Hello everyone! I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season. My gift to you is this 4,500 world long chapter. I hope you enjoy!
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Alexander's bloodshot eyes glared exhaustedly at the redcoat who had just poked him in the shoulder with the end of his rifle, watching him return to his post at the cell door.
The small group of British soldiers had arrived at their destination over a day ago, Hamilton in tow. The immigrant was mortified to admit that he may have shed a tear in sheer relief when Arnold had finally dismounted from his horse, handing the reins off to an awaiting officer signaling that the tireless trek had finally ended. His injured leg, which had barely held his weight the day before, had been rendered useless after Arnold's medical experiment and had dragged behind him for most of the fourteen hour march, causing the ex-aide to fall more than he had actually walked due to both a lack of balance and blood loss, wrists protesting fiercely at the harsh movements as they were already bleeding and raw. The wound on his leg, freshly stitched, had pulsed angrily at every step.
'Stitches were a kind description,' Alexander thought through a cloud of fatigue.
Hamilton had caught a glimpse of his leg only once while Arnold's goons were securing him to the horse that had been selected for him to follow behind for the day and that once glimpse was enough to leave Alexander's stomach flipping uncomfortably in nausea for the next half an hour. He wouldn't be surprised if the soldier assigned the task of sewing the wound up had never seen a needle in his life.
Figures.
The ex-aide-de-camp jolted suddenly, eyes which he didn't realize were closed snapping open at the slightly harsher second prod from the guard.
Alexander, to put it in plain terms, was utterly exhausted. He had not gotten a wink of sleep the night before the fateful duel with Lee and had ridden straight to New York immediately afterwards where he was, of course, captured. With a morbid jolt of self- pride, Hamilton was startled to observe it had been a whole six days since he had last slept.
"Slept" being the few necessary hours he usually snuck in between writing missives and constructing letters to Congress.
He could imagine the disappointed look on John's face now.
Sitting down against the stone wall of the cell had felt better than it should after spending months sleeping on a cot, but he had been uncaring of even the shackles being manhandled around his torn wrists and then secured to a ring in the floor. His eyes had fallen closed almost immediately after the British had turned to leave, body gladly giving into the overwhelming urge to sleep, but a boot tapping his ankle had had him confusedly reopening his eyelids..
"No sleeping," the soldier had said as though it was an everyday marching order, and Hamilton had looked at him incredulously until he realized it was most likely Arnold's doing.
Figures.
Hours had passed with no stimulation for his overly active brain, and it became increasingly harder and harder to keep conscious, the only thing keeping him semi-awake being the cold seeping into his bare back and shoulders from the icy stone behind him (they had apparently decided that, upon arriving at the fort, he was not in need of his coat or undershirt in the late fall). He dared not shift his stance from where he was positioned carefully against the wall to escape the growing cold, however, as the constant pain in his leg had finally begun to fade into a piercing ache instead of a debilitating burn that had originated from it since its further maltreatment.
It took him far too long for his normally quick brain to figure out what Arnold was attempting to accomplish with keeping him so tired and cold, and the moment of realization that should have come much sooner had anxiety churning hotly in his stomach, warming him welcomingly but unpleasantly.
He heard of many prisoner of war tactics from multiple comrades who had lived to tell the tale of British imprisonment from either a prisoner exchange or a rescue. They had explained how some officers forewent traditional pain and instead went straight to mental torture, breaking them down by neglecting their basic needs of food, water, and sleep.
"It makes the mind easily malleable and defenseless," one of the less haunted men had elaborated from his bed in the medical tent after General Washington had led men to capture the fort that the man he was talking to and other revolutionaries had been held in a week prior. His fellow soldier had shared his experience with a trained calmness, but Hamilton had seen the wild look hidden just behind the man's eyes as a chill went down his own spine.
Malleable.
Defenseless.
The physical stress that would be put on the body is not what scared Alexander. He had gone longer than most without a proper meal and sleep; it was the fact that he would no longer be in control of his own mind, the thing he depended on the most.
Even when he was a small child on Nevis, he had relied on his mind for everything. He had used it to come up with new ways for him and his mother to earn money in their small shop so they wouldn't starve. Then, later, when he was left completely alone in the world after the death of his cousin, he had used it to study his way into a clerking position offered by his mother's old landlord. Finally, he had written his way off of the cursed island itself towards his future in New York through pure genius alone.
His tongue flicked uncomfortably against the gag still in his mouth in thought.
If he didn't have a clear mind and his words, what did he have? The answer whispered in the back of his mind unwillingly.
'Nothing,'
And even through his denial and fading willpower, he noticed his thoughts becoming muddled and sluggish, as he was unable to even come up with a creative insult to internally hurl at the irritated looking redcoat who had now just poked him for the third time in the last fifteen minutes.
As more time passed, the muscles of his arms and lower back began to uncomfortably spasm as the sun fell below the horizon, the small stone cell slowly turning into an icebox as the temperature dropped well below fifty, and he eyed the finely tailored coat his guard wore with ill-concealed envy. Before he knew it, the floor underneath him became freezing as well, and his legs began their own shivering, which led to his jaw aching as his teeth clenched the gag from the struggle of holding back the wails of pain that desperately wanted to emerge from his blue-tinged lips as the involuntary movement continuously shifted his tortured thigh.
As the first stirrings of daylight filtered through the miniscule window located above his head, Alexander was, in all senses of the word, miserable, and, of course, with his luck, that was when Arnold decided to pay him his first visit since he had entered the fort two days prior.
Figures.
"Ah, Lieutenant Hamilton, up bright and early I see," Arnold said much too gleefully as he appeared in the doorway of Hamilton's cell, and Alexander hated the way a jolt of fear went through him at the sound of his voice.
Past the point of caring about the man's annoying antics, the younger man did not even warrant him with a physical response, pointedly not looking in the lunatic's direction, as all his strength went towards simply keeping his eyes open.
"I do hope my hospitality is up to your standards," the general spoke once again, harsher this time, most likely disappointed at the lack of response from the usually hot-headed man.
Still nothing.
Something in Arnold's ever-changing mood must have shifted, as he heard the tell-tale sound of a cell door being flung open, and he snapped his head up to see the turncoat quickly stomping towards him. Alarm bells went off in Hamilton's head at the unexpected and insane action, and he quickly attempted to right himself from his slumped position against the wall, only to stop with a muffled groan a moment later as it tugged unbearably at his stitches.
As Arnold finally reached the ex-aide to tower over his much smaller figure, Alexander swore he saw a flash of pure madness in the man's eyes before a large hand was being wrapped around his throat and, without any warning, squeezed.
Arnold was pressing so tightly on his windpipe that no oxygen could get through the newly crushed airway, and Alexander felt his mouth open and close sporadically, desperately trying to bring a breath of air into his screaming lungs. His legs uselessly strained and struggled to find purchase on the smooth stone in a hopeless effort to escape from the bruising grip holding him firmly against the wall behind him, his blunt nails scratching at the offending hand around his throat futilely.
A dull roaring had begun to echo in his ears, almost like he was underwater, and the comparison only served to make him more frantic as flashes of death and destruction flickered in his mind as the reminder of the hurricane.
Screaming. Thunder. Wind. Rain. Water. So much water.
He subconsciously heard the muffled voice of Arnold talking to someone over his shoulder as his limbs went limp, his pitiful struggles halting, as they became too heavy to operate. Numbness overcame his body, creating black spots that began to converge over his already splotchy vision, and Alexander prepared himself to lose consciousness completely, knowing he would simply sink deeper and deeper into the cold, dark water of Nevis-
Arnold was ripped off of him, and he loudly inhaled the cold morning air desperately, uncaring of how the action burned his abused trachea. His bound wrists strained against the chain connected to the floor as they involuntarily reached towards the offending gag in his mouth that was only restricting his airflow further. As sensation began to return to his body, he was aware of a soft yet urgent hand grasping his shoulder as he laid doubled over on the floor, gently yet efficiently removing the gag tied behind his head letting sweet fresh air enter his abused lungs as body-shaking coughs escaped his mouth.
When his breathing finally leveled out to strained panting instead of desperate inhales, he flicked his eyes upward, confused at the kind hand still rubbing frantic circles into his bare back. Another sharp inhale, this time from shock, entered his lips as his eyes met a pair familiar ones full of fatherly concern.
"Sir?"
It seemed George Washington had come after all.
Figures.
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Dread entered Washington's stomach as the Boston skyline came into view as he rounded the corner of the uneven path he was riding on.
He had left camp the night before almost immediately after Laurens had made his leave from his office, penning a hastily written note to Lafayette saying that he was in charge as he attended to urgent business that had come up in Boston. He had grabbed the few possessions he would need for travel, mounted his horse, and was off.
The usually strategic general was shocked at his own carelessness. He was blindly going into an obvious trap unprepared, willingly handing himself over to the British, and basically signing his own death warrant.
What was he thinking?
But it seemed that his logical side was not in control at the moment, all rational thought going out the window at the thought of Alexander being in the hands of the redcoats.
He only prayed to any god that was listening that the foolish boy wasn't hurt.
Logically, Washington knew the boy must be injured as the letter he had received was covered in his blood, covering his desk and staining his hands, but when he actually let himself think of what that meant…
His heart stubbornly told him that there must be some other explanation.
The war-worn general had seen first hand how poorly the British treated their prisoners. Many of the men they had rescued died, not because they were killed in enemy hands, but later due to the extent of their injuries and physical trauma. He was haunted by images of soldiers burning from the inside as fever and infection took them or discovering that they passed away in their sleep after being told they would make a full recovery, their bodies succumbing unexpectedly to the sheer shock that they had suffered to their systems during their imprisonment.
Unbidden, thoughts of Alexander, his body broken and brilliant mind gone from a raging fever. stilling then lying cold and lifeless beneath him trickled into his mind's eye, and Washington shivered, pulling his cloak tighter around him to ward off not just the cold night's air.
The dirt road beneath his horse's feet became cobblestone just about an hour before sunrise as he finally entered Boston, the city looking bleaker and colder than he remembered it, almost as though it had withered under Britain's negligent care. His heart began pounding in sync with the steady clinking of horse hooves on the ground as his fear increased ten-fold as one aspect of the city stood out to him the most.
The dead silence.
Arnold obviously ran an empire built upon those who were quiet and uncomplaining and Alexander was neither of those things.
The general personally knew how loud-mouthed and stubborn his aide could be. In fact, there were some days when Washington almost tore his own hair out in frustration at the young man's relentless and tireless antics. For the most part, however, he knew that it was a part of what made Alexander Alexander so he loved every headache inducing moment of the boy's tirades.
Arnold was not so patient.
Washington knew from the time he spent as close friends with the man that he was quick to anger and slow to forgiveness. It was the reason why the ex-revolutionary had a grudge the size of Manhattan against the Virginian after all the years they had spent apart.
The combination of Arnold's short fuse and his hate for Washington spelled disaster, putting the two together was like throwing a match on gunpowder. In Hamilton's case, Washington knew that the inevitable explosion would come sooner rather than later.
With that bleak thought amplifying a slowly building headache, Washington finally arrived at the entrance of the fort, stomach flipping madly at the sight as the cool air of the harbor repelled any nausea that would otherwise be present. A sentry spotted him, and Washington opened his mouth to speak, but before any words could escape his lips, the gate was already being opened. With another sickening twist of his gut he realized that they must have been expecting him.
The thought unsettled him even further as it dawned on him just how well Arnold knew his old friend.
With a gentle kick and a soft spoken command, Washington spurred his horse to walk slowly into the courtyard feeling as though he was walking to the executioner's block which, when he thought about it, he very well may have been.
As soon as the gate closed behind him, the whispering started. Redcoats scattered around the courtyard stopped dead in their tracks to stare at the infamous general as he dismounted gracefully from his horse despite his madly shaking hands. Some looked at him in fear as though he would simply obliterate them where they stood with his presence alone. Other men simply glared with utter hatred with such intensity that Washington couldn't help but feel taken aback.
But that's not what made his hands shake.
Washington was no stranger to the less favorable men who loved to inflict pain on others. He had seen it in his own soldiers, those who killed and maimed simply because, in their twisted minds, it was fun. He had seen the look of bloodlust in the eyes of too many men to be able to sleep comfortably at night without a pistol hidden securely underneath his pillow.
And he also knew the look of men who had satisfied it.
If the general was not surrounded by an innumerable amount of enemy forces, he would have lunged at the small group of men that had caught his attention during his dismount, radiating their smugness at having caused pain. Even so, Washington sent them a look made of pure ice that would have sent even Lafayette running, as the general was no fool as to who was on the receiving end of their soldiers' fun.
At seeing his face, they grinned.
It was in that moment that Washington admitted just how deep into trouble he was. He had absolutely no power here. The British could do to him what they wished and all he could do was be let him. They had him backed into a corner, and they all knew it.
And Alexander was caught in the crossfire.
A bead of cold sweat trickled down his face at their reaction, and as if on cue, the doors to the fort opened to reveal none other than Arnold himself.
"George! It's lovely to see you. It's been a while hasn't it?" his ex-friend exclaimed, a slightly unhinged grin stretching across his face as he came to stand just out of arm's reach of Washington.
'Wise move,' the Virginian thought darkly, jaw clenching in his efforts to restrain himself from simply lunging at the man who had taken his child.
"I can't say our separation has been unpleasant," Washington replied carefully, willing to play Arnold's game for now if it guaranteed Alexander's safety later.
Arnold's fingers twitched were they laid at his side.
"No, I doubt it hasn't," Arnold said, smile still firmly in place, "Martha is doing well I presume?"
Anger flashed hot like a whip in George's chest at both the mention of his wife coming from the traitor and the double-meaning behind it. His fingers clenched from where they were positioned behind his back.
"She's well. You've read my letter, you should know for yourself how-,"
"Ah, yes the letter!" the British general interjected as if suddenly remembering its existence, pretending that it was not the reason why they were both standing there in the first place, "One where a Mr. Hamilton was mentioned,"
Finally, the grin on Arnold's face shifted into something more sinister at the mention of Alexander and Washington knew the game was up.
"Where is he."
It was not a question.
"Tut, tut, my dear general. I remember you having better manners. I am young Alexander's host after all, " Arnold said eyes hardening completely, the hatred for Washington that had been thinly veiled before shining through unashamedly.
"Release my aid-de-camp he has no business being involved in the bad blood between us now that I've followed your directions," Washington said in a near shout, letting his anger at the situation trickle through as well.
"Oh no, Washington. He has everything to do with this. You guaranteed that yourself by coming here. You showed your hand, old friend, and Hamilton is the winnings. He is now my crown jewel in my grand scheme for your undoing," Arnold said, dark glee radiating off of him as he saw the horror swirling in the Virginian's eyes that was visible in the newly risen sun's light.
What had he done?
He had assumed Arnold wanted Washington in Alexander's place, with the turncoat content to sit and wait with his lesser prize until the general himself arrived to make the exchange. But no, Arnold simply wanted to confirm that Alexander was indeed as valuable as he first thought before he had his fun with both Hamilton and Washington at his disposal. Arnold knew that the best way to hurt Washington was to hurt someone he cared about, and the Virginian had stupidly confirmed it with his actions alone, putting his son in further danger.
"No," Washington whispered in complete denial, stoic façade crumbling at the implications of Arnold's statement.
"Yes. I think it would be only proper that we pay Hamilton a visit now that you have arrived. Don't you think?"
"No!," Washington repeated, this time forcefully, his restraint snapping completely in his growing panic as he leaped to attack the despicable man in front of him. Hands finally converged on him, grabbing him at all sides as he strained and struggled against them, pushing him to follow Arnold who had turned and disappeared into the darkness of the fort's walls. They harshly ushered him forward through the twist and turns of the hallways and after about the fifth bend Washington stopped resisting, knowing it was a futile cause and only gave Arnold more sick pleasure to see his desperate reaction.
Too soon for Washington's swirling mind, they stopped in front of a cell door and the general could hardly breathe as his breath fogged in front of him in small, fast puffs of air in the chilly hallway, chest constricting painfully as fear and anxiety encompassed his lungs.
"Ah, Lieutenant Hamilton, up bright and early I see," Arnold spoke suddenly cutting through the tense silence that filled the corridor. Washington dared not speak as the revenge driven man spoke to who could only be the boy who he saw as a son on the other side of the cell door. His breathing stopped completely in his anticipation to hear Alexander's response, heart sinking in dread when he heard none.
"I do hope my hospitality was up to your standards," Arnold spoke again this time with a slight edge to his voice that Washington only picked up on from the years he spent with the man. Silence still reigned from the cell and the general's fear spiked knowing Alexander was not playing Arnold's game correctly and it would only be a matter of time until-
Without any warning, Arnold was swiftly unlocking and opening the door to Hamilton's cell and that was when Washington entered full panic mode. He began struggling against the sets of hands holding him in earnest as Arnold disappeared from his line of sight. A small sound reached the Virginian's ears as he wrestled with the soldier's restraining him and his blood froze as his mind placed the unusual noise.
It was the sound of someone who was being strangled.
A scream escaped the mouth of the redcoat on the general's left as Washington unflinchingly popped the man's knee cap out of place with a well-placed kick, and the soldier to his right was taken out a moment later by a powerful punch to the temple with his newly freed arm, rendering him unconscious.
A lone guard ran out of the cell, blocking his path to its entrance while brandishing his rifle at Washington's broad chest, and the two stared motionlessly at each other in a stalemate.
"Call for reinforcements!" Arnold suddenly shouted, and the guard lost concentration, glancing at his left towards the direction of the yelled command. It was all the distraction Washington needed to grab the gun from him as it went off in the redcoat's surprise, the bullet passing harmlessly over the general's soldier, and the man joined his friends on the floor a moment later.
The sight that he saw when he turned the corner would haunt Washington for the rest of his life.
Arnold was there crouching over Hamilton with his hands securely around the young man's neck, uncaringly and slowly draining the life out of him, and Alexander…
He already looked dead.
With a shout of rage that went unheard to him over the buzzing in his ears, Washington tore off Arnold from his son, hitting him on the head aggressively with the rifle he still held a moment later, knocking him out cold.
The gun slipped out of his numb fingers as he practically fell to his knees to land in front of Alexander who laid bonelessly on the ground, bare chest still heaving for air despite the lack of hands around his neck and Washington lips pursed in rage as his eyes found the gag wrapped around his mouth. With trained fingers, he made quick work of the knot, his hand unconsciously moving to Alexander's shoulder in desperation to offer some type of comfort, but now that the boy was no longer at risk of immediate death from suffocation, Washington finally looked at him.
His heart shattered into a million pieces.
There was not an inch of exposed skin that was not covered in a dark bruise or a painful looking gash. His ribs looked especially painful, and if their mottled purple appearance was anything to go by, the general wouldn't be surprised if a couple were broken. From where he had rested his hand \on Alexander's shoulder, Washington felt like he had stuck his hand in a snowbank only a moment earlier, and the general didn't think he had seen the boy this pale since his miraculous return from his dip in the Schuylkill river. A wave of physical pain went through him as he took in the blood tracks running down his son's arms from where the shackles contacted painfully with his chafed skin, and one of his wrists seemed unusually swollen telling Washington that it was either sprained or broken. Then he made the mistake of looking down at Alexander's leg.
If anyone was there to witness it, they would have seen the usually rosy-cheeked general pale multiple shades to the point of transparency before his skin took on a green-like hue as what he was looking at processed.
He had seen fatal bullet wounds, limbs blown off by cannons, bones crushed under the weight of horses, skulls blown wide open from a close range bullet, eyes sliced and blinded by flying shrapnel, men with their eyeballs bulging and tongues swelling from hangings...
And somehow seeing Alexander's injury was worse than all of those images combined.
"Oh God, Alexander," he whispered salty tears stinging his eyes in physical response to his internal agony.
The sight alone made Washington want to curl up and weep, but he could not begin to imagine the pain that the wound caused the younger man. Because that's what it looked like, an injury that was designed purely for the purpose of causing suffering.
The stitches that were keeping the wound from worsening were in fact only holding the skin partly together at stretched, unnatural angles, the stitches sewn sloppily to make it look more like a bad patching job instead of a medical procedure. The skin was overlapped in some places causing it to peak and bump up in areas while other parts were not held together at all leaving the wound raw and exposed to the elements. The general had seen enough bullet wounds in his lifetime to recognize it for what it was, but the injury was impossibly wide signifying that it had been opened further by an outside source in an obvious attempt to cause further pain. Dazedly, his muddled brain comprehended that he could even see the white of bone in some spots.
Without Washington noticing, the hand he placed on Alexander's shoulder had begun to move in quick circles, softly rubbing the skin there as if the boy in front of him would simply disappear if his hand stilled for even a moment.
But then brown, bloodshot eyes were meeting his own.
"Sir?" Alexander said, disbelief obvious in his tone even though his voice was gone from what the general hoped was from nearly being choked to death and not from screaming.
As he heard his aide-de-camp's voice for the first time in five days, the general felt some of his anxiety that had persistently lingered since the Lee duel leave him in a rush of compassion that he only felt when he was in Alexander's presence.
'He'll be okay,' Washington told himself even as the yelling of redcoats began to echo through the nearby corridor.
Washington couldn't make himself believe anything else.
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Uh oh. Sounds like trouble. I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter. Feel free to comment any thoughts you had and kudos are always welcome. Happy Holidays!