8:00 PM, Kassel, Germany
Arthur fought the temporary weakness as he glared at Alfred.
"I can help, Eng- Arthur, really." The boy was insisting, "I feel fine-"
"Don't lie to me, Alfred." The twinges of pain echoed through his own body now- he could feel them, muted within his own nerve endings. Fuck, but the boy shouldn't be so perky. "I can feel your ankle twinging, as well as the rest. If it gives out, I cannot carry you through the woods, not with this sharing-"
"My ankle's fine, they certified me fit for duty a week ago-" Alfred frowned, looking as though he suddenly realized what Arthur had said. "You can feel it? Weird. Just like me and Mattie-"
"Mattie?" Arthur parroted, "Who is-"
"My brother. Canada." Alfred seemed as though he were used to answering that particular question. "My twin. Fuck. I hope he's not picking up on any of this, or he'll be going nuts. That's another reason that I really … should have been thinking about what I was doing."
"Thinking isn't always your strong suit, it seems." Arthur sighed, "All right then. We lure them in, and you may help- but mind, you're still wounded. No matter how much better you feel right now, I know they haven't given you anything for pain in the past few hours, and if you tear something, I won't be able to help you. Be careful."
"Right!" Alfred plumped up blankets to make it look as though someone was in the bed. "You bring 'em in, I'll knock 'em down!"
"You really don't listen, do you." Arthur sighed, watching Alfred pick up the stool from the corner of the room where Germany had pushed it last night. "All right then. Remember the plan- and if I tell you to get out of the way, get out of the way."
Alfred nodded readily, getting into position. Arthur took a deep breath, and mentally pushed himself back to the moment when the boy's heart had hesitated, paused for a moment- the despair, the unthinking misery that had been present for a moment- and then started to yell.
"General! Alfons! Someone- Please-" The emotion from that moment spilled over into his voice, fueled by the fear that he would yet let Alfred down, let this boy be harmed- "He's not breathing- Help!"
The sound of hasty footsteps approaching echoed in the short hallway, along with the metallic rattling of keys. Fighting the false tears that threatened, Arthur glanced at Alfred, who looked suitably impressed and- something more. Stricken, perhaps.
The door swung wide, and Alfons stepped in, only to have Arthur grab at his uniform and yank him further inside and letting the door close behind him.
Alfred moved at the same time, almost as though in sync with Arthur's movements, and brought the stool down forcefully on the medic's head, shattering the wood-
Ouch. That was going to leave a mark-
Arthur barely caught the now unconscious German, and dragged him towards the bed.
"Get the keys, Alfred." They had fallen when Alfons had been dragged into the room. Without stopping to see if the boy- man- obeyed, he turned his attention to stripping the jacket off of the officer that he had tossed onto the bed.
"What are you-"
"Your clothing is mostly ruined or missing, Alfred. I think his jacket will fit you- if not, we will have to see about something else. Can't have you running about in the woods with nothing on."
"I see..." Alfred was giving him an amused look. "Don't think the boots will fit though-"
"Yours are under the bed. They were the last thing they removed, once they stabilized you last night." Alfred's wince was visible, but Arthur could tell that it wasn't due to any physical discomfort, just a twinge of guilt- shit. Was he going to be picking up that as well?
"Sorry," Alfred mumbled, subdued as he found the shoes that were tucked carelessly under the bed, "My jacket's gone, huh?"
"Unless you want to go ask General Bieldschmit what he did with it, I'd say it's gone. You can get a new one later-"
"That was my lucky jacket." Alfred was grumbling, but stopped at a glance from Arthur. Well. Perhaps it went both ways. "Well. Maybe not so much, if we're here."
"Here." Arthur tossed the fabric at Alfred, "Try this- it will be less noticable if we encounter any people in this area. Alfred looked at the jacket with distaste but put it on anyway. It was, as Arthur had expected, slightly too small in the shoulders, and around the middle.
"Bad time to regret not dropping twenty pounds-" Alfred mumbled, and Arthur picked up the wave of insecurity and self loathing rolling off of- Wait. What? "Well, shall we? They're gonna be wondering what's taking him so long."
"It's the bandages," Arthur said, taking the medic's weapon, and putting the man's extra clip in his pocket. "They're a bit bulky. And you've a bit of swelling around some of the injuries."
"Oh." Confusion. Alfred was confused- but those little statements seemed to make a difference, as he perked up again, brightly smiling. "Ready to take on the Third Reich?"
"Ready when you are." Arthur could feel his face form into a grim smile. "Don't forget- when I say back off-"
"I'll back off." Alfred nodded agreeably, and opened the door.
An unlucky guard was the first to see them. Arthur fired without hesitation, then regretted it a moment later, when two more took his place, weapons already drawn.
He found himself shoved to the side, and behind an enormous sideboard as the wood paneling splintered under the three rounds from the guards. Alfred had pushed him down. Arthur frowned briefly at the twinge that centered around his chest, and ran down his leg.
"Alfred-"
"Shut up." The bits of his face that were clear skin were alternately pale and rosy. "You were moving too slow. Give me the gun-"
"How good a shot are you?"
'You taught me the basics, then Prussia drilled the rest into me- hasn't changed much in years-" Alfred snatched the gun out of his hand, and leaned around the edge of the furnature to fire at a soldier that had nearly made it to their shelter. "And we don't have time to argue, as much as I'd like to-"
"What are you shooting at, you idiot?" Arthur watched as the men were forced back by the wild shot. "You're-"
"Half blind, right now. So if I hit anything, it might take 'em forever to bleed out." The words were cheerfully loud. "They wanna take the chance-"
"Oh for fuck's sake." Arthur grabbed the gun back, and let the empty clip fall to the floor, and slammed another one home. "You don't have to be the hero all the time."
He popped up over the top, and neatly picked off a guard, earning a quick stripe of pain as one of the falling man's bullets grazed his shoulder.
"Bloody hell-"
"Iggy-" Alfred yelped, eyes wide and blue-green from the spell. "Be careful-"
"I'm not trying to get shot at, you twit." Arthur snapped, not even taking the time to see if that shoulder was bleeding before refocusing his aim on the next gunman. "Stay down-"
The room was silent but for the creeking of wood, and the crumbling of plaster.
"They're all down- but where is-"
"The General. Where would you be if you were hearing a firefight in the place you were holding important prisoners?" Arthur asked uneasily.
"Charging in, but that's me, and you'd be yelling at me for it." Alfred frowned, "He's probably being sneaky, and trying to flank us through the back door or something."
"There is no back door."
"Well. Kitchen door. Don't these places have side doors?"
"Not all houses are built with multiple exits, Alfred."
"Crap. Then he'll probably be waiting as we go out the front." Alfred's face screwed up in concentration. "We need to distract him, something that keeps him from shooting us as we run out the door and to the trucks-"
"Agreed," Arthur frowned, "But what?"
Alfred had already moved, keeping low as he searched the body. Triumph leaked out of him as he held up a small object he'd found on the last body.
"I've never gotten to set one of these things off before." There was a gleeful grin on his face, "It's about time I tried it-"
Grenade.
Before Arthur could properly identify the weapon, or protest that it was too much, Alfred had moved to the window (Somehow one of his shots had taken out the glass- Arthur wondered how wildly the younger man had really been shooting-) and yanked the pin.
"Alfred, wait-"
Too late. Alfred popped up and tossed the grenade out the window, then ducked back down.
One.
Two.
Three-
The explosion rocked the building they were trapped in, sending plaster dust everywhere, and knick-knacks flying off the shelves in miniature explosions of broken glass.
"Fuck yeah!" Alfred crowed, as he uncurled himself from his shelter.
Arthur sighed, brushing off the bits of dust and debris that had been shaken onto him. Neither of them had been deafened by the explosion, however-
"Did I get him?"
"You got the trucks, Alfred." Arthur barely glanced out the window. He'd known where the vehicles were parked- a faint memory. "One of them blew up most spectacularly. The other one is on fire."
"All ri-" Alfred stopped suddenly, "Fuck. I guess that means..."
"Yes. We don't have a vehicle to escape in now."
The effect was immediate, Alfred's expression immediately became very chagrined, and Arthur really didn't have the heart to yell at him when he looked for all the world like a kicked puppy.
"We'll have to walk as far as we can. Can you do that?" Arthur mentally checked himself, ignoring the searing sensation from his shoulder. Alfred was … well. Not fine, but no worse than he'd been before they had left the safety of the sideboard. He would do. "You can."
"I can." Alfred had sobered up, not grinning now, completely serious. Arthur got the feeling that he hadn't seen this side of Alfred for a few years. "Let's run before Luddy can recover from that blast- I'm sure he's freaked."
"I'm sure." Arthur said dryly, "Let me go first-"
The outside of the house was quite dry, apparently, and had a thatched roof that nearly made Arthur homesick. Except for the part about it being on fire, of course- but other than that, the building was quite nicely made. And the figure tossed akimbo across the tiny garden was a nice touch- the General had apparently been struck by something.
That suited Arthur just fine.
"Um, Eng- Arthur?" Alfred was just standing there, as Arthur paused by one of the trucks to grab a pack from the back. Hopefully it would be something useful, and not just the soldier's dirty laundry. But even that might be – "You know where we are, right? And which way we're going-"
"As a matter of fact-" Belle had told him where they were, "We're in Kassel. We need to be going-"
It took a moment, but he felt the pull that the fairy had told him about. Too bad she'd left them to head about fifty miles in that direction to find more fae and such that would be able to help them once they'd run out of fuel.
"That way." Arthur said decisively, "And once we're away a bit, I can check your bandages, and make certain nothing's gone wrong-"
Alfred just followed, as they headed into what looked to Arthur to be one of the deepest thickets-
And when they did finally sit down for a breather, he would ask Alfred the questions that had been pushed to the back of his mind in all the excitement of the escape.
But for now, while he still didn't remember much about his past, he could look forward to his future. Even if it contained the silly young man that that tiny tot from his memories had grown into.