Adam Monroe

And still I have the pain I have to carry
A past so deep that even you could not bury if you tried...

I would fall asleep
Only in hopes of dreaming
That everything would be like it was before
But nights like this it seems are slowly fleeting
They disappear as reality is crashing to the floor

After all this time
I never thought we'd be here
Never thought we'd be here
When my love for you was blind
But I couldn't make you see it
Couldn't make you see it
That I loved you more than you'll ever know
A part of me died when I let you go*

The fingers sliding lazily through his hair are familiar, even after all this time. Part of him knows that even this casual intimacy could become problematic, but in a world rapidly shifting around him--even if he caused the most drastic--some semblance of sameness seems necessary. He sleeps better when she forces him to it, and curled up here tonight, the fire the only light in the room, and the taste of whiskey on his tongue mingling with the well-remembered scent of her, he feels content. He is known, no mask necessary, no show of strength, no spinning of tales, no need to play their personal Jesus. He is safe, and safety is a thing he had forgotten. So he allows her touch, and the conversation carries between them in soft, intimate murmurs of the day and the problems to solve. Her insight is sharp and biting sometimes, cutting through the shadowed webs he dances around, but she, too, seems softer by the fire's glow, tempered by life and loss as much as he.

But there are gaps, gouges, craters and canyons that they balance on the precipice of. Thirty years is a long time to be each locked in a private hell the other can never fully understand. She is no longer the girl she was, thinking him nearly a god, and he has a new layer of bitterness pressed to his skin, a new coldness settled around him like a mantle, pulling him even further away from simple humanity than he had been just decades before. Standing apart was always his curse, but this distance is sharper, more engulfing, and he feels it with each breath, even as her fingers soothe him into a pretense of connection.

His need for the boy, her boy, separates them as well. They do not speak of it openly, but she finds him brooding in his office, sees the flash of loss, of pain in his eyes, and she knows him well enough to know. The tone that dances in his voice when he says his name is one she recognizes, and the sadness that slides through her gaze does not go unnoticed, but he does not know what to say to ease it. They are a culmination of decades of betrayal, pulled apart by their own choices, their own paths, and coming together now, pretending little has changed, when, really, the world they both knew is gone, and the people they were died long ago in cold, sterile hallways with the last gasp of a frantic dream.

These moments, then, are those out of time. They played in the snow with the boys, laughing, and there was hot chocolate for the children, and hot toddies for them when they came in. But his new consort's eyes burned, resentful and frightened of a closeness she neither understands nor shares, and the shadow of the children's father hangs over them, waiting to swoop in and break up the idyllic semblance of what could have been. Too many forces tug, pulling them back from the past to the present and an unknown future with each breath they take. He knows this. He knows she knows, too.

But, tonight, they do not speak of that. Instead they laugh softly, push the world outside the study door away, and pretend.

[ooc: Angela is mapetrelli and used with permission. Lyrics are from "Blind" by Lifehouse]

[OOC: SPOILERS FOR SPN FINALE behind cut. Elle referred to is idontdig_graves, used with permission, and this prompt ties in, ending wise with hers, found here. There will likely be RP to follow somewhere.]

Before he'd known, truly realized all of the implications, he'd wanted to fight just to fight. Inertia had been his companion for too long, and even with his still new-tasting freedom, from both cell and grave, it clung. The loss of a tightly held goal of decades left him with the realization that he had no Plan B, as it were, and coming up with one would require time and acclimation to the changed world. Computers alone had taken over far more than he could have imagined, and just catching up with thirty years of technology occupied his time for a while. Learning the social changes, the nuances of the political climate of the world, the new problems that had cropped up--many of which he had been predicting for a century--and the solutions proposed took up even more of his time, and he still didn't feel as if he'd grasped it all. Even with the history and the adaptability he was capable of, the world had simply changed too much to be fully comprehended the way he had thirty years ago in a mere five months. But the not comprehending it all was maddening, and he had no outlet. Then the opportunity presented itself. A fight, a war, a battle that needed waging, and one that, really, he could justify quite easily to those he cared for who were, nevertheless, keeping what he assumed was a close eye on his activities.

When he learned of Elle's involvement, it had become more personal. Whatever had been between them or not, she had been the one thing he could count on in some way the last years in captivity. A fellow prisoner, in her own way, an ally of a sorts, even a companion in their own dysfunctional patterns. She'd gotten out, she'd formed a new life, and now that life was threatened, and something in him couldn't allow that to happen while he sat by and did nothing. As soon as he let the one personal bit in, he found the whole idea catching hold in much the way Hiro's tales of the hero he was supposed to be had nearly four hundred years before. It was a chance, an opportunity, a way to be more than just another person walking in the world. He could be a warrior for good, fighting a fight against the very minions of Hell itself. So, he'd prepared, working with his blade daily, making sure Peter was prepared to be anti-possession back up in New York if the sharpie-drawn pentagram should wear off. He filled syringes with his blood, keeping some near the battlefield, and passing out others to any who wanted one, explaining the healing properties. If they were wounded, just a bit would heal them completely, and that had to give them all an edge.

( And then the battle was met. )

[OOC: Based on current RP storyline in nota_fairytale. Bob, Elle, the Haitian, and Hiro are all NPCs in this 'verse and nothing in this prompt or any RP that follows it is binding on those muses.]

The straps were tight enough around his wrists to be painful. Apparently cutting off his circulation was not an issue for them. He somewhat doubted it would have been an issue even if they hadn't known of his ability, but that they did seemed to give them free reign to be extra vicious. Staring at the ceiling, Adam idly wondered what it would be today. After his interlude with Elle the night before, he'd foolishly hoped she'd temper whatever it was, but the tightness of the restraints seemed to prove him wrong.

The room was empty except for him, and it stayed that way for a long time. Of course, anticipation of pain was sometimes worse than the pain. One time, they'd left him strapped down for nearly a full day before finally just releasing him and taking him back to his room, the sadistic bastards. He'd sobbed when he got there, curled in a sick ball on the bed. Perhaps this was that, then.

Or not.

He watched as the Haitian entered the room. Slow anger seemed to burn inside the other man, and he wondered just how many times he could escape and be recaptured before they broke him, finally. There was a flicker of hope there, then, though. Because from what he knew, and what they did not, the man's allegiance lay with Angela, not Bob. Which meant there was a chance...He saw Bob's face over the Haitian's shoulder and hope flickered and died. This was bad.

"His power doesn't work on mine," Adam protested quietly. "He can't stop the healing..." They'd tried that before.

"No, he can't. But his other power works," Bob said with a bright smile.

The memories? Adam frowned, confused. "It never takes, not for long."

"That's because he didn't go far enough back." Something twisted in Adam's stomach as Bob leaned over him. "We go far enough back, Adam, and there's not anything to anchor you, pull you back. He couldn't do it before, as a child. He didn't have the capacity then, but now?" He glanced at the Haitian and stepped back. "Take as much as you can. As far back as you can go. Try and hollow him out."

The large, dark hand descended toward him, and Adam struggled, desperate to shield his memories, of Angela, of Peter, of Nathan, to keep the Haitian from finding them, reporting them, taking them, anything. Those were his, and he fought, clinging at the same time that he tried to shield, using what he'd learned against Maury, though it wasn't the same. They struggled in his head, his mind working to heal as fast as the Haitian could take, while he clung to the three of them. But then a wrenching feeling tore through him, and he felt something ripped away, then another, then another.

The rest flowed easily, though he watched the man sweating, and he was confused. A light burned across his brain, and he screamed, and then there was nothing but blessed blackness.

* * *

Kensei came to into a world of pain. Lights as bright as the sun, but colder, burned over him, in his eyes, on his skin. Men with masks and cold eyes held weapons covered in blood--his blood, he realized--and he felt things heal, only to be cut again. There was metal and things were beeping and they cut open his chest and he wondered, then, if they were the dragons tearing him open. He struggled, but they'd bound him down, and he tried to fixate on the one thing that he had to keep fighting for. He had a mission. He had a purpose. He had a friend, and these men, these monsters could not find him.

But when the sharp knife sliced again, inside of him, he screamed for him anyway.

"Carp...."

* * *

They threw him on what must have been a cot, though it was made of strange material. The walls frightened him, and there were things all around that made no sense. The lights. The amount of metal. The ... looking glass was huge, and terrifying in its own right, over a basin that held no water and another that seemed to float out of the wall. A privy of some sort? Inside? He tried to process it, but things were too strange. The world was too strange. And he huddled up on the cot and tried to remember how he'd come to be here, who these people were.

And where the bloody hell were Hiro and Yaeko?