Chapter Text
Panic erupted in my veins, spreading like venom throughout my body. The venom in my veins immediately began to turn my ming and limbs against me. Heart pounding like a drum in my ears, all I wished to do was curl into a ball. No, this could not be happening. Not here. This was supposed to be safe. I was supposed to be safe. He was not supposed to be able to reach me. Not supposed to. Not supposed to. Not supposed to! I dug my nails into my palm and bit the inside of my cheek in a pitiful attempt to stop tears from forming in my eyes. I could not break down here, not in front of all of them. A long repressed scream took place in my mouth, but at the same time I could not force my lips to utter a single word. All I could do was to press my nails further into the skin of my palm, the blood sure to be drawn the only thing I could truly control.
“Jacky?” Alexander whispered, slipping his hand into mine and prying my fingers away from my palm. I forced myself to peer around the room. We were alone. Everyone else was gone. He cupped my cheek in one hand, making me meet his eyes, eyes filled with nothing but concern. Still no words would escape my lips, but I could feel the unmistakable sensation of tears rolling down my cheeks. No, he could not see me like this. He would hate me and think me a pathetic disgrace just like everyone else did.
I tried to pull away from him, but he still held my hand and kept on cupping my face, even when I attempted to face completely away from him.
“Jacky?” He repeated, more urgency in his words. The panic gripped my senses only tighter. I needed to run, I could not be here. The omnipresent urge to crawl out of my skin only intensified. Somehow I collapsed into a chair and Alexander took up his place directly before me once again.
“Hush. This will pass. I promise I am not leaving you.” Soothed Alexander as he let me bury my head into his shoulder as silent sobs wracked though my body.
I was not safe here. I had never truly been safe here, I had merely deluded myself into thinking that I had found a place that he could not exert his spheres of influence over. I had been stupid, so stupid to think that there was a place truly free from his reach, to think that there were people who I could truly be with without fear of him. My father was a god, and I was a sinful man who spent my days running from punishment.
Alexander. Oh god, what would he do to Alexander if we were discovered? I should have pulled away, needed to have pulled away, but I could not bring myself to. He was the sole source of comfort that I had left. The only person who could help me through these things, sooth my anxieties and bring peace to my aching soul.
Eventually my breathing slowed and evened out, prompting me to remove my face from Alexander’s shoulder. Fear still resided in every corner of my mind, but the shadows appeared slightly less menacing and the desire to bolt from the room had significantly faded from my mind. True ease was still the furthest thing from my current mental state, but I was able to allow Alexander to press a light kiss to my forehead. Still, I frantically gazed around the empty office to see if anyone had noticed the two of us. If anyone had we would be killed, or just I would be killed and Alexander sent back to the Caribbean, or he killed and I disgraced, or neither of us killed but forbade from ever seeing eachother again, or even worse I would be discharged and sent back to Mepkin or…
“Jack.” Alexander whispered, “Not a soul has seen us. Reed and the others dissipated to spread the news only a few moments before you…”
His voice trailed off. There was no need to explain what had just occurred, nay I did not even think that there was a true way to explain what had just occurred. All that mattered in the moment was that we had not been spotted and for just a few minutes longer did not risk, well death.
“Thank the lord.” I murmured, desperately trying to use my handkerchief to wipe the remnants of tears off of my face. It was painfully obvious that I had been crying, my eyes were red and I was still sniffling. However, through the general upheaval and chaos that the message had brought to headquarters, not to mention what was already occurring with the Baron’s arrival, I was somehow able to disappear to the outhouse for a good quarter of an hour to compose myself as best I could. Only after that could I bring myself to return, already bracing for the onslaught of comments about my father’s arrival that were sure to come.
Reed set me and Fitzgerad to both craft and transcribe an announcement to send around the camp in order to inform the enlisted men of the incoming committee. In my opinion this announcement was clearly a way to communicate to the officers that they needed to clean up their troops, lest congress decided to cut supplies because of an unsavory external appearance. The moment that the thought popped up in my head, a memory resurfaced that was terrifyingly close to the potential consequences I had envisioned.
I could not have been older than fourteen, but just old enough that I had reached the age that shaving my face was a necessity. That morning, I had taken a razor, and some soap, and stood in front of my bedroom mirror as I attempted to shave myself. For someone so inexperienced, it went surprisingly well, however on one final swipe, I nicked myself, and sent a single drop of blood onto the creamy white of my caveat. I had frozen. As the oldest son, nothing less than perfection was expected from me by my father, and anything but it would result in punishments that sent a shiver down my spine recalling. Before I could hide, or burn, or otherwise dispose of the ruined fabric, I was summoned to breakfast. The entirely of the meal I could not meet my fathers eyes, silently praying that he would not notice. But he did, he always did. I never wish to remember what happened to me, perhaps it is for the best that the exact specifications long slipped my mind.
As I handed over the copies of the announcement to various couriers, I could only hope that the fate of our army, should its state displease my monster of a father, would be less terrible than what I had suffered at his hands. For the army to survive it would have to be.
We were kept busy until long after the sun set over the horizon. Over the course of that time, I must have been summoned at least five times, dismissed in favor of another aide thrice, and twice sent out to deliver messages to various parts of the camp. On my final trip, I had the pleasure of making the arduous journey to the hospital, where a monumental feat occurred: I interacted with a doctor who was not Dr. Hale! Of course Dr. Hale was looming in the background, but it was still something. Only when the clock struck ten to eleven were we all finally dismissed for the night. Seeing as that Alexander and I were two of the only aides not to reside at Washington’s headquarters, the others having been forced out of their previously assigned cabins in favor of enlisted men, I forced him to walk back to Hale’s Headquarters with me, that was a trip that I was most assuredly not making alone by lantern light.
The snow storm had subsided, and as we stepped out of Washington’s Headquarters, the snow glimmered with moonlight as it crunched beneath our feet. It appeared as the whole of the camp was asleep. For the first time in a long time, Valley Forge was at some semblance of peace. If I pictured it hard enough, I could almost imagine what the place was like before the army intruded. However, doing so would require removing my eyes from Alexander, something that I was most assuredly not going to do.
My dear boy held the lantern as we walked, meaning that other than the path, he was the only other thing illuminated by the light. Under the watch of the stars, his light blue scarf fluttered in the slight wind, and his brow furrowed with slight concentration as he attempted to recall the exact route to Hale’s headquarters. The night was so still, and so little noise emanated from camp, that I felt as though I could have kissed him right then and there, and only the stars would have been our witness. Just as this thought crossed my mind, Alexander took my hand in his. Neither of us spoke, and when the silence was broken, it was only through the medium of whispers.
“Ought we to speak of today?” He whispered, words freezing in the air as soon as he released them.
“I suppose so.” I shrugged. “Quite a bit has occurred, and quite a bit is still to occur.”
“Well, I guess that there is no better place to start than to discuss today’s…unprecedented announcement.”
I bit my cheek in order to keep from saying anything I did not wish to. This was precisely the subject I wished to avoid for as long as physically possible. Someone far more intelligent and socially minded would have tactfully phrased their next sentiment, but alas that was not me; I wore my heart on my sleeve, despite all I had been through, and could continue to do so until the day I died. Perhaps some men in my position would have become bitter and closed off, however I dreaded the thought of becoming like that, becoming someone unfeeling like the very man who had inflicted so much pain unto me.
“I-he, he can not be coming here.” Out in the open like this, I could not tell Alexander all I wished to, could not convey my true fear of the invasion of the sole place I thought myself safe from the demon who had haunted my childhood.
“I know.” My dear boy soothed. It was all he said in response, and it was all he needed to. After a moment, clutching my hand ever tighter, he did continue, his words as thoughtful as ever. “It is impossible for me to truly know the extent of the horrors that-that, that motherfucking bastard inflicted upon you. Jacky, I wish I could fight him, I wish I could do everything that he did to you back unto him, although a dozen times worse. But I can not. I do not know what we are going to do with him coming here. However, no matter what happens, I promise that I will not leave you, I promise.”
“Thank you.” I murmured, wishing, nay longing, that I could do more. Do more to protect Alexander. I knew my father, I knew him terrifyingly well, and it was only a matter of time before he would come after anyone who expressed even a hint of affection towards me. It was no longer just myself I was fearful for, now it was the small group of friends that I could call my own. Hale, Tallmadge, Alexander, all the closest friends I had ever had, all people that I knew he would try his very best to tear away from me at all costs.
As I lay in bed that night, my dear boy nestled comfortably in my arms, and Hale and Tallmadge wrapped around each other only an arm’s reach away, the realization crossed my mind that, perhaps, I would not be alone in my fight for survival against my father, that, perhaps, for the first time in my life, there were people who would take my word over his and who perhaps would even attempt to protect me from his fury. It was a tentative hope, but it was something that I would hold close in my heart as the invasion of Valley Forge by the congressional committee occurred. For if I did not, I would disintegrate.