Hi everyone! Thanks for all of the reviews, this chapter is a little short, sorry. :)
Canada quickly walked behind his brother, taking two steps for every one of America's long strides. Stumbling as he attemped to keep up, he managed to stutter out a quiet "U-Umm, could you s-slow down a bit?"
Either America didn't hear Canada or he ignored him, because the United States continued at full speed, eyes facing forward. Canada broke into a jog, to keep at his brother's side. As they made their way across the chaotic crime scene, Canada kept his eyes trained on his brother, it was near impossible to read the expression on his face. This frightened Canada, as his brother was usually wore his heart on his sleeve, you could always tell what he was feeling or thinking.
Truthfully that was one of the reasons that Canada was there, his brother had been becoming more and more distant and closed off since the murders and England's shock confession. When it had first happened everyone had expected America to defend England and try and prove him innocent, while proclaiming himself to be some kind of detective hero or some such thing, but he had been the one to roughly drag England from the room, leaving a large number of shocked countries in their wake. Since then all he seemed to be searching for was evidence against his former ward rather that something to prove his innocence. America almost never seemed to smile nowdays and when he did it always seemed forced, fake. Canada knew this wasn't a good sign so he'd come to help his brother.
That and he had hoped to find out more about England's case. All he knew was that England had had some kind of mental break and admitted to killing the three murdered countries in front of everyone in the last world meeting, noone had been told any details of what had happend, though they had all been questioned extensively by the authorities. Canada had to admit that England having a break down did not seem overly far-fetched. England had always seemed a tad stressed, a bit anti-social and a little crazy, but he'd never seemed violent as long as Canada had known him. But by all accounts something had made England crack.
Cracked or no, however, Canada didn't believe England was capable of murdering those countries. He just didn't have it in him.
"America, wh-"
"Gaaaahhh! Dude, quit sneaking up on me like that!"
"But I've been here the wh-... never mind."
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"England?" Japan said quietly, placing a hand on England's shoulder.
England just buried his head further into his arms.
"Come on, it's okay." Japan said, awkwardly trying to comfort him.
England shook his head, still not looking up. "No... it's not."
Japan sighed, "I know you didn't mean it. Perhaps we should all just put it all behind us. I'm sure Romano is sorry for what he did too."
England heard Romano let out a negative sounding grunt at this.
"No, that's not the problem. He was right to do what he did. I-I could've..." England trailed of, leaving a rather terrible thing unsaid.
"No, you wouldn't"
England let out an impatient huff, "I might! Look, it's probably just safer for you to all leave."
"No. You wouldn't hurt us and you didn't. You're innocent of those murders." Japan insisted.
"How can you be so sure?" England shot out.
"...Because you said you didn't do it. And there are a few things about this whole affair that don't add up."
England spoke up in protest, "Bu-"
Japan swiftly cut him off, "Besides what happened just then, what makes you think you may have done it? You can't base your judgement off one... errr... incident. You've been under alot of stress, nobody here blames you."
Romano let out a disbelieving snort.
"Does it matter?" England asked heatedly, looking up a Japan from his curled up ball on he floor.
"England" Japan urged sternly.
England looked ground-ward guiltily, he started picking at the rubber on his shoe and for some reason found himself confessing. "I've got these memories… Fragmented scenes, but they feel so real. How can I be remembering these things if I'm innocent?"
Japan paused to think about what England had just said. England kept his focus on the black rubber on his shoe sole, determined not to look up.
Presently, Japan piped up again, "I'm not sure... but perhaps we could find out. I don't believe you could commit such horrible crimes, but I suppose if we saw some evidence that pointed either way, we could find the truth."
England looked up once more and searched the other country's face. He seemed earnest enough. And though England had flipped out on him, Japan was still willing to have him around. That was either brave or stupid and England could not decide which. "Why?" he asked.
"I, er, find it difficult to make many friends. You've always been a good friend to me and I feel I know you well enough to be able to trust you." Japan said looking at his shuffling feet.
"Oh." England said, taken aback, "Thanks Japan." It was all he could say.
There was a slightly awkward silence in the room for a few moments when Romano spoke up, "All right, are we done with the chick flick?"
Sighing, England nodded, standing up as he did so and brushing the dust from the floor off his pants.
"I still don't trust you, crazy bastard!" Romano said, scowling.
"You said that before," England said as he turned slowly back to face Romano. The man stood stiffly, his face partly in shadow as sunlight shone in through the windows behind him.
"You threatened my brother and I." Romano growled, looking quite ominous.
"You knee'd me in the stomach" England said simply.
Romano's eye began to twitch, "That's no excuse! A-and you kil-"
"You don't believe he really did it do you?" Italy interrupted.
"You don't really believe he's innocent?" Romano countered.
"Ve~ Yes, I think he's innocent." Italy said, in his usual vague fashion, "Maybe you're just looking for someone to blame?"
Romano didn't answer, he just turned toward the door.
"Romano wait! I... wanted to apologise for my actions, they were unforgivable, the same goes to you Japan and Italy, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." England said, looking upset.
Romano huffed, "Fine! We'll go and play your stupid little detective game Fratello! I still don't trust that crazy bastard!"
Italy nodded happily, "Ve~ Thank you Romano!"
Romano held out a finger, "I have one condition though! We keep that bastard in handcuffs or restrained or something. I don't wanna literally get stabbed in the back by this cr-"
"How about we vote for it?" Japan suggested quickly. "All those who agree to letting England come with us without any sort of restraint put your hand up" He said raising his own hand.
Italy's hand shot up but both Romano and England kept their hands down.
"England? Put your hand up." Japan ordered.
"No, you know why I agree with Romano." England said steadily.
"So you agree with with my brother, England?" Italy asked brightly.
"Yes."
"So Romano, that means you agree with England, right?" Italy asked.
"N-yes... I mean..." Romano said, looking conflicted. Appearing to be torn between wanting to disagree with whatever England said and wanting to stay safe from the 'crazy bastard'.
"Yay, so there's something you can agree with him on?" Italy asked, smiling.
Romano shook his head violently, "No!"
"You don't agree with him? That means you agree with us!" Italy stated, "So England, you don't need to wear handcuffs or anything! Isn't that great!"
England was impressed, as much as he hated to admit it, it seemed that the Italian was a lot smarter than he'd thought. He saw that Japan had a similar look of impressed disbelief on his face.
Romano, however, was far from impressed, "Ahhh, no! You're little reverse psycholo-whatever trick won't work on me! I agree with the crazy bastard, he needs to be restrained!" He yelled.
Japan and Italy let out similar frustrated sighs. The was a small silence, when Japan spoke up again.
"So our vote is still tied, two to two." He said, looking around at the others, they nodded.
"Sooo... want to play rock paper scissors for it?" He asked.
Nods turned into facepalms.
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Gigantic thanks to the following people for reviewing the last chapter: paperklip119, xXYoraXx and teitan-tantei.
You reviewers really motivate me to get the chapters out and each and every review just makes my day. :)
paperklip119- Awww, serious? Thanks! I got a huge cheezy grin on my face after reading this. And thanks for pointing out that spelling mistake. :D