Chapter Text
"Where to, sir?"
"King's college, please."
"Get in."
Alexander Hamilton rode in a yellow cab from Times Square, going all the way downtown to King's College, practically bouncing with excitement.
He did it. After 11 long years of studying and working harder than anyone, he was going to college. He had a future in sight. He had a chance to make a name for himself in this world.
After Alexander's father had split, debt-ridden, he and his mother, Rachel Faucette, had to make do ourselves. It wasn't all that bad. His mother worked at a small candy store (PJO reference, perhaps?), making enough each day for the both of them. They lived in a small apartment in Harlem together, and it was enough.
He was content.
His mother was with him.
They loved each other dearly.
That is...until another disaster struck.
Alexander and his mother grew sick one day, when he was 12, contracting a disease that nobody had ever seen before. The doctors said that they were sorry, that there was nothing they could do, and the pair would walk back to their apartment, depressed and scared.
Then finally, the inevitable came, but only for one of them.
Miraculously, Alexander got better in a day, and in a week, the disease had completely left his body.
His mother, however...she went quick.
Before she died, she pulled her son close to her to tell him something.
"Remember, Alex," she said on her deathbed, her breath shallow, the room shrouded in an aura of death, "you are wonderful. You are my pride and joy. You can do anything if you set your mind to it, I know it. I have lived my life, and I have no regrets. You.... you have your whole life ahead of you. Do not waste this chance, okay? Do not throw away your shot." (Bad reference sorry)
"I won't, mother. I promise," young Alexander said, through tears.
"Good . . ." She went silent, her hand went limp, and her son wept.
After the funeral, Alexander was placed in the care of his older cousin, Peter Lytton, whose wife had passed just before his mother.
Peter took care of Alex for a while, letting him live under his roof and supplying him with food. He wasn't mean, or abusive or anything, but he was . . . not ready to take care of a kid. He was absent.
Absent right until the moment he suffered the same fate as Alexander's mother.
As if all the past suffering hadn't been enough, Alex was forced to live in an orphanage. It was as if the universe was toying with him, giving him brief glimpses of a happy life and then stripping it away, leaving him with nothing. He ran away, living on the streets, alone.
At this point Alexander didn't care if he lived or died. He didn't care what happened to him anymore. All he wanted was to feel safe again, to feel loved again, to be held in his mother's arms like he was a child.
But then he remembered the promise he made his mother. That he would live a full and happy life, as she and Peter hadn't.
Alexander had made that promise, and he intended to keep it. He was not throwing away his shot. (very bad reference again I’m sorry)
And so there he was, traveling in a taxi to downtown Manhattan, the huge campus of King's College getting closer.
"First year at college, young man?" the driver asked, grinning in the rear view mirror.
"Yeah," Alexander replied. "Immigrant from the Caribbean. But I've lived here before, I just came back from a visit to my hometown.
"I'm an immigrant myself," the driver said. "All the way from Malaysia. Tough life for us out here, eh?"
Alexander nodded, staring out the window. "But we get the job done, don't we?"
The driver laughed. "Yeah."
Finally, the taxi pulled over in front of King's college, the massive front building looming over them.
"Well, you have a good run, kid, the taxi driver said, helping Alexander pull his luggages out the trunk.
"Thanks," Alexander said, as he watched the driver get in the car and drive off into the distance, spewing black smoke out of the engine. (the environment nooo)
He turned around to face the towering college entrance building, slightly nervous.
Alexander had a feeling that the years to come would be the most interesting of my life. Difficult, yes, but interesting, nonetheless.
Boy, was he right.