Took a while to get it out, but here's the second chapter :)
I'm a lot more pleased with it than I am with the prologue, and spent a while making sure it was pretty good.
Hope you enjoy. :)
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The hospital room was too bright, the noises from the machines too piercing and the mood of the room too grim. Whitewash walls, large windows that caught direct sun no matter the time of day and ceilings so pointlessly high that the echoes were a nightmare to any who actually wanted to sleep.
The entire room itself was large. A ward, if you would, with beds stretching 20 a-piece on each side of the room, greying bedsheets and a lack of patients (except for one lone old man who hadn't had a visitor in all the three years he had resided there) giving each one of the nations that tried to focus on anything but the motionless America an even greater sense of underlying dread.
He lay there, his head propped up by a pillow supplied by the over-attentive England, a drip connected into his arm, the cover pulled up to his chin and a few machines beeping contently either side of the bed, telling everyone that America was, in the most basic sense, alive. His broken glasses lay forlornly on the bedside table next to a full jug of water and a battered copy of Hamlet England had had with him at the time of the accident. His trademark jacket, now splattered with blood and dust and torn and scraped where America had landed, now hung on the back of the chair that Arthur sat, with only France's protective hand on his shoulder to stop him falling apart completely.
One would usually say 'it was almost as if he was sleeping' but every single one of the fifty-odd nations that crowded around the room had already been informed it was anything but.
America wasn't waking up.
Nations got hurt all the time, it was just a thing they had to live with, what with being the personifications of countries an all. A tsunami hits Japan? The right side of his body becomes battered and beaten and takes weeks to heal. A bomb goes off in the underground in London? Arthur's leg shatters and he has to walk around on crutches for a few days. That was just how things were.
After the crash, before England had slipped into his numb state, he had the common sense to call someone and tell them what had happened. The last contact in his awkwardly ancient mobile – France. After that, it was France's quick thinking that got America out of the crowded city hospital the ambulance called by a bystander has rushed him to, where his health would be carefully monitored and recorded, to Sunny Hills, a healing facility that had the lowest patient count in the world, and was only kept running by the donations of the old man at the far end of the room.
After a month in the facility, it was clear something was wrong with America.
In the first week it appeared as if everything was going smoothly. Apart from the general accidents and deaths that hurt his people on a daily basis, nothing extra-ordinary had happened. There had been no natural disasters, no bombings or killing sprees that had caused the death count to suddenly spike. Yes, he had broken lot of bones, his entire left leg had been mangled, he had glass shards embedded in and around his eyes that had needed to be removed with tweezers, as well as his jacket being melted into his skin, but he had received far worse injuries than that when his country had been at war. Injuries directly sustained, rather than burned into the land they represented, vanished in a matter days, and that was exactly what had happened with America.
After a week he still had some light cuts around his eyes, and the scar from his skin graft on his arm had yet to completely fade, but his bones had healed fully and he was already passed the stage where he would be released, human or not.
But America wasn't wasn't waking up.
England had been by his bedside for a weeks now, either gently tending to him, reading to him or passed out next to him – all the while never letting go of his hand. France had been with him through most of it, painfully watching as his rival in everything slowly deteriorated and trying to convince him that America would wake up.
He's just sleeping. He needs to heal. England kept telling himself while clinging to America's hand and staring at him pensively, as if he might suddenly wake up when England wasn't looking.
The first week passed and America still lay still. As the second week started to reach its end, various nations came and went, saying their pieces just in case America didn't rise again. England had responded with angry words, snarling and swearing, until France called upon Scotland who started to put him in his place. Allistor forced his little brother out of the room, leaving France to tend to the sleeping America while Arthur bathed, shaved and had his first good meal in weeks. But caring words and familial kindness was doing nothing for the Brit.
They returned after two days to find a worn out France and an unmoving America, and all Scotland's work came undone.
After a month some began to panic. America wasn't waking up, so what if something happened to them? What if a single large dispute caused by the humans sent them into a coma from which they would never awaken? None of them had failed to notice America's sudden plummet when it came to trading and business, the sudden rise in mysterious deaths and weird incidents such as the migration of wild animals either far north or far south, even those that were meant to be hibernating for the winter.
And so, to settle everyone, Germany, France and a reluctant England agreed to summon any nation interested to America's bedside to discuss the problem, but it wasn't going well.
For the past hour, the various nations had be been arguing non-stop, some purely for the sake of arguing. The Asia's wouldn't stop bickering, Spain and the Netherlands had been glaring at each from opposite sides of the circle and Denmark wouldn't stop whining at Norway to pay him attention. Austria had been interested in the phenomena, meaning Hungary had followed him along, and Romania had only turned up to argue with her, and when Prussia entered the room late, most were certain all hell was going to break loose. But, after a snarl from Scotland which nearly had Italy in tears, the nations quietened down.
All during the meeting, Arthur sat on the only chair next to America's bed, his hand clasped around America's and practically ignoring all other nations, while Scotland stood protectively between the bed and England. France hovered behind them, his eyes darting, worried for both Scotland and England while Prussia stood on the left side of the bed, suspiciously quiet.
After the meeting ended, with no conclusions reached, each nation stepped forward to say something to America. Allistor moved Arthur out of the way for his own sake, taking him to stand on the other side of the room and muttering non-stop to Arthur that everything was going to be okay.
Hours passed as the nations said farewell, slowly leaving in twos and threes, the occasional few coming over and giving a few words of encouragement to Arthur, but they were all lost on him. Allistor could tell the lad was off in a world of his own. He was never able to handle tragedy properly – it took him years to get over the War of Independence, and Scotland shuddered to think how long it might take him to recover if America remained in a coma for the rest of their living days.
France, Spain and Prussia were the last remaining nations to say farewell, coming over to speak to England before they bade their dues. France spoke for a long, long time. The others waited patiently for him to finish, knowing they would exactly the same if their unrequited love was in pain. No matter what France said, England just blinked and stared blankly at the same place on the floor, his eyes unmoving for what could have been hours now.
"Mon cher," he said, pained, taking England's face in his hands and trying force the man to look at him. "Please, respond."
No-one noticed the pain that flickered over Allistor's face at his words, Arthur too numb to notice how his brother's hand tightened around his shoulder or to hear his sharp intake as Francis voice cracked.
"Francis." Spain said softly, gently removing his friends hands. "Let's leave him to his brother, okay?" He nodded and stepped back, letting his hand linger on Arthur's cheek for just a while longer before letting Antonio move him.
"Gil." Antonio turned to the white-haired Prussian who had been staring thoughtfully at the sleeping American ever since he joined the group without saying a word. "You coming?"
"Just gimme a minute. I want to say my goodbyes in private." Spain rose a brow at this, surprised the Prussian was that close to their American friend. He shrugged, not wanting to question his grief, and turned his back on him to follow France out of the ward.
Prussia and Scotland looked at each other the moment the ward doors slammed behind their friends with an ominous boom. Though they had been firm friends, their gazes were hard, almost as if they knew something they couldn't let the third man left in the room know.
"Come on, Artie." Allistor leant down to his brother and tugged sharply on his shoulder. "You've been 'ere a week now. You fucking reek and I canny 'av ya moping around so much." Scotland clapped his brother on the shoulder and lead him out of the room, both of them throwing one last glance to the sleeping America before shutting the door and leaving Prussia to say his goodbyes.
...xXx...
"Hey, do ya still think, after all that..." Prussia said quietly as the last of the nations filed out. Turning, his arms still folded, he looked up above Americas bed, grinning as met eyes with a floating figure. "that he still hates you?"