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Chapter Text

The priest’s family never sat at the front of the congregation. Instead, the Seaburys sat in the pews each Sunday, precisely two rows behind Aaron and slightly to the left. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just see their son as they rose. His gaze was pinned on Aaron with the predatory precision of a harrier.

Watch the pulpit. Aaron’s arms tucked themselves neatly into the small of his back as he mouthed along with the congregation in prayer. Splinters poked up out of the wooden pew in front of him. Red gems glittered on the arms of the cross.

Amen.

Sally turned to him, clasping his hand. “Peace be with you,” she said in earnest, girlish tones. Aaron’s throat seized. Bruises turned white-hot up his back. His uncle sighed in annoyance. But then Sally was leaning past him to shake their uncle’s hand, blocking Aaron from the family in front of them. He turned back away in case they managed to reach around to him, huffing out a silent sigh of relief.

The oldest Seabury boy was staring at him again. Aaron averted his gaze to the polished stone tiles of the floor. The preacher’s robes shuffled heavily as he led the choir from the aisle. Carefully measuring his breathing, Aaron allowed a hand on his shoulder to push him out of the church behind his sister.  He waited by the church doors as his family waited to bid goodbye to the preacher, rolling a disc of citrine between his knuckles.

“Where did you come across that, Burr?” asked Samuel Seabury.

Aaron almost dropped the stone in his jerking start. Opened his mouth to respond, and then clicked it shut.

“Heard the strangest story from Jon Dayton,” Samuel continued. “You heard it? Got a witch in it and everything.”

Aaron shook his head, taking a carefully measured half-step to the side. His uncle was deep in conversation with Samuel’s father. Neither Sally nor his fosters brothers were looking his way.

“Says you met an old crone down by the well in the forest. Nobody believes him, of course.”

But evidently, Seabury did. Aaron steadily refused to flinch, moving his hand slowly back to his pocket.

Samuel’s fingers wrapped tight around his wrist. Aaron jerked. The grip tightened, twisting, until the chunk of citrine dropped from his fingers into Samuel’s waiting palm.

“There we have it,” he murmured.

Aaron tried to yank his arm back, shaking furiously even as Samuel pushed their twined wrists into his chest. Would have thrashed, if they weren’t in front of the church still. Craned his neck to try again to catch someone’s eye, but Samuel’s father was still blocking his view- his back hit the wall.

“Let go!”

The words pushed their way from Aaron's lips without pausing to await consent.  A single, soft white begonia slipped out from under his tongue, drifting lightly in the morning wind.

“Aaron!”

Samuel jumped back, pocketing the citrine. Mathias pushed between them, with Aaron’s uncle following at a more sedate pace. Timothy’s gaze was rooted on the delicate flower, growing dirty in the ground between Aaron’s feet.

“Can we be of assistance, Samuel?” Mathias asked coolly.  

He laughed. “No, no. I just wanted some directions from Aaron.”

“Directions?” Mathias repeated, horrified. “Samuel- that isn’t-”

He broke off, glancing over his shoulder at the priest. Samuel laughed. Timothy’s hand landed heavily on Aaron’s shoulder. He froze, watching as Mathias dragged Samuel off away from the congregation. Aaron bowed his head.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbled, this time holding the gem under his tongue.

Timothy sighed. “I think we had better get you home.”

Aaron nodded and followed his uncle away from the church. He turned, twisting awkwardly, to check that the rest of the family were following them, and caught a last glimpse of the begonia, trodden into the dirt.

As soon as they were out of sight of the church, he spat the stone out into his palm. It was pink and grainy, with swirls and clouds of black over the surface.

“Throw that away, Aaron, or have you not drawn enough attention today?” Timothy snapped.

Aaron jerked, clenching his fist briefly over it. Then, slower, he loosened his grip and skimmed the stone off the path into the grass.

***

“Once upon a time, there was a widow with two daughters,” Rachel murmured.

Alexander had long thought himself too old for such stories. He had his books, of course, knew inside out and backwards the tales of Echo, or Narcissus, or the creation of amethyst or magical properties bejewelled girdles. His mother had told him the stories they might teach in the church school, too, when he was younger. The blooms from Aaron’s rod, or the parables. The pearl.

A fresh, hacking cough yanked him back into his mother’s arms.

“On her way to the well,” she continued raspily, “The girl was stopped by an old woman, who asked her to fetch a drink from the well.”

Alexander burrowed tighter into their clammy nest of sheets. When his mother stopped to cough, the seizing of her arms clutched at his midsection and sent him into matching spasms.

She cleared her throat of phlegm. “And so the girl ran home to her mother, and told her about the magic that the crone had worked upon her in gratitude. And as she spoke, bright flowers and sparkling jewels dripped from her lips.”

Alexander’s cough grew wheezing and desperate, blood spattering on their filthy sheets. A fever-hot hand caressed his arms.

“But when the second daughter went out into the woods, she met a limping farmer, not an old crone,” Rachel whispered against the shell of his ear. “He called out to her to fetch him a drink, but she spat at him and chased him away. And so he placed a curse upon the rude child, that she would spit out- spit toads and- and-”

She broke off, lungs seizing. Alexander could feel her shoulders slamming against his with the force of her gasps as they choked and sputtered to an end. Dizziness swept over him with the force of a tsunami. His guts coiled in desperate horror.

He never heard the end of the story.

***

“Timothy! Timothy!”

The front door flew open with a shocking thud, sending Aaron skittering back across the room out of his uncle’s reach. Rhoda swept into the room, her hood trailing behind her and her face flushed.

Timothy stepped forwards and caught both her hands in his. “What is it?”

“It’s that Seabury boy,” Rhoda gasped. “He’s heard what happened to your Aaron-”

And he was always ‘your Aaron’ now, no matter who was talking, as though nobody wanted the stain of his association.

Right. She was still talking. “Toads, Timothy, slugs and toads! Rumours are already flying that the boy’s behind it somehow-”

“That’s not fair!” Mathias interrupted sharply. “It’s hardly Aaron’s fault Samuel Seabury doesn’t have the good manners god gave a ploughhorse!”

“Quiet,” Timothy snapped. He sighed, and turned away from them all. “He can’t stay here.”

Aaron choked. “Sir-”

There was a sharp clink as a jagged shard of peridot fell to the ground, where it lay amongst the dust on the dirt floor and glinted accusatorially up at him. Within the week, Aaron’s uncle had made public his decision to relent, and finally allow Aaron to travel across the country to seek early admission to university. They never spoke again.

Chapter Text

“Pardon me, are you Aaron Burr, sir?”

Aaron pulled to a sudden halt, turning to peer through the foggy half-darkness of the evening. The speaker was a man around his own age, a little shorter than himself, with wide black eyes peeping out above a cocoon of cheap woollen layers.

 “That depends, who might you be?” Aaron coughed into his sleeve, surreptitiously catching something cold and hard from under his tongue.

“Alexander Hamilton, at your service, sir!” The man- Hamilton- snatched Aaron’s hand in mid-descent to shake it vigorously. “I was hoping to catch up with you!”

“I’m getting nervous, sir,” Aaron demurred, a soft-petalled flower resting under his tongue. He pulled his hand back.

Hamilton nodded, leaning forwards on the balls of his feet. “I was referred to you by a fellow at Princeton- I was seeking an accelerated course of study when I was involved in an altercation with a gentleman of your acquaintance. I may have punched him, the whole episode has become a blur, sir, but he handles their financials?”

“You punched the bursar.” At least this time Aaron had an excuse for his hands to ratchet up to his mouth, catching both of his newfound flowers. He caught a glimpse of petals, in shades of yellowed orange and pinkish red.

“Yes!” Pride shaded Hamilton’s tone as he bounced up to Aaron’s eye level for a moment. “I was hoping to do as you did, graduate in two years and turn my service to the revolution, and he looked at me like I was stupid- I’m not stupid!”

And yet you punched the bursar. Burr cocked an eyebrow.

“Could you tell me how you did it- graduated so fast, that is?”

Aaron dipped his head somberly, palm cupped just under his mouth. “It was my parents’ dying wish before they passed,” he said. A gross simplification. He knew without looking that in his sleeve there was a smoky chunk of volcanic glass.

“You’re an orphan!” Hamilton yelped, jerking Aaron’s gaze back to him in shock. “I mean, I am too- I’ve been hoping for this war all my life, a chance to prove that we’re worth more than anyone-”

“Can I buy you a drink?” The gemstone scored a thin cut into his jaw.

“That would be nice.”

Hamilton chattered delightedly all the way to the tavern, allowing Aaron to maintain his customary silence. He shepherded them both into a quiet booth, and waved at the server, who knew him well enough to bring the drinks without interrogation. He slipped her the winter rose from his sleeve as he paid for the drinks, earning a laugh from Hamilton.

“Is distributing flowers to tavern girls a habit of yours?” he asked.

Burr shrugged, taking a swig of beer. “While we’re talking, could I offer you some free advice?” Two gemstones slipped easily into the mug.

Hamilton nodded, silent for the first time since their meeting.

“Talk less. Smile more. Don’t throw out your political thoughts to every stranger on the street.”

Hamilton froze, fingers halfway through their staccato beat on the tabletop. “You can’t be serious.”

“It will get you ahead in life. This attitude will get you killed young.” Aaron turned away, pocketing a young blossom as the door slammed open.

John Laurens hit the room like a gust of hot air, Mulligan and Lafayette hot on his heels. The three took the table immediately behind them, carousing drunkenly. Aaron hunched his shoulders, hoping-

“Well, if it ain’t the prodigy of Princeton College!”

No such luck. Hamilton watched in quiet fascination as Aaron turned back to the Sons’ table.

“Good luck with your stand, gentlemen. I intend to keep my head down until we can be sure of an outcome.”

Laurens laughed in dismissive anger. “The revolution’s imminent, and you’re still stalling?”

“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?” Hamilton was standing, hands on the table, looking straight through Aaron.

Aaron bit back his retort, and stood aside for Hamilton to join his new friends. This was better, anyway.

He slipped out of the public house and walked away through the darkening city.

***

Hours later, Alexander watched through a haze of cheerful drunkenness as Laurens quibbled the bill for their drinks. Lafayette lounged, half-awake, against Mulligan’s broad shoulders. Alex glanced back at his original seat, checking he’s not dropped anything-

Caught sight of Burr’s half-finished beer. Shrugged. Waste not, want not.

Alexander’s sudden hacking cough woke Lafayette. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Fine.”

He looked down at his palm, where he had spat up the three solid rocks sitting in his palm. They glittered innocuously there, sky blue and tawny brown and milky green.

Alexander frowned. Had they fallen from some jewelry he hadn’t noticed Burr wearing? He pocketed them, dismissing the thought, and making a blurry mental note to find Burr and return the gems.

Mulligan called for Alexander’s aid carrying Lafayette away to his lodging house. Laurens spun away into the night towards his own bed, leaving Alexander alone with the significantly more sober Mulligan.

Clink.

“You know where Burr stays?” Alexander slurred. Paused. “Do you know where Burr stays?”

Mulligan squinted at him. “Didn’t you come in with him?”

“Met tonight. Got something of his.” Alexander scooped the three little gems out of his pocket, fumbling them between his fingers. “See?”

“Those are Burr’s?” Mulligan asked, laughing. “Nah, not his style. Must have been there before you were.”

Alexander frowned. “But he’d have. Would have noticed.”

“You can hunt him down in the morning, if you’re so sure.” Mulligan pushed open the door to his building, pushing Alexander towards the promised bed. “Get to sleep, kid.”

Alexander bristled, but the insult was forgotten the second he hit the sheet. And so, too, were the crystals.

Chapter Text

“Hear ye, hear ye!”

Aaron’s blood froze in his veins, crackling at the joints and sluggish with chill. White-knuckled determination held him on his feet. He slowed his pace, changing direction steadily so that his back was square on to the echoing voice.

It was fine, Seabury would be focused on his speech. His notes. No reason for him to pay attention to the gaggling crowd at his feet. As long as he wasn’t looking, Aaron could slip by—

Slight frame. Brows furrowed in anger. Open mouth.

Aaron snatched Hamilton’s arm. “Let him be,” he begged, heedless of the jagged rock cutting at the underside of his tongue.

Hamilton shook him off with an expression of utter disgust, marching onwards. His friends were gathered just ahead, and Aaron pushed behind them, hoping that Mulligan and Lafayette’s tall frames would hide him as Hamilton took his spot at the front of the crowd.

“Please,” Laurens muttered. “As if Seabury’s sympathies have anything to do with politics.”

Aaron let his steps fade to stillness without the attention-calling jarr of a full halt.

“How do you mean?” Lafayette asked.

Mulligan snorted. “Watch his hands.”

“Are those-- uh, crapauds?”

“Toads,” Laurens said, a smirk curling at the edge of his voice. “He spits toads. Slugs too.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap.”

“Comment-ce— I mean, how did this happen?”

“You don’t have that story in France?”

“Herc, they wrote it. Uh- Perrault, Les Fées? The foul-tempered sister spits toads, the virtuous one jewels and roses?”

Aaron caught himself rolling his eyes at Lafayette’s enthusiastic recognition. Jewels and roses, sounded lovely, really, this coming from someone who’d never had his jaw crack on a chink of copper or his gums shredded by sharp thorns. Wondered if Laurens would ever dream of calling him virtuous to his face.

“Then there is another?”

“If there is, he’s kept it quiet. Must be richer than Croesus by now.”

If only. People asked inconvenient questions when jewels began to appear from nowhere. Flowers were much easier to explain.

“Seabury has a brother, but it’s not him,” Mulligan confirmed. “I heard it was some kid from the parish.”

“I heard Seabury killed the kid, when he got cursed instead of rich,” Laurens offered.

Mulligan sighed. “If it’s true, they hid it well. Seabury never suffered for it, look at him now.”

“He thinks a king’s touch will cure him?” Lafayette asked, frowning.  

Neither man responded, too busy barking and baying in mockery. Aaron cringed as the group moved forwards, tried to duck away before-

“Well, if it isn’t Aaron Burr,” Seabury crowed.

Aaron turned, slow and dull as a man looking up at the mast he would be hung from. Hamilton’s yapping didn’t seem to sway Seabury’s attention, which lanced cool and certain through Aaron.

“Alexander, please,” he called up, letting a haplessly bedraggled dandelion slip into his sleeve. Wanted nothing more than to get away, and leave none to gossip in his absence.

“Burr, I’d rather be divisive than shrink back in fear.” Hamilton spat the words more than spoke them, though Aaron could barely see him with his own gaze locked so surely on Seabury as his lip curled up in delight.

“Well, it seems we do agree on something,” he joked, a fat slug dripping from his lower lip. “Do shut up, Burr.”

Aaron’s jaw locked, the eyes of Hamilton’s friends falling to him as they turned away from the makeshift stage. Sensing the show was over, the crowd began to trail steadily away. Seabury stalked forwards. Aaron backed off.

“You know each other?” Mulligan asked, watching curiously.

“Grew up together, even,” Seabury replied, his hand falling heavily on Aaron’s shoulder. “Why, the stories I could tell you.”

Breath came too short, too heavy to his lungs, throat seizing around the treacherous shouts that might send jewels scattering across the cobbles. Seabury stepped closer, the next toad landing almost on Aaron’s feet as he began to speak.

“I think I’ve made it clear enough that I don’t care to listen to you speak, Seabury,” Alexander snapped. His slight figure darted forwards and pushed up between them, shoving Seabury back. The crushing hand on Aaron’s shoulder vanished, replaced by the soft warmth of Alexander’s shoulders against his chest. “Get out of here.”

Seabury stumbled, snarling. Glanced over at Hamilton’s friends. Turned away.

“Good day to you,” he snapped. The toad came flying out with the force of his words, and only the years of long practise gave Burr enough warning to yank Alexander aside so that it wouldn’t strike him, full in the face.

Either Seabury had utterly failed to master keeping his feelings out of his voice, or the action had been entirely deliberate. Aaron would have hesitated to say which disgusted him more.

Alexander turned around, still far too close to Aaron.

“Thank you,” he said, earnestly. “How does he even know you?”

Aaron took a measured step away, despite the harsh flush of cold as he did so. “His father was my preacher as a child,” he said simply. Let a new rock sit heavy under his tongue, this one rounded and smooth and aggravatingly painless. “I have to go.”

He ignored Alexander’s call as he left, and vanished into the dwindling crowd with practised ease.

***

The next time the two is in a freezing tent on a desperate campaign. Alexander barely has a moment to speak to Burr before he is dismissed, and Alexander is engrossed in conversation with Washington.

It is only later, as he follows Washington from the tent, that Alexander catches sight of Burr, listening intently to one of the aides-de-camp.

He half-turns back to Washington as they walk. “Do you know much about Burr?”

“His military background is excellent,” Washington admitted. “But I was struck by your writings, Alexander.”

“No, not that,” Alexander interrupts, without regard for propriety. “I know why you wanted me. I meant as a man.”

“I’ve never spent any amount of time with him. Nor cared to,” Washington admitted.

Alexander laughed. “He bothers me, somehow. Never speaks, and when he does it’s into his sleeve, as if he fears eavesdroppers could ever care to listen in when he orders a pint.”

“I shall make a note of it,” Washington says dryly.

Alexander laughs, but some part of his mind, as it always does when he sees Burr, lingers in 1776. New York City.

Chapter Text

Hamilton infuriates him. A nobody, rising up by mere chance, like flotsam on the crest of a breaking wave, somehow thrown up to become a rising star.

Across a ballroom, Aaron watches him from the shadows as Hamilton charms two of the Schuyler sisters with effortless grace. Something sharp and bitter pangs in his gut. Ballgowns swirl and twist amidst the twinkling candle flames like petals caught by a night breeze. The hall is almost stifling with the tangle of exuberant bodies, despite the first touches of snow against the ground outside. And as he watches, Aaron knows that Alexander Hamilton is no rising star.

The elder sister leaves, and Hamilton sweeps his newfound beau off into the bubbling eddy of the dancefloor.

Not a rising star, to spin brief and hot and beautiful across the sky. Aaron knows with the ice-hot force of resentment that Hamilton has no intention of burning out in moments, of being a fleeting presence in history. Instead, a force of nature, a tidal wave or a hurricane. This conquest just the next step on an indomitable path to success even beyond his own brilliance.

The poor girl.

“That is my sister you’re staring at?” said the eldest Schuyler, with only the vaguest tint of a questioning tone to keep her from seeming rude.

Struggling to hide his flinch even in the dull gloom of his shady corner, Aaron turned. Handed her the inconveniently large blue rose that had fluttered into his sleeve as he greeted Hamilton that night.

“Magic tricks?” Angelica asked, raising an eyebrow. “Again, Burr?”

“They’re reliable enough with most ladies.”

“I’m not most ladies.” Angelica glanced back at her sister almost wistfully for a moment, and then laughed, tossing her hair back. “And you might have a little more luck, even without the flowers, if you didn’t always look like it hurts you to speak.”

A hard chunk of rock was still digging into Burr’s tongue. He said nothing.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t bother with your next flower.”

He blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Eliza. She’s smitten.”

They both turned to watched the pair on their turn about the floor. Hamilton was swaying forwards as he spoke, the way he always did when overexcited or passionate. Most of the time, really. Eliza Schuyler leaned into him in response, eyes wide and captivated, more delighted with every word that he spoke.

Aaron shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

The distinct scent of mint washed up from his sleeve as the flower caught there.  

“You forget yourself.” There was a note of play in Angelica’s voice. “You’ve been watching Eliza ever since I left her and Hamilton to their own devices.”

Aaron had been doing nothing of the sort, would have been hard pressed to name the colour of the girl’s dress.

Angelica ignored his lack of response and took his hand, pulling him out of the shadows and onto the dancefloor. Burr followed her lead in bewildered silence, distracted. It took him far longer that it should have to realise that he couldn’t have met her eyes if he had tried, rooted as they were on the other pair.

And then, quiet as the first bird before the cacophony of the dawn- “He will never be satisfied.”

***

Alexander laughed in delight when he managed to catch Burr at the wedding, shooing his friends away.

“Why aren’t you chasing this woman of yours, Burr?” he demanded.

Honey-brown eyes stared almost mournfully at him. “I’m afraid it’s unlawful.”

Unlawful. Something- either a gushing flood of hope or a pulsing tide of horror- rolled up Alexander’s sternum. “What do you mean?”

A moment that could have become anything. Then— “She’s married.”

“Oh.”

“She’s married to a British officer.”

“Oh, shit.”

Burr turned away, sighing, and buried his mouth in his hands once more. “Congratulations, Alexander. I do mean that.”

“Oh--”

Alexander broke off, confused, as Burr seemed to fumble with his pocket for a moment. Then gaped at the man’s palm open in front of him, and the shimmering opal a little smaller than a hen’s egg resting on it.

“Burr--”

“I’ll see you on the other side of the war,” Aaron said simply, and watched as Alexander picked up the jewel in wonder. Burr was gone before he could protest, and Betsey was at his side.

“A gift,” he explained.

Eliza gaped in an entirely unladylike manner. “Is he—and you and he even friends, Alexander?”

“I’d like to think so,” he replied. A little too honestly, perhaps.

“Well, so should I now!” Eliza smoothed out her dress, visibly calmed herself. “I must remember to write Mr Burr an extravagant letter of thanks. Now, come. The night is almost done, and we have other matters to attend.”

Alexander laughed. “I sincerely hope that by that you mean we have no more matters to attend save a graceful departure to the bedroom.”

She smiled, and slipped the opal into his pocket herself as she pulled him away.

***

The next time Aaron sees Alexander is mere hours before an illegal duel. Neither of them mentions the opal. Aaron dreads questioning, tries to force himself to regret the gift—

And then his daughter is born and he forgets all about it. He reveals his secret to Theodosia Sr two days after the birth, the first time he greets his daughter by name and no force on earth could make him take the delicate pink crystal that had fallen with it away from her tiny fists.

He comes clean in one shuddering jolt, tells the story for the first time in his life, making no attempt to recapture any of the blossoms or stones tumbling from his lips. Shows her the box of pearls he had amassed in his nervousness in the weeks before little Theodosia’s birth.

She is as delighted as their daughter. Aaron apologises for his secrecy, and apologises again for his ruling that the secrecy must remain, but she will have none of it. Takes both his hands in hers and promises never to let a single jewel, nor the least word of them, leave the house, on one condition.

“Never hide them from me, Aaron.”

He nods.

Theodosia trades stones with her daughter, giving her something that looked intimidatingly like a diamond to play with and tucking the rose crystal away in her pocket. She takes the box from him too.

“These will be the only ones I take from you,” she promises. “But I think today is a day worth noting.”

Aaron nods, understanding her at once. Then adds, panic bubbling up treacherous as a bog in his ribcage, “Please. Have someone take them to the next town. I hear the jeweller there is peerless.”

She laughs fondly, but does not refuse him. And they sit up all night, bouncing the sleeping baby in their laps as they curl up at the head of their bed, trading stories too long for Aaron to tell ever before without revealing himself. He forgets to fear that speaking freely might cost him, that she might now see though his pretensions of betterment when he is free to talk as he likes. But the two Theodosias encircle him entirely, and he forgets to be afraid.

Within the week, his wife has a new strand of pearls. Little Theodosia is too young for her own gift, but they hang it above her crib where it can catch the light, a perfectly round pendant in a soft shade of blushing pinks, hung from a thin gold chain.

After all, they had sought out the best jeweller in the country, even if he lived halfway across it.

Chapter Text

Aaron had spent his entire life envisioning the horrendous consequences of someone learning his secret. Had at one point thought to take it to his grave, even after marriage, out of fear of what might come next.

This had never factored into his fears—the discovery that, in the company of his wife and daughter, Aaron simply overflowed with words. And with what followed.

The flowers were easy enough to deal with. His wife had taken up gardening not long after the birth of their daughter, and very few noticed if the blooms sitting in vases about the house, braided into the ladies’ hair, or tucked into Aaron’s buttonhole as he went about his day were foreigners to her gardens. He continued his habit of distributing the flowers that arrived in public to various women and girls he met on the streets.

The jewels, however, were becoming a problem. Throwing them away only risked more—a wealthy family hoarding precious stones could be handled into appearing normal, but throwing diamonds out with the midden would be beyond suspicious if ever discovered. Hiding them about the house was beginning to be just as difficult, even with the maids banned from touching their bookshelves. They had agreed that only the stones created by momentous occasions could be taken away to their jeweller, a discreet gentleman some four hours ride away, to be fashioned into keepsakes.

In the end, it was little Theodosia who suggested their solution. Or, as it were, enacted it.

Naturally, it was Hamilton who caught her.

“Thank you so much for bringing her back,” Theodosia Senior said, pulling the girl into the hall. “Please, you must stay for dinner. We could send a runner to your wife and extend an invitation?”

“There’s no need--”

Aaron, who had not spoken to Hamilton at length in months, took it upon himself to tug little Theo back into the main house and sit her down, crouching to her level.

“Do you understand why you’re in trouble?” he asked, automatically tucking the sprig of white lilac into his buttonhole. His daughter already wore the blue rose Aaron had come to associate with Hamilton tucked behind her ear.

She scowled. “But you didn’t want it!”

“It’s not about the ruby, Theodosia.” Actually, Aaron had already made a note to talk the idea over with her mother later. Nobody was shocked when the Church coffers swelled. “You can’t leave the house without telling anyone. And well-behaved young ladies do not climb out of windows.”

A chalky purple stone landed in his waiting palm. They both glared at it.

“I understand,” Theodosia admitted. “I was only trying to help.”

“I know, and your mother and I are very glad that you’re so grown-up.” Footsteps. “Now remember--”

“Daddy won’t talk much when we have company, and it’s not because he’s mad at me,” she chirped. Plucked the stone from his hand. “Can I keep this one? It’s pretty!”

It didn’t look particularly expensive. “Just remember to hide it when you aren’t using it.”

Theodosia nodded and stepped out of the room, brushing past her mother and Hamilton as they entered.

Aaron sat beside Alexander as they awaited the arrival of Eliza, and Theodosia vanished off to the kitchen to arrange an impromptu dinner party. The silence was little bother to him, though he could see Alexander shifting and drumming his fingertips against his leg. They trailed slowly up his thigh, drawing intricate doodles against the tan fabric.

“How is business?” Alexander asked. His hand slipped away.

Aaron started. “’Excellent, thank you.” And then, stirred by Alexander’s obvious discomfort-- “How are the children?”

“Oh!” Alexander lit up. “Wonderful. I was frightened, when Philip was born, but Eliza is wonderful with them. Just--”

“Wonderful?” Aaron laughed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you lost for words.”

“I fall apart around them. It’s like—everything I’ve done, everything I can do…”

“Is never enough.”

Alexander watched him for a long, quiet moment. “She’s very beautiful.”

“She takes after her mother,” Aaron demurred. Watched Alexander’s brow furrow.

“Oh, yes, of course. Little Theodosia. She and Philip are of about an age?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Really? I was quite sure--”

Aaron shook his head, leaned in a little. “I meant, absolutely not. Theodosia can do better.”

Alexander reeled, angry, for a moment, and then must have seen the spark of mirth in Aaron’s grin. “I’ve missed you,” he said, instead.

A week before, Aaron had produced a gem he had never seen before, a deep, translucent black that turned shades of honeyed brown when held up to the light. Alexander’s eyes were almost the exact same shade. “I work next door.”

“And still I never see you.”

Aaron’s gut coiled in bizarre anticipation. “I--”

Theodosia stepped back into the room with Eliza on her heels, letting him slip away to dispose of the newest pile of gems and flowers. As he stood in the hall, Aaron forced his trembling hands to still, wiped his palms against the drapes. He could hear his wife’s voice and Eliza’s, cheerful and polite and taking carefully measured terms. All the while, the low hum of Alexander’s words swirled and bubbled around them both like the undercurrent of a wave.

Aaron’s forehead fell heavily against the wall.

***

That night, as Alexander put away his clothes, he found his fingers drifting to the coat he had bought during his first New York winter. Shabby and dated, he never wore it now, but it hung dejectedly in his wardrobe beside Eliza’s gowns and shawls. He had been wearing it the night he first met Burr, in fact, hadn’t he—

Something heavy caught under his fingers.

Slowly, as if in a dream, Alexander reached into the pocket of his ragged coat. Pulled out three glimmering gemstones.

“Betsey?” he called.

Already reclining on the bed, she turned towards him. “Yes, love?”

“The necklace little Theodosia was wearing today—was that expensive, do you think?”

She hummed. “Not outrageously so, but for a child, yes. Not nearly as much as the pearls her mother always wears. At least if they are real.”

“I can’t imagine Burr ever buying fake stones.” As little as he might think of Burr’s endless avoidances, the man had never tended towards false pride. His house, after all, followed the same practical, sombre styles that both Burr and his wife favoured in their dress. The only extravagances Alexander could put to the man’s name were the elegant jewels he gave his wife and daughter.

And Alexander.

After all, there was an opal the size of a duck egg adorning their mantel in a delicate wire stand.

Something clicked. The stones. The flowers Burr gave away on the street wherever he went, ones Alexander recognised from his childhood that couldn’t possibly have grown in the cold, rainless expanse of his wife’s gardens. His expression of horror at Samuel Seabury’s voice.

… bright flowers and sparkling jewels dripped from her lips…

The lilac Alexander had been twirling absently between his fingers, plucked from Burr’s buttonhole in an overly-familiar goodbye, drifted to the floor.

Chapter Text

“Mister Secretary!”

“Mister, Burr, sir!” Alexander turned, delighted despite his anxiety.

Burr drew to a halt, raising his fingers to his lips so he could speak. “Did you hear the news about good old general Mercer?”

“No?” Now that he was watching, Alexander could see the bright trickle of colour tumbling into Burr’s sleeve.

“You know Claremont Street?”

“Yeah?”

“They renamed it after him, the Mercer legacy is secure.” Burr grinned past his fingertips, inviting Alexander to share in the joke.

He laughed. “All he had to do is die.”

“That’s a lot less work.”

Alexander shook his head, hunting out the perfect phrase as Burr enquired politely after his work. There must be a way to tell Burr what he knew without frightening him off, losing this little spark of magic in his life. Like trying to catch the injured bird little Angelica had found in the garden last week.

“Hamilton!”

Madison’s voice. No time. “I’m sorry Burr, I have to go--”

“But…”

Alexander shook his head. “Decisions are happening over dinner.”

Something hot and wanting flashed in Aaron’s eyes. Against every impulse of every nerve, Alexander turned and walked away.

***

He manages to catch Burr again a mere day or so later.

The man stares at him in disbelief, shaking his head. “What did they say that could get you to sell out like this?”

“It doesn’t matter where we put the capital,” Alexander insisted, bristling.

Burr pulled his hand away from his face. “Because we’ll have the banks.”

“Right here in New York,” he agreed.

“You got more than you gave.”

“Exactly what I wanted.” Alexander snorted, annoyed. His determination to confront Burr forgotten in his sudden need to confront Burr. “Once you’re in the game, you play. And you can never win unless you’re in.”

Burr nodded, slowly, looking off to the side. “In the room where it happens.”

“What do you even want Burr? You could be the richest man in America!”

Aaron froze, lips working silently. Alexander forced himself to unclench his fists.

Leaned forwards into Burr’s space, so close that they were almost sharing space. “You could, couldn’t you?”

With sudden, terrifying force, Burr had him by both forearms and was almost throwing him backwards into an alley. “What are you talking about?”

Burr is so close that Alexander is trapped between him and the wall like a pinned butterfly. Every curve and plane of their bodies flat against one another, heartbeats pounding at each others throats. Burr was trembling.

“It was you,” Alexander murmured, feeling Burr’s skin against his lips. “The boy from Seabury’s village. The man’s a coward, not a killer. He never killed you, he just made sure you kept quiet.”

“He didn’t have to,” Burr whispered. Something hard and cold hit Alexander’s neck beneath his lips. “How?”

Alexander shook his head, feeling the heat of Burr’s cheek wax and wane against his own. “Everything. I just saw you, and then everything.”

“No-one sees,” Aaron insisted. His hands, even with their white-knuckled grip on Alexander’s forearms, were trembling.

Alexander ignored the pressure and pushed closer to Burr, tilting his head up to meet his gaze. “Not til now, maybe,” he spat.

Just as he thought, a flinch rippled through Burr’s body at his harsh tone, letting Alexander rip his arms free. He made no attempt to move away from Burr’s fluttering pulse beating at his temple. Burr remained silent.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Alexander promised. “But I don’t think you should hide this. Seabury doesn’t, and he was cursed. This is a gift, Aaron, you could do anything with it!”

The quiet dragged on for one fragile, stretching second and then was forgotten as soft, warm lips struck his.

Alexander’s hand swept up to cup the back of Aaron’s head, swaying backwards against the wall. When Aaron’s mouth slipped open, Alexander nipped lightly at his bottom lip, took control of the kiss with a gentle press of tongue. Aaron’s hand fell lightly over Alexander’s jaw as they came apart, staring into one another’s eyes. Alexander was sure that his own must be as black and blown as Aaron’s were.

“Please don’t,” Burr said. Alexander reached out to catch the yellow tulip that tumbled from his lips as he walked away.

“Burr!”

As he stepped forwards, he caught his foot on one of the gemstones scattered where Burr had stood. Fell sprawling to the cobbles. When he rose, tulip in hand, Burr’s back had vanished into the dimming light of the dusky streets.

***

It seemed to Burr to be the first of all his disasters. Only a week later, he sits beside a grave with his daughter at his side, terrified to speak lest it should all flow out, taking a tidal wave of petals and sparkling things with it.

He avoids Alexander with careful diligence. Lies in bed alone at night, and lets Theodosia’s soft eyes, hazy with sickness, haunt his sleep. Cares for little Theodosia attentively, takes over her schooling himself. For weeks after the death, Aaron doesn’t speak a word.

The Reynolds Pamphlet hits his kitchen table long after the scandal has swept across the nation. Burr stares at it as Theo practises her piano in the next room. Tries to force aside the sense of being utterly, ridiculously betrayed. Compared to this account, a sudden liaison in an alleyway is nothing. Probably was always nothing, to Alexander, at least. He wonders if Eliza knows about them. If Alexander considers there to be a them to know about.

Theodosia stops playing. She has been all but chained to the piano lately, caught on a casual remark of her mother’s about musical ability to secure a match.

Aaron tosses aside the sheet of paper. Resolution stirring in his gut, he stands from the table and heads up the stairs. Picks up a Bible from his nightstand. With his wife gone, Theodosia’s worries about her future were his to reassure. And there was only one way to do that for certain. He fetched himself a glass of water, and sat down with a box in his lap. The same box in which he had gathered pearls during Theodosia’s pregnancy.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…”

Chapter Text

The Hamiltons moved uptown. And left Alexander behind. He slept in the settee in his office. Ate in local cafes or inns. Had his laundry seen to elsewhere. Worked well into the small hours of the night, writing with almost feverish passion. His quill leaving cast-iron dents in the skin of his fingers.

Could barely bring himself to long for Eliza. With all that he had confessed, from his first affair to his devastating advice to their son—his wife had made it entirely clear that his presence is not only unneeded but unwanted.

A slow knock at the door.

“Come in!” he called.

The door swung open, and Aaron Burr stepped into his office. Pushed it closed behind him quietly. “Alexander.”

A blue rose swayed gently in the stilted air of the room.

“Aaron Burr, sir.” He gestured.

Aaron sat down in the second chair, a careful distance from Alexander. “I’m sorry for your losses. Does Mrs Hamilton--”

“I am afraid she has had quite enough of me,” Alexander admitted. “Between… Philip, and Maria, and whilst I didn’t tell her everything, of course, I’m sure she suspects.”

He watched Burr turn his newest stone over between his fingers, a tawny reddish brown thing. “I was always envious of politicians,” Burr said. Alexander watched the sprig of love-lies-bleeding catch and perch perilously on the arm of the chair. “I think, in another life, I might have become one.”

“You have to have an opinion to fight for it, Burr.” Unnecessarily vicious.

Burr shook his head. “Quite the opposite, to lead to success.” He caught a rounded disc of yellowish stone.

“I don’t wish to discuss pointless maybes, Burr.”

“If you intend to continue such a career--”

“My career is ruined. I should know, I did it.” Alexander turned away.

“Salvageable.”

“I can’t, Burr.”

“I could.” Burr drew in a ragged breath, harsh enough to reach Alexander’s ears. “We could--”

“What is this, Burr?”

Burr’s clothes rustled as he shifted. “I only thought- the house is empty, without Theodosia. An office is no place for a man to live. And you always seem to bring me out in roses.”

“Roses?” When Alexander turned, he could see another blue rose spinning between Burr’s fingertips.

“Blue roses. It happens, when I care about people,” he admitted. “For little Theodosia, it’s these.”

He handed Alexander a barely translucent rosy pink jewel.

“Who else?”

“Just the two of you, now.” Burr said, catching another of those reddish brown rocks and squinting at it.

Touched, Alexander curled his fist around the little pink gem. “I couldn’t impose on you, Burr.”

“You would not be.” When Alexander made no reply, Burr’s back stiffened in sudden, nervy affront. “Of course, if I have misstepped, I apologise, I only meant to extend a hand of friendship.”

He stood to leave. Unbidden, Alexander’s hand snapped out to encircle his flinching wrist. “Is that all?”

“Alexander.” A terrified, begging tone. Another blue rose.

Alexander stood and rolled forwards to press himself flush against Burr for the second time. Somehow, it had been too long. “I think I could become accustomed to roses.”

Aaron flushed, even as he slotted himself a little more neatly into the curve of Alexander’s chest so that their lips brushed when he spoke. “Then come home with me.”

Something cold and hard pushed against Alexander’s lips as they parted, and lingered between the two men as they kissed. Aeons later, when they broke apart, Alexander spat it into his palm. Red, shifting to green as he held it up to the candlelight.

Aaron’s hand, still trapped by Alexander’s, came up to rest against his chest. Their gaze met.