what might've been (if i hadn't—)

Summary: AU; Angelica and Alexander get married instead of her and Eliza. All lyrics taken from Satisfied.

i. what might've been

At the Winter's Ball, there is only two Schuyler sisters. Eliza is at home with their aunt, bed ridden with a cold, and Peggy sticks close to the refreshment tables and cocky drunk soldiers willing to make fools of themselves for her entertainment. Angelica is on the dance floor, dazzling the room, when she sees him.

Alexander says to Angelica, "You strike me as a woman who has never been satisfied," and there is no reason she cannot be. They have three dances in one night, and even steal away to the mansion's back gardens, hedges glistening with snow in the moonlight, and there's a glint in his eyes as she talks of politics a mile a minute, and he fires back his opinion, on and on they go, talking rushing bursting with words in a matter of minutes that would take most people a matter of hours.

She tells him, "Don't forget to write," and write he does. He sends her letters and letters and more letters, sometimes three in one day over the following week. He's eager bordering on the point of intruding, but she hardly minds, because his letters are full of thoughts, scribbles and blots leftover from the quickness of his quil, like he can't possibly get all this thoughts of politics and war and books out of his mind fast enough.

It's a hunger, a desperation, she knows all too well, and behind a quil, she has always been able to hide her gender until her signature. This time, she does not have to hide her mind behind her skirts and pretend she agrees with the important men in the room when she doesn't.

Of course, she and Alexander disagree—intellectuals always do, with minds like lightning—but it's the way he argues, in ink or in person, that makes heat creep underneath her skin. He's passionate, rambling, rounding back to his first point in the end no matter how many tangents he's gone off on, and to hear him spit fire is better than any words from any holy book she's ever heard. He too, will let her say her piece, and concede, even if he still disagrees, that she has a point, and often times she will not give him that in turn.

She thinks she will never, ever tire of him.

Her sister Eliza is more quiet than usual in the weeks leading up to the wedding, and Angelica supposes she is saddened that her eldest sister will be leaving home soon, or perhaps she is consumed with preparing a wedding toast, for Angelica has picked Eliza as the maid of honour. There is guilt too, in the back of Angelica's mind, in the knowledge at the very least the burden of marrying for money has now fallen to Eliza, but her younger sister has always been so kind hearted, Angelica believes she could grow to love just about anyone. A sharper, even less welcome thought pricks at her mind when Angelica sees Eliza's dark eyes follow Alexander as he leaves, tracking his footsteps, but she pushes it away.

She met and fell for Alexander first, weeks before Eliza had a chance to, when things were already too in motion to slow down. And besides, if Eliza did love Alexander, surely she would tell Angelica? Doesn't she know her sister would sacrifice anything for her happiness? Eliza says she's fine. It must be the truth.

Some part of Angelica knows it's a lie, but she ignores it.

For the first time in her life, she feels satisfied. She is not going to let that go.

ii. where's your family from?

When Angelica learns they're going to be a family, proper and true, excitement ignites in her stomach, almost immediately cloaked by fear. Alexander has received money from General Washington of course, but not nearly enough to sustain her for long without more coming in the mail, and the revolution is still well underway. She keeps the bitter letters her husband sends from the front in a box under the bed, along with all the pages he wrote her during their courtship—she'll need another box soon, this one almost too full to be fully closed.

She thinks of the life growing inside her and knows their child will have its father's wit, its mother's refined education and sharp mind, its father's rapid tongue. Their child will shake the world to its core, the way her husband is with every bomb and letter on the battlefield. They'll build a new country and world for their child, and she only hopes the cost won't be too high. She has lost very little other than her intellectual satisfaction in a world that doesn't welcome it, and Alexander has lost so much—I was twelve when my mother died, he told her, one snowy night, we were sick and she was holding me; I couldn't seem to die—she knows he doesn't deserve to lose his life, too.

And if she does lose him, at least she knows she has spared Eliza from the deepest depths of grief, of being a young, pregnant widow.

She doesn't write letters to General Washington, asking for her husband to come home. The war is too important to him, for a reckless, hungry spirit, but she's still more than relieved when he visits her on a partial discharge—more relieved and proud when he comes back from Yorktown.

And after the war, they go back to New York.

ii. you're like me: i'm never satisfied

They name their baby boy Philip. Angelica had suggested perhaps Alexander's mother's name, if it was a girl, or some variation of Elizabeth, and even still Philip's middle name is Elijah, for her sister. Her sister visits shortly after the birth, with Peggy and the rest of the family of course, and they coo over the baby which is the best parts of her and Alexander: her dark skin, her hair with his face, his hungry eyes (even if their son is only hungry for more breastmilk, and not endless ambition).

The news of John Lauren's death leaves a different, gaping hole in Alexander that even ambition can't fill. Angelica knows they were close—perhaps closer than she would ever dare ask outright—and that grief is a terrible, heavy thing that Alexander already knows all too well. On bad nights, when he can't write, she goes and sits with him in the study and gives him a book to read, any book, just as a distraction. It's the same way he coped when his mother died. And on nights that doesn't work either, she lets him hold his son until Philip is hungry.

Most nights, though, Alexander writes. Angelica does too, circling his errors and occasional run on sentences, penning her own ideas, reading over his case files and thick books a man can rightfully purchase that she can't, and she reads them on the stoops outside the courthouse. He marks her writings with his apparent initials, A. HAM, which stands for both of them, now, even if the rest of the world will never acknowledge it. He comes home fuming after Aaron Burr refuses to help him write the Federal Papers, and Angelica lends her services instead. They'll be published under his name, of course, but their writing styles are consistent and similar enough that no one will know the difference. In the span of six months, they write nearly eighty-five essays, one of hers to every four of his.

When he becomes Treasury Secretariat, she knows under Washington's government he can do the brilliant things his brain—and hers—has always dreamed of. She helps him host fine dinners than even prissy Jefferson can't snub, and in the fall out with Madison she reads over Alexander's pseudonym writings to make sure that while cut throat and efficient against his opponents, they aren't easily tracked by his trademark writing style.

They both write to Eliza, too, who dotes on her godson through her letters. She seems happy with John Church in England, already expecting a little one on her own, and Angelica prays for her safety, even if neither she or Alexander have ever put much stock in religion. She and her husband have more children too. They take the growing gaggle of kids to bookstores and libraries, and Alexander enjoys spoiling them and her, now that for the first time he actually has money to do so.

For every wedding anniversary (five, seven, nine) she gets him new quills made of fine feathers. He always breaks the tip sooner or later, from pressing too hard against the parchment, moments she usually takes as enough of a pause to drag away his breeches and put his hands up her skirts. Half their children are conceived in his study or in their bed, and he still brings her the same pleasure he did on their wedding night, if not more so, now that they've learned the lines of each other's bodies. The hunger for each other has not died, she doesn't think it ever will.

She plays with his silky hair in bed and he kisses her smooth shoulder, and she thinks that perhaps, this is the closest they can ever come to being satisfied. It is more than enough.

iii. the conversation lasted two minutes, maybe three minutes

Until the debt plan, anyway.

Conversations that used to last hours, when nursing, or when their children were finally all in bed, or during nights when he was scribbling away and she can't sleep, are suddenly stilted. She and Alexander are used to disagreeing, but aren't used to not talking. Discussions turn into debates which turn into arguments, but they're always talking talking talking—and it's only when they aren't that she knows something is terribly wrong.

At first, she thinks it's just the stress, or the loneliness. She hadn't wanted to leave him alone for the summer, while she and Eliza (having travelled across the ocean) went to visit their father upstate. Angelica doesn't back down, when Alexander insists that he can't leave until he gets his debt plan through congress, and they yell themselves hoarse until they wake up their youngest from a nap, and Angelica reluctantly leaves to take care of them.

Her husband is a grown man, but if he wants to act like a child and not listen to reason, then it's not her problem. She sends a letter home a few weeks into her and Eliza's visit upstate, hoping that maybe Alexander has cooled down enough, and knows that he's still welcome to come.

His reply is long, assuring her he is more than alright staying home in the city, but his lines are slanted, and it cues her in that something really is wrong. His writing is always hurried, but never slanted, as though desperate, in the same way. A workaholic he may be, but the drops of ink scattered throughout the page, as though he had to stop and think of what to say, is so unlike him. She resolves when she comes home with the children in September, she will sit him down and talk through his debt plan with him, brainstorm the ideas of how to get it through. Maybe she can even appeal to Jefferson by throwing a dinner party and ask for him to serve everyone his horrid recipe of mac n' cheese.

There are so many rushed moments when arriving home—getting the children situated, namely, after a cooped up carriage ride and unpacking belongings, books—it takes until nightfall for her and Alexander to have a moment alone. He looks simmered down, the fire in his eyes tampered and drowning, and he kisses her with an aching mouth before she can even say a word to him.

An apology for not coming up state?

Either way, she melts into him, lets him push her up against his desk and hike up her skirts, finishing once before they stumble upstairs and undress fully. The bed is surprisingly messy, but it fills her with hope to think he's been sleeping in it as of late, instead of just passing out at his desk, and the observation is a fleeting one before she's much too distracted by what he's doing with his wonderful mouth and deft hands.

In the morning they wake early and talk, cheeks pressed to pillows, and everything is fine.

Even if his fire never comes back quite the same when he looks at her.

iv. every part aflame

She tears through the Reynolds Pamphlet with a morbid heartache once it's published, disgusted, repulsed, betrayed, yet unable to shy away from his words, begrudged to critique it the way she would of any other piece of his writing—and this by far is the weakest piece he's ever written. Senseless, paranoid, obsessive, boastful and ashamed all at once. She tears the papers apart next, fingers fastened into fists and she rips off her wedding ring too―because he might as well have, too, letting that woman into their bed. For kissing her and touching her with a mouth that was only supposed to be Angelica's.

She thought he was hers.

She knows better now.

She tosses the pieces of the pamphlet and her heart into the fire, and when he arrives home, sheepish and shamefaced, she is waiting for him. He was always too impatient to wait for anything, but at least now he is silent. She thinks that if he talked it would only make her angrier―or perhaps, but a smack in the face, that he hasn't changed at all―but for once, she is nearly speechless. What do you say to someone who betrays you by twisting a knife in your heart? A knife you placed there when you chose your own happiness over your sister's.

(Perhaps this is karma, but a saving grace is that at least Eliza was not hurt like this. Angelica always knew her self-preservation would get her in trouble someday.)

She is almost speechless, but not quite.

Her words are more vicious than eloquent, more shredded than saddened. In another life, she calls him Icarus. In this one, she calls him Judas, paints her heart on the cross and dares him to burn her again, asks him how he could, and yet she knows the answer anyway. Legacy.

She makes sure he can see her, as she burns his letters―the best pieces of himself, lovestruck and earnest and ethereal in its beauty, gone, never to be surfaced again.

She hates him because he loved him.

He is exiled to his office, and Eliza comes to stay―Eliza, with glassy eyes and a shattered heart too, more bitter and angry than Angelica has ever seen her. Eliza truly is her saving grace, coaxing her into conversation, sharing stony stares at her blasted husband, helping her care for her children.

Angelica only speaks to him once, to give back her wedding ring. He broke all his promises; he was never satisfied with her.

She owes him nothing else of her life.

v. helpless

Philip dies in November and winter has never felt so cold.

(Angelica has grown used to cold; it permeates the walls of her house and her ribcage, ice where her heart should be. Hamilton set her aflame once, but the fire tampered down after the pamphlet and she will never let him strike a match again. Their children notice it, of course—how could they not, with two parents reluctantly still living together in a mansion that was once overflowing of speech now stilted in silence. Sometimes, he says her name, and then catches himself, knows he no longer deserves to, and she never looks at him or speaks to him unless she has to. Her anger is ice, but it is still searing.)

Her son's blood is hot, gushing, pooling and dripping over the table. Her hands press against it, while Hamilton cradles Philip's head in unworthy hands.

Who did this—Alexander, did you know?

She cannot remember the first time she has turned to him for knowledge, for anything, but watching her son slip away right before her eyes has a way of melting the heart. Panic, she supposes. But now Philip is turning to her for comfort, brown curls falling over a lined brow of an otherwise young face, now marred by pain. His brown eyes—Alexander's—are trembling as much as her hands, as she reaches for his, and remembers.

Remembers teaching him the alphabet, teaching him the piano. After completing his scales, she'd let him read a book with her, as a reward. She taught him how to write as much as his father did. She taught him how to count, how to handle the money he would one day inherit—Hamilton had never known how to handle it, for all his genius in financial government plans. Never adjusted to how to live with money rather than write or dream about it.

"I'm sorry for forgetting, what you taught me."

It registers, numbly, that her son is on his deathbed, and is apologizing. She has never felt so helpless.

(When the last breath leaves him, Angelica feels her heart burn to ash, leaving bitter remains. She tastes of heartbreak and wrenches her hand out of Hamilton's when he goes to comfort her. She screams. If she has to lose her son, then he should have to lose them both. He is dead to her now, too.)

Eliza is the one who gets her walking and talking and sleeping and eating again. This time, Angelica does not want to be saved.

vi. you forget yourself

Angelica retreats. They move uptown. Hamilton takes the children to church alone. She has no love for God, or time. She thinks, cruelly, she understands her husband's obsession with writing now more than ever. It is from a fear of grief, not death; she thinks she would welcome the latter now, if not for her remaining children. She writes letters and letters, demanding stricter laws to strike down duelling, to persecute Eacker, to—

She writes down every single thing she can remember about Philip, and whenever Hamilton disturbs her in what she's made her study—to ask her to sleep, eat, to speak with Eliza, surely she must want to speak to her sister—she takes the stack and burns it, and starts from scratch. He does not deserve any of her memories.

When she is not writing, she is with her children. Her daughter, Angelica Jr., has a vacant look on her face and speaks as though Philip is still alive. Sometimes, when the grief is too heavy and she does not think she can rise, Angelica indulges and joins her.

And yet, Angelica forgets herself, or she wishes to. Wishes to give into her grief and sob until she can't any longer, to have a companion who understands the grief of losing a child. It is so terrible a burden, even she is not selfish enough to wish that on Eliza, if only to have someone who understands wholly the shards of her shattered heart.

If choosing her own happiness over her sister's has saved her sister this pain, then perhaps she has done one thing right in a life full of loving the wrong man.

There is never a moment she wants to forget herself more—forget her anger, heartache, dignity—when Hamilton looks at her with those eyes that made her fall for him in the first place, shining with concern and care as he tries to coax her into taking care of herself, of eating, of coming to bed, even if they have slept in separate rooms for years now. Alexander cares as passionately as he writes, even if he hasn't written since Philip's death, has barely talked, except to her and occasionally to their children. It is almost enough, when he does manage to convince her—even if she clarifies she is doing what he asked, not because he asked, but because she made the decision herself—to make her want to forget he once cared so little for her at all.

Her breaking point is Philip's birthday at the end of January, and she can remember the days that followed it, how small and soft and perfect he was. Untouched, untainted. So alive. She weeps until her pillow is stained with tears, and doesn't stop even when the door creaks open. Alexander's hands find her shoulders, curves her body towards his—maybe he heard her on his way to bed from his study—and Angelica lets herself sob into his chest, for herself, not for him. He smooths down her hair and holds it and she will never admit aloud how much she doesn't want him to leave her, too. (It is always better to leave first.)

He stays with her until she falls asleep, and looks ragged in the morning, like he hasn't slept a wink, but when her eyes harden at the sight of him, he goes and gets the children ready for Sunday mass.

On an impulse, Angelica joins him and they both stop in the archway of the old cathedral, and when she prays she remembers how he built her one once, in letters now burned.

Afterwards, he takes to walking with her wherever she goes, chatting a soft, aimless, and one-sided conversation. About the weather, the children, Philip—"He would like it uptown, don't you think? It's quiet uptown."—but she can't find it in her to berate him for it, or send him away. She has spent too long in the silence, and not enough in the quiet.

He asks for her opinion softly, too. "Do you like it uptown? It's quiet uptown."

She can't find it in her to speak, but she nods. For the first time, it is enough for both of them.

In the end, it is a day in the garden, in one of the rare moments he went outside without her, that reaps her forgiveness. He's sitting on a bench, scribbling furiously, but there are tear stains blotting the page and his inkwell is nearly empty. He stands, startled, at the sight of her, mumbles in a way he only has since they fell apart.

"H-here." He holds out the pages, tightly held in his hands: an unfinished letter. "For you."

Angelica shakes her head, and sits down on the bench. "Say it yourself."

He destroyed their lives with a pen. She burned his letters with fire. But his voice, and his face and eyes, are not yet ruined for her, even if they should be.

Alexander swallows, graying hair falling in front of his glasses as he glances downwards, and then sits next to her. His words are soft too, sorrowful, sounding as terrible as she feels even if they are far more simplistic in language. It is the first time she has ever seen grief slow him down instead of speed him up, and it makes her wonder how many more years she will spend hating him. She knows that if she could make another choice and never meet him, never love nor marry him, she wouldn't. Not only to spare Eliza the burden, but also...

An inkling of heat sparks in her heart again. She can breathe a little easier.

She cuts him off mid sentence. "Are you satisfied, yet?"

He swallows again, his watery eyes meeting hers. "No," he whispers hoarsely. "Not until I see him, on the other side."

"But in this life?" Her hand inches towards his. "In our... in our marriage."

"Yes. Are you satisfied, here?"

She takes his hand, and exhales, nodding. "It's quiet uptown."

(Satisfaction is nothing, when compared to forgiveness.)

vii. i remember that night

Shortly after the election, Angelica finds him at his desk. The candles are burning low, throwing his tresses into light, and she bends down, having half a mind to pluck his quil from his hands. Must he always write like he is running out of time? "Come back to bed," she presses, her lips meeting his cheek.

Alexander melts into her touch like candle wax. "I have an early meeting out of town. I'll be back before you open your eyes."

She smiles slightly. He knew as well as she did she was an early riser, especially after Philip died. "Don't make promises you can't keep, love," she chides, but squeezes his shoulder. Lets him go.

His hand catches hers on the way out, and he lifts it to his lips, the way he did a million years ago, when they first met. When she thought him nothing but a foolhardy boy with a silver tongue. And her, perpetually unsatisfied.

Until now, when he says, "Best of wives, best of women," she goes to bed warm.

She does not wake up so.

viii. for the rest of my days

She lives ten long years without him. She spends the time compiling what writing still exists, putting up with Jefferson, Madison and Adams alike smearing his name through the mud. Not a day goes by she does not miss him, and the rooms of their house is full of words she wanted to say when they were not speaking, the time they wasted, the time they run out of. She prays her own will soon, too. Their home is full of all the things they did say.

He was an Icarus after all. She wonders if she was the sea, there to catch him when he fell. To watch him die in her arms, and see the other side in his lovely eyes.

Life was always too little for a man like him.

On her deathbed, she makes Eliza swear to carry on his legacy, their legacy, and her sister—ever trusting, dutiful, kind—swears upon her life that she will. It is all Angelica can ask for.

On the other side, there is only two Schuyler sisters. Peggy greets her at the gates, and then Alexander, bemused, heavenly. He wraps her up in his arms. He never lets go.