BEFORE:

Someone was crying.

Shallow and gasping, sobs filled the darkened corridor and filtered into the bedroom. Brow furrowing, Adam sat up in a bed that was the first he'd ever called his own. It was the largest one he had ever seen in his handful of years. It dwarfed any that his father had ever slept in during their travels, or any the two of them had shared. It was big and strange, just like the rest of his aunt and uncle's house. He often worried about becoming lost inside of it. He feared the bed would swallow him whole, wrapping him in its heavy blankets and never spitting him out. He was afraid of entering the wrong room of the house and having the door close behind him, trapping him in its confines forever.

He was not allowed to leave the bed after he had been instructed to remain in it for the night. It was just one of many rules which governed the two young boys living inside of John Cartwright's home. There were other rules too, so many that he had lost the ability to count them. Before he had gone, Papa had only taught him how to count to thirty, and there were so many more rules than that. Some of them were obvious: clean up after yourself, listen carefully to elders, and do what you are told. Others were not. Things like toys were not meant for playing with, books were not for adults to read to you, little boys were to eat in the kitchen by themselves, and they were not allowed to talk. In this household, children were expected to neither be seen nor heard. They certainly were never allowed to cry. That was the most important rule, taught to young Adam by his uncle the evening his father had disappeared.

He had not wanted or meant to cry. It was just something that when instructed to sleep in the gargantuan bed in an equally strange bedroom, could not be helped. It was the first night in his life he had spent without his father, without the blanket his mother had made as a gift for him before he was born. His blanket was soft, warm, and familiar, and the one he had been given in this house was none of those things. Adam had been alone in the room when his eyes had welled with too many tears to ignore, but, heaving, heavy sobs escaping his chest, he had not stayed that way for long. Quickly a subsequent lesson had been learned: the punishment for being caught with the dried proof of having cried upon one's cheeks was bad, but being overheard was much worse.

That night, Will was crying despite the rule. There was no doubt he knew the punishment for such a thing, and Adam knew the punishment for being caught straying from the confines of his bed. But he left it anyway, intent on bestowing whatever comfort he could. His strides were quick, purposeful, and as quiet as he could make them as he closed the distance between his bedroom and that of his cousin. He did not understand why he and Will had been delegated to separate rooms. They were two little boys; surely, they could have shared and been happier as a result. Then again maybe that was the purpose of keeping them separated, as the adults of the house did not seem concerned with the happiness of anyone.

"Will," Adam whispered as he climbed atop his cousin's bed.

Will inhaled a thick, stuttering breath. "Go a-way," he whispered.

"No."

"You're g-gonna get into t-rouble."

"I don't care."

"Y-you should."

Sitting on his knees, Adam clenched his hands into tiny, firm fists that sat upon his lap. "I'm not afraid," he whispered fervently.

"You should be," a gravelly voice trickled through the darkness.

Eyes widening, Adam turned and panic filled his chest, leaving him trembling with the cold fear he had foolishly denounced. Hands reached out of the darkness and grabbed a hold of him a little too tightly. Their long, pointed fingernails felt like sharp daggers puncturing his sides. Mouth falling open, he screamed.

"Papa!"

Gasping, Adam opened his eyes, rolled over, and almost fell off the side of the bed. He fought to keep his breaths even. Slick with sweat, his skin was peppered with gooseflesh and crawling with agitation as his heart raced in his chest. Closing his eyes, he forced a deep breath, held it momentarily, then expelled it, and waited for his body to calm. It took a minute or two, but it eventually did and his surrounding reality became clear.

He was no longer in his uncle's house in Ohio; he was not a boy, rather a grown man; he was not in the company of his cousin; and nothing had materialized to pull him from bed.

But someone was crying.

He tilted his head and listened intently to the sound. Realization washed over him immediately. His own bad dream long forgotten, he sprung from the bed, donned only his trousers, and opened the door. It was a short trek to the bedroom next to his. The door had been left open to allow for quick entrance on nights like this. Nights that were becoming more and more common as time passed. Eddie and her mother slept like the dead, often sleeping through the subtle cries. Adam, however, did not. As slight as they were, he always awoke.

Having kicked her blankets haphazardly on the floor, Peggy lay curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed as she remained captive to the brutality of her dreams. "Stop," she whimpered agitatedly, lifting her hands to push at something unseen. "Please."

Adam did not know for certain what kind of monsters lurked in her dreams, because she would not speak about them when she awoke. Still, he had his suspicions and theories, his fear, and his doubt. He had his anger at his father and, as time passed, his deep-seething hatred for Will. What kind of man hurt a child badly enough to leave her haunted by nightmares? What kind of man did what Will did?

"Peggy," he said. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he leaned over, and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Please," she begged.

"Wake up."

"I swear, I won't tell."

"Peggy."

He shook her gently, and gasping, she awoke. Sitting up, Peggy cast a wide, wild gaze upon the room, her body trembling with fear. He let go of her, allowing her a moment to find footing in the reality which surrounded her. Her body was not where her wandering mind had taken her. She was in San Francisco, sheltered by the secure walls of her bedroom; she was safe with the man sitting on the side of her bed.

Looking at him finally, Peggy inhaled a thick, shaking breath, shifted her body, and lunged into his open awaiting arms. She did not cry—she never cried when he woke her like this. Holding her close, Adam did not bother with words. He did not pry for information about her dream or anything else. Not because he was not willing to hear what she had to say, but because he knew she would not respond; she was still too upset to want anything from him beyond moments like this, when the night was too dark, her nightmares a little too vicious to be quickly dismissed.

She did not like to talk about things, he had always known that. For as fiercely outspoken as she was, she had always held her hurts close to her heart. Anger, frustration, and discontent were all things more easily expressed. It was the things that cut a little too deep, the agony of them a little too hard to bear, process, or accept that she had trouble allowing anyone to know of or see. If something had really hurt her, she did not speak of it. She was a lot like him that way, this little girl that had not been born to him or acquired by marriage, rather a child he had chosen to take responsibility for.

In an odd way, things had been easier before she was his charge. A few years ago, Peggy still had been so young and small—though never quite trusting or gullible—as he tried his damndest to befriend her after her father died. At the time, he could not have truly explained why he had tried so hard, why such a thing was so important. He told himself he wanted to help. That he was just being kind to both Laura and Peggy in their time of need. Now he knew that was not true.

It was not kindness that had prompted his actions, imploring him to foster a friendship with the little girl after he first saw Peggy on her swing, pumping her legs idly back and forth, hopelessly waiting for her deceased father to come home. She had known Frank was dead. Laura had not told her, but she had known. Still, she had sat and waited, hoped, and prayed that the change surrounding her could somehow be paused, stopped permanently, or eradicated completely. She knew Frank would not come back, but that had not stopped her from wishing that he would. It had not stopped her from sitting on that swing and counting, each number said with a futile hope that life would stop changing around her. It was never destined to do that, but Adam liked to think—he needed to believe—that his friendship had helped. That somehow and someway he had eased some of the hurt Frank had left behind. That was, when he had been able to remain around her in a substantial way. However, that eventually changed too, and when Laura married Will instead of Adam, Peggy knew Adam could no longer be her friend, but that had not done anything to cease her hope otherwise. It had not kept her from trying to reach out and be close to him, standing in the safety of his protective shadow for even the briefest of moments.

If he was a wiser man, Adam would have taken note of her melancholic outlook and thought more of her vigorous and steadfast determination to remain in his company. He should have thought to ask her the right questions during a time period when there was hope of them being answered. But he did not, because, though she had needed his help, he had not been able to see or hear her in a proper way. And now that he had rescued her, she felt further away than she had ever been. Though she still needed his help, now it was her that could not hear or see him in the proper way. She could not and she would not, because she did not want to.

Upon his return, he did not tell Peggy—he did not tell anyone—he had been with Will, but Adam was sure she knew. There was a time when she had seen right through her mother, and now she saw through him too. Her maddening intuition was his downfall; there was no hiding or concealing the truth. He had not told her, but she knew, and it was this knowledge that seemed destined to tear them apart a little at a time. Because in Peggy's eyes Adam had chosen; he had picked Will over her.

Head resting against Adam's shoulder, Peggy lifted her hand and placed it against his chest, her palm covering the slightly disfiguring bullet wound near his heart. The area of his skin had healed over but remained puckered and red. She did not ask about the wound, how it came to be there or why. It was just yet another thing she seemed to understand.

They never spoke about Will. The things Peggy knew about him, or the things Adam had discovered in his time away. Still, it did not stop either of them from knowing the truth.

Will was a terrible man; they both knew that now. If they had known it before then maybe things could have been different than they were. Adam could have married Laura; he could have become Peggy's father. He could have saved her and her mother, if only he would have found a way to put his own needs and wants aside, making room for those of someone else.

After all, wasn't that what a father was supposed to do?

He had never been any good at that. On nights like this he wondered if he ever would be. If it was a skill that at his age he could still learn, or if it was one he never would. He wondered if in Peggy's eyes, his shortcomings and perceived mistakes would be forgiven, or if she would hold them against him for the remainder of time.

He had taken Peggy away from Will. In the days that followed, he had promised to take care of her. Planning his trip to Nevada to tell his father he was going to be married, he had promised he would swiftly return. Chasing after Will, he had not done either thing. In Peggy's eyes he had gone missing; he had abandoned her like everyone else she had ever dared to love.

He stood as Peggy pulled away from him, resettling herself on her pillow. Pulling up the blankets, he tucked her in. He wanted to say something, but, kissing her forehead, he did not.

Leaving Peggy's bedroom door open, he did not return to the bedroom he shared with Eddie. He would not sleep for the rest of the night.

He dressed in a shirt that had been hung to dry on the clothesline just outside the backdoor, and sat at the small table in the kitchen, his hand clenching an item he had pulled from the pocket of his pants. He tried not to think about the man it used to belong to, or the mystery shrouding the events that led it to become his own. He hardly had time for old concerns and regrets, not with so many new ones to take their place.

It had been three weeks since he left Tom and Jamie Hunter and returned to San Francisco. It felt longer than that, though. The seven months that had passed between the day he left Eddie and Peggy and the one when he had finally returned to them felt more like seven years. Change had come to the Manfred home in his absence, and he remained the same as he ever was, if only less liked by Peggy and Aunt Lil. He was still loved by Eddie. Although, some days he wondered if that was enough—if any of it would ever be enough. It was strange. He had left his father's home, and his old life behind, but the feelings that had prompted him to leave remained the same as they ever were. Here he was, everything about his life different than it had been, but he still felt the same as he had. Frustrated. Cornered. Confined.

There was a road outside of this house that could lead him away from it. There were an endless number of places he could see and go. If only he could find the courage to leave. If only he had never come here in the first place.

He looked at the object he held in his hand, the silver star that had once belonged to Marshal Weston and now belonged to him. How it had been pinned to his shirt was anyone's guess; how it had remained in his possession was not.

Upon his return, he had taken it to the local Marshal's office, told his story about Will and Weston, and tried to give the badge back. Strangely, his efforts were refused. They had heard about him, they had said. Weston had written them a letter, vouching for his integrity and abilities, and recommending him as a recruit.

To Adam, it did not make sense. Why would Weston have done such a thing? How and when had he done it? He did not know a single real thing about him, his past, or his life, and yet he had recommended him. It was because of Weston that this tremendous opportunity had been presented. If only Adam could have accepted it. He had rejected the offer, and tried his best to return the badge. When they refused to take it, he was tempted to take it straight to the U.S. Congress on the other side of the country and dispose of it upon their floor, and maybe he would have if he thought it would have made any difference. If he believed they would have taken it back. There were just some things in life you could not take back—he had always known that. It was odd to learn that an impetuously gifted silver star was one of them.

Staring at it, he was acutely aware it could serve as a solution to his current perceived problem. If he decided to embrace it then it could be a tool used to emancipate him from his claustrophobic thoughts, this ever present and growing need to travel new roads. The badge could take him away from San Francisco for spans of time and then it could lead him back. It could give him something to do, something to be other than his father's son. It would give him purpose. Something, on nights like this, he wished he could find the courage to accept.

He could not leave Eddie and Peggy; he would not leave them. But what kind of life could he give them if he forced himself to remain here? What kind of life would they all have now that everything had so swiftly changed?

He did not want a marriage like he would have had with Laura, full of resentment and strife, ill-will and hurt feelings, both man and wife forced to pretend, hiding their true needs and wants or giving them up completely because it was what society deem they do. He did not want to not want Eddie, or the life he had with her. He only wished things were different than they were; he wished things could have gone a little more according to anyone's plan. Fate had intervened the way it so often did, forcing them all into decisions as it took opportunities for any alternatives away.

He had left Eddie an arguably single man; when he finally returned, he had found himself married. There had not been a ceremony. There could not have been, because it had taken place sometime while he was gone. Or had it taken place before he had left? He was not certain that part of the story had been decided upon yet. They would have to eventually, though. When it came to falsehoods that one decided to present as truth, the devil was always in the details; the things they perceived as unimportant were always the ones that would give them away.

Arriving at Aunt Lil's home, he had found Peggy at school, and Lil in the company of a handful of acquaintances. Lil had looked upon him as though he was the second coming of Christ. She introduced him to the group as Edna's husband; it was the only time Adam recalled her using her daughter's full forename. He had been away tending to family business, Lil had told the group before noting his exhausted demeanor, excusing, and ushering him up the stairs for some much-needed rest.

Standing outside of Eddie's closed bedroom door, Adam hesitated to open it, somehow already knowing what he would find. He did not know if he was afraid of what he would see, or just prolonging the moments before he had to see it. There was only one reason such stories were told; only one reasonable explanation for Lil introducing him as she had. He stood outside of that door for a long time, knowing but not wanting to know. Not wanting to open it and be assaulted with the truth of how much things had changed. Eventually, he entered the room and set his eyes on the undeniable truth.

Lying peacefully, Eddie was asleep. She looked like an angel, albeit an exhausted one, an easily anticipated symptom of her protruding and swollen stomach, so easily seen despite the blanket covering her. She was with child and quite far along.

Clenching the badge in a tight fist, Adam thought about the question Eddie had asked him when she had awoken. "Are you angry?" she had whispered. Adam had shaken his head in response. He had not been angry; he had been terrified.

He felt the edges of the badge begin to protrude painfully into his palm. They were too dull to inflict any real damage. They would not break his skin. He would have to squeeze a little harder for them to do that, and he would not do that. But what was he going to do? With the badge in his hand, and the images from dreams he could not seem to shake?

Like Peggy, he was experiencing his own dreams with increasing frequency. It was as though his subconscious was trying to remind him of something he had forgotten about Ohio, his aunt and uncle, and the relationship he and Will had as young boys. Or something was reaching out to him, imploring him to do something other than what he currently was. There was a weight to the vicious truth he was now privy to, the facts about Will's actions and his past, the terrible things he had done to the women he had left behind. If he did not stop him, then who would? And after finding him, who would care enough to bring him in alive so he could be on the receiving end of proper justice?

Adam thought of the twin bullets Will had embedded into his body and wondered why, he of all people, still believed Will deserved such a thing. A lesser man would have condemned Will for his actions, declaring him deserving of whatever end he received, whether it be peaceful or otherwise. Adam could not do that. After all, he was who he was. Just because Will had killed countless others, and even tried to kill him too, that did not make him any less of a human being. A lesser man, maybe. Adam could not judge his cousin for being a lesser man, no matter how much he wanted to. Because maybe he felt like one now too.

What kind of man did the things he did? What kind of man fell in love with a woman but did not marry her, rather ran off, left her alone for months with no other option but to compose a lie to hide the truth of what they had done? If he had been here, if he had returned to Eddie after leaving his father's home, then they would have had a chance to live without the lie. They could have married months ago, long before the proof of their previous clandestine pairings had begun to show. But he had not done that. He had run away instead.

If Will had not shot him, if Ed Payson would not have come to him in a dream, would he still be following Will now? Would he have ever come back to San Francisco?

Though it pained him to admit, he was not sure.

There was just something about untraveled roads that would always call upon his soul to wander their paths. There was just something about the life he had returned to that would always be so innately wrong.

He and Eddie were not married, no matter what others were told or believed, and contrary to what Lil and her daughter had told people, he and Eddie had not formally adopted Peggy. In the eyes of the law, she was not legally theirs. It was too late to change these things now. There was no way of retracting the lies after they had been told. He could not marry Eddie—at the current time or ever in San Francisco—without bringing scandal upon her and their unborn child. He could not look Peggy in the eyes and contradict what she had been told, the thing she seemed to hold most dear.

Peggy may not have been happy with him, but that did not mean she did not love him. She may have been able to look right through him, but that did not mean she was not happy to have him in her life in the capacity she did. While she may have been cold toward him since his return, she had begun calling him by a new name. A moniker that when he first heard it nearly took his breath away. She called him Pa, a change facilitated by Eddie and Lil's lie, no doubt. A change that could not have been more meaningful had he wanted it to be.

Peggy was not ignorant or slow-minded. With all the things she seemed to be knowing of, the lack of her formal adoption was bound to be another. She knew he was not her pa, legal or otherwise, and she had gifted him the moniker anyway. She had chosen him. How was he supposed to tell the truth now?

Besides, it was not as though he did not want the things he had been presented with upon his return. He wanted to be Eddie's husband; he wanted to be Peggy's father; and he wanted the child that had yet to be born. It just did not seem right to have them this way. To build the foundation of the future on a bedrock of lies. But it was too late to change that now. He could no more marry Eddie in her condition than he could reject Peggy's chosen epithet. He could not change those things.

But what could he change?

If he stopped questioning the gifts fate had endowed and embraced them instead. What could he do? If he ceased trying to dodge the duty and responsibility assigned to him by the silver star in his hand. He could not find Will—that was not an option if he intended to heed Ed Payson's warning. But he could find something else. A bit of whatever it was he had begun to believe he had lost; the person he had once been when everything was so much different than it currently was. He could be Adam Cartwright again, steadfast, certain, moral, and brave. He could be a real hero, just like Aunt Lil and Jamie Hunter had said.

All at once a decision was made, even though he had not intended to make one at all. He knew exactly what he needed to do. Still, it did not make him eager to do it.

"You're really keeping it," Eddie said softly from behind him. "Aren't you?"

Looking at her, Adam abandoned the badge on the table and pushed his chair back, making room for her to sit on his lap as he extended his arms. Eddie did not hesitate; she settled in, resting the side of her head against his shoulder, her palms against the baby in her stomach.

Wrapping his arms around her, Adam placed his hands on top of hers. "Are you going to be upset if I do?" he asked.

She did not immediately answer. "I need us to promise something to each other," she whispered. "You and I have found ourselves bond in a very untraditional union, therefore, I think that our vows to each other shall be untraditional as well. I want us to love one another enough to be able to take each other as we are. I don't want to change you, buddy. I just want to be the woman you love."

"You already are."

"I don't want you to want to change me either. No matter what the future brings. I want us to be able to forgive each other for our wrongs. To look past our shortcomings and faults. To honor and love each other with grace. I will never deny or stand against you in something your heart tells you to do, something you know is right. You'll never stand alone in anything, not anymore. Those are my vows to you, Adam, and in return I only want one thing. You let that badge take you wherever it will, but always come back to me. I don't care how far you wander as long as I." Pulling her hands from beneath his, she placed them on top of his and pressed them against their unborn child. "As long as we," she qualified, "Peggy, this baby, and I are always your home."

There could not have been a more perfect response had Adam written it himself. It was everything he did not know he wanted or needed to hear. It was then he knew he could not hope to be better understood by anyone more than she understood him. He would never love anyone as much as he loved Eddie, this woman who he would continue to call his wife, despite the absence of an official ceremony.

Pressing his lips against hers, he was certain his intense acceptance, his silent agreement to her chosen vows, was clear. They belonged together; he was doubtless, there was nowhere else in the world he wanted to be. Together with their baby, Peggy, and even Aunt Lil they were a family. As long as he had Eddie, he would always have a home.

TBC