Prompt: Passing (don't ask me why it's a prompt... it just is)

Characters: Canada and...?

Notes: I'm home! Hooray for more time to write.

I'm not 100 percent certain where this came from. I just wanted to write something cute and cozy with Canada and, well, this happened.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are easy, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

–Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Canada knew what to do the moment he put the receiver down. Even from the moment he saw the caller ID, so familiar and yet so unusual given the hour and day, he had a guess as to how the rest of his evening would go. Most of it much as he had originally planned: spent with a book in front of the fireplace, curled up in an armchair with his favorite fleece blanket over his lap and his feet in fuzzy moccasins—just with another chair across from him, with a guest drinking tea and staring at something, perhaps his callused hands or the crackling fire or even a borrowed book. Watching. Waiting.

For what, Canada didn't know, though he had a guess. The man on the other end of the line didn't—couldn't—say, and the younger nation didn't want to prod him. He extended an invitation of warmth, coziness, and comfort, and nothing more. Without even requesting a response, Canada had hung up the phone, tossed another sweet pine log on the fire, and put himself to work.

He pawed through his bookshelf first, trying to find the right volume for his guest. He was working through Louise Penny's latest mystery himself, though her weighty thrillers and pensive whodunits didn't seem right for the man whose shaking hands would certainly need something lighter. Canada took out a few Margaret Atwood books—Survival, Cat's Eye, The Blind Assassin—before shaking his head and putting them back on the top shelf in their proper alphabetical order. Not quite right, either. His eyes wandering down the polished mahogany shelves, he smiled when his finger met the Eiffel Tower-decorated spine of a book of European landmarks. Perfect. Full of pictures of French monuments sure to bring a smile to his companion's face.

After setting the book and a red afghan down on the soft leather armchair across from his, Canada padded off to the kitchen, scratching Kumajirou behind his ears as he passed his snoring pet curled into a ball not far from the fire. The winter had been so cold and snowy that even the well-insulated polar bear wanted to sleep near any extra heat he could find. Canada's small smile faded at the thought. The nation on the other end of the line understood the risks of a January night in Quebec, of course. He had to. Agitated as he had sounded, he would be careful. Of course he would. He knew what he was getting himself into.

All the same, Canada chose the largest teapot from the cupboard above the phone. He'd bought the ornate piece of china the last time he'd stopped by Jasper on a visit to Calgary. He'd found it behind the frosty glass of a little shop off the main street. The teenage girl from the Ukrainian immigrant family who ran the store and lived in the loft above it had pulled on his hand and shown him with smiles and hand gestures (holding a pretend paintbrush here, imitating a potter's wheel there, her French faulty and her English weaker) the piece she'd made. He'd not just fallen but tripped—the entire thing had been so fast and so unexpected and so wonderfully strange—in love with them both right away. Just as he'd pulled his tuque on tighter and turned to trek back toward the ski lift for some snowboarding in the Rockies, she'd tugged on his gloved hand and pulled him toward the counter again. While he watched, his head tilted a little to one side, she grinned and fished out a Sharpie from beneath the coffee-stained notepad the family used to track sales (or so he'd guessed from all the numbers scrawled in the margins). Following her soft but flirty commands in Franglais—he couldn't resist those bright brown eyes—he handed over the teapot. She unpacked it from the brown paper and thin plastic; then, uncapping her Sharpie, she wrote something on the bottom of the cobalt-and-white-spiraled marvel and returned it to Canada.

Надія. Nadiya.

The girl had giggled at the nation as he held the teapot above his head, squinting at the loopy Cyrillic script.

"Hope." She pointed to herself and twirled one of her honey curls in her finger. "Hope."

Canada had grinned then as he did now, taking the teapot off the shelf and setting it gently on the granite counter beside a matching cup and plate (he'd had to return to the shop, of course, not only to prove to Nadiya that he could speak Ukrainian, but also because he, well, couldn't really not see her again). Any hope he could give to the weary traveler probably no more than a kilometer from his icy porch would help, he thought. Even if it merely rolled off his back, like an unceremonious and unheeded tear dropping from his cold cheek. Even if it only lingered for a second, a hand brushing past his shoulder to let him know someone remained to wait for him. Someone stood in the light, far off and tiny as it was in the dark waters surrounding him.

He would only be passing through. And hope would likely pass him by, not because it refused to hold him but because he refused to acknowledge it.

Canada opened the cupboard by the dishwasher, the one with the rusty latch, and took out his secret stash of Murchie's. For a moment, he thought about brewing some coffee in his mini French press but figured some light tea might bring more comfort. Earl Grey, he decided, was the blend for sorrow.

He added two teabags to the now-steaming water for an extra strong brew.

Since the blizzard had descended upon the small Quebecois village just outside of Montreal late last night, Canada hadn't been able to (or, perhaps, hadn't wanted to) make the short walk across the street to the general store to buy more provisions to last him the rest of the storm. He was hardly running out of food, but he didn't have much to offer his guest on short notice, given that he mostly had raw ingredients meant for recipes and not for consumption on their own. Closing the refrigerator, Canada opened the small pantry door and rummaged around, pushing aside jugs of maple syrup and bags of flour, until he found—perfect—an aluminum foil-wrapped plate of his Papa's favorite pastries that he'd made earlier that afternoon out of boredom (and out of cold: the oven warmed the whole cottage whenever he baked anything). He took two croissants and, heating them in the oven for a few minutes and then spreading on some strawberry jam, arranged them on the plate, which he then put beside the teapot and teacup on the small end table by the two chairs.

And then he sat down to wait.

The flames whispered crackling words to match those Canada read as he turned page after page of The Brutal Telling and those he kept in his mind as he looked up at the clock every few moments.

Please. You're close. Let me in.

It wasn't often this nation needed something from him. Half the shock of the phone call had been that plea, so restrained and so soft but crumbling even as it moved down the line. Disintegrating from the moment it left his lips. Just as he might, too, if Canada refused him.

But he wouldn't. Couldn't. He didn't even know what had hurt the other man so much that he'd be left begging for help, looking for any shred of hope to hang on to for just a moment. Something to cling to only for as long as it took to catch his breath. England wasn't good at taking time to rest and heal in the face of crisis, Canada thought. He'd do the bare minimum to keep himself from going completely under—if that—and then soldier on. It kept him alive, the Canadian had to admit. But not always whole.

And so he looked when Canada opened his front door moments later just after hearing the feeble knock. England shivered, cheeks red and hands shaking despite his warm gloves and large fleece coat pockets into which he'd balled his fists. He would've made quite the puddle in Canada's mudroom had the younger not helped the elder out of his snow-caked outer clothes and put them in the dryer, all in a matter of seconds and without a word shared between them. When Canada returned from the laundry room, he found England's boots on the shelf beside the door (neatly placed even in what must have been haste to retreat further into the warm house) and his hat hanging above them on a peg. But, he noticed upon entering the living room and picking up his book again, England hadn't so much as loosened his tie or undone the buttons on his starched black shirt.

He'd be off again the moment he felt the warmth he'd been dying to find. Canada knew he couldn't completely defrost his companion any more than the fire could thaw the chill buried deep within his bones and settled around his heart. But he could try.

Canada poured himself a cup of Earl Grey, leaving the rest for England, and settled back beneath his afghan with his book and a croissant, only looking up to hear England snorting at the elaborate (more like obnoxious) descriptions of the French monuments in the book that, Canada guessed, the Briton would only ever use for a doorstop. He smiled and returned to fictional conversations every bit as rich and vibrant as the one he was having with his fellow nation.

Within the hour, England had consumed three sips of tea, two bites of his croissant, and fifty pages of touristy bullshit. The complete opposite of his brother, Canada noted, who'd have put the book aside within seconds in favor of the (meager) feast in front of him. But England was not America, in more ways than the obvious. No, that wasn't right. Arthur wasn't Alfred. Arthur seemed a creature unto himself, an enigma that could rival Russia—Ivan—in the words of his famous wartime prime minister.

For the first time, as he watched England close the book and look toward the door, the younger man understood how fitting it was that Arthur embodied an island nation. Just a little bit away from everyone else, surrounded by the sea and himself, cradled by the waves that crashed against the rocks on his coast, warmed by the sun that set on the horizon between him and the other nations across the water.

Close as Canada was, he couldn't get to the heart of the man or the nation himself. Nor could the hope he offered truly do more than pass him by, the way the Canadian offering him his now-warm coat and dry gloves did. He could come close. He could get within landing distance to the coast. But he could never drop an anchor, neither for himself nor for England.

The waters would have to stay still long enough for that. And, like the raging blizzard that soon stood between Canada and England, one remaining in the soft firelight and the other walking into the darkness alone, they did not like to rest. Not for long.

Not really a historical note, but just as a fun, explanatory heads-up, Alberta has a lot of Ukrainian immigrants. That's where Nadiya and her family come in.

Since The Goliath Beetle informed me that NA Brothers fluff is the greatest thing ever, that's what I'm planning on next, along with some other projects that I should have outlined on my profile before long.