Time, as a concept, lost a lot, if not all, of its meaning. As he drifted in and out, time did pass, not that he himself seemed to age at all. It was only the world that seemed to change and grow old around him. The world that had no place for a battered old soldier who never made it out of the war - and yet there was nowhere else he could go. Those around him grew up and grew old; creases appeared around once youthful eyes, threads of silver lined the dark hair now worn loose over the shoulders rather than being hastily tied back before a battle. But there were no battles now, at least not the kind he was accustomed to. The old uniforms were stashed in the back of closets, folded neatly into drawers, boots polished and lined by the door, guns mounted with pride above the fireplace. He supposed his own musket had been buried with him, or else it was abandoned on that battleground. Maybe it had just fallen like he'd just fallen and it had been left there after he'd been dragged away. It was no matter. The war was won. The war had already been won when he'd fallen - long before that.
He couldn't see himself, caught no glimpse of a reflection in a looking glass. If he stretched out his arms, he could make out the sleeves of his army uniform, the once bright blue dulled and the brass buttons tarnished. If he looked the right way, craned his neck at an awkward angle, he could just about discern the dark stain that spread across his side, no matter how much he tried to scrub it away or cover it somehow. He knew, without knowing how he knew, that he had no more blood to give, but the stain wouldn't go away. He still had a voice, though nobody else could hear it. So many times - was it many? - he yelled himself hoarse, shouting the most inane things at the top of his lungs, willing someone, anyone, to hear him. They never did. He stood in rooms where people walked through him. He stared straight into the eyes of those he'd loved most and they stared blankly back, like he wasn't there at all. Because he wasn't. Not really. Nobody could see him until one day, quite suddenly, somebody could.
He wasn't sure of the semantics of the situation, what or who governed what he could or couldn't do, where he could or couldn't go. It was something he had no choice but to accept even without understanding. At first he'd looked around hopefully for some sign of his mother or his little brother, once he'd established that he was, in fact, no longer alive. He hadn't found them. He'd caught a brief, passing glimpse of the rest of the family, huddled together, mourning at his funeral. He'd tried to touch them, to dry his sister's tears, to tell them that, yes, he was gone, but he was still here too. They hadn't heard him, and his father looked quite as broken down as when James had died, and that had startled him. Then he was gone, and he couldn't go back, no matter how hard he tried.
He thought about little Frances back in England or wherever she was, now that Martha was gone too and wondered, regretfully, how she would manage without the money he used to send every month. Had anyone even told her and would she even care? He was nothing to Frances, really, her father in name and nothing more. If ever she heard his story, she would have no reason or fond inclination to tell it. So he couldn't go back to South Carolina to his family, or England to his child. He couldn't follow the Marquis to France, or see his other soldier associates. He couldn't return to the battlefield where, by all accounts, he should have met his Maker. Couldn't meet said Maker either. Couldn't go to the supposed pearly gates where, as a heartbroken child, he'd been told his mother had gone. Couldn't descend to the fiery pits of the underworld where, he'd always had the fear, he might end up for all his transgressions.
Unless Hell wasn't the fire and brimstone he'd been taught about. Hell might have been being stuck here, watching forever but never being seen, shouting but never being heard, staying the same even as all his old friends and contemporaries moved on with their lives. Was this some kind of penance for all he'd done, all he hadn't done, all he'd thought about? To wander the halls of a house he'd never frequented in his lifetime, to bear witness to the kind of life he'd never had, but might have had should things have turned out differently. After all, how many times had he lain awake, his heart hammering wildly, looked all around and wished to stay in that moment forever? There were merciless, cruel, unforgiving winter nights, the war raging all around them, bullets flying over their heads - and he had the absolute time of his life. He'd longed to be able to stay in that moment for all of his days with his Alexander by his side, when everything was uncertain but made all the sense imaginable. When the world turned upside down, but finally seemed the right way up.
Well, he had his wish. He could stand at the back of Alexander's chair with the other man hunched over his desk, writing furiously. It was a familiar position to adopt, but now he could offer no suggestion, couldn't take over when Alexander's hand grew too cramped, couldn't take the pen and insist that enough was enough. He tried to do all these things, but his hands had no purchase and passed straight through everything like the insubstantial, non existent thing he was. Instead he stood in the small study, reading over Eliza Hamilton's shoulder as she read aloud the announcement of his own death. He watched, from behind, as Alexander's shoulders immediately stiffened, his grip on the pen so tight it nearly snapped in half. He watched the concern on Eliza's face, heard the genuine sadness in her voice even though they'd only met a handful of times. He longed to have his voice heard, to make his presence known, to let them know that he was here, but he wasn't really there. Not to them.
Until the little child in Eliza's arms, peeking over his mother's shoulder, looked him right in the eye.
He had a more solid way to measure the passing time now as the little baby grew into a little boy, but remained the only one ever to acknowledge him. It started off small, so small in fact that he couldn't be quite sure if that first time was just a fluke, or a trick of the light. The boy's bright eyes followed him round the room, small hands outstretched towards him, head cocked to the side as though trying to work the whole thing out. Children had a peculiar intuition, he remembered from his own siblings, and this little one seemed to understand something of the situation. He seemed to know that he was the only one able to see this strange, flickering person who was sometimes there and sometimes not. Neither of them knew where he went when he wasn't there, but that was no matter. When he was there, the little boy's face lit up and he smiled, but then he was always smiling and laughing anyway.
He sat on the edge of his bed one day, little legs swinging, and finally spoke to him for the first time. He couldn't be any older than four, a little person all of his own, asking his parents a hundred questions a day. Never about him though. That matter he took into his own two small hands.
"What's your name?"
"John."
He answered right away. It had been so long since he'd had to introduce himself to anyone, since anyone had spoken directly to him and he'd been able to respond.
"Oh. My name's Pip!"
The other children couldn't see him. He tried time and time again - and again, because Alexander and Eliza did seem determined to populate this new nation all by themselves - but to no avail. John wasn't sure if Philip was annoyed at this revelation, or secretly pleased that he got to keep something all to himself. He rather suspected it was the latter.
