Hey Everyone, so a late and short chapter, but interesting hopefully, there's some info at the end that you might be interested in. Thank you
Even the warmth of bad hospital coffee couldn't draw the numbness from Abigail. She wasn't actually drinking it, she didn't like coffee. The nurse had guided her into one of the hallway chairs when they brought Thomas in and handed her the Styrofoam cup saying:
"We'll keep you posted."
That was half an hour ago and Abigail hadn't taken her eyes off the wall since. She vaguely remembered someone asking her if there was anyone to call.
"No," She had said. After all there were just her grandparents, and what could they do? They didn't seem to care much beyond Christmas time. She saw someone sit next to her out of the corner of her eye and turned her head, reluctantly pulling herself out of her thoughts. It was England, of course it was, he hadn't changed clothes he smelled like dust and blood and looked as worried as if it was his younger brother in the hospital room, not hers.
"How is he?" He asked softly.
"They haven't said." Abigail replied turning her focus back to the wall.
"I'm sorry" He said
"Not your fault Arthur, I should have known better," Abigail said, her voice should be breaking, she should be crying but it was like the tears were frozen inside of her, adding a cold snap to her voice. England; former world empire, current major political player, man who had seen countless wars and famines, flinched. Abigail continued. "I shouldn't have taken this job, shouldn't have moved us here, and shouldn't have gotten involved in this whole mess." There was a pause, a few nurses shuffled pass them, the coffee was growing cold. Arthur gently took it from her, left and returned a few minutes later with two cups of tea.
"I'm the one that chose you in the first place." He said. "Mostly to piss off Charles at M-15." Abigail raised an eyebrow without looking at him. "You were at the bottom of their list and Charles said something about you not being able to handle the work, so I insisted." Another long pause, Abigail took a sip of tea and turned to look at him again.
"You know you can be a right pain in the ass sometimes."
"It's my primary purpose these days."
"Miss Clarke?" A nurse said. Abigail turned to look at her quickly.
"Yes what is it?"
"You can see him now, but he's asl-" She began, Arthur had taken Abigail's cup before she flew out of the chair, down the hall and into Thomas's room. He was asleep, his abdomen bandaged. Abigail gingerly sat next to him, taking his hand, the one not hooked up to a drip, in her own.
"It's going to be alright Thomas. I promise."
The next morning Abigail woke to the sound of voices.
"So he really wasn't hunchbacked?" Thomas's said.
"No, honestly it was barely noticeable, Will added quite a bit of embellishment to make him more villainous. Really though he was a nice man." Arthur replied. Abigail opened her eyes. She had been moved to a chair, Arthur was sitting on the opposite side and Thomas was sitting up in bed, eating ice cream.
"Thomas?" Abigail asked. The boy turned and lunged over the bed to hug her.
"Careful!" Arthur warned. "The nurse will have our heads if you reopen your stitches."
"I'm ok Abby." Thomas said in response to the shudder breath of relief that came from her chest.
"Thank goodness." She said hugging him tightly. Their embrace was interupted by the opening bars of Rule Britannia.
"Sorry." England said answering the phone. Abigail ignored him, holding on to Thomas. "Yeah," England said into the phone. "No no he's alright... Normal place?...Be there in about 20." He then hung up.
"What's wrong?" Abigail asked,
"Emergency meeting, I have to go, there's a pair of guards outside here." He said standing, He apparently noticed Abigail's look of alarm. "Just a precaution, everyone that was at the building was taken into custody, but better safe than sorry."
"Thank you." Abigail said. Arthur shook his head.
"Don't mention it, I'll pop back in later."
"Yo Artie I heard you kicked some ass!" America shouted from across the room, less than two seconds after England had walked in. "Way to go old man!" England was really starting to wish that people would stop calling him that. He didn't respond to America, just settled into his usual seat.
"Now that we are all here." Germany began, surprisingly he didn't have to shout over anyone, the atmosphere was subdued, even Greece was awake for this. "We need to discuss yesterday's events."
England let Germany go over the disastrous encounter with Robert. He was well aware of the concerned looks being sent his way and he didn't care, part of him, the imperial bit, buried deep inside of him was fuming with rage that anyone would dare to hurt one of his people. It was obvious what they had to do. He looked around at the faces of the nations. There were more here now than there had been even just 30 years ago, and yet, even the youngest ones knew what they had to do.
"England." Germany said. England turned his head back towards the head of the table, he could tell that this was probably not the first time his name had been spoken. "Anything to add?"
"If this group," He said "The Revealers, they're too well organized to be run just by one small cell in London."
"They're not a threat to us," One of the south american countries spoke up, England could never keep all of Spain's kids straight, the ones that spoke to him at least.
"It's not us we need to be worry about though." France said from two seats down from England. England nodded.
"It's our citizens, more specifically the ones closest to us." He said, He panned his eyes around the room. "They've proven that they have no problem going after them, or their children," His eyes landed on China and a few that had older assistants, "Or even grand children."
Across the table China met his eyes.
"What do you propose we do then England?" The ancient nation said. Arthur read the room as deeply as he could, He knew what they were thinking, so many years of being at the center of the most isolated society in the world led to him being able to read each individual's body language almost perfectly. He took a breath, and voiced the thoughts.
"We need to go public, on our terms, not theirs."
And that's it! well not really. I am considering a sequel fic if you guys are interested, because honestly the nations being revealed to the rest of the world is my favorite thing ever. Also there will probably be a few one shots so keep your eyes peeled.
So, what did you think? Let me know in comments.
And thank you so much for reading.