Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

Warnings: Slash, AU, swearing, sub-par writing, wonky plots, appallingly slow updates, and Hitler jokes.

I don't know what I'm doing.

Unbeta'd.

[Chapter 10]

Alfred sat on his tire in silence and watched the afternoon slip away into early evening. It wasn't until the shadows had grown long and the sky had turned pink around the edges that Arthur made any effort to speak. He cleared his throat and coughed quietly, trying to catch Alfred's attention. He had it, as he found out when he looked over. Arthur's green eyes tore themselves away from Alfred's blue and directed themselves towards the ground once more. The Brit gave another quiet cough.

"It wasn't- This all-" he sighed and curled his legs up to his chest. His arms wrapped around them and Alfred watched his fingers lacing together at the tops of his shoes. "Everything is so messed up."

"Though I suppose" he continued, and dropped his chin to his knees "that I should have known from the very beginning that things would end this way."

"It all started- Well, it didn't start with the deal in Skagen. It started with Tino. Skagen is just where I go involved. And- Bollocks. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this am I?" he peered anxiously over at Alfred, who made an encouraging gesture.

"Take your time. Don't rush it. I don't want a novel. I just want to hear your story." he gave Arthur a smile, hoping it would calm him.

Arthur took a deep breath and buried his face in his knees. After a time his lifted his head and began again.

"As you already know, I worked for the British government. It's a lot less Bond than they'd have you believe. I spent most of my career sifting through paper trails trying to find companies who were committing accounting fraud." Arthur chuckles but it isn't a happy sound "A glorified accountant, that's what I was."

Alfred must have expressed his disproval in some manner, because Arthur flinched before he continued.

"Regardless, I was very good at following money trails, which was how I was selected for the Tino assignment. Various international agencies had been aware of him for some time. He worked for the black market. Transporting things. He could find what buyers wanted and get it to them without raising any fuss. He was good, but he was small time. Law enforcement had bigger fish to fry."

"Then, about a year ago, things changed. Tino 'stepped up his game' I think the expression goes. He took on more jobs, lots of jobs. And he started transporting the types of things that definitely get one in trouble. It was decided that Tino had to be put out of business. But there were problems. Foremost was how to even find him. Tino was very good at not sticking around after a sale had been made. Which was unfortunate, because that was the only time we knew where to find him. Then there was the problem of actually arresting him. Tino was fond of doing his business in international waters or along borders or even in DMZs. The higher ups couldn't decide who had the authority to make the arrest, so they came up with their own 'brilliant' plan and put a team together." Arthur shook his head.

"It was a jurisdictional nightmare. They just threw a group of us together, in the hopes that our plethora of nationalities would allow them to slip through some legal loophole. It worked about as well as you might expect."

"Not at all?" Alfred asked. Arthur smiled humorlessly.

"No. Well, maybe it worked for the legal department. But for those of us actually chosen for the job, it was hell. No one got along. Some of us couldn't even speak the same language. Why someone thought this could work was beyond me. In the end, our team splintered into smaller groups who could actually tolerate each other. Each group worked mostly independently, only informing the rest of the team when they had relevant information to share, which didn't happen often. It went on like this for months with no results. When our breakthrough finally came, I was working with a Frenchman named Francis. He was- He was-" Arthur trailed off, eyes distant.

"He was a good agent." Arthur said softly. "He was insufferable, but he was a good agent. He didn't deserve-"

Arthur stopped again and exhaled slowly.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself again. One of our number had found out where Tino was going to be before he got there. A town named Skagen, at the very tip of Denmark's main peninsula. He was resting there before taking a boat out to sea. As I said, international waters, or at least open water, were one of his favorite locations to do business. We had figured we had a few days before he concluded his business and vanished again. What we hadn't planned for was being sent out there ourselves."

"Denmark during winter, if you hadn't already guessed, is really fucking cold. And the lot of us found ourselves shipped up there with almost no prior warning."

"You must have been a bunch of happy campers." Alfred commented.

Arthur snorted. "You have no idea. You should have heard some of the angry speeches these people came up with. Divas, all of them."

"We managed to make it to Denmark without Tino catching wind of us. That turned out to be the easy part. Our superiors were expecting us to capture Tino, so we managed to find some boats and some officials who were actually half competent at managing said boats and some police for backup. The plan was to sail out to Tino's ship, surround it, and arrest everyone inside."

"But when do things ever go according to plan?"

"We surrounded the boat unnoticed, and we thought we had disabled any means of escape. Things were going well, but as soon as we got inside, things went to hell."

"It turned into a shooting gallery. I- I can't remember the specifics. I remember the sound of it all more than anything. Gunshots everywhere, echoing off the walls of the ship. And the shouts. And the screaming. It-" Arthur shook his head clear of bad memories. "When it was over and the guns had quieted, Tino had disappeared leaving us with a ship full of the dead. Ours and theirs, scattered about like ragdolls. Among them was an INTERPOL agent named Berwald Oxenstierna."

"Berwald was Tino's man on the inside. He'd been feeding INTERPOL bad information so that Tino could keep slipping away. Berwald also helped Tino find and contract interested buyers. He was a vital part of the operation. But when we investigated him afterwards, we found he was more than a business associate to Tino."

Arthur turned and looked Alfred straight in the eye.

"He was Tino's lover."

Alfred remembered Berwald, the man in Tino's photographs. He remembered the look of raw emotion on Tino's face when he had talked about him.

Lovers...

Arthur drew a deep breath.

"And I was the one who killed him."

An expression of horror spread across Alfred's face as things slowly but surely began to add up.

"I don't remember doing it. But the bullet they pulled out of his chest matched my firearm, and you can't argue with that kind of evidence."

"Our mission was thought of as a disaster. The higher ups were eager to forget it had ever happened. Tino, however, was much less willing to let things go. As it turned out, he'd been making his latest business deals with a purpose. He was tired of living in the shadows, and was looking to start over somewhere else with Berwald. The job we interrupted was the last in a string that would pay for their new identities and assure the two got their happy ever after. And then we came along. Tino's bright future disappeared in a hectic shootout."

"It changed him, loosing Berwald. Before, he'd been pleasant, if unyielding when it came to his occupation. After- I don't know how to describe it. The man has gone feral, if such things are possible. He doesn't seem to care about anything or anyone anymore. Except, of course, for finding me and making sure I pay for what I did."

"I don't know how he traced the bullet back to me. The information should have been kept within the bureau, and his foremost informant was dead. But somehow he found out, and I became his most hated enemy. Not that I knew about this at first, I was still under the assumption that Tino would spend the rest of his life hiding in some wretched hole or another so he could avoid incarceration. I didn't find out about Tino's vendetta until at least a month after Skagen."

"I was supposed to be searching a warehouse. A company I was investigating claimed that goods were being stolen, and I was supposed to figure out if they were telling the truth or if they were selling these goods through less than legal channels for increased profits. The fact that they seemed to be making a profit despite the loss of product indicated the second option, but I needed more conclusive evidence. I should have requested backup, but my superiors were being spiteful after the Skagen thing, and I really just wanted to get the job over with."

"Francis- Francis wasn't supposed to be there. He wasn't even supposed to be in the country. But he had dual citizenship for some godforsaken reason and no one could stop him when he came over for 'personal reasons'. Sometimes I wonder if he didn't know something was up. There was no other reason he should have been there if he didn't have suspicions. But he didn't share them with me, and he invited himself along to that warehouse. I was glad for the company, though I found the man's personality grating."

"That I managed to get out of that warehouse alive was pure luck. Tino had rigged it to blow, and it exploded spectacularly not twenty minutes after we got there. I was by an emergency exit. Got blown clean through the door and out into the open. Francis wasn't so lucky. He'd been standing in the middle. The whole building came down on his head. He didn't deserve to die like that."

"I tried to get help, but it seems as if Tino made a contingency plan in the event of my survival. He planted evidence to suggest I had given away vital military information, sold it to other nations to be exact, and made the explosion look as though it was me getting rid of someone who knew too much. He made it look believable too. Skagen was on its way to destroying whatever career I'd hope to have. Embittered, I would have sought revenge by selling government secrets. Francis, who had been in contact with me, would have suspected something and come to confront me. I would then have led him to his doom. It was a believable story. So believable that when emergency crews finally showed they were more interested in arresting me than saving Francis."

"I can't be angry at them. I became more interested in saving my own worthless skin than Francis. I abandoned him, just when he needed me. I ran away. Like a coward. This whole thing is my fault. I thought I could do a good job. I thought I could fix things. I thought I could catch Tino. I was wrong. I ruined everything."

Arthur uncurled himself, and withdrew his pistol from his side. Alfred thought for one paralyzing moment that he was going to shoot himself, but then he tossed the gun onto the dirt between them.

"If you wanted to shoot me" Arthur whispered "I'd understand."

Alfred looked, horrified, between the gun and the agent and then his face softened.

"Arthur, no. How could you ever think I'd want to do something like that?"

"I ruined your life. You remind me often enough. Anyone who gets close to me winds up suffering, and it's always my fault."

"Arthur, you can't blame yourself for everything. Especially for something that never happened. Francis survived the explosion. Don't let a death that never happened haunt you for the rest of your life."

"Francis is alive?" asked Arthur in a small voice.

"Well, he's in a coma. But he's still alive, and one day he might recover. Besides, Francis sounds like he was a friend. I doubt he'd be blaming you for what happened to him. He was the one who chose to be there that night. It's not like you knew what was going to happen. Tino's off his rocker, and he's the one who should be held responsible. After all, he's the one who lured you there and set the charges. What happened to Francis wasn't your fault and- Dude, are you crying?"

"No!" said Arthur, but his exclamation was suspiciously watery. He rubbed his eyes a few times. Something seemed to occur to him then. "How do you know about Francis?"

Alfred froze.

"Well, you see- It- I- Uh-" he floundered. Arthur watched him, bewildered, and Alfred decided to just tell the truth.

"I sold you out." he admitted.

The punch to the face was neither unexpected nor unwarranted.

"How could you?" Arthur yelled. He towered over Alfred, having sprung to his feet in rage.

Alfred sighed and rubbed his now even sorer face, secretly glad Arthur hadn't hit his nose.

"It's not like you gave me much reason to trust you. You forced me to follow along with you at gunpoint. And you never explained yourself, hell you never really talked to me if there wasn't an opportunity to insult me. I didn't know what to think. Then Tino shows up and, while admittedly creepy, he did at least make an attempt to be nice to me. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I just wanted to get out and go home."

Arthur's eyes were angry, but underneath there was dull acceptance. The anger Alfred could deal with, could understand, but for Arthur to accept betrayal so willingly was beyond him. It was as if he expected it.

"No. Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"That forever alone thing. It's like you don't trust me because you think I'm just going to abandon you by the side of the road like a box of free kittens. Look, we fucked up. The both of us. Me especially. I realize that now. I was confused and angry, and scared. And I've spent so much of my life as a doormat, helping people who only ever walk all over me, that I really can't take it anymore. I was willing to listen to the words of a psychopath if it meant the crazy would stop. I put us both in danger. I admit it. But you're stupid if you think I'm just going to leave and not make an attempt at fixing the damage I've caused you. It's not a hero's style to leave a damsel in distress."

"I'm not a damsel." Arthur protested.

"No, you're not. And I'm not leaving. Not yet. Not until I've made it up to you."

He stood up to look at Arthur eyes to eye.

"We can get through this, but we need to trust each other. Let's make a deal. You stop being so closed off and angry, and I'll stop being a tool."

He held out his hand.

"Shake on it."

"You were right you know." said Arthur, looking at the offered palm. "I did mess up your life. I all but kidnapped you. I put your life in danger. Why would you be willing to forgive me?"

"I managed to forgive Hitler. I think I can give you another chance."

Arthur frowned, but Alfred continued.

"It's also because I believe there's something inside you worth believing in. And trust me; I know how corny that sounds."

"And why should I give you another chance?"

Alfred shrugged.

"I can't answer that. I already hurt you once. It's up to you to decide whether or not you think I'm worth the risk."

Arthur stared at Alfred for a long time before speaking.

"You betray me after that speech, and I'll shoot you." he warned.

"Fair enough." Alfred agreed.

Arthur cautiously shook Alfred's hand and immediately stepped back.

"What happens now?" he asked.

"Now? Now's the time to get the hell out of Dodge."

Arthur's eyebrows knitted together in irritation. "And where would you suggest we go?"

Alfred looked around them. Up at the cliff they had just tumbled down and then out at the undeveloped land that stretched out into the horizon. He hitched his bags back over his shoulder and stood up straight as he addressed Arthur.

"I have no idea." he announced. "But I'll know it when we get there."

He grabbed Arthur's hand, ignoring the ensuing curse words, and together the pair wandered blindly off into the sunset.

[End Chapter]

First, let me just say I love all of you, and I'm amazed that you thought this story good enough to get it past the 100 review mark.

Next, I have to apologize for the late update. I was hoping to have this chapter done and uploaded last week. Unfortunately, that's when the heat wave happened. 100+ degree weather sucks. And as I don't have a fully functional fan, much less AC, my desire to do anything other than avoid heat stroke melted away faster than the Wicked Witch of the West in an Olympic sized swimming pool.

I think the ending still feels a bit rushed, but I thought you all deserved an update. If you agree with me, I can go back and edit.

Thank you very much for reading. I'll try to get the next chapter out ASAP.

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