I do not own the rights to Hamilton or Descendants. Cross posted at AO3.
Just You Wait, Just You Wait
Bastard orphans like Alexander Hamilton were a dime a dozen on the Isle of the Lost. Everybody had a sob story, and his was no exception.
Born of a whore (his mother being married to another man at the time of his birth) and a Scotsman (who had once called DunBroch home), dropped in a forgotten spot on the Isle by providence and impoverished there, he really was no different from anyone else.
His mother had been married to a powerful lord in Auradon. It hadn't been a happy marriage, and she fled with her their son. The lord found them and had her sent to the Isle in retaliation, to be imprisoned permanently and never to see the boy again.
His father was the fourth son of a lord. Without much to inherit as said fourth son, he had set off for better prospects in the world. Things went south quickly for him, and he got caught up in one of the villain raids when the Isle was being formed—being sent to the Isle as well.
His parents met and fell in love (he guesses, from the little he remembers they didn't hate each other like other couples on the Isle did). Soon he and his brother were born.
Alexander supposed that for a while, for the first precious years of his young life he was happy and loved—as least as much as one could be happy on the Isle of the Lost. Happiness is an even rarer commodity on the Isle than fresh fruits and vegetables; really, it's a wonder they haven't all died of scurvy.
(Well, more like the Isle of the Damned; damned if you do, damned if you don't.)
Until one day when his father didn't come home from his work on the docks. Not that he had been home a lot before that day anyway, Isle life didn't quite agree as well with a former lord's son like alcohol did, taking whatever little coin their family had.
(Murder wasn't uncommon on the Isle. After all, what deterrent for crime was there when you were already imprisoned for life?)
Until he got caught up with his mother and brother in one of the many epidemics that swept the Isle from time to time. Alex and his brother got better, but his mother went quick, dying in his arms.
(Medicine from the Mainland was always too little, and too late. Not that it ever trickled down to the likes of Alexander and his family anyway. Corruption was such an old song on the Isle everyone could sing along in harmony; it's the true tale as old as time.)
Until his brother left him with their mother's cousin (who had been caught embezzling from a noble and sentenced to the Isle) to join one of the pirate crews and ended up meeting the wrong end of the blade a month later.
Until said cousin grew so despondent on the Isle that he took his own life.
(Alexander wasn't that surprised; by this point in his life death was like a memory, and despite it following him wherever he goes he just could't seem to die. He honestly wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't live past twenty—hell, he knew some kids who got half as many, it was common on the Isle.)
Alexander supposed that at some point his life must have been happy once, but no more. Instead, he's all on his own, and if he's ever to rise up from all the other dime a dozen orphans (there's a hunger in him, a desire to be better that keeps him going through the darkest parts of his life) he has to do it all on his own.
Sometimes he wishes there was a war. He doesn't care if it's between the Isle and the Mainland or the Mainland needing the Isle's help (ha!), but if there was a war then he could finally be proven a chance to prove his worth, similar to that of Mulan, Aladdin (fellow diamond in the rough), or the former thief turned king of Corona. All who had risen above their circumstances of birth to prove they were worth more than anyone bargained for. He was longing for something to be a part of—anything—and was ready to beg, steal, borrow and barter in order to get there.
(He does a lot of that on the Isle. He doesn't feel bad, it's the only way to survive and stay alive.)
Alexander is a scrawny thing, nowhere close to being as strong like the Gastons, intimidating as Mal or Uma, or crazy as the Hooks. That's something the other kids on the Isle take advantage in order to steal the scant belongings he has. But he's quick—of mind and on his feet.
He may not be able to out-fight the others, but he can out-think, out-run, and out-last them. That's how he survives the Isle including every burden and disadvantage life seems to enjoy throwing his way—he has managed to deal with them all.
He reads everything he can get his hands on—whatever raggedy books make it to the Isle, the posters the Mainland sends with the shipments of supplies to be posted up (like anybody really cares about what's going on in the Mainland anyway, none of them are invited), even the day old newspapers that the supplies come wrapped.
Sure there's television, but electricity on the Isle goes out more often than its on, and Alexander can make do with a candle when the electricity goes off. He's always careful with fire, everybody is on the Isle. The majority of the structures are wooden and dry, and the entire Isle could go up in minutes. They don't have the tools necessary to take out a large inferno.
(Like medicine, any help from the Mainland would arrive too little, too late—if they even bothered at all.)
And when he runs out of stuff to read, he writes. He writes on scraps of paper, in the margins of his well-read books, on the walls of whatever hovel he happens to be living in at the moment. He writes critiques of the works he reads, his own observations and thoughts of the world around him, and even designs his own form of government.
He writes like he's writing out of time, writing day and night like he needs it to survive, writing every second he's alive— he writes non-stop and never for an instant does he allow himself to stop and take a break.
(In a strange way he does need it to survive, writing keeps him sane and something to focus on rather than the despair that is his life.)
But what good is writing when there's nobody else to read it?
(Who lives, who dies, who tells his story?)
It takes some convincing, but he manages to convince one of the guards (a Mr. Hugh Knox) who comes with the supply barge to submit a letter to one of the newspapers in the Mainland (he argues that there's nothing against the law about letters leaving the Isle, just people, especially when its contents will be public anyway). The manners and etiquette lessons his mother taught him before his death (because those are so useful on the Isle) don't hurt either.
The letter was a reaction to potential legislation put forward by a Samuel Seabury in the works—one that could make life even more miserable for those on the Isle if a tax is increase is passed on agricultural goods and farmers.
He signs it Publius.
Not that anybody else manages to get the joke, but's fine. The very fact that it gets published at all, even shortened considerably (he really does write too much) astonishes him and leaves him wanting more.
(He's never satisfied.)
That letter is the first of many. Eventually Knox and the other guards recognize him on sight and hold out a hand expecting the letters. Some start sneaking him writing supplies or copies of the paper with his printed letters inside, or giving him more books and things to read.
(Things like copies of the documents that led to the formation of the Isle and the United States of Auradon Constitution. Knox gives him a confused look when he asks, but has it in hand the next time he visits the Isle).
Everything changes when the hurricane strikes the Isle.
For once, the magical barrier is a blessing instead of a curse. The Mainland is ravaged by storm surges, strong winds, and flooding, but the Isle escapes unscathed. The barrier deflects the majority of the storm—the air was colder than normal, it was slightly breezy, and moisture clung to everything, but the devastation that the hurricane could have rained down upon the Isle with a direct hit doesn't come.
While the villains and others are cheering at the misfortune of the Mainland once the electricity comes back on and images of the damage start filling the screen, Alex is busy writing everything down (shocker), everything as far as he could see and remember of the experience.
(He watched it in awe from the other side of the barrier as close as he could get. Others on the Isle do the same, but quickly lose interest when it's clear the barrier will hold.)
Alexander writes of the hurricane—of seeing the ferocity of the wind the way rain pounded the barrier, the waves crashing down upon it as he stands underneath, wondering if the barrier will hold (he had never felt so helpless). He writes of the irony of it—the Isle full of the damned is saved due to their imprisonment, and the land of the blessed is beaten down upon (apparently life really doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it just takes and it takes). Of seeing the eye of the hurricane and for one brief moment being able to look up and see the sky—a clear blue sky, the first time ever in his life for the winds of the hurricane had managed to blow the normal depressing gray clouds circling the Isle away.
For one brief moment he can stand in the sun, reach out and touch it, feeling free.
(Freedom, something they can never take away, no matter what they tell you—at least that's what he tells himself at night, repeating the words his father would tell him before raising a glass in the name of freedom.)
Then it's gone and he's left alone, wanting more.
(Always more with him, he's still never satisfied—why can't he ever be satisfied?)
This letter changes things. While his previous letters had started to garner him a low level of notoriety on the Mainland, this letter gets attention that puts all the others to shame. His description of the hurricane, of the forces of nature, of freedom and life, good and evil, and the yearning to be free if only for a moment captures their imagination.
He blows them all away—so much so there's doubt that such a young kid, a bastard orphan of villains, could write so well, but the guards he's on a first name basis with (Knox comes through again!) back him up. They've collected enough letters from over the years, have read them and spoke with him. They confirm that he is writer known as Publius and he deserves a shot.
Soon collections are taken up to sponsor him and a campaign forms directed at the royals who have the power to change his fate and bring him to the Mainland. Total strangers moved to kindness, all in order to give him a shot, and finally allow him to rise up. Sure he's from the Isle, but his parents aren't the villains in their history books—not in the sense of others on the Isle. Once his mother's tragic life and unjust punishment for trying to leave a loveless marriage is made known, along with his own sad story and desire for education, King Adam and Queen Belle give into the pleas and permit him to leave the Isle to study at the top school in the country—King's College.
Nobody on the Isle sees it coming, what do they care about a bastard orphan writing letters to the Mainland? He merely thinks that he's better than the rest of them, the little scrawny bastard orphan of nobody villains. They're too stunned to do much when the guards show up off schedule (the barge isn't due for another week), demand his presence and then hand him a letter that will change his life forever.
Knox is the one who hands it over to him—wearing a proud smile on his face as he watches Alexander open and read it.
He doesn't hesitate for a second in accepting the offer—for the first time he's thinking about tomorrow and planning for a future he never really believed he could have; he isn't about to throw away his shot at getting off the Isle once and for all.
And so, the bastard, orphan, son of a whore and Scotsman, sets off from the Isle of the Damned standing on the bow of a ship as a new man, (a free man), waiting to go to the Mainland. He doesn't even bother to give it one last glance behind him.
But just because he's off to get an education at one of the best universities in Auradon, Alexander doesn't plan on forgetting from whence he came. He's seen injustice in the world (the Isle, his entire world for so long) and wants to correct it.
(Well, more like correct the laws regarding the Isle and Auradon Constitution, he has a list of thirty items of disagreements ready to go before his feet even touch Auradon soil.)
When he was younger he wished for a war knowing that he was poor and it was the only way he'd be able to rise up. Now he has one, and it's a war that won't be fought with weapons, but instead, words and wit. He'll rewrite the game, the law—if he can write his way out of hell, he can write his way out of anything.
Pretty soon everyone—in Auradon and on the Isle—will know his name. He'll turn the world upside down and it will never be the same.
He's Alexander Hamilton and there's a million things he's never done.
So just you wait, just you wait.
*Author's Note*
This is what happens when you have Descendants playing in the background while listening to Hamilton and realizing that if Alexander had been born in this universe, it would have been as a kid on the Isle on the Lost, and he would have a few hundred pages of material to write about their so-called government and justice.
The island Alexander actually grew up shares a lot of similarities to the Isle of the Lost. Australia wasn't the only country to be sent Britain's criminals and undesirables, Nevis and other colonies received them as well, in addition to slaves.
Ron Chernow, who wrote the book that inspired the musical wrote Nevis was, 'a tropical hellhole of dissipated whites and fractious slaves, all framed by a backdrop of luxuriant natural beauty.' A quote that I think could also apply to the Isle (heavy on the hellhole, lighter on the tropical) and Auradon (backdrop of luxuriant natural beauty).
I did take a few liberties with the musical and history. Alexander's mother really was in an unhappy marriage and her husband did have her imprisoned. When she was released she ended up running away and met Alexander's father, but left her son with her actual husband behind. Historically, his father did leave Alexander (most likely in an attempt to prevent Alexander's mother being charged for bigamy) and his brother was separated from him at a young age. Since you can't really leave the Isle of the Lost, I instead killed them off.
Before Alexander wrote the letter about the hurricane, he really only written a few poems published in the local paper. In this version, I've had him writing for a while. The first letter was written in regards to a tax Samuel Seabury (in real life, Hamilton wrote 'A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress' and 'The Farmer Refuted' in response to Seabury after the hurricane letter) who wanted to increase the tax on farmers and agricultural goods. Alexander feared the increase would encourage farmers to sell more of their produce to other sources rather than donating them for free/receiving lesser payment from the government to go to the Isle in order to make up the deficit. The food already sucked on the Isle, it didn't need to get worse.
The actual hurricane letter was more fire and brimstone, God striking down at the sinners on the island whereas I went for a more ironic take—the Isle full of villains isn't that affected while the rest of Auradon, full of heroes is.
There aren't many details regarding how the barrier works other than it prohibits magic and people leaving the island, and the movies themselves kinda contradicting each other (Mal states she never learned how to swim due to the barrier and implying she had no access to the water in the first movie while in the second Uma's ship, open water, and fish are shown). I'm going with the idea that the barrier keeps mostly everything from entering the Isle (unless authorized by Auradon) including a hurricane (that could be part of some nefarious plot).
In real life, Hugh Knox was the minister and journalist who published the letter. Publius is the pen-name Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay all used when writing the Federalist Papers in honor of Publius Valerius Poplicola. He was one of the four Roman aristocrats who overthrew the monarchy and started the Roman Republic—a little detail that I don't think most Auradonians would get, but Alexander would find hilarious.
I'd like to think that Alexander goes on to become a lawyer in Auradon and rewrites a lot of laws, especially regarding the Isle of the Lost. I'm guessing that due to their childhoods, Cinderella and Snow White would have forced through a lot of anti-child labor and child protection laws that Alexander could then use as a starting point. He goes on to meet Hercules Mulligan, Marquis de Lafayette, John Laurens, Eliza, and the others and his duel with Aaron Burr is one of words and not pistols (One of the few good things Auradon outlawed). His acceptance into Auradon and showing that a kid from the Isle isn't always bad, leads the way for Ben to make the proclamation that Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay should be given a chance as well.
Additional thoughts that occurred to me while writing this fic:
What would happen if the Isle went up in flames (think Great Chicago Fire)? I doubt they have fire sprinklers or any fire-fighting equipment, and by the time Auradon might even attempt a response it'd probably be too late to do any good.
Why were there posters of the Cotillion up on the Isle (other than for Mal to rip down and for Gil to recognize Ben by)? Nobody from the Isle could go, and I doubt that many care, so why send the posters there and who put them up? And how long did they stay up before people tore them down?
That's all for now, thanks for reading and if possible please leave a review.