Chapter Text
May 9th, 1945
London, England.
*
England sighs as he looks out the window, streets glittering with the celebration of his people at the war’s end. It’s been a day, and they’re still celebrating.
Not that he blames them. Even he can almost muster up a smile at the thought that the absolute hell of the last few years is finally, finally finished. He might even be out there with them, if he weren’t convinced that this was nowhere near the end of it.
There is so much work to do, he thinks as he stares down at his financial reports. Too much fucking work, after six years of war.
But work that needs to be done regardless.
One hundred and forty-five-million-pound loan due to America, nine hundred and thirty million more in a further line of credit…
He resists the very strong urge to repeatedly slam his head into the desk. God, it’s the fucking South Sea Company all over again. We’re going to be paying this off in the next century.
He shakes his head, trying to think of solutions and coming up blank.
Fuck, he swears under his breath, before forcing back his composure, twisting his hands in the coarse fabric of his trousers.
Oh well. He supposes he will simply have to continue on, as he always does.
He sighs quietly as he leans down to sift through more paperwork, trying to ignore how incredibly wrong the pang in his chest feels, the pain still ricocheting pain from bullet wounds and stirs from near starvation just a few years past. They were still on rations, damn it all.
The papers flutter in the wind from the still open window. He slams down on them, vague pain sparking up his wrist as he stands up to close the bloody window to the wind which should not be giving him chills but is regardless.
Not for the first time, he resists the urge to sigh.
He’s slamming the cracked glass window shut when he hears it, over the general chaos of celebration and painfully fracturing glass. Footsteps, hard boots on wood.
Footfalls that are distinctively not his.
He freezes, hands going still on the chipped paint windowsill. He knows most of his officials are likely out, still celebrating finally winning this stupid hell fuck of an excuse for a war. He’s pretty sure even Churchill took the day off, dammit, and the whole of the War Cabinet alongside with him. They’re probably all pissed beyond belief in celebration as to finally defeating that damned kraut. He was likely the only one even here, incapable of tearing himself away from all the absolutely fascinating endeavour that was filing paperwork. And he was fine with that. His people deserved it. It was just that the world didn’t stop for anything, and there were still things- so many things- that had to be taken care of.
He stares out the window, eyes glazed over with fatigue. For all the celebration, he couldn’t bring himself to stop thinking of the consequences. Because there were always, always consequences, and from what he’s seen these are likely to be even worse than those of the Great War. God knows that was hard enough as it was.
God knows what havoc the aftermath of all this is going to wreak upon the world.
He straightens his spine and immediately steps away from the window, barely missing pieces of broken glass falling to the ground from the cracked glass. His gaze narrows. Instinctively, he slams his hand against the holster at his hip. His Enfield is beaten and dented from years of constant use.
In the periphery of his hearing there’s whispers.
Why are they here?
Fingers steady on his pistol, he steps furthermore, ignoring the aches in his bones as he reaches the door to his study. He presses his ear to the wall and cups a hand to it, gnawing at his lip.
“On va dans cette chambre, non?” He hears from the other side of the wall, and immediately jolts, expression dropping to one of confusion.
What would a Frenchman be doing in London on a day like this?
“Yes, yes, Sir, we’re in the room on the left- keep it down, The United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and-” The man pauses over the last word, as does England himself, “-Northern Ireland is in that one. And I doubt he will enjoy hearing this after so much time engaged in warfare, so we must keep ahead. And silent.”
England stares blankly, jaw ajar.
“That room?” Come a heavy French accented voice, one England swears on his life he recognizes but can’t quite seem to place.
He leans closer, swearing up and down about the stupid scars that still crisscross his back and make his chest constrict with lost breath when he moves too quickly. Gritting his teeth, he steps forwards anyways, moves his hand so his fingers just ghost over the doorknob of the threshold.
“Yes, that one.” The speaking-English-like-a-civilized-person says to the Frenchman, their footsteps already fading with distance down the hall.
England acts quickly, wasting no time opening the door before he steps out, shifting his boot on the floor to avoid the creaking parts of it. He leaves behind all his damned paperwork as he steps out into the hallway, making sure the men were far enough ahead that they didn’t spot his entrance.
He exhales a small sigh when they turn right to their meeting room, not sparing him so much as a glance.
Pacing slowly through the halls which he knows like clockwork, he makes his way to the room which the men had stepped into. He stills outside of the old wooden door, dim light filtering through the crack and casting over his shoes. He tilts his head to better hear the on goings of the room.
“Alors, qu’est-ce que tu proposes ?”
“Je propose que-” England’s French is rusty, (it really hasn’t been good since the twelfth century, if he was being completely honest), but he grasps that there is something of a preposition his officials are making. With French officials. One of whom he's certain he knows. Fuck, who is that?
He leans closer, sighing with relief when the man switches back to English, although the men he’s identified as French continue on in that damned language of theirs. Fucking frogs reiterates in his mind, a well-worn mantra as he shifts and presses his shoulder further against the stone cold wall adjacent to the door and does his best to go unnoticed.
“I propose that-“ One of his men starts off, accent that clearly distinguishes him from the French officers in the room. England hears the familiar sound of paper shuffling.
“-Should the economic depression within France and the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland continue, and the alleviation of the recent war not end such depression, it would be highly to the benefit of both nations to consider a union.”
You could hear a pin drop.
Chaos erupts in the room, shouts and abrupt stops and screeching chair assaulting his already worn out mind like a visceral punch. Apparently, they've completely forgotten their policy of secretiveness, caught up in outrage. That’s his politicians for you. Couldn’t keep their mouths shut on a spy operative.
Not that he can really blame them though, with a proposal as ridiculous as that.
“What on earth would that do?-“
“Do you know how much protest we would face?-“
“We cannot-“
“Je préférai que la France sera une province des Allemands qu'un dominion des Britanniques !” He hears an unfamiliar voice shout, and seethes at the words, hand poised just behind the wooden door. The words are all too fucking familiar-
But then he thinks about what they were discussing previously, and his stomach churns. He almost agrees with the Frenchman, actually, which only serves to piss him off further. God knows how well this'd gone over last time.
They are thinking of merging- of merging him and France. France of all fucking people. A union. Him and France. In a union.
The war had definitively done a number on his politicians’ mental states.
His hand behind the door freezes as he leans closer, listening intently to the men argue back and forth on the benefits, restraining himself from any radical actions like shouting, punching the door or throwing them all out the window to the concrete streets below and watching the blood splatter everywhere.
“The union would allow both countries to rehabilitate faster-“ Rehabilitate? What am I, an opium addict?
“-Mais ce detuira l’independence de notre pays! We didn’t fight that war for the fun of it!” Fucking French. Fucking politicians. Fucking France.
France.
He wonders if he's there.
His hand freezes over the doorknob. His heartbeat kicks up, palms going damp. The politician’s words turn to faint buzzing white noise in the back of his mind.
If they didn’t tell me about this, there’s no way they told France. Right?
Right.
There’s no way this would go through; it’s absolutely ridiculous. Me? And France? Fucking hell, are they trying to set Europe ablaze for the fifth fucking time this century?
He shakes his head, drowning out the voices seeping into his mind from the corridor. It’s probably just some low level preposition; no need to worry.
But what if-
He shoves all thoughts aside, to a nice little corner of his mind he likes to call ‘Nightmare fuel’. Biting down hard on his lip, he shakes his head and straightens his shoulders, turns resolutely on his heel. He has an economy to repair, and an empire to rebuild. No time to concern himself with silly matters like this.
But France-
No.