Adam Monroe

"Your worst enemy could be your best friend, and your best friend your worst enemy." - Bob Marley

Three hundred and fortyish years was a very long time to carry something--a grudge, a hurt, a remorse, a hope. It didn't matter what, really, except that it lay there inside of him, fine for a decade or so, and then flaring up with a flash of pain so searing that it was clear time was not taking the edge off of anything. Everything had gone so wrong. For the first time in his life, he'd known what it meant to be someone to someone else, to be admired, to be a friend, to have a mission--a purpose. He'd belonged, even as an outsider in a country that was never going to be his, when he could no longer bring himself to return to his own. Had he overreacted? Undoubtedly, if it were about the girl, but gods. It was never about the girl, not truly.

"We did make a good team, you and I. You showed me how to be to a hero, how to love... and then you took it all away."

He would never have looked at Yaeko, much, save for Hiro's insistence it was his destiny. If he were truly, desperately, honest--he hadn't been looking much at Yaeko, anyway. The strange young man from the future drew him, with his stories of Kensei and the man he was supposed to be. He didn't have words for what he wanted, not really, not then, or for what he was feeling, but he'd have done--had done--just about anything for him, to get him to smile.

And then he'd taken it all away, ripped off the mask and proven the lie beneath and God, but after so long that shouldn't still sting. Adam wasn't sure he was even angry anymore (though each time he tried to convince himself he wasn't, he felt the words tumbling around like all the other lies in his head). But he wasn't angry about Yaeko. He was angry about...he didn't have the words for it, not really, not until the moment he watched Hiro marry Claire, and felt that snapping line in his head that slipped around and hit with a sting that hurt more than it should have after so long, after so many loves in between, after finding someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life--what an amazing concept, that--with.

He hadn't been good enough, he thought. And for nearly three and a half centuries, the lack of it, the hurt of it, the rejection of it had festered, echoing in each repetition, each betrayal, each loss until it was magnified beyond all measure, and he didn't know how to extricate it anymore. It wasn't all Hiro's fault, not by a long shot. Adam had made his choices, and others' had made theirs, never even knowing of the strange young man yet to be born in some distant future Adam only dreamed about. But somehow, every time he looked at him, it all came crashing back, like some overwhelming sense of failure, of not enough, of all he had to fight back against to be someone, to make something of himself, to prove them all wrong.

The friend had become an enemy, and the enemy had become a symbol, and try as he might Adam didn't know how to turn the symbol back into a friend.

Scars are souvenirs you never lose
The past is never far
Did you lose yourself somewhere out there
Did you get to be a star
And don't it make you sad to know that life
Is more than who we are

There wasn't much he'd packed in the back of the rental car, just one suitcase with some warm clothes and his shaving kit. He left the laptop and cell phone sitting on the table in the nook in the kitchen. He'd picked the vehicle up before the wedding, parking it behind the townhouse, ready to go. Slipping away and getting home while the festivities were still going on wasn't that difficult. There were plenty of people there, after all. He'd danced with the bride, danced with Baileigh, danced with Peter, danced with Angela, then kissed Claire goodbye and told her to have a happy honeymoon "just in case" he missed her later. He even congratulated Hiro with a smile and a bow.

Then he left.

The only stop he made on the way out of town was by Nathan's to slide an envelope through his mail slot. In it was a power of attorney to take care of real estate decisions, the account number and password where he'd put the money for the property, as well as Adam's list of his top two properties for the Company and a request that Nathan go ahead and make a bid, if possible. He didn't say where he was going, or why, or when he'd be back, just that he might be gone a while and needed Nathan to take care of this for him so they didn't lose out, and he'd be back. He tried to think of something else to say, to offer an explanation, but he couldn't even put it into words for himself, and the words he did have weren't ones he could say to his son.

Saying them to Peter had been hard enough and left him feeling more raw and vulnerable than he could rightly stand. Words had power, and speaking them aloud had crystalized thoughts that had been ephemeral before, caught in the darker recesses of his mind, but not pulled forward into his consciousness. When he thought about it again, it was like he couldn't breathe, like he was back in that coffin he still had nightmares about, and something inside of him was screaming, but no one could hear.

It was all such a delicate balance, and it could all fall apart in an instant. Peter's words echoed in his head, and his offer hung there. The man Adam had been a year ago would have taken it, wound his fingers through Peter's hair and said, yes, give him up, choose me. He'd have demanded it the second he saw a sign Peter would have folded. But he didn't want it on demands, and he didn't want it ever to be spun that he made Peter give up something he wanted, loved, needed...anything. He couldn't take the risk of being accused of taking away something from Nathan more than he had--that he'd ordered his son hurt.

He couldn't, any more than he could have said anything to Claire about Hiro, or talked about the conflicted rise of emotion he chose to turn away from when he saw Angela, for Peter's sake. It all tangled and twisted up in him, his past colliding into his present, and acting on what he wanted would push into and potentially destroy the future he wanted to build. One wrong move, one misstep, could cost him Nathan's regard, nevermind the situation with Peter--he'd seen how easily Nathan turned from Angela and she raised him. He, Adam, was so much less to his son, and he knew it. Giving in to his hurt over the past, wounds centuries deep and more recent traumas, would do nothing but hurt the granddaughter he'd so carefully cultivated. Admitting his regret over what Arthur stole from him and Angela would only make things even more awkward with Peter than his tantrum had.

However, even leaving it up to Peter left a knot in his stomach. It could all go so wrong, and that was just the romance. Restarting the Company, moving forward with some new plan, having to find a way to balance goals and try and talk Peter around to understanding that collateral damage was necessary for real change, making sure Hiro didn't turn Claire away from all the work he'd done starting to groom her, keeping Nathan involved, but not making him think they were doing anything too wrong...

He'd worked so hard the past two years. He had everything he'd wanted within his grasp, and more now than he'd ever thought possible. Except, he'd been here before. He'd had people he trusted, had people he considered family, had people he loved, and look where it had gotten him. The past kept coming back and staring him in the face, and Angela and Hiro's presence so close didn't help him shake it off, constant memories of where it all started and where it all went so wrong always there.

His lungs were burning, and he realized he wasn't breathing. He hadn't been breathing for weeks, not really. He needed air and room to think without all of it pressing in on him. Maybe he should have told someone where he was going, or at least that he was, but he didn't know. He maneuvered out of the City, and kept going until he hit I-80. Then, still with no particular destination in mind, driving on instinct and nothing else, he headed west.

[ooc: Peter referred to is hadtobeahero]

The air felt different in his lungs. Every breath he pulled in held death in it--disease, carcinogens, the time it took to draw and release it that was a moment he could not get back, a moment that pushed him closer to the inevitable. He was aware of them in the heaviness that settled somewhere in his chest, frightened of each cough that exploded out of sitting someone close to him on the subway, aware of the smoke that curled through the air in the bars he used to frequent with such delight. His fingers curled around the heavy glass that held the amber elixir that he once counted on to wash away the agony of life, and stared into it and only saw potential ends--liver cells dying off, inattention on the streets making him prey for a mugger, a sharp curve in the road he wasn't alert enough to maneuver.

For 337 years he had lived without fear. Nothing could touch him; nothing could harm him; nothing could stop him. Now he jumped at shadows, waiting for his past to catch up with him. A bullet, a knife in the back, a betrayal with a kiss as the cord tightened enough to strangle off air and shut off the light forever. He was alive, yes, but the refrain reverberated in his brain, For now. It was a cruel irony that he had learned to cherish the moments he had with the mortals in his life, so aware of the fleeting nature of their lives, but now that his own joined them, that fleetingness haunted him to the point that cherishing seemed near impossible.

There was so little time left to do anything, to see anything. So little time left to love, to build a life. He'd dreamt of showing him the world, of watching the future unfold in all its glorious manifestation under their careful guidance. The world they could create together, the one he could bring into being with him by his side...it fluttered there just out of grasp in his dreams, then dissipated with the dawn of another day closer to the end. Not just his end, either. Anything could happen at anytime to either of them. His golden boy was no longer a god, no more than he was, and the formula that had given him at least a measure of his strength back was out of reach to restore Adam to any sense of power. It was a fluttering hope he clung to in moments when he dragged himself up from despair. Maybe, somewhere, somehow, some vial existed, but then the light flickered out on that. Suresh wouldn't recreate it, not to help him, and the catalyst was gone anyway with the bullet in Arthur's brain.

He was a dead man. It might take another fifty or sixty years--if he was lucky--but Arthur would have his revenge, and Adam would die. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. Life moved by in shadows. They said the terminal found a new appreciation in life, that food tasted sweeter and the people they loved seemed dearer, but he couldn't find the will in the devastation. He wanted to. He didn't want to waste these moments, didn't want to waste this chance. Because if he was dead, at least he wasn't dying alone. That was something to cling to, but if he couldn't pull himself up by the proverbial bootstraps, he might, mightn't he? Peter might go, and then his one bright spot would be gone.

But the air felt different in his lungs, and every shadow held menace, and for the first time in centuries he was afraid. He hated it, and sometimes, in his darker moods, he thought Arthur had gotten the better, fairer, end.

Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

If he closes his eyes, quiets his thoughts, he can hear her voice in the recesses of his mind, warm in the dark with promises he let himself believe in, promises that he wanted to cling to, even when things went wrong and she turned cold. Gold bands on her finger and his, different in style and time, divided them, each driving a deeper wedge, but there was something still that lingered that he couldn't bring himself to release her from. It was supposed to be different; life was supposed to finally shape itself into something that made sense instead of a sequence of vignettes connected only by a sense of failure and betrayal, where each wound struck a bit deeper, carved away another vital piece. But here he lies, trying to pull her to mind and when it brushes over him, wringing a reaction he thought long gone, it hurts, like a razor blade slicing deep into his skin. He pinned it all on a girl, gambled it all on a smile, trusted himself to a pair of brown eyes and believed that the world could be reborn, and that he'd found the one to bring it forth. Every hurt, every disappointment, every betrayal was a necessary step on the path to her.

Well there was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

He was wrong. He was so very wrong, he tells himself, over and over, hardening his heart to the feel of the bed beneath him, chilling it to drop below the temperature of the walls they've encased him in. Once again, he's alone, and worse than alone, he's left with her voice, with the memory of his belief, his foolishness, taunting him in the dark, the recriminations he wants to spew out, but there's no one to hear. The heat of anger freezes over, encasing him slowly behind a new barrier, frigid and unyielding. The fire of passion chills to the iciness of retribution. There's a hollowness he feels carving out inside of him, where it aches when he remembers in his dreams, everything that was and could have been. Days of warmth and nights of fire, when everything seemed possible and life was his for the taking and he truly knew what it meant to be invincible. It hurts to be separated from that, hurts to remember, and so he buries it deeper until he can no longer bring it to mind, until the smell of her skin, and the feel of her hair no longer haunts him. And when the opportunity comes, it is easy to give the order. He barely recalls her face.

Well, maybe there's a god above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
It's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

The boy has her eyes. It's a little thing that worms its way under his skin and into the recesses of his mind, sparking up first in his dreams in a dark motel room, jerking him awake. Not his father's eyes, but hers. He watches him through the next day, suspicious and withdrawn, sniping remarks more quick to fall from his lips, watching the confusion, the flare of hurt in the boy's eyes with something like satisfaction. It doesn't matter he doesn't know the reason for it. The sins of the fathers, or mothers, as it were. He hurts, and he oughtn't. Nothing should hurt anymore, not after so long. His skin shouldn't hum when the boy touches him in concern, either. That's a path he's not treading again, not with those treacherous eyes. He refuses to melt the ice again. Surely he's learned the lesson by now? Yaeko. Hiro. Helene. Louisa. Theresa. Angela. He's not fool enough to let that crooked smile warm his heart, even as he finds his own lips returning it without a thought. He'll play the game, but on his terms, and this time he won't forget the danger. This time he'll win.

"You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present."

I've been dying inside
Little by little
Nowhere to go
But goin' out of my mind
In endless circles
Runnin' from myself until
You gave me a reason for standing still

Adam stared at the ceiling listening to the whine of the heater as it kicked on spitting warm air out into the chill of the motel room. He was freezing, so it was a good thing, though he supposed he could have crawled under the covers long ago to fight back the cold, but the cracks and lines in the plaster were far more fascinating at the moment than any pressing need for physical comfort. Bob hadn't kept the cells all that warm. Cold was a longtime friend; central heating was still new in the grand scheme of things. The ceiling in Hartsdale had been smooth, perfectly painted without a ripple or ridge for his gaze to dance over and trace, but this one...it was interspersed with vertical snags, jagged lines breaking up one long one tracing across the width of the room from the window to the wall that separated the room from the bathroom. Long and winding, it wasn't a straight line, but it followed a course, a path set in motion from whatever started it to a clear destination, even as each new crack tried to divert it, to push it from its intended destination. But it knew where it was going; it knew it had to do what it was intended to do, to fulfill its destiny, to reach the other side of the room, as it were.

It had been set on a road, pushed and pulled and prodded and forced, splitting the plaster in two, dividing it against itself, and cracking slowly further and further, more and more as time went on, heading toward an inevitability that anyone with foresight should have known was coming. It would reach the wall. Then it would widen. The crack would grow; this wasn't the sort of place that repaired such things. No one would come in with any care to fill it in, and even if they did, it would always be there, different than the other. You could see where it started, there by the window, the force that something applied. Perhaps the window was opened too fast. Maybe something flew in. Possibly it was just shoddy workmanship from the start, never meant to stand the test of time, but expected to, anyway. Something always started it, though. Something came along and applied more pressure than it was meant to bear, and it cracked. The crack grew, a line through time, stretching out, now, over him and further, there, across the bed next to him and over the boy sleeping in it that destiny brought to his side, to the cell next to his, an answer to prayers to a God Adam no longer believed listened.

So easy to shift, to turn, to look at him, really look, to see, but he kept his gaze on the ceiling. If he looked, if he saw...there were lights that lit the ceiling from a car in the parking lot and he closed his eyes against them, blocking out the crack and the temptation to turn his head as well. Everything had a beginning. Everything had a purpose.

He couldn't let himself be diverted from his.

Falling faster
Barely breathing
Give me something to believe in
Tell me it's not all in my head
Take what's left of this man
Make me whole once again