Disclaimer: I still don't own it.

Overture

- May 21st, 1776 –

It had been roughly two weeks since they'd sent the eager Richard Henry Lee back to his 'sovereign colony' for their resolution on Independence, and Dr. Benjamin Franklin was bored.

Not that this was a particularly unusual occurrence. A great mind such as the great Benjamin Franklin was prone to boredom, especially when confined to such tedious tasks as those that went on in Congress. More so this last fortnight, what with John Adams obediently subdued by Lee's mission. Without his ranting and raving, there was hardly a murmur of interest to be found in the entire neighborhood.

Franklin was starting to miss the French court. At the very least, there were always beautiful women around to keep the restless gentlemen company.

The only thing that could really be called 'interesting' in the chambers of congress was Adams's young guest, Mr. Alfred F. Jones.

Oh yes. Franklin was quite interested in that young man.

Today the boy sat, as he usually did between his rum-fetching, window-closing duties as Mr. McNair's impromptu assistant, in a small chair against the far wall just outside the cluster of desks that was Congress's meeting place. Though the proceedings for the day had long since wrapped up for lunch, her remained hunched in his seat, watching the movements of the remaining Congressmen – particularly President Hancock, Jefferson and Adams – iron out the details of their various discussions.

Franklin made his way over to the boy with a slight spring in his step, swinging his walking stick around to tap the leg of the chair. "Mr. Jones, was it?"

"Ah…Dr. Franklin!" Alfred popped up, a big grin on his face. "What can I do for you, sir?"

Franklin looked the boy up and down, admiring the spirit and innate promise of youth. Alfred was tall and strong and had a face that shown like the rising sun with every smile. Like John, he was impatient for independence and longed to see their dream achieved with every fiber of his being.

With a slight grin, Franklin motioned to the boy. "Walk would me, would you please, Mr. Jones?"

"Um…sure," Alfred shrugged and followed the wise old doctor out of the State House.

They trotted down the streets of Philadelphia with only the occasional word between them; Franklin occasionally mentioned the weather or pointed out a lovely young thing, but Alfred seemed to be more in awe of the great doctor himself than of the sights.

Finally, after almost an hour of aimless walking, they found themselves in a blocked-off back alley with no progress made on their conversation. Alfred turned to Franklin with a confused expression, shifting anxiously with the desire to get back into Congress. "Dr. Franklin, if you don't mind my asking, why did you call me out here?"

"Why, to talk to you of course, dear boy."

"Well, okay, but…talk about what?"

Franklin stopped then and turned to the boy with a kind but knowing smile. "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling me your name."

The youth was surprised. "But you already know that, I'm Alfred F…"

"Not your human name. Your ireal/i name."

Alfred suddenly looked as though a frog had just jumped down his throat. He swallowed heavily twice before he finally managed to speak again, and even then, it was only in a strangled croak. "Wh-What do you mean, Dr. F-Franklin?"

"You can't fool me," Franklin laughed, sinking back on his walking stick to sit on an abandoned crate. "I'm an old man, Alfred Jones, and I've seen a lot in my time. But of everything I have encountered, nothing has ever been quite so curious as Your Kind."

His last words put particular emphasis on the capital letters, enunciating the title. Alfred shifted uncertainly under his bespectacled gaze. "I'm not really sure what you mean."

"I've met a young man like you before, you know," Franklin chuckled, leaning back against the wall with a dreamy expression. "He's a regular at society gatherings amongst the French aristocracy, and has served at the side of their royal family for as long as I've had the pleasure of their acquaintance. And, though it has been over a decades since my blessed inception into their circles, he has never seemed to age a day."

Alfred's eyes widened, and his eyebrows leapt to his hairline, but the surprise was less about the man's apparent eternal youth, but the fact that he recognized who Franklin was talking about.

Franklin's grin widened at this, and he continued on with a dismissive flip of his hand. "Of course, the one I met most often in my youth was a rather grumpy fellow who's spent most of the thirty years I've observed him sulking around the British parliament. I had the pleasure of sharing a ship with him on one of many returns to these colonial shores. A rather poor conversationalist, all things considered, but not bad at chess. Introduced himself as Mr. Kirkland."

"You've met England?!"

Franklin laughed out loud at as Alfred clapped his hands over his mouth, turning red over his slip and glancing around as though he'd just blurted the greatest secret of all time. The doctor braced his walking stick against the ground and pushed to his feet, smiling up at the young man amiably.

"So then, Mr. Jones," he said simply, tapping the wooden stick against the hard ground. "Would you care to answer my original question now?"

Alfred was quiet a moment, staring at toe of his boot. Then he straightened, swept his hair out of his eyes with one hand and grinned. "America."

Franklin nodded sagely and heaved a small sigh. "And here I thought we were giving birth to a new nation in that stuffy little room."

Alfred – America – laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. Franklin nodded to himself, amused with his personal joke, and patted the boy's arm like a proud grandfather.

"You're a fine young man," he said with a smile, "and there's a lot of potential in you. I look forward to seeing where you go once we've gotten you out from under England's roof for good and all."

"Gee, thanks, Dr. Franklin," Alfred said, still rubbing his neck in a way that was going to chafe if he kept it up for too long. "But don'tcha think that we better be getting back to Congress now?"

"Nonsense. It's not as though anything of note is going to occur until Lee returns anyway." Franklin adjusted his suit coat, tossed his walking stick in the air merrily and strutted out of their secluded little nook like a cock on patrol for a hen. "As long as we're out in the heat of the day, I say we have a little fun. Hard-working men such as ourselves deserve it, after all!"

The two spent the rest of a somewhat awkward afternoon charming every young female shopper that they happened to meet in the Philadelphia market place. That is to say that Franklin did his damnedest to sweep them off their feet with his charm, wit and general celebrity, which worked quite well all things considered, while Alfred was left floundering on the sidelines without a clue about how to talk with any of the ladies who were so enraptured by his 'rugged, golden good looks.'

By the end of the day (when a fairly irate John Adams turned up demanding that Franklin do something about 'that git Dickenson') Franklin had decided that, if nothing else could be said of his new nation, he was at least a much more pleasant companion than England had ever been.

Alfred, on the other hand, was merely left with a finite understanding of just why France and Franklin got along so well.

Notes: Benjamin Franklin was a great thinker, diplomat and inventor. He also happened to be quite the lecher. Pardon if any of this portion seems overly creepy because of that. (Really, though, he's no worse than his old buddy France…)

The man really was ridiculously popular in France (they sold collectables of him! Like 18th-century action figures!) Admittedly, he only began traveling to France in the 1760s and didn't become ambassador until half a year after the Declaration was signed, but the man is nothing if not observant, so I think he'd pick up on Francis's unnatural longevity even after only a decade