AN: This story started as an effort to find explanations for the gaps in the TV show, to give it some historical accuracy, and establish a logical timeline. Readers are encouraged to send me their views and own questions which I will do my best to address in this story.

Also, please note that, in most cases, when history and canon don't fit, I will go with canon.

As a side note, because it will matter to this story, please remember that, in Spanish, the terms 'aunts' and 'uncles' include all cousins (second, third, etc) of one's parents, not only their brothers and sisters, and the term 'cousin' is used the same way.

As always, my gratitude goes to La Cuidadora for correcting this.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and make no money from my stories, but I do own the idea for this story, and I do not agree with it being copied anywhere else. Since this story has a special status, OCs can be used and so can the main ideas in it, but only in the way, they were intended here.

A new chapter of this story is to be published every Saturday.

Enjoy!

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California was hotter than even Madrid during the dry summers, but neither Sebastian, nor his father cared much about the heat that day. All they could think about was poor Juliana and the heir she was to give birth to, a month earlier than she should have, and with no midwife or doctor to assist her.

They could hear her cries even from outside the house, especially considering that none of the windows had yet been made, least of all installed. The young woman was lying on the hard wooden cot in one of the drafty, almost-finished rooms of their newly-built mansion, as a servant girl was doing her best to alleviate her sufferance.

Had they finished earlier, she could have given birth in a proper bed, on a comfortable mattress, but, at things stood, with the main house not yet completed, they hadn't had the time to start making proper furniture, and no commercial ship had set anchor in the nearby bay for months. There was nowhere to buy anything. All they had, they had to make, grow, fish, hunt or butcher themselves.

Besides them, only a couple other haciendados had settled in California at that point, both of them over 15 miles south of where the new De la Vega lands were, and also lacking enough men, their lives just as difficult.

There were the Indian tribes, but there was no way to communicate with them. Furthermore, not all of them were friendly to outsiders and they were still to learn their rules. Two of the men who had left Spain a year earlier and followed their masters to California had already succumbed to the braves when they mistakenly stumbled onto their Holy Ground. When one's entire party consisted of 18 people, including four young women and a teenager, the loss of two men impacted everyone's chances for survival in that strange new land.

Another loud scream reverberated through the house terrifying the men, who had af hard time even imagining what kind of pain had prompted Juliana to let out that sound. They imagined giving birth was, for a woman, much like receiving a musket wound in a battle was for a man. Just as painful, if not even worse. For many, such as Sebastian's own mother, it was also just as deadly.

Ten hours it had taken her already at that point, and the young Doña Juliana was exhausted. In the absence of a doctor or even a proper midwife, everybody was already afraid that the birth might end up killing the 21 year old.

"I need to do something!" Sebastian uttered as he suddenly exited through the still-door-less main entrance, heading for his horse.

"Where are you going? You should be here, with your wife!" His father, Don Eduardo Diego Geronimo de la Vega, shouted as he left for an unknown destination.

About two hours later his son returned with an Indian woman.

"What is that savage doing here?" Don Eduardo asked.

"She can help Juliana." His son explained as he walked inside, taking the woman to his wife.

A couple more hours passed, and, this time, Sebastian remained with his wife, holding her hand and encouraging her. The Indian woman prepared a tea and had her drink it, then started repeating a strange prayer over and over again as she assisted the birth.

ZZZ

"Twins?" Don Eduardo exclaimed as his son returned to him a while later, carrying two babies in his arms.

"Can you believe it?" He asked. "I have two sons!"

"Yes! Yes, indeed! Gracias a Dios! The first Spanish children to be born here, in this new land! It's a good sign! God smiles on us!" The don uttered as he took one of his grandchildren in his arms. "Juliana?"

"She's sleeping now. Antonia and the Indian woman are with her."

"And their names?"

"The firstborn will be Alfonso Eduardo, as we already discussed. He's the one you are just holding. A name meaning noble, brave and wealthy guardian should be only fitting. As for this little surprise in my arms, Juliana made me promise that our second son will be called Alejandro, after her father, and Sebastian after myself." The younger man replied, looking lovingly at the baby in his arms.

"I think that's a brilliant idea. Did I ever tell you 'Alejandro' means 'defender of the people'?"

"Several times! I also agreed to Juliana's wish because I know you love that name, Father!"

The older don smiled, then signed for his son to follow him outside.

"Alfonso and Alejandro!" He said as soon as they were in front of the hacienda, lowering his body to the ground to take a fist full of earth, then standing up again. "Welcome to the world! The New World! This house, we make for you, and for the children you will one day father. This land is your future and your legacy. May you thrive on it so that the De la Vega line would last for centuries to come!" The old man uttered as he used the dirt as sacred water to baptize the children, then placed a few crumbles on each of their tongues, allowing them to nibble on them.

Alfonso spit them out and started crying as soon as he felt them, turning completely red, yet Alejandro swallowed it with a content face, and fell asleep despite his brother's cries.

The two men exchanged an intrigued look and, from that day forward, there was no doubt in their minds that it would be Alejandro to one day take over the running of the hacienda.

ZZZ

The years passed, and the two boys grew as their parents' only children, their mother unable to have any more after them.

While they were rather different from each other, both in terms of looks, height and character, the boys were still very close and cooperated extremely well when it came to all sorts of mischiefs, from catching frogs to put in the housemaid's bed, to running away to explore a swamp, only to return covered in mud from head to toe.

Still, many times their parents thought they were as different as the Sun and the Moon.

Alfonso was usually calm, weighted his decisions carefully, and was very rational, unless his brother came up with some crazy idea he was more than eager to support. Alejandro was creative, impulsive and quite stubborn from an early age. Despite being the younger one, he was, however, the leader among the two.

In terms of looks, the firstborn was a bit taller than his brother and his hair, as well as his skin were lighter, taking mainly after his mother and grandfather on her side. The second-born was shorter and his hair was black, just like his father's. They were both handsome, each in his own way, intelligent and agile, and they both loved competing against each other, whether it was at running, climbing trees, or horse riding.

During those first eight years of their lives, the population of their hacienda grew as the vaqueros started marrying the young servant girls who had accompanied them, and had their own children. The population increase continued as more haciendados came to California, bringing their own people with them.

The first ones were mainly friends of the De la Vegas, and the other two dons, encouraged by the letters received from them. Just like Don Eduardo, they were last sons of noblemen, disinherited through the mere fact that they were born after several others. They were also educated, ambitious, hopeful and willing to start building their future in that new land, at a time when most of their peers had no clue as to where California was on a map.

Then, in 1769, in response to their letters asking for more provisions, and at the same time, mentioning the increasing number of British and Russian ships seen close to the Californian coast - a territory claimed by Spain but barely settled at the time - the Spanish King ordered for presidios, Franciscan Missions, and pueblos to be established throughout the territory. That decision vastly improved the lives of the first settlers, but also came at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of the natives.

By that time, the few haciendados living in the area which was to become Los Angeles a dozen years later were already rather organized, since they needed to count on each other to survive. Some, like Sebastian de la Vega, had even befriended and started trading with one or several Indian tribes of the area. Most of their commerce, however, was between them - consisting mainly of an exchange of goods - and with the merchant ships of various other nations which stopped near the coast for cheap supplies. With an abundance of various types of provisions at their disposal, however, they all soon saw their fortunes growing.

Unfortunately, the New World also came with its own set of perils.

Seeing their way of life compromised by the new arrivals and their animals, some of the Indians begun attacking the Spanish settlements. They were mostly unsuccessful, their bows and arrows hardly fit weapons to fight men armed with guns, but still caused some damages and usually left after stealing horses and cattle.

The De la Vega Hacienda was mostly spared as the attacks usually came from the southern tribes, but, even so, from time to time, some of the men working for the family were injured. That usually resulted in bad years as some of the crops could not be planted or harvested in time, and cattle and horses were lost as the repairs to the enclosures could not be made as fast as they were needed.

Then, there were the elements. The river flooded several times a year, and, during those weeks, all crops planted in its vicinity were compromised. Furthermore, as the water retreated, it sometimes left quicksand behind in the most unexpected places. A small boy died swallowed by the treacherous ground as his little sister ran to get help, and so did several cattle.

During the dry summers, the air sometimes got so hot that wildfires started out of nowhere. While mostly isolated, one year a fire devastated a large part of a nearby forest, making the air hardly breathable for several days, until the rains came and put it off, clearing the smoke and fumes. Unfortunately they also brought more flooding.

Slowly, though, the attacks stopped, as the Indians who refused to give up their way of life were driven further and further inland and the settlers became better and better at understanding the climate of the area and at limiting their losses, thus making sure that they would prosper.

ZZZ

When the twin boys were 10, just as the newest Californian settlers were building the first Presidios and Missions, their father, Sebastian, took them to Guadalajara for their studies. Their mother had done her best in terms of giving them an education, but was becoming overwhelmed, both in terms of knowledge she had to share and in terms of time to do it.

The town, with over two centuries of history at the time, had one of the best schools in New Spain. Most importantly, though, Don Nicolas, the son of Doña Juliana's oldest brother, had just moved there about a year earlier. Since the don and his wife were recently-married and yet childless, he was more than happy to open his hacienda to his two younger cousins and their parents, who insisted on accompanying them.

For Alejandro and Alfonso, Guadalajara seemed like a paradise full of wonders, neither of them having ever before seen any town, least of all one so big and so populated. Their parents had told them about the cities of Spain. They had even recounted for them the impressions the towns they crossed on their way to California had made on them. But Guadalajara was bigger and more impressive than the two boys had imagined in their wildest dreams.

However, while fascinated and avid to see and learn as much as they could about that strange new world opening before their eyes, Alfonso and Alejandro also had some trouble getting accustomed to their new lives there and the rules of living there. Don Sebastian and Doña Juliana thus remained with them for about three months, hoping to make their adaptation easier. Eventually, though, they decided it was time to return home.

The couple did not leave empty-handed, nevertheless, but with an entire shipment of furniture, art works, fine fabrics, vines, seeds and some of the finest Andalusian horses in the entire New Spain, only matched by the ones Sebastian's father had brought with him to California. The young don was determined to use part of the bounty for the hacienda, and sell about a half to the other dons, knowing it would bring a rather significant profit.

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AN: So? What do you think so far? Do let me know! Your ideas and questions might inspire me to give you a better story.