AN: THIS STORY IS NOT ABANDONED! So I finished my exams today, and until my birthday, then two weeks until I go to Germany (for a school trip!). I'm sorry for the delay – I'm pretty much the world's worst scheduler.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Hetalia. Any views expressed by characters in my story are not necessarily my own views, nor the views of Hidekaz Himaruya.

Chapter Three

"… Uncle Gilbert and this guy called Antonio who we're supposed to call Uncle Toni came over today and helped us unpack. Our parents were surprised. Dad actually dropped the box he was holding when they showed up at the door. I've never seen Dad hug anyone that wasn't me or Al or Papa before, but he hugged Uncle Toni. Papa told us that he and Dad were roommates in university, back when Dad and Papa first met, and that neither he nor Dad had seen him in a long time.

We asked dad about it later, but he wouldn't tell us anything. Papa says he doesn't like to talk about it."

To Matthew's pleasant surprise, it wasn't his father. Instead, when Matthew opened the door, he found himself face to face with what appeared to be a giant plush eagle.

"What the…"

"Hello, Birdie!" said a familiar voice as the toy was thrust towards Matthew. He reached out awkwardly to grab it, barely wrapping his arms around the oversized bird. Peering up over the eagle, he was met by a smirking face he hadn't seen in a while.

"Uncle Gilbert! You're back from Germany?"

"Back and better than ever!" replied Uncle Gilbert, before he barrelled on past Matthew and into the house. Matthew followed him to the living room, after struggling to close the front door with little to no use of his arms, to find his honorary uncle standing in the doorway surrounded by a multitude of shopping bags, looking utterly perplexed.

"Woah, little bird." he whistled, eyebrow raised. "What'd you do here?"

"Alfred."

"Ah." Uncle Gilbert paused, and looked around. "Where is he?"

"In the shower."

"Too bad. No presents for him."

Luckily for Matthew, Uncle Gilbert had a bit of experience in tidying up. With his help, the living room was mostly back in place in a manner of minutes – except for the orange corn chip stain, which his uncle was now dabbing at with a mixture of warm water and white vinegar.

"How do you…" asked Matthew, in confusion. The sight of the high powered attorney on his knees wiping at a chip stain was a strange one, to say the least. Gilbert grinned at the floor.

"Learnt it from our housekeeper when I was 16. Me and your papa spilt wine on my dad's living room sofa."

Matthew had heard a lot of stories about Uncle Gilbert and Papa's childhood. The two had met through a pen-pal programme, and written to each other for four years before Uncle Gil's parents had allowed him to go on exchange for a year to Paris, and stay with Papa's family. Face to face, neither had found the other any less interesting, and that year had been the beginning of a life-long friendship, with many summers spent at each other's houses. Papa claimed that, to this day, their respective parents still regretted the decision.

The first time Matthew had met Uncle Gilbert, the man had terrified him. They had been staying with Mémère and Pépère over Christmas back with he and Al were eight years old. It was the first time they'd been to their grandparent's estate in Cannes, and the two of them had spent much of the holiday completely snowed in, playing hide and seek in the villa's many rooms. On the morning of December 21st, it was Matthew's turn to count – and that turn had gone disastrously. After 30 minutes of searching every nook and cranny Alfred could possibly fit into, and coming up with nothing, he'd become quite certain that Alfred was messing with him. Having come to that conclusion, he'd wandered to the kitchen and Papa had made him some hot cocoa. But as he'd sat there, all warm and cosy, he'd started to feel guilty. The longer he'd sat, the guiltier he'd felt for not finding his brother, and the more and more convinced that he'd actually lost Alfred forever, and that he was definitely going to be punished.

So imagine his surprise when a strange man, with shockingly pale hair and monstrous red eyes had walked into the kitchen unannounced.

He'd run away, spilling his cocoa all over the man, only to bump into Alfred halfway down the hallway, asking if he'd met the guy calling himself their 'awesome' Uncle Gilbert yet.

It'd taken until Christmas Eve, when Uncle Gilbert removed his red-tinted contact lenses and reveal the normal (if mismatched) eyes underneath, for Matthew to pluck up the courage to apologise.

"You just fled like a little baby bird, didn't ya?"

Relations with Uncle Gilbert had certainly come a long way in 9 years. It'd certainly been helpful moving to his hometown, as Papa not only got to see his friend more, but he and Alfred had really gotten to know the man who had declared himself their uncle. He'd once told them that uncles were just as important for a family as dads, and over the years, Matthew had definitely come to believe him. He and Al, in comparison to their friends, had always had a decided lack of relatives – Papa's family was close, but it seemed like Dad didn't even have one – so people like Uncle Gilbert and Uncle Antonio and Aunt Liz were just as much a part of the family as anyone.

It seemed like you could always count on family to clean up your messes…

Literally.

"Scheiβe. I've probably ruined these pants." grumbled Gilbert as he stood up and inspected his handiwork. All that was left of the powdered cheese monstrosity was a soggy, but clean patch of slightly discoloured carpet. "I can never wear this suit again."

He heard a muffled laugh and looked up to see that Matthew was still holding his overly-large present.

"What the hell were your parents thinking, getting white carpet?"

"Papa said something about it matching the crown-moulding." the teenager attempted to shrug, before giving up and placing the toy on the floor next to where Gilbert's shopping bags had been ceremonially placed in a small pile. "Dad did warn him."

"Francis should have known better." he paused. "That sounds really weird coming from me."

Matthew laughed again, and gestured towards the bird.

"Thank you for the eagle."

"It's pretty awesome, right Birdie? Found it at this cheesy tourist place in the middle of Berlin."

Every time Gilbert went on a trip anywhere, it was tradition for him to bring his pseudo-nephews a particular present each, on top of the ones usually demanded by Alfred before he went away. Matthew would always receive a bird of some sort, in honour of his nickname – Gilbert wasn't sure where he kept them all, but he reckoned that Matthew's bedroom must have looked like an aviary. Alfred's present was a bit easier. Any sort of foodstuff would suffice, as no matter what it was, it would swiftly disappear into the black hole he called a stomach.

Gilbert blamed Arthur. If the kid enjoyed his cooking, he could enjoy Matthew hadn't turned out the same was most certainly due to Francis' intervention.

"Go put that thing in your room. I'll tidy this up."

Matthew obliged, picking up his toy and scooting out the door, while Gilbert set to work rearranging the living room back into Francis and Arthur's ridiculously precise arrangement. He was pondering the position of an ottoman when Matthew returned.

"Two and a half centimetres to the left."

"Huh?"

"That's like an inch."

"I knew that."

Gilbert straightened up, making a big show of dusting himself off.

"I am the best uncle."

"You are the best uncle."

"Never forget that, kid."

He flopped onto a couch and looked up at Matthew, who stood with the weirdest combination of gratitude and guilt plastered over his adorable face.

"So what happened?" he asked, putting on his serious face. Sure, it was no biggie to help put the room back together. But what was important was the fact that the room had been messed up in the first place. "You said Alfred did this. How?"

Matthew sat down, fighting to keep his features neutral.

"We had a fight. It was nothing. It's okay now."

He raised an eyebrow.

Gilbert was the best defence attorney in town. He'd spent half of his childhood running around his family law firm, rubbing shoulders with the law elite, not to mention studied at Harvard Law with some of the most pretentious people he'd ever met.

Sniffing out bullshit was in his blood.

"Matthew. Don't." he glanced around, spotting a cracked plastic case half hidden under the TV cabinet. "Nothing doesn't break video games and send couches moving or Alfred running away."

"He didn't run! He went to go thro-"

Matthew clamped up, one hand flying up to cover his mouth. Gilbert frowned, but was careful not to appear too angry or intimidating.

This was family, not an unruly witness.

"Tell me what happened."

It took a particularly stony silence, but the story came out. Matthew's resolve collapsed like a house of cards, and by the time Gilbert had heard everything– the car, the drinking, the fighting, the letter – the teenager looked almost relieved.

The information was, to say the least, unsettling. When Gilbert had gone away eight months earlier, cracks in Alfred's golden boy image had begun to appear, but Gilbert had put that down to general teenage rebellion, combined with the pressures of schoolwork. Personally, he could relate – he and Francis certainly weren't good teenagers, and from what he'd heard of Arthur's youth, neither was he – but to him, it sounded like Alfred was falling at a faster rate than most teenagers.

Frankly, he was a little surprised neither Francis nor Arthur had noticed.

"Please don't tell dad and papa, Uncle Gil. Everything's okay, really. Alfred will be fine." Matthew's tone was pleading.

Should he tell them? Gilbert wasn't sure whether or not Alfred's problems would be considered serious, but he didn't feel right about withholding information from his parents. On one hand, he didn't really know enough the about the situation, having been away for so long, nor did have any real evidence aside from Matt's testimony. On the other, Arthur and Francis were Alfred's parents, and two of his best friends, and not telling them…

But then again, Matthew seemed desperate.

"Matt, you know I'm not one to judge – your papa and I were right dicks when we were teenagers. Well, we still are, - but that's not the point. I'm not going to talk to your parents because I trust you, and if you say it's all good, it's probably all good. I don't know if you hiding stuff from them is the right thing to do though."

Alfred would probably grow out of it. Wasn't being a teenager all about doing stupid shit until it karma threw it back in your face to teach you a lesson?

Matthew nodded slowly, and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the sound of Gilbert's cell phone ringing.

He checked the screen – Ludovicus Beilschmidt – and groaned.

"Sorry Birdie, got to go. Dad's calling." he smiled in an attempt to comfort the incredibly guilty looking Matthew, who nodded again. "Tell your parents I stopped by and dropped that stuff off, okay?"

He got up to leave, and made it to the door before he remembered what he had been doing before getting sidetracked with cleaning and worrying about Alfred.

"Oh! Before I go…"

Gilbert dug into the pocket of his suit jacket, and extracted a battered looking package of gummy-bears. He chucked them to Matthew.

"Give those to your brother if he ever gets over the hangover."

Matthew wasn't sure what to think.

Uncle Gilbert was the fun one – the uncle that got kind of drunk at parties and made stupid jokes, the one that snuck candy and soda in covert missions to him and Al when they were meant to be grounded, the only babysitter that let them stay up past parent-appointed-bedtime and watch horror movies - and while Matthew knew that of course, Uncle Gil was an adult and could take things seriously, he'd never really experienced his uncle's stern side before, aside from that one time he'd gone to see him in court.

From the courtroom gallery, watching Uncle Gilbert had been unnerving enough. Put into position on the stand, Matthew imagined, had to be even worse.

In retrospect, he'd probably gotten off quite lightly – not that he'd really done anything wrong, right?

Al was the one being a total prick.

Not him.

The call came in the middle of a late, late, dinner, the ringing noise almost drowned out by the cacophony of patrons and chefs typical of hotel restaurants. Had Francis' meal a little more seasoning, or his mood a little less lacklustre, he would have missed the tri-tone ring entirely.

To the other diners, the phone call must have been a sight. A handsome, well dressed, if somewhat frustrated looking man, slamming his hands onto the table after a tense call, narrowly avoiding the precisely placed cutlery and sending a wine glass smashing to the ground. The cell phone was stuffed back into trouser pocket roughly, a handful of bills thrown haphazardly next to a barely touched plate of bland-yet-expensive filet mignon before he stalked out of the restaurant.

Suffice to say, the proposed Fournier-Bonnefoy merger, much like the unfortunate cabernet sauvignon, was no longer on the table.

"A little bit of Monica in my life… a little bit of Erica by my side…"

The radio blared as Arthur backed out of his car park. He found himself humming along to the familiar tune as he drove. When the song had first come out, it'd quickly become Francis' favourite. He'd hated it then – mostly because he couldn't stand anything that horrible Frenchman liked. Arthur remembered how Francis used to declare, every single time he heard it, that it was going to be a hit.

"It will be number one. You'll see, Arthur." he'd say, deliberately saying his name with a hard 't' just to exasperate him.

Damn frog had been right. Four months later it'd climbed to the top of the charts, and wherever Arthur had gone, he couldn't ever escape the song.

Though by this time, Arthur had stopped hating Francis and everything to do with Francis.

Turning the corner at the first intersection, Mambo No. 5 finished.

It turned out, that travel agencies didn't tend to be open at 10:30pm on a Tuesday night, so Francis had resorted to a long distance call back to Riverview. It'd taken some charm and negotiating (neither of which Francis had felt particularly enthusiastic about for once), but new tickets were booked for Friday, 7pm Paris time, arriving back in Riverview at 8pm. There had been no earlier flights, much to his chagrin.

Francis' mother had called the hotel room at 11:45. Éléonore Bonnefoy had informed her son that she was coming back from the house in Strasbourg, and that she would be spending all of Thursday with him. As much as he loved his mother, Francis knew that his dear mother would spend the whole day chastising him for not bringing her darling Alfred and Matthieu to visit more, or lamenting over the fact that although blessed with two gorgeous children and wonderful grandsons, she had yet to have a female grandchild (all accompanied, of course, with a raising her elegantly shaped eyebrows pointedly in Francis' direction – sometimes he wondered whether Monique had ever experienced the expression, but would remember that Monique was 28 and single and suddenly the way Éléonore looked at him didn't feel so bad).

Éléonore Bonnefoy was beautiful, loving, and a wonderful mother – subtle, she was not.

After half an hour on the phone with his mother, she handed the phone on to her husband, who had informed his son that he was disappointed that the takeover had not been successful, but that the Fournier's would regret their decision.

His father's tone had been surprisingly kind. Louis Bonnefoy was by no means a harsh man, but neither was he one to tolerate anything he saw as failure.

Francis got the sudden feeling that he wasn't the first Bonnefoy to try to negotiate with the Fourniers.

By the time he got off the phone to his parents, it was almost ten to one in the morning. That meant it was around 6:50, Tuesday, in Riverview.

Good. If he was lucky, Francis would just be catching Arthur on the landline as he walked through the door. There had been no point ringing his cell phone any earlier, as the man always turned it off while driving, even on the short 15 minute drive home.

He watched the ticking of the clock intently as he hit 'most-dialled'.

The phone rang the minute Arthur stepped through the door, but for once, he decided to ignore it. It'd been a long day – he always worked late on Tuesdays, but today had felt particularly lengthy, due to an unfortunate incident in the morning involving the spillage of a latte on some particularly expensive leather-bound encyclopaedias. Suffice to say, the culprit had been banned from the library indefinitely.

The whole fiasco had left Arthur feeling rather grimy on behalf of the book

"Merci."said Francis with a tense smile, as he closed the door. His phone cal had been interrupted by a knock on the door. It seemed in his earlier haste to leave the hotel restaurant earlier, he'd dropped his credit card. A lovely Swedish couple on their honeymoon had handed it in to the front desk (Francis made a note to send a bottle of champagne to their room tomorrow in thanks), and while it was late, reception had thought it best to bring it up.

He returned to his phone call, only to hear to the familiar beep of voicemail. Sighing in frustration he left his message.

"Bonjour, chéri…"

Dinner was rather relaxed, if quiet affair. Neither Matthew nor Alfred seemed particularly eager to talk, and Arthur had little to share, aside from the news of Elizaveta's engagement, which he really should have said something about earlier. Come to think of it, he'd forgotten to tell Francis too.

No matter. He'd tell him when he got back.

When dinner was over, Alfred had, in a strange stroke of kindness and responsibility, offered to wash up. Matthew had gone to his room, mumbling about calculus or calculators or something along those lines, after informing him that Gilbert had come around earlier and left some things for them.

Arthur was a little disappointed that his two sons were occupied, yet, he was also quite grateful for the alone time. The house was rarely this calm – so he may as well take advantage of the relative silence when it presented itself.

On his way to grab a book from the study, Arthur remembered the phone call. Before playing the message, he checked the number. It was an unfamiliar one.

"Hello, Mr. Bonnefoy and Mr. Kirkland. My name is Stuart Adams, and I'm your son Alfred's math teacher. I'm calling you, as I have a few concerns about Alfred's progress. It would be helpful if you could please call the school as soon as possible to arrange a meeting. Thank you."

Well, bollocks.

And that's all for now. This is a very short chapter, and I apologise for that. I've had a bit of writer's block with this one – Gilbert wasn't originally in the scene but having him butt his way into my thought process really helped moved it along. Do tell me what you thought! Until next time – Tina :)