Hello, all my lovely readers! I would just like to take the time to apologize for my bitchiness in my Author's Notes for the last chapter. Y'see, I was afraid I had seriously injured my ankle – it was so bad that I couldn't move it and could barely walk. But everything's all better now. The only problem is that now I'm probably gonna be PMSing (my period should be starting soon, I think, but I don't know for sure because it's never been that regular). It doesn't really help that I'm pretty tired, too. But I will do my best. Thank you!

Oh, and remember how I said at the end of the last chapter that this chapter was probably gonna be from Arthur/Alice's point-of-view? Well, I decided to actually try that. I think it'd be fun. But it'll probably be third-person (I write the beginning Author's Note before I start writing the chapter, so sometimes what's in the Author's Note is completely different from what is actually written.)

And, guess what? I got accepted into UCONN, my third-choice school. It's the only one I've heard back from so far. I will let you know if I hear anything else, okay?

DISCLAIMER: Again, I own nothing used in this story. I probably don't even own the idea … I'm pretty sure I've seen something sort of like this before.

Finally, this chapter is dedicated to those of you lovely readers who correctly answered my question: Cupcakinator and Yancha Kitsune. Another person answered the question half-right: BloodsuckerHater.

"Alfred…?"

The stupid frog just couldn't keep his mouth shut, could he? Alice grinded her teeth. Lexi looked so confused. Was there any way she could salvage the situation, keep Lexi in the dark for even a little bit longer?

Francis was looking at Alice now, too. "L'Angleterre, what is going on? I have barely seen you at all these past couple weeks." He walked up to Alice and nuzzled his nose into her neck.

Alice blushed and pushed Francis away. Then she whispered, "Stupid git! There was a reason for that!"

Francis just ignored her. "And why is l'Amerique so little? And he looks like une fille in those clothes… Did one of your spells backfire again?"

Alice blushed even harder. "Of course not! I'm not that stupid." Then she muttered under her breath, "The spell was meant for you, anyways."

Francis tilted his head to the side. "What was that, ma chere? Did you say something?"

Alice, whose face could not get any redder, she was sure, nevertheless felt her face heat up again. "N-no…"

Francis walked forward a bit and tilted Alice's face towards his. "Am I making you nervous, l'Angleterre?"

Alice shoved Francis' hand away. "Stop that. You're scaring her."

Lexi stepped closer to Alice. "Mama, who is this? How does he know you? And why does he keep callin' you 'Long-gel-tare' (1)?"

Alice took Lexi's hand in hers gently. "It's nothing to worry about, poppet. This is … the brother of one of the friends I was staying with. His name is Francis." Here, she glared at him to keep quiet, hoping that Lexi wouldn't notice.

But, of course, Lexi's face was tilted up towards Alice's, so she saw her 'mother's' expression. "Are you mad at him, Mama? What did he do?" She looked at Francis, who was looking at Alice in confusion, and then looked back at Alice.

Alice blushed. "I'm not mad at him, honey. He didn't do anything." She patted Lexi's hair. "I like your new haircut. A-are we ready to go?"

Lexi shook her head. "Vicky still needs to get her hair cut. I convinced her to get her hair cut to shoulder-length. Wouldn't she look pretty like that, Mama?"

Alice nodded distractedly. "I suppose she would. But then we're leaving, alright?"

Lexi nodded and skipped back to her seat, so she could keep talking to Lizzie.

Francis still just stood there, arms crossed over his chest. "I demand to know what is going on, Alice. I will not take 'no' for an answer."

Alice quirked an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be working, frog?"

Francis frowned and snapped his fingers. Another girl, this one with long, black hair tied up in a ponytail, ran up and took over on Victoria's haircut. Then he smiled at Alice.

Alice grinded her teeth again. "Fine. I'll tell you. But can we please do this somewhere a little more … private? I don't need the entire salon hearing about this."

Francis grinned and pointed to a door marked "Break Room". "In here. Everyone's working right now, and lunch doesn't start for another few hours." Alice walked into the room, and Francis followed, closing the door after them. "Now talk. Don't leave anything out."

Alice sighed. "It's a long story. You know how you always manage to sneak into my England house without my permission?" Francis nodded. "Well, I perfected a spell that I was going to use against you the next time you did – I set a trap and everything."

"And what was this spell supposed to do?" Francis asked.

Alice blushed. "Turn back your biological clock to give you the appearance of a ten-year-old. Then block your ability to change genders, leaving you as a girl. For you, that means you would be stuck in the body of a girl for the next sixteen years. I was planning on raising you to have proper manners, so that maybe you would stop trespassing into my territory after you returned to normal.

"But it backfired on me – Alfred snuck into my house after I had set the trap, and he was hit by the spell instead of you. For a week, I raised her – in this form, her name is Lexi – at our old house on the Canadian-American border, but then, two days ago now, she got a terrible fever. It kept rising higher and higher, and I didn't know what to do, so we took her to the hospital. They took some brain scans, to make sure she was alright once they got her fever down, but she seems to have lost all memory and sense of who she really is – she honestly believes her real name is Alexandra Marie Kirkland, and she has no inkling of her status as a Nation.

"Once we got back to the house, though, she started 'remembering' things that never happened – she 'remembered' having a golden retriever named Daisy, and she 'remembered' taking piano lessons. I'm pretty sure that's a side effect of the spell, but I'm not completely sure."

Once it seemed like Alice had told all she was going to tell, Francis spoke. "And … how do Mathieu and Victoire fit into this? And why was I not informed?" He actually looked rather … hurt by this.

Alice started explaining once again: "I called Matthew within two hours of Lexi's transformation, so that he could help me. Then, we didn't want Lexi to be lonely, so he called Victoria in so she could have a playmate."

Francis stepped a little closer to Alice. "And what does Lexi think is happening? She called you 'Mama' earlier, but even she must be able to tell that you are simply too young to be her biological mother. Where does she think her 'real' family is?" He stroked Alice's cheek.

Alice blushed. "Actually, she thinks I am her real family. The way I told it, she believes that our 'biological' parents are dead, and that she was raised by an aunt and uncle. I am her older sister, who adopted her after the aunt and uncle's 'disappearance', and Matthew and Alfred are her older brothers. Victoria is her cousin. She believes that Alfred is off serving overseas."

Francis chuckled. "One big, messed-up, happy family. And … where do I fit into all of this?" He stepped closer once again.

Alice scoffed. "You were actually to have no part in this. What the hell are you doing around here? And what are Hungary and Vietnam doing here? They serve no purpose in this!"

Francis shrugged. "I have always worked here, ma cherie. I wanted to keep a close eye on Matthew and Alfred, and I could not do that from Europe. So from time to time, I 'visit some friends' over here. I was growing concerned because I had not seen either Alfred or Matthew, and I was getting ready to go visit each of their houses, to try to figure out what was going on. But you saved me a trip."

By this point, Francis was almost on top of Alice. He leaned forward, and their lips met. Without even meaning to, Alice responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Francis' tongue touched her lips, and she granted it entrance. She could feel his arms going around her waist, touching her butt, and then moving up under her shirt to start unhooking her bra when suddenly…

The door opened, and there was a gasp. "Mama, what are you doing?"

Ooh, another cliffhanger. You guys must hate me. I'd like to apologize for the long wait… I never actually did get those 3-5 right answers – the last time I checked, there were only 2. But I can't wait any longer to post this.

To save space, the part of the Author's Note that was going to be about me and my sister's latest game of Sims3 is going to be in her LiveJournal account. There's a link to it on my profile. She's gonna be the one writing it, though, so I'm not sure how often I'll be mentioned in there…

I already have a basic idea of where this story's headed. Just to let you know, I ship USUK over FrUK, but I sincerely doubt there will be any USUK in this story. There might be USUK at the very end (after Alfred's back in his normal body), but it would be just really, really sick and wrong to have it before then (you know, since Lexi sincerely believes that Alice is her biological older sister and adopted mother and all… Yes, I know the double standard about USUK and this, but Alfred and Arthur are not really biologically related at all, so it's okay, right?)

Hint for what the future may hold: Sometimes I also ship RusAm… And Arthur is a girl in this story, so technically it would be possible for her to get pregnant, right? (Sorry, but I don't particularly like mpreg. This is part of the reason why I changed the story to make Arthur turn into Alice.) ;) Hope I didn't give too much away, but you had to know there was a possibility, right?

Oh, and just to let you know, the above information may or may not actually be used. It all depends on how I'm feeling at any given moment.

Finally, NOTES:

(1) 'Long-gel-tare' – This is a horrible and absolute mispronunciation of 'l'Angleterre'. Lexi, at this point in the story, has little to no knowledge of the French language. She was also not that close to Alice and Francis when he called her that, so she thinks that's what she heard.

And TRANSLATIONS:

L'Angleterre – French for "England"

git – British slang for "idiot"

L'Amerique – French for "America"

une fille – French for "a girl"

ma chere – French for "my dear" – This is the correct way to refer to a female. You wouldn't believe the number of people on this site who use the above phrase to refer to a male. To call a male "my dear" in French, you use mon cher. There are also an unbelievable number of people who either use "ma cher" or "mon chere" for either sex. This is mixing up the two – you use 'ma' only when referring to a feminine noun and 'mon' only when referring to a masculine noun (or a feminine noun beginning with a vowel, for pronunciation reasons). Sorry, but this is a problem that really irks me, since I studied French for 3 years straight.

poppet – a term of endearment

Mathieu – French for "Matthew"

Victoire – French for "Victoria"

ma cherie – see above note for "ma chere" – it means essentially the same thing.