AN: Sorry this took so long! God, its been like two months... I've actually got a plan now for all the chapters except the last two so this shouldn't happen again. But... I hope you like it. The first memory is in Alfred's POV and the second is in Matt's.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Alfie, come and eat."

I shook my head, looking out the window. "No, Mattie." Something was wrong. I didn't know what it was; we still didn't know what it was. I shifted in the chair, the one that Arthur normally sat in when he visited. He hadn't come by in a while though, the meanie. I really hoped he would be back soon.

Matthew sighed, leaning out of the kitchen doorway. His purple eyes were worried. I didn't want him to be worried, but we both knew that this was not normal. Even for people like us I really didn't think that tummy aches lasted this long. "Please. Can you eat something, even a cookie or… anything really?"

I smiled, my cowboy hat nearly falling off of my head. I didn't know why I had put it on. It was still too big. Or I wasn't big enough yet. Either one. "I don't think anything would help my tummy much, Mattie."

He rolled his eyes, though I had made him smile too. "You know what I mean. Come on. I made enough for both of us."

My stomach grumbled, despite it hurting. Sighing softly, I nodded and started making my way to the kitchen. It wasn't the easiest, but I made it anyway. When I had reached the door, Mattie having moved inside, the smell of the food hit me. Matt had made soup again, though I didn't mind. He usually put different things in it whenever he could and when I made it sometimes I tried to do the same.

He seated himself at the table and turned back to look at me. I saw that the soup was already on the table and sat next to him, feeling several different things when I looked at the empty chair. My eyebrows knitted together and Matt nodded, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked at the food, almost reluctant.

His tummy had started hurting too. …I could call it a stomach ache, but that made it sound worse and much more serious. I wasn't sure when it had started, but it was close to when mine had. I wasn't sure if it was worse or better than how mine felt, but either way we had both told Arthur in our letters. He always wrote back saying that it was fine and that it would get better soon, though the word 'probably' was used at times, and when we told him it either made him come home quicker or stay away longer.

Matt, as always, knew what I was thinking. He picked at his soup with his spoon, chasing a smaller piece of fish with it. "Have you heard anything from Arthur?"

I shook my head slowly, frowning. "No." I wished he would write more, but it did take a long time for his responses to reach us and our responses to get to wherever he was. Though, it seemed kind of unfair that he had to go away for so long. I felt like I had seen more of him when I was younger than anything else.

My brother leaned forward a little, a slight grimace coming onto his face before he smiled reassuringly. "I'm sure he's just busy, Alfie. He has a lot of older country things to do."

I nodded slowly, smiling a little at how he phrased it, and returned to staring at my food. I saw Matt's eyes shift back to his as well, though neither of us made the move to start eating. I sighed. We couldn't let the food go to waste and we needed to eat… sometimes it would be him that would start and other times it would be me, though a few times we were genuinely hungry and didn't care if the food made us feel worse. Reluctantly, I made the move, picking up a piece of fish, though I couldn't remember what kind it was, with my spoon and stuck it in my mouth before I could change my mind. I chewed it, swallow it, and turned towards Matt. 'Your turn.'

He huffed softly and nodded, getting broth in his utensil and slurping it. He nodded slightly, 'Happy?'

I smiled a little. 'If only.' Arthur also kept telling us to eat and gave us recipes that we could try along with ways to help our tummies stop hurting, or at least make them hurt less. Sometimes in his letters, even if it was weird for Arthur to mention him, he would give us a tip or solution from Matt's papa. Sometimes whatever we tried worked, which was when we would normally eat whatever we could, and other times it wouldn't. When Arthur got back he would normally make things for us or help us with the remedies himself. He wouldn't give us many answers when he was here either… He did know what was going on, right? He had to if he was gone for this long…

My thoughts began to wander. Kuma would sometimes try and help in his own way too. He let us pet him for however long or sometimes he would nudge us towards the kitchen when we needed to eat or towards each other. If we went to go get food from outside he would come with us and if any kind of threat came up he would growl. He was a really good bear…

I blinked and looked down at my soup. Half of it was gone. Had I actually been eating while I was thinking? Usually it was the opposite… I glanced at Mattie. He hadn't eaten a lot of his, but he was getting there. 'This is good,' I thought, hoping that would make him feel better, if only a little bit. It really was good though.

He looked up, the spoon halfway to his mouth, and blinked a few times. 'Thanks.' He smiled, though I could see sadness in it. 'I may not have been able to cook when I was with Papa, but I was able to watch him.' He paused and his eyebrows furrowed, eating the spoonful. 'Kind of weird that I can remember that…'

Maybe it was, but I didn't think so. We both remembered a lot, even if some of it was a little blurry. I hadn't meant to get him on the subject of his papa though. That always made him feel worse. 'Has he written?'

Mattie nodded a little, continuing to stir the soup. 'A few days ago. He said the usual, but he did tell you hello.'

'I'll have to tell him hello back. Or you will.'

We were quiet for a few minutes, eating a little more of our food. The silence was comfortable, but I still didn't like it. It reminded me of how big the house was. 'Do you remember when we had to let the bunny go?'

He looked up, a little surprised. After a moment he nodded slowly. 'Uh hu-

Everything disappeared. I blinked, unsure of where I was. For a moment it was completely black, though it seemed almost like a starry sky, and then there was color. Vivid, bright color. And sounds, clear as day. I turned my head from side to side, but I only had to get one clear glimpse to recognize it; the field. Wind blew around me, a little stronger this time, and I noticed that I was back to my regular size and I wasn't a bird. Or I wasn't one yet anyways.

I felt calm now, whereas in the memory it had been painful and growing more so. Hopefully more wouldn't come up, and if they did they would be nicer ones. The one hadn't been particularly bad, just… uncomfortable. Nostalgic. I glanced to my right. I was quite a good deal away from the forest, but that was fine. I could tell that Matt was somewhere around here, though I wasn't sure as to where. Was he reliving memories too? I didn't doubt it at all.

For a moment I thought about standing, but decided against it and lay on my back, staring at the sky. I wasn't sure if there had been clouds in the sky when I got here, but they were there now. Non menacing, fluffy white clouds, almost like those in the cartoons, that moved ever so slowly. Heh maybe I could make them into shapes. …The thought made me pause. I'd have to practice that and see… For now, though, I simply watched them go by. After all, sometimes it was really nice to be on the ground.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and whispered a soft, "Thank you." Thank you for pulling me out. In the distance I heard the soft caw of an eagle, which I took as a 'You're welcome'.

I may have to see the memories later, face them possibly, but… at least I didn't need to do it now. Not at this moment.

My foot is in a weird position.

That was the thought that I found myself waking to. It slipped through my mind, but I found myself grasping onto it even though it was so random. I was on the ground… or something like that. The thing that I was laying on wasn't very comfortable… I knew that even if I hadn't opened my eyes. What had happened to the pillows? And blankets… I tried to think if I felt any warmth from them as I had before- right, I had been asleep- but there was nothing. I had no blankets.

My eyes opened slowly, both not wanting to wake and unsure if there would be excess light. There wasn't a lot of light, however. I was covered by the fort we had built; a structure made of stray pillows, blankets, and couch cushions. We hadn't been as crafty as we could have been, there being no extra ways out other than by lifting up a few blankets or shifting a pillow, but it was sturdy enough to have survived a kick from me or a shift or two from matt. It covered well enough too, a soft light entering through the blankets.

My brain was more awake and seemed to start ticking, more thoughts entering. Where'd all the blankets go? I know I had some on the floor… At least I thought I did…

I turned my head and my eyes rose upwards to the couch-we had made the fort over it- and smiled slightly when I saw who was laying on it. Matthew was sprawled across the couch, though he usually didn't move around as much as I did, a pile of blankets in various sizes and colors surrounding him. It wasn't an unusual occurrence. He usually stole more when he got cold, which happened more often than not. My eyes followed the blankets. Some fell of the couch, covering the pillow or two that I had set against the stiffer area before I went to sleep. There were a lot… how many had we grabbed? I couldn't even remember. The only thing that came to mind was emptying out my bedroom and many of the guest bedrooms. Shrugging to myself, I gingerly grabbed one from the edge of the pile. He wouldn't miss one, right?

I slowly began to tug it away from him, waiting almost warily for the moment when he would shift or try to take it back. After a few moments, nothing happened. I tugged it further and there was still no movement. Huh… that was weird. He really was out, wasn't he..? Ideas burst into my mind about things I could do, specifically involving the sharpies that I had in a drawer in the kitchen, but… that would mean Matt would get me back. And Matt's revenge was not a pleasant thing, especially if it was early in the morning. Maybe another time… Oh, I could plan something a little more intricate too.

The blanket was removed successfully. I smiled softly to myself and lay back down, wrapping the blanket around me almost like a cocoon. I stared up at the light shifting through the blankets. It reminded me of the sky, especially the sky in the field. Maybe it was because the blanket was blue, or at least the one that I was looking at was, and it was just kind of… nice. Various thoughts started to go off into different directions but on no particular topic. Bits of the memory I had experienced came back, but I shrugged them off. Or tried to, anyway. All in the past…

That didn't seem right to say, but I tried to ignore it. We'd moved past this already, hadn't we? It was not my fault. Matt had said so like a bajillion times already. A part of my brain told me that bajillion was not a word and I ignored that too. I didn't need an Arthur in my head prattleli- correcting me.

I blinked, my eyes shifting to check on Matt again. He was still sleeping and he didn't look to have shifted again. He wasn't moving a lot, really. That wasn't a sign of a nightmare was it? …nah. Gaho pulled me out and I'd felt Matt there. He was fine. My thoughts shifted to other meaningless ones and the light filtering through the blankets grew brighter every now and then. My eyebrows furrowed and the faint thought asking what time it was occurred to me. My shoulders shrugged slightly in answer to my own question. We'll figure it out later, brain. It doesn't matter right now.

My brain answered with; it does when you have to pee.

I groaned softly and sat up, making sure to be as quiet as I could, and maneuvered my way out of our fort and into the living room. Kuma was sleeping on the floor just outside and I had to sidestep to avoid stepping on him or waking him up. He still opened his eyes, however, and looked at me curiously. A small smile formed on my face and he laid his head back down. I walked down the hall almost silently, took care of my business, and returned after having reluctantly flushed the toilet. Hopefully it hadn't woken Matt up…

I glanced at the clock; just about nine thirty. Alright, a decent amount of sleep then. When I walked back into the living room I almost immediately spotted Matthew in the kitchen. He seemed to notice my presence and turned around, smiling at me. "Hey."

I smiled slightly back, internally kicking myself. "Hey. Hope I didn't wake you up."

He shook his head and opened the closest cabinet. "No, I woke up…" His eyebrows furrowed. "I think it was a little before you got out of the fort."

I hummed slightly, nodding, and eyed the ingredients and plates he was now grabbing. "What're we making?" When he turned and gave me a toothy smile I walked over and began to help in the preparations. Though he knew I was aware of what we were making he said anyways,

"Pancakes."

At that I began grabbing more things, not at all surprised when I saw the almost alarming amount of ingredients beginning to gather on the counter. The two of us were able to get the mix done fairly quickly, though Matt worked more with that while I was the one grabbing more ingredients, syrup, and pans. My eyes shifted upwards as I bent down to get to a lower cabinet, asking a silent question of, 'How much are we making?' When he laughed softly I grabbed more ingredients than needed, but it was better to have more than less. After today I'd need to go to the store to restock because we probably wouldn't have a whole lot left.

A couple of minutes and several pancakes later we had switched places, Matt at the stove and me mixing the batter. Part of me thought I would screw it up, because everyone knew my brother was the only one who could make pancakes that well, though that was probably why he hadn't left me with the burner. Hehe… I poked the sloppy stuff with my spoon, finding it somehow distracting.

The thought barely crossed my mind of what I was saying. "You know, this stuff would be gross if you ate it like this."

Mattie's head turned for a moment and he sent me an odd look before returning his attention to the baby pancake being born. "And have you ever tested that?"

"…no." Without even looking I knew his eyebrow was raised. "Maybe…" When he laughed I shot him a look. "Like you've never tried your own batter."

He paused and then skillfully flipped his pancake, which looked practically perfect. A moment later he huffed and turned towards me, a smile on his face. "Shut up."

My shoulders moved up and back down again and my smile widened, though I handed him another plate for the pancake. Soon we had several plates full of large and small pancakes. They weren't exactly giant stacks, but they were getting there. It was almost lucky that we ran out of batter because I was sure Matt would try to make more.

I laughed slightly after we had turned the burner off and the last pancake was done. "And the others ain't getting none of these."

Matthew turned and shook his head on the way to the table, a plate already in his hands. Despite the head shake his lips twitched upwards. He sat in the chair next to the one I was on my way to, the ones that were facing towards the rest of the kitchen and closest to the window. "You know that Arthur would find that sentence disturbing."

"Yeah…" I trailed off, smiling almost fondly. A laugh came out when I remembered. "I think people thought he was weird back then because he would get on to me when I had never said anything obscene." My eyes shifted from the plates to the fridge for a moment. Would I have enough room for all of these? …I guess I could always make more room. "Remember that?"

"Yeah, I remember."

The way he cut his voice off made me pause, around two feet from the table. My eyebrows furrowed and I glanced his way, noticing that, for a moment, he didn't look so happy. Still, I kept a smile. "You know we can't eat all of these, right?" Was that why he'd decided to make them all? Because he was upset?

He was smiling again. "Yeah, of course I do." He said it like it was obvious. "We can save them for later I guess." When I nodded, he grabbed the bottle of syrup and began nearly drowning his pancake in it. Almost absentmindedly I reached, grabbed a pancake filled plate, and plopped down next to him, noticing he had already grabbed my silverware.

"Thanks, bro." As my butter knife cut through the fluff, no effort at all, I heard a quiet, "You're welcome," from Matthew. I tried not to glance at him, though that may have been just as suspicious, but he didn't seem to notice. For a moment I couldn't help but smile. People said I shoveled down burgers… Matt wasn't that different with pancakes, even if it was only around me. Okay, it wasn't exactly shoveling, but it was close.

As I glanced at the large amount of breakfast food on the counter to him I did seem to remember that he only made this many pancakes when something was wrong, either with himself or me. It was something he'd dreamt about, wasn't it? …I should have asked when I saw him in the kitchen. The smile… It seemed I wasn't the only one who could fake them. And it was then that he finally noticed me looking at him. His eyebrow's furrowed, though for a moment it seemed like he had been caught, and he swallowed a mouthful of food before asking curiously, "What?"

A small, almost dry smile made its way onto my face and I leaned closer to the table. "You know we've lived together right? Like, in the same house."

He blinked slowly, the hand holding his fork beginning to lower towards the table. His eyes shifted away for a moment, towards his plate or thereabouts, before they flicked back. He nodded and I paused when the smile became nervous. "Yeah I know, Al."

We stared at each other, more stubborn than we would probably admit. It was only a matter of time. One of us would give. There was something wrong. He was going to tell me what that was. Silence had fallen between us and the only thing I could hear was the light sound of a clock ticking and the faint chirps of birds outside. I thought I saw Kuma out of the corner of my eye, but I wasn't going to check. Seconds passed as I continued waiting, knowing he would have to tell me sometime.

And finally Matthew looked away, his shoulders slumping. "Fine… you got me." He let the fork go, having been holding it at a standstill for the past few minutes, and turned towards me. He didn't seem too thrilled, as I knew I wouldn't be if it was me, but he did look much more ready to share. After a moment he met my eyes, almost impatient. "Go ahead."

"You know what I'm gonna ask, Matt."

He took a deep breath. "Alright…" He paused. "Sorry, I know you told me what was wrong earlier." I nodded, letting him know that it was fine. My brother shifted a moment, a pained look coming onto his face. Yes, I thought sarcastically, we had moved past it alright… "It was the thing… and you…" He sighed.

I gave him a slight smile. 'There's always the thinking option behind door number two.'

Matthew snorted softly. "Yeah, okay…" After a brief moment of quiet his voice entered my head. It was still hesitant.

'It was where you,' Despite him wanting to input another 'the thing' in his sentence again, he continued, 'tried to leave…'

Oh… with that everything made more sense, his reluctance especially. We both had spots we blamed ourselves for, spots where we used the, 'if only we had done this instead' scenario, and this was a particularly bad one for him. "You were just a kid, Matt." He had told me that himself. " You didn't know-"

His eyes narrowed and they met mine again, as determined as I was to not accept that. "You were a kid too, Al." I could tell where he was going with this, every word. "You were trying to find out, and what did I do? I stopped you."

He'd brought this up before, but… it never came up as much as mine. "That doesn't make it's your fault. I was trying to get out there, but you know what? You were right. We were too young and things would have happened if we, or I, had left. And you didn't know, alright. I didn't know."

Matt's eyes were pleading now and I understood what he was trying to say, though he spoke it regardless. "I know we didn't, but you still tried."

But that wasn't true. I leaned forward, resting my arm on the edge of the table. "Would you have gone with me?" For a moment he looked confused by the question, but soon he nodded, if only slightly. "Then you did try, Matt. And think about what Artie would have done if he came home and saw we were missing?" He'd pointed this out to me too back then. "He would flip and then… who knows? He might have torn up the countryside trying to find us. And if only I had gone I don't even know what would have happened." Though I hadn't known at the time I was sure now that I would have gotten sick or injured, maybe even just lost, before I could do anything. If matt had been with me it would have been a little better, but he had been right. We had only been and looked like kids. Something would have happened and it would not have been good.

And, though I didn't want to begin to think about it… What would we have been able to do? Now that I had grown I realized. We had only been two young kids, despite the fact that we were nations. Even if we had found her we wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop what had happened. All we would be able to do was watch as it unfolded. We hadn't even really known what had been causing it at the time… but that logic went through to my own blame as well. I hadn't been able to do anything, but that was because I really couldn't do anything. Grant it, we-

'Al?'

I blinked and looked up. Matthew's smile was more real now and more of the older brother one that I was so used to seeing. 'Huh?'

'Don't get too far into it, okay?'

He knew just as much as I did how winding the road of memories was, how many chances we thought we could have had to change anything that had happened. I nodded slowly and shifted, turning more towards my breakfast. My arm reached out halfway. "Syrup?"

The sun was getting close to setting. The sky was beginning to acquire the amber glow that I had grown to love and I knew that it would soon be gone. My eyes stuck to the window for a few moments, watching and waiting for the ball of fire to begin descending, before I noticed footsteps coming my way. My eyes reluctantly swiveled as I began to turn around, but I found that it wasn't needed. My brother came into my field of vision, a determined expression mingling with something that looked like worry. Eyebrow's furrowing, I questioned softly, "Al?"

He glanced my way and nodded slightly before his eyes returned to the window. He had a bag with him, one that we usually used for travel. It looked like it was packed full and I could only guess what was inside. From the look on his face it was probably supplies and some of the leftover food we had. But…

"What are you doing?" The question was only curious. I hoped he wouldn't try to go out there on his own. He was smarter than that.

Alfred turned and motioned towards the window, towards outside. "I'm gonna go see what's going on." His grip tightened on the bag and I leaned forward, my eyebrows furrowing. I knew he wanted to understand. We both did and no one would tell us. Arthur still thought we were too young apparently and we hadn't been able to come across much information on our own, especially because we couldn't go too far from the house.

I had other things to say, but the only thing that came out was, "You're not thinking about going on your own, are you?"

He shook his head slightly. "No…" He paused before he turned around completely, facing me. "If you want to come, you can. I mean… someone probably needs to tell Artie where we're going, but we can always just send a letter."

Part of me doubted he even knew where he was going. I leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees. I knew exactly why he wanted to leave, but… there was so much in the way, so much that could go wrong. "Alfie…" I looked at him and then at myself. The world worked so oddly at times… We only looked to be thirteen, maybe fourteen at a stretch… Even if we were older than most people out there they could still take advantage of us. They probably wouldn't let us do as much as we might need, either. "We're just kids."

His eyes narrowed and he made a face, one that was starting to gather something between defiance and disbelief. He shook his head. "No… we can do it." I knew what he meant. We could figure it out because that's what we always did.

Slowly, I stood and walked to the windowsill, sat, and faced him. "Al, we can't just… leave."

My brother looked offended. "Why not?"

I sighed. I really did want to help him figure this out… "We look like kids. We are kids." He needed to understand this. "What if someone tries something? What if we get lost? Or hurt? And what about Arthur? What will he do?"

He blinked slowly. "We'll… we'll figure it out."

"Al, I know you-" I paused for a brief second. "-need to figure this out. I know. But…" I met his blue eyes, trying to convey why we couldn't do this. 'I know that Arthur has been gone for a long time-' He flinched. '-and it's been really hard.' We were still having stomach aches sometimes and when it seemed things were getting better one of us would usually get a bad cough or something similar. 'But…' What was I even trying to say? I couldn't put the reasons into one. 'If I stay, Arthur will go looking for you. If he comes back and sees that the both of us are missing, he'll still…' And we didn't even know what the problem was. We had no idea how to fix it.

After a moment, Alfred sighed. We understood each other's doubts about leaving as much as we did the reasons. He sat next to me and we both watched as the sun slowly slid down the sky. "And… what do we do if we can't leave?"

I paused, my eyes narrowing in confusion. "Can't?"

He nodded out of the corner of my eye. "Yeah… if we can't leave because we're still too young… or…" His eyebrows furrowed and I knew this was a new thought. "If… if Arthur comes back and won't let us leave, even if we are older."

The idea was… Seeing as Arthur had been gone for so long and we weren't sure when he would return… It could happen. What would we do?

The sun was edging closer and closer to the horizon. The color of the sky was shifting; the fire seeming to die down the closer it came to night time. I sighed softly. This shouldn't be so difficult. We should be able to come up with something… we should be able to do something, no matter the fact that we didn't know a lot of what was wrong. I repeated his earlier words. "We'll… figure it out." The sun disappeared and the fire was extinguished. If we were going to leave, it wouldn't be today.

Alfred turned his head towards me, a questioning light in his eyes. "Here?"

My shoulders shrugged as my eyebrows furrowed. We might figure it out here. "Maybe… maybe Arthur will help when he comes back." I knew it was a far-off idea, but it was something. Some odd little hope. "He knows what's going on. He should know how to fix it… right?"

"Yeah… he should." After a few moments of silence, he continued. "I guess it's just a matter of time, huh?"

I caught the hint of a smile on his lips and glanced his way. It was a replacement smile, something to help us both make it. We would both flash them around, trying to make things a little more bearable. Maybe there was a bit of hope in it now because… Arthur wouldn't be able to keep whatever was going on away from us forever. I found myself nodding.

Now all we had to do was hold on until then.

AN: Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think.