The slow song stopped abruptly, without warning, and a funky song blasted onto the speakers without a second passing. The crowd screamed with delight at the shocking blast of sound, prying away from their partners to shield their ears.

A second later, people were laughing. Couples divided into groups of friends, as people started getting back into the jumping dance.

Thomas grinned, releasing Angelica so that he only held her hand as they got into the beat.

"That escalated quickly!" Angelica shouted to him over the music as they danced, eyes smiling.

They jumped around with everybody, feeling silly and stupid, but content at the same time. Angelica didn't search for anyone, not Peggy, or John, or Alexander. She just danced, closing her eyes and moving her limbs.

Five minutes into the dancing, Angelica's eyes were whipped open by the action of Thomas grabbing her into a kiss.

She stared at him, surprised.

"What was that?" She asked, smiling but it was puzzled.

"A present!" He shouted back to her.

And then he grabbed her again, but this time held her against him for a kiss way too Long in the midst of the crazy jumping crowd.

"Can you handle this, princess?" He whispered into her ear, when he finally allowed her to pull away. Her heart started throbbing like a drumbeat at his words, afraid.

She barely had time to react, before his mouth had moved its way from her ear to her jawline, and then the length of her neck —

And then Alexander was there, suddenly, out of nowhere, and pulling the two of them apart so fast Angelica's heart jolted.

Without a second passing Alexander's fist drew back and pounded into Thomas's face.

There was a sickening crunch.

A couple of girls screamed at the sound, eyes wide and gasping as Thomas's figure doubled over in pain. Angelica found that her voice harmonised with theirs.

"ALEX!" She exclaimed, her expression overflowing with horror.

"You stay away from her," Alexander's voice was trembling with rage. He didn't seem to hear Angelica, eyes trained on Thomas's crouched over figure. "You keep your hands off her, you hear me?"

Half the people in the room had noticed, including Mr. English, although he didn't seem intent on doing anything besides looking on with everybody else: most of the dancing had stopped. People walked through the crowd to get a better view of Alexander and Thomas, who was still bent over, hands against his face.

Whispers and cries of shock rippled fast across the crowd.

It took Thomas a moment to respond.

"Wow," he said finally, after a solid two minutes of silence. He straightened up and looked directly at Alexander. "That was a cheap shot."

And then he had lunged forward with his own fist swinging, aiming for the side of Alexander's head. Alexander tired to dodge it, but the blow took him by surprise and he came thwacking to the floor with a horrible crunch-sound, as horrible as Thomas's.

Angelica's eyes widened, "THOMAS, STOP IT!"

Alexander was back on his feet faster than lightning. He slammed into Thomas with the full-force of his body, ploughing them back across the dance floor to the snacks table. People screamed and dove out of the way as Thomas's back smashed into the punch bowl, soaking his clothes.

Thomas looked down at them, eyes wide, back still pinned to the now wet and dripping table. He looked back at Alexander with a look that spoke murder.

"You dick!" He grabbed Alexander by the back and wrenched him forwards into the slides and dishes of snacks next to him. Food went clattering and flying to the floor, and Alexander's face went smushing. He snarled, and crashed Thomas back against the table, but Thomas kicked him back and suddenly they were on the floor. Thomas grabbed Alexander and punched him over and over and over.

And then they were blowing the tables off their balance.

And then they were on the floor again; Thomas was given his own fair share of face-damage.

Angelica felt her eyes brimming with tears of shock, disbelief, shame. She wrenched herself up to the front of the crowd, which had now backed themselves up to about twenty feet away so that food didn't go flying onto them.

Angelica stepped into the distance, going towards the two boys on the floor.

The two animals.

"GUYS, I SAID STOP IT!" She heard and felt the sob in her voice, choking her. She felt the tears running smooth down her face, and onto the skirts of her dress.

She had watched them beat each other.

Throw food at each other.

Insult each other.

They're never going to stop.

But to her shock — they did.

Alexander was the first to hesitate, when he saw Angelica standing there five feet away, watching them. There were real tears in her eyes.

But they were angry.

"Stop it right now!" she said hoarsely, now that she had gotten their attention.

Thomas looked around from where he had been ready to throw another punch at Alexander. She could no longer tell if it was punch or blood on his shirt.

She thought both.

"Princess," Thomas started.

"Look at you!" Angelica felt all the eyes in the room on her, watching her. "Look at yourselves! It's disgusting ..."

There was silence.

"And look around at this mess! Tell me, do you —" she gasped, laughing bitterly "— do want to be alive right now? Look! Around!"

More silence. For ages. Even the music had stopped playing now.

Angelica felt her hands trembling, her voice quavering. It was uncontrollable. But still somehow, she managed to keep the heat in her gaze.

The hate in her eyes.

"You are so selfish," Along the road her voice had broken down to a Whisper. She wasn't even sure who she was talking to. "Both of you! I told you not to let your big heads ruin the night for everyone. But you didn't listen ... So congratulations for the rest of your lives — tell me, are you satisfied?"

She felt movement from the side of the crowd, and imagined Eliza, Lafayette, John, Aaron. Even Peggy and Hercules. All of them just standing there, confused and watching. Except for Lafayette.

Lafayette knew exactly what was going on.

And he was right.

"Angelica," Alexander was the first of the two boys to talk. He stood up now, and almost slipped right back down to the floor. There must've been an injury in his knee. "I ... I never wanted it to come to this."

She looked at him, "Well, it did. And I bet you're glad, aren't you?"

Alexander could only watch her across the silence, across the now soft whispers of the crowd. Thomas didn't look at her though. Just sat there in the ground, staring at the crumbled and scattered food around them.

As if he was really taking in her words.

Angelica nodded once, almost glad that he had listened to her. But still, there was nothing to be glad about as she looked down at the floor. Punch was everywhere, along with soaked broken pieces of fruit tarts and cupcakes. She saw pieces of food thrown and sprayed out in all directions.

Finding her conscious, she bent forward and picked up a torn paper plate from a puddle of punch. She walked around, slowly, picking up as many crumbled pieces of tart, empty plastic cups, unused cutlery — everything that she could.

Nobody said anything as she quietly filled up the plate. No other sound was made. People watched her from afar, unsure whether or not they should help.

Angelica set the now piled-up plate on a stool, at the very end of the room. She stood there for a moment, staring at the plate, before turning and walking out of the Main Hall without another look back.

She felt that, this was the first time she had followed her morals, in months.

:::

A/N

I hope you guys don't hate me after this chapter.

Or Angelica.

It gets better, really! I promise ... ? 😬😁