"...And nothing will ever change."
...Merde.
"You promise, papa?"
"Of course!"
He could remember everything so vividly, that soft hair as he ruffled it between him fingers, that sweet, shy little smile from the young Canada, that sunlight that made his white tunic seem as if he were dressed in woven clouds.
That sun had deserted him, it seemed. He lay, one ear filled with the gutter-water it was pressed against, the other filling with teardrops fresh from the sky. He wasn't moving; perhaps it was that he couldn't, perhaps it was because he didn't want to, perhaps just because if he moved he would lose all these precious memories; Mathieu's voice was so much easier to hear if he couldn't hear anything else.
"Hahaha, papa, what's that?"
How could it feel so painful? Losing a little brother; he'd done it before, right? Angleterre.
But he couldn't pretend that hadn't hurt just as much. All the stares from Spain and Prussia and everyone else; they just didn't understand, he had claimed, but they would.
Now, he prayed they never would have to.
It felt like so much more had gone with Canada than just the young nation himself. It felt like his very bones had been stolen, and all he could ever be now was a lump of flesh and clothes in a rain-soaked gutter in Paris. That this was all he was fit to be.
"You speak funny, papa. Do you think one day I can speak like you?"
He hadn't been told; his boss didn't have to tell him. He could feel it, feel it just the same as the last time. It had been an average day before; hood up against the unfamiliar rain, he had darted between doorways, flashing a grin at every pretty girl he saw, trying to ignore the thoughts of work and concentrate on which derriere he could inspect next.
Then, just like that, everything had stopped.
Frozen.
The light raindrops had frozen, mid-fall. The beggar sat outside, back against a wall, froze, hands outstretched. The passer-by froze also, glassy eyes fixed ahead of him. Every noise and the click of hooves and chirp of birds froze. He could smell nothing, hear nothing, taste only bitter disappointment, blood and salt. But what he felt...
"Don't worry, papa, I understand you have to go..."
"When I come back, I shall bring you a present from Paris, mon cher!"
He felt as if he was surrounded by the fires of Hell; within each flame was the despair that fuelled it, and the choking smoke flooded up his nostrils and into his lungs and he didn't know what to do; it was everywhere, all around him, he couldn't cough and his eyes were welling up and, of everything he had, he now felt as if he had nothing.
"Papa?"
A hand. A tiny hand wrapping uncertainly around his little finger.
He didn't know how he had ended up in that gutter in Paris, the rain moving so fast and hard he felt as if it were burying him (he wished it would) and drowning him. He didn't know what position he was in, where his arms or legs were, all he could feel was the ends of the cloud, like African silk, tickling the tips of his fingers as he grabbed for it and it was whipped away.
"Thank you for keeping me safe."