Disclaimer: Mine! All Mine! The skittles are all mine, the DA characters, however, are not.

Author's note: Sorry this took so long. I went to New Orleans this weekend for Mardi Gras. Fun Stuff. I know you all missed me, right? I fixed the lyrics and didn't bother with anything else.

Review, or I withhold the story! Mwahaha

Secret Life

Chapter 2: Passing time

~*~

There's no windows in this place
for me to show my weary face.
Rage I hold within my soul,
at times I can not control.
What's the point of me being here
when being here is what I fear?
Everyday it's all the same
trapped again in my own pain.
I cry myself to sleep.
So many secrets I must keep.
No one to reach to nobody cares,
trapped in the middle of a distant stare

~ The Moffats, Frustrated

~*~

Adam walked down the stairs slowly, making no noise. A habit that had earned him a scolding from Mary more times than not. He would let a smile barely curl the edge of his full pink lips and say, "I figure it's in my nature."

She would beam at him, her smile putting his to shame, "that it is, m'boy, that it is."

Today when he entered the bright kitchen Mary was standing in front of the stove and Buddy was reading the paper while gulping down coffee. "Mornin'," Bud said absently.

Mary turned to him with a scowl, "getting' up late, aren't we?" She shook a finger at him menacingly, "just 'cause we're goin' ta Seattle today doesn't mean ya get ta be lazy, m'boy."

"Rough night," was his grumbled reply as he gingerly sat down at the large wooden kitchen table, rubbing one hand over his face.

Mary's scowl cleared as she suddenly went into mother hen mode. "You poor boy, what can I do ta help ya?"

"Breakfast would be nice," Adam answered shyly.

"O'course, breakfast would do ya a world o'good. Put some meat on them bones. A good ole country breakfast; eggs, sausages, and biscuits." She placed a plate infront of him heaped high with food and ruffled his hair was a smile as he nodded his thanks.

Bud looked up with a smile of his own, "be careful, boy, she dotes on you. I might be lookin ta get jealous. "He laughed and folded his paper before getting up with a sigh. "Eat up, we'll be leaving in an hour."

"Yes, sir." Adam settled down to eat as he quietly listened to Mary go on about the trip. Looking at her the first thing someone would notice would be that her face was made for smiling, wrinkles at the edge of her eyes and around her mouth spoke volumes that she often did. The next would be the plump body and black hair with shocks of white threaded through its short length. She was a pretty woman, growing gracefully into maturity. She suddenly became serious as she sat across from him at the table; her hands folded in front of her. "Any reason the night was rough?"

"I just had trouble sleeping," herd blue eyes met soft green ones.

"The nightmares again?" she asked simply, her voice as soft as her eyes. The first month after the accident he had suffered night terrors that had him waking in the dead of night calling out to people he didn't remember. Mary would appear with a smile and a glass of milk. She had delighted in mothering him, and on several occasions he had bristled at the thought that she believed him incapable of taking care of himself. He had stopped complaining when he had realized it was how she treated everyone.

He had never told her the specifics of his dreams because what little he remembered of them was confusing and something he knew, without knowing why, was a secret he had to keep safe, clutched tightly to himself.

"I thought I'd gotten over those," he grumbled, glaring down at his eggs.

"Something haunts you, m'boy, you don't just get over that," she reached for one of his hands, covering it gently with hands hardened by years of work. "Maybe someday you'll remember what it is."

"Yeah, someday." After a minute of quiet Mary continued her rant about going into the city, knowing the best thing she could do was try and distract him from his brooding.

They were in one of the farm's truck within the hour as promised. Buddy and Mary were in the cabin and Adam was sitting in the truck bed with his head leaning back against the closed back window, surrounded by good that needed to be sold in one of outside markets in Seattle. He idly listened to the two talk.

He knew that being able to hear them through the glass about the roaring wind was something he shouldn't be able to do, like many other talents he had discovered. It had been when a ranch hand, having too much to drink, attacked him that he realized that his body knew how to defend itself. Something that had confused and alarmed him when he found himself, his hand around the man's throat, debating the best way to kill him. Already having broken his arm just with his hands Adam was forced to wonder where a farm boy would learn to fight and kill so effectively.

He had begun watching himself, holding back his strength, and refusing to test its limits, afraid that he would hurt someone else. However, he didn't see any harm in seeing into distances that left other people gaping at him or hearing things that no one else seemed able to. So he listened in on their conversation, boredom driving him on more than anything else.

Something Mary said suddenly caught his attention; "do ya think it's a good idea bringin' him along?" She sounded worried and Adam knew that her eyes would be wide as she looked at her husband.

"He'll be fine," was Bud's strong assurance. "If we keep him away from that girl is should be fine," this was said in a wavering voice that made Adam's eyes slit as he unconsciously sat up straighter.

"I don't want him ta get hurt." Mary's soft voice came; soothing the tense set of his shoulders and making his body relax. He had to wonder what was wrong with him, for a moment he had suspected that the two people that had taken care of him for so long were not the kind people they seemed. He shook away to clear away his paranoia and did his best to ignore anything else that the two said.

The air was crisp here, warm and clean as it tossed his golden hair into his eyes. He never got to appreciate the country before. His brows furrowed as the thought struck him. That was impossible, before the accident he had been on the farm for two years. How could he not have appreciated the countryside before?

He ran his hands through his hair and rested his forehead against his knees, trying desperately to remember what was always just out of his reach. An annoying buzz around his ears that he could never quite pinpoint. A sense wrongness filled him as he looked at the bags of farm goods, a feeling that nothing was right in the world that everyone insisted was the reality. He felt like he might be going insane, the pressures of remembering a life that escaped him finally getting to him.

He closed his eyes against the thoughts and the only result was for pictures of children with haunted eyes to flash before him. He was breathing heavily when he felt the truck stop and it was with relief that he leapt out of the bed not even realizing the fluid grace of his movements sent several curious eyes in his direction.

He looked around with a straight face, Seattle sat around him loud and busy and decaying. He didn't know what he had expected but the streets, dark even in daylight, and the hopeless eyes of the men and women who walked past him, hadn't been it. Bud clapped him on the shoulder jostling him out of his revere.

"You ok, boy?" He looked worried; his eyes were round and curious.

"Yeah. No worries." Adam forced a smile before nodding to the truck bed; "do we need to start on that?"

"Yup, why don't you get some of those boxes over there and we'll start getting' them to the supervisor."

Adam easily grabbed two boxes that would have staggered a normal man and turned to follow Bud when a bike messenger caught his eye. She was across the street casually standing over her bike, looking behind her impatiently. Her brown hair cascaded down her back as she shook her head sadly. He just barely caught her words to a young man who rode up beside her. "Why do you insist on following me around, Alec?'

"Cause you're so much fun?" The smirk accompanying the comment was playful and confident. Striking a cord in the back of Adam's mind, too low for even him to catch. The two drove off before he ever got the chance to see the girl's face.