Well hello! Welcome to Chapter One of the second ark of New Beginnings.It's been a good ride with all of you guys, and I can't wait to drill out all of these new chapters for you to read! Enjoy!

Thisisalinebro

New Beginnings

Chapter One

2nd Ark

A Hetalia Fanfic by London-Calling-Flash-Chimes

Thisisalinebro

"Alright, students. Before we get to your playtime, I have something to announce!" Ms. Mathews said as she clapped her hands, catching the attention of every student in the class.

Four year old Arthur Kirkland looked over at his teacher, who looked extremely nervous. He wanted to ask why, but he knew he wouldn't get a straight answer from her. He would just have to wait, he figured.

Once the students were huddled around the front of the class, Ms. Mathews came from the front door, holding the hand of a young boy.

The entire class gasped as they saw the new person. He was a short, brunette-haired boy with bright amber eyes. He also wore a square pair of glasses, and to Arthur, he had an odd resemblance to his older brother, Alfred.

"Class, I would like you to meet our newest student, Roger Hawthorne. Roger, could you wave to the class?" Ms. Mathews whispered the last part to Roger, who slowly waved to the class as they said hello to him.

Suddenly, Francis spoke up. "Can Roger speak, Ms. Mathews?"

"Uh…He can't. No one currently knows why." Ms. Mathews replied slowly.

The class soon erupted into a buzz of questions, but Roger just hid his face in his hands. Arthur, in the middle of the mass of questions, frowned at the sight of the frightened boy.

Arthur got up from where he sat, and slowly approached Roger, so as not to startle him. He had learned that from taking care of the classroom rabbits, Flopsy and Cottontail.

"H-Hello. I'm Arthur. And you're Roger, am I correct? It's very nice to meet you." Arthur mumbled, holding out his hand.

Roger peeked out from behind his cubby fingers, and blushed slightly. He nodded back to Arthur in recognition, and removed his fingers from his face to shake hands with him.

"You two seem to be doing well, Arthur, Roger," Ms. Mathews said as she popped up from behind Arthur. "Why don't you be Roger's guide, Arthur? You could show him around, tell him how things work. Does that sound alright?"

"I guess so, if Roger doesn't mind, of course." Arthur answered, looking over to Roger with a nervous look, waiting for a definite answer.

Roger shrugged, and looked at Arthur willingly. And that was set, much to the displeasure of the other students in the class.

After the students were settled down, and had gone off to their daily playtime routine, Arthur led Roger to the cabinets where the teacher kept the paper and stuff for the various crafts that the class would make, and he handed Roger a few pieces of paper and a sharpened pencil.

"You can use these to tell me anything, and if you can't write, you can also draw it out too!" Arthur said cheerfully as he closed the drawer and looked over at the boy, who was scribbling away on the paper.

"How old are you, Arthur?" The first piece of paper asked, written in messy writing.

"Oh, I'm four!" he said, holding up four fingers. "How old are you?"

He was answered by the rising of five fingers. Arthur's eyes widened, but he held his composure. "Okay, you sure are older than me, you know!"

"What is your favorite animal?"

"I love rabbits! They're so cute! You haven't met the class rabbits, have you?"

Roger shook his head, which led to him being dragged by Arthur out across the room to the large cage that held the two English rabbits, Flopsy and Cottontail. He smiled as he slowly petted the soft fur of Flopsy, who seemed to enjoy the rub as she kept twitching her nose.

"Uh, R-Roger? Why can't you…Talk? Did something happen to your voice? Was it taken?" Arthur asked out of curiosity.

"I don't know. Mommy says someone took it away."

"I could try to get it back! I'm sure it's a nice voice, isn't it?" Arthur said, looking earnestly at Roger.

"Don't, Arthur. Doctor says it won't come back." Roger frowned as he wrote.

"Sure it will! I mean, it might take a while, but I'll make it work!"

Roger glared at Arthur, who finally sighed and lead him to the playhouse in the middle of the room, where he had hidden from Ms. Mathews and Cody on the first day. It was unoccupied when they entered.

"You can usually count on this place being empty, I don't really know why. But it makes a great place to hide from people! And to nap if you missed out on naptime or something like that." Arthur said, pointing to the tiny cot-like bed in the corner.

Roger sat down in the small chair next to the dinner table, and began to madly draw on a piece of paper, ignoring all that was around him.

Arthur sat down across from him, placing his chin in his hands, pondering over a way to get Roger's voice back. He came up as blank as Roger's paper had been only minutes before. When he laid eyes on the paper, there was a drawing of a man in a bright white toga and wing. In his hand, was a wand with a star on the tip. And he had what could've been light hair with a halo hovering above. It was Britannia Angel.

"H-How did you know what Britannia looked like?" Arthur gasped.

"I saw him outside of the house here. I had a feeling you knew him."

"Yeah…He's one of my imaginary friends."

Roger nodded in understanding, and gave a small grin. "Why do you have imaginary friends? Don't you have friends?"

"I do have friends. There's Mathias, Gilbert, Allistor who's in another class, and I think there might be Cody too…but he's unsure."

"Okay, sorry about that."

"Did you go to playschool before you lost your voice? Did you have friends?" Arthur asked.

"No. But I had friends in the hospital. Like Danny, Mary, Abigail, and Callie. They were almost like me, well, they couldn't talk like everyone else. We used pictures and words, like I am now."

"Wow, Roger. Could I meet them someday?"

"I dunno. I think you could, if you had permission."

"Maybe I will, but I'll halfta ask Alfred first, cause he'd the one to take me there! You could go too, Roger!"Arthur said cheerfully.

A few hours later….

Outside on the playground, Arthur and Roger raced each other to the bench where Arthur's friends usually sat to wait for their parents, and when they got there, they noticed that an older man was already sitting there.

"Hey, you're sitting on our bench!" Arthur said, climbing on beside the man, Roger following behind.

"I am very sorry. I was just waiting for my grandson, Arthur Kirkland. Do you know him?" he said, adjusting his glasses over his hazel eyes.

"H-Hey! I don't know you? How do you know my name? Do you have proof of knowing me?" Arthur asked, eyes beginning to narrow.

The man dug out his brown leather wallet out of his front pocket and flipped it open. A gallery of pictures fell out, and they all were people Arthur was somewhat familiar with. There were a lot of pictures with Alfred when he was probably a preteen. The last one though, was the old man holding a laughing baby, Arthur.

"O-Oh. I'm sorry, I was just suspicious Granpa? But, could you tell me why you're here now? Did Alfred send you here to get me?"

"Well, I just came back from Great Britain, and only recently heard of what happened to your parents, and I decided to pay you a visit, see how you were. Alfred told me straight off that you two didn't need help, but that he was very glad to see me," Granpa chuckled, glancing at some pictures of Alfred at an amusement park. "He also said that you started to show off your rebel side like I had a long time ago. Do you know I had a somewhat successful rock band in Great Britain?"

"Really? What were they called? Did you sing like Mick Jagger or something? I didn't know my Granpa was a rock star, Roger!" Arthur said the last part to Roger, who sat on Granpa's other side, eyes wide.

"Yes, they were called "Huckleberry Blood". I did keyboards, and a little bit of drums."

"Wow, could you teach me keyboard someday?"

"Possibly. But for now, I believe it's time to go back to Alfred's classroom." Granpa said, sitting up from the bench, offering his wrinkled hand to Arthur.

"Allrighty, bye-bye Roger!" Arthur said as he took Granpa's hand, being led away.

Roger waved sadly as Arthur disappeared between the playschool and middle school buildings.

"Can Roger talk, Arthur?" Granpa asked, looking down at him.

"No, and no one knows why. But I want to help him get his voice back! He doesn't want me to try, but I'm gonna anyway!"

Granpa nodded curtly, and opened the door into the school, where Arthur was jumped by his friend, Allistor.

"Hey, eye-brows! Didja like the new student everyone was talking about?" Allistor asked, reeking of apple juice which he so commonly drank, and spilled.

"He was pretty cool. And I'm gonna try to get his voice back!" Arthur murmured, trying to pry off his friend.

"Ooh! Do you like him?"

"Not like that! He's my friend! How could I do that to a friend?!" He hissed, frowning in disapproval.

"Just asking! Go back to Mr. Jonny!" Allistor laughed, hopping off of him.

"It's Mr. Jones, you twit!"

Arthur then promptly began to walk down the hall, humming 'It's a Small World' just to annoy Allistor.

"You're mean!" Allistor yelled at Arthur's back as it disappeared around a corner, Granpa following behind.

"That was a bit much, don't you think, Arthur?" Granpa asked as he caught up to Arthur, who was opening the door to Alfred's classroom.

"No, it was just an argument. He'll be okay tomorrow."

At the other end of the room, sat Alfred at his desk, leaning back in his rolling chair, drinking a cup of coffee.

"Alfred! Do you have some tea ready for me?" Arthur asked as he ran over to Alfred's desk.

"Yeah, here you go, Artie. How was playschool today?" Alfred said as he handed over the cup of Lady Grey to Arthur, who sat in a chair and sipped the tea.

"It was pretty good. There was a new student today. His name is Roger and he's mute." Arthur said calmly, yawning.

"Oh really now? How does he speak to people?" Alfred looked at Arthur with curious eyes.

"Roger uses paper and pencil. And he's a great drawer! But I want to hear his voice, for I'm sure it's good too."

"That's a lot to hope for, Arthur. Can he even make sounds with his mouth?"

"I…Dunno. I'll try to find out tomorrow! But I'm gonna make it work! Cause if I can talk, he can too!"

After that was a long silence filled with the ungraceful slurps of Alfred finishing up his dark black coffee. Finally, Arthur sat up in his chair.

"Granpa! Aren't you going to go home?" he asked, turning to look at Granpa, who was at the doorway, casually reading a book.

"You want me gone that badly? I was just about to leave! But I'll be around town for a couple months." Granpa replied, closing the book and opening the door out.

"I suppose I'll see you next Thursday, Gramps." Alfred said, looking away from him and out a window.

"Bye Granpa! See you soon!" Arthur said cheerfully, waving as Granpa began to step out of the door.

"All right, I'll see you sometime, Alfie, Artie!" Granpa replied, closing the door behind him, leaving Alfred and Arthur alone.

"I wish he wouldn't call me that stupid name anymore." Alfred murmured, looking back at Arthur, who was grinning as he drank his tea.

"But it's so funny! I like Granpa, he's nice."

"I figured you would. He appears that way, but he isn't like that around adults. He'll con and lie his way to what he wants. I don't trust him around you."

"Oh….Okay. Can we go outside on the playground? I didn't get to play very much today, but it wasn't because I got in trouble, it was because of Roger!" Arthur said, setting his nearly empty cup on Alfred's desk and slipping out of his chair.

"All right, I suppose we can go out this evening, but not for very long, we need to go to the store tonight so we can pick up some things…." Alfred sighed, dragging off on the last part of his sentence.

"We just went to the store on Friday! Did you forget something?"

"Well, I took up an offer…To take care of another child Mom had."

"Do you mean…I'm a big brother now?!" Arthur gasped, eyes widened to the size of moons.

"Yep, and you will have a little brother. I also had enough time to get some weekend help from your teacher, so you might be able to see Gilbert on the weekends."

"When am I gonna get to see him? What's his name? Is he shrieky?"

"You'll see him in three days, his name is Soren, and I myself haven't met him, you know that I don't visit the mental center very much."

"Is Mummy and Daddy all right?"

"Yeah, the nurse said that they're doing okay, aside from Ma having Soren, and if I'm right, you might be able to meet them yourself for once."

(To Be Continued…)