"Revenge is an expression of pain, pain is weakness, and we never show weakness."
He'd said it to her once when they shared a coffee in the kitchen area. It was simple and thoughtful and probably forgotten by him but Jo remembered those words and tried so desperately to apply them, even when her life was beginning to show cracks beyond repair.
Maybe that's what kept Adam going - his sheer determination to not show his pain even when he was hurting more than any of them could imagine. He was crumbling and some would say it foolish that he didn't seek help but Jo found it admirable. It wasn't because he was stupid: he was selfless. He couldn't and wouldn't burden anyone with his troubles and insisted on putting his job at the forefront, pushing aside personal feelings in order to protect his country.
It was all Jo had left to hang onto – making the most of living because he wouldn't see another day, and she didn't want to take life for granted.
The flashbacks and the terror might have been easier to overcome had Adam been by her side - he was professional enough to understand her situation but a close enough friend to help her through as well. She would have been able to talk to Ruth and together they would have probably cried and then had some mugs of tea and battled through. Even now she still longed to be able to bury her face in Zaf's chest, feel his arms around her in a hug so comforting that any problem seemed to fade a little in his presence.
It would have been so much easier with one of them.
Ros was familiar but hardly a source of comfort, and Harry was wrapped up in the grief of lost officers and she didn't want to cause him any further trouble. Lucas was kind of terrifying, as was Connie. And Ben was someone she was just getting to know hesitantly and didn't want to screw it up by confessing that she wasn't coping with the loss of colleagues coupled with her own imprisonment, rape and torture. It never seemed like something like that would happen when she joined the team over three years ago; they were like a little family albeit with high stress levels and constant danger. Even when Fiona was killed and Colin was hanged, Jo never thought it'd happen to her.
"There's no shame in asking for help," Connie told her.
"I will," she replied.
But pain is a weakness and she wouldn't show weakness, even though she couldn't push away the lump in her throat at the mention of his name.
Adam had been her rock. Charmed her, recruited her, trusted her. Soothed her screams and bandaged her wounds and cradled her head in his lap in that grimy cell, a form of comfort amongst all her despair.
His emotions had been shot to pieces but he was fighting back, recovering well and they all thought Adam Carter was unstoppable.
His coffin said otherwise. His empty desk said otherwise. His son's tears said otherwise.
Jo couldn't say otherwise. Whenever the pods swivelled open she expected to see him strolling in, straightening his jacket, pacing to Harry's office, offering a smile. She had been denying his death and her hope that he would somehow miraculously return was the only thing stopping her from going insane.
But that insanity was clawing its way to the forefront of her mind, slowly but steadily, be it in the form of a nightmare or a flashback. His absence was screaming in her face and too many times she returned home and ended up dissolving into tears for the loss of her leader, mentor, friend, and a man who deserved so much more.
