A/N: I should have been sleeping when this idea finally snuck its way out of my brain and onto paper, but oh well. As expected, I don't own Hetalia or the canon characters from it in this story, but the story itself is mine. I hope you enjoy it.
Alfred had been against moving to London from the start. His small family, just composed of his half brother and step-father, had had a comfortable life in New York. Even after his mother passed away. For a time at least. But then his step-father, who was really Francis' father, not his, had finished out his contract there and they were packing by the end of the week. Packing up the house they'd lived in for more than a decade. His mother's house.
And maybe that was why he couldn't really feel angry at Francis (he never had come to think of him as 'Dad,' despite never having known his own) for being unable to keep living there. But moving them out of the country? Hell, off of the continent. That had given him plenty of reasons to yell and shout at the French man while they'd started preparing for the move. But that was two months ago already.
The house they'd moved into had some charm he supposed. Plenty of empty rooms to give them all their own space, ivy growing all around the outside, and a big fireplace in the sitting room that he kept wanting to roast marshmallows in. But from the first day they'd pulled up to the house and he'd wandered around with his hands stuck in his pockets, there was one place that he knew would be what made this strange London house home to him.
The rose garden around the back.
His mother had always prized her roses, and even a little overgrown the English roses planted here reminded him of sitting in the grass beside her while she told him about caring for the fussy flowers. The flowers, and the fairies that sometimes lived in them. As a child, he'd loved her stories of fairies and magic, which had somehow always sounded more real when spoken in her crisp London accent than when he'd tried to repeat them. Now that he was older he didn't really believe them of course, but sometimes he caught himself wishing that he did. Still, it was nice to have something here that reminded him of her.
By now, they were mostly moved in but there were still a lot of boxes to go through and Alfred found himself seeking an escape from it for a bit and stepped out into the rose garden with a pair of sheers to start trimming the neglected bushes into shape. It was a tragedy to let such pretty flowers go ignored like that. And since it was obvious that they had gone more than one winter untended, he had his work cut out for him and sat down by one with a bag handy for the trimmings to start removing the bits that were already dead.
As he tried to trace a tangled branch that mostly consisted of brown leaves speckled with mold spots, something shot out of the bush. For a single, jaw dropping moment, Alfred thought that he could see what it was, but that was impossible. A tiny figure flying very quickly with green and gold wings that reminded him of a dragon fly. But it was there and gone too quickly for him to see and more, and he was left staring at empty air, frozen in shock.
A fairy.