Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

March 8th, 2027, 6:50 PM, Base, Outskirts

To say the day went smoothly would be an understatement. The Commander and Howe had planned on a quiet visit to the Eagle Union’s section of the base, just a nice look around with their guides. Unfortunately, The EU girls decided the best people to be guides were New Jersey and Reno.

Reno had continuously bombarded the Commander with questions ranging from his favorite superhero, to what-if scenarios, or basically anything that came into her mind. When asked about her gauntlets, she went on for two hours explaining the intricacies of them.

New Jersey wasn’t any better. She had basically dragged the pair throughout the entire place at a break-neck pace. Even once they had finished looking around at one location, she would drag them to the next with haste, unable to ask questions. This would earn her a place on a list by the Commander he would later dub “Boundless Bunny Girls”.

When it reached midday, their guides led them to a barbeque that was planned for the Commander. This was the only time the two had time to have some peace. They had a very good time, enjoying the food and chatting with the other girls.

As the pair were getting up to leave, a sudden fastball moving at 93 mph hit the Commander square in the chest. Immediately, the Commander keeled over, being caught by Howe before they hit the ground hard. After checking that the Commander was still conscious, which he was, or that there wasn't any exterior damage, which there wasn’t; he was quickly taken to the hospital of the base to get a better look at the damage. Thankfully, they had already finished up the tour of the Eagle Union quarters, and were planning to visit the hospital sometime in the future.

Even better, once they reached it, and had Vestal take a look, she reported only a slight cracking of his sternum, nothing too serious. After that, Vestal took them around the hospital and explained some of the rules she has when there.

Once they left, they decided to have a look around the Royal Navy’s quarters. Thankfully nothing interesting or chaotic happened while they were there. Really, there were only two things of note when they were there. First was the introduction of the Head Maid, Belfast. She had informed the Commander that a ship with all his belongings had arrived, and that it would be taken to his new quarters, which he was very grateful for. The second was the summoning by Queen Elizabeth to her throne room, but once again, nothing happened besides formal introductions. After that, they decided now would be a good time to call it for the day.

And here they were, on the outskirts of the base, walking a lone path lining near the coast with the sun close to touching the horizon, a few trees here and there. The path led to a lone house on the top of a small hill; next to it, a cliff facing where the sun would set.

“Are you sure you will be fine, John?” Howe inquired, concerned for the health of John, who had been wincing in pain ever since they left the hospital.

“I think I’ll be fine. Vestal just said to take it easy for a week or two, nothing extraneous. ” John wrote back, trying to ease Howe’s worries.

“If you say so, but what a first day, huh?”

“No kidding. ” John responded while chuckling. “Hopefully, this isn’t a sign for things to come. ”

“I’m afraid things can get worse, especially when big celebrations come around, like Christmas.”

“I won’t fault them for that. It would be weird if they didn’t, but thanks for heads up. ”

Coming up to the house, John was about to ask a question, but Howe beat him to the punch.

“Here we are, your new house for your time here,” Howe proclaimed. She then pulled out a key and unlocked the door.

The house was a modest one. Immediately to the left and right were the kitchen and living room, respectively. Between the two, and right in front of them was a staircase. In the back, was the dining area and laundry room. A restroom sat between the dining room and the kitchen. Upstairs consisted of the master bedroom, personal work room, and bathroom to the right. To the left, two guestrooms with a shared bathroom. Out the back, was a patio overlooking the base slightly down below.

Upon seeing this, John let out a whistle of amazement. Soon, he wrote out his thoughts, “Nice place, and all for me? ”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Man, this seems quite a lot for one person. ”

“Well, we do make quite frequent visits here. Don’t be too surprised when there are twelve of us arriving at once.” Howe quipped back.

“Noted. Thanks once again Howe, for everything you’ve done for me so far. ”

“It was my pleasure, John,” Howe then noticed what time it was. “While I would like to continue chatting with you, I’m afraid I must head back home. George is probably finishing up making a heavenly meal, and I don’t want to miss the first servings.”

“Alright, then I won’t hold you, ” John answered back, before hugging Howe, who quickly reciprocated the act. After a few moments, they released their grasps on one another.

“Good night, John.”

With a nod and a smile, John let Howe go on her merry way. Soon he turned his gaze back to his house, which was filled with boxes that needed to be unpacked, and items that needed organizing. But he decided he would do that later; right now, he just wanted to unwind. He spotted the lawn chair he decided to bring with him and picked it up, soon heading out of his house and towards the cliff.

The Sun, by now, had started to touch the waterline. A beautiful sight to behold. Arriving at the cliff, John unfolded the chair, sat in it and started to play music once again. The first few songs were nice, medium paced; nice for John to tap along to while watching the sun set.

Soon, one song got his attention once he heard the lyrics.

Oh! The years are fading

Withering and swaying

Soft like a flame that dances about

And the dim faint light is going out

Ah… This song…, John thought to himself. Slowly he began to stop tapping to the beat of the song.

I fought for years through

Blood and sweat and tears, now

Everything about me has gone wrong

Soon, his face dawned a grim, empty expression.

Frantically wondering

Where did I go wrong?

And tell me now, do you believe

Would anybody miss me

If I was gone?

The last few words echoed throughout his mind. He sat there, a blank expression still on his face as the song continued on. Once the song finished, he broke out of his trance, and noticed that the sun had sunken half way down from the horizon. Taking that as a sign, he decided to head back and start unpacking to try and forget what that song started to surface.

Chapter Text

March 9th, 2027, 11:30 PM, Base, Meeting Room C

Late at night, two people could be seen shambling their way to a very sudden meeting of the faction leaders/representatives. This was due to Queen Elizabeth calling for an emergency meeting at this time of night, where most of the people that would be attending, were asleep. To say most were peeved, would be an understatement.

Down the hallway leading to the meeting room, the leader of the Iron Blood faction, Bismarck, yawned. She had barely gotten an hour of rest before being summoned. A gaunt expression plastered on her face. Following behind her, was her sister, Tirpitz, who looked a little better than Bismarck, getting around three hours of sleep because she had taken a nap midday.

“Do you know why Elizabeth called this meeting?” Tirpitz questioned, only to be met with silence.

“Sister?”

After not receiving any response, she tapped on her shoulder to get her attention.

“Wuah?!” Bismarck jolted up. “Oh… Sister, were you saying something?”

“Yes, I was asking if you knew Elizabeth’s reasoning for this meeting.”

“Beats me. I stopped asking after the 5th time she’s done this.”

This was true. Queen Elizabeth had called for a total of forty surprise meetings throughout the entire career of Armstrong. By now, those summoned decided to go along with it, and berate her after they were done. That usually came in the form of a lot of yelling.

Soon arriving at their destination, Bismarck opened the door to find that everyone else had already arrived before them. This included Enterprise and New Jersey (who seemed to not be in any way drowsy), Richelieu (in a cat onesie) and Jean Bart, Yat Sen and Chen Hai, Nagato and Amagi (both leaning against each other as they slept), Sovetskaya Rossiya and Belorussiya (still in her night wear), Vittorio Veneto and Littorio, and finally Queen Elizabeth and Warspite (who was standing up, but also very much asleep).

“Liz, you better have a good explanation for this meeting.” Bismarck announced, causing a few to slightly wake up.

“Yes, Signora Elizabeth, why have you woken these beautiful signoras from their slumber?” Littorio added, struggling to keep herself from sleeping right then and there.

“Thank you for finally arriving, Bismarck, and for the last time, it’s Queen Elizabeth ,” the royal majesty declared.

“I don’t really care right now, let’s just get this over with. I want to sleep,” Bismarck retorted. A few murmurs of agreement could be heard around the table.

“I called this meeting to address my servant, Commander Heartfall.”

“What about him?” Yat Sen questioned, rubbing the tiredness out of her eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious? Why does he choose to remain silent?”

“I don’t see a problem with that. Let him choose what he wants to do.” New Jersey proclaimed, slightly adjusting Enterprise’s coat to act like a blanket, who had fallen asleep.

“I would do the same, but I wanted to know why he refuses to speak. So I ordered my maids to pull up his files. But something was just wrong with it. Warspite, the files, please.” Elizabeth ordered, only to be met with silence.

“Warspite?”

When she turned around, she found her standing there, snoring a little bit.

“Warspite!” she hollered.

“Uegha! Yes, Your Majesty!” Warspite exclaimed, sleepiness leaving her body.

“The files, if you would please.”

“O-of course.” Warspite nodded. She then produced multiple manila folders, and started to pass them around to the other attendees.

Once they had all received the files, even those who were very much asleep, they opened them up, revealing basic information about Commander Heartfall. His date of birth, height, age, physical traits, all that fun info, all of it dating March 8th, 2027. Yet something was off. At the bottom of the page, there was a section called “Additional Information”. This would usually be a small bit of information relating to the person. Whether that be medical information, or how someone was easily swayed when the prospect of cheesecake whenever it was on the line. Whatever High Command deemed necessary, or had a kick at their subordinates, it was usually there. But for Commander Heartfall, there was just nothing there.

“Why is it blank?” Amagi pondered aloud.

“Maybe someone from above accidently deleted the info,” Richelieu offered.

“We thought so, too,” Elizabeth interjected. “So we looked at his older records. If you would please turn to page two.”

Doing as told, they turned to find an almost exact page as the one they had just looked at. The only difference was the date scrawled on the bottom, January 8th, 2026.

“Now that is strange,” Jean Bart commented. “You’d think they would mention something about his communication, no?”

“They did.” Elizabeth said, causing a few to look towards her. “The next page, please.”

Once again, doing as instructed, they found a similar page as the last two. However, there were two differences. The first was the date, January 7th, 2026. The next was now the “Additional Information” had one entry in it:

“ Bad at communication. ”

Elizabeth continued, “As you can see, something happened between the 7th and 8th for the Administration to remove that detail. Yet, for whatever reason, decided to not mention his preferred form of communication. I even contacted former Commander Armstrong, who replied with, ‘He just one day decided to stop talking,’”

“So what do you want us to do?” Rossiya queried.

“I bet she wants to make a task force to get to the bottom of this,” quipped Belorussiya.

“You’d be correct, Belorussiya.” Elizabeth confirmed. “I would like to assemble a sort of intelligence group to see what the reason is that my servant refuses to speak.”

Concerned, Veneto spoke up, “This seems very intrusive, should we even be doing this?”

“Information is key,” Elizabeth retorted. “Learning more about our commander means we can get a better understanding as to what he’s thinking.”

“This still feels wrong,” Tirpitz contributed.

“It may be, but I’d like to get to the bottom of this.”

“So who’s going to be in this intelligence group?” Bismarck asked.

“I’d like to keep this group small, around four or five members, and who are very talented at espionage or intelligence gathering. I have selected Belfast and Sheffield as members.”

After a few moments, with each representative talking with their counterparts, the Northern Parliament spoke up first. “We would like to put Kronshtadt for this group,” Rossiya declared.

“We would like to elect Helena for this operation,” New Jersey announced. Although “we” was debatable as Enterprise was still asleep.

“The Sakura Empire wishes to bring Chikuma on this task force,” Nagato proclaimed.

“Actually, I would like to make a request for the Sakura Empire,” Elizabeth said.

“What would you like, Elizabeth?”

“I would like to enlist the help of Shinano.”

That suggestion caused everyone in the room to look at Elizabeth, shocked. Even those that were asleep or ready to fall asleep, rose from their exhausted states.

“Elizabeth, while I might be jumping to conclusions, are you suggesting to probe the Commander’s mind?” Enterprise jolted up.

“This is just a last resort, I don’t want to intrude on my servant’s mind, but if necessary to get information, we should do it.”

“Well that all depends on if Shinano would agree,” Amagi commented.

“This one will do it…” A voice came from the doorway. There stood the sleepy-floof goddess, Shinano.

“Shinano!? How’d you know we were here?” asked Yat Sen.

“This one… has seen visions of this…”

“Is there anything else you can tell about what you were able to see?” Chen Hai pressed.

With a shake of her head, Shinano continued. “This one was not able to see what lay ahead for Shikikan.” And with that, she left the doorway, heading down the hall, presumably going back to bed.

“I believe that addresses all that I wanted,” Elizabeth said. “Is there anything else that needs to be addressed?”

“No!” mostly everyone shouted back.

Taken aback by the outburst, Elizabeth continued, “Very well. Inform those selected about this operation, and tell them to meet me in my throne room at 10. This meeting is adjourned.”

And with that, the other representatives quickly rose to their feet and bolted out the doorway. The only exception was Enterprise, who was being carried by New Jersey.