The Safe Haven

Waking

Canada's POV
★°•★•°★

I stood there in shock just... looking at my long-lost brother.

He is alive.

He is free.

Soft weeping woke me up from my shock.
I looked over at my crying mother, holding America's head in her arms.
It must've finally sunk in that her eldest son is alive, hurt, but alive.
I walked over to my mother and put a hand on her back to ease her overwhelming emotions flooding over her thoughts. She looked up at me with the biggest smile I've ever seen in years.

"He's alive." She whispered, rubbing her red, puffy eyes to get a better look at him.

I grabbed Amy's hand and held it gently.
I remembered when we were growing up I couldn't say "America" so I started to call him "Amy." The name didn't bother him that much. He knew I couldn't pronounce his full name correctly. But. He did start to create nicknames for me, like "Maple," "Cancan," and "Nada." I smiled to myself a tiny bit as I recalled the pleasant memory.

I planted a small kiss on the back of his hand.

France had stopped crying and was stroking his hair, humming a lullaby, planting kisses on his head after each verse.

"Are you two brothers?" Russia asked.
Oh, Russia is still here?
I looked up at him.
I nodded my head as I continued to look back on our childhood memories.

Amy and I were playing "explorer" in the woods that day. We yelled out our discoveries to one another.
We would play with sticks and pretend they were swords, and we'd have sword fights with them over who would be "king" of the rock.
We went deeper and deeper into the forest.
Once we heard snapping twigs and crunching leaves, knowing that it wasn't either of us, we got scared and ran back home.

Being the kids we were, we didn't know any better.

We didn't know we would lead them back to our home.
To our mother.
To our father
To our young brother and sister.

We didn't know any better than they'd come in the night and abduct us all, and bring us to a facility that conducts cruel experiments on us for years to come.
The only reason why I'm free is that a guard took pity on me and my mother and smuggled us out.
But the rest of our family was left behind. And years later, I see my oldest brother with various scars covering his body head to toe.

This was all my fault.

"Hey, Canada. Are you okay? You look lost in your own mind." Ukraine said.

I was snapped out of my depressing thoughts.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine." I smiled at Ukie.

I looked outside the window to see the sparkling stars up above. I looked at America.
He loved space and stars.
He saw it as a place that has been "never explored," so he wanted to be the first one able to adventure beyond this planet.

I looked over at my mother curled up by her long-lost son, America, completely asleep.

I sighed.
"We'll be back tomorrow to see him."
I nodded at Ukraine, Belarus, and the Alpha.
I picked up France gently and started to head back to our "den."