“Eliza is engaged and Angelica has written me extensively about a gentleman who is trying to court her, but I have never heard you speak about any man before. Surely there must be someone.”
Her smiles falls instantaneously and she snatches her hand away much more harshly than she had meant to. Of course, it was only a matter of time before she would have to go through this charade again.
“There is no one yet.” And in an ideal world there never will be, she wants to say, but she silences those words with a forced smile.
When Alexander is about to speak again, Peggy is saved by the opening of the door. Catherine steps inside, balancing a large tray in her hands that she politely sets on the table in front of them. As she methodically empties the tray, setting one floral teacup in front of each of them, her eyes meets Peggy’s and the two smile in tandem.
In that moment, Alexander sits forgotten, Catherine’s attention focused solely on Peggy even as she pours tea into Alexander’s cup. Catherine drops two sugar cubes into Peggy’s tea before setting the porcelain container in front of Alexander, allowing him to sweeten his own tea.
Alexander stays quiet during the silent exchange but he’s watching, witnessing everything, especially the way Catherine reaches out for Peggy’s hand for no apparent reason and holds it for just a moment too long before finally picking up the now empty tray and carrying out. She glances at Peggy over her shoulder once more before the door shuts behind her, leaving Alexander and Peggy alone once again.
“I imagine your father doesn’t know.” His voice seems more somber now, far more serious than before, but there’s a mischievous half smile on his lips that contradicts his tone.
Her heart skips a beat but she forces herself to remain impassive. “I don’t know what you mean.”
While I’ve namedropped and alluded to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton in a variety of other posts, I haven’t actually written anything about it yet. I blame it on the fact that I got sucked into its fandom right as we went on winter break, and it seems a little weird to me to write at length about something that I haven’t actually seen yet. That said, none of that has stopped me from flying headfirst into the realm of fanfiction.
The premise of this story comes from a line in the song “Helpless”, where Alexander is singing about the ways the Schuyler sisters have accepted him into their fold – specifically the line “Peggy confides in me”. selenedaydreams found themselves wondering exactly what sort of secrets Peggy was opening up to Alexander about. Given the likelihood that everyone’s favorite bastard orphan immigrant was bisexual, they opted to write a touching moment between the two of them in which Alexander opens up to Peggy about his previous same-sex relationship when she confides in him about her sexuality.
While Nobody Needs to Know is categorized simply under “Hamilton—Miranda” on AO3, it’s obviously also RPF to an extent, if not any more than the actual musical is RPF. I generally don’t go in for real person fanfic myself, although I don’t have a problem with it—but the story seems to be using the fictionalized historical characters from the musical than it does the actual historical people. Your mileage may vary, but looking at it that way helps me separate myself from the knee-jerk weirdness of reading fanfiction about the guy on the ten-dollar bill.
And Peggy!
selenedaydreams’s story has a simple premise, but the execution is touching and emotional. Also, while I love a college AU as much as the next hopeless sap, the fandom is kind of inundated with them at the time, and it was nice to read a story set in the actual 1700s. Nobody Needs to Know is a short but sweet diversion at a little over 1300 words. You can find it here at the AO3.
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