There’s zero negotiation when Fortinbras arrives. Hamlet makes it clear that he can stay and let his soldiers rest, but after Horatio has been buried, he Will leave.
There are no more ghosts. He wished there were.
Hamlet is a good king. Benevolent. Caring. For Horatio’s sake. He mostly lets other people legislate for him though. He spends the bulk of his free time alone. Reading. Writing. Skulking around Elsinore, that ostentatious, beautiful prison. But through it all, he still wants nothing more than to die. For his entire life, he’d feared death, and whatever came after it. Now, he did not care what lies in that undiscovered country. Because it’s where Horatio is. And Ophelia. And Laertes. And his mother and father.
He ends up almost looking for excuses to die. Eventually, he decides that he needs an heir. If his throne is secure, he can die in peace, having fulfilled his promise.
But he does ending up going a bit…Henry VIII with it. He marries multiple times. Sires several children. He is impatient for a proper heir. Impatient to die.
He doesn’t completely waste his time on earth though. He teaches his daughters. To read, to write, to do mathematics. He tries to make them understand what happened and why. Tries to make them into good rulers. Hamlet the Dane is not a natural born father, but he tries. For Horatio’s sake. And Ophelia’s.
Eventually, he does have a son. He names him Horatio, of course. As he holds the small screaming infant in his arms, he almost wishes he had done it the kindness of never creating it. The world is a dark, unfeeling place that will take away the people you love. And this child will have to care about more people than most.
In the end, he lives longer than he thought he would. Several decades. Hamlet never fully finds his way out of his perpetual fog of grief, but time and his family are at least able to help guide him through it.
I don’t know how he dies. I don’t want to say. Maybe it’s in battle. Maybe he’s poisoned. Maybe it’s just a simple health issue. Whatever it is, he welcomes it.
And as he begins to slip away, the world growing darker and colder around him, he feels a warm, feather-light hand on his shoulder. It’s so wonderfully familiar, and a voice he hadn’t heard in years quietly chokes out, “M-my lord?”
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