Author's Notes: This story would not be possible without the contributions of fellow user dori4n, who's fellow love of this smaller "Heroes" ship, chatting about head canon, and Skype roleplaying helped to inspire and create this story. So if you like it please, make sure to check out their page and stories as well.

[Please see bottom of each chapter for translations to Japanese words or phrases used by the characters.]

"It's getting worse and worse here... I begin to think you're better down there than up here. Everything is going to hell again. I have no one to... To believe in me. Well... I have Ando but... It's not the same thing... It's not. -It will never be. I thought I would never see you again and then... You told me I was more than a friend to you..."" The immortal sighed softly. The voice he would have known anywhere sounded more and more tired with each successive visit to see him. He hated it. Even more so knowing that he could do nothing about it, though he couldn't imagine how being out of the ground and this pine box would change anything. No, he had had a chance to make him happy, to prove himself to him, and he'd failed.

The time traveler was right, it was better for everyone concerned if he stayed here. He should have known better than to get his hopes up about being released from this prison. Perhaps he could not be sure of how long he had been buried here, but after lifetimes of causing pain, heartache, and death, his penance could hardly have been served in full yet, perhaps it would never be finished. Hiro deserved and could surely find better help, and far better companionship than his own, no matter how much the immortal may have longed for it.

"You don't want me Carp," the blond whispered bitterly, shaking his head in the silence that followed his words.

"You were more than a friend to me. I wanted to do everything good so badly I just... Destroyed everything." At this the immortal stilled, his hand where it usually rested against the lid of the coffin, reaching uselessly up towards his voice, and the man himself, falling down to his chest, over his fast beating heart. He did not mean this. Not in the way that this eternally youthful man wanted him to. He could not. It had ceased being about him from the moment that he had helped him to win over Yaeko. And the princess had not truly been his either, in love with the idea of him, of the man that Hiro was. He had nothing, just dreams, and nothing to show for it-just as he always had, and now thanks to the time traveler's efforts, he didn't even have the drink to forget about it. Though it had taken him little time to lose himself to it once more when he had left.

The trouble with a body that regenerates as he would soon learn however, was that in the very moment his liver began to become compromised, his body instantly sobered him again. Even becoming drunk was beyond his reach. Oh how he had prayed, had wished, even tried to die, but it was no good.

"Can you forgive me, one day," the voice above asked hopefully, nervously, tearing him from his thoughts.

"I forgave you long ago. I just didn't want to admit it," the immortal whispered softly. "-Didn't want to think about what that would mean," he replied to the lid of his prison shaking his head and trying to fight back the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.

"I must go. I hope... I hope I will come back."

"I hope that you do, my Carp, selfishly; even if for you sake it would be better if you did not," he replied.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

Alright so maybe he was still a little bit pissed off about having been locked up in a coffin for- well god knew how long now. Yes, he knew he probably deserved it, that this was probably the safest bet for mankind, and the future, just as the little time traveler had thought. And yes, he had definitely come to terms with the fact that for some damnable, unknowable reason he was incredibly, inexorably attached to said time traveler. But hearing the digging had both thrilled and terrified him. Was it real, was he imagining it all? He couldn't be certain of anything any more other than he was breathing entirely too fast, and running out of oxygen. And dying and regenerating, that was enough to make anyone a bit bitchy wasn't it?

He could never have actually killed him, even as his fingers tightened around his Carp's throat he had known he couldn't actually hurt him. That he had never truly had the capacity to do so, which was why it was such a shock when he felt time around him freeze, and found himself in the box again. Had he dreamed it all? Oh god this was madness, he thought banging on the lid, shouting for Hiro, at Hiro, or anyone that would listen to let him out. And then he had heard his voice again. "I will give you another chance if you behave, okay?" He was not dreaming. He was not alone.

"Okay," he promised immediately.

"Threaten me again and it's back to your box," Hiro told him firmly as he held the lid open allowing Adam to climb out of the coffin this time, and lean against it.

The immortal studied him a moment, determining that his companion is definitely serious and nods, though for the sake of his pride he pretended to huff indignantly about the whole affair, before noticing that all is not quite right with the world around them. There is a leaf frozen in mid-tumble from a nearby tree, and the time traveler's companion has not said anything for a moment, he's not moving, and more importantly he isn't even blinking.

"Carp," the blond ventured uncertainly, turning back to his one-time companion, for the the first time in far too long, his eyes and face reflecting the face of a young boy's one time hero, not the villain and his 'nemesis' that he would later become, but the man Hiro had always believed and saw in him, the man the former drunk had always hoped and wanted to be for him. "Why is that chatterbox you brought with you frozen?"