Chapter 6: (3992 words)

Group Name- The Plan

-whatthehellisthecatch: omg that was soooooo cute

-theresalakeiknow: what happened ang

-makingredcoatsredder: we may have gotten to see my frere talking to alex

-andpeggy: aw man i missed that?!

-Wehavetowin: yeah sorry it was really awesome though

-theresalakeiknow: ang u didnt scare them did u

-whatthehellisthecatch: liza its me of course I did

-Imaynotlivetoseeourglory: hey guys

-Imaynotlivetoseeourglory: i think i should tell alex about him crying

-theresalakeiknow: oh please dont hurt his feelings

-whatthehellisthecatch: i have to agree with liza

-Wehavetowin: i say go for it just b careful

John turned off his phone when they got back to dorm. He began sketching, while Alex went into his room, most likely to write a poem praising the amazing qualities Washington has as a professor.

He walked to the sofa, and fell down, resulting in his sketching pencil landing on the sofa, the spot next to him.

He picked it up and began sketching unconsciously, thinking about the events that were likely to commence later on in the day.

He had just seen the two males in action, acting like they were friends for years, who had inside jokes and a close bond. He didn't understand, couldn't understand how they so suddenly went from despising each other with a fury to… that.

John figured it had something to do with what happened in the library.

He looked down at his drawing to realise that he had drawn the two, talking happily next to each other. Alex had his hair tied up and had his arms waving about while talking as Jefferson was listening, a smirk gracing his features. They looked so happy to be next to each other.

And that was when John realised that Jefferson really could make his best friend, his closest friend, happy.

Putting the sketchbook down on the kitchen counter, he went and sat down on his bed, seeing Alex finishing off some essay or another.

"Alex, we have to talk," John announces when Alex finishes writing and puts his laptop aside to listen to him.

Worryingly, Alex starting tapping his fingers on his bed, which was on the other side of the room from John's. He nodded to show that he was listening.

"Eliza saw you in the library yesterday, she said that… you were crying. What's wrong?" John questioned gently, trying to follow James' advice.

Suddenly, his friend's eyes widened in surprise and fear of people discovering his past. He didn't want nor need any pity.

"N-nothing!" he stumbled over his words in fear.

"You know you can tell me anything Alex, you're the closest friend I've got."

"You're mine too," he smiled, still shivering from worry. "I- It's about my past, John."

Laurens gasped silently, Alex almost never called him John, and whenever he did, he was being completely serious. His expression was grim, and John walked across the room and sat down next to his friend. He reached out his hand to rub his friend's back as a way to comfort him.

"You don't have to tell me a thing, Alex. I understand, y'know. I don't tell y'all about my father." At that point, he shivered himself.

For a second, all was silent. Then Alex whimpered loudly and flung himself at his best friend, hugging him tightly.

"Thanks John! I'll tell you someday," he promised. Alex pulled out of his hug and smiled brightly at Laurens, feeling so lucky that he had a friend like him in his life.

Then after the little cry-fest, the two young men went to their respective beds and slept, well, John slept. Alex never sleeps.

The following morning was a Saturday and Alex had no lectures that day, so he took a brisk walk to the antique library.

He couldn't keep it in any longer, he decided that he had to tell someone about his past. For once, he thought about who to tell before just jumping in and telling someone without a second thought.

His best bet is probably Thomas. He already knew about his PTSD and of his fear of storms and large bodies of water.

He greeted Eliza, who was volunteering that day, and snuck into his little hidden corner, working on his essay on the U.S. Constitution. He was really in his work, and everyone who has ever heard about him knows that once he's into it, there's no getting out. He didn't even realise that the man he was looking for had squeezed through the gap in the bookshelves.

"Hey, Hammy," Jefferson grinned at the stupid nickname and how they were friends now.

"Ugh, hello Thomas," Hamilton responded with a slight smirk.

"Eliza said that you were here- "

"Woah! Woah! Woah, slow down, mister! Eliza knows about my secret lair?" Alex whined, loudly.

"Well, duh shrimp. You're not exactly sneaky y'know!" He responded playfully.

Alex cheekily glared at him, "Drat, my cover is ruined!" he declared as if he was a villainous cartoon character.

Jefferson's laugh was… nice. It gave Alex a strange feeling in his chest. He ignored it for now, there were more important things to discuss at the moment.

"Um… Thomas? Can I speak to you for a second?"

"Already are, darlin'."

"I meant in private."

"We already are, darlin'!"

"Ugh, just sit down here. It's important. Please?"

Alex looked really nervous for some reason. So, he decided to do what he said. "Oh, sure."

If he realised that the small immigrant was blushing at the unconscious nickname, he certainly didn't show it.

"Uh, how do I say this? Um… I want to tell you my past," he rushed the last part out in one breath.

Jefferson looked shocked, as if he couldn't believe that the day had actually come.

"A-are you sure you want to do this?" Jefferson questioned, sincerity seeping through.

"I-yeah, I-I do."

"Um, take it away, I guess. Just know that if you ever want to stop, at any time, you can."

Alex smiled up at him, a large toothy grin at the kindness and freedom that his rival-turned-friend was presenting him with.

Jefferson was frozen in place, Alex had never smiled like that at anybody, never mind him. He was smiling that kind of grin that puffed out your cheeks and made your eyes look closed…

And he looked adorable-

Wait- what!?

Okay, let's go away from that thought!

'Jefferson looked really funny and cute like that- Whaaaaaat direction are my thoughts going in?' Alex thought.

The man in front of him looked like he was stuck in place, but in a good way? He wasn't sure.

"Okay, let's get this over with. Thank you for your concern, I might use that rain check half-way through, let's see," he whispered to his new-found friend.

"Take it away," Jefferson whispered back, giving the most supportive smile he could muster.

"Well, I was born on an island named Nevis. It's an island in the Caribbean if you didn't know." Thomas nodded along to that. "They mostly speak French there but mama taught me English, and Spanish too."

Jefferson nodded there as well, honestly impressed that the annoying gremlin that he used to fight was trilingual. That must have been how he knew French when he spoke to him during his panic attack, and he responded because French was his first language.

"My father was from a line of Scottish kings, but I don't care."

He could see Jefferson glaring at him playfully. "He went to the Caribbean one day and had an affair with my mother. My mother… "

The first tear made its way down Alex's cheek.

"My mother was what most people would call a whore. She was very poor, and worked as a maid, cleaning houses of the rich, but it wasn't enough so she had to sell herself to others."

Thomas couldn't believe the kind of family that the incredible yet troubled young man in front of him had, it was so terrible. He had a horrible throw of the dice, and he wasn't even born yet.

"They had an affair, they had me and my brother. We lived an… okay life. We were extremely poor, even with my father's salary helping out. I starved most days."

Thomas' head tilted up to look at him.

"Is that why you don't eat much?"

His eyes widened in surprise at his observation skills.

"Um, yeah. I didn't realise that you noticed."

He turned bright red, Jefferson noting that down to think about later on.

"Anyways, I was always the smartest at school, and I was always beaten up by bullies for being a 'nerd'. I learnt self-defence from those when I was still in primary school. It was a very bad one, most of us had to sit on the floor but I was always the one with no equipment, no lunch, yet I was always the smartest."

He gave Jefferson a smug, proud smirk and Jefferson groaned in jealousy.

"You don't have to rub it in."

"Oh, yes I do!"

He smiled, happy for the first time since he had started telling his story. Jefferson rolled his eyes, but gestured for him to continue.

"I went to the library whenever I could. It was dirty and could be mistaken for abandoned, and smelt like dead fish and salt from being right at the edge of town, but I loved it anyway. I went there because my dad beat up my mother."

He looked incredibly sad about it, and the more he thought about it, the more he realised that he over-estimated the royal guy and under-estimated the poor girl.

Then what Alex had said just kicked in.

His father beat up his mother.

No family should ever have to go through that.

He crawled over to where Alex was sitting and wrapped him up in his arms, protecting him from the world.

And the other didn't pull away.

The tears had started falling at an alarming pace by then.

He was seriously troubled with his memories of his childhood. Saying it all out loud brought back stronger memories of the beatings.

Then suddenly, there was a pair of arms around him, and for some reason, he didn't feel so lonely anymore, yet the tears kept on coming.

Slowly, quietly, just whispering for the two to hear, he continued his story, "They didn't know that I knew about the beatings. Mama never told me because she didn't want me to worry and my father didn't tell me because he knew that I would stand up for her and while he wouldn't mind hitting me, it was her who he really wanted to… punish."

Jefferson couldn't believe it, here was Alex, talking about how his father wouldn't have minded to hit him with a totally emotionless voice. He hoped that he was alright.

Oh, who was he kidding? Alex obviously wasn't alright. He has to relive all of these daunting memories just to tell someone. And that someone was him.

"The library had old boring political books, as the librarian had told me, but I thought that they were amazing. I told myself, right there and then, that I would become a lawyer, not just to free me and mama from my father, but to free others from having the same life that I had too."

"Wow, that was very selfless of you, Alex, and still is." Jefferson complimented.

Alex sniffed. The tears were finally coming to an end. "Thanks, Thomas. It means a lot."

"You can continue, sorry, just thought that you needed that."

"Yeah, thanks. When I was ten, I finally drew enough courage to stand up for me and my mama. He… hit me. A lot. I, uhh… still have the bruises and marks from being lashed with a belt down my back. But I got through it. My mama helped patch me up, having lots of experience herself."

Jefferson had started to rub Alex's back as a way to comfort him, but was very gentle to make sure that he didn't hurt the apparent bruises and marks down his back, but he wasn't going to risk it.

"The next morning, papa wasn't there anymore. He had just left that night, never to be seen again. My father, who had the money to help us, who had the phone to give us, who had the help to provide us, just walked away."

Alex was shaking like crazy. Whether it was fear or fury, Jefferson didn't know.

What he did know that at this moment, he was the only thing grounding Alex. The hand rubbing his back went faster.

"My brother, who was older than me, James, he was called, also left, taking money and necessities along with him, which left just me and my mother. When I was eleven, we both got ill, I can't remember what with but I'm pretty sure it's pneumonia. I still have a small case of it today, though knowing me, you'll know that I just ignore it."

He chuckled dryly, holding on tightly to Jefferson's body.

"When I was twelve, my mother died. Mama died…"

The tears started falling again.

"Um, we didn't have enough money for a doctor, or even some basic pain killers. We just laid down on the floor, our bed was on the floor by the way, and we just waited until we died. She went quick. I… didn't go at all. As I'm sure you can tell."

The tears were still running down his face, not slowing down.

"I still think it was my fault."

Jefferson looked shocked at that to say the least.

"How could you have possibly killed your mother, you loved her?"

"I was ill first. I had the illness, and she tried to take care of me and caught it too. She got it from me. Since she was a prostitute and since she worked all of the other days scrubbing down big houses for tourists, the illness took her quick, she was sickly."

He was still crying, though the tears seem to be slowing down slightly.

"I was stronger, I was younger and better at self-defence and I didn't have to do half the things she did. I honestly owe my life to that woman. I love her so much, and she died before my eyes, she died because of me."

He sniffed some more, but the shock of having to live through that again was finally passing, it seemed.

"I just can't die, y'know that." He chuckled dryly once more, "You'll see later on. Anyway, I went to live with a distant cousin. He ran a business which I helped with, I ran a trading centre at fourteen, that's what happens when you live the kind of life that I live, huh?"

"At least you're here with me, right?" he responded suavely.

He was actually incredibly nervous for Hamilton's response and he had no idea why.

Luckily for him, Hamilton just smiled sweetly and squeezed harder in his hug instead of answering.

"My cousin committed suicide, one day, everything is fine, and the next day, I find him with a gunshot wound in his chest. It must have been the added stress of running the business and taking in a younger relative that he couldn't take it anymore."

Jefferson just kept on rubbing his back.

"When I found him, I just wrote a note and ran. There was this kind lady at the end of the street near the library that let me stay with her. Unluckily for me, she was single and changed the guy she was dating every other week. There was this one specific guy that she dated who beat me up all of the time. Whenever he saw me. She didn't do anything, she just stayed out of the way."

Jefferson bristled. He was furious. How could that woman do something like that to Alex!?

"I don't blame her though, I saw bruises on her arms and back. I assumed that she was going through the same thing that my mom went through. Falling in love and it turns out that the guy you're dating is an abusive boyfriend."

Jefferson's anger subsided when he heard that side of the story, but then it just grew again, his anger directed at the man more than the woman now

Alex must have felt him because he added, "Don't worry, something happens."

"What?" he asks curiously.

The tiny leprechaun in front of him sighed. "Okay, um, when I was seventeen, a huge hurricane hit my town."

The emotionless façade took over his face when he said this, his eyes filling with tears, though not as much as before.

"It was massive, and it wiped out the whole town. The abusive man who hit me and Daniella, the woman, was walking outside, talking to the neighbours. When the hurricane hit, I saw a stray tree flick into his face, he wasn't dead yet though. As much as I hate him, I don't actually want to see him die."

The way he talked about this without emotion shown on his face scared Jefferson. He noticed the use of the word 'yet' and realised that Alex must have been one of the only survivors of his town.

"That's why you're afraid of storms and water, right?"

"You got it. The house collapsed with me inside. It trapped me under a beam and the room was filling up with water, though luckily, it was filling slowly. It was very dark, it happened around mid-afternoon but the hurricane consisted of dark clouds anyway, so I couldn't see anything, but I felt the water rising up my body, like a ticking time bomb."

Jefferson shivered, hoping that it was small enough for Alex to not notice but alas, not everything goes to plan. "I have no idea what that must have been like but that must have been terrifying."

"God, it was. Later in the evening, I was able to free myself from the heavy beam before I drowned and I went outside."

Thomas' gave a worried expression, and Alex was sure to reassure him, "There was only light rain by then, don't worry!" Thomas looked a lot more calmed at that. He sighed at the memories, clear as if it happened the previous day. "It was beautiful, y'know."

At Jefferson's confused stare, he continued, "Not the destruction, idiot. The sky. I was right in the middle of it, the eye of the hurricane."

There was silence between the two, until Jefferson spoke. "What was it like?" he whispered.

Alex breathed in and sang slightly to a tune, "In the eye of the hurricane, there is quiet, for just a moment, a yellow sky."

"What was that tune from," questioned Thomas.

"Nowhere," Alex responded, "I made it myself."

Jefferson looked at him in awe, and slight concern. He made an entire song probably, just based off of the bloody hurricane that almost killed him. He must have been really lonely, or really traumatised.

"Daniella and her boyfriend died, along with literally everyone else. I was the only one who survived."

Jefferson was shocked, and very worried for his new-found friend.

Seeing everyone around you die and literally being the last one left must be very… changing for someone. Alex must have been changed by the events.

"It was, um… chaotic is the best word I can think of to describe it. It was still dark, and since all of the lights were destroyed, you could hardly see anything. I could only see random stacks of rubble in the light of the moon. I tried to sleep but… I just couldn't. The events of the day were repeating in my mind and wouldn't stop."

"What happened in the morning?"

Alex grimaced, "I must have fallen asleep at some point because I remember waking up to a cloudless sky. I then looked around…"

Alex shivered, and it didn't seem like it was from the cold. Jefferson looked concerned, "Alex?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, guess I zoned out."

Jefferson rolled his eyes fondly, but his eyes suddenly turned dark at the thought of what he was thinking about.

"I… I saw b-bodies, dead bodies e-everywhere… There was puddles of blood, scraps of muscle, crushed bones all along the ground." He loosened his hold on Thomas and pulled back, and his head turned up to look him in the eye.

His eyes, they were brown, a dark chocolatey kind of brown that made a person feel special when looked at. It was usually a comforting brown, that felt intelligent and alive, as if they knew the secrets to the world. But this time? They looked… dead.

Emotionless.

"I-I couldn't feel anything, it was like… I had no f-feelings, or emotions, a-at all. I felt like a r-rock, Thomas. Like… l-like a monster, an oddity. Like I wasn't meant to b-be born, as the bastard, as the wh-whore's son, and th-this was the world's way of punishing me. I contemplated suicide for a few days, to not suffer any longer from looking at the wasteland that was my town, y'know."

Thomas' jaw dropped at the words that came out of Alex's li- 'Can't think about that now! Let's pay attention to Alex, Thomas!"

"Alex? Hammy?"

Alex smiled at the nickname as he held tight on to Thomas once more, shoving his face into his new friend's neck, trying to feel safe and protected from his past.

Thomas smiled himself, happy to see that Alex wasn't so shaken that he ran away or had a panic attack. But he found himself quickly frowning again.

"You don't actually think that, do you?"

Alex sighed, and responded, "I… I did. But then I realised that, I probably was delusional at the time. I was just in a bad spot. I would go through that a million times if it meant I got to go to the U.S. and to university, and to meet you… um, you all. Yeah, you all…"

Thomas grinned warmly at that, even though Alex couldn't see him.

"A bunch of search and rescue parties were sent, mostly by the U.S. and Mexico, and they found me two days later, asleep on the ground that was covered in damaged goods, from glass shards to wooden splinters. I had a broken leg and some broken ribs, but I didn't even realise when I first got out of the rubble that was the house."

Jefferson stayed silent, not wanting to disturb the concentration and thought process of the man in his arms. He couldn't see his face but he assumed that it would either be pained, mournful or matching his emotionless voice.

"When I was in the hospital, I wrote several poems of the hurricane, and wrote a first-person account of what happened. Professor Washington saw it and the poems and gave me a scholarship of my choosing, and I obviously chose Poli-Sci, Law and Financials."

"You still hadn't forgotten your idea all those years ago?"

"No, I don't want anyone to go through what I did."

As he spoke these words, he crawled out of the embrace to look Jefferson in the eye as he said that sentence.

In those eyes, those deep brown chocolate, gorgeous eyes that Jefferson thought was absolutely beautiful, he saw pain, and age, experience and intelligence that came with tragedy that he had never noticed before, though it was always there.

"As much as I don't want you to go through that at all, I'm glad I got to meet you at the end of it."

Alex smiled a big sweet smile, and the two hugged for what seemed like forever until they both got up before Eliza checked on them.

They walked back to dorm together, since they lived in the same block, and if they held hands the whole time, they weren't going to tell anyone.

A/N: WOOOOOO! Extra huge chapter for you all today! You better be proud of me. It's hard to pump these things out.

In this chapter, a whole lot of stuff happens, though at the same time, not much happened. We had a sweet platonic Lams moment, and then we had a whole ton of Jamilton fluff, with a lot of hurt/comfort in there too.

Hamilton tells Jefferson about his past, I don't really know how to reveal it to his other friends though. I don't want to just repeat the whole story, but then how do I do it? If you have any ideas, please feel free to tell me, and I'll credit you at the end, in one of these author's note thingys.

Anyways, enjoy the huge chapters! It won't last… Enjoy! (;D)