Peggy had snuck back to her apartment, everyone else was in their lectures and having exams and stuff. But here she was coming back to sneak another look at all those pregnancy tests she'd taken. Twenty pregnancy tests couldn't be wrong. Neither could forty, but she still had to be sure. Peggy was pregnant. There was no doubt about it. But who was the father? The love of her life, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette Washington? Or her cousin, Stephen, whom she wasn't related to by blood, but them still having a kid together would be super creepy?
Horrible thoughts began running through her head as she realised Alex was right. She was eighteen. A teenager. Having a baby now would be throwing her life away. She was woefully unprepared for motherhood. She would have to get an abortion. But what would her father say? Her mother? What if Lafayette wanted the baby? What if Lafayette found out she'd had sex with her cousin? What if Lafayette found out she was getting an abortion?
Peggy clutched her stomach, feeling ill from all the stress. Her heart was pounding. She was scared in a way that she never had been before. She had a life growing inside of her. A mistake. An unintended mistake. She didn't want this. She didn't want the baggage that was going to come with it. She didn't want Lafayette to know about the sex. She grabbed all the pregnancy tests and shoved them in her backpack, pretty much running out of the apartment, but slowing down when she reached a dumpster, tipping out the contents of her bag. As all the pregnancy tests came spilling out, she took one.
"Hey guys, it's me. The biggest disappointment you know." She said, pocketing the test. She had to talk to Alex about it.
As she began walking the streets it hit her about what her parents would think and say to her. Her siblings. Lafayette.
"Oh god! What will my parents say? Can I go in there and say-'I know that I'm letting you down'?"
"Peggy!" Theo called out.
"Just... Breathe."
"What's going on?" Theo caught up to her. "What's going on?"
"Nothing." Peggy said.
"You were just singing loudly to yourself like it was something out of a Broadway musical. Or a Disney movie." Theo pointed out.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"I didn't ask you if you were fine." Theo said.
"And now you know I am." Peggy shrugged.
"Peggy. Seriously." Theo put her hand on Peggy's shoulder.
"Theo, I've known you two months. I'm not about to tell you my personal business." Peggy said. She wasn't even about to tell her family. What the hell has she got herself into? Jefferson and Madison used condoms. So did Alex and Eliza and John. And definitely Hercules and Sally. Why didn't she that night?
"Do you use condoms?" Peggy blurted out.
"What?" Theo looked at Peggy in confusion.
"Do you and Aaron use condoms?"
"Yeah." Theo said. "We always use condoms. I mean, neither of us cheat on each other-well, I hope Aaron doesn't cheat on me, but he's demisexual so I doubt he would-but we want to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I'm also on the pill. Why? Do you and Laf not use contraception?"
"Oh." Peggy realised the implications of her words. "Yes. I-I'm on the pill too." She said. Not true. "I was just wondering if I should um, double down on the protection to prevent getting pregnant. Nothing like an unwanted pregnancy to derail a promising future." She chuckled awkwardly.
"Yes." Theo agreed. "Well, it's your body. Do what you want." She said, turning to leave. "Oh and Peggy?"
"Yeah?" Peggy answered.
"Congratulations." Theo said before walking away.
Later that day, Hercules, Lafayette and Sally were all frantically trying to get through to Peggy as she hadn't returned, but she wasn't answering. When there was a knock at the door, they assumed it was Peggy having finally come home after two hours away. But what Lafayette actually opened the door to was a young man who strongly resembled Alex (except for the height, this guy was taller), with a rucksack on his back and a suitcase at his side.
"You must be James Hamilton Jr." Lafayette said. "Alex will be happy to know you didn't die in that hurricane. Come in, we're just-"
"James Hamilton Jr? No." The mystery dude shook his head. "No, I'm not James Hamilton."
"Then who are you?" Hercules asked, full of suspicion.
"I'm Edward Stevens." He put his hand out. "Though most people just call me Ned. And I'm studying medicine. I was just looking for an old friend of mine from St Croix, who I'm sure you know-Alexander Hamilton..."
"Yeah, he's my brother." Hercules said. "He's not here at the moment-"
"He doesn't even live here, Herc." Lafayette said. "But you should come in anyway, mon ami. After we find my girlfriend, there is a lot you need to hear about."
"Oh." Ned took the handle of his suitcase and was pulled inside by Hercules. "So what'd I miss?"
A/N: Firstly I'd like to say that I HAVE HAMILTON TICKETS, YO!
I channeled my own feelings of throwing my future away to write Peggy's scene. I did something... Almost as stupid when I was 18. To put it in Hamilton terms, I threw away my shot. Actually, I threw away several. It wasn't a pleasant time. But I was very fortunate in that it only lasted a few days and everything went back on track rather than being long and drawn out like my illness.
Peggy is singing Breathe from In the Heights, or as I like to refer to it as; My Song. Seriously. It's like Lin was channeling all my future emotions when he wrote that. It's spooky. And no, I'm not referring to that time I was 18. I'm referring to... Well, June, July, August and September of last year. If you wanna know what happened, just listen to the song Breathe. It's pretty much exact but with Welsh instead of Spanish and... A different bridge rather than the George Washington Bridge.
Theo's 'Congratulations' serves two meanings.
1) She knows that Peggy's pregnant.
2) It's a reference to the cut song Congratulations, of which I feel the opening lyrics really fit poor Peggy's situation. After the 'Congratulations', these lyrics are implied:
"You have invented a new kind of stupid
A damage you can never undo, kind of stupid
An "open all the cages in the zoo", kind of stupid
Truly you didn't think this through kind of stupid"
Alexander Hamilton did have a resemblance to Ned Stevens to the point where they were confused as brothers, which... They might have been! From the Chernow Brick:
"Of the five Stevens children, Edward, born a year before Alexander, became his closest friend, "an intimate acquaintance begun in early youth" as Hamilton described their relationship. As they matured, they often seemed to display parallel personalities. Both were exceedingly quick and clever, fluent in French, versed in classical history, outraged by slavery and mesmerized by medicine. In future years, Edward Stevens was wont to remind Hamilton of "those vows of eternal friendship which we have so often mutually exchanged" and he often fretted about Hamilton's delicate health. If their personalities exhibited unusual compatibility, their physical resemblance bordered on the uncanny, often stopping people cold."
It then goes on to say:
"What to make of this extraordinary speculation? No extant picture of Edward Stevens enables us to probe any family resemblance. Nevertheless, in the absence of direct proof, the notion that Alexander was the biological son of Thomas Stevens instead of James Hamilton would clarify many oddities in Hamilton's biography."
And this:
"It might suggest why James Hamilton Sr., left his family behind, assumed no further responsibility for them and took no evident delight in Alexander's later career, most of all, it would account for the peculiar distance that later held Hamilton from both his father and his brother. As will be seen, Alexander Hamilton was an intensely loyal person, endowed with a deep streak of familial responsibility. There is something telltale about the way that he, his father and his brother let relations abruptly lapse as if the three of them were in a headlong flight from some harrowing shared secret."
Basically, Chernow thinks that Hamilton was the son of Thomas Stevens and thus the brother of Ned Stevens.
I'm still sick and I'm having like seven more tests done tomorrow. But I don't care because I'M GOING TO SEE HAMILTON! FOR £32.50! (Around $38)
