Alex woke up from his restless sleep at three in the morning. Three hours until school started. All due to his mind's alarm clock, which was set to ring every time he wasn't working or when his mind decided it needed to do work.

So he was always up early and staying up late, memorizing textbooks and looking after his mother. He got out of bed and started his usual school routine. Alex grabbed his bag, put it on the chair nearest to the door, and crossed the kitchen to find something to eat (which usually wasn't very much of anything).

He got dressed out of yesterday's clothes and did anything that could help his mom through the day without him. When he was sure he had done everything in his power to do, he slipped on a sweatshirt, slung his bag over his shoulder and took one last glance over his shoulder in regret.

I'm leaving her to fend for herself in a battle she can't win. The only thing that i can give her is my company and I'm leaving. I'm horrible. But she's going to survive. She's going to be perfectly fine very soon. She HAS to.

By now Alex was walking down the street in the direction of King's college, covered with an emotional rain cloud of regret and worry. It was a thirty minute walk to the school and he had spent twenty minutes getting ready for school.

Alex had 2 hours, 9 minutes and 57 seconds to work on… Something… 51 seconds. 49. Alex walked a little faster, wanting to do something. Write, to be specific, but the library as always closed on the first day. Before he knew it, Alex was standing at the school's closed gates 2 hours early.

He sighed. Alex walked over to a nearby bench and just started to think. Why is my mind always full of numbers? Every day, numbers. But then again, I have an alarm clock in my brain that tells me to work all the time so I can't really say numbers are the weirdest thing. And besid-

"Hey! Hamilton!" Someone was talking to him? No. But his thought process was interrupted. Why was anyone here this early? He checked the time. Of course, the time passed quickly so he had been sitting there for approximately thirty minutes. Numbers…

"Uh, Hamilton?" someone asked.

"Who are you and what do you want with me?" Alex questioned.

"Um…. John Laurens? We met at the bar yesterday?"

"Oh! Hi!" Alex said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which apparently wasn't a lot.

"Is something wrong?" Laurens asked while taking a seat next to him.

"It's fine. don't worry about it."

"I will anyways, even if you tell me not to. So, what's wrong?"

"Fine. It's just that my mother has a fever and I'm worried about her. But she's going to be fine. She going to be ok..." Alex trailed off.

Laurens was going to question Alex more but was cut of by a loud shout.

The voice had a heavy French accent and it said, "Well, well! If it isn't Hamilton!" Alex jumped slightly by the loud outburst. "Don't be Scared, it's just Lafayette." Laurens whispered. "And Mulligan." he added.

"Hi." Alex said a bit awkwardly. He was still shaken by Lafayette's loud entrance. "Bonjour, mon amie!" Lafayette trilled.

"English Laf. I don't understand French and I don't know if Hamilton understands either."

"Va te faire foutre." Laf said under his breath

Alex couldn't help but laugh. Lafayette turned towards him curious.

"Parlez-vous français?"

"Oui." Alex replied and Laf couldn't help but smile. Mulligan stood there, baffled.

"There's another one?! Laf, what did you say?" Mulligan asked

"Nothing~"

"You obviously said something, and by Hamilton's reaction, I'm pretty sure it wasn't nice."

"Bien sûr, ce n'était pas!" Lafayette exclaimed with a laugh.

"STOP TALKING IN FRENCH YOU ALIEN!" Mulligan lunged after Lafayette, who had already already broken into a run, predicting Mulligans next move, like he did this all the time.

"Vous êtes un toast." Lafayette taunted

"Ok, that was just completely random." Alex interrupted, trying to contain his laughter.

Mulligan, Lafayette and Laurens all turned toward him. Clearly, Lafayette was trying to hold in his amusement as much as Alex was.

"What did he say?" Laurens asked, confused.

"You are toast." Alex replied as he and Lafayette burst into a fit of snickers

"Seriously?!" Mulligan complained. They had been laughing and playfully arguing for about an hour, all while Alex stole glances at Laurens. He smiled. His smile really is contagious. He's even cuter when he laughs. Wait, what? Nevermind. I'll think about that later. There's something I'm forgetting, isn't there. And then it hit Alex."Work…"

"What?" Laurens questioned, turning to look at him.

"I need to work on something. Anything." by now Alex was muttering to himself. "When do classes start?" he asked, a bit eagerly.

"Um… 20 minutes." Laurens replied, looking at his watch.

"Ok. Good." Alex sighed, relaxing a bit.

"Before you run off again, can you give one of us your number? Because we were thinking about going to lunch together and I wanted to ask if you wanted to some with us."

Turn them down. We agreed on this.

"Sorry, I can't go to lunch with you but I can give you my number." Alex replied. He pulled out a piece of paper and scrawled his number on it in big, elegant letters.

"Thanks Hamilton." Laurens said warmly. Alex turned away, his face slightly flushed, and said,

"No problem." before running off to class.

My French Dictionary

Bonjour, mon amie= Good morning, my friend

Va te faire foutre= Fuck off

Parlez-vous français= Do you speak French?

Oui= Yes

Bien sûr, ce n'était pas= Of course, it wasn't

Vous êtes un toast= You are toast! (as in bread you stick in a toaster. IDK ok? Laf can say what he wants to say.)

Hi! Thanks for waiting for another chapter. I am currently out of school right now because of a fever and I thought it was a perfect time to crank out a new chapter! OK, my judgement is not always the best and I was in the mood to write so I did. I don't need further explanation. I don't have a schedule that I update on so I'm just updating whenever I can. Sorry about that. This is the longest chapter so far! It took me a couple of days to finish it because I love to procrastinate but it is finally done. Now, on to the next one! Also, every time I use a French word I'm going to be putting it in a dictionary at the bottom so you don't have to search it up.