Work Text:
A gunshot, echoing over the hills and horizon.
Alexander aims at the sky. Burr shoots. Hamilton dies, Angelica and Eliza by his side. This is how the story continues. This is how the story ends.
Rewind.
Alexander aims at the sky. Burr shoots, misses. Neither of them are willing to apologize, today or tomorrow or ever. Second shots are exchanged; this time, Hamilton is not so forgiving, nor Burr so lucky. (Alexander always was the better shot of the two of us, Burr thinks faintly. He cannot bring himself to regret this, nor does he blame Hamilton for what is sure to be his death.)
In a million worlds, in a million different ways, it plays out the same. Always, the same.
The Battle of Monmouth: Lee flails under the stress of battle. Despite him, the Continental forces fight on. (Alexander thinks he understands how Washington could stand to put that man in charge. The troops are strong, certainly stronger than any weak leadership could fully suppress.) It’s still near full-on disarray.
Through the chaos of the battle, Alexander sees Burr. His mind slows, his heart speeds up; Burr is too far forward, he’s too much of a target. For all he’s always telling Alexander, if he doesn’t move soon he’s going to get shot. (Leaving Burr on his own never even occurs to him.)
Alexander pushes forward, exposing himself to the enemy. Burr sees him, shouts, “What are you doing?” in a distorted echo of Washington. Alexander ignores him, as always; he fights his way to Burr’s side. And when he sees the Redcoat aiming his gun their way, he steps in front of him.
Burr’s question is cut off by Hamilton falling to the ground in front of him. He feels it as harshly as if the bullet had hit him instead.
Hamilton dies in glory on the battlefield, a footnote in the annals of history. Burr never quite shakes the feeling that it was, somehow, his fault.
There are endless, unlimited possibilities. There are no other possibilities but what must be. They are always themselves and that is enough.
Burr rubs Hamilton just the wrong way at their very first meeting. The introduction to his fellow revolutionaries staves off his anger for a while, but Hamilton can never be calmed or quieted for long.
Their association becomes one marked by constant arguments, shouting matches, and threats. (Nobody is quite sure why they keep talking. The only thing that all of Hamilton and Burr’s friends will ever work together on is keeping them as far away from each other as possible. It only works sometimes.)
Eventually, their only truce is broken: in an argument gotten out of hand, venomous accusations about parents fly.
Hamilton is torn over his honor. He can either shut Burr up, right here and right now, or wait and obey the rules of such an engagement. Infuriated, impetuous, intemperate, as always, he makes his decision.
Burr’s death at the cost of whatever was left of his honor? After all the scandal, the slander, the aspersions cast upon his entire life, Alexander says it was worth it. (He will never tell anyone what he thinks, in the silent and dark moments when nobody is around. He has already proven himself contemptible; let them not think him cowardly as well.)
Their lives are twisted together as one, sometimes touching, sometimes not. Sometimes they dance around each other, never quite intersecting, never quite converging until the very end.
Washington dies as a young man. He will never be remembered as a father. Instead, he is one of the many faceless American martyrs that Britain made in their endless wars.
The revolution still happens. Hamilton rises to prominence for his numerous anti-England publications. (Sometimes he has the nagging feeling that there must be more to this, that it must be more difficult. That somebody should be trying to stop him.) When war breaks out, the army must take what it can get. Without Washington, they lack such surety of success. They do not have enough competent officers, and Alexander gains the command he’s always wished for.
He almost survives the war. In the end, he is not killed in battle. Instead, he is assassinated by the Loyalist spy Aaron Burr. (Burr always thought he had seen which way the wind was blowing; by the time he sees the shift, it’s far too late.)
Time and time again, they die. Always a piece of one with the other, and never due to another. It goes on and on and on.
Both survive the duel and they part on good terms; years later, differences once again arise and although he is old, Alexander will always be a good shot. Burr dies in his wife’s arms, his own bullet gone wide.
Burr convinces Washington to promote Hamilton. The newly-elevated Lieutenant Colonel leads his men bravely, but in the end they cannot combat the British forces. Burr never manages to look Washington in the eyes again.
Lee kills Laurens. Alexander can only stand by and watch. Washington does not dismiss him, if only out of pity, and places him on the battlefield. Hamilton fights fiercely and recklessly, holding no regard for his own life. Burr feels, somehow, responsible; he is killed in battle competing for British attention against Alexander.
Alexander dies. Burr dies. Always, always one outlives the other. And it means everything and nothing in the world at once. And it matters so much that in the end, they simply don’t care. Burr sometimes thinks that from the moment they met, he could feel it. He will never say anything.