When Ben arrived at the hospital the next day, he found Adam at his usual place in the garden, buried deeply in blankets. Another chair, in expectance of his arrival, had already been placed next to Adam's, and Ben settled into it. He knew that they drew sympathetic glances from the nurses, knew when one of their sorrowful looks settled on his silent son a moment too long. It had taken him days to realize that their sympathy encompassed him as well as Adam, and, not quite knowing how to deal with their concern, he had remained distantly polite, feeling uncomfortable under their scrutiny. It hadn't changed their regard for him, and he wondered what exactly it was they saw in them. For the moment, though, he decided to dismiss all speculation and turned to Adam.

"It's a lovely day, isn't it?" Ben asked cheerfully, trying to penetrate the even-tempered mood that surrounded his eldest. He didn't really expect an answer, yet not saying anything would have felt equally awkward. Adam had been pensively quiet for the better part of the last two days, limiting his conversation to the simplest requests. Ben had obliged him, in the face of his silence feeling as helpless as he had been when confronted with his son's injuries for the first time.

Sometimes Ben wondered whether they had unwillingly invented a new kind of one-sided conversation where he provided both his questions and Adam's responses, wondered whether there would be a time when he wouldn't expect an answer at all. At the moment he didn't feel uncomfortable with the silence, though, strange as that was. With a last glance at Adam and a sigh, Ben settled back in his chair, determined to enjoy the time they had together.

If he was honest with himself, however, he was missing his home, missing the daily challenges that made his life interesting. Here, his days had the repetitive quality of a train running on its track, with so much diversion as a trip to the post office. For a depressing moment Ben guiltily wondered whether his presence made a difference for Adam, then mentally berated himself for his doubt. His presence had made a difference, and he still had three sons instead of two. Still, doubt continued to linger in the back of his mind and not even the warming sun on his face could dispel the coldness growing inside himself.

So caught up was he in his sombre thoughts that he almost missed the harsh words from the unused throat.

" … I thought my hands were frozen."

Ben almost turned into stone. For a moment he didn't even dare to breathe lest he find he was dreaming, then he hesitantly risked a glance in Adam's direction.

Adam had his hands spread out in front of him, moving them softly in the warm sunlight so that the shadows wandered over his fingers and created landscapes on his skin. To Ben's surprise, however, he wasn't looking at his hands at all, but beyond them where a small kitten was sitting in the grass, purring softly in the sun. For a moment Ben was confused, then he realized with a start that from Adam's perspective it had to appear as if he just had to reach out to touch the soft fur, feel the warm, breathing body beneath his hands that for him was as far away as the moon.

Ben swallowed hard, unsure whether he should comment, should distract Adam from his dark memories. The sight alone made his heart ache, yet never before had Adam been so aware of his surroundings, had he willingly related anything that had to do with the events of Stones River, the events that had brought them both here. The temptation was too much. Ben held his breath as he waited for Adam to continue, praying, hoping for him to continue, resolved to interfere should the strain prove to much for Adam's fragile health, resolved to wait another two seconds before pulling Adam from the past that held him captive.

Just as he opened his mouth, however, not longer able to stand the absent-minded look in his son's eyes, Adam went on, his voice cracking with misuse, void of any emotion.

" … the boys were wet through, shivering so hard that some could barely hold their weapons. " Ben saw Adam's fingers grasp the blanket that had been spread over his legs to control the shaking in his hands and subconsciously clenched his own fists, willing himself not to reach out, not to interrupt.

Adam's eyes wandered over the gleaming lawn, the blooming trees in the yard. "It had been sleeting for days … the ground was a quagmire of freezing mud. All wood was soaked, we hadn't seen a fire in days. Wheeler attacked the supply wagons … for a few hours we thought we'd start the new year on an empty stomach." Adam's mouth twitched, but Ben could find nothing amusing in the bitter tale.

"Rosecrans had been reluctant to seek out Bragg, we all knew that. Still, Buell had lost command because of just that hesitance, so there wasn't really a choice. New Year's Day was rather quiet; we moved across the river with Beatty's boys and started building a second platform on one of the heights there for the artillery that was to follow. Most of the boys spent the day resting as well as they could, huddled in what miserable tents they could come up with, the others dug up the hill to even it out, using the exercise to get warm."

The ghost of a smile scythed over Adam's face. "MacKenzie joked I couldn't plan a level ground in a desert so he had to come and do it all by himself." His gaze was on the kitten as it languidly stretched and returned to licking its fur. "He made such a fuss that most of our boys and men from other companies started to cut in when they saw him work, even though they could have relaxed. The fool."

"Surely he only meant to help … ," Ben spoke without thinking, wanting to bite his tongue the next moment, but Adam just offered a bitter-sweet smile.

"Of course he meant to. All lambs do, don't they?"

It took Ben a moment to recognize the subtle irony well concealed behind the even words, and even then he wasn't quite sure whether it was irony at all. Even as a child, Adam had had the tendency to hide behind walls made up of words, and he had honed that ability ever since. It worried Ben that the light-hearted irony that had been directed at his brothers, even at himself at times, should have become so much darker, so much more subtle - and so much more bitter.

Ben swallowed. "What happened then?" he asked, suddenly not as all sure that he wanted to know the answer.

Adam turned to look at Ben, his face calm, in his eyes something that Ben could only think of as a detached curiosity.

"When Breckinridge attacked Beatty the next afternoon," he said, eyes still intent on Ben's face, "we were still there, flattening the hilltop. Of course the boys couldn't just stand by and watch." Adam turned away, staring bitterly at the cat. "When the attack came, they stumbled down the hill, falling, sliding, risking their neck to be shot the next minute. Breckinridge was relentless, driving us back, over the ford, through the freezing water that numbed every move." Adam's voice had become lower, deeper, yet there was that wistful, almost dreamy look on his face that told Ben that his mind was miles, and weeks, away.

"The boys tried to withstand, but they slipped wherever there was a space, looking like drowned rats drawn from the earth, mud-covered, ragged, shabby creatures that stumbled for their lives and died if they stopped … horses don't like to tread on bodies and … " Adam's voice lost itself in the silence and Ben, not knowing what to say, didn't say anything.

In vain he tried to dispel the images that invaded his head, images of masses of bodies flooding down a stream, masses treading, shuffling through a quack mire of blood and bodies, half swallowed by mud and sludge. Ben shivered.

"If it hadn't been for Mendenhall and the artillery we had installed on the first platform the day before, we wouldn't have made it at all." Adam's sober voice pulled Ben from the blood-soaked pictures crowding his mind, confirming what Ben already knew of the battle's outcome.

In fact, from all the newspaper reports, from all the inquiries he had started himself, from all the people he had asked for information he had assumed, realizing quite well now that his mistake lay precisely within that very word, simply assumed that Adam had been behind the lines attacked that day. He had thought that Adam had been with Crittenden, his commanding officer, had thought that he should have been safe because his regiment had already been attacked two days ago - an attack that Adam survived - and had wondered just when Adam had been wounded.

Grimacing in disgust at his own naivety to even remotely think of a war as "safe", Ben realized with a shock that he had, despite all prior knowledge of war, all awareness of his son's character, still managed to delude himself. He turned back to Adam, yet his son's eyes were back on his hands as he stretched and tried each muscle and sinew, watching each finger move with such concentration that Ben involuntarily shuddered.

"Adam?" His voice caught, but it was as if Adam hadn't heard him.

"I thought my hands were frozen," he said quietly. Tilting his head back, he half-closed his eyes and sighed when he felt the warm rays of the sun on his face.

"When I came to, rain was running in my ear, my nose and eyes. There was a weight on my back that nearly suffocated me and drove my face into the mud. I knew there was a body under me because I could feel the uniform buttons on my skin, and I wanted to push myself up and away from it, only my hair had frozen to the ground and I just could find the strength to raise my head … "

Ben just sat in silence. Adam whistled lowly to get the kitten's attention, then smiled softly as it came meandering over.

"A beautiful day, isn't it?" Adam let his eyes run over the lawn, the blooming apple trees, then took a deep breath, and, closing his eyes in contentment, he smiled gently.

"I never thought I'd live to see another."