Chapter 1: Alexander Hamilton
Chapter Text
The last thing Alexander Hamilton remembered before closing his eyes for the final time was the fact that his deathbed was surrounded by almost everyone who had ever loved him. Eliza, Angelica, his children, they were all there, although perhaps more prominent in his mind was who was missing: Philip, his mother, Washington…Laurens. As he drew his final breath all he was was Laurens, a mop of blonde hair, bright eyes, youthful and still in his uniform from the war. He was laughing and a grin was covering his face. Next to Laurens was Phillips, smiling too and waving.
“I will see you on the other side.” He whispered. Unfortunately for Alexander, this sentiment was not interrupted as being for who intended it for. Eliza kept these words in her heart without knowing that they were intended for her husband’s dead lover and their dead son. Then everything went black. He had imagined death so much it felt like a memory, but had evaded it oh so many times, however death had finally caught up to Alexander in the twisted race that was life. He prepared himself to be reunited with everyone he had lost, though all he saw was a bright light and the frantic shouts of others.
Alexander sat up. He looked around. He came to two conclusions. One, he was not dead. Two, he had absolutely no clue where he was. Someone shouted to another, the other answered. They were excited, but about what he wasn’t sure. People buzzed around him. Where was he? Alexander could make out the gates of a cemetery? So he was dead, but the people around him seemed so real.
“Mr. Hamilton, you’re awake!” A woman with hair that was the brightest shade of red Alexander had ever seen rushed over to him. She had on an odd white coat and some sort of portrait around her neck, obviously she must have been quite vain as the portrait was of herself.
“Yes, I am.” He said, attempting to straighten his coat, but finding it to be rather crumpled…and covered in dirt? Why on earth was he covered in dirt?
“We will explain everything shortly, however you need to come with me for a moment.” The woman said. “My name is Dr. Cynthia Benson, I work for the department of Health.”
“What in god’s name is the department of health?” Alexander protested. Dr. Benson was the first woman doctor he had ever met, but she seemed to have authority, and he had to respect someone who carried herself like the doctor did.
“All will be explained shortly. Now would you please get in the car?” She had led him through mobs of people in similar white coats to large black rectangles that looked vaguely like horseless carriages. Cars she had called them. What on earth were cars? Alexander was stunned, and followed the woman’s directions.
Inside the “car” was essentially the same as a carriage, so that at the very least was the same. Alexander wasn’t alone inside of the carriage, he refused to call it a car, there were two other people. A bulky man dressed in all black with absolutely no hair and a shiny bald head sat opposite from him. Next to the bulky man was a shorter woman with her head, shoulders, and neck covered in a brightly patterned scarf. On her lap was a small, thin piece of glass which had a piece of paper fastened on top of it. She tapped on the glass that separated the carriage’s passengers and the driver and it lurched forward. Alexander grabbed the side of his seat. There hadn’t been any horses fastened to the carriage, they must have been hooked in while he got in, but it had been less than a minute…
“Good day Mr. Hamilton!” The woman said, pushing down on the top of a purple pencil so that it clicked? “My name is Sonja Hakim. I am an aide to the United States President. I know you have hundreds of questions, but right now I need to get you up to speed on several things. First, you are currently in the year 2025. Yes, the United States has lasted this many years, 249 to be precise! We have gone through many changes, but most importantly for you, in 1865, slavery was abolished and all men are free, no matter the color of their skin or the state of their birth! Also the United States now spans from the East to the West Coast and we also have Hawaii and a ton of territories that the current president refused to call anything other than colonies.”
“I think I like this man.” Alexander butted in. “Any country under the control of another nation without any say in the management of the nation ruling it, is a colony and I am against colonization.”
“History remembers you as such.” Hakim said, nodding and writing something on her sheet of glass. “Now, we are about to arrive at the airport. Airports are where people catch airplanes to go places, you fly in the air, like on the back of a bird, but you’re in a metal tube and care barely tell you’re moving. Make sense?”
“I suppose so?” Alexander’s head was reeling. The future, he was really in the future. 2025, the country had lasted so long? Even with the divisions between north and south, rich and poor, immigrants and those born from long American lineages? And now a woman was telling him that people flew through the air like birds! They must have been insane in the future, people did not fly, they walked, or rode in carriages.
“Now, Mr. Hamilton, we will be sending you to Washington DC, the current capital of the United States of America, so that you can meet up with other historical figures and be introduced to the current president and her cabinet.”
“Who is the current president? Is she a Democratic Republican?” Alexander spat out the party of Jefferson , like the curse it was. Oh god, he had better not be forced to deal with Thomas Jefferson in the afterlife. He would kill himself again, or at the very least write a pamphlet describing everything the bastard had ever done wrong while president.
“The democratic republicans no longer exist,” Hakim said, however she was forced to pause for a moment to allow Alexander to celebrate the downfall of his greatest enemies, “President Collins is a democrat, however she has no affiliation with the party of Jefferson.”
“I like this woman more and more every minute.”
By the time their conversation had ended, Hakim had covered the piece of paper in notes, Alexander did not know on what, but notes all the same. He had far more questions than answers about this future, the most important of which being how on earth he had gotten here! However, the woman had taken a rectangular piece of black glass out of her pocket and begun talking into it. She had lost her mind, Alexander decided. While Hakim pretended to be holding a conversation with an inanimate object, he stared out of the “car’s” window. New York City looked very different from how he had remembered it, the buildings rose high enough to scrape the clouds, and all outside people mulled about. He would have to write to Eliza about it, she would have found it interesting. Even if Alexander had been far from an ideal husband in life, there was still a special place in his heart for his Betsy.
“Secretary Hamilton?” Said Hakim, “Slight change of plans, instead of you flying to Washington, you and some of the other presidents are going to be catching a train down to Washington. A train is sort of like a long chain of carriages that only operates on a special road.”
“I know what a train is, Ma'am.” Alexander interrupted, “Trevithick demonstrated one over in England just earlier this year.”
“Good, so you do know what they are. Well, now trains are widespread and connect every corner of the United States by rail, and you are going to catch one down to the capital.”
With a nod from Alexander confirming that he understood, Hakim went back to talking to the black rectangle and he strained to try and remember the details of the article on Trevithick he had read a few months prior. Eventually the car stopped and Hakim opened a door, ushering Alexander out. The tall, bald man followed them. They had stopped in front of an enormous building that was quite empty, with only a few men dressed in full green-tan suits and holding what looked like an unusual type of rifle by the doors. The men nodded at Hakim to continue through the building’s doors when she showed them the portrait of herself that she wore around her neck. Apparently the men needed to make sure that she was in fact vain enough to possess the portrait. Neither of them stopped Alexander to check to see if he possessed one. The only portrait he carried was sewn into the pocket of his jacket, and no one was ever to see it.
“This Mr. Hamilton,” Hakim declared, her colorful scarf basked in light from several skylights, once they had both entered the building, “Is a train station. From here, you could travel from New York to any city in the country!”
“Even to New Orleans?” At random, Alexander picked the city he could think of that was furthest away from his home. Unfortunately it was the city that Jefferson had unconstitutionally acquired.
“Yes, but even further still! All the way out to the pacific ocean.”
When she inevitably saw that Alexander was confused by the fact that she seemed to consider such a far away place part of America, Hakim quickly added, “A few decades after your time, wars were fought with the Mexicans in order to expand the country all the way to the west coast.”
Following the woman’s lead, Alexander walked further and further into the train station. The place seemed to be far larger than any other building that he had ever seen, it was clearly meant for mobs of people to traverse on a daily basis. If this sort of architecture was normal in the future, then that said quite a bit about the role that the United States of America played on the world stage. Hopefully at the capitol, Alexander could witness the state of the country's government. Eventually, he and Hakim stopped at a platform, which was right up against a large metal cylinder that seemed far longer than any vehicle had a right to be. This was a train. After Hakim showed her portrait to yet another man in the odd uniform, Alexander supposed it had to be a uniform, they were allowed to enter the train, this time having to step up a bit.
Inside of the train was unlike anything Alexander had ever seen before. But then again, every single thing he had borne witness to in the last hour had been unlike anything he had ever seen before. The train was broken up into compartments, and he was shown to one with chairs on both sides and a window that looked out onto the station.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Hamilton, this is where our acquaintance must come to an end,” Hakim stated, “You should be joined by several other people from your time shortly, however I trust I can leave you alone for half an hour without you getting into a duel.”
Alexander could not help himself but to chuckle at the woman’s last remark. They said their goodbyes and she shut the door behind her. Then, he turned to inspect the compartment. In the middle of the compartment there was a thin table and on the table were several things. The first, which he was immediately drawn to, was a thick book that was a history of the United States of America, useful for both understanding the world he now found himself in, and figuring out how many people agreed with him. Across from the book there was a bundle wrapped up in brown paper and twine, which, upon unwrapping it, Alexander found to be an assortment of meats and vegetables between two slices of bread, he ate half of it and greatly enjoyed it, deciding to save the other half for later. Lastly, there was a small white bottle, with a bright pink piece of paper attached to the lid, it read: “In case you are in pain, follow the instructions on the bottle, do NOT consume otherwise. Hopefully you will not need this! - Hakim.” He left it alone.
Chapter Text
There were people around him as he took his final breath, that Ulysses S. Grant was sure of. He also assumed that they were his family, seeing as that it would be odd for him to be surrounded by strangers. Julia, oh his dear Julia, always by his side, so beautiful even now, after so many years together. She had stayed by his side, through the drinking, through the failures, through the war, through those eight miserable years in the White House, but now he was being forced to leave her behind. All because of this wretched cancer. He should have smoked less, so many cigars a day during the war had caused his downfall. However, it was not his fault about the public outpour of support after Henry and Donaldson.
Ah yes, the war. The only things Grant had ever found success in were his family, horses, and war. With rifles cracking and cannons booming all around him, he felt as calm and serene as if riding one of his beloved horses. Commanding troops and meeting the enemy on the field of battle were the only things that he was truly a master at. Some had called him a military genius, or the greatest general since Washinton, but in truth, Grant was neither of those things, he was simply a man trying to serve his family and country. When in the army, he had been thrilled to serve, but had left due to the constant ache that left Julia and his children alone and left in his heart. When he had inevitably failed to support them like a good husband, he had taken firewood into town to sell in order to feed them. At Christmas he had pawned his watch to buy them gifts. That was the part of his life he loved, not the fame that had hounded him since the war, but the life he had lived with his family. If Grant could have chosen a way to spend the rest of eternity, he would have chosen to spend it on a quiet farm with his family, breaking horses like he had as a boy, just another loyal and dependable farmer.
Darkness began to creep into his sight. Julia, Fred, Nellie, Buck, they were all there. He had not failed. Now it was up to the country to solve their own problems. The cancer had gotten so bad that he could no longer speak, but everyone in the room could attest that Ulysses S. Grant died with a content smile on his face, having lived a fulfilling life. One of the last great generals, the man who had beaten the confederacy and led the country through reconstruction, was dead…or not quite.
The first thing that Grant noticed about the afterlife was that his throat was incredibly dry. He was by no means a religious man, but this seemed out of place, for both heaven and hell. Well, if for some reason he was in hell, his throat being dry was far from the worst that he could be experiencing. Then the light hit him, it was bright, and oddly warm, it was as if he was sitting out in the daylight. That was when he realized he was in fact sitting out in the daylight, in the middle of a giant marble monument while dozens of people in white coats buzzed around him. Oh god.
“General Grant?” A man said, “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” Grant said weakly, bracing for the pain, but none came. It was as if he had never had cancer in the first place. He looked down, he was sitting in a coffin! His own coffin. Then he was dead, but the man speaking to him seemed terribly real. “Where am I sir?”
“Oh, sorry General, but that will be explained shortly.” The man offered him his hand, and Grant took it, stepping out of the coffin. As he walked through the marble monument, he realized that he had on his uniform from the war, not the night shirt he could have sworn he was wearing only a few moments earlier. He was led through the crowd of people in white, and then they stopped in front of what looked like a shortened version of a train car. It was painted all black and had a door and windows, however the wheels were like that of a carriage and the front stook out oddly. No matter how odd he found the vehicle, and it did appear to be a vehicle, the small woman standing next to it, chatting with her own person in a white coat was of far more interest to Grant. Julia, his dear Julia, here!
Grant froze, staring at the beautiful woman, however before he could approach his wife, she turned to see him, a smile far wider than the polite ones she had given at the White House and moved far quicker than he had ever seen her move. In the blink of an eye, his Julia was in his arms and they were clinging to each other. The son of a tanner and the daughter of a southern gentleman, embracing as if they never would see eachother again. Julia smelled like the perfume she always wore and every second that they embraced each other, he felt as though this might not be such a bad future, so long as they were together. Eventually Julia pulled the two of them apart and studied her beloved's face.
“Ulys, are you well?” She asked, concerned in her voice. Right, she still believed the cancer to be there, and his lack of words to her had probably only confirmed this in her mind.
“Quite to the contrary my dear! I feel fine.” Julia’s face lit up with the knowledge that her dear husband was no longer in pain and threw her arms around him once again. They clung to each other in a way that she usually deemed inappropriate, however the people in white around them said nothing. As he held his beloved wife in his arms, Grant noticed something. Julia looked as she did during the war, hair as dark and eyes as bright as ever. His beautiful girl. Once they reluctantly broke apart again, a man in white led the general and his wife into the odd vehicle, which he dubbed a van.
“General and Mrs. Grant,” The man said once they had settled on what seemed to be train seats, Julia’s hand clutched firmly in Grants, “You are both in the year 2025. We are currently in New York city in the United States of America. Yes, the country has managed to survive so long after the Civil War, in no small part thanks to your leadership General, but there are still racial issues. In a few minutes we will be arriving at the train station so that you can catch a train to Washington in order to meet President Collins and her cabinet. Also aboard the train are several other historical figures including Alexander Hamilton.”
“Her cabinet?” Interjected Julia.
“Yes Ma’am. The country is run by a female president.” Answered the man. He took out a small notebook and jotted something down, then looked back up at the Grants. “This should explain what you both missed.”
He handed the couple a thin book, maybe a hundred pages at most. Flipping though it while his wife gazed over his shoulder, Grant saw that it contained the history of the country since the war. In fact, the first chapter covered the surrender at Appomattox. He could not help but remember the immense relief he felt when Lee, proud as ever, signed the surrendered papers, signifying the end of the rebels. Just as he started to read the first paragraph, the van jolted forward, the sensation comparable to a train or carriage beginning to move. No locomotive or horses…odd.
New York had evidently changed in the years since Grant had last set foot in the city. The buildings had gotten taller and the people more numerous, but getting anywhere on the streets was still as impossible as ever. It took an hour for them to reach the train station, an hour which was mainly spent with Julia peppering the man, who had at some point given his name as Leon Markle, and Grant leaning back and observing the exchange. He had always preferred when the attention was not on him.The first time he had even gone to a White House ball, he had tried to stay away from any conversation, instead letting Lincoln shake hands while their wives glared daggers at each other. Mary Lincoln was an odd woman, that he was sure of. Julia was lovely, charming and engaging, even in this strange place, she was still holding a conversation with Mr. Markle.
When they arrived at the train station, Markle led the way from the van and towards the building. At the station’s entrance were two men flanking the doors, both were dressed in an odd color that seemed concerningly close to confederate uniforms, but from their posture, Grant could tell that they were both soldiers, and based on the respect they showed him, union men. Thank god. Markle showed them a small piece of paper that he pulled out of his pocket, and the soldier nodded to him, allowing them to pass through the door. The paper was most likely a military pass, which Grant was all too familiar with. Who knew how many he had issued during the war.
Walking through the station was eerie, almost akin to visiting the location of one of his previous battles years later, landscape still scarred from the carnage but trying to return to the way things were. It was obvious, to Grant at least, that the station usually bore witness to far more people than a man in a white coat, a general, and said general’s wife. Why on earth was the place so quiet?
“So we are heading to Washington by train?” Julia asked Mr. Markle. It was one of the many questions she had asked him since they had first begun conversing.
“Yes Ma’am. You shall both be heading to Washington. There are a few other historical figures on the train, however neither you nor the general should have to interact with them.” Markle shot a look back at Grant, it was the sort of look that Grant knew, the kind that people gave him when they wanted to make sure that he was still there. He had not gotten that many of those looks in the years leading up to his death, when you are in command of an army people tend to be the ones trailing you, but he had received so many in his childhood that the look Markle gave him was unmistakable. In accordance with their train travel, Grant could not help but feel slightly disappointed. He had secretly hoped that they would take a carriage down, anything that involved horses. Once his family had discovered the cancer, Julia had tried to keep him indoors, and combined with his memoir, it had been months since he had seen one of the gentle giants that shaped his childhood.
“Historical figure?” Julia laughed, “Oh Mr. Markle, you can not truly think I look that old!” This statement Grant had to agree with, both he and Julia looked younger, like they had during the war compared to when he had last gazed upon his beautiful wife’s face.
“Oh of course not Ma’am!” Markle responded, just enough charm and wit in his words that Grant made sure to slip in next to his wife and take her delicate hand in his. When he did, Julia gave him the sweet sort of smile that had won him over when he was still stationed at the Jefferson Barracks. Even now it still made his heart melt a bit every time she flashed it.
Grant helped his wife up onto the train, her skirts made it difficult for her to locate her actual feet, and Markle led the general and his wife to their train compartment. He left them with a bow to Julia and a handshake for Grant, who was rather glad to be rid of the man. There was something about the way that Markle had tried to charm his wife that made his blood boil. Speaking of his Julia, she had settled herself on one of the rows of seats, the brown and purple skirt she had on flaring out all around her. Ever prudent, she had remembered to snatch the book that outlined the future of the United States from the van and had pulled it out to begin reading. Seeing that there was still room behind Julia and Grant had not properly held his wife in months, he sat behind her, so that her back was to his front, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek before dropping his head so that it was resting on her shoulder.
“Sam!” Julia laughed, but she turned around and gave her husband a peck on the nose, before opening the book and beginning to read aloud from it. She leaned back onto Grant and the two of them cuddled together, Julia reading tales from the future aloud the whole train ride to Washington.
Notes:
All information about Grant comes from my weird obsession with the man. Also, not bad for my first straight relationship right?
Chapter Text
President Emery Collins paced frantically to and fro in the oval office. This was most definitely a really, really, really bad idea. When the surgeon General had suggested that in order to combat the rebellion in the South, they resurrect the people who had already dealt with these problems to act as advisors to her, Emery had thought that it was a pretty good idea. However, once she was waiting for a fuckton of historical figures to arrive at the White House in order to suppress the confederacy 2.0, she was beginning to have second thoughts. A bunch of racist old white guys probably wouldn’t make the best advisors to the first female and openly gay American president. Emery thought about calling her wife, but Charlie didn’t get off of her shift at the hospital until six.
Even though Charlie Collins was the first lady and wife of the president, she still insisted on working as a RN at the hospital. It was the same sort of stubbornness that had made Emery fall in love with her back in college when the two of them had met at a Green Day concert, falling in love over a shared love of music. Charlie had been there through Emery’s campaign for the senate, which to put it bluntly had been a fucking long shot, and even through her campaign for president which to also put it bluntly, had somehow been even more of a fucking longshot. Just only thirty five, openly a lesbian and the daughter of immigrants, Emery Collins was about the farthest anyone could come to the ideal presidential candidate, however people apparently were so fed up with the republicans and democrats, that they decided to vote for a new comer who had done concerningly well as a senator from New York. Turns out that having the same two party system since the days of Lincoln wasn’t the best idea. Speaking of Lincoln, the guy, his wife, and all of their dead kids should have been arriving with the rest of the pack.
A text notification pinged on her phone, leading Emery to check it. The train from New York was finally coming in. According to the text from the army colonel organizing the whole thing, on the train should have been Alexander Hamilton, Baron von Stuben, both Grants, and Teddy Roosevelt, however the Roosevelts were having… complications. So instead, there were two gay people from the revolutionary war, the general who a concerning number of people shipped with his right hand man, and said general’s wife. Yeah, this was going to go great!
There was also supposed to be a train from Virgina and another from South Carolina arriving soon. Even though Emery personally believed that most of the Virginian founding fathers would support the rebellion currently occurring instead of helping her, her vice president still insisted on it. Besides, what was the worst that could happen if you put Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in a room together? Oh right, a lot. But back to the other trains. Besides South Carolina and Virginia, there were also supposed to be trains coming in from Connecticut, St. Louis, and one from Springfield so long as the Lincolns weren’t facing the same complications as the Roosevelts. Those born again rebels wouldn’t stand a chance against a really weird combination of former presidents and various other historical figures!
She guessed that she should’ve just counted herself lucky that they were still able to cling onto South Carolina and Virginia long enough to bring in trains. Speaking of trains-
“President Collins?” An aide, Pherson she was pretty sure, poker her head into the oval office.
“Yes?”
“The first wave of Operation Resurrection has arrived. Where would you like them?”
Emery paused for a moment, mentally reviewing the 132 rooms of the White House, before immediately scratching off her and Charlie's quarters, all of the bathrooms, and her office. “Meeting room seven. That’s outdated enough they should feel at home.”
Pherson nodded before hurrying off in order to give the order to whoever was unfortunate enough to be wrangling at least a dozen historical figures. The second that the woman disappeared, Emery flopped face first onto one of the couches in her office, pressed a pillow to her face, and screamed fuck for a good fifteen seconds, an action that perfectly summed up her feelings on what exactly was going on.
At some point during this extremely productive fifteen seconds, the door to the oval office opened and Charlie Collins slipped through. Still dressed in her scrubs, the first lady was already lighting up a cigarette and looked rather annoyed, however still less angry at humanity than her wife currently was. Only when she felt Charlie plop onto the couch next to her, did Emery look up.
“You’re back.” She noted, stating the obvious.
“Yeah, I am.” Charlie shrugged, letting the president put her head on her lap and running her fingers through Emery’s red hair, a byproduct of when they’d drunkenly dyed it a few weeks back. The press had had a field day on that one. “Apparently there was a bomb threat at the hospital and the secret service likes keeping me alive.”
“It’s nice to have you in one piece.” Emery mumbled, the effects of staying awake for the last eighteen hours all catching up to her at once.
Luckily for her, Charlie wordlessly produced a five hour energy from god knows where and handed it to her. A talent that every president should possess, but isn’t widely advertised, is the ability to take a five hour energy like a shot of vodka. Emery was exceptionally proficient at this.
“So, how's kidnapping a fuckton of old white people going?”
“Bout as well as you’d expect.”
“So it’s a shitshow?”
“Yup. Somehow we did actually manage to get trains to Virginia and South Carolina. Apparently South Carolina isn’t as eager to secede as it always is.” The two of them sat in silence for a moment, recalling the two previous times that South Carolina threatened to secede, only one of which was successful. Thanks James Buchannon!
“Well then,” Charlie sighed, “Sounds like it's a fifty-fifty chance of the confederacy 2.0 winning.”
“Nah, not that high.” Emery rebutted. “We're at least sixty-forty. Lincoln’s pretty good at uniting people, and so long as Washington doesn’t decide to go join his racist brethren we’ll have him too.”
“That’s something. I’m pretty sure that Jefferson’s going to make a beeline for the confederacy 2.0 though.”
“Duh.” The president rolled her eyes. “Only reason we’re kidnapping that fucker is so that the confederacy 2.0 can’t get to him first. I’m 99% sure that Jefferson and maybe Henry Laurens are both gonna get thrown in protective custody, aka we can’t convict the former president of congress and the dude who got us half the country, but we sure as hell can do the next closest thing.”
“You’re so good at naming official protocols darling.”
“I try.”
“President Collins?” Another staffer poked their head into the oval office. Emery sat up and pretended to act like she hadn’t just been taking a shot of five hour energy while Charlie attempted to disguise the fact that she was smoking in a national landmark.
“Yes?”
“Operation Resurrection is all arrived and ready for their briefing.”
“Thanks.” Charlie butted in. “She’ll be down in a moment.”
“Yeah, totally.” Emery added on.
As the staffer closed the door, the president clamored onto the first lady’s lap and the two of them began to have a sleep deprived make out session. Yeah, the Confederacy 2.0 didn’t stand a chance.
Seventeen minutes later, after changing into a suit she hadn’t slept in and putting on a tie that matched her hair, Emery began to head down to the sub-sub-sub basement where meeting room seven was. The sub-sub-sub basement was so secret that the American public didn’t even know of its existence. It was probably the most secure part of the White House, and a great place to dump a bunch of historical figures until she could brief the American public on what the fuckity fuck was happening. And what the fuckity fuck was happening was certainly very…unique.
Upon Emery’s election, a bunch of the deep South states, aka the former confederacy, had gotten really, really mad that a queer, progressive, woman had been elected. So, after a few months of Emery’s presidency, in which she instituted gun control laws, expanded healthcare, began a plan to relieve student debt, and increased queer rights, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Tennessee had tried to leave the country and were in open rebellion. Both Carolinas and Virginia were threatening to follow. Waves of refugees were flooding into the remaining states and military action was already beginning to occur on the border.
The Confederacy 2.0 as Emery had dubbed them, had a concerning amount of weapons and men due to the sheer number of racist hillbillies and military outposts in the South. Only slightly more concerningly was the fact that, according to an official briefing she had received only a few days prior, the enemy had also managed to secure the secret to resurrecting the dead, however their supply of the formulate required to do so was in short supply, meaning that they could only bring back about a dozen former confederates, which was still very, very bad.
The heels of her shoes clicked against the concret floors of the sub-sub-sub basement as Emery headed past several other people with the clearance high enough to actually understand what on earth was currently going on. As she stopped in front of meeting room seven, which for some reason had been designed to appear as though it was from the colonial era, she could hear several angry voices emanating from behind the steel door. Well, there was no time like the present to announce to a bunch of old white men who she was. Opening the door, she slipped inside and made her way to the stage at the front of the room, facing several dozen people from various periods in history as she took her place behind the podium, turned on the microphone, and said:
“Good afternoon everyone, my name is Emery Collins and I am the current president of the United States of America.”
It only took a few seconds for total and utter chaos to erupt. This was gonna be fun.
Notes:
....so yeah, its kinda been a while. I didn't really have any inspiration to continue with this fic for a LONG time, and was also pretty busy with school, everything else I'm writting, and a fuck ton of other stuff, but this is back now! Trust me, I'm gonna finish this incredibly weird story.
Chapter Text
The South Carolina sun beat down upon John Laurens while he rode at the front of the column of soldiers. They were going to reach the British forces soon, thank god for this heat was something that he had still never grown used to, even though he had been raised here. It probably had something to do with those miserable months spent at Valley Forge. Just as he passed an old dogwood, flowers drooping slightly in the heat, he heard it: the sound of gunfire. Yelling to his men to prepare for battle, John urged his horse on. He could see the redcoats, now, faces nearly the same color of their uniforms. This was miserable weather to be fighting in. Drawing his saber, he urged the men on. Bullets had begun to fly past him now, but John found himself almost incapable of caring. Death wouldn’t be that bad, he had already lost all that he cared for. Alexander. What was he doing right now? Surely not leading men into battle and lamenting about the heat. His men had fired their first volley, John had trained them well. It turned out that an all back unit was quite a clever idea. He had just turned around to see how far behind him his men were when he felt it: the impact of a bullet.
The sheer impact of the projectile had sent him flying off of his mount, and had left John on his back in the grass. He tried to right himself, but his limbs refused to obey him. That was when the pain hit, the searing and all encapsulating pain of being shot. Back in 1777 he’d taken a bullet to the shoulder, but this, this felt nothing like that at all. This felt so, so much worse. Summoning the last of his energy, John managed to raise his head just enough to scan his body. Warm blood was gurgling up out of the middle of his chest. No, oh god no. He was going to die. It all seemed so surreal now; he had desired to die a glorious death in battle for so long, but now, now all he could think about was what he was going to miss. He was never going to meet his daughter, he was never going to be able to fight to end slavery, he was never going to be able to say goodbye to Alexander. Alexander, his dear boy. As his eyelids grew heavy, the last words John Lairens was able to force out were:
“Adeiu my dear boy.” He waited for death to come as it all grew black.
But it did not all grow black, for instead of finding himself in heaven or hell, all John saw was a blinding light. What on earth was it? The second thing that hit him was the smell. It was a mixture of magnolia and dirt and…rotting wood? Blinking a few dozen times, his eyes adjusted to the light. The day was a bright one, Spring or Summer if he had to guess, and the sun was in its noon position. Looking around, John saw where he was: a graveyard. What the hell? He was dead, he had died, he should not have been able to smell magnolia blossoms and feel slightly sick! Was this the second coming? No, if it had been the second coming then he would have had memories of heaven or hell…probably hell with the way he had looked at men during his life. Shakily, John tried to get to his feet. His legs felt as if they had not been used in a century. The moment he tried to take a step, he immediately felt himself falling, and he stuck out his arm to try and prevent himself from falling.
What John’s fingers found was cool granite. It was a tombstone, that he determined once he righted himself, and by the looks of it, it was an exceptionally old one as well. Squirting, he was just able to make out the inscription. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. That was fairly nice. What was less nice was when he saw whose tombstone it was. John Laurens. It was his tombstone. John let out a shriek. Was he a ghost, was he a reverent, had he been buried alive? People came running at the sound of his scream, and he whipped his head around to see them. All of the people were dressed in an odd fashion: work pants and long white coats for both the men and women, with the men’s hair cut to the length where it would have fit under a wig, yet they wore none such.
“The one time we go on lunch break.” One of the women muttered to herself. She was about the same age as John’s sister Patsy, and she had dark brown hair that reached her waist. However, it was tied back in a long ponytail.
“Excuse me, madam.” His words were shaky and uncertain. He mentally kicked himself for sounding so uncertain, but how couldn’t he! He didn’t have a clue where he was, nor if he was even alive. “Where am I?”
“Oh shit.” The woman hissed under her breath. “This wasn’t how I was planning on doing this.”
“Where am I?” John repeated, gripping the tombstone—his tombstone only tighter.
“Well, if you really think about it, the real question is when you are?” The woman fiddled with some sort of writing utensil. “And the answer to that question is the wonderful year of 2025.”
2025? No, oh god no, he couldn’t be here! This was the future, he was supposed to be dead! Hell, John didn’t even want to be alive in 2025. Everyone he had ever cared about, hell known, was long dead. He was alone, he was as alone as he had been at Mepkin. For reasons unknown to him, John’s chest began to grow tight, and he sank to the floor. No, oh go no. Alexander was dead. His Alexander was dead. Frances, the little girl he had never gotten the chance to meet, she was dead as well! He would never get to meet her. Tears he hadn’t known he was holding in began to follow, and John began to shake. The odd woman sunk to the ground next to him, saying words that he couldn’t quite make out. Something about how it would be alright and how she could get him medicine to deal with this. At the medicine part, through the fog that seemed to have overtaken his mind, John semi remembered nodding. Yes, medicine, anything that could get rid of this miserable feeling, and dampened the yearning he felt for everyone and everything he had felt behind.
“Uh, Colonel Laurens, I need you to take these.” One of the other people, this one with no hair at all, handed him a small fistful of chalky white pills. John took them without question, his eyes growing heavy again, and the hope that this was just a very odd dream that prefaced his arrival in hell. He slipped into sleep’s—or death’s, comforting arms once again.
When John woke again, he was faced with the terrible realization that this whole affair was very much not a dream. He was in some sort of moving carriage, and had been laid out on one bench—no small feat given his height, and covered with some sort of heavy blanket that felt far nicer than he expected it to. Before that overwhelming sense of dread could overtake him again, snippets of a conversation happening on the other side of the carriage drifted over to him.
“Panic attack is my guess.” One person said to the other. “Poor guy.”
“Yeah, he’s reacting a hell of a lot worse than Grant did, but then again, that guy was literally dying, so…” Their companion said. John didn’t know who Grant was, but he instantly felt bad for him. No one else deserved to suffer the same fate as him.
“Well, we should be in the capital in about an hour or so. Hopefully he’ll wake up by then.” The first person looked over to him. He pretended that he was still sleeping. What capital were they heading to? Philadelphia? York?
“Yeah. What’d you give him, cause that knocked him out well?”
“Way more of a substance I can’t name than I should’ve.”
“If President Collins hears you managed to get a founding father hooked on drugs, she’ll probably kill you.”
“Come on, it's President Collins, she probably did everything possible in college.”
In lieu of hearing anything more regarding the personal habits of President Collins, John pretended to wake, banishing all questions of who on earth this Collins figure was, in favor of some more important questions, such as: where on earth am I, did we win the war, what happened to Alexander, and the all important, is this all a dream? Given that he had now properly opened his eyes, John was able to take in his surroundings. He was in a carriage, that was certain, but it was unlike any other carriage he had ever seen. The seats were a roughish black fabric, and the walls were a molded material that he did not know. But the strangest part? Out the window, they seemed to be moving at a million miles an hour. Fields of what he could only assume was corn whizzed by so quickly that John had to hold onto the seat in order to keep himself from being sick. He probably ought to have looked away, but there was just something about the window that prevented him from doing so. What looked like a ginormous black beetle flew past them. How on earth was it propelling itself? It had no horses or oxen!
“Mr—Colonel Laurens, feeling any better?” The first person whose voice he’d heard gently asked him. They had bright blue hair, the color of a bluejay’s feather, and he could not tell if they were a man or a woman. He would simply refer to them as Bluejay until a name was provided, he resolved.
“I-I suppose so.” He managed to sputter out, the words feeling wrong in his mouth. One hand managed to find the oddly heavy blanket they had covered him with, and he clutched onto it.
“Good. Good.” Bluejay nodded. “Now, I know you got a bit of a shock back there, but I’m going to need to explain a few things to you, okay?”
“Yes.” John agreed.
“Alright then. First off, you were dead. My file on you here says that you were shot in battle, and since you’re wearing a military uniform, I’m gonna assume that’s right. While you were dead, our scientists here in the year 2025 have invented a way to bring people back from the dead. It’s possible, and you shouldn’t suffer any sorts of long term consequences.” Pausing for a moment to let that information sink in, Bluejay glanced at the other person in the odd carriage. The other person, a large man with an odd sort of hairstyle that reminded John of how some of his father’s slaves had worn their hair, nodded at her. “Listen, I know you’re probably terrified that everyone you’ve ever known is dead, but don’t worry, you aren’t the only person from your era who we’ve resurrected.”
“Who else did you bring back?” He pressed Bluejay, praying that the others were people he actually knew.
“Well, I don’t know the full list, but what I do know is that George Washington is one of those people, along with your father, Henry Laurens."
That information both provided relief and terror to John. On one hand, Washington, a man who he would have followed into hell and trusted to lead him back out of it, was in this new world too; and if Washington would be able to guide John through this terrifying new reality, then he was sure that he would be fine. But on the other hand, there was his father. The mere mention of his father’s name sent a chill down his spine. Memories upon memories of beatings and insults and threats swirled through his mind. Of course his father would have poisoned this new world as well. Of course. The worst part was that Washington did not know the depths of misery his father had put him through as a child, and, thinking that he was doing the two of them a great favor, would probably leave them alone together. Oh god, what would his father think of his cause of death? He had been so reckless and foolish, everything a son of South Carolina was not supposed to be.
And, god, oh god. If he had died before his father, that meant that all of his possessions would have been turned over to the old man. Had his father seen those passionate letters from Alexander? Those letters that he had savored every word of? Those letters that implied actions far worse than anything he had ever done before in his life? That implied kisses stolen between rows of tents; that implied nights spent together while a thunderstorm raged outside, engaging in sex with the knowledge that the storm masked the sound; that implied feelings that he had to be broken to feel; that implied that his heart belonged to someone who broke every rule of decorum that had been forced into him as a boy.
“Colonel?” Bluejay tapped his hand ever so lightly, Jack recoiling the instant they did so. Perhaps it was simply the fact that memories of his father were lingering in his mind.
“Tis nothing.” He tried to play it off. It was a terrible performance.
From across the carriage, the previously silent other person spoke, voice deep and somehow completely reassuring. “You don’t have to see your father if you don’t want to. I can ensure you two are kept apart.”
Sweeter words had never graced Jack’s ears, and relief flooded through his veins. “Yes, please, yes.”
“Of course.” Bluejay agreed. “Now, one more thing before we leave you to ponder all of that, and something I probably should’ve mentioned earlier. The Americans won the revolutionary war, and set up a three branch government. I don’t have time to explain it to you right now, but I’m sure that there’ll be someone at our destination who will be eager to, but all you need to know is that there is no king, but the government is instead headed by a president, who serves a four year term and is elected by the people. The current American president is President Emery Collins, and she was elected just last year. The capital is Washington DC, yes it’s named after that Washington, and we’re driving there right now. Got it?”
“Yes. I think I do.”
John spent the rest of the ride to the capital simply staring out the window, watching the countryside of America. America. They had won the war, his death and the deaths of so many countless others had not been in vain. The tyranny of the British empire had fallen to the ideals of democracy and equality. Men were all equal now, and could pursue whatever they deserved. No longer would redcoats reign terror upon innocent people, no longer would patriots fear for their lives for simply fighting for a cause they believed in, no longer would that great American experiment hinge upon thousands of starving and freezing men with bloody feet, barely clinging to life in a winter camp.
As they drove, the buildings grew closer together and taller, far taller—some of them were so high he could not see the tops. So too did the odd, beetle-like, self propelled carriages. They grew more numerous as they drove, soon weaving in and out of each other in complicated patterns, all of which were dictated by odd boxes with bulbs that lit up with bright colors. Soon, the carriage stopped in front of a large white mansion, all a buzz with more people dressed in an odd manor, all of whom seemed to have expected John’s arrival. Bluejay and their companion handed him off to another person, this time a woman who spoke nearly as quickly as she walked, and who led him down several flights of stairs and into a small room with lavender walls. In this room was a man whose face he had longed to see for so long.
It was Alexander, his dear boy, the man he had pledged to love for the rest of his life. He was sitting at a table and reading from a red book, looking up at John, astonishment filling his face. Alexander was older now, perhaps forty-five or so, but he still bore the marks of the man John had loved. His once fiery red hair had faded now, dull with age, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of spectacles, but it was undoubtedly him. Nothing on god’s green earth could hide those freckles and the sheer energy that had always vibrated off of him.
“Jack?” Alexander’s voice was soft, closer to a prayer than anything.
John didn’t say anything back, merely pulled him close. They clung to each other, tears intermingling, whispering to each other all the things that had so long gone unsaid.
“I love you. Above all else I always loved you.”
“No one was ever able to replace you, not Betsy, not Angelica, not Maria, no one.”
Soon the embrace turned into a kiss, and neither of them objected. In John’s arms was his Alexander, and that was all that mattered, not that he was in a world completely unknown to him, not that his father also inhabited this new world. No, all that mattered was that his dear boy was with him now, and he still loved him almost as much as Jack loved him. Even as they were called into a large meeting room with dozens of chairs, all organized in rows; even as Alexander briefly turned from him to threaten to murder a certain Thomas Jefferson; even as the lights dimmed and a woman in a dark red suit walked onto stage; even as that woman introduced herself as President Emery Collins; all John cared about was the fact that his Alexander was once again within arm’s reach, and this time, he wasn’t going to let him be torn away.
Notes:
What...no, I totally haven't updated this since June. Please don't crucify me, I won't be able to finish this story
Notes:
John's just out here having the time of his life. Medicating Founding Fathers with illegal drugs is totally a great idea. Totally.
Also, I know that there's no direct evidence of Henry Laurens abusing his kids, but quite frankly, with how shitty 1700s parenting was, he probably was by our standards.
The rain sex thing is made up, but there's no evidence saying it didn't happen...
Someone should probably get John some therapy...like right now