This is more of a vague idea I had – I have an idea of writing a oneshot about Alfred getting a girlfriend and the fic detailing when she realizes he is not quite human and what defines a nation and a man.

But uh, this is good too.

There was the screech of tires on the street (metal on bone) and Alfred holds on out of some leftover human instinct even though he knows he will not (cannot) die, and there is something burning. The car is on fire now, and it is raining.

It swivels around once, twice and then is still under the rain, and the fire is already getting put out, but it's smashed and on it's side. Being hit by a bus is not included in it's safety plans, Alfred thinks dizzily, and looks at the bone peeking out of his arm. Slowly, laboriously, he pushes it back into place and there is a sickening crack – the driver's dead, he thinks.

He climbs out of a smashed window and feels for the wound on his head, and thinks that by the next day it will be gone. Alfred is disorientated, though – he tries to remember why he shouldn't be going with the paramedics, feeling oddly numb, and pushes them away absentmindedly as they poke around his broken ribs and the head wound.

There is a burst of memory, and he shakes his head, resisting the warm hands (he is so cold but these are his people his his his and he cannot do this to them – do what?) and trying to break from the group. Someone had probably seen the accident, and the ambulance had been here quickly enough.

Or was it longer than he'd thought to get out of the car? He couldn't remember anymore. Alfred is herded into the ambulance, and he is suddenly furious. Too disorientated to act, he snarls at the people who try to help, but they eventually get his shirt off, pressing at broken ribs and finding new cuts.

Alfred tucks the edges of his anger into itself, because he is a hero and heroes do not – (do not - ?) hurt others. But he looks down, raises his eyebrows at his scars and grins at the paramedics. The dizziness and the concussion are taking longer than usual to heal, but hasn't everything lately, he thinks blurrily, trying to sit up and looking around with something like pride.

"Heh, I've got some pretty impressive war wounds, right?" He says, trying to keep his voice from cracking – he thinks the seatbelt bruised his neck, but he isn't sure. The paramedics mistakenly look sorry for him, and he frowns – he's a country, he's the goddamn United States of America, and he's been in so many goddamn wars because he's a fucking hero.

He wishes he could show them – that this is the Civil war, over his heart, that this is the 9/11 attack, that's Pearl Harbor (he's good friends with Japan, now), and pretty much every fucking war he's been in. But they move carefully over his scars, and he pushes the anger back. America is proud of surviving as long as any one of the bastards over in Europe, unique and independent.

One of the paramedics answer him after a long silence, saying simply, "How did you get these?" Alfred tries to massage a sudden, light headache away, squinting at them. "Wars, obviously." He leaves out the 'duh', and waves them off when they try to reach for him again, blurting out a slurred, "I'm not gonna goddamn die on you. I can't die."

Alfred laughs a little too sharply. "I can't." And suddenly they are at the hospital (woah, nice going with the funds, he thinks, looking around with something like pride) before he's dragged in and he sighs, patience wearing. "Just – goddamnit, leave me, I'll go find a car and go home. I'll call, uh, Eng – uh…" England's name escapes him for a moment, long enough for them to stare at him with suspicion.

"Arthur!" He says with some degree of pride (honestly how is he supposed to remember these names) and stumbles drunkenly off. And notices Russia in the lobby, looking positively cheerful even though he looks like a damp rat, looking like he hadn't gotten his umbrella just out in time. He sees Alfred, and moves towards him with determined patience.

"Alfred! So good to see you here, da?" Russia says, and Alfred concentrates on his albeit large nose to focus. "Hi." He says, curtly – usually a 'commie bastard' and ranting would be in order, but blood is getting into his eye and goddamnit his favorite jacket's ruined now.

His attention is regained when the Emergency Room doctors spot him, probably tipped off by the ambulance workers, and Alfred tries to appeal to Ivan's better nature. "I-Ivan, can you just… make them go away? They're mine, but they don't know who I am and they're trying to give me…" He paused, distaste wrinkling his face.

"Medicines and casts and ew, right?" Russia looks over his head at them. The doctors stare back. One brave one steps forward, saying firmly, "We need him to come in so we can wrap up his ribs and keep him overnight for the concussi –"

Russia cuts him off; "Nyet." They all know the risk of being discovered – Alfred isn't even sure how many times he's supposed to have died (Civil War, musketball, cannon, broke neck falling off a horse, drowning, assassination, knife) and none of the nations are sure what their anatomy is like on the inside. None of them are curious enough to test their boundaries, and Amerika is no exception.

Because of this (Amerika would just run off anyway, it is kinder to dissuade them from the possibility) he gives the doctors a long, penetrating stare with the beginnings of a "kolkolkol" appearing, and offers a light shooing motion before watching Amerika wipe blood from his right eye.

"You will have to find your own car," He says cheerfully, opening his umbrella while America squints at him. "…Opening umbrellas inside are bad luck," Alfred says finally, following him outside to look around. Russia does not respond. He didn't expect him to, anyway.

His car is somewhere around here – it should be. He hopes that the driver of his taxi hadn't really been dead, he thinks absentmindedly, fishing for his keys in his pockets and suddenly thankful for the rain, because it washes the blood out.

America sits in his car, starts the gas, and wonders when he is supposed to die next.