Starlight
"Ah, Grace. Good timing."
Grace walked through Adam's doorway, throwing a wave in the screen's direction.
"You know me, Frank. Time efficient."
She resisted the urge to pull her shirt collar down, push proverbial glasses up her nose.
Frank really ought to get what he must out of the way.
"Adam, Chiron got in touch. They are refusing to replace the mirror again."
What was animated earlier, Adam's features now flattened, speaking little. His arms were tense though, making fists, stressed balling. Grace saw through Frank's dour reaction. She looked at the tech, gesturing with her eyes towards Adam. Frank shook his head, knowing they should keep quiet.
He knew Adam's demeanour well, if either spoke, it would spook him into a corner. He communicated to the woman to keep still. Grace complied, instinct kicking in.
"The mirror?" Grace tilted her head with inquiry after a few minutes. "Why would it need replacing, again, I should add?"
Adam turned, fleeing the apartment, the woman straining her ears to hear quietened gasps of breath.
"Adam destroyed the first. The second was shatterproof glass, ended up littering the counter-top and floor. I should know, the crunch reverberated through his apartment as he sat, motionless on the couch, head in his hands."
Grace closed her eyes, unhappy at the man's reaction.
"Are there any mirrors here?" She looked around. "Any glass surface I can see is intact. I also see, clocks? He makes them?"
"He repairs them."
"So, he worries about handling items but has no trouble using tiny screwdrivers? If he is that dexterous, why does he hate himself so? It can't just be because part of him is metal. It must run deeper."
She looked at her hands, placing them on her knees.
"Has he said anything to you? Experienced nightmares or whatnot?"
"He wouldn't, not to me."
Grace reasoned, insides torn like sheets of paper in fits of anguish.
"Malik? There must be something he isn't tell me." She backtracked. "Us. Us."
She sat down, hands skimming through hair roughly. Alien (not so much now) swallowed sobs she tried to hide as coughs left her mouth.
And then, Frank saw it. Unmistakable in tear stained eyes, blotched cheeks. As the water dripped onto her pants, the man realised she felt much more than she was willing to admit. Her eyes gave it away though, what was true in a world full of untruths.
"There's doing your job well, then doing it too well, Grace."
Frank said quietly, not wishing to disturb. Perhaps the woman was oblivious to what he'd just said, or chose to ignore it.
"This isn't doctor, is it?"
"How far has it gotten?"
"Far enough that I fear if I blink, it'll all disappear. I fear, Frank. Its clasping my heart, fingers around my chest, enclosing my arms. I fear I can't move away, that claws will pierce flesh, tearing my chest apart."
Grace stood abruptly, unstable, not focusing on her surroundings.
"This isn't okay. Why can't things just be okay for once?"
She ran her hands through her hair, every knot bothering her no end.
"What's wrong with me?" She turned a few times. "You can get me out of here, right? Adam told me that."
Frank nodded.
"I doubt Adam will return to Detroit, too much pain here. Its hidden from most, but, Adam has seen it, experienced it. Its there, clad in shadows."
"And Adam blends into it perfectly, he's learned to embrace the blackness." Her look gave the tech chills. "Am I trying to bring him into the world's light? No," she spat sourness, "my light. Who the hell do I think I am?! Why the fuck do I even entertain the idea? Oh, by Freud's ears, I am lost. I'm lost all over again, when I thought I had the paths figured out."
"Paths are rarely linear, if they were, life would be a cinch."
Grace closed her eyes.
"Cinch, cliche, inspiring, but the idea, the concept is flawed. Life is flawed. Simplicity wouldn't comfort us. We'd soon grow bored, yawn our way through days, monotonous haze."
"You don't have to speak to me like that, that's the doctor talking when Grace ought too." The tech waved his hands dismissively. "Drop the pretence."
"Pretence keeps me behind the line. There are lines for a reason Frank. What if the lines are ever thinning?"
She dropped her hands meekly, plopping herself down, willing herself to think.
Adam had inadvertently flipped the proverbial hourglass. Professional grains ran through her fingers, replaced with heaving air, glass clouding over. Grace looked at the grains as if they were flecks of rust, chipping off her moniker before her. Her term felt lead weight, the woman found her hands shaking from carrying it, torn between letting it fall to the floor or hauling it back into the furthest corner of her mind, dusting off excess bronze.
Adam was like Spring, chills fading, taken away by still, soothing winds, easy on her skin, enjoyable on the long walks she used to take. She couldn't recall why she'd stopped walking, it helped negativity evaporate, morning crispness easing worries.
Ah, work. She had to work, her mornings taken up with travel, passengers ignoring one another, much to her chagrin. Whilst not wanting elegant poetics, she was one for small talk. Not conjecture, but something real. The world around them was real, there were people with stories all around. Why ignore that? When did people become so callous?
Attitude much calmer than first appearance, Spring mellowed Grace, her dislike for Winter infamous in the practise. She would bundle herself up like an Inuit, skin still snow pale until she had her first cup of sweet morning Joe. Human, she felt human as she swallowed caffeine fire, warming her belly. Grace flinched, looking at Frank, the man's features quite obviously studying her.
Human. Adam doesn't feel human, though he does believe it.
Did he help Grace feel human?
Yes.
Was she asking and answering her own questions only in her head?
Yes.
Adam mellowed Grace, towards the end of the season, wafting pleasant scents taking troubles away. Clearing the fog of colder months, creating a Grace at peace with herself, one with nature, all its beauty viewed. Adam helped her see the varying degrees of life, all its angles, tilts, axis. She's heard much in her career, witnessed peril, slabs of rot stinking up her office, via drunk clients made homeless. Part of her felt horrendous, her heart yanked, pulled about unpleasantly. Feeling unwell was commonplace, the answer to most problems not want the client wanted to hear. The remedies she provided she'd brew over time, time wasn't a luxury. They wanted it there and now, waiting wasn't what they 'signed' up for.
It wasn't Grace's fault that some lacked patience. She could help if they gave her opportunity as well as time. Adam reluctantly gave her the former, and, almost as reluctantly gave her the latter. She appreciated those more than her vocabulary would currently allow.
She'd have to tell him that, thank him, yet again.
Unless, Frank's subject had blown any chance of her seeing the troubled agent again.
If she had to wade through decades of mud to reach Adam's heart, she would.
Grace blinked from stupor.
"Tell me to stop."
Frank shook his head.
"Tell yourself to."
"I can't!" Grace retorted. "Not used to feelings coming into play. When did that become a thing?"
"You tell me."
"When he smiled, really smiled, I believed it was the doctor inside me that felt joy. It was honest, raw. I wasn't very honest with myself however. The joy lay beneath the layers of training. I felt joy as a person. Is it terrible to feel that way? Should I distance myself? Be unfeeling, throw him aside whilst telling him nonsense, all for the sake of credits? I can't, Frank," she sniffled, taking a pack of tissues from her purse, "I simply can't, not when I think, and I end up moved. His progress is utterly brilliant. Little slip ups? Yes, but he's able to get past them. Tell me I'm wrong to feel this way, and..."
Frank sighed.
"And what? You'll cease this folly? Adam isn't of sound mind to act as he did with Megan."
Grace rolled her eyes.
"I'm not asking for him to care, Frank. Seriously," she hit her forehead, "don't put words into my mouth. Do I have to shove a dictionary in front of you too?"
"Speak to Adam yourself, speaking to me won't give you the replies you seek. He's on his way back. He pinged me."
Hazels widened.
"Fuck."
She stood for a second time, much steadier. She ambled over to a door, not knowing which was the bathroom.
"I bet I look like shit."
When she located the bathroom, it confirmed her fears.
"Right."
She sniffed, wiping tears from under her lashes.
"Sort yourself out, woman. Sorry, Frank."
She popped her head round the door. Frank smirked.
"So much for decorum."
Grace returned the smirk.
"I dropped the pretence, didn't I? I needed too. Needed that moment."
She looked into the mirror, untying her hair, holding the band in her hand curiously.
"Should I leave it up or down?"
Frank squinted. The woman wore a knowing grin.
"There is a difference, you know. Guys tend not to notice that."
She wiped her eyes carefully, catching drips and losing a few eyelashes with each swipe.
"Well, techs don't. Unless I put in some sort of code, there's no way you'd understand. Funny," she left her hair down, combing a tad, "something you don't fully understand. Simultaneously worrying, yet hilarious. Excuse me if I giggle."
The intact reflective surface made the woman smile, the thought of earlier conversation taking her at the last second.
"Down," the tech's tenacity shone out, his voice firm, "down accentuates your features."
"My slight vanity thanks you."
She left the bathroom once she deemed herself decent.
"Adam does too. Right, bugger off, you. If Adam and I are to talk, we ought to in private. Thanks for listening." Grace made her way to the screen. "I am indebted."
"Don't."
Frank's confidence died quickly...
"Heh. You know I love you really."
"If you're trying to get rid of me..."
Grace finished his sentence.
"It's working? Excellent."
She rubbed her hands together.
"Talk soon."
She gave an earnest smile, pottering into the kitchen to brew some coffee.
Grace got onto tiptoes, grabbing some mugs. Britishness be damned. Bold coffee was what she needed, not soothing herbal brews.
Something with strength, give her the backbone to talk to Adam about what, somehow, she could speak to Frank about, despite him being much more provincial than both herself and Adam combined.
She could talk, right?
Might need something stronger than coffee...
Plonking herself back down onto the couch, she heard the door open, immediately cursing herself upon eyes watering.
Definitely stronger than coffee, not too much to put me on my arse.
I do not have this.
Fuck.
Doctor Grace needed to stroll in. She would have done, only, no appointment was made, no allotted time given.
She was on her own...
Just wanted to clarify that Adam is no longer Grace's patient, he sees her of his own accord. I only say this, due to someone's rather negative review. I understand that this would constitute as a 'breach of trust,' were Adam still a patient, but he isn't. I also wouldn't have written this, to mock the profession, or the fans, or the devs. That, I swear.