There were very few constants in Maddie's life. With parents who insisted on making and breaking up, what felt like once every month, it was difficult to keep much straight. Sometimes she would live in Ottawa, other times she would be in Montreal. If she was lucky, she might have both parents in one house for more than two months, if she wasn't lucky, which was often the case, she would be switching homes and schools every other week. If she were more bold, she might have thought to ask her parents to both just live in Hull, so she could at least keep the same school, no matter whose house she was at, or whose language she was being forced to speak.

This had been her life since as long as she could remember, so in a way, the constant change was its own form of constant. Another was her brother, or half brother rather. Alfred was everything she wasn't. Where she was quiet, reserved, and stood out about as much as white paint on a wall, he was loud, in everyone's business, and noticed. That was the one thing she envied him, was that he always had a presence.

Even when she lived in Quebec with her mere, and their dad refused to call because that might mean talking to her mother, Alfred always made sure to check on her. Even after he moved to New York for school, he tried to email her sometimes, telling her about all his crazy adventures. They had been losing touch though, and it was only to be expected. The only thing they really had in common was a love for sports, and her brother wasn't exactly gentle. After one particular instant involving a broken leg though, neither had really had much of a reason to play with each other anymore.

Fighting parents, an estranged brother and sports that ended in carnage were hardly the kinds of constants that held a person's sanity together though. No, one particular part of her life that Maddie hoped would always stay the same was winter. It came every year, the same almost everywhere she lived, with snow, cold, festivities, and hockey! It was also a time where her parents fought less, probably for economic reasons, and practicality seeing as all prices inflated in the winter, and no one wanted to move in and out in the cold of Canadian winters.

Best of all, her brother would come up for the holidays, full of cheer, and ready to play big brother. Better yet, he was always ready to play hockey.

Those were her pleasant thoughts, as she ignored her parents quibbling over her well-being, which never actually mattered unless it was another point they could argue about. She had her hockey stick, she had the ice flying beneath her feet...

And she had Alfred screaming like a little girl to their parents in utter terror as she came after him with a vengeance.

"She is my baby girl, and I don't want her growing up with your grotesque lack of morals."

"Ha! Your chère bébé? Non! You wouldn't even remember she existed if you weren't so obsessed with taking her away from me all the time. Elle est ma fille! Tu es completement débile."

"Ugh! Stop that! You know how much I hate it when you speak that infernal language. What's even worse is that you have Maddie speaking it all the time. One of these days I won't be able to understand a word she says for that hideous acc-"

"Dad! Francine! Save me! Maddie's going to kill me!"

"Come back here you coward!"

As Alfred came crashing into the boards in a poorly thought out plan of escape, both parents turned to each other and agreed on one point, "She's your daughter."

I've had this idea on the back burner of my mind for a while, and clearly I have exams coming up, since I'm procrastinating by writing stories. ^^

Just a little crack fic in my mind inspired by the idea of France and England arguing over whose baby Canada is until America tries to skate away from her in futile during a hockey game, at which point they decide that she is clearly the child of the other parent.

Don't ask about the beginning. I swear, the whole thing was meant to be crack when I started, but then my own big brother emailed me thus inspiring sappiness IDKW?

Umm, so yeah ^^ Family fic to fill my need for fluff that doesn't send me to the emergency room, and an excuse to practice French only to realise my keyboard lacks accents XD

~Tangerine