John had been dead for nineteen years.
It felt like the blink of an eye and an eternity simultaneously–time was nothing but a faded memory to him now, stuck in an unchanging world inhabited by unchanging people as he was.
But still, he made an effort to keep track of the passing of time in the world of the living, even if it perhaps was for the wrong reasons. John should keep track of it out of interest for the daughter he had never met (for the daughter he had never wanted t̶o̶ ̶m̶e̶e̶t̶), to take up some of the fatherly role he had never filled for her in life from beyond the grave, just to watch her grow and learn and live even if he couldn't be there to help guide her through the struggles a young girl faced.
He rarely ever checked in on her. Frances was twenty-four. She would be fine.
His dear sister Patsy had raised her after the death of her mother, John's wife (h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶r̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶), and Patsy and Henry were the only ones left out of the bunch of them, which was- devastating, really.
John had twelve siblings, in theory. Most of them hadn't lived past infancy. Those who had–well. They had not lived long past infancy. He had died aged the oldest at twenty-seven, and wasn't that just a heartbreaking thought?
Twenty-seven. He had been twenty-seven when that bullet had found him.
Frances was twenty-four.
Sometimes he wondered if she ever thought about it. About him.
He hoped not; that would just make him feel like so much more of a heartless bastard than he already did for never doing her the same courtesy.
John shook the somber thoughts off and sighed. It was nothing more than a motion, a mannerism that had stayed with him during the infinite moment he had spent in this place, a trace of the life he once possessed–he had taken his last breath nineteen years ago, and his lungs, if he even still had them, had been frozen since.
Sometimes, he missed it. A ridiculous notion, that someone could miss something like breathing, but he found he did; he missed the cool, vitalising shock of the first breath of crisp autumn-air in the morning, he missed the smell of warm wood the summer-winds would bring, and-
No.
He didn't miss that, he couldn't, that was selfish, he was glad twenty years had passed since the last time John had buried his nose in those auburn locks, it was good, it was perfect, it was torture, and John loved it, he loved being able to see but not touch, because that meant he was alive (b̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶?̶ Yes. He was alive and happy, finally, finally happy with his wife and the family they built w̶i̶t̶h̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶).
His Alexander was alive, despite everything. John would have died ten times over to ensure he stayed that way.
There was a faint itch at the back of his mind; it was familiar, and John knew that it would only grow more insistent the longer he attempted to ignore it, so he gave in to it with another airless sigh.
So, he summoned a Mirror. Those things had, of course, none of the properties a normal mirror possessed, but that was what they were called, or so he had gathered–John thought of them more as windows. Windows to the world of the living.
The one connection he had to his love.
He only watched him on occasion now, a far cry from the downright obsessive behaviour he had exhibited in the beginning, when he had needed to see him constantly. Alexander had been his anchor in life, and John had just died, had been so alone e̶x̶c̶e̶p̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶,̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶a̶m̶i̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶o̶r̶ ̶w̶o̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶o̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶f̶a̶l̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶, and even watching Alexander from a place he couldn't know existed had soothed the cacophony of hurt John could only compare to the bullet in his stomach that had ended him.
John summoned a Mirror, expecting to see his Alexander bent over his work, as usual, glasses sliding down his nose (the glasses were adorable. He wished he could have lived to see them in person, maybe even reach out and right them for him like Alexander had used to do with the lapels of John's coat.)
He saw blood, and the window shattered.
John blinked, shook his head, would have taken a steadying breath. He tried again.
More blood.
Alexander and his wife clutched at the broken, motionless body of a young man, and Eliza screamed, and Alexander brushed the hair from the boy's face with trembling fingers, pat his cheek gently, begged him to open your eyes, Pip, you'll be fine, you did everything right, you just have to wake up, please, please God-
John stumbled away from the Mirror and let the image go. He would know that face anywhere, even if it was crusted in blood, he had watched that boy grow up, he had spent more time on Alexander's son than he had on his own daughter.
Philip Hamilton.
No.
When he next blinked his eyes open–he could, all of a sudden, when he had just struggled to do so a moment prior–Philip shot up from where he laid and turned, expecting his parents to be there, because they had just been, they had held him, they had cried.
Why had they been crying?
He couldn't ask them, because they were not there. He was alone. He didn't want to be alone.
The place he was in was unfamiliar and different in a way he couldn't describe, couldn't even comprehend-
There was a flash of light, and all of a sudden, he wasn't alone. Philip scrambled backwards and away from the man who had just appeared in front of him out of thin air, but he hesitated.
The man didn't seem threatening. He looked devastated.
"Philip Hamilton," he said, the name dropping from his tongue heavy like lead, and Philip resumed his scrambling. He didn't know him, he didn't know where he was, he wanted his mom and dad, why had they left him? "What happened to you?"
The question punched a pit into his gut, and he froze.
What happened to him?
What had happened to him? Why was he in a strange place with a strange man when he had just been safe with his parents?
Philip closed his eyes and pushed down the panic, attempted to piece together what had brought him there.
There had been... a loud noise. A loud noise that had split the air and hurt his ears-
A gunshot? Yes. Then- then, pain. Pain that had ripped through him in a way he couldn't even have imagined, unlike anything he had ever felt before, he- he had been shot.
He had been in a duel.
"I was shot," he croaked, and the man pressed his lips into a thin line, his brow pinched as though he was in pain. "I- I think I was in a duel."
The man shook his head and dragged a hand through long, blond hair. "Truly your father's son," he muttered to himself, and that distracted Philip from the cold clump of dread in his chest.
"You know my father?"
He dropped his hand back to his side, worried his lip between his teeth. "I knew him," he said and crouched down to his level, but didn't come any closer. "I'm John Laurens."
Philip let out a nervous chuckle and shook his head. "John Laurens is dead," he said.
He knew of the man; his father's best friend. His father's best friend who hadn't survived the war, and, according to everyone he had ever annoyed into talking to him about it, had taken a piece of his dad with him when he'd died.
The man paused. "Yes," he said, with such gravity Philip thought his skin ought to break out into goosebumps, but it didn't.
"And- and you're… sure you're him?" he said, desperate, and wondered if this whole conversation was just a figment of his imagination as he lay unconscious on an operating-table and fought for his life; the man made a sound in his throat that sounded equal parts pained and amused, tilted his head to the side and shot him a sad, crooked smile.
"I'm almost certain."
"But he's dead- you are… dead." He had meant to say more, but his voice trailed off as the realisation enveloped him, heavy and stifling and too real, but somehow intangible at the same time. "Am I?"
John Laurens, the dead man with way too much life in his eyes, opened his mouth only to close it again, and gave a mute nod.
Philip was dead.
Philip was dead, and it was all his own fault.
The boy sat motionless, entirely too similar to the scene John had just held witness to, and stared at him from eyes that quickly clouded over with tears.
It was fascinating, he thought through his heartache, how they couldn't sleep or eat in this place, but they could still cry.
"No," he choked and sniffled, and at that moment, he seemed so much younger than the nineteen years John knew him to be that his breath would have stuck in his throat had he had any left.
God, the poor boy was nineteen. No. He had been nineteen.
John looked into those teary eyes, and- and now that he could see him up close, he noticed Philip had his Alexander's eyes, the same deep blue he had gotten lost in so many times, and he couldn't help but remember him, so far back when they had been so young.
He had looked at him like that, too. When the summer-downpour had been too torrential, when the thunder had boomed loud enough to shake their bones, and his darling had trembled underneath his sheets until John climbed into Alexander's cot, held him close, and hummed half-remembered melodies from his childhood to calm him.
He swallowed–another unnecessary habit left over from his days as a human–and inched closer. "I'm so sorry," he said to the boy with Alexander's name and his eyes and his nose, a̶n̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶i̶s̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶.̶
He knelt next to where Philip sat, stiff and trying so hard to be strong, and reached out, settled his arm carefully around his shoulders.
"I don't wanna be dead," he said, voice small and quaking, and John was transported back to one of the many nights he had comforted one of his younger siblings after a particularly awful nightmare.
"I know," he answered softly and thumbed small shapes into the boy's upper-arm where his hand had come to rest.
"I want my Mom and Dad." He turned pleading eyes on him, his cheeks wet with tears, and John's static heart broke.
"You'll see them again, Philip," he said and pulled him closer; when the boy caught on to what he attempted to do, he shuffled nearer until he could rest his head on his shoulder, and John, emboldened by the show of trust, stroked his free hand over that unruly mop of hair.
"But- but I want them now, but I don't want them to die, I- I just-" Philip's hand came up to clutch at his shirt, his knuckles white with the tightness of his grip.
John understood. He hadn't known much else beside that same struggle since he had opened his eyes to this place for the first time, surprised to find himself not amidst fire and brimstone as he had expected.
"Shh, I know," he mumbled, and Philip let out a broken sob that resonated through his hollow chest like an echo down a cave.
Someone had to look after the poor boy–and John, he owed it to Alexander.
John might have never been a father (at least that had been what he'd told himself so he could find sleep at night), but he had been an older brother, as far as his memories reached back.
He would tend to Philip like Alexander would want him to if he knew, because he loved that man too much to just turn his back on his son, a̶n̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶o̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶J̶o̶h̶n̶'̶s̶,̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶.̶