Is this more than six months late? Yep.

Sorry about that.

This chapter fought me the entire time. I think I rewrote it about three or four times before arriving at this, and I'm still not satisfied with how it turned out. But I think this is the best it's going to get, so here you go!

Matthew rocked a small blue bundle in his arms, swaying in place to silence the whimpers permeating the stillness of the dim room.

It had to be closer to dawn than dusk and the baby he held fussed quietly in the flickering light of the oil lamp on the nightstand. He brushed the downy auburn hair across Kenneth's forehead with featherlight fingers, stroking in a soothing gesture. He liked these quiet moments, when time seemed to slow and the air stilled, when he could savour the miracle of these children.

He cradled Kenneth closer, turning from the crib and heading for the stairs. Kenneth nuzzled at his chest, rooting his face into the cotton of Matthew's nightshirt, and Matthew held him tighter so he wouldn't accidentally drop him as he descended the steep steps to the main level.

"I know," Matthew soothed, his voice a quiet whisper as he crossed into the kitchen.

Kenneth whimpered and hiccuped a silent sob.

He fumbled with a glass bottle in the washstand and had to readjust his grip on Kenneth to avoid dropping him as he carefully measured out a scoop of Liebig's Soluble Food for Babies—a wonderful new German import he'd found at the store—and set it aside to prepare the kettle to boil. Kenneth curled into his shoulder, tiny fist grasping his collar tightly, and Matthew readjusted the blanket to cover the baby's exposed right leg. Even though the days still shone with a hot September sun, the nights had begun to cool down significantly and the fireplace held nothing more than dying embers.

Goosebumps erupted on Matthew's skin in the still air and he stepped closer to the stove. With the age of the house, he still had an old castrol stove linked into the pipe system and hadn't yet bothered to replace it. As such, it burned wood, not coal like many other modern models, and so the crackling of the fresh kindling as flames licked up cold wood was a pleasant sound that brought him momentary peace.

It was momentary because Kenneth soon screwed up his face and let out a wail.

"Hey, hey," Matthew whispered desperately and returned to swaying and rocking the baby, "The kettle's almost done boiling and then I promise you can get something to eat."

Kenneth cried harder and Matthew wanted to join him. It wasn't easy being seventeen and responsible for four tiny lives.

Letters and government missives had begun to pile up on the table in the foyer, Matthew having hardly any time to do more than scan who they were from before his attention was called away by one of the four babies. He'd hired one of his neighbours to take in his laundry on a bi-weekly basis, but they were between shifts now, so he had a pile of festering baby clothes in a basket in his bathing room and thanks to their age and state of fermentation, they'd begun to make the whole room smell.

He was neglecting himself as well, Matthew knew. It had been far too long since he'd stepped outside for longer than it took to collect the delivery from the milkman and he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept for more than a hour without interruption. He was beginning to feel the exhaustion of all his duties pulling heavily on his shoulders, stooping them under the weight of the reality he was now living.

Matthew loved his children, had loved them since that very first night, but he hadn't been prepared to raise a child—let alone four—and he was completely alone in doing it. He blundered his way through every day, praying he wasn't doing something that would mess them up irreversibly. It wasn't as though he'd had many examples of how to properly parent children, let alone ones so young—he and Alfred had been the youngest of their mother's children and he'd been too small to appreciate or remember much about their early years, François' idea of bedtime stories were bloody retellings of the most brutal battles he'd fought in, and Arthur… Well, he'd tried, but the less said about those attempts, the better.

The whistling of the kettle brought him out of his head. He shifted Kenneth into one arm and grabbed a towel with the other, lifting the heavy kettle with one hand and setting it down on the counter with a grunt. Then he glanced around and sighed. He must have forgotten his sling upstairs in the nursery and he needed both hands to control the kettle as he poured the hot water.

He could go upstairs and fetch it but frankly, he was exhausted and didn't want to do the stairs again. Just the very idea of doing that made his limbs heavy, a resigned sort of fatigue seeping through his body.

Well, at least he'd filled the kettle up enough so that when the next child inevitably woke up, he'd only have to warm it up to a comfortable temperature and not wait for a full boil.

"Okay, little man," Matthew sighed, "I'm going to have to put you down for a minute, alright? It's just to get your bottle ready and then I'll be right back."

Kenneth blinked owlishly up at him, wide blue eyes endlessly deep, and reached his hand up to tug at one of the curls spilling over Matthew's shoulders. Right, that was another thing to add to the list; his hair was getting long, even by his standards.

Matthew set Kenneth down on the couch in the next room and barricaded him in with pillows so he wouldn't be able to roll over and fall off. Then he returned to the kitchen, mixed the now-warm water with the soluble food, and tightened the rubber teat over the glass opening. He grabbed an extra towel from the clean pile to throw over his shoulder and returned to find Kenneth whimpering and screwing up his face in preparation for a wail that was sure to wake up the rest of the house.

Quickly, Matthew took his son in his arms and cradled him at such an angle that he could latch on the teat easily. Almost immediately, the tears stopped flowing and his red face smoothed out as all his focus went to guzzling down the soluble food formula in the bottle. Matthew let his head fall back on the couch cushions. The room was quiet except for the repetitive swallowing noises and tiny gasps for air Kenneth emitted.

Matthew could feel exhaustion dragging at his eyelids and he glanced at the steadily-ticking clock above the mantle. 3:41 in the morning. In only a handful of hours, the streets outside would come abuzz with life, the bustle and noise of the busy Quebéc City street breaking the still silence of these rare moments. He'd have to set the bottles out for the milkman soon and greet the baker's apprentice who came everyday to sell fresh bread. He was also expecting a delivery of firewood before midday but no exact time was specified, so he had to stay alert enough to hear the knocker rapping at the door.

If he had a free hand, he'd pinch the bridge of his nose to stave off the burgeoning headache beginning to throb behind his eyes. As it was, he had Kenneth in one arm and was holding the bottle with the other hand, so he could only groan and squeeze his eyes shut.

With a quiet sigh, Kenneth let the rubber teat slip from his mouth, the bottle nearly completely drained. His eyes were fluttering shut and Matthew loathed to move him, but he had to burp him lest he wake up in a few hours with terrible gas. He'd made that mistake once and he was sure his ears were still ringing from their screams.

Matthew adjusted Kenneth to let his head rest on his towelled shoulder and stood, swaying in place as he gently patted his tiny back. Kenneth's breath was warm on his neck and smelled vaguely of the soluble food solution, tiny puffs of air sending goosebumps up Matthew's spine as he rocked Kenneth to sleep and gently eased any extra air to pass through his system.

There was a tiny burp and another quiet sigh as Kenneth settled his face deeper into the crook of Matthew's neck. The tiny huffs of breath turned slow and even as he drifted off to sleep.

Matthew eyed the clock again and blinked the numbers into focus. 3:57. He should try to put Kenneth back to bed and grab a few winks himself before the next one woke up, demanding a snack or a diaper change or just to be held. He swore they worked in a system, never letting him get more than a few moments of blissful silence before another started crying.

He silently ascended the stairs, his frustration and exhaustion abated slightly as Kenneth snuffled in his sleep and shifted to curl his fist into Matthew's collar. He was really cute, they all were, and that just about made up for how terrible Matthew felt. He might not be a perfect father—or even prepared to be one at all—but it couldn't be said that he didn't love his children.

He nudged the door open with his foot and crept to the cradle quietly, gently settling Kenneth in next to who he was pretty sure was Antoine (though it was hard to tell him and Jack apart unless they had their eyes open and he could see the ring of blue around Jack's pupil) and readjusting the blanket to swaddle his tiny arms and legs properly.

He stood there for just a moment, watching the four of them curl around each other and breath quietly in the still air of the nursery. He wished there was a way to capture these peaceful moments, to have a small daguerreotype to keep in his wallet to look at some day when they were all grown up and remember how small they were.

Of course, the peace didn't last long.

Matthew hadn't made it three steps from the cradle when there was a jolting snuffle and then an ear-piercing wail that was quickly followed by three more.

All four infants screamed in horrible harmony and Matthew's legs gave out on him. He collapsed to the floor, exhausted and on the verge of tears himself. He couldn't keep doing this—he hadn't slept in days and he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten anything substantial. This was literally killing him.

With a heavy heart and his skull rattling with a disjointed symphony of cries in the background, Matthew knew he'd have to pen the letter he'd told himself he'd never write.

oO0Oo

The sky was overcast the first time Matthew saw his brother after more than fifty years.

The grass of his pitiful front yard was dead and covered in frost, and the cobbles of the street a handful of steps from his door were icy and cold. Winter had come early to Québec City, the first snows falling only days after a solem Thanksgiving where Matthew's own routine had changed very little beyond a neighbour dropping by unexpectedly to present him with a plate of turkey and trimmings and a slice of apple pie. Matthew was pretty sure that was the first fruit he'd eaten in months.

Matthew stood in the foyer, the door half open but halted in its tracks when he registered who was standing on the other side.

Even though he'd sent the letter more than a month ago, he hadn't realized until that moment that he was quietly anticipating nothing to come of it, that his brother would ignore his pleas. And even he did come, Matthew hadn't expected him to be there so soon. But there Alfred was, hat in his hands and eyes trained on the ground. He must have come nearly immediately after receiving the letter, to be here in such haste.

The wind blowing around Matthew's face was cold, crisp and promising of more snow coming in the next few hours. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and the exposed skin of his forearms began burning with the chill. Alfred's cheeks and nose were tinged pink and Matthew wondered how long he'd been standing on his front stoop, debating knocking at the door and entering his life after decades of bad blood festering between them.

"Hello, Matthew," Alfred said quietly, breaking the awkward silence that stretched between them. "I got your letter."

"I can see that," Matthew said, and there was a hard edge to his voice that startled him. He cleared his throat and began again. "Please, come in."

He opened the door fully and stepped aside to allow Alfred to pass. His brother stamped the snow off his boots on the door frame and slipped them off beside Matthew's own. He hung his coat and hat on the coat rack and Matthew had trouble swallowing when he saw the shiny scar peeking out of his brother's collar. He looked away quickly before he said something he'd regret.

The house was mercifully quiet, Matthew having gotten the four babes down for their afternoon rest merely a quarter hour before. He had planned on using the silence to get some sleep of his own, but Alfred's arrival had derailed his plans. Instead, Matthew turned to his brother with exhaustion dragging at his limbs and said: "Let's go sit in the parlour."

They made their way to the room without speaking. The tension between them was heavy, neither quite knowing how to broach the subject of why Alfred was there while ignoring why Matthew hadn't wanted to see him in the first place. Matthew added another log to the fireplace and stirred up the embers, ignoring the flicker of panic that crept up his throat at the reminder of what had happened the last time he and Alfred were together.

He took a seat on the couch opposite Alfred and stared at his clasped hands. He didn't know what to say, how to start this conversation. The only sound in the room was the crackling of the fireplace and the whispers of wind from outside.

Finally, it was Alfred who spoke. He fiddled with the cuff of his right sleeve and cleared his throat. "It's… good to see you."

"Yeah, you too," Matthew said quietly. A pause. "You look good, all things considered."

Alfred's mouth twitched into a frown. "Yeah… all things considered…" he cleared his throat again, anxious for something to do, something to break this awful void they'd let grow between them. "I wish I could say the same for you. When was the last time you slept?"

Matthew blinked at that unexpected question, and when he fumbled a moment too long with his answer, Alfred raised an eyebrow. Matthew's shoulders sagged. "You know why I asked you here." It wasn't a question. At Alfred's nod, his face became closed off and serious. "This stays between us, alright? I sent the letter to you, not Arthur or François, because despite how we left things, I trust you with this more than them."

"I know." It was Alfred's turn to grow serious. "I wouldn't trust them with mine, either."

Matthew leaned back into the couch, a satisfied expression relaxing on his face. It was an olive branch his brother was reaching out, a form of mutually assured destruction should either of them decide to go back on their word. "So I guessed right, then?"

Alfred rolled his eyes. "Don't get used to it."

"How many do you have now?"

"Thirty-seven," Alfred said with a small, tired sigh. "But most of them are full grown. Nebraska's the littlest; she's only a few months older than yours are. I'm sure you've noticed by now that they're growing faster than we ever did?"

Matthew nodded. It had confused and terrified him at first, and it had been humiliating that he hadn't even noticed until he'd tried to pull a clean petticoat over Estelle's head and it had ripped along the seams. "About at the same rate as human children, right?"

"Yeah," Alfred agreed. "I don't know why or how, but they seem to reach majority and stop aging at about eighteen or so—around the same age as us."

Matthew stared at him, disbelief in his wide eyes. "Alfred… I'm only seventeen. That's how old my cabinet decided I looked. Maybe eighteen at a stretch but you—you have kids older than I am!"

Alfred snorted, lips pursing as he tried to hide a laugh.

"Shut up! It's not funny!"

"It kind of is. They're older than their uncle. I'm older than you."

Matthew rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine, it is a little." Something warmed curled in his chest at the laughter glittering in Alfred's blue eyes and he quickly added, "But I'm still the oldest."

"Debatable," Alfred grinned.

"I was born first!"

Alfred's grin widened into a sharp smirk. "But there's no one around to attest to that."

Then they both fell silent. There were several people who could recall the events of that day centuries ago clearly—hundreds, in fact—but they wouldn't.

The fire cracked and leaped. Matthew counted the minutes passing by the ticking of the clock on the mantle. It was a long time before Alfred spoke again, voice quiet against the wind howling outside. "Have any of them spoken to you?"

Matthew shook his head silently. "Not since I met up with Shawátis before the battle on Queenston Heights. And with the things my government has in the works, I don't blame them."

He wrung his hands together and stared at the floor. His family, once hundreds strong, had dwindled to him and his children.

"When did we drift apart, Al?" he said at last, barely more than a whisper. "Why did we drift apart?"

Alfred turned to gaze into the flickering orange and gold flames in the fireplace. There was something distant, something endlessly sorrowful in his eyes. It was the same fractured, hollow, soul-deep look that François and Arthur had. That Matthew was sure he had too.

It was a curse, to live forever.

"I don't know," Alfred said at last, shoulders sagging slightly under the weight of invisible expectations. "I—I want to blame Arthur and Francis, but it wasn't just them. We let ourselves turn out like this."

Matthew sighed. "When did you get so wise?"

Alfred turned to look at him, and although his eyes were still solemn, he tried for an effortless grin, like he'd had when they were kids. "I think becoming a father put a lot of things into perspective."

Matthew snorted quietly. "It's certainly revealing why sleep deprivation is a form of torture."

"You think four is bad?" Alfred leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I had thirteen. If it hadn't been for George and Martha—" he cut himself off, swallowing thickly past the lump in his throat. "The point is, I wasn't alone. You don't have to be, either."

"I can't—" Matthew's voice broke. "If the others knew about them—especially about Kenneth and Estelle, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick—it would destroy them. Because they're not them and yet… they're a product of their legacy. I don't think Arthur and the others could handle it. And François…" he trailed off. "I haven't spoken to him since he gave me up."

Alfred got up from his couch and came to sit beside Matthew. "But I'm here now," he said, squeezing Matthew's shoulder. "And I'm never far away."

Then he pushed Matthew gently to lie back and placed a pillow under his head. It was a decorative one, full of embroidery and beads, definitely not meant for sleeping, but it was the most comfortable thing Matthew thought he'd felt in weeks.

Alfred dragged a blanket over him and tucked it around his legs. "I'll just be in the kitchen," he promised. "I won't even go snooping much."

Matthew huffed an exhausted laugh. Now that he was lying down, he realized just how much he'd been running on fumes the past few months. Still, before Alfred could leave, he grabbed his wrist. "They're in the nursery upstairs, second door on the right. I have bottles and soluble food solution in the cupboards; the instructions are on the box and the kettle should be on the stove."

Alfred nodded and turned to leave again, but Matthew tightened his grip.

"Al," he said, forcing his eyes to stay open just for a little longer. He had to ask before he lost his nerve. "Even if—even if our countries don't want us to, can we always be brothers?"

"Yeah." Alfred turned to face him fully and smiled softly, reassuringly. Matthew never realized how much he missed seeing that look, the look that told him it was the two of them against the world. "We'll always be brothers, promise."

This is the last chapter in the IHLtSTFtbFotN arc, mostly because the next ideas I have for this universe are all out of order and disjointed, and this seemed like a good place to end this fic - with Matthew and Alfred reuniting again.

Fear not! This is by far not the last fic in this universe, they'll just jump around for a while. Most of the next fics will be one shots because that seems to be how the ideas are flowing, but there might be a few short, multi-chaptered books coming at some point in the future.

I also post on ao3 if anyone prefers that format. Keep an eye out for the next installment in this universe ;)