Dedication: My friend (a-little-rae-of-sunshine on Tumblr) requested Hamilton for her birthday fic, and we both separately thought of Philip X Theodosia. I have more material in the works, so I might end up organizing this into a two- or three-part story or a drabble series. Feel free to point out any inaccuracies pertaining to history or the musical. Enjoy!

Theodosia liked visiting the Hamiltons because their family was enormous compared to her own. She had no brothers or sisters, while they seemed to have a new baby every few years. Philip was just a year older than her, and his sister Angelica was one year younger than her, so they were game playmates.

It was their aunt, Angelica Schuyler Church, who first teased Phil and Theo about falling in love. As small children, they barely understood her insinuations and suggestions. As they got older, they responded with varying levels of embarrassment, indignation, and denial.

One time, Theo visited on a day when the Hamilton siblings and their neighborhood friends were plotting a revolution. Everyone had bought or stolen tea, and raced to throw it into New York Harbor; the elder and more articulate children shouted, "No taxation without representation!" without knowing what the words meant. The gang broke up due to different goals and expectations: apparently some, like the Hamilton siblings, actually wanted to overthrow their parents, while others had merely wanted to reenact history.

The Hamiltons' revolution was fun, until Philip took it into his head to filch his father's pistol. Never mind that it wasn't loaded; seeing him brandishing a real weapon caused more than enough panic and got him in so much trouble that he was not allowed to play with his siblings or neighbors for a month. Of course, not being allowed to see him made Theo want to see him more than she would have if it had been allowed. That was the first time Theo found herself missing him. Unfortunately, it was not the last.

Theodosia lost her mother at the age of eleven. The Hamiltons all attended the funeral, and for the first time Theo could remember, Philip embraced her. It was a small thing, really, compared to all that she had lost, but it reassured her, somehow, that love could still grow and be exchanged with other people.

Her father took a more active interest in her education from then on. She now had little time to herself, and what time she did have was no longer spent playing outdoors. Not that she was the only one: Philip and Angelica were going through the same transition, being groomed to enter their parents' socio-political circle.

Their aunt Angelica did not tease them as she used to, and they never spoke of her old idea of a romance between Phil and Theo. Strangely, though, the idea rather grew on Theo as she approached the age of eligibility for marriage. There was no boy she knew as well as Philip. She rather thought she would prefer him to any stranger.

There were, however, obstacles. Their fathers were friends, or at least claimed to be friends, but they clashed so much that Theo doubted they could coexist as in-laws. Besides, Aaron Burr's finances were in sad shape, and it was Theodosia's duty, as his only child, to marry someone who could support both her and him.