Wish: A Hamilton Fanfiction

Chapter 11: Alexander (Impossible) Hamilton

"You ready?" Noelle asked, shouldering her bag. 

"Yeah, one second. I'm still trying to find my phone." I sighed as I shuffled through belongings before grabbing it out of a drawer. Ma had a knack for going around and cleaning up things, so you never knew where anything would end up. I noticed I had a couple texts from my friends back home; I tried my best to respond before shoving it in my bag and heading down to the subway station with Noelle. 

The subway was busy as usual, and we had to wait in a pretty long line to make it through the turnstiles. "I'm willing to wait for it." Noelle sang jokingly. I was just glad we'd left a little early.

The thing was, we were approaching a month of rehearsals. Fast. We'd been at this for nearly four weeks and the next phase was coming up a little faster than any of us would like. Pretty soon we'd be in the Richard Rodgers doing tech rehearsals. At that point things moved quickly. We had two weeks from the day we stepped foot in the building to get used to the space, finetune our choreography, singing, and overall acting, put numbers together in a better way, and deal with the whole costume situation. Because of the time it would take to recreate the costumes and finetune them, we'd taken measurements at home and sent them in so they could get started on the process. Now, though, they'd have to be altered to our exact measurements (which probably changed over the course of getting here) so we'd be able to move in exactly the right way. 

We ended up at the building a little too quickly, jolting me out of my thoughts as Noelle shoved open the door. Thank God we'd left early; we had only arrived about three minutes before rehearsal started. Claire gave me a soft smile as I walked by, dumping my stuff in the corner. 

"I should've known, the world was wide enough, for both Hamilton and me..." I heard Charlie sing as I walked past. I still couldn't get over their voice. The most powerful singer in our entire cast, definitely in the most powerful part. 

An apprentice stagehand rushed around making sure everyone knew we were going to run Alexander Hamilton. The opening did need a lot of work still, especially because this was a number we could not fail. The first number in a show has to be powerful; it has to make people want to keep watching. And we didn't quite meet that mark yet. I was a little nervous about this. The choreography alone had tripped us up enough, but finally running it as a whole group would be a whole other disaster. Typically the ensemble had ran their part separate while the more principal actors ran our part; even in smaller groups than that. We didn't even have a surround yet but it was necessary to block that out. And the transition up to it was a little hard, especially because we had to do it without drawing focus to ourselves. 

Carson was the real show. 

We got out, the music played and we did a quick sing through. We all knew our parts and could sing them in our sleep by now. Then we started working choreography. We had to be better. Some of the ensemble still hadn't nailed down their dance; they were taken away to perfect it, leaving us alone. The rest of us tried to focus on how to fix our timing and otherwise conveying emotion.

All of this would get a lot harder once the singing was added. And doing this on a space as big as the Richard Rodgers' theater stage? With turntables and the surround? I didn't know if we could do it. 

We'd have to though. Our show, and our lives, really, depended on it. 

We ran it again and again until I felt like I was dead and even the most hardcore dancers looked out of breath. We knew we weren't there yet. It didn't take a professional to figure that part out. I just wasn't a natural dancer. I was so annoyed looking at my choreography and how I couldn't get it to look quite right. "Just remember Helpless," Noelle whispered as she bumped my shoulder on her way past. Helpless choreography was definitely not my strong suit at the time of learning it, but after endless practicing late at night with Noelle it finally looked okay. Great, actually, according to Phillipa. It looked like this is what I'd be doing in the nights forward...Alright, you can do it. I told myself. 

During "there would've been nothing left to do for someone less astute" and so on, there was a pretty strange bit of choreography that just looked very incorrect whenever I tried to do it. After all, Alexander Hamilton was mostly walking on and off stage, and disappearing into the shadows. 

The heads would not stop taking notes. Glance up, scribble something down. Look around, write more. Everyone knew that a notes sheet was coming; this had happened many times before. Even though they helped us out a ton they were stressful for all the shadows. 

"Alright, one more time and then we're done with choreography for the day, short break and then I want to hear Right Hand Man," Tommy said, clapping his hands. We all stumbled back into our positions. Everything was going well (as well as it can when everyone's tired) until the coat exchange. I walked "offstage" right on time, grabbed the coat and entered like I'd been doing it my whole life. And then, curse the way I was holding the stupid thing, I tripped. Hit the edge of the coat somehow and down I went. Everyone stopped what they were doing. The entire room was frozen. 

The first to move was Carson. He turned around and dropped to the floor. "You okay, Zoey?" he asked. I felt like crying but I was fine. Hold it together, you're doing okay.

"Y-yeah, I think so, I just tripped..." I mumbled. Carson held out his hand and we got up together. 

"Well you were doing amazing before that," he said, looking me straight in the eye. He was so sincere and sweet that I felt better and worse at the same time. I just laughed. Apparently Tommy decided we'd had enough and dismissed us to take a break. Claire was the first to sit next to me, Mariah right behind her. 

"Don't feel bad Zoey, it was the coat's fault," Mariah said, looking so serious that we all started laughing. 

Nothing in my life had ever felt more right than sitting with them in that moment. "Sorry, I'll be right back, I need water or I'm going to die," Mariah said, in true dramatic Mariah fashion. I watched her round the corner and all of a sudden there was a crash from the other side of the wall. I heard Mariah start laughing and Carson start profusely apologizing. 

"Oh, just get together already," Skylar said as Mariah rejoined the room. She didn't say anything, just blushed. I opened my mouth to say something before catching sight of Carson in the corner, who was flushing a similar shade of red. How blind was Mariah to not see what was slowly happening right in front of her eyes?

a/n

chapter version 2 now

thank you to all my readers, commenters and voters because YOU MEAN THE WORLD TO ME! wish has 367 reads (actually, 1.6k as of june 17th, which is INCREDIBLE) as I'm writing this which is more than i ever thought i would get so thank you thank you thank you you're amazing <3

once again you guys are the best so please keep being you! 

signing off for now but i'll be back soon!