Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eliza first spots Alexander at a winter’s ball, across the room. She is helpless even before Angelica introduce them.

Her sister lets her have him.

She is ecstatic when the first letter arrives. He writes her a thousand more.

.

She sits with her sisters as Alex is talking to their father in the living room. She feels like she’s going to die.

Then she is a Hamilton herself and she doesn’t think she couldn’t be happier than this.

He fits in perfectly with her family, and he tells her that he hasn’t had one since he was a child.

Her sisters are happy for her, of course, and Angelica is the maid of honor in their wedding.

.

Eliza asks Washington to send Alex home when she gets pregnant with their child.

At first she is worried, but Alexander promises that he’ll come home at the end of the day, and so he does.

Phillip is born and they’re overcome with happiness. They have more kids.

.

When her father loses his position to Burr, Alex ends their friendship.

.

Everything is perfect.

Until she decides they should go upstate to visit her father for the summer, and Alex can’t go.

He’s far to busy with his work, so he stays behind. She invites Angelica, and they try to convince him, but he can’t take a break.

.

It’s a year before Eliza finds out.

She gets to know about it at the same time everyone else does. When she reads what her husband has published she is crushed.

Angelica is there for her.

She remembers Angelica’s warning to her in the very beginning of their relationship.

She should have listened.

.

She reads through every single one of the letters, and her heart aches at the affectionate words he’s written.

She searches them for answers, signs that would explain it to her.

She doesn’t find anything. Her sadness quickly turns into anger. The anger keeps her going, without it she’d surely given up already.

She gets rid of the letters, sets them aflame, because she does not want to let them to redeem him. She wants him to burn.

Alexander sleeps in their office.

.

She screams at the top of her lungs.

Her hands are clutching her son’s. Alexander is next to her, he doesn’t answer her question. The bullet wound in Phillip’s abdomen is fatal.

As they recall the times they’ve spent together, this becomes the last.

.

The Hamiltons move uptown to live with her parents after the loss.

She cries a lot. She won’t talk to Alexander. He is still the only one who knows what she’s going through. Their situation is unimaginable.

They go to the park together, he talks and she doesn’t. He wishes it was him.

One night, she takes his hand.

Forgiveness. In a way.

.

Time passes and she forgives him, slowly.

Alex still works like he’s running out of time. She tells him to come back to bed. She goes without him.

He tells her she’s the best of wives and best of women.

She already knows.

.

Memories of Phillip flood her mind when Alex is shot in a duel. When he dies, Angelica is there. Like always, she is by her side.

This time, Eliza doesn’t waste her time crying. She gets to work.

She is given what he always wanted. More time. She spends it telling his story. She speaks to those who knew him, who fought with him. She reads through his writings.

Angelica helps her until her death. She’s buried in Trinity Church, near Alex.

Eliza continues their work.

She raises funds, she speaks out, she wonders what he would have done.

.

She establishes the first private orphanage is New York City. She helps raising the kids that remind her so much of him.

Out of everything she does, the orphanage is what she’s proudest of.

.

She hopes it’s enough.

She’s gotten so much time, and she’s sure he would’ve been able to do so much more.

She misses him. It’s only a matter of time until she’ll see him again.

.