I feel like Alfred's a little OOC here but whatever.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.
Alice was thirteen when Alfred finally shared what had happened before they met. He was fifteen, and they had officially been best friends for three years. She had only just turned eleven when they had met for the first time.
Both of them had begun to mature, they didn't run around the castle and play hide and seek or tag for hours. Usually they just sat in one of the sitting rooms or her bedroom when Alfred came over. As they got older, there was more homework, so often they just did that, making joke about a dead guy's name or a stupid law.
They were the same height for the time being, but Alice knew her friend would easily out grown her. Her family wasn't super tall and who knew about Alfred's. She was getting better dresses, some showed a little more skin, a few were sleeveless. Alice didn't love them overly much. She was still small and skinny, and not very pretty. A nicer dress wouldn't change that.
She hoped she got prettier when she got older, maybe she would look more like her mother. Her mother was especially pretty, at least in Alice's mind.
Alfred always said she was really pretty even beautiful sometimes. She wasn't sure if he actually meant that or if he was just being a nice friend.
Alfred's voice had deepened a little while back too, which had given Alice several opportunities to laugh at him and his voice cracks.
They were sitting in her bedroom, she was laying across her bed and Alfred was on the floor. They were both working on some algebra homework, but Alice was terrible at it and Alfred was a whole page ahead of her.
The princess sighed and plopped her head down on her book. "How do you get this?" She whined, she heard a chuckle from Alfred.
"I just get it, you're better at writing and reading than I am." He said.
Alice propped up her head, and looked back to him. "You know I don't even need this, I'm going to be queen! Queens don't sit around solving-" She looked back at the book to see what they were doing. "quadratic equations. I'll have someone to do it for me if it's really needed."
"Luxury of being queen. It's still nice to know, I like math..." He trailed off and laughed instead when he noticed her disgusted look.
"I don't understand how you're so much better than me at this though, you've only been going to classes for two years." The princess returned.
He frowned. "I went to some kind of classes before– I knew how to read and add, subtract, multiply, stuff like that, I had to be taught that beforehand, right?" He sounded like he was asking more than telling.
"I suppose." They were quiet for a minute, Alice rolled over onto her back and pushed the forgotten math book to the side. She stared up at the ceiling, even it was perfect with its fancy crown molding and smooth paint. She decided to ask what she had been wondering for a while. "Do you remember anything, about before you came here?"
There was a deep breath, but Alice couldn't see his expression. "Yes. It's not the good, though."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I probably should."
"You don't have to."
"No, I want to. I should. You should know." He paused before beginning. "The earliest memories I have are when I was probably about nine or ten. I can't remember anything before that, nothing clear anyway. Sometimes there's blurry pictures of people or voices that I can't hear, but I know they're talking. Some things seem familiar, like when we talk about Americana, I'm pretty sure I was from there at some point, maybe."
"Your accent is more Americanan that Britannian. I've noticed that." Alice added. She rolled over again and rested her head on her arms, able to see him now. He seemed small and jumpy again, like how he was when they first met. She didn't like when he looked like that, it made her sad.
"Yeah, it is." Alfred was playing with his fingers absentmindedly. "Those rebels, the ones who stormed the Americana castle, they're the only people I can clearly remember from my childhood. A group of them escaped before the army came and killed them all. I think they kidnapped me from somewhere in Americana, somewhere near the castle, but we were constantly moving. By the time I figured that out, I had no idea where I was from. They were mean to me, usually keeping me tied up and making me carry their things and do the nitty-gritty work. When I did anything wrong, or they were just bored, they'd hit me and yell at me or break something or shoot things. The worst time was when one of the men was drunk and shot me here."
Alice gasped softly, as Alfred pointed to the right, just above his waist. "Even though they did all that, hurt me and abused me and stuff, they always quickly treated my wounds and fed me just enough so I wouldn't complain or starve. Even when there wasn't enough food to go around and others in the group went without food, they always fed me. They were keeping me alive, but I never understood why. I couldn't figure out why they didn't just kill me. I still don't.
"Then we were on the border and some Britannian soldiers saw us and started shouting to stop and put down our things. It was like a switch flipped. Within seconds after the soldiers said something, they were all started pulling out their guns and started shooting each other. When people to kill ran out, they just pointed their guns at their heads and killed themselves. Until the end they kept say,'Times will change, you will all fall'. One of them tried to kill me too, but I managed to get away. When I woke up I was here." Alfred concluded with a exhale. He looked shaky, still playing with his fingers and staring at the floor with glassy eyes.
Alice crawled off of her bed and sat next to him and offered a hug. He silently hugged her back tightly. She was pretty sure he had begun to cry. "I'm sorry. About all of it."
"You couldn't have done anything."
Alice didn't say anything back. He was right, she couldn't have done anything, and all she could do now was to help Alfred through this and be the best friend she could be. That would have to work for now.