His hand grasped the doorknob firmly, but he couldn't open the door. All he had to do was apologize . . . his father would never forgive him. He would be grounded for life, forced to live at home, with a minimum-wage job because he did so poorly in high school. More than ever, Alfred was convinced that his father was going to raise hell on him. Releasing the doorknob, he turned away from the front of the house. It had sounded so easy when he told himself to go home. Now, he couldn't even open the door, paralyzed with fear.

"I gotta do this," he sighed, turning towards the door again. "He's my dad; can he really kill me?" He's done so much damage already. His hand shied away from the doorknob. He didn't care if his neighbors thought he was too incompetent to open his front door. They had to have heard the constant shouting from the white house with the green shutters; maybe they pitied him and would allow him to spend the night. Alfred shook his head almost immediately. Running away from the problem would only deepen it.

Confronting the problem was even harder.

With a deep breath, he swung the door open and stepped inside; eyes closed the entire time. When they opened, nobody scowled at him. No British accent scolded him. He released his bottled-up breath and began to wonder why he had been so nervous in the first place.

Three hours passed by. The time was eight twenty, and there wasn't a single sign of the blonde man. Had he run away, too? Panic arose inside of Alfred. His phone calls had gone unanswered. What if he was looking for him in the streets? There's no way he cares that much. He probably went to the grocery store or something, Alfred convinced himself. It didn't explain why he had been missing for three hours, yet he believed.

It was past Alfred's curfew and his father was still absent. He had no idea what to do about the situation. Anxiety consumed him; his head turned towards the door at every sound, he picked up the house phone within the first ring, and he spent his time pacing, unable to focus on the late night TV shows. Now he knew how Arthur felt, every time he missed his curfew. He imagined the poor man sitting alone, wondering if his son was simply dawdling or if he had been robbed, kidnapped, killed . . . Alfred's eyes widened and he shook his head. It was scary. He made a mental promise to never miss a curfew again. Why did he need to be outside at night anyways?

The phone rang; he eagerly picked it up and put the phone to his ear, without checking caller ID.

"Dad, is this you? Please tell me it's you! Come home already—"

"It's not your dad, it's me, Matthew." Alfred's face fell. "Is there something wrong with your dad?"

"He's not here! He's been gone for hours, and he hasn't called, or left any note, and I've never been more terrified in my life!" Was he exaggerating? Surely, it was scarier to show his dad his grades than to have him missing? "I know it's kind of stupid to worry about an adult, but he hasn't come home, and I need him home now! I thought about calling the police station, but their job is to stop burglaries and murders, not find my dad—"

"You're not being clear, Alfred! Please, can you calm down and explain? Why is he gone?"

"I don't know, it probably has something to do with me storming out of the house—"

"What!?" Another uneasy task for today. Alfred sighed; if he couldn't find his father, he could at least restore his friendship with Matthew. He needed a friend right now, and he had one on the phone. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, then he launched into everything that's been killing him for the past few weeks. He told him about Ivan, about Arthur's less-than-enthusiastic response to all of his hard work . . . it hurt to share, but he needed Matthew to understand.

"I'm not lazy, Matt, just dumb. Why is it that nobody gets it?"

"I still don't see why you didn't think you could tell me this," Matthew insisted, his voice steady compared to Alfred's despair and troubles. "You really don't trust me that much?"

"No, that's not it! I just . . . I thought you'd think I was too dumb for you, and you'd tell everyone at school that I can't pass a math test on my own." On the other end of the line, Matthew paused.

He continued to speak softly. "I don't care how smart you are. Gilbert's not the brightest person alive, and we're still friends."

"Well, now Gilbert won't talk to me, because I'm friends with someone he thinks is creepy," Alfred mentioned.

"Gilbert will get over it. I don't care who your friends are. All I care about is that you're happy. And Gilbert has other things to worry about right now . . ."

"Really? What happened?" He could assume what was wrong with Gilbert, but he needed to hear it for himself. Matthew paused again.

"Eliza broke up with him. She claimed that she felt nothing for him anymore . . . everyone knows she likes Roderich more than him. He asked her out to dinner, so she broke it off with Gilbert." He knew Elizaveta well enough to miss her. She would probably never sit with Alfred, Matthew, and Gilbert again. Additionally, Gilbert would whine about it for a couple of weeks. It had to be hard to loose the only girl who could ever see Gilbert as desirable. His heart ached for his white-haired friend.

"I'll apologize to him tomorrow. I'm sure he doesn't even care about Ivan anymore."

"He definitely doesn't care about Ivan anymore. There's more, too—he caught his brother kissing Feliciano Vargas from soccer—"

"WHAT?" As quick as his worries had appeared, he had become enveloped in gossip and news of relative unimportance. It was nice to talk to Matthew, and was relieved that their squabble has lasted less than a day. They talked through subject after subject, about school, about friends, about games. Alfred felt happy again, having his friendship restored. He could fix his problems; maybe his problems weren't so big after all. He had panicked in the case of Matthew. How could he think his best friend would judge him?

"My math teacher is the weirdest—" Alfred cut off his words mid-sentence at the sound of the front door opening. Immediately, all of the anxiety he had felt before talking to Matthew returned. "I have to go; I think he's home!" Without even waiting for a reply, he hung up the phone and ran to the door.

His father was just removing his coat when Alfred sprang into his arms. He didn't care how much trouble he was in for running away. He just wanted to know that his father was okay. He held him tightly; he was stronger and taller than his dad by far. At first, Arthur hesitated, but he returned the embrace and smiled.

"Where the hell were you, Dad? You have nerve, don't you, leaving me alone to worry about you? I left you so many messages on your cell!"

"Where the hell was I? I went to the police station and spent four hours looking for you! I called the house three times, and you didn't answer!" It was a fight different from anything Alfred had ever known. They released each other, but neither could bear to look away. Other fights involved excessive shouting and blaming. This one showed mutual concern. It was as if, for the first time, there was love present in this family.

"I went to my friend's house. I ranted with him and then I decided to come home, when I felt better." Arthur shook his head.

"You could've talked to me about your problems," he argued. "You think I don't understand . . ."

"But you never have . . . can we not start this? I'm done with this." He couldn't even think of shouting, after all those hours of longing for his dad to walk through the front door. "When I got home, you weren't there, so I got all concerned. Imagine it, me concerned about you! Even though you didn't care about me, I couldn't help but care about you—"

Arthur looked absolutely furious. "I am offended that you don't think I care about you." With a gentle hand, he ruffled Alfred's dirty-blonde hair, the way he did when the teen was six years old. "I care about you more than I've ever cared about anything." It was hard to believe. He preferred it to his father's usual snarky commentary. "I'm hard on you because I care. I think you can be greater than you think you are, Alfred—and I am proud of you. I am proud of you every time you score a goal or improve a grade. I am excited to see who you become, and I am proud of who you are. And even if I push a little hard, do keep in mind that it's out of love."

"Didn't know shoving children and throwing expectations on them was 'love'," Alfred scoffed. His father held him by the shoulders and stared into his eyes.

"I am sorry for how I made you feel. I know it doesn't always show, but my worst fear is loosing you." He paused to examine the boy who he had raised. "Tonight, I thought that fear was going to come true." Alfred couldn't say he hated his father. The way he looked at him now, like Alfred was the greatest person in the world, hit him. This night, he had panicked without him—he had been worried about him. Even if he was too harsh, too brash, too flawed; Arthur was his only family.

"I'm sorry." Again the two hugged. It had been so long since Alfred had known what it felt like to stand in Arthur's arms. He was protected by a barrier of love; the same protection that blocked monsters under the bed or bumps in the middle of the night. Alfred was drowning in affection. He found he preferred the feeling of loving arms around him to red faces and burning insults. He somehow felt those arms understood him; he needed comfort, and they gave it to him. And strangely, those understanding arms were his father's. "I can't believe I was stupid enough to run away."

"Alfred F. Jones, you are not a stupid person. You're impulsive. You don't think things through. You care more for completion than correctness. None of this makes you stupid. And if I have ever implied that you were the opposite of what I'm saying, I'm sorry. It was me who drove you away . . . I'm a terrible father, Alfred!" Those arms grabbed him tighter as Arthur's head fell against Alfred's shoulder blade. It crushed him to see his father so destroyed—was that how he had felt, too, when he had broken down earlier?

"We're not the best family," Alfred began. "But at the end of the day, we're alive and well."

"Perhaps we can become a better one," Arthur proposed.

"Maybe we can."

A fresh start. Tomorrow was another day, a day where shouts didn't exist and tension was absent. A day where his father asked him about his feelings, and Alfred gave him answers. Arthur had said he looked forward to who Alfred could be . . . the son, on the other hand, wanted to see what they could become, together. Too much pain had surrounded them, and with Alfred's bottled-up emotions released, he hoped for ease. You are not a stupid person. That alone was all he needed to forgive his father for his misgivings. It was all he needed to know to continue to try his best.

Alfred released Arthur from his arms and smiled at him.

"I love you, Dad."

The End

(A/N: And that marks the end of the troubles of Alfred and Arthur! Thank you for reading this story all the way through! It makes me happy to know that people read what I write. Questions/Comments/Improvements accepted!)