Alfred read the note over again before looking up. No one was there. Thunder crashed and lightning flashed and there in the doorway was Arthur. His eyes were wild, and he looked scared. Thunder crashed again and the older nation put his hands over his ears and fell to his knees. Alfred quickly put everything back in the box, threw it under the bed and knelt down next to him. Arthur weakly pushed him away.

"Go away…" He whispered. Lightning flashed and lit the room. Alfred wrapped his arms around him as thunder crashed again. Arthur winced and curled into him, he put his hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed together.

"It's okay Arthur…" He whispered. He winced as he moved, his back reminding him of what the Brit had done to him. Arthur looked up at him and opened his eyes. His emerald green eyes were filled with tears. Thunder crashed again and Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, curling into him more, trying to block out the sound and light. Alfred held him until the storm was over.

Alfred woke up in his old bed in Arthur's house. His back was stuck to the bed sheets, but at least he was alive. He peeled his back off and walked to the closet, moving the way too small clothes aside to see the mirror he had put in there. He turned and looked at his back. It was perfectly cut – expertly even - but looked infected already. He sighed, turning away and pulled the box back out from under the bed. He opened up the journal that had the two messages to him in and he read them over. He wrote his own little letter to no one in his horrid hand writing and closed it quickly, hearing Arthur walking down the hallway. He slid it back under the bed and looked up in time to see the Brit. He was back to being cold. Last night he had fallen asleep with Alfred and he had to carry the elder back to his own room and bed. The Brit must've remembered that because he gave Alfred a somewhat nice nod. He walked into Alfred's room and threw a shirt at him, and then sat on his bed.

"You're coming to the meeting with me today." Alfred nodded, wondering how to respond to that. At least I'll know how Gilbert felt when Ivan had him… He did have one question though.

"Arthur? Can… I ask you something?" Arthur looked surprised at the fear in his voice.

"Sure." He said coldly.

"Does… The news normally get around that fast… That a nation has been… destroyed?" A lump formed in his throat as he said the last word. Yes. I was destroyed. He thought to himself.

"Not usually. But your brother wanted it done as soon as possible, I guess." He shrugged. Alfred nodded and put the shirt on. It was tight and cut into his back. Looks like I get to wear this for a while… He thought to himself. He looked at Arthur, who – from what he could tell – was all ready to go. Arthur sighed. "Can you see a damn thing?" Alfred shook his head lightly then nodded.

"I can see some things." Arthur sighed again.

"Your eyesight was always horrible…" He got up and walked out of the room. "Meet me in my room and five minutes or you'll go blind." His words sounded cold, but it seemed like his intentions, if Alfred was there in five minutes, were good. Alfred quickly turned to look back at his closet before looking back under his bed, reading through notes. He counted to sixty three times in his head. He quickly put everything away and walked to Britain's room, still counting. He opened the door slowly at the last ten seconds and closed the door softly behind him, turning around and looking around the blurry room as soon as he reached the last sixty.

"Good job, poppet." Arthur's voice reached his ears.

"Yeah well, I learned something when I was a colony." He retorted. He could hear Arthur let out a sigh, whether of exasperation or sadness, Alfred didn't know.

"Of course you did…" The nation sighed. Alfred huffed out a loud breath and leaned against the door. He felt a hand put something into his. "Put these in. Go into the bathroom and put them in." He felt the case, feeling his face heat up. It was a case. But he knew what was in it. Contacts. He no longer had glasses. He had contacts. He walked out of the room and into the bathroom. He stuck them in quickly. They didn't help his eyesight as much as Texas did, but it was good enough. He could at least see the actual shapes and forms and not blobs of color.

"We're leaving now!" Arthur's commanding voice told him. He walked out of the bathroom and looked down the hallway to his room. The Brit stood in the doorway of the room. "Now, Alfred." He began to walk out of the house, Alfred following him. The rain was coming down in a soft drizzle and Arthur walked outside into the soft rain. Alfred followed, staying behind the elder. The shirt pinched his back and he winced as the fabric bit into his back. His bare arms were already soaked by the misty water, hair damp. He felt like he wasn't going to like this meeting.

((Will the meeting go wrong? Or not? Maybe I'm just joking with you lot!))

((She's lying. She's bad at not letting things go wrong.))

((Yeah... All of my stories involve some type of death or hurt or something... Oops.))