Now

The fist collides with his face. John stumbles, spits blood on the ground. There's a pause, the other man waits to see if he gives up. John gets up, grins with blood on his lips and fire in his eyes and launches himself.

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But that is not the beggining. It's not the end either. It's more of an interlude. It's the sea rearing back before another wave hits.

But that is not the beggining. It's a start, but not the beggining.

Let's rewind.

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Before

It's Friday night and John is going out. It's not a question, it's a statement. John Laurens is going out and he will be getting laid before the night is over. It's quite a simple task, it's an easy plan. He doesn't want complications.

John is going out when his phone rings. It's a shrill, high-pitched sound that cuts though the room and pierces through his skull, daring him not to answer.

(in the future, John will remember this, the phone ringing in his small apartment.

He will find that this is it, this is the moment everything changed.

There will be nights, in the future, when John will wonder what would have been, had he not answered the phone, if he only walked away.

Those will be the nights with blood and nightmares and screams. Then he will wonder, but never wish it away.)

He sighs, looks longingly at the door, he answers his phone.

It's Aaron Burr, of all people to call him on a Friday night. He sounds desperate, annoyed and worried. John doesn't get much of what he's saying, something about a roommate and fevers and pneumonia.

"Will you come?"

John mulls over the question, "hospitals exist for a reason, you know?"

" He won't let me take him to one."

Silence.

"John?"

He sighs.

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

John doesn't like complications, he doesn't do complicated. So, he's going to Aaron's place and he is going to check this roommate and then go out to the night. It's an easy plan, it's a simple task.

John locks the door and steps into the winter night.

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Now

John stumbles outside. It's winter and his blood stains the snow piling on the ground. It pools around him, tainting the white, it glares at him, it mocks him, it tells him he's dead he's dead he's dead.

He picks up the red snow, makes a snowball and throws it at the empty street. It hits the pavement and melts away. The world spins, John feels sick. The snow is red and breathing hurts. Alexander is still dead and John can't move on.

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There are five stages of loss and grief.

John says there are five stages of lying.

If someone you love dies, how can you really move on?

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Before

Burr's apartment is chaos, John would've never imagined. But then, John never knew the roommate.

He still doesn't. All he knows is a man drowning in blankets, cheeks flushed with high fever and severe coughing.

It's not pneumonia. Yet. John tells Aaron so and receives a relieved smile. Aaron then fidgets and John wants to run.

"I need to go buy the meds. Will you wait?"

John mulls over the question, the roommate coughs.

"You have ten minutes."

Aaron leaves and John sits at the foot of the bed. He looks outside, it starts to snow.

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Now

John feels the snow seeping through his clothes, through his skin, running in his blood, freezing his bones, his soul. If he closes his eyes, he thinks he can see it, his blood slowly freezing, ice covering his lungs, his heart.

He looks around, the streetlight faintly illuminating the street, the snow falling steadly, and he thinks of calling Lafayette to pick him up. But Lafayette would tell Mulligan and then the Schuylers and then John would never have peace again.

So instead, he calls Burr, because Burr gets it.

He stumbles into the car. Burr takes in his bruises and the blood and the alcohol. John rests his head in the window, watches the glass fog with his breath, traces mindless patterns with his fingers.

"This needs to stop."

They are in front of John's apartment, Burr grips the wheel until his knuckles go white, his voice is tight and careful, it's a knife cutting through the haze in John's mind, it's a spark lighting up his anger.

"John, you are kiling yourself, this-" a pause, a sigh, "Alex wouldn't want this."

Aaron's voice is soft and understanding and compassionate and John wants to punch him. It makes his blood boil because Burr might get it but no, he doesn't understand it, nobody else does because nobody else is John and nobody else is Alexander.

"You don't know shit, Burr." John smiles a vicious smile, bloodied and cruel and raw, "how's the wife again?"

Burr grips the wheel tighter and his lips are a thin line, it fills John with a cruel satisfaction, it burns inside him like acid, like wildfire.

"I- I have a kid you know? I can't keep picking you up at three in the morning."

"Well, then fucking don't."

He tries to leave, he ends up laying on the ground. The world spins around him, he feels the bile rising in his throat, he feels the snow burning his skin. John hears the car door open and close, footsteps and a voice calling his name. He feels hands helping him up and inside the building and into his bed.

John is drunk and the world is spinning madly around him. He looks up at the ceiling, eyes looking for the constellations they painted on a spring afternoon. The stars all blur together, the yellow and the dark blue dancing, only streaks of color, shapeless and meaningless.

John looks at the blurred constelations on the ceiling and thinks they should paint a wall this time, on another spring afternoon. He could almost see it, the sun shining through the window, Alexander with blue paint on his left cheek, head thrown back laughing, brush forgotten at his feet, and then John would reach and try to wipe it and end up smudging it more, Alex would laugh and throw paint at him and they would laugh and kiss and fuck and end up with paint all over.

John looks at the painted ceiling and imagines and turns to tell Alexander. He finds a long cold, empty spot.

John is still drunk and Alexander is still dead.

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Before

John is bored. Burr is still out and John is still in his apartment and the roommate is still sick. He checks his fever, still high, he pushes dark hair out of his eyes and puts a wet cloth on his forehead.

John is a doctor but he already did his job and Burr is taking his sweet time, so he is entitled to have a look around, yes.

He checks the small table first. It has papers scattered all over it and law books piling at the corners, but it's the essays that catch his eyes. There are a dozen of them, at least. Titles going from financial analysis to human rights and equality.

John is bored and Burr is taking too long, so he checks on the roommate again and then picks up one of the essays.

When Aaron Burr comes back half an hour later, John is halfway through the fourth paper. Burr takes one look at the essay and shakes his head, no he doesn't mind, it's not his anyway, hasn't John seen the name?

He scans the paper and finds it, at the bottom of the page, in the same hurried handwriting. Alexander Hamilton.

John looks at the roommate. He had turned in his sleep and the cloth fell from his forehead. He gets up, washes it in the sink and puts it back again.

"I can't really take care of him. You're a doctor, John." Burr is fidgeting again, eyes pleading and voice soft, "Will you stay?"

John looks at the sleeping form, thinks of his earlier plans, of the papers scattered on the desk, of the snow falling outside and feels like it's not much of a choice. He leaves the bedroom door open and follows Burr to the living room.

John lays on the couch, he doesn't feel much like sleeping. Instead, he reads the papers and books and checks on the roommate. Alexander Hamilton, his mind corrects, Alexander Hamilton.

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Now

The first thing John becomes aware of is the darkness. The second is the pain. If you asked him, John could recite every bone on the human body. If you asked him now, he would say he managed to at least crack every single one of them.

But pain is something John has grown used to, fond even. Pain is what keeps him grounded on reality, it's how he knows he is awake, he is still alive. So the ache on his chest, the gaping wound burning inside him, it's all background noise, it's subtext, it's routine.

John wakes up and there is a note on the fridge, it's a glaring yellow stain on the white of his refrigerator screaming at him to read it, to accept it, to follow whatever is written there. He takes one look at the neat handwriting, thinks of how wrong it is, ( it shouldn't be neat, it should be hurried and sloppy like his hands couldn't keep up with his brain ) and the wound on his chest grows and simmers and he crumbles the paper and lets it fall on the floor.

So, John wakes up, steps on the paper until it lays flat on the tiles of his kitchen and he makes a toast, because it's been six months and he is still on leave, because they still won't let him work, because his hands still shake, because he still dreams of blood and flatlines and because he can't bring himself to walk into a hospital.

John thinks he gets it now, why Alexander would refuse to go to a hospital no matter his condition. He gets it now, the way the white blank walls mock and taunt you and the stench of desinfectants grips his lungs and chase away the oxygen. He gets it now, and finds ironic how Alexander still managed to fall in love with a doctor. It couldn't have been easy, he thinks, for Alex not to wince when he came back every day, still smelling like hospitals and death. He can appreciate it now, the effort, the strained smiles and the quick kisses and the ushering him to change, c'mon John, let's take a shower, uh?

John gets it now and the irony of a doctor afraid of hospital doesn't get lost on him either. It's been only six months, people tell him, you'll get over it, just give it time and John wants to scream back that yes, it's been already six months, it's been an eternity. He wants to tell them that everyday after that day was a day too many.

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Before

John wakes up to the smell of fresh coffee and to the sound of whispered yelling. It takes him a minute to gather his thoughts, his memories, once he does, he realizes the quiet screaming match comes from one of the bedrooms.

He strains to listen, the voices rising slightly before being shushed. John recognizes Burr's voice, annoyed and familiar. The other cracks and sounds strained, but filled with passion as it strongly disagrees with Burr. John guesses the this voice belongs to his late night patient.

John can't make out words from the arguing, but it's not much of a stretch to conclude they are discussing him. So he gets up from the couch and knocks on the bedroom door.

Inside, he finds Burr standing on the middle of the room, arms crossed, frown in place. On the bed, the man he examined is sitting, back pressed to the wall and blankets wrapped around his shoulders, the bags under his eyes standing out angrily against the sickly pale of his skin and his head whips to glare at John, he opens his mouth but a fit of coughing racks his body.

John snaps into his professional self and he runs to the man's side, checks his temperature and hands the glass of water Burr brings.

"I don't need a doctor and I don't need your charity, so thanks but no thanks, you can go now."

John sighs and Burr deflates as the man sips on his water and glares at them, his proclamation echoing on the room.

"I'm John Laurens," he says and he wants to bolt out of the door, he doesn't want to deal with this, he helped more than enough already. Instead, he glances at Aaron Burr, standing uncomfortable on the wooden floor, smiles, and tries to look as non threatening as possible, "and I'm not a doctor yet, so you'd probably be the one helping me, really."

"Alexander Hamilton." His eyes searche and measure John, but he must find whatever he had been looking for, since his voice softens next, "But you already knew that. Now, please tell this man I am perfectly fine and can go back to work."

Turns out, John needn't worry, as Alexander answers his own request by coughing profusely.

"Oh, yes, Alex, you've never been better." Burr deadpans and shakes his head and John feels like he's watching a rehearsed argument, a reprise playing out for him. "Go read some of your damn books."

Alexander catches the copy of The Great Gatsby tossed at him, opens it at random and begins as loudly as his sore throat allows him, "So we beat on, boats against the current-"

John laughs, Burr walks out of the room aggravated and Alexander yells for his work.

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Now

John picks up the newspaper and he skips to the classified section. It's an habit and it's routine, so he does it mechanically, ignoring the nagging on his brain whispering for him to remember Alexander laughing at him for being silly on his kitchen and telling him to give him the economics section.

John reads it out of muscle memory. Still, when it happens, it startles him into dropping the mug on his hand. In the newspaper, it reads:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."