Come home

Minor gore and bad language. Be warned.

Sorry it took so long. It's a long chapter and it's been a busy week.

12/5/98

Adam coughed. Dark, half-clotted blood sprayed from his mouth. The wound on the inside of his jawbone didn't seem to have stopped bleeding, though a lot of time must have passed since it had been inflicted. From what he'd dared feel with his tongue, it was very deep, and proportionally painful. He'd felt the edge of bone in it. Blood pooled continually around his tongue. He'd swallowed some, it was inevitable, but he was trying to spit it out. Doing either hurt, a lot, but swallowing lots of raw blood could give him gastroenteritis, which he really didn't need.

He felt as if he wasn't really connected to his body past the waist any more, which at least meant his legs didn't hurt. That and his banging headache made Adam suspect that he was very dehydrated and had lost a lot more blood than he could really afford.

"Well, well, well Adam." Adam twisted sharply, sending pain racing through his wounds again, and stared, disbelieving. "You've got yourself in to a bit of a mess, haven't you, lad?"

"Richard." Adam breathed. The man who'd recruited him, and Johnny, and Sam before them. The first man they'd spied for, their trainer. This couldn't be real. "You're dead."

"Yes." Richard replied, crouching down in front of Adam. "I am. You remember how?" Adam spat blood, then nodded.

"Mercenary sniper, at the top of a skyscraper, Buenos Aires, July 17th, 1992. You can't be here."

"No lad. As you said, I'm dead."

"Then-"

"Oh, come on, Adam. You're intelligent and more or less compus mentis. Work it out." Adam thought for a minute or two.

"If you're dead, and I'm talking to you, have I-"

"Don't be ridiculous, Adam. You're alive. Try again." Adam rethought his assumptions, and tried again.

"If I'm alive, and you're not, and we're talking, you're not real, I'm hallucinating."

"Well, we got there in the end." Adam started to smile, but it hurt.

"It's been a long time since anyone said that to me."

"It needed saying then." Another brief silence. Adam spat again.

"You said I was compus mentis. I'm talking to a man who's been dead for six years."

"I said that you were more or less compus mentis Adam, not that you were."

"Are you going to be as pedantic as you were when you were alive?"

"I am as you remember me, being a construct of your subconscious." Adam sighed.

"I'm going to die here, aren't I?" He said, after a moment. Richard nodded.

"Probably." Adam closed his eyes and dropped his head. His mouth drained a little.

"I've got a wife now, you know. Spooks can't do that, but we did it anyway. And right before I came here, she told me she thought she was pregnant." Adam blinked hard. "I suppose she'll know by now. Oh, Christ, I can't leave her like this. I can't-"

"That's enough. There's no can or can't anymore for you. If they intend to kill you, they will. If they don't, they won't. It's out of your hands, Adam. Get it together please." Adam made an attempt to bite his lip, but the pain in his jaw stopped him. He closed his mouth gently, even if it meant swallowing blood, and breathed hard through his nose.

"Better?" Richard asked after a minute. Adam emptied his mouth of blood and nodded. "Good. As I was saying, Adam, you have no control over whether you live or die. You do, however have control over how you die."

"Be shot or bleed out I expect." Adam felt surprised by his own sudden calm. Richard smiled.

"I meant the way you face death. The young one, Josif." Adam nodded. "He let fear take hold. He died terrified and begging for life. Are you going to die like that?" It was a rhetorical question, but Adam answered anyway.

"No." Richard nodded.

"Good man. I'll tell you how you are going to die. You are going to die with your head held high, staring straight at the person who is about to kill you, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service. How are you going to die?" Adam drew breath slowly.

"With my head held high, staring straight at whoever's about to kill me, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service."

"Again."

"With my head held high, staring straight at whoever's about to kill me, with pride and dignity-" The door creaked open. "as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service."

"Who are you talking to, Adam Carter?" Shouter's voice. Adam hesitated, then decided on the truth.

"Richard Smythe." He spat blood again and saw, to his surprise, that Fluff-face and the one with the stupid-looking moustache were peering anxiously in to the gloom.

"There is no one here, Adam Carter. You are alone since you killed Josif Mihaillovitch." Adam offered no response. It wasn't worth the pain of speaking. Shouter crouched down in front of him, a bottle of water in his hand. Adam's throat burned. It had been days since he'd had water, and Shouter knew it. Shouter opened the bottle, took two mouthfuls and opened his mouth, like Fluff-face had, to prove he'd swallowed it. Adam just stared.

"You want this?" Shouter waved the bottle under Adam's nose. This was a form of torture, not an offer of help, and he had to remember it, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service. "Names, Adam Carter. That is all that stands between you and relief." Adam stared stonily at him. "I can see that you are a very proud man, but pride will hurt you in the end. It is hurting you now, yes?" Still Adam didn't respond. Shouter spoke for maybe two more minutes. Adam was sorely tempted to spit blood in to his face to shut him up, but physical torture would probably result.

Then Shouter sighed and motioned Fluff-face and Stupid-moustache forward. Cold dread knotted Adam's stomach. With pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Fluff face grabbed a handful of Adam's hair and pulled his hair back. Oh shit, not this again. Not this. Stupid-moustache grabbed Adam's jaw. Adam bellowed in pain. Stupid-moustache took the opportunity to get two fingers over Adam's front teeth, in an attempt to hold his jaw open. Adam bit hard, heedless of how much worse it made his jaw feel. If it saved him another drill wound, he didn't care. Stupid-Moustache yelled and wrenched his hand free, staring at the blood that coated it. Shouter roared something at Fluff-face, who pulled Adam's head back further. The girder kept Adam from arching his back further to compensate. Shouter kicked Adam in the side. He cried out. He couldn't help it. Shouter pressed Adam's cheeks inwards, until they were between his teeth

Adam couldn't close his mouth. He'd lost. But there was no sign of a drill, or a head brace. Surely in the mania of that kind of pain he'd break lose. Adam eyed Shouter uncertainly, as he shouted orders at Stupid-Moustache. What was he doing?

Stupid-Moustache reappeared in Adam's field of view and dropped two pills in to Adam's mouth. Drugs. Very bad. Before Adam could try to spit them out, a load of water landed on top of them. He coughed violently. Bloody water splashed over his face. His jaw seared anew. Shouter pinched his nose.

"Swallow it or suffocate, Adam Carter." One of the pills was under his tongue, on the uninjured side of his mouth. The other was too far back to reach. Adam's head was starting to spin. He coughed again, coughed until he had no air left in his lungs to expel. He swallowed. More water before he could breathe in. He swallowed again.

Twice more, he had to swallow. One tablet felt like it had gone down. He spat the other out the instant Fluff-face let go of his head. Shouter looked, then said.

"One should be enough, Adam Carter, but you could have made that much easier for yourself." What the hell had he just swallowed? Hallucinogenic? Most likely. Oh shit. He might break and not even know that he had. He couldn't trust anything he saw or heard for the next – no, they could damage his time perception. When would this end?

No. Don't ask when, or if, ask how. With his head held high, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service.

"You are a married man, yes?" Adam offered no response. Shouter sighed. "We saw the mark on your left hand from wearing a ring." Adam still didn't answer. What was it to Shouter? "She is a beautiful creature, no?" Yes, but how would Shouter know?"

"You'll never find her." Adam said, his voice hoarse. Shouter laughed mirthlessly.

"Truth be told, Adam Carter, she found us. She came looking for us and... fell in to the wrong hands. But I think all she knows, you do too, so it may be that I only need to keep one of you, assuming that you tell me what I wish to know." Fiona'd been caught? How had they known she was his wife? Had they tortured it out of her? Adam winced at the thought. Fiona, hooded and beaten until she could barely move, the head brace, what came with it... If she ever had to go through torture because of him again... "If you do not tell me what I wish to know, I will have her brought here, interrogate you together. If you love her, the sound of her screams may hurt you more than beating." Shouter fell silent, waiting for Adam to reply. As much as the idea of Fiona enduring this scared him, he didn't. Shouter sighed. "And of course, my men are bored. They cannot go home to their wives, maybe the company of yours will keep them amused." A sadistic grin crossed Stupid-Moustache's face. Adam looked down, breathing hard, eyes closed, blood dripping from his mouth. That would break him. If they did that in front of him, he'd break. And he'd just told Shouter that he would by reacting. Adam stayed silent again. He didn't need to give Shouter any more leverage than he already had. Shouter sighed again.

"Such a shame to see a beautiful, delicate, mild creature like that broken by ill use, but if it must be, it must be." Something in Adam's dazed, exhausted brain clicked. `Delicate and mild`, he'd called her. Shouter's english was near enough perfect, so it wasn't likely to be a malapropism. Anyone who'd seen Fiona when she felt threatened would think twice about calling her delicate. She was a ruthlessly effective fighter and able to take a lot more pain than you'd guess. Mild was even further wrong. These men would have seen nothing mild about Fiona. She'd have given them one hell of a fight.

"Bullshit." Adam said quietly, relief colouring his voice.

"What?"

"Damaedas, same thing. You don't have her. You don't even know who she is. You will never find her." Shouter growled in his throat and kicked Adam.

"Get me the bag and something to beat him with." Fluff-face hurried out. Adam didn't really care. He'd been right, Shouter's reaction proved it. Fiona was safe.