Corset in Congress (A Hamilton Genderbend)

Chapter Eight: Right Hand Man

Burr's POV

The news just came in, and it's not pretty. British Admiral Howe's got troops on the water. Thirty-two thousand troops in New York harbor. I know it won't take much for them to surround our troops, since there are so little of them . I shudder. When they surround our troops-- 

I'm in the camp, a part of the war effort, although right now I'm not really doing much. I'm waiting for an opportunity to show itself. They always do, if you're patient enough. Soldiers scurry about, and every so often I catch a glimpse of a familiar face.

Like now. Alexandra stands up and starts a speech. "As a kid in the Caribbean I wished for a war. I knew that I was poor. I knew it was the only way to--"

She gives a cue and the whole company comes in with the now familiar phrase, "Rise up!"

"If they tell my story," she barrels on, "I am either gonna die on the battlefield in glory or--"

"Rise up!" She smiles, hearing the amount of voices lifted in unity, with a single purpose.

"We will fight for this land, but there's only one man who can give us a command so we can?" She lets the end of her sentence trail off, leaving a question for the soldiers to answer.

And answer they do. "Rise up!"

Bringing it home, she shouts, "Understand? It's the only way to?"

"Rise up! Rise up!"

Now it's my turn. I see an important, if not larger-than-life, figure approach, and seize the moment. Alexandra yells out, "Here he comes!"

"Here comes the general!" Shout the soldiers, standing at attention.

I swoop in. "Ladies and gentlemen!" I bow to men and women alike, before continuing, the soldiers chanting when I pause.

"Here comes the general!"

"The moment you've been waiting for!" 

Here comes the general

Me again: "The pride of Mount Vernon!"

"Here comes the general!"

"George Washington!" Cheers and salutes greet me as the General steps up onto the platform where I had previously been standing. He looks tired, I notice.

"We are outgunned!" He shouts, wasting no time on pleasantries. Expecting a motivational, uplifting speech, the troops let out a few confused murmurs, before being cut off by the man as he continues.

"Outmanned! Outnumbered! Outplanned!

"We gotta make an all out stand! And I'm gonna need a right-hand man!"

Then he turns to me, and whispers into my ear, "Can I be real a second? For just a millisecond?Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second?"

Well, now what am I going to say to that? I can't seem to find words, so I nod dumbly, and General Washington returns to addressing the army as a whole. "Now I'm the model of a modern major general, the venerated Virginian veteran whose men are all lining up, to put me up on a pedestal. Writin' letters to relatives, embellishin' my elegance and eloquence. But the elephant is in the room. The truth is in ya face when ya hear the British cannons go--"

"Boom!"As he says it, something blasts a hole through our barricades, and Washington leads men to the battle. Others remain behind, lurking behind bushes and peeking out from behind fortifications.