The Schuyler sisters!  My queens!  The rest of the AU is here!

Alicia Laramie is seven years old when she remembers.  Her parents bring home a little girl, and she looks different from the olive-wood skin and tumbling black curls of Alicia and her parents and her little sister Maggie—this girl all gold-tinged ivory skin and silky dark hair framing solemn black eyes. She’s a year younger than Alicia and her parents haven’t even gotten out “This is Lisa Tian” before she’s rushing forward to enfold the girl in her arms.

“Eliza,” Angelica whispers into the girl’s long dark hair.  Bemused, the girl hugs her back, and Angelica says, “I’ll take care of you, Eliza.  You’re the best thing in my life, I’ll choose your happiness every time.”  The girl is confused when Angelica stands back, but she gives a smile, the same sweet smile Angelica remembers, and it’s good.

***

When the fifth grade class goes to the Grange for a field trip, Lisa spends three hours in semi-hysterical sobs, refusing to go through the front door, and the terrified tour guide calls the first emergency number on her phone.  Twenty minutes later, a sixth-grader spills out of a cab and swoops down on her like a hurricane in rose and gold, and Eliza clings to Angelica like the last lifeboat on a sinking ship.  

“It’s okay, Lizzie,” Angelica soothes.

“Angelica, I—I–”

“I know,” Angelica sighs, stroking her hair.  “Take a couple deep breaths, ‘Liza, it’ll pass.”

“I miss him,” Eliza whispers into Angelica’s hip, and the stroking doesn’t pause.

“I know,” Angelica says.  She gives a small, rueful smile.  “That part won’t pass.”

Eliza laughs a little at that, muffled by Angelica’s jacket, and her grip tightens.

***

So…when Maggie Laramie is fourteen their house gets robbed.  She gets caught and held at gunpoint, and she barely manages to not say “My father has gone to raise the Minutemen.” Instead she steadily states that he’s called the police, and when the three guys in black scramble like their lives depend on it, she smiles at her sisters.

“Maggie, that was amazing,” Mrs. Laramie says breathlessly.

“Peggy,” she corrects, and Angelica and Eliza glow.

***

Angelica takes a year off, mostly just because she can and she wants to spend more time with her sisters, so when Eliza starts college, Angelica goes with her.  They go to Columbia, because they can’t imagine going to college outside New York City—the greatest city in the world, Angelica likes to announce dramatically as she loops her arms through her sisters’ and pulls them along, laughing—and because Eliza wanted to, and Angelica would go anywhere for Eliza. It’s the first weekend of the school year, their first chance to really explore after a chaotic week of orientations and classes, and the three of them are ranging over the campus delightedly. Peggy is sulking because she’ll have to leave soon, still in high school, but today they’re together and they’re here and Angelica feels so, so lucky to be alive right now.  

“This is where I’m going to be spending all my time,” Eliza announces reverently as they stare up at the soaring façade of the Butler Library.  “I love it, I’m going to move in.”

“I don’t think you can move into a library,” Peggy observes.  “Ooh, Lizzie, look!” she says, and smacks Eliza hard in the arm, pointing across the quad at a proud stepped building with a bronze statue on a plinth the height of a tall man.  “Hamilton Hall!”

“What?” a voice asks, distracted, and a short boy with thick dark hair pauses as he passes them for the door.

“Not you, Alex,” his companion, a tall and lanky boy with more freckles than skin, says in amusement, and Angelica’s jaw drops so hard she can hear it click.

“Alexander?” Eliza breathes, and this time, the short guy doesn’t pause so much as stop dead, as if he’s slammed into a brick wall.  

“Eli–”

He doesn’t even finish the word before Peggy fulfills her dream of several years and whirls on her heel before driving her fist into his face.

“Peggy!” Angelica yelps, half-laughing as she catches Peggy by the elbows and wrangles her arms behind her.

“What?!” Peggy demands, struggling to yank her arms free.  “I said I was going to punch him, didn’t I?  I didn’t get to last time because I was dead!”

“Oh my God,” Eliza says, clapping her hand over her mouth as she hurries forward.  The tall boy beside him has one hand on Alexander’s arm in concern, pointing a glare in their direction.  “Are you okay?”

“I deserved that,” Alexander admits, touching his mouth and pulling away bloody fingers—it looks like Peggy’s punch tore his teeth against his cheek.  He laughs a little, showing red-streaked teeth.  “Ow,” he says, surprised.  “That hurt. No, John, I’m fine,” he adds, waving off his friend and closing his lips to run his tongue over his teeth.  

“Let me go,” Peggy complains, and Angelica sends a wry smile to the murmuring crowd that’s started to gather.

“Alexander,” Eliza says again, certain this time, and hurls herself into his arms.  Alexander hugs her back, tight, and she gives a damp-sounding laugh, clinging to him and pressing her face into his shoulder for a long few minutes. For once in his life, he doesn’t seem to be in a rush, his cheek resting against long dark hair and his eyes closed as he lets her hold onto him.  Finally, she sniffs and says, “I can’t believe it’s you.”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says quietly, setting her back from him and giving her an evaluative once-over.  “You look beautiful, Betsey.”

“You look exhausted, what have you been doing to yourself?” Eliza demands, cupping his face in her hands. He’s as narrow as he was during the war, as if he’s been forgetting to eat.  “And,” she adds, and Angelica grins to herself as Eliza draws herself up, menacing.  Alexander looks resigned to the inevitable—good, Angelica thinks.  He has a lot of inevitable to be resigned to.  “The only reason I’m not going to slap you silly for getting shot in a duel is because I am a kind and forgiving person.”

“You are,” Alexander says, and it’s not as humorous as Eliza’s words were.  “I meant to come back.”

“That too,” she allows.  “But let me tell you one thing, Alexander Hamilton. I was not ready to be a widow, and I’m never going to let you live it down.”

“I’m flattered,” Alexander says, flashing the same wicked smile that Angelica remembers from that first night they met, so long ago now—a thunderbolt flare of a smile, like seeing the light. Eliza smacks him absently with the back of her hand, and sighs.  

“Peggy, don’t punch him again,” Eliza says.  “Angelica, let her go.”

“Margarita,” Alexander says as Angelica releases Peggy’s arms.  He holds out a hand to her, open, and she scowls at him before she takes it and lets him pull her into a hug.

“Margaret, this time,” she corrects stiffly, and then sighs and folds into him gratefully.  “You fucked up, Alex,” she mumbles into his chest.

“Yeah, I did,” he admits candidly—winning himself a great many points with the Laramie sisters, Angelica notes. “A lot.”

“And then–” she takes advantage of her close range to punch him in the ribs, still holding onto his coat “–you got shot.”

Alex gives his tall companion a frustrated look over Peggy’s head and the tall freckled boy laughs.  

“Hey,” he chuckles, and his eyes are warm.  “You punched me.  I’m not going to help you here.”  He turns to Eliza and sketches a bow in the old style.  “A pleasure, Eliza.  I’ve heard a lot.”

“And you must be John Laurens,” Eliza says, reaching out to give him a hug too, and Peggy visibly starts, spinning around.

“That’s me,” John confirms, and Angelica arches her eyebrows.  She knows a thing or two about John Laurens—when your sister spends fifty years preserving a man’s legacy, it’s practically your duty to be well-versed in it.  She trusts Eliza, though, and so she brushes past them with a warm smile on her face.

“Alexander,” she says.  

“Angelica,” he says.  “Hi.”

“It’s good to see your face,” she says, and drags him into another hug.  Once she releases him, he turns back to Eliza with a half-wary look in his eye.

Whatever he’s about to ask, Eliza beats him to it.  “Alex,” she says—it’s strange, hearing her address him so informally, when even after they were married she called him Alexander with a small smile, as if imparting a secret.  “I’ve given this a lot of thought.  I loved you with all my heart—I still do.  I don’t regret a single moment of our life together.  But I want my own life this time, not to be the wife of a great man.  I want to dance, and kiss people, and go to college, and teach kids.  I want a boyfriend.  Or a girlfriend,” she adds after a moment.  “And I think that’s not you.  I’ll always love you, but I want…more.”  Eliza’s chest is heaving, as if she’s just run a mile, and Angelica is so proud she might burst something if she doesn’t manage to swallow it down soon.  Eliza pauses, peering at Alexander through her eyelashes anxiously, and when he smiles, a little wistful but genuine, she lets out a heavy breath of tension.  “You’re not angry?”

“Eliza,” he says, still smiling.  “I knew I never deserved you.”  His lips quirk even farther, at a joke that Angelica doesn’t know.  “Best of wives and best of women indeed.”

Eliza smiles and kisses him, a brief peck that lands at the corner of his mouth.  “And Alexander?” she asks as she leans back.  He tilts his head toward her, an attentive movement unchanged for two and a half centuries.  “You were a good husband, for all your failings.  You were.  Don’t imagine otherwise.”

The look he gives her is almost shocked, and Angelica sees something indefinable flare over his face before the wistful smile comes back and he says, “No, I wasn’t.”

“This isn’t a debate,” Eliza says flatly.  “And you don’t get to argue.”  She smiles again, dazzling, and says, “Now.  How about you two boys take the Laramie sisters out on the town?”