7. Uncompromising

It was something only he could pull off.

Only he could hold her gaze (Without it being through a scope of sniper rifle of course).

She had stopped midway through her patrol to look up at him. America had set himself up in one of these trees, laying himself out on one of the top branches with his head resting along the stock of his sniper rifle, keeping his scope pointed to the horizon, ever vigilant for the Hezbollah soldiers they were hunting.

Nights in Tel Aviv held a strange magic. The night lights glowing the dark illuminated the trees sprouting from the desert rock. Seeing them like made them seem to almost glow, radiating off the thousands of years of memory line in each ring of their trunks.

It hypnotized her, almost making her forget where she was in time.

"Come down Zacheius…" The words left her mouth before she could redact them from her thoughts. America hadn't heard her.

For a moment in time, he had looked like him. For a second, she had remembered simpler times, times she watched through the eyes of people who now only lived in the sacred texts of Abraham. It was one of the strange little catches that came from living in a land as old as hers.

And throughout that long time she had lived, she had seen more than her own lands. Through the eyes of the Jewish Diaspora, she had seen the world. Wherever her people went, so did her eyes. What they saw, she saw. What they felt… she felt.

The triumphs and tragedies had stacked over the years, turning her memory into a thick rolodex of experiences.

Throughout her time, she had watched the rise and fall of empires, the advancement of man's knowledge and appetites, as well as bear witness to things that should have changed but didn't.

One of these things was her position of an outsider. Never were her people actually looked at as those who belonged, but rather those who only visited (and for some even that was unacceptable). Always… she was unwelcome…and outsider.

Again, she looked up at the nation she for a moment mistaken for a Zacheius. And then he came.

He was nation built of outsiders. All throughout her life, through her people, she had sought acceptance.

And he was he, one-time little America, who REJECTED the world! Him… the product of the top class, and yet he had forsaken Britain's lineage to carve out his own destiny.

He saw its norms, its standardized, those who ruled, those who slaved, all of them separated by some border of skin, heritage, language, or status. And he had rejected them all. His shot was one that was truly heard around the world; especially by her.

So for one more time, she again sought home and traveled to America.

She still remembered that day at Ellis Island. The brisk morning air made the Jews in coats too light for the season shiver and conglomerate together, slightly out of fear of the unknown. Optimism was trait that had vanished from Jewish kind after so many inhospitable lands.

And then she saw him. A huge grin, a pose with confidence… and she knew they would be okay. Her children may not have been with her, but now they had a place to call home.

Like a child, America had been all but excited to bring her children into his nation.

"I'm America, you're gonna love it here!" That was certainly a new kind of greeting she got. His confident (if yet slightly childish and cocky) greeting had brought a few smiles to the faces of the first Jewish immigrants, and in time those smiles stuck.

The sight of outsiders made most nations scrunch their noses. Like only a kid could, America thought difference was cool. It was something new, and America liked new.

He looked at them as his own citizens, and she had rewarded him for his kindness.

The Jewish values of hard work and perseverance that had developed over the centuries in exile were put to grindstone as her people advanced in technology, science, math, and all other facets of human advancement. In other nations, the Jews would reviled for their success in a land where they only "visited" while the nation's indigenous lagged in progress.

Not here though, any accomplishment her people made, America's usual reaction was "Sweet! Let's try it!"

Him "trying it" didn't usually end well, giving her a lot of practice with her medical advancements… a lot of practice.

But still his spirit stayed strong, as well as principle of "All men are created equal." (Although she sometimes pinched him for not putting "women" in their too, usually being met with his complaint of her "translating it too literal." But she'd pester him on it another day.)

And in the end, her rewards to him for his principles ended up rescuing her.

Although most of her soul was imprisoned within Hitler's camps, a small piece of her still lived on through America. The few Jews who lived free from fear and harm on the other half of the world helped ready America for the fight. There advances in technology armed him for the what would be the greatest battle of his life.

It had been part of what kept her going. She knew that one day he would come. And sure enough, he had.

And it was there she was reminded that he was child. Pulling her from her cell in the ground, they tightly embraced. She had tears spilling down her cheeks and she gripped him tight as did he. But still she smiled. Pulling away however, she saw that he was not. The tears trailed down his cheeks, but his eyes had grown hard. The childish glow that was radiated from him baby blue eyes had now morphed into a wild and dangerous azure storm. War had taken its toll.

She remembered feeling somewhat nervous as he pulled her along through the camp with an arm protectively holding her by the waist. His soldiers had rounded up the Nazi officers, shouting and screaming at them, beating them with butt of their rifles. Germany cried out to America, begging him to stop.

America only coldly regarded him, and lifted his revolver, putting Germany's forehead in the crosshairs. The beating by the America GIs stopped suddenly. They all stepped back…and cocked their rifles.

Their screams now became more frantic, but the soldiers just coldly stared back through their rifle sights, following the lead of their nation.

He let go of her waist and slowly advanced on Germany.

Her form captor and tormenter continued to babble, desperately explaining.

"I-I didn't know America! I DIDN'T WANT THIS FROM-…PLEASE!!!"

"Racist…" His voice had grown raspy from the countless battle cries, screams, and shouts he had expelled from his lungs over the four very long years he spent in the war. "So full of your hatred you can't even see straight. You're mistake…"

His voice was so emotionless… not a voice that belonged to the world's youngest nation.

"You're too dangerous to let live." He cocked his gun. "You need to be eliminated."

He squeezed the trigger. Germany's head snapped. More gunshots followed, ending the lives of those who had tortured for longer than she could remember now.

America turned to his soldiers. "Go… get the civilians drag them here if you have too. I want them to see every bit of what their Fuehrer did here."

It was at this point she wondered if the world had killed him. She wondered if that young, enthusiastic boy that had been the only one to ever adopt her with open arms had died in the war. And if he had… what had replaced it?

Israel gazed out to Tel Aviv's light in the distant. Faintly, she could hear the sounds of construction in the distance. How many times now was she rebuilding those buildings? Torn apart by war, only to be rebuilt…

The question of America's spiritual death was answered in the last way she could imagine. Europe, torn by war and hanging open like a rotten wound offered very little to any conqueror.

She now knew she would see America's true form. Would he leave and return to his life, or would the temptations of empire and bitter sentiments of revenge crush his lofty ideals.

He did neither. What he did do made her jaw drop.

He rebuilt Europe. Better than it was before.

In her thousands of years of existence, she had never seen anything like America's Marshall Plan. Since when was the victor giving the spoils of war to the defeated enemy?

Indeed, America had not taken anything from Europe, now reparations from Germany or Japan, no payment from the captured nations for their liberation, he instead gave, to rebuilt.

Now of course this was not out of sheer benevolence, he did have Russia to content with in the East. But still… he had not acted like Russia.

"Why did you do it?" she remembered asking. "Wasn't Germany the enemy? Wouldn't it be easier to simply conquer like Russia did?"

"I'm not the bad guy." His answered made her eye quirk.

He looked to her smiling that familiar, slightly cocky smile that he had shown before the war. "I never saw Germany as my enemy." He winked at her. "Just the bad ones."

His eyes turned from her to the large "Iron Curtain" before them. "By only enemy is evil… and I will always fight the evil to protect those who can't do it themselves."

He pointed at the wall, as if piecing the cold concrete with the sheer power of will. "Right now, there are countless people trying to get beyond that wall now Israel. They're the reason I fight."

That was America. It was never power, for wealth, or the question of status.

For him, it was a child's view: Good versus Evil. It was simple as that to him.

She smiled. He had never died. The boy she had grown fond had gone through the war, but his beliefs stayed intact. A lump in her throat made her hiccup.

She had seen too many evils to believe in good intentions any more. Nations only sought interest. That was the fate of a greedy world. But maybe this America, and his dream to "fight evil," proved that some good still lived. It made her smile to think there was someone who still saw the world through a child's eye.

"Rule number one, America," she whispered under her breath with a smile. "Never change."

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End.

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Well the story has come to end. I appreciate all of those of you who reviewed and hope all of my readers have enjoyed this fanfic. Any final reviews would be much appreciated. Thanks guys!