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Chapter Text

Phillip Hamiltion had known John all of his life. One of his earliest memories was waking up to the tall, blonde man standing over his crib, looking both happy and mournful. As he had grown up, John had always been by his side. It had taken Philip until the age of five to realize that he was the only one who could actually see John. To him John had always seemed as real as any of the other adults in his life. It was only when two boys yelled at Philip asking him why he was playing alone that he finally realized that he was the only one who could see John.

Philip had just tucked the ball he had been kicking around under his arm and walked away from them, all while he held back tears. When he was far enough away from the other boys that none of them would hear him speaking, in a soft voice, he finally asked John: “Am I the only one who can see you?”

“Well, yes. Some people can see ghosts, and you seem to be the only one who can see me.” John said, his blonde hair blowing lightly in a nonexistent breeze.

“If you’re a ghost, does that mean you’re dead?” Philip’s eyes were wide and he stared at John, the teasing completely forgotten. He had never spoken to a dead person before, and the idea that he could see dead people intrigued his young mind.

“Yes, why yes I am!” John laughed, but it wasn’t a real laugh, not like the kind John had when he and Philip spun in circles until they were dizzy and fell to the grass laughing, no, this laugh sounded sad.

“How did you die?” Philip asked again, taking advantage of that one skill that all small children possess, asking the questions that adults desperately do not want to have to answer.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older. Now how about we kick that ball around?”

The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon playing. John could, afterall, touch objects, so he was a wonderful playmate for a young boy. Even better was the fact that every August 27th, everyone in the world could see John, it was almost like he was a real man! Of course every August 27th, Philip wanted to introduce John to his parents, to show them the man he loved playing with so much. But every August 27th, John refused, instead spending the day hiding out in the attic, however, on one memorable occasion, Philip had managed to convince John to leave the attic.

Philip was nine years old, and had long figured out that the uniform that John wore from eternity, was the same uniform that his father had worn during the revolution. When he mentioned this fact, John couldn’t help but smile at the mention of Philip’s father’s name. Secretly, Philip believed that the two of them must have known each other, but he knew better than to mention this to John, any mention of the war left him quiet and sulky, and Philip hated it. So, as he climbed the narrow stairs to the attic, a grin plastered on his young face, he knew that, above all else, he wanted John to have fun while they accomplished his plan and completely forget about the war.

At the first strike of the clock on August 27th, John retreated into the Hamiltons’ attic, where he was sure to not be seen. Most August 27ths, Philip would sneak up into the attic to play with John, braving the sweltering summer heat to hear fanciful tales. Together they would go through the old trunks in the attic, and sometimes, Philip would forget that John was not his brother. But not this August 27th. Phillip knocked on the attic door three times, his and John’s secret signal.

John opened the door. He had always been able to touch solid objects, but this ability was stronger on the 27th. When Philip slipped into the attic, wearing a grin, he could barely believe that John was not a real man who he had found in his attic. John was sitting in an old chair, and flipping through a book he must have found.

“Hello John!” Phillips said.

“Good Day Philip.” John answered, barely looking up from his book. Whatever he was reading must have been incredibly interesting to keep him from paying attention to Philip.

“So, you remember how today is August 27th?”

“It would be odd if I had forgotten.” Finally John put down the book, and turned his attention to Philip, looking just a bit more sad than usual.

“Well, seeing as that everyone can see you now, I want to take you on a tour of New York!” Philip’s eyes gleamed with the sort of childish determination that was all too powerful and contagious.

“That is quite the offer.” John mused, but his brow soon furrowed. “How do you plan to get me out of this house?”

“Mama and Papa took Angie out for the day, so we are the only ones home.” 

“Then I suppose that we shall embark on this adventure!” John stood up and allowed himself to be led down, out of the attic by his young charge. However, before they left the confines of the Hamilton home, he did insist on wearing one of Philip’s father’s coats. He told Philip that it would be odd if a man walked around the city in the uniform of a war that was long over.

Philip led John to all of his favorite places, all places that John had been before, but had not been fully able to experience. Together, they spent the entire afternoon at the park playing and laughing. It was the happiest Philip had seen John in weeks, and once their game was over, he insisted that they go to a shop where he bought two pieces of candy.

“If you really are dead,” He explained to John as they walked home, Philp’s hand in John’s, “Then you haven’t had candy in ages, so I think you need to have some.”

“Thank you Philip.” John had to blink back tears as he looked at Philip, so happy and young and innocent.

When they reached the Hamilton home, Philip’s parents still had not returned, so there was just enough time for John to return to the attic before their carriage returned. Philip bounded out of the house to hug his mama and papa. Mama wore her bright blue dress and held Angie’s hand, while papa smiled at the two of them and scooped Philip up in a hug. He didn’t notice the grass stains on his son’s knees, nor the man who was sadly gazing at the happy scene from the attic.

For a few more years, August 27th carried on more or less the same way it had when Philip was nice, except that his and John’s activities became more akin to those of a young man instead of a child. Every hot August morning, Philip would wait until his parents had left for the day, then head up to the attic to get John. He would always find John flipping through the same book. Phillip had never managed to look at what the book was, but that did not matter. After he had roused John, John would steal one of papa’s coats and they would spend the day enjoying New York, always ending with penny candy.

However, that all changed the summer Philip was fifteen. Two days before John was to be whole again, his father had gone and published the Renoylds pamphlet, in which he admitted to cheating on Philp’s mother with some woman in Albany, effectively tearing the whole Hamilton family apart. Philip had awoken on August 27th to his parents fighting. Instead of heading up to the attic where John was, he instead headed off to his younger sibling’s rooms, in order to comfort them. John would understand, he thought, he knew that Angie, Alex, James, and little Johnny needed him more than the ghost of a man who had never even bothered to tell him his full name.

He spent all of August 27th playing with James and Johnny in an attempt to distract them from their parent’s argument, as Angie looked on, sadly at the scene. Eventually Philip gave up distracting his younger brothers from their parents' shouts and took them both to the park. It had been years since he had set foot in the park without John, who was his main playmate as a child, however, Philip was able to put up a mask of contentment while he entertained his brothers. Angie joined in, and Philip could not help but let his thoughts drift back to John. 

The blonde man who had effectively raised him had to have had a family, younger siblings he had cared about, a lover, perhaps even a family of his own. But John refused to tell Philip any of it. The man was a stubborn bastard, he had to have been hiding something. The only thing that Philip knew about his past life was that John had served in the continental army with his father. He refused to think about his father though, that man had already ruined his family, Philip would not allow him to also poison that afternoon.

“Hello there!” A voice called out, interrupting Philip’s thoughts. The speaker was a woman about twenty who had blonde hair and deep blue eyes. In fact, she looked vaguely like John.

“Hello!” Philp called back.

“Might I join you?” She asked, when Philip and Angie looked at each other and nodded their assent, she plopped down on the grass next to Angie, the dress she was wearing blooming out like the petals of a flower all around her.

The woman introduced herself as Ms. Frances Laurens, and everytime she joked with Angie or smiled at Philip, he felt butterflies in his stomach. She was beautiful, clever and perfect. But like all days that he wished would last forever, the sun crept closer and closer to the tree line, and eventually Philip had to take his siblings back home, back to the home that he desperately wanted to avoid.

“I had a lovely time with you.” Frances remarked as she brushed off her skirt, “Perhaps we could become better acquainted with each other Mr…”

“Philip Hamilton.” Philip Hmailton said.

Frances was kind enough to not mention the scandal surrounding his father, and they parted ways, Philip’s heart feeling a bit lighter as he carried Johnny home. But when Philip finally returned home, younger siblings in tow, the place still felt as horrible and tainted by their parent’s argument as ever. Supper was left on the table, both Philip’s mother and father evidently having chosen to eat in their separate rooms. Philips made sure that his siblings were eating before grabbing his plate and ascending to the attic. He knocked on the door three times, like he always did with John, and waited for the door to open. It did not budge. So Philip tried again. Still no movement. Eventually he just opened the door himself. 

John was sitting in the same chair as ever, but now he had an old quilt wrapped around his shoulders, and stared blankly down at the book he held on his lap. Philip mentally sighed. He had spent the whole day attempting to keep his siblings away from their arguing parents, and now he would have to comfort a ghost. A ghost who refused to even tell Philip any details of why he was attached to Philip, nor how he even knew the bastard Philip was ashamed to call his father. As Philip neared the ghost, he reached into his pocket for the pieces of candy he had purchased earlier in the day. He slipped into the seat next to John, and the two of them sat in silence, staring out of the attic window and out at the sun setting over New York City.

Chapter Text

“I heard about what your father has done.” John eventually said, breaking the silence, and glancing down at something in his book. He covered it with his hand before Philip could see what it was. In all the August 27ths Philip had seen, he had never managed to steal a glance at John’s book, in fact, he did not even know where the book was kept most of the year, only that it seemed to materialize every single August 27th.

“I suppose it is such a horrible thing that even ghosts must revel at how such a decent man could do something like this to his family.” Philip picked at his dinner, it had long gone cold, and he was nowhere near being hungry.

“Your father has always been far too willing to strike back at those who he believes to be his enemies. Of course the fool thought that this was the best for all of you.” John shook his head, lost in a time unknown to Philip and everyone else in the world. 

“You speak as if you have seen this before.” Shaking his head, Philip pushed aside his plate and wrapped his arms around himself.

“Philip, I knew your father, and what I know about him will shatter your perception of the man.” John said, looking over to his young charge with a sort of melancholy resignation in his blue eyes, “The night is still young, let us walk around the streets of this wonderful city, and I shall tell you everything you have ever asked me about myself. I-I know that you have a terrible burden on your shoulders Pip. And I understand that you do not give a damn about the life I lived, but the things I have seen of your father…well they ought to give you a new perspective on the man.”

“I do care about what you have done. I just never thought that you would ever tell me.” Philip mused.

John gave him a melancholy smile, standing up from his rocking chair and following Philip out into the streets of New York. Poor Pip, he thought as Philip snatched one of his father’s coats from a closet, the child was far too young for the responsibility that Alexander and Eliza had placed on him. John might have been a ghost, however he was no fool. The entire city could hear the shouting match between the daughter of the richest man in Albany and the son of a harlot. Both as feisty and determined to not lose as the other. Their poor children, caught between two great forces of nature. But the little ones were just as tough as their parents, although to call Philip little would be wrong. It had been so long, John knew, it had been so long since Philip was little and since he had possessed a physical form. God John missed having a physical form. He would give anything to be able to live a normal life, not one doomed to being a ghost visible to one child, who was now far closer to being an adult than John would ever admit. Pip looked so much like his father, the same fire in his soul and bright hair. As John stepped out into New York he silently wondered if Philip would turn out the same way as his father, fiery and passionate, and oh so self destructive. Alexander had been a shell of the man John had known during the war for far too long. It sickened him to know that it was due to his death.

“John?” Philip finally said once they were a good few blocks from the Hamilton family home, “What was my father like?”

“Well, I met him in 1777, when I joined the Continental Army…”

John told him everything. From how much Alexander had hated him when they first met, having seen him as competition, to how the two of them had fallen in love in Valley Forge, after a whole winter of being forced together and not knowing whether they would emerge victorious. He spilled every memory of Alexander Hamilton he had to Pip, leaving the more explicit actions they had engaged in out of course, but there was very little he dared not mention. With his heart as heavy as it had been the day Alexander had married Eliza, John recounted the speech he had given, and how hard he had held back tears. The last memory he had of Alexander was the most painful. It had been the night before John was to leave for South Carolina and he had kissed Alexander on the cheek and told him that he loved him and promised that he would return soon. Of course he never did. The ghost of John Laurens told Philip stories of sin and squalor but also tales of glory and the best that men could do.When John finished, he looked at Philip for his reaction, half expecting the boy to admonish him for all that he had done, but instead Philip looked sober.

“My father has been through all of that?” He asked in a weak voice, obviously still processing all that John had told him.

“Yes,” John sighed, “and far more after I passed.”

“Then I have but one question for you,” Philip said with a pause, “Who are you?”

John stayed silent for a moment, trying to figure out how on earth he was to answer the question before he finally spoke: “I am the son of a powerful family, husband of a woman who deserved better, father of a girl who she never got to know, a soldier who cannot follow orders, and a man who ought to have done far better. My name is Colonel John laurens. I was born in South Carolina and died there. I studied law in England before deciding to stab them in the back. I considered General Washitnon to be a better father to me than my own ever was. I fought against everything my own father ever stood for. But now, all I am is a ghost who was long forgotten.”

Philip stared at the ghost standing next to him, finally able to put a last name to the man who had been his constant companion for so long. Laurens. The surname seemed strangely familiar, even though he was sure that he had never heard either of his parents utter it. Speaking of his parents, by god was Philip’s father a troubled man. It seemed like something in Philip’s father had broken when John had died. He could not help but feel horrible that his father was married to his mother when it was clear that his heart belonged to someone else. His poor mother, married to a man who had probably only ever seen her as adequate. Philip’s blood boiled at the thought that his father had never really loved her, instead deciding to wreck his marriage by chasing after a young woman and then deciding that it would be in his best political interests to expose the scandal. What about what was best for the family? His father put work and the politics of the nation above all else. Above the interests of his wife and children and Philip. That was what Philip was furious about. He did not care if the bastard liked to bed men and women equally, only that he would for once decide to stop putting all things above his family.

“Philip?” John gently prodded the young man still walking beside him.

“He has never decided to be a decent man.” Philip muttered, “He always chose everything over us- me, my siblings, my mother.”

“Your father…your father is a complicated and deeply flawed man, but I know he cares for you far more than he may seem to. Before I-well before I died, he spent so much time talking about his new son, his first born. You were his pride and joy, and I earnestly believe that he thought he was protecting all of you when he published the pamphlet.”

“But-” Philip protested.

“The Alexander that I knew is not the same man who you know as your father. Time and loss and grief change people, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. I refuse to judge him based on the man I was close with during the war, for he is no longer that man.” John’s words effectively ended the conversation and Philip was left walking next to him in silence.

Perhaps John was right, people changed. Maybe his father had really once been a good man who cared about his family. But he was no longer one, that Philip was sure of. No good man would jeopardize his family in order to bed a younger woman. No good man would muchless publicize the affair with no warning towards the family that it was bound to affect. As they neared the Hamilton family home, John slipped into an alleyway, where he would remain until he became but a ghost yet again, and Philip continued on, mentally preparing for the fury of his parents over his late night stroll. The night had already settled over New York, but he could clearly make out the outline of a carriage in front of the home. There was no argument occurring on the front steps, but Philip’s heart still dropped when he saw the scene that was unfurling.

His mother, his lovely mother, was kissing Angie, Alex, James, and Johnny goodbye, as her things were being loaded up into the carriage. She was leaving, most likely to get away from his father. She noticed him, of course she did, but instead of scolding him for being out so late, she drew Philip into an embrace, which was perhaps the most comforting thing that he had experienced in a rather long time.

“Good bye my dear Pip.” She whispered, planting a small kiss on his cheek. “I am going to go and stay with Aunt Angelica and her husband in England, while your father figures out this mess. Take care of your younger siblings.”

“I love you Mama.” Philip whimpered, filled with fear at the thought of being responsible for his younger siblings and left alone with their father for god knows how long.

“I love you too my dear.”

And with that, his mother was gone, and Philip was left standing on the stoop with his trembling sister and three sobbing younger brothers. Johnny tugged on his coat and his oldest brother pulled him up. All five children stood together, scared and in fear of what their futures would hold as the carriage with their dearest mother inside drove off through the streets of New York. That night, all of the Hamilton children crawled into Philip’s bed. With his sister curled up at his side, youngest brother in his arms, and the other two boys holding each other, Philip was finally drifting off to sleep as a familiar translucent figure appeared at the foot of his bed. It was August 28th, and JOhn was a ghost once again.

“Worry not Pip,” The ghost said, caring for the children the only emotion in his voice, “I will make sure that you are all alright. Everything shall be alright.”

Chapter Text

All of the children slept in late. Philip still rose first through, and only did so when there was a knock on the door. Since he had fallen asleep in his clothes from yesterday, he considered himself fit to turn away prospective visitors and pulled himself out of bed to go downstairs. John was nowhere to be seen, most likely off doing whatever ghosts did when they were bored. He had not seen a single glimpse of my father all day, but the door to his study was closed and someone could be heard moving around inside, so the question as to his whereabouts was answered. Philip guessed that he at least had to care about whether or not the man who he was his father was alright, but he really could not have cared less.

The house felt empty without the calming presence of his mother, although Philip did understand why she had left to stay with Aunt Angelica. She had accepted his father’s apologies more times than her eldest son could remember, each time making him promise that he would never do whatever offense he had committed that time again, that was of course until it happened the next time and the cycle was repeated. Philip’s mother had been so much, to the point where almost every other woman would have left, of course she had a breaking point. To publicize an affair, much less to have one in the first place, was far more than she could ever be expected to endure, and leaving Philip’s father to deal with the aftermath and their children’s response was quite reasonable in Philip’s eyes. The prior night, as they lay together in bed, Angie had told her older brother that their mother was planning on sending for them once she got settled with Aunt Angelica, and Philip could only pray that what she was saying was true. There was another knock at the door and he opened the heavy slab of oak.

Instead of one of his father’s business partners, or even one of his mother’s friends, standing on the doorstep was Miss Frances Laurens, the very same young woman that had spent time with the Hamilton children the past afternoon.

“Miss-Miss Laurens!” Philip stuttered, “Please come in.”

“Thank you, however I can not stay too long.”

She entered the house, shifting the basket that she was holding from one arm to the other. Philip noted that today she was wearing a rather plain but still lovely dress with green prints of flowers covering the entirety of it. He decided that she must have liked flowers. After asking her if she would like to sit, and her doing so, he took his seat opposite her on the armchair that typically contained his father’s rather slight frame. 

“So, Miss Laurens, what brings you here this fine morning?” He finally decided to ask, fidgeting with one of his shirt cuffs.

“Please, call me Frances, and after I heard about your mother leaving, I wanted to bring you and your poor siblings some pastries.”

“Did someone say pastries?” Almost as soon as that magical word had been uttered, the younger Hamilton children hurried down the staircase, all dressed in fresh clothes, little Johnny in Angie’s arms. They joined Philip and Frances in the parlor, and Philip was rather annoyed that they had barged into his conversation, which up until then had been shaping up to be a rather pleasant one, however he had been schooled in manners enough to know not to show it. Frances doled out the pastries and they all ate them, leaving crumbs on the nice furniture that their father was so proud of.

“I sincerely hope that you children will be alright with your mother gone.” Frances said, looking truly concerned for their wellbeing.

“I think we ought to be fine for the rest of the summer.” Philip replied, he had not bothered to think what they would do when he had to go off to college and Angie would be left in charge of the younger Hamilton sons with only a perpetually closed off father to help her. He felt horrible at the thought of abandoning his sister, but what could he do?”

“Of course you will be, you all seem to be exceptionally clever and resourceful, however, if you need any help, please ask me.” Smiling at Philip, Frances placed a small card that she had scribbled her address on down on the table. As she did so, the faint sound of a door being slammed could be heard deep in the house, and a few moments later, the very man who Philip did not want to see stormed down the stairs.

The patriarch of the Hamilton family smelled heavily of whiskey, he had evidently been drinking his worries away the night before, and was muttering to himself as he headed for the basement, where there was yet more whiskey. Hovering behind him was John, who was desperately trying to keep Philip’s father from getting even more drunk. Even though the intoxicated man could neither see nor hear him, John was still trying to block his path and even resorted to trying to hold the cellar down closed and pinching and kicking at the former secretary of the treasury. It was a desperate attempt to keep Philip and his siblings from being alone in their house with a drunken father, and the only Hamilton who could actually see John was incredibly thankful for the ghost’s actions. Even if they were in vain, it was good to know that at least one adult actually cared about the children, even if he was incapable of really helping them in the way they needed.

While Alex and James fought over the last pastry, Philip turned his attention from the spectatorial fight that was occurring before the cellar door, and back to Frances. She looked as if she had seen something astonishing, yet was at the same time also attempting to keep her calm mannerisms. They two of them locked eyes, and that was when Philip knew, he knew that Frances could see John.

“Philip, may I speak to you in private?” She asked, keeping her voice almost unnaturally even and clutching the basket so tight that her knuckles turned white.

“Yes, of course. May I show you to the dining room?” As soon as Philip had posed the query, Frances shot up and the two of them rushed into the dining room, closing the heavy wood door behind them. Before Philip could properly appreciate the pretty young woman that he was now along with, said pretty young woman let out a string of curses under her breath that made the tips of Philip's ears turn beet red.

“What the hell was that?” Frances demanded, face whiter than it had been five minutes previous.

“I must apologize, my father had a bit of a drinking problem.”

“Not your father.” She dismissed him with a wave of her delicate hand, “The floating white spector that was screaming at him!”

“You can see him?” This was really more of a formality at this point, but Frances still nodded vigorously and when Philip pulled out a chair for her to sit on, she did so, then implored him to continue. Taking a seat opposite from her, Philip did just that.

He began at the beginning of it all, describing to Frances how the ghost, as he had elected to refer to John, had been his constant playmate as a child, and how since as long as he could remember, the ghost had been by his side. Up until that moment, he spoke about how sure he had been that he was the only one that the ghost was visible to, adding on how other people could only see the ghost on August 27th. When Frances pressed him for what happened on August 27th, Philip told her about how the ghost became almost like a normal man, capable of walking around the streets of New York and interacting with other people like he was human. Once he had exhausted nearly everything he knew about “the ghost”, sans any of John’s personal information, Frances posed one last question:

“What is this ghost’s name? He has to have told you at some point.”

“According to the ghost, his name is Colonel John Laurens.”

Frances let out a small gasp, and somehow went even more pale than before. Philip had no idea what thoughts were going through her mind, but she clearly recognized the name. After a moment of silence, her voice was shaky when she finally let out a low whisper.

“That-that ghost was once my father.”

Philip stared at Frances in astonishment. Frances Laurens. Laurens. John had mentioned a daughter, but the little girl that he had recounted second hand stories of to be sitting right in front of him? Well, that was more than enough for Philip to question his sense of reality. However, the more he inspected Frances’s face and compared it to John’s, the more he recognized the similarities in their features. Both had honey colored blonde hair that faintly curled, along with dark blue eyes that seemed capable of viewing your soul, and faint freckles along the bridge of their nose.

“I see.” He finally said, rather gravely when he thought about it.

“It is ironic,” Frances laughed, completely ignoring Philip’s remark, “I came to New York in the first place to see if I could find out anything regarding my father from his old friends, but instead I find out that he is a fucking ghost haunting Alexander Hamilton’s house! A fucking ghosts!”

“Well he ought to be more helpful than my father could ever be.” Philip pointed out with a chuckle.

“True! No better thing to do than to walk up to a ghost and ask if he ever loved me in the first place!” This sent Frances into another fit of laughter, which led Philip to the conclusion that she was in shock and turning to gruesome humor to cope.

When her fit of rather concerning laughter subsided, Frances turned serious again and faced Philip. “Gleaning information about my father was not the only reason I came back to America. I could stay in Europe no longer after discovering this.”

Reaching into the pocket of her dress, Frances pulled out a small slip of paper and gingerly set it on the dining table. It was covered in cramped French and Philip had to squint in order to read it. Roughly translated, the first sentence read as following: Instructions for those who wish to disrupt the natural order and reunite any ghost they desire with his physical form. After this, the paper listed all the components necessary to bring a ghost back to life. In order to do so, one required a lock of the ghost’s hair, a silver bullet, three drops of blood from someone the ghost lived in life, a flask full of brandy, and a piece of parchment that the person who one wished to resurrect wrote on with their own hands.

Looking at Frances, completely stupefied, it took Philip a moment to form hsi words. “You-you mean that we could use this to bring a ghost back to life.”

“If we can find all the necessary components, then it is theoretically possible that we could bring my father back to life.” Frances looked as if she dare not breathe for the idea was so precious, “However, if we wish to do so, we must do it soon. For when someone is brought back, they are the same age that they would be if they had never died. Bringing a man back from the fifteenth century would lead to his immediate death, and I would rather enjoy meeting my father.”

“Then let us do so immediately!” Philip’s eyes gleamed with the sort of passionate madness that he shared with his father and he and Frances grinned at each other, knowing that they were to do something that no man had ever done before.

To bring a ghost back from the dead was best done before the moon reached its first quarter, and the last night to do so for a whole month would be that very night. Thus, Philip and Frances pulled Angie aside and explained everything to her. Surprisingly to Philip, his younger sister believed in ghosts, and was eager to help bring John back, especially after she heard about how he was Frances’s father. Philip had conveniently avoided mentioning to either of the women that their fathers had carried on a romantic affair for several years, and he considered that information something to deal with at a later point, preferably when John could explain it.

Since they had only a single day to obtain the necessary components, Frances divided up the work. She already possessed a lock of her father’s hair, and seeing as that she was the only adult, she would obtain the brandy. Angie would craft the silver bullet, melting down some old silver spoons and forming several bullets in an old bullet mold just in case something went awry. That left Philip to obtain a sample of John’s handwriting. The three of them had elected to not inform John of their efforts to bring him back to a human form, because, should they be unable to obtain all the components required for doing such, they did not want to disappoint the man, who, at least according to the version of his life he had given Philip, had already been let down so many times before.

As Frances left to purchase brandy, and Angie took Alex, James and Johnny to the kitchen to watch her make bullets, Philip was left with the task of finding a piece of John’s writing. He had an inkling that his father would have a letter from John stashed away somewhere, based on their relationship it seemed highly unlikely that his father would ever discard any of John’s letters. This meant that Philip would be forced to enter the one room in their home that he dreaded entering the most: his father’s study. It was a place that was solely populated by a man who had thoroughly let down Philip in nearly every area of his life, being an absent father at best, and ruining the family reputation at worst. He was constantly absorbed in work and the study was nothing more than a reminder of what he actually valued, not his wife and Philip and his siblings, but work.

Luckily for Philip, his father had managed to get through John’s defences and had acquired another bottle of whiskey from the cellar, retireign to what had formerly been his and Philip’s mother’s bedroom in order to consume it. That was no doubt where he was now, black out drunk and unable to form coherent thoughts. If there was any time for Philip to trespass into the study, it was now. Philip had lived in this house for the majority of his life, but he could count on one hand the number of times that he remembered entering his father’s study. But still, there he stood, in front of the dark wood door that his father used to block out the rest of his family. This was a boundary that was almost never crossed, yet Philip decided to. He placed his hand on the door knob, and opened the door. 

Inside the study was almost exactly the way he had expected it to be. Discarded papers covered nearly every inch of the room, and thick volumes on every topic from law to philosophy were strewn across the floor. Several empty bottles of spirits leaned against the leg of the couch, and all of the candles in the room were long burned down. Closing the door behind him, Philip made his way over to the desk, making sure not to trip on anything that obstructed his path. Much like every other surface in the room, the desk was overflowing with writings, but it seemed to Philip at least, like the place where his father would store letters from a past lover. It was where he had penned that deplorable pamphlet after all. Removing all of the miscellaneous papers took a good five minutes, and when he could finally see the wooden desk, Philip felt as though he was closer to finding the letters than he ever had been before. However, this proved false after he checked every single drawer, nook, and cranny in the desk and found absolutely nothing from one John Laurens.

In despite, Philip plopped down on the desk chair and put his head in his hands. He had failed, he had failed John and Frances. Without a scrap of John’s writing, they would be unable to bring him back. His father had to have saved a letter, but it would be impossible to find in the mess of a study before midnight. Then they would have to wait a whole nother month in order to try again, and who knows what could happen in that time! Defeated, Philip left his father’s study and made to return to the kitchen so that he could tell Angie that he had failed. But as he made his way through the hallway, he heard faint sobbing coming from his father’s bedroom. Intrigued, he decided that putting off speaking to Angie for another few moments would not hurt anyone.

The door to his father’s bedroom was open a crack, and just allowed Philip to view the rather pitiable scene playing out inside. Laying on the bed was Philip’s father. The now empty bottle of whiskey lay by his side, and he was clutching a pillow close to his chest as tears streamed down his face. On the bed next to him were several objects that Philip did not recognize. As he attempted to strain his eyes in order to better view them, his father’s head shot up. The man might have been unbelievably drunk and old, but he still had the instincts of a soldier. The elder Hamilton laid eyes on his son, and his expression changed slightly.

“Pip?” He asked, his voice shaky. Philip was taken off guard. His father had not called him his childhood nickname for years now.

“Yes?” Philip said, slipping into the bedroom, hoping to figure out what the things on the bed were. Perhaps one would be important enough to help him.

His father motioned for him to come closer and Philip finally sat on the edge of his parent’s bed. Face to face with his father for the first time in a long time, he could not help but attempt to picture what his father would have looked like when John knew him, when they were both young soldiers fighting for liberty and freedom, those great glorious ideals. Greying hair would have been bright and fiery, curling almost as much as Philip’s did, now stooped shoulders would have been straight and proud, dull blue eyes would have been bright and inspiring. In other words, his father would have looked as Philip now did. But now, the once great Alexander Hamilton just looked weary…and drunk, he was very drunk.

Eyes still glazed over from the effects of the whiskey, Alexander painstakingly removed one arm from where it was pinned between his body and the pillow and shakily brought it up to cup his son’s face. Philip. His first son, his boy. The son whose reputation he had ruined by his own actions, ruining the boy’s life before it had even truely started. The son who was the only thing that had kept him alive in those miserable days and weeks that followed his dear Jack’s death. The son who would come of age with the nation he had helped shape. The son who he had sworn he would make the world safe for. The son who he had failed. Tears ran down his face, but he did not notice them. All he noticed was his son, his poor son. This was all his fault. He had acted far too rashly and brought shame to his family, his family who had never been anything but supportive through his various political endeavors, who had already been forced to go through so much. 

He simply had to have broken to the affections of Ms. Reynolds in Albany, had to have paid off her husband, had to have let Burr and Jefferson know. This was supposed to be defending his legacy, not ruining that of his children and his children’s children. They could end up in the same position as he had been before the war, poor and futureless in some backwater place, nearly dying of yellow fever, to be forgotten by the history books. He had been in that position, and he had written his way out of it. He had written his way out of hell, written his way to revolution, written his way to victory, written his way into Eliza’s heart, written to defend the constitution and to get it accepted. And now? Now he had written his and his family into ruin. 

So many had not lived to see the glory of the revolution through, and he had taken the fact that he had lived so long for granted, making horrible mistakes. He had thought that he was indestructible, he was not. Perhaps once he had been, but now he was just a man. A powerless man who had managed to ruin not just his life, but the lives of his children. Alexander needed to tell this to his son, but how could he? Philip knew nothing of the ambitious, foolish, young man he had been before the war, and the only way to do so would be to reveal secrets that would somehow manage to ruin his reputation more than he already had. All he could do was to pull Philip into an embrace and to whisper to him:

“Pip, I am so, so sorry. I love you.” His voice shook and as he pushed the letter into Philip’s hand, he knew that he was sobbing.

Chapter Text

To say that Philip was unsure how to react to his father’s sudden outpouring of affection would be a severe understatement of the situation. In the last five minutes he had been ushered into the room, his father had cupped his cheek with his hand, cried while looking at him, pulled Philip into an embrace which was more physical contact than the two of them had shared in the last three years combined, and then had a scrap of paper shoved into his hand. This was not normal. As Philip walked down the hall to inform Frances and Angie of his failure to find a sample of John’s writing, he finally thought to look down at the scrap of paper his father had drunkenly given him. The ink was faded and the paper soft from repeated reading, but the text was as clear as day to Philip. It read as follows:

“Adieu, my dear boy. I shall set out for camp tomorrow. - John Laurens.”

Philip stopped in his tracks and stared down at the paper. This was it. This was the last necessary component to bring John back from the dead. He had found it. They could bring John back from the dead. Before he realized it, he was sprinting through the house and burst into the kitchen, where his younger brothers were inspecting the silver bullets while Frances and Angie spoke to each other.

“I found it!” He proclaimed, holding the scrap of paper aloft.

He had eye contact with Frances and Angie and a maniacal smile spread across the faces of all three conspirators. They now possessed all the required components to achieve what no man before them had appeared to have done, bring a ghost back to life. Outside the sky was fading into darkness, they had to prepare. A quick inspection of the instructions that Frances for some reason possessed showed the exact specifications of what they would need to do.

In order to bring a ghost back to life, they would need to light aflame all the components that they had gathered, the brandy, the silver bullet, the lock of hair, the three drops of blood for someone that John loved in life, and the scrap of writing. Due to the fact that they only had one sample of John’s writing and lock of hair among other things, the three of them only had one shot to get this right. James and Alex gathered the wood to start the fire while Angie and Frances studied the directions for the ritual. Thus, Philip was left to complete an integral part of the process: actually informing John of what they were doing. However, in order to do that, he first had to actually locate the ghost, a task which proved to be more difficult than Philip had thought.

He checked all of John’s typical hiding places, the attic first and foremost, the cellar, even the roof, Philip’s own bedroom, even inside the chimney, but there was no trace of him. Philip was about to go and find Frances in order to acquire her help in his search, however, before he did so, he finally caught a glimpse of John. The ghost was in his father’s bedroom, sitting on his father’s bed right by the elder Hamilton's side, tenderly caressing his cheek as Alexander sobbed even though the former secretary of the treasury was unable to even tell that he was being comforted. John and Philip locked eyes and the younger of the two gestured for the ghost to join him. Silently gliding behind Philip, John followed him into the childhood bedroom that the two of them were thoroughly familiar with.

“He was always like that when we were in the army.” John sighed, seeming far older than his physical appearance suggested, “Far more pitiful of a man when drunk than one would expect. However, I was afraid that even that may have changed.”

“Thank you. Thank you for everything.” Philip said, his voice the only thing betraying just how young he truly was.

“Of course Pip.” John’s face softened, but there was a profound weariness behind his eyes. “I love you, I would do it a hundred times over.”

“What if I could repay you?” He questioned, fidgeting nervously with an old wooden soldier he used to play with as a child.

A look of perplexity clouded over the ghost’s face and he asked: “What do you mean Pip? Repay?”

“What if I told you that there was a way to make you a man again?” Philip blurted out. He set the toy soldier down on the desk. “You would no longer need to be a ghost, and you could live as a man for the rest of your life.”

There was nothing but silence from John for a moment, before he finally spoke. “Philip, do not tease me with such grand hypotheticals. I am dead. For the rest of my existance I will be condemned to be a ghost, this is reality and I have accepted it. Of course I would like to be alive again, to fight for my beliefs as I did during the war, to shape the course our nation will take, to love those who I wish to.”

“I am not joking, John. This is real. Frances found-”

“Frances?” John interrupted.

“Your daughter. She came back to America in order to find out information about you. As I was saying, she found a ritual that allows one to bring a ghost back from the dead. It would be as if you never died. You would even be the same age that you would be if you had never died.”

John’s mouth hung agape in astonishment, and he looked to Philip with pleading eyes. In order to confirm the fact that everything he was saying was the truth, the younger of the two pulled John into something akin to a hug. Of course his arms went straight through John, but he could still feel the ghost’s hands tugging on the back of his shirt. With tears in his eyes and the widest grin Philip had ever seen, echoing the reckless soldier he had been during the war, John said: “Well we ought to at least try. I need to meet my daughter.”

Within ten minutes, Philip, Frances, Johnny, Angie, James, Alex, and John all stood in the Hamilton’s backyard before a large pile of firewood. With determination on her face, Frances gave a nod to Philip who tossed a lit candle into the wood. It was formed into a raging inferno in a matter of minutes. As directed by the resurrection inferno, John glided into the middle of the fire. Alex and James tightened their grips of the buckets of water that they had just in case the fire got out of hand. With one final look shared between Philip, Angie, and Frances, they began the ritual that was to change the course of all their lives.

Frances started reciting the ritual, and as she named each required component, Philip and Angie took turns tossing it into the inferno. When Frances added the final piece, three drops of her own blood, the fire plumed up, covering John’s entire lanky frame. As all five Hamiltons and Frances held their breaths to see what was to happen next, the back door of the Hamilton’s house burst open.

“Why the fuck is the back yard on fire?” Alexander Hamilton demanded, eyeing the now concerningly large fire with significant fear.

“We are bringing the ghost of John Laurens back to life!” Philip shouted back

“That does not answer my qu- wait you are doing what ?”

Just as the elder Hamilton finished his statement, thunder clouds gathered around Hamilton’s backyard and the raging inferno was struck by a bolt of lightning, with a crack of thunder nearly as loud as the shot of a gun, the fire suddenly extinguished it. All seven people in the yard stared at the ashes of the fire, where a blonde man was now standing, nearly as astonished as the rest of them. It was John Laurens, no longer a ghost, but a real man once again. 

Philip was the first one to reach him, embracing John as tightly as possible. John held the teenager to him as closely as he had always wanted to, finally able to hold the boy like he had needed to. The boy who he had watched grow from a young child into a young man had really managed it. For the first time in so many years, John was no longer a ghost. Much like his father, one of Philip’s great advantages was not his height, and he was able to pick the boy up off the ground. This was real, this was really all real. Tears ran down his face, blurring his vision, but he still recognized her in a heartbeat.

Gently releasing Philip from the embrace, John for the second time ever set eyes on his daughter. They looked so much alike. Frances was a young lady now, dressed in a dress that had to have been expensive which had the sleeves rolled up and front hastily covered with a now dirty apron. Her blonde curls were falling out of whatever elaborate updo she had put them in that morning, but her blue eyes were still striking as ever through the disarray. John hesitated for a moment before Frances fell into his arms, embracing him nearly as tightly as Philip had.

“Papa.” She whispered.

“I am never going to leave you again, I promise.” He cooed, pressing a light kiss to the top of her head, silently swearing that he would do everything he could for his angel.

When the two of them broke apart, that was when he locked eyes with him. Alexander, standing on the back step of the Hamilton house, still obviously drunk and just staring at John in astonishment. He was far older than the spirited and ambitious soldier that John had remembered, his fiery hair had dulled, and his freckles were barely noticeable anymore, but beneath it all, was still Alexander. John slowly stepped out of the pile of ash, keeping his eyes on Alexander, as if the man would disappear the second he looked away. Only when he was but a yard away, did Alexander finally speak.

“Jack?” He whispered, the words a prayer on his lips.

“My dear boy.” John smiled tenderly as he cupped Alexander’s cheek with his now solid hand and caressed the man’s faint freckles with his thumb.

It was Alexander who finally had the courage to bring their lips together, and John kissed his dear boy as fervently as he could. He needed to make up for all those lost years. While they kissed, the shorter man clung to him, sobbing and clutching John’s uniform coat as tightly as he could, determined to not let go. So many years apart had left the two desperate to never be separated again. At that moment, John finally realized why he had wanted to be alive again for so long: so that he could truly live. No longer would he be stuck under the controlling thumb of his father, or even have to adhere to the structure of the army, he was free. Free to love Alexander and to act as the father she deserved to Frances, to love Philip and the other Hamilton children. He was alive now, and by god would he live.