This is a story that just wouldn't leave my head. Inspired by the queen song "Who Wants to Live Forever"

"Alfred, love, what are you doing out here? You'll miss dinner if you don't hurry down from those rocks." The man tipped back his three-pointed hat, looking up at the boy sitting on the tallest of the boulders that were positioned at the edge of the town.

"But what if the Sunshine man comes while I'm gone?" The boy, Alfred, who looked, for all accounts, a boy of seven, turned away from his lookout to the man standing on the ground. He blew some of his blonde hair out of his eyes, and stood from his squatting position, his knees scuffed and dirty, his brown overalls and white shirt dusty. His short ponytail blew behind him, along with one strand of hair that seemed to defy gravity. He pouted, wondering if he could use it to his advantage.

The man below crossed his arms over his brown overcoat, his eyes impatient, but kind. "Now Alfred, Mother won't be happy with either of us if you come to dinner late and filthy. Anna and Caroline are already scrubbed up, and here you are at the edge of town, sitting on a rock for hours watching whoever enters and leaves town. Alfred, I'm sure Sunshine man would want you be in good favor with Mother, and to eat your supper like a good boy. He'll want someone strong for the Royal Navy!" He extended his hand for Alfred, giving the boy a once over. "Ugh, and now the maid will have to mend your trousers. Come on, then."

Alfred sighed, finding no way to bargain his way out of this one. "Yes, Father." He climbed down from his perch carefully, and took the hand that was extended to him.

Every time he looked at his father, Alfred would see little visions, images of his father, except they would be of a younger, skinnier, man. It was almost as if Alfred had lived with his dad a long, long time, way longer than he was old, and could remember Father's voice before it had fully adopted its mature sound.

Alfred knew, to some extent, that his parents and his two sisters were different than him, that he was adopted. He'd realized this long ago along with other things. Everyone around him grew and aged; yet Alfred would slowly plow on. He remembered when Anna and Caroline were born, yet they were ten and twelve, and he still was seven. Even though he had a birthday every year too, he still didn't grow up. Yet he couldn't remember life before Father and Grandpapa had found him and brought him home to raise him as one of the family.

"Alfred?"

Alfred snapped out of his thoughts to look up at his father, curious. "What, Father?"

"Does Sunshine man have a name? You've talked about him for years, after we found you, and the war happened, but we've never known his real name. It might help us find him." Alfred continued to stare up at his adoptive father.

He finally pulled his gaze away, looking around him at the country path they were on. The leaves were turning, and the Massachusetts' area would soon explode into beauty. Alfred loved this time every year. But it also brought bad memories, which haunted his dreams, flashes of a time he couldn't quite make sense of.

He puzzled over his father's question for a while, trying to remember for the life of him Sunshine man's name. A mop of hair the color of the sun came to mind.

"Promise you'll be back, A—?" Then he had reached his hand out towards the man, his name falling from his lips, although he could not hear its sound.

"Of course, Alfred. I'll be back before you know it. And I'll bring you some sweets and maybe some big boy clothes!" There was that smile, that one that caused his heart to speed up with affection and ache of the thought of his leaving.

"A—, I'm really going to m-miss you!"

"No tears, love…" The hand had gently rubbed his cheek…

A pair of brilliant green eyes flashed in his mind's eye, along with the hair shining in the sun, brighter than any flame. But for the life of him, Alfred could not remember his name. That was why he'd called him Sunshine man in the first place. He could not remember whether he was a brother, a friend, a father. Just that he was Alfred's world, and that someday, he was going to come back for Alfred. And all Al had to remember him by was his memories and the small item in his pocket.

He pulled out the broken little wooden soldier, and turned over the small toy in his hands lovingly, trying to rub gently away the scorch marks that licked up the bottom edge of the wooden toy. "Father, I don't know his name. I don't think I ever will. It's right there, in my memories, but I can't…" Tears started to form in his eyes, and he stopped, whipping his hand under his nose. His father stopped as well, bending down and brushing away Alfred's bangs to meet his piercing sky blue eyes with his chocolate brown ones.

"Now, Alfred. You'll find him someday. Whether in this world, or the next, he'll be waiting for you. As long as you believe, not knowing his name or where he lives won't matter."

"But Father…how will I know…that it's him?"

He was pulled in for a hug, which he returned heartily, silently crying into his Father's shoulder. "You'll know, love, you'll know."

After a moment, his father asked him if they could go on, if he was ready. Alfred nodded, grasping his father's hand once more.

As they walked on, his father began to list off dinner. Alfred simply smiled up at the man. "I love you, father."

The man, startled a little by the sudden statement, smiled back. "I love you too, Alfred. Always will."

"Jones, we've got a job for you! A real position this time, and the boss just released…Alfred? Oh, sleeping on the job again, are we?" Jason threw the folder he held down onto the desk in front of him, Alfred sitting in a black swivel chair below him with a newspaper over his face, his long arms hanging listlessly at his side. A smirk decorated the conscious man's face, and he gripped the back of the flexible rolling chair and quickly shoved it downwards, toppling the sleeping blonde backwards onto the floor with a loud crash.

"Fathe-Huh? Wha! Jason! Godammit, you little!" The man being cussed out was currently laughing his ass off, leaning against the desk to support himself. Alfred reached up and grabbed the desk, hoisting himself up, straightening his body, rolling his neck to get the kinks out. "I need more sleep…this job is so boring, how did I ever let you convince that this was worth my while?"

"Simple, Jones, you were so drunk, you kept calling me Franklin and told me that you'd have to try those new bi-focal's of mine. Even on your day off from that bar you still are in there! You need someone in your life, even if it is Ms. Day-job right now." Jason ran a hand through his slicked back black hair. "I would have said you need to get laid, but knowing you, that probably is a nightly occurrence with you."

"Well, sorry I work as the MC of that bar! I kinda do live above it, so you know how it is. And I don't get laid every night! Only, like, sometimes... those other days I sleep late. Plus, you know why I won't keep a relationship! Falling in love is so overrated when they'll just go off and die on you, leaving some pictures and painful memories behind that you'll never forget..." Alfred's drowsy face contorted into one of sadness, and he fiddled with a ring on his left hand, ring finger, one that looked suspiciously like a wedding ring, but Alfred never would answer any questions on it. He quickly recovered, though, the look quickly being masked with one of indignation. "And Benjamin made really good glasses! His stoves need work, though, those so weren't his greatest invention…" Alfred sat down in his righted chair, swiveling around to face his computer and terminal in general. He flipped open the folder lying in the middle of all his papers.

Jason watched Alfred's face out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to be entertained by the picture of Captain America on the wall opposite them. Alfred sure had made this cubicle his own. "Must be cool to have known Ben Franklin."

"Yeah, it was, but I wasn't so focused on him during that period in time. I kinda was fighting in a war…" Jason fixed the buttons on his jacket, giving Al a chance to react over what was in the folder.

Sometimes, he wondered why he'd ever offered Alfred this job. Probably because his best friend was this dude's…nephew twelve times removed? Adam Jones's relation to Alfred was always kind of fuzzy, they did have the same last name, and Alfred had been in the picture since the Jones family could remember, all the way back to the last traceable relative, Sarah Jones, whose husband's name was lost to all but Alfred, who wasn't talking. That man could not talk about anything and everything, speaking to no one of his past, which must have been colorful.

He never spoke about Sarah, so the family just called him 'uncle', and believed him to be some relative of Sarah's husband, as the only thing known about the original Jones was his blue eyes which everyone had in that freaky family. It was the family secret that Alfred never aged…well, theirs and the government and Jason (who'd been like a part of the family since he was seven), bringing them back to the topic at hand.

"Jason, this is…this is a diplomatic position inside the UN! I know you are involved in the secret government stuff, but wasn't forcing me to accept the position as your lackey enough? I thought Adam had made that "I'm worried about Uncle Al" speech, so that was why you did all this, but…" Ahh, here it was, the time when Alfred would go off on how he wanted nothing to do with secret government deals, although his file told a different story about what the blonde had done during the Cold War. Another thing he wouldn't talk about, even if you drugged him.

"C'mon, Jones, be cool! The government has known who you are for, like, ages, literally! Plus, with the old geezer who goes to these meetings retiring, they need a new guy who won't be hospitalized for a month if he gets a chair to the head. I'm telling you, these diplomats, what you have there, they…" Jason trailed off, as Alfred looked through the paperwork, reading transcripts of prior meetings, his brows contorting in confusion.

"France said to Japan…? Germany began the meeting at eight…? Prussia banned from attendance…?" Alfred threw down the papers, and then looked up at Jason. "What am I supposed to get from this? Are all the diplomats put under a code by their country names?"

"Uh…well, Alfred, they are…well…they are like you. They've lived so long; they've become the embodiment of the countries they've served. That is why you were selected. I heard about…" Jason looked down sheepishly, "I heard the fact that they don't age, and how Adam had mentioned you. The higher-ups seemed to know about you and remarked about how you'd been of service during the wars, and asked me to locate you."

The blonde snorted, pushing himself away from the desk. "No, I never worked in diplomacy. And I told the government I would do nothing more for them then warn them when I felt anything stirring oddly. I always seem to have premonitions before things happen in this country, it seems."

"Oh, don't give me that! You have five different history and military majors and speak a ton of languages!"

"I was bored for two hundred years after the revolution, you know. I don't want to spend time with these "countries" just to entertain you and the government for a few weeks. They can't be like me, no one is like me, not in the three hundred years I remember have I met anyone like me." Was there a flash of pain in those blue eyes? Jason pushed it aside, and crouched down to pick up the newspaper he'd noticed sitting on the floor from when he'd flipped Alfred backwards. "Plus," Alfred continued, "If there is a representation for all these countries, not to say this isn't a bunch of hocus-pocus, then why isn't there an America?"

Jason stopped in his ascent with the newspaper, his mind pausing in hesitation. Should he tell him? He had a right to know. "Al, we once asked the exact same question of the other countries. Our answer was brief and vague. The England representative wouldn't tell us much, and none of the other countries will speak of the child, although the grave was located. When the government was alerted of your presence during the revolution, it was documented, and your identity was put down in the books in total secrecy. They didn't want to lose you as they lost the first immortal being in the country. They believe you to be of importance. Please, just give it a chance. You are the prime candidate."

Alfred gave him an unimpressed expression. "Aren't I always the prime candidate for every little thing the government needs a little bitch for?" And with that he dropped the folder back onto the desk, and swiveled to face away from the other man, shaking his mouse to pull up an unfinished game of Solitaire on his monitor.

Jason glared at the back of Alfred's head. So this was what he'd been doing when he'd fallen asleep. Some secretary he was, and Jason wished he'd just gotten a hot little vixen of an assistant like Adam had (although Adam didn't appreciate the little lady like Jason would have, being married and all), not some grouchy man. Then again, it meant his face remained free of slap-prints of said hot secretary's hand when he said something about her bosom (another thing Adam never had to experience, always so moral and polite and married and his best friend who he'd never want to change…)

"Just go and if you don't like it, fake your death again this year and show up for work next Monday like usual. You don't have a choice otherwise. You. Are. Going."

"Wait, Monday, when is the meeting?"

"Tomorrow at eight. There is a suit in the closet and you are to be briefed at three." Jason smiled as he turned and began to walk away, hearing as Alfred sputtered in his chair, "I kinda was going to tell you yesterday to prepare, and possibly be able to turn this down, but I decided let that slip after you told my perspective date that the reason why I had told her I had to work late the other night was the fact I had to go to the doctors for herpes medication." He exited the room for his lunch break, satisfied with his revenge, hearing Alfred shout out after him.

"HEY! You were the one who told everyone at the bar that I liked gay midget porn! I've never heard the end of it!"

"So you finally admit your secret fetish! Kudos! You're more of a man than I thought!"

He ran gleefully down the hall, streaking towards the safe haven of the executive offices, Alfred chasing after him. The rest of the office was used to a sight such as this, and simply ignored the two.

The briefing went for over an hour, and was quite detailed. Mostly, it was about what not to say, who was in cahoots with who, and who to butter up. What they were even to be discussing at the meeting was put under 'secondary information' on his little agenda.

"And starting anything between Mr. Kirkland and Mr. Bonnefey isn't appreciated, got it. Threatening who will get you hospitalized…? Sorry, I can't remember the names."

"The Swiss man, Vash Zwingli, the Russian, Ivan Braginski, and the supposed Prussian representative, who is banned, Gilbert Beilschmidt. Try not to get them angry, the UN just renovated that meeting room for the second time in a year." The severe woman who'd explained all this stuck a pencil in the bun at the back of her head, picked up her papers, and walked out with a nod, the meeting over.

Alfred sighed. The things he did for the country he loved. Now, for dinner with Adam and the wife.

He slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, wrapped his scarf around his neck, and headed out into the rather chill October air, going down three staircases and out the main door.

It wasn't that he didn't like Adam's wife, she was a lovely woman, indeed, she made Adam very happy, and Alfred liked it when his favorite nephew was happy. And soon, they would probably be the first to have startling blue-eyed children in their generation, which Alfred thought of as the 'after 1980' group. When you see so many generations, you had to start naming them.

No, the real problem with Emma was who she reminded him of. He twisted the ring on his hand, the wedding ring, the one that the family had been asking after for two hundred years. Even Jason was taking an interest, the little scalawag. Jason Russo, the family friend, another person Alfred would have to watch die. He gripped the ring tighter, pain he hadn't felt in a long time surfacing, bubbling in his chest.

Yep, he was definitely going to drink on the job at the bar tonight. After all, he could still entertain the patrons buzzed, right?

He walked into the restaurant, surrounded by people, but in his heart, he felt so alone.

This is my newest Fic, and I thank all of you who read it and ask if you could please review. The next chapter is written, and I will try to balance this one with my other two stories. This one just needed to be written.

Alfred will be a little more cynical, due his idea that anyone who comes into his life will go off and die on him, so he'll be a little pessimistic for awhile before a certain Brit gets to him :)

Fun Fact: The Encyclopedia Britannica has been American owned for a century.