Hamilton One-Shots

"It's Quiet Uptown (Reprise)"- Hamliza

IDEA: Alright so my friends and I have a Broadway Trash group chat where one of them sent me a post off Tumblr by buckybarneshairpullingkink. The post was basically an idea where Eliza sings It's Quiet Uptown about Alexander's death. So, I turned the lyrics they came up with into a letter (?) from Eliza to Alex after his death.

July 19, 1804

It has been a week since your death, Alexander. Every morning I wake up and fight back my sorrow, but it always returns as if it is some sort of pet that cannot bare to leave my side for more than a few moments. I often sit in your study and wearily read over your countless writings, longing to find some form of comfort or relief in your pages. Each time I do this, though, I am met with the same quiet that is only comparable to the silence felt after the death of Philip.

Angelica is one of my few remaining shadows of hope in this life. She accompanies me when I bring the children to the church on Sundays. Each time we pass the cross at the door, I pray. I pray for many things, but mostly for my own well-being. Somehow, your death has hit me with a force so much more intense than any other pain I have experienced. It is relentless, leaving me with new wounds and scars as the days pass. I don't know how much longer I can endure the torture.

Even the city streets that I have come to love bring me pain. You liked it uptown, the quiet brought you peace and tranquility after the loss of our son. And so I write this perplexed: why is this quiet bringing me nothing but melancholy? I cannot even take solace in the nights I spend scrutinizing your words in your study.

I used to spend the days rejoicing, "Look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now!" But if you are not in my life, Alexander, am I really all that lucky?

If only you were here right now, I know exactly what I would say. I don't know why I deserve you, but it would be enough for you just to hear me out. Alexander, I wish that you could recognize where you started and see how far you've come since then. You somehow managed to fight all odds and achieve your wildest dreams. Somehow, a poor orphan from the Caribbean managed to create a financial system for an entire nation purely on his own knowledge; it is incredible what your mind could do.

However, there were so many other things that mind had yet to do. The eternal slumber in which you now lie has deprived the world of experiencing your brilliance any further. Just thinking about the potential you contained now vanishing makes me wish that I could spare your life. If only I could trade your life for mine! You would be standing here right now, your dreams alive and the world eager to receive them with open arms.

I don't pretend to know the challenges you were facing. Of course anyone with your mind was to be met with struggles and opposition. Who can forget the day you wrote that cursed pamphlet and set our world ablaze? However, it is too much to allow your legacy to go to waste. And so, I have decided to keep it alive and well with the hope that it will be enough.

The words that I find scribbled on pages in your office are all that the world has left of you. Often I will look out into this city that you aided in creating and wonder, why did you write like you were running out of time? In my quest to perpetuate your legacy, Angelica and I found one of your letters. This one is addressed specifically to me, though I do not recall ever reading it. The letter reads:

This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you, unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career; to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality. I need not tell you of all the pangs I feel, from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu, best of wives and best of women.

Ever yours,

Alexander

Thank you for this, my love. Despite this anguish that you predict I feel, I now know that I must carry on. And although my grief shall soon dull, I shall never allow a single person to forget the name "Alexander Hamilton".

Yours forever,

Eliza

Word Count: 755