Chapter Text
“Pardon me, are you Aaron Burr, sir?”
Aaron freezes. It’s an unpleasant evening, the air thick with fog and a cold drizzle descending from the heavens. He’s wearing a large coat, a scarf, and a hat, and he wasn’t expecting to be recognized in the street; otherwise he would have taken a carriage instead of walking.
(He hates it, hates taking carriages, hates how much his movements are regulated “for his own good and safety,” but he understands the logic behind it and necessity of it. Many say there has not been someone like him, someone with his ability, since Joan of Arc. And with the colonies on the brink of revolution, the British are hyperaware of this comparison.)
He could lie. He could say no, be on his way, the words are on the tip of his tongue, but a seer is never allowed to lie. Mandates that his grandfather drilled into him over and over, when you can see the future, when your words carry the sort of weight that they do, you cannot lie.
He settles for obfuscating.
“That depends, who’s asking?”
The tiny, raggedly, clearly underfed little bastard in front of him grins and sticks his hand out from an oversized and ill-fitting coat.
“Alexander Hamilton! I’m at your service, sir!”
Aaron looks at the hand and doesn’t take it. His hands are safely in his pocket, but he’d taken off his gloves, and he is not particularly in the mood to feel the single most consequential juncture of a stranger’s life.
Alexander is still grinning at him, and the moment is stretching on, and he refuses to put his hand down, and Aaron has about half a second before this staring contest verges beyond the mere impolite and into the territory of heavy, awkward weight and scattered excuses—and before he can think better of it, Aaron takes Alexander’s hand.
It happens in an instant. Alexander is a lot older—late forties, Aaron would guess—and standing in far nicer clothes. He’s wearing glasses. He’s pointing a pistol at Aaron.
This is new, Aaron is usually only a witness to his visions, not a participant in them. He steps backward, takes a bird’s eye view, and sees himself standing in the spot Alexander is staring at—that Alexander is aiming a pistol at. His older self raises his own pistol. He hears distantly a man counting to ten, sees Alexander steadily raise his arm towards the sky, sees the sunlight glint off of the pistol at the last moment. He hears two shots in rapid succession, hears his older self’s cry of, “WAIT,” sees Alexander crumple to the ground as his older self runs forward, and then it all fades, Aaron blinks, and the young, innocent Alexander is grinning and pumping his hand up and down in the cold, dreary night, staring at Aaron like Aaron’s just made his whole day.
“I heard your name at Princeton—“
And here it comes, the ‘am I going to find my true love’ or ‘where will I find success’ or ‘will I be rich’ or ‘will I be important’ or ‘will I live a long and happy life,’ all of the tiny, trifling things that people want to know. It never changes, the packaging, the phrasing, sure, but one way or another, they all want—
“I was seeking an accelerated course of study when I got sort of our of sorts with a buddy of yours—“
Aaron freezes.
What?
“—punched him, it’s a blur, sir, he handles the financials?”
“You punched the bursar?” Aaron blurts out.
“Yes!” He almost sounds proud. “I wanted to do what you did, graduate in two and—“
And Aaron feels relief pour through him. Alexander Hamilton, tiny, precious little Alexander Hamilton, who knew his name, who found him on the street, wanted to talk to him about his college education, his studies, about admission and the dumb bursar (Aaron would know, they turned him down when he was eleven, but he showed them a year later).
Someone actually wanted to talk to him, they didn’t want something from him.
Alexander takes a pause for breath, and Aaron jumps in: “Can I buy you a drink?”
Alexander swallows. “That would be nice.”
And Aaron can’t help but notice how thin he looks, how easily he could be snapped in half, how hungry his eyes are. Not a hunger that can ever be sated, Aaron thinks, and nearly shivers despite himself.
He can help with the cold and physical hunger, though. The nearest tavern he can think of is the Queen’s Head, which funnily enough is practically owned by the Sons of Liberty. It’s run by the more mature ones, though, people who are at least understanding of his circumstances and pester him far less than rabble in other bars might.
He sets the pace, Alexander follows, brings up the war, starts babbling all his hopes and dreams and ambitions and doesn’t seem to mind that Aaron is just listening, that Aaron barely contributes more to the conversation than a smile and a nod. Aaron is still dizzy with the relief, with how pleasant it is to let the words wash over him, with the fact that there is no expectation for him to talk.
When they get to the tavern, Aaron smiles at the man behind the bar, goes for his usual table hidden deep in one of the corners, out of the way of the usual diners. They save it for him; he frequents this place more often than he would like to admit. The owner, Samuel Fraunces, is an astute and reasonable man, and respected Aaron’s need for privacy whenever he was in public. While the tavern is not particularly crowded tonight, considering how it was adjacent to Coenties Slip and thus the waterfront, it was usually teeming, so the luxury of a table in the back is nice.
They have hearty food and good beer, that is all Aaron cares about. He doesn’t miss Alexander’s hesitation as he orders two meals, how Alexander gulps down half the first glass of beer when it arrives and seems to nearly choke on it, how all of his movements have become sharper and twitchier. He briefly wonders when the last time Alexander ate was, whether the wealth of affording a nice meal like this is making him uncomfortable. Aaron himself has well gotten over the twinge of guilt that comes with taking charity; despite his comfortable position and his trust fund, many people insist on the honor of treating a seer, and will not accept money or no for an answer.
Everyone always wants something.
He wonders what Alexander thinks he wants from him, wonders what’s going through the young man’s head.
The food arrives and Alexander dives into it, and in an attempt to keep him from choking via attempting to talk and inhale food at the same time, Aaron begins to fill the silence. First somewhat stiltedly, as he is not used to just talking for talking’s sake, but he is beginning to study law and there are many subjects that are intellectually fascinating but not politically polarized, which means that he can speak about them with free reign. The English Commonlaw was a work of genius clobbered together over the years, full of rich history and precedent and Aaron is just starting to learn the true depths of it, and he says as much. He comments that perhaps Alexander might want to become a lawyer too—he certainly likes talking enough. Alexander grins at that one.
They finish their meal, they’re working on their second glasses of beer, the conversation has turned from law to politics to revolution, and Aaron is still enjoying it despite deflecting the implicit questions looming every single time Alexander lets him talk—and that’s when the door bursts open and three rather drunk idiots stumble in.
Hercules Mulligan, a textile importer, and ardent Son of Liberty. John Laurens, son of rich landowner and member of the Provisional Congress Henry Laurens. And a new face, someone propped up between the two of them and speaking garbled English in a heavy French accent, and Aaron nearly closes his eyes and begins to pray as they stumble towards the back, but they thankfully, thankfully, thankfully they sit at an adjacent table. Alexander gives them a curious glance, and for a brief moment Aaron thinks they’re safe, and then Laurens’ eyes land on them.
“If it ain’t the prodigy of Princeton college!”
He elbows the French man and Mulligan, and now all three of them are staring at Aaron and Alexander. “Aaron Burr!” Mulligan exclaims. Laurens is laughing, but his eyes are hard, and Aaron is very aware that not many of the younger Sons of Liberty are as understanding about his unique set of circumstances, the balance that he must strike, and that his night is potentially about to take a turn for the unpleasant.
Aaron gives them all a curt nod but doesn’t say anything. Laurens keeps pushing.
“Come on, drop us some knowledge! It’s Monsieur Lafayette’s first night here in the colonies, give ‘em something to remember!”
Aaron raises an eyebrow.
“Come on, Burr!” Mulligan shouts, or perhaps says but it too drunk to have any control over his own volume. The tavern is quieting, everyone is staring.
“I merely have the advice to offer of perhaps talk a bit less loudly, especially about the subjects you seem so prone to shouting about,” Aaron finally says. “I, for one, intend to finish my meal and go home unharassed tonight.”
Laurens catches on immediately and won’t let it go. “Burr, the Revolution’s imminent, what the fuck are you stalling for?”
And then Alexander, sweet Alexander, is staring back and forth between the two men and comprehension is blooming on his face and he stands up and maybe is a bit drunker than he expects because his chair scrapes and nearly falls over and looks him directly in the eyes and says, “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what do you fall for?”
Aaron is frozen for a beat as a strange mixture of shame and humiliation and fury wash over him, then he stands abruptly and pushes his chair into the table. “All I see is death,” he says, his tone brokes finality, and perhaps he is speaking a bit too loudly as well because the entire tavern falls silent and the words seem to grow and echo in his mind and take on a weight of their own, and he is terrified that they are going to be repeated from every corner tomorrow, spoken as if they are prophecy, when all they are is truth: his abilities seem to be limited to seeing the deaths of people, and usually only when his skin brushes their skin.
He cannot stand the silence, he cannot stand the stillness; he breaks it, storms out without bothering to look back. The meal and drinks will be put on his tab, although he doubts Fraunces will make him pay for it when he hears what happened. Alexander will get along with those three well enough, he couldn’t shut up about the Revolution, it was Revolution this and Revolution that and suddenly all of Alexander’s unending stream of words seems stifling and he needs fresh air and to be gone. He’s outside and in what is now a light rain before he can properly pull his scarf hand hat on and has just finished wrestling his outer garments into their proper places, his legs moving ever-forward the whole time, when a hand slips into his and tugs him to a stop.
His breath catches for a moment, but no new vision hits him, so it must be someone that he’s already touched. He turns around, but he knows who it is before his eyes catch sight of them: Alexander Hamilton, standing there is the rain, gazing at him with an expression of understanding and what almost looks like pity.
“I’m sorry, that was a bit out of line, I didn’t mean to push,” Alexander says. “I just—how can you stand it, staying neutral?”
“I’ve lived longer than most seers of recorded history,” Aaron points out. “And no one is particularly trying to kill me yet.”
“The Revolution really is imminent,” Alexander says. “They’ll come for you eventually, the British, the Continental army, it won’t matter, someone either won’t trust you or won’t trust the enemy not to snatch you up. So why don’t you choose, before someone chooses for you?”
“I don’t want to get dragged into this mess,” Aaron says. “I will not be able to offer either side what they would demand of me. And I do not intend to become a target. I do not think war will be particularly pleasant, for me, for anyone.”
“You won’t have a choice!” Alexander says. “Don’t you think what’s happening is—is wrong, don’t you believe—“ and the expression of betrayal is plastered across is face again, such an innocent, unhidden anguish, like the very idea of Burr not wanting to take a position is breaking his heart, and Aaron hears himself hissing, “Yes, I think the current situation is a mess, yes, I think the the British have long since passed the point of no return with the current occupation of Boston and the Coercive Acts and honestly empires fall and the British empire is reaching past its prime, yes, I think that not only will these colonies fight for revolution but will possibly even win it, and might not even tear themselves apart in the process, and honestly, I hope that it happens, because then maybe everyone will stop bothering me and I can live my life in peace as a perfectly normal citizen and practice law and have some smidgeon of control over my own life.”
There is silence, and Aaron’s throat feels constricted. “My life hasn’t been my own since I was confirmed as a…confirmed at the age of four. Every word that I say carries weight, every glance that I give, the people that I associate with, the opinions that I voice, they’re all dissected and analyzed and remembered. They have power. So I’m careful before I open my mouth.”
Which is ironic for him to say, considering he’s just spilled more of his soul to a total stranger than he’s ever said in earnest to anyone in his life. In fact, he’s probably spoken more words tonight than he has in the past month combined.
Alexander takes his hand again and squeezes it. “Well then, I’ll fight. I’ll fight so that you can be free, Mister Burr, sir.”
Aaron almost bursts out laughing, because that’s the sort of line that a terrible, unscrupulous flirt would use on a maiden to woo her, only Aaron can see in Alexander’s eyes that he is completely sincere.
“Mulligan—Hercules Mulligan, back at the bar, his family has rooms that they are leasing, if you go and talk at those three long enough, I expect before long you’ll have a place to live. They’re near King’s College, which, while not Princeton, also does not happen to have a bursar that you punched,” Aaron says. “While we’re sitting around waiting for the revolution to happen, you might as well get started on an education. I’d say to stay out of trouble, but—“
Alexanders grins. “I promise I’ll only get into trouble if the other person really, really deserves it.”
“No you won’t,” Aaron says. “But you won’t get yourself killed, at least, not before you see all your great revolutionary convictions come into fruition.”
“Good to know,” Alexander says, and there’s a glint of mischief in his eyes and Aaron’s heart sinks knowing exactly how much of a bad idea it was to tell him that.
“Go on, get out of the rain, join your friends, get drunk and talk about revolution, be young and stupid and enjoy yourself,” Aaron says. “We’ll run into each other soon again.”
Alexander puts his hands on his hips and grins cockily. “Because you’ve seen it?”
“Because you’re far too stubborn to leave me alone, especially since you know where I live now,” Aaron says.
“You live here?” Alexander asks.
“Just down the street,” Aaron says. And he nearly, nearly, nearly invites Alexander to just come with him, stay the night in his guest room, nearly convinces himself that there won’t be questions the next morning, that if any of the thousands of eyes on him noticed and reported Alexander to the British that he’d be in trouble, that questions would be raised about whether or not he was a spy, that he would be placed under house arrest and that Alexander would be dragged off and most likely killed.
(Well. Not after just one night. But Aaron also doesn’t need to be a seer to know that if he lets Alexander stay over, he’ll have a hard time ever say no to him again, can already picture the late nights that will be spent in lighthearted conversation or somewhat more heated debate or Alexander hunched over a table scrawling while candles burn low and Aaron fetches them both tea and a small plate of biscuits, and it feels so real that for a moment Aaron thinks it is, thinks that it’s another vision instead of him just longing, longing, longing for it to be real.)
“Well,” Alexander says. “I probably shouldn’t keep you.”
And then he smiles and turns to go back to the bar and Aaron stands in the middle of the street for a solid minute, watching his form disappearing, as a pang hits him: he’s going to kill this man, he’s going to extinguish this fire, almost as sure as it’s been written in stone, he is going to be the one who kills Alexander Hamilton.
He’s almost grateful, in a stupid, selfish way. Because it means that Alexander’s going to be safe, it means that no one else is going to touch him, it means that he won’t have to worry about the idiot getting himself killed. And he can always just decide not to shoot him, and as long as Aaron doesn’t want to shoot him, well, Hamilton won’t get shot.
Still, it’s a strange mixture of fire and guilt that is smoldering in his belly as he turns to go back home.
~~~~
Alexander will not, for the life of him, shut up.
He moves in with the Mulligans. Aaron still ends up eating dinner with him a fair amount at the Queen’s Head, if only because it means that he knows that Hamilton is eating, but he has to be more and more careful about it, considering how loud Alexander is getting. And how noticed. A British officer—Aaron’s stopped learning their names, as the rotation changes once a week, slams a pamphlet entitled Farmer Refuted on the table in front of him one morning and asks him in a fairly accusatory tone wasn’t it that friend of his that wrote this?
Aaron, his aplomb intact, just raises an eyebrow and says that he’s never seen this pamphlet before, but, scanning it, well, you have to admit that it’s fairly funny.
The officer does not seem particularly amused. But British officers rarely seem amused at anything he does these days, his every twitch is being regarded with the utmost suspicion, and Alexander’s voice is getting under his skin more and more and more, wouldn’t he rather choose before someone chooses for him? He wonders sometimes if he uses his abilities as an excuse, or if he’s merely spoiled, that he waits for the few and far between flashes of insight he has before making decisions because he alone has the luxury of every once in a while knowing with complete certainty that he will end up on the right side. He doesn’t understand for a moment how Alexander does it, how he throws himself into things with such passion and surety, how no matter how high the stakes, Alexander seems to always win. He would be terrified for Alexander’s life, if he didn’t know that Alexander’s life was safe and sound and entirely in his hands.
I’m not standing still, I’m just lying in wait, Aaron reminds himself.
~~~
He can’t wait much longer; news of the battles of Lexington and Concord arrive, and he has one of his rare flashes of insight that the British are coming for him, and he sneaks out of his house to go and enlist in the Continental Army. They send him to Quebec, decide that it is safer to keep him out of the way than risk his capture. He is grateful. He wears his gloves constantly, and manages to avoid most skin-on-skin contact, and so he doesn’t have to experience most of the men around him’s deaths.
He shakes General Montgomery’s hand when they meet, sees that he is going to be killed by a grapeshot from a cannon in a snowstorm on an attack of Montreal. As they place the city under siege, he grows nervous, on December 30th, when a snowstorm strikes, he tells Montgomery. Montgomery stares into the distance for a few minutes, then replies that he will still go forward with the attack, prepares orders for Colonel Arnold to take over, but he cannot throw away this battle that they might win just to attempt to preserve his own life. He sends Aaron on the fastest horse he has to get out of there, to re-join Washington’s forces down in the states and wait for re-assignment, because the possibility of Aaron’s capture is far more important than the certainty of him dying.
For the first time, Aaron feels actively guilty about his gift, and actively useless, and he hates it.
They lose the battle, many are killed, many more are captured, and Aaron alone makes it safely back to Washington’s forces.
~~~
“Your Excellency.”
“Who are you?”
“Aaron Burr, sir.”
Washington visibly stiffens; he must recognize his name. Of course he recognizes his name, there’s no one in the colonies who wouldn’t.
Aaron presses on. “Permission to state my case?”
“As you were.”
“Sir, I was a captain under General Montgomery until he caught a bullet in the neck in Quebec, and well—“ Washington keeps staring at him and he feels uncharacteristically nervous. “I have some questions, a couple of suggestions, I could…”
Could what? Shake men’s hands to see where they die and use that to get glimpses of where battles would happen and how bad they look, help inform strategy at the price of his own albeit twisted sense of morality and honesty, use his abilities to help them cheat?
What would Alexander do? What would Alexander say if he could see him here, offering, prostituting his own gifts, and for what? Out of a sense of shame that Montgomery saved him? Out of the frustration that he can do nothing?
Washington is still staring at him, the silence is stretching on, until finally the general speaks. “I will be frank with you, Mister Burr, I am aware of the extent of your abilities, and your history of equivocation. It makes me question your motives as to what precisely you are offering.”
“I respected General Montgomery a lot, sir, and I watched him march into battle with knowledge of his own death—“ and Washington’s eyes suddenly harden and Aaron knows that he’s said the wrong thing, even as he presses on, “—and I do not want a single sacrifice of this war to be in vain or to be unnecessarily made.”
“Your Excellency, you wanted to see me?”
Aaron’s heart nearly stops, Alexander is right there, holding one of the flaps of the tent open, hovering on the threshold.
Washington smiles, and looks a lot less cold.
“Hamilton, come in. Have you met Burr?”
“We keep meeting,” Aaron says, and Alexander says it at exactly the same time, and then grins at him, and Aaron can’t help but grin back.
(It only occurs to him later that perhaps Alexander is remembering the first time they met, when Aaron told him that they would run into each other again, that Alexander really did take his words to mean more than Aaron meant them to. Aaron doesn’t care, he’s more than happy to keep running into him.)
“Burr?”
“Sir?”
“Close the door on your way out.”
And Aaron is not sure whether he feels relief or disappointment that it seems like he really won’t be doing the insanity that he just offered to do, that he really won’t watch death after death after death just to try to give a bit more hope in this seemingly unwindable war.
~~~
Aaron eventually gets promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and he shakes the hands of every single one of his men, taking careful note of every possible glimmer of information he can get about upcoming skirmishes and attempting to ignore all of his deaths. A very large number of them die long after the war; some happily, surrounded by their families, some drunk and alone and cursing their lives, some in more pressing circumstances, but they make it through the war. It gives him confidence. He has to rely on his own skills, his own observations, and he gives orders as any other man would, and not because he is a seer. It only stings a little bit that almost everyone will view his success as coming from those other abilities, and not who he is as a person.
He becomes a national hero, even though Washington refuses to commend him for any of his efforts. He tries not to let that get a rise out of him. He tries to think of how proud Alexander undoubtedly is that not only has he chosen a side, but he has wholeheartedly devoted himself to it. Some say that the fact that he is known to be fighting for the Revolution is doing more to turn wavering Loyalists to the cause than anything else; the fact that America’s seer has chosen America imbues everyone with the hope that they can and will win this war. Aaron becomes the de-facto leader of Colonel William Malcolm's Additional Continental Regiment, and successfully fights off more British nighttime raids than he can count. He helps put down mutiny at Valley Forge.
Things go well until the summer, when Charles Lee makes a stupid mistake and an even stupider attack on General Charles Cornwallis’ rear guard and Aaron’s regiment rushes to help, and Aaron begins to recognize the location, recognize the land and the shadows and the sunlight and the very smell of the air, and he freezes and before he can shout anything and the heat and the memories of death replay over and over again as screams ring through the air and he’s fairly sure that he collapses, and all he can think about is how terribly he failed as he prays that someone will kill him before he can get captured.
The next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a medical tent and Alexander is standing over him. He blinks, but Alexander doesn’t seem to have noticed that he’s awake, so he stays very still, hoping that he’ll just leave. A half hour passes, and he doesn’t.
“Don’t you have duties to attend to?” Aaron finally croaks.
Alexander’s full attention is focused solely on him at once like a spotlight. “I am,” he says. “The entire Continental Army is rather worried about the fact that we may have just killed our seer.”
“I survive the war,” Aaron says.
“Well none of us have any way of knowing that!” Alexander’s eyes flash, and he opens his mouth, ready to launch into an angry tirade. Aaron cuts him off.
“Well, now you do.”
Alexander doesn’t even esteem that with a reply, he just turns on his heel and stomps out. Aaron can’t blame him for that, he got the information that he came for. Other aides-de-camp visit him and check up on him, and soon he is well enough to move back to his own tent.
John Laurens challenges Charles Lee to a duel. Lee immediately, secretly, under the cover of night, comes and visits Aaron to ask whether or not he’ll win. Aaron is too tired to turn him away, so takes his hand, and tells him that he won’t die in the duel.
Alexander must hear somehow, because he marches into Aaron’s tent the next day, absolutely furious, not even demanding to know what Aaron saw, just pissed that Aaron would use his abilities for something so petty, and even worse, to help the enemy. Aaron nearly snorts at that—Charles Lee isn’t their enemy, he’s an idiot who made some mistakes but that doesn’t mean he should be strung up for it—
“How many men died because Lee was inexperienced and ruinous?” Alexander shouts at him.
Aaron sighs. So he’s not going to be able to talk Alexander out of this, and honestly, he’s not sure if he even should. But he’s himself, so he has to try. “Okay,” he says. “So you’re doing this? Has there not been enough bloodshed already? Has there not been—”
And then he nearly doubles over and throws up, because all he can see is men dying on a battlefield, on a thousand different battlefields, and he can’t pick apart the ones that are his memories from the ones that are other people’s memories to the ones that haven’t even happened yet, and he probably would be on the ground if not for the fact that suddenly Alexander’s holding him up.
“He did this to you,” Alexander said, his voice angry and low and rough, and Aaron nearly has to bite his tongue to keep himself from hysterics.
“I did this to myself, Alexander,” he says. “I shook every single one of my soldiers’ hands to try to—to try—“ and the memories of deaths are nearly overwhelming him again.
Alexander is staring at him with wide eyes. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“How could you—“ Aaron feels his whole body go numb. “How could you do that to yourself?” Alexander’s voice breaks at the end of it, and Aaron is almost guilty for the giddy relief that rushes through him.
“Not many people are aware of the significance of shaking my hand,” Aaron says. (He had confided in Alexander back before the war, back when they were friends who sometimes got dinner together, because Alexander was curious and unafraid to ask why Aaron wore gloves all the time and in general just avoided touching people. Alexander had thankfully not asked what he’d seen when they’d shaken hands for the first time.) “Besides, would you have done any differently?”
Alexander looks like he is caught between wanting to protest, and the fact that Aaron is unequivocally right.
“Aaron, will you promise me something?” he finally says.
“It depends on what you ask,” Aaron replies.
That draws a chuckle. “Don’t—don’t ever do this to yourself again.”
“I’m not sure if I can,” Aaron admits. “Some days are fine, some days I can barely walk, I don’t think I’m going to be of much use any longer.”
Alexander’s eyes widen even further, and Aaron is struck by the fact that he probably just said the exact wrong thing to say, that this is a distraction and a worry that General Washington’s chief aide-de-camp doesn’t need.
The next week, he goes to Washington, expresses his concerns that his health will keep him from being an effective member of the Continental Army. He retires, and Washington assigns him intelligence missions instead, ones that he eagerly takes. He makes his way back home.
~~~
Charles Lee and his second, Evan Edwards, show up for the duel. John Laurens shoots Lee in the side. As per Aaron’s prediction, Lee doesn’t die.
Aaron tries not to feel a rush of triumph and relief when he hears that Washington explodes at Hamilton, orders him home to his new wife, that Hamilton too will be stuck safely out of the way of all the horror and bloodshed of war. It doesn’t even seem to matter that he knows Hamilton will survive this all, knows that Hamilton will live until the roots of his hair begin to show marks of grey, it’s hard not to be restless when he knows that Alexander is in harm’s way every day.
~~~
Of course, Alexander doesn’t stay out of the war for long; he comes back, is even appointed his own command. But the surety was nice while it lasted.
~~~
The war ends. Aaron too falls in love somewhere along the way and settles down. Her name is Theodosia, she was married to a British officer, but she has supported the colonies and their independence from the inception of the idea. As such, she is a genius diplomat, navigating high society, conducting herself with upmost grace and controlled manner. Aaron can empathize like almost no one else. She is ten years his senior, but that does not seem to matter. He had exchanged letters with her every day, visited her in New Jersey, tried to ignore the fact that he knew she was going to die painfully of some incurable illness and he knew not when.
They get married in 1782. Aaron can still barely believe that the war is over, they’ve survived, they’ve won. They move from Philadelphia back to New York. Aaron sets up a small legal practice. Alexander takes his advice and becomes a lawyer, which he finds very amusing, as Alexander will speak for hours on end in court. Sometimes to the jury's extreme chagrin. They work right next to each other, they confer on every other case, it seems. Aaron gets his nights of conversation and debate and Alexander refusing to go home because there’s one more thing he needs to write. It’s pleasant. No one pressures him to make grand sweeping predictions, it’s like the whole world seems to think that he’s done enough.
(He really did contribute a fair amount even after he retired from the army; his intelligence was put to good use, and he even got dragged into the fighting once more, rallied a group of Yale students in New Haven and successfully drove the British off. America is proud of him and what he’s done and now that the war is over, everyone’s too giddy on their success to want to bother the seer. It’s the greatest blessing he could have asked for.)
I’ll fight so that you can be free, Mister Burr, sir, Hamilton had once said for him. He’d fought for himself to be free, and he was proud of it, just a little.