Running Out of Time

Chapter 28 - It's Not The End Of The World (Except It Is)

Peggy didn't eat much of her breakfast, she just sat there poking at it with the fork. Angelica and Eliza had been watching her from the other room for a few minutes.

"I don't think she's ever been like this," Eliza thought out loud.

"Not that I can remember," Angelica agreed.

Something was definitely wrong with their sister but neither of them could place it. Nothing had happened that seemed to upset her this much. they weren't certain how but they figured that it wouldn't be hard to get to the bottom of this. After all, they knew what they were dealing with and that was just Peggy.

Before either of them could make a move, Peggy was pulling her jacket on and making her way towards them. "I'm going out," she spoke as normally as she could before she half jogged to meet Lafayette in the driveway.

She sat in the passenger seat and let him drive back to his place. She knew what had happened but it had made her far too anxious to deal with it properly. Peggy wasn't sure that she even wanted to talk about her dream. She could only hope that her's was the worst one. Something worse than that's wasn't anything she wanted to imagine.

--

"Alexander, it's okay," Laurens tried to be reassuring but sometimes Hamilton was a little more stubborn than usual. This was one of those times.

"I know," Hamilton nodded for what may have been the seventh time.

"You have to talk about it eventually."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. That's like our thing, we always tell each other about our dreams. It can't be that bad," Laurens was trying. It seemed like he was finally starting to get through to him. He knew that trying to force things out of Hamilton was never a good idea but if he didn't at least try then Alexander would never consider saying anything. It was a tricky game to play.

"I already told you about," Hamilton tried to brush it off.

"It was more than just you and Peggy in the woods, c'mon."

"That's all it was," Hamilton shrugged through his lie. That was hardly scratching the surface. He wasn't sure how he would even begin to explain such a dream to Laurens. It would be far too difficult right now. There would be some other time to explain it, that would be a better time. Neither of them knew when that better time would come but it would come around at some point.

--

Peggy, Maria, and Lafayette all sat in the living room. They all knew what had happened but no one wanted to be the first to say anything. It wasn't the world's most comfortable silence but it wasn't necessarily painful either. It didn't seem like it was time to break it. Even if it was that time, Peggy wouldn't be the one to do it. She had finally managed to calm herself down.

"I suppose there has to be some order to these, right?" Maria looked up from her tea as she spoke. "I really doubt that mine's first."

Lafayette nodded as he made the decision to go first. "Everyone was there, we were all okay, we were watching fire works," he paused for a moment to remember some details. "The radio said something about the end of the world but no one paid attention to it. I think it may have been about a cold or something. We all thought that it was okay but it was not. We all got sick." He stopped. They had all had vivid dreams about their friends dying, it wasn't fun.

"You know," Peggy adjusted herself,"when that boom said we were predicting some kind of fall I didn't expect it to be the fall of every person on earth."

The other two nodded. They had assumed that this would all be taking place on some small, personal level, not a global scale. Of course, there wasn't much that could be done about it. They knew that they couldn't actually stop this from happening, they would just have to hope for the best. Peggy wanted to think that something may have gone wrong. Maybe they were all wrong and none of this would happen, she doubted it.

"It goes on for years," Peggy started while somewhat staring at the floor, "it just drags on constantly. I had to be the nurse when Eliza was out, I hate it. Alexander was sick for the longest, he didn't want to give up even as some of us dropped off around him. It felt like the end of the world, you know? There was nothing I could do for any of our friends besides watch them die."

Peggy swished what was left of her tea in the cup. She didn't want to go into any of the gritty details. The disturbing part was how realistic the dream had been. She knew it was for a reason but it still bothered her.

"When there's only four of us left," Maria continued off of Peggy's dream story, "I think that's when things start to really fall apart. Eliza goes from being her normal self to someone so stressed she was almost unrecognizable. I think that's when it all hits the bottom."

"So, now what?" Peggy looked around at them. No one had an answer. "Should we," she wasn't sure whether or not it was a good idea, "should we tell Alexander?"

Maria nodded while Lafayette seemed I different. Peggy felt that Hamilton should be aware of what they know, just in case he has a dream of his own. She wasn't sure how effective that attempt would be but it had to be worth a shot. If they could determine this much just because they could see him as a ghost, she couldn't think about what he could dream up. The only real question was if it was real and could be trusted.

--

"Maria," Eliza was sitting on the roof next to her. Sometimes they just liked to sit there and look at the sky. It was convenient that Eliza's bedroom window had the roof ledge under it.

"Yeah?"

"Do you," Eliza stopped for a moment before continuing, "do you really think that this cycle of dying and coming back is over?"

Maria didn't answer right away. She knew that they had to have at least one more shot in them but she wasn't sure how to explain any of that to Eliza. Maria was still coming to terms with the fact that they had basically been gifted with possibly knowing the end of the world is coming. There was a lot going on in her head. "I don't think so."

"Neither do I," Eliza rested her head on Maria's shoulder, "I think that's okay though."

"You do?" Maria smiled, she figured that Eliza was happy enough. She knew a little more than most that the cycle they were all stuck in too quite the toll on her. It wasn't a pretty thing to watch, she couldn't imagine going through it.

"I think," Eliza started again, "I think that it's almost over but just not yet, you know?"

Maria nodded, "I do, I think you're right."