Sorry this is so late getting posted, had some issues with the editor here on FFnet. Anyway please enjoy.

The years after Matthew's first world meeting seemed to fly by and soon Matthew was in the eighth grade. It was the end of the school year and he was meeting Christine outside in the school's courtyard where the students would be let out during lunch.

"Mattie!" Matthew felt himself pushed over slightly when arms wrapped around him from behind and he couldn't help but let out a smile.

"Hey Christine, how's it going?"

"Good, don't suppose you understood what Mr. Johnson was going over in math today?"

"Yeah, I was able to get it all, want to borrow my notes?"

"Yes please!"

Matthew smiles and gets into his bag to pull out his notes from math class and hands them to Christine. Just as he does the school bully, Roger Jorden, comes into the courtyard with his friends.

"Well lookie what we got here boys. The two weirdos."

"Back off Roger, we aren't the weird ones here."

"Oh really, cause I always thought a butch chick like you that was into wimpy girly boys like him was the very definition of weird."

Christine stands up angrily and clenches a fist. Matthew grabs her arm and holds her back. It seemed it had always been like this at school. Matthew was bullied for looking girly and not speaking English very well when he first started school and Christine for staying by his side and being his friend. Roger laughs at their actions.

"Ha, what you have to hold your girlfriend back, scared she might get hurt. What a role reversal huh guys?"

"Buzz off, eh. Why don't you go bother someone else?"

"'Eh'? What the hell was that? What you think you're Canadian now or something?"

Matthew stands up and begins to walk away pulling Christine with him.

"Come on, let's just get out of here Christine."

Even though Matthew is pulling her away Christine continues to glare at the bullies as they leave. She watches them laughing at the two of them. Once they manage to leave them behind and are leaving the school Matthew lets go of Christine's arm, slinging his back pack up onto his shoulder.

"They aren't worth it Christine."

"I know that but still. So what are we going to do now?"

Matthew shrugs a bit, "We could go to my place I guess, I was going to let you borrow my notes for math, may as well help you go over them too."

Christine stops and Matthew turns to look back at her shocked expression.

"Your place? Are you serious you never have me over at your place. I was beginning to think you lived in some run down hobo hole or something."

Matthew blinks, thinking about it for a moment. He hadn't ever had Christine over had he, they had always gone over to her place or met somewhere when they hung out outside of school.

"Sorry, never really thought about it before. So want to come over?"

"Hell yes I do!"

The two quickly and easily made it to Matthew's house and once they did Christine found herself gawking at the house she saw. It was an older house made of red brick, generally unremarkable aside from the fact it dwarfed the neighboring houses. The garage was detached and looked able to hold three cars, Matthew had asked once why it was so large and Alfred had laughed and told him it used to be a stable and carriage house back before cars were common.

"Matthew, you never told me you were filthy stinking rich!"

Matthew turned to Christine with an innocent look on his face and shrugged, "It never really came up. I never really thought of myself as rich anyway. Alfred's always trying to make me feel that I'm just like everyone else so I don't really think about it much."

They approach the front door and Matthew pulls out his key to unlock it and opens it to let them both inside. Once inside Christine again seems to gawk at inside the door is a small tiled area with shoes piled off to one side and a coat/umbrella rack. Beyond that are beautiful hardwood floors that seem to be a cherry wood. These are covered slightly by worn rugs that lead down a hall that goes past an intricate stairwell with doors leading off to either side. Matthew leads the way down the hall after taking his shoes off and then turns to a doorway hidden behind the stairs and into a large kitchen. It was very modern, which seemed to conflict with the rest of the house but Christine figured it had just been upgraded.

"Want something to eat, I can make killer pancakes?"

"Yeah sure, sounds great." She was still staring around her and watched as Matthew walked into a large pantry. She noticed one side of the kitchen hadn't been updated and held a large cast iron stove and what appeared to be a wood fired oven. There was also an old deep sink with a well pump on it and she wondered if it still worked.

"Hey Matthew, does that old sink still work?"

Matthew pauses in mixing the pancake batter to look up at the sink she is looking at. "Oh, that, yeah it still works, though Al mostly just uses that sink as a cooler when we have everyone over for a party. The stove and oven get used at Thanksgiving and Christmas since Al likes how they make the food taste."

"Oh wow, I never would have thought someone would still use those sorts of things, it's kinda cool."

"Yeah well." Matthew smiles and goes back to making their once again lets her eyes wander and she comes to rest them at the door. She tilts her head curiously at the white animal that seems to be nosing into the room. It comes in fully and what she was sure had to be the strangest dog ever began to walk over to Matthew and paw at his pant leg.

"Oh, Kumajirou, you want some to right. Just give me a moment."

The dog looked over at her and met her eyes and she had the strangest feeling that it was studying her before it waddled over to the table and climbed, yes climbed, onto one of the chairs. Christine blinked at that, if it had been a dog wouldn't it have jumped onto the chair. It also seemed to be sitting more like a person than a dog and just was bizarre in her opinion.

"Hey Matt, what kind of pet do you have?"

"Hmm? Kumajirou's a, uh, dwarf polar bear. That's right."

Christine blinked at the answer and looked over to the bear as it sat patiently at the table for its share of the treats being made.

"Ok, I guess being rich comes with privileges."

"Yeah I guess." Matthew shrugs and then is bringing over a plate of warm fluffy pancakes and a bottle of maple syrup. "Like I said I don't really think about these things, it all seems normal, er, you know I'm going to shut up now since I'm not helping things."

Christine chuckles a bit at Matthew's answer. She was relieved to know her friend was still the same guy she's known since kindergarten. The two dig into the pancakes and Christine can't help but be amazed at how good they are.

"You know I would have expected you to have a cook or something given the size of this place."

"Huh, nah, Al likes to cook and so do I. So we tend to do most of that ourselves. Al's boss has a maid service come and clean once a week though since Al isn't able to always keep the place clean and stuff since he works a lot."

"His boss hires a maid?"

"Well yeah, since he sometimes will put up some of the people that come over for meetings that are from Europe."

"Wow, your brother is like really important where he works isn't he? That's kinda cool."

Just then the door opens at the front of the house and both look up from their snack as the sounds of footsteps make their way from the front door to the kitchen. Christine looks a bit curious as a white haired man steps into the kitchen and grins in their direction.

"Yo, Birdie, who's your friend?"

The white haired man is pushed out of the way and Christine recognizes Matthew's brother Alfred coming in after him.

"Oh, hey Christine, Mattie bring you over?"

"Oh hey Al, yeah I needed help with the math homework. Matt said I could use his notes."

"Cool. Matt, remember that thing you need to get done for Saturday."

"Don't worry I just have a little left then I can let you look it over."

Alfred nods and heads out of the kitchen to go do whatever he normally did. Meanwhile Christine watched as the white haired man came closer, grinning wickedly at Matthew.

"So Birdie, I see you made pancakes, got any left over for Herr Awesome and his loyal friend, Gilbird?"

Matthew seems to blush and smile at the other man's approach and question. "N no, sorry. But I could always make more, everything is still out so it wouldn't be that hard to do."

The white haired man grins even wider before plopping down in the free seat next to Matthew. Christine smiles as she sees Matthew fidget and she can't help but want to squeal. Whoever this guy was it seemed Matthew had a crush on him. Funny she'd never thought he was into guys before but she figured she'd just never seen him around any guys he liked before now.

Matthew got up after finishing his pancakes quickly and took the plate to the sink and then began mixing another batch of pancakes. While he did that Christine thought to take advantage and talk to this guy her friend was so obviously, to her at least, crushing on.

"So, 'Herr Awesome' was it? How do you know Matt?"

The white haired man turned to her with a laughing grin and for the first time she noticed his deep red eyes, like rubies.

"Well I used to keep an eye on Birdie for his bro when Al was working. Still do from time to time when his job requires him to be away for a few days. I tend to just come over and hang out with him nowadays. What about you kid?"

"Me? Well I know him from school. We've been friends since our first day."

"Oh?" His eyes seem to widen. "You're that Christine. Keseses. You know when Matt told me about that time you beat up some bullies for picking on him because of his accent I thought it was one of the most awesome things I'd ever heard. You are definitely in the Awesome Club for that."

"Really, thanks. So should I just keep calling you 'Herr Awesome' or is there another name to go with that title?"

The albino smirks, "Ja, call me Gilbert"

Just then Matthew comes over with a tall stack of pancakes and sets them down in front of Gilbert and sets a smaller bowl a little ways to the side that appeared to have a single pancake in it that had been torn up. He then pulls the maple syrup over to Gilbert and hands it to him.

"Here." Matthew timidly looks away and sits back down in his seat. Christine smiles at his actions and the three chat for a bit longer while Gilbert eats his cakes. When a small yellow bird pops out of the white hair and flutters down to peck at the contents of the bowl Christine is at first startled but quickly gets an explanation for the animal.

Once Gilbert finishes his snack he gathers the plates from the table and sends the two off to work on their homework while saying he'd clean things up in the kitchen. Matthew leads them up to his room with Kumajirou following behind. Up the stairs Christine sees a hallway lined with doors. Matthew doesn't seem to pause as he goes to one and opens it to reveal what she assumes must be his room.

Stepping into the room she is surprised by its size, it was easily as big as her family's living room and seemed to be set up like a studio apartment more than a bedroom. She saw a white couch dividing the entertainment portion of the room from the bed part of the room. There was a coffee table with a few abandoned cups from Tim Hortons sitting on it and a large flat screen mounted on the wall. The rest of that wall was a built in bookcase with books, dvds, video games and several gaming systems. Christine was sure she also saw a computer tower in there and figured the screen doubled as a computer monitor. In another part of the room, the corner separated from the bed by a door she could see lead into a bathroom, was a computer desk with a monitor and a pet bed she assumed was for Kumajirou. It looked very much like an office and was rather tidy. Then there was the bed and it was huge. It had a red bedspread on it and the head board seemed to have had the Canadian flag painted onto it. And all around the room, covering those same wood floors as the first floor had, were white and red rugs.

Christine, upon seeing all of this, just stood in the doorway and let her school bag drop to the ground beside her.

"Hey, you ok Christine?"

"What, yeah sure, just fine. This place is awesome, how is it you always seem to come over to my place to hang out? This place would be so much better for it."

Matthew shrugs, he seemed to be doing that a lot. "I don't know, you should see Al's room though. Red, white and blue everywhere."

Christine eyed the Canadian touches to her friends room and then pondered on her statement regarding Alfred's room. "So how does that work, are you guys Canadian or American?"

"Well I'm from Canada and Al's from the US."

"Whatever, let's just get to work."

And get to work they do. Matthew gestures over to the couch and quickly clears the coffee table for them to work at and the two begin going over the math homework as planned. After working for a bit and finishing their homework Matthew suggests they play a game and pops in Tales of Vesperia for them to play. It's during one of the cut scenes that Christine decides to bring up her earlier question concerning Gilbert.

"Hey Matt?"

"Hmm, what is it?"

"That Gilbert guy. Do you like him?"

Matthew blushes bright red and sputters for a moment as Christine laughs at him.

"Oh, god you really do! That is so adorable."

"You, you don't mind?"

"What, that you like guys? Why would I mind? You're my best friend whether you like guys or girls doesn't bother me any."

"Ah, well, I just sort of thought. But, uh, I don't really like all guys, just Gilbert."

The last bit is mumbled but it doesn't lessen Christine's grin.

"That is so cute. So are you going to tell him?"

Matthew looks up at her with a slightly horrified look on his face. "What? No! I can't! I can't tell him. He's so much older than me, he'd never be interested."

"Oh come on, he's friend with your brother, he can't be that much older than you. He doesn't even look thirty."

"But but, I'm just 14. There are laws about that sort of thing."

"Only if you two get into the nitty gritty of things. I'm sure you'd be happy just telling him your feelings and seeing if he reciprocates. At least then you can both just wait a few more years for you to be eighteen."

"It, it's more complicated than that."

Christine rolls her eyes, "Then tell me why so I can wallow with you in self pity about unrequited love."

Matthew curls in on himself slightly. "I can't do that either. I'm sorry Christine, just know that it really is just too complicated. Maybe, maybe in a few years I can tell him but till then I can't."

Christine seems to pout and the rest of their time that evening is spent with the two in a somewhat awkward silence. Eventually though Alfred asks if Christine would like a ride home and she jumps on it. Before leaving she looks over at Matthew as Alfred asks if he wants to come with them but he just says he can't due to some assignment he still had to get done.

The next day comes and finds Christine sitting in the courtyard alone as she waits for Matthew. Despite the awkwardness of last night's confession Christine was still his friend and she still wanted to hang out with him.

"Hey there macho chick, where's your boyfriend?"

Christine looks up and sees Roger smirking at her with his friends. "Would you guys grow up already? We're almost in high school. You'd think you'd start acting like it."

Roger's smirk drops from his face and he seems to scowl slightly.

"Whatever dirty butch girls like you wouldn't understand or else you'd leave the nerd and date someone more like me."

Christine frowns and looks slightly disgusted. "Someone like you? Are you serious, you're a pompous jerk. At least Matthew's a nice guy."

"Tch, yeah sure. May as well cut it off and make him a girl though. Then again looking at him he probably wouldn't mind taking it. Maybe we should show him how to be a real girl."

Hearing their plans for her friend has Christine's eyes widen in shock and then narrow in anger.

"That's it I'm sick of you guys always picking on Matthew. After school meet me at the cliff, we'll settle this there."

"Tch, fine, whatever. But you're going to be the one regretting this." With that Roger turns away and leaves with his friends following behind him. It was then Christine took notice of Matthew staring at her with wide worried eyes.

"Christine, you shouldn't..."

"Don't tell me I shouldn't have Matt, they were talking about, well about hurting you. I couldn't just let them get away with that. Don't worry I'll be fine."

Despite her reassurances Matthew purses his lips in worry at his friend's actions. After that the day seems to fly by and before Matthew is ready he is heading up to the cliff behind the school. It was a bit secluded and even though there was a fence to keep kids from getting too close to the cliff it had been knocked around and beaten down by kids wanting to show their friends how brave they were to play on the edge. It was also the most popular location for students to have fights. It was in a place where a few people could watch as witnesses and yet far enough from the school and hidden well enough that they wouldn't get caught.

Christine had gone on ahead of him in order to meet or beat Roger to the cliff. She had told him he didn't need to come but he had insisted after unsuccessfully trying to talk her out of it. He approached the area where the fights generally took place and wormed his way through the small crowd so he could get a better view. Once there he saw Christine and Roger facing off, only Roger seemed to have a couple of friends backing him while Christine was alone.

"Just you and me Roger, keep your lackeys out of this."

"You never said I couldn't bring back up Christine." He spots Matthew in the crowd. "Why don't you ask your boyfriend to help you out. I'm sure he'd make a great punching bag."

Christine just clenches her fists and bites back on her words. Matthew, surprised at his friend's situation acts on Roger's suggestion and steps from the crowd to stand next to Christine. She notices him and starts to protest.

"Matthew..."

"No, you're fighting for my sake, at least let me help you out."

"Fine, alright but be careful."

"Don't worry about me so much Christine."

Those last words and a grin from Matthew to his friend set off the fight and has the two sides launching at one another. Christine and Roger meet fists in the center while Matthew dances around mostly dodging Roger's cronies as they go after him. In his circuitous path though Matthew isn't watching where he is going until he feels his foot catch on something, tripping him. At this point he glances back and sees nothing but open air behind him and realizes he was tripping over the fence meant to keep people from getting too close to the cliff and falling. He opens his mouth in surprise as the boys he was fighting stop and shout in surprise. The fight between Roger and Christine halts as they see the peril Matthew is in and Christine attempts to lunge for Matthew. She's too far away though and doesn't come close. As his world seems to tilt and the edge of the cliff begins to block his view of the other students and his friend a lightly glowing ball of light appears before him before taking on the form of a small person.

"Mad..." His voice is lost but she begins to fly around him, encircling him and telling him to think happy thoughts.

Chanting the phrase over and over again, Matthew clenches his eyes shut. He tries to think of something that makes him happy before an image of Gilbert flashes through his mind. He feels the wind that had been whipping past him slow and eventually stop, but the pain he had been expecting never comes and Matthew slowly opens his eyes and blinks as he looks up to see he had fallen quite a ways from the top of the cliff, in fact from his perspective it looked like he had fallen nearly the whole distance to the ground. Confused he shifts and looks down to see himself hovering a foot from the ground. He was flying. Matthew can't help but grin widely at the thought. for a moment he wants to fly right back up the cliff and show everyone he was alright but then he thought about what, or rather who, had saved him. He couldn't expose the fairies, it would be terrible for them if everyone found out about them. Maybe he would tell Christine later, but right now he needed to think fast. He only had one option, let himself fall the rest of the way and fake having fallen the whole way. He can play it off as some miracle that he wasn't hurt very badly. Grimacing he does just that and just in time as students began to look over the cliff to see what had happened to him. He groaned for effect and some rushed down, Christine at the lead, to check on him and maybe some were calling an ambulance. More likely though was that everyone other than Christine would end up running off and acting like they hadn't seen anything, just to avoid getting in trouble. Oh man, Alfred was going to freak when he heard about this. Maybe Christine hadn't called for an ambulance yet.

"Matthew!"

Just on cue his one best friend runs up and kneels beside him. She sees him cringe, in what she thinks is pain but is really just him acting hurt in case someone else had followed her down in morbid curiosity or something.

"Oh god, Matthew, say something."

"Christine?"

"Hold on, I'll call an ambulance, just stay still Matt, you shouldn't move."

Matthew is finally able to determine that no one had followed Christine down to him and the faces peering over the cliff had vanished. Stiffly, he was slightly sore from having let himself drop a foot to the hard ground, Matthew managed to sit up and stop Christine from calling the ambulance.

"Christine, I'm fine I swear. Let's just get back to my place. I will explain this, I promise just can we go, please?"

Christine looks into her friend's eyes and nods. "Fine, but this had better be good or I'm dragging you to the hospital myself to be checked out."

Matthew just smiles and gets to his feet. He notices Madeline hovering near him and tries to nod his thanks to her discreetly. It seems to work as Christine isn't really paying that much attention, more surprised he was standing.

It didn't take the two long to make it to Matthew's house and Matthew lets them in. Upon entering they head for the stairs and while Matthew doesn't seem to pay any attention Christine looks into what must be the living room or something. It was a nice sized room with a fireplace on the far wall and a large entertainment system located on the wall opposite it. The sofa was one of a kind, it almost looked like two couches back to back and was 'L' shaped. She had seen the room yesterday when she walked past it to go to the Kitchen but what stopped her today was the two men sitting on the couch facing the fireplace and making out. Matthew must have noticed his friend wasn't following him up the stairs and came back down to see what was holding her up when he spotted his brother and Arthur on the couch making out.

Clearing his throat he grabs their attention. "Hey Al, Arthur, I'm home. And I brought Christine over again."

When Matthew first speaks up Arthur jolts and tries to push Alfred off of himself. Protesting as Alfred tries to insist Matthew's already seen this a hundred times. He stops though when Matthew mentions Christine being there and slowly unwinds himself from the Brit.

"Hey Christine, how is everything going?"

"Uh, fine."

She just barely manages to squeak the response out. Matthew rests a hand on her shoulder and begins to lead her away when he notices Madeline fly over to Arthur and begin to tell him what had happened, this only made him try to hurry up before Arthur's eyes widen.

"Matthew Jones-Williams. Get your arse over here this instant."

Cringing Matthew turns to see Arthur fuming and his brother staring in confusion.

"Its not that bad, eh? Just a little fall."

Arthur's generous eyebrows twitch. "Yes a little fall off a cliff. Now sit!"

Cowed, Matthew makes his way over to the couch and sits on it as Christine just stands in the doorway not sure what to do.

"You too young lady. This is about more than just Matthew's fall."

Christine looks utterly confused, wondering about how this guy knew so much about what had happened.

"Hey Artie, what's going on? What's this about Mattie falling off a cliff?"

"These two got in a fight after school today and Matthew ended up falling off the cliff behind the school."

"How'd you know that?" Christine stares in wide eyed disbelief that this man she was only just meeting knew so much about what had happened.

Meanwhile Alfred went into panic mode and began searching his brother over for injuries.

"Al, Alfred. Alfred stop! I'm fine, barely even bruised."

Alfred matches eyes with Matthew, who cringes away from the anger he sees brewing there. "Explanation, now!"

Matthew glances to Arthur who is standing with his arms crossed and a stern look on his face. he would have looked smug with himself if the situation hadn't been what it was.

"Uh, well Christine sort of got into a fight with Roger because he was being a jerk and uh, he may have threatened me. So she wanted to show him not to mess with her friends, right? So after school we went up to the top of the cliff behind the school where these sorts of fights always happen. Christine was outnumbered so I stood by her side to help. Um, Roger's friends came after me while she dealt with Roger and I ended up backing up to a downed part of the fence and tripping, then falling. It wasn't that big a deal."

Christine noticed he made it sound like he hadn't fallen over the cliff, just tripped and fallen on its edge. She noticed though that Arthur wasn't convinced.

"Then what happened Matthew, and don't try to sugar coat it like you just did, you went over the cliff and fell all the way down."

Alfred and Christine are looking confused between the two, Matthew just looks sheepish.

"I did, but I'm fine. I had help."

"Mattie, what happened, what kind of help?"

"Uh, well you know those fairies you always make fun of Arthur for seeing and talking to?"

Alfred nods, suddenly not so sure he wants to know the answer anymore.

"I, well I see them too. I just don't go out of my way like Arthur does to make everyone believe in them. Well one of them always seems to be following me around and she may have uh, doused me with fairy dust and helped me fly down to the ground. Er well I stopped about a foot from the bottom and then let myself drop the rest of the way so the kids watching wouldn't, you know, freak too much."

Alfred and Christine stare, unable to really wrap their heads around this new information.

"So, like uh, Peter Pan or something, right?"

Matthew nods to answer his friend's question. "Yeah. It was the first time I'd ever done that sort of thing, but it was kind of fun."

The adults though don't seem as amused.

"You know, I'm not arguing about whether they exist or not since this is just bizarre. Right now I'm more mad that you got into a fight, both of you, and that you would try to keep this from me. Christine, I'm calling your mother and telling her what happened." Matthew gets a slightly panicked look on his face. "Sans the part about Matthew falling off the cliff. Then Matthew I want you to get a bag packed and move into a guest room, you're grounded."

Matthew looks shocked, like he wants to protest but just hangs his head instead. Alfred keeps his promise about calling Christine's mother and when she arrives she scolds her daughter for picking fights before taking her home, also grounding her. Matthew packs a few things into a bag and moves into a guest room for the next few nights, or until Alfred calms down and lets him off the hook.

That night however, when Alfred and Arthur are alone in the American's room, Arthur seems to rub it in Alfred's face that he isn't crazy and fairies do exist. Alfred can't argue the point since evidence shows Arthur is right. Even if he hates to admit it.

Thanks for reading I hope you liked it please review.