Homeless (a Hetalia Fanfic, Book Three)

Chapter 9~!

The next morning, thanks to my biological clock not syncing up to the D.C. time zone, I was completely dead to the world. Well, 'dead' as in asleep. I finally roused around one o' clock and padded downstairs to greet whoever was there. To my surprise, the first person I saw was Louvel, and he was setting up some sort of giant Lego city on the living room carpet. 

When he first saw me, I could clearly see the look on confusion on his face. I smiled at him to try and convey that I wasn't someone to be worried of. "Hi, Louvel. You probably don't remember me, huh."

"... You're Evan's mom," he stated after a second, and my eyebrows rose at that. He was right!

"Yeah, that's me," I replied, leaning over with my arms across the back of a couch. "I'm surprised you remembered."

"Well, there's a picture of you in his room," Louvel explained. "I see it sometimes, like when I go to play at his house."

'Don't you dare cry in front of this child, Alice' I ordered myself mentally. Oh, but I so wanted to. The emotions that came with that knowledge were building in my chest. "Oh... Okay, that makes sense."

Louvel looked so much like his father. He had the same hair and eye colors, and though he lacked his own Nantucket, the resemblance to America in the boy's facial structure was strikingly similar. There would never be any question about Louvel being Alfred F. Jones' son.

"So, what are you building here?" I asked as I moved around the arm of the couch so I could properly sit down. 

Louvel had returned to his work and responded without looking back at me. "Gotham."

A giggle escaped my throat at that. "That's great, Lou. You've got a Batman figure, right?"

"I have all of the superheroes," the nine-year-old boasted proudly. "And all the villains, because a hero can't be a hero if he doesn't have villains to fight."

"Exactly right," I agreed. "Good luck defending Gotham. Do you know where your dad is?"

"He's in his office," Lou answered. I stood up and left the living room to trace my way to the home office. Through the windows, I could see Alfred was on the phone with someone. By the look on Alfred's face, it was a very important person. Maybe the president? 

I waved to my brother through the window, and he waved back before holding up an index finger. Okay, so he needed a minute before I could talk to him. After he put the phone down, he waved me in and looked at me expectantly. "Hey, Oreo. Wassup?" he asked me.

"I just wanted to tell you that I was going to head back to Willow's house pretty soon," I said. "I already called her and told her I was coming back today."

"M'kay, dude." Then he paused. "Wait... Did she know you hadn't actually dropped off the radar the second time?"

"Uh, yeah," I admitted. "After how upset she had been the first time, I decided to keep her in the loop. She was the one that helped me decide on Tokyo as my next mission."

"Huh. Well okay then," he said, sitting back in his spinning chair and making it rock back. "Okay, so I guess you'll be around more this time?"

"I'll try to be," I promised. 

"And no more missions, either?"

Hands clasped behind my back, I glared at a stack of papers on his desk and muttered a reply. "What was that~?" he asked me.

"I said "Okay," I answered huffily. "Even though I could actually be helping you guys with this."

"Well hey, now that you've gotten us this far, we can send in professional spies to get more info," Alfred said to make me look on the bright side. I didn't see how it was bright, though. It just made put me in a miffed sort of mood.