He aims his pistol at the sky –

"WAIT!"

Aaron Burr likes to think that he was the hero of his own story. Even at a young age, he was told that he was the lead of his own play, the captain of his own ship.

The only thing in life he can control.

Yet staring at the smoke coming out of his pistol (the gun – the gun that just killed Hamilton – no, he killed Hamilton oh my God), he wasn't so sure if that was even the case anymore.

He hears screams somewhere, his ears are ringing and he's immediately surging forward. He doesn't know what he wants to do, all he knows that he was just wants to talk to him.

Talk to Hamilton, his mind is supplying so helpfully. You must go and speak to him. Hamilton. Your friend –

(Friend? He remembers scorching hot nights, those small gasps that light him on fire, and moments of desperation in the midst of war, but it never really did go anywhere, did it? And they both went on their separate ways and got married. But nonetheless, it left a mark in him no battle wound could ever do.)

– your friend, Hamilton, who you shot.

"Burr," Van Ness is saying somewhere in the back of his addled mind. He doesn't register it at first. "Burr. We have to go."

Aaron stares at him. His eyes are glassy. "I must go and speak to him," he says, copying his own thoughts. "I must–"

"They're going to arrest you," Van Ness hisses, and he grabs his arm not all that gently and drags him away out of the scene. The scene where he just shot Hamilton. "And it's a little bit too late for that."

And so he only does the one thing he's apparently good in life (and he's not even all that good at it, if the past events have to say anything about it): he waits.

Hamilton is announced dead two days later.

He goes through the rest of his life in pleasant denial.