CHAPTER 10 – Worship

July, 2048

"Bloody fuck."

"Let me guess." France did not look away from his phone. The thing was brand new; he had so many apps to install. "The King's had another affair?" He heard England's fists clench around fragile newspaper. "Or maybe…" He feigned a gasp of horror, his eyes half-lidded and idly following small circles and colours on the tiny screen. "They're bringing out Niall Horan to sing in next year's Eurovision? The horror, England. That old man with a guitar, again!"

France felt the paper hit his elbows, as it was slid across the table to him. "I'm not nearly as short-sighted as you might think I am, France." France finally set his phone down, glanced at the front page and felt as though he had swallowed a cold stone.

"Merde."

JORDAN INVADES ISRAEL – WORLD WAR IMMINENT

England laughed darkly. "Thought so." France swallowed, torn between letting every implication of this sink in, and covering his ears to block out the horror. In the end, he attempted to reach a shaky middle ground.

"Jordan will never match Israel. She'll drive him out, and the extremism will get out of Western democracy, like it should be –" The self-righteousness of the sentence became known to him as he said it, and he backtracked. "They won't win. There's no guarantee."

There was a clanking sound, of dishes and pots brushing against each other, amidst the café chatter. England reached for the paper, studying it. "Says here they've already overpowered Elat. Jordan, Palestine and that thing, they're coming up from the South, planning to rally those left in the West Bank against Jerusalem… Jesus, this is a nightmare." He pounded the table. France eyed his reddening cheeks, his wispy hair, the beginnings of sweat on his neck, from the morning sun. It was dizzyingly hot for England, and barely ten o'clock. "I fucking knew this would happen. Right from when that thing was born, I told you, didn't I? We're all doomed."

France was not ready to give in to despair. "We do not have to get involved. We're busy enough with Russia, aren't we? And we did all we could for Israel, really, she's brought it on herself –"

"And you think America thinks the same way, do you?"

"I." France had no answer, and he could stave off the horrifying truth no longer; he saw America sending his troops and Canada's straight to the scene, saw the droves of Muslims being packaged off to Guantanamo Bay, or the Virgin Naval Base, saw America's grim face as he explained that well, France, sometimes exceptions have to be made, so I'm calling for a temporary lift on the chemical weapons ban… "What America does doesn't have to involve us, England. We can sort out our own solutions."

England's glare could have cut glass. "Oh, what? Shall we impose sanctions? That always works, doesn't it?" France winced. "Particularly on something like that thing. How do you impose economic sanctions on something that doesn't even want to negotiate with the rest of the world, let alone trade with it – oh, thank you. Yes, thank you very much." Their coffees had arrived, delivered by a pretty black waiter. France made sure to smile at him, and watched him move away from their table, waited until he had disappeared.

"Other than try talking some sense into America, the only thing we can do now is quarantine the area. We can physically stop ISA from helping Jordan personally..."

England's eyebrows rose, an amusing sight at any other time but this. "Oh, so you've moved onto its preferred name? How very decent of you."

France's cheeks burned. "Forgive me, if I do not wish to call one of our own "that thing". However repulsive ISA may be, it is a nation nonetheless." A child, too, barely thirty years old, its face and gender never revealed from behind a black face-mask. Only those eyes were visible, dark and burning with hatred. The image of them sent a phantom ache into his heart, and chills into his soul.

England's face twisted in something deeper and more painful than disgust. "It shouldn't be. That's not how nations are made."

This snapped France's panicked thoughts into sharp focus. A dry smile worked its way to his lips.

"How nations are made? What do you mean, England?" France left a pause, to allow England to think he was supposed to respond. When he saw him opening his mouth to form an answer, he cut in brutally. "That nations are not born out of violence? That hatred and war – these are somehow not the things that shape all of us?" France shook his head. "We are friends now, my dear Angleterre, but our first memories of each other are those of war, and you know it."

"It's not the bloody same. You bastard, for comparing us to that. That thi– ISA – is not like us. It hasn't centuries to develop a culture, a particular food style or, or any kind of art, or a sense of pride in anything other than massacre."

"But it has developed a rather affecting attitude to religion, no?"

"That isn't funny."

"No. And we are missing the point." France folded the newspaper, pushing it to the side of the table, as he reached for his coffee. "We must do what we can, now, facing the fact that ISA is a nation, whether we like it or not." A memory occurred to him. "Ha!"

England brought his cup to his lips, took a long gulp. "What's funny now?"

"I just thought, all this… Remember the crusades, England?"

England groaned, and fraction of the dark cloud above their heads dissipated. "Dear God, do not bring that up… I don't like remembering our Religious Fanatic phase."

France found himself smiling naturally. "They were rather petty, weren't they?"

"Shut up, you were there too."

"Petty religion wars…"

September, 2248

It wasn't just cruel to France, what England had done. It was cruel to England.

The bullet had killed him instantly, wrenched his spirit off the earth in a painless flash, but how did that translate on his land? After the initial blasts had died away, life seemed to continue as it had done previously. The trees kept on changing their colours, the rain in the Lake District remained ceaseless, the London skyline still stood, if it was fairly altered. The people lived on. France watched the country from inside his new hovercraft. He noticed as flashes of city broke through the cloud-cover, like weak pulses of life from a brain-dead body.

In killing himself, England had given himself a quick death, and condemned his country to a terminally slow one. His people would do the same things they had always done, go to work at nine, drink at bars that began with the word "The", make vaguely controversial comments about the state of their bloody country, the state of the whole bloody world. But they would do these things with less conviction each day, with an increasing sense of something missing. Traditions and cultural idioms which had been engrained for millennia would start to fade, the birth rates would fall, and contact with the rest of the world would disappear. Over the years, more and more people would forget, until eventually no one would remember that England ever existed in the first place.

"Except me, cher," France murmured. "And perhaps Panem, too. You never forgot him."

A cruel death, either way. The hovercraft landed in London, and France found himself inside the old city, taking in the crumbling buildings side by side with pristine, shimmering ones. Big Ben had been bombed down some time ago, and England had felt too torn up to build it up again, but the London Eye still stood erect, even if it didn't turn anymore. France had told Panem to meet him in front of it.

"It doesn't always work," France said, deciding he was speaking to the Ferris wheel itself. "Germany tried to take his life in 1923. Failed. America found him on his doorstep a month later…" The effect was already taking place. It was Sunday, he was in the centre of town, and yet there were no crowds, just a few people scattered across the streets. If England were here, there would be thousands. France's heart sank. He hadn't been willing to accept it, no matter how much he'd cried, how much he'd pondered over the cruelty of England's suicide. There was a part of him hoping, still. "What happened, huh?" He breathed in deeply, through his nose, and the air whistled. "In spite of everything, no matter what happens, we get through it OK. That's what we've always done, no matter how bad it gets! And – and you've always been the more stable, of the two of us. If either of us was going to give up, that was always me, you weren't supposed to leave first, nom de Dieu!"

His fingers ran through his hair, pulling it back from his face. The wind was dry, and stung his skin. "You don't give up, you, you cheese-eating fucking surrender monkey!" The bizarre insult rushed out his mouth in a surge of hysteria, coming out of a tangle of rage, grief and irony. Another beautiful thing that only England and France had truly understood: what's the point of agony if you can't be a little tongue-in-cheek about it?

"Wow. That brings up memories."

France swivelled around, his heart thumping. Panem stood, a look of vague amusement on his face. France breathed out, a well-practised grin crawling to his face. "He called me that so many times, in his life. Seems fair to return the courtesy, non?"

Panem raised an eyebrow. "So, you're over it, huh? Didn't take you long." Panem, who had ignored England for half a century. The bitterness in his tone did not make France any more eager to share his true feelings.

"Ah, Pain, I do not live for the past. Surely, you remember that! Also, an occasional joke between friends does no one any harm."

Panem huffed. "Sure. Look, let's just find the plans, and get out of here, OK?"

"Fine." France gestured to a tall building with flags in front of it, a few metres behind him. "We can talk to the ambassador for France in there. They may give us copies of the plans, they'll definitely have them saved somewhere. We may take them, and remove all other copies."

"Wait. Why would the ambassador tell us where the weapon is? I mean, I haven't been here in a century, and you were only fighting a war with England a few weeks ago."

France smiled again, but this time did not bother giving it any mirth. "This won't be any normal negotiation. Without England's presence, the officials don't have the means to resist those of our kind." He began to head to the embassy. "I shouldn't be surprised if they let any nation who had their eyes on the weapon just waltz in and take it."

"Hm?" The ambassador did not seem to understand the question. France could feel Panem's annoyance; instinctively he tensed his body. The ambassador sat with her hands neatly crossed on her table. It had several papers on it, but France doubted she had looked at a single one, doubted she even knew what they were there for.

"We said. Where is Glucose Volantis?"

The woman's eyes had a dreary, unfocused shine to them. "I'm sorry, sirs, but I do not know of any Glucose…"

"The weapon! The weapon, dammit! You know, the one that destroyed half of your infrastructure? The one you used to kill the Muscovites?"

France pitied the poor thing, forced to face Panem's fury in this way. "I don't…" she shakily stood up from her desk. "I haven't killed anyone…" She said it like a question. France decided to step in. This could go on no longer.

"Madame," he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, "Forgive my partner. He is being extremely rude. We are inquiring after a particular invention of this country; I believe it was used in the last war you fought. You remember the war, don't you?" He gave an encouraging smile. It seemed to prompt a sliver of understanding in her eyes. "It was a weapon of mass destruction, which cannot be left unchecked. You understand?"

The eyes gained an edge. "Wait… Who did you say you were, again? Your accent is foreign, but…"

"We've met, Madame. I am France. Your neighbour, so to speak."

"But… but France is a country…" The poor, poor woman. France had not anticipated such a level of regression.

"It does not matter. We need to locate the weapon's blueprints. Can you help us? You want to help, don't you?" You do, silly human, you do. France was sure that his smile was disarming.

The ambassador blinked once. Her face softened, and her cheeks dimpled as she smiled back. "Of course, sirs. The blueprints. I'll send a message to the armoury right now." Her fingers worked on a small, sleek notebook, swiping letters on a near-intangible screen.

France thought he heard Panem mutter, "Wow. Old-fashioned."

"My." The ambassador's eyebrows crinkled, and there it was again, that misty, lost look in the eyes. "The files seemed to have vanished. All deleted…" France watched her close her eyes, pinch the bridge of her nose, and, when she looked back up at him and Panem, he watched all recognition drain out of her face. "May I help you with something?"

Before Panem could say anything, France took his arm and turned his back on the ambassador, schooling his expression to neutrality. "No, Madame. Thank you for your trouble."

Panem at least had the grace to wait until he and France were out of the building to voice his disapproval. "What the fuck was that?"

"That," France sighed, "Was what happens when a nation dies. In such a way that England did, anyway." He said it as if the occurrence was somehow common, when in reality England was the first to destroy himself like that in millennia. Ever the trendsetter. "We were too late, after all. Someone got to the weapon first."

"Any idea who?"

France licked his lips, chapped from the wind. "Yes. Several." The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He stopped walking away from the embassy and held his breath.

"France?" To his right there was Panem, but in his peripheral vision France could sense other figures to his left. He felt a familiar heavy aura about them, the kind that did not hang on mortals, that only came with thousands of years aging. Slowly, he turned away from Panem to face them, and everything fell into place.

Two nations, one short and one tall, and one human, about the size of the two of them put together. How could France not have anticipated this?

"Well, well. What a sight."

Panem nudged France, hissing, "What accent is that? Should I know who this guy is?"

"No," France said, crossing his arms in front of him, assuming a defensive stance. "This is Schilacci, Panem. Italy's dictator."

Schilacci waggled a chubby finger. "Emperor, if you please."

Panem groaned. "I can-not believe you Europeans are still forming empires. I mean, Christ, didn't you guys grow out of that in the 20th century?"

Something in Panem's words made France frown. He could not put his finger on it. Next to Schilacci stood Italy, gazing listlessly, and Edelheim – standing, as usual with his eyes lowered. France looked from him to Schilacci, trying to figure out what the postures reminded him of, until the image hit him. His mouth curled in a sneer. "Why, Edelheim. I wasn't aware you were Italy's pet."

Edelheim lifted his head. "Germania is my name."

Schilacci gave a genial smile. "That it is. So, you are Panem?" He gave a courteous dip of the head. "I am honoured. You know, I admire your achievements greatly. Shame you had to ruin them with that rebellion, true shame."

The expression on Panem's face drew an involuntary shudder out of France. He had been blind to ignore this, to assume that Panem was a completely changed nation, that he was really America again. That look… France had only seen that look after America's rebirth as a collection of districts around a Capitol, never before. It wasn't simply fury. There was bitterness to it, and a deep self-loathing, which only made it more dangerous. As Panem had proved several times, at the expense of France and England, self-loathing preceded a desire for destruction, which was taken out on everyone else.

Now that the same look was back, France wondered if he had been too trusting of Panem in his reformed state. His hand went into his back pocket, curling around a dirk. He swiftly changed the subject. He turned to Italy. "What are you here for, Italy, bringing your boss with you like this? Have you come to gloat?"

"Gloat?" Italy said, "What would I be here to gloat for?"

"To tell you the truth, we were looking for a weapon," Schilacci cut in. France narrowed his eyes. "But it looks like you got here first, hm?"

"What are you talking about?" France hissed. "You got the weapon." A beat. "Didn't you?"

Edel- Germania shook his head. "We just got here."

"But they… The ambassador said it's gone." Panem drew back, leaning closer to France. "You're lying. Trying to throw us off."

"We absolutely are not." France studied Schilacci's face, searching for any sign of treachery. It was a difficult task: Schilacci always looked treacherous. It would be easier to look for any unusual signs of honesty. Schilacci gestured around him. "Do we seem to have the weapon with us?" He gave a smile full of nothing but contempt. "If we did, why would we tempt fate by coming here to tell you about it?"

Italy wound a stray lock of hair around his finger, stopping it from catching the wind. "It seems we're in exactly the same position, France."

France could not say whose face was harder to look at, Germania's submission or Italy's indifference. The bitter English wind was becoming too difficult to bear. A wave of grief was rising, unbidden from within him. France was afraid it would make itself known, unless he moved very quickly. He swallowed. "Let's go, Panem. We are done here."

Panem's hovercraft was parked next to France's, and France was pleasantly surprised to see that they were both of equal size and quality. Panem's gift had been an honest gesture, with no hint of a slight. He gave a nod of goodbye to Panem, and was about to turn away when an unsettling thought occurred to him.

"Hey, Panem… Did you take His name? Earlier?"

"Did I take whose name?"

"When you were talking about empires. You said…"

Christ, France, you're insufferable!

In the name of Christ, France, what are you doing?

For the love of bloody Christ, France, pull yourself together.

"What did I say, France?"

"Nothing." I imagined it, France reasoned. I must have. Because if there was one thing that could make that bitter, relentless look in Panem's eyes more terrifying, it was fear of God. "Goodbye, Panem. Have a safe journey home." France looked up at the sky, and was taken aback. The cloud cover had dissolved; the wind had blown it away, and what was left was an elegant, if modest, blue sky.

From within the hovercraft, as he rose further and further into the sky, France found himself able to watch the island through the clear air, as it shrank by degrees. His eyes did not leave it until the clouds shrouded it once more.