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A phone rings. The Gray Man is instantly awake.
He blinks hard, twice, clearing the sleep from his eyes so he can make out the time (1:08AM) and the caller ID (an unknown Henrietta number) on his cell phone screen. Beside him, Maura exhales and shifts a little, so he quickly answers before another tinny ring can fully wake her.
“Hello?” He’s hoping for a wrong number. Phone calls in the dead of night never bring good news.
“This is Deputy Brian Hayes with Henrietta PD. I’m calling to speak with the parent or guardian of Adam Parrish.” The man’s gruff voice twangs, pure born-and-bred western Virginia.
The Gray Man’s pulse quickens as he sits upright, throwing aside the comforter. “Well, I-” he trips over his words, recovers swiftly: “Yes. That would be me.”
“We’ve got Adam down here at the station.”
“What’s-?”
“Don’t worry, he’s fine,” the deputy says, though there’s a note of uncertainty in his tone that has the Gray Man already moving down the hallway and descending the creaky Fox Way staircase, grabbing his winter coat off the banister as he goes.
“What happened?”
“Got a call from a homeowner out near the packing plant off old Route 90, said someone was trespassing. Your son was digging up rocks in this lady’s backyard, no idea what he thought he was doing in the middle of the night. No charges are being pressed, there’s no real damage to the property and he isn’t drunk. But he seems disoriented. Confused, like. So we gave him some water and brought him back to the station. Seeing as he’s a minor, we need a parent to pick him up.”
The Gray Man doesn’t remember reaching the Fox Way car, but suddenly he’s in the driver’s seat, turning the key as the used sedan coughs reluctantly to life in the frigid December air.
“Of course,” he says evenly, pulling away from the curb. “I’m on my way.”
*
The Henrietta police station is a squat, aged building that shares a parking lot with the general store. The lot is empty save for a few police cruisers and a pickup truck sporting a faded D.A.R.E. bumper sticker. Half-melted mounds of snow have frozen over in the corners of the lot, remnants from the last snow fall. The Gray Man parks next to the pickup and approaches the front door, waiting for the female deputy behind the counter to buzz him in.
He already has a lie queued up and ready to go if the officer asks to see his ID (I apologize, I left my house in a rush and forgot my wallet) and seeing as the Gray Man is very obviously in his pajamas (grey sweats and a cotton t-shirt beneath his coat) the lie would certainly be believable.
But the tired deputy behind the counter merely says, “You here for the kid?”
The Gray Man nods.
“I’ll get him, hold on,” the woman says, hefting herself to her feet. She pulls open a door behind her and says, “Honey, your dad’s here to get you.”
The Gray Man frowns but doesn’t correct her.
She steps to the side and a moment later Adam Parrish emerges, looking a bit worse for wear. The teenager's knuckles and the knees of his worn jeans are smeared with dirt and his fair hair is disheveled. His expression is guarded as his eyes dart to the Gray Man’s face and then quickly away, his lips pressing together in a grimace.
The officer slides a form towards the Gray Man (he signs without reading it) as Adam makes his way reluctantly around the counter.
“No more late-night wanderings, all right dear?” the officer says, her expression stern but motherly, and Adam nods wordlessly, his gaze fixed on the floor.
The Gray Man and Adam exit the police station in silence. The teen’s hands are shoved in his pockets, his breath crystalizing in the air in front of him. His sweatshirt can't be keeping him warm enough. He doesn’t seem injured at least; just exhausted. The Gray Man considers asking Adam what he was doing, digging around someone’s yard in the middle of the night, but it isn’t really any of his business.
He becomes aware that the teenager is watching him out of the corner of his eye with a defensive wariness he hasn’t exhibited since he was trapped in the Greenmantle house the previous summer.
He’s waiting, the Gray Man realizes. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. As though he thinks the Gray Man is angry about this late night disturbance rather than concerned.
Sometimes, the Gray Man considers driving to Antietam Lane in the dead of night, dragging Robert Parrish from his bed, and bashing the man’s head in messily with a tire iron. It’s a shame that Adam, who abhors violence (how ironic his choice in befriending both the Gray Man and Ronan Lynch), would never approve.
Once they reach the Gray Man’s car, Adam slows to a stop and finally breaks his silence. “Sorry you had to come get me,” he mutters, crossing his arms defensively. “I’ll be eighteen in July.”
“It’s no problem.”
“You don’t have to drive me,” Adam continues, the corners of his mouth turned downwards. He still isn’t looking the Gray Man in the eye. “The church isn’t far.”
The Gray Man supposes the teenager's apartment above St. Agnes isn’t far if one is driving, but if Adam insists on walking it’s going to take him at least an hour, and the temperature is near freezing. “I certainly won’t make you, but I’d feel better if you let me give you a lift. It’s on my way.”
He gets into the car and a few seconds later Adam folds himself wearily into the passenger seat.
They drive in silence for a few minutes, the twinkling holiday lights adorning the storefronts outside giving downtown Henrietta an air of whimsy; of magic. The Gray Man makes a spur-the-moment decision and pulls into a fast food parking lot a few minutes from the station. It’s the only place open at this hour, and Adam looks like he should probably eat something.
“What would you like from McDonald’s?”
“I’m not hungry.”
The Gray Man orders them both burgers and fries at the drive-through anyway. Adam sighs quietly and, after a moment’s hesitation, accepts his foil-wrapped burger with a muttered, “thanks”. He doesn’t look particularly happy about it, but once he starts eating his shoulders lose some of their tension so the Gray Man considers it a win. He directs the car into a parking spot but doesn’t turn it off as the pair eat in silence, comfortable in the steady stream of warmth from the car vents. The Gray Man reaches out and fiddles with the radio, and a moment later quiet Christmas music fills the car.
“I didn’t realize I was trespassing,” Adam says after practically inhaling his burger and starting on his fries. “It was dark.”
“May I ask what you were doing?” The Gray Man has to admit; he has no theories as to what on earth Adam may have been up to.
“Ley line stuff. Persephone’s been teaching me.” Adam hesitates, then expounds, “There are blockages in energy channels sometimes. So the ley line tells me how to fix it. It usually involves digging up plants. Or in this case, moving rocks.”
“I see. And it has to be done at night?”
“No. But I couldn’t sleep.”
And this, the Gray Man thinks, is the crux of the problem, the reason Adam looks so strung out and on-edge and exhausted. “Do you often have trouble sleeping?”
Something haunted shifts in Adam’s expression. “Only sometimes.”
The teen doesn’t look like he wants to continue the conversation so the Gray Man is about to take him back to St. Agnes when Adam admits, haltingly, “I get- nightmares. About last summer. ” He grimaces, his expression apologetic, as though it’s his own fault that Colin and Piper’s treatment of him was inhumane enough to be traumatizing. “I dream I’m still at their house. That you and Ronan left me there. It’s stupid.”
The Gray Man wonders how to react in the face of this unexpected honesty. He’s apologized in the past for his own role in Adam’s imprisonment, and he doesn’t think the teen is looking for another one.
“Have you talked about it with your friends?” He asks, wincing inwardly when he realizes how much he sounds like the therapist he sees occasionally at Maura’s request.
Adam gazes unseeingly out the window. The circles beneath his eyes are dark enough they look like bruises. “I wanted to tell Ronan, but... He’s been really happy lately. Last summer is just a bad memory for him. I don’t want to- I rely on him too much already.” He exhales sharply, irritated. “I should be able to handle my own business. I shouldn’t- I don't need anyone else.”
“I used to think similarly about myself,” the Gray Man muses. “And now here I am, spending half my spare time looking at wedding rings.”
Adam’s eyebrows shoot up, exhaustion melting off his face in an instant. “You’re gonna ask her?”
“Yes. I was thinking midnight on New Years, if you’d like to be there. Blue already knows. I suspect everyone at Fox Way does, actually.”
“Hard to keep a secret in a house full of psychics,” Adam notes wryly.
“Indeed.” The Gray Man realizes he has inadvertently veered the conversation off-course. He isn’t quite sure how to bring it back on track.
The thing is, he worries about the teenager seated next to him. He worries about Blue, too, but Blue will always have Maura looking out for her. Adam, though–
Adam doesn’t have anyone.
That’s not true anymore, though, is it? Whispers a knowing voice that sounds suspiciously like Maura’s in the back of his mind. He pushes the thought aside. There's a reason he'll never have children of his own. The Gray Man knows that some people are not fit to be parents.
The Gray Man has spent most of his life distant, detached; completely unaware that feeling whole was even possible. It's only now that he's experienced true partnership (friendship, love) that he can appreciate the magnitude of what he denied himself his whole life.
If he can save Adam from this particular pain… well, he has to try.
“It took me many, many years to trust other people,” the Gray Man says carefully, testing the waters. “My habit of self-isolation led me to some very dark places.”
He isn’t used to speaking so plainly to anyone but Maura, but Adam's studious attention compels the older man to continue. "I'm sorry for your nightmares. I hope you know they are just that: nightmares. They aren't reality."
"I know," Adam says quickly. "I know they aren't real."
"But," the Gray Man continues, feeling--foolishly--like his therapist again. "The way they make you feel is real. There's no shame in that."
Adam looks down, frowning. But he still hasn't interrupted or stormed out of the car so the Gray Man continues, "I appreciate you confiding in me." He waits for Adam's nod (however uncertain it may be) before continuing, "And I think Ronan will always prefer your honesty, too. Even if the truth is unpleasant."
He doesn’t mean that Adam should talk to his boyfriend right this second, but Adam presses his lips together and, after a moment of consideration, pulls out his phone to send off a text.
The Gray Man wonders if there's something else he should say, but nothing occurs to him and Adam is now staring pensively out the window. So he puts the car in reverse and begins to back out of the parking spot. “Would you ever bring Ronan with you?”
Adam blinks. “Where to?”
“When you're out fixing the ley line.”
Adam tilts his head, as if he hadn’t thought about it. “Maybe.”
“Just wondering. Though his presence might only increase the likelihood of having the police called on you, now that I think about it.”
Adam exhales a laugh. “Yeah. Probably.”
Out front of St. Agnes a short, wooden stable has been erected and filled with straw. Wooden, life-sized figures (Mary, Joseph, manger and assorted animals) are arranged inside. A twinkling star atop the structure completes the Nativity.
The scene would be idyllic if not for the slouched, angry teenager leaning, arms crossed, against the roof of the stable. Ronan Lynch stands up straight as the Gray Man pulls into the parking lot. His BMW is parked haphazardly nearby.
“Thanks for the ride,” Adam says, unbuckling his seatbelt. "I'll see you Sunday?"
“See you then.”
Adam offers the Gray Man a quick, blink-and-you’d-miss-it smile before emerging from the car. He says something to Lynch, and a moment later leans in as Lynch engulfs him in a hug.
Lynch’s narrowed eyes find the Gray Man’s over Adam’s shoulder. Rather than twisting his expression into a sneer, as is customary-–the teenager jerks his head in a nod. Bemused, the Gray Man nods back. It’s more civil than Lynch has ever been towards the former hitman; perhaps he's feeling swept up in the holiday spirit.
As the Gray Man exits the parking lot, Christmas music playing quietly in the background, he thinks through his conversation with Adam. He tries to remember exactly what he’d said, and debates whether it had been the right thing to say, and wonders if he should entreat Maura to step in to do damage control when she sees the teenager at Fox Way on Sunday.
In his rearview mirror, he watches Adam and Lynch head towards the apartment stairwell together, Lynch’s arm slung casually over Adam’s shoulders.
Outside, snow begins to fall: tiny, crystalized specs of white materializing from the darkness and dancing away. The Gray Man has just arrived home when his phone buzzes. A text from Adam.
Thanks again for coming to get me.
It's then that the Gray Man realizes that whether or not he said exactly the right words to comfort the teenager doesn't matter; of course it doesn't.
He’d shown up when Adam needed him. That’s what was important.
Any time, he responds, and means it.