Skyfall, Epica, 24 Hours, Memories, Lost In Paradise, KRWLING, Human Legacy, Not Strong Enough.

Eeeeey, real life, what can I say? The majority of this chapter was written at my job on breaks lasting anywhere from 45 minutes to just 10. It wasn't so much that writing that took forever as it was making myself finally sit and type it all out. It's still quite rough and I apologize for that, but I think I basically went the whole month of November without updating.

I really did want to get Recovery done by the 14th of December for Final Loop's first anniversary, but I know how much content I have left to get through, and there's no way I'm going to find the time in the next 5 days.

Recovery

The United States of Alfred

"You, you're my hate."

"Excuse me?"

"What I mean is," he hadn't wanted them to do this over the phone, but they refused to ship him out to Colorado to do it in person. Instead, they brought in a laptop on a steel table and they made sure to handcuff him before loading the program that showed him his President's confused and irritated face.

"I mean I was really, really angry after we got out." But at least they could see each other now. It was their first almost-face-to-almost-face meeting since he'd been told to leave his own government. But what mattered most right now was that America was able to just sit down across from his Boss and speak to him. "Everything I tried to be and inspire was made a mockery: freedom, choice, even man's ownership of his own soul."

"Agent, I think Mister Jones is unwell. I'm a very busy man and this-"

"Don't piss me off, Mister President." America warned. "I'm already so mad at you, Mister President, mad enough that I know I'll do something I'll regret if you don't shut up and listen to me." He watched the man through the screen forget his mouth was still open and stare at him across the connection. He took it as acknowledgement and resumed a carefully prepared little speech.

"America." His name. "Canada," his brother, "England." His- "France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China, Italy… and one time Spain. Something awful happened to ten, almost eleven of the world's nations." How open had the others already been with their bosses? It didn't really matter. "Call their leaders, get in on the rhetoric, Mister President, and ask the Prime Ministers and Majesties of the world if anything strange happened after the Bern Conference- they'll know what you're talking about."

"I don't understand."

"Then shut up."

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm one of the people who exists, Mister President, without really existing." Idiot. "I wasn't born and I don't really know what it'll mean when I die, but you've always been right when you called me a young man." America dropped his head a little, breaking eye-contact with the little black lens on the computer's edge that let his image on the other end stare straight through into his master's soul. "I'm young and I'm green and I've let this shit get the best of me, so I'm sorry." And he really, really meant that.

"Mister Jones,"

"People like me don't really see people like you, Mister President, did you know that? "

"I-"

"I didn't know, not really. I didn't know that we weren't creatures that could see gender either: it just wasn't something that came up." Someone had probably told him at some point thought- England no doubt, or maybe even Italy or Japan years ago. "But we don't. And I know we don't age or bleed the way you do: I've lived twenty lifetimes and it's barely left a mark on me."

The man on the other side of the screen was hush now, probably overwhelmed. But America didn't look up to see or confirm what, if any, kind of impact his words were really having. He just said them:

"Humans are such fragile things." Temporary and easily led astray. "That's why I've been able to figure you out just in the time since you left me sitting here: you're my anger."

"Now just stop for a moment and listen to yourse-"

"You're a real man, Mister President, a real man with a past and a future, a family and ambition, but-" America dropped his voice now but he didn't make it weak. He wanted this man to listen, not mistake him. "But you only climbed up to where you are because I was so fucking mad at myself and the world that I prayed for anyone, anyone at all, who could take me the hell away from them and all those haunting faces."

"Mister Jones, are you seriously trying to suggest that you had some kind of hand in the election?"

"I'm saying I am the election, Mister President." Maybe it wasn't something the United States of America wanted to say out-loud, "I'm saying that Alfred F. Jones, the man with no past and no future who doesn't even exist in the present, has voted for every President of these United States since I told Washington that I wanted Freedom and I was going to fight my own god-damned brother to get it." America had shattered and transformed that bond with the empire by accepting and feeding off the patriotism of his Children, and by letting himself grow into the nation they had built with every hammer-swing and whistle blow. He had led the charge out West and fought his brother in the north, challenging Spain and driving Mexico to the south while crushing dozens of smaller, ancient nations into the dust.

"I'm telling you that I voted in anger, Mister President: so you are the President, but if you don't stop and pay attention to just how fucking mad I am at both of us for the shit you're dragging my people through, then you won't stay on top for very long."

"If you seriously believe that I'm going to let a disturbed young man like you tell me how to run this nation then Mister Jones I-"

"I am the nation you ignorant son of a bitch!" He yelled, and when he felt that patriotic burn in his gut he let it crawl up his throat like bile before vomit: "And you lied to me! I can feel my factories closing! I can feel private fingers digging into public funds and I can hear the banks collecting keys from the children they're throwing out on the streets! Don't lie to me and pretend you know how to manage my resources or have any hope of keeping me from plunging over that fiscal cliff: you're fucking betting on it!"

"Mister Jones-!"

"I am the United States of America and I am one-hundred percent of this nation! You are accountable to me before anyone else! Not your campaign organizers, not your business partners, not your bottom line, me! And if you continue to fight with and ignore me, Mister President, then not even god himself will save you from me!"

"Is that a threat to my personal-?"

"You fucking bet it is!" America had wept digging Lincoln's grave, sat for days at Garfield's bedside, stayed close to McKinley's Vice-President, and held the hand of Kennedy's widow. America had mourned four times but he knew that if it happened again then this time it would be different.

"Agent Stevenson I believe that under the Patriot Act-" That son of a bitch! "-this confession is more than enough to hold Mister Jones in custody somewhere appropriate, both for his own safety as much as the continued progress of this nation as we move into a new future."

"Don't dismiss me, Mister President."

"You need help, Mister Jones." Oh yes, that he clearly did. "I hope you have the insurance to cover it." Filthy rat…

"Tell your wife she won't make half the widow Jackie did."

One week later…

A red-lacquered house with a wide koi pond brimming with life. A toddling young nation who barely understood how he'd come so far from home, and his grandfather who sang to the orange bodies swimming beneath the clear surface.

Ancient sunlight shining over tangled bronze hair, a colour he'd passed on to his Hispanic line, while the shoulders and breadth had gone to his Romantic successor. His voice had remained in Italy, that sing-song jabber that hadn't rung in China's ears for too many centuries. It didn't matter that both brothers could carry the hymns that had laid Rome to rest, only one of them had the stern glare and slow-burning temper of that great empire.

At least, that was what China had told himself for a long time now. Romano was the true successor of his namesake: he's been the one to survive, hadn't he? He'd outlived the one who'd succumbed to fate and anguish, and he was too strong at heart to let the pains in his political flesh bring him down. He was going to survive what China was about to bring down on him, because Italy hadn't yet found a son or grandchild to protect and stake his life on. He wasn't dying, he wasn't weakening and getting ready to bow out of this world.

He would be China's, and Rome's ghost would hate him for it, but there simply wasn't any way to change his mind. Italy was so frustrated with his state of affairs at this point that if he didn't get the money he needed to fix his flawed system he would tear down the government with smoke and gunfire. China would prevent those scars, he hadn't quite liked them on Rome and his own were troublesome to think about. He would keep Italy safe, but there would be no reason not to benefit from the arrangement while he helped him.

That was how China chose to enter this meeting a week after Romano first contacted him. He came walking on the painful earth of Rome's remains and breathing in the fresh life of his grandson's achievements, all for the purpose of snatching one more piece from his opponents' hands. China had avoided any kind of communication with Germany all week just so he would have the supreme satisfaction of claiming Italy for his own.

Security was heavier in Rome than it had been in a long time, and China and his handful of associates were swept through door after door and down winding stone corridors to find their meeting rooms and counter-parts. The People's Republic of China found himself in a small, sun-lit chamber looking out on a hidden garden, sunlight pouring in through the high windows and sparkling across the dark stain on the table. He was able to choose his seat with care and place himself firmly in the light, the sun on his back, and waited patiently for the younger nation to arrive and sign away his autonomy.

Everything really had come together in China's favour. America was on his knees while his allies scattered, Russia took orders from Beijing and was keeping all of his subject states in line. Europe was too preoccupied with economic troubles and personal affairs to notice him, and now that they'd cast off one of their own, China was here to scoop Italy up into his arms and establish himself properly on the continent that had caused him so much grief in the previous century. It was wonderful to realize that while everyone else had spent their time since Bern wallowing and weeping in despair, China was the nation who had actually lifted his head and found the path to new political and economic domination.

The world was too big to be ruled all at once, but Russia, Canada and Italy were not. All China needed was for the last of Japan's confidence in America to dry up before his younger brother would fall under his sway as well, or go down trying to fight him in a war he would never be able to wage again. Everything was turning up in his favour, so as warm as Rome's sunlight was across his shoulders, China's confidence could not be broken.

So it was the strangest thing when those tall doors opened and China suddenly couldn't remember what he'd just been thinking about. Why had he felt so smug? He couldn't stand up, not that he'd meant to originally, but that had been a choice: a decision made to ensure the balance of power continued to swing and lilt in his direction.

Now he was robbed of choice and feeling. China was staring into the wrong set of low-brow eyes over a slightly crooked nose, scarred lips driven into a deep line between angular cheeks. This person's hair had finished transforming from its muted auburn to a violent blood red, the slightly curly strands caught by a tie behind his neck before the black and blue of a chillingly familiar uniform robed him from the chin down. China's eyes barely registered the gold buttons and pins on Italy's uniform, he was trapped staring at a ghost and it upset him.

It upset him to be this upset. The Middle Kingdom was finished with having the fates knock him down at his moment of greatness. His mind made the connection smooth and easily: North Italy was alive, the cultural and economic divisions between North and South had preserved his life in the face of so much unnatural trauma. It shouldn't have been so surprising.

"Sign this." But it was. It was surprising, and it was uncomfortable, and it made it very hard for the most powerful nation still on earth to breathe. He watched gloved hands- and since when did Italy wear gloves with his uniform? But his hands pulled a sealed dossier out from under his arm, breaking the seal before sliding it across the stained table until it was in front of China.

No handshakes, no smiling, no pleasantries or discussion. The People's Republic of China pulled the documents out of the folder with clumsy wooden hands, moving slowly so he could hide the cumbersome way his fingers were operating. He did not take his eyes off the nation standing in front of him, because between the blue uniform and the way his face refused to flinch or change China was compelled to do whatever Rome's other heir demanded. He reached for the pen resting in his own breast pocket and twisted the smooth lid off the fine enamelled piece, looking down with hazy eyes to find the lines marked for his signature.

"Our experiences taught me something." China was pleased with himself for maintaining the presence of mind to speak, smiling to himself when good sense prevailed and his eyes did deviate up to read what few numbers were available for his mind to register. "That creature taught me not to fear my own memories."

"Sign."

"I made a pledge to myself after Rome died." He touched the pen nub to the first line, scrawling his name in careful characters instead of his western signature. Considering the number of pages in front of him, it was only the first place of many he would have to sign. "I felt the only way to stop the pain was to stop the memories, to cease looking into the past for the comforts I had lost. But I didn't stop with Rome."

The Italy brothers were not being completely unreasonable with their demands, at least that was what China thought until he reached the fifth and sixth pages of the agreement. Ah, weapons? This had not been discussed by any of their human masters, but they wanted military friendship to go along with the economic boon China was willing to give them. Did they really think he would hand over so much aid for dramatically less in return than what he and Romano had already discussed?

But he did sign it, because he was impressed by this debilitating play. How had the EU ever denied them when North Italy was waiting in the wings for South to spring on them?

"I've lost many friends over the millennia." He continued, letting the black ink flow as he spoke. "I killed some of them, betrayed many and was betrayed in turn. Brothers, sisters, parents, children… I'm very old you know, very, very old." So sometimes it was easier to just forget about those faces and names, to put them out of his mind for a few hundred years after they breathed their last. China preferred to remember his own achievements and ways of doing things, hear his own stories, play his own songs, appropriate what he liked and reject and destroy what he did not. When you had lived as long and successfully as China you did not need to cater to other, smaller powers on such a personal level. But… "The mansion changed that."

"This isn't about that."

"Yes it is." He looked up with the pen poised over the eighteenth page where he'd just marked his signature again: he'd just agreed to a freeze on interest that would benefit Italy's fractured markets. "You became one of them to me, otherwise I would not be doing this. You hid from me like I've hidden them, but now you're going to listen."

China flipped straight to the last page of the document, the final portion of the contract that would validate everything else he had already signed, and without it these were worthless papers that his bosses would tear apart and reject in outrage. He held it up so North Italy could see it, watching something glint in the back of the Italian's dark eyes as he held his peace and did what China said: he listened.

"I will sign this." Although he had every right and reason to reject it, and he was completely capable of throwing Italy against the wall and forcing the conditions China wanted onto this agreement. But he would sign it. "But first I am going to have what I came here for. I thought you were dead and I was going to fight your brother over everything I have just agreed to here with you, but there is one thing I want, and I am going to have it or I will return to Beijing with my assets intact and your house on the brink of ruin and revolution. Do you understand?"

North Italy stood there in his uniform with the sunlight still glittering across the dark grain of the table. The blue outfit was hauntingly familiar and not just because of the military tradition it carried, but the way it evoked memories of bloodshed and white walls. He hadn't cracked a single smile, not even one to mislead or hide whatever he was feeling inside. He wasn't blank, but reading him was not the fun, active game of disarming comments and half-witted behaviour it had once been. The white scars around his mouth looked like they'd begun to fade when China compared them to memories of his long sleep in Venice, but his hair was garishly red and long enough to be held back with that tie behind his head.

The younger nation moved his hands from hanging at his sides to clasp them behind his back, shifting his weight until his booted feet were spread and planted firmly on the tile floor. China recognized the body-language immediately, not because it was characteristic of Italy, but precisely because it was not.

The strong stance and the slight nod of his head, nevermind the way his eyes flashed with something too fast and brief for China to catch. It was the look of a nation waiting for a command, someone who wasn't quite ready to surrender, but who still understood that he had been beaten.

It was a thrilling message to receive, because it banished those numbing, dumb-struck feelings from before. Seeing North Italy submit without bowing and await orders without acknowledging him meant exactly what China had already told himself.

He'd won.

"Bring me your brother."

What was the point of taking a really long time to explain something that was really very simple?

But was that any better than very quickly running through an issue that was very complicated?

That, in a nutshell, was America's dilemma, because the young man sitting in a Pennsylvania prison cell a week after he'd last spoken to the President of the United States didn't even know whether to be blunt or just let himself really delve into the details of his situation. What had brought him here, and what was going to happen because of it?

All Alfred F. Jones Could really say for sure, much like his handlers keeping watch through that slat in the steel door, was that the young man on the prison cot had started running a fever back on Wednesday, and hadn't moved from his spot here since last night.

The air in his tiny cell felt like ice water running over his skin now, flooding his lungs and turning his hands numb. But the fever wasn't going to break with only bed-rest and chicken soup. This, despite how unfair it all seemed, was no ordinary fever.

"Alfred?" It had taken the man with the New England accent and nice green eyes five days to come into things. It was hard to keep track of his name, but the blonde kid in the cell was pretty sure he had it now.

"'s that you, Phil?" He couldn't even really open his mouth all the way to speak anymore. He didn't want his teeth to chatter so much and tried to just keep them clenched. It hurt to keep his face frozen like this, but it was more annoying to have his molars grind and knock until they cracked.

"That's right, Al." I'm back." Phil, short for Philip, a French name, he was a nice guy though. "I need you to talk to me for a bit, okay?"

"Whatever you say, Mr. Westwood." Westwood, an English name.

"Have you eaten anything today? Are they feeding you, Alfred?" Three squares a day, but when he tried to say it he felt the fever send a spasm through his lungs- no go. "You gotta eat, Al. I'm trying to get clearance for a doctor to come in and help but you've gotta be in my side, okay?" That meant answer all the questions with all the right answers, say yes sir and no sir and be a good, obedient little blonde boy.

'But who's on my side?' he thought, because again, he didn't think he could say it.

"Are you on my side, Al?"

"I'm on mine." If he could only figure out what that was supposed to mean. What was the United States of America, and who was Alfred F. Jones?

"Let's start with something else: where'd you grow up?" What? "Talk to me, Al. Where'd you grow up?"

"East coast…" New England, Delaware. "Moved west from there."

Delaware- who'd called him that? Who'd found him first?

"Your passport didn't have a lot of information in it, do you know why?" Of course he knew why, but he wasn't sure how to word it properly. "When we scanned it, all that came up was a list of the world's nations, the entire roster, but it left out a few and included others that aren't formally recognized."

"Cuba…" He grunted, thinking of all the names that would have been on that list, and what they were meant to tell the computer systems that scanned it. "Cuba's a dick…" So Cuba's name was omitted, because the United States had ceased all diplomatic ties and personal communication with that southern nation decades ago…

"I really want to get a doctor in here for you, Al, but I need more information. Mother's maiden name, family history, anything at all. Even the prescription on your glasses is something."

"Doc won't fix me…" America knew what the problem was, Alfred just knew he felt sick.

"Al, just hang-"

"-hate that name." Phil stopped talking. Interrupting a man was rude but Phil was a good guy: he didn't even seem upset about it.

"What name, Al?"

"That one." He thought about it for a moment after he said it, and then he realized he hated a lot more than just the name. He looked down at his sweat-stained self and swore: "Why the fuck am I blonde?"

"Alfred?"

"Pull up the last census- I shouldn't be blonde. Alfred's blonde but I-"

"Alfred?" Phil's voice got a bit louder and it made him stop talking. He didn't wanna make a good guy like Philip Westwood mad at him. "Alfred F. Jones, is that who I'm speaking to?"

"I hate that name." It was his first response and he went with it. He went with his gut. "You don't know what that name means to me. You don't know how much I hate it."

"Alfred, I want you to stay calm for me, okay?" Stop talking to him like a child. He was older than these walls by God, he was older than the city they were trapped in. "I think that fever's starting to get the best of you."

"Damn straight it is." Phil was a good guy, but that was the first smart thing he'd said all night. "Everything's been getting the best of me lately; don't act like I don't know it."

"Al-"

"I hate that name!" He shouted, he screamed it, and he hated it when the sound hit the walls and slammed back into him. His skull was throbbing from protests and rallies, his throat was aching and raw while his skin burned from the rubber bullets and tear gas sent to suppress them. "I hate that name and I hate this face! I hate how this body was chosen for me!"

"Alfred calm down! You're gonna be alright, just-"

"I am not a child!" He bellowed and the hot pain running down his calves roared up into his stomach where the acid of financial collapse was poisoning him.

"I am not a child!" America roared, "I am the single most powerful nation on earth! I have raised dictators, toppled empires, bought my enemies and sold my best friends!" Oh god, he could feel it: that heat. He could feel it warring with the sick cold wrapped around his shoulders like a frigid blanket. Where had that oil spill come from? Why was he just noticing it now? Nevermind the gulf, he could feel the sludge clogging up his lungs until he swore he belched black gold. "But God chose a child to represent me!" And it hurt: it was all just an overwhelming flood of hurt.

"Alfred-"

"America-!" The sound hit the walls and hit him again, like a clap over both ears that sent his insides ringing. There was no answer as the silence set in after it, silence broken when he pulled his chapped lips open, breathed cold air down into inflamed lungs, and screamed his name again:

"AMERICA!" He screamed it again because it hadn't rung loud enough the first time, hadn't travelled far enough. And then with gasping breaths he followed screaming with something more: "First of the modern republics…" Because he was. "The great successor of the British Empire-" Because of all the former colonies, he was the greatest. "Third largest in size, and Europe's equal in power! I am the United States of America, and I will not be caged like a beast or misrepresented by some piss-poor miserable white child!"

America felt it and knew it and couldn't be stopped. The Western World's hero, the hegemonic power that had triumphed in two world wars and made the earth quake with the ring of gunfire and the changing of the guard. America's time at the top would end one day just as it had for Rome and England and China in the past, the way the Ottomans had disintegrated and Austria had collapsed under Persia's ancient sky. America would fall one day, but Alfred F. Jones would not be the reason why.

What were you supposed to get when you put history's most effective and world-dominating hyper-power and put that essence inside a human body?

You made it masculine because God had decided it should be so at the start. It had blonde hair and blue eyes because a Nation's image to the rest of the world meant as much as the reality of any census count or decades of immigration. It was given a youthful face because it was young, and came with energy as boundless as the Montana sky. It kept living and refused to die because it was the Spirit of Industry and the dream of freedom that would never truly die now that it had lived and breathed and run wild in the hearts of men and women of all walks.

But then, after all of that…

After revolution and expansion and isolation and war and growth and domination…

After everything that had happened, what did it mean when you took that young, energetic, idealistic nation-spirit… and made it die?

Forced it to die?

Gave it not choice except to die?

Over four-hundred years of history, and the potential of over three-hundred-million human beings, condensed and brutalized down into one single spoilt child with a gun and a shitty temper. When the United States of America became just Alfred F. Jones, a boy who couldn't even make himself useful in the face of so much repeated suffering and death, what was supposed to happen? When in loop after torturous and unnatural loop, that child with no past and no future and no bloodline and no identity was more at fault than ever free from blame, so what were the consequences?

Freedom trapped between cold white walls. Valour bleeding under florescent lights. Dignity abandoned to screaming fits and madness. A great nation brought down to a boy who couldn't even focus on what was happening to him. A boy- a child, who was more upset by the strange and excited feelings aroused by a best friend who had once been a brother: Alfred F. Jones was the brat who hadn't been able to think past biology that didn't even apply to him in order to help himself and everyone else escape. The self-proclaimed hero had been more than a liability: he'd been a fucking catalyst for death.

"…Alfred?"

So how was the United States of America supposed to handle all of that?

"Alfred… can you hear me?"

How was the United States of America supposed to treat Alfred F. Jones?

"Alfred."

When all the black magic had left God's Avatar of the State because all the clocks had been smashed and all the scars had healed, when the body belonged to a deity who couldn't die and who could feel and sense and embody what it was meant to embody once again. When Alfred F. Jones reverted back to just a code name, not a real name, but it was still a real face and a real voice and the same hands that had shaken and misfired too many times to count. When all of that happened and the State became the State again, no longer the boy, the child, the brat from that haunted place, what happened then?

"I…" When it wasn't Alfred F. Jones speaking through the brat's mouth anymore, and it wasn't Alfred F. Jones dealing with his government anymore, and it wasn't fucking fair for America to put up with this kind of shit on top of everything else already turning against the American people!

When the United States of America had to wake up every morning to Alfred Fucking Jones staring back in the mirror: young, jobless, emotional, pathetic, what the fuck was the State supposed to do?

"I hate-" What was the single-most powerful nation on earth supposed to do when it realized that God had given it an Avatar too weak and simple-minded to keep his brothers from drowning in blood, too cowardly to protect the man who'd given everything trying to get them out, and too petulant to follow orders and keep everyone safe when it fucking mattered? "I hate-"

"Alfred please-"

Then the State had to react.

"I HATE HIM!"

"Open this door, open it right now, let me in-"

And it had to react in a big way.

"I HATE THEM BOTH-!" he felt the heat come out of his mouth and burn his throat, he felt it knock the humans senseless on the other side of the door as he dropped his sweating face between his knees on the cot, screaming at the concrete and feeling the cell shake from its foundations up to that too-far-away window above his head. "I WANT THEM DEAD! TAKE THIS FACE FROM ME, GOD, I WON'T HAVE IT ANYMORE!"

Because the United States of America could accept that one day it would collapse and fall.

"I HATE HIM!"

But on the lives of the American People, it would not collapse to protect Alfred F. Jones.

"Please don't go alone."

"I'll be fine, just take it easy tonight."

"Romano." He didn't like it, Veneziano didn't like it at all and he wasn't going to suddenly start liking it as he followed his brother around the house. "What about everything you said about not trusting China?"

"I'm not trusting him, Veneziano, I just don't know why you're convinced he's going to try and hurt me or something." Romano was doing up his tie still when he stopped and turned around after walking out into the hall on their second floor, looking up at him with the silk folds still tangled around his fingers.

"You didn't see him when he asked for you." The younger one pressed. "It wasn't a face I've seen him make before." It was the look a powerful empire wore when they felt like they were entitled to something, something they would prefer to have handed over, but would just take and rip apart if denied. Romano sighed but just didn't take it seriously as he looked back at the mirror on the wall.

"What was his threat if I don't show up tonight? He won't sign? Well then what the hell are we doing all of this for?" Please don't take this so lightly… "He probably just wants to shout at me or some shit for not telling him about you." Well maybe that was exactly what Veneziano was worried about, and he scowled at his brother while Romano finished off the knot and straightened it around his throat. He was dressed for work, but with the added flare of his better wrist-watch and a nicer black jacket instead of something more casual: they were putting themselves under China's control and Romano knew to dress the part.

"Calm down," Romano repeated, setting his hands on Veneziano's shoulders and making him feel like he was acting like a child for putting up this much of a fight. It wasn't fair for Romano to look so worried and use that to keep him quiet. But his green eyes were sincere, almost pleading, and the younger brother really hated how effective they were on him. "I have my phone with me and I'll probably be there until pretty late tonight: so promise me you'll get some sleep."

"I won't."

"Promise me."

"I said I-"

"Just trust me." Not fair. Veneziano took a deep breath and held it tight, giving his brother the best glare he could manage as Romano hit him with a look that said he was being unreasonable, and he hated that too. "Trust me: order something to eat and make sure you get some sleep tonight so at least one of us is functioning tomorrow." Romano meant it as a joke and Veneziano seriously considered grabbing the back of his shirt and dragging him back up the stairs as they both quickly stomped down them.

"At least take the Captain with-"

"We sent him off to find himself, remember?" God damn it he'd forgotten again. That wasn't even the first time this week that Veneziano had almost suggested that human Captain- that human Major, who had been so useful to him. Maybe instead of dragging Romano up the stairs he'd just stomp on his foot so he couldn't walk, anything had to be better than watching his brother drag a black coat out of the closet and swing around his shoulders to keep him warm for the short walk down to the taxi.

"Veneziano, it's okay."

"It is not okay." But he let Romano hug him, okay when the embrace didn't linger because that taxi was waiting and Veneziano was still mad at him for taking this so easily. Romano had hurt every step of the way into China's good graces, but a private meeting that could turn sour at any moment wasn't even giving him a moment's pause. "Please be careful."

"I will, I promise, okay?" He got a quick kiss on the cheek and one brief moment where Romano stopped and actually looked at him, really, really searched his face to see if Veneziano meant what he was saying or not. But he did, and it showed, because Romano slowed down properly and stopped trying to brush it off, sighing under his breath before pulling out his cell-phone and making sure Veneziano could see it with its full-battery icon in the corner of the screen.

"I will call if I need you. And if I just call and hang-up then you'll know something's wrong, but if I don't call then I'm fine. Don't stay up, Feliciano: just put the damn volume on max and leave it by your pillow."

"Romano I'm not a child."

"Then prove it by being asleep by the time I get home, understand?" Yes he understood but no he wasn't going to-

"Fine."

"Promise?"

"Fine." He would go to bed but North Italy was not going to fall asleep while South Italy was off being tormented by China. "Now if you're so keen on going then go, you shouldn't be late."

"I won't. But I'll see you tomorrow alright? Bright and early." Romano leaned in to kiss his cheek again and this time Veneziano was willing to return a quick peck on his brother's cheek. He snagged Romano's hand just as he started to turn away and squeezed it tight, not letting go until he felt his other half pause again and do the same.

"Bright and early."

"Sir?" This was all more troubling than he could say, but what was the Secretary of the State supposed to do when he'd been sent to a federal prison outside Harrisburg Pennsylvania where a delusional young journeyman had just flung himself over the deep-end? "Secretary Westwood, sir, we have a situation."

"Another one?" Phil breathed, looking up from where he'd dropped himself behind the desk kindly provided for him by the prison's administration. Everything in this place was grey concrete and painted steel bars, but he just opened his eyes and sat up properly, tired feet scuffing the floor so he could stand and see the federal agent lingering in the doorway. Somewhere down the hall, he could still hear Alfred bellowing like an animal in his cell- they were trying to restrain him, but he was strong…

"VP's on a secure line waiting to speak to you." The Vice President?

"Do you know what he wants?" Just asking the question brought two more agents into the room, and when he noticed them taking up positions in the corners so they couldn't be seen from the doors, he felt his nerves start to fray. "What's going on, aren't he and the President over in Wyoming?"

The agent in front of him, a tall, hulking man with smooth black skin and a bald ring around his head, was licking his lips slowly and cradling a boxy-looking cellphone between his hands. It had a satellite antenna sticking out the top so it could still grab a signal behind steel and concrete, but it also meant the call was coming from somewhere far away. The agent stepped inside and closed the steel office door behind him, standing there with his back turned for a few moments while Phil Westwood, government bureaucrat and assistant to the Secretary of the State, told himself to breathe deeply and remain calm. When the agent finally faced him and held the phone out, his face was grim.

"Sir, the President of the United States has been shot." He stopped listening. "Your safety is my team's top priority, sir, but our country needs you in Washington immediately, a plane is being secured as we speak."

Philip Westwood, thirty-eight, Harvard graduate and one of the youngest members of the 45th American President's administration, didn't really hear the last part of what the agent said.

He just heard the silence that meant that Alfred had stopped screaming in his cell. And he just felt the world outside reinforced concrete walls crumble and break beyond his control. He took the phone from the agent in charge of protecting him, but before he brought it up to his ear the young man looked up one more time and said something he couldn't explain:

"Prep Mister Jones for transport. Wherever I go, he goes." The agent's eyes widened and he shook his head immediately, chin pulled back like he was tsking a child.

"Not possible, and I don't think you understand the situation if you're seriously suggesting we try."

"It's not a suggestion." Phil didn't even lift the phone to his ear, he was struck instead by the fact that he needed this request carried out, and nothing was going to sway him. "He knows what's going on, he's connected to it and I'm not-"

"A sick and delusional young man like that is nothing but a security risk and has nothing to do with-"

"Do you even know what my job is with the government?" Phil countered, interrupting and running right over the agent's argument. He felt himself getting hot under the collar, not used to pushing around people or stepping on their administrative toes. "I was brought in to replace Jones, and I've done a shit job of it. You showed me a copy of the conversation he had with the President, and I don't know what everyone else heard in it but I heard him threaten the President's life, and now you're telling me a week later that he's been shot out of the blue in a state he won with a clear margin? Either he comes with me to Washington or I don't go."

"Mister Westwood-" Saying no made sense, it made perfect sense: here the wild man Alfred Jones could be kept under surveillance and they'd work the paperwork out eventually and get him into a hospital where he needed to be. But how long would that really take?

"Agent this is not up for debate." How many months would that take? How many years would Alfred Jones spend locked up in a cell or a camp until they could figure out why his cell-phone was full of countries, and their numbers were untraceable and untapped? All he knew was that he wasn't willing to let that bizarre young man fall through the cracks in the bureaucracy. He wasn't going to let Alfred Jones wind up in a 21st Century Alcatraz.

"After this call I want his cell-phone brought back in here."

"You don't have the clearance for that kind of demand."

"Yes I do." He still had the phone with the VP waiting in his hand, telling himself his palms weren't sweating as he reached inside the inner pocket of his blazer and pulled out the security badge that had granted him access to every world meeting and summit since he'd received his new appointment. The nation's crest was blazoned across the multi-layered pass. It wasn't a simple punch-out plastic card, but something he knew was ribbed with micro-chips and more security features than a bank-vault. "I want his phone, I want in on the rhetoric, and I want him walking out of here with me or you'll have to drag me back to D.C., understood?"

They'd met all of three days ago, but Westwood already knew that the man he was speaking to wasn't going to put up much more of a fight about this. He wasn't an ankle-biter, he was an agent who knew his job and where his orders came from. If his orders were to keep Philip Westwood safe and transport him back to the capital as soon as possible, then it was in everyone's best interests for the man to just go along with his crazy demands and honour the badge that said yes, Westwood did have the clearance and the authority to demand Jones' release.

"Just take the damn call, will you? My men are not leaving this room without you." So with a huff and a harsh rebuttal, that was exactly what the CIA agent standing in the doorway did, and the man behind the desk finally picked up the call from his nation's Acting-President.

"Westwood. Please tell me this is all a mistake." It was barely past three in the afternoon, but even without the troubling news and stressful voices waiting for him, today was just getting started…

Wow I can't write America he is such a little fucker. And jeeze Phil for all the drafting we did together you still read like a wet napkin wow just go be not in my story you suck.

I get to write Action and Romano next chapter though, so here's to another update before Christmas, and if I miss it: happy holidays! Leave a review below and I'll see you in a few weeks!