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She meets Alexandra Hamilton on a night hot like a wildfire.
New York, the greatest city in the world, is at its greatest that night, she swears it, streets swarming with revolutionaries and inquisitive minds, all punch-drunk and flying high.
Alexandra, across the room, striking with her dark eyes, her strong nose, her uniform identical to the men she's with.
Eliza, struck, grasping her sister’s arm and inquiring, breathless, “Who is that?”
Angelica, bright-eyed and curious, on the search for a mind at work, responding, “Let’s find out.”
+
Angelica introduces Alexandra and herself; Alexandra bows and brings up her hand to kiss, half a taunt to the people eyeing her up, half a flirtation. She looks up at Eliza through her eyelashes, her lips twisted into a smile against her skin, and Eliza is flushing, helpless.
“Thank you,” she says, her voice impressively even, “for all your service.”
Eliza has heard about the infamous Alexandra Hamilton before, of course. Washington’s secretary, they call her, never by her name. An immigrant girl with a thirst for revolution and a desire to fight. Doesn't know when to shut her mouth, they say. Intelligent, but too aggressive, too loud. Good with a quill, good with gun. Bastard, orphan, immigrant and a whore— words that often accompany her name. Her father, when he had spoke of her, had simply referred to her as a soldier, Washington’s right-hand man.
“If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it,” she replies, voice low and sincere, and Eliza is caught; Angelica leaves them to it.
+
Alexandra invites them to drinks with her friends, in some dingy but relatively peaceful pub; her friends welcome them loudly, Hercules Mulligan buying them all a pint.
“As the oldest,” he says, solemnly, “it is my responsibility to get you all completely fucked up. And then laugh at you when you can't handle it in the morning.”
“How noble,” Angelica replies dryly, but her grin betrays her; they don't treat them like ladies, just like they don't treat Alexandra like one.
“Alex is no lady,” Laurens snorts later that evening. Alex jabs him in side, but her eyes are dancing with laughter. “She's a fucking animal!”
“A feral tomcat,” the Marquis drawls to Eliza. “No man can tame this one.”
“She'd scratch their eyes out if they tried,” Laurens quips.
“That's true,” Alex admits, remorseless, into her beer, her eyes peering up at Eliza over the rim. “No man.”
Eliza flushes, but holds her gaze and smiles. Hercules snorts at the lack of subtlety, but Eliza pays no mind; tonight, here, flirting with another woman, flirting with Alex, doesn't feel dangerous. Her sisters smirk at her across the table and she throws one back, revelling in the press of Alexandra’s leg against hers underneath the table.
She knows this is a luxury she will not have past tonight, especially if she intends to pursue Alexandra-- which she does, without a doubt. She wants her— her serious eyes and her wild grin, her calloused hands and her ink-stained fingertips— all to herself; for once, she is shameless and happy in her selfishness, despite the risk of it.
“Will you write me?” she says Alex when the evening ends and morning begins to creep up on the city with its soft amber light and birdsong.
“Of course,” Alex replies, quick and easy, no hesitation, and in that moment she is the least complicated woman Eliza has ever wanted.