A/N: I wrote this one up in an hour. As you can see I'm updating those fics I feel like. And the chapters of this one a nice and short. So here's the debut of Jacques and Heidi. I feel like everyone I've created have some sort of troubled past...

21. Heidi of the Alps

Jacques Eberlein was… young. Too young in some opinion. Yet he had eyes of an old man. No one knew what had happened to him and he never talked about it. Maybe he had seen someone bein shot in front of his eyes or then he'd had abusive parents. Maybe he met a child molester or just had merely lack of sleep. In any case he never talked about it. He had no friends. Only some family. Not in Switzerland where he lived, in Zürich, but in Germany. His second cousins Friedrich and Karin and their parents. Jacques liked them. They were so carefree, even Friedrich who now had some strange layer of darkness hanging on his shoulders. Like he'd lost something.

But right now Jacques longed for a family. A proper one. He was almost certified genius. He spoke German, French, Italian, English… He could count even the hardest equations in his head in mere seconds and had read about every book the world has to offer (that was of course a lie but the comparison was the point)… But that didn't really make him any friends. There were a few fellows in high school but they were already in some top universities. Jacques… preferred playing the viola and make duettos via webcam with Friedrich. He liked long walks around the city he currently resided in, Buchs. People were telling him it was waste of his talents but wasn't happiness in life more important than how much money you made? Yes, some people found happiness in pursuing the heights of knowledge and making so much money that they could practically bathe in it. But Jacques wasn't like that.

It was chilly February. Jacques was on one of his usual walks. He passed an orphanage. The orphanage he always passed and he sometimes helped in. He liked kids. They were so innocent. So free despite living in such unforgiving conditions. Of course some of them were damaged due the circumstances that had brought them there but… Kids were quick to pick up and keep running. And then there was that one girl…

"Jacq's!" The two year old girl bundled in layers of clothing run to the fence of the snow covered orphanage yard as fast as she could with her short legs. Only a pair of grass green eyes looked up at the young man and they were the only thing visible of her face.

"Hallo, Heidi." Jacques leaned against the fence and smiled down at the girl.

"It's ma bi'thdaaay!" The girl told, timid smile hidden by her thick scarf.

"Congratulations, little princess." Little Heidi was a sunshine in Jacques's life. She always made him smile. He had considered of adopting her ever since he'd first seen her but he was too young. Always too young. The staff of the orphanage knew him and trusted him but the higher authorities were the ones pulling the strings and according to them he was too young.

"Can you pway a game?" Heidi asked, snapping the shaggy haired man out of his somber thoughts.

"Sure. Anything for little princess." The young man hopped over the fence and took the girl's mitten covered hand. "What would the princess want to play?"

"Hide 'n' seek!"

"As you wish." Jacques bowed. If there was one thing Heidi loved, it was when she was treated like princess by Jacques. She liked him. He was like an awesome big brother. The best big brother ever!

That evening when Jacques played with Heidi, he made a decision. He'd get a proper job with a good pay. No matter if he didn't like it. He needed money. Then he'd adopt Heidi and move away. Probably back to Zürich or then to Bern. He hadn't seen that city yet, the capital of Switzerland. He'd heard it was a beautiful city though…

"How dreadful… They were all killed."

"The murderer too…"

"Who could've…?"

"Did the son survive?"

"Poor thing, only twelve years old."

"What will happen to him?"

"A foster family. The nation will take care of it."

Jacques hated those adults. Talking like he wasn't in the same room with them. Yes, his parents had died. Yes, he had hid in a closet. No, he didn't know what happened next. No, he didn't see anything. No, didn't sound like there was someone else in the room with his parents and the murderer. Yes, that was his father's rifle he had permission for. No, he didn't know how to use it.

The boy in his early teens drank dully the carton of juice he'd been given. The adults kept whispering. Some social workers and neighbors… A few cops and one man with green military outfit and white beret. The cops kept asking the same questions over and over again. Jacques kept answering the same manner. He never changed the wording of his answers. People whispered he was in a shock. People said he couldn't be lying because he was so young.

They were wrong. And the man with the beret could see it in the boy's eyes. He could see how Jacques had come out of the closet, seen the corpses of his parents and picked up the rifle lying at his father's feet. He could see how the boy faced the serial killer terrorizing Zürich for months and pulled a trigger. How the blood splattered on the walls and the murderer fell on the floor. How the boy hid in the closet again and waited silently until the police, called by the neighbors, showed up.

Yet the man didn't say anything. He had just patted on the boy's shoulder and stated he'd done good. A great favor to the nation.

"Are you sure the boy will be alright in a foster family? After such a tragedy…" The adults were whispering again.

"That's how cases like these are handled. Poor boy doesn't have any other family here."

"The nation will take care of it." There was that phrase again. The man in beret… his expression tightened and so did his grip on Jacques's shoulder. The boy looked up at him.

"No… but he will definitely find a way to repay it…" The man muttered and walked away from them all. Jacques watched his back thoughtfully but shrugged off the weird behavior then.

A/N: Yup, that was Switzerland in the end. At first I thought I wouldn't write the flashback and leave it to your intepretation of what happened to Jacq in his childhood. And Swizy was there only because in my opinion it's quite a big thing if a person terrorizing innocent citizens for months is suddenly dead and in such strange circumstances... And don't you just hate when people trust the nation to handle their lives for them?

I'm thinking that Bash will help Jacques to adopt Heidi in future. Behind the scenes of course and not too obviously. Just speed up the process...

Please review, I'd love that. Only a couple of more chapter's to go. I hope to get them done eventually.