England's smile was something America rarely ever saw – he was so distant and impossible to reach. Yet they fought in meetings, teasing, joking, and jabbing at each other's past wounds. They acted it out. Like they were in nothing but a children's theatre. They pretended it was all good, that the day long ago was, in fact, long ago and they had completely forgotten it all – that was the script
The empty lines, the hollow canned laughter, the lonesome stage lights. What a play. All happy in the end, happy enough for the audience to take home and not feel fooled.
America was not fooled though. As the actor, he held two roles. Himself and his mask of happiness. Façades were tainted in his name, smiles were burdened to him, happiness was nothing but a word that he told himself was all he had. Was England the same? Did he hide behind his pride like the sunny nation did?
Probably not. He must be really happy. He's free of me. Free of my sickening presence.
And that hurt. All America wanted was to talk as they did once ago. He wanted to be free, he wanted to no longer be of England's control – but he didn't want every silence of theirs to be painful. He wanted that comfortable silence that he knew was possible, that he once held so tightly in his small hands. And maybe that was childish, to want such a thing.
He had fought for freedom of himself, and in that, he lost his freedom with England. He couldn't hold England's coarse hand as he did as a child. He couldn't cry and bury his face into his shirt. He couldn't let tears splatter out in a sulk and wait for England's warm comfort. Those boundless skies he ached for, the skies England had said were in his own blue eyes, were still unreachable. He'd reach and find them grey – just as the day he had pointed his musket to the weeping mess, collapsed on the ground. He'd feel tears scream to escape, he'd feel his voice lose itself as his mouth opened to speak. He wanted to cry. He wanted to shout out, feel his voice go hoarse because he needed England to hear him.
But he couldn't, and instead, he granted England the removal of a tumour – the tumour which had pained him so much. Because England had hated him. And America had finally stopped hurting him – pushing England away and for once, surely letting the quiet nation rest.
If England could so much as smile, not for America, but because of America absence...
That would be enough. That was all he needed.
After all, he was just a silly youth, reaching for the dying stars and spoiling his own future with his tainted hands. All he needed was England's happy ending, not his.
So selfless, right? So unlike America, because this, of course, all this was not for his own need. It was all for England and his rare smiles, his battered heart. It was for his prideful nature that ever so needed America disgusting façade gone. A weak façade made of loneliness. America's loneliness.
Because that was the cold hard truth.
America was alone.
No one could fix that.
America would always be alone.