A/N: I called Kumajirou Nanuq because I've seen lots of people doing that and I really like it, it makes a thousand times more sense. Someone asked about the War of 1812: I didn't put it in because it wouldn't have been a big deal. Alfred genuinely thinks he is saving Mathieu, Mathieu Did Not Ask, Alfred suddenly keeps finding arbitrary reasons to keep the fighting minimal and puts like, no effort into it. It would have been an easily resolved misunderstanding between them, but then after that America and England fight because of poor communication skills and leftover resentment.
Edit: Added a section. It's the second one.
Alfred stumbled into the cabin with a hollowed look on his face, collapsing into a chair.
"I did it," he said. "I killed him."
Mathieu hesitated. After all this time… It would be important to proceed with caution. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he said confusedly. It wasn't the question that was puzzling, it was his own answer.
He had just killed a man. He was only sixteen, and he had just killed a man—a kid—who was arguably a part of himself. Yet he was doing fine. Wasn't killing someone supposed to eat you up inside? The only problem Alfred had with what just happened was that he knew he was supposed to feel guilty, but he just didn't. He had no sympathy for the Southerner.
There were so many things Mathieu could say to that. Almost none of them were things he was willing to give voice to.
"Can we go to Canada now?" Alfred asked.
Mathieu had never been so relieved in his life.
"Over here!" a worker called, beckoning them to the edge of the woods just before the cliffside. There hung the corpse—a few days old, stinking, and with a trail of dried blood dripping from his chest all the way to his chin.
Cassandra Berkley gave a sputtering sigh of exasperation.
"Idiot," she said coldly. "Why couldn't he have just followed our original plan? Then it wouldn't have mattered if he won or not. Now we have to start all over."
"We were getting so close, too," her partner added mournfully. "Riches beyond our wildest dreams. All gone now. Headquarters will be mad."
"They're always mad," she dismissed her statement. "We just need to figure out a way to spin this."
Other workers cut the rope that was holding the corpse upside down from the tree. They quickly covered it with a blanket, whisking it away.
Consider it a donation to science, if you will.
"Ah! I've got it," her partner's eyes sparkled. "Now they have no reason to be afraid. They're completely unaware they're being hunted. Their guards will be down."
She watched smugly as the team sterilized the scene, removing evidence through careful combing and then cataloging it.
"They will never see us coming."
They took the train, as a wagon trail was clearly not an option this time. Thank goodness for that new transcontinental railroad. It was saving lives, and making the different states much more involved with each other and connected.
They settled down in Upper Canada rather than Lower, as Alfred refused to live any place that made a point of distinguishing itself as southern, and therefore separate.
He later regretted that, as very few people in Quebec spoke English, and not a single one of them spoke French the way that he did. His Cajun dialect had come back full force, and while Mathieu was used to the difference, others were not. It was pronounced enough to cause so many misunderstandings that he may as well have been a beginner to the language. People were always shocked when he insisted that he had spoken French for years and was fluent, just in a different dialect.
No one believed him, he could tell.
But it didn't really matter. They rarely ran into people, living in a more remote and secluded area. Roughing it at the edge of the arctic, only going into the nearest town once every few months for supplies. They weren't going to draw attention to themselves this time. No one was going to die this time. They were taking precautions.
Mathieu sat cross-legged in front of a hole in the ice, huddled up in a fur-lined coat that dwarfed him. His fishing line bobbed, and he reeled in the catch, dropping it into a crate of ice beside him before adding fresh bait to the hook.
This was his primary chore, the one that took the most time out his day. Alfred didn't have the patience for it, so he got to clean and hunt when possible.
The running joke was that if their diet had any more fish in it, it would be all they ate. They were constantly trying to find creative ways to prepare it. The day they got sick of fish was the day all food became tasteless.
When he turned around to put another fish in the box, there was a baby polar bear pawing through it.
"Whoa!" he leapt away, scanning his surroundings. Where there was a baby, the mother wouldn't be far behind. But he didn't see anything.
"Hey little guy," Mathieu said to the cub. "Why don't you get away from my fish there? That was gonna be dinner. I sorta need it."
The cub took no notice of him, digging into a large fish and smearing blood and guts across his fur. Mathieu didn't want to force him away from it; if the cub cried, his mother would come running. And he wasn't exactly keen on confronting a protective mother bear.
He crouched down to make himself seem smaller, less intimidating. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began easing the crate away from him. The cub let out a small whine of protest, shuffling closer to get back to his meal.
"Okay, how about this," Mathieu offered. "You can keep the fish you are already eating, so long as you don't touch any of the others."
He lifted the half-chewed fish out of the box, the bear's nubbin teeth still attached, and set it on the snow. The cub continued gnawing on it contentedly as if nothing had happened. Mathieu dragged the box away to where it was in his line of sight but out of the bear's reach.
A few minutes later, the cub started nuzzling his arm, whimpering.
"I'm not giving you any more food," he said. "Your parents will be along any second. Ask them to spoil you."
But looking out across the horizon, there was no other signs of life as far as Mathieu could see. Was the cub an orphan? Where were its parents? It wouldn't survive long without someone to take care of it.
Its parents hadn't come to collect it even by the time he was packing up his fishing gear. Having nowhere else to be, the polar bear followed him across the lake.
"No no no no no. You cannot follow me home. I have to draw the line somewhere," he looked the little bear firmly in the eyes and said, "Stay."
The bear sat down in the snow.
"Good boy," Mathieu nodded, continuing on his way.
The cub immediately started following him again.
This process was repeated five more times before he gave up and let the cub follow him. He noticed it was limping, hopping from one paw to the next, never resting on any of them.
Oh. It wasn't limping. Its little feet were cold.
He hadn't known polar bears' feet could get cold. Weren't they designed specifically to prevent that?
Sighing with exasperation, he gave in and picked up the little bear to carry. The bear nuzzled into his coat, cooing happily.
"You're annoying," he told the little thing. He planted a light kiss on top of its head.
Once at the cabin, the bear managed to weasel his way inside and couldn't be persuaded to leave. He even conned him out of another fish before curling up for a nap in front the fireplace.
Mathieu decided his name was Nanuq.
Alfred stomped the snow off his boots and dumped a bundle of freshly-chopped wood into the box next to the fireplace. Something shifted in the corner of his eye, and he did a double-take.
"Mattie!" he called. "There is a polar bear in our livingroom!"
He came rushing out of the kitchen, gutting knife still in hand. "Shhh, you're gonna wake him up!"
"Why is there a polar bear in the livingroom?" he asked, much quieter.
"Because he's an orphan and it's cold outside," he explained. "Look, it's just until winter ends. Then he'll be big enough to take care of himself, and there will be plenty of food outside."
"Okay," Alfred shrugged. "So what's the fuzzy buddy's name?"
"Nanuq, and he's already had dinner, don't let him trick you."
Everything was going great. For once, things were really and truly peaceful. Nothing bad was going on.
Both boys were in a growth spurt again, but it was less extreme than last time. They aged a whopping two whole years. In recent decades, it seemed like they had been aging even slower than before, as if it was leveling out or something.
Mathieu certainly hoped that wasn't the case. He'll be damned if he's supposed to spend the rest of eternity as a teenager. Alfred, however, seemed perfectly content with never growing up.
In only a few years, Canada was granted independence. Mathieu and Alfred celebrated like they had for American independence. They had a huge snowball fight that lasted until their fingers were numb and their lips were blue, and even managed to get all the ingredients together to bake a cake, with frosting and everything.
Apparently they hadn't had that since well before they left Illinois. Funny, they hadn't even noticed until now. Everything had just been so busy.
Within a decade, Canada grew from small, little-known colony to a full-fledged nation with province after province being added. It became a full country almost overnight, and didn't have to shed a drop of blood to do it. Peacefully independent. A revolutionary concept.
All Canada did was ask politely, yet that was far bolder than America had been in the beginning. America had spent years and years campaigning for more rights and being shot down and ignored before even considering independence. They had avoided it and skirted the issue for as long as they could hold out.
Canada was straightforward, blunt. Cut right to the chase. They would like their independence now, if you please.
Britain wasted no time in recognizing the similarities, and the more dangerous differences. They hastily granted Canada's request, declaring themselves to be officially done with anything to do with North America.
All the numerous territories created in the American Civil War went about becoming states, and the ones that seceded were readmitted. They were absolved of all guilt, and even the highest ranking Confederates escaped punishment for treason.
Usually, the Vice President doesn't matter at all. Unless, say, President Lincoln were to be assassinated only five days after the war. Then the Vice President, a pro-slavery southerner, would be in charge of the country and he could veto whatever reconstruction bills he wanted to veto.
Amendments passed. A loophole in phrasing. Slavery by another name. A war hundreds of years in the making had changed nothing beneath the surface.
But pretty much everyone who didn't actually live in the south and see it firsthand was unaware. The news of widespread government corruption certainly never reached Alfred and Mathieu in remote Quebec.
Everything was going great.
Just great.
"Maaaattie!" Alfred made sure not to let his eyes off the shifty little polar bear in front of him.
"What?" he peered into the room.
"Your creepy weirdo bear talked to me!"
Mathieu rolled his eyes and turned to leave.
"No, I'm serious! He told me to scooch over on the couch and give him more room! He spoke!"
In actuality, Nanuq's wording had been a bit more crude. Move your fat *ss over, I wanna nap here.
Mathieu stared at him. He actually seemed serious. He really thought that a polar bear had opened his mouth and spoken.
Understanding dawned.
"Ohhh, I see what happened. Alfred, I've told you this before, you can't just put any old plant into a fire and burn it. Some of them emit smoke that has very potent medicinal effects—"
"I am not hallucinating! The bear. Can. Talk!"
"Bears cannot talk. You cannot win this argument. You need to go to bed and sleep off the effects, you should be fine in a few hours."
He stomped his foot. "No they won't, because there are no 'effects' in the first place! Nanuq can talk! Just look at his smug little face!"
Mathieu gripped his arm, resorting to dragging him off to his room. "Come on. You need sleep."
As they passed by him, Nanuq snorted and muttered under his breath, "Loser."
"There! He did it again! Please tell me you heard him!"
He paused. He might have heard Alfred being called a loser. That might have just been his own thoughts, though.
"Nanuq," he said sweetly. "Can you talk?"
"Of course," he replied. Duh. How had they not known?
"Ha! I told you so!" Alfred gloated, quite pleased with himself.
"We have a talking bear," he said simply, silencing him, albeit temporarily.
"Why do the weird things always happen to us?"
Everything had been going great.
It didn't stay that way.
Britain gave Germany an ultimatum that they rejected. War was declared. If England was going, then Canada had to, too.
There was no draft. The Minister of Militia—Sam Hughes—asked for 25,000 volunteers to go train at a camp near Quebec, and he got 33,000.
The Canadians were itching to go to war, and jumping at the chance to volunteer. They may not have had a choice in whether or not they went to war, but they certainly weren't doing it grudgingly.
Mathieu wanted to sign up.
"The people of Europe need all the help they can get. So many countries are involved; it's bound to get brutal. Some are saying it already is."
"So? Let the Europeans tear each other to shreds! It's their problem. Mattie, there's no reason to get yourself killed for a war you have no stake in."
"I do have a stake in it. My stake is that I want it to end as soon as possible so that less people have to die."
"You don't have to die!"
"I can't die. No matter how bad I get hurt, I'll always heal. The only thing that's going to happen is I'm going to save some Canadian lives. I can take the really bad risks so they don't have to, because it doesn't matter for me."
"You don't know that for sure!" Alfred screamed. "Mathieu. I would kill for you—heck, I have killed for you. Can't you live for me?"
That was it.
"Did it ever occur to you that that was the last thing I would ever want?! Having someone murdered in my name?! I'm a f*cking doctor, Alfred, I save lives, not take them!" he exploded.
Alfred stilled.
"You didn't have to kill that man. Timing or not, it was just words, I could have taken it," he continued more calmly.
"You shouldn't have to. You have more honor than that. You shouldn't have to put up with that kind of disrespect."
Mathieu pursed his lips. Alfred's sense of honor was going to get him killed one day. That, or his pride.
"Europe needs a hero. I'm going to do my part. It's not much, but they need all the help they can get," he said.
"Mattie…"
"Take care of Nanuq."