The Lost Princess [Hamliza Anastasia AU]

Chapter Twenty Two: Say Goodbye

Thursday, March 10, 1927. Georgetown, New York.

"All aboard!" Came the conductor's voice again. 

"We should go," Aaron said quietly, his eyes cold and unreadable. Alex took a deep, shaky breath and felt Beth's hand catch and squeeze his. He couldn't tell if it was for her own comfort or his, and frankly, he didn't care.

Alex was about to leave New York behind. It was all he'd hoped and dreamed of for years, to escape this communist hellhole and go on to better things. Make a life and legacy for himself. A life where the world knew the name Alexander Hamilton. But now that he actually had to do it, it wasn't easy. How could he just desert his homeland, leave everything he'd ever known behind without a second thought.

Beth could do it because there had never been anything for her here. The one thing she really wanted eluded her and she would do anything to chase it. Aaron didn't seem to have second thoughts, but he was terribly hard to read for one, and for another, he could bend with the winds of change better than anyone Alex had ever known. Whatever life threw at him, Aaron Burr would still be there. He had a remarkable instinct for self preservation, and was also lucky or unlucky enough to fly totally under the radar. 

But John, he was something else. Alex saw more pain in those soft brown eyes than even he himself felt. Alex might miss things nostalgically, like the Hudson River and the bridge he'd slept under, the trees in Washington Park they always got fruit from, the sunset atop the Lincoln theater, that sort of near material thing. Granted, John would miss those things too, but Alex guessed that wasn't all. He was only slightly less prone to climb up on a table and give an anti-government speech than Alex was, and was patriotic in a way none of the others could really match.  He didn't believe in un-fixable, he didn't believe in getting out when the times got tough, and Alex always assumed he would have ended up jailed years ago without Alex and Aaron the pessimists to keep him grounded. This would be hard for him in a different way, a moralfailing rather than a logical step. The promise of money would hopefully keep his head on straight though. John had been born rich, and although he probably wouldn't admit it, he wanted to live comfortably again.

"Alex!" Beth tugged lightly on his hand, pulling Alex from his bittersweet revelry and toward the train, which was already rapidly filling with people. He could see Count Lafayette up ahead, handing his ticket to the conductor. Alex had hoped they might be seated near each other so he could pump the aristocrat for info about the Schuyler family, but that was looking less and less likely as they were at the back of the line. Next to him, Aaron was fidgeting, probably worried that someone miscounted tickets and they wouldn't get a spot on the train at all.

He wasn't the only person Alex noticed, though. Not too far from Lafayette, a teenage girl was sobbing as an older woman pressed exit papers into her hand.It was too loud to hear their exact words, but Alex caught the gist. The woman was giving up her own spot for her daughter, who didn't want to go alone. Closer, a mother sang softly to her baby in German while her husband struggled to keep his grasp on a heavy stack of books wrapped in brown paper, probably all banned volumes. Ahead of them, a dark haired man with a scar across his cheek ran a thumb compulsively over his Flying Cross, then hurriedly stuffed it in his pocket when a redcoat walked past.

It put Alex at ease, to see other people so nervous. For one, it made them stand out less, and for another, it was comforting to see that this was new for everyone. Everyone was saying good bye to everything they knew, standing on the precipice of going where they had never gone before.

"Hurry up, comrades! We can't afford to waste time!" Alex jumped at the sound. An annoyed looking pair of redcoats had just appeared behind the crowd and was attempting to shepard them onto the train faster. 

"I hope he realizes the irony of that statement," Aaron grumbled, but aside from that, the quartet remained in a somber silence as they boarded the train.

Author's Note: Sorry if this chapter is less than stellar. I really struggled with it and what I had before was worse.