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There’s no one who gets on your nerves quite like him. He’s never afraid to speak his mind and it’s especially frustrating because he’s almost always wildly and woefully incorrect. But you know that he thinks he’s right, that he believes in what he’s saying. There’s no missing the passion in his bright eyes when he argues. He stands up and flips his hands around then practically tears his hair out when his opponent isn’t swayed. It’s like he has so much happening in his head that he just can’t express his ideas sufficiently and it frustrates him to no end. It reminds you of the way you feel about him.
Except you don’t understand how you feel about him. You spend so much time screaming at him at cabinet meetings, and even afterward, and he occupies so much space in your head that he’s with you, mentally, everywhere. He’s back there when you’re eating breakfast or trying to sleep. And really, at first it bothered you, but it’s oddly comforting when you’re laying in bed, helpless to fall asleep and it’s so dark and you feel so very alone in a big house and it’s just so empty. To have motivation to construct arguments against Alexander gives you something to think about and some distraction when you’re all alone. Or thinking about those bright eyes of his or the stupid, distracting smirk that he does when he thinks he’s bested you.
But you’d never tell him that. Of course not. You would never give him that kind of leverage over you. You’d never let him know how important that was to you and how it had come in handy when you needed a distraction from the memory of Martha and the still raw pain of her passing. Or when you had to get yourself together and remain composed when you read John’s letters and you thought that one of your dearest friendships was gone for good.
But Alexander was a steady constant. He was always there, ready and en garde to perry each new verbal attack and political argument. Dependability like that was underappreciated. But you appreciate it. The worst part is that you acknowledge that you appreciate Alexander and that you wouldn’t be Thomas Jefferson, leader of the Democratic-republicans, if there was no Alexander Hamilton. You were, to use the cliché, two sides of the same coin.
And you hate it because, while you play the part of Hamilton’s counterpart and enemy, you know you don’t really hate him. Of course you have hated him and sometimes he frustrates the hell out of you, but you need him.
A small part of you, one you try to ignore, one that you only allow yourself to acknowledge in the dead of night when it feels like no one else is awake and that you’re the only person in the world, desperately hopes that Alexander needs you too.