The dream has devolved entirely now, not pretending to hold on to location or time or logic. He dreams that Burr wants to knot him, and by some fluke of biology they discover that it has always been possible, and that all they need to do is allow it. Burr is within him and around him and he thinks if this is possible, what else --?

By some illogical twist, Washington is the one to hold him down for Burr. "The American race breeds prodigiously," Washington tells him, in that solemn, low rumble. "We will overrun the continent in two, perhaps three generations." This is an opinion that Hamilton has heard him give, before -- that the uniqueness of America is in its expansion, its children, that Europe cannot boast so many and so healthy. He moans, softly, and pushes against the hand, straining, longing. The dream-real opens him to the possibility, and it seems ordinary, and real, the same way it seems ordinary and real to fly in a dream.

"Please, yes," he breathes, "please," and his nose is pressed against the wood of a table, no, softer, a mattress. He blinks, not quite roused, the shreds of dream-real clinging to him. "Aaron?"