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This time around Eliza doesn't know French beyond ordering from a menu, but she's fluent in Chinese. This time around she has a brother instead, and she has never met Angelica or Peggy.
When she was thirteen, she simply woke up one morning and thought, "Oh, I remember this."
She remembered the laughter of her many children, the distinctive press of a corset against her spine, the swish of full skirts in a dance hall. She remembered a brilliant set of eyes. She remembered the war and the heartache and the pain and the happiness she grasped at fleetingly, but most of all she remembers the years upon years of lonely. Lonely because she didn't have him.
Eliza remembers, and then she spends the next ten years of her life dreading the moment they might meet. She remembers the heartache and the pain and the lonely, and she doesn't think she could go through that a second time.
She dreads meeting him again because what will she find when she does? Will he already have someone else?
When she sees him again, will he have Maria Reynolds hanging on his arm? Or Angelica's ring on his finger? Or will it be Colonel Laurens standing by his side? Maybe they will be able to make him stay in a way she never could.
Her worst fear will be meeting him when he doesn't remember. She thinks that she would rather have to share him for the rest of her life than to have him look at her without recognition of their history together.
When Eliza does finally meet him, it's at a charity event hosted by her non-profit. He's a lawyer, hoping to go into politics. Of course, he is. He was always striving for something greater than she could comprehend. Why should this life be any different?
They lock eyes across the circle of all important business investors she's currently entertaining. God, so much has changed but she could never forget those eyes. They're a different color now, darker than before but the bright intelligence inside them still makes Eliza's heart beat a steady rhythm of "mine mine mine mine mine."
"Betsey," he says, barely above a whisper but it’s an avalanche to her ears.
Eliza hasn't heard that voice in a little over two centuries, and her body trembles with it. People are staring. She knows, but she can't bring herself to give a fuck because he's here again. She doesn't care if there might already be someone else. She just needs to hold him one more time and reassure herself that this is real.
"Alex," she says. Her voice doesn't waver even though the earth has shifted on its axis. "It's been so long."
Alexander beams that beautiful grin she fell in love with. She didn't see that smile a lot in their last years together.
"Excuse me," a balding man in a business suit three years out of date says, clearing his throat.
"I'm sorry. Where was I?" Eliza apologizes and throws herself back into the mechanics of conversation. She can feel his eyes on her the whole time.
After she's talked long enough to be considered a polite hostess, she says her pardons and ducks into the hall outside to catch her breath. Her back hits the wall, and she shuts her eyes against the flood of memories. She grips at the fabric of her dress over her heart, trying to stop it from jumping out of her ribcage. Now that she's seen him for sure, she realizes how much she doesn't want to have this conversation.
"Betsey, is that really you?" Alexander bursts into the hall, looking just as breathless as she feels.
Eliza nods, not knowing what else to do. He looks healthy and happy. She'd almost forgotten what he looks like without the heaviness of grief and betrayal dragging him down.
"Oh, my dear Eliza, how I've missed you," Alexander says, stepping closer to her. His expression is beseeching and benevolent.
She's supposed to be stronger this time around. Women are allowed to be boldly strong now, and she is. She swears she is. Eliza doesn't mean to do it, but she falls into his arms as inevitable as a meteor, a helpless victim to the laws of gravity.
"Alexander," she chokes out into the crisp lines of his dress shirt.
"Shh, it's okay. I've got you," Alexander whispers into the top of her head.
Despite her best efforts, she starts crying and all the sorrows she had built up in those last fifty years comes crumbling down.
"Thank you," Alexander says when she's down to a quiet sniffling. He sounds like he's been crying too. "You did so much for me after I died. I don't deserve you, my love."
"I had to. I owed it to your legacy," Eliza says, pulling back and wiping at her eyes.
The word doesn't taste as bitter anymore. She thinks she gets the meaning of a legacy now that she can see the aftermath of it. She can read the books and see the movies and visit the monuments. There are museum exhibits on the people she's had tea with in her parlor.
"No, you didn't. You didn't owe me anything, but I swear I will spend the rest of this life making it up to you," Alexander says, gripping her hands in his in a mockery of a prayer. He's speaking low and firm in the voice people have when they think they're saying something earth-shattering.
Eliza shakes her head. "I don't want that. We were given a second chance for a reason. Change the world the way you always wanted to."
"Will you be there while I do?" Alexander asks because he's always wanted more than what he's been given.
She lets her fingertips dance over his knuckles. He still has the same writer's callous even though people don't write nearly as much nowadays. She takes the time to gather her thoughts. If there's anything she's learned, it's that she has more than enough time.
"You really hurt me." She shushes him when it looks like Alexander wants to interrupt. "Listen to me. You really hurt me before, but things are different now. I refuse to make you my entire world when you can leave at a whim. I don't want to be dependent on anyone like that anymore. I was alone for fifty years, and I've managed just fine. I don't need you like I once did."
"You've managed beautifully, Eliza," Alexander says softly, his eyes are alight with something she doesn't want to name. "I saw the orphanage."
"The orphanage?"
Eliza's head snaps up. She could never bring herself to visit the place again. After he died, she'd buried all her grief and anger into that project. She chose to leave behind all the poisonous things she didn't want to end up killing her.
"Yes, after my parents passed, I went there. It's a wonderful place, and it's all thanks to you."
Alex presses a kiss to the back of her hand in almost the exact same way as when they first met, and Eliza wants to weep. So much has changed. She is not the same girl she was, believing that this man was her end all be all. He is not the same boy he was, wanting to bite the bullet like a martyr.
"Well, I needed something to do with my time," Eliza says, trying for a joke.
This time Alex is the one who falls first as inevitable as gravity and she instinctively wraps her arms around him.
"I've missed you so much, Eliza," he says with a longing in his voice and it makes her want to scream.
What can he tell her about longing? About missing something so hard you feel it in the rattle of your bones with every step you take?
She doesn't scream. Instead she bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood and nods mutely.
"I love you. Best of wives and best of women," Alexander whispers into the empty hall.
Eliza doesn't think she's meant to hear that but she does, and she wants to run in the opposite direction as far as her legs can carry her because she can feel it happening again. They were always inevitable like a meteor, like gravity. She is as helpless as she always was.
Eliza squeezes Alexander tighter, hoping against all odds that she won't end up alone again.