disclaimer: don't own.
dedication: a hetalia-kink request. "a story about you with your nation with a cultural/historical aspect" – the story doesn't fit me, but it definitely was inspired by that, and is about an unnamed OC.
notes1: ohgod, i loved this fill.
notes2: sorry, ya'll, but i don't put translations in my stories. it throws off my OCD for my writing style. use google translate, or if you're lazy (yet not), PM me.
summary: She dulls in the bright lights of Paris, but shines in the dimly lit streetlamps of Montréal.
pairing: oc/Canada.
When she is asked "Où est-ce vous venez?" she isn't sure how to respond.
She was born and raised in the busy city of Paris, where the lights are too bright at night to see the stars, where there are so many tourists and people, where there is nothing good on the Champs-Èlysees that you can't buy for less than ten euros, and she thinks, why does it matter anyway, all the merchandise has been touched by thousands and hundreds of dirty, dirty hands. She hates the claustrophobia, and the public schools where the teachers are too harsh and the way people look at her when she gets on the bus, with her three sizes too big hand-me-down Converses, and her brother's jacket that she had to take because it was really soc old without a heater.
She absolutely hates Paris, because the outer rings are somewhere that no one wants to be, where every night you can hear a scream, where the customers at that shitty McDonald's down the street are so cruel and arrogant, but you can't really blame them because you work for a McDonald's, with filthy greasy food that really should not be going onto the tongue of a Parisian.
But the countryside is always beautiful, with rolling green hills and the fresh scent of summer air, always tinted with the sweet taste of cheese or strawberries or wine.
(Well, that's what the girls in class talk about anyway. They complain about having to spend all their breaks there, and she wants to punch them.)
When she told her parents she would be going to college, they laughed at her like it was all a big joke, because they had no money to send her to college, where the hell would she ever get all that money? Not them, that's for sure.
But she grits her teeth, and tells them that she got accepted for an almost full-ride scholarship to l'Université de Montréal, they stop and stare at her.
"Es-tu serieuse?" her mother asks her, and she can do is nod. Her mother cries and cries and yells at her for leaving her alone, she's just like her brother, and she sighs and walks to her room, knowing her mother will never understand. But when she comes out later to grab a bottle of water, her father pats her on the shoulder approvingly, and that's all needs to spend half of her savings from working for that shitty McDonald's for four years and buy a one-way plane ticket to Canada.
It is not until a month later, after all of her teachers congratulate her on all her hard work and she leaves her high school with a bac in anglais, that she packs up her things and gets on a plane. Her parents drive her there in there seldom-used car, (because gas is too expensive, and it really just makes more sense to get a bus card or to walk), and her mother cries and her father hugs her with a strength she had never known he had. She's not even embarrassed that everyone is staring at her because she has brand new sneakers that they bought her as a parting gift and her too-big jacket hides her comfortably now.
She gets the window seat in her coach seat, and the man who sits next to her is pretty in a handsome sort of way. He has a hint of stubble on his chin, and his wavy blonde hair is at that shade just between golden and platinum. His eyes twinkle like the lights of Paris at night, but are the color of the sky in the pictures of the countryside she's seen, and she wants to live in them.
Then, they make an announcement for everyone to please put on your seatbelt, we are taking off shortly. Suddenly, she is nervous, because what if it crashes like she's seen on the news, and she dies? Or worse, what if she lives and is horribly mutilated, with one leg or no legs and or with an arm missing, what if she goes into a coma, and she can't breathe, can't breathe —
"Bonjour," the man next to her suddenly says, and her head whips in his direction, and she is almost dazzled by his smile. "Vous êtes nerveuse, ne c'est pas?"
"Seulement en peu…" she mumbles, and she has always wondered why she feels so uncomfortable speaking her own language.
He laughs, before he begins to speak in English. "You are not a native, are you?"
They always ask her this, and she hates it. She hates it because she is French, but she certainly doesn't sound like it, with her broken-sounding sentences and her terrible grammar that can only come from living in the ghetto and her dull R's that don't have nearly as much reflexive sound as they should. It isn't fair, when everyone else can speak so quickly, with such beautiful sounding words, and they all taunt her and call her an American.
But she is much more comfortable speaking en Anglais, and is happy that someone assumes so, for once. "I am," she answers, and why is it that she has almost no accent at all? — it isn't normal, it shouldn't be like that. "I…euh…I'm not very comfortable in France. That's all."
He titled his head. "Pourquoi?"
She purses her lips and tries to think of an explanation. "I hate the city," she says. "It's too crowded, too many people with their dirty hands all over everything, too much filth, too much brightness. I want to be able to see the stars at night, I want to be able to smell something other than the endless smog and sweat mix that seems to cloud Paris. I can't speak French well, even though I grew up in the damn place. I want a job where I can make myself some real money. I don't want to put my children through the life I had. No one needs someone who can speak English en France. No one cares."
The man shrugged. "Je suppose. Je détèste l'anglais."
It was her turn to ask "Pourquoi?" this time.
He smiled sadly, scenes flickering across eyes that she couldn't see. "Mauvais souvenirs, c'est tout."
"Je vois."
She looked out the window, and was surprised to see nothing but clouds and dark skies. She supposed that she hadn't even noticed them take-off while they were talking. She supposed that was, in fact, the original reason he began to talk to her, but she never thought she wouldn't actually notice it.
She gazed down at the city below, and had to admit it was slightly beautiful, all the way up in the air. She could spot the Eiffel Tower and l'Arc de Triomphe, with their significant features and bright lights. As the journey continued, she could see the dark spots of land where the countryside was, and she thought, Well, they must not even be able to spot us, with their sky engulfed by tremendous amounts of stars.She feels so insignificant.
She wakes up(when did she fall asleep, anyway?) and it is around eleven o' clock and the man with the pretty blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes is shaking her. "Time to get up, chérie. Nous sommes ici." She is alert with those words, and, blushing, she thanks him. She gets off the plane fairly easily, waiting in line just like everyone else. The man lets her go before him, and they smile politely at each other as they part.
She's surprised that she doesn't see him again at baggage, but assumes that all he needed was his semi-large carry-on. There is a boy that stands next to her that looks disturbingly like him, with that same, pretty, curly blonde hair. His eyes are same shade of blue, and he wears a large red hoodie with a white maple leaf on it and a shy, almost frightened half-smile.
"Nous sommes désolés, mais il y aura un léger retard sur les bagages. Merci de coopérer..."
She sighs and sits on the carpeted floor, letting her backpack slide off her shoulders on the floor next to her. "Of course this would happen…" she grumbles to herself.
"First time traveling?" the blonde boy asks as he slides to the floor next to her, that same half-smile on his face.
She nods. "I spent most of my savings to come here."
He tilts his head as that nervous, frightened look on his face fades away. "Why?"
"College. I'm going to l'Université de Montréal."
He chuckles. "What a coincidence. So am I."
Her eyebrows raise as she looks at him. "So you're fluent in French?"
He nods as he answers. "I was raised bilingual. Well…sort of. For half of my childhood I spoke French, then my…er…caretakers switched. He made me speak English. I'm fluent in both. You're from France, non?"
She nods, with a blank look on her face as she stares at the digital letters spelling out Paris on the prompter. "Oui. From Paris. I hate French, though. I'm only going to Montréal because I hope it'll help me learn better French."
He laughs for a moment, an amused look on her face. "Why do you need to learn better French? You're from France."
She shakes her head. "I lived on the outer rings. Public schools are bad there, and my slang is so bad that I speak in such broken sentences, and I speak almost like an American and — " She broke off, and sighs. "English is just easier."
"Most non-English speakers don't say that."
She shrugs and smiles at him. "I guess I'm not most people."
He smiles back, a soft, warm, full smile. "I guess you're not."
There is a short moment of silence, before she asks, "So why are you getting luggage? You obviously live here. I didn't see you on the flight."
He grumbles. "I'm getting my Papa's stupid suitcase. He's too lazy to get it himself, and I can't really say no. I never really get to see him, you know? He calls, but it's not often that we see each other on good terms. Most of the time, he's fighting with my dad."
"Two dads?"
"Yeah. They…adopted me and my brother when we were young, but because of work stuff, I lived with my Papa for a while, and my brother lived with my Dad."
"So, your Papa is the French one?"
"Mmhmm."
"What made your Papa go away?"
He hesitates for a moment, trying to think of a response. "He lost custody, sort of. Dad took me in. Dad favors my brother, whose way more outgoing than I am. Papa likes me better, but I usually see Dad."
The bags suddenly started flowing off the conveyor belt, and she somehow sees hers as the first one, and she smiles at her companion. "Well, I'm off. Maybe I'll see you around?"
He smiles at her, and she can feel her heart stutter a short beat. "I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."
It has been three months since she has come to Montréal, and it is everything she has hoped it would be. She sees that boy everywhere, in the café she always has her morning coffee in, in her English classes and her French classes. She learns that his name is Matthew (or Matthieu, as his Papa likes to call him, apparently) and he tutors her in French until she doesn't feel so bad to converse with him in French, until she doesn't feel so bad to raise her hand and speak out in her French classes, until she doesn't feel so bad to call her parents. She wears red and has learned all the words to O Canada, and she loves this country — why would anyone ever want to live anywhere else?
Her heart still stutters and slows down and speeds up and sometime even stops while she's around Matthew, and she really hopes he feels the same.
When he invites her over to his house, it is big and warm and so him, and while they're watching a movie, snuggled up on his couch, he suddenly leans in and kisses her, and she feels complete.
It has been a year since she has flown here, and now that school is out, Matthew insists for her to come live at her house. She accepts with a smile and a blush, and thinks that he is the only thing she would ever need besides air.
He tells her he is Canada the day before his family is supposed to visit. He looks very nervous, wringing his pale hands and not looking at her. She smiles at him and pats his cheek and tells him, "Je sais."
And they kiss once more, and before she knows it she's no longer a virgin, and she wouldn't have it any other way, because it was with her one love, her Matthew, her Canada.
They share a knowing smile, the moment the man from the plane walks in through the door, calling, "Matthieu, Matthieu? Où es-tu?" She knows from the moment he takes her hand, kisses it, and says, "Enchantée, mademoiselle," that he is France, and that he is Matthew's Papa. She knows that his outgoing brother is America, and that his biased Dad is England, because it only makes sense.
She loves them all, and their antics and arguments are so amusing that she can't help but feel apart of the family and enjoys it with such greatness.
"So," France asks between a sip of wine, "quand êtes-vous de revenir en France?"
She smiles as she answers. "I'm not."
She knows how to answer, now, when someone asks her where she's from.
She knows that she answers with "Au Canada, mais oui."
She knows this because she is a jumbled mix of French and anglais, because she loves the red maple leaves in the fall and the white snow in the winter and the green grass in the spring and the blue skies in the summer. She knows this because she leads a successful life, with family around her and a lover and almost-husband always there to support her.
She knows this because she may have been born in France, but she has lived in Canada.