Author's note: This is the last chapter. I know a lot of you are going to be disappointed, but let me just say that right now, this is the best I can do. I really like the idea of this story (unsent letters being revealed to their intended recipient long after they were written), and I would really like to read it, but somehow I was never able to pull it together and write it the way I wanted to. Normally I'd be unhappy if you stole an idea from me, but if you want to write this story, please do. Send me a link and I'll read it. Maybe you can do a better (or at least different) job than me. :) As it is, enjoy what you can. Hopefully you can get more out of it than I can.

Edit: Thanks to dawnfire216 for pointing out that Arthur's letters should be spelled the British way. Fixed now. :)

Chapter 6: Fin

Arthur sat down to write once again. This time he wasn't going to give up. One word at a time, he thought. Alfred: That came first. He had never thought that writing one word could be so difficult. He paused, staring at it, and took a deep breath. He expected to feel terrified and at a loss of how to continue, but instead he felt strange, as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He could feel the words building on the tip of his tongue, words he had held back for far too long. He touched pen to paper and started writing.

"Hello?" asked Alfred into the phone. He yawned, stuck in the White House and bored out of his mind.

"Hello Alfred. It's Arthur," came the reply. "I have need of you in London. When is the soonest you can be here?"

"What?" Alfred shot upright in his chair. "Why? What's happened? Should I call the Pres?"

"No, actually. I just have need of you."

"Um, okay," said Alfred uncertainly. He drummed his fingers on the table. "I can leave in like, um, three hours? I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Okay," Arthur said crisply. "I've already booked you a hotel. I'll give you the address and meet you there."

Alfred opened his mouth to protest, so say, Why can't I just stay at your place like usual? but Arthur just kept talking, and then he hung up before Alfred had a chance to interrupt. Arthur's voice had sounded strangely flat, like it did sometimes when he was nervous and trying to cover it up. Arthur, he thought worriedly, What the hell is going on?

Alfred's flight landed on English soil at 10:58 the next morning. He took a taxi to the address Arthur had given him. It was a touristy hotel, with too much patterned wallpaper and little lotions in the bathroom but no shampoo. He went up to his room, showered, and took a nap. At exactly noon, there was a knock on his door.

"Hey, Artie."

"Hello Alfred." Arthur's hair was untidier than usual and he seemed very tense. He was holding a cardboard box in his arms, and there was an envelope placed on top.

"Uh, come in." Arthur did so, walking past him and setting the box down on the little coffee table. Alfred closed the door and walked over to stand across from him. They both looked at the box. "What is it?"

"Well," Arthur said, and stopped. "I suppose you should see for yourself." He put the envelope aside, opened the box, and handed it to him. "Have a seat."

Alfred sank down into the armchair and carefully pulled out the first piece of paper. He scanned it quickly. 1789, it said. My dearest Arthur. His face became perfectly blank. He put it aside and looked at the next one, and the next, and then he put them all back in neatly. He had seen enough. He looked up at Arthur, his expression suddenly drawn and tired. "I see."

Arthur had remained standing, his hands in his pockets. "Francis sent them to me."

"Why?"

Arthur shook his head. "I don't really know. I don't think it really matters. It sounded like his intentions changed while he was sending them."

"So he's been sending them to you for a long time, then?"

Arthur shrugged. "Ten years, more than." Alfred knew what the shrug meant: Not so long to us, usually; but for this, yes, a long time.

Alfred looked down at the box. He realized he was gripping its edges too tightly. "You've read them all, then."

"Yes." They both waited for the other to speak, to say something, anything. Finally Arthur picked up the envelope and tossed it into Alfred's lap, on top of the other letters. "That's for you. Read it. If you need to reach me, you know where to find me." He turned as if to leave.

"Wait," Alfred said firmly. "I . . . don't leave until I've finished reading it, okay?" He wasn't looking at Arthur, he was looking at the envelope. Arthur's mouth tightened and he nodded crisply. He went back to where he had been standing and eyed the wall, trying to resist the urge to pace. Alfred slowly picked up the envelope. "Alfred" was scrawled across its surface. He flipped it over. It had been sealed. He opened it with his thumb.

The paper was clearly high quality – probably the best, knowing Arthur. He could tell from the way the ink looped and swirled that it had been written with a real fountain pen. He ran a thumb along the edge of the smooth, luxurious paper, and began to read.

Alfred,

When you were young, I felt threatened by you. Not militarily, not because of resources, but emotionally. Perhaps you cannot understand what it is like to put so much of yourself into another person. Even that statement, I am sure, you will contest, but I mean what I say. You rejected a lot of it, yes, but I had still put a lot into raising you, more than you realised. When you told me you no longer wanted me, I was hurt. I saw no reason why you would want to fight against me, and I realised then that I no longer understood you. I no longer knew who you were. I had thought that I would always know you best, but you proved me wrong.

There are some parts of you I will never understand, and I accept that. At that time, however, I thought that you had become a completely different person. I recognise now that you have never truly changed. I know that you will take that as an insult, but that is not how I intend it. Your smile and your desire to help others are what I always admired about you, from the moment I met you. They have never faded.

I have seen you as an equal for many years now. In some ways, I know, you have surpassed me, but I am not talking about your strength as a country. I am talking about simply how I see you. I realise now that our misunderstandings are far greater than I had believed. What you wish to do with that knowledge is up to you.

For what it is worth, I wish you had sent me the letters – all of them, even the ones that are harsh. They allowed me to understand you better than I have in years, perhaps ever. I only wish I could return the favour.

Arthur

Arthur heard the crisp sound of paper being folded. He didn't turn around.

Alfred cleared his throat. "So," he said.

"So," replied Arthur. So this is it. He heard Alfred stand so he turned around. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see in Alfred's eyes – anger? Hatred? – but this wasn't it.

Alfred was still holding the folded letter in one hand. He had the look in his eye he got when he was playing hero, a mix of determination, passion, and nervousness. He came around the table and stood close to Arthur, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. Arthur looked back into those blue, blue eyes. "Thank you," Alfred said, indicating the letter. "It means a lot to hear that from you. You haven't written to me in a long time."

Arthur's mouth worked. "You're welcome," he finally said. "It was . . . difficult."

"I'd told you I'd say it, so I will." Alfred straightened his shoulders and his eyes glinted in the soft light. "I love you. I have for a long time."

Arthur's breath caught in his throat. He stared at Alfred, his mind perfectly blank. How long had wanted to hear those words? To say them? To know that they were meant for him, for him alone. His chest felt too tight and it hurt. He could think of nothing to say.

Alfred's eyes searched his for a moment, and then they fell down to his hands. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that you don't want to hear that. But it's true."

"Don't assume that," Arthur finally choked out. "All of this has been caused by assumptions."

"Yeah," Alfred said. "Yeah, it has." He looked up at Arthur again and took a step forward. He was leaning over Arthur now. Probably without realizing it, he had backed Arthur almost against the wall. He looked straight into Arthur's eyes. "Just tell me, do you hate me?"

That had not been what Arthur had been expecting him to say. How could he ask that? How, in a million years, could he think that? "Hate you? Why would you . . . ?"

"Do you?" he pressed. "I've said a lot of things over the years, things I shouldn't have. I know I've made mistakes . . ."

"That would hardly make me hate you. No, Alfred, I don't hate you. I never have."

Alfred gave him a weak smile. "I've hated you, sometimes, when I felt like you were abandoning me. But it always passes quickly."

"Oh." The world dropped out from under him.

"That doesn't mean I haven't always loved you," Alfred whispered. His eyes were pleading. "Sometimes other feelings just get in the way."

"How can you–" Arthur started angrily, but Alfred cut him off.

He shook his head. "I don't expect you to understand, but that's all I wanted to know. Maybe it doesn't make sense to you that I would want to know if you hate me, but it's something . . . something I've always wondered about." His gaze drifted away from Arthur and Arthur knew that it was because he was remembering, reliving some time when he had been alone or Arthur had snapped at him, or looked at him with death in his eyes and almost wanted to kill him because it hurt so much . . . The tight feeling in his chest increased to a breaking point, and then it exploded. Suddenly Arthur was angry, and the strength of the emotion almost bowled him over. He grabbed Alfred's chin in one hand and made him look into Arthur's eyes.

"Don't you dare think that I'm lying to you," he growled. "I have never hated you, do you understand?" Alfred looked at him with wide, surprised eyes and nodded. "Can't you at least have the sense to ask the right question? After all this time, and all you can ask is if I hate you? We don't need any more misunderstandings or avoidance of the issue. I love you. That's the answer to the question you should have asked, that's what I would have said had you told me what was going through your head two hundred years ago!"

"Two hundred years ago you thought I was just a kid. You even wrote it down in the letter," Alfred said exasperatedly. "That's not what I want, and you know it."

Arthur released his chin angrily. "I'm not telling you two hundred years ago!" Arthur practically shouted. "I'm telling you now!"

Alfred looked like he had just been hit over the head with a brick. "What?"

"This is why we have so many understandings! You are so bloody dense sometimes. Why has it taken this long to get to this point? You don't expect me to find it confusing that you hate me in one letter and consider me a friend in the next? You think that once something's written down it can't change, but a word isn't about to make time stop moving! It's better to have nothing written down at all than have what you wrote down become false." Arthur stopped. He was breathing heavily. Alfred was looking at him, his mouth slightly agape. Abruptly, he closed it, leaned over, and kissed Arthur.

Arthur kissed him back. It was everything he could have ever wanted it to be, if he had ever dreamed it was possible, if he had ever dreamed that Alfred could one day be his again – but not his as he had been so long ago, his in a way that was so much better. His in a way that Arthur could be his too.

"Look, Artie," Alfred said softly when they separated, "You were right, in the letter. We've got a lot of misunderstandings to overcome, and I bet that some of my letters just made it worse, because I wrote some of them when I was hurt and angry and just wanted someone to blame." He let a hand caress Arthur's cheek and took a deep breath. "But I'm not really worried about that stuff. We can figure it out." He smiled. "I'm just worried about us."

It hurt Arthur to see how sad and vulnerable Alfred looked when he said that, despite his smile. You don't have anything to worry about, Arthur wanted to tell him. I'll make sure of it. But he knew he couldn't make sure of it, so he just kissed Alfred instead.

A week and a half later, a box arrived on Arthur's doorstep. An envelope had been taped to the outside. He opened it.

Dear Arthur,

These are for you. You should have them. They're yours, after all.

Alfred

It was full of letters, not a single one of which Arthur had seen before. Arthur set the box on his desk, pulled out the first piece of paper, and started reading.

A week later, a letter arrived in Alfred's mailbox. The handwriting was unmistakably Arthur's.

Dear Alfred,

The letters were lovely. Thank you. I think it would be pointless for me to analyse them and everywhere we went wrong. Instead I will simply explain my side of events, and hope that we can have a new start.

Where to begin? I could start at the moment I first heard of your existence, but I do not think that is relevant. I will start with the first time I saw your wide-open skies, and the first time I met you, when you were so young and full of possibilities. At the time, I thought I was drawn to you by curiosity and greed for what you could be, what I could make you be – but the moment you chose me over Francis, I knew I was wrong.

Even then, you captured my heart.