Private storyline 5!

[slowtoanger]

They stay at the inn for two days after the wedding, celebrating their union and waiting for the snow to pass. For once, Burr and Hamilton both eat their fill--of fat fish and fresh bread. Gifts trickle in, from the nearby town, overwhelmed with patriotic sentiment even if they are not overwhelmed with joy at being paid in continental currency when the time comes to refresh their rations. They receive gifts for the baby--clothing and blankets and other odds and ends, a few bottles of cheap liquor. For Hamilton and Burr's part, they spend much of their time in bed.

It is October, when they leave. Burr is nine months pregnant, likely should not be moving, but there is nothing for it. They continue to be pursued by Cornwallis, and soon they are urging wagons through thick snow, over shallow, fast-moving rivers. Burr once more is relegated to the wagon, laying down amid crates and bags of supplies, rocked with each bump and dip of the road. Hamilton is somewhere ahead, riding through the snow, though he could even have been sent to meet with nearby scouts, towns, and Burr would not know. Days of travel, with no information or update, until they stop moving and he can make his way to the head of the column.

It is snowing once more--no longer light and fluffy but thick and wet. The wind is blowing--a wretched howl, that cuts through clothing to freeze men's bones. Like the wind on a mountain pass, working its way towards Quebec. Burr is bundled beneath every spare blanket they own--Hamilton's and Lauren's and even Washington's, but still he shivers as they rock along, damp creeping through layers that will not be dry before the next day. A miserable, wretched journey.

They do not stop for anything--at noon, men eat their rations as they march, and jovial banter has given way to eerie silence, a kind Burr knows too well, a feral focus on putting one foot in front of the other. One wagon loses a wheel, but the army does not stop, taking only enough time to shuffle what supplies can be salvaged to other wagons before abandoning the damaged wagon to the snow. Cannot burn it, to keep it from falling into British hands, for the wind.

Burr manages to doze, for some time of this, but wakes again rocked with pain, a sharp stabbing in his abdomen. Each time the wagon rocks it grows worse, till he is rising to heave his paltry lunch over the side. Burning cramps, so much worse then, as he collapses back into the wagon. He can feel something--liquid, thick and warm. Not melt, he thinks, though he is numb enough to not be sure. Too cold to remove his cover, he reaches a hand into his breeches blind. He cannot be going into labor--not here, not now. The baby will freeze, and if they stop they could be captured by the British.

He feels sticky on numb fingers, pulls his hand out. Blood. They cannot stop the wagon. He can handle pain, until they reach some safe haven. Telling someone will change nothing, will only make their march that much worse. Another jolt, and he gasps, clutching at the swell, falling back against the blankets.

Comments

[non_stop]

The baby is due any day, any moment. Hamilton is gone half-wild with worry, and that's what keeps him moving even when the cold wraps him in some strange muffled, still feeling, like he could go numb in mind as well as body. Men will freeze to death that way, he thinks. He wraps the wool closer around him, and rides.

He (reluctantly, painfully) has replaced the books in his saddle bags with materials they might need for the baby. Spare clothes. Small blankets. Swaddling cloth. And he finds that he can hoard food in the extra space: a little jar of honey, twisted, snow-made ropes of maple candy, pickled cucumbers. And some of the rest of the fish, smoked for the last couple of days.

He isn't by the river when the disaster happens; he's already passed it, managing mostly unscathed by the icy water. He doesn't even hear it, peering ahead into the snow to see the return of the scouts. Only when the commotion makes its way up the ranks and a halt is called that he thinks -- Burr, no -- and urges the horse into a trot back through the lines. Can't go any faster, not with the thick ranks of men in between.

When Hamilton gets there, a handful of men are trying to hold back a panicking horse, somehow tangled with another wagon's team, and that other wagon already half-submerged and pulling downstream. Burr, where is Burr? Hamilton and the horse dash into the stream again, rushing to the back of the wagon, where Burr is.

"Aaron!" Over the shrill sounds from the horses and the shouting, Hamilton dismounts, plunging up to his waist in the freezing water. It actually winds him, how cold it is, the breath rushing out of his body. But with this angle, he's able to help Burr onto his horse, and then able to go straight to the commotion.

"Hold it!" he shouts, and takes his knife to the hard leather harness. He has to flinch back to avoid kicking hooves, and then applies himself to it again. The leather begins to part, the wagon makes a terrible cracking noise, and Hamilton renews his efforts; the leather is sliced through, and he attacks the last strap holding the horses together.

It snaps suddenly, lashing him across the face. The sudden release of tension throws a handful of men fully into the water, where it's deeper -- Hamilton goes after them, dragging two, three thrashing forms out onto the snow-grimy bank. It's only then that he realizes his legs are almost fully numb, when he trips and falls and skins his palm on a branch.

He twists around, looking for Burr. A touch to his cheek confirms that the harness that snapped drew blood. Not much, though, and it missed the eye completely. It's trivial.

[slowtoanger]

"Alexander!" Burr reaches wildly, in the snowblind, for brown hair. He is on the horse, who is agitated and throwing its head, pawing at the ground. He sees Hamilton on the bank, fallen into the snow. Tries to dismount, but the sudden shift in his weight nearly topples him from the horse. He is too forward-heavy, with the pregnancy, to do much of anything but call Hamilton's name. Reach for him.

For a moment, when the wheel gave way and the back end of the wagon fell into the water, he thought he would die. He would have been weighed down by wool, sucked under by a cacoon of blankets, by his own weight, by the icy claw of the river which would paralyze muscle. He had seen it happen in Quebec, before--able swimmers go under after a tumble to never resurface, what in fairer weather would have been only a passing amusement, a reason to laugh.

Then Hamilton had gone in, and that had been so much worse. But the water was shallower than his panicked brain had anticipated, and Hamilton had no affliction to unbalance him, to send him tumbling into the water, amid lost supplies, floating downstream.

"Alexander, are you alright?" He tries to dismount once more, when he sees the blood, but begins slipping forward almost immediately, clings onto the saddle. For all his adrenaline he cannot feel the pain, from the final jerk of the wagon, the manhandling onto the horse.

God, but it had been impressive, when Hamilton came to rescue him, and managed to save not only the horses but the men as well.

[non_stop]

He moves to his feet, unsure how he's balancing himself, starting to shiver hard. Thankful, at least, for the heavy wool that Washington insisted be part of the uniform, from jacket, to pants, to socks. It will warm up. It will. He knows it will. It just... is very cold, right now.

"It's all right." It's hard to force the words out, because of his clenched jaw. He is in danger; he recognizes this.

The horse is a tall, strong charger, and he can handle the both of them. Hamilton reaches out to him, calm and authoritative, and the horse starts to calm. It helps that the other horses are led out of the water, no longer screaming. One is limping badly, though, and -- well, there will be some meat, if they can strip it quickly enough.

He steps forward and goes through the rote motion of mounting the horse, climbing behind Burr. And he wraps his arms around his husband.

"I'm fine," he says, "I'm fine."

[slowtoanger]

Hamilton is sopping, when he climbs onto the horse, but Burr someone has managed to hold onto his blankets, (though Laurens is a sad casualty) through the whole of this, reaches back to wrap them around both of them.

"That was very heroic," he says, and before he became taken with the man like an idiot, it would have been dry, but instead it comes out adoring.

"We lost the wagons to the river," Burr shouts through the howling wind to Washington, when they arrive at the head of the column.

"The men have scavenged what they can," Hamilton adds, "but it isn't much. The river was quickly flowing."

"The two of you are well? You are bleeding," Washington shouts, nodding at Hamilton's face.

"Well," Hamilton says, "if not a bit damper than I would like."

"The scouts might yet return with something fortuitous," Washington says. Someplace the army might rest, good and defensible, free from loyalist spies. Even snow would not disguise the tracks of an army this size.

It is much warmer, even despite the wet, atop a horse, cradled against Hamilton. Much better to be riding with his fellow officers, yet the ride is as bumpy as it had been in the carriage, and the horse rocks consistently, stepping through the snow. Before long the pain returns, the awful cramps. He feels the same wet stickiness, more now, but he tries to ignore it.

"Is something wrong?" Hamilton breathes in his ear--without realizing it Burr's hand has clamped down on Hamilton's thigh, squeezed tight into flesh.

"Just nervous," Burr says.

Hamilton can't do anything for Burr, until the army stops. But it won't be long until even Hamilton notices the blood, and he is starting to grow lightheaded, dizzy.

They ride two more hours, before they halt at a bluff, overlooking a valley and a line of trees. Looking for something, or waiting. Burr doesn't care. He needs to get off this horse. It he stays on another minute he will vomit, and the cramping is so awful he might faint.

He slides off suddenly, clumsily, lands hard on his hands and knees with a pained whimper he cannot contain, Hamilton calling his name, or shouting something. He needs to straighten, to roll, to somehow take the strain off his stomach, but when he tries to rise he fumbles, tumbles onto his back. His cloak blows open, and the blood that stains the white of his breeches is dreadfully apparent, soaking whole through, running down into his boots.

He lets his head plop back into the snow, staring at the sky--indistinct gray, no discernable clouds. He hadn't thought it that bad. He hadn't thought it that bad. He clutches and rolls, tries to breathe through the pain but can't stop the noises he makes. He can hear Washington say something, Lafayette, but he cannot make out the words.

"Hamilton," he calls. His eyes are watering. He wants Hamilton. He doesn't know what is happening. His breathing speeds up. And he gags once, coughing and choking as his stomach cramps once more.

[non_stop]

Hamilton doesn't even remember getting off the horse. He is just at Burr's side, immediately, his mind a frantic, pulsing mess of blood, oh God, the blood-- The blanket is discarded behind him as he goes to his knees by Burr, snow sticking to his sodden clothes.

Anything could be happening, inside Burr. Anything, some terrible internal wound to him or the child, and Hamilton has no way of knowing what it is or closing it. He is helpless, and Aaron is helpless, in the grip of such pain.

"I'm here, I'm here," and he winds his hand into Aaron's. "The surgeon!" He bellows, at someone who might have been one of the aides or might have even been Washington.

And then Washington is there, reaching for Aaron, and Hamilton growls, a territorial and instinctive snarl. Washington grabs Hamilton by the lapel, and snaps, "Hamilton," overtones of dominant alpha. "We need to get him to the cabin."

Hamilton processes, slowly, that the scouts have come back, saying there is a grouping of a handful of cabins less than a mile ahead.

"Sir," he breathes, and he hunches, knowing he has to show visible submission after a display like that. He trusts Washington; Washington is the head of this little military family.

And, indeed, he has cause to be grateful for Washington's prodigious strength, once legendarily involving throwing a stone over the Natural Bridge in Virginia. For Washington lifts Burr completely, one arm under his legs and another under his shoulders, and begins to determinedly stride towards the west.

Hamilton darts back to the horse, recovers the blanket and mounts. He races past Washington, at the scouts' direction, and soon he can see the indistinct smoke against the grey sky. Presses on, and finds himself in a rough circle of rough log cabins.

A sturdy woman wrapped in furs sets down a pail as Hamilton dismounts. "Are ye wounded?" she demands, and Hamilton realizes he's bloodied too.

He shakes his head. "There is an omega, in childbirth, coming behind," and how he hopes this is childbirth and not just the death of them both. "He's bleeding terribly--"

She's already shouting a series of names. Hoists the pail, which is full of water, and shoulders the door to one of the cabins open. "The lot of you, get to the Lindens," she orders, "clear out, and go fetch Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Linden."

He counts five children who are herded and hustled out of the home, presumably this woman's own.

"Make yourself useful," she snaps, at Hamilton, and she has him in the cabin setting water to boil. Introduces herself as Catherine Jones. He offers all he has in the saddlebags: blankets, rags, clothing, and she frowns in what seems to be approval. The bed is cleared and readied. The cabin is small, one room only, crowded, but kept determinedly neat, Alexander can tell. The floor is swept, each utensil in the small kitchen corner in its place.

He moves outside as he hears voices, and waves to Washington. "Sir!"

Washington doesn't even seem to be winded; he lowers Aaron carefully to the cleared bed. Aaron reaches for Hamilton, and Hamilton is there, kissing his hand.

"Now, all of you, clear out." There are three formidable American women now, weathered and strong, and Hamilton smells omega on at least one of them. "Men and alphas, the lot of you--"

"May I stay?" Hamilton wants to shout and demand, but instead he keeps his grip on Aaron's hand, and requests.

[slowtoanger]

Burr thinks at first, that Hamilton has picked him up, but when he presses his face against the warm bulk it is not Hamilton's scent the greets him.

He is too out of his mind with pain, to do much of anything while Washington carries him towards the trees and the small cabins arranged there in a semicircle. Cannot but clutch on and try to swallow back pitiful, shameful sounds.

Washington is muttering to him but he cannot make out the words, over the howling wind and blowing snow. Lafayette takes his hand at one point, says something in French, slow and lilting and smooth.

Burr cannot help the warning that spills from his scent gland, the horrible, weak omega sound, some whine from high in his throat, as they carry him over the threshold of a cabin. An instant cessation of wind and noise, a wall of warmth.

He is on the bed, and then Hamilton is there, grabbing his hand and asking to stay, but Burr will not let him go, whines for him, half-gone with pain.

Questions, as they strip his clothes, peeling bloody fabric from his legs and opening him, bare before the room of women and omegas. Have you had any contractions? Seizings? And he doesn't know what contractions feel like--cramps, he says, my stomach--

He doesn't know these people.

He isn't opening, another woman says, from between his legs, someone presses on his stomach and he flinches away, tries to turn towards Hamilton but someone holds him down. Fingers slip inside him and he sobs. He doesn't know what is happening. He is lightheaded and dizzy and confused, hurting.

"Alexander," he says, but he doesn't know what he is asking for.

The bleeding doesn't stop. It grows no worse, but it doesn't stop. They pile tags between his legs, soak up what they can. There isn't anything to do, they say, but keep him still and hope whatever is broken mends itself, though it is likely he will keep bleeding in some capacity until the baby comes, whenever that may be.

Burr is scared. For himself, for Hamilton, for the baby.

Keep him well fed, give him plenty to drink. Burr doesn't feel like he can swallow anything. He is nauseous, the room spins. He is tired, on the verge on unconsciousness.

[non_stop]

They let him stay, if “let” is the right word for it. When he tries to get on the bed with Aaron, one stops him, pointing out the sodden wool he’d completely forgotten. “He’ll catch his death,” she insists, and then Burr makes another one of those distressed sounds, a wave of distress-scent flowing off of him. Hamilton is fully ready to strip down to smallclothes and stay that way in front of these strangers, but one of them presses a man’s worn nightshirt on him and he changes into it without any thought but getting back to Aaron.

He gets behind Aaron, cradling his husband against his chest. It means Aaron has to sit up just a little, but then he can just press his face against Hamilton’s throat, nose full of his scent. He can’t tell, not really, but it seems that this finally succeeds in soothing Aaron even a little from his feverish pain.

“Wish Jimmy wanted to stay so bad,” mutters one of the women, to another, “‘stead of running off, first sign of trouble.”

“This is an odd one,” the other says. “Doesn’t look like to faint, neither.”

Hamilton will be damned if he faints at a time like this. He has no fear of blood, except that it’s draining so prodigiously fast from someone so dear to him.

“He should eat?” Hamilton asks, and they affirm. He requests the honey from the saddlebag and they pass it along, cracking it open for him. He dips in his fingertips and brings them to Aaron’s mouth. “Come on, love,” he entreats, “stay with me. You’re so strong, so brave… Aaron, stay with me.”

[slowtoanger]

Burr buries himself in Hamilton, if there is a word for what he does. He is terrified, untethered, overwhelmed. He had marched into the streets of Quebec, dragged his lover's body through streets lined with bloody snow and body parts and scorches and not shed a tear; numb. But this is different. The baby is quiet, not moving, but he is sure he can feel something wrong, that causes this bleed outside him.

That he has done something wrong. Never was a very good omega, if you asked Timothy. Too headstrong, set to radical ideas. Timothy would have been proud, to have an alpha son in the army, but Aaron? It was penance, he would say, Aaron's body failing him. God taking his due. Burr never much cared for god. Feels closer to him in Hamilton's body, than any disconnected ideal, waiting to toss him into a pit, hellfire and damnation.

Hamilton works his fingers into Burr's mouth, and Burr nearly snaps, now is not the time but he tastes sweetness there, around Hamilton's fingers, and though he is not hungry, it is not so difficult to suck around Hamilton's appendage, lapping honey from his fingers. A kind of unconscious compulsion, perhaps leftover from when he was a child himself. Where in the hell had Hamilton gotten honey? Burr loves honey.

And Hamilton is saying such sweet things to him. He wants to sleep, but he knows Hamilton will be mad with worry, can feel that tension in his frame, even as he tries to force only reassurance through his scent, and Burr grabs his hand tight, suqeezes, licks the other clean.

"I love you," he breathes. "No matter what happens, I love you."

The blood slows, when he drifts off into sleep, but it doesn't stop. Slows enough for him to live, perhaps, yet keep him bedbound and weak.

[non_stop]

The way Burr latches on to him is heartbreaking. He just murmurs soft and tries not to show any of his own distress, does his level best to project soothing smells. He does not succeed particularly well. But he manages to, by spreading it out, get Burr to have more than half the little jar before his eyes start to close more often than not. A little trick for ensuring those who are ill eat more than they think.

The sleep terrifies him. He worries it will be Burr’s last, the life slipping away from him. But it seems like sleep, not just a faint. Burr is breathing more steadily.

“Just don’t leave me alone,” he whispers.

Mrs. Jones touched him on the shoulder. “That baby isn’t ready to come,” she says. “But he’ll stay on bleeding until it does.”

She, thinks Hamilton. Until she does.

“Thank you.” He takes her hand, grips it. “For your hospitality, your shelter…”

She waves him off. “Drive off the Redcoats, and it’ll be thanks enough.”

He dons his uniform again, the linen dried by the fire. The wool is damp but warm. Jones holds out a scarf, tells him “Rub,” and indicates the throat. He obeys, rubbing it roughly on his scent glands, and she takes it back, tucking it in near Burr’s nose.

Outside, he is directed to Washington, taken up in the largest cabin, four whole rooms. He stands in front of his commanding officer, at attention, exhausted and scared as he is. “Sir, for my behavior, I—“

“Alexander.” Washington stands, and steps around behind him. Hamilton brims over with tension, and then Washington’s cool, impersonal grip settles on the back of his neck. He ducks his head, submitting. "I can't have officers who succumb to the grips of their instincts," Washington tells him, sternly. The grip is tight; shame washes over Hamilton, and a little edge of panic. "However, if I were to punish my officers for acting in a more... primal way, when confronted with their bleeding mate, I would have no officers left. You recovered yourself quickly, and with that, Alexander, you have shown your strength,” Washington reassures him. "You are forgiven." Scruffing someone like a misbehaving kitten is discipline appropriate for a pack, a family, more than a military subordinate, but the alternative paradigm here would require whipping, even if Hamilton recovered himself immediately.

He tells them the news: that the bleeding will continue likely until the child comes, and that they can only hope the child comes quickly. There has been some terrible internal injury, according to the surgeon, and either it repairs itself or it doesn't.

Washington looks troubled; when Hamilton sags down to sit next to Laurens, he doesn't realize how dejected his body language is, not until Laurens shifts to sit flush against him and starts to rub his back, a sibling or packmate's comfort.

Hamilton sleeps on the floor next to Burr's bed that night, after tucking his coat, Burr's coat, every blanket that survived the wagon disaster, and anything else he can find in his saddlebags all around Burr's body, a makeshift nest.

Parties are sent out to forage, beg, and barter, and occasionally confiscate, supplies from the nearby woods and towns. After a day and a half, Hamilton is the only one who hasn't led a party, and he must, though it tears at him to leave Burr behind, even though the bleeding has continued only at its reduced pace. He catches the surgeon, when he returns, getting out his leeches, and Hamilton nearly goes feral. "Has he not been deprived of enough blood?" His question is a shout, underlaid with threatening Alpha-growl. "His humors will balance when it is restored!" It is only Washington's words about instinctive responses that has Hamilton holding back from physical violence.

[slowtoanger]

Burr spends much of the next day drifting, sleep disturbed by pains and sustenance thrust upon him. He doesn't want to eat--he feels he will throw up, when they give him much of anything, and begins refusing the food with more and more adamance. Yes, he is bleeding, but there is strength left in him, and he is not liable to drop dead for a good while yet.

He is exhausted, though. Everything feels heavy. He wants to rise, when the pains are not as bad, to pace and relieve himself, but they will not let him, afraid he will worsen whatever injury is inside him. Yet small movements are not so terrible, when he turns on the bed, and he thinks he would know better than them. He is trapped in this small room, while the weather worsens outside, the worst snowstorm he has ever seen, so early in the year.

He knows there is something happening there, in their makeshift camp, something to do with their supplies, which makes Hamilton appear drawn and worn, when he is at Burr's side.

"I want to walk," Burr tells Hamilton, when he sees him next. "I want to see Lafayette and Laurens and Washington, and our camp. I can't tell what is going on from in here. The bleeding is not so bad now--" not that he knows. No one will tell him anything. Never has he felt so useless before. What are the British doing? Where is Washington getting their food? How long can they stay here, and what will happen if Burr is still bed bound, when they are forced by circumstance to depart? He cannot handle another wagon ride, that is for sure, and Hamilton cannot separate himself from the army which desperately needs him, even for Burr's sake.

And once the baby is born, what will happen? There is no wagon now, to shelter him and the child, and carrying the baby with the army on horseback seems too dangerous, and likely not possible for one after childbirth. Four weeks of bed rest, that is what many omegas take, after. He cannot afford that--many omegas cannot afford that, but surely riding a horse is out of the question.

He shares these things with Hamilton, these fears--watches the cloud of anxiety ever-present deepen. If Burr could somehow wipe those emotions from him he would, yet now, for all Burr wishes to shelter and be sheltered, their child is more important.

[non_stop]

Hamilton looks openly panicked when Burr talks about walking -- and Burr stops talking, which instantly makes Hamilton feel a thousand times worse. Burr has enough trouble speaking his mind.

Which has him even more ashamed of the thoughts that come after. It was always too dangerous to bring along a baby with an army on the move; it was different in New York, and would be different if the army attached itself to a city longer-term. Winter quarters can easily include the presence of families, and Nathaniel Greene and Henry Knox's wives certainly have accompanied them at times in the past.

Hamilton has only just grown accustomed to Burr being his, with him, all the time -- the idea of a husband being alongside him in such perilous times and places. The easiest response is also the one that takes that away from them both: that Burr should go home and care for the child, while Hamilton continues to support them both. And now, as the alpha husband, Hamilton probably has the legal right to force exactly that.

He doesn't want Burr to go. And he wouldn't want to go, either, if he were Burr.

So he bends his considerable intellect towards solutions, as he listens to Burr's fears. He hardly lets go of Burr's hand at all, now, when he is by him, and now he has that precious hand in both of his, with his elbows braced on his knees and his chin set on those clasped hands, while he perches on a stool.

"It may be best," he says, "if we both take leave of the army, for a time. The New York militia..." While less competent on every level, the militia is at least more stationary. "Or we could pass the winter in any city we can reach."

[slowtoanger]

Burr has an immediate visceral reaction, to Hamilton's suggestion. Not a fair one, in retrospect, but he has one, nonetheless.

He doesn't want to leave the army. Doesn't want to bend in this way, give this small concession. It feels like losing, to surrender for the winter months, months that should have been stationary, that he had given so much to fight through. And they had come so far, to be here, now, in this isolated settlement. Unless they left with the army they would be stranded, until someone could come to receive them, and then they would have to travel alone, exposed, to the nearest city.

Burr doesn't want to. He doesn't want to sacrifice some part of himself, an opportunity, for this child. Doesn't feel like he should have to. It isn't fair--that one sex should be forced to carry a child and the other not, be forced out of the army, be as indisposed as he has been for months, while Hamilton went and performed heroic deeds. Nine months, nine months of Burr's life, carrying a child he never asked for yet looked after regardless.

Why can he not have both?

"No," Burr says, pulls away from Hamilton. "No, I don't--" What to say, how even to crystallize these thoughts in some way that does not have him seeming monsterous, selfish, after everything Hamilton has done? He wants the baby out, but the knowledge that then he will have to care for it, to nurse it, to keep it safe and recover from something his body would never be the same after, while Hamilton could continue to preform his duty admirably. A stab of jealousy, of resentment, at Hamilton, at Montgomery, for getting him pregnant and leaving him with no good explanation, at the army, for poor management to put them in such a position.

They should be stationed somewhere. They should be launching a counterattack. This was all the fault of Washington's poor leadership, once again--if he had just stationed men--

God, he is angry enough to want to punch something, balls his hands in his lap, breathing heavy. He can't even move. He can't even rise from the damn bed. They won't let him rise from the damn bed. It's his body, his life, he should get to decide, he would know.

"Get your damn hands off me!" Burr yells, when Hamilton reaches out for him, swings his legs around to the floor, trying to rise. "Why do I not get to make any decisions? Why does no one ever ask me, what I want, what I would like to happen? I didn't ask to get pregnant, or to get embroiled in a court affair, to reveal myself to everyone, to get dragged out here to the middle of nowhere with this god forsaken army! None of this should have happened, none of it! If not for Washington's poor leadership, if not for the damnedable state of supplies, if someone with half a brain had taken a moment to look at a map, to send scouts out in some pattern that was not useless, we could route ourselves back on Cornwallis, or slip around him, or prepare for an offense! We could be back in New Jersey, preparing for an offensive, in winter quarters as well should be, not scrounging for scraps and sending desperate hunting parties! You should not be run ragged, and I should not be bleeding, and if anyone had asked me I should not have been pregnant in the first place, but these things keep happening and there is nothing for it but to take each blow as it comes, to shoulder a little more, but nobody damn asked me!"

He has pushed himself to his feet, during this, and when Hamilton goes to follow him Burr swings wildly, pushing him away, stumbles across the cabin to lean against one of the walls, near a window, covered in animal skins. Yanks it away. He can see the camp outside, the tents, sunk in mud. They should have moved already, but had not, and why? Burr didn't know. No one told him anything.

"And what am I doing, while all this goes on? Stuck in a wagon, or in bed, or seeing to damn discipline reports that make no difference to anything that matters! Is my mind not great enough, did I not prove myself back in Quebec? Or perhaps it is because I am omega, because I spread my legs and allowed myself to get into such a position, my mind must be damaged, and I cannot be given a modicum of power then. No, no, I must leave the army, we must leave, so I can look after a damn child--"

He swallows heavily, breathes through his nose. He is getting too worked up, his stomach cramping. He has said things he didn't mean, or that he did mean but not to such an extent. He is just so damn angry.

"Apologies," he says quickly, trying to swallow that emotion back down, failing, leaning more against the wall. He doesn't feel so bad on his feet. He told them he could walk, but what do they listen?

"You made plans before," Burr says. "You fought for things. And yet this army--it is not just a matter of us, Hamilton. The army cannot continue like this. Something must be done."

[non_stop]

Hamilton is so startled by get your damn hands off me that he flinches back entirely. His body does not close off, but becomes something tense and wild, his eyes for a moment warning of a feral, visceral reaction. In him, buried in a shallow grave, he has the child he once was, a boy who came out of a fever with only tortured memories of his mother's last moments, the embrace of the dead that couldn't seem to let him die, thrashing and screaming himself to exhaustion once he understood that this was the last he would have of her.

He has never been good at holding his tongue, though.

"Your wants are the dearest object of my heart!" Hamilton sends back, a volley of fire to match Burr's. "Far from sending you away, indulging my longing for your perfect safety, I have fought for you to stay here because it is your want! I kept silent in a court of law, on pain of contempt, because of your want! And if you are such a tactician you should know that to win this war, we must but avoid its loss -- and to that end, the coherence of the army is the only goal that matters. And discipline, fair discipline, control of the men's wilder impulses while gaining their respect, is of such strict necessity -- you have done more for this war in the last nine weeks than anyone, General Washington included -- is that not anything that matters?"

Something must be done. Of course it must. But how can Hamilton fight for things when he has been so busy fighting for Burr, and for this child?

[slowtoanger]

"Oh, what a favor you have done me, not sending me away! What an incomprehensible favor, to give me the rights another might have, if they were not omega, or dictated by their husband! Yes, speak to me of tactics, you who should also know that in a war of attrition we can never hope to defeat the British, not from the position we are in now, forced west, with hardly supply to feed the men we have. Of course, your conceding on your own wishes must be the greater sacrifice than my body, my position as a solider, for how can I not exist, my own wants, if they aren't in relation to your own? My, what a good little Alpha you are, to even listen to me, what a great weight that must be on your shoulders, to have an omega you allow to speak, or not order away outright. Should I drop to my knees to thank you? Bend over?"

He is seething, hissing, stalking towards Hamilton on unsteady legs, shaking with adrenaline. When was the last time he has had any kind of outlet, that was not sex or Hamilton himself? When has he been angry, truly angry, for what he has lost?

"Of course, I should be happy for scraps that I get, for being thrown some bit to satisfy me. Why yes Burr, see to army discipline! Something to keep you occupied, perhaps even important enough to look respectable. Blast what I want, my training and experience! Blast my whole damn opinion, while I am at it!"

Pain, a sharp one, as he yells, propels air from his diaphragm. This isn't good for him. And if he collapses they shall never let him up again. If he cries, he shall never show his face again.

"Enough," he says, "enough. You may leave, if you are only to justify yourself to me, to turn my own wants and struggles and unhappiness into the effect they have on your own!"

If Hamilton is to fight him on this, Burr will shut him down. Will order him out in the stony voice he uses when he orders soldiers lashed--will not stop repeating the request that he leave until he complies.

[non_stop]

Hamilton smells pain, and for an instant knows only the worst of fear. A flutter of anger follows, as -- is forbearance from being a tyrant when he could not a choice that should be appreciated? It's far from the only thing Hamilton has done for Burr; he has not condescendingly allowed it but has lent his efforts to assuring that others would accept and honor it.

In the end, it is not Burr who weeps, but Hamilton. He does not go, though he stays drawn back from his lover.

"Should I not fear for you?" His voice has gone broken. "Should I not fear the curse that has snatched away everyone I love will take you too?" The thought that he might wake to find Burr gone as his mother was, stolen so horrifically -- "Is it not -- is it not what I should do, to place your wants above that?" A soft and tremulous question. He wasn't raised to think it was what he should do. He was raised to think he should keep an omega tucked away in a domestic sanctuary.

[slowtoanger]

A hot flash of rage, like the ignition of oil in a cooking pan. Hamilton's teary eyes, his weepy voice, that he would use this against Burr, leverage his care for Burr against the very condition Burr has confessed to finding so unbearably restraining he almost wishes to have never been pregnant at all, to use that to further restrain him.

That Hamilton would finally open up in this moment, this moment when Burr is rebelling against his powerlessness, his loss. That Hamilton should distill it all down into something about Hamilton, about Burr's condition, the danger on his body, which has been used time and time again to justify the loss of each bit of control over his own body, his life, his self.

But the confusion. The want to scream, to yell, to rage. That even not Hamilton would toss out something that should be anyone's right to demand. This one thing, leave me be but no, Hamilton will not because Hamilton does not want to, the ultimate selfishness. But the want too, to comfort him. To return those favors that Hamilton had given Burr. To do his duty as omega.

He swallows hard, turns away, so he does not have to see that teary face, those pleading eyes, even as his body pulls against himself, every muscle tightening. If ever there was a moment to stand firm it is now. To assert his selfhood, his independence.

"I asked you to leave," Burr says. "You would ignore this want, once again, because it does not align with your own. You will go." Firm, broking no argument. It takes a great deal of will to keep his voice steady, but even so there are shakes--subtle cracks. He is a bad mate. An awful mate. Hamilton is crying, and he is doing nothing. Hamilton needs comfort. Hamilton needs help. "But as you need some direction, I would ask you to turn your attention not to my own needs but the armies. To find some way to help me, us, through them, for we will not be helped otherwise, as much as you fantasize about removing me from harm."

[non_stop]

He retreats a step or two to the door, his heart half-numb and half-bleeding. A pause, but only briefly; he holds up his hands, palms out in surrender. "I am leaving," he assures, first. "If this is the last we speak," and the specter of Burr's death is still so close, wrapped around Hamilton's thoughts and like to choke them, "then I would -- I love you, Aaron." These words are the greatest promise he can give, and to leave in such acrimony, without any affirmation of his affections, is unthinkable.

He is gone before the words have the chance to settle into the air.

Outside, he is wild; he is unable to calm himself. He wants to destroy and fight and rend and rip -- he is in terror and bloodlust. It is an effort of willpower he did not know he possessed to just wrap his arms around himself and pull his knees up and sit against a hard oak tree, not even shivering, letting the wet and the cold keep seeping in, wishing it would freeze him, freeze the rest of his heart so that the empty space at the center would not feel so empty.

The youngest of the women -- an omega herself -- approaches him, and sits on a stump, a few feet away. She picks at her sleeve.

"He loves you," she says. "Couldn't be more obvious, the way he begged for you right away. He's just in a bird-cage, is all, locked in."

Strange, but her presence seems to make Hamilton's tight chest start to loosen. He lifts his head, takes in the cold air.

"In a cage, and he's got to get that baby out," she continues. "It'll hurt, lots. Might kill him. Might ruin him. Nothing like that, I've ever felt -- made me crazy, too. Clawed my husband right on the face, I did, when he tried to keep me in bed."

He props his chin on his hand, watches her. "A heavy cage." A cage he never saw before. "I think I've been trying to fly high enough to lift it, and him, both."

Her mouth is twisted. "Strainin' your wings," she says, "but still, who'd you rather be, the bird flapping like crazy, or the one helpless, locked in?"

The words him softly and heavily, at the center of his chest.

She stands and moves over to him, pats his shoulder. "Wouldn't have said anything if I didn't think you'd listen," she says. "Certainly didn't bother, with my Jamie. Tries to be a good man, but dumber than a brick, he is. Wouldn't get it."

She wanders off.

Hamilton's mind is suddenly working at fever-pitch. A change, coming over him. In the headquarters-cabin, he approaches Washington, and he says, "Sir, I have an idea." Blue eyes almost violet in the way they glint, in the light. Washington knows immediately to listen, and he clears the room of all but Laurens and Lafayette.

Hamilton unrolls the map. "Sir, we've known the camp of Hessians at Trenton are already in winter quarters. What if we made an attack from across the Delaware? Unexpected, in the early morning, after December's Ides. There are enough boats along the Delaware, especially if Philadelphia sends what she has. The New Jersey militia could prevent reinforcements. It would be a surprise, an impossible crossing, as we did in New York -- these men are experienced in one already, and they could do it again."

He says they would need to begin now, right away, sending a man to Philadelphia to start ensuring that all the boats are on the south side of the Delaware, out of British reach, and bringing as many as they could up north to the ferry north of Trenton. "River isn't 300 yards wide there."

Washington loves the idea. It fires his imagination: a hard strike, a hit back, which is what he's wanted since the siege of Boston. It is bold: "Poetic," murmurs Lafayette, and "Alea iacta est," agrees Laurens.

"Answer my objections, Mr. Hamilton," says Washington, and proceeds to attempt to dismantle the plan. Hamilton is improvising, thinking on his feet, imagining travel time and supply lines. He answers every challenge, some in cleverer ways, some less.

"Finally," and Washington fixes his gaze on Hamilton. "Who is it, who will go to Philadelphia and talk them out of all their boats?"

Hamilton does not look away. "You know what I'm going to suggest, sir."

"Are you prepared to leave your mate at a time like this?" Because the journey has to be made right away, the preparations started.

Hamilton breathes in, shakily. "He has told me, sir, that if I do not solve the problems of the army, then I cannot help him." And if Hamilton has to be here, then he will be tormented every moment with the door that is now barred to him. He must go.

Washington regards him, and finally nods. "We'll write the orders, and then you'll go."

Before dusk, Hamilton departs on horseback, at a gallop, south to Philadelphia. God willing, he'll be able to make it there and back in two days. God willing, nothing here will go horribly wrong in that time.

[slowtoanger]

Hamilton leaves that night, Burr is told by Laurens, who finds himself with the unfortunate duty of being Burr's intermediary between the pregnant omega and life outside his small cabin. Burr is agitated, angry, as he had been during that argument, yet now finds that bad mood propelled to new heights by worry and guilt on top of vindication.

That Hamilton left the whole damn camp when Burr asked him only to leave the cabin is absurd. Surely Hamilton throwing Burr's independence back in his face, alone now with omegas who seem not to care about Burr's ill mood or what he wants. He takes to snarling at them in the manner of an Alpha, when they approach him with food, burrowing down into his nest and hissing. They can't make him do what he does not want to do. He wants to be left alone, to stew and be miserable.

Laurens isn't dissuaded by Burr's vitriol. He sits beside Burr's bed with a book, blessedly silent, sleeps there at night.

"Alexander really would give anything for you, you know."

"Yes," Burr scoffs, "and would make damn sure I knew it too."

"He doesn't mean to be manipulative," Laurens said. "He's changed a lot for you, his opinion on omegas, everything. He doesn't know how to be an alpha, besides what he's been told when he was a child, and you can't expect him to just change overnight."

But Burr doesn't want to be reasonable. He doesn't want to think about it. He feels abandoned. He is in pain. He is bored and useless and swollen and no one will listen to him when he says no, god damn it. He sleeps holding Hamilton's letters, the love poetry and pornographic writings Burr has pilfered on his person the whole of this war, the little notes Hamilton has left on Burr's pillow, on mornings when Hamilton was called away. He is so angry at him, yet still he aches for him to return, for his physical comforts, for his sweet words. To be in the same room as him, and his brilliant mind.

Burr's bleeding does not stop--and despite the improvement he had felt in his condition he continues to weaken. Soon he will not be able to rise at all, despite his protest, forced into bed. Soon he will be too weak to deliver the child, when the time comes. Two evenings into Hamilton's absence, when Burr throws the second mug of water pressed upon him at the wall, Laurens decides to finally yield and take him on a walk.

They go to headquarters, and though Washington sends them a queer look he wisely chooses to remain silent, as Laurens settles him in a corner chair with a pile of blankets. The small excursion improves Burr's spirits enough that it is repeated again the next day, Burr dosing while the men go about their duties.

Burr is sitting in headquarters, reading in Laurens' room while Washington and the officers inspect the ranks, when he hears musket fire. A commotion--yelling, running feet, screams. He is frozen, for a moment, listening, before lurching to his feet, stumbling to the door.

Outside, men run by, blind panic, blood in the snow.

"What's happening?" Burr demands, why will no one tell him anything? Another gun shot, and Burr swears, ducks back inside, slams the door. There are no weapons here that he knows of, maybe an old bayonet or a sidearm, no good places to hide. He is trying to turn over a table when the door bursts in.

Burr steps back, momentary shock and lack of recognition, at Laurens crossing the floor with his musket, but more shocking is the way Laurens grabs him, yanks him from the door and into the cabin with none of his earlier gentlenesses, none of the gentlenesses they have insisted on, until now.

"Laurens--"

"Quiet," Laurens whispers, clamping a hand over his mouth. Pulls him through the cabin roughly and quicky while Burr stumbles, nearly topples, doorways Burr has never gone through, to a small dusty place stacked with barrels and crates. Outside there is yelling, musket fire. Someone screams, a terrible death scream.

Laurens sets his musket aside and begins pulling at the floorboard, which pop free much easier than they should to reveal a small, dank hole, no more than a few feet tall.

"Here," Laurens says, holds out his hand and when Burr hesitates, he reaches out and yanks him forward, urges him beneath the floor.

"Stay down there, and don't come out until I get you, or--"

"You--you must come down too," Burr says, tries to protest, but Laurens is already forcing the slats back down, plunging Burr into darkness.

He doesn't hear Laurens leave--imagines him crouched above, gun pointed at the doorway. It is cold, beneath the floor, pressed to frozen earth, and after only minutes he is shivering.

Burr doesn't know how much time passes, but after what might be minutes, might be hours, Laurens openes the slates again, drops down beside him.

"What is happening?" Burr asks, but Laurens doesn't know. There is a rush then, of liquid. Blood or breaking water. Burr doesn't know.

[non_stop]

My Dearest Little Captain,

I omit date and name in case of capture, but I left you behind in the care of my dearest friend just today. Now, I stop to allow the horse a rest and my feverish mind must pour through an equally feverish pen.

I hope you do not think the less of me for taking this mission. To be near you but apart would torment me, and, besides, I am wholly suited to the task before me. If my tongue of silver and gold could tempt you into my bed, it can have the Pennsylvanians dancing.

Mrs. Linden, one of the ladies attending upon you at this terrible time, told me that you are in a cage. I told her I struggle to lift it and you both, and she said -- would I rather be the fluttering bird, lifting and lifting, or the one helpless and locked away? I envy you none of the keen wires that lock you away, dearest, and you have my service as long as I have the strength to fly. I may forget to ask your wants, and prattle on as I do, but you have only to express them. I seek now to solve our army's plight, and by doing so, to solve yours. I hope this is enough of an explanation.

It is foolish to write when I know the letter will be borne back on my own hands, but a fey part of my mind fears to encounter the British on the way. If it finds its way to you without me, I entrust three precious words to your hands.

You were right.

And now three more, deign you to accept them:

I love you.

--

I write now from Philadelphia, where I take an hour or two of sleep before I return. I dare not commit to paper what has passed, though I bear it back starting before first light on the morrow.

I dream of you. I pray for you, too, though my prayers long past have been too faint to reach the Almighty's ears. Be well, love. Be well, and be safe, when I return. Each passing hour without you will presses wrinkles on my brow and drains my hair to white; I will seem the wisest of sages ere I return to your arms.

I wonder, oft, what would have happened if I had not reached out to you, the first night after your return from Quebec. You turned from me and ordered me out, then, too. I thank all Providence's gifts that I ignored it at that time. Strange how these months have changed everything. Now, you do not tremble in fear of me; now, I (reluctantly, perhaps) allow your judgment to dominate my own. Never has another's growth so spurred my own.

I sleep now.

--

A close miss with a small group of Redcoats. They shot at me but did not come close.

The greater peril: The horse has a limp. I have decided to rest it in a cold stream; the mud is thick, and hopefully it is only a rock or some other irritant stuck under the shoe. I cannot tarry.

--

The rock free -- the horse, steady -- I have found no wounds. I go.

--

The horse has slowed again, and I must stop to rest him. It has been more than two days, longer than I'd hoped, and I fear and hope for what I find.

It seems this letter will reach you in my hands after all. I hope it is naught but an artifact of a time of toil and pain. Let it be a monument to how we overcame.

I sit and wait as the horse feeds and drinks. My impatience is considerable.

--

He is steady again. He has looked me in the eye to tell me, it is time to be home.

[slowtoanger]

Laurens and Burr continue to hear musket fire, crouched in that hole. After a while Laurens pulls Burr against him, and in doing do his knee presses into the liquid, the wet that has spread in the dirt.

A shakey, sudden inhale. "Are you bleeding?" Laurens whispers. Burr doesn't know, so Laurens dips his hand into the damp, brings it up to his nose.

"It smells sweet," Laurens says, "it could be your water," and Burr says nothing but digs his fingers in, tight to the flesh of Laurens arms.

"What happened?" he asks again, more insistent this time.

"I don't know. We were running drills when we heard musket fire, and a runner said some patrol had stumbled into camp, British or natives, but I am not sure I trust the accuracy of his report. We couldn't make out where the fire was coming from, and it seemed as if the attackers were everywhere at once. I ran to get you to safety. Only Lafayette knows of this place--he would come and get us, if it were safe. If he doesn't--"

Laurens doesn't finish, and they lapse into silence. It is not so loud outside. It can not have been more than an hour, two, but Burr can feel something, unwinding inside him, some pain different than before.

He wishes Hamilton had never left. That Hamilton were here, holding him in the dark.

[non_stop]

Hamilton hears musket fire before he gets there. He drops off the horse and loops the reins around a tree branch. He goes through the quick motions of loading the musket, and then starts to run.

A duck behind a tree, when he sees a flash of red; they seem to be retreating, his way. He raises his musket to his shoulder and shoots. One spins and falls, but Hamilton's pretty sure it wasn't a solid hit. His hands are shaking. He goes still, and fire crackles as one, two of them try to shoot back, but he sees both hit a nearby tree. They don't even know where exactly he is.

They're shouting about a retreat. A shot from behind them -- Washington's men are in pursuit.

Hamilton takes a gamble: considering he is ahead, and the other men behind... "Surrender!" he shouts. "We have you surrounded!"

Their hands start to go up. It is Lafayette that charges in, kicking them to the ground, waving at his men to come and take the prisoners. Hamilton hesitates, and then calls: "Gilbert!"

Lafayette's gaze snaps up.

"C'est moi -- Hamilton." Hamilton waves a hand, then steps out from beyond the tree.

"Ah, mon amis--"

"Ou est-il?" Hamilton is practically vibrating with anxiety.

"La cabine principale, avec Laurens -- a root cellar, in the back," Lafayette tells him.

"My horse is back that way -- please get him," and Hamilton is running.

So when the door comes open, the voice that they hear is Hamilton's. "Laurens? Aaron?"

[slowtoanger]

Laurens springs to his feet immediately, throwing off the boards and yelling, "here, in here!" climbing out and reaching back for Aaron. A second rush of liquid, as he stands from the hole, and it is plain to see even with dirt staining him that his water has broken.

"Alexander," Burr calls, rushing across the floor to stumble into him, pressing his face into Hamilton's neck and breathing in, scenting himself.

His pelvis aches, a low dull pressure, and his legs tremble, but there are things he wants to tell Hamilton, to hear.

"I love you," he says, because he had not said it when Hamilton had gone, and "I missed you. I didn't mean to be--" and he doesn't know what to say, because he had meant what he said but didn't mean to hurt Alexander, to force him away even as he needed space, to define in some way the only thing he could.

"My water--"

[non_stop]

His husband is in his eager and fervent embrace, and if all is not right, certainly all is righter than it was.

"You meant only to be yourself," Hamilton tells him, "and not some pale shadow." His grip is trembling, though, and his smell has a strong overtone of anxiety, as he tries to reassure. And he clasps Laurens' hand, a look of the most profound gratitude -- guarding Burr personally, and during an attack, no less.

"It's time, then?" he asks. "I would," and he gives Burr a shy look, a tentative smile, "very much like to meet your daughter."

He assists in guiding Burr out of the house and across to the other.

[slowtoanger]

If Burr was difficult before, he is much more difficult when the labor begins. The contractions are far apart, and for all the omegas say they are growing closer together, it doesn't seem so. They prod at him, so that after a few hours he is nearly back to hissing.

His back hurts, a low, dull ache, and he turns onto his side and entreats Hamilton to rub it, makes demands of him that are rude and unfair.

"My feet hurt," he grouses, "I'm thirsty," then "I don't want anymore," and "I want a bath," which really is not something that can be accommodated easily. He wants to take another walk, has some strange urge to pace, as much as he begins to pick at his bedding with steadily increasing distress. He needs more blankets, or the ones he has are not soft enough. He starts crying, when he finds a small hole, then starts crying harder, when someone tries to take the blanket to mend it.

"I want strawberries," he cries. "Why is it winter. It's not fair. It should be warm out. Help me walk. I want to see Laurens, and Lafayette, and Washington."

[non_stop]

Hamilton has absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. If he ever thought of it, he thought to take for granted that he would be removed from the room at a time like this. But they keep not removing him, and he keeps not removing himself, and it seems to work for everyone.

But once the demands start coming, he falls into the habit of looking at that omega, the one who spoke about birdcages, and she gives him little signals: nods, shakes of her head. Back rub: yes. Water: yes. Bath: no. Strawberries: no.

"You men get so practiced ignoring your pain," Mrs. Smith sniffs. "Shouldn't be finding out how to listen to your own body at a time like this. Now, stand up, sit down, lie down, as you need. Any bit that hurts less." She ruffles Burr's hair and gives him a bit of Hamilton's maple candy.

A walk outside: no, according to Mrs. Linden.

"I'll help you walk in here," Hamilton suggests, desperately. "You'll see them soon."