This is, of course, for 11/11/11 – the marking of Armistice Day all over the world, the 90 year anniversary of the Royal British Legion charity (founded in 1921) and simply the date itself, which was particularly significant today. It's been nice to see everyone wearing their commemorative paper poppies over here in the UK (it's kind of weird that the tradition fell out of use in the USA considering an American woman, Moina Michael, was the one who started it!).

This is also dedicated to Haw-lin as part of a trade proposed by her... uh, quite a while back now, haha. She asked me for FrUK and I thought a fic for this date would be the perfect opportunity! Haw-lin, I hope you like it! :3

...Although, on that note, it's not complete. I have been slain by several of my own deadlines recently due to having like no time at all ever anymore (note complete and utter absence of Halloween fic~ D:) and in order to get at least some of this posted today, I really couldn't get it all done. Therefore the second part will be posted on Sunday 13th November (Remembrance Sunday).

Title comes from the poem/song The Green Fields of France by Scottish-Australian songwriter Eric Bogle.

Green Fields

The place stank of disinfectant, doused like Holy Water against the devil (the one they called Death). It was cheap stuff, watered down and sent in drums, and was the perfume of all of these hospitals alike – these cancerous necessities which grew on the edges of the frontlines. They smelt of other things, too, blood and puke and piss and burned flesh and god only knew what else, and were rarely silent, the air awash with the groans of wounded and dying men.

You were lucky to die here. It was bad but there was worse. In fields which had once been green, those who fell were not brought water or psalms or even a kind smile as they expired. Out there, you simply prayed for a quick and merciful bullet – or a night so cold that your dying nerves grew numb enough that you could no longer feel the pain.

France was fresh from that hell, never quite as far from it as he would have liked, as he stood in the doorway to the makeshift ward. There were six beds, all occupied by men chosen because there was a chance they would make it, with yet more accommodated on the floor with moth-eaten blankets and ragged pillows. He sank against the doorframe, easing the marrow-deep ache in his battered body as he watched England tend to one of his charges.

After the disaster that had been Gallipoli, England had been pulled from active duty on the frontlines at his own request; not out of fright, naturally, for he was a nation, immortal, and had no fear of death. He had simply been disgusted by the fiasco, by the senseless waste of life, by the thousands wounded, and requested instead (of the sorts of people he could pull strings with) a post which made things better instead of worse. He served now as a Nursing Orderly, in charge of a team of specially-trained nurses in a tiny military hospital just behind the frontlines of The Somme, tending to young men damaged beyond all repair.

Whether he was really that much happier back here than out there, France had no idea.

He still looked like a soldier, clothed in a uniform similar to the dull green he had worn before, but without the leather strap across his chest to mark him as an officer (traded in for an embroidered red cross on a white circle on his right sleeve and a scarlet band on his left). His uniform was clean, though, which made all the difference in the world. France's was filthy, torn badly in places and ragged around each and every hem the way his nerves were, the way his lands were.

He cleared his throat, tired of waiting for England's gaze to fall upon him naturally. Clipboard wedged under his arm, partway through mopping the brow of a feverish Italian soldier with shrapnel wounds, England glanced up briefly to meet his gaze, scowling.

"I know you're there," he said curtly. "I'm sure you can see that I'm busy."

France hid his weariness beneath an exaggerated pout.

"Can you not spare yourself for a short moment?" he drawled. "I came all this way."

"Well, that's why we have visiting hours," England replied crossly. "These are not they, Francis."

France snorted.

"All I ask for is a minute. I have some news for you."

England sighed.

"Fine – I'll be with you in a tick. Just let me make sure that Captain Fellini is comfortable."

France gave a defeated nod and sank into a rickety chair near the door, grateful to be able to sit, to take the weight off his brittle bones. His body ached all over, constant and screaming, bewailing the wounds done to his lands; Belgium was the same (worse, even, so much so that she limped when she walked). Alas, England's neat little hospital could do nothing for either of them – and France simply smiled and shook his head politely, tiredly, when a young nurse in her white apron approached to ask if he was alright, if she couldn't fetch him anything.

Instead he watched England, watched him desperately try to undo the damage of the war by being kind to dying men. He was a surprisingly good nurse, patient and reassuring and gentle, much removed from the savagery on the battlefield he had once been known for (that he had displayed, even, back in 1914).

France was rather perplexed by him, honestly.

Eventually England stopped fawning over the Italian who would be dead in his bed by morning, giving a few quiet commands to two of his nurses before finally approaching France.

"I'm all yours," he said drolly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

France gave a cold smirk.

"I wonder if your reception would be as frosty were I to be carried in here on a stretcher," he said.

"Probably. It is you, after all."

"Hmm. Let us commandeer a spare bed, mon cher, and I should be glad to remind you that you do not find me as repulsive as all that."

England simply rolled his eyes.

"Spare bed? You've a fat chance of that, my dear. Now come, what's your news? I have much to do."

"The news?" France allowed himself a wry smile. "On the note of there being no spare beds, I don't think that you are going to take too kindly to it."

England heaved a sigh.

"I see," he muttered. "Another push."

"Oui. It will be an Anglo-French operation."

"It's so senseless," England said, shaking his head. "It's all so senseless. Why can they not see that?"

"With all due respect, Arthur, it is only recently that you have seen that."

"I know." England looked away. "And I suppose it won't make a difference either way. The mad are apt to lead the blind, after all." He rubbed at his arm, his fingertips tracing the edge of the red cross stitched onto his sleeve. "Will... will you be going over?"

France simply nodded. It had been a silly question.

"But you needn't worry," he added. "Not about me. You know we only wear the likeness of humans. We do not know mortality at the hands of their weapons."

"Of course I do. Still..." England coughed. "A-and I'm only saying this as a Nursing Orderly, of course, but... but do be careful all the same."

France smirked.

"Ah, Arthur, take care," he replied. "Your heart is showing."

"Piss off." England checked the watch dangling from one of his top pockets. "I actually mean it. It's getting on a bit and I really have a lot left to do."

"As charming as ever. I cannot say that I think much of your bedside manner, Nurse Kirkland."

"Francis, bugger off." England flapped his hands irritably at him as one of patients began to cough; a horrendous wheezing sound, too short of breath with shuddering lungs that no longer worked properly. "Oh—Thompson—"

"Mustard gas?" France asked quietly, listening to the man struggling to breathe; he caught England's wrist.

"Yes. Gassed in the trenches last week. Poor chap isn't going to live much longer but—" England pulled his hand back. "—I'll thank you to give me the opportunity to make him as comfortable as possible."

"Come up tonight," France said in a low voice.

England was derailed.

"Wh-what?"

"The trenches. My trench. Come up tonight."

"W-well, I can't, I have to—"

"Just for an hour," France said, his voice growing desperate. "Less, if that is what you want. Just please come. I need a kind word as much as anyone else."

England frowned.

"I'll try," he said. "I can't promise anything, old boy, but I'll try."

He gave Francis a pat on the arm and a nod and then hurried to help the nurse already attending to the gassed soldier – a Scottish boy of just eighteen, David Thompson, who had left his small village in his uniform, smiling about his grand adventure and waving to his proud and tearful mother.

He was dead within the hour and England stamped the pre-written template letter to make it all official. He wrote out the address of Thompson's mother with a steady, practiced hand and added the envelope to the pile.

France didn't stay to watch any of this, of course. He had seen it all before and frankly no longer cared.

England appeared in the tiny dugout operations room France shared with his senior officers nearing midnight; he was still in uniform, pressed and clinical, and the smell of cheap disinfectant lingering on his skin and hair and clothing lit up the room, mingling with the bitter scent of deep earth. He was clutching a dented metal flask, which he offered out to France before even greeting him.

"Rum?" France teased hopefully. "Gin, perhaps?"

"Neither, I'm afraid," England replied wryly. "It's soup. You look as though you haven't eaten for days."

"Barely," France agreed, taking it. "Though I'm disappointed that you brought something so sensible, Arthur. I was hoping you would bring wine laced with anti-freeze."

"Eat your soup, please," England said primly, making himself comfortable on the edge of the desk. "I haven't room in the hospital for you when you inevitably collapse from starvation."

France rolled his eyes.

"It disgusts me how you can possibly have gone from wild pirate to ruthless empire to doting nurse in less than four centuries," he scoffed. "Really, it is unnatural."

"Unnatural things have caused the change in me," England replied.

"You speak as though war is something new. We both know that that is not the case."

"This is a different sort of war, though." England played with his fingernails for a moment, looking up at the dugout ceiling. "I received a letter from Matthew, by the way."

"Huh." France unscrewed the flask to examine the soup, which he was not optimistic about. "And how is he?'

"He's well. He has just finished his training with the RAF so I expect he'll see some action soon." England sighed. "I do hope he'll be alright. Some of those aeroplanes are little more than bloody boxes..."

"I am certain that he will come to no harm," France replied dryly. "Spare yourself the grey hairs, mon cher."

England shot him a reproachful glance.

"You are terribly unfeeling at times, Francis," he said archly. "It wouldn't hurt to show a little something of human emotion now and again."

France gave an irritable groan, deciding to chance himself with the soup. It was hot, at least, but tasted of very little, a few sad, damp shreds of vegetable floating in it to give it some body.

"Human emotion is weak," he said coolly, swallowing with a repressed shudder. "Humans would do well to be as unfeeling as us; I would be inclined to say that war of this nature would be much less likely were humans not so hot-blooded."

"That's not what I meant," England said crossly. "I meant—"

"Oui, I know what you meant," France interrupted. "You meant the good things – or what you consider to be the good things – about the relationships which humans form. You meant love and loyalty and family." He gave a disgusted snort and took another swig of the barely-there soup. "Because that is how you have always been, Arthur. No matter your cruelty, your callousness, your greed, you have always craved a family. You worked so hard to make one of us – you and I and Matthew and Alfred. You still speak of them now as though they are our sons."

"I—"

"Even now," France went on bitterly, "you are a nurse to these dying soldiers out of sheer pity. You write the letters home to their families with the promise that you did your best to save their heroic son."

"What would you have me do instead?" England snapped. "I refuse to take up a gun again in this senseless war. I am better where I am, doing some good, at least – there are soldiers whose lives I have saved!"

"Ah, yes." France slammed down the flask, clenching his fists. "The soldiers. That is why the war is senseless – the deaths of all those young men over a land quibble."

"Why else would it be?" England asked frostily. "Those are our people, after all."

France sighed and leaned back in his chair. His head ached and his bones twisted beneath his searing skin. England, who didn't understand, who stank like a hospital for dying brave souls, watched him expectantly.

"It is not your fault," France said gently, closing his eyes. "I cannot blame you for your ignorance. You cannot feel this war as Belgium and I do." He shook his head. "You cannot know the pain it causes she and I."

England arched his eyebrows.

"Nobody has gotten off scot-free in that respect, I'll have you know," he said coolly. "Ludwig has bombed London with zeppelins, to begin with."

France shook his head once more.

"Non, you do not understand," he said again. "Those are wounds, Arthur – inflicted, deliberate, designed to hurt you. What cripples Belgium and I is not any significant attack – it is the war itself. Our wounds are the by-product of the fighting. We have fields which were once green, now vast seas of churned mud and spent bullets and dead men of all nationalities. All the world has gathered upon our doorsteps for its world war."

England gave a hard-hearted shrug.

"They had to go somewhere, I suppose," he said shortly. "And not all nationalities." He sighed and shook his head. "I do hope Alfred continues to have the good sense to keep out of this..."

France snorted, half-amused.

"I should not be surprised," he said icily, "that really the only human emotion you know how to mimic well is a mother's love. You have no idea how to love me, do you, Arthur?"

"Why should I want to? You will throw it back in my face, I do not doubt."

"Perhaps." France gave a another bitter smile. "But it is telling enough that you will not try. Besides... Alfred threw it back in your face too, as I recall – and yet you continue to show no end of kindness towards him."

"It is... different." England exhaled. "I don't know how to explain it to you."

"I already understand. You think of Matthew and Alfred as akin to our children and so your love – or mimicry of it, at any rate – is unconditional." France grinned. "I suppose it is too much to hope that someone like me would elicit the same emotion from you."

"What, a fuck-chum?" England shrugged. "I suppose not. That is the problem, though. Europe is incestuous and inbred and I hold love for no-one within it. I am part of this war only out of obligation."

"I believe that is the case for us all, cherie. Deals and promises made by our people are why we are all here."

"Well, we can hardly abandon our own men," England said coolly, "much as I am sure you would like to. Our love for our own people, at least, must be unconditional too – otherwise we have no right at all to call them ours."

France rested his chin on his knuckles, eying England irritably.

"Arthur, you are incredibly boring when you are being pious," he drawled spitefully. "And I grow tired of our word games. I think you know why I wanted you to come tonight."

"A kind word, as I recall."

"Well, you have yet to give me one – but that aside, my request was a prerequisite."

"Goodness me, I know that," England snorted.

"Trés bien." France shrugged. "So kindly tell me if we shall be moving to the bed or not."

"Not tonight, old sprout. I have to get back." England got off the desk again and patted France's shoulder. "Another time, perhaps. As a top tip, try not to rub me up the wrong way so much before you attempt to wrangle me into your louse-infested bed."

"Ah." France gave a little growl. "I shall try to remember that, you frigid little liar."

"I promised you only a kind word," England corrected, "and nothing more."

"And I say that you still have not given me even that."

"I brought you soup, you ungrateful frog."

"Indeed – and it tasted as though one of your precious patients had already partaken of it, if you understand my meaning."

"Perfectly clearly, I assure you."

"I mean it. It was terrible. More terrible than is usual for you."

"Well, bully to that." England leaned in and gave France a brief kiss on the forehead. "I wish you well for tomorrow, if nothing else."

France pushed him away, the smell of watery disinfectant on him almost making his retch with how close and clinical it was.

"I think you are a coward," he said bitterly. "Do you hear me, Arthur?"

"For bowing out of the frontlines?" England replied archly. "You know I haven't any fear of dying, Francis."

France nodded in agreement.

"Yes, of course," he said. "That is not what you are afraid of."

"Then what?" England folded his arms. "Do tell."

"You are afraid that you'll see what humans are really capable of—"

"I have seen that already—" England began wearily.

"You are afraid that you will see," France insisted, leaning forward, his entire bruised body screaming the words, "and you will stop loving them."

Jaded!France is an interesting change to write, I have to say! :3

Nurse!England (or Nursing Orderly!England, anyway!) is inspired by three sources: The character of Sybil Crawley in Downton Abbey, Hakuku's WWII AU artwork which had Arthur as a medic and Himaruya's own April Fools 2011, where England's costume was, of course, a (sexy) nurse's outfit.

Well, more to come (if I get time to write it... T.T I must not be defeated again!).

Hope you like it so far (especially to you, Haw-lin!)

xXx