*The year was 1945, and the long-awaited Yalta Conference was now upon him. Just a couple years earlier, he had met Soviet for the very first time in Tehran. Needless to say, he wasn’t quite sure what to think of his new ally. Sure, Soviet was remarkably courageous, and had the manpower to fight off the Axis Powers, but there was something about his personality that was terribly off-putting.

While on the plane to Crimea, the realization of what it was hit America like a truck. “He’s so dual-sided. One moment he’s calm and reassuring, and the next, he’s a mess of paranoia and suspicion. God, how did I not see it before?”

Admittedly, America had gotten just a little slow as of late, no doubt due to the influence of his president, Franklin Roosevelt, who had certainly seen better days. The man was on his fourth term in office, and looked more dead than alive. At the current moment, he was hacking and coughing a few feet behind him in a sectioned off cabin, presumably trying to sleep off the long voyage without much luck.

While America was nowhere near as paranoid as the USSR, he couldn’t help but fear that Roosevelt could quite possibly pass away during this diplomatic trip. If that happened, it would be an utter disaster. But… he had to remind himself, he needed to take things one at a time.

Clapping his hands together, he began preparing a game plan in his head. “Churchill often likens Soviet to a crocodile, something that can either chomp your hand off, or exude a friendly, if disturbing presence. And how am I supposed to work with that? I’m not exactly a dictator, I’m a democracy!”

It took him just a little too long to realize that he had just said that out loud. So much for thinking things over by himself…