Alfred woke up, without opening his eyes, but he could still see a bright light streaming through his eyelids, making his once dark vision a blurry reddish-orange. Groaning in irritation at the sudden change in lighting, he rolled over, and away from it, pressing his face into the pillow.

A split second later, he opened his eyes anyway, because he now realized that it wasn't his beanbag chair that he usually ended up using as a pillow when he ended up gaming all night. Had Arthur carried him up to bed or something? He honestly couldn't imagine the Brit doing that, what with his bad knees and Alfred weighing a good two hundred pounds. (It was all muscle damnit!)

"Al? You awake?"

He froze at the voice, not wanting to turn over lest the room be empty.

"Al. I saw you move. Quit trying to be funny, and get up."

Slowly, Alfred turned over to see Matthew standing in the doorway of his room with a dark navy towel over his hair, which was soaking wet, as were his faded Senator's t-shirt, and black jogging shorts. "M-Mattie?"

"Who'd you expect? Geez Al, you look like you've seen a ghost. You weren't watching horror movies before bed again, were you?"

As quick as he could possibly move, Alfred leapt from the bed, and wrapped himself around Matthew, nuzzling his face against wet hair, and damp towel at the same time. "Oh thank God Mattie! Never have coma dreams, okay? They are fucked up beyond all belief, and make you die a little inside."

"Coma dre- Alfred, what the hell are you talking about? Did you get into my stash again? You know you can't handle the stuff, it's too strong! Besides, Will and Z would kill me! That was for their next visit!"

"Long story bro. Just… just lemmie hug you for a little while."

"Al. It's not that I don't appreciate your sudden desire to actually start acting like I'm your brother, and not your personal servant, but you are very heavy, and I just sprinted all the way from Timmie's in the pouring rain, so I'm kind of tired."

"You can sit us down, I don't mind."

"Seriously Al… Get off!"

Pouting, he untangled himself from the Canadian, and sat down on the edge of his bed again, still not daring to take his eyes off of his brother, who was now attempting to act like there was nothing weird about the way Alfred was acting. The only time he tore his gaze away was to grab his glasses from the bedside table, crowing inwardly that he could wear Texas again. Before, his sight had been starting to fail a bit again, but he hadn't yet started wearing glasses again.

"Anyway, our bosses have a meeting with China's today. I think it's about your debt or something. Yao sounded pretty worried about you over the phone."

He tensed at the name, a flash of rage flying through his mind before calming down. "Why would he be worried about me?"

"Well your cold's been getting pretty bad lately. We're all kind of worried that you might take a turn for the worse. I mean, it's not like Yao would cancel the debt completely, even if he could, but I think he's going to be a bit more lenient on you for a while, before you have to start selling states to pay him."

"Right." He shuddered at the thought of having to split up for the sake of money. But none of this sounded right. What happened to the power-hungry China he'd known for the past few weeks? Or had his over-active imagination made up that being entirely, taking nothing from real life? "Hey! Mattie! You wanna play video games?"

"Don't you normally play on X-box live with Kiku? He's a much bigger challenge than I am…"

"I wanna spend time with my favourite broski!" He whined, looking like he was about to start hugging the Canadian again.

Matthew laughed brightly. "Don't let Arthur catch you saying that."

He made a face, and began steering the blond over to the den where his amazing TV sat in wait. "He's no broski. He's a tweedy old man who still thinks he's 'hip'. He's total 'father in denial' material."

"You mean like he's in a permanent mid-life crisis?"

"Exactly. You should see him when he finds his old punk-rock stuff. It's insane! So come on! Let's play Halo!"

"No, what about Call of Duty?"

"Hell no! You'll just get a sniper rifle and kill me fifty billion times! You even do it when we're on the same team!"

Just as they stepped into the den, something caught the hem of Alfred's shirt, and he turned around to see Lien-hua standing behind them, looking apologetic again. Alfred felt his heart sink, and started shaking his head. "No!"

Big brother Alfie, it's time to wake up. She signed slowly, biting her lip.

He turned back to Matthew, who was still smiling. "Come on Al! You're not gonna chicken out are you?" He didn't seem to notice the crimson blood that was quickly blossoming through his shirt.

"No! Mattie! Please, you can't leave me again!" He reached for the blond, only to run right through him. As he did so, the room was suddenly filled with the dead nations. All bearing their fatal wounds.

Ludwig's was similar to Matthew's, a simple gunshot to the heart. The others were far more gruesome. From Lovino, who seemed to have an unending flow of blood coming from his mouth, to Heracles and Sadiq, who both showed signs of having been crushed by the falling buildings from the raids. Alfred wanted to cover his eyes, or scream, but he couldn't move, nor would any sound scrape from his throat louder than a whimper.

Just as he was about to start begging his body to move, someone stepped in front of him, blocking the horrific sight from his eyes. It was Lien-hua. Wake up now. They can't come back anymore, but you can.

{}}{{}

He woke up, this time for real. His face was smushed against the beanbag chair, and someone was shaking his shoulder rather impatiently. He really wasn't all that surprised to see the bright amber eyes of the newest nation staring down at him when he rolled over. Why are you crying Alfie?

Alfred lifted a hand up to his face, confirming that it was indeed damp, and rubbed his sleeve over his arms a few times before sitting up, and hugging the girl. "Thanks kiddo."

"Git! If you're awake, let's get a move on! I'd like to be at the conference before lunch, if that's a possibility!"

"Yeah, yeah! Don't worry; you'll have plenty of time to spend with your little boyfriend!" Now grinning, he turned back to Lien-hua. "Well that kind of ruined the moment, didn't it?"

She nodded, but grabbed his hand and pulled him up anyway. Alfred hurried to get changed into a suit, and race out to the car where Arthur was waiting impatiently. The war still hung like a dark stain on all of their pasts, but like so many others, the stains would fade as time went on.

The world continues to move forward.

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Thanks for reading~!

It's over… I feel very empty now…

But, more importantly, I got to the 100th review! Congrats to Liberty Girl in the Sky. As promised, a Hetalia one-shot of your choosing. If you don't want it, then it'll go to the next person or something…

Thank you so much for sticking with me for this long, and putting up with my slow updates and such. You guys have no idea how much it meant to me when I saw my inbox explode with reviews the other day. I was halfway between crying and laughing maniacally. I couldn't have asked for more supportive readers, and I'll miss you all!

Oh, and a quick recommendation, just for fun, run over to Youtube, and search the Animaniacs Midsummer Night's Dream. It's so awesome!