Back in the realms of reality as we know it, Mexico was still propped up in her chair in a comatose state like a ragdoll at a tea party. There were times when she would fidget while her dream sequence was playing in her head, but her baser instincts told her not to move too much lest she falls off the chair and abruptly end said sequence. America, Canada, England and Cuba eventually got sick of staring at the girl (I'll bet they weren't expecting this to go on for more than nine chapters, da?) and started playing a wholesome game of Uno in the living room.

The game was relatively straightforward. Everyone was playing by the rules – put one card in the center that is the same color or number as the previous card. That is, until America added his flavor to the game (AMERICA HAZ A FLAVOR). He decided to slap down an authentic joker card on top of the sloppy pile of colored Uno cards, halting the game at its height.

"Ha ha!" he said with his famous America laugh, "A joker! Nobody else has a card like it! I win!"

"Hey, wait a minute…" said Cuba, "That's not a legitimate rule in the game. Hey, wait a minute… you're supposed to take those cards out of the deck before you start playing. Hey, wait a minute… Uno doesn't even have joker cards! Why, I oughta…" Just as Cuba was about to wail on America, who was still smiling like a joyful idiot, England grabbed his arms from behind and held him back.

"Violence never solves things!" he said. "Let the lad have his moment in the sun before China takes his place." Suddenly, Korea peered from behind the door unexpectedly.

"Did somebody say my name?" he chimed.

"No, Korea. I said 'China.'"

"That's okay. Misunderstandings originated in Korea!"

"They sure did, Korea. They sure did."

Meanwhile, back in Mexico's dream world…

Mexico spent one evening sitting on the steps of a cozy porch with Daniela and Gertrudis, two girls who were the same age but at the same time, not the same age (remember, nation-tans don't age like we do). America rode past them on his horse and slowed down slightly to tip his hat at the ladies.

"Hi, there!" said the three girls. America went on his way and passed the friendly greeting off as a footnote, not taking into account that he could have offended Mexico by flirting with other girls while she was there. As soon as he left, Rosa went back to her typical cynical mode.

"He is such an idiot," she said. This struck Mexico as jarring, seeing as this was a friend who said this. "Do you know what he did the other day? He was asked to whitewash for somebody and he grabbed the nearest white guy off the street and rubbed him against the fence." Mexico shrugged off the comment and added her comment to one-up the girl.

"He is an idiot, but he's my idiot."

"Oh yeah," said Eva, "You're totally dating him." As if a Latina living in 1830's Texas would speak like a valley girl…

"He's cute, but… what the hell do you see in him?" asked Rosa.

"I can see past his naivety, revealing the well-intentioned sweetheart that he really is." Mexico hugged herself as if the amount of cuteness in her body gushed over and spilled a gooey pink mess onto the wood.

"So where do you think you're going with him?"

"I don't know, Rosa. I really don't know." Mexico starred at the distance and used her deep thoughts to separate herself from her friends. She was convinced that nothing would ever change her mind about the boy she loved, not even an offhand comment by a girl who she probably didn't like very much anyway.

As America stopped his horse, he started having sour thoughts in his head that gave him a tied-up feeling in his chest. The more powerful feelings he felt towards Mexico, the more he wanted to have nothing to do with her. He had the same feelings that he had when he was on the verge of killing his adoptive big brother in the Battle for Independence. This wasn't anything like deciding between anything trivial, like getting chocolate or vanilla soft serve (or even chocolate/vanilla swirl), he was truly having second thoughts.

Meanwhile, Clyde and his hormonally-stressed Native American lady friend were sitting in the desert enjoying a nice lunch of freshly cooked desert hare – one that Clyde had caught himself.

"I'm so happy that you finally learned how to kill your own food," said the lady, getting words out while her mouth was full. This was a questionable habit that she developed from loving to talk in the company of others, as well as a habit that was commonly seen in a cannon character (seriously, though – if you haven't connected the dots by now, I am convinced that the circuits in your brain have been thoroughly chewed through by an angry gopher). "After all, pretty soon, my midsection is going to be too swollen for me to hunt anything."

"You can count on me, Floating Duck. If not, we can just feast on beans like my other cowboy conpadres. Hopefully, it won't come to that."

"You know, Clyde, we probably have more similarities than differences." This time around, Floating Duck had swallowed her reasonably-sized lump of meat. "You cowboys are wanderers and never stayed in one place and my people have always been wanderers who never stayed in one place."

"That's quite observant of you. I guess it's the spirit of the west that dwells within all of us. I mean, who would want to stay very long in a place that has little water?"

"Granted, not all of us are like that. There were these people… wait, I have an idea!" Surely, a tiny flame would have appeared over Floating Duck's head, since light bulbs were at least another fifty years away.

"What is it?"

"It'll have to wait – my pregnancy is making my appetite absolutely insatiable." With that, she grabbed another piece of the massive rodent and stuffed it in her mouth. NOM NOM NOM…

"Slow down, Miss Piggy. I haven't even had seconds yet!"

Later on, the couple walked some more across the vast expanse of sand (what else is new?) until they arrived at something that was very much unexpected, at least to Clyde. There were stone houses built into the cliffs. The two had forgotten that they had wandered so far from their original destination that they wound up in what would later be Arizona. Clyde looked at the buildings and wondered how anybody could ever chisel something as elaborate as an apartment complex with nothing more than a… chisel.

"I could swear there are houses in them walls," commented Clyde.

"That's because there are," said Floating Duck, "Hundreds of years ago, the Pueblo settled down in this area and constructed these houses. However, due to weather conditions or political strife or whatever else could go wrong, they packed up and became hunter-gatherers again. I think this would be a good place to settle down and bring up a new nation."

"I say this is the best we're going to get. What do you say we go into one of them houses?"

Once the couple entered one of the lower stone houses, they found the interior to be surprisingly and refreshingly cool, a change from the arid climate. Although it was relatively dark, various shelves and bits of broken pottery were clearly present. Some of the pottery had imaginative designs influenced by nature and dreams caused by hallucination, making for some truly surreal candy for the eye. Floating Duck looked in the corner of the room and found the perfect item for their upcoming life change.

"Now I know that this place is perfect," she said. In that corner was a stone cradle that still had several small blankets made of rabbit fur inside of it. "The people who last lived here kept this particular part of the house furnished. It's like they expected our arrival!"

"Don't get too carried away."

"Now I won't have to worry about keeping the baby warm at night! I can focus my energy on killing animals so that we can keep warm! And I can get some clay to make new pots that can match the walls…"

"We've just settled down and you're already thinking about redecorating? Man, you have moxie, Floating Duck. Actually, can I just call you Flo from now on?"

Soon enough, a week passed and it was time for America to pick up his engagement ring. When he arrived at the jeweler's, he had his money ready – money which he "borrowed" from the bank account of Mexico's boss.

"You've arrived just on time," said the jeweler, always in a good mood. He squatted under his counter to take out a tiny, perfectly-proportioned box.

"Let's see what you did to that nugget," said America. The jeweler opened the box to reveal a ring that was just the right size for somebody who had fingers and skinny and delicate as Mexico's, although America did not ever remember telling the man her ring finger's size. Looking at the ring was akin to looking at a little, personal star in a carrying case. Its unflawed radiance brought a smile to his face, which meant that it would surely bring a smile to his fiancée's face as well. A tiny bit on top of the ring was in the shape of a golden bow. That part of the ring had been flattened beforehand and carefully sculpted with utmost concentration and plenty of time.

"I can't thank you enough for this," said America as he handed over the money.

As he walked back to Mexico's house, he made sure to keep the ring in his pocket and away from curious eyes, even though it was noticeable by the bulge that it made. As he walked past the assorted cacti big and small, he was trying to make peace with his conflicting viewpoints – the angel and devil on his shoulders, if you will. After much thought, he concluded that his decision on the proposal should wait until later, when things change – preferably for the better.