Yo, Hikou no Kokoro back with a new chapter! I'm pretty happy that this li'l guy was finished in time. I swore that I wouldn't make it; I had only gotten half of it done over the week, but then today-bang! Got the rest done in about an hour and a half! Hopefully that's not a bad thing. And hopefully, I can make it in time for next week's Friday for the next chapter. I want to try to keep my updating as consistent as possible. But anyway, I'm finally going to be pleasing my little USUK (or UKUS) readers out there. It's you guys' turn to see some development, right?

Special thanks for all my reviewers: firelight3, Crazy Green Earphones, and Rufescent! You guys are the reason why I keep writing this!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Axis Powers: Hetalia. It rightfully belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya. I only own the AU plot.

To Create Perfection

"The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth."
—Chinese proverb

"Law 7: Making Miracles, Part 1"

Months passed since Arthur and Alistair had moved into Francis' home. The time rolled by relatively smoothly, and no serious problems arose. Of course, that didn't mean that there were no arguments, because there were. They were simply too petty to last long or make a significant impact on anything at all. For example, Arthur and Francis had fought over what mode of transportation they would take to get to BCWD: Arthur had wanted to take advantage of Francis' beautiful car, but Francis was unreasonably stubborn in wasting time walking to BCWD. Eventually, Francis won out, as it was Arthur's habit of waking up early and strolling right out the door anyway, so they only used the car on emergencies, during rainy days, on errands, and with Alistair on board. There was another time when the two fought over cooking. At first, Francis thought it was a brilliant idea for the three to rotate cooking duty, assuming that because Arthur worked in a restaurant Arthur knew how to cook at least a decent meal. That changed immediately. Arthur somehow burnt beef stew: fire spewed from the pot and Francis clambered through the house with three fire extinguishers in hand; in the end, even the unburned remains tasted strangely like alcohol and tea leaves. After that, Francis and Alistair kept Arthur as far away from the kitchen as possible, much to Arthur's chagrin. Although these sorts of arguments were common in the shared household, they lived together quite well, sharing the bills, taxes, expenses and chores (except kitchen duty of course—Francis decided to completely monopolise the kitchen after figuring out how destructive Arthur was, and how boring Alistair's grand total of two recipes, haggis and porridge, were).

But Arthur's and Francis' more domestic lives weren't the only things that went relatively smoothly. Professionally, the two got along pretty well. They might have disagreed after the times when Arthur's frustration blew up his temper and Francis' detours wasted time, but observers would have nodded and said that they were indeed good partners. Francis taught procedures and tricks, and Arthur picked them up almost immediately. In a matter of three weeks, Arthur almost seemed like an assistant rather than a student; he would take care of assignments he was proficient in, allowing Francis to take care of the more confidential and complicated subjects. Mostly, however, they did experiments on rodents, specifically focusing on cellular communication and preliminary testing for pharmaceuticals—standard examples of early twenty-first century experiments. Only twice was Arthur allowed to dabble in some bioengineering: NL-27239 and NA-65710C. Those two experimentations deteriorated after a week, unfortunately. Then the two did go around helping a few doctors—usually Roderick—with their experimentations, but Arthur rarely met human subjects other than Alfred and Matthew, whom he gave physicals to, and even if he were allowed to help with another patient, Francis would only allow Arthur to give physicals and administer pills and injections filled with undisclosed substances. The monotony of the assignments annoyed Arthur, but at last he felt like he was doing something rather than running around campus and meeting people whose names he would never bother to remember.

Francis also sent Arthur into other jobs outside the department. Twice, Arthur went along with Francis to learn standard anaesthesia as talented surgeon made hip replacements. Of course, Arthur appreciated the new knowledge and skill, but it really wasn't something he knew he was going to do every day; after realising that the Humane Control department specialised in sedation and euthanasia, he was hesitant to learn more. He did end up babysitting İhsan, Heracles and Gupta several times. He never knew why though, since they were so well-behaved that they could easily take care of themselves, except when they were hungry. Nevertheless, Sadık was grateful for Arthur's work, so Arthur didn't mind as much.

Regardless of how much Arthur got to do, he couldn't help but feel that Francis continued to censor material. Francis was saying the word confidential less often until he wasn't saying it at all. But he continued to pick and choose what questions to answer. He just didn't blatantly state that he wasn't anymore. Instead, Francis would skitter around the subject by making unrelated observations and statements. It was far more irritating that way. Arthur wanted answers, and he wanted them immediately. He didn't want to wait, go through some sort of process or detour in order to find everything out.

Then, suddenly, Francis took a day off. Ludwig had gotten requests from two doctors saying that they were going to be requiring Arthur's assistance as an extension to the Paid Internship Program. Then the request was filed to Gilbert, who waved it off and said that Francis didn't need to come to work for the day, since Arthur would be busy with other things. Francis complied; an order was an order. That came as a surprise, but Arthur wasn't the one to look at the teeth of a gift horse. He was going to take advantage of Francis' day off and get some answers.

That day, Arthur had fully intended to walk alone in the rain. He had woken up before Alistair, of course, for the redhead always slept in. But Francis hadn't gotten up. Normally, he and Arthur would get downstairs at around the same time—Francis liked to take long, hot showers in the morning, so technically he got up earlier, but Arthur could get ready faster—so the silence seemed strange, but it was sorely missed. So he made his own breakfast of toast and peanut butter (Francis finally trusted Arthur enough to remove the restraining order on the toaster and the kettle) and sauntered right into the rain.

But Francis called out to him, standing in the doorway, in his light blue pyjamas and with his arms crossed over the chest. He offered to drive Arthur to the campus, and Arthur immediately took up the offer. With the extra time after getting ready, Francis made crepes for breakfast, leaving some for Alistair and writing a small note, as he usually did. Then Francis and Arthur climbed into the car and went straight to BCWD. There was no time for any detours, so Francis decided to only take one "to be fashionably late." Along the way, Francis gave last minute instructions and notes to Arthur, who, although was listening intently, wondered why Francis never told him before on the night before.

Francis had wanted Arthur to check up on Alfred and Matthew. Ludwig had requested general health reports on them if they were eating healthy or were cognitively fine, and Francis had thought that day would have been a great time to fulfil that wish. Of course, Francis had procrastinated on that, but Arthur came to expect these sorts of things. But in addition to the usual requests, such as making some of the red concoction for Matthew, Francis told him to inject something into Alfred. It was called IN-42, and it was supposedly a translucent green. But when Arthur asked what it did and why he was to inject it into Alfred, Francis shook his head and pressed firmly against the accelerator until they careened into BCWD. The only replies to his question that Arthur got were a goodbye and a take care.

Well, that was frustrating. But Arthur couldn't do anything about that as Francis drove back home. Besides, Arthur should have been used to this sort of behaviour. So with a shrug of the shoulders, Arthur entered BCWD and went straight to Ludwig's office.

Feliciano was the first to greet Arthur. Right when the door opened and Arthur stepped inside, the brown-haired man grinned and called, "Ciao, Arthur! What brings you here?"

"I'm here to talk to Beilschmidt about my today's schedule," Arthur replied as he approached Feliciano's desk. "I had gotten requests from Edelstein and Adnan to help them, and Bonnefoy told me to check on Alfred and Matthew as well. I'm wondering about what I should do."

"Oh, okay. Ludwig is busy right now, but I can handle this. I promise!" Feliciano hummed and turned to his computer, typing a few things. "I'm sure that Roderick and Sadık will explain what exactly you're going to do, but we have to manage our time, right? Right?" he said as he furiously typed. Then he hit enter. He looked up at Arthur, almost as if he was expecting something, but Arthur said nothing. It wasn't until a few moments later when two jingling sounds came from the computer that Feliciano's face brightened up considerably. He seemed to almost dive for the mouse to scroll across the screen's messages. "Okay, so Roderick and Sadık agreed that they'll take turns. So first, you can go do Francis' assignments, and Roderick will meet you at room 29 at noon so you can help him with that. Then you will be at room 60, where Sadık will take you to his assignment at three." Then the little man looked from the blue, glowing screen. "You got all that?"

Arthur nodded. "Of course I do. Thank you very much." Then he turned to leave.

"No problem," Feliciano said with his hand raised before Arthur had slipped through the door and closed it.

Then the BCWD intern walked down the hallways, already having memorised most of the paths after walking down them with Francis and being led around on "tours." For once, he could have been grateful for Francis' little detour habit, but he wouldn't admit that. In fact, Arthur would state that he knew his way because of all the places he had to go in order to fulfil assignments. That tied with Francis too, but again, he wouldn't admit that. So it wasn't long until Arthur had reached room 29 and slid his ID card to enter. The room was where Alfred and Matthew boarded, so he wouldn't be surprised if some chaos had passed through and the beds and items were tossed about. He had worked in BCWD long enough; he could predict obvious patient behaviour decently enough.

But that wasn't the case that time. When Arthur stepped into the room, only Alfred was there, sitting on his bed and kicking his legs so his slippers were barely hanging onto his toes. Nothing seemed remotely out of place; the ambiance seemed to be crisp as the rest of the building. As the door slid open, Alfred looked up over the glasses frames.

The first thing Alfred said was, "Where's Francis?"

Arthur walked towards Alfred and the door closed behind him. "He has the day off."

"So no candy?"

The intern shook his head. "No."

"Aw…" Alfred's blue eyes looked on the ground before he turned his head to face in front of him.

Arthur suddenly felt awkward. Alfred normally wasn't this quiet when he and Francis were around. In fact, when they were, Alfred would jabber on and on. He would never stop talking. And when Arthur would wait for Matthew to say something, Alfred would speak for the quiet boy. A few times, Arthur tried to force words out of Matthew's mouth, but Alfred would always butt in and bring the limelight back towards him.

"Where is Matthew?" Arthur asked, tossing away the feeling of clumsy interactions. He shouldn't care for how Alfred acted. He had a job to do: check Alfred's eating habits, analyse his cognitive abilities, and inject the IN-42 into his vein.

Alfred looked back up at Arthur again. "He's not here. Sadık took him away."

Arthur stopped in his tracks and looked back at Alfred. His breath caught in his throat. Alfred looked up at him with such painful, blue eyes, filled with fear and uncertainty. They were nothing like when Arthur would be with Francis. Then Arthur remembered why. Sadık was the "Headhunter," and for a good reason. He practiced euthanasia. Arthur's heart clenched at the thought. Was Sadık going to euthanize Matthew? Was Matthew going to disappear by a premature death? Or was the boy's fate not what Arthur presumed? Uncertainty began to plague Arthur's mind, its suffocating hold tightening until a feeling of guilt and dread mingled in. Could he do anything to help this situation?

"Oh," was the only thing Arthur ended up saying. Alfred continued to stare up at him. He couldn't take it anymore, the older blond turned to break the eye contact. He still had a job to do, and he was going to finish it, as what was expected from him. He couldn't let other things get in the way; after all, this was all for scientific research. A good researcher or doctor must not allow personal views and feelings to get in the way.

So Arthur walked across the room to the counters and cabinets. Alfred was watching the whole thing, but not a word was exchanged. For once, Arthur felt that the silence was suffocating. It was heavy, and the pair of blue eyes that stared at his moving figure seemed obtrusive, as if they belonged to a scrutinising observer or evaluator. Then Arthur slid his card through the cabinets; they worked similarly like the door except no keyboard slid out. When he could pop the doors open, he took out a small device. It was a small, circular thing, shaped with a thin handle and a large saucer that blinked blue and green. Arthur was quite familiar with it; Francis liked to overuse the basic technologies, so naturally Arthur had followed closely behind.

"All right, I'm going to be checking your dietary habits," Arthur announced, pulling a few pieces out to make sure everything was fine before pushing them back in. He really didn't need to tell Alfred what he was doing, especially since Alfred was familiar with routine check-ups, but Arthur made it a habit to do so. It was "more polite," as he would say.

Alfred nodded, eyeing the little device and sticking his tongue out as he would normally do whenever he saw a doctor or nurse pull the device out. Arthur approached the younger blond as he flipped a switch. A slab of clear plastic snapped out. Then Arthur pressed the plastic against Alfred's tongue. Immediately, neon green glowed along the plastic. The device made a series of beeps and whirring as colours swirled along the saucer. Then there was a loud click. The colours immediately disappeared, replaced by faint letters blinking, "Loading Results…" That too disappeared and a long column of blue dots accompanied by descriptions flashed across the surface, scrolling downwards in a speed that Arthur didn't bother to read. Every now and again, an orange dot would be in place of a blue dot. Those immediately were separated from the blue dots, sliding to the side so he could analyse it. Only a few minutes passed before a chime marked the end of the data record. The automatic processes had ended, allowing the intern to read what was important: the days when Alfred didn't eat properly. There were only five instances in total, a very good sign after an analysis of two months. And each occasion showed a trend of an abnormal amount of protein and fat, and a deficiency of vitamins. The cause was obvious: Alfred must have snuck into the cafeteria to eat more hamburgers and must have pushed aside his vitamin pills, as he tended to do if no instruction was looming over his head. So Arthur silently noted that he could tell Francis that Alfred was, generally, eating correctly; after all, these sorts of basic devices had a long-lasting trend of always being accurate. Arthur smiled; he was always amazed how well the inventions in BCWD worked. No matter how many times he saw the technology or used it, it would never cease to amaze him.

"Okay, thanks, Alfred," the intern said, walking back to the counter and pulling out the plastic disk from the device. Francis had told him that they didn't need to sanitise the device or reconfigure it with new disks because the devices were specific for Alfred and Matthew—in fact, some superiors had ordered them to save the plastic if they could so then there would be less energy wasted—but Arthur wanted to be safe and replace the disposable parts per use.

"Are you here for anything else?" Alfred asked, blue eyes' gaze following Arthur. "How long are you going to stay?"

"For as long as I need to." Arthur tossed out the plastic disk and took out a new one from one of the cabinets. Then he ripped the bag open and carefully slipped the new part into the device. Immediately, green swirls flashed over the surface to reconfigure around the new probe.

"How long will that be?"

"When I finish one more thing."

Alfred's thin eyebrows inched together. He appeared to be pleading as he looked up. "And how long will that take?"

"Not long." There was a click. The device was ready for the next use, so Arthur flipped the off switch to store the thing back to its place.

"Then… How long can you stay?"

"Until noon. I have something else to do then."

"Then can you stay until then?"

Arthur sighed, opening his mouth as he turned. But when he looked back at Alfred, making eye contact, he didn't turn away. He couldn't. Then he closed his mouth and paused. It was only a split moment of silence until Arthur replied, "All right. I will."

A grin split over Alfred's face. His blue eyes widened, sparkling in the artificial light. "Really? Awesome! Thanks, dude!"

Arthur smiled then. He didn't know what had possessed him, but he let out a light sigh. "Of course."

"So what're you going to do?" Alfred leant forward a bit, watching Arthur intently as if he were in a theatre. "Do you think Francis hid candy in there? I can never open that 'cause I don't have a card, you know? I tried to pry it open and everything, but I ended up getting the alarm set out on me. That was hilarious."

Arthur raised one big, bushy eyebrow, giving Alfred a confused glance as he rifled through the things. "Of course you can't go through here. Workers only; no patients." He found a box of clean syringes on the top shelf, so he set one sterilised package on the counter.

"Aw, that sucks." Alfred pouted. "I bet Frannie purposefully sticks pieces of chocolate in there since we can't open it." He eyed the syringe, tilting his head to the side.

"I doubt it." What Arthur was looking for wasn't in that cabinet, so he opened another one. Immediately, lines of flasks and capped tubes lined the shelves, showing of various colours in the light. But Arthur didn't marvel at any of that; he didn't know what they did, after all, and simply because things looked pretty didn't mean that he would look at them with awe. So Arthur scanned through the labels, recognising a handful but not understanding any of them except for a small bottle labelled, "Serotonin."

"Really? Would you check? Pretty please?"

Arthur sighed and shook his head. He didn't like Alfred's little antics when it came to sugar. Francis too often spoiled the child, but it wasn't like Arthur could force Francis to stop. So, he remained silent as he searched for IN-42. Eventually, he did. It was in a small test-tube on a clear stand with two others of its kind. The liquid was a strange translucent blue. Arthur couldn't understand how the injection could be such an alien colour, but then again, he didn't know what it was for or what it was made of, so he dropped his questions. Maybe they would be answered later. So he took one.

Alfred screamed.

Arthur jumped, the container almost slipping out of his fingers. Immediately his wide, green eyes turned towards Alfred. The boy had clambered onto his bed, blankets messed up under his feet, back pressed against the wall. The plush slippers were no longer on his feet. Instead, they had been kicked off, one of them under Matthew's bed and another near the door. And Alfred was shaking. He was shaking so much, eyes wide and tears welling up in the corners.

The intern held the bottle in his palm. "W-what's wrong, Alfred?"

Alfred cried, "Please don't do this to me, Artie! Please!"

Arthur's heart clenched. His mind immediately went back to the time when he first met Alfred and Matthew. He at first didn't suspect anything until Matthew reached out and said the last thing Arthur thought he would hear. "Please save us," the boy had said with words so heavy that they must have had their own gravitational pull.

"What's wrong?" Arthur repeated, taking one step towards Alfred.

The boy let out a horrified whimper and curled into himself. His palms covered his eyes. The thin, little shoulders trembled. "Please don't do this, Artie. I thought you cared."

Arthur hesitated, eyebrows inching together and his mouth hanging ajar. He didn't understand what had possessed Alfred to suddenly act like that. He glanced at the blue liquid and slowly set it down. "I do care, Alfred. So what's wrong?"

Alfred sniffled, but he didn't dare look at the intern. "I don't want that shot." His loud voice seemed strangled. It was similar to how Matthew talked. "It always hurts, and then after, everything hurts and I always have to go to the bathroom and I throw up a lot and I can't eat anything and I can't go to sleep and—" The patient cut himself off, hiccupping.

The older blond sucked in a sharp breath and looked at the liquid again. So that was what the injection did. Of course, Arthur still didn't know what exactly it was, but the repercussions sounded terrible. They were similar to symptoms of an illness rather than side-effects of medication. That was terrible; Arthur wondered how anybody would do something like that to a child. But he still didn't know what the injection was for. There was a possibility that it was a vaccine to combat something, and the symptoms Alfred had named were the product of the struggle between health and virus. Additionally, Francis had ordered it; an order was an order. Arthur really shouldn't disobey what his superiors, especially his mentor, said.

Arthur put the bottle away anyway. The glass tube slipped right back into the stand, as if it had never left in the first place. Then Arthur put away the unopened syringe away as well. Finally, he closed the cabinets back up. Alfred's whimpers could still be heard over the whirling of the cabinets' locks.

Finally silence pervaded through the room. However, it wasn't the same silence as before. Alfred was still crying. It just felt like silence. Nobody moved for a long time.

But Arthur eventually did. He climbed onto Alfred's bed and sat beside the boy. The patient didn't seem to notice, so Arthur continued, wrapping around Alfred's trembling shoulders and bringing the boy close. The smell of antibiotics and pungent medication wafted into his nose.

"Don't worry, Alfred. Don't worry. I won't ever hurt you."