetings, there was also the coloration and strong features that reminded me of the women that I had met from his country. The blond pointed to a raised hand. "Yes Russia?" Nothing good could come of this, and given the fact that China was mad at me...I looked to the person standing. I was immediately reminded a runway model, extremely tall, pale and androgynous with long straight silvery hair and wide set periwinkle eyes. A broad smile spread across her face even though it did reach her dead pan gaze.

"I believe that England was the last person to be speaking last week, at least thats what I have in my notes. Would you mind continuing on your highly interesting points for us Rose?" She raised a barely visible blond eye brow. I swallowed as hard as possible trying to remove the knot that had suddenly lodged in my throat, yet my mouth appeared mysteriously void of saliva. I had to move, if I didn't do something soon the hundreds of eyes that were now completely focused on where I was sitting would know that there was obviously something wrong with me. I slide my sweaty palms over the skirt to dry them and pushed myself up.

"Well of course I would like to continue with my thoughts from the previous meeting Russia, that was very kind of you bring that up for us." I said with the most confidence I could possibly muster as my whole body shook like a leaf. "I am never one turn down an opportunity to have my voice heard, so obviously..." A blaring siren filled the room and bright lights flashed both at annoyingly high frequency. "And that seems to be the fire alarm, why don't we all exit the building." I felt my stomach ache subsiding as I moved with the crowd out of the room. There was no way there was really a fire, the timing was just to coincidental for something like that...

"Marianne!" I managed to push myself through to her, grabbing hold of the woman's arm, she moved in closer to me. "Did you pull the fire alarm?" I asked as she shook her head.

"I assumed you had something to do with it." She said pulling us away from the group as we came outside of the building.

"No I didn't, and neither did you...I don't get it, no one else had any reason to do it, unless there was something else that they were preventing?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but of course we do not know all the goings on." She suggested turning us away from the other people who had been in the meeting. "Whatever it was, that was a stroke of luck, why on earth did Anya do that? I know Rose was talking last week, but still she doesn't normally call people out like that."

"I might have given China a reason to know there was something...Not right."

" Sacré bleu, what happened ma chérie?" She asked holding onto my arm while we leaned against the tree.

"She pretended to be a waitress and I didn't recognize her, she must have been watching us talk and could tell that I wasn't acting normal. So she took that moment to prey on the weak." France smiled sympathetically.

"And I heard you talking to her, thats why I pulled the fire alarm." We both spun to the side where a tiny blond girl in a sailor suit stood hands on her hips. "I also saw her talk to you in your seat, I didn't think you would want to talk in front of the whole group, not when you could barely talk one on one." Marianne clapped her hand over her mouth.

"Hattie, you could be in so much trouble for doing that!" The little girl shrugged unconcernedly flopping crossed-legged to the ground in front of us.

"You looked like you needed help, are you okay?" I reached my arms out to the child, letting her climb into my grasp. There wasn't a question in my mind who she was, I had known from the moment she had spoken.

"I am perfectly fine now, thank you Sealand." I said letting her nuzzle her face into my neck, when was the last time I had done anything like this with my Peter? When was he even home anymore? Ever since he had moved to Scandinavia, it seemed like he was no longer around. I pressed a kiss to her hair lifting her up into my arms. "Lets get out of here before they find us again."

"I'll make an excuse for us later, your right, being here with China and Russia on the prowl isn't going to end well, I think we might need to study before we can come out in public." She said wrapping her arm around me and Hattie.

"What do you have to study mommy?" Sealand asked twirling her fingers through my hair in a way that I couldn't remember any child doing to me since my kids were only babies.

"Don't worry honey, I'll explain when we get home."

Sorry I never update anymore, I guess I just can't get myself to sit down and write! I hope this chapter was okay and not to out line with the rest of the story!