Thomas Jefferson is not in the most pain of his life. No, the multiple attempts to set his wrist bones in Paris were probably more painful. He has had worse fevers -- certainly as a child. If his wound does not go putrid, he will, in fact, be perfectly fine.

But, at the moment, he is certainly suffering.

He should not have opened the door.

"Is he mad?" he remembers asking, wide-eyed, at the slave who announced that Hamilton was demanding his presence outside. Withdrawing and pretending at stone-faced indifference when every plea from outdoors set his heart racing. He thought to explain himself, once Washington had Hamilton suitably restrained, the diminutive loudmouth for once silenced. Washington's prodigious strength has declined so much in recent years -- but he smells as much of alpha as ever, and Jefferson had believed that, only that, was why Hamilton let Washington take him. He opened the door, and at first thought he had stumbled, or that someone had seized him by the shoulder -- unacceptable, even for one as trusted as Jupiter -- and then he... then he felt the blood. He felt the blood trickle, before even the pain.

He should not have opened the door.

Burr should not have tempted him, that way; Jefferson did not start the evening planning to ravish the husband of another alpha. Burr should have been more careful. And Burr welcomed it, anyway. The punishment is far outsized for the crime.

He shifts restlessly on his bed, hurting, hurting, hurting, with every heartbeat.

He is awakened by one of the Hemmingses, telling him he has a visitor. "I'm seeing no one," Jefferson orders. "Turn him away."