Chapter Text
Things were good.
After twenty years of endless bloodshed and war, things were good.
As good as they could be.
Odysseus was at home, alas, after all his sufferings. Matter of fact, everything went uphill after his return– perhaps the peace was interrupted, but all for worthwhile causes.
He arrived on the Ithacan shores, slaughtering the vile men who dared to fathom laying hands on his wife and son, all while setting a precedent.
He reunited with said wife and son, getting the end of the bargain he paid in blood and flesh. It was everything he could’ve imagined– harmonious, reminiscent, home.
He uttered the words he held so dearly to his soul to the souls that he conned, giving him the closure he so desperately yearned for.
All six hundred of his men came back to life, ascending from the stilled sea right by his eyes on the shore.
While Athena attempted to give her life for it, both sides of the scale were pardoned– perhaps, and hopefully, his last adventurous tribulation of bravery that involved the gods.
After twenty years of hectic mess, he could finally rest–
Or not.
After years of relentless and persistent waiting, Penelope could finish weaving her shroud. While it brought back unwanted memories of the blind masquerade she danced with the suitors, holding them off for as long as she physically could, it also resembled... hope. Her shroud was her hope, waiting for Odysseus to wash ashore.
Alas, he did.
She put the finished work up with Ctimene and Telemachus, a sense of pride filling her. This shroud was a daily reminder of the hardships they endured to, yet again, come back together.
After hanging it in the hallway of their bedroom, their visions began to blur, tones shifting into one another, and–
Darkness.
Odysseus, Polites, and Eurylochus stood proudly at the bow of their ship, all six hundred men alive and well. Looking back at the shrinking land of Troy, the men couldn’t help but allow their triumphant exuberance to rush over them.
“Full speed ahead!” the men collectively chanted, rowing vigorously. Ithaca was only six days away– they would be home in no time.
Right.
Right?
Out of the blue, the seas amalgamated with the sky, saturating and losing opacity, as all three men are engulfed with unconsciousness.
Athena didn’t understand.
She was normally good at this sort of thing– understanding. Dissect the event into either a chronological or logical sequence, analyse each piece of information, and evaluate it.
Something about forgiveness and Odysseus was... incoherent. All the answers were in front of her– except the lines of both sides blurred together, a moral mess of ambiguity and contradictions.
Maybe... it wasn’t about understanding.
Maybe...
Before she could finish that train of thought, an unexpected void inundated her into a blackout.
...
The parched, arid atmosphere offered little breeze, like a mist of realisation hovering over his brain.
Hamilton, who was known for his thinking.
Hamilton, who was done with thinking.
He had put on his glasses, eyeing an unfazed Burr that glared back at him ambiguously. He was gambling his life, flipping a coin and...
He was willing to accept either outcome.
For all of Burr’s life, he waited for it. He hid behind the bushes and observed from afar for years, spectating the chess game of politics from a distance.
He never played.
Here, this was it.
They were kings on a chessboard, their guns pawns staring at one another. There was an opportunity for either pawn to promote into a lethal queen, unafraid to decimate the board. There was an opportunity for either pawn to stay a pawn, timid and unwilling, waiting for the perfect time to strike.
There was also the opportunity for a stalemate.
This way, no one would die.
Burr, his first friend, his enemy– all his life, he waited for it.
Would he wait for it?
They were put to their paces, both of the men unwilling to acknowledge their wrongs. The countdown trickled through their brains, the poison seeping in.
One.
All it took was one shot to stop this poison.
Two.
One shot.
Three.
Was he going to throw away his shot?
Four.
He had one shot– and this one shot was going to dictate...
Five.
Everything.
Six.
Eliza was waiting for him. His children were waiting for him.
Seven.
Was Burr waiting for him?
Eight.
Burr would wait for it.
Nine.
Hamilton would throw away his shot.
Ten–
Oblivion consumed them.
The war was over.
The grim vision of bodies plagued the streets, but it no longer felt like a loss. Nothing could. Against all odds, a surprise to all...
The revolutionaries won.
They were free.
The aftermath, however, was no surprise. As per usual, before and after each enormous event, they had to drink till they dropped. They triumphed so hard that even Burr and Washington joined them.
Except, before they could each touch the alcohol, a peculiar tenebrosity succumbed them.
Eliza was helpless.
The wedding day was the best day of her life, a kind of force that perhaps even the Lord gave them a taste of. It was truly... phenomenal. There was no better word, no single word to describe this kind of jubilation.
Two weeks ago, she met Alexander Hamilton. Two weeks later, he was her everything. Alongside her sister, Angelica, their love was unstoppable– everything was perfect, perfect, and simply perfect.
Maybe it was a wave of ecstasy or a tad too much of tipsiness, as the next thing she knew... her surroundings moulded into black.
Damnit, Hamilton was annoying.
This goddamn immigrant seemed to only be able to run his mouth. He had nothing benevolent to say for the nation he allegedly cared for, his feigned patriotic persona just a facade for his own greed for a legacy. It was dissatisfying, that smug smirk that would never fail to plaster his face.
If only Jefferson could wipe it right off–
And today, he could.
He, along with Madison and Burr, planned to give him a run for his money. It was finally time to put Hamilton in his place–
But before they could, just approaching Madison, a strange pitch-black vision took them out.
King George was livid.
Stupid little America was rebelling against him. Freedom? Quite laughable.
He sat atop his throne, in a deep muse, before the articulated patterns ornated on his tapestries and walls shifted into one colour– black.
...
All members awoke simultaneously, vibrant colours focusing into consciousness.
“Hello!” a disembodied voice chimed, coming from two... whatever those were in the corner. Speakers. “To put it simply, you’re here to watch two shows. Musicals, they call them. One correlates to half of you lot, the other one correlates to the other half. Don’t ask how you got here, you won’t get an answer. You’ll be stuck here for the next six-ish hours. Others will pop in when necessary. Deal with it.”
The room was... extremely futuristic, to say the least. There was a large, rectangular... block? Television. Whatever it was, it stuck on the wall securely. They were all seated on comfortable seats, couches, in a semicircle arch shape, divided by their respective familiarities.
Interesting, Hamilton thought, unfazed by the fact that they were all collectively abducted. The people that sat opposite them were dressed in what looked like ancient Greek attire– though not in costume, as if...
That wasn’t possible, right?
Odysseus glanced right back at them. They were in much tighter attire, very much unlike their usual chitons and himations– or armoury, for that matter.
It made no sense– he saw... himself? A younger version of him, at least of a decade, flanked by Eurylochus and Polites who also looked younger. What really sold it were the bold smiles on their faces and the fruitful conversation they were still engrossed in.
Across the room at the end of the arch was Athena, who was looking into no one’s proximity. He was hoping she could turn to him to get a good look of her face– whether she was set before or after God Games.
This didn’t even remotely surprise him. After all, in the previous week, he not only spoke to the dead, but the dead returned.
Meanwhile, Hamilton was startled by a replica of himself next to his old friends. Lafayette, Hercules–
Laurens?
This was some twisted dream. He heard the bullet from Burr’s gun– this was meant to be the end of him.
Right.
Right?
“Uh,” Odysseus cut through the awkward silence, looking over to the other side of the room. “Should we go around and address names? Maybe it’ll be a little clearer what’s going on here, because my theory is we’re all from different timelines. Don’t ask, things are a bit disorganised with these external activities.”
Everyone on Hamilton’s side looked sceptical, keen to question, but they kept their perplexities to themselves. Starting from Washington, who sat on the far right, he began the chain reaction. “George Washington.”
“Thomas Jefferson.” He was unimpressed, crossing his arms and raising a sly brow.
“James Madison.” Perhaps equally as unimpressed, though his expression was unreadable.
“Aaron Burr,” Aaron muttered.
“Je m’apelle Lafayette!” When the Greeks’ faces responded in confusion, he corrected himself. “Ah, just Lafayette works.”
“Hercules Mulligan,” he smiled, exchanging a grin with Lafayette.
“John Laurens,” John continued the chain.
“Alexander Hamilton!” Alexander’s smile quickly faded when he read the solemnity on his older self’s face, merely a few seats away. He was initially tempted to bombard him with questions about the future, but decided to wait until later. Whatever this strange magical timeline shit was, he wasn’t complaining.
“Eliza Schuyler Hamilton now,” Eliza beamed, leaning on Alexander’s arm lovingly.
“Angelica Schuyler,” the sister added.
“King George the Third,” the king frowned, unhappy to be here.
“Aaron Burr as well,” Burr scowled, ignoring both Hamiltons in the room. “I’ll be Burr, and he,” he gestured to Aaron, “can be Aaron for this... outing.”
“An older Alexander Hamilton.” Hamilton continued, assessing the room– everywhere but Burr’s eyes. “Like what Burr said, call the younger one Alexander and call me Hamilton for differentiation purposes.”
The room nodded in agreement.
That was the end of their sequence, as Odysseus started to introduce his side.
“Odysseus. And we’ll call younger me Ody, I suppose,” Odysseus said–
“Wait, Odysseus as in, the Odysseus, King of Ithaca? Like in the myths?” Alexander excitedly asked, his eyes lighting up with intrigue.
Odysseus tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“Oh shit,” Alexander perpetuated, “so we’re like, three thousand years into the future. You’re all apart of books and stuff, Greek Mythology. This all makes sense I–” he pointed to Athena, “you’re the Goddess of Wisdom!”
“That I am,” Athena humoured curtly.
“Damn that’s cool,” he beamed, representing his inner studious self. “Sorry, continue.”
Penelope picked the introductions back up. “I’m Penelope, his queen.”
Telemachus beamed, “Telemachus! The uh, Prince of Ithaca.”
Younger Odysseus shot him an excited smile. He had grown so much.
“Ctimene.”
“Eurylochus.” The man subconsciously leaned against his wife, even though they seemed to be separated by years.
Polites fixed his glasses. “Polites!”
“Well, Odysseus obviously, but yeah, Ody works.” He dared to look up at Athena, who didn’t look in their direction at all. She didn’t even flinch, no movement whatsoever. Whatever... that, meant.
“You know my name,” Athena concluded.
The disembodied voice returned. “Good. Yes, Alexander, you would be correct– one half of the room is set around 1600-1200BCE, during the Mycenaean Bronze Age. I know the Greeks don’t have years yet, but just to put it in perspective, the... we’ll say the Americans since most of you all are, are around the years 1776-1804AD. So, yeah– three millennia apart, give or take.”
The voice gave them a few seconds to let the time difference sink in.
“You’ll be watching two musicals,” they continued, “which are theatrical performances with a storyline that is sung. We have Epic the Musical, which will be displayed in the visual form of animations– I’m not explaining that. You’ll see. I’m in the year 2025. Things have upgraded. Don’t ask. The other musical is called... actually, you'll find out who it's about. That one is performed.”
Without giving them time to inquire, the block glowed up, big words showing on the screen.
The Horse and the Infant.