Trigger Warning: the video above; suicide mention. I'll put a star (*) when you want to/should watch it. In the story there's also two stars (**). In this chapter that signifies an important note at the end that explains a lot of things.

Two Weeks Later...

Did Alexander Hamilton have a moral compass?

Yes, he thought so.

He wondered where the money was coming from. Publishing sales, he could easily see that.

He dismissed the thought and closed his eyes. He saw the familiar wall in his mind. This time it was breaking apart and people were rushing beyond its borders to meet with their families, shouting in foreign languages. He smiled and opened his eyes. He did not know what the vision was about, or what the wall was called, or why it was built in the first place, but he was content that there was some sort of reunion between families.

How he wished that would happen with him and his mother.

I stood in the doorway, wondering what he was doing. I had been at the Hamiltons' house for a month--apparently, it wasn't uncommon to stay over that long.

He glanced out the window thoughtfully, as if there was someone there. "There stands a man outside, with--dear Lord--one of the bushiest mustaches I have ever seen... small eyes, and smiling like he will kill anyone who opposes him... The people who serve him say his real name is Joseph, but they must call him the Vozhd."

"There's no one outside, Alexander."

"Next to him is another man of great importance... yellowish skin, with squinting eyes. Taller than Joseph. They call each other... comrades...?"

"But--but here's no one outside, Hamilton." I realized who he was talking about. "Look, just get up and stop writing whatever you're writing now. Take a breath or two."

Alexander closed his eyes, wishing to wash away the two men outside the window. He saw instead a field lined with sharp wires as a fence, and people with a freakishly thin stature walking blindly towards something. Smoke roiled up in big, thick columns and the sound of screaming wouldn't stop in his head. 

He opened his eyes and staggered away from his desk, falling onto the floor and shivering so badly I knew it wasn't just the chilly air outside. "They burn people. They burn children. There are no graves for the people. Bodies piled up everywhere..." 

"What are you talking about? Burning who?" 

"I must speak with John..." He quickly got up and left the room, making his way toward the parlor.

"But--where are you going?! Alex, John's gone!"

"Nonsense!" He cried shrilly. "I must speak to him; maybe he would have some semblance of what goes on in my mind..."

I took a deep breath.

"LOOK AT ME!" 

Slowly, he stopped. He turned back to me, and I grabbed him by the shoulders. "John's dead. Stop writing--don't interrupt--and spend a few hours with Eliza and Philip. Please. Just stop writing. Take the day off if you want this to stop happening."

He relaxed, and sank into my arms. I froze for a bit, surprised. I gave him a few awkward pats on the back. He went to Eliza, who accepted him gratefully in the kitchen, and the two of them slowly worked on the shared notion of making cornmeal pudding. 

I made my way upstairs and into Alexander's office.

I should never have come here. It's affecting him, as if he doesn't have enough on his plate already. 

But I can't go back the way I came... so how the hell do I leave?

There were three knocks on the door. I raced downstairs and opened it. "Er... hello." I went red.

"Aaron Burr, sir!" Alexander's grinning face popped out of the kitchen. He approached the other man, and I noticed one of his cheeks was covered with flour. "I apologize for my current state; my wife and I were making something for supper." A moment later, Eliza stood behind me, and I caught a strong whiff of nutmeg and cinnamon.

"Get inside--there's a chill in the air." Eliza ushered him inside, before making to close the door. Aaron smiled at me as he walked in the house. I grinned back, and my heartbeat quickened. Looking back at the door, I saw someone else outside.

"Eliza, wait!"

Thomas Jefferson walked in. Alexander's grin dropped off his face at his instant displeasure of Jefferson in the doorway. He didn't bother to wipe the flour off his face. 

"Did we come at a bad time?" Aaron asked politely. His smile seemed more forced now that Jefferson was here. "We just wanted to inquire about some... documents that Alexander published recently." 

"What documents?" I asked, no longer smiling. "How recently?" 

"Katherine..." Alexander said slowly.

"A single essay, published a couple of weeks ago, concerning you. Katherine Fleming, the mysterious stranger who came here several years ago."

Oh, no.

"In addition, we feel Eliza should hear about this as well," Jefferson spoke up. Eliza looked startled. 

"Why? Oh..." 

As Aaron and Jefferson made their way to the parlor, we followed, and Alexander hissed to me, "You told Eliza?"

"You overheard? And you published it?" I retorted under my breath. "Why would you even do that?"

"I did not publish anything!" Alexander said viciously. "I admit to writing something down of Katherine's... situation, but I never published anything! I should put Jefferson on the streets..."

"It had your name on it," Jefferson said coldly. "You lack a moral compass, obviously, but to jeopardize your friend's privacy, much less lie about it? This is low of you, Hamilton..."

"Jefferson, I am warning you--"

I was starting to get a funny feeling in my stomach--a burning sort of feeling, like I hadn't eaten anything for days, even though we had just finished dinner around an hour ago. My ears were on fire and my mouth went dry. "What... what did it say?"

"They do not doubt anything as they dance; the economy is booming... and then it all comes crashing down one night," Aaron said, as if reciting a paragraph from a textbook.

"You dare to accuse me of... of..." Alexander hissed. "I've never gone to the Independent Journal these past two weeks!"

"Regardless, the truth from whence Katherine came here is now exposed," Eliza said sharply. "How many copies have been sold?"

"Almost all people of New York know about it. Apparently, you come from the distant future, Katherine. Tell me, how do you feel knowing people from this time now know who you really are?" Jefferson asked mildly.

"So who could have published it if Alexander didn't?" Ignoring Jefferson, I turned to Eliza.

"Katherine, you have specifically told me not to tell Angelica and Peggy about this. Why would I publish it?"

Alexander's tone was sharp. "Katherine, Eliza did not publish it, and that is a fact!" He sighed. "What should we do to the publisher? Burr, which newspaper was it published in? Which newspaper could reveal the truth so quickly?"

"It was indeed published by the Independent Journal," Burr said.

While they were all talking, I heard a wail from upstairs. Eliza looked at me in silent understanding, and flew upstairs.

The crying escalated quickly. By the time Eliza reached Philip's room, Philip was screaming in fear*, and Eliza scooped him up, trying to calm him down. 

Alexander took a last look at me, and then ran upstairs to see what the fuss was all about. 

The minute he stepped into Philip's room, he strode over to the crib, glared straight ahead at a spot near the window, took the baby from Eliza and quickly ran into Eliza's room, safe from any dangers they might have witnessed.

***

Half an hour later, we were all downstairs with Philip. Eliza was holding him now, and Alexander was looking down at the floor, his eyes full of a mixture of contempt, fatigue, and confusion. In a calm-before-the-storm manner of speaking, he said:

"I am willing to bet my life on the theory that whatever bastard that published the essay is also responsible for our son's terror. In his room, we saw, mind you, the man from earlier, Joseph, smiling at Philip.

He says something, and shows Philip an... a sort of... orange mushroom cloud, destroying everything in its path. It rips apart houses and trees. It could kill the entire population of New York in one sweep, and tens of thousands more.

I simply want to understand... why it is that whoever published the essay, possibly whatever brought Katherine here... is AFFECTING MY SON!" He bellowed.

The room resumed its silence once again.

"Alexander, I tried going back the way I came--" I ventured quietly.

"And?" He hissed.

"It didn't work. Obviously."

On his silence, I continued. "Possibly the only way for me to stop being a burden on your family, Alexander, is to commit suicide and pray I'll end up back where I was, as a regular university student. I can't see any other way of getting back other than this. This is a sort of last-resort option."

"No," Alexander and Eliza both said in unison. 

I groaned. "Look, Alexander, if you want your son to stop experiencing this--and frankly, if you want to stop experiencing this--then this is the option I have to take. Because... I know--or I think I know--what you saw."

"Then tell us," Jefferson said, unusually quiet. 

"The man that Alex said whose name was Joseph--he's Joseph Stalin**, the authoritarian leader of Russia for around... um, 30 years. Earlier today, Alexander said that his smile was like he would kill anyone who opposes him. Well, he will. Or rather, he would. In my time he's long dead."

"The weapon that he showed Philip looks extremely ahead of our time," Alexander muttered.

"Yes, it's beyond our--your--imaginations. It's a nuclear bomb. And you're right, Alexander--it does kill thousands of people. He... for some reason, knew you and Philip were American. I think it's why he was smiling."

"What does being American have to do with a Russian man showing a bomb to our son?" Eliza asked. There was something different about her now--like she was more tense about something that would happen either eventually or very soon from now.

"Well..." I sighed, trying to pick my next words carefully. "Well... Alexander's system, his financial system... it sort of evolved into the system that exists in my time."

Even Aaron Burr couldn't hide his shock at this. "And... when are you from?"

"The year 2016. But that's not the point right now."

Alexander now looked something between hopeful, relieved, and scared.

"The point is, the capitalist system of my America was very opposed to the communist system of Stalin's Russia--or, his Soviet Union. The reason he showed the bomb to you and Philip--Americans--was because he wanted to extend his sphere of influence--the sphere of communism--to the rest of the world. And as you can imagine, we didn't want that. Essentially, we showed each other our strength in terms of how many bombs we had on each side, and spied on each other for about 50 years. Of course, all this happens in the far future, but in my time it's passed for about 25 years now."

"So... history collides together because you traveled here?" Jefferson said, his eyes wide.

"Time travel isn't possible yet where I come from, so, I think that's what happened."

"What you are trying to say, then, is that if time travel were possible in your... era... then none of these--these side effects would have happened?" Alexander said. He sounded weak and tired, like he was trying to take in this information but didn't want to.

I nodded hesitantly. "Should... should we talk about the publisher? That's also an issue we can't ignore."

"Yes, well, we both understand that there is much going on in Hamilton's life right now..." I turned at Jefferson, who had stood up from the chair. "And we obviously do not wish to burden him with this knowledge further."

"We'll take your leave, then," Aaron said shortly, also rising from his position on the couch.

Eliza, still holding Philip, walked the two out of the room, and I followed suit awkwardly. 

As Jefferson turned back to close the door after thanking Eliza, I saw his eyes flick back to Alexander, who was now bent double, his head in his hands. Jefferson's face turned unusually happy for a second, then settled back into confusion and thoughtfulness, and the door closed with an abrupt thud.

I slowly turned back to Alexander, dreading what he would say. In the seconds that followed this silence, a slow procession of things he had every right to say entered my mind--If you had been more progressive. . . If only you had not come here. . . Philip must be so scared. . .

Instead he stood up shakily from the chair, looked at me, and gestured to the door weakly.

"Out."

I sighed, opened the door, muttered goodbye to Eliza, and walked out.

**For all the history buffs here, I know that Stalin died in March 1953, and the bomb in the video was detonated in 1961. That's my point, though. History's meshing together so much and so badly that a guy who's supposed to be dead... isn't. I considered putting Stalin's "successor", Nikita Khrushchev, instead of him so he could show the bomb to Philip. I realized, though, that contradicts with his (dominant) policy of peaceful coexistence (while Khrushchev did things that were completely the opposite). Also... because he was actually alive in 1961 :). I decided to put Stalin there because a) he was more militant than Khrushchev (I think) and b) it kinda helps move the story forward. Also, the very first image was the Berlin Wall breaking apart. The second man near Stalin at Alexander's office was Mao Zedong.**

Also, please let me know if this was a good chapter. I realize it's long, but it's expanded on another dream + history lessons. I hope Alexander's words at the end made some sort of sense. And I hope this is - overall - a good story. I just want it to be different from the other ones I've read.

I probably won't have time to write again until June, because of IB exams lasting until the end of May. That's the bulk of my schoolwork right now - studying - so I apologize deeply if this chapter wasn't thought out well enough and for all the slow updates and if this story's going into a downward spiral. I am confident, however, that what I write right now might be at least a little satisfactory for the time being.