[WM] 44.2.D - Forever Responsible

"You become responsible forever for what you've tamed." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The newspaper article tucked under the files--at least the third of its kind--makes him shake his head, a rueful smile tugging his lips. It wasn't this bad when Massachusetts began allowing it, but things had been more confusing then, with two of them around, and the other still so very young. But that was past now, and they had sent him back, and clearly somehow they had gotten away with changing history. Which, it appeared, brought people's minds to the question of the future. They had worked so very hard to get to this point, to make sure things went as they were supposed to, to not mess anything up, and, with one minor--or possibly not that minor, really, in Peter's eyes--exception, they had done so. Crisis averted, Company made into something whole and healthy, families united, children strong and knowing their place in the world. People were alive who Peter said had died, before, tragically. There was no monster on the loose. And the boy had loved him and gone back to ensure it all still happened as they had decided it "should."

Only, in all of their planning, all of their dreaming through the years, they had never gotten quite past this point. They didn't know what would happen. Would Peter even stay, or would he somehow disappear out of existence? Could Adam make the boy love him and agree to give it all up, to go back? Had they altered things so much that they would arrive in the future of Peter's past with the world unrecognizable? There was no way to plan beyond that point, that morning, that day in Odessa when everything changed because of a boy's determination to save the world.

He had.

They had.

And the question remained: now what?

Angela and Arthur seemed to have made up their minds at least, he thought with a slight smile, lifting the newspaper article about couples gathered on courthouse steps. There had been less subtle hints, as well, and questions that made him eye Angela with suspicion while Arthur shrugged and retreated behind his paper. Charles was wandering about with a smug smile on his face, and Elle kept bouncing and giggling when he asked her what she was up to, and he was starting to fear that they'd be drugged and wake up in Los Angeles before a judge with a reception planned at Spago.

( It wasn't that he was adverse to the idea. )

Whiling away the unending stretches of time (RP for <lj site="livejournal.com" user="ambitious_woman

Adam was learning to like Cardiff well enough, getting past his natural inclination to say, "But it's Wales," at least out loud. And it wasn't as if he wasn't used to being inactive, after thirty years in a far too small room. But his brief spurt of murder, mayhem, and attempts at world destruction, followed by his, thankfully brief, burial, rescue and relocation had left him feeling a bit at loose ends.

Jack had Torchwood, had the Doctor, sometimes, had the world to save in ways that Adam couldn't really help with. Or hadn't helped with. He didn't know where he fit, at the least. Not part of the team, not part of that part of Jack's life, but there, in Jack's house, with Jack, with the cat, with...his memories, his past, his ghosts, his dreams.

So he took to wandering. He left shortly after Jack in the mornings, roaming the streets, learning them, learning their pathways and byways. He found cafes and little bookstores, made friends with their proprietors. He spent far too much time at the library, and far more on the water, just breathing the fresh air, and appreciating the freedom to come and go. But he felt like a ghost through most of it, drifting in the shadows of the city Jack protected, with nothing truly his, nothing to strive for, no idea where to start, even, because every plan he came up with he was fairly certain Jack would shoot down.

He'd walked most of the morning, carving out new paths to ramble, when he found the gallery, tucked away in a charming niche. The display in the window was bright and warm, and the day was grey and chilly, perfect weather for brooding, but he was getting tired of brooding, and the window beckoned. It wasn't a gallery he'd explored before, not an owner he'd exchanged words with yet, and the novelty alone would have appealed as much as the colors. Putting a charming, if neutral, smile on his face, he stepped inside, drifting toward the art on the far wall, its colors immediately drawing his eye.