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The End?

"Tony, I'm hoooo-oome!" Alfred called out cheerfully as he pushed the front door open, grocery bags draped on his arm.

Crash!

Alfred grimaced at the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. "Dude, I hope for your sake that wasn't the vase that Mrs. Madison gave me back in 1816 as a gift," he added, his voice carrying down the hall as there were the sounds of someone scrambling as though to hide. "Two thi- Tony? Where are you? Tony? You're still here right? And didn't let any strangers in again?" he asked anxiously, suddenly realizing that he hadn't seen the alien all afternoon. If he'd gotten into Arthur's luggage with the sole intent of pissing the Englishman off, Alfred was the one who was going to pay dearly.

"Over here," Tony said, appearing in the doorway that led from the front hall to the kitchen.

"Geez, you had me worried there for a moment," Alfred said, placing the keys on the hook next to the door before setting the grocery bags down so he could hang up his jacket. "Anyway, like I said. Two things. One, I've got the pepperoni pizza pockets as according to our agreement on Friday night," he said, dangling the bag so Tony could see the red-yellow patterned boxes through the plastic. "But two," he added, holding the bag out of reach so Tony would focus on him for a few minutes. "I think that Arthur was being nice about it, because I'm not stupid. I know the kitchen wasn't an accident," he said as he walked into the kitchen and pulled one box out and handed it to Tony. The other went into the freezer.

Tony sniffed in disdain as he pulled the pizza pockets out to stick into the toaster oven. "Not my fault he walked into the cat trap," he said.

"Speaking of cats, did Britannia come in?" Alfred asked, stepping into the living room and noting the still puffy-tailed cat perched on the bookshelf. "Okay, cat, check. Phone, check," he said, noting with happiness his iPhone sitting on top of the coffee table. Picking it up, he turned it on and punched in the four-digit passcode before spotting the waiting text message. He smiled as he read it, and then sighed as he set the phone back down. "Y'know Tony, I really appreciate it when you put up with Arthur when he comes over. Even when I was still a colony, he couldn't stay as long as I wanted him to. Those were lonely years, waiting for him to come back," he said, flopping down onto the couch. He hesitated, and then said, "Declaring independence was one of the hardest decisions I had to make, but as Arthur said, our first duty is to our people, and my people were suffering under British rule. So I don't regret any of it."

"I thought you cut diplomatic ties," Tony said, tilting his head in confusion.

"Yeah, completely. It wasn't for another hundred or so years before we spoke to each other again, and even then it was out of absolute necessity. As for the fifties, well, that was still rocky because for starters, he was still refusing to admit that I had to save his butt a second time, and then there was Ivan to worry about." He stopped, and then said, "Come to think of it, I still have to worry about him, don't I?"

Tony shrugged half-heartedly. "Jessie called," he said after a moment, nodding to the still blinking answering machine.

"Did she? She's probably still mad at me for the truncated phone call before I dropped Arthur off at the airport," Alfred said, studying the numbers on the machine. "Who else called?"

"Rita wants to stay here while she's in town with her ambassador, and Mathias can't finish our game because Gilbert is going to Vash's house tomorrow. Something about a girl. Mathias meanwhile is going to Lukas's house, and will be hanging out there for the next couple of days," Tony reported as he went back into the kitchen to get his pizza pockets. Coming back in to find Alfred picking up books from the floor, he asked, "What are you doing?"

"Cleaning up. I swear I didn't leave these books on the floor before I left," Alfred said, picking up A History of US. He paused to look at the page that it had been left open to. "Ah, Appomattox Courthouse. I still remember having to escape Washington D.C. in order to properly end the war with… with him," he said quietly, closing the book and putting it on top of the stack of books. "Did you tear through my history section or something?" he asked, frowning as he examined the titles.

"Sorry, there was a fly," Tony said, his red eyes carefully following Alfred around the room as the nation put the books back on the shelf where they belonged.

Alfred paused by the thick Webster's Dictionary that was still sitting on the floor. "Was this what fell earlier?" he asked, picking it up and starting a new pile.

"Cat knocked that one over," Tony said, ignoring the soft hiss from Britannia.

"Yeah, thanks for letting her in. I think Mrs. Nelson next door has been parked outside the border between our yards ever since I turned a blind eye to that annoying little terrier of hers, y'know, the one that disappeared on our property a few years ago," Alfred said, setting the books down to stuff the dictionary back onto the shelf. "Of course, she's been trying to have me committed to the asylum ever since."

"At least she doesn't have cats," Tony pointed out.

Alfred shuddered. "Unlike what's-her-name from San Diego. Still trying to forget that one, I didn't even know you could train cats to do attack people like that. At least Animal Control was on speed-dial," he said, shuddering at the memory.

"Can we train Britannia to attack people?" Tony suddenly asked, perking up at the thought.

Alfred sighed. "We can't on the sole principle that I always have too many guests over here frequently. Rita and Mattie for example," he said, closing the living room's red curtains before turning and heading over to the couch. "And –"

Thunk!

Alfred froze at the muffled sound, especially when he glanced over to find that both Britannia and Tony were in the room with him. "Intruders?" he whispered to Tony, who nodded silently.

Sighing, Alfred rubbed his forehead before turning to face the front hall. The last time he'd had burglars in here, he'd startled them enough for them to shoot him. Since he couldn't technically die, he always got to see the priceless expressions on their faces when he grunted and pulled himself back to his feet. So while there wasn't an issue with burglars, it was always a pain to wash the blood out of his clothes afterwards. "All right guys, you have two minutes to come out from wherever you're hiding. I'm feeling generous today, so if you show up and return everything you've taken, I'll give you a five minute head start before I call the cops," he said, reaching for the Webster dictionary to use as a weapon if necessary. He hadn't lied to Arthur when he said that the dictionary had its uses, and using it to wallop others counted. "I've got a lot of work to do tonight, and you're only going to make me cranky if I'm up late because you delayed me."

Clunk!

"C'mon, contrary to popular opinion, I'm not stupid," Alfred shouted. "Don't make me come and get you!" He started advancing to the hall closet (out of all the hiding places in the house, they picked the most obvious?), the dictionary gripped tightly in his hands.

'Oh, but my dear America, would you truly treat an old friend in such a harsh manner?'

Alfred felt his blood run cold at the soft male voice that seemed to come from everywhere. "Did you hear that?" he asked, glancing back at Tony.

Tony tilted his head in confusion. "Hear what?" he asked.

Shit.

Alfred swallowed nervously. Arthur had already left and had promised he hadn't left any magicked things behind. So he settled on the next logical explanation. "H-Ha, ha, ha, Mattie. Good one, you almost had me there," he said, lowering the dictionary as he took several deep breaths to calm himself. "I can't believe you're still mad about-"

'Guess again, little America,' the voice sang softly through the room. Alfred jumped and held the dictionary up again, blue eyes frantically searching for the source. Tony was still calmly eating his pizza pockets as though he hadn't heard anything, and was watching Animal Planet now, albeit with the volume muted. Alfred turned back around right as the voice added, 'I can only be one person… or entity."

Alfred's mind suddenly flashed back to the night before, when that ghostly monstrosity had burst out of his bathroom. Oh, why oh why did the goddamn ghost have to come back after Arthur left the house? Why couldn't ghosts just very well leave him alone? "S-Show yourself!" he shouted angrily… or at least tried to. It came more as a squeak, something that Alfred mentally denied ever having made in the first place.

Soft, cold laughter. 'Oh, but America, there's nothing to show but your deepest regrets.'

Deepest regrets? As a nation, Alfred had accumulated a lot of deep regrets over the years, things he shouldn't have done, times when he should have stepped in to defend his people, but what could possibly be his deepest regret-

Oh.

Negotiating with a ghost was never Alfred's strength. His usual interactions with ghosts were usually those of the dead soldiers who couldn't move on until they said their last words to family and friends back home, and Alfred, for the most part, didn't mind writing their diction because they were his, they'd sacrificed themselves for him, and he owed them that small comfort. Negotiations usually came in when there was a sprite or some other malicious little creature that was wreaking havoc on the general population and Arthur wasn't otherwise available at a moment's notice to come deal with it (this happened more frequently than not).

But even in life, the personification of the Confederacy States of America had been stubborn and difficult to deal with. Despite that, if he could, Alfred would have spared the other's life, to live as a human if need be. But the unwritten, unspoken rules that governed the personifications had caused the other to disappear once the two halves merged once again. Alfred never questioned it because even Wang Iao did not have an answer as to how there could be two Italian personifications but only one for the United States.

Confederacy as a ghost was going to be a hell of a spirit to deal with. Alfred had always suspected that the spirit clung on, gave Alfred another reason not to toss the old Stars and Bars flag that he kept in the study, other than to serve as a reminder of what could have happened, and as a warning for the future.

"Confederacy," he began slowly, lowering the dictionary even as his heart hammered in his ears. "There's no reason to start anything, the war's been over for more than a hundred years-"

'Why did you let me die? Why did you leave me for dead when you spoke of brotherhood and reuniting in peace?'

"Confederacy, we both knew that it was all or nothing," Alfred said, slowly backing away toward the sliding glass doors… just in case Confederacy turned violent. Angry ghosts were not something he particularly liked dealing with. "One of us had to go, and I know Arthur liked you more at the time, but I think that's what made me the most scared about losing."

Actually, he hated dealing with ghosts in general, but sometimes, like now, it was unavoidable.

'Did it never occur to you that I might have been just as frightened?' The voice was mocking now. 'Daddy liked me best after all.'

"Yeah, because he was scared about losing the lucrative cotton trade," Alfred muttered under his breath. His fingers found the doorknob, and he paused there, setting the dictionary down; he wouldn't be able to run far while lugging a thick book with him. "You on the other hand… I don't know how much he cared about you personally, but hey, why don't you ask him when I get him?" he asked in a falsely cheerful voice.

Confederacy evidently had enough.

'NO! I WILL DESTROY YOU FIRST!' it boomed across the house before dissolving into mocking laughter full of promises of cold vengeance.

Alfred didn't stick around for that part.

Nearly yanking the door completely off the hinges in his haste to escape, he bolted into the yard before realizing he was about to get boxed in. "MATTIE!" he yelled frantically before bolting between his house and the neighbor's for the street. "MATTIEEEE!"

Tony watched in guilty silence as the terrified nation tore down the street on foot… in the wrong direction of the American/Canadian border, but Alfred would still find a way to get to his brother's house and no doubt set up semi-permanent residence before the limey, the real one, could be bothered to return and deal with the 'ghost' that was currently cackling now…from the hall closet.

Sighing, Tony slumped in his seat, ignoring the phone as it rang. Actually, he acknowledged it long enough to pick it up and then promptly hang it up again. He was in the middle of a crisis as it was, and Mrs. Nelson next door did not need to get involved beyond her usual fretting of Alfred's mental health.

Besides, Tony was kind of screwed anyway. The only way this could be good would be if he'd dreamed the last twelve to twenty-four hours.

"More than two hundred years later, and you're still afraid of ghosts?"

"Apparently."

Nope, not a dream. Reality was a bitch.

Tony summoned his courage and peeked over the edge of the couch back in order to watch his latest error in action. He'd gone back in time all right, back to the eve of Yorktown.

It just so happened that there'd been a mishap.

A big mishap.

Colonial America, still too young and hotheaded for Tony to effectively control, bolted out of the hall closet the second it was deemed safe to do so. Tony didn't blame him; he would have acted the same way if he'd been stuffed into cramped quarters with three empires, two of which had been trying to kill each other when Alfred heard the thumps. Prussia followed the young colony, still cackling and grinning over the 'harmless' prank he'd just pulled on the colony's older counterpart. England (why in God's name did Alfred not talk about how fucking scary the empire had been back then?) stormed out after Prussia, a smirking France drifting out behind him. It truly was a miracle that the two hadn't flat out murdered each other in the five to twenty minutes they'd been stuffed in there.

Yeah…Tony panicked while time traveling… and might have made a few mistakes. After which his device broke, leaving the five stranded here.

This was going to be a tough one to figure out.

"Where's Canada?" America suddenly asked, looking around in confusion for his fellow colony. All four of them were still wearing their Revolutionary uniforms, which mean that Canada, still quiet as ever, as Tony discovered, had to be wearing the icky redcoat.

"I'm over here," Canada said from where he'd been standing in plain sight as an oblivious Alfred F. Jones walked around the living room. To be fair though, the living room curtains had helped blend the Canadian in a little.

"Tony, was that me? Older me?" America suddenly asked, turning to the alien. The others turned as well, waiting expectantly for Tony's answer.

Yeah, Tony thought gloomily, this is going to be a hard one to explain.

A/N: And there we have it.

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this. There is a sequel planned, will be up Monday, March 11th, so stay tuned for that. Thank you all so much for all the support, and bearing with me through the hiatus a little while ago. Hetalia Axis Powers and all related media belong to Hidekaz Himaruya, OCs belong to me.