Hi so here is my first fanfic for this fandom that I literally just stumbled across. I love this fandom I love Adam. S1-6 are hand downs the best.

This story and all stories coming from it exist S1-6.

I do plan to write series of this story so if that's something your interested in let me know.

I do have an Fanfiction account under a different name, this story will be posted there as well in case you come across it.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine,

Please Read and Review.

And I swear in my works. If you don't like don't read.

This is part of a series, this isn't episode related. Neither is this series. Assume everything is S1-S6

Any inaccuracies please let me know.

I might add to this...I'll leave it up to you.

Please be aware...some triggers.

Running To A Standstill

Chapter 9-Blood Sweat And Tears

Ivy, Clarence Carter, Samuel Wylde, Adam and a lake. Part 1.

May Mitchell's mother was clearly dying, there was very little that anyone could do for her and Adam was personally not inclined to do much. If Samuel Wylde was right then the woman had invited a predator into her home and while that might not be her fault he would take his punishment for thinking it was at Judgement Day and not before.

Right now he was in a state of abject black terror.

There was no other word for it.

Adam Cartwright was always a practical man and a tad more pragmatic than most. Losing three mothers (well, a mother, a step mother and Marie) before you were fifteen tended to do that to you. And then there was his entanglement with Ivy's mother. To cap it all off there was the reality of owning ranch land. You lived and died by the seasons, there was no concept of a day off, there was no easy way to make a living off it. Hell there was a reason why he was a grown man living a home. Farming was not a good way to jump onto the property ladder.

Practicality came with the job, a certain degree of calm and a whole lot of other things that he needed to use at this moment and it had all gone out the window because he had seen in the corner his daughters blue dress crumpled and blood stained.

And then Joe had come back with her boots.

Adam had half staggered outside and barely had time to feel his knees hit the floor before he was gagging into the ground like an animal in pain. He had not eaten anything real in two days but he was gagging and vomiting as he'd been in the Saloon for the last two days.

There was someone stood there next to him but he didn't care even as he was forced to sit up, dragged out of the dirt and forced to lean against something. He felt water on his face and his lips but it didn't matter that much. Nothing mattered that much anymore even as light from the door faded and a voice spoke. The stranger…whoever he was…and him were alone and Adam wanted to look up to see him there but he couldn't quite make his eyes work from the water that was steadily pouring out of them. Someone he knew was there but it took a good solid fully fledged five minutes for him to realise that it was his father there watching him comforting him as if he was a little boy and he'd had a nightmare again about life on the Prairie.

He leaned against the old man for a second comforted by the weight of him keeping him upright for all these years. It seemed that no matter how old he got or what he did or what he got up to his Pa was there, inflexible perhaps, indomitable defiantly, the solid presence of family.

What they were going to do when old age caught up with him Adam really didn't know. If they lost the indomitable presence of Ben Cartwright what were his sons going to do?

He leaned against his father who sat with him in the mud hand wrapping around his head for a second and he tried to stop the sobs from racking his whole body as if he was a child sickening for something.

His father shushed him gently but gave no indication of speaking until Adam was able to get his breathing under control at which point he was able to pull away from the embrace and scrub a hand down his face trying pointlessly to wipe away the tears that were mingling in with the dirt and the sweat.

"Tell me" he said cautiously (because he was no longer sure if he wanted to know the answer) "Right now if you think that she is still alive?"

"I do" his Pa rumbled his voice stronger than anything Adam had ever heard before. "I do believe it whole heartedly. I do not think that this man has kil…" he trailed off perhaps seeing the look on Adam's face but he grasped the concept and the meaning.

"I do not think that he has killed her" he said finally. "I always think that a parent knows that. I don't…call me an old man son but I always thought that if I had to lose one of you to God then I would feel it deep in me. And besides…Ivy…Ivy has more resilience than most of this family put together. I believe that she is smart enough to wait until we come for her. And we will find her. And when we do I am going to buy her a horse. A proper one"

Adam smiled even though it made tears well in his eyes.

"She's always wanted a palomino"

"Well the girls got expensive taste there was never any denying that"

He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand again and then.

"What happens if something has happened I mean…you heard what this man is I mean what happens if…If she's alive but…that…" he trailed off the words strangling in his throat twisting and turning and breaking. His Pa gripped his arm tight and it dragged him back to the present.

"We will cross that bridge if and when we have to come to it" he said firmly. "Do not think about it until then"

Adam took in one shuddering breath and then another.

"When all of this is over one way or another" he said as the door opened and Samuel Wylde spilled out. "I will tell you about her mother"

He forced himself to his feet then feeling like an old man and Samuel Wylde watched him.

"She's dead" he said shortly. "Kept going on and on about a lake though"

"Yes"

"Something about telling your girl to run"

"To the lake?"

"I don't know I didn't…she was pretty far gone even without the bullet in her but my guess is the monster's been keeping her drugged down for a long time"

Adam didn't know what to make of that.

"So this lake…the same one your daughter found the first girl?"

"Yes"

"You think she's heading there?" Joe asked from where he was stood at the side silent.

"No I think he is"

There was a pause and then.

"We need to go"

By the time they got to the lake it was morning, a bright shiny morning. Ironic that it was blue skies and bright clouds and a warm breeze. Kind of like how it had been when he had first heard his daughter scream. The lake was a perfectly storm. Perfect for swimming and too big for them to look around. Adam gripped his hands and found that they were shaking. Samuel Wylde was next to him as his Pa directed Joe and Hoss to go left and Roy and him would go right and he sighed.

"I can smell that this nearly over you know" he said and it was to Adam almost like he sounded forlorn. "I don't know quite what I will do with myself"

Adam stared at him for a second and then.

"How old was she?"

"How old was who?"

"Your daughter?"

Samuel Wylde smiled though there was a healthy dose of…something in it. Adam wondered if that was what he was going to look like when all of this was over. As if the world had fallen out from under him and he was clinging to what he could to keep standing.

"Six" Samuel Wylde said finally. He reached into his pocket and produced the portrait, it was old and weathered with time but it showed clear as day a young girl with light hair and a dress standing next to her father.

"Just the two of us. I mean I had a wife and another son but really…she was mine you know? Pa's girl through and through" he said with a flicker of a smile. "I told her that day she could go swimming." There was an ache to him then a sadness.

"She didn't come back. They found her three days later. Two days after that John Greevey as he was known to us disappeared. A week after that it started to come out. There's no real way of getting word to police about men like this. Law enforcement in this country is so backwards…" he shook his head and then put the photo back.

"I know you want to kill him" he said conversationally as if he had not just bared his soul out to him. "I know that you want to kill him but I need you to understand that he is mine. There is no catching this man, there is no putting him behind bars, I don't care if I pump him full of lead or if I hold him under water and then strangle him with my bare hands I need you to understand that this man has to die. And I reckon that your old man wants to believe in the rule of law—"

"Don't worry about him" Adam said sharply. "I want him dead to. You get a shot…I'll put my hand on any book they want me too and I'll say it was self-defence"

For a second the other man stared at him and then he nodded. It looked like he was on the cusp of saying more but before he could he looked and swore grabbing Adam and throwing him down into the brush in a way that made his ribs hurt.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS—"

"Look"

And he did and then the relief hit him like a crashing wave that would have paralysed him, but his head down on the ground snapped back up to stare.

Ivy.

It had to be.

She was in her underdress her little arms white as the cotton, something pink at her feet that she had clearly taken off and thrown to the side as if it was worthless and her hair was loose. Her bare feet were small and white on the rocks and she had her arms outstretched as she often did when she was at the lake watching and waiting for the right moment as she called it before she went in. Adam had never understood his six year old's imagination but now he was looking at her he had never seen anything more perfect in his life, this little bit of perfection that he had created somehow with rough hands and desperation and desire and an ability to not care about marriage vows.

He was up running towards her before she knew it.

"IVY!"

For one endless second she looked at him and then she smiled bright as the sun.

There was no easy way to cross each other but then as she began to hop from outstretched rock her arms outstretched like a dancer over the deep bit of the lake that he had told her never to swim in alone there was the sound of running and then…

There he was.

There was a pause where he stood there and then Adam saw Clarence Carter look from him to his daughter who was still carefully balancing along the rocks.

Two people lunged at once and there was a scream, a shot and a splash.

He did not get to see Clarence Carter fall into the lake blood splurging from his arm and then his chest. He only saw his daughter wobble and then tumble into the fast running rivers. He didn't see the dark head still alive with dangerous intent pop back up again. All he saw was that the blonde head didn't.

Within two seconds he had dove into the fast current of the lake hitting water. He did not see Samuel walk carefully down the embankment to follow him. Adam managed to see a flash of blonde in the murky undergrown before he realised the hand clutching it was not his own.

Then the hand was gone and he dove up to see that Clarence Carter was being dragged back to shore. He took a breath and dived back under searching.

That was all he could do.

Endlessly searching the undergrowth for his daughter…that was all he could do.

He wondered how many other men had done the same.

And there you go, hope you enjoy.

Next Chapter-The world is suspended for a moment as Adam finds his daughter in the lake...and she is not breathing.