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?