Just a one-shot based off a sudden possibility that came to me in the middle of the night, allowing you all a glance at my head canon for Australia.

Nations had scars. It was an accepted fact of life, in all perspectives of society. To those who did not know of the personas, it was a mental scar; a scar in time that had been formed from the peoples mistake or disagreements, such as civil wars or stolen generations.

For the nations and their bosses, it was both mental and physical; the insanity from living forever, and the mistakes that came with it, and the scars from battles, both from their actual bodies and from the attacks on their land mass.

America and Canada had burns on their hearts from when their capitols were burnt; England had many deep scars from the London Blitz. Japan had internal problems from his many heart attacks caused by earthquakes; Germany had scars dividing his body into parts from the dividing after WWII. Heck, even the ever fleeing Italy's had scars from their forced joining and participation in wars.

That's why it really puzzled Canada, one day while he and Prussia were visiting, that Jett didn't have a single visible scar anywhere on his body as he mucked around with his states in the pool. He could have been seeing wrong, so he left it alone and continued to bring the 'awesome-but-not-as-awesome-as-German' beer to his boyfriend as he took a turn at watching the 'barbie' (Matthew would never get why Australia called it that, but oh well) impatiently.

"Here you go, Gil."

"Awesome! Thanks, Birdie!" Gilbert cheered, taking the beer happily and chugging a huge amount of it down straight away. As he did so, Canada took a quick glance and confirmed to himself that, yes; even Prussia had scars on him, even if he wasn't a country anymore.

"Like what you see?" Apparently not quick enough, though. Matthew flushed under Gilbert's flirty smirk, stuttering out a response.

"W-well… um, I was just seeing if-"

"Hey, hey, hey! No getting' it on now, guys; we've got enough o' that from those two!" Jerking his thumb back in the direction of where his states were, Jett got both pair of eyes to slide two where two of his female states -Victoria and Western Australia, if Matthew recalled correctly- where exchanging salver, until one of the boys -New South Wales- called something out and the blonde -Victoria- pulled back and snapped something back at him.

"So, anyway, Gilbert! You're off cooking duty again, you can go and swi-"

"AWESOME!" And with that, Gilbert ripped off his shirt and bombed into the pool and earned himself several shouts and cheers from the Aussie siblings.

"You gonna join 'im?" Jett asked, raising an eyebrow at the Canadian while turning the sausages without looking.

"Not just yet… there's something I wanted to ask you, if that's okay." Pouting his lips a little in curiosity, Australia shrugged and shut the lid on the barbeque, resting the tongs on the side-table before sitting down where Gilbert was.

Biting his bottom lip gently, Canada glanced back to the pool where the siblings and Prussia were having an intense fight with the water guns. Scars could be a delicate subject for many nations and he didn't want to seem rude… but he really had to know.

"Why don't you have any scars?" Had Matthew been able to meet Jett's eyes -or even his face- after his word blurt, he would have seen a small, bitter smile stretch across his face.

"I mean, none of you do, except for Northern Territory; and that's just a small one at the base of her neck."

"I do." Matthew jerked his head up too look at the Oceanic nation in surprise; he did? But… he couldn't see any, and the man was practically naked at the moment; being in only board shorts and all. Did that mean that they were- oh God. He flushed red.

"What, everyone seriously thinks this is only for display?" Jett asked in horror, pointing to the band aid on his nose. "I mean, seriously, I know I'm a colony of the pommy, but I'm not that proud!" Almost sighing out loud in relief, Matthew shook his head hurriedly.

"No, nonononono!" Laughter seemed to vibrate the air as Jett leant forward and patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry; I don't really care either way. But, yeah," His voice calmed down to a solemn tone; a tone that Matthew had never heard him use before. "Because most of our battles happen off land, the only scars most of us get are from humans, and therefor disappear after a while."

"But this one-" Here, he pointed to his nose. "-and the one on Sophie's neck are from the only time we actually had an attack on our soil." Brown eyes darkened, the peace that usually swam in them being overlapped with sadness and anger.

"We didn't expect it; no one expected it. That ass shouldn't have done it, and won't get away with it next time."

'What happened?' was the question that Canada was longing to ask, but he was interrupted by the sound of some 'awesome' screams.

"BIRDIE! BIRDIE! GET THAT UNAWESOME AUSSIE TO GET HIS UNAWESOME KOALA OFF OF THE AWESOME ME!" Turning back to the pool, Jett burst out laughing as both nations caught the sight of the dissolved Kingdom of Prussia fumbling around like a blind monkey as Matilda's body covered his eyes and her claws dug into the back of his head, deep enough to hurt, but not enough to draw blood.

The story about this, as the excitable little Aiden -Australia Capital Territory- told them while Gilbert had another beer or five with dinner to calm himself down, was that while they had been having a water fight with the guns, Gilbert had aimed for Queensland and missed, hitting Matilda in the process. Matilda, as it turned out, had a huge hatred for water and had immediately found the blame for her wet fur -mainly by his sheepish/terrified look- and attack the poor albino.

And, somehow, Matthew found himself even more able to relax with the rowdy, yet polite, family of Aussies that night; having realised that, while they had their own battle scars and -more for most- bruises, they had the ability to just let it go.

A/N: Okay, so the bombing referred to in this is the Japanese Bombing of Darwin, something not well taught in most Australian schools (thus forth the vagueness and possible historical inaccuracy in the whole thing, for which I must apologise; for this was written at midnight [literally, it's 11:59 as I type this] and therefor I have no internet connection whatsoever at the moment) but most Australians, particularly the northerners, (Oh, look, it's 12 now!) still hold a strong grudge against the Japanese for.

Most of this grudge is actually because it was the only time Australia has ever been attacked on land, as pointed out before, and is something that will be lodged in minds for a long time to come.

I mean, come on, we haven't even had a civil war yet!

Ahem.

Long author's note is long.

I also apologise for the slowness in all my other fics; they will be tended to as soon as possible.

That is all.

Review~ (ooh, look; it's 12:02 now!)