#the sweetest thing you ever did was call me betsy. you don’t know how much that melted my heart

[defaultcake]

missing you rn

[scullydubois]

Only the Light: Ch. 9

9/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, occasional fluff | currently: s2, ep 12, Aubrey | T (for now?) | 4.3k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic

Back in DC, Missy helps Scully get to the bottom of what's plaguing her. As Scully's journey gets a bit clearer, Missy drops a bombshell about her own life.

---------------------------

Scully’s stomach clenches as the plane touches down on the runway, jostling she and the rest of the passengers around like pawns in its game. Only forty-eight hours ago, she and Mulder had lifted off toward another mystery, another puzzle daring them to solve it. Now she is back, knowing scarcely more than she did then, with a mystery of her own to solve. She is forever chasing ghosts, and trying not to become one. 

As the winged giant rolls into its gate, Scully glances out the window. Thick clouds blanket the sky, an unending greyness rolling out over the city as far as the eye can see. So much for there’s no place like home. She’s been realizing lately that home is a feeling, not a location. Sometimes she feels like she needs a map to navigate her own apartment, or like everyone in DC knows some language she never learned. Well, almost everyone. There are a couple people who speak the same language as her.

And she’s about to see one of them now. The crowd of passengers--mostly suits who had sleepless nights-- stand up in their rows, ready to file out into the bureaucratic machine. The man on the outside of Scully’s row opens the overhead compartment and pulls down his bag and the carry-ons of Scully and the woman next to her. Scully thanks him demurely. She can’t remember the last time someone other than Mulder did that for her.

As they fall into line and shuffle off the plane, Scully wonders what her life will look like next time she boards a plane. With any luck, this will all be a fluke and she’ll be heading back to Aubrey tomorrow. Then again, even if it isn’t a fluke, she’ll still probably join Mulder back in Aubrey. She knows herself.

What would she say to him, then? Having to admit she lied about her reason for leaving, coming back with the type of news that turns worlds upside down...it doesn’t seem fair to him. It hasn’t been fair to her either, but that’s out of her hands.

She had knocked on Mulder’s door before the sun was even up. She hadn’t expected him to be awake, and so was particularly surprised when he came to the door with a towel around his waist. Evidently, he hadn’t expected her either (though who else is coming to his motel door at 6am?) because the longer she stood there in front of his barely dressed body, the more his color drained away. 

Needing a lie lame enough to be true, Scully told him that Melissa had sprained her ankle and would need some help getting around for a couple days.That she asked Scully to come home rather than go stay with their mother, because who better to be nursed by than a doctor? Mulder had nodded, told Scully to go, assured her he could handle BJ and the case. Scully is sure that Mulder knows what she told him is a lie. But he didn’t object, and that’s the permission she needed to feel settled with him and herself. 

She follows everyone off the plane, through the tunnel, and into the terminal. Moments like this remind her of her obsolescence in the universe, and she is somehow comforted by that. She is no chosen one, no messiah nor martyr, no mother of a holy child. She would like to stay that way.

She surveys the crowd waiting to pick up their beloved passengers. All of her fellow fliers, mere faces in her vicinity for an hour or two, are someone to somebody else. She is, too. They are all emerging from obscurity into a realm where they are known, for better or for worse. 

At the edge of the crowd, Scully catches her sister’s unmistakable smile and glowing red locks. She saw her sister only two mornings before, but Missy reacts as if they’ve been separated a lifetime. She engulfs Scully in a hug that just about sends the butterflies in her stomach into hibernation. 

“How are you feeling?” Missy asks, pulling away to scan her sister’s face for the honest answer she won’t give. 

Aware of this, Scully turns the corners of her mouth up. “I’m okay, really. My migraine went away at about four in the morning.”

“So you barely slept,” Missy interjects. 

Scully frowns. “Well, I laid in bed from roughly eight to six. There was sleeping involved at some point, I think.”

“How about on the plane? Did you sleep there?”

“No, you know I can never sleep with strangers around.”

“Oh, right. Did they teach you that at the Academy or something?”

“The things I saw at the Academy taught me that.”

“Oh.” Missy regrets bringing it up. As they head toward the luggage area, she holds out her hand, lets her sister place the handle of her carry-on in it. A silent apology, an acknowledged acceptance.

“So what did you end up telling Mulder?”

Scully is endeared that she has successfully chipped away at her sister’s tendency to call him by his first name.

“Oh god, you’re gonna think it’s so stupid.”

Missy laughs. “What did you say?”

Scully’s voice is rife with amusement. “I told him that you sprained your ankle and needed a doctor around to take care of you.”

Melissa bursts into laughter. “Good girl.” Scully would kick a man in the groin if he ever said that to her, but coming from her sister, it’s high praise.

----------------

They ignore the elephant in the room until they make it to Missy’s car. The plastic of a CVS bag rustles at Scully’s feet as she settles into the passenger seat. 

“Three pregnancy tests,” Melissa explains. “I stopped on the way.”

“You didn’t have to--”

“But I did.” That had been their father’s comeback whenever someone tried to, as he called it, ‘pity the helper.’ They both smile just a bit, their memory of him alive and well. 

“Can I pay you back?”

“No!” Missy insists. “I’m living with you rent free.”

Scully decides this is a good enough reason to let it go. She crosses her legs, watches her sister pull out of the space. She lets a question float around her head until they make it out of the labyrinth of airport side roads.

“Do you think I would be a good mother?”

Missy flicks her gaze toward her sister. Dana is peculiar in her way. Instead of fishing for sympathy like most people when they ask questions of this nature, she expects punishment. She’s practically asking to have a nail hammered into her cross. 

“You’d be a wonderful mother, Dana,” Missy soothes. “You’ve never had a bad intention in your life.”

“Haven’t I?...I killed a snake with Bill and Charlie once.”

“And you cried afterward. I remember seeing the tear stains on your face when you got home. Not to mention that you were what, five or six?”

“Well, what about Daniel? Surely my judgement was wrong there.”

Melissa sighs. “Okay, I’ll rephrase it. Any bad intention you’ve ever had was paid for with regret, and that’s not true about most people.” She frowns. “It’s always the purest souls who are the hardest on themselves.”

Scully stares through the windshield. She will expend no brainpower on her sister’s implication. She doesn’t believe it to be true. 

After a moment--“Do you remember those Raggedy Ann dolls we had, Betsy and Betty?”

Melissa smiles, nods. “Of course. Betsy was yours, and Betty was mine. We had those little wooden bassinets for them.”

“Right.”

Missy lets the memories flow back to her. “We used to sing lullabies and rock them to sleep. Actually, I’d sing, you’d pray with them. Mom and dad thought it was the sweetest thing ever, and I would get so mad at you. I thought you were sucking up to them.”

Scully laughs. This is the first time she’s heard of her sister’s woes. “Missy, I was three. There was no conspiring going on.”

“Say what you will, but your stocking was always a little bit fuller than mine.” She smirks at her sister, who blushes and looks at her lap. 

Dana has the unfortunate distinction, at least in Melissa’s mind, of being the favorite daughter. Bill Jr. always was and will be the favorite child. He molded to all their parent’s expectations of him, never deviating from the upstanding family man they imagined when holding him for the first time. Dana had done well up until she decided on the Academy. As Missy reminded her countless times, it wasn’t that they hated her going into the FBI. It just wasn’t in their vision for her, that’s all. 

Missy doesn’t fret about her place, even finds it somewhat funny. She isn’t the least favorite child per say (thanks Charlie!) but she is the least favorite child her mother is still in contact with, and that’s a title that takes some maneuvering. 

Scully laces her fingers together, rests them in her lap. “Do you remember telling me that I wasn’t a good mommy one night when we were putting Betsy and Betty to sleep?”

Melissa looks to her sister so quickly she practically forgets she needs to be watching the road. “No, of course not.”

Scully can’t meet her gaze. “Well, I know it’s a silly thing, and we were just children, but it’s stayed stuck in my brain for all these years.”

“Dana, you had probably just finished a ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ prayer, and I felt like I needed to knock you down a notch.” She pats her sister’s shoulder. “There was no truth in it, and I’m sorry it’s bugged you for so long.”

Scully shifts in her seat. The CVS bag crackles as her heels bear down on it. “I’m afraid it’s turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.”

Melissa won’t give weight to her sister’s worries, but won’t discount them either. “The good news about a self-fulfilling prophecy is that you can always change your thinking...You don’t believe in psychics, so don’t try to be one.”

Scully looks at the dashboard, then her sister. “I would hug you right now if we weren’t doing 75,” she coos.  

Something has clicked in her head, some comfort she has long been depriving herself of. Sometimes words fill in the cracks left by those that preceded them. The right words go even further, it turns out. The right words give you permission to heal. 

-----------------

A dreadful anticipation plagues her as she and Missy walk up to the apartment. She wants to get it over with, even if it goes badly (and she knows it very well might). She craves the relief of surviving such an ordeal. Scully imagines that this is what the French must have felt on their walk to the guillotine. Except instead of the relief of surviving, they got the release of death. Scully is not ready for this yet.

Missy unlocks the door, ushers her sister in. Dana is not used to coming home and finding things in different places than before, Missy can tell from the inquisitive look on her face. She is surveying her territory, updating her memory bank. Looking for the exit signs, maybe.

Melissa closes and locks the door. Letting her sister set the pace, she leaves the CVS bag on the side table. Dana has already taken the carry-on and suitcase to her room.

Her room, Scully finds, is a shrine to sameness, everything looking exactly as she left it two days before. Untouched and completely under her control...these are the reassurances she requires now. She lifts the suitcase onto her bed but leaves it zipped. Its fate is no clearer than hers at the moment. Then she places the carry-on on her dresser, makes a mental note to let Mulder know she made it home safely, and returns to her sister in the living room.

“Have you eaten?’ Missy asks, edging toward the kitchen.

“I won’t be able to until we get this over with,” Scully replies, making her priorities clear.

“Okay.” Missy won’t fight her on this one. She retrieves the bag off the side table, perches at her sister’s side. “Are you ready now?”

Scully screws up her face. “No, but yes. I just need to know at this point.”

Missy takes her sister’s hand with a specific kind of gentleness, like a fairy godmother about to cast a spell upon her princess. Scully is willing to be led. She follows her sister into the bathroom and sits on the closed toilet while Missy pulls the pregnancy tests from the bag. Scully tries not to think about any moment beyond the current one as her sister opens each test, lines them up along the counter. 

“Do you want me in here or outside?” Missy’s tone matches the sympathy that Scully needs.

“Outside, please,” Scully says sheepishly, wishing she could have some guts for once. If no one else witnesses this moment, then maybe it’s not happening. Flawed reasoning that even Mulder wouldn’t agree with, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Okay. I’ll be right on the other side of the door.”

Scully nods her thanks as Missy slips out of the bathroom and shuts the door quietly. Left alone, she feels the crushing gravity that has been trailing her all along. She’s almost certain that her heartbeat would be visible through her skin if she looked. 

She stands, picks up the first test, opens the toilet. Her hands shake so violently that she thinks she might drop the stick in the toilet, which would be a pretty terrible way to return her sister’s kindness. She pulls it away and takes a deep breath to steady herself, holding her arms out in front of her like a sleepwalker. All the things she’s seen, and she’s never been as scared as this moment. Never felt the life she knows and has grown to love so acutely threatened. Never balked at the future in such a fervent way.

It occurs to her that she might seriously need her sister to come in and help her. The thought of that is just pathetic enough to kick her into action. Her hands are barely any more steady than before, but her resolve is ironclad. 

On the other side of the door, Melissa listens as a long period of silence is broken. She’s sitting down, her head resting against the wood, a hand laid against the door like it’s the chest of a lover. 

Silence again, ruptured by Scully’s quiet murmur. “Will you hold on to the test, please? And read the result when it’s ready?” She didn’t know she would need this, but she does. 

“Of course.” 

Scully cracks open the door, passes the stick to her sister. “I wiped it off.” 

Missy suppresses a laugh. “I wouldn’t care if you didn’t, but thank you.”

Scully closes the door quickly, not wanting to hold eye contact with her sister, not wanting to accidentally see the result herself. “Two minutes, right?” Her voice is on the verge of breaking.

“Yes, Dana. Two minutes.”

“Should I wait to do the next one?”

Missy eyes the test, waiting for it to make up its mind. “You can go ahead. It’ll take two minutes too.”

“Okay.” Scully’s voice is barely audible.

“Or you can wait,” Missy offers. “I just suspect that you’d want to check the accuracy as soon as possible.”

“Uh-huh.” She grabs the second test, wearily sits back down. 

Missy’s voice reverberates through the door. “I’ve done this before you know. For myself and for a friend.”

“Really?” Scully’s brain had tricked herself into thinking she was all alone.

“Mm-hm,” Missy confirms. “Mine were never positive, but hers were. I went to Planned Parenthood with her.”

“Oh.” There are things, Scully realizes, that she has neglected to think about. Or maybe she’s putting that off until she knows for sure. It wasn’t a conscious decision, more of an act of self-preservation. Her gut feeling is that she wouldn’t, but she never envisioned herself in a situation like this. If there’s any situation where it’s justified, it’s this, right? Not that she has a problem with it; women should be able to choose for themselves. She just always thought she knew what her choice would be. 

Melissa lifts her eyes from her watch, looks at the door as if she can see her sister through it. “It’s ready.”

“It’s been two minutes?” Scully’s voice rises.

“Uh-huh. Do you want me to come in or…?”

Scully scrambles up, lays the second test on a fresh piece of toilet paper. “I’ll come to you.”

She opens the door, kneels to be eye level with her sister. Prayer position is in close proximity. She bites her lip, her dilated pupils begging her sister to either curse her or free her.

A thin smile appears on Missy’s face as she flips the test so that Scully can read it. “Negative.”

One line. One very defined red line set against the white space. Has anyone, Scully wonders, ever gotten a tattoo of that?

“I--” Tears burst out of her instead of words. She lands in her sister’s arms, utterly unsure of what she’s feeling. Relief, yes. Happiness? Not quite. Sadness? Something like that. 

Missy smooths her sister’s hair down, holds her in the tightest hug she’s probably had in decades. “How do you feel?”

Scully is tempted to ask how her sister does that, always there with the tough questions. Instead, she gulps air until she’s calmed down enough to talk. 

“I don’t know,” she laments, tears streaked down her reddened face. “I thought I would be glad but...I just feel numb. Like I went down the wrong fork in the road and missed something important, but I don’t even know what it is since it didn’t happen.” She sniffles. It sounds like a heart breaking. “I just know it’s supposed to be there.”

“I thought you didn’t want--”

“Not under these circumstances, no. But then...when else is it gonna happen?” Her voice is a sheet of glass. “Because it doesn’t look like any time soon.”

Missy hugs her once again, rocking her back and forth. She overflows with warmth, sympathy, and love. “Honey, you have plenty of time to make your life what you want it to be.”

Scully sobs into her sister’s neck. She feels like an emotional hemophiliac, constantly hemorrhaging pain. Every time she thinks she’s bottomed out, there’s farther to fall. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she says, wiping her face. “I didn’t know I would be.”

Missy pulls her in a third time. “Don’t ever apologize to me for anything, even the things you’re actually wrong about.”

Scully laughs half-heartedly. “Oh!” She realizes then. “We still have two more tests, don’t we?”

Missy nods, smiles empathetically. “The second one should be ready by now.”

Scully is about to get up, but Missy lays a hand on her back, beats her to it. “I’ll grab it.” She strides into the bathroom, picks the stick up off the counter, and takes a look. Again, she flips it so her sister can see. “Negative.”

Scully presses her lips together, a stopgap to any further emotional reaction. “We should do the third one then, just to be sure?”

Missy detects a lift in her sister’s voice, a space she’s made for hope. “Whatever you’d like, Dana.” It seems that her sister will always end up disappointed through no fault of her own, no matter what she wishes for. This chills Missy to the bone.

---------------

The sisters share dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets for lunch because this is the kind of food Melissa buys when left to her own devices. Missy dunks hers in honey mustard, Scully takes hers plain. Remnants of anxiety hang in the air; Scully’s plight remains unresolved, and they are well aware of that. Whatever path they are walking, this is just the beginning. 

The phone interrupts their silent reverie, and Scully hops up to disguise the fact that its ringing made her jump. “It’s probably Mulder,” she tells her sister. “I meant to call him when we got home.” Missy nods, continues with her nuggets. 

Scully grabs the phone off the wall. “Hello?”

“Hey, is Mel there?” It’s a sweet, flowery voice, very different from the one Scully expected. She furrows her brow. Could Mel refer to her sister? She’s never heard anyone call Melissa that. “Who is this?” Missy looks up, watches her sister curiously. It’s not Mulder, evidently. 

The woman on the other line clears her throat. “It’s Trinity. Am I speaking to Dana?”

“Yes, this is Dana,” Scully says slowly, unnerved by the caller knowing her name. “Are you calling for Melissa?” Scully offers, hoping she might get out of this scot-free. 

Hearing this, Missy wipes her hands on a napkin, gets up, and rushes toward Scully, holding her hand out for the phone.

Scully ignores her, keeps the phone to her own ear as the caller speaks to her. “I am, but I was actually wondering about you. Mel told me your worries. How are you doing, Dana?”

Scully is now particularly spooked. Who is this woman, and why does she know all of her business? Missy pokes Scully in the bicep, then gestures for the phone. Scully hasn’t seen her sister this greedily desperate since she snuck out the window when she was seventeen and needed Scully to unlock the front door so she could get back in before their parents woke up.

“Um, Trinity is it, Missy--Mel wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, okay! It was nice to finally meet you!” the cheery voice practically sings. Scully just nods and makes her usual ‘Mulder you’re crazy face’ as she hands the phone off to her sister.

“Hi, Trin.” Missy speaks in a rush. “I can’t really talk right now, but Dana is home and all the tests were negative so she’s doing okay. I’ll call you tonight, alright?”

Scully can hear the voice on the other line, but she can’t make it out. Her sister says “I love you, bye” into the phone, then hangs up.

Scully raises an eyebrow, feeling it her duty as the little sister to pry. “Who was that…?” 

Missy puts the phone back on the wall, circles around to her plate, sits down. She answers calmly, casually. “That’s Trinity. She lives in Portland, we used to waitress together.”

Scully slides back into the seat across from her sister. “How come you’ve never mentioned her? She seems to know a lot about me.”

“Well, you’re the reason I moved to DC and all.”

“I didn’t know you were still in contact with anyone from the West Coast.” Scully picks a stray crumb off one of her nuggets, thankful that her sister is in the line of questioning for a change. 

“I bounced around the area for three years, of course I have friends from there.” She grabs her own empty paper plate, points to her sister’s. “Are you done?”

Scully pushes the plate--with two uneaten chicken nuggets--toward Missy. “With the food, yes. Not with the questions.”

Melissa takes both of the plates to the trash, then rinses her hands in the sink. “Yes. Does that answer your question?”

“Depends. What do you think my question is?”

Missy dries her hands on the dish towel, swivels to face her sister. “Is Trinity my girlfriend? Because yes, she is.”

Scully’s mouth drops open the slightest bit. She had known Missy was bi, but she had never met any of her girlfriends, not even in passing. Missy tended to keep them to herself, fearing that the Scully family might encroach on the holy ground she created. “Really?” she asks excitedly. 

“Uh-huh.” Missy sits back down at the table. “For nine months now.”

“Are you serious? That’s incredible, Missy! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Missy just raises her eyebrow. Scully feels like she’s looking in a mirror. “What? You know it doesn’t bother me.”

“Sure, but mom, and Bill…”

“I don’t think that mom would be upset by it,” Scully answers level-headedly. “Surprised maybe, but not mad.”

Missy balls up a napkin, tosses it back and forth between her own hands. “I don’t know that she would be, I just...don’t trust that she wouldn’t. And besides, nothing mom says or does will change how I feel about Trinity. So it’s not really a pressing issue. No need to cause a scene.”

“I can’t believe you moved here without mentioning her. I wouldn’t have let you leave her, you know.”

Missy laughs. “Oh, I do. That’s why I didn’t say a word.” Scully’s laugh is her first genuine one all day.

“She seems very nice,” Scully says, flicking a crumb off the table.

“Oh no, she’s a total bitch,” Missy replies. There’s a moment of silence while Scully figures out that was a joke, then they both laugh.

“Just kidding. I love her very much.” Missy’s smile could melt ice. “I’m glad you got to talk to her. Now my two favorite ladies have technically met!”

“I’m afraid to ask whether I’m in first or second place.”

Missy reaches out across the table. “I moved across the country for you, honey.” Then, with a smirk--”But I could move back any day now, so watch out!”

Scully smiles, nods. She can’t imagine what these past few weeks would have been like without her sister near. She hopes Missy never goes away again, as unrealistic a thought as it is. If there are angels on Earth, her sister is one. But Mulder too has emerged as a force in her life; no one destabilized her life quite like him, but he would be her rock if she let him, she knows this. She owes him a call. She knows that too.

[ltcol-laurens]

Part 1 of Hamilton’s letters to Eliza

So I made one of these for Laurens and Hamilton so I’ll do one for Eliza and Hamilton as well which might be a bit longer considering the time length. I don’t actually think that there are any letters from Eliza to Alex so it’s very one sided. A lot of this says a lot about his opinion of women in general as well. It can get a bit sickly at times if I’m honest so that’s just a warning. I’m not going to explain it as much as I did with the Laurens/Hamilton ones because they’re fairly self-explanatory.

10th July 1781:

‘my angel’

‘my Betsy’ (watch his spelling of Bets(e)y it changes)

‘my beloved Betsy’

‘attachment so tender, so genuine as ours.’

‘ Heaven will restore me to the bosom of my love and permit me to enjoy with new relish the delights which are centred there. It costs me a great deal to be absent from them, but the privation is certainly only temporary. I impatiently long to hear from you the state of your mind since our painful separation. Be as happy as you can, I entreat you, my amiable, my beloved wife. But let not absence deprive me of the least particle of your affection. Always remember those tender proofs I have so frequently given you of mine and preserve for me unabated the only blessing which can make life of any value to me.’

‘My good, my tender, my fond, my excellent Betsy, Adieu. You know not how much it must ever cost me to pronounce this word. God bless and preserve you.’

13th July 1781:

‘my angel’

‘I was cherishing the melancholy pleasure of thinking of the sweets I had left behind and was so long to be deprived of, when a servant from Head Quarters presented me with your letters. I feasted for some time on the sweet effusions of tenderness they contained, and my heart returned every sensation of yours’

‘ Indeed Betsey, I am intirely changed—changed for the worse I confess—lost to all the public and splendid passions and absorbed in you.’ Really Hamilton ‘intirely’ that’s not even close I thought he was supposed to be clever. 

‘ Amiable woman! nature has given you a right to be esteemed to be cherished, to be beloved; ‘

‘ Assist me in this; reproach me for an unmanly surrender of that to love and teach me that your esteem will be the price of my acting well my part as a member of society. ‘ - Fragile masculinity at it’s finest.

22nd August 1781 (exactly 220 years until I was born fun fact!)

‘My Dearest Angel’ (reminds me of ‘My dearest, Angelica’)

‘ My Dear girl’ - Interesting how Laurens calls Hamilton ‘dear boy’ and Laurens calls his wife ‘dear girl’ and now Hamilton calls his wife ‘Dear girl’

‘ I am unhappy my Betsey. I am unhappy beyond expression, I am unhappy because I am to be so remote from you, because I am to hear from you less frequently than I have been accustomed to do. I am miserable because I know my Betsey will be so. I am wretched at the idea of flying so far from you without a single hour’s interview to tell you all my pains and all my love... . I must go without seeing you. I must go without embracing you. Alas I must go. ‘ 

 ‘ Let me implore you my Dear My amiable wife, let not the length of absence or the distance of situation steal from me one particle of your tenderness. It is the only treasure I possess in this world. I shall loath existence if it should be lost or even impaired. A miser is greedy of his gold, but the comparison would be cold and poor to say I am more greedy of your love. It is the food of my hopes, the object of my wishes, the only enjoyment of my life.’

Then he goes to this: ‘ Neither time distance nor any other circumstance can abate that pure that holy that ardent flame which burns in my bosom for the best and sweetest of her sex. ‘ So there’s something inherently wrong with the female sex huh Hamilton?! I’m trying to not let my feminist politics come into this but I’m being tested.

‘Oh heaven shield and support her. Bring us speedily together again & let us never more be separated Adieu Adieu My Betsey A Hamilton‘

25th August 1781

‘ I charge you do not suffer your spirits to be too much agitated; remember that not only your own health, but perhaps the existen⟨ce⟩ of our babe depends upon the tranquillity of your mind. Any accident would afflict me more than I can tell you.’ - Okay so she’s pregnant at this point.

‘ It is too much to be torn away from the wife of my bosom from a woman I love to weakness, and who feels the same ardent passion for me. I relinquish a heaven in your arms; but let me have the happiness to reflect that they ever impatiently wait my return sacred to love and me. Give your Mama, your sisters and the whole family every assurance of the warmest affection on my part. Indeed I love them all.Yrs. with unalterable tenderness and fidelity‘

6th September 1781 

‘Let others waste their time and their tranquillity in a vain pursuit of power and glory; be it my object to be happy in a quiet retreat with my better angel.’ - We’ve established that whole ‘angel’ thing is quite frequent.

12th October 1781

‘The idea of a smiling infant in my Betseys arms calls up all the father in it. In imagination I embrace the mother and embrace the child a thousand times. I can scarce refrain from shedding tears of joy. But I must not indulge these sensations; they are unfit for the boisterous scenes of war and whenever they intrude themselves make me but half a soldier.’ 

‘Prepare to receive me in your bosom. Prepare to receive me decked in all your beauty, fondness and goodness. With reluctance I bid you adieu. Adieu My darling Wife My beloved Angel Adieu A Hamilton’

18th October 1781

‘Conceive my love by your own feelings, how delightful this prospect is to me. Only in your heart and in my own can any image be found of my happiness upon the occasion.’  

‘Adieu My Charming beloved wife, I kiss you a thousand times, Adieu,   My love A Hamilton‘

18th November 1782 

‘I am perfectly well, and as happy as I can be when absent from you.’ 

‘I shall be miserable if I do not hear once a week from you and my precious infant. You both grow dearer to me every day. I would give the world for a kiss from either of you.Adieu My precious charmer    Yr tender A H‘

18th December 1782

‘I thank you my beloved for your precious letter by the post. It is full of that tender love which I hope will characterise us both to our latest hour. For my own part I may say, there never was a husband who could vie with yours in fidelity and affection.’ - Fidelity huh??

‘For God’s sake take care of my child on the journey. I am very apprehensive on his account.God bless my lovely Betsey and send her soon to me. I delay sending your habit, because you can better get it made here.Adieu My love AH‘ 

22nd July 1783

‘I give you joy my angel of the happy conclusion of the important work in which your country has been engaged. Now in a very short time I hope we shall be happily settled in New York. My love to your father. Kiss my boy a thousand times. A thousand loves to yourself. A Hamilton’

May 1786-April 1788

‘I entreat you my charmer to let me hear from you as often as possible; for I stand in need of every consolation you can give for my absence from your dear bosom. Give my love to my darling Philip & kiss with all possible tenderness the other two. Adieu my dearest angel. Heaven bless you A Hamilton’

I skipped over a couple of shorter letters.

9th August 1791:

‘Adieu my precious. My best love to all the family. Yrs ever & entirely’

10th August 1791:

‘Adieu My angel. Assure yourself always of my tenderest affection & unceasing prayers.’ 

Okay this might be a good time to mention that this was around the time (Summer 1791) Hamilton was cheating on Eliza with Maria Reynolds...That changes things.

August 21st 1791:

‘Think of me—dream of me—and love me My Betsey as I do you. Yrs. for ever A Hamilton’

[galaxyheartsx-archived-blog]

A Lot to Think About

Another Sky-centric drabble. Idk what this is. I got an idea and I have way too much Sky muse and not enough canon-centric Sky stuff going on, plus I never get to play his dad!Sky verse. So here, have a bit of cutesy feelsy stuff.

Sky has made a lot of mistakes in his life, from the way that he'd shut himself off after Dru went missing to some of the things that he's said. Despite his occasional arrogant attitude, he was the kind of person who'd be the first to admit if he made a mistake. It was one of the many things that had made him such a good Commander since Crueger's retirement. Sky had screwed up a lot in his life, but if there was one thing that wasn't a mistake, it was the pretty girl with big blue eyes and bouncy blonde curls that was currently smiling up at him as he worked. She looked up at him in the same way that the pictures that he had hidden away had showed him that he'd looked up at his own father, as if he were untouchable and infallible.

"Look, Daddy!" Betsy chirped, holding up a piece of paper for him to study. He held out his hand and she handed it to him, beaming from ear to ear, as if she were so proud of herself. He studied the picture, his stern features melting into the sweetest and most loving of smiles. It was a picture of what he assumed to be the two of them with a sun above their heads, a stretch of blue behind them that he took to be the ocean, and scribbles that vaguely resembled a picnic.

Unable to stop smiling, Sky looked back at her, the picture still in his hands. "This is us when we had our picnic at the beach, right?"

Excitedly, she nodded vigorously, her blonde curls bouncing everywhere. "Yup! It was one of the happiest days of my life because you promised me that you would let us have a whole day to ourselves and you actually kept it! It was the most fun that I've had in...like...FOREVER!" She flung her hands up in an exaggerated motion and almost fell backwards, but Sky's hand darted forward and steadied her.

An ache spread through his chest at her words, although the gentle smile remained in place. A part of Sky resented the job that he used to love and hated how it prevented him from spending as much time as possible with his little Betsy. While he'd managed to arrange a few things to allow for her to hang out in the Command Center when things weren't busy and in the Common Room when things were busy, it wasn't the same. He still missed so much of her life, from her first word to her first steps. It killed him to know that he'd missed those things because of work and that he was going to miss so much more in the future.

Every day, he wondered if his dad had ever felt like this. Sky wondered if he'd hated how he couldn't play catch with Sky all the time or how he'd missed every single one of Sky's soccer games because he was constantly fighting crime. How had he managed to reconcile having a child and being a Ranger at the same time? How did he handle knowing that he was going to constantly disappoint his son by missing games, holidays, birthday parties?

From what he'd gathered about Bridge and Syd's parents, the ones that had been Rangers quit the moment that they started trying to have children. They'd given up their careers and pursued other interests and things in order to live a normal life and give their children a chance at a normal life. Maybe Sky should have taken a leaf out of their books and had left SPD the moment that he'd learned that he was going to be a father. Maybe things would be different, maybe he wouldn't have this painful ache in his chest.

But what could he do? Sky literally had no skills that would function in a "normal" setting, nor any idea of any possible paths he could take. His entire existence had been built around being a Ranger and being a member of SPD. All of his skills and energy had been so focused on reaching his goals that he hadn't even stopped to think about trying to figure out how he would function in the normal world if he ever left the organization. Was he even capable of walking away? Or was he, like Crueger before him, an SPD man for life, even at the expense of his relationships?

"Daddy?" Betsy's voice suddenly cut through his thoughts, reminding him that the drawing was still clutched in his hand. Her eyebrows were furrowed and she was frowning, a look on her adorable little face.

He tried to smile at her, curious as to why she looked so worried. "Yeah, Princess?"

She stood up in his Commander chair so that she was a little closer to him, her blue eyes boring into his face with an all too intense stare that he'd seen in the familiar far too often. "You look really sad, like someone broke your favorite toy. Are you okay, Daddy?"

For someone who used to pride himself on hiding his emotions, Sky had apparently lost his touch at it. His smile turned a little more geniune, although the sadness still lingered. "I'm fine, Princess. Daddy's just thinking of a lot of things, is all." He leaned in close to her and whispered, "Being an adult sucks!"

She giggled, suddenly throwing her arms around his neck and clinging tightly. With one smooth motion, he swept her into his arms and twirled her around, earning more giggles as her curls whipped around her face. "I'm glad to hear that, Daddy. I don't like it when you're sad. It makes me sad."

"I'm sorry that I made you sad, Betsy Blue." He smiled as she positively lit up at his special name for her, something that he hadn't called her in a while. He thought about it for a moment before deciding to pose her a serious question. "Would you still love me if I wasn't Commander of SPD anymore? Or a Ranger?"

Betsy positively lit up, her blue eyes sparkling in the low light of the Command Center. "I would still love you so much, Daddy! It doesn't matter if you work here or not. You're my still my Daddy, no matter what." She paused for a moment before grinning at him. "And if you leave SPD, then you can spend more time with me and we can have tea parties and have loads of picnics and go to the zoo and..." She kept going on and on, listing all of the things that they could do together and Sky had the distinct feeling that she had thought about it often.

He lovingly kissed her forehead, fingers tenderly stroking her hair. "I guess I have a lot to think about, huh, Betsy Blue?" No one would blame him if he retired, especially if it was because of Betsy. He was the only one from B Squad still left in SPD. Jack had been the first to go, Bridge had retired a couple of years before, Z had found a new calling and was now working directly with at risk youth, and even Syd was off doing whatever Syd did. Sky was essentially alone and far too busy to keep up with his friends like he wished he could. Although he didn't want to admit it, he missed them all more than he could explain.

Maybe, just maybe, retirement wouldn't be so bad after all.