Chapter Text
He felt consciousness slowly kicking back, the outside world hitting his waking mind with a bunch of unfamiliar sounds coming from a distance and his face flushing from the characteristic heat of sun shining through a glass window - not hot enough to burn, but still warming his cheeks up. His lids seemed too heavy to lift, a sensation he had become too familiar with over the past few months.
This time, however, it felt different. It felt wrong , he thought to himself. Not that being constantly sleep deprived had ever been right - he was aware that he was harming himself, drastically cutting down on fulfilling his body's most basic needs. But he couldn't bring himself to care, not anymore, not when all the people he loved and lived for despised him. Before his mind could jump deeper into the black hole of painful memories, he decided on opening his eyes - he was probably late for an important meeting anyways. Besides, he really wanted to check what it was that his subconscious was trying to warn him about.
That was a mistake.
The brightness of the room hit him like a camera flash, blinding and shocking, making his brain swirl and his stomach twist. He tried to look around, but he was too weak to lift his pulsating with pain head. He tried to speak, but his tongue refused to form sounds that could be considered words . That terrified him the most. His entire body started shaking with fear, the sudden helplessness being too overwhelming, too much to handle. In the middle of his panic attack, he felt a big hand on his palm, thumb covered with rough, almost cracked skin rubbing gentle, reassuring circles, careful not to touch what felt like an IV.
"It's okay Alex, you're in the hospital, just rest."
The voice was so familiar, but no, he thought, it couldn't be him, why would he be there? The curiosity overtook his exhaustion and he put all the strength he had into opening his eyes once again. Washington's blurred, worried face was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.
---
The second time Alexander woke up wasn't even nearly as bad as the first. His whole body seemed numb, but at least the headache and panic were no longer there. He felt drugged, which he’d normally hate, but the tiredness was still too acute for him to think properly. He managed to examine the room with a torpid stare. He must had been asleep for at least a few hours, because the sun was long gone. Washington was sitting in an armchair in the corner, focused on his phone. Once he felt Alex's eyes on him, he returned the look, a sad, small smile ghosting over his face. Alex dropped his head heavy on the pillow and drifted off once more.
---
Third time's the charm, they say. Well, it seemed to be true in Alexander's case. He felt neither tired nor drugged, only slightly dizzy with the rays of morning sun shining directly in his eyes. He tried to lift his hand to his face to stop them, and ended up being painfully reminded of the IV.
"Careful!"
Washington was still there, but this time not alone. The sight of Martha, with her loving, concerned eyes fixed on him, caught him off guard. She had always been nice to him - that was her way of living, loving and caring about everyone. But he'd never expected her to be here.
Alex wondered if the Washingtons had spent the entire night by his side. It was possible, judging by the dark circles under their eyes. It hit his heart with a surprising force, the fact that his boss cared about him more than his own wife. Well, ex-wife. He knew he was being irrational, he knew how much he had hurt her and that he didn't deserve her presence at all, but he still couldn't control the tears that started slowly dripping down his cheeks, wetting the two-week-old beard that he had been too busy to shave. He squeezed his eyelids shut, just letting them flow for a minute. Before they could dry on his skin, leaving him with salty, burning traces, Martha was hovering over the bed, softly wiping them away with a tissue. She didn't give him enough time to break again, and comforted him in a tight, motherly hug. He realised that she probably had a lot of experience with this, having raised four children. She let go of him when he stopped shaking, brushed a strand of hair that had stuck to his sweaty forehead behind his ear and stood up, a short grimace of pain crossing her face when she tried to fully straighten her back. And Alex had thought that he couldn't feel any more disgusted with himself...
"George wants to talk with you alone, Alexander. Is that okay? Do you want it to wait?" Her voice was soft and calm, not forcing anything, and although he would have been very grateful to postpone this conversation into eternity, he was also painfully aware of its inevitability. Might as well just rip the bandage off - it wasn’t like things could get much worse than they already were, anyway.
"It's fine." His voice came out much hoarser than he expected it to, but at least his tongue was cooperating with him again.
He felt a wave of fear wash over him as he watched Martha leave. He had no idea what was going to happen. Would Washington yell at him? Would he get fired, accused of unprofessionalism too big to get away with? His mind was finally back to its normal, blistering pace, running through the hundreds of possibilities in a fraction of a second, each one worse than the previous.
Washington picked up a chair that was standing next to the door and placed it on the side of the bed, close enough to be able to easily touch Alex. He didn't, though. He just sat there for what felt like hours, his face hidden between his big hands, elbows resting on knees. It wasn't easy to make Washington speechless and hesitant like that, and it made the panic rise in him once again. He assumed that either something completely terrible had happened or was just about to happen.
He, however, had most certainly not expected the utterly broken expression on Washington's face once his hands finally fell from it and revealed it. Now that he was so close, Alexander finally had a chance to notice the unfamiliar redness that framed the older man's irises - he had seen him after 48 hours without sleep, he had seen him after an entire day spent on fighting in the government and talking to the press afterwards, he had seen him ill and he had seen him angry. But he had never seen his eyes like this. He felt his chest tighten when he realized the only explanation fitting behind it was that Washington had been crying . When he finally brought himself to speak, his voice was like nothing Alex ever heard come out of his mouth, the calmness and confidence provided by years of political experience long gone. At that very moment, his voice was pure, raw emotion.
"Alexander, do you have any idea how close you were to never waking up again?"
"What do you mean?" His surprise was genuine. He had figured out that it had been something more than just inconsequential fainting - that had happened to him a few times before, and it did not feel like this at all. He hadn't had the chance to speak with a doctor yet, so he could only make assumptions about his state. But he didn’t notice any serious wounds, he wasn’t feeling that horrible - he most certainly had been worse is his life on several occasions.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
It took Alex a while to try to recall the events of his evening in the office. Bringing any of these memories back was like trying to shift a huge rock from his mind, and when he finally succeeded, they felt as if they were covered in mist, like the memories of early childhood or a night filled with heavy drinking.
"Around 7, I got up from my desk to get a coffee," he said, uncertain if it was the truth or if his brain was playing tricks with him.
"That's when you had a syncope, Alex." Well, that made sense. He remembered having read somewhere that these things could happen after hastily standing up. But that would mean he just passed out for a moment, and that wasn’t a big deal at all. "A cardiac syncope. Your heart stopped, Alexander. If I hadn't stayed longer at work that day, if I hadn't gone to your office to tell you to go home..." Washington's voice became shaky, eyes absent, going through all the "if's". "Five more minutes and you'd be laying two floors downstairs." At that last sentence, his expression was almost betrayed, as if Alex had done something unforgivable.
"And what's there? Intensive care?" He couldn't understand why Washington was being so dramatic .
"The morgue, Alexander. You'd be dead on the slab."
Alex did not expect that. He was about to say something - he really felt like he owed Washington an apology for all the worry and trouble - but before he could open his mouth, the remainings of Washington's self control disappeared and he stood up, fury playing in his eyes, hands clenched in fists.
"Just because you don't care about your life doesn't mean you get the right to be a reckless idiot, Hamilton. I have no words to describe how incredibly immature you are, and cat very rarely gets my tongue. This is just a whole new level of stupidity and selfishness, congratulations!" Washington kept spitting words with an anger Alex had never thought he had in him, getting louder and louder with every sentence. "Yes, you fucked up and your wife left you. But that's how life is, Hamilton! All that I'm asking is for you to finally put that brilliant brain of yours to use, because If you could, for one Goddamn minute, stop crying about your hurt ass and just consider the consequences of your behavior, maybe you wouldn't be in a hospital right now. And I'm not even going to ask you to think about me or Martha, because you clearly don't give a fuck about the fact that you're like a son to us, but for Christ's sake, had you, at least for a short moment, thought about your children? For a man that knows how it is like to not have a father, you're still so fucking careless about doing this to them!" He basically screamed the last phrase out and something in him broke; he just couldn't go on. Alex watched him wipe a single tear from his cheek and then almost jumped in his bed when Washington turned and punched a wall with such force Alex was sure he had broken at least two fingers. He winced from pain, squeezing his eyes shut.
That was when the door opened and Martha walked into the room. He wondered if it was the famous women's intuition , or if she had just been eavesdropping. Regardless of the reason, he was incredibly thankful for her saving the situation.
"What in heaven’s name have you done, George? Go see a doctor. Now." Her tone made it clear that there was no arguing with her. Washington gave her a look, but didn't hesitate to follow her order. She watched him leave and then turned to Alex, taking tissues out of her bag for the second time that day, and he only then realized that he had been crying since, pretty much, the beginning of Washington's rant. She sat on the chair her husband had occupied earlier. "Do you want me to or...?"
"I'm fine," he said, reaching out for the packing with his left hand, minding the IV.
"I knew this would happen, but there was no way of stopping him. I'm sorry that he was so harsh, Alexander," she spoke as she gently stroke Alex's wet face, unable to resist what the maternal instinct was telling her to do.
"So, you heard it all?" He managed between blowing his nose.
"Well, it wasn't that hard with how furiously loud he was. However, and although he shouldn't have done it like that, I can't disagree with what he said, and neither can you, Alexander. I know you're suffering, but you got so lost in your own misery that you didn't even realize you were just a step away from ruining way too many lives. It's already hard enough for them with their parents divorced, Alex. They need you alive, George needs you alive and if that doesn't speak to you, your country needs you alive, son." He tried to avoid her stare the entire time, but that last word made him glance at her, and the suffering in her eyes was just too much. He felt a sudden rush of unbelievable guilt drop heavy on his chest and, as much as he hated himself for it, let the salty drops fall down his face one more time.
"I'm so sorry, I... I had no idea that this could happen, I..." He stopped halfway, ashamed of the sudden diappearance of his sharp tongue and emotional composure, small sobs sneaking after every other word.
"Alex, you hadn't slept in what, 4 days? and eaten in even more. You're a smart, grown man. Did you expect your body to feed on cosmic energy?" She sounded like a mother disappointed with her child.
"No, I just... " He wanted to say so many things, but the words didn't seem to be there. Instead, he let out one more sob, hyperventilating a bit.
"Shh, it's okay, it's okay." Martha lifted from the chair, carefully pressed his head to her chest in a calming manner (he noticed he had a bandage on it, he must had hit something while falling) and just let him cry, wetting her shirt all over. She didn't seem to mind, though.
When he calmed down a bit, she spoke again. "You've been through a lot this morning, you should try to have some rest. I'm going to find George and check on him now, is that fine? Do you want me to stay?" He shook his head. "Do you need anything?"
A question crossed his mind, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer. He decided on giving it a shot; he had nothing to lose at this point.
"Have you called Eliza?"
Her face fell, almost as if she had been scared he would ask. "Yes. She said that once you feel better she might let the kids visit you."
That was it. A reluctant allowance to see the kids. After all the years, all they had, after he almost died... He didn't even have it in him to cry anymore at this point. Martha silently watched him, seeking for his reaction. He just gave her a nod. She nodded back and soon after that she was gone.
Alex was left by himself, and for the first time in his life, he was devastated by it.