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"John...John!" Someone was roughly shaking him. "Wake up!"
John turns over and shields his eyes from the bright lights that had been switched on. He had just gone to bed at 3:30 AM, staying up with Washington and Lafayette to keep an eye on the engagement reports coming out of Schuylkill.
"What? What is it? I swear to god, someone better have died for you to be waking me up like this.."
There's a sudden silence that makes John's stomach churn. He sits up in bed and rubs his eyes. Lafayette stands in front of him with a sheet of paper held tightly in his hands and an ashen look on his face.
"Laf?" John says cautiously. "Laf, what is it?"
Lafayette hands the paper to him, apparently unable to form words. He sits on the bed next to John as he reads.
"It's the casualty list from Schuylkill...From today." John reads out loud.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Someone had...
He quickly scans the list for familiar names, glancing up at the empty bed across from him. Alex had gone to Schuylkill. Alex hadn't returned with the convoy. Washington had assured them that Alex was just behind doing business. There it was, written in the same font as the other names, as casual and emotionless as a grocery list.
Hamilton, Alexander. Killed in action.
John doesn't remember very well what happened next. At some point, he leaned over the bed and vomited. At some point, Hercules had come into the room to find John sitting with a vacant look on his face and vomit on his clothes, and Lafayette sobbing onto John's blanket. He had knelt down to retrieve the paper John had dropped, read it quickly, muttered some choice swears, and began to clean up the mess on the floor. At some point, he had made John change his shirt, and then had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. At some point, Hercules had hugged him tightly and whispered comforting words that meant nothing, and John hadn't responded.
What was there to say?
"Hey, Alex and I have been dating for six years now. Engaged for two. No one knew but Lafayette because we didn't want to fuck anything up. And now he's dead."
John corrects himself. Had been dating. Not have been. Past tense. Alex is past tense.
John screams.
Sometime around dawn, someone hands him a mug of coffee. John sips it mechanically, and absently notes with appreciation the strong alcoholic undertones.
Sometime around 3 pm, someone comes into his room. Someone tall, with very important looking insignia on their collar. John gets up from where he has been lying flat on the ground and pretends like he has any dignity left. Or enough energy to pretend he cares that he doesn't.
"General Washington, sir." John says. His voice cracks. He can feel tears on his cheeks again.
"Son, please sit back down." Washington says gently. "Here-" he hands John a box of tissues and gestures towards the bed.
John sits back down. It takes all of his self control to not curl into a ball and scream.
"John..." Washington starts. John looks up. Washington hadn't used his first name since he was Alex's professor. "You know that I knew about Alex and you, correct?"
"Yes, sir." They'd dated in college. They clearly hadn't broken up when Washington saw them again on base.
"So I just want you to know, losing a spouse can be one of the most, uh, painful experiences." Does Washington's voice tighten?
"Spouse, sir?" John pushes his T-shirt collar up.
"John." Washington chides. "Alex told me you were engaged not twenty minutes after he proposed."
John's throat feels impossibly tiny. He reaches for the ring he keeps on a chain, and grasps it tightly.
"Losing a spouse is only really comparable to losing a child." At this, Washington's fists tighten. "He shouldn't have gone. I never should have let him go. He was still sick from that pneumonia he developed in January, he should have been in-" He stops abruptly and takes a deep breath. "I'm truly sorry for your loss, John. Alex is going to be very...deeply missed around here." Washington stands suddenly and turns his back on John.
"I'll send Mulligan in to check on you soon." Washington says in a tightly controlled voice. With that, he leaves.
Sometime around nine, John looks at the pocket knife sitting on the counter. Hercules had taken both of John's pieces on the pretense of 'getting them cleaned", but both Hercules and John knew better.
He flicks it open and stares at metal blade, glinting in the moonlight.
He doesn't know how long he stays like that, but he does know that when Lafayette walks in with two mugs and a clear bottle, he rushes forward with an incoherent yell and grabs the knife from John's hands. He shoves it deep in his pockets, and steers John by the shoulders to the bed. He searches the room and comes up with two more knives, and a bottle of painkillers from when Alex had surgery. These he sets on the counter, then comes back to the bed. He kneels in front of John and takes both of his hands in his.
"Mon ami," he says quietly. "Do you think that is what Alex would have wanted? If you were killed, would you want Alex to kill himself?"
John shakes his head mutely. Lafayette presses John's hands to his forehead, and he sobs.
Sometime around midnight, someone tells him to lay down, and they cover him with a thick blanket. Lafayette hasn't left the room since he found John. He sits at the table with Hercules, alternating between downing that clear bottle and staring worriedly at John.
He doesn't sleep.
He rubs his ring incessantly.
He can't even cry anymore.
He just lays still, and wonders if Lafayette would hate him if he just stopped eating and drinking and moving and thinking.
Sometime around three, there's something going in the hall outside John's room. Someone whoops loudly and John can hear a familiar laugh. John sits straight up in bed, shaking in anger. Alex is dead. And they're celebrating. John gets out of bed, grabbing onto the wall as the world sways around him, then swinging the door open. There's practically a party in the hall, with all the aides hugging each other and laughing. Some are even singing.
"What the fuck are you bastards doing?" He snarls.
Everyone quiets for a moment.
"He hasn't heard yet.'" Someone says from the back.
"Heard what?" John snaps. "I've heard that Alex is dead, that he was killed in action and-" He stops himself.
Lafayette extricates himself from the crowd and takes John by the arm, leading him back into the room. He's smiling, what the fuck-
"Get your shoes and jacket on, John. We need to go somewhere."
Lafayette leads him across the dark base and into the makeshift hospital. Through wards and hallways. John says nothing as Lafayette pulls him along. He's afraid if he opens his mouth, everything will come tumbling out.
Laf stops at a guarded door, and gives the soldier his title and rank. He steps to the side and opens the door for them.
There's just one hospital bed in here and it's occupied. Washington sits next to the bed. There are actual tears on his face, and he's grinning. A doctor is bent over the bed. She straightens up, and John can see.
A skinny man with dark hair and big, brown, bloodshot eyes. He has a cast on his arm, bandages on his forehead, and a black eye. The doctor places a clear bag of saline on the stand and attaches the iv in his arm to it.
"All set, Colonel Hamilton." She says. "I'm coming back in here in half an hour. You need to sleep." She leaves.
Alex.
Is alive.
And breathing.
In front of him.
Washington nudges Alex gently and nods towards John. Alex looks up and meets John's eyes. He smiles weakly.
"Hi, John." He says hoarsely.
John flies forward and wraps the man in front of him in a tight hug. He's warm and his chest rises and falls normally, and fuck.
After a small eternity, John lets go. He adjusts a bandage on Alex's forehead and gently runs his finger over the dark bruise forming under his eye.
"Alex." John breathes. Alex just does that little half smile.
"Surprise! Not dead. A little beat up, but very much alive." He says. "I don't know how they managed to fuck up the casualty list that badly, but-"
John leans forward and kisses him. The words melt off Alex's tongue.
"Don't you ever do that again, Alexander Hamilton," John whispers, touching his forehead to his fiancé's. "Do you hear me? Ever."
Alex reaches up with his good hand and rests it on John's jaw, thumbing away tears.
"Never again." He promises.
"Did they really think they were being discreet?" Lafayette asks Washington in the back of the room. "They're literally like this all the time."
Washington snorts.
"Let them believe the entire base doesn't know. For now."