Soul Mate

A/N: I'm actually rather surprised how much positive feedback I've gotten for this one. XD I wasn't sure how well an AU Hetalia story would be taken, but it appears to have drawn a few readers after only being up for a short amount of time (also, oddly, I didn't think I was a very good writer, and yet I have people e-mailing and PMing me, complaining about my horrible updating... I apologize for that, by the way).

Also, to see a more complete family tree of Arthur's family, please look at the bottom of the page in the bold Author's Note. As there are lots of marriages, kids, etc. to keep track of.

I'm going to give you fair warning. As would be expected by this story type, later on, this story will probably get pretty heavy on spiritual beliefs. Keep in mind that I in no way, shape, or form, mean to offend anyone with my writing, and it is purely for entertainment purposes.

This chapter's dedicated to my first few reviewers - Allykat001, sasodei-iz-awesome, Hinata Uzumaki-sama, LolliDictator, Iaveina, Lady Scribetracker, ninjafox369, and Mech 4869. I hope you'll continue to enjoy reading Soul Mate!

Also, my Gaelic sucks. XD Please forgive it. If someone speaks it and would like to correct the two words of Gaelic in the entire chapter, it would be welcome.

-------------------

Chapter Two

As he had been banned by both the doctor and his family from any heavy lifting, Alfred was currently making himself useful in other ways - by starting up on the restoration of the old furniture. Most of it was still in beautiful shape, only needing a fresh coat of stain to renew the luster the dark oak had.

Arthur looked on, as if out of place.

"What's wrong?" Alfred asked, applying another coat to one of the dressers in one of the bedrooms. Arthur had informed him that it had once been their maid's room.

"...I wish I could do something to help. I don't like just watching you work."

"You're keeping me company, aren't you?" Alfred smiled, standing up from his work. "Finished in this one... I think Mom's going to have to pay a fortune for mattresses for each of these, though," he admitted. "There has to be like... thirty beds in this place."

Arthur leaned back against the wall. "Part of owning an Inn. People would probably pay more to stay in an authentic Victorian-Era home," he pointed out. "There's a lot of history here, after all."

"What, a slave revolt?" Alfred laughed. With how old Arthur was, he wouldn't be surprised if he had owned a slave himself, though Massachusetts had really never been known as one of the 'slave states' like Louisiana or Georgia.

Arthur frowned with distaste. "My father didn't care about it one way or another, but preferred servants. Less chance of a revolt, and they were generally more pleasant... As for me, I had always been an abolitionist. I found it absolutely disgusting that people would ever enslave a fellow human being."

Alfred raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Cool! Were you ever at an abolitionist convention or something like that?"

"I died before most of the Abolitionist Movement," Arthur pointed out.

"Still," Alfred shrugged, smiling. Man, Arthur was old. He was ancient, even - and the teen even acted and dressed like an old man. He laughed at that thought.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Something funny?"

"You. You're like a grandpa who took over his grandkid's body. Even your name sounds old," Alfred laughed, trying his best to hold in the worst of his laughing.

Arthur's eyebrows furrowed in irritating. "Oh, shut up and get to work," he stated, glaring at him with the same green eyes as a cat that has had quite enough of his owner's annoying showers of affection and baby voices.

"Fine, fine, old man, you got it."

Arthur cocked an eyebrow. "And I don't know of many people naming their children Alfred nowadays. You can hardly talk," he said wryly, smirking. The cocky smirk on Arthur's face made him look younger - more mischievous, even impish.

America, feeling flushed, shut up.

~*~*~*~*~

Arthur had to admit, if there was one thing Alfred was good at, it had to be lifting an ungodly amount of weight. The teen was now ignoring the doctor's orders and moving around heavy boxes in his room, hefting them into the top shelf in the closet, shoving them under the bed, setting them in the corner to be sorted through later.

Arthur knelt down next to one of the few opened cardboard containers, peering at the top layer of smaller boxes in it. Quite a few titles looked back up at him - and quite a few were labeled "Final Fantasy"; the teen seemed to have quite a few. Arthur assumed they came in a series, marked from the first to Roman numeral thirteen, which was still wrapped in plastic.

Arthur reached down, frowning a bit when his hand went through the containers inside. Sometimes, he really hated being dead.

"Oh, those are my games," Alfred smiles, kneeling down next to him. "Which one did you want to see?"

"Games?"

"For on the TV," Alfred explained. "Wait... you know what a TV is, right?"

"I'm dead, not blind, deaf, and dumb," Arthur replied sarcastically.

"Well, anyways, you just control the people's movements on the screen... Make them do stuff, fight monsters, the like."

Arthur shook his head. "Tsk. What happened to a good game of chess?"

"Died with the times, love," Alfred responded in a fake British accent, smiling back at the irritable teen. Arthur stared at him for a few seconds before a small smile broke his scowl. "See? You smiled!" Alfred laughed.

"Just because you looked ridiculous," Arthur stated blandly, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, you Yankees always confused me."

Alfred laughed, and began to explain more about video games to Arthur.

~*~*~*~

Alfred and the rest of his family were currently enjoying breakfast. Arthur was in the corner, unseen by two of the family members. Arthur noted how the main conversing in the family was between Alfred and his mother. Matthew seemed to prefer to meld into the background, and even Arthur sometimes forgot he was there. The younger twin seemed to simply blend in with his surroundings, keep quiet, and prefer it that way. He was the polar opposite of his older brother, who seemed to prefer to be in the spotlight, and was loud and slightly obnoxious (in a cute way, Arthur though, though he then mentally berated himself for even thinking that about the idiot American).

The phone, which Alfred's mother had set up earlier that morning, rang. Arthur watched as Matthew stood up, picking up the phone quietly. "Hello?"

There was a pause, and then Matthew's usual slight smile, a smaller version of his older brother's constant grin, disappeared. "Oh... Um, we're just eating breakfast. You want to talk to Mom?" There was another pause. "Oh, you called to talk to me and Alfred?" he asked. While his voice was neutral, his face said he obviously didn't believe it. Matthew made small-talk with the person on the other line for a few minutes before handing the phone over to Alfred.

The normally bubbly blonde was now somber, licking his lips before greeting the other person. "Hey, Dad." Arthur winced. He remembered Alfred's relationship with his father from the memory-swapping instance. It was anything but happy. It reminded him of how his own relationship with his father had been. "...Nothing much. I'm feeling okay. You know how it is - nothing keeps me down for long," he said, attempting to laugh; it came out hollow and fake-sounding to Arthur's ears. "We've started renovating the house Mom bought... It's this old mansion out in Massachusetts," he said off-handedly. "Called The Garden, from some old papers I found." Arthur was glad that he'd remembered where there were some old envelopes with the original name of the place on it, and had shown them to Alfred.

There was another pause. "Oh, you're gonna come visit in a few months?" Alfred tried to sound excited, but failed. He wasn't a very good actor. "Sounds awesome. We'll see you in July, then?" he asked. It was currently middle to late May, so there was still quite the gap between now and his father's visit. Enough time for his father to think of an excuse for not coming.

~*~*~*~

Alfred followed Arthur through the grounds. He'd picked out his mother's gardening tools, from their old garden back in California, from their boxes, though he wasn't sure what to do with half of them. Arthur seemed to know what he was doing, however, and led him to one of the old flower beds. Alfred set the wheelbarrow full of assorted shovels, trowels, a large and heavy-looking pair of shears, and other gardening devices he couldn't name. "You'll want to put the gloves on," Arthur said off-handedly. "It would hurt like hell if the thorns cut you."

"Thorns?" Now Alfred knew why Arthur had made him wear long sleeves.

"Yes," Arthur said off-handedly, examining the different tools, looking for something in particular. "They're rose bushes."

"Roses?" Alfred knelt down, tugging at some of the dead brambles. "Well, they're pretty dead for rose bushes..."

"They're not dead," Arthur replied testily. He pointed to the large pair of scissors, gesturing for the American to pick them up, as he was unable to. "All right, pick those up, and cut where I show you." Alfred picked up the tool, and watched as Arthur pointed to different parts of the stems. They all looked the same to him, but he could be wrong.

The closer he got to the ground, the thicker the stems. And after a while, they became harder to cut. "Hey, what gives? It's green inside..."

"It's alive," Arthur replied, smiling slightly. "Pull away the dead branches. Toss them in a pile... You can burn them later, or haul them away."

This process went on for quite some time, repeating itself. Arthur would point to where Alfred should cut, Alfred would haul away dead branches, and they would be left with a small, barely-there bush stub with no branches or leaves. Arthur assured Alfred that the bushes would grow fast - that he'd bred this strain himself, from Oriental tea roses and the forerunners of the 'English roses', whatever those were. Alfred wasn't much for gardening, as he admitted to Arthur.

Arthur smiled lightly. "I wasn't, really. But I feel in love with roses... A red rose is the national flower of England. Did you know that?" Alfred shook his head. He didn't know a thing about England, other than the food there was supposed to be terrible and they talked with an overly-obvious accent. "It's the national flower of America, as well, but..." Arthur knelt down, his hand hovering just a few millimeters from one of the bushes. "Every time I came into my garden and took care of them, I was reminded of home."

Alfred knelt down as well, looking at the poor, scraggly creature he had so unjustly mangled. "Are you sure it was a good idea to cut off all those branches like that?"

"They were dead," Arthur shrugged. "I haven't been able to prune these since I died. And Father never cared about them... He rarely came home, anyways, so I was given pretty much free reign over the house."

They continued their work. Alfred felt that this was quite the workout - he was actually working up a sweat. He never knew that gardening was such a big job. Then again, the 'garden' in their last home had been a bunch of pre-grown potted plants his mother had transplanted into the ground. Most of them hadn't lived long. Arthur had grown these from the start, growing them into the seven-foot hedges Alfred had seen in the In-Between.

The In-Between, Arthur explained, was different for each person - or, at least, that was what he had gathered from his days in the house. Others had died in the house since his death - his stepmother, his nephew, his brothers (Arthur wouldn't tell Alfred much about his family; he assumed the memories were difficult for the Briton to talk about). But he hadn't met any of them in his own In-Between. Arthur's particular In-Between was the house as he had known it - freshly painted, its rose garden maze in full bloom, and the lawn well-manicured and green under Arthur's loving care. Arthur had said, rather sheepishly, that his In-Between was how The Garden had looked on the day he had died. He hadn't said anything else.

Alfred had no idea why he had gone to Arthur's In-Between, rather than his own.

Alfred finished one row of bushes, and moved onto the next. The maze was large, but most of The Garden was gone - sold to land developers over the years, used as Farmland. But Arthur hadn't minded that - so long as at least some of the bushes survived, his project could live on. "So, did you ever come up with a name for these guys?" Alfred asked, finishing another bush. Sadly, this row seemed to be doing poorly when compared to the first. Arthur had declared the first two bushes completely dead, and Alfred had been forced to dig the poor things up.

"My older half-sister called them 'Mioscaiseach GrĂ¡'," Arthur said, smiling lightly. "It means 'Wicked Love'."

"You had a half-sister?"

"Yes. There were five of us," Arthur explained. "Duff was the oldest, from Father's first marriage. His first wife died in childbirth. Fiona - the one who named the roses - and Patrick were twins - Patrick was older by a few minutes. The two of them always argued about it." Arthur laughed a bit. "They were from Father's Second marriage. She and Father got a divorce. The third marriage was the shortest, but Delwyn came from it."

Alfred snorted through his nose. "Delwyn?"

"His mother was Welsh, and very traditional," Arthur chuckled. "After that, it was my mother." The green-eyed teen got a far-away look in his eyes. "She was... beautiful. Absolutely beautiful."

Alfred watched as Arthur seemed to drift off mentally momentarily. After a while, he snapped back to attention. "Ah, but that's ancient history to you," he laughed.

"Nah, I'm interested," Alfred said truthfully. "Your dad got married again after your mom died, right? What was she like?"

"Belinda..." Arthur's mouth pulled itself into a small frown. "Well, she wasn't particularly good or bad. We let each other alone. Though I hated Peter at first."

"Peter?"

"My little half-brother. He was about four when I died, so I didn't really get to know him very well. Besides, by the time I got over here, he had already been born."

"How long did your dad go without telling you your mom had died?" Alfred asked tentatively.

"A year," Arthur said bitterly. "He was used to his wives dying, divorcing, and so on... He didn't see a reason to distract me from my studies. The same went for Duff." Arthur let out a short bark of a laugh. "At least she got a nice burial. Fiona told me all about it when I heard about it."

Alfred winced. That was beyond harsh. To be unable to go to your own mother's funeral - that had to be terrible. And it sounded like Arthur had adored his mother. "Sounds like you at least got along with Fiona," he said, looking for the silver lining.

Arthur shrugged. "Fiona and I were very alike," he admitted. "I was considered a loon because of what I claimed to see as a child, and she was considered bad luck because she was the second-born twin. We both had problems, so we looked to each other. She had Patrick, as well... He adored her, even if they were forever arguing."

"And you didn't have anyone else?"

Arthur smiled faintly. "Not at first, no... But I met someone, eventually."

"What were they like?"

Arthur stayed silent. "...I don't remember," he said after a moment.

"You don't remember?" Alfred asked incredulously. "What about his name?" Arthur shook his head. Alfred stared. This person could hardly have been so important if Arthur couldn't even remember his name.

"...I want to, don't get me wrong," Arthur scoffed. "But... when I get close to remembering his name, his face... it goes blank. I know what we did together, I know he existed... But I can't remember his face or his name." Alfred watched as Arthur sat down on the ground, his hands on his knees, and his chin on top of his interlaced fingers. "I remember that, at the time, he was the most important person in the world to me..."

Alfred felt a twinge in his chest at that. Jealousy? Why would he be jealous of something that stupid? "What... sorts of things did you do together?"

"He taught me about the Fae, among other things," Arthur shrugged. He didn't know why he was opening up to Alfred like this, but it felt good to be able to talk about it, to get it off his chest.

"What are those?" Alfred asked.

"It's a traditional name for a race of fairies," Arthur explained simply. "They're considered one of the most beautiful... They normally look completely human. Some can control their shape: take on the appearance of another person, shape shift, all that sort of thing. They can wield magic, they're immortal save for illness or a mortal wound..." Arthur smiled a bit. "They can almost be human. But they're different... They can never be human. They're too powerful, too... I don't know the word for it, I suppose," he said, sighing.

"But what's the big deal? They're immortal; they have magic powers, all that jazz..."

"You sound like you believe me." Arthur's lips curved up into a wry smile.

"Well, if you're here, then anything's possible," Alfred pointed out.

"True. The thing is, Alfred, not everyone can see them. The Fae, I mean. If you can, it's considered a gift... Or a curse, depending on your outlook..." Arthur was quiet for a moment. "The Fae and humans can't truly be close friends, though. Our life spans are just too different."

"But you were friends with some of them, right?" Alfred asked, remembering something about Arthur and a small group of what he had then grouped as mythical creatures - a few fairies, a pixie, small balls of light (will'o'the'wisps, as Arthur's memory called them), and others.

"A few, yes," Arthur said, nodding. "They knew I was lonely. It was more of a... pity thing, than anything else," he shrugged. "Granted, we did enjoy each other's company, but in the end, I was still alone."

"Hm." Alfred half-heartedly poked at one of the nearby rosebushes. "Well... it's okay now, right?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Alfred smiled at Arthur widely. "So you're not alone anymore."

Arthur stared at him, green eyes wide, for an amount of time. Then, he smiled - though it was so small, Alfred almost missed it. "You're right... I'm not alone anymore."

-----------------

A/N: And here would be Arthur's family tree! ...More of a list, but whatever. XD

Father: William Kirkland (English)

~First Marriage~

First Wife: Beitris (Scottish)

First Son: Duff

~Second Marriage~

Second Wife: Moira (Irish)

Second Son: Patrick

First Daughter: Fiona

~Third Marriage~

Third Wife: Ceridwen (Welsh)

Third Son: Delwyn

~Fourth Marriage~

Fourth Wife: Alice (English)

Fourth Son: Arthur

~Fifth Marriage~

Fifth Wife: Belinda (English)

Fifth Son: Peter