Work Text:
October 29th, 1929
The first thing that America felt when she woke up was the chill of the air. It was a bitter, biting cold that only a northeastern fall could give - one that could cut through any blanket she’d wrapped around her or any clothing that she’d layered up just to get underneath her skin - and it always brought back memories of chilly, frostbitten nights that had long passed by. Nights that had burned themselves into her memories as she was forced to watch the people around her succumb to the numbing cold.
Yet, this cold was different.
It didn’t whisper of past hardships but instead warned of ones to come.
America sat up, rather reluctantly, in her bed, and stretched her arms above her head, reveling in the satisfying, stretching ache of her muscles as she did. It didn’t get rid of the heaviness that had been dragging her down lately though, as if something were trying to forcefully submerge her underneath a crushing, oppressive weight. Whatever it was, it was suffocating and seemed to leech her energy away each time she so much as moved.
Outside of her window, America could see the cloudy sky that hung above New York City, blanketing itself over the eerily still scene as the city slept. Down below, the streets were barren and silent, only broken by the occasional, ever-familiar sound of a delivery boy or the obnoxious, even rarer, rattling of a passing car, and dimly lit by the flickering streetlamps looming over them. It was too early for the city to truly be awake.
She took in a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair, trying almost desperately to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of her head. Instead, she found herself staring at another source of contention - a sealed letter sitting on the desk of her hotel room.
It was a simple-looking thing, but the white envelope’s stark contrast against the dark wood was practically boring a hole into her consciousness. Not because of what it was, but because of who it was from. America only knew one person who lived in Ontario.
She just couldn’t come up with any conceivable reason that her sister would be writing to her. The last time they’d seen one another had been shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, nearly a decade before, and they hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Before that, America hadn’t spoken to her sister at all.
So why would Canada be writing to her? To apologize for what she’d said in Paris? To deliver more barbed words that she’d come up with after the fact? It was disturbing to think that her sister’s opinion still held such sway over her. America knew she’d lost her sister when she’d left England, when Canada had chosen to stay, so why had her words stung so much? After all this time, why did America care about what someone else thought of her, especially since that someone clearly hadn’t cared for her in a long time?
None of them care , a voice in her head sneered bitterly. They just use you and throw you away. You’re better off without them.
America shook herself out of that train of thought and turned her attention back out the window, where she could see the sun just barely peeking out over the buildings. It was always a dark, depressing road to go down and she’d tried her best to avoid it. But Europe was always an ugly, tangled mess to deal with and she’d only been proven right when she’d been dragged into the Great War.
The only obvious benefit had been the boost to her economy, and now even that had a foreboding future. It had all been great at first, and she’d felt better than she had in a long time, but the market had taken a turn earlier that week and she still couldn’t shake the undeniable feeling that a storm was on the horizon. She could only hope that she was wrong.
After what felt like a couple more hours, when the sun was well in the sky, America finally pooled enough energy together to throw off the blanket and rise from her bed.
She felt it almost instantly.
As soon as she stood up and put her full weight on her legs, nausea hit her like a steam engine. Her entire body seemed to recoil in protest at the very movement as her stomach rolled sickeningly. Before she could even register what was happening, she was making a rush towards the bathroom and getting sick into the toilet.
By the time her brain caught up, white spots were dancing in her vision and a hammer was pounding into the side of her temple over and over and over again. Another wave of nausea hit her as her entire body broke out into a cold, sticky sweat and now it felt as if all of her energy had been completely sucked from her. She struggled to stop shaking in between her bouts of sickness.
When it subsided, the pounding in her only head grew stronger, until the pressure was nearly unbearable to withstand and she couldn’t so much as open her eyes without the piercing lamp light searing her vision.
Distantly, she could hear the sound of someone knocking on her hotel room door and she couldn’t help the whimper that was forced from her when it only added to the throbbing in her temples.
“Miss Jones?” a muffled voice called from the other side of the door. Her body had a violently visceral reaction to the sound and she felt herself get sick again. When she lifted her head, America felt a thick, warm liquid streaming down her face. Fuck. “Miss Jones, this is John Roberts with the United States Secret Service. I’ve been sent by President Hoover to retrieve you. Please open the door.”
America scowled as the man continued to talk.
Hoover? She didn’t want anything to do with Hoover and she’d made that extremely clear.
Another bout of nausea curled in her and caused her stomach to roll as the man continued to pound at the door.
She wanted to tell him to go away, but she couldn’t find the strength to do so. Maybe after she stopped retching in the toilet -
Suddenly, the door to her room opened and a man - John Roberts presumably - strutted in, followed by an embarrassed-looking hotel employee. Now they were at an impasse.
“Ma’am,” Roberts said, nodding towards her. She just groaned in response. “My name is -”
“Yeah, yeah,” America interrupted, uninterested in hearing his entire schpiel again. She licked her lips, just then noticing how dry her throat and mouth felt, and shot him as serious a gaze as she could muster. She imagined she didn’t look any more intimidating to him than a normal sick, teenage girl would. “I heard you.”
“Then you’ll know President Hoover is expecting you,” he answered, plucking her coat from the closet and extending it to her. “So let’s get a move on.”
America thought of fighting him, she really, really did, but just the mere concept sucked the energy from her. If Hoover wanted her in the capital, he’d get her there eventually and she was in no real state to resist. So America took the coat from the man and, with no small amount of effort, managed to slip it on.
“My things -”
“Will be collected for you.”
“You at least gonna tell me what’s happened?”
“The market crashed this morning, ma’am. President Hoover is confident it will recover, but -”
“…idiot…” America mumbled underneath her breath, slowly trying to peel herself up from the ground without getting nauseous again.
“He’s asked you take up residence in the capital anyway.” Roberts continued pointedly, eyeing her when she leaned heavily against the wall. “And given your condition, it would probably be best for you to stay with the President.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He leveled her with an unimpressed stare. “All the same, ma’am.”