Modern AU
Inspired by the song of the same name by Alec Benjamin
Ships: Hamliza [Hamilton x Eliza], Platonic Hamilton x Maria Reynolds
Trigger Warning: abuse, alcohol

"Did you hear that?" Alexander asked, sitting up. Normally he was a heavy sleeper, but he had just begun to drift off when he heard what sounded like a shattered glass.

Eliza mumbled incoherently beside him, burrowing deeper into the blankets. The summer air wasn't that cold, and though the window was open, there wasn't a particularly strong breeze stirring up the air in the bedroom. She was just always cold, and even when she wasn't, she liked the feeling of mountains of pillows and blankets. It was cozy.

Her husband bit his lip, listening. The walls were fairly thin in their building, and this wasn't the first time he'd heard something that concerned him. Once he heard yelling from the apartment above them, and another time a slamming door. Eliza told him to just go to sleep, but he had a gut feeling telling him something was wrong. He'd learned to trust his instincts over the years, because often they're right.

"I'm going to check on something, okay?"

"Noooo...." Eliza mumbled as his body heat left the bed. As soon as he stood up, she rolled the blankets around herself like a burrito.

Alexander gave a faint laugh before slipping on his shoes. He didn't see the point in changing; he'd gone to bed in a tee shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, so he probably looked like a hippie in a Walmart at 3 am considering he hadn't shaved that day.

The building the Hamiltons lived in was kind of weird. Most apartments or hotels or whatever marked the ground floor as "one" and the next floor, the first floor up, as "two," so on. The Hamiltons' building had a "ground" floor, then the next floor up was marked as "one." So what would have been the third floor in any other building was marked as the second.

He didn't really know his neighbors, either. He knew that a married couple lived in the apartment above him and Eliza, a few years younger than them. They were really quiet except for the noises Alexander heard in the late hours of the night or the early mornings when he worked from home. The door looked exactly the same as all the others, and the only thing compelling Alexander to knock was the feeling of dread in his stomach.

The girl that answered was maybe in her twenties, wearing a red sweater. Her brown eyes had a haunting beauty to them that no artist or writer could capture. "H-hi. Hi."

"Hey, I'm Alex from downstairs," he introduced himself. "I realize it's late and I'm probably bothering you but I heard what sounded like fighting and possibly someone crying. I just wanted to check in."

"I think your ears are playing tricks on you," she said with a smile, wrinkling her nose slightly. "I didn't hear anything like that."

Despite the warm weather, she wore a thick red sweater with the collar pulled up around her neck as if she was trying to bury her face in the knit material. The sleeves came down past her hands and her shoulders hunched over.

She looked small.

Alexander kept his expression neutral, though he wasn't very convinced she was telling the truth. Despite that, she kept talking, practically rambling, another thing that made him uneasy. "But it's really— really nice, that you came to see if everything was okay? Thanks, really, that was nice of you..." she rested a hand on the doorway and looked over her shoulder. "I really need to go back inside, my husband's waiting for me. Uh, I wish I could help you figure out what you were hearing? But I have no clue. It— it must have been the wind. That was probably it, it must have been the wind."

The door closed and he cringed. It felt wrong to leave, now more than ever. It made him feel sick to his stomach to think of who knows what happening to the woman on the other side of the door. She was helpless.

I don't know for sure that anything is even happening, he told himself as he headed back to the elevator. Maybe she knocked a glass over or something and it broke. Maybe they watched a sad movie and it made her cry. Maybe it's just a huge misunderstanding. A coincidence.

He didn't believe any of that.

Eliza woke up as he tried to settle back into bed. "So what happened?"

"The couple upstairs?" He said, seeing the listening face of his wife in the dim bedroom, "I... I think something's wrong. It seemed really odd to me the way she talked and that she wore an outfit covering everything from the chin down in the middle of summer. She just seemed scared."

After a moment of thought, Eliza said softly, "next time you hear something, try and talk to her again? You can't really do anything unless you know something's happening, but... but it would just be wrong to try and ignore it."

He kissed the top of her hair. "Exactly what I was thinking. Have you ever talked to either of them?"

"Once... her name is Maria, I think. Husband's named James. All I really know about them is she doesn't leave the building by herself; anytime she goes out, he's with her."

Alexander didn't get any sleep. He was too busy thinking about the girl with her sweater pulled up to her chin in July, and the sound of shattered glass against a wall, and the faint crying he was positive he heard from upstairs.

_____
Three days. Three days since the night Alex had knocked on the Reynolds' door. Small bumps and sounds of yelling came through the walls but he couldn't intrude without all the facts. But another shattering of glass followed by crying and a loud thud? He couldn't ignore that.

The elevator didn't seem to move fast enough. He only needed to go up one floor and honestly wished he had just taken the stairs. All but running down the hall to the apartment above his own, he heard another glass shatter. Someone else opened their door to look into the hallways, very clearly confused and a little worried.

Alexander knocked on the door, once again greeted by Maria. "Oh, hi. It's you, uh..."

"Yeah. I know something's going on, I can hear it. Worse than last time. I need you to be honest," he added, taking in that she was in a different sweater but it was also pulled up to her chin, not by a zipper but by her holding the neckline up to cover her skin.

She shook her head. "Sir, I think your ears are playing tricks on you," she said, the same as she'd said before, though this time her eyes were filled with even more fear. "And really, thank you for caring, but I... I have to go back inside—" she went to close the door, but Alexander gently stopped it. "I didn't hear anything, I swear. Like I told you before, it... it was just— it was just the wind." She tried to push against his arm to close the door with her free hand, the other still holding her sweater around her neck.

"Maria, whose at the damn door—" a tall man Alex didn't recognize came up behind her, glaring daggers into him over her shoulder. "Who are you?"

"Alexander Hamilton, I live downstairs."

"You should get back there, then," he said, placing a hand on his wife's shoulder. She flinched but said nothing.

Alex looked at James Reynolds with every ounce of dignity he could muster. He was shorter but fierce and if what Alex thought was going on was true, James Reynolds didn't deserve respect from anyone, even a bastard orphan. "I keep hearing sounds from your apartment that are extremely concerning to me and I wished to see if everything was alright."

"We are fine." He pulled Maria away from the door, causing her to stumble; she put her hands out to steady her balance, the collar of her sweater falling away from her neck to reveal rows of bruises and scrapes.

Morals were important to Alexander Hamilton. One of the things he strongly believed was that hurting another human being for any cause other than self defense and/or justice, was an unforgivable mistake. His instant reaction was to swing a punch at the taller man, which was actually quite comical since he had to go on his toes to do so.

He gave James another punch to the face, sending blood from his nose, and shoved him backwards. Alex turned to Maria, who was twisting her hands into the ends of her sleeves, picking at the yarn. "Are you alright?"

She looked up, her haunting eyes fearful. "I... I don't... I mean...." She blinked back tears. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

"You don't need to lie, it's okay to be scared." She still looked doubtful and he just sighed. "I promise I wouldn't lie about that, okay? I'm not playing tricks on you. My wife is probably wondering what I'm doing so I need to get back to my apartment but... but you can come stay with us for a while if you want. Your always welcome to come in and... just... I'll always be there in you ever need a friend. It's just one floor down, same apartment number. Okay?"

She nodded. "Thanks, Alex."

"No problem."

"About... about the noises—"

He stopped her, hearing the hesitation in her voice. "We'll talk about it when your ready. For the time being I'll just say it was the wind."

"Thanks."

That was the first genuine smile he saw from Maria Reynolds. Her eyes were still filled with fear, and she kept glancing to her husband passed out on the floor. Alexander took note of the many bottles of alcohol around even just the visible part of the apartment and the way she kept looking in that direction, as if prepared to duck. He assumed the shattering glass had been a bottle thrown at her. But she had hope. Someone had noticed. The silent cry for help behind her eyes that held so much pain hadn't been wasted. Someone didn't believe it had just been the wind.

Things could finally start to get better.