Chapter Text
“I can’t believe this, you’re actually scared!” Eliza said, bemused, shaking her head as she leaned against the car window.
Alexander shot her a glare from the driver’s seat, “A long weekend- Christmas weekend I might add- spent with my girlfriend’s huge family, who have yet to meet me, in their sprawling mansion in the middle of the woods. And you’re surprised that I’m scared?”
Eliza frowned, “Its hardly a mansion,” she said defensively.
Eliza would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit nervous herself. There was a not too insignificant part of her brain that was tempted to tell Alexander to turn the car around and drive back to the safe independence of college, where parents and siblings were just a distant memory. But it was winter break and it was Christmas Eve and it was time for the Schuylers to meet the young man she’d been dating for a year now.
Alexander gave a short huff, breaking the tense silence that had fallen between them.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be a dick. I just want them to like me,” he admitted, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. Eliza smiled at her boyfriend, finding it hard not to let his nervousness amuse her a little. It was sweet that he wanted to make a good impression.
“I’m sure they’ll love you,” she insisted, reaching over and placing one hand on his knee reassuringly.
Alexander’s mouth twisted, “Oh yes? Have they loved every other scruffy, ex-foster care, ex-army, Puerto Rican, bisexual boy you’ve brought home?”
“Actually, you’re the first boy I’ve ever brought home, period,” Eliza said, ignoring his self-deprecating joke, being well used to his flippant attitude towards himself. She filed away a reminder to herself to compliment him at some point later to make up for what he’d said. That was her way of dealing with it.
“Oh great,” he moaned, sarcastically, his face paling a little at the realisation that this was a real trial run.
“Alex, look at it this way,” she said firmly, “By the time Christmas is over, you will still be my boyfriend regardless of what my parents think of you.”
For that, he could raise a crooked grin.
They were getting gas when the nausea flooded over her again. Alexander returned from paying to find her curled in a ball, her knees pulled to her chest, hiding her pale, sweating face.
“You okay?” he asked, surprised.
“No,” Eliza replied quietly, her voice muffled, “I still feel sick.”
Alexander chuckled, “Better shake that hangover before we get to your parents’.”
“I told you, I didn’t drink anything last night!” she insisted, unfurling herself as they pulled out of the gas station.
“Ha. Yeah, right. Okay,” Alexander scoffed, not believing a word. He knew better than anyone how his girlfriend’s demure, ever-so-good-student façade hid her true self, a girl who would challenge anyone and everyone to a shot contest once she was in the right mood.
She made to argue back but was interrupted by what felt like her stomach tying itself in in a knot, causing her face to turn alarmingly ashen. Feeling instantly guilty, Alexander reached out one hand and gently began kneading the small of her back, something he always did to calm her down when she became stressed or ill. She sighed gratefully, giving him one of her smiles that reminded him why he was ignoring every one of his instincts and spending Christmas with her family. As long as Eliza was there, he’d be able to bear it.
Her sickness passed as quickly as it had come and she chalked it up to nerves; she’d been feeling sick all through the last week of term, more than likely the result of some particularly stressful finals. The rest of the long car journey was spent quite happily, in silence with Eliza reading with her bare feet up on the dashboard while Alexander’s hand caressed her knee or in less-than-silence as they loudly sang along to ridiculous disco songs on the radio, laughing carelessly like hyenas. Alexander again had to marvel at how easy everything was around Eliza, how he never had to mentally check what he said or what he did in her presence. She just made life so simple.
However, the peace was shattered the moment they saw the Schuyler house crest the treetops; Alexander’s bottom jaw must have hit the steering wheel.
“Jesus Christ,” he squeaked, all his confidence and resolve draining away in an instant as they met the wrought iron gates.
Eliza gripped the top of his arm reassuringly, “It’s going to be okay. Stay calm. Breathe.”
Alexander’s lips were clamped together in a hard line and the whites of his eyes were showing but he managed a little nod.
Just breathe.
They parked up Alexander’s battered, bruised Chevy Impala that looked as if it was on its last legs (and had looked like that since he’d bought the thing three years ago, it was the general consensus among their friends that he’d sold his soul to the devil to keep it running) under the towering white face of the house Eliza had grown up in. The grounds around them looked as if it would put most parks to shame, a sprawling carpet of green grass and tall pines. Alexander got out of the car and stood awkwardly, fussing with his shirt and trying to smooth back the errand hairs that always managed to wriggle free of his pony tail. He’d done his best to rustle up something from his limited wardrobe that at least hinted at formality; he was wearing a dark flannel shirt, chosen because it was the only thing he owned that had a collar and the jeans that had smelled the least objectionable. It had been the best he could muster but, now he was standing here, his best didn’t feel good enough.
No sooner had Eliza set foot on the gravel then there was a shriek of delight and several blurred shapes shot out of the great wooden doors and hurtled towards her. Alexander looked on in bemused horror, as his girlfriend was lost under a squirming, giggling pile of her siblings. Eventually, one of the shapes detached themselves and whirled over to where he was standing.
“Hey Alex!” Peggy grinned, taking both his hands in hers and pulling him into a hug.
Alexander hugged her back happily; he’d met the two sisters Eliza was closest to, Peggy and Angelica, before. The fact that he’d become a permanent fixture in his girlfriend’s dorm room and the fact that the three eldest Schuyler sisters weren’t willing to spend more than a fortnight without seeing each other meant they’d run into each other on many occasions. He’d already decided a while ago that he liked Peggy; she always seemed to have a smile on her face, she told the funniest jokes for all her apparent innocence and was one of the few people on planet Earth patient enough to listen to Alexander’s political rants (but would then promptly tell him he was a dork). He had to admit, however, he was still a little scared of the eldest of all the Schuyler children, Angelica, as fun as she was. Peggy didn’t look at Alexander like she was going to take a bite out of him.
A look that wasn’t too dissimilar from the expression on the face of the older woman that was currently walking towards him. Oh boy, here we go, Alexander thought, pulling away from Peggy and surreptitiously wiping the palm of his hand on the back of his jeans.
“Its nice to meet you, Mrs Schuyler,” he smiled, willing his voice not to break and offering his hand.
“Catherine, please,” she corrected smoothly, giving him a welcoming smile that was very reminiscent of Eliza’s, “And it’s very interesting to meet you, Alexander. We’ve heard an awful lot about you from our daughters; it’s nice to finally have a face to put to the name.”
Alexander scrambled for something to say to that, there was quite a lot about him that the Schuyler sisters knew that he would rather never made it back to their mother. Fortunately, he was rescued by the appearance of an impossibly tall, aged man with years worth of laugher lines creasing his dark brown face that must have been Eliza’s father.
“Ignore my wife, Alexander, she likes to intimidate all the young men our daughters bring home, it’s her favourite pastime,” Phillip Schuyler grinned, taking Alexander’s hand from his wife and giving it a hearty shake, “but she is right, it is lovely to meet you.”
“And you,” he answered, feeling a little more at ease.
From behind her parents’ backs, Eliza gave him a thumbs up and an encouraging smile.
Forty five minutes later, after a brief tour that involved lot of hugging and grinning and endless questions about how college was going and why Eliza didn’t come home more often that she brushed off effortlessly, Alexander was standing alone in the guest room that was apparently his for the next few days, in order to ‘freshen up before dinner’. Whatever that meant.
Eliza had forewarned him that her stringently Catholic parents weren’t going to let the two of them share a room and so he had accepted the flight of stairs separating him and his girlfriend graciously without batting an eyelid. He unpacked his small backpack of belongings within two minutes and sat uncertainly on the edge of the neat bed that felt like it belonged in a hotel room rather than a family home, wondering what he was supposed to do next. Had they liked him? Had he made a good enough first impression? Was he always going to feel like he didn’t belong in this house?
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening behind him, making him start. But it was only Eliza.
“Hey,” she said softly, crawling onto the bed behind him and wrapping her arms around his middle, her head resting on his shoulder.
“Well hi there,” he murmured, without much humour in his voice, kissing the side of her head.
“Aw, don’t sound so glum, chum,” she teased, “They love you!”
Alexander felt his eyebrows rise in disbelief, “you’re joking?”
“No, seriously, you’re so much more eloquent and educated than all the guys Angelica goes out with for fun. You’re polite, you laugh at their painfully unfunny jokes, you don’t have any…well, any visible tattoos. You’re off to a flying start.”
“Huh. Well, go me,” he said, grinning genuinely now, as she played with a lock of his hair.
There was a pause before Alexander quietly mused, “How long do we have before dinner?”
Eliza caught on instantly, “Long enough.”
Alexander got up to lock the door. By the time he got back to the bed, Eliza’s jeans were already on the floor.
They came down the stairs together, trying to hide away all evidence of their mischievous activities. Eliza was just hissing at Alexander to smooth his hair back down (he liked to have it pulled and yanked during sex which Eliza was more than delighted to oblige but it did leave him looking like he’d been caught in a hurricane) when she stopped dead halfway down the stairs. There were twin shrieks of joy and she flew down to the door, leaping into the arms of her eldest sister who had just walked in. For a while, Angelica and Eliza just clung to each other, completely oblivious to the rest of the world but as soon as they pulled away, Angelica’s searching amber eyes found the rumpled Alexander.
“Oh no,” Angelica breathed, “You haven’t brought him home have you, sis?”
“Don’t be rude,” Eliza laughed, her arms still around her sister’s waist, “he’s lasted a whole hour without causing any trouble.”
“Oh fantastic, I was worried that I’d missed the fireworks,” Angelica said with mock excitement, stepping forward to hug him tightly.
“I’m not the one who’s turned up about two hours late,” Alexander reminded her, having caught all of Catherine Schuyler’s many exasperated mentions of Angelica’s lateness during the tour.
“Oh yes? Well I’m not the one who’s clearly just been fucked- your shirt’s inside out and your fly is down,” Angelica shot back as she walked blithely towards the dining room, “Eliza dear, make sure he looks presentable before you bring him to the table.”
She disappeared round the corner, leaving Eliza laughing and Alexander blushing furiously.
“So, Alexander. Why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
Alexander’s fork stopped dead halfway to his mouth as the question he’d been dreading cut across the companionable, dinner table chatter of children. Don’t panic, he told himself, just like you planned.
“Um, well…I’m originally from Puerto Rico but I moved to America when I was pretty young. I joined the army and used their scholarship programme so I could go to college,” he said, a little lamely, knowing it was much less information that anyone else would offer when asked that question.
Catherine Schuyler’s mouth opened to ask the obvious question-and where were your parents in all this? The question Alexander really, really didn’t want to have to answer. The sorry tale of how his father’s abandonment and mother’s death had left him to be shuffled around various lack luster foster care institutions before running off to the army the way other kids dreamed of running off to the circus was hardly appropriate for the dinner table.
Fortunately, Eliza, sitting across from Alexander and to her mother’s left interrupted quickly, “You’re studying political science, aren’t you, Alex?” a question she knew would immediately spark her Senator father’s interests and get him going for hopefully the rest of the dinner. She felt her mother’s suspicious eyes on her but ignored them, focusing instead on her boyfriend’s grateful smile.
“Eliza, are you feeling alright? You’ve hardly eaten anything,” Angelica said in a low voice under her father’s enthusiastic rambling, “And, more worryingly, you haven’t touched your wine.”
Eliza shot a sardonic look to her right, where her elder sister was sat.
“Thank you for your concern,” she hissed, dryly, then realising there was genuine worry under her sister’s jibe, “Just feeling a little off, I guess.”
Angelica narrowed her eyes slightly but didn’t say anything, though she shot a glance, that Eliza didn’t see, to where Alexander sat listening to Phillip with rapt attention.
They then had twenty minutes in which to get ready for midnight mass. Alexander had been wonderful, answering ‘of course’ without missing a beat when asked if he would be attending, despite the fact that he hadn’t set foot in a religious building since he was six, which Eliza was well aware of. She had time to throw him an apologetic glance before her sisters swept her upstairs to their room that he accepted with a small shrug.
The Schuyler sisters, despite the fact that they all hadn’t been living under the same roof in nearly four years, fell into their old routine with ease. Peggy and Eliza dressed in their church clothes at the speed of light and were lolling around on Angelica’s bed within ten minutes.
“I still haven’t forgiven you two for going off to college and leaving me with them,” Peggy grumbled, “I mean, did you hear mama? It’s been months and she is still going on at me for my hair! Five times she managed to mention it at dinner, five times!”
Eliza giggled, idly flicking the offending hairstyle- a wild afro that could just about be wrangled into a ponytail, shot through with dustings of bright blue and pink, “Never fear, my young padawan. Just hang on till summer and then you’re free as a bird, just like us.”
“I’ll never survive that long!” Peggy groaned, covering her face with her hands (her nails painted to match the dye in her hair, of course) “Can’t I come and sleep on your dorm floor?”
“You don’t want that, Peg, come and live with me in Chicago! Her and Alexander will keep you up all night,” Angelica declared, pulling an elegant blouse of some enticingly glittering material over her head.
Peggy chortled as Eliza rolled her eyes. She was about to make some comment back, when all of a sudden; her stomach gave a violent heave. Before her brain had even registered what was going on, her feet were carrying her towards Angelica’s little bathroom and she was on her knees, vomiting.
“Oh no, Eliza!” Peggy cried, following her without hesitation and holding back her sister’s long, dark hair while Angelica poured her a glass of water from the sink.
“God, I’m so sorry,” Eliza said faintly, once she could speak again, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Eliza, sweetie…have you been getting sick a lot lately?” Angelica asked, her voice quiet and measured as her shivering, pale sister gratefully accepted the water.
She nodded in answer, “Yeah, I was throwing up all through finals, you know what I’m like for stress. I was thinking…well, please don’t tell him this, but I was kind of nervous about bringing Alex home for Christmas so I though it might be the same sort of thing…” Eliza trailed off, feeling a little faint and guilty, smiling gratefully as Peggy put an arm around her shoulders.
But Angelica’s face was marred with worry; that was truly terrifying, Angelica never let herself get worried about anything. She never relinquished control long enough for it to be necessary. But there it was, clearly written on her dark face, scaring the life out of both of her sisters.
“Eliza…” Angelica’s voice was flat, “when…when was the last time you got your period?”
Eliza opened her mouth to answer that she’d started last week, right on schedule, when the implication of Angelica’s question hit her. What hit her even harder was the realisation that her answer was wrong. She was supposed to have started last week but…
Peggy’s eyes went wide and her hands flew to her mouth as she turned to Eliza, who was sat, hugging her knees, completely frozen.
“Me and Peg will stop at the drugstore for you on the way home from Mass,” Angelica said, her voice a little shaky.
Alexander noticed that Eliza was curiously quiet as they drove to the little church that the Schuyler’s had been attending since before any of them could remember. A few times he tried to make some joke, start a conversation and Eliza would give replies that felt forced and stilted and they’d soon lapse into silence, her eyes fixed on the darkness that had quickly gathered outside the car’s window. Alexander felt his heart sink to the bottom of his Doc Martens as he studied his girlfriend’s stiff, pale profile. What had he said? What had he done? He’d thought it was going so well…
“Eliza…” he ventured quietly, his tone apologetic, but he couldn’t think of where to go from there.
“Sorry, I just…I don’t feel well,” she answered, still not looking at him.
Alexander wasn’t a religious person; he’d long decided that there was either no one up there in the clouds or else some bastard who was seriously fucking with him. However, he did have to admit that the Trinity chapel was an exceedingly beautiful building. His eyes followed the trails of Christmas lights and holly florets that wound around the pews, candlelight bathing everything within the aged limestone walls that he could honestly believe had stood there since the dawn of time. He sat on the hard, wooden bench, awkwardly stuffed between Eliza and Peggy (who was also being oddly evasive with him) and breathed in the prevailing smell of delicate candle smoke and woody incense, listening to the small, three piece string outfit in the corner play a haunting carol he didn’t know. Alexander had never felt ‘at peace’ but here, in this church? Here, he could begin to imagine what it felt like.
As if moved by some invisible impulse, the small congregation stood as one and began to sing from slim, blue hymn books in their hands that none of them really needed. Alexander, on the other hand, was at a bit of a loss, mumbling hesitantly along to a carol he’d never heard because it wasn’t one that got played on the radio. However, he soon forgot his awkwardness as he picked Eliza’s voice out of the throng around him; he adored hearing her sing. He played piano whenever he got a spare moment; there was a rickety keyboard lurking amongst the detritus in his dorm room. When it was getting late and their work was done, he would spend ages begging and wheedling, offering all the sexual favours he could think of in order to entice Eliza to sing for him. She usually gave in eventually (most likely after an offer of oral sex) and he’d play for her, rapt and in complete awe, often forgetting to hit the keys, he was so lost in her voice. They’d usually only make it through about three or four songs before Alexander would tip the keyboard to the floor and pounce on her, pulling her towards him as his hands went to the clasp of her jeans. She couldn’t say she wasn’t well rewarded for her indulging him. Alexander pulled his mind away from such thoughts; he was beginning to shift a little uncomfortably, even here. Eliza caught his eye as the song reached its end and, for the first time in a while, gave him a genuine grin.
In a surprising turn of events, mass dragged on far too long for Eliza’s fraying nerves while Alexander was faintly sad when it ended. She felt enormously guilty about it but she pretended to doze on the ride back to the house, unable to look him in the eyes let alone speak to him, her brain running around in endless circles, thinking a million different things at once but never settling on the one thing she couldn’t bear to think about. Alexander just hummed to himself, the violins still easing their slow melodies in his head.
When they got back to the house, Eliza couldn’t sit still as drinks were poured, shifting from one foot to the other in the sitting room for what was actually ten minutes but felt like and hour, listening for the click of the door as her sisters came home.
“And where on earth did you girls go?” Catherine’s voice echoed from the hall.
“Relax, mama, Angelica forgot her toothbrush so we just stopped off to get one.”
This exchange faded in Eliza’s ears as she made some excuse about being really tired and wanting to get to bed and fled up the stairs, Angelica close on her heels. Once they were in the relative safety of the single hallway that held all three of the sister’s rooms, Angelica pressed a long, thin box into Eliza’s hand.
“Thank you,” Eliza said quietly. She couldn’t quite bring herself to actually look at it, “I’ll, um, let you know what it says…”
“You should probably tell Alexander first,” Angelica said with a wry smile, “And don’t sweat, I really did forget my toothbrush…hey, El…its going to be okay, you know?”
She wrapped her in a quick, hard hug. There were many kinds of Angelica hugs and Eliza was well acquainted with most of them; this one told her in plainly and simply, as if it was the most obvious fact in the universe, that whatever happened from that moment on, Angelica would be right there beside her sister. Eliza felt like she was going to cry.
She did cry, five minutes later, as she sat on the edge of her bed, looking at the small white stick in her hands and the two tiny, pink lines that had appeared on it. She couldn’t say what emotion was making her cry, happiness or sadness or fear or worry or shock. All of them? None of them, something else entirely?
What the fuck was she going to do?
Phillip finally set his glass down after draining it of the last few drops of bourbon. “Right, children of mine, get yourselves to bed. And no waking up too early or Santa won’t come,” he said with a wink, standing up and stretching.
Peggy and Angelica rolled their eyes at his joke, getting up regardless and draining their own glasses, but Alexander just sat there, positively glowing at the fact that the phrase ‘children of mine’ included him as well.
He made as if to go to his room but he stopped at the second landing, looking around to check that Catherine and Phillip had disappeared. The coast was clear. Peggy came up as he was in the act of knocking on Eliza’s door and raised an eyebrow at him, as she was about to disappear into her own room.
Alexander grinned sheepishly, “Don’t tell your mother?”
Peggy gave him a languid smile and mimed zipping her lips closed and throwing away the key, though her eyes had a strange look in them as she turned away.
“Eliza?” Alexander hissed softly after a quiet knock on the door, “Eliza, are you alright?”
There was a pause and he had almost decided that she had already gone to sleep when her voice drifted to him, practically inaudible.
“Alexander? Can you come in here please?”
He felt his heart sink back to his boots as soon as he saw her, sitting with her back to him on her bed. He realised with a sickening jolt that he was about to find out why she had been unable to meet his eyes since dinner.
“I was going to say goodnight, just see if you were okay…” he said quietly, his mouth continuing to work even as his brain detached, throbbing with so many horrible ideas about what had gone wrong.
“Alexander,” her voice, thin and reedy, cut across his mindless babbling, “something’s happened.”
He felt a muscle in his jaw start to jump and twitch, like it always did when he was really stressed or nervous, “Eliza…”
She stood up and turned towards him, her face still downturned to her bare feet. She opened her mouth, floundering for words, struggling to actually say it out loud. Eventually, lamely, she just held out the test in her hand towards him.
“What’s…” he murmured, taking the thin piece of plastic and looking at it, at the small lines and reading the word next to them, the word that was choking Eliza. His face froze.
“You’re pregnant.”
“I’m sorry, Alexander,” Eliza cried, the words breaking out of her like they’d shattered a crumbling dam, “I know this changes everything, we didn’t plan for this at all, I’m so sorry-“
The rest of her words were lost as Alexander took her by the shoulders and kissed her, suddenly and more fiercely than he ever had. Eliza began to shake against him, her heartbeat was so furious she could hear and feel it.
“Please don’t apologise,” he said, his voice thick and low as tears began to run down his face, “Don’t apologise for this.”
“You…you aren’t…angry or-“
“Angry? How could I be angry? Eliza, this is…” he suddenly caught himself, stopped himself before the tide of emotion he could feel in his chest took control, forcing his voice to stay measured, “I mean, Eliza, do you want to do this? If this isn’t what you want, that’s completely- I mean, it’s entirely your choice.”
Eliza’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the beginnings of joy on Alexander’s face. As clear and as bright as dawn breaking through dark clouds, despite all her fear and anxiety, about what her parents would think, what would happen with her studies, the practicalities of it, she knew the answer to that as well as she knew her own name.
Almost without thinking, her hand went to rest on the lower part of her stomach, “I want to do this,” she said quietly.
Alexander began to cry in earnest then, one of the truest smiles she’d ever seen on his lips breaking across his face, “Oh God, Eliza…”
He held her so tightly she was lifted off her feet and all of a sudden the two of them were laughing wildly and joyfully, tumbling onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. His lips found hers and they didn’t speak for a long time, all the things there simply weren’t words for present in that touch that tasted of salt. They broke away eventually, arms still wrapped around each other, noses almost touching.
“Well,” Alexander laughed, his shoulders shaking, “guess its true condoms aren’t 100% effective.”
“Evidently not,” Eliza giggled, her laughter a little manic.
“I can’t believe this,” Alexander grinned, half laughing, half sobbing, “I honestly can’t believe this! You’re pregnant. Like, you’re actually going to have a baby!”
Eliza rolled her eyes, freeing one of her hands so she could gently brush a loose strand of hair away from his damp face, “Yeah, Alex, that’s generally how this whole thing works.”
“And we made it! An entirely new human being and we made it together!” Alexander cried in utter disbelief, rolling on his back and covering his face with his hands, “And it’s like…inside you? Like, what the hell? And I…”
He suddenly stopped dead, his face freezing in horror.
“Oh. My. God,” he murmured, his voice suddenly hoarse, “I’m going to be a father.”
Eliza gave him sympathetic smile and moved so she was straddling him, crouching over him. She kissed his nose.
“You’re going to be the best father,” she told him firmly, in the tone of voice she’d use to say that the sky was blue.
His expression softened and he kissed her back. His hand moved to rest where her’s had been before, over the microscopic clump of cells that was going to grow into their child. Eliza felt her face crumple as tears formed in her eyes.
“Alex, what are we going to do?” she cried, her voice breaking.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Alexander soothed her, pulling her close to him, letting her cry herself out while he stroked her hair, feeling her rapid heartbeat against his own, close to tears himself, “Eliza, listen, I get it, I’m scared too, believe me…but its going to be okay. We can do this.”
“But w-what about college and where are we going to live and what about my parents-“
She stopped, horrified that she’d let herself say that, cursing her stupidity. Alexander’s face went blank. That muscle in his jaw began to twitch again.
“Why…I thought they were starting to like me…” Alex’s voice was quiet and hard.
“No, no, no, I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say, it’s not because it’s you at all,” Eliza said hurriedly, “they do like you, honestly! Its just…I mean, we’re not…you know, we’re young and…” her voice dropped, “we’re not married. I mean, you saw them today.”
“Ah,” Alexander realised, remembering Phillip and Catherine’s rapt faces at church just a few hours earlier and the grace they’d sat through before dinner throughout which Peggy and Angelica pulled faces at him, trying to get him to laugh, “I get it.”
His mouth suddenly twitched upwards into a wry smile, “Well I know how to fix that.”
He gently rolled her off of him and sat up. In a swift motion, he removed the dull brass ring he wore, the one he’d worn since she’d known him and never taken it off once. He’d once quietly confessed to her, as they’d lain next to each other one night after making love and her fingers were lazily tracing over the palm of his hand, that it had been his mother’s. He studied it for a moment, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Alexander, what are you doing?” Eliza asked quietly, sitting up.
“Just a slight change of schedule,” he joked, as he got to his feet.
Grinning crookedly, he sank onto one knee in front of her, holding the ring out.
“Elizabeth Schuyler, will you marry me?”
Eliza almost laughed out loud but managed to swallow it back, “Alexander, please be serious. We are not having a shotgun wedding!”
“It’s not a shotgun wedding if I actually want to marry you. And I do,” Alex insisted.
“Alexander,” Eliza sighed, exasperated, “Don’t do this.”
“Eliza, I am being completely serious. Granted, I wasn’t going to propose until after you graduated but, hey, what’s a few months earlier?”
“You…you were going to propose?” Eliza was genuinely surprised. She did love Alexander and she didn’t doubt that he loved her but she’d never thought he’d be an institutions kind of guy, especially not without prompting.
“Of course I was, Eliza,” he snorted like it was obvious, but his face quickly softened and his voice turned a little coy, “I was going to use this ring and everything though I was planning to clean it a little first. I was going to sneak you out of whatever massive graduation celebration your parents are undoubtedly going to have planned and take you down to that green place by the river. I was going to have Laurens and Herc and Laff put fairy lights in the trees and set out wine glasses and I was going to fill them with coffee from that place, y’know, the place we always go to work? And I was going to make up some long speech about…about how much I loved you and about how much you mean to me and… and how I can be myself around you, how I feel…safe with you, for the first time in my life. I’d probably cry in the middle of it, “ he laughed, a little embarrassed as there were tears running down his face right now to punctuate his words. Eliza had tears to match; she couldn’t throw stones.
Alexander cleared his throat a little awkwardly, “And I’d get on one knee and ask you to marry me. But this…this works just fine for me.”
“Me too,” Eliza gave a watery smile.
Alexander gave a sudden bark of laugher, “so are you going to marry me or not? Because, not going to lie, my ego and my knees are getting seriously bruised.”
Eliza sank to the floor, kneeling in front of Alexander, taking him by the shoulders and kissing him as deeply as she possibly could, pouring everything she felt for him into it. She pulled away just long enough to whisper, “Of course I’ll marry you, Alexander Hamilton,” before kissing him again. When she finally let him go, his hands were back on her abdomen, back above their baby. It felt right, like they belonged there.
“I’m guessing your sisters know all about this, right?” he laughed drily once his mother’s ring was safely in place on her finger, where it would stay until the day she died.
“I haven’t told them but I’m betting they know,” Eliza smirked. She turned and grabbed the closest thing to hand, which tuned out to be one of her shoes, flinging it at the wall she shared with Peggy’s room, where she was certain her sister’s would be listening closely to their entire conversation, “Isn’t that right, you two?”
As usual, she knew her sisters better than anything, it wasn’t thirty seconds between the shoe hitting the wall and Angelica and Peggy bursting through the door in gales of delighted laughter. Both of them immediately flew to Eliza, wrapping her in their arms. Alexander hurriedly dried his eyes on the cuff of his sleeve as he watched them with a smile on his face; he’d taken the first steps towards tasting that kind of genuine family love for himself.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Peggy shrieked, pouncing on him the moment she’d released her sister, “You guys, this is amazing!”
Angelica had a wide, dazzling grin and she reached over, one arm still wrapped around Eliza, and socked Alexander in the shoulder as hard as she could. He yelped in pain.
“That was for knocking up my sister, you idiot!” she laughed. As quickly as she’d punched him, she planted a kiss on his temple, “So was that!”
“It was an accident,” Alexander protested, though he was still smiling.
“This is beautiful,” Peggy, breathed, studying the ring on Eliza’s finger, “where did you get it, Alex?”
Alexander opened his mouth, ready to make one of the lame excuses he usually made whenever people asked questions about his past, but what came out was, “It was my mother’s. She gave it to me before she died.” He caught Eliza’s eye as Peggy and Angelica awed and the expression on her face made his heart melt.
“But seriously guys, what are you going to do?” Peggy asked, her laughter turning a little nervous.
“I’ll get a job,” Alexander said simply.
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll drop out and go get a job somewhere, maybe in a library or something, whatever I can find,” he shrugged.
Eliza’s jaw must have hit her chest. As long as she’d known him, Alexander had been absolutely sure of what he was going to do with his life, after so much uncertainty early on; he’d made the decision to be wholly sure of every step he needed to take to get into the field that had interested him most since he was young- politics. And yet here he was saying he was willing to abandon the education he’d worked so hard for, that he’d literally risked his life for, just like that.
“Alex, no!” Eliza said, horrified, “you’ve been wanting to be a lawyer since you started college, how else are you going to get a government job? You are not going to quit because of me!”
“Eliza, my child is more important than-“
“I won’t let you-“
“Okay you two, cut it out, you’ve literally been engaged for two minutes and you’re already arguing,” Angelica sighed, rolling her eyes in exasperation.
“Of course they are,” Peggy said simply, lying back on the bed, her feet resting on the wall, “I think that’s how they show affection.”
Angelica stood and faced the two would-be parents, still sitting on the floor, putting her hands on her hips and her face dropping into her usual, no nonsense expression of complete assurance. Angelica Schuyler, Eliza thought affectionately, big sister extraordinaire.
“Okay,” Angelica began, clearly already making plans and back-up plans and back-up-back-up plans in her head, “we can do this. Eliza, you’ll still be able to graduate, knowing you you’ve already got most of your dissertation finished already. Alexander? You’re being very noble and we’re all very impressed but you’re being a bit thick. You’ll easily find someone out there to pay you to do one of the many things you’re irritatingly good at while you study. In fact…” her eyes went suddenly bright with an idea, “there’s actually a paid internship with the Treasury department next fall that’d suit you perfectly, I meant to mention it at some point. I’ll email you the forms. And as for where to live, there’s plenty of small apartments in the city, I’ll talk to one of my clients-“
She continued on, her voice gradually increasing in speed and fervour. Eliza and Peggy exchanged a look; like always, their big sister had swooped in and made anything seem possible.
Alexander wasn’t listening any more; his eyes had drifted over to Eliza. He knew she could only be about a week pregnant and that there would be no physical change in her appearance but he saw something new in her, a kind of light seemed to be cast on her skin and her mouth was twisted into a Mona Lisa-esque smile, like she was guarding a wonderful secret. There was a sudden lump in his throat as he gazed at her; all the rapid changes in emotions of the last half hour hitting him like a sledgehammer in his guts. God, he loved her so much, she was everything to him. And now she was giving him a gift that would change their whole lives, a gift he’d never be able to repay. He’d never been more scared or more happy in his life.
Peggy must have seen the look on his face as swung onto her feet. She gave Eliza a last kiss on the cheek and hug saying, “Well, you two have a hell of a lot to talk about. We’ll give you some privacy,” as she took Angelica by the hand and led her from the room. Angelica gave her sister a wink as she said softly, “Like I said, El, it’s going to be okay.”
Once they were alone, Eliza began to weep again, for a reason even she didn’t know.
“I have no idea why I’m crying,” she sighed, helplessly.
Alexander smiled as he pulled her to her feet and onto the bed, “I actually think that’s normal when you’re pregnant. Sorry about that.”
They lay beside each other, as close as it was physically possible for them to be, each of them acting as the other’s anchor. Alexander bent and gently kissed her stomach, then the places where the tears were shining on her face, turning her soft sobs into giggles.
Over his shoulder, Eliza caught sight of the clock on her nightstand, seeing that it was past midnight. It was officially Christmas day.
“Merry Christmas,” she said with a little laugh, “hope you liked your present.”
“And I hope you liked yours,” he chuckled.
Boxing day finally brought freedom. Eliza leaned back in the passenger seat, breathing deeply in an attempt to control her nausea, her shoulders still aching from her mother’s last of many, many hugs. She didn’t want to complain; her parents had been way more accepting of what Eliza had shyly announced at the dinner table on Christmas day than she ever could have hoped. There had been tears of joy, hugs and kisses, Angelica and Peggy feigning surprise but fooling no one. It had been one of Eliza’s favourite Christmases and the bewildered, delighted expression on Alexander’s face when Catherine finally let him go, with one last kiss on the cheek, was honestly the highlight of the whole thing.
Alexander got into the driver’s seat beside her, giving her a sympathetic smile, “Still feeling sick?”
She nodded, “I’m going to strangle whoever called it ‘morning sickness’. Its one in the afternoon, for Christ sake.”
He grinned crookedly, reaching over and stroking her hair. Ever since they’d found out about the baby it was like he was unable to keep his hands off her, brushing hair away from her face, threading his fingers through her’s, kissing the back of her neck whenever her family weren’t looking. It was like he needed to keep reminding himself through physical touch that all of this was real.
Eliza watched the trees outside blur into one as the car picked up speed, taking them home, to their home. Her mind wandering, she was brought back to Earth by the sound of Alexander’s wry laugher.
“I just realised, you lied to me,” he grinned at her.
She raised an eyebrow, “Have I?”
“You said that by the end of this holiday, I’d still be your boyfriend. But I’m not am I? I’m your fiancé.”
Eliza had to laugh.
“You’re lucky I love you, Alexander Hamilton.”