Hi Hetalia Fandom!
It's my very first time writing for you, but I recently discovered you and I'm learning about WWI in history and I got all these England feels :(
So here it is! I've purposefully left some things a little vague, and it's ever so slightly AU.
ANYWAY.
Have fun.

BTW - So for my coming 18th birthday I asked my mum for one of two things - the rights to Hetalia or a pony.
...she said no to both.

I own nothing.

'It is Sweet and Fitting'

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind...

October, 1916
The Somme

"Sir?"

Owen's voice was hoarse and thin in the cool of the night, as if the day had stolen all the strength from him as it had from Arthur.

And Arthur's strength was completely gone.

Here, in the gutted fields of France, miles from home and under an alien sky, England was already weaknened. But now, months into this bloody crusade, there was a deep ache in his bones, a heaviness settling somewhere in his stomach.

The weight of thousands of English soldiers who would never make it home.

If I should die think only this of me...

"Sir?" Owen tried once more.

Arthur still did not respond, lost in the words that tangled together in his mind.

That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.

"Sir!" Arthur sighed heavily, and finally looked up at Owen, his mouth drawn in a thin line.

As clear as the night was, Arthur realised he could barely make out the lines of Owen's face.

He wondered if Owen had the same problem, looking at him, if all he could see was a faceless shape in the dark.

Arthur wondered if he would haunt the memories of this man he did not know as a shadow, a voice with the vague form of a human being, bleeding out in the muck of a gutted country.

That was all Arthur saw of Owen, at least. Just blurred lines and smudged features, washed out in the silver light of the moon, colours leeched away and if Arthur squinted his eyes and canted his head just so it was almost as if...

No.

That road was a dangerous one, and Arthur would save the painful memories for when he lingered near enough death to stomach it.

Not that he could stomach anything, with the shrapnel through his middle.

"Yes, Owen?" Arthur groaned.

"Permission to speak, Sir?" Arthur frowned, blinking away the black clouding the edges of his vision.

It made it even harder to see Owen's face.

Arthur so dearly wanted to see the mans face, it was, after all, the last face he'd see before he...

"Granted" Arthur grunted, forcing the word past his uncooperative lips.

Owen paused, just for a moment, and then huffed out a sharp breath through his teeth, something that was almost a laugh.

"Well, no disrespect meant Sir, but you're a right bloody idiot" He spat out the words with something a little like resentment, admiration and fear.

There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed.

Of what, Arthur did not know.

Although his pride demanded him to reprimand the man for such blatant disrespect, he found that he rather agreed with his assessment.

Yes, Arthur was an idiot. He deserved to be told as such.

And that notwithstanding, as Arthur lay bleeding out in the mud and muck of Francis' desecrated countryside he honestly could not bring himself to care.

Let the man speak his thoughts, here, at the end.
Besides, Arthur had always appreciated a little bit of spirit in a person.

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware

It was so very English.

So instead Arthur chuckled, raising a trembling hand to wipe the blood trickling from his mouth.

"I could court martial you for that, Owen" Arthur coughed violently, choking back a sob as his body spasmed, the metal in his stomach sending lines of white-hot agony rushing up his spine.

Arthur felt suddenly as if he was underwater, his entire body trapped in a vice. He could hear Owen speak, but he sounded so small and so very, very far away.

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam...

He'd thought it funny, that Brooke's thought him a woman. Brooke had found it funny too.

But now Brooke was gone. And Arthur was going.

What was the next line?

Arthur could never remember the next lines.

Why did it bother him so much? It was just a poem, a stupid, romantic poem written by a stupid, romantic man who knew nothing of the true suffering of this everlasting hell-

"-ir? Sir! Arthur!"
Arthur snapped back to reality with a pained wheeze, shivering as Owen gently wiped the blood away from his mouth with a dirty handkerchief.

Well, it was a handkerchief once, not that you'd know it by looking at it. Now it was just ragged, filthy cloth, fraying and lopsided and wasn't it funny that the state of someone's handkerchief actually mattered to him when he was dying?

A body of England's, breathing English air

"You're alright sir, you're...you're alright" Owen whispered.
Blatant lies, of course. Hollow comfort for the barely-breathing corpse, choking to death on his own blood.
Arthur could feel his own tears – hot and sticky – cutting through the mud and grime on his cheeks, and it shamed him that here, at his end, he was crying.
Dying, and weeping, all dignity lost and forgotten somewhere along the line between Marne and Ypres and here.

Owen gently wiped away the tears, and the mud, his brows drawn in concentration, one hand supporting Arthur's head as he so gently gave his Captain a little bit of his dignity back.

"W-why are you here, Owen?" Arthur rasped. "It's nightime, if you head back the Franks wont - "
"I'm not leaving you, Sir" Owen said fiercley. "No one should...should - "

The words were left unsaid, but they rang as loud as sirens in Arthur's mind.
No one should die alone.

"To repeat your earlier words, Owen, you're a 'right bloody idiot' yourself" Arthur murmured.

Owen choked out a strangled laugh, sounding almost like a sob.

"Just sentimental, I'm afraid. I still believe in the old rules of chivalry" Arthur snorted at the words, something bitter and hateful rising up in his chest

He remembered Francis, the trenches thin scars on his torso, the shell holes burn scars on his skin. Remembered the emptiness in his eyes and the fire and the blood as Francis was torn apart, to weak to stand but still insisting that he could fight, the horrid, hollow smile on his face, his voice hoarse from screaming as he begged 'Stop, stop, Angleterre make it all stop...'

"Chivalry died in Verdun, Owen" Arthur rasped. Owen met his eyes with steely determination.
"But it lives still in me" He whispered.

The silence of the night overtook them for a while, a night quieter than Arthur had heard for many, many years. Arthur looked around at the desecrated landscape, and wondered if holes were now dug into France's skin, like the holes gouged out of the earth around him.

It was a dismal place to die, Arthur thought. In the dark, the the mud, surrounded by corpses and so far from home.

Washed by the rives, blest by the suns of home.

Arthur didn't want to die, not here at least.

Arthur wanted to die near the sea, with the salt wind's fingers twisted into his hair and brushing along his skin, the sun in his eyes and something a little like peace in his heart.

But after all he had seen and done, maybe there was no peace left for him.

Or for any of them.
It seemed like a funny concept, peace. After a couple of years spent wallowing waist deep in dirt and blood, falling asleep to the sound of shells falling and people screaming, peace seemed years and miles away.

"Owen?" Arthur whispered.

"Yes, sir?" Arthur took a deep breath, and nearly cried out once more as the shrapnel dug further inside him.

"I...I wonder if maybe, you could take a message for me? It's for a man, his name is - " Alfred Jones Arthur's mind whispered, but his mouth said something entirely different.

"-Francis Bonnefoy. The general will know of whom you speak if you tell him that name. I – I need you to say that - " I am sorry, Alfred. I never meant to hurt you. I held on too tightly, I see that now. I was so afraid you would leave that I pushed you away. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me. My only crime was loving you too much, too fiercely and I am so, so sorry my little brother, so so sorry. "-that..." Arthur chuckled bitterly.

Alfred would not care for his apologies and excuses, over a century late and streaked bloody with his own self-indulgent guilt, his dying regrets.
There would be no redemption, not with Alfred, not for Arthur. But Arthur could not leave Francis without a single word, could not die in Francis' own fields and not offer something in return.
After all those years...
He owed Francis more than that.

"Sir?" Owen pressed.

Arthur remembered Brooke, remembered his pride and his love for his country, remembered the words of his poem and how proud Arthur had felt then, to inspire such devotion, such love.
They would die for him, his brave little soldiers, and, in the beginning, they thought there was no nobler death on earth. Brooke had promised to bring him honour and glory, to make him proud.
Brooke was gone now, but his words – however naïve – lived on.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away, a pulse in the eternal mind no less
"That I made some corner of this foreign field forever england" Arthur smiled. Owen was puzzled, yes, but Arthur knew Francis would like those words, that he would laugh through the tears and mutter harsh words about 'Stupid Angleterre', cursing him for getting the last word in the argument that had spanned centuries.

Given somewhere back the thoughts by England given

"Tell him that... tell him that...tell him that I'm sorry. For everything. To everyone. Tell him - "
The blackness was thicker now, darkness enroaching further on his vision even though the night was cool and clear, the moon gloriously bright.

And for a moment, just a moment, Arthur could see England.

His home.

Her sights, her sounds; dreams happy as her day

Arthur looked up at the stars, at the bright moon, and wondered how the sky could be so impossibly lovely when below the earth was torn to pieces by children with guns.

And laughter learnt of friends; and gentleness

Arthur wondered if any would mourn his passing, if the other nations would bow their heads and remember him, grieve him even.

Arthur wondered if there would be time for mourning, or if he would just fade away and be forgotten, one more faceless casualty of the bloodiest war they had seen.

Arthur wondered if this war would ever cease, or if it would rage on for years and decades until all were spent under its fury, collapsing underneath the weight of all they had lost.

Arthur wondered about Brooke, who saw nothing so noble as dying for his country, and wondered if he had ever imagined war to be like this.

Arthur wondered about his home, about his people, what would become of them, if anything would.

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven

Arthur wondered what the point of anything was if it all ended this way.

Arthur wondered.

And Arthur closed his eyes.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory

the old Lie: Dule et Decorum est

Pro patria mori.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
So! If you didn't guess, the the poems used are The Soldier (Rupert Brooke) and Dulce et Decorum (Wilfred Owen). Dulce et Decourm est is the beginning and end, The Soldier all the middle bit.

And the beginning stanza sort of sets up the story, kinda gives the reason why our England is in such a state, although I changed it from gas to a shell buuuuut...
Hey, gimme some poetic licence here =P

And yes, that is Wilfred Owens himself making a cameo. He was at The Somme, I checked...it didn't really say when but. Poetic licence.

Title comes from the translation of 'Ducle et decorum est pro patria mori' which is - it is sweet and fitting to die for ones country. Roughly.

Yeeeeeeah.
Well!
Review please with feedback!

-BWWW