Zero Two Three One | John Laurens X Reader [Hamilton]

XCI: Twenty-Five Months Later

❝No matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop for your grief.❞
—Faraaz Kazi

Alexander titled this poem Bayukat. I read it to myself. I love it.

To lay next to you,
Is to lay with a goddess—
To want to be closer
As my skin touches yours.

Respiration—
So graceful—
So effortless,
Bewitching to the mind

Dream of me
As I dream of you,
The tune of my lullaby
Still reverberating,

What a Holy right—
What a divine privilege.
To fall asleep to the
Sound of your heartbeat

I've been reading it all morning, over and over again, tracing my finger along the dark characters, humming a child's song meant to bring comfort to restless heart; it has the same effect on me. No matter how much I mature.

And my, have I matured so much.

March 2, 2063.

So much has happened these past two years, and yet, it all means nothing to me.

Absolutely nothing.

A knock on my bedroom door draws my attention from Alexander's journal to the wooden frame.

"Miss, are you ready?"

One of the housekeepers. I sigh and stretch in my chair. "Mmm, just about."

"We are waiting on you, Miss. What shall I tell them?"

"Tell them to keep waiting."

The following silence announces my privacy again. My eyes drift over to the window I sit beside. It's a cool morning in Saint Petersburg. From my superior view in a high room of the Winter Palace, the streets of the city are as clear as day.

All snow has melted after a harsh winter, but I'm sure we'll get a little more before the temperate, short summer.

There is no spring. No autumn. There is just winter and summer, and a short transition between them. It has made the passing of the years painstakingly long.

I look back down at the journal.

Dream of me, it begs.

I wish I could meet Alexander in my dream, but all that exists in the illusion of my dreams is...

I hold the journal to my lips for a moment, my free hand clutching my necklace. These are two things I never let Nikolai see, knowing he'll take them if he does. They're the only things keeping me sane, so I can't lose them.

I stand up and walk to the nightstand beside my bed, placing the journal carefully inside before tucking my necklace underneath my shirt. I am already dressed and groomed, but I've been putting off leaving my room, for I know what the day entails. I've known for quite a while, but I haven't fully prepared. I don't think I'm ever ready.

I take another glance around my room. Here, I am granted privacy. It is my room alone. No one is permitted beyond the door other than Nikolai, although, those are predictable occasions — days when Nikolai works up a craving for my body.

The Winter Palace doesn't feel like my home, but this room feels like my sanctuary. I can hide from all the news of war and America here... sometimes, I choose not to anyway.

With a heavy heart and blank eyes, I leave my room. The hallway I enter is wide and elegantly decorated, just as a palace should be. Two guards stand on either side of my door — they take watch duty for me throughout the night; rumors say that there may be an American spy within the Palace trying to kill me, and even if those rumors are most likely false (it's nearly impossible for an American spy to get this close to the Russian government), Nikolai has these two soldiers in place as a precaution.