It was midnight, and they were still awake. It sucked. Alfred leaned on the table, clutching his mountain dew to his chest, holding in a burp that probably had the power to knock down the closest wall. Ivan was chasing Yao with some scissors. Yao was screaming something about a haircut. Arthur was making more tea. And Francis? Well, he was just messing around with his phone. Looked like he was watching a movie or something, but Alfred didn't want to look particularity close.

Oh. And then there was Matt. He was pitched on the end of the counter, yelling at the top of his lungs. But, as usual, nobody heard him. They never heard him. He was telling them to shut up. He was telling them that there was somebody outside.

Arthur frowned. What was that noise? He looked around the room. And saw... Matthew (DunDunDUN!). Artie ran a hand through his messy blond hair and walked over to his brother.

"What's the matter. Mattie?"

"I heard somebody outside the window..."

"It's probably nothing." He sipped his tea, and glanced sideways through the dark glass. He jumped when he saw a flash, or a reflection of light as the case happened to be.

"EVERYBODY SHUT THE BLODDY #*^% UP!"

And everybody did. Arthur slowly opened the window and peered out into the cool summer night. "Who's there?"

"Nobody!" called a voice from directly under the window.

Arthur looked down. There, sitting directly under him, was a boy about 14 years old. He was wearing a black coat, black pants, and a blue t-shirt with a smiley face on it. Well actually, it was more of a poker face, now that Arthur thought about it. However, right now it was wrinkeled into kind of a sheepish expression... actually, it pretty much matched the face the boy was sporting currently as he looked up at Arthur through his thick framed glasses.

Arthur promptly grabbed the boy by his shirt collar, and pulled him through the window. "WHO THE ^#&* ARE YOU?"

"Uhhh..."

"Not an appropriate answer!"

"Look, I'm sorry – I think I got the wrong house!"

Arthur squinted at the boy. He was reminded the of someone he knew a long time ago... The innocent expression, the way the hair stuck up in the front... And this boy would probably to grow up to be ungrateful and idiotic just like Alfred.

He frowned. "Who were you looking for?"

"Well, by any chance do you know anybody by the name of Sam? … or Liberty, I suppose. Or both! Wow, that's a thought – there could be two of them! Ok... I'm getting ahead of myself. Do you know anybody REALY patriotic? Let's start there."

The older boys looked from one to another. Oh, crap. How – ? They didn't even want to know.

"Nope! W-what are you talking about?" said Alfred, rather too quickly.

"Well, I recently received files from the swollen eyeball network and why am I telling you this? You're adults! You probably think I'm just a dumb kid. You don't care." His head slumped. "Can I go?"

"Not yet. Finnish that thought," said Francis who was sitting on top of the counter next to Matthew, they were both leaned back, eating ham sandwiches.

"Seriously? You'll think I'm crazy."

"Kid, you just saw or overheard or whatever..ed the crap that was going on in this apartment. This is a good day. Trust me, boy. I know crazy," muttered Arthur. "Besides. I've seen the stranger... most beautiful things... nobody believes me though. So, I'm all ears."

"I know, right? They never believe me. Even the people from the network. And I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or my sister jumps out of the dumpsters and wreaks everything... or I get the absolute perfect shot – and then when I look back through my pictures, I find out I left the lens cap on. On top of all that, I go home, and my dad doesn't even recognize me. I got kicked out of the house, because he's been away so long her still remembers me as a ten-year-old. Can you imagine the look on his face when he say a teenage boy digging through the fridge. My sister too. She's back at the hotel, though."

"That sounds strangely familiar," said Matthew. He was being sarcastic, of course, but nobody heard him anyway, so it didn't matter.

Then all of a sudden - "no. I'm not."

The voice was a little low and gravely for a girl's. The owner of the voice climbed through the open window, an landed lightly (for somebody wearing combat boots) on the floor. The first thing you noticed about her, was her hair. It was died an offensive shade of purple. Secretly, England could tell he would like this girl then and there. She reminded him of the 80's. Yessss. Those were the days. She was also wearing a simple black jumper, with a striped grey and black shirt underneath. She was also wearing pink and black striped socks. So the family was big on black, huh? Meanwhile, Francis was almost having a heart attack.

"Amerique? This is how the people in your country dress? I would have thought Angleterre would have raised you better than this."

The girl just simply walked over to the frenchmen, snatching the mustard of the table, and when she was close enough, while he was still clueless to her intentions, she squirted him in the eye.

Ok. Arthur Kirkland liked this girl. A lot.