The States

we were built to fall apart

I love my sister more than anything in this life; I will choose her happiness over mine every time
-The Reynolds Pamphlet, Hamilton

c. 1861 (present)
The pain jerks him out of his sleep and he screams as every nerve and cell aches.

When it finally dulls out enough for Wes to think, Alfred is there, an arm wrapped gingerly around Wes's shoulders.

Lizzy isn't there at all.

Her absence hits him like a bucket of cold water.

Wes reaches for her, for the bond that tied them together as one Virginia, a miniature of the union-bond, and feels nothing but tatters.

For the first time in his life, Wes reaches for his sister and finds nothing.

Tears spill down his face, and Alfred holds him and he doesn't get it, not really, not this. This is having part of your soul amputated.

Wes swallows harshly. "She's gone, isn't she."

It isn't a question.

c. 1861 (present)
Wes spends the first month curled up in bed with his and Liz's soft-knit baby blankets, the first thing anybody had ever given them. Sometimes Sera will come sit with him and tell him about all the things that are happening, about the new territories and the war efforts.

Most of the time, he's left to himself and the memories that force their way to the surface when he sleeps.

c. 1607 (past)
The other Virginia is already there by the time by the time he is formed enough to be aware.

Her skin is lighter than his, and her hair falls down her back in curls like golden wheat where his is darker.

She reaches out to tangle her fingers with his.
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The world is just them, stretched across the continent like cats in sunlight.

If he reaches, he can feel Roanoke and the sadness imprinted into the earth, can feel mountains and rivers and sometimes even something that seems tropical, if he tries hard enough.

His sister is tied more closely to the seashores and the tidal plains, but she admits that she can feel the mountains too.

They meet a man one day, and his sister frowns in confusion when a foreign language spills from his mouth smoothly.

The man's name is Powhatan, they both know.

Virginia greets him back in the same tongue with the same fluidity.

His sister stumbles over her words with a tongue made for English.

c. 1739 (past)
They are not identical.

Elizabeth has a constellation of freckles dotting over her cheeks, with a few scattered over the rest of her, and skin that is the perfect in-between of fair and tan. Her hair is the exact color of golden wheat, and falls in soft waves. Her eyes are a brilliant blue-green (but more green than blue).

Wesley is covered in freckles from head to toe. His skin is a tan color that can be passed off as too much sun, but more than one human has narrowed their eyes and wondered about his parentage. His hair is the color of the cream toffees Alfred had once bought and an untamable mess to boot. His eyes are bluer than Liz's, but they also have a tendency to turn a color that's like a stormcloud.