Fakiagirl here! I'll be writing the even chapters, which are from Alfred's perspective.

We got a couple of comments about Arthur being from Northern England and his accent because of it. Thanks for letting us know! I've listened to several YouTube videos of people from Northern England, and I really didn't have that much trouble understanding them. Alfred is occasionally given a Southern drawl in fanfiction while his "canon" voice is more Midwestern, so we're also giving Arthur a slightly different accent than his dub in the anime. As for his dialect, he has lived in some other parts of England, so perhaps he's lost some of it.

We hope you enjoy!

I didn't grow up in San Francisco, but it felt like I did. My family lived in Berkeley, and my friends and I would go across the bay whenever we could. My first memory of San Francisco isn't of the Golden Gate Bridge, it is of the Bay Bridge, which lies so close to the surface of the bay you feel like you are driving on water.

I never really thought about what I was going to do when I grew up. I knew what I wanted to do: be an astronaut, or a scientist, or maybe a lawyer. By the time I graduated from high school, I also knew where I wanted to do it: San Francisco. I had fallen in love with everything, from the steep streets to the fog that would come in off the ocean.

In college, I switched from major to major, torn between the desire to do something amazing—go to the moon, begin a tech startup—and do what I loved. My first history course decided for me, and soon I was preparing to enter my senior year as a history major.

Though I still had no idea what I wanted to do, anything having to do with literature had never occurred to me. Golden Gateway Publishing, then, seemed liked a strange choice for the first big company I worked for. "Big" is relative, as I found out when I walked in for my first day as a summer intern. It was a small, specialized place that had started out by publishing thin volumes that only made it onto the small press shelves of local bookstores. By the time my internship ended, it was beginning to make a name for itself.

I graduated from college, and while I was applying for jobs like crazy, Golden Gateway called me and offered me a part-time job. Part-time turned into full-time, and soon I was hired as an editor.

Three years later, I took a chance and decided to hire a man named Arthur from the UK.

It was like most Monday mornings: a little cold, a little foggy, and a little too early. I walked in the door of Golden Gateway Publishing holding a cup of coffee and stifling a yawn. The bell over the door tinkled as it closed behind me. "Hey, Gilbert," I said absently to the secretary.

"Hey, Alfie," he said with a grin. This was followed by an enthusiastic cheep, cheep! from the yellow budgie on his shoulder.

I grinned back at it. I had always had a soft spot for animals. "Hello to you too, Gilbird."

Gilbert, with his white hair and startling red eyes, and the bright yellow bird on his shoulder made quite a pair. On his first day of work, Gilbert had walked in the door with the bird in a cage, sat behind his new desk, and opened the cage so the bird could sit on his shoulder. Despite my fellow editors' complaints (which mostly took the form of demands from Elizabeta and pointed looks from Roderich), Gilbird had not gone back in the cage since.

"Do I have any mail?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Cool. See you later." As I walked into the back of the building and down the hall that led to my office, I felt something niggling at the back of my mind. Wasn't there something special about today? Not able to remember what it could be, I shrugged and set down my laptop case on my desk. It was time to get to work.

Despite my attempts to concentrate, my mind kept wandering back to the cute British guy I had interviewed a month earlier. By "cute" what I really meant was . . . well, everything. It wasn't just his accent (which I kept replaying in my head); it had felt so natural to talk to him, like I had known him for years. "It's just because you didn't see his face," I muttered to myself as I made an attempt to read one of the new emails in my inbox for the second time. Everyone sounded good when they could present themselves however they wanted. But wasn't that the whole point? To never judge a book by its cover?

"It's just because what?" Elizabeta's voice asked. I looked up to see one of my fellow editors peering into my office. Liz had an amazing ability to detect what could even slightly be inferred as a reference to romance—not that that was the case here, obviously.

I sighed and deleted the email; on the third read-through, I had figured out it was just spam. "Never mind." Liz gave me a suspicious look, but she shrugged and left.

Would someone like Arthur even like it in California? I knew what it must look like outside. By now the fog would have burned off, and the sky would be blue with a few wisps of cloud. There might be a view of the ocean from the street if you got lucky. Brisk summer mornings that melted into warm afternoons, sounded like paradise to me, but would Arthur be disappointed? Would he sit in his apartment, wrapped in a blanket at sunrise and sweltering by sunset wishing for that English rain he must know so well?

I knew what England—or at least London—looked like from movies and TV shows, and it was nothing like San Francisco. We didn't have red telephone booths or double-decker buses; we had cable cars and steep hills and a red bridge. Did he like animals? The zoo? Would he want to go for a walk through Golden Gate Park? I had no idea, and I didn't know if I would even get a chance to find out. It was a long way from England to the West Coast, and for all I knew, he would decide before he even boarded his flight that he would rather stay right where he was.

I was reading over the second draft of a manuscript on my laptop a few hours later when I heard the tinkle of the bell over the door. I liked to keep my office door propped open, but I still couldn't clearly hear what anyone said in the lobby unless they were talking unusually loudly. I kept reading as I heard Gilbert ask, "Really? Are you sure about that?" A moment later, I heard Gilbert's raucous laughter, and then, "Jeez, I don't think I've ever heard an accent like that before."

"I'm English," I heard a voice say tersely and more loudly than before. I looked towards the lobby office. It couldn't be. Before Gilbert could torment the poor guy anymore, I stood up and headed for the lobby. I would recognize that voice anywhere. My heart was pounding and I felt excitement rise up in me as I realized that I was finally going to meet Arthur.

I had searched on Facebook for an "Arthur Kirkland" after interviewing him, and while I had gotten several hits, their photographs had indicated they were all too young or too old, or else they had lived in the wrong country. After that, I had spent a few weeks trying to piece together a guess of what Arthur would look like: a little like a young Paul McCartney, complete with the haircut, was my personal favorite. But the man in front of Gilbert's desk looked nothing like one of the Beatles. His messy blond hair made him look a little frazzled, and his dark eyebrows were drawn together in a frown. His long coat was unbuttoned, though he was probably still too hot. It had been cold in the morning, but the August heat was quickly warming up the building.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, and the man looked up in surprise. "Arthur, right?" I grinned. He stared at me. I realized he probably had no idea who I was, but before I could introduce myself, his eyes went wide.

"Alfred? I mean," he spluttered, "Mr. Jones."

I laughed. "No, you were right the first time. Remember, I told you to call me Alfred." I strode over to him, hands in my pockets.

"I'm sorry for being late," he said apologetically, but he had relaxed slightly.

"It's no problem. It's great to finally see you." We exchanged smiles at the small joke. I reached out a hand and he shook it firmly. His hand was cool and smooth. It was great to finally see him; he looked more like what an Arthur should look like than anything my imagination could have come up with. As I gazed into his eyes, I noticed they were very green.

"Wait," said Gilbert as I let go of Arthur's hand a little too slowly, "is this really the new intern you hired?" He laughed. "But he sounds so weird!"

"Now look here," started Arthur, frowning fiercely, but I interrupted him.

"He's from Northern England," I said proudly. I bit my lip to keep from adding, Near Newcastle Upon Tyne. I had a good memory, but even I was aware that would sound a little creepy. I smiled at Arthur. "Don't worry about Gilbert. He's like this with everyone. Come on, I'll show you around."

There wasn't exactly a lot to see in the small building, but I did what I could. Arthur peered into the other editors' offices curiously, and even Roderich gave him a small smile when I told him Arthur was the new intern. "We don't get a lot of new faces around here, so they might be a little too talkative at first," I confided to Arthur as we made our way towards my office. "If anyone asks you to get them a cup of coffee, don't do it—and by anyone, I mean Gilbert."

"I'm relieved to hear it," he said with a slight twitch of his lips that might have been a smile. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to find the nearest coffee shop on my first day."

I grinned. "You have no idea."

A horrified look crossed his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No, it's fine! I was a college student doing it for no pay, so buying a little coffee was to be expected. As you can guess, not how you want to spend your time." I laughed. It hadn't helped that at the time, I had been having a small crisis about what I was going to do after graduation. "I remember the first day I got here, I had to reorganize a cabinet of invoices and receipts. After that, I spent hours filling out form rejection letters. There were definitely some Starbucks runs involved." I shook my head. "But seriously, we have a coffee machine in the break room. You're welcome to use it too." I looked at him just before we walked into my office. "I wouldn't put anyone through that."

My office wasn't much, just a room with a bookshelf and a desk that had a lot of paperwork piled on top of it. I'd bought the brass nameplate myself—"Alfred F. Jones," it said—but the National Parks calendar pinned to the wall had been free in the mail, and there wasn't much else in the way of decoration. I didn't even have a window, though all it would have given me was a view of the street. Nonetheless, it was my office, and I was proud of it.

"You'll be working with me," I told Arthur as he looked around. "Sorry, they were supposed to bring in an extra desk for you, but I guess they never got around to it."

"Will we be sharing your desk, then?" Arthur looked almost queasy. I looked at my desk again. There wasn't a whole lot of space. Actually, there wasn't really any space at all. Piles of paper teetered on one side, the middle was taken up by my laptop and my coffee cup, and the other side was covered with the manuscript I was currently working on and its accompanying pile of notes.

"Sorry about the mess," I said, flushing a little. I threw away my empty coffee cup and deposited the pile of miscellaneous papers in a corner; most of them needed to be recycled anyway. "I might not be as prepared as I should be. I kind of completely forgot today's Monday. The week has been passing by so slowly." I gave him a lopsided smile and he seemed to find my joke at least a little funny, because the corner of his mouth lifted upward.

"Coat hook's over there," I said, pointing to it. Arthur gratefully took off his coat and hung it up beside mine. Underneath, Arthur was wearing a suit and tie. I felt a little strange considering that I wasn't wearing a tie and my suit jacket was tossed over the back of my chair. He looked more professional than I did. He clearly noticed this, since he tugged at his tie a little. I hoped he didn't take it off. It made him look handsome and sharp, like he should be the CEO of something. I definitely wouldn't mind it if he got promoted above me, I decided. If he decided to stay here, of course.

I pushed the thought away. It was only his first day, and it was silly to worry about him leaving already. I moved aside another pile of papers and sat on the edge of my desk. "You know, I never asked: how was the flight?"

"It was . . . a little hectic, to be honest. And then I got lost on the way here." He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, messing it up further. "I've never been to the States before."

"Really? Huh."

Arthur gave me a look. "You shouldn't look so surprised. Have you ever been to England?"

"No," I admitted. I bit back a smile as Arthur gave me a smug look and continued with what he was saying.

"And then when your secretary told me that Golden Gateway hadn't hired any interns, I was certain I'd made a horrible mess of things and gotten the date or the name wrong. I don't think you can imagine how relieved I was to hear a familiar voice," he said. I coughed. It would probably be better to leave out the part where I had forgotten to tell Gilbert when Arthur started work. "To be honest, when you told me I got the job, I was worried someone else would be training me." As soon as he said the words, Arthur abruptly closed his mouth and glanced at me.

I held back a grin. He wanted to work with me? "Nope," I said as I hopped off the desk. "I mean, I could have had someone else train you, but why would I want to?" We exchanged smiles. "Let me just grab the keys to storage so we can get you a chair."

Predictably, Liz was lurking outside my door. "You didn't tell us he was British," she said. "Where's he from? His accent's cute." She winked at me. Clearly, that wasn't the only thing about him she thought was cute.

"Yeah, he seems like a nice guy," I said as if I hadn't heard her. We reached the lobby and I approached Gilbert, who was feeding Gilbird bits of bird seed. If Arthur thought my desk was messy, he must have thought Gilbert's was a disaster area. Liz had once confided in me that the only reason we kept him as secretary was that if we ever fired him, we'd never know how to find anything in the pile of papers and manuscripts that was his desk.

"Is the new guy going to get us coffee?" Gilbert asked me without looking away from the budgie, who was cheeping at him cheerfully. "I want a mocha."

Liz swatted at the back of his head, though he ducked out of the way. "Be nice."

"I need the keys to the storage closet to get Arthur started," I told him.

Gilbert finally looked up at me and grinned. "First-name basis already, are we?" Gilbird hopped off his finger onto his wrist and ran up his arm to his usual spot on Gilbert's shoulder. "I can tell this guy is special already." He sorted through a pile of paperclips and pens before holding up the keys. Liz reached for them, but he yanked them out of her reach. "No way. Only the awesome me gets to access the storage closet." He looked from Elizabeta back to me. "Hey, Alfred, how about I let you have the keys while I get a cup of coffee?"

Liz rolled her eyes, but when he stood up, she sat down in his seat with a sigh. "I'll watch for any customers," she said valiantly, and pulled out her phone.

"Thanks," I said, and I caught the keys when Gilbert tossed them to me. He walked off in the direction of the staff lounge while I headed back to my office to grab Arthur. When I walked into my office, Arthur looked up guiltily from where he had been inspecting the contents of my bookshelf. He flushed a little and hastily moved away.

"Do you see any books you like?" I asked, pausing in the doorway. I let the keys dangle from my fingers.

"Not very many ones I recognized, actually." He paused. "Not too many of the classics."

I hid a smile, amused at how polite he was being. No doubt he was trying to subtly tell me he didn't share my tastes. "What can I say? I like sci-fi."

He didn't seem bothered by it, though. He moved back to the shelf as if drawn to it. "Historical fiction too, I see." He trailed a finger down the spines of a few of the novels. He lingered on my Patrick O'Brian collection and I scratched the back of my head. I had bought them at a used bookstore during my first year of college before I had realized I had no money. Books with lots of technical naval vocabulary weren't normally something I enjoyed—I had never been able to get all the way through Moby Dick—but those books held a special place in my heart. Master and Commander had gotten me through a bad breakup, as strange as it sounds.

"Yup, that's kind of my thing."

He turned back to me and his eyes lit up with interest. "As a reader or an editor?"

"Both. That's what they set me up with when I first started here and it's been that way ever since."

"Huh." Arthur looked thoughtful, finally seeming to relax. "Was that why you studied history, or a result of it?"

I brightened. He remembered that I'd mentioned that? "I'm not sure. I watched a lot of documentaries with my dad when I was younger, on the Vietnam War and things like that. I ended up reading some historical novels, but I kind of forgot about the history part until I got to college." I laughed at the memory. "I think I had this idea that if I liked something, I wasn't allowed to take it seriously."

He turned back to the bookshelf, but before he did I think I saw a smile. "I know the feeling."

I hesitated. I wasn't exactly protective of my books—it wasn't as if I had very many first editions, or anything like that—but they were kind of personal, you know? I had lent one out to a friend once, and it had come back dog-eared and covered in coffee rings. But I knew right then that I wanted Arthur to know me better, and I wanted him to like what he found. So I stepped up next to him and looked over the volumes with him. "If you ever wanted to," I said as casually as I could, "you could borrow one. Or a couple. Or whatever." I turned to him and grinned. "If you see anything you like."

This close, I could see that Arthur had a few freckles sprinkled over his nose. He blinked at me. Freckles and green eyes. That was it; I was a goner.

"That's very kind of you," he said politely. He smoothed down his hair with one hand, glanced away, and suddenly he was professional again. "Maybe later."

"Right. We should get back to work." I turned back to my desk wiping my sweaty palms on my pants. My ears grew hot. Smooth, Alfred, I told myself as I tried to remember what we were supposed to be doing. "Oh, yeah. Did I ever get around to telling you what you're going to be doing here?"

"No, I don't believe so."

"Maybe I should do that." I smiled. "For the next week, you'll pretty much just be getting used to how things work. You'll sit in on lower level meetings, do some intermediate emailing, write up summaries for book jackets and advertising, that kind of thing. You'll also help us narrow down the manuscripts we get sent for publication. Actually, I think that's what we'll start with today."

Arthur looked intrigued. "Really? Are you sure you don't want someone . . ." He hesitated. "Higher up in the company to do that?"

"Nah. It's not as high-pressure as it sounds." I smiled at him. "Most of these manuscripts have never been looked over before. We really have no idea if they're even legible or what they're about, especially since the summaries the authors' agents send us are pretty misleading and make everything sound like a bestseller. You'll read a little bit of each manuscript, and if they're clearly a lost cause, put them aside. If they seem salvageable, you'll read them all the way through and write up a summary. Then the editors pick a few of our favorites, we meet up to defend our choices, and we'll make the final decision. Maybe later you can pick a few to defend yourself. Just worry about the first stage for now. You only have to read a few pages of each manuscript, so it doesn't take that long."

"Not the whole book?" I shook my head. He raised his eyebrows slightly. "That hardly seems fair to the author, does it?"

"We don't have time to be fair to the authors," I pointed out. He frowned. I laughed. When I had interned here myself, I had been as horrified as Arthur was about to be. "Come with me." I tossed the keys up and caught them in one hand, and then headed for the hallway.

I led him down the hall and stopped in front of the storage room. I unlocked the door, pushed it open, and flicked on the light. "This is where we keep the manuscripts."

Shoved up against one wall were spare chairs, lamps, and boxes of old books and files everyone had forgotten about. The rest of the space was taken up by metal shelves that were filled with manuscripts.

It was not a small room.

"Oh," said Arthur as he glanced at the manuscripts.

"Yeah, and this probably doesn't even include the ones we just got in last week. Gilbert's a little lazy about opening the mail sometimes." I grabbed a pile from the top of the nearest stack and hefted it in my arms. "This should be enough to get you started." Arthur picked out a chair and we made our way back to my office. I passed by the lobby and tossed Liz the keys, which she caught after only glancing up from her phone. Of course Gilbert wasn't back yet. I rolled my eyes and followed Arthur back to my office.

When we got back, I set the manuscripts down on Arthur's half of the desk. He maneuvered his chair around and sat down in front of the manuscripts with a wary expression on his face. I pulled my own desk chair over to his and sat down beside him. "This part of the process is pretty straight forward. If you're ever unsure of whether to keep it or not, you can ask one of us to give you a second opinion, or just throw it in the 'keep' pile to be safe."

"What should I be looking for?" He took the first manuscript off the stack and flipped through it curiously.

I leaned forward and shrugged. "Mostly, just a good book. But we are a small company, and we're proud of it. We aren't just looking for bestsellers. While you're reading, you should be asking the author, 'What's your story, and why are you the one telling it?' If it looks like something anyone could write, we'd rather pass."

He was looking at me as though that was the last thing he had expected me to say. Then his expression softened and he smiled—just a wry twist of his lips, but it was a more genuine smile than he had given me earlier, and one that made his whole face light up. "As I have read my fair share of cheap novels, I think I'll at least be able to recognize those."

I grinned back, my gaze lingering on his eyes for just a moment too long. I couldn't believe I had missed that smile during our interview. I already knew I wanted to see him smile again—and what, I wondered, would his laugh sound like? "Great. Then let's get started."

I worked with him on the first few, just to make sure he got the hang of it. He read fast and kept fiddling with his fingers as he read, as if he were itching to start editing the manuscript right then and there. He looked alarmed when I told him we only read a few pages at the beginning and a few in the middle of each story before deciding its fate, but when he saw how badly written some of the submissions were, he relaxed. It didn't take long until he was reading through the pages with confidence.

After the first three, I pushed the rest of the stack towards him. "They're all yours," I told him. He looked slightly doubtful, but he nodded and picked up the next manuscript.

I rolled myself back over to my half of the desk and woke up my laptop. As it whirred back to life, I watched Arthur out of the corner of my eye. He was frowning at the manuscript in his hands in concentration. His eyebrows, which were normally hidden by his bangs, peeked out from under his hair with the force of his frown. It was . . . okay, it was adorable. I smiled a little to myself and turned my attention back to my laptop.

I had a new message in my inbox. It was from Bella, one of my current authors. I winced remembering how I had emailed her earlier about some "slight changes" I suggested she should make to the ending of her novel; this wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation. With the relaxing sound of Arthur turning a page or two in the background, I quickly got preoccupied with work. When I thought to check on him again, almost an hour had gone by.

He had a pencil in one hand, and every now and then he would make a mark on the page, biting his lip as he did so. I could have sworn he had only just pulled a new manuscript off the stack, but he was already ten or so pages into it. Hold on; ten or so pages? I leaned back in my chair. "Hey, Arthur?"

"Yes?" he said absently. He was clearly in the middle of reading a sentence, and it took him a moment to look up.

I smiled. "Whatchya doing?"

He guilty closed the manuscript. "Reading the first few pages."

I chuckled. "By the first few, I really meant just the first two."

He sighed. "I know, but . . ."

I held out a hand. "Can I see?"

He handed over the manuscript reluctantly. I flipped to the first page. There were little pencil marks scribbled here and there. I looked at him. "Have you been . . . correcting their grammar?"

"Old habits die hard," he mumbled. His cheeks looked a little pink.

I grinned. "Right, I forgot. Well, if this one makes it to the final stage, our copyeditors won't complain. What do you think of it?" I looked at the title page: One Thing Went Right, the bold font proclaimed.

"I . . . like it. It takes place during the Second World War." Arthur coughed a little. "It's a love story, I think."

"Hmm. The title would need to be changed, though," I mused. "Something a little shorter . . ." I looked at him. He was watching me intently, and he was fiddling with the pencil he was holding between his fingers. He seemed . . . nervous? "If you say it's good, I trust you," I told him, and handed it back. He put it in the pile of ones he wanted to keep.

"That's the last one."

"Really?" I asked in surprise. I looked at the clock. It was past noon. The time had really gone by fast. I chewed on my lip. It wasn't exactly time for my lunch break, but it was close enough, and Arthur deserved a break. "What do you say to some lunch?"

He sighed. "That would be lovely."

I stood up and he did the same, but he hesitated by the desk. "Would I be able to take a few of these home?" he asked, nodding at the manuscripts—the pile he had rejected, not the pile he had already accepted. "There are a few I'm unsure about, and I'd like to read them all the way through, if I can."

"You want to do that?" I blurted out. "I mean, we're paying you to do that here. I don't think we'll be able to pay you overtime for doing it at home instead."

He nodded and looked at me earnestly. "I know."

Liz would probably hit me over the head with a copy of our rules and regulations later, but I smiled. "If that's what you want to do, go ahead. I'm sure the authors would appreciate it."

"I know I would," he said quietly. He suddenly looked towards my office door. "Oh, I was wondering, is there—?"

"A bathroom? Yeah, just down the hall." I pointed him in the right direction and he disappeared. I tucked my phone into my pocket and closed my laptop. I started for the door, but then I paused and went back to my desk. I picked up the manuscript Arthur had liked so much and flipped it open to a random page. It was littered with little pencil marks—a comma here, a period there. I ran my thumb over the edge of the manuscript and smiled. He had, of course, crossed out "aluminum" and replaced it with aluminium in neat, tight cursive. I liked his handwriting; it was a little scratchy, but it had character.

Liz poked her head through the doorway. "So? Are you going to keep him?"

I closed the manuscript and placed it back in its pile. I looked up at her and grinned. "Definitely."