Chapter Text
It wasn't like he had never met Martha Washington before–but the last time she had visited camp, when John had been a relatively recent addition to the General's staff, she had been nothing more to him than his commander's wife. He hadn't been nervous then; he grew up in polite society, he knew how to speak pleasantly without saying anything of importance.
A lot had changed since then.
Alexander had told him time and time again that he had nothing to worry about, that she was the sweetest woman alive–most days, a footnote not as calming as Alex seemed to think it to be–but John, well, he had his doubts. He didn't doubt that she was a lovely woman!
But he also was closely acquainted with the man she married and the one she raised, so yes.
It could be said John was nervous.
Nervous enough to give the General a headache, it seemed.
"Sit down, John, for the love of God. You're being ridiculous," he said and took a sip of his whiskey, put the glass down next to him on the table he sat on, and pointed to one of the chairs in front of the fireplace with such authority it made John cease his pacing. “Sit.”
John stood for a moment, heaved a defeated sigh, and dropped into the appointed chair.
“Good,” Washington said with a curt nod of his head and plucked another glass up from the cluttered tabletop–Alex’s desk, an organised chaos–and handed it over to John.
“Have a drink and calm down.”
John accepted the offered glass and turned it between his fingers, watching the orange light of the fire reflect off the amber of the whiskey, and looked back at the General.
“You are giving me alcohol?” he said. The last time he had had alcohol, he’d had a little too much, and the happenings of that night really weren’t fresh in his mind anymore; that he didn’t have a clear recollection didn’t mean he didn’t know what happened, though. It wasn’t like Washington and Alex would let him forget it. The honorary title of future son-in-law had become a fast favourite of Alex’s.
Washington narrowed his eyes like he did when he was annoyed or affronted, but there was a humorous glint in them, warm like the fire that got caught in them.
“I’m giving you one drink. I could be convinced to let you have a second if you promise you won’t cry on me again,” he said, grinning like he rarely ever did when there was anyone else around.
John could feel the path of the flush as it climbed up his neck and into his cheeks, his face without a doubt red with hot embarrassment. He did not need that second drink; he wouldn't survive that sort of self-inflicted humiliation twice.
“You are too kind, Sir, but I think I’m fine with just the one,” he mumbled out, his eyes fixed to the liquid in his glass, and Washington chuckled. It was warm and fond, and John still startled every time he heard the General make that sound.
He liked it. It was smooth and calm and happy, but John just wasn’t quite used to getting to hear it yet.
“Good answer,” he said and picked up his own glass again, swept a thumb over the smooth surface, his expression turning from amused to thoughtful as he did.
Washington had to be nervous too. Or perhaps not nervous, but at the very least… not unaffected.
“How do you think she will take it, Sir?” he asked, peering up at him. Washington returned his gaze, and John struggled to keep his face neutral, even though he knew the General could most likely see straight through him.
He hesitated, and that did nothing to still John’s stuttering heart. “Martha loves Alex like her own,” he said; John sensed the unspoken but, so he stayed silent and waited for him to continue. “but she’s… she’s a devoted Christian. Far more religious than I have ever been. After-” He closed his eyes and gathered himself, took a sip of his whiskey, and John had a feeling another wall between them was about to come tumbling down.
“After the passing of our daughter, she sought solace in the scripture. I hope she can keep an open mind for Alex, at least.”
Oh, dear God. John’s stomach plummeted, and his grip on his glass tightened, afraid he would drop it otherwise.
Alex had mentioned his siblings, all of them, Custis and Hamilton, but he had neglected to disclose to him his sister had died.
He swallowed thickly and blinked a few times. Washington wouldn’t have acknowledged that fact in this manner if he thought John didn’t know about it. He must have assumed Alex had told him already–John would go along with that, intent on making the conversation not any more uncomfortable than it had to be.
“Why haven’t you told her?” he said, tackling his way into another topic with as little tact as he could.
The General fixed him with a look. “That’s a dangerous thing to write down, son,” he said, and John recognised it as the warning it was. “Well, and Alex asked me not to tell her. If he hadn’t, I would have put some hints, perhaps, to clue her in–I don’t make a habit of lying to my wife.” He said it so pointedly, there was only one thing he could be alluding to.
John sighed. “First of all, Alex isn’t my wife, secondly, that was once-”
“He said you always did that, and that is a direct quote.”
“I was also slightly drunk, Sir, can we not move on from this?”
Washington watched him from narrowed eyes with a minimal quirk to his lips, and John felt the smile overtake his features without him meaning it to.
“Slightly drunk?” he repeated, and John snorted a laugh.
“Alright, maybe I was a little beyond slightly at that point-” He broke off at the sound of footfalls drawing nearer and shifted in his chair until he could see the door. The footsteps halted, the door creaked open, and Alex shuffled inside, face blank and eyes red.
Well, shit.
That could have gone better, he supposed.
When the door closed behind them and they were finally alone, it felt like heavy chains uncoiled from his limbs and fell away, leaving him light and free, the rise and fall of his chest unrestricted and his shoulders without tension.
His mother had arrived with them that morning, but it wasn’t like they could act like they were all too close where other people could see, so the whole day had been filled with careful smalltalk and polite smiles, a Colonel Hamilton here and a Lady Washington there. It had been exhausting, and Alex knew his mother felt the strain of that whole charade as well.
Pa and John had given them some space–Alex had long stopped worrying about leaving the two of them alone together, now that he was certain his father wouldn't go straight for John's throat at the slightest opportunity–because, well. Alex needed to fill her in about a few things.
John, of course.
And that time he got taken prisoner by a deranged madman, unfortunately.
If he only knew how to broach either of those topics.
They had settled in front of the crackling fireplace–after Ma had released him from the too tight embrace she had pulled him into the second the lock had clicked into place–and had fallen into their family’s special brand of smalltalk, not formal, but also not really addressing what needed to be addressed.
Until his mother breathed a soft sigh and reached over to take his hand into hers, looked back at him with open affection and understanding that threw him back to his childhood.
She would stitch, or he would help her with the laundry, or they just would be out on a walk, and Alex would rant about one thing or the other, something he had read recently, most times, and Ma would watch him with a fond smile, like his ramblings were the most interesting thing she had ever heard.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me, Alexander?” she said, stroking her thumb along his knuckles, and Alex stopped breathing. He had two things he needed to tell her, but she only could have picked up on one of those things herself.
They couldn’t have been that obvious, could they? John and he had barely even touched that day, they had stayed on opposite sides of the room for most of the work-hours, for Christ’s sake!
“Did something happen?” she went on, and Alex’s heartbeat slowed as air rushed back into his frozen lungs. She wasn’t talking about John. “Your father has been doing that thing he does when he tries to lie to me over the past few months. You know, when he writes like there’s something he thinks he should tell you but writes around it instead? And… you don’t seem entirely at ease, love. So, did something happen?”
Ah. It was the other thing he would have to address first, the thing not John, the bad thing he didn’t want to talk about at all because he had talked about it, a lot, and it had hurt like a bitch; and now he would have to dig the unsettled patch of earth the grass had finally grown over back up again.
Alex swallowed around the tightness of his throat and squeezed his mother's hand. “Something… did happen, Ma,” he said, and he sounded strained already; he hadn’t even started yet.
Well, this would be fun.
“And would you like to tell me what that was?” she asked, gentle but with a hint of humour, and fuck, he had missed her so much.
“No,” he said and tried to blink away the sting behind his eyes, without too much success. “But I will do it anyway.”
The smile dropped from her face and she leaned forward in her chair, brought her other hand up to clasp his in both of hers–the feeling was almost foreign to him now, soft, warm hands, smaller than his, holding onto him with gentle pressure. Pa’s and even John’s hands were bigger than his own, calloused and battle-worn, not as delicate.
“What’s wrong, love?” The genuine concern shining from her eyes was enough to make his own water, and Alex hated himself a little for it. He didn’t want to shed more tears about this, about him, he wanted to move on and heal and be whole again.
“I-” he said and broke off, squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to hide his weakness, but it only made a tear fall. His mother brushed it away without comment and went back to holding his hand.
Alex forced himself to look at her before he began anew; he could be a man and look her in the eyes, it wasn’t that hard. “I was a prisoner. To the redcoats. Just for three days, but-”
He slapped his free hand over his mouth and focused all his effort on biting back the sob he felt building in his chest.
Ma pried it away, her touch soft and her eyes steel when he turned to look. “And where was your father during all of this?” she said, sharp in a way that made Alex glad it wasn’t directed at him.
“Don’t be mad at him, Ma,” he said, smiling faintly, feeling sick to his stomach. “I- I did it for him. I mean- we were cornered. They had us ambushed, there were traitors in our own rows, they would have killed us all, but I managed to convince-” he swallowed, tasted bile. “their leader to just take me and let the other’s go.”
Realisation dawned on her face, and her eyes widened with it, shocked and devastated and angry like he had never seen her. She was a gentle creature, stubborn but with a calm disposition, so this- this was new to Alex.
“My son is taken prisoner and your father thinks it acceptable to leave me in the dark? About you? The one thing I need him to be completely honest about?" She took a deep breath and turned to stare into the flames, the changing light casting shadows over her clenched jaw. "What did they do to you, Alexander? Did they hurt you?”
“Don’t be angry with him, Mama,” he said, quieter than before, his voice preferring to shrivel up and die in his throat rather than recounting what that man had done to him. “I asked him not to tell you.”
He drew a slow breath and looked from their hands up into her face, and he hooked the fingers of his free hand under the hem of his sleeve and pulled it up, baring his scarred-over forearm, white lines on tan skin. Alex didn’t look, lest he change his mind and cover it back up, but his mother had tracked the movement, one of her careful hands joining her heavy gaze in tracing over the raised skin. Alex shivered. He knew they were ugly–it was alright. They could be ugly. They didn’t define him.
“Oh, my darling…” she whispered, controlled in a way he knew meant she was trying to keep her voice steady. Trying to be strong for him. "Is there… more?"
Alex smiled, but it felt more like a grimace, so he stopped. "The other arm, for one," he said, a poor attempt to lighten the mood that only served to make her frown, and something inside Alex panged. That expression of worry had seldom ever left her face during the last year of his sister's life. He hated that he gave her a reason to bring it back.
"For one?"
He hesitated. There was no easy way to say it, and he sure as hell wouldn't show her. His arms were one thing, but his back–while it had healed and didn't pain him any longer, the scars looked fresh. Raw and pink and shiny, and where his arms were ugly, his back was disgusting.
"They whipped me, Ma," he forced out, staring right at her; through her. If he looked too close at the emotions that flickered across her face, he would burst into tears, and he'd really rather not.
"Whipped-" she choked, grasping his hand so hard it hurt. "God, my boy-" She made a sound like a sob, but Alex wouldn't focus his misty eyes enough to find out if she had started crying.
"Where was your father? What was he doing?" she said, swallowing thickly and wiping a hand over her eyes.
Alex made a wet noise of amusement, and it deepened her frown and tightened her grip. "His best, Ma. He was doing his best. I don't blame him for any of this."
His mother shook her head and laid her forehead down into the palm of the hand not clawing into his.
"How- how did you get out, then?" she asked, upset but still aware enough to notice his general unwillingness to reveal... anything about that matter.
"That's… a lengthier story. It involves John going rogue to get to me, an extremely stupid deal that was Pa's idea, and me stabbing a man in his sleep, so- yeah."
She raised her head and fixed him with a questioning look. “John Laurens?”
One had to admire how she could just brush past him admitting to murder. Alex decided not to delve into that.
“That very one,” he said with a small smile. “John came for me, the idiot.”
She furrowed her brows and the bruising grip on his fingers relaxed a bit; they were through the worst of it now. It had been the torture he really hadn’t wanted to talk about, and that was done–and now… now, John. Alex was always down to talk about John, of course, but he wasn’t looking forward to explaining their relationship to his mother, of all people.
He knew that was what he had to do, though, what he wanted to do.
Alex had spent long enough wishing he had told his father about John before he found out himself–they hadn't really talked about it afterwards, but Pa had admitted to both him and John that he had suspected them for quite a while.
And he had never said a word. He had waited for Alex to come to him, had given him a chance to tell him, and he hadn't. Pa had trusted him to be honest, and Alex had lied.
Now, he wanted to do right by his mother. To tell her himself and not have his father there to hide behind in case things went south.
He could do this, he was a grown man and he could look his god-fearing mother in the eyes and tell her he committed sodomy on a regular basis.
...she wouldn’t hate him, would she? No, she wouldn’t. She was too sweet, and Alex was fairly sure she didn’t have it in her to hate anyone–but what if she didn’t accept them like Pa had? Didn’t accept him? Did he even want her love if she couldn’t love all of him?
Yes, he thought with no small amount of shame. Yes, he wanted it, he craved it. Alex had already lost a mother, he couldn’t lose her, too.
"He went rogue?" she said in disbelief, her eyes still red-rimmed, but Alex breathed easier with how readily she took to the new topic. "He disobeyed your father? And he still has a job?"
Alex couldn't help the sudden burst of laughter that forced itself past his hammering heart and out of his throat, heightening his nerves even as it loosened the knot in his chest.
"I know. But it did kind of work out in the end, and, well…" he paused and considered his next step. Would it be better to ease her into it or just put it out there right off the bat?
He settled on a bit of ambiguity to soften the blow.
"John is very important to me, Ma. And Pa, he's… he's come around to him. I think he genuinely likes him now."
She smiled, unconvinced and not entirely real, and squeezed his hand. "Well, I'm glad you at least got a good friend out of this godawful war, if nothing else," she said; always trying to see the positive in things.
Like Patsy used to. He cleared his throat and swallowed, but his voice still came out raspy when he next spoke.
"John is more than just a friend to me, Ma. I- I love him."
Her smile grew a tad more genuine, and Alex knew she hadn't understood before she even opened her mouth to answer him.
"Like Jacky," she supplemented. Like a brother. Alex chuckled, but it held no joy–it sounded frantic, nervous and cornered, and he shook his head and watched her smile fall, another frown taking its place.
"No, Ma. Not like that. I love him. Like- like you and Pa love each other," he said and squeezed his eyes shut, but not in time to avoid witnessing the shock that came with the comprehension as the impact of his words hit her.
Alex dug his teeth into his lip and hoped he wouldn't open his eyes to a disgusted sneer.
She hadn't let go of his hand yet, hadn't flinched away the instant she understood, and careful hope budded in his chest.
"You mean sodomy," she said, flat and deceivingly calm.
Alex nodded without a word, and his breathing that had almost entirely ceased at that point picked up all at once, shallow and fast.
"Look at me, Alexander," she said, and he did.
She wasn't disgusted. She was disappointed. Worried. Conflicted. The hint of distrust in her eyes hit him like a blow to the solar plexus, punched the little air from his lungs he had managed to get in there with his gasping, and squashed whatever sense of optimism he had scraped together just a moment ago.
She looked at him like he was a stranger, and Alex wanted to cry.
"You know what the scripture says about this-"
"I don't care," he said, and she inhaled sharply. Shit, stupid–think, Hamilton.
Alex noticed with a start that his scars still were on full display, and he hastened to pull his sleeve back down, fumbling with the fabric in a way that probably told his mother everything she needed to know about his state of mind.
"I mean, I- I know what it says, but I just don't, I don't think it's right. Because I love him, Ma, I love him so much, and he loves me, and it doesn't feel wrong."
"Alexander," she said, sighing, and rubbed at her forehead like she was fighting off a headache. "Just because something doesn't feel wrong doesn't mean it's right."
His breath hitched, and he jerked his hand from hers–he had taken punches to the face that had hurt less, and with that flare of pain came the wish he hadn't declined his father's offer to tell her together. Pa would have had a levelheaded response, and he wouldn’t have sounded like he was on the verge of tears when he delivered it.
Alex shook his head and pressed his lips together, turned to face the fire as he crossed his arms over his chest.
His mother sighed and clasped her hands in her lap. "Does George know about this?"
Alex nodded, not trusting his voice.
"And yet, the boy lives," she said with a humourless chuckle.
"We’ve had a few close calls," Alex said, voice rough, and flashed a joyless smile to match hers.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for a short while that seemed to last longer than it had any right to; despite their physical proximity, he had never felt this far removed from her.
"Alex," she said, and he flinched. "would you be a dear and go find your father for me? I would like to have a talk with him about the unfortunate habit of keeping things from me he seems to have developed." Her voice was light, but it wasn't enough to fool him into thinking she was fine.
She wasn't. Ma thought he was disgusting, a freak of nature and a criminal, and she wanted him gone, out of the room and away from her.
Alex disguised another hitch of his breath with a short cough.
"Of course," he said and jumped up from his seat, turned his back to her so she wouldn't see the hot tears gathered on his lashes.
"Alexander, wait," she said, soft and hesitant, followed by the creak of her chair–she had gotten up as well, and Alex had stopped without meaning to.
She stepped up behind him and nudged his upper arm; he knew what that meant, and he turned to face her, his eyes on the ground.
"I can't approve of this," she said, barely louder than the cracking of the burning wood. Alex bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood.
Two hands settled on his cheeks, and he jumped.
"But you are my son, Alexander. I love you." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, but to his surprise it did absolutely nothing to lighten the load on his shoulders or dispel the darkness that had taken hold of his mind.
That was her olive-branch, the only one she could offer. He would have to take it.
"Love you too, Ma," he rasped and lowered her hands from his face, turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
The only thing he wanted to do now was bury his tears in John's chest, safe and sound in the circle of his arms, where nothing could hurt him and everything was fine.
"Ma wants to talk to you," Alex said before either the General or he could say anything else. "Sounded like you are in trouble."
Washington's lips quirked into a half-smile, small and somewhat uncomfortable, and he set his glass down on the desk and stood.
"I can imagine." He glanced at John, a silent take care of him or else, and came to stand in front of Alex, who stared at the ground with such intensity John feared he would leave a hole.
Alex didn't need to say anything. It wasn't hard to tell from his hunched shoulders and irregular, quiet breath how she had reacted, and John wished, not for the first time, that one of them had been born a woman. Things would have been so much less complicated that way.
"Hey," the General said, soft like only Alex could make him, and tilted his son's head up to meet his eyes.
"It's fine," Alex said, in a way that didn't sound fine at all.
Washington was obviously not fooled by that. He pulled him close and held him for a beat, stroking a big hand over Alex's tied-back hair, mumbling something to him John couldn't make out.
When he stepped away and turned to leave, it was with a pained grimace–John looked back to Alex, and he understood.
He had begun to cry. Not a single noise parted from his firmly closed lips, but the tears shone warm in the light of the fire, and John was on his feet and across the room in an instant.
John stopped short of him and opened his arms, not quite knowing what he wanted right then, but he needn't have worried; just a moment later, he had his arms full of trembling Alexander.
"Oh, darling," he mumbled into his hair. The General threw him a last look over his shoulder and was gone.
"I'm sorry, this is so stupid," Alex said, voice small and quivering. "She wasn't even mean about it, and here I am-"
"It's not stupid if it makes you upset, darling. Don’t always talk about yourself that way, you know it’s not true.”
He didn’t respond for a few heartbeats, just clung to him as John stroked light hands down his back–he had to be careful with that, not too much pressure or Alex would shut down and shy away from any touch at all for up to a few hours.
His breathing hit John’s neck in warm little puffs. He felt it slow and even out, and he recognised the pattern of it; Alex was counting along to calm himself.
“I don’t know what to do now,” he admitted and gently detached himself from John, laid his flat palms to his chest and looked up at him from sad, dark eyes. John settled one of his hands on Alex’s waist, the other he brought up to wipe away the tears that clung to his reddened cheeks, and left it there, stroking his thumb back and forth in a soothing motion.
“Do I try to convince her? Do I just never acknowledge it again? I- I don’t want to lose her, John. Do I just shut my mouth and bear it with a grin?”
That was the thing, though–John didn’t know. His own mother was long dead. The only parent he had left hated him for unrelated reasons, not that this would endear him any more to his father. He tried to imagine himself in a similar situation, tried to put together how he would tell his mother about Alex if she were alive, but there were just too many blanks. She had died when he was a boy, love and marriage the farthest thing from his mind.
Sometimes it surprised him how much empty spaces could hurt.
While he wasn’t sure about many things concerning such a scenario, he knew one thing with an immovable certainty: his mother would have wanted him to be happy.
Surely Martha Washington couldn’t be that much of an outlier in that.
“Let the General talk to her. If he managed to convince me there was nothing wrong about this, then changing his wife’s mind should be a walk in the park,” he said and smiled at Alex, caught another tear on his thumb before it could fall farther.
The smile he received back was weak, and it crumbled apart after only a moment. “She’s really stubborn, though,” he said.
“So is the General.”
“She’s worse.”
“Worse than him?” he blurted out, his blood cold with the sheer terror that had struck his heart at the idea alone. Alex laughed at him, and John would have acted a little huffy if he wasn’t so happy to hear him make that sound.
"I am the way I am today because I had to sit through them fighting over the right way to pronounce 'cacophony' for three weeks, which was as entertaining as it was ironic."
John blinked, trying and failing to imagine their composed and stoic commander bickering with his wife over how to pronounce something. "That does explain a lot," he said and leaned down to kiss Alex before he could voice his offense.
He didn't seem to mind, as he kissed him back without hesitation and put another quick peck to John’s lips before he could pull away.
“I hope you are right,” he said, all sense of playfulness gone from his demeanor. “I hope Pa just… finds the right words to make her see.”
John sighed and slipped the hand on Alex’s waist around to the small of his back, used the leverage to pull him back into his arms, and kissed his temple. “Me too, darling,” he said, and prayed the General could just make this right, like he did with most things.
He couldn’t take the thought of costing Alex the relationship with the woman who raised him, of being the wedge that forced a family apart.
But, he thought, the guilt twisting and coiling in his gut like a live snake, those weren’t good enough reasons to end their relationship over. It was a selfish thought, and he hated that he was capable of such greed, but something deep within him whispered better her than you.
John held on a little tighter.
George closed the door to their temporary quarters behind himself and walked up to where his wife stood in front of the fireplace without a word. Martha had her arms wrapped around her torso, like she was trying to warm herself–he knew that posture. It was more about keeping herself together, all the pieces in the right place.
He stopped behind her and laid his hands on her tense shoulders, gently smoothed them down her shoulder-blades and back up over her arms.
“You are mad at me,” he said, because he knew she was. He would be mad if he was in her position.
“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t move away from his touch.
They stayed like that for a few moments, in silence, before she heaved a tired sigh and dropped her arms to her side, turned around to look at him. George reached down and took her hands in his–they were cold, despite the fire, and Martha watched him attempt to rub some warmth into them.
“The imprisonment, it was worse than Alex made it out to be, wasn’t it?” she said, gaze locked on their hands.
“Yes,” he answered, his heart breaking a little more as he thought back on it. George didn’t know what their boy had told her, but he would have bet his soul that it wasn’t the full truth. It had taken John and him weeks to get the full story out of him, and he doubted Alex would just give it up like that.
Martha closed her eyes, her jaw tense, a crease between her brows. “I know it wasn’t your fault-”
“It was my fault,” he interrupted, calm and measured. He had thought those words to himself so often, they had almost started to lose their meaning; almost.
She opened her eyes and glowered up at him, a silent dare to interrupt her again. “I know it wasn’t your fault, and I know you are blaming yourself enough for the both of us. That’s… that’s not what I’m mad about. This is the reality of war. Both you and Alex knew what you signed up for, it doesn’t matter if I like it or not.” She paused, took a deep breath. “I’m angry because you kept this from me. He’s my son, too.”
George exhaled slowly, thought back to the rejection piercing his son’s teary eyes like broken glass, and bit back a retort he would regret later.
“He wanted to tell you himself,” he said, and he would leave it at that. Alex had struggled with control, had struggled to take it back after he had been stripped of his agency like that, and when his boy had told him he wanted to decide how and when to share what he had endured, George had accepted it without further question. “That wasn’t the only thing he wanted to tell you himself.”
Her gaze hardened, and her finger’s tensed in his, but she didn’t withdraw from him yet. “It’s not right, George,” she said, and he sighed.
“They are in love,” he said, and now she did extract herself from his grip, crossed her arms in front of herself. Alex tended to do that as well, an unconscious reaction to protect himself, or to shut something out, and George wondered how the boys were doing. He hoped John had succeeded in calming Alex.
“It’s in the word of God, two men- sodomy, it’s a sin,” Martha snapped, and George rubbed at his brow, tired, ironically praying to her very God that she hadn’t reacted like that to Alex’s face. “You should have put a stop to this as soon as you found out, this is about your son’s soul, George!”
He huffed out a cynical laugh. “What would you have had me do?”
She tensed further, straightened up until she looked about to spring apart. “You could have sent that boy away-”
“Alex would never have forgiven me,” he said. That night when Alex broke down after they’d received news about John having been seriously injured was fresh in his mind, the way he had cried and screamed, how he had blamed him–how George had been paralysed by the fear he would lose his son as well.
“So, you’d rather damn him to hell-” she pressed out, gritting her teeth, a fire in her eyes not unlike the one that roared behind her.
“That won’t be the thing he’ll go to hell for, Martha, and you know it. We are soldiers. We have killed.” Of course he didn’t truly believe Alex would end up in hell, just as he didn’t believe John would–they were good people, the both of them, but with Martha, he had to put things into terms she understood.
She reared back as if struck, and George flinched a step backwards himself. He would never raise a hand to her, but that reaction alone made him worry she thought he would.
“You fight for freedom,” she said, quieter than before, but her whole body was taut like a bowstring still.
“We kill for freedom,” he corrected, because that was what they were doing. The blood on his hands would never come off, he could feel it every day, with every decision he made in this war, but that was his burden to bear, and he would bear it.
“It’s for a good cause.”
George paused. He gathered himself, took a moment to breathe deeply, remembered how John had asked him for his blessing and how he had cried when he had given it. “Is falling in love with the wrong person a worse crime than taking another man’s life for a good cause?”
All of a sudden, the tension became too much for her to handle, and it snapped. Martha stood with slumped shoulders, her fingers tangled in her sleeves at her elbows, grip white-knuckled, and the inferno in her eyes was extinguished by a film of tears.
“I- I don’t understand, how does something like that even happen? Why would it?”
“You don’t have to understand,” he said, gentler now, and reached out to pull her close, even though the heat of the argument still thrummed beneath his skin. She went along and leaned her head to his shoulder, wrapped her arms around his back.
He was momentarily distracted by how good it felt to hold her again, properly, after a too long time apart, but he did find his line of thought again.
“I don’t really understand it,” he went on and pressed a kiss to her hair. “Just give them a chance. Try to accept them. I have dealt with these idiot boys for long enough to say with certainty that they won’t part from each other just because you want them to.”
Martha drew a shuddering breath, and her hands tensed against his back. “You are saying I would lose him.”
“Yes,” he said. No reason to sugarcoat it.
She moved away, just enough to be able to look up at him, and shot him a smile, pained and reluctant and made soft by the tears that still stood in her eyes. “I don’t have a choice, then.”
He smiled, careful, and bent down to kiss her. “Thank you, dear.”
“But tell me, is- is… John,” she began, unsure if she should refer to him by his rank, his family name, or his given name, unsure where she stood with him. “Is he good to him?”
The smile that formed on his face was genuine and sharp, and he had absolutely no control over it whatsoever. “He knows better than not to be,” he said, a slight edge to his words he just couldn’t help, and Martha laughed–not the unburdened, happy sound it was usually, but he relished hearing it even so.
She sobered quickly and raised a hand to his face; he relaxed into the touch and let go of the simmering anger. They couldn’t afford to be angry at each other, considering how little time they had together, and besides, she had agreed to try to accept them.
And she would try. They had already lost Patsy. They couldn’t lose Alex, too.
“You look tired, love. You haven’t been sleeping again, have you?”
“It has been… bad,” he admitted, and that vague confession alone served to make him twitch on the inside. He didn’t make a habit of complaining about his personal problems, he couldn’t, not with a whole army looking to him for guidance, not with his son right there, his boy who had been through another horrible thing after George had sworn he would never have to know pain of that magnitude again.
She smiled, and he believed she meant it–it was the first real smile from her for the evening, and George smiled back, despite everything.
“It’s a good thing I’m here to take care of you now,” she said, and he chuckled, kissed her again.
“I’m a lucky man,” he agreed and didn’t think about tomorrow, about the day after, filled with correspondence, lists of things they needed, lists of things congress wouldn’t give them, reports, missives–having to introduce John Laurens to his wife not as one of his aides, but as their future son-in-law, as Alex liked to put it.
But he didn’t think about that, because even men like George Washington needed a break sometimes.