Disclaimer: - I don't own any of the characters of The Shield, they all belong to Shawn Ryan and FX.

Adam Chapter 8

When he'd turned from the window with the obligatory wide smile on his face Adam had expected, had hoped, to see Taylor standing in the doorway. Taylor would be so pleased with him too. This time he was sure he must have passed Taylor's test. This time he'd stayed where he was and had waited for Taylor to come and fetch him. This time he hadn't had any thoughts of escape. This time he'd been good. Adam had been looking forward to seeing Taylor smiling at him, to hearing Taylor praising him. He'd been a little disappointed when the first person he'd seen standing in the doorway was the Asian doctor who'd spoken to him briefly when he was first placed in this hospital room. Adam merely kept his smile plastered on his face and tried to look around the body of the doctor to see who was behind him. When the woman stepped out from behind the doctor Adam felt the bottom fall out of his world.

She was standing motionless looking straight at him with a single minded intensity that gave the impression to Adam that she couldn't see anything else in the room except him. Her gaze was entirely focused on him. It made him feel exposed, naked, before her. A strange mixture of emotions seemed to play over her face. Adam had become very skilled at reading the subtleties of emotions on people's faces. Taylor's facial expressions seldom gave much away and he'd had to work hard to gain the ability to be able to read them, at least most of the time. Adam had found it was always a good idea to try and read Taylor, to anticipate his moods. If he could do that he could try and anticipate Taylor's needs and try and ensure Taylor would be in a good mood. It tended to make Adam's life a little easier, a little less painful, if he did.

The woman's face was much easier to read than Taylor's was. It was open and full of expression. Her face was at once pensive and hopeful, but with a hint of fear around her eyes. But it was more her face itself than the expression on it that took Adam's breath away, and made the colour drain out of his face; as he became momentarily light headed.

He didn't want to admit it to himself but Adam recognised the woman's face. That exact same face had haunted his dreams on too many nights, and he knew deep down inside that it had also been with him in the darkness. He knew the planes of that face as well as he knew his own. The arch of her eyebrow, the curve of her lips, the flare of her nostrils. All so familiar to him but he knew they were wrong. He thought that once her face had been a comfort to him, but down in the black it had changed and her features had twisted into disdain and hatred. Its cold cruelty had haunted his nightmares and he knew she belonged to the time before the darkness. Taylor had taught him that it was bad for him to think about that time. He'd convinced Adam that everything from then was dangerous and painful and Adam had been a quick study. He'd wanted to stay in the light so badly that he'd taken everything from before and smothered it, pushing it deep down inside himself.

He'd almost convinced himself that this woman's face that he saw in his dreams really only existed there. That she was a figment of his imagination – it was easier that way. Yet here she was larger then life, very solid, very real.

She was staring at him. Looking at him as if she didn't think he was real and then she stepped forward, reaching one hand out towards him. His stomach clenched and he felt frozen until she said one softly spoken word,

"Dutch."

It was too much. His carefully constructed reality was beginning to splinter apart before his eyes and Adam couldn't stand it, he couldn't cope with it. He needed distance, he needed escape, and he needed safety. He somehow managed a strangled one word denial before trying to distance himself from this apparition. Scuttling backwards Adam fled to the only place he felt any semblance of security. With his body wedged into the corner of the room with two walls at his back nothing would be able to sneak up on him unseen. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut trying to blot out the unwanted sights and sounds.

He was so lost in his inner turmoil that Adam didn't even realise he was rhythmically banging his head against the wall, the repetitive motion comforting and the burst of pain from it helping to smother the bad thoughts he could feel on the outskirts of his mind. The things that he knew he wasn't supposed to think about anymore. The things that would make Taylor mad. Adam reached out and caught hold of the thought of Taylor and filled his mind with him. Taylor would save him, he'd sooth Adam and make the confusing thoughts go away. He wanted Taylor and called out for him hoping that Taylor would hear him and would be merciful and make all these unsettling things disappear forever.

Adam was so caught up in his own world of misery and loss that he never felt the prick of the needle or the warm slide of the drug through his veins as Doctor Kim sedated him.