Rewind (Part Three)

THE OLD ONE SHOT SERIES (or four-shot???? idk) THAT I NEED TO REVIVE BECAUSE I WAS ASKED TO AND I ACTUALLY PLANNED TO! thank you for motivation! -C

   His job, frankly, is very cut and dry. He will sit there at the doors, or gates, or whatever politically correct interpretation you have. Then, he will usher you in if you pass the test. He doesn't make the judgment. He doesn't make the connections. He is just a soldier to guard the gates (doors, windows, politically correct openings). Like he was in life, he is a soldier in death so...

   Peggy jolts him, her elbow brushing against his. "Oh my God, it's actually happening?"

   Ah yes, who could forget his partner in crime? She drifted up so far ahead of her sisters, and she latched to him. Who was he to protest?

   "What's happening, Peggy?" he asks tiredly, expecting another round of how 'Thomas is sending creepy love notes to Ang' or 'WHY CAN I SEE MY SISTER AND BROTHER-IN-LAW IN BED? WHY ARE THEY- EW EW EW NO! NO YOU ALREADY HAVE TOO MANY CHILDREN!'

   Her eyes are shining, but he never knows what that means. Tears or happiness? "I think Aaron Burr is coming to join us-"

   "Aaron Burr?!" blurts the soldier incredulously. He certainly has a lot of, uh, memories with the man. He never would have expected him to be one to die an early death.

   Peggy nods, hair bobbling in her pigtails. Here, on the Other Side, you can choose how you appear. And Peggy chose to look like she's sixteen until her husband and children join her. Of course, she has the two who died as children, but they're too young to grasp that their mom should look and feel older.

   He dreads the moment his wife and child might come and join him.

   She then peers closer down, trying to see the life of Earth again. "Uh, wait, it might not be so clear."

   "What's going on, Margarita?" he desperately asks. It's not that Peggy's companionship isn't enough for him. He has George Washington and Philip Hamilton as well to keep him company.

   But Aaron would be fun to catch up with.

   She raises an eyebrow. "Don't full name me, John Laurens!"

   "What's going on?" he asks again, carefully skirting her name entirely.

   Peggy smiles at that before her face pales. Quickly, words of a duel slip through her lips right before a bullet splits through the ground near them.

   Who fired in the sky? The coward, Burr, or his dearest...?

   No, John knows Alexander isn't like that.

   The clouds are parting for him to go collect the soul. Peggy clings to him as they make the surprisingly slow walk down.

   When John sees his dark hair and glasses and green jacket and stubble and worn face and Caribbean tan, John refuses to turns away.

    The world jolts.

   Rewind.

-

Peggy has always been an eloquent woman.

"What the crap did you just do?! You don't get to make those decisions! It's not right!"

"Alexander threw away his shot. For what?" John challenges. "Maybe this time, he'll see sense and do what he always has?"

"Go around cheating on his wife?" Peggy snaps, leaning down to get a better view.

John laughs and settles next to her. Together, they watch the scene unfold. Eliza is terrified about what just happened. (Peggy punches his arm before scurrying off elsewhere, cursing him out under her breath.) Aaron seems set in his new decision to not shoot. (John whoops loudly. His Alexander deserves life. It shouldn't be stolen from Burr. Lafayette was always right when he called him the worst.)

Alexander seems much more jittery this time. Jittery as in angry, hurt, confused, determined. John wants to scream. There's nothing to be confused about! This time, Aaron can be the one who dies!

   Right as the duel is getting counted down, a figure slides next to him. He radiates warmth like sunshine, and John instantly knows that this is another Schuyler. The Schuylers have that effect. That make you feel a little like you're next to a star going supernova...That they're too bright to be contained.

   "My pa's dueling?"

   "Philip..." John breathes out, but the younger man doesn't say anything.

   The shots are fired, but both are purposefully aimed away. Neither one gets shot. John feels a smile break out across his face. That, simply, has to be the best of both worlds. Neither is dead anymore. Neither one of them-

   Alexander insists on going again. On firing again.

   At this point, Peggy has returned with George Washington on her heel. They gather around to watch the scene below, acting as if it's some kind of play at the theater rather than an actual event.

   The bullet blasts through Aaron's forehead.

   "Yes," breathes out John.

   At the same time, Peggy makes an angry exclamation. "That's not fair! Aaron isn't the one who's supposed to die!"

   "Let it be...?" Philip awkwardly interjects.

   Peggy kicks him. "C'mon, nephew. You're my favorite for a reason. Why wouldn't that be right? Why wouldn't it be right for the literal heavens to be rooting for Alexander to live with all of this is his fault anyway?"

   "Margarita has a point-"

   "Thank you."

   "We'll try this again. We aren't supposed to change anything, John," Washington reminds him warily. John wonders if it was hard for Washington to live his cushy life in what appeared to be a replica of his Virginian home. Maybe Washington was watching Alexander all the time, and maybe he didn't bother to at all. All John knew was that Alexander did consider Washington a father figure.

   No matter how many times he denied it, the two of them became the family.

   Rewind.

-

   "Why does Alexander have to die?" John argues fiercely. A small part of him thinks that this is just as hard as the war was. The battle of intellect with the people who never thought they would have to.

   John relied on Alexander for his wit.

   Peggy relied on Angelica for hers.

   Philip relied on Angelica (the Second since Alexander feels the need to name all of his children after someone. John is trying not to be bitter, but how come there isn't any John Hamilton? Well, there's John Church Hamilton, but that's clear who they named it after.) (Even Philip got a kid named after him. And Philip was named after his grandfather. So maybe they just weren't creative enough to come up with their own names.) (Peggy would like to interject here and mention the fact there wasn't a Margarita Hamilton but there was an Angelica Hamilton. How unfair was that? Apparently, to get your name mentioned, you have to have an affair with him.) (That still doesn't explain why John didn't have any children named after him.) for hers.

   And George Washington was a commander of an army. He didn't need the basic smarts.

   Philip bites his lip. "It's the right thing to do, right? To let Pa come up and join us?"

   "It is the right thing to do," Washington says carefully. It's clear that he's thinking over the wrong thing. The wrong thing would keep his son alive. The wrong thing would put someone that practically everyone hated in a grave instead. Shooting Burr wouldn't ruin Hamilton nearly as much as shooting Hamilton would ruin Burr. Hamilton would eventually bounce back. Make a change. Make a difference. Burr would disappear off the map.

   John scowls. "Who gives a crap about the right thing to do?"

   "Dead people who went up here rather than down to the bad place," Peggy reminds him coyly before closing her eyes and thinking as well.

   There's a shot, and Aaron Burr is dead again.

   He knows that he should wait until they have made a full decision. Maybe go collect Aaron's soul. That is his job.

   Instead, John finds himself forcing the clocks to turn back and the world to freeze, falter, and restart completely and entirely.

   Alexander will not die.


-

   The fourth time, Philip has to turn away from the scene. He clenches his fist, bouncing on his heels. It's an odd mix of anger and hurt on the younger's face. "This isn't what anyone would want, Laurens. Maybe my dad deserves to die."

   "He's done bad things. That doesn't mean he deserves to die-"

   "I'm dead, and who fought for me? Who fought for me to defy death? Who said that it wasn't okay for me? Why does my dad get four chances to make things right when I got shot early and aimed at the sky and did everything right...And still died?!"

   Nobody has any more words after that simple fact.

-

   The ninth time, Peggy watches her sister's devastation with tears streaming down her face. "You happy, John? This is what you wanted? For my sister to be pushed to the breaking point for a man determined to go to that duel no matter how many chances we give him?"

-

   They have fought so many times.

   They have almost lost track, but Washington reminds them dutifully. This is the thirteenth time they have tried to change fate. (Or more like: John attempts to change fate while the others try to change fate back to how it should be.)

   John just didn't think that things would get this drastic.

   John watches the scene now in horror. Peggy and Philip scream beside him, scared at what they're seeing. Even Washington seems taken aback at how much this has escalated.

   To John's surprise, Philip is the one who pounces on him. His Alexander's son's fist collides surprisingly hard against John's face.

   "We don't make these decisions because of this! What if that was my mom?" Philip screams.

   Only John seems aware of the tears splashing against his shirt. Philip can pretend to be the big man on campus, but he's only nineteen. That sight would simply scare anyone and everyone who had to bear witness to it.

   Peggy wails next near them. "Philip's right. That could be my sister, oh Lord, that coulda been my sister. It could have been here. What did we do? What did we do? Whatdidwedowhatdidwedo?"

   "Silence!" Washington shouts over their grieving voices.

   All three of them pause. Philip's fist hovers midway, Peggy's lips forming another word, and John still lays there, completely numb.

   He stares at the three of them. "Aaron Burr just committed suicide because we let it go too far. Our job is to let people pass through the gates-"

   "Doors," Philip corrects.

   George glares at the boy practically his grandson. "Not now. It's time for us to stop playing God. We might be dead, but we don't get that privilege. There's one choice left."

   "What?" John croaks out. "What could fix this? What would stop Aaron from killing himself, again and again?"
 
   "They'll let history run its course. Eliza, Alexander, and Aaron...If we let history run its course. We need to let Alexander come to us. Let go, John. Be thankful you get to be with him again rather than upset it's too soon."

   Let go.

   So John did.

-

   "You're an idiot," John reprimands Alexander the moment his hand brushes his. John yanks him free from the confines of his mortal body, ignoring the way Eliza lets out a heart wrenching sob and Angelica positively freeze in shock.

   Alexander pauses, blinking hard. "Are you real?"

   "As real as you are dead," snaps John. He starts yanking Alex up the steps, going to the gates/doors/windows/politically correct openings.

   Straight to Heaven or whatever they believed in. The Other Side or the Sky Above or simply Death.

   John doesn't ask the question that's burning on his lips. He doesn't dare to.

   Why, Alexander, were you so set on letting him kill you the first time and then you started killing him? At some point, didn't you just want to stop?

   Or is your death the only way you were going to be able to let go?

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