Not quite as scary as the previous chapter, I hope...
Epilogue
200 Years Later
It was the end of what had been a long and frankly exhausting day. England had been awake since before five, and now it was near midnight, so perhaps he could be forgiven for trying to find a moment's peace in the midst of the celebrations. He wished that the Flying Mint Bunny could be there to make him feel a bit more energetic, but with myxomatosis causing so many deaths he wasn't prepared to have his most loyal companion exposed to it, magical or not.
He was standing on Tower Bridge, staring down at the glittering river far below, and feeling the strength of his people's love and pride at being British surging in that familiar, quiet way through every vein. They complained about everything, and so many of them still bore the scars of the war that had ended less than ten years before, and always would. Times were changing so fast, and Russia was rising in the east with the sun as the British Empire slowly slipped into the west. But at this moment, on this day, his people had stood shoulder to shoulder and cheered his Queen, his Elizabeth as she waved to them from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, that beautiful red mantle which he had given her only that morning as a symbol of his life-long allegiance to her still around her shoulders. They had been proud to be hers, and they were proud to be his.
"Hey." The accent was instantly recognisable. "England? 'S this thing safe?"
England scowled, turning to see the tall young nation coming towards him with a beaming smile on his face. "It's mine, of course it's safe."
America tilted his head to one side as he leant on the railing next to England. "It's just that I heard someone say it wasn't in great shape, and you were going to close it."
The scowl deepened. "What on earth are you talking about, America?"
"One of your guys at that party thing said you were thinking of closing London Bridge because it was sinking or something."
England's face cleared. "London Bridge is, as they say, falling down. There are far too many vehicles and people travelling over it."
"That's sad. It's pretty. I can see why people would want to go over it so much. If I had it, I'd want to walk across it every single day."
England might have been smiling. "You can have it if you want."
"What, really?" America's eyes lit up. "That's so cool."
"Oh, just forget about it," England flapped a hand at him and proceeded to ignore him until something the other had said much earlier suddenly struck him. "Hold on a tick, did you say London Bridge?"
It was America's turn to look puzzled. "Yeah, that's what we're standing on, isn't it?"
England narrowed his eyes. "America, how many times do I have to tell you that this one is Tower Bridge. Look, it's easy to remember – the Tower of London is at one end of it. Tower of London, Tower Bridge. See?"
America suddenly went very pale, so much so that England felt a strange jolt of alarm.
"No, this is London Bridge," America said, apparently trying to be firm but not quite succeeding. "That's the only bridge here. There's no such thing as Tower Bridge, just like there's no such thing as ghosts."
Puzzled, and rather annoyed to boot, England pointed upstream. "That, America, is London Bridge. We are very definitely standing on Tower Bridge. I think I would know; I live here."
But the other nation was shaking his head. "No, no such thing as ghosts, so if ghosts are in the Tower and ghosts don't exist the Tower doesn't exist so Tower Bridge isn't real, it's London Bridge, always London Bridge..."
"America?"
"And ghosts aren't real you used to tell me silly stories about some big Tower you had which had ravens and ghosts and people eating cows in it but there's no such thing as ghosts rock-a-bye baby on the tree top so there's no Tower and no Tower Bridge because there's no Tower and..."
"America!" The babbling stopped. England stared at him. Then, more quietly, he said, "America... we're standing on Tower Bridge. Over there is the Tower of London. They are both real. Now, calm down. I have no idea what you were blathering on about, but you need to stop, get yourself under control, and go back to your hotel sensibly. Good Lord, man, anyone would think you were scared."
There was a long and frankly terrifying silence. England couldn't remember a time when America had been so quiet in peacetime.
"I am not scared!" America burst out finally. "I'm the hero, I'm not afraid of anything! I can't be!"
"Then why are you acting like a child who's been told a ghost story and can't sleep?" England snapped, part of him cross that his moment of peace was being wrecked for such a useless conversation and the other part actually beginning to worry a little. "Pull yourself together, and go back to your hotel, get something to eat and go to bed. There's more celebrations tomorrow that you'll be needed for, I'm sure."
To his shock and further anxiety, America did exactly that. England watched him go, confused and concerned by his behaviour. He was becoming very reliant on America for a large number of things now, and if the other was going to start acting so sporadically, it didn't bode well.
But something else was worrying the Briton. America's behaviour seemed familiar, somehow, but England couldn't for the life of him think why.
Then again, he supposed, he had only known America for about three hundred and fifty years, whilst his own history stretched into thousands of years. Perhaps it wasn't so strange that he was beginning to forget things.
Except... he had the funny feeling that he really shouldn't have forgotten this one. Some kind of trauma, maybe? No, not even the Wars had been traumatic enough for him to forget anything like that, damn and blast it all.
Then... then maybe it wasn't him who had forgotten?
What if it had been America who had forgotten whatever it was, and had made England forget too?
The thought made him freeze for a second in horror. No. That was absolutely impossible. There was no way that something like that could have happened. That sort of thing had only ever happened between himself and America when the other had been a colony. So it should have stopped a hundred and seventy years ago, back in 1783, when the two of them had gone their separate ways...
But they had fought alongside each other twice now, and nothing brought men – or nations – together like the battlefield did.
England scowled down at his rippling reflection. No. He refused to be anything like that... that boy. He was still the British Empire, no matter that it was slowly falling to shatters in his hands, and America had wanted nothing to do with the Empire. They weren't related to each other like the two Italies, they weren't even remotely close to each other physically, and the ridiculously optimistic American mind-set was nothing like his native pessimism.
See? They didn't think alike, weren't alike, weren't compatible at all. So there was no reason whatsoever why something that America had forgotten should mean that England forgot it too, even if it had been so traumatic that America had forced it into his subconscious.
But England had forgotten.
And that frightened him more than that stupid recurring dream he had been having ever since the end of the War, in which America had somehow succeeded in infuriating all of his Tower Ghosts...
The absence of Flying Mint Bunny – In 1953, the year in which Queen Elizabeth II was actually crowned, myxomatosis was released into the wild rabbit population of Britain, killing vast numbers. As a magical creature, perhaps Minty is immune to this, but England's not taking any chances.
People eating cows – the Beefeaters, otherwise known as the Yeomen Warders or the Guards of the Tower of London, so named because they used to be paid in meat rather than money.
Not sure if I made it clear enough, mostly because it was from a very clueless England's POV, but what has happened is that America has attempted to suppress all memories from his experiences in the Tower. This eventually results in him "forgetting" anything related to the Tower too, including the bridge's name. Due to the colonial relationship that he had to England at the time, and the returning stability of the post-war friendship, this suppression has bled into England's memory in the same sort of way that the cultures of America and Britain have combined. Being subconscious, the memory on England's side only appears in dreams.
There have been a number of bridges called London Bridge in the past, and there has been a bridge at the site of the current one since at least AD 50. The one thing that London Bridge has never been, however, is Tower Bridge, which is the big one that has the drawbridge in the middle.
London Bridge is the one just upstream from Tower Bridge, and it's been there since 1972.
The old bridge (the one that was there from 1831) started sinking because so many people were passing over it. Eventually, it was decided that it should be sold. In 1968 it was bought by an American for nearly $2.5 million (as of 2010 – the closest I could get – that's about $25 million) and was shipped over to America in pieces, hence England offering the bridge to America. That must have been a sight and a half. It's now part of a British-themed park in Arizona, I believe.
Rumour had it that he thought he was buying Tower Bridge instead, because of the unfortunately common misconception that they are one and the same, but the British agent denied it.
No, not THAT British agent.