Claire POV
When I woke up I was half dangling off of the bed so when I tried to sit up I ended up falling off the bed onto my face, "Uggghh" I groan, rolling over onto my back. The ceiling is a dark blue, but right over the bed I can see a faint shadow of something under the blue paint. I get onto the bed and after standing up I'm just tall enough to graze the ceiling with my fingertips, the paint is already starting to chip off a bit so I just gently scrape away at the paint with my nails. After a few minutes of work, (and a broken nail) I've revealed what was underneath the blue paint, there are complex portrayals of constellations that look like they spread over the entire ceiling, the one directly over the bed looks like it's the stars that make up the cancer constellation. "Why did someone paint over all of this?" I wonder aloud, it looks like a lot of work went into the paintings and it seems a shame for it to be covered up like this.
After studying the constellations a bit, I get down off of the bed and see that I've covered the blankets and myself with chips of paint. I grab the corners of the top blanket so nothing will spill and shake out the chips into a metal bucket for ashes that's resting next to the fireplace. After I get the blanket back on the bed I happen to glance at the clock on the wall and see that it's 8:00 am. "Wow I slept right through dinner!" I say surprised.
After cleaning up a bit and taming the rats nest my hair has turned into overnight, I venture downstairs to see what England is up to. As I round the corner at the end of the staircase I notice that there is a slight haze to the air and I can smell something burning, I follow the smell to kitchen and cautiously swing the door open to see England bent over a pan of something on top of the stove. The smoke is much thicker in here, but England seems unaffected. Hearing me enter the room he turns around to reveal him wearing a rather feminine looking apron, it has hearts on the pockets and even a few ruffles! "Good morning Claire!" he says brightly.
"When I went upstairs to tell you dinner was ready last night you were sound asleep so I thought it would be best to let you rest. But you must be famished, so I made us a nice big breakfast!" He proudly holds up a tray with two bowls of what sort of looks like porridge, a big plate of blackened toast and some incinerated looking bacon. Right as I'm about to decline and say I'm not hungry my stomach lets out an embarrassingly loud growl, "Looks like I was right!" says England happily and he steers me into the dining room.
He puts the tray on the table and is about to sit down when he stands up again and says, "Oh I forgot the silverware, I'll be back in just a moment." He walks out of the room heading towards the kitchen, and I immediately take the opportunity to inspect the food.
I actually like my bacon very well done, so even though it looks like it's about to crumble into dust I should be able to stomach it as long as he hasn't added anything weird to it. The "porridge" is another story though, it looks extremely sludgy and has little black flecks all through out it, I quickly look around to see if there's a way to get rid of it but before I'm able to do anything England comes back into the room holding a tea set and some silverware. I sit down abruptly with a thump and try to look innocent like I wasn't just planning to possibly kill that houseplant in the corner by dumping maybe radioactive porridge on it, and thank god England doesn't seem to notice anything. He sets down the tea set with a clink, pours two cups of tea, and hands one to me.
"The sugar is in that pot there" he says motioning at the pot, the tea smells delicious so I decide it must be safe and put a few spoonfuls of sugar into my cup. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right? I sip my tea and it's wonderful, "This tea is fantastic England!" I say, "Thank you love, help yourself to whatever you want". England starts to make his plate and hands me my bowl of porridge. While England isn't looking I poke at it with my spoon, He sounded so happy about having me eat breakfast with him, I don't want to hurt his feelings by not eating it! I suspect he gets that 24/7 from the other nations already... so I guess I'll try a small bit. I eat a small spoonfuls and start to cough a little bit, it's really smoky tasting and sorta crunchy too. I drink some tea quickly to get the taste out of my mouth, "What do you think Claire?" asks England expectantly. "It's very... filling" I say carefully, I'm not exactly lying right? He seems to take that as a compliment and we finish breakfast, and I politely decline seconds but take some more tea to wash the taste of the porridge away.
After the breakfast dishes get put away we spend the rest of the morning quietly reading in the living room with a nice fire going in the fireplace. I'm curled up in a chair reading and England is primly sitting on a sofa across the room, when I suddenly remember the constellations in my room, I had meant to ask him about them earlier but I got distracted by "'breakfast".
"Hey England?" I ask, "I noticed that in my room it looks like somethings been painted over on the ceiling, it sort of looks like constellations."
"Oh you noticed those?" he says looking wistful. "That room used to belong to Alfred, when he was young he was very fascinated by astronomy and the stars, that's probably why he's such good friends with that alien of his." He must mean Tony, I guess it makes sense that he covered it up, it must of stirred up sad memories whenever he saw it. "Well it's a shame you covered it up, the artist was very talented" I say.
"You really think so?" says England. "Yes, I think they're beautiful!" I say enthusiastically, "Who painted it?"
"Oh, hmm well actually I did" says England sounding a tad embarrassed, "Wow really! I didn't know you could paint!" I say. "Well cooking isn't the only thing I have skill in!" says England proudly. Well, I don't know about the cooking part.
"Well would you like to go out for a bit instead of sitting around the house all day?" asks England. "Sure, that sounds fun!" I say. "What would you like to do?" he asks. "Oh well, I don't really know what's near here, so why don't you surprise me?" "Alright then, I know just the thing! Why don't you get ready and meet me in the driveway in five minutes." says England. I head upstairs, put my shoes and a coat on, and run to the front door and out onto the driveway. England locks the house and then we get into his car and drive for about half an hour. When we get out we're in what looks like a ginormous park, there are paths radiating out in different directions that wind through trees and big open fields of healthy vibrant grass.
"Where are we?" I ask. "Kensington Gardens, there's something I want to show you but we'll have to walk a bit to get there." says England. "That's fine by me!"
We walk quietly through the trees along a path, I see a couple people walking far off, but overall it's very peaceful and quiet here. Right when I'm starting to consider asking to rest for a moment since my feet are getting a little sore, England says "Here we are!"
We're in a clearing with trees all around and there's a copper statue in the middle, I gasp "Is that the Peter Pan statue?" I run over and walk around looking at all the details, "I've always wanted to see this!" I say happily.
"I saw that you had pulled that book out earlier today and thought you might appreciate seeing the statue" says England. "This has always been one of my favorite things to see when I come here, I enjoy getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city every once in while" says England coming over to stand next to me. It's a statue of Peter standing on top of a tree stump playing a pipe, and there are fairies and woodland creatures all over the trunk of the stump so I spend quite a while circling the statue and making sure I'm able to notice all of the little details.
After I'm finally finished poring over the statue we walk a bit more through the park before returning to the car. It's gotten pretty late so England suggest we go grab something to eat. I stand outside an old looking pub while he quickly goes in to get our food. I watch him interacting with the owner through the window, the owner seems to know him well and claps him on the back laughing. England says something to him and the owner peers through the window and winks at me. He laughs again saying something and England starts to blush at whatever he's saying.
After he finally gets our food, he comes outside and hands me a cardboard basket of fish and chips. "What was the owner asking you?" I ask curiously. "Some poppycock about me not wanting to scare off a date with my cooking, he wouldn't believe me when I said you had enjoyed the meal I prepared!" he says frustrated. He fumes quietly to himself a while longer before settling down and walking along the street with me while contentedly munching on our dinner. After we finish eating and toss our wrappers and start to walk back towards the car, a huge yawn overcomes me. "It's getting pretty late and you look tired out, lets get you back to the house" says England and he helps me into the car. I'm pretty tired from all the walking we've done today, I think I'm going to crash the minute we get home!
I thought I'd do a sort of fluffy chapter for Valentine's day, hopefully Claire will be able to survive a bit longer off of England's cooking! The constellation over America's old bed is the cancer one, since his birthday (4th of July) makes him a cancer.