AN: Sorry for the really really long delay. I was writing this for weeks and it became so much longer than I intended it to. It is now a one-shot with 11,000 words. Isn't that great? I split it into three parts just so that everyone wouldn't get tired of reading. They're still pretty long, though.
I have written a separate last chapter for this whole 'Anne' series, just in case anyone was wondering.
Most scenes were suggested by the requester, seiari. Thanks so much for your help with this and sorry for taking so long. Thanks so much to xalter-egox and Hitome Cassietoo, for all the help they've given.
Anyway, here's part one of this fic. Enjoy :)
The fairy Annabelle peeked into England's bedroom, floating in when she found the country reading a book and fully awake.
"Not planning on getting some sleep, Anne?" she asked, settling on England's bedside table.
The country shook her head. "Not yet. It's not often that I get to see him this peaceful."
Not understanding Anne's reply, Annabelle looked more carefully and noticed the familiar figure lying on the bed beside England.
"He watched another horror movie again, huh?" the fairy asked, amused. The fairies knew all about Alfred's strange liking of horror movies and how he usually ended up too afraid to sleep alone after watching the mentioned horror movies.
Anne nodded, closing her book and looking at the fairy.
"Which one?"
"I didn't bother asking," England admitted with a shrug. "Not that it matters anyway. I wonder why he doesn't stop watching those things if they scare him so much."
Annabelle giggled. "As if you don't like it when he comes up here to cuddle with you."
"I don't cuddle with him," she snapped, a blush coming to her cheeks. "He just doesn't want to sleep on his own and I happen to be the only other person in the house. There's nothing else to it."
The fairy didn't reply, knowing she'd just get shouted at if she uttered the teasing remark she had in mind. Anne turned her attention towards the sleeping country beside her, absentmindedly pushing back the hair from his face.
"You miss your little boy, don't you?" Annabelle asked, seeing the longing look on England's face.
"Sometimes," Anne admitted, pulling her hand back and looking at the fairy. "I can never spend time with him like this anymore with how things are now and him being independent and all."
"I don't see what's stopping you. I mean, he comes over here a lot and annoys you. I'm sure you can make space in all that interaction for some sweet bonding moments."
England smiled bitterly. "It isn't that simple, Annabelle. Things are much too different now from how they used to be."
"In what way," the fairy asked, a plan forming in her head.
"Well," Anne said, "for one, he doesn't need me anymore. I'm not the older sister figure he feels the need to please. He's no longer a boy, he's—as much as I don't want to admit it—a man, with completely different priorities from mine. There really are too many differences to mention."
"So..." Annabelle said. "The only real problem is actually just age and the dependency issue. I can do something about that."
England suddenly felt a sense of foreboding. "What are you talking about?"
Annabelle took flight, raising herself a few inches from the table. "Well, I'm a fairy, right? And fairies have magic."
Anne suddenly understood where the fairy was going with this. "No! Annabelle, no way! I'm not going to let you."
"England, just trust me, you're going to enjoy spending time with Alfred after this," the fairy promised. "Plus, it'll only last a day so if you really have problems with what I'm going to do with him, I won't renew the spell and he'll be back to normal soon."
She still shook her head vehemently. "This isn't a good idea! You know you aren't supposed to fool around with magic, especially with a being who doesn't acknowledge your existence like Alfred."
"Anne, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand seeing you so sad anymore," the fairy said, paying England no heed. She produced a golden light with her powers. "Now I, Annabelle, with my fairy magic, grant that this person will once again become a child in body and mind. May he be once again dependent on the country with him now."
When the last word left the fairy's lips, the golden ball of light suddenly blasted itself toward Alfred's direction. Anne, having no time to think, instinctively stretched out her arms to block America.
Light filled the room as the spell hit. Unfortunately, it hit the wrong person.
Annabelle couldn't hold in a gasp of shock as she watched England turn into a child before her very eyes. She was going to have a lot to explain to the other fairies when they found out about this mess.
Alfred was having a very freaky dream. It had to be a dream because it was just too weird to be real. A lot of talking, floating lights were involved and so was a little girl sleeping beside him.
One of them, the leader-light as Alfred had mentally nicknamed him, floated forward. "Alfred F. Jones, you may be wondering why our kind has suddenly decided to reveal ourselves to you so—"
"Hey," the nation interrupted, determined to make this dream as interesting. "Are you guys fireflies or something? Not that I have a problem with that, but insects don't usually talk."
"We," the leader-light said, sounding annoyed, "are fairies."
"Psh, yeah right," Alfred replied. "Anyway, what problem do you want the awesome hero to solve for you today?"
"Well," another weird, floaty light said nervously, "it's not like we're expecting you to solve anything. It's just, we thought you might want to know about...the mistake."
"Honestly dude, I have no idea what you're talking about," the nation said with a shrug. He glanced at the little girl beside him. Strangely, she looked very familiar. "Who's she?" he asked, nodding his head toward the child.
"That's what we were about to explain," the leader-light said impatiently. Alfred thought he heard the distinct muttering of words such as 'close-minded' and 'rude' and 'git' from the other lights. The leader silenced them with a gesture and continued. "Your friend, England, has been in a bit of a magical accident."
"Wow," America said, "I've obviously been spending way too much time with her. The fairy crazy has rubbed off of me or something. Then again, this is all a dream..."
The leader-light ignored his last statement completely and went on with the explanation. "Annabelle here," he said, gesturing to the other light which had spoken earlier, "accidentally hit England while trying to cast a spell on her intended target, which would be you, so you better have a sense of gratitude and at least thank England for that later. Now, the spell was meant to turn the recipient into a child. If you could put two and two together, which you obviously can't, you'd realize that—"
"This kid is England?" Alfred interrupted, his disbelief of the fairies temporarily clouded by his shock.
"Well, yes."
"You have got to be kidding me," he said, his voice slightly panicky. "I mean, come on, sure she looks like England but you can't possible have me believe—oh, right. This is a dream, I forgot that for a second."
The lights didn't seem to like the fact that he didn't even try to believe any of this. They flew in closer until one of them was practically sitting on his nose.
"Listen, here," the one on this nose yelled, "you go and think whatever you want about how this happened or what's going on but, frankly, you're the only one we can trust her with at the moment. You better take care of her because if we find out that you've neglected Anne to a point wherein she's either dying or dead, we are going to hunt you down and make you regret that you were ever discovered. Is that clear?"
"Alright, alright," Alfred said edging away cautiously. "I'll take care of kid Anne or whoever she is already. This will all be gone in the morning anyway."
"So do we have your word that you'll do everything in your ability to keep her safe and happy?" the leader asked, motioning the other lights to give Alfred some space.
He nodded. "Sure, whatever. I still am the hero, even if all of this isn't real."
"Good," the leader said. Then, one by one, the lights started fading away into the darkness until only one remained.
"Uhhhm, hi," the last light said awkwardly.
"Hey," he greeted back. "Aren't you going off like the others?"
"Soon," the light said. "I just—I know you don't think any of this is real but what happened to England is my fault and I can't apologize enough for everything so—"
"Chill," Alfred said, carefree. "No need to be so stressed out. I can handle this, really."
"Oh," the light said, sounding a lot more relieved. "Well, just so you know, the spell was supposed to make you dependent on the country with you at the time it was cast. So, since England was with you she'll probably look at you as her big brother or something."
"Sounds alright with me," he said, still convinced that this would all be over soon enough.
"Also, when I cast the spell I was intending to keep vague memories of your surroundings and your acquaintances intact. It'll probably apply to England as well so she won't panic about where she is when she wakes up. I hope that'll help some."
"All right then," Alfred replied cheerfully. "Thanks for the tips."
"I have to go now," the light said quietly. "You know, maybe you aren't so bad after all."
Before Alfred could reply, the light faded away.
He stared into space for a few more seconds, blinking in disbelief. After a while, he decided that maybe he should let his dream-self get back to bed since it seemed to be the only thing he could do at the moment with his dream-charge still asleep beside him.
He lay back down on the bed and covered himself with the blanket he was sharing with the little girl. She certainly did look a lot like England, at least from what he could observe in the darkness.
Alfred was almost completely asleep again when he felt the child cuddle closer to him. What was left of his consciousness half-wished that all of this was really happening. Having England around as a cute kid was becoming a better prospect with each second.
Alfred tried everything. From the moment he woke up, he had tried slapping, pinching, biting, and, (with the help of the wall) banging himself awake. Despite all of the pain he had caused unto himself, the little girl asleep on the bed was still there.
Unlike his usual dreams, he still had a very clear memory of the one he had last night but there was no way he was going to believe that it had actually happened. Still, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that the little girl on the bed was not disappearing.
Well, there was only one way of getting anything figured out now. He would have to wake the girl up and ask her straight out whether this was all real or not. Not exactly the most considerate idea but at least it would give him something to go on.
Gently, he placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and shook her. The fact that she was actually solid told him she wasn't a mirage or an illusion, which was actually a good thing cause it told him that he wasn't going mad or anything like that.
The girl's eyes fluttered open. They were a vibrant green, exactly the same shade as England's.
He found it hard to recover from the shock. "Anne?" he said, forgetting the questions he was planning to interrogate her with.
The girl yawned and looked up at him, her big eyes blinking twice. "I'm still sleepy," she said in a soft voice, her lids drooping again.
"Hey," Alfred said, shaking her again. "Wake up, kid."
"I don't wanna," the girl replied, stubbornly keeping her eyes shut tight.
Alfred sighed. Well, she didn't just look like England, she had her unreasonable attitude as well.
"If you want to play it that way," he murmured. He walked over to the curtains and parted them to let the sunlight in.
The girl slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes.
"Glad to see you finally awake," he said, amused at the childish expression of irritation on her face. "Now, I know this is going to sound weird but I need to ask you whether or not this is all real."
"Are we playing a game again?" the child asked, looking at him curiously.
"No...I'm seriously asking you a question." Seeing the puzzled look on her face, Alfred shook his head. "Never mind, just let me get this straight. You're Anne, right?"
"That's what you named me," she answered, still looking at him strangely. "Do you feel alright, Alfwed?"
She looked like England, acted like England, sounded like England and had the same human name as England. Which meant...no way.
"Yeah, I'm alright," he whispered before promptly passing out.
Alfred woke up the second time that day. His vision still blurry, the first thing he saw was the vague outline of England's face. For a moment, he thought that everything was finally back to normal.
Thank goodness, England, he thought to himself, you have no idea how weird my dream was last night. There were talking fireflies who kept saying they were fairies and you had this toddler clone. You'd tell me if you actually had a clone, right? Because that would be so...
The thought in his head faded away when his vision finally cleared. A little girl with England's face, hair, eyes and everything else was standing over him, looking worried.
"What happened?" he groaned, sitting up. The girl took a few steps back to give him space.
"You fainted," she said, her brows furrowing in concern. "I thought you said you were alright?"
Alfred winced. Fainting sounded so un-heroic. "I didn't faint," he said, trying to stand up, "I...fell asleep. Yeah, that's it. You didn't have to be so worried."
"If you say so," the girl said indulgently. Then, "I wasn't worried. I just thought you were dead or something."
"That sounds like worrying to me," he teased.
The girl scowled. "Is not," she argued, childishly sticking her tongue out.
"Is so," he retorted with equal childishness.
"Nu-uh."
"Uh-huh," he replied, grinning. "And since I'm older, I'm the one who's right."
The child crossed her arms and gave the cutest pout. "Unfair," she said, clearly defeated.
He laughed and stood up. Then, mentally, he gave himself a slap in the face. Here he was having the freakiest morning ever and all he had managed to accomplish was annoy a little girl and win an argument with the 'I'm older than you' routine.
Not exactly the most productive morning.
"So," he said slowly. "All of this really is real?"
"Did you hit your head really hard?" the girl asked, sounding completely innocent. Knowing England, though, Alfred was quite sure she was being sardonic...if she really was England and not just some sort of clone-illusion-thing.
Seeing as cloning was illegal and having illusions would be quite un-heroic, he had no choice but to believe that all of this was real...or that he was still be dreaming. Either way, he had a promise to fulfill to some floating lights and a child/dream version of England to take care of. Nothing he couldn't handle, right?
"Okay, since this is happening one way or another, we have a whole day ahead of us to spend together," he said enthusiastically. "Now, what do you want to do first?"
"Can I go back to sleep?" she asked, sounding hopeful.
"Uh...no. How about breakfast?" he asked.
"Alright," the girl said reluctantly, seeing as she had no choice.
"Right, well I'll go check if we actually have anything to eat in your fridge. You can stay here and lie down a bit if you like," he proposed diplomatically.
The girl, or Anne as he now decided to refer to her as, nodded once and he gave her an affectionate pat on the head before leaving.
He quickly ran downstairs and found his way to England's kitchen. There had to be something in there that he could feed a small child.
Alfred opened the fridge and found an uneaten half of an apple pie just sitting there, waiting to be eaten. He set in on the table and looked at it carefully. It certainly looked edible. He got out a fork and ate a bite of it.
It tasted pretty good. Probably store-bought seeing as it was in England's fridge.
Feeling accomplished, he brought out two small plates and put a slice of pie on each of them. That was easy enough. Maybe this day was going to turn out perfectly alright after all.
Then, again, Alfred did have the tendency of speaking too soon.
As he searched the fridge for a breakfast beverage, he heard a small scream from somewhere upstairs.
"Anne?" he called, already running out of the kitchen. When he reached the foot of the stairs, he found her sitting on a step close to the top of the flight. He rushed to her and crouched down beside her.
"Hey, what are you doing here, Anne?" he asked worriedly.
She stared at the floor, refusing to look at him. "I was trying to follow you downstairs," she said softly. Then, blushing in embarrassment she added, "I fell."
He looked at her, concerned. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
Anne shook her head.
"You're not alright?" he asked, panicking.
"I'm not hurt,"she replied, a bit annoyed. Alfred was relieved. Based on his experience with adult-England, sounding irritated usually meant that everything was normal.
He smiled, now focusing his efforts on cheering her up. "I thought you were going to stay in bed for a while?"
"Well, you didn't tell me when you were coming back," she replied accusingly. "You could've left me alone forever," she then murmured, her voice was so soft that he almost didn't hear her.
He wisely decided that it was not the right time to tease her. "Breakfast is ready," he instead said encouragingly. "You like apple pie, right?"
She looked up at him, her eyes wide again. "Pie for breakfast?"
"Why not?" he said, standing up. "Want to eat it now?"
She nodded and held her arms out to him. With the utmost care, he lifted her into his arms and carried her downstairs.
She's a child now, he mentally reminder himself. She may look capable but she's much too vulnerable for me to forget how much she really needs me.
By the time they finished breakfast, both of them were completely full, which wasn't surprising since they finished the entire half of the pie that they started off with in the first place. Granted, Alfred did most of the eating but Anne managed to eat a significant amount as well.
"Well, I'm completely full," Alfred said after downing his second glass of orange juice. "What about you?"
In response, Anne let out a tiny burp. "'Scuse me," she said immediately, covering her mouth with her hand.
He chuckled. "I'll take that as a yes. By the way, you have a few crumbs on your face."
"Where?" she asked, trying to rub them off with her hand but missing completely.
"Here," Alfred said, reaching out and doing it for her. "All gone."
"I could've done that myself," she murmured. "I'm not that little."
"Whatever you say," he said, amused.
He cleared the table and put the dirty dishes in the sink, mentally reminding himself to get those washed later.
"So," he said, turning back to her. "What do we do now?"
Like adult-England, kid-Anne seemed to have an interest in reading books. Unlike adult-England, though, Alfred wasn't exactly convinced that kid-Anne knew how to read. Not surprising since she was around four years old at the most but something peculiar to him all the same.
They were both taking a seat on the really soft rug England had in the study, Alfred holding one of England's James Bond novels and Anne holding a picture book they managed to find around the house.
"Need help with that?" he asked, watching her get ready to read.
"No," Anne immediately said before huffily opening her book.
He took a look at the way she looked at her book and laughed. "You do know that you're holding it upside down, right?"
She looked at the book in surprise for a second and turned it right-side up. "You distracted me," she reasoned.
Alfred sighed. "You and your excuses. Now, will you let me help you with that book?"
"Maybe just a bit," Anne murmured.
He put down the James Bond novel—it was the one with Russia in the title anyway—and moved so that he was seated beside her. Without any more delay, they opened the book and started reading.
The picture book Anne had was about animals. When Alfred pointed at each animal, Anne would tell him what it was. After this, Alfred would read out the animal facts found in the book.
Alfred was sure that Anne liked animals as well as every other child did, he could see it in the way her gaze never left the pictures of the animals on the page. Her favourite animal, though, was a mystery to him until he reached the last page of the book.
"Hey look," he exclaimed, placing a finger on the animal's picture. "It's a—"
"Bunny rabbit!" Anne interrupted, pointing at it excitedly as well. Her face lit up with a child-like smile for the first time that day.
"You like rabbits, huh?" Alfred asked, interested in this new discovery.
She nodded, still looking at the picture. "I think they're cute...and fluffy."
"Yeah, they're loads of fun to play with too," he said. "If only they weren't so quiet."
Anne turned to look at him. "I like it that they're quiet. It means they're always listening to you. That's why they have those big ears. Sometimes I think they actually understand me when I talk to them," she said thoughtfully.
He looked at her carefully. "You're starting to worry me a bit. I mean, you're way too...serious for your age, you know?"
"I'm just different," Anne argued, closing the book.
"And there's nothing wrong with that," he replied hurriedly. "It's just that you need to wind down a bit. I'm sure there's some whimsy in you somewhere there."
"Whimsy?"
"Well, I was never really good at word choice but, yeah. You need to enjoy yourself a little more, give yourself room to be a little immature."
Anne was silent, taking in what he just said.
"Hey," he said, deciding to bring up something he noticed earlier, "I know this isn't exactly too connected with our conversation right now but..."
"Yeah?"
Alfred gave her a grin. "You exchange the 'r' in my name with a 'w'."
"I do not," Anne exclaimed.
"Really? Say 'Alfred', then," he challenged.
She took a deep breath. "Al—Al-fuh-wed," she said slowly. She covered her mouth immediately when she had realized that she had pronounced it wrongly.
Alfred laughed. "Told you so."
Anne turned away, scowling.
"Hey, Annie, don't be mad," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Like I said, you're still a kid. Let yourself be one. Honestly, I find it cute when you say it that way."
She turned to him again. "Fine," she said grudgingly.
This was the point Alfred decided to take it upon himself to help kid Anne have some real fun.
"You know what?" Alfred said, idea coming to mind. "I think I have something for us to do next."
Alfred's idea of childish fun turned out to be finger painting on the floor of England's study. He and Anne had managed to find a few tubes of paint, a palette and a couple of aprons to protect their clothes lying around the house.
Like their previous activity, Anne seemed to be taking this one quite seriously as well. At least she seemed a bit looser now.
"I'm finish," Anne announced a few minutes after they had started. Alfred quickly put the last touches to his finger painting and finished it as well.
"Okay," he said looking up at her, "you show your painting."
She shyly handed the painted to him. Alfred looked at the red, white and blue squiggles on the paper.
"Wow, Anne," he said uncertainly. "This is a really nice—what is it exactly?"
"A flag," the girl said simply.
Alfred looked at it again. "Yours or mine?"
She took the painting back and looked at it carefully as well. "I—I'm not sure," Anne said, putting down her painting.
He couldn't hold in a laugh.
"It's not funny," she yelled, sounding slightly hurt.
Alfred forced himself to stop laughing. "I'm sorry, Annie. I do think it's a nice flag. Maybe we should make it the flag of our awesome combined forces."
"If you're so good at painting, show me yours," she said, not comforted by his flag proposal.
"Okay," he said, turning his painting toward her direction. "Ta da."
"Is that you, Alfwed?" she asked, looking at the man in the picture.
"No," he said, a bit disappointed. "That's Superman."
"Oh," she said apologetically. "You don't paint so good too, Alfwed."
Alfred raised an eyebrow. "I don't paint good, huh?" he said with mock seriousness. He dipped a finger in the yellow paint and playfully smeared it on Anne's cheek. "There," he said smugly. "Now I think I've made a masterpiece."
Anne looked so serious for a moment that he thought he had made her mad. A second later, though, she was smiling mischievously and bringing her hand, now covered in purple paint, dangerously close to his face.
"Now, Anne," he said, leaning away. "Think about what you're doing. Paint is really hard to clean up, you know. Don't you want to—ah!"
A big area of Alfred's face was now purple.
"Okay, kid," he said, smiling roguishly. "You asked for it." He quickly dipped his fingers into different colors of paint.
The girl, laughing nervously now, stood up and backed away slowly. Alfred stood up as well, preparing to back her into a wall and close in for the messy paint attack. To his surprise, before he could even take a step forward, Anne opened the study door and shot out of the room.
"Hey, wait up!" he called after her. He ran out of the room in time to see her slam a bathroom door closed.
"Open up, Anne!" he said, attempting a stern voice. Some of the paint on his fingers smeared on the door. Another thing he would have to clean up later.
"I need to wash my hands too, you know," he said, trying to get her to let him in.
"Use the other bathroom!" she yelled back.
"No, I wanna use this one!" he replied. "If you don't open up, I'm going to break the door down."
"I'm using the toilet!"
"Oh," he said, suddenly embarrassed. "Sorry about that." He started walking away when he heard snickers from the other side of the bathroom door.
"Wait a minute," he murmured, hurrying back there. "I heard laughing! Anne, you better be really using the toilet or I'll—"
The door opened and Anne came out wearing a small smile. "All done," she said, holding up her clean hands.
After both of them had completely washed themselves of paint, Alfred (always so concerned about food) decided to check the fridge for lunch. While he was doing that, he had forced Anne to sit in front of the television and watch something funny and unserious, namely Spongebob Squarepants.
Finding nothing in the fridge, he disappointedly headed back to the living room.
"How's Bikini Bottom?" he asked Anne, sitting on the couch beside her.
"Insane. But I guess it's pretty funny," she admitted reluctantly. "Did you find anything?"
"No," Alfred answered with a sigh. "Now I have to think of a way to get us some food before we both starve."
Alfred was silent for a few minutes, in deep thought. Then, the answer to his problem came to him.
"McDonald's!" he suddenly yelled out.
Anne jumped in surprise. "Huh?"
He just turned off the television and stood up. "Come on, Anne. We have places we need to go."
