Chapter Text
As a girl, Eliza Schuyler half-hated her mark, largely because she had two of them.
It wasn't unheard of, of course, and her mother reassured her of that regularly. Sometimes a person was fated to lose their first soulmate early, or to find another in the twilight hours of their life. Sometimes they meant that one would be a dear friend, and another a husband. Sometimes both were friends, or siblings.
Eliza's own sister, Angelica, had "Elizabeth Schuyler" in delicate script on the back of her shoulder. She'd always felt guilty that Angelica's name wasn't on hers, but her sister always laughed when she said as much.
"All it means is that you'll need me a lot more than I'll need you," Angelica would say confidently as she combed Eliza's hair, or worked on her needlepoint, or read the latest philosophical text she'd managed to get her hands on. "And as long as you're happy, I'm happy. All right?"
"All right," Eliza would say, and kiss Angelica's cheek, and that would be that.
At least, until the next time she bathed, or changed her shift, and then there they'd be, one scrolling confidently up her thigh, and the other curving around her hip: "Alexander Hamilton" and "John Laurens".
She knew, deep down, that neither were going to be a platonic soulmate, a kinship next to siblinghood. She knew she would love them both, and she hated the various ways her imagination could come up with for how she'd lose one and find the other. She hated those two names, because now from the moment she met one of them, she'd know there was a limit on their happiness. Would he be jealous that another man's name was part of her? That her heart would never be just his? What if that ruined everything?
Eventually, though, as she grew, she decided that it wasn't worth worrying about. God would provide. When she lost either of them, they would be waiting for her in Paradise, and He wouldn't give her anything more than she could handle. She'd be happy.
She hoped.
There were all sorts of soulmate situations on Nevis. People who'd married out of necessity before meeting their soulmates and unable to do anything about it when they finally did. People who did something about it anyway, whether sneaking around or removing the problematic spouse from the equation. People who had no soulmate, and people who had two, or even three names scrawled on their skin. People whose soulmates were a different race. People who didn't even speak the same language.
Alex Hamilton's mother, God rest her, had loved his father desperately, his name encircling her calf. As far as Alex knew, though, his father didn't have anyone's name on him - which probably explained how he could've run off and left them the way he did. All in all, Alex Hamilton wasn't too much of an oddity with the two names etched on him; "Elizabeth Schuyler" scrolled across his heart, and "John Laurens" climbing his inner arm.
"You will have so much love in your life," his mother would murmur to him when he was little. "You will be so happy." He wasn't sure he believed her, especially after she died, but he never felt ashamed for the two names that were all that he had to his own.
Still, when he finally escaped to the colonies, he was careful not to let either show. He was free with his emotions and opinions, but those names were his alone to know. His to treasure. His to remember and guard and never share, the way he remembered and guarded the memory of his mother.
And anyway, with a revolution starting to bubble up, he thought it unlikely he'd even get the chance to meet either of these people, let alone discover why their names marked his skin.
Jack Laurens was pretty sure the reason his father was never happy with him was the second name wrapped around his ankle.
The first was fine - "Elizabeth Schuyler" across the back of his neck in a delicate, feminine hand. That was expected and appropriate. Henry Laurens would have been pleased and proud of his son for that name, especially if Miss Schuyler ended up being related to the Schuylers in Albany.
No, it was the second name that caused the trouble. "Alexander Hamilton", wrapped around his ankle. When he was very little, it wasn't any cause for concern. While it wasn't as common as having one's future spouse as your future soulmate, a sibling or close friend wasn't unheard of, nor were two names.
But as he got older, and didn't show enough interest in the right things… Well.
That's when Henry stopped being pleased by anything Jack did.
Jack still tried, though. He tried so hard to make his father proud, to live up to the expectations placed on him. He thought maybe he could change - his friend Martha was kind enough (and maybe a little in love with him, he wasn't sure) to offer to help. It didn't change anything, except his marital status when she ended up pregnant. It was still so easy to forget the delicate script on the back of his neck, that he never saw. The name around his ankle, that's the one that kept him up nights, wondering who he was. If he would feel the same. If Jack even wanted him to feel the same.
By the time he boarded a ship to the colonies to join the revolution, he half hoped he'd never meet either one of them.