BEFORE:

In the days which followed Adam's return to San Francisco, he and Eddie did not talk about his sudden seemingly unpredictable arrival, Lil's absence, Peggy's augury statements, Eddie's unprecedented tears, or his nightmare and the actions which followed it.

They did not speak of the seemingly bad things lingering in the past at all, not when the present seemed so decidedly good in comparison. It was one of the best spans of time Adam had experienced in his life. And then, it was one of the worst.

Lil came home, suddenly appearing out of seemingly nowhere the morning following her absence to make coffee and assist Eddie in preparing breakfast. Adam had looked upon her, his brow furrowing, his lips curling into a slight frown as she motioned for him to sit at the head of the table and presented him with a steaming cup of coffee.

"It's nice to have you back," she quietly said, squeezing his shoulder fondly.

Adam wanted to tell her that the sentiment was reciprocated, but she walked away, busying herself with the morning's duties before he had a chance to speak. Peggy and Charlie filtered in, and it did not seem right to mention such things in front of the children.

Breakfast was a delightful, gregarious affair. In the company of this family, the Manfred Women, the child he had claimed and the ones he and Eddie had created, Adam felt a peace he had not experienced in a long time, an ease that had seemed so out of reach to him when he had been in the company of Mrs. Callahan and the Captain. For the first time in a very long time, he knew he was where he belonged. He knew he was home. Inevitably, considering this particular home led him to think of the intentions which had motivated him to leave his grandfather's home, and that made him think of his father's home.

For the first time in nearly six years, he wanted to go back to Nevada. He wanted to see his father and brothers. To share with them his own family. To see if their lives had changed as much as his had.

Heeding Ed Payson's advice in a dream, he may not have found what he was looking for back east—not that he had really been looking for anything at all—but he had found something else. A fear which had given him a direction, clarity where his relationship with his father was concerned. Guided by apprehension and terror, he had returned to San Francisco, and, given time, he knew he would return to Nevada, too.

There was no way to ignore the similarities between his father and himself now, no reason not to acknowledge the past in favor of forging a better future. His anger and frustration toward his father had been cast away to make room for sadness and understanding. He wanted his children to know their grandfather; he wanted them to know their uncles and whomever else may have joined the family in his absence. Surely, Hoss, Joe, or both had found women they wanted to share their lives with. Perhaps, they now had wives and children, too. Who was he to deny these new people and his own wife and children from knowing each other? To keep everyone distant, eternally separated? They were family, after all. Forever linked together by blood and a shared last name—or at least some of them were, and those who currently were not would be. It was the first thing on a new list that had taken precedence over the one Weston had left behind that Adam set his attention on correcting. He had not been back for more than two days when he was itching to leave again; this time, he was determined not to embark on his journey alone.

"Marry me," he said to Eddie one afternoon just after she had put Noah down for a nap.

Standing in the hallway, her back facing their sons' closed bedroom door, she looked at him; her expression was as indecipherable as the glint in her blue eyes. "I thought I already had," she said evenly, her tone careful and quiet so as not to disturb their sleeping son.

"I mean legally," Adam said, his voice just as soft.

"Do you have an issue with our current commitment to each other, or the vows we made years ago?"

"No."

"Then why are you bringing this up?"

"Because," Adam began and then paused. He could not dare speak of the true emotions guiding his behavior; the fear that had led him to leave his grandfather's home, the woman who had died in his company, or the desperation which had consumed him in the time that had passed between that day and this one. He was wracked with guilt, his heart leaden with all the things he felt he could not speak about. "Because I love you," he said. "Because I want to make things right."

"And how are they currently wrong?"

Adam knew better than to respond to questions that seemed to have no desirable answer. It was not so much that things were altogether wrong as much as it was that they were not altogether right. They had traded promises and vows with each other while telling the outside world a lie. This lie had never set easily upon his heart, and now, after recent events, it felt nearly impossible to endure. He simply could not live with it any more. "I want to marry you," he said simply. "How could you perceive that as wrong?"

"How do you suggest we do that?" Eddie asked. "We cannot dream of doing such a thing around here. We share children, buddy; a life that makes this specific lie very difficult to retract."

"Then we won't do it around here."

"Where do you suggest we do it?"

"Some place where nobody knows us."

"And where is that?"

"Anywhere you want," Adam said. "Tell me where you want to go and I'll take you there."

Indistinct expression unfaltering, Eddie considered the statement. "What about the children?" she asked.

"What about the children? Your mother can watch them."

"For how long?"

Frowning slightly, Adam wondered if she was being purposefully difficult. "I don't know. A week. Maybe two, depending on where you decide you'd like to go."

Was it doubt that was lending to her coyness? Or was it something else? With all the things that had changed for him during his recent time away, had something changed for her, too? Or had it changed after he returned? Had she stumbled upon Weston's unfinished list and the photograph of the woman he never should have met. No, it simply was not possible. He had hidden it too well; there was very little chance anyone would ever become aware of its existence. It should not have had to exist at all, he thought grimly, his fear rising to haunt him as Eddie remained a little too quiet.

"You do want to marry me, right?" he asked, hating how uncertain her expression and responses were making him feel. "Like you said, we share children, which makes it a little late to change your mind."

"I haven't changed my mind."

Assessing her, Adam was unconvinced. "Then tell me where you would like to go," he countered.

She stared at him for what felt like eternity before finally voicing her reply. "Ohio," she said simply.

Adam felt breathless, as though he had been punched in the stomach. "Why there?" he asked quietly. "Out of all the places you could pick, why would you want to go there?"

Tilting her head, she looked at him as though it was something he already should have known. Adam was sure he did not know. Oh, he knew why he did not want to go there, but why she did was destined to remain a mystery for the time being. She did not answer his question. Neither of them spoke further of the destination until the afternoon he decided to procure stage line tickets.

"No," Eddie said then. "I don't want to travel by stage."

"Then how do you expect to get there?"

"Horseback."

"Horseback," Adam repeated dumbly. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is, how long it will take, or what it will require? Why on earth would you want to do that?"

"I want to know you better than I do now. I want to see you in your element, outside in the wilderness, on the trails that seem to call to you, awakening inside of you a yearning that is much more powerful than the one you will ever feel for me."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" she asked. "Don't misunderstand me, buddy. I'm not saying this to insult or scold you."

"Then why are you saying it?"

"Because I love you," she said simply, repeating his earlier explanation. "I want to make things right."

Even though Adam was as uncertain of the request as he was the underlying intentions which had created it, he agreed to take Eddie to Ohio by her chosen means.

"You're going where?" Peggy asked skeptically when the duo announced their trip. Sitting on the settee, she looked between her parents and Lil, the book she had been reading suddenly forgotten on her lap. "How?"

"Ohio," Adam said.

"By horseback," Eddie said.

"But why?" The teen's disgust and confusion were obvious. Eddie and Adam's reasoning, however, were destined to remain less evident.

"Because we want to spend some time together," Eddie pragmatically explained.

"Why can't you do that here?" Peggy asked.

"We can," Adam said. "We just don't want to."

"Why not?"

"Because this is what we've decided to do," Eddie said.

"But you just came back." Peggy cast Adam a solemn stare. "And now you're leaving again?"

"We won't be gone for long," Adam assured.

"Ohio is nearly on the other side of the country!" Peggy exclaimed. "It's going to take forever for you to get there and then you'll have to turn around and come right back."

"I'm a quick traveler," Adam said.

"You might be," Peggy pointed at Eddie, "but she's not."

"Maybe I'm not," Eddie agreed. "But I'll be with him, won't I? I'm sure he'll shape me into quite the expeditious rambler."

"Or you'll slow him down," Peggy said bluntly. "I mean, when is the last time you rode a horse?"

Eddie shrugged nonchalantly.

"Have you ever ridden a horse? I mean really, like sitting on a saddle on its back." Peggy pressed. "Or been out of the city? Or slept outside in the wilderness?"

"The whole purpose of this trip is for Eddie and I to take it together," Adam explained. "If I'm quick and she's slow, then I'm confident together we will be able to travel at an acceptable speed. I know how to do everything she doesn't and I'll be next to her every step of the way to make sure things unfold smoothly and safely."

Looking between Eddie and Adam, Peggy was unconvinced. "I don't like it," she said warily. "I feel like there's something you're not saying."

"I don't like it either," Lil said as she cast her daughter a grim look. Strangely, it was the only interjection she offered on the subject. It was the first time Adam had known the woman to remain quiet about anything. It should have been his first indication that something was awry, but it had been missed amongst the overcast of oddness that encompassed the trip from the very moment Eddie decided upon their destination.

Whether her question had been a warning or probe, Peggy did end up being right: Eddie did not know how to ride a horse. It did exactly what Peggy had been worried it would: it slowed them down significantly, something that could be perceived as both a complication and gift. Eddie's lack of outdoor experience may have hindered their travels, but it made for a chummier trip. She needed him to assist her with damn near everything and, for a man who needed so badly to be needed, he loved every minute of it.

With wilderness surrounding them for miles there was very little proximity between the two of them. Having relinquished obedient, gentle Bingo to her, he wrapped the reins of his loyal ride around the horn of the saddle of a different horse and directed the animals to walk side-by-side until Eddie felt comfortable enough to instruct Bingo on her own. She caught on quickly; even so, when she was confident and capable of holding her own reins, she still directed her horse to ride close to his own. Often Adam would find himself, extending his hand, taking intermittent hold of hers as they rode. There was not often a moment of the day when one was not reaching out or touching the other, the serene nature of the open and empty landscape lending to a sense of intimacy they had not ever shared. It was the first time they had been truly alone, without Lil, Peggy, or their sons to think about.

Their conversations were companionable; their silences were peaceful; and their nights were downright blazing. In front of a flickering campfire, all discretion was lost; they made love more times than Adam could count. Each time was as exuberant as the first time, each time after better than the one that had come before it. Neither of them heeded the importance of not laying together, because, out there, surrounded by the sky, the moon, and the stars, a serenade of crickets and distant roving animals, there did not seem to be a good reason to remain apart.

The wilderness was invigorating, assuaging, and intoxicating; Adam had long been aware of how it affected him; what came as a surprise, however, was how much it affected Eddie, too. She loved the wide-open potential of the wilderness nearly as much as he did, and he loved her more for it.

"I understand it now," she said one evening as they lay, huddled close together beneath the blankets they shared, their eyes fixated on the stars above. "I didn't before, but I do now."

"Understand what?" Adam asked.

"The pull of this, of being out here day after day and the comfort one can find in wandering."

"We are hardly wandering. We do have a destination, you know."

"I know you know what I mean," she groused with a grin. "You're different out here. There's a peace surrounding you, a calmness and repose that fails to encompass you when you spend extended periods of time at home. Oh, you obtain plenty of rest there, but there always seems to be a frustration lurking beneath even your most favorable of moods, an agitation that can't be soothed. I understand now why that is. It's because being out here is the only thing that can soothe those feelings. Most people find struggle and agitation in wandering, but that's where you find your peace. Others want to build structures to contain themselves and people they love, but out here is where you feel most at home."

"That doesn't frighten you?" he asked.

"Why would it frighten me?"

"Because it would frighten most women. I can make myself remain in one place for as long as I'm asked to, but trails scattered among the wilderness will always call out to me. I'll always struggle with their alluring pull and that will always lead to impatience, boredom, and frustration. I can stay in one place for however long I need to, but there's a part of me that will always long to be somewhere else." Looking at the stars above, Adam thought Ed Payson would be pleased. After all this time, he was finally being honest with himself about what he could and could not do.

"Buddy," Eddie said warmly, "I said I understood."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"You don't see that as something you would expect me to change?"

"When have I ever expected you to change?"

"You asked me to give up my appointment as a marshal." Though Adam did not want to say it, he could not help drawing attention to the simple fact.

"I know, but that was before."

"Before?"

"Before I understood."

"And now you do."

"Yes."

"What does that mean?"

Turning in his arms, she sat up slightly, bringing her mouth inches from his own. "It means," she whispered, "I retract my previous request. I don't want to take you away from this. I don't want to fight with you over something that can't be changed. So, I have decided to embrace and love you for it, instead."

"You are," Adam rumbled deeply.

As she claimed his mouth with her own, he lifted his arms and pulled her closer and closer still. Absently, he wondered how he had been fortunate enough to find a woman who was as perfect as she was.

"I'm still going to walk away from marshaling, you know," he would say later as they rode beside each other. "What you said, it doesn't change anything."

"Yes, it does." She cast him a knowing grin. "Buddy, you don't know it now, but this trip is going to change everything. After this, things won't be like they've ever been before. They'll be different, but better."

Frowning slightly, Adam thought the reasoning of such a thing too simplistic to be true. "Because we'll finally be married?" he asked.

Eddie shook her head. "Because I understand you," she clarified. "And by the end of this, I know you'll understand me."

"The implication lurking beneath a statement like that is that I don't understand you now."

"You don't," Eddie said simply. "But you will."

If Adam was supposed to be comforted by the proclamation, then it had missed its mark. He was deeply unnerved. What was it about this woman that he did not currently understand? What was the sudden clarity this trip was supposed to provide? And why was Ohio the place Eddie believed would provide such a thing?

"Why Ohio, buddy?" he asked bluntly.

Grabbing his hand, she entwined their fingers and squeezed. She did not speak further on the subject.

Finally entering Ohio, they were married in Cincinnati by an aged municipal judge who annoyedly groused they were preventing him from retiring home at a reasonable time. "Where do you come from?" he asked, dipping the tip of his pen into his inkwell, preparing to fill out the protracted marriage certificate laid across his desk.

"San Francisco," Adam said.

"'Frisco!" the judge exclaimed. "Why in the devil would you come all the way here? Seems to me you could have found someone closer to do the deed." He looked between Adam and Eddie, his eyes narrowing suspiciously behind the tiny lenses of his glasses. "What, is this some kind of shotgun situation?"

"Would you care if it was?" Eddie asked.

The judge considered the question. "I suppose not," he said.

"Then it doesn't matter why we've come to this place," Eddie said. "The only thing that matters is that we are finally here."

Adam thought the explanation as reasonable as any, and, apparently, the judge did as well, because he married them without further question or comment.

Stabling their horses, Adam and Eddie procured a room at a local hotel. It was a moderately ostentatious institution, fancier than rooms Adam occasionally rented while he was working. They shared dinner and drinks in the downstairs restaurant. Then retired to their bedroom to share a celebratory bottle of wine and consummate their newly-traded vows. It was not until much later, when sleep had claimed her yet remained so unfeasible to him, that Adam realized his wife had removed the ring he had given her after Charlie's birth.

Eddie's bare finger was the first indication that something bad was afoot; her declaration the next morning all-but-solidified the notion. "I don't want to go home," she said. "I want to go to Cleveland instead."

"Cleveland," Adam repeated, apprehension gathering in his stomach to remain embedded like a stone in the pit of it. "Why on earth would you want to go there?"

"Because it's close."

"Close? Buddy, it's on the whole other side of the state. It may as well be Canada at this point."

"It's not that far, just north and then a little further east. We could make the ride in a few days."

"A few days," Adam repeated. "We've already been gone for nearly a month."

"I know, and that's what's brought us so close to Cleveland. We have to go. Adding another couple of days or even a week to our return journey is not going to matter when we get there. All that is going to matter is the fact that we're there."

"Why?"

"Because I want to," Eddie said. "Buddy, you may have spent the last five years traveling around this country, but I have not. There is no way of predicting if or when you'll be headed this way again, and if you do, it certainly won't be with me. If I don't see it now, then I never will."

"But why Cleveland?" Adam pressed.

"This trip has helped me to understand you," Eddie said somberly. "I need you to take me to Cleveland so that you can understand me too. Take me there, buddy, so that we can both discover all the things we don't yet know."

"Like what?"

"All the answers to the questions you don't even know you should be asking yourself."

Looking back, this was the moment that would come to haunt Adam the most. It would torture him with a sorrowful certainty that would stifle his doubt and prevent him from wondering how a differing response would have changed how everything else that was still to come would have unfolded. He would recall this moment—and the hint of desperation in Eddie's blue eyes, the sliver of resignation in her tone—and know that denying her request would not have changed anything, and that perhaps was the most painful part of any of it, this knowing, this certainty that left him without the doubt that had once been so obscure and inherent yet guiding, a tool to be utilized by fate to direct him toward a favorable path.

All his doubts would disappear in an instant, leaving room for the fury and hatred that would take their place; those sentiments would guide him, too. They would lead him to do things he never could have predicted, never could have stopped if he wanted to, because there was just no stopping the things that were to come. Maybe in the moment, as he pulled Eddie into his arms and quietly conceded to her request, he had known that then. Maybe it was that knowing that had implored him to take her to Cleveland, the city where the house that had once been owned by his father's brother still stood, abandoned, and foreboding on the banks of Lake Erie.

Alongside all the other things he had forgotten about that place, he had forgotten the lake, too, but standing in front of it, pulling his collar up against the cold breeze floating off the frigid waters, he would remember it.

He would remember it all.

The violence the walls of the house had hidden. The friendship that he and Will had once shared. The feelings of abandonment that had been forged and fostered here, leading him with an overwhelming desire to hold everyone he cared about at arm's length. To run from love rather than embrace it. To look upon his father with an inherently disillusioned gaze.

During his youth, he had believed—as he knew his father had—that he had grown a little too intelligent and opinionated, lending to countless disagreements and debates, the eternal seemingly endless struggle for the upper hand. He was stubborn, Pa had once said, a little too willful. But now Adam knew he had not really been willful at all. In fact, depending on who had been charged with making decisions on his behalf, he could be downright compliant, obedient, angelic. Not for Pa, though; no, never for Pa, or, eventually, Marie, the woman his father had married without pretense or warning while on a trip to New Orleans. He had hated Marie, because he had hated his father for bringing her home. For not bothering to explain the development properly. For expecting him to accept her without warning or explanation. For not taking the time to understand why such a thing was so untenable, because, god, he hated his father for leaving him at this place.

It was a horrible realization; an agonizing truth to admit. His love for his father had always been there, but the trust in him never was, and it was because of this place, what had happened here and why.

Standing there, Adam thought he understood himself better and Eddie a little less. How had she known about Cleveland? Who had she been speaking to? And where the hell was her wedding ring?

"You've been running from this for long enough," Eddie said. "Don't you think it's time you knew the truth?" Reaching into the pocket of her jacket—his jacket, old, familiar, and yellow, an article of clothing he had offered her that morning because she had been cold—she presented him with the unopened letters Will had given to him years ago; one he knew was for Peggy and the other was for himself. Where she had kept them hidden during their travels, he did not know. What she was doing with them now, he wished could have remained more of a mystery. "Don't you think it's time Peggy knew it, too?"

Holding the letters in a tight fist, old feelings overcame him in an instant, anger, frustration, and a very real fear he had yet to realize had been simmering inside of him for years. Laura had chosen Will over him. Was that her cousin's fate, too? "Where is he, Eddie?" he asked gruffly, purposefully omitting their beloved, shared moniker for effect. Shamefully, he hoped it stung her. He hoped it cut her like this moment was cutting him.

"Who?"

"Don't do that. Don't avoid the question, or lie. There's only one person who could have led you here; there's only one person who would have wanted you to lead me here, too."

Eddie's eyes seemed to contain a sadness that was so deep it was without end. "He said he was your brother."

"And you believed him?"

"With all the things he's told me about you and all the others you never did, I'm not sure I know what to believe anymore. I still love you, Adam; that isn't something that's changed."

"But everything else has, right?"

Adam did not wait for her to answer the question. He stalked away, leaving her on the bank of the lake. It would take four hours, a hard barstool, and nearly a half a bottle of whiskey to soothe his anger, to diminish it enough to where he felt as though he was capable of constructive conversation. When he returned to the bank to retrieve her, she was gone.

TBC