BEFORE:

Bloodstained hands clenched together in his lap, Adam waited.

The cell he had been placed in for holding was small, a corner of the room made perfectly square, partitioned off by the thick onyx-colored bars. The area was compact to begin with, the other three men shoved in on the bench next to him made it seem positively miniscule. Shoulder pressed up against shoulder, knee against knee, the men sat in a tidy line, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. There was just no other way to fit. None of them acknowledged each other, or traded boasts of being falsely arrested or innocent. It was without a doubt, the most deathly-quiet jailcell Adam had ever encountered.

The room was dim and cold, the chill in the air transforming his breaths into small clouds in front of his lips. He could have used his jacket, but it had been confiscated at the brothel in which he had been arrested, the mended bullet-holes and faded bloodstains serving as proof of something to one of the constables that apprehended him. They had taken his badge, too. They had allowed him to dress; however, they had not allowed him to clean the woman's blood off his body. If he were to remove his clothes, it would still be speckled and spattered with proof of her death. Even some of his clothes were marked with the stains of what had been done. Dark and accusing, blood had seeped into the fibers of his shirt, making it yet another reminder of what had been done.

His gaze wandered aimlessly before settling on his hands. Looking at his besmeared skin, he cringed and forced his attention to his boots. That poor woman, he thought. She had been unfortunate in more ways than one. He did not know her name, where she had come from, who had hired her, or why they were paired. But he knew she was dead; he knew that, one way or another, he was to blame.

Footsteps echoed through the corridor as a smartly dressed constable approached the cell. The brass buttons on the jacket of his uniform stood starkly against the darkness of the rest of his garb, seeming lustrous in comparison to the bleak severity of the room.

"Adam Cartwright," the man said as he stuck a slender key into the lock and opened the skeletal cell door.

"Yes," Adam said.

"Come with me."

The constable led Adam back down the corridor and into a room that was so large it was garish in contrast to the holding cell. Framed photographs and achievements lined the walls at eye level, oak cabinets took up the space below. In the center of the room was a single desk with a man sitting behind it and two chairs placed on the opposite side. Adam's yellow coat had been folded and placed on top of the desk next to a single photograph, and his badge.

Donned in a prim uniform matching the one of the leading Adam, the constable sitting behind the desk was old enough to be the father of them both. The hair on top of his head was silver, the darkness of that which composed his neatly-trim beard had only begun to change; it still contained a fair share of black strands. Oddly, looking at this man who was eyeing him expectantly from behind such a substantial desk, Adam thought of his father and all the meetings the pair had conducted from either side of a different desk. Some were good, some were bad, some were something in between, and others were really nothing at all.

"Have you calmed down yet?" the elder constable asked as Adam was motioned by the other to sit in one of the chairs.

"I suppose so," Adam said quietly; although, he wondered if he truly had. There was a part of him that wanted to begin screaming again, and perhaps he would—depending on how the day unfolded, the purpose of the meeting in which he was currently engaged.

"I don't think I've ever heard a man scream like that," the younger constable said. "Not a grown man, at least. A boy, maybe."

"You created quite the ruckus," the elder constable said. "Worked that whole establishment into a fine tizzy. So, tell me, why did you scream?"

"What do you mean?" Adam asked.

"I mean, just that. What happened? Did you do the deed the evening before, fall asleep only to wake and forget what you'd done?"

Inhaling, Adam thought hard about the question, reaching for a memory that did not exist. He did not remember falling asleep. He did not remember anything about the events at all. Still, he shook his head. "No," he said.

"So, you did not forget."

"No, I don't think I killed her."

The elder constable nodded at Adam's hands. "The blood on your hands would declare otherwise."

Following the constable's gaze, Adam knew he could not reasonably explain the bloodstains any more than he could his presence next to the woman who had been killed. Dead. A woman was dead, and he had been the one laying naked next to her. Had he entered her? he thought uneasily. Shame overwhelmed him immediately. It was yet another thing he did not know. What was he going to tell Eddie? What was he going to tell himself?

"Yeah," Adam admitted quietly. "I can't really account for that."

"What can you account for?" the elder constable asked.

Mouth falling open, Adam shook his head helplessly as he failed to answer the question.

"What happened to your head?" the younger constable asked.

"My head?"

"Yes, your head. Something must have happened, because it's bandaged up. Did you do that, or did someone else? That gal maybe?"

Lifting his hand, Adam fingered the bandage covering the side of his head. Wounds to the head tend to bleed a lot, the memory of a woman's voice sprung to the forefront of his mind. They always seem to look a lot worse than they actually are. Had the woman said that to him? Had she bandaged him up?

"Let me guess," the younger constable added cynically as he eyed his elder. "You don't remember."

Leaning over, Adam propped his elbow on his knee, rested his palm against the bandage covering his mysterious wound, and tried to recall the events of the evening. "I don't remember that," he volunteered. "But I remember something else. I was in the cemetery. I was… drinking a lot."

"Why?" the elder constable asked.

"Um," Adam hedged, the details of his conversation with the Captain springing to mind. Not willing to share the particulars of his father's life with the strangers in his company, he shared one of his own. "Yesterday was my birthday."

"And you decided to spend it in a cemetery," the younger constable scoffed. Crossing his arms, he cast the elder man a look of cynical disbelief.

"I was visiting my mother," Adam said. "She died when I was born."

The constables traded a look. "Okay," the older one said. "So, you were visiting your mother, toasting yourself and her memory, and then what happened?"

Adam thought about the man's assumption, knowing full well that it was flawed. Then he thought long and hard about the question, but his memory refused to cooperate. The last thing he was truly recalled was finishing his whiskey and wanting to smash the bottle on his mother's gravestone. Had he done that? He did not know, because anything that had happened after that moment did not exist to him. All recollection of the subsequent events were simply gone.

"I don't know," he said softly. "I don't know what happened after that."

"How about I tell you," the elder Constable said. "Piss drunk and in an unfortunate mood, you employed a prostitute. The two of you shared a bed. You woke up covered in her blood, and she just plain never woke up. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what that looks like to the outside eye, or how a judge and jury would perceive it. After all," he eyed Adam's badge sitting on the table, "you are a man of the law."

"What's going to happen to me?" Adam asked. "What are you going to do?"

"What I oughta do is take you out into the street and hang you, make a real nice example out of you. I am sick and tired of harsh men employing working gals and roughing them up. They think that because they pay them, that gives them the right to take whatever they want from them." Reaching for the photograph, he shoved it in front of Adam. "It doesn't."

Eyes narrowing, Adam struggled to decipher what had been photographed, and when he finally did, he gasped. Sitting in front of him on the table, the rattling picture's revolting details remained on full display: alone on the bed was a body, the lifeless form of a naked woman. Her hair was untied, cascading on the pillow behind her head; her face was completely gone, irrevocably fragmented and fractured, transformed into a bloody, hollow heap.

The image was odious and repugnant. Adam was horrified. Never in his life had he seen anything like it; never in his most wild of nightmares would he think someone would dare possess such a thing. It was ungodly, wicked, and disturbing. Stomach turning wildly, he felt disgusted and nauseated. "Why did you do this?" he asked, his voice shaking with anger. Unable to look at the ghastly image any longer, he cast the elder constable a condemning look. "She's a person. Even in death, she deserves dignity and respect. Why would you allow someone to photograph her? Why would you dare disrespect her like that?"

"Why would you?" the younger constable countered simply.

Despite his quick fury and outrage, Adam reopened his mouth only to find he had run out of words. There simply was nothing more to say. The elder man was right: he did not need to tell him what the events looked like. He was a man of the law, and even if he was not, he was still intelligent enough to glean how much trouble he was in. A woman was dead; she had been brutally murdered, and he had woken up next to her, covered in her blood. Even now, her blood was still on his body and his hands; the men in front of him had prevented him from washing it off. He was in trouble. Oh, god, he was in so much trouble.

"What's going to happen to me?" Adam asked again. "If you aren't going to hang me then what are you going to do?"

It seemed like an eternity passed while the elder constable silently stared at him, his blue eyes looking him up and down, seeming to weigh every visible detail of his appearance. "Nothing," he said finally.

Adam could not hide his surprise. "Nothing?" he asked dumbly, his brows furrowing with quick disgust. How could they find him and the woman the way that they had and do nothing? What kind of tawdry law office was this? A woman was dead. They found him in the bed next to her. How could there be no punishment for such a horrendous crime?

"Nothing," the elder constable repeated bitterly as he eyed Adam's badge. "Like I said, you're a man of the law, a well-respected U.S. Marshal, in fact. I telegraphed your superiors and they vouched for you. I told them what I thought you did, and they told me to let you go. So, I guess, it turns out that some lives are more valuable than others. Nobody cares about the murder of a prostitute when the lawman who took her life outranks the two constables trying to hold him accountable for it. You're free to go." Lifting the grisly photograph, he appraised it momentarily. "I can't do anything to you. But I can make you take this with you," he added, shoving it into Adam's coat pocket. "You keep it. Think of it as a reminder, just in case you find yourself in a mind to do to another gal what you did to this one."

Standing, Adam grabbed his coat and donned it. Shamefully, he was slightly comforted that while the aged blood staining the exterior could not be missed, at least the material would hide the blood staining his shirt and hands. Nodding at the men, he did not hesitate to make his way to the door.

"Marshal."

The elder constable's terse tone was enough to freeze Adam in place. Turning around, he cast the man a guarded glance.

The elder constable nodded at the forgotten item on the table. "Remember to take the badge you're hiding behind."

With his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, Adam walked the crowded streets for hours. The photograph of the woman felt downright heinous pressed up against the back of his hand, but he did not dare remove it or his hands from his pocket for fear that those around him would see what he longed to hide from himself.

There was blood on his hands, and the woman it had come from was depicted clearly in an image that should not have been allowed to exist. It should not have had to exist, he thought mournfully. The woman should have been alive, but she was not. He did not want to think he had killed her, but that did not make her any less dead. It did not make the circumstances in which he had awoken any less suspect. It did not make the dried blood on his body any less real. It did not help him remember, reinstating the memories of a mysterious span of time that would explain what had happened during the night. He did not believe he killed her, but that did not change what the constables had believed. His unsteady conviction did nothing to bring her back to life.

In his other pocket, he clenched his badge in a tight fist, unsure if he should be thankful for the item or cursing it. It was only because of the silver star and the prominence it gave him that he had been allowed to walk free—a decision he was not certain he agreed with. A woman was dead. It did not seem right that no one should care about such a thing. But someone had cared; the older and younger constables both had cared about what had taken place. Adam cared, too. What he could do about such a thing, however, remained painfully unsure.

If you open your eyes, the memory of a woman's throaty voice emerged from the depths of his mind. I'll give you a big surprise. I have such big plans for you.

Adam tilted his head. Had the dead woman said that to him? He could not recall. Although, if she had, then she had certainly held true to her claim, he thought morbidly. Eventually, he had opened his eyes, and he had been confronted with a hellacious discovery. How was he ever going to explain what had happened to her to his superiors should they ever ask? To Eddie, should he not be able to contend with his guilt on his own? He may not have believed he killed the woman, but that did not change that fact that he had been in bed with her; his naked body was as powerful of an accusation as the blood staining it.

Oh, god, he thought. Oh, no.

What kind of man not only failed to marry the woman he loved, but also requisitioned companionship with other women? A piss-poor one, even he had to admit. Though, he realized that over the course of a five-year relationship a man stepping out on one single occasion was not a horribly bad statistic. After all, he and Eddie had not been together in a biblical way since Noah had been conceived nearly two years ago. He and Eddie spent the majority of their time miles apart and during the very brief spans of time when they could be found under the same roof their nights were spent in differing bedrooms. It was not uncommon for a married man to hire a certain type of woman to attend to certain needs; in fact, it was encouraged in some circles. When he thought of it like that it was almost justifiable. Except…

Except those were not his circles. The separate bedroom arrangement was not one either he or Eddie tolerated well. And the absence of a physical relationship with Eddie was not her fault—given how difficult Noah's birth had been, it was a necessity. This, however, him waking up in the company of a strange, dead woman was his fault.

It was very much his fault.

Even if he did not kill her; he had put himself in the circumstances that led to it. He had drunk too much and, judging by the bandage on his head, he had hurt himself. Impeding his faculties with drink, he had blackened his memories of what had followed, and by doing so, he had hurt someone else. If he had not been drunk—if he had not run from the Captain's company and the difficulty of their conversation then the evening would have unfolded much differently than it had.

The back of his hand pressed against the photograph in his pocket, he shook his head to clear the thought. It simply was not helpful. Getting lost in shame and regret, postulating about what could or should have been was nearly as useless as getting lost in painful memories of the past. What should have happened did not matter, because this was what had.

But why had it happened?

He could not answer the question any more than he could prevent himself from thinking it. Suddenly, oddly, he was thinking of another woman who had died, another time and place, and another moment that had crumbled his life.

The way the prostitute had died, he knew others had died the same way. Laura had died that way, and so had the saloon gal Will had once hired years ago in a distant coastal town. There had been others. Two others he had once been accused of killing in the same way. In Virginia City, Sheriff Roy Coffee had done his best to silence the allegations regarding his involvement in Laura's death, and later, Marshal Weston had done the same regarding his culpability in the saloon gal's violent death. But there was someone else who had been present in both the lives of the women who had died and in Adam's. Will had been there. He had married Laura and he had hired the saloon gal—he had killed the latter one, too; according to Marshal Weston, Will had killed numerous women in the same way.

Easy, buddy, Adam thought grimly. Be careful with that line of thought, too. What does any of that have to do with right now? Just because there's a correlation between before and now that does not make you any less responsible for what happened last night. It doesn't change the fact that there's blood on your hands. It was you they found lying in bed with that woman. Not Will.

Besides, Adam had not seen Will in years. Since the day Weston had been killed and his cousin had shot him twice. Back then, Ed Payson had warned him in a dream to let his cousin go and Adam had done that. There was little purpose in hanging on to him now. Except…

Tilting his head, Adam hesitated in place, appraised his surroundings, and found he had unconsciously found his way back to the Captain's home. Lingering paces away from the stoop, he could not help the coldness seeping into the pit of his stomach, or the dread that seemed intent on paralyzing him forever.

Except for the fact that he had only come here because he had dreamed of Ed Payson again.

"New England is awfully pretty this time of year," Ed Payson had said. "Go there, Adam, and maybe, you'll discover some things about yourself you don't already know."

Was this the thing Ed had been urging him to learn?

"I thought we were friends, Ed," Adam whispered, words that sounded forlorn to even his own ears. Now he wondered if he and Ed were not friends, rather something else. "Why am I here? Why bring me here if it was for—?"

The front door opened abruptly and Captain Abel Stoddard stepped out. "I thought I heard your voice," he said, assessing Adam gruffly.

"I thought your eyesight was failing you," Adam said, the shocked, blunt words spilling from his mouth before he could stop them.

"It is, but my hearing is an entirely different matter. Who are you speaking to?"

"What?"

"Lad, are you avoiding the question, or are you really that dense? It's a rather simple inquiry, if you can't answer it then I would recommend you return to school."

Forcing a smile, Adam accepted his grandfather's snide jest. "I was talking to myself," he said. "After all, I'm forty-three now, I think I feel senility nipping at my heels."

The Captain laughed at that, lifted his hand, and motioned for Adam to join him inside. "What happened to you?" he asked when his grandson became close enough for his unkempt appearance to be clearly seen.

Shoving his hands deeper into his coat pockets, Adam prayed his grandfather could not see the bloodstains hiding beneath the jacket. "Hard night," he said.

"Aye, I've had a few of those myself."

The Captain eyed Adam sympathetically. The glint in his eyes seemed to declare the brief explanation had simply been understood. In some ways, Adam knew his grandfather did understand, but in others he did not, and never would.

"Come on, lad," the Captain said. "Missus Callahan will prepare you a nice, hot bath and you can cleanse yourself of whatever mistakes you made during the night." He could not have known the thing he was unconsciously referring to, or how saddened and unnerved the words made his grandson feel. "Then after she can redress your wound. Whatever happened is probably much worse than it looked last night."

"What makes you say that?"

"You've bled through your bandage."

However bad the soiled bandage appeared to the Captain to Mrs. Callahan it appeared much worse. She made a fuss. She had worked herself into a real fine tizzy, Adam thought humorlessly, recalling the elder constables' summation of his behavior this morning. It was nothing short of a miracle that he had managed to keep his hands in his pockets and his jacket upon his back.

Assessing the article of clothing with an overwhelming amount of skepticism, Mrs. Callahan's facial expression contorted as though she thought its very existence was strange. "Adam," she said. "When did you get your jacket? I was certain you forgot it when you left last night—"

"I'm tired." Clenching his hands into tight fists in his pockets, Adam was beyond tolerating questions about the subject. "All I want to do is wash up and go to bed."

Her expression shifted sympathetically. "Of course," she said. "After you undress, leave your clothes outside of the door. I will find some others for you to wear while these are cleaned."

She left him then, closing the door behind her. Pulling his hands from his pockets, Adam was quick to lock the door. He looked at the steaming hot water in the tub, then at the blood on his hands. His legs wobbled beneath him, the exhaustion and shock of the morning overcoming him quickly. He sank to his knees on the floor, then sat down heavily, and rested his head in his hands. Silent tears overwhelmed him quickly, just as the building tightness in his throat had warned that they would.

A woman was dead; he had the proof of such a thing staining his hands, and even after that was washed off the proof would live on in the abhorrent photograph hidden in his pocket. He wanted to burn it, transforming its image into a pile of ash that would prevent anyone from seeing it again. But he would not dare to. A woman was dead; it was not right for him to destroy the evidence of her existence—as depraved as it was. It was not right for him to be allowed to ignore what had happened to her. Why should he be allowed to continue with his life just because someone had once pinned a silver star on his breast? It was a badge he had never wanted and tried hard not to keep. He simply was not allowed to relinquish it once it was in his possession. It had become his, and it had let him away from and toward things. It had led him in the same way Ed Payson had said fate had led him.

"You were meant for a different life and other things," Payson had said. "That badge and the purpose it gave you. Fate guided you toward that then, and she's guiding you now. There are countless roads a man can travel if only he can find them. There's always a right and wrong one, and usually you don't know you've made a wrong turn until you've gone too far."

Adam found it difficult to believe that the road he was currently on was right. Was coming here his wrong turn? Or had that happened last night, when he did not finish the difficult conversation with his grandfather, rather ran away from it? What did it matter now? A wrong turn had been made; he had gone too far, and now he had to live with it. The same way Pa had to live with it, the memories of all the things in his life that should have been different than they turned out to be; the truth about his father, his brother, his nephew, and himself.

With his head in his hands, his fingertips stained with the blood of someone who should have been alive, Adam thought he understood the things that motivated his father to do what he had done. It was fear and desperation that had led Pa to run away from his father's home. Years later, it was desperation that had led him to leave his young son in the company of his brother; and years after that it was fear that had governed his inability to handle Will's behavior. Pa had been afraid—Adam knew that now—but not of the secrets or lies that Will could have exposed. It was never really Will, Pa had been afraid of.

It was Adam.

"You're a man who takes responsibility for righting other people's wrongs," Payson had said. "You don't want to, but you have to."

Pa had been afraid of Adam. Righteous, invulnerable, impregnable, virtuous Adam who believed so deeply that in between right and wrong lurked no shades of gray. Things were right or they were wrong; they were good or they were bad. He was quick to judge—and forgive, but something about the judgement could be perceived as threatening, especially when coupled with his strong, enduring personality. So moral of man was he that he would never allow himself to be pushed by another to make a mistake; this was a well-known fact.

But everyone made mistakes.

Adam knew he had always struggled with owning up to his own. He did not like to look at his flaws. He would much rather pretend they did not exist, because this strength, this morality that had been instilled within him since birth, had a weight to it. It was crushing, often as difficult to carry as it was not to sink beneath its impossible burden.

"There's always a reason for the things you do," Payson had urged. "Even if you don't want to see them, they're always there. Think about your doubt, examine it, figure out where it's coming from and why."

Adam knew no one was perfect, but he had to be. It was what was expected of him. It was what those surrounding him needed him to be. Eternally so certain and strong. So certain and strong, in fact, that when he finally allowed the smallest amount of doubt to seep into his mind regarding his actions concerning Peggy, it had spurred him into spending the next five years of his life wandering the countryside with a badge pinned to his chest. Adam had chased others because he could not find the courage to sit in place with himself. He could not find the courage to look that girl in the eyes and tell her the truth.

"It all comes back to you. You're torn between the kind of man you know you are and the one you think you oughta be. Be honest with yourself about the things you can and can't do."

Following other men's trails Adam was running away from himself at the same time, because he had been unable to look back honestly; he had been unwilling to see what was lurking behind Pa's anger, his determination to protect Will at any cost. He had been unprepared to see his father's fear, hesitant to see and know that whatever rapport that existed between Will and Pa that allowed each other to be privy to each other's deepest flaws would never exist between his father and himself. Shared knowledge and pain regarding the past had bound uncle and nephew together; the two of them had needed each other far more than Adam would ever allow himself to need anyone.

"Look at yourself, Adam. Take note of who you really are," Pa had said during their final argument. "You want to talk about denying the truth? Or the way we choose to see things? Or how important people's perceptions of us are? Fine, but you can't sit in judgement of others without allowing yourself to be judged. You cannot expose the faults of others while so carefully guarding your own. You're selfish, self-righteous, and judgmental. You don't know how to love people, because you will never allow yourself to need anyone."

At the time, the words had hurt, cutting deeper than anything Adam had ever endured before. Now he knew his father had not been purposely cruel. He had not really been cruel at all, because, in the midst of every dark night when Adam could not fall asleep a small voice in the back of his mind still whispered that, despite how poorly-timed and savage the words had been, his father had been right to say the things he had. His father had been right about him. And now sitting on the cold, hard floor, weeping in earnest like a child, Adam was haunted by the resurgence of this small voice. No one can know you woke up next to a brutalized prostitute, it said. They will not understand. They can't, because they won't. It doesn't matter whether you did it or not. The only thing that matters now is that you were there.

"I'm sorry, Pa," Adam whispered mournfully, his breath hitching in his chest. Pa had been afraid of the truth, this Adam knew because he was afraid now, too. "I-I'm s-sorry—"

"Lad?" the Captain's question was accompanied by a knock on the door and then followed by another. "Are you alright?"

Startled out of his misery-fueled rumination, Adam took a deep breath and cleared his throat to steady his voice. "Fine," he said gruffly.

"Are you sure—?"

"Yes."

Lingering outside, the Captain did not speak again. It was not until he heard his grandfather's footsteps move away from the door that Adam stood. Undressing numbly, he threw his clothes in a heap on the floor, before finally crawling into the bathwater. Inhaling deeply, he plugged his nose, closed his mouth, lay down on his back and submerged his face beneath the lukewarm liquid. The water stung as it soaked through his bandage, reigniting a stinging pain that encased the side of his head. He paid the pain little mind; in the face of everything else, it simply was not worth worrying about. Holding his breath, he began to silently count, a desperate bid for control over the uncontrollable. He knew the actions his newly found fear would demand from him, and it awoke within him an agonizingly unanswerable question.

What would his desperation lead him to do?

TBC