Summary : The fires of Washington D.C. had left the United States of America blind. But nevertheless, he keeps going.

The fire burned. It consumed. It decimated everything in its path, until all that it touched was black, charcoaled, and wasted.

British and Canadian soldiers ran through the streets, setting important buildings aflame with their torches; most of the city had been evacuated, leaving them free to do whatever they please with the remaining public buildings.

This was ridiculous. England wasn't here. Canada himself wasn't even here. Perhaps they deemed themselves to be somewhere more important than burning his capital down. A cruel tactic, most likely thought up by the British Empire himself, a means to spite the country that had left him after his unfair rule.

Well, it was true that the American government hadn't exactly been the most tactful in this war; perhaps they shouldn't have had started it in the first place, considering the poor state their military was. He had tried of course, to convince officials that their military needed to grow, to flourish, and yet his arguments had been brushed easily aside, the officials that were supposed to have listened to him finding his suggestions insignificant.

And thanks to them, he bitterly thought, he burned.

"The Library of Congress," he started listing, and the coppery taste of blood from his eyes immediately met his tongue. "The House and Senate Chambers. The Supreme Court."

His ears rang with the beat of the drums; his throat screamed, willing for somebody to help him; he willed his eyes to see, but there was something hot bubbling behind his eyelids, and something did overflow, and it didn't take long for him to realize that he was crying.

"The War and State Department," he continued. "The Treasury." The smell of burning wood filled his nose and smoke filled his lungs, and he choked for a moment before it turned into a hacking cough and bile splattered onto the ground in front of him, the sour liquid slowly dripping as thin threads from his lips.

And throughout this, the White House burned.

At least Dolley wasn't in there when they raided the White House. America had forced her to leave earlier, telling her that placing cannons in the windows wasn't worth it when there was no one to operate them, and instead asked her and the Secretary of State to take the painting of George Washington and the Declaration of Independence. They had complied, and Dolley, after much fighting with the picture frame, just decided to take a knife to the picture and cut out the artwork of the Founding Father.

He fell to his knees and his hands clutched the dirt and grass beneath them; through the light of the flames, he saw his tears fall onto his hands and saw them splash and twinkle; not clear and transparent, but red and bloodied. He felt the muscles near his eyes twitch, and more bloodied tears fell as his vision wavered.

Something was wrong with his eyes. 'Of course,' he thought bitterly, only now remembering that burning down his capital could have serious consequences on his own physical body. 'I'd always thought that it'd be my heart though.' But nevertheless, his heart kept beating steadily, leading him to cross that theory out in his mind.

Perhaps it was because the people were alive that his heart kept beating on; he was suddenly thankful that he had taken measures to move nearly most of the population of the city away from it before the enemy forces came marching in.

The wind started to blow; the flames, receiving their new share of oxygen, burst open further and blasted the windows out from the White House. The shattered glass twinkled and fell, and for a moment, America watched them with a dazed look in his half-focused eyes, almost as if they were moving in slow motion.

And screamed as they lodged themselves in his eyes.

His eyes burned; blood streamed out now, and his screams became more frantic. Soldiers around him paid him no attention. After all, he was an American, and was therefore an enemy to them. He struggled to gather his breath, attempting to get the pain under control to no avail; it took all his will to not rub his eyes, knowing that it would make his injury worse.

The fires continued throughout the night, and he was fortunate to have been noticed by a woman of his own citizenship, taking him into her hands. He fell asleep as soon as she brought him inside and awoke sometime later; he processed the situation in his head, feeling around D.C. A storm had hit his capital, putting out the fires and ripping whatever buildings that remained to shreds. He blinked and found his eyes sting and instinctively took his hands to his eyes, only to find out that he couldn't see them.

A sinking feeling suddenly settled in his stomach.

It came to his mind that there was an argument at the door; forgetting his lack of eyesight temporarily, America sat up in whoever's bed this was, and strained his ears to hear the conversation at the door.

"Great god, Madam! Is this the kind of storm to which you are accustomed in this infernal country?" the man at the door exclaimed. Admiral Cockburn, America knew. The man who had burned down his capital, he bitterly thought.

"No, Sir. This is a special interposition of Providence to drive our enemies from our city," the woman snapped back. America recognized her voice; it was the woman who had took her in.

The Admiral huffed. The storm had hit D.C. hard, hard enough that the British had decided to retreat. The man took his troops and seemingly went away from the house. The woman lingered at the door for a moment more, before shutting it and huffing.

"Those damned British," she angrily tutted, before turning around and noticing her charge.

"You're awake, I see," she said. "I'll have you cleaned up now."

She took some water and cleaned his eyes. With some very convincing arguments, the country allowed the woman to remove the shards of glass.

"I couldn't see my hands earlier," he muttered quietly, as her tweezers did the work.

"I thought that might be the case, dear," replied the woman.

"I don't know why they haven't healed yet," America mumbles. "I normally heal faster than this." The woman gave an incoherent sound of "mm-hm" at that, and America was sure that she wasn't paying attention to his words. It was her hands that were holding the tweezers and doing the job, after all.

They sat in silence as she finished her work, and then bandaged him so that he wouldn't get infected. The lady fed him and gave him a clean set of clothes; she explained that while the British did aim their fire towards the public buildings, they had surprisingly left civilian homes alone and for that, he was for once, eternally grateful that the British and Canadian troops were the gentlemen that England always claimed them to be.

But America's mind was soon brought back to the subject of his vision again, and he mulled over the state of his eyes. He somehow knew that they were useless now, and they wouldn't heal, and the thought of that was painful. The sinking feeling that he felt earlier returned in full force, and his breath hitched.

He would never see the burning bright light of the day, nor the soothing, calm gleam of the moon; the winds would rustle the trees and the greens, but he would never again see the leaves move; he would hear the laughter and cries of his people, but never again would he see how blinding their smiles could be, how desperate their tears would be.

The snow would glint, but America would not see it. The rain would fall, but no lightening would frighten him. There would be nothing. The darkness would be the only thing that would greet him.

No more would he would see the skies that his eyes had taken after. He would never see them storming gray, nor would he see the sunset dazzle across the sky, painting his blue, blue skies in streaks of colors of red, orange, yellow, and pink.

One day, his people will invent a way to fly among the birds and up above the clouds, but he would never see them, never be able to praise them for how high they go, because he cannot see, and cannot know.

A suffocating feeling settled in his insides, and he choked; no tears fell, but his throat constricted painfully, almost cutting off air before it released, and a dry sob escaped his lips.

"Do you think I'll ever see again?"

"If God sends his healing hand, perhaps," the woman said, a comforting tone in her voice.

So, no. He would've cried if he could.

"What'll I do now? There's so much that I need to do! I have responsibilities, I can't be blind, I can't be; I need my eyes back, I can't be blind yet – "

A sharp shushing noise and a finger on his lips stopped him in his tracks. The woman was apparently satisfied with the result, and the American didn't need his eyesight to know that she was smiling.

She told him a story about her sister; her eyes had been blue like his, but then the scarlet fever settled into her eyes and she was permanently blind. The woman said that her eyes had been beautiful, always sparkling with joy, and it had hurt her family to see the light taken away when she realized that she would never see anything again.

But she had been there for her, caring for her, slowly teaching her how to move around the house again and to move on with her life. Her sister was a teacher now, unable to see, but with her good memory and enlightened hearing, could still teach a class of ten without them being to rambunctious.

"And you're a young man yet," she said. "It'll give you plenty of time to get adjusted, and I assure you, if my sister can make it, then so can you."

And for some reason, something about her finite tone on the subject brought him a little glimmer of hope.

"Ma'am," he said, albeit a little hesitantly. "D'you really think I could live on too?"

For a moment, there was silence. Then some rustling sounds were heard, and he flinched momentarily at being pulled towards somewhere as he lost the center of gravity; but the woman was there, and she cradled him in her comforting arms and stroked his hair with all the patience in the world.

"Of course, darling," she murmured, and her voice was warm and kind, and it brought him so much hope that he thought his lungs would inflate like a balloon. "Of course."

America stayed with her for the next few days. Despite telling her over and over that he'd just be a nuisance, the woman wouldn't have it. He finally left a few mornings later, feeling a lot better now that the wounds that he had were healed. The woman was insistent on helping him down to the very last minute, and even packed an extra set of spare clothes for him in his knapsack. Really, she shouldn't have – he tried again and again to convince her that he'd be fine without it, but she refused to be deterred. She also suggested that he wait around for a bit longer until she could get someone to help him around, but he wouldn't have any of that – he'd been intruding for too long, after all.

He knew that his government officials were slowly trickling back into his city and knew that it was only a matter of time before he met someone that could give him help. Just after the second day of hobbling down the road on foot with a large branch as a makeshift cane, he had met Dolley Madison and her group. It had taken some reassurance on his part to convince them that yes, he was now blind, but also yes, that he would be okay.

He wasn't sure if he was lying about that last part. Well if he was, then he was lying to himself as well, and he really didn't want to go there.

"I'm not sure what happened to your eyes, Alfred," Dolley observed, carefully bending down and peering into her nation's eye. "You did tell me that your wounds heal quickly, but I'm not so sure why your eyes won't heal. Maybe it had to do with the glass?"

"Um, maybe. I'm not sure. I haven't exactly heard of one of our kind going blind, but…"

Dolley sighed and straightened her back. "There's nothing that we can do. Though I will say that I've seen a man who's lost one his eyesight because of some gravel that got caught in his eye, but his eye had turned white. Your eyes are still blue."

"I think that may have been because he was an old man, ma'am."

"Perhaps," Dolley agreed. "He was quite old – perhaps that was just his cataract settling in. Oh, I wouldn't know, dear. Maybe one day in the future, one of us will have a cure just right for you."

Unless you want to try putting leeches on your eyes, she had added some time after that. It took all his bravado for America to pretend that he wasn't frightened at the thought as he quickly declined the offer.

But he tried to manage without his eyes the best he could. And as times progressed, he found it easier and easier to live in the world again, as more and more things were created for people like him.

Reading and writing was a problem that he'd always face. He had no idea what the documents that were shoved into his arms read, and for a while he was at a loss as to what to do. But nevertheless, he procured the Braille system that France had and learned that – and when England managed to adjust the system to the English language, America had to learn that too. But finally, finally it just so happened that the American Braille system came into existence.

It wasn't easy, having entire documents transcribed into braille just for a single person that most people in the government barely saw of importance in, but his bosses always read the manual properly and always made sure that America could read them. And that certainly had been helpful – before that, he constantly had to ask someone to read the whole thing aloud, just to understand what was on the paper.

He walked everywhere with a cane for years, using it as his guidance, then stopped using it once he started to utilize his other sense a bit more and more. His hearing had sharpened to a point, his sense of smell was almost impossible to trick, and America more often than not used the toe of his shoes to prod around things when others weren't looking. It made him go through shoes twice as fast as other people did, but he didn't stop doing it.

If England was there, he would've told him to stop shuffling his feet. But no, he wasn't there, and he wasn't allowed to be, because it was isolationism that was the option that America had taken – the less other people saw him, the better. People couldn't know that he was blind if they never saw him, after all.

Negotiations and treaties were all dealt with his commissions, but America never took part. He simply refused to go, and received no visitors to his country. He hid his home away from the government's knowledge so that no leads led to him. No other national personifications could find him now, and he planned to make it stay that way.

He wasn't going to pretend that everything was a smooth ride for him – on the contrary, it was a ride that America was not anticipated for. While the woman that had brought him to her home during the fires of Washington D.C. had given him initial hope, it didn't last very long. Some part of America also stupidly believed that maybe one day, his eyes would heal miraculously – and on the days that that hope was stronger, America would dream of blue skies and smiling faces of his people, only to wake up in the middle of the night with his heart shattered because it was all just a dream after all, and none of it was real.

The self-pity peaked during the Civil War, when he felt another nation emerge on his lands. Years of turmoil had preceded this, but he didn't think that it would lead to secession. He felt himself burning up and splitting into half as if something had stabbed him and dragged the knife all around and cut him in two, and before he knew it, there was the Confederate States of America smirking across the battlefield and had snatched his glasses away from him.

"I'll be taking them now, seeing as Texas isn't yours anymore," he remembered the new nation say. "It's mine now, and I won't be giving it back."

"I'm taking everything back, whether you like it or not," America growled back.

He heard the other nation tut in response. "You're blind, idiot. You don't even need these glasses."

"They're still mine," he heard himself speak. "And Texas herself gave them to me, not you."

The glasses were precious. They were a memento of a decade long republic that stood on its feet for several years, before eventually asking America to take over. 'Take care of my people for me,' she had said. 'Take care of them, and don't let them go.'

And what a failure he had been, America lamented.

He heard a rustle of fabric and he guessed that the Confederacy had been shrugging. "Well," the South said. "Then maybe you should've taken care of them better. How long have you felt the anger of the Southern States within you? Haven't you been listening to their arguments? Did you even care?"

"Don't you dare talk about things that you don't know about! The idea of freedom and justice only applies when you're being fair and just to others! I didn't fight against the British, just so you could enslave other people for your own money!"

The words burst out and he felt the men alongside him tense as clicks of rifles being unlocked from safety – from behind the Confederacy, he heard those same sounds being echoed, as the gray uniformed men of the Southern soldiers readied their weapons.

He felt himself being dragged away by a soldier of his own blue uniform to safety, before the first shot was fired. Fort Sumter was a loss for the Union. America had lost against his Southern counterpart.

It was Lincoln who had found him trying to drown himself with alcohol – it was times like this when he took his stay away from the White House and went up to his home in northern Pennsylvania and allowed himself to soak up the sunlight in the day, feeling happy when the sun tickled his cheeks and he'd be smiling in his rickety rocking chair with his eyes closed; then nighttime would come, and all the warmth that he had been relieving in for the past few hours would dissipate quickly, leaving him find his stash of whiskey and drown himself in sorrows.

It was a pity that he couldn't get drunk easily. His faster metabolism absolutely refused to let him get drunk – he suspected that he'd never be able to get drunk.

"How'd you find me?" he remembered asking the President. "I didn't tell anyone about this place here."

The man hummed, before taking away the whiskey bottle away from the nation. "You may not have told anyone, but the manual has this place listed down as one of your residences. Mayhap it slipped through your mind."

America grunted in response. He felt the bed sink as another man's weight sat next to him.

"Penny for your thoughts," Lincoln probed.

The nation sighed. "Do you think any of this might've been avoided if I could see?"

If the President was surprised at this question, he didn't let it show. "You should know that not one of this was your fault, my boy."

"How?" America's head snapped up. "How? I should've been traveling around, down in the South or something, mingling with my people down there and listening to what they really think, and I can't do that when I'm blind. I should've been there for them, I should've... I don't know, I should've seen all this coming, and, and... Oh, I don't know, Abe, I just don't know."

Lincoln waited for America to continue. Instead, the nation heaved heavily, and his shoulders shuddered as Lincoln watched; for a while, America sobbed dryly. He wanted to see – he wanted to see so badly that it hurt. His hands dug into his hair and pulled at it, but even despite the pain that came with the action, his eyes would not open. He wanted to see the world again. He wanted to see his people.

He just wanted to see again.

No tears came from his blue eyes, but Lincoln wrapped his long arms around the boy nonetheless and patted him on the back over and over again, until the crying subsided and the tired personification was cradled in his arms.

"I have eyes and I can see," said Lincoln calmly. "But nevertheless, I wasn't able to prevent this either."

"B - but, you weren't even my boss when all this fighting started. There's nothing that you could've done."

"My point here," the President continued. "Is that even those with eyes can be blind to the situation at hand. It is not a test of eyesight, but rather one of wisdom.

"You have good ears, America. Your hearing is sharp, and it is well honed now. Use that to your advantage. Listen to everything you hear and use your knowledge and self-jurisdiction to sort out what information is right and wrong. It will help you in the future. It won't solve your problem today, no," corrected the man as he saw America open his mouth to retort. "But it will certainly help you in the future."

And so America listened. Instead of looking at people's expressions for clues, he listened to their voices carefully and took note of the ever-slight change of sounds as the corners of the mouth turned up into a smile, or the clacking of the teeth or the intensifying breath. He still wanted to see, but at some point during the Civil War, America just accepted that his sight was never going to come back. That hope had been destroyed completely.

Perhaps it never existed in the first place. Perhaps it had been burned away the same day his capitol burned.

But when his glasses were returned onto his face and the Confederacy fell into an eternal sleep, he heard the sounds brewing from a short distance away from his home in Cuba and knew that something had to be done to solve the conflict.

It was Theodore Roosevelt that brought him out of isolation. The man had taught him how to hold a gun again and shoot with accurate perfection based on his hearing alone, and although America often had to strain his ears to pinpoint his targets from the swarming Rough Riders, he nevertheless managed to gain more and more experience as the Spanish-American War was brought to an end.

Spain was there, at Paris – America listened as the personification spoke with his own leaders for negotiation points, as his own commission of five spoke amongst themselves about the subject of Cuba.

Something tugged on his suit sleeve. America held bated breath as he waited for the other person to speak.

"América." America realized that it was Spain who had pulled him aside. "I hope you understand what this treaty means for the both of us?"

"I guess," America replied. "I promise to take care of the Philippines, Spain, I promise. I really do."

"And Guam and Puerto Rico, it seems," the Spaniard spoke with a sigh. "Ah, the Cortes will not be happy with the negotiation. But that was not what I was talking about. I was referring to the, ah – the tip of power, I might say?"

America frowned slightly, the muscles above his unseeing eyes creasing slightly as he waited for further clarification. Spain sighed once more, and this time America felt a hint of exasperation in it.

"I will no longer be an empire now," the Spanish nation conveyed. "My days of that are now over. There are some lands in Africa, yes," he spoke quickly, seeing as how America was going to argue against the notion. "But they are not much of importance as the others were.

"Do you feel it, América? Do you feel yourself becoming stronger?"

And it was at that moment that America became aware of a rushing power that coursed through his veins, and he felt as if his head could touch the sky – not that he could, of course. But something told him that he'd go through another growth spurt now, and it'll be the start of many days to come of American imperialism.

He could feel the faint smile radiating off the Spaniard. "I guess this is the end of your isolationist days, no?"

"We'll see about that," the American had replied in earnest. "I don't know. I only participated in this one because... It was too close to home, I guess. That's all."

The Spanish nation scoffed. "We'll see about that."

To be honest, he wasn't entirely sure if his Congress would allow him to engage in another war outside of America. And it wasn't that he was lying to Spain, either. After all, he's only started this war – and the one in Mexico all those years back – because they were on his side of the world and they got in the way of his people.

But then the Great War had come. As America held the braille version of the Zimmermann Telegram in his shaking hands, he knew that it was because of anger and anticipation of his citizens uniting against the banner of war, and truly knew that isolationism wasn't a viable option in this world now. He'd have to interact with other nations now, and sooner or later they'd find his weakness in his lack of eyesight and use it against him.

So as he roared against the waves of the Central Power's soldiers, he avoided the members of the Allied Powers like the plague and instead kept himself with the battalions and among those who marched on foot, where his undying happy-go-lucky attitude kept the morale sky high. And this was good for him, he thought as he kept his ears strained on the sound of battle, and made a perfect shot into the chest of a German soldier. He wasn't ready to face England when he was the one that made him go blind in the first place.

And his battalion needed him more than England and France ever would, and the Allies were getting help from him anyways by receiving his troops and incorporating them into their plans and attacks.

It was only a means of distracting himself, procrastinating and putting off the interaction that was bound to happen one day, but he still didn't want to.

He wondered if he was going back into isolationism as he listened to Wilson telling him why he couldn't be in the League of Nations. Of course, his blindness wasn't the only reason why he had stepped out of the League – according to the documents that he read by the tips of his hands, it was based too heavily on the Treaty of Versailles which America considered to be unfair and cruel and not in line with his views of proper justice at all to the formal Central Power countries – but if that meant that he had more time to prepare himself for what he considered his inevitable doom, then he'd take all the time given.

Not yet. He wasn't ready yet.

And as quickly as the isolationist period of the 1930s had come, World War II came rushing in, and America found himself back in Europe once more.

This time, he wasn't able to get away. He was requested for near daily meetings with the other nations, and he could always feel a presence of five others in the room as he put on an air of the heroic, young country with his head in the clouds. He'd toss his papers into the air, never reading what was put in front of him, because he couldn't read what wasn't in braille, but he always pretended that it was because his attention span was short and lacking.

And England would scold him for doing so, but it never deterred America from continuing what England saw as 'rambunctious and immature behavior'.

On the battlefronts, he'd shuffle his feet on the sands of the desert, and on the soils of Normandy. His shoes became scuffled and ragged, and before he knew it, he had gone through seven pairs of army boots within a single month. England did tell him not to do it over and over again, but America always wore a mask of idiocy and stupidity, that England's berating soon stopped once he realized that the younger nation would simply continue to ruin his shoes.

"Oh, I'll get over it," the Englishman had said in exasperation. "Ruin all your bloody shoes however you want, see if I care."

America gave a simple dazzling smile in response. At least he didn't have to walk with a cane anymore, and by the looks of it, England hadn't noticed his disability yet. And if England hasn't noticed, then he was sure that other nations hadn't either.

Except, perhaps, Russia.

The two superpowers clashed again and again, ideology against ideology – the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, against the cold, wide expanse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The war of information, the Space Race, and threats made in cold blood lasted for the span of half a century. And during those times, they learned more and more of each other, more than either of them had hoped. So it wouldn't be surprising if Russia knew that the other nation was blind, but if he did, he certainly didn't let it show.

Until of course, the Belavezha Accords established that the Soviet Union was no more. The USSR was officially gone. America had certainly been dazed at the news, and it had taken some convincing from his boss for him to finally understand that he was the sole victor.

"By the grace of God, America won the Cold War," he had said in the Oval Office.

"I did?" he whispered in a hushed voice, and George H. W. Bush nodded.

"You did," his boss had said, and America felt a stupid grin come upon his face and didn't bother to stop it.

America had decided to attend the World Conference that had been held after a few weeks of the the drastic change; following the Cold War, he was now the undisputed sole remaining superpower, and the world was now unipolar without the emergence of another rival. The Russian nation was there too; America felt the air from Russia being surprisingly fatigued and worn out, despite the previously communist country always having been cheerful in the past.

"You alright there?" he had called out during break, slurping away on a cup of soda. He heard the rustle of the tell-tale scarf brush against the thick coat as the Russian raised his head from where it had been laying between his large arms on the table.

"Да," Russia acknowledged. "Maybe just a little tired, Америка. The capitalist reforms are simply not cooperating with my health. I think my economy will be in a recession soon, but I think I will be alright. It's nothing that I can't deal with."

"Good to hear," America grinned. He reached out one of his hand and clapped the Russian man on the back. "D'you think I can help? We could get some help in I'm sure, and some more trade going – "

"Please sit, Америка. We have much to discuss."

There was a sound of scraping chair and America plopped down into it, right next to Russia. He took another sip from his soda cup and was about to address some of the international issues that he felt were important at hand, but suddenly felt a hand settle down on top of his head and immediately had to gather all his willpower to not flinch at the contact.

"Hey, what's the big idea?"

Russia didn't reply. Instead, his hand ran over America's face, and his thumb rested above on his forehead before moving slowly downwards. America frowned and pulled away as he felt the hand trying to remove his glasses.

"Cut it out, Russia."

"Of course, Америка," the Russian replied simply. "I was just wondering."

"About what?"

"About how I lost against you when you are only a blind, maybe."

America felt his blood run cold. He listened carefully for any sounds around them, and to his relief, found the conversations that had been running before he sat down with Russia were still being continued without any signs of interruption. It was still break time after all, and not many nations were going to be interested in the two now that the Cold War was over.

"You knew," he said quietly, his voice almost a whisper.

"Only suspicions," said Russia. "You confirmed it just now. Thank you for that, by the way."

"Fuck you, man."

Russia laughed at that. "You could have fooled me, you know. You almost did. But then I started to wonder why some of your papers that you had during conferences were written with the letters for the blind."

"Is that the only thing?" America asked, making a mental note in his head to make sure that his documents were never going to be seen in public ever again.

"Нет," said Russia. So no, it wasn't the only thing, but as much as America waited for the next words to come, they didn't. America growled in frustration.

"You gonna tell everyone that I can't see, now?"

Russia fell silent for a moment at the question, then opened his mouth after a short time. "How did Литва – 'Lithuania,' America had to remind himself – not realize of this," America heard the other man gesture towards him. "predicament?"

America shrugged. "I do have Hollywood, you know."

"Your movies were silent in the 1920's, Америка."

"Your point?"

Russia shrugged at that. "I do acknowledge that you are a good actor," replied Russia, in his thickly accented English. "Good enough to fool Литва, who had been working for you for years. Good enough to fool me. Why pretend to keep your head in the clouds, Америка? There is no one who would dare to speak against you now. You are the strongest in the world, so you have no excuse to say that it's for self-protection, no?"

"Because maybe I don't want them to be afraid of me," said America. "And I don't want them to know that I can't see either, because I still have a long road in front of me. I won't be weak, Russia," he continued. "I can't have weaknesses. Heroes don't have weaknesses. Gotta keep myself together and all that. I can't disappear like Rome did."

The bell sounded somewhere. The break time was over, and other nations were filling into the seats once more. He heard Germany walk up to the podium and adjust the microphone, and the two of them knew that their conversation had to be cut short. America stood and scuffed his feet on the carpeted floor of the conference room as he made his way back towards his seat, but not before he heard Russia get in the last words in a sing-song voice.

"Don't push yourself to hard, Америка. You might break if you do, and it'll be no fun."

'Asshole,' he thought angrily towards Russia as he sat down. Germany had begun to speak, addressing the issues of refugees in Europe, but America's mind was somewhere else. He was recording the entire conference anyway so he could take notes with his slate later.

He wasn't pushing himself. He was a superpower now, and as years flew and decades passed, he still remained that way. He was just doing what superpowers were supposed to do. England didn't show weaknesses when he was the British Empire, nor did Spain when he controlled the seas with his Armada.

Could his blindness even be considered a weakness now? Maybe it was in the beginning, when America had just lost his vision. But he didn't have much of a problem with it now. It did change his lifestyle from the other nations', and it did make him be extra careful when anything physical had to be done, but apart from having to use equipment for the visually impaired and relying on braille to read and write and move around, there wasn't really much of a difference.

Did he want to be pitied?

'No,' America thought firmly. He'd been coddled for years before his independence, and god knows that if word got around that he was blind, he'd be the subject of pitied looks and saddened faces from all around the world. And America didn't want that. He was fine on his own, he could manage on his own, and he'd become stronger than he had ever anticipated. He managed just fine without his eyes.

Did he still want to see the skies, though? Of course, he did. But he no longer wanted to die out of despair, nor did he want to dig his eyes out and see if they would regrow and give back his vision.

Not that he hadn't tried before.

But the point was, he no longer felt like he needed to harm himself over not being able to see. After all, 36 million people in the world had eyes just like him, and they were all going about their daily lives. If they could do it, then so could he.

And it was at this point in his life that America decided that he'd be okay with everyone knowing that he was blind. Blindness wasn't a weakness for him anymore. He'd be okay now. Maybe one day he'd break the news to everyone. He was just trying to figure out what the best approach to it was.

Then that happened. Well, it wasn't like Russia told everyone, nor did anyone find out on their own.

It was just after the end of a World Conference. They'd adjourned the meeting for the day and had decided to continue the conference tomorrow. The nations all stood up with a clatter when Germany dismissed them, and slowly started to file out of the room. There must've been a conversation that America wasn't paying attention to, because he heard China curse in Chinese and the French nation gulping hysterically. And as France ducked behind America, China had accidentally brought his wok over America's head instead.

He stumbled and fell to his knees and clutched his head. He could practically feel the non-existent stars spinning around him. God, that hurt. China could sure be deadly with his wok.

"Ai-yah, America! I apologize!"

He felt someone's hands around his chest and pull him back into an embrace as the Asian nation let go of the wok that immediately clattered onto the ground. "Is he alright?" he heard someone ask – Italy, Northern Italy, America noted the accent – and a distressed Frenchman behind him begging him for forgiveness.

So it was France who propped him up. America sat dazed with his back against the Frenchman's chest, and decided to speak. He was dizzy, yes, but his head didn't feel like it had cracked or anything, so he should be fine, right?

"I'm totally fine, guys! The hero's always okay!"

"How many fingers am I holding up, America?" he heard Germany ask.

America frowned.

"How many fingers?" The German nation asked again, and this time America distinctively heard Italy Veneciano crying about how America would have a large bump on his head.

"Three?" America guessed. "I don't know, Germany. I can't see, I'm blind."

"What?"

"I'm blind," repeated America and he pulled himself away from France before the other man could start using this as an excuse to grope him. He stood up and felt his legs wobble – how hard did China hit him? – and he knew that this time it was the Netherlands that caught him, judging by the scent of salted fish. "Look, it's not a big deal. The bump's probably going to be gone by tomorrow morning. I'm fine. I just need to go home and rest a bit, alright?"

The gaggle of noises that arose after this was ear-splitting. America scuffled the floor with his shoes and muttered a thank-you to the European nation that had been supporting him, before leaving his embrace to find his way towards the door at the end of the conference hall.

"Mr. America is blind?"

"Wait, America's really blind?"

"How come you never told us?"

"You didn't ask," said America pointedly.

"I did," Russia said proudly, and America knew that he was smiling by the way that his vowels turned upwards.

"Yeah, you did," the American sighed. "You were the only one who did."

This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. He didn't want to be pitied, he wanted to be accepted. He wanted to be acknowledged that he was strong, more than capable, and was magnificent. And if these guys didn't understand that, then he'd have to drill it into their minds sooner or later.

But not right now. Right now, he just needed to get away.

He reached the doors in no time. He could still hear the other nations around him, and turned to face them. "Look, it's really not a big deal," he said firmly. "I'm not weak, and I don't need help. I've been blind for over two centuries, and I don't have a problem with it. I'm a hero, remember? I'm just fine the way I am!"

"Two centuries?" he heard a gasp – Spain, he recognized. "Jesús, América! Were you also blind during our fight over Cuba?"

Ha, Spain had finally understood, it seemed. "Of course I was blind back then too, but I still kicked your ass. If that isn't a proof of me being great, then I don't know what is.

"Now if y'all will excuse me," he said, opening the door. "I want to grab some burgers before I get home. See you all tomorrow!"

In a flash, he had danced out of the hands that tried to hold him back and his ears rang with a barrage of questions about his disability, but he paid them no mind – for out he was now, onto the streets of Washington D.C., where it had all begun two hundred years ago, but the day couldn't have been more contrasted with that night in 1814.

He hummed a note and found it worthy of his preference and laughed as he felt the wind tickle his face. He tilted his head towards the sky, and felt the warm sunlight shine upon his forehead, and breathed in the arid air that lacked humidity. It was a sunny day today and he didn't even need Siri to read him the weather forecast. He could feel the happiness penetrate his skin, and knew that it everything was okay.

America didn't need eyes to know it; his skies were, and would always be beautiful and blue.